#this felt culturally relevant like a week ago

[portanchor]

[mariacallous]

In recent weeks, as the defamation trial brought by Johnny Depp against his ex-wife Amber Heard has continued to overshadow nearly all other news stories and dominate the main social-media platforms, I’ve noticed that the normal people in my life—the ones who have not had the Law&Crime Network live stream of the proceedings running on their laptops since it began, in April—are often under the impression that the case is impenetrably complex. They aren’t entirely wrong: Depp-Heard 2022, playing at least through the end of this week in Fairfax, Virginia, is the sludge pit of an outlandishly toxic relationship. But so much of the online chatter about the trial is noise rather than signal; it has obscured how simple the core matter is, and how that simplicity makes the case all the more bizarre and tragic.

Depp’s fifty-million-dollar defamation claim against Heard rests on the first part of one sentence, which she published in an op-ed in the Washington Post in December, 2018: “Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” It is incontestable that, two years earlier, Heard did indeed appear on the cover of People magazine with apparent facial injuries and that, around the same time, she obtained a temporary restraining order alleging domestic violence against her husband; she was photographed leaving the courthouse with what looked like a bruise on her cheek. She also has a trove of text messages, witness statements, and photos of injuries—which, she says, corroborate her allegations of abuse. The careful legal vetting of her Post op-ed may be evident in the wording: Heard calls herself a “public figure representing” abuse, not a victim or survivor of it; she does not name Depp, nor does she specify a type of abuse. (Depp has denied ever hitting or assaulting Heard; she is countersuing him for a hundred million dollars.)

As for whether Heard has “felt the full force of our culture’s wrath,” a quick glance at Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms, where she is cast as the Medusa of Sunset Boulevard, may settle the question. The precise demographics of the pro-Depp coalition are diverse, if uncertain in their exact proportions: bots, shitposters, men’s-rights activists, women who were in middle school when “Edward Scissorhands” came out. According to Wired, the hashtag #JusticeforJohnnyDepp has surpassed ten billion views on TikTok. Parody videos of Heard’s emotional testimony are already a TikTok cliché. The conservative site the Daily Wire spent tens of thousands of dollars to promote mainly anti-Heard content on Facebook and Instagram about the trial, per a story in Vice World News. (The Daily Wire has not commented on the story.) NBC News has reported on the YouTube creators who pivoted to anti-Heard videos when they realized how much users and the algorithm liked them.

But that half-sentence in the Post—that’s the whole case. That’s fifty million dollars. Depp lost a 2020 defamation lawsuit against a British tabloid, the Sun, which was far more brazen in its language—it called Depp a “wife beater”—and, despite the United Kingdom’s strict libel laws and a reversed burden of proof, the High Court in London found the vast majority of Heard’s claims to be “substantially true.” And yet, earlier this month, the presiding judge in the Virginia case, Penney Azcarate, rejected Heard’s motion to dismiss. Azcarate cited “evidence that jurors could weigh that the statements were about the plaintiff, that the statements were published and that the statement was false, and that the defendant made the statement knowing it to be false or that the defendant made it so recklessly as to amount to willful disregard for the truth.”

The evidence that jurors must weigh varies widely in its apparent relevance to Depp’s defamation claim. Just today, the jury and viewers at home were treated to closeup views of Depp’s bloody finger stump, injured in a domestic fracas in Australia. Earlier in the trial, we saw images of the deranged, slut-shaming messages that Depp scrawled in paint or blood using the selfsame freshly injured stump. There are also Depp’s texts sent before he married Heard—in which he calls her a “worthless hooker,” jokes about how he’ll “smack the ugly cunt around,” and, at one point, shares a brainstorm with the actor Paul Bettany: “Let’s drown her before we burn her!!! I will fuck her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she’s dead.” There’s footage of Depp trashing a kitchen and audio recordings of him telling Heard, “Shut the fuck up. . . . Don’t fucking pretend to be authoritative with me. You don’t exist.” Depp, to review, is the plaintiff in the defamation trial, and the one whom most of social media is rooting for.

It should be acknowledged that Heard, at times, has made questionable statements about her relationship with Depp and its aftermath. Both Depp’s legal team and the #JusticeforJohnny and #AmberTurd armies on social media have focussed on flawlessly gorgeous photographs taken of Heard after alleged severe beatings and, especially, on her claim that she appeared on James Corden’s late-night talk show with “two black eyes” and a nose that she suspected was broken. On the other hand, two pieces of evidence that her detractors hold up to allege that it was Heard, in fact, who was abusive—an audio recording in which she admits to hitting him and another in which she mocks any claim he might make of being a victim of domestic violence—both sound uncannily like fragments from a DARVO scenario, in which an abuser denies what he is doing at the same time that he deflects and projects his behavior onto the person he is abusing.

You don’t have to trust Amber Heard to look at twelve words in a newspaper column and wonder why they serve as an invitation to listen to her sobbing incoherently in an ugly argument with her unmoved spouse, or to read texts in which Depp calls her a “gold digging, low level, dime a dozen, mushy, pointless dangling overused flappy fish market.” You don’t have to like Heard to sympathize with her when one of Depp’s lawyers, Camille Vasquez, who cross-examines all of the defense witnesses in a tone of incredulous contempt, repeatedly confirms with her that she did not seek medical attention after some alleged incidents of violence; or, on redirect, when Heard’s flustered lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, is unable to formulate questions that would permit Heard to defend herself. (Vasquez has taken fearsome advantage of what appears to be Azcarate’s unusually rigid application of hearsay.) You don’t have to believe everything Heard says to be startled when a Law&Crime guest, the defense attorney Lara Yeretsian, wonders aloud, after hours of Heard’s testimony, why she stayed with her alleged abuser—a question so exhaustively asked and answered over decades of work by domestic-violence advocates that it inspired an activists’ hashtag eight years ago. “It’s a question that I’m sure a lot of people are asking today,” Yeretsian said.

The longer the trial slogs on, and the more that various third parties profit from it, the more difficult it is to fathom Depp’s motivations for instigating it. He and his supporters say he filed the suit to clear his name, but it has put more terrible behavior of his on the record than any scrubbed and ghostwritten op-ed could do. In fact, if you spend enough time inhaling the sulfurous fumes of the Depp-Heard live stream, what it starts to resemble most is a high-budget, general-admission form of revenge porn, an act in which the person with the upper hand in a relationship forces the other to be complicit in the sharing and dissemination of raw, vulnerable, literally sensational moments for the delectation of an unseen audience. One of the hallmarks of revenge porn is the way it freezes its victim in time, a plight that Heard summoned at the end of her direct examination. “I want to move on with my life,” she said. “I want to move on, I want to move on, I want Johnny to move on, too. I want him to leave me alone.” But the consequences of his legal action against her will never leave her alone. This is who she is now—the victim of an unprecedented Internet pile-on, a bruised face on an iPhone, a woman who makes people laugh when she cries.

[twofacedidentity]

Oh, well.

Damn. 4 years after, andito ulit ako. The past week, I never had ample sleep to say that I had slept well. Hindi ko rin talaga alam what caused all the sleepless night I had, so I just bear with it in a normal way.

Pero, damn. Hindi rin yata effective. May iba talaga. A night ago, I tweeted about how that night hit different. In-attribute ko siya sa formal na paguumpisa ko ng academic year with DepEd. Hindi ko alam kung kinakabahan ba ako dahil umpisa ng school year (parang first-day jitters), o dahil ba hindi ako handa. Hindi ako makatulog. Mas tama nga yata 'yong statement na away kong matulog. Natulog ako nang 1am the night before the opening of classes. That is something really unusual. It seemed like I dread the day coming.

Well, damn. Ngayon ko na-realize kung bakit ako natatakot matulog noong gabing iyon. Unconsciously, natakot yata ako. Natakot nga yata ako. 'Yong parang maglilipat ka sa bagong tv series na feeling... Coming off a splendid series na sobrang na-attach ka. 'Yong parang 'di ko pa kayang lumipat. Naman kasi, I felt relevant last school year. Surprised rin siguro ako dahil I never wanted to be on a DepEd school before, pero sobrang invested ako last school year. Sa sobrang invested ko, parang 'di ko kayang ilipat sa susunod na chapter ng teaching life ko. Deep inside, gusto ko pa rin 'yong relevant na ako. 'Yong magaling na ako. 'Yong embodiment ng culture na naitatag namin sa ABM, and 'yong culture na I think I am helping shape sa mga taong nakakahalibilo ko. 'Yong Bravery. Oo. 'Yong Bravery nga rin yata.

With all the damns na sinabi ko, damn. Parang mahirap ha. Pero kanina ko lang rin na-realize na kailangan ko nang i-employ 'yong lagi kong sinasabi na may panahon sa bawat pagkakataon. 'We will continue moving forward. And with each coming situation, we do better.' Habang nasa school ako kanina, I think marami talagang nagbago. The faculty room at 'yong mga tao doon, the classroom placement at 'yong mga tao doon, ah basta. Marami. Hindi ko yata matanggap na hindi na ako relevant enough. Pero, nanghihinayang ako sa energy na binubuhos ko sa pagiisip ng 'what was.' Parang wala rin namang nagagawa.

So, damn. Tapos na nga 'yong era na iyon. At ngayon ring moment na ito, na-realize ko na the energy na binubuhos ko sa pagiisip noon ay ie-exert ko sa pagbuo ulit ng bagong kultura. Not in contention with what was last year, pero filling that void satisfies my soul. Selfish ba? Ah, ewan. Meron nang bago. At sa paglipas ng panahon, dapat ko nalang sigurong isipin na ang panahon na ito ay for the people I am with at the present time. I like them. I think I do. Though mayroon agad akong dalawang student na nag-cut ng classes (unreported), I think I can do more. And sana, I get to do more. Nagtanong nga ako kung ilan ang honor students sakanila, isa lang ang nagtaas ng kamay. Nagulat ako, pero natuwa ako. Kasi, dito, I can emphasize more how we can be more of what the world needs ua to be more than the grades that we get. Parang ganon.

Damn. Hindi ko inaasahan na magsusulat ako ng ganito. May nabasa lang akong lengthy post, napagaya na ako. Naging inspiration ko na yata... Ah, basta. I have said so much na. Go nalang sa next part. Next chapter. Until we become.

[hanzi83]

Venting Venting Venting

It feels like it has been a while since I have done a blog. Luckily I have jotted down the thoughts I wanted to express over a week ago, but the issue is the shit I feel passionate about at the moment because it is constantly being talked about in the discourse, but the last week or so I have been at a lot of wrestling shows, so I wasn’t just stuck at home trying to isolate myself to further stick it to people who already pushed me into isolation for the last 13 years, but when you are not online much, it feels good not to consume the nonstop discourse that will have genuine issues and concern but gimmicked into a culture war where no solutions will be had and it will be more sports entertainment where we dunk on people for being hypocrites and it will be constant dumbing down the villains you are supposed to be worried about. I kept up with key stuff that was going on on some level, but it felt good not to have to see nonstop gaslighting, plus twitter was fucked up this past weekend which was a blessing in disguise for me, like I don’t have to worry about many people interacting with me since I have legit been blackballed from being seen as relevant, the problem is, that there are still dangerous funded trolls who monitor me and try to insert themselves into my life, plus you never know when people from the past will resurface for their own agendas, but whenever I feel good for a bit, it always has to come with more mental anguish, like sometimes when I have had a good time and feel less stressed and mentally ill, I often just sit back and enjoy the thoughts and positive vibes I have in my head and processing things where I don’t even want to jot down these good feelings because everything I do is monitored, just like everyone on this planet is monitored, and I feel if I put it down I have been feeling good, my trolls will be paid to show back up and instill more paranoia, or people who thought sucking up to me for a few years, who also secretly have deals with my trolls will come back, and because they don’t get the interaction they want, they will try to instigate shitty trolling with their less than charismatic personalities to goad me into getting into an argument, they will try to start shit, then still pretend they are on “Team Hanzi” yet they will be in other people’s comments posting pictures of me because they have them all saved because they are closeted groupies who probably jerk off to my fat face, while being an edge lord and projecting on me as being gay as an insult, that is probably a hit in those mediocre group chats that fake like each other’s shitty jokes but because it is the common bond of hatred for me, they will give each other pretentious high fives. So the “good feeling” is rubbing off and I can sense when the negative energy tries to resurface so I would rather vent about a few things to melt it from my head so I don’t fucking build up more frustration, where my mind goes to looking at the future scenarios and get mad at these scenarios that I am envisioning which play a part in the accumulative nature of mental illness in my fucking head that constantly builds up. I don’t mind showing my irrational behavior because mental illness is not a pretty thing, people want to support the notion of awareness but then constantly deny what institutions and the system has done to many people who suffer, you solely have to take all the accountability and responsibility while people who will keep doing this to people will be protected and be propped up as these great human beings. The best part of this, is people have to pretend they don’t read it because it goes beyond the script they play with online where they have to repeat the official narratives about me on the Stern Show, and the online shit has become just as gimmicked, it may have meant something in the 90’s and early 2000’s and I realize we have constantly been rebooting the decade we are in and correlate with the current climate by the aesthetic when I feel shit has become 100 times more advanced, and the wrong people who have platforms are the ones who get to pretend to be experts while these pussies do their shitty right wing pivots, and more people will show that side, everyone eventually throws on an NWO shirt. They rather work with the hive mind and regress rather than learning to evolve, people who have the greatest aesthetic are the most fucked up people on the planet, and the solace I have is that eventually they will realize their closed ones will even think they are fucking sociopaths and will not want to be around them or at the very least, they will be fucked up too, selling out might give you a better aesthetic, but the way some of these people act, and how contentious they get, shows they hate themselves deep down as they dissolve into soulless villains who will have more vitriol for the people trying to fight back against fascism than the fascists themselves. Everyone is finding their way of crossing over and it is scary. I really wish I was not here for this, because I have sene so many people oppose people going for right wing pivots and it seems all of them are eventually doing it too, especially when they dumb down narratives. Promoting shitty debates that won’t go anywhere, or bringing awareness of more villains that exist in the discourse to be villains, but nothing will happen to them because they are protected but they get the benefits of acting like they are being canceled, so they will get some rejuvenation into their grift that they are doing. 

Let’s start with TYT’s continued regression. They have done so many bone headed things over the last week, it is hard to keep up with but this is why the right wing wins because even people on the left who are kind of condemning them, some people are fully calling them out for their gaslighting bullshit they are doing while pretending to be victims, but there are some who pretend they don’t want this to be and maybe you don’t but if you are gonna play a fucking pro wrestling naive babyface who will constantly trust Ric Flair, before he fucking turns on you again then what does that say, it is like you are giving people a reason to look at these people going more right wing to be fucking cool, thing is even if TYT is regressing and sophisticating it and being defended by very far right wing people, they could never in a million years ever fucking sound cool, when Ana Kasparian says “Homeboy this” “Homeboy that” she comes off like Monic Gellar when she says “You go girl” like she doesn’t sound like a fucking authentic human being. She is probably being studied by Marlon Wayans when he decides to make a sequel of White Chicks. And she knows what she is doing but she and Cenk are too pussy to admit they are becoming Nazis and will constantly take shots at people being mad at them when they are the ones who literally try to go for the engagement. People don’t want to believe a bunch of these alt media people have become the biggest frauds, they will become the people they hated when they point out “I CALLED OUT THE IRAQ WAR 20 YEARS AGO.. I WAS DESIGNED TO BE RIGHT BECAUSE MY ILK WAS GONNA BE THE NEW SELLOUTS WHO CAN CONSTANTLY SHIT ON MSM WHILE MISLEADING OURSELVES” and I know a lot of you who surround yourself with that ilk are sociopaths and that makes you dangerous, it certainly isn’t your fucking personality or the humor you have, most of you are just as bad as establishment MSM. First Ana retweets this moral stance about people on social media who are kind of being boastful of the submarine people who died in the titanic shit, here is the thing these billionaires are buying a way out of this planet or living underground because the world is going to shit, and all this twitter limit shit, and reddit fucking up etc, they are trying to fuck up these social media places because when shit does go to complete and utter shit, there will hardly be a way to find out what is really happening and it will be dominated by the propped up people aligned with Elon Musk. But my shitty conspiracy aside, and anything that I say in this blog or say on the podcast, I don’t know 100 percent, which is why I go off by the vibes and I am all over the fucking map, but it is fine, there is no pressure in me writing the most prolific piece of literature, no one is really looking for me to do that, but the important people do consume what I write and get mad about it and I expect them to extract revenge down the line, they will collaborate with more fundamentalist types online and other fed like accounts to try and push me to the brink of insanity because they are butt hurt they couldn’t get me to be on the right wing side, maybe you convinced people from my past to join that side, but I would rather fucking die than be on that fundamentalist side that is gonna be the modern Nazi shit. Ana Kasparian will get up in arms about people not giving a shit about billionaires who knew the risk of going into that shit, but at the same time, she will demonize homeless and do her “crime wave” shtick, and act like she is confused what to do with these people, yet she will whitewash dangerous politicians and influential people who are criminals and have gotten away with so much. They will bring up the trans in sports issue to act like it is not a winning issue, but this issue is so rare that is being promoted in sensationalist ways to make it seem like this is being forced in sports and they do the separate but equal type of talk, knowing it is more complicated, and the only people who bring this up are right wing people who helped create this issue in sports because people who don’t think they are political, will consume news about sports and entertainment, and they use these political issues that won’t be presented with nuance or people who are from that community and it will be people who are just reactionary and they fear monger about this and dictate how people can feel about it, even though they are using culture war shit to help ease people into accepting these fundamentalist laws that will harm these communities. They have helped promote the bare minimum of Trump over the last decade and did their sports entertainment, but now they pretend to be voices of reason of being “fair” about why Trump resonates etc, they know the future of this shit but they kayfabe their hate for the democrats solely, knowing that whoever the world champion is, Vince McMahon is the one who is booking the direction, and this is why different bad faith actors will use a lesser established presidential candidate as this new voice, when they won’t make the difference on the surface if the same guy is writing the storylines and putting it together, but they want their new face to be the guy who will represent for the right wing system, and by making it look like they are solely focused on Trump helps, but now TYT and others get to act like they are above that, when they have misleaded, and the only “corrections” they have made have been to appease the far right because again they are fucking cowards who don’t want to admit they got their assholes branded with Nazi symbols, while Ben Shapiro and Candice Owens play judge of who has a better one. They will then do stories where they will make excuses for fascist shit, where they will defend Rick Scott for warning against people who are socialist to stay out of Florida like it is gonna be danger but then she does “both sides” and she even says in the program “I know people are gonna hate I do both sides” basically that translates to “I know people hate that I am leaning toward catering to Nazis because me and my co host are the biggest money whores on the planet, but I am gonna continue to do it anyway” These people claim to be better than the MSM but they can’t even do a fucking story without flailing their shitty arms about how wokeness is going too far because social climbers online who could be bad faith actors yelled at them and that gets focused on rather than the people who are actually being polite and being friendly and correcting them on where they went wrong and they insist on going down the white supremacist path. They are not charismatic enough to pull it off but  they are dangerous because they are protected pussies who will keep doubling down and gaslighting people and then playing victims on their press run where you are uplifting Jesse Singal, and now leaning more into the anti trans shit that is sophisticated, and claiming people yelled at Lee Fang for reporting on violence at the BLM protests. They will constantly talk about people being emotional reactionaries but their entire fucking being on this planet is fucking acting like reactionaries, they do a fucking story about how some conservative who used to be homophobic has been finding the errors of his ways and is accepting of LGBTQ people etc, and that is a good story to do, genuine regular people who have been brainwashed and breaking out from it, it is a beautiful thing. But they then tie the story of an imaginary crowd canceling this guy already, like you did a good story but you had to take jabs at people who called you out for being transphobic and creating issues so you can get yourself canceled. She has no problem talking to white supremacists and whitewashing it, she will then in bad faith talk about how Rick Scott’s warning is not different from people who were warning about going to Florida if you are from a marginalized community, and said “I was just in Florida, it is fine, there were pride flags there and people were celebrating” yes I am sure certain areas people are celebrating their month etc, but it doesn’t mean the overall pattern in the future is to get rid of those people too, but she has to both sides to protect fascism, and then she and Cenk get to parade around and act like they represent for progressives so a bunch of right wing people can do the same shit they do with Bill Maher and Jimmy Dore and do the “Well I don’t view myself as a leftist, but TYT and Jimmy Dore are making sense” yeah because they are catering to the fundamentalist right wing side and promote fake culture wars so they can do their witty sitcom banter, and I know you will keep doubling down on your shitty personalities but you guys are not that talented, you are not even human beings, you are robot personalities trying to do your own establishment show. I wish more leftists would call it out for what it is, but it seems most of the leftists the last several years have been deciding to dumb shit down even though they pretend they are smarter than everyone, but they will definitely all start going more to the right wing side eventually. They are scared of these fucking jerkoffs who want to play footsy with Nazis? Ana Kasparian is scared to talk to people outside her race but she is not scared of being okay with Trump normalizing his fascist bullshit, you will pretend there is nothing to be scared about with DeSantis who has fascist aspirations and promote fake sports entertainment where it leaves your audience no choice but to have to pick a side and that is some sicko shit. 

