Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Today's Document
$LAYYYTER
occasionally subtle
Doug Jones
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Cookie Run:Kingdom Official!
NASA
Color Me Curious
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d e v o n
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RMH
Keni
shark vs the universe
Game Changer & Make Some Noise
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Noah Kahan
taylor price
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@ipiutiminelle-ec
this is insanely racist and I haven't even seen much about this online yet
after Bad Bunny won they added a Latin song category and after Rosé got three nominations the grammys added a k-pop/c-pop/j-pop category they have always been afraid of well-performing artists of color challenging white artists in mainstream categories
My friend worked with the People With AIDS Coalition in 1990 and found this while cleaning out some old folders. I can't stop thinking about it.
Too bad the prophet Cassandra never met Odysseus
They say if she made a prophecy Nobody would believe her
I’ve gotta say, that is exactly the kind of stupid thing that probably would circumvent a curse.
Cassandra: YOU ARE ALL GOING TO REGRET THIS SO MUCH YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW.
Odysseus: Regret it why?
Cassandra: You won’t believe me if I tell you. If I prophecy, nobody believes me. That is my curse.
Odysseus: … I’m Nobody. Fill me in.
*A couple of months later*
Odysseus: HELLO PENELOPE, I AM HERE PRECISELY ON TIME AND NOT YEARS LATE incidentally I rescued and adopted a Trojan seer while I was away, she’s great, got me home really fast, Cassandra this is your new mother who’s not going to treat you like shit.
Penelope: … I’m going to need more details, but okay, sure.
Cassandra: *in tears* I love you, new family.
Cassandra: Penelope, I’ve had another vision.
Penelope, sighs: Go tell your father.
the original? on my dash?
How much discourse do you think there is in the kpop demon hunters universe over Huntrix's breakup? I assume half the fans are analyzing every second of footage from the last three years looking for signs of tension and arguing about the whose fault it was and half the fans are posting that it's actually kind of fucked up to ruin the Idol Awards with a fake onstage breakup just to build up to dropping a new song, even if it is kind of a banger
@sagewiththyme You know that's a fascinating point because I figure the two options are a) no one really remembers what happened at the end because of magic bullshit or b) they play it off as a really elaborate but fully planned performance.
And the second one - can you fucking imagine.
Imagine one of the most popular bands in the world have this ongoing lore bit that they're actually demon hunters and they're always referencing it in their songs. And then one day a new boy band pops up and gets wildly popular with an over-the-top-cutesy hit. They're so soft and sweet and respectful. They're called Saja (Lion) Boys and they're all like "join the pride!" How cute!
And then they announce a new concert and you get there and it's fucking this. They're all dressed as demons/grim reapers. Surprise, "Saja" meant Jeoseung Saja all along! They're singing about how they're here for your soul and they relish in your pain, just a stunning 180 from their previous personas.
And then while you're trying to process the emotional whiplash the fucking demon hunter band bursts in and beats the shit out of them with the most insane pyrotechnic show you've ever seen in your life. They "kill" the boy band demons and then you never see them again. The whole band was a fucking psyop for Huntrix to play up the "demon hunters" bit.
I would never recover. The cheesiest fantasy power metal band has NOTHING on that level of commitment. I'd be stanning Huntrix for the rest of my life.
[ID: A comment by @sagewiththyme that says, "Didn’t they also say that the Saja boys were fighting onstage and that’s why they swapped time slots with the girls? Double breakup and makeup type thing". End ID]
"Yeah, the Saja Boys were a fake band. We paid them to steal the limelight for a little bit while Rumi's voice was out of commission. We thought it would be a cool setup for a triumphant return, you know? The cute little Lion Boys end up being secret demons trying to steal your souls, and Huntrix steps in and slays them in a triumphant return? ...Yeah. We planned it all, the songs, the heel-turn, the special effects, the whole shebang.
Except, uhhhh. We didn't expect them to get so popular so fast? They For Sure weren't supposed to make it to the final round of the Idol Awards. Like, for Legal Reasons. We were almost visibly panicking on stage when they announced that! I mean, do you know how it would look once it eventually came out that Saja Boys were working for us? "Oh, you planted a fake band so you could win the competition!" No joke. I mean, that is a pret-ty clear conflict of interest there. You know?
The Idol Awards are all about the fan's choices, and we just accidentally rigged the game.
The Saja Boys had to win the Idol Awards, now, but there was no chance. They only had two songs, Soda Pop and Your Idol. We couldn't have them push up the debut--I mean, we thought about it, Your Idol's a banger song and it totally would've given us a run for our money--but we'd have to follow it up with This Is What It Sounds Like, first off, and second, 'killing' the Saja Boys onstage would be like. The Media equivalent of announcing we won, like the Fans didn't have a choice in the matter. At the Idol Awards? Ha. Yeah. That's a no-go.
