#especially the other millennials it's like they forgot how we used to be treated!

[g-hua]

"Nobody wants to work anymore."

People are sending an average of over 100 job applications per day. They are often forced to send these many because companies are so disrespectful of the candidate's time and resources and will often not even bother to reply. Some people only get an answer 2 months after, and I've heard of cases where they only get an answer 5 months after. Lots of these answers end up being negative. Some interview rounds stretch over months or even a year, and if the company gets word that you are applying to other companies, you get dropped. Sometimes, after being rejected, they get contacted by the company as if they are a completely different person that never applied after the company finds them on LinkedIn. They are being asked for 3 to 10 years of experience for entry-level jobs that pay minimum wage (entry-level means no experience required). They are being told that they are hired and to show up on Monday to then arrive there on Monday and be told that they weren't hired and were actually proposed for an apprenticeship and needed to show up that Monday to take a timed test which will determine if they get the apprenticeship or not. They are being turned down from jobs because they failed an abstract AI made personality test that if the people that work at that company now took would also fail. When they ask for fair wages, they get fired and replaced by refugee workers who have no choice but to subject themselves to the atrocious proposals these companies make to them because they either do that or live on the street and starve instead of being cramped into a home with 19 other people. They are being discriminated against and refused even an interview for being LGBTQ+ or neurodivergent (here if you need to take medication during work most people will go to the bathroom so that no-one sees them and need to devise a plan to go at times where they can make it look like a habit instead of a timed occurrence). They are being asked uncomfortable personal questions that are illegal about their personal life because they are women, and no one enforces the law on these questions being illegal. They are struggling with getting any job at all because they were unable to finish their education due to circumstances beyond their control.

You don't get to tell people that they are lazy or don't want to work when you never had these struggles when you worked. You don't get to blame people for how atrocious and predatory companies are these days. You don't get to look at the job market today through the rosy tinted glasses that you saw it back when you could walk into an establishment with a 4th grade education and simply ask if they are hiring. If you dislike the generational divide, then stop acring like you are better than the generations that came after yours.

You definitely do not get to blame refugees for taking the atrociously predatory job offers that companies are making because they know they can get away with them. If your country was suddenly on the side of a losing war, would you stay there and die? Force your parents to stay there and die? Force your children to stay there and die? Stop calling them immigrants. If you choose to leave your own country to work in a country with better pay and benefits, you're an immigrant. If you feel forced to leave your country because staying could cost you your life and the life of your loved ones, you're a refugee. If you're still trying to push the "these immigrants are taking our damn jobs" rethoric that US racist republicans tried to push back in the early 2000s about Central and Southern Americans, you're an idiot. That doesn't make the idiots trying to push the new rethoric of "these immigrants are responsible for all the bad things happening to us" any less idiotic, it just makes you the outdated version of these idiots.

If you think that this is a problem exclusive to the West, look up bǎi làn (摆烂) a phenomenon currently occurring in Mainland China. Tǎng píng (躺平) has evolved into bǎi làn. People went from being so disillusioned that they stopped trying to not even trying at all because they feel like there's no point. If it keeps going like this, it will affect the global economy since the only reason the West can afford cheap manual labour is the atrocious treatment of its own citizens by China. Companies will just find someone else to explore, like they are already doing with refugees. Like they are already trying with all of us.

Stop blaming everyone except the ones who are truly responsible for the state of the world.

[paulisweeabootrash]

First Impression: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Get in your robots, audience, it's time for Paul is Weeaboo Trash!  And today, I'm finally watching a show it seems like everyone just... assumes I must've seen:

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)

Episodes watched: 8

Platform: Netflix

The idea of something being a "classic" may be in decline in the anime fandom, or at least be getting very specialized, since "anime" no longer implies a narrow interest in specific sci-fi and fantasy subgenres like it used to, but certain shows still manage to pervade the pop culture indirectly.  Neon Genesis Evangelion is one such show, enduring in the modern fandom and general internet culture because of its status as one of those old sci-fi anime classics.  It has contributed memes — not just as in image macros or running jokes, but as in units of culture in the form of iconic quotes or character designs or elements of the plot — to the point that you have certainly been in some way exposed to them without any knowledge of the source material.  But despite its reputation as a must-see cultural touchstone, it has been out of print in America for years.  Used copies of the DVDs sell for absurd prices, and I don't think I knew anyone who owned it when I was a young weeb in the mid-2000s.  I'm fairly sure my family did not have cable during the one specific season it was on Adult Swim, and there's no chance I would have been up at 12:30AM on Thursdays to watch it anyway.  I am not much of a fan of media piracy and wasn't even aware of that option when it was apparently everyone else's favorite pastime to ruin their computers with sketchy torrents.  So there was never a reasonable way for me to watch it, only for me to be dimly aware that this was An Important Show I Need To See.  Until now.  Because it's on Netflix.  As if I hadn't already been awaiting it, I was aggressively reminded of it, because social media and geeky news outlets were soon blowing up with retrospectives and Very Serious Analyses — and fans of the old ADV translation were offering hot takes on how Netflix's release compares.  So let me finally check this out for myself.

We start out in the distant future of... 2015, where UN forces are defending Tokyo-3 ("Old Tokyo" is mentioned and depicted later; no mention yet of Tokyo-2 unless I somehow already forgot it) against an attacking "angel", an immensely powerful alien with barely-comprehensible powers.  Meanwhile, an officer of a UN agency called NERV, Misato Katsuragi, brings our main character, 14-year-old Shinji Ikari, to an underground NERV base under Tokyo-3 on the instructions of Shinji's father Gendo, who runs a secret research project.  Shinji has been brought there to pilot an Evangelion, or Eva for short, a giant robot operated by some sort of neural interface.  In combat.  With no training.  He is, understandably, not happy about this.  After seeing how badly injured the other available pilot, Rei Ayanami, is, however, he agrees to do it — and it works far better than he or anyone else expected.  He apparently has an innately great ability to "sync" with however exactly the Eva's interface works.  But this only gets him as far as starting the thing up.  When he actually engages the angel, he has trouble just getting the Eva to walk, and he feels the pain of the Eva taking damage once attacked, a frankly horrifying feature of the interface.  We cut to him waking up in a hospital, but having surprisingly won because his Eva "went berserk", operating on its own.  A flashback later shows what happened when he lost control of the Eva: it fought the angel by itself, but also took heavy damage, and we see its visor? faceplate? sōmen? of the Eva's armor come off to reveal a fleshy-looking face and a very biological-looking eye.  At this point Shinji blacked out, which is really the only reasonable response to this situation.

Over the next several weeks (the time scale is vague, but since Rei apparently fully recovers from the injuries she had when we first saw her before the time she and Shinji are both deployed, it must be at least 3 weeks between eps. 1 and 5), more angels appear, to the surprise of civilians and UN forces alike.  The Evas continue to be excellent weapons against them (though Shinji himself is still, uh, not great at using them), but despite having now killed several angels, the Evas are considered a ridiculous boondoggle by personnel of other UN branches, and Gendo's sinister superiors seem to be losing patience with his project.  In the words of... uh... that UN navy guy in ep. 8, "Shit!  A bunch of kids are supposed to save the world?"  The alternatives are wildly ineffective conventional weapons and a remote-controlled nuclear-powered giant robot that almost had a literal Chernobyl-style meltdown, which was averted by Misato and Shinji.  Although repairs are expensive, injuries common, and pilots in short supply, Evas indeed seem to be the only effective weapon against the invading cosmic horror, the barely-comprehensible aliens that are impervious to ordinary human technology and also don't fit our concepts of life or... uh... possibly physics.  So, instead, in the words of Misato later in the same episode, "This plan may be insane, but I don't think it's impossible."

While this is going on, Shinji has been adjusting to this new life poorly and slowly.  Despite being a pilot, he is still after all a 14-year-old, so he is enrolled into the same class as Rei at a local school whose student body has dwindled as more people evacuate over the initial angel attack.  He also needs somewhere to live, so Misato arranges for him to move into her apartment.  Some of Shinji's classmates think he's incredibly lucky to live with her, and spend a good deal of their screen time drooling over her, but Shinji is highly uncomfortable around her not just because Captain Katsuragi is his commanding officer, but also because she has a tendency to not wear much clothing around the house and is, er, a bit of a drunk and a slob.  Oh, and she has an inexplicable, clawed, beer-drinking penguin.  You know, all stuff that would make a nervous, lonely, scared 14-year-old completely at home.

Neither NERV training nor school guarantee a community, though, and Shinji, isolated and confused, could sure use one right about now.  He seems quite likely traumatized from the first battle.  He keeps ending up in situations that make him wildly uncomfortable while other characters take them in stride.  He repeatedly attempts to quit NERV or at least defy orders before backing out (or... backing back in?) at the last moment.  It would frankly be bizarre that they accept him doing this, except that (1) nobody really seems to take Shinji that seriously anyway, (2) he's the boss's kid, and (3) most importantly, it seems that only a small number of pilots, all the same age as Shinji and Rei, are even capable of using Evas.  (Wife and I are starting to suspect reasons why this might be, especially given the whole cyborgs with neural interfaces thing, but... uh... let's not embarrass ourselves with public speculations about the plot of a ridiculously famous show almost as old as we are.)  He only slowly gains any support or comfort from his new classmates and colleagues.  They don't reach out to him, and he certainly doesn't reach out to them, because who is he supposed to talk to?  His roommate/commanding officer who is twice his age?  His classmates who treat him as a celebrity, not a person, once they find out he's an Eva pilot?  Even if his default state since the very first episode hadn't been basically imploding into despair with no idea how to communicate that anything's wrong, there's nobody that really makes sense for him to try to communicate it to.  Except one person: Rei.  He notices that she's also isolated at school, and especially after seeing her dark, miserable, unmaintained apartment, he attempts to be friendly towards her.  I thought this might be a hint of growth indicating that he understands she is possibly the only person more isolated than him and the only one who might be able to relate to him, but then the next time he threatens to quit NERV after that conversation, he explicitly claims she doesn't know what he's going though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ maybe he just has bad social skills.

Sigh.

Shinji does start to make friends with Aida and Suzuhara, two of his classmates, though.  And it's interesting because they contrast against him in their reactions to the conflict outside.  Aida roleplays being in the military and finds Shinji's role as an Eva pilot glorious and enviable.  Suzuhara is initially furious at Shinji because his sister was collateral damage — she was injured when Shinji fought the angel — and his mind is changed only after Shinji rescues him (and Aida) from an angel.  Shinji, though, having been thrust into a role he doesn't even understand and about which he is ambivalent and unstable, lacks Aida's optimistic admiration of his role and a full appreciation of either Suzuhara's resentment or gratitude.  He not only rejects their praise, he calls himself a coward during (sigh) one of his attempts to quit NERV.  It occurs to me that this could be seen as indicating different perspectives about the military (ask any American vet who's sick of being "thanked for their service"), or even different perspectives about adulthood itself — I'll bet any millennial who did not achieve their dreams can recognize Aida's "wow this is amazing I can't wait to be a grownup too" roleplaying vs. Shinji's "I am doomed and isolated by the responsibility that has been thrown at me" actual experience in NERV.

Also thanks to the school scenes, we start to learn some backstory, including the famous "Second Impact".  A catastrophic asteroid impact in 2000 melted Antarctica's glaciers, which led to unprecedentedly rapid sea level rise, leading to mass extinction, including that of half of humanity through not only direct climate change impacts like displaced populations and crop failures but also conflict stemming from it.  Or so the official story goes.  It is later revealed that the Second Impact actually involved somehow the previous arrival of angels on Earth, although this has yet to be explained in detail.  (Actually, I accidentally saw spoilers about more detail about this while revising this review, because I went to sanity-check myself about some other detail on one of the fan wikis, so I know part of where this is going, but only part.)

