#they’re a huge contributor to who I am today

[keef-a-corn]

This is just me venting

Shoutout to that one person from Instagram that absolutley ruined me ✌️😚

Like thanks babe, I needed to be taken down a peg

Now I thrive with the sheer amount of anxiety I get when it comes to sharing and chatting

Love the way you made me scared to share posts I found that are over a couple months old, or how I get really nervous telling stories that involve anyone outside of the person I’m chatting with.

Love the way you ruined my New Year’s Eve a couple of years ago, making me break down and cry for about an hour because when you told me about an experience I had aligned it with ADHD traits (after being very open about the fact that I have ADHD) and not only did you get mad at me for even implying you have ADHD, but you made me feel extremely insecure about having it myself.

Let’s not forget the way you lashed out at me when I asked you a question about an artwork (it was ‘where’s [X] standing?’ Because the scaling and everything looked incredibly off and I just wanted to understand what was happening)

How about when I got too nervous to share an experience with a creator because I was young, they were older than me, they had more friends, we had been in an argument for about a year, and I couldn’t physiologically take it anymore, then we resolved the issue and you deadass got mad at me.

Oh wait, no.. it was also earlier than that, when you called them something like toxic and I told you that I had never considered them like that before (as in it never clicked for me that they were toxic) and you stopped talking to me and when you did it was just to tell me off- as if I wasn’t the victim in the situation and wasn’t the one that couldn’t recognise how greatly this person had affected me.

The endless uncalled for venting?

OH! How about that time I showed you a drawing and instead of giving any praise or feedback you didn’t mention the drawing and instead asked why I still made Gacha Content, so I gave you a full list on why I do it and your reply was something like ‘Nevermind’ and I asked you why you asked and you still haven’t told me to this day.

What about when I helped you find disgusting CountryHuman art and artists to report, then a few days later you message me saying we can’t be friends anymore if I still like countryhumans, not even just informing me that you don’t like it and giving me the option to leave the fandom or stop being your friend.

Reminiscing on when I got super excited and nervous because I messaged and artist I adored, then we got to chatting and it was super exciting for me, so you actively searched for any reason to hate that artist, and when you found one, I had suggested I can simply ask them to edit the post and remove it, so that it wouldn’t be a hassle, but you kept saying not to bother.

I messaged them anyway, suggesting to remove it and they were more than happy to do so because they’re a normal fucking person who recognised that maybe it wasn’t the best decision, then you got mad at me??

How about when you were super judgemental of my ship [this was countryhumans btw] between Australia and Germany, while you shipped America and Australia. Then my reasoning of just enjoying the places and knowing that there’s peace between them was never enough??

I could never come to you with dramas from my life because you’d either ignore me the whole day, or you’d try to one up me.

Anytime I said anything that upset you, you wouldn’t talk to me for, minimum, an hour, which would leave me stressing and apologising.

These all greatly affected me because now I:

Rarely share and promote posts that are older than a few months, seeing it as me embarrassing myself (I want to get past this, because I know sharing and enhancing with posts are important on platforms)

Get nervous discussing ADHD with people who aren’t diagnosed and feel like I have to purely mention the good things, rather than the everything.

Think I criticise too harshly and feel like no one can use my critics and that they’re useless.

Fortunately I don’t get into a lot of creator drama, but if I do, it takes a while to get support.

Now I get nervous to vent at all. Never wanting to put pressure on being listened to.

I just.. I think about that regularly…

Now I get scared to tell people I’m NOT in a fandom anymore. Never told my ex partner I didn’t like Countryhumans anymore.

Now I get nervous reaching out to creators at all (praise my moots) and have to rely on people coming to me instead.

I managed to get past that one and now have a perspective of ‘if it’s not illegal, go off’

Once again, greatly affected the way I open up to others, even my therapist.

Now I have an incredibly weird relationship with apologising, as it’s lost all it’s meaning.

As I said

Thank you

So much.

I loved experiencing that as apart of being a minor on the internet.

[aurimeanswind]

Letter #1: Hello Again, Little Blog

Hello again! If you’re reading this as someone who *only follows me on Tumblr* girl I bet this is gonna be a surprise huh. If not, and you know me from Irrational Passions, or Twitter, or Instagram or something, then welcome back to my little blog. I used to write here every week, a little diddy I called Sunday Chats, where I’d take some questions from Twitter, talk about stuff I was working on, and just flex the writing muscles. It’s been about six years since the last time I did that, which is kind of insane to write out and think about.

Anyway, I’m back, and hey, I’m a girl! That’s cool, right??? This first “letter” is going to be a lot about that, since today is my one year anniversary of starting hormone replacement therapy (HRT), so we’ll get to that. I’m changing up the format, these will be letters from me, written as such, but really they’re just blog posts. I’ll leave up my old chats for a while, but they may get archived at some point, just because I’m not really that person anymore. 

Anyway, preface aside, my name is Auri, and it’s nice to see you again. :)

—

Dear Friends,

Hello! From a new me. A new life. It’s kind of insane what can happen in a year, ya know? How much happier you can become, how much grief you can experience, how much your wardrobe can change!

I’ve missed writing, and writing to you in particular, so I hope you don’t mind a little self-indulgence. I have a lot to catch you up on, so it feels appropriate to write about it, to jot it down and get it in some more semi-permanent format. 

I often think about the question, “what does it mean to you, to be a woman,” as a trans person, and it’s a complicated question, because women are all things and also sometimes very specific things, like sisters, or mothers, or daughters. To me, it’s just who I am. It’s a piece of me that I buried deep down and tried to pretend like it was something I didn’t deserve, that I didn’t belong. It’s something that haunted me, that I thought about being everyday for years. I’d have dreams where I’d do mundane things, like go for walks, do the dishes, but I was a girl. I know this is something I’ve not really talked about online, and I wanted to change that. I wanted to share my experience here, because back in the day, talking about Depression or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome helped people who read here, who would reach out to me and say they appreciated how open I was about these things. Well, now I want to be open about being transgender, because it’s a huge part of who I am, it’s something I am earnestly proud of, and it’s maybe the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life.

So when did it start?

Those dreams, or things I’d dismissively call intrusive thoughts, had been with me since my early 20s. When I found out that cisgendered people don’t actually think about being the opposite gender all the time, I was actually pretty shocked. I thought, “oh well I’m sure there are tons of men that think about being a girl all the time,” and yeah, it turns out that isn’t true! And if you’re sitting here reading this and thinking, “wait… really?” well uh, hey! I’ve been there! And I won’t assume anything on your part just like I didn’t on my own, but I want you to know that it’s actually very good and healthy to explore that feeling, to dig deeper and ask yourself what that means to you. 

I didn’t do that for the longest time. It started with, “hey, I wish I could just be a girl for a day,” and I thought that everyday for years, and then it became a month, then a year, then a dream, then a wish. “God I wish I could be a girl, just because that’s what feels right to me.” I’d look at pictures of my friends, of people or celebrities I had a crush on and analyze their clothes, wishing I could wear things like that. Turns out this is a form of gender-envy, and was giving me gender dysphoria, which was a big contributor to the very same depression I’d write about in this blog years ago. A fog in my mind, a feeling like I am holding my breath everywhere I go. I would hate looking at myself in the mirror, even when I felt confident, or good. I hated being naked, or changing, and I hated myself, to be quite honest. 

So I finally started reflecting. I knew what it was, even if I buried it deep down. The time alone during the throes of 2020 led to a lot of self-reflection, and after dinner one night I asked my rock, my best friend of 20+ years and the best person in my life, Damien, if I could talk to him about something serious. I was so nervous, partly because I didn’t know what Damien would say, and partly because I didn’t know what I’d say! I remember taking him into my room, where I was most comfortable, and curling up in a ball on my couch, feeling the tightness in my chest, and holding so tight to my legs balled up to me, curled in fear of everything, of judgment, of the world. He ended up being more scared than me! Until I finally just said, for the first time ever out loud, “sometimes I think I was born as the wrong gender.”

The journey of self-discovery is a long one, and it all starts with one step. This was mine. After our talk I felt such a lift off my shoulders. It was December 2020, and it’d be years until I really let myself take the next step.

So what is the next step?

I talked to a psychiatrist, I talked to my specialist, and after a year of thinking about it, I finally made an appointment to see an endocrinologist, or a “hormone doctor,” as I have been calling them. I had to make an appointment three months out, which may be because there are a lot of trans folks out there, but also hormones are super important to everyone! Those 90 days were the longest of my life I feel. But I had the support of a small handful of friends behind me. My friend Alyssa was the second person I told, and she was just as warm and welcoming as Damien, allowing me to ask questions, to be myself, to explore what it was to be “she” instead of him. 

March 6th 2023. The day I saw my doctor and started my dose of estradiol (estrogen) and spironolactone (testosterone blocker). Just one year ago! I took a picture that day, and looking back on it, I sure do hate looking at it, along with most old pictures of me to be honest. But I knew when I took it that this would (hopefully) be the one I look back on and then look in the mirror and remind myself I made the right decision. And it is, I was right. 

Now for point of reference, here is a picture of me today:

In all fairness, I was at a particularly low point of my life, it’d be a few months still before I would even feel myself change and become the woman I was always meant to be. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and I still have years and years left of changes and breast growth and voice training and hair styling and… well, you get the idea. I’m no “trans-master” and I don’t want to give that impression. Everyday I still learn something new, and grow in ways I never knew I could. I love that.

So what happens next?

Next was some long months of doubt. Sometimes for trans folks, they know for sure, they’re counting the seconds until they can start the proper hormones their body has been craving. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure until May of 2023, two months being on Hormones, and I was scared, and I just followed my heart.

This may seem “contrary to the trans experience” but I’ve found that the trans experience is very much a moving target. Everyone is different, and everyone has a different timeline in their head of what they think it should look like. I spent a lot of long months thinking I was “too old” to transition (not true) or that because I didn’t think about wearing dresses through my childhood I wasn’t “trans enough” (also, very untrue). I worried that because my dysphoria wasn’t at a certain level or because I didn’t know with absolute certainty that this was the path that I wasn’t really trans, I was faking it out of some identity crisis, which is dangerously close to a very dangerous narrative posited at trans people to discourage them. 

Sitting here, one full year into my physical transition, happiest I’ve ever been, realest I’ve ever felt, it seems pretty silly thinking about those things, doesn’t it? But I can’t overstate how scary it is to transition, to change your body in permanent ways, to take the leap of faith, with everything happening in our country, with ideas like “Project 2025” looming over our future like a specter. Right now, especially, it’s in your face, but reflecting on how invisible the struggles of trans rights were even before that gives you perspective, sometimes making it feel like it’s never a good time to transition, but really, it’s the best it has been depending on where you live, and that is a privilege, even if it’s also a nightmare just across a state border.

All these thoughts come from months of self-reflection, and the feeling still translates at times to “years of wasted time,” and I hate that, but I carry on regardless. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life, my brain feels clear and solid and unified in a way it never has before, I’ve learned what confidence feels like, truly, for the first time. When I look in the mirror, I smile, because I love the girl looking back at me. I can’t, in any words, really communicate to you what that is like, what it’s like to look at yourself and feel uncomfortable, then look at yourself and feel a light, and joy, but I can tell you it’s incredible. 

So it’s been a whole year.

What’s next? Who knows! Some people might think about surgeries or procedures or things of that nature, and maybe, we’ll see. Right now I am focused on fixing my terrible financial situation, which is generally unrelated to my transition. Focus on my life outside of all of this. I told myself when I started, I wanted to just focus on this for a while, and it’s been a whole calendar year. And it feels incredible. I’ve learned that I’m always going to be focusing on this, on me, but I’m ready to juggle a few more plates. 

I have plans to make a safe place for trans people to hangout and chat, specifically in the gaming sphere. I want to put myself out there in a way that I haven’t before, and connect with queer folk in spaces I’ve told myself I don’t belong to for years and years. I want to make new friends and learn of the struggles of other folks, and be more than just an example, but an advocate for kindness and patience in the trans sphere. I want to spread my wings, I guess, and it feels so nice to have found and understand that.

What do I have to say in reflection? I have come back to the phrase, “I didn’t know life could feel this good.” I really didn’t. It’s not about “being a woman,” it’s about living your truth, a phrase I have particularly latched onto in the last couple of years. Being your authentic, true self. I used to carry all this anger in me, and it was a poisoned well that was all I had to drink from. A bitterness and jealousy that haunted me. I wanted to embrace a gentle kindness, and I feel like I pretended to be that person for years. I treated people poorly, I didn’t listen when I should have. Now, I can say confidently that I am living as that person I knew I was. I have embraced her, and told her it’s going to be okay, and we’ll get through this together. I can’t wait to keep being her.

So this is a promise, to return and write again, about these types of things, maybe finish talking about that first year and how it’s been, talk about grief and how I feel like I’ve only truly experienced it for the first time, how I’ve found new closeness and new distance with family, and many more things like that. 

