I don't like badmouthing businesses. I have run one for many years and it's rough. You can never please everyone all the time, and it absolutely kills me emotionally (though perhaps it shouldn't) to have an unsatisfied customer.
But I must tell others about this so that perhaps they can be spared the financial and emotional frustration that this dealership has caused us, and likely will continue to cause us.
This is a companion post to my post in CreditScore , but will focus more on our experience with the dealership than the impact to our credit scores.
My story begins as follows:
We bought a travel trailer a bit ago. It's been nearly a month now since our first interaction with the dealership, Great American RV Superstores.
We went to this dealership (one of many, actually) looking for a travel trailer that would suit our needs well, with as little modifications as possible-- I'm busy, and wanted to use the thing for vacations and such, not have another project to work on.
The sales experience was fine. The salesman was happy to show us around, offer us drinks, tell us about the travel trailers they had, even show us ones that were kind of outside of our intended scope just since we were curious about them. Very reasonable experience, overall. I have to temper my expectations here, since my partner and I absolutely hate interacting with strangers in a sales environment. Overall it was fine, though I do feel sales was pushy, and financing (which we'll get to in a moment) even more so.
Over the course of a week or so, we eventually came back and settled on a Jayco trailer they had-- it was mostly what we wanted and would need the least modifications to be what we wanted to become our 'dream RV' for what I felt was a reasonable price, compared to building the entire thing from the ground up out of a utility trailer shell-- it would even be cheaper, not to mention save me time.
This is unfortunately the end of the 'good' part.
We figured we'd put the trailer on credit for a month or so while we sold off some stuff, avoided early withdrawal penalties, etc.. I did the math, it would be cheaper like this than paying fees to move money faster, and we wanted the trailer for an upcoming trip.
Excited, we gave them a deposit [they accepted a credit card for this] of $1000.
Now, they originally tried to request $5000, and I looked at them like they were nuts. That's more than 20% the purchase price. The deposit on my truck wasn't anywhere near that much, despite having a much higher sticker price than the trailer. This should have been my first red flag.
We came back the next day (we had stuff on our schedule, literally did not have time for 2 hours of paperwork that I was confident would ensue).
The dealership did not want to take a credit card for the non-cash portion, which I understand but was kind of annoying. It's not that much, and I can't just bounce a check or credit card charge on a registered vehicle and just get away and get to keep the thing-- It's not like you can hide an RV trailer that well; the thing is nearly 30 feet long.
No worries, they said they could offer financing, and all it'd cost me was one credit pull. The salesman and financing manager went away, and came back a few minutes (well, ~20 minutes) later.
There was, at that point, as they said, a credit pull for both me and my partner.
They came back with an insane interest rate, something like 19%. I told them that I wouldn't sign something so insane, and we'd come back later in a few weeks or so and buy the RV if it was still available in cash, no financing. This should have been my second red flag, but of course, me being bad at and stressed during social interactions, I ignored this one, too.
They really didn't like the idea of us not buying the thing asap (duh), and said they could see about getting us a better rate. I told them that if they wanted to offer something else, to just call me. [Important, no additional papers, etc. were signed at this point. I did not sign any 'loan application' papers.]
The next day they came back with an offer for an interest rate of about half that, which while still bad imho, was fine enough and within the realm of reason given what interest rates are right now.
We went back to sign the paperwork... more problems ensued.
We drove ~1 hour to get there, and waited for like 2 hours, and then they told us they could not get us the paperwork to sign as the bank was closed, so we'd have to come back the following week.
What. The. F***.
Now, I understand that this is not common perhaps, but I assume more common for people buying RVs-- our time is very valuable, and I don't mean just in terms of what we bill people (though, that too in a lot of cases). We're short on time, have too much we need to get done almost always, and wasting an hour or so of our time in an area with basically no cellphone reception and being unable to accomplish any work or spend this time effectively on something we wanted is not something we were pleased with, and has a very real dollar cost for us. We effectively wasted 4 hours of both our time going there, waiting, and driving back-- 8 man-hours for what? Nothing.
Regardless of our over-inflated time valuation, I don't think anyone should have their time wasted like this. We would not require this of a customer of ours, regardless of their salary or status, it's just disrespectful.
This should have been our third red flag.
Anyways, we were promised a $200 gift card and they seemed genuinely apologetic, saying their head finance manager was out today and they were doing their best to carry on without them, and had just been unaware that the bank was closed at that point and thus couldn't produce the documents.
Okay. Fine. We left again.
We returned the next week, and finally they had paperwork to sign-- a lot of it... holy sh*t I have never seen so much paperwork to buy something. This was more paperwork than there was for our house, I am not kidding. Over 100 pages probably if you include other documents referenced by these. I read them all, I insisted, before signing. The guy did not appear pleased with this-- I realize his time is valuable, but who in their right mind signs something without reading it? It had all sorts of things that would, if we were not in the position we are, potentially be devastating. (Example, they were not very forthcoming on the fact that there was a 'demand function' on the loan-- the bank can just demand it be paid right away, in other words, because they feel like it.)
Again, that should have been another, and the final red flag. We should have walked away. But, I'm here writing this, so that's not what happened. Sunk cost fallacy and all, I guess.
So, we finally get through several hours of reading things, asking them questions, etc.. They lied a bunch through their teeth I'm sure, but this post is already too long to even start listing the things I worry about.
Once we had actually managed to get the thing purchased, they had some guy take us back and do a walkthrough of the travel trailer to prove everything was working on delivery, etc.. Honestly, I feel this walkthrough should have been it's own day given how many things there are on the trailer, and how many involve things that you have to wait on to see if they're really working properly-- like an oven, an air conditioner / heater, that sort of thing; but it's not like this lasted more than 10 minutes of the guy turning things on, asking me if I knew propane was flammable, etc..
Walkthrough guy was nice, didn't have a problem with him, but he (especially for someone who works in maintenance) didn't seem well informed. He advised me, for example, despite the travel trailer's converter / battery charger being rated for use with a Lithium replacement battery, not to do this, because it could 'blow up the electrical system'. While I am confident that the trailer's 'auto detection' feature isn't really that, and have since inspected the battery charger and it's workings, I assure you a compatible lithium replacement battery would not 'blow up' the electrical system.
He didn't even know where the circuit breakers, etc.. were, didn't know what size the water tank was, where it was, what certain ratings were, when I asked. At this point, I was mostly testing to see if they had any idea how this thing was put together, because I'd become suspicious. The guy, while nice, failed the test horribly.
This was all very disconcerting, because they are the only Jayco partnered dealership in range of our home.
We hitched up the trailer with the help of the sales guy, who incorrectly instructed me on how to hook up the break-away safety cable, and left with the trailer.
When we got it home, we hooked it up to power, water, and sewer, to go run through our actual bunch of tests.
The following things do not function correctly on this trailer:
1) The roof-mounted solar panel and charge controller for the 12v system. Completely non-functional upon arrival, and during the walkthrough (though we were told it was because there wasn't enough sun during that time). I eventually went and troubleshot this enough to determine that the entire ground wire from the charge controller was completely disconnected from the 12v system, which of course made it useless. I fixed this, but I should not have had to spend this time doing so.
2) The oven. The pilot light requires you to hold the knob in after sparking it for ~5 minutes before it will stay lit. The instructions say it should take ~5 seconds. Oven is basically useless, no one has 5 or 10 or 20 minutes to fight with it to get it to keep the pilot light lit. The walkthrough person did not check oven function, just asked, if I knew how to use it. (Yes, I do, I've owned RVs before. In fact, the Jayco travel trailer from 1985 that I use as a storage shed presently, the oven in there STILL works just as it did when new.) I have /no idea/ how to fix this, and the dealership has ignored me when I've asked them. They say they'll get back to me, they do not.
3) The air conditioner / heater. They start up, sure, but they don't stay going. The AC seems to cut out any time there's a slight voltage fluctuation on the 12v system that powers the thermostat, etc., and this happens regularly of course when you turn a light on or off or something. To get the AC to restart, you have to completely power off the system at the thermostat, and wait ~1 minute, and then power it back on. I've not solved this yet, but I'm sure I likely can... by reverse engineering the thermostat control standard and replacing it with something else, and/or stabilizing the power supply to the appliances using some electronics... but still, why should I have to do this? The thing's brand new.
4) The water pump. It rattled SO MUCH and was not screwed down properly that it almost dislodged the piping when we fired it up during testing. Eventually after some back and forth with the service guy over the phone, I settled on a solution which he admitted would not in any way void the warranty-- pipe insulation to keep the rattling down throughout the trailer (I just purchased this from Home Depot and put it on), and some extra rubber and foam, and a slightly thicker screw to hold the pump in place properly.
5) The shower plastic shroud. The backing is incorrectly / poorly installed, bulged up, etc., around the bottom, making it harder to clean. I should have noticed this but, again, with only a ~10 minute walkthrough... :/ I'm sure they'd also say it 'met standards' and was fine. I guess I'll have to fix this, too.
6) Several of the lights, after being on for a bit, 'flicker'. This is extremely odd because they're DC lights, and while one might expect the typical 60Hz flicker from a cheap LED AC light, a DC light should have no flickering. It's definitely that the light is getting hot and has a bad solder joint or something. Yet another thing that, while on it's own isn't a huge deal for me to fix, it's not on it's own. I'll have to replace a number of these light fixtures I guess, too. -_-
7) Upon crawling under the trailer, the underbelly that is supposedly 'enclosed' is hardly that. It's got so many gaps and holes that I'm genuinely worried about what will have nested in there by the time I get around to fixing it. Good thing we have so many cats around, I guess. Would some spray-foam have killed Jayco?
Now, we're not even done with the BS.
Somehow, over the next few weeks, we've gotten (both my partner and I) about a dozen credit pulls from random lenders. Like, holy crap. And of course, because they're not all at the same time and nor are they even from the same 'type' of lenders, our scores have dropped like a rock.
I don't know who over there at Great American RV Superstores is pushing some button, but this needs to stop... we're at the point where we are considering freezing our credit, because this is insane. Credit pulls from AFTER we picked up the RV? Excuse me? Why? This is borderline identity fraud.
Overall, the sales experience was fine, but everything else was bad. Logistics, financing, paperwork, service... they all dropped the ball.
I cannot in good conscience recommend anyone buy from this dealership chain, nor can I recommend at this point anyone buy a Jayco travel trailer-- apparently their build quality (like seemingly everything from everyone these days) has taken a nosedive since the 80's.
Oh, and the $200 gift card they promised us for wasting our time? No where to be found. -_- We asked about it, they dismissed it saying they would contact us when they 'got approval from management'; in other words, they just promised us something they weren't authorized to give us.