And I mean. Soda Pop is catchy but not that catchy guys, c'mon. We were totally gonna cream them with Golden.
So we were all scrambling. Rumi and Mira and I were trying to write and choreograph a brand new song, Takedown, something good but not Good Enough To Win, to maybe prolong the Rivalry, you know? To make our comeback all the more sweet. But it was all such short notice, and the song wasn't working, and Huntrix never gives a shoddy performance, on principle. We couldn't do it. But it was looking like the only way we were gonna legitimately lose was if something... happened during the competition.
And then Rumi had this brilliant idea..."
Memes
And then it becomes even more complicated once it’s been awhile, and it becomes clear that no one’s heard anything from any of the “real” boys since the awards.
Like, obviously the Saja Boys weren’t a “real” band, so it makes sense they’re not coming out with new music, and since they’re “dead”, of course all their official band accounts have gone quiet, but like… someone would have had to be portraying the band members, right? Even if you wave that off as them being some of the same actors who portray the “demons” at their concerts, someone would definitely have to be lending their voices for the songs. Who were they? They couldn’t have been well-established in the industry, otherwise they’d have been recognized too quickly and the ruse would have been up, and something like this would have been a huge break for new performers.
So why’d they just disappear?
Where are the actors?
I’d imagine this would never gain too much traction within the fandom, but it still lingers long after the dust has settled and the scandal clears up. Go deep enough into the comments on any HUNTR/X-related posts, and you’ll find someone commenting #WhereAreTheBoys.
Shana, what c-dramas would you recommend? I’ve watched and loved both Untamed and Mysterious Lotus Casebook and I’m looking for a new show to binge
i have been straight up binging c dramas recently
based on those two, i'd say you'd probably like word of honor, it's another censored bl and the actors are amazing (rip zhang zehan sorry china canceled you). it's also wuxia so the setting will probably be familiar to you
nirvana in fire is an absolutely amazing and compelling c drama but it is HEAVY in politics and light on everything else. lot of great relationships. my favorite character is yan yujin, who's just a support character, but i love him
love in the galaxy is well written and well acted and the ml is the kid from nirvana in fire all grown up. i love smart and rebellious fls and this one is so good
romance of tiger and rose is a bit ridiculous but it works considering the setting is a fake world brought to life, which is why it at times is shallow and a caricature - because it literally is. i love zhao lusi (also the fl in love like the galaxy) and she and the ml have great chemistry which i think really carries it
story of minglan is amazing but very long and honestly i find the romance to be a little lacking. their partnership is great but i actually don't totally buy them being in love, but how good the rest of it makes up for that
blossom has huge chunks that are story of minglan rip offs not done well, but the main leads have good chemistry and there's a coherent plot through out, which isn't anything to sneeze at. the story of the female general is good only because of the male and female leads (cheng lai being gorgeous and the girl was in word of honor and they sell it to me) and has a really strong start but the whole thing just falls apart in the and
blood river i think might also be up your alley because of the relationship between su muyu and su changhe, but you have to think of it like you're watching a filmed play taking place in a theater, because that's how a lot of the action and dialogue is styled, especially during a fight scene. that one post is right, it really is 90% dramatic fight scenes, but i find the characters and chemistry and compelling enough to go through that
pursuit of jade is incredible, another drama that has it all, really strong acting, romance, and plot. 10/10 100% recommend. like it's so good that i don't even know what else to say
i'm watching first jasmine right now which is still being released. so far i'm loving it, again a big fan of cheng lai, but since it's ongoing we don't know if it'll stay good or just fall apart in the end
everyone else feel free to tell me your favorites :)
The largest mass shooting in American history was a hate crime against gay people. Don’t ever forget that.
June 12, 2016. Putting a date on this for when it gets reblogged months from now by people who think the post is about something from 30, 40 years ago.
I am a survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting, having grown up in Orlando and just turned 20 a month prior. If you didn’t know, there were several families who refused to claim the bodies of their relatives due to their sexuality. One family even had their relative’s name removed from the memorial. Murdered by the same hate with which their families reject them in both life and death.
Many, many people celebrated Pulse. We were told we deserved it. That it was God’s punishment for our sin of loving the same sex. We are sent messages like these I received in 2018:
We in the community often call the victim count 49+ to include the survivors who couldn’t live with the pain.
The event was never officially declared a hate crime or targeted homophobic attack and is rarely listed as one in databases.
At our vigils for those slaughtered, Extremist Christian groups showed up to protest, holding signs like this:
ID: Me kissing a woman I was casually seeing in front of an angry looking man with a “Sodomy is Sin” sign.
