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glass_icarusInspired by a recent exchange with rydra_wong, I thought it would be nice to make a list of life-giving media content that's been helping me get by! I noticed upon my latest rewatch of Nirvana in Fire that the comfort reading/media consumption I do to cope with politics these days is distinctly different from the comfort reading/media consumption I do in response to general life stress. There's a specific flavor of schadenfreude involved in the former which leads me to look for plots involving political takedowns and reforms for great justice, for one thing, though I will also settle for characters resisting and/or getting justice in a less socially comprehensive sense. *g*
My political coping list is much less extensive than my general comfort list, but here are a few things I've been leaning on:
♥ Nirvana in Fire/Lang Ya Bang - I would rewatch this show anytime for any reason because of the amazing characters, but it is especially satisfying as political coping because of Mei Changsu's beautiful takedown schemes (also, there is an explicit hierarchy of court corruptness being dealt with)!
♥ Captive Prince - similarly satisfying, but to a lesser extent. I love Laurent's plotting, but Mei Changsu eclipses him in terms of layers, let's be real.
♥ Black Panther - the most comforting parts of this movie for me are Shuri, Okoye, and Nakia, tbh. I love soft-hearted T'Challa, but those three are what I watch for these days.
♥ A:TLA - this is also a general comfort thing, but for political coping I like turning to the latter half of Zuko's character arc and, uh, pretty much every episode where Katara gets angry, because she's glorious when pissed off and never gets punished for it. I also like all the fights with Azula; they're quite cathartic for me!
♥ Kristin Cashore's Graceling series (er, I forget if that's the actual series name? but all three books!) - I like these because in addition to the various trash fires and takedowns, they don't shy away from the parts where everyone is also coping with the traumas involved during and afterward. There's a raw generosity and kindness in Bitterblue, especially, that I really appreciated post-November 2016.
♥ V for Vendetta - clearly explosions are not a solution to shitty government, but some days there's only so much bullshit I can take before I just want to watch it (fictionally) burn.
♥ The Matrix - same as above? xD
♥ The Handmaid's Tale - I started rereading a couple of weeks post-Kavanaugh, but it was a bit much then (also, I was away that weekend and got distracted by people). I think it would be good to revisit another day, though.
♥ Janelle Monae's entire discography - not only is she an incredible musician, her music videos (Many Moons, Tightrope, and Dirty Computer especially) are such amazing portraits of everyday #resistance.
♥ In the Heights soundtrack - maybe Hamilton would be more satisfying (I still haven't seen it), but literally all of this is immigrants surviving, thriving, and going about their everyday lives, and I desperately need more immigrant stories. (I would cite Allegiance too, if I owned the soundtrack!)
♥ By The Still Waters - I love and have been rereading this fic so much, because it is all about choosing and dealing with the consequences of your choices. Also OMG, what an incredible character piece! (Spoilers for Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition.)
♥ LOTR - for all those comforting Dire Moments with Frodo, Sam, Eowyn, etc., haha.
What are the things you've been turning to? Any recs?
rydra_wong, I thought it would be nice to make a list of life-giving media content that's been helping me get by! I noticed upon my latest rewatch of Nirvana in Fire that the comfort reading/media consumption I do to cope with politics these days is distinctly different from the comfort reading/media consumption I do in response to general life stress. There's a specific flavor of schadenfreude involved in the former which leads me to look for plots involving political takedowns and reforms for great justice, for one thing, though I will also settle for characters resisting and/or getting justice in a less socially comprehensive sense. *g*My political coping list is much less extensive than my general comfort list, but here are a few things I've been leaning on:
♥ Nirvana in Fire/Lang Ya Bang - I would rewatch this show anytime for any reason because of the amazing characters, but it is especially satisfying as political coping because of Mei Changsu's beautiful takedown schemes (also, there is an explicit hierarchy of court corruptness being dealt with)!
♥ Captive Prince - similarly satisfying, but to a lesser extent. I love Laurent's plotting, but Mei Changsu eclipses him in terms of layers, let's be real.
♥ Black Panther - the most comforting parts of this movie for me are Shuri, Okoye, and Nakia, tbh. I love soft-hearted T'Challa, but those three are what I watch for these days.
♥ A:TLA - this is also a general comfort thing, but for political coping I like turning to the latter half of Zuko's character arc and, uh, pretty much every episode where Katara gets angry, because she's glorious when pissed off and never gets punished for it. I also like all the fights with Azula; they're quite cathartic for me!
