Hello, I'm Lavellan, I'm 19 and I never learned how to read~

Inspired by this post by @andrastes-strap-on because yeah, the Inquisition sure put a lot of trust into an elf that spent their whole life in the woods.

I would have answered this in the post, but I have serious anxiety about answering things on the internet, so I’m on anon. Sorry.

But to answer your question about worldbuilding in RWBY, I’d firstly look into the Maidens. Why not have each Maiden use different elemental powers instead of whatever mishmash the writers thought were cool? Why not have the Maidens related to the trait the Relics stand for in some way, such as already having whatever trait as a prerequisite for gaining the powers (like being a nerd for Spring/knowledge, being an artsy type for Winter/creation, etc), or gaining the trait later (the real-world equivalent of having higher than average Offense stats for Summer/destruction, or faster reflexes (maybe?) for Fall/Choice)? I had always assumed that the Maidens were Ozma’s daughters and they had inherited his ability to reincarnate in some cruel twist of fate, so finding out they were inadvertently made just to be barrier maidens is a little disappointing to me, but it still would have been interesting if it was explored more. Like, the idea of your life being entirely uprooted because of powers most people don’t even know exist, and being mostly at the mercy of two different forces, well-intentioned or otherwise, could work so well. As it is, they are just Macguffin Carriers who open the relic doors and have about a 50% chance of being murdered by Cinder.

Secondly, the SEWs. Where do they come from, the God of Light or one of Ozma’s reincarnations? Can you be a SEW and a Maiden? Or a SEW and an Oz? Can you be all three? I know there is genocide involved, but are there really no other SEWs besides Ruby, Summer, Maria and Snuffles the Hound? Were they always Salem’s target, or did she take a while to realize that they were a threat to the Grimm? Do the powers always manifest as torches for eyes or can you do other stuff with Silver Eyes? Can the glow in the dark? Can they augment your Semblance? Are there short- and long-term effects of using the Silver Eyes? What is a typical childhood like with these eyes? What is an adulthood with them? Do they camouflage themselves by being a different color until first use? Is there a general distrust with people with these traits, or do people just flat out not know unless they’re in Oz’s or Salem’s circles? There is so little information about the Silver Eyes and it’s confusing.

Lastly, the Faunus (designs, the concept itself is already a whole different kettle of fish). It was already kind of uncomfortable making them stand ins for racial minorities, but why is it such a binary with Faunus traits? Why only make it one trait? Why not go all out with designs? The writers clearly don’t have an answer for how the Faunus came about after Humanity 1.0 was wiped out, so why not just include them in the beginning, drive home the point about how irrational and unrealistic racism is? And the heroic Faunus tend to have “cute” or “non-threatening” traits like tails and ears, but the villainous Faunus tend to have horns and stingers and such, even in the Fables, which is…something I would change. I also want more variety in traits. I want Faunus with rectangular pupils like goats. I want to know if fur/wool counts as a trait, or if it would be classified as hypertrichosis. I want to see hinged fangs, fins, gills, insect legs, hooves, chelicerae, all that neat weird stuff. If you’re going to have a half animal race, you might as well go all out.

No need to apologize, anon! I've been on tumblr for years and it wasn't until I got into rwby that I got over my own posting anxiety lol. And with that one shithead harassing rwdesters on anon rn, I understand completely why you'd want to protect yourself

The maidens absolutely need to be revamped, and I highkey agree abt giving them specific elemental powers that relate to their actual seasons. It's so weird how crwby said all the maidens have the exact same powers but Cinder only uses fire for weapons and flight, Raven only ever used ice for weapons, Fria just used ice, Penny... didn't do anything w the powers iirc, and Amber only got enough time to do some lightning and flight (seemed to be Wind powered tho so she's the most diverse in just 3 minutes lmao)

I've always loved the idea of the relics being linked to the maidens! For a while I legit thought that was the case bc Raven knew things she couldn't possibly have known (Yang being in trouble on the train, all her ominous ramblings abt Ozpin) that I thought passive aquiring of knowledge was a side affect of being the spring maiden. (I am boo boo the fool.) But having to have some specific traits or gaining boosts to already existing stats would be a cool thing to explore!

Ngl I really love the idea of incredible powers getting dropped on some random guy and the Everything that would stem from that, but I don't think it should've been in rwby's lore. If Ozcarnations need to keep track of the maidens bc they're a) very powerful and therefore dangerous, and b) keys to his magic doors (that his cane isn't a skeleton key for wtf Oz), then why the fuck would he gift his magic so that the powers would be passed on in such a messy, chaotic way? It don't add up, bruv

The show heavily implied that SEWs are a God of Light creation, but... how? Did he come back specifically to create them? Were they a throwaway to Oz in an effort to give him allies? Was it a petty project to piss off Salem? We just don't know (and probably never will). There are wayyyyy too many questions surrounding their entire existence, and their current endangered status, and I doubt crwby will answer any of them satisfactorily

I don't think there's anything stating that a person can't be a combination of SEW, maiden, and Ozcarnation. There'd be some problematic aspects regarding the fact that a woman would be forced to lug around an old man's soul in her head, so maybe it's best to leave the men to themselves on that front. Not to mention being all three would be far too much going on for a single character

Yknow, I've never thought abt the eyelights being anything but big beams of deus ex, but considering eyes are the windows to the soul, there should be smth a little... more. In their first appearance they start out looking like angel wings (rad as FUCK), so maybe they could manifest as some Soul Symbolism before going nova on grimm ass

As for consequences, yes. Absolutely. Hands down there needs to be more than a happy thoughts montage to use the damn thing (fucking patronus knock off) and there needs to be a drawback for using such an incredibly OP ability

I saw someone suggest that using the Silver Eyes would slowly deteriorate your vision, which I think would be a way more interesting thing to explore for Maria's character. Maybe she thought exposure to grimm was the real cause behind her onset blindness and wanted some distance. Maybe she knew the truth and felt guilty abt choosing herself over her duty, thus her decision to go MIA. Maybe she lost someone so dear she couldn't feel strongly enough to activate the power. Anything over the "i got scared after losing my eyes so i hid" thing that... doesn't really go anywhere

I'm def a fan of redesigning the faunus. The one animal trait thing came as a fault bc that's all Poser would allow, but good writers could've found a way to explain that while adding more traits in Maya (like Sten's lack of horns in DA:O). It might still have to be limited to a humanoid frame a la Mass Effect, but it could still work. It'd be really cool to see more animal features (fucking YES to animal eyes) and maybe even behaviors from faunus. I mean, the entire concept could basically be the wolfman variant of werewolves but w a variety of animals (or omegaverse traits if you're into that lol)

Crwby may not have an answer for how faunus came around, but I noticed they arrived at the same time as Dust, so in my (maybe someday) rewrite they're linked

some very restful boyes having a nap time ! 

Okay so let's talk about Jerboa...

Again trigger warnings. But let me start off by saying this.

I actually didn't mind the chapter delving into her past so much. BUT I get if people are triggered or don't like it.

I mean I was shocked it was in there. But it didn't bother me that much. Guess that goes to show who I am though.

I don't know guys. Like it's bad. It really is. We've got it all here. Child abuse. Brainwashing (literally) and some loss if limb. But... I don't know. Like it took me back but...

Yeah it's probably bad that I just found it more fascinating than anything else. Like it's a very good dive into how ultimate power (and time) can corrupt you. Like... Ugh. I thought it was fascinating.

But.. I don't know. It's valid that people are upset over this part. It really is. But I grew up reading animorphs and let me tell you... That is some fucked up shit. Haha. Y'all think "oh those books with the silly covers? Psh what do they have?"

Haha how about. Child soldiers. Someone gets eaten in the first book. Mind controlling slugs. Racism. Ableism. Loss of limb. PTSD literal children being mind controlled by slugs. Cannibalistic giant centipede things. Genocide. Chemical war fair.

Oh and the series ended on one of the darkest cliffhangers I have ever seen. So yeah. Guys I've grown up reading stuff like this. It does not bother me at all. It probably should... But it doesn't. In all seriousness though guys Animorphs is an amazing series and I recommend it... But keep these in mind. To be fair they actually do have a lot of humor and character... Admittedly once the ghost writers took over it took a turn but .. we don't talk about that. But yeah. (There is an actual gay alien couple in the later books though. Being in the 90s they couldn't be obvious about it but... It's there guys. It's very obviously there. And the author's confirmed it. Not in that way. Like they did all they could do to confirm with out saying it straight out.

Anyway. Sorry Animorphs is a thing for me. I can't help but rant about it.

Continuing on. Yes this is a disturbing chapter. And I can see people being freaked out about it... But to be honest y'all can probably skip it. Actually here this is what pisses me off about all this.

Why does Jerboa exist? I literally think it's just because Sutherland came up with this fascinating character backstory.. but besides that Jerboa doesn't really do anything. Besides traumatizing children. She does that very well. Like I said earlier it didn't bother me. But I'm so fucked up that even as a child I don't think it would have bothered me. Again haha animorphs. But I don't think I'd let any of my nieces or nephews listen to that part. Maybe that's my protective side coming in I don't know. Meh. Ultimately I think it depends on who it is reading it.

So here's the thing that pisses me off. Jerboa took away animus magic. Cuz that's totally a great idea.... Fuck off man. I hate this trope. Why is this a trope? Why is this a thing? Let's take magic away! (But did anyone else notice she said only living Animi. Good job Tui. If you ever want to write a future book with Animi you can now.)

But just... Okay the obvious reason Tui did this was so they can't use magic to defeat the plants... But hey guess what? What you could've done is a spell where no magic can ever cause harm. Boom. Fixed it.

Then they can't use it to just kill Wasp. They'd have to find a way around it. Isn't that more interesting than taking it away? Like I'm sorry it's just... It's so boring and stupid.

This is exactly like when in fantasy movies they always have to leave the magic behind. Oh wow magical world. Oh wow friends. Oh no you have to go home but you're okay. Cuz being normal is good.

Cut it with the condescending crap! It pissed me off when I was 6 (seriously guys Narnia was an... Event when you watched it with 6year old tree) and it ticks me off as a 21 year old adult!

We're reading these books for the magic! Don't introduce it and then write it out so lazily! Even as a kid this would upset me.

But um yeah. So Jerboa? I kind of wish you didn't exist. Yes your backstory is... Deliciously tragic. And I'm just the sicko to find it fascinating. But y'know what. I could've lived without the taking magic away. No.

And another reason this upsets me?

Turtle. Hey anyone remember the end of his book. When he had a shut down when his magic was taken away? A vital piece of himself? No?

Well it seems like Tui has too. And it just... Fuck guys. I cried at that part! And I was ecstatic when he got it back. But nah guys.

Animus magic is too convenient. Better scratch that. Not try and be creative.

Blegh...

Oh wait... Hold on. Yeah so remember the ring? Yes the magic ring? That I'm kind of on the fence about? Guess what it adds another layer against Jerboa doing what she did. The ring shows the good magic can do. And then we had the crown showing the bad... I just .. I don't know I feel about this guy's. I just wish they weren't a thing. Cuz now I just feel like there could've been a dialogue about the good and evil of magic. But there's not really. Let's be real here. Once again one person made a decision without talking to anyone else. And I hate that. I want dialogue guys. I want conflict and then talking. You can't have one person be it all.

Cuz that's just as bad as one person running the show. But this is never gonna come up again. Just like Peacemaker is just gonna... Be Peacemaker. And it's all just... So upsetting I don't know.

