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trustbasics · 2 years

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Smite colorbot

as silly as that may seem to folks that aren't color blind.Įdit, why folks are downvoting the fact that im contributing to the subject as someone that suffers from similar problems. Green's, due to the fact that the contrast isnt as high to me and possibly other folks, they just blend into the jungle when sticking close to the walls. (even with CB correction, can make it harder for certain skins)Ĭhaac- hailstorm (when in the chaos side) (Protanopia) but due to how thins is playing out, i can see red, but extremely faded which causes some odd effects when it comes to "camouflage".Īs crazy as it may seem, some skins do blend into the environment and make it slightly harder to see even though your team tells you it's bs and a lie. My colorblind issue is with the red wave length in specific. I personally have a few issues with games due to colorblindness. I'm looking forward to playing Smite again, but it's too frustrating to play until this changes.ĮDIT: My problem isn't telling what buff I have. Nothing ticks me off more than devs who get praised for adding accessibility options by the masses, when the minority (those with accessibility issues) aren't actually benefiting from it. It's really frustrating to have "Colorblind mode" that doesn't actually help with everything. What few issues I had were fixed fairly quickly, but this one was so disheartening and frustrating that I'm not even wanting to play until this is changed.Īnd whoever is in charge of accessibility, tell them to double-check new art assets that have a DIRECT IMPACT on gameplay. I love Smite, and I've been playing for years without very many issues at all. And darken the purple buff to make it more vivid create distance between the two shades. Make it as light as the buff icons and minimap icons. In that case, please take the blue buff and make it much much lighter sky blue, pale blue, whatever you want to call it. I do think the new art style is a fantastic direction, and the symbols subtract from that. Obviously one solution would be to bring back the orbiting symbols around the god, but that seems to be against the direction HiRez wants making it look more. It would be unfair of me to bring up a problem without suggesting a solution. Okay, so I believe I've explained why it's a problem well enough. If there were any other way of differentiating them aside from color, like before, I would have no complaints and I could enjoy the game fully. This can cause hesitation, can drag my focus from the game itself, and denies crucial information to colorblind players. Of course it depends on the colorblindness, but for protanopia and protanomaly, the purple and blue buffs are indistinguishable. There is no way for a colorblind gamer to look across the lane and notice what buffs the enemy has walked out of the jungle with. In the new version, there is no difference aside from color, AND there is a new color to boot (purple). If I glanced at two gods in the distance with a red and orange buff, all I had to do was notice one of the icons orbiting them, and I'd know what buff they had. No matter what you do, some form of colorblindness will confuse 2 of the colors, but colorblind gamers easily waived that issue because the icons said everything. Blue buff is a little potion, speed buff is a tornado, red buff is a spikeball, and so on. Prior to these new buff effects, an icon depicting the type of buff orbited the god. You can deduce the problem I'm having, here. But they must have stopped there, as the art style of the game has made some drastic changes without any thought into colorblind accessibility. The HiRez employee that thought of that did a great job. It changes the health bars to blue and yellow, and it's perfect. Smite has a colorblind mode that I am extremely grateful for. The short way to explain it is that my red photoreceptors don't work/exist. It's one of the multiple variations of red-green colorblindness.

#Smite colorbot

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pixiealtaira · 6 years

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Dragged Kicking and Screaming ( 13/ 22)

Title: Dragged Kicking and Screaming

Or How Burt Hummel Mashed the Hummels and Hudsons Into One Functioning Family.

Characters(s): Kurt, Burt, Carole, Finn, with short appearances by the New Directions guys and various ops who mostly take up space. Rating: PG13 Summary: Somehow the Hummel household and the Hudson household had to come together…

Chapter Nine Chapter Ten

Chapter eleven Chapter twelve

13.

“So, we’ve talked chores. I want you boys to have your chores done by 10 pm. I will check. If you go out, you need to finish your chores before you go if you don’t plan on being home to do them before 10, if you can. Carole, you and I have until 10pm unless we are working late and then we have until two hours after we get home. Let’s see…chores, allowances, money use, dinners, food rules…no eating except at the table, clean up after yourself after lunch and breakfast and snacks, eat only your snacks, buy own snacks if you eat through your snack box…Oh. WE do not live in a zoo. WE never throw food at each other. Except I will allow you to toss popcorn and catch it in your mouth…that is just a rite of passage. However you play that game you clean up after yourself regardless whose chore that room might be. I find popcorn, skittles, or nuts on the floor and that game is no longer allowed. We never throw food at the dinner table. Hmm….we covered Friday Night Dinners. Gatherings…hmm….”

“A gathering goes on the schedule if it has more than three other people over, if it needs food, if it needs something special like the TV up here, and everyone who lives here must be allowed to attend…” Kurt said.

“Hmm. Also, if you plan a gathering and you expect other members of the family to do ANYTHING at the gathering or for the gathering you must ask if they are willing and available to do whatever it is you want done. You cannot just make plans for others without asking. And this rule isn’t just a rule for you kids…all the members in the household need to abide by it.” Burt said, glaring at Carole.

