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arimiadev · 5 months

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why does aniplex want mahoyo to fail

I love visual novels. being a long time fate/stay night fan and only having heard of mahoyo from hushed whispers about its cinematography, I was super invested when it was announced to be coming to the west and I could finally play an official version of it.

however, a lot of people interested in type-moon works had never heard of mahoyo, let alone it getting an official english translation. but how? aniplex is publishing the game and they're one of the largest anime distributors in the world.

with the console release of mahoyo being almost exactly a year ago and the steam release being just 10 days away, I want to look over some of aniplex USA's bizarre and nonexistent marketing for one of my favorite visual novels.

let's clear up a few things, first.

mahoyo is the shortened form of mahoutsukai no yoru (not to be confused with mahoutsukai no yome, i.e. the ancient magus bride), which has been localized as witch on the holy night. mahoyo was a linear non-eroge visual novel released by type-moon in 2012, being one of the first scripts kinoko nasu (co-founder of type-moon) wrote back in 1996 and adapted into a VN many, many years later.

in April of 2022, a console remaster (switch, playstation 4) was announced with HD assets and voice acting, to be published by aniplex. notably, this console release would contain an english translation and was later confirmed in June to be sold in the west via online retailers. this was huge news, as this meant mahoyo would be the first type-moon visual novel (not including gameplay-oriented titles like fate/extella or fate/grand order) to be officially released in the west, as despite numerous fan translations, their more recognizable visual novels tsukihime and fate/stay night still had not received a localization.

type-moon is the developer behind mahoyo and aniplex is the publisher, meaning that type-moon made the game and aniplex is in charge of distributing (and marketing) the game worldwide.

timeline:

April 11 2022: Mahoyo rerelease announced for consoles (Switch & PlayStation 4), including English translation

July 4 2022: Aniplex confirms Mahoyo will be available to the West, localized under the name Witch on the Holy Night

October 14 2022: 2nd trailer released, more voice actor info announced

November 3 2022: physical pre-orders launched, demo version available

November 18 2022: Aniplex attends Anime NYC with Mahoyo

December 7 2022: Mahoyo released digitally on Switch / PlayStation 4 (Dec 8th in Japan, Dec 7th in America)

December 12 2022: Mahoyo reaches 110k units sold worldwide

January 27 2023: Mahoyo physicals release

July 5 2023: Mahoyo reaches 150k units sold worldwide

September 10 2023: Mahoyo announced for Steam via a now unlisted Aniplex livestream

December 13 2023: Mahoyo will be released on Steam (Dec 14th in Japan, Dec 13th in America)

some of the dates might be a little fuzzy, especially the release dates, as some sources go by japanese time and some go by american timezones, so just be aware of that.

now, let's talk a bit about mahoyo itself.

mahoyo is a masterpiece. it's a niche game not meant for everyone. its cinematography is top notch among visual novels. its writing style can be off-putting to people who want faster-paced stories. it's one of my most beloved visual novels I've ever played, and I've been in this field for almost a decade and have played well over 100 VNs.

mahoyo is a completely linear visual novel—meaning it has no choices or gameplay—that follows aoko, a high schooler mage trying to balance her perfect school president facade with her secret life as a mage, something she has to keep secret at the risk of death. this is one of the lesser known type-moon works but it's well beloved because of the care put into it.

if you've ever heard someone talk about it, it's almost impossible for them to not mention the visuals. mahoyo is one of the most visually impressive visual novels I've ever seen, with its inspired use of artwork and in-game animations. I cannot recommend this VN enough if you like modern fantasy and don't mind linear VNs.

before we dive into aniplex USA's marketing, I want to clarify a few marketing terms for people who don't market visual novels as a job. marketing is not just advertising—it's everything related to how a product communicates with potential users, including its branding, its packaging, its everything. when marketing a game, you have several different avenues: social media, press & influencers, trailers, store pages, and more.

today I want to show you how, based off what I have researched after a long, manic day, aniplex USA has failed mahoyo on all of these accounts.

so let's go back to its western release.

mahoyo has a few official english channels:

website

twitter

facebook

aniplex also has an official english twitter with almost 500k followers where they shared mahoyo very rarely—only 9 tweets about the game ever.

well, surely their other pages are more maintained right—

both accounts stopped posting July 10th/11th, with their last post being about mahoyo going on sale on consoles. let's look at their posts prior to this, though, starting with the twitter.

we can see that the twitter account was made in december of 2022. if we scroll down far enough (it's not hard, given they only have 33 tweets), we can see that their first tweet was on december 6th 2022:

let's go back to our timeline. can you tell me when mahoyo's remaster released digitally?

yes they made both of the english mahoyo social media accounts the day before the game launched

we can very easily add up the entire social media posts for the game thus far:

mahoyo english twitter - 30 tweets and 3 retweets

mahoyo english facebook - 27 posts

aniplex english twitter - 9 tweets

aniplex english facebook - 2 posts

no other english social media accounts were tied to the website, so these are the only ones I looked at. this means in total, there were only 68 social media posts for the console release of mahoyo by the publisher for english audiences.

but what about the steam release? after the game sold over 150k+ units on consoles, surely aniplex was ready to market it a bit more for pc users—

neither account has made a post about the upcoming steam release.

if we look at the twitter, they have 3 tweets since July that do talk about the upcoming steam release- however, these are retweets from the japanese mahoyo account.

we know that this twitter and this facebook account are the official social media for mahoyo as they're linked on the website, so they're definitely meant to be followed for game updates in the west. well, maybe the english aniplex twitter has posted about it—

none of the english aniplex or mahoyo accounts have made a single post about the steam release

that's right, the social media posts I counted above are the only posts for mahoyo on their english accounts, all dating back before the steam release was announced. since then, they have not made a single original post even mentioning the steam release.

meanwhile, the japanese mahoyo twitter has been hustling hard to promote the upcoming steam release—reposting trailers, character bios, and more almost every day with pretty good numbers.

in fact, the japanese mahoyo twitter did such a good job at marketing it that the aniplex USA twitter never mentioned the english mahoyo twiter, instead only @ ing the japanese one in tweets (despite the english one being linked on the website).

why they even bothered making social media accounts and then not running them despite being one of the largest anime distributors in the world I have no clue.

well, maybe they didn't need to rely on social media presence. maybe they were going for the in-person approach and marketing it at conventions.

mahoyo had basically no anime convention presence

the only reference I can find to aniplex notably promoting mahoyo at any western convention is this tweet of them at anime NYC. from someone who was at anime NYC, I've been told that they pushed the game heavily at their booth with TV screens promoting the game.

however, anime NYC is only one anime convention. you cannot hope to sell a game by just attending one anime convention. mahoyo might have had a presence at other american conventions, but I'm unable to find any images or news about this.

maybe they don't understand type-moon

aniplex is the publisher for fate/grand order, one of the most successful mobile games ever created. they're also the distributor for a majority of type-moon related anime, ranging from fate to garden of sinners to side series. aniplex's marketing team should have lots of experience with type-moon properties.

maybe it was promoted in other aniplex titles

I was also unable to find a news post in fate/grand order related to mahoyo's release, despite news posts for other type-moon series (namely fate but also things like melty blood) getting news posts in fate/grand order. I might've missed the news posts when looking back through FGO but I don't believe there was one.

maybe it sold well in other regions but not western ones

(I'm going to be referring only to the console release for these stats, keep in mind)

mahoyo released December 7th/8th 2022 with an english, japanese, simplified chinese, and traditional chinese translations. at the end of the release week, mahoyo's japanese twitter announced the game had sold 110k copies worldwide and famitsu reported that 66,344 of these units were sold in japan. this means we have around 43k units unaccounted for.

we know the game was available in english, japanese, and chinese languages but we don't know what regions. mainland china has a very large visual novel playerbase (I say this as someone who sells visual novels), which means if it were sold there then it's easy to say that a big chunk of that 43k units could be attributed to them—this also means it would be easy to believe that aniplex saw mahoyo selling worse in western countries and took this as a sign to not promote the game any more there.

but was it ever sold in mainland china? from what I could tell—no.

looking at pricing charts for the nintendo eshop and the playstation store, china is not listed on either. furthermore, searching the game's chinese title on the chinese playstation store does not bring back any results. it looks like the only predominantly chinese-speaking regions that were able to buy it are hong kong, taiwan and possibly singapore (the playstation store page for it doesn't look like it's available for purchase anymore).

so what does this tell us?

without any other numbers it's hard to tell how many of the 43k launch week sales came from english-speaking players, but even if we conservatively say that only around 20k of the 110k launch week units were from western countries, that's still almost a million in revenue (and remember, the physical limited edition of the game was available in english for $60, which is $20 more than the digital base version).

maybe the store page is so good they don't need to market it

here's a little secret: store pages matter a lot more than you'd think. there are entire job positions dedicated to tailoring store pages (like a steam game page) to make it perfect for the game's target audience. there's a science to it that includes the artwork, descriptions, tags, screenshots, and more.

let's see what aniplex did for the steam page of mahoyo.

A tale told with vivid colors and rich sound in a classic TYPE-MOON visual novel.

I don't know how to describe this short description charitably other than to say it sounds like a person who's never heard of a visual novel has been tasked with describing a visual novel.

this tells me nothing about the game other than it's a visual novel. I hope you know what type-moon is, because if you don't then you've learned nothing else from this. alright, well, let's look at the screenshots—

there's only 1.

currently as of writing this, there's 10 images uploaded as screenshots (no trailers, they keep adding and removing the trailers for some reason). 9 of these images are just the full artworks from the game while 1 is an actual screenshot.

I really hate this, as you're not actually shown what the game looks like unless you look at the very last screenshot. this will absolutely lead to some people not understanding what they're getting into. what's worse is that some of these CGs are spoilers, especially one in particular featuring my wife touko.

why are we spoiling people instead of showing them screenshots? why not show people what mahoyo actually looks like??

there's also absolutely no use of the announcements section on steam. each game on steam can post announcements related to the game, including upcoming releases, new updates, and more. it's customary to post a steam announcement when a game has a release date announcement. mahoyo's steam page has none.

well they probably released the trailers in english for hype

I wish I had that much hope.

on mahoyo's english website, all of the videos listed are from the official type-moon youtube, which is their japanese channel. type-moon went through the effort to translate these videos. aniplex didn't upload these to their own youtube, where they already upload everything related to the fateverse and nasuverse.

searching up witch on the holy night brings up no results for the trailer—aniplex never uploaded the trailer to their channel.

maybe they got influencers to play it

according to steamdb, the max amount of viewers mahoyo streams have had on twitch was 71 viewers.

furthermore, if we check twitch and look for vods attached to mahoyo, we only find 4 videos total, all of which were posted in the past week. it looks like they didn't even reach out to streamers to play the console release, much less pay them.

over on the press side, it does look like they reached out to at least a few reviewers. for example, on the review by noisy pixel, they clarify that a review copy was provided by the publisher for review purposes. we can add that to the bare minimum of marketing—reaching out to press.

however, they did get for some other influencers to share the game! ...twitter game sale influencers, that is.

there's actually a lot more of these types of tweets for mahoyo than I was expecting when I searched it on twitter. as a friend pointed out, just because it says "#ad" doesn't necessarily mean these were paid for by aniplex—a lot of these links look to be referrals, which means they're getting a cut of any purchases.

let's recap

mahoyo released over 110k copies in the launch week for it's worldwide console release despite very, very limited marketing efforts from its publisher aniplex. now that the game has proven it can sell very well despite being a lesser known linear visual novel, aniplex has done no marketing for the steam release- no tweets, no influencer outreach, no localization of trailers, no announcements via steam, nothing.

so why?

why does aniplex want mahoyo to fail?

even after all of this, I still do not know why. to me, it's clear that the marketing team at aniplex were (most likely) given no budget for this game and just couldn't do anything with it, deciding to spend what little money they had on press outreach and an anime NYC booth.

but why? why didn't aniplex give them a budget, even a small one? why was their budget so tiny they couldn't even afford to tweet? to RT more posts from the japanese twitter? to share the already translated trailers to their own accounts?

