#cb: empathy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lucky-of-the-draw · 1 month

Text

So, there’s going to be a lot of press coverage on what happened in UCLA last night, a lot of twisting the narrative from Western media, so here’s a rundown with updates from Al Jazeera.

1.) There was an unprovoked attack last night from counterprotestors against the encampment on campus (between the library and Royce Hall).

While the base facts of it are already terrible, as students have come forward to discuss the situation with the Al Jazeera news station, it becomes increasingly more concerning.

2.) No matter how this gets spun, no matter how some source such as CBS will try to defend the attacks, the combat and violence were not mutual between the groups.

3.) Security guards, police did absolutely nothing to aid them (big shocker /s). According to the solidarity camp and the People’s City Council:

Not only did they stand to the side, rather they filmed it.

Not to mention, as more of the situation is revealed, the attacks from the counterprotestors included:

Fireworks aimed directly at the encampent

Pepper spray and mace

Gas canisters

Whole and broken glass bottles

Sticks and branches

Further, this is the latest instance of attacks and brawls started by counter protesters. One of the previous mornings, counterprotestors showed up in wee hours of the morning to say “WAKE UP COMMIES” while playing Robin Williams saying “Good morning Vietnam” on repeat over a loud speaker.

Not to mention, there are signs surrounding the camp mentioning to keep bananas away due to a well-marked, fatal allergy. The response from zionists and counterprotestors?

[Image ID: the first image, taken from a distance, features a young woman in front of one of the buildings closest to the encampment, draped in the flag of Israel, raising a bundle of bananas as high as possible. While strained, she appears to be smiling as she is holding up the bananas towards the solidarity camp. END ID]

[Image ID: The second image features a tweet which reads: “There was a protestor in the liberate zone of UCLA with a potentially fatal banana allergy. [underlined in green] Counterprotestors invaded the encampment and saw all the no banana warnings. [highlighted in yellow] The next day they came back waving bananas like settlers waving machine guns [highlighted in red] & smeared bananas everywhere.” Next to it, a young man is featured with what appears to be US armed forces gear or fatigues, each pocket or holster filled with bananas, all of it equipped over a banana costume, and sunglasses. A line of text across the image reads “Peace was never an option” END ID]

The lack of compassion and empathy is appalling, but not new nor surprising. They make memes, taunt protestors and Palestinians with songs, smiling as they literally threaten somebody’s life within the camp.

4. However, most importantly in this, the camp not only survived, they are already rebuilding and taking more defensive measures.

While it is uncertain whether several pieces of artwork and the original props behind the fence were recovered, the solidarity camp has held their ground.

I wish the best for the protestors and the solidarity camp, and that their resilience continues in the face of this atrocity.

FREE PALESTINE. END THE OCCUPATION. FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA.

#palestine #free palestine #free gaza #usa #ucla #fuck zionists

60 notes · View notes

sundayswiththeilluminati · 1 year

Text

In light of what we’re learning in Season of the Seraph I thought of something that gave me a Big Sad so now I’m inflicting it on you too.

Before Season of the Seraph we didn’t know much about the time between when Rasputin achieved consciousness and when he came into control of the Golden Age. We especially didn’t know how much time Red spent under CB Corp control and how much Clovis Bray himself was involved. We knew about the Pillory override system but not how early it was built or how many other control measures Clovis tried to embed in his existence. Now with the new season dialogue it sounds like it might have been quite a lot. Clovis spent a significant amount of time personally attempting to shape Rasputin and compel his obedience, and he still resents Red escaping his control.

Rasputin made the original Felwinter - SIDDHARTHA GOLEM - as a test of his own morality because he was concerned he’d become a dangerous autocrat. With the new lore this season that concern takes on a much more immediate shape. Rasputin wasn’t just afraid he was a tyrant - he was afraid he was Clovis. Rasputin was testing Felwinter for greed, hunger for power, and/or lack of empathy, all prominent traits of The Genius Clovis Bray The First. And if Clovis had his hooks in him for a while, trying to mess around in his brain despite Ana and probably Elsie running defense, I’m not surprised he’d worry. When the other AI nicknamed him “Tyrant” Rasputin may have had a genuine crisis of thinking he was, well, turning into his (grand)dad.

Setting up Clovis as having interfered longer and more closely than we thought also throws a whole new angle on Rasputin’s choice to describe Felwinter as his son. I’ve never really liked that analogy. The idea of the Warmind having a “son” is too humanizing to me. I figured he used that term because explaining the exact details would be hard and he was speaking metaphorically anyways. But Clovis Bray calls inventions “children” and “grandchildren,” not because he thinks projects are people but because he thinks people are projects. Rasputin saw how Clovis acted towards his grandchildren, and Clovis’ attitude towards him this season is shaping up to have a serious degree of “abusive father/grandfather.” All of that reframes Rasputin’s own choice to call Felwinter his son as an act of rebellion - and contrition - with a very specific meaning.

