In which I speak a bit more on (NEO) TWEWY, Shinjuku's Reapers, and JP workplaces

So to add on a little bit more to some thoughts I had in relation to Challenges in Localization And Cultural Nuance and mageknight14's good analysis on Shoka Not Having Had The Best Family Life, both of which touch on Japanese businesses and how they're run, I'd like to expound a bit more on how the whole Shinjuku Reaper situation really is a series of two separate (and yet, as it turns out, somewhat related) cultural contexts. One of these is that Shinjuku, particularly Kabuchi-cho (which if/when we see the strongly hinted Shinjuku Interquel I fully expect to see that localized as "Kabuki Backstreets" or "Kabuki Alley" or something similar), has had a historical rep as a "red-light" district, and as a fairly major spot for Yakuza and similar organized crime activity. (And there are entire franchises that focus on THIS aspect of Shinjuku, as well.) The other context, which is probably not as familiar to Americans (who are more likely to have played one of the Yakuza games), is that Shinjuku is one of the areas that is a major business hub within Tokyo metro proper. (Square Enix actually moved their headquarters to Shinjuku around 2012 or so after having moved from Yayoi--a part of Shibuya we've never seen in a TWEWY game--and is ironically moving back to Shibuya next year in the Sakuragaoka area just south of Mark City.) And as it turns out, the Shinjuku Reapers and their situation are a MASSIVE parody of how Japanese businesses are run (particularly how certain trends culturally can result in a business--or a Game--becoming highly dysfunctional). So. Japanese businesses have (in comparison to US businesses) a lot of stratification and (although this is changing somewhat) there's still kind of the ideal that if you get into an actual business (versus, say, working at the Lawson or the Family Mart or 7-Eleven) where you're wearing a suit and tie, you're essentially set for Life as long as you don't rock the boat. Historically, this even extended to your prospects of a Forever Job being tied to what college and even what high school you attended (hence why there has been such an incredible pressure with kids being sent to cram schools to get into a good high school, and then get into a good college, as good employers tended to hire directly out of specific colleges). And there's not really the Layoff Culture there is in the US, and generally the main reason someone leaves a business in Japan involves retirement, involves (especially in creative fields) some irreconcilable differences with the board of directors, or some kind of a Scandal where one has seriously hecked up and been Removed. (Again, this is changing some, especially for younger folks, and in part the NEET culture (Not in Education, Employment or Training) is kind of a rebellion against this social pressure, but right now I'm focusing on how typical businesses are run once you manage to get into a suit-and-tie occupation in Japan.) So once you do get IN a company, there's a LOT of societal pressure to really devote everything to company success--not just in terms of working late/working OT, but even societal obligations of going to Company Dinners where you go drinking with your boss/supervisor, social events, morning exercise with the company, etc. that honestly has had a history of lending itself to abuse (karoshi, or literally working yourself to death, IS a phenomena in Japan to the point there have been workplace laws to try to reduce the abuse). Aggretsuko is actually another bit of popular media that explicitly calls out a lot of the more abusive practices like power harassment and the demands a company places on workers, etc. Cells At Work! Code BLACK actually depicts someone dying of an abusive workplace...as the stereotypical abusive "black company", the Japanese slang term for a particularly abusive corporate sweatshop.

HELLO! I just penned a little missive on Cherry Magic, and I wanted to ask you the following question. Please forgive me if this has been asked before or if you've written on it!

I wrote in my Cherry Magic post the following: "There’s something I’m pondering about the BL trope of an individual having a queer revelation only after being approached with the opportunity. I want to pose this question to expert viewers of the genre, but what I’m wondering is whether or not the nations from which these shows hail, view this revelatory experience as one being on a/the sexuality spectrum, or if it’s expected to be a one-time episode of queerness that wouldn’t necessarily repeat itself in an individual’s life."

Do you have any thoughts on this? I really have no idea what, say, the general Japanese or Korean public think about spectrum expressions or identifications. I think I've read about this phenomenon in the past as being "queer only for you," but in the wider scope of BL and LGBT art, I do wonder if there's a beautiful conversation lurking out there about existing on the sexuality spectrum and whether or not there are shows out there that explore this. I guess KinnPorsche touched on it with Porsche as a bisexual lead?

(I also noted later in the Cherry Magic post that in the later volumes of the Old Fashion Cupcake manga, that Togawa "outs" Nozue as "not gay," which I think is a curious identification that relates to my question above.)

THANKS, if you have the time to offer your thoughts!

Collectivism & Identity Politics

I would posset that what your picking up on may be a fundamental difference between ask and guess cultures. Not to mention collectivism versus individualism. 

When you exist in a sphere where your identity is far more enmeshed with your social interactions, who you are as a person is, fundamentally, defined in part by who you are with and how you fit into the social fabric of your surroundings. Just think about how Thai pronouns change depending on who you are with, including the “I” pronoun. 

Think about the whole honorific system and how names (titles) change according to social status and power dynamics. I mean just think about that for a second, your OWN name, your very selfness, changes depending on who you are with. 

In Thailand it isn’t, “When a tree falls, does it make a sound?” it’s 

“What word for “I” do I use, when I am alone? 

Under those circumstances, would not attraction be more a factor of feedback and encounters rather than self reflection and epiphany?

It is not, in the end, a lack of self awareness, but the fact that the "self" is defined differently in different culture. Identity is defined differently. If the self is partly (or wholly) made up of social connections as well as the individual’s personal feelings, than all notions of self (including sexual identity) are informed by connections with others.

That got very cerebral but I hope it makes sense.

Why Linguistics is Important to Understanding BL

As to ownership of gayness, or queer spectrum identifiers/monikers, I talk about that (as an introduced concept) with regards to Thailand and the complexities around the word “gay” in this post. It applies somewhat to Japan as well, who also will use the English word. Korea uses the English word for a romantic “kiss.” Imagine what that says about the culture and its perception of kissing! 

A collectivist approach to identity by its nature may be both more fixed (if the group is focused on denial) or less so (if the group has the attitude of “who you’re with is who you are”) because the group is doing the primary defining of identity. 

So Togawa may identify as gay where Nozue does not (or considers himself bi/pan) or doesn't think ownership of an identity actually matters because ultimately the group will decide based on who he is partnered with. Because unlike in most Western parts of the world, the perception of others actually does genuinely inform your own identity.

Putting aside gay for you, a collectivist culture which is accepting of ranging sexualities is going to define you by who you are with and not really think or care about what label you wish to apply to yourself, because that is less relevant than your apparent network. (Although this happens to bi folks all the time, at least if asked or if given conversational leeway we can correct the assumption as required.) Until tha identity impacts the network at which point it may come to be perceived as a threat. (Which is often the case with families and homosexuality.) 

Much in the way in Thailand you can queer code verbally (particles), in the west we tend to queer code visually (how we dress, do our hair, etc...) in a collectivist culture queer coding is probably going to be through partnering, (but then lack of public intimacy will make that challenging). 

In these dramas until quite recently (and mostly Thailand) ownership of an identity like gay or bi or pan is extremely rare and when stated, did so using the English word. And because it's an English word it carries with it a ton of baggage, not the least of which is an individualistic aura.

(On a complete aside, conflicts over individualism v collectivism culture in Hong Kong and, probably eventually, Taiwan are the biggest barriers to reintegration/unity/occupation. But because mainland China is both collectivist and guess culture, they will never understand why violence, revolt, riots, protests, and identity defense is not just expected, but required of the younger generations at any attempted union/occupation.) 

Please don’t assume I have any personal skin in this game as to whether individualism or collectivism in better or worse. I don’t think it is wise to make a moral, ethical, or value judgement on culture. 

