#those videos make a point of you apparently not needing the nuanced understanding of your abuser so ppl naturally dont look up the sad or

[snekdood]

"Narcissistic abuse" vs NPD

Hey guys, i feel like I need to talk about something, if only because i was one of those ppl who ended up watching a lot of videos about "narcissistic abuse" which demonized tf out of ppl with NPD so now i feel a moral obligation to do something, whatever that may be. So I guess this is one of my attempts to do something.

Because im someone who ended up watching a lot of those videos, it really forged my perceptions of people with NPD, but i think theres an important distinction here to be made. I do personally feel like narcissistic abuse exists, but i dont think it exists *only* within the realm of people with npd as a lot of these videos and articles suggest. I think just about anyone can engage in narcissistic abuse because the point is the abuse is incredibly selfish and self centered on part of the abuser. I dont think it has to be connected with people with NPD and the only connection is made with the similar names, so maybe we need to come up with a new term for it, because ive personally found a lot of value out of those videos, it helped explain to me what was going on, the way people abused me, the way their mind worked, what they were likely to do, etc. And has pretty much been on the nose. I dont think multiple videos like this would exist if there wasnt a common experience. I just dont think its something people with npd exclusively do like a lot of these videos suggest. Im like 90% sure one of my bullies abused me this way, would do anything to maintain their social standing and keep me on the bottom, but i do not believe that person has npd and it wouldnt be fair for me to diagnose that person anyways because i barely know anything about that person personally.

Part of the reason these videos kinda revealed to me its not just an npd thing is the fact that they kept having to come up with new, scarier words for ppl with npd. Like "the dark triad" or whatever because the realization that their trauma is the reason they act the way they do makes the victim upset and not want to have to sympathize, which is understandable, but its not healthy and it means they have to make it sound like its something more extreme to have a justification for essentially wanting that person to be kicked off the planet, which i can understand why an abuse victim might feel that way, i just dont think its helpful to shunt all the responsibility on to ppl with npd and obviously that abuse victim needs to be more practical, empathetic and realistic because you cant control other people and you're likely to not actually do anything to your abuser to get revenge, so sitting here seething in your contempt does nothing but hurt you long term while your abuser has essentially forgotten you exist. But i digress.

The biggest issue with these videos is the name of the abuse and the association with ppl with npd, because theres many reasons why people would want to keep their social position outside of an extremely insecure sense of self or whatever tf. The other issue with these videos is the huge demonization and misunderstanding about people with npd. The idea that theyre all abusive, that they cant change, that they hold every Bad diagnostic criteria and it makes them *evil* or whatever tf. The way people talk about ppl with npd in those videos is pretty horrendous actually. It gets to a point where you wonder if the person posting the video wants to essentially genocide ppl with npd, which i think is kinda fuckin crazy ngl, i dont think thats a solution nor do i think all ppl with npd are such a huge problem that we need to get rid of them or exile them from society or whatever tf. Ppl with npd more than anything need therapy of some sort, and these videos 100% can talk about this form of abuse without throwing ppl with npd under the bus every 5 seconds.

I know people dismiss this as just "any kind of abuse" but i really dont think it is, its a really specific, insidious type of abuse where someone will do anything to maintain their position, they will toss away all their morals bc maintaining that position is the most important thing to them. They are people who are very driven by their ego, and anyone can be driven by their ego, so no, its not just an npd thing. Theres other forms of abuse that arent driven by a need to maintain their social position, so also no, its not all the same and i dont think it should all be labeled as general abuse, because the trauma this can cause is notable and having a space to talk with people who've had similar experiences is really important and helpful. We just gotta stop demonizing ppl with npd since its very much not their sole issue, nor would i say its a guarantee ppl with npd will treat you that way, and its pretty toxic to assume that, especially since ppl without npd routinely engage in this form of abuse. I dont believe theres truly any justification for ostracizing and wanting to essentially kill off an entire group of people and ppl should stop trying to find excuses to do so.

Anyways, thing i wanted to say and have been thinking about for a while has been said, you may proceed with whatever judgements you seemingly endlessly have about me.

[another-cliche-title]

someone who based their entire view of world history on hetalia is better off than anyone who based their entire view of world history on paradox games

because if you've seen those guys...

ok apparently people are in actual-assed history classes after playing eu4 lol: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/history-video-games-europa-universalis/622892/

"Analyzing video games is particularly difficult for two reasons. First, their influence is hard to track: Teachers may not even notice that the student asking why the Ottomans didn’t colonize America or what happened to Burgundy may have a view of history that was molded by Paradox games."

OH MY fucking god is this real. imagine this was hetalia fan girls.

(ok if ur wondering i've watched hetalia and played paradox games before.)

“The student in your class that knows what Prussia is is the student that played Europa Universalis IV,” Devereaux said.

um yeah what about this guy:

the analysis of europa universialis in this article is pretty good & it's kind of scaring me how it is literally seeping into people's worldviews.

Want to play as a non-European and still succeed? You had better be willing to kill, conquer, and colonize—in other words, do what the Europeans did. Europa Universalis,like most Paradox games, rewards playing in a ruthless, expansionist way.

Europa Universalis encourages the player to act according to an extreme realist view of international relations, where the security of the state is valued above all and the ultimate way to ensure the state’s security is by maximizing its power in an anarchic world order. Few non-state actors exist in Europa Universalis, and the player’s actions have no real human consequences. It’s difficult to come away from a completed game without the sense that the rise of the centralized nation-state in Europe was due to the cold, hard logic of state security and power politics. This state-centric view of history is shared by most Paradox games, and leaves a definite historical impression that states, rather than people, ideas, or societies, are the sole drivers of history.

a really stupid ass worldview of state-driven history becoming really common among nerdboys on the internet who play europa universialis will have Some consequences down the line i think:

Jonas Srouji, a Europa Universalis player who works in the Danish embassy in Turkey, told me that he had to do a lot of “unlearning” after playing Paradox games. He found that the game’s state-centric and linear view of historical development wasn’t of much use in his professional life, which requires understanding the many nuances of Turkish history and culture. The games are a good starting point for learning about history, but given their current limitations, their history “needs to be supported by other sources,” he added.

honestly i've noticed online that this weird specific state-centric history model is really popular, especially among young guys who become Interest in History. not in like the social aspect like "Wow Damn Neoliberalism Changed Society!!" but like guys who are civil war buffs but only know about obscure battles and not "why tf did this thing happen and why do we care". a lot of it is a fascination with warfare.

a example is the youtube "mapping" subculture. they make timelapse videos of border changes of some alternate reality.

here's an example channel called AdizzPro & most of these are pretty much about war. turns out if you represent history as a map, everything boils down to war.

watch one of these videos and you'll see a pattern:

countries are given personalities and they literally talk to each other. lots of times they basically exclude any mention of a leader

lots of these videos use countryballs

i could say something deep about how this like, reflects on how we see countries on the world stage as these consciously acting actors instead of systems with zillions of people in them BUT no i'm gonna say THIS IS BASICALLY HETALIA!!!!!! countryballs is basically hetalia but for non-weebs

again war is the main focus especially since all we see is a map. sometimes cities are marked but nobody cares about anything that isn't a country or international alliance

we only see "invasions" happen once at a time, because of animation limitations but also because it's way more convenient.

views of wars in these videos are pretty outdated compared to the messy guerilla wars of today. you can interpret this as some sort of nostalgia for how war used to work. there's no such thing as "america playing with guns in afghanistan for 20 years and failing". countries borders move effortlessly and then IT IS FINISHED

a LOT of future scenarios, each a little tiny statement on how people view world politics.

and a lot of these are really inaccurate and idk if the creators know that. one example is BRICS being shown as a military alliance.

there's some crossover with map-based strategy game players (paradox games)

some channels make mapping videos of irl conflicts, like russia's war on ukraine.

a lot of alternate history fandom (idk what to call it) is like this too. people who are into alternate history are mostly interest in WOAAHH WHAT IF NAZIS.... had LASER GUNS!!!!

and my lame ass thinks it would be cooler to inspect history with something like "What If The Implications of the Floobert-Bloobert Economics and the Great Recession Were UnFloobertized, From The Perspective Of The Daily Life of First Generation Immigrants".

ok yeah it's kind of lame but alternate history would be a cool way to see how Shit Happens. like idk, analyzing how colonialism impacts culture and shit.

like if spain colonized japan i'm interested in weird little things like how "Just According to Keikaku" is now "Just According to Queicacu" in the same way how many languages in spanish-colonized regions adopted spanish spelling and some later getting rid of it all in a desire to decolonize their language

also the cuisine!!! the Indigenization of filipino tamales...

most alternate history though is focused on state actors. and obviously there's a lot of maps:

like here's one example. notice how the big phat red nation is basically filler lol. this is actually a pretty good map because most i've seen make africa 100% filler.

in conclusion i just wanted to make Observations about things that are on my mind. i kind of dont have a point and this grew out of a joke about hetalia but most of my main observations are:

state-centric views of history are like The Fuckin Plague. i kind of blame maps xd, but the emphasis on maps isn't the central issue, it's the state-centric view itself. it grows out of just honesty oversimplification but also views of history that are just plain kind of nationalistic (esp. if they're talking about europe).

i wish more people looked at history as more than "They SHOt people with Cool Guns that's so Cool" like ok i can deal with that but i think we have to deal with the uncomfortable uncool things. like ok you like the Nazi Aesthetic which is kind of questionable, hey did you know that the fucking holocaust happened. the holocaust isnt even in hearts of iron

idk i wanna make a alternate history but with less focus on war and more on social shit. also with linguistics because i like linguistics

[kkyujikoo]

These are my... 2...? Maybe 50, cents about the whole "freejk" thing. I'm gonna be extremely petty and at some points a whole lot sarcastic and it's gonna be long but I had to say it. As soon as I get my computer I'm gonna make it under read more, but the app does whatever it wants, as we know.

Listen, this ain't my first fan rodeo, and not even the first fan rodeo where I've been directly or indirectly accused of being some sort of pervert or delulu. I've been in fandom spaces since I was a teen, I was shipping mlm couples when queerbaiting in TV shows was still something that was seen as the norm rather than some cheap disgusting trick. I was there when fanfic spaces saw "slash" fics as something "different" and to be tagged with a more mature rating even when they just looked at each other.

I was in BBC's Sherlock's fandom and I shipped Johnlock during the hiatus between S3 and S4, at this point I'm not even feeling it when people call me delulu or a weirdo.

So, yeah, take this with a grain of salt: as a person who has seen thousands of times fandom drama unfolding and has lived too much of it... This whole situation is so ridiculous it makes me laugh. Like, yeah, it's maddening how people will blame anyone and everyone because they don't even see their own bias and homophobia, granted, but like... It also makes me laugh for the sheer dumbassery of the reasoning behind it all?

Like... Y'all are getting mad and for what? Because it sure as hell isn't the invasion of privacy, since y'all are watching the same content we're all watching and you're paying to see it the same way everyone else is. If you don't want to "invade their privacy", you should just... Stop watching content that isn't their music videos, RUN episodes or interviews. Memories and any kind of dvd/video that shows what they're doing behind the scenes shouldn't be part of their job as musicians, and therefore we're intruding in their privacy... Or aren't we?

Or maybe it's more nuanced than that: maybe the content they release on dvd/on their official channels is part of their job as entertainers, and it's been approved, and it's a small window THEY are granting us.

You know what's the REAL invasion of privacy and what REALLY invalidates someone autonomy? When you, who maybe aren't even paying to see that content (which is something I understand, like, dude, I'm not covered in money either), DEMAND what kind of behind the scenes content you want when I swear ABSOLUTELY NO ONE has asked you. Once again: you don't like it? You think it's some huge invasion of privacy? Don't buy it. Don't interact with it. Convince your friends to do the same. For all I care, just go and petition to boycott this kind of content. I know you won't do it, because... That's the thing, isn't it? It's not the invasion of privacy that bothers these people.

Y'all aren't mad because we get into their business or else you would have gotten real mad when we were privy to REAL private moments like people crying their hearts out.

No, no. Y'all are mad because it's "shipping content" and "fanservice" which apparently bothers you because it lacks authenticity.

Pick a side, lovelies: either you DON'T want to invade their privacy, and thus all the content they release should be focused on what fans want to see, or you WANT to know how they interact TRULY in private.

And here's the catch: "shipping content" can be anything. Shipping existed WAAAAAYYY before the word for it was invented, same way with fanfictions. Shipping means, literally, "seeing two (or more) people interact and thinking they would make a good romantic pair". That's it. That's quite literally it. Everything else is just some nuance of the concept of shipping, but at its core, it's nearly impossible to ban all shipping content when it's a group of seven people, because they should for real go in social distancing mode to do so. Most people who have parasocial relationships tend to have "ships" whether they know it or not, because we've all, at least once, looked at a dynamic from the outside and thought "oh man they look cute together". So, even if, o dear ones, your wishes were granted... What the hell do you mean by "shipping" content? Should they just film solo clips, avoiding talking about the other members? But wouldn't that be fanservice, since it's focused on pleasing the fans? (Which, ultimately, is what fanservice MEANS, and I hate to break it to y'all but the whole concept behind entertainment and thus all the content BTS releases it's... For the fans. Like, they're not going out of their way to just meet our expectations but they're certainly doing fanservice by the mere act of releasing bonus content.)

But it's not even quite that, is it? Because no one bats an eye if it's Tae kissing Nj's cheek. I've seen no hashtag against everyone - and I mean literally every one of them - wolf whistling at Nj. It's okay to show intimacy... Because they're bandmates and it's okay to be close to someone who you see basically 24/7, I hear you. And it's also okay when people see that and gush over that closeness, because it's such a nice thing to see.

Soooooo... We've got to free JK from whom exactly? From what?

Are y'all mad cause people pointed out there's very little way a bruise that stayed for a whole ass night could be a quick bite? Because that doesn't harm jk, at most makes fun of him and jimin and their poor excuses (seriously, guys, next time consider using mosquitoes or "I was doing stuff". It'll be equally embarrassing but at least the meme will be funny), and it's literally... A fair observation. Like. It's a hickey, people are gonna make jokes about seeing a hickey and poor excuses of covering it up in the exact same way they're gonna make jokes over jimin falling out of chairs. And yeah, a hickey is AT LEAST something that happens in a sensual context. Like, I could understand "people who are extremely familiar with each other will have different body language/touch in areas where usually you wouldn't see friends touching each other", but that's not. Not a hand on the thigh. It's a hickey on the neck. I don't even know a more stereotypical placing for a hickey. But once again, are y'all mad because someone is pointing it out? Because that's not being delulu or even being a shipper, really, it's just commenting on something that was approved to be shown and discussed in something that was released BY THEM.

Are y'all mad at hybe for showing something that literally fell onto their hands? Cause like, unless someone (I'm counting on Jimin, since as we know Jungkook was busy spinning him round and round and had both his hands busy) called at hybe headquarters to say "yo bang pd substitute, is it okay if I give my friend jk here a hickey? Cause he's being really annoying rn and he has to pay", I highly doubt anyone expected Jungkook to come to rehearsal all neatly marked up. Or idk, maybe someone at hybe asked them "we need Jungkook to come in with a hickey but refuse to say it's a hickey, so that fans will feel reeeeally served." That sounds perfectly plausible too. Or a good marketing strategy.

Now, if you're a big company and your objective is to have some footage of the rehearsals for a concert, and the fandom is too good at noticing stuff for their own good, and one of your artists comes in with a very visible mark, and he and his bff bropal4lyfe come n with a story about how they were playing and a bite happened, you've got three choices: 1. Cut the artist out of aaaaalll the footage. Someone would have noticed the "bite mark" anyway, you best believe that. If you don't want anyone to notice it, you gotta cut him in most of the footage where it's visible. 2. Keep the hickey, discard the explanations. You could do that, but also it would feel a lot more unfaithful to everyone involved. Also they clearly worked their ass off to invent an explanation, come on! They truly tried to do their best inventing something that was not "it's a mosquito bite", they should get some credit! 3. Keep the bite, keep the explanation.

Notice how none of these solutions include the biting never happening because... They couldn't prevent it? The only thing they have any control over is how they're framing each "accident". And that's not an easy job.

I applaud you, people on the editing team.

So... On whom should we cast the blame now? Ah, yes, I think it's finally time for the ultimate scapegoat of this fandom: Jimin. Which is funny, cause... You know... If this were really about privacy, or being "victims" of shipping... This should be about freeing him too, you know? But obviously Jimin does it for attention, while Jungkook, poor angel that he is, doesn't even know what shipping is.

