#But also while I do follow some who do a lot of capital-B Blogging it isn't typically on policy-econ here - probably a gap for me to fill!

[centrally-unplanned]

What are your current top 5 Econ/politics bloggers now?

See my follow-up post, I kind of don't have them! Thus my dilemma. I am of course Yglesias-pilled, Shor-maxxing, and so I am going to recommend Slow Boring, probably the best politics blog around for both "being right" but also "being interesting and showing creativity". You absolutely can't go wrong following Brian Potter at Construction Physics for just some apolitical, very technical discussions of the economics of building. And for something a bit more formal, the IFP's Statecraft blog/podcast (they transcript everything, don't worry) is an amazing source of interviews about the actuality of policy implementation. I can definitely think of more with time.

But I do also think we are in a rougher era for blogs. I used to have tons, the Psuedoerasmus's or Dietrich Vollrath's, who were clearly motivated by passion for their interests and creating longform works of the craft. It is much more of a game these days - people have pivoted to video/audio/just tweeting, optimized for virality, moved more into the partisan game, built content around teaser/paywall dynamics, etc. I hear people say these days are one of the best times to be a blogger-writer, and there is something to that in the sense that there are a lot of new opportunities for doing it as a career. But I don't think the incentives around that have led to higher quality.

However, it might also be that I am just out of the loop! One of my goals for this year is to try to broaden my knowledge base around that. Time always gets you into ruts, you need effort to get knocked out of them.

[trinketfairy]

I'm having an autism moment but the quality control decline at Jellycat makes me feel very autistically frustrated.

Some points:

Prices are getting higher while quality is decreasing. We've seen it, Jellycat has acknowledged and commented on it, and we know that JC isn't the only one who's guilty of this. But what frustrates me a lot is knowing that, despite JC's comments on their quality control and their promises to "do better," they haven't really been sticking with their word. I feel like there's been a consistent uptick in posts on the Jellycatplush subreddit of people complaining about quality even after they made their statement in January of this year and for good reason- their final products just aren't meeting the price tags anymore.

I suppose some of this has to do with the increase in popularity they said they had experienced in 2022 that they struggled to keep up with, and I imagine they're trying to keep up with the demand by loosening quality control to get more product out, but I think they're really shooting themselves in their feet for this because JC was once revered for their quality. I know I myself have said in the past that I thought the price of their products were totally worth it because I truly believed that the quality lived up to those price tags. Nowadays I can't say the same thing about them anymore.

What sucks further though is the fact that all of this product is just going to waste now. Many people have said that they were so disappointed with what they got (especially when you consider how much money they have to fork out per plush these days) that they ended up returning it to JC, which ultimately ends up being tossed in some landfill somewhere. Polyester and plastic fabric isn't exactly the definition of environmentally friendly!

Ultimately, these factories are going out of their ways to produce subpar products under what I imagine are more strict codes to get more product out, which end up being returned by the buyers because they're so disappointed in the quality control and thrown into the garbage. Or if they're not returned by the owner, then they'll still probably end up there anyway because they're defective and not as likely to last as long.

What I think should be done instead is offering discounts on defective products- within reason of course, nobody's going to want to pay any amount of money for a plush that's practically falling apart, but minor defects I could see selling fine enough because A) customers won't have to pay the full amount for a subpar product, and B) they also will know exactly what they're getting and not being set up for disappointment. I'd love to buy defective jellies, so long as I'm not paying the price of a high quality one!

But understandably, I think the above point could have a bad affliction on their reputation as a company, that they'd have defective plush to sell in the first place, which is why I don't think they do it. They've already built their image on being a higher-end plush brand, so I feel like advertising products that exist to be defective would be bad publicity.

Side note: I fear for the safety of the literal babies chewing on their toys if their quality continues to dwindle. There are specific safety protocols that toy manufacturers need to adhere to in order to produce toys for babies- the 3+ age rating exists for a reason! I don't think it's quite gotten to that point yet, but it's in the realm of possibility if JC continues down the road they're on.

I could end this by saying something about the effects of late stage capitalism on product quality control and, eventually, environmentalism and safety, but I don't imagine anyone is following a blog about children's toys to hear political commentary which is understandable so I'll save it for now.

[mcmansionhell]

Coronagrifting: A Design Phenomenon

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled content to bring you a critical essay on the design world. I promise you that this will also be funny. 

This morning, the design website Dezeen tweeted a link to one of its articles, depicting a plexiglass coronavirus shield that could be suspended above dining areas, with the caption “Reader comment: ‘Dezeen, please stop promoting this stupidity.’”

This, of course, filled many design people, including myself, with a kind of malicious glee. The tweet seemed to show that the website’s editorial (or at least social media) staff retained within themselves a scintilla of self-awareness regarding the spread a new kind of virus in its own right: cheap mockups of COVID-related design “solutions” filling the endlessly scrollable feeds of PR-beholden design websites such as Dezeen, ArchDaily, and designboom. I call this phenomenon: Coronagrifting. 

I’ll go into detail about what I mean by this, but first, I would like to presenet some (highly condensed) history. 

From Paper Architecture to PR-chitecture

Back in the headier days of architecture in the 1960s and 70s, a number of architectural avant gardes (such as Superstudio and Archizoom in Italy and Archigram in the UK) ceased producing, well, buildings, in favor of what critics came to regard as “paper architecture.” This “paper architecture” included everything from sprawling diagrams of megastructures, including cities that “walked” or “never stopped” - to playfully erotic collages involving Chicago’s Marina City. Occasionally, these theoretical and aesthetic explorations were accompanied by real-world productions of “anti-design” furniture that may or may not have involved foam fingers. 

Archigram’s Walking City (1964). Source.

Paper architecture, of course, still exists, but its original radical, critical, playful, (and, yes, even erotic) elements were shed when the last of the ultra-modernists were swallowed up by the emerging aesthetic hegemony of Postmodernism (which was much less invested in theoretical and aesthetic futurism) in the early 1980s. What remained were merely images, the production and consumption of which has only increased as the design world shifted away from print and towards the rapidly produced, easily digestible content of the internet and social media. 

Architect Bjarke Ingels’s “Oceanix” - a mockup of an ecomodernist, luxury city designed in response to rising sea levels from climate change. The city will never be built, and its critical interrogation amounts only to “city with solar panels that floats bc climate change is Serious”  - but it did get Ingels and his firm, BIG, a TED talk and circulation on all of the hottest blogs and websites. Meanwhile, Ingels has been in business talks with the right-wing climate change denialist president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro. (Image via designboom) 

Design websites are increasingly dominated by text and mockups from the desks of a firm’s public relations departments, facilitating a transition from the paper-architecture-imaginary to what I have begun calling “PR-chitecture.” In short, PR-chitecture is architecture and design content that has been dreamed up from scratch to look good on instagram feeds or, more simply, for clicks.  It is only within this substance-less, critically lapsed media landscape that Coronagrifting can prosper.

Coronagrifting: An Evolution

As of this writing, the two greatest offenders of Coronagrifting are Dezeen, which has devoted an entire section of its website to the virus (itself offering twelve pages of content since February alone) and designboom, whose coronavirus tag contains no fewer than 159 articles. 

Certainly, a small handful of these stories demonstrate useful solutions to COVID-related problems (such as this one from designboom about a student who created a mask prototype that would allow D/deaf and hard of hearing people to read lips) most of the prototypes and the articles about them are, for a lack of a better word, insipid. 

But where, you may ask, did it all start?

One of the easiest (and, therefore, one of the earliest) Coronagrifts involves “new innovative, health-centric designs tackling problems at the intersection of wearables and personal mobility,” which is PR-chitecture speak for “body shields and masks.” 

Wearables and Post-ables

The first example came from Chinese architect Sun Dayong, back at the end of February 2020, when the virus was still isolated in China. Dayong submitted to Dezeen a prototype of a full mask and body-shield that “would protect a wearer during a coronavirus outbreak by using UV light to sterilise itself.” The project was titled “Be a Bat Man.” No, I am not making this up. 

Screenshot of Dayong’s “Be a Batman” as seen on the Dezeen website. 

Soon after, every artist, architect, designer, and sharp-eyed PR rep at firms and companies only tangentially related to design realized that, with the small investment of a Photoshop mockup and some B-minus marketing text, they too could end up on the front page of these websites boasting a large social media following and an air of legitimacy in the field. 

By April, companies like Apple and Nike were promising the use of existing facilities for producing or supplying an arms race’s worth of slick-tech face coverings. Starchitecture’s perennial PR-churners like Foster + Partners and Bjarke Ingels were repping “3D-printed face shields”, while other, lesser firms promised wearable vaporware like “grapheme filters,” branded “skincare LED masks for encouraging self-development” and “solar powered bubble shields.” 

While the mask Coronagrift continues to this day, the Coronagrifting phenomenon had, by early March, moved to other domains of design. 

Consider the barrage of asinine PR fluff that is the “Public Service Announcement” and by Public Service Announcement, I mean “A Designer Has Done Something Cute to Capitalize on Information Meant to Save Lives.” 

Some of the earliest offenders include cutesy posters featuring flags in the shape of houses, ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home;” a designer building a pyramid out of pillows ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home”; and Banksy making “lockdown artwork” that involved covering his bathroom in images of rats ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home.” 

Lol. Screenshot from Dezeen. 

You may be asking, “What’s the harm in all this, really, if it projects a good message?” And the answer is that people are plenty well encouraged to stay home due to the rampant spread of a deadly virus at the urging of the world’s health authorities, and that these tone-deaf art world creeps are using such a crisis for shameless self promotion and the generation of clicks and income, while providing little to no material benefit to those at risk and on the frontlines.

Of course, like the mask coronagrift, the Public Service Announcement coronagrift continues to this very day. 

The final iteration of Post-able and Wearable Coronagrifting genres are what I call “Passive Aggressive Social Distancing Initiatives” or PASDIs. Many of the first PASDIs were themselves PSAs and art grifts, my favorite of which being the designboom post titled “social distancing applied to iconic album covers like the beatle’s abbey road.” As you can see, we’re dealing with extremely deep stuff here. 

However, an even earlier and, in many ways more prescient and lucrative grift involves “social distancing wearables.” This can easily be summarized by the first example of this phenomenon, published March 19th, 2020 on designboom: 

Never wasting a single moment to capitalize on collective despair, all manner of brands have seized on the social distancing wearable trend, which, again, can best be seen in the last example of the phenomenon, published May 22nd, 2020 on designboom:

We truly, truly live in Hell. 

Which brings us, of course, to living. 

“Architectural Interventions” for a “Post-COVID World”

As soon as it became clear around late March and early April that the coronavirus (and its implications) would be sticking around longer than a few months, the architectural solutions to the problem came pouring in. These, like the virus itself, started at the scale of the individual and have since grown to the scale of the city. (Whether or not they will soon encompass the entire world remains to be seen.) 

The architectural Coronagrift began with accessories (like the designboom article about 3D-printed door-openers that enable one to open a door with one’s elbow, and the Dezeen article about a different 3D-printed door-opener that enables one to open a door with one’s elbow) which, in turn, evolved into “work from home” furniture (”Stykka designs cardboard #StayTheF***Home Desk for people working from home during self-isolation”) which, in turn, evolved into pop-up vaporware architecture for first responders (”opposite office proposes to turn berlin's brandenburg airport into COVID-19 'superhospital'”), which, in turn evolved into proposals for entire buildings (”studio prototype designs prefabricated 'vital house' to combat COVID-19″); which, finally, in turn evolved into “urban solutions” aimed at changing the city itself (a great article summarizing and criticizing said urban solutions was recently written by Curbed’s Alissa Walker).

There is something truly chilling about an architecture firm, in order to profit from attention seized by a global pandemic, logging on to their computers, opening photoshop, and drafting up some lazy, ineffectual, unsanitary mockup featuring figures in hazmat suits carrying a dying patient (macabrely set in an unfinished airport construction site) as a real, tangible solution to the problem of overcrowded hospitals; submitting it to their PR desk for copy, and sending it out to blogs and websites for clicks, knowing full well that the sole purpose of doing so consists of the hope that maybe someone with lots of money looking to commission health-related interiors will remember that one time there was a glossy airport hospital rendering on designboom and hire them. 

Enough, already. 

Frankly, after an endless barrage of cyberpunk mask designs, social distancing burger king crowns, foot-triggered crosswalk beg buttons that completely ignore accessibility concerns such as those of wheelchair users, cutesy “stay home uwu” projects from well-to-do art celebrities (who are certainly not suffering too greatly from the economic ramifications of this pandemic), I, like the reader featured in the Dezeen Tweet at the beginning of this post, have simply had enough of this bullshit. 

