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bugtransport · 2 years

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Kamen Rider X Finished February 14th, 2023

Here's your warning now: this one also got away from me. I BROKE 4k...

Kamen Rider X is… a show!

Look. I don’t know how to start this. I don’t know how many of you have seen this show. I don’t know how many of you saw me lose my fucking mind when I watched the first two episodes of this one. I had to kick myself out of the house and go get a breath of fresh air and went to H Mart and bought a shitton of side dishes. Just to cope, you know? Sometimes you need some fish cakes, for the soul. I ate great that whole week but that’s besides the point. X does have what I myself would describe as “a beginning” so let’s just recap that first, I guess, because it sure kicks the show off.

Pictured: welcome to Wet Boy Wonderland.

PART ONE: SETUP!

Before we begin fully: I think I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there are… a couple issues with and themes in this show that I appreciated having a heads up on before I got to them. I think that what I might have to say might come off as far too complimentary without this disclaimer and to spoil my final conclusion, my actual feelings are a little mixed. We’ll be touching on this later with how it ties into what my thesis ends up being, but there’s a switch in the theme of the monsters part way through the show from Greek Mythology to Various Bad Guys In History and the thing about various bad guys in history and also shows that are made in, let I remind you, the 70s, is that sometimes things can be… well, I’ll be blunt. There’s a pretty racist caricature in there and some of the picks can be a little off color and also there’s Starfish Hitler which does feature swastikas and was a decision that the boys and I dubbed “sure a choice.” I mean yeah, he gets killed like all the other bad guys do, but still. Do you know the experience of watching Aristocats for the first time as an adult and being like “Hmm, I really do not remember this weird racist scene in the middle of this film, what the fuck? I mean I guess it was a different time, but still…” That’s kind of what this feels like in spots. Jin Keisuke also has maybe the world’s worst dad. This is a guy who seems to have decided that a “signs of parental abuse” checklist is a game of bingo and that somehow it can be won. This is most apparent during the first couple episodes for reasons you’ll see in like, a minute or so if you read at the same speed I do or faster, but it flavors the entire show in a way I’ll hopefully convince you of by the end. Trust me on this one. Those are the two big disclaimers I have out of the way; if either of those are non-negotiable issues for you, I recommend not finishing this and watching something that isn’t Kamen Rider X. For the rest of you? Buckle up.

Here’s (roughly) what happens in the first two episodes of X. Jin Keisuke comes back home for a visit. He gets jumped by some goons at the boat docks who want to kidnap him because of his dad and gets shot at and falls into the water. He gets out of the water and reconnects with his… fiancee? I think? Keisuke goes to visit his father at his lab in a seaside cave, says that again, dad, he has no interest in going into science, and gets promptly judo thrown in response. His dad then tells him to put on a vest, which he does. Keisuke and his fiancee (?) go out to eat dinner and she tries to guilt him into sticking around because his dad is lonely. Keisuke gets a message saying that GOD is coming to fuck his shit up. Oh, right, GOD is the name of the bad guy organization in this one. Just roll with it... Neptune and the goons (great band name, the more that I think about it) overthrow a ship. Keisuke’s fiancee comes to visit them at the cave-lab; Keisuke’s dad shoots his son. This is okay because it turns out that the vest was bulletproof. Everyone laughs at this. Keisuke presumably goes to sleep at some point after this but gets woken up in the middle of the night and attacked by some goons and oh look, one of them happens to be his fiancee! What a surprise! Keisuke rushes to his dad’s side to find the guy bleeding out on the rocks in front of his cave-lab. Goons pop up and shoot him too, killing him. Keisuke’s dad has enough fight left in him to drag his son into his cave-lab and borg him and somehow get him onto a boat, where Keisuke wakes up after an indeterminate amount of time, surprised to be alive. Keisuke’s dad left a message for him telling that he built a supercomputer that is also an island (the Jin Station) to house his consciousness on a computer now that he’s dead. He gives Keisuke a bike and a quick rundown on how to become the X Rider and then asks Keisuke to explode his corpse for him. He does this. There’s a flashback of Keisuke as a kid running to his dad and his dad grabbing him and just fucking slamming the kid down. Keisuke goes off and defeats Neptune and the goons and gets helped by a woman who looks exactly like his fiancee but isn’t actually her, who gives no explanation as to why this is the case.

…So that’s episode one.

Pictured: father-son bonding at its finest!

I’ll make episode two shorter: Keisuke has another run in with his fiancee and her doppelganger which doesn’t explain anything either. Our monster of the week plotline is about a kid whose dad was just killed in a car accident a couple weeks ago and who apparently fought with his dad a lot and doesn’t know how to deal with the guilt that comes from that. Keisuke tries to protect this kid from misinformed townspeople who think that he’s hypnotizing people and the fact that he’s a borg starts to sink in. Keisuke goes back to the Jin Station to experience his first bout of borg angst with some support from his computer-father, whose response to his son wanting comfort is to call him a weak bitch and tell him that he can’t rely on anyone, he has to fight alone, and insist that Keisuke blow up the Jin Station, killing him again. This happens. Keisuke manages to convince the public that the boy was being slandered by GOD and that he wasn’t actually hypnotizing people. He then beats up the guy actually responsible. Keisuke comforts the kid by straightening out his flute, which got bent in the fight, and contemplates that maybe there are some good things about being a borg after all.

Pictured: I might have understated exactly how the stages of grief impacted him on this one here.

If you think I'm exaggerating anything here you're more than welcome to fact check me. These first two episodes are available for free on the Toei Youtube channel, go ham! Good luck.

In any case, you might be seeing a theme emerging here. Don’t worry, we’ll get to that in just a minute. There’s a little bit of contrasting that I want to do first with the previous riders. Jin Keisuke is pretty different than the guys that we’ve had before and is especially jarring coming off of a dude like Kazami Shiro. Keisuke’s wet. He doesn’t have a support network like even Hongo did with at least knowing Tachibana from the start. Hell, it’s debatable that the guy even knows Kamen Riders are like, a thing, and not just some random shit his dad made up. He certainly doesn’t know them personally like Hongo was able to make sure both Hayato and Kazami did from the start. There’s a vague kind of uncertainty undercutting everything that Jin Keisuke does as a borg because he wasn’t borged in the same way that the other previous riders were. It was by someone who he ostensibly should be able to trust (unlike Hongo and Hayato) and for a fight that wasn’t at all his (unlike Kazami) and in a way that, because of these facts, comes off as more malicious and personal than Shocker’s sterile, random cruelty and while yes, his dad was technically saving his life, it doesn’t really seem to come from a place of kindness. It really comes off like his dad wanted to have just another way to control him after he was gone and when he realized that his son was still something that he viewed as “weak,” died to save himself the embarrassment. He explicitly requested that Keisuke not lean on anyone and instead take on the fight himself, despite doing exactly the opposite of that in giving the fight over to his son in the first place. What a hypocritical ass.

It’s not just that – there’s the way that he fights with a weapon, kind of like Riderman, but essentially fences, which is so unlike any of the boys previously. He just kind of coincidentally falls into fighting GODborgs for the first part of the show with no real rhyme or reason, not with any plan, not necessarily being targeted by them even, really not seeming like he has any stake in the fight at all. He kind of doesn’t. Everyone else had some kind of personal vendetta and sure, GOD killed his dad the first time around, but Keisuke also got asked by his computer-dad to kill him, and he did. So. I mean, he could have just kept his dad alive that way. This is explicitly not his fight. He just kind of ended up here. Once the show gets going and Jin Keisuke gets into the swing of things and we start getting back into something that feels… a bit more like the previous Rider seasons, there’s still this odd disbelief in his abilities that all the characters, including Tachibana and the rest of his allies, approach Keisuke with. With Kazami, he’d do completely off the wall shit and everyone would be like “haha, that’s our guy!” Keisuke will play dead to try and throw someone off his tracks and go a little overboard with the fake blood or something and it’ll work, but in the same breath Tachibana will just look at him all confused and question why on earth he decided to go that way in the first place. I feel like I’m going full Pepe Syliva; is this not meant to mirror his father’s disbelief in his son’s abilities/path in life and the subsequent control that he tried to push onto him? In fact, there’s really only one character who I can think of who doesn’t underestimate him near constantly: Apollo Geist, baby.

Pictured: the creature in question

PART TWO: Fuck it, call me a Jin Keisuke apollogeist

Sorry, I had to fit that joke in here somewhere. I’ve been trying for weeks to make it work. Apollo Geist is the leader of GOD’s secret police, a position that is basically analogous to any of the other commanders that we’ve seen before. Weekly monster gets sent out, he’s the one above them in the ranks so he oversees their progress, critiques them, ends up 1v1ing the rider at some point, gets their shit kicked in. We’ve seen this before, we’ve loved this before, it works so well and I think it’s definitely something that the beginning episodes were lacking. We have to get some structure in these evil organizations in order to be able to even start to think about tearing them down. Though – because of the aforementioned constant and relentless underestimating of Jin Keisuke, when Apollo Geist appears and becomes obsessed with taking him down and claims that he’s the only one who can actually defeat the rider and stands on cliffsides watching him fight it really comes off as way more personal than anyone else we’ve had before. He can transform, not really into a monster, but into something way closer to X or any of the riders than we’ve had with anyone else previously. Apollo Geist feels like he’s set up to be Jin Keisuke’s equal, and it’s mad yaoi.

Oh yeah, and totally forgot about this until I was looking back through my caps to write this, but Keisuke’s fiancee? Yeah, she was trying to do like whole double agent thing with her twin (who was the other one who looked like her) and it didn’t work out and she exploded mere minutes before Apollo Geist was introduced for the first time. She never really gets mentioned again. But that does leave the spot for a romantic interest open…

Pictured: special friends...

So. What the hell else am I supposed to think. Like, sorry, the man butts into pretty much every fight because he doesn’t trust his lackeys with this man. He wants to take X down in a way that’s satisfying to him. He checks in with Tachibana when Jin Keisuke fakes his death without telling him that he’s with GOD, leading Tachibana to think he must be one of Keisuke’s friends. He does the same thing when visiting the coffee shop later. He’s fucking obsessed with this guy. The two of them bike joust. Apollo Geist will jump onto his bike from 20 floors up, tenderizing his nuts into oblivion when he hits the saddle, just to show off. He’s obsessive and wild and wears a suit that’s all one color and man, I cannot imagine who else this might be reminding me of right now, but my word… and, both times he dies, he does so trying to take X down with him.

