#2020 has been chaotic

[nerdie-faerie]

Why is it when I have a big task to complete that should take days to do, I procrastinate the hell out of it when I have plenty of time but when it comes down to the absolute last minute, I can do a couple of days work in a couple of hours? What the fuck is wrong with me? Why couldn't I do it casually over a couple of days but can do it in matter of hours?

[mariacallous]

It is over and everything is lost. This is the refrain repeated by Armenian families as they take that final step across the border out of their home of Nagorno-Karabakh.

In just a handful of days more than 100,000 people, almost the entire Armenian population of the breakaway enclave, has fled fearing ethnic persecution at the hands of Azerbaijani forces. The world barely registered it. But this astonishing exodus has vanished a self-declared state that thousands have died fighting for and ended a decades-old bloody chapter of history.

On Saturday, along that dusty mountain road to neighbouring Armenia, a few remaining people limp to safety after enduring days in transit.

Among them is the Tsovinar family who appear bundled in a hatchback littered with bullet holes, with seven relatives crushed in the back. Hasratyan, 48, the mother, crumbles into tears as she tries to make sense of her last 48 hours. The thought she cannot banish is that from this moment forward, she will never again be able to visit the grave of her brother killed in a previous bout of fighting.

“He is buried in our village which is now controlled by Azerbaijan. We can never go back,” the mother-of-three says, as her teenage girls sob quietly beside her.

“We have lost our home, and our homeland. It is an erasing of a people. The world kept silent and handed us over”.

She is interrupted by several ambulances racing in the opposite direction towards Nagorno-Karabakh’s main city of Stepanakert, or Khankendi, as it is known by the Azerbaijani forces that now control the streets. Their job is to fetch the few remaining Karabakh Armenians who want to leave and have yet to make it out.

“Those left are the poorest who have no cars, the disabled and elderly who can’t move easily,” a first responder calls at us through the window. “Then we’re told that’s it.”

As the world focused on the United Nations General Assembly, the war in Ukraine and, in the UK, the felling of an iconic Sycamore tree, a decades old war has reignited here unnoticed.

It ultimately heralded the end of Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway Armenian region, that is internationally recognised as being part of Azerbaijan but for several decades has enjoyed de facto independence. It has triggered the largest movement of people in the South Caucasus since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Azerbaijan has vehemently denied instigating ethnic cleansing and has promised to protect Armenians as it works to reintegrate the enclave.

But in the border town of Goris, surrounded by the chaotic arrival of hundreds of refugees, Armenia’s infrastructure minister says Yerevan was now struggling to work out what to do with tens of thousands of displaced and desperate people.

“Simply put this is a modern ethnic cleansing that has been permitted through the guilty silence of the world,” minister Gnel Sanosyan tells The Independent, as four new busses of fleeing families arrive behind him.

“This is a global shame, a shame for the world. We need the international community to step up and step up now.”

The divisions in this part of the world have their roots in centuries-old conflict but the latest iterations of bitter bloodshed erupted during the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Karabakh Armenians, who are in the majority in the enclave, demanded the right to autonomy over the 4,400 square kilometre rolling mountainous region that has its own history and dialect. In the early 1990s they won a bloody war that uprooted Azerbaijanis, building a de facto state that wasn’t internationally unrecognised.

That is until in 2020. Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, launched a military offensive and took back swathes of territory in a six-week conflict that killed thousands of soldiers and civilians. Russia, which originally supported Armenia but in recent years has grown into a colder ally, brokered a fragile truce and deployed peacekeepers.

But Moscow failed to stop Baku in December, enforcing a 10-month blockade on Nagorno-Karabakh, strangling food, fuel, electricity and water supplies. Then, the international community stood by as Azerbaijan launched a 24-hour military blitz that proved too much for Armenian separatist forces. Outgunned, outnumbered and weakened by the blockade, they agreed to lay down their weapons.

For 30 years the Karabakh authorities had survived pressure from international powerhouses to give up statehood or at least downgrade their aspirations for Nagorno-Karabakh. For 30 years peace plans brokered by countries across the world were tabled and shelved.

And then in a week all hope vanished and the self-declared government agreed to dissolve.

Fearing further shelling and then violent reprisals, as news broke several Karabakh officials including former ministers and separatist commanders, had been arrested by Azerbaijani security forces, people flooded over the border.

At the political level there are discussions about “reintegration” and “peace” but with so few left in Nagorno-Karabakh any process would now be futile.

And so now, sleeping in tents on the floors of hotels, restaurants and sometimes the streets of border towns, shellshocked families, with a handful of belongings, are trying to piece their lives together.

Among them is Vardan Tadevosyan, Nagorno-Karabakh’s minister of health until the government was effectively dissolved on Thursday. He spent the night camping on the floor of a hotel, and carries only the clothes he is wearing. Exhausted he says he had “no idea what the future brings”.

“For 25 years I have built a rehabilitation centre for people with physical disabilities I had to leave it all behind. You don’t know how many people are calling me for support,” he says as his phone ringed incessantly in the background throughout the interview.

“We all left everything behind. I am very depressed,” he repeats, swallowing the sentence with a sigh.

Next to him Artemis, 58, a kindergarten coordinator who has spent 30 years in Steparankert, says the real problems were going to start in the coming weeks when the refugees outstay their temporary accommodation.

“The Azerbaijanis said they want to integrate Nagorno-Karabakh but how do you blockade a people for 10 months and then launch a military operation and then ask them to integrate?” she asks, as she prepares for a new leg of the journey to the Armenian capital where she hopes to find shelter.

“The blockade was part of the ethnic cleansing. This is the only way to get people to flee the land they love. There is no humanity left in the world.”

Back in the central square of Goris, where families pick through piles of donated clothes and blankets and aid organisations hand out food, the loudest question is: what next?

Armenian officials are busy registering families and sending them to shelters in different corners of the country. But there are unanswered queries about long-term accommodation, work and schooling.

“I can’t really think about it, it hurts too much,” says Hasratyan’s eldest daughter Lilet, 16, trembling in the sunlight as the family starts the registration process.

“All I can say to the world is please speak about this and think about us. We are humans, people made of blood, like you and we need your help.”

[sebscore]

THE GRID'S DELIGHT | SERIES MASTERLIST

summary: the shenanigans of female gen z driver and the formula one grid.

author’s note: I started this series, because I'd like to imagine what it would be like to be part of the group of drivers and how it would be like to interact with them on a regular basis. It's all fun and games, and I don't know these people in real life. everything is fiction! the stories aren't written in chronological order, but I try to put them in the right order below! 

Requests are always welcome in my inbox! Opinions, thoughts and feedback are also greatly appreciated.

— ABOUT THE OC

HEADCANONS || MORE HEADCANONS

:: Things about being the only female driver on the ‘22 grid.

DRIVER X TGD HEADCANONS

:: The dynamics between driver!reader and the formula 1 drivers. in the link you can find the masterlist.

EXTRAS

:: this includes thoughts, opinions, etc about the series. it doesn’t include requests.

— 2018

WELCOME TO THE STRANGE WORLD 

:: Y/N makes her F1 debut at the 2018 Australian Grand Prix. 

THE PRIZE THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

:: Y/N accepts the 'Rookie of the Year' award and receives a suprise from a special someone on stage.

— 2020 

TWITCH WAR

:: lando insults Y/N’s gaming skills and the events that followed.

PLEASE RISE FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

:: An error in the sound system causes for the wrong song to play instead of Y/N’s national anthem.

— 2021 

THE MORE YOU KNOW

:: Y/N teaches Sebastian and Fernando what ‘bop’ means.

NO ONE LIKES A MAD WOMAN

:: Y/N receives a complaint from the FIA during the driver's briefing and no one is happy about it.

BREAK UP WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND, I'M BORED 

:: Y/N flirts with a stranger not knowing she's the girlfriend of another F1 driver on the grid. 

THIS IS ALL I NEVER WANTED

:: Y/N goes through a rough patch and the drivers notice.

LET IT SPIRAL

:: Y/N gets into a crash and Seb & George come to the rescue.

SLOW DOWN, RED FLAG

:: The commentators are shocked by Y/N’s red flag habit.

BE YOUR WINGMAN

:: Y/N tries to get through an interview with Jenson, Daniel and Sebastian. 

GIDDY GOODBYES

:: Y/N and Kimi bid each other goodbye at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

— 2022

A MAN’S WORLD

:: Y/N is asked about Christian Horner’s sexist comments.

THE ORIGIN OF RUSSY BUSSY

:: the title is pretty self-explanatory.

WHAT HAPPENS IN MONACO, STAYS IN MONACO

:: Y/N goes on a blind date and returns with a hickey the next day.

THE HELMET BET

:: Y/N and Zhou decide who the second best dressed driver on the grid is through a bet that involves holding the other drivers hostage at the driver's briefing.

GOSSIP GRID

:: Charles and Pierre don't trust Y/N when it comes to rumors around Oscar Piastri's move to McLaren.

RUMOUR HAS IT

:: Y/N and her fellow younger drivers react to certain rumours that have been going around about her love life, and it might include two colleagues of hers.

MONZA MANICURE

:: Daniel makes it up to Y/N for breaking her nail during a race.

LITTLE MISS BLACK DRESS

:: f1 drivers and their reactions to Y/N looking gorgeous in a dress.