I've heard a few excuses like "type-moon hates western fans and probably caused it" but this doesn't make any sense either. why would you authorize a translation of your game and allow your publisher to sell the game overseas but specifically make them not market the game (and what publisher would agree to that)? I've even heard excuses like "they just forgot it was coming out", to which I ask "how does an entire marketing team (a company the size of aniplex absolutely has a team(s) for marketing and not a singular person) forget a release for a game that's already sold over 150k copies?". the only excuse I've seen that I somewhat buy is that they did not have much faith in the game and relied almost entirely on fans doing word of mouth marketing for the game.

I don't think we'll ever get an answer. while I do believe the marketing team at aniplex was most likely given no budget for mahoyo, it still begs the question of why. why did someone at aniplex not want to give mahoyo a marketing budget? why are the japanese accounts for mahoyo and type-moon the only ones doing the marketing?

I hope the information I've provided here is accurate—if it's not, I'll try to update with corrections. I don't want this piece to cast hate towards the staff at aniplex or anyone involved with this projects, I'm just trying to assemble the pieces on what feels like a game being left to word of mouth. I've tried to include as many links to my sources as I could so you could come to your own judgements about what has happened regarding mahoyo's worldwide release.

mahoyo is a visual novel that's dear to me and will absolutely sell well on steam—with an estimated 50-80k wishlists, it's going to have a solid launch despite the zero marketing for its steam release. if you love other type-moon works or want to see an absolutely visually stunning visual novel, please check it out.

— arimia

#visual novel #visual novels #mahoyo #mahoutsukai no yoru #witch on the holy night #mahoyosweep #type-moon #visual novel game #anyway please play mahoyo #my articles

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gaynglican · 5 months

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I think we (Queer Christians) should bring back the Feast of Fools! Here's my pitch:

Medieval Christians celebrated the days following Christmas with societal inversion. If God became a vulnerable child born into poverty, then the best celebration should invert the social order: master and servant, clergy and laity, man and woman. The Feast of Fools–held on January 1st–was the most notable celebration of cosmic inversion. Developed in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, the tradition of the feasts continued until the 16th century. (1)

The festival is popularly misunderstood as a celebration of sacrilege, a result of its apparent burlesque of religion. Yet, the festival’s role reversals were prescribed by clergy, and the "fools" represented those chosen by God for their lowly status. From surviving 13th century manuscripts–notably, the Play of Daniel from Beauvais Cathedral and the Office of Joseph from Laon Cathedral–it is clear that some Catholic Churches in France sanctioned cross-dressing for liturgical purposes. (2) In fact, the Feast of Fools is remarkable for being sanctified rather than sacrilegious.

Many anthropologists of religion have argued that “sacred play,” or “ludic ritual,” is central to how religious behaviors function. (3) Although play may seem counterintuitive to religion, absurdity and holiness often go together, especially considering the role reversals and revelry of the Feast of Fools.

Literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin made a similar argument about the “carnivalesque.” (4) When absurdity is celebrated in religion–when a society’s usual rules are suspended–observant revelers can stretch the boundaries of their identities or reverse their social roles. Men become women; laity become clergy; God becomes a helpless infant; death becomes life. It is on the strength of the absurd that religions delve into hope and new ways of becoming. (5) “Sacred play” is reality altering work, a cornerstone of religious enlightenment and religious embodiment.

In 1969, theologian Harvey Cox proposed that an imitation of the medieval Feast of Fools could rejuvenate modern Christian spirituality, lamenting that the tradition has forgotten sacred play. (6)

As found in the Medieval Feast of Fools, the joy of inversion and freedom of death were, at one point, celebrated in Christian tradition through cross-dressing. Drag exists in Christian tradition as an artform that is capable of embodying the Divine. Sharing in Christ’s martyrdom is only part of Christian embodiment, and redemption and resurrection are essential to any imitation of Christ. Through embodying Christ, religious drag can become a project of resurrection.

(Taken from my Master's Thesis in Art History, "Crucifixion Can Happen To Anyone: Embodying Christ Through The Queer Artist")

1: “Feast of Fools.” n.d. Encyclopædia Britannica.

2: Harris, Max. 2011. Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools. Cornell University Press. 113-127.

3: Turner, Victor. “Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology.” Revista Mediações, vol. 17, no. 2 (2012): 214–57.

4: “Carnivalesque.” n.d. Oxford Reference. Accessed 12 July 2023.

5: Kierkegaard, Søren. “Fear and Trembling.” From Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard. University of Texas, Austin, Texas, 1912.

6: Cox, Harvey. 1969. The Feast of Fools; a Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy. Harvard University Press

#feast of fools #queer Christian

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breezingby · 4 months

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Notable Deaths in 2023 . . .

Tom Smothers (February 2, 1937-December 26, 2023)

Ryan O'Neal (April 20, 1941-December 8, 2023)

Legendary TV producer Norman Lear (July 27, 1922-December 5, 2023)

Sandra Day O'Connor (March 26, 1930-December 1, 2023)

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter (August 18, 1927-November 19, 2023)

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici (March 16, 1937-November 18, 2023)

A U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and instructor at West Point, astronaut Frank Borman (March 14, 1928-November 7, 2023)

College basketball coach Bob Knight (October 25, 1940-November 1, 2023)

As Chandler Bing, a quick-witted, sarcastic member of the coterie of "Friends," Matthew Perry (August 19, 1969-October 28, 2023)

As the star of the trailblazing 1971 action movie "Shaft," Richard Roundtree (July 9, 1942-October 24, 2023)

Actress Phyllis Coates (January 15, 1927-October 11, 2023) "Adventures of Superman."

Character actor Burt Young (April 30, 1940-October 8, 2023)

Irish-English actor Sir Michael Gambon (October 19, 1940-September 27, 2023)

Actor David McCallum (September 19, 1933-September 25, 2023)

The songs of Jimmy Buffett (December 25, 1946-September 1, 2023)

Singer Tina Turner (November 26, 1939-May 24, 2023)

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot (November 17, 1938-May 1, 2023)

. . . And MANY More...I just couldn't post ALL of them.

NOTHING Last Forever...! (Remember That)

#Notable Deaths in 2023 #photography #memories #. . . Don't Let Go !!!

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 10 months

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AITA for calling out people for taking an exceedingly transphobic commentary personality's word as fact?

Alright, so. This happened in December in a community that has technically sprung up in 2007 despite the thing existing since January 2004. I was in the community since 2014 and one of the oldest remaining fans in the community. I was an asshole and very much disliked from 2018-2021, did some betterment, went to therapy, and asked different people who are very, very well known in the fandom if I was getting better, to which they said yes, from late 2022 to 2023 so this was in the middle of my Redemption Arc™️. I joined a discord in order to hope to find some obscure knowledge on the software i couldn't ask much of anywhere else in December 2022, after I was getting stalked and harassed by notable transphobic websites over being open about my depression in June 2022. One notable user of said sites made a YouTube video on me, who is openly transphobic, and as a trans guy, that was upsetting. Moreso upsetting, is that not only did the video get countless fundamental facts incorrect that were disproven in other videos, but her Twitter URL that's a play on the transphobic phrase "TTD" (total trans death, an obvious nod to our genocide) and said server used me for my art, then booted me, blocked me on Discord, and when I asked why I was banned from the server on Reddit, they spammed the video link and was insulting me and calling me "unforgivable." Keep in mind, that Discord server had a strict "no transphobes allowed" rule and several of the mods, albeit not all, were openly LGBT. A red flag off the bat of said server was that they had some stolen content, albeit said content was by a known predator. Another red flag was how many mods were under 18, side by side with mods in their late 20s. I called out these people for supporting an open TERF from a transphobic website shut down by cloudflare, and they started making fun of me and threatening to ruin me. I don't care if people hate me, but I do care that people get their facts right. Sort of off topic but they ended up being horrifically transphobic and go on misinformation campaigns to several other people, and the server died.

Was I the asshole for calling them out on spreading misinformation?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole #kiwifarms cw #at least i assume that's the site that was shut down by cloudflare?#idk i feel like there's a lot of context i'm missing here but at least that needs warned for i think

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justforbooks · 2 months

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Alexei Navalny, who has died suddenly aged 47 while in prison, was Russia’s best-known campaigner against high-level corruption. For many years he was the leading critic and opponent of President Vladimir Putin and his political party, United Russia.

Repeated arrests, jail sentences and physical assaults did not deter Navalny from digging up financial scandals, which he published on his blogs and X feeds as well as YouTube. In a 2011 radio interview, he described United Russia as a “party of crooks and thieves”, which became a powerful and popular mantra on social media and at political protests.

Repression did not stop him attracting enthusiastic crowds in support of opposition politicians in local elections in cities across Russia. Occasionally he ran for office himself, most notably in 2013 for the mayoralty of Moscow, when the official result gave him 27% of the vote – which he said was rigged so as to deny him victory.

In 2016, Navalny launched a campaign for the 2018 presidential election but was barred by Russia’s central election commission due to a prior criminal conviction. In 2017 he was attacked with a spray, leaving him partially blind in one eye. In 2019 Navalny fell ill in prison, from what he claimed was poison. His most dramatic brush with death came in 2020 at the end of a political campaign trip through Siberia, when he was taken seriously ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. His condition was so grave that the pilot made an emergency landing in Omsk, where he was rushed to hospital. Navalny’s wife and supporters asked for him to be taken to Germany, where they felt he would be better treated.

The Russian authorities agreed and Navalny was flown to the Charité hospital in Berlin, where toxicology tests showed traces of the nerve agent novichok in Navalny’s body. Russian officials complained that the test results were not made public nor disclosed to them. Navalny recovered and was released from hospital after a month.

He decided to convalesce for several weeks in Germany. Russian court authorities announced that if he returned late to Moscow he would be jailed for breaking the terms of a probation order. The threat was seen as a device to deter Navalny from returning to Russia in the hope, as the authorities saw it, that in exile his influence would rapidly decline.

Showing great courage, but defying the advice of his family and friends, he flew back to Moscow in January 2021, accompanied by his wife and dozens of journalists, and was arrested on landing. His Anti-Corruption Foundation promptly published on YouTube an investigation with pictures of a luxury multimillion-dollar mansion on the Black Sea, which they dubbed Putin’s palace.

Navalny’s stock had never been higher at home or abroad, and when a court gave him a two-and-a-half year sentence, western political leaders, including the US president, Joe Biden, protested openly and imposed sanctions. But Putin was determined to destroy him politically.