The affirmative action controversy happened and they even have tokens who are conservative fundamentalists being happy about it because it is putting a hindrance on their movement, when the world already has a bunch of unfair shit and this affirmative action shit was never designed to help minorities on a social level, meaning yeah they might get a position or a spot in a school etc, but the social energy towards them is met with vitriol because a bunch of racists and self hating minorities will deem them as not being worthy of having the spot, like the white people in those positions have all the experience and there was no favoritism toward them. They are getting different minority groups recruited for a bunch of fundamentalist conservative issues, you could say that it is forced diversity because the far right wing loves minorities who go against anything that liberal minded people will promote even if Affirmative action doesn’t solve all racial injustices but it is needed, but they make it seem like the system really wants this, but it is designed for right wing people from a right wing trajectory system to capitulate so their road to fascism comes off as some victory that was earned. And of course people like TYT will agree with it because a bunch of racist people will say racist shit so we have to capitulate and pretend this system in general is by merit, when it is all about who bows down the powerful people and their narratives, and making it seem because the liberals present shit in limited ways, that the pushback from funded sports entertainers online are the genuine politically incorrect opinion. TYT was even used in a fucking DeSantis ad even if it was taken out of context but that symbolizes they are going that route but TYT is buying time to act like it was taken out of context but even if that specific clip was taken out of context, your other content has been sophisticating your white supremacist agenda, Cenk is the biggest token Muslim cosplaying as a fucking progressive, the guy is mastering his fucking Bababooey/Hacksaw Jim Duggan gimmick. They will keep finding ways to be okay with fascist propaganda and act like people who are gonna be affected as being people who are crying about non winning issues, just because you guys weren’t strong enough to stick to your “progressive principles” like every other post leftist dipshit who for so long used their credibility being better than MSM and the establishment while not explaining the establishment has expanded online and with a bunch of the entertainers in the streaming world. They and others have helped dumb down the rhetoric and dumb down the villains who will be serious threats, because they know their position will be protected, they have treated politics and serious issues for their armchair quarterback game, and turned into a pretentious reality show because they want to be the characters on Succession, and think their banter is actually funny. Everyone thinks they are funny and guess what, that means no one is fucking funny, sure you will have your cults all pretending you are the funniest people on the planet, but you know deep down they are only supporting you for your shitty political opinions because you are bowing down to the far right, and the thing is if these conspiracies that the right wing peddle come true or one story from it comes true, it is like the establishment democrats and bought off personalities purposefully limited it, so when something does come true, guess who will get credit? The right wing and some of you know that, and you are helping them. Like when MTG talks about her television being hacked and shit connecting to it, if I didn’t know who MTG is and just heard the story of what happened, yes I could believe that shit like that can be hacked, there have been times where my smart TV has been hacked, my trolls will show off about doing that, but because it is MTG who is probably lying about it, now it means the entire conspiracy cannot be true, and it is like why would you limit shit? It is like how they project over the feds being this evil force, like they have been, and if it is proven that these feds helped with the insurrection, the right wing will win the narrative of making it look like they were framed, when my conspiratorial brain goes to the fact that I believe that these feds would be on their side, and they would make it look like they are framing them so it will fuel the next insurrection to be 100 times more dangerous because they will feel vindicated with being the ones who were the voices of reason, hence all these celebrations of corporations capitulating. The liberals present white supremacy on a bare minimum level, and go by the over the top aesthetic, that the right wing can pretend that everything is generalized into white supremacy so when ABC News is doing stories about downplaying Moms for Liberty, people will act like people on the left are wrong to be outraged that ABC News is being fair to this group when this group is a far right wing group that has constantly used Hitler quotes, and people who defend it go “No they are using quotes to show what the left are doing” but that is also fucking not true, so they are not only using Hitler quotes but they are applying them to people who are trying to fight back against that shit, so now you will notice more and more media in the establishment will capitulate to these people and they will see it as a victory. Again this is just my personal fucking opinion. I don’t have the answers, but again I am either irrelevant or I am not, and you chose to do that, so don’t worry about a lowly Pakistani, I know a bunch of you right wingers have been recruiting a bunch of token Muslims to join your fundamentalist cause to hate on the LGBTQ but to those Muslims who want to fucking join that side, or other token minorities who want to, look at how they are talking about immigrants over these France riots and I am sure there are regular people really pissed, but how do I know there aren’t far right wing funded groups who are causing more chaos to blame it on all the Muslims and they are too busy hating on Muslims and finding a way to shit on minorities for the fucked up shit going on in France, where now they don’t give a shit about what happens in Palestine, and fundamentalists on the neoliberal and neoconservative sides will control both sides of the argument where anyone who calls out what Israel is doing and how fucked up the government is, it will be deemed Anti Semitic, and because the places to go to talk about it become limited, where else can you go? Alt media or online message boards to talk about it, and that is where the other far right wing fundamentalists are on some level, where they will generalize Jewish people entirely and this is how they can get people who are confused about Russia/Ukraine to then think Russia is this innocent victim, and people who might not know better will see how they never give a shit about Muslims even if they pretend they are concerned for about 15 minutes, and that is how it is easy to get swept into this propaganda, it is like the neoliberals want to push more people to the right. Now they have fear mongering going on with migrants in France doing all of this, when it is another trickle down effect of where the world is going so they can justify why bringing in their form of fascism, and now that I don’t trust anyone as far as news goes with their narratives, it is hard to know what is real now, like people are convinced that behind the scenes footage of Fast and Furious of cards falling out of buildings is real footage and talking about how Africans are taking over France, these people are not playing the rules and they are running with narratives that will endanger shit, all because the people who perpetuate it can just do 90’s aesthetics and shit on the transparent MSM is bad angle and make that their entire personality trait. They will even pretend the MSM is not talking about this, but they link to a MSM article talking about it, and if I had continued down that path 12 years ago, I would’ve been one of those dipshits, but then again maybe I would make more money and be successful since everyone has to pay the piper when they want to advance, not to say there isn’t hard work or skill but when that hard work and skill is helping the white supremacist system flourish, it is like they have taken any of the progress made by the messaging a decade or so ago, and now think pushing back against complaints of racism, homophobia, sexism, transphobia etc, they are the ones who have the issues because the issues get presented in a limited way and this is how it all gets repeated in a cycle of bullshit with this sophistication of rebranding more ways to keep marginalized people marginalized and putting their lives in danger, and everyone who tries to fight back, then end up giving in where they start finding their own angle to then join in with the right wing side. We can’t agree with the Epstein shit, they will tell us officially there is no foul play and people will think by pointing out MSM is lying about it means their side if 100 percent true, but they will never entertain the idea that their favorite politicians and public figures who are leaning more right haven’t been there and they supposed don’t trust the feds but then believe some CIA guy who is trying to “expose sex trafficking” and I am sure it exists, but people on the liberal side will act like the notion is fucking ridiculous when it does exist, and in my opinion the ones who are pointing it out that is exists to weaponize against all liberals etc, are probably the ones who are guilty of it. But people will keep dumbing down the the evil and levitate shit with comedy because that entertainment form has never felt any lesser with everything constantly being catered to that notion so if you think what someone is doing is inherently evil, all we have to do is constantly make it into this shitty sports entertainment and nothing gets solved, it just goes in cycles. The world is gonna implode more and more, they even take that incident that started all this protesting in France by having the argument be about another “both sides” argument because the person shot had a record, and then the result is violence and impending doom so it makes it seem like people concerned about police brutality are the ones who are into violence while the far right wing calls for violence nonstop and try to use their symbolism to talk about what they plan to do in the future. It feels like the far right wing is taking over every country on some level, or maybe a good position of countries while they present country vs country aesthetic. 

Another thing is with people who are discredited on the surface and are related to shitty people, like Liz Cheney warning about Trump not being able to get close to the White House, like her father and Bush Jr weren’t bad or anything but maybe that shit is self preservation of what will happen in the future so we have it on record people warned about this, even though in the present it seems people ignored the other shit in the past that got us to this place, so we then are supposed to assume Trump is not as evil as others and they are actually trying to stop him, if they were gonna stop him, he would’ve have been able to catch traction, the overall build of not trusting the MSM or Hollywood Liberals worked so well because they were the ones who were calling out Trump so most people who don’t like that shit assumed Trump was the anti establishment guy because even though he resorts to edge lord behavior, he would let some truth slip out about other shit on some level. But it feels like the same players with the use of sports entertainment can make it seem like if they say good things on some level, we have to blindly trust them, and if that person ends up being shady then their entire anti Trump message doesn’t have meaning and I believe the same power players in the Bush era, that ilk, have found a way to make it seem like the aesthetic of the US warning about Russia is on the same level as warning about Iraq, but what if the narratives is supposed to be that the same dynamics have intellectualized itself with the same kinds of people actually being aligned with far right wing over there, so it is like they remixed the discourse but by the surface we have to think supporting Ukraine during this invasion is he same exact scenario as something 20 years ago because the US lied about shit, and they don’t do themselves favors when they don’t deem Palestinians as human beings. People who already feel disillusioned with shit then can see that if they get no support and they weaponize so much against one community that other communities get protection, and instead of hating other communities or countries for getting protection, I wish others would get concern as well, but this is how people who might not know better get lured in. As a dumbed down guy who doesn’t know how to retain all this information coming at me, I have never been more confused about narratives anymore. Like even people who I have respected about their takes on Palestine etc, have now implemented their right wing beliefs on their platforms and buy into this forced push with RFK Jr, like someone like George Galloway who would speak out about what Israel is doing to Palestine is gonna back RFK Jr who has justified why Israel does what they do, so you just can’t claim you are some anti Imperialist and then align with people who are gonna have bad intentions, it is sick that you would take a genuine issue in what is happening over there and then lure people into this new form of fundamentalist. Look at this marketing with Roseanne, much like a lot of celebs, she at one time would speak out about the fundamentalism in showbiz and talked about MK Ultra, and I know people don’t believe that exists, but now the last several years it is like she has been going further right, and her and Theo Von marketed a controversy for his podcast to get promoted, so that it was an obvious sarcastic joke, even though it was not that funny, but then the online reactionaries who are supposed to be liberal etc, who I think take shit out of context on purpose, so then these shitty comedians can go “OH MY GOD ARE WE AT A POINT WHERE WE DON’T RECOGNIZE SARCASM” Yeah I can recognize sarcasm, but she may have been joking in the most hacky way possible, but she also gave respect to MTG as well, and this has been accumulating with fake cancel culture bullshit. It doesn’t matter, it is the whole “radio won’t play my jam” shit that these people do and they are just amplifying it on HGH after doing a fucking 24 hour coke binge and these people with hive mind think it means shit because the people who market this shit are propping up up. And I am not gonna buy into this bullshit anymore. She said black people control rap and that is when I knew she was completely full of shit, sure there are black people who might have power and be figure heads etc, there might be more black people who might gate keep something that is their culture, but it is all these fundamentalist execs who have power behind the scenes, and I know “OH IS THAT CODE FOR JEWISHHHHHH” No, but yeah there are Jewish members of a delegation that are involved just like other delegations in the system who have power, I think Christian fundamentalism is what actually runs showbiz under the guise of freedom and liberation, but we won’t recognize it because we only see the obvious evangelical shit that is taking place. But now that bad faith actors are talking about it in an era where they are on a platform where they speak to millions, they are the ones who will generalize people from communities based off the delegations, it would be like if Sopranos were real, and I blamed all Italians on what the Italian mobsters do because they represent for their people on some level, but they will be the ones who have the power within their communities and you will deal with them so it is like you have feuding delegations, this is how they are doing this with the affirmative action shit, it was created by some dude Ed Blum, but they are using token Asians to help get this going, just like they are getting Muslims to get behind the fundamentalist shit against LGBTQ. The fundamentalist Muslims who these Chrsitian fundamentalists warned about to justify why you need to bomb the fuck out of them are now actually aligning with the fundamentalists they claimed to hate. So thanks for exposing that you just get off on the fact that Muslims are being tortured and destroyed. 