What’s most astounding to me about all of this (but especially about #brand crap like the burger king crowns) is that it is taken completely seriously by design establishments that, despite being under the purview of PR firms, should frankly know better. I’m sure that Bjarke Ingels and Burger King aren’t nearly as affected by the pandemic as those who have lost money, jobs, stability, homes, and even their lives at the hands of COVID-19 and the criminally inept national and international response to it. On the other hand, I’m sure that architects and designers are hard up for cash at a time when nobody is building and buying anything, and, as a result, many see resulting to PR-chitecture as one of the only solutions to financial problems. 

However, I’m also extremely sure that there are interventions that can be made at the social, political, and organizational level, such as campaigning for paid sick leave, organizing against layoffs and for decent severance or an expansion of public assistance, or generally fighting the rapidly accelerating encroachment of work into all aspects of everyday life – that would bring much more good and, dare I say, progress into the world than a cardboard desk captioned with the hashtag #StaytheF***Home. 

Hence, I’ve spent most of my Saturday penning this article on my blog, McMansion Hell. I’ve chosen to run this here because I myself have lost work as a freelance writer, and the gutting of publications down to a handful of editors means that, were I to publish this story on another platform, it would have resulted in at least a few more weeks worth of inflatable, wearable, plexiglass-laden Coronagrifting, something my sanity simply can no longer withstand. 

So please, Dezeen, designboom, others – I love that you keep daily tabs on what architects and designers are up to, a resource myself and other critics and design writers find invaluable – however, I am begging, begging you to start having some discretion with regards to the proposals submitted to you as “news” or “solutions” by brands and firms, and the cynical, ulterior motives behind them. If you’re looking for a guide on how to screen such content, please scroll up to the beginning of this page. 

----

If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to my Patreon, as I didn’t get paid to write it.  

[mojoflower]

WHY is fanfiction not the appropriate venue for your political or social battle?

We can all agree, I posit, that there are changes that need to be made in the world (racism, for example;  patriarchal inequalities;  rape culture;  capitalism;  plug in your personal cause here).

We can all ALSO agree, I think, that the way culture, media, etc. portray things influences a consumer on an unconscious level.

We can agree that, in real life, certain things are clearly bad:  abuse of others, non-consensual sex, systemic inequality, I can go on….

So.  Let me feel my way through this.  I, personally, feel like fanfiction (specifically on AO3, since that’s where I encounter it) is NOT an appropriate battleground for enforcing cultural change by:

Leaving comments about how someone’s work is (in your, the commenter’s, opinion) wrong, damaging, unfair, insensitive, etc.

Telling the writer they should change this or that.

Telling the writer they must add or delete tags.

Broadcasting your opinion of the writer’s egregiousness outside AO3 (twitter, for example, or here on tumblr).

Organizing a campaign of harassment against the author if they don’t change to suit your personal requirements.

First of all:

 Be the change you want to see.

Fanfiction, unlike any other media out there, is INDIVIDUAL.  It is one work, from one single person – voluntary and unpaid.  You yourself are one single person.  You can have as much influence as this writer.  Write the works you want to read, instead of demanding that the writer change to suit you.  This is how romance novels changed from non-con, non-condom-wearing, shudderingly unequal stories in the 70s and 80s to where they are now, for example.  New people started writing stories, and eventually established authors started changing, too (or dwindled away).

Remember that you know nothing about the author.

You don’t know their culture, their skin color, their age, their gender.  You don’t know their socioeconomic status or how much free time they have.  You don’t know their current mental or physical conditions.  You don’t know any of the things going on in their life.  AND.  You are not entitled to know these things.  When you lash out at an author for not doing research, for not editing, for… anything at all… you cannot assume that they’re not fourteen, not suicidal, not a native speaker, not disabled such that writing a single paragraph is a tremendous effort.  You don’t know they’re not in an abusive situation, or economic peril.  You do not have the right to tell them to change.  Whether you are asking them to change text, tone, tagging, ships, plot, you name it.  Anything.

Dead Dove:  Do Not Eat.

Don’t like, don’t read.  These are simple concepts, and the tagging system on AO3 helps you to avoid many triggers.  Simple common sense, once you're into a story that’s raising your hackles, will warn you away from the rest.  If you say, ‘no, this person can’t write that, it’s contributing to pain in the Real World’ then you are functioning as a censor.  I mean, at its most basic level, a censor is someone who strikes out passages in books or other media because it’s… immoral/bad/etc.  The problem is that morality is incredibly tailored to the group you’re in, and also incredibly fluid, shifting over time.  So… why do YOU get to be the censor and not the author?  What makes YOU the final word?  Seriously, think about it.

Fanfiction writers are the most vulnerable group you could target.

Which makes them easy prey, and possibly makes them the juiciest and most satisfying targets.  Address your anger to Hollywood or Simon & Schuster or Congress – and your voice will doubtless get lost in the shuffle.  Address it to an author on AO3 and you can deliver your blow personally, one on one, and witness the damage.  There is no professional buffer between your resentment and their reaction.

Who are fanfiction writers?  Overwhelmingly women, overwhelmingly queer, often very young and inexperienced.  Wow.  What a rewarding group to start slapping around.  You wouldn't be the only one to think so.  Seriously.  Aim your anger at someone who is STRONGER than you.  Not someone who is (likely) weaker than you.  You’re kicking a kitten, while a lion lounges behind you.

Censoring someone’s thoughts is bad.

People should be allowed to THINK.  And they can think whatever they want.  Whether and where and how it should be expressed is another matter.  AO3 is a safe place for whatever weird-ass thoughts you have.  It is expressly written into their mission statement.  AO3 was SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED so that authors could have a place for their dead dove fics.

So.  Why is [your pet cause] okay on AO3 and not on a script in Hollywood?

AO3 requires membership before you can post anything, so it’s arguably private.  AO3 provides tools for readers to avoid works they might find triggering.  AO3 profits no one.  Follow the money, and there are your true culprits.  Not a housewife from Hoebokken.

Fanfiction writers make no money.  When they write, they are not lawmakers, filmmakers, teachers or preachers.  This is not their job.  They do not have a responsibility to the community, because they are vested with no power and no paycheck.  Please move your battlefield to one of these other venues.  Your fight will be harder, but it will also do a lot more good than traumatizing some naive  kid away from writing forever.

Fanfiction comprises an individual’s personal thoughts and personal works, written for their own enjoyment, shared only through AO3 to (presumably) like-minded readers.  Fanfics are a person’s fantasies and daydreams.  They might be an author’s therapeutic exercise.  Or someone trying to explore something new, whether it be cultures, ideas, sexualities or kinks.  Humans need a place where they can be wrong and make mistakes.  Think about that, I implore you.  If you are constantly pointing out someone’s errors, you may eventually either silence them forever, or instill in them permanent resentment.  This does not further your cause.

You have your personal cause.

I’ve seen a lot of them.  Incest is bad, you’re not allowed to write about it.  Pedophilia is bad, you’re not allowed to write about it.  Abusive relationships are bad, you’re not allowed to write about them.  Racism is bad, you’re not allowed to write about it.  Genderswap is transphobic, you’re not allowed to write about it.  A/B/O romanticizes damaging gender inequalities.  There are many.  If every single one of you got to stamp out your personal crusade, then fic would be scant on the ground and many people wouldn’t try to create anymore.  It’s stifling to creativity and terrifying to an author that they might slip up and be called out.  No one, as far as I know, likes to think of their fanfiction as something that will be turned in for a grade.

Your standards are your own.

What are the precise parameters of an abusive relationship?  Transphobia?  Racism?  Pedophilia?  Fetishism?  Where does dub-con become non-con?  No one is the mouthpiece for the whole world.  You are only the mouthpiece for yourself.

If you think to yourself that it’s not okay to tell someone they can’t write about, say, a gay relationship, but it IS okay to tell them they can’t write about a certain ship or dynamic (for Reasons), then maybe you should step back and check yourself and your entitlement to someone else’s endeavor.

In conclusion:

I’m not saying that racism doesn’t exist in fanfiction.  Or creepy sexual abuse, or glorification of harmful dynamics.  It certainly does.  I’m not trying to play semantics with you.

But when you see these things, when they bother you... back right out.

That’s it.  Just back out, ignore it and find a different fic.  (Or better yet, write your own!)  Shower the fics you approve of with love and comments about why you think they’re great.  Give them kudos and bookmarks and shout-outs on your blog.  Eventually, if your opinion is popular, authors who thought otherwise will realize that readership is looking for something different.  They’ll change or they won’t, but the body of work will change over time, and THAT is what you’re looking to accomplish.  Not to stamp out fanfiction altogether.

[nomadinia]

Chronicles of an unfortunate athlete (part 1)

I waited a long time to write this review because I wanted to make sure I had all the facts. I was originally going to give CareAxis a 1 star rating, but the physiotherapist I met with was beyond amazing, hence the only reason for my 2 star rating. Note, this review is more about my experience as an athlete with one of the doctors running this program than the program itself.

There is so much to say that I don't really know where to begin, but let me start by saying that dealing with the CareAxis neurosurgeon's office was one of the most frustrating medical experiences I have ever had. Since my situation is quite peculiar, I have dealt with my fair share of unhelpful doctors, but this neurosurgeon in particular is the epitome of medical nonchalance in my eyes.

This has been a 5 years odyssey, so I’ll try to be as concise as I can throughout this review.

I am a former competitive varsity athlete and some of my teammates have gone on to become Olympians. Needless to say, my body has endured some grueling training. I trained at a competitive level from the age of 18 to 23, and one thing about grueling training is that it makes one very attuned to their body, so I’ve always known automatically when something was up with mine. I always wanted to continue my competitive career at a professional level, but unfortunately due to debilitating back and shin pain and incontinence (keep that in mind), I had to retire from competitive athletics at 24. Fitness and competitive athletics were everything to me, I had a fitness blog with over 62,000 followers, I was about to start a fitness channel, and I was putting in the hard work towards becoming a professional runner.

My deteriorating physical health took a huge toll on me mentally, but despite my early retirement, I still clung to my dreams of returning to competitive athletics. So for 3 years, I had endless appointments with my family doctor to try to find the cause of my symptoms. However, at 27, I was tired of getting nowhere, so I started pushing for diagnostic tests. I am fortunate to have a family doctor who understands my drive and doesn't mind sending me for diagnostic tests as long as I pay for them.

In June 2020, I had a full body MRI and that's when we discovered that I had moderate to severe congenital lumbar spinal stenosis (L4-L5-S1). Thinking it was the source of my ailments, my doctor and I were ecstatic. I was even more ecstatic knowing that there were still hopes of qualifying for Boston 2022 if I could get surgery in 2020. Since I knew how ridiculously long the wait time for a neurosurgeon is in Quebec, I searched the Internet for private neurosurgeons in Quebec. I was very happy to CareAxis initiative and thought it was really great after reading about it. Besides, because the program included an orthopedic surgeon, I was even more excited, thinking, "let's kill two birds with one stone - we can find a solution to my back pain and also to my shin pain”. All in all, I had so much high hopes.

One thing leading to another, I self-referred myself to the program, met with a physiotherapist (to whom I gave a copy of my MRI report and a flash drive containing the images thinking that would be sent to the neurosurgeon (keep that in mind). I have to commend CareAxis because I was contacted fairly quickly after my assessment with the physiotherapist (2-3 days). Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the appointment because I live 2 hours away from Montreal and I'm a public servant, so I can't just give a 2 day notice to my manager. I opted for a phone consultation.

Now that's where the whole debacle begins...

1) At our first consultation, the neurosurgeon did not have my MRI report or MRI imaging study. I was baffled because (a) this information had been provided to the physiotherapist, and (b) I distinctly remember leaving a voicemail for one of his receptionists with the information of the clinic where I had my MRI.

I was so excited for our first phone consultation, but it really turned out to be unfruitful. Side note, he is very punctual in terms of his phone consultations. I was very disappointed though since our first consultation lasted less than 15 min if I remember correctly. Although disappointed, I was not mad because it was more of an administrative error. I couldn't really blame the neurosurgeon, but it should have been a red flag call to the many communication flaws in this program. Before ending our phone call, he asked me to send him a copy of the MRI images and the report and I did so promptly.

2) Since the clinic where I had my MRI did not provide me with a CD, as patients have access to an online portal, I downloaded the images onto a flash drive and sent it to the neurosurgeon. On our first phone call, I mentioned this and made sure that sending the flash drive was okay. He confirmed that it was ok. Everything was sent by express mail, so I knew he would receive it within a week.

