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thebibliosphere · 9 months

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I both believe "poor people deserve art" and "artists deserve food", but it's hard to reconcile those beliefs. I blame capitalism. And I suppose it mostly matters who you're stealing from?

I don't mean to question you at all, I'm against people pirating your stories. I guess I was just wondering if you had more thoughts regarding the reconciliation the two beliefs I quoted above.

I think the reconciliation is working toward a future where things are better, and authors and artists don't have to beg people not to steal from them because they think every author is Stephen King, who wouldn't notice if you stole the pennies found under his couch when in reality most of us are hunting for spare change down the back of the couch because we are earning below minimum wage.

We need people to embrace the idea that art belongs to the working class, both in terms of consumption but also creation.

If you don't support the working-class creators, you'll only end up with rich fucks with no scope of the world beyond their own narrow view of privilege.

Indie creators are actually working very hard to change the way the industry works, and the publishing industry is shitting itself over it. They don't like the success some of us are having. It's why they keep upping prices while slashing corners on their own production (while never affecting the man at the top) to try and stay competitive within the rat race they've created.

They're not interested in the proliferation of art. They're not interested in making sure their authors can afford to live. They don't want more diversity. They don't want inclusion. They want profit at whatever the cost.

And while indie creators very much need to get paid because we live in a capitalistic society and everything is burning down around us, and a carton of eggs now costs more than what I earn per hour, our creativity is directly at odds with the type of profiteering big publishers want.

The money should go to the writers. Not the CEOs. The money should go to the workers in the print houses. Not the CEOs. No one needs the kind of wealth these people have. It's obscene. We need direct action against these conglomerates. We need unionization. We need a means to fight back so that we can make art and make it accessible.

So, how do we do that? I don't know. I'm just a very tired, disabled creator doing my best to keep my head above water. But I think getting people to realize that art and books are worth saving up for would be a good start.

That putting money in the pockets of creators is just as important as your own enjoyment of their art. Because if there aren't any artists, you've got nothing.

Getting them involved with their local libraries would also be a great start. Educating them on how the industry works is part of that. The number of people telling me they had no idea libraries paid authors is staggering. And that's intentional. It's a by-product of right-wing propaganda to make you think libraries are worthless and just sap taxpayers' money.

They're not.

If they were, the fash wouldn't be trying so hard to take them away.

Basically, we need working-class solidarity and for certain people on the left to rid themselves of the idea that just because something isn't borne of manual labor, it doesn't have worth. We need the artists and the dreamers as much as we need to bricklayers and the craftsmen. Otherwise, what's the fucking point of it all?

#sorry #this isn't an actionable answer to your question #I don't know what that answer is #I just need people to realize art is not the exclusive creation of the wealthy #and treating it as such is making everything worse

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certified-bi · 2 months

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Okay all my thoughts because some people have been saying that not supporting this change is not supporting artist and creators and as an artist fuck that.

1. Audiences owe you nothing. You have to convince them to engage with your creation not the other way around. This is something both the nonprofit theatre I work with recognizes and huge companies realize. It's just part of life. There are so many talented people in the world making amazing art, videos, music, writings, and on and on, and there's only so much time in the day. I'm not saying you shouldn't know your worth, just that being flippant about how little you care about those who can't pay isn't a good move. On that note...

2. PR is everything. If you haven't made a visible effort to push patreon, channel memberships or other avenues of making money, don't be suprised that your creation that was previously accessible to those without extra cash and to those who can't support foreign subscriptions due either to conversions or because it simply doesn't work, being made private isn't popular. There's a big leap from "We want to have more artistic control" to "We can't afford to make our content accessible to most of our audience," and people are smart enough to see this. You either have to make budget cuts or give into sponsors. This isn't unique to Watcher, it's part of literally every production from broadway, to Hollywood, to YouTube. Unless you can fund it yourself or get viewers to pay(which given how many are already strapped for cash...) that's life.

Not to mention they simply do not have enough followers to make the switch to a paid only site(dropping the first epsiode only on YouTube isn't going to draw people in, they're just going to say "oh why start if I'm not going to see the rest" and not watch) especially not one that is buggy and a security risk. Even if the switch had been supported its not going to end well. The only reason services like nebula and dropout work is because of the large amount of series and creators and the fact those creators still are partly on YouTube so new people are drawn in.

3. As for the price, 6 dollars a month is a not a good starting price for only their content and that's as someone who pays for nebula. I'd be paying the same amount for a fraction of the access to others work. Actually it'd be twice as much. And before someone says "it's only a coffee-" that's for you. Not everyone has your lifestyle. And with every other patreon and subscription service that says the same thing, it all adds up and I simply don't think 60 dollars for 48 videos a year on a subscription basis where you don't get to keep the videos if your situation changes, some of which don't appeal to every viewer is a good move. If you were able to buy physical copies of your favorite series they've made that'd be different, but that's not what this is.

4. I do believe that the employees deserve a livable wage. I also did not hire them. It is not on the viewers that they hired more people than they could afford to. They can charge that much if they want to to try and balance this out. They also shouldn't be suprised if not many can or will sign up. They also don't have to be based in L.A. L.A has ridiculous costs associated with it, and quite honestly it doesn't really add much to the content. I'm not saying they need to move to the middle of nowhere Kansas. Simply that living and basing your studio in a super expensive city and then being suprised money is tight is just weird.

5. Something that occurs to me is that they might get more views if their playlists were better set up. Only some series are given playlists. It'd be easier to find all of the series and binge them if they didn't just show off their more popular shows. Honestly the only draw the streaming site has to me is that the series are actually labeled well.

Do I think the weird ass energy towards Steven is necessary? No. He's not the only one at the company and they're all adults. I actually liked grocery run and homemade, and like to see them back. The parascoial attachment to Ryan and Shane is annoying in people's criticisms, but that doesn't make them completely wrong. If you're going to brand yourself as the anti capalist underdogs you can't get away with being dismissive of your poorer fans. The dissonance is what is causing this backlash and makes you look like hypocrites. I definitely think Steven is turning into the fall guy which is fucked up, his statement and the fact dish granted is one of those shows that make people uncomfortable about wealth flexs doesn't help matters.

#watcher #they really need a CEO who has business experience first and foremost or at the very least a consultant they actually listen to #they also should put more focus on other personalities and actual give them a chance to stick. none of them got famous or a fanbase in a day #give some of the others time to grab attention

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dognonsense · 4 months

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Question...how do you make your patches? They seem so fuckin cool. I'm working on a vest and a jacket atm, and I'd like for them to be done by the time a pride fest rolls around next month.

Main technique I use for making patches nowadays is linocut. Its best suited for mass production of patches.

Make sure to remember your carving the mirror image so you have to flip all the text. Using tracing paper to flip the design is a good trick, as well as leaving graphite marks on side, then pressing that to the lino to leave the marks in the same spot. Another trick with pencil is to view what ur carving in negative space quickly, put a paper over your design and shade over it with pencil, darker marks will be where you haven't carved yet.

I use speedball fabric ink, it takes 1 week to set then will be fine to be washed. I have magenta, violet, turqouise, and white. They have a limited range of fabric colors at the store. I have seen gold and silver fabric paint for sale and I will investigate it one day.

