#or a capitalistic mess and we all know what it's like to live in one of those

[vv-ispy]

also also I know everyone likes to talk about how good of an archon Venti is because he left mondstadt to do its own thing and hey look Zhongli's doing the same now with his retirement but I also like how the story shows it isn't without flaws, with so much freedom in the city it's all too easy to take control with power, Mondstadt's people may be free but they also don't have a god to actually uphold the ideal they stand for and how personal freedoms conflict, discrimination(eg. against Eula and her clan) is allowed because the people are free to do whatever they want, the fatui really wormed their way into mondstadt during the webtoon + nearly did with Davalin bc the people of mondstadt do whatever they want so Jean is overworked and the knights are ineffective(according to Diluc), and how mondstadt might have been the least free place for the common people during the Lawrences rule despite being the region governed by the archon of freedom

Zhongli at least first tested his people were ready before retiring, Venti kinda acended, organized a bunch of celebrations for his people, then left them to have fun with their newfound freedom only interveining when things get really bad

[musinghotline]

AKIRA (1988) : Sentence Starters

Quotes from the 1988 film. Change as needed.

"You wouldn't be so jumpy if you didn't have something to hide!"

"Skirt-chasers will try anything these days."

"The future is not a straight line. It is filled with many crossroads."

"There must be a future that we can choose for ourselves."

"Look what they abandoned in their panic."

"I figured you'd be standing here sobbing like a little baby."

"That's Mr. [name] to you, punk!"

"You've always been a pain in the ass, you know."

"You always treat me like a kid."

"You always show up and start bossing me around, and don't you deny it!"

"This has got to be a trap."

"Don't you understand? It's utterly pointless to fight each other."

"You're all puppets to corrupt politicians and capitalists."

"Let's run away together, just you and me."

"Shut up! Don't order me around!"

"Why do you always have to try and save me?"

"I admit I've been beat before, but I won't always be on the receiving end, you hear me?!"

"It has already begun."

"You called for me, didn't you? And I heard you."

"A fish out of water dies, huh."

"You're forgetting who the real enemy is!"

"It's not my job to believe or disbelieve. It's to act or not to act."

"You've got a bad attitude, pops."

"That's enough, are you trying to kill him?!"

"Oh, right, I forgot you were there."

"I won't be needing you to come rescue me anymore."

"What are you gonna do about it, huh?!"

"Who the hell do you think you're talking to?"

"That's the last time I stick my neck out for you!"

"You'll help anyone as long as they're a girl, right?"

"You're wrong, I have very high standards ya know."

"You could at least tell me your name, you bitch!"

"Something seemed strange the second I saw his face."

"Everyone's been worried about you. They thought you were dead."

"It's like they were messing around inside my head."

"I don't want to go back there again."

"This is yours, isn't it?"

"We've been together our entire lives."

"Are you really going in there alone?"

"Don't they say the only stupid questions are the unasked ones?"

"When you've purified your body and soul, we'll go out for tea."

"He's our friend! If anyone's going to kill him it should be us!"

[dinoburger]

let me just get my thoughts down for a moment after a light perusal of the Mouthwashing tag -

I don't think The Point of Mouthwashing is "who is and isn't a bad person" with a backdrop of "capitalism bad"

the story is explicitly about the exploitative, hierarchical conditioning capitalism enforces, that creates situations like what unfolds in the Tulpar

I think to say "this is the fault of [this or that character]" is to miss the forest for the trees.

to view what happens as a series of random, unfortunate events that just happen coincidentally to the moral inclinations of the characters is missing the very palpable deprivation that all of them feel when it comes to how much control they have over the situation they've found themselves in.

I'll try to break this down a little more:

Curly is definitely one of the more contentious characters when it comes to morality and I think what people miss is... he has far too much control. As captain, he has the first and last say in everything.

There's no possible way he could understand exactly how to handle every situation appropriately. Nobody could. It weighs on him a lot. To the point where his fear of messing things up is exactly what blinds him to the chain of events that initiates Mouthwashing as we know it.

He tries to smooth things over. Because of course he would.

The problem is that he is set up to fail from the start.

Breaching just about any condition on the ship can get the pay of his poor subordinates docked. He has to obey the company rules to protect them, too. The omnipresent horse keeps all of them "in check". He can't afford to take a moral high-ground, because most of them can't afford it either. He's trying to keep the house of cards together.

The most telling line to me is when Anya points out the lock on the medical room door that's absent from the sleeping quarters.

The company puts more value on the expensive equipment on board than the human lives. It tries to cut as many corners as possible. It undermines their livelihoods to maintain itself - in vain, ultimately.

The cargo of mouthwash is more valuable to the company than they are.

You can see also in each of them, the kinds of people capitalism makes.

Swansea tried to fix up his life and do everything right. He tried to become a good worker for the sake of his family. But is he much better off than when he was an alcoholic? He says the best part of his life is still when the only troubles he had was the bottom of an empty bottle - nevermind his family, his sobriety and becoming a "correct" person in capitalist society.

His existential crisis grips me because it does raise questions about if living the way you're "supposed to" is worth it.

Daisuke wants to prove his worth in his capabilities. Daisuke is still trying to prove himself as valuable to the system, even at his own expense. Swansea laments this, because he just knows there's no point where you become valuable or worthy enough in the system.

Anya, as the only woman on board, takes the blunt of the lack of autonomy enforced by the system.

Jim... Jim is exactly the kind of person this system breeds, too. He's entitled. He's hungry for more power, but he can only see it by wrestling it off his coworkers and enacting interpersonal violence. He sees himself as a temporary victim of circumstance, who has a right to the power Curly has.

He is the exact sort of person who might have been a captain on some of the other cargo ships. Can you imagine if he'd had that much power from the start? The company doesn't give a shit, so long as the cargo gets there in one piece. The toll of the psychological trauma taken on the staff will never outweigh the value of the goods being shipped.

Even if it's just mouthwash.

I think you could maybe also read Jim's affinity for the cartoon horse as a metaphor for his hunger for power, too. It's something he both desires and dreads. He wants to have his cake and eat it too, he doesn't want the consequences that follow. It's the carrot and stick. He'll take as much power as he can before the axe finally drops and he has to face the music, even if it means making everything so, so much worse in the process.

[thermitetermite]

I return from the grave for one night only to post a Helluva Boss AU. Enjoy my delulu AU about a Christmas tree capitalist clown spider demon and his adopted cyborg clown son.

Also there is swearing and mentions of Fizzaroli's accident.

Mammon being a half decent step-dad AU

Mammon hears about Fizz much earlier though the grapevine (Paimon complaining to all royal demons about how his son got rid of all their shit bc of some clown kid)

Interested, he attends a show in disguise.

He finds that Fizz is good. Like, really good! Dollar signs start popping up in his head. Also the little bugger kind of reminds him of himself.

Immediately asks to buy Fizz from Cash Buckzo. He refuses at first because Fizz is his star but with strong negotiating tactics (money and threats) he caves.

Fizz is nervous about leaving his only home behind but is excited to be "adopted" by Mammon! His hero!

It's giving bought by One Direction vibes

At first Mammon was planning to just train him to be a child actor/clown, give him a TV show and pawn him off to someone to actually raise full-time. He wanted to be the convenient step-dad, not a full time parent!

That changed after the first couple nights with Fizz living in his mansion.

It started with Fizz handing him a red balloon horse.

"Alright, not bad kid, but can ya make a balloon unicorn?"

Fizz ran off to attempt to make it. That'll keep him busy for a few hours, guess that meant he could make some calls and... He was back already with the completed unicorn.

"Give me another!"

"Uh, alright ya little bugger, why dontcha make a Quevie?"

This back and forth happened for the next few hours, with Mammon judging the balloon animal, giving a few pointers when he messed up, and Fizz making the next animal he asked for.

Damn, this parenting shit is easy.

It eventually got so late that Fizz fell asleep on the couch trying to complete a kangaroo.

Sighing, Mammon picked Fizz up and carried him to the bedroom he hired someone to decorate. He tucked him into bed and finally after an entire day was able to make a call.

However, the first call he made wasn't to the networking company or his broadcasting station. Instead, it was to Lucifer, his self proclaimed best friend and a successful parent.

"What is it Mammon? Do you have any idea how late it is?"

"Yeah, yeah. I just had a quick question for ya. What do children eat? Cereal? Oats? Ice cream?"

Needless to say, Lucifer had a long talk with Mammon about how to raise a kid, stating it'd be hard work.

After hanging up and going to bed, Mammon had only one thought on his mind. To raise this kid better than any of the other Sins could. His boy would be talk of the town and the best clown in all of Hell.

That first week of parenting went about as well as you'd expect.

Mammon had the approach of being "The fun step-dad" which included eating candy for every meal, teaching him swear words and showing him how to do all the tricks he thought a capable child could do.

(These tricks may or may not have included tax evasion and driving)

Speaking of, Mammon insisted on bringing Fizzaroli everywhere. Including work.

"Mammon, sir, I'm sorry for filing the paperwork for the expansion of LooLoo Land wrong- is that a child?"

"Yeah, this is my boy. Look attem. Ain't he talented!" Cue Fizz hanging off one of his arms. "Whatdya think Fizzie? Should we keep or fire him?"

"Fire!"

"You heard the boy! Off withya, ya bloody cunt!"

"Bloody cunt!"

Mammon would belly laugh whenever Fizzaroli would copy his swearing or accent. When is children swearing NOT funny?

Mammon's definitely the type to have tons of pictures in his wallet of his kid. Fizzaroli does get a TV show, lots of interviews and the spotlight often but whenever someone asks Mammon about him he immediately opens the photo wallet.

(He would kill anyone who even touched it)

Of course he still has some of the Mammon-ness we know, bribing and pushing Fizz to do shows, acts, commercials and more, causing Fizz to start getting overwhelmed.

Then one day Fizz's accident happened (it's a canon event)

Mammon practically broke down Belphagor's door when he got the news Fizz was hurt, demanding his boy get the best treatment in Hell.