Over the first eight episodes, which must be several weeks at least after the start of the show given that Rei has recovered from her initial injuries (although the time scale is very vague), Shinji fights four angels total and gradually improves, but the biggest improvement comes not from him being an individual hero but from finally working well with others.  For example, the octahedral angel that drills into NERV's base has incredible abilities to detect and counter incoming attacks.  It kicks Shinji's ass on the first attempt, because duh.  But Misato devises a plan to test its abilities and concentrate the power of... uh... Japan's entire electrical grid(?!) at it from a safe distance, and the plan succeeds only because of Rei giving Shinji cover.  An angel attacks a UN ship convoy transporting the third pilot, Asuka Langley Soryu, and her Eva, and she and Shinji fight the angel together in a ludicrous fight that involves both cramming in to pilot the same Eva together (which, interestingly, requires them to give it the same, or maybe just compatible, instructions together in the same language for it to work... yay neural interfaces).  So maybe/hopefully the direction this is going is "the chosen one is a stupid idea and even talented people need both training and cooperation to not suck at things"?

Episode 8 leaves off with Asuka joining Shinji and Rei's school class, and with the dramatic and creepy reveal of an embryo encased in bakelite which is described by Gendo as "Adam, the first human"...  Well.  That comes off as the kind of thing that would drive the future plot, and hopefully all the Biblical imagery will finally start to converge into something coherent instead of just sort of serving to draw extra attention to the fact that the humans refer to the aliens as "angels".  I've been wondering about that since the beginning.  There's the title, of course, but also the sefirot in the opening and on Gendo's office ceiling, the first angel's attacks using what appears to be a directed energy weapon which invariably forms glowing crosses, and the fact that most of the angels themselves are wildly non-humanoid (a choice which echoes the rather... eldritch... classical depictions of angels — see also the seraph in the opening).  NERV's motto is even explicitly, well, monotheistic at least, if not sectarian: "God's in his heaven.  All's right with the world!", which is counterintuitive at best with the idea of calling the alien invaders "angels".

Well.  I'll find out, and I plan to write a followup like I did with Re:ZERO, going into the broad swaths of the rest of the plot and my overall impressions of how they handled things.  Especially given that this show has a famously-controversial ending.  I jumped into this determined to watch the whole series, so I'm not backing out.

I'll just threaten to quit repeatedly then almost immediately come back.

-----

W/A/S: 4 / 3 / I feel kinda bad about this but 4?

Weeb: I mean, anything with giant robots fighting giant monsters deserves a few points just for that, right?  I don't think this requires much by way of Japanese cultural references or assumptions to watch, though.

Ass: Nudity so far has been brief, partial, censored by convenient angles and object placement, and not remotely sexy.  Thanks to another contextless spoiler I happen to have picked up, I expect an infamous later scene that is clearly supposed to be sad and disturbing in context, which is, again, not the kind of thing this scale was originally designed to describe.

Shit (writing): Even though I tend to overall like their plots, I always sort of sigh and eyeroll at the "let's put children/teens in combat and/or experiment on and/or just plain torture them to force them to become powerful" storyline formula that’s been semi-popular for the last few decades, and Evangelion is definitely in that category.  Friends have said the story is confusing or poorly-paced, and I kind of agree but also think some of the confusion is warranted by the choice to enter the story in media res in order to reveal what's going on to the audience at about the same time it's revealed to Shinji.  As for the tendency to have some long shots where literally nothing happens, that does get annoying, and I suspect its primary motivation was to save money, but I think it also usually emphasizes how lonely the whole situation is, at least before Shinji starts to warm up to Misato and Rei to Shinji in the last couple of episodes I've watched so far (which have, appropriately, had much more action and interaction).  Mainly, my writing complaints are actually about translation, because there are some noticeable and consequential differences between translations for the sub and dub.  Yeah, yeah, I've heard of the love vs. like thing everyone on the internet is already upset about, but I haven't gotten to that episode yet.  I'm talking about things like Misato saying "it will work!" in the sub vs. just "okay!" in the dub when Shinji is first able to control his Eva, a choice which suggests very different things about both her level of knowledge of the project and why Shinji has been called on for it at all.  The new dub also feels... uh... too at home as a dub of a '90s anime, as it prioritizes matching lip flaps over flowing like believable speech.  Having not seen the old dub, of course, I can't make any kind of judgement about whether this is a step up, down, or sideways from how ADV did it.  And the sub has many on-screen captions in Japanese are left untranslated — not things like signs in the background, but actual captions the audience is meant to get information from.

Shit (other): Maybe we're spoiled in this age of computer-aided art, but i's surprising to see a show with such limited animation — speech conveyed only with lip flaps, obviously reused shots within the same episode, foreground objects gracelessly sliding against a background to indicate movement — and so I'm willing to give the show a pass on most of that, especially since the characters are distinctive and the setting and aliens and robots so interesting.  Much of the limited animation actually serves to show the vast scale of NERV's facilities and the Evas vs. the humans and/or to emphasize loneliness like the pacing.  But there really are some painful mistakes from time to time in the art: objects and faces that look utterly wrong, like the artists just did not successfully figure out how to draw that particular character or vehicle from that particular angle.  The legendary opening theme is certainly catchy — it’s been stuck in my head almost continuously for the past week — but I just don’t think I enjoy it as much as other people do.  Some of the immediate complaints that were apparently worthy of news media attention were about the replacement of Fly Me to the Moon with a piece from the show's soundtrack as the ending theme.  I understand why people would be upset by that kind of change, but I am willing to take the controversial stand that it's not a bad change.  The piece they chose as a replacement is haunting and tense, which fits in with the mood of most of the episodes so far, while Fly Me to the Moon feels to me like an inappropriate mood change from that.

Content: Actually among the least graphic of the various shows I've covered involving violent or horrifying elements.

-----

Stray observations:

- God it was weird to write this by constantly abbreviating “Evangelion” as “Eva”, considering that Wife's name is Eva.

- A lot of people seem to hate Shinji as a character, but I find him understandable in a way that probably implies uncomfortable things about my own sanity.  I just... I understand that sheer degree of doom and misery and indecision and inability to articulate any of those.  Man.  Ugh.

- I don't know if you've ever seen an undisguised angel, but trust me: they're horrifying.  (link NSFW)

[emeraldspiral]

So I saw Venom last night opening weekend but totally forgot about this draft until now.

As I expected, Venom is not good, but it’s not so much that there’s anything exceptionally bad about it. It’s just missing a certain je ne sais quoi that good movies have that make them really satisfying.

It’s more complicated than being, cliche”, “disjointed”, “tonally inconsistent”, or “confused”.

So I’m just gonna say things that I thought about off the top of my head.

There’s an extent to where I feel like it’s nitpicking to call a story cliche, because sometimes a story just demands a certain type of structure. Like, you have to establish what normal is before you can show how the plot device changes things for the main character, then you have to show them struggling to adapt to whatever changes occur because of the plot device, then start to get the hang of things, then have a big setback, then have a triumphant comeback. That I can deal with.

But then there’s stuff like how they handled the villain that just felt incredibly phoned-in.

Like, I think the first scene of him he’s giving this really idealistic speech to a bunch of kids and a girl wants to ask him a question and the other kids shush her for no apparent reason (maybe they just wanted the lecture to be over with because they were bored?) and the bad guy makes this very on the nose speech about how some people like to silence others and stop them from asking questions and I should note that the bad guy is played by Riz Ahmed and the little girl was black. So you think you just got your first hint of what his villainous motive is and you think there’s going to be some kind of political statement. Like he or his parents were speaking out against oppression or something and then they got “silenced” and now he has some radical crackpot theories about solving all the problems of humanity through like, eugenics or something really taboo and now feels like he’s being “silenced” again because everyone’s telling him he’s insane and no one’s ever gonna get on board with his plan. But no, it ends up having nothing to do with his motivation at all. It was just there so he could show his true nature as a hypocrite in the next scene when he “silences” Eddie, specifically for asking questions he didn’t like.

Riz’s actual motivation is just... I don’t even know man. Like, the reason he’s established as a villain from the beginning is that he preys on vulnerable communities to get test subjects who he just slaughters en mass in order to create pharmaceuticals to treat like cancer and stuff. So it’s like, he’s an idealist who wants to save the world, but at the same time he has like no regard for human life. Like, it’s never indicated that he’s in it for profit or power or prestige, so all we’re left with is “He’s simultaneously a bleeding heart and a heartless misanthropic murderer. But the thing that really makes his character seem phoned-in is how they don’t have an explanation for why he’s so reckless and cuts corners and tries to go way too far way too fast with the symbiotes. He’s not under any pressure to produce results, he’s not about to lose funding. He just wants immediate results because...? My best guess is that since Eddie starts the interview listing things he achieved at a ridiculously young age that maybe it’s some kind of commentary about millennials being impatient and wanting instant gratification when it comes to the changes they want to see in the world. Either that or maybe it’s something like the Jurassic Park scientists being so over-eager to do something with their scientific breakthroughs they don’t bother to stop and consider the consequences.

The rules for symbiotes are a little confusing. We’re told they need an “exact match” and we’re shown several times the symbiotes rejecting hosts. But then we also see Venom and Riot just jumping into whatever bodies they want and being fine.

Also, they establish that the symbiotes basically eat the hosts from the inside out even when they are a match, but also need their hosts to survive. Venom tells Eddie that he wouldn’t eat him because he's a strong host and he likes him, but then later we learn that he has been eating his organs after all. Venom denies it, so you think maybe they’re mistaken somehow when they tell him his heart as atrophied. But no, he really was eating Eddie and at the end that’s just resolved with Venom telling Eddie he needs to eat more food if he doesn’t want Venom snacking on his liver. Like, is his heart still atrophied? Can Venom help him rebuild it? Does he need Venom to live now?

One of the biggest issues I take with the movie is how casually it treats cannibalism. Like, it’s a PG-13 movie with cannibalism in it. That alone is kind of unbelievable. But on top of that like, it happens multiple times, and the people involved just barely react to it. No projectile vomiting and curling up into a fetal position or anything. They’re just like “Oh, Venom, in my body, bit that guy’s head off. That’s mildly distressing.”

The other biggest issue I have is that the symbiotes look like shit. Spider-Man 3′s symbiote looked way better. The new symbiotes look incredibly fake, not just because they’re CGI, but like just the concept of them. They don’t look or move like they have real physical properties like mass or texture. They look like they’re trying to go for a liquid or gelatinous look, but it comes out looking like something that would’ve been considered cutting edge 10 years ago in a pre-rendered video-game cutscene.

I liked that the girlfriend at the beginning wasn’t just there to be a part of Eddie’s happy perfect life that he loses and then we never see her again so there was no point getting us invested in her instead of whoever the actual female lead is. She actually comes back and is useful. I also liked that at the end of the movie she didn’t just dump her boyfriend who did nothing wrong to get back with Eddie. But then, they ruined it by having Venom say they were going to win her back.

Which reminds me; why even have the fake-out where we think Venom is dead? There was no explanation for how he survived. No, “Oh, I thought he was gone! But it turns out there was a piece of him left somewhere and he reconstituted himself” or anything. We just cut immediately from “Goodbye Eddie” to “Psych! You totally thought he was really dead didn’t you! JK! He’s still around”. Also, what in-universe reason does Eddie have to lie to his ex the same way the movie lied by making her think Venom is gone? Especially if he’s going to be biting people’s heads off in public as if that’s not going to get back to her?

I also felt like Venom’s relationship with Eddie was underdeveloped. Like, Venom just attaches himself to Eddie, forces him to eat until he pukes, then beats up a bunch of people and suddenly he’s like “I like you Eddie” and “Oh, look at this skyline, maybe I don’t want to destroy the earth after all”. Like, we just met Venom, we didn’t even spend any time establishing what he thought of earth or humanity or Eddie before. We didn’t even know he planned on destroying humanity until he said that he didn’t want to anymore because the skyline was pretty. The only explanation we get for why Venom likes Eddie is him saying that Eddie’s a loser and on his planet, Venom’s a loser too but on earth he’s a badass, and that’s why he wants to keep the other symbiotes from taking over the planet. My pet theory though is that the real reason Venom takes a shine to Eddie is because prior to attaching himself to Eddie, Venom was using a homeless woman who knew Eddie as a host, and because Eddie was nice to her, her positive feelings toward him were transferred to Venom.

The end credits were really cool looking and even though it’s not really my jam I thought it was kinda cool that they wrote an actual song about Venom, (sounded like Eminem, would not be surprised if it was). You know, we really don’t see a whole lot of movies with songs written just for them. Like, Will Smith used to do it back in the 90s but the only other movie I can think of in recent memory that has it’s own song written specifically for and about it, is that David Hasselhoff disco number from the end credits of GotG 2. Even musicals tend to write their songs to be generic enough that they can be divorced from the context of the movie so they can be played on the radio and you can just imagine that they’re talking about you and your non-specific relatable experience.