My roommate & I booked a trip in advance for river rafting at the American river for $90 each and I recently found out my family has booked a surprise trip to Disneyland and we won’t get back until after that trip. I asked if we can move our trip to a group that is going later and they said no.. & I asked if we can be refunded & they said no as well. They said they just updated their policy because people keep booking trips and cancelling at the last minute. I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on what else I can do. This river rafting trip wasn’t cheap and I did really want to go, I’m so upset

Suspects post below does a great job of summarizing every Hoge update we covered this week… here is the other half. The Weekly Wrap Up Report covers news and information from the entire crypto world. Below is word for word, apologize for the typos and run on sentences. I don’t proof read this but the info is worth hearing. Tune into the Wrap Up to get fully updated each week!
What is going on everyone!!! Where the heck do I start this week. What an insane week of news in the crypto world. Year one of industry adoption is in full force! Before get into crypto… Roaring Kittys back! Haha what a legend. After three years of no posts on Monday he posts a picture of a guy in a gaming chair going from a relaxed sitlayed back sitting position to a forward facing intense gaming sitting position, to say let’s go it’s game time! If you’ve ever been a gamer u know when ur sitting forward your intensely focused on winning the game your in. If you live under a rock maybe you don’t know who Roaring kitty is but he is the Reddit legend that sent game stop to hundred of dollars, he started the retail traders vs hedge fund crazy run that happened in 2020. Truly one of the most exciting things to be a part of as you watched how hedge funds really work behind the curtain. It’s sickening how they are able to loot companies and force bankruptcy’s to fill their pockets and ruin so many lives in the future. Roaring kitty followed up that post with a serious of great movie and show clips that rallied the retail traders. And in one day it went from $18 to $68 costing hedge funds billions of dollars in the process. I’m not gonna lie I paid my mortgage over night scooping some GameStop in after hours on Monday. Fight the power baby! You gotta love when someone stands up to the corrupt rules, us regular people don’t get to play by. Game stop trading was halted 32 times on Tuesday as they tried to control the crazy price movement. Let’s see where it goes from here but he’s back and that was exciting to see!
But to the real news of the week… we just found out which companies are holding Bitcoin! On May 15th companies had to disclose their Q1 13f reports to the SEC. A 13F is a quarterly report that institutional investment managers must file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to disclose their equity holdings. The form is required for managers with more than $100 million in assets under management.
Guess how many 100m asset companies disclosed that they hold the Bitcoin ETFs? … did you guess do you have a number in mind? Looney go ahead take a guess
1,028 of these high value firms disclosed they hold Bitcoin worth a whopping 10.9 billion dollars in total! And this is only Q1 of this year. Before January 11th of this year that number was under 25. We are so early and this is year one of industry adoption of the strongest form of property ever invented. A brand new asset class has been legitimized and it’s called scarce digital property. It isn’t just companies like Microstrategy, square, and Tesla holding Bitcoin, it’s banks like Wells Fargo and Susquehanna, it’s massive hedge funds and small hedge funds. Probably the most exciting part is pensions now hold Bitcoin! The State of Wisconsin Investment Board discloses it holds almost $100 million of BlackRock's spot #Bitcoin ETF. This is the 9th largest pension fund in the US and a top 50 pension fund in the world. 35 trillion dollars is the sum of all pension funds in the world. Sadly most pensions will not be there when someone wants to retire in ten years from now. But now that Bitcoin introduces hard money to the world, these pension funds can possibly be saved for its current employees looking to retire in the future, the same goes with social security and our insane debt issue we are facing. Bitcoin solves the money printer issue. This is just the first quarter after the ETFs launched…. And Guess what the Bitcoin ETFs aren’t going anywhere and have just started opening the door to trillions of dollars of funds looking for the best alpha to store their value. The game theory is about to get insane. El Salvador the first country to adapt Bitcoin as its countries currency has mined 474 Bitcoin worth $29 million using volcano-fueled geothermal power in the last three years. They turned the free energy coming off their volcano into 29 million dollars. And that’s at today’s price. If Bitcoin goes to 200k next year like most predict that’s almost 100 million dollars their volcano gave back to the country. Every country can do this with the free energy they have.
Bitcoin is so scarce, besides TIME, it is the only other probably scarce thing in this world. As of 2023 there are 626,619 Ultra High Net Worth Individuals in the world. An Ultra High Net Worth Individual is someone who has investeable assests of at least 30 million dollars. And there are only 21 million Bitcoin forever, which is only 18 btc per UHNW in the world. And as you now over 4 million are lost for ever, one million coins are in the satoshi wallet, and thousands of holders already hold more then 18 Bitcoin…. What happens when they want to accumulate.
Scary Fact of the Day: this ones really scary I apologize…. But If your salary was $500,000 per day, every day (weekends/holidays included) since The Great Pyramid in Egypt was built. Which was 2600 BC so 4,624 years ago. and you spent nothing… you'd still have LESS money today than the U.S Government borrowed in March to operate through Sep of 2024... This is why we need Bitcoin.
Luckily some of our elected officials are realizing this can’t be sustained. This week US Congressman Thomas Massie introduced a bill to abolish the Federal Reserve. Stating they hurt the American citizens every time they print new money. The federal reserve is not ran by elected officials and they do not have to answer to the president or congress. They get to push the magic money printer money whenever they want to.
Once someone understands bitcoin they don’t go back.
I’m having alot of fun in my new craftsman program at work. I have a great group of guys going through it with me, and we will all be together for the next 10 weeks. My boss is the man and gave me ten minutes to explain Bitcoin to everyone during lunch and boy did they have some questions! I also let them know I will only bring it up if someone asks about it, so they don’t have to avoid me. Haha Explaining Bitcoin to someone for the first time might be my favorite thing to do on earth. To see the gears turn as they started to understand how Bitcoin actually works and what issues they thought were there actually weren’t. Like many people a few of the guys blended crypto as a whole with Bitcoin. And it’s important to understand they are not the same. Bitcoin is its own fundamental new element in the world.
We all face our own issues in life, if you’re lucky enough to be healthy then most issues revolve around finances. And sadly we don’t all have the rich uncle that will randomly say hey Sam I know the worlds tough and things are more expensive here’s 10 thousand dollars to make your life easier. Haha we all wish that would happen but we all know it never will. So without a random act of kindness out of no where people find themselves trapped financially making just enough to get by or just enough to feel comfortable. If your not investing your not keeping up with inflation and if your not keeping up with inflation your money will be drained. That is a fact, as food and good prices continue to go up. Bitcoin is that life raft that reprices your time and increases your moneys value. If you’re able to get one more person off of 0 because they actually understand what Bitcoin is now you may have changed their life forever. It’s no one’s fault that they don’t understand how money works. This stuff isn’t taught, you need to go out and learn it on your own. And who the heck has time or even wants to do that. The problem is that so much that worked for our parents generation will not work for us. I know I say it every week but this is the . Com era of money and property and it’s just getting started.
I know that was a lot there was just so much important stuff to cover this week.
Solana went on a nice run this week. Going from $137 to $164. Robinhood Europe announced they now offer Solana staking. In the 24 hours after this staking went live the total value locked in Solana jumped by 5%. So that may of had something to do with the price jump. I live in New Jersey where it’s still illegal to stake my tokens for a yield. Thats some bums. You want to hear an absolutely insane stat. On Monday May 13th this week, 23,110 tokens were created on Solana. Yesss take a second to grasp that ridiculous number. 23,110 new tokens launched in one day on Solana. The previous record was 16,000 tokens Degens are getting out of control, many were made to try and ride the GameStop roaring kitty news. But the best part is Solana handled it well with no interruptions. This is by bar the consensus chain so far this bull run and when FireDancer launches at the end of this year it could cement them as the future of micropayments.
The only other token I see giving them a run for their money is you guessed it Internet Computer Protocol, ICP. While they do not have the hype or the volume Solana does, frankly absolutely no chain expect Etherium can say they have the volume Solana does. They have built an entirely unique form of blockchain that is evolving quickly. They call it the only third generation blockchain. If you tune in here then you understand the reverse gas fee model they have introduced. Canisters are filled by the developers and users can interact with the dapps and platforms without needing to hold ICP to use it. These canisters are also tamper proof and unhackable. No need fire firewalls or security teams protecting your data. That waste of money and threat is gone forever with this technology. DFINITY announced this week that half a million canister smart contracts are now deployed on #ICP. In a span of just 72 days, the number of canister smart contracts deployed on #ICP surged from 400k to 500k.
Yesterday DFINITY launched their Year 4 roadmap and key milestones for ICP. How crypto YouTubers aren’t all talking about this I really don’t understand. I feel like crypto is already confusing enough that when you try and grasp what ICP has actually built it’s hard to take it all in. I’m not going to deep dive this for you. But if you follow DFINITY here on X go give it a read it’s worth it! The future is going to be insane, with much of today’s waste gone from the system.
Last thing before I get to the Hoge updates, the stock of stocks Micro Strategy our generations Berkshire Hathaway will be added to the MSCI World Index fund, effective May 31. It stands for the Morgan Stanley Capital International and includes a stock index designed to track broad global equity-market performance. This index comprises the stocks of nearly 3,000 companies from 23 developed countries and 24 emerging markets. This is the first of constant buy pressure as we all await for micro strategy to be included into the S&P 500. If your going to get it make sure your in before that news!