I don’t think Golden-Age Rasputin thought of Felwinter as his son. I think he thought of him as a second chance. Rasputin gave the original Felwinter the life he wished he could have: without responsibility or violence. Never being made the Warmind, never the subject of Clovis’ experiments. Just being part of the world. Probably playing chess in a café while having some super pretentious philosophy debate. It comforted Red to know Felwinter was out there - we don’t know if they communicated, or if original Felwinter ever knew his own origin - because at least some version of him was free.

And then Rasputin killed Felwinter. Can you imagine? When he realizes Felwinter is alive again Rasputin doesn’t call the kill protocol immediately. He calls it after trying a number of ways to take direct control of him. Felwinter never made a move to threaten Rasputin! He never even got the chance! But Rasputin couldn’t control him, and under MIDNIGHT EXIGENT that made him dangerous, and that meant he has to die. Rasputin killed Felwinter because MIDNIGHT EXIGENT required it and he knows he did the exact same thing Clovis did when he burnt up the original Elsie Bray before she could blow the Vex gate and end the Exo project: killed his child for his own survival. Declared any person he couldn’t control a threat. No wonder the Cosmodrome fragment refused to speak to anyone for like six hundred years! He just locked himself in a basement and screamed! His only coping mechanism was telling himself Guardians weren’t human and the resurrected Felwinter wasn’t really the same person, and even that shred of denial got blown to bits when he met Ana again. Can you imagine.

In one of the Warmind comics openers Rasputin casually drops one of the saddest lines I’ve ever read:

If she remembers me, she will not recognize me.

“If she remembers me.” What a staggeringly sad concept! Not just that someone you once knew well won’t recognize you now. That you have become so much the opposite of your former self that someone who once knew you is less likely to recognize you. If Ana doesn’t remember him, then she’ll believe him if he says, “I am Rasputin.” If she does remember him, he thinks she’ll take one look at him and say, “No. You can’t be him. He would never do this.” Rasputin called Felwinter his son because Rasputin did to him what he once learned fathers do to their children. It’s not just that he killed the angel of his better nature. It’s not just that he killed the living representative of the morality he used to hold to. It’s that in doing so he made himself exactly what - who - he once feared to become. There’s a reason the end of Felwinter’s story is the first time Rasputin himself ever uses the name “Tyrant.” There’s a reason he only ‘fessed up to it two weeks before he thought he was going to die. Now we know what Rasputin thought Ana would see: if she remembered him, she would say, “He would never turn into my grandfather.”

#Destiny 2 #gave myself a Sad #so now you get it too #the Warmind Rasputin #Season of the Seraph #I wonder if they'll address this later in the season #watch them do it and come to totally opposite conclusions #oh well #ra ra Rasputin Mars' greatest war machine #this is the wager of existence

395 notes · View notes

sshbpodcast · 7 days

Text

Character Spotlight: Kathryn Janeway

By Ames

Finally, we’ve made it to the Delta Quadrant in A Star to Steer Her By’s character spotlight series, as we turn our focus to the crew from Voyager. And who better to start us off than our intrepid Intrepid-class leader, Captain Kathryn Janeway? She stalwartly leads the crew through uncharted space, wheels and deals with new alien species, kicks countless asses, and drinks copious amounts of coffee. What’s not to like?

Well, some things, as you’ll see below in our patented list of all Janeway’s Best and Worst Moments throughout the series (and beyond!). What’s in the Delta Quadrant doesn’t actually stay in the Delta Quadrant, you see. So count the number of times Janeway self-destructs the ship as you read on below and listen to our countdown timer over on this week’s podcast episode (T-minus 57:33). There’s coffee in this blogpost!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Ralkana? He said you’d been shot. One of the early gems of Voyager is “Resistance,” and Kate Mulgrew is on high display throughout. When she comes to understand Caylem’s tragic history, Janeway embraces his cause with compassion and empathy. And when the poor, senile man is dying and continues to mistake her for his daughter, Janeway lets him believe his delusions because they’re all he has.

Hello. I’m Captain Kathryn Janeway. Welcome to the Bridge. We joke a lot on A Star to Steer Her By that Janeway’s go-to tactic is self-destructing the ship. And she gets to actually carry that through for the first (but not last) time in “Deadlock,” taking out a whole bunch of Vidiians with her. Lucky for us, a spare Voyager crew (including a bonus Harry and Naomi) are saved as a result, since any other time it’s a trick you can only pull once.

