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It’s so funny when ur on YouTube and you see a comment from yourself months or years ago and you’re like “hey look, it’s past me!”

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o7 Good Night Oppy

gosh but like we spent hundreds of years looking up at the stars and wondering “is there anybody out there” and hoping and guessing and imagining

because we as a species were so lonely and we wanted friends so bad, we wanted to meet other species and we wanted to talk to them and we wanted to learn from them and to stop being the only people in the universe

and we started realizing that things were maybe not going so good for us– we got scared that we were going to blow each other up, we got scared that we were going to break our planet permanently, we got scared that in a hundred years we were all going to be dead and gone and even if there were other people out there, we’d never get to meet them

and then

we built robots?

and we gave them names and we gave them brains made out of silicon and we pretended they were people and we told them hey you wanna go exploring, and of course they did, because we had made them in our own image

and maybe in a hundred years we won’t be around any more, maybe yeah the planet will be a mess and we’ll all be dead, and if other people come from the stars we won’t be around to meet them and say hi! how are you! we’re people, too! you’re not alone any more!, maybe we’ll be gone

but we built robots, who have beat-up hulls and metal brains, and who have names; and if the other people come and say, who were these people? what were they like?

the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.

and they told us to tell you hello.

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Nothing In Our Way: Costuming “Allegiance”

It seems like every time I get an Ask, the musical finds its way to the top of my queue of shows to review. That’s fine by me! Today, I’m going to take a look at some of the costumes from the Broadway musical Allegiance, which had a short run on Broadway but lives on in the cultural conscience thanks to two cinematic productions. The costumes are rich and varied, and I think that looking at them offers a nice complement and contrast to the Bandstand costumes I reviewed early on in this blog’s existence.

First, a little bit of background. Allegiance is a musical that attempts to illuminate a tragic chapter of American history through the beauty of the stage musical. Based on the memories and life of actor and internet hero George Takei, it focuses on the experiences of Japanese-Americans who were interned during the Second World War, detained without charge or reason simply because of their Japanese ancestry. Some were Japanese immigrants to the United States, but many, like Mr. Takei, were born and raised right here in the U.S. Their story is tragic, but there is a kind of optimism that infuses the musical: the goal is not merely to inform the public about the terribleness of the internment camps, but to enable a dialogue and a reconciliation regarding one of the saddest chapters in our history. I really do recommend that you check it out if you haven’t had a chance; the music and lyrics are memorable and powerful in 1940s style, and the passion the cast has for their roles is blindingly apparent.

Allegiance is also the first major musical on Broadway to feature a predominantly Asian cast without resorting to tropes and stereotypes. Chief amongst their cast is powerhouse Lea Salonga, who was the first-ever Asian woman to win a Tony Award for acting and is a groundbreaker in so many ways. Mr Takei himself also takes the stage as the man whose memories inform the plot, and the supporting cast is skilled beyond measure.

The costumes themselves are fascinating, and the main thrust of today’s review and discussion now that I’ve offered a little bit of an entrée into the musical itself. Costume designer Alejo Vietti, best known for his work on Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, created some gorgeous pieces that absolutely fit the 1940s aesthetic of the musical. Rarely for me, I’m going to offer some commentary on both the women’s and men’s costumes this time around because I think they deserve to be considered together. Let’s take a look:

This still offers us a good starting point for looking at Mr Vietti’s costume design. Ms Salonga’s character, Kei Kimura, is seen speaking with her grandfather in this scene, played by Mr Takei. Her dress is vibrant and patterned with a kind of geometric design, with some additional detail work along the collar of the dress itself. When I look at the dress, the first thing that sticks out is that it’s functional rather than designed to be “sexy” or enhance attractiveness. That’s a hallmark of early 1940s and wartime design. Aside from couture, fashion for the masses was designed to be usable and without much in the way of adornment, allowing whatever pattern was chosen for the fabric to do much of the work. What I like about this dress is that the green-over-red feels a bit symbolic to me. I look at the pattern and I see blades of grass that have been cut down and are drifting in the wind, all over a dramatic red background. That feels to me like a good metaphor for internment itself: these people were uprooted and scattered amidst a background of war and fear. I’m not 100% sure that was Mr Vietti’s intent, but it’s one that I think can be easily read-in.

