The more I am playing Final Fantasy VII remake, the more I am wondering if Blanca (and Spark) would fit to this world...

**CHAOS THEORY SPOILERS AHEAD**

Speaking on the Darius,Brooklynn and Kenji drama.

Now when I first started this show back during Camp Cretaceous I was fond of dinostar, i thought it was a given that they would end up together, I mean its a tale as old as time; main guy ends up with main girl (excluding the lesbians). However, as the show went on and the probability of dinostar becoming cannon withered I ended up having a growing respect for the Camp Cretaceous team. For me at least, and for the general audience I would say, they subverted expectations. However small of an act it was, making dinostar not cannon was monumental in children's story telling not pushing an ideology that men and women can't be platonic friends.

Darius being one of the only one's without even a hint of a romantic subplot was also incredibly refreshing as too often storytelling gets bogged down by romance plot that are so badly written it makes me want to cry as to why it took precedent. It was also so comforting to finally have a character in western children's media that could be feasibly headcannoned as arospec without having people use their romantic interests as an argument against.

The introduction to Darius's feelings towards Brooklynn I thought was well handled and very mature, the writing team knocked it outta the park with how they made the characters mature with the way they handled emotions and tension, Darius's confession to Kenji felt so real. I swear I've seen/experienced one to one scenarios in my own adult life. It is despite this the confession felt like I watched the first cannonball blow through the hull of this story.

As most of you know the fandom was far from pleased with the pairing of Brooklynn and Kenji in the first series so I am grateful that they show not only allowed us to experience a glimpse into how wholesome their relationship was and how they genuinely DID work together only to have had them break up. It made it feel less like a retcon and more like a realistic path for a teenage to young adult romance to follow. Another thing that was important about their relationship was that Kenji was the one to end it.

Too often in this series Kenji has been dismissed as "the dumb one" by not only his friends but his own family. It occurs to a point where Kenji would have likely ended up agreeing with everyone else as to avoid being laughed at for having his own opinions. To have Kenji take matters into his own hands and put his own wellbeing first, to have him be the one to end things, makes me genuinely love and appreciate how these characters have matured and changed with time.

Now, back to Dinostar. I wouldn't have minded Darius and Brooklynn having a romance this series if there wasn't a previous relationship. Having a found family trope is one of my favourite things, but a trap that media falls into way too often is creating an incestious friend group dynamic. The reason why these sort of friend groups don't work out in highschool (which is where you will most commonly come across this dynamic) is because of the incurring jealousy. Jealousy breeds contempt. Having the original pairs maybe swing apart and then back together wouldn't cause as much as a rift as different friends falling for each other and causing strain on past and present couples.

I believe building up this relationship between Darius and Brooklynn will muddy this beautiful found family trope this show has built. Maybe the characters themselves will be fine with the end solution however I can't help but think the audience will be able to look at this show through a lense of reality and be sobered by the fact that having dinostar become cannon causes irreparable rifts.

complex megop opinions below!

Not necessarily positive or negative, just a very objective view of it and how fandom sees it vs. other ships with a similar dynamic. 

This isn’t ship hate, because it’s my OTP. It’s just a realistic look at MegOp spurred on by the fact that I tend to see people overlook the obvious issues for moral points. Meaning, I’ve run upon some sort of hate towards megastar shippers from  some megop shippers, usually with people accusing the former of being unhealthy and abusive, and i’m like, the latter isn’t? 

And not just the ship, but people too. 

I credit most of the great development and realistic approach towards a positive MegOp portrayal to fans, given that in most media we have of them, their relationship starts out great and disintegrates into one of the most tragic relationships of all time. Not only because they fall out, but because they hurt each other, drastically. Megatron, arguably more. Not only does he hurt Optimus, he targets him by harming those close to him. Whether it’s children or his closest friends, he personally hurts those around Optimus.  

In Prime, it’s arguably worse. Because it’s not just physical, but it’s psychological too. Especially during the Orion Pax saga. 

And the same could be said about Optimus to Megatron as well. Initially. Just in a different light. Optimus, a privilege mech, using his position and power to speak over Megatron, to dismiss his want to use violence and overthrow a government who abused him, etc., is a great example of an abuse of power. 

And I always stand by the fact that Megatron was 100% within his rights to want to use violence to hurt those who hurt him. 

In IDW both have an entire conversation about how badly they’ve hurt each other, Megatron flat out admits to wanting to hurt Optimus by hurting people around him. He knows what emotionally fucks with his closest friend, and proceeds to do it on a galactic level. Repeatedly. 

But people aren’t supposed to interact with megop shippers because they ship megastar? On the basis of abuse and/or an unhealthy relationship? 

What makes them different? A lot, i’m sure. There’s an arguably closer work relationship with Megatron and Starscream, the abuse is physical and psychological. There’s a larger power imbalance, and it’s over the span of a longer time. Starscream has less of a chance to fight back as opposed to Optimus, and the relationship between Megatron and Starscream is not always as equal as Megatron and Optimus’s. 

So it’s much easier to say “This is an unhealthy relationship”. 

But that’s canon. Shippers and artist work very diligently to change it, fix it, and write happy endings to it that end pretty well. They’ve worked to create complex endings to an abusive ship, very similar to how canon and fanon writers have done the exact same thing to Megatron and Optimus. 

But the bottom line is that both ships are very unhealthy. At least a a point. They don’t start that way, and they might not end that way, but a significant chunk of time, they are very, very unhealthy. And the even bottomer line is that fans work very hard to give it a healthier ending--both ships. 

And that said, I don’t understand the vitriol that comes from MegOp shippers to Megastar shippers, especially when both ships have similar dynamics. 

I guess the argument is that “well, one ship is more abusive/unhealthy than the other”, but you get in a weird space when you start to say one version of abuse is more valid than the other. 

And don’t get me wrong, there are stark differences between both ships. I do think Starscream is in a place where he experiences abuse more, but that doesn’t make Megop unhealthy or a morally superior ship. It doesn’t it any less hypocritical to add  “megastars dni/megastars get hit by trucks/i hate megastar shippers” on your profile on the basis of abuse or unhealthy relationships if you ship MegOP. 

I think it’s just dismissive of what both megatron and optimus go through during their time together, because their unhealthiness is acceptable. And that leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. 

So yeah, those are just my thoughts. I welcome another perspective, just be kind about it. 

And I love MegOp. Megatron and Optimus are my favorite characters. but I also know the ship is the most complex ship, imo, to date in transformers. and it’s not without it’s fair share of pain and agony. But why is their dynamic okay. why does it give is the right to be crappy towards other shippers who ship a similar dynamic to ours? 

Hi feederism/ed anon here, i'm just curious about what ethics are considered here, i'm not sure why 'its not a concern bcz things are worse and insignificant' is being said when my claim isn't the opposite or to rally against it but i get covering bases. I think binge eating and food addiction is disordered eating. Anyways with anorexia someone entering the fetish world will enable their ed and same with feederism, imo. Ofcourse everything can be ideally done in a safe way and we need to afford more agency to the people and provide frameworks. Perhaps also you don't see a lot of these my 600lb like shows, obvs very minor cases but i would assume anyone would regret destroying their health due to getting into it eventually and my issue is where does the responsibility for the feeder come in.

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I don't think you see just how much baggage that ask was laden with.

Literally why do you care?

And I don't mean "Why do you care that people harm themselves?" I mean "Why do you care when it's about food and not the rest of the time?"

Tons of kink practices can be dangerous if done the wrong way or done to extreme. All kinksters have a responsibility to think about their actions and make conscious choices.

People with emotional problems of all kinds can get worse in kink spaces. Or better. It depends on the person and is not my business or responsibility as a rando who doesn't even know them.

The feeder is not more responsible than the feed-ee or whatever they're called. If it's a consensual BDSM thing, they both chose it, and they both accepted the dangers.

Why are you treating this as a victim and someone in charge?

Also, frankly, we don't know if a given person gaining a bunch of weight through kink practices is actually all that unhealthy. We know that high weights are associated with bad health outcomes, but they're often a product of an underlying health condition. Sometimes, they're a sign of a sedentary lifestyle, which we know to be massively unhealthy.

Do I think it's probably unhealthy? Sure, but I drink alcohol, and I drink far more tea than the recommended daily level of caffeine. Lots of people do unhealthy things that are part of their culture or that they personally enjoy.

