Forest of trees
You could start with communist content on YouTube. That tends to be more easily digestible and eases you into reading theory later on.
I can recommend channels like Second Thought, Yugopnik, Hakim, revolutionaryth0t and Ian Neves/História Pública (you'll need to use subtitles for this one if you don't speak portuguese).
You libs are deeply unserious. How the fuck can Kamala be reasoned with? The same Copmala that said the US army needs to be the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.
Also, THE DEMOCRATS FUNDED THE GENOCIDE.
Hitler 1 and Hitler 2 cannot be reasoned with.
What no theory does to a mf.
But seriously, you got it wrong. We would all prefer if things go nonviolent, but that is not possible.
Not only that but the post is just a joke, adventurism is not something that's incentivized in leftist groups/movements afaik.
And your rethoric about "anyone that have more than I do" is completely wrong. The problem is not someone earning more than other people, but the bourgeoisie, the ultra rich, the ones that lobby for their interests, that buy and sponsor politicians. Anyone else is much closer to the poor than they are to the rich.
Also this has nothing to do with jealously. You should read some Marx to at least understand what you're trying to criticize and oppose. Or at least watch some Marxist creators like Second Thought, Yugopnik and Hakim.
You really love your "them tankies" huh. Maybe you should start engaging with reality instead of this bullshit anticommunism you always do.
That doesn't mean that everyone should support games being forced into having all genders, or races, or include trans people. Or all books or movies should be forced to have those things.
Literally no one is being "forced" to add diversity. This is just plain ignorant.
Besides, no one bats an eye when a character is a white cis hetero man, but the moment something slightly different from the normativity appears, suddenly it is forced and unrealistic.
Fuck that, LGBT people exist and we deserve the bare minimum of at least having proper representation in the media we consume.
This is not equal to hating trans people, and anyone with some iq points realizes this. We can't turn every creation into a vehicle for trans rights.
Keep your bullshit IQ points talking point. Put yourself on someone's shoes for once and try to imagine what it might be like for a trans person to experience seeing a character like them. And stop with this bullshit of "making every character trans", that's literally not happening.
Educate yourself on the Korean war. https://youtu.be/XJ0kBLCCE7c
It's a tie between The Motorcycle Diaries and Howl's Moving Castle.
The first I found extremely touching, the second is just incredibly magical and charming.
People will always suffer. There’s a multitude of variables as to why people around the world suffer.
Let's take a step back. Why does the majority of people suffer under capitalism? Because they have to live in a world where they don't get good, free healthcare, don't have a right to a house, don't earn nearly enough to live comfortably, don't have enough vacation, can't afford to take a trip, don't have time to enjoy their lives, are alienated from their work, have shitty jobs, work too much, etc, etc, etc.
That creates a necessity for charities for all the basic stuff everyone should have, but doesn't currently have. If we give free good healthcare for everyone, the need for charities to threat people disappears. If we give everyone a home, the need for charities for homeless people, disappear.
Okay, so how about they don’t donate to charities… no more technical advancement in medicine, so people can be poor and die from disease.
What??? You do know that most breakthrough advancements doesn't come from the private initiative right? It comes mainly from public, government expending, into research. This idea that private entities advance society is just a liberal propaganda lie that is peddled to us all the time since birth.
Charities isn’t something you enforce or eliminate. It is a free choice to give. Mandate it and you’re just legalizing theft by the authority.
I'm not talking about making charities illegal, I, like every other communist in the world, am talking about solving the issue at it's roots, eliminating capitalism, and that requires eliminating exploitation through labor and eliminating the rich and insanely wealthy as a class.
They donate not because of the goodness in their heart, but because they get tax cuts from it.
Furthermore, what does donation really accomplish when:
- People are still suffering, regardless of how many charities there are and how much money they get;
- Those wealthy donors are the reason people continue poor since they are only wealthy by exploiting other people's work.
Charities shouldn't need to exist in the first place.