Also, in the end credits there was a piece that sounded so much like Invader Zim music I was almost convinced Kevin Manthei worked on the film, and it looks like he has done some work with the Spider-Man franchise, but I didn’t see Venom anywhere on his IMDB. So IDK, if it’s just a coincidence, or if the composer was ripping off/inspired by Manthei, or if the music actually was originally composed by Manthei, but was used on a TV series or game first and became iconic enough that they wanted to keep using it, kinda like how they keep using the 60s “Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can” song in every Spider-Man film, even though they also have their own original themes.

If you stick around all the way to the end of the end credits you will actually surprisingly not get trolled with a ten second scene of nothing happening like in a lot of Marvel movies. They actually played a lengthy, like five-ten minute clip from Into the Spider-Verse, which actually got me interested in Into the Spider-Verse. Although I feel like the demographic for that movie is not the same as the demographic for Venom. Venom was clearly an R that got neutered so it could be shown to a wider audience.

The film itself was pretty much entirely self-contained. There are exactly 0 references to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic universe. Nobody gets purged at the end like in Ant-Man and the Wasp, and there’s no reference to it having already happened. Nobody name-drops Tony Stark or any other Avenger, or SHIELD, or anything else in the MCU. The closest they ever get is having Eddie and his girlfriend have thick New York accents and reference having once lived there before Eddie was run out of town. I actually think they did that specifically to avoid having to acknowledge Spider-Man, the Avengers, Dr. Strange, or any other New York based hero or event in the MCU. Likewise, even though it’s set in San Francisco, there’s no references to Ant-Man either.

[mademoisellelsy]

“Youth Engagement for Global Action.”

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.” (Martin Luther King Jr,.) Alas! I couldn’t imagine our world without young people for we are the advanced mind of the old-age.

Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and other social media would be useless if we keep on using it for discriminating or judging other people. As the pandemic and home quarantine continues, most of the young people are spending their whole time surfing the internet and perhaps use it to lessen the boredom without realizing that we, as young people can actually help and voice out our concerns and actions that can contribute to the world.

Wake up young people! The world is slowly dying and needs urgent help. Surely you will ask how can we help the world? Let us just start in a simple way, by of course, follow simple rules and regulations of the community. Do not wait for someone who will ask you to help the world instead have an initiative to do it.

As a member of this generation, I can say that over the past months, Filipino youth have improved their ability and their thinking. They have been taking actions to overcome and face these challenging times by simply using social media to influence others to follow rules, show care and love to their families, keeping a positive spirit, others who are still in their millennial age and have enough money to help are doing their part as well by simply packing goods and giving it to the people in need.

I, myself, is also doing the same thing like I can help others by also validating news about COVID-19 and searching if the source is legit or not, for fake news is also spreading throughout social media. As I mentioned, we are the advanced mind of the old-age. Our proficiency in using technology is more advance than the older generations so we much act upon it. We have spread legit information especially these days for we are experiencing drastic disease.

Young people must attend or even watch an online discussion about how can we help the world during this pandemic. In other words, instead of laying down in bed and surfing the internet just for fun, let us try to activate our critical thinking and be a volunteer to help the most vulnerable.

And I almost forgot the question, what about those Filipino youth who do not have internet access? You can still help without this, just simply follow the rules and take good care of your loved ones. We can act and help the world without risking our life. In doing so, we are not just saving our family but also the front-liners who serve as our human-shield to protect us from the virus. We can heal as one and save the world if we are responsible enough to follow simple rules.

COVID-19 is not just the issue here, we’ve encounter a lot of issues this year. Discrimination against someone who has a different race is also the main issue that we had. George Floyd died because of racism, World War II is a war that was caused by racism and we do not want that to happen again especially for the future generations.

I believe that as a youth, we can prevent and stop this racism in different ways. First, we must educate ourselves about racism and we must have the knowledge about the consequences of it. We must respect and treat other people as equals and human beings who deserve to live freely. Lastly, everyone must be brave enough to use their voice to speak especially if they are not treated equally for we are all the child of God.

Let us be the young generation who can lead the way in preventing this disease and violence. Young people should respond and act to the challenges and help shape and save the future. As what Martin Luther King said, “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”

[liezlslearnings]

YOLO or Savings?

Personal Finance

We, millennials have the habit of YOLO (You Only Live Once) and most often we are applying it on our financial management. YOLO is the mindset where we enjoy life to the fullest as they say “you only live once” and that we should be happy without thinking of the consequences, this extends to influence our thinking when it comes to saving and spending. We tend to spend so much that we forgot the importance of having financial security and stability. We spend too much thinking what will make us happy, but this happiness is only temporary, and it the end this happiness will turn to frustration if we don’t have any money left.

Personal Struggle

I have difficulty in managing my finances, and this is a major dilemma for me, especially in terms of spending, I always ask my self YOLO or savings? I am the type of person who ask for other’s opinion whenever I want to buy or spend on something, however, their replies will just add to my dilemma. Some would reply, “go and spend your money, its your money anyway and you work hard for it”, other would say, “just save your money and invest”, another answer would be “spend it you deserve to treat yourself”, and another “save for your future”. Different type of person have different opinions, different person have different way of handling finances, so most of the time I am torn on how to manage my spendings. Who should I look up to? Which influence should I take? The YOLOs or the frugals. To be honest, I am more on the YOLO side, I spend excessively on things not important ,thinking that it makes me happy. But still, I wonder, is this the right mindset? I always think that salary will always come, however I didn’t notice that I am spending all my salary and too dependent on the fact that I have a stable source of income. Also, since I still don’t have the mindset to start a family or settle down, I find it hard to save, or I don’t have the motivation to save, considering that my money is only allotted for myself, my wants and needs.

Pandemic

When pandemic starts, I thought that I will be able to save because I am trap at home, however like work and school, my habit also switch to online or online shopping. Also, maybe because of boredom or projection for my anxiety for the stress when the pandemic starts that I resolve to online shopping without realizing how much and how many I bought, that my salary is not enough to pay for the purchases, after the series of online purchases, I realize how I compromise my savings to the things I don’t need and that I am too much of a YOLO spender. Since this is also the time of crisis, I should be more selfless and considerate of others situation and extend my help to those who are badly affected by the pandemic.

Realization

I realized that I am spending too much on things not important and as I am growing older, I need to mature and handle my expenses wisely. I need to start saving and investing. I need to think of my future, and future spendings, so now I will prioritize savings and make sure to budget my salary every payday.

New Mindset

In moderation – this is my new mantra for spending and savings. I want to balance my spendings in way that I am saving but at the same time, not too much savings that I am depriving myself of treats from time to time.

On moving forward

I will start to save and lessen my spendings on unnecessary things. I will manage my financial maturely and be mature on handling money. I will extend my help to those indeed. So to answer the question YOLO or Savings? My answer will now be SAVINGS!

[unisex-muffin]

Hey, this is fucking important.

Among other things I’m panicking over, net neutrality is one of them.

At first I thought, “Well, this shit happens every year and while I’ll send in a letter and sign the petition I’m confident that it’ll all turn out fine in the end.”

Later I began to consider, “This could actually happen this year, judging by everything else that has happened in the past two years, so maybe we should be paying more attention to this and it’ll, hopefully, work itself out.”

But now I’m worrying, “Judging by everything that has happened in the past two years, this is going to happen despite our best efforts and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

For those of you thinking that I’m being negative, let me break this down for you.

Through some unholy alignment in the cosmos, we managed to elect a reality tv star as our president.

Said president has no clue what he is doing, and even people who voted for him are regretting their decision. This man has no concept of the outside world, from what I am perceiving here, so will not be bothered by having to pay what he considers to be a little bit extra so he can see the rest of the fucking internet.

If word gets out that the FCC may keep net neutrality after all, this guy could possibly encourage, even demand, that the FCC do the opposite. And if the president wants it done then they may just do it.

Millennials, and those lumped in with Millennials, have amounted such a bad rep in recent years for being “lazy” and “whiny” and “special snowflakes” that the older generations are going to look right past them.

The ones who can’t afford to pay extra to access their stuff? “Get a job.” Can’t work because you’re disabled, going to school, too young, or have abusive parents who won’t let you work? “Quit making excuses.”

Meanwhile they are completely overlooking the people in the older generations who can’t work because of disability or because they’re simply too fucking old and their pension isn’t going to help cover the extra cost of the internet. This will later turn into another “I didn’t think they’d eat my face!” scenario. You voted for the people who eat faces, now lay down and let your face be eaten.

We already have people who complain that the newest generations are getting an unnecessary amount of “screen time.” Older generations are going to argue that if the younger generations can’t pay extra for their social media that it will just be “one less distraction.” These are the same people that throw a hissy fit when little kids cry in restaurants or on public transportation or in grocery stores or malls, and it’s possible that they can’t comprehend that there will be a lot more fussy kids who won’t be shutting up any time soon because now their parents can’t or won’t pay extra for said distraction.

Adding to the above, the older generations are likely looking at this as a way to “censor” the internet or to “keep the kids pure.”

This will prevent LGBTAQ+ kids (and young adults) who still live with their parents who can’t or won’t pay extra from reaching out and finding others like them, effectively keeping them in the closet until it’s too late. This will also keep kids from reaching out to seek help or shelter from and/or breaking the cycle of abuse/racism/homophobia/etc. that runs in their families, but at least they aren’t dirty liberals, right?

This will also deny those who promote hate a platform to spew such as filth. This is the lesser of two evils, people. If these guys can’t find a way to anonymously gather on an internet forum, where else are they going to do it? Out in the streets, in public areas, we will see the rise of more KKK and Nazi marches. This will lead people to get hurt whether it be because they were in the way or tried to stop it.

We will go back to only having other forms of media to informs us, preventing us from exploring all opinions and making our own decisions. This is a huge one for me as I have autism (or asperger's, rather, high on the spectrum) and the internet has exposed Autism Speaks as a scummy organization and given everyone a better and more insightful platform to learn about autism. Without the internet or people willing or able to pay extra, there will be only television specials and magazines as platforms for people to learn about autism (or other disorders, disabilities, and divergences) and many of them are inaccurate or come from only one side or perspective. I can’t handle watching people treat autistic kids, no matter where they are on the spectrum, like they have no idea what they’re doing or being teased for being “a retard,” not again, not ever.

Big cable companies and phone service providers like Comcast and Verizon, big HUGE cable companies and phone service providers with more money than you and who want to make even more money, are ACTIVELY rallying AGAINST net neutrality. More so than ever even.

This is a HUGE problem in places where only one of these companies is available or people who get internet from their phone service providers, especially if those communities are low income or single income families that are getting it complimentary (such as in apartment complexes where they pay a huge fraction of your cable bill) and on the regular having to pay extra to rent a movie from On Demand is a treat. If these families can’t afford to regularly rent movies, then how are they going to pay extra to access websites they usually could for free?

This is also a huge problem in schools and workplaces. Kids of all ages and adults in college won’t be able to do thorough research if the school or their parents or they themselves can’t pay extra to access the websites they need. They may not even be able to access their school website at all if they take online classes. (This is huge for people who have social anxiety and can’t handle normal classrooms.)

Businesses, especially small ones, are hit with this too, if they can’t pay extra to access their company files. Who knows how far this will extend? Will hospitals in the US be unable to provide proper care because someone forgot to pay for the access to patient files or the access to order medical shipments again? (Okay, I might be a bit to panicky and starting to jump to conclusions, but this is how bad this shit scares me. We already have to pay insane fucking amounts for healthcare in this mess of a country, if we have to pay a fee for the hospital having to pay a fee to see your medical records or get something for you then I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.)

I’m just...so fucking exhausted with all of this shit. It really feels like, at this moment, that everyone is giving up or has given up. Me included. Don’t give up. Please.

[danijackson17]

PSA to everybody and anybody: working in retail during the holidays is FUCKING HARD so please treat workers nicely and don’t be a douchebag

This goes for anywhere and everywhere, working during this time of the year at ANY TYPE of place is a pain in the ass (although I only have experience in retail I haven’t had the pleasure of working in a food type place and I’m sure it isn’t any better this time of year). Now let me be straight with you, it don’t matter what type of day you’ve had: good, bad or the fucking ugly~ treating people like shit, especially people who are trying to make some extra cash to be able to buy their family presents for the holidays and are juggling a part and full time job like most seasonal workers are~ makes you a fucking asshole.

