#its a totally different world now than it was even one decade ago

[angelhummel]

It seems the Gleeks/klainers like you who have been there from the beginning love season 5b and the newer crowd in last five years hate it. And I think it’s what they did to Blaine’s character in that arc.

He’d been such a high achiever, leader of glee club really, getting into Nyada and engaged and they made him into this dependent wreck who lied and smothered Kurt. I don’t like what they did to his character at all.

weeell of course you know that i'm gonna disagree with that whole last part bc that's not what they did at all

they clearly showed us blaine struggling with body image issues that were exacerbated by his mental health issues. he was never a perfect person who had it all together, even when he was leading show choirs and getting good grades and getting into elite performing schools. we see these issues as early as season two. being oblivious to kurt's obvious feelings, overstepping with people like burt when he asked him to talk to kurt about sex, being unsure of himself - with his sexuality, not understanding people's intentions with him, not sure if he could even be a good boyfriend himself. He was kind of always a "wreck" and it's funny that that used to be what people hated about him and now people seem to see it as a reason to love him all the more

And like. Idk I think he had a dark point in s5 where he was handling things wrong and not communicating or coping like he should've been. I don't think he was 100% leaning on Kurt for support or smothering him. We actually get to see them doing their own things in those few episodes, like Blaine with June and Kurt with Peter Pan. They still support each other when they're off doing their own thing, but say that a success for one of them is a success for both of them bc they're partners who root for each other and know how to cheer the other one on

But even before that I mean, Blaine just went through a huge life change in graduating high school and moving from Lima to New York. That's no small feat. Everything's different, school is stressful, Kurt gets put in the damn hospital. Things are chaotic, and different, and scary. And we see all the NY characters coping with their new circumstances at different points in time. Sam, Santana, Mercedes, Rachel, Kurt - they all have different points of doubt, of feeling like they don't belong or not knowing what direction to go in. Blaine was far from the only one floundering, and it's unrealistic to expect any of them to be 100% sure of themselves and their lives at any point in time, but especially in s4-5

And I appreciate your ask and how you phrased it, with the dichotomy between original fans and newer fans. Because to me that also reads as the divide between older fans and younger fans. As in like, people who were teenagers or older who watched the show when it aired, and the teens or young adults who have just gotten into the show in the last few years*. Because those viewing experiences are bound to be different

I've had around a decade to watch and rewatch Glee, to process everything in it, and for my thoughts and opinions to morph and mature. Not to mention a decade of brain development and personal growth and life experience that would shape how I view a teen show like this. I didn't start watching Degrassi or PLL until relatively recently, and I know my thoughts on those shows now aren't the same as they would've been if I was watching them when they originally aired, either as a kid, teen, or even young adult

Obviously I'm not saying age = wisdom but when it comes to something like media analysis I do think that more life experience gives you more perspective and helps you understand things like this a little differently. I mean my blog is just shy of being 5 years old and I know there are things I said in 2018 that I don't agree with anymore. You just process things differently and you're gonna have changing opinions the older you get, that's just how it is

all this to say i think you mischaracterized blaine and did his s5b self an injustice lol. but that's just my opinion. i'd like to hear from some older/younger/newer/older fans and see if this is a common pattern

*im sure there are plenty of people who watched the show when it aired and were way too young for it, and grown adults who are still getting into it today. this statement was just a generalization and not meant to speak for everyone in the fandom

[stxrvel]

absence (1)

series summary. the holy grail of the seven men who ruled the country's entertainment used to be your friends at school. now, ten years later and between successes and failures, what reason would they have to want to come back into your life? pairing. eventually ot7 x f!reader... or not? content. first of all, english is not my first language so sorry for any mistakes! curse words, fangirling a lot and some self-deprecation. no proofread. this is just silly writing, we're on the safe zone for now. a/n. hi guys! i was gonna wait a little bit but i'm really excited about this one so you're gonna have earlier! thank u all for the support and i really hope you enjoy this 🫶🏻

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You met them all at school. Each with their own ambitions, their different dreams, but so similar in the nature of their core. It was almost funny how everyone with their dissimilar personalities fit so strangely well into one school group. There were times when you could still remember how you used to tell them that all together they could rule the world.

Maybe that's why you didn't see them years ago.

Jeon Jungkook was an idol. There wasn't an hour in the day or a screen in the city where you weren't watching him. He was so popular around the world that you suspected that not even one person didn't know him. His voice was on every radio station, on every cell phone of the people you passed on the street and on the buses, his face on the TV sets with the last interview he had done, as if it were a national achievement. You even saw him in restaurants, chefs naming dishes after him, production companies releasing collaborations with his company. There wasn't an object in that city that didn't have Jungkook's face on its forehead. It was impossible to escape him.

He was closely followed by Kim Taehyung and Park Jimin, two of the most promising models of the last decade, a national pride hand in hand with Jungkook. You didn't see them as often as Jungkook, but they still swept the international public and there was hardly anyone who didn't talk about them. Invited to catwalks in Paris, choosing their contracts and collaborations, wearing the most expensive clothes that you wouldn't even think of buying, wearing beautiful matching jewelry, expensive enough that a single outfit from each of them could buy you five houses in the small town they all came from. Taehyung and Jimin were known as the Siamese twins of modeling. Wherever one went, the other always had to be. Their exclusivity was incomparable.

In levels of recognition, Min Yoongi followed them in line. A great rapper who was well received by the general populace. Yoongi had managed to captivate a large audience thanks to his incredible command of the production of his music and his ease and gift for writing his own lyrics. His growth was gradual, but when he touched the sky he never went down again. His popularity was not low even though his presentation to the public was not that high compared to the other three. Still, Yoongi had enough charisma and talent to stand out, especially when his fans were obsessed with highlighting the duality he had when he was on stage and when he did those seventy question interviews with Vogue or whatever… that had made him one of the best rappers of his generation and probably of the last century.

Kim Namjoon was the owner of the company that made Jungkook's debut and welcomed Yoongi with total creative freedom. If he were not solely focused on music, he would surely also be Taehyung and Jimin's agent. Namjoon had inherited a company from his parents, but the success he had turned it into over the past few years, into one of the most profitable businesses in the country, was entirely to his credit and effort. His popularity was also high, because everyone said he was too handsome to be a mere businessman; not knowing, of course, that everything involved in maintaining such a business required much more than a pretty face. Of Namjoon the public didn't know too much, not probably like the other guys and you, if he was still half the person he was before.

Hand in hand with Namjoon were Jung Hoseok and Kim Seokjin. Hoseok was and still is to this day a national pride as he passionately played tennis since school and turned professional, reaching to participate in major international tournaments representing his country and winning one of them. However, two years after that great feat, an accident involving one of his hands prevented him from continuing to play. No one knows exactly what happened during the more than a year and a half that he almost completely disappeared from the public eye, but when he returned with his huge smile he announced that he would dedicate himself to dance, opening his own academy throughout the center of the city. Although he was not a recurrent teacher, his academy was one of the best in the country, and of course, it was financed by Namjoon's company. At one time Hoseok became Namjoon's associate.

Seokjin, on the other hand, was the one who kept the lowest profile. He was a great doctor, cardiovascular if you were not mistaken. In addition to being an amazing surgeon, his research projects were the ones everyone looked forward to the most at the end of each year. You didn't know much about the subject, but he was almost like the guru of medicine in his field specifically. The only reason he was so much in the public eye being a doctor was because he was regularly seen in the company of Namjoon, Hoseok and Yoongi. The four of them made up the holy grail of dilfs.

They had all had incredibly successful careers and you were glad that they had been able to accomplish everything they once talked about on the rooftop of Namjoon's house, with sneaky steps so their parents wouldn't scold them when they sneaked out in the wee hours of the morning.

You didn't know exactly what it was - or you didn't want to acknowledge it - that succumbed inside you every time you saw or heard about any of them on the news or on social media. Because yeah, no matter how low media exposure any of them had, always the faces of all seven appeared on your TikTok every week.

It was amazing how they had all moved on and you… well, you-

“Weren't you supossed to leave?”

You lifted your head from your phone, trying to hide it with trembling hands as you let Taehyung's face next to Jungkook's plunge into the darkness of your apron pocket.

“Huh?”

You tried to look distracted, returning your gaze between your boss and the notes next to the cash register. She had a soft gaze, between amused and sisterly. Her brown eyes shifted from your eyes and hot cheeks to the notes you held upside down in your hands, pretending to work as if she herself hadn't seen you completely frozen and gawking at the pair of the country's great casanovas.

“I thought you were leaving earlier today,” your boss shifted, settling her trench coat and long brown strap bag over her shoulder. At that moment she was leaving to walk around to each of the locations she had in town, just to do follow-ups. “Don't tell me you forgot.”

You followed her index finger until it landed on the red circle you had drawn on the calendar placed in your little cubicle a couple of weeks ago, with hearts surrounding it and exclamation points. Yes you remembered, of course you remembered, but at the point where you were at the time no one was going to miss you if you didn't attend.

“I didn't forget…” your voice trailed off as you looked down, your fingers finding the tips of the pages more entertaining than your boss's worried expression.

“y/n, you asked me to leave earlier this day from four months ago,” her high-pitched voice echoed in your head, reminding you how excited you had been a while ago for this day to come. “You can't just give up like that. Come on. You still have time.”

You began to shake your head, releasing your grip on the woman who was looking at you with the same worried eyes of a mother. Your boss had been one of the most encouraging people you'd ever had in your life, besides the handful of friends you had stored in your phone's contacts.

“It was a bust last time. I don't plan on going through that again.”

“But hadn't you told me afterwards that you weren't going to let that stop you? You said… what was it? I can't drown in this glass of water.”

You grudgingly resisted the urge to roll your eyes. Really you of four months ago was a deluded fool.

“I had no idea about life at the time.”

Your boss clicked her tongue, dropping her hands on your shoulders, giving little squeezes whose familiarity stole your breath.

“I'll leave Patrick waiting for you in case you change your mind.”

You shook your head, evading the memories. The man outside the store shook his head in greeting as the two of you turned to look at him, as if he knew you were talking about him.

“Don't miss this opportunity because you're afraid. It may change your life.”

You watched her leave, the clacking of her low heels drawing the attention of everyone in the store, earning every possible stare as she did every time she entered any room. Her chauffeur, Patrick, greeted her with a similar nod of his head as before and stood leaning against the black car parked right where he could get a perfect view of your nervous face.

You, unlike the great and successful lives of your high school friends whose company you still used to miss like a fool, had not had such a great and successful life.

You were a writer. Well, an attempted writer and, worse, part-time. The other part-time was this job behind the cash register at the largest pastry chain in the country. Or sometimes as a waitress, it depended on the day. There was good pay, mind you, at least it allowed you to make up for the losses you took every time you tried to sell a book and then had to market it on your own, only to have five purchases once every seven months and three of them were from your parents and brother. The other two were from your friends.

Four months ago you had been invited to a sort of convention for readers, how they had found you and why? You had no idea, but the idea of being considered in that way drove you crazy at the time. You were so excited that you had more copies of your failed books printed and prepared your booth several days in advance to present them to the horde of people who, you were sure at the time, would come to meet you.

Only one person came by to ask you about the bathroom.

You never recovered from that.

Even with all that failure, that same day you were invited to another convention and, for a while, you were excited to attend. Everyone goes through those kinds of bumps at some point in their life, right? You have to work hard to earn that kind of fame, you kept telling yourself. But as time went on and your networks didn't grow and your videos didn't get more than ten views, or fifty views at most in a week, you began to lose that spark of excitement you held for your dream. Your parents had never turned your back on what you wanted to do, but it was too demotivating and discouraging to have spent so many years at it, so many headaches and tears invested for you to just keep losing and losing money.