In 2022, Navalny was sentenced to an extra nine years after being found guilty of embezzlement and contempt of court. In 2023, he was given a further 19 years in prison on extremism charges.

Navalny was born in Butyn and grew up mainly in Obninsk, a small town south-west of Moscow. His mother, Lyudmila, worked as a lab technician in micro-electronics and then moved to a timber-processing factory. His father, Anatoly, a Ukrainian, was in the military. In addition to Russian, Alexei learned Ukrainian through spending summers with his grandmother near Kyiv. He gained a law degree (1998) at the Peoples’ Friendship University in Moscow.

In 2000 he joined the United Democratic party, known as Yabloko. Under its leader, Grigory Yavlinsky, the party stood for liberal and social democratic values. Navalny gained an economics degree at the Financial University (2001), and from 2004 to 2007 served as chief of staff of the Moscow branch of Yabloko. A charismatic speaker, he was attracted by the concept of television debates, and in 2005 founded a social movement for young people, with a name taken from the Russian word for yes, DA! – Democratic Alternative, which was active in the media.

Navalny started to move gradually to the right, and in 2007 he was expelled from Yabloko after clashing with Yavlinsky over Navalny’s increasingly nationalist and anti-immigrant views.

He then co-founded a movement known as Narod (The People), which aimed to defend the rights of ethnic Russians and restrict immigration from Central Asia and the Caucasus. A year later he joined two other Russian nationalist groupings, Movement Against Illegal Immigration (MAII) and Great Russia, in forming a new coalition called the Russian National Movement.

It made little impact and Navalny turned his attention to journalistic muckraking. His main outlet was a blog, LiveJournal. In 2010 he published leaked documents about the alleged theft by directors of millions of roubles from the pipeline company Transneft. The following year he exposed a scandalous property deal between the Russian and Hungarian governments. He decided to establish the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which continued until his death.

He also went back into electoral politics, leading street protests over unfair practices by United Russia. Navalny urged people to vote any way they liked in the 2011 parliamentary elections, including for the Communist party, so long as they voted against United Russia. He was tempted to run against Putin in the 2012 contest for the presidency, but said the ballot would be rigged. After the poll, he led several anti-Putin rallies in Moscow and was briefly arrested.

The following year Moscow was to elect its mayor. Navalny registered as one of six candidates. The next day he was sentenced to five years on embezzlement and fraud charges. Initially he called for an election boycott, but when he was released on appeal he changed his mind. Some analysts speculated that Putin wanted him to run to make the electoral contest look genuinely open. Navalny lost to the incumbent mayor and Kremlin ally Sergei Sobyanin, but claimed to have won. In 2016 he announced he would stand against Putin in the 2018 presidential contest. More arrests and repression followed.

Navalny’s nationalism put him in agreement with Putin on one major issue: Crimea. The territory had been ceded to Ukraine in 1954, but in 2014 Putin used force to reincorporate it into Russia. Navalny said he would not return it to Ukraine if he had the power to do so. Like Putin, he argued that Ukraine was an artificial construct. “I don’t see any kind of difference at all between Russians and Ukrainians,” he said, while admitting his views might provoke “horrible indignation” in Ukraine.

However, his agreement with some of Putin’s views on Ukraine did not bring him to support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. That March, Navalny released a statement from jail. Through his spokesman he urged Russians “to overcome their fear” and take to the streets and demand a “stop to the war” against Ukraine. He called Putin an “obviously insane tsar”. “If in order to stop the war we have to fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves, we will fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves.”

“Everything has a price, and now, in the spring of 2022, we must pay this price. There’s no one to do it for us. Let’s not ‘be against the war’. Let’s fight against the war.” At the end of 2023 he was transferred to the remote penal colony at Kharp, north of the Arctic circle.

In 2000 he married Yulia Abrosimova, and she and their daughter, Daria, and son, Zakhar, survive him.

🔔 Alexei Anatolievich Navalny, politician and anti-corruption campaigner, born 4 June 1976; died 16 February 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #alexei navalny #in memoriam

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kaddyssammlung · 4 months

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Take Me Back To Eden-

transcript from the Revolver mag Special Edition

I don't own any of this!

In the cold, slow-moving early days of January 2023, something incredible happened, with

no warning. Sleep Token unleashed a new song upon the world that was, at the time, their

most jaw-dropping offering to date. Chokehold begins omniously with a scratching, grinding buzz and Vessel sings declaratively “When we were made, it was no accident, We were tangled up like branches in a flood”. The soft trill of a piano comes in, the suspense builds and then one of the most dramatic riffs the band have committed to record crashes down.It's just the first twist in a dynamic single full of them.

Chokehold struck a crowd with fans and landed Sleep Token cosigns from some unlikely voices. Lorna Shore, frontman and deathcore YouTube star Will Ramos covered the song and then dissected Vessel's vocal technique with a panel of experts. On the Charismatic Voice YouTube channel. Even Wilder was when American Idol star Chris Daughtry surprised a crowd at London's Royal Albert Hall with a dusky acoustic performance of the single. Yet the most remarkable thing about Chokehold is that, for all the fervor it steered, the song Sleep Token released just 24 hours later had even more profound impact on their career. On January 6th, the day after Chokehold's release, the band dropped a second 2023 single called The Summoning. If Chokehold started a fire, this new song poured kerosene on it. A near 7-minute masterpiece, The Summoning took Sleep Token genre blending approach to new extremes, spanning the divide between death metal-esque savagery and slutty funk. Not only did it work socially, but it somehow made beautiful sense conceptually. The song quickly went viral on TikTok, partly because of the stunning contrast between the styles it plays with and also due to its esoterically charged lyrics. Sleep Token had hinted at lustful thoughts in the past, but The Summoning was easily the most overtly sexual song to date. At this point, over half a decade into their career, Sleep Token were hardly unknowns, and the hype around them had been building in the underground alternative metal scene. But the one true punch of Chokehold into the Summoning sent them skyward.

Sleep Token dominated online conversation, trending on Twitter for days on end, and their streaming numbers shot through the roof. Multiple songs trended on Spotify simultaneously, but it was The Summoning that really took off, rocketing to 15 million plays on the platform in less than two months. As of this writing, it tops 18 million Spotify streams. On January 17th, Sleep Token embarked on a sold-out UK headlining tour, playing some of their biggest venues to date, including the 5,000 capacity Hammersmith Apollo in West London. Befitting the band's grounding audience and the launch of their latest chapter, these rituals were notably scaled up in terms of production. Sleep Token performed amid a stage setup, festooned with plants, and vessels started wearing an elaborate shoulder piece emblazoned with gold to protect him from sleep, for some fans have theorized.

Additionally, the trio of female backing singers from 2022's Room Below Ritual were along for the ride. The three women affectionately nicknamed the Vesselettes in some fan circles, performed in cloaks, their faces covered while they stood eerily stuck still. The tour was made even more special by Sleep Token, debuting two brand new songs during their set, the angsty pop metal exercise Granite and the elegant, chest-infused Aqua Regia. The studio versions were released in the middle of the tour, once again dropping within 24 hours of each other on January 18th and 19th. Respectfully, even before Sleep Token's third album was formally announced, fans understood that this sudden wave of new songs heralded an imminent follow-up to This Place Will Become Your Tomb. After the release of the apocalyptically heavy Vore in the middle of February. That speculation became fact, Take me Back to Eden, was announced for a mid-may release and was set to be the final installment of the band's album trilogy. The group's devotees had already been trying to figure out the record's title from the secret code that had appeared on the band's lead-up graphics. On Take Me Back to Eden, the turbulent hot and cold dynamic between Vessel and Sleep reaches its breaking point. His devotion to and lust for Sleep persists, but Vessel recognizes that he is quite literally in a Chokehold within their relationship, even more so than on the band's previous work. His emotions were conflicted enough on this record. On Granite, Vessel rages against Sleep's uncommunicative behavior, even labeling him aggressive and controlling, while on Aqua Regia, despite the song's undercurrent of desire, he affirms that he is done dancing to alarm bells.

By track 9, Do You Wish That You Loved Me he reaches the firm conclusion that not only is Sleep incapable of returning the love he has craved all along, but perhaps Vessel himself cannot muster the same devotion he seeks from the deity. I cannot hope to give you what I cannot give myself.

By the album's closing track, Euclid, the relationship has finally splintered,leaving Vessel feeling reflective but also anxious to move forward knowing that Ijust need to leave this part of me behind.

Once again, every song to Take Me Back to Eden comes with its own visual identity, but the symbology is Sleep token's most complex and detailed to date.

Each song is represented by its own fantastical character, best described as monsters or demons that are illustrated by Alex Tillbrook in the art booklet that comes with physical copies of the record. Some of the creatures appear in music videos' form as well. Each character looks distinct from the others, but they do share some common features. Many have devil-like horns, and the majority have an unusual number of body parts. The character representing Ascensionism has four arms. The one for Rain has three heads, and the creature for Chokehold has numerous arachnid-like legs.

Meanwhile, the character representing War has arms with two venues, flytrap-like mouths in place of hands, echoing the song's motif of consumption and swallowing, and linking to its title's reference to the fetish voraphilia, the erotic desire to consume or to be consumed by another person or creature. In addition, most of the characters hold at least one weapon, and many wear some form of armour. These accoutrements are possible, reflective of the heightened sense of conflict between Wesley and Sleep throughout the album.

The character representing the summoning, who wears a shoulder piece akin to the one

that Vessel wears on stage, clutches a huge gun, almost as big as the creature itself, while others wield axes and other bladed weapons. In two of its four hands, the floating character in a knight's helmet representing Ascensionism holds a handgun and a three-pronged dagger, like a mini version of Poseidon's trident. There are also a few references to weaponry in the lyrics in Chokehold. Wesley reclaims, I come as a blade, a sacred guardian. When in Aqua Regia,he speaks of a perfect start to a perfect war, putting down the roses, picking up the sword.

One compelling fan theory about these characters is that their sleep previous vessels. Others speculate that they could be a physical manifestation of Vessel's personal demons, or even past versions of Vessel himself. Indeed, there are references to the concept of past lives on the album. In Ascensionism, the line, tell me you met me in past lives,suggests Vessel's and Sleep's toxic bond predates this lifetime, or perhaps that's just what Sleep tells Vessel to create, the illusion that their connection is stronger than it really is. The Apparition reinforces the idea, well I believe somewhere in the past, something was between you and I in my dear. If Sleep and Vessel have been entangled for decades or even centuries across different incarnations, it raises the question of what the weapons are for.

Are they for Vessel to use while defending and protecting Sleep, or tools for him to battle the deity as the toxicity between them worsens? The two song-representing characters who've most intrigued fans correspond to the album's final two tracks, both are quite different compared to their armoured, multi-limbed peers. The figure for the pain-mouthed song Take Me Back to Eden, interestingly Sleep Token's only title track to date, has no face but bears angel wings and a scythe. Their juxtaposed element of an angel and a Grim Reaper evoke themes of death, worship,and immortality. All themes that crop up at the end of the album's story defend consensus as that title track concludes Take Me Back to Eden, while the album's actual closer Euclid wraps up the trilogy overall serving as a sort of epilogue. The character representing that song is a masked figure dressed in a toga-like garment holding Vessel's severed head. What does that ominous image mean about the future of Sleep Token? Some fear it's a signal at the end of the band, while others have wondered if it foreshadows the group re-emerging with a new story and a new look perhaps similar to the way Slipknot changed the mask with each album's cycle, or how Ghost kill-off versions of Papa Emeritus to make way for a successor. At the very least, the figure reflects the song's focus on rebirth throughout the death of the old Vessel proclaims I must be someone now. Musically Take Me Back to Eden is Sleep Token's most ambitious body of work to date.