I use a speedball roller, i find the smaller one to be better than the big one as I can be more precise and waste less ink.

I got a fancy handle for $40 but the screws fallen out so its broken now so just get some heavy books. I used to use a mug. Whats important is pushing your whole body weight into it.

I got a speedball carving tool with different heads I can swap out so I can cut into the lino at different deepness and widths. The heads are stored inside the tool since its hollow and has a screwable removable bottom. I use linocut or dollar store erasers for my carvings. Make sure to wash the ink off your linocuts after your done using them.

A thing to increase the lifespan of you're linocuts is to use wood glue, some cork or wood pieces, and glued the lino stamps onto them. I dont do that yet so my stamps fall appart from overuse sometime and because I cut way too deep into the lino since I hate chatter.

Chatter is the term for in linocutting when theres little messy lines and stuff. It makes the art more recognisably to be linocut. My work is very clean with no chatter which is why people don't notice its linocut usually. This is a stylistic choice, with diy styles having a lot of chatter can look really cool so experiment with leaving bits of extra uncarvered lino sticking out in ur stamp. I need to experiment and buy some more lino.

You can also use multiple linocut stamps together to make a patch. Some patches ive made have like 8 different stamps. Ive made a dog nonsense patch where each letter was their own eraser stamp. You can also use different colors between the different lino stamps on the same patch to add more color. An effect I like to do is first stamp it in color, then the next day I stamp it in white over the same spot but shifted to the right and down slightly. It makes the text have a cool border 3D effect I love doing.

If making a more detailed picture with colors, i reccomend hand painting patches. I use white fabric paint mixed with acrylics for color to get all the shades i need. Acrylic paint mixed with fabric softener works too.

If doing words and you dont want a unique font reccomend using letter stamps. If you want a unique font for that i recommend hand paint for individual or linocut for mass produce.

The positive of letter stamps is the font is neat and can be done quickly. I know from lending them to my roommate that they are very helpful if you have dyslexia and have trouble getting letters right.

A visual effect of the letter stamps is that have a nice boxy edge effect, its an imperfection that adds a personally touch to it. I have both lower and upper case stamps that I got from michaels. You can use a hair band or elastic to hold a bunch of letter stamps together to make a word stamp.

You can use other stamps than letters that you find at craft stores for example my racoon print is a craftstore stamp.

You can also find big plastic letter stencils at the dollar store that you can use to do lettering by filling in gaps with a sponge or or paintbrush. They make special paintbrushes just for using stencils.

You can also get plastic stencils in the shapes of things, i got some for children and use a horse stencil for my horse smoking weed patch. Easier than drawing a horse myself.

Another technique I use for more unique clean patches is gel plating. I haven't tried printing laserprint images with it as ive seen online a lot but I will try one day. What i personally do is use it to make imprints with chains and physical objects.

Another thing i use with gelplates are any stamps or linocuts that dont have words, or words ones that i fucked up with and forgot to mirror when carving. It flips mirror image twice with the gel plate so it goes back to being right again on the patch.

Another patch making technique is using foamboard cut into shapes glued onto cardboard. This is good for a quick test of a design and is very cheap to make. It will not hold under water so is more difficult to clean.

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titleknown · 4 months

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Given my defenses of AI artists/dim view of the moral panic, I think overall people pushing back on this is a good thing.

Like, the sort of AI art I like is by small weirdos doing weirdo things not big megacorps using it to replace workers, and WotC and Hasbro are run by bastards who would probably salivate at the idea of replacing artists on MtG given they'd probably be the easiest ones to replace from a greedy-corporate-bastard view.

However, there's a souple of notes here I think we all should keep an eye on.

Namely, the fact that it was apparently from an artist using an AI tool that WotC didn't know about. Which, I think that's going to be a problem creators run into sooner or later with "AI bans"

Like, I get a lot of images for my photomanip stuff from Pixabay. And more and more I've been seeing a lot of AI art stuff as a part of it. How would those bans impact me if I; say; used them as an ingredient in a photomanip without knowing?

So, there's that. But there's also a disquieting possibility I've noticed.

Namely: Given the main fear about AI is that its ability to work quickly at volume might be used to push out traditional artists and their precision, what happens if corpos push for "the worst of both worlds"?

IE, what if; due to the expanded production speed of AI art; they mandate that creators work at speeds that can only be done if they use AI tools, but also end up forcing them to conceal and lie about it and leaving the artists to take the fall for using it rather than the corpos for pushing the culture of overwork that made it necessary?

TBH, I think that's why we need to focus less on the "stealing" argument being used as a way to talk about the destruction of the artistic ecosystem by mandated speed, and more the idea of the right of the artist to work at their own pace that might be able to do something about it.

But, IDK, that's just me, it's just something to watch out for.

#art #ai art #ai art discourse #critique #magic the gathering #meta

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flagbridge · 5 months

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Q&A: The Phantom Broadway Proshot

Happy 36th Birthday to Phantom of the Opera's opening night on Broadway! We should be celebrating at the Majestic. The show never should have closed.

In order to create "new" ish POTO Broadway content, @or-what-you-will and I promised to answer your questions about the proshot on POTO Broadway's birthday. Find our summary of the Proshot here.

We got dozens of questions, which we've consolidated into 14 questions. Read them all past the cut!

Wait, what’s the Phantom Proshot?

The Phantom Proshot is an archival copy of the original Broadway cast and production of Phantom of the Opera, filmed at the evening performance with a live audience on May 25, 1988. The New York Public Library, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center has archival copies of Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Regional theater going back to 1970. You can’t view currently running shows, so since Phantom ran for so long, it was under lock and key.

2. How do I see the Pro-Shot?

Pretty simple how to guide here on the NYPL website.

We are both NYPL cardholders and made a reservation in advance. You are required to state why you are accessing the recording as they exist for archival and research purpose. Both of us are published authors and researchers under our real names.

Here's a picture of the room we were in from NYPL's website. We had an appointment and were set up in a room with lots of monitors. We were seated at monitors next to each other with two sets of headphones and had one set of controls to pause/rewind etc. There are 20 monitors in the room and it was pretty full that day. This was not my first time at the TOFT and it’s always had a good number of people around.

3. Can someone get a boot of it/send me the link to it? Pleeeeease?

No. Seriously, stop asking about this. Stop joking about this. It’s not online, and never will be. All of the recordings are on digital media (videodiscs or DvDs) in the basement and only library staff get to touch them. Don’t be the person who tried to do this and ruins the archive for everyone else. You can’t even bring electronic devices into the room.

4. Why won’t they release it to the public? And who the heck does it benefit to keep this locked away?

It isn’t. It was locked away when the show was actually running. It is available to the public. We are the public! We have library cards and went to a public library and watched it for $0! It’s owned by the library so the public can see it! At the library!

The availability of us to access it now that the show has closed is what constitutes public release. There were several other phans, members of the public there to see it after us, and the library allowed them to max out the number of monitors the library allows people to view on. They had a later appointment and were watching disc one when we were on disc two. I’m sure there was someone after them too. Were we all wearing Phantom gear? Also yes.