That was why you were sure you wouldn't go to that convention if you had to go through that mockery again. You hadn't even bothered to go and fix your booth so surely they already knew you weren't going.

“Have you seen them yet??????”

The female voice coming from the wine cellar made you jump up on your chair.

“Jesus, Yuna, you almost killed me here.”

“I don't care! We could die right now for all we care!”

“Wow, speak for yourself.”

“Haven't you seen theeeem?”

Yuna held up her phone, the screen at full brightness blinding you for a moment. The blurry dots you saw from the proximity of the device told you nothing, as your friend jumped excitedly beside you.

“God, hold still.”

Grabbing her wrist, you leveled the phone to see her TikTok and a picture of three men.

Namjoon, Yoongi and Jungkook coming out of a building. From Namjoon's building.

“They look amazing, don't they? They just came out! That means their car will pass in front of us any minute!”

Yes, Namjoon's building was just a few blocks away from your boss's place. In fact, your boss knew him and many times they would prepare large orders for parties at his company. You had never seen him set foot in this place or any other in the country, but every time he went to celebrate something he had to dial your boss's personal number and you would work until your backs burned because everything had to be perfect for the big businessman.

“Are you going out to greet them or what?” you frowned, letting go of her wrist and returning your gaze to the notebook next to the cash register.

Yuna let out an excited exclamation.

“Ohhhh~, should I? Should I?”

You grabbed her by the collar of her uniform as she tried to pass behind you.

“We're still on business hours.”

“I'm sure Sol wouldn't mind,” her almost heart pupil eyes stared down the street, her hands moving in front of her like she was a zombie. She almost seemed possessed by her fanaticism. Though of course you didn't blame her, if you didn't know any of the seven knights of the underworld you would surely be as excited as she was.

“Don't put words in her mouth. You'd better tell me if the lady's batch of cakes is out yet-”

Commotion erupted throughout the room. You almost saw in slow motion how all the people in the premises got up and running in the direction of the glass doors when you heard the screams coming from far away.

“They're comiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!”

Sometimes you wondered how they dealt with this level of fanaticism.

The ground almost shook with the amount of people running after a black car, where the three men who were causing such a furor so early that day were most likely to be, and the commotion was not tiny inside the venue where the screams erupted.

Having to deal with that on a daily basis would easily turn someone into a hater. Not that you were one... strictly...

“God, for a moment we breathed the same air,” Yuna plopped down on the table, her body doubled over with her eyes lost. You resisted the urge to smack her forehead.

“Their car windows were up.”

“So you saw them, right?????”

“Argh.”

You had to drag her back to work as the excitement in the store dissipated. You attended to another batch of consumers while Yuna fixed the display case and, in a moment of lapse you could almost tell, her back suddenly straightened and she turned to look at you with her eyes a little too wide. You passed the change to the man in front of you, who barely sent you a confused glance before continuing to claim his order at the other corner of the store.

“What's wrong with you?”

“You shouldn't be here.”

“Don't say that with that face. You look creepy,” you pulled out the bill to tuck it under the cash register as Yuna approached, leaving the frightened face behind.

“Wasn't that convention today?”

You sighed. “Yes.”

“Then why aren't you there?”

“Do I look like I want to be there?”

“Y/n! It's a great opportunity. You should-”

“A great opportunity for what, to be a laughingstock again?”

Yuna pursed her lips, looking almost pained that you would remember in that way the experience that was supposed to change your life. She had been one of the ones who had accompanied you to set up the booth and she was sure she had never seen you smile so much during all the time the two of you had known each other. Yuna was aware of how over time you seemed to have lost interest in this new convention, but she didn't think you would finally decide not to go.

On the sly, she had prepared your booth with the help of your mother and Sol, your boss.

“You were never a laughingstock! Don't say that,” Yuna patted your forearm harder than necessary. “Besides, I recently logged some purchases on the site! How do you-?”

“I know it was you and mom,” you raised your voice to interrupt her, stepping archly away from her body.

“What the… Of course not, ha, ha!”

“You're the only fools who would write down celebrity names to register purchases. Besides, the addresses don't even exist.”

“Fuck, I told her that wouldn't work.”

Under your heavy gaze, Yuna had the decency to look embarrassed.

“Okay, I'm sorry! We wanted to motivate you to go to the convention.”

“Can't you just let me do my own thing? If I don't want to go, I won't go.”

“Even if you leave Patrick waiting there?”

You followed his gaze, watching the man pull an umbrella out of the trunk of the car as the slightest breeze brushed against his body and the water droplets were smaller than a dew that the two of you had to squint to see them on the glass of the entrance.

“Whatever it is, I'm not going.”

“y/n…” Yuna pleaded, coming closer with her puppy dog eyes.

“No.”

“y/n, please…”

“No and stop doing that. You look weird.”

“I don't,” Yuna pulled away to frown at you. “I once heard you agreed with Seoyeon about my puppy face being cute.”

“I never agreed with that!”

“Seojun told me so!”

“Your first mistake is believing Seojun.”

“Do you blame me if the reason is your demonstration of love for me?”

“That was your second mistake.”

“Y/n!”

_____________________

That day you arrived home a little later than usual. Since Patrick had been waiting for you all day in the sun and mini rain and refused to let you take a cab on direct instructions from Sol, you asked him to take a ride downtown so you could buy the teokkboki your mom loved and incidentally bought some for him, even though he didn't want to accept it at first.

“y/n, dear, how did it go?”

Your parents were in the living room when you arrived playing Go. Your father left the table when he saw you carrying the bag of food and came over to take it from you.

“What does our little writer bring here, a contract by any chance?”

You watched out of the corner of your eye as your mother tried to get your father's attention by wildly waving her fan, while the man rummaged through the bag to find something warm and delicious smelling.

“Oh, it's teokkboki.”

Your mother stopped waving her arm to stare at the bag with sparkling eyes.

“The ones from the center? From Mrs. Wang?”

You nodded in her direction, taking a seat in their midst on the floor. Your parents started a pitched battle to see who would break the bag first to try the first batch of teokkboki and you could only watch them with a smile on your face. The day may have been difficult, but being home at the end of the day always made you feel so much better.

Amidst laughter and anecdotes, trying to avoid the elephant in the room because you knew your mother's furtive glances weren't for nothing, the three of you ate teokkboki until you were bursting at the seams. You organized the kitchen with your father while your mother grumbled from the living room whatever he said about her. You watched the three of you favorite soap opera on the fixed schedule and finally got ready for bed.

With your body more relaxed and lighter, you let yourself sink into the softness of the sheets, completely ignoring the messages Yuna had sent earlier and the stupid questions your brother asked at the most inopportune moments.

How do I unclog a bath?

Do I add salt to the rice???

Where do I get the kimchi mom makes?????

His independence was probably one of the worst things that could happen. You being the older sister thought you would leave home first. Even according to your twelve year old diary, you should have been married by then or at least planning your amazing, mega giant wedding, complete with helicopters and puppy dogs carrying drinks through the reception. You didn't know what kind of crazy dreams you had when you were younger, but up to that point you hadn't been able to fulfill any of your inner child's desires except to study for a career you were passionate about.

Still, what good had that done in the end? Maybe you should've listened to your grandparents to study medicine. Maybe your parents should've been a little more conservative instead of libertarian, which your grandparents always complained about when they had the chance. If you were a disgrace to anyone in the family, it was to them.

Ah, what a long day.

You didn't know at what point you fell asleep, but the incessant sound of your phone vibrating next to your pillow woke you up. With a grunt, you moved your hands to put the device in front of one of your half-open eyes to find Yuna on caller ID. Your eyes moved upward.

It was one in the morning!

“What the fuck are you doing calling at this hour? It better be an emergency because-”

“WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING THAT YOU DON'T CHECK YOUR MESSAGES?”

“WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT? IT'S ONE IN THE MORNING! WHY WOULD I BE DOING ANYTHING ELSE BUT SLEEPING?”

“I'VE BEEN TEXTING YOU FOR A WHILE NOW, Y/N!”

“YUNA HOW CAN I NOT FUCKING SLEEP-?”

“Well, whatever!”

You let out an exasperated snort, giving her time to say what she had to say.

“You're going to fall on your ass.”

“I'm lying down.”

“Your books have sold a thousand copies in the last hour!”

Silence. Absorbing silence…

“Yuna, if you really woke me up to play a fucking prank on me I'm going all the way to your house to pull out every single one of your hairs with a fucking tweezer.”

“First of all, gross. Second of all, I'm not kidding! Get on your fucking Instagram! What's worse is that's not the most shocking news. Well… depends on how you look at it.”

“Yuna, I don't think I'm following you.”

“Fucking Kim Taehyung was at the reader convention and he took a picture of your books and UPLOADED IT TO HIS INSTAGRAM STORIES!!!!! AN HOUR AGO! The damn shopping notifications woke me up and I think I took too much time trying to process what was going on because they already tripled!”

“What the fuck are you talking about, did you start smoking weed?”

“Ugh, why are you so insufferable? Just look at fucking Instagram!”

You didn't want to believe Yuna, but a part of you was vibrating in anticipation. You'd already seen her text messages, her exclamations and voice notes, you'd barely processed the images she'd sent you. You logged on to Instagram. The first thing you noticed was the exorbitant amount of notifications and direct messages.

You had to search for Taehyung's account because you weren't following him.

There was the colorful arc around his profile picture. The story.

You clicked on his picture on the screen.

Your books were all over his story, with his hand holding one of them.

It jumped out at you that there was a stand of your books that you had no idea where it had come from.

A description loomed between the image.

One of the best fantasy books I've read in recent years. And by one of the best writers I've ever met in my life.

Your user was next to the description. You had no idea how fucking Kim Taehyung had gotten your user when it wasn't even something related to your name. You hadn't even uploaded pictures of yourself once in all the time that account had been open.

“Did you see it?? Can you see I wasn't lying?”

With Yuna's malevolent laughter in the background, you felt your mind escape into an unknown mental space.

“You're going to be rich!!! And I'm going to meet Kim Taehyung!”

Your mind was racing a thousand miles an hour trying to make sense of what your eyes couldn't credit. His story was replaying on your screen. So many things you could say and just…

“What the fuck?”

--

tag: @rinkud @futuristicenemychaos @pastelpeachess @parapiop7

[doomsayersunited]

A Decade Of Doom!

