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mirceakitsune · 4 years

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Aryion (Eka's Portal) is now purging users over COVID discussion

Some important clarification before we begin: I wanted this journal to be less of a mad rant and more of a much needed discussion, thus I'll be more calm and rational unlike my previous rants. I wasn't sure if I was going to talk about this but I felt I needed to, both to get it off my chest and to try sparking some debate over what the hell is going on on this planet. Please read and share this one especially if you care for freedom to speak. My goal isn't to point fingers at the website over how I was treated, but to raise awareness and address what's happening online and offline alike. I'll try to be balanced and describe what happened accurately, though of course this represents my own perspective.

Two days ago I was shocked by a completely unexpected decision by the admin of Eka's Portal to permanently ban me from the platform, after over 10 years of being an active user who never even dreamed of starting trouble there. It followed a blog I posted in the night of Joe Biden's inauguration. The reason for my ban wasn't any of the harsh things I said about that, despite my journal being a rather heated rant on society and politics: It came from one obscure sentence in the middle of the post, in which my only crime was to use the term "imaginary deadly pandemic". If anyone finds this surprising you read correctly: It was confirmed to be the cause, I was not informed of any other reason except for that particular sentence. To the satisfaction of those who see me as a heretic, I've been depressed baffled and even more deep in thought after this happened out of nowhere: It's a community I cared a lot about, followed art and spoke with friends on, and there are both artists I watched there and friends I spoke to who I may not be able to find elsewhere. Despite explaining this as well as what I'll say below to the admin, I'm still seen as someone who committed a capital crime by using those words; I won't reveal exact details from a private discussion without permission, but will say I felt addressed as someone who just committed a murder for which I'm irredeemable and deserve to be hung at the gallows.

Before I proceed let's clarify some things. First of all I don't deny that COVID exists in some form and there is some kind of pandemic going on; I didn't use the term "imaginary pandemic" but rather "imaginary DEADLY pandemic" as my intent was to address the apocalyptic hysteria surrounding this flu. I think anyone, especially among those who have doubts about what's happening, could easily find themselves using such a choice of words... I understand they weren't accurate and ideal, but they were no obscene crime that should terrify anyone in such a way nor warrant such an extreme reaction. I also shouldn't need to explain that a vent journal is something you write in a moment of distress to calm down: It's not a moment when people use the best choice of words and will carefully read everything they say before they say it, which to my knowledge isn't considered a crime and is something people generally do. Needless to say that sentence was in no way intended to tell people to do anything: In no form did I suggest anyone to not wear a mask, even to not get that vaccine despite having huge concerns about it and expressing them indirectly. The actual discussion was about the way COVID was added on top of racial justice as a means of dividing people between good and bad while controlling them through fear. Despite this I was accused of "spreading misinformation", a term that's recently become popular and is used to shut down people who have different opinions from the mainstream. I pledged that if I were unbanned, I would cease all social and political discussion on the site, to prevent any risk of such a thing happening again... despite even this I'm still considered someone who's sole purpose was to spread disinformation, despite such discussion taking place in secondary journals while my main reason for being there was community related stuff.

This event was a self fulfilling prophecy, which exemplified exactly the things I've been ranting about like a madman for the past months, which many surely thought I was exaggerating with: The rise of radicalism fueled by fear... which first started with things like racial justice or child safety, and is now doubled down by this pandemic story. Whether or not COVID-19 really is a public health crisis in secondary plane, what it is first and foremost is a social and political crisis! A rift is growing even faster dividing people between two categories: The chad mainstreamist who follows the science and is politically correct and a responsible citizen, versus the virgin conspiracist who thinks people in powerful positions aren't always right and is a fascist for disagreeing with what the mainstream declared is truth or justice. The first category has every social right that's still available to the general population, while the second needs to be "socially exterminated" because their beliefs make them a danger to others; You no longer matter as a person, the only thing that matters is if you're on our side or not! This is what's now being implemented by those who not long ago preached tolerance and being decent toward others no matter their beliefs.

