#because what kind of society creates this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

huiiiooo · 2 days

Text

Hi, I already made a post about this but I decided to make a more elaborate post on the subject

as we know after failing to steal One For All from Banjo and En, All for one realized that he would need a greater will than the user and his predecessors to steal the OFA, as he could not, he proceeded to find a Suitable Successor/Receptacle with enough will to steal the One for all

Due to the Connection with All Might, the Shimura family was the main sieve of All for one, but it was not the only one, as we know Garaki had several Orphanages and All for one probably Evaluated and tested possible Vessels there, including Number Six

This shows that even though he was working at Tenko, he was never the Only Possibility, because that doesn't suit someone who is always planning all the variables.

but he didn't limit it to Garaki or Shimuras, as shown with his experiment with Touya Todoroki

as All for one was coincidentally already at the mountain that day, it is possible that he used "Forced Activation" to cause the Fire, These three Shigaraki, Dabi and Number Six all have their hatred shaped based on some kind of heroic obsession.

What if this was also the case for Izuku Midoriya, but perhaps this would be a slightly more complex Experiment because of this because of this he was secondary, it would be an even more ambitious Vessel, since All for one would play a little with the Quirk Singularity, and your own genetics by having a child with someone from the fourth generation, the first generation that demonstrated the concrete Signs

the goal was not only to create an All for one with the ability to Hold the complex Quirks of the future, but also combined with Inko's Quirk it would be able to Steal Quirks without the need for direct touch, as it is already difficult to copy the All for one in a perfect and functional way, it is impossible to create something even more powerful in the laboratory

to avoid attracting attention All for one blocked his son's Quirk at birth, just as he removed the Tenko factor

Just as he encouraged heroic desires in Number Six and Shigaraki, the same would be done with Izuku, being from birth imbued with heroism and All Might, all so that when he saw himself Quirkless, society and reality would crush that dream, transformed into hatred and resentment, creating the will necessary to Steal One For All, he knew Izuku would be bullied (Maybe he even encouraged this behavior)

In order for the child to be monitored more closely and by a specialist, All for one asked The Tsubasa Family (Garaki's pseudonym) to move close to where he placed the Midoriyas

interestingly Koga (AFO Construction Site) Musutafu and Jakku Hospital then connected in a triangle close to each other, for easy accessibility to AFO and Garaki

and both families knew each other, little Tsubasa played with Izuku and Katsuki, and Izuku's mother knew Tsubasa's mother, probably that's why they went to Garaki since the families were already friends

Tsubasa was eventually transformed into Nomu for reasons currently unknown.

However, the Bullying did not have the expected effect and did not generate in Izuku the hatred and resentment that AFO wanted and neededIzuku was too good, he didn't create a grudge, he didn't get that hatred for society that Tomura got, which made Shigaraki Tomura the suitable Vessel for All for one, which made all for one leave this family adventure aside and focus on Tomura, leaving an automatic network sending money under the banner of a "Hisashi working overseas"

Maybe the reason AFO categorizes Izuku as Useless, and criticizes Yoichi for trusting him with the OFA is because he didn't become a Suitable Vessel and didn't live up to expectations, almost a parallel to Dabi, right?

Maybe he left it to use Izuku's Quirk when it was really necessary in the future

#bnha all for one #afo #bnha dad for one #all for one #dad for one #dfo #all for one is hisashi

44 notes · View notes

dichromaniac · 3 days

Text

I'm never going to be over the meta of Copper Howard the actor being pushed to play a role where he's the "one man pushed too far" because that's what the corporate overlords want the hero to be. But here we (me) are frantically obsessing over the "good guy pushed to far" that Amazon and the writers allowed and created.

We are no better than the audiences of pre-war society. We want the same kind of character, the same kind of narrative.

And then there's Lucy, the "Sheriff " who still believes in right and wrong and community values.

Will we still root for Lucy if she keeps her promises to herself? Or do we relish her descent into the same pit of moral relativity Cooper inhabitants because it's the narrative that sells and comforts best???

#the ghoul #lucy maclean #fallout meta #the commentary is coming from inside the house #like I'm obsessed with the “back and forth” timeline storytelling for Cooper #its great character and world building while adding tension and mystery #but we gotta admit we're no better than the theoretical audience #fallout #cooper howard #shits got more layers than a goddamn ogre

43 notes · View notes

on-wednesdays-we-eat-the-rich · 2 days

Text

So I'm having thoughts about LOTR. Specifically the ending. And the fanfiction that rewrites the ending. Bear with me.

So we all know that LOTR ends with Frodo leaving Middle Earth and going to the Undying Lands, right. And we all know that he does this because all the events of the story have had such an impact on him that they've left him quite traumatised and not really able to live life the way he used to. And we can probably all guess that this is a reflection of how Tolkien may have thought about his trauma after fighting in the First World War.

The ending makes sense considering the time the book was written, because in the 1940's and 50's, people didn't know as much about mental health and disability as they do now, and there weren't as many ways to help people manage disabilities other than institutionalising them or like. Giving them cocaine or something idk. So it's reasonable to assume that because Tolkien didn't see many ways that people could live with disabilities and be happy, he couldn't write them into LOTR and instead basically just put Frodo in Middle Earth's equivalent of Heaven and said "there you go, you're all better now".

I like this as a sort of tragic ending. I mean, you can't deny that someone being so drastically changed by an experience means they can't enjoy the things they grew up with is pretty tragic. The ending does make sense. But I kind of hate it.

I don't think it was written badly or anything, and I'm not trying to dismiss Tolkien's experiences that influenced this ending. My issue with it is that, when you look at it through a modern lens, it has vaguely ableist connotations. Specifically the idea that disabled people (Frodo) can't live full lives and be happy in the real world (Middle Earth) and can therefore only be happy when they're "cured" or when they die and go to Heaven (the Undying Lands).

Now obviously LOTR is an old book and it's important to consider the time it was created when analysing it, as you would do with any other piece of classic literature. A lot of old books have some outdated language and concepts in them, simply because that was normal back then. And until very recently, we probably wouldn't have thought the ending of LOTR was in any way problematic. And it might not have been, because it's not really the fact that Tolkien wrote that ending that's an issue; it's the fact that the way the world worked back then made it near impossible to even think about any other ending.

