#and fucking ''does the divide really seem that vast anymore? the line between you and i?'' + ''you melt away when caught up in our path''

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

i was going to make a different post but actually now i just want to talk about how fucking insane part 9 was. like, emotionally. that was when you could tell those two were doomed to be each others' missing puzzle pieces forever i think

[cwdcshows]

Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Four

And we're back.  What does it say about a group of tv shows you watch when you don't miss them when they're not playing for four glorious weeks; and you're actually kind of reluctant to get back into it? I also find it hilarious that a major event like Crisis concluded nearly 24 hours ago and no one on here has posted anything about it.  I haven't even accidentally come across any spoilers; no major exclamations of "Arrowverse forever changed by Crisis on Infinite Earths!" or "What does X plot development mean for the future of DC/CW Shows?". Meanwhile when Doctor Who premiered two weeks ago and in the 24-36 hours it took for me get around to watching that, I came across half a dozen posts on Facebook and videos on youtube that, without explicitly saying so, made it clear that (****Spoiler*****) the Master was back and who he was.(****Spoiler*****) That to me, I think, is a spoiler unto itself, after a fashion; the fact that there was no major, earth(s) shattering outcome to Crisis to report or for people to comment on really sets the bar for my expectations going in this and that I doubt anything of consequence is going to come out of the last two episodes.  Which I'm not even going to watch back to back, because I honestly don't feel like it.  I'm going to try to get to the last one sometime later today, but definitely not right after part four; baring some improbable cliffhanger that's just too good not to see how it concludes. So here we go....

Okay, so they're combining the Monitor's origin story with the Maltusian Krona from the comics.  I can dig it, actually.   For those who don't know, in the comics, the ancient people of Maltus were one of the first advanced, sentient lifeforms to spring up in the universe.  One of their scientists, Krona, was obsessed with studying the dawn of time and witnessing how the universe was formed; in spite of legends that attempting to do so would be catastrophic.  His experiments caused time to fracture at the dawn of time, creating the multiverse; where there was originally supposed to only be a single universe. A segment of the Maltusians, I believe at least partly driven by a sense of responsibility to the universe for this incident, would evolve to become the Guardians of the universe, who would go on to eventually form the Green Lantern Corp. Conversely, in the comic the Monitor was basically just some random entity that somehow evolved on the moon of Maltus or Oa; I kind of forget why and don't feel like looking it up.  But he was just some super, lone naked dude, hanging out on this moon and came to learn about his doppelganger in the Anti-Monitor universe.  Somehow they battled across the divide between dimensions and the fight forced them both into a state of suspended animation; until Parriah's experiments awoken the Anti-monitor (if I'm not mistaken, as a result of accidentally destroying his own universe, which somehow fed power to the Anti-monitor; and gave AM the idea to destroy the other universes in the multiverse). While Krona is conventionally a villain, all in all this works well; merging Krona with the Monitor.  Especially since there's still an antagonist element with the Anti-Monitor. Hmmm.... I can't help but wonder if they intentionally lit this scene so that Mar Novu's wife would be cast in a blue light that makes it look like she has blue skin, reminiscent of the blue skin Maltusians have (eventually anyway). I'll admit, this opening sequence isn't bad.  The appearance at the end of the Anti-Monitor felt a little hokey, but if they can keep the momentum of the first few minutes going, they might pull it off. Okay, so I'm pretty sure Ryan Choi didn't have a beard in the last episode, which I'm taking to suggest they've been stuck at Vanishing Point for a while; and the main thing I have to say is, i would have given just about anything is they just had all of the "Paragons" have beards.  Ryan, Lex, J'Onnn Kara, Kate, Sara.  Just like, fuck it, it's been a month and we've all got beards. I laughed a little about Ryan writing that "the Paragon of Destiny doesn't even believe in tomorrow anymore." and it's like, you know.... you are at the end of time, so......🤷‍♂️ Wait, so when Lex replaced Superman, somehow part of Superman's cape got left behind; and Kara randomly walks around with it from time to time? "There is not there out there anymore..."  You know, that's actually a good point.  Vanishing Point is at the end of time for "Earth" 1; or rather the universe that Earth 1 resides in.... which was destroyed... the entire universe..... from beginning to end....So how the fuck is there still a Vanishing Point?   I mean, I know that it was, originally, like a time-frozen base hovering at the instant before the end of time, but in this scenario the Time Masters who maintained all of this tech and the base are gone, the base itself is in ruins; what's keep it....preserved or whatever?  For that matter, how is there even enough air, water or food to sustain anyone there for any length of time? Man, Barry just keeps bouncing off of walls, doesn't he? 

Hey, look at that, it's all of Oliver's greatest hits.... 😁 "Why would you make me re-live all of that?" Even Oliver Queen lost interest in re-watching the vast majority of Arrow.... Gee, I wonder why Oliver's talking all funny... I bet it's nothing. The reveal of Oliver to the "Paragons" would have been a lot more worthy of rally music they're playing under this scene, if they hadn't fucking just shown us him getting ready to go and meet with them.... "I am Oliver Queen, but I'm also something more...." Come on, you've been unintentionally building to this moment of actually making the whole "something else" line an actually important part of the show and you're going pull you're punches now? As has been brought up with the past installments, the whole Oliver becomes the Spectre thing is fine, but honestly, in typical Arrow fashion the execution is seriously wanting.  They could have spent the first fucking 7 or 8 episodes doing a proper build up to that.  Defy all expectations by killing off Oliver during the very first episode of the season, maybe right in the opening, and make it seem like his journey over the next couple of episodes was about him and his friends trying to bring him back to life; weaving in the retrospective element, only to subvert it with the reveal of him becoming the Spectre instead. Maybe throw in one last heroic act, where Oliver has the chance to go back, but sacrifices that opportunity to give someone else he meets along the way the chance to be brought back instead - fuck, maybe Mia.  Either she dies or gets wrapped up in a bid to bring Oliver back to life, only for her life to jeopardized; where if Oliver didn't give her his chance for life, she'd not make it back.  Then Corrigan shows up. Anyway.... Barry asking Oliver for a speedforce boost came off a lot more like a drug addict begging for a fix. So is Ryan's grand plan on Maltus to locate Mar is to...find the central bureaucracy....?

