John
@johnlk.bsky.social
@johnlk_80 on twitter. Comics, history, politics and such.
created June 12, 2023
998 followers 278 following 17,822 posts
view profile on Bluesky Posts
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
I will say that I hink Shelley's reach exceeds her grasp and that I think an adaptation can do a lot to make the monster's characterization more nuanced. Like, yes, I think the intention is as you say, but as written the Monster's cruelty comes off as excessive.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
To be sure
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
The book is very anti-Frankenstein but also not very sympathetic to the monster, who is a child murdering psychopath.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Gonna throw out the Dylan/Knopfler collaborations as underrated. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpRK...
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Labour's origins and self-conception as explicitly a working class party make it make some sense why they have it much worse than the Democrats do.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Yes, this. It's about how you frame your target.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Only North Dakota! Thune was the junior senator from South Dakota at that point.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
If he kept it he wouldn't be Spider-Man.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Peter's basic view is that whenever he does basically anything that is primarily about looking out for himself, disaster strikes. Any kind of windfall and he's going to be looking to construct a reason he has to nobly turn it down (even if he'd be using the money for a good cause).
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
*I* think it would have been totally morally justified for Peter to sell the solid gold notebook to save Aunt May's house, but it is entirely in keeping with Spidey's view of his own moral code that he wouldn't think so.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
There's obviously significant individual variation in how cooked people's brains gets on social media. The ones who say things like that are the ones most liable to get cooked.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Also about protecting elderly family members. It is not a coincidence that urban school systems were often the last to reopen, since those were the districts with the largest numbers of multi-generational households!
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Heritage not hate.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Anyway, I still think "end qualified immunity" and "make it much much much easier to fire cops for misconduct, incompetence, and wildcat strikes" are pretty simple steps that haven't really been tried.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
If we hack off all the non-killing people parts of police responsibilities it's going to make the police with guns part even more violent
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
oops, some quote tweet confusion, was thinking the reply was in this theo thread. bsky.app/profile/theo...
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
that's literally the opposite of what Theophite is saying, I think.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
(The diplomacy of 1715-1729 is really screwy and weird because of this. There was a brief war that was every major power in Europe vs. Spain.)
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Even after Philip renounced the French throne in the Treaty of Utrecht, there was a strong sense among many Frenchmen that his renunciation was invalid. If Louis XV had died any time before his son was born in 1729 it's quite possible shenanigans would have ensued.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
There's others, too -- Lannoy, the victor of Pavia, was from the Netherlands; Chapuys, his longtime ambassador to England, was from Savoy; Andrea Doria was Genoese. Obviously there were Spanish and German advisors, too, but it seems notable how many were neither.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Further thought: Charles V's empire also the last gasp of Lotharingia. Not just Charles himself and his sisters and aunt, but many of his closest advisors were all from bits of what had been the Middle Kingdom. Chièvres (Netherlands), Gattinara (Piedmont), the Granvelles (Franche Comté).
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
There was also a lot of fear that the duc de Bourgogne would die childless and leave Anjou as heir to France as well. It very nearly happened!
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Warhammer 40k Emperor is basically Charles V through the intermediary of the Warhammer Fantasy Emperor, I think?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
It was much more a last expression of an older Medieval notion of universal monarchy
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Complicated! He tried to centralize where he could (he did in Castile and the Netherlands) but was realistic about the limits of this. I don't think he ever had a real project of uniting even his hereditary lands into a single "state" (a concept which only sort of existed), much less the Empire
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Also, the greatest Belgian of all time.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
I was thinking of an alternate history where Ferdinand dies somewhere around 1550 and Charles succeeds in getting Philip elected as King of the Romans, but you know Philip would fuck it up. Too Spanish, not enough Belgian.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
You know that guy would
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
lol
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
What's the point of departure?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
If not for that pesky king of France... One gets the impression that Francis I must have just irked him tremendously. The Turk and the German princes at least believed in something; Francis was opposing him entirely out of ego.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Was he a Great Man of History? Kind of not? He seems to have been very ordinary as a human. But maybe the single most powerful western European ruler between Charlemagne and Napoleon?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Dude was everywhere, and not just in terms of his influence, he was literally constantly traveling around across western Europe. He's the last real exponent of imperial universalism in western Europe and he almost made it work.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
-- the Valois-Habsburg wars; the end of the Renaissance in Italy; the Reformation in Germany, England and the Low Countries; the expansion of the Spanish Empire in the New World; the European response to Ottoman aggression in Central Europe and the Mediterranean.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Gonna Charles V post a bit today, because he's such an interesting figure to me. We have a few big STORIES of the first half of the sixteenth century, and somehow he is right there in the middle of all of them
John (@johnlk.bsky.social)
16th century hot take: Charles V is like if the Triple Entente was embodied in an individual human. His existence was basically a foreign policy initiative to contain Valois France. And it (mostly) worked!
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
China and India hate each other!
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Seems unnecessarily rude.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
I can answer that because -- you don't. You explicitly say you don't! What are we doing here?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Do you think blood feud is a best practice from peers?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
I have no idea whether 600k daily posters is enough? What's the revenue model here anyway?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Also Tex-Mex is sometimes called that, but often just "Mexican". We just mostly don't take credit for food invented here by first generation immigrants.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social)
Outside the local Catholic Church
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Apparently lots of parents are psycho about being able to contact their children at all times?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
I don't think they took the threat seriously at all, and hard to say how much they care, but if one wants to argue that they actively want vaccines to be banned I think one needs more evidence than "didn't take RFK Jr. seriously enough".
