Punished Shota

"His power level is over 9000? That's nothing, Gohan. When you grow up, you're gonna learn big numbers aren't everything." "But—" "Just listen: I have to blow into a little tube when I start my car." "Okay." "It's called an Ignition Interlock Device. Court ordered. It detects my blood alcohol concentration level." "Uh huh. "And if it's over 0.08%, I can't drive." "Wow." "Zero point zero eight, Gohan. That's all it takes to get a DWI. Remember that." "Okay." "Zero point zero eight." "Zero point zero eight." "And then it won't matter what your power level is because you won't be able to drive 6 blocks down to the nearest ABC liquor on a Friday night, and get yourself a little treat for being such a great coach." "Huh." "It's a travesty, Gohan!" "A travesty." "And I'm living it. I'm living the travesty." "Coach, if you don't mind me asking—" "Hm?" "Couldn't you just walk?" [pft] "Walk." "It's only six blocks..." "What's the furtherest you've ever walked, Gohan?" "Well—" "Cause I'll tell you right now: you get an apartment on the wrong side of town, you're gonna learn some blocks are longer than others." "—actually, everyone in my family can fly." "Really?" "Really." "Huh. That must be very convenient for you." "Coach, can I ask another question?" "Shoot." "Why's it called a DWI?" "Nobody knows, Gohan. They used to call it a DUI, but they changed it." "..." "And no one knows why."

"Grandpa, what were movies like before the Collapse?" “Before the Collapse?” “Yeah. Grandma says you guys were always watching films and stuff on your handheld computers.” “Actually, we mostly let our AR Smart Glasses sear AI-generated futa-furry gangbangs directly onto our retinas while cute animal-girl Vtubers fatally injected untested grey market peptides in a desperate bid for hundreds of views. “Uh.” “But there were movies too, yeah.” “What were they like?” “Pure magic. Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul.” “Wow.” “Ingmar Bergman.” “Gesundheit.” “No that’s—” “It does sound magical, Grandpa.” “It was. And we spent all our time arguing about it online.” “Arguing? Why?” “Because all art is political, Billy.” “All art, Grandpa?” “Mhm.” “Even the AI-generated futa-furry gangbangs?” “Sure. Take the Lion King.” “Was that an AI-generated futa-furry gangbang?” “No, it was a film.” “Oh. “I mean, there was fan art.” “Okay.” “Not all of it was AI though.” “Um.” “Anyway, the naive viewer could interpret the film as a bildungsroman about a guilt-ridden youth who flees his homeland and carelessly squanders his virile prime while singing Hakuna Matata with grotesque but affable social outcasts, until the re-appearance of the Feminine forces him to reckon with the demands of Manhood and mature, assuming the Mantle of Duty and re-taking his proper place in the great Circle of Life.” “Uh, sure. I haven’t seen it. The Collapse, remember?” “But actually the film is an anti-democratic Moldbugian ethno-revanchist screed extolling the virtues of hereditarian monarchy, starring a race of square-jawed, long-haired, pure-bloods who gleefully hunt and consume the rightfully subjugated citizenry.” “Uh.” “The Divine Order is only undermined when a weak, effete degenerate in the royal family commits regicide and sells out the country in an act of venal prebendalism to his insurrectionist coalition, a dysgenic lower race—delightfully played by Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin—whose churlish stupidity and insatiable appetites plunge the land into perpetual disorder and famine-ridden kleptocracy.” “Wow.” “In the end, the vile usurper is overthrown by the divine heir and consumed by the perfidious barbarian immigrants he once foolishly thought he could control.” “Man. It sounds like movies were really heavy.” “They were. Mr. Bean played a cartoon bird.” “I don’t know who that is. Again, the Collapse…” “Or take Cars. On first blush, it seems like the straightforward tale of a young hotshot racer who learns that while it’s important to be competitive, people matter and winning isn’t everything.” “…and it wasn’t.” “Of course not! It’s a nationalist-nostalgia-cum-anti-globalist manifesto about the hideous and pernicious ways neo-liberal ‘‘‘progress’’’ ravages our small communities, crushing the common man’s wages and spirit.” “That sounds miserable.” “Or take Frozen, a paean to radical self-sovereignty, featuring the libertarian Power Ballad ‘Let It Go’.” “Grandpa.” “And don’t even get me started on Zootopia and how it exposes the insidious Eweish conspiracy to incite a race war and sow chaos in our beleaguered inner cities.” “GRANDPA!” “Eh?” “This all sounds unbearable. There must have been at least 𝘰𝘯𝘦 movie that wasn’t political.” “Well…there was Minions.” “Okay.” “A story of a bunch of funny little yellow guys who are always looking for a bad guy boss and unwittingly become heroes in 1960s Great Britain.” “Okay, see, that sounds like something I might actually watch—” “But in reality, the minion represents the eternal brownshirt: the herd of homogenous conformists, spiritual serfs who seek to be ruled by a strong man, forever indifferent to ideology.” “Oh for God’s sake.” “The sequel, Rise of Gru, lacked this clarity of vision. A big step down.” “Grandpa, I’m sorry, but I just—I don’t buy it.” “Don’t buy what, Billy?” “You’re telling me that not only was every movie political, but they all validated and reinforced your idiosyncratic political ideology?” “Careful, Billy. You’re starting to sound Media Literate.” “Media Literate?” “People who were Media Literate believed they could understand the intentions of the creator and what any film meant, given its themes and context.” “Okay.” “Which is stupid, because I always knew what these films meant and these morons always disagreed with me.” “Grandpa.” “If you saw the kind of bug-loving bullshit I had to deal with every time Starship Troopers showed up on the timeline.” “Grandpa!” “Eh?” “I’m not saying Art can’t have politics in it or anything, but like, I think that Bergman guy was saying films are something more, you know?” “Well—” “That art speaks in an ineffable language and every time we try to compress it into meager words, something, like, truly vital is lost.” “Maybe.” “Something that touches our souls.” “I get what you’re saying, Billy. But the next time you watch Starship Troopers, you should think about how much these morons wish they were bugs.” [sigh]“I can’t watch Starship Troopers Grandpa.” “Ah right because of the—” “Collapse.” “Yeah, yeah.” “…” “I keep forgetting.” “…” “…you ever see Point Break?” --- [r][title: All Art is Political]