I waited a whole week and no phone call.... Knowing how busy neurosurgeons are, I let the time pass (a WHOLE month) because I figured he had a lot to do. Besides, no one likes to be seen as a clingy patient... Of course, after a whole month of no response, I finally called his clinic and to my surprise, his secretary informed me that he had not been able to open the USB drive... Internally, I was very annoyed because this meant that if I hadn't called his clinic, no one would have informed me of the problem. Once again, I brushed off the issue and told his secretary that I would contact the Vancouver clinic to have the CD sent to them.

3) I contacted the Vancouver clinic and had the CD sent to the neurosurgeon’s office. I think it was sent to him fairly quickly. Unfortunately, he was once again unable to see my images as his clinic did not have the necessary technology and once again nobody informed me of the problem. Again, I wasn't really mad because the technology used in Vancouver to perform my MRI required a specific type of software (DICOM).

I found it strange though that a hospital could not open a DICOM file given that (a) I was able to see the images on my computer after downloading a DICOM software and (b) other clinics were also able to open the images. Anyhow, I was not too bothered by this problem, what irritated me was once again the lack of communication from neurosurgeon’s office.

4) Since the neurosurgeon could not open my MRI images, he scheduled me for an MRI and, yes, you guessed it, again, no one called to inform me. It was a total shock to me when on Christmas Eve (December 24) I received a letter in the mail informing me of an MRI scheduled for December 26. I live in the National Capital Region, which meant a two-hour drive that I didn't mind, but for God's sake, it was the holidays and people make plans at this time of year. Of course, when I tried to call the radiology division to tell them I couldn't make it, I was greeted with an auto message saying they were closed, so of course I couldn't talk to anyone. That's when I started to get more than a little annoyed.

Fast forward, I ended up getting the MRI he ordered. While I really despise many aspects of his program, I have to give credit where it is due – the MRI rescheduling was done pretty quickly (February 2021). Now we are getting to the part that really was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Because of all the shenanigan going on, it took the neurosurgeon about six months to tell me that it was not my spinal stenosis that was causing my shin pain and incontinence. I don't mind him not knowing what was causing my shin pain and incontinence, but the fact that the whole process took six months is unacceptable!

From the time I referred myself to CareAxis (September 2020) to the time the neurosurgeon was finally able to get an MRI of my spine (February 2021), six months elapsed. For many people, 6 months may not seem like much, but for a high-performance athlete who wants to return to their sport, it's half a year. In the world of sports, especially high performance sports, so much can be accomplished in six months, especially in terms of training or rehabilitation... Keep in mind that since I was out of my sport for such a long period of time, I could have really used some of that time to reacclimate my body to a high and demanding level of physical training. Those six months of shenanigans really could have been cut in half if only there had been ongoing communication with the patient (i.e., myself). I could have been proactive on so many aspects throughout the process.

Since the neurosurgeon was quite baffled by my situation, he decided to make an appointment for an in-person consultation to better evaluate me (in May 2021). However, I remember having a strange feeling during our last phone call - as I explained my symptoms to him, I could sense the disinterest in his voice. At that point, I realized that he is the type of doctor who won't do much to help an athlete get back into their sport.

After our last phone conversation, I fell into a depression because I was disappointed that my spinal stenosis wasn't the cause of my shin pain and incontinence. I was really at my wits end with all the diagnostic tests and medical appointments. Eventually, I picked myself back up and, because I didn't want my judgment to be clouded, I cancelled the in-person consultation with the neurosurgeon and decided it would be best if I did some research on my own. I also asked my doctor at the time to refer me to a sports medicine doctor.

Long story short, after doing extensive research, I felt confident enough to meet with the neurosurgeon. So I called his clinic to make an appointment - his office never returned my call (it's been 7 months now). Dr. Santaguida never sent notes to my doctor either and didn't even try to refer me to anyone else. He simply forgot about me. Fortunately, I was always proactive, and during those 7 months, I had asked my doctor for a referral to another neurosurgeon, but more importantly, I sought recommendations from experts. I contacted a Norwegian MSK rehabilitation and injuries specialist who reviewed my MRI images and recommended the right spine surgery. Furthermore, I obtained a second opinion from Sandford University, Jefferson University, UC San Diego, and the Global neurosciences institute. And we were able to shed some light on the incontinence.

With a proper physical exam and detailed sports history, we could have easily shed light on most of my ailments. Moreover, I could have had the necessary additional tests quickly and been on my way back to a very physical lifestyle. It turned out that in addition to spinal stenosis, I have chronic exertional compartment syndrome – CECS (shin pain) and a sports hernia (Gilmore's groin, athletic pubalgia, whatever you want to call it) in my right groin that causes the urological symptoms (incontinence). And to top it all off, I have PCOS.

Imagine having PCOS along with moderate to severe spinal stenosis, CECS and a sports hernia that irritates the bladder. Life was certainly not joyful... While the chances of the CareAxis neurosurgeon suspecting CECS and athletic pubalgia would have been very slim, he worked with an orthopedic surgeon who could have given him excellent advice on how to manage a former athlete... This neurosurgeon could have even referred me or suggested that I see a sport doctor. I went through many extra hurdles that could have been avoided.

While I can't fault the neurosurgeon for not knowing about CECS and sports hernias, as these are occult sports injuries that only a sports physician or team of experts would suspect, I am definitely irritated that I had to endure unnecessary pain and that proper treatment was delayed.

[thechildofstark]

The Problem With Civil War

Civil War was supposed to be a Captain America movie. It was not a Captain America movie.

However.......

The problem with it being a Cap film is that Steve (+ his team) are supposed to be the ultimate good guys. In all the previous Hero Title films (Iron Man Trilogy, Thor Trilogy, Etc.) the guy whose name is on the poster is the guy the audience is supposed to root for. However, because of CA:CW’s marketing and story arc, it was very much a Steve & Tony / Steve vs. Tony film, while trying to simultaneously portray Tony as a secondary character.

This post isn't about Team Cap or Team Iron Man.

The catalyst for the story of Civil War is...........interesting. (in the comics, its different. and a whole lot easier to understand the reasoning of both sides of the argument. but that's a post for another time.)

Tagging/registering/tracking every mutant/mutate/superhero/powered person is objectively a very bad idea. but so is running amok with no supervision in other countries and destroying property whilst literally wearing the American flag.

There are big problems on both sides.

The issue I find most people have with Tony is that they find him an entitled sellout who only cares about himself and that he committed war crimes, and the problems I find most people have with Steve is that he defended a baby Nazi and went on an violent international rampage in direct violation of the UN because his dead terrorist ex-boyfriend may or may not have murdered a whole bunch of people.

Ooof.

The main reason I think people get very annoyed/attached a specific side is because they are still projecting the characterisation from the earlier movies.

Iron Man 1 and The First Avenger? I love them. No notes.

Obviously yes there are issues in-universe but these are flawed characters with complicated issues and stories and so on, and I like them that way.

If I wanted a Nice Unproblematic Superhero I’d rewatch the Christopher Reeves Superman films. That is not why I am here today.

But by the time we get to Civil War, Tony and Steve have become caricatures of the ideals that they represented, so that the studio can make a movie.

Morally, Steve is  in the right. Legally, Tony is in the right.

Ethically? I don't fucking know, they both suck equally in that regard.

Okay to be fair, Tony does try to help Steve like.........so often in the film. Because Steve is the Protagonist and he is Right even though half his actions don't actually fit with his previous characterisation/character arcs/basic human logic.

CA:CW was supposed to be a movie about Steve Rogers. But it failed in the single regard that the story wasn't about him. Even other Hero Title movie, the main character either does something, or has something done to them, and then they react to the situations and there are gratuitous explosions and a life lesson and probably a kiss near the end. But this film had the kiss nearer to the middle ew Sharon why and while plenty of shit got blown up, plenty of civilians and local law enforcement also got mashed by/because of the title character.

That is not how the lead in a superhero movie is supposed to behave.

And the film also continues down the general path of giving Tony shittier and shittier character arcs. The war he behaves in his own movies vs the avengers films? it’s a complete values dissonance. It is literally not the same character. Probably the closest to consistency we get is Iron Man 3/Age of Ultron but even then the differences are pretty startling. At the beginning, Tony was, idk, a realistic if fictional person. But the time we get to CA:CW all we have is an avatar for the writers to manipulate, damn character consistency, damn reasonable behavior and logic and everything that the audience has been told about him in the past.

Same with Steve. Heck, same with everyone in the entire damn movie. Barely anyone acts or reacts in a way that either A) previous behavior would suggest, or B) an actual human person would act or react.

Yes. I know. It’s fiction. I can suspend my disbelief.

But like........damn they fucked Clint and Natasha over.

The creators were trying to recreate a well known and well liked comic book story arc, capitalize on the growing divide in parts of the fandom over preferred characters/character ideologies, and do so without using the expanded universe and added context which made the original comic book arc so fucking good.

They tried to split the Avengers in half, only to realize that they had split the Avengers in half, and then when Infinity War came along, they basically had to write a plot where both sides did their thing without sharing a single second of screen time together, because the whole -

S: you tried to kill my best friend 

T: he killed my mother       

S: actually he was brain washed                                         

T: but you knew and didn't tell me for years                          

S: well I was worried you would react badly                          

T: I wouldn't have                                                                      

S: you literally tried to kill him                                                         

T: yeah I'm sure you be totally fine if you saw your parents being violently murdered and the guy was right there and your teammate lied about it and you were very sleep deprived to boot

                                                           - drama would start up again.

ANYWAY

the point is, I used to really like both these characters - I still like the comic book versions tho - but then they got way fucked over. I'm extra salty about Steve, because this was supposed to be his movie but loads of the screen time was given over to other shit and he literally commits so much crime and murder and has absolutely zero moral or emotional consistency. especially when it comes to Bucky and Wanda vs. everyone else.

Also with Tony, there is so much of an issue with Telling vs Showing vs other characters in-universe opinions of him I genuinely don't even know what the creators want me to feel about him anymore.

uuuuururhrhrhrhrhrhrhghfjjhdhjf.

tl;dr -

I saw this movie like six years ago and the way I feel about it has changed a lot over time. I used to be team iron man, could you tell?    But the basics of it is this should have been an Avengers movie if it had to exist at all, there are so many cool Captain America stories worthy of being put to film, and this really wasn't the most perfect option. Civil War has so many problems, and I can even begin to try and list them here.

But I'm making this post because I just followed a really cool blog who happens to hate on Tony a bunch (I don't really mind consciously) but that annoyed me out of habit, so I started examining why I liked him as a character, and it mainly boiled down to A) some of the comics are cool, and B) CA:CW said I had to pick a side and Steve did so much dumb shit I just went with the easy option.

the blog doesn't seem to be a huge fan of Steve either.

my current stance is that they both got fucked over and if you want some solid positive Marvel content go read Runaways, or the Hawkeye comics.

The Hawkeye comics are the best.

[serabellymrph]

5,18, 22

5. What is a character you love, but don’t think you can write?

Probably Robyn Hill. I'm absolutely biased as fuck because Robyn is voiced by my favourite VA (seriously--I almost never follow VAs or the like on Twitter, but Cristina Vee is just a gem. She is SO funny and SO relatable and deserves the world). I love Robyn's character as well, but I don't know. Maybe in the future/when we learn more about her I'd feel more comfortable writing her, but even after rewatching V7, I'm just not sure there's enough substance there for me to be able to write her.

18. What is one thing you’d wish to see more in the rp community?

More focus on the writing and less on the aesthetic. I see so many of these blogs that do things "because it looks nice", or in the case of some, they won't roleplay anything until they have 20938098324 icons of their character to use in threads. Your icons should not speak for you in your threads. People spend more time making their blogs and icons look pretty than they do writing, and to me... that's sad because roleplay is supposed to be writing. Sure, if you want to use icons go ahead, but when it comes to a point that you spend more time on your icons and your blog layout(s) than you do on your writing, to me, that means you've lost the spirit of what RP is in the first place.

Lastly, I'd like to see more flexibility with it. Just because someone doesn't have a fancy blog layout, or doesn't care to have one, doesn't mean they're a bad roleplayer. I'm so lazy I use the default blog layout with no icons (and have turned my stuff to dash view for the most part)--instead, I let my writing speak for itself. If someone looks at my blog and can't look past a default layout, they're not someone I probably want to interact with anyway. Once in a while, I'll put out an icon just for that extra level of oomph (or for short replies) but it's very, very rare.