Since the book was written, though, there have been a lot of advancements in science and research into disabilities, and there are now much more effective ways to treat and manage them. There's medication and therapy for physical and mental issues, and there are lots of accommodations that we can and should put in place to make life easier for everyone. Back in the 1940's, Tolkien wouldn't have had these things, and therefore didn't consider them to be options when writing about what happens to Frodo at the end of the story. But now, we do have them, and it's this progress that has discredited the idea that disabled people can't be happy in the real world, and subsequently made LOTR's ending seem outdated by today's standards.

Now this is where the fanfiction comes in.

LOTR readers these days, who are aware of the progress we've made as a society and the new ways people view and treat minorities, often write fanfiction that puts things into Tolkien's universe that wouldn't have otherwise been there because of when the books were written, from openly queer characters to characters living good, happy lives with disabilities. And I think this is a good thing and it's really nice to see, especially in regards to Frodo's disability. I like seeing people work out how he might accommodate himself in the world of Middle Earth, and how the other characters would help him with that. I like that sometimes people have to get creative when figuring out how he would cope with trauma and chronic pain, because obviously Middle Earth doesn't have a lot of the things we have in the real world.

I like that we can finally give Frodo a chance to recover in a more realistic way than just sending him to the afterlife. I like that we can finally allow him to live.

A lot of Tolkien purists complain about new adaptations and fanfiction because "it's not what Tolkien wrote so he wouldn't like it". First of all, why do we still care about the opinions of a man who's been dead for over fifty years? What are you going to do, summon his ghost to haunt all the fanfic writers? Hold a seance to find out exactly what he thinks? Good luck with that.

Second of all, I honestly believe this is something he would approve of. He went on living after the First World War, but he didn't get to live with the disability accommodations we have today. And because he didn't, neither did Frodo. We can't give Tolkien the life many disabled people have now, but we can give it to his tragic hero. We can make his story a little less tragic. And if Tolkien was here now, of all the tropes we're using in LOTR fanfiction, it wouldn't surprise me if "Frodo stays in the Shire" is one he could get behind.

#lord of the rings #lotr #frodo baggins #tolkien #disability #disability in media #disability in fiction #fanfiction #i'm back on my essay-writing bullshit #this just came to me like five minutes ago and i wrote this instead of doing what i should be doing which is showering #so that's fun #just articulating my thoughts over here don't mind me

22 notes · View notes

droughtofapathy · 2 days

Text

"Welcome to the Theatre": Diary of a Broadway Baby

Cabaret

I am kicking my feet and twirling my feet as I lovingly, tenderly, reverently carve Bebe Neuwirth's name into the Tony personally.

Bebe Neuwirth Verdict: My Soul Transcended Space and Time

A Note on Ratings

Oh. The rest of the show. Right.

Cabaret is one of the greatest pieces of musical theatre to exist. I have seen four productions of this show on multiple "levels" of production (Broadway, community, regional, etc.) The show being what it is, it seems inconceivable to ever stage a poor production of a show with such rich material. Even if the talent pool came from a small town, the music, the lyrics, the story would be so strong, so moving, so timeless, that nothing coupled possibly ruin it.

I was wrong.

The fifth Broadway revival of this beloved Kander and Ebb musical is a stagnant spectacle whose price tag seems to actively encourage its potential audience to pick up their knitting, their book, and their broom, because the holiday of the Kit Kat Club is only meant for the rich denizens of society. Helmed by a director with no prior experience in musical theatre, the show fundamentally mistrusts its audience's intelligence and the once-masterful subtext is now about as subtle as a brick through a fruit shop window.

It's a bad sign when the security staffer at the entrance line tells you the design is excellent, the visuals are excellent, "the show is...good," with pointed hesitation and eyebrow raising. What would we do without New York honesty?

Under this new "immersive" direction, patrons enter through a seedy back alley door (with too many steps, which granted, they did warn me about before and I should have listened) and into a massive three-story club design with pre-show entertainment and drinks galore. With limited seating and rather underwhelming acts, my disabled ass went to my seat in the theatre instead where the whole auditorium has been gutted and renovated to create a theatre-in-the-round setup that ultimately does not suit the staging. Instead, actors play primarily to the "east" side, leaving the "west" to see a lot of backs throughout.

As characters, the Emcee and Sally are deranged, clownish, and utterly devoid of layers and complexity. They are exactly what their outlandish costumes, garish makeup, and overwrought performances say they are: too much. Eddie Redmayne is going for some kind of demonic muppet clown portrayal. This interpretation fails to do what the character is meant to do. Seduce, entice, enchant, all of which can be done in a morbid or even unsettling way, but Redmayne only ever irritates and repels. Similarly, Sally is an easy character to misunderstand. She's seemingly vapid, ignorant, and concerned with nothing more than having a good time. She's a character on the verge, but only ever on the verge. Too often I have seen performers act out the titular song as a full-blown breakdown. It is not. It is a triumph. It is a discordant celebration as the rest of the show falls into despair. In directing all of Sally's numbers to be as hysterical, unhinged, and off-putting as they are, it's clear the director, the producers, and to an extent, the actress who went along with it, do not understand this character, this story, this world. Less is more. Trust the material. Trust the audience.

Cabaret is a racy show with plenty of lewd and lascivious content. But this production takes the graphic nature to an extreme that ultimately misses the mark. Instead of a seductive coaxing, or even a morbid eroticism, we're granted such overt choreography (a man jerks off a giant black phallus into a woman's mouth, a woman mimes raining her tit milk all over a man's face, a woman graphically masturbates to Mein Kampf) that it becomes a juvenile display. Like children who make sexual jokes to be edgy, but only ever sound immature. It's off-putting, it's annoying, it's dull. There are multiple rewrites to the "Willkommen" introduction schtick, and the new lines are such a downgrade.