Where's J'Onn's brother when we need him?

Sigh.....

So they didn't really have any idea what to do with the group of "Paragons" who weren't going to Maltus, or how to make their part of the mission challenging during this installment; so they're going to pad part of four of a five-fucking-part crossover with some bullshit tangent of Barry randomly needing to connect with his memories to find the others?  Why can't Oliver (or should it be "Olivre" now?  I'm going to start calling him Olivre.)  Why can't Olivre keep all them together in the same memory or whatever fuckery he's doing?  Why does he have to rely on fucking Barry to make sure they don't all fall out of....Olivre? Why can't he help Barry find them without being cryptic?  Why do they even time for this?? Does Barry still have to look for Oliver?  And what about Kate?  They only met her one other time before all of this shit went down.  Either that's the only place Oliver would tuck her away, or Barry has no chance of finding her. Sigh....DCEU Flash....cool..... 🙄 I mean, I am kind of surprised they were a) even allowed to do this level of crossover, or b) that they managed to film it without anyone leaking it.  And I did kind of see some hints over the last 24 hours, but I kind of dismissed the likelihood that this version of the Flash would appear.  I keep wanting to calling "Mecha-Flash," because his suit looks more machine based than anything else. What DOES this mean?  The whole premise that Olivre just laid out to him was that this was......him, Olivre, basically, and/or the speedforce and that he was hiding the others....inside himself or whatever, inside memories to protect them.  That wasn't a memory, so now they're not only padding this installment with filler, they're just throwing in random shit for the hell of it. How does an ordinary human walking - not even running, it seems - at average speed, manage to give a Super the slip?  I mean, when Supergirl immediately found him, it didn't seem like much of a surprise, because with all her heightened senses it shouldn't have taken any effort to track him down, but by that same token he shouldn't have even gotten more than a few feet before she noticed. For that matter, and not like it's ever stopped them anyhow, but should Kara even have her powers on this alien planet that may or may not be orbiting a yellow sun? Alright, so lets give the writers the benefit of the doubt and assume the "upgrades" Lex gave himself is how he managed to give Kara and Ryan the slip in the first place. So Olivre stuck Kate in just some random old memory from his life; so how the fuck is Barry supposed to locate her?  Especially since it's from a memory of Olivre's that Barry wasn't part of.....? Aaaaaaand the memory of Olivre is consciously aware of the likes of the Paragons floating around inside him, but doesn't know who they are or why they're there? Jesus, did the writers decide to try acid before they wrote this shit? I almost asked if that was memory Kara, but it has to be, since actual Kara is on another planet.  Which again, planet Maltus was in Universe 1, ostenstibly, which now gone, past, present and future..... How is Ryan not more injured by whatever blast Lex hit him with; you know, being nothing more than a flimsy, fragile human and all? "You left your family because someone you never even met told you you were needed" Did he though?  It's been a month, so I don't really remember the point where he was actually on board with all of this shit, but I do remember that when they first told him about the Crisis and asked him to come with them, all he wanted to do was to get back to his family.  Which is understandable. And seeing as how they spent weeks at Vanishing Point, how is it that they're only just revisiting this whole "are you sure you got the right person" thing now? Is this supposed to be their way of doing the whole sub-storyline in the comics, where Barry pops up randomly at different points in the past, trying to warn people about the impending Crisis; when he was running around the Anti-Monitor's antimatter cannon to destroy it, just before his death?  Because this is super convoluted. Wait, so Barry was tasked with just finding Olivre?  All while it was Olivre who told him what he had to do.... what the fuck is happening in this fucking episode?  It started out halfway descent; and now I have no fucking clue what is going on.  But it's pissing me off, because they're wasting a lot of time on this bullshit. This scene of Barry finding out about Olivre's deal is so fucking weird.  The way they shot it without either of them in the same frame makes it seem so disconnected. I kind of appreciate Lex's annoyed confusion that Mar somehow mistakes Lex's voice for that of his wife's.   I had to think for a second why Not-Diggle didn't recognize Barry, before remembering when Sara's death would have aligned with The Flash; and was confusing it with Laurel's death, when they definitely would have known who Barry or the Flash was. I forget though, was that scene before Barry's arrival with Jon talking to Laurel about taking up Sara's mantle one that originally happened on the show?  I swear that was a slow build up after Sara's death. Sans the blood, I've always loved how Caity Lotz looks in that original Canary costume.   I'll never understand why they tried to fix what wasn't broken. "When we were attacked...." "By the Anti-Monitor...." "Doesn't even sound like an actual name...." 🤣 Okay, that was good. How the fuck did Barry track down J'Onn during a memory he wasn't around for, let alone Kate? So first some random bald dude breaks into his lab and manages to talk some sense into him; albeit without offering any great proof that he is who he claims to be, much less prove he can actually help, but hey, he at least had the courtesy of walking through the door like a normal person.  Then someone else bursts in, tearing the door off its hinges or whatever and starts issuing threats to the (shorter) bald guy and some other random hairy dude behind her asks Mar to leave the room with him and..... he just does.... yeah, okay.  I mean, just the fact that they've gone back in time however many million years or whatever, let alone to another fucking planet without any need to address how or why Mar can understand any of them, it's pretty much just a free for all. Oh, okay; so now that Barry's side adventure has been neatly wrapped up, I guess it's time to pick up the kids from the daycare on Maltus, without so much as stopping to actually check and make sure that they completed the task they set out to do. So what, the Anti-Monitor's argument is that there are an infinite number of Monitors to do what the one Monitor they just convinced to give up on his experiment doesn't do?  And yet, by all indication, there was only the one Monitor who took his trip in the first place; otherwise there'd be an infinite fucking number of Mars who originally popped up in the antimatter universe to start with.  And I'm pretty sure that given those odds, the Anti-Monitor would have been screwed. The plan is to use the Paragons to...fan the flames to rebirth the universe or whatever, but one of the Paragons is missing and replaced by Lex; which unless by replacing Superman's name with his own somehow made Lex into the Paragon that Superman is supposed to be, their one man down of who they need. Wait, I've seen this fight sequence somewhere before......🤔

"You have failed this universe." 😐 "We focus.  A singular, laser like focus." I feel like I'm about see another familiar scene...