This idea that fatness is uniquely and dramatically unhealthy is very silly.

The kink being rare doesn't make it more or less healthy. That wasn't the point. The point is that because it is rare, you focusing on this is suspicious in the extreme. Why this and not something else?

I don't watch a lot of reality TV, but do most of those My 600 LB Life stars actually get fat through kink?! And if they don't, then why are you making this connection?

On another note, do you actually understand anything about how bodies work? If I entered into some sort of feeder relationship, I'd have to also be bedridden to gain that kind of weight. Genetically, my body just doesn't want to be all that heavy. I fidget it off. Not down to a super skinny size, but down to about my current size. I could gain 50 Lbs, no problem. I could not gain 200 Lbs without a decade and major mobility changes prior to the weight. Even if people are doing this kink IRL, how much are they actually packing on? I don't know, and it seems like you don't either. How can we talk realistically about the dangers if we don't even know what the RL kink community looks like?

If your issue is "I want to be a feeder, but I think I'd be harming my partner", then say so.

Otherwise, this sounds like someone who has watched too much sensationalist media about how fatness is the devil.

Feminism without feminists

I wrote this as a companion piece to my “Female Empowerment” post. I thought about putting it as an addition to the original analysis I made but I fear it’ll be overlooked as most of my followers already read/interacted with the initial writing.

Now, fear not, as the title is nothing more than a blatant “Marketing Strategy” I’ve decided to use. Although there’s some truth in the statement, it intentionally encompasses the entire movement for shock value rather than realistically covering the real portion I’m referring to: this expression is more inclined towards “Woke and White Feminism”, which has become incredibly popular amongst fandoms in general.

There’s this… incredibly oversimplification inside the feminist fandom of most fictional works where the fans limit or encompass the entire feminist spectrum inside one character, the one, and everything outside that specific character is either misogynistic or, in lesser terms, less feminist than the one they chose to project themselves as females. I understand that underrepresentation inside fictional works (particularly action fictional works such as super-hero comics and Shönen mangas) sparked the search for female representation inside the narrative by latching onto the most potable feminist character out there, but as of now in modern times, this search misrepresents womanhood as a whole.

Here’s the thing, women need to be independent but not that independent as to reject the main male character we envisioned her with:

Beautiful but not conscious of that prettiness (the shyer, the better), kind but not allow everyone to stomp on her, bold but not THAT bold, smart but not as much as her male counterpart, desirable but not for everyone or she’ll be a Mary Sue, sexy but not a slut, and most importantly, strong. 

These contradictions between the two ends of the spectrum limited women’s representation inside stories (as they were “too complicated to write”), yet the response to this patriarchal erasure brought a new entire issue because, now, women are forced to be flawless in order to be likeable (so any characteristic that doesn’t match with our cultural idea of “likeable” gets either labeled as “misogynist” or completely ignored. Dr. House is incredibly rude and unrelatable, but it doesn’t matter because he’s a man, so he isn’t representing the entire male gender) and to be remarkable in usually more than one aspect (a single one isn’t enough, in Naruto’s manga, Sakura’s and Hinata’s fandom portrays each of them as the strongest, smartest, kindest, prettiest, fastest and so on -they need to give them all of these qualities because, otherwise they’ll be, by their standards, completely unremarkable, and women can’t be unremarkable, god forbid).

Many female heroes are mostly portrayed as physically strong, the obsession of Western media with depicting “feminist role models” as women with physical strength and calling it a day baffles me, as it hasn’t stopped yet.

Why is so important for a woman to be physically strong? Well Moriarty, because -of course, it means that not only men are strong; you see, women can be strong too! Although… not all women, rather, this one specifically because is the one this portion of the fandom chose to represent themselves inside the narrative and making all women equally powerful would strip the character they decided was the most feminist one of the uniqueness they want and in turn would make her… well, common.

She needs to be the strongest in this specific physical field because is the easier one to show, doesn’t need to construct an actual plot around it (so complexity for her character isn’t necessary), and she could “easily” take other characters down if needed (and in the context of a comic-book or shönen, that’s intrinsical). Neither Batman nor Iron Man are considered the strongest inside their respective universes, yet they’re the smartest, so they don’t need this physical skill to be considered a menace even against other characters that considerably surpass them (like Superman or Captain America). DC and Marvel also allow them to lose (and without giving them a romantical moment as a “reward”) because they don’t need to be the best in order to be compelling -something female characters aren’t allowed, as their capacities as fighters (strategically or physically) is their most intrinsical and important value; so if they lose or make a mistake they aren’t feminist enough: it erases everything they had going for them. 

[Again, Sakura is the strongest kunoichi for her fandom, no one is able to dispute that because even showing panels upon panels of elements/techniques and/or strategies that could at least put her in a difficult place they come up with techniques she wasn’t shown to have (Tsunade being able to survive being cut in half doesn’t mean Sakura’d be able too) or they enhance canonical techniques to unimaginable degrees: She has great chakra flux control, that doesn’t mean she will have unlimited amounts of chakra to perform any sort of jutsu, as she uses only medical ones (Strength of a Hundred Seal stores 3 years of chakra into her forehead, not an infinite amount of chakra). Creation Rebirth regenerates her as long as she has enough chakra -and it’s even established it won’t work if it's a serious wound. Being a medic-nin and being trained to stay away from battles or dodge attacks (unless she has the Creation Rebirth) doesn’t mean she’s faster than a regular ninja. She’s told to be the “brightest” so that instantly translates into her being able to see through any strategy -she was outsmarted by another female character, Ino, but let’s ignore that and say that she grew up so much she’ll defeat her in no time. Ino also grew (they’ll admit it as, you see, they are feminists Sakura stans), but not as much as Sakura because well… she’s a better medic so… bookish… academic… translates to strategist… yeah.

Hinata’s fandom isn’t much better, as they translate Neji’s accomplishments to Hinata’s character. She was canonically shown to fail when trying to kill a Jubi clone with the Eight Trigrams, 64 Palms technique -which is why she needs to combine it with the Twin Lion Fists that draw chakra from those it touches, but instead of settling for a character that shows a pretty average female character capacity wise, they enhance her to their personal tastes of what a woman should actually be; because otherwise, she’s unremarkable, and as feminist we should only have remarkable female characters to cheer for!]

Furthermore, male characters need to be in awe of this female character's prowess because while most of those males are usually other characters with the same type of power or are surrounded by other people with the same capacity (so you would think that picking up a car wouldn’t be that jaw-dropping for them), they aren’t used to see women doing such incredible things, so they deserve praise -no, more praise than any male because they biologically aren’t wired to even attempt those things. And sure, being praised for something "considered normal" inside the male gender is isolating a single female character as the sole contradiction of a well-established norm, but she’s singled out and highlighted by the narrative as the feminist role model, so who cares about all the background females that accomplished nothing in order not to dispute the main heroine’s status? Every other female is weak and needs protection but not THIS female character (Loki praises Sylvie for being different than any other Loki variant -she’s the only female so uniqueness reached!- despite having, you know, a crocodile Loki right in front of him. I personally would be more curious about the only non-mammal variant -but who am I to dispute the God of mischief?).

Peggy shoots Nazis. She never has to be rescued or protected by Captain America or anyone else. She has a decent amount of screentime (...) She’s introduced briefing a number of potential recruits to the super soldier programme. This is the scene clearly written to establish Peggy’s SFC cred, and it unfolds like this: One of the recruits immediately starts mouthing off at her, first insulting her accent and then, when she calls him out of the line-up, making sexist, suggestive remarks. 

She punches him to the ground.

Later she discovers Captain America being kissed by the only other woman with a speaking part in the film, who has no other role except to kiss Captain America. She outwardly maintains her composure until Captain America is handling his iconic shield for the first time, and its perhaps-impenetrable qualities are briefly discussed as well as the fact that it’s just a prototype. Peggy suddenly fires off several shots at Captain America, so that he must raise the shield (which does, thankfully, stop bullets) to avoid being killed.

Both scenes are framed as funny and impressive.