(@or-what-you-will here) The library is not allowed to show recordings of anything currently running on Broadway, presumably because of fears about economic loss from those who own the rights to the musicals. The library does not own the rights to the musicals in the archive, and there are likely a lot of stipulations the library has to follow to be able to have recordings like this.

As someone who works in a library doing digitization work, libraries and the media they contain are very complicated. TOFT likely has the rights to show it under a very limited license, and to make copies for preservation purposes only, but things like this mean they would not be able to do anything like put it online or charge for it or do anything that would be them acting as though they owned the copyright (as opposed to the physical media). This is why when a library or archive has a book or tapes they don’t usually have the right to photocopy the entire book or digitize the entire tape and put it online (unless it is in public domain), however, if you go in person you can see it all you want. Someone else (usually the creator) owns the right to distribute or copy, and libraries and archives can get in a lot of trouble for violating it.

The copyright is still owned by the holders of each respective musical’s copyright. It’s essentially like when you buy a DVD and you are technically not supposed to copy that DVD but you can invite your friends over to watch it at your house. Copying it and distributing it violates copyright. Putting it online violates copyright. If the library violated copyright it would likely lose the ability to archive musicals altogether. If you copied the DVD it would be a lot harder to find out who put it up because the DVD is owned by lots of people, though you could still be prosecuted by the law. If the library did, they would know immediately who did it because they are presumably the only ones with a copy of this recording.

Likewise if someone took a bootleg recording of a show and distributed it, the copyright holders wouldn’t know it existed. If they found out that individual would then be eligible to be prosecuted under the law. Because the library is a public institution, if they were found out to be doing this, it would be the library itself that would get in trouble and it would damage their reputation, their funding, and quite possibly the funding and reputation of libraries around the world. A lot of this is done on trust. The copyright holders trust the library as a public institution and the library has a lot more stakes in the game than a single person recording the show and distributing it.

It’s a very tenuous agreement at times, and likely the library is only allowed to even record because there are so many protections in place and they have a history of enforcing these rules. These agreements also usually cover digitization and preservation, but again, violating them could have those abilities taken away as well. It’s all tied up in copyright law and the library has no control over that. I have talked to archivists where I live who have to record performances with tape over the lens because it’s considered for preservation and they want to make sure it cannot be possible to profit off of it in any way.

When the show goes into public domain they will be able to put it online all they want without fear of repercussions, but until then, unless those agreements change, we are all limited by the whim of the copyright holders.

5. Hello! Is the pro shot you watched what this clip is from https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cp2_80CJqI3/?igsh=MWNja2wwYWw4OHUwbw== ?

I know all of us here on Tumblr were freaking out that they maybe had a copy of the pro shot when this came out. Thank you! (@imstillhere-butallislost)

Not the proshot, it's a press reel. It has its own cool story though! Answered this here.

6. How good of a shot was it? I know you said ProShot but is it a ProShot like Hamilton or just a camera recording the whole stage at once?

I’d definitely say it was Hamilton pro-shot quality as to what was available at the time between image quality and mixing up of close ups and wide shots. I’ve watched other proshots and many just park a camera in the back of the orchestra and call it good. Cats in particular had multiple cameras but just did close-ups when they felt like it, not when it made sense or added anything. As @or-what-you-will explained in their re-blog, Phantom was one of the first proshots where they had a soundboard plug in, and let me tell you, with the exception of a few moments in Act 1 where Sarah Brightman maxes out her mic, the sound was delicious. Have we talked about how Judy Kaye is singing over the overture (yes, that’s Judy Kaye, original Carlotta, warming up!)? Or that you can hear every single word of Notes I and Prima Donna and Notes II, which usually just sounds garbled because everyone is singing over one another? Actually hearing words that I sort of know exist changed my experience of the show for me.

7. How did the tempo seem, compared to the pace of the show at the end of its run? I saw the show a few times in the last few years, and the music seemed significantly faster in person than it sounded on the London cast recording. I’ve always wondered if that was just a difference between the London and NY productions, or if the tempo just sped up over the years.

Uh…normal pace??? I’ve watched a lot of boots and most solidly clock in 2:15 of run time. This was no different. There are definitely some that run a little faster. London during Earl Carpenter’s 2023 run was notorious as he had to catch a train. It does seem to have settled back out. I will say, the music does always feel more intense in person because the whole place just vibrates.

8. I'm curious about the comment about the Ratcatcher? I think I remember that character from a film adaptation, but was he ever in the ALW musical? (@lord-valery-mimes)

Yes, Ratcatcher is still in the musical, even now. It’s a blink or you miss it type of moment. If you hear a thud and a scream right before Madame Giry tells Raoul “He lives across the Lake, Monsieur”, the thud is the ratcatcher running across the travelator.

9. Does Christine really recognize the Phantom in PONR from his boner?

No, but at this point she probably already know it’s him and has been trying to get through the scene, but definitely acts surprised because, well, that’s surprising. But it’s definitely the moment where the Vibes Are Officially Off.

10. Can Sarah Brightman act?

Yes! All three of the trio have far more nuanced performances on stage. Sarah doesn’t act the way that we do see many later Christines (including late 80s and early 90s Christines), but she absolutely created the blueprint for the role. Her “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” is missing some soul, but at the end of the day she was one of a kind, and she made some very strong acting choices.

11. there anything unexpected? Any interpretation that stood out to you and particularly striking but didn’t stick around as others took on the roles and put their own spin on things?

Guys, I want to talk about Steve Barton as Raoul. The man made choice, after choice, after choice. And yet we have had so many Raoul’s that are kind of just strutting about looking pretty. Some seem to even forget they’re onstage during Final Lair. It can be such a juicy role if the actors choose to make it that way but so few do.

Besides some small details I mentioned, the show did maintain its integrity through its 35 year run, which is truly remarkable.

(@or-what-you-will here) Seconding what Flag said, Steve Barton brought so much more to the role than I’m used to seeing, and it really opened my mind to what Raoul could be.

The blocking in PONR did surprise me, I knew they had changed it but I hadn’t realized how much. I always found the kind of pinwheeling arm thing Christine does with the phantom strange, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that they didn’t do that at all, the embrace from behind made more sense to me.

I also found after she took his hood off no one really ran out, the phantom and Christine got to have their moment. The blocking where they (the managers and Raoul) run out and tell Christine to stay makes no sense with their motivations to stop him. The more recent blocking where Christine motions them to stay in place as the phantom sings the All I Ask of You Reprise makes way more sense with the characters’ motives and matches this original blocking much more.

12. Also are you truly working on a research project? If so, how is progress and where might we find your final results when it’s complete?

To quote Dr. Who, “Spoilers.” Yes, always. Both of us have day jobs that have us doing research, but I can’t promise I’ll put it on here when complete since I keep fandom and real life separate. Sorry to dodge this one but getting into specifics about this starts to identify us.

(@or-what-you-will here) Seconding what Flag said.

13. Hi there, I was wondering if I could ask you a general question about the NPL’s archive. Something about the language on their website made it sound like viewers could only watch a recording “once”. I wasn’t sure if that meant “once per visit” (i.e. you can’t sit there for 8 hours restarting the tape every time it ends) or “once” as in forever (like, once you’ve watched a recording you are never allowed to request it again). Did you have any clarification? I wasn't sure if the librarians explain the policies when you arrive at your appointment. Thank you for providing so many details about the Phantom pro-shot and offering to answer our questions! That's really kind of you!

