#and its not only driven a lot of people out of the industry but created burn out for those that stayed

[realcleverissues]

Mamdani, Socialism, & Supermarkets

I’ve been really excited about Zohran Mamdani’s primary win in the NYC mayoral race. A lot of his ideas reflect views I’ve held for a long time — especially his proposal to pilot city-run grocery stores in each of the five boroughs.

At its core, the idea is simple: essential needs like food and housing shouldn’t be left entirely in the hands of for-profit corporations. Yes, I believe private business has a place — and I’m not opposed to profit across the board. But when it comes to things people literally need to survive, there should be nonprofit public options.

What Public Housing Taught Me

Take housing. It’s the biggest lifetime cost for most adults, and the private market is dominated by landlords who care more about profit than people. I’ve worked for a local housing agency, and many of our buildings were indistinguishable from regular market-rate apartments. The difference? They were far more affordable.

Public and subsidized housing options like Section 8 technically exist, but they’re underfunded, limited, and mostly restricted to very low-income renters. They can also create distorted incentives — for example, landlords in the Section 8 system often take advantage of guaranteed payment and limited tenant mobility to cut corners and exploit renters. Also, because it's a problem that only harms the poorest, it's easy for the issue to be ignored by lawmakers.

We need nonprofit housing options for everyone — not just the poorest. Many people would gladly trade luxury amenities for stable, affordable rent. And if someone does want luxury, the private market should still exist to offer it. The point isn’t to eliminate choice. It’s to create it — which we don’t have now.

The Myth of “Choice” in Capitalism

I once argued with a landlord (not mine; one must be careful not to upset the person who decides if you have to leave your home) about the rental system and some of the problems it creates. Their reply: “If you don’t like renting, go buy a house.”

This kind of free-market logic sounds fair — but it ignores how the system is structured. Most renters can’t just go buy a home. That person knew that; their "argument" was mostly a taunt rooted in the reality that today, in the USA, homeownership is out of reach for millions, especially in cities where zoning laws, development limits, and speculative buying inflate costs. (Note: the landlording industry is closely tied to those issues, so it doesn't just take advantage of a bad situation - it helps create the bad situation.) So the “choice” is really between renting… or being homeless.

Homelessness isn’t just poverty — in many cities, it’s criminalized. For those who manage to evade prison, you're still left facing sickness, suffering, and likely death.

This is the so-called "free market". Get f*cked or get dead.

This is why public options matter — not just to protect the poorest, but to provide everyone with alternatives to being squeezed by profit-driven systems.

What Happens When Public Options Exist

Let’s say we create a robust public housing system open to all incomes. What might happen? Private rents would fall. Nonprofit competition would pull market prices down. Landlords would improve. If tenants have real alternatives, exploitative behavior becomes a business risk. Landlording would change. Some landlords might exit the market — and public housing could fill that gap.

It wouldn’t eliminate the private sector — but it would raise the floor for everyone.

Now, Apply That to Food

This same logic applies to groceries.

Sure, supermarkets operate on thin margins — but they sell to literally everyone, every single day. The scale is massive. And the industry has perfected subtle methods of extracting more money from customers: “Buy 5, get 5 free” sales that only benefit people with cars, storage space, and extra cash. Digital coupons and loyalty apps that can leave out low-income folks, seniors, and anyone without a smartphone. Placement tricks and pricing structures that nudge shoppers toward more expensive options.

Even “fresh food” in many supermarkets is priced as a luxury, not a staple. For instance, my local supermarket offers some bougie fresh food, like artisanal pizza or salads. Why not have a grocery store that sells essentials at cost? Why not offer basic, nutritious fresh meals — like bread, eggs, or a PB&J — without markup? Why not redesign the entire supermarket experience around maximizing the quantity and nutritional quality of user goods purchased while also minimizing the amount it costs them? How about a grocery which is not meant to maximize shareholder value but to maximize shopper value?

Mamdani’s proposal is in this line of thinking: city-run grocery stores funded not by new taxes, but by redirecting existing subsidies currently given to private chains (!).

We Don’t Need to Ban Private Business — We Need Alternatives

We don't need to eliminate for-profit housing or groceries. There's a market for it and people who can afford and prefer to buy luxury items should be able to do so. But we do need alternatives that don't extract wealth from people just trying to live.

Democratic socialism — the kind Mamdani represents — isn’t about command economies or banning entrepreneurs. It’s about ensuring that basic needs aren't opportunities for exploitation. Everyone should have the option to get housing, food, and healthcare without being at the mercy of landlords, corporations, or hedge funds trying to squeeze every last cent from them.

Mamdani’s grocery store plan is a small step. But it’s a powerful one in that it shows what democratic socialism represents: Cooperation over competition, centering human need over profit, and showing real-world examples of what an alternative to our capitalist hellscape can be like.

That would be a real super-market.

[seat-safety-switch]

One of humanity's greatest contributions to the art of creating chaos is the humble U-Haul rental van. All over this great country, people who have never driven anything larger than a minivan are now asked to operate a full-ton vehicle that's about as aerodynamic as an enormous cube on skinny tires is.

This wouldn't be a big problem, except U-Hauls, to a vehicle, are barely maintained. Here's why. When you are fleeing the depressing post-industrial city of your birth to move to a new, shiny town in order to get a job in theatre, you don't bring the U-Haul back to that cesspool. You just drop it off in the New Shiny Town U-Haul lot, and it stays there for awhile. The ownership of that U-Haul truck is sort of ambiguous, and so too is the responsibility for its maintenance.

Maybe it didn't belong to Trauma Town U-Haul, either, and nobody feels much like doing an oil change on it if it only benefits some asshole in another state that they've never met. After all, that truck could very well never make it back to its hometown before it is retired by way of a haggard father of two putting it into the ditch at 4am. They certainly aren't going to do something like replacing ball joints, or fixing that worn steering coupler, or replacing the cracked tires when the guy before you stole them for his Super Duty.

Learning how to drive an enormous, poorly-handling, badly-maintained vehicle in unfamiliar areas wouldn't be so bad if you weren't also stressed out at the time. Moving is hard, even when things are going great. Trying not to run over a Geo Metro when you're on your fourth run, haven't had a meal with vegetables in it since last week, and have exactly fifteen minutes to clear out before the landlord sets your coffee table on fire is significantly harder.

The next time you see someone in a U-Haul van, give them a bit of extra room. Let them know that you've got their back, and we're all aligned against the evil forces of capitalism that made this interaction as hellish as it needed to be. Maybe stay a little further back than that, in case they decide to pop a u-turn in the middle of the highway and end up firing an entire Ikea kitchen set through your windshield.

[anim-ttrpgs]

I get that being an indie creator is difficult, especially when your competition includes industry monoliths, but it's starting to feel like half the word of mouth about Eureka is attached to long-winded pedantic posts about how the popular thing is bad. Seeing this project become rooted in spite instead of the passion that brought me in has me starting to regret backing it.

I’m sorry you feel that way. If the content of the A.N.I.M. tumblr blog doesn’t suit your tastes, you can still keep up to date on our progress via the Kickstarter updates we put out every month, free of the personal musings and philosophizing about TTRPGs as a whole.

I do have a whole lot to say on the subjects of passion, spite, and the “most popular thing,” though.

Passion and spite go hand-in-hand. I would not have been driven to create Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, a TTRPG that does investigative gameplay really well, if not for existing popular TTRPGs like Call of Cthulhu doing it badly. The desire to improve upon obvious flaws is something that drives most of all of my creative work. That passion you were drawn in by is the spite you’re complaining about now, if you were drawn in by somebody’s love of clean spaces, you shouldn’t be surprised that they hate dirt and grime.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy isn’t good just because I have passion, it’s good because i examined what came before in the artform, looked at where it succeeds, and more importantly where it fails and sucks and why, and sought to make targeted improvements there. This is, like, how all art and science evolves and improves.

Next, I think that most of the “long pedantic posts” about how “the popular thing is bad” you’re referencing are actually posts by @thydungeongal that I reblog, and if you think those posts are just pedantic and only criticize D&D5e because it’s popular, I think you may have a misunderstanding of tumblr user thydungeongal, the content of the posts, or the relationship between D&D5e and the wider industry and artform as a whole.

First of all, she is passionate. She doesn’t even have a financial incentive to pay living expenses like I do, she’s posting only because she cares. (She isn’t a part of the A.N.I.M. team, she’s just a friend of several of us.)