Now today I had a lovely experience with an old lady. And don’t get me wrong- I love old people! The old grannies the old grandpas, all of them! I help them out to their cars I carry their things to the registers I go all out because these people have been alive longer than I have and they deserve some respect. BUT and it’s a pretty huge BUT, how I was raised was: respect is a mutual thing. And what some part of the older generation doesn’t understand is that something we, the millennials, will do, is not give you respect if no respect is given back to us. I WILL NOT be treated as incompetent or inferior, nor will I take someone’s bullshit because they’re feeling “a bit grumpy” which is what some customer’s daughter said after her mother was being a douche to me. I was thinking : “no, ma’am, that’s not grumpiness that’s just straight up bitchiness, I wake up on the wrong side of the bed all the fucking time but I don’t treat people as if their stupid or incapable of understanding simple English” if you won’t give me respect, why should I treat you as nicely as the other customers who don’t talk down to me the way you do? And why is it my fault you forgot your damn coupon at home?

SO PLEASE:

treat the workers good this season, say hey say thank you say good job say something NICE because these people work their asses off to make everything go as smoothly as possible for you and your family, and they do not deserve to be treated like shit especially when they’re getting no time or sleep in between working so many hours. Thank you and sorry for the bad language

[thewanderingkru]

MENDING MY BROKEN SELF THROUGH TRAVELING

We have our own stories to tell.

Perhaps, stories that we thought and think, that is something worth the share.

And stories, that we think, and believe, that is something to learn.

Yes, we’ve heard about these insights and thoughts all over the world. Perhaps, the most overrated, or better yet, the most cliche blog post, as they say. On personal perspective, however, these insights taught us, to move further, perhaps, beyond of our limitations. But how do we really mend a broken heart? Well, of course, it’s only us can tell on how we mend our broken hearts. Somehow, only time will tell, or we make our selves busy, or perhaps, through traveling. As for me, I found my own way in mending my broken heart... through traveling.

(Start of the tracking path in Tegalalang Rice Terraces, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia)

Last December of 2016, it was perhaps, one of the most devastating moments of my life. It was a moment where I thought it is the end of the world. I rolled up like a ball, just crawled in my bed, feeling lost, and just cry to the point that I cannot hear my voice anymore. It was the time when we broke up with my ex. Cliche to say, to some, but I think, part of living in this world, is to experience, at least, these things, to be heart broken, and someday, letting ourselves grow, to be a better version of our selves.

In this blog post episode, I will share my insights and thoughts about how I learned to mend my broken self through traveling...

1. I’ve learned to just let things flow

I’ve had my few moments where I broke down and just cried a river. It was the moment where I felt like I can’t do anything but just cry, in the sense that I wasn’t myself anymore. It was a devastating moment to me perhaps, because things just cannot work out between us, between my ex and me, because of long distance. Yes, long distance works, of course, to some people. But on our part, we fell apart. But it was a learned lesson.

Through traveling, I’ve learned to just let things flow. By letting things flow, I just let my self go with the flow of life. Weeks after I got my heart broken, although I was still in pain then, at the back of my mind, I’ve decided that 2017 will be my traveling year. My mantra then and until now, while still writing these thoughts, is to travel as much as possible. And so, I’ve started my journey, and booked my flights. With no exact itinerary, I’ve decided to go back home for a week, to my home country, my comfort zone, to my family. I believe, part of healing a broken heart, is to seek for family’s comfort. And so I did it. For a moment, it truly healed me, but of course, having a broken heart doesn’t heal right away. Let’s be honest, we are only human, and of course, we have our own flaws in life. Perhaps, time knows, and perhaps, only time will tell, as to when will be healed. And so, by just letting  things go with the flow, after reading a memoir Eat Pray Love, I was inspired to travel solo, thus, I’ve traveled to Bali, Indonesia (Well, there’s a reason behind why I choose Bali. If you’ve heard, watched, or read the memoir about Eat Pray Love, you will know the reason behind). I think, letting things flow is just like having no exact exact itinerary when traveling, although of course, it depends on your niche, as for me, I just let things the day go with the flow then. At some point while in the island of the Gods, I just treat myself, rewards myself, and just experience my own dolce far niente, my sweetness of doing nothing. 

2. I’ve learned to just appreciate moments

As a millennial myself, I’ve been taught to keep on moving, think of the future, perhaps, searching for more than what is just the norm, or the usual, and in most times, thinking outside the box. However, while experiencing these things, there’s this point of my life where I wasn’t able to experience moments anymore because of the things happening so fast and not being able to appreciate the moment of the present. At some point of my life, there are times that I wasn’t able to truly experience moments, because perhaps, I was always in hurry, I was in a rush, that I tend to leave the necessaries.Thus, in some times, especially when in a romantic relationship, I wasn’t able to see some of the moments, and when I was in the state of pain, that’s the time where moments are only remembered.

Through traveling, I’ve learned to just appreciate moments. I think, moments are really important and special when it comes to traveling. Growing up, I rarely appreciate moments, because maybe I was bored, or I doesn’t enjoy me. However, I think, it is essential to remember and appreciate moments. Especially on being an adult now, we barely recall or remember, or yet, appreciate moments because of so many things that we do, in most of the time because of work. Although, of course, it is not something to be need to really appreciate moments, but I think, it is something worth the share and ponder to people.

(Alone but not lonely. Got a chance to get acquainted with a tourist while I was at the tourist spot and in return, I got to my way for a good view at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore)

Planning on a trip to Singapore to heal your broken self? Book your stay here!

3. I’ve learned to just think of the present

While it is true that we learn from the past and look forward of the future, but why not just think of the present, of the now, of the reality of the moment that we are living.

Yes, I was hurt from the past, and perhaps, it was an inevitable moment, but of course, there’s something to learn from it, as always. However, if I let the past distract me of my future, although, sometimes, as I think of the past moments that I have, and somehow think of what the future holds, but I am only human. I think, well, perhaps, over think, at most times. But, as much as possible, I try not to think of it, because, at the end of the day, it will only ruin me, and it will not make me achieve the things that I wanted to achieve in life. Also, if I think of the future, it will always be uncertain, although, thinking about the future is really important, because there is this thing that I somehow to look forward for, but why not think of the present instead? 

Through traveling, I’ve learned to just think of the present. By means of the present, the now. I think, the moments of the present, I believe, it is all that matters, because, at some point, it helps me mend the way I thought of the past experience and my thinking of the future. In a way, enjoying what is in the present while traveling helps me my broken self to be just be the best that I could be. As a human, a being, and as a person.

4. I’ve learned to just be myself

In most times, we sugar coat everything, maybe because we are afraid that people will judge us. Sometimes, we masked ourselves, because, we believe that it will make us happy, even if we’re not truly happy on the inside.

This part of the blog post episode is very essential and very relevant for my part, as based on my experience. At some point of my journey in this life, I tend to sugar coat my situation, or even mask myself just for the sake of pleasing other people, although it should not be. Apparently, I am only human and I make mistakes. At times, there are really days when I don’t see myself as the real me, as to what I really wanted in life, what I wanted to achieve, but through time, I’ve learned that it is not healthy for me. And so...

Through traveling, I’ve learned to just be myself. Through the years, I’ve had so many moments when I thought of not be me, or not being myself. I got distracted by the influence of people around me, and eventually forgot my authentic self, and became a copy cat in the process. And it was a devastating moment for my part, because it is not helping to be a better person,and so I’ve decided to change myself, my life. It was a leap of faith, although it is not easy, but the process and time, and of course, through traveling, I’ve learned to just be myself, and get over of those fantasy, and judgmental people. Who cares if they judge me in the way I live, my lifestyle, or the way I wear my clothes, it is not them, but me. As love as I am happy with myself, I believe, that is all that matters, because, after all, this is what we came for in this world, right? To be our own selves.

(Selfie with the Balinese locals, except with the mister local wearing a red shirt, maybe he was busy with his phone then at the Tirtha Empul Temple, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia)

5. I’ve learned to love myself

In most blogs perhaps, cliche to some, but at times, this is the very reason why we travel, because we love ourselves, but do we truly love our real selves?

I must admit, the very reason why I travel because I want to experience, and I think, it is a phenomena wherein we explore ourselves to know more about ourselves, and through this experience, I have learned that, I can be a better version of myself by loving myself. It’s vague to say, but a fact when can never deny. How can we move forward and mend our broken self if we always cling to the idea, and just the idea of love? If we want to make something for our selves, we can always make it through. As for me, through traveling, I was able to mend my broken self, by learning to love myself. While traveling, I was able to discover myself more, know myself more, and I believe, that is loving myself.

To wrap up, I still believe that there are many ways to mend our own broken selves. I believe, it is always be up to us, on how we deal the situation, or circumstances, although not necessary with someone, because we can be broken in so many ways. Perhaps, in those ways, we can find our selves, and in those ways, we can be a better version of our selves. After all, it’s part of our journey through life.

As for you, what are your ways to mend your broken heart? Send me a message. Tell me your story and let’s discuss about life lessons and mending our broken hearts!

9/22/2017

[nightcoremoon]