I know I am all over the map, but when I have a laundry list of shit to get off on my chest, I get scattered. I tend to fucking go off on these rants and venting as much as I can because I continue to see the world going into a very far right wing direction and I don’t know who from my past who tries to associate with me are connected with it since people want to get to the top and be associated with celebrities and will sell their soul, and now that I have been thinking on my own and have my own theories and try to analyze shit my own way it is a big no-no to people who will never educate people, they will just express their opinion if it helps their cause because they are associated with problematic people. I worry because I have been out of the loop but I get dragged out and seen with people from time to time and I don’t know what they have been up to or who they are associated with. That is why I refer not to be on this planet anymore because I know eventually the more and more people go to the right, I am gonna be forced to go down that route when I have been trying not to regress because I came so close, I know the conspiratorial shit has lead me there, but I like to think even if I am conspiratorial and maybe I am completely wrong about certain things, I am not trying to regress and actually use it for actually get people to evolve in my own fucked up way. I am all over the map with this but when things keep playing out and I am seeing more shit being normalized and promoted as victory because you got SCOTUS to allow discrimination to LGBTQ people or another faulty promise of student loan debt being done but then they take away shit, and they know the shit on the surface will always be imploding and it just feels like all the storylines are designed to get us there, and the more crazy it gets and people with platforms basically kayfabe the gimmicked shit, it will be their excuse to go further right, like if whatever happens under Biden’s watch happens, people will then think they can go on the Trump or DeSantis side, but their side will be the faces of where the fascism goes in an overall sense. That is how I see it, maybe being a pro wrestling fan all my life it is easy to see how this could play out, I know I am clearly not smarter than all the political gatekeepers out there. All these social media places popping up is like the main pro wrestling companies going to shit or losing favor in the early 2000s so everyone thinks they will be the next WWE or they will be the next competition for it. It just feels like everything is becoming a parody and it feels by design because the people who are jokes in showbiz and are not the relevant ones, like let’s say Rob Schneider kind of help leading the charge on this anti wokeness shit going on, people will then think the celebs who are bigger and more mainstream are actually on the side of their cause but the reason why so many of these showbiz people who come off as hasbeens or washed up problematic people seem like they are the ones who are the jokes but the jokes is that they are permitted to do this and catch traction on alt media, but they are being allowed by the same celebs who might come off as liberal on the surface, but how much can you take shit seriously when we are using these low level celebs who are easy to dunk on, so it completely gets levitated by the comedy of the whole thing because can you believe we are gonna be arguing with Dean Cain and Kevin Sorbo about the state of the world. It basically lessens the threat, because everyone is playing it by cliques, because people who are supposedly anti right wing seem like they are more relevant and happening but those same people are also gonna take their masks off to show their side where they reveal their right wing personas. Guys like Jimmy Dore are finding their ways to move to the right even more, because now they start doing the stop the steal nonsense without saying they are going that route, or they will start doing anti climate change shit, but not super obvious but eventually it goes to those lengths, for people who are supposed to be anti establishment, you are doing the establishment’s narratives but I guess because we question people’s motives or notice you wear a fucking stupid fedora, suddenly no one is credible because these people with platforms never want free thinkers, they say it in principle but they all want cult members who don’t question them because they said a couple of things that happened to prove them right throughout their career. Again I am just crossing off stuff that I had jotted down and I knew once I tried to kind of vent, it would overwhelm my mind and then I would start moving all over the place, but again this is one of the benefits of being someone who is not relied upon, I am not a destination blog or podcast, people know it exists, but I am not have people coming at me directly, sure there will be people who do monitor and keep an eye out on it and will use people in my life to fuck wit my mindstate, or they will get other people with bigger platforms to lure me on so officially I can have a bigger target on me in some kind of way. Like when I say that the whole Proud Boy vs Patriot Front is the biggest sports entertainment thing going on as well, and people on the left who seem to think the feds could not be white supremacists is the stupidest shit, like when right wing people say it is feds, it is being used for the purpose to convey that right leaning people are being framed and because they push back against their ties to white supremacy they use the feds as a way to downplay it, so when they say feds, they act like there couldn’t be factions that align with white supremacy in these institutions, then when the left downplays the possibility that of feds framing anyone when there is a history, they will say “It is because of white supremacy” but in a limited and generalized way like people in the feds could not have ties to that. But again it is more sports entertainment. And if it somehow revealed that the right wing on the surface is being framed etc, this will be their just cause to do whatever they want and people will buy into this propaganda. That is why with the way they promote these stories that could be used for viral moments and make people involved these characters, while also promoting vigilante justice to be done to cogs in the system who are probably funded by the system to act out, they promote thee stories because it plays a role in them becoming social media characters, that woman who shot the black women through her front door for ringing the bell will get off, and then the juxtaposition to then use a scenario where a 14 year old kid shot and killed someone protecting his mother when they were attacked in some restaurant. When these stories then have ties to celebs or it becomes this big news story it feels like it gets used to promote more vigilante shit, and also they have this story out there because more people will focus on the racist white woman who did what she did, so they can say that people will make excuses for the black mother’s son who shot at someone who was attacking her. I can see how these ghouls and fucking blood suckers exploit this shit so it eases us into this mindset when this shit, even violence could be funded by billionaires that helps facilitate the 24/7 news cycle and not even with traditional media, now all these think tank and propped up right wing figures, this world is going to shit. I see little implementations everyday by what they normalize in the discourse. Even the talk about pedo shit, like people like Libs of Tik Tok will show a video of naked bikers riding around at an event with little kids there, and then you don’t realize that the account that has plenty of kids watching her content are now seeing these naked bikers as well, it is like they don’t give a shit about it and the reason they prop sensationalist stories because if it happens with a group that identifies with a community by the aesthetic, but you don’t know if this sensationalist shit being promoted in certain instances are done by the right wing themselves, not like there aren’t right wingers who love to do homoerotic shit anyways, but they could easily have this organized to make it look certain ways but this is what happens when there aren’t many people who are opposite the right who will entertain something conspiratorial because it is only the right wing being permitted to be allowed to be that. I know people use their favorite prestige shows to compare to what is happening in real life etc, and it is always with the surface level shit, but if I look at this superhero shit and their hidden truths, it is considered a joke that I would ever think that they are showing us in plain sight what is happening on a symbolic level of what direction the world is going in. When we see the incompetent moves these politicians make on the surface, which I always assume is by design, you want to believe that they have been possessed or there is some Twin Peaks shit going on. Like am I really supposed to think RFK Jr is a real human being or if he is supposed to be a malfunctioning AI in real time, I never seen such a push for someone to act like they are being suppressed when he is in every alt media place, he is on MSM as well, there is constant stories about him, but it is like the alt media circles wanting to create their own “anti establishment” character when it means nothing anymore because everyone is compromised, all you have to do is give the impression he is being censored and since we think this is the 90’s we act like he is Bill Hicks going on public access shows for his appearances, it doesn’t have the same feeling and it feels just as establishment as the establishment person themselves, at least with an establishment person, I know there will be bullshit, but someone who acts like they are these ultimate truth tellers, they end up becoming suspect down the line and there is more proof to that over the last several years. If this were 10 years ago and you sold me on this RFK Jr shit as more systemic shit to get rid of him because of what they did to JFK, I would’ve thought there was merit to it, but who fucking knows. It feels they are trying way too hard to push this, and if people don’t like him, it is like they have to be gaslit people because are acting this is about free speech when this speech I can hear from other right wing dipshits, how is “speech” being threatened when protected people say that shit, as long as you make it look like there is suppression people will then think they are listening to someone dangerous. In most cases, the establishment backs these people who are anti establishment because it always seeps into some right wing fundamentalism. And then we have obvious gaffes that are going on with Biden, him saying shit like they can’t expand the SCOTUS because people will think it is being politicized because the right wing isn’t already doing this shit anyways, but if it is on the surface for a viral moment, who fucking knows what they are actually doing, most regular people would not gravitate towards that nuance because if they see the same old shit happening on the surface, then how would people think there is anything dangerous about this new right wing shit, when it has been levitated through comedy and entertainment in general. It is clear the shit that happens as a viral moment to me are ways to constantly keep the entertainment dollar flowing while the overall shit is moving into a far right direction hence why cowards who are protected feel more comfortable going that route, and me being stupid as is, with some of the trans issues because this is still pretty new to me as far as understanding the science and the treatments, the only things that get put out there are the sensationalist shit mixed with bad faith actors, like when I hear someone in the last 5 years like Joe Rogan who is around athletes and has been involved in sports, if he is telling his audience about some shit that ends up arguing in favor of being anti trans even if it is in a subtle way, someone like me will not know what is true or not but since this guy is an athlete or hangs out with them etc, maybe he knows what he is talking about, so the sports issue becomes a bit confusing to me, who is already kind of dumbed down from understanding the specifics, sure I could just regurgitate shit that smart people say and have the aesthetic of repeating what smart people say but I will be honest and fully admit, I don’t get how some of this shit works and I could not explain it, that is why I am glad there are some people who work as hosts on TYT have left because this one person Bennie did a video about his interactions with Cenk behind the scenes on how they are doubling down even in private and telling her that she lives in a bubble, no it seems like you guys live in a bubble because you want to fucking grift for the right wing audience hence why Ana is playing the helpless white woman who is being attacked by people who have been calmly explaining why she is wrong and she doesn’t seem to give a shit about being propped up by right wing accounts who are probably the ones help funding this new pivot which they are doing horribly. Even flat out defending Rittenhouse, I know we are supposed to act like we are judging these situations how they play out, but if you follow my train of thought, it will be like the far right wing are initiating people into their cliques and now the common thread is to have situations like Rittenhouse and then judge it like this was just some regular situation playing out and since people on the left will not get conspiratorial and maybe see the overall thing that is happening is that they will keep creating situations where it is supposed to be a nuanced debate which never really has nuance, all it has is people finding a way to justify why this issue has pushed people to the right. Ana is scared to talk to people outside her fucking race, but she is comfortable defending far right dipshits, sucking up showbiz people because she somehow thinks she is an interesting personality and the only people who support you is not because your fucking amazing personality, they are supporting you because you are becoming a fucking Nazi. She will believe the intention of “regular MAGA” people so she can pretend she is being fair while being unfair to people on the fucking left, they will get mad at at trans activists for fighting their fight, while they are doing stories playing devil’s advocate for fascist supporters who they want to give softball interviews to. And again they will double down, but I wish people on the “left” will stop treating these people with kids gloves, but I don’t know, maybe some of you will also start leaning more to the right on a fucking issue. I don’t know about the hormone treatment or what puberty blockers situation because people like this will suddenly do intellectualized propaganda about their dangers which can sound convincing to dumbed down people like me, and trust me there are others who consume shit who are dumbed down and will think one issue that someone talks about makes them credible but then they will take advantage of that shit, and spread more disinformation while making their entire personalities how they are more fair than MSM, that is all these alt media people do is cover MSM until they agree with their sentiment and then suddenly MSM is credible. 

I figure I should take a paragraph breather, again I am all over the map but I have to get shit off my chest and when you have so much in your fucking head, you can go off on tangents and trying to cram in points you jotted down. I could’ve left this a journal entry where only the people monitoring me will see it and secretly sell the information to people I talk about in their underground networks so people can then target me and I wouldn’t know who, because that is what paid online mercenaries do especially if you are angering powerful people and you don’t want to regress because everyone eventually becomes the republican they hate as times moves on and how propaganda sophisticates itself. But from my view we are seeing this world become more of a sports entertainment field, when we are talking about a politician and the president of the Teamsters etc doing an MMA fight, thing is it sounds like a fucking joke but that is probably the direction we are going with the vitriol at these hearings etc, they have been planting those seeds for a while since it happens in other countries and since the US is the WWE of countries, they normally let other territories do it first before they bring it to their home. I could keep getting excited about them finally getting Trump and it would be cool if someone powerful got some kind of consequences, they make it look that way but it feels like they know nothing will happen to him, it makes no sense how he has the freedom to go out and do rallies and still run for president while he has committed the crimes he did and you will bring up Hunter Biden etc, and even though there is some overall corruption going on with bribes etc, like that could be true, the only way to make this marketable is making him a fucking sports entertainer where he probably did all the stuff he is doing for the purpose of it being out there, suddenly you have all these clips at your disposal, it is like we are being given the fucking news by people who want to be entertainers and they want to book it like their favorite pretentious prestige television show. Everytime you tell us you got powerful people like Trump in the clutch, you will find out that things will work out in his favor, and it feels like this is about making more money for this process and all storylines knowing he won’t do time at all, and it makes his base think he is the one who walked away and beat the system, if they didn’t want him beating the system, they would’ve stopped him from even running in the fucking first place, they wouldn’t have covered his campaign and make bank off that, while pretending they oppose him. But we are supposed to think these dumbed down villains are not smart whatsoever, because people want the comfort of calling out powerful people but doing it the same way people call out Vince McMahon, completely dumb down so it takes the threat off him, you are helping facilitate this evil shit as well. Basically anything that is viral is designed to help the right wing, like the Obamas could put out a good message in showing solidarity with the affirmative action thing even if they are elitists etc, but then people then assume that anyone who has that message must be like the Obamas partying in Greece on some yacht like it isn’t designed for that purpose, people think they actually caught these people doing something hypocritical and not because it is supposed to be out there since our entire realities are a fucking sports entertainment show. It is amazing how “smart” and “free thinker” people are so fucking dumb, they will automatically assume that FBI agents who got promotions for kneeling at BLM rallies or some shit are only corrupt because of that, like even if the FBI is corrupt and I believe it is, you don’t think the kneeling was done as a photo op but maybe they want you to think their “loyalty” to BLM is the reason they got promoted. It also makes people who want to oppose the far right wing shit now have to kind of defend the FBI. I think there are many factions within institutions but I also think a lot of the feds support the far right win shit but the right has managed to make it look for their base that the FBI is against them completely and they are trying to go after Trump when this guy is walking around Willy Nilly doing his usual spiel and amplifying his base to dangerous fucking levels, I know because it is the Obamas we are not supposed to give a shit that another powerful person had his address posted, and I do believe it represents that these people have people on their payroll to go do this, now it was thwarted and sometimes I worry that if the right gets their traction they will think they planned it so it looks like Trump did in kayfabe but even if that was planned out etc, it feels like it represents what the right is capable of and that is directing their Arkham Asylum weirdos to be sacrificial lambs even if they have to get caught, you know how new right wing grifters will use “If they do this to Trump they can take away your free speech too” but they never worry when Trump can dox someone to his millions of followers on his social media platform, like fine you don’t care about Obama, fine but you aren’t alarmed at the tactic that could literally be used to target regular people if they don’t get in line? Sometimes it feels like people who are secretly on that side will sports entertain a feud with Trump and MAGA people so you are left blindly defending guys like Bill Gates or Fauci, like they could say or do some good shit, but then when you have shadiness about Gates being used against him since he is a powerful dude, people then weaponize it so they can overall generalize people on the left who are defending him because he seems to oppose the MAGA crowd, but I feel it is a way to defend people and then be shocked they are actually on the MAGA side, a lot of people are gonna be revealed as being secret MAGA people. Like as much as I love what Michael Imperioli did with denouncing people who are bigots from watching his work, when you put out a boastful message like that, it always feels like it is supposed to be insult to injury when you find out these people are really on the right wing side and they are just biding their time, especially if the people who are right wing are pushing back, they will then point out the hypocrisies of that person since it comes off like “TYPICAL HOLLYWOOD LIBTARD BEING SENSITIVE” because they people who will oppose that kind of message, once they get condemned as a whole for some shit, they think they are even more in the right because they are being attacked by a typical Hollywood guy. Even Eminem had to capitulate a little bit when he made that declaration of a line in the sand of supporting his music or supporting Trump and he kind of dialed it back on the next album. I know I am not making much sense, but at least I am not buying into this fake in fighting with MAGA type of people while it serves to give them free promo and actually helping their cause because we will continue to levitate shit by the comedic nature of it. But they are definitely using celebs as part of the overall discourse because I don’t believe they play by regular rules and shit playing out for social media and “real life” world feels like a way for people to be invested into a storyline where the goal is to manufacture consent for an overall homophobic, racist, misogynistic, transphobic attitude, that is why you will see an influx of men in the celeb world who are cogs and being used for storyline purposes to be the face of being wrongfully accused for shit so it then helps the abusers in the system prosper even more because they will use celeb shit as the be all end all that represents for situations like this since they play it out in a regular fucking way.  But that is why they will keep promoting stories about someone who raped someone and make the issue about how they want better treatment in prison for being trans and a lot of dumbed down people are not gonna give a shit about someone being trans, they will look at the horrible crime committed and think anyone who thinks this person should be able to get treatment is the main focus of this and the left doesn’t care if they murder or rape people so you are already using these sensationalist examples to help manufacture consent to generalize all communities, which then I could retort that then if Trump or other MAGA people committed horrible crimes, why should I be concerned with the freedom of speech issue or censorship when it comes to people who already did horrible shit. Like there are countless white supremacists who serve in politics and they have done horrible shit or aligned with people who do horrible shit and yet they make excuses for why we need to hear from these people over and over again yet you will fear monger about crime, which is probably funded for the sole purpose to make it seem like there is favorable treatment to people, like whenever they do a story of someone who is black doing a violent crime but then they didn’t do time or let out because they claimed systemic racism is the reason why they were allowed to not do time, they will promote some shit like that, and I believe these people might not align with any left politics and they are funded to commit crimes and then be let out but if you make it look like they are being let out for the fear of police being called racist or some shit, it makes regular people think that calling out racism is a bad thing. This is why I know we have to pretend there is no conspiracy but if there is a conspiracy to help facilitate people into moving more right wing maybe people on the left should entertain going more conspiratorial, especially when you can disarm the right wing shit, because they will use their examples of agendas within the system, because no matter your delegation in the system, people from all backgrounds and identities will end up being problematic and not because of what their race, sexuality, religion, political ideology etc, but because the system is a corrupt cesspool and if you want to be in the system, you will have to get dirty at some point, and they will use it to discredit you if you try to stand up for the general community who have nothing to do with the corrupt system. This is why I don’t 100 percent buy a celebrity’s endorsement, because it will be used if those people end up corrupt or problematic and they will then use that person as a main reason why this so and so group is actually a problem. Look at what they did with Jussie Smolliet, they used in my opinion an obvious botched attempt to discredit and make it harder for members of the LGBTQ community to rase awareness of hate crimes committed against them, this Amber/Depp situation is being propped up by misogynists who are probably guilty of some abuse to act like that all abuse cases are like this one, they make it relate to regular people which is what the public figures main roles are, this is just my opinion. I am not saying I am 100 percent right, but they have been using entertainment to manufacture consent for the last 30 plus years. Now everyone is copying their favorite entertainment and making that their real life character. Anyways I am gonna be done with this blog. I know it probably didn’t come off well, and it was remixed with other shit going on but when I wait to write these blogs and I have a bunch of shit I compiled, I feel I have to cross shit off in order but no one is looking for the writings of a fat mentally ill man who still lives in his parents basement, so if you want to discredit me, you can do it with that, and you will convince people, but here is the thing that pisses off a lot of you corrupt shit heads, even if my aesthetic is not the most appealing, I know at the end of the day I am not a fucking social climber who is trying to hang out with my favorite celebs and do a right wing grift so I can stay relevant and even if your aesthetic is good and you have a social life, it is not making you any happier and you know deep down it is not making you any fucking happier even if you surgically have a smile planted on your fucking faces. You know the money is useless because you will have to spend it to to make other people richer and guess what when you sell your soul like that, you know the people who are propping you up don’t care about your talent, they care about you being another status quo dip shit who is helping the world move into more of a Nazi place and I hope you never get a moment of peace mentally. Eventually when you are alone, you will have to be alone with those thoughts and trust me it isn’t fun being alone with those thoughts, it becomes a scary thing. At least I can be alone with my thoughts

[hella1975]

I know plenty of people have already talked about that particular line in the last scene of chapter 40 but can I just say thank you for letting kanut be the one to have that moment with Zuko. That genuine moment between these two queer people means so much to me.

As an asexual sapphic I struggle a ton letting these identities coexist. It often feels like I gotta pick and choose between them. So many people have this mentality that people like me are the queer asexuals unlike cis aroace/arohet/acehet folks. Like I'm queer despite my asexuality rather than it being an equal part of my queerness. Reading that conversation I instinctly expected Zuko to realise kanut isn't like him and dismiss that experience and advice as relevant to his situation. But instead you let them relate to each other and I haven't stopped thinking about that.

I went to pride a little over a week ago and found this acearo stand. The guy there told me they had a few WhatsApp groups for aspec people so I gave him my number. I live in a very small country in the Mediterranean basin so there really isn't really an asexual culture here at all. So I thought I'd at least try but I couldn't master up the courage to use the WhatsApp link he sent me. Anyways all that is to say I finally did it today because of this chapter and kanut. Congrats on getting a win over my anxiety.

Completely unrelated the whole thing with Zuko and the flower in his hair hit me so hard as a plus sized person. I've felt so many times in my life I needed to be more masculine and aggressive and to not put any emphasis on my body or my appearance. I know that definitely was not your intention and I'm not even sure if it makes any sense but my ed has been really bad recently and that part made me want to put flowers in my hair and cry in the summer sun.

Sorry if I'm being way too personal with this but that chapter has got me in emotional shambles. So I just wanted to let you know how impactful your writing is. I am never not floored by your insane talent.

asks like this mean the absolute world to me i genuinely treasure them and hold each one so close. im so glad you found something comforting in my writing. it was a personal chapter for me too and it was really important to me that zuko and kanut have that connection where they relate, not see each other as different. idk if it's tiktok or just the internet generation as a whole but there's a really disheartening trend atm of queer identities pitting against each other, competing over who has it worse and sometimes we all just need to step back and remember what unites us. each person has different experiences with their own queerness even if they share a label with someone else. it doesn't need to be a battle and that's what i was trying to show with kanut and zuko and thankfully i think i got that across pretty well based on the overwhelming response ive had from that chapter. it's truly touched my heart so please dont fret about this seeming too personal. you deserve to be recognised and the fact you messaged that group despite your anxiety? knowing i had even a minor part to play in that is going to make me smile for DAYS. i hope they offer you more of a community than what you've received so far. you deserve flowers in your hair xx

[kamorth]

I posted 7,191 times in 2022

60 posts created (1%)

7,131 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@vaspider

@wee-lightning-bug

@reinelefey

@wilwheaton

@cyanwrites

I tagged 564 of my posts in 2022

#@markaleb - 14 posts

#i mean - 4 posts

#as in - 3 posts

#yep - 3 posts

#also also - 3 posts

#also - 3 posts

#it always means something different - 2 posts

#so just the fact that you are aware that you chose this person - 2 posts

#because i kept embarrassing the boys in woodworking and metalworking - 2 posts

#i love how you can see how hard he's jazz-handing even though it's a still image - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#i think the rise of this kind of thinking is in part a combination of tl;dr internet culture and the rapidly increasing numbers of people

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Okay to be clear I am getting nothing out of this, the seller doesn't know I'm making this post, this is purely me gushing about awesome customer service for an awesome product.

So when the fire happened (almost 2 years ago it does NOT feel that long) one of the things I lost was my collection of playing cards. I cried over these ones specifically. I backed the Kickstarter (technically my FiL bought them as a gift for me but it was all on my accounts) waaaaaaaaaaay back in the before times in the far distant good old days of 2014 and got two packs. I kept one sealed (for collector points or maybe in case the others got damaged lol) and opened the other and instantly fell in love with them. They are GORGEOUS and they feel AMAZING and they were hands down my favourite cards ever. I had them sitting on my desk next to my computer and I would sometimes shuffle them while waiting for things to load just because they felt that nice. I still reach for them sometimes.

About a year ago I set up an ebay search alert for them. I wanted them back and my only chance (I thought) was to grab them quickly if a fellow collector put them up for sale. No hits. Not even one. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I thought fuck it, let's try a hail mary, can't be any worse than a "sorry they're gone", right? So I go and message the seller on the original KS campaign. They haven't had any campaigns recently so chances are it's a dead account, so okay maybe the best I can hope for is silence but I have to try.

15 minutes later I get a reply. "Sorry you went through that, I still have a few unsold packs though. Let me go put them up on Etsy". Half an hour after that I get another response which includes the above link along with "I'm just looking to have shipping costs covered, you don't have to pay for the cards".