There are moments of relief amidst the spectacle that somehow still lacks spectacle. Bebe Neuwirth is a wonder of wonders, and her chemistry with Steven Skybell as Herr Schultz is a miracle of miracles. They are the saving grace of this monstrosity. Age, experience, and deep connection to the writers and the show give their performances a joyous, heartbreaking, beautiful tone. They are real, they are grounded, and they will shatter your heart. These scenes are the only places the director shows she's capable, perhaps because she has only ever done dramatic straight plays. The decision to stage "Married" as a trio with Kost spot-lit and singing in tandem was simple and brilliant and poignant. The way this show is meant to be. "What Would You Do?" is staged perhaps a little oddly, given the director's inability to remember she's doing an in-the-round show, but Bebe's rendition is the best I've ever experienced. I have heard this song sung beautiful by stronger singers, many who still grasp the acting well, but none hold a candle to her. This is a woman who has torn out her own beating heart from her chest as she chooses safety and self-preservation, even if it breaks her. This is a woman who is old and tired and not brave. Who has been given this one moment of happiness in her life and she has no choice but to saw it off like a gangrened limb before it poisons her entire body. Schultz and Schneider are the heart of this show. They deserve better.

It's been said by others, but the issues with this production seems to stem from its creative team's fundamental misunderstanding of Jewish culture. The show was written by three Jewish men who understood what was at stake. They had all lived through WWII. This is a production with a distinctly English tone, directed by gentiles, for gentiles. Broadway and New York, more familiar with Judaism than perhaps the West End, clearly received this revival differently.

Final Verdict: A Long Slog to Curtains

A Note on Ratings

#cabaret broadway #broadway #musical theatre #welcome to the theatre: diary of a broadway baby #bebe neuwirth #if i were a tenant of her building i'd be showering her with the finest fruits in all of berlin every day

17 notes · View notes

fandomsandfeminism · 1 year

Text

On Saturday, in New York, a group of friends pulled into a strangers driveway to turn their car around. The homeowner came outside, shot at them, and killed one of the 20 year old women in the car.

Last Thursday, in Kansas City, a 16 year old boy ended up at the wrong address by mistake trying to pick up his younger siblings. He rang the doorbell. The homeowner shot him in the head. He is, miraculously, alive and recovering.

Yesterday, in Texas, a group of high school cheerleaders stopped at a grocery store on their way home. One of them opened the door to the wrong car by mistake, realized her mistake, and quickly retreated and found her friends car nearby. The man in the car followed her and shot at the group. 2 were shot. One remains hospitalized.

In less than a week- 3 people, doing normal, nonmalicious, nonthreatening, everyday things. Turning around in a driveway, ringing the wrong doorbell, going up to the wrong car by mistake. And with no escalation, no warning, it turns to gun fire.

It's a terrible intersection of easy access to firearms and an entitlement to use violence against others. All 3 of these recent incidents were so unprovoked and unjustifiable, and the core thread remains the same.

A man who felt entitled to use violence and had the means to do so with a firearm.

I don't even know what to say.

#gun control obviously #but even that feels like too little #we need gun control #but we also need I dunno some...something more #because what kind of society creates this #what kind of culture allows it #the entitlement to leap straight to deadly force before you even speak to a person #to shoot at a stranger through your front door or car window without warning #just what in fucking hell

9K notes · View notes

tavina-writes · 8 months

Note

Hey, about the gui dao stuff. Is WWX, like, ruining all those corpses chances at reincarnating when he raises them from the dead?? Because that would in fact uh. be very bad.

Like, the autonomy re: dead people is already skeevy but if he’s also ruining their chances at a next life…

Well! Traditionally, the philosophy is that you can't reincarnate and will be doomed to wander the world as a hungry ghost never to enter the afterlife if you don't die and are buried with a "whole corpse."

This is why traditionally it's hard to get people to go for organ donation btw, it means you uhhhh you're giving up your ability to enter the afterlife. Since your organs are wandering around in someone else's body after you die, you will never be able to journey to the afterlife and onto the next and will end up a hungry resentful ghost etc etc.

(fun fact: imperial eunuchs kept their bits in a jar so they could be buried with those so they could reincarnate. This was so important to them because it concerned their next lives. That's how important this whole corpse thing was, and in some parts, still is!)

I assume that uh, if you know your corpse gets raised in necromancy and then you lose a hand in the war as a corpse etc you also uhhh do not get to go to the afterlife unless WWX came back to bury all those corpses and sort out whose limbs are whose. Which. Well I kinda doubt he was doing that and unless we get scenes or lines about him respectfully re-burying the bodies he raised uh, yeah those people are shit out of luck re: afterlife and the next life lmao.

(This is also why chopping up NMJ's fierce corpse was kinda bad btw.)

This is especially bad in a world where ghosts physically manifest and exist! Which! They do in MDZS!

#like again his motivations are understandable but uh #corpse desecration is bad in lots of societies #it's also bad in his society!#:DDDD #it's kind of even worse because they have concrete proof that ghosts exist #since yknow #a cultivator is a professional ghostbuster #so yeah the gui dao thing is the *opposite* of what a cultivator is supposed to be doing #aka: liberate suppress destroy (with destroy at last resort)#I can only assume that necromancy created lots of resentful ghosts who didn't get proper burials OR whole corpses!#asks and answers #my meta #meta