Next is the fact that her posts tend to be more about the toxic play culture and lifestyle brand of D&D5e more than the actual content of the rulebook. When she talks about the content of the rulebook, she’s actually really positive! More positive than the rulebook deserves a lot of the time in my opinion. The main thing is the super toxic play culture cultivated by WotC marketing.

Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Lancer, Mothership, Monster of the Week, these are all TTRPGs that are much more popular than our team’s projects, and even though you’ll see me criticize many design elements of Call of Cthulhu from time to time, and I just plain personally don’t like Monster of the Week, you won’t see me or thydungeongal rail against any of these games the way we talk about WotC, D&D5e, and its playerbase.

The thing is, as a monopoly, Wizards of the Coast and the small A.N.I.M. team are not simply in competition, we are in a war of extermination. The tactics and force of arms employed by WotC are not simply to harmlessly promote themselves and get more customers for it, but rather to destroy the entire population outside of themselves and the entire ecosystem to boot. Their tactics aren’t so much focused on bringing people to them as they are preventing people from going to anyone else. If it was just a popular game like any of the others I mentioned, it wouldn’t be a problem, but WotC with their flagship D&D5e are maintaining that popularity not by providing anything to their fans, but by hiding the existence of any other alternatives, and where they can’t do that, they are constantly, in so many words, redefining what a TTRPG even is to exclude any other game.

One of the main ways they do this is by encouraging a complete detachment from the rules, encouraging DMs to do all the work of providing a one-man-show experience, and through these things teaching the massive playerbase of D&D5e, created by its more conventional massive marketing budget, that the content of TTRPGs does not matter, and if the content of TTRPGs does not matter and they’re all basically the same one-man-show, there’s no need to go through the effort of checking out any other ones besides the D&D5e you’re already familiar with, even if it doesn’t suit your needs. This is the very first thing taught to basically every new person who enters the hobby, who then go on to perpetuate it themselves, and often raise a stink when that teaching is challenged. When it comes down to it this is what pretty much every @thydungeongal post that gets reblogged on this account is about. It’s not that they’re popular, it’s that they salt the earth.

Anyone who doesn’t want to see that sort of discussion can follow the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy Kickstarter page, or our itchio page, for updates instead, but anyone who doesn’t want TTRPG developers and enthusiasts to complain and rail against D&D5e and WotC, well, you might as well tell the Lorax to shut up about the lumber industry too.

And when you see your entire home getting destroyed around you by a massive, nigh unstoppable force, how chipper and positive can you really be about it?

[dailyadventureprompts]

Monsters Reimagined: Bandits

As a game of heroic fantasy that centers so primarily on combat, D&D  is more often than not a game about righteous violence, which is why I spend so much time thinking about the targets of that violence. Every piece of media made by humans is a thing created from conscious or unconscious design, it’s saying something whether or not its creators intended it to do so. 

Tolkien made his characters peaceloving and pastoral, and coded his embodiment of evil as powerhungry, warlike, and industrial. When d&d directly cribbed from Tolkien's work it purposely changed those enemies to be primitive tribespeople who were resentful of the riches the “civilized” races possessed. Was this intentional? None can say, but as a text d&d says something decidedly different than Tolkien. 

That's why today I want to talk about bandits, the historical concept of being an “outlaw”, and how media uses crime to “un-person” certain classes of people in order to give heroes a target to beat up. 

Tldr: despite presenting bandits as a generic threat, most d&d scenarios never go into detail about what causes bandits to exist, merely presuming the existence of outlaws up to no good that the heroes should feel no qualms about slaughtering. If your story is going to stand up to the scrutiny of your players however, you need to be aware of WHY these individuals have been driven to banditry, rather than defaulting to “they broke the law so they deserve what’s coming to them.”

I got to thinking about writing this post when playing a modded version of fallout 4, an npc offhndedly mentioned to me that raiders (the postapoc bandit rebrand) were too lazy to do any farming and it was good that I’d offed them by the dozens so that they wouldn’t make trouble for those that did. 

That gave me pause, fallout takes place in an irradiated wasteland where folks struggle to survive but this mod was specifically about rebuilding infrastructure like farms and ensuring people had enough to get by. Lack of resources to go around was a specific justification for why raiders existed in the first place, but as the setting became more arable the mod-author had to create an excuse why the bandit’s didn’t give up their violent ways and start a nice little coop, settling on them being inherently lazy , dumb, and psychopathic.   

This is exactly how d&d has historically painted most of its “monstrous humanoid” enemies. Because the game is ostensibly about combat the authors need to give you reasons why a peaceful solution is impossible, why the orcs, goblins, gnolls (and yes, bandits), can’t just integrate with the local town or find a nice stretch of wilderness to build their own settlement on and manage in accordance with their needs. They go so far in this justification that they end up (accidently or not) recreating a lot of IRL arguments for persecution and genocide.

Bandits are interesting because much like cultists, it’s a descriptor that’s used to unperson groups of characters who would traditionally be inside the “not ontologically evil” bubble that’s applied to d&d’s protagonists.   Break the law or worship the wrong god says d&d and you’re just as worth killing as the mindless minions of darkness, your only purpose to serve as a target of the protagonist’s righteous violence.  

The way we get around this self-justification pitfall and get back to our cool fantasy action game is to relentlessly question authority, not only inside the game but the authors too. We have to interrogate anyone who'd show us evil and direct our outrage a certain way because if we don't we end up with crusades, pogroms, and Qanon.

With that ethical pill out of the way, I thought I’d dive into a listing of different historical groups that we might call “Bandits” at one time or another and what worldbuilding conceits their existence necessitates. 

Brigands: By and large the most common sort of “bandit” you’re going to see are former soldiers left over from wars, often with a social gap between them and the people they’re raiding that prevents reintegration ( IE: They’re from a foreign land and can’t speak the local tongue, their side lost and now they’re considered outlaws, they’re mercenaries who have been stiffed on their contract).  Justifying why brigands are out brigading is as easy as asking yourself “What were the most recent conflicts in this region and who was fighting them?”. There’s also something to say about how a life of trauma and violence can be hard to leave even after the battle is over, which is why you historically tend to see lots of gangs and paramilitary groups pop up in the wake of conflict. 

Raiders:  fundamentally the thing that has caused cultures to raid eachother since the dawn of time is sacristy. When the threat of starvation looms it’s far easier to justify potentially throwing your life away if it means securing enough food to last you and those close to you through the next year/season/day. Raider cultures develop in biomes that don’t support steady agriculture, or in times where famine, war, climate change, or disease make the harvests unreliable. They tend to target neighboring cultures that DO have reliable harvests which is why you frequently see raiders emerging from “the barbaric frontier” to raid “civilization” that just so happens to occupy the space of a reliably fertile river valley. When thinking about including raiders in your story, consider what environmental forces have caused this most recent and previous raids, as well as consider how frequent raiding has shaped the targeted society. Frequent attacks by raiders is how we get walled palaces and warrior classes after all, so this shit is important. 

Slavers: Just like raiding, most cultures have engaged in slavery at one point or another, which is a matter I get into here. While raiders taking captives is not uncommon, actively attacking people for slaves is something that starts occurring once you have a built up slave market, necessitating the existence of at least one or more hierarchical societies that need more disposable workers than then their lower class is capable of providing. The roman legion and its constant campaigns was the apparatus by which the imperium fed its insatiable need for cheap slave labor. Subsistence raiders generally don’t take slaves en masse unless they know somewhere to sell them, because if you’re having trouble feeding your own people you’re not going to capture more ( this is what d&d gets wrong about monstrous humanoids most of the time). 

Tax Farmers: special mention to this underused classic, where gangs of toughs would bid to see who could collect money for government officials, and then proceed to ransack the realm looking to squeeze as much money out of the people as possible. This tends to happen in areas where the state apparatus is stretched too thin or is too lighthanded to have established enduring means of funding.  Tax farmers are a great one-two punch for campaigns where you want your party to be set up against a corrupt authority: our heroes defeat the marauding bandits and then oh-no, turns out they were not only sanctioned by the government but backed by an influential political figure who you’ve just punched in the coinpurse.  If tax farming exists it means the government is strong enough to need a yearly budget but not so established (at least in the local region) that it’s developed a reliably peaceful method of maintaining it.  