Yeah yeah, continue to spout your anti-communist propaganda. You already live in a dictatorship, you're just to propagandized to realize it.
The only dictatorship we want is that of the proletariat, as opposed to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. That is, a true popular democracy.
Maybe listen to what other people have to say and go read communist theory before saying anything you don't know about.
As it stands your position is not left in any stretch of the imagination.
The Binding of Isaac with all the DLCs. I really mean it. It's the most replayable game I ever played, not only that, but there's tons of mods on the Steam Workshop too.
I don't think any other roguelike comes close in just the sheer amount of things to do and see in this game. I've been playing on and off for years, have more than 500 hours and I still have challenges to complete, characters and items to unlock and item synergies to see.
I gotta get back into Ultrakill, I really wanted to start P-Ranking to get to the big boss fights.
That's the thing, you identified an issue, we constantly hear bad and scary stuff about China all the time, that's western propaganda trying to turn China into the enemy so whatever the west, mainly the US, wants to do, becomes justifiable.
You don't need to live there to know, at least partiatly, the reality of what goes on in the country nor it's international relations. I'm not from the US, but I do know all those things I just cited in my last comment. All you need are good sources. You can start by studying how China handles its international relations. You'll quickly realize that China doesn't threat, embargo or invade other countries.
If you are genuinely interested you can learn a lot by visiting Lemmygrad and Hexbear, there are communities there to ask for information, and as long as you're wanting to learn, you will be welcomed.
Also, Xi Jinping is not insane at all like the media likes to portray him. The statement is too broad for me to tackle any specific thing, tho.
I don't think China cares about human rights very much. And I would not be surprised if people gets killed and made to disappear if they are inconvenient.
Again, very broad statement, what human rights and what you mean by this? This probably comes from more propaganda led disinformation.
Also, China is a massive country with 1.4 billion people. Do you really think we wouldn't have proof of people being repressed, killed and disappearing? The people there aren't isolated from the internet, they can access beyond the restrictions easily with VPNs which are common, it would be easy to show this stuff to the rest of the world.
Protests happen all the time in China and people critique the government, just like basically any other country.
If you want the perspective of a foreigner living there, I recommend the youtube channel Felipe Durante, he speaks Portuguese but the auto translate on youtube should be good enough, at least for english.
Fucking hell. This isn't an opinion, it's a fact that the US is the enemy of the world. The US funds coups, destabilize, install military dictatorships, invades and bombs countries and it's the only country in the world to drop a nuclear bomb on people, and THEY DID IT TWICE.
Stop making "wHaT iFs" in your head and actually look at the reality of what China does. It's not even comparable.
It's wild that Elon is currently beefing up with the head of the judiciary system here in Brasil, lol. I hope twitter is blocked in the process, it would be a blessing for everyone's mental health.
I love the show despite the gripes. But it is also just a show.
Yeah that's completely fine, but what people consume, specially pop culture since it is so popular and specially as a kid, help mold what they think. You're not wrong that it is just a kid's show, but I think it's great to have people do marxist analysis of this type of stuff, we need to dispute these spaces that are already occupied by neolibs and fascists, who critiques shows all the time already. But you're right, there should be more effort into critiquing from our side on shit that is much more problematic and actually fascistic.
I get what you're saying and while Aang wouldn't kill Ozai out of principle, which does make a little bit of sense since he is the literal last of the Air nomads and want to continue to live in their way, the show made it pretty clear that killing Ozai was the absolute right thing to do. Every single other Avatar Aang talked to literally said to him that he should kill Ozai, even the other Air nomad Avatar that came before him said that. And while Aang didn't do it, the option of killing was never showed as wrong in this particular case.
It's a show produced in the imperial core, and the liberalism comes with the package, but I do believe there's a lot of good stuff in there too.
if you haven’t seen Promare yet, watch it. it’s Trigger at their best – easily my favorite movie.