Mammon didn't sleep for the entire time Fizz was in that hospital bed, sitting beside him for days at a time just thinking about how he nearly lost him. He couldn't lose him.

When Fizz woke up/was stable, Mammon was there during his emotional moments. When Fizz asked if Mammon would replace him he scoffed.

"Fizzie, why would I replace you? You're in recovery right now. A break. Yer fans are dying to see that Fizzie face when you get outta here. You're more popular and more in demand than ever. You do the recoverin and I'll show you the huge profit we return."

Mammon to English translation: It's stupid to think I'll leave. You'll be able to return to the stage, I'll make sure of it. You'll get better and I'll be here with you.

Fizz eventually recovered but needed limbs so Mammon sent a request (demand) to the best mechanic in Hell, Asmodeus. If anyone could make limbs for his boy it'd be that rooster fuck.

Of course just because Mammon had faith in him didn't mean he wasn't picky in what he delivered.

"Can ya loop your arm like a bendy straw?"

"Uh, no."

"Then it's not good enough for you!"

Mammon practically sent Asmodeus a list of limb adjustments and upgrades that needed to be done every other week. All other times he had Fizzie trying all these different therapies, practicing with his limbs, and occasionally try doing a trick. (Not clown car driving after last time). Eventually he was mostly satisfied with the work and to celebrate "Ozzie not *HONK*-ing up" he started teaching Fizz how to play the guitar.

Cue a bit of a time skip of say 7 years.

Fizz has his hands in nearly every facet of entertainment. News, sports, cooking competitions (which he surprisingly sucked at), and of course comedy. Fizz didn't want to say it but doing so much had him tired, stressed, and anxious. He was doing this for Mammon, the person who gave him everything. He couldn't just let him down. He'd seen what happened to those that failed him. All those people who got fired for mistakes they made. He couldn't fail.

At the same time Mammon wants to get into the robot doll industry. Not sex dolls because he can't stand the thought of his (boy) brand being sold like that. Instead personal assistance robots that have all the features. It can make coffee, teach you yoga, be a parent, etc. but of course he needs the mechanical help of Asmodeus again.

Once again Fizz is taking trips to Lust to oversee the production of the robots. After 2 years of this the robots are completed (a huge financial success) and Fizz asks Mammon if he can stay with Ozzie.

Mammon is surprised but ok with it as long as he visits and does a show every now and again. Especially guest judging the Clown Pageant.

He doesn't realize Fizz and Oz have a thing until the Clown Pageant (his final one in canon)

Once it comes out, oh boy, Mammon goes full demon mode. Shit gets ugly. Mammon goes on his normal rant (minus the "raised you like the son I didn't want" part) and Fizz, unwaivering because he's seen this a million times, retorts back with all the anxiety Mammon caused. The acting and shows. How it weighed on him. How he was so scared of fucking something up and getting kicked out.

"I'd never kick you out! You're the crown jewel of my empire! My runt turned pick of the litta! I made you in my image! If I pushed you hard it was because you could be better! I raised you! You've got my training in your back pocket so I knew you could be a better clown than I ever was! All of this was for you!"

Eventually Mammon breaks down and asks why Asmodeus. He's worried about their relationship considering he's known Asmodeus since the beginning of hell.

"Why do you need to date him when you have my empire! If you need money, we have it! If you need companionship, we can buy it! If you need power we have that too! We built this empire! Your talent brought in a fortune and you've seen how to run the business! If you need your own power or your own space you can have it!"

"I'm not with him for any of those things! I know I have everything else here! But I love him Mammon! He takes care of me. He's kind, sweet, handsome, and supports me even on my roughest days. I love him."

"...he makes you feel safe?"

"Yes."

"He treats you good?"

"He treats me amazingly."

"You love him?"

"With all my heart."

"...ok."

"Ok?"

"I... Respect your decision. I'm going to make it about me but please bear with me. I know I haven't been the best at raising you. I can be overbearing. And clingy. And I pushed you to do a lot of things that were hard or uncomfortable or er... greedy. I haven't been the best influence on your life but I did my best and if I had to I'd do it all over again."

"Mam..."

"Up up up, let me finish ya little shit. You know I have a hard time letting go of things. And I was kidding myself when I thought I'd have ya forever. I forgot how fast ya implings grow up. I thought I could keep ya safe and smilin but I couldn't even do that right. The second most painful thing I experienced in my life was gettin kicked from heaven. The most was seein you in that hospital bed. I've been smotherin ya since. Yer my boy and I wanted better for ya. Thought I could protect ya if I pushed harder. Taught ya more. Did more shit with ya. But in the end you were always gonna have ta leave ta find a life of yer own.

Mammon paused, taking a familiar but heavily deflated remnant of a red horse balloon from under his hat

"I'm at least glad ya took somethin after me. Yer greedy like me and ya landed the best bachelor Hell has ta offer. I... I don't want to let ya go but... Ya need to do this. Live yer life kid, and live it better than me."

The fucking stadium was in tears (me too tbh)

Before Fizz could say anything (he was choking on his words) Mammon extended a card with his sigil on it.

"Remember I'm always here. Please... Call me if ya need me."

Fizz wrapped his robotic limbs around Mammon, bringing him in for a tight hug.

"I love you, Dad."

Mammon cried on that stage, hugging the son he always wanted.

[rainbowcheesecakeandcoldcoffee]

During the course of few days the most commonly used adjectives for Lu Guang in social media caught my eyes and irritated me to my core. The adjectives are- "selfish", "hypocrite" and "unhealthy" (in the way lu Guang loves Cheng xiaoshi *many are in denial about that too and I don't have the excruciating energy to argue with them*).

Now, let me shed light upon the text book definition of selfish - "one who is chiefly concerned with one's own personal profit or pleasure." (Wikipedia). Okay, so Lu Guang trying to save Cheng Xiaoshi is an act of selfishness? Isn't it basic instinct to protect our beloved? When our house is on fire isn't it human behaviour to look out for our people and trying to save them from the massacre or do we look out for our neighbours and try to look out for them when our own house is burning? When I have 2 dollars in my bank account and the ransom for saving an unknown person is exact 2 dollars, for the humanity and compassion and love for others I will spend that two dollars on that person but I will not take a loan for that right? But for my beloved, for my friends, for those who matter in my life the most I will not think even for a bit to go that extra mile and take loan from the bank and pay the hefty interest for the rest of my life. That's how struggle for existence, struggle to stay relevant is. Darwin's survival of the fittest isn't a very new concept right? It's our basic human instict to look out for our community people, seek out for them. In Hindu mythology, there's a saying - friends and beloveds should be like Krishna and Karna- those who stay by your side in dire need, even when on some level you are wrong, even when the world is against you. And why people are considering that saving people's life , changing timeline and messing up the fundamentals of time theory is just like a kid's play for Lu Guang and he don't have to pay any price for that . A price that can even make and remove his existence from everywhere? Where is Lu Guang's fault that he dared to dream to be with his beloved, the only person he has? In this context I will like to give reference to a line of vortex - "knowing it all am I destined to fall?, Knowing it all, Like once you did for me . " This this the Biblical reference to the story of Adam and Eve. Lu Guang is only able to know, he is not able to change everything. He can only try to change , keeping everything he has on sake, even his life. One thing - if Lu Guang sacrifices himself for everyone, how will he exist - Lu Guang's spirit animal is a cat, he doesn't have nine lives literally.

Next comes the very common trope of blaming Lu Guang as a hypocrite. For the reference I am attaching the definition of hypocrite from Cambridge Dictionary ( I don't think there can be a more authentic source for the definition) - Someone who says they have particular moral beliefs but behaves in way that shows these are not sincere. Okay so are we mixing up the very basic concept of moral beliefs and human instict to love, to care, to save and in general the basic human instict to "struggle for existence" . Even a suicidal person struggles on the threshold point of of their urge to live and their wish to end this life. Has Lu Guang ever claimed that he is that resurrected Chirst figure. In this late capitalist state he is here to save the mankind and punish the sinner. No, right ? So why are we making him a God like figure? And Lu Guang is hypocrite about what? For not letting Cheng Xiaoshi know that he will be going through workplace sexual assault when transmigrated to Emma's body? According to my understanding when someone is transmigrating to another person's body one is subscribing to experience one's lived experience, then with the vengeance for the horrible act they suffered, acting accordingly. When one is transmigrating don't you think letting one know about the experience one will be going through we are nullifying the other person's lived experience? When a person residing in center experiences a marginalized person's life ( in this case her marginalization happens because of her gender and class - both economic and social) it's difficult for the person living in the center fathom the intensity of a incident, everything isn't about textbook definitions. Moreover, did Lu Guang had the chance? Don't we think Lu Guang was helpless in that situation or is being dehumazined to a level that we are hesitant of thinking Lu Guang can have basic emotions? Or are we blaming Lu Guang for not letting Cheng Xiaoshi know about Emma's death? We all know in what condition (both mental and physical) Cheng Xiaoshi was after coming back from transmigrating into Emma's body.

Now, comes the adjective used for Lu Guang - " unhealthy" and we can also consider this as being non-concensual, abusive, obsessive kind of lover or "mate" as people like to call .. or should I say comrade? Anyway, one thing I learnt from this is that when a person is going to meet with an accident - I will first stop the speeding car going to hit the person and then let them sign the contract that will have made beforehand stating that I am allowed to save that person:⁠-⁠).! So that, the person whom I am saving don't get a guilt trip that they are being saved . As in that process I might have hurt myself and that person don't have to live through a life long guilt of being saved. Are we literally so much into the kind of media where we worship the Petrarchan trope of love that taking active action for one's love is being criminalized.

And people are so intrigued about passing value judgement about Lu Guang that he is judged merely being judged into the New Critic's way "good" or "bad"- "Is Lu Guang adding any value to our life?" "Is Lu Guang making you a good human being suitable to serve the big bens of the capitalist society?" - if not, then just tag Lu Guang as a horrible person. In the constant urge of villainizing Lu Guang, we have dehumazined Lu Guang so much that we have forgotten to see him as an individual and visualing him from a human parameter. The only request is to stop demonising him for loving, for dreaming to be with his love, for having a "queer" dream of a happy life...(⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)(⁠◔⁠‿⁠◔⁠)(⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)(⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠❤

[purplesaline]

Disney's Wish is a surprisingly anti-capitalist movie for the Mouse to have produced.

