#i also just hate the narrative that this is our only way out of trump's america | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

xiexiecaptain · 1 year

Text

Shadow & Bone rewatch live-commenting that was started on twitter and is being moved/continued here!

This is the post for EP 03: The Making at the Heart of the World

[Episode 01 post] [Rewatch Commentary Links Masterpost]

((There WILL be spoilers mentioned for the books in the Grishaverse including the Crows duology & King of Scars duology! This is basically from the perspective of watching the show as someone who knows the books well.))

I like that we're getting to hear her letters to Mal in voice over because it returns some of the interiority we've lost through the translation from 1st person narrative to screen

bUT immediately my brain supplied the hilarious AU that Mal runs one of those Dear Abby advice columns

*sob laughs in Book 2*

GENYA!!! SHE'S HERE!

God I love Genya

And the way Daisy Head carries herself here, the polished demeanor, all of it is so Genya

This was such a great moment between them

And even though Genya had to do what she does later on, you can tell she's really earnest about how quickly she warms to Alina

THESE TWO BICKER LIKE AN OLD MARRIED COUPLE AND IM LIVING FOR IT

["Good to know Van Eck didn't cure you of sentiment."

"Glad to be back, Kaz."]

SHE'S HERE, THE GLORIOUS, THE INCOMPERABLE NINA ZENIK

Lmao right "despises"

As in "the two people I'll fall in love with in my life will both be Fjerdans"

That fight scene !!!!!!!

What a fckin badass I absolutely adore Nina

Everyone needs a Nina Zenik in their life tbh

This is the SECOND time I've noticed Jesper randomly helping himself to food/drink from other people's tables/houses and I fucking love it (he also did it in Dreesen’s basement)

Kit Young is a gift

Wraith mode: activated

The way his gaze lingers and he stays turned toward the window for a solid few seconds after she's gone-!!!

He tries to stop himself, he really does!!!

Can we just appreciate in general the nuanced and compassionate, yet realistic way addiction is portrayed with Jesper's character???

(Not to mention the fact we see TWO portrayals of addiction in this series--psychological addiction with Jesper and physical addiction with Nina)

Like, it's not a comic relief bit--it legitimately has life-altering consequences for both Jesper, all his loved ones, and those he works with.

We see Jesper both deny to himself and others he has a Problem, yet also struggle against it

["Why didn't you just stop?" Jesper wanted to laugh. He had pleaded with himself, screamed at himself to stop.]

He fucks up and hurts people he (and we the readers) love because of it. Yet the narrative remains continuous in its portrayal of Jesper as someone with steadfastly good intentions and a good heart who is struggling with unhealed issues

["There's a wound in you, and the tables, the dice, the cards--they feel like medicine. They soothe you, for a time. But they're poison, Jesper."]

Listen, I just have a lot of Feelings about Jesper Fahey

Alina Starkov is truly a woman of the people

SA mention////

"Ah, our shitty monarchs: The rapist king, the queen whose focus on appearance trumps any real issues, and the vapid entitled weasel of a prince. The only decent one among them, I've disguised so he could go play pirate to help Ravka by doing Ocean Crimes."

Yes, I hate him

Yes, he is occasionally funny

Yeah this was fckin shitty of her and I’m definitely not excusing it ever

But its interesting seeing this understanding where it’s coming from re: Zoya’s heritage.

Zoya's got so much internalized racism and fear around being mixed race herself because of her upbringing, seeing how not only just her father was treated but Suli in general

She's lashing out because she's afraid and conflicted

And she's also feeling jealous and uncertain about her place being favored by the Darkling (which he has fostered because he's a manipulator of the worst kind)

Kaz carrying Milo the goat and looking absolutely Done will never not be funny to me

More show-added worldbuilding appreciation from me

The posters styled after Bolshevik revolution/soviet propaganda posters is such a wonderful touch by the props/set folks

And again, the invented script for written Ravkan (and all the languages, but we’ve mostly just seen Ravkan and Kerch written so far) makes my linguist nerd heart sing

Kaz: initiate mastermind scanners for useful information and/or potential blackmail

Kaz: BEEP BEEP impending betrayal detected

Kaz: initiate 5-D chess-level planning consisting of labyrinthine layers upon layers of traps, feints, and manipulation

I love that they gave her a physical object for Inej related to her family.

In the books (again, because of interiority) we get literal flashbacks of them, as well as many phrases from her parents she repeats or hears internally ("The heart is an arrow...", "Climb, Inej")

But that’s not easily translated to a visual medium. So instead we get this great little physical/visual token of that.

It does such heavy lifting not only in that it shows us how deeply Inej's faith directs her morals (like how torn she was when Arken connected over their faith), but also shows how much she still holds the memory/hope of her family close to her; that she's never accepted that her life in Ketterdam was just it now.

Good, good storytelling work

ARE YOU TALKING TO HER OR TO YOURSELF, KAZ??????

That little glance down and then away-!!!

And then immediately he's harsh and cruel about it to try and push her away from him--to push hIMSELF away from her!!!

Fucking helllll

I'm so glad they basically got to keep Nina's and Matthias' story the same (aside from minor details obv) down to exact lines

Danielle Galligan and Calahan Skogman breathe such life into the cores of these characters and all their nuances

[Matthias had always fought his own decency. To become a drüskelle, he’d had to kill the good things inside him.]

All through this episode, even in this first scene, you can see Nina's words start to scratch away at him

He's gonna have her in his head for the rest of the night

Jesper Fahey, everyone

LOVE THE WHOLE CONCEPT!

Love this addition to the world, love how it's not finished/is kinda ramshackle with sliding between the two tracks, love the weird systems set up he's developed to cross multiple times with the sound of hitting the metal, love it all

I'm so happy Nadia is a black woman!!!

We get so many queer characters of color! I can't wait until we get Tamar (and Tolya ofc) introduced in the show so we can have the badass wlw couple we deserve

BOTKIN!! So glad he makes an appearance!!

I could so easily him being cut from another version of an adaption so this makes me so happy

Part of what endeared Botkin to me in the book was how, even though he is a harsh teacher, he always treated Alina like every other student and demanded her best work

Like "idc you're the sun summoner, your right hook is pathetic!"

ALINA KNOWING HOW TO THROW A PROPER PUNCH BC MAL TAUGHT HER IS 🙏🙏🙏

Like I know this is supposed to establish character dynamics and how Zoya has this social position she's defending and how Alina is gaining credibility

But me & my gay-ass brain just went like "Ok but I would let Zoya punch me in the face and I would say THANK YOU"

If only I were so lucky 😔💦

Somewhere, King of Scars!Nikolai getting shackled to his bed by Zoya every night for his own safety just liked this^^^ as a tweet

See, Nadia gets me

She's pickin' up what I'm puttin' down

This also establishes Nadia’s type is women who can knock your lights out and smirk, which is good news for future Tamar

And we here see in Alina's face the echoed experiences of women, femmes, and assumed-women everywhere having forced unwanted interactions with creepy dudes

Zoë Wanamaker is soooooo good as Baghra, hot damn

A fellow Zoë out there making us proud

Another character I can’t wait to see interact with Nikolai on screen because their relationship is hilarious to me

I've mentioned it before, but the show more heavily leaning into the idea that Grisha power can sort of be drawn out or kicked on by sudden pain and/or fear is such an interesting one

Because it implies about the nature of Grisha power that it developed similar to other unconscious survival mechanisms--like adrenaline numbs out bad injuries or allows muscles to surpass normal limits, its something that helps keep Grisha stay alive in a life or death situation

"I WISH I WERE WITH Y- ...WITH THE FIRST ARMY"

I'M-!!!!!

SEE? THIS IS THE SHIT I LOVE

The worldbuilding always contains all these tiny details that realistically reflect how humans build clever systems over time to address issues and get what/where they want to

Alina's fuckign face-

I CANT GET OVER THIS

Yes, the emotional support goat was Absolutely Mission Critical

I'M FUCKIN EMOTIONAL BC I just noticed when Arken says the situation is dire, please take note of how Kaz isn't even looking at him, he's staring diRECTLY AT INEJ sitting across from him?????

[That sound--the swift, shocking report of gunfire--called the scattered, irascible, permanently seeking part of his mind into focus like nothing else.]

[...Jesper could feel himself coming alive, the worry that had been dogging his steps ... falling away. He felt free, dangerous, like lightning rolling over the prairie.]

[He'd knew his guns better than he knew the rules of Makker's Wheel. Jesper focused on the bullet, sensed the smallest parts of it. Maybe he was the same. A bullet in a chamber, spending his whole life waiting for the moment he would have direction.]

So I just want to examine the Crows' "we were pretty sure we were going to die but we actually pulled through and are somehow still alive???" reactions for a minute:

1) Inej, ofc, her first reaction is prayer which makes me emotional

And then, she looks over at Kaz because she wants to see if this finally shook something loose from that cold exterior (because tbh, at this point, it's probably the first time she's ever witnessed Kaz escape death first-hand)

2) How fucking beautiful Jesper looks?? 😍😍

[Jesper's hair was mussed, his pupils dilated. He seemed almost drunk, or like he’d just rolled out of someone’s bed. He always had that look after a fight.]

3) And Kaz, of course as always, is looking at Inej (and then looking away from it all)

It's gonna get you in big trouble one day, Kaz

AND how Inej and Kaz hold eye contact for a moment before they both look away???

And I feel Malina in this chili's tonight

Oh! Something I forgot to add I noticed during the train fight scene, Arken has these depictions of saints hung up on the walls!!!!

Again, major major ups to the prop/set people for adding all these small details!! It makes the world feel so full and lived in!

So that's the end of episode 3!