Furthermore, don't we all know how much Jimin imposes himself in Jungkook's life? To the point where he, multimillionaire man feels compelled to share a car with Jimin even if they're both late in the process. And can't you see how uncomfortable he is, draping himself over Jimin, making Jimin drap himself over him?

Oh lordy, truly such an awful eight years Jungkook spent, choosing to have vacations with someone who made him uncomfortable, spending free time with him, even having to suck his ear in public to the point you can see his saliva just because Jimin was sad :( truly an all-around bad time for Jungkook, as evidenced by alllll those times when he said Jimin was pretty, cute, and all-around knowing every little thing about Jimin. I absolutely concur, the dude would be so much more happy if jimin was not in his life.

Did that sound weird and absolutely ridiculous and a really absurd joke? Because that's what y'all sound like to me. Like. Jungkook is out there living his best life, getting hickeys and showered in affection and y'all paint him as a fucking martyr??? I'm sure he's really truly desperate that Jimin holds him in such high regards 😭😭😭 I can see him suffering whenever he starts doing his own serendipity rendition 😭😭 and when he claimed you are me, I am you as his and Jimin's only 😭😭😭 I cannot believe this poor baby 😭😭😭

I've reached a point where every time I hear this stuff I laugh because the levels of twisting reality when it comes to jikook are extraordinary, Jungkook will have a literally blissed out face and people will cry in outrage.

But coming back to my point: let's pretend you're not mad at Jimin and the possibility that jikook are dating: are y'all mad... At the hickey? Because at this point it seems like the only feasible solution. And if you are, do not worry: I'm sure Jungkook's skin was throughly healed by his boo. A kiss soothes even the worst pain, doesn't it?

[buddha-in-disguise]

I haven’t had a chance to watch 5.17 again yet, but some initial thoughts.

1st things 1st, there were some sublime choices from Melissa Benoist as the Director. I have a couple of screen captures of the ones that immediately spring to mind. She definitely showed her nuanced understanding of the characters, and that really was so fantastic to see. She deserves another shot in the directors chair in S6 if she wants to (& it sounds from interviews as if it is something she’d like to have chance to do more of). Even without understanding the characters, some of the lighting & overall framing of shots were so good! From lighting to just mirroring chess board pieces. I loved it. I felt the Eve fight scene was pretty masterful.

The episode itself. Whilst it did give up a couple of twists (the most major being Lex set up Jeremiah’s death), honestly it fell pretty flat for a number of different reasons.

My biggest problem (& this isn’t new for me), is that Lex’s behaviour was entirely predictable. That all bar a couple of plot points weren’t things that the fandom haven’t already talked about in one way or another almost Ad nauseam.

A big part for me was this flashback episode leaves us with no more truly relevant details on things than before the episode began.

Lex setting up Leviathan? Knew he was going to do it, this is Lex we are talking about.

Lex manipulating Lena, especially against Kara. C’mon, you’d have to be either blind, or in denial this has been going on for months on his manipulation of Lena. Yes, she should realise he is doing it, but again, Lena (as even Mon-El mentions) is the product of her abusive family. That doesn’t simply disappear!

Eve - we knew she was back, so again no real surprise on Lex manipulating her. Again (oh and side note. If you’re going to hate on Lena for ‘killing’ people & say her manipulation by Lex doesn’t excuse her, but don’t say the same thing about Eve, who killed outright for both Leviathan and Lex, your hypocritical hatred of Lena is showing. Check yourself at the door).

Lillian. She had already admitted she wasn’t Earth 38 Lillian to Lex from the award ceremony dialogue. So again, it wasn’t a surprise.

Honestly I could keep going, but you get the picture.

With only 2 episodes left, (& even had it been a full 3 episodes as I expect them to perhaps try and extend 5.19 into a longer one, perhaps over 1.5 hours instead of the usual hour schedule), we still have no clear answers on anything. Leviathan? Nothing was added to their story, and considering they were supposed to be the big villain of S5, only Lex has been that so far. And when you have an episode that does nothing more than we saw in S4, to ‘expose’ Lex ..... news flash. We know all this about him.

What we don’t know is who leads Leviathan? Who else is part of the organisation? We practically know nothing about them.

I felt this episode would’ve been better placed after Winn’s first episode (I’ve said I felt having him over that 2 episode arc was a waste, as again that 2nd episode did absolutely nothing plot wise that couldn’t have been added in the 1st episode, & the 1st episode didn’t add a lot either! I’m not saying don’t bring Winn back, but make it relevant & not 2 filler episodes). To have it done so late in the season makes zero sense to me. It feels messy.

On to William Dey. I’m not even going to try & pretend I like the character. I absolute despise him, & not because of trying to be Kara’s LI. I despise him, because once again we had him in scenes that others should have been in, especially Alex at the beginning. She is supposedly working with J’onn, and while I get they might not want her around Lex, have her working remotely from the tower, sending that information from the video clip to J’onn and Kara. After all, she did that from the DEO. J’onn has all that computing power & I’ve yet to see it used to any full potential.

I also found it strange William just walked up to Kara & J’onn as if they’re best of buddies, but we have nothing to suggest he knows Kara is Supergirl. I hate he has that level of familiarity with them. It again feels rushed & disjointed & totally wrong for any of the characters. Failing having Alex working it, how about having Nia, who again I keep repeating, is an actual reporter, but also as Dreamer could help scout out & report back in with them all back at the Tower.

I also found the wording Lex used to Eve in regards William. "Activate William."

So activate how exactly? Sure they got him working as a journalist, but how? Through clues being sent to him? Is he under some kind of control? I can think of a host of different ways to phrase that, but activate? That sounds an awful lot like some kind of manipulation that is far more than straight forward sending William some clues is about.

And about this. William is a Nobel Prize winning Journalist, & yet not once has he been able to do anything without someone giving him the heads up! I know some journalism requires that, but constantly? If he is so good at his job, he should be finding more than dead ends. It grates like crazy.

Then he simply arrives at Kara’s with sympathy baked goodies - only to then launch into needing help over what he has found. There is a time & a place for that kind of thing. That was neither the time nor the place. I know Lex wanted to get Leviathan on board with his plan, & needed to show they were about to get Supergirl looking at them far too closely, but really? Just no. He could’ve met Kara at CatCo. Met Kelly at Obsidean. Texted or called Kara to check it was okay to drop by her apartment even. But doing so unannounced, when he knows Kara & Alex have just lost their father? It also grates.

Now onto Kelly - lovely to see her supporting Alex - and Kara - after the loss of Jeremiah. But does she know Kara is Supergirl? We still don’t know for certain! The inference in this episode is Kelly does know, as William tells them about the warehouse, then Kelly & Alex are at the tower with J’onn in the same outfits, as Supergirl lands, stating there was nothing at the warehouse. So yes, it is highly likely Kelly now knows. But how or when did she know. It’s these kind of details most fans actual want, not to have to make educated guesses on! This is a reason fans get frustrated. We were being told who used to get to know Supergirl’s identity, but now with Kelly, nothing! And people wonder why fans feel the LGBTQ characters are getting shortchanged this season. It isn’t just about lack of screen time. It’s about lack of depth of story, when previously they had people falling over themselves to show how they knew Kara was Supergirl.

Another example of this lack of depth or explanation is Brainy. Sure he is likely doing what he is because of future Brainy’s warning, but it still comes across as Brainy seemingly stupid considering his apparent intellect. We have been thrown these plot lines, but they’re then left for us to have to fill in the blanks as each episode airs, as we’re not getting them otherwise.

It is far too chaotic for my liking.

So once again my overriding sense after watching this episode is frustration. It still feels like a total mess, with no answers (& even if they give us those answers, 3 episodes - now 2 - would be nowhere near enough time to do it without rushing. It even felt rushed at times in this episode).

William continues to be an absolute waste of space, (and God do I feel sorry for Staz over this), taking perfectly good screen time away from other already established characters, who could do what he has just as easily.

The Kara and Lena push & pull is giving us nothing new! Nothing. It’s gone well past giving us angst to us having had enough. Like with Lex, they seem to have gone too far with a good thing, & now rather than enjoying it, the majority simply hate it. With a passion. I am sick to the back teeth with it. Lena deserves to finally be rid of this villain tag, & given her rightful place back with the Superfriends (after a damn sit down talk with Kara - not Supergirl - and get on some level ground for good this time). I don’t expect a miraculous friendship rebuilt in seconds, but I do want actual forward progress between them to stick. Not 1 step forward, 2 steps back. I certainly don’t want this carrying on into S6, or at least not without resolving more than this.

In all the 5 seasons I’ve watched Supergirl, I don’t think there has ever been such underlying anger or frustration on how the season has panned out, both from fans & media alike. The disconnect from the fans to the show is huge right now, & really I cannot understand how the end of S4, which was seen as a real step forward for the show, to the excitement of S5, & how it was being portrayed; to this.

I want so much to be able to sit here & write positively over the episodes generally, but too often this season I’ve not been able to do it. I feel so sorry for the cast, because I know they love the show so much, and I want nothing more than to be writing positively about it each episode, but I simply can’t do that.

So in conclusion.

Phenomenal directing by Melissa Benoist.

Complete & utter frustration & disconnect everywhere else.

[where-fading-princesses-live]

double standards

So I was watching this very interesting video last night...  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di_R6Md-L80

And around 6:43, he talks about the classic Mary Sue trope and how, if you have a male character in a work of fiction who is presented as equally perfect and free of flaw (in other words, a Gary Stu), the criticism is less harsh towards him, or in some cases, nearly nonexistent. Some might even say he's a total bad-ass and how dare you find fault in someone so impossibly cool? But if they're female? Good god, it's bad writing and anti-feminist. People seem to be generally way more accepting of male archetypes who fall under this trope than the likes of their female counterparts, hence double standards. You see this all the time in action flicks for instance. Arnold Schwarzenegger films, anyone? James Bond whomst??? But suddenly you have Rey who's arguably not better or worse than the likes of those characters, and yet, the general opinion of her is... kind of unfair. Understandable, nonetheless... I'm not a fan of her either but at the same time, I don't think we should judge her harsher than male characters who have similar treatments. Male characters like that shouldn't be excused. I'm not saying Stus are NEVER pointed out or criticized, but this guy does have a point. There seems to be a much more airtight scrutiny surrounding female characters of this nature and it might be due to internalized misogyny or ''something something quantum quantum...'' Granted, I don't think Stus/Sues should be a widely accepted overused theme regardless, and that should be blamed on poor writing rather than sexism. Whether male, female, both, neither and everything in-between, characters need to be well-written, well-developed, believable and nuanced and blah blah blah. I'm not really here to talk about that. What I want to point out is double standards. And yes, this is sexism.

Take Rick and Morty for example. I'm not going to get too deep into it, but the fandom seems to praise the shit out of Rick who can easily be labelled a Stu because as we're constantly reminded, he's supposedly the ''smartest man in the universe''. Now, when you create a character who is a self-professed genius and placed on a pedestal by the writers, it can definitely come off Stu-ish. It's not that Rick unrealistically lacks flaws... no, this man is LOADED with flaws, but the fact that he's a literal badass who can get out of almost any sticky situation... well, like I said, there's more to his character than that and I'm not going to get into it, but Rick rarely, if ever, fails. Sometimes there's moments of vulnerability and the fact that he keeps trying to change but just slips back into his old ways, that makes him much more 3-dimensional than a Stu... but you know, despite his narcissism, his sarcasm, his alcoholism and mistreatment of his family and his incapability of maintaining healthy long-term relationships, he still has a limitless ability to create, a superior intelligence level even when compared to higher lifeforms on other planets, enabling him to outsmart entire government organizations and civilizations spanning galaxies, well... you can see where I'm going with this. There's no person on this planet like that who exists irl, even among the smartest of history's greatest men. Yes, it's a cartoon, it's meant to be far-fetched. Yes, it's sci-fi so we're expected to suspend our disbelief. Yes, there's a reason for it. Yes, it drives the core of the story. But even if there's times where it seems Rick will definitely fail, he never truly has an ALL IS LOST MOMENT because the writers conveniently write him out of most of his troubles, because the series has to keep going (obviously). Basically, I never feel a real sense of danger when Rick is in trouble because I know he'll get out alive (if not, there's infinite amount of Ricks and infinite amount of realities to replace him-- not to mention he can replace his family members as many times as he fucks up which became the show's laziest overused point in my opinion). Rick's not a bad character. Far from it. That's not what bothers me.

What bothers me is his daughter, Beth. Okay, no, she doesn't specifically bother me. The way the fandom sees her bothers me. Now Beth is undoubtedly cut from the same cloth. You know what they say, like father like daughter. And yet... the fandom fails to recognize her as a potentially great character, just as equally flawed and brilliant minded as Rick. She's a genius horse surgeon in a failing marriage. (I will go out on a limb and say she's more well written than Rick *ducks from flying tomatoes*.) I mean, her story is literally almost the same as her father's, her flaws are just as realistic--in fact, she's probably more realistic because she's not the ''smartest so and so of the godforsaken universe'' which is just as bad as annoyingly cringey The Chosen One trope. She's just Beth. A terribly smart woman with abandonment issues and trust issues and all other kinds of issues, but you can't blame her given her upbringing. By no means perfect or good at everything she does. Or loved (or hated) by everyone or hailed a genius by the entire flipping universe. You can't even call her a Sue. Yet some of the fandom chooses to label her a b*tch for whatever reason... even though her characterization is near identical to D*ck, er I mean Rick (e.g. she drinks just as much when she hits an all time low). She's just as awful with just as many fuck ups yet she's more sympathetic due to the way Rick raised her (or didn't raise her)... yet there's a double standard because somehow, because she's a female, she's a worse character than Rick, who's a male and apparently awesome (brownie points because he's one of the the two titular characters so you *can't* hate him, it's against the law). If Beth were Rick's son instead of his daughter, I wonder if the general opinion would be the same or not. If Rick were a woman.... he would be Rey, now would he? Don't deny it.

Then there's Ed Edd n' Eddy. As much as I love praising the hell out of this show, I also like to crap on it. There's no shame in pointing out flaws in your faves. But this isn't so much the flaw in the actual show and the actual writing, but again, I'm taking a jab at the fandom and how they perceive male characters v. female characters.

Sarah. Sarah is almost exactly like the female Eddy. She's little and bratty and loud af. She's probably the most hated character on the show (even Jimmy and Kevin are more liked than she is). I used to not like Sarah either but I never really asked myself WHY. When I compared her to Eddy, I realized that they're literally, almost the same character and I have no real reason to hate her (yeah yeah a lot of the cul-de-sac kids share eerily similar traits to the Eds and it was no accident; it makes you wonder why the kids hate the Eds so much if they ostracize them for the very same quirks they have, and it's not just the scams--it's because kids at this age are terribly insecure about themselves and tend to make fun of more vulnerable others who share their flaws to make themselves feel better. I was bullied in middle school for acne by... wait for it.... kids who had acne. GASP. Imagine that. So my point is, we often despise traits in others we despise in ourselves, not to mention we don't perceive ourselves the way others perceive us, hence, the Looking Glass Self theory. Basically, EEnE is deeper than it appears on the surface, and I've analyzed this before during those EEnE Appreciation Month things, so I won't bother repeating myself, but that's the basic idea in a nutshell.)

Ahem, before I get off on a further tangent, let me reiterate my main point. Sarah IS Eddy. No, not really, but yes, kinda really. Her voice can be irritating and grates on your nerves at times, she's bossy and controlling of her friends (I honestly love her friendship with Jimmy, and how they both defy stereotypical gender norms, and how protective she is of him, but there's times where she pushes his buttons), and though she doesn't hold Jimmy back from finding his own independence apart from her the way Eddy sometimes does to Ed and Edd who he treats them more as cronies in the first season (for instance, Sarah doesn't raise objection to Jimmy joining the Urban Rangers and finding his own identity and making other friends besides her, I mean they don't have to be glued to the hip and she damn well knows that), and yet... the way she treats Ed... well... even if Eddy stands up for Ed against Sarah and grows increasingly annoyed with the way she walks all over him... Eddy ain't much better, pumpkins. DON'T ACT LIKE HE'S BETTER THAN HER. Sure, male characters *always* get excused for this kind of behavior, but if it's a girl, she's automatically a mega beyotch with no redeeming qualities. If she's a b, he's a b, and they both have potential to redeem their flaws.  They should be treated equally.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Eddy. He's one of my favorite characters. OPE. And there's the tea.