So my last post asking why Indians don't read Indian books anymore had me surprised with the number of people genuinely interested to know more about Malayalam literature. A lot of them asked me for recommendations, so I thought I'd make a post. Now this won't be just a simple list of books to read. The reading list at kerala is probably better for a complete list of Malayalam books to read than a random internet post, but I hope with my post you will understand and appreciate Malayalam literature and Kerala better.
Malayalam evolved from Tamil. It branched off from Tamil in those parts of Tamilakam (a collective name given to the ancient Tamil kingdoms) which were most influenced by Sanskrit. The earliest literature that is distinctly Malayalam are from the 1100s, but the true beginning of Modern Malayalam starts from the 15th century with Thunchathu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan, master poet and father of Malayalam. Now Ezhuthachan (whose name literally means 'teacher of writing') was a lower caste Ezhava man who dared to study the Vedas and even began to write and teach others to write in an age where literacy was gatekept by Brahmins. His seminal work is the Adhyathma Ramayana, a retelling of the Ramayana from the lens of the Advaita or nondual philosophy. Here is an excerpt from the same work, translated by me. This verse is an opening verse where Ezhuthachan asks Brahmins for permission to retell the Ramayana. Sounds very serious and solemn, yes? Now watch Ezhuthachan mock the hell out of the entire class system of medieval Kerala.
For who can speak of the greatness of that lofty creed, owners of the earth, commanders of the Vedas, whose ceaseless boons and curses, drive even Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva to their wit's end. But pray, may I, born out of the feet of Brahma, number one among the unknowledgeable dare tell Rama's tale for the unconscious ones.
By the 1800s Malayalam literature had modernized very much. It was the first Indian language to start translating the works of Shakespeare, Milton etc. and the 19th century brought with it a fascination for Russian literature in Kerala that still has not ceased. Most big Malayalam bookstores have whole sections devoted to Russian literature translated from the original to Malayalam.
We get our first Malayalam novel in 1889 with O. Chandu Menon's Indulekha. Indulekha is about a young Nair lady of the same name, well educated in English and Sanskrit, in love with Madhavan, a western educated young man torn between modern culture and the culture he grew up in. Later, modernity and the past clash again when old Brahmin men try to marry Indulekha according to the old system. A saddened Madhavan runs away to Bengal in haste, leaving Indulekha to make her decision. The novel shows Indulekha as a modern, unwavering woman, willing to challenge her patriarchs, and shows how the society of Kerala had changed by the 1880s, when the decision of a woman could no longer be overruled. Must read for fans of Victorian fiction like those of Jane Austen, or even PG Wodehouse. (Spoilers - Madhavan realizes his mistake and returns for Indulekha.)
CV Raman Pillai's Marthanda Varma is another behemoth from the 1800s. Based on the life of the 18th century king Marthanda Varma, known as the maker of modern Travancore. Marthanda Varma was born in the royal family of Venad in a Travancore where the ruling family had lost all power to a group of eight Nair families known as the Ettuveettil Pillamar or the Pillas of the Eight Houses. The treasury of the kingdom was almost zero and real power and wealth were in the hands of the Pillas who had even started charging taxes and tarrifs. What follows is a brutal and bloody game between Marthanda Varma, a young prince who just won't give in, and the Eight Houses conspiring to kill him, told from the point of view of a love story involving a chivalric knight and an upper class girl. I've always noticed how Indian books and movies like portraying historical figures like superhuman gods perfect in every way. This book is for those who want to see the real nastiness of history. I recommend Marthanda Varma to fans of books like Shogun or even Game of Thrones.
With the 20th century we have writers like Thakazhi, a towering figure in Indian literature, whose Randidangazhi tells the story of a peasant uprising against landowners during the formative years of modern Kerala. Set in the paddy fields of Kerala, it shows how the poor, after having lived in a state of blissful ignorance starts to slowly come out of their coccoon and realise the horror of their slaving lives. Randidangazhi is a glimpse to how Marxism and Socialism began to get imported to Kerala and how it influenced the culture of Kerala. The less critically acclaimed but more popular novel of Thakazhi, is Chemmeen or Prawn, later made into one of the most succesful Malayalam movies ever. Chemmeen is set in the fishing landscape of Kerala in the shores of the Arabian sea, where fishermen believe that if a woman cheats on her husband while he is at sea, the Sea-Mother would swallow her up. Presented in this socio-cultural context is the story of Parikutty, a muslim fisherman in love with Karuthamma, the daughter of a Hindu fisherman. Their story is a more realistic and tragic version of Romeo and Juliet, with Karuthamma having to marry another man. But her love for Parikutty never dies, and they end up dead in the shores of the ocean.
Vaikom Muhammad Basheer - probably my favourite Malayalam writer. Basheer was a well educated Muslim man who grew up in the rural Muslim dominated areas of Kerala. He wrote in simple colloquial Malayalam and was looked down upon by the literary giants of his day, but today he’s seen as one of the masters of Malayalam fiction. He was once called by an English writer as the Chekhov of India to which a Malayalam writer responded saying that Chekhov was the Basheer of Russia. Basheer wrote about very ordinary people from the most ordinary places. The most famous and finest book of his I have read is called (and this sounds hilarious in Malayalam cause it’s basically a sentence squished into a word in a thick Muslim accent) Ntuppuppaakkoraanendaarnnu! which means My grandpa had an elephant! or more accurately Mygrandpahadanelephent! It’s a coming of age story about a little girl named Kunjupaathumma or little Pathu, who grows up in a family that once used to be rich but is growing poorer by the day. Little pathu gets consoled by her mom on almost a daily basis telling her ‘your grandpa had an elephant!’ clinging on to old pride while doing nothing to solve their present crisis. The English translation is actually called Me Grandad 'ad an Elephant, which kinda captures the original vibe.
MT Vasudevan Nair - the greatest writer to have ever written in Malayalam. Award winning novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and director. His first foray into fiction begins with winning a prize in a short story writing contest held by the New York Herald Tribune in 1953. What proceeded is one of the most impressive literary careers in history. His novels Naalukettu and Asuravithu show the shifting economic landscape of Kerala's Nair households. In Kaalam, the protagonist living in the city begins exploring the nostalgia of his past in feudal Kerala, having to face his crippling loneliness.
MT's most celebrated work and the second (you'll hear of the first very soon) most read Malayalam novel ever is Randamoozham or The Second Turn (translation is weirdly titled Bhima: The Lone Warrior, but English readers swear its very good). Let me begin talking about this novel by simply showing you the opening lines.
The sea was black in colour. Even after having swallowed a palace and an entire city, as if it's hunger hadn't died, the wave beat her head on the shore and screamed in agony.