(source) 

Ever since the Great Porn Banning I've been mostly on Twitter to boost my writing. Twitter is a way better networking tool for writers, even post-Elon, but because of that and other reasons it's also a cesspool for failsoldiers of conservative culture wars. So much time has passed that most of them made professional accounts and started genuinely trying to engage with art but they all type like this, some a little worse and some a little better, and I've been racking my brain for a framework to describe it to people who aren't familiar with it for so long. Like, I genuinely want to write a little article about this phenomenon without naming any of my test subjects, partially because I don't want to give them any inadvertent advertising and partially because a lot of them genuinely don't want to be known outside of their own little subculture.

Anyways, might as well post these thoughts publicly to see if anyone has feedback

Time for a New Pinned Post

Hi, I'm Drew Cook. I'm probably best known for my long-form criticism of 1980s text adventure games by a company called Infocom. They made thirty-five games in total, and are probably best-known for the Zork trilogy of games. My interests as a critic are mostly cultural and historical. For instance, I choose to look at Zork through a post-colonial lens.

My work has been featured at Critical Distance many times, including their "2022 Year in Videogame Blogging" roundup.

When I stick to my posting schedule (every two weeks), I get around five hundred unique visitors a month. That's pretty large for such a niche topic. Reactions to the site have made me very happy. It's called Gold Machine. Come pay me a visit!

I have also collaborated with Callie Smith on a few podcast episodes about Infocom games. It's called Gold Microphone. Unfortunately, we haven't had time to update it in a long, long while. We still want to get back to it. Last time I checked, it was on all major podcasting platforms.

I also write parser interactive fiction. My first game, Repeat the Ending, is a work of speculative metafiction about grief, mental illness, and the second law of thermodynamics. I tried to resist the tendency of parser games to be about things, focusing instead on narrative, psychological portraiture, and lots and lots of paratext. In fact, one of its themes is concerned with the limitations of parser-based narratives. It's been well-received so far, and earned ribbons for Best in Show, Best Art, and Best Writing in Spring Thing 2023. You can check it out here (linked below) and read some nifty extras, including the source code. Note the "play online" button at top right, and don't forget to save your game!

Feel free to ask me anything about game criticism, RTE, or even my work in progress. Or something else, it's cool.

I'm considered disabled due to the severity and prognosis of my mental illness. I'm not going anywhere with that; I'm just saying.

If you enjoy any of my projects, including my recently started posts about Inform 7 for beginners, consider telling your friends about it/them, or even rating Repeat the Ending at IFDB if you felt it was worthwhile. I do all of this for free, and always will, so knowing people find value in my work is what motivates me.

Why the Sea Fok are That Way

So many readers hate the Sea Folk. Or, they think a lot of things about the Sea Folk are cool, until they get to aCoS, and the Sea Folk fail to bend over backwards in awe and admiration of Our Heroes, and Opinions regarding them take a sharp nose-dive.  Even the occasional Sea Folk fave like Shalon having an affair with Ailil as they attempt espionage against each other, or Talaan wanting to run away to the White Tower, tend to be viewed as further reasons to hate on the Sea Folk, for suppressing Talaan’s dreams or condemning Shalon to a life of heteronormativity.  

So why the hate for the Atha’an Miere?  From what I can see, it largely has to do with their demeanor and lack of respect for the characters the readers identify with. Many also view the bargain they made with Nynaeve and Elayne as excessive and hate that it gives them a leg up over our girls the Aes Sedai and, to a lesser degree, Rand.  Many readers make certain assumptions about the roles of those two parties, namely that they are supposed to be In Charge and leading everyone else at Tarmon Gaidon. Except, of course, that is because that’s how the characters see it, and Robert Jordan had other things in mind, and was now pulling the rug out from under their complacency.  Because fighting the Shadow is supposed to be a cooperative effort, not a march to glory for the Dragon Reborn and Amyrlin Seat (and their best friends, of course).  The Sea Folk coming into the story mostly in a book named after the pains and irritations of power, is not an accident, and part of Jordan’s way of telling us “Well, actually...” in regard to the aforementioned misconception.  (Cadsuane shows up here too, is part of this same trend in the narrative, and is also hated by a great many readers for many of the same reasons).  I’ll get into why they behave as they do, under a cut.

So why are the Sea Folk such pushy assholes? Because they are the Sea Folk.  They live on the sea, almost entirely.  Crossing the ocean is not a necessary evil for them, it is their home and lifestyle.  Which means sailing on ships, with strict discipline and tight teamwork absolutely necessary for survival.  In the wetlands, there is a lot of margin for error.  The Coplins and Congars screw up in the Two Rivers, it doesn’t drag down the rest of the community too much, their neighbors can give them some minimal aid to get them over the hump, and look down their noses at them until they start pulling their weight.  In the Three-fold Land, a screw up dies of thirst or exposure, or gets killed in battle, and life goes on.  But in the ocean, the optimal operation of a ship is what protects you from death, and anyone who endangers that, can doom everyone else, no matter how good the rest of the team is, or how hard they are working.  Bayle Domon is not being an asshole when he kicks Floran Gelb off his boat; failing to tie down a boom is lethally dangerous.  It takes out a Trolloc in armor, so imagine what it would do to a smaller and squishier sailor or passenger.  And that’s just with the ship anchored for the night.  Imagine it suddenly swinging out of control while they are moving swiftly down the river. Even if all it does is distract the crew, that could put them on the rocks.  At least that river can be swum if the worst happens.  A comparable error on the ocean, and everyone is dead. 

This explains, as is referenced in the text, their discipline and hierarchy and expectation of absolute obedience. It also explains the curt manner many Sea Folk authority figures have, that rubs the wetlander PoV characters the wrong way.  When you need to give life or death orders, there is often no time for formalities and ceremony (for instance, the Aiel “I see you” greeting being used even when reporting to a chief in the midst of a battle) and they very often have to give orders in stressful conditions and in environments where hearing and sight are compromised (such as the middle of a storm).  This could also explain the way they get snitty about courtesies being followed and displays of ceremony at other times.  Displays of respect when life-or-death orders are not being given helps reinforce the status of the person with the authority so it sticks in one’s mind that this is a person to be obeyed, while also demonstrating to the authority figure that those showing respect understand the hierarchy.  With outsiders, respect is necessary for equitable dealings,  People who don’t respect you, will not feel compelled to hold up their end of the deal, hence the need for such demonstrations even in the real world, even between mortal enemies.  A shorebound official who fails to honor the Sea Folk properly is one who might not feel compelled to honor their agreements, either. Maybe it is innocent ignorance or miscommunication, but ignorance and  miscommunication can also ruin a deal with no malice intended.

The maritime lifestyle of the Sea Folk means that there are not a whole lot of crops or natural resources available to them on the ocean, and ships are expensive.  So they make their living as traders.  Not transporters, as in hauling  others’ cargo and passengers, or selling their own goods, but as middlemen, buying low from one part, and selling high to another, which necessitates their famous bargaining skills, to buy goods at the lowest possible price and sell them at the highest possible price, to maximize their income.  Where a transport business or a merchant in common commodities needs to adhere to the maxim that the customer is always right, because the former is in a service industry while the latter can be easily replaced by a competitor, the Sea Folk appear to specialize in trading rare and valuable commodities (silk, porcelain, ivory, lenses) not readily available to others, but which they can obtain with their ability and willingness to sail where others can or will not, and for which the demand will almost always overcome suspicion of outsiders when they offer them in trade. 