Two packs just arrived in the mail and I'm crying. I thought they were gone. I feel like a complete idiot, crying over playing cards, but they represent something that feels like getting my life back finally.

If you like playing cards, nice art, or just generally gothy things, do everyone involved a favour and grab yourself a pack. They are SO worth it.

8 notes - Posted January 5, 2022

#4

Getting more than a little bit sick of people not understanding even the slightest nuance.

Queer/Dyke/Fag/Homo have historically been and are still sometimes, often even, used as derogatory slurs. So have all the other words we use for ourselves.

THAT'S BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WHO WANT US TO STOP EXISTING SEE ANYTHING THAT DESCRIBES US AS AN INSULT SO THAT'S HOW THEY USE IT.

EVERY WORD WE COME UP WITH TO DESCRIBE OURSELVES WILL BECOME A SLUR AS LONG AS BIGOTS GET TO DICTATE LANGUAGE USE.

Learn to read fucking context clues and STOP ATTACKING PEOPLE WHO ARE USING THOSE WORDS AS DESCRIPTORS FOR THE RELEVANT EXPERIENCES. All you do when you ONLY police people who are using those words as something other than a personal attack is HELPING THE BIGOTS WIN. You are doing the work of the enemy! BIGOTS ARE OUR ENEMIES, NOT PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO TALK ABOUT QUEER EXPERIENCES AS BEING QUEER.

I am SO over this bullshit.

Is the person you're having a go at using our words as a personal attack? Let's look at some examples:

"I'm taking Queer History this semester" - if you think there is a slur in this sentence you need a much stronger reading comprehension lesson than I'm about to give you.

"WE'RE HERE. WE'RE QUEER. GET USED TO IT" - YES I AM THAT THING YOU TRIED TO CALL ME AS AN INSULT AND I'M NOT INSULTED BY IT WHAT ELSE YOU GOT?

"I hope someone fag-drags you you gross fucking dyke" - This statement in itself being said to an individual is legally a hate crime in many countries

"You're just a fucking queer fag go suck a cock" - I need more context because there is FUCKING NUANCE HERE AND INTENT MATTERS. I've said this to a grumpy gay friend who just needed to go get laid before and in that context it was loving advice (and his mood improved SO MUCH because I was right, as I often am), but I can see how it could be used in a derogatory way.

MY POINT IS

CONTEXT AND INTENT FUCKING MATTER

13 notes - Posted July 30, 2022

#3

This reminds me of something

Can't QUITE put my finger on what it is though

15 notes - Posted June 11, 2022

#2

101 notes - Posted February 1, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

My kid works at the lotto booth in a supermarket that happens to be a favourite of boomers and upper-middle class white people - the kind of people we've been seeing at anti-listening-to-doctors protests around here. He gets at least 3-4 people per shift going off at him for wearing a mask and I've been trying to convince him to quit for a while now. Last week some dude spat at him.

It's probably unrelated but we've both tested positive for covid in the last 72 hours. We're triple vaxxed. He seems to be getting off lucky, nothing more than a stuffy nose which is good. I, however, would like to die now please. I have a fever and have been shivering so hard I think I've pulled a muscle in my chest. I'm really hoping it doesn't get worse. Like I don't need a hospital but I'm really hoping it stays that way.

Also, someone in the house has a surgery booked on Friday and they've already taken 6 weeks off work for recovering. Fingers crossed for that person not testing positive.

If you're an antivaxxer, fuck you. This is absolutely your fault.

2,428 notes - Posted May 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[petite-ursus]

Ok, I didn't do it at all today, but remember (you don't have to remember) how a few weeks ago I was at 54,000ish likes? From my concerted (and important) efforts of going through, deleting and reblogging I am down to 38,962.

And the process of going back through my old likes has been fun. The vast majority of stuff... I no longer vibe with and is just deleted, and then even the things I still love... I love in different ways. I relate to on different levels or less/not at all and just like the media for itself.

Pre-2020 Shannon drank so much, and so there is so much of that in my likes. Wanting a drink because I was happy or sad or horny. Reactions from Mistakes from drinking. Feeling absolutely crazy. And was ruminating (gratefully) on how... none of that resonates with me today.

Even this past year when I felt crazy... it was just different than my early 20s crazies. Less internalized "aaah I'm broken and unloveable and I can't feel anything!" and more externalized "I am a person and things are wrong!" And not drinking... helps that, I think a lot. I don't think I would have survived the last year if I'd still been drinking. I have so many memories of drinking alone in my home with/right after Drake. The horrible hangovers. The crying... Just a... Different me.

Then just a million pieces of culturally relevant media that was a flash in the pan of my interests. Mass un-likes of all Marvel and Star Wars things that I like fine but are not My Interests. Trips down memory lane.

And bits of news that were Very Critical at the time and now are Very Old.

Time capsule (tumblr blog) I love you. You show me how we stay the same in so many ways even as we become unrecognizable. 21 year old Shannon is still in here. And so is 6 year old Shannon. And we're all excited to see what's coming.

[ntriani]

OQM Playlist : Life during quarantine #8

Ian Curtis by Karstein Volle Nick Triani presents another quarantine playlist while looking back at his own experience with the band Joy Division and their singer Ian Curtis, who died 40 years ago this week Covid-19 has more than any recent time given a new perspective of our pasts, a new way of appreciating what has come before in freer times. 40 years is a long time in anyone’s life. For me it’s that long since I fully immersed myself into post-punk and a counter culture that remains all consuming. My professional and personal careers have entwined – I’ve been in a position where my main interest in life, music, has also been my main vocation. That sure is privileged, but counter to this I certainly don’t take being ‘in’ music for granted and never will. It’s a fickle passion for sure and my own ups and downs have taught me much.

1980 marks an extra special coming of age for me personally. The signs were there earlier of course. By the time I was 13 in 1979, I’d met a bunch of like-minded souls in the school playground. Fans of John Peel, Two Tone Records, The Jam, the music weeklies and punk culture in general. We would all go on to form bands and play music together. We had one thing in common, we were different from other kids – we were non-conformists, weird and quirky, opinions formed by the music we revelled in.

It was a time when the musical obsession got deeper and more relevant to my own teenage experience. This bout of personal nostalgia for events long gone is brought on by the almost universal media coverage of the 40th anniversary of Ian Curtis‘s death, which was everywhere this past Monday (May 18th 2020). It felt strange to witness to be honest and highlighted what a commercial endeavor Joy Divisionhave become over the years, confirmed in recent times with duvet covers and Converse trainers adorned with their Unknown Pleasures album artwork. Through all the eulogies and critical consensus the Joy Division story has accrued over time there has been an element of that storytelling normalising Joy Division and Curtis.

It’s not really how I remember it as a 14-year-old looking for answers in my bedroom all those years ago. Curtis’ lyrics certainly fuelled my teen angst with tales of the macabre or of a dystopian Thatcher-inspired British landscape. But more tellingly Curtis’ lyrics always deflected back to his own personal struggles. This personal lyrical perspective cut through the unconventional sound of the band and to some degree humanized the Joy Division experience.

Joy Division were genuinely strange sounding – like nothing that came before or since. No one had written lyrics like Curtis, so bleak and dark yet so prescient. But even more, producer Martin Hannett managed to reinvent a sound with the basic three piece ingredients of rock n roll; drums, bass and guitar. No reinvention of those basic elements has been so startling or effective since.

Joy Division’s music is cold and can be hard work in its most daring experiments. Hannett is no stranger to visiting the finite no-go areas of the effect palette. Align the unconventional production to Stephen Morris‘s original, yet unusual drum patterns, Peter Hook‘s unique bass strumming and Bernard Sumner‘s opaque guitar shapes and Joy Division sound alien at core. You only have to hear the effects Hannett would adorn Curtis’ voice with, that voice would suffer from a use of obfuscate effects, which merely made the listener dig deeper to engage and connect whilst similarly being held at arm’s length. In most cases, Joy Division’s music is considerably uncommercial and abnormal; this is music that asks a lot of the listener.

There was also the sense of mystery surrounding the band. The lack of credits, the elegiac and beautiful artwork designs of Peter Saville that perfectly complemented the music. Kevin Cummins original iconic monochrome photography, which accentuated the 1940s charity store attire the band sported.  No one else dressed like this at the time. Reading Paul Morley‘s deep analysis of the band back in the day embellished what would become the mythical, but also, thankfully, failed to reveal too much. However much the past 40 years has stripped away at the heart of Joy Division, the music has withstood scrutiny. The music remains unaffected and still frozen in some ‘all future music will sound like this one day’ bubble. You can try and convince everyone that it was four young daft lads from Salford making this strange music, but you still can’t shatter that veneer of weirdness that Joy Division’s music delivers.

Closer was the album I indulged with the most in 1980 – a record that remains strangely dignified to the events surrounding its release. Like any of the previous Joy Division releases, Closer represented another step forward and evolution in sound – but this time with an extra layer of dark, personal insight, combined with the added benefit of a heavy hindsight. I got lost in this album.

Joy Division are an antithesis of the 2020 know-all and reveal-all of popular culture. Acknowledging this merely enhances a feeling of cognitive dissonance of how the band have been embraced by a mainstream audience. This week people were personalizing their own experiences with Joy Division lyrics on social media. I’ve also seen a man wearing a Joy Division t-shirt in my local supermarket in Helsinki. Tragedy creates special intrigue and draws people in. For me Joy Division represent that point in time where we got a new dose of cultural weirdness, a cold abstract and beautiful thing representing something we’d never really considered before: dissociative popular music that goes to the dark heart of who we really are.

[cobycobsy2k]

Pokemon XY: "the most hasty and unfair generation of Pokemon"

Welcome to this new series called "CobyPop Culture" in which we will talk about music, video games or moments that are part of pop culture or just interesting topics that I would like to talk about. Today we will talk about Pokemon, specifically the 6th generation (XY), since lately there has been a great wave of fans talking about these games 👀😁

So taking advantage of the fact that Scarlet and Violet left 2 weeks ago, and that a possible return to Kalos is being rumored (if not confirmed through leaks), it's time to dust off the beautiful moments and let's travel to 2013.

2013, better known as the year that had a lot of relevance in all the 2010s, was a very Cool year in terms of several aspects; in music, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus released quite interesting albums (Prism, Artpop and Bangerz); in video games, the nintendo 3ds was the boom of that time and several franchises began to make the leap to 3d thanks to that console, pokemon among them.

The Pokemon franchise had just come out of a setback that it had had thanks to the 5th generation (Black & White; Black 2 & White 2, 2010-2011), so it began to focus too much on what would be the jump to 3d with the arrival of the next generation, so the developers got down to work, since the work that awaited them was going to be very long... And finally on October 12, 2013, the long-awaited 6th generation of Pokemon came out with the games "Pokemon X" and "Pokemon Y". But, Was this jump to 3d worth it? Did these games age well?

Chapter 1.-The Games

As I said before, Pokemon X and Pokemon Y came out in October 2013, I remember that at that time, my big wish was to get a 3DS and Pokemon X (Spoiler Alert: I got it for free one year later and two years later, in 2015 , I had Pokemon Omega Ruby). So far, for the moment, these games enjoyed great popularity compared to the last generation. The story was quite disappointing (even worse if we compare it to B&W), since it seemed to be a poorly done parody of what the saga was doing for years (all this before certain 2019 games came out and broke the internet for bad what were they). While the graphics were a great improvement (which in my personal humble opinion that nobody cares about: The 6th generation tried to emulate the Pixel Art era of the 5th generation but adapting it to 3d).

In terms of gameplay, the classic formula is still being used, but adding various decorations such as: Mega Evolutions, Skates (my favorite thing of this generation, a pity they never came back and maybe never will), a much more comfortable Gts (and the best of all 3d era)

In general, during 2013 and part of 2014 everyone was in love with the games, and they were already preparing for a possible "Pokemon X2"/"Pokemon Y2" coming out in 2015 along with the Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald remakes.

Until today, these games are crucified for their low difficulty and lack of challenges, they are also for other reasons that we will talk about later.

Chapter 2.- The year of discord

2015... was the pivotal year for the 6th generation, the year that ended up being disappointing for some (including me) and great joy for others.

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were already out, leaving us all with speculation and rumors that "Pokemon Z" was already on the way, the rumors intensifying with each passing day... until 2016 arrived... (For those who didn't Whether you know it or not, 2016 was the 20th anniversary of Pokemon, where Sun & Moon and Pokemon Go came out) This year it killed the 6th generation without any warning, leaving several holes that ORAS tried to fix and above all leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouths.

But why did this happen? What happens is that there were several legendary Pokemon that were not put to good use (Diancie, Volcanion, Floette from AZ and above all, Zygarde), also that several places in Kalos felt empty and needed some event to make them useful...

But also the development of the "Ultimate Game" for the 6th Generation was affected by how busy 2014, 2015 and 2016 were for Gamefreak. So they chose to cancel the game.

Chapter 3.- Pokemon Z did exist? Will there be a decent return in any S/V DLC?

In 2020 or in 2019, I don't remember very well, the codes of the main Pokemon games (during the 3d era) were leaked, ranging from XY to Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. What caught my attention the most were two spaces corresponding to the 6th generation, which in their description said they were games for Kalos, XY region). This blew the minds of some fans, as this would confirm that not just one, but 2 games were planned for Kalos.

the possible titles for these canceled games would have been "Pokemon X2/Y2" or "Pokemon Xz/Yz" and obviously the mascot of this game would be Zygarde (who would have a fundamental role like Girantina or Rayquaza). Also that the trio of Kalos legendaries (Diancie, Volcanion and Hoopa) would finally have an important role in the games.

What I think could have been in these games would be:

*More content for Kalos (South Kalos, more events, battle frontier, being able to enter inaccessible places) *More lore *Mega evolutions for starters (Possibly Ash-Greninja would have been Greninja's mega evolution or something like that) *High difficulty

Lately with the release of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet there has been a lot of speculation about the dlc, there has been too much talk (not to say confirmed) that there will be a return to a region seen before, and obviously we are all thinking of Kalos. but I also think I've heard that there will be 4 dlcs (If I'm wrong, someone please correct me haha).

And here are my predictions (I know that some will come true, others will not, or maybe none will come true, but Dreaming is free!!)

DLC No. 1.- Kalos (Complete region including southern Kalos, here we will see something similar as we saw in Kanto during the 2nd Generation, with big changes to adapt this generation to an open world)

DLC No. 2.- Galar (The same as the previous one and including the DLC islands, but this time the change will be bigger)

DLC No. 3.- Canary Islands (Most likely to happen, and knowing Game Freak and The Pokemon Company, we all know that you will find the legendary ones here for no apparent reason)

DLC No. 4.- Battle Frontier (Better not say anything and pray that it is fulfilled)

I only hope that Kalos can have a bit of justice in the 9th generation, but I also think that we should not get too excited, let's just wait for the direct that will be in February 2023...

Well guys, this has been today's blog so far, I really had a lot of fun doing this, it reminded me of several nice things, and I feel that this is one of the blogs that I liked doing the most during 2022! I hope you like it and give a lot of support to this blog, I love you very much! 💕🤭

[mrsgiovanna]

The Escape Route (Yan! Don Giorno x Fem!Reader)

A request from a lovely nonnie mouse asking how the Don would handle his darling attempting to escape from his home. A bit of a drawn out scenario... I really hope you enjoy the read.

TW: Manipulative relationship dynamics, possessive behaviour, yandere behaviour

Word Count: 2.7k

Your brisk walk was slowly turning into a run as you worked your way through the busy streets of Naples. With your breathing ragged and eyes darting around to make sure nobody was on your tail, you tried to think about how best to put your escape plan back on track.

You knew that Giorno’s influence extended further than most, but you hadn’t expected him to have the power to derail every single option you had thought of to escape from his overpowering grip. You had been running around for hours now, from station to station, none would book you a ticket to anywhere, every cab ride was hastily halted after a dubious phone call… resulting in you being unwillingly ejected from the vehicle each time. So there you were, running into the more dangerous parts of Naples, frantically looking for some kind of shelter to house you while you thought of what you would do next.

Thankfully, you found a tiny inn, sparse amenities, small and far removed enough you thought, to not be on Giorno’s radar. The kindly old lady didn’t ask many questions, and you paid with the cash you had been slowly hiding away for such an event.

You couldn’t pinpoint when your relationship with Giorno had descended to this but you knew that if you stayed any longer his charming brand of captivity would best your common sense and you would be trapped forever. With Giorno, you had access to anything, no request was too demanding… in exchange though he required you to be within his confines at all times, listen to and obey his honeyed instructions with minimal fuss, and to not run off in the occasions when he did take you out of the mansion. I’m just keeping you safe he said… little did you know that the most dangerous one of all was the Don himself with his hypnotic gaze.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, it could have been much worse, he never harmed you physically, never pushed the intimacy boundaries further than you allowed… in your moments of weakness, it was you who had sought out his embrace. The absurdity of it all- vacillating between love and hate for this man, and so to protect the fraying thread that held your sanity together, you decided to make a run for it. It was not an impulsive idea, you had spent the better part of the year planning your grand escape, trying to imagine every way in which your plan could go awry and possible solutions to the problems. Ironically, this was a habit that you had picked up from Giorno himself, and should your plan actually work, it would be quiet poetic- escaping using the traits of your captor against him. You had gathered small amounts of cash here and there, not enough to rouse anyone’s suspicion, and made sure that any and all evidence of you memorizing the layout of the surrounding areas was completely erased. Perhaps the most difficult task of them all, was to lure Giorno into false sense of security regarding your disposition towards your situation. In the weeks leading up to your escape, you had flawlessly played the part of the dutiful ‘wife’, listening attentively, spoiling him with gentle touches and loving gazes, making sure to build up your affections gradually, as if they had been blooming naturally so as not to trigger any suspicion.

Finally, you saw your opportunity to make your move that morning. Giorno had to leave early to meet with a few associates from Japan, so you rose with him, and watched as he got ready, helping him with his hair and doing up his tie. Looking up to meet his crystalline eyes, you noticed he considered you with an expression you haven’t seen on him before.

“What is it tesoro? Why are you looking at me like that?” you asked in a gentle tone.

“You’re… just so beautiful… would you like to come with me today? I’m sure they would love to meet you… I call them associates but in actual fact one of them is a relative of mine. You’ll only be bored for a little while; after that we can do whatever you would like to,” he asked with a gentle smile. You thought about how you were going to answer, ultimately you knew you didn’t want to go, favoring your grand escape instead, but denying him that quickly would definitely set off alarm bells in his mind.

“Ah! Perhaps next time my love, I’m not going to be good company today, I woke up with a bit of a headache… I’ll probably go back to bed and sleep it off after you leave,”

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to make you feel any better bella, I hate the fact that you’re hurting,” Giorno cupped your face in his hands and gently stroked your cheeks with his thumbs, “get some rest bella mio, I’ll be back to check on you as soon as I can,” kissing you on the forehead he left without another word. Waiting for him to be completely out of the villa, you watched as his car exited the driveway before quietly packing what you could, mentally going over your checklist more times than you cared to count. Since your change in attitude, the staff at the villa were more accepting of your whims, partly to do with the fact that Giorno had instructed them to do so - within reason, but also, because you had won over their trust and if you had to be honest with yourself, there was nothing you could fault them for. The dynamic Giorno had with them was not ruled by fear, but rather by admiration… all of them being drawn in by his charisma. Managing to maneuver your way through the mansion and out an exit that saw you climbing over a hidden portion of the eastern wall surrounding the villa, you had finally been outside the confines of the villa on your own for the first time in well over a year.