You just read MT describe the sinking of Dwaraka. Randamoozham is about the Mahabharata, specifically about Bhima, the second of the Pandava brothers, well... dealing with being the second. He reinterprets the events of the Mahabharata with such skill that he makes you empathize with even the cruelest characters. Modern retellings of Indian epics like Asura or Jaya basically rewrite the story and change major events and add plot twists. MT changes nothing, and I mean nothing from the Mahabharata. He simply points out things you never thought about, and explores what might have been the deeper emotional reasons behind the actions of each character. MT being the most empathetic writer I've read has this incredible talent of seeing through people and making characters feel real and tangible. In Randamoozham he explores so many emotions, Bhima's feeling of being inferior to Arjuna, his feeling of emasculation and sexual helplessness, his intense love for Draupadi never repaid as she always prefers Arjuna over him.
Khasakkinte Ithihasam or the Legends of Khasak by OV Vijayan is usually considered the best Malayalam novel ever written. If you google 'greatest Malayalam novel' either this or Randamoozham comes up (google switches them up now and then). The novel is basically magical realism, the same genre of 100 years of solitude of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But Vijayan's magical realism is a very different beast from that of Marquez. The distinction is subtle. Unlike the novels of Marquez, whether the magical parts of the book are real or not is left ambiguous. Let me explain, the protagonist is Ravi, a stoic man separated from his girlfriend, arriving at a muslim village called Khasak in the middle of nowhere to work as a school teacher. At first its a weird disjointed series of sketches of life in this strange village filled with strange characters who attribute every event and occurence to the workings of magical beings, spirits, or even long dead Muslim warriors. But the novel slowly reveals itself to be the story of a man learning to disconnect from reality and start seeing the magic buried within life. There's a scene where the mc recollects a memory as a child of looking up at the suns and seeing the weird wiggly things that move around in your eyes. His mother explains to him that they are actually Devas or tiny gods in sky, shying away when you look at them. This scene perfectly encapsulates the genre of this novel. I'll also share the fantastic opening para:
When the bus came to its final halt in Koomankavu, the place did not seem unfamiliar to Ravi. He had never been there before, but he had seen himself coming to this forlorn outpost beneath the immense canopy of trees, with its dozen shops and shacks raised on piles; he had seen it all in recurrent premonitions—the benign age of the trees, their riven bark and roots arched above the earth. The other passengers had got off earlier and Ravi sat alone in the bus, contemplating the next part of the journey as one does an ominous transit in one’s horoscope.
Mayyazhipuzhayude Theerangalil or On the banks of the Mayyazhi river by M. Mukundan - This is a novel spanning generations of French Indians in the French colony of Mahe in Kerala. It just wonderfully rolls out history like a scroll and shows you the glacial shifts of history from the reverent attitude of the locals towards the French in the beginning of the novel to complete rebellion by the end. And all of this is interspersed with a love story and magical realism concerning an island where dead people go to and turn into dragonflies. It really opens up a new world unknown to even most Malayalis, where French words are sprinkled in between Malayalam sentences to sound cool the way we use English today and where French aristocrats have to use Malayalam to get their kids to wake up. Some of it sounds jarring and outright weird to Malayali ears.
Mon petite! Mon petite! Ezhunekkoo! Samayam vaiki! Mon petite! Translation - Mon petite! Mon petite! Wake up! It's late already! Mon petite!
Aadujeevitham or Goat Days by Benyamin - as promised, here is the most famous and most sold book in Malayalam. I really really hope at least some of you recognize this from the recent movie Aadujeevitham or Goat Life starring Prithviraj. If not, see the trailer and get an idea of what this book is like. It's fairly recent, from 2008, and is single handedly responsible for rejuvinating Malayalam literature after almost a decade of hibernation. Benyamin became an overnight sensation and a household name with this novel, and It's probably the most read Indian novel in any language. So Aadujeevitham which literally means Goat Life is based on the true story of a man named Najeeb who travelled to Saudi Arabia after he was promised a job by a friend. But at the airport he is basically tricked by an smelly fat Arab into a truck and taken to a goat farm in the middle of the desert. What follows is a tale of survival spanning 4 years of animal-like living herding goats in the middle of nowhere. Najeeb has no access to actual food, and has to dip Khuboos in water pretending it's curry, has no access to toilets and must clean himself after excretion using sand, and has no access to new clothes or shaving. The novel explores the slow devolution of a man into a barely recognizable beastlike figure, living among goats, losing his status as a human and becoming synonymous with a goat. Now how does a human go from that to running across the desert for 4 days to escape? Read the novel and find out. Every Indian must read this honestly, it's quite horrible when it really sinks into you that this shit happened. With the movie recently we got quite a lot of interviews with the original man, and it blew away so many Malayalis that some of the most horrible stuff that happens in the novel wasn't made up, that it actually happened.
The next is the last novel I'll recommend. It's from 2009 but I didn't keep it till the end because of its recency. I kept it at the end because this novel created shockwaves in the Malayalam literary community, became a very controversial book, and ended up as a sensation among the youth. This novel is credited with bringing back or introducing so many young Malayalis (including me, this is the first Malayalam novel I read) into Malayalam literature. But fair warning, this really may not be for you.
Francis Itty Cora by T.D. Ramakrishnan - Possibly the most fascinating novel I have ever read in my life. You will either love this, or hate this. I'll tell you the premise in simple words:
There are 18 secret families, whose members are some of the wealthiest people in the world, spread all over the globe who are tied to ancient rituals and satanic sex cults, protecting secret texts and scriptures, They basically control the world. All of this is interspersed with a clusterfuck of a historical mystery involving the Indian origins of calculus, Cleopatra, Florence, Fibonacci and Hypatia, and how there’s nothing in common with any of these except for the fact that all of these elements are mysteriously connected to a single 15th century pepper trader from Kerala named Francis Itty Cora. Read that again.
Still interested? The novel opens with a young American man named Xavier Itty Cora, a war veteran, who has been having erectile dysfunction ever since he sexually assaulted a girl in Iraq. He seeks help to regain his sexual health from three college girls in Kerala running a makeshift sex resort, who begin suspecting his real intentions for contacting them out of anyone else in the world. It is revealed that Xavier Itty Cora had gotten to know that his family descends from a 15th century Christian pepper trader from Kerala named Francis Itty Cora who travelled around the world and started 18 families. The three college girls set out on a hunt to find the real truth about this man all the while being chased by a secret family that still worships him as his god. Now if that does not excite you, you probably won't like it. But personally, this novel ruined Da Vinci Code for me, as every Dan Brown novel I read after this just felt stupid and dumb compared to the sheer breadth and scope of this novel. T.D. Ramakrishnan uses history to not just give you a kick, but every mystery, every detail he adds is there to support his basic thesis that violence and lust is the driving force behind human civilisation.
I hope this post was helpful in showing you the insane diversity of Malayalam literature there is. It's not a monolith, Indian languages are whole literary traditions of themselves and not just niches or small genres compared. I wrote this hoping to start a chain reaction in this subreddit, and I expect more such posts on every other Indian language from you fellow readers. Happy reading!