COVID brought an existing freedom of speech crisis to a new level: We're at the stage where addressing a flu by the wrong pronouns can get you removed from a community you've been with for a third of your life. And I know what many will say: A private entity censoring you isn't the same thing as the government doing it. Which I fully agree with, government regulation is by far the scariest beast here! However this doesn't mean it's not a problem at all... it's a very big problem as many of us are recently learning: Literally anything you say, no matter how random or seemingly insignificant, puts you at great risk... to the point where it's practically unsafe to have any social conversation in any community you care about unless you're carefully going to say what everyone likes to hear. This is absolutely unhealthy, we live in a sick world and barely anyone even notices it... one that has NOTHING to do with the way I imagined modern society even 5 years ago let alone as I grew up. It's an unimaginable regression back into 1930's - 1960's era strictness: This is no free world, it's an "everyone in line" type of strict that mirrors Chinese if not North Korean mentality and social design, this abomination is a parody of hell itself.

I predict no one will escape being affected unless something is done to change course immediately. Certain people seem to think that because they're on the "good side" it's someone else's problem, only those who disagree with them have to suffer which is great from their perspective. Remember that the world is changing: Today the planet freaks out over COVID or racism... eventually those things will go away, and in their place new ones will be added by those who enjoy or need division: Racism will be replaced with some other ism... once people get bored of fearing COVID or everyone becomes immune to it, the medical industry will likely identify the new most aggressive virus in circulation and continue the trend with that... it's possible that entirely new controversies we can't even imagine now will be put in circulation. At some point it's going to be something you too no longer agree with: Once you dare to speak incorrectly of what the world decided, you'll be the next to see what it's like to be this lesser person who everyone treats like a leper that's plaguing others. Will you shut up and pretend to agree with everyone even if you don't, fearing that if you're outed as a "disagreer" you'll be the next to go?

Back to the issue at hand, from a perspective on how the internet works: Many people, including the creator of the practical internet Tim Berners Lee, agree that entities have too much power over individuals. If Google or Facebook or Twitter don't like you, you will be shut down and told to find another platform to migrate to, ignoring the fact that they're in limited supply and all suffer from the same issues often using the same criteria. Fandoms such as furries or vore fans suffer from this too at a smaller scale: If Dragoneer or someone he appointed moderator are having a bad day, good luck finding each of your favorite artists there on another art site... a problem that may be worse on Eka's Portal as it's also a big community but ran more directly by one admin, who in the past I praised but can now see their judgment is unbalanced and bound to harm some users. To me this indicates the internet was poorly designed... which makes some sense since until 5 years ago no one thought the web would need to resist an ideological onslaught that will infiltrate every community and make one half of the world turn against the other. For a long time I've dreamed of building a fully decentralized platform, which could act as both an art gallery and an alternative to Youtube and forums. Unfortunately I don't have the knowledge nor energy to make such a thing, though this experience has me thinking back to that plan... I should leave this one up to a future journal.

I feel like saying more but am unsure what I could possibly say any more. At this point part of me wants to go in full isolation: I expect this sort of thing to keep happening, and until it starts affecting even more people the majority won't realize how bad it's getting. I don't know to what extent I even want to create content any more... for who am I creating it, how worth it is the effort spend on every project, where can I even safely post it any more? I need to keep my Patreon going, but even there I barely make any income, and as of this month I can no longer use the money anyway since Payoneer is being a pest about agreeing to send a new card. I'll be honest: Part of me wants to try and end it again, you can't understand how much... I won't because I know it's wrong, plus I live with my mother who I don't want to put through more hardships. Some of us weren't meant to live on this world, I can tell you all this for a fact. If I had any idea it would be like this I'd have refused to be born on this Earth and experience this life even if it meant fighting the gods themselves! This world is irredeemable, I don't see it ever coming back from the low it's fallen to... if another giant meteor hit it would truly be an act of mercy to all.

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mothermaidenclone-blog · 7 years

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Blade Runner 2049 or Do Androids Dream of Gender Equality?