I am so genuinely upset by these cheap cop outs guys. And I'm tired.

Anyway sorry guys. Prolly not the rant y'all expected. But I'm tired now. And emotionally drained from writing this.

Sounding totally cliche. I miss the magic of this series. But I feel like it's been getting drained from it. Literally and figuratively.

i’m sorry to post so much negativity but the call out post from yesterday was necessary & for this i honestly just need to get this off my chest. i don’t have a personal & am not about to post this to fb so here we are. its more of a personal rant/vent than anything & people are more than welcome to scroll past ESPECIALLY bc this has nothing to do with rp.

it’s my personal thoughts in response to the scandal with bibi currently going on. technically it’s a couple weeks old ( ? ) & the song itself was actually released in january so i have no idea why its becoming a problem now but i only just heard about it last night. it’s been blown way out of proportion tbh but since people are making it an issue i’m gonna do my best to contribute something constructive to the conversation. note that this is highly educational about the reality of the holocaust. & both that & explanation of the scandal all lead up to my personal thoughts on the topic. there’s a lot of context that’s omitted to fit people’s narratives & i’m not about to contribute to that so this is pretty long. i also break down her korean lyric a little more than you see in the basic translations. not gonna say my translation is the most accurate one out there but i am currently studying korean & know that when you switch to english you lose a lot of nuance so it’s only natural that you’re gonna miss some stuff. but if anyone is fluent & thinks i’ve gotten something wrong then feel free to say something ! like i said i’m still just learning.

i’ll also say that if you don’t know much about the holocaust in general besides “hitler was bad & killed a bunch of jews” ( which is no fault of your own ! ) then this post might be interesting to give some more historical context you might not have learned in school.

you’re more than welcome to link people to this post for whatever reason. & i’m not sure anyone would want to, but i ask that you don’t reblog as this does include personal details about some of my family history as well as difficulties i have personally faced as the result of being jewish.

as a disclaimer: there is a heavy focus on the experience of the jewish people for obvious reasons & this in no way negates the struggles other peoples have faced. we’re not the only people that have struggled with some of these issues i mention & i don’t claim that, just as the struggles of other minority groups do not negate my own. we as a jewish people have been repeatedly silenced over the god knows how long we’ve existed so when i eventually discuss personal issues don’t come after me saying that “well you’re not the only one that had ( insert hate crime here ) happen !” i know i’m not, that’s the point of the post. but don’t dismiss me, it’s not a good look for you. also the jewish people are a minority group in most parts of the world & if you disagree, at least read the post before arguing with me about it.

trigger warnings under the cut: nazi terminology, antisemitism, ableism, homophobia, forced sterilisation, death threats, death as a general topic, genocide mention, holocaust mention, slavery mention, racism & covid mention. i also just say nazi a bunch, like a lot.

i’m going to start this off by taking this time to remind you that racism was a huge issue in ww2 & the holocaust. if anything white jews ( or just jews who had aryan features ) were able to “pass” as non-jewish far more easily than people who weren’t white or even just generally “looked” jewish. the nazis promoted xenophobia & racism against all "non-aryan" races. african & asian residents of germany, & roma people, as well as black prisoners of war. they were all victims of nazi racial policies. this included hundreds of african-german children despite having german heritage. to quote hitler, jews were seen as responsible for “bringing [ black ] people into the rhineland with the ultimate idea of bastardising the white race which they hate & thus lowering its cultural & political level so that the jew might dominate.” & anyone who wasn’t aryan was seen as “bastardising the european continent at its core.” hence the treatment of the african-german children i just mentioned.

it’s also important to mention that these racial policies did not affect white south africans, anyone white in general & europeans of gentile ancestry from other continents were all exempt. latin americans who had “obvious” germanic or white aryan ancestry were also exempt. why? because of racism. the lighter your skin, the better your chances were.

as a separate note, japanese people were considered “honorary aryans” because of the pact they signed to be a part of the axis. hitler also spoke about this in multiple public political statements, with one in particular talking about how both the japanese & chinese peoples had a right to be proud of their history & admitted that said history was “superior” to that of the german people. so as far as i’m aware, they were the only asian peoples known to have not been deliberately imprisoned or killed. but given the nazi’s treatment of other asian peoples at the time, i don’t doubt that there were a number of them who were subject to the policy anyway. again, why? because of racism.

i’m also going to take this time to mention that while the jewish people & non-white or non-white passing people were among the main targets of the holocaust, that does not negate the fact that other peoples were also heavily targeted whether it was psychologically, physically, or emotionally on top of those who were also killed in the mass genocide we heard about. most notably ( but not exclusively mind you ), this included non-heterosexual people & disabled people. disabled people were among the first to be targeted by nazis & set a precedent for the treatment of jews that would come to follow. a large portion of disabled people across europe were forcibly sterilised due to their disabilities as well a significant number of gay men that were chemically castrated by court order. we also have no idea how many of these men were also institutionalised if they didn’t agree to conform & refuse to continue their “homosexual ways”.

now that some of the historical significance racism had in the holocaust has been mentioned, the majority of the people who were upset or offended by bibi’s use of the term nazi ( which i explain more later dw ) were either of german decent or jewish, or simply third parties who wanted to support the voice of people who were hurt by its use. the fact of the matter is that the holocaust was the most recent major incident in a long line of acts of hate towards the jewish people. & by long line i mean a large majority of our holidays covers “did they try to kill us” & “did they manage to do it”. we were killed, enslaved, children were separated from families, etc... not to mention the numerous attempts to separate us from our religion & culture through repeatedly being conquered by various groups. we talk about miracle after miracle because we believe that it’s because of those miracles that we as a people survived all these things. but the fact that this is our history doesn’t mean that we don’t continue to face some these issues even now in 2021.

i think people forget how rampant of an issue antisemitism is today, media aside ( which i could write a goddamn essay about, including the rpc btw ). our synagogues are the target of bombings & shootings. even a school in toronto that my aunt works at was forced to evacuate because of a bomb threat not long ago. nazi symbolism like swastikas or general hate speech have been gratified across anything you can think of, including the walls of schools i attended growing up.

i had a coworker who had such a hatred for jewish people & anyone that said anything positive about israel that other people i worked with felt it was necessary to tell me he was talking to others, threatening that he was going to hurt or kill me because they thought it was a genuine threat to my safety. i had several of these same coworkers promise not to leave me in a room alone with said person because both they & i were afraid his guy was going to try to hurt me ( or worse ) & i nearly had a panic attack at work when they first told me about it. another incident with this same coworker happened i had taken off jewellery/accessories before work including a leather bracelet that said israel on it that i had gotten when i visited last. i was sure i had left it at work but “no one had seen it”. i found out when i went in to work 2 days later that he had taken this bracelet & hung it over the faucet of the industrial kitchen sink so it could “dry” when it was obvious that it would ( & did ) only suffer from water damage when it was likely no where near the sink when he found it. all because he wanted to destroy it & hurt me when it was clear it was something that was important to me. by this time i had been wearing that bracelet for years & afterwards it was so damaged that i had to stop wearing it for fear of it breaking. with it i also had a ring that had a jewish prayer on it which i can’t imagine he liked much either. & i genuinely think i’m lucky that he didn’t just throw them both out. when my manager continued to do nothing about him & his treatment towards me ( which inconvenienced everyone from coworkers to customers ), i left that job out of concern for my safety.

i have also had to fight & argue about the fact that jewish privilege does not exist because “the jewish people never suffered from racial profiling” ( which isn’t true since a large number of jews aren’t white anyway? ) & because there’s a lot of jewish representation in hollywood even when half of it is just perpetuating hurtful/negative stereotypes. white privilege is not jewish privilege & it’s embarrassing how many times i have had to say that. i have had people constantly dismiss these very real & upsetting experiences i’ve had because they think they or other groups have had it “worse”. i remember one night i was so upset after trying to have a conversation with “friends” about why jewish privilege wasn’t real that i literally called one of my only jewish friends crying because suddenly the fact that the fact i had to quit my job because i was scared for my safety wasn’t enough because “there are a ton of jewish directors in hollywood”. i called him because he was one of the few people i knew wouldn’t try to argue with me when i explained myself. i left that first conversation feeling so goddamn invalidated by people i trusted enough to have a conversation about something that i was already upset by, that it took me hours to calm down. i’ve found it really difficult to talk about my experiences since then because it seems any time i talk about my experiences it’s not bad enough to warrant any sort of sympathy & it turns into a conversation about the struggles other people face. i mean, someone else having a heart attack doesn’t mean i don’t need stitches on a stab wound.

on other occasions, i remember my parents sitting my brothers & i down to check in & make sure we hadn’t experienced anything bad because we were openly jewish. let me repeat that, my parents were so concerned about our well being that they asked on several different occasions if we had ever been targeted. not by family directly, but i’ve been told not to wear my star of david necklace over my shirt in case someone sees it & i’ve seen jewish friends of mine talk about them taking of their kippot ( which is like a religious hat essentially ) in certain situations because it was like having a target on their back. none of that is privileged. again, white privilege is not jewish privilege.

getting back to the holocaust for a moment, i’m not going to go into too much detail just because if i’m being honest, i don’t have that much detail to begin with. my grandfather & his family lived in greece at the time, with all of them very much so involved with & practising judaism. they’d heard of what was happening across europe because of nazis/hitler but the only person my grandfather could convince to flee the country was his cousin. every other member of that side of the family died in the holocaust & an entire part of my family tree was completely wiped out. i lost a huge part of my connection to my heritage & i struggle to connect with my greek roots because all the people who tied me to that are either are dead or were separated from it themselves by having grown up in canada.

as a kid, i also went to hebrew school. & among the many things we were taught, every single year when yom hashoah ( holocaust remembrance day ) came, we retold the story of the holocaust just as we retold the stories of all the previous times different groups tried to wipe out the jewish people. every single year we are given a reminder of what happened & hope that it may never happen again. we were taught the names of people who helped us so that we don’t forget what they did for our people, we were taught the names & stories of people who survived. we were also taught that the word nazi is the term for a people who are based around hatred. we say the term nazi because that’s what they were & still are. that name has weight & the people who were involved do not deserve to be separated from it. but we were also taught about how many of the german people themselves were the victims of hitler & what i’ll call “true” nazis. people were threatened or killed if they refused to join the regime & a lot of people had no choice. we put blame on the perpetrators of the ideals, not on the people who were doing what they thought they needed to in order to keep themselves & their families alive. we do no equate nazis with the german people as a whole because we recognise they are not the same. or at the very least that’s what i was taught.

so as background for the scandal itself, bibi is a korean hip hop artist who recently received a lot of backlash in regards to a rap verse she wrote in the song code clear ( linked HERE if you want to listen to the full song but it’s 21 minutes long so be warned ) & HERE’s a link to a tik tok showing her verse specifically though i can’t confirm the translation is perfectly accurate. the song in full is talking about the situation of the world with heavy emphasis about covid as well as a lot of mention of racism & was a collaboration project that featured 62 individual artists, only one of which was bibi.

the song overall was well received but one of the lines in bibi’s verse was “[ their hate ] is suffocating, they be like nazis”. so first i’m going to link the initial apology she posted to her instagram HERE. her personal apology on instragram was not the only one that was made, there was second apology that was later released by her company’s ceo ( who i’m also a fan of by the way, but for the life of me i can’t find an article to link with the translation of the statement ).