108 notes · View notes

icewindandboringhorror · 10 months

Text

recent lounging babey images

#he's so floppy recently and I hope it's just the heat. I think wamr weather makes everyone floppy and loungy #a beauntifulle boye...#cats #STILL working on posting some drafts. finishing new poll adventure.. other things... It's just hard with the weather and other things going #on. I've had a few more doctors appointments and other things to do recently that have to be done in a time limit #so I hvae to use my extremely limited energy working on that instead of doing the things I'd really rather do. :T #Main focuses though are keeping up better with doing and posting costumes + sculptures as main creative things. at least finishing the #main poll adventure story. Reworking the game I kind of abandoned for a few years. keeping up with game videos and a few other side things.#Especially the game though. I've been in a really worldbuildy mood recently. I just wish that was easier to manifest into something. I've #now put the worldbuilding slideshow reading video on pause for a while because it's SOOO long to do #and I think I should prioritize making games and stuff instead. but still other things. IT's just kind of like.. I have a whole world and #everything very built and planned out but now.. what do I do with it? what's the best way to share that? factual slideshows just going over #the information like a dictionary? make it into a game? write short stories? do art attached to the world? etc. etc. ?? There are so many #potential avenues I end up kind of flip flopping between them a lot because none really seem more beneficial than the others and they all #seem equally enjoyable and also equally hard so. It's like?? I guess just do what the hell ever and hope I made the right choice in terms o #cost benefit and reward for my time lol. ANYWAY.. Also why I'm in my 'trying to make friends' era still because I think having other creat #ive friends can help you find direction like.. people will meet each other and then go 'hey lol just for fun lets start a project together!#and then like 5 years later it's genuinely become something. etc. having other people to help weed out ideas and start small creative teams #together and etc. I feel is a very beneficial part of networking or whatever but also I have the social capacity of a stale bread roll and #am also inherently unrelatable to seemingly a majority of people due to my hermit wizard swag (detachment from general society and hyper #focus on fantasy worlds in my head gjhghj) so trying to meet people as a grown adult with social issues is Very easy and fun (it is not)#even very basic things like my core communication style is so incompatible with a lot of people it's like.. hhhh... People in this modern #age have GOT to stop being afraid of phone calls and/or text that is longer than 6 paragraphs. Work with me here. I WANT to talk to you. bu #I do not know what your emojis mean and it's physically impossible for me to type less than 85 sentences. please.. hhjgjgb #AAANYWAY!! I am working on things when I can given the circumstances (SUMMER).. hopefully some costume pictures and stuff soon. :'3 #I've not forgotten about my art and etc. - as usual I just am bad at social media and also functioning if it's above 65F lol

84 notes · View notes

neverendingford · 2 months

Text

#tag talk #watching/listening to criminal minds while patching a pair of jeans.#and idk. I really hate sounding like a quirky special not like other girls snowflake lock tumbler #but like. idk when you've learned to hide all the weird things about you that unsettle other people it's weird to see them called out #learning what parts of yourself to hide to appear normal. learning how to create your mask to blend in with society.#idk. having a not-unintelligent someone tell me recently I sound like a sociopath and that they're a little worried about being around me?#that kind of fucks me up. having my roommate tell me he locks his door at night because he's afraid of me at night.#idk. I'm on new mood stabilizers and I do feel the chemical restraint part of it. the suppression of a part of myself.#it's just that the part it's suppressing is a part I've tried to kill for a very long time.#the harm isn't about pain it's about suppressing energy. it's about shutting down the uncontrollable part #idk we'll see how the meds pan out long term. Hopefully I feel more normal on it.#I don't feel like the suppression is shutting down something that is myself. I feel like it's shutting down an intrusive parasite.#this isn't a part of me I've ever wanted to be. I hate being the clown. I hate being the goof. the quirky idiot #I feel better when I'm more calm. I'm more controlled. I can control the part of me that feels compelled to do weird shit.#idk. I don't like being a freak. I don't like being a nutjob. I can handle having a part of me being cold as long as it's controlled.#we'll see.

2 notes · View notes

idiosyncraticrednebula · 5 months

Text

Can people stop the "Don't call yourself a feminist if-" crap? Y'all still believe in the blatant lies of that movement and ideology?

#txt #that shit has been shady from day one even if some of the people involved throughout the years had good intentions #i'm sorry but women need to stop thinking this movement has ever been for them. it wasn't even created by women #also christ is literally there. you don't need that movement. christianity did that a looong time ago #“yeah but society was still patri-” shut the hell up with that. i don't want to hear it. y'all have no idea what a patriarchy is anymore #it's just evil men working together to keep women down. the world has never quite worked like that. are y'all this retarded?????#y'all are out here painting shit like a goddamn classic disney villain #the world and human civilization are incredibly complex multidimensional and gray. this isn't a black and white bs #this is the fucking problem with tumblr and people as a whole. nothing is balanced. it's either one extreme or the other #we humans tend to jump to extremes even though things are far more nuanced and complex #we live in a fallen world. this world is unfair but there's a chance at redemption #we can all be better #the problem with this ideology is that they always try to paint men as the natural enemies of women #it's the oppressor and oppressed dynamic #one is evil and the other one is good #this is a very black and white way of looking at humanity and it removes the humanity from both #i hate it because it heavily implies that women have no agency and shit just happens to them basically. nothing they do has an effect. it's #always someone else doing it. like y'all do realize women are the other half of humanity right????? you can't maintain a society without the #other #you'd have to be INSANE to subscribe to this kind of ideology

2 notes · View notes

theboost · 2 years

Text

Top three moments from robocop 2 that make me think that frank miller accidentally made robocop trans