“Both times he dies?” Both times he dies. The man fails to hold down X the first time around when he tried to explode him with his arm bomb and following that gets rebuilt and upgraded in the process. Long story short, after donning his little cowboy fit and realizing that he has shit aim suddenly during his daily shooting practice to kill Jin Keisuke, he learns that he only has a day or two left to live and that the literal only way to reverse this is to take a piece of the X suit and have it attached to his heart.

Pictured: heterosexual behavior

Yes, you heard me correctly there: the only way for Apollo Geist to live here is for him to quite literally accept Jin Keisuke into his heart. Fucking incredible, isn’t it? He doesn’t do this, obviously, because he did die a second time, but look. The metaphor. It’s right there!! Maybe if Apollo Geist and Jin Keisuke had met under different circumstances, or maybe if they had a common enemy, or maybe if Apollo Geist wanted to admit his newfound weakness to Jin Keisuke or accept Jin Keisuke’s weaknesses as well (like the part where Keisuke didn’t want to transform because he was hurt, right, and Apollo Geist wanted to force him into changing so they could fight) and get into something that isn’t just this back and forth will they won’t they tension, the “what if we were two boys?” complex, the fucking starcrossed lovers of it all.

Pictured: he likes to be tall

Sorry, wait a fucking second, wasn’t there someone else who died a horrible explosive death because they didn’t want to accept Keisuke into his heart? Who also saw Jin Keisuke as someone who should be able to put up a good, satisfying fight, regardless of what his wishes might be? Does Apollo Geist… also tie back to the whole dad thing?

PART 3: The whole dad thing.

Pictured: not a compliment

So. The whole dad thing. There are so, so many examples I could pull from, but lemme just run through what I specifically took notes on while watching the show as being repeated quite a distracting amount:

Human experimentation. My fucking god, X has a lot of it randomly peppered in throughout the show. Not even really things that GOD is doing – the one that comes to mind is in one episode when the GODborg was influencing a bunch of kids to commit suicide and the tie between all of them was that they were all taking an experimental drug because they’re all honors students or something and they wanted to boost their brains even further. Honestly sounds like some shit that would happen in the suburb I used to live in, which is why I remember this one so well. The person who developed this thing gets nervous because like, I believe that the last kid alive on this drug is their kid. Jin Keisuke does save them, but you know who fucking else experimented on their kid? Jin Keisuke’s dad.

Vampires. What the fuck, this show has I think at least 5 separate instances of vampires in it. In a 35 episode show. There are so many vampires. You know, the monster that’s notorious for infecting other people and sucking their life from them and changing them irreversibly in the process, making them stronger physically but also condemning them to living a hellish life. Wow, you know what that sounds like to me? Kind of like turning your son into a cyborg to save him and forcing him into a fight with a bunch of guys that were trying to kill you.

The switch in monster themes in the middle of the show. There’s a point post Apollo Geist where the monsters swap over from being themed after figures in Greek mythology to historical figures. Yes, like I stated in the warning at the beginning of this post. Almost as if Jin Keisuke spent the time up to Apollo Geist fighting the mythos of his father, his ideals and the impact that left on him, and then when Apollo Geist died because he refused to let Keisuke into his heart, swapped over to fighting the actual sins of his father’s past. As if Apollo Geist dying for a similar reason that his father did when he asked Keisuke to blow him up so that he could “build character” or whatever, make Keisuke then realize that his father’s beliefs were… kinda fucked. That maybe the way he treated him wasn’t right. That maybe after that realization, he can move on slightly and begin the actual work of taking GOD down.

[[Important to note but not a section in the dad saga – after Apollo Geist and the monster switch happens, the new guy leading the GODborgs is one big robolad named King Dark. Yeah, this thing has already gone on for too long and I didn’t want to recap even more of the show so I’m just giving you the context. Couldn’t figure out how else to do it and make it coherent and again, don’t know how many of you have actually watched this show. Okay back to the essay:]]

Kazami Shiro shows up and upgrades Jin Keisuke towards the end. After this point, Keisuke gets a perm (irrelevant) and his fighting style completely changes (very relevant) to be much more traditional Rider. The Ridol stick that his father gave him that he used to fight all the time with? Not used anymore. He has a new henshin pose and a new finisher. It’s just like, oh, I don’t know, being able to meet people he relates to and find a new family with the other riders is maybe helping him find his identity separate from his dad? While he is still obviously impacted by the trauma his father imposed upon him (in being a rider in the first place) he’s taking it and changing it into something his own? Quite literally, textually, physically changed by the people he’s met? Who would have thought!

The GOD leader? The one who we’ve been working towards fighting all this time? The person controlling King Dark? Yeah. That’s Keisuke’s dad’s friend, who was the one behind getting him dragged into GOD business, which of course is then in turn the reason that Keisuke got dragged into this mess in the first place. Remember above when I mentioned how the monsterswap lead to Keisuke fighting the actual sins of his father and his past actions? Yeah. That’s the final boss. Just to cement and drive home really how much of this could have been avoided. How much the entire thing was his dad’s fault. Keisuke gets stabbed all the way through his chest while in King Dark but still manages to come out on top. Yeah, it hurt him, but the man was finally cut off.

The ending scene of the show, where Keisuke rides off into the distance and Tachibana reads the note that he left for him explaining his plans going forward, is so much different than the end of V3. V3 ends with Kazami Shiro experiencing loss once more and going to go off to deal with that. X, on the other hand, ends on one of the most hopeful notes I’ve seen yet. Keisuke seems… really happy. He’s excited to head out on his own, like the other riders before him. He’s excited to experience what they’ve experienced. He’s finally shed the weight of his father and his expectations for him and he can figure out what being a Kamen Rider means to him, specifically. It’s really, really sweet. It’s the ending I want in a story about parental abuse. It didn’t make me cry, because I was too happy for him, but it really stuck with me something vicious.

Do I sound like I’m going off the rails? I feel like I am!

The thing is… most if not all of these things can totally be explained away in ways that don’t have a damn thing to do with Jin Keisuke’s dad. The change of the monster themes from mythology to reality? I know that one’s because the person who handled the monster designs for the first part of the show left and they had to bring someone new in. The vampires? I’m convinced they got a great deal on the fangs and just wanted to use them where they could. The human experimentation themes? Sure, that’s always been a theme in Rider, not really to this degree of lethality, but maybe they’re just trying to bring in a somewhat older audience or something. V3 upgrading him? Kazami Shiro fucking rules, of course they’d want to bring him back into the show, and why not have him give Keisuke something cool so they’d have an excuse to do just that. The contrast between the endings of V3 and X are super apparent to me because I’m watching them as an adult less than a month apart, but so many other characters also ride off into the sunset, it could just as easily mean nothing.

I don’t care, I guess; I can’t see it any other way. It’s about defeating his dad and learning to deal with the trauma that your shit parents gave you. It’s Saturn Devouring His Son. Jin Keisuke is battling GOD but really, he’s just fighting all the demons that his father passed down to him. He’s fighting his ideals and his past and his old friend. He was fighting his father’s fight, and he’s done now. He’s found people that are like him, who have similar ideals and can support him in a way that his father couldn’t, and so when he rides off into the sunset at the end of the show, it’s maybe the lightest that I think the show has ever felt. He’ll have to deal with the consequences of his father’s actions for the rest of his life, there’s no question about that, but at least now he’s shed most of the baggage he was saddled with and is all the stronger for it. And I really, really don’t think that their intentions going into the show matter, because I think being able to read it that way can be enough for me. It feels like the story itself wanted to be told. It might have been messy, but hell, what weird relationships with your parents aren’t, right?

Pictured: sure that was probably just a throwaway line but damn, I get why you would associate those things...

TL;DR:

Kamen Rider X is a show where I think that the curtains were blue because that’s what was on sale at the store; maybe yellow curtains were more in season so they got a good deal on the blue ones, and that’s why they used them. Still, whether or not they meant anything by them or not and again, let’s be real, I don’t really think that they did, sometimes they can blow in the breeze and catch the wind just right and ripple like the surface of the ocean, and maybe if you squint your eyes and think about it in just the right way, you can see the debris from the Jin Station floating by.

Would I recommend Kamen Rider X?

FUCKING UHHHHHHHHHHH look okay. Yes if you’re nuts like me and think that this sounds like at least an interesting ride to watch. I can’t say that it really ever got boring and the fact that it’s only 35 episodes? It goes by fast. I was entertained throughout… that entertainment however did range a little bit from feeling like I was watching a fun little toku show to sometimes maybe watching a car wreck. I might have been rubbernecking down the freeway. I wouldn’t recommend that you start with X. Please, for the love of god, start with something that isn’t X. Heed the warning I wrote at the start. Maybe skip this one if you aren’t interested in thinking about some dude’s dad issues for a few weeks! But… it’s still compelling. I still keep thinking about it. It did a lot accidentally and I like it for that. Jin Keisuke, I wish you all the best!

ONE MORE THING! I COULDN’T FIND A PLACE TO MENTION THIS BECAUSE THIS IS LIKE THE ONLY THING THAT DOESN’T TIE INTO KEISUKE’S DAD ISSUES BUT ALSO I STILL WANTED TO MENTION IT: THERE ARE LESBIANS!

LET’S GOOOOO CHIKO AND MAKO YEAAAAAHHH!!!