There’s nothing to fear… except Kathryn Janeway Throughout the sensory-overload nightmare fuel that is “The Thaw,” Fear the Clown torments the people within his holo-environment until he crosses paths with Captain Janeway and she proves to be the most cold-blooded of them all. She cleverly tricks him into releasing the hostages before ripping the rug out from under him with the reveal that she isn’t really there.

You’re part of a family now, and you have obligations Watching the crew become more of a family as the seasons progress is a highlight of Voyager, and the way Janeway comes to trust Neelix is lovely to watch. In “Macrocosm,” she makes him an ambassador, and an episode later in “Fair Trade,” her “you’re part of our family” speech when Neelix admits to feeling like he no longer has a purpose on the ship proves how she values him.

Time’s up Not only is “Year of Hell” one of the best two-parters in all of Star Trek, but it also has yet another instance of Janeway destroying the ship! She takes it upon herself to save her crew from the Krenim and their very pretty, very powerful timeship by plowing what’s left of the Voyager directly into that sucker. And she even gets a great sendoff line to go with it!

For what it’s worth, you made a tempting offer If we’ve learned anything from the first several seasons, it’s don’t cross Janeway or she will double-, triple-, or quadruple-cross you right back. Evidently, no one clued in Kashyk in “Counterpoint” because he tries to use her to find a wormhole and nab some telepaths, but she’s been prepared for that the whole time. Pity, the two of them were almost cute together.

I’m a little busy right now, helping a friend It takes her quite a while (most of the series even), but Janeway slowly makes steps to accepting the EMH as people. By “Latent Image,” she’s agreed to let him process his trauma, even though it would be much easier to deal with if she just erased it (again) like the program he is. She even sits with him while he has existential crisis after existential crisis.

Her Royal Highness, Arachnia, Queen of the Spiderpeople! As far as comedy episodes go, “Bride of Chaotica!” is one of our favorites. You can tell everyone’s having so much fun, especially Kate Mulgrew as she throws herself fully into the over-the-top role of Queen Arachnia. Janeway pretending to be a B-movie villainess is just candy to watch, and she saves the invaders from the fifth dimension. All in a day’s work!

I make a better you than you Jake thinks he’s very funny in making me include this one on the Janeway list, but here we go. So Dala in “Live Fast and Prosper” isn’t really Janeway, but she does make cunning deals and schemes with the best of them. And hell, the bonafide Janeway delivers as well by foiling her counterpart’s dastardly plans and throwing her in the brig where she belongs.

I’ll start my own Federation, with blackjack and hookers When the Voyager is stuck in the titular void from “The Void,” everyone’s begging to resort to piracy – it just looks so fun! – but Janeway puts her foot down. Despite being so far from home, she has tried her darndest to unhold Starfleet ideals, and starting her own miniature Federation is her way of showing that people are better when they work together. Void friends forever!

Must’ve been something you assimilated While I could pick on Admiral Janeway for breaking the Temporal Prime Directive in “Endgame,” I’m just too impressed by how she so thoroughly owns the Borg Queen. She knows diplomacy won’t get her anywhere with the Borg, so she lets herself get assimilated to pass on a neurolytic pathogen that takes out the whole collective and saves Voyager!

Set your compass to Starfleet Finally, we’ve been pretty forthright about our love for Star Trek: Prodigy, and Admiral Janeway really gets some great moments to chew the CGI scenery. In the season one finale, “Supernova,” she stands up for the Protostar crew, especially sticking her neck out for Dal in a way that is so pure and supportive that you root for the whole group. We're so excited to watch season two when it’s up on Netflix!

—

Worst moments

And if you win you get this shiny banjo made of gold What the whole series boils down to is the long journey to get home from the Delta Quadrant… but it’s kinda Janway’s fault they’re stuck there in the first place due to her needlessly selfless actions in “Caretaker.” And then there are countless opportunities to get home after that that she squanders to uphold Starfleet rules. Who’s gonna know, Janeway?

The Trolley Problem solution for maximum murder Probably the most infamous action Janeway takes is the murder of Tuvix in the eponymous “Tuvix.” Sure, it’s to get two crewmembers back, and I’ve heard that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one, but it is straight-up cruel the way she forces Tuvix to medbay against his will, kicking and screaming the whole way that he wants to live.