Wheee I fuckin' love the Grishaverse and my beloved Crows and we're so lucky to have this cast

[Rewatch Commentary Links Masterpost]

#shadow and bone #shadow and bone netflix #six of crows #alina starkov #mal oretsev #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #genya safin #nina zenik #matthias helvar #zoya nazyalensky

20 notes · View notes

tea-with-evan-and-me · 1 year

Note

I like your page, but for the last couple of days, it's been all about Emma and the domestic case. It's a little too much tbh (similar to the gftwd page when it was all about Frances). I think we all agree that we don't like her, so why waste our energy on her. Even if everyone in Hollywood would cancel her, Evan would probably stick up for her. I rather read some damn tea about the man. For example Alexia sexy blog about him.

i think it's worth talking about since i am sure you're not the only one who feels this way, not just about this topic but certainly about others. as far as i'm concerned it is perfectly fine to not be interested or enjoy certain topics we cover on this blog and want to sit them out; it's conversational, and more often than not there are multiple different topics simultaneously going on. i am here for discussion, and as i said in the beginning, this blog belongs to those that send messages in and engage as much as it does to me, and no reasonable topic will be barred. that means i am not always going to be at the steering wheel, but chances are i will have something to say.

i think the interesting thing i have learned over the past couple of months is that every week or two we kind of focus on a different topic, but it just happens organically. we also talk about things that seem to not be accepted on other platforms. and that's kind of the beauty of it: if you wanna talk about alexia, you can just send me an ask and we will talk about it. i see you don't follow me, and i am not cluttering evan's tags with the 20 DV discussion posts. or any posts, because i seldom tag anymore. so many new, bothersome (now blocked) people found me in the wake of the haley/evan reveal and they were sending in nasty, hateful things about her. i have probably deleted well over 100 asks. i don't need those followers. i would rather engage with the really cool, fun people who are already here.

also, it tickles me that whenever someone wants to burn me they compare me to gftwd, like she is donald trump or something lol ironically though, her page quite literally began as an effort to expose frances' misbehavior. so it was not unreasonable that all her posts were about fran, that was literally what any follower of hers signed up for. and so long as the critique was fair, there's nothing wrong with it. the issue that myself and many others found was the direction it ultimately took, in regards to the type of comments and criticism being made. i also think it's apples to oranges if someone were to compare the two, but that's because of my own personal belief system and how i feel about domestic abuse. i will outright tell you that i could not give a rat's ass if someone comes here and says something diabolical about emma, because she did something i view as evil, and the people who perpetrate a narrative that shames, blames and accuses a victim of DV are absolute scum in my eyes. i see frances as an irritant, a pest with a grating internet persona - but ultimately, she is nothing to lose sleep over. and i do not let people come on here and say cruel things about her for that reason.

#weee a long post #i like to type

2 notes · View notes

televisionianestamisimemology · 10 months

Text

On a date with a Canadian lady, I was asked why American politics are the way they are. I didn't want our conversation to go negative so I tried my best to sum up my view in as few sentences as possible.

Decades ago white people used to live comfortably with a high school diploma until unions were destroyed by free-market-obsessed politicians, and so now many whites are pissed, but conservatives, seeing an opportunity, convinced these angy whites thru conservative media and campaigning, that their bad situation is actually due to minorities taking their tax money for social programs.

Since conservatives are at a disadvantage with the US population growing more diverse, their only way to win is to get insanely good at creating these false narratives by working with PR firms and linguists to create new issues that tease out poor whites' latent racist beliefs about racial minorities and women. Poor whites are relieved to find a reason for their bad situation and delighted to use conservative theories about society to validate hateful frustrations, allowing them to replace their unspeakable thoughts like,

"women that I can't have sex with make me feel bad so I want them to lose their independence"

with things they can say out loud like,

"I just believe life begins at conception"

and replacing things they'd only say to a close friend after 3 beers such as,

"minorities are different and gross and their success in society makes me doubt my belief that I'm superior on account of being white"

with words that make this sentiment sound like a sociological analysis like,

"critical race theory's message of racial equality in our schools is indoctrinating our children with the woke mind virus".

Validating and giving voice to peoples' hatred has been a tried and true method for winning elections since the beginning of the republic, but the messaging used was always much more subtle and indirect, relying on euphemistic dog-whistle language like "immigration reform" to appeal to people's racism toward Latino populations. Trump was unable to be this subtle and just talked about building a wall to keep out the rapists. His direct and conspiratorial messaging won him the presidency but it also changed what is required of conservative politicians to win. Turns out, you can't go back to the old way of firing up the crowd by saying marriage is between a man and a woman. Now, you can only win by out Trumping Trump, by advocating for the removal of books with a gay couple in them from school libraries. And if any conservative politician says anything to the contrary of such radical action, they'll be labeled as weak and possibly a member of a secret society hell-bent on grooming children.

So basically Trump said the quiet part out loud and now the only way to be heard is to scream.

Not sure there'll be a second date.

1 note · View note

hanzi83 · 10 months

Text

Processing Information in a Dumbed Down Way

It is one of those weeks where more and more shit is spiraling out of control with narratives, and I could do the easy thing and just regurgitate shit that the experts say and pretend I know I am countering the far right wing shit, but if someone like me who has been dumbed down most of my existence, even when I thought I blew past it, then I still find out that a lot of people’s shows you have consumed, have now pivoting to the right wing, it seeps into me that propaganda will always be never ending and it will sophisticate and intellectualize itself under different guises and because dumbed down people like me have never understood the technicalities of all the information and how shit works, it is easy to persuade people who have been consuming the “underground” internet chat rooms and message boards, like I know I am not the smartest out there, and the establishment type that shit on any conspiratorial thinking, but when you are constantly pulling the “radio won’t even play my jam” antic for every person the new right and post left have decided to prop up as a truth teller and their only sole identity is going off on transparent establishment media while they spread lies and are being funded in my personal opinion to get more people into the right wing, like if I believe the politicians and celebs are cogs like wrestlers being booked by billionaires, when the discredited superstars of the past are losing it in the ring and their promos and storylines are getting boring and repetitive, you have the “anti establishment” type of faction which used to have more credibility to it because there wasn’t this constant flow of information coming at you, it could be seen as more genuine and we had a more simplistic nature of what we thought was anti establishment, so we have our Steve Austins who are against the system, but also at the same time allowed to function and do what they do even if it seems they are at war with the billionaire, because then years later Austin shook Vince’s hand and then became a caricature playing the hits, it is the same principle with today’s “anti establishment” type. The alt media will give you folklore of what was supposed to happen like they do in wrestling with Austin, “His name was supposed to be Frosty McFang”. So to me this propping up of RFK is one of the most disingenuous things on the planet, and if this were 10 years ago and this was happening at this level, seeing the online shit I consumed now would become discourse amongst the MSM, and believe it or not the internet is MSM. I know we have to constantly pretend it is 90’s and early 2000’s aesthetic, like the same shit valuable back then really has any value now, it comes off as a parody. Don’t worry about anything I say it just a delusional shit head’s opinion and I will mention illuminati clones to get you off the scent so people who are giving this a chance, you can then act like I am less than for not believing how the official narratives are. Like there is enough on the surface in “kayfabe” that you can dunk on Trump on, like the guy clearly has admitted he has the documents etc, even if he tells his base they are coming after him. I don’t believe they are going after him and they will keep prolonging until his base becomes more vitriolic and aggressive, like they haven’t been getting that way all the time. Chances are my blog will be consumed by people who hate me and want to align with everyone else who hates me and then they will work with people to fuck up your mentality even more with secrecy and showing off how much well off they are knowing at their heart of hearts they got all of that by using me as a guinea pig. They will spew the typical insults because aesthetically me putting out all this accumulated mental trauma over the last decade plus, is not considered a fact so in the end of it all I end up looking worse and coming off as a self important narcissist, which describes like most people who climb up in that system, it’s just I put it out there to show what the result of what my path has lead me to. I never seen people who have all this power that insist on me being suppressed and being a red flag as my online presence depletes, but then at the same time, they keep on this planet to endure the decline and hope for this planet and I am supposed to sit there be happy for people and not because of the advertised feats of making it in the system, but for them to get a lot worse mentally and do evil shit at the behest of billionaires while pretending they are against rich people, people who get funded to bring chaos and negativity in this world, nothing wrong with reacting to things in a positive or negative way if that is how you genuinely feel, but when the narrative is that anyone who is positive is automatically the most fake person, but the forced negative shit is seen as the most genuine because it comes off a lot more real. I can admit I have the aesthetic and presentation of someone who would checkmark all the boxes of who they say are the real weirdos of society while people who are respected will pivot to supporting Nazi like rhetoric, and I know at my heart of hearts I am not using my “conspiratorial” thinking to go more regressive and actually get to a better place mentally even if I don’t process information like every smart person who tells you how much smarter they are but then analyze the information like a reactionary edge lord to seem cool even if it blurs the line of facilitating the fundamentalist ideology. So if you stumbled onto this blog accidentally and you don’t know what you are getting yourself into, I am gonna warn you that not everything I say is 100 percent and it might get conspiratorial but don’t put me in the right wing leaning box, there is a reason why apolitical people who have seen ugly shit in the system or seen the results with society declining start leaning conspiratorial, and there is a reason why the right wing can pretend they care about shit that might need genuine concern while the rest of the 90 percent of what they say is luring you into Nazi level beliefs, and as someone who has almost fell into that, and trust me no one was gonna save me if I went into that direction, I actually think people from my past or others who hate me would’ve loved for me to go down to that level. They get mad at me and hold it against me for not being regressive because they want to be associated with industry creeps. I would rather opt to be gone from this planet because the right wing is winning even if they make it look like they are the victims, they can use the aesthetic of which president is in charge when the bookers of this shit have always had a right leaning trajectory and they need this new force of “anti establishment truth tellers” to be the face of what their end goal is, so all those alt media people who always scream about you being a shitlib because you don’t believe what they say as 100 percent, the ones who just say shit like “I am anti war so that means it is true and you can never question my beliefs or my intent ever” those ones are gonna be what they claimed to have hated all these years, they will be on the same equivalent of what people 20 years ago were doing when they were cheering on the Invasion of Iraq. They screamed about that like it was the best they had to be credible. They will be anti war but are pro culture war with sensationalizing the new right wing’s propaganda that is putting marginalized communities in danger, and they then do what they accuse democrats of doing by using their tokens, like white supremacy doesn’t have their tokens. If this ruffles the feathers then there will be random posts about me on the Stern reddit to basically talk about me if I am being irrational online so they can fein concern while doing backhanded concerns and pretend I am mentally gone, while their days consist of going on reddit and pretending to be mad at a 70 year old shock jock pretending he is gone more liberal and then call him a liar while regurgitating his narratives about people who got fucked over by him. They are not allowed in their shitty little boring script to acknowledge anything genuine. If I decided to sell my soul and use my situation to then go at Howard from the right, then there would be a bit more support. The democratic side knows I don’t like all of their narratives and how they might say some truth but then come off like pro US empire imperialism level shit. So I really don’t have anyone on my side on the surface, even though they will insist that I have a whole army. Yeah well they have done a shitty job if I have this power because I am at my most irrelevant.