Carole didn’t say anything so Burt continued on. “School work and grades…there is a topic we haven’t discussed much yet. Homework is to be done before you do anything unless permission is granted otherwise. You come home from school and you sit down and do your homework. No TV, no friends over or going out, and no games or computer time, unless the computer time is homework, until your homework is done. Now Kurt also does a supplemental program, but I won’t make Finn do so. Kurt’s been doing so since he started school. However, if Finn isn’t getting good grades at McKinley then he will being dong a supplemental program as well until he can pass the very basics well enough to take his college entrance exams and get an average score on them. Now we touched on grades. I will be at every parent teacher conference the school holds, for both of you from now on. If I find out there was one and I was not told so I could not go, you don’t get to do anything remotely fun for a month and I will call your teachers, each of them, for a weekly report until the semester is over. If I find out you are slacking off in class, you will do double the homework for that class. I will find you assignments if none are given. Good grades get you rewards. 10 bucks an A, 5 bucks a B and if you get a D or F, you lose 15 bucks for each failing grade.”

“That’s not fair,” Finn said. “Kurt is smart and gets good grades.”

“Kurt might be smart, but good grades mostly come from completing homework and studying and doing well on tests. I’ve asked, Finn, and I went to all the parents meet teachers nights and I read the papers the teachers sent home at the start of each class. If you turn in your homework and do not mess around during class time, you can pass easily with a B. Anyone can do that if they try.” Burt said.

‘But he’ll get more money than me.” Finn said.

“And it will be his reward for working hard to maintain his good grades. If you work hard, I’m sure you could pull out As or Bs, as well.” Burt said.

“But he has all those extra classes.” Finn said.

“I can sign you up for some.” Burt said.

“But that’s not fair.” Finn said.

“I am still not seeing why it isn’t fair, Finn. It isn’t like I’m giving Kurt 20 or 30 bucks per A and you just 10…you get an A, you get 10 for it, Kurt gets an A, Kurt gets 10 for it.”

“But…”

Kurt sighed. “I am taking classes that are more difficult than yours, Finn. Even in McKinley I took AP and Honor classes. You are just as able to get an A in your classes as I am in mine.”

“Or this payout for good grades can be something I just do for Kurt.” Burt said. “However, that would not remove the fact that you will start doing your homework and getting decent grades and doing good in school.”

“No! I should just get more money for an A or B because I’m not as smart as Kurt…and because getting good grades will cost me. It will make me less popular.” Finn said.

“No. You each get the same amount.” Burt said.

“But like…doing my homework is going to ruin my life. I need to be paid for doing my homework, so I have a reason for it that is good enough for people not to get on my case about it.”

“You’ll be fine.” Burt said.

“Finn.” Carole said. “You will do your work and if you need help Kurt will help you. It will work out, you’ll see.”

Kurt glared at Carole. “Do I get paid for tutoring him? Or am I doing it for free?”

“Why would you get paid?” Carole asked.

“I get compensation at Dalton for tutoring; I got compensation at McKinley for tutoring. Why wouldn’t I get paid?”

“Because you help out your family.” Carole said.

“I’m at Dalton and have a long drive to and from school. Time is not in abundance for me. Time helping Finn takes away from my own work and my free time. Time is valuable. I can spare maybe a half hour a day to help Finn for free. If I help Finn with his work I will NOT be giving him answers or doing his work for him. He will do it himself and I’ll just help…like talking him through ideas or giving him a dictionary to look words up in. And he had better have tried to do it himself first.”

“You will help however he wants you to help to get him good grades. If he has to get good grades to get the grade money then you will get him good grades so he can make as much as you.” Carole said.

Kurt looked to his dad, who was rolling his eyes.

“Kurt will help properly; he will not do Finn’s work for him. It is up to Finn to get the grade money. It is not Kurt’s responsibility.” Burt said.

“But that’s not…”

“It is fair. Moving on. School work needs done right as soon as you get home, Kurt doesn’t need to spend any time with Finn helping with homework if he hasn’t even started it yet because he hasn’t followed the school work as soon as one gets home rule, rewards for good grades, Curfew!” Burt said, much more chipper than Kurt thought he needed to be.

“Carole, what is Finn’s curfew?” Burt asked.

“He needs to be home so he can go to school the next morning.” Carole said.

“I am absolutely certain you said Finn had a curfew,” Burt said. “You know…each time you’ve moved into the house.”

“That is a curfew.” Carole said.

“That is not.” Burt said. “It certainly explains a great deal.”

“I vote we use Finn’s curfew.” Kurt said. “I mean, we really haven’t done a whole lot the way Finn is used to doing things in this discussion.”

“Yeah, no. Nice try though, Kurt.” Burt said. “Kurt’s curfew is 10pm on weeknights and midnight on weekends, now that he is a junior. It will remain that way next year as well. He can ask for special permission to be later, if need be.”

“I can’t have a curfew like that!” Finn shouted. “People will think I’m a baby!”