I started this blog ten years ago to compile the growing evidence that our planet would not longer be able to sustain human life by 2050, thanks to our continued, capitalist-fueled efforts to destroy all the systems we rely upon to sustain life. The first thing I put up here was this essay, on February 20, 2014. Now, a decade later, I thought it might be "fun" to look at what's changed: 1) Earth Overshoot Day

In 2014, "Earth Overshoot Day" (the day that humanity collectively consumes more resources from nature than it can regenerate over a year) was August 19th. Now, in 2024, Earth Overshoot Day is August 1st, 2.5 weeks earlier. At this rate and assuming things don't accelerate (even though they are likely to), Earth Overshoot Day will be around June 17th by 2050. 2) Biocapacity Biocapacity is the amount of resources contained on the planet required available to sustain life, measured by area. In 2014, I calculated that the planet had a biocapacity of 1.7 hectares per person. By dividing the total available biocapacity today in 2024 with the current global population as I did then, it now appears that there are just 1.5 hectares of planetary resources left per person to extract all the materials needed to sustain life, as well as all the area available to dispose of waste. That's a 12% loss over ten years. At that rate, we can expect to lose another 30% of biocapacity by 2050, going down to just 1.05 hectares per person by then, and that's assuming that the rate of biocapacity loss does not accelerate further and that the global population suddenly stops increasing after a run of non-stop increases spanning five centuries. Oh, also a reminder that the average human requires 2.7 hectares of land to sustain its current consumption habits/levels. So. 3) Individual Conservation To illustrate the futility of individual conservation at this point in the apocalypse, let me give you an example: If you were: a fully-vegan localvore living in a one-bedroom apartment with nine other people and using 100% renewably-generated electricity; who did not ever use motorized transportation of any kind or buy new clothing, furnishings, electronics, books, magazines, or newspapers and recycled all the waste you generated that was recyclable, you'd only require 1.4 hectares of biocapacity to sustain yourself. That is close to the kind of lifestyle extremism it would take to live sustainably. Deviate from that level of stoicism even slightly (say by living in a two-bedroom apartment with three other people instead of a one-bedroom apartment with nine other people and taking a single, four-hour roundtrip flight, once a year) and you're now consuming 1.6 hectares of biocapacity, which means you're using more resources than the world has available for you if everything was divided evenly among everybody. Of course, biocapacity, like all resources, are not divvied up evenly among everybody, which is why there are currently 114 different armed conflicts happening worldwide - the highest number of armed conflicts since 1946. 2023 was the most violent year in the last three decades. 4) Other Signs Of The End Times In my 2014 essay, I referenced the work of geologist Dr. Evan Fraser, who studies civilization collapse. In his book Empires of Food, Dr. Fraser noted common signs of a civilization about to collapse, which began to appear about two decades before it all goes completely to hell. Those signs were: -a rapidly-increasing and rapidly-urbanizing population We've added 700 million people to the planet since I began this blog in 2014. And where is everyone moving to?

-farmers increasingly specializing in just a small number of crops " "As farm ecosystems have been simplified, so too are the organisms that populate the farm.  A farm that specializes in a limited number of crops in short rotations does not, for example, look for plant varieties that do well in more complex rotations with intercropping.  A beef feedlot operation wants breeds that gain weight quickly on grain diets and does not want cattle breeds that digest well pasture grasses and thrive in all year outdoor environments on the range." The result? Recent estimates put the loss of global food diversity over the last 100 years at 75%. Over the 300,000 species of edible plants that exist, humans only consume about 200 of them in notable quantities, with 90% of crop plants not being grown commercially. -endemic soil erosion Climate change and the need to raise more crops have combined to increase the rate of agricultural soil erosion globally. Back in 2014, when I started blogging about the end of everything, the UN had already determined that there was only enough fertile soil left to plant 60 more annual crops. So, by 2074, we won't be able to grow food, full stop. This of course comes at a time when the global population continues to increase, and with it the need to grow more food. If projections are accurate, we will need to increase food production by 50% over the next three decades to feed everyone. -a dramatic increase in the cost of food and raw materials When I started this blog in 2014, I noted that 2011-2013 had seen the highest food prices on record. So what's happened since then?

It's important to point out here that the current food price spike started in 2020, so if Dr. Fraser's calculations are correct, the food system will collapse sometime around 2034, taking civilization with it. I closed my debut essay on this blog with a quote from the (now deceased) climate scientist Dr. James Lovelock, who advised a Guardian journalist to "enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan." That interview was published in 2008. We have four years left to enjoy.

[youryurigoddess]

Aziraphale’s wine

It is a truth universally acknowledged in the Good Omens fandom that an angel in need of a drink turns to his secret stash of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the back room. He picked up a dozen cases in 1921, and a whole century later there's still some left… for special occasions.

Just to put things in perspective, a standard case contains 12 750ml bottles, for a total of 9 liters of wine. A dozen cases equals 144 bottles, or 108 liters of wine. That’s quite a lot for a single purchase, so Aziraphale — the established sherry and sweet drinks connoisseur — must have had a good reason for it.

One potential explanation is the aura of grandeur around this particular wine. The papal connection, rich history of the region, and recognition of high quality products give Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines a very luxurious status, considerably influencing their price tags. And Aziraphale is known to have standards.

Another one is the way in which their taste differs from Aziraphale’s usual choices: Châteauneuf-du-Pape reds are often described as earthy with gamey flavors that have hints of tar and leather. The wines are considered tough and tannic in their youth, but maintain their rich spiciness as they age.

Since everything in Good Omens has a meaning, it never hurts to run through a quick Strong’s Concordance search whenever a date pops up in a dialogue or, even more importantly, somewhere on screen. More often than not the result seems to match the researched topic, as it’s the case here:

1921: to know exactly, to recognize.

Provided examples: I come to know by directing my attention to him or it, I perceive, discern, recognize; I found out. The general usage of the word usually refers to knowing someone aptly, properly, thoroughly, even biblically. Which might be either a wishful thinking on Aziraphale’s part or just another layer of subtext in this already romantically charged scene. The table dressing, multiple candles, and focus on the lamps with Auguste Moreau’s Young Lovers statues in the background seem to successfully communicate what the angel left unsaid.

Too bad that Crowley remained so adorably oblivious for the next eighty years. At least when he finally came to the realization, he responded with an attempted temptation to another vintage red wine @vidavalor already analyzed.

But back to Aziraphale’s wine. To be exact, it’s a 1921 Châteauneuf-du-Pape from the domaine de Baban. An actual French vineyard from the Rhône region that still exists to this day, even though a few decades ago it got merged with another estate into what is now known as domaine Riché-Baban. According to the local guides, the 11 hectares on the estate are located in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape designation area in the Bois Lauzon and Mourre de Baud districts. At the moment 90% of the wines produced there are sent to wine dealers.

1920s were quite an interesting time for this region, but not because of the flapper cabarets or drag shows usually associated with the era on the Old Continent. To the horror of European oenophiles, right after World War I the whole of France found itself awash with fake wine. One of the worst outrages was the use of lead that magically transformed cheap, acid wine into something deceptively rich and sweet on the outside and one of the most powerful neurotoxins on the inside. People were already well aware of its effects — the poisoning from drinking sweetened wine probably made Handel go blind and Beethoven go deaf, but it shows how desperate for sweetness they were before sugar became available to the masses.

Admittably, it wasn’t a new practice. Far from it — the Romans liked it so much that they even advised to pack lead pans on travels to boil local wine in them to make it sweeter, especially in colder provinces like Britannia. But Aziraphale didn’t buy twelve cases of counterfeit wine for the sake of some good memories of Rome and its many health hazards. No, the fussy angel made sure to get the actually good stuff from the other side of the English Channel.

Henry Tacussel, whose name is mentioned on his wine label, was a French viticulturalist and a close friend of Baron Pierre Le Roy of the Chateau Fortia nearby, a trained lawyer and fellow winegrower from Châteauneuf-du-Pape who established the Winegrowers' Union of the Rhône Valley. Together with the Baron he became one of the founders of Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC), a labeling system intended to protect regional products and technologies that is still in use in France and serves as an inspiration to similar solutions worldwide. Their efforts were deliberately centred on Châteauneuf-du-Pape because with such a beguiling name even in comparison to other labels it seemed to attract an undue share of fraudsters at the time.

Soon after Aziraphale’s shopping spree, the local wine producers led by Le Roy and Tacussel began a very long campaign to establish legal protection for the wine from their commune. The delimited area and the method of wine production were finally awarded legal recognition after a decade, in 1933, but it wasn’t the end of the criminal activities on this front. An undercover investigation by The Sunday Times discovered that most of the “Châteauneuf” in the 1960s Britain was actually blended and bottled in Ipswich.

One question remains: was it a purely human affair, or maybe one requiring a demonic or angelic intervention?

[felassan]

Some more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from some older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube videos where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago. (Multiple videos are covered in this post, so the source video of each bullet point is included there) -

"I'm pretty sure that the [in-world] Dragon Age will be an age that lasts a suspiciously long time, as long as there are Dragon Ages being made. I don't think they will drop 'Dragon Age' because it's such an identifiable part of the franchise". [source]

"I totally cannot spoil what the original Black City was supposed to be. I'm pretty sure that the approach to lore in DA has always been to leave it ambiguous to allow the future to go where it needs to go. Though that being said, DA:O was definitely built with the assumption that it was not getting a sequel." [source]

"The Calling is presented as taking decades to kill you on its own. So Alistair would still be alive in DA:I and DA:D if he went that way. I think, if I remember the lore correctly." [source]

"DA:O introduces a lot of hanging plot threads that aren't necessarily resolved. Orzammar potentially sets up a civil war, there's potentially werewolves running around. There's a lot of stuff we've been able to kind've ignore, but there's a lot of stuff that's still out there. The line of succession for Ferelden is open isn't it." [source]

[on the Warden's quest for a cure for the Calling] "I don't think it's established that the cure is actually found is it. Or just that they're looking." [source]

"Likely any cure for the Calling would be to extract the Taint from the person, so you would basically cease being a Grey Warden at that point." [source]

"I think they're treating the Trespasser epilogue slides as canon." [source]

[during DA:O epilogue slides] "You can see, this leaves a lot of threads in a lot of potential different directions that Dragon Age has been dealing with since then, since 2009." [source]

"The resistance that there was for toolset for Frostbite was a feeling like, 'this engine is proprietary, it does a bunch of stuff that we don't want other people to be able to steal'. That's basically not even true anymore. There's actually a feeling now within EA that user-generated content, UGC, is incredibly good, that it's basically free marketing. Like you say, Skyrim has been going forever. So that's why, EA has a really complicated relationship with UGC. What they want is basically, everyone to make TikTok videos and things about how great the game is. They don't necessarily want you to make DLC or Twitch stream the thing but they also recognize that this is not a, you don't get to have one without the other really. Yeah, the 'cost of free ads from fans is fan DLC'. That's pretty much, sums it up perfectly." [source]

"CD Projekt uses slightly different language than BioWare did for DLCs, expansion packs etc. I would not classify the free DLCs from The Witcher as expansion packs, they're DLC. They called them expansion packs but from my perspective, an expansion pack is larger than that but it's a spectrum for sure. The thing I would say about CD Projekt in general is they're amazingly good at picking the right language. So what they did on Witcher 3 is they said, they added a tiny bit of content to each of their patches and said 'this is DLC, we're going to give it away for free, aren't we amazing?' And then they made their DLC a little bit bigger and then said 'these are expansion packs, we're gonna charge for that', brilliant. Honestly brilliant. Because it makes them, it's a great PR move, it also meant that they got a, every time they released a patch they essentially got an article on the gaming sites. It's something that BioWare and frankly DA in particular is pretty bad at, like, naming things, and using language that makes things sound better." [source]

[on The Sims] "'Buy a thing and then later they release more stuff to add to your thing', it's an amazing business model. It's also a business model that EA does not understand, they, like BioWare, suffer from being a thing that exists within the sports-focused EA ecosystem that, constantly trying to explain that 'our players are not the same as your players, you need to let us do what we know how to do'." [source]

"We had a free-to-play version for DA multiplayer, that was Hendrix. It's not on the, EA didn't want it to exist so it was only on the servers for a little while, a couple of months, but it was actually there. I'm sure it's not up anymore." [source]

"I don't know if Frostbite is gonna die. I think there's a very good chance that what's going to happen is, it may become the next sports engine. FIFA is a monolith and has taken over the driver's seat for that engine. I don't think they're gonna be very interested in switching again. Even if active Frostbite development in general goes away, FIFA will keep going and then a bunch of other games live in the rain shadow of FIFA, like NHL." [source]