Thanks for reading, if you did, and thanks for listening. I hope this helped you open your heart to a girl from Maryland who is grateful for you, and I hope you’ll come back again. Until then, stay positive, it gets better. <3

Love,

Auri

[beesmygod]

ugh

despite being such a gossip and drama hound myself, i do not relish being the subject of it. you might think its because being the subject of scrutiny and attention is stressful. it’s actually because the people who keep lining up to try to shots at me wind up being the dumbest people alive who knock themselves out somehow. i think its important to get in front of “a narrative”, especially in this case, where every player is a lying liar who lies ahahaha. this one is way funnier than morbi actually. up until now, i was tactfully setting aside what happened out of uh. whatever kindness was left in my heart, i guess. more fool me!

im not going out of my way to crop ppl out of this if you look bad its your own damn fault. no one made you type this shit but you. dont post shit you can’t cash.

you might have been confused by the exchange between anon and this guy yesterday when i reblogged it to set the record straight on morbi. i was, until very recently, an infrequent contributor to his webcomics discord. earlier this year, i tried to reach out into more communities so i could get to know more artists and keep up with what’s hot (what a stupid fucking idea that was, in hindsight). a few days ago, some weirdly supportive of kiwifarms tweets from a comic artist who was ruined by them were posted for discussion. everyone pretty much just noted that it was weird with one person asking what kf even was. everyone else explained so i added this stupid shit

note: this is at 5:24 am. because at 7pm that night, one of the people in the discord goes completely full fucking tilt out of literally nowhere. i have screencapped the entire conversation up until that point as proof that i 1. literally did not say anything else the entire day and 2. proof that the conversation was completely normal up until that point.

inexplicably, people in the server put on kids gloves and start trying to come to a middle ground with this dipshit like hmm yes maybe we are a little kiwifarms could you explain more so we can understand you. when i noticed an hour later i saw red.

for someone who was “not helping”, the attention-seeking hysteric suddenly evaporated into thin air. i dont think anyone has actually shamed them for their behavior before. the conversation was shut down rather than resolved because i raised the temperature. daniel invited me to speak to him more privately in his dm if i had any more concerns bc i was pissed it was being swept under the rug. so i did.

here is the conversation in full. im posting it bc it makes him look like a clown and because later, he characterizes this as “chasing him” into his dms. what i didnt realize until today is that he says that the person going nuts is a moderator’s sibling, which explains why they’re permitted to take huge shits on people with no repercussions.

having committed the worst crime you can do in a nerd group (be mean) i was subjected to a post-mortem about the event (?) which culminated with this unbelievable irony cap

after my 10 mins were up, i said “i am not a good cultural fit or share the same moral priorities as this server and i will show myself out” and left. i vented on my twitter with blistering posts basically saying “well they’re all young. its annoying and seems bad but what can i do but leave”. and left it there.

it seems insanely obvious to me, so obvious that i struggled to even have to explain it to people whose entire brain appeared to have leaked out of their skull, that allowing someone in your discord for artists accuse random artists of wanting to reboot the mass shooting and violent transphobia website is literally the worst possible behavior you could permit. i wasnt expecting the mods to leap into action and do something, as they seemed to desperately think. i wanted to not belong to a community that would tolerate or entertain this.

anyway, yesterday morbi happened. i reblogged that post and daniel, after being told he wasnt a problem, decided he absolutely had to be one right now. he followed me on twitter and began posting ominously about a “write-up” of what happened between morbi and i because “some people” (this could literally only be the discord chat, and the reason he didnt want to post it there so they could snicker at it to themselves was because he thought this would humiliate or scare me) were curious.

maybe you’ve noticed a little flaw in the logic both morbi and dan have when it comes to “doxing”: for two people who are very concerned about privacy they’re out here retweeting the very information they’re decrying as invasive and then dan goes and fucking googles her and posts on a public platform more information about her than i cared to know. i cant stop thinking about how these morons were completely convinced they were doing something noble and righteous here by standing up for someone that maybe might be a black woman (hence: racism) based entirely on like a pintrest account

the cloying, transparent attempts to seduce me into messaging him first to soothe his battered ego are so desperate and pathetic that they make you hurt from the sidelines. you can see me gently try to explain why they look like a complete lunatic clutching their pearls over unmasking anonymous hate before i give up. there was so much obviously wrong about what they were doing that i was in disbelief that they were telling me that they were doing it.

1. taking a “both sides” approach doesn’t work when one person is a serial sexual harasser and the other posted an email address attached to a near cry-typing comment.

2. the attempt to use black women as a cudgel to defeat his posting enemy.

3. whatever this. attempt at banter is. idk man.

all of this didn’t work, so he tried showing me a piece of what he was writing that was the most deliberately inflammatory in the hopes that this morsel would finally compel me to bite and come begging for a re-write to save my webcomic career.

i wasn’t posting in a way that was drawing attention to this, it was a nosy (positive) friend who noticed this happening and went “holy shit what the fuck are you doing” which caused him to backpedal furiously

i was planning on letting him post it and just letting it speak for itself. i cannot think of a more ruinous thing to do to yourself than to ally with a sexual harasser and post openly and transparently about how extremely mad you are about how a girl made you feel. what could have possibly gone wrong.

in the end, daniel signed off with this post, signaling a more positive future for himself and his comic since his plan to annoy someone with a reputation for being a huge bitch multiple times by trying to downplay the severity of his and his friend’s actions, somehow blew up in his face

ah wait hold on. im getting word that he posted this after deleting a different post. this one

if there were any doubt what this were all about, daniel went and tweeted it out (literally) because subtext is difficult. my demand for a public apology for being accused baselessly of a career ending lie in order to stop this behavior from ever happening again has been recontextualized in his head as mean old bea picking on him and forcing him to do terrible things like “moderate” as a moderator.

over the past week ive been subject to racists, sex pests and 0/10 trolls but the spineless, moral coward is the most egregiously memorable of the lot. despite the amount of leeway i gave him for his repeated weak-willed behavior, he always found a new way to own himself without external prompting. despite me walking away and being satisfied with that, he came back for more. there are some people you cannot help, there are some people i don’t want to help because they cannot stop putting their hands on hot stoves. and then there are people who are begging for it.

somehow, it will be my fault that he feels bad and embarrassed about his behavior because i have catalogued it after being pushed around enough and it will not be seen as a direct result of his repeated failure of conscience.

anyway lol, lmao

[phoenix-downer]

Spring Birthday

After Sora’s return, Naminé’s friends celebrate her birthday with her. While her early days were lonely, her life is very different now, and she treasures each new memory with the people dear to her heart.

~1650 words. Post-Kingdom Hearts III and Melody of Memory. Gen, Friendship, Fluff. Naminé POV. Written for @naminezine​, and the banner art is by the lovely @somniumars​.

“Naminé, when is your birthday?” Kairi asked over breakfast one day, scones with jam and clotted cream, served with a hot cup of tea for both of them. They liked to visit this cafe together at least once a month. It had outdoor seating, and the weather was finally warm enough again for them to sit outside with light jackets. 

Naminé stopped buttering her scone for a moment and frowned. It was a simple enough question, and yet she found herself unsure of what to say. 

“Well, I suppose it was the day Sora released his heart to save you,” she said at last. “But as glad as I am to be alive, it feels strange to celebrate that day, considering what happened.” 

“I understand,” Kairi said softly. “Are there any other days you can think of?”

Naminé paused once more and thought as Kairi sipped some more of her tea. The only other day she could really think of was… 

“The day of my rebirth. It was spring on Radiant Garden. The sun was shining, the flowers were blooming, and the weather was perfect.” She sighed happily at the memory. “I’ll never forget what it felt like to walk outside for the first time in a body of my own.”

“Then why don’t we make that your birthday? I know we technically missed it last year, when we were all searching for Sora, but it’s coming up here soon.” 

“Sure, that sounds nice.” Naminé put one more cube of sugar in her tea to get it to just the right sweetness, then added a little more cream and stirred. “I’ve never really thought about having a birthday of my own before.”

“Well, you deserve to have one,” Kairi said with a determined glint in her eye. “You’re your own person. Always have been, always will be.”

The two girls chatted some more as they finished their breakfast, and the subject soon slipped away from Naminé’s mind. It wasn’t until she and Xion were gathering shells together on Destiny Islands a few days later when the topic of birthdays came up again.

“See,” Xion said as she picked up a thalassa shell, “I like these ones the most, with the pink centers and yellow edges.” 

“I like them too. Yellow’s one of my favorite colors.”

Yellow was the color of the sun. A hopeful color for a girl that had begun her life in a cage, longing to see the outdoors for herself. For that reason alone it was precious to her. 

“You like blue too, right?” Xion said. She placed another thalassa shell in Naminé’s palm, this one with a blue center and yellow edges.

Naminé nodded. “Yes. Blue is the color of the sky… of the waves… all the things I longed to see when I was imprisoned in Castle Oblivion.” 

“It suits you, and so does yellow,” Xion said with a smile. “Born from the waves, and reborn during the spring.” 

“Xion, when is your birthday?” Naminé suddenly asked. She realized she hadn’t really gotten to celebrate it with her before. 

“Oh, my birthday? I figured it should be during the fall. I don’t know why, but I’ve always been drawn to falling leaves, the seasons changing, that kind of thing.” She smiled ruefully. “I suppose because I felt like my time was limited, just like those leaves. Kairi actually asked me about it recently, I think because she wants to—”  

Her eyes went wide, then she coughed and craned her neck. “Look, I see some more shells over there!”

Naminé found Xion’s startled reaction rather curious, but she didn’t press her friend. It was just nice to spend time together sharing a hobby they both enjoyed. For a girl who had started life with no friends of her own, Naminé was lucky to have so many now. 

The next time she met with her friends, it was for a picnic on Rapunzel’s world, in a clearing in the woods near a small pool. The weather was perfect, sunny with a breeze blowing dandelions and flower petals through the air, and she and Sora and Rapunzel were all cloud gazing after a delicious lunch of sandwiches and cookies and lemonade. 

“See that one right there?” Rapunzel said, pointing up at the sky. “It looks like Maximus.” 

“It sure does!” Sora put his hand behind his neck and grinned. “The sky’s full of all sorts of interesting clouds today.” 

“I wish I had my sketchbook with me,” Naminé said with a sigh. “I’d love to draw all of them.” 

“Take a picture with your Gummiphone then,” Sora suggested. “You can always draw it later based off of that.” 

“I’d like to, but I’ve run out of room in my sketchbook. I could really use some new pencils, too.”

Sora and Rapunzel exchanged glances, and Sora grinned.

“Naminé, you should come to the castle,” Rapunzel said. “I’d love to show you some of my art supplies. Have you ever tried painting before?”

Naminé shook her head. “No, I haven’t, but I’d love to. Thank you for the invitation.”

“What are we waiting for? Let’s go now!” Sora sat up and sprang to his feet. 

The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon trying out Rapunzel’s art supplies. Well, more like Rapunzel showed Naminé her things and let her try them out while Sora kept typing away at his Gummiphone. Naminé giggled at how he still typed with one finger, like a bird pecking at grains of rice. 

“There we go,” he said all of a sudden, then put his phone in his pocket. “What’d I miss?”

Naminé and Rapunzel both giggled and showed him what they’d made: a painting to hang on the walls of Naminé’s room in Twilight Town. It was of the beautiful woods where they’d had the picnic with dandelions flower petals floating through the air. As soon as she got home, she put it up and gave it a satisfied nod.

The days flew by until at last it was the anniversary of her rebirth. There was a knock on the door late in the afternoon, and when she went to get it, she was surprised to see Riku and Roxas waiting there for her.

“Hey Naminé,” Roxas greeted with a grin. His eyes were playful, like he had a big secret he couldn’t wait to share.

“Come with us, there’s something we’d like to show you,” Riku added, and she ducked back inside to grab a few things before following them through the woods and to the Old Mansion. 

“Why are we here?” she asked. 

“You’ll see,” was all Roxas and Riku said, and she followed them inside. She was shocked by how nice the entrance looked, like someone had been in here and cleaned things up—

“Surprise!”

She gasped as she entered the foyer. A huge banner hanging from the stairs read Happy Birthday Naminé, and all her friends were gathered around a large table in the center of the room. The evening light shone through the window behind them, pink and purple and blue, another gorgeous twilight on this world she called home now. 

“Happy Birthday Naminé!” her friends all cheered, and she couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. So this was what they had been plotting and planning all this time. Roxas grinned and grabbed a camera to take a few shots, and Sora and Riku had some of those confetti poppers that they popped with loud crackling noises.  

The seashell decorations were yellow and the star candles were blue on the cake Xion held. Axel lit the candles, and they cast flickering lights and shadows over everyone’s faces.

Kairi leaned close and murmured, “Make a wish, but keep it secret.”

“A secret?” Naminé asked, tilting her head.

“It won’t come true if you tell us,” Ven explained, and Terra nodded. 

As Naminé looked at the faces of her friends, what she should wish for became clear. She knew, deep in her heart, what she wanted more than anything.

With that, she blew out the candles, and everyone cheered loudly. Aqua swept the cake out of Xion’s hands so she could cut it properly, and then everyone sat around the table. The cake was delicious, vanilla and lemon, and after everyone was done eating, it was time for Naminé to open her presents. 

“Here!” Sora said, his eyes shining as he handed her the first one. “It’s from all of us.”

