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meikuree · 5 months

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FINALLY someone who didn't 100% love BES. I did enjoy some of it but I lean on the "disliked it on the whole" side and it's been so weird seeing everyone praise it to high heavens. I take it that you enjoyed it more than I did (I did not like a lot of the 3D visuals, unfortunately, so the visuals don't really redeem it for me), but I'd love to see some balanced takes from you anyway <3

anon, you're in good company! honestly i've been baffled by the blandly, one-note positive reception to this (30% of my grief has to do with BES's base story, and 70% has to do with uncritical fannish responses), because... to be uncharitable... I have some big problems with its construction. feel free to come off anon and kvetch in my DMs if you want, I'll probably share your sentiments. sorry for how long i've taken to answer this!

to be fair the show does some things right and I think its achievements/innovations in art style and animation are to be lauded; I'm not going to speak over that when I'm not an expert on animation or media theory, but it's a bad sign when praise about any media amounts to "well, it looks pretty" or hinges so heavily on its aesthetics. to be extremely clear this doesn't fully apply to BES, because it does have deft character work, compelling characters, and some impressive cinematic instantiation/inhabitation with its attention to setting and detail -- i was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of deets like yaki-ire etc etc. -- but even on its purported selling points of japanese historicity and nuanced narratives about race, sexuality, gender, revenge, etc. I think it fails. it has glaring blindspots.

tldr: BES suffers from some (white) american/french narratorial sensibilities that kneecap the full potential of its story

or: BES pinged as an insufferably american and/or ahistorical rendition of its japanese building-blocks to me in some ways

it's probably just a case of misaimed audiences, and This Show Not Being For Me, but I've been baffled by:

how seamlessly some scenes around sex work and brothels and eroticism in this show slide in with orientalist tropes about japan being the Weird Sex and Kinky country despite the japanese-american creator at its helm, who's also spoken out against tropes like that -- until a buddy gave some context that those undertones seem to have been inspired by bande dessinées (french comics) with not-unsimilar tropes that may have been transplanted carelessly into BES by the studio

and this is what I mean by 'american/french' sensibilities -- I don't mean american/french in the most skin-deep representational sense, as in the studio that made it is an american-french one or whatever, as 'representation' is too often conceived on tumblr to be limited to, but on the deeper epistemological level of its worldview, frameworks of sexuality/race, and the cultural terrain it's working off or conversing with. BES includes storylines/arcs/even mawkish dialogue far more reminiscent of those in american cartoons. which is not an issue except of one of taste, but fannish responses holding it up as a groundbreaking commentary on race are orbiting a different universe imo

more egregiously it sustains overtones of that american favourite about the grand, Super Existential! Super Inevitable! and intrinsic clash of Cultures and Civilisations with a big C (a highly discredited idea in critical academic circles now, thankfully, no thanks to samuel p. huntington)

I almost wish the show had maintained a greater separation from IRL analogues or just invented a fresh fantasy universe because why set it in edo-era japan if you're not going to engage with the sociocultural norms, or narratorial traditions of that era

see: literary genres around jitsuroku (revenge narratives), how revenge would have been treated as a tool of sociocultural legitimisation then, the apparent forgettance of the entire history of nanban trade and the fact that japan as a geographical entity was not technically ethnically homogeneous, or only homogeneous from a hegemonic pov, given the existence of the ainu, the kingdom of ryukyu, and northern communities of hokkaido although tbf japan's borders probably didn't include them

i was hoping for an internal critique of or just more nuance about the 'japan = ethnically homogenous' narrative in the show and was more disappointed as it went on -- imo it's a narrative often most stridently parroted by the japanese government for nation-building interests and by others to avoid interrogations of the actual complexity of striations, divisions, etc in japan e.g. with burakumin (lower-'caste'* peoples)

* note: caste is an imperfect and not fully accurate descriptor

a significant part of my ire is reserved for the handling of 'whiteness' in this show although it's mostly hand-wringing over the complexity of intended audiences in this show, which might not be fair to blame on the creators; yes, whiteness is foreign and Other and bad, but what about the material and historical precursors that gave rise to that Otherness in the first place, where are they?; and look! whiteness is demonised; but the cartoon's being released in the USA and europe. it's certainly true that japan is institutionally hostile to foreigners and xenophobic, kudos for depicting the politics of that, but BES's american audiences mean i'm ambivalent about its in-universe premise that what is in fact an oft-fetishised trait in mixed race children (blue eyes) is bad (and the show's aesthetics don't support it; mizu's eyes are portrayed in the most beautiful way possible even though she's diagetically meant to be hideous and monstrous)

#blue eye samurai #long post #bes critical -#meikuree answers

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soul-music-is-life · 5 years

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Homophobia IRL

I’ve seen the word homophobia being thrown around a lot these days. I certainly understand that context is everything (ie, I know it’s used as sarcasm a lot, and in the right form of dank/dark comedy it does work. I also know that there are people in the community who consider their battle with their sexuality to be a form of internalized homophobia because of their valid fears and emotions, and I don’t discount the use of the word in that context either). I also know that true homophobia, the one fueled by hate...the one that kills, it runs deep. That’s the word I’m talking about here.

I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to say anything, but given the extremely vocal dissent and the hate that I’ve seen in the PLL fandom and the fact that I’ve seen that hate spill over to several friends/writers, as well as myself, I decided to clear the air about some things.

Before you accuse someone of homophobia, understand the connotations of that word. I’m aware that there are varying degrees of homophobia that exist. I’m aware that there truly are people out there who both consciously and subconsciously oppress and abuse the LGBTQ community.

I’m also aware that sometimes people throw the word homophobic at people who are not homophobic. I’ve seen it happen to The Perfectionists cast and crew (namely Sasha, Janel, and Marlene), as well as other content creators of different shows, and now some of the writers who write fics for that particular fandom.

I understand the frustration when it comes to lack of positive representation in media. I’m not someone who is going to downplay the fact that people have a right to speak up and civilly debate, airing their grievances and opinions about something they disagree with.

But the problem comes when people start accusing other people of being homophobic when they have no idea what that person’s journey has been like. The problem comes when you accuse someone of hate and bigotry who are not hateful or bigoted.

I am in my early 30s. Never once in my life have I been accused of being bigoted in any way. I grew up in a diverse neighborhood and have always seen humans. Not race. Not sexuality. Not gender. People. I see people. My actions have always reflected that. My writing reflects that. In fact, I don’t talk about it often, but in speaking out against things like racism in my writing, I gained the attention of the creators of Queen Sugar and I met the cast and crew, including Oprah (and Bianca Lawson/Maya, for all my PLL people out there). I have never been one to shy away from a controversial topic, especially when it comes to speaking up for people who are hated and oppressed.

So, being called homophobic (which happened this week), as you can imagine, draws a bit of ire in me. But there’s a first time for everything, I guess.

However, I’m putting that shit to rest. Right here. Right now. You want a story about the real life ramifications of homophobia and how it’s affected my life and the lives of my loved ones? I could write a book on the homophobia I’ve seen and spoken out against.

I had my wrist and three ribs broken defending my gay best friend in high school. And I’d go back and do it again if I could (maybe I’d try to get a few more licks in). Those bullies were homophobic.

When my best friend came out to his parents and was kicked out by his abusive father and crackhead mother, he snuck through my window. And he stayed the night. We cried together almost all night (I later found out that my mom knew he’d snuck in and didn’t say a word because she knew he needed his best friend, bless that woman for raising me the way she did). His parents were homophobic.

I saw another friend get fucking shot because of who he loved... (the gunman was homophobic).

...and yet another put a gun in her mouth because of the torment she endured for being gay. All I could do was talk her down, pleading for her not to pull the trigger. The people who pushed her to the brink of suicide with taunts about her sexuality were homophobic.

I held my lesbian friend’s hand as she sobbed about the fact that her parents thought she’d “grow out” of her phase and talked about sending her to conversion camp if she didn’t. Her family was homophobic.

When the Pulse Nightclub shooting happened, it hit doubly hard, not only because it was close to home and the LGBTQ community was attacked, but because my cousin had a friend inside. And for 24 hours we had no idea if he was dead or alive. Fortunately, he lived. The gunman who left him with three gunshot wounds was homophobic.

I watched two family members, knowing both were lesbian/gay, try to come to terms with how to come out...how to tell people they loved, people they feared may stop loving them, for who they were.

And going back to my best. fucking. friend, whose boyfriend died and he wanted to jump off a damn bridge because he knew no one would ever love him the way his boyfriend did...the hours and days I logged assuring him that he would find love again...only to lose him to an aneurysm months later and see that none of his family showed to his funeral because his sexual orientation, all I could do was be there.

I have many friends and family in the LGBTQ community and I’ve watched the struggles they've endured, only able to offer a friendly ear and a shoulder to cry on. All I could do was offer my number to call, any time...day or night. All I could do was offer my love, which sometimes was enough, and tragically, sometimes wasn’t.

All I have EVER done for my LGBTQ friends and family has been to be there. And while I may not understand what the struggle is like, I damn sure understand what it fucking feels like to see people I love suffering. I know what it feels like to continuously claw and fight for a better tomorrow.

Because it is not just the LGBTQ community who suffers at the hands of bigots. It is everyone who loves them, who sees what they go through, who knows their pain...who holds their hands when they cry, who stands up for them when no one else will, who loves them unconditionally...it is everyone who understands their plight, who is with them no matter what feels they feel. It is the people who continue to fight for a better tomorrow with and for their loved ones who truly get what this is about.

I’m not saying that I can put myself in the shoes of my LGBTQ family and friends. I’m simply saying that I’ve run next to them the entire time. And I will continue to do so, simply because Love. Is. Love.