Source

Writers need to specifically show a very exaggerated form of sexism in order for women to react (violently) towards it. If not, they’ll make a male character (usually a background or non-important character) question a woman’s decision in order to illustrate the crudest and most open form of sexism because we haven’t had enough of those yet. Meanwhile, female characters’ abusive behavior is brushed aside (by the narrative and the fandom), because it’s “cute” and “funny” (women can’t be cruel if we want them to be likeable, but the fandom lets this behavior pass because, while strong, they aren’t as strong as to cause any actual physical damage and men don’t suffer from PTSD, right?) while their experience with abuse makes up for a compelling background for them:

Source

Many Naruto fans will jump to my neck and breathe through their teeth that “well, she’s the heroine, so of course she’d be the strongest and most important feminist representation inside the narrative” (and here they’ll turn and jump on each other’s throats as their chosen female lead isn’t the same and I’ll take advantage of the distraction to run), but let’s think of this a little more deeply: Is Sakura truly the heroine? Or does she happens to be the only female character with enough panel time? Technically, Naruto is the hero and Sasuke is his antagonist, so there’s no need for a “heroine” whose main activity is to merely be in close proximity to be considered “relevant enough”, she doesn’t move the plot forward (as that’s the antagonists’ job) nor is intrinsical for any other character’s development, so why is she “bound” to be the strongest as that’s not her objective nor role inside the story? Simply put: Sakura doesn’t need to be the strongest, furthermore, it doesn’t matter -as her character revolves around being capable enough to “keep up” with her teammates (and metaphorically, as she isn't as strong nor fast as them). She becomes one of the three best medic-nin of the world when she’s seventeen, yet that’s not enough because she needs to be better also in everything else (she, somehow, had the potential to do so, but by that premise, everyone had the potential to do anything if properly trained -that's the thing, why is she any different?). There’re men that surpass her power-wise but her fandom will create a fantasy where they don’t, or they’ll create a fantasy where those men won’t turn against her because they are in love with her, but she’ll always -always be prettier, stronger, smarter, faster than other female characters, because not only she’s the primary representation of feminism inside the story, she’s also their personal representation inside the narrative, and them -as the main character- need to be prettier, stronger, smarter and faster than their competition female counterparts.

Naruto is, by the end of the series, considered the physically strongest character, yet he isn’t inside the narrative nor for the fandom, the sharpest tool in the box. He’s not considered the smartest, he’s not even considered the person with the most ninjutsu repertoire out of all the male characters. He is allowed not to be the best in every scenario because he’s not considered the representation of his gender inside the story which, in turn, makes him more interesting as he's allowed to struggle.

Konan is, by far, the most feminist-relevant character inside the story -but she’s usually undermined because “she was just following Nagato and Yahiko around” but then I ask, what is she supposed to do then? She grew up alongside them and experienced the same things, why would she think or have ideals opposite or different from theirs? Didn’t Nagato just continue Yahiko’s fight? Didn’t Yahiko simply refuse to accept their current condition? Why are her ideals reduced to “following her male friends”, when she was an active participant inside Akatsuki?

Females, especially those who are chosen to be the “feminist standard”, aren’t allowed to be mean, dumb, weak, or ugly (because “feminists” are usually depicted by patriarchy as “unattractive” and “undesirable”, so they counterattack this depiction by creating this “beautiful and sexy character that everyone wants even if they are incredibly rude to them as that turns them on for inexplicable reasons” conception of the woman they’ve chosen to represent them) and they aren’t allowed to lose even against other women (and if they do, is simply a temporary setback that they are bound to overcome at some point) because they aren’t just women; no, they are the woman.

It is also quite striking how the main plot focuses on the problems brought about by a military system whose foundations are intrinsically patriarchal and how much of the “feminist fandom” focuses on the little to no inclusion of women within that system, rather than its dismantling, which was proposed to and tried to be carried out by other characters such as Konan (to mention a female character as bringing Sasuke to the picture might “compromise” the fandom’s idea of “feminism” that upholds itself under the notion that only women can be part of it).

The problem with this idea of “inclusivity” within an intrinsically repressive patriarchal system is that it is sustained on a smoke screen that hides the most rotten veins of the state, because then what is relevant is not the dismantling of an oppressive, enslaving and genocidal political system, but the lack of female participation within the oppressive, enslaving and genocidal political system. To this specific “woke feminist” fandom that is the real problem, that is the real issue within such a mindset.

Women are forbidden or diminished from positions of power in a structure specifically designed to oppress different groups of people to keep others at the top of the pyramid, and instead of seeing such a construction as a direct reflection of the real world’s dogmas and the characters that oppose them as real world’s feminist, you lot complain about the lack of female representation or “female power” within that maniacal structure! You’re more concerned about women not being “housewives” inside a military state that rewards blind nationalism and punishes criticism with literal genocide, than dismantling the entire structure upon which such a patriarchal notion is built.

Funnily enough, even when I point this out, they'll find a way to twist it to their benefit, because then Kishimoto is the one responsible for not “allowing” female characters to rise against such a patriarchal system (despite Sakura never suffering any of its worst consequences as she was taught by the Hokage herself, or even Hinata getting to be a slave-owner). Inclusivity is everything that this argument boils down to, their twisted wish to see women at every single panel whether it’ll be against or in favor of a genocidal state.

That’s what “woke feminists” taught them and that’s what they’ll defend with their breath, the problem gets again individualized and the real issue, the real problem that the plot is trying to reflect, gets buried upon piles of these arguments.

“The problem is about the military state that at its core it’s patriarchal” =/= “Then why did he write it as a patriarchal state?”

“The military state it’s patriarchal at its core so it’s the real world one” =/= “Then why didn’t he write female characters rising against it?”

“There’re characters that oppose such structure, which is feminism at its finest.” =/= “But they aren’t female.”

And so on… it's impossible to "win" or get our point across as they move the end goal every time a new argument arises. It's about fulfilling their power fantasies and invincibility rather than bringing down the patriarchal structure; just like with Naruto's character, is about gaining acknowledgment within the oppressive system (becoming a renowned/desired individual) rather than dismantling the power sphere to guarantee other minorities' safety.

Their idea of feminism comes down to women having a more important part inside that tyrannical paradigm, bringing the power scale towards them. It's not about stripping oppressive institutions of their power, but rather having influence over such spaces.

an expression of something, or perhaps a record of insanity

obviously there's a famine because israel destroyed any indigenous means of food production, and aren't letting food trucks in, so they're just sitting at the border. not to mention that time the other day that they fired on the crowd gathered around a food truck on the beach, causing a panicked stampede that killed people. 'the guys with guns won't let us in' is not a problem that can be solved by money. still. if even one person escapes death by starvation because an aid org or a medical org had more money on hand, then that money is better off in their hands than mine...

rn i feel very conscious that while it's impossible to achieve any significant change without sacrifice, the converse is not true, there's no magical law that ensures sacrifice must be rewarded. a social media campaign resulting in a few tens of thousands of people trying not to spend money for a week is not a strike pressing demands, and probably won't make a noticeable blip on whatever economic statistics are gathered by whoever gathers economic statistics, and even if someone notices the line going down a bit, they probably are not able to conclude it's supposed to be a general strike for Palestine.

similarly, activist actions that deliberately get someone arrested for the sake of a few hours of annoyance to security are a questionable trade in the battle of attrition. I still remember doing first aid at the massive mobilisation against the arms fair a few years ago, which ran up a hefty policing bill cutting people out of lockons on the main road, but did not in fact stop the arms fair. direct action does not always get the goods.

and in general I believe our people should not be thrown away lightly. getting arrested should be something we are prepared to risk but a risk we mitigate as much as possible, not something we actively seek out. this is something that the antifascists understood pretty well, with tactics like the black-bloc and de-arresting. but the current trend in activist orgs is to exploit the state's unwillingness to inflict bodily harm by putting activists in intentionally dangerous situations and forcing the state to spend and money time freeing them, with the resignation to getting arrested. it's less direct action and more stunts for the media. but is that just an excuse? 'the americans are not what we call a useful people', they say, when the yanks don't want to be arrested.

the gnawing feeling that I must do something wants me to stand up and prove that I give a shit. I just cannot see what would actually be effective with the resources I have available to me. the people who have real power in this situation fundamentally have no reason to listen to me. I'm sure many of them think, quietly, along the lines of that guy at the protest a couple months back who walked by and called me a gender-confused leftist pedo: giving a shit about people in palestine is disgusting to them.