Okay so maybe not exactly anti-capitist if you view it as separate from current cultural experiences, which is likely how it got stuck past the executives, but come on!

A man who builds a kingdom in exchange for the deepest wishes of others (which they then forget), promising to keep them safe and once a month grant one of the wishes?

Come live in my kingdom and help make it great, in exchange you only need to give me your deepest wish, which I will keep safe from the dangers of the world so it doesn't get destroyed. You won't remember it so you won't be able to pursue it on your own, but don't worry because one day I just might grant it!

And this seems like a great deal because pursuing your deepest wish can be scary and there's no guarantee you'll ever make it happen but you've seen this guy grant people's wishes and last year he granted 14! Your odds of the king granting your wish seem much better than you making it happen yourself! And so what if you feel a little empty afterward, you don't remember what it felt like before you gave your wish away.

It's not even "sell me your soul" it's "give me your soul freely and maaaaaaaybe you'll get something in return but no promises (and if your wish is inconvenient for me I'm definitely never granting it)."

How is this not a metaphor for our current state of late-stage capitalism? I mean when the devil has the moral high ground you seriously need to question your societal model. At least you know up front what you get with him.

I will say it was nice to see a story where the power of ordinary people was what it took to save the day. We need more stories where we save each other instead of the endless chosen one with magical powers narratives. Those have a place for sure, but I think they've conditioned us to wait for someone special to make a difference and I'm sure that's part of why we're in this mess.

But yes, Wish! Great movie! Definitely recommend it! Go watch it and get inspired! Never forget that we're all made of stars.

[aurea-corde]

I've never seen a single episode of anything related to watcher but I am eating up all this drama. Also sorry to y'all going through this

i appreciate that anon 😭 i've seen several good nuanced takes on the situation thankfully. the company definitely did mess up how it introduced the streaming service to people: they said in the video they were going to paywall all existing and new content and then in the comments and in the variety article pretended like that was never their intent. the variety article reveals that they were in fact initially told watcher was going to delete all existing content. the CEO in particular but in general all the founders said that the amount they are charging is affordable - specifically that anyone could afford it - which no they can't obviously. As they are now finding out the hard way. The CEO Steven also made an instagram post insinuating people who wouldn't subscribe just no longer want to watch them, rather than the reality which is that a massive majority of the audience can't afford to. Because he is the CEO, people are blaming the entire thing on him, but it's also important to remember there are actually three founder-owners with decision-making abilities in the company. Shane and Ryan are adults, and the way people are acting like Steven is some kind of dictator, Ryan just went along with it but Shane is the people's anticapitalist hero who was simply outvoted is not a great look. Especially the posts that refuse to acknowledge even the possibility of racial biases here. Mistakes were made, poc are not immune to criticism, but let's consider why so many feel like Shane was forced into this by the evil Steven (and people in the comments have literally called him evil for this) and either lump Ryan in with him or give Ryan no agency in the situation whatsoever. Steven is the most likely to have made the proposal as the closest thing Watcher has to a business-minded founder, but the other two clearly agreed with him. They could have just decided not to be in the video. I also don't see a world where they contractually obligated themselves to every whim of Steven's like some people are suggesting.

Do I think they're a bit sheltered in their LA life? Yeah, probably. I'm pretty sheltered myself - I live a comfortable middle class life in Australia, have a good job and am studying law. I could definitely afford the subscription. But I don't want to atm, or at least until they respond to the situation. Are they the worst most evil capitalists because they want to charge money for the content they create? No, not inherently. People supported them on Patreon because of course creatives should be paid for their labour, and ideally paid well enough to live comfortably. But the combo of bad business decisions (e.g. hiring too many staff too quickly while also wanting to pay them above a living wage, not advertising the patreon, not utilising revenue streams that aren't a streaming service like youtube memberships, spending what Ryan has said is hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single season of a series they have called Ghost Files) and the fact the CEO is pretty open about his comfortable lifestyle (drives a tesla which btw folks isn't a luxury car it's just a more expensive one, has a $300 matcha machine, has a series based on fine dining vs more affordable restaurants), means people are understandably mad because they are struggling financially and the founders (from what we know) are not - but they're trying to tell people that 6 USD is affordable for everyone.

It's a lot less to do with the fact of them charging for content as much as the way they went about it and in particular how it's been phrased to people has come across really insensitive. There's other logistics with the streaming service itself that were not thought out at all for international viewers, but I won't get into that here. And the pretending they were always going to leave their content up and telling viewers not to spread misinformation is scummy to me - at least acknowledge that was a mistake you made and backtracked on. It's just a mess but I really loved their videos and hope they make Youtube's Greatest Apology Video Ever (unironically) and try to undo some of the damage.

edit: someone in the replies made a great point that teslas could actually be considered a luxury car in some countries outside of the US, and I fully agree that 6 USD is 1) too much for what they offer, esp in this economic climate and 2) wayyyyy too much when converted to other currencies. I've seen other Australians say the conversion is too much for them but I know viewers in other countries say it comes out to literally thousands for them - if they can even access the site at all from their country.

[fiannalover]

bweirdOCtober Day 9 - Relationships

Post-College Medeia - Thread

“You are lost.”

“Mayhaps. But the journey is what matters most, no?”

“It is. Though less so when your destination has a strict time window.”

Once upon a time, there was a witch. Although, that wasn’t the profession she’d use to describe herself. Her long black hair, color that combined with her conversation partner’s attire, was slightly messed up by the wind passing by.

Hearing his answer, she frowned and returned to alternating between staring at her map and her cellphone that held the bare minimum of data, in hopes they made any sense whatsoever. In fact, all her travels carried a time limit, which, thematically, was very appropriate.

“I don’t suppose you could give me some hint regarding where I should go? It is your cult, after all.” She argued.

“I could. But this is your lead and your hunt, Medeia. And in my defense, it was more of a cult to dethrone me than to assist me.” The man accompanying her answered, floating a short answer behind her while wearing a tailor-made suit adorned by punctual, but valuable, rings, watch and jewels. “Of course, you have other tools that you can use at any moment.”

The suggestion was received and immediately thrown away. At the same moment, the spark of realization came to her face, showing she found the desired thread. “No problems, I located myself. Onwards!”

“Right behind you.”

Once upon a time, there was a girl, the kind you'd find anywhere. And her travel companion, Death.

A little village in the middle of nowhere.

Medeia had stopped by many of them on her odyssey,

“Your people really like this kind of place, don’t they?” She asked, while typing away in her notebook, the soundtrack of a tween musical playing softly as she worked.

“They are death cults. You do not think most of them would try to hide away in the midst of the biggest metropolis, do you?” He answered, filing his nails.

“Wouldn’t be impossible. Both of us have already lived in one of the biggest cities of the country. We know very well it’s super easy to hide stuff there.” She ceased typing for a second, pondering over some possibilities. “There likely are a bunch of rich guys plotting stuff right under our noses on some capital. I should go to one after exhausting my current clues.“

“Who knows. I but request you to remember, all business I realized in the world of the living was completely legal and according to the law. Including precious jewels that, officially, I found by pure luck. You cannot blame my own golden touch.“

“Don’t worry, Pluto, I know. You’re my favorite capitalist.“ She said, using the name few mortals were aware belonged to him. Closing her notebook and getting up from the chair, she declared. “Alright, let’s see what we’ll find here.“

-----

“You know, you probably would find the right path more easily if you used magic.“ He suggested, making use of his incorporeality to randomly go through the ruins’ walls.

Writing down all she saw on a notepad, she replied. “I remain only a potion maker and journalist. I clearly have no sanity and am addicted to adrenaline, but I won’t use free magic to make this worse.”

She kept patting around the walls and furniture of the place, eventually making an unnoticed mirror fall to the floor and shatter in a thousand pieces. Welp, just another relic of incalculable historical value.

One of the shards made a small cut on her leg, though, creating a thin thread of blood that would go all the way to her heel. Annoying, but no big problem. Still, she made a mental note to exchange her shoes for bigger boots.

“You know, I don’t think this partnership of ours is very equal.” She said, repeating an argument they made every other week, almost a little inside joke.

“Because it isn’t. I can destroy these magical artifacts and cults at any moment. But I grant you the opportunity to do so yourself, to further your own goals.”

“And for that not quite bare minimum, I’m eternally ungrateful.” After that jest, she finally found a place that looked slightly weird. Taking a small vial from her pockets, she spilled its liquid on the floor, making a stairway show itself. Great. At last, progress.

-----

A salvo of shotguns ringed through the air above the strategically located waist high half-wall Medea was protecting herself with.

“You REALLY can’t help me right now?” She shouted, her cover vibrating from the impact of the guns.

“In your age’s terms, nope. Work your magic, alchemist.” He replied, noticeable only to her.

She needed no magic. All that mattered was resources, ingenuity…

And many wiles!

At a spot, the noise surrounding her faded ever so slightly. Realizing her assailants were reloading, she quickly grabbed a potion bottle and threw it towards them as strongly as possible. With the cracking sound of impact and their surprised noises, she knew she hit her target.

Alright. Let's face the music!

-----

"Food poisoning. All considered, you suffer from that very rarely, for someone who is always traveling." Death pointed out.

"Hahaha. Very… urgh." Medeia remained on her knees, holding back nausea while facing the lunch she just finished throwing on the side of the road. "Very funny, Plu-"

The girl couldn't finish the sentence, instead returning to throwing out her own stomach. Truly, a lesson to never trust divine-looking beef.

Throughout the entire experience, her travel companion used one of his hands to hold her long black hair, keeping it from dirtying itself, while the other hand calmly pet her head or back, soft, calm words comforting her all the while.

It was a parental care she long didn't feel.

-----

In an almost desert, with no visible reference points, Medeia evaluated her maps and information. She could keep riding down the road with her bike, no problems, but having some idea of how long it would be before she got anywhere would be handy.