22. Are there any red roleplay flags for you that make you back off immediately?

I'm putting this one under a read-more for length, LMAO--cause there's definitely a few, some of which I've encountered personally on here, some which I've encountered on other RP platforms. Keep in mind, this is beyond the obvious of not reading rules/content/etc, these are more specific things that make me back away real fast.

Excessively formatted text is a big one. We're talking extra spaces between words or letters or using more than just your basic bold or italics. Using bold and italics, or maybe capitals, for the sake of emphasis is one thing, and small text is perfectly fine (I've gravitated toward it myself, though I don't particularly care either way) but a lot of these blog layouts using "fancy" text or using font generators/font keyboards for things are an instant turn-off for me. I value accessibility. I don't mind if the dialogue is separated by a couple extra spaces or that kind of thing, but:

  ​​​​  ​​​​When  ​​​​you  get  text  that  is  LIKE  THIS  because  some  mun  feels  the  a b s o l u t e  n e e d  to  stand  out  from  the  CROWD  ?

No. Just no. Stop. I cannot begin to emphasize how it's a) pointlessly making your replies look longer when they're not, and b) it's deeply problematic and inaccessible for some muns, especially when you start adding in fancier text than just that. It hurt my eyes just to try and write that. It hurts my eyes to stare at it. And no, I have no qualms calling people out on this kind of thing. It's by far one of the most garbage trends I've ever seen in roleplay and I despise it, for so many reasons I could write an entire essay on it.

Also: people who just run their queue like mad with musings but never seem to roleplay... at all. And by at all, I mean not even doing short one-offs or dash commentary; I mean never seemingly active on their dash other than their queue filled with musings/etc. I had a few whose blogs literally just spammed my dash every 15 minutes or so with some new musing for one of their muses, and I just... ugh. I get musings are fun, but this was too much. And this was constant, day in, day out kind of spam, not just like... this person is active at the moment and doesn't feel like writing, but feels like spamming the dash for an hour or two with musing stuff to get the creativity flowing. I swear I almost never saw them roleplay or do memes, even headcanon memes/short fun memes on the dash/little dash commentaries. Ever.

And the third is blogs that are like "don't interact with this person" but don't actually give a reason why. And to clarify--it doesn't even have to be something detailed. It could be as simple as, "this person and I had a situation, it made me uncomfortable, and it still makes me uncomfortable to see them on the dash". I get it. People suck sometimes. Not feeling comfortable seeing them/not wanting to be reminded is entirely valid. And if someone is legitimately a problem, and there is evidence, screenshots, an account of the events, all that--that's helpful. That gives context. It also makes it more... memorable? Like something they're more likely to remember as opposed to "if you interact with (name) person don't interact with me". Especially if they haven't interacted with you at all (or tried, and you ignored them) and that other person gladly reaches out and wants to interact.

There are other things that often go along with this behaviour that add to it being a red flag (vaguing on the dash, constantly changing their mun name/blog names, etc) but it just... oof. It very, very much gives the outside impression that they were the problem in the scenario, not the other person, and is a massive red flag, because to me, that screams the type of person who gets their fingers in drama, and I want none of it.

FOURTHLY: Muns who don't separate IC and OOC. I've yet to see it on here, but like--people who think shipping with you means you as MUNS are in a relationship, and conversely, at times when I've seen partners on other platforms (bf/gf, married, common-law, whatever they may be) get weirdly territorial when their S.O. ships with someone else. It is the creepiest, most controlling thing I've ever seen and makes me cringe. And there's nothing wrong with writing those sorts of things with your partner--especially if it's something you both enjoy--but man. Some people get wild and it's creepy. I've been really weirdly hit on when I've made it clear I'm in a relationship, and had people get crazy upset OOC because I was shipping with more than one person, and I just... *shudders*.

[davids-cartoon-corkboard]

Do you think that if Shredder!Raph will occur in rottmnt, the aftermath might result in Raph inheriting some of Shredder’s rage even after saved? Maybe that is how the crew is going to implement Raph’s trademark temper throughout previous generations and maybe even make him have to step down due to it, making Leo the new leader?

Short answer: “Inheriting the rage of a centuries-old demon" is a dope-ass idea, so if you’re a writer I would definitely encourage you to use that in your own stuff. But I think that if Raph’s temper worsens throughout the show, it should be because of his own character development and not a magical effect. However, a Shredder!Raph scenario could contribute to said worsening temper by inflicting emotional/psychological damage instead. :)

Long answer ahoy!

Looking at “Many Unhappy Returns” from the Shredder’s perspective makes it very clear why he does what he does. Like, he’s been dead for five hundred years, and then something went wrong with his resurrection. He’s waking up with no idea where he is or what’s going on and oh shit those guys are pointing weapons at him, that’s a threat!

Note that he doesn’t even bolt for them immediately, he does a warning stomp and screech (back off!) before starting to approach.

Those other guys are yelling, that’s also a threat,

and they’re closer so he’s gonna attack them first, actually. (None of the Foot wind up even comically injured, suggesting that flailing them around was an intimidation tactic rather than genuine Murderous Intent.)

And then the first group attacks, so of course he’s going to retaliate.

And then suddenly he’s somewhere else, with other threats (the animatronics), and then the first group that attacked him is back, so he’s gonna fight them again.

And these jerks just keep following him? He’s not going to ignore that. And WOW that’s a lot of bright lights and loud noises, which are also threats, what the fuck is going on?!

And then this tiny human girl chucks a giant metal box at him, holy SHIT?! Sure, the Shredder is a dangerous antagonist, but at this point I wouldn’t call him a “bad guy”, he’s literally just responding to what’s happening to him.

In summary, the Shredder was stressed tf out because he didn’t know where he was or what was happening, he retaliated against perceived threats, and quite possibly wouldn’t have attacked the turtles in the first place if they hadn’t just rushed in without understanding the situation.

Gosh, doesn’t that sound familiar?

So yeah, I’m waiting for Rise to give us that good good Shredder!Raph content.

As for the possibility of Leo taking over afterwards... no, but also yes, sort of? On the one hand, we know that Leo does have leadership capabilities, and it would be a waste for the narrative to not explore that. On the other hand, Rise has broken from the status quo in many ways, and it would also be a waste for the show to do a complete 180 and return to Leo Being The Leader™.

Consider how the “leader” role has influenced Leo in past iterations: his perfectionism wears on him and his brothers, any failure tanks his self-esteem, he feels isolated from the rest due to taking on such a large share of responsibility, being an authority figure grinds everyone’s gears, etc. It’s just bad for his mental health.

No doubt all this responsibility will also wear on Rise!Raph as the story progresses and the stakes get higher. It will be bad for him as well. But if Raph steps down, Leo will once again suffer from the weight of this role. So if neither option is quite correct, if neither brother can shoulder the burden of leadership alone, then the solution is just... for neither of them to shoulder the burden of leadership alone. Sure, Raph will probably remain leader in title and in spirit, but Leo taking on a sort of “deputy” role makes sense from a strategic standpoint, and would be good for his character development.

Here’s how I think it could go down:

The Shredder!Raph scenario will be different from the Shredder!Draxum scenario. The Shredder was starved for mystic energy the first time around, so he immediately chewed Draxum up and spit him out. But Raph could be compared more to a battery than a meal; it will take a while for the Shredder to drain him. And at this point the Shredder could be back in “evil samurai” mode, and thus will understand the value of holding Raph hostage.

Y’all who have followed my blog for a bit know about my “Raph is a system” theory; that when he was little, he got separated from his family and pursued by some cryptid hunter. This trauma formed Savage Raph, who is able to handle “being lost/alone/threatened” when Host Raph cannot. “Pizza Puffs” didn’t give us a lot of info about who I’m calling “Red Raph”, but he made his presence known when Host Raph was sort of... "emotionally alone”? In that his brothers were dying a little bit and too stoned to care.

So if Raph is trapped inside a living cage, scared and helpless and hurt and exhausted, his family unable to help him... he’s not going to be able to handle it.

Or, rather, Host Raph isn’t going to be able to handle it.

These two can, though.

I’m imagining a scene in the mindscape where the Shredder says something like “Your pathetic family cannot bear to strike you down, and so there is nothing that can stand in m- wait, why are there three of you OW FUCK-” Red and Savage will mentally kick his ass long enough for the other turtles to rip off a chunk of the armor so Leo can portal it into another dimension or something. Shredder gets K.O.’d since he’s not whole anymore, and the battle is won.

Since the armor didn’t drain Raph as severely as it did Draxum, he won’t become as weak as Draxum did. However, it will still take him some time to recover. Raph trusts Leo in serious moments as of “Many Unhappy Returns”, and he already took charge when Raph wasn’t available back in “Man vs. Sewer”. So Raph will be like, “Hey Leo, can you handle the Mad Dogs for a bit? Just long enough for me to get back on my feet.” And Leo will be like, “Sure bro, I’ve got this.”

He does not, in fact, “got this”. Leo’s ego has caused trouble before (”Shell in a Cell”, “Minotaur Maze”), and being in charge will no doubt go to his head. This has the potential for both comedy and seriousness, leading to wacky mishaps and genuine danger. Being the leader is hard work and it’s not always fun, but someone has to do it and Leo will have to put the others before himself for it to get done. Once Leo realizes this, he could bond with Raph by asking for his advice on leadership. Sometimes Leo will follow the advice and sometimes he won’t, sometimes that will work out and sometimes it won’t, laying the foundation for the idea that there are situations where it will be better for one or the other to lead, rather than having one lead all the time. But that will only happen for a few episodes, because Raph will heal quickly and he’ll be the leader again and everything will be fine!

Everything will not, in fact, be fine. Raph is the strongest in the family, the tank, the one who can take a hit so the smaller ones don’t have to... the idea of being hurt, of being weak, scares him because his family is also in danger if he’s unwell. So I don’t think he’ll acknowledge to anyone, not even himself, that getting possessed hurt him emotionally as well as physically. And when a wound isn’t acknowledged, it doesn’t get tended to, and when a wound isn’t tended to, it gets worse.

That he’s a system will add another layer of complexity to this. The Shredder!Raph incident would make all the alters aware of each other via mindscape shenanigans, but it would also leave them with the fear of not being in control, so I think they’ll come in conflict with each other for a bit. They’ll argue with themselves, switch, and lose time more often, enough that it impedes their ability to function and the other characters start to notice something is wrong.

Host Raph will convince himself that Everything Is Fine and try to get things “back to normal”, which probably means he’s just straight-up not going to acknowledge that he's a system. He’ll rationalize that he’s always “gotten weird” from time to time, so it’s nothing to think too hard about... right?

Savage Raph will be on high alert because they just survived a near-death (a near soul-destroying) experience. He’ll probably take the front and go overboard fighting some villains that Host Raph could have ordinarily fought on his own. It might also take a while to convince Savage Raph that these “sewer monsters” who keep following him around really don’t mean him any harm.

Red Raph will get snappy (pardon the pun) about the more social aspect of “not being in control”; that Host Raph asked Leo to be in charge and then Leo started being an egotistical dumbass. And when Leo does make the right decisions, Donnie and Mikey might side with him over Raph, and that will also grind his gears.

Mix all that together and you have a recipe for a capital b Breakdown.

So yeah, I can definitely see how the Shredder!Raph incident and its aftermath would worsen all three of their tempers, trauma will fuck up your emotions real bad. Perhaps Host Raph loses faith in himself and tries to step down and get Leo to replace him as leader... only for Leo to be like “Bro I cannot do this full time I will one hundred percent have my own Breakdown if that happens.”

The life lessons here are that Leo learns to offer support by sometimes taking the leader role; not to benefit his own ego, but because he wants to help Raph. And Raph learns to accept support by letting Leo be in charge sometimes; not because he’s weak or incapable, but because he can’t always be a Staunch Immovable Rock and he needs to let himself rest by trusting Leo.

And then the Raphs can work on communicating, cooperating, letting their allies know about them, digging into their trauma, etc. now that they have some breathing room.

(Do you think the Hidden City has therapists? Steven Universe and Mao Mao both have therapists can we BLEASE get one for Raph.)

[anti-social--princess]

2021.01.02 - a reflection of the best selling Japanese album nearly 22 years later

So this is my latest iteration of attempting to blog about music. Thanks for looking. Let’s get down to business. I kept languishing over what the hell to post about for my first entry in this blog, and it came to me this morning as I was info-dumping to a friend about Hikaru Utada and her debut album First Love (because we were watching Gravitation -- a first for her -- and I had flippantly remarked that Ryuichi Sakuma’s successful USA career was unrealistic and my explanation used Hikki’s disastrous attempt at a USA career for a prime example). Why not reflect on this album, even though clearly so many others have waxed endless about it?