♥ Kristin Cashore's Graceling series (er, I forget if that's the actual series name? but all three books!) - I like these because in addition to the various trash fires and takedowns, they don't shy away from the parts where everyone is also coping with the traumas involved during and afterward. There's a raw generosity and kindness in Bitterblue, especially, that I really appreciated post-November 2016.
♥ V for Vendetta - clearly explosions are not a solution to shitty government, but some days there's only so much bullshit I can take before I just want to watch it (fictionally) burn.
♥ The Matrix - same as above? xD
♥ The Handmaid's Tale - I started rereading a couple of weeks post-Kavanaugh, but it was a bit much then (also, I was away that weekend and got distracted by people). I think it would be good to revisit another day, though.
♥ Janelle Monae's entire discography - not only is she an incredible musician, her music videos (Many Moons, Tightrope, and Dirty Computer especially) are such amazing portraits of everyday #resistance.
♥ In the Heights soundtrack - maybe Hamilton would be more satisfying (I still haven't seen it), but literally all of this is immigrants surviving, thriving, and going about their everyday lives, and I desperately need more immigrant stories. (I would cite Allegiance too, if I owned the soundtrack!)
♥ By The Still Waters - I love and have been rereading this fic so much, because it is all about choosing and dealing with the consequences of your choices. Also OMG, what an incredible character piece! (Spoilers for Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition.)
♥ LOTR - for all those comforting Dire Moments with Frodo, Sam, Eowyn, etc., haha.
What are the things you've been turning to? Any recs?
no subject
Date: 2018-11-20 04:15 am (UTC)Mine:
Kimya Dawson, Remember That I Love You (album). In this context especially the song 'Loose Lips', which was written during the GWB presidency but is even MORE relevant now: "And we'll pray, all damn day, every day /That all this shit our President has got us in will go away / While we strive to figure out a way we can survive / These trying times without losing our minds." The line "tugging on the sleeve of how things used to be" makes me well up sometimes.
Sleater Kinney's discography.
Like you said, Janelle Monae's entire discography.
Political musical soundtracks. Hamilton of course (and the mixtape) but also especially its nearest Australian equivalent, Keating!. I'm listening to 'The Arse End of the Earth', which comes as close as anything can to my almost entirely vestigial patriotism, with its general attitude of 'yeah, our history sucks and our present sucks too and we aren't anyone's shining ideal, but we have to start where we are and we're not entirely awful and we CAN make things better': "We can move this world / We can chance this place / Shifting inch by inch / At a glacial pace / Take it step by step / Build it brick by brick / Important innovations / And delicate equations / I'm running out of patience, can we make this quick?"
clipping's discography (if you haven't listened to their album Splendor & Misery yet... well, that's my rec. They were nominated for a Hugo twice, and didn't win either time but fucking should have. Their sound (experimental noise hiphop) isn't for everyone, but I love it.)
Ann Leckie's Ancillary trilogy. About fighting for personhood and independence from an evil empire on a broad and individual level. And spaceships and cyborgs and non-binary people.
Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire trilogy, in which the evil empire seems completely impossible to overturn, and it so clearly gets into the heads and hearts of everyone there and corrupts them in small and large ways and makes the unthinkable seem commonplace, but people still resist in various ways, and it is still possible to overturn it if you can find the right lever and place to stand. And spaceships and robots and trans people.
JY Yang's Tensorate series, with yet more resistance to an evil empire, and yet more trans and non-binary people, and also raptors.
And I'm going through a Tolkien thing right now, reading the Silmarillion, but the part of that which makes this list is the fanfic and fanart and meta which engages with race and colonialism and gender and sexuality in ways Tolkien would never have thought of and does the Loving Something Problematic thing so fiercely well, and is also FUNNY, and I need that right now.
Is it media content if I list watching one of my cats give the other one a brutally thorough face-washing while he closes his eyes and tilts his head up to give her better access? Because that and the endless stream of cute animal pics on the internet is sometimes a very important thing.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-20 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-20 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-20 05:45 pm (UTC)No Anthems - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ec0y7HTyQ4
Price Tag - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWc6knXULsw
And the last (SOB) one from TcK:
We the People - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO2Su3erRIA
and live on SNL - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDxKVYUHBdA
The Hamilton Mixtape is also fantastic:
Congratulations - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAAsaeG6cus
Immigrants (We Get the Job Done) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_35a7sn6ds
...also also, all my Rock Against Bush CDs were suddenly in use again in 2015. //lolsob
no subject
Date: 2018-11-20 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-21 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-20 07:07 pm (UTC)