Most people LOVE Eddy (not everybody, and if you don't, that's fine; you don't even have to like Sarah, but I have a case). Despite the fact that he's bossy, sarcastic, rude, selfish, self-absorbed, over confident, flamboyant, vain, screams with a voice that makes your ears bleed.... well, gee, didn't I just describe Sarah? Sarah loves make-up clothes and hair just as much as Eddy loves speedos and deodorant and cheap shampoo and dressing to the nines for Jonny's Arbor Day Party. Hell, Sarah had a complete meltdown because she lost her freakin' earring! Eddy flipped the fuck out when Ed lost his porno mags. THEY'RE. THE. SAME. FUCKING. PERSON. (and it's why they butt heads but that's a topic for another day, because you know, you can't fight fire with fire... you can argue the same for Eddy and Kevin)

Yet, the fandom HATES Sarah and LOVES Eddy. Probably not cuz she's female, but aside from the Kankers, the girls (and Jimmy, poor Jimmy) seem to receive harsher judgment towards them as characters by fans, even if they have similar traits to the boys. I'm sure it's because Sarah isn't as well written or developed a character as Eddy (who's a main cast member, actually the driving force of the show, the primary lead) BUT that's not to say Sarah doesn't have her moments of vulnerability or moments of total bad-assery that makes her.... well... interesting  if given the chance. (In BPS, she beats the living shit out of the Kankers and devises a plan for her and Jimmy to escape their enslavement, one of my all-time favorite scenes in the entire movie; not to mention she beats the crap out of EVERYONE on the show and it's usually, not always, well-deserved but it's entertaining nonetheless: cat fights with Nazz, even beating up Rolf who's twice her size, etc.). The fact that everyone is afraid of this little girl??? (maybe except Kevin). I mean, this chick is fearless, and yet, she still has moments of weakness. That's 3-dimensional if you ask me. She's more than just the bratty little sister. I didn't used to like her, but after studying her more, I've come to appreciate her. There's nothing about her that makes her an inherently ''bad'' female character. She plays a role, as do they all, and she plays the role perfectly.

Last but not least: Nazz. Everyone's favorite (I'm kidding). I don't know if the fandom hates Sarah or Nazz more. I can understand the hate towards Sarah, but Nazz seems even less just. Nazz is like one of the nicest people on the show and never really does anything to warrant the hate (until the infamous flanderized Season 5-- don't judge me, I love S5 regardless)... but even then she's still nice, if a bit artificially so. I mean, she becomes a bit of a Mean Girl (they all kinda do; it must be how the clique school environment changes a person), but she still goes out of her way to be inclusive towards everyone (even if she can be spotted in the background laughing at the Eds along with the others at times, but they're ALL guilty of this... ya'll out here lovin' on Rolf or Jonny or whatever, and pretending like they're saints, but they laugh at our precious Ed boys too. Also, precious Ed boys are not complete angels either and sometimes they need a good ass whooping or two. I mean, they're just kids. Kids are assholes). She's not a bad person though; she roots for all the contestants during the Spelling Bee. She personally appoints Ed to be the mascot of the football team. I can go on and on. She's just nice. Maybe that's why fans hate her. Because nice is boring. Nice is... personality-less. I don't think Nazz has as much eccentricity as the other characters, obviously, but she, too, has her moments (she yodels, for starters). She's not entirely lacking in personality. Sure, she may have as much personality as a board of wood (actually, I take that back, Plank has MORE personality than her XD) buuuut.... Idk, I like Nazz. I didn't at first either. But even if it irks me a bit that she's reduced down to the unattainable love interest and not much else, she, too, isn't an inherently ''bad'' female character. She has the least development of all the cast members, but she fills her role effectively. Without her, the show would feel like it's missing something. Even if she doesn't appear as often.

What bothers me the most is that she plays the same part as Kevin, only female. Kevin's the quintessential jock/bully popular leader of the kids, the King of the Cul-de-sac if you will (self-appointed or otherwise, just don't tell Eddy I told you). Nazz is like his Homecoming Queen, even if they're not an official couple (they spend the whole series as a ''will they or won't they Ross and Rachel'') and though not the leader of the kids collectively, she does sometimes lead the girls (or really, Sarah and Jimmy), while Kevin leads the boys (Jonny and Rolf, excluding the Eds). AND YET Kevin, though sometimes hated by fans, isn't nearly *as* hated as Nazz. Yet, he has as much personality as her (sorry, I love you, Kev). I mean, THEY'RE. ALMOST. THE. SAME. CHARACTER. Good looking, sporty, popular... He's also the least developed character of the male cast. Plank has more development than him and that's kinda sad... y'know... getting beat by a board of wood. (But Plank comes alive through Jonny, so basically Jonny is split into two separate characters; Plank reveals aspects of Jonny that he won't reveal to us, and vice versa. I can talk about Jonny all day, but let's not, because this is about Nazz.) I mean, again, Nazz and Kevin both have their moments of vulnerability and it's not like they're NEVER interesting; I beg to differ. Kevin, anyway, has two great episodes that revolve directly around his insecurities and anxieties and deep-seated fears, some deep shit I wish we got to see with Nazz. But instead we got BPS and it was hands-down the best character development we ever saw from her in the entire show's run. It's sad it had to be the end, because if they gave us more BPS Nazz throughout the series, she would have been a well rounded 3-d character.

Nazz is angry AF in BPS and I live for angry Nazz. We can kind of feel for her here because Kevin is such a dunce. She's finally reciprocating his feelings and he decides to turn the other way.... for his goddamn inanimate bike. It's something Jonny would do, but Kev always loved that bike... I guess more than Nazz, and it's one of the greatest love triangles ever. Phantom of the Opera don't interact. Ahem. My point is, Nazz finally displays more personality here-- like actual fucking emotion beyond just being nice and pretty (sure, we've seen her get angry sometimes, or freaked out other times, but never like this). Buuuuuut the fandom sees otherwise. They hated Nazz even MORE after this, despite that.... the male characters in BPS, like Rolf who punches through a tree and Edd and Eddy who go at it all piss and vinegar in an actual fist fight, are angry fucking men, and they're allowed to be angry and not Nazz because...? They have more testosterone and she doesn't? Because penises are more justified than vaginas? Oops, no, sorry, women can only be angry when they're on their periods, my bad. I mean, everybody's out in this freezing cold swamp, having a break down, at their wit's end, reaching their ''all is lost'' moment... yet, Rolf and the Eds are allowed to vent their frustrations on each other or on the surrounding environment. But not Nazz. No, Nazz is being a b*tch because.... Kevin's paying more attention to a non-living machine than to her. And he sat flat on his skinny ass and didn't help her when she needed him the most. And she didn't have to tag along with him but she did. She didn't have to put up with his cold aloofness but she did. And even if she was trying to catch his attention and flirt with him at inappropriate times she wasn't entirely useless. It was HER idea to find Eddy's brother. If she hadn't suggested it, he'd still be riding around in circles chasing his shadow. Yeah, okay, she's a total b*tch.

God forbid women have emotions. God forbid women cry or get frustrated. Then they're b*tches. But if they're pretty and nice and perfect and popular, they're Sues. Yet, male characters with the same traits.... get lighter sentences. No one even bats an eye. Boys will be boys am I right?

I can go on but yeah, don't say double standards are total BS. In this essay I will

[taww]

First Take Review: Gryphon Essence Preamplifier & Stereo Amplifier

Okay, let’s get this out of the way: with a combined retail of over USD $40k (and that doesn’t include another $6k for the optional Zena DAC module), The Gryphon’s Essence preamplifier and stereo amplifier are by far the most expensive electronics I’ve ever had in my home! They might be the Danish firm’s entry point into separates, but that’s akin to calling a $146k Aston Martin Vantage “entry level.” There was a time in the not-so-distant past when spending such sums of money on stereo gear struck me as pointless excess. Perhaps I’ve been numbed by flipping through too many issues of The Absolute Sound or walking the halls of an audio show; perhaps I’m just entering a life stage (mid-life crisis, anyone?) where I’m allowing myself to indulge in such luxuries. Whatever the case may be, I’ve now had the good fortune of several months with the Essence combo, and despite a number of people prodding me for this review it’s been quite difficult to put into words how they perform. Why? Because every time I sit down to do the “work” of reviewing I just end up getting sucked into the music and forget to do the reviewing bit! But, here goes...

The arrival of the Gryphon components was a case of one thing leading to another. My first experience was when I strolled into Gryphon’s room at RMAF 2018. After being disappointed by so many other mega-buck systems at the show, I was delighted that this one actually sounded like music! Frankly, a lot of über-expensive show systems landed on my ears like amusical hi-fi effects or whimsical fancies of what some people think music should sound like, rather than an actual musical performance. Like other big systems, the Gryphon rig was imposing and fancy-looking, but with a decidedly purposeful, even stark, aesthetic. And the sound - so tangible and luscious, maybe a little dark and brooding, but in a way that connected me emotionally to the recorded performance rather than distracting me with sonic affect. 

At the time I was happily running the Valvet A4 Mk.II monoblocks, and also had @mgd-taww​’s Pass Labs XA30.5 at my disposal. Both delivered the pure and colorful musical flavors of Class A amplification, and both are superb amps. But things got thrown for a bit of a loop when I settled on the Audiovector SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté speakers as my new reference. I had auditioned them at AudioVision SF with the Gryphon Diablo 300 integrated amp ($16k) and the sound gave up nothing to high-quality separates - big, bold and dynamic with tremendous poise and nuance. Coming back to the Pass and Valvet amplifiers (coupled with a Pass Labs XP10 line stage) certainly wasn’t a let-down, but they didn’t have quite the same level synergy with the Audiovectors which sounded more complete and visceral with the Gryphon integrated. 

This combined with the strong aural memories from the RMAF room led to a call to Gryphon’s US distributor, Philip O’Hanlon and Pandora Pang of On a Higher Note. Philip acknowledged that the Diablo was indeed excellent but teased that Gryphon had recently introduced a new line of separates worth consideration. The Essence had just arrived in the States and he had one more set in stock if I were so inclined... and next thing I know, a pallet loaded with what my wife lovingly referred to as “an illegal arms shipment” landed at our doorstep.

Serious crates for serious gear

Like all separates in The Gryphon’s 35-year heritage dating back to the original DM100 amplifier, the Essence line features pure Class A operation with minimal negative feedback, but brings it at a lower price point ($22,990) with more conservative aesthetics and practical packaging. Prior to the Essence, to get a Gryphon amp one had to shell out anywhere from $39k for the Antileon EVO to $57k for the flagship Mephisto (double those if going for monoblocks). The tradeoff is a lower power rating - just 50wpc, albeit in pure class A and doubling into 4 ohms and again into 2 ohms - so you’ll want to pair it with a reasonably efficient speaker. The Essence preamp meanwhile is a repackaging of the Zena preamplifier launched in 2018 (also $17,500), reskinned with cosmetics to match the amp. It features fully balanced operation via a discrete DC-coupled Class A circuit with zero global negative feedback, and can accommodate either of two optional internal modules, the Zena DAC ($6,000) or an MM/MC phono stage ($2,250). Being strictly digital I opted to evaluate the DAC, which I’ll talk about in a later installment. I’ll also save more details about the design and operation of this beautifully-crafted gear, including Gryphon’s unique Green Bias system, for a more in-depth review. For now, let’s get down to the business of how it sounds...

The Essence Preamp

When the Essence components arrived I clearly needed my wife’s assistance to safely unpack and set up the 45kg/99lb Essence amp. But she was busy making reeds for her oboe that evening, so I initially made do setting up the preamp (it weighs in at “only” 13.4kg/29.5lbs) and comparing it to my Pass Labs XP10 with the Pass Labs XA30.5 amplifier.

Firing up the Essence preamp from a cold start was one of those “damn, I don’t understand how a preamp can make this much of a difference” moments. Even though the Pass XP10 is a very solid performer - I find the sound of my PS Audio DirectStream significantly improved by it vs. feeding an amplifier directly - the 3x-as-expensive Gryphon outclassed it from the first note, taking musical resolution from the micro to nano level.

The first thing I noticed was how the entire back of the stage opened up. I never realized how triangular it sounded before, becoming narrower as you went deeper. With the Essence it suddenly feels rectangular and whole, with winds, brass and percussion able to naturally spread out and breath on the stage. It didn’t even take a big orchestral recording to experience this - my very first track was an intimate vocal with piano accompaniment, soprano Elsa Dreisig singing Strauss songs with pianist Jonathan Ware (Qobuz). The sense of the space - a church, as you can see from this video - and where the performers occupied it became strikingly tangible. Piano has starting clarity, with all its complex overtones unfolded and laid out for your ear to sample at its leisure. Dynamic resolution is also unlocked - subtle gradations in vocal intensity flow so organically. Going back to the Pass pre, macro dynamics weren’t Iacking, but the transitions somehow came across more synthetically, as if the volume dial was being turned rather than the performers modulating their instruments in the original performance. 

One thing that didn't change too much was overall tonal balance. I find the Pass pretty neutral and extended, if anything having a subtly warmish character to it, at least by solid state standards. The Gryphon doesn't deviate notably from that, leaning slightly in that direction though with more sophisticated and varied tonal richness and density. The quality of the frequency extremes, however, is a different matter. Most striking is how triangles sparkle and ring with startling presence on the Gryphon. With a claimed frequency response out to 1MHz, the Essence pre delivers the highest highs with a sense of ease and finesse. And the bass is everything people have come to expect from the Gryphon house sound - deep, taut and powerful with beautiful tonality. The Pass Labs wasn’t missing any of the music per se, but the deepest bass notes and highest overtones sounded constrained vs. the effortless and wide-open delivery of the Essence.

So, yeah - a preamplifier that costs 3x as much as the Pass XP10 sounds clearly superior. Not much of a news flash, and a much fairer comparison in the Pass lineup would be the XP32 ($17,500) or at least an XP22 ($9,500). But what took me aback was how a preamplifier like the Essence could bring out so much life and nuance that was being curtailed by an otherwise fine piece like the Pass. The net effect was to make the musical performance feel significantly more tangible, visceral and unclouded - something that even the change of a DAC or amplifier doesn’t consistently achieve. The Gryphon Essence pre is simply an incredible conveyor of the musical signal.

And we haven’t even tried the amplifier yet...

The Essence Amplifier

Once I got my wife to assist in positioning the hefty Essence amp in the cabinet (safety first!), I hooked up the Audiovectors via my usual Audience Au24 SX cables and powered up the Gryphon using the stock power cord (the amp requires a 20A IEC connector, so standard cords won’t work). I played a bit with the Green Bias settings but obviously settled with it in red-hot Class A operation for serious listening. And while the amp has since benefited from multiple months of break-in, it was apparent from its first notes that the Essence had resolution, clarity, dynamics and tonal completeness on an altogether different level from any amp I’ve experienced in my system. But there was something else remarkable about its presentation that’s taken me many months to put my finger on, and I think I might be finally getting it.

The Essence amp has a very special ability to deliver the leading edge of a sound with incredible speed, precision and clarity. I’ve heard amps with fast leading edges (some attribute this to high slew rate), I’ve heard amps with very clean ones (lack of distortion and ringing). The Essence delivers a combination of fast and clean that is truly exceptional, and perhaps close to the state of the art. Every impulse and note attack hits you with perfect timing and delineation, then decay with similarly impeccable control. By comparison, amps like the Pass Labs that struck me as very pure have a bit of fuzz to them. Ever listen to an AM radio station when the signal gets weak, and all the starts and stops of sounds get staticky and fuzzy? There was a bit of that feeling going back to other amps in my system... no, they weren’t literally fuzzy and distorted. It’s just that the Essence amp sounds exceptionally lithe and clean, removing an extremely subtle layer of distortion that became difficult to un-hear in other amplifiers. 

Coming from the Pass XA30.5, the Essence’s midrange was less overtly warm but even more substantive in tone. The Pass is certainly on the warm and lush side for a solid state amp, but past Gryphons I’ve heard had their own dose of chocolatey richness, so I was initially surprised by the balance of the Essence. It has the midrange density and lush tonal colors I was expecting from a Class A Gryphon amp, and yet it also sounds close to dead neutral in character. There’s a crystalline transparency that makes everything else sound a bit cloudy by comparison. Class A amps usually get the tonal part right, but can sound a bit sluggish or rounded dynamically; Class AB amps often have great transient speed but with some roughness around the edges and a bit of tonal hollowness. The Essence backs its exceedingly snappy and clean transients with real tonal substance and an infinite palette of realistic tonal colors. It can simultaneously preserve the gravitas of a string bass ostinato, the glowing warmth of a French horn, the delicate nasality of an oboe and the ethereal lightness of a flute all in balance. Orchestral recordings have never sounded this vivid and realistic in my home.