#i had a breakdown about this on twitter when I was watching this. but man.#okay remember that essay I was writing in my head I’ll sum it up here. so robocop 1 is all about well actually it’s a critique of capitalism #and the dangers of giving cooperations to much power and modern action movies and what have you. it’s a good movie. but it’s also about #robocop reclaiming his identity which is signified by 1. the fact that he spends the finale with the mask off to show that it is in fact #alex murphy doing this not robocop and 2. the way it ends is literally on the exchange of dialogue “what’s your name son’’ “Murphy’’#it’s literally him reclaiming his identity. so if robocop 1 is about him and his rediscovering his humanity then it tracks that robocop 2 is #about how society reacts to that. and it does kind of. there’s a lot of like moments like this where murphy asserts his identity only to be #broken down by the people with positions of power over him - he’s not alex murphy he’s not even human he doesn’t even have rights. and like #they bring up his wife and kid in the first 15 minutes and you think okay so they’ll explore how this has effected them. how do they feel #about each other? it’s stated in the first movie that he remembers her but he doesn’t really feel for her I believe- something contradicted #in this movie by the fact that he apparently constantly drives by her house. so if it’s not love driving him then what is it? is it the #desire to have what he can never really get again? a normal life with his family? well guess what! they have him say to his wife alex murphy #is dead and not even what appears to remain of him is really left and she disappears from the movie #they do explore how he’s viewed by society somewhat but it’s mainly a juxtaposition of how his friends and coworkers see him vs ocp the corp #that created him and it’s basically like his friends acknowledge his personhood but in the eyes of the law and ocp he has no rights because #he’s not a person he’s a tool! and this gets taken to the extent where he is literally reprogrammed by ocp once he gets destroyed to be a #‘better’ tool for fighting crime and you think oh okay this is where this movie is going to go it’s an exploration of Murphy’s rights and #him dealing with these forced changes is going to be a big part of the movie and then no. it lasts for like ten minutes and then abruptly #ends when murphy risks wiping out all that remains of him to be free- an interesting idea that never gets brought up again because any #real continuation of the themes of the first half of the movie kind of stop and he practically disappears for 40 minutes and I think that’s #where my problems with robocop 2 really come in because like. it’s written by frank miller and another guy with a story by frank miller.#he’s not the most subtle man in the world and he certainly lacks capability of the deft political commentary of the first movie and it just #kind of becomes a less subtle rehashing of the old one. the lack of subtlety is apparent when one of the characters literally says the theme #of the movie to a bunch of reporters ‘we can’t let cooperations have this much power or they take away our rights’ which is true but that’s #what the first movie said FRANK. you have to come up with something new FRANK #and that’s why I liked the exploration of Murphy and his rights and his feelings because the first movie was about him like. learning that #he had them and coming to terms with it but now a year or so later what’s the situation? and the situation is that it’s the same.#it even ends on the exact same note as robocop!! murphy says to his partner ‘we’re only human’ which could have been impactful if murphy #ever truly doubted his identity- sure he can be convinced to say that he’s not but everytime he’s pressed about it he repeats that he IS #Alex murphy until he is literally forced not to! like there’s a scene where he has to literally be programmed to stop saying that he is alex

40 notes · View notes

i-like-gay-books · 1 year

Text

ok like ao3 is the superior platform. OBVIOUSLY. im not arguing against that. but let’s be real, wattpad really popped off with the ability to make comments on every individual paragraph. ao3 take notes

#i was thinking about why i used to be so good at leaving comments before i started reading on ao3 #its because i was on wattpad before #and they had this feature #please i have stuff to say i just need to say it immediately in the moment or else ill forget!#also it fostered a really strong sense of community #i love ao3 but its always felt a little more separated to me #on wattpad i remember i used to make friends with frequent commenters and have conversations in the side comments #i know ao3 is nonprofit and features are hard to create #im just saying. we as a society need to remember what wattpad gave us #i am abit biased because wattpad made me a writer #which is kind of a big deal #im a creative writing major now #cloudy rambles

4 notes · View notes

inhonoredglory · 9 months

Text

Aziraphale’s Choice, the Job Connection, and Michael Sheen’s Morality

Update: Michael Sheen liked this post on Twitter, so I'm fairly certain there is a lot of validity to it.

I’ve had time to process Aziraphale’s choice at the end of Season 2. And I think only blaming the religious trauma misses something important in Aziraphale’s character. I think what happened was also Aziraphale’s own conscious choice––as a growth from his trauma, in fact. Hear me out.

Since November 2022 I’ve been haunted by something Michael Sheen said at the MCM London Comic Con. At the Q&A, someone asked him about which fantasy creature he enjoyed playing most and Michael (bless him, truly) veered on a tangent about angels and goodness and how, specifically,

We as a society tend to sort of undervalue goodness. It’s sort of seen as sort of somehow weak and a bit nimby and “oh it’s nice.” And I think to be good takes enormous reserves of courage and stamina. I mean, you have to look the dark in the face to be truly good and to be truly of the light…. The idea that goodness is somehow lesser and less interesting and not as kind of muscular and as passionate and as fierce as evil somehow and darkness, I think is nonsense. The idea of being able to portray an angel, a being of love. I love seeing the things people have put online about angels being ferocious creatures, and I love that. I think that’s a really good representation of what goodness can be, what it should be, I suppose.

I was looking forward to BAMF!Aziraphale all season long, and I think that’s what we got in the end. Remember Neil said that the Job minisode was important for Aziraphale’s story. Remember how Aziraphale sat on that rock and reconciled to himself that he MUST go to Hell, because he lied and thwarted the will of God. He believed that––truly, honestly, with the faith of a child, but the bravery of a soldier.

Aziraphale, a being of love with more goodness than all of Heaven combined, believed he needed to walk through the Gates of Hell because it was the Right Thing to do. (Like Job, he didn’t understand his sin but believed he needed to sacrifice his happiness to do the Right Thing.)

That’s why we saw Aziraphale as a soldier this season: the bookshop battle, the halo. But yes, the ending as well.

Because Aziraphale never wanted to go to Heaven, and he never wanted to go there without Crowley.

But it was Crowley who taught him that he could, even SHOULD, act when his moral heart told him something was wrong. While Crowley was willing to run away and let the world burn, it was Aziraphale (in that bandstand at the end of the world) who stood his ground and said No. We can make a difference. We can save everyone.

And Aziraphale knew he could not give up the ace up his sleeve (his position as an angel) to talk to God and make them see the truth in his heart.

I was messed up by Ineffable Bureaucracy (Boxfly) getting their happy ending when our Ineffable Husbands didn’t, but I see now that them running away served to prove something to Aziraphale. (And I am fully convinced that Gabriel and Beelzebub saw the example of the Ineffables at the Not-pocalypse and took inspiration from them for choosing to ditch their respective sides)

But my point is that Aziraphale saw them, and in some ways, they looked like him and Crowley. And he saw how Gabriel, the biggest bully in Heaven, was also like him in a way (a being capable of love) and also just a child when he wasn’t influenced by the poison of Heaven. Muriel, too, wasn’t a bad person. The Metatron also seemed to have grown more flexible with his morality (from Aziraphale's perspective). Like Earth, Heaven was shades of (light?) gray.

Aziraphale is too good an angel not to believe in hope. Or forgiveness (something he’s very good at it).

Aziraphale has been scarred by Heaven all his life. But with the cracks in Heaven’s armor (cracks he and Crowley helped create), Aziraphale is seeing something else. A chance to change them. They did terrible things to him, but he is better than them, and because of Crowley, he feels ready to face them.

(Will it work? Can Heaven change, institutionally? Probably not, but I can't blame Aziraphale for trying.)