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
The news media sucks horribly in many ways but I don't think they've shown any sign at any point that they want vaccines to be banned.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
I don't think this is true.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Adolf Wilhelm, Fürst von Schlossberg, a distant cousin of George V, changed his name to Adolphus William Mountcastle in 1917 and was created Earl of Hampshire.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
What kind of name is "Mountcastle"? Is he a member of a German dynasty who had to change their names during World War I?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Why is he showing his house to some barefoot girl with no family in sight?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
He's about 30 in X-Men #1! But yeah, that's fine, but understanding how it developed is important to analyzing what's going on and how we got where we are now.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Sounds like a literal Guy Gardner proposal
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
So Claremont has said, yeah.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
I feel like a lot of people read Marvels #2 and think that's what Silver Age X-Men is like.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Like reading the first 13 issues of X-Men, which came out literally at the height of the success of the Civil Rights Movement (roughly from the March on Washington through to passage of the VRA), what was not able to me was how much it *didn't* feel like it was inspired by any of that.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
I mean, what's the broad argument for Silver Age Magneto being "right" or sympathetic, or the secret hero, or whatever it is you're arguing? Take me through it.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Yes, didn't mean to exclude Weezy from credit.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
I tend to think Jewish assimilation is a more obvious model for most of Silver Age X-Men 's dealing with questions of prejudice. (Chris Claremont clearly thought of this too) The first Sentinels story *maaaaybe* drawing on civil rights, though.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Maybe a member of the Irgun after the war? Who can say?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Man literally lived in Israel and probably voted for Herut
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Want to see the "Hans Gruber was right" takes.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Why don't you stick with making an argument about Silver Age Magneto, then, instead of just asserting that I'm wrong?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
There was only a brief window in 1985 where comics were good. Presumably because of that Shooter memo.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Yup. Including taking credit for "creating" characters that at other times he acknowledged were entirely created by his collaborator (Doctor Strange and Silver Surfer, notably)
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Remember: aside from a few good character designs (mostly by Jack Kirby and Dave Cockrum), basically everything anyone likes about the X-Men was (co-)created by Chris Claremont. between 1975 and 1991.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
I'm not convinced the parallels to the civil rights movement were intentional in the Silver Age. Stan Lee has definitely said that's what he was doing. I feel like God Loves, Man Kills is the first story that really engages with real world prejudice in a convincing way.
Nute (@nutedawn.bsky.social) reposted
I mean, the lie in this is that it is literally not what happened at all; the character became a hero by dramatically changing his beliefs and actions to the point that fans rebelled when some writers tried to revert him to his original set
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Literal aristocrats!
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
The book by a Palestinian Obama should have recommended:
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Royal edicts have a mixed history.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Nobody suddenly realized that Magneto was a good guy all along. Chris Claremont created a bunch of sympathetic stuff about Magneto as *PART OF A FACE TURN*, which was already fully complete by the time Venom was even created.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Like the key thing is that all the sympathetic things about Magneto were created by Claremont as part of a redemption arc. The premise of the OP is just completely wrong.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Oh yeah, Hickman knew exactly what he was doing.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Magneto became a metaphor for Revionist Zionist at the same time he was doing a pretty comprehensive face turn.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
None of you people have read actual Silver Age Magneto and it shows.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
The core of "Erik Lehnsherr" was maybe never reformed or softened, but "Erik Lehnsherr" is a creation of the 1990s. Magneto had already had a full redemption arc before there was such a thing as "Erik Lehnsherr"
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Magneto is a character who evolved into a hero because Chris Claremont decided to take possibly the most beard-twirling one-dimensional villain in all of Marvel and find the humanity in him, and turned him into a hero within five years in the early 1980s.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
If Republicans hold the House none of this matters anyway.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
If Democrats win the House it's nowhere near as easy for Republicans to "refuse to seat them" as people seem to be dooming about.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
The old Congress has no power to do anything with respect to "rejecting" or "accepting" votes. The new Congress has always had the power to refuse to seat presumptive members, but that is up to the presumptive members.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
There's still a sizeable Hungarian minority in Romania!
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
What problem do you foresee with the seating? It's not that I'm not concerned, but I haven't yet seen anyone provide a plausible scenario for how it could play out in a way that would result in a Democratic majority not being allowed to be seated.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social)
The Pitt really a show premised on the idea of making it 1995 again by science or magic.
Doc Revan (@docrevan.bsky.social) reposted
No War Department unless the SECNAV is restored to the Cabinet
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
The Navy should be up in arms about this.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
You'd *think* his mother wouldn't have turned on him. Shuisky also had reason to know what had happened to the real Dmitri, though hard to say he's particularly trustworthy.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Always root for the Mets to lose.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
"When will Chuck Schumer stop holding these meaningless fake hearings and DO SOMETHING real about the problem?"
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
He can't hold hearings
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
I like how Dmitri's mother was like "my beloved son! It is a miracle" and then a year later is like "that fool's not my son."
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Is it weird?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
What?
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
That doesn't make it better!
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
"I can tell from some of the pixels" is indeed expert-sounding.
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
2 is insane from a historical perspective! Nobody in 1787 thought they were giving the president the constitutional authority to unilaterally set tariff rates
John (@johnlk.bsky.social)
He slapped a comedian in the face on national TV for making a pretty tame joke about his wife being bald on the same night he won an Academy Award for Best Actor. Is it really surprising it was a big story? Also it was 2022, when it seemed plausibly like things were normal again.
Nic Morton (@nicmorton.bsky.social) reposted
What C.S Lewis wrote to J.R.R.Tolkien after reading Lord of the Rings ... #Tolkien #LordoftheRings
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
(Ferenc Gyulay is Hungarian for George Brinton McClellan)
John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent
Robert E. Lee an overrated general, but certainly superior to Gyulai or MacMahon (to say nothing of Franz Joseph and Napoleon III)