Contrast that with Mr Takei’s costume in this scene. While costuming men is often a more simple affair, here the sweater offers a stoic and staid look. This is an older gentleman, confounded by the conditions in which he has been placed, but not modifying his outlook in the slightest. The sweater is a simple design, with a gray-blue plaid, blue sleeves, and a blue hem. It’s dark to fit the tone of the musical, but also shows a pride of appearance for the character himself. In contrast to Kei, Ojii-Chan (George Takei) is somber and more conservative, a relic of another generation. The costuming choice made by Mr Vietti accounts for that, and it’s a nice touch.

Part of the theme of the trauma of internment comes from the fact that these were everyday Americans uprooted under spurious pretenses, but who complied because they were told to by a government they still felt some measure of loyalty to. That comes out in some of the costume choices that concern the move towards the internment camps themselves:

Mr Vietti has gone the historically accurate route here. When Japanese-Americans were interned, they treated it with dignity that, frankly, I doubt most Americans could muster today. They put on their traveling clothes, as seen here, and complied peacefully; they may not have had the choice, but the compliance and willingness to trust this was a temporary horror is one of the things that I think makes their story one of true bravery. Here, we see the Kimura family on their way to internment and they’re dressed as…if they were going on a family vacation. Ms Salonga’s dress and coat are immaculate in a beautiful shade of brown (for the coat) and purple (for the underlying dress). Mr Takei (sporting the tag that internment victims were required to have on their clothing during the transit process) is in muted shades again, this time with a more functional jacket than the sweater in the previous still. Telly Leung (as Sam Kimura) is dressed as your average young man in the 1940s would be dressed, right down to the athletic, letterman-style jacket in shades of blue and gray.

I haven’t talked much about color palates on the blog, but I’ll throw a quick comment out here. Ms Salonga has the softest palate, with complementary colors that come together to make for a visually appealing look. Mr Takei is a much more stark palate, with grays and blacks predominating to add to the feeling of betrayal and bewilderment that his character no doubt feels at this moment. Mr Leung’s wardrobe, on the other hand, mixes the two previous palates: the beautiful blue contrasts with the starkness of the gray, giving some sense of mixed feelings and mixed emotions from the character–and that’s definitely an interesting thing to behold.

This is not a musical that lacks for color, either; take a look at this scene from a dance held at the internment camp where the Kimura family is forced to reside:

I absolutely love these costumes because they infuse a musical that is dark in tone and theme with some vibrancy and really stand out. People had to make their own light in the darkness, to borrow a cliched phrase, and one of the ways to do that was by continuing to dress as they might have when they were free Americans. The dresses on each of the women are bright and lively, and the patterns add a sense of fun and whimsy to the scene. That was absolutely an intentional decision on the part of the costume designer. Notice the starkness of the scene and set design, with the foreboding structure of the camp as the background. But this is a dance, a social event put on by the community that formed within the camp itself. When you are in the worst of circumstances, sometimes you try and build a little joy into it, and that’s not a bad thing to do in order to cope with tragedy.

The purple family predominates in this still and in these dresses. There are reddish-purples, a violet, and even a darker purple, all of which bring out the festive nature of the scene itself. The men are costumed in relatively formal attire, vests and sport coats and formal slacks, and it really adds to the scene itself. This is one of those areas where costuming can really change a production. These are people trying to inject some enjoyment and normality into a daily life that is anything but normal. The clothes they wear help to put them in the right frame of mind to do just that.

As I always do with my full musical reviews, I want to look at a couple of the leading lady’s costumes in a bit more detail. Lea Salonga is (personal opinion!) one of the prettiest women to grace the Broadway stage, and brings with that beauty a sense of gravity and dignity that not every actress is capable of bringing to a role; in that sense, I would put her in a category with greats like Audra McDonald or Bernadette Peters. Mr Vietti clearly had his work cut out for him in constructing and designing costumes to fit the actress’ talent and skill, and I think that he succeeded. Let’s take a closer look:

This is one of the chief promotional images for the musical, and the costume is classic 1940s design. Ms Salonga is outfitted in a plain, navy blue skirt that is formed by straight lines and rests close to her legs without being form-fitting. The blouse itself is a cream color that contrasts nicely, with a series of brown buttons in the front that match the simple, thin brown belt at the waist. But it’s the pattern on the blouse that I find most attractive. A series of small, even dainty blue flowers is replicated throughout the blouse, with even smaller flowers throughout the collar.