Please understand how much more than just a mass shooting this was. We are still to this day harassed and told we deserved it by some.
This year was the sixth anniversary. The first couple years I received dozens of messages checking in on me on 6/12. Year 5 got enough news coverage for people to think to reach out to me. This year it was my therapist, the woman I kissed in that photo, and a couple of other gun violence survivor friends. People are forgetting already.
With the 7 year anniversary <2 weeks away, I figured I’d reblog this
10 years
They had not been seen together in the museum galleries for quite a while. Monet’s “Women with Umbrellas” are once again side by side in the Impressionist gallery.
AND THEN THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER THE END!!!!
ok every time this post comes by i resist geeking out on it but NO LONGER so these women are probably the same woman and that woman is monet’s wife camille doncieux. he painted her a LOT. but fun fact: monet had this asshole friend named ernest hochede, and ernest racked up some debts, and like an asshole he basically just fled the country, leaving his wife alice and their six kiddos behind. monet immediately got alice and kids to move in with him, camille, and their two kids. at this point, monet, alice, and camille became my favorite probably historic poly threesome. they lived together, taking care of the kids. they were so poor that alice and camille took turns wearing the nice dress so they could go out with monet. when camille got uterine cancer and began dying, alice helped monet cope and took care of things while he painted camille over and over. when camille died, alice is the reason monet was able to survive. when ernest finally died, monet and alice married, and remained married until alice died. at that point, blanche, the oldest daughter, took care of monet until he died. anyway, the point is, the umbrella ladies are probably the same ladies, but as far as i’m concerned, there WAS a historically queer poly family in that household and they were wonderful.
this is a fucking joy
I think one of the funniest abortion stances I've heard was from my parents neighbor. He's a like, hard-core libertarian viking larper guy who is very tall and very fat and very bald.
He believes a fetus is human with a soul, but also its "basically attacking the woman's body" so if she wants to get rid of it, that's "basically self-defense". He compared it to shooting a home invader. So he supports abortion not as healthcare, but as killing a baby in self-defense
Y'know I'm so glad someone reminded me of this. Because this was also discussed.
My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.
Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.
He brought up people consensually hurting each other, didn't go for one of the obvious answers like boxing or body mods or something, no he went STRAIGHT TO BDSM and he DIDN'T EVEN REMEMBER THE ACRONYM
You are a villain famous for “killing” heroes. In reality, heroes come to you to fake their deaths.
Sometimes they try to pay you.
You are posted out by the Hollywood sign tonight, sitting under the frame where the W used to be. It got burnt to a crisp during last week’s big superhero fight. A hero died right where you’re sitting. The whole area’s been closed down until Hero Force can coordinate a recovery effort. Usually it’d be done by now but no one’s willing to touch it until the ash has been completely blown away.
It’s a rule that the world must stand still when a hero dies.
“How much?”
The voice comes from behind you. The lights that illuminate the Hollywood sign are down to hide as much of the scorch marks as possible. You wouldn’t be able to see anything even if you did turn around, so you don’t.
You put some chapstick on, the glide of the balm against your wind chapped lips grounding.
“I said,” the Hero says, voice tightening, “How. Much.”
There’s the sound of gravel crunching now. They’re wearing heavy boots and the scent of fresh blood grows stronger the closer they get. Their breathing is smooth and even which means it’s not their blood.
You put the cap back on your chapstick and tuck it into your leather jacket’s inner pocket. “I don’t take money.”
“Then what do you take?” The Hero rounds the Y and comes into your line of sight. The dark hides most of their features, but you can make out a glittering gold mask and the dull shine of drying blood on their chest plate. Their breathing may be even, but their stance isn’t. They sway in place, back and forth, back and forth. Their arms wrap around their stomach. “I’ve got land. A house. You can have it.”
Afficher davantage
obsessed with the fact that howl movingcastle is, like, the ideal portal fantasy protagonist. he's a welsh rugby-playing grad student who enters a magical world where he discovers he's a wildly powerful wizard. there's an evil witch out to get him and the king needs his help and there's a curse catching up with him. he has a magical creature sidekick and an orphan apprentice and a mentor who gets killed by the evil witch halfway through and a love interest under a terrible curse. the story is BEGGING for him to be the main character. and he's just like. no <3.
Gerard P Donelan
I love the notes saying this femme knows exactly what she's doing and it's all part of her flirting technique. You get it.
More of his stuff and about him
My absolute favorite of his work
Lest we forget "The Quilt" (not as funny, but worth a mention)
Reposting for everything but esp. that last one
Value Pack
I think fanfiction as a medium is different enough from mainstream literature in the tools it offers writers that it's a shame that it's not talked about more often. And it's not me saying "fanfic is better than books xD" because that sort of mindset is a symptom of people who aren't particularly well read in either medium. I'm just speaking of like... The little things you get to do with a fanfic that you genuinely can't really do in an original story.