I've watched Promare too, it's great! It pays homage to Gurren Lagann a few times in the movie, specially towards the end. The only criticism I have is that after watching both Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill it became a bit predictable what was gonna happen, but great movie nonetheless.
my friends in college were always talking about it but they made it sound really unappealing by constantly dropping references. you’ve just reminded me that I’ve meant to go back and watch it now that I know how good Trigger is, basically always. well, except Darling and the Franxx. I swear to god someone told them to drop the original ending to that show, because “do a literal revolution and kill the people exploiting you” made some suit uncomfortable, as that would have made so much more sense as the ending rather than the…mess… we got.
I'm on the opposite end, I'm the one that annoys people about it constantly lol. Also I don't want to oversell it, so I'll say that Gurren Lagann have some reactionary stuff there too, specially in the first half, but overall for me it's easily Trigger's team best work to this day. Also, I've watched Darling in the Franxx when it was airing, there was so much potential it's criminal it ended how it did.
ngl, we bounced off part 3 after just a few episodes.
A lot of people seem to do that, and I can see why, it also gets very repetitive really quickly. I never had a problem watching it, aside from it being a bit to long, tho I'll also say that part 3's lows are really low compared to the rest of the series. Since you said below that you don't mind spoilers I'll throw a few stuff here and there.
If you eventually get back to it I think it's worth for DIO's bisexual ass alone (and Joseph's gay sex joke scene that is hilarious). The way he is portrayed and shown throughout the whole part is extremely interesting, and the final battle is easily one of my favorites. It's also good for the followup in part 6's story line with Pucci, a priest that is obviously gay for him. It's also interesting how DIO is not only a recurring central point to the series but also developed even when he is not present. There's also an old OVA that adapts part 3 if you want to at least see what it is about without committing to the anime adaptation. I never got to actually see it, but everyone likes it, so it's probably good.
that’s extremely disappointing. we’re only a few episodes in but I guess it’s extremely on-brand for this show to continue being homoerotic subtextually but continue to not address that blatant subtext.
It looks like I was wrong about that, he wasn't barred from doing it, that came from a rumor I heard long ago, there's these 2 videos that talk about it: The first one has the outdated info, but it adds some context about part 6, and the second one addresses what actually happened, but yeah it is still quite disappointing. Also, for some reason the anime adaptation cuts a part on the beginning where Jolyne notices a trans prisoner. I don't think it's done in a disrespectful way in the manga at all, it's literally her just noticing and acknowledging them, so it's just weird that it was cut.
I’ve heard Part 7 has them fighting the US president which sounds fucking lit. we’re kinda just holding out hope that that’s one that makes us go from “yeah, this is good I guess” to obsessive the way everyone else seems to be.
I was talking about part 9 there, where Dragona is the sibling of the main character and might be trans from what I seen when it launched, but I didn't look into it after that, so it's possible I'm wrong. But yep, the villain of part 7 is the actual president of the US lmao. The politics are much better there. Part 7 is long as hell, but it is without a shadow of a doubt the de facto best part, be it in setting, characters, story line and politics.
like 5 had the objectively better story but it dragged on for too long. though, I fucking love One Piece so that’s some real fucking hypocrisy lmao.
Part 5 length in the anime doesn't really bother me, although the manga has worse pacing, but I get what you're saying, it could definitely be a little shorter. Also, fun fact, JoJo's actually longer than One Piece lol, it just doesn't have the atrocious pacing of the anime.
actually, now that we got live action OP, maybe we’ll get a live action Jojos. that would be fucking hilarious if done with the same kind of love and dedication. what a truly bizarre prospect, a live action bizarre adventure.
There is actually a live action Part 4 JoJo movie, but I never saw it. Heard it is kinda ok. Would be cool to have an adaptation like that, but I don't see it happening before the part 7 anime.
I’d love reccs for good video essays about it. I tried searching for videos about specific Parts but I just got the usual “here’s why you should watch…” type videos, which are really shallow and don’t get into the deeper kinds of analysis that normally helps me process my own thoughts and feelings about what I just saw.