"If it was up to me, I'd probably have forced Mass Effect onto Frostbite. And I would be strongly inclined to keep Dragon Age on Frostbite for at least one more game because you've built the foundation. The best engine to use is the one you just used. But I don't know what's gonna happen after DA:D to be honest. BioWare seems to be addicted to throwing away work they've done in the past. And it was never up to me." [source]

"Frostbite isn't a recruitment negative but certainly it's a lot easier to find people that already know how to use Unreal. What you actually see in programming is some people, it's not a universal, but some programmers, they don't wanna work in Unreal because they feel like someone else gets to do all the cool programming bits." [source]

"The question for Awakening is should it have even been an expansion pack, or is a different solution to have made it, say, 40% bigger and made it a full-sized game. This is, I think, the reason why expansion packs are so rare these days is because, it's easy to imagine a path from an expansion pack to a $60 or $70 game and then you're getting somewhere between 80-120% attach as opposed to 30% attach. I suspect this is the primary reason why expansion packs have kind've faded away, because 'I'm gonna ship every year' is fairly accepted within games these days. So honestly the pitch for Joplin's live service was 'we're not gonna do a live service, we're gonna do a game, and then we're gonna do another game in 18 months and another 18 months after that. And maybe we'll do one piece of DLC in there, but we'll just be like dunk-dunk-dunk' and the economics for that are great. So that's why expansion packs are gone I think." [source]

"That's the fundamental problem of DA:O not knowing it's gonna have sequels, it leaves the world in a very quantum state. There's still stuff that's hinted at in those [epilogue slides] that are happening sometime in the future that I think are gonna probably at this point be ignored. Probably the biggest issue of DA:O is that it leaves the world in a state that probably wasn't intending that there would be a sequel." [source]

"When we were discussing doing a remaster for the trilogy, my pitch was to essentially retcon it [DA:O, DAII and DA:I] into a trilogy, to make it the 'Champion's Trilogy' or something to that effect, where you group the three games together, imply that they were always intended to be a trilogy kind of, and then that does a couple of things. It packages them into something that stands on its own a bit better, but also lets you potentially change what you're doing with the player character going forward. If you've decided that, okay, we've changed player character every single game up until now, but maybe we're not going to do that going forward, by packaging them together in a remaster you kind've give yourself permission to do that. Certainly DA:D is gonna have a new player character, given that the one from DA:I is missing a limb." [source]

"We probably oversold the Wardens in the marketing for DA:O. Because essentially, what we did was establish them as the coolest thing in the world and then yeah, so the series has definitely been dealing with the aftermath oh 'but not Wardens? Therefore not cool' forever since then." [source]

"But a new player character means you have a harder job every single game, because you have to get people interested, you don't get the shortcut of 'Shepard is Shepard, you know Shepard'." [source]

"Anders is the one that made us rethink how we introduce romances, because a lot of people ended up in romance with him that didn't mean to. We'll see if they come back to that in DA:D, but I think that because of Anders in DAII, DA:I was definitely trying to not 'accidentally do anything to you'. But it does mean that it is very player-controlled and very player-initiated. But maybe they'll be willing to go back to that a little bit." [source]

"Tevinter Nights does a really good job of staying away from violating canon. The thing with, the further you go away from what's in the games the more you are, the less well it's gonna do, so that's not necessarily a problem but it is something to keep in mind that you don't, you're trying to make money with your novels. Setting it in a time period that people don't know is great for the core fans but isn't necessarily gonna do super amazing. The advantage that Tevinter Nights is, because it's an anthology, you're able to just, everything kinda just stands on its own and therefore you're able to just stay away from the major characters to a large degree." [source]

"Varric's definitely not quantum, he's in good shape. Dorian, I feel like Dorian is guaranteed to be around [as in quantum], but maybe not, maybe I'm wrong about that. But the games have gotten better or at least more conscious of what they do with companions as it's gone on, in terms of trying to, being at least aware of the fact that you might want these people to come back, so maybe at least understand the quantum you're putting them in. There's a bunch of followers in DA:I that you might just not recruit. Like Blackwall's pretty easy to miss. Dorian can show up but he doesn't die if you don't recruit him, he's alive. The biggest thing for quantum is 'are they alive', in which, in DA:O there's a lot that don't make it. Then you have to deal with, well they might be [killed/not recruited?] or something but the biggest thing is, if they're alive you can probably make it work." [source]

"I have a feeling that Desire Demons are going to be just, ignored, or, honestly I mean one way to, I think, Desire is seen in a very narrow light in DA:O. I think if you go, if you move into Desire being a much broader concept, you have a lot of options there. I think if you approach Desire in a broader sense I think you have some opportunities. But then you kind've end up with the DA:I problem with the Fear." [source]

He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise and things in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -

"Orzammar is definitely the place in DA:O that actually looks like Dragon Age. Everything else is kind've generic late 2000s fantasy, pretty much the same as The Witcher. For example, Ostagar has a more generic fantasy visual" [source]

"You know, other than DAII, DA does involve a lot of crossing the entire country to turn around and go back doesn't it" [source]

Chat asked "How well does the vanilla game DA:O play on modern hardware?" Mark replied, "I'm playing it on modern hardware, I don't have everything cranked way up and currently I'm running it in a window. It's running really well. The only thing that happens is if you turn the graphic settings up too far it will blow up because it will run out of memory. It's a 32-bit game and so if you cross 4 gig it will explode. But there are some mods out there that get you around that. That's the only problem with it is that, if you turn it up too far it will become unstable. I'm worried about stability problems during the [Battle of Denerim] part of the game" [source]

"I always found Redcliffe Village in DA:O a bit confusing to move around" [source]

Chat observed that the soil in Redcliffe would be be bad because of all the darkspawn and undead that were there. Some users theorized that the people there moved to a different part of the nearby land to make 'Redcliffe' again. Mark commented, "One of the reasons we felt okay pretty much redesigning Redcliffe in DA:I, because it's kind've broken. You know, we don't show it completely destroyed here but certainly it's hard its struggles" [source]

"I don't know who came up with the ogre-sync kill. Sync kills are really cool for bosses, they become a lot less cool for things when they're constantly happening but they're usually, unfortunately sync kills are often something that end up being de-prioritized as a feature, because they don't actually have a gameplay effect so they're kind've just aesthetics. So they often actually get cut for time reasons" [source]

Mark mentioned that he "certainly [has] some degree of lingering crunch trauma" [source]

[during the Battle of Denerim, when many creatures are on-screen] "DA:O does a good job of selling large groups for a game of its time. We must be doing a trick, something to get all this, because this is way over the creature count limit for DA:O. It's possible that we made special creatures that are way cheaper. Or it's a mixture. Waves is part of it. They aren't dropping any loot so there's definitely something going on" [source]

"Shouldn't there be people in the Wardens who have a bit more training in dragon killing?" [source]

"We probably should have auto-levelled unlevelled party members before the Battle of Denerim" [source]

[on the elves in the alienage during the Battle of Denerim] "Where'd they get the bows? Pretty sure it's frowned upon for elves to have weapons in alienages" [source]

"People do play DA solo which makes it difficult to have any sort of puzzle or anything that requires a group" [source]

[on Sandal] "I told the team if you put him in DA:I you gotta put him in everything because he basically then becomes a central figure of the franchise. So they gave him a rest. So you can blame me for him not being in DA:I" [source]

Chat asked "I'm curious why BioWare never brought back the army spawning mechanic from DA:O to DA:I, I always thought it was epic and underrated". Mark said "We talked about it in DA:I, it was actually a UI thing, we didn't have time to do the UI properly. I mean there's a lot of reasons why you don't get to play with your Inquisition well in DA:I, like to play with the organization, which is actually too bad" [source]

[while fighting baby dragons during the Battle of Denerim] Chat asked "Why are the baby dragons there in the first place?" Mark said "Someone wanted another addition to the combat. But it doesn't really make a lot of lore sense" [source]

[on lock bash] "I like what we tried to do in DA:I, giving you different things for different classes. Didn't really get used effectively. But it does strike me as weird, it didn't at the time, but playing through this, is like, you go into a space, all the chests are locked, you kill everyone, no-one has a key. Like, whose got the key to that chest?" [source]

"DA:O really does do some impressive army stuff given the chunkiness of its engine" [source]

[at end of DA:O] "Probably should have shown Morrigan leaving" [source]

"Alistair would be a fine/adequate king. He just needs a policy wonk to give him ideas" [source]

[during DA:O epilogue slides] "These are the ones that set up the quantum for the rest of the game" [source]

[during DA:O epilogue slides] "It's interesting that we called Dagna a mage" [source]

"I think DA:O still holds together. I mean it wasn't a very attractive game in 2009 and certainly it doesn't look better now than it did then, but I think it holds together. Some of the storytelling choices are problematic from a now perspective, almost everything in the Pearl, and then the whole broodmother bit could be, I mean it's a bit too far, it was probably a bit too far even at the time honestly. The combat holds up pretty well, because it's not 'push a button and immediately do an action' it has aged pretty well. The animations are kinda clunky and things don't line up very great but that's not that bothersome. It would be much more noticeable that it was a problem if things were a bit more direct" [source]

"DA:O has WASD in large part because Oblivion had WASD controls. I remember the transition and being kind've confused as to why you would do that, but yeah it's the right call. In the time that this was in development it became pretty universal" [source]

"How involved was I in Anthem? I was in charge of Anthem for the past 16 months. So a damaging amount" [source]

"Will I do an Anthem stream? I will probably do at least 1 Anthem stream. I might play through the story, I'm not gonna play multiplayer. I might play through the story and play it in pure dark pattern, forcing it to let me play it by myself, but we'll see" [note this video is several months old] [source]

[on Awakening] "Other than Destiny, this is pretty much one of the last expansion packs there ever really was with a retail presence. It's honestly a way better business than DLC. DLC you're attaching, maybe 10% of your people are gonna buy it, whereas expansion packs, 30%. You can spend a lot more money and make a lot more money with an expansion pack" [source]

"I think the idea for DA multiplayer getting harder when somebody died was to try to make the match start to end so that you weren't waiting. I don't know how effective that is, probably not very, but I think that's the thinking" [source]

"I don't think we really were, pretty much I think DA became a series when BioWare got bought by EA. I don't remember the exact moment but you can see by the slides at the end of DA:O there's a bunch of stuff that isn't really completely thinking about the fact that we're gonna have to pick up this ball in future" [source]

"Frostbite shares a lot with Unreal as well from a tools perspective. It wasn't done quite as intentionally. It's funny because the tools for Eclipse for DA:O, there was a specifically-designed wall between the two project streams to prevent this engine from taking too much from Unreal. There was a worry that Epic was going to get mad at us and sue us. Which given everybody elses' engine development was probably unfounded" [source]

"I imagine that a Blight probably increases Warden recruitment. I think it makes sense that people would be interested [right after a Blight was stopped] because you're the heroes on the block, but given what the Wardens know about Blights and things you would think that the responsible thing would be to actually cut recruitment way down, keep the order alive and then as they sense a Blight starting to come, ramp the recruitment way back up again. But I don't know that they know that a Blight is coming early enough to do so, so I guess the worry would be that if they don't keep their order relatively large then they wouldn't have the forces necessary to fight a Blight. Though of course you wouldn't expect another Blight right now, we just finished with one [Mark was playing Awakening's opening sequence at this time]. I think it's, there's darkspawn to fight and despite what they may claim, it's about being big enough to have a political impact on the world so that everyone doesn't ignore their existence and then they show up and no-one remembers who they are. Duncan talks about knowing it was coming but everyone not believing him so it does imply that they know at least some time beforehand. But you probably don't wanna wait til 1 year before it starts happening before you start rebuilding your forces" [source]