You’re welcome! So if there’s nobody after you, you can hang out with the media as long as you want. However, we did have another group come in about 90 minutes after us. That gave us enough time to watch both acts with all the rewinds we wanted. We watched PONR and parts of Final Lair like five times. On a previous TOFT trip I watched two shows and was there for like six hours. The prohibition is on coming back and watching the recording again. I have no idea how strict they are about this, although I suspect it’s to keep people from monopolizing certain media. Would I want to try to watch the proshot again in the future? Probably! I know there’s stuff I missed, or I’d see something different depending on what I’m working on. The TOFT is also an absolutely incredible resource and I have so many other shows I’d like to check out.

(Will here) They do log on your library account when you visit that you visited and what you saw. However, if you have accessibility needs that would require you to watch in multiple viewings or something along those lines, I would talk to them about it, because I’m sure they’d be able to work with you to figure out something so you wouldn’t have to sit through the whole thing in one shot.

14. > Barton Raoul’s “There is no Phantom of the Opera” comes off more as “Christine this is just some dude” vs “he doesn’t exist at all.”

Could you elaborate on this part? I'm having trouble imagining how that would be conveyed. (also, thanks for sharing your notes on the procast!) @clutzyangel

You're welcome! Yes, he's telling Christine that the Phantom is a human, flesh-and-blood man, not some fantastical creature. I've seen many Raouls who seem to try to convince Christine that the Phantom doesn't exist at all. Barton's Raoul seems to understand that he's a man with ulterior motives possibly duping Christine.

And he's not wrong.

#phantom of the opera #poto #alw phantom #phantom proshot #happy birthday phantom broadway #phantom broadway #michael crawford #sarah brightman #steve barton #judy kaye #andrew lloyd webber #nypl #research #I wish Phantom were still be on broadway #we should all be wilding out at the majestic

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ein-shtink · 3 months

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Sometimes I think about the fact we’re neighbors. There are more things that bring me and a Palestinian woman living in Gaza together than things bringing us apart.

We grew up watching the same sunsets, the same sunrises. If there were no borders, it would take about an hour for us to go and visit one another. We grew up listening to the same music. Our parents did, too.

Our grandparents read poetry in the same language, watched the same Egyptian movies. The foods are similar, the hobbies are, too. When I was in high school I met a girl my age, who grew up in Gaza but relocated with her family to an Arab village within Israel, a five minute drive from where I used to live. We made movies together. We joked a lot. We were one and the same, more often than not.

I can’t stop thinking about the Palestinians in Gaza. I can’t stop thinking about the horrors they endure. I can’t stop thinking about Palestinian men, women and children, having to fight for food. For hygiene products. For water. I can’t stop thinking about them having no time to hide before a bomb hits, about them not being allowed to evacuate. I can’t stop thinking about the ones who died protesting for a better life, long before this war started. They are my neighbors. We watch the same sunsets.

I can’t stop thinking about the hostages, either. I can’t stop thinking about the desecrated bodies of innocent women paraded around Gaza’s streets. I can’t stop thinking about the sisters who were raped and murdered together, aged 13 and 16. The older one was my sister’s friend. I can’t stop thinking about Shlomo Ron, the art-loving 80 year old man who sacrificed his own life to save his wife and grandchildren. He looks just like my grandpa. I can’t stop thinking about Thomas Hand, who was told his little girl was dead and cried tears of joy, because being dead is better than being taken hostage. I can’t stop thinking about the fact Emily Hand didn’t die, and actually was taken hostage. Ever since she was released, she only whispers, too afraid to speak up.

I can’t stop thinking about the suffering. About the loss. About the mothers on both sides of their border who had to watch their children die. About the pain.

Their faces haunt me.

I don’t understand why the West is calling for a ceasefire when they should be calling for peace. I don’t understand why the West is calling for the destruction of Israel when they should be calling for a solution that will allow both people to live side by side, in peace. I don’t understand why the existence of Israel is a bad thing. I don’t understand why the West refuses to call out Hamas, for the crimes of October 7th and their gross mistreatment and neglectful leadership of the Palestinian people ever since they rose to power. I don’t understand why the West views this decades old conflict through a one sided lens, amplifying the voice of one people’s crying and shutting down the other’s.

We deserve better. Palestinians and Israelis deserve better. We deserve to prosper, we deserve to live long and proud of our heritages in the land we both call home.

Maybe one day nations around the world and our own corrupt leaders will stop making us paint one another as the enemy. Israelis and Palestinians, we’re not each other’s enemies. We’re each other’s neighbors.

We deserve to let our children play.

#israel #palestine #gaza #i/p war #I don’t know. just had to let it all out #I’m sad and I’m angry and I’m frustrated and I’m so fucking scared #I just want this war to be over already #am yisrael chai #non Palestinians/israelis can rb but as I mentioned before idc about your opinions on the matter

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transmutationisms · 3 months

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been thinking it for a while but it is both an interesting and frightening thing to see more and more people in their 20s who are usually self-professed hard-leftist progressives get more and more into emotionally-driven, kneejerk 'takes' about how everything new to them is bad and evil and 'this generation' (usually people younger than them who they seem to base all their opinions on from some teens dumb tiktoks they see) is stupid and doomed and the world/'our culture' is constantly degenerating, etc. many of the people who think of themselves as radical leftists are coming out with more and more barely-formed, incoherent and emotionally-driven reactionary ideas, and respond to any criticism of these ideas with defensive appeals to disgust or a general sense of 'everyone just knows this is bad!', bypassing needing to think over their own ideas or articulate the reasons they hold them entirely in favor of reactive outrage.

it feels to me like were watching in real-time how many of us will progressively turn into reactionary liberals or right-wingers - something many of these people have observed in older people, in their parents, but believe will simply not happen to them on account of having good intentions and progressive views, which they think means they dont need to watch themselves for impulsive, reactionary thinking, and even that their kneejerk reaction to anything is automatically the correct one because they themselves are already inherently good. of course it starts with generally inconsequential takes, its not like saying 'the tiles are ugly' automatically makes you a right-winger, but i reckon the festering of such modes of thinking shows the cracks in the foundation of many peoples professed political and social beliefs.

point being, i think there certainly are discussions to be had about the ways architecture - both as a tool that serves a material need and a form of art - changes, and what we may be losing to capitalist priorities on that front, but if the only argument people are making are "its ugly and degenerates our once beautiful culture" and their defense to anyone addressing how that sounds ends at "well its still ugly!", im thinking that kind of reactionary opinion-forming is going to seep into other, more important matters sooner than they may think. sorry for the long ask!

yeah i mean i definitely don't think this is a new problem or a generational one, it's just liberal idealism, but yes this is exactly why this type of aesthetic discourse irritates me so much lol. like i've said this before in regards to clothing but aesthetic signifiers gain their meaning in a social context and conditionally. if your analysis is "it's ugly and therefore bad" you're not only attenuating an actual read of what's being signified and why, you're also just veering directly into the most boring ass "everything is worse now and change threatens me" conservatism. the idea that ugliness and beauty are not transhistorical or transcendental truths should ideally be like, a starting point to both questioning other socially mediated constructs and to then moving toward a theory of asethetics as products of social discourses and economic conditions but instead people just cannot ever fucking resist yelling about how much beige or concrete or whatever the fuck is "soulless" or "lacks artistry" agabshxhsg it's so fucking cornball. get over yourself

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pinksilvace · 11 months

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A few weeks back, I made a comment to the effect of, "Belos views himself as the single human character in a muppets production." It has since then spiraled into an entire AU in my head that refuses to leave me alone. A few weeks back, I made a comment to the effect of, "Belos views himself as the single human character in a muppets production." It has since then spiraled into an entire AU in my head that refuses to leave me alone.