Robber Baron: Though the term is now synonymous with ruthless industrialists, it originated from the practice of shortmidned petty gentry (barons and knights and counts and the like) going out to extort and even rob THEIR OWN LANDS out of a desire for personal enrichment/boredom. Schemes can range from using their troops to shake down those who pass through their domain to outright murdering their own peasants for sport because you haven’t gotten to fight in a war for a while.  Just as any greed or violence minded noble can be a robber baron so it doesn’t take that much of a storytelling leap but I encourage you to channel all your landlord hate into this one. 

Rebels: More than just simple outlaws, rebels have a particular cause they’re a part of (just or otherwise) that puts them at odds with the reigning authority. They could violently support a disfavoured political faction, be acting out against a law they think is unjust, or hoping to break away from the authority entirely. Though attacks against those figures of authority are to be expected, it’s all too common for rebels to go onto praying on common folk for the sake of the cause.  To make a group of rebels worth having in your campaign pinpoint an issue that two groups of people with their own distinct interests could disagree on, and then ratchet up the tension. Rebels have to be able to beleive in a cause, so they have to have an argument that supports them.

Remnants: Like a hybrid of brigands, rebels, and taxfarmers, Remnants represent a previously legitimate system of authority that has since been replaced but not yet fully disappeared. This can happen either because the local authority has been replaced by something new (feudal nobles left out after a monarchy toppling revolution) or because it has faded entirely ( Colonial forces of an empire left to their own devices after the empire collapses). Remnants often sat at the top of social structures that had endured for generations and so still hold onto the ghost of power ( and the violence it can command) and the traditions that support it.  Think about big changes that have happened in your world of late, are the remnants looking to overturn it? Win new privilege for themselves? Go overlooked by their new overlords?

Art

[watermelonlicker]

some harries and louies on twitter said they’d unstan them if larry was real 👀

well we already knew that, those fans hate each other. the closet is designed for them to have a large portion of those kinds of fans so it hurts them once they’re able to come out. why do you think we keep preaching and saying we understand why they’re still closeted and how coming out will not be easy for them in the slightest? how that is bcos of the people who put them there in the first place and those people need to be held accountable and taken out of this industry. their money and power cannot silence the public which is why they need the public divided. if the public was united so many artists who don’t want to play “the industry game” could finally breath and you know… not DIE due to how much they’ve been broken.

like i cannot stress enough that a lot of people’s views are not their own in the sense they are influenced by the media and it’s propaganda. look at harry’s treatment over the years and what they think of him.

when i talk about the music industry so extensively (like it’s the only thing on here im extremely serious about cos otherwise i’m mainly unserious) it’s bcos i want to help the non-larries, the lurkers, and my iwtv mutuals to understand what is happening to us and how the extremely toxic and harmful messages sent to us by hollywood bleeds into the minds of impressionable people. these fans who would unstan bcos larry have somehow managed to give us their entire truths (which they don’t owe us) but is a perfect example of that.

the larries of my era, the heartbreaking majority who are no longer here and driven out mainly due to fandom bullying and exhaustion, tried their absolute HARDEST to educate people on the horrific shit that goes on in the music industry and how it effects the masses and how it’s damaged the boys in the public eye.

this might seem like repetitive speak cos obviously larries consume this day and night but the majority outside the larrie bubble literally do not know a lot of things. take anna todd for example, if some of you don’t know her she is the author of the absolute piece of shit book series called “after” which gets its lashings now of course after the woke movement (and thank god for that) but in 2012/2013 it was extremely popular particularly in the 1d fandom bcos it was a known harry styles fanfiction. this grown ass woman wrote a story not only sexualizing him as a teenager but writing him as a character in her head that was abusive/toxic/manipulative/but sexy in the sheets etc. young girls read this thinking they were getting themselves a harry, thinking they could go up to him and harass him bcos it’s what he wanted and what he said when he loves us. and the thing is… it’s what people believe of harry to this very day. it is why there’s always screeching anons in our inboxes painting him as the villain constantly.

this image that was created for him, and it is a dangerous image, is the complete opposite of harry. a shy queer sweetheart in a long-term committed relationship. the naivety of the teenager is what is preyed on by hollywood and it has led to people always crossing the line with harry. anna todd was a reflection of how pr infects the masses and now she’s a goddamn millionaire profiting off the closeting of a queer man while painting him as the bad boy het loser of her story.

it is an endless mess that we have tried to untangle for harry, to get people to understand the real him, but ultimately nothing will be done until people open their eyes. it’s why he used the matrix imagery for as it was his biggest song to date. the aiw mv literally spoke on how we are in a simulation and harry was dressed in red cos he wants us to take the red pill and WAKE up but most will continue to take the blue pill and keep it moving so they can enjoy their artificial FAKE world to the detriment of him, and so many like him which allows his closeters to remain the masters of the universe. i’m crashing out now and idk why this is long as hell and so far from what you said but yeah… this is our reality and it fucking sucks.

also side note i hope the rumor that harry got a restraining order on anna todd is true BAHAHAHA.

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: KinnPorsche, and Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist Edition (Part 2)

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I conclude a two-part series on my thoughts on KinnPorsche, my very first Thai BL, and the impact that I think KP has had on the Thai BL industry since 2022.]

Top of the morning (or whatever time zone you're in) to ya! Yesterday, I ruminated on KinnPorsche's foundation in regards to how the show wasn't as innovative as newbie members of the Thai BL fandom, like myself, may have thought in 2022 -- but was rather a great example of a show that derivatively used a lot of excellent past Thai BL influences in order to make a newly stylized show that I think, for the most part, worked well.

Harkening back to the outline for these two pieces that I laid out yesterday, this post will concentrate on:

3) How I think KP has impacted how other studios approach, market, and write Thai BLs now, and 4) A quick passing thought on BOC's own continued influence on the Thai BL genre and industry since 2022, particularly by way of Dead Friend Forever.

Before I get fully into point 3, I wanted to take a second to offer one more thought on an element about the KinnPorsche series itself that I didn't unwind on much yesterday, and one that'll connect with point 3 in a second. I mentioned yesterday that I personally (in my own opinion, I am accountable here) don't think that some of the VegasPete elements of the show helped the show's flow and continuity at all times. After my rewatch, I think the show could have stood for more episode editing to better its flow. I very much know how beloved VegasPete are in much of the KP fandom (thanks so much to dear friend @wen-kexing-apologist for the conversations about this during my rewatch!), so I don't want to pooh-pooh very hard, because at the same time, I think Bible as an actor was valuable to the show regarding Vegas's interactions with Porsche -- that side storyline offered intrigue and depth particularly into Porsche's mindset at the end of the series. At the same time, I think the VegasPete scenes contained enough questionable takes on trauma and attraction that I think now contribute to the show's legend and status as a uniquely heaty drama, but (in my opinion, people, I own this!), I think some of those takes could have been removed, smoothed, or tamped down for editing's sake, vis à vis those questionable takes in particular.

Taking VegasPete's trauma-and-kink-driven storyline, and KinnPorsche's romps and unravellings, into consideration, along with the show's excellent use of comedy as a plot driver: I think that KinnPorsche has clearly had an impact on how subsequent "heat" BL dramas have been created and marketed since KP's run. I'm thinking in particularly of some big ones (heh heh), including 2023's Only Friends, and 2023-24's Playboyy (which I did not finish, FYI).

Heat -- and the increasing use and management of it -- has long been an important element of the Thai BL industry. Like I said yesterday, MaxTul (my beloved) were pioneers of it in Together With Me and Manner of Death, and MAME consecrated episodic heat in 2019's TharnType, and even introduced enough of it notably in 2018's Love By Chance by way of those awesome spicy AePete scenes. And the WONDERFUL Lovely Writer offered meta commentary about the dependence that the Thai BL/Series Y industry has on heat in order to drive in fans, oftentimes to the detriment of more interesting and/or fulfilling and/or emotionally complicated plots.

KinnPorsche's lengthy marketing, from its Filmania days in 2020 and 2021, to its eventual 2022 premiere through Be On Cloud, certainly helped to drive interest and intrigue in the show, from the debut pairing of MileApo, to the clear use of heat that the show was promising before its airing. (Red Peafowl could never.)