Burt rubbed his forehead. All the shouting, protesting and whining was giving him a headache. He wasn’t sure how Carole was handling it with her head already aching. It would explain why the last few times she’d dropped her head into her hands her hands had gone over her ears, though. “You can and will. We might be able to negotiate for a latter curfew IF you manage to get home on time for a month. So far, when you’ve gone out in the evening, you’ve come home well past midnight and have been late for school nearly every time the next day. And weekends have been worse. It is unfair to us to have to wait up for you.”

“Besides,” Kurt said. “City curfew is 10pm on weekdays, with an hour travel time after the end of movies that end past 10pm, concerts or school activities that end past 10pm, or the closing of the skating rink or bowling alley. And they require proof of attendance. If you are picked up by the cops without it they do keep records. You should go see how long Finn’s record is. They won’t actually bug your folks unless something is wrong though…like that time SOMEONE threw pee balloons at me while walking from the skate rink to the garage a few years ago. It is just 11pm on weekends.”

Finn glared at Kurt and Carole huffed. “Finn’s a good kid. I doubt he has any record at all. Cops would know better than to pick him up. They only go after bad kids and kids who aren’t…normal.”

“Finn hangs out with Puck.” Kurt said. “Not to mention some of the other football and hockey guys. Since you are married now, Dad can check on Finn’s list. It should be enlightening.”

“Finn will be home by 10pm on school nights until Finn hasn’t been late for school for a month….of school days.”

“But…”

“No buts.” Burt said firmly. “While on the topic, there is no skipping class or school. You get to school on time and you get to classes on time. They leave phone messages, Finn. They send emails and texts to your mother and I.”

“Mom!”

“I have told you numerous times that I can’t make the school excuse skipping and tardiness, Finn. As it is you have to do a Saturday school day next month so you can get this semester’s grades. You are scheduled for the first Saturday in January. It would have been next Saturday but you guys don’t have finals until the second week of January so kids can use winter break to write papers and stuff, so I talked them into January.” Carole said.

This was obviously news to Finn, who kicked the chair Kurt was sitting in hard enough to move Kurt away from the table about six inches. Burt wrote on the paper he was reading off of and signaled to Kurt to stay quiet. Kurt glared but complied.

“Hmm…household rules in general…I’ll write them out and post the on the wall, but here is the quick run-down, most of which we have covered. Be where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there. Do your homework and work first before you play. Eat at the table for meals and pick up after yourself if you snack elsewhere, if that option is available. You break it, you fix it or buy the replacement or work off the replacement/fix. Report all breaks to me. Roughhousing stays outside and stays relatively safe. If someone gets hurt, it all stops. Roughhousing includes fake sword fights still, Kurt. Keep your curfew. Do your chores. Mind the rules for things like snacks and gatherings. No fighting.”

“But…” Finn started.

“No fighting, Finn. That means of any sort. No picking on people inside this house, not ones who live here or ones who don’t. I will reinstate the sass jar, Kurt, if I find I need to. There will be no more kicking Kurt, pushing Kurt, hitting Kurt, throwing things at Kurt, or that type of physical picking on in the house Finn, and you had better not be doing it outside the house either. Kurt, there will be no more pushing or throwing things at Finn. The name calling needs to stop. The insults need to stop. Although, issues surrounding things like yesterday would be evaluated before I sent you towards the sass jar, as much of yesterday’s name calling was deserved and might even have been needed to sink into people’s thick heads. Of course, there had also better not be repeats of yesterday. We are supposed to be a family and you two will start trying to get along. If I reinstate the sass jar, you will be dropping money into it as well, Finn…and some of yours will come from doing and saying things that common sense says you should not do or say.”

Kurt sighed and nodded. Finn kicked Kurt under the table again, hard enough to push the chair back again.

“Finn, you will start being punished for that type of behavior. Whether you lose allowance money or are stripped of your ability to watch TV or use the computer or play video games or even see or talk to friends, this pushing people and hitting and kicking when you get annoyed will stop.”

“Mom!” Finn yelled to Carole.

“Burt, you know boys act like that, at least real ones. It is how they let their feelings out.” Carole said.

“Huh. Oddly enough every single parenting book I have ever read said to stop that behavior and make kids use their words.” Burt said. “And if I reinstate the sass jar, you and I will contribute when we have over stepped into rude, crude or mean behavior as well…like the real boy comment there.”

“Excuse me?” Carole said. The look of disbelief on Carole’s face for Burt calling her on it was almost humorous if he hadn’t had enough of it already.

“Just because we are adults doesn’t mean we can just say what we want without thinking through how those around us will be affected by what we say. Especially things like that. It served no purpose whatsoever except as a jab.”

“Burt, I don’t think I like the tone you are using towards me and how this conversation is going. You have been unfair to Finn and I all day today, and yesterday, and…just the whole time.” Carole said, pushing her chair back and getting ready to leave.

“I have been unfair to EVERYONE in this house by not having this conversation ages ago and it’s been UNFAIR to me. So sit the fuck down.” Burt yelled.

Carole sat. Her look was a mix between shock and fury, but she sat. Kurt wrote notes in his note book and Finn looked like someone had slammed a door in his face.

“We became a family and we had better start acting like one. So far we have NOT. I will not play father to THREE teens, Carole and I have been doing so since way before Thanksgiving. Enough. Kurt go fetch Carole two pain pills and some water.”