In the car on the way to meet with his guests Giorno was preoccupied. He had noticed the gradual change in your behavior and as much as he would have loved to give you the benefit of the doubt, a nagging inclination that you might be lying always clouded his thoughts. He loved you- entirely- even though there were days in which you rejected his affections, he was patient with you… eventually you’d understand, the dangers that lurked in every corner made your captivity, as you so unceremoniously called it, a necessity. He had grown so accustomed to making decisions with little to no advice, he had adopted that stance in his personal life as well. He rationalized that once you had accepted the fact that his actions were all borne from his desire to protect you, your lives would be peaceful, until then, he would be patient, enduring your tantrums and snide remarks with the grace of an aristocrat… which only upset you further. To Giorno, you were to be looked after, protected- treasured, and so no matter how much you had tested his patience in the beginning, not once were you ever hurt or taken advantage of. Violence and shackles were much too unrefined for a gem like you, so to correct your behavior, the young don resorted to other, less threatening means of discipline.

“Don Giovanna? We have arrived,” shaken out of his musings by his consigliere, his attention was drawn to the fact that they had arrived at their destination ready to discuss the matters at hand.

“Thank you Lorenzo, would you check if the staff has everything ready while I greet our guests?”

“Of course, excuse me,” with that, Lorenzo had left, hastily attending to a call as he walked.

“Ah, welcome to Italy, I take it you and your associates have settled in well?” said Giorno with a polite bow, being mindful of the cultural conventions of his esteemed guests. Drinks were ordered and everyone present had settled down in the private lounge, except for Lorenzo who had been animatedly conversing on the phone for enough time to make his absence felt. Frustrated by what he was tasked to do, he abruptly ended his conversation and sought out Giorno to give him the news, finally, the staff at villa Giovanna had realized you were gone.

“Don…”

“The expression on your face can only mean one thing… when did they notice?”

“A few minutes ago, she couldn’t have gotten too gar given the timeframe… what would you like me to do?”

“You stay here and keep our guests company, I’ll handle this…” not even bothering to alert the driver, Giorno collected the keys from the valet and zoomed off. Making a short drive even shorter, he arrived home in foul mood, although he did assign some of the blame to himself, recognizing his fatal error when he ignored his gut feeling, he was disappointed at how easily you had managed to slip from his grasp and wondered if his staff had been plotting with you all along. He would have to address that later on though, his primary concern now was to locate you and bring you back home.

“Mista, I have a special request to make, please come to the villa, bring Fugo with you,” said Giorno in a quick call, there were few who he trusted more than his underbosses, and this task was something that required only the most competent people. After a short explanation of the situation at hand, both men had already started making calls to the relevant people in an attempt to thwart your plans.

You would think the most frightening thing about Giorno would be his god-like requiem ability. But over and above the raw power he possessed was his reach, the world seemed so small, as if it had rested comfortably in his elegant hands- and you had been getting reminders of this inescapable fate over and over again. By the time you had given up on the idea of escaping through any traditional means of transportation, you must have tried fifty different avenues, each attempt failing more spectacularly than the last. Having had enough, you resigned yourself to the fact that you would not be leaving Naples immediately, and found refuge in the outskirts of the city. You climbed the rickety staircase behind the lady as she prattled on about her day.

“Shall I get you something to eat dolcezza? You look like you could use something warm and comforting in your system. In fact, let me do just that, you get settled in so long,” said the innkeeper before you had a chance to interject. Deciding to take a shower to wash off the day, you took comfort in the fact that this place was so remote, you were almost certain you were safe for the meantime. The tiny bathroom was a far cry from the palatial one you had grown accustomed to while being in Giorno’s villa, but it served the same purpose, only this time, you had your freedom. The place was peaceful though aside from the sound of what must have been a car backfiring and the small creaks from the natural expansion and contraction of the dwelling, it was quiet enough for you to calm down and organize your thoughts. Now that you were comparatively more at ease than before, you felt the strain of the day in your body, aching muscles, sore feet and cuts and scrapes that began to smart affixed a slight grimace to your face as you rummaged through your belongings to find some sort of pain relief.

A sharp knock on the door disrupted your search. You stayed silent for a moment, contemplating if you should ignore it or answer.

“Dolcezza, I’ve brought you a small snack, you’re going to enjoy it,” you just wanted to crawl into bed and forget the day you had, but you also didn’t want to snub her kindness, you reached out to unlock and open the door.

“Buongiorno tesoro… enjoying your little excursion? Marina here was kind enough to show me to your room so I could surprise you… seems like it worked, look at this charming expression,” turning to the smiling woman, Giorno nodded for her to leave. Your heartbeat thundered in your ears, you wanted to cry, to run, to jump right out through the hazy window but your feet were rooted to the ground.

“Well (y/n) … you’ve been running around Naples for the entire day, have you found what you’re looking for?” his usual honeyed tone was laced with derision as he critically eyed your surroundings. “is this what you were so desperate to escape to? Look at this place… look at the condition you’re in… how is any of this better than everything I’ve given you?”

“I have my freedom here…” was all you could muster as your mind raced thinking of how he had still managed to find you despite all the precautions you had taken. “Giorno, how…”

“How did I find you? I always have my ways…” he said, sauntering over to the window, opening it just enough to make eye contact with whoever was outside, dismissing them with a nonchalant wave of his gloved hand. Pulling out his cellphone, he showed you the opened application, explaining that he had been using it to track your location, following the signal from the diamond earrings he gifted you on your birthday, carelessly left on when you had made your hasty escape. In all fairness, you hadn’t considered that the dainty gems were anything more than that. Feeling your legs starting to give out under you at the revelation that you were the cause of your own undoing, you sat on the bed hanging your head in defeat.

“Freedom, you say? Tell me how has that worked for you?”

“That’s not fair! You’ve basically controlled every single encounter I’ve had, and even when I thought I had escaped you by coming here, you still somehow managed to manipulate the situation…” you shouted, tears of frustration running feely down your face.

“Stop being dramatic, the world is full of horrible people, everyone is looking out for themselves, I wish you would realize that… tell me tesoro, how many people turned you away? Threw you out of their cars, made up excuses to deny your requests? Not one of those people looked into those pleading eyes and thought you were worth helping. Why? Because people are selfish…”

“You… you threatened them all, you…”

“You give me too much credit, it’s not like I was going to kill them, I hate violence, despite your disappointingly low opinion of me, even you have to admit that I’ve never done anything to physically harm you… all I want is to protect you, you don’t understand how things work out there,”

“It’s not like you’ve ever given me the opportunity to find out how things are… I”

“Some people are just meant to be loved and protected tesoro, isn’t that enough? Why would you want to risk being hurt to get a taste of something that’s actually not even worth it… you’re not cut out for this life… I’ve been here so I know this isn’t what you deserve. You’re coming back home with me,”

“But, I- “ you attempted to interject but his intense glare halted you.

“(y/n), I’m very patient under most circumstances, but please don’t test me now, I won’t say it twice…” said Giorno with a slight bite to his voice, it was clear he was growing tired of this conversation, and you were losing your will to fight back. With a quivering lip and misty eyes, you moved to gather your belongings but was stopped by the young don, arguing that he can replace whatever is there, wanting no other reminders of this transgression to follow you both back. Resigning yourself to this fate, realizing there was nowhere beyond his reach, you grasped his outstretched arm and followed him to the car to return to your life of opulent captivity. Months and months of planning all resulting in nothing, it became glaringly obvious to you that escaping was futile…

[barbasbodaciousbeard]

Accidental Feminist Icon

Between my own headcanon Barba becomes a very niche viral celebrity for being a mix of feminist icon giving one liners on the news and handsome/well dressed and the DJ Khaled post, this happened. 

“Counsellor, are you listening?” Olivia asked as Rafael Barba looked at his phone again. It had been months now since he started trying Manhattan SVU’s cases, and she hadn’t seen him this distracted before. 

“I just- why do I have rapid fire Twitter notifications? Over one hundred and fifty?”

“You have Twitter?” He rolled his eyes, not proud of the admission. But he liked to follow politics and music and satire. His colleagues would have discourse on legal proceedings and theory. But when he opened his notifications, the sea of professional headshots making up the icons in his notifications window were replaced by cartoon avatars and selfies. Handles like @Bradley_GreedADA were replaced with @feministkilljxy. 

What was happening?

Why were there GIFs of him now?

“Rafael?” He was snapped back to attention by Olivia’s hand passing over his phone screen, and he shook his head, holding the screen out to her. “What am I looking at?”

“Why have a couple hundred- are these all teenagers?”

“Are they following you? Or tagging you?”

“Both?” He scrolled through the mentions.

“Both.” A questioning look.

“Have I gone viral?” he asked herr, eyes wide and his tone disgusted. Twitter was where he posted law books, nice dinners out, homemade dinners in, and the nicer scotch he drank. Sometimes even pictures of himself; some of his friends enjoyed fashion as well, and their twitters all had a heavy thread of their suspenders and ties. Suddenly, he was having photos he’d posted to flaunt his ability to mix patterns retweeted in appreciation of something more than the color scheme.

“I think you have. What have you said now?”

“The girl whose tweet I keep getting tagged in mentioned Jocelyn Paley and the Adam Caine case.”

“That was seven months ago.”

“I’m very aware. I have to get to the office. I’ll get you that warrant.”

He continued to scroll as he walked, alarmed by the number of followers he was gaining and going to open a direct message from a friend to see a wall of messages from names he didn’t know. Once he was able to find Bradley’s message, he saw it was series of tweets with videos and GIFs of him on the courthouse steps. They were all from the same case, he assumed the Adam Caine case. He clicked the video of he and Rita Calhoun.

All I can say, today's Grand Jury indictment is the first step towards achieving justice for Jocelyn Paley. 

The DA's office is desperately trying to distract from their recent scandal with a high-profile case. 

Don't give me that--whether you're a john in the South Bronx or a $3-million-a-year talk show host, no means no. 

 He could remember the exchange now, and it had apparently been retweeted thousands of times. Cameras always made him determined to distract, determined to drive home a point. And now, he was seeing some group of teenagers had clung on to his words, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about becoming recognized enough by that demographic to warrant this rapidly increasing follower count. 

“Carmen, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Mr. Barba. Need coffee?”

“No,” he said plainly, shaking his head and showing her his feed. “Is this normal?”

“They found you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Haven’t you seen the posts?”

“I don’t branch out on Twitter often.”

“I see it mostly, like, on Instagram with captions and people post clips of you on vine.”

“What’s vine?”

“A six second video app. Teenagers and young women post you. Vine is normally comedy. But people are obsessed with you. Niche, but sizable number. I think it’s mostly New York girls who see you on the news. But that means the vines went viral a couple months ago.”

“So now they’re all following me on Twitter?”

“You’re viral for being attractive, dressing well, and prosecuting rapists. Embrace it.”

“I can’t post my clothes anymore.”

“Just continue like usual. Don’t respond to DMs.”

He spent a few weeks terrified of this new following, but after three days, things calmed down. The number of followers he gained was weird and confusing to him, and he decided to listen to Carmen ultimately, keeping the profile the same and pretending nothing had happened. She did stop him one day, showing him that there had been people making fake accounts, yet another thing that was insane to him. She primarily told him because these accounts were attempting to take advantage of the fact young girls were the ones following him. He awkwardly slid the handles to Olivia, and Carmen filled out an application for Twitter verification that left him mortified. Even worse, it was approved. 

He was swept away in a case soon enough. Lindsay was assaulted by a whole fraternity at Hudson. They uncovered a previous victim in a hospital, a fraternity known for being a rape factory, and a dean helping create a culture that buried these attacks. It was becoming higher profile than he expected, and it wasn’t easy to try. He’d had to shut off his notifications on his phone during these cases. When Lindsay committed suicide, he accompanied Rollins when she went to arrest the dean. What he didn’t expect was for two of the women they saw to approach him, asking if they were here about Lindsay and thanking them when he said he couldn’t mention it. Then they asked for a selfie. Rafael was mortified but obliged. 

“We recognize you from Twitter.”

Well, now he knew he needn’t accompany the squad out anymore.

When he got tweets from the kind of scum that supported the fraternity, it took a concerted effort not to respond. That could jeopardized the case. He’d already had to tell the two girls they couldn’t post about him being there. He tweeted a disclaimer for if people saw him out, feeling like an asshole. Twitter was now becoming a liability, but he could balance it and refused to give up the feed. Slowly, the GIFs and stills of him on the news were collected, and he only got embarrassed again when mami’s students had discovered him and realized he was the guy in their principal’s pictures. Now Mami had a Twitter, and she followed people who praised him joyfully, though he’d managed to convince her not to interact in private messages or respond to people insulting him. 

The Jenna Miller case caused another leap in his follower count, and he had developed a little sense of pride instead of embarrassment when his followers jumped from people who mattered in New York to people who mattered elsewhere. A congresswoman from Ohio. Artists. Activists. He’d texted Olivia when Lady Gaga followed him. Plus that woman from True Blood. God, she was beautiful. Plus the hot boybander that had probably made him realize he was bisexual. It was weird, and he was unwilling to publicly acknowledge any of it. Unless they were on twitter, he certainly didn’t tell anyone he knew other than Olivia. Soon enough, someone had made a t-shirt on Etsy of the moment he’d turned on his heel. The media had called after Jenna, the olympian, and he’d told them no questions. Then the had the gall to bring up her sex work. He’d stopped on the steps, turning on his heel and announcing “Except for that one. Paid or not paid, no means no. Consent can be revoked at any time.” And now, Etsy users were profiting on it. This group was niche, but it ran deep. Luckily, he noticed the shop only had a few dozen sales.

Everything was fine until Rafael Barba lost his ability to maintain his composure. Up until now, he’d monitored his name, mentions, and a few hashtags people used with him. It was usually just the GIFs and stills and soundbites. He participated in some banter after the first couple of years, boundaries firm enough he felt he could. But he still didn’t bicker. Carmen said he got a following for being a good guy, and he thought it was gross openly condemning rape seemed to be all it took to be a good guy. But then through his lurking, Rafael Barba saw a tweet about DJ Khaled. He’d had to google who the hell that was, unsure who all of Twitter was piling onto, but he found the tweet objectionable enough to respond.

“Mr. Barba,” Carmen said, eyes sparkling with amusement as she came in to see her boss still scrolling through his phone. “You really decided this is the time to get involved on Twitter? You only ever respond to what people say to your stuff or your friends.”

He should’ve known she’d be on top of it. He’d given her access when notifications went through the roof the second time, and Carmen helped filter through DMs he didn’t want to see. But now, that meant her phone was vibrating like his in response to his first tweet in response to a stranger or someone who wasn’t in a thread under his own post.

“What? I’m supposed to endorse consent but not enjoyment?”

“You’re going to end up in a Buzzfeed article, sir.”

“If this is my legacy, so be it.”

“Your legacy? Taking it seriously now?”

“This is serious.”

Carmen’s phone buzzed in her hand, and she knew he’d sent another tweet. Her own account got notifications so she could monitor him. She sighed heavily, unlocking the phone and looking at it. 

“Mr. Barba, does your mom know you’re bi?”

“No, why?”

“She follows you, idiot.”

“Shit. Well, I suppose it’s time.”

“If you tweet Smash Mouth, I’m quitting. These kids are already thirst tweeting you. They must have tweet notifications on for you.”

“Who’s Smash Mouth?”

“How the hell are you culturally relevant?”

“According to Liv, I’m a feminist icon.”

“Don’t get arrogant sir. I help run this twitter.”

“I’ll change the password. I do all the posting.”

“I won’t tell you if Evan Rachel Wood slides in your DMs.”

“Why would I care?”

“I know why you watched True Blood.”

“Touche.” He paused. “Do you think she will?”

“Give me the phone. I’ll bring it when Liv calls.”

“Why would she call?”

“She made a Twitter, sir. Followed you last week.”

“Shit,” he said, eyes wide. “I posted pictures of my food. She saw me acting like a Twitter guy.”

“You are a Twitter guy.”

He rolled his eyes, ending with a retweet of his new favorite addition to the conversation. 

@mia-liz @chasingeverybreakingwave @thegirlwiththemaleficient-tattoo​ @teachingpanda​

[pattyg1992]

Why Representation on the Screen Matters

In this day a age whenever a television series or movie becomes more conscious about including diversity, specifically when it comes to gender, race, and sexuality you get a lot of rolling of eyes. There are complaints about forced diversity, "woke" culture, an agenda pushed by the Hollywood liberals. That it sacrifices a good story for the sake of political correctness. Rarely do they stop to consider how that inclusion helps those who see themselves on screen or even more relevant, how it affects those who've never experienced a diverse population themselves, especially when they've been relatively "sheltered" by people who are familiar to them.

As a gay black guy I've had my fair share of benefiting from the recent representation on screen. I've seen an increase of Black men, even gay black men depicted on screen in a wide variety of genres and roles. Things that were less common even ten years ago. While the mental and emotional effects have helped me see myself and people like me in a more positive light I've also benefited finally being exposed to people who are not like me and have gained a greater appreciation for.

Fourteen years ago, the film Freedom Writers was released. Based on a true story and set in the outskirts of Los Angeles shortly after the L.A riots of 1992 it depicts a diverse group of freshmen high school teens dealing with gangs, violence, and urban crime. While many of them were a part of that life and apathetic about school, their English teacher Erin Gruwell, helps to spark their imagination and creativity. Eventually they began writing their own diaries about their lives, first published in a book and then made into the film Freedom Writers.

The film was significant because it humanized the Hispanic community for me. One of the star characters was Eva Benitez, a teenager forced to choose between school or the gang she was loyal to. Growing up as a minority I had my own prejudices against other minority groups, which is more common than most people in these groups would admit. Freedom Writers helped me to see other groups with more empathy and kindness. Years later I got into the Netflix series Orange is the New Black. While I never finished it some of my favorite characters were the Hispanic women in the prison, especially seeing their creativity when it came to prison cuisine.

A few weeks ago, courtesy of Netflix, I also got into an FX original series, Pose. Set in the late 80s and early 90s of New York City, the show is unique for depicting an exclusive cast of LGBT characters of Black and Hispanic descent, with a more specific focus on the Trans community. My opinions on the Trans community was neutral at best. I never had an issue with them and for the most part felt that they should have the right to live as they wanted. However, I never fully understood them, did minimal research, and often flip-flopped on my opinions regarding whether or not it made sense to identify as the opposite of whatever gender or sex they were assigned a birth.

In my life I only had one Trans person I personally knew. We were more acquaintance than friend but I never dared asked questions about their life or tried to understand them better. Not that they were even required to give me an explanation.

American Horror Story was the first time I really noticed Transgender people on the screen. At the time I had no idea until I did research on the actors that played a few of the characters. One of them turned out to be on Pose when I got into the series. Pose is urban, realistic, gritty, but it can also be heart-warming. Similar to Freedom Writers it exposed me to people living lives different to my own and giving human faces to a group of people I knew almost nothing about. It's only been a few weeks but I'm already on their third and final season which just finished this year.