However, being a mercantile culture also means that you need to be reliable and trustworthy. In a society where there is no enforcement of contracts or whose authorities lack the ability to fully enforce contracts, reputation is critical.  If a merchant can’t be relied upon to deliver what they promise, or pay for what they want, doing business with them is ruinous, no matter the value of their goods. This means that however hard they might bargain, the Sea Folk need to earn and keep a reputation for delivering what they promise, especially on top of the resentment they face as successful outsiders.  We get a few glimpses of this trait in their dealings with Rand and Elayne.  Zaida persuades Elayne to allow the Aes Sedai in the Royal Palace to teach the Windfinders as a gesture of good faith while awaiting the completion of their bargain, but after the city comes under siege, she allows the employment of Windfinders in making gateways to supply the city and Palace, in payment for that teaching.  It was not part of the original agreement and a strict-constructionist interpretation of the deal would say that they had no obligation to Elayne, since she set no price for the teaching.  Though the extra teaching was given in token of the promise of Aes Sedai teachers, it was not part of their original bargain, so the Sea Folk felt an obligation to repay it.   We see also in Harine and Shaon’s conversation that while earlier in the same book she had been stridently demanding her end of the Bargain made with Rand, she is also operating out of loyalty to him.  While she wants to find Rand, it is not solely to nag him for the lands and other perks of the Bargain, she is also seeking to protect him from the machinations of the Aes Sedai, even, she claims, at the expense of retaliation for the inadvertent insult offered her (and by extension, the Atha’an Miere as a whole) by the First Consul. 

“I would like to put Aleis’ eyeteeth on a string - walking away from me without so much as a word! - but not at the expense of letting Cadsuane mesh the Coramoor in some trouble here.”

Rand has not asked this of her, nor has he given her anything to make Harine feel she owes him in return.  In the eyes of the Sea Folk, who adhere to a strictly delineated and unified chain of command, Cadsuane has to somehow be working for the Coramoor, so they approached her to demand his fulfilment of the Bargain, only to be subject to the wrath of Cadsuane, which makes both Aes Sedai and rulers nervous. While she may have set them straight on her relationship and subordination to Rand (or lack thereof) their experience with Cadsuane cannot have endeared Rand to them. If anything, his failure to provide an authorized spokesman to deal with them is another problem they have with him.  But in spite of all that, Harine is still doing her best to help and protect Rand.  She might have negotiated for a deal that requires more of him than he wishes, but she is committed to Team Rand, above and beyond the strict provisions of their Bargain. 

The customs of the Sea Folk, and their necessity in following them, affects their perception of the shorebound, and that, in turn, informs their dealings.  The first word we have of the Sea Folk’s relations with outsiders is their discussion of Jullin Sandar. 

The thief-catcher is a good man, even considering that he is shorebound ...Twice he has found those who pilfered from us, and found them quickly.  Another shoreman would have taken longer so he might ask more for the work.

We see from this, that despite sailing all over the known world, and staying as brief a time in foreign ports as they can manage (especially since they would not be using Tear for refitting or overhauling the ship), the Wavedancer’s crew has had multiple instances of theft in Tear alone, as well as presumably other shorebound ports, and have had sufficient experience of local hirelings that Juilin Sandar stands out to them for his competence and integrity.  The forefront concept is the positive depiction of Juilin (which needs perhaps a small bit of buffering in the Wondergirls’ eyes after his [unwilling] betrayal previously), but how bad have their experiences with both thieves and law enforcement, been that basic good service is remarkable to Coine?

A modern reader might huff over the prejudicial assumptions which Coine shows no qualms of repeating to a couple of shorebound passengers, but this is not prejudice, this is experience.  There is no “pre” about it.  The Sea Folk do not have the full picture of the shorebound and their history and culture, as we see in Shalon’s ignorance of the history discussed in Far Madding, all they have to go on is their experience in dealing with the shorebound themselves. 

Real world observation of mercantile cultures, or at least minority cultures whose members fulfil a mercantile function within a majority culture, shows us the Jews in Europe, Lebanese in Africa, Armenians in Turkey and the Chinese outside of China, in most countries with a Pacific or Indian Ocean coastline. Even a cursory knowledge of world history will show how the trading services of these peoples fail to be appreciated, and the ethnic groups in question not exactly embraced.  The Sea Folk might have ships to escape the pogroms and other dangers of being a minority who profits from dealings with the majority, but they do still need to do business to make a living, and the high cost of acquiring their trade goods and bringing them to their customer means they need to push hard to achieve a sustainable income.  Doubtless the endemic thievery the Wavedancer has encountered, and desultory efforts by local authorities to rectify these incidents, as well as extortionate services provided by local contractors, are manifestations of these resentments.  It is noted in the Big White Book and in Mat’s stream of consciousness, that southerners have a reputation for hard work and industry to the rest of the wetlands, but this is not apparently the experience of the Sea Folk, whose major trading partners would all be coastal and southern nations of Tear, Illian, Mayene, Altara and Tarabon (as well as Arad Domon, who have their own issues with negotiation ethics).  In many ways, the Sea Folk have a situation like the folk of Luca’s menagerie, who immediately begin packing to leave following a confrontation with Seanchan soldiers.  Despite the local authorities cracking down on the attempts to cheat the show, and despite their warrants from the same authorities, in practice, an intolerant population will find ways around the most tolerant authorities, regardless of the long term detriment to the people themselves.  When the Jews were expelled from Spain, it was the Catholic primate of the country who asked “Who will make our shoes?”  His congregation did not care.  Hence the Sea Folk habits of bargaining hard, and not trusting the shorebound any more than they have to and not giving Our Heroes the respect readers believe they are entitled to as protagonists, knowing that Rand and Nynaeve and Elayne would never be a party to such abuses (on the other hand, Egwene, whatever her personal feelings on war crimes, seems to lean toward the side of pragmatism and anti-authoritarianism when it comes to giving orders that might upset one’s racist followers or curtail their tendency to racially motivated violence; who can say how she would handle a crisis in her jurisdiction with her constituency attacking or cheating the Sea Folk, if she really thought it would endanger her political position - you can’t say for sure, even with the good guys).

The primary issue that sets the Sea Folk at odds with Our Heroines, is the use of channeling by their Windfinders.  As with their hierarchy and discipline, the Windfinders are critical to their survival.  Deep sea sailing vessels need reliable winds and are at the mercy of the weather they encounter.  Storms can destroy them in spite of the crews’ best efforts, and a lack of wind on the open sea can kill the crew.  The Sea of Storms, south of the main continent is roughly an equivalent distance from the equator on the world maps, to what are called the “horse latitudes” in the real world, south of the cemaros, or trade winds, we see bringing the Seanchan invasion fleet to Ebou Dar.  Horse latitudes are called such, because in these belts, there was little wind and calm seas, which slowed journeys across the oceans so much, that it was often necessary to kill the horses aboard to either save on watering them or in some cases, to eat.  Traveling between the main continent and their islands might very well take the Sea Folk into those dead areas, where they need Windfinders just to move their ships.  They are also needed to suppress storms, help defend the ships, and any number of other things for which the One Power is an irreplaceable or impossible-to-match resource. And beyond their value as assets, they are kindred and compatriots of the other Sea Folk.  They love them and need them. 

Officially, the White Tower does not recruit, but in practice, we see how Aes Sedai deal with a woman whom they want to train who does not reciprocate their eagerness.  The White Tower prefers to be asked and petitioned, over asking themselves, but they have all sorts of ways to make people ask for something the Tower wants to do, and ways to make those who get stubborn about asking, regret it.  In practice, the Aes Sedai perspective is that all channelers should come to the Tower for training, and the attitude of various PoV sisters who observe a population of female channelers who are not doing so, is not to lament their unwillingness, but a determination to see that they do come.  Furthermore, Egwene and Elayne, the two main characters most sympathetic to the Aes Sedai, sincerely believe the White Tower could and would coerce would-be Windfinders to come to the White Tower as initiates anyway. 

With that in mind, how can you blame the Sea Folk for believing the exact same thing, that the Tower wants all women who can channel, and can and will take them.  This is a belief widespread in both the wetlands, the Three-fold Land and among the Sea Folk, whose perception is “Supposedly the White Tower was like some mechanical contrivance that ground up thrones and reshaped them to its will.”  Their strategy is hide their channeling population from the Aes Sedai by keeping them away from sisters, and pretending they are not hiding anything, but that there is very little worth looking for.  