"The reason why Awakening was able to ship so close to DA:O was because DA:O moved a huge amount really late in development to do the consoles. So Awakening was pretty much mostly built in 2009, you know in the last 9 months of DA:O development, which was mostly porting it to the consoles. There's no way you were getting an expansion pack out within five months of that size without [this]" [source]

"Awakening is a masterclass in 'people who are familiar with the fools using the tools at their disposal to do some amazing stuff" [source]

"One of the challenges with expansion packs is they kind've have to fit inside the umbrella, even if they're taking place afterwards like this one does [Awakening], they can't raise the stakes too much. Whereas if it was a full-fledged sequel it could kind've do something new, kind've has to. Which is part of the problem with Awakening, given where DA:O leaves the world it's kind've hard to, we didn't really know where we were gonna go for our sequels yet, so that's probably why" [source]

"The problem with not sequel-ing Dragon Age is then what you would have been doing is probably trying to make a fantasy RPG in a new setting and then having this impossible comparison to DA constantly happening, and every single difference being a potential criticism, you can see why that, being a potential big problem. Much as I wouldn't want to wish it upon other dev teams, DAII is what allowed DA to be a series, because it kind've is the one that eats the rock of 'this is not like my previous game' and it kind've gets rid of the worst bits of continuity errors. And so to a large degree I would say that by DAII being this sort of thing that's rushed out to fill a financial gap, it allows the series to become a series. But you know, I wouldn't say that's the fix that everyone should take" [source]

"The problem you have to remember with DAII and 'more time' is very quickly you run into Skyrim releasing, and releasing DAII then, regardless of much much extra effort you put into it, after Skyrim is not a good thing. It has to kind've live there in a pre-Skyrim world. There is stuff that can be done for sure, but there's a limit to what you can do" [source]

"Mass Effect has, Shepard is too tightly associated with ME, so what do you do? Do you just keep bringing him back and making clones of him or something? That was definitely a problem in the case of Mass Effect: Andromeda because you had a younger player character, so therefore the tonal differences were seen as problematic. So it's something that you definitely have to think about" [source]

"With Justice, you do a pretty good job of explaining away anything that happens to Anders" [source]

"Oghren is here in Awakening in part because of again, quantum. Because Wynne could be dead, Leliana could be dead, Alistair could be dead, Sten could be dead or not even recruited. So you don't really have a lot of choices if you wanna bring a companion back." Here chat mentioned that Oghren can be dead. "Oh, so they do [in-game] respond to it [if Oghren was killed in DA:O]. He must have been the least quantum then. The place that you were most likely to kill Leliana in DA:O was at the Urn of Sacred Ashes, and I think we just sort've were like 'the Urn's right there so. She's fine'. Yeah, there needs to be a warrior [in Awakening]. I mean, we could've made a brand new character but. Sten was really likely to die. Lots of people didn't even recruit him. Hers [Leliana's death] is probably the most plausible retcon" [source]

"One of the things that kind've frustrates me a bit about the lore in DA moreso than ME is because it's so quantum, is the linear stuff in the comic books and novels have had, just picked canons on occasion. Which I get because you wanna have Isabela or Sten in the comics, but it does mean that it undermines the player agency there because it's like 'what you did isn't real, because here's what's real because we put it in a comic book'. I really don't like that but given the branching in the games you would've just had to have stayed away from those characters completely, which undermines the storytelling, so I don't know. I don't know what the answer is honestly. It's a good point that it's hard to imagine that Leliana's gonna be like 'sign me up for the Wardens' [source]

[on secondary media] "I don't disagree that you could do lots of prequels, but I think there's a limit" [source]

"The biggest reason why the darkspawn design changed from DA:O to DAII is that the DA:O darkspawn, mainly honestly the ogre, but they don't quite fit into our artistic palette, and there was a strong push from the art team on DAII to move the art direction into something that was ownable and so that's the main reason. It's really just an ownability perspective. But you can kinda see it in Awakening, because like The Withered is starting to look a lot like the DAII darkspawn, or at least he's headed in that direction" [source]

"One of DAII's big art direction things, Eclipse is really good at pushing polygons, so a lot of things in the art direction of DAII are pushing polygons. So they're spikier and they just have a lot more polys in them because it's one of the things it's really good at" [source]

"If you were doing a remaster you would keep the same engine. If you were doing a remake you would switch engines. It's not a remaster if you're switching engines, that's for sure" [source]

"I still maintain that Dog was essentially put through the Joining, but whatever. Technically probably everyone who has had contact with darkspawn blood is not a Warden, but it is a bit, I do think it's one of the things where the Taint and the Blight is a bit, is presented as being more bad than really is pulled off in the games" [source]

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)

[thebuildblog]

this is amazing.

A major tech business media outlet's lead article in its email newsletter was about how "people don't want to pay for content," and that this is "upending the decades-old model" in Hollywood.

It is 2024. The tech business still doesn't know or understand media business, continues to refer to it as "content," and continues to try to lead and talk about it when it has no experience or understanding of it.

Here is the reality of the media business: Some media is premium, that gives the audience access or information the audience can't get itself, because it costs money to do so. The media outlet pays this cost for the access/information itself, then shares it for a fraction of the cost with the audience, which is the consumer. This model works when access/information is harder to get and more in demand. It is very basic business basic here.

Now, some media is not premium. This is less expensive, easier to get access to, and is not as in demand. This is the free and low-cost media. In the media business, which is not new and is actually older, much larger and much more powerful than tech industry even today, it would be things like local media and public broadcasting.

Many media outlets over time (centuries) have offered a combination of these two models, which is called a hybrid model. This is what the tech industry calls, "freemium," but it isn't new to media business.

"Media," for reference is, broadcast/cable television, print/digital media (newspapers, magazines, blogs, online media), and traditional/digital radio (aka, podcast). "Content" is what software developers refer the information/images, etc. that goes onto the software they create. Websites and apps are software.

The media and content business are two separate, different things, with different, separate business models, mechanisms, truisms, customers, etc. They aren't able to be considered the same, given this. The same applies with the software business, including internet.

The above two models - premium and not premium - are a second business basic that has existed since the dawn of the media business, now centuries ago, entirely driven by media business' customers, consumers, who understand that things that cost money to make aren't free. The tech business insists/has insisted otherwise for more than a decade, because the tech business only knows the software business model, which is not at all like the media -- or even the content -- business model. It should not be attempted to try to force these two totally different models into one, just because it might involve technology or the internet.

The internet is an infrastructure, not a website, app, etc. It (the internet) was not created by the tech business, but the telecom business and the U.S. government, as an information distribution and communications platform, with commerce functionality. The tech business is in the picture because it created/creates the software that sits on the internet and the devices that enable access to the internet, because it is software and devices is the tech industry's business/business model.

Given all of this, there won't be any "disruption" and "demise" of the media business, because it and its parent companies, etc., own far, far more in the world than tech business, and this hasn't and won't change for many reasons, most of which is companies that own media outlets also own the infrastructure which is telecom not tech.

The tech industry doesn't recognize that everything besides itself isn't a "dinosaur," especially media business. Media business is much more like a tardigrade, which has survived all centuries, mass destructions, and extinctions to date, for over 500 years. Media business is not content, content is new, only since the advent of the software/tech business, including the internet (roughly 75 years).

Tech/business may not understand this, but it doesn't change that it's a basic media, tech and content business/industry truism. Anything that says otherwise is a skip.

[citiesandtowns]

Last year, troubled by the seeming intractability of these problems, I began looking for solutions outside the United States. Could the answer be rent control, as in Berlin? It might have seemed that way a decade or so ago, before investors and new residents began pouring into the city, causing land values to quintuple; now, despite rent-stabilization laws, even the apartments that no one else wanted to buy 15 years ago are huge moneymakers. Many residents with affordable rental contracts are locked into them because it would be too expensive or competitive to move. Frustrated by the housing squeeze, tenant organizers recently put forth an “expropriation” measure, which called for landlords with more than 3,000 units to sell their holdings back to the government at below-market prices. In a 2021 referendum, 59 percent of Berliners voted in favor of it, but it’s not clear whether it will ever be implemented.

Could the answer be loosening zoning restrictions, as Tokyo did in 2002? That has certainly helped. In 2014, there was more home construction in the city than in all of England. Since then, home prices have stabilized. Tokyo is largely celebrated as a model by YIMBYs (members of the “yes, in my backyard” movement) because they like its market-driven approach to housing abundance. They often point out that the city builds five times as much housing per capita as California. But Japan is a very different market because of its earthquake risk: Because regulatory codes and mitigation technologies are ever improving, structures often fully depreciate within 35 years. Older homes are often undermaintained because there’s little expectation that any investment might be recaptured upon resale; they’re thought of like used clothing or cars — you resell at a loss.

Auckland, New Zealand, might seem like a more applicable example. In 2016, the city, which has one of the most expensive housing markets in the world, “upzoned” 75 percent of its residential land, increasing its legal capacity for housing by about 300 percent in an effort to encourage multifamily-housing construction and tamp down prices. In areas that were upzoned, the total number of building permits granted (a way of estimating new construction) more than quadrupled from 2016 to 2021. As intended, the relative value of underdeveloped land increased, because it could suddenly host more housing, and the relative value of units in densely developed areas decreased, tempering sky-high prices. But there are limits to what upzoning can do. Often the benefits of allowing greater density are captured by developers, who price the new units far above cost. It doesn’t offer renters security or directly create the type of housing most needed: affordable housing.

That’s what differentiates Vienna. Perhaps no other developed city has done more to protect residents from the commodification of housing. In Vienna, 43 percent of all housing is insulated from the market, meaning the rental prices reflect costs or rates set by law — not “what the market will bear” or what a person with no other options will pay. The government subsidizes affordable units for a wide range of incomes. The mean gross household income in Vienna is 57,700 euros a year, but any person who makes under 70,000 euros qualifies for a Gemeindebau unit. Once in, you never have to leave. It doesn’t matter if you start earning more. The government never checks your salary again. Two-thirds of the city’s rental housing is covered by rent control, and all tenants have just-cause eviction protections. Such regulations, when coupled with adequate supply, give renters a level of stability comparable to American owners with fixed mortgages. As a result, 80 percent of all households in Vienna choose to rent.

The key difference is that Vienna prioritizes subsidizing construction, while the United States prioritizes subsidizing people, with things like housing vouchers. One model focuses on supply, the other on demand. Vienna’s choice illustrates a fundamental economic reality, which is that a large-enough supply of social housing offers a market alternative that improves housing for all.

[thatguywiththetumb1er]

So Super Mario Bros. Wonder is out and it’s great. But I specifically want to call out something about it’s approach to animation, because yes Wonder looks better than the New series but it’s important to acknowledge WHY.

This video, without words, does SO MUCH to demonstrate the difference between Wonder’s philosophy and the New series philosophy. And it's something I'll be discussing more... AFTER THE BREAK!

I think something that gets lost in the discussion about the NSMB series is how the series evolved graphically, because it’s easy to look at the difference between U over a decade ago (or U Deluxe just shy of 5 years ago) and Wonder and wonder (heh) just what was going on with U.

The answer is that for 5 years U represented the culmination of a different kind of graphical journey, one that I was there for and remember noticing even at the time. And look, YES the NSMB games are generic but let’s table that for a second and go on a bit of a journey here.