I've signed up to do arrestee and court support and shit like that with a certain org that's had some success shutting down Elbit facilities in this country. between health shit and work, I'm not realistically in a place where I'm capable of doing the spiky direct actions at the moment, but if I can be part of the logistics wing for the people who can do it, maybe I can feel less fucking useless. I hope when the call comes, I'm able to get out there and show up, rather than crushed in another wave of mysterious fatigue.

of course, if a 32-year-old disabled game dev could stop a war from her bedroom, the world would be a very different place... but I must not ignore that I have some power. even if it's just the money I earn at this job.

I frequently fall back to wondering what I'd have done if I'd lived in Germany or Poland during the Holocaust. the fantasy is that I'd be a partisan in the woods, fighting the Nazis by any means available; a likely answer is probably that I'd flee the country, or die in a camp. but the scariest thought is that I'd have been able to get away with 'inner emigration', and just keep my head down and do nothing. cue the daniel kahn song I guess. (Daniel Kahn's song is of course a lot more subtle and bitter in its treatment of the subject, not just this goofy morality play in my head.)

words are cheap!!!

Solarpunk Realism

I think one of the biggest hurdles to solving the climate crisis is that people have trouble imagining a world in which it's been solved. Many people think of the future as dystopian - but it doesn't have to be. We can solve the climate crisis - we just have to collectively start doing it.

I love the art movement called solarpunk. It's a sub-genre of cyberpunk, but where cyberpunk envisions a dystopian future, solarpunk envisions a utopian future. Both have futuristic technology mixed with old school humanity. (Another offshoot of cyberpunk is steampunk, mainly involving Victorian-era steam-powered technology in an alternate past.)

I think an optimistic vision for the future is a critical missing piece to actually solving the climate crisis and other big problems. We can't build a better world until we imagine it. That's what caught my attention with solarpunk; it's a genre of art and creativity that could play a profound role in helping save humanity.

I've been thinking about what a genre of art would look like that helps tell this positive message. At first I thought of calling it optimistic futurism. But as I thought through the idea, I kept getting drawn to solarpunk.

The first mention of the term solarpunk was in an anonymous 2008 blog post called From Steampunk to Solarpunk. In 2014, the artist Olivia Louise posted some conceptual solarpunk art on Tumblr. The next week, Adam Flynn wrote Solarpunk: Notes toward a manifesto. Based on this document and postings on solarpunks.net, in 2019 A Solarpunk Manifesto was posted on the blog of a regenerative design consulting firm.

For many years, I’ve worked on projects and art to help bring an optimistic perspective to the future. Now I’ve found a name for this kind of creativity: solarpunk. I worked mostly in the form of short documentaries and videos.

In early 2021 I started developing a potential TV show that looks at the big question: How do humans solve the climate crisis? I wanted to look at what we are doing and what more we need to do to save ourselves. I call the show Saving Ourselves. It has started out as a web videos series as I continue to try to develop the TV show on a bigger scale. I also started talking to folks building the massive offshore wind farms and other renewable energy projects around the world. We'll need to build thousands of these projects - so I start producing videos about them.

I did this because I think helping people envision a world in which the climate crisis solved is a critical piece to making happen. And what better way to do this than with a TV show?

I'm most interested in how these visions of the future can impact our present: How can we help communicate a positive message that inspires people to build this better world now? Call it solarpunk realism.

I want to look at the technologies we have now and in the near future and comment on ways I think the most likely scenarios will play out to solve big problems like the climate crisis. This is where the art form can have a major positive impact on our world and our future.

Art that helps us imagine a realistic vision of what a better world would look like.

My hope is that when we are able to see this better world, the next step will be to go out and build it.

Solarpunk themes include renewable energy, well-designed cities and community. It envisions advanced technology to help us get back to a more natural world - where nature is nurtured by technology.

Community thrives, people work and play together in harmony. We've learned how to let the Earth provide us with everything we need - and we no longer harm the Earth in the process - we feed and nurture it. A healthy Earth means healthy species and a healthy humanity.

I think solarpunk is best when technology is used less in some spaces - like less social media. We learn to be healthier with our use of technology to help humanity, and the World, thrive.

The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 2)

And we’re back with Chapter 2 of the annotated re-read. From here on out, spoilers will abound, so if you’re worried about that, I suggest grabbing yourself a copy of the book, reading it, and then coming back. (I can’t promise there won’t be spoilers for later chapters either, so I really would recommend reading the whole thing first, but not everyone cares about spoilers so… you’ve been warned, read (or don’t read) as you like!)

So Chapter 2 opens with Teru getting off work on the day he’s supposed to meet the mystery voice, still wondering if he ought to make some kind of excuse and not go after all. It’s raining… the book opens in June, which is the rainy season, so this seems like a good time to talk about the seasons in the story. Lots of Japanese art and media places a lot of emphasis on the seasons… I’m not really sure at which point it became a conscious decision to sort of align the seasons with what’s happening to the characters, but by the time I made it to editing it was definitely intentional. This starts in the rainy season between spring and summer… Teru and Rei are both sort of at a low point here, but it’s also a time when things are starting to grow that will lead to success later.

Someone pointed out to me during an early beta read that Teru is really, really polite here. He considers calling or texting Rei and backing out, but never considers just not showing up. Of course, he does show up or there’d be no story. I don’t think I ever sat down and made the conscious decision that he WOULDN’T consider just not showing up… that was just never the kind of person he was in my mind?

I really like the little travel scene here, where I kind of reduce all the train stations from Koenji to Meguro to little one-line descriptions. There were a couple of reasons for including this—one just to show how each little area of Tokyo, generally marked by the closest train station, kind of has its own character. I also wanted to make it clear that there was at least a perceived class difference here. I don’t think it really is “class” so much as it is just plain old wealth… we learn later on that Rei is not really of a higher social class by birth or education or anything, even though he has a lot of money now. He’s even less formally educated than Teru is and comes from an even more rural area, but Teru doesn’t know that yet—he just knows that whoever the mystery voice on the phone is, he lives in a VERY expensive part of town. (Koenji isn’t exactly INexpensive, because it is so close to the middle of the city, but if you’re okay with a tiny, old, one-room apartment, it is… or at least was at the time, the kind of place where a broke musician COULD afford to live in some shape or form.)

So then we get to the apartment where a lot of the story takes place. The layout of the apartment itself is semi-based on a place I used to live here, with a few small changes. I know most Phantom stories are going to have the Phantom character living in the theatre somewhere, or at least in a creepy basement apartment, but the fact is that there just aren’t many (if any?) basement apartments in Tokyo, and I did want this to be realistic…. so first floor with all the windows covered by black curtains it was!

I think there are a lot of details in this first encounter with Rei that were really intentional on my part (and Rei’s) but probably don’t really stand out the first time you read the book. One of the small edits I made was about the “TV tax”… Teru notes that, unlike the other apartments in the building, Rei’s door doesn’t have any decoration, only a sticker saying that the TV tax had last been paid “six years ago, in 1994”. The “six years ago” was something I added in edits, because I knew that any later references to years I made wouldn’t mean anything unless the reader was consciously aware that the story took place in 2000, so there are a couple of specific references to the year in the early chapters. As to why the TV tax hadn’t been paid since then… the NHK guys used to go door-to-door to collect it, and a lot of people didn’t/don’t want to pay because we don’t watch NHK (the state-funded channel), so not paying on its own isn’t super unusual, but it does let the reader know that SOMETHING happened between 1994 and 1995 that led to someone no longer paying it for this particular apartment.

Rei doesn’t actually answer the door, but calls Teru and tells him to come in. At this point, I don’t think Rei even knows what his ultimate goal is. He has to know that there’s really no way to hide all of his injuries and disabilities once this goes beyond anything more than an initial meeting, but I do think he kind of wants to make sure he earns Teru’s respect before his pity? He’s very distant and borderline rude in the way he speaks—still keeping Teru at a distance and, for the reader, maintaining the mystery.

One edit I did make later on was Teru noticing right away that Rei’s hair is a wig. Originally, that was kind of used as a reveal and Teru was surprised the first time Rei took his wig off, but it kind of seemed like someone who dyed his own hair unnatural colors and would have known a lot of other people who either dyed their hair or wore wigs would have been able to tell one from the other. So while we still don’t have the full story here, I did state right away that his hair was too bright and perfect to be natural.