She somewhat asked herself how it would be like to be made of the same material as clouds or have the same wings birds use to fly. And in doing so, she noticed she was really, really bored.

"Why do you follow me?" She asked.

"We have known each other for a very long time. Old friends, practically." He answered.

"You can say that to a lot of people, not just me. Even within the occult means, I'm sure I'm not the only one."

"You are not. But you're also dedicated to solving terrible incidents being built with me in mind, be it in homage or against me."

"I am. But you're Death. You don't need my help to fix these."

"No, I do not. However, your motives are unique enough for me to consider them worthy of my support." He explained, putting an end to their little back-and-forth with a more in-depth explanation. "Mages are creatures of extremes. Many, as you know within your own blood, aim to deny me, destroying the natural order of our world. Others still seek to wreak great destruction, thus ignoring the equilibrium of life. You, not being a mage, are a very sensible person, Medeia. And your reasons for seeking passageways to my kingdom are approved."

And so, he vanished, leaving her with her own thoughts for a while. But she knew he was close by, as always. He was many things, but not a hunter unbeknownst to his prey.

Looking at her map again, she noticed she should go east. As she prepared to put it all back inside her bag, she found a piece of obsidian, which would easily finance her next hotel.

"Thank you, Pluto." Closing her baggage, she kept on going.

-----

Entering the new set of ruins, defeating the local cult with a sleep potion, a wool scarf and a high jump kick from really sturdy boots and finding the relevant magical artifact was, all considered, rather easy, with the maze she traversed to get there having unraveled in front of her experienced gaze.

Incense and liquids she brought now adorned an altar surrounding a curious mirror that, soonly, would cease having a connection to a world beyond.

"Alright, I think I neutralized the portal enough. How long can I make use of it?" She asked.

"Roughly ten minutes. Unfortunately, I cannot allow it to remain open any longer than that." Death informed her.

"Less than I got last time. Welp, it's enough. The cops are getting in eighteen or so to pick them up anyway." She reasoned. Picking up a brush and a hand mirror from her pockets, she looked at her own appearance for a bit, before deciding she was satisfied. "Let's do this."

The potion maker put down a feather and a golden coin in front of her, then lightly cut her own hand, letting blood fall on the proper place. Then, holding on to the mirror, she let her magic activate its restrained power.

Her reflection quickly vanished as the portal activated. In its place, were plains in eternal spring and, within them, a girl with the purest tranquility in her face.

It couldn't be traversed. It was but a camera, microphone and audio system, traversing the greatest of distances between two people.

Noticing the portal, the girl turned around and greeted the person standing on the other side with the greatest possible smile on her face.

From the deathly catacombs where she found herself at, Medeia theatrically bowed and proclaimed. "Fair maiden! Many dangers and journeys I faced to see thy lovely face once again!" With the overkill court provoking the desired laughter, she stood up straight and affirmed. "You're as beautiful as ever, Ariadne."

Carrying that special smile, from within her peaceful eternal rest, she answered. "And you're as courageous and smart as the last time we saw one another, my Medeia."

At the end of day, there is only one that truly makes life worth living.

And so, each and every day, she would search for her love's thread.

[seeminglydeathlessredshirt]

Ramblings on Disco Elysium

It's taken me a bit to gather my thoughts on this one.

There are some pieces of media out there that people will heap praise after praise upon, to the point where you keep putting it off because there's no way it'll live up to the reputation established by everyone else. Of those, you'll eventually get around to some of them, and realise, to your horror, that they are as good as everyone's been saying. Disco Elysium is exactly that experience.

Before I get into why I adore this game, I feel I should point out that the original devs got the boot a while back and got even more screwed over by the company that owns the title. It's hard to summarise, but simply put, don't buy the game. Also, I'm not going to be discussing specific plot details, but I will be talking about some overarching tropes and concepts that may clue you in on some of the things the story has hidden up its sleeve.

As you likely already know, the game centres around an absolute wreck of a human being. Poor health, mental and physical, and a tendency to do or say things that are generally ill-advised. Worst of all, you have no memory of how you got into this mess, the part of town you're in is reaching its boiling point, and the murder case you're here to solve is the only way you can make things right. Despite the outlandish nature of his behaviours, the detective is one of the most relatable characters I've seen in gaming. Seeing someone brought to their lowest point time and time again and trying to crawl their way out of the pit in a time where I've felt that low provided a bit of solace. That being said, it's not an easy climb, neither here nor there.

One of the most interesting things about this game is the way every single skill is giving a role to play, and not just in the way of having ample amounts of checks for each one, but also in giving them a defined personality. Electrochemistry is constantly egging you on to indulge in various substances, Encyclopedia won't tell you your own name but will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the Coupris Kineema, Rhetoric speaks like a Tumblr user who's about to post the most rancid take you've ever seen, and so on. It all ties in wonderfully with this general otherworldly feeling that comes from the blending of the mundane and the unreal that becomes more apparent as time goes on.

It's in this space in-between the two where the game genuinely shines. The world feels genuinely outlandish, but the people and the conflicts feel real in their own little ways. Revachol lies at the intersection of the modern era's most well-known ideologies, and the consequences of that are felt in everyone you meet. You can fall in line with any one of them, but it won't have much an impact on the situation. You can help everyone you come across, build up trust with your equally fleshed-out companion, and preach about the replacement of the capitalist order with a classless utopia, but nothing can change the fact that you are a cop, the physical enforcer of the state's monopoly on violence. The characters will constantly remind you of what you are throughout the entire game, and it's important to understand that, despite getting to see the detective's own humanity, that his line of work requires doing inhuman things. Disco Elysium is about a lot of things, and the tension between combining two diametrically opposed concepts is one of them. It's a fantastic work of art, and I hope this isn't the last we see of the people who brought it to life.

Don't listen to Rhetoric.

[the-derpy-duck]

Orko not needing to be “useful” to be loved and valued is a thing that I think about often.

My knowledge of He Man is very limited and I only really watched any of the shows for Orko. But like he used to be really great at magic but because of circumstances that were mostly out of his control he can’t really do magic anymore. His abilities are severely stunted for basically his entire time on Eternia. He saves Adam and that wins him favor with the king and queen and he gets to be a court jester. He tries to use magic to do his job and he fails a lot. When he messes up he always works to fix his mistakes and he wants to help. He’s doing his best and the people around him love him for who he is.

He-Man was made and aired during the 1980s. The Cold War had begun to sort of wind down (as in the hostility between the USA and USSR) before this point because Carter (who was president from 1976 to 1980) was actively worked to be less involved in conflicts. Dumbasses who say trump was the first president to not have the USA participate in war during his presidency either ignore or are unaware of Carter until they need to bring up the Iran Hostage Crisis. Reagan, who proceeded Carter, immediately started working on undoing everything Carter worked to do. He removed solar panels from the White House that Jimmy Carter installed and also made the AIDs Crisis a lot worse than it needed to be (Jimmy lead the eradication effort of guinea worm because he saw a woman suffering and decided to do something about it). Regan also deregulated some aspects of the TV industry which allowed for the 30 minute toy commercials that started many beloved franchise. The Regan administration sort of revived the Cold War. Although the red scare had already happened and communists weren’t well liked during Carter’s presidency tensions were still dying down. But when He-Man was airing tensions had begun to rise again.

I don’t know how long production for He-Man was but if it was less than three years than it is safe to say that the writers were at least aware of the political climate. He-Man is not political commentary. Although cartoons at the time definitely did reflect current issues and some of those issue would be political (such as The Transformers clearly commenting on the energy crisis and also just in general being pretty anti war), He-Man and all of these other shows existed to sell toys to children. That is why a good portion of children’s entertainment exists. The capitalist society we live in requires everything to make money, I promise you this will be important in just a second. But the historical context for He-Man was that the Cold War was getting warmer. So the Capitalist v Communist narrative had started up again. I need you to keep this idea in mind or at least entertain it: Orko is, in one way or another, disabled or able to represent disability. He needs to use magic in his everyday life and he now has a significantly harder time using magic. His entire life and world was magic and his role, both on Trolla and on Eternia, requires him to use magic. And because he looses his magic wand he also looses the ability to preform magic at the capacity that he used to. And I know it would be easier for him to preform magic on Trolla but he’s not on Trolla for most of the show so that’s kind of irrelevant. What’s relevant is that he is a magician, he performs magic on Trolla and on Enternia and he is now less able to do his job on Enternia, and he sort of can’t go back to Trolla. Please keep this idea in mind.

We live in a capitalistic society that demands everyone to contribute and if you can’t contribute then you die. Systems exist to help people who are unable to work. I don’t know a lot about those systems and from what little I understand they aren’t that good. Because the foundations of our society relies on people believing that they need to be “useful” to be “valuable” or just worthy of living and not starving on the streets I’ve found that it leads to attitudes that people who can’t work are leaching off of others. However time stops for no one and eventually your body will start to deteriorate and you won’t be as capable of working or preforming tasks as before. And that’s fine. We are valuable because we exist and we are people. No one needs to prove that they are a person and no one has to earn the right to exist and be happy. That is a person’s birth right. I think our society’s obsession with working is partly why aging is seen as negative. Another reason is definitely that death is scary and not being able to do everything you used to isn’t great but part of that being seen as not great isn’t just not being able to do certain things you liked to do (like running or playing a sport) but rather because you can’t contribute as much/work as much as before.

And there’s other factors to this besides capitalism but ultimately it’s the foundation of our modern world and getting rid of it wouldn’t solve everything as the other issues would still exist but it would make things better. Capitalism leads us to be more individualistic and cruel. If you ask most people “hey should our neighbor Bob die because he can’t afford healthcare or his medication” they will say no, but they will also say no to universal healthcare because taxes will increase. Money is absolutely useless. It has no value. Gold is pretty, but ultimately a weak (and also heavy) metal. Money is only valuable because we think it is and gold is/was so valuable because we said it was and because we think it’s pretty (it is). If the world was to collapse tomorrow and everything shut down (like nuclear fallout or a zombie apocalypse), money would be worthless. You can’t eat it, it won’t build you a shelter, it cannot heal you, it cannot protect you. At some point we decided that a piece of paper was more valuable and important than actual human lives.