Kurt jumped up and got the pills for Carole. Burt looked at his list. He started to speak again as soon as Kurt sat back down.

#glee fanfic #burt hummel #Kurt Hummel #hummel household

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andrewuttaro · 4 years

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Reviews with Andrew: The State of #StarWars Episode 1 - Pre-Episode IX

Star Wars maybe the sample case to end all sample cases on what toxic fandom is. I’m not saying that to be a predictable ass but come on, have you been living under a rock? I am personally saddened to see how the response to the Last Jedi has ruined the fan unity, if that ever even existed, on Star Wars. It’s okay to not like a movie. That’s the bottom line. It’s okay to be lukewarm all puns intended. I was a little sour after my first viewing of the Last Jedi but after two more viewings I put it together a bit more. But at the end of the day there was nothing in that movie that was downright unforgivable… even Canto Bite.

On a scale from 1-10 Star Wars nerd, 10 being you can name different species of aliens that only appeared in de-canonized Expanded Universe books and 1 being your experience of Star Wars can be summed up by being captivated by a slutty Leia costume, I consider myself right in the middle of the pack at 5 or so. I’ve seen all the movies, played as many video games as possible and dabbled in some books. I’ll admit there was a time I would’ve said 7 on that scale but I’ve fallen back as life has changed for me. What I want to do today is talk about the State of the franchise. I think there is two parts to this. The state of the in-universe story and the state of the creative output making new material for us to consume.

Obviously these are my opinions and obviously I am going to spoil some movies, books and TV shows here. If you’re up-to-date on the basic lore I think you’ll be fine. Moreover, I want to talk specifically about these things in a Pre-Rise of Skywalker context. There will be a similar piece I will do sometime after the Rise of Skywalker. Disney has advertised this final installment in the sequel trilogy as “the end of the Skywalker Saga” and that’s a notable before and after moment in my humble opinion. Feel free to tear me to shreds in the comments. Review with Andrew is all about the discussion so let me know what you think. With entertainment properties the size of Star Wars it’s such a collective experience that to not be aware of popular opinion is to kinda miss the point. So with no further ado, let’s start with where we sit in-universe prior to the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga’s Sequel Trilogy.

Fate of the Galaxy

I am 25 so I grew up with the Prequels as the backdrop of my Star Wars experience. Here comes something that will probably get many of you to click off: I enjoyed the politics in the prequel trilogy. Disclaimer: that does not mean I love the prequels overall. That trilogy lacked clarity and compelling performance in multiple places. However I am not going to lie and not tell you Emperor Palpatine seizing control of the Republic Senate and reorganizing it into the Galactic Empire wasn’t the most simultaneously jaw-droppingly dreadful and entertaining moments of my young life watching movies. It was. It sticks with me to this day. However the political machinations come at the expense of dragging the whole story into the dirt on several occasions in those movies particularly in the Phantom Menace.

The Sequel Trilogy clearly and obviously overcompensated for this popular grievance with the prequels. I have not gotten around to the New Canon books yet, I know they explain the politics leading into the Force Awakens very well, but the first two films in this sequel trilogy have departed so far from galactic-level political movements that their plot is confusing at times. Had the character development and narrative pace not been so good in the Force Awakens it would’ve been an incoherent film given the lack of political setting. I don’t need Senate deliberations or trade negotiations, I get it; but how is there a whole fleet of bad guys who had enough time and Empire-like resources to build a planet-sized death laser to decapitate galactic government? This problem carries over to a movie like the Last Jedi where Resistance leadership is axed at every turn before the whole movement can fit in one spacecraft!

The fact that none of it is explained in the movies is the real kicker here. Setting was something the Original Trilogy did effectively on a flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants basis while the Prequel Trilogy did it haphazardly with CGI heavy establishing shots and exposition dumps built into the script. The Sequel movies have done neither and had it not been for great acting from the core cast of both of these main saga films this would be a huge problem. In the scale of my earlier Star Wars nerd spectrum, anyone beneath a 6 or 7 on the scale is having trouble following along story wise. Good thing the CGI and character writing is good because that constitutes a story-building shortcoming too great for many franchise films to overcome.

That said, the Anthology films have been superhot fire in spite of the main saga. In fact, the broader strokes of galactic politics and setting worked against both Rogue One and Solo. The direct connection between the battle at the end of Rogue One and the beginning of A New Hope provided for good food for thought and a totally rad Darth Vader scene, but it also made you scratch your head and call BS on Leia in New Hope when she says that ship is on a diplomatic mission. You just came from a battle and this same guy was two corridors away from chopping your head off, that’s a really poor cover story. And who could forget the collective groan that was Han Solo getting his name from the Imperial recruiter in Solo. Give me a break.

I don’t think it’s unfair to say broad world-building has not been a strength of the Disney-Era Star Wars films so far. Again, I know the books, comics, TV shows and other media are doing that world-building in spades. If you enjoy that media that’s great. When the animated Star Wars Clone Wars was on the air it wasn’t explaining things we didn’t get about Episode III, it was filling in gaps in fun ways. Star Wars has always been a property for a mass audience and when that mass audience, which you have to assume does minimal research beforehand, might walk out of a film not knowing broadly what was going on, that’s a problem. Star Wars isn’t supposed to rely on content beyond the films and if the Rise of Skywalker does we’re going to be in for a messy finish to the sequel trilogy.

