#I'm grateful it resonated with so many people of course. I know how this sounds; but I'm really not ungrateful I'm just shy

[nebulouscoffee]

✄ what’s your editing process?

★ what was the scene you most wanted to write in "Who We Are" ? what was the hardest scene to write?

and

▵ pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite line -> for "Home"

Thank you so much!😊

✄ what’s your editing process? - answered here :)

★ what was the scene you most wanted to write in "Who We Are" ? what was the hardest scene to write? - I remember being so excited to write Ezri's joining, which ended up being a ton of fun- as well as this (not yet posted) fallout between Jadzia and Julian. Plus the climactic zhian'tara ritual! A scene that's been quite hard to write is one where Jadzia sort of snaps and is... actually very mean to Ezri (hard because it's tough to find the balance between painful and still in-character; in canon it was Garak, who can easily be cruel- but while I think Jadzia can be uncaring sometimes she isn't usually mean like that, so what would it take to push her? how can I make it convincing?) - and ofc that climactic zhian'tara ritual lol, because HOWWW can I capture the sheer madness of Jadzia Sans Dax But Not Quite Idaris hosting the spirit of Technically Now Dead Past Host Jadzia Dax. Nothing is good enough!! Nothing!!!

▵ pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite line -> for "Home" - omg Home :') can't believe it's been two whole years since I sat down and thought "well maybe I should try writing a fan fic" & then accidentally gave birth to a 100k word monster lmao. I haven't actually read this one since last December, so I'm not sure these are in fact my fav lines- but people seem to comment about this exchange between Kira and Garak a lot, and I do like it!

“Nilvi isn’t even a Cardassian fruit,” he said randomly.  Kira knew. It was Amlethi; plucked from their soils and grown on Cardassian worlds. Jiruoub berries were Amlethi too; yet they’d fed her three years in the Resistance. Korman weeds brought by Cardassian invaders now blanketed moba orchards, inexplicably helping the indigenous trees grow. Two of the seven spices in Seven-Spice Hasperat were Cardassian.  Years ago, Kira would’ve defiantly relished a five-spice version, shamed her peers who didn’t. Now, she just thinks they’ve all been through too much to punish themselves with bland hasperat. Maybe time couldn’t heal all wounds. But it could turn her hasperat from a political statement into lunch. “My father enjoyed it,” she remembered. “So did my mother.” Garak paused. “You’ve met her, you know.”

This digs into a lot of things I find fascinating about their dynamic, and what they might have in common despite being from opposite sides of an Occupation- but it's also an important character moment for both of them; a recognition of how much their lives have changed, their worlds have changed, they have changed. The nilvi fruit does have symbolic weight in this fic lol- it's the thing that starts off the whole series of unfortunate events, yes, but also when it's first mentioned in chapter one, it's via Garak reminiscing about it as a symbol of cultural pride, unity, and Cardassian wealth, and with casual nostalgia. Him saying this now is a display of how much the events of the fic have forced him to confront that nostalgia- now, the fruit has become a symbol of Cardassian greed, entitlement and violence (both on a larger, planetary scale, and a personal one). I also really wanted to write this moment of peaceful self-awareness for Kira- there are things she will never truly heal from, things she'll never forgive (a lot of which are quite literally personified in the man she's currently sipping springwine with) - but that doesn't mean they can't come to take on new significances. I remember I was thinking about how maize is a dietary staple in most African countries, and red and green chillies are so famously associated with various Asian cuisines- yet, neither of those things is native to those lands. Every country from Sudan to Sri Lanka is filled with tea stalls that are now a crucial part of the culture - but shai/chai never used to be made with tea leaves until those countries were colonised. This is not a "silver lining on the cloud" type thing, of course- quite the opposite; neither Bajor nor any real-world nations should ever have been colonised (& this is why I included that "inexplicably helping the indigenous trees grow" line- the exact sort of thing that would get paraded around as a defence of colonialism! Just like railways, languages, European architecture, fusion art, etc. Whether Cardassian activity was poisoning the soil or inadvertently helping something grow, it doesn't matter- it had no business being carried out in Bajoran territory.) But this is an aspect of occupations I hadn't seen explored all that much in ds9 fanworks; that inevitable intertwining of cultures- so I wanted to write more about it, and given I drew a lot of inspiration from stuff I see around me I'm always so pleasantly surprised by how many people responded to it, I'm very glad it resonated

[theirloveisgross]

lol, i need to ramble.

i remember after watching the film for the first time in theatres, i had my thoughts on certain scenes, of course, but i was in such a high of how much i love louis, that it took me a couple of days to let it marinate and then i started to get angrier and angrier.