Somehow I just knew that the thing they were going to have to do would involve them just standing around looking serious and thinking hard.  I'm surprised they didn't just go full out Peter Pan and ask the audience to clap real hard to bring the universe back to life. This is some serious bullshit that they aren't even going to try and bring Brandon's Superman back for this climactic moment...and it's done.   Yeah, that might actually be the definition of anti-climax.  I mean, I know there's still somehow a whole fucking episode left this shit-fuckery, but man, I'm pretty sure they have to think hard to take a dump in the morning.  Jesus Christ. Yeah, right, I'm totally going to believe or care that they're suggesting that Olivre is going to die, again. So let see here, they literally killed and resurrected Olivre once within this cross-over, there's still one more episode left to this crossover; and there's still two episodes left to fucking Arrow.  So, no, not buying this.  I'm sure as hell not buying that they're going to kill Oliver fucking Queen twice without including Diggle.

[neon-serpent-llc]

Here’s to 365 days of polygonal worlds, shot point-blank at our grey matter, some catching fire, others fizzling to the void! It must be that oh-so-pointless time to give out video game awards! For the third year running I present a cheeky list of spills and chills like no other (spoiler: Overwatch wins nothing). Anyway, blahblahblah, here's the awards already:

Game I Forgot Existed Until I Looked Up "Game Releases of 2016" Award

Quantum Break

Like previous winners Watch Dogs, and Evolve, this is a shining example of a game that simply vanished after it was released. Probably took hundreds of Artists four years to make, and then *poof* gone overnight. But alas, most games do, eh? Was the TV show any good?

Best Case for Virtual Tourism Award

The Division

Say what you will about the game itself, but this lovely facsimile of NYC is killer. And super accurate. If it weren't for all the invincible, hoodie-wearing street thugs it would be a pleasure to cruise this digital remake of my favorite city.

Genius or Madness Award

Zero Time Dilemma

A game that walks the line perfectly between the two. So clever, and yet maybe too clever? The twists are ridiculous when they work and outrageous when they don’t. Even so, its sheer confidence of going eight steps beyond everyone else, narrative-wise, is so refreshing. Truly a piece of Art that only works in the video game medium. Speaking of Art...

Most Unplayable Work of Art Award

The Witness

Conceptually, The Witness is flawless. Especially once you've seen the "real" ending, that perfectly frames the point of the whole experience (I watched it on YouTube). Unfortunately, to get that real ending is a monumentally painstaking chore. But, this isn't "difficult" Art in the sense that its meaning is opaque or it’ll challenge your worldview. Its simply that I have zero patience for puzzle games. If The Witness is an encapsulation of what it means to be Johnathan Blow, then it's clear that he and I couldn't be more different. And that's why it works as Art.

Don't Want to Be the Guy That Says, "I Told You So," but.... I Told You So Award

No Man's Sky

Even with its countless features, the spiritually-similar Spore got boring fast. How, then, was this bare-bones knock-off, No Man's Sky, going to keep people interested? And that was with the assumption that it would at least look nice. However, it absolutely did not. The novelty of seeing procedurally generated ANYTHING gets old fast, and it's made far worse when you're presented with a never ending stream of ugly, barren planets made of mud and more mud. Next year’s winner: Star Citizen?

Biggest Social Phenomenon Since the Wii Award

Pokemon Go

It didn't last long, but for a month this summer, everyone was out hunting in the parks of the world. Sure, we still mostly ignored each other, but there was a touch of bizarre camaraderie knowing we were all playing the same giant meta game. Like the Wii before it, it was a game-related subject you could talk to ANYBODY about, and they'd not only know what you meant, but have an opinion on the matter. How often does that happen? How odd was it to see a fifty year old business man asking where the nearest Clefairy could be found?

Welcome to the 90s Loading Time Award

Deus Ex Mankind Divided

I think I spent more time riding the subway in this game than I have in real life.

You Don't Know Your Audience Award

Metroid Prime Federation Force

As a new Nintendo IP this would have got tons of attention. Who doesn't like crazy new Nintendo ideas? But as a Metroid game it could only possibly get bad press. Why play as Samus when you can play as more-generic-than-Master-Chief, chibi space marines instead? A top tier faux pas.

They Finally Got it Right Award

Dragonball Xenoverse 2

After decades of awkward DragonBall games, they finally hit the sweet spot for over-the-top action with fun controls and interesting content (granted, I never played the first Xenoverse). In the year of Street Fighter 5, who would have thought I'd prefer the new DragonBall fighting game?

Well Deserved Retirement Award

Dark Souls 3

Still fun despite almost no alterations in what is clearly a formula now, but I'm glad this is the last hurrah, at least for a while. As I said when Dark Souls 2 came out, the magic is less pronounced with each additional entry. None will have that Demon's Souls impact anymore. But when it returns in 5 to 10 years, it'll be nostalgic to see the old tricks in action again.

Everyone's An Asshole Award

Dishonored 2

At least that's what the talking Heart makes it seem like. Half the populace has secretly killed their husband/wife, whereas the other half have burned down orphanages or something.

Late to the Party Award

Steins;Gate

Another game I played years after release. And damn it's good. Far more novel than game, but I don't mind for a story of this quality. Why wasn't I reading this earlier? Haven't got to Steins;Gate 0 yet, but I'm working on it.

Xenogears Disk 2 Award

Final Fantasy XV

Like Metal Gear Solid V last year, another all-around excellent game that suddenly sprints to the end, jumping vast stretches of story in an instant, clashing hard with the slow burn style of storytelling established before that. Much like Xenogears of yore, this is a game that tried to be far bigger than time/budget allowed.