I had a big fanfic in a previous fandom where one of the big reveals was the involvement of a kind of infamous villain, whose presence was built up to and foreshadowed through the whole fic until his reveal without ever mentioning his name, so that the name drop would be a gut punch. It worked especially well because of who the villain was and his presence in that fandom space specifically (it's very complicated) and if it was an original story this reveal wouldn't work at all the way it was written in the fic. Because if you don't have a predisposition to think about that character and his relationship to the hero in a very specific way, then just seeing their name won't do much to you; the reveal and the recontextualisation it pushes upon you hinges on your previous knowledge of the source material.
I think it's an interesting tool fanfic authors are given. One of my favorite fanfic of all time is partially a re-imagining of its source material's canon, and something it does is introduce antagonists much earlier in the story or deepen npcs' stories. It then works to evoke a tragic irony that again wouldn't work if you didn't know the source material, and it's something the author obviously has a lot of fun with.
You could call it cheap or a crutch and I mean, yeah, sure, it is a little bit: the fanfic relies on previously established emotional bonds and stakes to achieve its goal, and in some cases it saves the author from having to 'properly' build up its stakes. But I think it's INTERESTING that it has that tool at its disposal. I think it's a fun thing to play with and I think these built in expectations and emotional bonds are especially why I find story driven aus in particular to be fascinating in the amount of ways you can play with them. You know??
I totally agree and you just perfectly put it into words!
Benedict was in love with a maid. A working class woman, a member of their own household who no doubt cleaned the very floor they stand on. The woman who’d helped dress Eloise and brought tea and… And their mother was supportive of the match. Their mother was positively enthralled. Because — and this is what Eloise couldn’t comprehend fully at this moment — Benedict loved Sophie and that was enough.
Eloise should be happy for her brother, and she was, have no doubt, but in this instant the only words that rang in her head were about how unfair this all was. How was it that Benedict was able, was allowed, to pursue Sophie when Eloise had to give up-… Even his name felt too taboo to pronounce, but the shape of the word in its absence haunted her thoughts. She stared wide-eyed around, grasping at any explanation, any sign that she was dreaming, but everything was damnably, entirely too real.
On the other side of the drawing room, Penelope and Anthony were deep in conversation with Mrs Wilson. The new maid, Hazel, was hovering nearby discussing something with Collin in hurried, hushed tones. It was as if, for a time, all class distinctions had been erased, uniting all of them in the quest of love.
How very Bridgerton.
The thought was bitter, scathing, and entirely surprising. Intrusive in a way that made Eloise uncomfortable. Eloise loved her family. And yet, staring at this strange scene taking place before her eyes, she knew that it was only temporary. Already, Anthony was motioning to the new maid to bring him his coat, and Mrs Wilson had begun backing away at a respectable distance. Love conquered all, but even in this household, it could not conquer class divides for long.
The chatter didn’t abate. Hyacinth, Gregory, and Francesca were brought up to date on the latest scandal and things once again accelerated: there were balls to plan, schemes to put in place; better things to do than wallow in self-pity. This wasn’t about Eloise, and guilt stung her thoughts every time they drifted to — Theo. So she doubled down on the mission, helped Sophie infiltrate the Gun mansion and reconnected with Cressida. Still, now that Pandora’s jar has been opened there was no closing it again. Everywhere she turned reminders of Theo kept haunting her.
No hardcore fandom has ever died so quickly and so completely as Veronica Mars. This is the story of its murder.
They should study Veronica Mars in Hollywood. I'm serious. It's an incredible story of how to go from "loud, passionate fanbase with its own fandom name that campaigns and advocates constantly for it" to "absolutely zero fucking interest" damn near OVERNIGHT with just ONE epically terri-bad decision.
If you weren't there, you don't understand: From 2007 to 2014, the fandom — the "Marshmallows," as they called themselves — were everywhere in the Internet's geek spaces, my friends. They routinely beat the drum about the series' three seasons and its excellence, lamented its cancellation, pushed others to give the show a try, and always - ALWAYS - proudly and loudly called for the series to be revived.
FULL DISCLOSURE/CONFESSION: I've not even watched that much Veronica Mars, frankly... ? Yeah, I'm sorry! it does seem pretty good from like the four-or-five hours I've experienced firsthand. I just never took the time to sit down with it. Regardless, I find fandoms and their dynamics — both how they operate internally and how they display to others externally — deeply fascinating. And I honestly find them easier to study from the outside than the inside. Like, if I'm IN a fandom, I'm more likely to stay in my corner and ignore places that seem negative. But being on the outside lets me just... absorb what's out there, looking into every forum without judgment. It's like studying pop-culture sociology or something? And it helps that I'm very close to some serious(-ly burnt) Marshmallows. It makes it so much easier to find and absorb the gamut of the fandom.