Finally, let’s talk about where the characters are going. Rey seemed to gain full control of force powers by the end of Last Jedi, so I am excited to see how her power is deployed in wrapping up this trilogy. I am an admitted sucker for a redemption story, but I can’t envision one for Kylo Ren that would be close to satisfying. That character kinda has to die a bad guy. If they stick with the themes Rian Johnson setup with the main characters in Last Jedi then Kylo needs to die the legacy guy who is consumed by what he thinks he needs to be simply by virtue of parentage. We’ll see about that. Finn, Poe and their respective orbits of characters are… I guess great supporting pieces. I loved the arc Finn went through in Force Awakens and I love the arc Poe went through in Last Jedi but now I don’t see where that leads both of them. I don’t know if there is a logical end point for their stories based on where they’ve been. After seeing Luke’s time in this trilogy wasted after seeing Han Solo’s time in this trilogy more or less wasted I just can’t see a world where at least one of the new core cast isn’t wasted in the end. But I’m not married to that opinion, in fact I really hope I’m wrong and JJ Abrams ties it all together.

Fate of the Brand

Let’s talk about the thing we all love about Star Wars: Jedi and Sith. With JJ Abrams returning for the final installment of the “Skywalker Saga” as it were we have a distinct possibility at hand that the dualist dichotomy of light side versus dark side is undermined forever. For a pragmatist such as myself it’s weird to be against the discovery of a middle ground but here I am. The Jedi and the Sith represent the fundamentally flawed nature of the Force. It’s always making corrections. It’s always pulling someone too far too one side and correcting and sometimes overcorrecting. Like most all spiritual forces there is an acute degree of imperfection that makes the perfection of its divinity real. Turning the force into something that can be mastered and controlled with Grey Jedi turns the whole thing to magic tricks. Yes, I am aware of the Grey Jedi plotline in Star Wars Rebels. No, it doesn’t change the problem here.

The problem is the resolution of the whole light/dark side narrative with Grey Jedi is the perfect Disney ending… but more importantly, it’s probably the JJ Abrams ending. Fans of his work on Lost as well as his movies will tell you he’s a master of the mystery box. Historically he’s not so great at answering the questions he sets up… as in resolution. He is now responsible for resolving the Sequel Trilogy and I am going to have a real problem with 42 years of Star Wars Jedi/Sith lore building ending with a variation of: They figured it out and lived happily ever after. If the last piece of the Skywalker Saga ends this way it will be the fan toxicity that followed the Last Jedi times twelve except this time without the even-keeled nerds like me defending the writing.

It's pretty clear that Star Wars was going to be different from the moment George Lucas sold the property. The fact he’s felt regret about that is another discussion for another day. He sold it to a mega corporation he knew was going to get started making sequels and spinoffs. Disney prints money at a rate the Federal Reserve gawks at. Every Star Wars film before 2012 was more or less a Lucas project. They were all one man’s vision carried out through different producers and directors to varied results. Post-Sale different creators coming in was going to change the creative flow and result in different takes on the world. That’s not a bad thing. Star Wars fans need to accept Star Wars canon with a new dividing line: Lucas Canon versus Disney Canon. I enjoy both but if you wake up in the morning upset about Disney-Era Star Wars then you probably should just decide to believe in the Lucas Canon.

I thought Kathleen Kennedy was a wonderful person to bring in as the puppet master of the Disney Era Star Wars franchise. I still think she has the career bona-fides to justify being at the head of the beast. However, in the hiring of Kevin Feige you can tell she and the brain trust she built around Star Wars has realized they saturated the market too much and damaged the product a little. Solo was not an awful film, but it will forever be the first Star Wars movie to lose money. However that happened aside, the Disney Star Wars Brain Trust needs to decide what it wants going forward. I’ve already discussed how the pieces of the anthology films that were unmoored from the broader Skywalker narrative were the best of the Disney Era films. The rate at which directors and producers have been fired indicates there was a confusion about how much Star Wars was going to be allowed to be different.

Are you going to let the directors play on your playground with the toys you bought for 4 Billion dollars or are you going to tell them how to play until they storm off in anger? Disney Star Wars has chosen the latter in all but one of the four films they’ve produced so far. Rian Johnson did his own crazy thing with the Last Jedi, you let it ride and you let that predictable nerd backlash screw up Solo. Now you don’t know what you’re doing. You have to pick. If you want to let the property rest for a few years after Rise of Skywalker and then drop it on us on some Tuesday in 2024 that’s great! It will probably be best for the brand. But when you do come back please commit to the degree of creative freedom you’re actually going to give your directors.