now that I've driven home and had a few minutes to cool off and collect my thoughts, I feel I should explain myself to the people who have been following me and know who i am so I don't damage my relationship or reputation more than I probably already have. there was a post that an autistic person I follow made, where he vented about bigotry against autistic people, and ended with a passive aggressive "...janice". there was another post that a nonbinary person I follow made where they vented about bigotry against gender nonconforming people, and ended with a passive aggressive "...denise". I'm not 100% sure which was which but I DEFINITELY remember the posts, as well as the profile pictures of the people who posted them. I don't remember the urls though, and even if I did remember them I wouldn't list them in case the people who are now harassing and spamming me in my inbox and activity feeds decided to also hop on their [proverbial] dicks as well as mine because they apparently culturally appropriated those post templates, of ending extended rants about various bigots and ending them with names befitting of middle aged suburban soccermoms, karen. now, when listing people of this demographic, I used to include white among those adjectives. however, there are black middle aged suburban soccermoms, hispanic middle aged suburban soccermoms, and asian middle aged suburban soccermoms, and pretty much people of every race who have the potential to be this type of person the practice strawmans. obviously not every single middle aged suburban parent of children who participate heavily in after school activities is going to be the type of person to scream at retail workers or starbucks baristas or people who cut off their minivans when they're driving 15 under the speed limit in the left lane. not every single middle aged suburban person is an undeducated bible thumping bigot with their head shoved up their ass. not every one of them is a problematic piece of shit that stands by the #alllivesmatter crew or trump or whatever the republicans are rallying around this week. not even all of the white ones, and there are some people who fit the trope who are not white. I've dealt with many of them during my days at target, but I always stood by including white. until recently. when I learned it made black people uncomfortable when white people made white jokes, I was of course initially hesitant. "that's fucking stupid!" I though. "I'm not assuaging white guilt by doing this, I'm just finding it in me to laugh at myself". and then I read a bit more about the subject and figured it isn't worth the potential heartache if I fought it because in all honesty it kind of makes sense. my mom's boyfriend's son is black (and hispanic), and I had once made a white girl joke to my sister in front of him and mom told me later that both he and her boyfriend were uncomfortable with me saying that. after seeing the post that talked about it, and my... slight breakdown where I may have dramatically overreacted... I decided to try and stop with the white people jokes because I want to unlearn all of the racist shit that my dad, stepmom, aunts, uncles, grandparents, former friends, former acquaintances, and society in general that I possibly could, because racism as a concept digs into my skin and fucks me up. it used to make me absolutely seethe with rage, and I still get a little steamed by it. in fact I once got in a LOT of trouble with my high school sociology student teacher because I got really shitty with her when she- an anthropology student no less- kept calling one kid in our class by his initial because apparently kudsai is just Too Hard™ to pronounce. one day, an off day where I forgot to take my medicine, she called him that and I yelled at her "he has a name, so use it". granted I didn't like the kid. I thought he was annoying; loud, obnoxious, constantly making sex jokes while we were studying freud (and even the fucking holocaust), in the choir and the football team... basically like any other cishet teenage boy. but being annoying is no excuse for a teacher to not take five fucking seconds of her day to learn how to say his name right just because it wasn't franklin or gregory, two of the other black kids who I went to school with. anyone following me as far back as when annie got remade with quvenzhane wallis as the titular role might have read my thoughts on the matter of pronouncing people's names right. i'm not saying this to pat myself on the back for not being racist, because WOW was I a rough mess of things back then, but I was never like my dad's side of the family about race. back when michael brown's death and ferguson were still talked about, I found myself agreeing with rush limbaugh about some of the things he said, so clearly I haven't been a perfect angel my whole life. anyway, back to white people jokes making black people feel uncomfortable. I've been trying to make myself agree with that, which as anyone who has the syndrome formerly known as aspergers can probably attest to, is hard as shit to do. possible but hard. like, I'm even now still unlearning some acephobia, transphobia, queerphobia, islamophobia, and even though I know the occasional fleeting thoughts that I think are wrong and bad, they still happen very frequently. same goes with various forms of racism and xenophobia. my dad (and former stepdad's) influences are probably so deep because of various issues with abandonment and abuse that I'm not gonna discuss here, and they're both absolutely reeking with white supremacist microaggressions. so I'm definitely trying my hardest. part of that is why I reacted so negatively when people misinterpreted what I said, put words in my mouth, and straight up told me to kill myself in all of these messages that are still flooding in. another part is because I truly do stand by the things that I meant to say, rather than the things that it appears I've said. I really do think that it's unreasonable to say that it's racist for people who aren't black to make posts where we vent about various injustices we face from people who are misinformed and ignorant and straight up smarmy condescending assholes and then end it with a passive aggressive name of some baby boomer fuckwit, peggy. because these baby boomer fuckwits come in many colors (black people are still capable of being racist [against hispanic/asian/etc people, not whites, I need to make that abundantly clear], classist, misogynist, queerphobic, ableist, otherwise bigoted prejudiced assholes), and these names that are heralded as "typically white", like henry or franklin or gregory or harold or penelope or alice or etc, are not exclusively white names. I've seen or met black people with names like this and while it's definitely not the majority (not even close), and it's definitely partially due to cultural erasure perpetuated by gentrification, it still exists. so it doesn't make sense to me why the person who wrote the post that started me on this whole sequence of posts about this topic insisted that it was a 'white people names' thing. especially when white people names are more like khaeylieghhe or miakkaylia or annedeeye or some other ridiculous bastardisation of english language in order to make your child feel special and unique and end up growing to be a cookie cutter member of the conservative party that tries to take down affirmative action because they feel like it's reverse discriminatory or some shit. if it was something like that, making fun of those names that are actually like making jokes at the expense of white people [I think I should apologize in advance because technically this counts as a white people joke even if it's just an example] would make perfect sense. however I have not only seen posts in this template of ending with baby boomer names being used as tools to express their distaste in queerphobia, ableism, classism, xenophobia, and intolerance of other sorts, but I've made them before, and it has had not a god damn bit of racial connotation to it at all unless it's been specifically a black millennial on tumblr venting specifically about a white people-ism, and to make a post that shits on everybody who uses this template to cope if they're not black, and causes those kids who use it to cope to ask why not, and then get immediately shit on by assholes who treat them just like people are treating me, who tell them that it doesn't matter if they're neurodivergent or gay or trans or whatever because they're being Big Bad Evil Racists™ by ending their rant posts with names like becky, allison. I don't care if you're black. if you treat queer or disabled kids like shit and call them racist when they're not being racist, no matter what color your skin is, you're an asshole. and to act like fucking salem massachusetts when confronted with legitimate criticism of your ill-informed unbridled assault of an angry mama bear to queer and disabled kids, is just DISGUSTING. WEAK. and PATHETIC. and only serves to strengthen my points. so you know what, go ahead. keep sending me your hate anons. keep sending me the smarmy condescension. I can take it. just stop being fucking assholes to my family. your race isn't something I have any authority over but I won't let you use it as a weapon to beat people over the head with just because you get high off of the power you get from the veil of anonymity. false accusations of being a tier 6 skinhead is more palatable than telling us to kill ourselves.

[lnrewlbrj3krj23]

Given social media’s intrusion onto older media, what is a justifiable distribution?

Due to increased media, we know more about each other's lives.  From the roaring 20s dime novels and radio, to the 50's baby boomer's tv revolution, so each generation becomes more liberal, realizing the need for recognizing the other.  With media, we tell more details about ourselves, and recognize each other.

The degrading of society's morals is in one part, the loss of the image of purity, and very strange "iconographization" of purity.  What I means is that purity becomes expressed mainly in images in media rather than in positions of authority and power in real life.

In a way, real life authority, such as God or the King was in everyday life before, until the explosion of media captured those concepts of purity in the stories we describe to one another.  How many princes or heros are there, pure of heart in (B)ollywood?  How powerful their sense of heart is (either for humanity or a girl, who is another purity), to enable those pure of heart to save the world?  And how often does this difference of purity become exploited in porn -- the ultimate image flipper, where the pure are debased?

Is it strange then, to have sexuality, the degrading of society's morals and purity in media all tied together as an obverse triangle?  In a strange way, media becomes a distortion of everyday life, an the sense of the everyday becomes a reflection of media.  What is in media is not everyday, and what is everyday is not media.

So then, this continues on, from books into social media today, except that with so much distortion, we discover that we cannot know the everyday without stories.  The cycle of knowledge is accelerated as we start to learn about the nature of knowledge through the refinement of stories.

Take the "young millennial who narrates his own adventure", a genre stemming from the likes of ferris bueller.  In such a story we learn about what's very important to the narrator.  Such narrow cuts (haircuit, girl, car, habits) form the sense of self.  This narrative too gets played, as a moral tale that can lead to bizarro fiction, media wrapped in porn and very odd priorities in life due to strange configurations of social context, such as The Haunted Vagina.

Media distorts morals by distortedly representing who we are to ourselves.  We can be anything we like, especially via the media we choose to share  This relates to power because if all the interesting stuff happens though our favorite media, doesn't real life become a shadow of what is online?

Is this not the dilemma that faces current humankind?  That we are absorbed with the inessential?  The appearance of a loss of power is the loss of our ability to be who we are, because we are too focused on what we are not.

A Deal Marker

The image is what the man is supposed to be.  Obviously he is "supposed to" because he is not.  There is a gap between "is" and "is to be".  The infinitive as the fourth form of being, stated by Heidegger is the one that is always becoming due to morality.

[quote about how morality is metaphysical because people will be writing about morality for the next hundred years]

So neo-liberalism was in direct line to the creation of space increasingly powerful media afforded throughout human history.  As our technology became better, so we learned more about who we were, until the latent content of history forces a social "weight" passed on by generations.  This weight forms the basis of the priorities of each culture, whose horizons is the lineage afforded by nationalism and stories (nationalism is a story).

Thus while the globalist have often been contrasted with the nationalists, the state is but a model/generic name for both nation-states and states of being.  It can be said perhaps, then that media is the state of being.  And thus the one who is most on it, in theory, has the greatest expression of purpose.  But this is a definite limit, as Trump cannot even get congress to pass a vote.  It is pretty insightful of Congress to recognize the power of media.

But then again, Congress is the power of media, in part because they are over-recorded and formalized.  Buried in the history of all its sessions are honorrings of fallen comrades, procedures, and other kinds of technocratic record keeping.  So it makes sense that lawyers, the technocrats of paperwork forms the basis of social change.  The state of marriage, or a corporation or a sale of a home isn't a "word" it's an excessively" long document that defines the basis for what ownership is by protecting ownership.  The media is still today a legalism that descends from the runic legends that written language is magic.  The presence of correct documentation is as much a function of media as social media peddles in cat pictures and other kinds of information humans think is important.

So at most, the damage of media's extensiveness isn't just the rallying of powerful celebrities to incite political rebellion it's also the lack of any actual power Trump seems to have.  He can't do deals by intimidating congressmen because they are all lawyers who understand that power is the ability to justify decisions... the most emboddened of which sought to continue the work of other lawyers herself, a lawyer politicianing her way, or a politician who is able to technocrat through law (perhaps a pre-cursor was a Louis Brandeis who first used business as it was current practice to inform the decision making process and thus hide the willfulness of judges.  Brandeis helped the metrics of law's ability to hide personal will (and thus also apply it) but was really only part of an already existing tradition of media's power: as William Howard Taft was both President and Supreme Court Justice.

This shows law also in two other aspects of government:

1. In fact Obama is pretty secretive.  He is able to hide away his decision making behind the most obscure of reasons, the lack of knowledge.  In that way the opposite of business men are lawyers who understand how to control knowledge.  The ones who navigate the bureaucracy best are the ones who are able to hide in it, which leads us to

2. Neil Gorsuch who is able to hide personal decisions behind law over other people's lives, and even be proud of it.  Neil Gorsuch has tasted power, and so he's willing to continue to exercise it.  In that sense, the Republicans are lawyers for their business clients just as Democrats are lawyers for their people (voter) clients.

But regardless, so we find a failure of the status quo system with Politicial Correctness (a kind of lawyer talk) so media of the law kind, like media of the social kind cannot guarantee social change.  Perhaps this experiment is what pissed people off, that they felt commonized and disregarded by lawyers.  What do lawyers know?  They, at least the politician-kind, treated all of the world, politics and business as a matter of a kind of law.  (Witness Attacus Finch, a dad who change the world for all.  Or studies for defining queer in life, to help justify the lawyers legislate laws about what is or is not queer.) or legislate about what is or is not fair for disability, and thus extort money through law... meant to directly help the very abused.  The disability civil rights groups got these laws passed, and now some lawyer use it to justify taking money from businesses.

Law is helpless here too, as politicians can't do the bidding of businesses (or at least small business) because other politicians are afraid disabled voters will "fire them"

The power of media with civil rights can be read thusly:  Media allowed generations and people to reach a new agency about who they were.  It is as if the narratives and sensory associations of media told us who we were.  So that business, symbolic authority (through evil villians, as well) had authority over people, and livelihoods.  So they too would gain prestige like kings, and thus be associated enough with that kind of success.  So the success of business would be enough acceptable by people to vote Trump into having the symbolic authority to run the country like a business.

This draws a parallel: business hides its power by justifying its inequality.  Trump "worked for it", he "deserves" it.  Law does the same thing.  Gorsuch hides his personal will behind the veneer of legalism.  In essence, Gorsuch's ability to get through the Senate hearing to be a Justice depends on his ability to justify his decisions to lawyers who are working on their own interest because their job depends on fidelity to voters (or in some cases, corporations). 

And so, it is also law's ability to interfere with society, increasing technocratics the outrage of which, was to extend their media-based justification formalism to Take away a formal land's war-vessel.  Was it then a surprise when the field of business through Trump bumped into a catty-corner law reserved for its own super-authority?  When business sales and bullying through position and birthright only helped create the veneer of power and authority -- of which being president was used.  In essence the president as king is the power media can give a lawyer.

But it's still just image.  Republican leadership just forgot they were no longer primarily lawyers working for rich clients.  They mistaked the cohesion of their party, their little brand of brothers, for who they were.  In essence, reflected in media now: Repubs are afraid of allowing ACA to disappear because they don't work for rich clients.  They are more politician than lawyer, wanting to please their voters.  In the end, even those who are mostly lawyers believe that the law has to be based in something.

(Note the power of lawyers, to erase the Last Week Tonight story from websites across the world -- esp YouTube -- except in Argentina, where the offense was made.)

Lawyers are the gatekeepers of media.  They are the next area to be disrupted by social media, as audiences watch court drama and judge for themselves, to pressure lawyers to keep certain views.  As lawyers were able to justify what should be written for everyone (as a politician) so law is really a marker for hiding decisions.  Could social media serve that way?  Is this not Black Mirror's episode about killer bees run by social media?  In essence killer bees are the nature mankind reinvented to save itself from its own destruction of nature.  So social media is meant to help people be connected, and instead it damages them.