Naminé’s hands shook as she removed the wrapping paper. She wasn’t used to getting gifts, and it took her some time to free the box. But once she did, she couldn’t have stopped the smile on her face even if she’d wanted to.

“They’re like the paints Rapunzel has! And in all the colors I like too.” She hugged the box to her chest. “Oh, thank you so much everyone, I can’t wait to use these.” 

When she was finished unwrapping the rest of her presents, more art supplies and nice jewelry and cute clothes, she thanked her friends for making this such a wonderful birthday night. But there was one last thing that would make it truly perfect.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Naminé said, “let’s make a painting together. So we have something to help us remember tonight.”

Naminé loved drawing on her own, but drawing with her friends was truly wonderful. Everyone brought their own unique spark to the table. And when the painting was finished, it was one huge flowing mosaic of color and life and creativity. Sure, it wasn’t a masterpiece, but it was something truly unique that only they could have made. And that was why it was a work of art. Not because it was perfect or technically skilled, but because it had their hearts poured into it.

Naminé couldn’t have asked for a better way to commemorate her birthday.  

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A/N: Thank you so much to the mods for making this project possible and for being so caring and supportive! And thank you to the other contributors, this zine was such a joy and I enjoyed talking to you all. A big thank you too to Somnium for drawing the banner! I really enjoyed working with you!

And thank you for reading!

[dippedanddripped]

Earlier this year, writer and Highsnobiety contributor Eugene Rabkin dissected what it’s really like to work in the fashion industry, the good and the bad. In the brutally honest essay Read This Before You Decide To Work in Fashion, he writes about the industry keeping its grip on its hierarchy as tightly as an aristocracy that knows its hegemony is temporary.

“Fashion has always been the great illusion maker. It ostensibly champions democratization while trading on exclusivity. It nods enthusiastically to demands for inclusivity with token gestures,” he writes. “Fashion gatekeepers keep the gates tightly shut, promulgating the you-can’t-sit-with-us mindset. It does its best to maintain the status quo.”

As Rabkin notes, however, a growing contingent of those entering the industry are realizing that they “cannot depend on the existing power structures of glossy magazines, fashion councils, and conglomerates, and have formed their own networks, at times with great success.”

Yet how much does the fashion establishment really care about changing the structures that have kept the power in the hands of the same people for so long? How much will it fall when those who are denied a seat at the table create a table of their own? Are most traditional luxury brands already playing catch-up with their younger counterparts? And, most importantly — what needs to change in terms of who is let into the room, and for whom it’s time to go? We dive into these layered topics in the discussion below:

THE PANEL

Louis Pisano, Writer and Critic | @louispisano

"I didn’t get into fashion media intentionally. It was around 2010, with the start of Twitter. I had just moved to Europe and I wanted to work in fashion. I was going to Milan all the time and seeing all these people, and I just started tweeting everything I was observing into the void of god knows who. As time went on, it turned into this space where people really wanted to be unfiltered and behind the scenes. People at different online magazines started to offer me to write pieces about what it was like to be behind the scenes; I just sort of fell into it."

Brenda Weischer, Founder of Disruptive Berlin | @brendahashtag

"I was in PR for a little bit. I worked for PR Consulting in New York and then decided instead of kissing the editors’ asses, how about I start writing? I applied to Central Saint Martin’s [in London] to do my Masters in journalism; [then] I realized you can't really make much money, so I wanted to stay freelance. I am now the founder of vintage archive Disruptive Berlin. I was never on Twitter; I was more of a Tumblr person. That switched over to Instagram at some point. I sell vintage clothing, so I'm a bit removed, but all of my friends work in fashion, so it was an everyday topic — what goes on behind the scenes. I'm frustrated that not many people are opinionated in the public eye, but are in their private life."

Hanan Besovic, Commentator | @ideservecouture

"I grew up in Croatia and studied management, small business, and hospitality. When I moved to the United States, I started working in a hotel. [Then] the pandemic hit, and I turned to Instagram and fashion. I started posting stuff on my personal account, [with followers like] my aunt who doesn't know what Givenchy is. So I'm like, 'Okay, this is a completely wrong demographic. I need to create something new.' That’s when I started @ideservecouture. I used memes as my main medium, just because I can reach more people with them. Plus, to be honest, I want to make people laugh, and I want to piss off a couple of people, also."

THE CHAT

Christopher Morency: Welcome all. To start, I want to hear how you see the fashion industry being reported on today, and what role fashion critique plays. Now that brands have decided to open their doors with livestreams, the audience can make up their minds on a collection immediately. do we still need traditional fashion commentating by big magazines and editors?

Brenda Weischer: I think, besides us, not everyone is as opinionated. People want to be told what to say. They want someone else's opinions to look up to and shape their own opinion. Even with TikTok, for example, the first thing I do is go to the comment section, to know what everyone else is thinking. So there's definitely a need for some kind of review. But I agree with you, Chris, I don't really read anything anymore, besides what my friends write. Then on TikTok, there are these 19-year-old fashion students who are doing these reviews, and I keep thinking, “What the fuck are you talking about?” But [on the flipside], you have these [traditional media] reviews where even I, with the same press release and professional knowledge, don’t know what they’re talking about; you’re made to feel stupid. Like, I don’t know this poem you’re referencing. And there’s not much in between — until the last six months. So I think the need for reviews is there, but what’s in mainstream media doesn’t feel authentic at all, especially when you know they’re talking about an advertiser.

Hanan Besovic: Brenda, you’re completely right about the two extremes of reviews. What I’m missing is the critical part. What I’ve learned since doing this is that fashion is very much oriented. It’s okay to praise, but it’s never okay to criticize. And that’s just wrong. When I criticize, I never try to be mean about it. It’s just my opinion. If you're going to get offended by an opinion, that’s 100 percent on you. For example, the other day there was one designer who's been following me for a while; I reviewed his show and I was super positive, but I said he needed to edit, as it looked too busy. The next thing I knew, he unfollowed me. I think the honest criticism [today] is on social media. The praise is on Vogue Runway, because at the end of the day, that’s what [the brands] are paying for. I also think this certain generation of fashion journalists take themselves too seriously.

People want to be told what to say. They want someone else’s opinions to look up to and shape their own opinion.

Weischer: It’s so highbrow now. There’s no fun in anything.

Besovic: Exactly. That’s why I like what’s happening on Instagram with people that do the same kind of thing we do. Let’s just have fun. I know it sounds infantile, but at the end of the day, it’s just clothes.

Louis Pisano: People are going to either buy it or not. They’re not going to not buy it because we made a meme about it or because we said we didn’t like this or that piece.

Morency: Does fashion critique even matter today, regardless of whether it’s written by editors or reviewers on Instagram and TikTok?

Besovic: It depends on who you ask. I think the stupidest thing a designer can do is surround themselves with “yes” people. And that's why, at the core of fashion, you can’t say you don’t like something or something isn’t good. That just doesn’t fly very well. As long as you’re making money, who cares? Have fun with it. You should be happy that people are talking about you. I secretly feel that [Dior’s] Maria Grazia Chiuri loves it when we talk shit about her.

Weischer: Louis, you were very humble to say it doesn't really make a difference to their pay check, but I think it does, at least for my audience. If I really were to continuously talk about someone, it does make a difference, because a lot of people want to be told what's cool and what isn't. There are opinions of taste-makers that at some point do trickle either up or down.

It’s okay to praise, but it’s never okay to criticize. And that’s just wrong. When I criticize, I never try to be mean about it. It’s just my opinion.

Morency: So, what’s changed? Why is this clash between old and new critiquing happening?

Besovic: When you criticize stuff, there is so much more to take into consideration. Before it was just clothes; now, we're critiquing the full company and the decisions that they make. I always say that if you make smart decisions, you’re not going to get criticized. It’s your fault if you fuck up. For example, when it came to Chanel and the Michel Gaubert thing happened with “Wuhan girls,” the brand said they accepted his apology — it’s not your apology to accept.

Morency: I’ve written a bit about brand universes, and how these days it’s about everything from the soundtrack to who is at an event or show to what’s happening outside. Not just the clothing. Brands are still getting used to being critiqued about these other things, outside of fashion. Do you think they want to genuinely listen and evolve when it comes to these things?

Besovic: I really do think as “the chosen,” they cannot shape the narrative that they want, because there's so many other people talking about it all the time. But the scandals change things.

Weischer: Yeah. It's either if their money is at risk, or if there’s public pressure. I don't think there's anything else. Change from within — I don't think that's possible, at this point. I mean, maybe I'm too negative, but I really think these kinds of scandals have a huge effect.

Pisano: I agree. Public perception turns into money.

There’s an extent to how much critique and how much of a voice you’re allowed to have within the industry, especially for new voices.

Morency: So, who can still shift the public perception of brands? Is it still the legacy titles, critics, and editors? Or is it the digitally native generation of commentators and writers, who are a lot more honest and open towards each other’s presence? Or is it even the general public?

Pisano: It’s whoever can make the biggest mess for a brand.

Weischer: I agree – whoever creates the biggest mess. And not in a vicious way, just whoever has a platform and is willing to speak out. But then there are a lot of people with a platform who still have to make money from brands. I find it sad when you speak out about something and the people in your DMs agree, yet they’re still posting [positive] images of them being at the show. That’s frustrating.

Pisano: I can attend a show and just be there and not really post an opinion or anything if the brand wants to invite me. [Now] if you want to pay me for something, we're going to discuss how I'm going to be my authentic self and still partner with you. But I'm not going to publicly praise a brand and then privately [talk negatively about it].

Morency: When it comes to brands opening their door more, to not just invite editors and buyers, do you see more openness in the industry? Or does it keep its nepotistic and gatekeeping reputation?

Pisano: I think it’s a marketing toy. I'm just looking at it as a whole; allowing you to have a voice and work with you only goes so far. There's an extent to how much critique and how much of a voice you're allowed to have within the industry, especially for new voices. I'm the only one out of all of you that Valentino doesn't work with, for example, as I’ve criticized a lot of decisions that Valentino has made, before it was cool and trendy to be diverse. I think the way you do it [Hanan] is genius, because it’s funny and not too vicious. But I can only go so far with humor until I’m genuinely pissed off. And when it loses that sort of funny viral entertainment value for the brand, it’s a no. And that gets you blacklisted. Brands don't like [when] they can't really control you.

I’m aware that we’re slowly closing the doors on ourselves when we criticize somebody, and I think that we’re fine with that, because all of us here want the best for fashion and its future.

Besovic: I 100 percent get what you’re saying, Louis. I hope that my message still gets across with humor, and that people start to talk about [issues]. I’m aware that we’re slowly closing the doors on ourselves when we criticize somebody, and I think that we’re fine with that, because all of us here want the best for fashion and its future.

Morency: In my opinion, the fashion industry still loves the traditional system of building up certain people by allowing the chosen ones into this traditional sequence of gatekeeping steps. The lucky few go to a prestigious fashion school, you get big internships, you get scouted, you enter these incubator programs after which you get the same press coverage, the same stores buy your clothes, and you are the new fashion darling until the next one comes around. What challenges do you see with that system?

Besovic: I will never praise and acknowledge someone who came up through nepotism. I will never praise these people the same way that I am praising, let’s say, a Thebe Magugu, who I think is amazing because he gives me a story, trauma, and beauty, which he puts into the clothes. Your work should speak for itself.

I’m more excited that the voices are changing. I’m excited to see other people’s opinions and not always having the same people in the room.

Morency: But what’s going to shift the industry’s mindset to start thinking this way?

Pisano: Maybe it sounds too pessimistic, but I don’t think that it’s going to change, because we live in such a celebrity-driven culture where fashion has become pay-to-play. Regardless if we think someone like Lila Moss is an adequate model, she still has the last name that will draw in that star power, regardless of whether she executes the walking part of the assignment — she executes the celebrity part of the assignment.

Weischer: Yes, and a magazine no longer sells without a celebrity on the cover. And, to touch back on the university thing — whenever I tell an editor where I study, within a second I get the nod of approval, which is insane, as I don’t know anyone there anymore and was at [Central Saint Martins] for like a year. I remember when people from LVMH came to visit the design studios and would be like, “Okay, we want you for this brand, you for that brand.” Same with magazines. You didn’t even have to apply anywhere.

Morency: To round things off, what brands do it well and do things differently? Who do you get excited about?

Pisano: Telfar, 100 percent. I’m so disappointed that the Telfar x Gap collection didn’t pan out. Then also LaQuan Smith; I’m waiting for him to have that big house moment, because he deserves it.

Besovic: Thebe [Magugu] steals my heart. I’m always excited about Peter Do, because it’s interesting and new. And Schiaparelli.

Weischer: I’m more excited that the voices are changing. I’m excited to see other people’s opinions and not always having the same people in the room. I’m generally excited for anything that’s changing.

[dearartdirector]

Hi! This is probably a bit of a complicated question, so apologies for that. I've been following the great work that Muddy Colors has been doing for the fantasy art community for a while now, but it was only today that going through their contributors list I noticed that out of 25 contributors only 3 are women. I was wondering if you could shed some light on the dynamics that lead to this, given that there's such a huge number of insanely talented women in the fantasy art industry. Thanks! :)

Honestly Muddy Colors has asked, and it’s just that women say no more frequently than men. Actually there’s 4 now. Still not an accurate representation of the women in the community, but they really are trying.