I really like the look of this, and one of the metrics I use for “everyday” costumes is whether or not I can envision women I know who lived through the era of a musical being able to pluck it out of their closet. This design by Mr Vietti definitely fits that standard to a T. I could very easily see my grandmother wearing an outfit like this, especially in her early working days. It’s feminine without being saccharine, it’s functional without being unpleasant to look at, and it’s professional without being boring. Those are not easy needles to thread!

Before I close the review, there is one more costume Ms Salonga wears that I want to take a look at. It’s the one she wears for her closing number and for her bows, and it returns to the purple family that I mentioned earlier. Plum is not a color that I associate with being used overly much on Broadway, and so that makes it all the more special here:

The color alone is visually stunning, and even in a lineup for bows, it stands out in all the right ways. It’s dark, it’s sumptuous, and it’s rich. The fabric itself is almost satiny, and it flows in a way that many of the costumes in this particular production were not designed to do, adding an element to its uniqueness. But it’s the jacket that goes as the top of this dress that really makes me enjoy and admire the costume. There’s an element of power and agency that it brings to the character and to Ms Salonga that many of the other costumes have not, despite being beautifully designed. This jacket feels like a more feminine, very early version of some of the power suit designs that I have reviewed for other productions.

The cut of the jacket is smooth and elegant, and the triple buttons are large and impressive, acting as a kind of adornment to the jacket itself. There is also a little bit of detail work–just a hint–on the shoulders to the side of the lapels. That’s a neat addition that helps this costume to pop a little bit more, and it makes it easily my favorite entry in Ms Salonga’s Allegiance wardrobe.

On the whole, I like the costume designs Mr Vietti put out for Allegiance. They’re classic and fit the time period really well, and because it’s an original musical, he has set the tone for any future productions or revivals should they occur. I think it’s a pity that the musical did not last longer on Broadway, but I am hopeful that L.A. audiences (who may have a stronger emotional pull to the subject of the musical) will appreciate it the way that its East Coast fans do, and that a national tour will be in the offing at some point. This is an important musical, with important and beautiful costumes, and I really enjoyed having the opportunity to review it.

That wraps up my review of Allegiance, which I was very happy to have jump the queue. Remember: if you have a favorite musical you want me to take a look at, feel free to pop a suggestion in the Ask box or send me a message here or on my main account. I can’t make guarantees, but so far I’ve been able to hit a few fan and reader favorites and I will always try my best!

Stay tuned for more costume reviews towards the weekend, dear readers!

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love it when a scrawny gay villain has a scrawnier, gayer sidekick hovering at their shoulder. sopping wet queer solidarity

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My favorite sci-fi thing I've ever thought of is something I'd like to call Humans Are Space Ants. Basically, humans enter the larger universe and find that all other intelligent life are practically gods. The thing is, though, humanity's exploitation of physics has gotten so out of hand that they are on equal footing.

Important to remember, the aliens are far, far beyond us. Their understanding of the universe is much deeper, their power is far greater, but we just fuck around with existence harder than any other being has the lack of sense to. And it has had extremely potent results.

Although humanity's standing up to a civilization of a billion literal Cthulus, they're winning. They will eventually codify eldritch knowledge in a way they can understand.

Imagine if ants developed music partly on accident by just doing math about it. You would be so confused as to how they even did that. But they did. And then the next time you go out into your yard you hear the objective single best piece of music you have ever heard, and it's about the ants asking you to stop poisoning their nests before they teleport into your brain and kill you. And they figured out how to teleport using the music. Somehow. Even ignoring the fact they can teleport with music, how could they have composed the greatest song to ever be? they don't even fullly get it!