The LGBTQ community means so much to me. I’ve lost people, people I loved, to bigotry and homophobia. I see people suffer every day solely because of who they are and who they love.

Homophobia is not a word that should be used lightly. Homophobia is a horrifying action that is the cause of real physical and emotional suffering. Homophobia, in terms of hatred does not mean fear. It means bigoted. It means hateful. So please, save that term for the actual homophobes.

I do know the difference between seeing the word used in jest on social media (predominantly tumblr where people make light of a shitty fictional situation) and seeing real life people who are not homophobic being accused of it. Don’t do the second one. If you do the second one, you’re an asshole.

One of my friends stopped writing fanfic over it. And I’ve got to say, I’m on the fence about doing any more of my own fics, though a majority of my fans are lovely and I adore them. The truth is, I’ve got too much going in my own life to be browbeaten online for content that I write for free for entertainment.

Don’t kill artists (or anyone) with hate. That’s all I’m saying. Because you have no idea what they’ve been through in life.

People have asked me how I am able to write violence and death so realistically.

It’s because I’ve lived it.

#Homophobia #allies #LGBTQ #PLL #personal

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renaroo · 7 years

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The Search (5/16)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: Language, Canon-typical violence, Psychological manipulation and trauma Rating: T Synopsis: [Canon Divergence - Alternate S15] The Reds and Blues saved Chorus, but it has been a year and they are still missing. A motley crew has been gathered with the common goal of finding the war heroes, though the road is more troubled than anyone seems to realize.

A/N: YAY. I updated on Thursday again which is like, maybe the first time this week I released something on the right day lol. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty proud of that record. But there’s some more development and some more surprises this chapter, so I hope you guys are prepared ; )

Special thanks to @secretlystephaniebrown, @blaireaters, @analiarvb, @cobaltqueen, @notatroll7, Yin, and JP for the comments and feedback!

Resident Troublemakers

“You want us to waltz onto an entire planet-wide prison in the hopes of finding someone who you think is dead?” Dylan attempted to clarify.

The group was gathered in the cockpit of the ship, circled around Doctor Grey whose blistering enthusiasm was something the reporter had only recently come to be wary of like a double edged sword. Especially when, like just that moment, Grey shifted her entire focus on her. The glint in those eyes were certainly something to be wary of, though Andrews as a seasoned reporter kept staring straight back into them.

If they didn’t solve the Reds and Blues mystery sooner rather than later, one of them was likely to crack.

Andrews was determined to not be the one to bring that prophecy to fruition.

“That was a rather condescending spin on my words, Miss Andrews,” Doctor Grey replied flatly.

“It’s a statement of fact,” Dylan replied. “This… President, on Chorus, who you’ve apparently given a direct communication line to from our illegally traveling vessel, is directing us toward a prison planet. And on that planet, according to records from an AI you downloaded at an aggressive force’s base while they tried to kill us, is a former lieutenant who you all believed was dead for years but is somehow listed in the files of Charon Industries.”

“I don’t seem to detect a question among that rabble, Miss Andrews,” Doctor Grey said, hands on her hips.

“Okay, enough with biting each other’s heads off,” Agent Washington interrupted, holding up hands as if to keep both women back away from each other. “Miss Andrews, we understand the risk of having an open communication channel with this much distance between ourselves and Chorus, but we trust President Kimball. She’s one of us. And with Santa running the program from their end, I have confidence in its safety.”

Dylan looked at them all, completely bewildered. “Santa?”

“It’s an amazingly simple but unnecessary story,” Agent Carolina assured her. “But he’s an AI.”

“He,” Dylan repeated with a hum of thought. “But as an AI shouldn’t it… be an it.”

“How rude,” the FILSS AI spoke from the ship’s speakers.

“Yes, almost as rude as questioning the only one who has been pulling their weight on this trip thus far,” Doctor Grey said, cocking her head to the side as she stared holes into Andrews.

“Emily, she has a right to second guess us,” Agent Carolina reminded her. “She doesn’t have the history or experiences with each other that we have.”

“Thank you,” Dylan replied.

“But we don’t have the time to second guess everything. Especially since FILSS has already directed us to the coordinates of the prison where we can find Lieutenant Husk,” Carolina continued.

“Uh, and because someone’s driving us with those coordinates, hello!” Kaikaina Grif snapped from the pilot’s seat. “Sheesh. What’s a girl have to do to get a little recognition every now and then? Take out my tits?”

“No,” Washington snapped while the alien progeny in his seat still began chortling and honking in laughter at the proposal.

“Well, maybe we should make some time,” Dylan interrupted, undeterred. “Because while I may not have the history of the rest of this team, I certainly have the information of what has been going on in the rest of the UNSC ran territories outside of your single colony planet that, until recently, has had no access to the rest of the Earth-bound settlements.”

Carolina leaned in closer, arms crossed. “Alright. As in…?”

“As in the fact that the prison planet you’re taking us to also should be abandoned at this point, though the record has been muddled since the story got buried during the reveal of the Chorusian situation and all of the scandal that ensued from your broadcast,” Dylan explained calmly.

“Should… why isn’t it certain?” Washington asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Because the final transport ship meant to bring all of those remaining convicts to a more permanent habitual situation was never given a final destination. Instead, it was kept in standby, going from one end of the galaxy to the other, keeping the criminals within from contact with any outside legal counsel,” she continued. “It was a huge UNSC scandal, considering the unalienable right to legal representation… until the USS Tartarus conveniently disappeared from radar.”

Immediately, Carolina, Grey, and Washington looked at each other.

“Wasn’t that…” Carolina began.

“It was,” Grey said confidently.

Washington ran a hand through his hair and groaned. “Our lives are a goddamn circle.”

“Or, a Venn diagram, because I’ve been listening this whole time and still don’t know what the eff is going on!” Kaikaina snapped from the front.

“We know about the Tartarus,” Carolina informed both Dylan and Kaikaina. “It was redirected toward Chorus, and many of its crew were utilized by Malcolm Hargrove to fight the armies of Chorus when they were united under Generals Kimball and Doyle.”

Dylan nearly choked on her own breath. “How… What? If that’s… If that’s true, do you realize what kind of story that is? That the Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee to the UNSC, already dripping in scandal, was involved with the unlawful detention of over one hundred people and then employed them as his own mercenary force? Don’t you have any idea what that means?”

“I know it meant a lot of additional pain and suffering of my people, Miss Andrews,” Doctor Grey said coldly.

“Hey,” Kai shouted out, gripping everyone’s attention. “Aren’t we supposed to be coming up on a, like, ghost planet? Like no one around?”

“If we’ve got all our facts straight, yes,” Carolina answered, turning to face the front of the ship.

“Yeah, okay, well, that shit’s weird then,” Kaikaina informed them.

“What shit, Li’l Grif?” Carolina asked, leaning over her shoulder.

“We are receiving a beacon of approval to land even though I had not requested permission yet,” FILSS answered. “The approval seems to be signed by a Lieutenant Husk.”

“My stars and garters,” Doctor Grey gasped. “Kimball’s information was right — Husk didn’t die in his attempt to get off planet during the height of the war!”

“Or,” Washington interjected, “this is an obvious trap.”

“‘Kay. I see both your sides,” Grif answered, still focusing on the planet ahead. “But what’s that mean for us? Like, Boss Lady, what’s your call?”

All eyes fell onto Carolina as she stood up and looked at the planet squarely.

“Accept the approval and land. We’ve come this far on the information we have,” she answered. “And even if it’s not Lieutenant Husk, then we can still beat the answers out of someone.”

“Whoo! Violence! Can’t say no to that answer! Or they get smacked. That’s the reason it’s always the best option,” Kaikaina announced.

Warily, Dylan glanced between them all. “Of course…” she said lowly, though it did still grab all their attention, “even if this is your Chorus lieutenant… there are questions that you will need to have answered before we can take his word on anything.”

“Of course,” Carolina conceded. “We’ll be on the defensive either way.”

“Now landing on Gliese 163 c of the UNSC mining federation’s industrial detention compound,” FILSS chirped out happily from the speakers.

“We should let me take the head of this, after all Alexander was a lieutenant in the Federal Army of Chorus when he left. He will acknowledge me by my armor and it will be quicker for us to go through the motions and get answers,” Doctor Grey said.

“I don’t know if that’s the best idea,” Dylan argued, earning an immediate look of ire from the doctor. “Look, we still don’t know that it’s really him. And if it isn’t, then this entire plan is hinging on the relative drop of your guard as the one who would take the most meaning from this person’s presence.”

“I am more than capable of maintaining my sense of self-preservation, Miss Andrews,” Grey snapped. “You may receive fame from recounting the tales of the battlefield, but on Chorus I am known from surviving them, and making sure the population that exists currently also survived it.”

“It was not meant in disrespect,” Dylan bit back, though she knew saying as much through clenched teeth did not exactly help her cause.

“It sounds as if you’re attempting to put yourself at the forefront of this again,” Grey noted. “Which, I should remind us all, did not work out well last time.”

“Grey’s right in that this will be dangerous, Dylan,” Carolina cautioned.

“Despite what apprehensions you all seem to have about reporters, I have scruples and I have lived with more than enough danger,” Dylan answered sternly.

“Yeah, but you don’t have a gun,” Kaikaina suddenly spoke up, twirling a piston on her pointer finger with far too much comfort. “Even I’ve got a gun. Letting you off the ship on a prison planet — ghosts or no ghosts — without a gun would be like letting the alien puppy out. Probably not the best idea.”