The four films of Disney Star Wars are batting at about .750. Solo was your bomb but even that one was an enjoyable movie. The whole thing will be more fun and piss off fewer people when it appears you guys have unified marching orders. Star Wars as a brand is okay but if its comes back looking as confused as it did with whatever comes after Rise of Skywalker it’s not going to be good. At that point sinking one of the biggest entertainment properties in history would be an accomplishment all it’s own. The Studio and brand questions post Rise of Skywalker will be very interesting. For now let’s wrap up the conversation of the State of Star Wars before that epic conclusion.

Conclusion

Star Wars still makes mad money and reels in younger people with no experience with the property. By that logic it’s doing just fine. Any nerd property is going to have a segment, even a large vocal segment like we’ve seen here, that will get upset with a new creative direction. That’s okay, move past it like professionals. If that can happen and that new creative direction sees a commitment to it from the studio I see some fun Star Wars to come. If not then I am fully prepared for Star Wars to be run into the ground. Which is also okay because it’s just an entertainment product (see Indiana Jones and the Lord of the Rings). The in-world story faces a lot of loose ends it needs to wrap up to stick the landing in Episode IX. I don’t have total confidence JJ Abrams can do it, but I am interested to see.

I won’t be doing a grade here because this is more a meta-review than an individual movie review. So let me hit just a couple of those loose ends that will be the hardest to wrap up in a satisfying way: Poe and Finn’s friendship, Palpatine’s Return and not making Darth Vader’s sacrifice worthless, Rey’s place in the Force, the fate of Kylo Ren, the very nature of the Force, and of course what is this thing between Kylo and Rey? Like and share this blog. I want to do reviews more and more and reader input is important to that so leave a comment with your thoughts! I can also do weird little think pieces like I did after Force Awakens like “Is Star Wars about disarmament?” so if you like reviews of all media coming off a screen let me know what you want to read about!

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Last Christmas looks like grade A date night material. It could be next level if the plot actually makes sense beyond the normal romance narrative rigmarole.

#star wars

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bethevenyc · 6 years

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March for Our Lives and gay activism: 'They're definitely linked for me,' says Emma Gonzalez

Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Emma Gonzalez weeps as she speaks to the crowd during March for Our Lives to demand stricter gun control laws on Saturday, March 24, 2018, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Getty Images)

As thousands of protestors funneled along Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington D.C. for the March for Our Lives on Saturday, carrying signs and children and the weight of fear and grief over gun violence, there was another, small revolution taking place at the edge of the march route, in tiny Pershing Park. That’s where about 100 activists from the New York City–based group Gays Against Guns (GAG) had set up camp for the day, transforming the bleak concrete corner with a huge rainbow banner and pink Mylar strips that billowed in the breeze.

Also part of the staging was some much-needed levity: a pink-carpeted runway, with folks in drag encouraging passersby to show the NRA, in RuPaul parlance, how to “sashy away.” Later, a large group struck a more somber tone by wearing all white, having their faces covered with veils, and each carrying the photo, name, and short bio of a person who had lost their life to gun violence. The silent procession of “human beings” stopped march-goers in their tracks.

Gays Against Guns reclaimed this politician’s swipe. (Photo: Beth Greenfield for Yahoo Lifestyle)

Surrounding the activists throughout the day were colorfully spray-painted signs, declaring “Not in my school,” “Stop trans murder,” “NRA be gone, before we drop the House on you” (a pitch-perfect Wizard of Oz reference), and the piece de resistance: “Skinhead lesbian.”

It was, of course, the reclamation of an insult hurled by a Maine legislative candidate towards the magnetic leader of this movement: Emma Gonzalez, the buzzed-headed student who emerged onto the national stage just three days after the deadly Feb. 14 shooting at her Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

That’s when Gonzalez’s riveting, 11-minute “we call BS” speech went viral, energizing a segment of the nation that’d had enough of gun violence, and catapulting a crew of similarly smart, tenacious Parkland students into an instant media spotlight.

People soon tweeted that Gonzalez should run for president. The 18-year-old noted that she already is president — of her school’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA). She then told the Washington Post that she identifies as bisexual, and suddenly her fierce badassery just made that much more sense for a whole lot of people, particularly fellow LGBTQ folks and queer activists for whom self-identity and a willingness to stand up for justice has long been inextricably linked.

“We have always been on the defensive as a community. So, it’s a natural fit. We have been fighting for our rights for decades, likely eons,” Cathy Marino-Thomas, a GAG organizer and longtime activist in the fight for Marriage Equality, tells Yahoo Lifestyle, referring to battles over AIDS funding, marriage equality, the right to adopt, the right to not be fired from work, and a range of other hard-won civil rights. “I think that we are a community less afraid to stand up because, in many ways, we have less to lose and everything to gain. Historically, no one has ever stood up for the gays. We’ve had to stand up for ourselves, often against extraordinary opposition.”

Of course no one would deem this current anti-gun movement a singly gay issue — not even GAG, for whom the two narratives are tightly entwined. But there are deep and undeniable connections, made both collectively — such as by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest national LGBTQ-rights organization, which had a massive presence at the D.C. march led in party by Queer Eye co-host Karame Brown, himself a graduate of Parkland’s Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School — and also made individually.