The broken guitar is also one of my favorite details in the room… a way to show that Rei has a temper, I think, although I don’t think he smashed it in anger at anyone other than himself and his situation.

So he asks Teru to sing a couple of songs they both would’ve been familiar with, and then plays the song he wants Teru to sing, “Yami no hanabira”, which means “petals of darkness” because why not be as melodramatic as possible? And Teru just… knows that he needs this song. You know how it is, when you just hear or see or read something that’s Your Thing? I wanted Teru to have that kind of moment here… he just NEEDS this song, and so even though he isn’t necessarily interested in being the band’s lead singer as Rei seems to want him to be, he takes the sheet music because he knows he needs to have this music, somehow.

And then he asks Rei for his name, and Rei says: “They used to call me Rei.”

That’s a line that I believe was in the very very first draft, and never really changed. And I think it’s an important part of this story in general, the idea of choosing your name. Rei’s legal name is never mentioned on the page. (I know what it is, and I’ve told one other person, but I don’t think he’d much like me making it public knowledge… he HATES it.) That name is the person he just happened to be born as… Rei is who he chose to be. But I think that over the past five years before the story began, he hasn’t been called by that name very often. Maybe occasionally by Chizuru, but other than her, who has he spoken to other than doctors and delivery people? So I think he’s a little shocked that Teru WANTS to know his name, and is a little saddened because introducing himself that way is something that just hasn’t happened in a long time, and brings up a lot of complicated memories.

So. Chapter 2. I like you better than Chapter 1 and a HELL of a lot better than Chapter 3… Oh, Chapter 3. I apologize in advance, there’s going to be a lot of that nasty R-word (regret) in the next installment. Stay tuned?

I've been binging The Boys off my dad's account recently and having read the original comics like any self-respecting edgy teenager, I can see why people say the show is an improvement over the comics so fucking often. It's a pretty addictive show and does a good job adapting the broad-strokes storyline to a new medium, a new decade, and a new audience. Only slightly disappointed they haven't done the all-black-trenchcoats uniform look from the comics yet, hopefully they're saving that for a big moment in a later season. And thank God they gave Kimiko an actual name and way to communicate.

Cw for mentions of all the kind of shit that happens in The Boys, in case you don't want to read about that on a nice Wednesday afternoon. (Meaning: sexual abuse and excessive violence.) Also, long.

The political aspect is often sharper than you'd really expect from an Amazon product, too. It's not gonna start a socialist critique of the political economy or call for revolution anytime soon, but the commentary on the relationship between mass media (Vought), original and/or neo- Nazism (Stormfront), and neoconservativism (Homelander) is pretty well-done for a show mostly about superpowered violence. My one gripe is that the political commentary doesn't have that Ennis-brand bite to it that the comics have, the evil is a bit less in-your-face and gratuitous (and even the heroes are a slightly lighter shade of grey, like 75% from 90). Might be a surprising thing for me to say about a show that loves head-exploding effects even more than Scanners, but this is in comparison to Ennis writing any rich or powerful character as being one or more of: a serial rapist, a pedophile, a child murderer (I guess the show has this but we're told it was an accident where Ennis would have done it on purpose), a perverted serial killer, etc etc etc. On one hand, you could argue this gives the show villains that feel more realistic and less outlandish; but on the other, it's really missing the viscerally palpable disgust and disdain Ennis displays for the upper crust. That said, as much as I like the way Ennis displays the bourgeois as grostesquely evil, I'm more than happy to give it up if it means we can avoid the habit of violently transmisogynistic caricatures he always includes in his work.

There is a couple places where the political commentary does fall short compared to the comics, though. Particularly when it comes to criticizing the military and to criticizing monopolized corporate control of the media. Now granted, both the show and comic Boys work for a CIA contract to different extents, but because almost everyone in the comics is a bit more of a dickhead than in the show, the CIA likewise doesn't come off as clean. Not that the show is entirely unwilling to have the CIA and the US government suck, in both versions it stays an alliance of convenience between the Boys and the CIA against the temporarily greater common enemy in Vought, but the comics are just a little bit more willing to show that the CIA have themselves done indefensible and unforgivable things. In the show they tend to come off more sanitized Jack Reacher types, doing morally gray things for morally good reasons, instead of the more true-to-life morally dark things for morally dark reasons. The third season gets a little closer by mentioning Iran-Contra and the CIA crack smuggling in Black neighborhoods, but that's still just "accurately showing historical events the CIA was in" rather than the comics' "coming up with new horrible shit just to remind you the CIA's no good."

Now, as for the monopolized corporate control of the media. There's two levels to this, as I see it. There's the ways in which the show has been limited in criticizing the mass media on its own merits; and then there's the ways in which the show's criticisms of the mass media differ in content and direction from the comics. For the former, there's obviously a big elephant in the room: Amazon. The Boys show clearly wants to criticize the ways in which mass media influences our view of world events, and its central villain even moreso than Homelander is their world's largest and richest company, Vought International. But you can obviously only criticize the actions of a fictional megacorporation so much when your show is produced by one of the real world's top five megacorporations. So thus far the show's commentary has focused it's most pointed criticisms at stuff like social media, news media, religious influencers, and daytime TV (like talk shows, reality shows, etc). Those criticisms have been very good, especially the social media stuff and the stochastic terrorism induced by Stormfront, but I do notice that the areas they focus on are never really areas Amazon has a lot of money invested. While there have been spoofs about streaming services -- and I really enjoy all the in-universe media the cast and crew have put together to sell the illusion of this massive media franchise, it makes the show's internal history feel really lived-in -- I find that it has more of a wink-and-nudge self-deprecating vibe rather than the pointed criticism other media gets. The Prime analogue gets the harmless goofy Seven movies, the real pernicious media manipulation moments happen more often on livestreams or news broadcasts. Part of this might just be a difference in style: the Supes are shown to be more brash and unpredictable opportunists while Vought themselves are patient and surreptitious manipulators, but then Vought's big moves are also announced via press conference more often than not. I don't mean to act like they never criticize Vought's ersatz Amazon Prime, though. It is shown to be a shitty, erratic place to work full of impossible to placate alpha personalities that mainly makes propaganda for evil and powerful people. There might be something to be said about Amazon also being run by impossible to placate alpha personalities and Prime Video acting as propaganda for evil and powerful people. But on the other hand, all the Vought employees tend to be either actually evil, helplessly idiotic sycophants, or nameless grunts. I'd be more impressed if they had the stones to show, say, Vought Video employees threatened by laser to work crunch time, or Vought warehouse workers made to smuggle Compound V. Maybe I shouldn't go too hard on them, they are doing a lot more than other shows, but I always get the vibe that there's a line they keep toeing but can't cross because of corporate.

That segues nicely into the latter way, how the show's criticism of media differs from the comics. Obviously, the comics have a lot more freedom of speech as a creator-owned series under an indie publisher than as a megacorporation's high-budget production. But there's an even bigger difference at their core direction, and I think it's the biggest loss in the transition from page to screen. The Boys (show) values using its evil supes as an exaggerated analogy for political power and celebrity culture, in addition to the "power corrupts and superpowers would be more likely to fuck you up than make you a hero" central message that it shares with the comics. In contrast, while The Boys (comics) does also share that central message, and also talked about political power and celebrity culture, what it values most is using its evil supes as an exaggerated analogy to criticise pre-existing superhero comics and narratives. It was in direct dialogue and in direct opposition to the existing highly duopolized corporate superhero comics industry. The Boys (show) isn't nearly as interested in being in direct dialogue with the MCU or DC cinematic universe. Honestly I think this is the main reason people going to the comics from the show find a lot of the supe characters flat and uninteresting or even mean-spirited: most of them aren't characters in their own right but parodies of existing characters that don't really make sense without the metatextual background of Big Two superhero comics. Yeah, the comic does have a lot of weak spots in its characters and plot, but especially so if you only view it on the layer of the literal story. Many of those weak spots are a lot stronger when understood by analogy. I'd argue the metatextual analogy is a solid 50% of the comics' message. Don't get me wrong, there are still a good amount of weak spots left over -- Ennis's jokes can keep going long after they stop being funny -- but the comics are greatly improved if you don't take them as a completely literal or serious text all the time. Vought in the comics isn't just any massive corporation, the particular ways it exploits supes isn't a generic criticism of capitalism, it's more often than not a specific criticism of what the Big Two superhero comics duopoly of Marvel and DC have done to the comics industry. Vought superheroes encroaching into every aspect of the economy and culture? That's Marvel/DC taking over the comics industry and pushing out almost every other genre of comics in favor of superheroes. Without spoiling too much, even the central ideological conflict of Butcher vs Wee Hughie/Starlight vs Vought supes can be taken as a metaphor for different views on the superhero genre's role in the comics industry. The show is really missing an opportunity (maybe deliberately) to take similar shots at the superhero blockbuster movie industry. The conflict is arguably more potent than ever, as superhero movies dominate the cinema to an unprecedented degree, and with far more widespread cultural influence than comic books have ever had. The show has mostly limited itself to a couple jokes about Batman V Superman and the Snyder cut, which is a far cry from what they could be doing. I'd love to see them really take a fucking swing at the MCU, maybe bring in Tek-Knight as an Iron Man analogue, have him be a rich asshole making tons of movies, making billions off of his underpaid and overworked support staff, insisting on having his company cronies take over other projects outside his wheelhouse like idk healthcare to disastrous results. Really, yknow, try to say something about Disney-Marvel's monopolization and bad work practices! But, they'd be a real shift in direction for the show's writing, so I don't think they'd go for it. Just a shame that the analogy layer isn't present so much in the show, even if the literal layer of the plot is better to make up for it.