I have a bunch of thoughts from different topics I talked about on the podcast. So since I write this spontaneously and not really think out and just go off the “vibes” I might be all over the place, when I have taken in too much narratives about stuff of the neverending 24/7 newscycle, it used to be easier to have an angle because I knew in the last decade I cannot trust the MSM’s word is on the matter so I used to take in alt media to at least give me another angle of what is not being talked about but now they are basically the same thing with some self preservation of truth while spreading nonstop propaganda and I have never been so fucking confused, and I know deep down a lot of people are too, that is why it is easier for them to go with a supposed expert that is promising truth and justice, but they all end up turning like the establishment that they have trained you to hate while becoming part of this new establishment. It is funny to me to see Christian fundamentalist types who would justify why you need to kill brown people overseas because of he fundamentalist shit those regions have because of corrupt leaders, but at the same time now in this current climate, those same fundamentalists types are now for other fundamentalists because they are in agreement for a common cause of being anti LGBTQ. Like they have generalized all Muslims and talk about how they are backwards when the whole time there has been western influence and investment in practicing fundamentalism in other countries before they are brought to the western countries. It is like how WWE in my opinion would have other stuff that would be used in their product by having it executed in other areas before using it themselves. Then Canada like always with a lot of things, it has to happen in the US first before we are allowed to have that come here because then you have more and more vitriolic right wing funded shit going on at school boards and other anti woke garbage seep in here and it is becoming clear that our world is moving into a new type of society and this is symbolism of more imploding shit, eventually I can see them privatizing education so they are making shit out of control, whether it is the right wing amplifying groomer shit, and taking away certain books etc, banning any education on important manners and make it seem it is all under grooming and political agenda, like our world by design wasn’t built on propaganda that has been normalized. For so long they dumbed down shit about genders where they trained you to think there are 2 and we don’t think that would be propaganda, there is this pressure to act like the most masculine and hetero person on the planet and never being allowed to admit you have weakness in your head from mental issues. You have dumbed down shit for so long that people like me are sitting here wondering “Hm did Autism always exist or did they make this stuff up?” I don’t understand a lot of the science shit, which is why when people come with alternative theories, it is easy to sway people. Maybe if people in the establishment didn’t downplay the internet and not talk about what was being organized for so long. People think the internet has always been a military experiment with propaganda, so while there was more genuine conversation and thoughts and some ideas being exchanged, there feels like there has always been far right wing agenda, because a lot of these convos back in 2005 or 2010 etc were just these fun little culture war topics we would all get involved with and I always assumed we were progressing so the people who think backwards were gonna be left behind, but being an online force for so long, now they finally have their people to make this all mainstream and they think they have been proven right. Like I remember in 2007 when a lot of the establishment welcomed the notion of Jim Carey and Jennifer McCarthy doing vaccine awareness and no one was outraged by it and at most it would be a disagreement so I figured that if people in the MSM in Hollywood are speaking out on a cause and no one is calling it out, maybe there is some truth. I wouldn’t know. I am not saying vaccines cause Autism, but because you have had bad cases of certain things going wrong in the scientific field whether it is an obscure story etc so if you told me that it could do that, I would be like “Well I guess this is the breaking science that is coming to light, and the MSM is a little slow with this” but if I were to believe that world’s design has always had a plan to go the way it has gone and they have ensured it would, my conspiracy would be that they planted a lot of vaccine skepticism and pretended they were gonna give you these warnings but if the powerful in this planet knew where it was going to go, wouldn’t it be more possible they trained you for so long to think these are bad for you because the characters promoting them have lied or are discredited. Like the reason why I don’t just blindly love Fauci or that Hortez guy is because even if they did good things that the right wing will be against, if let’s say that there was a leak in Wuhan and some of these people had some participating in the gain of function shit, it would imply that this shit could’ve been planned and for a right wing cause but through sports entertainment, because of the vaccine shit seems like it was popular under Biden etc, people will attribute any shadiness to do with how this started in a certain country when I think the entire world was going to go in this way and by the way throughout the 2010’s I would read about countless stories about how their was some biolab that did some fucked up shit in the US, so why couldn’t this have originated all over the world, the first story was Italy but then they started China as the main one, and because they purposefully censored people so the bad faith actors could play off that so that when there is something to do the Wuhan leak, then it would be like “The people who were being anti China on this matter they were proven right” I know I must sound like an idiot to smart people, but I am also sounding a bit scary to right wing people that I am theorizing on how they are manipulating the conspiracy because the easiest thing I can do is just blindly hate on all the conspiracies just because the right wing is in charge. Then it turns into “Debate me culture” because they chose this guy to be the sports entertainer scientist who might not be trained in debating since people work on their other strengths, but this has been an alt media and alt entertainment tactic they have been perfecting for the last decade about having to have a debate, it is like a WWE promo segment or contract signing, it is not there for debate and it always results with someone going through a fucking table. The people in charge have a right leaning bias so the alt media personalities like Joe Rogan can claim they are just a regular meat head pot smoker who is just asking the important questions while giving softball interviews to white supremacists on his show and then his shitty fan base will claim he didn’t give softball interviews, even though he has entertained race science talks and doesn’t push back, he downplayed what the proud boys were and you think if you pointed out in a debate that they are being propped up by the system, you think you won’t pay for it, people want to reduce these people to being celebrities but that is when the alt media are lying to you especially by using what happens on the surface, like this world we live in isn’t a fucking reality show. They want you on, it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong in the situation, these people who are online and are employed by these celebs and billionaires will manipulate it with their shit to make it seem like the right wing side is winning the internet argument even though that is fucking manipulated. You think if you point that out in a fucking debate, you think they would let you get away with it, you say the wrong thing to insinuate that Joe Rogan is a compromised shit head who people have had to pretend was funny and while the people who consume his podcast fall for the “comedy is going PC and those liberals suck at it” they will then be okay with a bunch of unfunny jocks that Joe Rogan helped make famous. And then you have supposed truth tellers in the alt media space also dumbing it down about how you should be open to debates when the people you are debating with are gonna win the narrative and they can then fund people to attack you nonstop because all these personalities in the political analysis game who pretend they are the most brave and uncompromised of them all will then say a bunch of compromised shit. I know the MSM and other establishment shit heads won’t ever dare getting conspiratorial but like when bad faith actors use the mass shooters, not all of them, the ones where the story becomes famous in the discourse, that there are times when these people have been approached by law enforcement and the FBI etc, and if someone is a danger and you are aware of them and they are able to go out and do the shit they do, I am allowed to believe that they allowed it to happen, but it is weird because the new right will use the feds as an excuse to downplay that there is white supremacist intent with it, and the people who are establishment on the left side will use whites supremacy in a blind way and pretend the feds could never be involved, but why do people think there aren’t white supremacists who are in the feds and there are different factions within these institutions. It is white supremacy to me on a bigger scale, where they have their mentally ill cogs they have at their disposal, and since the right wing has normalized the conspiracy of famous mass shootings happening because they want to take away guns, when after each shooting gun sales increase, they sign in laws to make it easier, I could buy they would organize shit because people think they have woken up to “false flags” and then it doesn’t help that the establishment pretend false flag mean that no one died, they would never want to think that evil people who oppress people daily and poison their water and endanger marginalized communities, that they could never do the evil shit and organize it because everyone has done this whole “America’s dumbest criminal” level shit when you are supposed to hate a villain.