An interesting display of the amp’s prowess was in violinist Hilary Hahn’s recording of the Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto (Qobuz). The album also contains Mozart’s popular “Turkish” concerto which probably gets most of the plays; the Vieuxtemps is infrequently performed and mostly known by violinists as a sort of advanced student concerto (yes, my teacher made me study it). Vieuxtemps was a Belgian virtuoso of the romantic era and while the concerto has its charms, its orchestration is rather clunky. This actually made for a fascinating sonic experience in the concerto’s orchestral exposition, where different instruments pass melodic fragments back and forth in somewhat disjointed fashion rather than the more cohesive harmonization and counterpoint you’d get from a German master. A flute here, a clarinet there, a timpani roll or violin flourish coming and passing - the Essence conveyed each one with striking clarity and trueness of timbre and dynamics, arranging all the instruments across the stage in perfect proportion. So much of the feel of an instrument lies not just in its tonal makeup but the shape and feel of its notes - the reedy breathiness of a clarinet, the ringing “bong” of a timpani, the firm attack of a trumpet, the brush stroke of a violin. This is where the Essence’s leading-edge precision and lack of electronic haze help it truly evoke the feeling of sitting on the stage with the musicians, each and every instrumental entrance having that tactile realism.

Having been a classmate’s of Ms. Hahn’s I also have first-hand experiences of her playing, and the Essence strongly evoked memories of hearing her performing in recitals or practicing in our conservatory. Though we were both teenagers at the time, she had already developed her distinctive tone and focused intensity, and hearing that reproduced so vividly through the Essence and Audiovector speakers is uncanny.

The frequency extremes of the Essence amp, particularly in combination with the Essence preamp, are also something special - the crazy-wide specified bandwidth of Gryphon components is no joke. The speed and tautness and slam of the bass brings realistic clarity to the foundation of the music. It’s bass that I like to call “sneaky” for the way it doesn’t unduly call attention to itself, but then will come out and smack you in the face as in a live event. Instruments like string bass or contrabassoon are naturally portrayed in the orchestration, rather than getting buried in the mix. The top end is extended and articulate, capable of bringing out all the energy and brilliance of string, brass and percussion instruments, and yet certain recordings that tend towards brightness actually sound warmer and smoother than I've heard before. It sounds so pure and free from distortion, so that if there’s any distortion already present on the recording it does nothing to aggravate it. Sibilants and tape hiss and clipping are still there, yet come across less obtrusively, making them easy to tune out in favor of the music. 

Case in point: the DSD remaster of Strauss Don Juan, recorded in 1958 by the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell (Qobuz). My wife and I have listened to this recording dozens if not hundreds of times and while the performance is riveting, the recording quality has always been a bit hissy and strident. My wife asked to listen to it again on the Gryphon setup for study purposes and halfway through I remarked, "does this recording sound a lot less bright to you?" She concurred - we had never heard it sound so clean and natural, and for the first time I didn't notice the tape hiss at all. The Gryphon gear really does excel at extracting the essence of the musical performance locked in the recording, neither artificially filtering nor amplifying the distractions of its mechanical limitations. I’ve heard far too many ultra high-end systems that need absolutely pristine audiophile material to sound their best. With the Gryphons, every recording in my collection has never sounded more distinguished and compelling.

The sense of space that the Essence preamp conveyed with other amplifiers becomes even stronger in combination with the Essence amp. I have never heard the different sections of a symphony orchestra arranged so palpably. Winds and percussion have clearly delineated space behind the string section, and delicate clarinet solos that are typically a bit hazy in recordings are conveyed with both clarity and intimacy. There’s something about the Essence’s blend of clean transients, tonal rightness and harmonic resolution that bring out the distinct ambience and texture of each recording - the aural equivalent of the “mouth feel” of a wine. Going back to otherwise excellent amps makes everything feel a bit more homogenous, a hair less stimulating.

There are a couple of potential shortcomings to call out, and they may be interrelated. The first is that the bass in combination with the Audiovector speakers isn’t quite as hard-hitting as with, say, the 600wpc Class D Legacy iv2, or as what I heard with the Gryphon Diablo 300 integrated; nor is it as plump and room-filling as with the Pass XA30.5. Quality-wise it’s exceptional - fast and deep and pitch-perfect in ways they can’t match - but sometimes I just want it to fill out the space a bit more and punch me in the gut a little harder. I mostly miss this when listening to pop tracks, e.g. anything from Billie Eilish where the raw punch of the Legacy amp factors more strongly than the n-th degree of refinement from the Gryphon.

The other nit is that the soundstage, while vividly painted, feels a bit less “generous” than bigger-sounding amps like the Legacy or Pass Labs, or the Gryphon Diablo for that matter. There’s a bit more emphasis on the precise constituency of an orchestra, as opposed to its sheer scale - a little more of the trees, a little less of the forest. To some, this may make the Essence feel a hair light in presentation, despite its rich and layered midrange.  Ears I trust tell me moving up the Gryphon line to the Antileon EVO or Mephisto can give you the best of both worlds, but those are obviously at increasingly exorbitant price points. 

I’ll need to try tweaking these area of reproduction more (e.g. cables), but as it currently stands, I could see the Essence best matching with speakers that are tonally richer and a bit less critically damped on the bottom end, vs. requiring care with something leaner and more laser-focused. It’s slightly lean with some recordings on the Audiovectors, and I’d definitely want to check before paring it with the likes of a Magico. It goes without saying that when you get to this level of fidelity (and cost), you should expect to spend a fair amount of time and effort on component matching.

As a side note, I was able to further extend the capabilities of the Essence via Furutech’s DPS-4.1 power cord (custom built with 20A connectors) and DSS-4.1 speaker cables. These upped the clarity and transparency yet another notch or three, opened up dynamics further and created a wider sense of space on recording after recording. I’ll have more on these excellent cables and how they synergize with the Gryphons in a future installment.

Capturing the Essence

It’s been challenging pinning down the character of the Essence system, the amp in particular. Even more so than other great Class A amps I’ve heard, including from Gryphon, the Essence amp has a combination of purity, openness, refinement, clarity, speed and dynamic life that defy the usual idiosyncrasies and limitations of Class A vs. AB vs. D. It’s dynamically fleet, rhythmically incisive, tonally sophisticated, dimensionally resolving, and sneakily powerful and punchy. In combination with the superb companion preamp, it uncovers a sense of space in virtually every recording I throw at it with greater detail and palpability than I’ve heard before, without seeming artificially holographic like some tube amps. The tonal purity and resolving power of this pair are simply at a level I have rarely experienced anywhere at any price. Moreover, the name “Essence” couldn’t be more apt - all these sophisticated qualities are squarely focused on conveying the beauty and quirks of the original recording without need for enhancement or editorializing to make it enjoyable. The closest aural recollection I have of this sort of musical resolution was the MSB Reference + Magico M3 system at RMAF 2018, which had a significantly superior DAC and a total cost approaching $300k. 

As for the price... well, I can say that the monies spent on a piece by The Gryphon clearly go towards obsessive engineering and craftsmanship in the service of state-of-the-art music reproduction, rather than ostentation or frivolous excess. This is musical fidelity of the highest order, and my new reference in amplification.

[gamescare975]

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[ramblefang]

Runaway Raccoon; BNA ep.1

Preface

Just finished watching the first episode of BNA, so I now I’ll be writing my first impressions of it. And I’ll endeavor to do this for the whole series. It’s not exactly my first time trying this sort of thing, but I’m still inexperienced with it, so this might get messy. But, as is the intent with this blog, I’m just here to Ramble on about stuff anyway, so a mess is to be expected.

Before getting into the actual episode, I want to note that I’m only mostly going in blind. I’m primarily watching this after seeing stuff for it show up on my dashboard, so I know the names of the main characters (who haven’t yet been properly introduced) and a few general themes of the show. I also know that it was made by Studio Trigger, and I’ve been a fan of some of their anime (including Gurren Lagann, which I understand to be by many of the same people, even if it was under a different studio), so that will probably affect some of my thoughts on things.

Opening

Things start out with the opening, which sounds silly to say, but many shows don’t actually start with the OP, preferring to leave it until the end or the second episode—I assume it’s to not “spoil” introductions to the characters. Starting with the OP right out of the gates strikes me as preferring to set the tone, as well as showing off style and aesthetic.

As for the OP itself, I mostly noticed how the setting is very much “our world,” especially with the pseudo-branding. All of that is apparent through the episode as well; I particularly remember the pseudo-Red Bull stall that Michiru bought a drink from. I’m not too knowledgeable about music, so about all I can say is that I thought it was a bop—well, also that it kind of reminded me of “Bad Apple” for some reason.

Animal Rights

The episode proper starts with Michiru trying to get money from an ATM in a nondescript hallway. A lot of attention is paid [by the camera, not Michiru] to a poster next to the ATM celebrating “Animal Rights Day.” Next, some ruffians also come down the hallway, prompting Michiru to hide while they spray-paint something hateful over the poster.

Just this cold open hits pretty hard in light of the protests that have been going on this year. As far as I can understand just from this scene, Beastmen (the “Animals” in “Animal Rights” I assume) gained their own rights somewhat recently—certainly recently enough for open bigotry and racism to still be rampant. With the way the ruffians were armed and the message they left, we can assume that Michiru wasn’t overreacting and genuinely would have been danger if she was caught. And in light of this year’s protests—what started them and some of the reactionary response—I can’t help but feel like this sort of situation isn’t too far from present reality; it’s at least certainly very real in our history.

Speaking of protests, we also see some news about that sort of thing. Apparently people aren’t happy about Beastmen getting their own district? With this information juxtaposed with the previous scene, I’m led to believe that these people aren’t protesting segregation and desiring unity. I’m pretty sure these protesters don’t want Beastmen to have anywhere to live. Or, at the least, they don’t want resources to be spent on the beastmen, but that amounts to the same thing.

En Route

While Michiru “catches a bus,” she pulls out her phone to watch a video about the place she’s traveling to: Anima-City. It reminded me a little of the introduction to the city of Zootopia; though the context is very different. (Anima-City being the refuge of an underclass, whereas Zootopia is the pinnacle of city life.) Something strange about this video is that it seems to be from a pharmaceutical company, not a government body. Is the company the same thing as the government here? And pharmaceuticals specifically worries me a bit: makes me think of attempts to “cure” the beastmen.

Oh, somehow I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I can’t help but think of the beastmen from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and wonder if they could actually be the same. It’s been a while since I last watched TTGL, so I can’t quite recall how the politics around the Beastmen went and whether or not this BNA setting could fit in with it.

Anyway, before the video can finish, Michiru gets attacked by, what we learn to be, “beastman hunters” who specifically hang around routes to Anima-City. One of them even has the gall to say that they’d puke if they keep seeing more beastmen around there, but they’re the ones actively looking for beastmen to hunt! These people could just let the Beastmen be in their own city and not worry about them. Again, I still have our very real protests and history in mind: of lynchings and genocide.

Thankfully, Michiru is saved by some other beastmen. My first response to this fight though were concerns about the oppressed group were clearly being presented as powerful and threatening and how that may translate to reality (my head still being in that space and all), but then I caught myself thinking that and remembered to actually pay attention to context here. This is clearly righteous self-defense regardless of how rough they get with these hateful bigots. Beyond that, it’s simple catharsis to see the oppressed being able to fight back.

The leader of Michiru’s saviors is named Marie, and Michiru is apparently savvy enough to understand that Marie would be expecting payment. It’s an uncomfortable situation honestly. The way that Marie’s group were able to fight to protect her suddenly hangs over Michiru as a sort of threat. Though, I guess Marie had intended to ask for payment after ensuring Michiru’s safe passage to Anima-City, so it’s just the exchange happening here that makes it seem especially threatening. Still, this grift makes clear beastmen aren’t perfect people either.

Now that I’m thinking about it, this sets up for the mercenaries that show up in the final part of the episode, showing how money can still lead Beastmen to harm one another, to varying degrees.

I wonder how Marie will fit in later. I do recall her showing up in the OP, so I imagine she has a bigger part to play. Maybe she has some sort of connection to Shiro.

Festival

(Ugh, this is going longer than intended with me trying to recap stuff. This method probably isn’t sustainable for me. Just try to make your points!)

Michiru’s entrance to Anima-City was quite unexpected. It honestly doesn’t make much sense if you think about it too literally; instead, it’s totally about getting certain feelings across. I think we’re supposed to get the idea that despite Michiru being a beastman herself, as an outsider, she still finds the idea of a place entirely filled with beastmen intimidating (especially given what we learn about her at the end of the episode: her having been human). And it also impresses upon the audience that beastmen can be legitimately threatening and even terrifying; I imagine they’ll continue to play with that idea going forward.

There’s also that wolf on the rooftops that Michiru sees. I wonder if that’s actually Shiro? The colors seem about right, and Shiro is a wolf himself. And I think the OP hinted at them being able to transform into more feral, four-legged forms? I don’t think we see such a thing directly, but there were some shadows that I remember.

Anyway, Michiru’s fears are cast aside once it’s revealed that everyone was just gathering for a festival and that they weren’t actually gathering to attack her or something. Michiru is able to let loose and just be herself: no need for a cloak or scurrying into vents.

Political Intrigue

After the mayor of Anima-City—the same person we saw on the video earlier who is also probably connected to that pharmaceutical company—shows up on a big screen to talk about the festival being a celebration of the city’s 10th anniversary, we cut to her in a call with the actual mayor of the city. I have to remind myself that despite the name, Anima-City is just the “beastman district” of a larger city. Of particular interest from this conversation is the mayor saying they can have this district so long as they don’t prove to be “dangerous”. The thing is that it’s entirely up to the human government whether they are “dangerous” or not; I imagine they can spin anything to make the beastmen out as dangerous or even fabricate something if necessary.

I figure the mercenaries and their terrorist attack on the festival could be connected to those sorts of plans. I also took note of the way that the mercenaries used guns and Shiro didn’t. I wonder if that will be something to clue the audience in to who has connections with humans and/or anti-beastmen sentiment.

Ideology

Lastly, I want to take note of the differing ideologies between Michiru and Shiro. Shiro has a very black-and-white view on things: beastmen good, humans bad. Shiro is also likely willing to kill people to fight for his ideals and to protect what he cares about. Michiru has a more nuanced view of there being good humans and bad humans, good beastmen and bad beastmen. But she also comes off as having a naive ideal of nonviolence in defending these people whose attack could have (and maybe actually did) hurt a lot of people at the festival. To be fair to Michiru though, it’s not really right for Shiro to be judge, jury, and executioner here. He’s already incapacitated them, and I imagine there are more proper ways to handle these terrorists than offing them in an alley.

Still, my current impression is that neither of their perspectives are meant to be “correct” right from the start. I imagine they’ll have to learn from one another. Regardless, I hope things end up being more about institutional powers being bad rather than leaving things at just individual people being bad. Like, even if there ends up being a main villain to defeat, I hope that villain serves to represent the power of their position rather than the villain being a uniquely evil person.

Closing

Okay, I think that’s all I have to write about the first episode. Honestly, I’ll probably need to work on Rambling less, because I don’t know if I can keep up with writing so much every episode. I had been thinking of doing these daily (with some breaks in the week maybe), but maybe I’ll do an episode every other day if this is the sort of thing I’ll end up with.

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Joker

Disclaimer: I am posting this review the day the movie first airs in the U.K, so if you haven’t yet seen this movie do not read on until you do.

General Reaction:

This is a very dangerously compelling movie. While it is compelling if you love or are at least intrigued by psychological case studies, it is dangerous for the message that comes across with it and how the movie effectively makes you feel sympathetic for one of comic-book greatest supervillains if not DC's greatest.

I can't really say why I have these thoughts without spoilers, and make no mistake there will be a spoiler review coming in the next couple of days, but what I will say is there's a lot of talk in recent years how this level of violence in movies and video games can be easily replicated and encouraged by the media it comes from. I personally don't believe that and believe it is purely down to the morals of the individual, but I can understand in this instance how younger audiences especially could react in a not so wholesome way.

Now in regards to the movie itself, I really enjoyed it. I'm not about to drink the kool aid and say it's the greatest movie in the world but I do see where the Oscars buzz is coming from.