Besides: There is NO fandom story I've ever seen that's anything like what happened to Veronica Mars and the Marshmallows.
(Time to insert a brief explainer for the uninitiated: Veronica Mars was a TV series that aired from 2004-2007 on the now-deceased UPN network wherein Kristen Bell played the titular character, a high school girl whose single dad was a private detective in the fictional community of Neptune, California. She grew up working "unofficially" as his assistant, which meant that she herself was effectively a teenage private detective.
The three core elements of the series were: 1) Veronica investigating each week's big mystery with plenty of quips and snark, 2) Watching Veronica's various relationships develop and shift, with most of the focus given to a) her relationship to her father and b) Her romantic pursuits (which began as the Veronica/Duncan/Logan triangle before eventually becoming focused on the slow-burn, off-on Veronica/Logan love story), and 3) The gradual development of that season's "mytharc" — the overarching BIG MYSTERY that doesn't get resolved or wrapped until the season finale. So it went over the course of two seasons that took place in high school and the third, shorter season that was at the start of Veronica's collegiate career.)
Just how big and how passionate were the Marshmallows? WELL! When series creator Rob Thomas (not the Matchbox 20 guy) and star Kristen Bell announced the Kickstarter campaign for the Veronica Mars movie in March 2013, it achieved its heretofore-unprecedented goal of TWO MILLION GODDAMN DOLLARS within less than 12 hours. At that time, it was the biggest Kickstarter goal to ever succeed — and certainly the fastest to reach that kind of height. Fans fell OVER themselves to pay out for it. Hell, my own significant other was DEEP in the tank for VM at the time and invested enough to get multiple t-shirts as backer rewards as well as a disk copy of the movie when it eventually came home.
And AFTER the movie hit in 2014? It was thankfully beloved and embraced! The once-teenage characters were adults who were actually out living on their own and working for a living, but the fandom had grown up with them, so it wasn't like they were begging for them to stay young students. They embraced Adult Veronica and her new adventure. The fandom rejoiced loudly and continued to be all over the geek side of the Internet... where they, of course, still wanted more. Sure, there were new novels in the aftermath (which were written by the creator of the series), but most of the Marshmallows were calling for more movies or a streaming revival.
And then, at long last... season four was actually announced. And there was much (premature) rejoicing yet again.
Yes, Veronica Mars returned for a fourth season on Hulu in 2019. It was just eight episodes, and it was heavily centered on one season-long mystery instead of sprinkling that amongst a bunch of smaller ones, but it would still feature the same ol' Veronica. They promised a new, more "adult" mystery/investigation plus a strong focus on Veronica and Logan's love story.
New Hulu purchased the rights to the first three seasons and hyped up its presence on the platform while marketing the return for the new run. The marketing team played up the most popular quips from the show's history plus put out TONS of stuff centered on the Logan/Veronica ship to pump up the fans.
The season was dropped all at once using the classic Netflix "binge" model in July 2019. And then... afterwards?
There was a brief explosion of LOUD RAGE from the Marshmallows at what series creator Rob Thomas had to done to burn and spite the fandom and ruin his own goodwill.
SPOILERS FOR SEASON 4: See, at the end of the movie, Veronica and Logan finally entered into a long-term relationship. In season four, they've been dating for years, and Logan proposes marriage. But of course there has to be drama/obstacles: In this case, Veronica isn't sure she's ready to marry... or capable of being in a marriage. Ah, but of course she eventually realizes how much Logan means to her. The two are married, and, in the season finale... Logan is killed by a car bomb in the penultimate scene. The final scene is a flashfoward to a year later, where Veronica leaves Neptune alone.
For most fandoms, that'd be a memorable point of pain. A big ol' speed bump that ultimately throws some people off the bus, leaving only the die-hards. But the fact that fans had been invested in this relationship for literally 15 years and that Hulu (and creator Rob Thomas) had heavily marketed the new season as being a big romantic event for the ship... it was too much. Unlike the aftermath of the Star Wars sequels, there was no lingering group of die-hard fans who were open to whatever was next — at least no significant one. I did some Googling and could only find TWO people who still wanted another season.
Funnily enough? Critics LOVED this. Hell, Vanity Fair infamously penned an editorial about how Veronica Mars had "finally grown up" with this finale. I suppose all the other murders and deaths and drug overdoses and r*pe weren't "mature" enough before now for... some... reason. (The same editorial also featured the author openly hating on Veronica ever being in a relationship because it causes "arrested development" and declaring that the movie -- which was acclaimed by both critics AND fans alike, I remind you -- was a lame dud. So. The writer must be a reeeaaaal fun person.)