Yeah, I just saw the shithole that is searching for JoJo on youtube nowadays, it was better 4-6 years ago, both in results and actual content, and a lot of it aged not very well it seems. I also found out that there's actually not many video essays about JoJo's, and looking back it makes sense, most of the info is scattered around in multiple short videos of character analysis and what not. I guess it makes sense given how many characters and how many almost self-contained stories there are in the series.
I don't really know any good separate part analysis unfortunately, you'll mostly find videos talking about specific events, plotlines and characters. Here's a few videos I think are interesting:
How Hirohiko Araki Makes a Character - There's quite a bit of liberal thinking in here, but it's good to see Araki's process and values in writing. I would skip to the provided timestamp when he's about to talk about part 7 because it's literally spoilers about the end of the story, but he basically talks about how Johnny is a morally grey character that doesn't follow the structures of past protagonists.
The Genius Of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Great overall look on JoJo's over the years and how it evolved.
The Point of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure [Restored Edition] - This one is a look into the whole of JoJo's, before part 7. There's heavy spoilers for everything, but it's genuinely a great view of what the series is. It's much more hopeful and collective thought oriented than I expected. It's well worth a look.
Appreciate Squalo and Tiziano (Clash and Talking Head) - This a short character analysis of the gay antagonist couple in part 5.
Music's Influence in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - This one shows how music heavily influences the writing in the series, I think he kinda stretches stuff a bit in this video, but the overall message is correct.
Bizarre Style: Fashion In Jojo - This talks about the fashion inspirations that Araki took over the years.
The Artistic Evolution of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Evolution of the art in JoJo's, primarily in the manga.
Sorry for this long comment, I appreciate you taking the time to write all this, I was beyond overjoyed reading it all!!!
like so, so much of it. like reddit regularly gets up in arms over “femboys” that live as women full time and will look into the camera and tell the audience “I wish I’d been born a woman” but the characters + marketing material misgenders them so reddit dies on the hill of “this character is actually a man”.
Oh, yeah I've seen this type of discourse multiple times over the years, it's always something uh. People still to this day "argue" that Kaworu and Shinji aren't gay in Evangelion, despite Shinji blushing every single time he sees him and basically melting around him. The last one I saw was the shitshow when Bridget came out as trans in Guilty Gear Strive.
don’t watch that show unless you want your heart to get broken and feel legitimate rage at a TV show over how much she gives up for the sake of a main character who’s straight up abusive towards her.
I actually watched Steins;Gate years ago, and I'm due to watch it again sometime in the near future, I don't remember much of what happens at all, but I do remember loving Luka as a character. One other thing I remember is that I disliked how Luka was always made fun of or was like the butt of the joke, at least at the very beginning.
but I’m gonna be honest. I mentioned Utena because it’s the pinnacle of queer, animated art, at least from what I’ve seen, in terms of it’s deeply queer themes, it’s exploration of queer sexuality and gender. so many shows, from the Witch from Mars, to Steven Universe have paid homage to it, because it touches everyone who watches it so deeply. I suggest watching Kunihiko Ikuhara’s other, less well-known shows. I swear to god, he has to be trans because his works are invariably made for women and fembies – even the one that looks like it’s about sexualizing gay women is a direct attack on the rest of the anime industry for it’s treatment of gay characters and it’s well received by lesbians. Penguindrum is less obviously queer but it’s peak Ikuhara. I highly recommend it.
Nah, that's totally fine, I didn't know Utena was seen like that, it's good to know. I've heard of the Witch from Mars, and plan on watching it, and I absolutely adore Steven Universe, it's great knowing these were somewhat inspired by it, and now that you mentioned it, I can actually see it in SU. I'll make sure I take a look at Ikuhara's other works too, thanks!
For the other suggestions:
- I actually already downloaded the Rose of Versailles because of another comment on this same thread lol.