“Give me that!” Wash snapped, yanking the gun off Kai’s finger and then handing it back to her with a proper grip. “Giving you a gun is probably not the best idea.”

Dylan was peeved but Kai’s words struck an odd cord with her and suddenly she was looking around the cockpit.

“Um… speaking of which… I don’t… seem to see…” Dylan began to point out.

Everyone else looked around as well before a collective, “JUNIOR!” was screamed in panic.

“Blaaaaaargh.”

It didn’t matter if it was his prep school or if it was Sanghelios or if it was the stupid ship with his father’s eccentric and loud friends — adults were pretty much all the same to Junior. Annoying, slow, and far too reserved.

And slow.

If they were too afraid to venture out into the planet on their own, then it was up to Junior to get the search for his father and the rest of his family underway himself. Just like how the Freelancers still hadn’t left Chorus yet by the time Junior reached there in the stolen Sangheili cruiser.

As much as they may have acted different, it didn’t seem like his father’s other friends were any more prone to actually taking action over just talking than his father and the Reds and Blues had been before them. Everyone in Junior’s life needed a push.

And since Junior wasn’t a great conversationalist himself, he had long decided to be the pusher.

Still, the further he traversed the long, rocky grounds of the prison complex, and the more his every step echoed, the more Junior began to wonder if, just perhaps, his plan for action had been slightly impatient.

Reminding himself that they were supposed to be meeting with a friendly face, Junior sucked in a large gulp of air then cupped his hands around his mouth before letting out a few loud honks.

They echoed against brick and stone walls around him. In the distance, it sounded as though something was crumbling. Like even the abandoned walls of the prison were unsure of what to make of his calls.

Disappointment crossing over him, Junior huffed and lowered his hands before continuing to walk forward.

He might have been young, but Junior had been in enough space ports already in his life that he knew that air control usually had a station near the landing bay. And if they had a clearance granted to them, that meant someone was in the control room there to give it to them.

It was close to a lead as he could have hoped to have.

Looking around, Junior noticed a tower and decided that it — and its tall radio needle atop — were the most likely place to go to for control rooms and any prospected people that might be within it.

He walked forward at a decent pace before hearing another distinct crumbling noise from not that far off.

Surprised, Junior turned to look in its direction.

Once was nothing. Twice was coincidence, albeit heart pounding.

More suspicious than before, Junior began walking again when the third crumbling noise finally pointed him and his fierce, but also fearful, roar in the direction of his follower.

“The alien’s onto us!” someone shouted from the building above.

“Die, Covenant Scum!” someone else screamed.

Junior’s eyes finally found the followers only to see prisoners in orange garb, half covered in swat armor and various other guard gear. Though, most concerning from Junior’s position, was the woman between them whose armor was more military grade — like that of Agent Carolina or Washington — who came up between them and pulled a rocket launcher from over her shoulder.

“Blargh—“ Junior began to curse.

“JUNIOR!”

Agent Washington hit Junior at full force before he could process that it was the Freelancer’s voice screaming at him. They rolled — Wash holding to Junior tight — into the nearest space between the opposing buildings just before a giant explosion ate up the very ground where Junior had previously stood.

“When this is all over, you better believe I’m going to tell your father about this,” Wash snapped, breathing heavily from their near escape.

Honking, Junior worriedly tried to express that they needed to do something but he began hearing gunshots and the thunks of combat.

“Yeah, your Aunt Carolina’s a bit pissed to,” Wash warned.

Moaning, Junior covered his face with his hands.

#writing #rvb fic #RvB: The Search #Dylan Andrews #Junior Tucker #Agent Carolina #Emily Grey #Agent Washington #Kaikaina Grif #AI: FILSS

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canvaswolfdoll · 5 years

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CanvasWatches: A Silent Voice

(NOTE: This was originally published on my Patreon on 7/11/2019. Hence lack of mention of the KyoAni arson attack.)

I had wanted to see A Silent Voice in theaters during its limited release. I guess licensing got confused, because it took forever to get a home release in America. But now it’s on Netflix, so I suppose it’s all okay?

It’s a good movie. Much better than Your Name, which overshadowed it. I recommend watching A Silent Voice, especially before you read my analysis. It’s best unspoiled, as it’s twists and turns are mostly down to earth and simple, but it’s well worth the ride. Especially for the visual storytelling.

I’m also in the awkward position of needing to find a new series to fill the late night ritual slot. Been trying to binge through The Simpsons, but it doesn’t really suit the purpose.

Guess I finally need to invest in HiDive. Continue my perpetual Anime catch-up quest.

For now, let’s talk about A Silent Voice. Major spoilers ahead!

A Silent Voice (or ‘The Shape of Voice’ according to the movie’s title card) is a film about healing and redemption. Also bullying. And disabilities, both physical and mental. And friendship. And…

There’s a lot.

Point is, I’ve historically have been down on the whole ‘Bully/Victim romance’ dynamic shippers have, and bullies generally not getting their just desserts in general. I don’t enjoy bullies, and rarely do I enjoy when a narrative shifts them into a friend role without actually having them make up for their crimes.

A Silent Voice does not do that. It instead shows the long, hard suffering road of Shoya Ishida as he attempts to come to terms with himself. That was actually a surprise to me. Based on the title and marketing, I’d assumed the movie would be about Shoko Nishimiya, his deaf victim.

I’ve also had an interest in characters with disabilities, especially ones that inhibit communication or interacting with the world in some manner. Maybe it’s because of my interest in braille, or a visual novel I played, or my own speech impediment. It’s representation that’s not always shown in characters that exist outside of teaching a lesson about acceptance, possibly out of fear by creators of doing something wrong.[1]

So it’s not far-fetched to assume that the movie was going to be about Nishimiya’s struggles and the stress of her bully returning to her life.

Instead, it’s fully Ishida’s story, which resonated with me and made me very interested in trying to show the film at the treatment center I work at[2] because it does an amazing job of showing how everyone’s journey through trauma to healing is different.

Ishida is introduced as a high school student, well on his way to adulthood, withdrawing all his money, quitting his job, and tying up loose ends before heading to the edge of a bridge.

Then we learn why he’s there: bullying. First with him as the agressor towards Nishimiya, then his own.

We flashback to elementary school, the day Nishimiya joins the class, and introduces herself via a prepared notebook, ending with a message announcing her inability to hear. Initially, the rest of the class is intrigued by this novelty, but eventually a small handful become irritated with communicating via notebook, and push back when a teacher arrives to start teaching Japanese Sign Language.[3] The two main aggressors are Ishida himself and a girl named Naoka Uena. Eventually, the repeated theft and destruction of Nishimiya’s hearing aids leads to her being pulled from the class and the principal to get involved to confront the class. The entire class uses Ishida as a scapegoat, and turns their ire on him.

Mostly because their homeroom teacher calls him out and loudly presents an out.

Which… is not what the adult in the situation should do. And, for once, I have actual experience in this field. Specifically, children with behavioral issues. And, like, public shaming to this degree is bad. Raising the issue to the whole group is a good start, but open discussion leads to scapegoating and children refusing to take responsibility. What you want to do is sort out a trustworthy witness and the main aggressors, and address them privately to get a full and honest opinion.

Instead, well, the class lost their favorite victim, and administration has (indirectly) approved who can serve as a replacement.

Cue Ishida having a Bad Time, with a montage mirroring Nishimiya’s struggles before skipping to Ishida’s high school life: he’s cut himself off from his peers, feeling he neither will receive nor deserves friendship. Also, he seeks out and attempts to apologize to Nishimiya. Using sign language.

With that all established, we move forward to after Ishida decides against his suicide attempt, and getting confronted by his mother, who is the only responsible adult is this dang film, good heavens.

Anyways, one thing is made very clear about high school age Ishida: the years of abush and self-imposed seclusion has changed him into a much better person. It’s super impressive how the movie takes a vicious bully and turns him into a truly sympathetic and likeable protagonist. Finally past his darkest moment, and with a reconciliation with Nishimiya, he begins to open up.

First, he helps a classmate by offering up his own bike to a thief. Tomohiro Nagatsuka, in thanks, seeks out Ishida’s bike and returns it to him. Nagatsuka, a friendless outcast himself, becomes Ishida’s best friend.

In further attempts to meet with Nishimiya, Ishida has to contend with a grumpy youth armed with a camera, who turns out to be Nishimiya’s younger sister, Yuzuru.

Yuzuru uses a picture taken of Ishida hopping into a river to retrieve a notebook he accidentally dropped to get the guy suspended.

Now with plenty of free time, Ishida begins investigating reuniting Nishimiya with another classmate, and the social circle starts to open up.

First is Miyoko Sahara, the only classmate who put in an effort to befriend Nishimiya in elementary school, and got bullied out for her troubles. She’s now tall, studying fashion, and has a cute design.

While reuniting Nishimiya and Sahara, Ishida re-encounters Ueno, who is eager to reconcile with Ishida, but is less thrilled to see Nishimiya again.

Two students in Nishimiya’s class are also added to the group (one a girl, Miki Kawai, from the elementary class who never directly participated in the bullying, but joined in the laughter, and the other her boyfriend).

The returning students also showcase varying ways bullies can progress. Ishida learned his lesson and made a turn around; Kawai refuses to acknowledge her part; Ueno is just… the worst.

Ueno spends the whole movie victim blaming and standing by how awful she was, physically assaulting Nishimiya, and trying to rebuild the original friend circle of bullies. Sort of a dark mirror to Ishida.

To her credit, in her last scene, Ueno attempts to insult Nishimiya in sign, and gets flustered when Nishimiya helps by correcting her on how to sign moron. So there are signs Ueno is making attempts to be better, which is good, but any such progress would be a post-narrative thing.