One last Apollo Geist for the road:

#official bugtransport 2023 media recap #again excuse any typos or whatever i can't be assed to read this over #please don't reply directly to this post i will not be reading it #I HIT IMAGE LIMIT ON HERE EVERYONE PLEASE CLAP #rider roundup #kamen rider x

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oatmilkenjoyer69 · 1 year

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August 2023 Media Breakdown

Movies:

The Bell Boy (1918) - Roscoe Arbuckle

The Seven Year Itch (1955) - Billy Wilder

Niagara (1953) - Henry Hathaway

The Graduate (1967) - Mike Nichols

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - Stephen Spielberg

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) - Susan Seidelman

Thief (1981) - Michael Mann

Red, White & Royal Blue (2023) - Matthew López

TV Shows:

Heartstopper - Season 2, Ep 1-4 (2023)

Books: Completed

Jane Eyre (1847) - Charlotte Brontë

Orlando: A Biography (1928) - Virginia Woolf

The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society (2023) - Eleanor Janega

European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman (2018) - Theodora Goss

The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl (2019) - Theodora Goss

Persuasion (1817) - Jane Austen

To the Lighthouse (1927) - Virginia Woolf

Sirens and Muses (2022) - Antonia Angress

Cursed Bunny (2017) - Bora Chung

The Third Policeman (1967) - Flann O’Brien

Northanger Abbey (1817) - Jane Austen

The Waste Land & Other Poems (1934) - T.S. Eliot

Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921) - W.B. Yeats

Books: In Progress

Dubliners (1914) - James Joyce

The Iliad (8th Century BC) - Homer

Earthlings (2018) - Sayaka Murata

Music: Top 3 Albums

Unreal Unearth (2023) - Hozier | folk/indie rock

Barbie The Album (2023) - Various Artists | soundtrack

Fleet Foxes (2008) - Fleet Foxes | folk/indie rock

Music: Top 3 Singles

bad idea right? (2023) - Olivia Rodrigo | pop rock

HOT TO GO! (2023) - Chappell Roan | indie pop

Swan Upon Leda (2022) - Hozier | folk/indie rock

Cultural and Artistic Pursuits 💅:

Attended Baltimore Bounce

Went to see Hadestown on Broadway for Eva Noblezada’s last weekend as Eurydice 🥹

Worked on my grandma’s Christmas gift

Worked on my scrap yarn blanket

Learned 4 new notes on the clarinet and practiced alternative fingerings for certain notes

Turned 27!

#media roundup #August 2023

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 days

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Thinking the unthinkable

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Time and again, I find myself thinking about radium suppositories: specifically, I get to thinking about the day that the consensus shifted from "radium suppositories are great" to "stop putting radioisotopes up your ass."

The thing is, people really liked radium-based quack remedies. They drank radium-infused water, smeared radium cream on their faces and bodies, and yes, rammed radium suppositories up their assholes:

https://maximumfun.org/episodes/sawbones/radium-girls/

The fact that this made whatever ailed you sicker didn't deter the radium true believers: if you're getting sicker, then you must need more radium.

When I think about the debate over radium, I imagine that the people who understood that radium was really bad for you must have run up against critics who told them they were being unreasonable. "You can't tell people to stop using radium. Tell them to use suppositories with less radium. Tell them to use them less frequently. But you can't just tell people, 'stop putting radium up your asshole.' They won't take you seriously."

About 20 years ago, I started pitching various institutions that reviewed consumer tech policy on the idea that they should reject any product that had DRM. After all, DRM didn't just restrict how you used a gadget today, it provided a facility for nonconsensually, irreversibly field-updating that gadget to add new restrictions tomorrow. How could a reviewer in good conscience say, "Go ahead and buy this device if you need this feature," if they knew that at any time in the future, the gadget's maker could take that feature away and leave the buyer with no recourse?

Here's the warning I (half-seriously) suggested magazines run alongside such products:

WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

No one took me up on my offer. Over and over again, magazine editors, managers of nonprofit review outlets, and indie gadget reviewers told me that it was unrealistic to publish a roundup of, say, this year's portable music players with the recommendation, "Just don't buy any of these. None of them are fit for purpose."

In other words: No one wanted to publish, "The correct amount of radium to stuff up your asshole is zero."

But the correct amount of rectal radium for you to administer is "none" and the correct car for you to buy today is none of the cars:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

This isn't the first time the correct automotive recommendation was "don't buy any of these cars." Back before seatbelts came standard in cars, the correct car was "don't buy a car." Sometimes, the correct answer is "none of the above." Even if that makes you sound unserious, the alternative is that you counsel people to put radium up their asses in a bid to seem "reasonable."

Today, DRM-infected products are routinely downgraded and bricked:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/5/24236237/ftc-software-tethering-letter-consumer-reports-ifixit

Even when companies face public uproar over these disastrous decisions and vow to reverse them, they can't, because these downgrades are one way:

https://www.stereocheck.com/news/music/unfortunately-you-cant-revert-to-the-old-sonos-app-anymore/

That's bad enough when it's your smart speakers, but what about when the company bricks your wheelchair:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair

Or your $100,000 exoskeleton:

https://paulickreport.com/news/people/paralyzed-jockey-michael-straight-wants-to-keep-walking-but-manufacturer-wont-repair-exoskeleton

The reality is that we're living at the end of a catastrophic experiment in deregulation and its handmaidens, corruption and regulatory capture, and there are lots of "normal" things that we just need to stop doing. Not do less of them – just stop.

Like, the correct amount of collusion between realtors representing sellers and realtors representing buyers is zero:

https://www.latimes.com/business/real-estate/story/2024-03-19/realtor-rules-just-changed-dramatically-heres-what-buyers-and-sellers-can-expect

We got that one right, but there's plenty more that we're still engaged in this pathetic, denialist bargaining over. What's the correct degree to which White House officials should cycle back into working at the industries they oversaw? Zero. How many times should such a person come back to work at the White House? Again: zero:

https://prospect.org/power/2024-09-19-next-administration-can-stop-ethics-scandals/

When the Biden admin dropped its executive order on ethics just hours after the inauguration, they trumpeted that it "went further than any other towards slowing the revolving door and limiting conflicts of interest while in office":

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-ethics-commitments-by-executive-branch-personnel/

And it did. But it was also full of loopholes, because banning these conflicts of interest altogether was viewed as politically unserious, so the correct amount of radium up the administration's asshole was set at non-zero. The result? Well, it's about what you'd expect:

https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/what-the-hell-is-anita-dunn-even-allowed-to-work-on/

Congress hasn't updated consumer privacy law since 1988, when it took the bold step of…banning video-store clerks from telling the newspapers which VHS cassettes you took home. Since then, a coalition of commercial surveillance companies and the cops and spies who treat their data-lakes as massive, off-the-books anaerobic lagoons of warrantless surveillance data has prevented the passage of any new privacy protections for Americans.

The result? Stalkers, creeps, spies (both governmental and corporate), identity thieves, spearphishers and other villainous scum are running wild, endangering every American's financial, physical and political wellbeing. The correct amount of commercial data-brokerage for America is zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

In other words, we should order every data-broker, every tech giant, every consumer electronics company and app vendor to delete all their surveillance data. All of it. The correct amount of radium in that asshole is – as with every other orifice zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

From the perspective of the radium pitchmen, the most shocking thing about the past four years has been antitrust enforcers – like Lina Khan, Rohit Chopra, and Jonathan Kanter – who refused to bargain about how much radium we needed to stick up our butts. Fearless of being branded as "unserious" and "unreasonable," they seriously, reasonably said the right amount is none, actually.

None. Which is why they're so mad at Khan and co. Which is why they're so bent on getting Kamala Harris to fire Khan – despite the fact that this would burn precious political capital in the senate. Some people just love the feeling they get from a radium suppository – especially the suppository salesmen:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-09-19-lina-khan-doesnt-need-to-be-confirmed-again/

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/19/just-stop-putting-that-up-your-ass/#harm-reduction/a>

Image: Museum of the Health Sciences https://www.uab.edu/amhs/

#pluralistic #corruption #drm #privacy first #lina khan #antitrust #revolving door

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potofsoup · 1 year

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Happy 10th year of me doing this dorky comic! Hope people don't mind the fact that I haven't really dabbled in Cap stuff for a few years, except for my weird yearly July 4th ritual. On AO3 here, and tumblr tag here. (2022 was about Dobbs, 2020 was about seeing the stars, 2019 was about building new systems, 2018 was about voting, 2017 was about immigration.)

@histrionic-dragon tagged me yesterday and posted a bunch of cool links of ways to help: https://histrionic-dragon.tumblr.com/post/721837010124488704/almost-captain-americas-birthday

Rail workers paid sick leave: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid

Lots of posts out there on the 2023 Minnesota legislative session, but here's the OG tumblr roundup post.

California is trying to divest its two largest pension funds from fossil fuels, but apparently today they decided to table it until next year. :/ I guess more meetings are needed! (productive ones, not ones that could have been an email.)

#happy birthday steve #guess it was hubris to lay out the comic on Jun 28th #because at the time i was pretty happy about protecting voting rights and indian child welfare #and things mostly seemed like a wash #Sam's question at the beginning is basically me #honestly I don't know if I've managed to convince myself of Steve's perspective #but i *have* been in some pretty productive meetings lately #gotta improve systems one boring meeting at a time!#steve rogers #bucky barnes #sam wilson #mine #my comic #4th of july

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hedgiwithapen · 23 days

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DAMMIT HEDGI DAY 2024!

Prompts are now OPEN

What is Dammit Hedgi Day?

Dammit Hedgi Day, the 25th of September, marks the 9th anniversary of the first "Dammit Hedgi" tag on one of my angst fics. Every September I accept [angsty, typically] prompts for three weeks, and then post a massive amount of oneshots and ficlets. Prompt fills range from 200-2000 words, and as the Poll dictates, will start being posted on September 25th

What Fandoms can be prompted for?

Dammit Hedgi Day started with the Flash and DCTV, but has grown! Previous years have seen ficlets for: The Flash (up to mid season 6? I make no promises after that) Supergirl (season 1) Legends of tomorrow (first 2 seasons) Stargirl (all three seasons) Leverage+ Leverage Redemption Blue Beetle (2023) Into the Spiderverse (ish) My Adventures With Superman Young Justice Big Hero 6 Avatar the Last Airbender The Librarians Books of Bayern and assorted original RPG character content That said, I'm not strictly limited to these! I've started watching Stargate SG1, and will accept prompts based on that UP TO MID SEASON 4. Do NOT ask me about things beyond the end of s4, I'm trying to be unspoiled. If you've seen me talk positively about a media, you can ask for it, essentially. I may not fill everything, but I'll try.

What kinds of prompts?