Its sonic rage is considerably greater than This Place where we come here to folding in sounds and genres. The band hadn't touched before. The extremes are also so much more pronounced.

The summoning and Vore are the heaviest songs of their career so far, while a eerie, almost tropical-sounding deary statue of me is Sleep Token at their poppiest. Meanwhile, the colossal Are You Really Okay feels like Sleep Token's taken a arena-sized ballad, though its lyrics are claustrophobic, dark, and hint at self-harm. Since its corresponding character is holding a baby ( Since its corresponding character is holding a baby and the song mentions Vessel being woken up by a loved one dripping crimson on the carpet, some fans have posited that Are You Really Okay is not about self-harm at all, but rather a miscarriage). The most impressive musical feats on the record, however, are Sleep Token's two longest songs to date. The super-sized pair the 7-minute Ascensionism and 8-minute Plus Take Me Back to Eden unify every aspect of Sleep Token's sound, from delicate piano balladery to crushing heavy metal to bursts of trap-infused R&B (Both notably use autotune to add a disembodied quality to vessel's voice.)

Together, the two pieces feel like a culmination of the band's sonic explorations so far, elevating the music into the heady realm of progressive rock while floating with the long-form movement-based structures of classical music. Even as it marks an incredible step forward for the band, both creatively and commercially it landed at number 16 on the Billboard 200 Take Me Back to Eden and occasionally looks back. It's the most self-referential installment of Sleep Token's trilogy, especially towards its conclusion where the nods to previous songs become most overt in particular lines in the opening verse of Take Me Back to Eden.

I dream of phosphorescence, bleed through spaces, and we drive through crystal waters Perfect oceans can be interpreted with callbacks to sundowning in this place will become your tomb, read prospectively. Later, the titled rap evokes the LP's beginning by echoing the opening lines of Chokehold, creating poeticbookends to the album's narrative. Similarly, the entire trilogy concludes looping around to its start with a section of The Night Does Not Belong to God being revived in Euclid, bringing the story full circle. As for Sleep Token's own story, Euclid's image of a vesseldisembodied hit notwithstanding the band's journey continues. At least for now, Take Me Back to Eden has skyrocketed them to previously unimaginable heights. The latest, this anonymous masked band with their eccentric whip, lashing sound, and dizzying mythology have become bona fide arena headliners. They sold out a breakthrough-year-capping December gig at London's12,500-capacity Wembley Arena within just 10 minutes. We know Sleep Token's story will continue in 2024, too. They already have shows booked, including an April run in Australia, an appearance at Las Vegas' sick New World Festival. We want that. What does the future hold?

Might they scale even higher heights? To sleep, to dream.

#sleep token #sleep token worship #sleep token revolver

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dirtcola · 3 months

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I have a story to tell. Look at me. I need to talk about public transit.

Behold... the woeful tale of the most cursed subway station in the system (content warning bodegaland under the cut)...

I present to you - 191st Street on the 1 Train.

This station is notable for being the deepest underground. It is 173 feet (53 m) below street level. This is because it is under a massive, steep hill in the neighborhood of Ft George. Most of New York City is pretty flat, however, in places like Northern Manhattan and parts of The Bronx, the terrain is quite hilly. This specific hill is notable for being big enough to almost completely cut off the neighborhood of Inwood (northern tip of Manhattan) from the rest of the island.

The station itself has a simple enough layout, a northbound and southbound platform connected by a covered pedestrian footbridge and mezzanine. The atmosphere is what is different - you're so far underground that the air is still and stale, and in between the arrival and departure of trains, it is deathly quiet.

So you're likely thinking, "how does one exit this strange station at the bottom of such a big hill?" There are two ways to enter and leave the station: a set of four large freight-style elevators, or a long pedestrian tunnel which lets out at the bottom of the hill. There are no stairs.

Let's talk about the elevators first, should you decide to brave them. Luckily for you, they've recently been completely replaced! This is a wonderful thing, because the old ones were absolutely slow and rickety as hell and would often stall out and return to the bottom of the station when overloaded (being overloaded, mind you, by exhausted and nervous commuters eager to make it out of there).

Here is a video shot by a transit enthusiast riding the old elevators shortly before replacement. Note how it took a full 43 seconds to make the ascent, and that is with only one person riding in it! He also made a follow-up video riding the new elevators, which ascend at a crisp 34 seconds.

Now you might be thinking, "those elevators seem like a total death trap. What about the tunnel?" Well...

The tunnel is made of concrete, dimly lit, and 900 feet (270 meters) long. For a years, the walls were covered in graffiti art and murals commissioned by the NYC Department of Transportation. To be fair, it looked pretty cool!

However, I'm sure you noticed the past tense in the preceding paragraph. In January 2023, DOT completely painted over the tunnel in an unflattering shade of landlord white. It looked like this:

Understandably the community was quite upset by this. DOT eventually began commissioning artists to beautify the tunnel in September 2023:

Certainly an improvement! The tunnel still lets out at the bottom of the hill though, so I hope that you don't have business at the top of the hill. It's also a long walk from one end to the other, and the thick concrete walls make the sounds inside very isolated. Not ideal for any semblance of safety.

In conclusion, this post may make 191st Street interesting, but I still suggest avoiding it. The atmosphere in this station is oppressive and eerie, the elevators and tunnel out are of dubious safety, and there isn't much to see or do here if you don't live in the immediate neighborhood.

New york fuckin city babey!!!!!!!!!

#woe! american public transit be upon ye!#our transit system is over a century old and falling apart at the seams #and it's only going to get worse with climate change 😎#transit talk

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drifting-pieces-blog-blog · 2 months

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Breaking down the comics: A New Past (Vol 3, Issue 1-3)

Marc Spector: Moon Knight Vol 3

So this follows right after the OG run. We left behind Moench and Zelenetz.

Now we run into a new group of writers and artists.

Writers:

Chuck Dixon, Mike Baron, Howard Mackie, J.M. DeMatteis, Al Milgrom, and Bruce Jones

Artists:

Sal Velluto, Bill Reinhold, Russ Heath, Mark Bagley, Ron Garney, J.J. Birch, and Denys Cowan.

A whole group of names that aren't that common place. Which is a pity because they did an alright job!

When you look at the Omnibus, you also get a content warning!

"This content contains Depictions of racism, sexual assault and suicide. Reader discretion is advised. If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, or are worried about a friend or loved one, please reach out to a counselor or someone you trust or Dial 988 for the suicide and crisis lifeline."

A bit of history: The crisis line was created in January 2005.

Since the first Marc Spector story came out in June 1989, it's safe to say this is a late Marvel addition. Hidden in moderate font on the credits page. This Omnibus book was published in 2023. A lot of new books that contain old content contain these new warnings.

I highly respect the Marvel publishers for the singular reason that when they re-released older content, they recognized the problems in them and rather than correct, censor, or hide them, they kept it as a piece of history and slapped a content warning on there.

ANOTHER interesting fact, when looking at the Omnibus, you get to see the dates. This series of Moon Knight ran from June 1989 through 1994.

It was ongoing and takes place after the West Coast Avengers, which technically took place directly after Zelenetz left, but I'm going to skip over that for now.

I doubt very much I will really cover West Coast Avengers (1987-1989, starting with issue #21 and ending with Issue #41). I might touch on it a bit later, but I was never really a fan. Plus he mostly just kinda pops in silently in the background with most of them.

Now, this was an interesting time in the comics. The early 90s saw things take a drastic turn towards EXTREME. The 90s were a new target audience, a new decade, and the world was changing.

The cold war came to an end at the end of 1991, but the Gulf War started in 1990.

Comics were suddenly competing with and trying to get a foot in on Television, which was suddenly a household thing and latch-key kids wanted something to hold their attention.

Now, the Marc Spector series has recently been released in Omnibus volumes. Vol 1 holds issues 1-34 with excerpts from Amazing Spider-Man #353-358 and specials including 'Divided We Fall'

Terry Kavanagh kicks off with Omnibus Vol 2 and that name should start to look more familiar. He worked on Spider-Man for a long time and X-men along with Avengers, Iron Man, and a lot of big crossovers.

Vol 2 holds Issues 25-60, a Moon Knight special, more Spider-Man crossover "Web of Spider-Man #93-94, and some Moon Knight from 1998-1999! (The Omnibus comes out this March 5th, 2024 if you're a collector!) Since it's not out yet, I'm going to be starting with Vol 1 for now.

What's interesting is that the series 'Marc Spector' ends with Marc's 'death'.

So what happens to Moon Knight after that? The king himself, Moench returns to resurrect Marc Spector for a second time in a 4 issue special.

In fact, Moench returns for the whole Moon Knight Vol 4 and 5 (1998-1999) mini series, each one 4 issues long.

Things had to be fixed after how it all ended, after all.

I'll cover the Moench specials later.

I’ll be honest. I’ve been putting off the 90s runs. The 90s were not exactly my cup of tea when it came to Marvel comics. I was more of a Batman fan (with a few notable exceptions). But as I’ve mentioned many times… My memory is pretty shit so maybe I’ll get into it and be happily surprised and enjoy myself more than I think I will.

So let’s get into it!

Let's start with Issue #1!

Marc Spector: Moon Knight. Issue #1: New Moon.

Written by Charles Dixon

Art by Sal Velluto

We open on Long Island. We see someone doing a 3am diaper run and stopping at an ATM first.

Two thugs sit in a car on the corner waiting. They spot the poor sleepy dad and decide he'd make a nice cash grab.

They hold him up at gun point and demand he take out the max.

Well... One holds him at gun point. The other rips the door off the man's car for some reason.

Hey look, It's our man!

Now, remember, Moon Knight has been out of New York for a while with the West Coast Avengers. We're picking up here right after he left them.

Moon Knight casts his shadow on the villains.

"You boys forget your bank cards?"

"It's a ghost!"

"I've been away too long. You guys don't even recognize me."

"It ain't no ghost, Rocket scientist. But he's gonna be one."

Title card: NEW MOON. Beginning a new series chronicling the adventures of Marc Spector.

You know, the art here really brings to mind early Sienkiewicz Moon Knight. The dramatic leap that leaves his ass out. The awkward stances, the action kicks, the clenched fists... Maybe the poses are a LITTLE more awkward than Bill gave Marc credit for, but I'm loving the clean lines and shading.

Plus, Do I spy a crescent dart upgrade!?

Marc quips “After all of the high-powered weirdos I fought with the West Coast Avengers… It's good to be back on home turf kicking the rear ends of a few AVERAGE lowlifes!"

Marc has always loved beating on common thugs. He so often fights supernatural brutal muscle bound villains. When he gets a casual robbery, he’s almost giddy.

Notice I’m saying Marc here a lot.

When Moon Knight joined the Avengers on the West Coast, we did not see any sign of Jake or Steven. We know from the OG run that Jake doesn’t leave New York. And I suspect that Steven has never played well with the Avengers or team ups of that sort.