Honestly, I wish these overly-epic games would get chopped in two, a la Kill Bill. At the point where the story would start getting rushed, end part one. Just end it. Then let its sales fund part two, the remainder of the story. Then again, you run the risk of a Too Human situation where you announce a trilogy and then don't sell enough to finish it. But honestly, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear would handily sell enough. I’m sure they’ll make a FFXV-2, but at best it’ll attempt to reassemble the pieces of its predecessors fractured ending.

Didn't Burn the House Down Award

Uncharted 4

The writers said the ending would "burn the house down" in terms of closure. But it didn't, at all, even slightly. Uncharted 5 could EASILY be made based off this exact ending, with no retcons and no changes to the game’s formula. They'd just have to make Drake constantly say, "I'm too old for this shit!!"

It Shouldn't Work, But it Soooo Does Award

Dragon Quest Builders

I don't like Minecraft. As a professional level designer, I find Minecraft‘s game building tools too crude to enjoy using at length (what a snob, eh?). And I don't like Dragon Quest. Too much grind, not enough story. Too simple. But for some reason when you combine the two it's fucking great! Dragon Quest adds the personality, charm, and flavor Minecraft was sorely lacking while also bringing enough story and tangible goals to make the building feel like a game and not like a chore. Plus, the game’s worlds are fairly handcrafted and feature proper level/zone design, which is greatly appreciated. The surprise hit of the year.

Best Game Industry Trend of the Year

Virtual Reality

I'm glad we're all working on it seriously now. Sure, the current headsets are uncomfortable as fuck, (can’t emphasize this enough), but its a step towards sunglasses-size VR in about ten years or so. Plus, by then everyone will be over their VR sickness so we won’t have to keep watering down the experiences we create. It’ll be sweet!

Worst Game Industry Trend of the Year

Infinite Sales

Between Steam, Good Old Games, Humble Bundle, Greenman Gaming, PSN Store, etc there is always a massive, store-wide sale going on somewhere. Wait a year and any game you want will be a mere $10. Why buy an unknown indie game when you can get a supremely polished, lengthy triple-A game for the same price? Indie developers basically need to charge $1 to get anyone's attention. Or make their game free *cough* ULTRAWORLD.

Best Game Awards of the Year

Obvious

Worst Game Awards of the Year

The Game Awards

A transparently corporate affair, the winners have all be carefully selected based on what needs to sell at Xmas. Companies won't even show up if one of their high profile games doesn't get an award. Even setting those complaints aside, it's hard to get interested or excited about a 2016 award show that happens with over a month of 2016 left; when wonderful games like The Last Guardian haven’t even been released yet. Speaking of which...

Game (Experience) of the Year

The Last Guardian

There's a layer of disconnect between the player and Last Guardian. The boy, Trico, and the camera all seem to disobey the player constantly. Many marked this as a flaw, but I think it's 100% intentional and part of why the game is so cohesive, thematically. For me, there's an added sense of surrealism when things are out of control. The chaos of physics interactions seem like they shouldn't work, yet suddenly you've made it to the next section of the castle. Did you really play that last section, or merely guide the chaos? Since you’re playing as a helpless child, lost in towering labyrinthine passageways, this obtuse disconnect feels entirely appropriate.

I feel it's intentional because Fumito Ueda and his team have managed to capture this sense of surreal play for three games in a row. Everyone manages to get to the end despite the feeling of disconnect. Trico is so aloof, yet will always get you where you need to go. Eventually. If everything functioned 100% predictably, God-of-War-precise, it would be FAR less memorable...as an experience. You, like the boy, legitimately struggle to escape the castle. Who has the guts to purposely make their controls imprecise to service the game, and theme, as a whole? It's amazing. A true work of Art. Game of the Year.

Non-Game of the Year

ULTRAWORLD EXODUS

The expansion and finale to whatever the hell this thing is. I liked it, but I think I'm literally the only one.

---------------------

So that's the year, says I. Looking over my list, its clear I didn't play many indie games, even though I complained about people not buying indie games (which is bad Karma for me, but I'll live). As always, if you disagree: good. All awards are pointless, just fluff opinions with a bow on top. Your awards are as good as mine, good as the Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, etc etc forever. Til next year!

2015 Awards 2014 Awards

[nubsmusings]

How to Save the World?