Originally an ANGST fest, it can get a bit more broad especially in recent years. Ideally: send me a fandom/ two characters and a line of dialog like one from a promptlist below OR fandom/ characters and a vague concept-- "Sokka in a time loop" is vague! "Leverage, Daemon au for the Big Bang job" is vague. "Stargirl, Rick and Cindy: "I'm never going to trust you" " is vague. Two full paragraphs that detail who says the line and everyone's feelings on the matter and the outcome is not vague. If you're not sure if something is too detailed, you can always send it in and see, though. Crossovers welcome. DHD is a smut-free zone, and it’s my day so I will write about characters with my viewpoints so prompt with caution if you like a character I do not :) You may attempt to rig your prompts for fluff but do not count on it. Do not expect shipping, this is a genfic event. A few ships may slip through at my discretion, y'all know who I Like. You can send me a couple characters and an angst prompt from a list like this one or This one, Or this ….or if there’s a whump post out there that grabs at you, you can use that. If we've talked about an AU, you can prompt that! If I've made a post like " hey neat concept for [show]:...." you can ask for some of that! If there was a prompt from past years you liked and want More Of? (roundups for 2020 , 2021, 2022, 2023) hell yeah! Canon suffering!! Aus make everything worse!! Missing moments, what-ifs, alternate perspectives! As always, everything will be tagged with Dammit Hedgi Day and Dammit Hedgi Day 2024 for blocking the tag purposes.

#Dammit Hedgi Day #Dammit Hedgi Day 2024

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puckpocketed · 3 months

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5/08/2023 - Berkly Catton captains Team Canada to gold at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, leading the tournament with 8 goals and 2 assists in 10 games || 19/01/2024 Meet the Future - Berkly Catton named Team White's captain for the CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game || 5/07/2024 - Berkly Catton signs his ELC with the Seattle Kraken

Introduction, quotes/transcripts/bits and pieces under the cut!

I can't even begin to describe how jazzed I am that Berkly Catton got drafted to a team I already love. I wrote in my Sharks off-season roundup that I was hoping against hope Catton would drop to 14th overall (back before we had moved up to 11th) and the Sharks would snap him up, as unlikely as it was that they'd try to gather more firepower when we sorely needed defensive prospects. I'm so glad I got my wish one way or another <3

Krakenblr you will LOVE this dude. He's such a star. Such a character. Berkly Catton is so, SO fun to watch. You have no idea!!! I followed him in the months leading up to the draft because there was buzz that he might be available lower down because of the Height Issue (he is, tragically, 5'11 <- which makes him undraftable unfortch) + concerns with how his game will translate to the NHL level. He is an electrifying playmaker. He's so creative, throws in so many fakes, WILL break ankles, very good hands... ough <3 everything I personally love to see in a forward all rolled into one neat little package !!!

There's the suggestion that he's been "over-scouted," which really just means they've all been watching him so long they're probably overthinking things and looking for stuff to critique. I'm inclined to believe this take over the other one because I'm an optimist and he was one of my little guys going into the draft! I won't include more of that here, but there's plenty of material out there if you'd like to look for it.

Below are some of my favourite bits and pieces from media he's appeared in <3

“I don’t like to give it away (pause) but I look at guys before games,” Catton revealed. “What’s weird is going from midget to junior hockey is a big jump. Last year I was learning. This year I wanted to add stuff. My pregame stuff and to look at guys doing draws and seeing what works. That’s pre-scouting on my end. If a guy has a certain move, and you can trump it early, it gets in his head a little bit. That helped quite a bit.”

“I think I sometimes have a problem with passing the puck too much. I love seeing my teammates score and setting up for an open net. It’s one of my favourite things in hockey, if not my favourite,” Catton admitted. “That’s something I can work on. When I get a chance put it home kind of thing. I got better this year at it’s still something I’d like to improve. Honestly, I’m a pass first mentality guy I would say.”

- Berkly Catton’s video scouting has improved his overall game

You know, when I first read and saved this article I was like; this prospect who reviews VIDEO is gonna haunt me. That's my weakness btw, I'm freak4freak. If you tell me a hockey player is also deeply infatuated with the game to the point of reviewing tape in their free time that's IT for me. it's JOEVER. i have a type and i know it <3 also wowie a pass-first guy who gets really really happy when his teammates score??? crying. crying. Berkly Catton . tucking uou gently away <3 forever <3

From A Day in the Life: Berkly Catton & Conner Roulette

Fave movie is The Notebook (<- unrelated there's a . really funny comment on this video from a philly fan lamenting that Catton likes the Notebook - I assume because that's some uhhh how do the kids call it,, femme soyboy shit? lmao anyway stay LOSING toxic masculinity !!!)

The boys call him 'Berk' <3

He talks about Jack Hughes being a big influence on him (in other media, he gives Hughes as a player comp!) and going to hang out and work with the Hughes family in Michigan. I sense a thread of admiration here like it's such a sweet little crush LOL <3 I hope he notices you Berkly !!

he gives the player of the match hat to a coach/trainer (one of the two) it's lovely... ouhhh... good little fella so polite and so conscious of staff being the foundation of his success... mwah!!

From Berkly Catton Talks Hockey Sense, His Start In Hockey & More | Game Tape With Tony

His father and grandfather built him a rink in his backyard, very sweet.

1OA in the WHL draft!

Anime main character levels of training-arc... my guy shot thousands of pucks over the summer in his backyard and then came back suddenly able to score goals. <- this is where the DIY goalie made of wood and blocker pads comes in. lol. lmao. are u even real.

sorry. sorry. OLEN ZELLWEGER MENTION. <- one of my personal favourite little guys (undersized puck moving defensemen my BELOVED) "Kind of a funny story [...] I pretty much had a breakaway, when he just turned backwards and played it as a 1-on-1 somehow, and I was like 'wow, this guy's the real deal', so." I really liked how Catton easily recalled a specific person/moment when asked who challenged him the most in the WHL; I think it speaks to a thoughtfulness about the game - it would've been easy to just give a vague Oh Everyone Is Good answer here and I like that he didn't!

There's a section where he talks about how he got so good at stick lifting, such an interesting perspective I never considered - he played in situations and against people where he couldn't just throw his body around to win, so he had to learn to get the puck in other ways. KEVIN KORCHINSKI MENTION <- another one of my little guys <3

mentions his dad being a big influence on his 'patience'. parents are so funny to me. ur watching your sons juniors matches? and Ohhhhh Chris Catton was a hockey player too . it all makes sense. Berkly Catton product of jockdad like so many before him <3

I do love that throughout this interview, Catton defers to his linemates a lot. Always hyping them up and talking about how he owes his success to them. it could be construed as false humility, given Catton was the highest scoring draft-eligible in the league - but he really does go out of his way to emphasise how highly he regards them and how much of their on-ice success is owed to good chemistry built up over the entire season. It strikes me as genuine!! He's a good boy <3

Revealed he can solve a rubix cube at the end... wow... he just liek me fr...

PLEASE watch this on-ice interview where he's chatting after a game and then gets ABSOLUTELY WASTED by 5 water bottles and all the boys. he is clearly so so so beloved in that locker room waaaahhh <3

Anyway this isn't an exhaustive list but it IS a lot of the reasons why I really liked him pre-draft. welcome to the deep Berkly <3

#HELLO!!! COME GET YOUR BERKLY CATTON SCOUTING REPORT #berkly catton #seattle kraken #kraken lb #nhledit #hockeyedit #nhl gifs #puck!gif #p!gif:kraken #my writing #primers #puckscouting

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monsterfactoryfanfic · 3 months

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fuck Reedpop, fuck Ziff Davis, and fuck Consolidation

I wrote this back in November of 2023 for Richard Williams' "What's Hot in Indie TTRPGs" roundup. And though things have moderately improved with the launch of Rascal News, I'm still so heartbroken about the state of games journalism.

Anyone paying attention to games journalism over the last five years could tell you the earth is salted. But it’s been especially hard to see two mainstream outlets for TTRPG news suffer from corporate greed here at the end of 2023. First is the layoff of Lin Codega from Gizmodo, part of a 23-person restructuring that also shuttered the iconic feminist site Jezebel. Codega had received an Ennie Award only a few months prior for their work covering the fiasco Wizards of the Coast invited upon itself when it tried to revise its Dungeons and Dragons “Open Gaming License” in an attempt to squeeze competitors out of the economy. My favorite of their recurring features was “The Gaming Shelf,” which regularly highlighted indie RPGs. It is so rare to see someone with relatively mainstream media access discuss what’s happening on itchio, and to lose this chance to get more eyes on small projects is an absolute travesty. Codega themself puts it best: "I deserved better than this and G/O Media will be poorer for letting me go." The second, which is at this time a travesty-in-progress, is the auctioning of ReedPop’s “Gamer Network” portfolio of websites, which includes Dicebreaker. This news arrived the morning I sat down to write about media consolidation, the week of Dicebreaker’s second Tabletop Awards. Few other sites command the audience and prestige of Dicebreaker, whose journalists regularly feature games by indie creators who otherwise are forced to market their games through increasingly-fractured social media sites. I truly hope the “Gamer Network” portfolio is purchased, and all staff affected keep their jobs, but I’m not optimistic. My mom was a journalist. She retired over a decade ago, when GateHouse Media swallowed a dozen local newspapers right before filing for bankruptcy. I’m genuinely sorry to see that ten years on, media companies are callous as ever, happy to ruin the lives of hundreds of brilliant people for the sake of a few points on a spreadsheet. Indie games deserve mainstream coverage. And the people who cover them deserve so much better than what they’re getting.

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carriesthewind · 8 months

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If you're like me and you just emerged from [work overload/social media break/etc] or if you don't usually follow sci-fi fandom news and are wondering "hey what's this I'm hearing about the 2023 Hugo awards???" this post is both a good summary and link roundup:

(and I'm saving this somewhat tangential link in the roundup for later, b/c it looks like a really interesting read).