The basic premise:

Caleb and Evelyn found a weekly children's program ("The Boiling Isles") that features puppets; little Philip is featured as the one human, and since the episodes with him do much better than the ones without, he grows up into the role and eventually becomes a big part of the production staff as well

When Caleb and Evelyn die in an accident, Philip inherits the show

Some of the main (puppet) characters are named Luzura, Willow, Amity, and Augustus (you can see where I'm going with this). Philip would be able to stand these puppets on their own BUT

In promotional materials and interviews, he is ALWAYS asked what it's like to "work with" Luzura/Willow/Amity/Gus. Philip is absolutely INFURIATED by this because they're PUPPETS why can't anybody see that they're PUPPETS don't you care about the STAFF or the ARTISTS or the LIGHTING MANAGERS why does everybody pretend that the PUPPETS are REAL PEOPLE and why does HE have to pretend that the PUPPETS are when he responds??? He's convinced that some of the interviewers genuinely believe that the puppets are alive and tries to patiently explain that, no, they are just puppets. The interviewers always refuse to break the immersion.

Expanded AU thoughts are under the cut.

Caleb and Evelyn meet at an arts college. Evelyn is a film student, and the show's prototype is her capstone project. Caleb offers to bring Philip in as an actor and it sticks. Caleb also helps make some of the first puppets.

Little Philip's identity is protected by 1) the presence of a mask, and 2) the stage name "Belos". The name sticks around for his on-screen appearances.

While sticking around the set, Philip learns a lot about the different areas of production. He especially likes building sets, backdrops, props, and puppets, though he finds the writing process interesting as well. When he's old enough to help out with paperwork, he takes over the logistical side of things because tbh both Caleb and Evelyn are helpless when it comes to that

By the time Philip takes over, he's basically the head supervisor of every single department. His management makes the show's popularity explode

Philip is definitely the best at building and controlling puppets. Every now and then, he makes an extra-large "final boss" sort of puppet that only he is physically capable of controlling, and some of them end up in museums

Philip raises Hunter, but he's sort of the neglectful sort. He's ultra-focused on keeping the show his brother put so much thought, effort, and love into alive, and it makes literally any semblance of life he might have had outside of the show suffer

Similarly to Philip, Hunter grows up on set, but not as an actor. The production staff looks after him. When he's old enough, he also becomes a part of the test audience

The production staff is composed of the Emperor's Coven members in canon; i.e. Darius is in charge of lighting and wires, Raine is the sound director, Eberwolf is the lead puppet master, Hettie is the on-site medic, etc.

Luz and Camila are also a part of the test audience. I'm going to pretend that Philip and Camila are good buds in this AU. Philip inserts Luzura into the show as a character based on Luz

Basically most of the ire that Philip has in this AU is directed toward the puppets because they're not REAL why are THEY getting the GLORY can we PLEASE not pretend that these PUPPETS have thoughts and feelings and personalities???

He also doesn't leave because 1) the aforementioned attachment to something Caleb loved so much, and 2) he's put too much effort into this show already and he knows that no replacement could ever be so proficient at his job

Let's be real, Philip's work ethic is super unsustainable, and it DEFINITELY keeps him from grieving properly

When Hunter reveals that he does not, in fact, want to inherit the company that Philip has built, it's CRUSHING to Philip, who feels like giving it up would be disrespecting Caleb's legacy, unaware that he's staring Caleb's legacy in the face

Ideally Philip's arc (which I have hardly described here) would end with wealthy retirement and him being able to say "goodbye Boiling Isles" and never having to appear alongside those godforsaken puppets ever again

#my art #belmup au #mullet caleb mullet caleb mullet caleb #I'll be honest the art was just an excuse to talk about this au but mullet caleb will forever live in my heart #the owl house #toh fanart #caleb wittebane #philip wittebane #emperor belos #toh au #evelyn clawthorne #also yes all of the puppets are left handed :) that was very important to Evelyn #fernart

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racefortheironthrone · 1 year

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Why has the American comics industry been so adverse to unionization? I've been reading through the Comics Broke Me hashtag on Twitter and I've realized how difficult it's been to even get meager compensation for work that provides the backbone for billion dollar smash hits.

I would highly recommend Abraham Josephine Riesman's biography of Stan Lee, True Believer, both as an excellent portrait of the man himself and how his industry changed across the decades. (Bell and Vassallo's Secret History of Marvel is also quite good on the early history of the company.)

When the comics industry emerged out of the pulp and magazine industry in the 30s, it was not the "backbone for billion dollar smash hits" that it is today - it was a low-rent, fly-by-night industry that was associated with pornography and organized crime. Notably, it was also an low-cost industry that sold a very cheap product (the original 10-cent comic was about $1.80 in today's money) to children. More on this in a bit.

Even when it suddenly experienced a sudden increase in popularity with Action Comics #1, everyone in the industry thought that it was a passing fad that would be temporary - and so there was less resistance to the work-for-hire system that bosses like Martin Goodman used to keep their costs down. Not no resistance - as Riesman notes, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon got pissed when Goodman started stiffing them on the profit-sharing from Captain America, so they started moonlighting at D.C, Stan Lee found out and snitched on them to his cousin-in-law/boss, and that led to them getting fired - but less.

However, there was another reason why it was hard to start a union in the comics industry, which is that a lot of comics creators were vaguely ashamed or embarrasse to be associated with it. Even before Wertham and the moral panic of the 1950s, comics were (as I've noted above) seen as a bit scuzzy, a form of disposable crass commercial entertainment aimed at an undiscerning audience of children, and certainly not respectable Real Art. While they were trying for their big break into the more prestigious worlds of fine art or literary fiction, writers and artists viewed their work in the comics industry as a day job that was best kept a bit under wraps - hence why Stanley Lieber only used the nom-de-plume Stan Lee for the comics, because he wanted to keep his then-real name for the career in novel-writing that he wanted to have.

Moreover, there was a particular ethnic angle to this distancing. As I've written a bit about before, there was a tendency among Jewish creators of this generation to keep Judaism subtextual and to change their names to keep their own Judaism subtextual - hence Stanley Lieber taking on a more gentile-sounding name, hence even a proud and pugnacious Jewish man like Jacob Kurtzberg choosing to go by Jack Kirby. Partly, this was done as a means of achieving economic opportunity in a society that wasn't exactly welcoming to creators with Jewish surnames. (Hence the line in the West Wing about Toby Ziegler going by Toby Ritchie when he worked as a telemarketer.) This is another reason why these Jewish creators were working in comics in the first place, because the "Mad Men" who ran the advertizing industry wouldn't hire them.