That goes for Gonzalez, who tells Yahoo Lifestyle in the days leading up to Saturday’s march that she indeed sees a connection between her sexuality and her drive to lead the movement. “They’re definitely linked for me personally. If I wasn’t so open about who I was I never would’ve been able to do this,” she says. “In ninth grade, I was in a creative writing class where I could actually really effectively communicate what I was feeling, and it especially helped me come to terms with who I was. That definitely was when I really understood who I am, and when I came to terms with it, and when I told most people.”

Being open, Gonzalez says, “Helped me understand that everybody, no matter who they are and what they look like, is going through a lot of different things.” And being her school’s GSA president for three years has fostered her activist skills.

“It’s really helped me get used to shifting plans very quickly, planning in advance, and also being flexible… understanding that maybe you organize a club meeting with this one person in mind and they just don’t come because they aren’t coming to school, and you can’t get upset,” she says. “Because most of the kids in GSA either have depression or they’re dealing with a lot of stuff at home, and it’s like, I can understand that. And there are so many people in the country who are dealing with that, in relation to gun violence. You have no idea. You don’t know how many people you talk to on a daily basis that have actually been shot before, or have lost someone through gun violence. With GSA it’s the same. Everything’s incredibly far-reaching and widespread.”

The pink runway was a draw. (Photo: Beth Greenfield for Yahoo Lifestyle)

Gonzalez recalls meeting Gays Against Guns representatives who had come to Parkland to show their support on the day her high school reopened after the shooting. “Yaass!” she says at the mention of the group, noting that she’d felt lucky for the haul of signs and fliers and buttons they gave her that day. But she reaches back further through gay history when she names her latest inspiration: transgender activist Sylvia Rivera, a veteran of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, which is widely known as the start of the gay-rights movement.

“There’s this clip of her getting up onstage at one of the Stonewall Pride Rallies, a couple years [after the uprising], and she gets up there and everybody boos her because she’s trans. But she’s like, ‘Are you kidding me? You’re gay. I’m trans. We’re part of this. Like, I got you here. How many times have a had to fight for you? And you’re booing me because I’m trans?’” the teen says. “First of all, it was so unfair, unjustified, undignified, like, I was so infuriated by seeing that. But then there’s just knowing that there will always be people that hate you, and that they’re always going to be wrong. So it’s good to use that, and remember that whatever you’re doing, if it’s making people that mad, then it’s probably a good thing.”

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Gonzalez, of course, is far from the only power behind the youth-led anti-gun movement and March for Our Lives; in the week leading up to the marches, she and the rest of the Parkland crew did a whirlwind media tour, landing, among other places, on the cover of Time, in the studio of The Rachel Maddow Show, and in a Teen Vogue series that included a story in its sister LGBTQ publication, Them, which announced in its headline, “Queer Teenage Girls are Leading the Gun Control Movement.”

Though it may have been a slight exaggeration (only Gonzalez and classmate Sarah Chadwick have identified themselves as being part of the LGBTQ family), there is certainly a shared ethos within the youth-led resistance that makes it ring true. And as non-queer Parkland student Jaclyn Corin noted in that story, “As things get more acceptable in society, like legalizing gay marriage and stuff like that, it shows us that a change from the beginning that seemed so far away can actually happen in the same lifetime. So that gives us hope. We’re kind of modeling this like the LGBT movement because in retrospect, it’s the same. We’re working towards a common goal as a lot [of] people and it’s not party-oriented. That’s marriage, and this is lives.”

One of Gays Against Guns clever signs in D.C. (Photo: Beth Greenfield for Yahoo Lifestyle)

To longtime activist Evan Wolfson, whose Freedom to Marry campaign won the fight for national marriage equality in 2015 after a decades-long effort, that’s an apt parallel.

“It’s all taken from the Freedom to Marry playbook, where despite people saying that gay people can’t marry — the courts saying that, the culture saying that, even gay people saying that to ourselves — we didn’t take that no for an answer, and by not taking no for an answer we turned the answer into yes,” Wolfson tells Yahoo Lifestyle the day before the March for Our Lives, which he had planned to join in New York City. “It’s what’s so inspiring about these young people and what they’re doing… They believe they can create change, and are inspiring millions more with that belief.”

Wolfson now travels around the world to consult with activists on issues from anti-violence and immigration reform to environmental protection and animal rights. He notes that, when it comes to activists finding the fire in their bellies, “You can’t reduce something to just one identity, whether it be black or white or gay or non-gay or Jewish or Christian. Minorities have had an experience of exclusion, oppression, having to form solidarity and work for change… but we all have our something, and we have to draw on that something to make the world better.”

For Gays Against Guns, that something is two-fold: queerness and, not unrelatedly, being on the defensive when it comes to violence. As the group states on its website and in literature it passes out at protests, the LGBT community is disproportionately affected by gun violence: firstly, because most gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides and LGBTQ people are overrepresented among suicide victims (92 percent of transgender adults have attempted suicide by age 25); secondly, because LGBTQ people are the most likely minority to be the victim of a hate crime.

That really hit home with everyone on June 12, 2016, when the Pulse gay nightclub massacre in Orlando left 49 people dead in what was the most lethal mass shooting ever in America (though it was later surpassed by that of Las Vegas).