Just a heads up, this is a long one, turns out I have opinions-a-plenty about this one. Blade Runner 2049 did a slightly better job of representing women than its predecessor, although in the original none of the female characters are human women and the only way that any of them make it out alive is in the arms of Harrison Ford. There are twice as many named female characters in this film as compared to the original, but that’s going by the credits, I’m pretty sure one is only called “Madam” on screen and I don’t know if we ever hear the replicant prostitute’s name aloud. Also, all the women have basically a terrible time, so there’s that.

*Blade Runner 2049 spoilers follow*

Let’s start with the sole female survivor from the first film, Rachel (Sean Young in flashbacks to the original, Loren Peta as a stand in). In her first appearance she is absent from any portrayal of herself as a character - she is an anonymous skeleton, dug up in a box and examined as evidence. Later, she appears as a ghost, another replicant designed to trick Deckard (Harrison Ford) into thinking Rachel has returned. However, the imposter is a pale imitation, easily seen through and she is discarded. Rachel does not inhabit this film, she haunts it, and all of her spectres are filed or thrown away. Perhaps as the sole female replicant to possess reproductive capabilities, she was too powerful to be allowed to live. The whole purpose of having synthetic women as sexual partners is that they are disposable and guilt-free, but the possibility of conception leads to consequences. Furthermore, the ability to create life is a uniquely female power that has been stolen and commercialised by men in this universe. If Rachel can create life herself, she renders her own creator useless. Therefore she must not simply be killed but destroyed, she is erased from this story altogether.

Another woman denied control of her own story is Joi (Ana de Armas). Joi is the holographic girlfriend of K (Ryan Gosling), a replicant. She is an artificial man’s projection of what he imagines a woman to be like, without any kind of tangible body to call her own. The extent to which she even exists as any kind of character is therefore debatable. It would be different if she was an artificial intelligence, a truly sentient and unique personality, however it is strongly suggested that she’s simply a program. Adverts for Joi litter the cityscape, proclaiming that she can be, “whatever you want”. What K seems to want is a 1950s housewife to bring him burgers, as this is how we are introduced to Joi. Every action she takes is to serve K; from insisting to go on the lam with him even though she could cease to exist, just to the police can’t extract any data from her, to hiring a prostitute to overlay herself onto so that K can pretend to have sex with her. I had so many problems with this. Firstly, this implies that women are so homogenous that you can pick any two and layer them on top of each other, it’ll be fine because apparently they’re all the exact same size and shape. It’s as though there’s just one paper doll template for all women in this world - which as these two have actually been manufactured, there might be, but there’s a huge variation in the physiology of the male replicants that we see. Additionally, Joi dismisses the prostitute, Mariette (Mackenzie Davis), by saying, “I’m done with you”, seemingly trying to emphasise that Joi is using Mariette. A woman taking advantage of a woman isn’t any better than a man doing so - is it possible for women just not to be exploited at all?

In addition to Mariette, whose name I’m not sure we even hear during the film, there are two other named female replicants; Freysa (Hiam Abbass) and Luv (Sylvia Hocks). Luv has vastly more screen time and is portrayed as capable in a variety of ways - she hosts a business meeting, flies an aircraft, pries open enormous metal doors with her bare hands and fights excellently in hand-to-hand combat. However, personality-wise, she is lacking. She seems to act as as proxy to her creator Wallace (Jared Leto). She parrots his beliefs, or one half of them anyway, as Wallace switches regularly between referring to replicants as “slaves” and “angels”, his motivations are hard to follow. She believes in replicant superiority, but other than that, she comes across as a process - a means to an end, action without any personal drive or thought behind it. The canonical excuse that replicants have been programmed to obey, and so she cannot deviate from her course to explore her character, doesn’t hold up, as K is allowed plenty of room to soul search and follow his own agenda. Furthermore, if she is made to blindly follow Wallace, why does she always look so uncomfortable when being scrutinised by him? We see her visibly flinch from his sensor bots. She is allowed only enough independence from her rail-road destiny to remind us that she is a subjugated female.