I’m under no delusion that I am the first person to realize this or that this is a new thing. By ‘we’ I mean humans in general but also at some point every person decides when they are willing to sacrifice the lives and wellbeing of others for their financial gain. And that’s not an entirely bad thing. I believe that being “selfish” is, to an extent, good. This guy named Maslow came up with a hierarchy of needs. It’s not perfect and some levels can be fulfilled before others can but the basic idea is that certain needs must be fulfilled and satisfied before others can be. You can’t be in a relationship or employed if you can’t breath. You MUST look out for yourself and keep yourself alive before you can help others. You need to put on your air mask before attempting to assist others. And if or not that should be considered “selfish” is arguable. Humans are social creatures, so it is generally frowned upon to not look out for others. We would not be where we are today as a species if we followed an “Everyman for themselves” type of philosophy. But capitalism demands that we do. But even without capitalism you still need to be a little selfish to survive. And at some point being unselfish becomes selfish when you are in charge of the care of others. If a person has kids then they must provide and care for those kids and so they would have the interest of their family unit in the forefront of their mind. And it would be fucking insane if they didn’t and if someone looked down on them for that. Drowning yourself won’t help others who are drowning.

We are expected to contribute and to view people who don’t contribute as less than. Orko as a character stands in direct opposition to this idea. He isn’t seen as inherently less than because he isn’t as good at performing magic as he was before. He does his best at his job and he is still treated as a person despite him not being a great magician. He doesn’t need to be great, or good, or even ok at magic because he is good enough. He is a person and that is enough. He tries everyday and that is enough. He is kind and trusting and a little guy and that is enough. Orko is enough and he will always be enough. He isn’t a failure and he is not treated as such. He might be insecure at times but that’s just a part of being alive. He makes mistakes and messes up and can be annoying (to some people) sometimes but that doesn’t make him less worthy of anything. It doesn’t make him less of person. People, disabled or not, do not “loose value” because they are “annoying” or because they make a mistake. Placing superhuman expectations on humans is inherently unfair. You cannot expect (yourself, your neighbors, your family, random people on the street) to be perfect. Humans are flawed and we will all make mistakes. We are all going to age and we will die at some point and that’s ok. If everyone will eventually end up dead then we should spend the time we have being compassionate towards each other. There’s limits of course, and people don’t need to be happy or nice all of the time but I think avoiding being overtly cruel is a good thing.

Orko doesn’t need to be “fixed”. He is loved as he is and the people around him don’t force him to be a thing that he is not. He is loved, and I know I keep saying that but it’s really important to me. He’s silly. He’s an inherently goofy character and he’s a character that means a lot to me personally. I really like him. I like that the people around him love him and care about him. He’s not perfect. He’s a very flawed character but he ultimately wants to do good and be good. He’s not perfect and he never needed to be perfect. He is treated as equal by the people around him and he is treated like a person. Yeah the bar is in hell but a lot of people think that the bar is just a little bit too high for them. Even if Orko isn’t disabled, him not needing to prove that he deserves love is very important to me. He can just be a person who is flawed and just kind of normal.

I know he’s just a silly little guy. I know whoever was writing the he-man episodes wasn’t thinking about this. Or maybe they were, I was actually lying about knowing. But they probably weren’t. He’s a goofy guy. His goofiness and the thoughts I have about him are why I love him so much. And it’s mostly the silliness, but my thoughts are all that I have and they are what makes me myself.

Anyway live laugh love Orko

[57sfinest]

i'd love to hear your thoughts on klaasje

i love klaasje soooo much she's so interesting to me and i really love how they made her parallel harry in a lot of ways, but i think that specifically could be a separate post

one of the things that ruins me about her is like... she's so young to be in this situation. she's only 28 and she's become a fugitive from entities that she's not even sure are actually chasing her, which is a special kind of hell. in her eyes, her life is over, and it had barely begun. this wasn't even her plan, she was dragged into everything as a result of the capitalist machine: she did odd jobs until a banking firm picked her up and found out she was really good at corporate espionage, and because that was what finally gave her life stability, she stuck with it. she caused people to lose their jobs- some, their lives- and helped these larger companies destabilize smaller competitors and corner the market. she only did it a few times, but she tangibly ruined people's lives, including her own. and she clearly feels terrible about it, but she can't undo what she's done.

she came to martinaise to hide because no one cares about martinaise. she was staying in a hotel room, pretty much constantly on drugs to numb herself, fooling around with the odd resident, but she wasn't doing much to permanently establish herself- we see no evidence that she was trying to do any work or find someplace to live in the area. martinaise was never meant to be a place to start over, off the radar; it was just supposed to be a place where she could self-destruct in peace. when she tells harry that martinaise isn't the kind of place that calls the cops, that had been a deciding factor in her move there. she wanted that- she wanted a place hostile to people asking questions, hostile to anyone with an outside agenda. she knew that even if the residents wouldn't be particularly sympathetic to her situation, their outright hatred of outside enforcement would go a long way towards keeping her hidden, and her looks and charm and manipulation could fill in the gaps. she wanted to stop looking over her shoulder. she thought she could finally stop causing harm, and then lely gets killed and she thinks it's because of her, and because she leaves before the end of the case (or gets arrested), she *may never get to find out that it wasn't*. (yes, you can argue that dros killed lely because he was obsessed with klaasje so it's ""her fault"", which is how klaasje would probably see it if/when she found out, but it's NOT klaasje's fault. it was not something she wanted or intentionally did or even knew about. she is not to blame for dros' obsession.)

she's manipulative and a chronic liar and she'll throw anyone under the bus to save her own skin, and she'll feel bad about it later, but she won't hesitate to do it again. as we see her, she's deeply selfish: the things she talks about, she talks about in the context of how it serves her. the freedom of revachol, for example, she brings up because in a free revachol she wouldn't be extradited, not necessarily because she has some great love for the city. i think she shares some of harry's ability to know what buttons to push to get people to do what she wants: she'll exploit anything she can to throw harry off her. disco, his attraction to her, his love for the city, potentially his hatred of capitalism and/or the moralintern- she'll grab anything she can find and twist until he lets her go. and here's the thing: we're seeing all these traits when she's at her worst. she watched a man she liked be murdered right on top of her while she was already paranoid that extremely powerful people were out to get her, cracked under the stress of watching him rot outside her window and got the cops involved, then immediately realized her mistake and tried her hardest to slither out of her own mess just one last time. as much as we can joke about her being a girlboss and all that, she's a terrified, emotionally scarred young woman who (rightfully!) has NO idea how to handle the situation she finds herself in. and ruby's immediate fear of harry- so intense that she, the ex-madre drug runner and current union thug, immediately ran and hid upon hearing of his arrival- couldn't have helped reassure her. we can say all of these things about her, and i wouldn't say anyone is wrong to dislike her, but i think it's important to view her through a sympathetic lens if you want to truly understand her.

all of this kinda boils down to the fact that she's become a creature of fear. if she had a signature skill i would argue that it would be half light, or something like it. everything she's doing in the game, she's doing for self preservation. even the overwhelming amount of *partying* is just fear management. and she's good at hiding it at first, but the more you press her the more you watch her break down. she's traumatized. her wounds are freshly reopened. she's scared. of course she's scared: you're a cop with a horrible reputation and she's a fugitive who was the only witness to a convoluted murder, and the murder happened to be of a man she really liked, if only briefly. you'll have to forgive her if she's not squeaky clean. it's hard to be, in revachol.

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for obsessing over someone for centuries?

I know it sounds bad but hear me out, this man (800+M) is the most perfect, special, noble individual to every grace the face of this sorry earth, and I've (800+M) looked up to him for years, ever since he was the first person to save me as a child. He's quite literally my reason to live (he told me so himself, even if he later said that was an arrogant thing to say)

Anyway, I lost track of this guy after dying a second time as a ghost (to clarify, my dying is perfectly fine because it was for him, and the first time I died was ALSO for him- don't blame him for it, he didn't know it was me) because I was kind of a mess of particles at the time, and I spent a bunch of decades under this big mountain (volcano) sculpting thousands of statues of him (10,000 to be exact) because I didn't want to forget what he looked like. Also, my beloved is like, kind of the best god ever, even if heaven is full of biased capitalists who kicked him out, so this can also technically count as a totally normal and not at all insane form of devotion and/or worship. It's just dedication, you see? Loving him is a full-time job and I am DEDICATED. This mountain had this whole Hunger Games with ghosts where you get stronger the more you kill, so I naturally decided to become the strongest ghost possible to protect this man. Naturally.

Cut to around 800 years later, I've carefully met up with this wonderful man in an acceptable disguise and things are going great! He knows I'm a ghost but that's about it, he doesn't know he's met me before and I'm not going to ruin his mood by reminding him of one little rat he happened to meet in the past. Just because we've been through some dangerous experiences with one another by now doesn't mean anything. I'm just happy to be here, doing what I do best (which is serving him).

Now, we go under this mountain, and, well... The thing is, I also did draw some paintings of experiences I've had with him, and one of just HAPPENED to be sexual because he was once hit with aphrodisiacs by accident in front of me when I was a soldier. Two of his idiot "friends" (I use quotation marks because these ungrateful pair of baboons left him) saw that painting and were all like, "Ohhh noooo you should get away from that guy, he's creeeeepy and a stalker". Like, I'm aware I'm disgusting, but nobody wants to hear that from the mouths of two dumbasses (both 800+ M) like that, come on.

For reasons I can't understand (he implied something about trust?) he chose to RECIPROCATE my feelings? I had a whole entire script planned for the dialogue for when he would obviously choose to reject a loathsome creature like me, and this man?? Said all that needed to be said through a hug????

I nearly died a third time right there. I actually DID die a third time again but it was still sacrificing myself for him this time. Although, maybe I shouldn't do that again, because it made him cry and I hate to see that.