At the cafe, the Metatron said something big was coming in the Great Plan. Aziraphale knows how trapped he had felt when he didn’t have God’s ear the first time something huge happened in the Big Plan. He can’t take a chance again to risk the world by not having a foot in the door of Heaven. That’s why we saw individual human deaths (or the threat of death) so much more this season: Elspeth, Wee Morag, Job’s children, the 1940s magician. Aziraphale almost killed a child when he couldn’t get through to God, and he’s not going through that again.

“We could make a difference.” We could save everyone.

Remember what Michael Sheen said about courage and doing good––and having to “look the dark in the face to be truly good.” That’s what happened when Aziraphale was willing to go to Hell for his actions. That’s what happened when he decided he had to go to Heaven, where he had been abused and belittled and made to feel small. He decided to willingly go into the Lion’s Den, to face his abusers and his anxiety, to make them better so that they would not try to destroy the world again.

Him, just one angel. He needed Crowley to be there with him, to help him be brave, to ask the questions that Heaven needed to hear, to tell them God was wrong. Crowley is the inspiration that drives Aziraphale’s change, Crowley is the engine that fuels Aziraphale’s courage.

But then Crowley tells him that going to Heaven is stupid. That they don’t need Heaven. And he’s right. Aziraphale knows he’s right.

Aziraphale doesn’t need Heaven; Heaven needs him. They just don’t know how much they need him, or how much humanity needs him there, too. (If everyone who ran for office was corrupt, how can the system change?)

Terry Pratchett (in the Discworld book, Small Gods) is scathing of God, organized religion, and the corrupt people religion empowers, but he is sympathetic to the individual who has real, pure faith and a good heart. In fact, the everyman protagonist of Small Gods is a better person than the god he serves, and in the end, he ends up changing the church to be better, more open-minded, and more humanist than god could ever do alone.

Aziraphale is willing to go to the darkest places to do the Right Thing, and Heaven is no exception. When Crowley says that Heaven is toxic, that’s exactly why Aziraphale knows he needs to go there. “You’re exactly is different from my exactly.”

____

In the aftermath of Trump's election in the US, Brexit happened in 2018. Michael Sheen felt compelled to figure out what was going on in his country after this shock. But he was living in Los Angeles with Sarah Silverman at the time, and she also wanted to become more politically active in the US.

Sheen: “I felt a responsibility to do something, but it [meant] coming back [to Britain] – which was difficult for us, because we were very important to each other. But we both acknowledge that each of us had to do what we needed to do.” In the end, they split up and Michael moved back to the UK.

Sometimes doing the Right Thing means sacrificing your own happiness. Sometimes it means going to Hell. Sometimes it means going to Heaven. Sometimes it means losing a relationship.

And that’s why what happened in the end was so difficult for Aziraphale. Because he loves Crowley desperately. He wants to be together. He wanted that kiss for thousands of years. He knows that taking command of Heaven means they would never again have to bow to the demands of a God they couldn’t understand, or run from a Hell who still came after them. They could change the rules of the game.

And he’s still going to do that. But it hurts him that he has to do that alone.

#good omens #good omens 2 #ineffable husbands #it's kinda like capt america: civil war #with Azi as Tony Stark: traumatized and trying to do the right thing #and Crowley being Steve Rogers: fuck the establishment let's go rogue #gos2spoilers #good omens meta #good omens 2 meta #go s2 #michael sheen #go s2 meta #go meta #*mine #*mymeta #ineffables husbands #ineffable soulmates #*mybest

11K notes · View notes

softsoup642 · 11 months

Text

thinking more about the social dynamics of this world (furry earth of whatever i’m calling it).. not only is there the predator-prey dynamic, but also the dynamics both predator and prey people have with preyed-upon herbivores (not granted sympathy for (once) eating people, or if they are the ones they (once) preyed upon, seen as dangerous), and with people who were or are their predators (they would likely be seen as food or as lesser by their predators, and so they would fear them, and even if they are not eaten by them currently, there would still likely be that fear). there are also herbivores who were hardly preyed upon, like aurochs or rhinos, and their relationship with often preyed-upon fellow herbivores, and prey in general. they cannot exactly relate to the struggles of the rest of the herbivores, y’know? i’m not too sure how well i explained all of this, but, yeh. the point is, there are lots of different possible social dynamics with a world where the people are anthropomorphic animals.

#world info #my posts #sorry for any followers of mine who have this post show up on their dash without context #this is a world building project i'm working on #i think a lot of animal society media usually just does the herbivore vs carnivore dynamic i've noticed.#anyway #there's this auroch-boar-lynx-eagle society based around strength. its kind of like furry sparta.#and this is my first example i've created of an inter-diet society and the way this particular one works is that the carnivores who joined #have a mutual respect (and fear which really is what caused the respect) of the aurochs #and so these particular lynx and eagle groups ended up allying with then joining because of the benefits aurochs promised them #like food (fish bugs and prisoners of war)#and POWER #there's this cultural philosophy that these carnivores were convinced of #about rather than it being about predator and prey it was the strong and the weak. and aurochs boars lynxes and eagles were the strong #while chamois and foxes and such were the weak ones

1 note · View note

thebibliosphere · 8 months

Note

I both believe "poor people deserve art" and "artists deserve food", but it's hard to reconcile those beliefs. I blame capitalism. And I suppose it mostly matters who you're stealing from?

I don't mean to question you at all, I'm against people pirating your stories. I guess I was just wondering if you had more thoughts regarding the reconciliation the two beliefs I quoted above.

I think the reconciliation is working toward a future where things are better, and authors and artists don't have to beg people not to steal from them because they think every author is Stephen King, who wouldn't notice if you stole the pennies found under his couch when in reality most of us are hunting for spare change down the back of the couch because we are earning below minimum wage.

We need people to embrace the idea that art belongs to the working class, both in terms of consumption but also creation.

If you don't support the working-class creators, you'll only end up with rich fucks with no scope of the world beyond their own narrow view of privilege.

Indie creators are actually working very hard to change the way the industry works, and the publishing industry is shitting itself over it. They don't like the success some of us are having. It's why they keep upping prices while slashing corners on their own production (while never affecting the man at the top) to try and stay competitive within the rat race they've created.