I know pretty hefty topic to tackle especially while high, and even worse than that I'm not qualified in the slightest in any way shape or form. But it also seems arrogant to assume that my thoughts couldn't help at all. Especially if my questions bring about someone who is qualified to come and talk about the pros and cons of said idea or, if even the idea in a whole is mostly wrong while having a single grain of flour to the cake that is utopia then isn't it worth it? Hmmmm Conundrum for another time perhaps. Where to start.... I suppose we can start with getting the numbers needed to change the world. It's rather daunting isn't it? The amount of people that support one side or another of the political line of division? But what if their numbers aren't actually that large they're just out there stating their points more frequently and much much louder. I'd say the real divide is between the people that think they're right (for clarification these are the out spoken followers of politics) and the people that are silently struggling minding their own business most probably agreeing that the problems that are most prevalent aren't even problems to worry about in this point in time. So what would happen if all of those people started from one side of their content and went to the other gathering in the largest protest in human history. Could that have the desired solution? All politicians would be in quite the bind at that point, wouldn't they? How hard would the worlds economy crash if let's say half of our estimated 7 billion humans stopped working and stood in front of government buildings in peaceful protest. Protest. When this topic is brought up you get a lot of dejected people saying it doesn't work. But why protesting has plenty of evidence to point to it having at the least some success rate. What if the problem isn't they're not working but that they have kept up with he size of population. If the size of the population increases then that would mean that what's missing isn't that their being done but that there aren't large enough numbers. If this is the case then we just need to convince more people to take the plunge. Media. This is a tough one. I'd say the biggest problem here is our gullibility as humans. It's so easy to not worry yourself on the issues out of your control and focus on your wealth, health, attractiveness, whether you're neighbors are suspicious or not, who the real cause of your problems are but being sure that you aren't looking at the top but the bottom. One of my favorite things to do in high school was mental guessing games. The easiest way to win is before you even start lead the conversation in a specific direction. Like talk about tacos if it's Tuesday then 30 mins later say hey let me guess what you're thinking about, ponder real hard for a second then say tacos odds are really high that that's going to be the case because you put the thought there. So what would the results be if your news station of choice started talking about an act of violence in a poor neighborhood and then later said that parents or concerned people should check for suspicious behavior? Would it perhaps be that they would consider poorer people being the problem to be suspicious about and then that would lead you down the train of thought thinking about what all poor people have in common. Would it then be safe to say that we've put too much trust in people that don't really need training in all of the possible issues that they would be reporting on. How if the world is united into a single unified species would we establish a working economy especially since each's countries money is worth something different? Maybe the solution is in the destruction of "Money." Before we had coins or bills we made trades between things that we owned obviously this is a flawed system now because each thing has a different value between whom you're trading with. Put simply supply and demand. Perhaps our economies are already broken? I found it really interesting that I never once had to take an economy class in high school in fact I didn't even get a real government class. That's rather weird isn't it that my mandatory level of education needed to enter the work force and become a gear in the giant machine that is society. Does this mean that I don't need to know about how the "Most Important Thing" in the world is made? How about the fact that the vast majority of people were highly encouraged and even offered incentives to switch to having their check quick deposited to their bank accounts. Maybe the Economy is already broken and their only solution was to change the tracking of money to digital. (an easily falsified way of transmitting data) But if that's the case what could have killed the economy we ask? My theory is that the top one percent has accumulated so much wealth through hording and just average business profits increase. But why do these people need and make more money than they could spend in 5 lifetimes of heavy spending? Maybe for the utopias economy we can use the digital system for the benefit of all not just for politicians to launder money under the nose of the IRS. What if all basic survival is given to all humans no matter what? And if you want more than just the basics (let's assume the Food, Clothing, and Shelter) then you provide something to society either getting jobs making selling whatever will give you I don't know what to call it but let's say credits. Doesn't seem to bad if all humans are one than all products made are made for all. Shelter is easy we could utilize the land we do have much better than we do, need proof Skyscrapers. Food is another easy one. Did you know in america the government pays farmers to dump product. Bet if the homeless and unemployed get the stuff we throw away they might actually be able to get a job and they won't be that poor again. Clothes are super easy basic clothes just need to be able to keep you warm for the weather you're in, so it should be more than fine to give them clothes that meet those requirements. They don't even have to look that good if you need your ego stroked. Medicine is a super easy solution if we assume all humans deserve to live if we can save them, then we save them. We assign money values based on people making profits and how effective the medicine is. This means if we keep going down the road we're going and do discover a cure to something like the cold or cancer than the only people that will be cured are those that can afford it and you damn well better believe that means everyone would be willing to give everything they own if they're dying. Racism is something that I really don't understand, how it's able to exist in this generation in the first place. I can hop on skype discord team speak and millions of other apps to call up people on the other side of the world. And yet we refuse to see how this can bring peace. We are connected to the entire world and yet we still believe all the Hatedia. (Hate Media) There's also another excellent point to be made about this, Children Don't hate race Fuck they don't even see it. So if we're not born with hate than I bet you we can cure it. I'm sure most of you have heard of the term first world problems or the Elderly Eloquently put it as "The problem with Kids Today." Makes it sound like your problems aren't even worthy of being considered problems. But why should we be ashamed of the problems we're facing today that we aren't facing like in olden times? Are we weaker than we were back then? Should our problems not even be considered problems because the people who came before use can't understand them. If we went back in time to when our grandparents were kids would their grandparents say that their problems aren't as bad. Isn't it a good thing that we've solved the elders' problems from their youth? Don't we, as living and Dying creatures create offspring so that the world and problems from before can be solved and therefore allow human life to continue? So what's really the problem? Could it be that the generations that came before us also flawed and outdated as if they're an older version of the Iphone? If that's the case why are we letting them decide their voice is only a fraction. How about the fact that our systems haven't evolved with the times? Could that be the biggest problem to face? Religion is a tough topic for me, I'm really conflicted you see. Organized religion has the bad tendencies to fall victim to a single voice being the voice of the mob. But at the same time religion is a good way to bring calmness and clarity to the mind so that we as humans can find the right path to walk on for the good of humanity as a whole. Religion is also a large contributor and cause of war, either because one side hates the religion and wage ware to end it, Hitler is the example here. However the Christian church was the reason for so much devastation on the holy land with their crusades to steal wealth these should also be consider as terrible and devastating as what Hitler did but they're not which is weird. I'd say in a perfect society there wouldn't be the need for religion other than as ideas and theory about the afterlife not really needing anymore since all people are already doing their best to make the world better for all. But what if our lives as they are right now aren't just a test? What if we go through experiencing different kinds of life every time and each one is heaven or hell to the last. How do we go about life at that point? And if that's the case is life worth living? Maybe we shouldn't question why we're here but spend our lives living as a declaration of our existence and therefore finding the meaning in our lives? So how do we get all of these things solved or even tackle them? I wish I knew the exact answer. But I bet if we took the time to Understand people as people, we might come close. Now understandings a tricky thing if you truly follow this path than that means that you wouldn't seek revenge if someone murdered your family. You would seek justice and in order to find it you'd need to not be mad long enough to find our and put yourself in the thought process of feeling the same emotions they just said they felt. Rather hard isn't it? But if somethings easy is it really worth doing? Could we come together as a people and say Fuck the past all our ancestors did shit we frown upon now that we're "better" people than they are. But if we're better why are we holding their grudges? If me as a white male had Ancestors that had slaves and it so happened that a person I met and tried to befriend had ancestors that were slaves to my ancestors.... Am I allowed to be their friend? Are they allowed to be mine? Is it fair to abandon all of that prior info and judge each other based on each others character? I'd say so I'd rather now about them and their tendencies than the shame I'd feel from my family. So what sides going to be the first to bend and wave all prior transgressions and focus on what's happening now? Who's the bigger person and who's not a person at all? What's the point of life and why live it? How do you live in a world that's littered the ground beneath your feet with eggshells? Do we continue to live as if we are the center of our universe? Or are we each our own independent planets rotating in unison with the other one's floating around us to create a universe larger and more beautiful than anything that could be made as a singular unit? What if we are as insignificant as the ants underneath our boots, resulting in the universe being it's own living life form that needs us as a part for balance like the blood cells in our own body? What if God and the Universe are one and we're actually just a piece of God?