Looking at the moment we are in right now -- early spring of 2024, with the ability to look back on the conclusions of both Only Friends and Playboyy -- I see the influence that KinnPorsche had on these shows being HUGELY marketed as cutting-edge-entrées to a high-heat and high-interest slice of Thai BL, particularly for Only Friends, which was GMMTV's own first step into really high-heat territory.

Both of the shows ended in meh territory (and both shows were written by the same writer in Den Panuwat, who may very well have a monogamy kink). Both shows ended up putting pure monogamy on a pedestal, and seemed to judge extra-monogamous sex as a "mistake" that was worth rectifying through "true," i.e., monogamous, love.

I posit, and I'm glad, that KinnPorsche did NOT go this route. Extracurricular sex wasn't even in the show's genes anyway, but -- the heat that KP marketed at the time of its premiere was solely associated with the centralized romances of the two main pairings. KinnPorsche didn't have to get extra-monogamously messy in its bones (huh huh) in order to be hot -- and it makes me curious to wonder why shows like Only Friends and Playboyy felt the need to promote relational messiness as a way to hype up their heat, all of which kinda putzed out in the end run of both of those shows.

Of course, we've still had heat in many other shows since KP's premiere, including in directions that roundly surprised the larger fandom, such as Pit Babe's take on omegaverse, and maybe even the vets Earth and Mix getting hot and heavy in Moonlight Chicken, a direction that Aof Noppharnach has been known to not take for the sake of keeping the ratings on his shows kid-friendly. But I do find it interesting that the heavy promotion of Only Friends and Playboyy led the fandom to think that these shows were going to have progressive takes on sex and sexuality, when they ultimately did not (I'd even argue that both of these shows ended up being judgemental of sexual experimentation). And while I don't think KinnPorsche's takes on heat were necessarily progressive, I do think the marketing of their actors getting into that, particularly as compared to Apo's previous career path in leaving acting for a while, was notable -- and as well, the care that the show took to depict heat scenes with excellent cinematography makes many of those scenes so memorable today.

I want to make one final note about KinnPorsche's and Be On Cloud's general influence on the Thai BL industry, in that I'm impressed by their investment in generally good-to-great writing and directing. As I overviewed yesterday, KinnPorsche heavily featured veterans from across the BL landscape, and Be On Cloud's latest serial offering, Dead Friend Forever, continued that trajectory, having an OG BL director in Ma-Deaw Chookiat partly take the helm of that show. Very importantly, Ma-Deaw Chookiat has been the screenwriter and director of a number of seminal Thai queer films and shows, including 2019's Dew, and more impactfully, 2007's The Love of Siam, which is considered a harbinger of the television Thai BL industry, and a film that has notably influenced important Thai BL creators, especially New Siwaj, who doesn't hesitate to include references to LoS in many of his shows, including Until We Meet Again, My Only 12%, and more. Chookiat has also screenwritten and/or directed three shows written by the notable Thai Y novelist, Sammon, in DFF, Manner of Death, and Triage. Sammon has been on a tear recently, as she will be the screenwriter for BOC's upcoming drama, 4 Minutes, as well as Spare Me Your Mercy, the hugely anticipated BL drama starring Tor Thanapob and singer Jaylerr.

Going back to my thoughts earlier about big marketing of big BLs: we've seen some duds recently from shows that were marketed at a big tip, from OF, to Playboyy, to Idol Factory's The Sign. From what I've gathered from the Tumblr tag regarding The Sign -- it seems that show suffered mostly from a lack of editorial context and plot sensibility and tightness, and that there could have been a good show, if the show had spent less money on CGI, and more money on the script.

Be On Cloud seems to mostly be putting its money where its pen is. I say "mostly" as a caveat. Was the ending of DFF fantastic? No, and I totally admit as much: while the show mostly stuck to its slasher genre conventions (thank you so much to @lurkingshan, my genre guru, for explaining this to me), the show seemed to poop out in the end by giving us a PheeJin BL ship, instead of Phee's and Jin's gruesome deaths. Womp womp. The pull of BL, and the need for clean-ish endings for the fujoshi crowd, may still be too economically enticing for studios, including Be On Cloud itself.

But I'm optimistic for BOC's upcoming shows, with the talent and money they're putting into scripts and directing. And we know that BOC's first film, the non-queer Man Suang, was an important artistic point for the studio as it continues its investment in MileApo and experimental content to market within and outside of Thailand. It was important enough that Dead Friend Forever, emanating from the Thai BL world, took on an entirely different genre instead, and literally presented that back to BL fans on a silver platter. I hope 4 Minutes can tread similar experimental territory. And I'm glad to see Be On Cloud being able to invest in high-quality writing and directing after the publicly major obstacles the studio experienced last year during the Build Jakapan scandal.

From the time I discovered Thai BLs in 2022, to now: I would not have expected KinnPorsche and Be On Cloud to start such a journey in my personal drama fan life. As well, considering how many damn shows I've now watched from Thailand, I also didn't expect this rewatch of KinnPorsche to be so much fun. AND, I truly didn't realize I had this much to say about it -- but there was a lot of say, especially by way of how referential the original KinnPorsche series was, which touched my little nerdy BL heart.

With that, I say ta-ta to my entrée to this fun world of Thai BLs, and move on to the next one!

[OKAY! We are kind of back of the grind, although my ability to watch dramas has really been hampered by real life obligations and schedules. BUT: I'm trucking along through War of Y, and I have some fun rewatches coming up in The Eclipse (my first-ever GMMTV BL), as well as two new-to-me dramas in GAP (the first GL on the list, WOO!) and My School President, which I can't wait for.

I've made a few tiddly adjustments to the list below, including adding Dead Friend Forever as an important addition, and I'm deep in my giggles with 23.5, which I am LOVING. ONWARDS! For more details about the ongoing list, please checkity-check here!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 here)

...interrupting the OGMMTVC list here to watch War of Y (2022) (watching) in chronology to decide if it gets listed...

37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 38) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine “Genre BLs” and Internalized/Externalized Homophobia in GMMTV Shows  39) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 40) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 41) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 42) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 43 La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 44) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 45) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 46) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 47) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 48) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 49) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 50) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 51) 23.5 (2024)]

[nomoviesarebad]

Perched atop my van beneath the twinkling stars of the Raleigh Road Drive-In, I fell into Sinners like I was prepared to live there. Cinema does that. It casts its spell not just on the screen, but across your memory—rekindling fragments of other pictures like stories from a past life. And while Sinners takes place long before the advent of the drive-in, there was something soul-enriching about watching it at such a cinematically vintage venue. If not a movie palace, then a parking lot cathedral.

With its dusty palette, timeless setting, and mythic tone, I felt like I’d entered a cinematic universe I already knew. It reminded me of the way Life (1999) pairs tragedy with resilience, how O Brother, Where Art Thou? filters the South through music and myth. Stories that stretch backward through time while remaining rooted in the now. Stories where rhythm is memory, and memory is survival.

This is a film woven from many threads—vampires, music, history, religion. And like a snake coiled around a branch, those threads constrict the story with tension, but never suffocate it. Every character has a place. Every voice carries. Every location hums with reason.

At a glance, it plays like a Peelian horror—a genre piece that reflects the Black American experience through the lens of monstrosity and myth. But when I looked deeper, I saw something else: a love letter to music, and a pointed reflection on the predatory nature of the industry that profits from it.

The entertainment industry promises you everlasting life. But what it really wants is your soul.

This isn’t just a story about horror—it’s about how the machine takes and takes until there’s nothing left but the echo of your voice. Ryan Coogler doesn’t just feature music in his picture—he reveres it. From bluegrass to gospel, country to blues, Sinners honors the full spectrum of Southern sound. A sound that is rooted in two centric elements: soul and story.

Two things that this film is riddled with.

Sadly, this picture reminds us that talent is a dinner bell. Like the vampire drawn to the sound of Sammie’s song, he is driven with hunger and destruction. Like a disease-ridden mosquito sensing blood through skin, the industry pierces your defenses and feeds on what’s pure, leaving you with nothing but infection and death.

The Irish vampire says it best while our protagonist is reciting the Lord’s Prayer, “…the men who colonized my people said this same thing to us.”

Like truth through teeth, it reminds you that colonization wasn’t reserved for one skin tone. And it wasn’t just physical—it was spiritual, cultural, and deathly melodic. We are reminded that the thieves still prosper today as the upperclass pillages folk culture and redistributes our pain as their product.