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fernsnailz · 8 months

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January 2024 Review Roundup

hello everypony‼️ something i want to do through 2024 is a mini review series where i recap some of the media i watched/played/read at the end of every month. this was inspired by tumblr user ponett’s 2023 media wrap-up, it's a great collection of quick reviews so go check it out!

i’m doing this partially as writing/analysis practice, but mostly because my memory is really bad and i want to keep track of what i've seen this year. with that said, my thoughts on everything i finished in january 2024 is under the cut :]

Portal 1 + 2

yyyup i beat Portal and it only took me (checks watch) 13 years

the first time i played Portal 2 was at a friend’s house when i was in middle school, and i had a fuckin blast. but after all that time... it still holds up! i don’t think anything i have to say about Portal will be particularly new since people have been praising this series since it came out. the writing, the level design, even the controls feel tight and engaging the whole way through. i played on switch and expected a bit of jank, but i was pleasantly surprised at how smooth it felt to play. the only part that dragged for me were the levels through the old aperture labs, but i think i would like them a lot more on a second replay. Portal 2 is fantastic and one of my new favorite games, the artistry behind it is truly incredible and i’m really glad i finally finished it. while i was playing Portal 2, i described Glados and Wheatly to a friend and said “they’re like if a ceiling fan could be passive aggressive and if Fozzie Bear was an evil golf ball”

I Think You Should Leave

finally. i can truly understand and appreciate Subspace Dubbed Over

i think one of my favorite things about I Think You Should Leave is how it utilizes horror. beyond sitting slack-jawed in disbelief at the crazy events unfolding before my eyes, a number of the sketches dipped into bits that genuinely kinda scared me. like the one sketch that circulates on here where the guy (pig?) in a mask crawls through a dog door, which is. genuinely terrifying. but so many of the other sketches have slow, nerve-racking pacing leading to crazy shit that would be perfect in a horror film were the context different. idk i like dissecting how horror and comedy are essentially the same thing and I Think You Should Leave was very good at enabling that <3 favorite sketches are probably “then let my wife eat the damn receipt” and “55 BURGERS 55 HOTDOGS 100 FRIES 100 TATER TOTS”

Sonic Prime Season 3

man. ohhhh man. i didn’t go into this with high expectations and i still feel let down. Sonic Prime Season 3 was definitely my least favorite “season” of the batch - abysmal pacing, very few character moments i actually enjoyed, and the things i praised about the show felt very underutilized through these episodes. Nine is the shining star of Sonic Prime and i was looking forward to seeing his more villainous side, but his character took such a sharp turn into pure evil and it felt like he spent the entire season repeating the same three lines. and as much as i praise Shadow’s writing in Prime, it doesn’t really matter when he spends half of the season trapped in a hole that he just… runs out of later.

lastly, i cannot stop thinking about how bad the pacing of this season is. three episodes for a repetitive final battle feels like such a waste of time when you see just how much they rush the emotional resolutions in the last episode. however, there is one thing i truly love about Sonic Prime Season 3 - i love the Sails and Mangey fakeout death. it's so fucking funny. like you really expect me to believe that two cartoon animals in this Y-7 rated show EXPLODED?????? absolute comedy gold.

overall, i just… don’t really know what to think of Sonic Prime. anything i enjoyed in the show was often fleeting, and much of it felt like its only purpose was to waste my time. also Rouge i can’t believe they did you so dirty oh my god

Ghost Trick

i was so proud that i figured out the secret behind Sissel’s memory loss like halfway through the game. however i also kept getting caught during the prison escape sequence like an idiot

Ghost Trick is in a similar situation as Portal where 1. it’s incredible and one of my new favorite games, and 2. there’s nothing i can really say about it that hasn’t already been said or just. shouldn’t be said. Ghost Trick is a fantastic mystery game, and because of that i think it’s best to go into its story as blind as possible. the narrative unfolds in such fascinating ways - even though the actual object manipulation gameplay isn’t directly about solving the mystery (like in Ace Attorney or other mystery games), it still ties wonderfully into the story in some incredibly unique ways.

i also really love the artstyle of Ghost Trick - i love 2D character artwork with that sharp lineweight, it reminded me a lot of Sonic Battle (another game with an artstyle i love). i was also really impressed by the 3D character models and animation - despite the limitations of the camera, you get a wonderful sense of everyone’s personality from the limited body language expressed in the overworld (even though the models lack much facial expression which. i guess they don’t really need? idk that was the only thing that threw me off). anyways yeah everyone should play Ghost Trick so Ghost Trick fans can be freed from their curse and talk about it without having to tag like 10 different spoiler tags. and for Missile

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

ok bear with me. i went into Scott Pilgrim Takes Off without reading the comics first. and i fuckin loved it

my understanding of Scott Pilgrim before SPTO was mostly from the movie (I KNOW I’M SORRY), but even with my base understanding of the series i really enjoyed this show for what it was. i found myself appreciating the time they dedicated to further develop every single character in the show - especially Ramona. she’s fantastic as the lead, i really loved watching her reconcile with her exes and seeing all of them grow instead of exploding into coins. my favorite episode was probably the one with her and Roxie - not only did i adore the movie-jumping set pieces, but you really understand the weight of Ramona’s mistakes in their past relationship and how much it hurt Roxie. despite the big climactic fight, the flashbacks are quiet, subtle, heartbreaking. Ramona’s apology is genuine, and it feels so wonderful to watch her confront her past throughout the show. also i think it’s really funny that for all these characters to become the best versions of themselves, they had to kill off Scott for most of the story

and holy shit the artstyle and animation. oh my god. i love watching something that makes me immediately go “i need to see the storyboards for this RIGHT NOW.” SPTO is such a visual delight to watch, it elevates the artstyle of the comics while also keeping what makes that style so appealing - i love the line weight on the characters, i love how much forward energy the animation has, i love the fucking. virtual boy section. as soon as i found out Science Saru was also behind Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, everything made immediate sense. i was destined to love this show.

another worry i had going into SPTO (besides the fact that i hadn’t read the comics lol) is that the original cast from the movie was returning. i think the movie cast is fine, but i wasn’t sure how some of them would fare with voice acting for animation. however, i thought they all did a good job - i think the whole cast loves these characters and would be able to fit into them fairly easily no matter what form their performance takes, and they definitely had a good voice director in the studio with them. the only thing that felt off about the voice performances to me was that sometimes it sounded like some of their mics kept peaking?? idk some of these episodes i watched high as balls and i felt like i could hear and see every single sound and frame of the show. so that might have just been me.

god i did not. expect to have this much to say about Scott Pilgrim. i really loved this show and i’m currently reading the comics to fully catch up on the general Scott Pilgrim experience - i think reading the comics AFTER Takes Off is making me appreciate even more of the character work that went into the show. like they do so much with Mathew Patel in SPTO, a character that was. not originally around for a long time from what i’ve gathered? also i like the funny little robot. oh my GOD i cannot talk about this show anymore whatever it’s good get me out of here

Sword AF Season 1

i put on the Smosh cast’s D&D series to play in the background while i was drawing. i did not expect to think much of it. instead, i had one of the most enjoyable D&D podcast experiences since i listened to The Adventure Zone Balance???

i haven’t really enjoyed other D&D podcasts since i dropped off of The Adventure Zone, and i wasn’t expecting much from Sword AF of all things. then i saw that Shayne was playing as a druid warforged made of plants and his name was fucking Fernie and i sat my ass down and LISTENED. while i think Sword AF is currently lacking in its world and larger story, those things just. aren’t really what Sword AF is really trying to provide at the moment. it’s main focus is comedy, and the players are genuinely such a delight to watch play together and build off of each other. they mostly focus on bits and goofs for the sake of she show's comedic tone, but i still found it thoroughly enjoyable because every player embodies and performs their characters really well. idk Sword AF was an unexpected hit for me this month, i thought it was fun. and i love Fernie so much

Plastic Death - Glass Beach

so originally i wasn’t going to include music reviews in these roundups at all, but then i was entirely surprised by a new Glass Beach album and oh my god. holy shit. oh my fucking god jesus christ. holy shit. its preddy good

Plastic Death gets the low point of the album out of the way immediately. it starts with the “phone call/conversation audio” trope that i don’t particularly enjoy - HOWEVER despite me disliking this opening, 1. it sets up the overall themes of Plastic Death very quickly, and 2. the rest of the album blows this 40 second opening completely out of the water. from there, the album grows into something beautiful and uncontained, and i just. i really like it

Plastic Death captures the beauty of the temporary, asks what it means to be created for a cause you can’t fulfill, questions if you can reclaim yourself from cycles and constraints designed to destroy you. and is also about being transgender. the lyrics are abstract in a way that requires a conversation with the listener, many of the vocals obscured and smooth like waves - this album is definitely one that needs to be listened to a few times. i wasn’t sure how i felt about the vocal style at first before realizing the vocals were the main reason i was relistening to this album, allowing myself to find even more that i loved about it. the instrumentation is also incredible, i love the use of marimba in a number of songs - distant, eerie, almost skeletal. and the fucking. 8-bit section?? which kinda rules???? and that’s the only point in the album it ever shows up??????? incredible. a fleeting, somewhat silly moment that i love every time.

this album left my heart aching, in part from my connection to it and in part from the pure love and joy emanating from this music. i can feel just how much fun this music was to perform and create, a cohesion of time and sound that just clicked for me. Plastic Death made me miss playing music, which is something i haven’t felt in years. all from an album that starts with a conversation about CrankGameplay’s dead youtube channel. good lord

i like this album a normal amount. go listen to it a few times. my favorite tracks are cul-de-sac and commatose

Wish

i watched Wish with a couple of friends and knew i probably wasn't going to like it. with that in mind, i gave myself a challenge: i wanted to find one thing about this movie that i genuinely really loved. it could be anything, and loving it for ironic reasons was allowed.

here's the complete list of things i loved about Disney's Wish (2023):

i love the one shot where King Magnifico stirs an evil caldron evily. i thought it was hilarious. what was he cooking

i loved that the end credits included a reference to Dinosaur 2001 at all, and i loved that they paid homage to Big Hero 6 by showing the forgettable villain of that movie instead of their Baymax cashcow for some reason. my friends and i saw him show up in the credits and were like "who's the trenchcoat guy??"

you may notice that this list is very short and 50% of it is about the movie's credits. so yeah this movie is not very good

Wish is an empty husk of a movie. everything about it feels so, so hollow - lifeless town squares, uninspired character designs (to quote a friend: "i have all of these characters' hairstyles in The Sims"), characters whose existence is only justified to fill empty space or an overused archetype, and an "evil" villain who lacks charisma and spine in a futile effort to remind the audience of previous disney villains with actual character. even the artstyle lacks any sort of sauce, the watercolor effect they were trying to go for only makes the backgrounds and character textures run together, and the dull lighting makes things look even more faded. it's like disney was scared of making a movie that made its audience feel... anything. all to celebrate 100 years of Disney slop, baby!!!

Some YouTube videos I liked in January: 💥 An Exhaustive Look at Pokemon Brilliant Diamond 💥 TomSka's Guide to Plagiarism 💥 Paradise Bombed (this video is a great piece of journalism and i’m definitely not doing it justice by throwing it into the youtube vid list) 💥 Surprising Our Friends with Zoo Animals 💥 Did FNAF Ever Have a Good Story?

thanks for reading! next month’s roundup will be wild because i’ll likely be reviewing House of Leaves and Hazbin Hotel. can you guess which cursed house gives me a worse headache? WHO KNOWS! (hint: it's Hazbin Hotel)

#under the readmore is pretty long! oh boy i love having opinions about media #most stuff in january i liked a lot though :] good month of stuff!!#review roundup #<- oh boy new tag for this series #long post

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tiannasfanfic · 1 year

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GossipWeb

Eddie Munson x Reader (Angst)

| Eddie Munson & Steddie Masterlist |

Summary: If you want to stay up to date on celebrity gossip, GossipWeb is the site to subscribe to! Monday’s Weekend Roundup for July 17 has an update on Corroded Coffin, and you should totally check it out!