I just can't see what I did as "stalking" if I didn't know where he was. I was just looking for him. Am I deplorable? Yes. Pathetic? Also yes. See? I know exactly what and which accurate words to use to attach to myself, but a stalker? Come on. Are people just jealous I have this perfect man? And so what if I do? AITA for it? Smh.

[qprsmackdown]

c!Quackcicle Propaganda

*Note: c!Quackcicle is referred to on the official bracket post as "Slimecicle." However, we here at the qpr smackdown have elected to nerf slimecicle by giving him a partner, as we fear Slimecicle by himself is too powerful. Thank you*

c!Slime is like a 1000 year old slime who poorly disguised himself as human and c!Quackity is a ruthless capitalist leader of not!Las Vegas who taught him how to be human like if that’s not peak dynamics I don’t know what is. c!Quackity is a manipulative shit and he helped c!Slime for his own good initially but eventually grew close enough to him to basically make him his second in command, and c!Slime did sorta throw him from a building for the manipulation stuff but they were meant to reconcile before the fucking mess of a finale ruined everything. They’re super close and c!Quackity literally mourned his death by trying to clone him thousands of times if there’s any more QPR coded characters I don’t know who.

I didn't watch much of slime but by gods are they made for each other and the angst that Q never really knew what he had

they are BESTIES!!!! they wear MATCHING SUITS!!!! their relationship was born from cruel manipulation and despite all the ways cq has hurt charlie they love each other so much; charlie’s the only person cq can openly and whole heartedly love and cq is the only person that has ever loved charlie. but charlie doesn’t know about the ways of humanity and the twisted reality of who quackity is and when he finds out he HATES him, and he tells quackity to his face that “the same human ruined our lives. because you are not a good person”. and quackity wakes up and realizes all the errors of his ways and he CHANGES!!!! and they make up and become friends again and charlie helps quackity run the casino!!!! (the last part was taken from the 2022 wine stream, it was never shown on screen ;w;) and even when q vowed that one should never trust anyone and never make attatchments he broke his own rules and put his trust in charlie, became painfully attatched because quackity found peace and solace in charlie! they love each other so so so much and should win this tournament forever

[nearmidnightannex]

A comment about the political mess the Democrats have created for themselves

And hopefully one of the very few such comments I'll make for quite some time.

Biden decision on future expected in coming days, and Harris is considered heir apparent BY ALEXANDER BOLTON AND AMIE PARNES - 07/18/24 7:21 PM ET

Well-connected Democratic Party insiders say they expect President Biden to make a major announcement about his future soon after the Republican National Convention concludes in Milwaukee and that congressional leaders expect that Vice President Harris will become their nominee for president if Biden drops his reelection bid. […] Biden has come under intense pressure from party leaders, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), who have told the president directly that a majority of Democratic senators and large number of House members don’t think he can beat former President Trump….

Obama tells allies Biden’s path to winning reelection has greatly diminished (washingtonpost.com) By Tyler Pager and Michael Scherer July 18, 2024 at 12:05 p.m. EDT

Former president Barack Obama has told allies in recent days that President Biden’s path to victory has greatly diminished and he thinks the president needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy, according to multiple people briefed on his thinking....

Man, that last one has to sting for Biden. A lot.

Here's the thing: all of this is happening because the Democrats are understandably twitchy. About everything. Seeing yourselves as the last bulwark against incoming fascists might do that, yes.

But none of this need have been this type of crisis if they had just shut the fuck up. If they had just said, "Eh, it was a bad debate, they've happened before, they'll happen again. Let's move on." But they didn't.

And, of course, the "responsible news media" has been feeding this frenzy, because It's A Great Story. It sells! (Er ... assuming you don't count what seems to have been, for example, a notable number of people who have been canceling subscriptions to the NY Times over their startlingly slanted coverage.) And they kind of maybe might want The Orange One back in office because a constant state of crisis ALSO sells! (They, of course, are not thinking this through. Do they think that what may become an Even Trumpier Supreme Court will preserve either Hustler Magazine (Larry Flynt) vs Falwell or Sullivan vs New York Times? Oh, HELL, no, they won't! Some of the current justices (Alito and Thomas, of course) are already on record as thinking the latter was overexpansive and wrongly decided.) Also, the owners of the major newspapers are billionaires and/or venture capitalists, who think The Orange One will be better for their money.

The news media have also abdicated their responsibility as citizens of this country, and have not considered how they are viewed and their actual role in our civic life. Whether we like it or not, the news media shapes how we see the world. We know about things we don't have direct experience of, because they tell us about them. Essentially, they tell us what to think about things while trying vaguely to give just the facts. And for a while now, they've been telling us, over and over and over again, that Biden is now a weakened candidate, that he may not be able to win against Trump, that his support inside the party is wavering, that this, or this, or this, all means he can't win. But here's the thing: if they weren't banging this drum so long and so loud, it probably wouldn't be true. If they hadn't been banging this drum so long and so loud, politicians wouldn't see so many stories about how their coworkers are wavering, and they wouldn't in turn be wavering. Basically, if they had calmed the fuck down and thought about their actual responsibilities as people who live in this country, and as people who tell us what's happening -- hell, as people, period -- we might not be in this situation.

It would be one thing if this agita about Biden were all based purely on polling that, as we have seen in the past several elections, both presidential and midterm, can be deeply flawed. But most of this agita preceded the polling. It was all based on feels. Yes, the later polling appears to have justified the feels. But even so, none of them are showing large margins, and if it weren't for all this mess, they would probably move back in Biden's direction after the Democratic National Convention. That's what presidential season polls do.

Here's the thing about Biden: the Democrats agitating for his withdrawal have also not thought this through.

First, regardless of who might be chosen to replace him, there is likely to be an ungodly onslaught of lawsuits, some from Republicans hoping to keep the replacement off their state's ballot, some from Democrats trying to deal with money and other issues, some from people just being nuisances. After all, it is our way. (And do you really REALLY want those lawsuits going up to be ultimately decided by THIS Supreme Court? NO, YOU DO NOT! As it stands, it's very likely that there will be court cases dealing with the election outcome anyway -- presuming we don't have another coup attempt to mix things up -- and that will be enough to deal with.)

Second, do they really think that ambitious politicians will simply stand aside and let Harris be anointed as Biden's successor? Apart from the sincerely anti-democratic (small "d") look of a brokered convention, there are other politicians, governors and senators, who may sincerely believe that they would be better candidates for reasons other than "I wanna be president! It's my turn!" And the floor fight may be vicious enough to bring the just-concluded RNC convention to mind and revolt everyone. Even a non-brokered convention, if somehow Harris does simply get anointed (which is wildly unlikely), is a truly terrible look for people who say they're fighting for democracy to survive in this country.

Third: there are people who are already wavering about whether or not they even want to vote -- the people who don't particularly like either Biden or Trump, or the people who know that Trump will be much much worse but who also have deep and sincere disagreements with some of Biden's policies, or younger people who object to having to vote for these old guys who don't address any of their concerns, or or or ... In any event, for those people, some of whom undoubtedly held their noses and voted for Biden in the primary even though they may not have wanted to, those people will be revolted by this process and by their vote being set aside with no input into what happened. Not even the very distant input that we normally have, of voting for representatives and senators whom we hope will reflect our views.

Apart from all that: Should Biden decide to step aside, there may be actual legal issues to be decided. Apart from anything else, there's a question of whether or not a replacement can even get on the ballots of some states if they didn't participate in the primary/caucus processes. There's also the weird question of finances. (US News and World Report, so take that with a small grain of salt; it was the cleanest discussion I could find.) Harris as the replacement nominee is the least complicated option ... though I expect there would be lawsuits anyway. There's also a question of timing. And I'm sure there are all sorts of legal issues that I have no idea what they could be that will appear.

There's also the fact that this is being driven by major donors spooked by, as has been noted, polling of dubious quality, and by elected officials afraid of losing access to their money. (We may take the corrosive effect of money on politics as a given at this point, I think.) The elitism is rife and rank, people. It's also noteworthy that many of these elitists apparently also don't want Harris on the ticket (independent.co.uk, quoting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' Instagram). Presumably because she's not an old white guy ... or maybe just because she's not a white guy, period. (see below)

All that aside: do I think Biden should withdraw? No, not particularly. Frankly, I think when all this mess started, he should have told the quavering Democrats to go fuck themselves, and he should have said it loudly and forcefully and REPEATEDLY. (No, I do not mean simply that he should have said that he wouldn't withdraw. After all, he's been doing that, over and over, and it hasn't done any good. I mean that he should have taken each quavering Democrat into the Oval Office, and, in fits of profanity not heard in that room since the days of LBJ, told them Quite Explicitly to GET FUCKED AND GET OUT; if they were so ready to surrender to fascism, they needed to rethink what they were doing in Congress at all. Which, honestly, I think might have been persuasive. After all, this is all about perception, not reality. They perceive Biden to be abruptly weaker, and so they make it reality, whether it was true or not. Unfortunately, ripping people a new one -- especially when they're nominally his people -- is not his way.)

However: If he does decide to withdraw, then I think he should go all the way. Which is to say, to resign the presidency, not simply to withdraw from the campaign. Not because I don't think he can do the job; I think he's capable, even if he does stammer and even if he does have moments where he seems to mix things up. After all, he's overall done a good job so far. Are there things he's done that I sharply disagree with? Yes, but that would be true of any president. When looked at as a whole, he's been a good president.

The reason I say he should resign is because of the rest of the country. Remember what I said earlier about Harris not being an "old white guy"? Despite the fact that we've had a black president, and Obama was a very good president, the mood of the country for the past few years seems to be "We'd like old white guys, please." (Trump was, to put it mildly, a truly SAVAGE "old white guy" overreaction to the Obama presidency. And it took another old white guy to get Trump out of office.) Harris is most certainly not an "old white guy" in any way, shape, or form. I have a suspicion that the only way to persuade a large chunk of the country that she can do the job is, in fact, to let her do the job, even if it is for a fairly short time. And when they see that she can, in fact, do the job, then they might actually vote for her.

However. I suspect that will not happen either.

And so, on we go .....