These points are made abundantly clear in one of the film’s most striking moments: a musical number that moves like a ghost through generations of Black music, showing us the evolution of soul under oppression. It reminds you that you can steal from a culture, but you’ll never outrun its evolution.

Even the brief appearance of the Choctaw vampire hunters feels intentional. Fitting, really—considering Native American artist Link Wray created Rumble, the foundational riff that birthed rock and roll, only to have the genre commandeered by American-born Europeans decades later. A point that is further drilled in as the score slowly begins to take on a rock and groove metal undertone towards the final act.

Not all is grim. Something worth noting is like the vampires in this picture, true music will last forever. And while history often favors the thief—the chart-topper, the mansion-dweller, the well-dressed archivist—one thing is certain:

You can’t take the soul out of the music, when the music is the soul of the people.

[glasshalftrue]

as both an artist and a programmer (though not one working in machine learning so i won't claim anything close to expertise), the anti-ai takes i see from artists are really frustrating to me. the two most common criticisms i see about it are that it's 1. stealing 2. not art regarding the first point, it's clear that most artists don't understand the general technology behind it at all. they constantly claim that it does stuff like just collage different parts of images together, when that's very much not what it's doing! the process that neural nets use is incredibly complex and it's much more about pattern matching than storing and replicating exact sets of pixels. i definitely don't like it when ai artists specifically target an artist who voices their discomfort with having their art being used that way, if only because it's simply mean and rude, but unfortunately, i can't say that i'd consider it plagiarism. and for the people who want stronger copyright laws to protect artists' rights: believe me, it will not at all be helpful to "the little guy" like you think it will. regarding the second point, it seems like there's a couple things going on. one part of the critique seems to come from the quality of the art itself, which is an obviously losing battle. remember a year ago, when people were making fun of how bad ai was at generating hands? they seem to have pretty much solved that now, and whatever little nitpick you might be able to point out next, it's almost certain they'll eventually figure out that one too. i see a lot of tips floating around about how to tell if a piece of art is ai-generated, and while the tips usually do work well, the fact that the people need to use these increasingly specialized perceptive skills makes it pretty clear that it's becoming more and more indistinguishable. i've seen plenty of cases at this point of real artists having their work being accused of being ai-generated, which to me seems like the logical conclusion of people's assumptions that they can always tell when something is real or not, and i think it's only going to get worse and worse. the other part of the critique is about the artist's intent, an appeal to some illusory idea of "the soul", which seem like transparently bad arguments to me, and are clearly motivated from an emotional-driven place. because it seems so obvious to me that prompters do, in fact, have an intent when they're generating ai art, some sort of vision of what they want to create. it doesn't matter that their idea is vaguely defined rather than fully-formed in their head; plenty of existing art forms involve a creation process that is similarly stochastic, from Jackson Pollock-style drip paintings to experimental generative digital music. hell, even when i draw i often don't know exactly what i want to the end product to look like and figure it out as i go along! now, the incredibly low-barrier to entry and the general motivations and sensibilities of a lot of typical ai art enthusiasts mean that, in practice, a lot of (maybe most) ai art is indeed dumb garbage. but just like how the reality that most mainstream superhero movies these days are boring and soulless doesn't mean that the superhero genre is inherently without merit, the existence of bad ai art isn't good evidence of the medium itself being creatively bankrupt.

ultimately, i do agree and sympathize with a lot of artists' concerns and criticisms about ai art and what its possible effects on the world will be. like i said, in practice a lot of ai art really is soulless trash, but the ease of creation means that i can very easily see a world where most of the art we see today in our everyday lives is replaced with bland, insipid ai generated shit that is just good enough for the general public, and i really don't want to live in that world. and for that same reason, it'll also likely have a very bad impact on the art industry and people's abilities to do art as a career, and while the disruption of industries due to technological innovation is a tale as old as time, the potentially rapid pace of this disruption will certainly lead to a lot of suffering along the way. i just wish that artists had a better idea of what they're actually fighting against.

[brainjuicey]

guys I'm going to speculate about personal wealth as the only viable option to achieve a quality of life in modern ireland because of a systemic failure of the gov.

the cultural and social climate in Ireland is incredibly isolated and mainly survives on the community driven status quo, and part of that means talking to anyone on the street about anything. its taboo to hold a prejudice against men (you'll find no sympathy or self awareness in the good hearty country people for the actions of others because they're so convinced of their own Catholic virtue) I like that their belief and strength comes from a place of goodness but at the same time 😀 as a young person there's no space for change (I want to posit the growing perceived idea that most change in Ireland is bad, in the last 40 years the country has changed dramatically in every way)

as governmental policy, regulations and aspirations were influenced by western advancement, the approach to urban planning and management has gotten bloated and useless. rapidly, life in Ireland changed, often reflecting the cultural urban centres of the UK. the ideology behind that choice is found in every corner of the irish design industry "new is good, old is bad," and the only use for old world customs and traditions is tourism. Ireland is fundamentally about living a simple life and while those wealthy enough to access the resources can do that (education, comfort, fine commodities), everyone in between rural country life and "high society" (the majority of the population) has been left in limbo. for young people it can seem like the only choice is to become a wealthy Dubliner, go abroad, or stay home and work in a shop or pub. there's no shame in any of these. again, people have been trying for decades to create alternative routes that ultimately submit to the same rules and guidelines. any chance at true enjoyment of social security and standing must be enjoyed alone. the gov plays no part in the organisation or support of communities. people are disillusioned with police for inactivity and unfairness. the gov is like an absentee parental figure, building massive housing estates with no engagement or organisation of most often- large groups of vulnerable people with children who grow up idle and angry. housing for upper class people are no different, devoid of organised thought and a poor mimicry of the enjoyment of Irish homes- the peace of isolation. instead they are hostile.

i think the anti-social sentiment of citizens disillusioned with Irish life (quite a lot of people) comes from a disappointment and anger towards a longstanding neglect of responsibilities of the Irish government. anyone should be able to contact their representative and do what they want, be it fireworks or a driveway or a solarfarm or a playground or parking spaces or turning an empty building into something new.

I reject the free markets ability to come into a decrepit area that people suffer for, homes uninhabitable in the town centre, footpaths unusable and unsafe, and take advantage of the market to create a luxury-amenities business.

while being bi-partisan to any prejudice or resentment is a prize quality in old Irish culture, modern Ireland is riddled with resentment. an economically diverse society openly mirroring a hierarchy is a relic of medieval times— a historical period still present in the Irish cultural mindset. in this way, the urge to be all the same is a negative hindrance on improving quality of life. the answer isn't personal wealth, or thinking you've found the solution (a cushy lifestyle that you've carved out for yourself, half in half out of society when it suits you). progress has to be momentous enough to encompass everyone in the community, a socio-cultural-economic boom of energy that inspires people enough to embrace their traditions actively and not abandon them as a sacrifice to achieving a "better" life.

[bonediggercharleston]

Misrepresenting my point, I said cheating was easier than ever and more common, not that it was rare before AI . The easier you make something, the more common it becomes because difficulty is a barrier. In the case of getting others to do work for you, it requires material or social capital, which many won't have or know how to employ because they would have to admit academic inability to someone else. AI is how ever commonly advertised as a program that can do your work for you by its creators and has a lot of hype going around it, so it is easy to use and well-known. The computer follows your orders discretely and unquestioningly. It is a question of degree, not of existence.

2. True, I criticized your example but the example was obviously the center point of your argument and I used it to show why it is a flawed tool (following prompts creates blind spots, asking direct questions leads you to only using direct approaches which limits out of the box thinking, other tools produce equally good results without the externalities of AI). How many of those sources in the prompts were real? LLMs hallucinate sources all the time.

3. Scholar isn't really capable of being "infallible" or "fallible" as it is just giving you academic resources with the fitting keywords you entered, it is your job to suss out whether they are suitable for your research, which you say you do with the GPT results as well, so no difference to you. Offering other search terms is really helpful to explore other avenues, but that is done via regular algorithm not an overly expensive AI, and additionally you can quickly change the search terms tailored to your preferences. To get rid of answers you realize are not at all in the field you are looking for, you can add more specific key words and even exclude terms like programming by typing -programming in your example. No need to run high power consumption calculation centers for that little trick that google had for almost 25 years.