I am a woman who is an art director and I will tell you women turn me down for jobs 500% more than men do. It is a direct effect of the difference in how genders are raised and treated in our society. Women are more likely told to be 100% sure they are qualified and 110% able to do the job before they put themselves in the running for something, and if they have any doubts they are more likely to decline. Men, on the other hand, are taught to say yes even if they know they’re not completely qualified, confident that they’ll figure it out as they go along. This manifests constantly in my inbox. Women artists who are more than qualified to work for me do not send in their art because they doubt themselves, while my inbox is full of not-even-close-to-qualified male artists who figure, hey, might as well throw their hat in the ring, what’s the worst that could happen?

These are gross generalizations, but that’s the short answer and it holds a lot of truth. I’m trying desperately to do my part to encourage and mentor women in our community, but it takes time to even out. Things are certainly better than they were 10 years ago. 

I know for a fact many women have been asked to write for Muddy Colors and I know many have said no. I’m not going to name names here, obviously, but trust me, the big names you’re thinking of have been asked. They have reasons, and they include: they’re not confident in their writing ability, they don’t want to deal with potential trolls, they’re concerned that it’ll cut into their work time, and they’re scared to become public figures and put their opinions out there to be criticized. Sometimes they have to decline because of child care — parenting usually still falls more heavily on the women in a relationship, especially if that woman is a freelance artist because her schedule is more flexible. 

Things ARE getting better, but it takes time to change such deeply ingrained differences. If you are a woman and have been scared to put yourself out there, either into an Art Director’s inbox or to write or to speak about your work, then please hear me and believe the opportunities are there. Throw off that imposter syndrome & take those opportunities! The creative world needs your voices in equal amounts to the guys.

—Agent KillFee

PS: Instead of a cute gif today I am leaving you with a picture of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who won ALL THE EMMYS this year for Fleabag, which she wrote and performed in. Women, put yourself out there! We need your POVs

[mtt-brand-trans]

What's up gamers today we're taking a stab at guessing why and how in the world a depressed, unhygienic, ketchup-chugging skeleton like Sans became an internet sex symbol if you like this video don't forget to like and subscribe to my channel and click that bell button to get notific

Here's a question for you: if you played all of Undertale without knowing anything about the fandom, and after you were done I asked you who you thought the fan favorite was, who would you say? No really, I'd like to know, because I have no good or honest answer to this question. Because the more I think about it, the more sure I am that, while in many fandoms it's clear who the fan favorite is going to be(and that character may even have been designed to be the fan favorite), Undertale doesn't really have that.

Most times, the fan favorite is a young guy with good looks(a specific kind of look too, usually what you would describe as a "pretty boy") that has a good sense of humor and/or is flirtatious and/or is flippant. Sans is a jokester, sure, but he's not a pretty boy. And as I said, he's depressed and chugs ketchup at local diners and is a slacker, and his jokes aren't flirty or insulting(aka "attractive" jokes), they're just bad puns. These things certainly makes him feel more like a real person(or as real as you can get when you're a skeleton), but they don't make for a good fan fave to drool over. So why was Sans chosen to be transformed through fanon as the fan favorite? I think the answer lies in the no mercy route.

I'm pretty sure we all know this is the biggest contributor to his popularity. Although nowadays I prefer the pacifist route, even I was fascinated with the no mercy route back in the day. And there's a perfectly good reason so many felt the same, for a lot of us(myself included) it was an introduction to "darker" stories, where bad things happened and they didn't get better, or were previously fans of games like fnaf. A lot of the fandom was my age at the time(14) or younger. And since the no mercy route was the main focus for so many fans, what, or who was the staple of it? Sans. And honestly, the sans fight really was made to make an impact. It takes a lot of tries, sometimes even more than undyne the undying, the music is the fourth iteration of Toby's signature song Megalovania, and Sans' dialogue reveals more about his character and opens up a possible mystery by saying strange things that he doesn't explain(remember how I said a lot of people were previously fnaf fans? Well it and similar games became popular largely because of the mysteries they presented. So Sans' popularity also grew because of his connection to the larger gaster mystery). So Sans ended up being the most popular character in Undertale, and Undertale became insanely popular, so by proxy Sans became a very popular character in general.

So here's a summary of why Sans is the fan favorite, even though when just looking at him by himself you'd never guess he'd have risen to this level of popularity(aka the TL;DR): Undertale has a distinct lack of characters that fit the typical "fan favorite" mold, and Sans was the character that most closely fit it. His popularity was largely helped by his significance in the no mercy run and his ties to the gaster mystery, which made him more appealing to young fans in particular, who loved the no mercy route because of its darkness and gaster because of the unsolved mystery. Thus, he became the most popular character in Undertale, and since Undertale was so popular itself, he got a huge fandom.

I also want to take this time to look at some other characters who had the potential to be the fan favorites had Sans not taken the role. Most/all of them fit other, "lesser" fan favorite archetypes that I will explain. A lot of these characters are still pretty popular.

Gaster

This one's pretty obvious. If Sans didn't have ties to both the no mercy run and the Gaster mystery, then Gaster himself would be the fan favorite. Even with Sans(or sometimes because of him), he's inescapable. If he was the fan favorite, the loud part of the fandom would largely stay the same, there would just be less focus on the no mercy run.

Undyne

There's two ways Undyne would've become the fan favorite: being a lesbian icon like Catra from spop, making the fandom a lesbian haven, or through straight weeb men who fetishize lesbians. Those two types of fans already make up the Undyne fandom in our quiet little corner, but we would've seen this on a much larger SCALE(lol) if she had been the fan favorite. And let's be honest, what does Sans have that Undyne doesn't? Let's just look at the facts here: A glowing eye that only shows up on the no mercy run, of which they have one of two of the epic battles for that route that are famously hard to beat, both have a mysterious part of them that's not really explained(Undyne's missing eye, why she melted/came back to life instead of turning straight to dust, determination motif, UNDYNE'S MYSTERIOUS TOO GUYS), connections to a royal scientist, I could go on. I can really only think of one reason that Undyne, the buff angry wlw who isn't conventionally attractive, isn't very popular.........

Asriel

Asriel falls under another type of fan favorite archetype that I like to call, "HOLY SHIT CUTE CHILD." The only other example I can think of right now is Niko from oneshot, who is the fan favorite of their game. And Asriel is indeed a cute child! I would've liked to see him be the fan favorite, because I think the Chara & Asriel subplot is underrated in this fandom. Asriel is fairly popular, but he's mostly seen either as flowey or by fans of the KFCA gang nowadays.

Frisk

Frisk being the fan favorite would be a combination of "HOLY SHIT CUTE CHILD" and "protagonist that I can project onto," with a side of mystery due to their ambiguous backstory. So pretty much how they're portrayed now. They're best done by fans of the KFCA gang, but they're seen more often than Asriel, either as a prop in cool art of a place/another character, or to be the kid in those post-pacifist works.

Mettaton

He's another one that's already fairly popular, this is just about what the fandom would be like if he was The fan fave. And if I'm gonna he honest, I'm kinda surprised Mettaton isn't the fan favorite. He's pretty much exactly what the fan favorite archetype is. He's a pretty boy. He's one of the more popular characters in the fandom, sure, but compared to Sans he hardly shows up. And I honestly don't have any good guesses as to why this is. It could be that he's gay and trans coded, but too "flamboyant" and makes the cishet fans uncomfortable, but even that doesn't check out considering how much people fetishize him being trans. If anything, they like that, even if in the most gross way possible. So yeah, I've got nothing.

Chara

They were probably the fourth most popular character back in the day, after the skelebros and gaster of course. And just like Sans, it's because of their ties to the no mercy route. If they were the fan fave, the fandom would probably be a much darker place. Which is sad, because if you look at how KFCA fans depict them, they're great! But anyways, the fandom as a whole has always focused more on "demon" Chara than looking at maybe a more nicer side of them, so if they were the fan favorite, the fandom would be even more focused on the gritty and dark parts of the story. Oh, and people would keep misgendering them, too.

So there you have it, an in-depth analysis of how Sans became the fan favorite, and then what other fan favorites might look like I guess. Even after writing all of this, I still can't quite comprehend Sans' popularity. Fortunately I've found a good niche in the fandom that appreciates all the characters equally. KFCA fans, waterfall gang fans, gorls fans, etc. Everyone is good! But I've stayed holed up in that little community for so long that I don't know the fandom at large's current condition regarding aus, sans, etc., so really this meta is written from my memory of the fandom back in 2016, which is probably outdated somewhat lol. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the read!

[aion-rsa]

Garbage Pail Kids At 35: The Kids Are Alright

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Presented by:

This story appears in the Den of Geek x eBay special edition trading card magazine.

Garbage Pail Kids gave birth to my anti-authority streak. I was in fifth grade waiting for art class to start and showing off my prized Ashcan Andy to enraptured classmates when my teacher walked in the classroom, sighed, confiscated the card and proceeded to rip it up. “This junk has no place in an art room,” she stoically declared as Andy was transformed into sad confetti before my eyes. Years later, I came to realize that this demonstration was all about jealousy – these cards had instantly engaged students in art in a way that her years of teaching never could.

And let me be clear here: Garbage Pail Kids are most definitely art. Often grotesque and always eye-catching, the unfortunate children showcased on these cards fostered an interest in painting, illustration, and design for generations of kids since Topps first introduced them back in 1985 (their pun-heavy names also were a gateway for subversive humor). After 35 years, Garbage Pail Kids have become a cultural institution—not to mention schoolyard contraband for nearly four decades, an unexpected bonus that would make the creators of these cards—veterans of the counterculture themselves—beam with pride.

To trace the origins of Garbage Pail Kids, a brief history lesson is in order. Although they were best known for their baseball cards, the Topps Company also had huge success with bubblegum cards based on popular films and TV shows. Further expanding their creative pallet, Topps released numerous humor card lines, the most popular of which was Wacky Packages. Like Mad Magazine before them, these stickers showcased parodies of contemporary products with bitingly accurate focus. 

In the early 1980s there was no bigger consumer frenzy than the Cabbage Patch Kids. These dolls from Xavier Roberts and Coleco featured an elaborate backstory and cloyingly adorable looks that became the stuff of toy legend (news reports featuring near riots as parents tried to get their hands on the damn things were commonplace in the early 1980s). 

Naturally, then, Cabbage Patch Kids were an ideal target to get the Wacky Packages treatment. But the decision was wisely made by Topps execs that Garbage Pail Kids could be a card line of their own. Spearheading the project was underground comics legend Art Spiegelman (who would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for his groundbreaking holocaust graphic novel Maus), Raw comics anthology contributor Mark Newgarden, and artist John Pound. 

Pound, a veteran of painting fantasy and science fiction book covers, was brought by Spiegelman to illustrate the original Wacky Packages “Garbage Pail Kid” card (featuring one of the dolls pushed into a trash can and touting orders to send the unfortunate soul to the Department of Sanitation). Though this Wacky Pack was shelved, Pound single-handedly painted all the characters featured in the first Garbage Pail Kids set. “They liked the idea sketches I sent in,” he says, “and asked me to do all 40 paintings in two months, which was faster than I was used to, but I got organized and made the deadline.” 

Working with Spiegelman, Newgarden, and Topps creative favorite Jay Lynch to craft ideas, Pound’s early characters included the now iconic Adam Bomb, and remain some of the most beloved in the line (for the record, Pound names Adam Bomb, Up Chuck, Jolly Roger, and Mona Loser as some of his favorite creations). 

Looking back over three decades later, Pound sees several reasons why Garbage Pail Kids have endured:

“The original concept had strengths: doing a parody of the famous Cabbage Patch Kids, and a name that was both clear and familiar sounding,” he says. “The concept’s rebellious attitude and shock value gave it initial attention. Also, in the ‘80s, Topps products were widely distributed, like in drug stores, variety stores, convenience stores.”

Although he freely admits that “I wasn’t expecting it, but Garbage Pail Kids became a huge hit,” Pound says aesthetic concerns were foremost on his mind when painting these garish figures. “On my end, despite the abundant gross humor and shock value, I simply wanted the art to feel good to look at. And I tried to put love into the paintings.” 

The care with which these outlandish cards were created was appreciated by consumers. Fifteen different series of Garbage Pail Kids were produced between 1985 and 1988. There was spinoff GPK merchandise too, ranging from folders emblazoned with images of popular characters to the on-brand/subversively named Cheap Toys. The Garbage Pail Kids Movie was released in 1987 with The Facts of Life co-star Mackenzie Astin in the lead. On that topic, The Toys That Made Us and A Toy Store Near You creator Brian Volk-Weiss sums up the flick perfectly: “That movie is so bonkers even seeing it is not believing it. It reminds me in a weird way of a low budget Batman and Robin in that it was like a ton of people were involved with the green light and execution and seemingly had no oversight on any matter.” 

But as far as Volk-Weiss is concerned, a new motion picture has plenty of potential. “I would love to see them do a ‘serious’ reboot that would be similar to the first Guardians of the Galaxy film in that they take the characters and the world seriously,” he states, “but the fun and humor and oddness stays intact too.” While there may be a future on screen for New Wave Dave and company, whatever it turns out to be must avoid the mistakes of the infamous 1987 cartoon series – which was produced for CBS but never aired due to the then-ongoing controversy surrounding the franchise (it eventually landed on DVD, and the less said about it the better.)