NSMB DS came at a time where having a 3D game on a handheld was a BIG DEAL, and NSMB reflects that in more ways than one. Because while the promo art looks like THIS:

The actual game looks more like THIS:

If you go back and play NSMB today the thing that’s going to surprise you is just HOW LITTLE 3D is in it. Yes Mario is 3D and most of the enemies are too but the blocks you bash, the Koopa shells you kick, the power ups you collect and the backgrounds you run through are NOT. They’re all rendered as 2D sprites to help the game run smoothly on the DS.

Why do I point this out? Because it’s indicative of the New series’s approach to 3D. The sheer act of being in 3D is a spectacle, having a 3D rendered Mario is a graphical trick so cool that the first game has to invent its own hybrid art style to show it off.

Now let’s flash forward to Wii:

Immediately we’re looking at a big shift, we’ve still got a hybrid art style but one that looks much more cohesive.. This game is a much more significant graphical leap, it LOOKS in gameplay like the first game’s promo material! And this trend would be continued by 2 which upped the saturation in its art style (2 is both my favorite game in the New series and my favorite pre-Wonder 2D Mario (no really) and I usually hate that it gets the shaft but that's a discussion for another time unfortunately). Now jump ahead to U:

Nintendo's first game on an HD console, U was considered U-niversally (heh) underwhelming by graphical standards but for my money I think U still had a distinct graphical goal: to create environments that were U-nique (heh) to the previous games. NSMB is famous for using the same world themes in every game, but U takes them, polishes them up, and gives them a bit of personality to help stand on their own. From the moai and dessert motifs of layer cake desert to the mushroom trees of acorn plains to the night skies and auroras of frosted glacier. YES its the same themes but they have a bit more pop this time and that's intentional. What HASN'T changed is the approach to animation, and this is where we circle back to Wonder. The "Wow" factor of these games is still that it uses 3D models, so it doesn't focus on HOW it uses models as much or how those models look in 3D space. Go watch the video again and what stands out is how... for lack of a better term... utilitarian the U animations are. The Wonder animations are all peppered with bits of personality but the U animations are all focused on just manipulating the models, because the 3D models are the (theoretical) draw.

Moreover, look how the models are constructed. U Mario faces forward as if he is in a 3D space, while the Mario Wonder model is built to more closely resemble the Super Mario World sprites. If you look at the Mario Wonder model closely it doesn't totally make sense, Mario is tilted at a diagonal angle at almost all times, why? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT LOOKS BETTER IN 2D. The U model is technically what looking at Mario from a side on perspective would be, but the Wonder model brings in elements of 2D animation to create something more visibly appealing. Honestly that's basically the MO of Wonder's graphical style, ignore realism and create visuals that LOOK GOOD with the perspective of the game. It's one of the reason that I find it so strange for the game to use the standard character models in the promo material:

Compared to how they look in game:

But that's just my thoughts. I'd be interested to hear what more seasoned artists think as well! And thanks for tuning in to this tangent haha.

[jariyala-string]

QUESTIONS ANSWERED.

Has anyone asked me any questions about Jariyala? Actually, yes… But only family and some friends. Most of these questions are ones that I think would be asked, so, I’ll just answer them here.

Read tags before reading this if you’re here for Saku content! This post doesn’t actually have anything to do with Sakuverse, I just mentioned him lol

What is ‘The String Of Jariyala’?

It’s complicated. Years, millennias ago, the Gods of Dochke created the first planet ever (to be known by them), Crenat. This planet was beautiful. Trees covered the lands, pools of water peppered across the plains and mountains. It was luxury, paradise. It was so beautiful, they wanted more planets like this. 27 total planets were created over the course of 900 years, each one having different people, cultures, landscapes, yet all of them were gorgeous. The greenery, the clear water, the birds that flew overhead. It was perfection.

But, of course, bad people must revoke others pleasure. Unknown beings came and attempted to colonise these planes, unaware of the almighty God, Callitri. Her power was like no other, she was the creator of Jariyala and majority of its contents. She created the other Gods using matter of space. She was the ultimate creator. It seemed like they wanted to challenge that, though.

Liviam, the person leading the attack on Jariyala taunted Callitri — leading to a battle. It was lengthy and tense, though the people on Crenat (where the battle took place) did not worry as they knew Callitri always came out victorious. And that she did, yet her power was stripped from her being. No more planets or supernatural life could be created, leaving the 27 planets to stand as they were.

There was another problem though. With the arrival of Liviam and her ‘minions’ from a different time line and dimension, it broke the time string in Jariyala. Time splits and threads connecting and straying from the planets were now visible. Although it created a fine piece of art, the time gaps were presumptuously dangerous.

What’s Vaularan and why is it important?

Vaularan is not technically anymore important than the other planets, though it’s the planet I’ve been putting the most care into. I don’t know why I’m so attached to it, I just am…

Who is Callitri?

A star. One singular star in an epitome of darkness. The only source of hope, the only light, the only life. This star developed for billions of years, until it finally exploded and a being was born. A woman. Long, white hair, pale skin, rose tinted cheeks. A radiating complexion, delicate features. She was Callitri.

Who are the Gods of Dochke?

Ah~ I couldn’t possibly answer this all in one post. Their lore and stories are so incredibly lengthy, I’d have to make a post for each individual God! In short, they are all ‘humans’ born from Solar matter. All of them contributed to the making of Jariyala, and each God has at lease one planet to their name. There are 11 Gods total. There is also a superstition with the people that the reason Jariyala was invaded was because they didn’t have an even number of Gods.

Why are you making a fantasy world?

To occupy myself for the next decade.

How long have you been doing it for?

Around 4-5 months. Not super long, although, I feel as if my progress in that time is quite commendable.

Do they speak English in Jariyala?

No. I am working on a universal language for them called ‘Faytir’.

How do you come up with names for planets, languages, people, etc.?

I’ll be honest… I just put a bunch of letters on a page and combine them together LOL. It usually comes out with a good name, though I should’ve really started the language first as I’ve made it harder for myself.

Are you going to turn the story of Jariyala into a book?

Hm. I have thought about it, yet I’m still not so sure. I think I’d have to really think about it. But, the chances of me doing so are low.

What made you want to start a fantasy world?

*Sigh*. I listen to a lot of ASMR boyfriend type audios on YouTube… yes, I know. It’s strange. But, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t of started doing this. There’s this one VA called @/zsakuva, his story audios are INSANELY good btw. He focuses more on lore and not gushy mushy romance, so I’d recommend checking him out! But, yes, Saku has been making his own world for 10 years I believe? And the amount of progress he’s made and the WORLD he’s made is fascinating. I was so unbelievably impressed with what he has done, and my mind was like ‘woahhh I wanna do that!’. So, here I am! Thank you, Saku! (If he for some reason sees this plsplspls I need another Xanthus audio… his story is so interesting!)

Do they have holidays like Earth do?

Yes! But, not like Christmas and Halloween and all the other corny, expensive holidays.

Each year, in June (I haven’t thought of names for months yet), they have the ‘Soldena Xyomen’ [pronounced sul•den•uh uhks•yo•men]. The Soldena Xyomen translates to ‘Summer Starting’ and the event is literally that. The Jariyalan’s LOVE soldena. The food, the dancing, the performances. Everything about soldena is exciting for them. So, the seventh Dochken God (Ywoei) decided to make it a holiday.

Another large holiday is the opposite of Soldena Xyomen, it’s Kaopana Xyomen (Winter Starting). Again, they love kaopana for the same reasons they love soldena. There are more holidays, but they’re still a WIP.

So, that’s all the questions I can think of for now! If anymore get asked, then I will add them to this list.

[usafphantom2]

There are more F-35s in operation today than all other stealth aircraft combined

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 03/26/2023 - 20:00 in Military

Despite long-standing technical delays and cost bursts that reduce the budget, there is a valid argument that today's F-35s, also commonly called Joint Strike Fighters, are the most successful stealth aircraft in history.

With more than 890 F-35 fighters delivered so far, there are more of these advanced fighters flying to nations around the world today than all the other stealth aircraft on the planet... combined.

The first operational stealth jet, the F-117.

Although the world's first stealth aircraft to enter operational service, the F-117 Nighthawk, began flying four decades ago, the number of different stealth platforms in service today remains relatively small. Before 2017, the United States maintained a three-decade monopoly on domestic stealth aircraft in service, with China finally breaking this sequence in 2017 with its first poaching fighter, the Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon.

Russia soon followed suit with Sukhoi's Su-57 Felon, bringing the total number of unique stealth fighters worldwide to four, with America's F-22 and F-35 included.

To date, the U.S. continues to maintain a monopoly on stealth bombers, with 19 B-2 Spirits in service and their replacement, the most advanced B-21 Raider, currently in active development; bringing the total number of different stealth aircraft in active service worldwide to a total of five.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the stealth race doesn't continue to heat up. Today, there are no less than 12 new stealth platforms in development programs released around the world, including nine fighters and three new bombers - Russia's PAK DA, China's H-20 and America's aforementioned B-21 Raider.

In the media and popular discussion, we have the habit of comparing the five stealth aircraft in service in a one-to-one way, evaluating the capacity sets against each other in an effort to determine which is the most capable. But the truth is that this method of comparison hides the most significant stealth advantage that the United States and its allies maintain over Russian and Chinese opponents: the volume.

The United States still maintains the largest stealth fleets in the world, with more than 450 F-35s fighters, about 150 F-22 Raptors and 19 B-2 Spritis bombers in active service. When compared to China's entire stealth fleet, a little north of 250 reported jets, and Russia's insignificant 21 (including 10 non-operational prototypes), it is clear that the U.S. may not be the only show in the city when it comes to stealth aviation... but it is still the clear leader in this race.

Su-57 Felon.

But this volume advantage becomes even more pronounced when you consider the F-35s now flying in service for the American allies, literally adding hundreds of stealth fighters to the count and not only overshadowing Chinese and Russian efforts, but eclipsing them by a factor of four or more. In fact, the U.S. currently has more stealth bombers, supposedly reaching about $2 billion each, than Russia has total stealth fighters in service.

Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon.

And leading the stealth load of fleet counting is none other than the constantly criticized Joint Strike Fighter - a program that has long suffered from excessive costs and technical setbacks to the point that its problematic acquisition process defines the hunt in the minds of many. But as we have determined through our research and first-hand reports on how to fly it, the F-35 is more than the most advanced tactical fighter to fly... it is also among the most successful production fighters of all time, at least in terms of production and sales (and all this before entering full rate production).

Here are the counts of stealth aircraft in service today, from the largest to the smallest (not counting the F-117 that are still active):

Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II: more than 890

Chengdu J-20 “Mighty Dragon”: more than 250

Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor: 150

Northrop B-2 Spirit: 19

Sukhoi Su-57 Felon: 5 operational and 10 prototypes

Source: Sandboxx

Tags: Military AviationF-35 Lightning IILockheed MartinStealth Technology (discretion)

Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work throughout the world of aviation.

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[snippetsearch]

The ghost in the corner of the screen

I've been doing my best to avoid thinking about a certain person in any way for months, but I was reminded of him today in a way I hadn't accounted for at all.

Months ago, I'd blocked him on twitter, deleted his work from my computer, and all the rest in an effort to move on from the time in our lives that we were friends. It had been successful, we're now at almost a year without any contact. Today, I booted up Soulseek (A peer-to-peer file sharing client with a focus on music) to download several albums by musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, who had passed away recently. But as I went about searching through the list of available files, I was presented with a little notification in the corner of my screen, telling me that he had logged in – this gave me pause: What the hell was I supposed to do with this information? I had set up the reminder years ago so that I'd be able to download tracks from him when he was online, but now it had become a weirdly detached, accidentally voyeuristic moment where I had gleamed the tiniest of tiniest pieces of intimate information on current activity.