They're not interested in the proliferation of art. They're not interested in making sure their authors can afford to live. They don't want more diversity. They don't want inclusion. They want profit at whatever the cost.

And while indie creators very much need to get paid because we live in a capitalistic society and everything is burning down around us, and a carton of eggs now costs more than what I earn per hour, our creativity is directly at odds with the type of profiteering big publishers want.

The money should go to the writers. Not the CEOs. The money should go to the workers in the print houses. Not the CEOs. No one needs the kind of wealth these people have. It's obscene. We need direct action against these conglomerates. We need unionization. We need a means to fight back so that we can make art and make it accessible.

So, how do we do that? I don't know. I'm just a very tired, disabled creator doing my best to keep my head above water. But I think getting people to realize that art and books are worth saving up for would be a good start.

That putting money in the pockets of creators is just as important as your own enjoyment of their art. Because if there aren't any artists, you've got nothing.

Getting them involved with their local libraries would also be a great start. Educating them on how the industry works is part of that. The number of people telling me they had no idea libraries paid authors is staggering. And that's intentional. It's a by-product of right-wing propaganda to make you think libraries are worthless and just sap taxpayers' money.

They're not.

If they were, the fash wouldn't be trying so hard to take them away.

Basically, we need working-class solidarity and for certain people on the left to rid themselves of the idea that just because something isn't borne of manual labor, it doesn't have worth. We need the artists and the dreamers as much as we need to bricklayers and the craftsmen. Otherwise, what's the fucking point of it all?

#sorry #this isn't an actionable answer to your question #I don't know what that answer is #I just need people to realize art is not the exclusive creation of the wealthy #and treating it as such is making everything worse

4K notes · View notes

vaspider · 4 months

Text

In defense of retellings & reimaginings

I'm not going to respond to the post that sparked this, because honestly, I don't really feel like getting in an argument, and because it's only vaguely even about the particular story that the other post discussed. The post in question objected to retellings of the Rape of Persephone which changed important elements of the story -- specifically, Persephone's level of agency, whether she was kidnapped, whether she ate seeds out of hunger, and so on. It is permissible, according to this thesis, to 'fill in empty spaces,' but not to change story elements, because 'those were important to the original tellers.' (These are acknowledged paraphrases, and I will launch you into the sun if you nitpick this paragraph.)

I understand why to the person writing that, that perspective is important, and why they -- especially as a self-described devotee of Persephone -- feel like they should proscribe boundaries around the myth. It's a perfectly valid perspective to use when sorting -- for example -- which things you choose to read. If you choose not to read anything which changes the elements which you feel are important, I applaud you.

However, the idea that one should only 'color in missing pieces,' especially when dealing with stories as old, multi-sourced, and fractional as ancient myths, and doing so with the argument that you shouldn't change things because those base elements were important to the people who originally crafted the stories, misses -- in my opinion -- the fundamental reason we tell stories and create myths in the first place.

Forgive me as I get super fucking nerdy about this. I've spent the last several years of my life wrestling with the concept of myths as storytelling devices, universality of myths, and why myths are even important at all as part of writing on something like a dozen books (a bunch of which aren't out yet) for a game centered around mythology. A lot of the stuff I've written has had to wrestle with exactly this concept -- that there is a Sacred Canon which cannot be disrupted, and that any disregard of [specific story elements] is an inexcusable betrayal.

Myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us as individuals, as social groups, and as a society. The elements we utilize or change, those things we choose to include and exclude when telling and retelling a story, tell us what's important to us.

I could sit down and argue over the specific details which change over the -- at minimum -- 1700 years where Persephone/Kore/Proserpina was actively worshiped in Greek and Roman mystery cults, but I actually don't think those variations in specific are very important. What I think is important, however, is both the duration of her cults -- at minimum from 1500 BCE to 200CE -- and the concept that myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us.

The idea that there was one, or even a small handful, of things that were most important to even a large swath of the people who 'originally' told the store of the Rape of Persephone or any other 'foundational' myth of what is broadly considered 'Western Culture,' when those myths were told and retold in active cultic worship for 1700 years... that seems kind of absurd to me on its face. Do we have the same broad cultural values as the original tellers of Beowulf, which is only (heh) between 1k-1.3k years old? How different are our marital traditions, our family traditions, and even our language? We can, at best, make broad statements, and of inclusive necessity, those statements must be broad enough as to lose incredible amounts of specificity. In order to make definitive, specific statements, we must leave out large swaths of the people to whom this story, or any like it, was important.

To move away from the specific story brought up by the poster whose words spun this off, because it really isn't about that story in particular, let's use The Matter of Britain/Arthuriana as our framing for the rest of this discussion. If you ask a random nerd on Tumblr, they'd probably cite a handful of story elements as essential -- though of course which ones they find most essential undoubtedly vary from nerd to nerd -- from the concept that Camelot Always Falls to Gawain and the Green Knight, Percival and the grail, Lancelot and Guinevere...

... but Lancelot/Guinevere and Percival are from Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century, some ~500 years after Taliesin's first verses. Lancelot doesn't appear as a main character at all before de Troyes, and we can only potentially link him to characters from an 11th century story (Culhwch and Olwen) for which we don't have any extant manuscripts before the 15th century. Gawain's various roles in his numerous appearances are... conflicting characterizations at best.

The point here is not just that 'the things you think are essential parts of the story are not necessarily original,' or that 'there are a lot of different versions of this story over the centuries,' but also 'what you think of as essential is going to come back to that first thesis statement above.' What you find important about The Matter of Britain, and which story elements you think can be altered, filed off or filled in, will depend on what that story needs to tell you about yourself and what's important to you.

Does creating a new incarnation of Arthur in which she is a diasporic lesbian in outer space ruin a story originally about Welsh national identity and chivalric love? Does that disrespect the original stories? How about if Arthur is a 13th century Italian Jew? Does it disrespect the original stories if the author draws deliberate parallels between the seduction of Igerne and the story of David and Bathsheba?

Well. That depends on what's important to you.