When people in the liberal circles scoff at people who might be apolitical to think that there is no difference between the democrats and republicans, they are looking at the results of what is going on in the surface plus the right wing’s organization of sensationalist culture war shit, it really then makes people then think the people who are talking about conspiratorial shit be the people of truth. Like I don’t know shit about the science and chemicals, but when you tell me that chemicals have changed frogs sex, my stupid dumb ass head then thinks, “Well they poison us with chemicals in other ways, maybe that could fucking happen, I don’t know” but to people on the left’s credit, they have countered that argument which had an easy explanation of we are not the same species which is why it would not happen to us, it is like where the fuck have you been all my life? See what scares me the most about shit is that if I am not consuming MSM establishment shit and I am online consuming the news, it feels like when back when I was partaking in discourse of rhetoric on talk radio where they would use race science and stats, and even though I could feel that narrative felt racist, me not being the best educated person, I would not know how to counter that shit so it would be like giving into the pressure of buying into sophisticated racism, and I feel like if I don’t have the right people informing me on shit and I am consuming online shit, I can fall for the culture war reactionary shit and buying into every sensationalist trans story to make them look like they are the biggest evil that needs to be stopped. And that is when it gets scary for me because I am seeing more people lean that way whether it is being brainwashed or people wanting to climb up socially for a big payday and access because they get to hang out with their favorite celeb. If people I have known will use me as a guinea pig and then pretend they didn’t do anything to me all so they can have showbiz friends and connections, then when it comes for bigger stakes of getting ultimate power and protection while pretending you are just being a common sense person, because you are too cowardly to just proclaim you are selling our and giving up in the principles you claimed you have. And I would rather die than be on that side. I don’t give a shit if I will never hang out with people in the upper echelon, I don’t give a shit if I don’t have access to industry sexy workers. I really don’t belong in this “new world” that is forming. And if I feel that the overall trajectory is fascism, when people in bad faith say that if you vote democrat or liberal, you are part of the problem, like by the same shit that is supposed to implode by design, will be a reason why bad faith actors will advocate for people who will also become worse in the system, that is why I never really bought into the systemic shit that the presidents do is not really them physically doing it but rather if someone becomes a world champion in wrestling, the company is gonna go in the direction it goes no matter who the champion is, but then you will advocate for your guy to be champion and list off why someone like John Cena is a propaganda tool, but then your guy will do the propaganda tool shit as well. If people who are night high up in the system and are paid to be online personas are getting this worse and they are not at the top, and they are already willing to lie, what faith do I have in you to do the right thing. Maybe 5 years ago when I was sick of the system and what was transpiring, I could’ve bought into some anti establishment person, but it turns out the discredited people in the system have been right about a lot of the people who were being Bernie Bros types, not all of them obviously. I am not gonna generalize all of them, but key figures who gained more clout and status, they have all been saying some of the dumbest shit on the planet and they are supposed to be the smart ones. So people who say that if they vote Trump, it is done to stop fascism, then to me, in my personal opinion and remember everything I have written in this blog or say on the podcast is just an uneducated opinion from a dumbed down fatso, you mother fuckers are not telling people what their future aspirations are to make this world 10 times worse, and now some of these people who are “Kill the Rich” types, it is becoming clear that it is just rich people you hate because you are working at the behest of billionaires who control cops and organize chaos in this world, and you will downplay these celebs and public figures because maybe some establishment people will pretend to hate them but you are luring your base to accept Elon as being super funny and you will have to stay the shitty played out shit. “Man, I don’t like Trump, but man he is hilarious” and you are in a position of knowing what his aspirations are, but because you think democrats cry about him while giving him free promo, you have to be the “cool guy that has humor” so you pretend to think a shitty person who was probably a criminal before he became a president, is automatically funny, and it says a lot about you and whatever your beliefs are. You know better and you are playing devil’s advocate for people who want to bring the worst to the world. Like I don’t know what the rule of law is because no matter what it is, the people in the public sphere are not doing the same time and they will come up with a rule that doesn’t make any sense. I am gonna do something unpredictable, I am gonna tie it into wrestling again because I am so out there and wacky, but first Illuminati Clones, Illuminati Clones, Illuminati clones, now you can’t take what I say seriously, like you were anyways, but it is like when the wrestling world trained its audience with rules of the tropes in storyline telling etc, but during the attitude era, they would come up with reason why stipulations and rules meant less and less as it went along where you just say “I guess whatever they decide” goes, and that is what it seems with the criminal charges that go on. The left loves to hype up the possibility of Trump going away when it is all in his favor, you keep asking questions like “Why is Merrick Garland not doing so and so, it has been a year” is it possible in this fucked up reality show world that this is sports entertainment, and what is happening on the surface is designed to be out there and designed to be a circus? You give the impression Trump is going away so his base and even the “leftists” who insist on doing red and brown alliances and blurring the lines, will think everyone is being unfair to Trump because others did shit, fine arrest them all then if they all did corruption, why am I not allowed to hope for someone powerful like Trump to have to face the consequences. So now you can think Hunter Biden got let off easily and people on the left will think that Hunter is just some regular dude who is not president, any public figure and political person associate or family are all part of that the mafia rule system, like this Hunter Biden shit is also designed to make him a character where we cater to the lowest common denominator with him smoking crack and fucking hookers and showing his fucking cock. Like I get people think that stuff is cool, but do you have to think everyone who does that is cool, like aren’t there cooler and less compromised people who smoke crack and fuck hookers that you can say is cool, but automatically the right wing pretends to be outraged but it feels like everything has to be sold for the new online showbiz as sex related to make this even more controversial. But either way no one is going after Trump, they can pretend they hate him so they make money off of him, and make it seem like he is being piled on, but what is actually gonna happen, all these people in the media profited off these stories knowing where it is going and then start playing devil’s advocate for him. The only conspiracy some of the people have to cover now is the UFO’s because even that is being prostituted, where something is definitely coming very soon, but I have had the belief that other life forms have been amongst us and actually look like us, I feel like our entire existence is a lot more advanced than what it is, I believe in science that much, but it is only okay to say “This AI art generator is gonna be the reason why humanity has fallen” like why am I not allowed to think AI level shit that could’ve existed for a while now has played a part in getting us to this point. But it feels with whatever is advertised of becoming danger has already become the danger. That is why I think the elites needed the pandemic to happen because they need a reason for shit to go into the direction it goes so it forces some kind of revolution, when you pretend things are just happening the way they are because that is what happens and then the right wing claiming this is a plan-demic, there could be truth to it, but the people claiming it is, would also be in on it and are permitted to be the ones who are warning you so you take their side, and because the MSM media and the establishment are limited in what is said even if some of their truth is more out of self preservation so it says in the history books that so and so warned you about the dangers, but they won’t disclose that at that time, the establishment has been something that is discredited to a lot of people. I am not saying I am the one with the answers, I am just sitting here trying not to break down from mental trauma and my confusion in this world. Even if I write a compelling blog or do a podcast, even if I am trying to at least give you perception of how dumbed down people think, most of the “smart” people out there will dismiss it and the right wing will use it as a way to double down on their craziness.

It seeps into the fandoms as well, and maybe it is for the better because maybe I should’ve stopped using entertainment as my escape and live vicariously through because it has made me a bit worse, you know how many times I will say I am not watching anything or going to so and so events, and I end up fucking going and watching and still consuming it, but maybe it is for the best if I really did try to escape it because if everything is going more right wing, then definitely wrestling would be one of the main entertainment forms that will definitely embrace it. We have to pretend that the old timers are just out of touch etc and that is where it starts and ends because there will be some embracing on a surface level with inclusion and what not, but if you already view the entertainment world as another layer of fundamentalism, and noticing the pipeline from that world into right wing politics and what kind of political messaging was inserted into it from the beginning then it is not surprising there are old timers trying to get attention on AEW for some wrestlers supporting trans youth, and they are trying to get far right leaning people make these companies capitulate to them because they will say it is all a political agenda, like it isn’t ironic that Dutch Mantell, who did a patriot gimmick would complain about politics in wrestling, and I have noticed that there has been a pushback from people of all over who are embracing right wing sensationalist shit have basically shut down any talks about racism, misogyny and homophobia, even if it is talked about on a surface level, and they will act like they don’t want it in the product but then advocate for all the regressive shit, why didn’t Dutch Mantell’s concern for protecting kids happen when there have been active abusers in the industry, why are kids training with Chasyn Rance? The man literally managed the Harris Brothers who have Nazi tattoos, and so many people in that mafia underworld are into that kind of shit, so why is it surprising that WWE would have ties to fundamentalists from Saudi Arabia, and when you only mention that as the only shady thing WWE has done, then I am gonna think you are not well intentioned and don’t worry my opinion won’t mean shit, only if you are a sociopath who thinks everyone needs to praise your limited expose on the Saudi WWE deal and not see how these personalities are funded with their rhetoric of making it seem like they are calling out bad booking but then they will sneak in their edgelord personas for shit. And I can see this getting worse, and I want to believe the wrestlers supporting trans youth are being genuine, or was this a way to get this talked about so that it encourages people to lose their mind about it and go against the woke agenda. There is no both sides in this issue when you are not mentioning how far the right wing is going and because you might pick and choose scenarios from people who happen to be part of the community you hate on as a generalization of all people in that community you are a dip shit and you are help normalizing rhetoric that will get people killed, but don’t worry you will be able to hang out with all the celebrities you want to hang out with. They will promote stories about how someone who raped and murdered someone in 1984 was actually claiming to be trans later on while doing time, and because people don’t advocate for the death penalty, you will have ACLU make it seem like this is the main concern about the trans stuff which then prompts all the fake culture war shit heads then go “CAN YOU BELIEVE THE LEFT DOESN’T CARE ABOUT THE RAPE AND MURDER AND MORE ABOUT THIS KILLER HAVING THEIR TREATMENT” I still think prisoners should be given access to treatment, prisons are supposed to be for rehabilitating people and if you were gonna be on your high horse about people not liking capitol punishment, maybe you should go after the right wing thought leaders guilty of legalizing the worst shit not to protect kids, from child labor, exploitation of migrant kids, blowing brown kids up overseas, or the many rapists who happen to be functioning in high level of power, maybe I would take your concerns seriously about being outraged about the kids if you stayed consistent with it and not be okay with guys like Andrew Tate, you know celebs and public figures, I have always assumed they are initiated or do initiations to get into the system, and we find out about it later through the gimmicked storyline they bring to the media, but now they are literally having people become famous solely for doing these horrible things and they become modern cult leaders. I never heard about Andrew Tate before this shit, it was like he was allowed to function and then we pretend we are calling him out because he happened to committ these crimes, but these crimes are now being exploited for the sports entertainment, it would be entertaining if it weren’t so fucking tragic that the system could be this disgusting with exploiting people’s trauma, like Russell Simmons became a heel because his antics became known and now out of the woodwork, now we are finding out he groomed his ex wife when she was 16, because the entertainment industry has an underworld where industry madams start off young and in the system until they are chosen to be in a relationship with some of these figures. And now his kids are coming out the woodwork about the abuse they had to deal with, and since the talking heads who get to be powerful voices online and in the media, they will apply regular rules to these people by going “Why aren’t they going to the police or a therapist” like it is that easy, like powerful people don’t have control over law enforcement, they don’t operate like that, when they are supposed to be exposed that is what happens, but the kids are now put in a position to get their trauma out there but it has to be broadcasted so there is heat on them for doing this. This is just my opinion. But I am looking at the overall pattern in how these celeb shit play out, and it feels like their major roles now have become reality show shit where they will be in the news for some controversy. Nothing about this shit makes any sense. But why would anyone want to entertain or investigate when then billionaires who fund this kind of shit have control over a lot of shit but they just reduced to being a regular civilian who happened to get caught for something later when their career is at the latter portion. It is like the scandals have become exploitative documentaries and television series and we just think this shit is playing out the way it is. Anyways I have gone on for a long time about shit but I don’t think anyone will be willing to change their mind with how I go off the reservation with my theories, but I at least am trying to figure out ways to counter the right wing shit online that is designed to be there and to me they have been recruiting people through online shit, because people only think the feds online just spy on us and know where we are, or they have our information, and then don’t think it is possible for them to recruit people to their cause. Again these are my theories. I am sure it will put a target on me, have people trigger some shit that fuck with my physical illnesses, and at this point, I don’t really have anything to really live for, I don’t have friends and it is probably for the better because most of them have either become far right or they have become elitist, and I have killed any shot of me being relevant again because I didn’t sell my trauma to the right wing cause because I would be so hurt I would go to anyone willing to talk to me about it. Maybe I am wrong about where this world is heading, I hope so. I don’t want to be here for a fascist takeover and every day it is being more normalized and I would hope the right wing people who consume what I say and write with the intent of hating me more and informing your patriot buddies that I am a danger etc, but I would people with that kind of mentality to open their eyes and see they are being lied to just because the establishment for the liberals don’t tell you everything. I have to reflect on my journey and where my mind went so I can at least give insight into how a dumbed down person kind of thinks. I never wanted to be on this planet, I was ready to leave 20 years ago, before I turned 20. I just didn’t see a happy conclusion to any of this and now that I am alive and have been used up for the fame game to make other people get the access and connections while I took the abuse, I fucking have nothing to look forward to. Maybe there will be a couple of wrestlers who might read this and try to insert some of this shit into a promo, some of them do but they could never admit that shit. There is definitely nowhere to talk about shit to have an actual conversation, everyone has an agenda. I have grown tired of all of it, this is just me getting shit off my chest, because the trolls will downplay my concerns so they can tell their like minded cult members that I am dangerous and they will pretend to care about me while mocking me for having to have this aesthetic of my life so they can discredit me more. I know I am not some fucking hero, but I am definitely not gonna let you turn me into another boring cookie cutter edge lord villain who will pretend the internet is some underground shit. You don’t get to be the main voice because you claim to be anti war while downplaying white supremacists on your show and because so many of these “leftists” were respectable thought leaders for a bit, they help manipulate you into accepting problematic takes and help normalizing it. How are you guys better than the MSM, or do you even give a shit. You clearly do because you can’t admit you are right wingers, you need the most out of the guise of being a leftist, or a socialist while showing you are having more in common with the national socialists. Go ahead, get mad, pretend you didn’t read this, but I know I am a subtle target, my only strength right now is no one is officially paying attention to me. But they are paying attention to me, they get extra mad that they didn’t push me over the edge so they could justify why they need to treat me like I am a danger to people. You can’t have it both ways, you all decided long ago I was not someone to be taken seriously, you just thought I would end up down the typical right wing trajectory. And trust me, listen to my Stern Show calls back 10 years ago and I would be the typical conspiratorial minded person even if I didn’t look at myself for falling for the right wing shit, because members of the new right were being normalized as lesser threats. I can admit where I went wrong and how I bought into shit, because I hear I don’t take accountability and I blame everyone else, but that is what the system does.