The nature of this notification is set up is inherently one-way: totally un-reciprocal, extremely basic. The other user has no clue that you've created the alert – Soulseek doesn't even have a "friends" system, just an index of users. This is an aspect that I enjoy about Soulseek. In its quasi-illegal status as a file-sharing client used by thousands of users to share music, its design and features haven't been updated in a major way for almost a decade, resisting the web's slow tide of social network feature creep.

For a brief, brief moment, I had become an unwilling spy into the intimate world of a person I had done my best to scrub from my life. Reflexively, my brain conjured a picture of him on his MacBook, file-sharing client open, perched on the edge of his bed in his room with the curtains closed maybe, or sat at his desk by a window overlooking the street beneath his building. What was the weather even like in Chicago right now? For some reason, I decided it ought to be rainy. I was reminded of how many memories of him live on in my brain, images fixed in time from when we were friends. I was an invisible onlooker in a place I'd never been, staring through a hole opened by an accidental connection between our two computers.

The timing of the notification was totally typical for him – Oversleeping deep into the day, then logging into soulseek first thing out of bed. You could set a watch by it. When we had known each-other, I'd leave soulseek open so that, separated by a transatlantic timezone gap, I'd receive a little unwitting indicator of when he had woken up. I was aware that if he knew, he'd have found it a little obsessive, but since it was a one-way setup, he had no way to know.

My brain flashed different, conflicting impulses in the moments after the notification appeared. Maybe I could open his user directory and take a look through his shared files. What was he listening to nowadays? He used to send me music excitedly, imploring me to share my thoughts on each track he sent every day. Now, I was faced with an opportunity to recreating that connection, one of my favourite parts of our friendship, in a form that required no knowledge or consent on his part. If I did that, I felt like I would be interfacing with a strange kind of unconscious version of him, playing out a little puppet-string version of our everyday friendship where my co-conspirator was a list of files on his hard drive. But doing so would have felt like some kind of twisted violation, like forming a hollow replica of him with which to act out my imaginary version of friendship without his knowledge.

Instead, I moved quickly to remove the traces of him from my client. I clicked through each menu as fast as I could, so that I wouldn't hesitate and consider the temptation to lurk on his profile. Almost faster than I could think, I had clicked on his username, opened a drop-down menu, and selected the option to remove him from my list of bookmarked users. The traces of his ghost on my screen had been deleted as easily as deleting any other thing. There was only a blank space where his username had briefly been displayed.

I took a moment to think about how strange it was, what an odd reminder of a person I'd been trying to forget. It seems like when you try to push someone out of your life, these fingerprints of the space they used to fill leave themselves smudged across your screen, and no matter how much you try to wall them off, their presence seeps through in un-anticipatable ways, and you're forced momentarily to imagine them with the same shade of care with which you viewed them as a friend. Maybe he too had been presented with some moment in which he had to reckon with artefacts of our split. Where should he put the book I sent him among the others on his shelf? Did he still hold on to all of the drawings of mine that he had saved to his computer? Or did he have to go through carefully and pick my traces from his life one-by-one, just as I had erased his? Did he find himself accidentally imagining me, creating his own version of where I was now, cued by some minuscule leftover from our past?

It doesn't matter. Spending more time inventing useless questions is just a use of time that moves you nowhere. I downloaded Sakamoto's album 'Cendre' from 2007, which he created in collaboration with german musician Christian Fennesz. It was their second release as a pair, the two of them subsequently trading remixes and collaborating for years and years after. It's a slow, hauntingly beatiful album that pairs Fennesz's distorted pads with Sakamoto's impressionistic piano improvisation. When Sakamoto passed away, Fennesz posted this short message to his website:

RIP Ryuichi Sakamoto. One of the greatest ever. I am grateful for the friendship and the music we made.

The cover of the album is a grainy photo of empty bedroom. The photographer must have been sat at a weird angle within the room, crouched behind the bed. On the left, a mirror tilts down, pointing towards the floor at the foot of the bed, as if avoiding eye-contact. On the right of the image, an open door leads to an empty bathroom, where another mirror is hung on the wall in the back. Through that mirror is the reflection of the room behind the photographer, and at the very back is a tiny sliver of a window looking out on a rainy blue-hour sky.

[uncloseted]

Do you think we'll have anything over the 5 or so past years that in the future society will feel nostalgic about? Every past decade feels so defined in terms of style and music and technology. With the rise of social media and fast fashion it feels there is no more trends. Theres no real music trend right now either. Everything feels like a wash because theres so much variety and everything is always changing. It makes me wonder if we'll ever be nostalgic for the early 20s like we r for the 90s

I do! Humans are, I think, inherently nostalgic creatures and so I think there will always be people who romanticize the "good old days". Even right now, I sometimes see a certain type of nostalgia for "early COVID quarantine", and that wasn't even that long ago. I think that's actually a pretty likely candidate for what will define the cultural perception of 2020-2025 in the future, kind of similar to people who are nostalgic about people coming together during the Great Depression or the US home front during World War 2. That's what this decade's, like, American Girl Doll will be, if that makes sense.

The other thing to consider is that the things people are nostalgic about don't really have all that much to do with what the past was actually like. It has to do with present-day anxieties and what people find relevant to their current situation. I think I've talked before on here about one of my favorite books, But What If We're Wrong by Chuck Klosterman. In it, he says that, "the reason something becomes retrospectively significant in a far-flung future is detached from the reason it was significant at the time of its creation- and that's almost always due to a recalibration of social ideologies that future generations will accept as normative." The example that he points to is The Matrix. When it came out, it was notable for its technical achievements and its philosophical stance. But now, it's culturally important for its value as a trans movie, and that element to it is why it has persisted in our cultural consciousness for so long.

For a maybe more relatable version of this phenomenon, think about the 2000s nostalgia that's currently happening. In the 2000s, figures like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were figures of ridicule- the individuals that people pointed to in order to illustrate "everything that's wrong with society". Now they're celebrated for totally different reasons- largely the idea of reclaiming a narrative that has been written about you and presenting your own alternative. That's something that could only happen after the advent of social media, where all of a sudden members of the public know what it's like to be scrutinized on a large scale.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to get at here is that what people are nostalgic about the 2020s for in 2040 will be different than what people in 2060 and 2080 are nostalgic for, because those things will be seen through their own social, cultural, and political landscape. And so the things in our current moment that will resonate with them will be cherry-picked to reflect that landscape. If you think about it, our nostalgic idea of what the 50s, 70s, 90s were like aren't really that accurate. We're grabbing the parts of those decades that we liked and acting as if they were the monoculture at the time, but that's not the case. For example, hippies have come to be synonymous with 70s culture, to the point where you might think that that was the dominant culture of the time. But it wasn't; being a hippie was a distinct counterculture (albeit a large one), and it wasn't the only subculture to exist at the time. There were geeks and skinheads and metalheads and disco and mod revivalists, all also in opposition to the dominant culture, which was more conservative and more in line with how we imagine the 1950s to be. People in the future will probably do the same thing to us. They'll pick some aesthetic (dark academia or cottagecore or barbiecore or whatever) and make it seem like it was the dominant culture of the time because it's what resonates with them. It doesn't really matter if we don't have a dominant culture right now because nostalgia isn't about historical truth. It's about what we want for ourselves.

[casquecest]

@pocketsizedquasar-3

I'm choosing to believe this post was made in good faith, and I debated whether to let it go, but decided that shit is too important right now to let your misinformation slide, so. . .

Mate, do you even remember the 2016 election? The primaries leading up to it? How Clinton's platform shifted left after she won the primaries because of how strong the support for Sanders's proposals (and Sanders himself) were? That's not even remotely abandoning progressives and courting the right.

How in 2020, Biden also shifted to pledging support for student loan debt forgiveness/relief (which he did sign an executive order to enact, which was subsequently struck down by Republican judges, but he and his administration has continued to try to push forward through other channels, and has had limited success in doing).

The Green New Deal and rejoining the Paris Agreement? The infrastructure bill? The support for unions? Consumer advocacy in various and sundry ways, like mandating airlines automatically fully refund you via the method in which you paid (so, not vouchers or air credits) if your domestic flight is delayed more than three hours, or reinstating regulations that were suspended during the Trump administration? Caps on prescription drug prices? These are all things the Democrats have done in the last four years. You can't tell me, in good faith, that this is a party that isn't at least trying to help people, that this is a party that isn't listening to its constituents. All of the aforementioned successes of the Democratic party are a shift left from where they were even ten years ago.

On NO POLICY WHATSOEVER is Kamala Harris to the right of Donald Trump. Where are you even getting that?! It's so patently absurd as to be laughable, or you're just wildly misinformed.

Your view of 'why should I care about them [Democrats] winning?' is myopic, childish, and selfish (even without your facts being completely backwards). You should care because the alternative is infinitely worse for not just this country, but the world, including Gaza. When you have Trump saying that Harris is restraining Netanyahu with her constant demands for a cease-fire, with withholding certain weapons, that the Biden-Harris administration are 'holding [Netanyahu] back,' and that he, Trump, would have Israel take a 'total victory,' and that it be done quick, that he's 'glad that Bibi decided to do what he had to do,' and that the whole operation is 'moving along pretty good,' I think that paints a stark difference in how the two potential administrations would approach the situation once in office. I understand and recognise that Harris's promises of a solution where Palestinians are afforded the dignity and self-determination they deserve are next to meaningless to a people who are currently being slaughtered in their homes and have been for over a year, and oppressed for decades (I do think the current administration is not doing nearly enough to help Palestinians and doing too much to support Israel (because, let's be real, Israel is too important a geopolitical foothold in the region for US interests for the US to abandon it or hold it too strongly to account, and, morally, that is reprehensible and completely disgusting, but that's the reality of it), but when you contrast that with Trump, who doesn't seem to acknowledge at all that there is Palestinian suffering, or that Palestinians deserve anything at all, I do think that makes a difference.

Why it should matter to you whether Democrats win is that Trump says he will use the National Guard and/or the American military on his 'political enemies', who could change at the drop of one of his 'weaves'. It should matter to you that he asked why the National Guard couldn't 'just shoot [BLM protesters] in the legs' in 2020. It should matter to you that he's promising to lock up journalists and anyone who criticises him. It should matter to you because it is the President who appoints Supreme Court Justices, and we've already seen the fallout of Trump-appointed Justices reversing Roe v. Wade, in determining the US President is immune from prosecution for crimes committed in office. It should matter to you that Democrats win because his first administration dismantled a lot of the guardrails that kept the US a democracy, as flawed as it is, and the Republicans are so cowardly they did nothing to stop it, and actually helped enable it. It should matter to you that several major newspapers have refused to endorse any candidate for fear of Trump reprisals should he get in office. It should matter to you that he wants to revoke the broadcast licenses of any network who says 'not nice' things about him. It should matter to you that these are direct attacks on our Constitution, especially one that is most fundamental to the US: the freedom of speech. It should matter to you that he's promising to deport 15-20 million 'illegals', and that he's already harpooned a bill that would have at least addressed the immigration issue.

It should matter to you that Democrats win because, if they don't, we will end up with a man that has no interest in governing, but in dictating, purely for his own fragile ego and to stay out of jail.

And that's not even getting into Project 2025.

You're going to vote, or not vote, however you like, but you're a damned fool if you think Kamala Harris would be worse for this country and the world than Donald Trump.