The use of signing in the movie is a cool bit of character reveal. Nishimiya, obviously, has to use sign language, though she does attempt vocalization constantly throughout.[5] Ishida has learned plenty of sign in his journey of self improvement, and grows more comfortable with it through the runtime. Yuzuru, the loving younger sister, also learned sign and acts as her sister’s translator with no complaint. The same goes for their grandmother. The rest of the friend circle don’t sign, but still treat Nishimiya as one of their own. Nishimiya’s mother… never signs.

Nishimiya’s mother is protective of her daughter, becoming (justifiably) upset at Ishida[6] re-entering her daughter’s life, enters Yuzuru into a photography contest, and gets into a physical confrontation with Ueno when she catches the girl attacking her daughter. This woman never signs on screen.

Which might be a factor into Nishimiya’s depression and attempted suicide.

Turns out the silence of the voice is the crushing depression of our leads!

Because while Ishida’s been blaming himself for ruining Nishimiya’s life in grade school, Nishimiya’s been putting the blame on herself, including a dumb falling out when Ishida decides to try and push almost everyone away from himself.

As much as I usually hate dumb high school drama, the movie does a pretty good job of walking the viewer through the thought process. Ishida sees that his attempts to build Nishimiya’s friend circle has brought Ueno back in as a vicious bully, and the failings of the others begin to overwhelm him. So he dismisses them with a tirade, and focuses his attention on being a good friend to Nishimiya.

Nishimiya, meanwhile, blames her deafness for her inability to connect with others and extrapolates that to being the cause of Ishida destroying his own progress. And, as Yuzuru reveals (and was attempting to combat with the grim photos of dead animals throughout the apartment, Nishimiya has been battling suicidal thoughts since elementary school.

The fact that an animated film is addressing this subject matter explicitly is why I love anime as a medium.

While viewing fireworks with her family and Ishida, Nishimiya excuses herself to go ‘study’ back at her apartment. Yuzuru then sends Ushuida to get a camera from the same location, and upon arriving, Ishida sees Nishimiya about to jump off the balcony.

So he runs over and catches her arm, there’s a dramatic inner monologue as he tries to pull her back up, and as soon as Nishimiya gains a hold, gravity takes payment in the form of Ishida.

Which means it’s coma time for Ishida! And it’s Nishmiya’s turn to try and make amends by reuniting the friend group.

This is the time Ueno violently confronts Nishmiya a second time, and Nishimiya again states the immense self-loathing she feels. Nishimiya’s mother walks in on the scene and starts slapping Ueno and yelling at her daughter’s aggressor.

Then Ishida’s mother comes upon that scene, breaks up the fight, and immediately moves to comfort Nishimiya because Miyako Ishida is the best person in this movie.

It also serves to highlight that Nishimiya’s mother has been using her daughter to project her own frustrations.

Eventually, Ishida’s coma time is up, and he must face the bright new day! Except it’s night time…

His first act is to rip out all the important medical monitoring devices and run off to Nishimiya’s favorite bridge to correct the one slight he’d been making this entire time: he never actually apologized to the girl he bullied. Which, to be fair, is easy to overlook among all the other things he put effort into to make amends.

Our leads have a heart to heart, vent their frustrations and anxieties, and are both better for it.

Ishida heals somewhat and becomes more open to letting others into his life.

Which reminds me: the visual story-telling! The movie had a very clever bit of visual language. As a teenager, Ishida had been unable to look others in the eyes, and had emotionally written off being able to connect. This is represented by a big, blue X over the faces of those he hadn’t connected with. Initially, his entire class is populated by crossed out faces. When he gets befriended by Nagatsuka, the cross literally peels off and falls to the ground. This continues through the film.

Where it gets particularly clever is during a friendly outing to an amusement park, where Ueno has unexpectedly tagged along. Her face is crossed out, as Ishida doesn’t want to reconcile. But as the hang-out goes on, the cross eventually gradually drops away. Then, when Ueno’s true colors are reaffirmed, the cross reappears.

It’s a simple element that conveys so much without ever being explicitly explained. It’s good use of the medium.

Just… the whole movie is good. The plot is strong, the characters are well-written and sympathetic, the animation and art direction is gorgeous. It’s currently on Netflix, but I know the next time I want to watch it will lead to me purchasing the Blu-ray. I never want to lose access to it. Go watch it.

If you enjoyed this review, and want to help me reach out to others, consider supporting my patreon or buying me a… well, I don’t drink coffee, but I have a Ko-fi account anyways.

Anyways, I should probably go try and put effort into learning sign language or something.

Kataal kataal.

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[1] Working on integrating such qualities into the cast of my current project. Would also love to do it with TRPG character(s). [2] A job I am flabbergasted to have, since I have no qualifications, went into the interview content with not getting the job, and I’m not shy in telling people I don’t have a specific passion for the work. But I seem to be doing well? It’s weird. [3] Which seems, much like Japanese Braille,[4] has limited education material in english, though there is this youtube channel… with explanations for this film… huh… [4] Which, much like the western version, is a beautiful example of a constructed alphabet versus an evolved one. Such beautiful consistency with vowels and other hiragana… [5] The use of an actual deaf actress to voice her was a very wise decision, by the way. I had reservations about how it could impact the final product, but Lexi Cowden knocks it out of the park. [6] Ugh, I keep swapping his name out for Nishimiya and Ueno. Writers: vary the syllables!

#CanvasWatches #a silent voice #anime #kyoani #CanvasReviews

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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In early July, a video game writer named Jessica Price embarked on a lengthy Twitter thread about the storytelling differences between games meant to be played as single-player experiences and games meant to be played by lots and lots of people at once, like Guild Wars 2, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Price was a writer for.

Price’s thread received a perhaps too-haughty response from gaming YouTuber Deroir, who disagreed with some of what Price had to say. Price — who is, after all, a woman on the internet and thus is subject to a stunning amount of social media pushback and condescension — put Deroir on blast, first tweeting: “Today in being a female game dev: ‘Allow me–a person who does not work with you–explain to you how you do your job,’” and later following up with: “like, the next rando asshat who attempts to explain the concept of branching dialogue to me–as if, you know, having worked in game narrative for a fucking DECADE, I have never heard of it–is getting instablocked. PSA.”

The Guild Wars 2 community erupted in outrage at Price, who had either stuck up for herself against the endless onslaught of needling criticism that comes with being a woman online or had abused a position of authority to call a popular member of the gaming community an asshat by implication. (Price’s tweet didn’t directly call Deroir an asshat, but it was hard to miss her meaning.)

A few days later, ArenaNet, the company that makes Guild Wars 2, fired Price and her co-worker Peter Fries, who had defended Price in several Twitter threads. Price told Polygon that she was not given a chance to explain herself, or to apologize. She was simply fired, as was Fries.

The broad outlines of the controversy drew comparisons to Gamergate, the controversial movement that began in 2014 and involved a bunch of gamer and alt-right trolls using the cover of concern for ethics in video gaming as an excuse to harass women in the industry and to claim that calls for better representation and diversity within gaming were destroying video games.

Was Price’s firing a result of Gamergate’s actions? Not directly, no. Deroir was not a Gamergate adherent, and he wasn’t agitating for Price to be removed. Plus, plenty of people who found Price to be in the wrong weren’t Gamergaters.

But the answer to that question also has to be yes, because of how thoroughly the matter was discussed in Gamergate’s favored corners of the internet, which mostly jumped to Deroir’s defense, and because of how completely Gamergate changed the way games are talked about online and how women in the industry have to think about what might happen to them, something Price touches on in her Polygon interview.

In the years since 2014, Gamergate has metastasized and evolved into what feels like the entire alt-right movement, to the degree that many of the names boosted by the hyped-up controversy, names like Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich, saw their stars only rise when they became central to online communities that backed the presidential candidacy of one Donald Trump. Gamergate went from a fringe movement that struck most people who heard about it as a weirdo curiosity to something that took over the country, as Vox’s Ezra Klein predicted it would with eerie accuracy in late 2014.

Gamergate didn’t manage to completely eliminate more diverse storytelling in games, as at least one silly controversy from this year would indicate, but it did slightly paralyze the video game industry. And that paralysis has begun to spread to other spheres of our culture.

Members of the movement have developed a tactic that they have deployed again and again to drive dissension in assorted online communities, using a mix of asymmetric warfare (in which they stage lots and lots of small strikes at giant corporations that don’t quite know what to do in response), the general lack of accountability applied to the movement’s various decentralized figures, and a tendency to turn progressive concerns inside out, in a weird attempt to reach parity. Gamergate didn’t really have anything to do with Price’s firing directly, but it also did, because Gamergate is now everywhere and everything.

The movement arguably elected a president. And just this past week, in a much higher-profile case than the firing of Jessica Price, it got director James Gunn fired from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.

James Gunn attends the premiere of Ant-Man and the Wasp. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney

Perhaps the above mention of “Mike Cernovich” has already pinged some part of your brain that remembers keywords from the news and headlines of the past few days; it was Cernovich who helped engineer a push to have Gunn fired from the third Guardians of the Galaxy film, by dredging up and encouraging his followers to circulate several of Gunn’s old tweets. Many of the tweets contain jokes about topics like rape and pedophilia.

Gunn’s roots are in over-the-top shlock cinema (he began his career at the famed low-budget genre movie company Troma, and his first credit is for writing Tromeo and Juliet). He directed the first two Guardians movies to general acclaim, and both his overall positivity and his general disdain for Trump have earned him more than a few left-leaning fans on social media platforms.