Author Note: Modern Rockstar!Eddie AU. Reader not mentioned in this first part, but will be in future installments so I went ahead and labeled it as an x Reader fic. Written in the style of a gossip column.

CW: Mentions of divorce; mentions of alcoholism and drug addiction; mention of a fistfight.

(The following is an excerpt from the July 17, 2023 edition of The Weekend Roundup, a gossip column posted every Monday afternoon on GossipWeb.com and the GossipWeb app.)

Wedding bells are in the air for model Chrissy Munson and nature photographer David Greggs. The pair have officially announced their engagement on Sunday via social media, confirming recent rumors.

The happy couple shared the news on their respective Instagram accounts, showing photos of the two happily embracing on a beach at sunset. In one, Munson is holding out her hand to show off the huge sapphire and diamond engagement ring now sitting on her finger.

“I said YES!” Munson captioned her photo while Greggs captioned his, “She said YES!”

The pair first made headlines back in 2021, when they were spotted having dinner together just a few weeks after Munson filed for divorce from Corroded Coffin’s frontman, Eddie Munson.

While “Irreconcilable differences” were listed in the official court filing, representatives for both Eddie and Chrissy have declined to comment further on the matter. In the social media post announcing the divorce, Chrissy took a diplomatic path, stating, “Sometimes our plans in life just don’t work out the way we want them to. Unfortunately, this is one of those times. I wish Eddie nothing but the best and wish nothing but happiness for him. While our marriage may be over, he will always hold a special place in my heart.”

But, while her words made it sound like the split was an amicable one, many have their doubts it was that simple.

Rumors had been circulating regarding her ex husband’s hard partying lifestyle for years. Insiders have come forward to provide accounts of escalating drug and alcohol abuse, and extremely irrational and erratic behavior from the rockstar. Shortly after the divorce filing, it was reported to multiple news outlets that an intervention was been staged for Munson just a few days prior to the court filing, but it had failed.

In related news, the former members of Corroded Coffin are continuing to stay busy and are enjoying far more laid back schedules.

Following a highly successful album with their band Fallen Shadows, Jeff Richards and Grant Lee have announced a small, twenty city tour that will occur early next year. While the dates and cities are still to be determined, the two are looking forward to getting back on the road.

“It’s been awhile, but we’re itching to get back out there,” Richards stated in a Facebook post. “There’s nothing like bringing our music out into the world and sharing it in person with the fans.”

But Gareth Emerson hasn’t been so eager to return to the spotlight.

Following a successful stay at the Betty Ford Center, which he entered in December 2019, Emerson says he has done a lot of thinking about his life and who he wants to be, both as a person and an artist.

“The stress I was constantly putting myself under was ultimately my downfall,” he explained in a Facebook post full of self reflection. “And one of the biggest stressors for me was the constant need to promote myself, to sell myself basically. I stopped feeling like a person and started feeling like a piece of meat. In this business, it doesn’t take long before you start getting treated like a machine and you start looking for ways to cope. And, usually, you find yourself coping by turning to drugs. Now I don’t have to just cope because I refuse to put myself back in that stressful position.”

Emerson continues to write and record new music, which he releases on iTunes under his own name. While he’s leaning heavily into experimental sounds, his new style seems to be gravitating towards a blend of classic rock n’ roll, folk and heavy metal. It’s not a combination you would expect to hear from a speed metal drummer, but Emerson clearly has hidden talents he’s only just starting to show the world.

As for the frontman and lead guitarist, Eddie Munson, unfortunately, there’s not much can be said.

The statement from Corroded Coffin announcing their hiatus came in late 2019 just a few days after Munson and Emerson’s very publicized fistfight at the UK Music Video Awards. While he virtually dropped out of the spotlight as a musician in the following months, Munson was frequently in the news due to his excess partying and rowdy behavior.

Then, in 2022, he unexpectedly disappeared from the LA party scene, only to resurface a few months later in his old hometown of Hawkins, Indiana.

Representatives for Munson have declined to comment, so the true reasons for his returning to Hawkins are still unclear. The rocker has yet to make any return trips home to California within the last eighteen months since his departure. This adds credibility to a more recent rumor we reported on last week that Munson is in negotiations to sell his Malibu home to a private seller.

Perhaps the rockstar has finally turned over a new leaf?

Some signs point to yes.

Earlier this year, Gareth Emerson’s wife, actress Kim Simmons-Emerson, sent well wishes to Eddie in a heartfelt Instagram post. She posted an old photo of Munson and Emerson from high school with the caption, “Today marks a new beginning for old friends. We’re so proud of you. We knew you could do it.”

Subscribe to our free newsletter to stay up to date on any new developments!

#eddie munson #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson series #eddie munson au #eddie munson x chrissy cunningham #eddie munson imagines #rockstar!eddie munson

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bugtransport · 1 year

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Kamen Rider Amazon finished March 7th, 2023

#hongoposting

Pictured: just a little guy

Okay. I really liked Amazon. It’s short and sweet and to the point. I cried multiple times while watching it but also it made me feel considerably less insane than X made me feel. That typically would leave me with less to talk about (the show was pretty tight and while I could go gushing about all the things that I thought were cool, that isn’t really as fun as going completely off the deep end) except actually no I do have something that I want to talk about really badly. Amazon is pretty different. He’s not a borg, first off, and while sure okay, Riderman was mostly human, he still was part borg and I count him as one because he had identity issues about it. Amazon hardly even seems to realize he’s transforming for the first few episodes; it feels completely instinctual. He’s scared of bikes the first time he encounters them. They actually dyed the foam red (among other colors) this time and it got my livetweets flagged on Twitter for violence? He doesn’t really know Japanese for the first half of the series. Sure, Tachibana’s there, but none of the other riders make an appearance like they’ve done up until this point. The guy who helps Amazon is a reformed monster. It’s really different as a series than anything that came before it… but also it was mentioned to me that Amazon was an attempt to bring Kamen Rider back to its roots post X and I have to say, I kinda get it? Forgive me for taking this one here but if you’ve watched the series you’ll probably get where I’m coming from. I think I have just one question left on my mind that I really, really need to ask:

Ishinomori, buddy? Personal fucking question to ask of a guy I know but like. Do you have sensory issues? Is that what’s going on here?

This isn’t me being rude here because like, me too my good man; this question comes not with ill will but to see if we’re wearing the same hat here and if that hat is like, a little itchy and is it bothering you as well? Do you think we can take it off soon?? I know the whole matching thing is fun but I feel like I’m going to explode. I’m just looking at what you and the gang have made here, 4 series and 6 riders in, and I really can’t help but see that this is a concept you keep coming back to. Especially now that we have a guy who came into being a Rider completely removed from Hongo and – I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s take a step back here. I cannot for the life of me remember what all I’ve said about Hongo where so I’m just going to start in:

Hongo. Uh. Hongo. Just, like, take a look at the way that he interacts with the world.* My brain short circuits when I try to talk about him sometimes and I think that’s happening right now. I have so many feelings about why he is the way that he is and it’s something that’s just constantly on my mind. Hongo’s the kind of self-sacrificial guy who will put everything on the line to better the world but when it comes to himself, he doesn’t really extend the same courtesy. You can see through the series that things just get to be too much for him and while I think sure it’s most apparent in his first stint on the show when things are fresh and they’re introducing what it means to be borged and he’s trying his damnedest to understand his new strength and enhanced senses… there are still points throughout the series where you can tell it’s just too much for him. There’s not really any one thing I can point to as an example even, it’s just the way that he’ll be comfortable in dark places or bite the side of his thumb when he’s focusing on things or feel pain in the wrong way and muscle through it. It’s like discomfort is part of his daily life and has been for a while, it’s just ramped up now to the point where he can’t really ignore it like he used to be able to sometimes. That probably doesn’t help with the whole struggle with his humanity thing that he’s dealing with constantly; the world should be something that he can handle and he’s not able to and that’s just rough.

Hayato I think I kind of covered a while ago with this post but my feelings for his borg senses are kind of the same as my feelings on Kazami’s: Hongo obviously had the chance to be there for the two of them and while my thoughts that he helped finish up the work on Hayato are totally headcanon he was explicitly borging (haha) Kazami so yeah, I think given the fact that Hongo obviously has so many issues with how he experiences the world, and also the fact that this feature ended up malfunctioning in canon later on, I totally think that him putting a limiter/regulator on Kazami’s nervous system was his way of making sure that he wouldn’t be inflicting the same kind of pain on someone else, and you know what fuck it maybe he adjusted Hayato too to make things easier for him. It’s such a genuine act of care for someone else and fits his personality; he doesn’t want to have more borgs in the world but if he has to if he really has no choice but to do he’d still feel damn bad about it but he’d at least be able to do that for them.

(Riderman doesn’t get a spot here because he doesn’t seem to have Issues in this arena, but I wouldn’t really expect him to seeing as he’s only got one arm borged up. I do totally think that him and Kazami should umm, calibrate that thing together because I’m sure the input from it is whacked compared to his other arm and maybe he could use an extra person to help him test the sensation but that’s uh that’s not what this space is for. I just thought I would mention it x)

Then we move to X and oh jeez, I don’t want to give Jin Keisuke’s dad any credit here, but if he did want his son to take over his shitty fight for him I guess I can see that maybe he wouldn’t have made the extra sensory input so overwhelming. Jin Keisuke clearly still has it: there’s that one part in X when he’s meeting Tachibana who’s listening to the radio on headphones and Keisuke pops in like “damn boss I could hear that all the way from outside what’s going on with the news” and Tachibana clocks him as a borg, but it’s not shown to be upsetting to him, it’s just shown to be like he is. Which I think is good. Jin Keisuke has enough to deal with without that additional issue. Fuck his dad but at least he didn’t screw him over in that way.

Pictured: lonely little guy, don't worry, you'll find your people soon.