I was 15 years old when I discovered this album -- the same age as Hikki when she released it in 1999. I was 15 in 2005, and to put it simply, exploring the world of Japanese music back then was really something. Newbies have it too damn easy these days. But I digress. And I think it’s important to highlight that bit about being 15. I simply saw her as a musical genius -- more so because I learned that is the all-time bestselling Japanese album and she was my age when she made it. And that simply threw young me for a whirl. Ayumi Hamasaki was my favorite person back then (and she still is, 15 years later), but I couldn’t deny Hikki’s “inherent” artistry.

Now, as I tumbled through my 20s, I had a problematic tendency to regress into a more immature state of mind and follow what some of my friends in the jpop fandom were saying about this album. Which is to say, they derided this album and considered it beyond overrated. At age 30, I have seen the error of my ways, and while I don’t venerate it as I did when I was a bright-eyed teen, I still regard it as a pretty damn great album. And it’s one of few jpop albums that my mom can listen to all the way through without complaints, which is great for me since it’s often a struggle to reach a middle ground with my mom about my niche interests, haha.

To someone growing up and forming their musical taste during the Y2K era (late 90s/early 2000s), the sound of First Love is really nothing special at the end of the day. Hikki was simply chasing a rising R&B trend in Japan and copying the current American R&B trends to put her own twist on the Japanese trend. She ended up setting the standard for that era’s Japanese R&B scene. Mai Kuraki a year later would try and capitalize on it with her own debut album delicious way, and it kind of worked--that album is in the Top 10 bestselling Japanese albums. MISIA was better equipped to become successful and to this day remains one of Japan’s R&B icons. I could go on with the impact, but anyway!

Being from the perspective of a 15 year old girl, I feel, is what makes this debut album so remarkable, all things considered. The debut single, and respectively the opening track of the album, Automatic is an extremely catchy, timeless bop about, well, catching feelings for someone. It’s also one of the rare occasions where I actually enjoy the first single of an album cycle being the first song on an album (a pop music practice that aggravates me and in my opinion, it has hurt the long-term success of many pop albums because of the general public’s short-term memory and tendency to buy a CD for “that one song”). In My Room is a comfy little mid-tempo further exploring the experience of catching feelings. It’s more or less a universal experience for a teenager. However, this becomes more apparent when you take in everything about the title track, First Love. It’s a beautiful, relatively simple yet impeccably produced ballad about her first major heartbreak. A lot of comments over the years have mentioned her shaky voice is a turn-off for them but I think it works and it’s why I kind of sit there stoic when I hear a more competent singer cover it (and I have heard MANY covers of this song, it’s ridiculous how often it gets covered to this day) -- the competence just doesn’t fit for a song like this. Heartbreak when you’re 15 is like the freaking end of the world and you don’t know how to unpack it, and you have to figure out how to keep it together. Keep it cool, ya know. The inexperience is what makes it. Which is why it’s frustrating to hear songs like Amai Wana ~Paint it, Black and B&C at my age because she just sounds so obviously trying to act like a grown-up when she’s very much still a child.

Sometimes the attempts at sophistication worked in the album, though. Never Let Go is another simple mid-tempo that samples Sting’s work, and as someone who grew up with a mother whose favorite band is The Police and also loved Sting’s solo work (I’m more partial to his solo work, myself), I can’t help but enjoy it. Her voice here is just so cute. And it’s an earnest cute, not cutesy for the sake of it. Another Chance is an example of how you can take a song about heartbreak and polish it with a dance-style backing track and it just works. For a more contemporary example, I’d recommend Kesha’s Dancing with Tears in My Eyes and Rina Sawayama’s Tokyo Love Hotel (the bonus to listening to this one is that Rina is a huge fan of Hikki so you can easily hear her influence on it).

However, there’s moments in the album that test my patience. Movin’ on without you is a little too polished and slick, and Hikki honestly just sounds like she’s dissociating throughout the song, which is a pity considering it’s sandwiched between two strong tracks and the lyrics give the impression of confidence. Ayumi Hamasaki’s cover of it in 2014 is vastly superior, personally. She had the aid of the renowned producer RedOne (you would know him best for working with Lady Gaga) and a more natural tendency to sound genuinely confident. Give Me A Reason is just simply too long even though the production and vocals are fine. There was no need for it to be nearly 6 minutes long.

The kicker about First Love and Hikki’s career overall is that she was more or less pressured into it. Her father Teruzane Utada was a big-shot producer and her mother Junko was a legend in her own right in the enka scene as Keiko Fuji. This also explains why the album sounds really good. She admitted in later interviews in her 20s that she was doing music because she felt there wasn’t any other choice for her in life. No wonder she took a 6-year hiatus to recoup. She just wanted to feel like a regular person.

And I think, again, Hikki being 15 is why people were so infatuated with the album. The general public saw her as a young musical prodigy. It also calls to attention the misguided impression most people have about the concept of talent and prodigies: the impression that talent is natural and practice/access aren’t necessary to make it in the industry. Hikki has skills as a musician, no doubt, but it’s not because she was born with it. She grew up surrounded by musicians. She had access to practice and the tools needed for success. This is not to dismiss her artistry in any way; I am merely pointing out her privilege. And what did this privilege gain her? She’s a legend.

Certainly, in 2021, no other album will ever top the smash success and sales of First Love. But they can damn well try. And really, who can blame anyone for chasing the halcyon days of an era long-gone from the music industry?

[thisisnotacomp]

Man, this list is a walk through musical history. Fantastic work right here. Thankful that Pitchfork puts these types of articles as a record for future generations. I mean it has entries for PBR&B, Chillwave, Electroclash, lo-Fi House, and Witch House among others.

Just imagine someone finding this list in 2030 and first hearing some of these tracks. Minds will be blown. While I can't say I followed all of these, I have watched quite a few of these grow up and burn out so I figured I would add a few additional tracks to the list:

Blog House - This almost seemed like a reinginition of the French Kiss sound from the late 90's. So many great artists and great releases to choose from. Justice's Cross LP has to be the flag bearer. Also dig into Digitalism and Boys Noize. I am a sucker for house music. The track that first comes to mind for me is Friendly Fires - Paris (Aeroplane Remix). Listen here. But while it might not technically be Blog House I have to add this track. Still so damn good. Also D V N O 4 capital letters.

Chillwave - The obvious jump off point here is Washed out Feel It All Around. Listen here. But the impact that Chillwave has had since its inception can not be understated. The closest thing I can compare it to is Fusion from the 70's. It was the next logical step and created amazing music but also ruined a lot of shit since it was an easy template for artists to follow.

Electroclash - Man, remember Fischerspooner? Their debut self-titled LP was something else. I remember buying this CD with the companion disc of videos. That shit was awesome. The visuals were on another level compared to what was playing on MTV at the time. Also Megacolon? I mean what? Quite a release. Side note, Electroclash always seems connected with the Mashup scene at the time. That shit was also wild. Then Girl Talk took it to an new level. Fucking madness. Those were the days man, those were the days.

Freak Folk - I had a love hate relationship with Freak Folk. Shit was cool. Some tracks were amazing but for the most part listening to an entire album was maddening. Animal Collective is a perfect example.

Lo-Fi House - As mentioned before, I am a sucker for house music. In a good year there are maybe 3 great house LP released. In a bad year you might get one good release. When the Lo-Fi house movement hit the scene there were like 3 great LP's and another 5 or 6 great EP's. What's interesting about this sound is that the tracks probably would have been better if they didn't sound like shit. But the fact that they did sound like shit really allowed me to find other artists who were releasing similar music. I put together a playlist of Lo-Fi house which you can listen to here.

Night Bus - I think this one was a bit of a stretch to be honest. I listened to a TON of dub-step and everything that came after it and I had never heard someone call it Night Bus. I mean it is just the name of a Burial track. It's more of a revisionist history sub-genre. That said, would be great if someone would go back and pull together all of the related tracks. Pitchfork linked to CFCF’s 2010 Fader mix Do U Like Night Bus? which is fantastic. Burial's sound blew my mind at the time and still sounds futuristic today.

PBR&B - One of the best named micro-genres of all time. The first track that comes to mind when I hear it is Millionairess by Inc. The track is PBR&B adjacent but in my mind really shows what groups were doing to expand sounds at the time. Listen here.

Purple / Wonky - This shit was rad. It was so over the top. Purple burned bright for a short period of time while Wonky had a much longer run. The first iteration of Dub-Step was splintering into so many different sounds it was almost impossible to keep track of. Of all the genres in my lifetime it would be the one where I would want to read a definitive history of. Or even better if someone mapped out the spider web of artists and sub-genres through time would be something on the level of the Rosetta stone of electronic music in the early 2000's.

Skweee - This one is easy. This is the smallest of all of the genres listed. Just go to Spotify and search Eero Johannes. That's all you need to know.

Vaporwave - Another madding one. Vaporwave was a lot bigger than music. It contained all areas of art. But its main ascetic is almost anti art. More than anything Vaporwave was a catch all term for early internet nostalgia vibes. An easy entry point is Hit Vibes by Saint Pepsi. Listen to that full LP here. It's more of a disco-house release but its firmly planted in the vibe.

Witch House - Another one that burned bright for a few short years. Easily the biggest artist to come out of Witch House was Clams Casino. Again, he wasn't specifically a Witch House artists but did release his early work on Triangle Records which was the home of the early sound. Just listen to "Frost" by Salem or “See Birds” by Balam Acab. Then listen to "Motivation" by Clams. Then listen to Lil B's version here. Then Lil B's 'I'm God' also produced by Clams. Then move to A$AP Rocky's Bass. It is a direct path from Witch House to what was at the time the cutting edge of pop music. All started with Triangle Records. That was a tangent. Here is the definitive Witch House banger! White Ring - IxC999

[rrameyguerrero]

Worldbuilding: Countries and Governments

A fantasy world needs countries and governments. To create governments, some research must be done. The best way to create believable governments is to mimic world governments. This can be done by either choosing a government as a model or creating a new one from scratch.

To make a new government, it is important to know some basic information. Historically, there have been many forms of government like monarchy, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, theocracy, and tyranny. There are two main ways power is passed down. Either the ruler(s) are elected or they inherit power. More recently, the different types of governments that we see are direct democracy, representative democracy, socialism, communism, monarchy, oligarchy, and autocracy.

Types of Governments alphabetically:

Anarchy: this is when a state, society, or country is without government or law. This is often seen as a negative, but in your fantasy world this can be a positive thing. Research anarchist philosophies. (Not on your work computer!)

Aristocracy: This is a government ruled by the elite, privileged upper class, nobility, or a “superior” group. This can be because of education, magical or physical ability, or wealth. Or a combination of these things. Have fun with it.

Authoritarian: This is a government where individual freedom is restricted by the power of the government. That government is not accountable to its people. I see this used a lot for dystopian governments where the government forbids all forms of expression and individual freedoms.

Autocracy: This is a government where one person is the unlimited authority, power, or influence. To create an autocracy, research despotic governments.

Capitalism: This is actually an economic system, so you will still need a type of government. It is an economic system where people invest in and own their own businesses and property. Wealth is made by private individuals and corporations.

Communism: This is a classless society where private ownership is abolished and the means of production and provisions for survival belong to the community.

Confederation: This is an economic or political union of sovereign states in which membership of each state is voluntary. A modern example of this is the European Union. A historical example of this is the Confederacy during the United States Civil War.

Democracy: This is a form of government where the supreme power is in the hands of the people or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

Empire: this is a group of peoples ruled over by an emperor, empress, or other sovereign, established usually through coercion.

Federation: This is a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a federal government.

Feudalism: This is where the land in a kingdom belonged to the king, who gave some land to lords or nobles that served him. The lord or nobles gave some of their land to vassals, who served the lords. This is the political, military, and social system in the Middle Ages.

Libertarian: This is a government that advocates the freedom of thought, expression, and free will and protects it people from coercion and violence.

Monarchy: This is a form of government where the supreme authority is vested in a single (usually a hereditary figure) ruler like a king. There are different types of monarchies like: absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, diarchy, elective monarchy, emirate, and federal monarchy.

Oligarchy: This is a form of government where power is divided among a few persons. These people are usually wealthy, powerful, or influential. Some types of oligarchic governments are: ergatocracy, kritarchy, plutocracy, stratocracy, and theocracy.