The scary part is that Trump unveils that politics is just lawyers running around unable to do their jobs, for confusion of who they are.  Maybe we then also lose the justification for this government.  People want to see Trump fail because he's bad.  When he full loses his justification for being President (as deal maker) he may lose his reputation.  He believed in his own hype.  But if we see Trump fail, the question is, who will step up?  Another lawyer for social engineering?  This is a lawyer who justifies his authority by an appeal to a perception of a past symbolic authority.  Could he possibly work with other lawyers and do what Trump failed to do?  Or will this older symbolic authority fail against the same fear that politicians have of their voters?  In essence as people stop believing in lawyer-justifications, will lawyers be able to keep order?  Social media rips at the veneer of lawyerly justification as laws are ironically too "complex" to be appreciated by the public.  That complexity demanded respect before social media was around.

In essence if lawyerly justification in old media is to lose its symbolic authority, the question remains: is a universal justification in new media able to pick up the mantle?

New media got Trump this far, but it shows that Trump's justification (as a deal maker) was weaker than new media's ability to get him to be president.  New media's ability is also weaker than the legalese set forth by the founding Fathers and all the lawyers who came after, eager to secure the balance of power that could help them survive... so a democracy of an increased populance (due in part to media's narrativization of being) retain the final say (in terrible mob form), or were the founding Fathers full of their own bullshit?  Did they think the media they were creating strong enough to protect them, or weak enough so that the country ran itself under the excuse that the wise and powerful were protecting them?

So we see that justifications run the country.  And that we teach each other the excuse of order under these justifications.  The justifications are not yet that social media will be used against us who knows how effective this will ever be but that we may become under the influence of social media bots for no coherent reason.

If words could justify power for the most powerful system, one that threatened to create globalism, think about what money can do.

Investors are still going crazy, because young people want homes, and older people are still alive.  Information, money and legal authority still justify authority, as authority is anything that changes social and material positioning.

So social media shows us something: first, what we want to see, and then what we didn't want to see. how corrupt some people can be when they are claiming to help others.  In this sense, social media is not a tool even if each website is a tool.  Social media is a mirror.  Each us will see in it who we think we are/the form of our priorities.

The most meaningless thing is the thing that people can see whatever meaning they like in it, so at first we share common ground. Then such a thing literally changes the world by fragmenting it so that we no longer share common ground.

Media has this power to influence people because media is an extension of how humans socialize.  Our purpose is to organize, so media in law, and social media have this power, this ability to change reality.

In essence, who/how we think we are will change who/how we are, just maybe not to increase coherency.

[kevinseamon]

Monopoly_Amorous

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend about my relationship with money. She had said hers was in a better place than it was ten years ago. I replied that money and I were together for a time last year, but after a few setbacks, money left me and I've been picking up the pieces ever since. Money and I started texting a few months back, and now we're trying to figure out WHAT our relationship IS, and if there's a future there.

Hilarious (and multi-purpose) metaphors aside, financial success has always been illusive for me. I'm one of the lucky generation of first wave millennials who graduated college into the gargantuan open maw of the 2008 recession. As a result, freelance work became my bread and butter, and consequently there are fat times, and lean times. My financial stability is similar to that of Nicolas Cage: I'm doing as well as I can considering the debt I'm in, and the last time anyone thought I was a wise investment was 1997.

In the real world, many of us are financial non starters. But in certain vacuums, we can be the cream that rises to the top (call us the Cream Knight Rises). Board games, especially, are those kinds of vacuums. They are a vehicle for success, and regardless of the fact that it's low stakes, a win is a win is a win. We may be at a economic disadvantage thanks to our moment in history, but one dive into the top shelf of the coat closet to fetch a board game later, and you can be the Charles Foster Kane of the living room.

In high school, the game Risk became the metric by which I judged my board game skills, and general cunning. And, while the game of world domination will always be the way my high school friends (Shout out to the "Boy Party" crew, drunkenly singing Toni Braxton until the neighbors call the cops) kill four to six hours together (or however long it takes someone to dig out the N64 cartridge of WCW vs NWO), Risk is a glorified dice game and the stakes are too large to ever feel like you're doing anything other than "playing." 

Monopoly is a wonderful game that tests skills no other game does: charging rent, building a real estate conglomerate, making change, etc.

Things I love about Monopoly:

1. The pieces - Toys within a toy, the pieces are totems of American institutional success, and now a dinosaur!

2. The money - There is nothing like counting out fresh monopoly money. It makes one feel like a Playmobil Tony Montana.

3 The prize - Atlantic City. The great irony is that you actually could probably win Atlantic City in a board game bet in 2018.

The experience of playing Monopoly is a microcosm of business. You start off with capital, you make some purchases, you charge rent, you build an empire, and then you either sell it off piece by piece to pay the exorbitant rent or taxes levied by bad rolls, or you watch the money roll in and the chance cards seem to turn over for YOU. The largest roadblock to enjoying a game of Monopoly, whether you win or lose, are people who insist on playing by the old grey rule book - the over cooked, dry as hell chicken breast of a strategic guide. The original Monopoly rulebook is like a glossary at the end of the Bible: "Here's the definitions for stuff that doesn't exist!" I throw out the rule book when I play, reliant on the traditional gameplay that develops after multiple games, and through the oral traditions of the people you play with. People who can't play without the rules are not people I want to play with. The rules therein aren't written with fun in mind. 

However! The newest version of Monopoly, the one I played this week with friends, comes with a set of rules written like they were the rules you and your friends came up with. Written, ya know, fun. Ya know, for kids. At first glance I thought, "the Parker Brothers finally get it."

Then I read them.

These rules, despite being written like they were some handwritten note your mom put together after one too many arguments about how much money everybody starts with, were some total narc bullshit.

I will now address these rules one by one, addressing why they do not work (are "narc bullshit"), and suggesting alternative rules. 

Rule 1: Each player starts with $1 (x5) $5 (x1) $10 (x2) $20 (x1) $50 (x1) $100 (x4) $500 (x2)

Right away, they have you start with $700? Everyone starts with an equal amount? Uh...no. $700 is the base, and then there should be a bet between the players for a $300 jackpot that brings whoever wins up to an advantage, and puts the losers on the defensive, making everyone stronger. I recommend an arm wrestling contest, or if everyone playing is frail, brittle boned bird, then a dice roll where the jackpot goes to the highest score. (Willing to sub out arm wrestling for trivia, thumb wrestling, or watermelon seed spitting contests.)

Rule 2: when you land on a property, you MUST buy it or auction it

So, while this is how I like to play MY game, I don't think the entire participating body should be obligated to purchase every property they land on. First of all, in real life, that just ain't how it works! You don't immediately throw money at every person whose house you walk into (on a first date: "Mr. Jenkins, your home is as beautiful as your daughter. Whats the whole deal gonna cost me?") And what if you want a property that an opponent has landed on, and you are a brilliant enough tactician to convince them they don't want to buy it? That's the game right there. Rule 2? Ya gone.

Rule 3: You don't get money for landing on Free Parking. It makes the game longer!

This rule sounds like it was written by someone who never won the "Free Parking jackpot" before. Said "Free Parking jackpot," is whenever you land on Income Tax, Luxury Tax, or have to pay money to the bank on a Chance card or Community Chest, instead of putting that money back in the bank for the suits in Washington to line their coffers, throw that cheddar in the center of the board and introduce a lottery to the reality of your Atlantic City. "It makes the game longer"...? What? WHY? Because it's more fun... and you want to take your time? Oh I forgot that board games are sure supposed to be buttoned down affairs, similar to wakes or interventions. Fuck outta here, Rule 3.

Rule 4: Don't loan other players money! Don't you want to win?

Again, a rule that was obviously written by a perennial loser who has decided to somehow outlaw the situations which bankrupted them in the past. Monopoly is all about making deals. You have things, and other people want them, or you make other people want them. This is all in service of you getting what you want, which in this instance, is ultimate fucking power (over Atlantic City. Winning basically makes you Steve Buscemi in Boardwalk Empire*). So yes, you do want to win. And any good player will GIVE money to other players, IF it ensures their malleability for a deal down the line. Don't tell me how to fuck people over, Monopoly Rule 4. I'm good at it FROM playing Monopoly. *Steve Buscemi as new model for the Monopoly Guy?

Rule 5: There's no such thing as rent immunity.

Rent immunity, at least with turn limits, is ABSOLUTELY a piece of leverage in making deals when you've landed on the property of another player and can't afford the exorbitant rent. This rule feels like when the IRS says things like, "don't pay your employees off the books" and business owners are like, "We won't," while actively throwing singles at the stoner extended family members who zone out while washing dishes. Rule 5? You're living in a dream world in a dream world. Wake ya broke ass up.

*this rule is long, and will be addressed line by line* 

Rule 6: Buy, sell, dream, and scheme! (Let's not with the rhyming as an alternative to actually having a good time, Monopoly - the preceding rules basically outlaw scheming) You can swap or sell porperties and Get Out of Jail Free cards with any player at any time (A. Duh, B. Not if it's not your turn. THATS how you make the game longer). Always trade for profit, never for pity! (Uh, again, fucking duh guys. Also, you're well within your rights to trade for profit, but pretending its pity. Thats, again, the bit) You cannot swap buildings with nor sell buildings to another player, but you CAN buy and sell buildings from the bank any time you want, not just on your turn (I know I can be fast and loose with Monopoly rules, but even a rock and roll god like myself wouldn't try to wheel and deal on someone else's turn. And no swapping or selling buildings? Equity is equity, guys, which is a thing someone who knows something about finance once said to me, and I think it applies here. Maybe.) You can mortgage your property to raise money to buy houses, hotels, OR other properties (Cool rule guys. Can we also roll dice? And call the game "Monopoly?" Sweet. How about breathing?)

Rule 7: Lastly, being the Banker doesn't give you the right to steal! 

Ugh. Rule 7? You know you make this game not fun, right? Of course it doesn't give you the RIGHT to steal. Nothing does! Does it give you the ability to do so? You bet your ass. "But then who's gonna protect the game from being taken over by the greedy banker?" That's. The. Game. Watch the banker. Be your own advocate. I can't believe they feel compelled to say this.

In conclusion, play more Monopoly. The game makes a ruthless slum lord out of all who roll the dice, and in 2018, when we have a ruthless slum lord pretending to be President and treating our planet like it's a board game, it behooves us to develop a better understanding of the competitive spirit which drives him. Because, if Monopoly has taught me one thing, it's that the key to winning (i.e. bankrupting your opponents both financially and emotionally) is understanding your opponent. 

[allthislove]

Lil banter about GPA, mine, and whatever.

For the sake of being kind to those who really don’t care, please blacklist the tag Applefart. (IDK, just something random enough to not effect your everyday blogging...)

I worked really hard for my final GPA, which was 3.9 and some other decimal points. I was a theatre major, so take that as whatever you want. But, I worked really hard and thought, and calculated, and created to earn it.

GPAs aren’t everything, no. But there’s this narrative that goes around the internet a lot, these days, that GPA means nothing, and that people who earn high GPAs don’t deserve any honor/respect for their hard work. And often, brilliance. IDK, I think it largely comes from people who don’t understand the way college functions.

I was a bit of an underachiever in high school, I must say. But I still had relatively good grades. But, I gotta say, high school education is a completely different animal than collegiate education. I definitely learned things in high school, but not as much as I memorized things to pass tests. Things that I often soon forgot. I don’t think that’s the case, in college. I feel like in college, I actually learned. I didn’t just memorize facts and formulas. I studied things about the world around me and how it worked. I learned things in history and science that I never knew before, even taking similar classes in high school. (Because high school tends to be “the shit you learned in elementary school, but with bigger words and longer paragraphs to read.” Like, IDK, how many times did we read about the Civil War, but never get any new information? I feel like in college, I got NEW information about history and science that I didn’t get in high school, and that I actually engaged with the content, and was encouraged to explore it myself, and research on my own, and form opinions and articulate it to my classmates and teachers, and so on.)

My point is, I think people with high GPAs in college certainly deserve to be regarded with respect for them. Not, like, other people should treat them like some sort of high-level genius, or cower under them. But, like, it should be recognized that most people in college with a GPA over 3.5 did the damn thing. They didn’t just memorize a lot of stuff for tests. Most of the time, they kicked ass. They wrote intelligent, engaging essays. They built functional projects that solve real-world problems. They designed something beautifully. They went above and beyond to truly shine in their classes. I mean, everyone who went to college can tell you how goddamn subjective some of this is, and how harsh many of the teachers grade. (I once had a teacher give me a 70 because my color matching wasn’t distinct enough, even though everything else was executed properly.) So, yeah, I didn’t earn a 3.9 because I just memorized things better than other people. I worked my ass off. I exercised my brain. I showed an ability to think, create, and perform at that level. 