But partly it was done to avoid becoming a shanda fur die goyim - a Yiddish expression that means "a shame in front of the gentiles" - by associating the Jewish community with a (heavily Jewish) industry that was viewed as little more elevated than the schmatta trade in comparison to the prestigious world of art and literature. It's an old story - literally, it's the plot of The Jazz Singer, the first talkie about a Jewish entertainer (in blackface, unfortunately) and his conflict and eventual reconciliation with his more traditional family.

youtube

After comics went through its first big boom in WWII and then survived the crash in the 50s and saw the second big boom in the 60s, a lot of creators realized that the handshake work-for-hire deals that they had started with had screwed them out of a lot of money. This started some very high profile long-running lawsuits, as first Siegel and Shuster and later Kirby and Ditko sought to get a portion of the rights to the characters they had created. (Some of these lawsuits settled only a few days ago, and some are still ongoing.)

As Riesman explains, the Copyright Act of 1976 created an opening for comics creators by requiring that there be a written agreement between a work-for-hire creator and their employer establishing the transfer of copyright. This created an existential crisis for the Big Two comics companies, and the new Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter immediately tried to get his creators to sign one-page contracts transferring their rights. Hotshot artist Neal Adams urged creators to not sign the contract and invited them to a meeting at his place to discuss forming a union. Shooter retaliated by threatening to black ball anyone who joined Adams' organization - and this blatant violation of U.S labor law cowed comics creators into signing the contracts and signing away their rights and the drive to unionize comics died the same way a lot of union drives die.

Things have gotten a bit better in recent decades - the 90s comics boom and the departure of the Image guys improved the situation for creators' rights somewhat due to competitive pressure, but there are still significant problems when it comes to comics creators' access to health care, pensions, and other benefits. There have been some recent union wins - the Comic Book Workers United organized Image Comics - but these tend to be unions of staff workers rather than creators. There is the Cartoonists' Co-op, which is looking to move in the direction of acting like a union but is a very nascent organization that's a long way away from that yet. And it remains galling that the most that creators see from the billions made by Disney and Warner Brothers Discovery are $5,000 checks dispensed to keep them quiet.

It's not going to get better until writers and artists unionize.

#comics #comics meta #stan lee #jack kirby #jim shooter #labor history #trade unions #jewish history #subtextual judaism #cultural history #marvel #marvel meta #dc #dc meta

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thecreaturecodex · 1 year

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Mind Flayer, General Information

"Elder Brain Variant" © Wizards of the Coast, by Nino Is. Accessed at Art of MtG here

[While the OGL 1.1 debacle was going on, I said that I was going to keep my distance with Wizards' IP for a while. Why the change? Well, Wizards accidentally (on purpose?) released a bunch of previously Product Identity monsters into the Creative Commons, including the mind flayers. And I had been contemplating the illithidae as my next D&D monster project for a while, since I was commissioning art for the modron hierarchs.

My take on the mind flayers is going to be, like many of my versions of D&D monsters, somewhat iconoclastic. Namely, I don't like the elder brain very much. At least, not as they are typically interpreted, as the masters of a hivemind of unquestioningly obeying illithids. That makes the basic illithid into a minion and a drone. The combination of controlled by elder brains and the ever-increasing emphasis on ceremorphosis makes the mind flayers feel like the Borg. Which is less interesting than the original 70s and 80s version, where it was a species made up entirely of evil masterminds. I want to re-inject some of the respect for the normal illithids into this version.

My flavor text draws inspiration from all of the various mind flayer interpretations that have come before. A major source of inspiration was "The Sunset World", an article from Dragon 150. The various creeds were a big deal in 2e, as illithids played major roles in both Planescape and Spelljammer, but have been all but forgotten since them. I'm ignoring the time travel element from 3.5's Lords of Madness, but I am using their interpretation of mind flayer emotions. I am also finally giving them a mechanical weakness to bright lights, which somehow has been flavor only for the last 47 years.]

Mind Flayer The mind flayers are a species of hyper-intelligent, imperialist aliens that view other creatures as slaves and cattle. Their empire spans over dozens of planets, but is currently in something of a declining period due to slave revolts, conflict with the Dominion of the Black and other misfortune. Mind flayers are known for their decentralized organization and various means of travel and conquest. Some use spaceships, but most travel from planet to planet using the Astral and Shadow Planes as corridors. The mind flayers hate bright light, and the late stages of their planetary conquests include changing the atmosphere or stars of planets in order to reduce their illumination to a comforting red hue. The hub of their empire, although it is likely not their home world, is Ssirik-Akuar, the Sunset World.

As the name suggests, mind flayers use mind-influencing magic to control their enemies and allies alike. But they are also avid consumers of brains. A mind flayer can survive on an omnivorous diet of meat, fungi and plants, but grows listless and unhealthy if it does not regularly consume the brains of sapient creatures. A mind flayer can inject its tentacles straight into the brains of its victims, pithing them. Most of the time, this brain-dead individual’s brain is consumed by that mind flayer, but pithed victims are required for the mind flayer’s bizarre reproductive cycle.

What are thought by some to be different species of mind flayers are in fact different stages in a complex life cycle. The most commonly encountered mind flayers, illithids, are the equivalent of males. The elder brains that illithid colonies gather around are the equivalent of females. Illithids periodically fertilize the elder brain’s eggs, and the elder brain lives in a pool of slime crawling with mind flayer tadpoles. Illithids insert these tadpoles into the pithed body of a Medium-sized, mammalian humanoid in order to allow their young to reach maturity. Inside a host body, the tadpole insinuates into the remaining nervous system and eventually replaces its tissues like a cancer, transforming the body into an illithid. A few tadpoles, fed special enzymes by the elder brain, grow into ulitharids instead. An ulitharid is essentially an immature elder brain that spends decades learning as much as it can and coordinating the efforts of illithids before metamorphosing into a new elder brain. Most mind flayers do not concern themselves with matters of gender, and most of their bodies have lost the secondary sexual characteristics of their former lives.

Mind flayers are supremely arrogant, and their interactions with other species are usually exploitative and predatory. They present themselves as being without emotion, but in truth they are capable of regulating their emotions more directly than other creatures by consciously releasing chemicals. An illithid’s emotions are typically disdain, spite, arrogance and a lust for power. They rationalize their fears as concern and self-preservation. Almost all mind flayers consider themselves part of one or more “creeds”, which are philosophical callings that influence how mind flayers pursue their goals of conquest and consumption. Mind flayers do not discriminate between sources of power, and arcane, divine and occult magic, as well as alchemy, are common pursuits.

Mind Flayer Deities The primary god of the mind flayers is Ilsensine, the God Brain. Mind flayers consider Ilsensine to have been the first elder brain. According to the Venerator Creed, Ilsensine’s priesthood, when an elder brain dies, its knowledge passes to Ilsensine. Ilsensine’s unholy symbol is a green brain with two tentacles, and its favored weapon is the tentacle. Those few worshipers of Ilsensine that aren’t mind flayers treat unarmed strikes as their favored weapon. Ilsensine is lawful evil, and their domains are Charm, Evil, Knowledge, Law and Magic. Ilsensine’s subdomains are Hatred, Memory, Slavery, Thought and Tyranny. A cleric of Ilsensine can use the Hatred subdomain to modify the Evil domain.