Polyarchy: This is a form of government where power is divided between three or more persons. This could be a triarchy, tetrarchy, or more.

Republic: This is a form of government where power rests in the body of citizens who are entitled to vote for representatives to exercise the will of the people. Some types of republics are: constitutional republic, democratic republic, parliamentary republic, federal republic, and a socialist republic.

Socialism: This is an economic system where the production and distribution of goods are controlled by the government rather than by private enterprise. There are many kinds of socialism, and some even tolerate capitalism. This is different from communism in that all communists are socialist, but not all socialists are communist.

Timocracy: This is a government where possession of property is required to hold office.

Totalitarian: This is a government that does not tolerate differing opinion and that regulates nearly every aspect of public and private life.

 The key to deciding this is who is in power, how they got there, and what powers do they have. There are other unofficial types of governments like if a mob or terrorist group controlled a country.

Alternately, a strategy for creating fictional governments, is choosing an actual country and period. For example, France in revolutionary periods vs Nazi occupation. For actual information on the government during French Revolution, check out https://www.history.com/topics/france/french-revolution. It’s really fascinating.

I chose many governments during times of revolution in countries like France, The U.S., Sudan, and Egypt as inspiration for the type of government conditions I want in my story for several main countries. I used other governments, and I created my own for the other countries. Many of my countries are

I liked the idea of having a ruling Council of Elders, with a judge-type ruler for my MC’s home. These people are moving away from socialism and into a capitalistic society. They are mostly democratically ruled, but a judge acts as a deciding factor.

This is going to vary greatly, depending upon the story you are writing. But a well-defined world should have a decent mixture of government systems. A lot of time in traditional fantasy, I see monarchies and autocracies. While I think they have their place in a fantasy world, I think simply relying on them as the only represented government lacks creativity. One trend I’ve noticed is the use of representative democracies in fantasy. I love this trend.  

When I went about creating countries for my fictional world (which I literally call World), I first listed my races. (See my post on creating fantasy races for information about the races I will list.) Each race will be sporadically spread through World.

I knew I wanted my main group of Lowasii to live on the northern island. That is where they will originate before branching out into the world. I created four countries for Lowasii. They did not assimilate into other cultures. I placed countries on the northern island, the desert on the main continent, and the northern mountains on the main continent, and a southern island.

For Trolls, Goblins, Riverfolk, and Boulders, I mapped out territories. I wanted most of them to be nomadic that follow migratory patterns of various prey. I gave them a capitol for each race, but mostly they control one large region each.

Humans spread out over the whole continent of World. They each have their own name for the planet, just like earthlings do. I wanted humans to live in every terrain and region. Their cities tend to clump together sometimes, and some are less concentrated. I also needed my countries to vary in size from one another. In the U.S. and other places, smaller cities tend to cluster around larger ones- so that’s what I did.

Lastly, I created the Underground, where the Underlings live. I wanted their ruler to have conquest on their mind. Because of this, there is only one underground country. That country has begun conquering surface-world cities one by one. These surface cities must become “night cities” to allow the Underlings to avoid sunlight.

When I planned all of these cities, I put them on my world map, and I listed them in a Word document. To me, both are important. If I am trying to determine the proximity of place A to place B, I refer to my main map. Otherwise, I refer to my Word document for details about this place.

Naming these cities was a fun process. I looked at our world map and tried to mimic sounds. For example, I saw the Icelandic capitol of Reykjavik, and I wanted one of my northern mountain cities to have a similar name. I called the Lowasii city, Nagdjik.

Another way I named cities was by brainstorming natural resources that surround the city. More will come on that in another post. So for example, there is a city in the U.S. called Salt Lake City, named after the Salt Lake.

It is totally possible to create a world and only define one city, working your way out as needed. It would still be a good idea to know who that city’s allies, trade partners, and enemies are and where they are on your map. You can really fill in the rest later. Or never, if that’s not important to your process. It’s kinda like Reese’s- there’s no wrong way to make a world. Just have fun with it.

 Resources:

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/maps/forms-government-2018/#:~:text=Some%20of%20the%20different%20types,an%20oligarchy%2C%20and%20an%20autocracy.

Blogs I found with more information:

https://springhole.net/writing/things-to-know-when-creating-fictional-governments.htm

https://goteenwriters.com/2013/09/24/storyworld-building-creating-the-government/

https://myliteraryquest.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/creating-a-fictional-government/

[centrally-unplanned]

Part of the Tyler Cowen thoughts is that I do need to find better rightwing thinkers to follow. My "blogroll" has been hollowed by time in a general sense, for sure, but we are entering a time of ascendancy for the right, and I really am sparse on sources for it. It is obviously hard to find good people because the right just has a real issue with A: human capital, they are just dumber, and B: cultivated written analytical spaces, they just don't value the practice that much as a community. It can make you fall into the trap of thinking extreme fringe types like Curtis Yarvin are relevant, just because they are the fringe groups that wax about theoretics for hours while others don't.

Obviously though there are writers out there. I had old standbys but they have drifted - Richard Hanania was one of the best for this in the 2010's, but in the past few years he has (to his real credit to be clear) drifted away from the most odious aspects of the right and at this point is too heterodox to count. Scholar's Stage is very much a Republican, he is Mormon-vibing hard right now, but he is both too old guard and also past his blogging phase, he writes sparingly and does his niche "projects" now (good for him, those are often great, but bad for me) Tracing Woodgrains voted for Kamala, that ain't it chief. And so on. So I lack the pulse.

I don't want a partisan ofc, those are pretty useless to follow. Track a few on twitter, their tweets are their content anyway; anything longform they write is filler to justify the takes. You need people who are both "in" the world, not outsiders who hate it, but whose motivation as a writer is not to further the cause, but instead to understand. They gotta have that Blogger Rizz. I have people like that on the center and liberal wings, but I can tell I have gap here and I wanna put in the work to fill it.

(I used to have a lot of writers like that on the hard left too. I won't lie: they all quit, are named Freddie deBoer, or became unbearably cringe in the 2010's and I unfollowed them. I definitely still have thinkers on this front I follow, and they are on the "outs" right now in a lot of ways and so the need is less pressing. But after I find some good right thinkers I do think I will revisit this area as well - in defeat you often see fertile rebirth, after all)

[smolskye]

thinkin about personal branding

so i’m studying marketing now and just took an actual class on it last term and one of the things that got hammered in over and over is how to create long-term loyal customers because creating and fostering those relationships through various marketing channels and methods is ultimately much more profitable than, say, having an attractive sale/offer that brings in a thousand people who will never shop from you again. you want to associate a customer’s need or want and the relevant good or service with your brand so that when they need or want something you offer, they go to you instead of a competitor, even if they have a better price or some other bonus, because they are familiar with your brand and are more comfortable sticking with what they know than potentially discovering a better product through trying a different brand. for example, there are people who will automatically buy from apple when they need a new phone or computer because it’s familiar, even if their wants/needs could be met by a different phone or computer. 

how to market your brand overall is really important so that you get customers like that who will automatically come back to you over and over. you can do this through having the best quality products, great customer service, really attractive ads and/or promotions, emphasizing company values that matter to a group of consumers, etc.

also relevant, product breadth and width, and different ways to reach a new market. there are a few ways to expand your range of products - add to a product line, or add to the product mix. adding to a product line would mean creating a new product in a pre-existing category. ex. if you’re a yoghurt company, you could add to your product line by creating a fat-free version of your yoghurt. adding to your product mix means introducing a whole new, potentially unrelated product, like if you make/sell soup and you also start making/selling spices and spice blends. adding to a product line could appeal to current customers (customers who buy your soup and like it may buy your spice blends because they already like your brand) or new customers (a customer doesn’t necessarily eat soup, but they do need spices for cooking, so they try your spice blends). reaching a new market with a new product is the riskiest form of expansion because you aren’t familiar with the market or the product. if you want to expand safely, it’s much less risky to try a different spin on your marketing of the same product to appeal to the existing market.

so. where am i going with this.

under capitalism (just hear me out) everything is commodified or treated as a commodity. everything has its own market. things that are not products are treated like them because that is how we’ve learned to assess things. even if you’re a content creator providing people with content completely for free, you’re still engaging in marketing your content. if you draw Z stuff for fandom A, you’re involved in that market. continuing to draw Z stuff for fandom A but improving your art and coming up with good ideas is current market, current product. if you start drawing Y stuff for fandom A, you’ve got new product, current market. if you start drawing Z stuff for fandom B, you’ve got new market, current product. BUT, if you start drawing completely new stuff for a completely new fandom, you’re engaging in the riskiest form of expansion, because we are all our own brands. fandom B may not be receptive to Y stuff. you may not get any engagement. and the reasons for that are super super complicated and unable to really dig into bc it’s different for literally every group.

i guess i’m rambling about this stuff because i wonder if i should have tried to create a personal brand back when i was popular. i had a good product in a receptive market. ideally, i could have expanded into current product, new market - writing the same kinda stuff for a new fandom. but that didn’t happen. and it didn’t happen mostly because after my fic ended, nothing really grabbed me the way gf/bd had. and when i’m not fixating on something, i really don’t have a lot of motivation to create content for it. essentially, my brand failed because i failed to innovate - i couldn’t/wouldn’t create more products, and my current one’s category was on the decline, and i had entered it in its maturity phase anyway, where competition was way harder as opposed to entering it during the intro or growth phase. but that’s what happens when you get into things late.

do i regret not expanding while i still had an audience? a bit. but there was nothing that interested me or engaged me to the point that i genuinely wanted to create a lot of stuff for it. and that’s the problem with having a personal brand - it’s personal. it isn’t a company. it’s you, and work that you’re making because you wanted to make it. your hobby shouldn’t be something you do out of obligation. it should be fun. and making content that appealed to a new, growing market at that time just wasn’t part of my plan.

and now, like a fool, i’ve diversified into another declining market that probably peaked four years ago because it’s just.......good. it’s what interests me. i don’t plan on ever making any real money off of my art or writing, so i don’t really need to worry about personal branding. but i do want attention, and by creating metrics like likes, follows, subscriptions, etc., we’ve essentially commodified attention. we can measure it and compare it. and that’s really useful for companies, i used those things a lot when i was working at my old job to see how our emails, website, and individual products were doing. but i really really think it’s unhealthy for people. i know for me it’s only ever made me feel insecure, not good enough, angry, anxious, even paranoid, even to the point of self-harm in the past. and obviously not everybody has such extreme reactions to it, i’m very very mentally ill, but i think the commodification of attention just in general warps how we view personal relationships. you can buy instagram likes and followers. attention has a market that you can buy and sell in, and it’s just as competitive as any other market.

this isn’t a big “we live in a society” post, it’s mostly just me applying my marketing analysis to my own life to make sure it’s actually useful information and i didn’t waste my time on that class, and i’m genuinely surprised how applicable it is to entities that aren’t companies. it really does apply to my own life and creation and online presence. this blog, my online identity, this was a brand - and it failed. and that’s okay. most brands do.