And yeah, some papers having similar names, but again, you can change keywords, and also, they are talking about the similar topic. That does not mean the content is the same. They will also contain sources which can lead you to more material. You assume they will all be the same, let's have a look at page 14

Looks like specific examinations on labor availability in specific regions, the effects on minor powers and case files of companies at the time. Seems like interesting results for a deep dive, but not the stuff you would want on the front page, which would have the larger overviews on the topic. So we can't say that google scholar does not give us diverse sources even within a single search, quite the opposite in fact.

You frankly do not know which technology will be the one to achieve a breakthrough, and pointing out previous breakthroughs is just extrapolating from hindsight. For every success there are many, many failures: Steam-powered cars and electric cars are over a hundred years old and they failed when they first appeared, so did wireless electricity, radium toothpaste, monorails, flying cars and blockchain technology.

Smartphones did not receive this backlash, they were recognized as really cool thing. Apple was the new cool because of the iPod after floundering in the 90s and the iPhone hit at the right time. It expanded our abilities as we were able to have a supercomputer and communication device in our pocket. Just because some people poo-poo'ed it then does not mean the criticism of AI atrophying mental capabilities nowadays is wrong. The brain needs to be used to stay sharp but GPTs , much like social media, actually counteract that.

Here is a real-life industry example: code-bases have gotten worse.

People have predicted this.

Experienced programmers have experienced this.

An LLM does not give you the ability to do something you couldn't do without google except write large amounts of text in very short time. So you lose the ability to write and plan essays, i.e. structure arguments. Say you had a structure in mind and told the AI to use it: It does wording for you, a thing that will also not improve because you don't practice it. Instead of your voice it will be the average voice of every single human on the planet. OPs argument is that she became a better thinker by challenging herself and that GPTs externalize thinking, so humans lose their ability to mentally grow. LLMs seem like a useful tool at first but I have not seen a single profitable use case, and the people who put a lot of money into it expect to see some money back in the end. How much will you pay chatGPT to give you ideas for essays instead of just looking on google or DDG? If you never practice brainstorming, you will become dependent on a computer to think for you. If you don't memorize many little facts, you will never make those connections out of the blue. Don't outsource the thinking out of your brain, even for brainstorming, research and structuring.

"what did students do before chatgpt?" well one time i forgot i had a history essay due at my 10am class the morning of so over the course of my 30 minute bus ride to school i awkwardly used by backpack as a desk, sped wrote the essay, and got an A on it.

six months later i re-read the essay prior to the final exam, went 'ohhhh yeah i remember this', got a question on that topic, and aced it.

point being that actually doing the work is how you learn the material and internalize it. ChatGPT can give you a short cut but it won't build you the the muscles.

[formingmachine]

Moisture: The Silent Roof-Killer

Out of every surface on your building, your roof is the one that spends the most time exposed to rain and wind-driven moisture. There is absolutely no way to prevent water infiltration entirely, but there are ways to prevent most of it – and unless you try, your roof and its contents will quickly be eaten by rot and hazardous mold.

What Happens When You Don’t Control Moisture?

Failure to control moisture will result in mold growth, which will have negative side effects for your building and for your building tenants.

Your tenants may develop asthma, or the symptoms of asthma: wheezing, shortness of breath, and coughing. Shortly thereafter, you will develop the symptom of not having any tenants – no one wants to live or work in a building that makes them ill.

In addition, your building will develop symptoms. Moisture rots wood, so over time it will swell, bend, and crumble. It will slowly break concrete and brick, especially in climates that experience winter. It will rust metal, get into wiring, and cause electrical failures and worse. Insects will sense the building as a source of moisture and call it their home. Lastly, the moisture will begin to dissolve paint, destroying the aesthetics of your building alongside its structural integrity.

Want to know the worst thing? It may already be too late to prevent your building from experiencing these effects.

Most Leak-Prevention Efforts Fail

Here are some facts that building owners are certain to find depressing:

40% of buildings suffer problems with water intrusion – mostly via the roof 70% of construction lawsuits revolve around leakage As a result of leakage, most roofs only last 50% of their designed lifespan Much of the time, the culprit is your architect. Many times, architects will not clearly specify how a roof’s edge is supposed to terminate. They pass the buck along to the contractor, who passes the buck to the roofing contractor. At the end of the day and if nothing changes, your roof’s edge will terminate in a thick layer of caulking and sealant – materials which are not supposed to last 20 years.

Here’s the good news – now that you know where the problem starts, you can begin to avoid it. Choosing the right architect will solve a lot of your problems, but there are other prevention steps you can take. These may include:

Specifying Vapor Barriers A vapor barrier is a thin layer of polymer material that adheres to the roof deck and repels moisture that seeps through the roofing substrate. A good product should seal around holes created by fasteners. Eliminating Construction Moisture If your building is made primarily of concrete, you’ll find that the material sheds a great deal of moisture as it cures. If the building is completed before the concrete dries, that moisture is effectively sealed in. Consider installing an industrial dehumidifier on a temporary basis during construction in order to eliminate moisture from curing concrete. Balance Insulation and Venting In general, the cavity under your roof needs to be roughly the same temperature as the air above your roof. This prevents condensation from settling on or under the roof and infiltrating. Depending on your weather conditions, this means balancing your roof, insulation, and venting (if applicable), so that you can keep your roof’s temperature stable and maintain the comfort of your occupants at the same time. The last component of moisture prevention is regular inspection. Even a well-built roof that uses the right materials may still suffer moisture damage over time – which means you need to have someone get on the roof and physically check to see if there’s pooling or other signs of damage.

Inspect Your Roof Safely with PHP Systems Design

Sending people to inspect your roof isn’t a cut-and-dried process. It must be performed safely, with an eye towards trip hazards and other dangers. PHP Systems Design is here to help. Our roof access walkways are easy to integrate into roofing structures, require no fasteners (which can invite moisture infiltration) and carry workers safely over a roof’s many hazards. manufacture of steel framing system Corrugated Sheet Roll Forming Machine purlin making machines

[naxum]

Finish What You Start: The Power of Intentional Action in Direct Selling

In direct selling, it’s easy to believe that momentum is everything. New goals, new people, new ranks—the excitement of starting something new gives a quick burst of energy. But what really sets top leaders apart isn’t how they begin, it’s how they finish.

Many people step into this industry with a strong “why,” only to lose steam along the way. They get distracted, overwhelmed, or stuck in the noise. What’s missing isn’t strategy, it’s intentionality. The habit of showing up with purpose, every single day.

Start Less. Finish More.

Let’s be real: most of us have a list of unfinished tasks. Follow-ups. Training videos. Projects we meant to complete. But every unfinished task takes up mental space. It clouds focus and creates friction, not just in our work, but in our mindset. Intentional leaders treat small tasks like big ones. They finish what they start not because it’s easy, but because it builds trust, self-discipline, and momentum. How you handle small things is often how you’ll handle big ones.

Rejection Isn’t About You

Fear of rejection stops a lot of people in direct selling. But here’s the truth: it’s not personal. You might hear ten no’s before you get one yes but that one yes can change everything.

Intentional sellers focus on consistency over approval. When your goal is to serve, not chase validation, rejection loses its sting. The win isn’t just in the yes, it’s in showing up with purpose, day after day.

Duplication Without Growth Falls Short

We often talk about duplication in direct selling and getting others to follow the system. But duplication only works when it’s rooted in personal growth. You can’t expect long-term success from people who haven’t transformed their mindset.

That’s why intention matters. Ask yourself: why am I doing this? Who am I becoming in the process? When your actions come from clear intention, you’re not just duplicating. You’re developing real leaders.

You Don’t Always Win But You Always Learn

If you’re feeling stuck or discouraged, remember: “Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you learn.”

Hard seasons don’t mean failure. They reveal where you need to grow. Intentional living isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being present, being clear, and showing up even on the days you don’t feel like it.Check out the full DSEF session with Evelyn Monroig, the founder of Florece con V.A.L.O.R, as she reminds us of a principle that’s often overlooked but always essential: finish what you start.

Visit naxumtour.com to see how we help purpose-driven teams thrive.

Check real feedback from users on Software Advice.

Explore what’s next in our 2025 Viral Trends Report.

[just-jae]

Animosity between AI users and Human Artists and Elitist culture in the art community.