#Hanzi 2023 Mental Illness Theories NoFacts sensationalist reactionary culture war pro wrestling politics discourse

1 note · View note

timomaraus · 1 year

Text

April 5, 2023

NY Times Donald Trump had called for protesters to converge on Manhattan, but the crowds were mostly journalists (Editor's Note: To be fair, many journalists have been protesting Donald Trump for quite a while now.)

CNN CNN fact-checks Trump's Mar-a-Lago speech following arraignment (Editor's Note: At this point, fact-checking a Trump speech is just an effort to find any fact in it, not to call out the lies.)

CNN Here's why Michael Cohen says he should be believed over Trump (Editor's Note: Boy, that's a battle between all-star Boy Scouts right there.)

CNN How a baseball raffle led to one couple's bundle of joy (Editor's Note: At some point it must have involved, in the words of Hall of Fame announcer Dave Neihaus, "a grand salami!")

CNN Johnson & Johnson is again trying to use bankruptcy to settle talc cases for $8.9 billion (Editor's Note: "We're bankrupt, but we do have $9B laying around to pay for this.")

Washington Post Sutherland Springs victims, U.S. reach tentative $144.5 million settlement (Editor's Note: Nothing against the poor families of those killed in yet another senseless shooting spree, but it does seem amazing that not only are we unable to get reasonable gun control, we also have our tax dollars going to victims of the lack of gun control.)

Washington Post Lindsey Graham pleads for people to give Trump money after arraignment (Editor's Note: One thing you have to appreciate about Lindsey Graham is his rock-steady consistency For example: "Trump and I, we've had a helluva journey and I hate to see it end this way. Oh my god I hate it. Count me out. Enough is enough." Lindsey Graham, on the floor of the Senate, 1/6/21)

CNN Eating to much 'free sugar' has 45 negative health effects (Editor's Note: And if you think that's bad, you don't even want to know what happens when you eat the sugar you have to pay for.)

CNN Husband of former Scottish first minister arrested over party finances investigation (Editor's Note: If you're having to finance a party, it's a pretty good bet you're partying too hard.)

NY Times For Now, Trump and Allies Focus on Political Upside of a Criminal Case (Editor's Note: And this week's sign of the apocalypse is that people think there is a political upside to being charged with 34 felony accounts.)

NY Times How Brandon Johnson Made Up Ground and Won Chicago's Mayoral Race (Editor's Note: This could change the entire "Let's go Brandon" narrative.)

0 notes

drawingconclusions · 1 year

Text

AN ANTI-CHRISTIAN SOCIETY

My intent today isn't to conjecture as to why the transgender woman killed both kids and adults at the Covenant School in Nashville this week. As I previously stated, the investigation is still ongoing and I prefer to wait before commenting in that regard.

In the past few days, I've only perused in-depth news about the shooting, but I have noticed that for some reason, the story in the mainstream media is quickly becoming just a blip in the news cycle. Strange, since certain mass shootings are usually given wall-to-wall coverage in America. Why the reduced coverage in some cases? Is it because the shooter was a transgender woman? Or is it because the victims were Christians? Does it not fit the typical narrative espoused by the mainstream media?

And I'm extremely disappointed at President Biden's response to the shooting. For some reason, our Comforter-In-Chief just happens to be a bit too jovial when addressing the topic, dishing out jokes & platitudes before or during the occasion. Not too surprising, since Biden's Department of Justice and FBI have routinely targeted, arrested, and charged Catholic believers for legally protesting at abortion clinics. And given the fact that Biden didn't even visit the conservative-leaning city of East Palestine, Ohio after the spewed toxins resulting from Norfolk Southern's intentional burning of chemicals there, it's pretty clear that some people such as Trump-voters or people of faith aren't really a high priority for the current administration.

In the aftermath of the mass shooting at Covenant School, one radical transgender group gave half-hearted condolences, and then launched into a rant about how (…the following is paraphrased…) the media need to get the shooter's pronouns correct, people of faith & others are spreading hate against transgender people, and the group even began to excuse the shooter to some extent, saying her act of violence was the only way for her to get attention. Granted, I don't believe all transgender people would agree with their statements, but it's slightly unbelievable that just after people have been slaughtered & murdered at a Christian school, this transgender group would still decide to play the victims. Completely unbelievable! However as a Christian, it's my job to forgive those who wrong me. And simply because I believe marriage is a God-ordained covenant between a man & a woman and I believe that the issue of gender was decided by God at creation, that doesn't mean I hate you. I don't. I'm called to show Christ-like love to you and I'll pray for you. Disagreement doesn't imply malice.

Unfortunately, too many in America's society don't seem to understand this concept. I briefly mentioned the local police helicopter, and in the days following the mass shooting in Tennessee, they have again showed up frenetically 3 times when I was set to go out, again showing deep familiarity with my schedule and comings & goings. The military helicopter has done the same in other instances and I've also been tracked by military jets before. (One notable instance was when 2 military jets waited until I stepped outside and literally buzzed me while I was serving as a caregiver last year!) And I've already posted the video of the psychotic behavior of the low-flying Cessna plane (which I believe was the FBI) which sought to intimidate me right after I commented here on the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. Apparently, the local police, FBI, DNI, and active-duty military see me as one of the greatest threats to America. Is it because I defended Trump at one point? Is it because I lean conservative in the political spectrum? Is it because I call out their corruption? Or is it because I'm a Christian? It can't be on account that I'm a bona-fide criminal, because if I was, I wouldn't have been able to renew items such as my driver's license or passport. (They usually check for outstanding warrants when you do so…)

My point is that believers need to see that America has been trending towards anti-Christian sentiment for a number of years now. It has come from the far left, from the mainstream media, and it will even come from government & authorities, both local and federal. You can see it in places like Arizona where a city council has decided to stop accepting graduates from a local Christian college as employees/teachers. You can see it happening in Canada where some police have no qualms about arresting pastors who violate so-called lockdown restrictions or who peacefully protest Drag Shows for kids. You can see it happening in Europe where a misguided prosecutor in Finland insists on making it a crime to distribute or post Bible scriptures that contradict cultural beliefs.

Of course, I don't intend for Christians to live in fear. Instead, I admonish you to fear no darkness in the coming days and years ahead. Our eternal victory with Christ has already been assured, and God still moves on behalf of His people as He did in days of old. However, please don't be naïve about what society has become. Paul wrote in Philippians 3:18 about certain false teachers in his day who weren't really Christians: "many live as enemies of the cross" (NIV) What he wrote centuries ago is still highly applicable today. Some people hate us simply for what we stand for and what we believe. They detest the fact that the mere mention of Christians reminds them of the concept of morality. And they even hate the God we serve and consequently hate anyone associated with Him. Realize that if you speak (or even live) against the grain of today's culture, you will face opposition and a host of people will do their best to silence you. (Yes, that happens in America today.) I wholeheartedly agree with Chinese dissident & artist Ai Wei Wei who stated that we already live in an authoritarian society in America. The question I pose to Christians is whether they'll deny their faith when the pressure comes or whether they'll rise to the occasion in a noble manner, fearless in the face of threats and persecution.