KEEPING UP WITH THE GRID

:: What happens when Y/N takes over Martin's grid walk? 

THE LAST SUPPER

:: The drivers celebrate the life and career of Sebastian Vettel at Abu Dhabi and Y/N has a great story to tell.

— 2023 

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 

:: Daniel, Lewis and Sebastian show their appreciation for Y/N on International Women's Day. 

GLASS HALF FULL KINDA GAL

:: Y/N goes on Instagram live to try out Daniel’s new wine, and the drivers react to it in the comments.

MONTE-CARLO MADNESS

:: Y/N meets her old mentor after months and experiences a chaotic qualifying in Monaco.

PUT IT INTO SPEED DRIVE

:: Y/N and the Twitch Quartet go on a small adventure in the streets of Monaco.

SNITCHES GET STITCHES

:: A collection of moments at the 2023 Austria Grand Prix.

LATE NIGHT TALKING

:: Pierre asks the question: “Out of all the drivers, who would you date?”

— 2024

EXCUSE ME

:: Y/N finds out about Lewis’ Ferrari move before the official announcement.

[togglesbloggle]

Why do you think tumblr will die in only a few years?

Answer with jargon: a strong correlation between recent economic shifts and chaotic choices by major tech companies is most easily explained if the 'traditional' social media platforms of 2005-2020 are mostly a zero-interest rate phenomenon.

Longer answer, with less jargon: Even though Musk's takeover is making all the headlines recently, the last year has in fact seen major shakeups at many social media platforms, so Twitter is actually part of a trend. Almost inevitably, these are cases of social media companies trying to find a way to squeeze more money out of their userbase (Reddit), cut costs dramatically (Twitter), or both. This marks a sudden departure from a much more relaxed attitude towards revenue in the Pictures Of Cats industry, where the focus was historically more on expanding the userbase to a global scale and then counting on world domination to sort of <????> and then the company would become profitable eventually.

We joke, correctly, that Tumblr has never been profitable. But the entire structure of ad-supported content curation between human users is deeply suspect as a business model; IIRC Twitter was never profitable either, and Facebook has been juicing its numbers in very shenanigany ways. Discord was actually making money on net last I checked, at least a bit, so they're not all completely in the hole. But even if you take the accounting figures at face value, none of these companies has anything like the amount of money that their cultural prominence would suggest. Instead, they're heavily fueled by investment dollars, money given by super-rich people and institutions in the expectation that fueling the growth of the company now will pay off with interest later.

So what changed?

I'm not an expert here, but I'll do my best to muddle through. The American Federal Reserve has one mandate that dominates all others (sometimes called the 'dual mandate'), and one primary tool that it uses to enforce that mandate. The goal is to maintain low (but nonzero) rates of inflation and unemployment, which in their models are deeply interlinked phenomena. The tool is 'rate hikes', or more specifically, tweaking the mandatory rate of interest that banks charge one another when making loans.

As a particular consequence of this, hiking the rate also means that bonds start paying out much better. When the rate hike goes through, that affects people who let the government borrow their personal cash- that is, people who buy bonds- as well as institutions like banks that lend to one another. A rate hike means that you, personally, can make a little extra money by letting the government borrow it for a while. The federal government of the US is a rock-solid low-risk choice for this kind of moneymaking scheme, so the federal interest rate sort of defines the 'number to beat'; to attract investors, a company has to give those investors money at a better percentage than whatever the feds are offering. Particularly since a company is a lot more likely to go out of business than the state!

To wrap this back around to the Pictures Of Cats industry: the higher the rate hike, the better your company needs to be doing (or the less risky it needs to be as an option) to attract big investment dollars. Very high rates make it very hard to convince people to invest in business activity rather than the government itself, and very low rates put moonshots and big dreams on the table, investment-wise, in a way that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Social media companies were one of these big dreams.

In the great financial crisis of 2008, the Fed took the dramatic step of reducing their rate to zero, trying to juice the economy back to life. And ever since then, they've kept it there. This has produced an unprecedented amount of funding for very crazy stuff; it's part of what has allowed so many weird new tech companies (Uber, streaming services, etc.) to get so much money, so quickly, and use that to grow to massive size without a clear model of how they're ever going to make money. This state of affairs kept going for quite a while, with no clear stopping point; that zero-interest environment has been one of the shadowy forces in the background that shaped fundamental contours and limits in how our Very Online World has grown and developed. Until COVID.

Or rather, the bounce back from COVID: we suddenly saw a massive spike in inflation and an incredibly strong labor market, as employees quit in record numbers, negotiated higher salaries, and found better work, and at the same time supply chain issues and other economy stuff caused prices to climb dramatically. Recall the Fed's 'dual mandate', to control the employment rate and inflation. This was, basically, kicking them right in the jooblies. They responded in kind, finally finally raising their rates for the first time in 15 years. For some of the people reading this, it'll be the first significant shift in their entire adult lives.

The goal, as I understand it, is to fight inflation by reducing the amount of outside investment into private companies, forcing them to hire fewer people and pay smaller salaries, ultimately drawing money out of the working economy and driving prices back down by lowering demand for everything. You get paid less, so you eat out less, and buy at cheaper restaurants when you do, so restaurants have to compete harder by lowering their prices; seems pretty dodgy to me as a theory, but it's the theory. And the first part will almost certainly work- companies are going to see less investment.

For social media companies that are still paying most of their salaries with investor dollars instead of revenues, this is especially catastrophic. Without outside investment, they're just a massive pile of expenses waiting to happen, huge yearly costs in developer salaries and server fees. This is why, all of a sudden, every social media company is suddenly making bonkers decisions. They're noticing that nobody wants to give them any more money! So they're trying to figure out how to live a lot more cheaply, to actually somehow for reals turn their giant userbases in to some kind of actual revenue stream, or both.

Tumblr is kind of the ur-example of this kind of thing, supporting a very large userbase with no coherent plan whatsoever to start paying its staff with our dollars instead of investors' dollars. When interest rates were low and Scrooge McDuck had nowhere else to hide his pile of gold coins, a crazy kid with a dream was the best alternative available to him. But now, unless something changes, he's going to notice he can just buy bonds instead, and that crazy kid can go take a hike.

That's why I think Tumblr is living on borrowed time, though I don't know how much. Like all cartoons, the economy doesn't really fall off a cliff until somebody looks down and notices they've been standing on thin air this whole time. But they always fall eventually; that's the gag.

[pascaloverx]

DANDELIONS

Summary: You are the new guest of the Bridgertons. Your mother, an old friend of Lady Violet Bridgerton, has requested that you spend a season at the Bridgerton house in hopes that you will change your perspective on true love and marriage. You are convinced that love is a fictional construct and that a marriage without love will be your downfall; but some time with the Bridgerton siblings might change your mind.

Author's Note: The characters belong to the Bridgerton universe and Julia Quinn. However, the story will have some changes from what happens in the Bridgerton series (2020-). Dear readers, this story may contain strong language and steamy romance scenes. It may even feature a love triangle. Be warned and enjoy the reading.

ONE THREE

TWO

The next few days at the Bridgerton house are chaotic yet incredibly fun. Between walks and conversations with Eloise, helping Francesca with embroidery during silent but very focused hours, and spending time reading with Colin, who introduced you to his favorite books and recommended others, you are quite busy. Every day you have tea with Lady Violet Bridgerton, who is enthusiastic about the idea of finding a suitor for you during the ball season. You try to share her enthusiasm, but the truth is that spending time with her family seems more adventurous than getting married. Today, for instance, you are taking Hyacinth and Gregory to pick some apples in the garden. In reality, Gregory wants to practice archery, and you think it would be a good exercise for the younger ones. Regarding the two older brothers, you have been avoiding them. It's not an easy task, but with Lydia's help, you have managed to escape any moments alone with them. You feel embarrassed for pretending to be hurt in front of one and for covering for the other. Daphne is the only one you have yet to meet, but according to the Bridgerton family, you will soon. Recently, Eloise introduced you to a close friend named Penelope. You found her to be very perceptive and kind, which is good since she seems to be part of the family, and you want to make a good impression.

"Lady Violet Bridgerton, I assure you that the three of us will be very careful while picking apples. When I was Hyacinth's age, it was my favorite pastime," you say as you finish adjusting your shoe. Lady Bridgerton still looks a bit concerned as she watches Hyacinth and Gregory run off with their bows and arrows. You smile, imagining how it will be to spend time with them.

"Believe me, dear, you will need someone to help you with those two," Lady Violet says, somewhat nervously. You look at her, feeling uncertain, and then you hear someone approaching the room where you are.

"I believe I can be of use as the older brother at this moment. I was just finishing up some financial matters, and it seems that fresh air will do us all some good," Viscount Anthony Bridgerton says, surprising you and Lady Violet. You know that Lydia will be joining you, but staying with him and the younger siblings seems like a risk.

"That won't be necessary, Viscount. There's no need to disrupt your busy schedule when I am more than capable of handling this task with my companion," you respond instantly, as if the answer were at the tip of your tongue. Anthony gives you a mischievous smile, indicating that he plans to accompany you anyway, which makes you feel a bit uneasy. Lady Violet, however, seems more relieved.