her intentions in the verse made it clear that she was comparing the current injustices of racism to nazi germany & everything that happened with the peoples nazis targeted. whether she knew how deep the issue of racism was within the nazi regime is unclear. honestly i don’t think she did but that’s not really the point. i think she saw the mass genocide of people that didn’t deserve it & compared that with the experiences we’re familiar with in racism as we know it today. personally i think that’s good. she’s making a connection to a moment in history we look back on & recognise that was fucked up. she’s not minimising the magnitude of what happened, if anything she’s reminding us of it. that as a concept something that the jewish people constantly do because we don’t want to forget what happened & the lives that were lost. the holocaust wasn’t something in the distant past the way the maccabees took control of judea & fought against the seleucid king so they could reinstate the jewish religion back in 200 whatever the fuck bce. this was less than 100 years ago. there are still people alive today that lived through ww2 & survived the holocaust.

bibi’s lyrics are also completely taken out of context. people see that she used the word nazi & instantly said that it’s offensive or unnecessary. other people were arguing that it’s perfectly fine to use because it’s “history” or that “most of the people saying it probably weren’t affected during the holocaust” as if what happened doesn’t continue to affect people ( whether they themselves realise they’re being affected or not ). i’ve also seen people comment across various platforms that she shouldn’t be comparing traumas & to a degree that’s true, but the persecution people face is rooted in the same thing. nazi is not a word that’s meant to make people comfortable but it’s also not a slur. it’s the term these people used to describe themselves when murdering & oppressing people in order to “prove” their superiority whether it was the result of antisemitism or racism ( which as i’ve explained, played a much larger part in the nazi regime than people want to admit ) or any of the other reasons i listed earlier.

people don’t want to see the word bc it’s uncomfortable to think about such a dark time in history & they don’t like to be reminded of what happened. other people don’t get that luxury. i get that some german people have guilt about this part of their ancestry & even more people that want to leave it in the past but they don’t get to make that decision. & for the people stating that it’s okay because it’s in the past have completely missed the point. the comparison is there because people are still being targeted undeservedly & for things that are out of their control. not to mention that nazis themselves aren’t even a thing of the past. neonazis are still prevalent today & don’t solely target jewish people. & once more for the class... why? because of racism! just because people don’t associate the constant oppression & murder of people of colour today with mass genocide doesn’t mean that it’s not still happening. she made that analogy because there’s a parallel.

people who were hurt by hearing her lyrics are valid & i’m not saying they’re not. my jewish experience is not the only jewish experience. but just because you don’t want to hear about something doesn’t mean people can’t talk about it. she didn’t “ruin” anything with her use of the word nazi. in her lyrics she’s talking about how racism & hate spreads faster & is more dangerous than covid & she’s not entirely in the wrong by saying that. it definitely spreads faster than covid did, i mean we saw that happen with the increase in attacks against asians all over the world because they were “blamed” for spreading covid & that fear got to people before the virus ever reached them physically. she also talks about how this hatred is a never ending cycle which is also true.

leading into the line people actually took offence to, i’m not necessarily saying that nazi was the best word to use. it’s not a word to be thrown around without thinking but also, she’s using it as an analogy & isn’t directly calling anyone who’s racist a nazi. my main thing is that if you felt attacked by the comparison to the term nazi, maybe evaluate why you think modern racists are different from nazis in history. the hate is the same, the sense of superiority is the same, the desire to wipe out people who they think are “less than” is the same. words absolutely have power & again, i’m not sure she understood the full implication of using nazi in her lyrics but that doesn’t negate her intention of the lyrics & the fact that, technically speaking, she didn’t say anything incorrect.

if anything, the issue with the lyric wasn’t the word nazi itself like it seems everyone is arguing about. it’s the combination of suffocation with the word nazi as well as one of the lines immediately after talking about how the best weapon is a sharp intellect & how with their tongues as their weapons, good will win ( which is really simplifying things translation-wise tbf ). the reason for the possible issue about the line using the word suffocation was the fact that the most common cause of death in concentration camps during ww2 was the gas chambers where people would be locked in side & choke to death, suffocating on the gas that was released.

in her apology, bibi also mentions about how some of what she was trying to say is lost in translation & i definitely agree with that. if you break down the line more, the lyrics are “숨통 조여 they be like nazi”, where 숨통 means windpipe & 조여 comes from verb 조이다, which generally means to tighten but can also be used to describe feeling anxious. so when translated directly into english it is talking about suffocation but korean is infinitely more nuanced than english is. they have a million ways to say the same thing because they have very different implications. realistically a more accurate korean verb to say suffocate would be  질식시키다 which is more closely translated as to suffocate/asphyxiate/choke. in my opinion the lyrics overall read more as people who are like nazis ie who are hateful & hurting/killing people, make her anxious & that’s a totally valid sentiment. you could also argue that it’s a double entendre by referencing how important the phrase “i can’t breathe” has been within the black lives matter movement so it’s still an accurate analogy to make in my opinion.

also some people are actually out here arguing that because she used the word nazi that somehow means she's a nazi sympathiser but anyone who thinks that is fucking stupid so i don’t really feel the need to address that one.

as for the bit about intelligence, i think it was just poor placement more than anything. the idea of a line about intelligence being the best weapon is fine in theory, but intelligence can’t save everyone & people didn’t die in the holocaust because they were dumb. additionally, just because people survived it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a victory. that’s really the only part that rubs me the wrong way but honestly i don’t really blame her for that either? it’s following her talking about how people are fighting & how their voices need to be heard. the holocaust isn’t something that’s taught all that in depth in the korean education system. they cover other things in greater detail because that’s what had a greater lasting impact on the korean people & bibi isn’t at fault for that.

realistically i think people are arguing about the wrong thing & see one comment out of context & run with it. maybe i’m not the majority opinion on this but something being a sensitive topic doesn’t automatically mean it’s inappropriate. i stand by the idea that bibi did nothing wrong but even if she did, she showed clear remorse for hurting people with her choice of words regardless of her intention & said that she would educate herself so that it wouldn’t happen again. people are allowed to make mistakes out of ignorance, it’s if they don’t show initiative to educate themselves afterwards that’s the problem. call people out & hold them accountable when they fuck up, don’t condemn them forever as if they’re a bad person unless they show a pattern or refuse to change ( especially when they weren’t malicious with their intentions as it’s obvious bibi was not ).

anyway that’s my 2 cents. it was kind of difficult to write about but i do feel better now that it’s not all in my head. & if you took the time to read this then i appreciate you & hope you’re having a good day/night

science fiction needs to step up

so like if we're going by mainstream modern popular stuff, mainly star wars, star trek, mass effect, firefly, starcraft, alien/predator, planet of the apes, halo, half life, bethesda fallout, etc, lots of problems with modern society are just directly copy and pasted into the sci fi series.

now obviously there's people like mary shelley, frank herbert, douglas adams, and hg wells who don't fall into these trappings, and there's a difference between hard sci-fi and a space western (of which the entirety of the previous passage fall under), but space westerns tend to be what most modern popular sci-fi series tend to fall under because of a predominant majority of first-world media consumers tendency to gravitate more towards westerns considering this group of people is mostly The West, and also the tendency for those people to ignore actual science. space westerns is the topic.

they're all built pretty closely off of european colonial imperialism and the specific corruption associated with religion and capitalism. in star wars, the empire is nazis. the borg are commies and the klingons are *tugs collar* you know. in mass effect the spectres are the government's shadow ops who operate above the law which means that the government can do whatever they damn well please, laws be damned, just like am*rica does. the terran dominion and weyland-yutani and the apes and the covenant and the combine and the enclave are all just direct reskins of actual systems that exist in today's world, and countless other pieces of plot in those stories can be found to have roots in racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, misogyny, and various imperialist cultures such as roman catholicism, the inquisition, ottoman islam, the hunnu, the conquistadors, etc.

now there's nothing wrong with using the empire and darth sidious and stormtroopers as a space version of nazis, hitler, and the storm troopers. there's nothing wrong with having space orcs enslave space goats to appease their magic space demon overlords as a direct euphemism for the complexities of slavery but in space [thats legit the plot of warcraft I'm not even kidding]. there's nothing WRONG per se with a corporation trying to use killer aliens as a war profiteering gig or for scientific research in a work of fiction. countless societies have tried to commit genocide, enslavement, and greedy gains at the cost of innocent lives. the issue is the prevalence of these specific issues being the ONLY PROBLEMS anyone ever encounters in space sci-fi.

I mean there is the overwhelming trope of, eh... "space jews" which, translating from tropes, is when certain alien races are obsessed with obtaining money and typically have large noses or horns or other antisemitic caricatures and stereotypes.

AHEM. FOR EXAMPLE.

this is of course bad and lazy writing and character design. but weirdly enough Star Wars & Harry Potter are nearly the highest grossing film series in history. BIG FUCKIN OOF, GUYS.

and that's the problem! they can get away with this bad and lazy writing and still make money!

even series I like such as futurama do this. dr zoidberg is a fountain of jewish stereotypes. the volus as well, especially compared to the turians. and yeah I do like star wars but you literally can't name one alien race from SW that isn't directly lifted from a real world culture and then bastardized. granted I really can't name any races besides dathomirians because star wars worldbuilding is trash.

but I'm really sick and tired of seeing things in media and just sighing and saying "yeah that's just X but in space". it's really depressing that the visions for the future and fiction that are successful are all built on things that sure might not seem bad on the surface if it's just one of them but it just keeps happening over and over and over again.

and hey maybe watto, griphook, the volus, and the warcraft goblins ARENT all stereotypes of jewish people... but uh... it's not really probable

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #138 & #139

Sun Jul 28 2019 [02:24 PM] Wack'd: So apparently the whole "60s issues colored Wyatt white so as a compromise let's give him a slight tan" was not an invention of John Bryne

[02:24 PM] Aleph Null: that's supposed to be a tan? [02:25 PM] Wack'd: That or he's covered himself in strawberry yogurt [02:25 PM] ThreeOfFour: maybe its the widows peak but is that Namor? [02:25 PM] Wack'd: Nope! It's Wyatt Wingfoot! [02:26 PM] Aleph Null: dang, you're a wing, and you have feet? [02:27 PM] Wack'd: Under Kirby's pen Wyatt's hair varied from a standard close cut to something vaguely Clark Kent-ish [02:27 PM] Bocaj: Wait. [02:27 PM] Bocaj: Namor has wing feet [02:27 PM] Bocaj: HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM [02:27 PM] Wack'd: His hairline's receding a bit, though I have no idea if this is intentional or just how Buscema draws him [02:27 PM] Bocaj: HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM [02:27 PM] Wack'd: *Anyway* [02:28 PM] Wack'd: So wait--I have questions