Freysa is the other prominent replicant female. She is the leader of the replicant resistance, she looks middle-aged, appears to have a spider-web network of connections and agents and therefore presumably plenty of power. Freysa seems amazing, but we see her for all of five minutes so I can’t really make much more of a judgement than that.

One final, unnamed replicant female exists in Blade Runner 2049, and she has possibly the worst deal out of everyone. We witness her birth, a private and vulnerable moment, followed by the rest of her very short life. She is squeezed, undignified and naked, from a plastic packet onto the floor, where she lies shivering and struggling for breath. There she is touched up by Wallace, who proceeds to literally wash his hands of her whilst studying her from every angle using a multitude of drones. Next, he caresses her belly, describing her womb absolutely disgustingly as, “that barren pasture, empty and salted”, before slicing her open and then, like the rotten cherry on the worst cake of all time, kissing her. I think we all get that he built an empire on literally objectifying women and subjecting them to slavery, did we need this violent reminder?

Blade Runner 2049 breaks away from the original by introducing a human woman, Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright), however I’m fairly certain that she’s only referred to as “Madam” in the film. Despite being human, she - like K - is robbed of a name for no real reason. She cannot simply exist as a police chief, we have to be constantly reminded, through language, that she’s a woman, despite the visual fact of her being a woman doing a pretty good job of that anyway. Is this in search of a pat on the back for having two middle-aged female characters? Whilst that is a positive, I would also like female characters to have a name and the military rank they have presumably worked hard to earn. On top of this, her death felt completely pointless. “Do what you’ve got to do” have to be the most passive last words ever. Given the little we know about Joshi - that she has a military career and huge power within the police - it makes no sense for her not to put up a fight.

So, we’ve had holograms, replicants and humans, but there is a third category of women in this film. Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri) is the daughter of a replicant mother and human father, so we are unsure of her exact biological make up. What we do know, however, is that she’s basically the replicant messiah, so it’s laudable to see a woman occupy that position. However, you guessed it, everything else in her life is pretty terrible. She has a broken immune system and so lives alone in a sparse, hermetically sealed bubble, where she makes the happy memories for replicants that she never had herself. Carla seems to be a good person - she wants to give replicants a better life, even if only in their minds.

If everyone in Blade Runner 2049 is having an awful time, not just the women, then at least we can say it’s a fairly egalitarian experience. However, K has a good job and his dream girlfriend, yes he loses both of those but Joi and his boss actually die so I think it’s safe to say they have the worse end of that. People have to actually shout abuse at K, which I believe only happens twice, to remind us that he’s a second class citizen, otherwise he seems to be living a fairly normal life. Before we meet Deckard, his ex-colleague Gaff (Edward James Olmos) makes it clear that his main aim in life is to be left alone, which he achieves for most of the film, living seemingly comfortably in an abandoned but nevertheless somewhat luxurious Las Vegas casino. he does endure undeniable physical and emotional hardships after being captured, he’s taunted with the spectre of his dead love and almost drowns, but the film ends with him being reunited with his daughter and the prospect of rebuilding a family.

Overall, Blade Runner 2049 is better than the original as far as the representation of women goes, if only because there are more of them and they don’t all die. However, they are still having pretty much the worst time and are undeniably subject to the whims of men - they are girlfriends, prostitutes, slaves. Those who exist independently from men, such as Joshi, don’t make it out alive. Freysa is the exception to this, but we see so little of her and know hardly anything about her; she possesses power but is not allowed the screen time to display it. Ana is the real tragedy of this film, as she is the embodiment of hope for an emancipating revolution, but is doomed to live the rest of her life trapped and isolated. No woman is allowed to truly be free.

And now for some asides:

Rachel has the most amazing and recognisable silhouette, it’s a brilliant piece of design that I didn’t fully appreciate in the original.

The costume detail was amazing - K had salt lines on his trousers after he came out of the sea. Touches like that are what made this film so gorgeous to look at.

Booze is not for doggos, harrison Ford.

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