[jyndor]

you get me, cassian andor gets us both, we are all vibing with each other it’s beautiful

honestly truly <3333 it's such a great example of diego's insane talent lol like you see the absolute vitriol and disgust cassian feels towards cops, he's like 'bitch what are you looking at?' at first, it's giving jyn 'brawl first think second' erso energy lol. not to make it about ~~~them~~ but i truly have imagined her giving those exact first few looks a number of times. except in her case, i see her doing what cassian can't really afford to do in this scene, which is popping the fuck off and starting a bar fight lol.

because he knows it won't end well if he gets into it with these pigs, he makes himself sort of settles to a quieter loathing, and then a shift to fear for himself and also probably for this woman showing attraction (feigned or not) to him in front of them INSTEAD of them first. (also interesting that we see her later being brought in to identify him).

and what we see is that because cassian is an immigrant from an indigenous diaspora it really doesn't matter how he reacts to the cops who represent settler-colonialism/imperialism despite not being agents literally of the empire (acknowledging that the depiction of kenari is... problematic to say the least lmao - diego is a white latino man and while that makes him subject to lots of xenophobia and racialization in the states, the show is trying to represent kenari as indigenous latines which... sigh justice for fest - fest works so well as a colonized planet full of rebels smdh ANYWAY). in the same way that he gets targeted on space miami for literally just walking around, it doesn't matter what he DOES - his existence is a middle finger to the empire and before it to the republic's colonialism (i think supposedly the separatists are the ones who fucked up kenari but given that pre andor!cassian was a separatist on fest i'm just gonna disregard this like so much else i don't like about new canon lmao. but even so, it's not like the separatists didn't do their own colonial bullshit too).

we're all fodder for capitalist white supremacist colonial patriarchy, but there's people who generally get the brunt of the brutality. we see this in the narkina arc, and also in wobani because it's not a coincidence that jyn (a coreworld-coded white woman) is roommates with a non-human. while I do think that there was probably more intentionality with casting the narkina folks than the wobani folks because we see like two minutes of wobani, not to mention that there's a lot less empathy shown to the prisoners in wobani in rogue one. lol draven literally telling jyn he'll put her ass right back in prison if she doesn't help, the other prisoner who speaks on the transport is literally comic relief, and obviously the prison break is for ONE woman, the rest can stay ig because abolition is not what the alliance is about.

it's actually something I was just thinking about recently because of this video essay by fd signifier on youtube, it's called fuck the police and it is excellent. in it, he talks about the history of prison abolitionism and how the movement really started within prisons. these guys had nothing but time because their freedoms were stolen from them and started educating themselves on leftism. it's like they had their lived experience which radicalized them like nothing else can - as fd says, they saw first hand the brutality of the system like most of us who have the time and resources to even search for youtube long form video essays ever will. so much of the base of leftist radical movements begin with people in prisons. they are the minds behind abolition. i wouldn't have become an abolitionist without hearing from them about their experiences, no matter how much empathy I may have. how could i? i didn't become anti-capitalist until I worked myself into a broken mess in retail, no matter how much i cared about workers.

we see throughout the show that cassian has a moral code, he has a set of principles and beliefs that he largely tries to suppress in order to stay safe and relatively comfortable. andor!cassian isn't my favorite interpretation of his character but anyone who takes him at face value when he says he doesn't give a fuck about revolution is missing the point imo, same way they miss it with jyn erso. cassian gets this idea in his head as a teen that actively, violently resisting will result in him being denied freedom (first as a child on kenari, then after clem is murdered and he goes after the troopers). what he learns on narkina is that it actually has very little to do with him actively resisting, although of course that will probably result in him being harmed. it has to do with who he is, what he looks like and how he sounds. and most of all, that he is not safe from oppression and fascism no matter what he does to keep his head down (which is clearly not in his nature to do lol). it's why jyn saying "it's not a problem if you don't look up" is such obvious bullshit (even though she is saying it to hurt saw and not because she actually believes it).

it's important that while cassian is personally innocent of the crime he was convicted of, that undoubtedly many other prisoners were also innocent, we have no idea if any of the others actually did commit crimes. prison abolitionism as a movement is built on the work done by people in prison - and some of them absolutely committed crimes in their lives (and many were in gangs, like George Jackson), and many others were political prisoners. but it's not about what they did - like with the point the narkina arc makes, it's about what they experience inside prison.

and speaking of abolition because i can't HELP myself, I've gotta bring up the show's treatment of its Black characters.

like ??? the writers know what point they're making throughout the show. and that point is about how it doesn't matter that cassian ultimately doesn't go off on the cops in the brothel, that he tried to remain quiet and keep his head down on niamos and everywhere else he went, he was target number one of the morlana cops because the sex worker is (is she named? LOL i feel bad just calling her that but i don't remember) a pretty white (and an additional factor in SW: human) woman who shows more attention to this guy who is an immigrant and has what she even fetishizes as "dark" features.

the prisoners we are most familiar with - the ones we empathize with most because they work closest with cassian - are almost all white and their actors mostly from the global north (honestly the uk which... LOL okayyy). meanwhile the shots of the revolution show us how much of the prison population is NOT white. cassian is working with a Black prisoner to fuck up the pipes but we don't really see him interacting with that guy ever lol. the older man whose death pushes kino loy over the edge is a white man.

it's just... W H Y. i get it, melshi is from rogue one, but even the fact that he ended up sort of more important in rogue one than sefla (a Black man who outranks melshi lol) just because gilroy liked duncan pow a lot, and then sefla just kind of dies unceremoniously, like many of the Black characters in andor. gorn dies very similarly, but at least his character has a fair amount of screen time and is treated pretty well otherwise (although i'm tired of the diversifying the empire thing. lol it's the empire, they're all white men with the occasional rare white woman who girlbossed her way in).

it's not that you can't have andy serkis doing the damn thing, or introduce melshi to cassian in prison because now they're brothers in arms and ugh my heart <3 because I know that narkina also represents nazi concentration camps as well as us prisons, and none of these things are one-to-one perfect representations because it's fiction.

i hope the next season does better by its Black characters since this show is making points that have been made by Black people for ages.

um anyway that got away from me lmao

[thatinsufferablenerd]

Unexpected Feels

The weather has been rainy and as glum as I feel. My dogs don’t want to be outside when it’s this wet, and I’m still trying to house train the pup we took in off the streets a month or so ago. She’s fine when the weather is good. It’s just another thing on my plate to deal with. 

I’m not in the best place. I can feel myself sinking into the numbness that comes with my depressive episodes, the desire to turn off my brain and scroll endlessly, hit play on something, ANYTHING to put something else in there before it morphs into despair. Anyone who’s dealt with mental health issues on a long term basis might be able to understand. Clocking the signs before it gets bad again, ya know? Self awareness grants me the insight to see the hole is getting deeper and even whether or not I’m the one holding the shovel, but what do you do when you aren’t the one doing the digging?

Of course I’m disappointed by the election results. Of course I’m angry, I’m sad, I’m still trying to process that THIS happened. I wish I could scream to every single person who contributed to this mess, “Don’t you understand what you’ve done?? The leopards are going to eat your face too!” But I can’t. All I have is this dread. It’s so heavy. I believe that we should be building community right now, standing in solidarity with and carving out our safe spaces with trustworthy people, and making preparations like we just heard the Waffle House is closing. I believe that. I do. But how do I do that? My community is overwhelmingly red. Most of the online places I’ve been forcing myself to try to be social in are staunchly apolitical. How am I supposed to know who’s safe like this? How am I supposed to breathe when all I can do is be scared for the people I know are going to be in more danger than ever? 

My Twitter feed is full of pleas to stay alive. With all this bleakness closing in, I can’t believe how absurd yet poignant that small sentiment is. Stay alive. I must, I have children that need their mother and dogs that will end up shot by animal control if I don’t. I am scared because I don’t want to live, I want to thrive and I want that for everyone else, but I know it will be harder to do that. I must protect my children, my home, what meager comforts I’ve pried from the jaws of this capitalist hellscape. I’ve seen sentiments of ‘if you cannot sustain hope, then use spite instead.’ Is that enough? I don’t know. 

I’ve tried to be productive. It helps with the depression and focuses the rage I feel brewing. My brain has been like Grand Central Station all week with how many trains of thought are running through it. Making art is one of the only ways I have to combat all of this. I want to make art that helps me get through this, and if that art can help even one other person, then I must make it. I have a voice, and I will use it to tell stories about love, community, stepping into your own power, fighting injustice no matter how impossible it feels, and persevering through adversity.

That doesn’t solve a more immediate issue, however. Reckoning with the fact that I will likely have to get a job for the first time in nearly a decade is hard. I had a hard time keeping a customer service job and I couldn’t get anything else despite my best efforts. My heart rate picks up at the idea of getting a job, my breathing shortens at the idea of having to go back to the grind. It’s terrifying. I don’t want to do this. I want to cry just thinking about it. My experience in work places has been so overwhelmingly negative that it’s driven me to agoraphobia. But we need a second, stable income. Something to supplement the sometimes inconsistent work my husband gets. This is unsustainable and too much stress for him. I must find it in myself to overcome my fear. 

In the meantime, I have been making progress on my TBR. I’m over halfway through Bleach. My notes are getting lengthy as I’m hurtling towards the end of the Arrancar saga. This series has given me a lot to chew on in its themes and characters. I like its melancholy atmosphere, how internally focused the character writing is. The conflicts seem to be external representatives of the internal tribulations of the one fighting. It’s a nice layer to your usual big dumb anime fight scenes, which are admittedly beautiful in Kubo’s art style. 

The last couple chapters of Spy x Family have given me a lot to think about too. While I think there are valid criticisms of the series and its writing choices, I do enjoy it and am invested in seeing how the premise develops towards eventual resolution. Twilight, the main character, is forced into the role of caring for a child. Shenanigans do ensure, but also the predictable yet profound realizations of what that responsibility entails. How caring for a child can force one to look back on their own childhood and adjust their priorities. Being a parent is a lot of work, especially to a child as precocious as Anya. The conviction of wanting to keep war from breaking out, to punish those who would hurl the citizenry into poverty and despair for their own ends, or want the next generation to not experience the horrors of war isn’t enough. Even the actions in service of that goal don’t have immediate effects on the children living in front of you, in your care even. Children who grow up too fast are robbed of something difficult to articulate. It’s a severance of self, of trying to wear a coat too large and heavy to move properly in. Meditating on that and the truly fucked dynamics going on in another family in that series (and how triggering the cold silence around their dinner table is for me) has taken up more of my time than I want to admit.