[02:28 PM] Wack'd: 1. Did Johnny drop out of school? Probably, right? I mean, he’s not graduating today [02:28 PM] Bocaj: Damn johnny is a drop out [02:30 PM] Wack'd: 2. Metro College is nearby? And has phones? Besides "Stan forgot about me" there's no good reason why he hasn't spoken to Johnny or the rest of the Four in, uh--five years [02:31 PM] Wack'd: I get the idea that if he's going to return you want to make it kind of a big deal, but I'm far more comfortable with the idea that he's still been around and just not doing anything superheroey? [02:31 PM] Wack'd: Because now it's just like "oh, I've moved on with my life but I should probably invite my old best friend who's also a drop out to my graduation ceremony" [02:32 PM] Wack'd: "By breaking into his apartment" [02:32 PM] Umbramatic: oh [02:33 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, Reed decides to give the ceremony (and subsequent chill sesh at Wyatt's place) a miss in case Sue comes back [02:33 PM] Wack'd: Look, dude, I'm sure she does she'll call first? Or leave a note? [02:33 PM] Wack'd: Whatever [02:34 PM] Bocaj: When you refuse to make the first move it involves a lot of sitting by the telephone [02:34 PM] Wack'd: In fairness she's deliberately gone off the grid with his infant child and asked that no one tell Reed‏ where she is [02:35 PM] Wack'd: Not really a lot of opportunities for first moves here [02:35 PM] Bocaj: Has he asked [02:35 PM] Wack'd: Also fair [02:35 PM] Wack'd: But I'm pretty sure when someone doesn't want you to know where they are, going out of your way to find out is stalking, and that's generally frowned upon [02:36 PM] Bocaj: Well like he could have asked someone to send her a message saying he wanted to talk [02:36 PM] Wack'd: True [02:36 PM] Wack'd: You make a lot of good points [02:36 PM] maxwellelvis: True, but the problem is this is Reed Richards we're talking about here. [02:36 PM] Bocaj: Since Reed Is Never Wrong in Reed's Mind he's stuck in limbo waiting for her to come crawling back [02:36 PM] maxwellelvis: He'd have to delegate it entirely to someone else [02:36 PM] maxwellelvis: because aside from what Bocaj just said, Reed tends to make a big production out of everything. [02:37 PM] Wack'd: John Buscema awakes with a start and realizes that nothing about the team's civvie fashion sense has changed in thirteen years

[02:38 PM] Umbramatic: shameful [02:38 PM] Bocaj: "Oh shit, fashion changes" [02:40 PM] Wack'd: 1. Humphrey Bogart was a major movie star and *definitely* has folks fussing over his hair.  2. I'm finding a *lot* of photos of Lloyd Nolan with immaculately trimmed facial hair.  3. Oh god Ben's a "what about the troops" guy

[02:41 PM] maxwellelvis: Just change the references to 'Nam-era stuff and he sounds like Walter Sobchak [02:41 PM] Umbramatic: yufoufgtpit;u;jo'piop [02:41 PM] Wack'd: I'm starting to think that last issue all of his talk about being old wasn't him being brainwashed, that's just how Gerry Conway thinks he should behave [02:42 PM] Wack'd: Which is not exactly endearing me to his run [02:42 PM] Umbramatic: rip [02:42 PM] Wack'd: Well that's ominous

[02:42 PM] Umbramatic: eeeep [02:45 PM] Wack'd: So, Wyatt's tribe has a name now. "Keewazi" (EDITOR’S NOTE: I’d apparently forgotten Lee and Kirby explicitly made him Comanche.) [02:46 PM] Wack'd: I'm sure that was talked over with a lot of Native Americans not just a bunch of randomly-picked syllables [02:47 PM] Aleph Null: marvel bad [02:47 PM] Umbramatic: marvel no [02:48 PM] Wack'd: "I haven't seen Johnny in about five years, so it's definitely socially acceptable to laugh at him"

[02:48 PM] Wack'd: That said, he looks like a friggin Brady [02:48 PM] Bocaj: Which is weird because Marvel Avengers tended to leave it vague and Claremont X Men picked specific real tribes [02:49 PM] Umbramatic: now i'm just imagining a laugh track at all mentions of johnny's hair [02:49 PM] Umbramatic: and it's the Tidus Laugh [02:52 PM] Wack'd: I will say this, to Buscema's credit (and maybe Conway's?)--there's definitely still in "old west" aesthetic here, but the outfits are not nearly as "I watched a movie once" as they were last time we saw these dudes. Also: smart move avoiding teepees. It's the 70s! People want efficient heating!

[02:52 PM] Wack'd: (We didn't actually see any dwellings last time. Mostly just Wyatt's dad sitting on a carpet in the middle of an open field) [02:53 PM] Wack'd: Uuuuuuh "kings" yeah sure

[02:54 PM] Umbramatic: big mountain boi [02:56 PM] Wack'd: And with regards to "warriors" [02:58 PM] Wack'd: Oh no, Johnny did drop out!

[02:59 PM] Umbramatic: poor johnny [02:59 PM] Wack'd: So the Keewazi are in Oklahoma so jot that down [02:59 PM] Umbramatic: oh [03:00 PM] Wack'd: Wyatt traveled a long way to go to a state school! [03:01 PM] Wack'd: That explains nothing, thank you

[03:01 PM] Aleph Null: this is just what men are like [03:02 PM] Wack'd: Also last time we saw this joker he was just Mysterio but earlier and worse [03:02 PM] Wack'd: So this should honestly be a cakewalk [03:02 PM] Umbramatic: good [03:04 PM] Wack'd: nerts

[03:05 PM] Wack'd: Fortunately it turns out that attacking Miracle Man himself breaks his concentration, so no more rock man [03:05 PM] Wack'd: Coming out to gloat--*always* a bad idea [03:08 PM] Wack'd: Oh wow so Miracle Man's new backstory sure is something [03:08 PM] Wack'd: He sought out a tribe of Native Americans who'd mastered "total mental control" and had dwindled to seven despite never having interacted with a white guy before [03:09 PM] Umbramatic: oh [03:09 PM] Wack'd: They agree to a free and equal trade of information, but once Miracle Man has learned all he cares to he murders them all [03:10 PM] Wack'd: Nice of Conway to leave future writers an escape hatch in case this one day turns out to be problematic

[03:11 PM] Wack'd: Which it did, I'm pretty sure, the second it was written [03:11 PM] Umbramatic: yes [03:12 PM] Wack'd: If nothing else this is all fairly on brand for a white guy.

[03:12 PM] maxwellelvis: Well, the next time we see Miracle Man is in Marvel Two-In-One #8, written by Steve Gerber, and he doubles down on the weirdness, as I've said before. [03:13 PM] Wack'd: That's cool so long as he doesn't also double down on the racism

[03:15 PM] Wack'd: ...sure

[03:16 PM] maxwellelvis: To paraphrase Rifftrax, "Either the laws of physics no longer apply, or [Johnny] is playing Halo 2" [03:17 PM] Umbramatic: these are superhero comics, physics are just a suggesstion [03:18 PM] Wack'd: Okay, so the philosophy at play here is kind of nonsense bonkers, but I really want to hone in on the "city he has created on these barren sands." The sands weren't barren! People lived here! They were using it! Christ, Conway!

[03:19 PM] maxwellelvis: Not by choice, mind you. Though I'm not sure if Wyatt's living on a reservation or not. [03:20 PM] Wack'd: Lee and Kirby certainly seemed to think so. Conway and Buscema have issued no statement on the matter [03:20 PM] maxwellelvis: And IIRC most reservations were deliberately placed in the most desolate areas the feds could find. [03:21 PM] Wack'd: But still, it's super shitty to talk about someone's home as though you could be using this land better. [03:21 PM] Wack'd: It tends to be a big anti-Palestinian talking point--"it's good the Jews came in because it's not like those idiots were doing anything worthwhile"--so I'm a little sensitive to it [03:22 PM] Umbramatic: ah, geez [03:22 PM] maxwellelvis: Gotcha [03:23 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, Johnny, Ben, and Medusa make their way back to the surface, and Miracle Man conjures some monsters for them to fight [03:24 PM] Wack'd: And then when things start going south he summons a cyclone to wipe them all away [03:25 PM] Wack'd: Reed Richards Is Useless™

[03:26 PM] Umbramatic: LOOK BEHIND YOU REED [03:26 PM] Wack'd: We're going to find out about that next issue, apparently [03:26 PM] Wack'd: And meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Franklin without a high-pitched scream and then passes out [03:27 PM] Wack'd: Sue decides not to send for a doctor because "somehow I know he's alright" [03:27 PM] Wack'd: Good instincts, Sue [03:28 PM] Wack'd: Back to the main story! The cyclone harmlessly drops everyone off a few miles away from Miracle Man's city [03:28 PM] Wack'd: And yeah, the Keewazi live on a reservation [03:29 PM] Wack'd: And so Wyatt, Johnny, Ben, and Medusa build a raft and head upstream back towards the reservation, with Johnny using his fire powers as a "motor" for the boat [03:29 PM] Wack'd: I'm sure that much open flame next to a wooden raft is definitely a good idea [03:30 PM] Wack'd: I think Miracle Man might actually be the most morally reprehensible villain in *Fantastic Four* yet

[03:30 PM] Wack'd: A genocidal colonist and a potential rapist to boot [03:30 PM] Umbramatic: ew [03:31 PM] maxwellelvis: Next time we see him, he'll start trying to become God. Not hyperbole [03:32 PM] Wack'd: Apparently Miracle Man is planning on destroying the entire earth! Jesus!

[03:33 PM] Umbramatic: ah yes, the classic supervillain plan, blow up ze earth [03:33 PM] Wack'd: More mook fights. Medusa is kicking some serious ass this issue, effortlessly flinging around three at a time [03:35 PM] Wack'd: Ben, meanwhile, has gone after the Man himself--and this fight is too fucking good to deprive you of

[03:35 PM] Umbramatic: BALOOM! [03:35 PM] Wack'd: God I love me some Buscema punches [03:37 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, Miracle Man tries to get up one last time, but is spirited away by the ghosts of the Cheemuzwa tribe he wiped out, who hope they can cure him of his megalomania. Awfully magnanimous of them. [03:37 PM] Wack'd: Why didn't they do this earlier? shrug [03:38 PM] Bocaj: There was a character from Fairy Tail who was raised by a first nations esque tribe but then it turned out They Were Ghosts All Along so character was free to join the main cast [03:38 PM] Bocaj: Also I hate Fairy Tail [03:38 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, we go out on a cliffhanger, the thing Reed should've looked behind him that was a Negative Zone alarm light

Soulless Riffing: Brainless Ch.10 + 11.

I got a supernatural action/romance book series as a gift that’s just riddled with stuff that I hate….and as a steampunk Victorian London action romance story filled with werewolves and vampires…it’s yeah gonna be easy to poke fun at.

I just want to say, it’s totally cool if you like this story or ones like it!  It’s certainly a better caliber than a lot of what I make fun of…however…I can’t help but want to make fun of it.

Over here for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7+8th, and 9th.

Chapter 10 is short so I threw in 11 too! SO FUCK IT HERE GOES!

Chapter 10

So this zombie bursts in to attack Alexia and Lord Akeldama.  The zombie’s clever plan is to just start…pouring chloroform on the floor. I don’t think that’s how that works but lol ok whatever. Immediately the super powerful vampire is out cold.  They talk about how gaudy and huge Lord Akeldama’s house is, so I totally pictured the zombie kicking the door open, pouring it, and even though he’s still like 50 feet away he’s out like a light.

So my head canon for this is the zombie is like, “Well they’re obviously going to get away! Why bother!?” So he just pours out a medicine bottle’s worth of chloroform out of annoyed futility. Lord Akeldama since he’s such a DANDY thinks the zombie poured some kind of staining liquid like wine all over his centuries old, priceless Turkish rug.  He’s so mortified that his favorite rug is ruined and feints on the spot.

Now this scenario makes sense, YOU’RE WELCOME!