Perhaps we had Moon Knight as himself, but it’s clear from the title of this series that we’re going to be getting Marc Spector himself and the writers that will be working on this are most likely not comfortable working with Friendly and Loving Jake and Generous and glitzy Steven. Of course the wild and extreme early 90s is going to focus on Marc. And thus we start down the LONG and drawn out Moon Knight tradition of forgetting that he has DID with other Alters and not just Schizophrenia with a ‘pretend’ identity crisis.

But I’m going to take this down a different path and we’re going to look at this as Marc falling into the trap of his usual denial and trying to get his life together by holding front so hard that you’d have to literally pry it out of his cold dead fingers (ha ha, we’ll get to that later).

Anyways, back to the comic. The thugs are subdued and the poor sleepy dad man thanks him "You're Moonbeam, aren't you?"

"Moon KNIGHT, pal. I have been out of New York too long."

Marc ties up the thugs and tells the guy to wait there for the cups. He radioed ahead to them before he dropped in.

The chopper arrives and Marc gets on the ladder and takes off with the most awkward:

"There they are now. Take it easy, Citizen." and he salutes.

Yeah.... It's Marc. Without a doubt... No one could be that awkward but Marc...

On the chopper, Frenchie has also taken note of the moment.

"'Take it easy, Citizen?'"

"Aw, lighten up, Frenchie."

Marc takes off the mask and relaxes back next to Frenchie in a really weirdly designed chopper that looks more like a hover car than anything... But sure. Upgrades!

"Y'know, Frenchie... I think the guy I saved down there was more afraid of me than those hoods."

"Is that not the reason for the costume?"

"Sure. But I don't want the innocent to fear me."

"The innocent will fear you most of all."

"I should have shaved. This mask chafes my face something awful."

Marc...

It is very nice to see them actually talking, though. You never got to see Marc and Frenchie actually be the friends they were supposed to be. And Marc is never more relaxed than when he's with Frenchie and they can talk about the past without worry.

"Crime fighting doesn't seem to suit you these days, frenchie."

"It is a waste of our talents, Marc. We could have easily strafed those dogs out of existence."

"We're not mercenaries anymore. We can't just make things up as we go along. We've got rules in this country, m'man."

"Then I do not like the rules."

"Live it or live with it, Frenchie."

Now this is interesting because this is the first time that we really get a feel for what Frenchie thinks of all of this superhero business.

We know Frenchie was a Legionnaire, we know he was a very GOOD mercenary that helped recruit Marc in the first place, and that his talents are with vehicles.

We also know that Frenchie had strong opinions on the work he took (as seen in the very first issue when he came to Marc to complain about Bushman's sketchy business).

But Frenchie ALSO was very attached to Marc and followed him without question.

So here we have Frenchie noting that picking on thugs is far below what they are both capable of.

Just an interesting tidbit.

Another interesting tidbit is that we see the Mooncopter landing back at Grand Mansion and Marc notes that he was able to buy it back after returning from West Coast Avengers.

"At TWICE the amount you sold it for, Marc."

"You're on my case tonight, Frenchie."

We get a little map of where the mansion is on Long Island and that the current Market Value is $5,890,000. Which.... In today's currency is: $14,649,807.50 today!!!!!!

Here’s a pretty cool design of the mansion with fun facts!

Now what's interesting is that we see Marc returning to an empty mansion. Just him and Frenchie. No Marlene. No Samules the Butler or Nedda the cook.

The phone rings from an unlisted number and when he answers, no one says anything.

Angrily, he hangs up and we get a view of a woman on the other line saying "He's home. We got the right number."

This explains why we are getting blueprints of the moonchopper and the mansion and map of Long Island. Someone's looking for Marc.

Marc does Marc things and wanders the mansion a bit and starts talking to the Khonshu statue.

It's time for the Marc Spector Recap of how he became Moon Knight! (remember, this is issue #1 so it's a good place for new readers to pick up a new comic. You'll often find recaps and deep character introductions in 1st issues.)

"Past four in the morning and all the sane people are in bed. It's all YOUR fault, Khonshu. You got me into this. God of the moon, taker of vengeance.

Actually I got me into this when I hooked up with that crazy Bushman back in my mercenary days. Now THERE was a prime psycho.

Killing is a part of any war, but Bushman got off on it. I tagged along until he killed Dr. Peter Alraune, an American archaeologist, and it looked like his daughter was next.

I helped Marlene escape and then challenged Bushman in hand to hand combat. Not one of my brighter ideas.

He left me for dead and he was just about right! Somehow I managed to make it to the digs that the doctor was trying to protect... The Shrine of Khonshu.

Marlene tells me I 'Died' there and was revived by the spirit of Khonshu.

I wrapped myself in Khonshu's shroud and, from that night on, I took on the mantle of Moon Knight."

Oh Marc... You would tell it like that.

Marc heads up stairs to bed (tossing his cape on the stairs as he goes) and when he enters his room someone jumps at him.

Marc fends them off, elbowing them and then flipping them onto the bed.

Oh hey! It's Marlene!

And she's already half undressed. Welcome to the 90s!

"You play a little rough, cowboy. I think you broke one of my nails."

"What did you expect sneaking in here like that?"

"Well, there was no one home. I thought I'd surprise you."

"Mission accomplished, Baby."

"Not so easy the way you have this place wired. But my sneaking skills needed a workout anyway, so...I thought I'd come see you. It's been so long, and I thought I'd take a chance..."

And the two goof off a bit then we have implied hanky-panky as the scene cuts away.

I have well known mixed feelings about Marlene. And with Marc now running the show, it's interesting that she'd come back, considering her feelings on Marc vs. Steven. More interesting that he left her behind.

We cut to Manhattan and find two guys in Hawaiian shirts at a large computer terminal (gotta love those 1980s thick monitors). They're celebrating because:

"We got this Moon Knight guy blued, stewed and tattooed! We know more about him than he knows about himself, Tector!

Yuh done good, little brother. You worked some real magic with that keyboard. Our bossman is gonna be so proud."

And the boss steps in, asking if they have found him yet.

"Tector's digging up more data on his home security system. So far it looks like a hummer! Bet the Kremlin in Russia ain't got so fine a wire job, boss."

And we pan out to find the boss:

Alright, he’s upped his style and given himself a new title. I appreciate the new look. They kept it authentic to the original Bushman and also added in their own artistic style and I dig it. Not sure about the new outfit, but who am I to tell our delusional bad guy how to dress?

"I want projections on the best way to approach Moon Knight. I want his weaknesses exposed to me. This information is vital to my nation's security, Lyle. You will have it by morning."

Good to see he's still absolutely obsessed with Marc.

And that since we are starting Marc Spector Issue 1, we are going back to the original with Marc's own personal villain, Bushman.

I have a lot to say about Bushman, and I'll save it for the end. So stick around!

Back at Spector Mansion...

It actually says "Spector Mansion."

Another interesting detail because the OG ALWAYS called it Grant Mansion.

Marlene wakes up to find Marc working out in his gym.

"You know, Marc, I'm kind of surprised you're still doing the Moon Knight thing."

"You have a problem with that, Marlene?"

"Why do you do it?"

"I want to do like that dog says on TV. 'Take a bite out of crime'."

(Scruff McGruff. You were a weird part of my childhood).

They argue about letting the police do the work and Marc argues that the police can't be everywhere and do everything.

(That style though.)

"You used to fight a more noble battle."

"I was a Mercenary, for cryin' out loud."

"Don't play the cynic with me. You weren't in it for the cash. If you were you wouldn't have pitched in on the losing side so often."

"I LIKE long odds."

"You're impossible!"

"And YOU are getting more like Frenchie. I get the feeling I'm outnumbered around here."

This is an interesting conversation we keep getting here from both Marlene and Frenchie. That they think he was better as a Mercenary but he argues that his Mercenary work was not good for him.

Marc says he's starving but that he gave the cook the week off.

Marlene asks how Nedda is.

"Oh, I retired her to my condo in Boca Raton. I never go there anyway. Chloe's the new cook."

"What's she like?"

"Not terribly attractive. She's older than Moses and has a mustache that Frenchie's jealous of."

"Marc, you're terrible."

And then Chloe walks in unexpectedly.

(Alright. It’s going to be like that. Welcome to the 90s.)

Yep.

Down in the chopper area, we find Marc now working on the chopper for once.

Come to think of it, in the OG, it was ALWAYS Frenchie up working on the chopper. But then again, it was always Steven at the mansion. Now that Marc is out and about, he's the one tinkering about.

"YOu're working down here late, Marc. Didn't I see Marlene earlier?"

"Sure did, Frenchie. We have resumed our stormy relationship. She got an eyeful of Chloe and I sent her packing off to the mall with my goldcard to smooth things over."

"Americans... You fight with your women because you don't know how to love them."

Ah, Frenchie...

They are interrupted by a frantic call on the radio from Marlene. She's driving on the highway and she's "Under attack"!

I am pleased that the writers remembered that Marlene knows how to handle herself. She was trained by Marc, after all. She can shoot, fight, and drive. She’s no damsel in distress.

Marc shows up and finds the car empty. He attacks the remaining gun-men and demands to know where Marlene is.

"Spector, are you STILL parading about in that ridiculous costume?"

"You're one to talk about taste in clothes, Bushman."

"Amusing, Spector, you always were a glub one."

Bushman holds Marlene at knife point (Speaking of damsel in distress) and demands that Marc meet up with him later tonight to find out what his demands are.

He then shoots one of his own men just to prove the point that he's still a vicious cold blooded killer, then he drives off in a classy car with Marlene.

Marc is...less than happy about this.

"You're a dead man, Bushman. You just don't know it yet."

TO BE CONTINUED.

I’m not going to make you wait. Here you go!

Marc Spector, Moon Knight: Issue #2: Hunter’s Moon.

Written by: Charles Dixon

Art by: Sal Velluto

Alright, Apparently Spider-Man is going to be in this one. This is going to be interesting.

We open back up in Manhattan.

We got three nerdy looking guys on a roof across from the Excelsior (Fancy hotel) with a telescope spying on the guests.

While fighting over the 'scope, they happen to catch a glimpse of 'a ghost'.

Yeah, he's being real sneaky there.

So there he is... at the Embassy of the Republic of Burunda. This is Bushman's new country that he has made himself 'President' of.

Marc notes the place looks pretty well armored and guarded. He has Frenchie up in the sky as usual.

"I'm WAY behind on my current events. I didn't know that Bushman had set himself up as the strongman in Burunda."

"I saw it on sixty minutes. Forgot to tell you."

Frenchie suggests waiting for Bushman to call and tell him what he wants, since they aren't even sure if Bushman has Marlene in the embassy.

Marc says Bushman enjoys always having the edge, including diplomatic immunity. There's no way he's going to wait.

Hey look, the tech brothers from before are back!

They have caught sight of Moon Knight on their CCTV cams.

Bushman decides to send Marc a message.

"Spector must be discouraged from coming near the embassy again. He must meet my demands without question. Is that CLear, Mister Glitch?"

While Marc tries to track someone leaving the Embassy, Bushman sends his personal bodyguards after him.

HEY. Remember the warning at the top of this collected run? The one about racism and other things?

He puts up a fight, telling Frenchie to stay on the guy leaving the embassy.

Marc puts up a fight and jumps around building to building until he gets ahead.

Spider-man happens to be swinging by and notices Marc's group.