Insisting that the core elements of a myth -- whichever elements you believe those to be -- must remain static essentially means 'I want this myth to stagnate and die.' Maybe it's because I am Jewish, and we constantly re-evaluate every word in Torah, over and over again, every single year, or maybe it's because I spend way, way too much time thinking about what's valuable in stories specifically because I write words about these concepts for money, but I don't find these arguments compelling at all, especially not when it comes to core, 'mainstream' mythologies. These are tools in the common toolbox, and everybody has access to them.

More important to me than the idea that these core elements of any given story must remain constant is, to paraphrase Dolly Parton, that a story knows what it is and does it on purpose. Should authors present retellings or reimaginings of the Rape of Persephone or The Matter of Britain which significantly alter historically-known story elements as 'uncovered' myths or present them as 'the real and original' story? Absolutely not. If someone handed me a book in which the new Grail was a limited edition Macklemore Taco Bell Baja Blast cup and told me this comes directly from recently-discovered 6th century writings of Taliesin, I would bonk them on the head with my hardcover The Once & Future King. Of course that's not the case, right?

But the concept of canon, historically, in these foundational myths has not been anything like our concept of canon today. Canon should function like a properly-fitted corset, in that it should support, not constrict, the breath in the story's lungs. If it does otherwise, authors should feel free to discard it in part or in whole.

Concepts of familial duty and the obligation of marriage don't necessarily resonate with modern audiences the way that the concept of self-determination, subversion of unreasonable and unjustified authority, and consent do. That is not what we, as a general society, value now. If the latter values are the values important to the author -- the story that the author needs to tell in order to express who they are individually and culturally and what values are important to them* -- then of course they should retell the story with those changed values. That is the point of myths, and always has been.

Common threads remain -- many of us move away from family support regardless of the consent involved in our relationships, and life can be terrifying when you're suddenly out of the immediate reach and support of your family -- because no matter how different some values are, essential human elements remain in every story. It's scary to be away from your mother for the first time. It's scary to live with someone new, in a new place. It's intimidating to find out that other people think you have a Purpose in life that you need to fulfill. It's hard to negotiate between the needs of your birth family and your chosen family.

None of this, to be clear, is to say that any particular person should feel that they need to read, enjoy, or appreciate any particular retelling, or that it's cool, hip and groovy to misrepresent your reworking of a myth as a 'new secret truth which has always been there.' If you're reworking a myth, be truthful about it, and if somebody told you 'hey did you know that it really -- ' and you ran with that and find out later you were wrong, well, correct the record. It's okay to not want to read or to not enjoy a retelling in which Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere negotiate a triad and live happily ever after; it's not really okay to say 'you can't do that because you changed a story element which I feel is non-negotiable.' It's okay to say 'I don't think this works because -- ' because part of writing a story is that people are going to have opinions on it. It's kind of weird to say 'you're only allowed to color inside these lines.'

That's not true, and it never has been. Greek myths are not from a closed culture. Roman myths are not sacrosanct. There are plenty of stories which outsiders should leave the hell alone, but Greek and Roman myths are simply not on that list. There is just no world in which you can make an argument that the stories of the Greek and Roman Empires are somehow not open season to the entire English-speaking world. They are the public-est of domain.

You don't have to like what people do with it, but that doesn't make people wrong for writing it, and they certainly don't have to color within the lines you or anyone else draws. Critique how they tell the story, but they haven't committed some sort of cultural treachery by telling the stories which are important to them rather than the stories important to someone 2500 years dead.

****

*These are not the only reasons to tell a story and I am not in any way saying that an author is only permitted to retell a story to express their own values. There are as many reasons to tell a story as there are stories, and I don't really think any reason to create fiction is more or less valid than any other. I am discussing, specifically, the concept of myths as conveyors of essential cultural truths.

2K notes · View notes

phddyke · 3 months

Text

Hazbin Hotel is actually healing my inner ex-Christian so hard.

No joke, I nearly started cheering when Lute called Charlie and Vaggie’s love “vile and blasphemous” (and then burst out laughing when Adam immediately followed it up with “Hot as fuck though”). I know that may sound weird considering that I am, in fact, a lesbian, but here me out:

Seeing Christians being explicitly homophobic onscreen? It validates me. It makes me think “Oh yeah, I’m not crazy, Christians are that hateful!” And, call me crazy, but I think homophobia being tied in with villainy is a good thing. Neither Adam or Lute are supposed to be good people; they are very obviously the villain, and that establishes their behavior as bad. Someone on Twitter said that Lute gave them religious fanatic vibes and I couldn’t agree more.

And here’s the thing, too: it’s explicit homophobia, not some dumb metaphor. There’s no way to take it as anything else. And I really need that. I need to see Christians being explicitly homophobic onscreen in the same way that other people need and create worlds where homophobia doesn’t exist.

But me? I want my pain and suffering acknowledged. I want the harm that Christianity does acknowledged. Homophobia is real and the religious kind doubly so. I related to Vaggie so much in that episode; I felt her trepidation about going back to Heaven. Felt like a good metaphor for escaping a fundamentalist church only to be forced to visit again.

And Viv is not afraid to explicitly point this out and criticize them. Like, yes! Say it! They are hypocrites! They don’t care about people being better, they only care about punishment! They maimed one of their own and left her to die because she spared a child! They’re homophobic freaks! They would never see the good that Angel does and how he’s improved and is wonderful, they only see that he’s a drug addict and a sex worker and think he’s worthless for that even though Jesus broke bread with sex workers and people considered the dregs of society. (And of course Angel is gay on top of that.)

And another thing: not only did the Adam line make me laugh, but the second homophobic Lute line about “he blew his shot like the cocks in his mouth” cracked me up too. It reminded me of the pilot where Katie Killjoy said “I don’t touch the gays” to Charlie, which is a line that made me laugh for 4+ years straight. When I told my brother that was the funniest homophobia I’d ever heard in media, he very wisely said, “All homophobia is funny if you think about it.” And you know what? He’s right. It is funny, because it’s so fundamentally goddamn stupid, so let’s give characters ridiculous lines so everyone can laugh at how idiotic they and their beliefs sound.

1K notes · View notes