So for Nynaeve and Elayne to show up at the flagship of the entire Sea Folk nation, asking to talk to the Windfinders, is both a power move and a threat. Any Aes Sedai doing as much to any ship would be like having a uniformed SS officer knocking on your door and asking to speak to the Jews hiding in your attic. The girls are just going to the top to get face time with someone who can authorize their request, as they have become accustomed ever since being sent out of the Tower carrying warrants from the Amyrlin Seat, and in their dealings with the Tairens as friends of the Dragon Reborn, with the Aiel as acquaintances of the leader of their expeditionary force, with the Panarch of Tarabon, the Prophet of the Lord Dragon and Tylin, but for the rank-and-hierarchy conscious Sea Folk, it comes across as sending a message.  Then they lay the news on the Atha’an Miere leadership that they have a line on an artifact that appears as legendary to the Sea Folk as the Horn of Valere would be to the shorebound. 

This conveys a sense of immense danger to the Sea Folk.  Mentioning the Bowl of the Winds makes them seem impressive, and the casual demonstration of how much of what the Sea Folk thought were well-guarded secrets they already knew, signals the threat is not merely theoretical, but practical.  Their primary defense is gone, the Tower knows their weakness.  Now they have to prevent the Tower from doing the thing they have feared for 3,000 years, taking away their relatives (e.g. Harine, who would not just lose her closest advisor and most valuable member of her crew, but also the big sister who raised and cared for her and comforted her when she was afraid of the dark) and personnel assets they crucially need to maintain their lifestyle and economic survival. 

When you boil it all down, that’s what the bargain they make with Nynaeve and Elayne is all about. The survival of their people, through a guarantee that the White Tower will not take their Windfinders. All the various provisions within are a means to that end.  Ostensibly, it is a trade of knowledge, because in politics, it is rude to try to answer threats that have not been explicitly made, and makes you look fearful, and it’s bad bargaining to try to negotiate against a gambit that has not been played. So while the Aes Sedai, in the persons of Nynaeve and Elayne, are asking for the unique weather skills of the Windfinders to fix the  Dark One’s alterations to the world’s climate, the Sea Folk ask in return, knowledge to balance what they are giving.  Rather than a figuratively huge piece of lore that no other channelers can match (as we later learn from Moridin’s PoV, not even in the Age of Legends), the Sea Folk instead ask for a quantity of more common knowledge to match in scope what they will be giving the Aes Sedai in scale.  

But how do you match one piece of knowledge against another?  The thing about bargaining for knowledge, is that you don’t know, by definition, what is available.  Imagine an alien from a high-tech society owes you a favor, so he gives you a credit marker for one item of technology that you can use freely and replicate all you want here on Earth.  You walk into their workshop or warehouse or equivalent of Best Buy, and what do you ask for?  How do you know what they can do?  Do you ask for a space ship, only to find out after getting it that they have interstellar teleportation, or that the ship is not compatible with purposes we would want it for?  What would you offer a primitive tribesman if the tables were turned? How would you know what you have that would most suit his needs?  Wouldn’t he be the best judge of that?  So the Sea Folk don’t bargain for a specific piece or area of knowledge, but instead for the service of a group of teachers for a time, to give them the opportunity to find out the capabilities of the Aes Sedai, and to better arm themselves against the day if and when the Tower comes for their girls anyway.  They also obtain the right to go to the Tower to study, to keep the Tower from dumping a bunch of weak or ignorant noobs on the Sea Folk as teachers.  They insist on the teachers living under Sea Folk law, because what if the teachers refuse to teach, or stall, until the year of service is up?  They need to be able to enforce the repayment of their bargain. 

All of this might seem extreme, but remember, firstly the general human experience of middleman minorities, and the particular Sea Folk experience of shorebound that they A. steal frequently, and B. don’t make honest efforts.  Sure, there are Juilin Sandars among the shorebound (Nynaeve and Elayne, most notably) who would deal straightforwardly with them and make a sincere effort, but they have no way of identifying them. On top of this, is their perception of the White Tower both in its worldly power, and its trustworthiness.  And they are not wrong in this matter.  

First of all, while the Tower might not directly rule the nations or control the rulers, they can use various other forms of influence to make life difficult for the Sea Folk in any port.  The Sea Folk, for instance, tolerate a Tairen pilot even though they don’t need his help, because they want to be welcome back in Tear.  They want sovereign territory from the rulers they negotiate with, precisely because they want to be relieved of their constant worry about rulers interfering with their trade or local laws being twisted against them.  The White Tower might agree to leave the Windfinders alone, only taking those who come voluntarily, and then all of a sudden, the Sea Folk might find that they are not allowed to dock or trade in any port, and Aes Sedai are murmuring sympathetically while dropping hints that they could use their influence to reopen the ports, if the Tower gets a sufficient quantity of “volunteer” novices from the Sea Folk... 

And the Aes Sedai absolutely do negotiate in bad faith.  We see an example when Coiren makes a deal with the Shaido.  When Sevanna places a condition, Coiren says “...your service deserves what you ask.” Katerine’s perspective confirms that the wording was deliberate, to make the Shaido believe Coiren had agreed, when of course, she has done nothing of the sort.  Here’s the thing, though.  Coiren is bound by the Three Oaths.  She can’t say something she does not believe is true.  Coiren believes the Shaido deserve what they are asking for, but she still arranges for the Aes Sedai to cheat them. Later on, we see they do, in fact, fulfil their end, so it’s not like they had some objection to the demand, they simply leave themselves an out to cheat the Shaido of their reward if it had been convenient or more practical for the Aes Sedai down the road.  

While the Sea Folk do not know about this particular incident, even remote backwater places like the Two Rivers have heard that “the truth an Aes Sedai tells is not always the truth you think you hear” and that “an Aes Sedai’s gift always has a hook in it.”  Marin al’Vere, misandrist extraordinaire, and dispenser of awful relationship advice, tells her daughter that the stories about Aes Sedai are just fool men’s nonsense, except we see with Moiraine, considered by many fans to be the ideal sister all the others should aspire to be like, in her conduct with the Two Rivers folk, that those aphorisms are, in fact, dead on the money: Moiraine gives the three ta’veren a gift with a One Power weave that makes them susceptible to her orders and allows her to track them.  If that is not a  figurative hook, then nothing is.  And when Perrin returns home and observes Tam & Abel trying to keep that saying in mind in their dealings with Alanna and Verin, he notes how in his experience, Aes Sedai set the hook anyway, even if you won’t take her gift. 

If these sayings have penetrated the Two Rivers, and the Two Rivers’ characters’ experience has not changed their outlook by nearly the middle of the series, while spending more time with one of the best Aes Sedai, you can bet the Sea Folk are aware of that reputation and are keeping it in mind when negotiating to save their people, their kin folk and their way of life. 

More than a few people complain about how the Sea Folk treat the Aes Sedai who teach them, but again, they are operating under the assumption that shorebound in general and Aes Sedai in particular, will try to cheat.   What experience they have with what teachers they get, does nothing to change their minds, as the Aes Sedai make every effort to evade fulfilling their obligation, and Merilille, who made her own agreement to teach, actually runs away, while the sister they bring home from Caemlyn makes similar efforts. 

And let’s not forget the White Tower’s view of the bargain, that everything else is “small potatoes next to” letting the Sea Folk sisters quit being Aes Sedai. 

In fact, it was part of the bargain with them that Atha’an Miere sisters be allowed to give up being Aes Sedai and return to their ships. The Hall of the Tower would not half howl about that.

Most of what seems to get under the skin of the readers empathizing with the point of view characters, is their demeanor and attitude of superiority, but in practical terms, for the Aes Sedai, that’s not worth mentioning, usually.  Egwene believes, and Siuan does not challenge this belief, that if they can get the Hall to accept letting the Sea Folk sisters quit, the rest won’t cause any problems worth considering.  And honestly, it shouldn’t.  Knowledge is the one commodity you don’t lose by sharing or selling, and one year of inconvenient service out of a life expectancy of three hundred equates to less than a summer vacation in a normal lifespan. 