"Now there's something you don't see everyday... A bunch of guys dressed like Tarzan extras running into central park after midnight."

Spider-man follows and good ol' Peter Parker takes out the camera to catch some shots of Moon Knight in action.

"They seem to be after the one in the cape. Might as well take some pictures to sell to the paper. This guy sure doesn't need MY help. Say "Cheese" everybody."

Marc takes out the last of the group and continues his chase.

"Moon Knight, huh? I thought he was in California. Well, off to the darkroom. And thanks for the help with the rent, Moonie!"

And Spider-man heads out.

(I've talked about 'special guest appearances' in comics before. It's a big show to get people to buy and read the comic and try to convince new fans to come in. You're lucky if they are in the comic for half a page.)

Marc is back on the tail of the guy and he meets up with him.

He tells the guy they need to talk and then...He knocks him out with knockout gas. Wh...Why?

Maybe the guy wanted to talk? Why are you knocking out and kidnapping a guy before you even find out if he has the info you need?!

....Back at the Embassy, we find Marlene is inside and not happy.

People forget that while Marc has a grudge and hate of Bushman, Marlene is the one whose father was killed by him.

He tells Marlene that he's a man of the people, HIS people, and unfortunately his people are very poor. It seems he expects Marc to fix that situation.

Back to Marc and his poor decision making skills...

We find the man he's kidnapped waking up... and dangling upside down from the moon chopper.

Not going to lie, his little wave in that first panel is sending me.

So it seems Bushman wants ten million dollars. Lemme just get the conversion calculator out: $25,456,099.59.

Yeah. I'd want that much too.

"He wants it in one week or he'll chop the girl to pieces."

"And where am I supposed to get Ten Mill?"

"Find a way! The General knows you've got the money!"

"I don't like what you had to say, Buddy. Have a nice fall."

And Marc pushes him out of the chopper.

Lucky for the man, Frenchie had bought the chopper down and the man only falls a couple feet.

He tells the man to tell Bushman that he'll be in touch.

Next up? Marc goes to see his accountant!

"You don't have ten million bucks lying around in 'sacks' somewhere."

LOL Marc...

"Your money's tied up in real estate and business interests and your art collection."

"So SELL some of the paintings. Sell some of my business interests."

"What wuld you like me to do? Hang a garage sale sign on the mailbox? 'Picasso for sale, CHEAP'? And as far as your business interests go, they're just that: INTERESTS. You have partners in these ventures that you would HURT by liquidating in a big hurry--Not to mention the employees."

Steven is in there having a FIT right now.

I'm dying right now because I was JUST talking to someone about how clever Steven was with their money and how Marc has no idea what he's doing with money and probably took two days to lose it all in the current run. I’d like to amend my statement to say he’d lose it in two hours.

"I don't know what you need the money for, it can't be anything Kosher, Marc. But we just can't swing it."

Marc apologizes for losing his temper. The accountant leaves and he tells Frenchie the bad news. "I'm what they call cash poor."

Oh Marc... Is... Is that a Khonshu bust on his desk? Wh...

"That's the bad news. The good news is that we get to do this MY way."

Marc...

"And this time I go alone."

Back at the Embassy, we see a "Empire Cable commercial repair" truck pull up. A guy gets out and goes up to the gate.

Oh no. Is he doing what I think he's doing?

MARC.

The guard says he can't let anyone in without varifying first. The General is busy and doesn't want to be disturbed so "I will call your company."

So he calls the number on the truck, which would not verify anything if this was a guy trying to sneak in. But what's logic for you?

And GUESS WHAT. The number goes to Frenchie putting on an accent.

He verifies the job and sends the cable repair guy in with another guard.

Once inside, Marc knocks out the guard with chloroform (Why does he had so much chloroform?) and rushes off, leaving the body in the middle of the floor.

And the tech brothers sure as heck notice a strange guy running around on the CCTV cameras.

They call the front gate and have a thing or two to say about a 'cable repair guy'.

Marc starts just opening random doors looking for Marlene.

A couple of guards spot him and Marc knocks them out. So much for his disguise.

Back in Moon Knight attire, he runs down the hall. The tech guys decide to take off. They know a bad fight when they see one coming.

Marc continues his quest of opening EVERY door he finds while yelling "MARLENE!"

SIGH. Marc… This is why you need Steven and Jake. Just putting that out there.

So Marc beats up all the big buff gym boys.

I appreciate that they at one point get the upper hand and pin him down while beating him and Marc just goes "You'll have to do better than that" after taking a few hard hits.

Marc really does not treat the body well.

He asks the last guy where Marlene is before knocking him out.

He busts in so hard that I’m tempted to count it on my “jumps through window” tally.

(Look at this dramatic idiot. This is the biggest wet cat yowling energy I’ve ever seen.)

SO he busts in and is met with a SAW-esque situation with Bushman on TV.

Bushman tells him he had to fly back to his homeland on urgent business and he's taken Marlene with him.

TO BE CONTINUED.

At the end of the issue we have a "Let's meet the team" afterward and we get to learn a little about the new group working on Moon Knight.

It's very brief. Mostly it's just how old they are, if they are married or have kids, and a few previous comic names they have worked on.

I'm going to be frank with you here. If you've been reading my other reviews, you have an idea on what's been going on in Marvel during this time and WHY Moench isn't writing Moon Knight at this time.

Marvel comics had just had a huge upheaval of all their major writers and artists due to disagreements with the editor in chief. So these are a lot of young guys that are coming in off of low name comics.

ALSO none of them talk about why or how they got placed into the Moon Knight run.

So my big question is why don't you think of these guys when you think of Moon Knight? I can name SO MANY writers and artists from may different runs that were amazing or terrible. Or even just mid. But these guys? Not even a blip on my chart.

Clearly Chuck Dixon had Moon Knight for more than just a guest writer or special.

Doing a little background look into him, he was best known for Punisher and DC comics like Batman, Nightwing, and Robin in the 1990s and 2000s.

He got his start in the big leagues with Conan and worked his way up to Marc Spector: Moon Knight. After that, he started on Punisher and Punisher war Journal. DC got their mits on him and he became "DC's most prolific Batman writer in the 1990s".

So yeah... Despite working on Moon Knight 1989-1992 for 25 issues... He just isn't a big name for the comic.

And honestly, the Marc Spector Moon Knight run was often considered very MID. Not outright terrible, but very directionless. It existed and left very little impact on the series.

I'll give it credit that it DID at least keep the series going and allow it to reboot again later instead of just disappearing forever. So thank you for that!

But… I remember that Zelenetz had an interview where he talked about where he had wanted to take Moon Knight after Vol 2 ended, but he was no longer on the project. Now I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if he had been allowed to keep going.

ANYWAYS… What issue are we on?

Marc Spector, Moon Knight: Issue #3: Butcher’s Moon

Written by: Charles Dixon

Art by: Sal Velluto

Oh boy. Where’s that Content Warning able? I have a feeling this is about to get dicey.

WOW. Right out the gate!

Alright so... We see an airport and someone is going through customs.

We are now in Burunda.

And a very uh... characture... fellow... asks to see this guy's passport.

It's CLEARLY Marc in a disguise. He has a European UK Passport and is claiming to be Ian Waller, a photo journalist from Manchester sent to take pictures of how the country is doing under the new General leader Bushman.

The customs officer keeps his passport, telling him that he will get it back when he leaves. (Not a good sign.)

The town is "Freedomtown" and ....

I'm going to make you squint at this picture.

You got a clearly poor country depicted under the rule of a tyrant that rules through fear and violence.

You got a car with the word "TAXI" spray painted on the side. He claims to be the only taxi in the country.

Then you have several children running after the 'photojournalist' yelling "White man rich? White man have dollar?"

Then on the corner you have what's clearly supposed to be a hooker and her pimp not too far away, though it's cleverly disguised as a bus stop and can be argued otherwise. Then you got homeless guys and bags of trash... There's a lot going on here. It's like a Where's Waldo of stereotypical poor African country depiction.

He gets in the taxi and the driver takes off.

"Driver? I didn't give you a destination."

"Only ONE destination, Sah. Only ONE Hotel."

(I am grinning at the idea of Marc putting on a fake Manchester Accent. Thank you Steven Grant MCU. He actually says "I guess it is, innit?" and I'm so happy).

The 'photojournalist' goes to take a picture of some military group and the Taxi driver smacks his camera down.

"No! NO picture without permission, Sah."

How very North Korea of you.

The Journalist gets to the hotel and starts to unpack.

Would you look at that? It's Marc Spector in disguise! (Another mustache) He vows that once it gets dark he's going to go looking for Marlene and also take care of Bushman.

We head over to the Presidential Palace.

Out front we see a truck arrive full of people and a bunch of guards with guns offloading them.

And in the back of the palace there is a large pool. So of course we see Marlene out for a swim in a tiny bikini. Getting back to the basics.

She gets out of the pool and Bushman offers her a robe. They exchange a few quips.

"What's your game, Bushman? What made you want to settle down and rule your own personal dungheap?"

"I Feel compassion for my people. This WAS my homeland. The Tribe my family belonged to once ruled this land frm end to end until the Europeans deposed them. Now I rule. I am like a warming sun shining on my people. I am like the rain that nourishes the soil."

"I can think of another thing that nourishes the soil, General. And you're full of it."

While they talk, they are interrupted by gunfire.

"You do amuse me. You find my ways harsh. I see them as direct. As sole ruler of Burunda, I face no opposition, no Bureaucracy. I am free to deal with my nation's problems efficiently."

We cut to another panel where we see soldiers with smoking guns and a pile of dead bodies of men young and old.

"Problems such as aids. I have found a cure for aids."

HISTORY TIME:

Alright. There is a LOT going on in that last panel. A LOT of history. A LOT of politics. a LOT of terrible things.

This comic came out in 1989. We are at the height of the Aids pandemic. I'm not going to get deeply into it, but if you have questions please feel free to ask. In America, it was seen strictly as a Homosexual disease and the people afflicted were written off, forgotten, and left to die alone and scared. In Africa, many places saw Aids as a sin-ful or taboo disease and they were cast out of their villages or outright killed.

It was a disease that wiped out a generation of homosexual men and is the reason why there are so few older gays for younger people to learn from. It's... It's a whole thing and there are papers and books and documentaries on it.

What I find interesting in relation to THIS comic in particular...

We are in 1989, it's still killing gay men and a lot of people saw this as a good thing. The way this panel is done is to show how terrible this is. It brings humanity to the aids victims and shows that killing them is NOT a solution and is a terrible thing. ALSO considering the Marvel editor in chief that caused a lot of writers to leave was intensely homophobic, this may have been a sneaky jab.

Take my word for it, there is a LOT going on.

It's a beautifully sad panel. I'm not going to show it because it has dead bodies and depicts extreme violence and is just too depressing.

Back to the comic!

Marlene yells at Bushman, demanding to be let go.

Bushman says that "Spector will come for you. He loves you more than he will ever admit to you, I know him. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants."

Back at the hotel we see a bunch of guards knocking on the 'photo journalist's' door.

They go inside only to find him gone!

Up on the roof, we have Moon Knight holding a bow and arrow set.

"Nobody in sight. Bushman probably has a curfew around here. Boy, is he strict. Hope nobody asks for my hall pass."

I must say that the colorist really did a fantastic job on the night time shading and moon light glow. It's just very pretty.