I know that Amazon isn’t a borg. But… he has the same issues that Hongo does. There’s always the possibility (probability even, I mean, again, look at the guy) that Hongo was predisposed to this kind of thing before and that being borged and having his senses enhanced just pushed him past the point where he could reasonably cope with it. He’s also had to function in society; as I think anyone who’s had to deal with shit like that can attest to there’s a certain level of day-to-day discomfort that you’re just expected to put up with so you learn to. Amazon hasn’t had to do that and lived in a place where him being able to sense things in a way that other people couldn’t likely helped him quite a bit; it’s no wonder that suddenly having to deal with the sounds of the city and the sensitivity no longer being a boon would push him over the edge.

Pictured: Aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you want to go apeshitt?

It feels good to watch him jump out a window and run away from reporters and try and make his way through the subway when the lights are too bright and the conversations are overlapping and everything feels claustrophobic and trapped. It feels good to watch him get scared by the noise that motorcycles make and so when Tachibana gives him one when he’s not acclimated to or prepared for the gift he gets so overwhelmed that he lashes out and throws it in the ocean and says that he hates it. It’s even fine watching him get frustrated because people blatantly misunderstand his intentions because he’s not operating according to the rules they’re used to people following and getting pegged as a bad guy when he’s trying to help but not being able to articulate how they’re wrong in that moment because he lacks the vocabulary or the ability to use that vocabulary.

Pictured: NO I DON'T WANT IT YOU CAN'T MAKE ME

Pictured: ACAB

It feels good to watch those things because they suck and I get where he’s coming from and I feel that way too sometimes, but he’s able to act on those impulses and be frustrated and get mad about it in a way that Hongo wasn’t? It’s a little cathartic to see it and be like “oh yeah, he’s not having a good time and neither would I be in this situation.” The “damn he’s just like me fr” effect. This is not the representation I came into Kamen Rider looking for but it’s something I’m glad I encountered?? I think it makes the sudden change to being able to speak Japanese and fit in better in society less… if you catch the vibes, less like the same thing that happened with X when they changed his fighting style and made him more Classic Rider towards the very end of the show. Amazon didn’t meet any other riders, and while I’m sure that Tachibana told him about those that came before him, he wasn’t trying to fit into a mold that was created for him. I don’t think it’s bad that Keisuke wanted to fit in that mold either, this isn’t me retroactively shitting on X, because it kind of works for him; I think he needed an identity after his father kept stripping his from him. Amazon didn’t, though. He already had a pretty strong sense of self. They managed to make it feel like he was just learning how to adapt a bit better.

That doesn’t mean that they completely got rid of everything that made him unique, either. He still prefers to do his little friendship hand symbol instead of shaking hands. He still wears the same clothes, just with a shirt as well. He still makes his own medicine and is the only one so far to hit the thigh wound trope but not the one for collapsing through the doors of the Tachibana Rider Base beat to shit only to get a stern talking to about getting back on that horse and fighting. He still talks to people at awkward distances, both too close and too far away without seeming to realize what he’s doing. He still rides the Jungler which, can I just take a minute to gush, never once made the rider bike noise. You know the one. Tachibana introduced Amazon to the bike after he rejected it at the start by showing him how everything worked and showing him how it would be useful and then letting him take it for a spin when he was ready to make the decision himself. He realized that the thing that was bothering him the most was the noise and so he built him Jungler, a nice quiet bike with a friendly face, and that solved that issue. He does take a lot of missteps and there's of course that whole classic Tachibana masculinity pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps-soldier stuff thrown in there occasionally and sure, he doesn’t really get the guy, but that was honestly a surprisingly good way for him to handle things. I was impressed? Amazon’s never framed as being wrong for being the way that he is, he’s just different. He’s still the hero! His fighting changes a bit and he seems to gain more control over himself but I mean, he’s still out here biting people. It warms my little heart to see.

Pictured: Jungler my good friend Jungler!

Yeah, I totally get it being “back to Rider basics” if we take “Rider basics” to mean a guy navigating a world that’s not really right for him, but instead of Hongo style internalizing everything and having two boys and an uncle propping him up when he needs it, it gets a little easier by the end. That’s the main thing that stuck out to me and I think it was something I needed to see? Thanks, buddy. It helps.

Pictured: real friends don't judge you for shit like that

The rest of Amazon? That’s just a fun show! That’s just a funky little guy running around and biting people and protecting both his home and Japan! There’s so much joy to be had there. The rainbow foam blood and how it splatters Amazon’s little white scarf and he just waves his arms around and chirps in it. The shockingly good suits especially in the first half of the series; good lord these people were pulling the weirdest animals out of their hats to make monsters out of and the way that they were designed and acted just really pulled things together cohesively for me. I would have never thought that they’d be able to make a snake work? Or a crocodile? Those aren’t really human shaped but damn if they didn’t end up working. Sure there were some duds (like that owl? That was sure a choice) but on the whole they were pretty damn good. Just my onion. Masahiko was very cute and honestly a great addition to the show, especially for how young he was. I liked everything with Mole which… is a treat I’m going to leave for you to experience on your own if you watch Amazon because I think he’s best experienced that way. Nothing really seemed to drag, but it’s also so short that there wasn’t really any space for it to do so.

Pictured: an "owl"

I’m gonna be so bold as to say: if you’re interested in Showa Rider and you haven’t dipped your toes in before and you don’t want to watch ZO (which is a banger, and my first, and still my ULTIMATE intro recommendation) you might want to give Amazon a shot. Yeah okay it’s definitely different than the other ones but that makes it really simple to watch on its own without having to get into a whole “oh right, that guy’s from a different series, here’s his whole deal” or “ohhh yeah okay so here’s how these organizations work” kind of a discussion. It’s not a huge commitment like ‘71 Rider, which is of course another wonderful place to start, but is also 98 whole episodes long. I don’t really think that there’s anyone I’d warn off Amazon.

Watch it! Do it!

--------------

*I feel like I use the phrase “the way [he] interacts with the world” to point to the intangible things about characters as sort of a catch-all for the demeanor and caution (or lack thereof) in which they don’t just approach situations themselves necessarily but in which they generally tackle the circumstances of their everyday life. Which does include situations but also includes: how they dress, how they talk, how they pick up an object, where they begin to explore said object, how they sit, how they stand, the mindless habits they have, what they do when they need to withdraw from a situation, how they calm themselves, their level of presence at a given moment, etc. I think I mostly use the phrase because it helps communicate a sense of presentness regardless of intentionality that usually is the kind of stuff that I’m pointing out. Haven’t found a word that properly conveys that same feeling and didn’t want the specific nuance to be lost, and I feel like a lot of the character building in Showa Rider is done through those casual and immaterial moments.

OKAY DONE FOR REAL NOW!

#official bugtransport 2023 media recap #as always this was written in like 18 different sittings and also please don't reply in the reply function x #HAD TO GET THIS ONE OUT BECAUSE I CRIED. GOOD SERIES #rider roundup #kamen rider amazon

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darkmaga-retard · 29 days

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Introducing the top ten stories they chose not to tell you this week.

The Vigilant Fox

Aug 25, 2024

#10 - Data analyst reveals where the COVID vaccine deaths are hiding.

The government is oddly silent on 155K excess deaths from a single cause since late 2020.

The condition is not myocarditis. It's acute kidney injury (AKI), a serious condition where the kidneys suddenly stop working properly.

But what's causing all the acute kidney injuries? According to John Beaudoin, it's primarily two things:

1. The deadly COVID hospital protocols (Remdesivir).

2. The COVID-19 injections.

Beaudoin’s data shows acute kidney injury (AKI) deaths surged to 200% of normal levels in 2021.

AKI deaths continued to rise in 2022, hitting a staggering 300% above normal, “while COVID-19 inversely decreased to negligible incidence rates.”

Even after Biden declared the COVID emergency over, excess deaths from AKI remained disturbingly high in 2023.

Beaudoin’s data gets a chilling confirmation from Ed Dowd, who estimates 153K excess deaths nationwide from acute kidney injury alone over the last few years.

“There are more life years lost to acute renal failure alone than COVID, than polio, than smallpox ... than anything in the past 100 years in the United States, except for World War II. It's the biggest killer, and yet the government's not talking about it,” Beaudoin lamented.

(Watch our exclusive interview with John Beaudoin)

SEE MORE REVEALING STORIES BELOW:

#9 - RFK Jr. endorses Trump and delivers a historic speech for the ages.

#8 - CNN anchor admits Kennedy’s endorsement is “huge” and “everything.”

#7 - Trump masterfully shuts down reporter accusing him of campaigning in town “associated with white supremacy.”

While you’re here, don’t forget to subscribe to this page for more weekly news roundups each Sunday.Subscribe

#6 - Man savagely trolls oblivious BBC reporter at the DNC with a spot-on impersonation of a Kamala Harris supporter.

#5 - Tucker Carlson identifies Kamala Harris’s speech as “the hallmark of evil.”

#4 - British college empowers nurses to deny medical care to “racists.”

#3 - Shocking U.S. government report concludes fluoride lowers IQ in children.

(Watch our exclusive interview with investigative journalist Derrick Broze)

#2 - The coroner who conducted the autopsy on the Trump shooter wants to keep it secret.

#1 - Trump and RFK Jr. drop two major bombshells in historic announcement.

BONUS #1 - Watch RFK Jr. Expose Four Toxic Substances That Are in Your Food

BONUS #2 - How to Get Ivermectin, Z-Pak, and More

BONUS #3 - Telegram CEO Arrested in France for Refusing to Follow Censorship Laws

BONUS #4 - How to Prepare for the Worst Possible Scenario

BONUS #5 - HUGE! RFK Jr. Teases More Big Names Joining Forces with Trump - “Wait Until You See the Next Additions”

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aspecs-positivity · 1 year

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Carnival of Aros June 2023 Roundup Post

Hey once again to the aro community!

June is over and there have been some WONDERFUL submissions shared, and I can't be selfish and keep them to myself. So here are the submissions that were shared with me (they're shared in hyperlinks, click the name of the post to access them) :

Aromantic in an Allonormative World (shared by Elin on her blog "The Aromantic Perspective")

My Future (shared by Tabby on Tumblr)

Managing Expectations in an Allonormative World (shared by Frawley on their blog "Nothing Radical")

We Need More Focus on Aromanticism (shared by Mia on their blog "Writing For Life")

Calling for more diverse media representation (shared by Sara on her blog "Blog of Sara Jakša")

A Tumblr submission made by user nonesensed.