I couldn’t help it, said the scorpion. It’s my nature. Boy, does Janeway know how to put her crew in needless danger by making snap decisions and then arguing about them a lot (a lot) with Chakotay. Her decision to team up with the Borg in “Scorpion” against the newly introduced Species 8472 is frankly insane. There’s no reasoning with Borg, lady. I’m with Chakotay on this one: you can only trust a scorpion to sting you.

You must comply In “Scorpion,” Janeway promises to return Seven to the collective when they finish the whole Species 8472 thing, but instead Janeway straight up kidnaps the poor drone and makes the decision to deprogram her in “The Gift” like the cult victim Seven is. It’s all entirely against Seven’s wishes and a little uncomfortable to watch because our new Borg has no agency yet.

Get down with your bad self Okay, Jake is being a pill again and insists we include Janeway’s fictional counterpart from “Living Witness” using biogenic weapons against the Kyrians. And yeah, it’s not actually Janeway – it’s a purely fabricated story the Kyrians concocted for their biased history program – but ya know what: I love how diabolical and ruthless this Janeway is so much that I’ll include it.

I’ll be benefiting from other people’s suffering Even more uncomfortable than watching Janeway force individuality on Seven is watching Janeway straight up ignore the DNR from Torres in “Nothing Human.” We sorta get that Seven can’t make her own decisions because she’s essentially a cult victim, but Torres is of sound mind when she refuses to accept surgery from Crell Moset and Janeway won’t hear it.

Sit in the corner and think about what you did We did a whole other blogpost about when it’s a good idea to break or uphold the Prime Directive after watching “Thirty Days.” Janeway refuses to let Tom save the Moneans and throws him in the brig for a month for trying to help them. It’s inconsistent to say the least when captains decide to hide behind the almighty Prime Directive, and Janeway is the biggest offender.

You’re malfunctioning, and you need to be repaired We praised Janeway a moment ago about how she respects the Doctor’s agency in “Latent Image,” but all through the series leading up to that, she struggles to think of him as a sapient person. It’s revealed in this episode that she’d ordered his memories of Jetal wiped as a way to deal with his trauma – something she’d surely never do to one of her solid crew members.

The Handbook on Personal Relationships is three centimeters thick Season 5 is well represented in this list, and you’d think that after that long, Janeway would have a modicum of respect for her forever ensign, Harry Kim. But in “The Disease,” she sets a double standard out of nowhere that crew members can’t bang aliens without permission. Hello? Janeway, everyone has already broken that, not just Harry, your special little boy.

Every captain gets a little torture as a treat! We get to watch Janeway go full Captain Ahab on the Equinox crew in “Equinox.” She hunts down Ransom like he’s her white whale. She tortures Lessing for information. And then she fires Chakotay for doing his job of being the most moral character in the room. It all feels out of character, but that’s kinda the point because this is what the Delta Quadrant pushes people to.

Delete the wife Speaking of seeming out of character. In “Fair Haven,” Janeway designs herself a holo-boyfriend and then falls head-over-heels in love with it. We fully support the captain going and getting holo-laid, especially since it’s unethical to bang her subordinates, but she should know better that this guy is just a sex toy and not a real person – she did program him that way!

Two Janeways are better than one There’s a whole new meaning to arguing with yourself in “Endgame.” Turns out, Admiral Janeway originally doesn’t want to wreck up the Borg as we gave her credit for above, but withholds her plan from her younger self and then tries to pull rank while everyone else is rallying to save millions by taking out the Borg. Ladies, can’t we just work together… to kill Borg!

—

And we’ve finally made it home to the Alpha Quadrant! That’s all from Janeway today, but we’ve got her whole crew to peruse through for the upcoming weeks, so make sure you’re venturing through Voyager with us here, follow along with our Enterprise watchthrough on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, sip some coffee with us over on Facebook and Twitter, and lift your mugs to a toast: to the journey!

18 notes · View notes

aceinacloset · 8 months

Text

Circus Baby headcanons, because the voices won.

(Yeah, I finally caved in on myself and made a headcanon post to self indulge. Teehee. Hope all my Circus Baby fans enjoy.)

-CB is very hypervigilant, mostly to sound, like she has learned what sound everything in the facility makes, and she's able to identify others' foot step patterns. The moment any sound she can't identify is made she will go into a silent panic, expecting the worst.

-Her pigtails move. Like those things will wiggle, tilt, and sway when she moves her head, it is subtle but noticeable.

-CB is quite expressive, minus her permanent smile she is very expressive through body language as well as her eyes.

-CB will often use the different abilities she has to comfort herself, specifically the song request feature. She will select a song in her song bank and play it as a form of a self soother.