He climbs a bell tower to get a good view of the area and finds a military compound with a large fuel truck.

Marc, of course, gets a bright idea for a diversion.

One of the guards near the truck pulls out a cigaret and asks for a light. A note says "Translated from Domi, a local tribal dialect"

"I got your light, Pal." Marc says just before he lets loose an arrow.

What I love about this is that Marc understands him. Implying that Marc understands the dialect. This is why he's such a good mercinary. He isn't just good at killing and fighting. He was amazing at learning everything about the places he went, including the language.

The arrow hits the truck and BLAAAAAAAAAAM.

Oh look at that. An Ammunition storehouse.

Yeah, he blows that one up too. He's having a good time.

"That should keep their eyes off the rooflines and their minds off ME for a while."

We find Bushman in his private office wathing a women's fighting match.

Someone interrupts him to tell him that the supply depot has exploded and injured many men, but somehow not killed anyone.

"He is here." Bushman smiles.

If you will think back to issue 1 of Moon Knight, Marc did the exact same thing when he came back from the dead and was sneaking back into the dig site. He blew up a truck to cause a distraction.

I'm starting to think Marc might be a bit of a pyro.

"We now head Several Hundred Miles South" where a bunch of men are sitting around a camp fire near a helicopter.

And here we see Frenchie walking up. He starts in French, saying hello and asking if they speak French. Then English.

"I want to buy your helicopter."

"You are saying WHAT?"

"The Huey. I want to buy your Huey."

They laugh a little, thinking he is joking until Frenchie pulls out a suitcase full of money.

....Now... I'd like to point out that Frenchie did just as much work as Marc, possibly more, and got paid a lot. He never really did much with it... He probably has a lot saved up. He ALSO probably had Steven invest for him. I would not be surprised if Frenchie is richer than Marc.

So he takes off with the chopper and tosses behind the money.

Back in town, we see the soldiers running around looking for Moon Knight.

Up high, we see Moon Knight walking across the power lines towards the palace.

He sneaks inside and takes out a guard.

Elsewhere, we see two soldiers moving to retrieve Marlene for Bushman.

They hear the shower running and go to get her (and take a peek). She opens the curtain and reveals she's in her bathing suit and ready to fight. She sprays one guy with hot water in the face then kicks the other guard.

She manages to steal a fifle and takes off. "This is what Bushman calls an army? I might not even need this rifle."

Marc is having a similar thought.

Bullets fly all over as he runs down a hall.

"These guys can't be this bad at marksmanship by accident. It's more like they're just chasing me somewhere. If it's closer to Bushman, then I'm happy to oblige."

WINDOW! WINDOW! WE HAVE A WINDOW!

Now, let me just say, I do love the Bushman design in this. This is how he SHOULD be. Not whatever that was that Bemis gave us.

"Do you see this sword? It is the traditional weapon of my people."

"Thanks for showing me the family silverware, Bushman. But I'm here for the woman."

"Some things never change. You always did use snappy banter when you were most nervous, Spector. Defeat me and the woman's yours."

Marc asks why Bushman became obsessed with him.

"You represent everything I hate. A mercenary making his fortune from the miseries of the third world."

"Cut the bull! You made millions and never cared where the money came from as long as you could spend it. I may have been a mercenary, but you were a butcher! I never shot anyone who wasn't pointing a gun at me."

"It was just such softness that always got you in trouble!"

They start the battle. Marc with his nun-chucks snaps takes their swings. Bushman draws first blood when he slices through Marc's mask.

"It's not who bleeds first. It's who's left standing!"

Another slice cuts into Marc's side, but he's had worse.

Marc kicks him in the chest then smashes his face with the palm of his hand.

Marc goes full ...Marc... on Bushman, fists and blows. It's his fighting style to take hits and keep going.

Marc gets the upper hand and demands to know where Marlene is.

Bushman calls out to his men to shoot Marc.

"They shoot me, they hit you too!" Marc reminds him.

But then bullets rain down around them, snapping Bushman's sword in two.

And Frenchie comes in with the chopper.

"Through playing the hero yet, Marc?"

"Good to hear your voice, Frenchie. Put her down as close as you can. This place is HOT."

Marlene wants to know why she can't just shoot Bushman and end it.

Marc tells her not to. He fails to give her any good reason other than that they need to get out of there quickly.

I have theories about this that I'll discuss in a moment.

Marc releases Bushman as soon as they start to take off.

"You walk away this time, General. THIS time!"

Frenchie opens fire, scattering the men to prevent them from trying to shoot them down.

What I love about this is that Marc is still the chaotic, bad decision making, single man army, and utter goof he has always been and will continue to be when written well. He has a strange but endearing sense of humor and he does not take it well when those close to him are at risk.

So this story done, let’s address a few things!

In this introduction to the new series, you’ll notice a lot of people are missing.

Where’s Gena, Crawley, Samules, Nedda, Jake, and Steven? Why is this Marc Spector in title and the Spector Mansion? Why is Marlene suddenly addressing him as Marc and okay with dating Marc when she’s previously hated Marc and only wanted to be with Steven?

No one addressed their DID better than Moench. With Moench out of the picture, who was very forward thinking in terms of this mental illness and its depictions for its time, we are now at the mercy of people who have not done their research and who have not kept up with the evolution of mental illness. We are now at the mercy of writers that follow Hollywood depictions. Sure, Moench based it off of Hollywood at first, but somehow, this man was in touch with modern issues, accurate depictions of DID, PTSD, depression, dissociation… He had a gift.

With the upheaval at Marvel, they were more reliant on the reader and what the statistics told them readers wanted. Readers of the early 90s apparently wanted ACTION and HOT BABES and MANLY MEN. So guess what? Marc’s in charge and the others? They are going to be lucky to get any screen time. We’re going to start seeing more references to Marc ‘pretending to be other people’ and more references to Marc as being closer to Schizophrenia or ‘crazy’ than DID (or Multiple Personality Disorder, as it was known by at the time).

And all those side characters? We’ve already seen that Nedda has been retired. Samules? Also probably retired and replaced by Chloe up there in her bikini.

Gena? In the last run, Gena was talking a lot about leaving. She’d been through a lot and she, perhaps, was the first victim of being too close to them. She was beloved by Jake and she acted as a kind and nurturing voice with him. She brought out the best in him and he loved her boys like a doting uncle. And she was the first to get hurt.

So will we see Gena in this run? We’ll have to wait and see.

What about Crawley? An eccentric and useful man to Jake and Moon Knight. Here’s the deal on Crawley. Moench wrote him with such a unique way of speaking that other writers found it difficult to keep it going with him. Even his personality was pretty unique. So we aren’t going to see a whole lot of Crawley either, and he may change in how we see him.

Now for Jake and Steven? In Moench’s run, Marc took the back seat. From this point on in Moon Knight history, Marc is going to sit front and center and the other two are going to be passing fancies. Perhaps I’ll make a different analysis on this later. What DOES happen is that we are going to start seeing more of WHO Marc Spector really is, and not just what Steven and Jake see. (He's kind of a goofy idiot with severe self loathing).

Bushman: I think I talked about this before, but in case I didn’t or you haven’t read it yet, here we go again (for the first time?).

Bushman was never meant to be the BIG BAD. He was the catalyst. When Marlene asks Bushman why he’s obsessed with Marc, Bushman notes that he created Marc’s need to become Moon Knight.

In reality, he is the one that ‘killed’ Marc, which did take him to Khonshu’s temple and this made him take the shroud and become Moon Knight. He’s also the one that made Marc realize he had a conflicted code of ethics and morals.

But when it comes to Bushman, Marc does not see him as ‘the big bad’. He sees a frustrating man that has an unhealthy obsession with him and often causes him stress.

And we’ve seen time and time again that Bushman does not stand up to Marc’s fighting abilities. It’s why Bushman obsesses with him. He feels like Marc was just some random guy he found and somehow Marc is better than him. And while Bushman has set out to be the best, Marc doesn’t care. Marc just IS good at what he does.

So why do fans and writers see Bushman appear and go “OHHH” and get excited?

Because Bushman represents who Marc could have been. Bushman is a representation of Marc’s past. The violence, the killing, the coldbloodedness. He’s everything Marc was becoming but still fought against. Bushman is Marc’s inner struggle. He is what Marc rebels against but still turns to time and time again.

When Marc spirals, he spirals with the image of Bushman. He was never that bad. He was never seen as being as ‘good’ as Bushman because he would not let himself become that far gone. But as Moon Knight, they have proven to be better.

Of course then you have the writers that just have a thing for Bushman because he’s ‘badass’ (Looking at you Bemis) and don’t know how to utilize him properly.

Anyways! This was the start of “Marc Spector: Moon Knight”. What do you think so far?

I’m going to be taking these in batches and not one at a time. So expect longer posts when I get to them! (Unless you have a special single issue that deserves more time).

…this was a long post.

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight comics #Analyzing the comics #Marc Spector #Jake Lockley #Steven Grant #Marlene Alraune #Bushman #I'm back!#That was a longer break than I intended but things happened

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months

Text

Whamond

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 12, 2024 (Tuesday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 13, 2024

Today, Democratic voters in Georgia gave President Joe Biden enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president when the Democratic National Convention is held in August. Republican voters in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Washington gave Trump enough delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination, although former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race last week, continues to win voters—more than 21% in Washington.

Also today, Special Counsel Robert Hur testified before the House Judiciary Committee about his report on Biden’s handling of classified documents in his possession from his years as vice president. The hearing appeared to show that the Democrats have finally found a way to defang the tactic Republicans have been using since the 1990s. For decades now, under the guise of the important function of congressional oversight, Republicans have weaponized congressional hearings to smear Democrats in the media.

In this Congress, and especially today, rather than accept the framework the Republicans advance as they try to craft a narrative for right-wing media, Democrats have pushed back with facts and their own story.

In January 2023, apparently wishing to avoid accusations that the Department of Justice was favoring Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur, a partisan Republican whom Trump had appointed U.S. attorney for Maryland, to oversee the investigation into whether Biden had mishandled classified documents.

In his final report, released last month, Hur concluded that “no criminal charges are warranted in this matter...even if there was no policy against charging a sitting president.” But then Hur went on for more than 300 pages to offer a picture of Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Notably, Hur reported that Biden did not remember the date of his son Beau Biden’s death.

The media ran with that editorializing rather than the fact that Hur had concluded that criminal charges were not warranted. Stories about Biden’s age swamped the media. Judd Legum of Popular Information found that in the four days after Hur’s report appeared, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal together published 81 articles about Hur’s assessment of Biden’s memory, suggesting that Biden was sliding into dementia and should not be running for reelection.

Republicans immediately demanded the transcriptions of Biden’s interviews with Hur and his staff, saying they needed more information for their case for impeaching Biden. Republican House leadership issued a statement that “[a] man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office.”

House Republicans asked Hur to testify before the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Trump loyalist Jim Jordan (R-OH). Hur prepared for his testimony with the help of Trumpworld figures, and he resigned from the Department of Justice effective yesterday, so he appeared before the committee today not as a DOJ employee bound by certain ethical guidelines, but as a private citizen.

But while Republicans clearly designed their plans for this Congress’s investigations to seed smears of Democrats in the public mind, Democrats have come to hearings exceedingly well prepared to turn the tables back on the Republicans. That strategy was obvious today as it quickly became clear in the hearing that it was not Biden who was on the hot seat.