Is anyone else noticing that there seems to not just be AI artists springing up, but that many of them feel a need to actively attack those who create without it. Some equate this to the beef between digital and traditional artists when digital tools became available, but to my knowledge that was mostly one-sided beef (traditionalists hating on digitals) and was pretty tame.

With the rise of Generative AI users, there's not just beef but active malice toward non-AI users.

At first I was thinking it was largely driven by non-AI users speaking against it, (I will admit in some cases it's just unwarrented harassment that even catches human artists in the crossfire) but I'm seeing the conversation around AI being largely driven by artistic elitism.

For those who don't know, artistic elitism is a mindset that places value on art based on its competitiveness, treating it like a sport. Usually, this competitive gage is solely on how aesthetically pleasing it is and is very unaccepting of any flaws perceived. Many elitists not only gage whether an artist should practice art by how "good" they are, but also consider popularity to be the whole point of its existence. That "bad" art doesn't deserve attention, and that it would be offensive or unjust for "good" art or "better" art to not get attention.

Artistic elitism isn't exclusive to AI artists, but when it comes to how they attack others and defend themselves, it's almost exclusively through elitism.

It'll be in the form of claiming artists shouldn't make art because their work is "bad", "fixing" non-AI art with AI, and trashing non-AI art for having any flaws at all. Not only that but, the assement of flaws in a given artwork is rarely articulated, they just insult it. AI artists also seem very unfamiliar with the diversity of artistic forms out there and make bold claims, such as that it will replace human artists entirely.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but digital arists were not doing this to traditionalists. And to this day, traditional art is still respected, practiced and still has industrial practicality. In fact, as a genre it's even more resilient specifically because Traditional artists make art that exists in real space and can be interacted with, Traditional art decorates homes, clothing, tools, public spaces; it's passed down through generations as family heirlooms and kept as reminders of loved ones, etc Often, traditional artists choose subjects that are relatable and familiar outside of the online/digital world-- meaning it's audience is broader and often overlaps with that of digital art.

Even when it comes to how human artists try to defend rejection of AI, the most common argument is an elitist one, that AI is incompetent at producing images and therefore is a bad medium. So when an AI work turns out to be aesthetically pleasing, sensible and with very few errors. Not only does a lot of that opposition get quieter, but the remaining opposition falls on far less relevant basis like "I personally don't value the method you used" or "I'm going to judge your personal character and value by the method you made this with" even the claim that AI art is "Lazy", implies that art is valuable based on how hard it is to make, which is an elitist argument that defines art as a sport to show off an artist's capabilities.

I'm not surprised at all that there are people who treat art this way. Many artists pedestal themselves specifically because they're so highly praised by others for, what used to be, an uncommon talent, but elitism is not only fueling preference for AI (especially with that dogshit "Get good" mentality), it's handicapping conversations around why generative AI is harmful, and driving unwarranted harassment against human artists and AI users alike. Elitism isn't going to convince an employer open to the use of AI to hire a human artist.

Human artists can stick their noses in the air as better people all they want, but ya'll look real stupid acting like you're a better person for making art yourself when quite a few AI users are people who were bullied for not being good at it when they were making it themselves. A lot of AI users grew up being fed a narrative or impression that attention and praise is the purpose of art. That the work is only worth it if they get comments and hearts.

And that is a sentiment I found very prevalent among human artists long before AI entered the picture.

Generative AI has its problems, but can we stop acting so self righteous and morally pure just because we draw? There's no need to harass some random kid over a rat lady. Most of these AI users are very young, literally just got here and just don't know how these things work. All they're seeing is a bunch of strangers dragging them and being jerks instead of being educational and helpful. Like, idk getting better at teaching eachother?

The art community is nutoriously bad at helping eachother beyond compliments. Like, Art tutorials are infamous for being ineffective at helping people grow.

Like, I'm sorry but after seeing so many human artists try to drag PewdiePie just because he learned how to draw faster than most artists do, this Human/AI beef is making the more malicious and shallow nature of the art community as a whole more apparent.

For me art is about sharing wisdom, communicating, and self expression-- That's what differentiates a random image or even a random item, from a piece of art. A Banana taped to a wall can still be a piece of art when it's made as a critique of art consumption or as an expression of frustration with the romanticization and literal pedistalling of art, and how the public will see art as more or less valuable just by whether it's on a wall in a museum.

Popularity, and aesthetics are entertainment points. Whether someone "got it" or loved it doesn't dictate whether it's art. You might as well fight over whether Taco Bell is "real" mexican food-- when the point of taco bell isn't even to make "real" mexican food at all.

[srutibetterrwall]

Why Facebook Lead Quality is Low in the Real Estate Industry and How to Improve It?

Facebook has become an essential tool for real estate marketing in the digital age. It is the preferred platform for lead generation due to its large user base, accurate targeting capabilities, and affordable advertising possibilities. But poor lead quality is a persistent problem for real estate developers, brokers, and agencies. Conversion rates are frequently frustratingly low, even when campaigns produce hundreds or even thousands of leads. Leads that are uninterested, unresponsive, or financially unqualified are complaints from sales staff. What causes this to occur, then? More importantly, what can be done to rectify it? The Issue: Why Do Facebook Real Estate Leads Frequently Have Poor Quality? 1. Facebook Is Not Intent-Driven; It Is an Interruptive Platform Facebook users are not actively looking for a home, in contrast to Google Search, where users actively key in "buy property in Bangalore" or "2 BHK flats in Pune." They are not necessary there to make important financial decisions, but rather to browse, interact, and consume content. Their broadcast is being interrupted when a real estate advertisement appears. Their intent is typically poor, even if they click out of curiosity. Facebook advertisements target browsers who are not actively purchasing. 2. Filling out lead forms is too simple. Name, phone number, and email are automatically filled up in Facebook's native lead generation forms. A user can submit a form with just two taps, frequently without even thoroughly reading the advertisement. Many unintentional or impulsive submissions result from this low-friction configuration. Sales teams thus pursue prospects who are either vaguely inquisitive or do not remember ever filling out a form. Low commitment means low effort = low quality.

3. Irrelevant Leads Are Produced by Broad Targeting Facebook has extremely detailed targeting choices, yet many advertisers choose irrelevant interests that don't match their true customer persona or go too broad (e.g., "people interested in real estate"). For instance, a project in Pune that targets users in Mumbai without any filtering produces a subpar match. In a similar vein, users with limited incomes will have unrealistic expectations if they see advertisements for luxurious residences.

4. Inaccurate or Imprecise Communications Some advertisers employ clickbait-style messaging to get attention: • "Luxury 2 BHK in ₹30 Lakhs!" • "Book now at just ₹51,000!" • "Only 5 units left!" This creates erroneous expectations even if it might increase clicks. Users lose faith and leave when they discover that the location or price they saw doesn't match the real one. A user who is misinformed or confused will never convert.

5. No Strategy for Nurturing Leads Purchasing real estate requires more than one click. It's a very involved purchase that may require weeks or months of study, deliberation, and site inspections. However, a lot of real estate companies handle Facebook leads as though they are ready to be booked right now. Warm leads quickly turn cold if there is no strategy in place to nurture them over time (emails, WhatsApp updates, retargeting).

Solutions: How to Boost Real Estate Facebook Lead Quality After identifying the problems, let's look at how you can raise the caliber of your leads rather than just their quantity. 1. Make use of a unique landing page that includes qualifying questions. Send visitors to a specially designed landing page that gathers additional data in place of Facebook's built-in lead form. Inquire about things like: • What is your budget? • Favorite spot? • Purchasing for investment or personal use? • When is the purchase scheduled? This helps your sales staff prioritize high-intent prospects by weeding out non-serious questions. Yes, you will receive fewer leads, but they will be of a higher caliber.

2. Use Layers in Your Targeting With consideration Avoid targeting everyone in the same way. Combine the following:

• Demographics (age, income, and marital status) • Conduct (regular visitors, administrators of business pages) • Lookalike audiences (derived from previous converts)

• Custom audiences (your website visitors or CRM database) Target HNIs, those who go overseas frequently, or those who follow luxury lifestyle brands, for example, if you are selling luxury villas.

3. Establish Clear and Reasonable Ad Expectations Make your ad copy clear: Describe the starting price, the location, and the USPs (such as "5 minutes from Metro," "RERA-approved," and "Loan assistance available"). Transparency fosters trust from the very first interaction and aids in weeding out unqualified leads.