But that same disdain for Trump — and, of all things, the widespread pushback against a tweet in which filmmaker Mark Duplass praised conservative writer Ben Shapiro, which inspired Gunn to chime in on the fray — made Gunn a target for folks like Cernovich.

To be clear, Gunn’s past jokes are awful. They have surfaced before — most notably in 2012, when Gunn was hired to helm the first Guardians film. A blog post he had written in 2011 about which comic book characters fans would most like to have sex with drew ire from numerous left-leaning critics and social media personalities. Gunn ultimately apologized for his comments, and vowed to do better.

Later, in 2017, he told BuzzFeed that in the early days of his tenure at Marvel, he’d abandoned the persona that aimed to be a provocateur and adopted the persona that evolved into his current Twitter self. As described by BuzzFeed’s Adam B. Vary:

“I protect myself by writing scenes where people shoot people in the face,” Gunn said, chuckling. “And if I have to think around shooting someone in the face, it’s harder, but I think it’s more rewarding for me.” He cleared his throat. “I felt like Guardians forced me into a much deeper way of thinking about, you know, my relationship to people, I suppose. I was a very nasty guy on Twitter. It was a lot fucking edgy, in-your-face, dirty stuff. I suddenly was working for Marvel and Disney, and that didn’t seem like something I could do anymore. I thought that that would be a hindrance on my life. But the truth was it was a big, huge opening for me. I realized, a lot of that stuff is a way that I push away people. When I was forced into being this” — he moved his hand over his chest — “I felt more fully myself.”

And what’s “this”?

”Sensitive, I guess?” he said. “Positive. I mean, I really do love people. And by not having jokes to make about whatever was that offensive topic of the week, that forced me into just being who I really was, which was a pretty positive person. It felt like a relief.”

Yet all those old tweets remained on Twitter. Considering both Gunn’s 2011 blog post and the way he talks about his old tweets, it seems hard to believe that neither Marvel Studios nor its parent company, Disney, knew of their existence.

But when Cernovich surfaced a whole bunch of them last week in a graphic designed to strip them of as much context as possible, more and more conservative and alt-right personalities started passing them around, and Disney’s Alan Horn finally announced on Friday that Gunn would no longer be working for the company. (Gunn, for his part, made one of the better, “Yeah, I fucked up!” statements in a decade that seems to provide a new one every other week.)

Then Cernovich and his friends turned their sights on other comedy figures with provocative jokes in their past, like Michael Ian Black, Patton Oswalt, and Dan Harmon. Few of these men suffered consequences as severe as Gunn did for past jokes. But all were hounded endlessly on social media. Harmon even left Twitter.

I don’t particularly want to defend Gunn here. A lot of his old Twitter material is truly awful. It often takes the shape of a joke without actually being funny, which is deadly to anybody playing with comedic land mines like gags about child molestation and rape. Meanwhile, it’s also hard to believe that a white dude who directed two of the biggest movies of all time won’t get another chance in Hollywood, even if he has to step back and spend a year or two making indie movies.

But the way Gunn was fired sticks in my craw, just a little bit. It’s the biggest example yet of Gamergate and its ilk forcing a major public figure out of the job that made them a major public figure. By stripping events like this of their context, Cernovich and company might think they’re forcing the left to confront its own hypocrisies, or winning smaller battles in a larger culture war, or simply driving critics of the president off social media.

But make no mistake, they’re also destabilizing reality.

The cancellation of Roseanne in the wake of Roseanne Barr’s offensive tweet has been compared to Gunn’s firing. It shouldn’t be. ABC

The recent event that Gunn’s dismissal has drawn the most comparison to is ABC’s firing of Roseanne Barr from the now-canceled TV show that bore her name. (The series will live on as a spinoff titled The Conners, sans Barr.)

In that case, too, an awful tweet (in this case, a racist remark about former Obama staffer Valerie Jarrett) led to somebody who seemed protected by recent success being removed from the franchise that had yielded said success. And in that case, too, the person fired had worked for the Walt Disney Company, the biggest behemoth in the entertainment industry, one that’s about to swallow another behemoth like it’s a tiny little goldfish.

But pull back some of the layers and the two events couldn’t be more dissimilar. The most obvious difference is the timing. Gunn wrote his tweets in the late 2000s and early 2010s, before he was hired by Marvel and long before he became a critic of Trump. Barr’s tweet was published the morning she was fired.

This is not to say that Gunn’s tweets are excusable but, instead, to point to all the instances in which Barr posted horrible tweets shortly before ABC picked up a new season of Roseanne, only for Disney and ABC officials to laugh them off. If Disney meant to establish a precedent with what happened with Barr, it was essentially, “If you have skeletons in your closet, whatever. Just don’t add any new ones.” Gunn, if nothing else, had seemed scrupulous about the “not adding any new ones” part (that we know of so far, at least).

An even bigger difference between Gunn’s and Barr’s tweets concerns the context of the tweets and the intention behind them. Most of us might judge Gunn’s tweets as bad jokes, sure, but they’re mostly recognizable as jokes, and jokes in the style of 2000s Gen-X comedians trying like hell to provoke a reaction by being as “edgy” and offensive as possible.

What’s been interesting, too, is watching many of the comedians in question — including Gunn and Black but also folks like Sarah Silverman, Sacha Baron Cohen, and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone — try to figure out how to navigate an era when the ironic offensiveness they trafficked in has been co-opted by a movement that insists they always meant it, deep down. Most have become vocal Trump critics. But few have managed the transition very easily.

This is the danger in making jokes rooted in ironic offensiveness, even when you’re a master of the form (like Silverman is). At a certain point, somebody is always laughing right alongside you and taking from the joke the message that racism is okay if it’s funny, or that provoking a reaction from someone by joking about rape is funnier than the joke itself.

Ironic offensiveness is far too easy to twist into the idea that nothing is worth caring about, and that getting those who do care to lash out is the funniest thing possible. That idea is now the basis of an entire internet culture that kept splintering, with one of those splinters becoming dedicated to trolling above all else. It eventually got to a point where nobody was sure who was serious and who was joking, or if there was even a difference.

Start to unpack the comedy of the figures listed above, or of their modern comedic descendants and fellow travelers like the terrifically funny hosts of the leftist podcast Chapo Trap House, and you’ll find that somewhere, deep down, they care deeply. The ironic offensiveness and shocking humor is meant to spur a reaction that hopefully guides you to a similar sense of caring and sincerity. But that requires genuine engagement and thought, and it’s easy to opt out of genuine engagement and thought when you’re laughing, in favor of taking the joke at face value.

This, I think, is what happened to Barr, who went from being an incisive comedian to being a millionaire many times over to being someone who promoted some of the same conspiracy theory nonsense that Cernovich peddles. (It’s no mistake that many of the tweets Cernovich surfaced to try to tank Michael Ian Black’s career involved him simply talking about pizza — in the worldview of Cernovich and Barr, there is a massive left-wing conspiracy to engage in pedophilia and protect fellow pedophiles, often using “pizza” as a code word for child sex.) Gunn didn’t really believe what he was saying; Barr did.

But does that context matter? Or does the statement itself matter? The fact is, both Barr and Gunn said horrible things. If we draw hard moral lines in the sand, if we insist that certain things matter to us and are important to uphold as ethical guidelines, does it ever matter that somebody might genuinely move past something bad they did in the past, might become a better person? Or are we all, always, defined by our darkest, worst moments?

Gamergate briefly devoured the internet in 2014. But it never really went away. Shutterstock

A little over a week ago, the most popular Gamergate subreddit, Kotaku in Action, briefly went offline. The user who had created the subreddit in the first place, david-me, then posted to r/Drama (a subreddit dedicated to tracing internal Reddit action and excitement) saying that he had shut down KIA. Explaining his logic, he wrote, in part:

KiA is one of the many cancerous growths that have infiltrated reddit. The internet. The world. I did this. Now I am undoing it. This abomination should have always been aborted.

So in this moment with years of contemplation, I am Stopping it. I’m closing shop and I can’t allow anyone to exploit my handicap. I’ve watched and read every day. Every single day. The mods are good at what they do, but they are moderating over a sub that should not exist. The users have created content that should not be. Topics that do not require debate. And often times molded by outside forces.

We are better than this. I should have been better than this. Just look at the comment history of any users history. The hate is spread by very few, but very often. Overwhelmingly so.

Reddit and it’s Admins are Me. They are the stewards of hate and divisiveness and they let it go. They go so far as to even claim there is nothing they can do about it. Those with upvotes could have been stopped by others with equally powerful downvotes. Fallacy. 100 evil people with 100,000 upvotes can not be defeated by 100,000 with 100 downvotes.

Reddit stepped in. It restored Kotaku in Action, and by extension restored one of Gamergate’s most prominent platforms. The subreddit hadn’t directly violated Reddit’s hate speech rules, even if it was constantly dancing on the very edge of them. If Kotaku in Action is a cancer, as its founder alleges, then it is one that remains free to spread unchecked.

When I was covering the early days of Gamergate, I believed the core of its argument was, in essence, that caring is a waste of time — that wanting video games to have more diverse characters and the industry that makes them to have better representation across the board was a pointless exercise. Gamergate adherents seemed to believe the focus of the industry should be making better games, an argument that ignored that for many, having more diverse games was necessary for having better games.

I was wrong. The core argument of Gamergate, and of the alt-right more generally, has always been that caring is hypocritical. Deep down, both movements believe that everybody is racist and sexist and homophobic, that the left, especially, is simply trying to lord a moral superiority over everybody else when, in secret cabals, they kidnap babies and run child molestation rings out of the basements of pizza restaurants. This idea is referred to as “virtue signaling,” meaning that there is no such thing as real virtue, only a pretend virtue that people deploy to try to win points with mainstream society, when everybody would be better off dropping the pretense and letting their most offensive freak flags fly.