Hours before the hearing was about to begin, the Department of Justice released a transcript of Biden’s interviews, held in the two days after Hamas attacked Israel as he rushed to respond to that crisis. The transcripts belied Hur’s portrayal of Biden’s answers; among other things, he clearly knew the exact date Beau died.

The transcript also revealed a pointed contrast between Trump and Biden, with the president telling investigators he didn’t “own a stock or a bond that I’m aware of…. I never wanted to have any argument…. The thing I valued most my whole life, my reputation and integrity. So I never wanted to have anything that someone said, you bought that stock and it went up because you traded. Never did that.”

Democrats came to the hearing prepared to turn it into a hearing on Trump. Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) called out Hur for unprofessional behavior in disparaging the president after finding the matter should be dismissed. Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) suggested Hur was angling for an appointment in a second Trump administration and asked him to demonstrate his credibility by pledging that he would not accept such an appointment. Hur declined to do so.

The hearing was covered live on various television channels, and the Democrats used that media time to show videos of Trump slurring his words, forgetting names, and speaking in word salad, getting their own sound bites to voters. They got Hur to spell out the clear contrast between Trump’s theft of documents and Biden’s cooperation with the government.

Conservative lawyer George Conway wrote on social media: “I think Biden’s State of the Union address last week and Hur’s immolation today will go down in political history as Reagan’s ‘I am not going to exploit…my opponent’s youth and inexperience’ moment…only on steroids.” Conway was referring to Reagan’s response in a 1984 presidential debate to a question about his own age; Reagan’s opponent, Walter Mondale, later said he knew Reagan’s answer was the moment he had lost not only the debate but probably the election.

In other news today, pressure on House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to bring up the national security supplemental bill that includes aid for Ukraine continues to increase. Although the administration says it has found an additional $300 million from Pentagon cost savings to supply artillery rounds and munitions for Ukraine, national security advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters:

“It is nowhere near enough to meet Ukraine's battlefield needs and it will not prevent Ukraine from running out of ammunition."

House Democrats are working to get enough signatures on a discharge petition to force Johnson to bring up a vote on a supplemental bill—which is expected to pass if it makes it to a vote—and today, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also added pressure, encouraging Johnson to bring up the measure that passed the Senate in mid-February. “Allow a vote,” he said. “A vote. Let the House speak.”

Johnson’s control of the House, such as it is, got a little weaker today as Representative Ken Buck (R-CO) announced he is leaving Congress at the end of next week. “It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress and having talked to former members, it’s the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress,” Buck told CNN’s Dana Bash. “But I’m leaving because I think there’s a job to do out there…. This place has just devolved into this bickering and nonsense and not really doing the job for the American people.”

The Internal Revenue Service today launched a pilot program in 12 states to enable taxpayers to file their federal tax returns directly, for free. The Treasury Department estimates that about one third of all tax returns are simple enough to use this new system and that about 19 million taxpayers could use it this season.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#letters from an american #Heather Cox Richardson #Judiciary Committee #House democrats #discharge petition

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gone2soon-rip · 1 year

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FRED WHITE (1955-DEATH ANNOUNCED New Years Day,January 1st 2023.at 67). American drummer. He was one of the early members of Earth, Wind & Fire. He previously played drums on Donny Hathaway's Live album.Earth, Wind & Fire consisting of Fred White along with half-brother Maurice White, brother Verdine White, and other members were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_White_(musician)

#Fred White #American Musicians #American Drummers #Musicians #Drummers #Earth Wind and Fire #Notable Deaths in 2023 #Notable Deaths in January 2023

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mask131 · 9 months

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Given people tend to have a short-lived memory on the Internet, let's recall together one of the ridiculous moments of Putin's Russia's propaganda against Europe. It is something that happened very recently, and for once it is not an ideological or social conflict or propaganda. No, it is a meteorological one - a story that might seem laughable and absurd, just a good joke on its own, but a story that shows us how deeply buried in lies and falseness and a complete detachment from reality the Russian propaganda is. This highlights the sad truth of how Russian media became a mass-fake-news machine and is ready to twist and turn every little fact of life to serve their own "Russia is the greatest, the rest of the world is Hell" view.

This happened in the winter of 2022-2023. If you are not in Europe maybe you didn't hear about this, but it was all over here. If you do not recall, this winter was actually colder than the one of previous years - which notably caused a certain problem because there was an economic crisis going on thanks to the Ukrainian war. There is this big price inflation all across Europe, coupled with the fact we don't get the Russian oil and gaz anymore - and this slightly colder weather mixed with the more costly every day life and the lack of heating fuels were all used by Russian propagandist to announce that Europe was going to face its harshest and coldest winter yet, and that thanks to the Ukrainian war, they would all freeze to death. If you listened to the words of Russian information channels, it was as if ASOIAF's "Winter is coming" was happening in real life.

Putin notably used a sentence referring a very popular Russian fairytale (though it is actually a folktale also heavily present in Europe, especially in France where it is part of the Roman de Renart) - "The wolf's tail will freeze". For Putin, Europe was the wicked and greedy wolf, and this harsh icey winter would weaken Europe the same way the wolf who was tricked into fishing with his tail got trapped in the lake of ice...

Let's begin with a "little lie", well a big one, but still lesser compared to the others that follow in this post. Mid-March, Olga Skabeyeva (one of the famous propagandist news anchors of Russia) claimed that due to the rise of prices, a third of the inhabitants of France was forced to give up on hygiene and beauty products. According to her, a third of French people didn't use shampoo or deodorants anymore, a third of French people didn't clean their teeth anymore - they even had to abandon toilet paper due to it costing too much! And of course, Skabeyeva concluded that this was all because France gave too much money to Ukraine, leaving its own people "poor and dirty"... Note that this actually plays on a widespread stereotype French have among foreigners: the reputation of French being dirty for only taking a bath once a week or so. I don't know where this stereotype of the French that doesn't take care of their personal hygiene comes from, but it exists.

If you are from Britain, you probably heard about Olga Skabeyeva's famous comments about the poor state the harsh winter and economic crisis of England had left people into. Mid-January she affirmed on Russian television that the common British folks were forced to eat dog food and cat food because human food was too costly, and that now English households cooked on their radiators, since they could only afford one heater for the whole house. This was backed up in early March by her claims that British restaurants, due to a lack of animal meat, were forced to serve squirrels to their clients, and that they would go on to trap other animals found in parks. Many British people argued back that yes, there was a big and harsh crisis, but no it wasn't as bad as the propagandist claimed and no, nobody ate squirrels in restaurants. [I unfortunately cannot find back the source but I recall seeing around the time this made the news, that the propagandist actually took one true info - something about indeed people killing squirrels somewhere in England for health and ecological reasons, or maybe some public figure joking about possibly eating squirrels - and then twisted it into "all British restaurants serve squirrels now". That's typical of propagandists - take one grain of truth, make it a whole beach of lies.]

And then we reach Germany. This time I have sources to back up, exact sources I will bring to you. In fact, if you want to know more about the crazy world of Russian propaganda, I can't advise you enough to check out this very informative and eye-opening series: Arte's Fake News. Arte is a Franco-German binational channel that brought this program - originally a web-series, that also aired on television. "Fake News", of its full title, "Fake News: Russian propaganda for beginners", is a series created and hosted by Marsha Borzunova, the representative of a group of anti-Putin Russian journalists that exiled themselves. Now, from the town of Riga, she and her crew created these videos that study, debunk and explain the various aspects of Russia's propaganda.

And one of her videos covered the topic of "European winter as seen by Russia". She talked of Putin's "wolf's tail" comment, she talked of how Russian television channels claimed that Czech figureheads publically said that to survive winter they will burn "everything they get their hands on", and even burn Ukraine down... And she also brought up the "Berlin problem". During the last months of the year 2022, Russian newspaper multiplied reports that due to the lack of oil/gaz and the extreme temperatures of winter, Berliners were cutting down almost all of the trees in their public parks. Which of course, is something that never happened. But these newspapers listed an American article from Bloomberg as their sources - and when you go look at the article, you realize how heavily the propagandists twisted the original words. The Bloomberg article was about the energy crisis in Germany, indeed, and how wood-fueled heating systems were now preferred and demanded over gaz-fueled heating systems, but that was it. The article did mention public park trees being cut down as an example... as an HISTORICAL example. The article speaks of the cutting of the Tiergarten trees in WORLD WAR II!!!

To add salt to the wound, there is the existence of a television show in Russia called "Antifake", designed to debunk fake news and denounce propaganda. Not Russian one though - the point of this show is to destroy the "lies of the West" and reveal the "truth" about Europe. Which is, as you can guess, a pile of absurd and shameless lies in favor of Russia. Antifake most notably fed into the whole "Europeans are freezing to death" thing by having their reporter living in Germany, a woman called Yulia, do a live interview from her apartment in Munich - and she appeared in this interview wrapped into a big, heavy winter coat, fur-lined hood over her head, despite being inside. Because, as she explained, the furnace had been cut for the night and in the morning, and so she was waiting for noon to have the sun heat her apartment into a more bearable temperature. An interview that becomes absolutely ridiculous when you know that at the same time, in Munich (Yulia's town), it was mid-october, it was a sunny week with 18 degrees outside (I'll let you do the conversion if you are American). Nobody in their right mind was wearing a coat inside their house, and nobody wore heavy coats outside either, and there was no furnace cuts. Even more hilarious is the fact that the emission showed background videos recorded of European heavly clothed, sharing food at some charity stand in a freezing morning... Except that when you look at the signs in this supposedly "German sight", you see everything is written in cyrillic, and that's because these images were recorded in the town of Opotchka, in the Pskov region, not "near Berlin" as they wanted the audience to think. Speaking of Yulia - you might have heard of her outside of the "Antifake" show, because she made herself quite famous in Germany, even viral. She went viral because she posted a video of herself smiling and dancing with a Russian flag... In front of a group of Ukrainian refugees in Salzburg. She became known as the "Russian harasser of Ukrainians fleeing the war" in Germany.

Borzunova also mentions the cyber-war of fake news to conclude her look at Russian's fantasies about a winter of misery in Europe: on Twitter, there was a trend that spread, a hastag #AgainstSanctions. This hashtag was shared and posted by many Europeans of various countries, complaining that the sanctions taken against Russia were ruining their life. The trend was simple: post a picture of an empty plate, with a message written on a piece of paper onto the plate, directly demanding to your local politician to stop the anti-Russia sanctions.

Here's the thing however: this "trend" was reported by Russian institutions and medias. And while the posts of this hashtag do exist, when you look just a little bit deeper you realize how fake it all is. All the accounts that started this trend only have one post in total: the AntiSanctions post. All these accounts were created on the same day. AND their profile pictures are those of public figures - ranging from CNN news anchors to Bollywood actresses.

Anyway, if you want to check the video about all of this, you can go look at it on Youtube. I personally watched the French subtitled version, even though there is a German-subtitled one (thanks to Arte being Franco-German), and Borzunova speaks in English, so you can still listen to her comments and understand her explanations without reading French or German:

youtube

If the video above doesn't appear, here is the link.

#russian propaganda #russia #fake news #putin's propaganda #europe through the eyes of russians #russian propaganda for beginners #Youtube

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