"Miss Y/L/N, forgive my frankness, but it seems that you do not desire my company. If that is the case, I would like to clear up any misunderstanding by reaffirming that I will be accompanying you and my siblings on this apple-picking outing," Viscount Bridgerton says assertively, taking a step closer to you. You stare at him, almost forgetting that there are others around you.

"Viscount, I can assure you that such an impression is a misunderstanding. I would never have any problem with your company. I simply would not want to disrupt the busy life of a Viscount, especially as a guest in his house." A lie on your part, as you really want to avoid spending time with Anthony. The Viscount Bridgerton is one of the most sought-after men in society. One wrong rumor about the two of you, and your mother would be demanding a wedding at Queen Charlotte's doorstep in a matter of minutes.

"Y/N, I can assure you that my son, busy as he may be, always finds time to spend with his siblings. You will essentially be helping him look after the younger ones. And certainly, my son will be honored by your company," Lady Violet says, lightly tapping her eldest son's arm as if expecting him to support her statement. Anthony nods slightly, as if in agreement.

"In that case, please join us, Viscount. Goodbye for now, Lady Bridgerton," you say, looking kindly at Violet and heading towards the exit of the house. Gregory and Hyacinth follow you while Anthony says something to his mother and then approaches you. Your companion, Mrs. Lydia, comes behind you silently. She seems to want to give you or Anthony space to talk. The two teenagers seem to be having fun walking among the trees.

"Miss Y/L/N, how long exactly do you intend to avoid me?" Viscount Bridgerton speaks near you, pretending to pay attention to something else so that Lydia doesn't suspect he's trying to talk to you.

"You don't need to pretend to be looking for bees among the flowers, Viscount Bridgerton. Lydia won't suspect you. As for your question, I think it's fair to say that given the nature of our last encounter, some distance seems plausible." You try to answer his question without really answering it. He smiles slightly, but it's a nervous smile. He watches the siblings ahead of us, while Lydia takes the opportunity to chat with the young Bridgertons.

"I wasn't pretending. A bee around here is too dangerous. But getting back to our main topic, I would like to apologize for the first impression I gave you," he says as if it were an obligation for him to say so, without truly wanting to apologize. You look at him, finding his pretense amusing.

"Apologies accepted, Viscount. Was that why you wanted to come with us? To apologize for your mistake?" You ask as you and Anthony walk side by side. Hyacinth and Gregory shout, calling for their brother and you as they find an apple tree.

"Not only to apologize for my mistake," Viscount Bridgerton clears his throat loudly, "but also to give you the chance to apologize to me." As soon as Anthony says this, you shoot an arrow accurately at one of the apples at the top of the apple tree that Gregory and Hyacinth are looking at. The two are pleasantly surprised and shout that your aim is great. However, Viscount Bridgerton seems to have become nervous, perhaps even a little irritated.

"Apologize to the Viscount for what reason?" You ask as you both stop walking and face each other. He seems indignant for some reason.

"For not behaving as a lady of your stature should. Surely you know you should have forced me to marry the young lady because of what happened. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to get married, and certainly not to you. I just think that in your place, I would be more concerned about this issue," Anthony says presumptuously, leaving you offended. You look him up and down and smile. He seems not to understand.

"Viscount, I must say that you seem to have misunderstood what happened. You intruded into a room designated for me, a lady. Yet somehow, you think I owe you something. Very well. I give you a warning: if a situation like this happens again, I will be your wife faster than you can pronounce Bridgerton." Your threatening tone seems to intrigue the Viscount.

"Is that a threat, Miss?" Viscount Anthony Bridgerton speaks as if surprised by the way you speak to him.

"The trick to hitting a target like that is to always have concentration and patience. A bit of determination is also appropriate." As you approach Gregory, who can't take his eyes off the arrow, you notice Anthony looking at you with a hint of mockery.

"I believe the young lady is mistaken. Hitting the target is about strength and often talent." You hear this and feel as if he is belittling your technique. So, you raise your bow and arrow in his direction, holding it out to the Viscount in front of you.

"Try to hit the target with your method then, Viscount. Let's see which one of us knows more about what we're talking about." You say, challenging him. He doesn’t hesitate to try to hit an apple almost in the same place you did. He is so sure he will surpass you that it's almost comical when his arrow hits an apple below yours. Gregory and Hyacinth are shocked while he shows no expression.

"Dear brother, I think Miss Y/L/N's method seems to be more effective," Hyacinth says with a humorous tone. Anthony looks annoyed.

"I want to try hitting the target using your tactic, brother," Gregory says as he grabs his own bow and arrow. Hyacinth laughs at him while he struggles to place the arrow on the bow.

"I actually prefer using Miss Y/L/N's tactic," Hyacinth says, showing you how quickly she can place the arrow on the bow. You guide her to focus on the target and tell her to think of something that makes her angry to make her more determined. You can hear Anthony assisting Gregory. Anthony and you exchange glances while helping the younger ones practice archery. Later, you all gather some apples together.

[hardwareabstractionlayer]

(the post editor malfunctioned and after a series of unfortunate events the original ask post is gone, so I had to make this screenshot mockup of the ask, sorry)

Thank you for prodding me to finish up a draft that's been sitting there for an inexplicably long time.

I will divide puns into exact homophones, which are pronounced exactly the same, and near homophones, which consist of the same phonemes with different tones. Though exact homophones are much punnier in speech, Internet jokes rely heavily upon text input and most people use phonetic-based Chinese input systems, meaning their autocompletes will often suggest near homophones and people will use them if they're funny enough.

To make this slightly statistically sound and not just me making up random puns, I grabbed 700k viewer comments from the years NiF was available on Youku, 2015 to 2020 (courtesy of danmu box). These danmu/弹幕 comments are timed to a particular moment in the show so they splash across the screen while you watch.

Let's start with the heavy hitters:

Xie Yu/谢玉 is an exact homophone of xièyù/泄欲, literally discharging desire, which means satisfying one’s lust or orgasming. Xie Yu's name occurs 5000+ times in the comments versus almost 900 orgasms.

Prince Yu/誉王 is an exact homophone of yùwáng/欲王, meaning prince of lust, and a near homophone, of yùwàng/欲望, which means desire (or the chaotic evil penis). The latter is far more likely to be autocompleted and shows up 1500+ times versus 200+ for the prince of lust.

Yùjīn/豫津 is a near homophone of yùjìn, 欲禁, or forbidden lust/abstinence. Because bath towel/浴巾 is an exact homophone and again far more likely to come up first in autocomplete, people overwhelmingly refer to him as the towel. In the comments, bath towel is used nearly 7000 times, 10x more frequently than his actual name, which is made up of two not-super-common characters.

Mei Changsu is often addressed as Su-xiong/苏兄 by Jingrui and Yujin in canon, which is an exact homophone of sūxiōng/酥胸, a literary term for supple and beautiful breasts that might have the same old-fashioned connotation as heaving bosom does in English. I'm going to call him gorgeous tits because he does bear a striking resemblance to the azure tit:

I've seen Chinese MCS fans note this resemblance before, but these birds don't have titillating names in Chinese so you can have this bonus joke for English speakers. Anyways, gorgeous tits are invoked in nearly 6000 comments versus almost 1200 for Su-xiong itself.

Now you can enjoy one of the comments from the above screenshot exclaiming over these names:

浴巾裹着酥胸，泄欲，这都什么什么 a bath towel (yujin) wrapped around gorgeous tits (su-xiong), orgasming (xie yu), what is all this

And the following off-color joke retold many times throughout the episodes:

Why is Mei Changsu called Su-xiong and not Mei-xiong? Because he has gorgeous tits, not tiny ones (Méi-xiōng/梅兄 is an exact homophone of flat-chested/没胸).

Here are some rarer-but-still-good puns:

Gōng Yǔ/宫羽 is a near homophone of gòngyù/共浴, bathing together (cue viewer comments about how she and bath towel belong with each other).

Níhuáng/霓凰 is a near homophone of nǐhuáng/你黄, slang meaning you’re perverted.

The emperor lives in Yǎngjū Hall/养居殿, a near homophone of penis hall since yángjù/阳具 is the yang implement, though it's most popularly punned with pigpen (I wrote about this here if you scroll to the end).

The travelogue Mei Changsu wrote annotations in, 翔地记, is an exact homophone of xiángdìjì/降帝记, or records of subduing the emperor (which I can only interpret as MCS’s Dom Diaries on how to conquer Jingyan).

To conclude, here’s a stacked area chart of the four horsemen of punny NiF names and how often they're spammed:

[philosophicalconservatism]

You’re thoughts on what’s taking place on college campuses and the anti semitism being blatantly displayed

There has been a major shift in the culture. In years past, whenever the Palestinian/Israeli conflict flared up, anti-Israeli sentiment in America was limited to the fringe of the Left; with both the political Right, and the mainstream political Left standing behind the only liberal democracy in the region, and both sides recognizing the cynical, self destructive tactics of Israel's extremist enemies which stalemate the situation (Hamas, The PLO and the PIJ).