As a final note, I know some people have spoken huffily about the attitude of Sea Folk toward teachers in general (except it only seems to be shorebound teachers, see above re: cheating and shirking experiences) like teachers are some sort of elevated vocation or profession due great reverence.  I can’t really understand this perspective. I spent 8 years as a high school history and math teacher and it was some of the easiest, most self-indulgent and low-input work I have ever done.  I honestly felt guilty taking a paycheck for it.  Maybe teaching children is something else, but no one is asking the Aes Sedai to teach people younger than high school age. Furthermore, if anyone deserves to be subjected to an abusive teaching experience, it is the Aes Sedai we see getting lessons in Tel’Aran’Rhiod from Nynaeve and Elayne.  Not once is their arrogance and dismissive attitude toward their students, and demands for the respect due a superior even slightly suggested to be a personal idiosyncrasy Anaiya et al.  having in common.  Rather those attitudes are directly attributed to their being Aes Sedai, and the implication is that any other sister would be just as bad in receiving their lessons.  

Some readers question the need for the Aes Sedai to be the ones to pay this price, considering their altruistic motives. After all, they are seeking the Sea Folk’s aid to save the world from the Dark One.  But that is exactly why it is incumbent on the Aes Sedai to pay the price.  By claiming for themselves a monopoly on channeling, even on objects of the Power which might permit ordinary people preternatural abilities, the Aes Sedai morally undertake a responsibility to provide preternatural solutions to any problems requiring them.  If you disarm a person, you have a moral duty to protect them.  Whether or not the Aes Sedai are justified in concentrating all authorized channelers under themselves, the fact is, they have stripped the people of the wetlands of their ability to cope with problems like the preternatural drought the Dark One is imposing, so it falls upon the White Tower to pay whatever price is necessary to make it right.  Likewise, the Sea Folk had nothing to do with that situation.  The Tower and the wetlands have done nothing to help them, and they stand to benefit less than the shorebound from a restoration of the natural weather, at least in the short term.  Yes, eventually the famine will catch up to them, but you could also say the same thing about the Aes Sedai, who will be the last to go hungry in the wetlands, which no doubt has something to do with their willingness to foist off fixing the weather on a couple of new not entirely legitimate sisters with a couple of retirees monitoring them on the side while they engage in their primary mission of making sure no one who decided the Tower civil war was not something they wanted from their teachers, and departed, gets away with it.  The Wondergirls aside, we are not talking about a benevolent organization or admirable group of people here!  Expecting the Sea Folk to bend over backwards and put themselves at risk to help the Aes Sedai do what they should be doing anyway (although Romanda’s expressed attitude toward fixing the weather, and dissatisfaction with the results, should inspire horror in anyone with the slightest comprehension of meteorology, and gratitude that the bargain removes the Bowl of the Winds from her or anyone with her perspective) is kind of insane.  

Earlier I made the analogy of the SS asking for the help of Jews on a big project (considering the Nazis labeled physics. among other disciplines, as “Jewish science” such a scenario is not entirely outlandish, had they faced a similar existential threat as the Dark One’s drought), but if such a thing were to happen, would anyone blame the Jews in question, and their allies, for demanding safeguards as well as the means of enforcing the agreement they come to?  Would anyone accept “cross my heart, hope to die” in that case?  Yes, yes, Three Oaths, but the books clearly show that they are bullshit at restraining the Aes Sedai from deceiving or breaking the spirit of a contract or slaughtering people en masse with the One Power, if they feel like it. 

in summation, the circumstances of the Sea Folk, in both their lifestyle and dealings with outsiders, inform their ways of doing things, their perceived need to press hard for advantage and for their due, and the established behavior of the Aes Sedai demonstrates the need for them to do so in this case as well.  They are not cheating, and if they ask for a lot, it is because their contractual partners cause them to need to do so.  The bargain they make with the Aes Sedai through Nynaeve and Elayne obtains a reasonable price for the extraordinary and irreplaceable service they provide, at relatively little cost to the Aes Sedai, who are morally obliged to pay whatever the Sea Folk would ask for that service, and the part the Aes Sedai consider to be the worst provision of the bargain is nothing more than what should be the status quo.  That they need to bargain for the freedom of three sisters to quit the White Tower, all on its own, absolutely condemns the Aes Sedai as the party at fault in their dealings.  

If you love books, writing, and pop culture, let's be mutuals!!! ♡♡♡

Notes on Genre-Punk Decay

     Lately, I’ve been reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick, that being the book from which Bladerunner was adapted, and it being the original seed of what would become the Cyberpunk genre. The book itself deals with an astounding level of personal alienation, that deriving from an inability to recognize that which is properly human as such, an inability to be psychologically free due to widespread moral hysteria, the denial of opportunity due to criminogenic conditions and obvious discrimination, the innate Ableism and plutocratic character of statistical data collecting in the realms of psychotherapy and statecraft (DADoES singles out IQ tests in this regard, with the actually quite lucid John Isadore being denied the ability to marry or move offworld due to having fallen under an unspecified bracket on a single IQ test), etc. In general a work of Minor Literature, which, on account of P. K. Dick having been a precognitive, conducts social critique of issues such as the universal theatre of Simulacra which wouldn’t arise until decades after the text’s publication.      Cyberpunk went from a being dejected journey through the Desert of the Real, to being a dejected journey through the Desert of the Real with neon coats and worbly skyscrapers, to being a Desert of the Real with neon coats, worbly skyscrapers, and no real reflection on or rejecting of majoritarian culture.     IIRC., Steampunk, as we know it followed a similar course, starting with two novels, those being Warlord of the Air and the Difference Engine. Warlord of the Air is about a hellworld where the British Empire never declined because WWI never happened, and the Difference Engine is about a hellworld where the British Empire never declined because they discovered computers in 1837. Both cases exist to explore the hell of Empire, how Technology interacts with its social order, the ways in which different societies interact with the same machines, etc., by analyzing it through the 19th century and the Belle Epoche.      Now? Steampunk is doodads and bowler hats being plated with brass, gears, and valves. Empire, the Intelligence State, and Radical Politics, all mainstays of the primordial Steampunk, are never confronted, as that would be too much critical thought for Steam hobbyists.      My course for Aesthetic Punk Decay is as follows: 1: Underlying media interfaces with underlying discontents and fears to produce something truly unique (for Steampunk, this was Warlord of the Air, for Cyberpunk, this was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and for Atompunk, this was the first Fallout). 2: Imitators arise expressing the same discontents (as with first-wave Cyberpunk and the first Bladerunner film). 3: Corporations coopt the imitators, and make their imitations to aesthetics (as we see w/ Fallout 3). 4: The imitation of an imitation, made only for aesthetic value, eclipses the original media and discontents (as with Fallout 4, Cyberpunk 2077, or that Steampunk road house).      And there I have a triad: Atompunk, which interfaces with the Cold War, Steampunk, which interfaces with the Belle Epoche, and Cyberpunk, which interfaces with the Neoliberal Era. The decay of the British Empire, the decay of Fordist Capital, and the decay of Reality itself.

The Cool Economy- An Analysis of Cosplaying as Poor

I wrote an essay about this concept and it got 100% My teacher gave me the ultimate compliment by asking if she could use it as an example paper in future classes. Sooo I've never posted any of my own lengthier writings on fb before but here goes! I'd love to hear what any of yall think!

TLDR is that these are the new major trends in aesthetics and advertisements. We are a culture that is bombarded with advertisements and this compass presents a sort of new visual shorthand. FFO fashion, pop culture, cultural analysis, media literacy, celebrity culture, etc

I wrote an essay about this concept and it got 100% My teacher gave me the ultimate compliment by asking if she could use it as an example paper in future classes. Sooo I've never posted any of my own lengthier writings on fb before but here goes! I'd love to hear what any of yall think!