[healieas]

levels of beholding feeding; aka, will this successfully feed me or the eye?; aka, there are actions that beholding avatars are likely to take that may not constitute life-sustaining feeding; aka, the illuminati food pyramid.

the post where i break down what i personally consider feeding the eye to entail, including things that fall under the eye’s “jurisdiction” ( remember that fears are malleable and bleed into each other, and the eye especially tends to overlap with everything else bc it is a gratuitous voyeuristic sack of fuck, but for the purposes of this post i am going to try to focus on what in and of itself is eye fear and if it overlaps well that’s just fun and sexy isn’t it ) but do not feed it, things that engender beholding behavior but are not in and of itself feeding, things that eye avatars need to do to maintain themselves, and things that make the eye sigh and go “ah yes that was great food.” also this does not detail beholding powers. i’m just talking about the food, man. the gifts the eye grants its avatars is another story.

first and foremost, what qualifies something as feeding the eye? how does the eye “eat”? if something falls under the following categories, it feeds the eye: fear of being watched, fear of being exposed, fear of being followed, or fear of having your secrets known to somebody else. if something falls under the following categories, it is eye-related behavior likely performed by avatars, but is not in and of itself “eye food”: pursuit of knowledge, especially at the cost of one’s own health or sanity. obviously the latter can enable the former if that pursuit of knowledge is at somebody else’s expense, but what separates the two categories for me is that, to keep the eye as an entity from spreading so thin to the point where anything can be construed as capital-b Beholding because it involves observation or information, is holding fast to the eye being a fear entity. i.e., something can technically be in the eye’s territory of knowledge, but it does not become eye-related unless there is an active element of horror. of course, what constitutes “horror” is subjective, but i think that narrows down the options and removes, say, doing a book report from beholding. tma has a tight thesis of beholding being the horror of watching something terrible and doing nothing to intervene, or the inherent evil of inaction when one is witnessing an atrocity. 

therefore i’m going to make my grading for eye food the following. ( note that like... there’s grey area in between each level where, by taking a lower level to an extreme, you could slide it up to the next, etc. )

level one: are you watching in an obtrusive way? i.e., is this something you should be seeing? are you an active participant? or are you eavesdropping. things that fall into this category include people watching, listening in on conversations, or reading private correspondence. this is the fear of being watched / known against one’s will at play, but only one person ( the avatar ) knows the secrets, so it’s low-level feeding. just hoarding secrets unto oneself gives the avatar what i’d consider a steady drip of water, necessary for life and remaining active, but after an extended period of time with just water, you’re going to want for food. 

something like following someone and making them feel watched as more than just a prickling on the neck for an extended period of time would probably start to actually feed the eye a bit, as was the case with the cursed mirror; someone with a constant and perhaps debilitating fear of being watched, facilitated by the actions of a beholding avatar, would advance to feeding the eye. 

institutionalized watching in an obtrusive way, i.e. the lack of privacy afforded to inmates in a place like millbank, ratchets up to full eye feeding. again, the longer and more intense the watching, the more intense the fear produced, the more likely it’s going to drift up into actual feeding territory. but as a casual action, it’s not sustainable.

level two: are you revealing to the person that you know their secrets? to distinguish this from the above category, i’m talking about the situation with elias and daisy / martin / melanie -- digging out someone’s secrets and then throwing them in their face, making them feel the despair of being peeled open for examination. what puts this at a lower level than mass exposure is the fact that it is probably only the beholding avatar who’s getting anything out of this. this is semi-solid food to the eye, like a gelatin or pudding or other soft hospital food. you can sustain yourself on it, but try to go for any extreme period of time just doing this and you’re probably going to suffer from malnutrition ( if you want to talk to me about malnutrition and how it actually works, aka you’re getting plenty of calories but not all of the components you need, and historic examples of mass malnutrition, we can totally do that; but i want to make it clear for those that might think malnutrition is just like starvation lite, it’s not -- you can be eating a ton of food every day and if you have no variety and if it lacks the proper nutrients, you’re still going to suffer the adverse effects; all this detail to say that’s what happens to an eye avatar who only feeds by privately exposing someone’s secrets to their face, a slow and conscious wasting ). 

constantly harassing someone about their secrets might make your diet a little more diverse, metaphorically, but this category really doesn’t have the same mobility as the previous one.

level three: are you making other people aware of the information you’ve gleaned? this is fear of exposure, where somebody is going to face the fallout and consequences of having something unsavory put on display for an audience. ( yes, this covers body image fears of people in the public eye, which is imo a flesh fear that the eye can also feed upon, but that’s an intense discussion for another post that needs to be handled with nuance. i only mention it to make it clear that like... it doesn’t even have to be something objectively horrid that’s exposed; if the person who is being put on display has a fear of being seen, that’s enough to put it in this category, because it is producing anxiety or discomfort. ) no need for bullet points! this gets more and more intense the wider the audience and the more people talk about it. this is solid beholding food with good nutrition! you could make a beholding career out of this! i’m certain that elias does some feeding by allowing students in to read the dirty laundry of named statement givers ( in addition to slurping the despair of visitors who aren’t going to be helped at all by the institute ). after all, statement givers frequently express fear of being pegged as “insane” or having experienced the denial, pity, or avoidance of their friends and family after their experiences. judgement cast upon vulnerability? eye food.

level four: taking a statement. this is sort of disconnected from the rest and may exist alongside them rather than above them, but canonically, reading and experiencing ( getting into character, allowing yourself to feel the presented emotions ) a statement feeds the eye. notice how jon works through tons of “statements” a week, documents gathered by the institute, but only reads one true statement a week on average. he “steps into the shoes” of the statement giver and re-experiences the terror, often while learning something about another entity and how it functions, increasing his own knowledge of the fear world. in my opinion, this is where we get into the eye simultaneously feeding on what’s offered and feeding on the avatar. jon is exhausted after reading a statement and needs to rest. multiple people state that it seems to take a lot out of him. he needs them to survive, but he also finds the experiences draining. this is a solid cooked meal, and the eye has the digestion of a snake, so if you get one of these a week? you’re good. 

level five: taking a statement directly from another subject, though? that’s just feeding. cutting out the middle man and the mental transportation of reading a literary piece ( or listening to a tape, or watching a recording ) means that you just get to feed off the person’s fear, because you are peeling them open and knowing them. this does relate a bit to level two, which is why i said it’s probably more of a horizontal relationship, but the difference for me is that you are forcing them to give an account of their encounter with a fear, thus accumulating knowledge of a lived experience and of the other deities, and you are making a person feel known and exposed, often ( in canon ) in a way that’s abrupt and uncalled for. willing statement-givers do not seem to have the same reactions as the poor people jon yoinks in public. taking statements seems to be compulsory for archivists in particular. whether or not it impacts administrators ( elias ) in the same way is hard to discern. maybe not, or maybe that’s solved by having the institute function the way it does, because all those statements are technically elias’s. ( i also have opinions on how elias feeds every single day but we’ll get to that later. the fear machine of the institute. ) this is good food. this is gourmet. this is why the eye stans jon. feeding just off of direct statements is going to cause your own power to skyrocket because you are eating so well.

there are probably more examples of ways to feed, and if people wanna shoot me ims or asks like “is this proper eye feeding?” i’d be happy to answer with my own takes on the situation ( because these are my own takes lol you do not need to live or die by this headcanon I Just Think My Theory Is Sound Enough For This Blog ). but now we’ll look at behaviors that may indicate a propensity for beholding, or that keep a beholding avatar in shape without feeding them; the exercise counterpart to a healthy diet. presented in bullet point form because these are not as in-depth as the above.

an inclination towards extensive research. not just looking up what you need for a book report and nothing more, we’re talking about going down a rabbit hole of research frequently out of a desire to know more. because this does not necessarily produce a fear response and does not necessarily deal with witnessing horror, it is not feeding ( i think about the idea of true crime beholding avatars and i get a little woozy because like... could it work and be canon compliant? certainly. is it therefore a valid take? it sure is. is it something i’m willing to get into? no, because it makes me personally uncomfortable sadly, because i feel some kinda way about the glamorization of serial killers and so on, and though i think an interest in true crime can be pursued tastefully, it’s so nuanced and so Not Me in particular that i just don’t want to get into it, even if i acknowledge that it’s something that probably exists in the tma universe because the tma universe is uncomfortable horror! )

being a nosy bitch. are you always involved in other people’s business, especially drama? do you subscribe to tea spill youtube channels? are you prepared to drop a hot tweet about something shady a celebrity did? ( THIS IS NOT A CRITIQUE OF OR COMMENTARY ON CALLOUT CULTURE INB4, PLEASE I BEG YOU. ) you have the beholding inclination to dig and reveal secrets! awesome!

a desire to organize and preserve information. i think often about this one because one of the things about the ceaseless watcher is that it knows but does not comprehend. it is not interested in understanding or exploring the nuance of what it observes, which is what makes it so horrific. it doesn’t care, the only thing it’s invested in is watching fear and accumulating knowledge so that it can “say” it has more information than anybody else. this, i think, is why beholding tends to center itself around academic institutions. the idea of gatekeeping knowledge, of an ivory tower, is so beholding-appropriate because if you think about the implications then yes, it’s bad. hoarding knowledge and not allowing other people to learn is not a good thing, and that’s why beholding is so very into it. HOWEVER, I AM ALSO DEEPLY INVESTED IN THE IDEA THAT THIS IS WHAT SEPARATES THE FEAR GOD BEHOLDING FROM ITS HUMAN AVATARS. because the avatars are painfully human! michael is proof enough of that i think! even if avatars consider themselves a different species, at the very least “formerly-human” categorically, they were humans and still have human flaws and inclinations. one of these, for beholding avatars, is organization. it’s putting the puzzle pieces together ( unless you’re bad at it, i’m so sorry jon you’re really trying and i love you, but in this case i think that has more to do with jon’s tendency to shoot himself in the foot / put himself at a disadvantage because he is afraid than a beholding-wide thing ), because the human brain usually wants to understand things. it wants to draw meaning from things. even elias, probably the least human of the beholding avatars we see, has to organize the information he has and put separate stories together to form a larger picture, because functioning in the human world just necessitates doing that! you want to stop another ritual? you can’t just gather different pieces of information and not relate them to each other, you have to categorize them and draw conclusions. and, imo, this is what separates the human world from the post-apocalyptic world. the post-apocalyptic world does not require analysis or organization, it can simply be; that is reality as warped and controlled by the fear gods.

there’s probably more to this but i have talked so much, i think that’s enough for now. anyways i care so much about beholding and how it functions and this is actually my least academic bullshitty piece on it, so yay for that. usually i’m all “voyeurism and The Gaze and how it functions in society and especially media!” but today? today we just talk about good eats.

[superutu]

B(if)tek & Artificial: 1996-2003

The turn of the millennium sparked fears globally of a technological fallout: computers would crash at the changing of a ’99 to a ’00, security systems would fail, the world’s nuclear stockpile would be triggered. The impending panic of inaccurate ordering of automated dating in digital systems spread its fear far and wide and came to be known as the Y2K bug.

On the underside of the world, in Australia, where most things arrive late, distorted or totally different to their original form, there were two women embracing analog and digital technologies in all their glory. Nicole Skeltys and Kate Crawford were better known as B(if)tek, a pioneering electro-femme outfit. Feminism with a wink and a bleep. Ladytron before Ladytron. Nicole’s eccentric solo project was Artificial - Hillbilly House - as she likes to call it.

River Yarra speaks to Nicole about her time as B(if)tek and Artificial paired with a 1hr mélange of the two womens’ music.

•••

River Yarra: I read somewhere that B(if)tek started in Canberra (1.) Can you tell me how that came about? Wikipedia says B(if)tek’s debut album “Sub-Vocal Theme Park” was released on Geekgirl, but wasn’t it on a German psy-trance label? Who is Geekgirl and what was your relation to them?

Nicole Skeltys: In 1996, when Kate and I realised our late night noodlings with analogue machines in my garage in Canberra had accidently produced enough material for an album, we approached our friend Rosie Cross to help us with the costs of pressing and promoting the CD. Rosie Cross was a digital feminist pioneer, she had set up the first on-line e-zine/site/blog for women into tech & tech related arts called Geekgirl. So Subvocal Theme Park was released in Australia thanks to her support and encouragement.  But seems like it was only a few weeks after that, that we got contacted by a German trance label called Nephilim who wanted to release the CD in Germany and Europe. So we agreed to that too.  To this day, I still don’t know how they found out about our obscure independent antipodean release. But I’m glad they did, because Subvocal got a cult following in Europe, and even just a few years ago, it reappeared at top of the electronic charts in Hungary!

RY: Most of your associated acts from the turn of the millennium seem to be males. At that time, were there any other female identifying musicians in your circles?

NS: We were (and I still am) a member of a seminal electronic arts collective in Australia called Clan Analogue.  It was (is) a collective of artists - mostly electronic musicians - who support each other and release own material, put on our own events etc. Yes, there were very few women doing electronic music production & performance back then, we were certainly the most successful in Australia at the time.  But Clan had/has some great women artists & DJs like Sobriquet, Lush Puppy, Bass Bitch, Charlotte Wittingham (in Telemetry Orchestra), Cindi Drennan (in Tesseract). It was only after we’d released our second album 2020 in 1999, that Ladytron hit the scene - and are still going strong today.  I sometimes quip that ‘we were Ladytron before there was Ladytron’.

RY: What do you feel your experiences in the music industry were stacked against your male counterparts?

NS: Because we surrounded ourselves with - and often chose to perform with our friends in the electronic arts community, particularly Clan Analogue, there was a political awareness and aesthetic & intellectual support for what we were doing.  We also had a lot of fun taking the piss out of feminine stereotypes in live performances - we used to dress up as nurses, space-age airline stewardesses, geishas, girl guides etc  and hop around on stage.  So that all worked well for us, but when we stepped outside of that cognoscenti electronica world, we sometimes came face to face with the reality of male dominated rock.  We were one of the support acts for the 1999 Beastie Boys Australian tour, but the first night we appeared on stage in nurses outfits, we got harassed and leered at by the mass of 'right to party’ boys in the front row who didn’t get us (or indeed what the Beastie Boys then stood for).  So we dressed in 'normal’ clothes for the rest of the tour.