Basically, eldritch gods watching humanity's bullshit with confounded outrage. I should probably write about this at some point, it seems pretty damn funny/cool

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So last night I dreamt a tumblr post that was really popular. It went something like this:

“Be gay do crime.”

“Be gay do *time*”

“Be gay do **slime**”

and was just getting progressively weirder

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Man ppl really don’t want to say

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

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This might be stupid but I just realized this

I don’t have to only brush my teeth at bedtime

I can do it whenever I feel like it

Same with showering

I’m just so used to doing it then that I hadn’t thought about doing it at other times

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Lol

Causality sucks

Human pops into existence

Human to random alien: "Time travel is bullshit. Here, give this to younger me."

Human pops out of existence

Alien: *shrugs* "Just another Human thing. At least this one wasn't covered in ooze."

Alien continues with their day, eventually bumping into the Younger Human.

A: "Oh hey! Older you said to give this to you. He said time travel is ox feces."

YH: "Bullshit. You need to update that auto-translator with context sensitive swears. Also, this is cursive, I can't read any of this."

A: *shrugs* "Future you didn't say anything else before disappearing."

H: *realization* "Wait... how old did I look?"

A: "Your upper body hair was in the late stage of 'male-pattern baldness'"

H: "Fuck. And it's set in stone now since I told you already.... FUCK! You mean I gotta spend like 30 years decoding my shitty handwriting? Time travel really is bullshit. Goddamn causality and continuity or whatever the fuck it is..."

A: *shrugs*

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when I was around twelve I used to sit at the family computer and send hatemail to a white french dude named Jacques who was a self proclaimed communist on Tumblr. This was back in the day when you didn't need a blog to send anon hate. I had no real beef with him but I just didn't like his tone. used to send him "SHUT UP Jacques" periodically. and he'd answer every single one of my asks like "who is this?? show your face or I'll fucking kill you" and I'd be like "now now, that doesn't make sense, jacques" all haughty and he'd get so fucking mad at me. One time he posted a selfie and I sent him an ask claiming I was a psychologist and that his hair parting suggested that he wasn't a communist at all. and he took it deliriously serious and went off on a 2,000 word rant. I can remember going to stay at my grandparents over that weekend, so I didn't even respond to the rant until I came back. I could've chosen to end it there, but when I returned, I sent him another ask which was like "psychologist here again: if you were a communist your hair parting would be in the middle. evenly distributed. All behavioural signs point to someone who doesn't take their own values seriously." and he went ballistic. really swearing at me. all caps type beat. he never turned the asks off, btw. which always made me wonder if he didn't know how to, or if he didn't want to cause he was convinced he was fighting a war, and this action would ensure he lost it. anyway this went on for weeks until one day I completely forgot about him like he was some kind of childhood imaginary friend I'd conjured up in my loneliness. but yesterday I happened to recall the whole scenario, because my buddy was like "remember when you were twelve and I came over to your house, and you showed me on the computer how you'd been terrorizing this random French guy for days on end. And you were laughing like fucking crazy. and I said it wasn't funny because he probably had problems, and you were like 'oh.' and you looked a bit guilty for a second, but then you went and got a grapefruit from the kitchen and threw it out of the second story window at my kid brother, who was playing in the street, and then you started laughing again?" Well. when she put it like that, needless to say I felt bad. so Jacques if you're out there I'm sorry I was such a little shit. you had totally normal hair, and you only wanted people to share stuff. If it's any consolation I know every day of my life that I'm probably going to hell for the sick things I have done

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The Gods Among us

It is not unusual to have Gods.

Most - if not all - of the sapient races did at one time or another.

What is unusual however, is how completely the humans kept their gods.

Don’t get it confused. There is not one human religion.

There are millions.

There are atheists who worship no gods and think the whole thing is rather silly, monotheists who worship one and only one god and get sniffy about all the others, and people who worship a whole pantheon of gods of all different shapes, sizes and colors.

People who worship nature.

People who worship their ancestors.

People who worship their system’s star.

Humans are unique in their belief though. They bring their gods with them. I mean this figuratively of course. But... also literally. Humans will talk about how their gods follow them, and come along - sometimes to help, sometimes not. They speak of them as if they're right there with them.

And friends, I swear I’ve seen them too.