Alexia is able to hit the zombie in the head 3 times before she realizes that’s not working and the fumes OVERCOME HER! YES SHE LITERALLY GETS THE VAPORS!

THANK FUCK! FOR ACTUAL DRAMA!

When she wakes up she’s being dragged bound and gagged into the Hypocras Club for scientists.  She overhears some shady biz about how they want to experiment on Lord Akledama.  She also notices an obnoxiously prominent octopus motif in the place.  It might as well read,

“Alexia turned the octopus-shaped knob, of the octopus-shaped door, to reveal an octopus-shaped hallway, with live octopuses hanging from the wall all wondering where they got such a bad rep from.”

The two of them get thrown in a cell and are able to undo their gags.  The less cool version of Blackadder’s Prince George (Lord Akeldama) explains that the zombie-thing is an automaton or basically a fleshy robot/golem.  He also explains that the robot can only be undone if you speak the magic word. Looks as if safe words work much better in this universe than they ever did in 50 shades!

 ALSO JUST KIDDING CAUSE THERE’S ANOTHER WAY TO STOP IT BUT WON’T BE REVEALED UNTIL IT’S A SUPER TENSE MOMENT! HARDY HAR HAR!

But we actually get a genuinely good scene after this where Lord Akledama talks about the fact they both may die.  He says that, if it’s possible, he wants Alexia to hold his hand so he can see the sun one last time.  It’s cheesy, and probably not going to be applicable in the situation they’re in, but it’s really sweet and sad and I like it.  The baddies then come back to drag Akledama out of the cell, presumably to be tortured to death.

NO! I WAS JUST STARTING TO ACTUALLY LIKE HIM!

Say something Nice Faps:

Actual plot

No or little mention of the dumbass ship

Akledama wanting to see the sun.

Chapter 11

So Alexia is not having the best time in the cell by herself but eventually she hears voices. We have super unsubtle exposition that boils down to.

“So yeah we’re torturing werewolves and vampires, so we can figure out how to genocide them REAL GOOD!”

Hoo boy listen. The only other racist thing against vampires/werewolves we have seen in action is a woman talk briefly about how untoward it is that a business is catering to THOSE kinds of people. I will not count all the vague times Alexia alludes to them being oppressed with no concrete examples.

Going from, Bad person is annoyed they may have to glance at a vampire while at a cafe, to inhuman experiments meant to further genocide is AT BEST a huge jump and at worse flat out feels entirely separate from the setting created.

Fun Fact: Racism isn’t a child predator who hides in the shadows and pops out when you need a scapegoat.  Racism is fucking everywhere effecting everything.

Don’t try to add racism allusions in your story if you can’t grasp that fundamental concept.

Faps, nobody picked up steampunk werewolf fucker for commentary on race. And besides the inability to grasp the complexity of racism is going to seem quaint next to some of the dumb writing bullshit coming up next.

So during this conversation this mysterious bad man also states, “We have a random human in this cell, cause she was there lol.”

“Can I see her?”

“Lol why not!?”

So we open up the cell to meet the big baddie Siemons, whom, I’m probably just going to refer to as childish evilguy nicknames for awhile cause his characterization is as on the nose as you can get.  Like no joke, whenever they mention him smiling it’s, “He smiles psychotically.” 

The guy, Mr. bigbad was talking to turns out to be #1 Stud MacDougall!

GASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSP

Actually I totally called this cause she mentions 3 times during their short conversation that she recognizes the 2nd voice, it would be most DRAMATIC, and cause I have money down that he’s secretly a bad, bad man so Alexia doesn’t feel bad about not fucking a fatty. She’s not shallow; he’s just a bad person you see.

BUT, to this story’s credit MacDougall is AGHAST to find Alexia in there, goes to her side, and demands she be set free at once.

Evilbaddy Von Octo-dump is like, “Oh! She’s Alexia the Soulless who can stop supernatural powers! We inexplicably did not put 2 and 2 together despite being super smart Nazi-scientists.  I mean we very obviously tried to kidnap her 3 separate times, and stole her records for more info. But we weren’t actually interested in kidnapping her. We just tried to get a vampire and took her along for the lulz!”  Why even put in the effort to say they weren’t after her? This is stupid!

MacDougall, despite studying the supernatural FOR A LIVING, has never heard of the Soulless phenomenon and like…

FUCK HOW AND WHY AND ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

The author states explicitly that all the supernaturals in England not only are aware of the Soulless but are informed of the identity of every single Soulless.  How would normies NOT know? Vampires and werewolves hang with humans all the time, and it makes no sense why the Soulless would be hidden information from the general public.  Soulless can pose a threat to the supernatural not regular boring humans, there’s no reason to believe that the average citizen is going to be upset at this knowledge at all.

This wouldn’t even, so far, cause any plot inconsistencies if everybody knew.  I think the rub here is that we have to justify her family not knowing so the reveal would make them upset, but we’ll see how important that plot point actually is.  Honestly, I fear the author is just so used to supernatural media where SOMETHING is hidden from the general population she felt compelled to do the same.

MacDougall convinces Meaniemollusk NaziStink to take off her restraints and try to get her on their side. They allow her to clean up and change. Alexia takes advantage of this to go to the Octopus shaped mirror, break off an octopus-shaped shard, cover it in octo-cloth, and hide it in her octo-bosum.

Alexia tries to play dumb and meek in order to appease Squidlly MurderMan.  He tells her he plans to kill all Vampires and Werewolves.  She points out that they’re scientists with a political agenda and apparently that’s her breaking her bimbo character and the gig is up.

OKAY?????????????????

They then take her to another cell.  On the way there she hears Lord Akeldama’s blood-curling torture screams, but she doesn’t seem all that upset.  I mean she probably doesn’t want to appear outwardly upset to blow the gig even more, but we don’t really have much internal monologue about how worried she is.

So that’s cool.

They want to test her soulsucking ability and she lies saying it takes an hour. (Which is hard to believe, isn’t soulless supposed to be common knowledge in England, and also they stole all the notes anyway they probably know.)  They also OUTRIGHT SAY they’re planning on killing her anyway but it would be rad if she was cool about it. They say they’re going to murder/test it by putting her in a cell with a rabid werewolf to SEE WHAT HAPPENS!? (She’d probably die but lol turns out it’s Lord Maccon aren’t we all shocked.) But like let’s break this whole mess down.

1.)    You uhhh consider LYING that you won’t kill her if she cooperates. That tends to encourage people to cooperate. YOU ARE BAD PEOPLE AFTERALL AND BAD PEOPLE LIE!

2.)    HOW FUCKING INCOMPREHENSIBLY DUMB ARE THESE FUCKING SCIENTISTS!?  You UHH MAYBE consider you could learn a fuck-load from experiments where a person can turn off a supernaturals’ ability at will? PERHAPS it’ll be easier to genocide them if they’re not super-fast, super strong, immortal AND can heal real fast????? WHAT COLOSSAL FATHEADS ARE RUNNING THIS JOINT!? AUTHOR? YOU CAN HAVE THEM BE SUPER EVIL AND BAD WITHOUT THEM IMMEDIATELY TRYING TO KILL PROTAG? YANNO?

Also throwing her in a locked room with a PEAK werewolf, even if they never believed it took that long, is basically instant-death for her.  She’s kinda arrogant when it comes to self-defense but even she’s like, “I’d be super lucky if I even reach the point of having the shit kicked out of me before I can turn him completely enough for them to not be a threat.”

So they take the antidote to the supposed poison they want to snuff out and just dump it down the drain.

BUT GOLLY I’M SURE LOOKING FORWARD TO THOSE OVERGROWN CHILDREN ALMOST FUCKING IN THAT CELL! THAT’S GONNA BE SWELL!

Say something Nice Faps:

No shitty Maccon/Alexia verbal sparring

MacDougall does try to not get her killed. I mean he just shouts dramatically.  Not that I’m asking him to fall right on a sword but it does seem a bit tepid. But like for a woman who gleefully and regularly puts herself in danger? Maybe that’s the response that’s appropriate.

Also the author never really says MacDougall is down to clown with Murder Bigots.  So I guess what I’m trying to say is I’d still fuck MacDougall apart.

How We Know Trump is a Racist

    So, I think it’s time I put this card on the table. I think there’s no more room to argue here, that Trump (who still lost the popular vote by 2.5 million) is a racist and most certainly a threat to people of color. And I’ll give my best evidence by the end of this, but let’s cover some of the more...obvious stuff.

    Let’s talk about the first big racist thing that Trump did that caught everyone’s attention. You know, that time he said Mexico is sending us their rapists and criminals.

    Let’s break that down for a second, shall we? Is he saying that Mexico is like, sending rapists as a military? That they are some kind of invading force? Because that what it means to send a group of people to another country. It’s not like there’s some grand Mexican conspiracy to make life so horrible for the people their that they’d rather come here. Or some sort of “globalist” conspiracy to flood the Americas with Mexicans because…

    Actually, why? Why oh why would they be doing that? Why might a man whose more than once shown himself willing to defend Nazis be convinced that there is some sort of effort to bring lots and lots of non-white people into our country in such a manner that they could be said to be being “sent”, as if apart of some military operation.

    GEE, I WONDER.

    Of course, that would give Trump the credit of having intelligence, which I’m not entirely convinced of. Maybe he does actually think that Mexico is purposely trying to torment its population to chase them out because he’s an idiot. Or maybe he’s just too stupid to know what the word “sending” means - I wouldn’t out that past him either. That’s what makes dealing with Trumby so hard - is he real? Is he just stupid? Maybe he’s just accidentally saying Nazi talking points because he’s a moron and doesn’t know to NOT say them! May he’s stupid enough to believe them! Maybe he’s just an idiot who doesn’t know that what he’s saying are Nazi talking points! Who knows!

    Actually, while we’re on the topic of Nazis, let’s talk about the second big incident, the one surrounding Charlottesville.

    For those fortunate enough to forget about that little blunder, back when he first got elected a bunch of Nazis got together with members of the KKK and other hate groups to march in protest of a statue of Robert E. Lee going down. Talk about being overly sensitive. It took the President two days to finally say anything on it, and what he said can basically be translated as “Sure there were some bad people there but I’m sure there were a lot of good people.” He then went on to talk about how the Alt-Left was there and came “charging at the Alt-Right” as if both sides were equally bad.

    Another common Nazi tactic, by the way. “Mom, mom, they were being bad too!” says the child who was just beating his sibling because she wanted to play a video game when he wanted to.

    Of course that’s not a perfect analogy - Nazis would kill the child for the crime of existing while Jewish/Gay/Roma etc. But that’s a whole other post.

    Point is, Trump, a man known for jumping the gun, suddenly decided to take a moment to make sure the reports of people screaming “Jews will not replace us!” (something you could find with a 5 second video search) and carrying swastikas (again, something you can find fairly quickly) were true. Sure, he says, SOME of them were obviously bad but some of them were probably “fine people.” Right?

    Except no. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, do you know what good people do when they accidentally find themselves on the same side as the swastikas at a Nazi rally? THEY LEAVE. Meanwhile, the “Alt-Left” which doesn’t exist were violent largely only in self defense, if at all, and certainly didn’t end up murdering anybody like the Nazis did. .

    What matters today is that the first thing a Nazi tries to do when dealing with a “normie” (and yes they do call non-Antifa, non-fascists that) is say they’re not a Nazi, so never believe it from the mouth, always look at the actions. If someone hangs out with Nazis, says Nazi talking points, and has Nazis following them around, they’re a Nazi.