the only fan that came close to saying something to explain WHY we're all so insanely in love with louis was the one in the bonus scene in doncaster with the pride flag wrapped around their shoulders. the rest of the fans talking at the camera kept saying how many days they were there camping, how many flights and buses they took (miles away from their countries and making it sound like complaints), how "crazy" fans in a continent that is not theirs are, and not once they mentioned WHY they were doing all of this. heck, we got more reasons on the red carpet today when zach was pushing people to tell him why did we feel the need to be there, why did we love louis so much.

and i wish we saw less fans talking in general. just because fandom is fandom, and we all have so many different views about things and we all have so many different lives, that it then just feels like we're all bundled up in the same group when it's sooo far away from reality. but if we're gonna have fans talking, then maybe have them talk less about the camping (because that creates even more problems in the future (and i'm not against it at all btw, i've done it myself)), about the hundreds of flights and buses they took, about all the vinyls they bought (this was on the red carpet today, so not controlled)... because it's SO NOT about any of that. at least for me, it isn't.

i'm not gonna speak for everyone, but i know some people will relate. i am here, for louis, because he's the most admirable and resilient person i know of. because he understands the privilege he has, but inside that privilege he was not taken seriously for many reasons, and he decided to create a path for himself, and i think that's incredible. he could have easily turned out to be a bitter and resentful person, and instead he is kindness personified. the way he treats the people around him is proof enough. i'm here because i've never felt this safe in an environment before, and i found incredible people because of him, and we're all different, but we're all the same as well, and just- there's so much more to loving louis than going to 183713 shows just to say that you did, but i guess the question is, WHY do you go to so many shows (if they're all the same, as some irl would put it)? first, have you heard his voice? second... well, because louis' energy is off the charts once it hits you. because once you can tell that you're the same as him, there's this powerful emotion and need to be close to him, to be there for him, to support him, to make sure that it's not a solo song anymore, to be with people that feel the same way as me. because his music resonates so deeply within me in ways no other music does. because he's so genuinely grateful for our loyalty and love that you can feel that in the air at his shows. because he needs us, and we need him. and that is just not a phrase he felt like saying out of nowhere, and even if his managers and everyone around him are repeating it and it loses some of its original meaning... it all started in his first show of 2022 after seeing a sea of pride flags in the crowd. he went on to say this for a few shows, and in some others he added how "PROTECTED" we make him feel. and like, how do you, as a fan, feel when you have that sort of responsibility in a way... it's all very overwhelming to me, because that's a shit ton of love i have for him that i keep reaching capacity on, but i am so extremely happy and proud to be his fan.

and that's on my WHY.

[espectres]

' shou-kun, you know --- ' he's not sure how to phrase it, and his expression briefly twists with the effort. the sense of someone who has tasted something unpleasant and wrong sticks to every wrinkle as he softly, near-reverently speaks. ' when an artwork breaks... then it can't come back. not even as a ghost. '

because they were just things. mere objects, daisuke had heard over and over before.

' i ... --- dark hasn't been able to succeed at every heist. there have been other artworks that merged with human beings that i haven't been able to save, and many artworks alone that have already been broken. meanwhile, i'm breaking the laws of humans for the sake of rescuing the art... and sometimes it makes me feel confused. shou-kun, do you think i'm doing the right thing? '

after all, even it wouldn't have made a difference against dark's choice of action, if there was anybody's opinion that the niwa still held in immensely high value, it would have been shou's.

THE ANSWER IS LOUD IN HIS HEAD, but that head still hangs to the side, as he casts his gaze away, ears dutifully lent to his friend. Loss was something vague, to him, it hung itself around his life like darkened clouds before heavy rains, like a countdown to something inevitable, but the rains never came to be, and the countdown seemed somewhat infinite. It was still there regardless, so unmistakable and clear. Eerily prominent in the lonely nights, back when he'd wonder if he'd ever get to hold his mother's hand again, even lately when reminders of his father's state come to mind. 

Perhaps he isn't as grateful as he should be, nor as considerate, with how nonchalant he sounds in his head. But there is something so helpless about it all, and it resonates with him despite how much he hates to admit it. There is nothing bright about failure, and the inability to make the change you so perilously wanted to make- it's a crushing and ugly thing. ❝ You know how I feel about rules. ❞ Irked lines crease between his furrowed eyebrows, fed-up and huffy as he faces Daisuke. 