Also, people like to say “GPA doesn’t matter after you graduate”... but that’s not true. It’s true, in the sense that having a degree is enough and you’ll still get good jobs with a 2.8. But companies absolutely look at high GPAs as a plus. Especially if you’re trying to get that nice job right out of college. And if you want to go to graduate school, or law school, or med school- you better believe your undergraduate GPA matters. Your undergraduate GPA matters, and people do look at it. 

I mean, I’ve mostly only gotten this from asshole trolls who are probably just envious. But, yeah, this idea that people who graduate from a university with a high GPA somehow just... randomly got it and aren’t hardworking or smart? That really fucking weird, and absolutely bullshit. I mean, it’s just more evidence of this anti-intellectual culture we have going on in this country, right now. Graduating from college used to mean something. And, I mean, we are the most educated generation (Millennials) of all the ones who came before us, but also, we are measurably smarter as a whole, because of things like better access to early childhood education, better nutrition, truancy laws, and a whole number of things. I mean, Millennials and Gen Z also graduate from high school at higher rates than previous generations, so more people are eligible and qualified for college/university than ever before, so of course more of us graduate from college. That shouldn’t take away from the fact that graduating from college/university AT ALL is a huge deal, and graduating with a GPA higher than 3.5 is a MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT.

Which is why those GPAs are awarded Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude, and Summa Cum Laude. Because it is, absolutely, a big deal and does, absolutely, mean something. 

Stop undermining other people’s accomplishments. You’ll have many of your own. You don’t have to belittle other people’s accomplishments to prove that you are also good. (Although, most of the people I hear this from are not good. They are usually racist trolls telling me I’m automatically stupid and got into school because of affirmative action, because I’m a black woman. Affirmative action doesn’t work for GPAs, and when I point that out, they tell me GPA doesn’t matter “in the real world.” Which, I’m in. And it has mattered. So, yeah, whatever.)

[fesahaawit]

We’re Better When We Work Together

The feedback on last week’s post about how I slowly grew my blog my own way was overwhelming. I’m grateful for all the kind words, and also glad it seemed to come at the perfect time for some of you. Since hitting publish and watching some of the comments come in, however, I realized there were a few “rules” I forgot to add (you can find them in the comments). I also knew I wanted to write a quick follow-up post to drive one point home, and that is the importance of community over competition.

Before diving in, let me first say that I have not always been great at this. I think my perfectionist tendencies are partially to blame for that. Growing up, I wasn’t good at much. I shared stories and details about what that meant for me in this post, but what I failed to mention is that not feeling like I was good at much also meant occasionally feeling jealous of people who were better than me. Team sports are about competition, after all. I wasn’t good at them and, therefore, I felt competitive with people who were better than me.

Looking back on that, this doesn’t even make sense. We are all good at different things, and bring unique skills into every situation—and we can’t all be good at everything! We just can’t and that’s ok. But feeling like I wasn’t good at much put a sort of chip on my shoulder. It was me against the world. And for many years, anytime someone even made so much as a suggestion for how I could do something better, I rolled my eyes, was rude or ignored them. (Just ask my parents. I didn’t take advice from anyone!)

It’s interesting for me to think back to that and then look at where I am now. Working with one partner on a podcast and with another partner on Rockstar Finance. Meeting with a mastermind group every two weeks, and with two other blogger and freelancer friends separately every two weeks, too. Chatting with even more blogger and freelancer friends on Skype, Google Hangouts, the phone, etc. whenever we can squeeze it in. Helping people, asking for help and letting people help me. We are a community—not competition—and I am better for it.

I can’t say exactly when things shifted for me and I finally started asking for/accepting help, but I do know I have the personal finance community to thank for this progression. It started the minute I launched this blog (the second time) and waved my white flag to say I was giving up on my old ways and ready to make a change. In the early years, I wasn’t always receptive to the financial advice people gave me (remember that whole chip on the shoulder thing). But as time went on, I realized people just wanted to help.

This is in our nature: wanting to help and be helpful. All we want is to share what we’ve learned in the hopes that we can help someone else succeed. And this applies to some of my blogging rules: specifically, support other bloggers, put people over profit, and always be gracious and grateful. It’s also something I’ve come to believe about all topics, but especially personal finance: that the more we share, the better off we’ll all be. So eventually, I let people help. I pushed the chip off my shoulder and listened to all the advice people gave me.

It came in all different forms. Sometimes, I would put questions at the bottom of my posts and ask for help. Other times, I would sit across from friends in the personal finance space and ask a hundred questions about blogging, banking, investing, etc. The investing conversation was a big one for me. I was so worried that every question coming out of my mouth made me sound like an idiot. But my friend never made me feel that way and, instead, seemed genuinely happy to share what he knew. Probably because he knew:

The more we share, the better off we’ll all be. Click To Tweet

This rule has helped me learn more and share what I know about personal finance, which is great. But it has also helped me with blogging and freelancing—and that’s where it still seems like more work needs to be done. It’s easy to see other bloggers and freelancers as your competitors, but I promise you that’s not true. There are enough readers and enough clients, and there is enough money, to go around. On that last point, it’s also true that the more we share, the more we can all earn. Want proof?

Here are a few of the ways my community has helped me earn more/succeed:

Courtney asked me to be part of A Simple Year for the third year in a row, which is a group-led course where we combine our unique skills (and all 14 of us earn some money for partnering up).

My first mastermind group reviewed the original Mindful Budgeting, gave me feedback and even told me how much I should charge for it.

Erin took time out of her schedule to share what she learned from her book launch for Broke Millennial and give me tips for what to do for mine.

Both Jess and Paul shared their podcast sponsorship rates + download stats, so Carrie and I could figure out what to charge for ours.

And countless freelance writers have shared their strategies and rates, too.

You’ll notice these points also reflect some of my rules in last week’s post, specifically the one about putting people over profit and doing things my own way. These are more examples of how I opted to ignore all the expert advice and make money my own way. Freelance work, the podcast, online courses and the book. And none of these people had to help me earn it. They did it because they know it’s as easy as reaching your hand out and helping someone on a steep or difficult hike. They did it because they know the truth:

We are a community—not competition. Click To Tweet

Forever-inspired by my friends, here are some of the ways I try to help my community succeed too:

I’ve been a member of three mastermind groups (and I’ll explain more about how to start one below).

I’ve made introductions between freelance writers + clients, as well as podcasters + potential sponsors, because I know there is enough money to go around.

I’ll share the rates I charge for things when people ask, because I think we can all earn more if we’re transparent about this stuff. (And hello, making money online is like working in the Wild West. It’s hard to navigate, if you’re riding solo!)

I encourage people to increase their rates, when I know they are worth more. (This includes my designer who I will continue to encourage until she doubles her rate. You are worth it, friend.)

And I try to support other bloggers, either by leaving comments, replying to emails, having conversations, or sharing their content here or on Rockstar.

We are a community—not competition. And the more we share, the better off we’ll all be. I think I’ve said enough to drive that point home now, but I wanted to make sure the words sunk in. Like I said, I haven’t always understood this myself. But I know I am better for it because, like anything else in life, we aren’t born with all of this knowledge or these skills. We have unique backgrounds and abilities and information—and we can go a lot further when we compile it all and work together, rather than treat each other like competitors.

How to Start a Mastermind Group

In the past four years, I have been a member of three different mastermind groups. The first two were started by blogging friends, and then I formed the one I’m currently in. A handful of people have asked me to write a post about how to start a mastermind group, but it seemed more fitting to add that information to the bottom of this post, because mastermind groups are the essence of community over competition.

Start by deciding why you want to be part of a mastermind group. Traditionally, they are meant for business owners to connect and help each other grow. But honestly, you could start a mastermind group for any purpose. You could start one to connect with people who want to learn more about personal finance (get out of debt, share info about banking, learn more about investing, etc.). You could start one for people who have full-time jobs but who want to start side hustles. You could start one for authors who want to talk about book writing, launches, etc. It’s up to you. Just start with why.

Find 3-4 other people who are working towards similar things. It’s important to have different backgrounds and experiences, so you can bring unique ideas to the table and learn from each other. But it’s helpful if you’re all working towards at least somewhat similar things, otherwise it usually ends up that one or two members are learning a lot and the other members are doing all the teaching. While that’s great for the community aspect, the point of a mastermind group is to tap into each other’s knowledge and learn from each other. Find people you can work with and learn from.

Together, decide how you want to format your meetings. First, how often do you want to meet? Some groups meet weekly, others meet bi-weekly or even monthly. I would say that it all depends on how formal/informal you want it to be. If you want more accountability, meet more often. If you simply want to connect and brainstorm together, meet less often. After you make that decision, decide how you will meet (online, in-person) and what the agenda of each meeting will look like. Mine have all been an hour long and typically looked like this:

First 20 minutes: Everyone gives a brief update + shares wins with the group.

Next 30-40 minutes: We talk about one topic. Either someone takes the “hot seat” and asks for help from the group, or we bring one topic to the table that we all need a little help with.

If there’s time: Everyone gives a brief rundown of what they will be working on.

Together, decide how you want to communicate outside of meetings. Some mastermind groups have private Facebook groups or Slack channels. Others connect via email when they need to. And others don’t talk much outside of meetings. It’s also ok to try one thing and see how the group likes it, and then try something else if it’s not working. My first mastermind group had a private Facebook group and the one I’m in now sends out group emails whenever we need to (which is maybe twice/month). Both of those options work(ed) for that particular group and everyone was happy about it.

Put it in the calendar and show up! This might be the last point but it’s probably the most important. You have to be willing to put these regular meetings into your calendar and actually show up for them. Treat it like an extension of your life and make it a priority. Your group will plan their lives around these meetings. If you have to miss a meeting for some reason, that’s ok, but give your group notice so you’re not letting anyone down. The group only works if everyone is an active member of it. So just keep that in mind, before you commit to joining one. :)

In my experience, every mastermind group you join will serve a purpose—and you can either leave or dissolve the group, when that purpose has been served. So this isn’t something you need to commit to forever, but it is something that can absolutely help the small group of people who commit to it for a period of time. Find your people, help each other, learn from each other and make some great things happen!

We’re Better When We Work Together posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

[crisp-ofhurricane]

When superheroes are innocent

is it too late to (finally) write something about this topic? i hope not lol. it had been saved in my draft it’s already dusty.

as we know, a month ago most of people of the world altogether felt mesmerized by Gadot’s act in Wonder Woman. what a goddess, probably the constant murmur we’ve heard. I was one of them. 

from the beginning of time, we had kind of ‘nodding moment’ when Warner Bros announced that gorgeous Israeli Gal Gadot would be starring as Wonder Woman in the upcoming DC saga. i thought, yeah great cast i can’t think of anyone else who deserved to play Wonder fucking Woman. sotoy sih, but at least i’ve seen enough of her in some of Fast and Furious series (please note that i’m not a FF fan) and her small parts in Knight and Day and other movies i forgot each title. 

let’s be honest, Gadot’s features are quite the most interesting factor. she is exquisite, beautiful, and doesn’t seem princess-ish – she fits to play a warrior. i don’t want to talk about the boobs-controversy here because i don’t read comics and i’m fine with her curves, you perv. 

before Wonder Woman, we’ve seen her performance in Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice last year. i must say i don’t really fancy the movie overall because i need to be accompanied by many snacks, meaning it was kinda boring and i dislike Doomsday appearance - he looked like a poo.

regardless the lack of excitement and compelling execution, i admire Eisenberg’s resemblance of Lex Luthor which he built the emotion for the movie. even the fact that i adore Jeremy Irons dearly, his character did not pop up so much in it. well, other than Eisenberg, Gadot stole the show all the way, without a doubt. that was the part where i think Snyder was not sucks entirely, where i proved that he made a decent decision to choose Gadot.

but here’s the best part. the first scene where Diana appeared was in Luthor’s party, my mind was freezed but melting at the same time because i was excited to see her. Diana, stunning in her maroon dress, successfully made me curious about her kickass mystery – what is she up to? until the moment Bruce found out some files about her, my curiosity increased. where does she come from? but it was all forgotten when she suddenly joined the battle with Superman and Batman. she has the power and charisma that took my breathe away, especially when her face was slowly seen behind the shield with the iconic score. the uncanny stunning woman changed into a goddess warrior.

fast forward to Wonder Woman movie that was released on May end. With Patty Jenkins as the director, Wonder Woman served the background story we all have been waiting for: Diana Prince herself. At least my prior curiosity has been satisfied. 