But a series doesn't live based on critical acclaim, as it turns out. The fandom was murdered overnight. "Marshmallows" stopped appearing in geek spaces online entirely. No one expressed interest in seeing the next season or the next movie. The constant flow of fan AMVs on YouTube and fanfics on AO3 dried up to nothing or damn nearly so.
Since 2019 ? Nothing. Chirping crickets. An intensely dedicated fandom of 12 years was just... vaporized.
I've never seen anything like it before OR since.
That's why it's so fucking fascinating.
So what went wrong?
Creator Rob Thomas was adamant about two things: ONE, the series was intended to be a noir show, which meant there couldn't be any happiness for its protagonist. And TWO, the death of Logan was necessary to evolve and grow the series.
Thomas thought that having Veronica in a relationship would be holding her back, and that a marriage would absolutely kill the series and leave her stagnant. It never even occurred to him that marriage isn't the end of a character's life and growth. It never occurred to him that plenty of drama can be had AFTER someone is married, or that development/growth could be that the characters mature enough to be capable of maintaining a committed relationship. Thomas' view of his own universe was so myopic that he couldn't conceive of any possible way that Veronica could still be a private detective involved in life-threatening investigations AND be married at the same time. Futhermore, he felt that fans just wanted Veronica to become a pregnant housewife, which is about as far from what Marshmallows were after as you can get without straight-up killing Veronica and/or Logan. He managed to do the only thing wronger than what he wrongly thought was their insistence.
On top of the above, Rob Thomas only viewed "noir" as a vehicle for total fatalism... despite the fact that many of the most famous noir stories are cynical and full of moral ambiguity, but they still feature a positive outcome. The Big Sleep still has the protagonist get the girl. The Set-Up arguably ends with the happiest possible ending in spite of the beating the hero receives.
Perhaps most importantly? Despite Thomas own insistence that Veronica Mars was always "noir," the majority of both TV critics and fans did not think that designation ever truly applied. I suspect that's the reason why Thomas decided to go as dark and fatalistic as possible: He wanted to be noir, and he was being told that he wasn't. So he went so far into noir that he killed his own most popular property.
He was adamant that it was the only way for the series to grow. But as it turns out, it was instead the only way for the series to permanently end. Without that season four finale, a passionate group of fans would still be begging for more. With it? It's over. Nobody fucking cares now.
That's kind of amazing.
How to Solve a Problem Like Eloise Bridgerton
So, like many people, I’ve been extremely nervous about what they’re going to do with Eloise’s season in Bridgerton. Judging by the fact that the show seems to have trapped her in limbo this season (an extremely common pattern for the lead going into their season), I do think she is going to be Season 5. As a reader of the books but a much bigger fan of Show!Eloise, I’ve been trying to genuinely parse out what the show could do with her season. I have ranked what I think are the possible paths, including a number of drawbacks or advantages to each, but I do think that the best solution is Theloise. Hear me out. Possibility 1-Eloise ends up alone after going on a feminist arc. Possible in any other show, but literally never going to happen on Bridgerton. Eloise will fall in love, full stop. I also think it almost definite that she also gets married. Possibility 2-Eloise is a lesbian. Besides the fact that it is undermined by her Theo arc, the second they chose to make Fran gay they closed down this option. Bluntly, Netflix is not doing two sapphic ships back-to-back. (My condolences to the Creloise girls; I do think it would’ve been interesting). I salute the writers for taking the harder road with not choosing the man-hater as the gay girl, but I don’t want Eloise to suffer as a result.
Possibility 3-Eloise gets with Phillip. Unlike most anti-Phillip people, I’m not going to rag on Book Phillip’s personality—that’s the easiest thing for the show to change. The much harder things: you’ve got to kill Marina in a way that doesn’t feel unnecessarily cruel or racist to the audience. You’ve got to get Eloise actively interested in parenting. And, most damningly, Eloise must integrate seamlessly into society in the most crushing way possible. It turns out her mother was right—she did just need to find the right socially acceptable man. (The only way this would work for me is if somehow Phillip was rendered completely socially unacceptable. Maybe Marina goes missing and everyone in the ton thinks he killed her—and Eloise manages to get a job posing as a governess at the Cranes to look into the mystery for Penelope.) But this arc still doesn’t pay off Eloise’s feminism. The whole of Eloise’s arc should not be “actually, society and the marriage mart and being conventionally married to a man of the ton and caring for his children is good, actually.” That may be a story true to the Regency, but it does her a profound disservice when written in 2026. Instead, I propose….