But Gen Z goes into the evaluation of this long enduring conflict with a completely different mentality. That is because it has been significantly shaped by a radical cultural ideology according to which virtue comes from victimhood and suffering rather than from proper conduct. Individuals are entirely a product of their social circumstances (says Critical Theory) and the conduct of the oppressed is an expression of their desperation and suffering at the hands of powerful systems. Those systems are themselves the only truly “unethical” force that is in play, and they must be reformed in order to reform the individual. In the 2020 riots, violence (including against the livelihood of civilians) was justified by the cause: the alleviation of alleged suffering and oppression at the hands of law enforcement.

The Palestinian Israeli conflict plays into this Oppresser/Oppressed (stronger/weaker) narrative where there is no “morality” there is only “justice” (which means “equity”). It leads to a justification of a “By Any Means Necessary” ideology , just as long as the means is not sufficient enough to turn the stronger party into the weaker party. Israel is the powerful more militarily dominant liberal democratic nation so it must be to blame in this clash between itself and a poorer, chaotic struggling society. The advocate of traditional Western morality however judges each party whether small or great according to the morality of its intentional actions. According to that calculus Israel is, for the most part, a free nation attempting to defend its citizens, Hamas, The PLO and The PIJ are obscenely immoral terrorist organizations that intentionally target the innocent, and the Palestinian people are victims caught in the middle.

The truly unfortunate thing is that this debate is spilling over in the form of anti-semitic language and behavior toward normal American citizens who happen to be Jewish. And of course the rhetoric of this classical anti-Semitism uses the exact same language of the oppressor/oppressed, "the Jews run the world, they own and control everything and we are their hapless victims." This was of course the rhetoric of the Nazis.

And as with the other paradigms of oppressor v.s. oppressed it doesn't actually matter if it's accurate or not.

[911bts]

I am the anon who asked what season they are filming and I am actually kind of shocked that they are still filming the current season after it has already started airing. Is this normal? Or did the actors strike cause this to happen? I had always been under the impression that shows only started airing once everything is filmed.

This is normal. All shows that air on cable are like this. (Streaming exclusives are different. That's why it takes 2-5 years for a Netflix show to get a new season while there's a new season of broadcast every year).

Them still filming and having a lot more left to film is in part because of the strikes. This show is also just chaotic.

Some seasons they're filming until almost the end of the season (I anticipate this season will be) and some seasons they wrap filming early (season 3 was done filming in February 2020 and finished airing in May 2020)

But yeah, this is normal. All broadcast shows do it. Grey's & Station 19 are already done filming, though, while we're a ways out. Every show is a bit different.

[lexosaurus]

So. Phandom memes of the 2010s was an informative post, but makes me wonder - what are the good Phandom memes of the 2020s so far?

I feel like the Phandom is a lot less chaotic nowadays. We have so many events, we don't have time to Get Bored and Start Shit. We're too busy with our insane fic/art revival, crossover revival, etc! That and, well, most of us aren't teens anymore.

But off the top of my head:

-Cat Vlad

-Kyle Weston

-Little Baby Man

-Icebergs (not phandom-specific, but a lot of people enjoy making these)

-Chumby

-Dissection vs Vivisection has always sorta been around, but it became a genuine, funny debate in the 2020's

-that and Dissecc in general. Again, has always been around, but really reached new heights in the 2020's.

We're only 3 years into this decade, so I'm sure there will be a lot more stuff by the end of it!

[the-s1lly-corner]

Slashers Masterlist

An important note before you continue; I have not seen all of the big slasher franchises or reboots or what have you. Below are the only characters I am confident enough to write, and will be expanded as I explore more series! Thank you for understanding

Added note, as of March 4th 2024 I have yet to see the Chucky tv series <\3

If any links are incorrect please let me know!

Jason Voorhees:

Fluff hcs for Jason

Jason x Sweet!nature loving!reader

Jason x immortal!reader

Jason x winged!reader

Hand holding with Jason

Jason x anxious reader

R J I with Jason

Jason as a dad

Jason x artist!reader

Random thing 11/kissing Jasons hands

Jason x pregnant!AFAB!reader

Jason x autistic!reader

Tropes 7 8 9 with Jason

Random thing 12//childhood friends with Jason

Prompts 13 and 14 with jason

Prompts 10 11 12 with Jason

Prompts 1 2 3 with Jason

Prompts 4 5 6 with Jason

Prompts 16-20 with jason

Prompts 22 25 27 28 with jason

Prompts 31-36 with Jason

38 40 43 44 with Jason

Reader fixing Jason's jacket

Jason x sunshine gardener reader

Celebrating mothers day

Jason losing the reader

Jason x undead reader

Jason x reader who wears a mask

Jason x reader w/ plushies

Jason x reader who doesnt talk

Jason x reader who likes horror movies

Jason x reader who is scared of storms

jason x reader who wears headphones

Pamela Voorhees:

Jason x reader who has a bad relationship with their mom

X Jessica rabbit reader

Brahms Heelshire:

Brahms x artist!reader

Prompts 13 14 20 22 with brahms

Prompts 1 2 8 10 with brahms

Prompts 27 35 36 38 with brahms

N and Y with Brahms

Reader trying to get Brahms tovgp outside

Reader forcing Brahms to move out w/ them

Pregnant brahms x reader

Brahms and reader watching horror movies together

Michael (og/2018-2020s reboot):

Chucky:

Tiffany Valentine:

MULTI:

Jason, Brahms, Michael, and Chucky x chaotic!reader

Aftercare w/ Jason and Brahms

Michael, jason, and brahms x reader on their period

Charles lee ray and brahms but theyve been turned into cats

cuddling w/ jason brahms and Michael

[tomedonaki-hakujou]

Mesmerizer: My Thoughts on why it is THE Vocaloid song of the DECADE

(All thoughts here are highly subjective, and may feature incomplete information. I just wanted to get my thoughts out about Mesmerizer and why its success works a lot.)

As of 2020, the Vocaloid scene has been booming with plenty of new music & activity, each year bringing more and more hit songs, it's almost hard to keep track of them all. With the release of Satsuki and Channel's "Mesmerizer" music video, I think this marks an extremely emblematic song, encapsulating what the 2020s of Vocaloid is all about, and what it can become.

"Mesmerizer" is a short and catchy song featuring Hatsune Miku for VOCALOID4 and Kasane Teto for Synthesizer V. It features a highly chaotic instrumental. It is composed by Satsuki, previously known for "CIRCUS PANIC!!!" featured in Project Sekai. The music video is made by Channel (aka caststation), who is known for various viral Miku animations like mikumikuplaylist and Rabbit Hole by DECO*27. All of these details about this song are very important, and in my opinion, I think they each represent a part of the strength and popularity of Vocaloid culture in the 2020s.

Short Songs and Covers

As of 2020, shorter songs, often less than 3 minutes, have gained a lot of popularity – take a look at Kanaria's breakout hit "KING," or the songs on DECO*27's "Mannequin" album such as "The Vampire," "Animal," and "Cinderella." Part of the major appeal of these songs, and why they work so well, is that they have to be immensely catchy, easy to listen to, and most importantly in my opinion – easy to sing. That's right – one major aspect of 2020s Vocaloid culture are covers sung by utaites, VTubers, and other singers. This spreads the Vocaloid music to people in different audiences. It's much easier to sing and produce a cover of a shorter song than a longer song, and it's much more appealing to do it for a trending song. Kanaria's songs and DECO*27's "Mannequin" songs have gotten this treatment of mass-cover trends due to their singability and ease of production. (Take it from me, it's much easier to publish a Kanaria cover than producers like Yunosuke or Kashii Moimi, from whom I love covering from.) Of course, even aside from Kanaria and DECO*27, there's other producers who create shorter songs with great success – take Nakiso, Suriii (aka Three), Chinozo, Azari, and _x0o0x_ for example.

Although, that's not to say longer songs over 3 minutes don't get popular either – take PinocchioP, Kairiki Bear, Teniwoha, nulut, and Camellia for example. Both song structures have their different appeals, and it's all about how the composer utilizes that time.

However, longer songs aren't necessarily new in the Vocaloid scene, and have been the standard for over 10 years since the scene's beginnings in 2007-2008. It's shorter songs that have emerged as a new niche and new musical approach as of 2020, and it's the style more representative of this era. "Mesmerizer" takes the approach of the shorter song that's arisen in this era, while conveying a strong music composition as well. A shorter song with a stronger composition & musicality has a higher chance of staying within viewer's memories.

Chaotic Composition

Chaos, frenzy – the music style of "denpa" has gained more popularity in recent years with songs like "INTERNET YAMERO" (by Aiobahn) and "Hito Mania" (by Sasuke Haraguchi). (Although "INTERNET YAMERO" is not Vocaloid, it still deserves a mention for its audience & subculture overlap.)

As of 2020, we can hear more experimental and varied composition and production styles in top VOCALOID songs – melodic, consonant, and synchronous music isn't always the move now. Usage of sound effects as percussion (gunshots, glass breaking, etc) creates more appeal or intrigue in certain songs.

The sound design in "Mesmerizer" is, well, mesmerizing. I think it encapsulates a lot of the sweet, simple, catchy and appealing aspects of the short-form song style, while also having complexity & chaos that synchronizes with the main beat/melody. If there's a song I would most directly compare "Mesmerizer" to in its composition style, it's probably going to be "Marshall Maximizer" by Hiiragi Magnetite. Both of them have a lot of chaos going on to create texture in the song, while still being harmonious with the overall composition to create a pleasant listening experience.