Despite a lull in any new products that lasted from the late 1980s until 2003, Garbage Pail Kids never really left the public consciousness. If anything, they were inspiring new talent. Enter Buff Monster. The Hawaii native and prolific street artist known for his upbeat, ice cream-inspired work was so inspired by Garbage Pail Kids that he created his own line of sticker art cards, The Melty Misfits. With names like Mind-Blowin’ Owen (featuring a cameo by a very Adam Bomb-esque character) and Bam Bam Sam, these intricately designed stickers—created on the type of antiquated machinery that Garbage Pail Kids were made on—come complete with a retro-styled wax pack and showcase Buff Monster’s own unique aesthetic as they pay homage to the Topps line.

Talking about why he personally connected with Garbage Pail Kids, Buff Monster makes a salient point on why these things were so memorable in the first place. 

“If you look at most trading cards, they are less than what they’re about. Having a baseball card is a ‘less than’ experience than watching the game. If you’re watching a baseball game in person, that’s great, but watching a baseball game on TV is actually better because you’ve got commentary, and you’ve got playback, and all this sort of stuff,” he tells us.

“But Garbage Pail Kids stand out because the art was made for the cards, so the card was the thing. The card wasn’t some sub-version of something else. It was the point of making the art in the first place. And so that has always stuck with me. And that is really kind of what it comes down to for me.”

Buff Monster’s The Melty Misfits stickers are a burgeoning phenomenon for the 2020s, just as Garbage Pail Kids were for the 1980s. It’s understandable that he is partnering with eBay for a special pack of The Melty Misfits, some of which will come packaged with a random “Golden Ticket” card that will entitle the recipient to have Buff Monster create a character of their choice. 

“This pack that we’re going to do is a nice little introduction to me and eBay working together,” he says. “This is a very easy thing for the completist to get. And that’s good.” 

It’s clear when talking to Buff Monster that Garbage Pail Kids continue to inspire. And the cards themselves feel more vibrant than ever, way more relevant today than the doll that inspired them in the first place. Case in point? Recent political and horror-themed Garbage Pail Kids sets (which are really one and the same when you think about it) have brought old fans back into the fold. 

Another example of booming Garbage Pail Kids interest is the 2017 documentary 30 Years of Garbage: The Garbage Pail Kids Story. The film’s writer and (with Jeff Zapata) co-director is Joe Simko, himself an accomplished artist and graphic designer who has worked on the card line and IDW’s spinoff Garbage Pail Kids comic, as well as his own series of The Sweet Rot graphic novels and his Cereal Killer trading cards. Simko vividly remembers when Garbage Pail Kids entered his life.

“I first discovered Garbage Pail Kids when I was 10 years old while riding the school bus. A couple of kids were sharing them,” Simko says. “It was the second series, and I just remember that artwork jumping out at me. Never had I seen such appetizing visuals on a trading card before. I knew instantly they were an attack on the highly successful Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, which dominated the kid’s market landscape at the time. Garbage Pail Kids were such a great middle-school kids protest to that cutesy Cabbage Patch world.”

Simko has been a part of Garbage Pail Kids lore since 2009, and during that time has given the Garbage Pail Kids treatment to everything from Stranger Things to Universal Monsters. “I think my favorite Garbage Pail Kids projects are the licensed product paintings I get to do,” he says. “For instance, the Garbage Pail Kids cereal for FYE was just so great to work on. Doing cereal box signings at the FYE pop-up shop during San Diego Comic-Con was an overwhelming experience. Greeting Garbage Pail Kids fans, when I too am a fan, is amazing.”

When I mention the brand’s longevity to Simko, he is quick to sum up their continued popularity. “Garbage Pail Kids have lasted this long due in part to the dedicated group of collectors who grew up on the series in the ’80s. Yes, there are younger kids buying them today, but the nostalgia it brings to those grown-up kids keeps the spirit and revenue of the Garbage Pail alive.”

Bringing things full circle, he also vindicated myself and everyone else who was ever frowned upon for appreciating the cards’ artistic merits.

“They are a true form of art. To pass judgement on them and reject these cards as ‘art’ because of the subject matter, is to have a narrow perspective of what art is,” Simko says. “Credit goes to the original creators of the Garbage Pail Kids cards during the 1980s, Art Spiegelman and Mark Newgarden. Art and Mark knew the ingredients to make GPK work. And of course the artists, John Pound, Tom Bunk, James Warhola, and Jay Lynch, were the ‘cooks.’ They made it taste and look perfectly gross. Without any of these creative minds, I believe Garbage Pail Kids would not be the success it became at the time.”

Despite being anchored to a fad from the 1980s, Garbage Pail Kids are ultimately timeless. Children of all ages will always take to the goofy grossness that is embedded in the line’s DNA. Nostalgia is a potent thing too, but as recent years have illustrated, Topps is always looking to evolve the IP, be it through virtual Garbage Pail Kids, high-end collectible figures, or just by continuing to bring in great artists to keep the bread and butter of the franchise—the card line—going strong. These Kids may be pushing 40, but in the heart of fans, they’ll never age.

Garbage Pail Kids eBay x Topps Exclusive 

The 10-card set created by Joe Simko is the first exclusive from eBay and Topps. Each card is representative of buying and selling on eBay. The set will be available for $19.99 on eBay for one week starting on August 10. 

The post Garbage Pail Kids At 35: The Kids Are Alright appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/30gkomP

[saratopiasworld]

We should not care too much about the way we look rather than who we really are because nobody is perfect, and don't judge people for who they really are. The real you, is only the true side of you, and never forget that God made us this way.

Who am I? What makes me the person that I am? These are all the questions that we ask ourselves throughout our lives. Well It’s  very normal to question oneself. But have you ever wondered, how other people perceive us based on our looks/appearances, level of confidence, popularity, grooming and other factors? It is indeed important to have a pleasant appearance, grooming etc to be able to be a part of the society but the real problem arises when we start to focus more on how we appear to others rather than who we actually are.We tend to forget our roots, our culture, our traditions, our upbringing and above all we forget our moral values just to look or appear better in the eyes of others.We begin to believe that possessing expensive items or by living a lavish and extravagant lifestyle is what will prove our worth and existence in the society.

In today’s modern world, anyone who lacks fashion sense is considered inferior to that who does and brand consciousness has become the norm of the society. Proper and good appearance is necessary not only for work and business, but also for daily chores. It projects ones personality in a positive manner. But focusing only on your looks or appearance to display your personality is not good enough. Appearance is just one of the factors that makes ones personality, followed by grooming, decency, confidence, nature, dignity, finesse and so on.Therefore, relying only on one factor i.e the looks/appearances is not good enough.

People’s heavy emphasis on their appearances is due to the wide availability of shopping malls and fashion centers. During the time when the world is enjoying the fruit of rapid economic growth, fashion boutiques and shops are ubiquitous to cater for the people of all ages. People have become so brand conscious, that for them, it’s the brand that counts, not the fact whether it suits them or not. Clothes nowadays are no longer basic necessities but interests, which can drive people mad. They shop and shop till they drop.

Secondly mass media is also a significant contributor to this lifestyle. As television, magazines and Internet present a huge number of celebrities with dreamlike appearance; people are not able to resist the desire to look better. In addition, with vouchers and discount available in shopping and beauty center, people are more tempted to enhance their beauty.

We have become so materialistic, that for us it’s their looks that matter. We start to judge them even before we talk to them or get to know them better. Everyone has heard the phrase; “Never judge a book by it’s cover”. How ironic it is that almost everyone knows this metaphorical phrase but only a few believe in it or act accordingly. People who are under-privileged or can’t afford to wear/buy expensive brands such as Nike, Adidas, Armani,Versace, etc, or even cosmetic brands such as MAC, Chanel etc are literally forced to develop inferiority complexes. Not because they’re ugly or have some physical defect but just because they can’t afford to or don’t want to waste their money on these petty things. 

Coming to the end, I think it’s about time that we realize that at the end of the day, it isn’t our looks that matter, but what matters is our deeds, how we treated others and how good or bad our heart is. We should always keep in mind that God made everyone differently. Everyone has a unique talent. It’s just that instead of discovering our talent, we waste our time and money on improving our appearances. And the day we realize this, the world will change, our perspectives, our needs, everything will change! The sooner we realize this, the better

[writingsofadream]

Chapter One | The Beginning

Pairing : Jungkook x Reader

Story: You knew being an intern at BigHit wouldn’t be easy, but you’d never imagined Jungkook would make it even harder. 

You are a new intern at Big Hit, and you get to meet the boys. Set in the real world (as opposed at an AU), and just before the Love Yourself: Tear Comeback. 1.8k words in this chapter.

|||||||||| 1 ||||||||||

The harsh and unforgiving buzz of your 6am alarm screeches through your bedroom, penetrating the soft blankets and making its way into your dream. For a second your thoughts are confused and muddled with the morning noise, but then you feel your body wake with a start.

Today’s the day.

Hurriedly you push the blankets off your body and slip out of bed, into your comfiest dressing gown and the ridiculously old slippers you refuse to replace. Their sentimental value outweighs their depreciating quality, so you continue to wear them to pieces.

Your internship starts today. With Big Hit.

You couldn’t believe your luck at being chosen from over 15, 000 college applicants, especially as Korean was only your second language, (though you were undeniably fluent), and you had just arrived in Seoul a little over six months ago. Somehow you had been picked, and your astonishment had turned into realisation and immense butterflies in the weeks since the fateful letter had arrived. And now today was finally the day.

Big Hit was such a huge contributor to K-pop and the music industry through BTS, but most of all it was an undeniably successful music production company. You were overwhelmed at the thought of being able to see first-hand the work that goes into such a huge corporation, and as a business major it was pretty much all you could think about. Most of your friends had been shocked at the prospect of you being near BTS for 4 months, but you just couldn’t keep your mind off the school side of things. After all, that was why you applied, and no doubt they were going to be perfectly normal boys anyway. Well, men.

The shower was warm and enjoyable as it flooded over your body, and you shut your eyes for deeper enjoyment. Mixed with the sound of light rain from outside, the butterflies in your stomach were almost calming rather than anxiety-inducing. You shave, and wash your body and your hair - the light and flowery scents were your favourites, and you’re all too aware your self-presentation will be taken into account by all officials you meet.

Hopping out, you put on your pre-selected outfit, looking at yourself in your bedroom’s full-length mirror. A white button-up shirt, with tightly flattering black jeans cuffed at the ankles and your faithful black and white vans. You look presentable, yet still young and obviously intern-esque. Appropriate for an 19 year old intern, you thought.

Heading through to the kitchen, you quickly pop some 3-minute oatmeal into the microwave, and begin cutting up the banana and strawberries to go with it. Your tiny kitchen hugs around you reassuringly, and you look around gratefully. It was truly the perfect apartment, modern yet tiny and with a surprisingly modest rent. In the middle of a strawberry cut your phone rings, and you check it with nervousness. A text from Shia, your best friend and long-suffering brother’s girlfriend.

“Good luck, Y/N! We all love you and are rooting for you!”

Beneath was an adorable photo of them together with your parents, giving you genuine open mouthed smiles and a thumbs up. You couldn’t help but smile too, it was too damn cute. No doubt it had been taken in advance, since the time difference had to be accounted for. You quickly tapped out a thankful reply, sent it, and retrieved your warm oatmeal from the microwave to dig into the early breakfast.

7:30am

Your phone buzzes again, this time reminding you to take your daily birth control pill. Gulping it down with water, you wondered why you were even still bothering. It’d been almost a whole year since your last kiss with a boy, let alone anything more promiscuous than that. Still, shorter periods was a plus and you didn’t seem to have any negative side effects, so you figured it was somewhat worth the routine and $30 a month. Seeing the time, you grabbed your bag and double checked you had everything you could possibly need. Gum, cards, offical ID… everything seemed to be in its rightful place, which seemed promising. You’d even remembered to fill up your metal bottle with fresh cold water and ice, which you loved regardless of the raining weather outside. Stepping out of the apartment, you locked the door behind you and headed down the copious stairs leading to the outside of the building. Sure, you didn’t have to be there until 8:30am and public transport would get you there by 8:10 - you still wanted to be on time for one of the events that could turn into a momentous event for your college work, or even your career.

7:40am

The train is packed, and you find yourself squished between a businessman who pays you no attention and an old lady carrying three purses. The smell is rather damp, and the Monday mood is evident throughout all passengers’ moods. You were undeniably glad you had remembered your tiny bottle of perfume, your favourite travel-sized scent; a little bottle of Marc Jacobs in the scent ‘Daisy’.

A young boy, most likely around 17 is eyeing you up and down from across the train, and his eyes are making you slightly uncomfortable. Sure, you have a nice body and you’re not stranger to their gaze, but it never gets easier being openly gawped at. You shift from foot to foot, hoping that the train has no delays and he doesn’t get off at your stop. He gets off one before, and makes sure to brush against your ass as he makes his way past and out the doors. Gross.