One time, we were between the stars and our FlashWarp drive failed. I don't know the details behind the why of it, I was onboard as a passenger. We were two days without our drive and thoroughly stuck.

On this trip, quite a few of the passengers were human. I had seen them before in passing, but never up close before. Short and stout, their bodies shouted their origin. A dangerous, difficult, high gravity world. They were strong and clever and built to survive.

Some carried little trinkets and charms too. Little pieces of metal, or plastic in small shapes. During the evening meal, I had asked one of them about it, and they had mentioned that it was a sign of their religion.

"Religion? As in worshiping the supernatural?"

"Well, technically, I suppose. It's much more personal for me than something academic sounding like that." They smiled and used their delicate digits to manipulate the little charm while they spoke. "Humanity has had religion a long, long time. I understand that many Confederation races had it too at one point, but most decided to put it away as they ventured out into space, correct?"

I nodded. It was fascinating to hear the conversation. I had never spoken with a human this much before. Her accent was impeccable and her voice was like music. Did all humans sound like this?

She continued. "Humans - those who Believe - bring that with them in what they do, who they are. That's not to say that Atheists are bad or wrong, or people who follow different gods are bad or wrong either. The galaxy is large enough for everyone, right?" I nodded, trying to follow her logic. "But in a galaxy as large as this, I believe that there is more to existence than meets the eye." Her eyes twinkled as she spoke.

While we were speaking, another human walked by. Tall for them, male shaped, with broad shoulders, and quite a lot of facial hair - beards is what they called them I believe. His facial hair was neatly trimmed and oiled. As he walked by I could smell it. I couldn't place the scent. Resinous though, natural. It was nice.

As he walked by, he glanced down at Meredith, he saw her fingering her little charm - it was two straight pieces of metal crossed near the top, one smaller than the other - and smiled.

I looked up at him. We met eyes - Meredith didn't notice him - and he closed one eye quickly and then opened it again. I think it's called... a wink? It's one of those gestures humans do that's full of nuance. It's hard for most translators to understand it.

Just as quickly as it began, the interaction was over. He continued on with long purposeful strides towards the rear of the ship, where Engineering and the FlashWarp modules were.

Later that day, there was an announcement from the Captain that the drive was repaired and we could continue to warp to our destination. We would work hard to make up for lost time, but that we would probably be a demi cycle behind. Apologies were offered, discounts on future travel given out, but mostly everyone was happy we weren't stranded anymore.

A rumor started on the ship however. While the engineers had the drive apart and were struggling with why it had failed, a human had walked into Engineering, looking around as if they belonged there, approached the FlashWarp module and stared at it for a moment.

When confronted and asked what he was doing, he replied in perfect Maligran - the language of the engineers working that time - "Have you checked the outer compensator? It looks cracked to me." and then did that motion with one of his eyes - closing and opening the lid quickly - and left.

The engineers, with nothing else left to try checked the outer compensator. It was impossible to see with an unaided eye, but they scanned it and sure enough, it was cracked. Just enough to prevent the FlashWarp seed field from forming. They had a spare on hand, replaced it, and were up and running almost immediately.

The next morning, I sought out Meredith at the morning meal. I asked her if she knew the human that had walked in, pointed out the error and left.

"What did he look like?"

I described him as best as I could, as well as the scent I noticed.

She nodded sagely. "That was probably Saint Eligius, patron saint of mechanical engineers."

My fur puffed out involuntarily. "A religious figure?"

She nodded and took a sip of coffee. "A minor one, but one nonetheless."

"And you're not surprised by this?"

"On the contrary, I'm pleased to hear that my prayers were answered."

"You... prayed for him?"

"Not him specifically, but I did ask for help."

I sat down at the table heavily. It seemed impossible that a human saint had walked by - had winked at me - and yet...

"Meredith, can you tell me more about your religion?"

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There was a paper in 2016 exploring how an ML model was differentiating between wolves and dogs with a really high accuracy, they found that for whatever reason the model seemed to *really* like looking at snow in images, as in thats what it pays attention to most.