Having said that, I will persist in my opinion that those who call this one of the best comic-book movies are wrong, because it's not a comic book movie, it's not even a Batman type of comic book movie. It's an origin story of a character based on a DC supervillain but it's stand alone in the sense of my not being able to see how this Joker could fit into a Batman movie.

The Joker to me has always been as intriguing as any Batman character, but my favourites have always been Heath Ledger, Mark Hamill and Jack Nicholson. While I think Joaquin Phoenix does a pretty nice job at paying homage to most of the actors to portray the Joker historically dating back to Cesar Romero, this isn't the Joker who is Batman's arch enemy, this is a new variation of the character.

Also, something no one seems to be talking about in regards to this movie is the social issues it rather brilliantly raises. It’s a movie set in 1981 and yeah okay back then medicine wasn’t what it is today, but people apparently are as right from the opening scene I could relate what was happening at various points in the movie to incidents in real life. Whether they be minor like the street fight, or major like the subway attack.

For that reason, I genuinely believe this to be one of the best and one of the most important movies of the year, to use the medium of comic-books to get across the importance of every day issues is so commendable and should make people sit back and think, not go crying that the movie will instead insight some sort of clown riots.

Cast:

Alright so while this movie has a brilliant supporting cast, the movie does belong to Joaquin Phoenix and, considering RDJ is apparently not even being considered for an Oscars nomination, the Best Actor award is Phoenix’s to lose after this.

The intensity, uncomfortable nature and nuance in the actor’s performance from start to finish was nothing short of compelling. Not only did Phoenix give subtle yet brilliant callbacks to Cesar Romero, Mark Hamill, Heath Ledger and even Jared Leto’s interpretations of the characters, but also the way in which this Joker brought to mind various Joker stories from the comics such as The Killing Joke was both a credit to the writers and directors but also Phoenix as a performer.

Then there’s how he acted with the other actors in the movie which were really only there to support him. Frances Conroy as the mother of the Joker is inspired casting. Zazie Beetz did an okay job but if she is supposed to be this version of Harley Quinn that’s another famous supervillain she’s race-bent. Robert DeNiro was surprisingly the comic-relief of this movie and he was brilliant.

Other minor actors include new and interesting reimaginings of not only Thomas Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth, but also Bruce Wayne...yeah this movie does that.

Recommendation:

It’s a very strong opinion to insist you must see this movie, though I do believe this is a movie that needs to be seen. However, if you are scared of the potential clown riots that this movie could spawn, then there is nothing wrong with waiting for a home release.

So that’s my non-spoiler review of Joker, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more DC Movie Reviews, including my spoiler review coming soon, as well as other Movie Reviews and posts.

[literarygoon]

So,

When trans rights activists began to mobilize in opposition to feminist thinker Meghan Murphy's appearance at the Toronto Public Library in October 2019, I was only half-interested in the controversy. Several literary figures I admire had become swept up in the pseudo-religious fervor, and I was shocked to see them enthusiastically championing censorship. I figured this person they were protesting must be some ghoulish anti-intellectual, spewing hate speech and vilifying marginalized communities. I assumed that a quick Google search would result in a list of published works worthy of this sort of opposition, or maybe news items about her provocative past.

Imagine my surprise, then, to learn that not only was Murphy innocent of the hate speech accusations she was being doggy-piled with, she was actually advocating on behalf of marginalized populations and rape victims — something I'm personally passionate about. Her highest profile dust-up was with a pedophile trans activist named Jessica Yaniv, a true villain if there ever was one, and now she was facing death threats for publicly questioning whether convicted child killers who self-identify as female should be allowed in women's prisons. As far as I could tell, she was a strong-willed social crusader making a real positive impact in the world.

So how come everyone was treating her like the Antichrist?

In the week leading up the event, I followed the controversy via Twitter and began to educate myself on the subject being discussed: trans rights. I learned that this new slur "TERF" is an acronym for "trans exclusionary radical feminist", though it was being used as a catch-all for anyone who disagreed with their rhetoric, and it wasn't immediately apparent what trans people were being excluded from. I learned that "dead-naming" someone means using someone's name from before they transitioned (like calling trans icon Caitlin Jenner by her birth name Bruce) and that there were a few koan-like mantras everyone felt strongly about: "Trans rights are human rights" and "trans women are women."

As I engaged on Twitter, posting a few comments and questions, I became increasingly aware of how toxic this discourse was. These trans rights activists were looking for people to crucify, drunk on self-righteousness, and were incapable of having a nuanced conversation about this new worldview they were wielding like a weapon. As I consumed their vitriol, following accounts on either side of the spectrum, it occurred to me that all of this anger wasn't only being funnelled towards anti-trans bigots. It was also sliming well-meaning leftists who weren't sufficiently up to date on how this conversation has been progressing (learn your acronyms!) and people blissfully unaware that this esoteric social justice battle is even happening. According to their standards, not only was I a TERF but so was everybody else in my family, from my toddler niece all the way up to my grandparents. We all believe in something we've been taught since childhood, biological sex, and that makes us the enemy.

But how could I make my own position known without offending and alienating the trans people in my life who I love, regardless of how I feel about this new gender ideology? Could I oppose the indoctrination while embracing trans people themselves? Was there some sort of middle ground I could take, where I could express my support and love for them while simultaneously refusing to drink the Kool-Aid?

Then the big night came. By this point the Toronto Public Library scandal had taken up three or four days of my attention, and I remained glued to social media so I could follow every development. I read an extremely thoughtful prepared statement by a city councillor named Gord Perks and thought "finally, a voice of reason!" only to see his contribution written off and misrepresented. Hundreds of people took to the streets, necessitating a police presence to keep the audience and speakers safe. Videos posted on Twitter showed this hate mob, led by Governor General Award-winning author Gwen Benaway, shouting violent epithets at cowed women while pretending they were the victims. These bullies were out for blood, and anything less than full surrender wouldn't satisfy them.

The thing that struck me the most during all this was that the two sides of the political spectrum were arguing different points. While one side was insisting that Meghan Murphy deserved free speech, the other side was arguing about the perceived content of her talks as they pertained to trans rights. They weren't meeting anywhere near the middle, because they weren't even having the same conversation. The result of this was that trans rights activists were passionately mobilizing certain nuances of their worldview, and demanding these tenets be accepted, while the other side was simply saying "let her talk". The protesters had smeared her as an anti-trans speaker, though that wasn't how she self-identified. For a movement so obsessed with self-identification, this was a huge blind spot. Just like misgendering someone, they were accusing her of being something she's not.

As the think pieces and news articles began to come out in the following days, I read opinions from both sides and searched for even a shimmer of mutual understanding. This divisionary rhetoric was going to have devastating consequences, I figured, including within the literary world. And if people were continuing to be scared into silence for fear of being mobbed like Murphy, how could we ever have a meaningful dialogue? Who would be the next person to inspire one of these hateful clown parades?

This was the headspace I was in when I came across a story in Flare written by Benaway in which she narrates her experience addressing representatives of the library during a feedback session leading up to the event. With purple prose, silly histrionics and self-aggrandizing rhetoric, she singles out Head Librarian Vickery Bowles (who didn't speak a word during the exchange) and accused her of being transphobic simply for supporting free speech. In the most embarrassing passage she repeatedly challenges those present to tell her which bathroom she should use, which is so off-topic it comes off as nonsensical. I couldn't take it anymore. I left a comment under the article, calling Benaway "so dishonest" for misrepresenting Bowles and Murphy, and accused her of "tilting at windmills, hard."

This was it. The first public stance I'd taken on the issue. I knew that nearly every literary figure I was associated with on Twitter probably disagreed with me on principle, and would probably only experience this as some privileged white dude punching down on a poor trans activist. That being said, I really believed in what I was saying and legitimately believed trans rights activists who were vilifying librarians and feminists needed to be fucking stopped. I felt a twinge of vertigo as I let go, allowing myself to tumble head-first down this howling rabbit hole. I'd heard that these activists are militant, sometimes going after people's livelihoods if they disagree with you, but I was feeling ready for a fight.

It was around this time that a Twitter account started retweeting some of my comments, tagging my employer Humber Literary Review, adding melodramatic captions about how I was a trans-hater. This Internet stranger made me uncomfortable, but I didn't engage, comfortable in the knowledge that my editors had known me for five years and understood I was incapable of hatred. Anyone who took a moment to read my timeline would see that I wasn't a zealot; I was just a newbie to this particular conversation, trying to make sense of what was going on in a respectful manner. Also, I wasn't interested in having a conversation about trans rights -- the issue is hardly relevant to my day-to-day life -- I was interested in talking about Meghan Murphy's right to free speech, a right that had been thoroughly trampled for no good reason.

One thing that occurred to me was that the library protest ultimately had the opposite effect of what was intended. Rather than silencing Murphy, they'd elevated her to a new level of prophet-like prominence. I'd never heard of her before, but now she was being profiled in newspapers and discussed all over social media. I'd gone from having no idea who she was to being one of her most ardent fans, keen to hear what she was up to next. And pretty soon there were titans of the entertainment world stepping in to take her side, including J.K Rowling and Ricky Gervais. The haters tried to silence her but instead set her on fire, leaving us all to watch her dance wreathed in holy flames.

Then they came for me. Three days after my comment on the Flare article, which inspired a long back and forth with a Toronto poet, Humber contacted me to say that I no longer had my position as interviews editor. According to them they were restructuring, but we were in the middle of an issue and that made no sense. I sent a few exploratory emails, one proposing a book project that would be a collection of the interviews I'd done over the years, and I was mostly met with silence. Was it possible? Would they actually pull something like this? Would they take sides with the trans mob over me? And why?

The way I figured, if the move to take away my position was actually motivated by my Twitter interactions then their real motive was both to shut me up and to distance themselves from me professionally. The hate mob who had attacked would be waiting for word that I'd been turfed, and I wouldn't give them that satisfaction. For the following weeks, and then months, I made sure to routinely tag Humber in my posts, reminiscing about my interviews of the past and looking forward to the one that hadn't yet been published with Yasuko Thanh. I sent my editor an email and asked her to retweet some of these posts, which she said she would, but then didn't. I started escalating my rhetoric, criticizing trans activists and calling out their bonkers nonsense, all with Humber's twitter handle nice and prominent in my bio.

Finally, just before the holidays, vindication came. The founding editor of Humber Literary Review, Meaghan Strimas, contacted me to say that the collective had "grave concerns" about my Twitter content (even though she admitted she rarely uses the platform) and then demanded I remove her magazine from my bio, even though my interview with Thanh had not yet been published. Her email confirmed all my concerns: they had a staff meeting without me to discuss my conduct, they took issue with my views on trans rights, and they were hoping to make an example out of me. It was two weeks before Christmas and they were picking a fight with one of their employees for no good reason. The positive relationship we'd enjoyed for half a decade wasn't enough to shield me from their poorly researched dogmatism.

I knew what to do right away: I alley-ooped the email, and a bunch of screen-shotted Twitter posts, to a journalist named Anna Slatz. She was an active participant in the trans rights conversation, and had appeared at an event in Vancouver in which activists showed up wearing a guillotine for TERFs. She was just as outspoken as Murphy, I knew, and would be just as infuriated by this turn of events as I was. This was a minor freelance gig for me, but what if it was my main livelihood? Would they come after my other job next? My fiancée was six months pregnant with our first child and now I had to worry about these pitchfork-wavers? Slatz was thorough, professional and tactful: within 24 hours my story was live on the Post Millennial website. Watching the story rack up engagements was one of the most vindicating feelings of my life.

Within hours I was contacted by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. I'd heard of them through the Yaniv debacle, and I was thrilled to learn that their potential involvement in my case would be free of cost. I took them through what happened over the phone, step by step, and revelled in how appalled they were. I wasn't the only person who thought these activists had gone too far, targeting people's jobs and smearing them in public. They told me that if it went forward my case would have the potential to affect a huge number of people's lives, perhaps setting a precedent that would dissuade these clowns from using sinister tactics like this in the future. And I wasn't the only person this was happening to -- online there were examples of people like Maya Forstater, who lost her job for saying that biological sex is real, and others who lost gigs for something as simple as retweeting a gender critical account.

The stress and sudden attention from all this hoopla had me panicked. I was worried both about my employment, and for the financial future of my baby. As my case drew the attention of names I recognized, like Jordan Peterson, I worried that I would be submerged by this trans rights tidal wave. I knew my misgivings were shared by many, both in the literary world and everywhere else, but people were too afraid to speak the truth. For a few nights I couldn't sleep. I didn't feel like fighting; I just wanted to be left alone.

But then I began to reflect on what actually mattered. I have a number of trans friends who are intensely important to me, and it's them who are suffering the worst consequences of this toxic rhetoric. As activists continue to over-reach and inflame controversy, the blow-back is hitting people who would just like to quietly go about living their lives. They don't believe in some of the more ridiculous aims of these activists, like plugging biological males into female sports or subjecting female prisoners to the company of murderers hiding behind self-identification. They're just as embarrassed by the Gwen Benaways and Jessica Yanivs of the world, and believe just as strongly as I do in Meghan Murphy's right to free speech. They don't believe in vilifying strangers, or taking away their jobs, because that's the purview of idiots and assholes.

As J.K. Rowling recently wrote on Twitter: this is not a drill. The time for ignoring or being complacent about the trans rights conversation has passed, because it is now doing real harm not only to trans people, but also everyone else. With my daughter en route to Earth, I want to create a future where this dystopian rhetoric is a thing of the past, and I don't have to worry about her being indoctrinated into a worldview where biological sex doesn't exist. I believe that inclusion is non-negotiable, and that trans people should be embraced and supported, but that should never come at the expense of people who reject their ideology or have beliefs of their own. It's possible to love someone even if you think their worldview is nonsensical, and trying to speak sense to them is the opposite of hate speech.

You could even call it love speech.

The Literary Goon

[legionofpotatoes]

Okay then, since both of y’all are just delving in I’ll try to keep things (relatively) spoiler-free and stick to story sense and semiotics! Few caveats:

Have not had prior experience with Kojima’s body of work and if that’s a prerequisite in how I “should feel” about it then yike on a bike (just getting this out of the way based on what I’ve had talked at me)

My read excludes the entire context of moment-to-moment gameplay; I basically watched chronological story cutscenes stitched together with NPC interaction vignettes sprinkled in-between. 9 or so hours in total. 

I did this because the gameplay does not interest me at all - and not in protest of chill social games (I adore both No Man’s Sky and thatgamecompany stuff, for example, and try to champion anything without Gun in it), but because the setting and length did not align with my expectations for something to invest so much time into. Still, I was super intrigued by the story, and, to a lesser extent, the plot.

also I have a hard time writing in condensed English, so this may run quite long. I’ll put the rest under a break. Second language, sorry!

I’m trying to think of a good way to start this. Like I said, the story, or what the thing was ABOUT, was infinitely more interesting to me than whatever wacko packaging Kojima thought up for the narrative. Which was a complicated, thought-out piece of fiction shattered into many disparate pieces and fed to us in a mystery-box-filmmaker kind of way, making us reverse-engineer what essentially was a rather simple interpersonal uhh. family tragedy, I guess. 

But to its credit the lore is visibly built solely to support whatever thematic messaging Kojima would want to weave in there - something I can respect. Meaning it gets as wacky and as nonsensical as it needs to be in order to reflect the high-concept allegories at play, aaand then it does so to a fault. I adore works of fiction that don’t give a shit about “tone” - I hate that word more than anything in modern media - but effective symbolism in storytelling, IN MY OPINION, requires a deft hand, nuance, strong authorial position, and a good grasp of social context. 

I want to like, go through these four points individually and nitpick my problems with the game in their lens, because I think they cover pretty much everything I feel like saying:

1. A deft hand - to me means to selectively dramatize correct themes and plot points as you go so that shit makes sense in the end. I felt this was incredibly lacking here. It was like a symphony going for hours without a crescendo. The absolute wrong bits of soulless exposition would be reiterated THRICE within a single cutscene while necessary context of, hell, character motives or even plot geography would be left vague. Intentionally vague, some would argue, but their later function would never arrive. Other times, what would visibly be conceived as wink-and-you’ll-miss-it foreshadowing could overstay its welcome to the point of inadvertently spoiling a later plot point. My girlfriend sniped the (arguably) most important reveal of the game, which is left for the tail end of the final epilogue (!), in the first hours of watching. The symbolics and allusions were just too plentiful where they should have been more subdued. I am DYING to provide examples here but I’m keeping it spoiler-free. Again, if this is a Kojima-ism, too bad; but it’s not a catastrophic failure of storytelling by any means. There are very few masters of this thing working today. But what can be easier to navigate, I think, is...