I have a greater appreciation and understanding of the trans community, and their contribution to culture because of Pose. It would be difficult for anyone watching the series to have the same negative and ignorant opinions about them after experiencing the show for themselves. While the series tackled the prejudice from the Straight community it also highlighted the ignorance exhibited from the Gay and Bisexual community. Something I knew on some level already. I was shocked to discover those identifying as transgender or transsexual were often kicked out of Gay bars.

Representation matters more than just for the people that see themselves on the screen. It also humanizes and empathizes them to people unfamiliar with their lives while also serving to be informative. I've known plenty of people who choose to remain ignorant on how other people are. Choosing instead to focus on what little unreliable information they have from Fox News or the confirmation bias from researching whatever they already believe on a certain group of people. You rarely see them attempt to learn from the source or attempt to see the "Other" as people too.

It's amazing how much better off the world would be if people actually stopped and see the opposing side for what they really are: human beings. It's easy to wrap yourself in a culture of ignorance exposing yourself only to the humanity of those you understand rather than understanding the wide diversity of Human nature. Television and Film is a good way to start. I challenge everyone to try watching something, anything that challenges how you've originally viewed a group of people you've never understood. Whether it's a different race, gender, sexuality, political, or religious views, start somewhere. See how your viewpoint grows.

[whoistheasshole]

How do I get out of this unsatisfying life I’m living?

Anonymous asks: So the thing is that I feel incredibly stuck - I have all the basics of life which I'm grateful for but also that was my BIG dream as a kid, to get tf out of my parents' house - but now I have that and idk what to do for the rest of my life. Like, if I try those "visualize your future" things I'm just like, "I'd like to sleep for a month, maybe longer" & it feels like I don't really WANT anything so I can't plan, you know? Just flailing here honestly. Pretty tired of it.

I wrote back: I got your question. To pinpoint my answer a little better, can you tell me about your current situation, like how long has it been since you moved out? Which are the things you have in order to your satisfaction? Some vague idea of your age range would also be helpful, but I can work without it too if you’d rather not share.

Anonymous answered: Ah, sorry. I was trying to fit in the character limit & also whenever I think about this my mind just goes flbbbbth. It's been about 5 years? That's about the only thing I'm truly HAPPY about, I'm not thrilled with my social/love life, career, etc & have pretty much been just coasting tbh. I'm almost 30. Thanks for entertaining this.

Alright, thanks for adding some background. I will come at this from different angles and you can pretty much pick and choose what sounds helpful and leave the rest, okay?

First, while there are people who have it all figured out, methodically planning their next career step or fully certain that there is no greater joy than raising a child, there are tons of other people who just, to quote, go „ flbbbbth“ when asked about their next steps or, god forbid, their life plan. I would say I fall in the latter camp, but I don’t mind because I think there is nothing wrong with that. I let myself be guided by the things I need to be happy (more on that later) and by current necessities – if my job becomes shit, I need to find a new job. If a friendship goes sour, I need to end it respectfully. But I couldn’t tell you specific career or personal goals, except...

... let’s talk about the „later“ now.

I’m an organizer, maybe even a worrier, and therefore I like lists. And for that reason I made a list a while ago that I still have and expect to keep for a long time. It is a list of everything that I need to be satisfied with my life. It consists of 29 entries and has three of them checked, though several others could be counted as half-checked. I wrote down everything that came to mind, paying no attention whether it was reasonable or feasible to want. That wasn’t the question.

It covers stuff like a clean flat (not checked), restful sleep (not checked), friends that I see regularly (checked) or a job with purpose (not checked). This list is my guide. Well, generally my needs are my guide, but it can be hard to be aware of your needs sometimes, so I got this list. And if I wonder what I need or want to focus on, I can turn to it and choose one of the entries and see what I can do about it. I can also look over the list every few years and see if things have developed in the right direction. Little progress is no reason to chastise myself, but helpful information to see whether I need to re-direct my focus.

Please note that I wrote „satisfied“, not „happy“. Being happy is a passing emotional state. It is completely normal and okay not to be happy all the time. But quiet satisfaction with where you are or where you are going, that is pretty achievable. It certainly is a process, but an enjoyable one.

This list is not a race and it is not really a to-do list because most of the things I wrote down aren’t easy to accomplish with a single action. They take months and years and, for some items, I can only try and hope it works out some day (see anybody who ever purposely looked for a partner).

So maybe this kind of list could be an exercise for you. Maybe it provides you with some insight, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s not the right point in your life. But if you sit down and the only thing you can come up with is „cry forever“ or „sleep forever“ then, you know, that’s a sign.

Which brings me to my next point: Journaling or automatic writing. This method is especially helpful for those „I feel some kind of way and I couldn’t even tell you how“ moments – so maybe exactly where you are right now. Captain Akward has introduced me to a website called „750 words“ and I’ve used the principle of „morning pages“, though not the website, since then whenever I felt like some emotions were starting to boil over.

I sit down, ideally in the morning, and just barf it all on the (digital) page. There are only two rules: 1) Don’t edit or judge yourself, write everything as it comes to mind (that’s the automatic writing part) and 2) Don’t stop before you’ve reached 750 words. You are not looking to write anything readable or clever or lyrical, you’re looking to get all the weirdness out so you can move on. Repeat this as many days as you feel queasy or weird or confused or angry or sad. Each day, as soon as you’ve reached the 750 words, you can walk away. Heck, you could even delete/burn the document if that feels right. It’s just about giving your thoughts the room they need so you can continue with your day, hopefully feeling somewhat relieved.

While we’re at writing, I also have a question for you: Where is the pressure coming from to „do something with your life“? Is it truly coming from inside you or are there outside factors? Are people in your life asking you when you’ll have kids? Do you live in a culture where it’s expected that everybody does something of note, works certain prestigious jobs? Do you compare yourself to the people around you and feel like you’re „late“?

Maybe mull this over on a leisurely walk or write about it, using the method above. No matter where it’s coming from, the feeling of pressure won’t go away just by knowing its origin, but the knowledge can help you keep it under control. And if you find it is truly your own wish, you will have tools to shape your life according to your needs.

So, next, sleep: Maybe do that?

You wrote "I'd like to sleep for a month, maybe longer". I understand this was half a joke, but also … it was probably more than a joke.

How are your energy levels? How does life feel? Are you trying to jog through jello most of these days?

If we’ve been overachievers or had a tough home life or needed to take care of ourselves pretty early, we can become accustomed to everything being difficult. This feeling and behavior can become a way of life, even when circumstances change and we have a chance to act differently.

Do you feel rested? Do you have regular moments of quiet in your life that let you breathe? If not, this is where I would start. Forget about lists, though morning pages might be a helpful accompanying tool (if they don’t become a task to punish yourself with if you don’t find the energy).

Take some weeks or months, maybe even a year to make rest your priority. You will have to find a way that works for you. Yes there is a lot of clinically proven stuff out there, but you will not see me do yoga or meditate. Though feel free if that’s up your alley. If you love cycling or taking photos or drawing or just plain lying on your bed and staring at the wall, see where you can add more of that to your day. Whatever brings you closer to yourself and makes you feel like you can exhale and stand still for a moment, that’s the way to go. Do this as long as sleeping seems like a fine choice. And for good measure maybe a month longer. You are ready to stop when you cannot wait to do something else goddamnit I’m bored!!! (you might say)

If you are in this picture, please start here. Any kind of life plan, next steps, strategizing, solving of riddles would set you back and perpetuate your exhaustion. Rest is not time wasted, rest is how you get your life back.

If you are in this picture, you will likely find that if you really pull through, if you truly rest, as long and boring or even scary as it may be, the other questions will probably have an intuitive answer afterwards. Not like „this is my 20-year career plan“, but „I feel like doing x this week“. And that is enough. Because you won’t need to strain to hear your needs through the fog of exhaustion anymore.

Finally, some practical information and links for when you do have the energy and inclination to tackle your job and social life. I am not saying you need to change anything if that’s not what you want to focus on. These are just some tips, in case they become relevant.

For your social life, I recommend what others have recommended before me: Pick an activity that you do with other people and stick with it long enough to become a familiar face, see also here and here (yes, meeting gay people is similar to meeting other people). If you try out new stuff, go there at least 5 or 6 times before you decide it’s not for you – of course assuming nothing bad is coming up like racist or abusive people in the group. Shop around if the first group/activity doesn’t work for you until you find something that you’d like to do permanently. Maybe you’ll gain some friends, maybe you’ll find a romantic opportunity. In any case, if it’s something fun that you like to do anyway, you will have found an outlet with a social group attached. It is absolutely not as easy right now, with Covid and all, but if nothing outdoors-y comes to mind, you could also use this time to brainstorm what sounds like fun for when things are safer again.

Of course you can also look at opportunities online, like Discord servers, online interest groups etc but I do understand if that’s just not appealing right now. I am certainly over sitting in front of a screen.

To round this up, don’t sneeze at contacts that you already have. Are there acquaintances, friends of friends, colleagues, family members who you would like to get to know better? Then go do that! Suggest a time and place to meet up and see how they react. Say yes to the potential friends.

Speaking of which...

The Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes might also be interesting. Sure, it’s a little pop culture positive thinking kinda stuff, but I did like the impulse it gave me to consider when I say no to opportunities out of anxiety or worry. It made me accept some social invitations from colleagues (… in the before times) that I would not have otherwise considered. I did not gain life-long friends, but I did learn another valuable info: That my FOMO wasn’t justified for these events ;)

It also lead me to the decision to do one new thing every month – visit a new place or try a new activity or cook a new food. If the concept sounds appealing, just think about what sounds interesting and achievable to you.

And finally, the advice blog recommendations that I’ll always have. For social life, love life, and general life planning turmoil: Captain Awkward. For everything job-related, including how to write a good cover letter or interview well and, of course, how to get out of the dreaded current job you have: Ask A Manager.

To sum it up:

1) Figure out if you even have the energy to tackle any of this right now.

2) Figure out your pillars for a satisfying life – nothing big and shiny, just … basic needs, wishes, social needs.

3) When you feel like it, pick what you want to tackle next and see where it leads you.

4) Stay flexible. This is your life and it’s okay to go where it takes you, even if it doesn’t look „cool“ or „impressive“ from the outside. All you need is to make it your own.

And if you want to, let me know how it goes some time. :)

[border-spam]

Does troy really have a split jaw or is that fanon?

It's total fanon!

The design of the split lines across his cheekbones and chin coupled with the cheek clips and v shaped hinge outline next to his ears lead to a lot of people coming to that same outcome, that there is something up with his mouth from a prosthetic/mod standpoint.

So much of his design is never mentioned once or referenced in any way (hightech spinal rig with tattoos under it, neuro connector, mech arm that's much older and doesn't seem related to the spine and neuroport, implants on bicep, face mod etc) that like Tyreen's scars and possible lower body Siren markings, fandom took over when it came to coming up with logical explanations for 'em.

This actually touches ground with some Ao3 comments I wanted to share as they are all Leech Lord compliant, so I'll list them here alongside links to the fics they were related to (note warnings!)

You leave no avenue for characterization unexplored. Troy's facial prostheses finally receiving backstory is amazing

- Maw (Gore/Bodyhorror)

I LOVE the idea of it being not just decorative shit on his face, but my MO for any content I make is always based around asking why, over and over, and trying to make sense of what material I'm using in the first place. The modded mouth is a popular piece of fanon but you know... why? Why would he do that shit to himself. WHY would he want to be grotesque, why would he be chasing the reaction people would have to it when canonically he seems to really not be interested in fan attention the same way Tyreen is, what's the difference to him between being adored as his persona or being lusted after as a monster, etc. I just love deep-diving into the logic behind character and world building? It's what adds meat to the bone for me.

Big 'ol character and worldbuilding / lore responses list under the cut -

He could afford better robots but these ones UNDERSTAND Ty, don't you get it?

- Good night in (tooth rotting fluff)

Hey just because it's mangled and broken, and can't perform its intended function to a degree expected of it by everyone around it... and it's got rusty sharp bits it accidentally hurts you with sometimes... and it's cranky but it doesn't mean it... and sometimes it errors out in a way that's mildly disturbing in a way you can't place.. uh.. doesn't mean you should just GIVE UP ON IT you know? He can fix them :) They will be fine :) No one should just throw away something that's trying so hard just because it's damaged... haha... :')

It's so hard seeing how much they tear each other down when they're the only thing they have left. And what a poor self-image Tyreen has beyond all that glitter and bluster...

- Wolf in sheep's clothing

The twins function well enough as a unit till tensions rise, and I was trying to seed in The Leech's influence on them in earlier work like this too - towards anyone else Ty would become MORE aggressively confident, more assured in her complete and utter dominance of the situation, her flawlessness, but against Troy who see's her for what she is, it turns inwards and eats at her instead of lashing outwards. He switches from relatively submissive around her to almost surgical levels of dissection, he knows exactly how to go for the jugular with words, and doesn't hold back. She's The Leech's mouth but he's its eyes and it's only when they lose control emotionally enough for it to claw to the surface of their psyches that you get an idea of how much it really affects them individually. GB had an absolute goldmine on their hands here of cosmic/body horror and the concept of toxic family when all you have is each other, there's so much to work with, and I figure it's a factor in why some people still really enjoy messing around with Calypso content.

I like how you allow Troy to be a disabled character, how his congenital defects and prosthetics colour his outlook and appear in ways big and small in all these vignettes. It's easy, I think, to see him as largely untroubled by his health apart from when he needs a charge from Tyreen in the game, but you allow him to struggle with his weakness.

- Chronic (Drug use)

I'm really glad to hear that's coming through in the writing because it's something I noticed a lot too. Very often when Troy, or other characters canonically disabled / chronically unwell are written it's "told" and not "shown". Chronic pain, illness, it's not something that is just a little tickbox in a life or some descriptive terms added to a character synopsis, it's something you live and deal with. There are bad days. There are times it is a negative that has to be worked around or faced in ways that aren't pleasant. It doesn't make you lesser or weak to have times where illness does leave you unable to function to a level you want to, it's not a failure for you to be unable to perform tasks when a disability or flair up means it's not viable. I feel personally that by showing scenes like this where his health and body issues do have a very visceral and impossible to ignore the effect on his ability to function, and going through his mental processes of dealing with and managing them, it brings the character across as stronger than if he never seemed to be shown dealing with symptoms or weaknesses. People are more than their disabilities and conditions, those aren't just kinda taglines to add onto a character's description and then never address. I feel like doing that in a way undermines what people deal with who manage chronic illness, pain, and who have disabilities that affect their daily lives negatively. Appreciating the effort it takes to manage them is important.

What I really like about these is that you can really understand as a reader how their dynamic must have evolved. How even before Leda's death Tyreen would have felt demonized while Troy got the attention because of his condition, because he was less willful.

- Starlight, Moonbright

Ah man, absolutely - and that shit stayed with them. It wasn't his fault and he never wanted it, but of course their parents would have had their extremely ill child at the forefront of their thoughts, especially during weeks when he was.. bad. Tyreen by nature even without The Leech's influence is a little attention seeker, she'd be the life of any party and she BLOSSOMS if she's got the spotlight, but as a little kid who's got literally no one but her parents and her brother, and who all three of which can't give her nearly as much time as she deserved? That's rough. That's really unfair. That coupled with The Leech's warping effect on their egos as they grew up and the bitterness and resentment they harbored in different ways created a reverse dynamic. She'd never be out of the Galaxy's attention again, and he'd have no choice but to take his rightful place in her shadow.

I love how you illustrate both how much more, and yet how much less Troy is now. How the blameless child, full of potential, is inextricably linked to the brutal, larger-than-life avatar he fashions.

- DeLeon ( Graphic Violence / Gore / Hallucinations)

He's molded the monster he is now out of the bones of the man he should have been - there's no going back really. There's nothing left to go back to. He broke Troy DeLeon apart to build the persona that acts like an iron lung now, suffocating him breath by breath while forcing him to still take them. That life is over, he killed it before it had a chance, but the idea of it is still there in his subconscious. Somewhere in the absolute trainwreck of Troy's brain is the tiny, flickering belief that maaaaaybe one day this will all be over and he can shuck off the bracer and spines, peel off all the shit he's covered his skin with, and just go back to not being Calypso. DeLeon here isn't some aspect of his mental state or his sins haunting him - it's The Leech, spitting venom at a host it loathes in something that's not sound or comprehensible language. His subconscious has just translated it into something it can understand - his greatest regret.

On if Borderlands Humans originated on Earth -

There's a really tenuous link between BL verse and rEarth, but it's there and can't be ignored. The cultures, accents, terminologies, so many are Earth specific despite these people being spread across galaxies, so hell yes - Earth as an emergence point makes total sense. The next question then, is why is it never mentioned - and you can cover for that with a lot of things like say, tt was so long ago that it's not relevant to anything that would ever be discussed, or it could be a mass evacuation from a catastrophe there is little record of now. I like to go with something along those lines, that the first human Siren host emergence on earth just absolutely decimated the planet. Like, we were doing fine till this random woman somewhere in the ass-end of nowhere develops weird markings overnight, then goes apocalyptic. The first Leech maybe, not understanding her powers and having them rip across continents in a spread of crackling electric death that only left husked shells of plants and animals in its wake, or the first Firehawk who went nuclear and burned the sky, or the first Voidgrasp who lost control and began to collapse the planet's core - some extreme shit that had humans fleeing en masse with barely any preparation and HUGE swathes of history and knowledge left behind. That would cover so many social things surviving into the BL verse, cultures, accents, cooking, that shit comes with us regardless of what we were able to throw into escape ships. Like so much data would be stored on any tech and data arrays within the vessels people would use to leave a dying planet even in an insane rush, but that shit waters down over time - if you're farming barely edible plants on some planet that smells like farts, are you really gonna be that stressed about teaching your kids history from a lost planet when your current concerns are not being eaten by something with 19 legs and 4 buttholes? Don't think so.

On if the other Siren entities are as influential to their hosts as The Leech -

I touch on it a wee bit throughout LL, but the others are FAR more passive and meld more to their host's whims. The Firehawk Siren wouldn't.. like.. care? If the host was burning down a planet or fighting off an evil corporation? They are removed from any nonsense happening on this side, they might not even really be able to tell, it's like asking an amoeba or a collection of sentient atomic particles what its opinion is on Brexit. That's not really its priority. The Leech is so aggressive in its control of the twins and desperation to drive them towards an outcome it desires only cause it's split, broken, removed from the song, and completely lost. We're talking a caged, half-mad animal removed from its natural environment and left totally isolated from its own kind for millennia. It's in pain, it's confused, it wants to find its way back to the song and the others and where it belongs, but it's stopped by a barrier it can't comprehend ( the twins and being ripped between them), so in its impotent rage it feeds back that hatred onto them. It's not really sentient in the way we would describe functional intelligence, but it wants, and craves, and FEELS. And it feels very, very angry.

Big thanks to @undergoingcalibrations for talking through so much of this with me!

Asks are Open!

[ariainstars]

Thank You, Disney Lucasfilm… For Destroying My Dreams

Warning: longer post.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So… I watched The Rise of Skywalker on Disney+ a few weeks ago. Again.