A recent emergence in mind flayer culture is the rise of the Creed of Thoon. Thoon is a mysterious entity associated with the Plateau of Leng. Thoon’s followers are devoted to violent expansion, extracting vital essences from their victims along with brains and harnessing them into strange constructs that blur the line between living and non-living. Thoon’s unholy symbol is a complex rune made of tentacles, and its favored weapon is a heavy flail. Thoon is neutral evil, and its domains are Artifice, Evil, Madness and War. Thoon’s subdomains are Alchemy, Construct, Nightmare and Tactics.

Mind Flayer Mechanics “Mind flayer” is a subtype of the aberration type, with the following characteristics:

Spell resistance equal to 15 + the mind flayer’s CR

Affectless (Ex) A mind flayer gains a +4 racial bonus on all saving throws against emotion effects

Light blindness

Sunlight Sickness (Ex) A mind flayer in direct sunlight is sickened, as well as suffering penalties from its light blindness

Pith (Ex) A mind flayer can make a coup de grace attempt as a full round action without provoking attacks of opportunity against a helpless or pinned opponent. The coup de grace must be made with a specific natural weapon, listed in the mind flayer’s entry. This coup de grace does not function against creatures that have no head or no brain, and creatures with multiple heads are not killed if they fail the save (although that head is no longer functional).

#mind flayer #illithid #ulitharid #elder brain #tentacles #D&D #pathfinder 1e

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fullscoreshenanigans · 5 months

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there are sometimes who is strange in all the side-information that we have about TPN.

In a interview, the author told that Grandma was the one to choose the names of the babies.

But in a bonus comic, Isabella tells Ray, Emma and Norman how she choose their name.

So either she lied...

Either that's a incoherence.

Either Grandma didn't name the kids who were going to Isabella to let her "daugther" names them as she want.

....either Grandma had given other names to kids who were going to the Grace Field House 3 an Isabella deliberally changed the names in a way to say "f*** you" to her former guardian (since the demons didn't care about the names) and claim the kids as her own. Carol is the only one to not have had a change of name because of Krone presence.

I don't know why but the last idea is hilarous to me ^^"

I default to the bonus comic being the most accurate to simultaneously keep any sisters in HQ from potentially getting attached to the infants by giving them official names and to make the moms more endeared and caring toward the children they named themselves (for reference for anyone who hasn't seen it; a reward for scoring high on the official site's IQ test:)

(Reprinted in The Promised Neverland Art Book World; one of the few times we get to see them with their short sleeves for warmer weather.)

Unless Shirai meant Sarah named them literally right before handing them off to the moms in the plants, but I don't believe she'd care enough then or at any point after becoming Grandma.

That last one is funny though dlkfjsd

The little petty ways you get back at your mom when you're both victims and perpetrators of a violent system.

But you're right; Shirai's said some conflicting things over the course of the series' run that I think come from being run ragged by a hellish production schedule and a work just naturally evolving as opposed to being antagonistically contrarian to spite fans he views as obnoxious.

The other two that readily come to mind are Shirai saying the series could range anywhere from 10 to 30 volumes long…

(Mystic Code Book Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | October 2018 Franceinfo Interview | October 2020 Series Completion Interview)

…before his health took a nosedive and saying it was always going to be 20 volumes at most, with him wanting to maintain his sense of artistic integrity by completing the series on his own terms (the similarities between this and the way Yoshihiro Togashi ended Yu Yu Hakusho, one of TPN's biggest inspirations, is sadly staggering).

(Mystic Code Book Chapter 5 | October 2020 Series Completion Interview | TPN Wiki's Chapter 134 Page | WSJ Editorial Department 9/5/19 Update)

And him (and Sugita) being purposely mum about how he felt about Noremma when speaking with Cloverworks staff during the production of season 1 in 2018 compared to what he mentioned to Kendo Kobayashi in an earlier January 2018 interview, assuming he ultimately wanted to leave it up to the audience's interpretation rather than imposing his own (Demizu notably interprets all the relationships in the series as platonic).

(Minerva Confidential Report from the S1 Blu-ray | Mystic Code Book Chapter 1)

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ikroah · 1 year

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Pistol packin' mama, lay that thing down before it goes off and hurts somebody! —“Pistol Packin’ Mama,” Bing Crosby (1943)

It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’ #24 - Ring-a-Ding-Ding III

Collaborative Issue! Guest Artist: @yesjejunus

«« First | « Previous || Next » | Last »»

Read IKROAH on Archive of Our Own

Notes / Original Pencils / Transcript:

Notes:

Oh noooooooooooo :(

These pages might get shrunken a little by Tumblr for some reason so either right-click to view at full-size or just read it on AO3 at the link above. And give a round of applause to my wonderful and wonderfully talented friend @yesjejunus who returns to guest art duty with this new issue, which is just another car crashing into the pile-up that is happening to Agnes in the closing half of Volume 2. Issue #25 will be all of my own art again, and I've been working for a long time on reinventing the look, feel, and production of IKROAH's artstyle so I hope you'll all be as excited as I am. Some really big things are about to happen.

Original Pencils

Here's another reason why mr. jejunus deserves a round of applause: patience. I talk often about how IKROAH is a very long-term project but this issue marks the longest collaboration in the history of the comic: the original pencils for this issue were drawn in August 2021. This was also when yesjejunus and I first discussed him doing guest art for this issue, and it would have been a lot sooner, of course, but you know, things (like months of burnout) can just happen. By the time this issue was finally next in the queue, I had committed to increasing the resolution of IKROAH's pages just to ease my own production, but these pencils were still formatted for the old size. I had to reformat these pencils for the new size and aspect ratio.

The tumblr editor keeps crashing every time I try to include them, so here's links instead: [1] [2] [3].

The thing about working with yesjejunus on comic issues like this is that at this point we're so deep in each other's heads that I barely even need to give him feedback. He understands the assignment completely because we're both sickos pressed against each other's brain-windows going "Yes…ha ha ha…yes!" and drooling. It's the kind of friendship as well as creative partnership that you really just treasure.

Transcript

INT. BENNY'S BEDROOM, THE TOPS CASINO, NEW VEGAS.

AGNES SANDS stares down, exhausted, at BENNY, the leader of the Chairmen and the man who shot her in the head.

BENNY does not stare back. He is dead. His eyes have rolled up lifelessly and blood is oozing from the gruesome wound in his skull.

AGNES looks away.

Suddenly—

SFX: KNOCK KNOCK

VOICE FROM OUTSIDE (off): Hey, Ben-man! Everything alright in there?

AGNES jerks up in surprise. She searches her surroundings frantically, looking for a way out. The gun that she shot BENNY with—the gun that BENNY shot her with—is still in her hand. She sees a side door, barely ajar, leading out of BENNY'S BEDROOM with a dim light coming from behind it.