[On a side note: Interestingly, in the time I've written this second post, the local military jets suddenly ramped up their exercises (fortunately for the safety of the neighborhood, not at close range), another surveillance plane has been making steady rounds (from the engine sound, this may be the military radar plane that often crosses my path, but I don't have time to verify this today), and a Cessna plane (again, possibly FBI) suddenly began circling briefly at 5-minute intervals! Apparently I hit a nerve with the corrupt with what I've written here! Look, Senator Schumer once infamously said if you mess with the intel agencies, etc., they'll "get you seven ways from Sunday". (Actually, today's Wednesday, but I digress…) Two things about that: 1) I've had visions of my future and it's exceedingly bright. If God is pleased with me and decides to bring those things to pass, no one can stop His good purposes. The doors that He opens, no one can shut. And well, if He doesn't bring it to pass, I'm still His forever. 2) Since when do the intel agencies or any other government agency, for that matter, exist for their own pleasure, instead of being accountable to the citizens of America?]

0 notes

sasquapossum · 2 years

Text

Free Speech For Whom?

Marc Andreessen - Netscape founder, vulture capitalist, and the most literally egg-headed person I know of - recently tweeted this.

Besides the obvious problem of trying to poison the well by implying that anyone who disagrees is connected to an anti-free-speech conspiracy, this represents a very common set of misconceptions (deceptions) about freedom of speech. Maximalist free speech will always appeal to those like Marc who can always be sure they’ll have the biggest megaphone. But that’s not real freedom of speech. To explain, I’ll have to take you all on a bit of a winding road.

In the mathematical study of network flow (which includes not just computer networks but electrical grids and interconnected systems of roads or water/sewer lines), there’s something called Braess’s Paradox. It’s the observation that sometimes adding a road can decrease overall traffic flow. The corollary is that sometimes closing a road (or IIRC adding one in the “wrong” direction) can increase total flow. There’s a parallel in economics: markets are most truly free when certain behaviors are regulated. A market dominated by trusts, cartels, insider trading, and other forms of manipulation by moneyed parties is anything but free. Sports also have rules and referees for a reason. These results might seem counterintuitive, but “some local restriction increases global freedom” is a very common and well proven phenomenon.

OK, back to internet free speech. The same principle applies there. What I should have said before is that maximalist “free speech” (with the quotes) always appeals etc. Historically the rich could just buy a platform such as a newspaper. This still happens, e.g. with Murdoch or Bezos. But in the internet age, the most valuable platforms are internet-specific platforms and Twitter is a prime example. People like Musk and Andreessen can get that megaphone in the form of followers, sock-puppets and bots to amplify their own message and harass proponents of any other. Algorithmic ranking also plays a role, as it tends to bury all but one narrative at the end of an infinite scroll - i.e. functionally equivalent to their having been removed. I think the right (and libertarians) hate such ranking because they would rather blame someone else than admit they are a minority, and to justify their use of sock-puppets etc. “Just making up for others’ unjust treatment” they tell themselves. Affirmative action for assholes, I reply. Meanwhile, the left dislikes algorithmic ranking because of the result after the right’s manipulation. Turns out it’s just a bad idea all around.

Andreessen even tacitly admits this point when he talks about freedom of reach in the middle of his endless stream of bad-faith arguments. (BTW I’m pretty sure the real Frederick Douglass would be horrified and disgusted at the way Andreessen twists his words.) Freedom to speak without any chance to be heard means nothing. I’m not saying everyone has a right to be listened to, let alone to say anything without consequences as the Musk/Trump imitators would have it, but I will say that people should have an equal chance to be heard. Imagine a town hall where anyone can speak but some must do so within a cone of silence, unheard except by those banished to the same cone. Burying all but one opinion under a mountain of trash is not real free speech, but it’s exactly what the plutocrats want. They only focus on and oppose the hard power of laws so that they can exercise the soft power of money and the pseudo-populism it brings. The “consistency” Andreessen claims to want is really stasis, the system (and opponents) not allowed to adapt while people like him have freedom to undermine it in new ways. Its what oligarchs have always wanted.

As for me, I continue to support meaningful free speech ... just as I support meaningful equal opportunity and not just a Potemkin version of it. The freedom to sleep under bridges and eat from trash cans while our new feudal lords try to outdo each other in folly and cruelty is no freedom at all. As paradoxical as it might seem, if you want real free speech for everybody some kinds of speech-related behavior have to be disallowed.

#long post #free speech #twitter

32 notes · View notes

crossdreamers · 2 years

Text

Racist and transphobic jokes are never “just joking”

u/virtualady reminded me of an interesting twitter thread by Jason P. Steed on humor and racism over at reddit.

Replace racism with transphobia and Donald Trump with David Chappelle, and Steed’s thread can serve as a great analysis of why tranphobic jokes are so destructive.

Bigoted jokes serve to reinforce the group identity of a tribe and marginalize the unwanted, whether this regards race, culture, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity. Bigoted jokes are not a matter of free speech. They are not a matter of good humor, either. Their goal is to reinforce narratives of hate.

Jason P. Steed @5thCircAp 09 Aug 16:

I wrote my PhD dissertation on the social function of humor (in literature & film) and here's the thing about "just joking." You're never 'just joking.' Nobody is ever "just joking." Humor is a social act that performs a social function (always). To say humor is social act is to say it is always in social context; we don't joke alone. Humor is a way we relate/interact with others. Which is to say, humor is a way we construct identity who we are in relation to others. We use humor to form groups and to find our individual place in or out of those groups. In short, joking/humor is one tool by which we assimilate or alienate. lOW, we use humor to bring people into or keep them out of our social groups. This is what humor *does.* What it's for. Consequently, how we use humor is tied up with ethics who do we embrace, who do we shun, and how/why?

And the assimilating/alienating function of humor works not only only people but also on *ideas.* This is important. This is why, e.g., racist "jokes" are bad. Not just because they serve to alienate certain people, but also because they serve to assimilate the idea of racism (the idea of alienating people based on their race). And so we come to Trump. A racist joke sends a message to the in-group that racism is acceptable. (If you don't find it acceptable, you're in the out-group.) The racist joke teller might say "just joking" but this is a *defense* to the out-group. He doesn't have to say this to the in-group. This is why we're never "just joking." To the in-group, no defense of the joke is needed; the idea conveyed is accepted/ acceptable. So, when Trump jokes about assassination or armed revolt, he's asking the in-group to assimilate/accept that idea. That's what jokes do. And when he says "just joking," that's a defense offered to the out-group who was never meant to assimilate the idea in the first place.

Indeed, circling back to the start, the joke *itself* is a way to define in-group and out-group, through assimilation & alienation. If you're willing to accept "just joking" as defense, you're willing to enter in-group where idea conveyed by the joke is acceptable. lOW, if "just joking" excuses racist jokes, then in-group has accepted idea of racism as part of being in-group. Same goes for "jokes" about armed revolt or assassinating Hillary Clinton. They cannot be accepted as "just joking." Now, a big caveat: humor (like all language) is complicated and always a matter of interpretation. For example, we might have racist humor that is, in fact, designed to alienate (rather than assimilate) the idea of racism. (Think satire or parody.) But I think it's pretty clear Trump was not engaging in some complex satirical form of humor. He was "just joking." In the worst sense.

Bottom line: don't accept "just joking" as excuse for what Trump said today. The in-group for that joke should be tiny. Like his hands.

The screenshot above is from Ace Ventura Pet Detective, one of the most transphobic movies ever made. Would Jim Carrey have made this movie today? Probably not, because trans people have become much more humanized in the media since 1994. It is much harder to see them not as real people now – people who feel and suffer like everyone else.

Some people are stuck in the toxic old times, however. Like Dave Chappelle, TERF detective. And yes, given Steed’s brilliant analysis of racist jokes, Chappelle – a Black American – should know better.

#racis #transphobia #transgender #trans #lgbt #lgbtqa #lgbt+#dave chappelle #bigotry #terf

44 notes · View notes

thechangeling · 3 years

Text

My thoughts concerning the downworld

I wrote this two years ago but I can't find the original post since tumblr's tagging system is a literal joke. So I'm re-posting it!

Alright. So I was rereading The Mortal Instruments and I sort of realized something that really pissed me off. Of course we all know that in every book there is discrimination against the downworld in forms of outright bigotry and hate comments or just ignorance and confusion. However I personally have been noticing lately how in all the books there is very little catharsis after those moments. There are no instances of any downworlder actively turning around and just Going. Off. I mean like really going off. Like have you seen protests with emotionally charged and wronged people? They are fucking livid because they have every right to be. I personally have been in situations like this regarding combating LGBTQ hate and there is nothing more satisfying then just letting lose because you have had enough of this treatment. I often compare Downworlders in this fictional society to marginalized people in our real one. Some people disagree with that idea and that's fine but it's always how I perceived it. For instance, take moments like Tessa Gray in The Infernal devices walking into that room filled with Downworlder body parts being displayed as trophies is very similar to white settlers hunting down Indigenous people to display their heads as trophies. No one talks about that horrifying practice enough in our society just like the fandom doesn't talk about what happened to Tessa. She deserved catharsis in that moment and so did we.

The Clave has not apologized to the Downworlder community for the events of the circle to the best of my knowledge. Most Shadowhunters don't even believe it's their responsibility to take ownership for what happened because it wasn't them and it is "in the past". Just like most white people (and full disclaimer, I say this as a white person) believe that it is not their responsibility to apologize for the events of the past (colonialism). In the Dark Artifices there is talk of registering downworlds just like the Jewish people in the 40s and non-white immigrants today. (Because let's be honest the only immigrants Trump wants to get rid of are the non-white ones) Speaking of that asshole, Horace Dearborn is obviously based on him. QOAAD came out right in the middle of the racist shitstorm ravaging the US and the similarities are obviously striking. So my point is, if all of this is very noticable, why is there very little catharsis for those of us who can relate to these characters and these situations? I myself am angry along with them and I desperately want to see justice done. Real justice. Now that the cohort is locked in Idris and Alec has become consul it may seem like the problem is supposedly solved. Not really. Shadowhunters still have some stepping stones to cross in order to make things right in my opinion. I really dont want to see everyone, (especially Downworlders) just brush all those issues to the side and pretend like they're over.