Sigh.

I guess it has its good sides. But professional critics tend to dislike it and even the general audience doesn’t go crazy for it. I wonder why?

  The Fantasy

When his saga became a groundbreaking pop phenomenon in the 1970es, George Lucas reportedly said that he wanted to tell fairy tales again in world that no longer seemed to offer young people a chance to grow up with them. The fact that his saga was met with such unabashed, international enthusiasm proves that he was right: people long for fairy tales no matter how old they are and what culture they belong to.

“Young people today don’t have a fantasy life anymore, not the way we did… All they’ve got is Kojak and Dirty Harry. All the films they see are movies of disasters and insecurity and realistic violence.” (George Lucas)

I’ve been a Star Wars fan for more than thirty years. I love the Original Trilogy but honestly it did not make me dream much, perhaps because when I saw it the trilogy was already complete. The Prequel Trilogy also did not inspire my fantasy.

The Last Jedi accomplished something that no TV show, book or film had managed in years: it made me dream. The richness of colorful characters, multifaceted themes, unexpected developments, intriguing relationships was something I had not come across in a long time: it fascinated me. I felt like a giddy teenager reading up meta’s, writing my own and imagining all sorts of beautiful endings for the saga for almost two years.

So if there’s something The Rise of Skywalker can pride itself on for me, it’s that it crushed almost every dream I had about it. The few things I had figured out – Rey’s fall to the Dark, Ben Solo’s redemption, the connection between them - did not even make me happy because they were tainted by the flatness of the storytelling reducing the Force to a superpower again (like the general audience seems to believe it is), and its deliberate ignoring of almost all messages of The Last Jedi.

Many fans of the Original Trilogy also were disillusioned by the saga over the decades and ranted at the studios for “destroying their childhood”. Now we, the fans of the sequels and in particular of The Last Jedi, are in the same situation… but the thought doesn’t make the pill much easier to swallow. What grates on my nerves is the feeling that someone trampled on my just newly found dreams like a naughty child kicking a doll’s house apart. Why give us something to dream of in the first place, then? To a certain extent I can understand that many fans would angrily assume that Disney Lucasfilm made the Sequel Trilogy for the purpose of destroying their idea of the saga. The point is that they had their happy ending, while every dream the fans of the Sequel Trilogy may have had was shattered with this unexpectedly flat and hollow final note.

I know many fans who dislike the Prequel Trilogy heartily. I also prefer the Original Trilogy, but I find the prequels all right in their own way, also since I gave them some thought. However, it can’t be denied that they lack the magic spark which made the Original Trilogy so special. Which makes sense since they are not a fairy tale but ultimately a tragedy, but in my opinion it’s the one of the main reasons why the Prequel Trilogy never was quite so successful, or so beloved.

Same goes for Rogue One, Solo, or Clone Wars. They’re ok in their way, but not magical.

The sequel trilogy started quite satisfyingly with The Force Awakens, but for me, the actual bomb dropped with The Last Jedi. Reason? It was a magical story. It had the spark again that I had missed in the new Star Wars stories for decades! And it was packed full of beautiful messages and promises.

The Force is not a superpower belonging solely to the Jedi Anyone can be a hero. Even the greatest heroes can fail, but they will still be heroes. Hope is like the sun: if you only believe in it when you see it you’ll never make it through the night. Failure is the greatest teacher. It’s more important to save the light than to seem a hero. No one is never truly gone. War is only a machine. Dark Side and Light Side can be unbeatable if they are allies. Save what you love instead of destroying what you hate.

Naively, I assumed the trilogy would continue and end in that same magical way. And then came The Rise of Skywalker… which looks and feels like a Marvel superhero story at best and an over-long videogame at worst.

Chekov’s Gun

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

(Anton Chekov, 1860 - 1904)

If you show an important looking prop and don’t put it to use, it leaves the audience feeling baffled. There is a huge difference between a story’s setup, and the audience’s feeling of entitlement. E.g. many viewers expected Luke to jump right back into the fray in Episode VIII, because that’s what a hero does, isn’t it? The cavalry comes and saves the day. And instead, we met a disillusioned elderly hermit who is tired of the ways of the Jedi. But there was no actual reason for disappointment: in Episode VII it was very clearly said (through Han, his best friend) that Luke had gone into exile on purpose, feeling responsible for his failure in teaching a new generation of Jedi. It would have been more than stupid to show him as an all-powerful and all-knowing man who kills the bad guys. Sorry but who expected that was a victim to his own prejudice.

A promise left unfulfilled is a different story. The Last Jedi set up a lot of promises that didn’t come true in The Rise of Skywalker: Balance as announced by the Jedi temple mosaic, a new Jedi Order hinted at by Luke on Crait, a good ending for Ben and Rey set up by the hand-touching scene which was opposite to Anakin’s and Padmés wedding scene. Many fans were annoyed about the Canto Bight sequence. I liked it because it felt like the set-up for a lot of important stuff: partnership between Finn and Rose whom we see working together excellently, freedom for the enslaved children (one of whom is Force-sensitive), DJ and Rose expressing what makes wars in general foolish and beside the point. So if we, the fans of Episode VIII, now feel angry and let down, I daresay it’s not due to entitlement. We were announced magical outcomes and not just pew-pew.

The Star Wars saga never repeated itself but always developed and enlarged its themes, so it was to be expected that delving deeper, uncomfortable truths would come out: wars don’t start out of nowhere, and they don’t flare up and continue for decades for the same reason. In order to find Balance, the Jedi’s and the Skywalker family’s myths needed to be dismantled. Which is not necessarily bad as long it is explained how things came to this, and a better alternative is offered. The prequels explained the old political order and the beginnings of the Skywalker family, and announced that the next generation would do better. The sequels hardly explained anything about the 30 years that passed since our heroes won the battle against the Empire, and while The Last Jedi hinted at the future a lot, The Rise of Skywalker seemed to make a point of ignoring all of it.

  The Skywalker Family Is Obliterated. Why?

Luke was proven right that his nephew would mean the end of everything he loved. The lineage of the Chosen One is gone. His grandson had begun where Vader had ended - tormented, pale and with sad eyes - and he met the same fate. Luke, Han, Leia, all sacrificed themselves to bring Ben Solo back for nothing. Him being the reincarnation of the Chosen One and getting a new chance should have been meaningful for all of them; instead, he literally left the scepter to Rey who did nothing to deserve it: merely because she killed the Bad Guy does not mean she will do a better job than the family whose name and legacy she proudly takes over.

I do hope there was a good reason if the sequels did not tell “The New Adventures of Luke, Leia and Han” and instead showed us a broken family on the eve of its wipeout. It would have been much easier, and more fun for the audience, to bring the trio back again after a few years and pick up where they had left. Instead we had to watch their son, nephew and heir go his grandfather’s way - born with huge power, branded as Meant to Be Dangerous from the start, tried his best to be a Jedi although he wanted to be a pilot, never felt accepted, abandoned in the moment of his greatest need, went to his abuser because he was the only one to turn to, became a criminal, his own family (in Anakin’s case: Obi-Wan and Yoda) trained the person who was closest to him to kill him, sacrificed himself for this person and died. And in his case, it’s particularly frustrating because Kylo Ren wasn’t half as impressive a villain as Vader, and Ben Solo had a very limited time of heroism and personal fulfilment, contrarily to Anakin when he was young.

The impact of The Rise of Skywalker was traumatic for some viewers. I know of adolescents and adults, victims of family abandonment and abuse, who identified with Ben: they were told that you can never be more than the sum of your abuse and abandonment, and that they’re replaceable if they’re not “good”. Children identifying with Rey were told that their parents might sell them away for “protection”. Rey was not conflicted, she had a few doubts but overall, she was cool about everything she did, so she got everything on a silver platter; that’s why as a viewer, after a while you stopped caring for her. Her antagonist was doomed from birth because he dared to question the choices other people made for him. It seems that in the Star Wars universe, you can only “rise” if you’re either a criminal but cool because you’ve always got a bucket over your head (Vader / the Mandalorian) or are a saint-like figure (Luke / Rey).

One of Obi-Wan’s first actions in A New Hope is cutting off someone’s arm who was only annoying him; Han Solo, ditto. These were no acts of self-defense. The Mandalorian is an outlaw. Yet they are highly popular. Why? Because they always keep their cool, so anything they do seems justified. Young Anakin was hated, Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen attacked for his portrayal. For the same reason many fans feel that Luke is the least important of the original trio although basically the Original Trilogy is his story: it seems the general audience hates nothing more than emotionality in a guy. They want James Bond, Batman or Indiana Jones as the lead. Padmé loved Anakin because she always saw the good little boy he once was in him; his attempts at impressing her with his flirting or his masculinity failed. Kylo tried to impress Rey with his knowledge and power, but she fled from him - she wanted the gentle, emphatic young man who had listened to her when she felt alone. Good message. But both died miserably, and Ben didn’t even get anything but a kiss. Realizing that his “not being as strong as Darth Vader” might actually be a strength of its own would have meant much more.

The heroes of the Original Trilogy had their adventures together and their happy ending; the heroes of the Prequel Trilogy also had good times and accomplishments in their youth, before everything went awry. Rey, Finn and Poe feel like their friendship hardly got started; Rose was almost obliterated from the narrative; and Ben Solo seems to have had only one happy moment in his entire life. Of course it’s terrible that he committed patricide (even if it was under coercion), but Anakin / Vader himself had two happy endings in the Prequel Trilogy before he became the monster we know so well. Not to mention Clone Wars, where he has heroic moments unnumbered.

The Skywalker family is obliterated without Balance in the Force, and the young woman who inherited all doesn’t seem to have learned any lesson from all this. The Original Trilogy became a part of pop culture among other things because its ending was satisfying. We can hardly be expected to be satisfied with an ending where our heroes are all dead and the heir of their worst enemy takes over. What good was the happy ending of the Original Trilogy for if they didn’t learn enough from their misadventures to learn how to protect one single person - their son and nephew, their future?

For a long time, I also thought that the saga was about Good vs. Evil. Watching the prequels again, I came to the conclusion that it is rather about Love vs. War. And now, considering as a whole, I believe it to be essentially Jedi against Skywalker. The ending, as it is now, says that both fractions lost: they annihilated one another, leaving a third party in charge, who believes to be both but actually knows very little about them.

Star Wars and Morality

After 9 films and 42 years, it still is not possible to make the general audience accept that it is wrong to divide people between Good and Evil in the first place. The massive rejection of both prequels and sequels, which have moral grey zones galore, shows it.

It is also not possible without being accused of actual blasphemy in the same fandom, to say the plain truth that no Skywalker ever was a Jedi at heart. As their name says, they’re pilots. Luke was the last and strongest of all Jedi because he always was first and foremost himself. Anakin was crushed by the Jedi’s attempts to stifle his feelings. His grandson, too. A Force-sensitive person ought to have the choice whether they want to be a Jedi or not; they ought not to be taught to suppress their emotions and live only on duty, without really caring for other people; and they ought to grow up feeling in a safe and loving environment, not torn away from their families in infancy, indoctrinated and provided with a light sabre (a deadly weapon) while they’re still small. A Jedi order composed of child soldiers or know-it-all’s does not really help anybody.

The original Star Wars saga was about love and friendship; although many viewers did not want to understand that message. The prequels portrayed the Jedi as detached and arrogant and Anakin Skywalker sympathetically, a huge disappointment for who only accepts stories of the “lonesome cowboy” kind. The Last Jedi was so hated that The Rise of Skywalker backpedaled: sorry, of course you’re right, here you have your “hero who knows everything better and fixes everything for you on a silver platter”. The embarrassing antihero, who saves the girl who was the only person showing him some human compassion, can die miserably in the process and is not even mourned.

Honestly: I was doubtful whether it would be adequate to give Ben Solo a happy ending after the patricide. I guess letting him die was the easiest way out for the authors to escape censorship. (I even wrote this in a review on amazon about The Last Jedi, before I delved deeper into the saga’s themes.) The messages we got now are even worse.

Kylo Ren / Ben Solo

A parent can replace a child if they’re not the way they expect them to be. A victim of lifelong psychical and physical abuse can only find escape in death, whether he damns or redeems himself. An introspective, sensitive young man is a loser no matter how hard he tries either way. A whole family can sacrifice itself to save their heir, he dies anyway.

Rey

Self-righteousness is acceptable as long as you find a scapegoat for your own failings. Overconfidence justifies anything you do. You can’t carve your way as a female child of “nobodies”, you have to descend from someone male and powerful even if that someone is the devil incarnate. You are a “strong female” if you choose to be lonely; you need neither a partner nor friends.

In General

Star Wars is not about individual choices, loyalty, friendship and love, it is a classic Western story with a lonesome cowboy (in this case: cowgirl) at its centre. Satisfied? 

The father-son-relationship between Vader and Luke mirrors the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, saying that whoever we may want to kill is, in truth, our kin, which makes a clear separation in Good and Evil impossible. The “I am your father” scene is so infamous by now that even non-fans are aware of it; but this relationship between evil guy and good guy, as well as the plot turns where the villain saves the hero and that the hero discards his weapon are looked upon rather as weird narrative quirks instead of a moral. 

In  an action movie fan, things are simple: good guy vs. bad guy, the good guy (e.g. James Bond may be a murderer and a misogynist, but that’s ok because he’s cool about it) kills the bad guy, ka-boom, end of story. But Star Wars is a parable, an ambitious project told over decades of cinema, and a multilayered story with recurring themes.

A fairy tale ought to have a moral. The moral of both Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy was compassionate love - choose it and you can end a raging conflict, reject it and you will cause it. What was the moral of the Sequel Trilogy? You can be the offspring of the galaxy’s worst terror and display a similar attitude, but pose as a Jedi and kill unnecessarily, and it’s all right; descend from Darth Vader (who himself was a victim long before he became a culprit) and whether you try to become a Jedi trained by Luke Skywalker or a Sith trained by his worst enemy, you will end badly?

Both original and prequel trilogy often showed “good” people making bad choices and the “bad ones” making the right choices. To ensure lasting peace, no Force user ought to be believe that he must choose one side and then stick to it for the rest of his life: both sides need one another. The prequels took 3 films to convey this message, though not saying so openly. The Last Jedi said it out clearly - and the authors almost had their heads ripped off by affronted fans, resulting in The Rise of Skywalker’s fan service. It’s not like Luke, Han and Leia were less heroic in the Sequel Trilogy, on the contrary, they gave everything they had to their respective cause. They were not united, and they were more human than they had once been. Apparently, that’s an affront.

The Jedi are no perfect heroes and know-it-all’s and they never were, the facts are there for everyone to see. Padmé went alone and pregnant to get her husband out of Mustafar - and she almost succeeded - although she knew what he had done and that he was perfectly capable of it (he had told her of the Tusken village massacre himself) because she still saw the good little boy he had been in him; Obi-Wan left him amputated and burning in the lava, although he had raised Anakin like a small brother and the latter had repeatedly saved his life. But Padmé was not a Jedi, so I guess she still had some human decency. Neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda lifted a finger for the oppressed populations of the galaxy during the Empire, waiting instead for Anakin’s son to grow up so they could trick him into committing patricide. Neither Luke nor Leia did anything for their own son and nephew while he became the scourge of the galaxy, damning his soul by committing crime after crime. On Exegol, Rey heard the voices of all Jedi encouraging her to fight Palpatine to death. After that, they left her to die alone, and the alleged “bad guy”, who had already saved her soul from giving in to Palpatine’s lures, had to save her life by giving her his own. The Jedi merely know that “their side” has to win, no matter the cost for anyone’s life, sanity, integrity or happiness.

Excuse me, these are simple facts. How anyone can still believe that the Jedi were super-powerful heroes who always win or all-knowing wizards who are always right is beyond me. Luke, the last and strongest of them, like a bright flickering of light before the ultimate end, showed us that the best of men can fail. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. But it is wrong and utterly frustrating when all of the failure never leads to anything better. If Rey means to rebuild the Jedi order to something better than it was, there was no hint at that whatsoever.

  And What Now?

The Last Jedi hit theatres only 2 years before The Rise of Skywalker, and I can’t imagine that the responsible authors all have forgotten how to make competent work in the meantime; more so considering that Solo or The Mandalorian are solid work. Episode IX is thematically so painfully flat it seems like they wanted us to give up on the saga on purpose. The last instalment of a 42-year-old saga ought to have been the best and most meaningful. I had heard already decades ago that the saga was supposed to have 9 chapters, so I was not among who protested against the sequels thinking that they had been thought up to make what had come before invalid. I naively assumed a larger purpose. But Episode IX only seems to prove these critics perfectly right.

The last of the flesh and blood of the Chosen One is dead without having “finished what his grandfather started”?

Still no Balance in the Force?

And worst of all, Palpatine’s granddaughter taking over, having proven repeatedly that she is not suited for the task?

Sorry, this “ending” is absurd. I have read fanfiction that was better written and more interesting. And, most of all, less depressing. I was counting on a conclusion that showed that the Force has all colours and nuances, and that it’s not limited to the black-and-white view “we against them”. That’s the ending all of us fans would have deserved, instead of catering the daddy issues of the part of the audience who doesn’t want stories other than those of the “lonesome cowboy” kind. I myself grew up on Japanese anime, maybe that’s one of the reasons why I can’t stand guys like James Bond or Batman and why I think you don’t need “a great hero who fixes the situation” but that group spirit and communication are way more important.

It was absolutely unexpected that Disney, the production company whose trademark are happy endings and family stories, would end this beloved and successful saga after almost half a century on such a hollow note. Why tell first a beautiful fairy tale and then leave the audience on a hook for 35 years to continue first with a tragedy (which at least was expected) and then with another (unexpected one)? And this story is supposed to be for children? Like children would understand all of the subtext, and love sad, cautionary tales. Children, as well as the general audience, first of all want to be entertained! No one wants to watch the legendary Skywalker family be obliterated and a Palpatine take over. The sequels were no fun anymore; we’ve been left with another open ending and hardly an explanation about what happened in the 30 years in between. If you want to tell a cautionary tale, you should better warn the general audience beforehand.

The Original Trilogy is so good because it’s entertaining and offers room for thought for who wants to think about its deeper themes, and also leaves enough space for dreams. Same goes for the first two films of the Sequel Trilogy; but precisely the last, which should have wrapped up the saga, leaves us with a bitter aftertaste and dozens of questions marks. 

We as the audience believe that a story, despite the tragic things that happen, must go somewhere; we get invested into the characters, we root for them, we want to see them happy in the end. (The authors of series like Girls, How I Met Your Mother or Game of Thrones ought to be reminded of that, too.) I was in contact with children and teenagers saying that the Sequel Trilogy are “boring”; and many, children or adults, who were devastated by its concluson. There is a difference between wanting to tell a cautionary tale and playing the audience for fools. This trilogy could have become legendary like the Original Trilogy, had it fulfilled its promises instead of “keeping it low” with its last chapter. Who watches a family or fantasy story or a romantic / comedic sitcom wants to escape into another world, not to be hit over his head with a mirror to his own failings, and the ones of the society he’s living in. Messages are all right, but they ought not to go at the cost of the audience’s satisfaction about the about the people and narrative threads they have invested in for years.