AGNES sprints forward, her arm outstretched to shove open the door, and barges in. Then she freezes in her tracks. In front of her is a large and ambulatory machine, with claw-like arms and a computer monitor in its center. The monitor displays an unchanging vector of a happily smiling face. It speaks.

THE MACHINE: Hello! I'm Yes Ma—

AGNES raises the gun with both hands and fires repeatedly, her eyes wide and mouth agape in terror. She empties it of every single other bullet that was left in it.

THE MACHINE (shorting out): I-I'm sorry…!!

THE MACHINE crumples from the repeated shots, which shatter its monitor-face like a glass window and send it falling backwards. Its robotic corpse snaps and cracks with electricity and malfunctioning hardware as AGNES remains stunned in the doorway.

SFX: KNOCK KNOCK

AGNES looks up as BENNY'S men pound harder on the door to the suite.

VOICE FROM OUTSIDE (off): Benny! We heard shots! We're coming in!

AGNES drops the gun and flees through the hallway's secret private elevator.

VOICE FROM OUTSIDE (off): Oh, shit, somebody iced 'im! Get security!

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fnv #courier six #agnes sands #benny gecko #yes man #ikroah archive #volume 02 #24

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kavaeric · 1 year

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Y'know I think the reason why I hate the term "content creator" isn't necessarily the word choice of calling stuff posted online "content". Superficially I don't think it's a bad idea to have an intentionally vague catch-all term a la "queer" that ensures gatekeeping is difficult by definition.

I think the actual reason why I hate the term "content creator" is that it places overwhelming focus on the end product, not on creation as a process or skillset. "Artist" "writer" "documentarian" "musician" or even a vague catch-all term like "creative" is much nicer to me because it's a term that places the emphasis on the human being and their skills and craft, rather than the output. If anything defines me it's not the actual final pictures I post on the internet, but the skills and techniques and methods of thinking I've incorporated into my being over my lifetime. Even with clients, the point of a portfolio isn't so much us showing off what we've created in the past, but is rather simply a means to demonstrate what skills we have developed. At a broader scope, it's also why a resumé is a list of skills, degrees, and workplace experiences first and foremost, with specific final outputs and projects being secondary if mentioned at all.

Conversely, "content creator" reduces all of that to the end product. It's a phrase that suggests a disinterest in the how and almost exclusively on the what. Here you're defined not by what skills you have as a person, but rather on what your output is: you are a creator of content, and the content is what's actually important above all else. The "creator" in "content creator" is but a mere means to an end, and the thing about being viewed as a means-to-an-end is that the people in charge will want to replace you with something more efficient if it'll result in the same end, in their mind.

Over the years we've been seeing the ongoing trivialisation of creatives at large: not just the NFT and AI art drivel, but also the replacement of practical effects and sets with CG solely because those workers are cheaper, the abuse of video game developers, the erosion of selling music as a viable income stream, the normalisation of spec work from writers and graphic designers, the list goes on. All of these events and more, in my view, have the same undercurrent of viewing final products and results as the most important thing in the creative process; care for the human beings who actually make the things is secondary at best.

Hence I don't think that a lot of the observations people make about tech dudebros flip-flopping between "art is immutably valuable and unique" for NFTs and "art is basically all the same and interchangeable" with AI isn't necessarily hypocrisy, because when you understand that these people view the tangible but inanimate final product, an entity that demands nothing of you nor will invite any protest if reduced to a single number on a spreadsheet, as the most important thing? Of course they have no problem doing both. It's also why you can't actually engage with these people on good faith; at the end of the day trying to appeal to their sense of morality when it comes to the welfare of human beings is not really what they're interested in, frankly.

It's the mass acceptance of "so long as we get the results, I don't care how we go about achieving them" which honestly freaks me out the most.

#personal #kav's hyperfixations

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jenatwork · 8 months

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Thinking about my Utena post about the story from Akio's perspective, I've been thinking also about the final arc from Anthy's position and whether there's anything that we missed - I don't think I'd really thought fully before about what 'the power to revolutionise the world' means to each of them.

That's what Akio/World's End tells the duelists they're fighting for, and they each interpret it differently, which is I think why he keeps it all so vague and shrouded in mystery because it's probably an empty promise. Sayonji wants the Rose Bride first and foremost, for the status she will give him; Mikki wants a power that he associates with art and creativity; Juri wants to prove that her cynical world view is justified; Nanami and Touga both seem to want power for the sake of having power, because it gets them whatever they want in life, because they're used to getting what they want.

But for Akio? It's the power to revolutionise his own world, i.e. to regain the power of Dios, to stop being a human man and to return to being a hero, elevated above mortal men. What power he has in the time of the story comes either from projecting illusions or from pressuring Anthy into using her real power to manipulate others. His world is the one that will be revolutionised, and the duelists are merely the tools he uses to get there, so he has no intention of giving them anything tangible.

Anthy didn't set out to make Dios a powerless mortal man: she sought to protect her brother from the world that wanted to work him to death, and to make people stop relying on him and learn to solve their own problems. But over time, as Akio returns to the world, it's as if he almost grows to resent being powerless - he feels entitled to that power, and at the start of Utena's story, we meet a very human man with the entitlement of a man accustomed to power, entirely separated from the noble Dios.

From Anthy's perspective, allowing that now-entitled and arrogant man to have the power of a sort of demi-god would be disastrous. The chances of him becoming a noble and honourable hero, after decades of living as a man in a patriarchal environment, are slim to none. He would rage, and he would see humans as less than him, and he would not be anyone's hero. He might even kill her for trapping him in the first place. So when Utena comes close to freeing that power, of course Anthy will do what it takes to stop her, even stabbing her in the back. She has been doing what she can to keep Akio in check and keep Utena from progressing through the duels by manipulating others into fighting her. The student council wouldn't have posted themselves beyond their breaking point if they'd reached the final duel - Sayonji never seemed to care about doing anything beyond having the Rose Bride on his arm, and Mikki wouldn't have defied Akio. Juri and Touga might have, but out of spite or arrogance, not out of a genuine desire to protect and free Anthy.

Akio's abuse of Anthy is difficult to explore in this light without coming across as victim-blaming, and that's absolutely not how I read this narrative. But I am also aware that this story is a product of the 1990s, when 'victim blaming' wasn't in most people's vernacular. It is possible to read Anthy acquiescing to Akio's abuse as a means of placating him - keeping him subdued out of fear of what he might do to others if he doesn't get his way. She would rather throw herself off a building to end the duels than openly defy Akio. It's only when she sees Akio throw Utena aside to go after a sword to open the Rose Gate that she realises he's effectively trapped himself, focused on his 'might makes right' obsession with swords and their power rather than stopping to look for alternative ways to open the Gate.

She realises that Akio will never 'revolutionise' his own world because he isn't open to alternative ways of existing - all he knows is swords and duels and physical strength. Her world has focused only on his, and her own 'revolution' happens when she steps away from him and is ready to explore what else the world has to offer besides keeping a power-hungry man in check.

There's tons more to explore here, but that would require going back and rewatching again, which I'm not in a position to do. Maybe the movie? Everyone is different in the movie, so there's likely more Anthy-perspective to take into account. But I am enjoying writing meta again for the first time in ages!

#revolutionary girl utena #meta #anthy himemiya

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