I also have a problem with certain Shadowhunters being praised as "Downworlder saviors" kind of like white savior complex. Although I might not be the best person to talk about this. If you are a POC and you disagree with me on this then please let me know because I never want to speak over any POC. This is just something that has been rubbing me the wrong way. For example, Livia's watch and the use of it as a downworlder rights group. As much as I understand Julian wanting to honor his lost sister. Using her as some sort of beacon for Downworlder rights really is not fair because she just wasn't. Also I find it really uncomfortable that a Shadowhunter, Julian, is trying to take control of a Downworlder rights group and say what it should be and how it should be organized. It just strikes me as a little white saviory. Continuing on with the whole white savior conversation, I was talking with a friend and we couldn't help but notice that the narrative of CC's books is very problematic seeing as there are the "good Shadowhunters" trying to save the downworld from the "bad Shadowhunters" because for some reason Downworlders need saving and should be grateful for the help of the good Shadowhunters. Also Shadowhunters are a lot like cops, and when I say that I do mean killing marginalized people for no reason and enforcing racist laws, type cops. But Cassie writes this narrative of the good cops who aren't like that who want to change the system.

This contributes to the whole "There are some bad apples sure, but there are also some good cops" mentality. This is pretty frickin problematic, especially given current events.

CC also paints the narrative to be against Downworlders who are rightly furious with the Clave and shadowhunters as a whole and have some hatred for nephilim kind as a result of, oh you know.... hundred years of oppression, violence and discrimination. They become the villains of the story like Barnabas and Shinyun, and to make sure you know they're the villains, CC needs to sprinkle in typical shady cult like villain behavior into the narrative. All of the good downworlders are either friends with or dating shadowhunters, or are at least somewhat sympathetic to Shadowhunters like Ragnor. Does anyone see the problem with this? So now being angry and bitter towards your oppressors is villian behavior? Great message CC. Absolutely wonderful.

I also have a problem with Shadowhunters not wanting to kill members of the cohort when they are literal nazis. You don't redeem people like that! If the cohort were Downworlders and not Shadowhunters then they would have killed them and that's just the tea.

I'm sorry I know this is a lot of words to read but I just needed to vent. If you disagree with of course feel free to share your opinion in the comments.

@amchara @sandersgrey this was what I was referencing

#tsc #tda #the dark artifices #tmi #tid #twp #the downworld #fae rants #tw racism

27 notes · View notes

beautifulterriblequeen · 3 years

Text

B2:S - Chapter 5

Much of this series will be about the differences and additions in the novel version, and how they contribute to my understanding of story canon. But there will be character appreciation, the odd theory and headcanon, and suchlike as well.

Here be lots of Viren deets, Best Boy Soren deets, some writing/continuity stuff, worldbuilding appreciation and half of a theory, Detective Rayla, Moon Temple geeking, Claudium and dark magic, and more!

Spoilers for Book Two: Sky below.

(I know for darn sure that I wrote up a post for chapter 4, but I can't find it anywhere so I guess Tumblr ate it and I'll have to redo it at some point, but today is not that day)

Viren, my evil dude, my bad guy, coming in clutch with the worldbuilding and backstory again! If you want to know decades of information, you gotta talk to Viren. Or read his scenes, at least. Here, he seems to not sleep much when he has a big problem to analyze his way through. Solutions trump pretty much everything else in this guy's life, and he's had a really hard week with a lot of new and complicated problems. Of course he's getting sleep-deprived trying to find his way through them all.

Harrow put so much trust in Viren when he made him High Mage! He just threw himself extra hard at that Lady Justice blindfold, didn't he? Didn't really want to see what Viren was doing in his magic study, so he left Viren to his devices. And Viren has a lot of devices.

Also, this is fascinating: Viren made the secret passage to his "less official study" in Katolis Castle! And he was inspired to do so by the way his own mentor kept the Puzzle House. What else could a Puzzle House be, except a place with secret passages? Yay! secret headcanon that "the Puzzle House" is just "Katolis Castle" from Kid Viren's perspective tho

So either Viren built all of those passageways, or at least the ones to his dungeon. Which means he has to have, or know where to get, a stash of those glowing blue Moonshadow crystals. Hmmm.

I can't wait to learn more about Kpp'Ar and young Viren, btw. From this description of Viren and all his literal secret ways, it feels like another parallel between Viren and Runaan, with the whole "secretive paths, members only, insider knowledge" type stuff. Only the really cool members of this cult club get to know the secrets, and guess what, kid, you're cool now but you can never tell anyone, okay? Our secret.

Yeahhh, that'll never backfire in any way for either of them.

Kpp'Ar calling puzzles and secrets "man-made magic," though. Yes sir, knowledge is indeed power.

This chapter mentions Runaan by name, from Viren's perspective. Generally that would imply that Viren knows his name, even though assassins do not share their names, and Runaan didn't seem to give his to Viren in the first book. However, there was a scene in book one where the last paragraph switched perspective from Viren to Runaan - a technique that's very common in visual media like movies and shows and gives you that "ohoho they left the room and didn't notice this, but you do!" vibe. Using Runaan's name there in book one, where Viren couldn't see it but readers could, helps them keep track of the assassin's story arc while maintaining Viren's racism.

So in book two, in which Runaan has no onscreen scenes (alas), using his name in a scene that calls back to the events in book one helps us remember what happened in that dungeon cell. It would be a bit muddier to recall the specifics if Viren kept thinking about Runaan as "Elf." So I'm cool with the perspective nudge because it serves a narrative purpose: clarity. But I'm also enjoying the angst of considering that, somehow, Viren learned Runaan's name either during or after the coining spell. Mwa ha ha haaa. (Obligatory "Keep my pretty name outta your mouth" goes here)

Okay, back to Viren's scheming! He took the mirror because it was human-sized in a dragon lair. He knew it didn't really fit there, and that made it interesting, so he stole it. But he realized it was really powerful when Runaan wouldn't tell him squat about it - the assassin's instinct to protect Xadian secrets from human hands meant that Viren was holding a very powerful Xadian secret. And that just made him want it all the more. Ah, Runaan, if only your relationship with lying was, like, the exact opposite of what it is. Nyx could've spun Viren a believable tale in 2 minutes flat.

Also of interest: Viren considers his cursed coins to be a final fate. He expects Runaan to remain in his coin forever. With the Chekhov's coins still extant in the storyline, we can assume that they'll come up again eventually, but Viren has no current plans to do anything with his elf money except carry it around.

It's worth noting that Viren admits that he got impatient when he trapped Runaan in the coin. Runaan's first fate in Katolis was supposed to be death at Soren's hands, but Claudia "saved" him from that. His next fate was to become spell components, but Viren's frustration with his stubbornness "saved" him from that fate, too. So now he's in a coin, where no one can chop him up at all. Yay? No, boo!

We get one last line about Runaan before Viren shifts gears: he makes a point of noting for us that Runaan's shackles are still locked shut. However much of Runaan made it into that coin - body, soul, hair care products - he was magicked there, pulled right out of his restraints.

The creepy black liquid that Viren pours right into his eyes is the last of a powerful potion he got from Kpp'Ar, and its recipe is ancient! Humans used it back in the age of Elarion to see through the illusions of the world. And we get a delightfully creepy bit of description about the preparation of this serum, which makes it abundantly clear that it's a Moon magic-based concoction, harvested from eyeless vipers on a moonless night, with the threat of irrevocable madness ("madness" by whose definition, though) if it's done wrong-

Hang on. Hold up. This is a Plato's Cave reference. OH MY GOD.

No no I'm fine, this is brilliant. Sorry, sorry, I couldn't figure why there was so much description for a potion prep that Viren didn't even have to perform himself. But now I get it. I see the light. HA. I should make a separate post for this, it's amazing.

Anyway, for reference, the humans who used this serum were called the Oracles of Ophidia, and Ophidia is a taxonomy group that includes all modern snakes. Can you say "creepy ancient snake rites"? I can! Woo!

Viren activates the serum with a spell, but apparently he's never done it before. He's not sure if it's supposed to be hot and bubbly, and he worries that it's been tainted by moonlight.

Oh, I do hope so.

The magic potion hurts, a lot. Viren will do just about anything, to himself or anyone, to do what he believes is necessary. He just risked madness and blindness to find out what this mirror does! Viren. Can you just. Take a nap or something. Have a Snickers.

This chapter gives us a fun clue that I don't remember from the show: when Viren's vision clears and he can see, his reflection has white pupils and the room reflected in the mirror has inverted colors. You know where else has inverted colors?

You know who else got white pupils for a hot second?

Okay, now it makes sense! Viren and Lujanne were both seeing into the realm beyond life and death. Him with his moon magic potion, and her with her moon powers on a full moon night at the Moon Nexus. Which is Very Interesting! Is it a direct hint about Aaravos's location, or just a separate cool detail? Orrr, does it look like a direct hint because Aaravos is actually trapped in the world beyond life and death, but it's actually separate and we'll see something about white pupils again later on?

Viren really does have self-esteem issues, we all picked up on it with his rant at his reflection. He throws a fit when he catches himself wondering if he's actually worthless. In the book version of his tantrum, he shoves the mirror and hurls a candelabra instead of flipping a table. He didn't need to shove the mirror to set the fire, but it's in here. Foreshadowing that perhaps, if push comes to shove, Viren will choose himself over Aaravos? Giving Aaravos time to peek through and see that the coast is clear?

Soren, my boyyyyy. He has a rough night at the Moon Nexus because two sides of him are fighting with each other. He struggles to understand Callum's friendship with Rayla, and he also fantasizes about chopping off Rayla's head. One of these is a pretty ordinary thing to do. The other is Soren's internalization of what he needs to do to gain his father's approval. If he brought his dad a chopped off elf head every week, he'd probably feel a lot more confident because Viren would praise him a lot more.

Okay, okay, omg, is it just me, or does the "Moonshadow Madness" story, as it's told in the book, seem like Soren just doesn't know what a monsterfucker is? He thinks an elf bite puts humans under a spell. But vampires are sexy, and some people want them to do more to them than just bite them. A passionate kiss under the moonlight could look very bitey, especially if one of the participants has horns and you're already culturally trained to hate them. No yeah, I'm already headcanoning an actual human-elf kiss that got misunderstood by an observer long ago.

it's Lujanne isn't it, we all know, because what is a love spell but a sweet soft illusion, I mean how else does she get supplies for her Caldera, I ask you, and also Corvus was totally sent to investigate once and he told Soren at camp what he saw

And then back to magefam angst: Soren pretending that his sister's nose-tapping is stupid, even though he actually thinks it's cool, just because their dad thinks it's stupid. Viren, istg. Let your kids like harmless things. It's so cute that Soren taps his nose back at her, though! Like they have their own sibling code. I hope we get to see the nose tap again, especially now that they've chosen different sides. It could mean so much, that they're not too far apart yet.