    Even if Trump was trying to be honest for once in his goddamn life by taking the time to actually get the full story, then the answer is “These guys are Nazis, and Nazis are bad people.” It doesn’t matter if they have a cute dog at home and take care of their children as great parents, they want to kill people - they want to commit literal genocide. How do you excuse that? You either have to unbrainwash them, educate them, or deal with them on those terms - if they’re going to kill you, you are in your rights to retaliate in self-defense. End of discussion.

    “Fine people” my flatulating ass.

    Anyway, they say two makes a trend, but three makes a pattern, so what about a third horribly racist thing he’s done?.

    I could talk about all the dog whistles he’s blowing, to the point where he mind as well being using a megaphone and not a dog whistle, but people won’t believe that entirely easily. It’s not a simple thing to convince people that the “OK” symbol is actually a little highsign Nazis flash to each other without sounding like you’re crazy, but again, that’s a whole other topic. Besides, that’s more of an ever pervasive thing instead of a specific incident.

    On that same tack, I could talk about the time he called himself a nationalist, and how scary a term that is and how afraid a lot of people should be that he did because it means he’s either admitted to being a nationalistic Nazi or he’s too stupid to realize that that’s what he just did. Either way, he’s not fit to be president, but people would argue the same thing - that it’s just a word. It couldn’t possibly mean anything, certainly not something bad!

    I could talk about how I hear people complaining that I’m only a silly liberal who only thinks he’s racist now that he’s president and I don’t like him, but that’s not true. There’s plenty of records of people talking about Donald Trump being a racist before he ever ran for President, including numerous reports of him disallowing black people into his apartments because they are “welfare queens.” One of his staff reported that everytime a colored person applied, he was supposed to attach a small sticky note with a “C” on it to let the higher ups know. Trump was very eager to settle these outside of court, probably because he knew he’d lose. But I’ve heard a lot of people say that because it never went to court it doesn’t count and nothing was ever proved. Hell, if you’re still on about it being me specifically, I called Trump racist before he ran for president when he kept going on about Obama’s birth certificate, although I couldn’t prove that with any sort of record, that was all in conversations with my friends.

        That’s actually a whole other thing I could write an entire post about - how we know he’s racist because he refused to believe a Black Man could actually be American, but that’s another one of those things that people just find it difficult to believe for some weird reason.

    Hell, I could cite every single racist thing he’s said or done. Because racism isn’t...like, a crime you commit, it’s a pattern of behavior encouraged by systemic structures that serve to better one group over the other, so everything from that comment he made about how a judge wouldn’t treat his case fairly because he’s Latino or how he berated that Gold Star Family for the mother not talking when she was literally grieving the death of her son just because they were Muslim count. Maybe that time he encouraged people to beat up the Black Lives Matter protesters would count.

    But all of this is almost tangential. You wanna know how I know Trump is a racist? Because I’m not the one saying it. David Duke is saying it. You know, that former Grand Wizard of the KKK? Sebastian Gorka, a known Neo-Nazi, says Trump agrees with him. The KKK was pretty notorious for hating American politics for leaving them more or less behind with the exception of crawling out of the woodwork to support a Ronald Reagan or disavow a Barack Obama or two. Even then, their support was a bit hesitant, and of course even Ronald Reagan was like “Ew, no. You guys can get away from me” as soon as it became news that the KKK had done so.

    But with Trump, you have very enthusiastic Nazis coming out of the filthy, disgusting sewers they belong in saying “Yeah, Trump’s our guy! He’s our guy!” and Heiling him all over the place. THEY wouldn’t be excited about him being a racist if they didn’t believe he was racist. They like him, they approve of him, and the only reason for that, the only point of that, is that they’re saying he’s on their side. THAT should be more than enough to prove the point.

Entrepreneur and Activist Saro Derbedrossian at the forefront of HotNewHipHop

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/culture/entrepreneur-and-activist-saro-derbedrossian-at-the-forefront-of-hotnewhiphop-73126-07-05-2021/

Entrepreneur and Activist Saro Derbedrossian at the forefront of HotNewHipHop

Saro Derbedrossian, who goes by the name of Saro D

BY LALAI MANJIKIAN Special to Asbarez

For more than 14 years, Saro Derbedrossian, who goes by the name of Saro D, has been diligently building one of the biggest music platforms on the internet today. This digital publication called HotNewHipHop (HNHH) has become an internationally recognized force in the hip-hop world and in the music industry at large.

Saro D was born in Beirut before the start of the Lebanese civil war and grew up against the backdrop of conflict, until he immigrated to Montreal, Canada. After completing an MBA degree in Montreal, he was eager to find opportunities to apply his entrepreneurial skills and relentless drive. With his love of the Internet and music colliding, he was able to take a simple website to new heights, as the growth of HNHH also coincided with hip-hop’s rise as the dominant music genre.

Saro D. in Artsakh

Today, HNHH is the place where millions of people around the world turn to for news, music, and trends, all linked to hip-hop culture. Currently, HNHH averages over 12 million unique visitors a month, with 80 percent of them from the United States & Canada and boasts a social media footprint of over 3.5 million followers across all channels. Though the company is based in Montreal, HNHH has an office in New York City and a creative space in Los Angeles.

Not only is Saro D a successful entrepreneur, but he also manages to stay active in the Armenian community, as a committed advocate for the Armenian Cause (Hay Tad). His Armenian background and his deep involvement in community activism, whether for genocide recognition or Artsakh, has only heightened his sensitivity vis-à-vis racism in general and the Black Lives Matter Movement.

I interviewed Saro D to learn more about how he developed and grew HNHH into the digital publication that it is today, and to find out more about his overlapping entrepreneurial and personal trajectories.

Saro is an example that Armenians are builders, whether that is building an online lifestyle publication from the ground up or (re)building a stronger Armenia.

LALAI MANJIKIAN: Can you take us back to when, and how, this start-up was born? Can you describe what your role has been in HNHH’s development over the years?

SARO DERBEDROSSIAN: It started as a personal thing. My entrepreneurial drive, the fire I had in me, pushed me to do something on my own. When I was thinking of “where” and “what” I wanted to do alone, at the time, I was fascinated by the Internet, we’re talking about 2007. The Internet was going crazy back then. It really didn’t matter what the project was, as long as I was working on a business involving the Internet. I came from a background of operations and manufacturing, which is pretty traditional. I was really looking forward to being in a very exciting venture. Once I knew that I wanted to start something on the Internet, the music aspect came later.

L.M: The start of your website happened to coincide with a time when music was transitioning from physical to digital. The way we consume music has changed drastically over the last decade, and it is precisely during these past ten years that HNHH has emerged and evolved.

S.D: Exactly! In the beginning, HNHH started by being a simple page where we curated music. It was a compilation of daily music that we, ourselves, liked. We said, you know what, instead of you going and looking everywhere for music, you can come here, where we are giving you a highly curated daily list of songs and we were rating them. So, there was an editorial element. We were saying, “this is HOTTTTT”, “this is VERY HOTTTTT” and this ranking system became an iconic thing for HNHH.

L.M: HNHH carved its place then, initially through music curation, but now it has expanded to tackle hip-hop news and other topics adjacent to the culture. How did this transition take place?

Saro D. with the rapper Lil West, one of the artists signed to his label (Nomad Music Group) and to Republic Records (part of Universal Music)

S.D: We decided that HotNewHipHop has to be a publication, as opposed to just a website, or a blog page. I don’t have any background in publication, and I don’t have editorial experience, but because I had worked in operations, I had a lot of experience in how to operate a business. I started realizing that we should have an editorial team. We should have someone writing news, someone who’s writing features. That’s when I started hiring journalists, who know exactly how things are done, people who have writing skills. We started putting these people together, who also have a lot of knowledge in hip hop, referred to as “hip hop heads.” As much as I love music, there are people who really know this stuff, they know it by date, the history, etc. So, that is how we started growing the content type. We realized, instead of focusing on the content let’s focus on the audience.

L.M: Can you address who your target audience is on HNHH?

S.M.: Our audience is made predominantly of millennials, who are 18-34 years old. The majority of people visiting the site are 21, 22, 23-year-olds. These are people who not only love to hear hip hop music, they are also active within the culture. A lot of current aspects of pop culture are influenced by hip hop. We went from being the “underdog” of music genres, to really a worldwide cultural phenomenon. We realized that we should cover other aspects of the culture, besides just the music. If you are coming to listen to the music or coming to know what are the top songs of that day, you also come to see what happened that day in the world of professional basketball, like did something funny happen yesterday during the Laker’s game?

Saro D.’s HotNewHipHop has become an influential force in hip-hop world and the music industry

L.M.: Can you give us a sense of the role HNHH plays in introducing and determining trends in hip hop culture? To some degree you are calling the shots, by telling your audience what’s hot and what’s not.

S.D.: I am not going to call it our forte, our specialty, but I guess the name of the game is creating content. Most of the news that we break is through interviews. That’s the type of news we like to break.

We also focus on finding new talent.

We focus a lot on new artists. We have a team taking care of that, we have music submission systems, and we also go and look for artists.

We try to stay true to our name. The content has to be “hot”, in the sense that, we want to serve it to our audience quickly, but it also has to be culturally relevant and important. We want to be the first ones to break the news, and then also, when something interests us, we report it. We publish anywhere between 100-125 articles, pieces of news, information a day. We have different segments on YouTube weekly. We also have a social media team who creates content specifically for our social media channels, Facebook, and Instagram. The content is not necessarily the same, they don’t intersect. Our audience on Instagram consumes news differently than our audience on the website.

L.M: HNHH has been instrumental particularly in featuring new, as well as established hip hop artists. Can you describe the role HNHH has played and continues to play in launching new artists’ careers?

Saro D. at Dadivank Monastery in Artsakh.

S.D.: I wouldn’t credit ourselves saying we launch artists’ careers. We give them the platform; it is up to them to make the most out of it.

Many artists have gone through HNHH, but one or two that became really big via our exclusive support early on, would be Tory Lanez, Canadian R&B/Hip-Hop artist. Tyga would be another one. Wiz Khalifa would be another one. We’ve launched his first mixtape. The Weeknd also is another one. We have a good relationship with The Weeknd’s management team and have premiered exclusive singles from him.

L.M: I would like to address the #BlackLivesMatter movement and how it too connects to HNHH. How has HNHH addressed anti-Black racism over the years and particularly now, with the rise of racist rhetoric and with systemic racism becoming more exposed?

S.D: It all comes from the internal culture. Every time something big happens, we have covered it. We are not a political website, true. However, anything that happens in the world that affects the culture, we definitely are there, we cover it. Personally, I am very sensitive to these issues. Sometimes, I am the one pushing, because I am an activist as a person, as an Armenian. I feel like anytime a community, a population is going through a crisis, something is activated in me and tells me that we have to do something, we have to talk about it. Obviously, I am not black, but sometimes, I really feel what they go through. For the past 14 years, I have been working day in and day out with people of all races.

L.M: HNHH has plans to open a creative space in Los Angeles, can you talk to us about this project, what the space will encompass and where this project currently stands?