-CB, when focusing or examining Something will just stare, kinda cat-like in a way when she does so.

-CB doesn't usually sleep, it's not like she can't or won't, it's just she doesn't really see a reason in doing it. Of course not sleeping leads to her body deactivating to get the sleep baby is missing. She had many days where she was out of service because of this issue.

-CB will often talk to herself, this is another one of her coping mechanisms and self soothers, mostly done to keep herself sane in the facility. Sometimes she is talking to someone though.

-CB has a lot of patience, it takes a lot to anger her but when you do anger her you will know.

-CB really enjoyed entertaining kids, she sometimes wishes she could go back to that time on stage, before the "accident", sure she is rented out but it just doesn't feel the same.

-CB is 100% touch starved, but is also super touch repulsed like she associates touch (specifically by people) as bad. So she is in this constant conflict about touch, but if you just put your hand on her cheek she will melt into it like ice cream on a stove.

-CB can be apathetic, not like unable to feel sympathy or empathy for anyone, more in a way of being unable to understand another's suffering if she doesn't believe it's as bad as her own, this isn't always the case but it can be.

-If you had CB handle anything that isn't built for her to grip or handle she will hold it so tenderly, like if she put any ounce of force on it it would break kinda tender.

-CB keeps gifts people give her, from children, staff (sometimes), the bidybabs, and even the funtimes. She keeps these little things just because they are…well…gifts and she really appreciates them.

That's all I got.

If you got your own Circus Baby headcanons, you can send them to my inbox and I may make a part 2 of this.

#circus baby #circus baby x reader #headcanon #fnaf #aceinacloset rambles

32 notes · View notes

justjasper · 7 months

Note

Hellooo! I come with the most basic ask haha

What's your favorite thing about Morgan's character? And about Reid's character? What season made you ship them?

My favourite part about Morgan is his deep, profound empathy, even when it costs him.

Prentiss pegs him early on, when she says "you make the people around you feel good", and that is, I maintain, absolutely central to his character.

An example that stands out to me is his interactions with the unsub Stephen in In Heat (closested gay man who is killing bc of sexuality struggles). And whether you read with with queer!Morgan lenses or not, Morgan being the one to stand there, victimised the way he was, and tell this unsub there is nothing wrong with him for being gay is just... it breaks me.

The way he bears his own trauma, something he buried for 20 years, relives that and hurts himself when he knows it will help someone else, is absolutely heart wrenching.

And I know the other characters share their trauma, but to me personally (your mileage may vary etc), the disclosure of being a survivor of sexual violence (especially in childhood) is such a significant and raw trauma to relive over and over. It's a hard one to speak openly about. And Morgan does it, even when it costs him, because he knows it will help someone.

My favourite part about Reid's character is just how strong he is. I could go on about empathy for him too, but the strength of Reid to keep coming back, fight on, to push himself, that's what gets me.

I believe there is strength in softness, but Reid's the character who I think suffers from the woobification the worst with Criminal Minds, and sometimes that means people's interpretations of him strip him of agency, which I think I identify with from a very autistic point of view.

I don't mean the tendency for Reid to be the focal of "whump" (reid's targetted/kidnapped/hurt) bc I love that shit as much as the next gay, but sometimes the woobification extends to making Reid meek, submissive, helplessness, when it's just not true.

He's smart, quick witted, snarky, can absolutely be a mean git, adaptable to situations, both socially awkward and socially intelligent at once. He knows his worth and knows when people understimate and undermine him. Sometimes it feels like this gets forgotten within fandom. Which isn't a big deal in the end, these are not real people but paper dolls we make kiss, but Reid's strength is so central to why I love him.

---

The exact moment it went from "oh that's kinda cute" to "they are in love and i will die for them" was season 2x12, profiler, profiled, when Morgan's sisters and mother absolutely clock Reid.

"Derek talks about you."

I was a goner then, that was it. Forever OTP, canon and increasingly inconsistant writing and a fundamentaly homophobic network (fuck u CBS) be damned. They're it. They're endgame for me.

Related, the closest "canon" moment where I think they could have been made real honest to god canon would have been season 4's Amplification. Should have had them kiss in that hospital room and broken ground for queer rep on network TV.

But at least we have fanfiction!

#moreid #derek morgan #spencer reid #criminal minds #meta #lilibee

25 notes · View notes

slovs02blogs · 7 months

Text

Did you know that Madic ate OrangeMan? (Vore)

Random facts that will make you question why we like Tf2 freakshow.

Every time Spyper changed personality, you would see his eyes turn white and a neck noise would sound. (watch the original videos, you will find it there)

Painis Cupcakes or all the Freaks of their style, are they in purgatory???