American You followed by cool cover songs 🔥 best show I’ve been to. This was in Black Mountain, NC just two days ago. He did 4 new songs (Everything, New Me, Bob Barker, and Trailer in the Sky). Must’ve been the first ever live performance of New Me, Bob Barker, and Trailer in the Sky. It was dope!! Wish all y’all could’ve been there ⚡️ seeing New Me live made me love it much more. Might post the video of that later! Hope y’all enjoy!
The setlist in order (I got videos of all)
Outer Space Unnatural Born Killer Catfish Billy Catfish Billy 2 Everything Billy Crystal Daddy’s Lambo Best Friend Empty Bottles American You/Shimmy Shimmy Ya montage Daylight Pop The Trunk Tennessee Love New Me Bob Barker Til It’s Gone Trailer in the Sky You and Me

Reasonable is a subjective term...
Warning: Long and insane rant incoming.

Preface

I’ve been spending way too much time responding to individual comments recently, so I decided to put all my thoughts into one post.
I’ll start by getting it out of the way that I’m not a racist or sexist. I’m a Japanese American man who happens to think Adewale and Aveline are among the coolest protagonists in AC and has no issues with an African, Indian, Korean, etc. protagonist, man or woman, in any setting where they make sense. (More on the making sense part later.)
Kassandra is also one of my favorites, but while she and Eivor were better than nothing, they were both essentially just female skins. Their stories should’ve acknowledged their gender in some way imo, and I’ve argued way more than I should’ve with people who pulled the historical accuracy card on them.
I agree that some of the people who complain about Yasuke sound like racists, but I think you can legitimately object to his being a co-star without racism being involved. (I’m also slowly coming around to accepting Yasuke.)
I also realize that I shouldn’t judge the game too harshly yet, as it hasn’t been released yet... But we do have the trailer.
With that out of the way, as an Asian male and longtime fan of the series, I’m disappointed that they squandered the perfect opportunity to have a positive/cool depiction of a Japanese male in the Japanese and first East Asian entry in one of the most popular series in the world given the decades-long history of western media’s marginalizing and demeaning Asian men. I mention AC’s popularity to point out the potential it has to positively influence a wide audience.
I'll respond to most of justifications I've seen for Yasuke as a protagonist in an AC game set in Japan one by one for easier reading.

“Yasuke is a better audience surrogate...”

This is a weak excuse. No one has ever complained about this, because the series has always had the perfect surrogate in the form of the modern-day protagonist.
And let’s face it, an info dump is an info dump. No one wants to hear extended explanations on the finer points of Japanese society, no matter who it’s conveyed to. The database can handle the deeper stuff, and any info necessary for the player could’ve just as easily been explained to a slightly unaccustomed Japanese rookie samurai.
“Better audience surrogate” is a solution to a problem that didn’t exist.

"But Naoe is Japanese...”

This justification falls flat on me, because the problems have always been different between Asian men and woman in western media. Portrayals of Asian women used to focus on exotic sexualization, but because of that, they got comparatively more screen-time than their male counterparts.
The Naoe defense also ignores that fact that we could've had both a Japanese female AND male protagonist if Ubisoft followed their most recent 4-game (if you count Origins) track record of male and female protagonists that are both of their setting. It just doesn’t sit right with me that they decided to change this formula among others with the first East Asian setting.

“But people didn’t complain about Nioh’s white protag...”

This accusation falls flat on me too, because Nioh is not a good comparison. It’s a straight-up fantasy game that focuses exclusively on fighting supernatural enemies. It doesn’t pretend to have an ounce of historical accuracy or realism.
It was also made by a Japanese company that has a track record of including Japanese protagonists. That track record gives them some leeway to change things up without being accused of whitewashing Asian characters.

"But Yasuke is a real part of Japan's history..."

He's a footnote in Japan's history. If we're being honest, the only reason we even know about him is because he was black in a time when there were almost no black people and was a retainer for Nobunaga. Nothing in his historical record mentions him doing anything else of much significance, most likely because there was very little he could do in his position. It's not racist to acknowledge this.
Again, as a longtime Japanese American fan of the series, I'm happy that AC Japan is finally here but disappointed that Ubi decided to inflate a small part of "Japan's" history and slap him on the cover as one of its representatives. I would feel the same (worse actually) if it was William Adams there.
I'd also feel the same if a hypothetical white protagonist who was a footnote in an African nation's history took the place of a fictional African protagonist. I think most people would feel the same too, and the uproar would surely be greater.