8:10am

You try the door of Big Hit Entertainment nervously, only to be met with resistance. Looking next to the door, you see a keypad clearly needing a set of around 5 numbers to be punched in. Dammit. Shit. How fucking awkward. Waving through the clear door, you try and get the attention of the woman behind the front desk. Eying you with a steeled look, she simply goes back to her mundane work. She must think you’re just a crazed fan. Perfect.

Knocking again, she looks up with clear annoyance on her face. You quickly snatch your ID and the acceptance letter from your bag and bang them against the glass, motioning for her to come and take a closer look. Clearly rolling her eyes, she gets up in a clear movement of frustration.

Once close enough, her eyes go wide and the look on her face is replaced with that of surprise. She swiftly punches numbers in, and the door swings open. Some of the fans who had been standing further back, from the other side of the road start to rush forward, and as soon as you’re through the door she slams the door behind you.

Now up close, you see she’s quite beautiful with wide doe-eyes and perfectly Korean features. She looks as through as was ripped straight from the pages of a magazine, particularly in her dark blue dress that’s tight and works her small curves to the best of their ability. Her lengthy legs in their sky-high heels make her a good 10 inches taller than you, and you feel considerably uglier in comparison.

“I am SO sorry,” she gushes. “I thought you’d be older, and not here until at least 8:30. Again, I seriously apologise! You must think me so rude.”

Her previous annoyance has been completely wiped away, and she now flashes you a sheepish and apologetic smile.

You give her a quick, reassuring smile back, and even laugh a little about the situation.

“No doubt young girls like me try and get in all the time, no doubt! I definitely don’t blame you for being good at your job!”

She laughs in return at this, nodding enthusiastically.

“You’d be astonished at how many young girls want a glimpse of BTS, it’s no wonder they come in through the back! I’m Jinwah, by the way, it’s nice to meet you Y/N… even if our first meeting has been a little difficult!”

You flick your wrist up and check the time on your small gold watch, a present from your father before you'd left for Korea. Your deep sentiment definitely transcends no-longer-fuzzy slippers. 8:24. Definitely time to go.

“I’m so sorry, but I definitely have to get to where I’m supposed to be now. Room 753?” you ask quizzically.

“Take the elevator to floor 14, then it’s the 8th door on your right. Good luck!”

She flashes you another award-winning smile, and you can’t help but seriously like this girl. We could definitely become friends while you’re here, in fact, you might make it a personal goal. You could do with more friends in Korea, since you’re currently sitting at only two.

You send a quick “thanks!” her way, and walk over to the elevator. Pushing the button, it pops open right away for you. Getting in, you repeat to yourself that it’s the eighth door to your right, and you punch in the 14th floor.

Whizzing up, your stomach is in knots as you attempt to mentally prepare yourself for your first impressions. A spritz of your perfume and the doors open, allowing you to step into a white-walled and modern looking hallway. It screams office building, and the buzz of talking is thick. People are all throughout the hallway, and going in and out of the rooms, much busier than the lobby downstairs. You suppose they must all come in through the secretive back entrance, being staff and all. A large and busy woman in a black and white dress notices you, and comes striding towards you with her clipboard. Her smile makes you less nervous, though you feel exceedingly out of place and awkward.

“Welcome! You must be my intern, yes? You’re Y/N?”

Her smile and her warm demeanour melts your butterflies, and you feel much better having met the woman who you’ll be shadowing for the next few month.

“Yes, that’s me,” you reply, “I’m very honoured and excited to be here!”

“Good, good!” She replies, bustling with enthusiasm. “Shall we get started? The very first thing I’ll have you do is meet the boys, they’re all in dance practice right now so I’m sure they’ll be happy to have a quick break.”

She says this with a chuckle, but you suddenly feel nervous again.

8:45am

On our way towards the room you hear it from all the way down the hall. The loud, banging sound of all their feet falling to the floor in synchronisation, and it sounds almost mesmerising with their music playing in the background.

She doesn’t even bother knocking, and simply opens the door with blatant familiarity. Of course she knows the boys well, you chastise yourself. It’s you who’s the outsider.  

[kaikiky]

So the topic for ASAW today is “community,” and that got me thinking about community in general rather than just the aromantic community.

So this is a very personal post rather than a theme post because I’ve got a lot to get off my chest. And it’s even led me to make a new tag “wwa” for “writing while angry” because there’s a lot of anger and bitterness under the cut that isn’t filtered to my usual degree.

This isn’t pointed toward any specific people or communities, this is just a culmination of my whole life coming out in one vent.

I have mixed feelings about community.

On the one hand, I do feel some vague desire inside to be part of communities, to make meaningful contributions to community discussions and such. But going back to me being an introvert, I’m terrified of following through with that desire because I’m sure I’ll freeze in the face of so much social interaction and get so exhausted that I just pull out. And then feel guilty for it. And stupid for even trying.

And second, my few attempts at being part of various communities have always been massive failures and have given me a visceral feeling of shame at the thought of entering community spaces.

I’ve said before that I don’t invest a lot of myself in casual relationships because developing meaningful relationships is too much emotional labor, and it hurts too much when they inevitably snuff out, so why bother?

I also just don’t expect people to care about me, which also makes me hesitate to put in much effort. It’s always been my experience that most people don’t give a flying fuck about me. Even when I put myself out there and make a tentative attempt to be a participant in something, even when I feel like I’m doing my best to be open and approachable, I get ignored. I’ve always been ignored. I’m used to it, but you know, the resentment still feels like a fucking hot cloud rolling around inside my chest.

And like, I know I’m super picky about the people I want to get close to, which is why I’m always hesitant and tentative in the beginning, because I’m just feeling things out before I think about getting serious. I don’t expect to be popular or to attract a lot of people with my stellar antisocial bitter attitude.

But it happens even when I’m trying to be friendly.

It’s not that I think I’m great and deserve to be the center of attention or anything like that, but when I barely get any notice whatsoever for years and years and years, it starts sinking in that I’m not worth even seeing.

So you know, fuck it, maybe I am just not worthy enough to be noticed. Maybe the things I say aren’t interesting enough. Maybe I’m not stimulating enough. Maybe I just don’t make a valuable enough member to be worth noticing. If that’s just the truth, then fine.

But it still fucking hurts.

I don’t want it to. I don’t want to care. There is part of me that’s relieved to not have to deal with social interaction and to not feel the pressure of talking to people and to be basically invisible (even when I try not to be). That’s a huge part of me. But dammit, there’s still a bitterness there.

I just don’t understand communities. I don’t understand how people decide who gets to be popular and who doesn’t. I’ve been observing online communities for a while now and I still don’t understand how the hierarchy forms, because I can’t figure out the common qualities of popular people and posts that make them popular. It all seems so random to me, so I don’t even know what I would have to do to become visible.

And maybe it’s better that way.

Maybe the bitterness and hurt I feel from being ignored isn’t as bad as the suffering I would experience at being thrust into an uncontrollable social environment. I wouldn’t know what to do if people started talking to me. I feel overwhelmed just imagining it.

So what the fuck am I supposed to do? Part of me wants to be seen and heard. Part of me wants to be cared about. Part of me wants to be a valuable contributor.

And then another part is the exact opposite.

Part of me wants to be invisible and ignored. Part of me wants to never have to talk to people. Part of me wants to be an outsider and a loner.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

I’ve tried having friends. I had a best friend who broke my heart. I have a friend who doesn’t prioritize me, which has caused me so much pain over the last two years that I wish I could just let them go, but I can’t. I had a friend who meant the world to me until they found a partner and then I felt like I became less important.

The person who has always been there for me my whole life is my mom. She has always been the reliable one in my life. But even she hasn’t been able to fill the emptiness I’ve felt because we don’t like the same things and we don’t have the same value systems.

And that’s why I invest so much in fictional characters. Fictional characters are reliable. They’re always there when I need them and they can feel and think the same way I do. I can love them and feel safe—I can love them because they feel safe. Real people disappoint and hurt me.

I’ve never expected to be prioritized by a lot of people. I never expected to be popular. I guess I just thought that if I was meant to be in a community, at least one of them would have felt right by now. One of them would have made me feel like I belonged and was wanted.

I don’t want people to feel bad for me, I’m not looking for pity (and if I was, I wouldn’t be writing a long ass post on my blog that no one reads on a platform where people have short attention spans). I’m just in one of those moods where I’m feeling bitter and frustrated from all the times that I’ve been pushed aside to make room for other priorities or just completely neglected.

I don’t want pity. I just want a space to fucking scream until my voice is raw.

But since I don’t have a space like that, I have to make do with writing down my thoughts here. And I’m sure it comes across as “cringey” emo whining, or whatever, but so what? First of all, there’s nothing wrong with being emo, and second of all, if it’s how I feel, it’s how I fucking feel.

I’m an outsider, but I’m even an outsider to the spaces for other outsiders.

And fine. Maybe that’s just the way it’s supposed to be. I’m sure I’ll feel better about it again soon.

[berniesrevolution]

IN THESE TIMES

When I ask Bernie Sanders about the surge of teachers’ strikes that swept the country earlier this year, he perks up, applauding the teachers’ display of working-class power. “The teachers may be the tip of the spear here,” he declares in his heavy Brooklyn accent.

In many ways, the strikes illustrate Sanders’ theory of political change. He has long insisted that the key to moving the country in a more progressive direction is to make ambitious demands and build movements capable of achieving them. Striking teachers in states from West Virginia to Arizona bucked the traditional tried-and-failed mechanisms for obtaining better pay and working conditions, and joined together by the tens of thousands to act. By withholding their labor, they won key demands.

At a time of staggering income inequality and stagnant wages, with unions facing an all-out assault from the Right, the teachers’ strikes have served as a rare bright spot for labor, proving that workers can still take on conservative politicians and their corporate backers. Now, with the Supreme Court’s Janus decision poised to bruise public-sector unions, Sanders is attempting to help revive the U.S. labor movement.

Over the spring, Sanders trekked across the country to stand with low-wage workers at corporations such as Disney and Amazon, spotlighting their efforts to win better treatment on the job. In May, he introduced the Workplace Democracy Act, a sweeping bill that would prevent employers from using certain anti-union tactics, make it easier for workers to unionize, and undo so-called right-to-work laws that drain unions of resources. The bill has secured support from almost a third of Senate Democrats, including prospective 2020 presidential contenders Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker.

In a sprawling interview with In These Times, Sanders discusses how unions can respond to Janus, the fight to move the Democratic Party left, the recent victories of democratic socialist candidates and why he believes the 2018 midterms are the most important of his lifetime.

Why do you see labor issues as a critical rallying point in 2018?

In my view, there is really no way the middle class in this country is going to grow unless we build the trade union movement. Virtually all of the power rests with employers and large corporations. Workers without unions are finding it very difficult to get the kind of wages and benefits that they need.

The statistics are very clear that workers in union companies are earning better wages and have far better benefits than nonunion workers. And the working people in this country know it. In overwhelming numbers, workers want to join unions.

But it is increasingly difficult for them to do so. That is because of the power of employers to intimidate workers, to threaten to move their companies away, and to fire workers who are trying to organize. So it is very, very difficult now for workers to have a union. That has got to change.

You named your bill the Workplace Democracy Act. Why do you think it’s important for workers to be able to practice more democracy on the job?

It’s an issue that we don’t talk about as a nation very much. Millions and millions of people are waking up in the morning and saying, “Oh God, I have to go to work and I hate my job. I feel exploited. I feel powerless. I feel like a cog in a machine.” If we believe in democracy, it’s not just voting every four years, or every two years—it’s about empowering your whole life and having more say in what you do all day.

Workers who are in a union have the ability to have their voices heard and to express their discontent in terms of working conditions. So unions empower ordinary people to have a little bit more control over their lives.

Less than 11 percent of Americans currently belong to unions, and since taking office, the Trump administration has been waging an all-out assault on workers' rights. Yet in recent months, teachers have gone on strike across the country. Polling shows that younger people have a more favorable opinion of unions than older Americans. Are you optimistic about the future of the labor movement?

Yes, I am. With these teachers’ strikes—especially those taking place in so-called conservative states like West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma—teachers have basically said, “Enough is enough.” We have to make sure that our kids get the educations that they need, that we attract good people into the teaching profession. Teachers almost spontaneously stood up and fought back and took on very right-wing legislatures. This was, I think, a very significant step forward.

The teachers may be the tip of the spear here, because you’ve got millions of people watching and saying, “Wait a minute, I work two or three jobs to make a living, 60 hours a week, and can’t afford to send my kids to college. Meanwhile, my employer is making 300 times what I make and he gets a huge tax break.”

I see an anger and a resentment among working families. They want an economy that rewards the work of ordinary people and doesn’t just allow the billionaires to get even richer. That’s what the teachers’ strikes are all about.

In terms of younger people, they’re looking at a nation where technology is exploding, where workers’ productivity has risen, and yet the average young person today has a lower standard of living than his or her parents. Younger people are saying, “What is going on? This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world—why am I still living at home? Why am I struggling to pay off my student debt 10 years after I graduated college? Why can’t I afford healthcare?” I think young people are smart enough to look around and say maybe we need unions to get the kinds of wages and benefits that working people are entitled to.