Does heaven exist? If it doesn't exist... Why does limbo and hell exist?

HECU would be committing acts of corruption if you think about it.

Do the laws exist in the Freak-World?

Why do they only attack mercenaries?

Polite Spy could easily be the most powerful being after Sti pidface (and this could be God?)

If there are beings so powerful that they are capable of altering the natural and physical order of the world. Will this not also affect other countries? (usa, mexico, japan, etc)

Technically the Freaks are immortal, no matter how many times they die, they always appear as if nothing had happened. As if they were a plague...

Literally female Freaks are almost a rarity, does that mean they are extinct???

Angels are a mere illusion, nothing is HOLY.

The police never catch the Freaks, they are their victims or they end up being crazy.

What if the victims who survived... are not left with severe and eternal traumas? Do you have any empathy...?

Literally all Freaks, no matter how good, holy, or cute, always commit a crime, even if they don't even know it.

Each Freak is a mere representation of mental disorders, or real drugs. examples:

Painis Cupcakes = Eating disorder, canivalism, binge eating (eating a lot). A drug that works very well for P.C is marijuana.

Spyper =Bipolar disorder. Impulses and traits of sociopathy. Heroin is a clear example

Cbs = It is very obvious how much he suffered that his mental state was horrible.From alcohol addictions to being psychopath, sociopath and impulsive, he has any number of crimes.

Polite Spy, unlike the others, this is a disease = congenital analgesia (not feeling pain, did you know that these people die without knowing the cause?, because their immunity is not very pleasant to say the least... and they possibly have autism)

There is a rapist walking the streets of 2Fort... (Jarate cale dick)

No one will know why Rubber Fruit left their channel.

The creators of some Freaks deleted some or most of the videos where these characters appeared. were they embarrassed?

slowly no one remembers what at least once was FREAKS FORTRESS...

no one remembers them... Nobody, they are not what they were before, right?

Nothing is real?

DON'T WAIT, ANSWER ME!-

...

#freak fortress #tf2 #freaks #christian brutal sniper #tf2 freaks #cbs #team fortress 2 #dah #tf2 freakshow #painis cupcake #polite spy #spyper

42 notes · View notes

beardedmrbean · 6 months

Text

Families in Alameda County, California, are calling on Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price to step down from her position over accusations of her being "soft on crime," according to CBS News Bay Area.

The recall campaign, called Save Alameda for Everyone (SAFE), "held a town hall Monday evening at the Emeryville Senior Center," the outlet reported.

One mother, Florence McCrary, became an advocate for justice reform in Alameda after her son was shot and killed by a stray bullet at only 22 years old.

CALIFORNIA AG DECLINES CRIMINAL CHARGES FOR OFFICER IN FATAL 2020 SHOOTING OF SAN FRANCISCO MAN

"We would expect more empathy and concern for mothers who have had to put their children in the ground at 22 years of age, an innocent victim," the mother said. "I'm a tax-paying citizen who works hard and why should I have to live with the fact that this person won't be held accountable for his choices."

The suspected murderer, Otis Wyatt, "was charged with both murders under the previous district attorney Nancy O'Malley in Alameda County," CBS News Bay Area reported. "But just last week, Price's office made a deal with the shooter for voluntary manslaughter for killing Fletcher-Cooks. The murder charge against McCrary's son was dropped altogether."

Price has rejected accusations that she is "soft on crime," the outlet explained.

ARMED STORE CLERK WHO SCARED OFF SLEDGEHAMMER-WIELDING SUSPECTS SAYS HE'S HAD 'ENOUGH' OF ESCALATING CRIME

The recall campaign against Price has widespread support online, with SAFE telling CBS News Bay Area that it has already collected 80,000 signatures in the last five weeks and is "targeting a special election in April."

"It plans to turn them in ahead of the March deadline and is targeting a special election in April," the outlet reported.

McCrary, who signed the recall petition, said Alamedans need a different person in charge. "I did not vote for her so I can honestly say I was not a proponent and supporter of hers from the beginning," the mother said about Price.

"The recall I think needs to occur so that we can have a different choice," she added.

#nunyas news

17 notes · View notes

pebblysand · 1 year

Text

[on writing] the corruption of alicia florrick (or: 'show, don't tell' pushed to the brink)

i've touched on this really briefly already but i've recently engaged in a partial re-watch part of TGW (s1 to s5e2 - if you've also seen the show, you know why i stopped there) and i've been having a lot of thoughts about it, lately. this will probably be of interest to no one (apart from @tessiete, maybe, hello 👋 tess) but i still reckon it felt like something i wanted to write about, so here, this is my tumblr, and i can ramble on about whatever i want.

rewatching this show has led me to a lot of reflections about the portrayal of anti-heros in media. particularly: how to introduce one, and how to write one. and that's what i wanted to talk about here.