Rayla knows what buttery pancakes smell like. I love this. Do Moonshadow elves have butter and pancakes, does Rayla eat a stack of eight giant pancakes in the morning? Orrrr it is just illusion food? I don't care, let Rayla have pancakes! Everyone loves pancakes. Pancakes will save the world. this message brought to you by the fact that I can't eat pancakes rn, send help

I love that Rayla is both sus of the pancakes and hungry, and that combines into a very motivated "I will get to the bottom of this" attitude. She kind of goes into Poirot Mode when she inserts herself into Soren and Ellis's conversation about Ava, explaining about the wolf's illusion leg and segueing into her claim that the pancakes taste sus. Claudia confirms she used dark magic, and Rayla is furious. It's different than the show's version in that it puts Rayla in detective mode, as the only Moonshadow elf in the scene, and boy does she take that role seriously. Also, she doesn't actually swallow the dark magic pancake bite. It ends up on the ground just like Lujanne's grubs from that earlier meal. These poor kids are so nutrient-starved. You guys gotta eat!!

Rayla's determination and prejudices and the fact that she super knows Harrow is dead all dovetail to make her try repeatedly to persuade Callum that Soren and Claudia are Not To Be Trusted. It's nice that the book keeps taking the time to point out that Rayla is Well Intentioned But Flawed, just like Callum and pretty much every other character in the show. No one is Right All The Time, no one Knows More Than Everyone Else.

Callum loving the sound of Claudia's unique voice is so wholesome. When you like someone, it only makes sense that you like all the things about them that they can't change - like the sound of Claudia's voice. Her choices with dark magic, not so much!

Claudia seems to have the same concerns Soren does about Callum's relationship with Rayla, but she comes out and asks him. The inherent possession implied in "your elf" is interesting, though. Elves are not people to Claudia. They're enemies who can be disassembled for the magic inside them. So maybe more like robots than living beings, if she knew what a robot was. Maybe she heard Soren's "Moonshadow Madness" story and realized he totally missed the kissing implications - but she didn't, and now she's genuinely worried that Rayla could kiss Callum under a full moon and enchant him to do her will. Good thing it's only a half moon, then!

Okay, Callum nervously making a puppet hand and then not knowing what to do with his hands and freaking out about itching and moving and pointy elbows is such a ND mood. The sudden stress of knowing that someone else is noticing your existence and maybe you're Not Existing Right, amirite? Ugh, poor Callum.

The Moon Temple! Omg it's so pretty in the description! Made to be beautiful and useful, full of knowledge but also allowing light and life inside (butterflies and vines). Lujanne, when can I move in, please? Also, it's all the more angsty because Lujanne is the only one who gets to see this beautiful place, but it has lots of chairs and shelves and tables, and it was meant to be used by lots of people. :(((

Claudia knows some of the runes on the walls. She isn't in a hurry to copy the rest of them down or anything, either. Her spellwriting is very precise, and she's a skilled mage. Her father would have made sure she was aware of the dangers of drawing sloppy runes, as much as he made her aware of the dangers of doing dark magic wrong. And the whole point of dark magic is that it's easier to learn than primal magic. Claudia supports her dad and their shared knowledge and life path. She's not gonna go nuts over an elf library she can't translate.

Side note: Between Claudia knowing some Moon runes and Viren building a secret passageway and a dungeon and lighting it with the same blue crystals that Lujanne and Ethari use for light--and Claudia exclaiming that she loves ruins--I wonder once more if there are really Moonshadow ruins somewhere in Katolis, which Viren has found and looted. Father-daughter relic hunting trip, maybe while Soren is away at camp? Omgsh that would be so wild!

Callum out here having a Viren moment with his "I feel powerless unless I've got magic that lets me help" vibes. God. I love their complicated mirroring. One of the hard differences between them is that Callum is very sure dark magic is bad because you have to kill stuff and take its power to cast spells, and he doesn't want to be a person who kills and takes like that. The line he walks to be nice to Claudia on their tour of the Cursed Caldera because he likes her, while telling her that he doesn't want to do her magic, like, ever, is so fine that it might as well be a shifting shadow on the ground. It's a very fitting conversation to be having during the half moon, with its tricks and little white lies.

Callum being out of the castle and his comfort zone, having to deal with the fact that the Claudia he loves is not quite the Claudia who's chasing him down across the kingdom, but of the two of them, he's the only one with a problem with this.

They say that if you really want to get to know someone, you should spend time with them outside their comfort zone - in heavy traffic, with a small baby, taking care of a new pet, trying a new skill, following unfamiliar directions, etc. While the castle is familiar territory for them both, Callum's never really found his comfort zone yet, while Claudia is pretty comfortable with her growing skill set. The creepy part starts to kick in when Callum begins to realize that Claudia's comfort zone encompasses a whole bunch of stuff that seems like it should make her uncomfortable... but it doesn't. But that'll be for a future chapter!

#book two: sky spoilers #book two: sky #b2:s #tdp spoilers #viren #harrow #rayla #runaan #callum #claudia #soren #lujanne #moonshadow elves #aaravos

26 notes · View notes

codenamebooks · 3 years

Text

10 Best Books of 2020

I’m super excited for this post because this has been my best reading year since early high school. That means that I got to read many books that I really liked so it was actually kind of hard solidifying the entire list. I had been updating it after every book I read but for this post I made a few tweaks.

Of course, as a fair warning, these are simply my opinions. If you hate these books, that’s perfectly fine with me but I personally loved them and gave them all 4 or 5 out of 5 stars.

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses series (#1-#3.5) by Sarah J. Maas

Although two books separated the series in my ranking, I thought it’d be unfair for 4 out of my top 10 to be from the same series. This series seriously blew me away. It was the first time that I had to buy the next book immediately so I could read it. I was hooked into the drama and fantasy world quicker than I have with any other fantasy I’ve read. I believe it was the first book that really pushed me toward fantasies for the rest of the year and I’m happy with that.

2. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

This is my favorite novel of the year but, as I said, the entirety of the ACOTAR series trumped it. Regardless, I’ve never been so drawn into a story and plot. I finally understood what reviewers meant when they claim that a story is “atmospheric”. The entire time I felt like I was experiencing every little thing with Addie because of how beautiful and lyrical Schwab’s descriptions are. I really, truly hope that, if/when I become more serious about my writing, that I will be able to write like this.

3. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins

This was my contemporary romance of the year! Oh my gosh did it make me so happy and giddy with excitement and laughter, even sadness. Out of all of the books in this trilogy, this was definitely the most mature and therefore my favorite. Nothing felt ridiculous or over done like in Lola and not immature like some themes in Anna. Josh easily moved towards the top of my list for fictional boyfriends because he was honestly so cute and real. The depth was amazing!

4. All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

The book that made me sob at 2 a.m. This book holds a special place in my heart because it’s only the second novel to have made me cry so heavily. Finch and Violet were such brilliant characters and I loved their arcs individually and together so much. Even though for a few pages I could see it coming, my heart still broke into little pieces over the last however many pages after. Although it had it’s funny and heartwarming highs, I really felt the lows.

5. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

The third book that has ever made me sob. This was a narrative structure that I’ve never seen before and I didn’t hate it’s mysterious plot twists and turns. Although I feel like there are some hints that I might have missed, I still fully grasped the weight of the book. It broke my heart in the third part because of how much I had grown to love our four liars. So much so that I started to dislike them due to their very consistent (yay!) personalities and habits leading me to be even more upset.

6. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

This was important and impactful. The way that Celeste Ng managed to encompass so many histories and storylines and futures was beautiful! It takes true talent to have so much control of so many characters and relationships. The way that she hands the question of morality to the reader, that the narrator doesn’t justify anything, just tells us the story and let’s us decide needs to happen more!

7. Carve the Mark duology by Veronica Roth

Once again, a series grouped together because they didn’t rank far apart. This duo was specifically boosted for me due to the second novel, which I found was also the case for many others on Goodreads. The experience of the growth in writing was brilliant! This was fun and adventurous and the world is so expansive. I really loved how the plot and pace in both books were handled. Nothing was ever rushed or ignored and no plot holes were left open. That’s all I ask for, especially out of such a short series.

8. The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

This was another dystopian fantasy read that I enjoyed because of how fun it was. I liked the way that Bracken handles writing younger characters in a traumatic setting. It felt more real than the 16 year olds in YAs from my middle school years who just knew everything immediately or fell in love in .2 seconds. Ruby grows and builds her strength and abilities throughout the entire novel so that she’s able to use them in the chaos at the end, and we’re proud to see that she’s taking control of her powers, not only in a life or death situation. The relationship between Liam and Ruby (and Chubs and Zu) is adorable and the slow build into friendship and the drive to protect each other and then to love (?!) is the sweetest thing.

9. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

There were a lot of ridiculous things in this first book but it was entertaining. The world is so expansive and I believe that when Clare grasps it in the later books it’ll be even better. The pacing is what keep me afloat in this book because it was constantly moving towards something new. Although that allowed plot holes to open as we flew past subplots, I’m sure they’ll be addressed in due time. I mean, Clare and this series/world wouldn’t be popular if it didn’t get better, right?

10. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

I didn’t include this with Isla and the Happily Ever After like I did with other series because it didn’t meet the level of love I had for Isla. It was fun but it was incredibly dramatic and unrealistic on some fronts that I couldn’t manage allow. But I laughed and I swooned exactly where I was supposed to. Even with it being ridiculous, the exaggerations were endearing because it felt like a world further away from mine than most contemporaries. People need to admit, extremes can add to the appeal more than it takes away.

27 notes · View notes

queerlyraging · 4 years

Text

I am affected.