TLDR is that these are the new major trends in aesthetics and advertisements. We are a culture that is bombarded with advertisements and this compass presents a sort of new visual shorthand. FFO fashion, pop culture, cultural analysis, media literacy, celebrity culture, etc

When celebrity figures do something noteworthy, not only are there tens of thousands of recreation looks and how-to videos that sweep across social media, but there are also tens of thousands of commentary videos picking apart the content with the kind of scalpel sociologists would approve of. One of my favorite TikTok creators in this genre goes by the name of CozyAkili aka Akili Moree. His videos center around concepts of fashion and design that exist along an axis from high to low cost and discuss where they intersect with the concepts of private pleasure versus public display. Within this framework, he evaluates celebrity culture through social media with a special focus on what facets of the celebrity lifestyle they are selling back to us at any given moment and how that lands on this scale. This is important to understand because since we are integrated and inundated we are with visual messages as a society, having a quick metric to make sense of what we are seeing has never been more crucial. This evaluation system is a tool to dissect the subliminal so that we can continue to maintain a watchful eye on the ever growing discrepancy between the wealthy and the working class, or more specifically, how the wealthy use symbols from the working class to blur the line between performing wealth and performing poverty.

The four quadrants of this evaluation system pull from a variety of sources, both cultural and sociological and are each named to encapsulate the spirit of the intersections. On the low cost side of things, we have the concept of Domestic Cozy, reminiscent of the Danish concept of Hygge. Domestic Cozy rejects discomfort, danger, ceremony and deprivation and embraces things soft, luxurious and effortless. This concept was coined by writer Venkatesh Rao alongside its sister concept of Premium Mediocre in his blog RibbonFarm in 2019. Rao writes that these phrases are stylistic fingerprints of the world that act as a sort of instant classification system– a combination of visual symbols where a simple glance tells you how much something is trying to fit in with or eschew the norm (Rao). Within this dichotomy, Premium Mediocre is like bedazzling the norms, whereas Domestic Cozy is indifferent to the norms altogether. Premium Mediocre is the finest bottle of wine at Olive Garden whereas Domestic Cozy is more like a hot cup of tea in your favorite mug. At its heart, the former style is mediocre with a superfluous touch of premium but not enough to ruin the delicious essential mediocrity (Rao). Because these two concepts are rooted in the medium, the remaining quadrants represent the extremes.

High Peasant and Thrift Store Realness both exemplify the other end of this stylistic spectrum. Thrift Store Realness is at the intersection of public display and low cost, covering the bulk of people living to look hot and get by without pretense of fanciness, just casual and classic at low cost. In terms of larger social themes, Thrift Store Realness makes practicality look good but not so flashy that it takes away from its functionality. Things can even be cluttered and a little grimy aesthetically but not in a way that inhibits its undeniable edge– it's the spirit of finding (or being) a diamond in the rough. Think Macklemore’s 2012 hit– “I wear your GrandDad’s clothes. I look incredible.” High Peasant, on the other hand takes a more direct style over substance approach, but one that intentionally grounds itself by marrying the fantastical to the established in an attempt to blur the lines between wealthy and working people.

High Peasant is maximalist and artistic in a way that appears more original than Premium Mediocre but equally lofty. For instance, if Domestic Cozy is a grocery store bag salad eaten out of the bag and Premium Mediocre is eating salads from the “fresh” menu at fast food place in between side hustles, High Peasant is doing a pop up, high concept, high fashion photoshoot inside a McDonalds and salad is the concept. It visually ties the trappings of the working class with the access and privilege of the wealthy. This puts emphasis on the grunge amidst the pastoral to act as a shared language between class lines. Though I am a fan of fashion, there are things about this aesthetic concept specifically that are worthwhile to examine.

High Peasant presentations are ultimately still a fiction. The artistry of this aesthetic lies in making recognizable symbols feel alien and otherworldly in levels of cool but outside of that constructed reality, it also touches on the bitter truth that an ultra wealthy life for most of us is truly an alien concept. Otherworldly is also apt because the wealthy play with visual cues that don’t exist in their world. By playing with trappings of normalcy, in some cases they actually reinforce their otherworldliness– cementing their celebrity in this extremely visual and social world with almost nostalgia-like bait. This explains why some attempts at High Peasant as an aesthetic fall flat to their audiences because their artistic rendering highlights the differences between us instead of unifying us through intention.

While celebrities use aspects of working class culture to make themselves seem approachable, it is crucial to remember that they are not and do not want to be working class– and though the fiction they construct might look similar to something you lived through, at the end of the day your compassion and recognition of these shared symbols is really a way to make you forget how large the inequality gap has grown– to feel familiar and forget the debt that separates us. There is a supreme irony to me in the idea that the best way for brands and celebrities to see and sell themselves or package products to appeal to the masses is by looking poor or by taking ideas from people who are poor or exist within the Thrift Store Realness category.

The contradiction of new things manufactured to look old and articles of clothing priced out of the range of the people who it's modeled after comes off darkly comedic because as Akili points out, “instead of wealthy people lifting other people out of poverty, wealthy people try to make themselves feel better about being so wealthy by acting like they’re poor” (Moree). For wealthy people, the reality of being poor does not exist and maybe hasn’t existed for generations in your family due to the prevalence of nepotism in celebrity culture. Therefore it is a novelty to eat cup noodles when you’ve never had to wonder where your next meal would come from. It is boundary pushing to pose in a dingy house with a busted couch and 70s brown vertical paneling if you are worth $2.1 Billion dollars (Forbes). Moree calls High Peasant cosplaying as poor– cosplay, as in fantasy characters, comic book conventions or some other halloween-esque costume that one can put on and play or act as the character they're dressed as. In these scenarios, their positive gain is the freedom that comes with donning a costume and the spirit of camaraderie that grows naturally between avid fans of the same thing.

Translating this to wealthy celebrities, the gain is similar but often pointed in the direction of commerce. The end result differs on what the purpose of the post is– as so much marketing happens via brand endorsements on social media. The concepts explored by Akili Moree and Venkatesh Rao and other theorists represent the newest pop culture metric to evaluate how social media is used to evoke responses from its audience and what symbols it uses. This evolving framework of media literacy is an important step in being cognizant of the world around us as we become increasingly digital. The commerce piece of the puzzle is one of our current economy’s most obvious ticking time bombs and social media makes it possible to not only see this happen but also to track how its sold back to us.

We are in an era unlike any before. The interconnectedness of the internet and the growing reliance/addiction to social media has opened up a game of uncertainty. In this world, all interested players take advantage of aesthetics to drive participation and compete for our attention– all tracked and monetized down to the millisecond. Shadow marketing practices have existed since the 1980s, where the creators of the advertisement try to sell you something all while making it a secret that you are being sold something at all (Barbaro). Substantial deregulation of advertising that took place in the Reagan Era, as well as the rise of product placement as an overall film trend, and commercialization of two of the primary social media platforms (facebook adding the marketplace feature in 2016 and instagram replacing the home button with the shop button in 2020) has led us to this moment– the ultimate fusion between being marketed to and being entertained (Barbaro). This is the beauty of the chart at this moment in time and the wisdom in listening to those who are young enough to see the veil as it grows alongside them.

With supreme wealth inequality growing exponentially each year it is important every day, every hour, every flick of the thumb to be aware of what you’re being sold and who is doing the selling. The gen-Z/tiktok generation and creators like Akilli Moree are especially unique and valuable to listen to about matters like these because they are the test generation of interconnectedness in society on the level that we live now. They are the first truly cradle to grave internet generation, as they were coming up after most of the large technological advances had already been made. In addition to the technology, they grew up after all the deregulation of advertising practices in the 80s led to the full commercialization and study of child spending habits as a system to control spending habits of Americans on a larger scale (Barbaro). The children, who grew up in the 24 hr ad cycle have grown into young adults unphased by the prevalence of advertisements and sponsored posts in their hunt for authenticity. They came up in it so they are less fooled by it.