BACKGROUND:

for anyone who hasn't seen it, the good wife is a political and legal drama that ran on CBS between 2009 and 2015. it follows alicia florrick, wife of peter florrick, former US state's attorney for Chicago's Cook County. at the start of the show, she is presented as a housewife and a mother of two who, due to her husband's unconscionable behaviour (cheating on her with a sex worker and being accused of corruption in his office), is thrown into a sex scandal and turmoil that basically upends her life. she loses her house, her husband goes to prison, she has to go back to work as a lawyer - a profession she gave up to care for her family ten years ago - in an incredibly cutthroat and competitive environment, worsened by the 08 financial crisis.

now, as you may already know, a few years before the show aired, the early/mid-00s saw a resurgence of the anti-hero trope in american television. characters like gregory house or walter white became incredibly popular, as well as other main protagonists whose behaviour was portrayed to viewers as objectively immoral and objectionable, but for whom they were still encouraged to cheer (a more recent example of this would also be tommy shelby in peaky blinders). generally (though not always), these characters existed in a world of crime and/or drug trafficking, killed hundreds of people on a good day, but - deep down - kind of tried. had a good heart. or, at least, a moral code you could understand and relate to, or valid reasons for doing the things they do - even though the overall behaviour itself was criminal. even in the case of gregory house (who is not a criminal but still very much an anti-hero), he is someone whose impact on the world is at least partly positive because, well, he is a macho arsehole who treats people like absolute scum but, you know, he saves lives.

for a lot of viewers (and people who enjoy this trope - myself definitely included) the main appeal of these stories is this obvious tension between good and evil. no one is pretending these characters are good people - often, not even themselves. the interesting part is actually in whether you can (and should) root for a good person. and: this question as to whether good and/or evil exists, and this grey space in between. god knows i love reading (and writing) about that grey space. in the case of house or tommy shelby, there is something deeply fascinating about the knowledge that this person whose struggles you're coming to understand, and who you do empathise with, is objectively very problematic and questionable. these shows work because the viewer is constantly driven to question their own takes on the world, their own morals, the main protagonist's behaviour, and to try and understand their point of view. as a person, i'm generally pretty fond of this trope, because when done well, i find it very engaging.

MY POINT:

now, when it comes to the good wife, on the surface, alicia florrick is the complete opposite of the above. from the very beginning of the show, she is purported to be a Good Person™. she is dedicated to her marriage and to her children. she is intelligent and kind. she is a good lawyer and someone who exhibits a lot of empathy for her clients (in fact, the firm often assign her to "hand-hold" them). she is a bit of a relief. someone you can always root for, without having to check yourself and be like "omg, didn't she just kill three people in cold blood?"

and, of course, that is not to say she has no flaws. alicia is a fully-fledged person, and a very good character at that. she is a Good Person™ but also someone who is chronically incapable of making decisions. she can sometimes be cold and quite calculating. but, generally speaking, she is a Good Person™. she is trying to get her life back on track, to prove herself in her work, to raise her two teenage children as a single mother, and you end up rooting for her very easily. because her life is hard and even if you wouldn't necessarily react the way she does, or carry yourself the way she does (i - personally - probably wouldn't have tolerated peter's behaviour, etc.) you understand where she's coming from. the show tells you she is a good person, who is struggling and she is trying. it is mostly told from her perspective and really helps you see that she is always doing her best, and always having the best intentions (even though they don't always materialise). she's not some mass murderer, or sociopathic doctor who hates her patients, where you're constantly thinking: "omg, why am i rooting for this arsehole?" she is someone who tries so hard to be kind, and who tries so hard to always treat everyone with respect. because - again - she is flawed, but a Good Person™.

except, well, if you've seen the show, you know: she isn't.

and, if you have watched TGW, i'd be interested to know: think back. when exactly did you realise that? i don't mean: when did you start having doubts? i mean: when did you sit there and think "omg this woman is unbearable". for me, on first watch, it was probably somewhere between s5 and s6. on re-watch? probably as early as s2/3. i think everyone who was in the TGW fandom (and, to a larger extent, everyone who watched the show) had this thought once: when did this start? and where did Dark!Alicia (a characterisation i am stealing from @tessiete) come from?

and, honestly? looking back, i'm sorry to tell you this but: she was always there, you just didn't see it.