Gays Against Guns formed in response to that tragedy, with individuals from a newly outraged generation joining with seasoned activists, some of whom were ACT UP organizers in the early days of the AIDS crisis, and who brought to the group their attention-grabbing direct-action skills — “die-ins,” chillingly clever chants, and sit-in-the streets civil-disobedience moves that often came with the goal of getting arrested. A week after its formation, GAG had a huge and heart-stopping presence in the New York City Pride March, with a contingent more than 750 strong changing “Stop the NRA!” and staging die-ins all along Fifth Avenue; since then it has held direct-action protests and had a continued, education-based presence at gun shows around the country.

“I think an intrinsic part of queerness is to have a certain feeling of being outside, and when you harness that, it’s very powerful,” says Kevin Herzog, a founding member of GAG, which now has local chapters in a growing number of cities and towns across the country, and someone who lived through the early AIDS crisis, losing many friends in the process. “When you’re dying, you’ll do anything,” he says on Saturday in D.C., referring to the basic connection between the early days of AIDS activism and the urgency behind today’s anti-gun movement. “It became apparent that no one was going to help us, so we had to help ourselves.”

Karamo Brown, center, and Brandon Wolf, left, march with the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday at the March for Our Lives. (Photo: Human Rights Campaign/Facebook)

As for Gonzalez’s being queer, “It’s not incidental,” he says. “Some people are astonished that these kids were able to start this movement. But when you place it in a queer context? I’m not astonished at all.”

GAG co-founder Hal Moskowitz, who was a co-founder of the early AIDS organization Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), says, “I see some of me in [the Parkland activists]. I see that drive that says, ‘F**k you, you’re going to listen to me, and I’m going to say it until you do.” Student David Hogg, who continuously acknowledges his place of privilege and speaks about the “children and people of color whose voices are not being heard,” has been particularly impressive, he adds.

Gays Against Guns’ procession of “human beings,” representing lives that have been lost to gun violence. (Photo: Beth Greenfield for Yahoo Lifestyle)

Indeed, with Parkland, a largely white, affluent community known for its safety, the teens leading this cause have been particularly mindful of doing everything in their power to shift the narrative, from interview talking points to including students of color and from poorer communities in various ways. Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, a gay-rights group, took note of that effort recently.

“I applaud the students for using the enormous platform they have to call out how racism and homophobia impact the response to gun violence. They see clearly the enormous difference in how Tallahassee responded to Parkland compared to Pulse,” Smith noted in a statement. “Legislators who had to be shamed into permitting a moment of silence for the 49 killed in Orlando quickly allocated funds for a memorial and passed legislation, flawed and incomplete though it is. When the GSA students including Emma spoke at our Gala in Miami, she made sure to lift up Pulse. [And] the students have gone to Chicago to meet with other students who have been organizing against gun violence for years to combine efforts.”

Brandon Wolf, who led the HRC contingent along with Queer Eye’s Brown in D.C. on Saturday, was at Pulse when the shots rang out; his two friends Drew Leinonen and Juan Guerrero, were killed. The experience, he says, turned him into an activist overnight. “I think the reason there’s this natural marriage of the LGBTQ community and a fight against this epidemic of gun violence is because there’s a very real fear from a young age as a gay person and specifically gay people of color that you will be targeted, harmed or even worse because of who you are,” Wolfe, 29, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “So there’s this natural sense of, we’ve got to protect ourselves and each other from that violence, and I think gay people know it better than anyone else what it feels like to live in fear all the time.”

He adds, “I think as a young person, I went through so much, dealing with family and community and the process of coming out and all of that. And I think makes you an advocate, because you’ve been fighting for your own health and wellbeing since you were young.”

Emma Gonzalez addresses the March for Our Lives rally on on March 24, 2018 in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, including students, teachers and parents gathered in Washington for the anti-gun violence rally organized by survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School school shooting on February 14 that left 17 dead and 17 others wounded. More than 800 related events are taking place around the world to call for legislative action to address school safety and gun violence. (Photo: Getty Images)

Now, as a whole new generation of young people grows up having to fight for their health and wellbeing in regards to gun violence, they are finding their own ways to get their voices hear and their demands met — with techniques both learned and instinctual.

“I think one thing we can learn from older generations of activists, which I’ve shared with the Parkland students, is the power of patience,” Wolf says. “We can let the older generation be a testament to the fact that hard work means we may not get it the first time around, but eventually we’ll get it. So to not get discouraged that the Florida legislature doesn’t care today, because the real change will be made when we vote them out for people who will make a change.”

On the other side, says Gonzalez, is what her generation might teach the older ones (in addition to the power of social media, of course).

“One of the main things to be learned is that a lot of people kind of get pushed into an agenda, like Republican or Democrat. But the best way to get things done is to appeal to both sides, and listen, which is what we’ve been doing,” she says. “And this is not to knock anyone else, but what we’ve been really focused on is inclusion, and trying to really combine these communities spread around the United States. We’ve been trying to get everyone on the same page, to figure out what everybody’s asking for, and see if we can, as a giant movement, ask for that together.”