I think that's all I had to say. Oh wait also I was sad they downgraded Love Sausage from the most successful hero of the Soviet Union's supe program, with the full standard set of super-strength/durability/speed, a loyal communist long after the fall of the USSR, one of the very few comics supes that's a genuinely decent person, one of the fighters who beat Stormfront to death, and who just happens to also have a massive penis; to basically being just the dick joke and having dick-related powers. What a downgrade! This guy was a powerful supe and a total bro to the Boys! When he (bit of a spoiler) dies, he spends his last breaths sending out a warning to save Wee Hughie's life! Justice for my man the Love Sausage, capitalist Amazon hates to see a communist winning lmao

This is unrelated to matty and the guys but I'm interested to hear your pov about the writer's strike

It's a very complicated issue because of the number of factors involved. I can't speak on all of them with equal levels of "knowledge" or whatever, but I can speak on a couple things.

TLDR: Unions ( are vital in our capitalist society; I'm largely in favor of the strike; we need to invest more in the arts overall (including TV and film).

MBA: So, the fact that the Minimum Basic Agreement (the agreement that enforces wages for film and tv writers, etc.) leaves out writers for streaming is INSANE to me. Especially when more and more productions are starting to make media (film, tv shows, Late Night talk shows, etc) exclusively for direct to streaming. Like tons of shows are made FOR Netflix. Tons of TV shows are "Netflix originals," or "Apple+ originals." Hulu is also involved in this, but I think Hulu has a lot of partnerships with broadcast tv, so to a slightly lesser extent. Meaning, those writers, unlike their fellow broadcast writing staff have less protections and must negotiate for themselves individually, without the support that they would get otherwise.

Residuals: Same as the above. Writers report a significant decrease in the amount of money they seem from residuals after steaming has gotten involved. Like, compared to a decade ago. I get that streaming is a fairly new phenomenon, but it's not THAT new at this point. And there are so many of them that things get murky. Like HBO has one, and so does....CBS? Whatever "Peacock" is supposed to be. So, there are cases where shows are being made for both TV AND streaming. we've had it long enough, though, to have data. And to be able to see how much money is being spent and where it's going. Writers deserve to see their fair share of that money.

Mandatory Staffing: This one's a bit tricky, mostly cuz I don't know enough about it, but also because I have mixed feelings. Essentially, writers are calling for a requirement that companies have a minimum number of writers on their staff at all times. Like, regardless of project, x number of writers would come to work every day and know that they have a job to do. If Y TV show is finished/ not being worked on right now, then Z project is still there. etc. And I don't know if that's feasible? I imagine that there's enough work in Hollywood for everyone to be doing something all the time, lol. Like, for allll the tv shows and movies that we see, there's TONS that don't get made, or get a pilot but don't get pick up by network, etc. But they still needed writers to make them in the first place! so, its not like the minimum mandatory writers on staff will be twiddling their thumbs all year, lol.

I could see it MAYYYBBBEEE getting to be a problem if, like, someone's a comedy writer, but gets stuck on a horror show or some shit and turns out not to be great at doing the job. Or if they do scripts for John Oliver and they suddenly have to write a Game Of Thrones spin off episode, lmao. But, realistically speaking, that would probably happen very rarely? and I imagine most tv and film writers have had to write across genres throughout their career at least a couple of times? It's not like the WGA is demanding that EVERY SINGLE ONE of their writers be employed at all time. they just want to negotiate a certain number of minimum staff members. Like, (im making this up now for examples) 8 out of the 30 that usually work on a team. a portion of them. not all 30. you know? Again, I don't know much about financing production companies for media, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say that first they pay themsleves, then the actors, then everybody else, lol. Basically like any other capitalist institution, people at the top get the goods, and everyone else gets leftovers.

Pensions and Insurance: This one I feel VERY passionately about. I wanted to be a novelist when I was younger. Up until like the first two or 3 years of undergrad. Published short stories here and there, but then when I realized the financial scarcity involved, I did some math and I JUST couldn't see a way where I would make it work. Like, say I get a job and "write on the side," in this country and culture id be committing my whole damn self to said "job" and barely have time, energy, etc to write. But I can't be jobless and JUST focus on writing cuz then I'd have no health insurance, no 401K, no perks or benefits whatsoever. But this gets us into a conversation about how healthcare should be free for all. And...thats a different issue.

We glamorize the idea starving artists, but artists can't make art when they're starving. Why SHOULDN'T someone be able to maintain health insurance and get paid a decent living to like, keep their apartment/ mortgage, etc while they make the sort of art that influences us and our culture? when we think of TV and film, everyone's always interested in the actors. Sometimes, if you're Chris Nolan or Taranto or whatever, then maybe a director or producer. Seldom are screenwriters acknowledged and that's wild to me because they are behind the storylines and words that we see!!!

idk, just my two cents lol.

I’ve more or less moved on from Riverdale. 

I am ONLY interested in Jabitha of which we have NO content right now. 

RAS being out a show to screw up.

Cole being released from this toxic show/cast.

I have spent last few months re-watching old favorites or reading old favorites. I’ve been re-discovering what it is to watch and read things I ENJOY and it has just cemented how little I enjoy most of Riverdale. Aforementioned exception of Jabitha. Who do make me smile.

I only want to watch or read stories that entertain me or make me happy. I like escapist entertainment. Riverdale isn’t escapist entertainment. It’s a flailing show with no rhyme or purpose servicing too many ego’s. It allows personal ambitions, relationships and biases to affect it’s direction rather than the audience’s enjoyment of the show or letting the characters move in realistic manner for THEM. It inspires no trust in it’s audience. There is no logical path to follow to ascertain it’s endgame. They literally just fling everything up in the air and see where it scatters.

There is just so much history with Star Trek and the next generation cast. I’m currently watching, remembering and kind of loving how a man who once lectured Spock and Kirk about Cowboy diplomacy and duty being considered the paragon of new Star Fleet is now the one being lectured by a hard nosed unimaginative captain about their crashing of ships and defying of star fleet edicts. Only took a lifetime for Picard to realize what Kirk knew in his 30′s. lol

I love the repore with Stewart and Frakes’. I love Beverly FINALLY being back in this universe. I love the implications of what Beverly having another son may mean. I’m invested in these characters because of the actors themselves and the history that is not uprooted and erased just because an actor throws a fit. TBH, in the Star Trek universe Voyager is probably closer to comparison to RD in how BTS drama could spoil a show. Which makes it interesting they pulled Jeri Ryan’s character into this universe, this cast would have been a far more welcoming one that the one she initially came to fame on.