And it’s tricky to combat the idea of virtue signaling, because of course we all virtue-signal all the time. Parents virtue-signal to teach their children, and corporations virtue-signal to make their products seem more palatable to a rapidly diversifying America, and I virtue-signal every time I tweet something that says I’m supportive of, say, the Black Lives Matter movement without joining affiliated protests.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t want the broader goals of BLM to be realized immediately, or that corporations won’t take your money regardless of color or creed, or that parents shouldn’t teach their children not to resort to violence when others say or do something they don’t like.

Virtue signaling is still virtue, even if in your heart, you’re so angry or upset that you feel like punching someone. Cynicism about the motivations behind good acts doesn’t erase that the acts are good. We all do all sorts of things for a variety of complicated reasons. It doesn’t erase the fact that the net result of those actions ultimately has very little to do with our motivations.

The argument of Cernovich and his cronies is, ultimately, that none of us is actually good, that we are all venal and horrible, and that we live in a world where we should all, always, be pitted against each other, defined only by our worst selves. And because nobody is ever going to fire Cernovich for all the times he’s tweeted about rape, because he’s a self-made media personality, the war becomes ever more asymmetric. The only people who can hold Gamergate and its adherents accountable are members of the movement, who will occasionally toss someone out but almost always do so under the pretense of a game or, worse, a joke.

There are real people whose lives are ruined, each and every day, by Cernovich and his ilk, and our modern corporate media climate continues to have no idea what to do about it, because the battles are deliberately constructed to strip away context and to predetermine their outcomes from the first.

Twitter isn’t actually everywhere, but it feels like it can be everywhere. Andrew Burton/Getty

I began this article with the story of Jessica Price instead of the story of James Gunn for a reason. It’s entirely possible you haven’t heard of either, but if you’ve only heard of one, it’s almost certainly James Gunn. Yet the devastation to Price’s career will be much more substantial than whatever happens to Gunn, who will at least be collecting residuals from the Guardians movies for the rest of time.

Price’s situation is a valuable lesson in how so much of this works because the circumstances of her firing are muddier and harder to prosecute. Yes, the representative of a corporation that sells a service probably shouldn’t be calling her customers asshats. But any woman with a large enough social media profile knows just how quickly a seemingly innocuous, “Actually…” can turn into a massive dogpile of Twitter yahoos with nothing better to do. What happened to Price ostensibly has nothing to do with Gamergate. But its shadow lurks nonetheless, because it is now everywhere.

Could Price have handled things better? Probably. Should she have been fired for how she did handle them? I find that a lot harder to argue. It suggests that every employee of every organization with a vaguely public-facing persona has to be 100 percent perfect all of the time across all platforms, or else. And if you remove enough context from just about anything, you can make somebody look as bad as you want, unless they’re anodyne and milquetoast all of the time, which leads to sitting US senators suggesting that perhaps James Gunn should be investigated for pedophilia “if the tweets are true.”

The idea, I guess, is that we should all just turn off the internet and step away from social media when things get too hairy. But I would hope we all realize how impossible that is most of the time, and it’s in that imbalance that Cernovich and his pals forever create dissension and uncertainty.

I said above that what Cernovich wants to do is destabilize reality; that might seem like a big leap, but think about it. We’ve already gone from “these are bad jokes” to “if the tweets are true,” from carefully examining the thing in context to quickly glancing at the thing with as little context as possible, so that it looks as bad as it could possibly be. And when you’re fighting a culture war, and grasping for requital, I suppose that’s fair. Culture wars, too, have their victims.

But this still leaves us with a world where the terms of the game are set by a bunch of people who argue not in good faith, but in a way designed to force everybody into the same bad-faith basket. They are interested not in finding a deeper truth but in the easy cynicism of believing that everybody is as dark-hearted and frightened as them, that the world is a place that can never be made better, so why even try? Flood the zone with enough bad information and turn reality into enough of a game and you can make anything you want seem believable, until bad jokes become a dark harbinger of a horrific reality looming just over the horizon.

I’ve never believed that approach can win in the long run. I’ve always believed that in the end, some sort of truth will hold fast, and the fever will break. But sometimes, of late, I wonder if I’m wrong — and the only thing that stops me from convincing myself is the fear that accepting even guarded optimism as futile would only turn me into one of them, forever spiraling and never reaching bottom.

Original Source -> James Gunn’s firing shows we’re still living in the Gamergate era

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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irsattrnytax · 6 years

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The terror behind IRS Private Debt Collections: Who is really to blame?

The answer? It NOT the IRS that is to blame It is Congress. We try to be fair to the IRS, and in this case, the IRS got it right. They were the ones who we more fair and humane. It is Congress that rather monstrously passed this dumb dumb dumb idea. Private debt collection is something the IRS once experimented with, but it quickly realized it was a bad idea. Between 2006 and 2009, with Congressional approval, the IRS tried on their own using private debt collectors to try to collect taxes on cases that were too small to send to revenue officers or otherwise weren’t getting worked. The IRS ended this experiment realizing there was no free money. The program created more headaches than it was worth. As the IRS learned that there was a reason why these cases were uncollectable. The people they went after were dead broke. So the IRS abandoned the idea of using third party private debt collections forever and would stick to their normal collection processes that do have some important protections available for those who are financially struggling. Legislative accounting fraud is enabled by something called PAYGO budgeting. PAYGO budgeting, which stands for “pay-as-you-go,” it is a budget rule which requires new proposed spending to be offset by tax increases or cuts in mandatory spending. What this means is that if Congress wants to spend $100 on a new spending program, it has to find $100 in cuts or in additional revenues. The purpose is to keep the budget deficit low. Yet the budget deficit continues to grow. So what’s going on? The answer is that while the spending is sure to happen, the offsets, the cuts or increases in revenue rarely occur. Yet, just because those offsets never happen, the spending is not undone. No rather, nothing is done at all. it is all swept under the rug. So how does PAYGO apply in this case? Let me explain. So in 2015, there was a new proposal — this was the FAST Act, a new spending bill. And so Congress was looking around for some offsets. So someone had the idea that if only past due IRS debts were sent to private collection, it would rain free money. About a billion dollars of unpaid taxes where there just for the taking. Free money! This claim was completely accepted as true, again even though, again, the IRS tried a limited private collection program and it completely failed. Again, it failed so bad the IRS stopped doing it. Yet the program actually cost $13 million. The IRS spent $20 million dollars so far to administer the program, but it only brought in $7 million in revenue. That is, the deficit increased by $13 million. So instead of not offsetting the spending like PAYGO demands, it actually increased the deficit. But what is even worse is when you ask yourself where did that $7 million they did collect come from? These taxpayers were deemed to be the lowest priority of IRS collections. How did these seriously strapped individuals come up with $7 million. Well the Taxpayer Advocate Service did some great research. And it found that these taxpayers, if using IRS guidelines would have been placed in a hardship status. A hardship status is where the IRS deems you to be currently not collectible. So they leave you alone, although they will intercept any refunds that you may be entitled to. Under the IRS guidelines these people would not be subject to levies or the threat of levies. Yet many of these people have been sent out for private collections! So in an effort to make themselves appear as fiscal hawks, Congress mandated that private collection agencies extract money from the most vulnerable Americans, making these suffering people more vulnerable. Look I know my firm and a lot of the other good ones would be able to get tax relief for anyone facing a financial hardship. But so many people simply don’t have the resources to pay us even if we charged half our fees. It’s only the lucky ones who have friends or family to borrow from or get a gift from that get the top representation. There are legal clinics and they are great, but there’s simply not enough of them, and they are typically bound to the school year as most of them are run out of law schools. Yet here we are, Congress authorized private debt collectors to extract money from Americans who not just below the poverty line, which for a married couple is about $16,000 per year. But, according to the Taxpayer Advocate, many of the people the government collected from made less than 2 1/2 times of the poverty line. We are talking about is people who have $5000 per year to live on. Let me know what you think and what kind of solutions you would impose. I will merely offer my observation — tar and feathers always seem to work. We just got to make sure we get the right people. And in this case, it is NOT the IRS. Parent & Parent LLP 114 South Main Street Wallingford, CT 06492 (203) 269-6699 https://youtu.be/qXESF_j5BKE IRS Medic

#IRS Medic

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ber39james · 7 years

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All the Best Writing from the 2017 NBA Finals

For the second time in three seasons, the Golden State Warriors can lay claim to being NBA Champions after they defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers, 4-1, in the 2017 NBA Finals. Kevin Durant played a pivotal role for the Warriors’ championship run, averaging 35.2 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game on his way to being named NBA Finals MVP.

But there’s more to the story than the opening paragraph of this piece. There were viral moments, career-defining performances, amazing stories, and of course, controversy and drama. A great narrative unfolded over the past two weeks in Oakland, Calif., and Cleveland, Ohio.

For those who enjoy watching the best athletes in sport, the Finals provided fascinating entertainment. But for those who love the art of writing in any and all forms, the NBA’s global appeal was on full display as scribes produced compelling content on a daily basis.

Other sites will break down the nuances of the games in greater detail. For Grammarly, we’re taking a close look at the crafting of stories. So after looking through the stellar coverage of the Finals, we’ve examined the top moments in writing and how you can be inspired when it’s your turn to write.

Let’s see who shined under the spotlight and had a Durant-like performance on their keyboard.