If Premium Mediocre is extended legroom on an airplane and Domestic Cozy is bringing your own pillow and blanket to the flight, High Peasant would be buying out your whole row or section but maybe not your whole flight. Thrift Store Realness represents road tripping or communal transit such as bus or train. These concepts can function bigger theoretically than the world of celebrity culture but they are the easiest examples to see since they tend to range into the cartoonish. Some try for art and land amongst the tacky. Some embrace tacky to the point of camp and it feels effortlessly cool, while others try to be effortlessly cool and it just doesn’t land at all. In all scenarios, this compass of private pleasure to public display vs the money factor helps us evaluate how this game of aesthetics is being used to market people and trends to the masses. This is important to think about because these are the new major trends in aesthetics and advertisements. Being a culture that is bombarded with advertisements has major downsides, so adapting a new shorthand to categorize will help individuals have an easier time navigating authenticity in this new economy of cool.

/////end pls clap//////

Works Cited

Barbaro, Adriana. “Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood.” Jeremy Earp. 2008. Uploaded to Youtube in 2017. youtube.com/watch?v=tMaRsR7orTk

Facebook Business. “Reach People Where They’re Already Shopping with Ads in Marketplace.” June 4, 2018. facebook.com/business/news/reach-people-where-theyre-already-shopping-with-ads-in-marketplace

Forbes. “Inside the 21 billion dollar Kim Kardashian-Kanye West Divorce.” Stories. 2022. www.forbes.com/stories/billionaires/inside-the-21-billion-kim-kardashiankanye-west-divorce/

Jennings, Rebecca. “Why Are So Many Brands Pivoting To Coziness?” Vox.com. Jan 15, 2020. www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/1/15/21063670/hygge-self-care-domestic-cozy-marketing-brands-haus

Lorenz, Taylor. “The Instagram Aesthetic is Over.” The Atlantic. April 2019. www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/influencers-are-abandoning-instagram-look/587803/

Macklemore. “Thrift Shop.” Ryan Lewis. The Heist. 2012. Lyrics accessed via genius.com. /genius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-thrift-shop-lyrics

Mahamba, Joy Anelisiwe. “Aesthetics of Today: ‘High Peasant’ Fashion and What it Means.” Bubblegum Club. February 2022. bubblegumclub.co.za/discourse/aesthetics-of-today-high-peasant-fashion-and-what-it-means/

Moree, Akili. “Cosplaying as Poor” Tik Tok. 2/14/2022. www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR53Fm54/

Moree, Akili. “Kim Kardashian’s Sink” Tik Tok. 10/8/2021 tiktok.com/t/ZTR53BtEn/ 

Rao, Venkatesh. “Domestic Cozy.” RibbonFarm Blog. Volumes 1-7. 2019. ribbonfarm.com/series/domestic-cozy/

Rao, Venkatesh. “The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millennial.” RibbonFarm Blog. August 2017. ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-mediocre-life-of-maya-millennial/

Stanton, Liz. “Instagram is phasing out the Shop tab” Hootsuite Blog. September 2022. blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-updates/instagram/instagram-is-phasing-out-the-shop-tab

Stanton, Liz. “Instagram Reels in 2022: A Simple Guide for Businesses” Hootsuite Blog. August 2022.

⚠️Warning: SPOILERS for Kaguya-sama: Love is War���️

Ok so, I'm watching s2ep6 and I'm sorry, but I have THOUGHTS™ about Miko Iino and not all them are positive.

1) I understand that they're trying to make her empathetic to the audience with the "there's a lot of bad people in the world [...] if only people followed the rules my mom and dad would love me" but that's genuinely how some people get radicalized to the far right/pro-fascism ideas.

Like, if we boil it down to the most reductionist reading about it, a LOT of young people nowadays fall into cults/religions, far-right discourses, etc precisely because they are looking for somewhere they feel a sense of belonging so they go online (particularly young men, through the imposition of masculinity) and they find communities that are ✨super welcoming✨ and feel like home, but they slowly start with the insidious comments about law, order, discipline, and the whole bunch of conservatism that slowly starts trickling down into larger awful ideas against "bad people", the ones they deem as undesirables, the ones they deem as "perverted" or evil, and that's how you end up with young people who are going full fash.

And 2) I'm sorry, I just think it would be a really cute thing to see her end up with her best friend (Osaragi Kobachi) but as far as I have watched, it's most likely that she's going to end up being paired with Ishigami because anime is heteronormative as hell ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

The fun thing about memes is that they eventually become their own context, so you don’t have to see or even know about their origin to understand what they mean.

A Communist Take on the State of Rap/Hip-Hop 2022

Kendrick Lamar’s newest album, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers (MM&BS) is good. I like it. I may or may not have some gripes about how the album physically sounds and a possible lack of (IMO) a strong sonic theme, but I have only listened to the album twice and I will certainly need at least 2-3 more listens before I can digest it and have a more dedicated opinion.

What I do have a solid opinion on is that, lyrically, it is amazing. Not just because of the usual flows, rhymes, wordplay or similes, no. The content of this album is an oasis in a desert. The progression of Kendrick Lamar from To Pimp a Butterfly (TPAB) to DAMN to MM&BS is a beautiful, powerful narrative and it gives me hope.

Not just general hope for the world, although Lamar is certainly an inspiring and soulful figure throughout his life. Specifically hope that rap/hip-hop can and will once again be the bedrock for communist revolution in America.

Tupac Shakur and many of the old-school, OG, “Golden Age” rappers were very close to the Black Panthers and their affiliates. This is not to say that the Old School was chock full of communists, no, but the potential was there. The capitalists saw this, they saw the revolutionary potential in hip-hop (as with much of African American music in general in the recent century or two), and thus they added its destruction and co-option to their laundry list of things to do to preserve the hegemony. They killed Tupac and many others, they began carefully and subtly integrating hip-hop into capitalism, defanging its revolutionary potential, and bought themselves a lot of time to boot.

The results were very disastrous. The rap community and thus many poor black Americans (and other people a part of said community and its many adjacents) became very capitalistic. The results are deserving of entire books on their own.

It took decades merely for hip-hop to regain its love for the fellow black person, as was accentuated and in many ways spearheaded by TPAB. TPAB was not a communist manifesto, but it was a strong and coherent reclamation of blackness and renewed the fight against white supremacy and the black plight.

Again the capitalists took a hard notice. They gathered together and whispered furtively in their ivory towers. They had only just managed to squash the Occupy Movement, and now with this new wave in hip hop Black Lives Matter was beginning to ferment. Although not explicitly anti-capitalist, the threat BLM posed to the capitalists was never underestimated, they knew exactly how the communists would use it to try and radicalize people further, to spread knowledge of the origin of black suffering and to mobilize people against it. What was to be done?

The capitalists learned from their past mistakes: outright assassination should be reserved for a last resort. It was messy, it was seldom airtight, it was fertilizer for anti-establishment conspiracy and general distrust of the hegemony, it was martyr-making. Softer, but more nefarious tactics and strategies such as co-option was the way to go these days.

Obama was the man for the job.

Most revolutionary energy was still easily channeled into merely hating Republicans, and despite his colossal litany of happy atrocities against both working people at home and abroad, Obama remained a very charismatic and well-loved figure, especially by African Americans who had been so hungry for a sign that they were finally to be respected and treated as normal human beings.

He positioned himself to decapitate two major threats, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole.

It worked! Both potential revolutionary leaders were awed to be chums with the first black president. For someone not made aware of Obama’s crimes and his intentions, it’s not hard to imagine. Neither Kendrick nor Cole nor their music veered dangerously off the path of what was deemed acceptable counter culture.

However, for good and for ill, a lack of truth leaves festering questions that rot and writhe and form the base of a disease that, one way or another, will demand and receive an answer.

Kendrick was not dissuaded from loving his fellow black man, but the lack of complete answers added to the torments of his past that began to catch up with him. From this Hell, DAMN was born.