Third party voters don't currently have enough consolidated power, nor consensus, for any electoral victory, but they do have enough to play spoiler in each individual state, which can swing the entire election, and this kind of bullshit is trying to swing people away from voting for Harris, from actively going against Trump via their vote. You don't have to like her. You don't even have to agree with her, but you have to recognise that one choice is clearly and objectively better than the other for everyone.

due to systemic oppression, usamerican leftists don't currently have the political power to instate a leftist president. we do, however, have enough power to make one of two candidates lose the election. we could use this power to make the white supremacist lose to the black woman, or we could use it to make the black woman lose to the white supremacist. the obvious choice for leftists would be to prioritize making the white supremacist lose, but tumblr users have devised a loop hole, where they agitate primarily for making the black woman lose, but omit the detail about who she would be losing to. this makes their stance more palatable to people who correctly believe that having a white supremacist president would be the worst possible outcome.

[mangocheesecakeicecream]

An 'old-fashioned' book even more relevant today. What is the argument? I will try to be succinct. RG argues that if we want to understand theology we should begin with anthropology. If we can understand man we will have a better chance of understanding God. What is the primal experience of man? Human sacrifice, which eventually softens into animal sacrifice. Why do we sacrifice people? Because our world is one of envy. We see individuals who have things we want or who have done things that we would like to do. Our interpersonal relationships are based on modeling and this (role-) modeling results in conflict which is eventually dissipated by violence. We come together, sacrifice a single individual and, collectively, all feel better. This is related to scapegoating, to the Aristotelian notion of catharsis and, in our own time, such phenomena as crowd-shaming and tribalism. Jesus' sacrifice looks like this in its outlines (He is subjected to the cruelties generally only visited upon the lowest of the low) but Jesus turns the entire process on its head. First of all, He is demonstrably innocent. Second, He does not simply disappear after His death and allow the public to feel good about themselves. He is resurrected. This changes the entire (Satanic) structure of ritual killings and presents man qua man with a totally different vision of experience. His sacrifice saves us and it saves us through actions done on our behalf, replacing the momentary catharsis that we experience as an angry crowd seeking blood sacrifice in order to feel part of the group rather than like individuals at violent loggerheads with one another. His salvific actions change us in authentic and essential ways, not in momentary, Satanic ones. The argument is difficult because RG uses key terminology which is different from our usual understanding of the terms (e.g. 'mimesis' and 'scandal'); the terms are associated with their original meanings prior to biblical translations and the cultural accretions now associated with them. This is a recurring problem throughout the book but it is ameliorated by the translator's foreword, which clarifies the terminology and the core argument. That foreword is essential for understanding the book (i.e. if this is your first exposure to RG's insight/argument). The second level of difficulty comes from RG's attempts to clarify his argument. Rather than employ the rhetoric of the philosopher, refining and refining his argument, he writes more like a literary critic, assembling example after example or reflection after reflection to add further parallels and analogies to the core argument. In some cases he sounds like a phenomenologist whose writing verges on free association. Since the core argument is complex the additional reflections/examples sometimes muddy the waters rather than clearing them. The bottom line is that the book is ultimately lucid in its thoughts and purposes and well worth the attention of theologians, anthropologists and students of myth and ritual. It is a book that might have been written many decades ago but it is still completely relevant and pertinent today.

review of René Girard- I See Satan Fall Like Lightning by Richard B. Schwartz

[fishrpg]

2024-04-05: Parchman Farm (Prison Settlement)

Parchman Penitentiary, more commonly known as Parchman Farm or simply Parchman, was founded at the turn of the century and has become a sprawling prison farm. The woods on the property had been cleared a decade ago, and now those incarcerated here labor at cultivating food to feed themselves and cotton to feed the hungry coffers of the state. Called as the prison without bars, only a wire fence and the occasional patrolling guard on horseback separates the inmates from the outside world.

A little under 2,000 people are incarcerated here: men and women, black and white. All are strictly segregated.

In addition to selling cotton, Parchman makes money by leasing out the prisoners for work. You have a big and unpleasant job that needs to be done? Hire convicts if you have enough money and clout. Try to bring them back in mostly one piece, but the state knows that sometimes "things happen."

Parchman doesn't allow executions. Not yet, anyway. Those condemned to die are sent back to their counties of conviction when it's time for the reaper to come collect his due.

Points of Interest

Superintendent's House

A sprawling three-story building in the Queen Anne style surrounded by a white picket fence is home to Parchman's superintendent and his family. The more trustworthy, lower security prisoners are often tapped to do housekeeping and maintenance as servants, but they still have to go back to the prison camp each night. Working in the house is the most plum job an inmate can get at Parchman, and there's a lot of political maneuvering both inside and outside the house to decide who gets to work here.

Prison Camps

The penitentiary is divided into a series of camps scattered across its 28 square mile property. Despite being called a camp, these are large, sturdy facilities that look more like a schoolhouse or church than a cluster of tents or cramped shanks. Parchman has a total of 13 camps: 12 for men, and a single one for women. Every camp is separated by race.

Camp 13 is the area designated for Black women, and it differs from the others in function. Long benches and banks of sewing machines make up a work area for the incarcerated women to spend long days making clothing. They assemble uniforms for the prisoners and guards, but other big sewing jobs occasionally pop up, too.

Fields

From sunup to sundown, inmates toil in the fields. Long work songs carry on the hot humid breezes, helping the laborers keep a steady rhythm to their work. Most of the land is for growing cotton, which is picked by hand so the prickly bolls can make the task just a little more unpleasant. If the work songs don't have you moving, the rifle-toting guards are happy to provide extra motivation.

If you're not assigned to the fields, you might be clearing land or chopping firewood. Even though the prisoners are trusted with axes and other tools, a single prisoner with an axe is still no match for a bullet.

Speaking of bullets, many of the guards in the fields were actually some of the most violent convicts who were given guns and tasked with overseeing the operations in the field. These particular inmates were all convicted of murder and called the trusty-shooters. They brutalized the inmates as much, if not more so, than the non-incarcerated guards. All the inmates had knives, though, and it was only the threat of the sheer number of knives being used in retaliation that could keep an uneasy peace.

[wozman23]

The Illuminating Brilliance of Alan Wake

These last two day, with a tropical storm derailing my plans and work, I decided to jump back into the world of Alan Wake for the third time in anticipation of Alan Wake II releasing October 27th, this time via the remaster on PS5 thanks to it being included in the PlayStation Plus lineup a few months back.

To say that Alan Wake II is my most hyped game would be an understatement. Never having purchased a 360, I didn't play the original upon release in 2010. But it was on my radar. And sometime later, when a Humble Bundle released that included it and American Nightmare for something like $2, I jumped at the opportunity… Cruelly, my PC couldn't run it. But then, at the tail end of 2013, I bought a new PC… and a few months later I discovered it could run it!

I was astounded! I still vividly remember playing through it that first time, experiencing everything about it that impressed so much back then, and still does to this day. It quickly became one of my favorite games of all time, and I joined the cult of people hoping for a sequel.

Now as for the remasters, I'm not one for them. They often seem like quick cash grabs. So I never intended to buy the remaster when I still had access to the PC version, as well as the Xbox version via backwards compatibility. And in playing the remaster, it does show its age. Animation and dialog are really rigid. The vehicles control like they have ice for tires. And the visuals don't hold a candle to modern games. But it's just such a fascinating romp that I really don't care. What it did well then, it still does well today, even if its no longer in the prettiest of packages.

First off, the combat mechanics are simply sublime. I've also never been a big fan of survival horror games with a few exceptions (pretty much just Alan Wake and the Dead Space franchise - which I think has many parallels in terms of strengths). But the whole "Remove the darkness from enemies with light to make them vulnerable to damage" is so cool. It never gets old, especially thanks to the variety of weapons and tactical advantages that each has. The flashlight, revolver combo is a staple, but firing off the flare gun or tossing a flashbang provides a completely different level of satisfaction.

Second, the narrative despite favoring many cliches, is just so damn good. Even after my third time playing it, I'm picking up on little details. Yet, somehow, I feel as if they only lead me to more questions. I think I understand less now than I did almost a decade ago.

What exactly is real in the world of Alan Wake? Is Bright Falls actually a cursed city where written works become non-fiction? Did Thomas Zane actually exist, or was he just the deus ex machina created by Alan? Does Alan actually exist, or is he just the product of Thomas Zane's poetry? How much of Alex Casey is Alan, or vice versa? Is Alice dead? Is Alan dead? Is he actually in some sort of psychosis or perhaps a coma? Is everything a dream, or work of fiction crafted by the hands of someone else?

Its ambiguity is its strength. It often takes you in one direction, just to contradict itself at a later point. I really have no idea what the actual truth is, yet I love the ride and speculation all along the way.

Another strength: Barry. He's such a great character. Comic relief characters, and comedy in general, are tough to pull off in games. But Barry is just such a likeable character. One of my favorite points from the game is when he shows up draped in Christmas lights as an aid to ward of The Taken. It's such a silly, yet practical, application of the use of light in the world. And it's totally Barry. He's a buffoon, who doesn't seem to have much know-how in terms of survival instincts, yet you root for him. I'm trying not to pay too much attention to Alan Wake II pre-release, but I hope he plays a prominent role again. Another strength of the narrative: collecting the manuscript. They offer all kinds of insight into the world and how everything is interconnected. Sometimes they build backstory. Sometimes they further explain things that have happened. Sometimes, like in the instance of Barry getting separated from Alan, they create tension with other characters as you get to witness events second hand. And sometimes they just foreshadow things to come, even becoming tongue-in-cheek in some situations. They're a really fun way to incorporate collectibles, and they fit the narrative well.

That tongue in cheek nature isn't just limited to documents. There are The Old Gods of Asgard too, two more quirky characters who are either completely insane, or perhaps the only ones who actually know what is going on in Bright Falls. Their stage set piece is another high point in the game. By that point, it feels as if you've got combat mastered, and you can just have fun taking down swarms of The Taken. It's so satisfying. And that leads perfectly into my next point.

Remedy has also had a long history of working with the band Poets of the Fall. I never played their Max Payne games, so the moment when "War" comes on the in-game radio served as my introduction to the band. And that too was one of the standout moments I vividly remember from my first play through. I think collaborations like that are not made enough in the video game industry. One of my other all-time favorites, Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (still waiting for that sequel that I sadly know will never come) did this well too, commissioning the band Cold to write a song, "In My Mind" specifically for the game. It's not a well known song of theirs. I saw them a few months back, and knew there was zero chance that they'd play it. But it's the main reason I'm a fan of theirs. Just as Remedy's collaboration with Poets of the Fall is the reason I'm a fan of theirs.

I've got to work my way through the two expansions again, but then I might go back and try to platinum the game. I've never played on Nightmare mode, so there might be a bit more for me to come across that could help provide some clarity within the world… Or just confuse me more… There are so many little details to love about the world. I love the quaint charm of Bright Falls. I love the Twilight Zone parody of Night Springs. I love that Sam Lake makes a small appearance. I love just how weird, and quirky, and mysterious it is!

I'm also enjoying revisiting Poets of the Fall tonight, since I really never gave their more recent albums an abundance of attention. The instrumental "Rogue" just took me by surprise.

If you haven't played Alan Wake, do yourself a favor and give it a look. It made me a rabid fan of Remedy. Control was a great distraction, with its own interesting tie-ins to Alan Wake, and I'd like more of it too, but I'm really just ready for the proper continuation of Alan Wake. C'mon, October 27th!