"But Yasuke WAS an actual samurai..."

I think the debate about whether he was or wasn't a "samurai" is largely irrelevant and completely misses the point. I agree that he was a "samurai," but historical records also make it sound like he was Nobunaga's favored trophy pet (if we're being completely honest). (The preceding sentence got me permanently banned for "racism" on the main AC subreddit, but I don't think it's racist to acknowledge racism, even the overt form it took in the past.) It's entirely possible (and likely) that he was made an honorary "samurai" for that reason alone. Because "samurai" is technically just a title and privileged position.
The real question is, "Did Yasuke fit the classic image of a badass armored warrior or robed ronin most people imagine (and that appeared in the trailer) when they think 'samurai'?"
The Japanese (especially in the past) actually use a different word when they're being specific about warriors fitting that image, and it's "bushi" (as in "bushido" or "way of the warrior"). That word is conspicuously missing from Yasuke's historical record. There's probably a reason for that.

"But Yasuke's story deserves to be told..."

Similar to the badass warrior aspect, nothing in the historical record specifically mentions that he learned the language or integrated into the culture particularly well, so any portrayal of that sort is wishful appropriation at best imo.
At that point, are you really telling his story? Is there value in promoting fanciful conjecture that is based on essentially nothing? Obviously, there’s a monetary incentive for Ubi to capitalize on the popular trend of farfetched depictions of Yasuke, but is that it?
It’s a given that the real Yasuke probably lived a fascinating life, but Ubi will likely gloss over the actual struggles he faced as a complete outsider in a frankly very racist time and place. It almost seems disrespectful to attribute all sorts of things that probably weren’t true just to spice things up for a video game. (And yes, I think Ubi should've included at least some examples of the struggles Kassandra and Eivor would've surely faced, but at least they were made up people.)

“Go play Ghost of Tsushima...”

These people are probably the worst. Honestly, I think Ubi is also guilty of agreeing with the underlying sentiment in this line of thinking. Contrary to others, I think Yasuke was less of a “woke” diversity decision and more of a “GoT already did a Japanese guy” decision.
I think that borders on racism when you consider that that’s never a concern when it’s the umpteenth white protagonist in a medieval European setting (or any setting). It implies that Asian characters are just too similar to each other to be marketable too close to each other.
But they’re only similar to each other in western-made media because western writers cling to tired tropes like honor and stoicism. The perpetuation of such stereotypes has an impact. I’ve seen people here claim that it’s a fact that Japanese people are uniquely less capable of resisting societal constrictions, hence the choice of Yasuke.
Another implied that historical codes of honor are things that most Japanese people still live by. They’re not, and that person obviously doesn’t know too many Japanese people and probably got their misconception from one-sided media portrayals.
Just like the codes of chivalry for European knights, the codes of Japanese honor were simply the ideals of the people that wrote them, who were themselves just a small subset of their population. It’s impossible to think that all or even most of the people back then actually abided by them, samurai or not.
And I'm a fan of the AC series. I'm not interested in playing GoT.

Historical accuracy vs believability

While there are definitely significant historical accuracy issues with that portrayal of Yasuke, they’re comparatively minor next to the replacement issue in my mind. Historical accuracy is really only an issue for me in the context of a more general believability issue.
Why would anyone, Assassin or Templar, choose the only black person in Japan as their secret agent in the field? Firsthand accounts describe crowds of onlookers offering money to catch a glimpse of him wherever he went.
An extremely-conspicuous total-outsider is simply the least ideal protagonist in a series about remaining inconspicuous while murdering dozens of people. Previous protagonists could fully navigate their environments because they were a part of them. Knowing their lands, languages, peoples, and cultures and fitting in with them, I can believe that they successfully moved through them while keeping their actions (and names) hidden from the pages of history.
I can even buy that Kassandra and Eivor existed despite “historical accuracy.” Because half the population of any group of people is women, the two could conceivably blend in and be forgotten imo, especially when you consider that they also lived MUCH further back in time. There's much more we don't know about that far back in history.
This might be another thing that's falsely construed as racist, but it's a fact that local populations don't take kindly to singularly-unique foreign outsiders cutting down their friends and loved ones, regardless of who their boss is. Yasuke would’ve been (in)famous and lived on in legends told for generations, even if the Templars tried to erase his historical record. He would've surely been seen and positively identified as Nobunaga’s famous black samurai by hundreds of witnesses as he did all the things the non-stealthy one of the two protagonists does.

“But Leonardo da Vinci didn’t actually help assassins build a hidden blade either...”

The central conceit of the AC series has always been playing with the idea of secret organizations, conspiracies, ancient beings, and sci-fi artifacts being involved with figures and events within the blank spaces of history. Yes, Yasuke’s blanks are big, but again, they wouldn’t be big if he was doing the things we saw in the trailer.
Any believability issues that previous AC games had are multiplied tenfold by Yasuke being a combination of real, black, and not an NPC in Sengoku Japan. It’s a substantial layer of unbelievability added on top of a base that already existed in previous games that did in fact claim some semblance of believability. Yasuke is just on another level, and while I think it’s fine to enjoy him in Shadows as pure fantasy, let’s not pretend he makes any sense. Which brings me to my main issue...

Representation and the replacement issue

Considering the nonsensical nature of Yasuke as a protagonist, it makes his taking the spot as the series’ first Asian male lead in a mainline game all the more off-putting to me. In the best-case scenario, Ubi is simply trying to capitalize on the popular cool black samurai trend as I mentioned. But they’re still doing it at the expense of an Asian male lead.
I admit that western media has gotten a lot better at representation, but it’s still a fairly recent thing and there’s still a long way to go. A recent hot-take of an IGN article made at least one correct claim that Asian representation shouldn’t be confined to ninjas and samurai.
But the solution to the problem isn’t to take away some of the only positive but one-sided representations we have. The solution is to broaden Asian representation to portray them as ordinary people with diverse appearances and personalities in all walks of life. Until that becomes a norm, Asians should be allowed to star as ninjas, samurai, kung fu masters, etc. as long as the depictions aren’t negative caricatures. In fact, they can be gateways to diversifying their portrayals.
If Ubi really wanted to differentiate itself from GoT’s Jin, they could’ve just given Shadows’ samurai a completely different personality instead of lazily changing his race. It’s about time a western dev broke away from the tired stoic warrior trope. "But this is Ubisoft... They're incapable of nuanced portrayals of minorities..." That's cop-out excuse imo.
No one game can reverse decades of marginalization and negative stereotypes, but individual movies, shows, public discourses, and yes, video games make up the collective whole of media, which has a massive impact on perceptions within a society. I believe individual representations make a difference, so I support increased diversity in every piece of media as long as it’s not at the expense of good writing and not at the expense of opportunities for other marginalized groups.

Conclusion

If you read everything this far, thank you. Again, I realize that the game isn’t even out yet and that I may be proven spectacularly wrong somehow. Either way, I can now focus my ire on the excessive monetization and live service BS that Shadows and the Infinity hub will surely have, and you all should too :) Or maybe I'll just touch grass.
NOTE: This post was initially removed from assassinscreed because "it covered a topic covered within the last 7 days." I've since been permanently banned from that subreddit for a separate reason mentioned in the post, so I've reposted here. I revised the original post by adding some points and making it more readable, but it's essentially the same from before.
Mods, please don't remove this or ban me. I spent a lot of time and thought on this, and I think it's respectful to everyone.