And so maybe currently enjoying TWO casts, Bridgerton and TNG, that seem to be on fairly good terms make RD in less tolerable. I simply don’t care about KJ, Lili or Camilla’s whining or ambitions. I find it short sighted and shallow. Acting can be hard work It’s not say...construction work but you do delve into emotions and end of the day that can produce a different level of fatigue. I get it. But it’s still supposed to be fun. You are getting paid to play make believe. they are whining about getting to play dress up each day and do what they did at 6 year’s old. They are somehow completely unaware of how that sounds to people who don’t have that job. There were a handful of people at my work told they had cancer this week. My job isn’t make believe. It’s why I like escapist entertainment. So I have a hard time understanding why I should be engrossed in KJ’s tale of over indulgence and privilege and how he didn’t appreciate it enough while at same time still wanting to shout how he wants more opportunity. You were given an opportunity, abused it, were unprofessional and now that the gravy train ends want someone to stick out their neck for you again? Ok KJ. Good luck with that.

Ambitions are fine, goals are fine. Nothing inherently evil in having them but the one young cast member who WAS professional and appreciated he is in a privileged position they have endlessly mocked for it over the year’s. So really...I could care less about their belated scrambling attempts to run to the media to rehab their professional reputations to appear employable now. 

The entertainment business is a hard one to maintain a career in. IMO the ones who appreciate their positions are the ones who deserve to still be employed 30 year’s later as the TNG now is. Or deserve break out cameos and roles in new films as Bridgerton cast is being offered. I really don’t think most of the RD cast deserves any further opportunities given the only awakening they seem to have is the paychecks are soon to end. I’ve yet to see them truly realize how terribly they have responded to fame beyond an oligatory soundbite for the masses.

Doing shit like watching Anaconda while high has made me realize that an integral part to how humanity has demonized snakes in culture is by depicting the animal as an inherently sapient serial killer with a vore fetish and then proceeding to try and gaslight the audience into believing it's just a normal naturally evolved animal without human comparable sapience.

Sharks get a bad portrayal too of course but if anything the "mindless killer" depiction sharks get is less of a drastic demonization than "this ambush predator goes out of its way to torture fellow sapient prey first even if it's not at all advantageous to its survival" that snakes get.

There's a scene where the snake somehow curls its coils like they're a prehensile tail around prey before THEN LOOMING OVER and slowly going to swallow. When snakes literally lead in with a bite and then reflexively curl their coils in a similar motion to how alligators death roll to rip pieces. Like. That snake is intentionally doing something stupid and unnatural for the benefit of the audience. It's showing off. The snake is fully aware of the theatrics. There's no way this animal can be how snakes evolved in our real world. That thing cound understand the trolley problem. That thing could probably be taught to work a call center or pay taxes.

Jurassic Park always felt pretty realistic despite wildly inaccurate mutant dinosaurs because while clever, you get the sense that say for instance the raptors in particular, are behaving like real animals. The things they do are within the realm of possibilities for what we know about the species and modern comparisons. They act like birds! Like corvids. Then you fucking have pennywise-tier "fear seasons the meat" snake making sure his throat pouch looks real nice in the wide shot angle.

Ironically the most realistic portrayal of a hypothetical man-eating snake is Kaaa from fucking Disney's jungle book. The OG motherfucker. This bastard is in a 2D cartoon singing and using hypnotism and shit but still within this cartoon slapstick ass universe behaves more like you expect a snake would. Fat lazy and stupid. Just find a way to get the prey to give itself over to you. Sure. Fuck it I don't care. I'm gonna nap in this tree until something comes and bonks me on the head.

With that being said I also do find other creatures that aren't anatomically modern bipedal hairless apes having comparable sentience and sapience to us in media to be deeply fascinating so you must understand that I do have some fondness for the serial killer snake bullshit. But yeah. It kinda sucks people do it to a real animal though.

Then I have my monsters where I'm like, not trying to deny they're like, sapient, but there's evolutionary similarities between them and lizards. Because fuck it. That's cool. But I'm not gonna like, throw real life geckos under the bus for the sake of giving added "legitimacy" to my fantasy creature. Just fucking own it that it's a fantasy creature. Like tremors did. Fucking love tremors.

Anyways.

Idk where I was going with this.

Human media in its portrayal of snakes as an inherently evil animal has always really leaned into "this snake is sapient and likes to hurt things on purpose" pretty much since square one. It's actually really depressing. My mom is absolutely fucking terrified of snakes and every time someone tries to get to the bottom of why it's because she's attributing human reason to the behaviors of a wild animal. This is a fucking tube of stinky boy that likes to be fat and warm and safe. It is the most basal of instincts to want to be fat and warm and safe.

Anyways I love snakes if you couldn't tell. And I don't mean to insult them by calling them big dumb lazy fat stinky idiots. You can also call human babies these things. I'm just saying they literally don't have a thing going on in those cute little stubby heads of theirs even remotely comparable to malice. Provided they feel safe they are one of the more docile types of animals out there.

I think humans just want to see dragons where there are no dragons. I'm sorry you can't see a dragon. I'm really sorry. I wish we had dragons too.

Unmasked

You are become witness to a great becoming. As you look at the media before you, you are seeing a parallel reality constructed in front of you, as two different images of what is reasonable and typical and normal grow in front of you, and the one that is realistic and focused on what is actually true and actually existed and actually happened is the quieter, smaller, less seen one.

Content Warning: COVID-19 and related medical problems.

For the purpose of this conversation I’m going to refer to ‘the pandemic’ and I’m going to refer to it in the past tense. This is because very literally, this is just factually true. The WHO has specifically indicated that COVID-19 is no longer a pandemic, and this was met by a lot of people getting mad about this change in classification. What folk skipped on past here was that it wasn’t the WHO saying that COVID-19 is now not a thing, but rather that it’s not specifically a Pandemic and now it’s an Epidemic. The difference, under WHO’s guidelines is that a Pandemic is a new, sudden, interruption to the real world and can be addressed with quick action to prevent it becoming an Epidemic.

An Epidemic is something that’s just here. It’s just everywhere. There is no more room for emergency action, there now needs to be a constant, regular and ongoing effort to deal with this disease and its prevention in every single aspect of our lives in the same way we wash our hands and sneeze into handkerchiefs. COVID-19 is now part of living, on earth, everywhere, all the time, and that means that that it’s not just a thing from a lockdown for a few months in one year.

That said, ‘The Pandemic’ then refers to the period of time between the declaration of COVID-19 as a Pandemic on March 11, 2020 to May 23, 2023. This is the period when there was a global health emergency that global action could address. We tried, and this is the world we’re in now. We live now, in a world, where COVID-19 is a constant potential presence, and regular vaccinations are the way you deal with it, and a body of people, in part fueled by liars and grifters and their own awful ableism, want to make sure that it never goes away.

If you look at media made during the COVID-19 pandemic, you’re going to notice something missing, which is any diegetic sign that there’s a pandemic. Characters don’t have masks on, bystanders don’t have masks, people don’t touch elbows or kick ankles like we thought we might wind up doing permanently. There’s no palpable aura of fear in the characters that they need to get to the stores in time to get the shopping done.

And you know what, fair. Brad Pitt wants to fight twenty assassins on a train, I can understand not wanting that to be part of his life, certainly for that ninety minutes.

But think about the media you’re seeing that’s about ‘now.’ Think about the masks you do or don’t see. Think about characters in story mentioning they need to be careful, or they’re avoiding crowds. Think about the decisions and the care people are taking in stories to deal with their lives, and they’re all going to be things that don’t involve the years 2020 to 2022 happening. Think about all the things that interfered with your life, or the way that someone just might not show up for something because they had a cough and they want to be responsible for it, and then that you’re never going to see that in media. You’re not going to see a sitcom with a deliberately triple-sized cast of characters because sometimes characters just stay home and work remotely for their own medical safety and that’s okay.

You’re not going to see media that normalises good practices because to do that, it’s going to have to acknowledge that good practice and why it was a good practice and therefore, why it’s still a good practice. The way we’re going to see normal, for the next few years, in all media, is going to be a normal that we haven’t known and still don’t know. Oh, you may imagine ‘what, everything is back to normal,’ but it isn’t. It’s back to normal for some people, who are able to disregard other people, who are able to neglect. And those people don’t want media that makes them feel like they’re stupid assholes for ignoring masks and vaccines and other ways to keep people safe, and since their money folds too, media production is going to want to make sure to not annoy them. It may not cater to them, but it can at least avoid upsetting them, which means…

Well.

No Pandemic.