Game 1

Behind-the-scenes at Game 1 of the #NBAFinals as the @warriors go up 1-0 with big home W! #MiniMovie pic.twitter.com/26KgRZaW0Y

— NBA (@NBA) June 7, 2017

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Story Headline: What We Learned About the Warriors in Game 1 of the N.B.A. Finals

Author: Benjamin Hoffman

Source: New York Times

What We Liked: The lede

In a postseason in which they have seen little to no competition, the Golden State Warriors kept right on rolling and tied the N.B.A. record for consecutive postseason wins at 13 with a 113-91 drubbing of the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the N.B.A finals.

Why We Liked It: Hoffman captured the essence of the story in just 50 words. Anecdotal ledes are great, too, but sometimes it’s critical to offer the best snapshot of the story topic early to honestly explain it to the reader. Get. To. The. Point.

Story Headline: The Greatest NBA Finals Rivalry Is Kevin Durant vs. Robyn Rihanna Fenty

Author: Juliet Litman

Source: The Ringer

What We Liked: The story angle

What we could not have expected, though, would be (Rihanna’s) wide-felt impact Thursday. After her entrance was announced emphatically by (announcer) JVG (Jeff Van Gundy), she went on to support her favorite player (LeBron James) as only she can. Early in the fourth quarter, as the Cavs trailed by 22, Rihanna rose to pay her respects to the King. She bowed, and then let the presumably annoying fans around her know that a 22-point deficit means nothing to her. She indicated this with the dab.

Why We Liked It: When the subject of your story is dull—like the uninspired on-court product in Game 1—it’s always a good idea to take the story angle elsewhere. In this case, Litman’s decision to write about a human-interest topic on one of the most famous people on the planet was a wise one. Litman had some fun with the music superstar’s courtside presence and friendly in-game banter with Durant. By examining a social media trending topic in a not-so-exciting game, Litman showcased an admirable way to cover a secondary (maybe even tertiary) angle to a major event. Creativity should always be a main principle anytime you write.

Game 2

Behind-the-scenes at Game 2 of the #NBAFinals …won by the @warriors 132-113! #MiniMovie pic.twitter.com/lE69NH9NdG

— NBA (@NBA) June 12, 2017

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Story Headline: Are the Warriors’ brogrammer army the most hated fans in sports?

Author: DJ Gallo

Source: The Guardian

What We Liked: Humor and opinion

All due respect to the widely loathed supporters of the Patriots, Yankees, Cowboys and Lakers, but the Warriors are building a fanbase that could dwarf them all for unlikability. Golden State fans’ negatives are on a hockey stick growth curve as Oracle Arena increasingly fills with – apologies for the poor attempt at using Silicon Valley lingo – brogrammers who truly believe they offer a value add to the organization. (And for the sake of clarity, it is this new breed of fan that attracts ire, rather than the Warriors supporters who pulled for the team even during the bad old days.)

Part of the problem is simple demographics. Bandwagon jumpers are considered to be the lowest form of fan – even below drunk, belligerent and face-painted – whereas the diehard, thick and thin, fan-since-birth group is the most respected. Because of the massive influx of people into northern California with the tech boom, many of those filling the choice seats at Oracle Arena have ties to the region that are tenuous even compared to those of Kevin Durant. Yet they’re cheering their hearts out for their beloved Warriors every night, while across the street the last place A’s – with the second-worst attendance in all of baseball and portions of the upper deck covered in tarp – don’t seem to have captured the imagination of Silicon Valley big wigs. The new Warriors fan has not suffered anything near the sports heartache of a Cleveland lifer. Their toughest season to endure was one in which the Warriors won an NBA-record 73 games. Sad!

Why We Liked It: There’s a lot to unpack from those two graphs. You can’t entirely discredit Gallo’s opinions on how he views Golden State’s fan base. What you can appreciate, however, is the writer’s ability to offer sound reasoning for his views along with a dash of comedic wit. Further, the headline of the piece introduced the comedic tone that carried on throughout the story. It’s also refreshing to read this angle from an international outlet like The Guardian. It speaks to the NBA’s global appeal and why the Finals were the most-viewed in nearly twenty years.

Story Headline: The Warriors are making the NBA Finals noncompetitive. That’s scary for the league.

Author: Adam Kilgore

Source: The Washington Post

What We Liked: The big-picture view

These Finals must be making the league nervous. The team with the best player can never be counted out, and LeBron James remains the best player in the world, despite the argument Durant is currently submitting. It would be a mistake to dismiss Cleveland. It would be equally foolish not to recognize the strong chance that for the remainder of the Finals, and perhaps beyond, the Warriors’ only competition will be history.

“Sure, the fan in me would love to see more competition at times,” Commissioner Adam Silver said before Game 1. “But on the other hand, I’ve said it before, I think we should also celebrate excellence.”

Why We Liked It: Kilgore explored the significance of another lopsided Warriors win early in the series. In doing so, the writer wondered about the ramifications of the decisive victories for the league. He also tracked down the NBA’s commissioner, or pseudo-CEO, to get his view on how a non-competitive series could impact the league’s bottom dollar. Having the gusto to discuss a deeper viewpoint on a topic is one thing, but gathering supporting quotes, research, or commentary to further develop your point is the stuff of writing mastery. The biggest takeaway here is don’t be shy about getting the supporting information you need for your claims.

Game 3

Kevin Durant's BIG trey headlines the top clutch moments in @Warriors #NBAFinals Game 3 victory! pic.twitter.com/VcVg6et97U

— NBA (@NBA) June 8, 2017

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Story Headline: Warriors Rip Out The Cavs’ Still-Beating Heart

Author: Rob Mahoney

Source: SI.com

What We Liked: The headline and verbiage used within the story

Test the Warriors at your own peril. So many of the teams to stand in Golden State’s way this postseason have been subject to cold obliteration—the sort of blowout that leaves those involved shell-shocked and numb.

Why We Liked It: The Warriors came from behind to beat the Cavs in gut-wrenching fashion. This headline summed up the feeling perfectly. It was just the best. But to add significant context to a mic-drop headline is just as critical for a writer. Just because you’ve come up with something clever and click-bait worthy doesn’t mean your job is done. Unlike the Cavs in Game 3, you have to finish what you started. Mahoney achieves this with excellent descriptive writing in his piece. He also explains why the Warriors have been able to demoralize their opponents. Sharp language, excellent descriptions, and well-researched presentation are achieved in this post.

Story Headline: Kevin Durant Closes The Door On LeBron

Author: Chris Herring

Source: fivethirtyeight.com

What We Liked: Data presentation within the story

The pace in this matchup has played a key role in that dynamic — particularly for James. But the accumulation of minutes and miles on James’s legs this season — and over the past seven seasons, during his incredible Finals streak — probably hasn’t helped, either. This year alone, in which the 32-year-old averaged an NBA-high in minutes per game, James has run 47 miles more than the 28-year-old Durant, who missed just over a month’s worth of games during the regular season following an injury. (Golden State went 16-4 without him.)

Why We Liked It: Writing to make your point with data is something that truly enhances the reader’s experience. Herring achieved this as a writer and visually by introducing the thought of Durant having more production at the end of games than James. Herring backed up his claim by breaking down his findings in a myriad of ways with visual representations. If you’re looking for a free way to boost your data claims, Google’s new data GIF maker is a superior way to boost your visual presentation.

Game 4

LeBron's off-the-glass SLAM in Game 4 of the #NBAFinals… as heard around the world! pic.twitter.com/44veJ5bK2N

— NBA (@NBA) June 12, 2017

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Story Headline: Even J.R. Smith can’t believe LeBron James’ dunk from Game 4

Author: Chris Barnwell

Source: CBSSports.com

What We Liked: Building a story around a brilliant quote

“You see it in the park and stuff growing up. You never think about somebody doing it in a game. Doing it in a Finals game. Game 4 when you’re down 3-0.”

“He dunked on Tristan. That was the craziest part of it. He had the whole lane until Tristan came in there. He’s a Gatorade baby, man, he was made in a lab somewhere.”

That’s how incredible LeBron’s dunk was. Even Smith, a guy who once said he prefers to shoot contested shots because open ones are boring, was shocked at what James did. Maybe he’s on to something with James being a “Gatorade baby” made in a lab somewhere. If he’s still stunning his teammates at this point of his career, then what more is there for him to do?

Why We Liked It: When you have a must-read quote to use in your piece, there’s sometimes heavy-handedness in how a writer reacts to it. In this instance, Barnwell explored the clever, “Gatorade baby” quip but doesn’t step on the beauty of the comment. Instead, Barnwell featured the quote as the subject of his post. James’ highlight-worthy dunk was one of the most memorable plays of the game. Barnwell seized the opportunity by showcasing the best soundbite on the play and wrote his story accordingly. Writers should try to include credible speakers to add authority to a story when it makes sense. They should also figure out the best ways to not overcomplicate the message of the quoted speaker with unnecessary commentary. Knowing how to handle great quotes is something all writers should take into account.

Story Headline: Draymond Green tech-foul fiasco part of tension-filled Game 4

Author: Brian Windhorst and Baxter Holmes

Source: ESPN.com

What We Liked: Factual tone

Referees said a miscommunication with the scorer’s table led to confusion following a Draymond Green technical foul in the third quarter of Game 4 of the NBA Finals, leading to Green initially being announced as ejected before that call was overturned.

A technical foul in the first quarter that official John Goble called on Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr was incorrectly recorded by the official scorer as being on Green. It was announced as being on Green, and it remained in the official box score that way. The mistake was not corrected.

So when Green was called for a technical foul by official Marc Davis in the second half, it seemed as if Green should’ve been ejected. Only then was the mistake fixed, and Green was allowed to stay in the game. It was confusing for both teams and the crowd, who believed Green should’ve been ejected for having two technicals.