There is one part of "Mesmerizer" that deserves a most special mention, which is the bridge – or commonly referred to as the "hypnosis" section. Here, the sound design is used in tandem with the MV and story during Teto's bridge part. The music suddenly seems to fade in and out to convey that Teto is not quite fully "present" in the song; her consciousness slowly fading in and out as she tries to resist hypnosis (what's happening is a low pass filter's frequency point being slowly reduced and then increased, but that's advanced audio lingo that you don't need to worry about if you don't understand).

Unique and special sound design moments like these are what draws viewers into songs and keeps them interested.

The Music Video

While simplistic music videos are common in Vocaloid in the era of 2020s, animated music videos still have their appeal and popularity as well, and have made a bit more of a comeback as of 2022 and 2023. Take songs like:

"Lagtrain" by inabakumori (MV by Nukunuku Nigirimeshi)

"Konton Boogie" by jon-YAKITORY (MV by Ichimaru)

"Override" by Yoshida Yasei (Art by Shishiya)

"Kyoufuu Allback" by Yukopi (Animation by Oz_yarimisu)

"Momiagewo Shakaagewo" by Nunu(...)nunu (dude. I'm not writing their whole name.)

"Kafu-eine" by Hiiragi Magnetite (Animation by Sena Yuuta)

Songs like these have MVs that lend themselves easily to replication for covers or animation memes within the animator community. In addition, they're just very strong and fun MVs in their own right for enjoyment. Not every producer has the energy or resources to create an animated MV like this, but being able to do so certainly gives the song a stronger appeal.

Especially within derivative fanwork, more complex MVs of songs with simpler MVs also get popular. Take the "Gokuraku Meme" that derives from Pepoyo's "Rakuraku Anrakushi" or most notably for this analysis – Channel's "Rabbit Hole" animation from DECO*27's song. These are two strong examples of the power of animation in the Vocaloid scene. Many admire Channel's "Rabbit Hole" animation for its smoothness and appealing style – many have found themselves watching it on repeat as if it's mesmerizing (heh,) but maybe most importantly, the animation features a "shock factor" in the pseudo-sex fakeout scene at the end, which contributes to its virality.

When applying these skills to a full music video, Channel really showed the best of their strengths in "Mesmerizer." Their mesmerizing animation style tells a simple story that keeps the viewers engaged with smooth tweening, strong sense of beats, and of course – enjoyable and cute dance movements. Channel also employs "shock factor" once again, towards the end of the music video in the final chorus – where Miku gets completely mesmerized/hypnotized, and goes crazy-insane. This moment is popularly depicted in the countless fanarts of "Mesmerizer," a testament to its impact. Additionally, the MV has a lot of small details about it that has caused much intrigue and analysis regarding its story. Theorizing about the meaning of songs is a vital part of Vocaloid fan culture.

Project Sekai

Project Sekai is a HUGE factor in the thriving nature of the Vocaloid scene as of 2020. Events like "Proseka Next" help smaller producers break out of niche and obscurity and helps boost their popularity. Such was the case for Satsuki, who won a "Proseka Next" event with their song "CIRCUS PANIC!!!"

"Proseka Next" isn't the only kind of event that helps boost producers. There's the regularly occurring "Vocaloid Collection," as well as demo songs and contests held for newly released voicebanks. Companies like Sega/Crypton and Kamitsubaki Studio regularly engage the community to give it vitality, and spark their creativity.

Although "Mesmerizer" is not a song for any contest or event, it's entirely possible that without "Proseka Next" and the preceding "CIRCUS PANIC!!!" song, Satsuki's "Mesmerizer" might not have been the breakout hit it became.

The Vocalists

Finally, the vocalists. Hatsune Miku VOCALOID4 and Kasane Teto Synthesizer V.

Although she hasn't received a vocal update in nearly a decade, Hatsune Miku V4X is still one of the most popularly used vocalists in the Vocaloid scene – after all, she's Hatsune Miku, who's only become more popular and recognizable to almost anyone on the Internet. Especially in recent years, many takes on Miku's design draw from her V4X design, and Mesmerizer Miku is no exception. Although V2 Miku has strong appeal in her thick hair shapes, V4X's thin hair is easier to draw, adapt to different artstyles, restyle, and reiterate. (This is just my opinion though, I do think V4X is the best Miku for how well she lends herself to derivatives versus her other designs. Also, I think for the case of Mesmerizer, V4 Miku is probably the easiest to animate... Other Miku styles might not have worked for the MV's favor.)

One of the defining factors of the 2020s Vocaloid scene is AI vocalsynth. AI vocalsynth sounds more realistic and is often easier to use than its predecessors. Probably the first notable AI is CeVIO's KAFU, who received plenty of usage since her demos in 2020 and her release in 2021. As someone who owns KAFU myself, I think she's one of the most beginner-friendly vocalsynths – her autopitch tuning is rather pleasant and easy to work with as a baseline, and her configuration quality/ease of use just feels better than other vocalists on CeVIO AI. She also has a great capability for high range, much thanks to KAF's own high note capabilities. On top of that, she has quite the unique vocal tone that makes her instantly recognizable. I think these are all reasons why KAFU is highly popular.

To succeed KAFU, enter Kasane Teto, a beloved UTAU vocalist and character from the beginnings of the Vocaloid scene – now updated for Synthesizer V AI. She shares a lot of traits with KAFU that lend to success – ease of use, good vocal quality, and recognizable voice. Also, both KAFU and Teto SV have origins from a pre-existing fanbase – KAFU in KAF's popularity, and Teto from being a pre-existing popular character. Teto's SV was highly hyped and well-received, causing an explosion in her usages. Of course, UTAU isn't everyone's cup of tea and can be hard to use, and Teto had only been receiving rather niche usages in the 2020s Vocaloid scene – at least, up until her SV came and revitalized her.

In fanon, Miku and Teto have a popular relationship or dynamic, being friends or rivals. To use them both together in "Mesmerizer" builds upon this dynamic and establishes an appealing familiarity. In addition, "Mesmerizer" has a strong overseas reach outside of Japan – since Miku and Teto have high recognizability and popularity therein as well (and also thanks to Channel's preceding viral works.)

(Characters like Adachi Rei, Zundamon, and KAFU are also popular, but lack popularity outside of Japan.)

Although Synthesizer V is known for realism, many Japanese producers use it in a way that reflects "Vocaloid-esque" or artificial charm, which Teto embodies in "Mesmerizer." This makes her voice match up to Miku's more, creating a great duet that doesn't sound too jarring – rather, complementary.

Wrapping-up Thoughts

"Mesmerizer" is a song that, in my opinion, embodies a lot of the things that define the Vocaloid culture of the early 2020s. As someone who's always been an avid advocate and fan of the new Vocaloid scene, it's been amazing to see it come this far and reach greater heights, especially overseas. I remember being frustrated or mad that a lot of overseas Vocaloid fans don't actually listen to 2020s Vocaloid, despite it being highly popular in Japan. But with "Mesmerizer," I have hopes things will start to change. I have hopes that overseas fans will listen to the richness, diversity, and greatness of 2020s Vocaloid. I have hopes they will be drawn into the scene and look forward to new releases by new producers. I have hopes that "Mesmerizer" will ignite new creativity in producers and artists in the future to come, to build a new era; continually contributing to the idea of a "new soundscape." I believe "Mesmerizer" is the defining mark of this era of Vocaloid, and maybe might even become the top defining song in the footnotes of Vocaloid history.

[mariacallous]

Why disinformation experts say the Israel-Hamas war is a nightmare to investigate

The Israel-Hamas conflict has been a minefield of confusing counter-arguments and controversies—and an information environment that experts investigating mis- and disinformation say is among the worst they’ve ever experienced.

In the time since Hamas launched its terror attack against Israel last month—and Israel has responded with a weekslong counterattack—social media has been full of comments, pictures, and video from both sides of the conflict putting forward their case. But alongside real images of the battles going on in the region, plenty of disinformation has been sown by bad actors.

“What is new this time, especially with Twitter, is the clutter of information that the platform has created, or has given a space for people to create, with the way verification is handled,” says Pooja Chaudhuri, a researcher and trainer at Bellingcat, which has been working to verify or debunk claims from both the Israeli and Palestinian sides of the conflict, from confirming that Israel Defense Forces struck the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza to debunking the idea that the IDF has blown up some of Gaza’s most sacred sites.

Bellingcat has found plenty of claims and counterclaims to investigate, but convincing people of the truth has proven more difficult than in previous situations because of the firmly entrenched views on either side, says Chaudhuri’s colleague Eliot Higgins, the site’s founder.

“People are thinking in terms of, ‘Whose side are you on?’ rather than ‘What’s real,’” Higgins says. “And if you’re saying something that doesn’t agree with my side, then it has to mean you’re on the other side. That makes it very difficult to be involved in the discourse around this stuff, because it’s so divided.”

For Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), there have only been two moments prior to this that have proved as difficult for his organization to monitor and track: One was the disinformation-fueled 2020 U.S. presidential election, and the other was the hotly contested space around the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I can’t remember a comparable time. You’ve got this completely chaotic information ecosystem,” Ahmed says, adding that in the weeks since Hamas’s October 7 terror attack social media has become the opposite of a “useful or healthy environment to be in”—in stark contrast to what it used to be, which was a source of reputable, timely information about global events as they happened.

