Why I hate Golf
This is the Takapuna Golf Course in Auckland, New Zealand.
It is in the middle of Auckland's north shore suburbs.
According to their website, they are one of the most popular golf courses in Aotearoa and have an annual visitor count of 60,000 people. They don't clarify if that is individual unique visitors or recounts, but lets be generous and say its unique visitors. 60,000, not bad.
This is Eden Park Stadium (the little square on the right) and oh look there's another golf course on the left there, ignore that one for now.
(the above two images are at the same scale)
Eden park has a capacity of 50,000 people. Ed Sheeran was here earlier this year and sold out the two nights he performed. That's 100,000 people in a weekend all in that little red square. 60,000 in a year no longer seems so great.
60,000 people per year is also only 160 people per day. 160 visitors to a golf course that is 470,000 square meters in area. Now the average property size in Auckland is 500 square meters. So the golf course takes up the area of 940 houses.
940 homes worth of land for 160 people.
And that is Auckland housing sizes. Auckland is horribly designed and very spread out. Let's instead look at Barcelona, considered one of the most well designed cities in the world.
This is Takapuna golf course side by side with Barcelona
(The scale is as close to being equal as I could get them, I don't have ArcGIS data for Barcelona so had to use google maps)
Each red square overlaid on Takapuna Golf Course is exactly 133m in height/width, the same size as each city block in Barcelona, road width included.
There are 23 Barcelona blocks worth of space in Takapuna Golf Course with room to spare. About 640 people live in each Barcelona block, that's 15000 people.
15000 peoples worth of homes and living spaces, sacrificed so 160 people can play golf in a day.
Now this is just one golf course in a big city, what's 15,000 people to a city of 1.6 million, who cares right?
Here is a wider shot of Auckland City.
Those red dots? They're golf courses.
There are 16 golf courses inside the metropolitan area of Auckland City (4 not pictured as Auckland is too spread out to get one clean screenshot). Keep in mind these are not rural golf courses out in the country, these are right beside housing developments and shopping malls. And for the record I could not find a single golf course in the Barcelona metropolitan area, you had to go out into the country before finding one.
So lets multiply that 15,000 people by 16 golf courses?
240,000 people.
With Auckland City's golf courses you could house 240,000 people comfortably with some good urban planning.
That is why I hate golf.
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It would just be so easy for Steel to start behaving overtly controlling and War-minded at literally any point (seeking control and owning up to what that means) and at that point it would become easy to dislike her and her sway over Suvi but that's not the POINT, she is GENUINELY wise and so, so brilliant and she loves Suvi so truly and she is infuriatingly level headed and sincere in her efforts to help and so very kind, and I love her character more than I can adequately put into words and the inevitable clash of ideals, the rift that will and must develop, is going to destroy me. Because I genuinely don't know if Steel could choose Suvi over the empire and in fact I think it's pretty clear that she wouldn't, but that does not diminish the love she has for Suvi and the two things being true simultaneously have me biting the air. Steel is a goddamn masterclass in examining characters who act from fundamentally kind intent within a twisted framework of lifelong indoctrination and beliefs that have taught her a distorted view of what that should look like. Bringing the empire's light to the world is the ultimate kindness to her, and she wants nothing more than to be a key part of the mechanism by which that will happen. Because it will happen. And we're not told this, we're shown a brilliant and devoted mother figure who will stop at nothing to make a better world in the image of the empire her life belongs to.
Every single time something goes wrong with Ame and/or Eursulon (and even Suvi) I brace for the kind of overbearing "us VS them" mentality that never comes. She genuinely wants collaboration and answers so she can help. she very much means well, as do they all. It compels the absolute hell out of me.