This isn’t a family story: but children probably didn’t pester the studios with angry e-mails and twitter messages etc. They simply counted on a redemption arc and happy ending, and they were right, because they’re not as stupid as adults are. I have read and watched many a comment from fans who hate The Last Jedi. Many of these fans couldn’t even pinpoint what their rage was all about, they only proved to be stuck with the original trilogy and unwilling to widen their horizon. But at least their heroes had had their happy ending: The Rise of Skywalker obliterated the successes of all three generations of Skywalkers.

If the film studios wanted to tease us, they’ve excelled. If they expect the general audience to break their heads over the sequels’ metaphysics, they have not learned from the reactions to the prequels that most viewers take these films at face value. Not everybody is elbows-deep in the saga, or willing to research about it for months, and / or insightful enough to see the story’s connections. Which is why many viewers frown at the narrative and believe the Sequel Trilogy was just badly written. This trilogy could have become legendary like the Original Trilogy, had it fulfilled its promises instead of “keeping it low” with its last chapter. As it is now, the whole trilogy is hanging somewhere in the air, with neither a past nor a future to be tied in with.

The prequels already had the flaw of remaining too obscure: most fans are not aware that Anakin had unwillingly killed his wife during the terrible operation that turned him into Darth Vader, sucking her life out of her through the Force: most go by “she died of a broken heart”. So although one scene mirrors the other, it is not likely that most viewers will understand what Rey’s resurrection meant. And: Why did Darth Maul kill Qui-Gon Jinn? What did the Sith want revenge for? Who was behind Shmi’s abduction and torture? Who had placed the order for the production of the clones, and to what purpose? We can imagine or try to reconstruct the answers, but nothing is confirmed by the story itself.

The sequels remained even more in the dark, obfuscating what little explanation we got in The Rise of Skywalker with quick pacing and mind-numbing effects.

Kylo Ren had promised his grandfather that “he would finish what he started”: he did not. Whatever one can say of this last film, it did not bring Balance in the Force. What’s worse, the subject was not even breached. It was hinted at by the mosaic on the floor of the Prime Jedi Temple on Ahch-To, but although Luke and Rey were sitting on its border, they never seemed to see what was right under their noses. It remains inexplicable why it was there for everyone to see in the first place.

We might argue that Ben finished what his grandfather started by killing (or better, causing the death of) the last Jedi, who this one couldn’t kill because he was his own son; but leaving Rey in charge, he helped her finish what her grandfather had started. The irony could hardly be worse.

Episode IX looks like J.J. Abrams simply completed what they started with Episode VII, largely ignoring the next film as if it was always planned to do so. We, the angry and disappointed fans of The Last Jedi, may believe it was due to some of the general audience’s angry backlash, but honestly: the studios aren’t that dumb. They had to know that Episode VIII would be controversial and that many fans would hate it. The furious reactions were largely a disgrace, but no one can make me believe that they were totally unexpected. Nor can anyone convince me that The Rise of Skywalker was merely an answer to the small but very loud part of the audience who hated The Last Jedi: a company with the power and the returns of Disney Lucasfilm does not need to buckle down before some fan’s entitlement and narrowmindedness out of fear of losing money. And if they do, it was foolish to make Rey so perfect that she becomes almost odious, and to let the last of the Skywalker blood die a meaningless death. (Had he saved the Canto Bight children and left them with Rey, at least he would have died with honor; and she, the child left behind by her parents, would have had a task to dedicate herself to.)

The only reason I can find for this odd ending is that it’s meant to prepare the way for Rian Johnson’s new trilogy, which - hopefully - will finally be about Balance. We as the audience don’t know what’s going on behind the doors. Filmmaking is a business like any other, i.e. based on contracts; and I first heard that Rian Johnson had negotiated a trilogy of his own since before Episode VIII hit theatres. Maybe he kept all the rights of intellectual property to his own film, including that he would finish the threads he picked up and close the narrative circles he opened, and only he; and that his alleged working on “something completely different” is deliberately misleading.

Some viewers love the original trilogy, some love the prequels, some like both; but I hardly expect anyone to love the sequel trilogy as a whole. What with the first instalment “letting the past die, killing it if they had to”, the second hinting at a promising future and the third patched on at the very last like some sort of band-aid, it was not coherent. I heard the responsible team for Game of Thrones even dropped their work, producing a dissatisfying, quickly sewn together last season, for this new Star Wars project and thereby disappointing millions of GoT fans; I hope they are aware of the expectations they have loaded upon them. George Lucas’ original trilogy had its faults, but but though there was no social media yet in his time, at least he was still close enough to the audience to give them what they needed, if not necessarily wanted. (Some fans can’t accept that Luke and Leia are siblings to this day, even if honestly, it was the very best plot twist to finish their story in a satisfying way.)

I’m hoping for now that The Last Jedi was not some love bombing directed at the more sentimental viewers but a promise that will be fulfilled. “Wrapping up” a saga by keeping the flattest, least convincing chapter for last is bad form. Star Wars did not become a pop phenomenon by accident, but because the original story was convincing and satisfying. Endings like these will hardly make anyone remember a story fondly, on the contrary, the audience will move to another fandom to forget their disappointment.

On a side note, I like The Mandalorian, exactly for the reason that that is a magical story; not as much as the original trilogy, but at least a little. Of course, I’m glad it was produced. But it’s a small consolation prize after the mess that supposedly wrapped up the original saga after 9 films.

We’re Not Blind, You Know…

- Though Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) has Darth Vader’s stature, his facial features are practically opposite to Vader’s creepy mask. This should have foreshadowed that his life should have gone the other way, instead of more or less repeating itself. - As a villain Kylo was often unconvincing; by all logic he should have been a good father figure. (Besides, Star Wars films or series never work unless there is a strong father or father figure at their center.)

- Like Vader, Kylo Ren was redeemed, but not rehabilitated. Who knows who may find his broken mask somewhere now and, not knowing the truth, promise “I will finish what you started”. - The hand-touching scene on Ahch-To which was visually opposite to Anakin’s and Padmé’s should not have predicted another tragedy but a happy ending for them. - The Canto Bight sequence was announcing reckoning for the weapon industry and freedom for the enslaved children. It also showed how well Finn and Rose fit together. - Rey was a good girl before she started on her adventures. Like Anakin or Luke, she did not need to become a Jedi to be strong or generous or heroic. - Rey summons Palpatine after one year of training. Kylo practically begged for his grandfather’s assistance for years, to no avail. Her potential for darkness is obviously much stronger. - Dark Rey’s light sabre looked like a fork, Kylo’s like a cross. - The last time all Jedi and Sith were obliterated leaving only Luke in charge, things went awry. Now we have a Palpatine masquerading as a Skywalker and believing she’s a Jedi. Rey is a usurper and universally cheered after years of war, like her grandfather. - The broom boy of Canto Bight looked like he was sweeping a stage and announcing “Free the stage, it’s time for us, the children.”

Rey failed in all instances where Luke had proved himself (so much for feminism and her being a Mary Sue): - Luke had forgiven his father despite all the pain he had inflicted on him. She stabbed the „bad guy”, who had repeatedly protected and comforted her, to death. - Luke never asked Vader to help the Rebellion or to turn to the Light Side, he only wanted him back as his father. She assumed that you could make Ben Solo turn, give up the First Order and join the Resistance for her. She thought of her friends and of her own validation, not of him. - Luke had made peace by choosing peace. Rey fought until the bitter end. - Luke had thrown his weapon away before Palpatine. Rey picked up a second weapon. (And both of them weren’t even her own.) - Luke had mourned his dead father. Rey didn’t shed a tear for the man she is bonded to by the Force. - Luke went back to his friends to celebrate the new peace with them. Rey went back letting everyone celebrate her like the one who saved the galaxy on her own, she who were tempted to become the new evil ruler of the galaxy and had to rely on the alleged Bad Guy to save both her soul and her body. - Luke had embodied compassion when Palpatine was all about hatred. Where he chose love and faith in his father, she chose violence and fear. - Luke had briefly fallen prey to the Dark Side but it made him realize that he had no right to judge his father. Rey’s fall to the Dark Side did not make her wiser. - Rey has no change of mind on finding out that she’s Palpatine’s flesh and blood, nor after she has stabbed Kylo. Luke had to face himself on learning that he had almost become a patricide. Rey does not have to face herself: the revelation of her ancestry is cushioned by Luke’s and Leia’s support. Rey is and remains an uncompromising person who hardly learns from her faults.

This is cheating on the audience. And it's not due to feminism or Rey being some sort of “Mary Sue” the way many affronted fans claim. Kylo never was truly a villain, Rey is not a heroine, and this is not a happy ending. The Jedi, with their stuck-up conviction “only we must win”, have failed all over again. The Skywalker family was obliterated leaving their worst enemy in charge.  Rey is supposed to be a “modern” heroine which young girls can take as an example? No, thank you. Not after this last film has made of her. Padmé was a much better role model, combining intelligence with strength and goodness and also female grace. The world does not need entitled female brats.

Bonus: What Made The Rise of Skywalker a Farce

- The Force Awakens was an ok film and The Last Jedi (almost) a masterpiece. The Rise of Skywalker was a cartoon. No wonder a lot of the acting felt and looked wooden. - “I will earn your brother’s light sabre.” She’s holding his father’s sabre. - Kylo in The Last Jedi: “Let the past die. Kill it if, you have to.” Beginning with me? - Rey ends up on Tatooine. - The planet both Anakin and Luke ardently wanted to leave. - Luke had promised his nephew that he would be around for him. - Nope. - Rey had told Ben that she had seen his future. What future was that - “you will be a hero for ten minutes, get a kiss and then die? (And they didn’t even get a love theme.) - “The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead.” On a desert planet with a few ghosts. What of the ocean she used to dream about? - Ben and Rey were both introduced as two intensely lonely people searching for belonging. We learn they are a Force dyad, and then they are torn apart again. - Why was Ben named for Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first place, if they have absolutely nothing in common? - The Throne Room battle scene in The Last Jedi was clearly showing that when they are in balance, Light Side and Dark Side are unbeatable. Why did the so-called “Light Side” have to win again, in The Rise of Skywalker, instead of finding balance? - Luke’s scene on Ahch-To was so ridiculously opposite to his attitude in The Last Jedi that by now I believe he was a fantasy conjectured by her. (Like Ben’s vision of his father.) - Anakin’s voice among the other Jedi’s. - He was a renegade, for Force’s sake. - The kiss between two females. - More fan service, to appease those who pretended that not making Poe and Finn a couple was a sign of homophobia. - We see the Knights of Ren, but we learn absolutely nothing about them or Kylo’s connection with them. - Rose Tico’s invalidation. - A shame after what the actress had gone through because for the fans she was “not Star-Wars-y” (chubby and lively instead of wiry and spitfire). - Finn’s and Rose’s relationship. - Ignored without any explanation. - Finn may or may not be Force-sensitive. - If he is: did he abandon the First Order not due to his own free will but because of some higher willpower? Great. - General Hux was simply obliterated. - In The Force Awakens he was an excellent foil to Kylo Ren; no background story, no humanization for him. - Chewie’s and 3PO’s faked deaths. - Useless additional drama. - The Force Awakens was a bow before the classic trilogy. The Rise of Skywalker kicked its remainders to pieces. - The Prequel Trilogy ended with hope, the Original Trilogy with love. The Sequel Trilogy ends on a blank slate. - “We are what they grow beyond.” The characters of the Sequel Trilogy did not grow beyond the heroes of the Original Trilogy. - The Jedi did not learn from their mistakes and were obliterated. The Skywalker family understood the mistakes they had made too late. Now they’re gone, too.

  P.S. While I was watching The Rise of Skywalker my husband came in asked me since when I like Marvel movies. I said “That’s not a Marvel movie, it’s Star Wars.” I guess that says enough.

P.P.S. For the next trilogy, please at least let the movies hit theatres in May again instead of December. a) It’s tradition for Star Wars films, b) Whatever happens, at least you won’t ruin anyone’s Christmases. Thank you.

[ponyguru]

Tonight I watched all of He-Man: Revelations and most of Centaurworld (I watched the first three episodes like, a week ago?) and I have ... opinions. (And it’s 4:37am, might as well share them while they’re fresh!)

(Warning, this got very long and ranty, sorry for stretching out your dashboards if that’s even still a thing anymore?)

He-Man was entertaining, but it did feel like (as someone with like, less than a passing knowledge of the characters) someone’s super-angsty fanfiction more than like ... a continuing series. They killed off multiple well-known, beloved characters, to drive home the point of how SERIOUS and how HARDCORE this series is, and instead it felt like being a little kid in the 80s watching Optimus Prime get murdered to sell more toys. Like, WHY DID THEY DIE? Oh right, to show the viewer how SERIOUS the bad guys are! And to give the other characters things to angst over, to show you they’re no longer just shallow 80s muscle man stereotypes to sell toys! But then you gotta wonder, where will they go from here? Who’s even left to continue the storyline? Is it still He-Man if half the supporting cast is dead?

Like I said, I’m not a He-Man fan by trade, but aside from the pointless murder, it did seem like it delved into the backstories that a lot of people have probably wanted since the 80s, and it made some very interesting points. So, hey, maybe it’ll be beloved by its fans! And it was very entertaining, especially as someone who wasn’t a childhood fan so I didn’t have a lot of nostalgia that I had to watch die. It doesn’t end on a happy note, there’s definitely the ‘what if the villains WON’ theme going, so maybe my opinion will be less dour when the next part comes out. (I did like that it focused more on the female characters, which was a very unexpected change, and in that aspect I felt it was very well written; that could explain why I’ve heard other screechingly negative feedback elsewhere online, heh. He-Man fans probably don’t appreciate the heavy preference paid to Teela.)

Centaurworld was ... well, I watched the first episode with my mother, which was a Huge Fucking Mistake. I heard that it was a thrilling combination of something akin to Adventure Time and a more serious cartoon like Avatar, and instead I got 10 minutes of that, and then 16 minutes of continuous ass, fart, and poop jokes, combined with a couple of great tunes and a lot of tuneless recitative style “songs”.

If you follow this blog, you probably know toys; you know the Poopsie Surprise toys? The ones which were so obsessed with uncomfortably sexualized poop/fart/barf references that entire scholarly articles were written about the sexualization of children with scatology-themed toys? Yeah, that’s what Centaurworld felt like, almost the whole time. Like just ... an uncomfortable amount of poop/butt/fart “jokes”, to the point where it felt like it had to be one of the writer’s fetishes. Like, it was clearly not funny, and the main character is clearly uncomfortable with it ... and it just keeps going.

I say jokes in scare quotes because jokes are supposed to be funny, and a lot of Centaurworld just wasn’t funny. You could tell it was meant to have jokes, but it was very much dated early-2000s type humor, I want to guess? The kind where it’s not so much ‘setup-punchline’ but the more ‘awkward reference awkward reference awkward reference drawn out wooooord’ type of “jokes”. And most of those “jokes” were just - you guessed it - drawn out references to butts, or farts, or some combination of the two. I felt like an aged boomer watching it. I like to think I’m hip and with the times, but it felt like it should be aimed at a middle schooler - but like, an oversexualized middle schooler? It was uncomfortable to say the least. (One character talks to his farts, claims they talk back to him, and he addresses them as ‘Daddy,’ while another character expresses how uncomfortable that is, and implies he has “issues” to unpack. Because that’s hilarious, I guess?)

Centaurworld did, beneath the heavy layer of scatology, have an intriguing storyline. A warhorse from a LOTR-style world is thrown into a wacky Adventure Time-type land made up of silly centaurs, and has to try and find her way back home. It was thrilling at times, if you could slog through everything else that beleaguered it. There were some really good jokes! But I couldn’t quite muster up a laugh, because I was still wondering when the next butt reference would sneak in. After ten terrible jokes, the one good joke couldn’t manage to lift me from the depth of despair I’d sunken into. It really only felt like the show got ‘tolerable’ around episode 7 (out of ten!!!!), which was an episode heavily focused on cats. (Which, again; wasn’t the internet very much about LOLCats in the early 2000s?)

If six episodes of a ten-episode series is nigh-intolerable, is it a successful show? Should you bother watching something that is 60%+ garbage? (And DON’T FUCKING WORRY, the poop/butt/fart jokes continued UNTIL THE FUCKING FINAL EPISODE.)

I suspect that, if there was a “goal” for all of the fetish stuff (beyond fetish stuff for fetish sake), it would be to illustrate to the viewer how uncomfortable the main character feels in this strange new land, and for us to share in her discomfort. Which, fine, sure! Secondhand embarrassment is definitely a trope. But the sheer uncomfortable volume of the poop/butt/fart jokes clearly went way beyond mere discomfort, and veered into ‘why is this coming up so much, is someone getting off on this?’ territory, at least for me. A couple butt jokes an episode, fine, okay. Entire five minute bits devoted to farts and butts? Entire songs about butts? I start questioning why it’s such a beloved subject for you to write about.

Plus, and I may be reading into this too much, but several of the only Black-coded characters felt racist. I’m talking neck-snapping, tribal body paint type racism, although only one got the exaggerated “soul” type music to sing, which I guess is a relative win? (Waterbaby and Judge Jacket, if you’re wondering who I’m referencing. One of them is a literal hippo centaur, giving us shades of Madagascar.) It wasn’t obvious, but combined with everything else, it felt ... bad. (There are multiple other nonwhite voice actors who aren’t stereotypes, so maybe it was just a bad case of ‘trying to represent different culture while being clueless white people’, who knows?) There was also some classic fatphobia, with one of the villains being shown as a fat neckbeard collector/nerd. Wasn’t that relevant in - wait for it - the early 2000s? They redeem themselves very slightly by having maybe two other characters who are visibly fat, but one of them is also viewed as an antagonist.

Anyway, I was disappointed enough with the show to feel like I should say something, so - there it is. Centaurworld did have some good moments, some lovely songs, and there was some really heartwarming and tender character development that I liked, sandwiched between huge swaths of discomfort. There might be a season 2 (there shouldn’t be, LOL) and hell, I will probably suffer through it because I want to see what happens to them. But I can’t recommend that anyone else do the same, in all good conscience. It’s not good. It’s just not. But if you have 5 hours to kill, there’s worse stuff out there?

If you want to watch one episode to see the best of the series, I recommend episode seven, “Johnny Teatime's Be Best Competition: A Quest for the Sash.” It’s themed after the CATS musical, and the extended number at the end gave me shades of MLP or Fashion Star Fillies. (I found an official clip of the song posted here.) There’s also other lovely songs in the series, but you’d have to suffer through entire bad episodes to see them. The lovely “You’re Okay” shows up in the very first episode, so if you’re curious give that a watch... just be aware it never gets better, only worse.

This series genuinely upset me, because I wanted it to be something much better, and there were glimpses of it; you just had to try and close your eyes to the obsession with butts and farting to see pieces of what it might have been.

One notable fact that I thought was kind of like ‘wow, oof’ was that Meghan McCarthy, of MLP:FiM fame, was a story editor for Centaurworld. And considering how MLP went downhill in later seasons, I gotta say I’m wondering if there’s a commonality there. Maybe her fetish is bad writing? There’s worse fetishes to have, AS CENTAURWORLD CLEARLY DEMONSTRATES.