S.D: The whole idea is about creating content. As a digital publication, besides text-based content, we also need to produce video content, visuals, photos and audio. Initially, we were very successful in creating a creative space in NYC. However, while we wanted to go to NYC because of its deep history with hip-hop, we realized many rappers had moved to LA. With all the talent that LA and Hollywood both have, as well as the visual creation industry that is based there, we felt like we would be in a good position to move out there. So we kept our offices in NYC, and we went out and got a space in LA as well. We signed the lease in February, and unfortunately everything was closed down in March, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a beautiful space in Burbank, it is near other visual creators, musical studios, Disney and all that. The idea is to have many small studios, each one catering to a different video series for our YouTube channel. We also plan to have a recording studio – I also own a record label called Nomad Music. We manage artists, we sign artists for record deals. So, the idea is to have our own artists go there as well, to produce, and record songs in that space.

L.M: Can you tell us a bit about your personal trajectory, both in life and in business? Have you always had entrepreneurial ambitions?

S.D: I was born in Beirut, and I grew up in Beirut. I was born just before the (Lebanese civil) war, and I came to Canada shortly after the war ended. So, I have seen it all in Lebanon. I went to Neshan Palandjian Djereman in Beirut, and I also attended university in Lebanon, Université St-Joseph, majoring in Economics. After graduating, I wanted to come to Canada, but I had a year in between, waiting for immigration acceptance. During that year, I taught Math at Djemaran. After finally arriving in Canada, I did my MBA at Concordia University and then found a job. So, the entrepreneurial thing, I don’t know exactly, is it genetic? Or is it my personality? My father was a businessman, and I always went to his office. I was inspired by my father, he was a very creative businessman, he was a “big ideas” man. “Big ideas” which we have to be able to do, make them concrete. My father inspired me to think big, to dream big. But I think my personality also plays a role. The war, and the fact that we did not have a normal childhood. We grew up around bombardments, military cannons and army bases, it was chaotic. Nonetheless, I had a great childhood, I was born into a great family, but the environment was so rough, so tough, and violent. On top of the war, there was this Armenian education, to remain Armenian, I am not going to say indoctrinated, but we were brought up being “very Armenian.” We are talking a period of time that was post-genocide, pre-Artaskh. As an Armenian, there was a struggle, as a Lebanese, there was a struggle, as a student, as a person, there was always a struggle, to try to make up for what we lost.

L.M: I think it is safe to say that you were in survival mode but wanted to go into “thrive mode.”

S.D: Exactly. So, when I came to Canada, my thinking was that, you know what, I have to prove to myself that I am able to achieve something. Basically, we went through all that, and, now, are we good for something? Can we do something?

L.M: Besides being a successful entrepreneur, you have also been a relentless advocate for the Armenian Cause (Hay Tad) for several years. Can you talk about this aspect and what the Armenian Cause means to you, particularly in light of the recent war that took place in Artsakh?

S.D: Hay Tad is on a personal level. It’s my life. Hay Tad is the most important thing we have outside of Armenia. It is advocating for Armenia in the diaspora. I feel like it’s the most important mission any Armenian should be devoted to, outside of Armenia. Besides educating our kids and keeping the culture, we need to make sure that Armenia, as a country, as a state, becomes stronger. Hay Tad is important, it means activism outside of Armenia.

As for the war, not only did we lose the war, but we are going through turmoil within the country. Armenia should have never gone to war. Armenia should have defended Artsakh, Artsakh is the cornerstone of everything we have, we lost it. I am very worried.

We went to war; the loss of life is tremendous. I don’t know how to put it. It ruins you from the inside. The aftermath is also very ugly. There is no loss without an aftermath of sorrow, of sadness, people not understanding, of political turmoil. However, I also feel that we have the strength as a nation to stand on our feet again.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Read original article here.

Institute Criticism under the Cut

Alright, so I believe I have finished The List (TM) of everything wrong with the Institute to make my usual squabbles easier, and I’m just going to put it up on here to copy-paste. If you can think of something I’m missing in here, feel free to leave a comment. If you disagree... well, I’m always down for an argument.

A list of why the Institute is evil. Hello, you're reading this copy-paste list that exists because there are too many people on this bitch of an earth that openly support the institute and treat them like they're the good guys, and I'm tired of writing out the same stuff every other week to fight people over it. spoilers ahead.

1. Every single one of the infinitely spawning Supermutants was someone that the instute kidnapped and experimented on with the FEV, effectively killing them since a normal supermutant doesn't retain their old human self. Virgil had to make a special version to keep himself as, well, himself.

2. Synths are slaves. No really. Their brains aren't computers, they're human brains built from the ground up, so third generation synths aren't faking emotions, they actually have them. "but they made them so they own them!" they shouldn't have made them, they should've stuck with the second generation synths that were actually robots, and even then several second generation synths display the ability to think and feel for themselves as well, see Nick Valentine and all of the Gen 2 synths that help with the railroad undercover missions in the institute. And don't you dare just take a jab at this point in a retort ignoring everything else. I know that this one is the quickest to attack because "Duh but ther Robots, they don't have soul, I've never studded about AI or philosophy," but you better have responses for the rest too.

3. Kidnapping and replacing people. I swear to god that if I get any responses to this point that they don't kidnap people because we saw ONE instance of them asking someone to come, I'll be fucking livid. That was a scientist that they were trying to coax in. They kidnapped Hancock's brother the real McDonough, they kidnapped Rodger Warwick, they kidnapped YOUR SON, they kidnapped every single person that was turned into a supermutant.

4. Experimenting on the citizens of the Commonwealth. I mentioned Rodger Warwick before. They kidnapped him, interrogated him, killed him, and then replaced him with a synth duplicate. Their terminal entries also mention that at the end of this mission, they'll be burning Warwick homestead to the ground to erase all evidence, killing the rest of the Warwick family in the process. Gosh, this must be for a heavy espionage mission. maybe it's to track down the railroad or infiltrate the Minutemen or- or it's just to see if they can grow a gourd bigger. All that, kidnapping, torturing, murder, arson, JUST TO TEST OUT THEIR NEW GOURD. And you thought Monsanto was evil, sheesh.

5. You're the boss, boss. Ah yes, it's great being in charge... wait, I don't have many options on what to do down here. But I'm the leader right? I'm the director! I mean, they wouldn't just cave in and let me become a director just because it would give the directorate a puppet figurehead while they actually control everything effectively meaning that the institute will just keep going the way they're going regardless of what I say, right? Right? Oh god they duped me and I killed the only people that could help me stop them.

6. No regard for the commonwealth. they view it as a scavenging yard, and they don't regard the people as PEOPLE, instead talking about them like they're savage animals. They say that they're planning for the future, but it's very odd that they're only planning for their own future and disregarding the people of the commonwealth altogether, almost as if they plan to take them out of the equation. Fucking Eugenics.

7. They killed the Commonwealth Provisional Government. In fact, they killed the Commonwealth Provisional Government AND THEN immediately after began kidnapping people for the FEV supermutant experiments. Don't give me Shaun's BS he gives about "oh they all killed each other while our synth just stood there doing nothing," that's bullshit and you know it.

8. Divide and conquer: GENOCIDE EDITION. Fucking Diamond City. So the institute installed the fake mcdonough. Cool. Great. Fantastic. So this was for surveillance right? Okay. Yeah. Seems legit. Except for the fucking GHOUL RACISM THEY HAD HIM INCITE. THE ONE WHERE GHOULS WERE DRIVEN OUT OF TOWN OR KILLED? FUCK HOW CAN YOU PEOPLE DEFEND THE INSTITUTE?

8. Why do I need to keep going on this list? Look, hopefully at this point I've turned your perspective a bit and gotten through the brainwashing the Institute put you through. Nearly every companion in the game has negative reactions to the Institute ending, and they have good reason to. They've been living with the fear of an enemy that they can't see taking them or their loved ones in the night, with nobody being able to tell because they left a replacement. But I'm tired. I've had to explain this a dozen times to people, and I don't understand why. the game clearly spells out for you that the institute is evil, so long as you pay attention to anything besides what your creepy science overlord "son" has to say, and even then he says questionable things. No faction in this game is good. The Railroad only recently got better at espionage because of ONE man, and their method of hiding synths by planting new memories into them isn't exactly the most ethical option. The Brotherhood of Steel would purge Ghouls an Supermutants from the wasteland, which is ironic considering that they fought the Enclave over that idea for wanting to do the exact same thing but including humans with minor mutations. The Minutemen are hardly more than a mercenary government group. But the Institute? They're wrong in a' whole 'nother way. Because they believe that what they are doing is right; they honestly believe that all the kidnapping and torturing and experimenting is for the greater good, despite the fact that they have only one significant advancement in tech, the relay system. They can make robots, and they can make robots out of flesh, and that's about it. their laser weapons use as much energy as other laser weapons, but they're weaker, and that really says something about their R&D work. They've been kidnapping, murdering, and experimenting for 200 years with absolutely no restrictions, and they have nothing to show for it that surpasses the Big Empty, who were restricted to only the mountain and also had teleportation tech. Five insane brains in jars got more done in 200 years than the humans under CIT. There is no greater good here, though. There's just pointless killing to see what they can do. Please don't try to say "just let people enjoy what they want" to me either about this. This is just as bad as if someone were trying to defend Fallout 2's Enclave or Vault-Tec or our own real-life Government in the US, and I can't morally sit by that.I said before that I don’t understand why people defend the Institute, but that isn’t quite right. I understand why. Because they’re “family.” This is the same tactic used in George Orwell’s story, Nineteen Eighty-Four, with the famous line “Big Brother is watching you.” Because this comparison exists, it isn’t the “why” so much as the “how,” how people can still be brought to believe that a group so sinister and vile are working for the greater good of the people.

Deadpool & Rogue are going to be the next "it" couple

Since the beginning of Uncanny Avengers people speculated that Deadpool and Rogue were going to fall in love and so far they've just become good friends but now is a pretty good opportunity to turn that into a romantic relationship.

I've never made it is secret that I love Rogue and that when she isn't with Gambit my heart is broken. Unless it's bad writing I'm okay with seeing them get together with other people because they have an open relationship and if anyone could do polyamory, they could.

So Uncanny Avengers begins and I'm very suspicious of Rogue being on a team with Deadpool because they didn't seem like a good combination. They can certainly relate, they have a lot of common trauma and similar issues but Deadpool relies on humor to deal with it and Rogue doesn't laugh much, she shoves all her pain down and uses it to fuel her determination while fighting on the front lines and she's always fighting on the front lines.

Another thing I wondered about was Rogue being the team leader. Rogue isn't exactly a leader. Storm is a natural leader, she can handle the burden of being a huge population's only hope, she can command an audience of militants, and there's just something about her that demands respect and loyalty. 

Rogue just really likes getting in and getting the job done, politics is not her thing.

And she works really well when someone like Storm is calling the shots

Awesome.

and Rogue hates the Avengers. She likes individuals that are and have been members but she was one of the very first mutants to ever fight them and she has lived through every one of their attempts to aid the genocide of mutants

but Deadpool is super excited!

Rogue and Deadpool have never really met but they have run into each other in passing so Rogue does what everyone does and judges Deadpool on his reputation. Meanwhile, she secretly has been poisoned with the Terrigen Mist so her body is slowly becoming deformed while she slowly dies from a terminal disease

That's something Deadpool has lots of experience with so you know from the get go that they are going to at least commiserate

Like I said, Rogue works well as a tank or free agent but she has hard time leading. On their very first mission everyone but Deadpool ignored her orders and went off to do their own thing.