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one small detail that stood out to me about this latest episode that i haven’t seen anyone else talking about yet is that when the commentators are calling colin “inspiring” and the “man of the match,” they are celebrating him not for actually scoring the goals himself, but for providing the crucial assists to make both of them happen. and i really love that because for me it’s the absolute perfect wrap to his character arc across all three seasons!
like, we know that colin’s job on this team has never been to score goals. in fact i’m pretty sure we’ve never heard about a single goal that he has scored. colin is and always has been a team player, not a star—and we’ve seen that crop up over and over. notably, we’ve seen the fact that he’s not entirely at peace with that crop up over and over: see the way he was affected by nate’s entire holidy-inn-painting monologue, being benched to make room for zava, etc.—like, this is the thing he’s sensitive about! this is where all of his insecurities come from!
but at the SAME TIME it’s also tied very intimately with all his struggles re: hiding his sexuality— “colin’s a chameleon,” etc. it’s fascinating because there’s SO much tension there between colin 1. feeling bad about the fact that he never stands out on the pitch the way some of his teammates do, because of who he is on the team, and 2. feeling like he CAN’T stand out, ever, because of Who He Is As A Person. etc. it’s like. he’s filling this role in the background. he’s afraid he’s not doing it well enough. he’s afraid that what and who he is isn’t good enough and isn’t worthy of recognition. he wishes he were someone different. trying to be someone different in the locker room is clearly making him so unhappy and stressed out. it is All Connected and my thoughts have been doing laps around it at an ever-increasing rate since i watched episode 2.07 ‘headspace’ if not before!
and all of this is why it’s so incredible to me that in the end, colin’s big moment comes from making assists and not goals! because on the one hand i understand the fandom desire for the colin post-coming out glowup that we all knew was coming—to see him, like, ~prove everybody wrong about him~ and inspire people by suddenly becoming a standout player and scoring goals left and right, even though that never used to be his role on the team before. and don’t get me wrong, i was 100% on board that train, and would have loved it for him if that was how it went down in the end, also. i think he should get to score here and there! as a treat! especially now that richmond are playing total football and there’s been so much emphasis placed on how it’s not just jamie/dani/occasionally sam who are making all the goals anymore!
but i don’t know! especially after the events of the last few episodes, there’s something very special to me about getting to see a colin who, rather than becoming someone entirely new in the moments right after coming out, just feels free to become, and be at peace with, the best version of the same self he’s always been. he’s still a team player first and foremost, but now that he’s not as weighed down by the need to chameleon/hide/pretend to be someone he’s not, he’s so much better at it. and everyone sees this! he gets to be celebrated for his contributions within the role he’s always played! he (and everybody else!) finally recognizes the value that he adds to the team just by being himself—fully himself! it resolves all the tension and insecurity that we’ve seen him struggling with this whole time, on every level. and so this moment was genuinely the perfect ending for his journey in my opinion—i’m so so happy that we were tall enough to join him on the ride here, and so excited to see what he does going forward these last few episodes now that some of that pressure is off him <3
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just thinking of tonights events and wanna say that it would be SOOO annoying if ppl started making every new song they played about whoever they think it’s about like speculation and shipping or whatever is fun i’m the last to judge about that but when it comes to the entirety of fob playing these songs to celebrate their whole career and give their whole discog love when they were afraid to for so long and give each show a unique and enjoyable experience and when the surprise 8 ball songs are coupled with speeches about how pete doesnt lay under a blanket and think about dying anymore i REALLY dont think what should be talked about Most is who the songs are about no matter who it is like i just think that would be veryyy reductive and lame when there is so much else to focus on!!!!
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like. it’s complicated, right. bruce didn’t want to see dick hurt; he hurt dick trying to prevent it. he tried to save jason’s life; it killed him. he wanted to show steph the right path forward; he pushed her to hurt herself and others. he loves cass and admires her abilities; he pushes her to be more vigilante than human.
(i don’t have a great pithy way to summarize tim or damian or duke or babs, so i won’t try to, but their relationships are similarly complex and difficult with bruce and with the other bats.)
point is, there are no easy dynamics and there is nothing that is purely good, because the vigilantism fucks all of them up, and bruce, as the driving force behind that vigilantism, fucks them up, too. that’s just how it is. and that’s not to say he doesn’t love or care for them, it’s just that he isn’t very good at parenting them, despite being an excellent mentor and teacher in other ways.
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