Hotepism had found Kendrick. The infinite but simultaneously dead-end of fascist conspiracy had hooked his ear. Black supremacy mixed very nastily with a sense that God’s chosen folk were being ruthlessly, deservedly punished for not living up to their superior status.

It seemed to have all the answers he needed...

And his suffering became acute. Very, very dark places. It only seems natural, right? This world is just inherently evil, right? Of course to become more knowledgeable about this world, about mankind, is to go down an irreversible path of torment.

Cole, too, was made inert. From dangerously teetering on the precipice of revolutionary change during the times of 4 Your Eyez Only and then the nauseatingly (for the capitalists) positive messages of K.O.D., back to the status quo comfortably within the capitalist framework of The Off Season. Cole was not tormented like Kendrick, but he too was in no danger of becoming a communist leader anytime soon with double-edged messages of internal growth and personal focus.

Another leader, far younger, and far more brash and uncontainable in XXXTENTACION blossomed quickly. His self-professed interest in politics and his far-left-leaning mind and heart were terrifying as he hooked a docile, apathetic, and self-destructive youth previously assumed to remain inert with little to no effort. His fiery rise was quickly, mercifully smothered, and whether the capitalists played a direct part in it or not, they were happy to see this sudden maverick already intending to quit music and start helping the poor flaked out of the sky. The co-option began within minutes of his death being announced.

Things looked bleak.

However, times are changing behind the scenes...

Who knows what has happened in the past years? People like Kendrick and Cole do not gorge themselves on the trappings of 2020′s rap celebritydom. They are private, they are human, they are trustworthy of finding their own way.

Kendrick Lamar has just released MM&BS. In it, for the first time since his two titanic previous releases, he is not waxing poetic about the awesomeness of Barack Obama. He directly mentions capitalism and mentions it with utter contempt. He seems to have also completely abandoned the false consciousness of hotepism, and instead blossomed into a new journey towards untarnished spiritualism. Socially progressivism of all sorts is deeply embedded into this project, with a resounding message of love, growth, compassion, forgiveness, community, and social change, with additional potshots taken at the capitalist special operations units previously untouchable to all but misleading fascists such as the “fake woke.” Materialism, celebrity worship, toxic contentedness, the cycle of abuse, classism, identity politics, queerphobia, and much else all take hard-hitting blows that, quite frankly, step a little bit outside the zone of green-level acceptable within the system. We’re officially back in the hard yellow with this; the capitalists have been pushed back all the way to TPAB-era threat-level, only, this time...they have no more tricks up their sleeve.

It’s not a huge conspiracy necessarily that this album isn’t doing the numbers of TPAB or certainly DAMN. Nobody needs to be pulling levers behind the scenes to make it clear that people these days, rap listeners these days, are attracted to negativity, shallowness, the punchy and the catchy, the homogenous and the cruel. DAMN was meant to be popular (not that it isn’t great, it’s fucking awesome) because of not only its mood and lyrical content but because the production and flow was so specifically tailored to be commercial-friendly ear-candy.

While I do wish there was some more ear-candy in MM&BS, I would never wish this at the expense of this new tone, this new message, this new resolved mindset of Kendrick.

That is not to say, either, that the capitalists AREN’T working to suppress this album in small ways. That being said, Kendrick is such a nigh-invulnerable staple in the industry that anything but throwing at least half of your weight behind him is foolish for those in the playing field. However, this might get easier as people proclaim it a “flop” due to the first-week sales and Twitter liberals shit their pants about the heavy presence of Kodak Black on the album, missing entirely the point of his very intentional inclusion in this record.

We should be wary. Don’t get too excited, and certainly don’t get comfortable. This is a blow to the capitalists in the war for the minds of the masses, but they will quickly recuperate and do whatever they can to ensure this threat is once again nullified.

What lengths will they go? Scandal? False flag? Assassination? There is nothing that they haven’t done a thousand times over and for far smaller stakes.

While we must remind ourselves that, while a massive artist, Kendrick is just one person, it is also worth noting that the very spirit of hip-hop has been affected by this. If Kendrick Lamar were to “randomly” die of a “heart attack” or have a laptop discovered in his house with 60 TB of child p*** on it, the damage is already done. The minds of the masses have been affected greatly by this album--not all directly, no, but the ripples this will create over the next 10 years of hip-hop/rap music and its myriad of adjacent communities it holds influence over in turn, these ripples will continue to grow in power and be less and less easily subverted by the capitalist powers.

They are running out of tricks. They enjoyed their 30 years of supremacy. However, they have been paying for today with tomorrow, as it is in the very nature of the god they worship. Incapable of long-term strategy, they have killed the pests of enlightenment with pesticides that we have only, after generations of death and suffering, grow immune to. They are running out of chemicals to combine. They are running out of methods to stop the inevitable. Their efforts have grown more desperate, their schemes more convoluted, the very mortality of their grip on the world exposed both at home and abroad with every passing day.

Kodak Black is not XXXTENTACION but his contact with such profoundly free and vibrant spirit will not leave him unchanged. From the old-heads to the youth, the spirit of hip-hop is being softened up from every direction for the torrent of communism to explode out of the dam. It is the only logical conclusion these events are leading towards. The capitalists will deftly forestall it, as they have been for hundreds of years--and we should certainly not kick back and relax and assume the day is won--but the spirit of hip-hop was never predispositioned to stomach lies in such volume, and it has been force-fed one lie too many.

New article <33

This one is about the snowflake!!! Take a read…

https://open.substack.com/pub/georgiepapilio/p/a-whole-thing-about-being-triggered?r=2edlia&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

You! American fan of foreign or otherwise un-American media! Are you aware of the nuances and cultural differences that are portrayed in that media and have an understanding that you as an outsider looking in should be careful with the lenses you analyze that media in because you have a different perspective that is not catered to?

Inspiration: Bryce Mattie. Exploring the Pioneering Work of a Media Scholar and Games Studies Expert + TEDx Talk on the Activism of Play

Brilliant mind, game scholar, and media critic, I first encountered Mattie Bryce by way of a games and the environment course I was building for a summer camp centered around “Games and You.” In the dynamic world of media studies and game analysis, few voices have made as significant an impact as Bryce Mattie. With a deep passion for dissecting the intersections of media, culture, and digital…

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You know, it's rather interesting to me that Taylor Swift's parasocial relationship with her fans is honestly more akin to a YouTuber than a writer's. When I scroll through her tag on tumblr/Twitter, it's far more regarding the connection to her personal life/relationship developments than the actual metaphors/fictional story she might be telling. Everything comes back to how her songs reflect back on her relationships with Joe/Matty/Travis/Jake/insert ex-boyfriend here. And what fascinates me about it is that even though she complains about it, she leans into that very perception because it strengthens the parasocial bond.

The marketing for TTPD so clearly being about Joe Alwyn and the songs to Matty Healy. The marketing/video for Red TV so CLEARLY being about Jake Gyllenhaal, with so many of the new lines in All Too Well specifically being digs at him (I'll get older but your lovers stay my age, casting an actor that looks like him for the video, specific lines in I Bet You Think About Me). The fact that songs like Getaway Car and Bejeweled and Gorgeous and London Boy and Lavender Haze being picked apart at time of release and long after for signs of relationships crumbling. The way she uses surprise songs in relation to her relationship development with Joe/Matty/Travis. The damn TTPD "stages of grief" playlists where she deliberately undid/changed the meanings of old songs just to keep her audience speculating on her love life.

It's not sexist to point out that her wielding her love life is a marketing tool and that the strongest connection to her audience isn't the strength of her writing/the composition of her music- it's her deliberate crafting of a connection between her music and her personal life, leaving the audience invested in her music as an extension of Taylor the Person/Girlfriend rather than Taylor the Artist.

why is it that so many grown ass people are obsessed with children’s media and perform entire cultural analyses about i.e. Disney’s products instead of being occupied by more challenging works from our age?