No sitcoms with altered office plans. Media that recognises and reacts to the Pandemic is more of a strange kind of oddity, a quirk of ‘hey, imagine making an entire movie out of Zoom calls,’ kinda thing. There will be media made in this universe, the one that features 2020, and 2021, and 2022. It won’t be the norm, though. The comforting amnesia of unreality means the liars win, because the system wants to route around potential harm to its access to minds and money.

Really, a lot of them are kind of pretending it’s still 2015, and we’re just rolling out more extra editions of 2015.

I am going to go into my later life permanently angry at the people who thought that that three year time was a great period to sell smoke machines and attempt to restart an economy on the basis of powering the great engine with more blood. But most amazingly, I’m also going to see in every piece of media I deal with going forward, the shocking, awe inspiring assertation for several years, at least until stuff starts to change and an old attitude starts to die along with those who hold it.

But right now, consensus reality is broken.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

Final reflection

Thinking with digital images: Reflection

By: Baoyi Liu

With the progress of technology, it is difficult for people to distinguish everything they see. What impressed me deeply in the course reading is that the joke mentioned in the article was on us. Jonas Bendiksen said, “People will find it difficult to distinguish whether an article was written by a journalist or a robot.” ( Katia,P. 2021). I think this is very ironic. Because although public media reports news to people, people still cannot distinguish whether the source of the news is reliable.

With the emergence of AI and Photoshop, it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish the authenticity of images and news. It can be said that due to the progress of technology, people know that images and text can be recombined, which has caused ordinary people to lose trust in the media (Arun,K,P. 2018). This also means that people can now tamper with the original meaning of information at will. Most of the information has become what you see is what others want you to see. People can freely change the real ambient lighting, edit and add materials that were not captured in an original image through Photoshop.

Although I was born in an era where everything I saw could be synthesized, I am relatively opposed to AI image synthesis. On the one hand, it can be imagined that in an era where without AI image synthesis, people have sufficient trust in this society and the media.

On the other hand, I believe that AI synthesis allows people to work less hard. Someone will take a camera to a beautiful place and wait for a long time, just to capture that moment. But now all you need to do is open Photoshop with new AI capabilities and use existing materials for image editing. AI synthesis may have more advantages than disadvantages for advertisers, as they can use this technology to 'optimize' their products and visually attract more customers.

The concept I chose for thinking with digital images is: Adopt an animal's public service announcement. The imagined advertising image shows a toy dog abandoned on a street corner in the city, representing abandoned or lost animals. I hope this public service announcement can evoke sympathy for abandoned animals and inspire people to consider adopting pets. This will improve the situation of stray cats and dogs and urban ecology. My goal is to make the advertisement and overall image as close to reality as possible. The reason is that I want to create realistic photos to mislead the audience, proving that some seemingly ordinary photos may also be fake. As a warning to people, that pictures can lie.

In the overall picture, I placed this advertisement on the advertising sites in the city. And added scenes of passersby passing by the billboard, running through these three images. I hope to achieve multi-level visual effects. The advertisement itself is black and white, and the world of abandoned animals may be gray. I used black to showcase their sadness and helplessness, and the vast black and desolate atmosphere contrasts sharply with the noisy world we live in. We cannot truly appreciate the sadness and loneliness of small animals being abandoned, but I want to do my best to protect them, so I came up with the idea of doing this advertisement.

In the background of each advertisement, there is another object accompanying this small animal, such as an umbrella, road cone, and garbage bin that has been casually abandoned on the roadside. They share the same situation as small animals, and this is also the real living environment for stray animals.

I feel that I have made progress in the application of Photoshop technology. In the last assignment, my skills were quite limited, and I didn't understand the techniques involved. During this process, I learned many new skills and applied them to the project.

Overall, during the course, I have continuously learned new skills and gained a deeper understanding of synthesis techniques. I know the road to excellence is still far away, but I guess I’m on my way.

Reference

Katia, P. (2021, October 26). A Photographer and Artist Walk into a Fake News Factory. Codastory.

Arun Kumar Bhuyan. (2018, October 26). What Are Some Reasons Not to Trust Photos You See on Social Media? Quora.

Journal #18 - Disconnecting (Discomfort Challenge Journal)

For years, the tech world worked at bringing fantasy to our reality. They had a vision of connecting the world without us necessarily needing to physically be present in the same room. Nowadays, you can easily call your parents who are on vacation halfway around the globe, chat with your friend who lives in Canada, and run a fully functional business from your bedroom. Just 10-20 years ago this was the stuff of legend. So much value was created from this idea that the people at the forefront of this evolution sit upon multi-billion dollar tech brands that dominate the market. To this day, technology is still advancing at a rapid speed.

I was born right at the beginning of the tech boom. This basically means that I grew up surrounded with technology that quickly evolved the older I got. Let’s just say that my attachment to technology was pretty strong from the moment I was old enough to understand it, and it led to me sitting here in the present day, killing my brain cells and attention span scrolling through websites when I could be building my barge model. At this point in time, most of us have a majority of our interactions daily with and through technology. 

The issue with the seemingly unlimited connection to people and content is obvious: We spend far too much time distracted by and invested in it. It’s understandable, companies and creators alike have optimized their content to be attention grabbing as that’s how they are rewarded for the stuff they make, but it sadly causes us to fall into the trap of wasted time and easy entertainment far too effectively. 

I could be watching a welding tutorial in an effort to troubleshoot a problem I have with my practical welding skills, but quickly find that two hours have passed and I am somehow watching a video about how someone drank expired coconut water and ended up in the hospital (true story). While I admittedly find the psychological factors of the internet wildly fascinating, the issue itself is frustrating to many.

These issues are exactly why Leon set a two hour time limit on daily social media usage. Realistically, this would be a hard challenge on its own. While I have barely touched social media in this challenge aside from the occasional guided meditation, YouTube tutorial, the DRVN30 group, and posting my blogs to Tumblr (which net way under the 2 hour social media limit across all my devices) I still manage to net an average of 5 hours of screen time just writing these blogs and managing a business! 

To me, that’s nuts. It’s not the level of disconnect I wanted to experience honestly. I haven’t spent a single day since last year not using any internet-connected device at least once, which led me to this discomfort challenge: Spend a whole day without using any technology. The only thing I was allowed was a watch I can set alarms and timers on. Of course this presents unique problems, but it would free up a theoretical 5 hours of my 16 I have in my day. I’ll admit, it was hard. I got bored a LOT regardless of the fact I had plenty of things available to do. However, the rewards I got were well worth it.

Here’s a list of the rewards and benefits I found from total disconnect as well as limiting my social media time for the DRVN30 challenge:

More focus on hobbies and necessary tasks

More awareness regarding where I spend my time, especially on the internet

“Dopamine reset” - I now get little reward from scrolling through social media or watching YouTube videos. My attention is only held for a small period of time before I get bored of that and return to another task. I get more enjoyment out of hobbies, interests, and projects now and don’t feel the need to listen to music or a podcast to relax into it as much.

Less distraction and rabbit-hole browsing

More energy, motivation, and productivity

Less negative mood/mindset effects.

Less migraines (sometimes triggered by screens in the first half of my day, RIP)

Considering how much reward I personally got from these two challenges, I might in the future set intentional “disconnect” days where I spend my day off of technology and focus my energy on projects outside the tech realm. I may even try a longer lasting disconnect period.

If you’re finding the amount of time you spend on social media, the internet, or just technology in general are negatively affecting your life, consider setting the boundaries and constraints that work best for you. You may also want to try your own day of total disconnection – or several days, if that tows your barges – to really challenge your comfort zone. Be aware of any significant changes when doing so, it helps to understand yourself, your habits, and your needs on a deeper level. 

Lastly, if you’re the type of person who is very distressed by your social media, internet, or technology usage but find it even more distressing to disconnect and face reality, you may want to unpack why you feel that way. Being reliant in that manner often signals a deeper emotional or psychological factor you may need to address.

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Privatisation and commercialisation are the opposite most outstanding recent developments in relation to the technical features of social housing management. New home building and major upgrading are now almost always carried out by industrial contractors, where as in the past social housing providers usually directly employed substantial workforces for this function. Conversely, in some international locations, notably the Netherlands, the maintenance sections of social housing organisations have just lately become extra involved within the non-public market and compete towards business organisations.

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