Then it hit them. *oh.*

*all the images of wolves in our dataset has snow in the background*

*this little shit figured it was easier to just learn how to detect snow than to actually learn the difference between huskies and wolves. because snow = wolf*

Shit like this happens *so often*. People think trainning models is like this exact coding programmer hackerman thing when its more like, coralling a bunch of sentient crabs that can do calculus but like at the end of the day theyre still fucking crabs.

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trying not to uspol too hard but man i don't think people on tumblr understand how big of a deal it was for tim walz to be the gay-straight alliance coordinator at a high school in 1999. sodomy was still illegal in a lot of states. the gsa at my high school five years later was run by the teacher who couldn't even say out loud that she was a lesbian and lived with her wife. the idea that a heterosexual married man would do that willingly in 1999 is genuinely shocking

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Humans are Weird: Caution and Lack Thereof.

Humans are not incredibly “tough” insofar as physical makeup goes in this universe, but humans ARE known for stubbornness/tenacity/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, and general acceptance of their bad decision-making abilities, which calls for measures to keep their unwieldy meat-sacks mostly alive and generally functioning.  When any of another species boards Human transports, they are always blown away by the safety precautions posted everywhere, the failsafes, the evacuation maps tucked everywhere, the plethora of escape pods and emergency buoys, life support systems and backup life support systems... not that the rest of the galaxies don't have safety measures and emergency failsafes, but they don't have as many as Humanity seems to have agreed on putting literally everywhere. Which is a bit odd when one takes into consideration that their vessels are literally pressurized vessels propelled by controlled explosions, the destruction of matter, or literal world-killing substances that are pressurized and used for fuel. Humans will hurl themselves into space using some of the most dangerous methods logged in the history of the universe, to the great endangerment of their lives and those in proximity of their craft if some system fails...

...but they have also planned for and created multiple options for continued survival should any thing indeed go wrong, along a wide variety of potential catastrophes.

To every science-oriented, non-Terran species in the galaxy, this “will to live” and “radiation of dumbass” is an ongoing study. Mainly because the humans keep spreading, and nobody knows just what to do with them. 

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Deathworlders everywhere but in Space

This is sitting in my brain because I haven't seen anyone else do this, but take a second to think about this: There are other deathworlders in space, terrifying ones, huge monster orc things. They are massive and nightmarish and impossibly strong. So thats why humans stand out. Thats how we survive. Human's are terrifying because we aren't built for one biome, one climate or even one planet. We aren't necessarily the strongest or fastest or scariest looking, but we're built to survive fucking everything. What if other deathworlder's are almost always only made to survive in one climate? (similar to some of the most deadly predators on earth currently) All the other deathworlders are terrifying, yes, but the second they step off their planet they're weak. Massive aliens of hulking muscle but their planet's gravity is a lot lower than the standard, so they barely meet the average strength bar whenever they go outside their gravity zone. Aliens that have venomous spikes all over their body and look gnarly as shit but their venom has practically no effect on 99% of discovered intergalactic species. Deathworlders whose planet is the nether from minecraft IRl, but they can't survive in any other temperature for any amount of time because their body just can't handle the cold and regulate their temperate (or, vice versa for tundra species). Aquatic species that are kraken-like nightmares, giant sirens and deadly squid-like beings. But they can't leave their home at all, because theres a very specific chemical makeup of their water that isn't currently found within their life-span distance travel. Deathworlders that genuinely can barely survive off planet and are frail compared to even the most docile prey species whenever they have to travel. Their called deathworlders because going to their planet is certain death, but if they leave they'll be meeting death just as quickly. And then along come humans, and everyones like, oh, another deathworlder, nothing to worry abou- wait. These guys dont seem to loose any of their natural strength off planet... and their fast and strong... and- AND THEY CAN SURVIVE IN PRACTICALLY ANY CLIMATE IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE??? HELLO? Oh and of course their predators. Of course most of their planet is completely uninhabitable for most of us. Mhm, yep. thats fair. Totally Basically, deathworlders are a thing, the more common 'terrifying alien monster' type, but their harmless because they can't survive like everyone else. They can't thrive like humans can. It scares the shit out of everyone for a wholeeeeee while, after all, no one ever expected a deathworlder that doesn't die.