- I have watched Kill la Kill a couple of years ago, at the time I was still a lib, so I really need to watch it again, but I find funny how Trigger always have the same formula and how it basically always works out for them. If you haven't already, I strongly suggest you watch Gurren Lagann. It's older than Kill la Kill, from before Trigger was formed, but it is so f u c k i n g good! Have a very similar revolutionary plotline, but I remember liking it a lot more at the time (even tho I was still a lib and didn't fully get it then). There's queer rep there too, though it's not the focus of the show. I recommend to watch both movies after the series too, they just turn it up to 11 in every way possible, it's absolutely fantastic! It's easily one of my favorite shows ever!
- I always hear about Madoka every here and then, but never actually gave it a try, thanks, I'll do! Also thanks for the video rec, I love watching these types of video essays!
- Been meaning to watch Sailor Moon for quite some time now, I'll get to it too. Thanks for all the info, I don't plan on watching it dubbed in english, I prefer to watch stuff in the original language, and some very rare times in portuguese, but I don't know how good the portuguese dub of Sailor Moon is, so I'll just stick to the original, tho I very much doubt it is bad.
- Never heard of it before, I'll check it out.
- Seen it mentioned somewhere before, I'll take a look.
there’s also a lot of stuff that reads extremely queer if you’re familiar with queer culture (I cannot begin to express how many times I’ve yelled “now kiss” or “removed just transition” at my screen) but none of it was memorable enough to recommend right now.
I'm actually not very familiar, but I can relate to that, there has been multiple times were that's all I can think while watching something lol.
I’m slowly working through Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure right now and it’s fun from the perspective that it’s hot, buff dudes posing at each other and punching each other when they clearly want to kiss instead, but I can’t recommend it, at least so far, cause the politics started fairly reactionary.
Oh girl, I absolutely fucking love JoJo's! It was one of my special interests for a few years, I lived and breathed JoJo's.
I can see how it is reactionary at the beginning, specially since it started in the 80s, but I'm pretty sure Araki is at least a very progressive person for Japanese standards. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but some stuff in Part 3, and Parts 5 onward are a lot more progressive than the previous stuff. Part 5 is just full homoerotic twinks beating the living shit out of each other, hell, in part 6 he wanted the protagonist to be a lesbian, but he was barred from doing that. And the newest part that I haven't read yet might have some gender non-conforming person as one of the main characters from last I saw it too.
I highly suggest you don't use the official subs as there's a lot of censorship of names because Araki literally uses band and song names for stands lmao. Also, if you're interested I suggest watching videos about him and about JoJo in general, it helps put a lot of his decisions into perspective. I don't remember a specific video to recommend but xForts and Kaleb I.A. were the channels I used to watch a lot, just make sure you're ahead enough to not get spoilers.
JoJo does have it's fair share of issues, but I think it is absolutely fenomenal! It a 100% helped destroy my, at the time, homophobic views. We JoJo fans tend to be a bit annoying, but I have also seen push-back against LGBTphobia in the community, which is always good.
I know this is off topic from both the OP and even more from OOP, and this thread is not really a good place for this, but I'm watching Utena right now and I'm loving it. I'm only half way through, but it has been amazing so far, all the way from the silly to the serious moments.
I’ve never sobbed so hard at art before seeing the ending to Revolutionary Girl Utena (because of how it mirrored an extremely specific personal experience I’m not going to share here) and that particular show is a favorite among trans women.
I hope it ends up touching me someway too, it's been a while since a show made me really feel something, and that's one of the reasons I love this medium so much. I'm gonna be honest, I've been really questioning my gender lately and I don't know what I am right now, but it's great knowing trans people love Utena so much!
Also, I agree with your statement about queer expression on anime. I only saw a few things, but it feels very different. Though I'm still new into looking for queer representation in general.
Do you have any recommendations be it anime or not? I really do want to continue exploring this after I finish Utena.
What a way to call yourself a fascist uh