The Supreme Court’s Janus decision will spread right to work to the public sector nationwide. How can workers respond?

The Workplace Democracy Act would make it illegal for states to pass right-to-work legislation. The people of this country have a right to organize, they have a right to form trade unions, and it is not acceptable that states are denying them that right.

The Janus case is a very significant setback for the union movement. The Right is already trying to mobilize public employees to leave their unions. What we have to do is an enormous amount of organizing and educating to explain to workers: “You think you’re going to save a few bucks by not paying union dues, but in the long run you’re going to be a lot worse off when you don’t have a union negotiating a decent contract for you. If you want the benefits of that contract, you’ve got to pay your fair share of dues.”

Why do you think it’s important to highlight the plight of workers at Disney and Amazon?

In terms of Amazon, the CEO, Jeff Bezos, is the wealthiest person in the world right now. His wealth has increased in the first four months of this year by about $275 million a day. You got that? A day. That sort of astronomical number is hard to believe.

Amazon is doing phenomenally well, and yet you have thousands of employees in Amazon warehouses who are paid wages so low that the average taxpayer in this country has got to subsidize Amazon by providing them food stamps, or Medicaid, or publicly subsidized affordable housing. The taxpayers of this country should not have to subsidize a guy whose wealth is increasing by $275 million every single day. That is obscene and that is absurd. This speaks to the power of the people at the top who use their power to become even richer at the expense of working families.

With Disney, you have a corporation that made $9 billion in profit last year—a very, very profitable company. CEO Bob Iger recently reached an agreement for a $423 million, four-year compensation package. And yet he’s paying the workers in Disneyland—the people in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck costumes, the people who serve food, the people who collect the tickets and manage the rides—starvation wages. Eighty percent of the workers there make less than $15 an hour.

Living expenses are very high in Anaheim [where Disneyland is]. Many people cannot afford an apartment and are living in their cars. They don’t have enough money for food. So here you have a profitable corporation reaching an extraordinary compensation package for their CEO and paying starvation wages to their workers. These are the kind of issues that need to be highlighted.

Between 1978 and 2017, we've seen the union membership rate in the United States fall by more than half. Over this same period, the Democratic Party has taken a more corporate-oriented turn. In President Obama’s first term, Democrats were criticized for failing to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have enshrined card check, a feature of your bill. Do you think the Democratic Party establishment has been asleep at the wheel on protecting labor rights?

If your question is whether, for too many years, the Democratic Party has been paying more attention to corporate interests than the needs of working people, then the answer is yes. Ultimately, the fight is over the future of the party. The Democratic Party has got to decide, to quote Woody Guthrie, “Which side are you on?” You cannot be on the side of Wall Street and large profitable corporations and very wealthy campaign contributors while you’re claiming to be the party of working people. Nobody believes that. You can’t do both. And right now, the Democratic Party has got to decide which side it is on, and I’m doing everything that I can to make it the party of working people.

We need a party that has the guts to stand up to the 1% and to represent working families. I think it’s the right thing to do, and from a public policy point of view, I think it will make this a much better country—to put policies in place that end our high level of poverty, to address the fact that we’re the only major country not to guarantee healthcare, that we’re not being as strong as we should on climate change; that we haven’t made public colleges and universities tuition-free. Those are all ideas that will improve life in the United States of America. They’re also great political ideas.

You have worn the mantle of democratic socialist throughout your political career. Today we’re seeing socialism increase in popularity among younger people, and democratic socialists are winning local primaries and elections in states such as New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Montana. What do you think this shift means?

Our opponents can say, “Oh, democratic socialist, it’s radical, it’s fringe-y, it’s crazy.” But when you go issue by issue and you ask the American people what they think, they say, “Yeah, that makes sense.” For example, should the United States join every other major country and guarantee healthcare for all by moving toward Medicare for All? Is that a radical idea? No. Because healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Young people say, “Yeah, of course. That should be a right, yeah. My grandma is on Medicare, she likes it. Why can’t I get it?” Not a radical idea.

Today, in many respects, a college degree is as valuable as a high school degree was 50 years ago. So, when we talk about public education, it should be about making public colleges and universities tuition-free. Is that a radical idea? I don’t think so.

At a time when you have three people, including Jeff Bezos, who own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the American people, is it a radical idea to say that we should significantly raise taxes on the very wealthy and large profitable corporations? Not a radical idea. Rebuilding our infrastructure, creating millions of jobs. Not a radical idea. Immigration reform. Criminal justice reform. The vast majority of the American people support both those ideas.

We are managing to get these ideas out there. The ideas are catching on. And to young people especially, they make sense.

You recently introduced a Medicare for All bill with a historic number of co-sponsors. Why do you think so many Democrats are now jumping on board with universal, single-payer healthcare?

The overwhelming majority of Democratic voters now support Medicare for All. So if I'm running for office and I see a poll that shows that 70 or 80 percent of people say that we should have Medicare for All, I don't have to be the bravest guy in the room to say I think I'm going to make that part of my program.

And by the way, you've got many Republicans today who benefit from Medicare, and their sons and daughters are saying, “My dad has Medicare; I'd like it as well.” So you have the majority of Americans and the overwhelming majority of Democrats now supporting it, so for many candidates it simply becomes common sense and good politics.

(Continue Reading)

[projectalbum]

All the best. 200. “Accelerate,” 201. “Collapse Into Now,” 202. “Unplugged 1991/2001: The Complete Sessions” by R.E.M.

After exhaustive touring, a greatest hits disc, and a dud album, the lovable lads from Athens, R.E.M., wisely took some time to figure things out before regrouping.

The four-year absence didn’t register with me, as I was collecting the back catalogue during that break. As far as I was concerned, new material was everywhere I looked, filling up my burgeoning record collection as I finished high school and started making my way through college. By the time Accelerate (#200) burst onto the scene in March 2008, I was a junior in film school, about to attend my first documentary festival. I put aside an extra $15 from my work study job to pick up the CD the day of release— the first time I’d been able to perform that record store* ritual for my favorite band. *(Though I didn’t have access to any record stores at the time, so it was likely procured from the closest Wal-Mart.) 

Fast, lean, gritty, produced by a guy who goes by “Jacknife,” this set of songs could not be more of a deliberate course-correction from the overly fussy, mid-tempo Around The Sun. Peter Buck’s skills on the axe, often mixed way down on the previous album, here announce Accelerate's punk-ish purpose in the intro to “Living Well is the Best Revenge,” leading off with a dexterous riff before the drums come trampling in. Stipe spits furiously, with the best use of his full-throated tenor since New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and the rare bar to inspire a Fuck Yeah fist-pump: "Don't set your talking points on me / History will set me free / The future's ours and you don't even rate a footnote.” Recorded and released in the tail-end of the Bush years, there are unmistakable references, drawn in anger and in weariness, to the emotional tolls of that reign.

“If the storm doesn’t kill me, the government will,” Stipe muses at the top of “Houston,” a hair over 2 minutes but suffused with poignancy. It’s an acoustically-driven Western-tinged ballad that hearkens back to “Swan Swan H” or “Monty Got A Raw Deal,” but here the drums are splashy and blown-out, the organ serves a bleating counterpoint to the vocal, and bowed electric guitar bleeds through into the verses, serious as storm clouds. The intriguing production choices are what mark it as the Accelerate twist on familiar R.E.M. tropes. The chorus: “Houston is filled with promise / Laredo's a beautiful place / Galveston sings like that song that I love / Its meaning has not been erased” is stirring, as if to absolve the Lone Star state for spawning the political dynasty that led to 2 disastrous presidencies. "Belief has not filled me / And so I am put to the test” are the last words before distortion drowns out the melody like a fatal wave. The song has never left my head.

“Until The Day Is Done” is a more familiar flavor of the band’s earnest political identity— it even ended up scoring a CNN-produced piece on environmental issues. The lyrics approach the first two verses of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” in reflecting a distressing capitalist landscape, and to read them is to find that the “business-first flat earthers” have only doubled-down in the decade since the song was released. But the lack of idiosyncrasies leaves us with a folky protest song, and it has a tendency to become oatmeal to the ear, nestled amongst the bolder sonic moments.

By which I mean the muscular guitar sounds and fast n’ furious arrangements on tracks like “Man-Sized Wreath,” “Accelerate,” “Horse To Water”— the revitalized band blowing up the electronic, art school solemnity of the preceding Bill Berry-less records. I remember I once put on Accelerate during a day of recording drive-by b-roll footage with some new coworkers, who enthused, “We were a little worried when you said you were gonna play R.E.M…. but this is really good!” I just glided past the implied criticism and took the positive note.

In early 2011, songs for their follow-up began to be released on YouTube and rolled out by the pop culture press. I’ll admit I was underwhelmed by what I heard. Accelerate’s novelty, its flouting of the band’s cliches, had me expecting another quantum leap in a wild direction. Collapse Into Now (#201) was feeling more like a greatest hits mashup.

“Discoverer” at times sounds like an interpolation of “Man-Sized Wreath” (compare the chorus of the former to the verses of the latter.) That exultant wordless harmonizing on “It Happened Today” is straight from “Belong” on Out of Time (plus special guest Eddie Vedder.) “Blue,” the closing track, takes equal parts New Adventures’ “E-Bow The Letter” (dark grinding minor key, Beat poetry, plus Patti Smith-voiced chorus) and Out of Time's “Country Feedback” (the chords sound similar, and the aching Peter Buck solo is back). I’d never before been able to identify the sonic inspirations so easily. However, for all my creeping dissatisfaction, as a true fanboy I knew the record would grow on me. The prophecy was indeed fulfilled.

The song that most represented the sound of a modern-day R.E.M. was “Mine Smell Like Honey.” It was unmistakably them, with the inscrutable lyrics, Michael in gravel-throated rock mode, a Mike Mills vocal harmony line designed to carry its own trajectory while lifting up the chorus, Buck with an indelible riff that doesn’t show off for its own sake— but it would fit right on modern rock radio in 2011, if that still existed. I had another one of my Best Buy PA system epiphanies, clicking this track into place, proving sometimes you need some huge speakers with good bass to truly experience certain songs. In a similar mode, “That Someone Is You” rockets by in under 2 minutes; a live-in-the-room ode to the feeling of meeting that exciting new person who'll lift you out of the mud. 

The mid-tempo balladry is back as well, diversifying the sound from the previous release. In “Oh My Heart,” a direct sequel to “Houston,” Stipe croons a New Orleans spiritual with "a new take on faith," while Buck's mandolin comes out of retirement for another sweet, sad melody, and Mills fills in the mournful choir. As with the song’s predecessor, it’s a high-point in the track listing that moves me whenever I hear it.

Before I had warmed to Collapse Into Now, I comforted myself with the idea that New LP equaled New Tour. I could finally catch my favorite band live! They told the press they had no plans to tour behind the record. Odd, but they were an institution, so they could take a pause. I’d recently witnessed Paul McCartney tearing through his hits in person, and he’d already blown past age 64. Then in September 2011, R.E.M. announced they had decided to “call it a day as a band”— a phrase designed to wave away the idea of Beatles-esque acrimony. I was, you can probably imagine, more than a little heartbroken. The previous tour had come within 2-and-a-half hours of my town back in ’08. At that point in my life, that seemed like a hassle: why not wait, see if they made it a little closer next time? Now, I wish I had put in the extra effort.

With this announcement, the sense of Collapse as R.E.M.’s tribute album to themselves came into focus. Stipe is even waving goodbye, for god’s sake, on the first album cover photo to clearly feature the faces of the whole band since 1985’s Fables of the Reconstruction. "It's just like me to overstay my welcome, bless” he sings with sheepish glee on “All The Best.” Shrouded by the spirit-radio-filtered effect of his “Blue” recitation comes his clearest statement of purpose: "I want Whitman proud. Patti Lee proud. My brothers proud. My sisters proud. I want me. I want it all,” and then Patti Lee (Smith), one of his earliest lead singer inspirations, draws the narrative to a close… before the ringing jangle of opener “Discoverer” reprises and concludes. The book’s been closed shut… but the story of the band’s music continues.

There was the inevitable plundering of the vaults. An over-arching Best Of record, finally combining songs from the I.R.S. and WB catalogues (didn’t buy it), with 3 brand new recordings (they’re ok). Two digital-only “Complete Rarities” collections, encompassing hours of b-sides and soundtrack cuts (lotta great stuff, but this week WB removed all of theirs from Spotify, so I’m pretty perturbed).

In 2014, 3 years into my mourning period, they announced Unplugged 1991/2001 (#202), a 2-CD set of their appearances on the MTV show where bands play intimate, stripped-down acoustic sets… you know, in front of multiple TV cameras capturing every angle. Now this got me excited, maybe more than I had been for their swan song record— Bob Dylan Unplugged, Paul McCartney Unplugged, and The Unplugged Collection Vol. 1 had all got a lot of play in my home through the years. Other than my favorite version of “Half A World Away” closing out the Vol. 1 compilation, and a burned, hand-labeled CD-R I had once glimpsed on a coffee table during a realtor’s house tour, recordings of R.E.M.’s appearance on the show didn’t seem to exist until now. I pre-ordered that bad boy.