The CCDH has focused its attention on X (formerly Twitter), in particular, and is currently involved in a lawsuit with the social media company, but Ahmed says the problem runs much deeper.

“It’s fundamental at this point,” he says. “It’s not a failure of any one platform or individual. It’s a failure of legislators and regulators, particularly in the United States, to get to grips with this.” (An X spokesperson has previously disputed the CCDH’s findings to Fast Company, taking issue with the organization’s research methodology. “According to what we know, the CCDH will claim that posts are not ‘actioned’ unless the accounts posting them are suspended,” the spokesperson said. “The majority of actions that X takes are on individual posts, for example by restricting the reach of a post.”)

Ahmed contends that inertia among regulators has allowed antisemitic conspiracy theories to fester online to the extent that many people believe and buy into those concepts. Further, he says it has prevented organizations like the CCDH from properly analyzing the spread of disinformation and those beliefs on social media platforms. “As a result of the chaos created by the American legislative system, we have no transparency legislation. Doing research on these platforms right now is near impossible,” he says.

It doesn’t help when social media companies are throttling access to their application programming interfaces, through which many organizations like the CCDH do research. “We can’t tell if there’s more Islamophobia than antisemitism or vice versa,” he admits. “But my gut tells me this is a moment in which we are seeing a radical increase in mobilization against Jewish people.”

Right at the time when the most insight is needed into how platforms are managing the torrent of dis- and misinformation flooding their apps, there’s the least possible transparency.

The issue isn’t limited to private organizations. Governments are also struggling to get a handle on how disinformation, misinformation, hate speech, and conspiracy theories are spreading on social media. Some have reached out to the CCDH to try and get clarity.

“In the last few days and weeks, I’ve briefed governments all around the world,” says Ahmed, who declines to name those governments—though Fast Company understands that they may include the U.K. and European Union representatives. Advertisers, too, have been calling on the CCDH to get information about which platforms are safest for them to advertise on.

Deeply divided viewpoints are exacerbated not only by platforms tamping down on their transparency but also by technological advances that make it easier than ever to produce convincing content that can be passed off as authentic. “The use of AI images has been used to show support,” Chaudhuri says. This isn’t necessarily a problem for trained open-source investigators like those working for Bellingcat, but it is for rank-and-file users who can be hoodwinked into believing generative-AI-created content is real.

And even if those AI-generated images don’t sway minds, they can offer another weapon in the armory of those supporting one side or the other—a slur, similar to the use of “fake news” to describe factual claims that don’t chime with your beliefs, that can be deployed to discredit legitimate images or video of events.

“What is most interesting is anything that you don’t agree with, you can just say that it’s AI and try to discredit information that may also be genuine,” Choudhury says, pointing to users who have claimed an image of a dead baby shared by Israel’s account on X was AI—when in fact it was real—as an example of weaponizing claims of AI tampering. “The use of AI in this case,” she says, “has been quite problematic.”

[salemoleander]

I think what you osserved about Cleo and Lizzie is a result of many factors.

Gender is of course one and a major one at that but it cannot be the only one as both Pearl and Gem have much more fandom characterization. Pearls characterisation especially can be attribuited almost entirely to Double Life.

There is also the factor there are a lot less females then males in the mcyt scene and that has always been a problem. But this means that there will always be way more discussion over man because there are so much more.

We should also consider that Lizzie did have a lot of characterisation back in the Empires s1 days that has been swept under the rug as she became inactive for long periods of time, she had a characterisation but this characterisation didn't even apply to the life series because she was never in it like the others, she missed 3rd life, Double life and Limited life which definitely didn't do her any favours. Mumbos characterization on the other hand still existed because he was much more active and when he was in hiatus his fellow Hermits kept reminding us about him... But Lizzie kinda dips for a while and then comes back and is never really mentioned.

Cleo always had the problem of being simplified as either chaotic arsonist, doting mother figure or talented artigian with dark humor... It's been since the 2020 that I have seen people discussing about her characterisation being basically cut down to one of these 3 personality instead of actually giving her actual personality. This was because newbies at characterization back in season 6 usually put either her or Stress as the nurturing mom friend in fanfiction who then other newbies took as inspiration and it kinda stuck around in a loop.

In a way one would need to analyze this problem at the olden days of minecraft content but then we would be here for days.

Putting most of my response under a cut because it got LONG.

To start, I will point out that "this is the result of many factors" and "in a way you'd need to analyze the origins of this, but we don't have time for that" are extremely common & toothless reasons to derail talking about misogyny (or any other -ism).

I do not think you are intentionally replicating that, but anytime an immediate response is "well it's not really ____-ism, and it's so complicated we could never hope to unpack it," that maybe isn't a useful addition to the discussion.

"[Gender] cannot be the only [factor] as both Pearl and Gem have much more fandom characterization"

I agree that gender is not the only factor, but I think going "well SOME women aren't as affected by misogyny so clearly it can't just be misogyny" is inaccurate. Also, if you look at Pearl and Gem's characterization - Gem is pigeonholed to a very particular type of cutesy fighting-princess role, akin to many YA protagonists of late.

Pearl does have more complex characterization from specifically Double Life, but the majority of analysis & attention only started going to Pearl after she won. As DL was airing, much more attention was paid to Desert Duo Redux and Team Rancher and Impdubs etc. I also think the fandom has taken to holding up Pearl as a token and going 'but look, we can write women! Look how many emotions she has. She's sad and likes murder and dogs."

There is also the factor there are a lot less females then males in the mcyt scene and that has always been a problem. But this means that there will always be way more discussion over man because there are so much more.

I agree, it has been a problem forever (I've been watching MCYT since 2012. I watched Cleo & then False join HC. Believe Me, I Know.) But you'll notice my critique wasn't [All Life Series Dudes] are talked about more than [The Much Smaller Number of Life Series Women]. My critique in my post was 'if Lizzie's death happened to a man I would see more posts about that other hypothetical person" - comparing 1 person to 1 person.

We should also consider that Lizzie did have a lot of characterisation back in the Empires s1 days that has been swept under the rug as she became inactive for long periods of time, she had a characterisation but this characterisation didn't even apply to the life series because she was never in it like the others, she missed 3rd life, Double life and Limited life which definitely didn't do her any favours. Mumbos characterization on the other hand still existed because he was much more active and when he was in hiatus his fellow Hermits kept reminding us about him… But Lizzie kinda dips for a while and then comes back and is never really mentioned.

So this paragraph is definitely where you lost me. Your point seems to be 'Lizzie had characterization in S1 of Empires, and we're forced to borrow it because she's so inactive since then, there's nothing to pull from'. Allow me to share a screenshot of her series playlists here.

Let's leave aside the question of why people would pull from Empires S1 characterization when Last Life happened in the middle of it, and would evidently be a more logical place to pull from for Life Series characterization.

She had a whole Afterlife series, and she wasn't inactive after that! She had only 6 fewer episodes in S2 of Empires than in S1. It is patently ridiculous to claim that Lizzie is just so inactive and absent her Empires S1 characterization is necessary to fall back on, when Mumbo has better characterization despite vanishing for an entire calendar year to go biking. That is sexism.

Cleo always had the problem of being simplified as either chaotic arsonist, doting mother figure or talented artigian with dark humor… It's been since the 2020 that I have seen people discussing about her characterisation being basically cut down to one of these 3 personality instead of actually giving her actual personality. This was because newbies at characterization back in season 6 usually put either her or Stress as the nurturing mom friend in fanfiction who then other newbies took as inspiration and it kinda stuck around in a loop.

I'm glad you agree it's a problem! I can definitely see how that problem originated, but I've seen new fandom members for the Life Series - who don't watch HC or read HC fic- duplicate the same problems. I think at some point it's less a fandom-specific issue than a replication of the social division of women into Virgin, Whore, Bitch, or Mother categories, with no ability to imagine women complexly outside of those boxes or continuums.

This fandom seems to think moving the women in and out of the 'Bitch' box is the same as complex characterization*, and we've all just kind of gone 'okay' because the other option is nothing about any women at all. But we can and must do better, because I have to believe we're capable of writing and paying fandom attention to women as people.

*This is where DL Pearl generally falls to me, and why I am dubious of claims that she's well characterized. I think much of the fandom equates cruelty or sadness with good writing/interesting characters. But she's still fundamentally defined by the questions "How nice or mean are you? Are you in a relationship or alone?"

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: A Honorable Mention For War of Y, and Another Look at How Thai BL Talks About BL (With a Bonus Watch of BL: Broken Fantasy)

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I take a look at the more recent attempts by the Thai BL industry to critique itself with War of Y and the mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.]

2022's War of Y. Let me start this piece off by saying that this show is not good. My friend and BL elder educator, @bengiyo, once said about the OGMMTVC project, that some people (LIKE ME :'( ) just have to look into the abyss to satiate their curiosity about how this genre has developed, and that's definitely a point of the OGMMTVC. Not all past Thai BL shows are good, not by a long shot, and I don't recommend War of Y if you're watching dramas for pleasurable experiences only. (If you want to watch a GREAT drama that critiques the Thai BL industry, start with 2021's Lovely Writer, and I'll get more into this later.)