During the height of my high regard for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), among the movies of which I had been a major fan were the Captain America releases. At least two of them. The third film in this mini franchise - 2016's "CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR" proved to be a major disappointment for me. However, when I heard that Disney and Marvel Films had plans to air a miniseries about the characters Sam Wilson aka the Falcon and James "Bucky" Barnes aka the Winter Soldier, I must admit that I felt a renewed interest in the franchise again.
When I said a renewal of the MCU franchise, I meant it. Aside from a few movies like "ANT-MAN", "BLACK PANTHER", "CAPTAIN MARVEL" and "ETERNALS"; the MCU had become a major disappointment for me ever since the release of 2015's "THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON". One might ask . . . what about the MCU television productions that aired on the Disney Plus streaming channel? Aside from one production that I somewhat liked and one that I loved, most of them have been disappointing to me. Unfortunately, I have to include this follow-up to the Captain America movies, "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER".
Set six months after 2019's "THE AVENGERS: ENDGAME", "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER" followed former war veteran/Avenger Sam Wilson, who has resumed working the for the U.S. government, while using his role as the Falcon. When the government recruits Sam to track down and deal with a group of enhanced anarchists known as "the Flag Smashers", former World War II veteran/HYDRA tool/Avenger James "Bucky" Buchannan aka the Winter Soldier decides to join Sam in his mission, due to his lingering guilt as a former HYDRA assassin and their shared experiences as Steve Rogers' close friends and battling Thanos and his army.
Since "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER" had aired on the DisneyPlus channel in six episodes, I had seriously considered ranking the episodes. But like Season three of the Marvel Netflix series, "DAREDEVIL", the more I watched "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLIDER", the more it disappointed me. Aside from complaints about its pacing, the limited series had received a great deal of praise from critics and fans alike. Because of this, I believe it was one of the most overrated productions in the MCU history. People had seemed so focused on little moments and scenes that very few had noticed how the series' narrative seemed to be all over the map. For example:
~\Sam Wilson~* - This limited series is supposed to be a follow up to the events of "ENDGAME" in which Sam had received the Captain America shield from an aging Steve Rogers, a sign for him to take up the latter's costumed role. Was this an attempt by Marvel Films/Disney to make Sam a more relevant character? If so, why? Why did a MCU character have to replace Steve as the new Captain America to be more relevant? Why not allow Sam to continue as the Falcon, only push his role to the forefront as one of the franchise's new leading characters? Some might accuse me of not wanting a black man as Captain America, a topic that was brought up in the series. Frankly, I never wanted another character - regardless of race, gender or ethnicity - to become the new Captain America. That includes Bucky Barnes. Allow Steve Rogers to fade into the background and let Sam (as the Falcon) shine as one of the franchise's new leads. However, the die has been cast. One can only sit back and see if moviegoers are willing to accept Sam as the new Captain America.
Perhaps the MCU had to make Sam the new Captain America in order to make him more relevant. Why would I say that? The showrunner for "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER", Malcolm Spellman, came dangerously close to shoving Sam into the role of the second lead or worst, a role he has been since his debut in 2014's "CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER" - a supporting character. During the series' first three or four episodes, someone other than Sam (either Bucky Barnes or Helmut Zemo - two white men) made decisions that allowed the plot to move forward, not Sam. He was simply regulated to being an observer or reactor. The series even managed to undermine Sam's decision not to support the Sokovia Accords in "CIVIL WAR". In thee 2016, Sam became the first Avenger to speak out against the Accords and declare his intentions not to sign it. Yet, according to Bucky in this series, Sam had merely followed Steve's example in rejecting the Accords. And Spellman did nothing to allow Sam to correct this misconception.
~\James "Bucky" Barnes~* - One of the few aspects of "CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR" I found enjoyable proved to be the interactions between Sam Wilson and Bucky Buchannan. Despite their lingering jealousy and competition over the role as "Steve Rogers' best friend", the pair's interactions proved to be very entertaining, thanks to the screen chemistry between Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan. Unfortunately, Mackie and Stan could not save "CIVIL WAR" for me. Nor could they save "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER", due to its problematic writing. A good deal of that writing surrounded Bucky's character. I have so many questions about his role in this series. For example:
-Why would any official of the Joint Counter Terrorist Center allow Bucky to visit and question Helmut Zemo, the man responsible for the U.N. conference bombing in Vienna, in "CIVIL WAR"? That made very little sense to me. Surely the JCTC authorities remembered how Zemo managed to brainwash Bucky into making his own prison break in "CIVIL WAR"? Also, Bucky was on parole for his activities as a brainwashed HYDRA assassin. Yet, the JCTC had allowed him to visit Zemo? Surely, the showrunner could have allowed Sam, who was serving the U.S. government again, to be the one to visit and question Zemo?
-How on earth did Bucky managed to evade being arrested and charged for helping Zemo escape from the JCTC? The U.S. and other governments should have been suspicious of Bucky after learning about his visit to Zemo.
-Bucky came off as an arrogant school jock, who thought he was entitled to get his way - especially in his interactions with Sam. I found it hilarious that many fans had criticized John Walker aka Captain America aka U.S. Agent for such toxic behavior. Yet, they had turned a blind eye to Bucky's own behavior. And so did the series - up until the last two episodes. Why did the showrunner allow Bucky to get away with this behavior toward Sam for so long without any complaints from the latter?
-I did not care how Bucky had bullied his way into Sam's mission without the latter's consent. What I found even more annoying was the U.S. government's decision to allow Bucky to join Sam's mission after that ludicrous "therapy session" they were forced to attend together.
~\Racism -~* A good number of MCU fans had complained about the inclusion of racism in "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER". I had no problems with this direction, considering the story was about Sam, an African-American man, becoming the new Captain America. However, I had a good deal of problems with how the production explored the topic of racism.
The story of Isaiah Bradley, Marvel's second Captain America, had originated in the comics. In the MCU, he was a Korea War veteran whom the United States Army used as one of several unwilling African-American test subjects for their version of the Super Soldier serum. I realize that both Marvel Comics and the MCU had attempted to use Bradley's experience as a metaphor for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The problem is that I cannot see the U.S. government and the Army - both racist organizations in the early 1950s - be willing to risk the possibility of creating a non-white super soldier. Despite the recent desegregation of the Armed Forces in the late 1940s. And both the government and the Army had been more than willing to use white soldiers in other experiments.
After saving a group of black American super soldiers from a prison camp, Bradly was imprisoned by the U.S. government for thirty years. I saw nothing wrong with this twist in the character's narrative, until I remembered two things - Bradley had been able to free his fellow soldiers without anyone's help; and nearly sixty years later, Steve Rogers managed to break into the Raft and free those Avengers who had refused to sign the Sokovia Accord. Why was Bradley unable to free himself from prison? This is the man who had defeated the Winter Soldier by breaking the latter's metal arm. And he was not powerful enough to make a prison break, let alone evade capture?