[theliterateape]

(micro) Chips On The Shoulders of the Collective and The Increasing Problem of the Moral High Ground

by Don Hall

I’m on the Blue Line, heading downtown to get to Millennium Park. I’m tired — it’s been a long week so far — so I’m standing amongst the other commuters, my shades still on, staring blankly toward the floor. I’m not really focusing on anything at all and I’m sort of just drifting into my brain when I hear:

“They’re legs.”

Not assuming it is directed at me, I stay focused on nothing in particular.

“Hey! They’re legs! Surely you’ve seen legs before! Stop staring at me, you creep!”

I look up and she is directing it at me.

Maybe 25 years old, wearing a skirt, and she has come to the conclusion that I was giving her the once over or the long stare at her uncovered gams. I’m caught slightly off guard (and I’m fucking tired) so I mumble, “…No. Sorry. Uhm, I wasn’t…”

“Do you know what it’s like to be a woman on the train? Do you even care?”

She goes into a tirade about being harassed every day by assholes like me. For 20 minutes she drones on and on about her level of discomfort and the toxic masculinity she has to endure. Because I’ve decided to just stay quiet — I could never even come close to explaining that I wasn’t even aware of her until she started barking at me let alone convince her otherwise — she gets angrier. I turn away. 

“I’m talking to you! Don’t turn away from me!”

I turn back around to face her. “Don’t LOOK at me!” she yells. She’s now yelling. 

According to her, this is yet one more brick in her #MeToo shithouse. She calls me a stalker. She calls me predatory.

The people in the closest range are all looking into their phones as if the fucking secret recipe to Popeye’s Chicken lies within and then it’s my stop. I walk past her without saying a word and head to the street.

I get it. We’re in what we call a “corrective phase” in society. The pendulum has been stuck in the Male Gaze is Normal and Women are Fodder for the Dick for so goddamned long that we are pushing things hard to the other side. While tired and kind of checked out on the ‘L’ I’m not dense. I’m also not one of those unicorns out there who miraculously changes his behavior because I was barked at about it on a train.

On that note, I’d love for anyone reading this who is one of those unicorns to chime in and tell me how and why because I legitimately don’t know how that works for someone.

From a recent Faceborg thread:

“Republicans are going to mop the floor with us if this keeps up... valuing anger-release over effectiveness & impact is toxic.”

“Right, right, it will be our fault. Your somewhat lazily-constructed, blanket statement encouraging us all to be quiet yet somehow effective little mice, betrays your desire to cower in the corner when they finally come to knock at *your* door looking to take your last crumble of cheese.”

“Anger is like fire - we can use it to burn ourselves, or we can use it to build. Stuff like this puts it in the wrong place & doesn’t work, so it’s a question of valuing real impact vs. cathartic screeching. I prefer effectiveness.There’s a huge space between hysteria & silence.”

“Couldn't agree less with you, sir. Unfortunately I don't have the time this afternoon to give you the history lesson you seem to so dearly need. The answer is to be loud about EVERYTHING. Until he is gone, and his swine fucking base sobers up. 

Yes, be effective, but as soon as Tyranny reveals itself, there is no more discussion. Only resistance, and only at the top of your lungs. Trump has an end goal; your quiet efforts of compromise and bargaining are not only pointless, they serve him, as they divide us. There is no passive resistance to Tyranny.”

“Do what feels good or do what works - your call. And I’m happy to hear what you have to say at pretty much any time, as long as it’s well-reasoned. Even if I disagree with ideas, they can still be valuable, so feel free to write yours down at some point - I’d be curious.”

“Also, if you keep talking out your ass, I am going to embarrass you here, because people like you, that clearly don't know what the fuck they are talking about, yet act like they do, really, really get on my bad side. You clearly know nothing, or refuse to understand, the mechanics of Fascism and Tyranny. Your uneducated opinion on what our course of action should be, offered in vague platitudes I might add, are what will get us all killed.”

“hahaha ok, will do. As long as it’s not all nazi hitler nazi, it’s cool. Some hitler, ok, but maybe a Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, or something else thrown in there.”

“You're a monster, sir. Also, my apologies ahead of time, for what I may or may not say further on down this rabbit hole of a thread.”

The whole thread (rabbit hole, indeed) was like this. It reminded me of when liberals go to Ben Shapiro or Dave Rubin lectures to ask him a question as a "gotcha" and look stupid for trying because, of course, stridency in the face of calm looks stupid.

Yes, she has a valid point that is worthy of a genuine conversation but she looks like a complete asshole in her angry attempt to school him. What I'm wondering is why? Why confront him at all? It isn't like her refusal to stop talking at him is going to change his mind. It isn't as if the women chanting is going to shut him up. What's the goal? What's the strategy?

The simple answer is that there isn't a strategy. It's moral posturing and wasted energy. It's an attempt to confront someone on the opposite ideological side of the questions and goad them into admitting some sort of hypocrisy. It's people barking "you lie" at President Obama in hopes that the moment will become a rally cry. It's someone throwing a shoe at George W. Bush. It's theater without a goal. It's a photo op in a YouTube world.

I remember the eighties. I mean, that decade was my Coming of Age time so I hope I still remember them.

