DelendaEst
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User ID: 1199
DelendaEst
3yr ago
I think the term has value, but I also think most people who would unironically use it are in fact NPCs.
The useful Motte version of the term is someone who thinks not at all about issues and just regurgitates whatever talking points they have gotten from their side, such that they seem to be saying the same canned dialogue as everyone else in town, ala an NPC from a video game. This is a real phenomenon, and it is annoying to see. Even when people are not literally saying the same thing it is a ton of people saying basically the same thing. And it is particularly vexing that the things that tend to become NPC dialogue are the pithiest and least interesting things, and never the interesting content I wouldn't mind becoming widely talked about. Most commonly this is an insult which can be thoughtlessly deployed to explain why you don't need to actually engage with anything someone on the other side has said.
However, people who use the term have basically just received an insulting pithy meme about the left which they deploy as a thoughtless way to dismiss left wingers who disagree with them. Again, I think the Motte of this term is useful, and once it is explained you will see it in the wild, and it has explanatory power, and thinking about how to address the issue would be valuable. But I don't think I have ever seen it used except in the most blatant Baily fashion imaginable.
DelendaEst
3yr ago
Pedro's character was white in the original source material though.
DelendaEst
3yr ago
I hadn't heard anything about that, how are they reacting?
DelendaEst
3yr ago
For what its worth it is still controversial with me. I really liked ultimate spiderman, and Bendis (the writer) specifically said that he had the idea to add a black spiderman and decided that just adding him in with Pete still around wouldn't really work and so he started looking for a way to kill Parker off, which really was in my view incredibly brazen and the fact that he felt comfortable saying it and everyone else seemed to applaud him for it blew my mind.
However I am also not surprised that it worked out as well as it did, as there were many factors working in its favor.
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This was in Ultimate Spiderman, not the main universe book. That didn't help me, I liked USM more, but the Ultimate universe was always an alternate universe where lots of bold/edgy takes on characters could be played with in a frankly low stakes way. That made killing White Spiderman explicitly so he could be replaced with Black/Hispanic Spiderman somewhat less of a provocation.
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In the interview where he said he killed Peter explicitly so he could replace him Bendis said he'd had that idea years ago and had been looking for a good time to kill Peter, which means he waiting until a time where the death would be more set up and more epic, and critically less jarring and less obviously forced.
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Timing. This was not part of a clear trend to replace white or male characters with more progressive versions so it was able to be judged more on its own merits. Unlike a few years ago when Hulk, Captain America, Thor, and a few other characters were all replaced with ethnic/female options at the same time. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. If something occurs in isolation it gets more benefit of the doubt.
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Quality, obviously the most important part. If quality is maintained people with forgive most sins. I dropped the book when they did this switch (I'd considered keeping on with it before the "yes this was done for racial replacement reasons" interview) so I cannot say first hand that the book was good, but Bendis is very talented (though he was on the downslope at the time he was still well above average) and this was one of his babies, and general opinion was pretty high on the change (hard to be sure how real that kind of thing is since anyone saying it sucks gets called racist and their opinion buried and every positive opinion signal boosted, but having been through this kind of thing a bunch of times this one certainly seemed very genuine). The thing with fan favorites in the current comic book market which has veered SUPER woke over the past decade is that fans who don't like it drop out (as I did with this move) which leaves the remainder people who by definition do like it, but this was an early enough move that I think for the most part it was in fact very well received.
DelendaEst
3yr ago
The thing is that BT has existed for 35 years and used to be a thing everyone could participate in. One of the authors of some of the old books got cancelled for being too right wing a few years ago, so its not like conservatives didn't try to make our own things (the biggest BT author from back in the day is pretty woke though, this was a bi-partisan institution IMO). But now that the previous thing that everyone had and which conservatives did contribute to is taken over now we need to make our own thing.
How come that didn't apply to the left? How come the left gets to take all the previously neutral stuff instead of being told to fuck off from that and make a left wing BT? Cause this is ALWAYS how it goes. Frankly, when one side takes a previously jointly held territory and then replies to complaints with "just make your own thing without any of the history and existing buy in" that is such an obviously hostile comment that I cannot believe you actually think its fair. Its bullshit. And based on everything we have seen the result will inevitably be that if the new rightwing thing is at all good the left will either do their best to colonize that ALSO or they will use their control over other previously neutral ground to cut the legs out from under it.
DelendaEst
3yr ago
The new sub removed a photo of some mechs painted up in police colors as police are hostile to pride and so posting that in pride month right after a pride related kerfuffle was considered unacceptable. There is nothing but excess in the way the pride people work and if it weren't for double standards they wouldn't have any standards at all.
Remember, in real time conversations people are going to put on the spot. Either agree that this is bad, or double down. And given that giving even an inch on something that has been sold to them as a moral imperative which only hateful book burning nazis could possibly endorse, giving that inch is a big ask, and very few people will be willing to do that on the spot. That doesn't mean that you didn't put a crack in the wall and move them a little closer to being willing to admit that maybe the very worst stuff is not appropriate in schools, even if you hateful book burners are wrong about 90% of it.
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