Possibility 5: Persuasion, Theloise style. Picture it. Eloise encounters some moment of injustice for women in Episode 1 of her season. Maybe she encounters a woman trying to get divorced. Maybe she encounters a woman trying to go to university. Maybe she encounters some maid connection of Sophie’s who is trying to organize factory women. I do think it would help to make it a broader cause with Eloise going really hard to bat for someone else, if only to stave off the “she’s selfish” allegations she somehow keeps getting. Though maybe it starts as a personal cause for Eloise, and then becomes intersectional once she encounters other women dealing with similar problems. (Note: For my preferred plot, I do think it should be something related to women’s property rights in marriage, for reasons I’ll get into later.)
Enter, Theo. Since we’ve last seen him, he’s worked his way through the activist scene into becoming an up and coming politician (a real thing that did happen) vying for a seat in the House of Commons. Eloise first encounters him at a sponsorship party that they’ve both been invited to, where they learn about their shared interest in this cause. He is cold to El (again, think Persuasion), but they end up paired back up in order to fundraise for the cause. Ensue various jealousy plots—perhaps Theo is engaged to the daughter of one of his financial backers, while another sponsor is trying to flirt with Eloise. They spend time together fighting the cause (what shenanigans they get into depends on the cause), but both have moments of defending the other in front of a skeptical crowd. Eventually, El realizes that she does love him, but is scared of a) ruining Hyacinth’s chances b) being legally tied to Theo c) having kids she doesn’t want. Meanwhile, Theo has gone on a journey of realizing that she actually was the girl he thought she was in Season 2: somewhat naive and sheltered, but whip-smart and with a head and heart in the right place. Somewhere in here, the rival love interests are also dispatched—they were only included for Shonda drama. In the end, Hyacinth (a true romantic like her mom) gives her blessing, the Theloise bill passes in a way that confers legal rights of women to own property, and Theo and Eloise revel in the magic of non-penetrative sex. Eloise walks away with the Bridgertons’ blessings and her dowry, now fully in her own name, placing her smack-dab in the middle class (honestly, probably upper middle). The epilogue is her preparing to give a lecture on women’s suffrage while Theo gets ready to enter the House of Commons. Boom, mic drop. Or we could watch her get the feminism crushed out of her in order to validate certain people’s obsession with living out their marrying rich guy fantasies, despite the fact that Eloise is herself rich and literally every other romance on this show is that exact fantasy. (Insert Eloise gag face.)
The Global Nonviolent Action Database details some 40 cases of mass movements overcoming tyrants through strategic nonviolent campaigns.
"With Donald Trump set to take office after a fear-mongering campaign that reignited concerns about his desire to become a dictator, a reasonable question comes up: Can nonviolent struggle defeat a tyrant?
There are many great resources that answer this question, but the one that’s been on my mind lately is the Global Nonviolent Action Database, or GNAD, built by the Peace Studies department at Swarthmore College. Freely accessible to the public, this database — which launched under my direction in 2011 — contains over 1,400 cases of nonviolent struggle from over a hundred countries, with more cases continually being added by student researchers.
At quick glance, the database details at least 40 cases of dictators who were overthrown by the use of nonviolent struggle, dating back to 1920. These cases — which include some of the largest nations in the world, spanning Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America — contradict the widespread assumption that a dictator can only be overcome by violence. What’s more, in each of these cases, the dictator had the desire to stay, and possessed violent means for defense. Ultimately, though, they just couldn’t overcome the power of mass nonviolent struggle.
In a number of countries, the dictator had been embedded for years at the time they were pushed out. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, for example, had ruled for over 29 years. In the 1990s, citizens usually whispered his name for fear of reprisal. Mubarak legalized a “state of emergency,” which meant censorship, expanded police powers and limits on the news media. Later, he “loosened” his rule, putting only 10 times as many police as the number of protesters at each demonstration.
The GNAD case study describes how Egyptians grew their democracy movement despite repression, and finally won in 2011. However, gaining a measure of freedom doesn’t guarantee keeping it. As Egypt has shown in the years since, continued vigilance is needed, as is pro-active campaigning to deepen the degree of freedom won.
Some countries repeated the feat of nonviolently deposing a ruler: In Chile, the people nonviolently threw out a dictator in 1931 and then deposed a new dictator in 1988. South Koreans also did it twice, once in 1960 and again in 1987. (They also just stopped their current president from seizing dictatorial powers, but that’s not yet in the database.)
In each case people had to act without knowing what the reprisals would be...
It’s striking that in many of the cases I looked at, the movement avoided merely symbolic marches and rallies and instead focused on tactics that impose a cost on the regime. As Donald Trump wrestles to bring the armed forces under his control, for example, I can imagine picketing army recruiting offices with signs, “Don’t join a dictator’s army.”