Thanks everyone who submitted, and if you still want to write about this topic, you're free to. You can send it to me and I'll share it!

Conversations like these are important if we want to progress aro awarness. Also, remember to check out this month's call for submissions.

#arospec #aromantic #aromantism #aromance #carnival of aros #carnival of aros 2023 #allonormativity

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jariten · 7 months

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My Favorite Manga in 2023: Part 2

Like in part 1 I will skip the titles I already covered in previous roundups.

女の園の星 (Onna no Sono no Hoshi), Yama Wayama

初恋、ざらり (Hatsukoi, Zarari), Zaku Zakuro

うちのクラスの女子がヤバい (Uchi no Class no Joshi ga Yabai), Seiko Erisawa [Ichi-nen Ichi-gumi omnibus edition]

インターネット・ラヴ! (Internet Love!), Kiko Urino

レイニー通りの虹 (Rainy Doori no Niji), Keiko Fukuyama

葬送のフリーレン (Frieren: Beyond Journey's End), Kanehito Yamada & Tsukasa Abe

Yama Wayama appears to be on a continuous upwards trajectory as the manga comedienne of the reiwa era which I got to confirm for myself with the hit Onna no Sono no Hoshi. The episodic comedy about a teacher daily terrorized by his students and coworker. And with the scanlation well on its way I just want to say please experience it for yourself.

Uchi no Class no Joshi ga Yabai I had eyed ever since I started learning Japanese and the new omnibus that coincided with the ongoing sequel series gave me a great reason to finally pick it up. Box of Light by the same author was on my list last year and I not only liked the premise of it but also loved the anthology format of the story. For similar reason I really liked Uchi no Class: In the world of the series high school aged girls may experience the activation of powers.... that are completely useless and troublesome. We follow the students of year one class one, a class infamous for always having the highest concentration of useless powers. Dreams projected into the sky, X-ray vision that turn everyone around you into terrifying anatomy models is only the tip of the iceberg. I can't resist a gimmick premise done successfully and the variation of characters and powers kept the premise fresh like older characters who haven't yet "grown out" of their powers or a trans girl storyline.

Hatsukoi, Zarari follows the young woman Arisa diagnosed with a light intellectual disability and autism. Living between jobs and having a hard time turning down men who only want to have sex she has always struggled with her own self worth. This is until she falls in love with an older coworker who is charmed by her personality and quirks. But will things change if she opens up about her diagnoses? Zaku Zakuro has made manga and shared online about living with ADHD and asperger syndrome, giving this story a very personal and different perspective focusing especially on how stigma around developmental disabilities can be what causes the most friction and pain.

Internet Love! is a love story for the social media age with a budding romance that goes across borders. Bisexual nail artist Tenma has for years been a fan of a completely ordinary man from Korea named Uno who appears to be addicted to posting his life on instagram, daily filling up his story until the posts are lined up like dots. Thinking he held nothing but a healthy distance of "standom" for Uno, but he instead hits rock bottom when his insta favorite posts a girlfriend reveal. Tenma no longer able to bring himself to open the daily insta stories sinks into a depression, but Uno takes note that a certain someone stopped checking up on him... I was instantly charmed by this and was especially taken by how their clumsy attempts at communication without being able to speak each others language or no lingua franca was portrayed and the personal styles and fashions of the characters I just adored the whole thing.

#recommendation corner #roundup #my scans #long post

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cindylouwho-2 · 6 months

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RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, March 2024

Welcome to my roundup of SEO and marketing news and useful resources for ecommerce businesses, March edition. There is a lot going on with Google, and some really strong marketing pieces this time around, so let's get right to it.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

Google launched both a core algorithm update and spam updates on March 5, with the spam update ending on the 20th. Core updates now include the Helpful Content algorithm. In early observations, Etsy and Reddit both picked up visibility in the UK.

The Helpful Content algorithm updates late last year destroyed a lot of sites’ Google traffic. Avoid the things they had in common. You can read the full study here.

Ecommerce sites were some of the biggest losers in Google visibility in 2023, with Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Etsy, Target and Best Buy in the top 10 of sites whose Google appearances slipped.

New to Google SEO? They’ve revamped their SEO starter guide for people like you. And if you are more advanced and want to learn how to optimize your website product pages, this is a good overview.

This lengthy article on backlinks for ecommerce websites covers pretty much all the angles, including the really difficult ones.

Reminder that if you want to rank on Google for a search term, you need to look at what is already ranking, and make decisions based on that content. [video and transcript] This works for most search engines, not just Google.

Yes, Google crawls “high quality” content more often. I used to refer to this as Google thinking the page is “interesting”, so I guess I will need to change my wording...

While Google sends the most traffic to websites, people spend a lot more of their online time elsewhere. Market where people are, not just where your stats say they came from.

Sadly, Google has stopped providing caches of website pages in its search results. While you can still see the caches of some pages by using the Google search Cache:[page link] as in cache:https://cindylouwho-2.tumblr.com that will eventually stop working as well. Bing still provides caches, but unfortunately both it and the Wayback Machine do not crawl often enough to give really recent results most of the time.

Missed Google news in February? Here’s your update. And just in case you are really behind, here is January.

Not Google

Unsure if your website has enough good backlinks? Bing Webmaster Tools will now tell you if you don’t.

Yandex - the top search engine in Russia - was sold by its Dutch ownership group to a consortium in Russia.

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

General

A US study of social media use found that the most popular site was YouTube, with 83% of adults using it. Two-thirds of American adults use Facebook, while TikTok is up to ⅓ of the US population.

Because they do change periodically, here are the latest image and video sizes recommended for the top social media platforms. [infographic]

Bluesky is now open to everyone - it was previously invite-only.

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

Meta has introduced several changes to its Ad options, applying to Facebook and Instagram.

Meta had a great 4th quarter in 2023, with revenue, users, and earnings per share up. “Fast-growing upstarts Temu and Shein, which originated in China, have been pouring money into ads on Facebook and Instagram. Li said on Thursday that revenue from China-based advertisers accounted for 10% of sales for the year and 5 percentage points of growth.”

Instagram

An updated post on Instagram's algorithm and how it works.

Instagram is still beta testing longer Reels for some users.

If your account is a brand account, you can now run ads on Instagram with coupon codes right in them. (Some Facebook users can already do this.)

Among other recent changes on LinkedIn, the algorithm is now looking to boost important content longer than just the first day or two after publication.

Pinterest has its own stats package, called Pinterest Analytics, but only for “Business” accounts. They show how many people clicked on the outgoing links, how many people saw your pin on their screen, and much more. Here’s everything you need to know.

Reddit successfully launched on the stock market this past week, but questions remain about how this will change the site.

Google is paying Reddit to scrape its content through the API instead of from the web.

Snapchat

Snap was a little later than most tech companies doing layoffs recently, waiting until February 5 to let 10% off staff go.

Threads

Threads is so new that the algorithm is bound to change a lot in the next year, but for right now, here is how it works.

TikTok

There is an overwhelming amount of info out there on the US attempt to either ban TikTok or force its sale, and much of it is incomplete, so I will let you Google to your heart’s content if you want to learn more. If you are relying on TikTok to drive sales, this would be a good time to make sure you diversify your promotional strategy.

You can now track trending terms on TikTok through the Creator Search Insights section. “Creator Search Insights will highlight frequently searched topics, which creators can organize by category (for example, tourism, sports, science) or tailor to their content type with the “For You” option. Additionally, creators can filter for “content gap” topics, which are highly searched but have relatively few videos on TikTok covering them.“

TikTok may be testing a photo app, which would obviously compete with Instagram.

Twitter

What? Twitter may have lied about its Super Bowl ad performance? I’m so not shocked.

Tumblr

Tumblr will be selling data access to AI companies.

YouTube

This is a pretty decent article on YouTube SEO.

(CONTENT) MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies)

Small and micro-businesses need an email list. An email list is:

portable (unlike most social media followers or marketplace buyers)

is available to almost everyone, as we all need at least one email address if we are online

less susceptible to the whims of algorithms (unlike SEO, marketplaces, social etc.)

I keep seeing people argue that no one opens emails, but the chart in the article above is proof that is still wrong. (My blog email list averages close to a 70% open rate, depending on the topic and the time I send it. My jewellery email list - which I hardly ever send to - still has an over 30% open rate. My click rates are well above the industry averages, usually 30 to 40% of all recipients for the blog list. These are much better numbers than social, and astronomically better than my clickthrough rate on Google and other search engines.)

Gmail and Yahoo both changed how they handle bulk emails such as newsletters in February. Here’s what you need to know on the basics, including authenticating yourself so your email gets through.

Find out how to get people to read all the way to the end of your content.

Get ready for April marketing with 5 topical ideas. National Handmade Day is April 6.

We should all think twice before deciding to use AI to create content. “Circa 2024, generative AI does not produce new ideas or even develop its own conclusions. Rather, it regurgitates information that it has indexed.” Not convinced? Here’s another article. “AI-generated content represents the literal “average of everything online.”

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES)

Google Ads can now be tracked in Google Analytics 4.

Both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising were up in the 4th quarter of 2023.

STATS, DATA, TRACKING

Google Analytics 4 tracks organic traffic differently than the previous version. Here’s how to figure it out.

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

I’ve probably posted this specific article before, but it is worth another read: how to communicate with customers. For example, “Mirroring your customer’s tone lets them know you’re on their side. If a customer is formal, for example, hold back on the LOLs. If they’re more casual, relax your tone.”

According to a US study, Generation Z is skewing the traditional marketing funnel. “Per Archrival’s data, 77 per cent of Gen Zs and 79 per cent of millennials in the US are actively seeking style inspiration at least monthly, with almost half of those looking for style inspiration on social media. When asked where they learn about new brands, products and experiences, video reigns supreme: YouTube is the most popular platform with Gen Zs, followed by TikTok, then Instagram.”

Trend alert: bag charms are back.

IMAGES, VIDEO, GRAPHIC DESIGN, & FREE ONLINE TOOLS

Almost all of these 12 video tools are free, and some can be used on your phone.

MISCELLANEOUS

This is an older piece, but it checks out: IKEA Hacks for Craft Show Displays. A few of these could be done with non-IKEA items.

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#ecommerce #seo #social media #search engine optimization #microbusiness #content marketing #cindylouwho2

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