RY: In your 2020 album, were you imagining what the future might hold and how close are we to your predictions?

NS: Ha ha! I was asked that last week in an interview for a forthcoming documentary about Australian electronica in the 20th century.  And my response was/is - if you look at the cover of 2020, you see a lovely girl against a retro-futurist 'life in space’ background, looking at her smart watch/ gadget - possibly for inspiration. And I can guarantee, that we are on track to next year looking EXACTLY like that.  Not only that, but back in 1999, there was no 2020 - but very soon, there will be.  How spooky is that?  We were always ahead of our time…

RY: Your 3 albums are all quite different while still retaining the same analog vision. What influenced your genres and what did the change between them look like?

NS: Subvocal was just a glorious outcome of innocent noodlings and experimentation in a Canberra garage, dark, brooding, cinematic, a bit magical.  Canberra feels pretty remote, and we used to play a lot in our own forest parties late at night, so perhaps the music reflects some of that atmosphere. 2020 was more upbeat, perhaps reflecting the fact that by then we were in demand to play at clubs, raves and festival dance stages across the country. Our final album Frequencies Will Move Together was quite heavily influenced by Boards of Canada at the time, and we also had the pleasure of asking some of our local and international friends (like Monolake) to do remixes for the 2nd album in this double album release - thanks to a generous grant from the Australia Council.

RY: You played some live performances on SBS (2.) and won an ARIA (3.) for best dance record in ’99 How did that arise? - In the same year’s hottest 100 the only dance song in the top 10 was Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You”

NS: Yes, we were on TV a fair bit from about 1999 - 2001 - including Saturday morning Video Hits show, which was kind of the Australian equivalent of Top of The Pops! We were nominated for best dance act that year, but didn’t win.  However, that inspired us to set up own own awards to reward artists who were genuinely pushing the aesthetic boundaries, taking risks and had a political conscience. The WINK awards ran for 3 years, and were funded from our own pockets, with some equipment & venue support from the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.  We gave away cash prizes, had a proper ceremonies with hundreds of attendees, & provided each lucky winner with custom made lightbox awards designed by a local craftsman. We got entries from all around the world.  That is one of my proudest achievements, it was rewarding artists for all the right reasons (as opposed to just being commercially successful which is the mainstream music industry’s only criteria of worth), and it made a lot of people very happy.one hour show in March to the theme of women, feminism, and women’s rights…

Canberra (Lands of the Ngunnawal people) is the capital city of Australia. It was decided as such after a bitter feud between the two established metropolitan areas of Australia - Melbourne (Birrarunga - Lands of the Kulin nations); situated on the south eastern coast, and Sydney (Lands of the Eora nation); the eastern coast-  couldn’t agree on which city would best suit the capital. Thus they picked somewhere in the middle.

Special Broadcasting Service providing multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect Australia’s multicultural society.

Australian Recording Industry Association and the ARIA awards is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry

[shefightslikeagirl]

CORSETS AND STRIPED STOCKINGS: OUTFITTING THE ASYLUM FOR WAYWARD VICTORIAN GIRLS by She Fights Like A Girl

These articles are best viewed on desktop, but are mobile friendly. Please excuse any strange formatting on your phone browser or the Tumblr app.

This article was longer than intended and image-heavy, so it’s been split into two parts.

PART V: AN ASYLUM MUSICAL

“And if I end up with blood on my hands, Well, I know that you’ll understand ‘Cause I fight like a girl.” - Fight Like A Girl (2014)

And now we're back to the relatively recent past, when this blog was in its infancy and the fandom couldn't decide whether to stick with the forum or run rampant on Tumblr. Fight Like A Girl (the album) was still being recorded, but Emilie did a few live dates Down Under and decided to feature the title song from the unfinished album.

To my understanding, the Harvest Festival was another one of those concerts where the show was considerably downsized because of the cost of shipping props and set pieces. But where the South American tours hadn’t pulled back in the wardrobe department, the Harvest festival did. Emilie and the Crumpets performed in one costume for the entire set. But to make up for the lack of glam, EA debuted the first costume of the FLAG era.

This costume was worn for the cover art of Fight Like A Girl, and acted as the signature corset for the very first Fight Like A Girl World Tour (2012). 

“Asylum Secrets: All of my costumes over the years have been made to look as though someone had been murdered in them and come back from the dead to enact a fabulous revenge. To achieve this, I have employed techniques from melting fabrics with an industrial strength heat gun to spraying them with solutions that no human should ever breathe. In the case of the corset pictured, I burned it mercilessly with sticks of incense before painting the fabric to make it look moth-eaten.” - EA on the creation of the FLAG corset (June 25, 2018)

Speaking of the 2012 FLAG World Tour! While there were a lot of changes from The Door Tour and Harvest Festival, this tour is probably best remembered as a transition phase between eras. There were new costumes, but… the Rat Queen still introduced the show with 4 o’Clock. There were new set dressings, but… the shadow scrim was still main stage center. The new corset was mixed in with the Rat Queen ensemble and the structure of the show hadn’t changed terribly. New, but… kinda not?

Except for that Warrior Mohawk, of course.

Upper: WVC content / eBay listing photo. Lower: Making of the Warrior Mohawk from Emilie’s Flickr account.

This is the only tour where Emile wore a mohawk for the entirety(-slash-majority) of the show. Later concerts would see her removing it after the third song. There was some slight skepticism in the fandom with its debut, sparking discourse about everything from cultural appropriation to thematic relevance, but EA didn’t make much comment on the criticism.

“[The Warrior Mohawk] signified the transformation from victim to warrior. I feel that it is important for me to let go in order that I may go on to transform yet again and create new bits of wearable magic to surprise you with... This headpiece symbolized the birth of a new era in the Asylum…. This is the headdress of a tribal Queen…” - EA, 2012 eBay auction description.

“The Mohawk headdress represents the tribal, wild element of the sisterhood that formed during the imprisonment of the inmates, and shows that, once we escape and are on the rampage to take down our oppressors, we have indeed transformed from individual, helpless victims into a strong and beautifully terrifying tribal warriors.”  - EA for Natalie’s World, 2013 (x) (x)

Another costume that debuted on this tour was the MC of the Ophelia Gallery, who had his own brand-new number: Girls! Girls! Girls!

And as for its history...

(My best guess is that this photo originated in 2009, based on her hair.)

This character is a hint at the structure of the tour (and album) to come, where it would be less about the mad girls existing inside the Asylum and more about the story of how they got there, and what happened once they were interned. Allow me to stray from the costuming topic for just a moment…

A TANGENT: OF STAGE SHOWS AND ASYLUM CONTINUITY Spoiler filled ramblings of a long-time fan.

I’ve got a running theory that The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, in all its forms, runs in parallel to the concerts. But they match each other in reverse. [Spoilers for the book to follow.]

Emilie’s first concert of the Opheliac brand was in a small venue in Chicago, alongside Lady Joo Hee. In The Asylum… book, Emily-with-a-y’s final days in the Asylum were spent with Sachiko (a character based on and formerly named Joo Hee). 

The Opheliac shows of 2007-2011 were all about the women in an Asylum singing songs and welcoming others home. Cannibals, ballerinas, pyrate captains, nymphomanics -- they all ran rampant with no apparent oversight except from Emilie herself. Rats crept and crawled onstage unbothered; toys, crumpets, and cupcakes were in abundance, often served alongside “tea,” and there isn’t a single cell door in sight.

Especially in the earliest days of the concerts, the set design had an emphasis on appearing hand-made -- not only because it was, but because it should be for these girls. This was the world EA branded for herself: a world of freedom, without judgement, earned by their own hands.

In The Asylum… book, after the Inmates take over and kill the doctors, this is very much what they do: impersonate medical professionals and welcome sick and not-so-sick girls home to protect them, nurture them, and give them the best life that the Victorian Age fails to do. They take over the Asylum and make it their own.

Then in the FLAG performances (2012-2014), the storytelling shifts. EA’s Asylum world is no longer loosely themed with inmates running amok, but adheres to a more rigid storytelling structure, detailing the struggles and despair of the girls locked up in The Asylum(-with-a-capital-T). It mirrors the bulk of the content in The Asylum… book. The carefree, whimsical stage dressings shift to bars -- a representation of the cells and gates in The Asylum. There might be a bear tied to a dreary grey harpsichord; you might even see a single rat scratching about. But they don’t have dominion here. There’s no freedom. Just the story of the girls trapped behind the bars.

And now we’re stalled on both sides of the street. We’ve met in the middle. The concerts started at the end of the book, and ended at the beginning. 

Ok, I’ll put my soapbox away. Let’s get back on track.

BACK TO BUSINESS

Where were we?

Oh, yes: Girls! Girls! Girls! and new costumes.

So let’s jump forward a little more, because there isn’t much else to say about Emilie’s costume style in the 2012 FLAG World Tour. Moving on to the 2013 Fight Like A Girl: North American Tour (and following European and Australian tours), a brand new show was brought to the stage. Full new stage set-up, new costumes, and a full new setlist. 

A costume I’ll be referring to as the “armored corset” replaced the moth-eaten FLAG ensemble in the opening number. Both Maggots and Veronica were given new costumes as well, replacing the costumes they had worn for years. 

Armored Corset, with varying amounts of sparkled (2013)

Maggie Lally; Captain Maggot / Captain Maggots

Veronica Varlow; The Naughty Veronica

The show design of this tour had Emilie in the armored corset with the mohawk for the two opening numbers, Fight Like A Girl and Time for Tea. The mohawk and the armored plates on her chest and hip were removed during the 4 o’Clock Reprise, leaving her without her armor for What Will I Remember? as the narrative moves back to the beginning of the story, before the “Uprising.”

On the subject of the corset: structurally, it was outfitted with snaps to attach the armor and allow for easy removal (see corset detail above, bottom right). The mohawk proved a more difficult challenge to remove, as it was securely clipped, pinned, and secured into EA’s hair. This ended up being corrected in the redesign that produced Mohawk 2.0.

Back to the show! By the time we get to Veronica’s Dominant fan dance, EA has removed the armor corset completely in the interim to prepare for the Girls! Girls! Girls! costume change. After Scavenger, the entire cast changes into Asylum Inmate Rags to perform Gaslight and The Key, and then changes back into full costume for the finale. Emilie wears the full FLAG ensemble from previous tours to close out the show, with varying headdresses. 

But I’m skipping over something important.

The Scavenger.

Inspired by Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal, The Scavenger, a vulture-esque representation of Dr. Greavsely, appeared onstage for Scavenger. 

“This is the start of the original costume @maggotmagpie wears in our show, the one Greavesly wears in #AsylumMusical will be bonkers…” - EA on the Scavenger (February 7, 2016)

EA on Twitter/Twitpic 2012 (x)

The Scavenger was usually worn by Maggots as part of a stilt-walking performance, but if the venue couldn’t or wouldn’t allow for stunts onstage, Emilie would appear alone in the costume for the number. 

Scavenger has plenty of different “shows” (A show, B show, and C show for my theme park friends), with “A Show” being Captain Maggot on stilts.

Note: The Atlanta show featured here is a bit strange, as it uses the Stage Screen and the Asylum Bars during a tour that doesn’t feature the former. Emilie also isn’t in the normal costume for this number, using a personal scarf to cover her bloomers and bra.

“B Show” would be Emilie performing as the Scavenger, due to venue restrictions. This was actually the way Scavenger debuted, until Maggot’s first performance later in the tour. (See pictures and even more info here.)

“C Show” would be Moth’s performance in the final set of Fight Like A Girl tours, as seen below:

(There’s also “D Show,” (ha) which is this random dude performing as The Scavenger. I’ve yet to figure this out, but my guess is it was a technician stepping in at the last moment or a friend of EA from Oakland.)

Last, but not least, are the Asylum Rags. You’d think there wouldn’t be much to say here, but there is. Click on the continue link below to learn more about tattered costumes and the rest of the FLAG era, because Tumblr only allows 10 pictures per post.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE.

Fly back… PART I: Enchant and the Faerie Queene PART II: Drowning Ophelia PART III: Vecona, Seamstress of the Asylum PART IV: Wayward Victorian Girls

Remember to visit Part III and enter our giveaway! Ends 12/1/19.

[SEE ALL CREDITS AND SOURCES HERE.]