4. Make Use of Video and Virtual Tour material

Video material fosters emotional connection and authenticity. Includes: Property tours; Buyer testimonials; 3D virtual tours; and updates on development progress behind the scenes This lets prospects self-qualify and provides them a better idea of the project.

5. Quick Follow-Up—Within Five Minutes It's important to move quickly. According to studies, you have a nine-fold higher probability of converting a lead if you answer within five minutes. To rapidly alert your sales staff or send automatic responses, use CRM software like Zoho, Salesforce, or HubSpot and combine it with automation solutions like LeadsBridge or Zapier. The lead can be maintained with even a basic WhatsApp message that reads, "Thanks for your interest, we'll call you shortly."

6. Put lead scoring and nurturing campaigns into action. Not every lead is prepared for sale. To tag leads according to fit and engagement, use lead scoring models in your CRM. Create nurturing campaigns using: • Email drip campaigns (such as "Tips for First-Time Home Buyers")

• Retargeting advertisements with fresh offers

• WhatsApp or SMS updates This keeps your brand at the forefront of consumers' minds and encourages cold leads to return when they're ready.

7. Monitor the Proper Metrics Cost Per Lead (CPL) is the main emphasis of most efforts, however it doesn't give the whole picture. Rather, track: Optimize based on conversion quality rather than volume for the following metrics: cost per qualified lead, lead-to-appointment ratio, appointment-to-site visit ratio, and site visit-to-booking ratio.

Concluding Remarks: Lead Quality Is a Strategy Issue, Not a Platform Issue One of the most effective platforms for generating leads for real estate is still Facebook. However, the prevalent grievance of "low-quality leads" is a consequence of strategic errors rather than the platform's shortcomings. In order to improve outcomes, real estate marketers must:

Prioritize buyer intent and clear messaging; move from quantity to quality; and create reliable lead nurturing and follow-up mechanisms.

A high-performing lead campaign is frequently determined by how successfully you have qualified, engaged, and converted your audience, not by the quantity of leads you gathered.

Facebook can fill your project pipeline with sales-ready possibilities in addition to leads if you use the proper strategy.

[christopherjwright]

WELCOME TO MY SITE.

    WELCOME TO MY SITE

Hey there how is it going? I hope all is well. Thanks for taking the time to stop by to check out this information. I am excited and I hope that you are too. Christopher J Wright here! From Wichita, Kansas. Your professional business consultant, educator and coach. Welcome to my website christopherjwright.com where you can find everything related to business , health, wellness and lifestyle and much much more. This is a place that you can come for several of the following: Greetings to my site

Education 

Training

Motivation

Inspiration 

Empowerment 

Opportunity 

This website is your one stop shop when it comes to doing what makes the most logical sense. So that you don't waste your valuable time or hard earned money on the overwhelming amount of nonsense that you find online. Are you on the outside looking in? If you just so happened to be looking for ways to earn extra money or create a full time income. The best thing you can do for yourself before making any decision is to become thoroughly educated on what it is and what it means to create or generate revenue for yourself. 

I am going to provide you with unlimited, value driven education that is sound and will keep you from making the wrong decisions that lead to the two most biggest regrets. And those are:

The regret of lost time 

The regret of lost money

For those of you who happened to be new and inexperienced don't spend any money at all on anything until you understand everything. I am going to do my dead level best to provide you with all the education that you need in order to make strong informed decisions. Welcome to my website. 

If you have already started and are 90 days or less. And struggling to produce results before quitting or starting over allow yourself to become properly educated. Don't make any haste decisions unless its to cut cost! It is common for people to spend more than what they actually make and in a lot of cases they do so because they can. Just because you have the money doesn't mean that you should spend it. Especially when you are basing it off pure emotion. 

Success requires discipline when it comes to making the right decisions. This is not something that greedy dollar driven people are going to take the time to prepare you for. They know they can get away with a lot because it is the internet. 

  WELCOME TO MY WEBSPACE

Should you just so happen to have 91 days or longer. And are in the condition of struggling. It is definitely time to evaluate what may be wrong and why you're in that condition. Regardless of where you are new or struggling there is nothing to be discouraged about because nearly 100% of the industry is all in the same condition. The top one percent who are earning most of the money have no complaints and would love to keep it that way. Why? Because they are getting paid and their life is perfect. That is what they would like you to believe especially on social media. This is why taking the time to get to know people and make sure that they are who they say they are in every way possible. Don't fall for the so called social proof that people post online because 500% of it is fake stolen images that people get off google. If they are skilled then its more than likely photo shopped. There used to be a saying that said; " believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see" On the internet you can't believe anything you hear and see because people have made scamming people out of their money an art. 

There is a lot of ground to cover and I know that this can be extremely overwhelming. The last thing I want to do is hit you over the head with information overload. But I am going to start at the beginning of what you need to know first and what you need to know next. Until we get to where it is that you want to go. You can't trust people who only have a social media profile. You can't trust people who won't give you something that you can follow. And you certainly can't trust people who won't give you a safe distraction free and credible place to follow from. The only way to show you that I care about you and your success regardless how you go about it is to take my time and create the best quality content I can to give you the best information available. 

Success is a real thing. The online home business space is the best solution to the fierce economic turmoil that we face today. Unfortunately the internet is the most dangerous place when it comes to finding legitimate people who have real options of real substance. And that is why the human element is vitally important. Whether that is in person if you're local, or a video conference if you are not. At the very least a phone call is always in order. You want there to be some way you can at least listen to see if the person or people you're dealing with are sincere and genuine. 

WELCOME TO MY WEBSITE

I would to meet you in person! Would you like to meet me in person? If you live local to me we should certainly meet in person. If not we should certainly meet through the avenue of an online platform to give us as much of a face to face way of conducting a meet and greet. This will allow you the opportunity to get to know, like, and trust me as a credible person. And will allow me the opportunity to see where you are. On the other side of that coin I should be able to get to know you, like you and trust you as a credible person. Regardless of where we are both at in life. Successes, failures, knowledge, experiences or lack there of. I am not the type of person who fakes it until I make it. I believe if you learn a skill and you rely on that skill as an asset it will reward you. 

The truth is if we don't like each other nothing will ever go beyond that connection. Meeting me in person could potentially speed up the process to going from where you are now to ultimately get where it is that you want to go.  I want to give you an opportunity to speed up the process as much as possible. Don't look at this as a short cut. Because there are no short cuts, tips or tricks to accomplishing success. Especially when you do it right. 

One of the things I can guarantee you by you going through all of my educational content is that you will be mentally equipped to not fall for the nonsense that the majority tend to fall for. Not only will you learn what but you're going to learn why or why not. I am going to prove my care and concern for your success upfront and right away. At no cost. I don't do business in the inbox of any social media platform. Welcome to my website. 

To work with me whether directly or indirectly requires a live discussion in person or an online meeting. I want to give you the opportunity to schedule a meet and greet with me. CLICK HERE to schedule if that doesn't work CONTACT ME DIRECTLY. 

I want you to know that you are always encouraged and Welcome to my website. 

In addition to all of the things mentioned above. You will find that this website is also about the following:

Health 

Wellness

Lifestyle 

When it comes to health I have access to high quality products, recipes that promote nutritional eating habits, and practical physical activities promote circulations and blood flow. Our health is impacted by the way we live, move, eat and sleep. Not to mention the level of toxicity that we are exposed to that is way beyond our control. We all say a lot of the time that health is wealth and verbally we all place a priority on it more so than what we actually do about it. Whether business or personal in my opinion you should be involved in some way shape or form. 

When it comes to wellness I work to create an atmosphere or environment induced with motivation and inspiration to help with the discipline, determination and accountability it takes to hit those health goals. I know what it is like to struggle and be alone in anxiety and depression. And I know if I had what I am working to create I would be a lot further along than I am which is why I want to help in this area. 

Lifestyle matters what good is life if you don't have the health to enjoy it. Making the right choices and acquiring the right things and getting rewarded makes a lot of sense. The things we shop for and spend our money on (wasteful spending) has a strong impact on our health and well being. Unfortunately us Americans are spoiled. More often than not we don't look to far ahead. We often are so concerned and so consumed with the here and right now. And this can cause use to neglect things and put off what matters. Then when tragic strikes then we start considering doing the things we could have always done to prevent it.