War of Y, directed by the chaotic Cheewin Thanamin and the I-am-assuming-to-be-misanthropic-and-indulgently-self-righteous-and-preening Den Panuwat, gave us 20 episodes of what I believe they thought to be groundbreaking critical art about the currently Thai BL industry. Let me set up an outline so that I don't spend too long on the bad stuff, and explain why War of Y does at least get an important mention (but not an official inclusion) on the OGMMTVC list.

1) What was War of Y about, how it was structured, and some quick high points, 2) Comparing War of Y to other pieces of Thai BL fiction that did a better job of critiquing Thai BL culture, and 3) A close-out reflection of Aam Anusorn's 2020 mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.

War of Y, as presented by Cheewin and Den, is designed to be a meta-drama of four chapters, all examining a specific aspect of the Thai BL industry. The first chapter, led by Billy Patchanon and Seng Wichai, focuses on two ship partnerships competing with each other, to the mental detriment of one of the older ship's celebrities; the second chapter focuses on two HORRIBLE warring managers; the third chapter showcases, in excruciating detail, god help us, a Y idol reality show, replete with singing; and the final chapter depicts the creation of a BL series and the rise of another super celebrity, whose career potentially gets derailed by his relationship with a female acting colleague.

Before I get into the few high points, I just want to say that this bloated structure (four chapters of five episodes each) did not do this drama well. It could have been edited down GREATLY for more succinct messaging. The other major issue I had is that the Thai BL genre -- as a romance genre itself, that demands romantic and coupled endings -- is just not the right genre to meta-critique the industry from which the piece of art comes from, not unless you're the screenwriter of Lovely Writer, who deftly managed some very complicated storylines into true art. There was no deft to War of Y. Couples got together in pandering and condescending ways, because that's how a Thai BL should end, right (?!); HORRENDOUS warring enemies suddenly made up with barely any context except to make money, and so on. I kept saying to friends during my watch that in a Den Panuwat show -- the worse you are as a character, the more likely you are to be redeemed for seemingly no good reason.

[Exhibits B and C in Den Panuwat's screenwriting record of questionable human characteristics? Fucking Only Friends and Playboyy. THE WORSE THOSE CHARACTERS WERE, THE BETTER THEIR OUTCOMES. Yeah, we really wanted those assholes to end well. ANYWAY. (I am committing to never watching a Den Panuwat show again. ANYWAY.)]

But there were a few high points. Actually seeing a Y idol reality show, something that international fans may not be able to appreciate with a lack of subtitles, was at least eye-opening for the inter-related nature of these kinds of shows, with some performers subsequently getting series gigs. (I understand that Santa Pongsapak, of My Own 12%, is an example of this kind of performer, who started out first as a music idol trainee.)

And the acting. Some of the acting was EASILY the best part of War of Y, as it very often happens in questionable Thai dramas: Billy (BILLYYYYYYYY), First Piyangkul, Dome Waruwat (who we most recently saw in Cooking Crush, and who absolutely SLAYED as one of the SLIMIEST, GROSSEST characters EVER, ohmygod), and

SENG MOTHERFUCKING WICHAI

(who will win one of the crowns as one of THE BEST FUCKING ACTORS IN THAI BL at the conclusion of the OGMMTVC project)

were easily the best reasons to watch War of Y. The range of Seng Wichai. It's ironic that he left Idol Factory last year, ending the BillySeng ship, and was then disgracefully treated like utter crap by the media and BL fans for the reveal of his relationship with Freen Sarocha. That, in itself, could make for a heartbreaking drama about the BL industry, but alas. We have War of Y instead. Seng is a motherfucking hero, and is also the KING of cringe, playing a horribly behaved actor who learns to overcome his insecurities to stand up against the advantages taken unto him by greedy managers.

We also had MANY wild and crazy cameos from real BL professionals in the show. @twig-tea and I agree that director New Siwaj's cameo was BAFFLING. He played a BL director (which he actually is) who maybe hated making BLs? (Maybe he actually hates it?) But still does it? And was mostly checked out of making the BL-show-within-the-BL-show, until he was called out about it, and then behaved like a good boy. Like. That cameo, along with a literally-evil NetJames and an even more inexplicable and weird literally-evil MaxNat cameo (wtf, that wasn't filled out AT ALL), were the really weird ones. The sad ones were ones like sweet NuNew Chawarin telling young BL guys that they have to sing (NO THEY DON'T). There was actual!Tee Bundit telling off Seng Wichai's character, that was rad. Director Lit Phadung of SOTUS and Dangerous Romance (😬) was there. Even the original novelist for Thailand's first television BL, Love Sick, was there, playing herself as Kwang Latika, who complained to a producer within War of Y that the show-within-the-show (yeah, I know) was taking her novel out of context. That shit sounds familiar! I could have used more accurate commentary on that.

The last high point that I can muster is that the show began to toe the line of the issue of actors needing to explore their sexualities for art's sake. As fans, we truly do not have much insight into this process, and I think it's for good reason, so as to protect actors (wherever they land on the sexuality spectrum) from very real, emotional, and sensitive processes and workshops that prepare them for taking on queer material. We know that actors like Nanon Korapat from Bad Buddy use Method techniques in their performances, and that can be mentally draining. Do I believe that some actor pairings experiment with dating, and may actually be in relationships? Yes, I must believe it, considering the psychological work these young men have to do to build attraction to each other for art's sake. The CEO of Korea's Strongberry studio confirmed as much earlier this year.

Unfortunately, I think War of Y leveraged these very sensitive realities to blatantly and flippantly indicate that ships can be ASSUMED to either explore sex with each other, and/or to even assume that they SHOULD be in relationships, à la the television BL romance formula that I mentioned above. I think this show could have transcended the romance genre formula, frankly, and I think the show came kinda close to doing that in the last chapter with First Piyangkul -- but not before setting up First's character, Achi, as a cheating monster-machine who was willing to go to great lengths to protect his fame, including outing his trans-female ex-girlfriend and co-star (YEAH, THAT HAPPENED), as well as separating himself from his ship and sexual same-sex partner while still indicating that they were dating. The whole storyline was just -- BLEH.

As I chatted with another fabulous BL elder, @twig-tea, about after I finished War of Y, clearly, Cheewin and Den thought they were intellectual geniuses upon the creation of this show, thinking that a BL itself would be a sufficient mechanism to offer meta commentary about problematic aspects of the BL industry (IT'S NOT). Twig wisely said to me that a writer or directly simply CHOOSING a topic to explore vis à vis a BL -- like a criticism of the industry itself -- is not, in of itself, worthy of laudation. And Cheewin and Den were CLEARLY expecting flowers by the end of this drama. If you've ever lived in smelling distance of southern California, you'll know that entertainment industries love nothing more than to talk about the entertainment industry, and that they think that fictional drama art is the best way to obsess over the vagaries of these industries (IT'S NOT). Instead, Cheewin and Den basically outed themselves as economic shippers and idiot faux-savants who are clearly in the game for fame, and maybe the dudes themselves, which -- BLEH REDUX.

On the OGMMTVC list, Lovely Writer does such a better job at covering the latent homophobia and judgments against actors within and external to the industries that take on BL. War of Y actually teed up a LOT of interesting topics, such as the BL-to-het-drama-and-studio pipeline that I talked about in my past OGMMTVC KinnPorsche pieces -- but these topics in War of Y just instead drowned in misanthropic meditations about fame, sex, and money that seemed far more suited to reaaaaalllly-bad Cinemax than, say, a proto-documentary.

The OGMMTVC syllabus also has YYY, from 2020, as a first entrée to BL-commentary-within-BL (and funnily enough, YYY also stars Lay Talay, who was the main anchor of War of Y, and was actually fantastic in both shows). YYY is a lot more succinct, CONCISE, zany, weird as HELL, incomplete, INSANE, not the greatest show, but HILARIOUS, simply in part because of its different and wonderful writers in Fluke Teerapat (a former BL actor himself) and Tanachot Prapasri. If you're looking for commentary about BL within wild-ass fiction (and if you're willing to watch it with shrooms or a fifth of vodka), watch YYY. (And remember that you're really watching YYY to watch Poppy Ratchapong eat his role of Porpla totally alive. Utter brilliance.)

Otherwise, as a means of complementing this review, I also watched 2020's non-fiction mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy, by Aam Anusorn, another Series Y director who made the documentary, perhaps in part, to atone for past BL shows that he made, like 2Moons2 and Call It What You Want.

BL: Broken Fantasy featured interviews from directors, actors, and actual fans, about the nature of shipping, what the industry demands of actors, what fans themselves demand, and offered even a little bit of insight from two HUGE actors, Bright Vachiwarit and Win Metawin of 2gether and Still 2gether, about the process itself of young men acting in a queer coupleship.

The documentary is perhaps too short for its own good. And it sets up Aam as an unwilling participant within the BL industry, seemingly not knowing about what he was getting into when he first started making BLs (2gether's director, Champ Weerachit, also presents this way, which I found a touch disingenuous, as they were literally filming 2gether in the documentary).