Why We Liked It: There was a lot of confusion about officiating in Game 4. Many in the media complained about it. Knowing that this was a storyline with how Cleveland won its first game of the series, two ESPN scribes joined forces to state the facts on what led to some head-scratching decisions by the refs. Knowing the objective of your story is crucial. Windhorst and Holmes were aware that their readership wanted to understand what happened in the game and why it created so much confusion. Instead of being humorous or introducing quotes, the writers explained what happened in an educational tone. Knowing what your audience is expecting based on your subject or title is critical.

Game 5

Kevin Durant & Stephen Curry lead @Warriors to Game 5 victory to secure 2017 #NBAFinals title! #DubNation pic.twitter.com/E20rky2zTy

— NBA (@NBA) June 13, 2017

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Story Headline: Stephen Curry, the Warriors’ cornerstone, finds the redemption he sought

Author: Marcus Thompson II

Source: Bay Area News Group

What We Liked: The conclusion

On the biggest stage, and healthy, Curry proved he wasn’t a flash in the pan. That his two MVPs and 2015 championship wasn’t a fluke. Despite not having the freakish size of the likes of LeBron James and Kevin Durant, he proved he belongs. LeBron made it clear there is nobody in the NBA better than he. But there should be no more doubt Curry is in the mix with the game’s elite.

Perhaps it was just a matter of time before he got here. Or maybe he needed to go through that collapse, feel the sting of not showing up, hear the jabs at his worth from across the nation, to become even better. Either way, the end result from this three-year run — two MVPs, 207 regular season wins, and two championships — is that he’s here now.

This is what validation looks like.

Why We Liked It: Most of our examples have touched on story angles, introductions, voice, quote usage, and even headlines, but once you’ve fully grabbed your readers and given them multiple reasons to read your writing and stick with it, you’ll want to make the full experience worthwhile. Thompson accomplished that in his coverage of Curry’s Finals redemption. Sure, most of the attention this series went to Durant and James, but Curry’s selflessness was a big reason the Warriors were able to win it all once more. Thompson nails that sentiment perfectly and sent the reader off with a perfectly crafted final line to his story. It was short and sweet, just like Curry the ballplayer.

Story Headline: An inside look at Kevin Durant’s first three hours as an NBA champion

Author: Anthony Slater

Source: Bay Area News Group

What We Liked: Descriptive access

Now past 9 p.m., the Warriors finally rampaged back to the locker room for the champagne celebration, all the players handed a Moet & Chandon bottle on their way through the door. Durant was met by a dancing Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, already geared up in ski goggles, bottles popped, spraying the room.

But Durant had some trouble. He struggled to get the bottle open initially. Then he failed in his attempt to bash a couple beer cans together for a booze shower, Stone Cold Steve Austin style. It’d been awhile since he’d had a drink. Nearly four months, actually.

Throughout most of the season, Durant regularly went out after games, often drinking with dinner. But when he sprained his MCL back in late February, he decided to give up alcohol during the extended rehab process.

“If I had been drinking as much as I had been drinking, the recovery wouldn’t have been as easy,” Durant said. “So I decided to put it down and once I got back healthy, I was like let me see how this is, let me roll with it for the rest of the playoffs.”

So by the time Monday night’s celebration rolled around, his tolerance was lower and the booze hit quicker. The PR staff whisked him away from the locker room celebration around 9:25, first to do an interview with Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter and then to his press conference on the other side of the arena.

Why We Liked It: Slater puts readers in a place they desperately want to be—backstage with Durant after the biggest triumph of his basketball career. Access can make or break a written piece. If you’re experiencing something that nobody else is seeing, don’t internalize—publish it. Find the appropriate way to express your point of view of the event that you’re witnessing. Slater might not have written about everything he heard and observed after the game, but there’s enough detail in here to give the reader proper context as to what the whirlwind moment was like for a basketball hero. Once you’ve gained a unique vantage point to your topic, don’t waste your opportunity to describe it in detail. Slater’s words about Durant’s trouble with consuming alcohol wouldn’t be the same without the writer correctly setting the scene with the cause and effect.

All of these stories were written to inform, entertain and document an important period in sports history. They were also produced under tight deadlines by professionals who love their craft. Aspiring writers at all levels can learn from reading expert coverage on topics they enjoy or ones they don’t fully understand. Good writing is good writing, as they say. It comes in all forms.

Now it’s your turn to write with creativity, detail, and authority. You can do it. We know you can.

The post All the Best Writing from the 2017 NBA Finals appeared first on Grammarly Blog.

from Grammarly Blog https://www.grammarly.com/blog/best-stories-from-2017-nba-finals/

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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9 ways to get free tax help from an actual human being

young worried couple at home sofa couch doing domestic debt accounting and tax paperwork with bank papers and calculator looking sad and desperate suffering stress asking for help; Shutterstock ID 437289127

Image: Shutterstock / Marcos Mesa Sam Wordley

Tax help can cost a lot of money. Pros charge $150 an hour on average to do a federal and state return, according to the National Society of Accountants. Help with planning, back taxes or audits can cost even more. But there are a few ways to get human tax help for free.

1. Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA)

What it is: A federal grant program that helps community organizations provide free tax-prep services to low- andmoderate-income individuals, the disabled, the elderly and limited-English speakers.

How it works: Taxpayers can get face-to-face help from local, IRS-certified volunteers. Generally, the income limit is $54,000. Volunteers wont prepare the Schedule C (sorry, freelancers), the complex Schedule D (sorry, investors) or forms associated with nondeductible IRA contributions, investment income for minors, premium tax credits, requests for Social Security numbers or determinations of worker status.In a lot of communities, [people] can just dial 211 to find out information about the nearest VITA site and get more information about whether or not they qualify, says Rebecca Thompson, project director of the taxpayer opportunity network at the Corporation for Enterprise Development, which focuses on fighting poverty.

Get help from the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program.

2. Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE)

What it is: A federal grant program that gives money to community organizations to provide people with free tax help. Although the program was established to help people 60 and older, and still prioritizes serving them, theres actually no minimum age requirement. Trained volunteers provide the assistance.

How it works: Similar to VITA, community organizations and nonprofits use the grant money to provide help. Most TCE sites are operated by the AARP Foundations Tax-Aide program.The TCE program and the VITA program use, as a base, the same training program [for volunteers]. They use the same certification test and, for the most part, the same software, says Fran Rosebush, deputy director of the Corporation for Enterprise Development.

Get help from the Tax Counseling for the Elderly program.

3. AARP Tax Foundation

What it is: A nonprofit arm of AARP that operates the Tax-Aide network of tax preparation sites for the IRSs VITA and TCE programs.

How it works:AARPs Tax-Aide connects taxpayers with tax counselors who have advanced IRS training. It also operates an online FAQ page where you can submit tax questions to IRS-certified volunteers. You dont need to be an AARP member to get help.

Get help from the AARP Tax Foundation.

4. IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service

What it is: An independent organization within the IRS that protects taxpayer rights.

How it works: You can turn to the Taxpayer Advocate Service if youve already tried to resolve your tax problem through normal IRS channels or you think an IRS process isnt working the way it should. Theres at least one Taxpayer Advocate office in every state.

Get help from an IRS taxpayer advocate.

5. Low Income Taxpayer Clinics (LITCs)

What it is: A federal grant program that gives money to legal-aid and legal-services organizations to help low-income taxpayers or taxpayers who speak English as a second language. Law schools and business schools also are common providers. Some charge nominal fees.We dont prepare tax returns, generally speaking, but if somebody, for example, has their refund frozen and they need help figuring out why, they can call low-income tax clinics, says Christine Speidel, an attorney at Vermont Legal Aid, which runs clinics in the state.

How it works: The program generally provides representation for people in IRS disputes, including audits, appeals, collections and litigation. It also can help respond to IRS notices and fix account problems. Typically, the income ceiling is 250% of the federal poverty rate, but some programs have a little wiggle room, Speidel says. Sole proprietors are usually welcome, she adds.

Get help from the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic program.

6. IRS Taxpayer Assistance Centers

What it is: Local IRS offices across the country.

How it works: Services vary by office but can include basic tax-law assistance, payment arrangements, procedural inquiries, help with IRS letters and notices and other support. Youll need to schedule an appointment and provide a valid photo ID and taxpayer identification number, such as your Social Security number.

Get help at an IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center.

7. Military OneSource

What it is: A Department of Defense program that provides financial and legal resources, among other things, to military members and their families. The tax program is called MilTax.

How it works: Trained MilTax consultants are available by phone seven days a week during tax season from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. ET at 1-800-342-9647. After April 18, theyll be available Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET. MilTax is part of the VITA program, which means you also can get face-to-face help on base or nearby.

Get help from Military OneSource.

8. The tax pro down the street

What it is:Acertified public accountant, licensed attorney, enrolled agent or someone who has completed the IRS Annual Filing Season program. The IRS also requires anyone who prepares or helps preparefederal tax returns for compensation to have a Preparer Tax Identification Number, so be sure to look for that.

How it works: To get free help, all you might need to do is ask. According to the National Society of Accountants, 89% of tax pros offer free client consultations worth more than $100.

Seek help froma credentialed tax professional.

9. Your tax software

What it is: Many versions of do-it-yourself tax software come with free help from a tax pro via phone, chat, email or even face-to-face via your cell phones camera.

How it works: Tax software providers frequently offer free help, though its more common among the higher-end paid versions. Audit support and audit representation are often provided, though you might have to pay extra.Where to find: Companies such as TurboTax, H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer offer free help for all or some of their tax software packages.

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This article originally published at NerdWallet here