2. Nuance - this kinda goes hand-in-hand with the upper point but is a bit more important to me and applies to what SPECIFICALLY you decide to heighten in order to slap us across the face with your deeper meanings. Certain characters - not all of them - feel like caricatures. The silly names and overt metaphors (wearing a mask means hiding something! connected cities all have ‘knot’ in their name!) are honestly, genuinely FINE as long as their function isn’t betrayed, but the lean into metaphor worship can sometimes wade into SERIOUSLY shitty territory as contemporary implications are ignored altogether, and that ties into my fourth point, which I’ll address before looping back to the third; needless to say, approaching sensitive subjects with broad strokes is not exactly the way to go. But broad strokes is almost exclusively what this game does, forgetting to incorporate...

3. Social context - and I feel like avoiding examples here will be difficult lest I end up sounding like a dogmatic asshole; but there is a right thing and a wrong thing to do when co-opting IRL concepts to fit fictional messaging/storytelling. I feel that a character “curing” themselves of a phobia by experiencing emotional growth that vaguely corresponds to what the disorder could have symbolized is a wrong thing. And I don’t even want to get into all the wacky revisionism the lore ended up twisting into, which was mostly honestly entertaining (the ammonite will be a good hint to those who’ve played it), until it decided to, again, lean a bit too hard into painting today’s reality as a crisis of human connection and imply some questionable things about why, uh, asexual people exist, for example. Yes it makes some sense within the context of the lore and what’s happening in the plot, but it’s completely lacking in social know-how of the here and now. In other words: a Bad Look. To me, this type of wayward ignorance is a much more serious issue that can historically snowball any piece of writing into a witless disaster. I don’t know if it quite does it here, but it’s not really my place to say. Still, you can have wacky worldbuilding that has no sense of dramatic tension, nuance, or awareness towards the audience, and yet containing one last vital glue holding it all together, and that would be...

4. Strong authorial position - or intent I guess, to speak in literary terms - and I still have trouble pinpointing how and where this exists in this game. A bullshit stance you say, and I hear ya; cause this here is a video game very pronounced in its pro-human-connection messaging, painting the opposite outcome as an apocalyptic end to our species. And as I understand the gameplay is all about connections too - leaning into that theme so hard it even renders itself unapproachable to most capital-g Gamers. I honestly respect the balls of that. But really, as an author who headlined the creation of this thing, what was it really about? What were you trying to say?

And beyond “human connection is real important to beat apathy” I got nothing, and I think that’s because of points 1 and 2 failing in succession, and then point 3 souring the taste. It just had to be apparent the moment the curtain fell, is what I find. You just have to “get” it immediately, get what it was trying to say, but that will happen only if it’s been articulated incredibly well up to that point. Maybe the entire punch of that message REALLY depends on you spending dozens of hours ruminating on the crushing cost of loneliness as you haul cargo across countries on foot and connect people to your weird not-internet? If so, I’ve missed a vital piece of context, and with this being a videogame and all, it’s honestly a fair assumption. But otherwise.. it felt like a hell of a lot of twisting and turning and plot affectations that only led to more plot affectations and sometimes character growth (which had its own bag of issues from point 3) and not a hell of a lot to say about human connection beyond the fact that it is. good and useful. It felt like a repeated statement instead of being an argument. Does that make sense? I understand the story optics here are zoomed waay out and set on targeting the human condition as a whole, but like.. if you’re committing to a message, you have to stand by it.

Why is connection good? it’s a dumb question without a DOUBT but since the game has set out to answer it then it.. should? Did I miss the answer? I may have, I honestly can’t exclude the possibility. My lens was warped and my framework of consuming storytelling is a bit rigid in its requirements (the four points I mentioned), so maybe I’m just too grouchy and old to understand. 

I just think Pacific Rim did it better and took about 7 hours less to do it! And yet, it, too, involved Guillermo Del Toro. Curious.

If you made it this far and are interested in my thoughts on the technical execution of it all as well, uhm, it’s pretty much spotless? Decima is utilized beautifully, the Hideo vanity squad of celebrities all do their very best with the often clunky dialogue, the music is great, the aesthetic and visual design is immediately arresting, and it certainly does an all-around great job at standing out from the rest of the flock. I fell in love with the BB a little bit. It is also a game that is incredibly horny for Mads Mikkelsen, which almost fully supplants the expected real estate for run-of-the-mill male gaze bullshit. It is. A change.

That’s all I got folks

[loftyloftyloftyloftylofty]

Another Glimpse: Cat Story’s World Map Design Philosophy

Hey friends,

Taking an opportunity today while I am on vacation from work to provide some long-overdue updates on progress!

I started working on Cat Story on Halloween of 2014. We’re rapidly approaching the five year anniversary of starting this project.

For five years of working on this game, I’ve certainly got a lot to show for it! With that said, it’s still very easy to think about the ways I spend my time and feel like I’m not working hard enough.

I’d like to share some spoilery stuff today to help put into perspective where I’m at, what I’ve got left to do, and what the plan is going forward to complete this project, with a focus on the world map and how different segments of it represent different milestones, and why those segments are arranged the way they are.

Adding a ‘Keep reading’ link here just in case folks want to avoid spoilers!

Let’s start with the world map’s layout:

Tumblr isn’t good for displaying large images so here’s a direct link.

The game begins in Tilmi, which is the small square in the mid-left region of the map. The first chapter of the story takes the player through Digsite 56, into the Aquifer, through Blue Caverns and the Thoroughfare to the ALIAS complex.

As the scope of Cat Story has changed over time, the map has definitely evolved. Originally the entire game was going to take place on a single island!

Ever since I decided on an underground setting though, a few core concepts have persisted in the map’s design iterations that I feel are very important to the genre of game I’m making, and I think it’s useful to explain what those are and why I think they’ll be good for Cat Story. The first concept I want to talk about that’s stuck with the map for awhile is the Thoroughfare, but to explain why it exists, I need to explain some stuff about what I look for in video games and where I’ve drawn some of these ideas from.

I like going back to experience games again after awhile. I  use wallpaper engine to set up wallpaper videos from my favorite games to ‘keep an eye’ on the game worlds I enjoyed. It’s like a security camera system that averts my feelings of homesickness for the places that made strong impressions on me. Call me crazy if you like, but it’s really, really hard for me to ‘leave’ these worlds behind. 

(I still occasionally open up OneShot to check on Niko despite the fact that nothing happens.)

One of the games that I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from (especially for finding a good pace to increase difficulty) is Axiom Verge. AV’s map is designed in a way that getting from point A to point B can be really rough and tedious - part of the game’s challenge is navigating the rough terrain and the uncompromising, unforgivng atmosphere that broods over that challenge adds a lot of charm to the environment. The downside to this though is that it takes a lot of willpower to backtrack through each area and collect hidden stuff, and as much as I adore Axiom Verge, I have a really hard time picking it up again because I know that going back to explore and re-immerse isn’t going to be a casual stroll- the mazelike tunnels and hazards keep you on your toes the whole time.

In similar vein, Hyper Light Drifter has an absolutely breathtaking environment that I adore, but going back to re-immerse and take it all back in is a journey. 

In contrast, anyone can jump back into a game like FEZ after several years’ break without fear of meeting heavy resistance - the downside to this is that FEZ’ design is definitely about getting that 100% completion and once you’ve accomplished that, there’s not much to find or do on your current save, so that re-immersion is easy but feels incomplete unless you start a new playthrough.

Ori hit a pretty solid stride between these two extremes, offering a variety of areas with different levels of difficulty and fast travel options to get you to where you want to be, which means that going back to appreciate Ori’s super-beautiful art and scenery is readily accessible. What I don’t like about this though is that any form of teleportation or fast travel results in making a huge world feel small, and despite having teleports available, every time I go back to Ori, I make a point of walking from point A to point B because I feel that it would be doing the game world an injustice to just scoot directly to my destination instead of actually experiencing the environment.

I’d like to also take a brief moment to mention Hollow Knight, which designed a map that has fast travel and still feels exquisitely huge. I learned so much from playing that game and every time I revisit it, it’s an excellent time. HK has also been a huge inspiration for me in the way I design stuff and I hope that learning from each of these games will help me make an awesome game, too.

So, with all of this in mind, I’ve tried to design Cat Story’s map around the idea of having a common artery that connects most of the game’s main areas - so that when someone jumps back into the game after having not played for awhile, they can get to that area they wanted to revisit quickly; and that has manifested itself in the form of an abandoned service tunnel linking a bunch of the different themed spaces together. 

As the player progresses through the game, they unlock new sections of the Thoroughfare which allow them to explore new areas (or in some cases, revisit old ones). Some (not all) sections of the Thoroughfare also have the ability to get the player quickly from one end to the other (similar to Hollow Knight’s tram). My hope is that by balancing the design of the areas in relation to each other against the effort required to actually navigate each space, I can create a map that’s easy to come back to if I decide to, for example, add DLC later down the road.

I don’t plan on implementing a fast travel system in this game, and I understand that what that means for the map design is that the map must allow the player to move quickly - I want to try to hit a balance between scenic route and speedrun-friendly. I’ve been making a point to include shortcuts to skip gaps or run-arounds for savvy players, and I’ve taken several tips from the book of Guacamelee in terms of unlocking those shortcuts after completing small sections of each area. 

Still with me? Rad.  Let’s talk about how each section of the map relates to project progress.

A quick glance at the map overview for Cat Story makes it pretty clear that the scope of this game’s world map is enormous.

To help put that statement in perspective, I’ve made one of the arrows red on that map overview. See it? The red one?

That’s this. (Warning: Image is ~12000 x ~3000 lol)

Now, to be fair, I built this world map knowing that it would be a ton of work. I signed up for this and not only have I committed to the idea, but I’ve embraced it as what will be - so far in my life - my greatest creative achievement.

It’s hard to put a percent value on each map in terms of how it relates to the completion of the game. Taking into account the nuances of scripting events, writing story dialog, refining art styles, iterating on terrain, adding collectibles, finding the right enemies to make a map challenging, playtesting, and a host of other tasks associated with each segment of the game, it begins to become apparent that we need a better way to measure progress.

So, where are we at?

A lot of these maps have been loosely-concepted. That means I have a general idea of what the theme will be for each space and what challenge I want to be thematic in navigating it.

As an example, the Blue Caverns will have a heavy focus on waterfalls, large bodies of water, and jumping on suspended blocks. Trestletop will have a heavy focus on mushroom caps hanging from the ceiling - a concept which earlier beta maps have already explored with great success.

The next step in the workflow for each of these maps is nailing down the aesthetic and tying it in with the navigation involved in the area. 

I can not stress enough that the way you move through an area in a game like this is the prime factor that I am considering when designing the aesthetic for it. Movement is critical in Cat Story and I am doing my best to design every enemy, jump, tunnel, and theme around the central idea of how you navigate through or around. 

My current focus is the stretch of the game’s first chapter from Digsite 56 to Blue Caverns. I’m very happy with 56′s look so far and expect to have the transition maps between Tilmi and 56 hermetically sealed before September’s Patreon demo releases.

In the meantime, I’m gonna’ get back to work. 

This post went on a lot longer than I thought it would! I’ll probably add to this later in a followup post because there’s an awful lot that I’d like to talk about, but if I spend all day blablabla’ing on Tumblr instead of working, nothing will get done.

Cheers everybody, thanks for reading

[whiterosebrian]

Open Letter to Professor Geek

Professor Geek,

I have seen a large number of your videos on YouTube. You have commented negatively on “social agenda” within movies, TV series, and comics. Very recently I sent a direct message on Instagram inviting you to a private dialogue over representation and social justice. I did not get a response even as I kept in mind what I wanted to ask or say. Why am I making this letter public? I want to help build bridges between people, however difficult that task might be in the polarized cultural climate.

You have associated yourself with “Comicsgate”, a loose grouping of fanboys (and, yes, a handful of fangirls) opposing “Social Justice Warriors” bringing “forced diversity” and “politics” into comics and related media. “Comicsgate” is itself associated with other sects of fandom that similarly militate against “forced diversity” and “politics”. People within this overall grouping assert that they do not oppose diversity among creators and characters and stories per se, but rather diversity handled poorly. I admit that diverse characters and their distinctive stories can be poorly made and feel contrived. They assert that they do not oppose integration of real-world issues per se but rather real-world issues clumsily crammed into fantastical stories. I admit that politics and social issues can be integrated poorly.

I can even accept that, ideally, one group of people should not be pitted against another. I am male, my ethnic heritage is very much northern European, I’m sexually attracted predominantly to women, and I’ve never experienced serious gender dysphoria. I do believe in reconciliation and friendship and collaboration. That basic sentiment, however, quickly bumps into complications.

The reason why so many creators want to introduce diversity revolves around historical contexts of marginalization and erasure. In your videos, you seem to ignore the historical injustices and the current desire to correct them. Is it not true that women and various ethnic or religious groups have been depicted in stereotypical or downright demeaning ways? Is it not true that sexual minorities have been depicted as either freaks or demons? Is it not true that various groups of people have suffered at the hands of ignorant or outright prideful or scornful attitudes? Is it not true that social systems arose that perpetuated injustices, from silencing to controlling to worse?

Twitter talkers and Youtube commenters who link themselves to ComicsGate might claim that their movement is open and accepting. That may be true in some if not many cases. I still ask you to read and listen to what opponents of Comicsgate are actually saying. They bring up evidence of harassment and hate speech that is simply too strong and too voluminous to be entirely dismissed. Do you intend to dismiss or gaslight? I should hope that you do not readily dismiss the many marginalized people who experience harassment and hate speech. As I type this I’m reading of Comicsgate folks abusing Twitter’s reporting system to punish their critics.

I also ask that you take a closer look at those who comment on your videos. Some of them will directly echo extreme-right stereotypes and conspiracy theories. For example, some will repeat the talking point of Cultural Marxists eroding culture and civilization. I invite you to look into critical videos that expose “Cultural Marxism” as a half-truth or outright hoax rooted in antisemitism. Do you stand against such stereotypes and conspiracy theories?

Late last year, after nearly twenty-five years as a convert, I made the very difficult decision to defect from Catholicism (and I am still seeking a new spiritual home). I had many difficult questions about what that religion looks like in the real world. When browsing the Twitter feeds of centrist or left-leaning priests and their fellow-travelers, I would see horribly inflammatory responses that further made me question the fruits of Catholicism. The term “SJW”—which you have used multiple times in your videos—is used within this context as a means of mocking any Catholic who dares to give a thought to social justice and the uplifting of marginalized people. Apparently, “saving souls”—whatever that means in the real world—is the only thing that Catholics may engage in doing. When I hear “SJW” used as pejorative I think of mockeries of anyone who voices any concern for marginalized people and systemic injustices. I’m not entirely ready to think of you using “SJW” in exactly the same way, but I feel that it draws dangerously close.

It may very well be that characters have appeared throughout comics history coming from marginalized groups. Yes, that’s true. That wasn’t not because of conservatism, for lack of a better term. That was in spite of conservatism.

Recall that Black Panther was created in the 1960s. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby may very well have riding the wave of the Civil Rights movement, when black Americans were trying to gain more rights—and, ultimately, fuller humanity—than local and state governments afforded them. Stan Lee would later publicly state that when he created the likes of Black Panther he wanted to show different people as real, human characters. He wanted to influence young readers of the time to respect different people as real, human people. You might also recall that Jack Kirby worked with Joe Simon on Captain America comics during the Second World War. They were American Jews (like Lee) who felt a need to do their part to fight Nazism even before the U.S. government declared war on the Axis Powers. They were even threatened by domestic Nazis for making those comics! I’d also like to note a famous story arc on the Superman radio show where Superman fought against the Ku Klux Klan, with a script influenced by a government agent’s research into the Klan.

Shouldn’t a wide variety of people get to share the spotlight? That’s the fundamental question that I’m discussing. Shouldn’t a wide variety of people get to be seen as full-fledged humans who are welcomed? That is the main implication of the efforts at diversifying characters and allowing diverse creators to create.

In many of your videos you have appealed to mythology and archetypes. You’ve spoken in particular of the “iconic feminine” and “iconic masculine”. Yes, I do see value in ancient mythology and archetypes. I can draw upon them. On a side note, I can even see how the differences of male and female brains (which you’ve mentioned), plus the research into those brains and apparent mismatches with the rest of the body, have led to more understanding and acceptance of trans people.