The set is a snapshot of two very different eras for the band: Disc 1 features them on the cusp of superstardom fueled by Out Of Time’s success, with the classic lineup of Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe and support from Peter Holsapple. Disc 2 finds them down to a three-piece, supporting Reveal, a record that never got its due, with their frequent contributors Scott McCaughey and Joey Waronker filling out the sound. “Losing My Religion” is on both discs, of course, from the bright new hit that pumps up the crowd to a warmly-recieved old friend.

The treat in hearing these shows is also two-fold. There’s the way that familiar tunes get adapted to the setting: “It’s The End of the World...” is transformed into a Friday night Americana hoe-down, while “The One I Love” is slowed down to a gritty lament with a slightly varied vocal melody. After the 2nd chorus and an instrumental bridge in “Country Feedback,” Stipe folds lines from Dylan's “Like A Rolling Stone” into the tune, a goosebump-inspiring moment.

Then there’s the added benefit of songs that I’d once slept on revealing their power in the live arrangements. The 2001 show closes with several tracks from Reveal, and free of all electronic touches, the choruses of “Disappear” and “Beat A Drum,” well, revealed themselves to me, becoming new earworms and spawning a personal reevaluation of the album. “Find The River” had once been a pleasant-enough closer on Automatic For The People, but a step down from the iconic “Nightswimming” that precedes it. Now it’s a new favorite, and I’m prone to singing it loud with embarrassing over-earnestness.

With the band truly well and dissolved (and no cynical cash-grab “reunion tours” planned, those damn jerks and their integrity), the repackaging of older material is the only avenue left for unheard R.E.M. music. The studio albums are greeting their landmark anniversaries with special editions: Automatic’s 25th was recently celebrated with various configurations of physical release, including one with a disc of demos and a 5.1 surround sound Blu-ray that I WILL possess one day, damnit! Just this week, their social media team announced a sprawling set of BBC sessions and interviews, hopefully to be made available on streaming services in addition to the fancy 9-disc set (I know, sacrilege in my blog about physical media, but space is at a premium and I haven’t even COVERED the live DVDs and music video collections I already have of these guys).

There’s even a podcast exclusively about the band! The exceedingly silly interplay between Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott was enough to get me to listen to several eps of their previous U2-centric show (a band that I’m fairly positive towards), so "R U Talkin’ R.E.M. RE: ME?,” in which they go album-by-album through the discography, was appointment listening from the jump. I couldn’t help but sprinkle inside jokes from the podcast into my first entry. Fuckin’ stoked!

It’s hard to articulate how much R.E.M.’s music has meant to me. There’s undeniable power in finding art when you’re young and unsteady. To ally yourself with a favorite band, especially one that clearly creates from a place of conscience and empathy, is to find a solid stone floor that supports you when you’re at your most weighted down. It’s easy for me to hold onto nearly 2 dozen discs because there’s so much variety. They could uplift, interrogate the status quo, offer humor or succor or an outlet for the uncertainty we struggle with. Michael Stipe sang about identity, queerness, nature, hypocrisy, anger, tenderness, artists, politicians, outsiders, expressive freedom, and quiet contemplation. These lyrics came from what he saw and felt but they were conjured by the instrumentals constructed by Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and for years Bill Berry. Jangle-rock or country-western or chamber pop or folk or glam or electronica— they busted through genres with grace and power; immutability was not an option. They couldn’t finish a record until Michael had the words; Michael had their blueprint on tape to fill his ears until the images flowed.

“Here’s a little agit for the never believer / Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah / Here’s a little ghost for the offering,” Stipe sang in his 11th hour, one-take performance of “Man On The Moon.” Now I offer a 20-song Document of the R.E.M. songs that mean the most to me at this moment. It nearly killed me to whittle it down, and your favorite probably isn’t on it. The song I just quoted isn’t even on it! But that’s the power of R.E.M., where the subjective experience rules all.

[jamesstegall]

Afghanistan’s looming cash crisis threatens to worsen a humanitarian disaster

Afghanistan’s banking system is in a state of collapse, and people throughout the country are running out money. And this cash crisis—partly due to the international community’s efforts to starve the Taliban of resources—is having an outsized effect on everyday Afghan citizens, leaving many without access to important services as the UN warns of a growing humanitarian disaster.

Asef Khademi, who was previously working to modernize the country’s financial systems, is one of the many people now hiding in Kabul who wants to leave Afghanistan, but his hope is waning fast. 

“I’m just knocking on every door, just sending emails to everyone to see if I can get out of this country,” he says.

Khademi is afraid because for the last three and a half years he has been working for an internationally-funded project to bring digital currency and banking into people’s lives. Afghanistan Payments System, or APS, was founded in 2011, funded by the World Bank, and became part of the Central Bank of Afghanistan two years ago. 

It was an important project: the Afghan economy runs on cash, and only an estimated 10 to 15% of citizens have a bank account. APS was meant to help Afghanistan become less cash-dependent, make economic transactions more secure and efficient, and bring real banking to more people. And, says Khademi, it was moving fast before the US withdrew its forces and the Taliban took over.

Now, though, as chaos continues to unfold in Afghanistan, the project has stopped, and cash is running out before any viable alternatives have been put in place. 

But a different outcome was within reach, Khademi says: Afghanistan was perhaps just a year or two away from having a 21st-century digital banking infrastructure that could cope even if cash disappeared. His team was “very committed and hardworking”, he says, regularly working up to 17-hour days to support rapid growth. They were “so passionate about the economy to be standing on its own.” 

“We were hoping our efforts would pay off,” he says, through tears. “It seems like everything was in vain, everything we have done. It seems like a dream, but now it’s never going to come true.”

Frozen assets

The cash crisis is not an accident. Most of the previous Afghan government’s assets were held in offshore accounts that have since been frozen to prevent the Taliban from gaining access, according to former Central Bank governor Ajmal Ahmady. And the US has chosen to prevent the Taliban—which is on the Treasury Department’s sanctions list—from getting hold of other funds by freezing Afghan government cash reserves and halting planned shipments of cash. Many Afghans have been expecting such a situation for weeks, with long lines at banks as citizens worried about the future drained them of cash.

ATM activity went through the roof. “Friends [who work in banks] said where they normally did hundreds of transactions per day, they were doing thousands,” says Ruchi Kumar, a journalist and contributor to MIT Technology Review who worked in Kabul for eight years but fled the country recently.

The problems caused by the lack of cash are building up. US dollars are becoming increasingly scarce, the value of Afghan cash is plummeting and, according to Khademi, the price of basic goods is skyrocketing. Cash remains in circulation—Afghanistan has a sizeable informal banking system, run though local unlicensed currency traders. Sources say that they are still operating, but without banking activity, money supply will soon run tight. 

Some outsiders are trying to fill the gap by running online fundraising campaigns, while others have even suggested that cryptocurrency could step into the void. 

But getting money into the country from outside has become more difficult. Western Union, the world’s largest money transfer company, has suspended services in Afghanistan, and NBC reports that MoneyGram has halted operations there too. Meanwhile some foreign crowdfunding websites, such as GoFundMe, have been accused of “disingenuous” behavior after blocking some fundraising efforts for the country while letting others proceed.

“I didn’t think this day would come”

While digital alternatives have largely failed to fill the gap left by the cash collapse, there have been some windows of opportunity for alternative services to help out.

Kumar, the journalist, says that vulnerable Afghans are using services like WasalPay—an online payment system for utility bills—to keep their phone credit topped up.

She’s using it to send money that people in distress can use to stay connected. Her network includes journalists, activists, and human rights defenders; they are able to use WasalPay to access funds coming from outside the country, whether from individual donations and contributions, or from larger sources such as the International Women’s Media Foundation. 

Many of the recipients, she says, are indoors, in hiding, with little but their phones and the clothes on their backs. The money helps ensure they can keep in touch with their families, but it also gives them a shot at getting a plane out of Afghanistan. 

“They are trying to leave the country, and they’re waiting for someone to say it’s time to leave and go to the airport,” Kumar says. Women—especially single women who work—are especially at risk. “They cannot leave their homes, especially if they know they are on the Taliban’s target list. So we are trying to facilitate phone credits remotely.”

Kumar says she is inundated with requests: she has made 140 payments so far and already has requests for another 40.

Sher Shah Rahim, the CEO of WasalPay, says that he’s had to shutter some of his other businesses—including KabulReads, Afghanistan’s first online bookstore—over safety concerns. But he’s committed to keeping WasalPay going until at least December, given that it has become essential for some. It’s not easy, though.

“As a company, I have no cash on me because I didn’t think this day would come,” he says. “I had all my money in the banks, and the banks are closed.”

Looming chaos

All these efforts are a race against time, however. With the exit of international forces and media planned for the end of August, the situation could worsen considerably. After that point, it will become much harder for people to flee. 

“They’re already secretly cracking down at night time, going to peoples’ houses to search for them,” says Kumar. “But they will crack down much more after the 31st. They’re even texting people threats saying that.” 

“They might just destroy it. They might just burn all of these technologies.”

As with so much in Afghanistan right now, the broader financial situation is chaotic and hugely uncertain. The value of the afghani, the country’s currency, has plummeted, and it’s unlikely to stabilize for some time, according to Thomas Groll, an economist at Columbia University. 

For now, many Afghans will be forced to rely on any cash reserves, local currency traders or bartering to get the goods they need, Groll says. 

Local entrepreneurs are worried for their own safety and that of their families. Khademi has lost many family members, including his father, to Taliban attacks in the past. Rahim, meanwhile, plans to wait and see what Taliban rule is like, although he’s shutting down his office and orchestrating remote work set-ups for his 18 employees. 

But beyond worrying about their immediate safety, they also see a wasted opportunity to build a genuine future.

“Everybody relies 100% on cash, and this was about to change,” says Rahim. “[APS] finally succeeded bringing digital banking to Afghanistan, but as soon as they launched and began to start walking from crawling, the Taliban came and everything basically turned into dust.”

Khademi, meanwhile, isn’t sure what happens next. “I’ve worked so hard to become who I am today, to reach the level I am at today,” he says. “I don’t want to lose it all at once.”

He’s heard rumors that banks will be open next week, and he thinks the Taliban could even decide to continue the project. But he also thinks that it could be shut down. “They might just destroy it,” he says. “They might just burn all of these technologies. Who knows?”

from MIT Technology Review https://ift.tt/3mhj2Ue via IFTTT

[skystustainability]

FOOD

First, I’ll talk about the part of Food, Inc. that had the biggest impact on me.

(Cover of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle) https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/98aqt2tq9780252014802.html

Food, Inc. is a powerful documentary with a lot to say, so if anyone who reads this hasn't seen it, I recommend you do. The part that shocked me the most was the part about worker exploitation. As they discussed and showed scenes of exploitation in the industry today, I immediately thought of the book The Jungle. The Jungle illustrates the meat packer working conditions at the time and how immigrants were forced into these jobs, which were low-paying and dangerous. When I read The Jungle, my one comfort was “At least this doesn’t happen anymore.” I was wrong.

Food, Inc. showed me that history is repeating itself. The conditions are the same as in 1906! (That’s when The Jungle was written.) Migrant workers are exploited in the meat industry. Companies know they can take advantage of these desperate people, so they recruit them intentionally. The workers are given extremely dangerous tasks and are paid next to nothing for doing it. And when the government finds out they’re here illegally, who do they punish? The workers!

Now we will shift to quotes from Sustainability Principles and Practice.

(Illustration implying GMOs are environmentally friendly) https://massivesci.com/articles/gmo-excerpt-environmental-damage/

“A major criticism of genetic engineering is the potential for genetic pollution… Other critics are concerned about threats to food sovereignty, with the potential for a few very large agribusiness corporations to dominate the world food supply.”

This quote points out two concerns about genetically modified organisms as crops. These are very important concerns that need to be addressed, but I am not very anti-GMO. Genetic pollution is important to consider because it may decrease biodiversity, but according to some studies, it actually is better for biodiversity. This is because GMOs allow for less pesticides, which means less pollution by pesticides.

(sources for my argument here ^ can be found in this article https://massivesci.com/articles/gmo-excerpt-environmental-damage/)

I also argue for GMO crops because of the impact they can have reducing world hunger. GMO crops survive better, can use less water, and put out more food. These are all important factors for growing food in places that struggle to produce enough for the population. I would love to see more GMOs engineered specifically with solutions to hunger in mind.

One last thing I’d like to acknowledge is the last part of that quote. Corporations monopolizing the food supply is terrible. I do not support that and believe it is a real problem that needs to be addressed immediately.

“Agriculture is responsible for 30 to 35 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted globally (Foley et al. 2011, 338), more than all transportation or all power plants (Sachs 2015, 339).”

I knew that our food is a huge contributor to our carbon footprint, but I had no idea it was that bad. 30-35% is an insane number to me. It is shocking and horrifying. To me, that says we need radical change in the industry. We should be striving to change as much of the industry to renewable energy as possible.

Sources:

Food Inc. Directed by Robert Kenner, 2008. 

Giovannetti, Marco. "GMOs Are Better for the Environment Than You'd Think." Massive Science, 1 Aug. 2018, massivesci.com/articles/gmo-excerpt-environmental-damage/.

Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Taylor & Francis, 2017.