One aspect of the eighties and specific to Wichita, KS, was Operation Rescue. As far as I can surmise, it is an extremely rare thing for a mentally stable human to wake up and shout out “Abortion is AWESOME!” The best we can do is to say abortion is a sometimes necessary thing and should be a right for women to utilize but, even then, I can’t imagine anyone adding it to their Disneyland trip as a lark. “Honey! Let’s go to Space Mountain and then go get that abortion — if we time it right, we’ll catch the fireworks!”

The thing is, Operation Rescue (with the help of the Ultimate Warrior in creating Moral Distinctions, the Church) decided that abortion was murder in the eighties in Wichita, KS.  And they protested. And when that didn’t do the trick, they stood outside of clinics and screamed at people. And failing to effect the kind of change they sought, some took to shooting and blowing up doctors.

Can you blame them? Once you’ve assigned a legal activity as a morally reprehensible crime you don’t have a lot of wiggle room in terms of context. If you saw a government gunning down second graders like they were taking out the trash, you might protest, then scream, then get some guns and TNT.

From their ideological zealotry, that’s what they saw.

As we’ve seen, you really can’t reason or compromise with a zealot convinced they are on the moral high ground. It’s almost impossible.

From a note to a professor friend of mine:

“I felt the words you used to address me was infantilizing and I want to express my discomfort of you labeling me a “young lady” thus shaming me in front of my classmates.”

What fresh hell…?

How does someone navigate this? In order to avoid any sort of offense, the ability to read minds is required. I'm of a type of white, heterosexual male who is not looking to run around and offend random strangers in normal discourse. Yes, I believe that offense is subjective and I've spent time creating art designed to shake that tree a bit. That said, I'm not the kind of person who engages in shock value tactics (anymore) or shaming individuals because I believe shame to be a pernicious societal tool that mostly suppresses the bad shit rather than providing a pathway to change.

Catcalling guys are idiots. Stalkers and sexual predators are criminals. The 50-something professor who refers to a 20-something woman in his class as "young lady" isn't either. Infantilization is the process of assuming people are too fragile and inexperienced to handle anything but the least of what society has to offer. So, who, in this case is infantilizing her?

It is a failure of strategy.

#MeToo, that vast and disembodied and ongoing protest march, has been subject to similar dynamics: the big tent, flinging its flaps ever wider; the entropic impulse as both a matter of promise and a matter of peril. Does being about everything, though, mean that the movement runs the risk of being about nothing? Has #MeToo, reconfigured as a broad attempt to rectify a broad host of wrongs, lost the plot? Has it dilated to its detriment?

Tarana Burke says, emphatically, yes. At the Aspen Ideas Festival, co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, Burke pointed back to Milano’s October tweet—which was not, Burke noted, about pay equity, or representation in the workplace, or power dynamics in a misogynistic culture … but about sexual violence, full stop. “Part of the challenge that we have right now,” Burke said, “is everybody trying to couch everything under #MeToo.”

SOURCE

It's as if, anytime there is a large gathering of eyeballs or people in the name of any progressive cause, everyone must have some equal time and must try to shift the focus to them. It is both narcissism and desperation to be heard. #MeToo was about victims of sexual violence until it became about Hollywood actors until it became about black women in Hollywood until it became about equal pay until it became about being offended at a teacher referring to someone as "young lady."

Moral high ground and the assignation of labels like “monster,” “human garbage,” and, with the court of public opinion’s scorched earth approach, “racist,” “Nazi,” and “misogynist,” it all starts to feel strangely like religious fervor and more in tune with Operation Rescue than Civil Rights protestors. A witch hunt, at it's core, was about scaring the shit out of anyone who decided to live a different way from the norm and was ultimately about establishing an agreed upon morality. The Puritans believed that by singling out and "trying" women who didn't fit their moral narrative (and the trial killed the innocent ones) the rest of the flock would fall in line.

The McCarthy Anti-Communist hearings were the same. Any affiliation and any lack of sincere and enthusiastic repudiation was met by wholesale destruction. And protests without strategy don't effect these sorts of cyclical trends.

Conservative witch hunts are well documented against drug users, women, gays, transgender persons, blacks, pretty much anyone not in the white male club. These witch hunts are almost always marked by the moral righteous inherent in the hunt and the moral depravity of those being hunted. As they try to weed out (and scare the shit out of) their targets, others with less patience and less to lose take up the cause and, like the extremes of Operation Rescue, turn to violence.

The protests of old that were most effective (or effective at all, arguably) were non-violent and strategic. In a time when we equate hateful words as real violence, we’ve painted ourselves into a corner in that there is no longer the possibility of non-violent protest. If calling our opponents names is violence, society is as blocked a a colon filled with cheddar cheese.

When everyone is scrambling to claim the moral high ground, there is none left to claim because morality, in order to exist, has to be founded on common understandings of behavior. We don't have that anymore.

“There is no passive resistance to Tyranny.”

So many assumptions made in seven words. That avoiding a moral argument, reasoning with those on the sidelines of the process and resisting by example rather than reaction is passive. That a legally elected asshole who has a very different worldview than you is a tyrant. That his actions will inevitably lead to Nazism. That tyranny only comes in one form. That by labeling something tyrannical makes it so and the need to demonstrate the aspects of tyranny is erased by the charge.

It makes sense, though. In the most Operation Rescue sense, if you have decided that Trump is Hitler and distrust the rest of the country so completely to not see it, of course it makes perfect sense. I mean, if you throw them in the well and they float, they’re guilty, right?

Ask a strident anti-abortion activist to defend their position. If you don’t immediately agree that it is murder, the sparks of obstinence fly, the labels of “evil” and “monster” are thrown out and the barking becomes indecipherable. 

“Let's be clear: "Innocent until proven guilty" is for a court of law to decide, if that's where this story eventually goes. The court of public opinion operates under no such constraints, and in the post-Harvey Weinstein days of 2018 we believe the accuser.”

https://mashable.com/2018/06/16/chris-hardwick-nerd-culture-conversation/#PWbjglPnJmqq

Seriously?