I finished A Hero of France by Alan Furst. I did not go in with any expectations and walked away with very little. I didn’t care about the main character nor like him much. The other characters were pretty flat, honestly. But I don’t think that was the point. If I’m interpreting the story ‘correctly’, the circumstances are the story. Everything revolves around the French Resistance efforts and the day to day of living under the occupation. It captured the resigned mundanity of it all. Espionage and intelligence work–according to most actual spies–is a lot more boring than James Bond would have us believe. It’s a lot of paperwork, a lot of listening and data analysis, requires excellent communication skills. ‘Knowledge is power’, after all, and intelligence is a game of reactions. I liked how this story depicts the occupation. I like how it shows the curfews, the increased police presence, the rationing and black market, black out curtains, air raid sirens, watching the Allied bomber squadrons overhead, listening to the BBC radio broadcasts from the Free French in England, how prized bicycles are. I like seeing the difficult judgment calls of who to trust, the consequences of those choices, how the combination of observation, experience, instinct and information coalesce into how those decisions are made. I like seeing the strange mix of small acts of defiance in solidarity with the Resistance on behalf of the French countered by the acts of survival of those who fall in line with the occupation government. I like how most of the Resistance’s efforts here were forging papers, stashing people, serving as escorts, letting people borrow trucks or dropping off messages. That’s the on-the-ground work all of us can do. If there’s one thing that baffled me into laughing, it’s that the author has maps of Paris, knows the street names and public transport, but still uses feet, miles, and pounds as units of measure over metric units. 

I had to return my eldest’s overdue library book on Tuesday and snooped through the ‘new’ section near the check out. I picked up ‘House of Open Wounds’ by Adrian Tchaikovsky on a whim. His work is recommended across BookTube, from Dogs of War to Echoes of the Fall. I recognized the name, the premise grabbed me and the covers are beautiful. It wasn’t until I mentioned picking it up and adding it to my TBR this month that I learned it’s Book Two in the trilogy that’s wrapping up soon. I was furious for the next day. On top of everything else on my mind, the damn book had ZERO indication it was part of a series. Not on the spine, the blurb, the inner pages, nothing. I had to go back to the library and exchange it for City of Last Chances. And the worst part was that I saw on other series of his that they ARE clearly labeled. My impromptu TBR add became a whole ordeal. 

I’ve had less time in front of my whiteboard than I wanted. I’ll survive, but it doesn’t help my cluttered, stressed brain. I did get some writing done, though. Without going into spoilers, I had some really strong ideas and frankly a stroke of brilliance that carried me for a few days. It happens sometimes. I’m more of a gardener than an architect as far as style goes, so those spur of the moment, lightning in a bottle turns of phrase or convergence of ideas are so magical. We’ll see if it holds up on re-reads or I’ll experience a hangover after being drunk on sublime mediocrity. 

Unfortunately, I’ve had yet another crisis of faith in my own skill. This happens regularly. Constantly, it seems. The crushing weight of knowing how ambitious my plans are and how easy they are to completely fuck are a couple pieces of the imposter syndrome puzzle. Having a history of chronic anxiety and overthinking will do that. I went into this project hoping I could accomplish multiple character arcs and show how these people are living their lives off page without going into their individual perspectives. While I’ve wavered before, I’ve tried my best to stay the course. I want Adelaide to be a major (if reactive) player in her own story, to somehow balance the many moving parts of political conflict going on outside her office with the cataclysmic personal upheaval leading to her dramatic shift. I want it to feel like the world is so big out there, that all these big things are affecting and weighing on her while she is one woman doing her best, that this should be a small-scale personal conflict between two people but the walls are closing in from all sides. It’s just…so hard. How many times have I asked myself if it would be easier to switch perspectives for this chapter or if I understand the characters well enough to show that they’re making decisions, introspecting, changing, when Adelaide as the perspective character isn’t in the room? So many. 

So I’ve come to a tentative compromise. My story is broken down into two and a half longer arcs. The first from mostly her perspective and the second mostly from O, the other protagonist’s. These arcs are further broken down into installments, like acts in a play. But between these volumes, I’m going to write chapters from the perspectives of characters that aren’t Adelaide or O. Even if they don’t end up as part of the final product, it will serve multiple purposes. 1) It will help cement how the inherent unreliability of the narrator works and how narrow of a focus the main narrator has. 2) It will make the world feel more lived in, as Adelaide is one woman and--despite being telepathic--cannot follow everyone's journey. 3) It will create a sense of dramatic irony in the reader. 4) It will help develop and push characters forward on their individual arcs without having to be in the same room as Adelaide. Even though it will be a giant pain in my ass, I think it will be good exercise for my brain. 

If that’s the case, however, I am going to be spending A LOT of time in front of my whiteboard in the next week. Another drawback of gardening is the ‘make shit up as you go and then go back and make it look like it was on purpose’ of it all. I am going to need a lot more worldbuilding information. History and culture mainly, but culture is such a huge and complex beast. Politics, religion, social values, education, history, trends that become mainstays, fashion, art, slang, geography, industry, immigration patterns, etc., they all ebb and flow and intermingle. All the components are interdependent. I have a lot of basics already. I needed them before I jumped in, obviously. It’s become clear that I need a lot more in the last couple weeks. I’m going to be  hitting the books, taking a lot of notes and refining ideas for a good while yet. 

YouTube has given me some good fucking food, which I always appreciate. Michael Beveraggi, bennshouts, Steven in Stereo, and Chats and Reacts have all released their reactions to Halsey’s new album ‘The Great Impersonator’, which I watched. I know reaction content is controversial. I’m aware of the criticisms and I agree with some of them. When I watch reactors do music, shows, or movies, I watch it for the reactors, their personalities, their insight, their expressions, all of the things that come with sharing something you like with a friend–in the most non-parasocial way I can possibly say that. For the record, GOT Games is my favorite reactor of anything, followed closely by Danny Motta. Moreover, the album is viscerally vulnerable and musically dense, a work of performance art as much as a treat for the ears. Sharing the feelings I have about it with others helps spread the sting a little thinner. 

A couple of essayists I watch have done pieces on Tim Burton. Broey Deschanel talked about him as an auteur, as she does, and Lola Sebastian did a full on autopsy of his Sweeney Todd adaptation, both of which are great. In honor of Spooky Season and to add to the discourse surrounding Burton’s successes and failures as an artist, Girl on Film released her video “Has Tim Burton Really Lost His Magic?”. Her analysis focuses mainly on horror and feminist films (and the intersection of the two). I’ve enjoyed everything of hers I’ve seen, but this installment I think adds to the discourse in a much needed way as well as being just good fucking food.

Dr. Philip Chase over at The Best of Fantasy released the next installment in his One Piece review series, “English Professor’s Thoughts on the Marineford and Post-War Arcs”. Obviously I know Dr. Chase is a good writer, his trilogy of fantasy novels are known for their prose. Hearing him describe his experience with this stretch of the story was emotional for me in a sympathetic sense, in that I understood how heavy the material is and could see how emotional it made him, but also sent me back to how I felt watching these episodes for the first time. I went into One Piece spoiled. I knew what islands the crew visits, the bad guys they beat up, the major players they meet along the way, the big twists, surprise appearances, and I knew all the memes. It didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the story, not in any meaningful way. I still felt all the things in the places I was supposed to feel them. It hit a little different this time, which is probably why I watch stuff like this. I am catching up on the anime too. I want to watch the Fan Letter special and get it off my list while the anime is on temporary hiatus.

I watched Mother’s Basement put another installment in their “What’s in an OP?” series with the Dan Da Dan opening song “Otonoke”, and absolute banger, by the way. As if I need another reason to like this series. I watch Insider’s “How Real is it?” series, and even if I’m not a fan of all their experts, I still learn something every time I do. This week they had a former Army DI talking about boot camps scenes in films/TV. Series like these are so cool for laymen like me, same as WIRED’s Tech Support series. Having an expert or professional in any number of fields review scenes or answer questions from the public are so insightful for incessantly curious people like me. Nerd Level Rosing hosted the first session of BookTube DnD, which was a lot of fun. I was watching live and had a good time. The replay is available on his channel. 

I had someone recommend Super Eyepatch Wolf’s work to me, Zach the Storytelling Dragon, and I watched a few of his videos this week. One on each of the Big Three. We agree on some points, disagree on others. I got more out of Naruto and Bleach than SEW has, I’ll say that. He isn’t wrong as art is subjective and opinions on it are too, and it is worth pointing out that he took accountability for his previous mistakes in discussing Bleach in particular. I just find his analysis of both Bleach and Naruto to be fairly surface level and focusing too heavily on their faults. I think he misses some of what’s there because he’s not reading between the lines, even if I think plenty of his criticism is warranted. I would be happy to elaborate if prompted. 

Trope Anatomy posted a video essay called “Why Women in Fiction Sacrifice Their Hair” a few days ago. The thesis of that comes down to ‘while it’s true that characters of all genders cut their hair in stories, there’s a pattern of female characters who do it as a form of sacrifice’. He points out instances of transformation in identity or of selfless acts on behalf of a loved one. This does exist, I’m not saying he’s wrong. I just wish he had done some more research. Someone who never disappoints with their research is Unnatural History Channel, who released an amazing resource called “Spec Evo long: How to Build a Herbivore”. It discusses the ecological role herbivores play, their impact, their digestive morphology, their evolutionary strategies, how our biases are shaped by exposure, and all sorts of other delicious points for animal nerds and speculative biology enthusiasts alike. I rarely put a video in my ‘Liked’ folder, but I did that one. 

My mind has been a busy place. I have so many things going on, but I’m doing my best in this rock hurtling through space. Stay safe out there.