I had assumed Sam's difficulty in becoming the new Captain America would stem from the government's reluctance to recruit a black man for the position. That would explain their decision to recruit the blond-haired John Walker instead. But the series never really made it clear whether political racism had played a role in Walker's recruitment. The series also had James "Rhodey" Rhodes had paid Sam a visit, emphasizing the importance of the new Captain America being black. As it turned out, Sam's own insecurities about becoming Captain America had more to do with him not initially assuming the role. There was also that interesting scene outside Bradley's Baltimore home where the police arrested Sam during verbal argument with Bucky. Although the cops backed away when they recognized Sam as an Avenger, they ended up arresting the parolee Bucky for missing his required therapy appointment. This scene was supposed to be a case of racial profiling. But . . . we might as well be honest. In the real world, the police would not have backed down from hassling Sam. What I found more disturbing was the production's handling of Bucky's arrest. Once the police discovers that Sam was an Avenger; they turned to arrest Bucky for failing to show up for his missing his therapy session. Not only did the police arrest Bucky with a more gentle behavior, they did so, accompanied by Henry Jackman's mournful score, something that did not accompany the moment of Sam being arrested. Were the audiences expected to notice the hypocrisy and racism in the police's handling of the two men? Expected to feel sympathy for Bucky? Or both?
The last episode featured a scene of two black kids playing with toy Captain America shields. Someone had commented that the shields (especially in the hands of non-white children) represented hope to the future of race relations in the United States. Why? How? This country had a biracial president for EIGHT YEARS. Yet, U.S. racial policies have remained problematic even to this day. I can say the same for other countries. The so-called symbolism of this scene only reminded me of how human beings put so much faith in imagery and symbolism. And this strikes me as a FALSE FAITH. Why was taking up the mantle of a costumed hero that had been previously occupied by a white man, the only way for Sam Wilson to become relevant within the MCU franchise? What was wrong with him being "the Falcon"? Sam becoming the next Captain America was not going to save the U.S. in regard to race relations - not in real life and not in the fictional world of the MCU. Looking back on the series, the series' only scenario that seemed to expose racism in a realistic manner, proved to be Sam's failure to acquire a bank loan for his family's fishing boat in Louisiana.
~\Sharon Carter~* - I am certain many MCU fans are aware of this. One of Marvel Comics' most iconic couples happened to be Steve Rogers aka Captain America and Sharon Carter aka Agent 13. She also happened to be the great-niece of Peggy Carter, Steve's love interest during World War II. Portrayed by Emily VanCamp, Sharon was first introduced as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in "CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER" as a potential love interest for Steve. Despite Sharon's appearance in the following Captain America movie, "CIVIL WAR", their romance never really developed. Many blamed the lack of chemistry between VanCamp and Chris Evans. I never had a problem with their screen chemistry. I had a problem with the lack of relationship development between Sharon and Steve. And I blame Kevin Feige's decision to transform the third Captain America film into a third (and badly written) pseudo Avengers movie. The change in the film's narrative, along with Sharon's failure to appear in "THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR" and "ENDGAME", left no opportunity for Sharon and Steve to become the romantic pair they had been in the comics. Instead, Sharon became a fugitive from the U.S. government after helping Steve and Sam hunt down Bucky, moved to Madripoor, a city-state with no U.S. extradition and became an embittered criminal known as "the Power Broker".
After "CIVIL WAR", nearly five years had passed before Sharon appeared in another MCU production - namely this series. And what happened? The franchise, with Spellman, ended up completely destroying her character by transforming her into the villain known as Power Broker, the criminal leader of an Indonesian city-state called Madripoor. After helping Steve and Sam acquire their suits and equipment in order to go after Bucky in "CIVIL WAR", Sharon lost her job with the C.I.A. and became a fugitive. She eventually moved to Madripoor, a city-state with no U.S. extradition, to evade capture, survived Thanos' Snap and became an embittered criminal nicknamed "the Power Broker" in order to survive the new world.
What really pissed me off about Sharon's arc between "CIVIL WAR" and "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER" is that her development into a major villain all happened OFF SCREEN. Off screen. Apparently, screenwriters for "INFINITY WAR" had written a draft that included Sharon in the movie. But according to Christopher Markus, he and Stephen McFeeley could not imagine scenes featuring Steve and Sharon trying to make it work in an apartment, because the 2018 movie did not have time to focus on their personal life. Why did Marvel simply fail to allow Sharon to be part of Steve's vigilante team - like Sam and Natasha Romanoff? I mean . . . good fucking grief! And why did Malcolm Spellman believe the only way Sharon could be interesting was to become a villain in "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER"? This was his idea of improving Sharon's character?
~\Helmut Zemo aka Baron Zemo~* - Why did Malcolm Spellman, Kevin Feige and the MCU thought it necessary to bring back Helmut Zemo, the Sokovian-born villain from "CIVIL WAR"? What role did he play in "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER"? I realize that Bucky, of all people, visited the incarcerated Zemo to acquire information on who had created the super-soldier serum that empowered the Flag Smashers. But why did he believe Zemo could provide the answer? Because he thought HYDRA was involved? Bucky or Sam could have searched for information from sources other than Zemo, who had been incarcerated for . . . what? Eight years? Eight years. Zemo managed to become something of a crowd-pleaser, thanks to Daniel Brühl's performance. Otherwise, I found his presence in this series unnecessary.
~\The Big Bad~* - Why on earth did it take this series so long to finally reveal the main villain's identity? At first, the series hinted the Flag Smashers, led by Karli Morgenthau. However, the series tossed other potential candidates for the Big Bad before viewers - John Walker, Helmut Zemo and yes, Sharon Carter. But in the end, Morgenthau and her group proved to be the main villains.
The Flag Smashers were a group of empowered people who believed the world was a better place between Thanos' Snap and the Blip (resurrection of those who had died during the Snap), when Humans around the world managed to unite and form a borderless society, one in which people helped others without any thought to nationalism and bias. Thanks to the Avengers, the world resumed its conflicts between nationalities and other groups. In other words, the borders returned.
Frankly, I have nothing against this ideal. Only Ms. Morgenthau and her followers resorted to violence and terrorism to achieve their goals. Does this sound familiar? It should. The Flag Smashers proved to be another example of characters with a progressive goal, resorting to extremism and becoming villains. This seemed to be a growing trend within the franchise, which I believe began with Erik "Killmonger" Stevens aka Prince N'Jadaka in 2018's "BLACK PANTHER". Since then, the MCU has not looked back at its growing roster of progressive villains. Perhaps I should not have been surprised. The franchise's ambiguous portrayal of an unconstitutional document like the Sokovia Accords, should have been the wake-up call. It seemed as if Kevin Feige, Marvel Films and Disney Studios had finally exposed themselves for the faux progressives they pretend to be. Frankly, this form of villainy has become tiresome to me.
After writing this article, I had considered ranking the six episodes featured in "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER" anyway. But I decided against it. My dislike of the series made it impossible for me to even bother. Being a fan of the first two Captain America movies, I had truly hoped this series would redeem the franchise. Unfortunately, it proved to be just as disappointing as "CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR". Pity. Perhaps the fourth film, "CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD" will do the trick. I hope so.

Was Looking at the Teaser trailers with a Friend and she noticed that The flag behind the custodian in the teaser was missing stars(?) and wasn't a Normal American flag! I immediately thought of the purge! It looks like the NFFA flag! We got a Purge Photo Op last year but that was it. What are yalls thoughts?

I’m looking for recommendations for my next bike. I previously had a Diamondback mountain bike, but that was about 8 years ago.
Now I’m wanting to get back into cycling, but now I have a toddler (2y/o) who would love to join me. I’ll need a bike to which I can mount a child seat on the back (either the trailer style or mounted behind my seat, open to opinions on that). Riding with the kid would be on almost exclusively asphalt paved bike/walking trails. Solo riding would be on a combination of that and some light dirt/gravel trails in the woods. No jumps, rocks, or anything aggressive.
Would a gravel bike be the most appropriate category I should look in? I’m really out of the loop on brands and models, so specific recommendations are appreciated. I’m in the US, so North American availability is a must.