Surely I can also draw upon modern insights and the voices of historically marginalized people who are now speaking. Surely I should be able to write complex and nuanced stories that go beyond tired formulas. Would you accept that archetypes can be degraded to hollow stereotypes? Would you accept that characters should have a chance to shine outside rigid molds? Would you accept that stories should be relevant to people’s real lives and not simply be hollow escapism or antiquated abstraction?

Among the people associated with Comicsgate and other anti-SJW fan sects, I believe that you are far from the most virulent or radical. You also seem to be a sincere seeker of truth and beauty. That is why I invited you to a dialogue then later decided to compose and post an open letter. If you ever do see this, I ask you to look carefully at all my words and trust that I mean well. You are welcome to publicly respond as long as you make an honest effort to respond to the points and concerns that I raised. I ask you to consider where you go from here as a pundit and as a member of the human family.

Blessed be,

Brian Solomon Whiterose

[knifetool-blog]

Getting starting with Facebook marketing?

By then you've likely heard you ought to be on Facebook. It's the best casual network on earth, with 2.27 billion powerful customers, practically 1.5 billion of whom are dynamic reliably.

From a humble startup with Ivy League younger students offer photos, it's right now transformed into an imperative player in undertakings like media, publicizing, and advancement.

Starting late, be that as it may, Facebook has been trapped in numerous embarrassments.

From Cambridge Analytics, to record hacking, to Russian impedance, and that is only the start—is Facebook still worth contributing time and imperatives? Or on the other hand are its days numbered?

The suitable reaction is that notwithstanding the shock, investigate shows Facebook's customers don't seem to have changed their lead.

In spite of all that you'll find your best publicizing open entryways on the world's most noteworthy casual network, and that won't change anytime sooner rather than later. Contributing vitality learning Facebook publicizing merits the endeavor.

In this guide, I'll disclose to you the stray pieces of the most ideal approach to use Facebook to assist your potential advantage. The guide is away for the student who needs a preamble to promoting their business on the world's greatest casual association.

Is your gathering of onlookers on Facebook?

Before we go into ordered strategies on the most ideal approach to feature on Facebook, we ought to react to the chief inquiry—is your group even on Facebook?

The fitting reaction is, the best bet.

The most recent data by Pew Research Center exhibits that each age uses at any rate one relational association site, with progressively young customers with higher rates.

What's more, the two individuals use web based life in about comparable numbers.

Furthermore, with respect to which framework people use, Facebook directions the once-over. In January 2018, 68% of Americans used Facebook, with Instagram in blocked off second spot with 35%.

(YouTube was consolidated unprecedented for 2018 with 73% of Americans using it, anyway was any kind of customer, not just people.)

Accordingly, paying little heed to what age social occasion you're centering, there will be all that could be required of those customers on Facebook.

Here's the way by which to get things set up and start progressing through Facebook.

https://www.fiverr.com/users/lisaguestposter/

Market with Facebook Pages

The first and most clear Facebook promoting instrument for brands is Facebook Pages. Like an individual profile, a Page is the middle purpose of information for your picture, be it an association, thing, organization, or considerably ace or genius.

Customers can "Like" a page and "Seek after" it, which means they'll normally get invigorates from that page in their news source.

In any case, in order to see the posts each time they are incorporated, you need to tap the decision to view posts first. Something different, it's conceivable you won't see the updates in light of the way that Facebook needs Pages to lift posts (pay) for more prominent detectable quality and reach.

So when you get people to like your page, it's a keen idea to recommend they tail you and see your posts first. It'll save you a lot of money in the whole deal in case you don't have to lift presents on such a degree or consistently.

There are a few key differentiation among pages and profiles. To connect with someone as an individual profile, you'll both need to insist the family relationship request.

When you have a page, people can like and seek after with no underwriting from you.

Another qualification is that there are no confinements to the amount of people that can like your page. If you have an individual record, you can simply have 5,000 mates. However, a page can have thousands or even countless people who like it.

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The best bit of Pages is that they're free and easy to set up. You can really amass another Page in the accompanying 15 minutes and look as master as a Fortune 500 association.

(Notwithstanding the way that you apparently won't have a similar number of inclinations without a lot of work.)

The disadvantage is just that—they can be hard to get off the ground. But in case you're a VIP or noteworthy brand like Coke or BMW, it takes a lot of work to get more people to like your page.

In any case, in the event that you're going in any case this, you'll need to set up a specialist page. Here's the ticket.

The best strategy to set up the perfect Facebook Page

Unfortunately, various associations don't use Facebook Pages to their most extreme limit. All the more dreadful, a couple of brands use them insufficiently and truly hurt their acceptability.

These guidelines will empower you to decline submitting those blunders.

Profile photo and spread picture

Your profile photo should be your logo. Clear as that.

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The spread picture is a substitute story. It's really reliant upon you to pick what to put here. Some usage photos of laborers, while others use extreme craftsmanship and put their contact information in the spread picture.

M&Ms works commendably blending their logo, characters, and thing into their photos.

Pick a photo that will redesign your page and draw the eye of your visitors.

"About" region

The "About" region is prominently set perfect underneath your association logo. This is your chance to encourage anyone setting off to your page what your business does.

It's short, so don't endeavor to fit everything in. Just the stray pieces are perfect.

In the full about territory, attempt to consolidate more nuances.

Explain what your association does, for what reason you're one of a kind, and other charming substances. In case you can, put aside the push to make it expressly for your Facebook gathering of observers.

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Regardless, in the event that you're after every single other choice have been depleted, you can essentially copy the substance from the "About" page of your web page or blog. Make a point to fill in most of your data under "Principal Info."

Entry works wonderfully including their highlights and contact data on their information page.

If you have a physical business, you can incorporate a few additional features like territory and hours. This page from Eighth Generation is a certified model.

Basically make a point to keep it all around arranged and easygoing. An agreeable tone generally works best on Facebook.

Post significant information to your course of occasions

What you post to your divider will show up in the news wellsprings of everyone who has "Cherished" your page, comparably as it does when you present something all alone profile.

Thu sly, guarantee what you're displaying is significant on your fans. Do whatever it takes not to post boundless updates about something fundamentally the same as, and don't post over and over, deterring the news channels of your fans.

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Huge brands like Apple typically simply post things they understand will interest their fans, like striking video commercials or thing presentations.

Here are a couple of musings for the sorts of things you should need to post to your divider:

Associations with articles related to your association or your industry

Associations with your blog passages

Coupon codes for fans to get a good deal on your things

New thing affirmations

Associations with online devices your fans may find supportive

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Yet again, guarantee that your posts are valuable or intriguing. Also, don't post over and over consistently with the exception of if there's a one of a kind event going on.

Spam is maybe the snappiest ways to deal with lose fans. If you don't do anything anyway pass on constrained time blurbs about your association, while never including anything of noteworthy worth, by then you will encounter genuine troubles getting and keeping fans.

Before you pass on an update, ask about whether it really builds the estimation of the talk. If it doesn't, don't send it.

Concentrate your estimations and results

Facebook Insights offers some amazingly mind blowing examination for pages. Concentrate on them. If you see a noteworthy flood in fans (or a drop off), see what you've posted starting late and check whether you can understand a reason behind the example.

By then, post a more noteworthy measure of that kind of substance (or less, in the event that you're losing fans).

Using social occasions, business focus, and occupations

Over the latest couple of years, Facebook has incorporated two or three new features for different sorts of pages.

Here's the way by which to use them to propel your association or brand.

The best technique to publicize with Facebook Groups

Facebook has had packs for quite a while, anyway they starting late allowed you to make brand-based get-together related with your page.

In any case, you'll need a Facebook Page for your picture. By then you can make a social occasion to go with that page.

This licenses fairly more control over the social affair since you can associate your association to it.

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Facebook social affairs resemble exchange discourses, anyway with additional features that pages and profiles have (like a course of occasions).

You can make social affairs related to your industry or thing commitments as a way to deal with interface with potential customers.

The mind blowing thing about Facebook Groups is that, like Pages, they're free. They moreover will when all is said in done have a lot of responsibility. On the downside, they can be dreary.

To manage a Page you may simply need to check in once every day (or even less) to introduce something and answer on comments.

With a Group, you'll have to consistently screen trades, post questions, and direct people—perhaps on various events consistently.

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The best strategy to publicize

[theonceoverthinker]

OUAT 4X05 - Breaking Glass

Not super excited to GLASS-ess this episode, but let’s get a move on and see if this rewatch BREAKS my perspective!

So go under that there cut for the review!

Main Takeaways

Past

I wonder what would’ve happened if Lily had been honest from the start about where she came from. Would Emma have rejected her for leaving a family that she already had or would she have trusted Lily’s feelings of not belonging and feeling invisible?

Speaking of invisibility, I really feel like giving a tangible meaning to “invisible” would’ve made this segment better. Because we see that Lily’s not neglected. Her father personally goes searching for her and her mother is apparently “worried sick.” Are we supposed to believe that they’re putting on an act and that Lily regularly is neglected or are we supposed to think Lily’s over privileged and lying? Or is there something else going on there? I feel like just a line talking about Lily’s specific experiences at home would’ve really helped Lily be a bit more fully rounded.

Present

Okay, so I’m gonna get right to the point about why I don’t like this episode: Emma and Regina’s dynamic. I’ve said before that I don’t like their arc this season and this episode is the reason why. In every episode of it prior, while Emma truly felt bad for Regina and the consequences of her actions, she didn’t forget that that action was saving (What we all originally thought) was an innocent woman’s life, and thus didn’t show regret for the action, just remorse. Therefore, her kindness towards Regina, especially as Regina was insulting, only went so far before she bit back. There were lines that Regina would cross that Emma would say that she’s taking her anger out at the wrong person to. And Regina’s anger at Emma, while not pleasant, was in character and came from an understandable enough place. I get that and it made their dynamic something organic and interesting to follow. It was a complicated issue and they had complicated reactions to it, reactions they and the audience understood.

Here, that nuance fucking disappears and what we’re left with is more shallow than a McDonalds container of dipping sauce.

Emma spends the entire episode putting up with every mean thing Regina says. She practically begs for Regina’s forgiveness and refuses to stand up for herself. And there’s no reason for this change. Had Elsa or even Snow suggested a gentler approach to how she handles Regina, only for it not to work, that would’ve been a better handling of the story.  

And when Emma DOES stand up for herself, it’s just nothing! It’s over Regina lying about Sidney and lasts for barely a few seconds! Regina brings up everything with Marian and I’m just here wondering why they never get into it!

And Regina’s BRUTAL in her insults and goes SO far over the line compared to previous episodes (“You ruined my life” being the worst of them), and the fact that Emma doesn’t have a big snap back to these things highlights not only how harsh the lines actually are, but how practically nonchalant Emma is being towards them. It’s a sentiment that really doesn’t work in the episode’s favor.

As an Emma fan, it feels absolutely undeserved and to not see a consequence from Emma for such lines is anger inducing. As a Regina fan, her behavior here feels embarrassing!

In Emma’s final scene with Regina in the vault, the framing becomes weird. The whole episode is framed as Emma needing Regina to forgive her and then in this last scene, it’s kind of reversed. Emma talks about how she doesn’t want to make the same mistake again, but last time, she was the victim. “I don’t want to kill you.” This is the wham line of the entire final scene between them, but where does it come from? At no point in this season or episode has Regina said anything about killing Emma and it makes the final speech really weird seeing as they were just talking about being friends and forgiving each other.

“You’re trying to win me over so I can assuage your guilt, but you’re wrong.” This is the only line that has a bit of nuance to it, and it still ends up suffering. It makes sense for Regina to feel that way and if we’re to take the line “once you screw someone over, there’s no going back” line at face value, it feels for a second like a real sentiment that the episode is trying to have. I’d even say it would’ve done a better job of painting Emma’s actions as something we’re not supposed to be absolutely sympathetic towards. That said, in terms of framing, we’re supposed to take “I wasn’t looking for you to assuage my guilt” as a genuine statement and those two sentiments can’t coexist simultaneously. Are we supposed to think Regina’s taking Emma’s actions the wrong way and/or overreacting?

I do like Snow’s conflict. As I said before, I don’t think Baby Neal ever needed a huge amount of focus, but these B-plots of seeing Snow and David’s worries concerning him in Season 4 do help to not make him feel forgotten in the rest of the shuffle and help enhance Snow’s character. It also gave way to some cute silliness between her and Will Scarlet. In the grand scheme of things, that makes it a bit meaningless, but I like the cuteness.

Stream of Consciousness

-Emma, I’m with Will here. You gotta let him out. I know legality means fuck all in this town and I’m fine with that, but he’s not a super villain. He broke into a library! This is just cruel and unusual punishment! Give him a fine or something and send him on his...MERRY way! XD

-I kind of love the idea of Sidney just barely holding back giggles at the fact that he betrayed Regina. XD

-I know people don’t love Snow’s wardrobe from Season 4 onwards, and I’ll admit that there’s something of a stark change, but I like her wardrobe. For one thing, in this episode, she’s rocking that vest. For another, she just looks so cozy and warm!

-The cape is here!!! It’s so fabulous!!!

-Who took that photo of Regina and Robin? Were Henry or Snow just being sneaky af? XD

-”Leverage.” Part of me thinks that had Regina freed him, Sydney would’ve stayed loyal to her and that was one final chance on his part for Regina.

-Regina, LOVING the outfit! Everyone just looks positively BANGIN’ tonight!

-”No one was ever gonna look at me the way those parents looked at her.” I’M NOT CRYING, YOU’RE CRYING!

-I know Regina’s mad, but why won’t she just tell Emma that Sidney’s helping her. It makes up a lot of the screen time of this episode and it makes no sense! It’s not like Emma can free him and she’d probably just ask him to help until the Snow Queen is defeated.

-“Intentionally or not, you hurt someone.” Emma would’ve hurt someone regardless if she’d done nothing!

-Watching Will dig holes trying to get back to Wonderland breaks my fucking heart! Just...OW!

-Will, you’re very out of place here, but props to you for going for the gay option! XD

-I love how baby Emma was just raring to go! “I got this” and grabs a fucking candlestick! Emma, no matter the time or place is a fucking badass!

-I like how we got to see Elsa get herself out of danger!

-”If the outcome of your escape is that you found a part of yourself again, I’d say he earned that pardon.” ...Boy can this open a big can of worms in terms of villain redemptions in this show, but at least Will just broke into a library.

-Emma, why do you keep a box from your childhood in your workplace as opposed to the loft? It’d probably be safer there!

-Who took that photo? August? XD

Favorite Dynamic

Emma and Lily. The bond between Emma and Lily is just so en pointe. Their personalities and experiences compliment each other really well and make for an initially very easy going friendship. Lily is very much the opposite side of Emma’s coin. While coming from more of a place of direct privilege, Lily feels like she doesn’t belong and that connects with Emma’s resolve following Cecilia’s adoption. They support each other, trust each other, and are kind. It does so much to make the ending of the episode a point of tragedy. I also like that while Emma is undeniably the victim here, the decision to have her fully turn her back on Lily was depicted as a touch too harsh without erasing the former point. You end up really feeling for both of these girls.

Writer

Kalinda Vazquez writes her first piece for Season 4 in today’s episode and she’s joined by newbie, Scott Nimerfro. Once again, unless I’m corrected, I’m going to attribute the past segment to Kalinda and the present to Scott due to how their names are sequenced on sources pertaining to the episode. To me, that just makes sense too given the writing job. Scott seems pretty unfamiliar with how Emma and Regina work, something that after a brief review of Kalinda’s past episodes, isn’t something she struggles with. When dealing with an episode with a storyline like this, one really has to intake the nuances of the characters and evaluate what they’re trying to accomplish. Here, I feel like Scott was just trying to start on a simpler note when this episode needed a more complicated touch to it. Simplicity will be more of a friend to him in his next episode, “Shattered Sight.”

Rating

6/10. Like with the last episode, the present segment leaves me mostly unimpressed, but the past segment is pretty good.

Flip My Ship - The Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness”

Captain Swan - CHEEK KISS! WE HAVE A CHEEK KISS! And then the office scene. After an emotionally taxing day, Emma gets to reflect on things with a nice bit of booze and her boyfriend. “May I have the honor?” May I have a fainting couch because that shit made me swoon! And I love how Emma, while nervous, trusts Killian with her box of memories. And his reactions as he takes in everything range from adorable when looking at the ring to a pained understanding of mutual grief and love when they look at the picture of Neal. And finally, the hand-arm around thing. Like, while Killian finds the old Emma video to be adorable, he knows on some level that this is hard and wants to be there for her.