But i’m not going to review the movie because first it was too late hahaha and second, i want to point out other perspective. Yup, Wonder Woman was hailed spectacular by the fans and audience. Gadot nailed it and also it offered such a new hope for DC Superhero saga remembering Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad were not good. I even hate Suicide Squad that much hahaha. 

So, Diana was first being introduced as a little girl who had enormous courage and eagerness to learn how to fight. She lived in Amazon, an ‘isolated’ far far away island from humans. As we predicted, the little Diana would grow up into tough warrior with great power. She decided to roam the journey to save the mankind from the evil god Ares, so she and Steve the pilot played by Chris Pine had to go outside Amazon. By boat. To London. 

In that movie we saw how ready Diana is without enough knowledge how the world would treat her. You know what caught my attention? Despite her strength and magnificent shield, Diana portrayal is extremely innocent. She has completely no idea how to interact or act in front of other people. I may not call it as vulnerability, but with a heroine side of her, i’m amused by the character – how innocent she is to not knowing many things that will face her, yet she has so much to offer to help the war. I found it so humane, and beautiful.

You remember right, when Diana tried to hide her costume, or the way she asked “what is a secretary?”, or when she suddenly approached a random baby in the street… that’s some hilarious shit, guys. Don’t forget the scene where Steve and his secretary assisted her to re-dress like normal people. I adooooore Gadot’s effortless act! Hahahahaha.

I don’t think with the innocence side of her, it would be considered as her significant weakness at all. I think her innocence comes in handy, because that what makes Diana fierce. We see her as if she doesn’t fear anything. She’s determined to execute her aim from the beginning: defeat Ares, which she succeeded. 

Same goes to our newest Spiderman in town! Homecoming provides a fresh, anew story and characters within. I don’t know if it sounds unfair or not because Wonder Woman is DC and Homecoming is Marvel, but i just feel there is similarity admiration from my perspective towards these two superheroes. Yup, they both are innocent.

Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is different from Maguire and Garfield’s. The now Peter is freshly amusing, still nerd, and adorable. With a start-over kind of vibe, Marvel does show us a super young Peter Parker, i don’t know why. I feel that his emotion and profound character is soooo millennial.

Remember when he was ecstatic to meet Tony Stark? Even in The Civil War we could witness how Holland acted – innocent, but not less smart. In Homecoming, Peter even utilized his smartphone to record a personal video during his first period of 'internship’ with Stark. I mean… c'mon!! He is basically a high school boy who has a value and strength to protect the city from minor (or major) criminal, and he got to meet the fictional billionaire Stark slash Iron Man. Of course he goin innocently nuts! 

That time when Peter decided to leave Washington only to chase Vulture, he and Ned tried to take off the smart tracker from the suit. Geez, can you see how innocent Peter is?? It urges him to act beyond his calculation whether he would made it or not. But there he is, feeling confident yet a little bit reluctant to communicate with his AI assistant that later named Karen. He doesn’t even know at all about the coolness of his suit ability. What a moron, right! Hahahaha. 

However, i never underestimate his bravery and determination to protect the city, even when the time he wants to show off to Stark that he is capable to stop villains (in this case, Vulture and the gang) from doing worse harm. He could be a smartass in some case, but his innocence takes a lot of factors behind his action. he simply wants to be just like Avengers members.

Both Gadot and Holland are perfectly fit the innocence of respective superhero characters. If Diana and Peter were 'clever’ enough about the problems they’d be facing, i’m not sure they would be that persistent in achieving their goals. Their innocence drive them to be a better superhero: not forgetting to be a down to earth human being.

[fesahaawit]

We’re Better When We Work Together

The feedback on last week’s post about how I slowly grew my blog my own way was overwhelming. I’m grateful for all the kind words, and also glad it seemed to come at the perfect time for some of you. Since hitting publish and watching some of the comments come in, however, I realized there were a few “rules” I forgot to add (you can find them in the comments). I also knew I wanted to write a quick follow-up post to drive one point home, and that is the importance of community over competition.

Before diving in, let me first say that I have not always been great at this. I think my perfectionist tendencies are partially to blame for that. Growing up, I wasn’t good at much. I shared stories and details about what that meant for me in this post, but what I failed to mention is that not feeling like I was good at much also meant occasionally feeling jealous of people who were better than me. Team sports are about competition, after all. I wasn’t good at them and, therefore, I felt competitive with people who were better than me.

Looking back on that, this doesn’t even make sense. We are all good at different things, and bring unique skills into every situation—and we can’t all be good at everything! We just can’t and that’s ok. But feeling like I wasn’t good at much put a sort of chip on my shoulder. It was me against the world. And for many years, anytime someone even made so much as a suggestion for how I could do something better, I rolled my eyes, was rude or ignored them. (Just ask my parents. I didn’t take advice from anyone!)

It’s interesting for me to think back to that and then look at where I am now. Working with one partner on a podcast and with another partner on Rockstar Finance. Meeting with a mastermind group every two weeks, and with two other blogger and freelancer friends separately every two weeks, too. Chatting with even more blogger and freelancer friends on Skype, Google Hangouts, the phone, etc. whenever we can squeeze it in. Helping people, asking for help and letting people help me. We are a community—not competition—and I am better for it.

I can’t say exactly when things shifted for me and I finally started asking for/accepting help, but I do know I have the personal finance community to thank for this progression. It started the minute I launched this blog (the second time) and waved my white flag to say I was giving up on my old ways and ready to make a change. In the early years, I wasn’t always receptive to the financial advice people gave me (remember that whole chip on the shoulder thing). But as time went on, I realized people just wanted to help.

This is in our nature: wanting to help and be helpful. All we want is to share what we’ve learned in the hopes that we can help someone else succeed. And this applies to some of my blogging rules: specifically, support other bloggers, put people over profit, and always be gracious and grateful. It’s also something I’ve come to believe about all topics, but especially personal finance: that the more we share, the better off we’ll all be. So eventually, I let people help. I pushed the chip off my shoulder and listened to all the advice people gave me.

It came in all different forms. Sometimes, I would put questions at the bottom of my posts and ask for help. Other times, I would sit across from friends in the personal finance space and ask a hundred questions about blogging, banking, investing, etc. The investing conversation was a big one for me. I was so worried that every question coming out of my mouth made me sound like an idiot. But my friend never made me feel that way and, instead, seemed genuinely happy to share what he knew. Probably because he knew:

The more we share, the better off we’ll all be. Click To Tweet

This rule has helped me learn more and share what I know about personal finance, which is great. But it has also helped me with blogging and freelancing—and that’s where it still seems like more work needs to be done. It’s easy to see other bloggers and freelancers as your competitors, but I promise you that’s not true. There are enough readers and enough clients, and there is enough money, to go around. On that last point, it’s also true that the more we share, the more we can all earn. Want proof?

Here are a few of the ways my community has helped me earn more/succeed:

Courtney asked me to be part of A Simple Year for the third year in a row, which is a group-led course where we combine our unique skills (and all 14 of us earn some money for partnering up).

My first mastermind group reviewed the original Mindful Budgeting, gave me feedback and even told me how much I should charge for it.

Erin took time out of her schedule to share what she learned from her book launch for Broke Millennial and give me tips for what to do for mine.

Both Jess and Paul shared their podcast sponsorship rates + download stats, so Carrie and I could figure out what to charge for ours.

And countless freelance writers have shared their strategies and rates, too.

You’ll notice these points also reflect some of my rules in last week’s post, specifically the one about putting people over profit and doing things my own way. These are more examples of how I opted to ignore all the expert advice and make money my own way. Freelance work, the podcast, online courses and the book. And none of these people had to help me earn it. They did it because they know it’s as easy as reaching your hand out and helping someone on a steep or difficult hike. They did it because they know the truth:

We are a community—not competition. Click To Tweet

Forever-inspired by my friends, here are some of the ways I try to help my community succeed too:

I’ve been a member of three mastermind groups (and I’ll explain more about how to start one below).

I’ve made introductions between freelance writers + clients, as well as podcasters + potential sponsors, because I know there is enough money to go around.

I’ll share the rates I charge for things when people ask, because I think we can all earn more if we’re transparent about this stuff. (And hello, making money online is like working in the Wild West. It’s hard to navigate, if you’re riding solo!)

I encourage people to increase their rates, when I know they are worth more. (This includes my designer who I will continue to encourage until she doubles her rate. You are worth it, friend.)

And I try to support other bloggers, either by leaving comments, replying to emails, having conversations, or sharing their content here or on Rockstar.

We are a community—not competition. And the more we share, the better off we’ll all be. I think I’ve said enough to drive that point home now, but I wanted to make sure the words sunk in. Like I said, I haven’t always understood this myself. But I know I am better for it because, like anything else in life, we aren’t born with all of this knowledge or these skills. We have unique backgrounds and abilities and information—and we can go a lot further when we compile it all and work together, rather than treat each other like competitors.

How to Start a Mastermind Group

In the past four years, I have been a member of three different mastermind groups. The first two were started by blogging friends, and then I formed the one I’m currently in. A handful of people have asked me to write a post about how to start a mastermind group, but it seemed more fitting to add that information to the bottom of this post, because mastermind groups are the essence of community over competition.

Start by deciding why you want to be part of a mastermind group. Traditionally, they are meant for business owners to connect and help each other grow. But honestly, you could start a mastermind group for any purpose. You could start one to connect with people who want to learn more about personal finance (get out of debt, share info about banking, learn more about investing, etc.). You could start one for people who have full-time jobs but who want to start side hustles. You could start one for authors who want to talk about book writing, launches, etc. It’s up to you. Just start with why.

Find 3-4 other people who are working towards similar things. It’s important to have different backgrounds and experiences, so you can bring unique ideas to the table and learn from each other. But it’s helpful if you’re all working towards at least somewhat similar things, otherwise it usually ends up that one or two members are learning a lot and the other members are doing all the teaching. While that’s great for the community aspect, the point of a mastermind group is to tap into each other’s knowledge and learn from each other. Find people you can work with and learn from.

Together, decide how you want to format your meetings. First, how often do you want to meet? Some groups meet weekly, others meet bi-weekly or even monthly. I would say that it all depends on how formal/informal you want it to be. If you want more accountability, meet more often. If you simply want to connect and brainstorm together, meet less often. After you make that decision, decide how you will meet (online, in-person) and what the agenda of each meeting will look like. Mine have all been an hour long and typically looked like this:

First 20 minutes: Everyone gives a brief update + shares wins with the group.

Next 30-40 minutes: We talk about one topic. Either someone takes the “hot seat” and asks for help from the group, or we bring one topic to the table that we all need a little help with.

If there’s time: Everyone gives a brief rundown of what they will be working on.

Together, decide how you want to communicate outside of meetings. Some mastermind groups have private Facebook groups or Slack channels. Others connect via email when they need to. And others don’t talk much outside of meetings. It’s also ok to try one thing and see how the group likes it, and then try something else if it’s not working. My first mastermind group had a private Facebook group and the one I’m in now sends out group emails whenever we need to (which is maybe twice/month). Both of those options work(ed) for that particular group and everyone was happy about it.

Put it in the calendar and show up! This might be the last point but it’s probably the most important. You have to be willing to put these regular meetings into your calendar and actually show up for them. Treat it like an extension of your life and make it a priority. Your group will plan their lives around these meetings. If you have to miss a meeting for some reason, that’s ok, but give your group notice so you’re not letting anyone down. The group only works if everyone is an active member of it. So just keep that in mind, before you commit to joining one. :)

In my experience, every mastermind group you join will serve a purpose—and you can either leave or dissolve the group, when that purpose has been served. So this isn’t something you need to commit to forever, but it is something that can absolutely help the small group of people who commit to it for a period of time. Find your people, help each other, learn from each other and make some great things happen!

We’re Better When We Work Together posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