Deadpool seems to be one of the few people who understood and cared that Rogue being leader or even on the Avengers at all came with a lot of subsequent dangers because of racism

Deadpool also isn't a natural leader, like Rogue he works best when you just tell him where to go and let him do his thing. But he's loyal and even though it seems impossible he is more upset about casual racism toward her than she is.

Cable shows up with bad news from the future as he is want to do and he is a leader, a leader both Rogue and Deadpool have worked with. He's also someone that Deadpool loves and respects immensely. Rogue isn't opposed to Cable taking over but before she entrusts him with her teammates lives she wants to know what his objectives are and surprisingly Deadpool agrees with her

It's no surprise that the team is a mess. Captain America stuck a bunch of people of different races together, some pulled from segregated communities, to sell diversity to the media but as always he doesn't exactly understand racism and the team fractures. Cable, Rogue, and Deadpool stick together and actually work behind Captain America's back (which is huge for Deadpool) to find a cure for this poison that was exterminating mutants and stop the Red Skull who had taken the deceased Charles Xavier's brain and was using it to take over the world.

Rogue and Deadpool are actually really good teammates, Deadpool even does things to remind Rogue of home and her family (the X-Men)

(that's a signature X-Men finishing move Colossus and Wolverine use when they are tag teaming)

they even make their own signature move

and they are badass

Rogue puts her faith in Deadpool that he will have her back but still remained wary because he was still Deadpool and she still has all of her baggage and trust issues but suddenly the whole world changes.

Everyone is human, can't remember ever being superheroes, and the world runs like a 50s sitcom. Everyone but Rogue is happy. She's never lived in a world where at least one person wasn't constantly trying to abuse or kill her so even though she doesn't know what's going on she's suspicious of peace

No one knows Rogue's real name so if someone isn't calling her Rogue they usually just call her a few names that sound like it fits and for some reason Rogue has always been fine with that but in this instance it's supposed to be weird

All the X-Men and the kids at their schools have extensive training in blocking psychic/telekinetic/mind control etc. so they can keep their privacy in all of the mutant compounds despite the fact that the biggest gossips are always psychic. Also so shit like this doesn't happen. Rogue arguably has the most training in this for someone who has no psychic powers and through her safeguards she makes herself remember everything and now she has to go find everyone else that is supposed to be on her/their team.

Luckily one of them, Johnny Storm, lives next door so she reminds him that he can control fire by lighting him on fire. Also, he thought his name was Chet

Rogue doesn't give a fuck

Everyone is rounded up pretty quickly and Rogue wakes people up her own way

(Ms. Marvel isn't on her team but she was bicycling by so Rogue snagged her)

No one knows where Deadpool is so Cable, and this is hilarious, has been on so many adventures with him he knows he just has to present an opportunity and Deadpool will appear so he calls 911 and Deadpool immediately shows up in a fire truck 

but he doesn't look like himself

Every time Deadpool gets changed into his ideal body he looks like a 70s porn*

So Wade Wilson lives in this pseudo-universe as a "handsome" able-bodied man who is everyone's hero, a firefighter. It's kind of extremely sad and Rogue takes special care with him, much to Johnny's chagrin

I think it's notable that Rogue just has to tell him something is going on and he immediately remembers who he is. Besides he and Rogue, it seems hard for everyone to accept that this picturesque life isn't real. The both of them grew up experiencing the worst of humanity (we don't really know about Rogue's childhood but she was raised into early adulthood by her mother's, so it still couldn't have been super easy considering they were all mutants and also a queer family in the 70s) they are both also very isolated in their own way, a peaceful happy world is so beyond their comprehension so it's artifice would be easy to deconstruct.

You don't see how Cable comes to but I'm pretty sure he immediately was like "not this shit again"

The current mutant genocide is getting worse and Captain America tries to use how much Deadpool admires and loves him to be his informant but Deadpool remained loyal to Rogue and Cable

Captain America wants them to trust the government to save their race to which they said "LOL" and he and Cable fight but Rogue gets fed up

Deadpool tries to explain to Captain America that he had no choice but to side with the X-Men because his daughter is a mutant and is going to die 

Deadpool takes the dressing down but Rogue defense him

They are both fired but they still stick together to discuss what they should do and Rogue suggest… Well, she suggests that they go rogue

Rogue isn't a great leader but she's really great at heading side missions or defecting to get the job done with the more hands-on approach. This is up Deadpool's alley so they take off for adventure.

And one protecting the other has become my fetish

We just recently got the conclusion of Rogue, Deadpool, and Cable's team up objective. The Red Skull is using Charles Xavier's brain to infiltrate everyone's brain 

and eventually he finds a way to break into to Rogue's mind while she sleeps

and they made a clubhouse with stuff they took from the Avengers

So finally the Red Skull has to be confronted for the final battle and it relies on Rogue and Deadpool. No one has the ability to infiltrate Deadpool's mind because his psyche is so shattered so he's immune and Rogue has training to protect her mind and is one of the few people who can actually take him down so they get to it and call in any support they can get

Cute highlights:

When the tide turns in the battle Rogue is overtaken by the powers of Charles Xavier's brain and the Red Skull has complete control over her, so he uses her as his personal weapon

God, I love her

Thankfully Deadpool is used to things failing so he had a plan. Rogue kills Deadpool as much as she can, the Red Skull gets overconfident and let's guard down, then Deadpool sticks an old helmet of Magneto's on Rogue's head. Seems like that should have been the first thing they should have done but Deadpool getting himself kill over and over got her close enough and in a position where she could take the Red Skull down while he was unaware

But Deadpool had intended to be the one to kill the Red Skull once Rogue incapacitated him but she had hurt him too much

Deadpool is worried that Rogue is going to take it upon herself to kill the red skull as much as she doesn't want any more blood on her hands but the guy has Charles Xavier's brain inside of him so she goes home and the X-Men play operation

That's it! That's their whole story so far. So, should they get together?

I'm biased but don't they make the best brOTP? I love their friendship so so much and it's great to see it slowly develop instead of the writers just miraculously having them get along because it's easier for the story.

Do I think they should date?

Hell yes I do.

It is nice to have genuine friendships in comic books, especially between people of different genders, but this is just too good. Because their friendship was such a slow build the sexual tension feels really organic and that's almost impossible to get in a medium like this. They haven't been friends forever and just because it was convenient they didn't suddenly hook up to further the plot. They are significant characters with significant back stories and the relationship doesn't contradict either of those things. They haven't been almost getting together and getting torn apart like you would have to sit through if story of the relationship was just about their romance.

I'm fine if they remain friends but (unpopular opinion) it would be an amazing relationship with a lot of potential between them; a lot of good and a lot of bad potential which makes the best stories. Unfortunately I don't think they will ever get this opportunity for a "slow build" in other books so how long it will remain interesting would depend on the writer. 

And the time schedule.

And whether you guys would buy those issues or not.

Let me know what you think. If you totally hate them together that's cool, I want to hear your perspective. What would you like to happen between them?

>>>>>>>> here's a big fat question for you as you go into the posts that follow from here: "what do you think is the root of things like political instability, institutional racism, religious persecution, revolution, genocide, and economic oppression?" in other words, what is the most general way you could describe the thing or things that all of those situations (large-scale social reorganization by means of violence) embody 100% of the time. for instance, you cannot say "violence" because people who embody any of those attitudes at all are not being violent 100% of the time, certainly, although violence is definitely a necessary, critical feature of all of those states of society.  also, it is probably not specific enough because, certainly, not all violence results in the same kinds of social change, nor on the same scale.  I would also point out that the transfer of power from one group to another can contain either very select violence (i.e. assassinating a president) or wide-spread violence (the reign of terror), but both situations can lead to widespread political upheaval, although certainly of different kinds and of varying intensities.  are there any shared elements between them all?  if not, why do they seem so similar when considered side-by-side? is it just that they are all, in turn, viewed as horrific and necessary by everyone except those who are committing it, and even, in some cases, by those who do commit it ("yes, violence is horrific, but it must be done for the sake of humanity").   okay, so obviously THAT is a huge tangle of weeds, good luck hanging onto your morality in there! (jk, u can still have morality and think anything that you want to because the cops can't read your thoughts yet! stay safe out there, thinking of u and i hope u are blessed (yes, u! ❤️ haha) https://iwishtobealoneandwithoutsun.tumblr.com/post/618112485896142848/how-to-deal-with-bullies-america-2020-platos ####################################### p.s. i wonder when humanity will realize that they already act like a collective unconscious regardless of their beliefs on free will so lets just fast track consciousness computerization research so we can all hop into a computer world and onto a spaceship that looks exactly like earth (after a few generations, probably no one will care anyway tbh except historians and folk tale curators etc and future generations would even get used to simulation reality probably, eventually) p.p.s.  you know how sometimes parents have wisdom even though they have NO IDEA what they are talking about most of the time?  (oh btw, imagine that persisting out of your teens and until you are 31 but also with everyone in the world and u will imagine a little bit what it is like to have social-emotional agnosia.   it is not as flat as that, since obviously people we are more familiar with are more well known to us, so people like parents and friends (this is a tough manual calculation on its own, btw, sorting friend from foe) will be easier for us to read, but still we will fuck it up, i fuck it up with my mom and she is who i have talked to most face-to-face in the world besides a specific therapist.   i cannot interpret your face very easily or other fundamental social signifiers that you rely on to generate context for yourself for other people to understand you more easily.  since i do not understand social contexts, i have only ever been able to relate to myself, mostly.  now that i have managed to grasp an intuitive understanding of my place in social contexts, my life is much, much better for it. to illustrate what that kind of mental task feels like, please consider how you would describe a color to someone who had never perceived color in their entire life or seen light in any way at all, although they would still be sensitive to, i.e. heat from light.  i don't care if this means that they have never seen anything or if they are just seeing white all the time or just one of any color really, just like, greyscale slider pls.   if you really want to go nuts, try imagning that you have a disability that you don't actually have.  imagine for a long time.  how does it feel to you, for instance: colors are wildly important visual indicators for defining things like status and identity in society, for instance in fasion: hair style, hair texture, skin color, makeup brands, whether your color co-ordinate or not, how that relates to what other people around you are doing, etc. even if you don't like "fashion" and prefer more modest clothes in terms of style and/or material, such as myself i think, there are still people selling you specific clothes that look a specific way in order to match an aesthetic which makes you feel more comfortable just by wearing it for any of a number of reasons. in some situations, it is important to have the social context to understand that you got your clothes at a thrift store.  in other social contexts, if it becomes apparent that you got your clothes at a thrift store, you are essentially homeless and not worth associating with.  in other situations, no one cares where your clothes came from.  in other other situations, people care exactly where your clothes came from. if you want to say that color is not, for instance, a huge feature of how we identify people based on clothing (among MANY other aspects), well, i am not sure what else you need me to prove at that point, so please let me know! haha! ##### Bird Time if it's easier for you to think in terms of birds, please consider the role that color plays in the sexual relationships of many birds.  i.e. cardinals with dicks have brighter red feathers usually and cardinals with vjays usually have duller brown, same for peacocks. anyways, stuff like birds and rainbows would obviously be very different to you and have different significances to you depending on your ability to interact visually with the world. on the other hand, it's possible that someone could give a person enough context to understand that when a "rainbow" is described without color in text or whatever, could have enough emotional associations built up with the idea of a rainbow that they have simply simulated what a rainbow looks like in their head and approached the perspective backwardsly. you don't know!  maybe im wrong! ah!