But BL: Broken Fantasy hammered on a couple of important and real points. The economic benefits of shipping are HUGE. The sponsorship deals, the fame, the money -- they literally make young actors very rich and very well attended to. The fans EXPECT shipping performances, so that they themselves can situate themselves as caretakers or "mommies" to their young flock of boba-eyed actors that they worship. And for directors who want to earn money by making filmed art: the budding industry offers them that opportunity in growing spades. ( @lurkingshan will be happy to know that of all people, Aof Noppharnach, confirms to the documentary's audience that BL is a romance genre of love stories. As if there was any doubt, playa!)

At this point in time, in 2024, if I want a meta-critical understanding of the BL industry, and its many impacts on queer populations, fan bases, and Asian and global society, I'll go to Dr. Thomas Baudinette's Boys Love Media in Thailand and choose the academic route. We are SO LUCKY now to actually have tremendous academic discourse on the genre and its impact on media, fandoms, queer society, and global and regional acceptances of queer equity.

As opposed to the roads that academics are paving, War of Y allowed itself to bloat and gloat, on behalf of its creators, about their desires for shipping, for lavishing attention on beautiful young men, without offering us objective insight into the mindsets of these gentlemen who are important artists and creators in many of the shows we love. There needs to be a space for fair and objective criticism about an industry that may, at many times, take advantage of these young men. While there were many industry cameos in the show, the most frequent cameo was Den Panuwat himself. That enough should tell us what this show was ultimately really about.

[Well, as you can tell, I am fucking DONE with War of Y, laughing my azz off, and -- I'm off to greener pastures. I'm taking a cute and quick break from the OGMMTVC to devour Japan's anime version of Cherry Magic for an upcoming comparative (and totally self-indulgent) Big Meta on Thailand's and Japan's versions of that franchise. (And I have also been watching Fully Booked, AMA.) But I've got a long-awaited rewatch of The Eclipse coming up, to explore how GMMTV handled homophobia as a centered topic head-on, and from there, I go back to Idol Factory to watch Thailand's first GL, featuring the lovely FreenBecky, in GAP.

AND THEN: HOLY SHIT! FINALLY! My School President. I can't wait.

Here's the latest of the OGMMTVC list. If you've got any questions or comments about the syllabus, just mosey on over to this link and drop a comment my way!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here)

21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here)

31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 37) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) 38) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 39) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine “Genre BLs” and Internalized/Externalized Homophobia in GMMTV Shows (watching) 40) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL)

41) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 42) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 43) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 44 La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 45) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 46) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 47) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 48) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 49) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 50) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake)

51) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 52) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here)]

[luhafraser]

Anons in my inbox... Sorry... I'm not ignoring you, but what do you want me to say? Nothing new here...

New Blah Blahlands?!

Another blah blah blah book... Nothing new in this "I had Covid" speech or have you guys already forgotten the Xmas 2021 - QT LA playlist on Spotify?! ... He's just unfolding a script that he created in December 2021... There was his "wee" accident too... A series of misfortunes... True or not?! Believe what you want... 😜🤣 Fact is that at the beginning of January 2022 he no longer had anything (or he wouldn't have gone to the Chargers game with Marina and Alex), he was in LA and I don't need to mention where Caitríona was, right?!

(The best part was Cait giving her location in a interview, where she was supposedly at the end of 2021 - London -, and this article being published on January 1, 2022... Because it's very common for Cait to give her location! 😜🤣)

All the "clans" in this fandom are fed with these books... We already had "the gardener" Sam, the bluebell flower thing, and now even the believers in gay theory are well served with this pathetic description of Sam and his flirtations.

Oh... And the article in The Telegraph? He should be ashamed of that. But tell me... How many thousands of people, from outside this fandom, are going to read and/or pay attention to that?

Of course, one or other will read it because of the usual bait...

Oh and of course, JJ...

Regarding this "I don't have time for relationships because of my work", I already gave my opinion in another post.

It doesn't make any sense... After all, he supposedly had relationships years ago while filming Outlander.

---

Years ago (2019) a well-known shipper stopped believing that Sam and Caitríona had children (in secret)... One of her statements to stop believing is exactly what Sam has been using for a while to justify why he doesn't have a relationship/family. She even said that Sam would never deny his child...

Well, I don't blame this shipper, far from it... But let's be honest, SC use a lot of what we talk about here... Very little in favor and much more against shippers' beliefs.

Sam for Philippine Daily Inquirer magazine, in early 2020:

He probably added "the trauma of his father's absence" in Waypoints book, to cause commotion and be a slightly better excuse than that lame one used first?!

And the announcement of the blonde child, in August 2021, was a blow delivered using what that and other shippers started to claim. We are often our own worst enemies, even if unintentionally.

---

And what Sam said about "his daughter"... Well... He didn't lie. He doesn't have a daughter WITH MM...

😜🤣

---

It's as if the SC is always on the defensive, justifying something... Which seems strange at first, but... If Sam just said "I'm single because I want to be"... That wouldn't tease us, right? Maybe not in the same way... It probably wouldn't cause a buzz talk (here)... Anyone outside of this fandom will see just another unknown actor, who is not romantically involved with his co-star (and that's what they want).

It's been years of the same....

All of this crossed the line of ridiculousness, and when the world outside is so chaotic, sometimes it is impossible to have fun and be distracted by this circus. Sorry, Anons.

[afloweroutofstone]

what's the deal with recent news re: Castillo?

The situation in Peru is such a clusterfuck.

Background:

Pedro Castillo was elected President of Peru in 2021. Peru has been in a political crisis since 2020 or so, and Castillo became the fourth president since then, with many of his voters hoping that he could help solve the crisis.

Castillo was a political outsider who ran with Free Peru, a left-wing party run by the influential politician Vladimir Cerrón, who is basically a socially-conservative Marxist. Castillo was vaguely left-populist and never really shared Cerrón's beliefs, but he and many others ran with Free Peru anyway because it was the most organized leftist force at the time amidst Peru's fractured party system. He very narrowly won the election against a far-right candidate.

Castillo faced immediate opposition from the right-wing congress, whose obstructions basically prevented him from doing anything. Whenever Castillo tried to play to the center, Cerrón would criticize him from the left, and the rift between them grew large enough that Castillo left the party entirely earlier this year. He now had very few allies and tons of enemies.

Peru's political crisis is a mess, and Castillo was both inexperienced and unprepared. His government had struggled to do anything, had lacked any clear direction, and had suffered from constant turnover among cabinet members.

Opinion polls show that Peruvians disapprove of both Castillo and the legislature, but that they dislike the legislature even more than him.

What Happened Yesterday:

The Peruvian legislature was preparing yet another vote to condemn Castillo in an attempt to constitutionally remove him from office. There's been lots of accusations of corruption flung at Castillo by opposition figures, but tbvh I have no idea if these allegations are legitimate, considering how hard they've been going at him from the start it's certainly possible that they're just made up to get rid of him.

In response, Castillo made an announcement that he's dissolving congress, enacting a national curfew, and starting a process to rewrite the Peruvian constitution. Most have called this a "self-coup," when a fairly-elected leader tries to extend their rule beyond what they were elected for. Peru had something similar to this happen in 1992.

Everyone disliked this. Many of Castillo's own ministers resigned; his Vice President Dina Boluarte denounced him; and his declaration was rejected by the legislature, the courts, the police, and the military. He had no one on his side.

78% of congress voted to remove Castillo from office in response. His VP was then sworn in as President, in accordance with the Peruvian constitution. Castillo was arrested.

Reactions among the Latin American left were mixed. AMLO and Evo Morales said that Castillo had been unfairly removed, while Lula and Petro basically said "this whole thing sucks but it sounds like the end result was done constitutionally." Within Peru, Cerrón said he has no sympathy for Castillo, but that he does oppose the US government's statement criticizing Castillo (whatever the fuck that means). There's an activist in Peru I'm loosely acquainted with who helped elect Castillo, and their reaction was basically "fuck Castillo for trying that self-coup, and fuck the legislature for plotting his downfall from the start."

Dina Boluarte- now the fifth president since 2020- was also someone who ran with Free Peru despite disagreeing with Cerrón's ideology, and Cerrón kicked her out of the party earlier this year. This means that her government also lacks any real support, backed neither by her original party nor any of the establishment parties.

Takeaway?

While unquestionably better than his last electoral opponent, it was an open secret that Castillo and his team were unprepared to lead a government. That lack of planning can be dangerous even in calm times, but in a chaotic political crisis like Peru's it was enough to basically stop him from governing at all.

Castillo doesn't strike me as an especially authoritarian type of leader, but I think he realized that the walls were closing in fast on his government and that he had no real escape plan. Still, the self-coup was a moronic choice, and he should have been able to guess that it would fail- he had neither the popular support nor the institutional support to get away with something like this. His move feels more like panic than anything else.

Despite Castillo's vague political ideology and his formal separation from the Marxist party he started with, this fiasco will almost certainly be used to discredit the Peruvian left in future elections. This is particularly damaging considering that "we do actually believe in democracy" has been one of the Peruvian left's strongest arguments against the Peruvian right, which has demonstrated before that they are perfectly fine with a dictatorship.

His replacement, Boluarte, also has very few options for governing. She lacks any major organic base of support, the right-wing opposition in congress is now likely to be even more aggressive, and the chances to resolve the nation's political crisis in a just way are even narrower than they were when Castillo took office.

All around a sad day for Peru.