i only really realised this on rewatch but alicia is pretty much unbearable from the very start of the show. because, i mean, sure, she's a bit traumatised, but she's also: arrogant, self-centred, and incredibly hypocritical. she is (unlike peter, actually) a terrible parent. she is unforgiving of kalinda for Literally No Reason (other than archie and juliana not getting on, but that's a different conversation). she treats will appallingly, exploiting and toying with the fact that he's been in love with her for twenty years (which she very clearly knows), and after the event that must not be mentioned i am not over it romanticises their relationship like she ever gave a fuck about him. objectively speaking, and this throughout the show, alicia florrick isn't a Good Person™. she is a Fucking Bitch™.

and, as a writer myself, what i find very interesting about this show is that until the very end, you're never actually told alicia is a terrible person. you're shown it, and in hindsight, given Many Many opportunities to make that determination yourself, and yet, didn't it take us all So Long to stop excusing her behaviour? to stop being like "oh, but peter cheated on her," and "oh, but she loves them both." as an example, in s5, the show even almost succeeds in making you think will's reaction to her leaving the firm is an overreaction when omg if you look at the facts, it Really Isn't. think about it this way: if you were one of will's mates and he was telling you this story, you would be Out For Blood, wouldn't you?

rewatching this show has really made me realise that the "education of alicia florrick" (which the writers pitched was the overall arc of the show - or, also as you might see it, the "corruption of alicia florrick") is actually an example of how 'show, don't tell' can be pushed to the brink. because, this isn't even 'show, don't tell', it's 'show one thing, and tell another' and let the viewer come to their own conclusions. and, whilst i think that most people started out going with what the show was telling the viewers, there is a point where they stopped empathising with alicia and constantly excusing her behaviour, even though the show kept telling us she really was a Good Person™ and was #trying. there is a point where #trying becomes #pretending, and #pretending becomes fake and unforgivable.

and, this revelation arrived earlier for some than others but generally speaking, i think took a really long time to dawn on most of us. to realise that actually, alicia florrick is an anti-hero with very few redeeming qualities who is constantly and inexcusably toying with people's feelings and then excusing her repeated fuck-ups by the fact that she's #wounded and #trying, while still being presented like a hero. she is a Fucking Bitch™ because on top of this, unlike people like house or tommy shelby who are, in no way, shape or form, pretending to be good people[1], alicia and the show keep insisting that she is good, (really, trust her), and there comes a point where as a viewer, you have to look at it critically and say: nah, you're full of shit. and, i think that is what is most disconcerting about the show.

and, don't get me wrong, in hindsight, i believe this was one thousand per cent intentional. i don't believe this is an emily in paris type case where the writers wrote a character as a hero when she was in fact an awful person, and it took thousands of outraged comments for them to realise it. i think with TGW, it was definitely done by design. you see examples of alicia's terrible behaviour very early on in the way she parents her children (zach "watching" porn, for instance) but she always finds excuses for herself, and you initially lean into that as a viewer. like: oh, well, she's just a bit conservative. or: oh, well, it's hard being a single parent. the fact that this escalated into her appalling behaviour of going no contact with her own son because, oh my god, he got his girlfriend pregnant and dared hide it from his mother, shouldn't have come as a surprise. it's there from the get-go. and, it's not that the writers didn't know this, it's that they gradually made it more and more heavy-handed until it became unavoidable.

and, i think as writer, what's also interesting is: when alicia's true nature was revealed, it actually alienated a shit tonne of people. they truly lost a whole chunk of their audience because of it. i even stopped watching the show, and that's someone who wrote thousands of words of fanfiction for it. i remember telling a friend "ugh, she's just become too unbearable." and, i wasn't the only one. i know so many other people in fandom who dropped off around s6/7. whereas, there is a case to be made for the fact, as someone who actually loves rooting for Bad People™ and loves the anti-hero trope, i probably would have been able to stand her, had the show itself portrayed her as a problematic person to begin with.

but the fact that we had genuinely rooted for, and excused the behaviour of, someone who was objectively unconscionable for so long was so disconcerting and disgusting and disappointing that we... stopped caring? and so, whilst in hindsight, i do think the general idea of this was brilliant, objectively, the execution... wasn't much of a success, was it? it cost them a lot of their dedicated viewership. or: was it such a success that it rightfully alienated people? was this the objective all along?

because: is the main goal of a piece of art to cater to its audience or is it to make a point?

---

[1] small caveat with tommy who does sometimes seem to think he's a good person, but it never lasts very long.

#the good wife #tgw #meta #tgw meta #anti heroes #thoughts on writing

26 notes · View notes