The internet is an extraordinary tool. It has provided us with almost limitless communicating possibilities. I can see what friends thousands of miles away are up to and call my mother face to face. We can promote our ideas to more humans in one message than at any time in history. Can you imagine what havoc would have wreaked if Faceborg had been around in the eighties in Wichita, KS? Holy fuck!

I believe we need both the Malcoms and The Martins, the Magnetos and the Professor Xs. It’s just that right now, this magnificent technology has given the truly hysterical and morally righteous a louder megaphone than ever in history. It’s difficult to hear anything else when 10% of the population is screaming their own version of bloody murder and condemnation and it's 5% of morally outraged Trump Supporters vs 5% of morally outraged Identity Politicians leaving the rest of us to run, covering our ears.

The democracy is in rough shape but it is far from over, broken, or destroyed by a single president. Our flailing about is due to the fact that those who do not believe the way we do control all three arms of the federal government and protests aren't doing anything to stop it. Like Operation Rescue, we are doubling down on escalation and it will not go well for us.

Speaking again of Operation Rescue, once it became apparent to them that their protests were wholly ineffective, they changed their strategy. They started running anti-abortion candidates for local office, then state office, then Congress. And, what do you know? Not only have many states placed unconstitutional barriers to abortion over the past ten years but it looks like they're going to get Roe v. Wade overturned.

I’m on the Blue line. Headed to the park. I’m wide awake and in a great mood. I see across from me a genuinely beautiful woman. I take a look — not a stare but a healthy look. She sees me looking and she smiles.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

#most powerful force in the universe?? is this one (1) perfectly human little girl?? perhaps??#< prev tag#Y E S#please do more poetic waxing i am Listening very closely#and yeah absolutely agree with everything#i dont think the bleedthrough whatever it is can affect them too much#but its absolutely possible thats something in the background they are constantly dealing with#tbh the bois are either a super good or a total disaster and bleedthrough could be useful in both cases lol#ALSO ALSO#i wonder if dealing with this secondhand but Intense grief ever since gaining consciousness mellowed out the entity when the bois met#early episodes entity is pretty melancholic and philosophical those fall into the Sad TM category feelings generally#you know what i need a meme#faroe changed john truthers unite

#somewhat less related but the main hook that caught me in the show besides the premise is music#and like one of the main songs of the show is madness and its associated with the king plus the king himself seems to fancy artists#SO SO#what if#johns god shard power is actually pulling out faroe's song out of arthur's mind and john is literally hearing it just as the audience is#we all know thats the tune of arthur's soul is it too far-fetched a god of art and madness would be attuned to it#i wonder if that tune was...excuse me. drowned so deep down below an ocean of rage that yellow couldn't hear it#right before arthur played it on that piano and then that train hit yellow all at once and he lashed out because of that intense pain#cause honestly yellow swallowed quite a lot of revelations much better than you would expect i always found it weird he raged so suddenly#what can i ever only ramble in tags xD#i love throwing psychic damage around at mutuals

YEAH YEAH like. yeah i don't think necessarily the bleedthrough is the direct cause of anything, but i DO think it adds to a lot of things. just like, a factor hovering around in the background enhancing whatever blowout fight and/or declaration of unending devotion they're doing today. i also think that maybe john has gotten like... more distinct from arthur's emotions over time, potentially? like maybe as he finds his own humanity he has a better basis to keep his footing and not just get swept along with his host, which is really more of an extension of him learning how to process emotions in general i guess, i'm getting distracted. what was i talking about

OH YEAH AND YELLOW. fuck, yeah yellow... if there IS anything to the idea of faroe's memory affecting john on a more fundamental level, then god, yeah, of course that same like, templating?? would fuck with yellow, like. when john met arthur he was mostly confused and scared abt the general situation he found himself in, he was barely even given time to process parker's death let alone react to it. but compared to when yellow met arthur?? he was at a fucking Low Point. grieving and angry and suffering and ready to fucking die, god that would be fucking poison in an emotional link with a being who's new to humanity and already feeling lost and defensive. no wonder they ended up hating each other, that was a fucking death spiral from day 1.

gald you're enjoying the psychic damage)))

tbh John is not Exactly comparable to Gilgamesh, cause he has Dark World Amnesia TM or whatever, but everything else tracks with him

p.s. also I believe this change-inspired-by-grief only really solidified after Faroe's story was revealed. It forced John to reconcile the fact that he can feel such deep and heavy emotion not only with Arthur (or Lily), but also someone he never even met. Every other sympathy he displayed was passing or surface level, which is a very good start of course, but I don't think it was enough to convince John to change so thoroughly as he had to.

(I'm a secondhand Faroe grief for John enthusiast)

(wrt this post)

YEAH GOD YEAH like it’s not an exact 1:1 (i def don’t think john is nearly as much of an asshole as Gilgamesh even at the start, he’s more just… clumsy?? emotionally?? idk how to phrase it) but it’s more abt this Being that was once so far above humanity, choosing to “lower” himself to that level and in doing so experiencing both the heights and depths of human emotion. “irreversibly changed by friendship and love and loss and regret” indeed…

anyway this is tangential to your point but is there any emotional exchange btwn these two that can’t be enhanced by that implied empathic bleedthrough. I do not think so. bc like, speaking of grief. if john gets any of arthur’s emotions then he kind of can’t avoid this one, right. it’s always always there, from the fucking moment they meet, before he even knows who or where he is he knows that melody and john can feel it when he plays, that love with nowhere to go. it’s a heartbeat underscoring their whole journey. her song her name her memory burning so bright that fucking elder gods can’t take it away from him. how could john Not feel at least some of that, right. before he knows anything else abt humanity, before his name, before the lake or the hospital or any of it, he knows the taste of arthur’s love, and his grief.

…was this just an excuse for me to wax poetic abt the importance of faroe’s song. maybe. but anyway I think there is a STRONG argument to be made that she is the single most important character in the whole show. like she drives so fucking much of it. none of it could have happened without her on SO many levels I could talk abt it forever