Swan Star - I basically Disney ship these two here!

Snowing - I love how David makes such a big effort to make Snow feel safe as they go out on their date! David is such a good husband who really understands what his wife needs!

-----

Woohoo! I made it through the two episodes I knew I wasn’t gonna like! Now let’s get back to some good stuff!

Thanks as always to the fine folks at @watchingfairytales and to the lovely @daensarah!!!

Season 3 Total (35/230)

Writer Scores: Adam and Eddy: (9/60) Jane Espenson: (10/40) David Goodman and Jerome Schwartz: (10/50) Andrew Chambliss: (6/50) Dana Horgan: (6/30) Kalinda Vazquez: (6/40) Scott Nimerfro: (6/30)

*Links to the rest of my rewatch will no longer be provided. They take posts with links outside of searches and I spend way too much time on these reviews to not give them that kind of exposure. Sorry for the inconvenience, but they still can be found on my page under Operation Rewatch.

[tanadrin]

Olly Thorn, the guy who does Philosophy Tube, argues in his video on liberalism that, as an ideology, it’s characterized primarily by its tendency to carve out exceptions: politicians of classical liberal bent like moderate Republicans in the US and Tories in the UK promulgate a general political perspective of to-each-their-own, but place those principles in abeyance for pragmatic or situational reasons--and, of course, classically liberal documents like the U.S. Constitution talk a big game of being about freedom and self-determination generally, while having implicit and explicit glaring exceptions, like women and black slaves.

I disagree. Not because I’m a diehard classical liberal; I think liberalism is a useful starting point through which many much more incisive and useful political and social analyses have passed. It is at best the Newtonian physics of human rights, though sometimes it reeks of epicycles. But: I think liberalism is best understood as the practical application of philosophical principles discovered during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, but only fully explored and coherently grappled with much later. Nonetheless, as a tendency, it does have its own internal logic, and the apparent suspension of liberal principles by self-professed liberals is less an inherent property of a liberal worldview than an inherent property of humans being shitty and clinging to, or adopting, prejudice when it’s expedient or provides some measure of personal comfort.

This is important because I think that ultimately the contradiction between the liberal perspective and the mental jiu-jitsu required to maintain those prejudices from a liberal perspective can open the floodgates to progress. Let us take the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s in the US as an example. Many different factors contributed to the successes of the CRM in the 20th century. Previous attempts to win something like civil equality for black people in the US had failed: Reconstruction was abandoned, struggles against segregation in the early 20th century came to little, and the appetite for racial discrimination on the part of the white majority, especially in the South, was not at all diminished after the end of World War 2.

What changed? Mostly, I think, the right leaders and the right strategies at the right time. But a strong contributing factor was the fact that the U.S. saw itself as an essentially liberal construct, based on rights and freedoms and equality, and no matter what racist justifications were trotted out to narrow the scope of those rights, it was increasingly apparent both in internal and external terms that something was hilariously out of kilter. Women’s suffrage, the labor movement, and the relentless drive of black Americans to increase their own economic prosperity made it clear that there were brutal archaisms within the systems of American life that could no longer be sustained. On the world stage, two massive wars were fought in which the U.S. positioned itself as a defender of freedom and democracy, alongside allies that emphatically did *not* have explicit regimes of racial segregation enshrined in their laws, or the same thoroughgoing ideology of white supremacy, and one of which indeed argued (at least on paper) for a kind of radical social equality that would have had the so-called freedom-loving founders of the U.S. begging and screaming for a king to come back and rule over them again.

Like all great attempts at reform, the CRM achieved less than it set out to do. But, in a way that the labor movement and women’s suffrage had not, it did leave a powerful lasting model within American culture and within the American civil religion for What Rights-Seeking Is Supposed To Look Like. I don’t know why the CRM was unique in this respect. (I suspect that it’s because the CRM occurred when the contradictions it sought to undo were at their height, relatively-speaking: even in the 50s and 60s, the philosophical justification for racism and segregation was basically incoherent screeching, which meant that extremely uncontroversial tactics could prove highly persuasive.) It also established that *this was a process that was supposed to occur.* By giving such a process a formal presence within civil society, it directly laid the groundwork for other movements rebelling against much older, and much more deeply ingrained prejudices, against which liberalism had, heretofore, been mostly powerless. This was extremely important.

Gay and lesbian culture, and the idea that gay and lesbian people might not be demon-possessed desecrators of all that was good and decent in life, did not appear suddenly in the second half of the 20th century. But the CRM provided a new framework in which to cast the concept of gay rights, and, indirectly, language for a gay identity that wasn’t one entirely of rebellion. Let us cast ourselves back to a much earlier era, the long 18th century. In this era, before even the milquetoast concession to the humanity of homosexuals that was the reclassifying homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder instead of an immolation-worthy offense, the dominant language to talk about good and bad, ethical and unethical, right and wrong, was monopolized by religion and the religion-adjacent concept of natural law. Lacking the natural empiricism that was the legacy of scientists like Darwin, natural law was conceived of in narrow terms that were not, in fact, based on any close or careful observations of nature, but human biases projected on to the natural sphere. Therefore, for many people who found themselves inherently opposed to the dominant ethical framework, like those who fell in love with and were attracted to people of the same sex, the choice they had must have felt from the inside a lot like Huck Finn’s: to be “good,” even though it was personally and spiritually intolerable to you, or to say, “All right then, I’ll go to hell.”

If society refuses to make a distinction between real evils and real suffering we visit upon each other and the moralizing “evils” we conceive of only to police the behavior and opinions of our neighbors, it must not pretend to be astonished when those who, out of no actual malicious inclination, must be themselves or perish reject that general framework entirely. And you know what? I sympathize. If somebody told me that who I was, inherently, was evil, even though I desire no harm and no suffering to anyone around me, and that expressing that identity even in private was equivalent to--or worse than!--inflicting grievous harm on another human being out of pure hatred, I would be extremely suspicious of their overarching moral framework.

Out of, I suspect, an inclination to rebelliousness and an imperfect analysis of the insufficiencies those antiquated frameworks, people like Marquis de Sade embraced or appeared to embrace monstrous ethics, because these were the only other ethics available to them. Christian, and especially Catholic teachings on sexual ethics require not only a denial of truths of human nature available to casual, empirical inspection (if one is willing to conduct such an inspection dispassionately, attendant to discovery of novel goods as well as novel ills), but a monstrous indifference to the suffering such teaching inflict on those who are simply unable to conform. Then, Pikachu-like, the Catholic church looks at gays and lesbians and gender-nonconforming people and says to itself, “Why on earth did these people reject the simple truth of the teachings of Christ??”

Thankfully, the gay rights movement has a superpower that the African-American civil rights movement, and the feminist movement, and many other such movements throughout history, did not. That superpower was the closet, or, more specifically, in the act of coming out. Women, the working class, and racial minorities are not randomly distributed throughout the population. Working class children are not born at random to middle-class and wealthy families; you do not need to come out as black to your shocked segregationist parents at sixteen. There is not a pre-scripted social role for gays and lesbians to slot into, a set of norms that are foisted on one as totally and completely as gender roles with a provenance that stretches back into the misty depths of Mesopotamian time. (There could have been. In some societies there is something quite like that--just not in ours.)

Because literally anyone could be gay, and because creating social bubbles of like racial or political or socioeconomic attributes does not insulate one from knowing someone who has the experience of being gay, even though gay people are not a large proportion of the population (2-5%, maybe), it becomes much harder to maintain “gay” as a firmly isolated category of other. When just enough gay people have come out in a society that is just liberal enough to tolerate their existence, it rapidly incentivizes more gay people to come out, both to be able to live as themselves, and to say to their acquaintances and family, even if in the most nominal way, “yes, you too know a gay person. You must integrate your knowledge of me as a person into your understanding of the category ‘homosexual.’” And, of course, also incentivizes closer analysis of sexual identities; of the coming out of bisexual people, who otherwise might live tolerably-but-unhappily in the closet, or who simply might not understand that bisexuality is a thing and they share it; and, as we have now, the beginning of a glorious blossoming of a diverse and nuanced understanding of sexuality and sexual identity. To the reactionary mind, this looks like the gays are recruiting, and lobbying, and overturning the order of society. In fact, what is happening is that even those conservative by inclination (among them, famously, Dick Cheney) cannot maintain both their avowed liberalism and their opposition to gay rights when confronted with members of their own family who are gay. It may not lead them to a comprehensive application of the ruthless logic of liberal democracy, but it does destroy one specific contradiction. This is why, even though the U.S. as a whole is not much more socially liberal, the popular opposition to gay marriage absolutely fucking *cratered* between the end of the 90s, when the idea was first conceived of in an extremely-distant extremely-theoretical way, and Obergefell. For institutional reasons peculiar to American conservatism, there’s still a nominal opposition, but let’s be clear: the war is over. Gay marriage (which I’m using here as a proxy for ‘basic acceptability of homosexuality as a personal attribute’) won.

This not to say that all discourse over gay rights is finished, any more than racism in the US ended with the VRA in 1964, or the need for feminism ended when women got the vote. Political rights aren’t the equivalent of social equality. But how we organize ourselves politically is integral to the mythology of our society--there’s a reason that, say, in the US electing your high school student council uses first past the post voting, while in Ireland it uses IRV. Political rights are a baseline and a pivot point. If your right to marry someone of the same sex is protected by law, it is a powerful social signal that being gay is OK--just as the VRA is a powerful social signal that racism is not, and women’s suffrage that women’s role as political beings is not to be ignored.

So there’s an ongoing social struggle to dismantle illiberal-undemocratic incoherencies within smaller bubbles of society, using the overarching consensus, and to dismantle biases and prejudices which are predicated on the illegitimacy of homosexuality, because the actual implications of the legitimacy of a gay identity haven’t been fully worked out generally. Same as with race. Same as with gender equality. And because the L, the G, the B, and the T (and all the other letters in the increasingly-expanding initialism) are related, because gender and sex and sexuality are part of a huge and messy complex of human identity, transness and trans identities specifically, while constituting a distinct concept on their own, are bound up in other ongoing struggles, while also having issues all their own. If, as Dan Savage says, misogyny is homophobia’s snot-nosed sibling (and it absolutely is), so is transphobia. You cannot be a transphobe and not, at some level, be supporting the same set of memes that has for thousands of years legitimized sexism, sexual exploitation, the brutalization of gay people, etc., etc.

What are some of those unique issues? Well, for one, transness is more bound up with medicalization and looks more to medicine to legitimize itself as an identity than any other GSM. There are historical and practical reasons for that. Historical, in that sex researchers and psychiatrists newly interested in the empirical exploration of human identities were among the first people to take the experiences of trans people seriously. While we had preexisting and strong social stigmas around the idea of homosexuality, we had a society so transphobic by default that it didn’t even really understand trans people could exist, much less come up with invective against them. This didn’t mean early trans pioneers like Lili Elbe were accepted by society, really; but the cruel incomprehension of society was more like the attitude to circus freaks than to serial killers. With gay people, on the other hand, “sympathetic” psychiatrists reclassified homosexuality as a disease, then started work on various kinds of fucked-up conversion therapy. Psychiatry may be a science, but let it never be said that science is immune to human prejudice.

But the practical reason for that association is that modern medical technology offers a powerful tool for relieving the suffering of trans people. To be sure, there are specific concerns of medical care among gay, lesbian, and bi people, too, especially since the beginning of the AIDS pandemic. But such is a) the complex and interlocking aspects of gender and presentation and embodiment of both in our society and b) the nature in which dysphoria is felt by trans people, that medical intervention is, purely on a pragmatic level, a powerful tool to both relieve suffering specific to the experience of being trans. That’s not really the case with gay or bi identities.

Where we run into trouble is where we rely on the interface between trans identities and medical institutions to legitimate trans identities. What this huge long screed has all been a preface to is this assertion: that it is, above all, entirely unnecessary. You do not need a comprehensive medical theory of blackness to recognize black people deserve rights. You do not need a medical theory of gayness to recognize gay people deserve rights. Ditto womanhood. Indeed, in *every one* of those cases, medical theorizing on paradigms of homosexuality, womanhood, and race have been used to prop up, rather than to dismantle prejudices, and it is only the relentless logic of liberal values, either on their own terms, or in the more sophisticated form under which they’re incorporated into other critiques of society (as leftists sometimes manage), that have ultimately pushed through the “eww, I don’t like these people” reaction to a consistently tolerant treatment of these categories as fully realized human beings--or, at least, the beginnings of that treatment.

(Irrelevant aside: I actually entirely expect that the close relationship between medical and experiential aspects of transess will be the vehicle to greater acceptability of a transhuman ethos around how we interact with our bodies. Because the morphological self-determination aspect of transhumanism is fundamentally liberal, i.e., it’s about personal autonomy and personal flourishing, and because the technologies available to facilitate that are medical, they’re bound up with the cultural aspects of medicine. Right now, that’s a disease model, based both on the inheritance of medicine as “thing which exists to make people healthy again,” and the practical limits of scarcity and wanting people to pay out of pocket for anything that is classified as purely cosmetic. But in my heart of Utopian hearts, even purely cosmetic procedures belong to the same category, mutatis mutandis 1) whether they can be shorn from the (IMO mostly unfair) presumption they’re about conforming to oppressive social norms, and 2) the fact they’re usually used to enact a preference much less acute and involving much less personal difficulty than GID. But big, big emphasis on “usually.” To put it another way, unbinding medicalization from transness wouldn’t be an argument against providing specialized medical care for trans people. It would be an argument for providing a similar set of services to everyone.)

I’m actually deeply uninterested in theorizing about what transness is or how it’s constituted. For one, I think a lot of the questions around it are simplistic and ill-defined, such as the utterly moronic search for “a gay gene.” Human identity and sexuality and sex, and cultural complexes built around those things which have their roots in, but really aren’t tied to biology in any kind of philosophically consistent way, are too multifactorial, and too fuzzy to be clearly or cleanly captured by psychiatry and neuroscience and biology as they currently stand. Maybe one day, when we have Culture-level AI able to image us down to the subatomic level and run sophisticated simulations of every metabolic pathway and every cognitive tic simultaneously we can create a sufficiently detailed model of the human being to speak on these things with some certainty. But that’s actually irrelevant to the messy business of lived experience, and to the practical business of “how do we get people to stop deliberately inflicting massive amounts of suffering on each other.”

The answer to the latter question is essentially the same as has been for homosexuality. Like gay people, trans people have the superpower of being able to come out. Unlike gay people, trans people make up an even smaller proportion of the population. And the conversation around the diversity of gender identity is even more in its infancy than the conversation around sexual identities. But as we have seen time and time again, the exact constitution of the identity is irrelevant to the identity’s legitimacy. Those hostile to that identity will always find a basis on which to rest their hostility: using medical legitimacy, or failure to conform to the gender binary, or failure to meet some arbitrary definition of dysphoria, will make it no easier to gain acceptance. Minorities under siege have been willing to throw less-mainstream members of the group under the bus to defend themselves since time immemorial: it never works. You will be accepted for precisely as long as you are useful to attack other members of the group, and then they will turn on you. Racists will use black people who look down on AAVE to say, “see! I’m not racist!” and then still refuse to hire the well-dressed black person who speaks perfectly standard GenAm, over a less qualified white person. There is no “balancing act” between a “reasonable” set of trans identities and an “unreasonable” set, because what the philosophical battle is over is not where, exactly, the line will be drawn for a minority identity, but the validity of that fundamental identity in the first place.

So I tire of people who want to endlessly split and compare forms of transness that they feel are well beyond the set of central examples of trans identity. I tire of people who want to treat some forms of gender self-identity as invalid, or of too little value to the person making them to be worth caring about. This is not just dumb, and it’s not just bad strategy (solidarity! it works, bitches). It’s actually completely missing the point. If you can convince society that “trans” is a legitimate identity, the supposed edge cases don’t matter. If you can’t, abandoning people “without” “real” “dysphoria” or w/e won’t make a difference. It’s not as if they’re the one thing standing in the way of every transphobe going “welp, guess we were wrong!” The thing standing in the way is that they refuse to accept trans identities at all. They will point to whatever they can to buttress that lack of acceptance, and if it isn’t that it will be something else. The thing that works against that, the thing that dismantles that, is the same thing that always dismantles prejudice: you be who you are. You don’t let anyone take that away from you. And if someone asks you to philosophically justify your experiences, your life, your existence, you tell them to get fucked, and you keep right on living.