Another important takeaway: Occasional actions that simply protest a particular policy or egregious action aren’t enough. They may relieve an individual’s conscience for a moment, but, ultimately, episodic actions, even large ones, don’t assert enough power. Over and over, the Global Nonviolent Action Database shows that positive results come from a series of escalating, connected actions called a campaign...
-via Waging Nonviolence, January 8, 2025. Article continues below.
East Germany’s peaceful revolution
When East Germans began their revolt against the German Democratic Republic in 1988, they knew that their dictatorship of 43 years was backed by the Soviet Union, which might stage a deadly invasion. They nevertheless acted for freedom, which they gained and kept.
Researcher Hanna King tells us that East Germans began their successful campaign in January 1988 by taking a traditional annual memorial march and turning it into a full-scale demonstration for human rights and democracy. They followed up by taking advantage of a weekly prayer for peace at a church in Leipzig to organize rallies and protests. Lutheran pastors helped protect the organizers from retaliation and groups in other cities began to stage their own “Monday night demonstrations.”
The few hundred initial protesters quickly became 70,000, then 120,000, then 320,000, all participating in the weekly demonstrations. Organizers published a pamphlet outlining their vision for a unified German democracy and turned it into a petition. Prisoners of conscience began hunger strikes in solidarity.
By November 1988, a million people gathered in East Berlin, chanting, singing and waving banners calling for the dictatorship’s end. The government, hoping to ease the pressure, announced the opening of the border to West Germany. Citizens took sledgehammers to the hated Berlin Wall and broke it down. Political officials resigned to protest the continued rigidity of the ruling party and the party itself disintegrated. By March 1990 — a bit over two years after the campaign was launched — the first multi-party, democratic elections were held.
Students lead the way in Pakistan
In Pakistan, it was university students (rather than religious clerics) who launched the 1968-69 uprising that forced Ayub Khan out of office after his decade as a dictator. Case researcher Aileen Eisenberg tells us that the campaign later required multiple sectors of society to join together to achieve critical mass, especially workers.
It was the students, though, who took the initiative — and the initial risks. In 1968, they declared that the government’s declaration of a “decade of development” was a fraud, protesting nonviolently in major cities. They sang and marched to their own song called “The Decade of Sadness.”
Police opened fire on one of the demonstrations, killing several students. In reaction the movement expanded, in numbers and demands. Boycotts grew, with masses of people refusing to pay the bus and railway fares on the government-run transportation system. Industrial workers joined the movement and practiced encirclement of factories and mills. An escalation of government repression followed, including more killings.
As the campaign expanded from urban to rural parts of Pakistan, the movement’s songs and political theater thrived. Khan responded with more violence, which intensified the determination among a critical mass of Pakistanis that it was time for him to go.
After months of growing direct action met by repressive violence, the army decided its own reputation was being degraded by their orders from the president, and they demanded his resignation. He complied and an election was scheduled for 1970 — the first since Pakistan’s independence in 1947.
Why use nonviolent struggle?
The campaigns in East Germany and Pakistan are typical of all 40 cases in their lack of a pacifist ideology, although some individuals active in the movements had that foundation. What the cases do seem to have in common is that the organizers saw the strategic value of nonviolent action, since they were up against an opponent likely to use violent repression. Their commitment to nonviolence would then rally the masses to their side.
That encourages me. There’s hardly time in the U.S. during Trump’s regime to convert enough people to an ideological commitment to nonviolence, but there is time to persuade people of the strategic value of a nonviolent discipline.
It’s striking that in many of the cases I looked at, the movement avoided merely symbolic marches and rallies and instead focused on tactics that impose a cost on the regime. As Donald Trump wrestles to bring the armed forces under his control, for example, I can imagine picketing army recruiting offices with signs, “Don’t join a dictator’s army.”
Another important takeaway: Occasional actions that simply protest a particular policy or egregious action aren’t enough. They may relieve an individual’s conscience for a moment, but, ultimately, episodic actions, even large ones, don’t assert enough power. Over and over, the Global Nonviolent Action Database shows that positive results come from a series of escalating, connected actions called a campaign — the importance of which is also outlined in my book “How We Win.”
As research seminar students at Swarthmore continue to wade through history finding new cases, they are digging up details on struggles that go beyond democracy. The 1,400 already-published cases include campaigns for furthering environmental justice, racial and economic justice, and more. They are a resource for tactical ideas and strategy considerations, encouraging us to remember that even long-established dictators have been stopped by the power of nonviolent campaigns.
-via Waging Nonviolence, January 8, 2025.
Interesting