❝ People just make them up for their own reasons, they think they're protecting something, but ninty percent of the time it's just selfish and dumb as hell. ❞ Right, people are selfish. It has always been that way, and that doesn't make them bad. It doesn't ignite pain or anger anymore, but that doesn't mean he is going to let anyone have it the way they like just because they think they're entitled enough. 

❝ Of course you are! People can stick to laws if they want, we're just doing things differently. ❞ He gestures with urgency, eyes steeling into undeterred certainty. Because loss is inevitable, and Shou would love to get cursed if he were to ever let something as trivial as rules stop him from doing what he believes in. Because there is something so righteous about the Niwa's deeds and it stirs the ever so present sense of justice within his core into pride and admiration. ❝ We protect our own. ❞ 

[gvf-imagines]

Part 1

(Josh/Danny/Jake/Sam x reader)

Warnings: alcohol use, self harm scars

word count:  3252

Thanks to @callmekane for beta reading this fic!

A/N: I’m excited about what this story will bring! This is going to be a very smut filled fan fiction series where the reader has a very sexual and open relationship with all of the boys! I know some people won’t like it I’m sure but all criticism is welcome! Please leave comments and let me know what you think and of course if you have an idea for the story I’m totally open to hearing your thoughts! I hope you enjoy it my friends ❣️

If you’d like to be on the tag-list so you know when I post part 2 just message me or let me know in the comments!

—————————————————————-

You smiled as you ran off stage, the fans were still screaming and kept screaming until the next band took the stage. The air was electric, so many people, all here to enjoy the great communicator that is music. You closed your eyes to take it all in, to just listen and feel. You couldn't believe you were here, playing in front of this many people. This year you shared the stage with another up and coming band by the name of Greta Van Fleet. You hadn't heard of them before recently and they were actually really good. They had so much soul and passion in their music, it was true, raw talent. 

You watched from the side stage as they played their eclectic set. The singer, Josh, really got the crowd going. He had so much energy and was really fun to watch. His voice was incredible, unbelievable even. He had this raspy, elegant twang in his voice, that truly matched perfectly with the music his band was producing. The drummer, Danny (if you remembered correctly), had such a powerful and classic Drumming style. It was full of life and emotion , just like you, he put his all into his performance. He was focused and truly the heart of the music. There was a guitarist and a Bassist, unlike your band which only consisted of you and your best friend. You, the drummer and your friend the singer and guitarist. The bassist, Sam,  had a very cool way about him, his body moved with the music in a way that seemed beyond his control. The guitarist, Jake , was stunning, his hands danced along his guitar so expertly, you could tell he truly enjoyed his time with his instrument. 

When they finished their set, the crowd erupted in a wave of applause and cheers, like bright yellow and orange fireworks booming through the air, you watched with your minds eye, in awe as they exploded and cracked in the sky. The Boys bowed and waved before walking off stage panting and sweating.

“Nice job!, excellent show” you comment smiling. Danny returned the smile with a grateful nod. 

“Aw thank you, I'm sorry I don't think we had a chance to meet before the show, I’m Dan-” he began.

“You're Danny, Sam , Jake , and Josh” you said, pointing to each of them and smiling. They all returned the smile, there was positive energy just radiating from them, you could feel it like a blanket of warmth resting over you. 

“My name is (y/n), it's so nice to meet you guys!” you chime happily. The lead singer, Josh smiles at and you think you catch a small wink as well, making your heart skip a beat. Perhaps you were seeing things. God he's handsome, his sparkling brown eyes, he had more structure in his jawline than you had in your entire life His chestnut hair was gorgeous and curly, his whole look just attracted you to no end. 

Fuck. 

“Hey your performance was super amazing too, your voice is absolutely incredible” Sam complimented, his voice popped all the bubbly thoughts of josh that foamed in your head. Thank goodness. “Yeah! You did an excellent job (y/n). Its one thing to be a good singer when you have three other band members to help you sound good, but you were out there all alone, just your voice and you still blew that crowd away” Danny added. You were blushing for sure now. 

“Yeah your voice is crazy good, we're honored to play alongside you” Jake chimed. 

“Oh wow you guys are gonna make me cry” you chuckle “thank you so much, that means a lot coming from someone with your talent” you reply. Sam waves his hand incredulously as if you were hyping them up and making them out to be better than they really were.. You weren't. They are  awe inspiring musicians.

“Water?” a stagehand offered walking over with a cooler. 

“Oh thank fucking Christ” Josh rendered making a bee line for the cooler. You chuckled, and now that you thought of it your throat was extremely dry from singing as well. Jake nicely offered you the bottle he grabbed with a smile. A true gentleman. 

“Thank you!” you offer as you grab the bottle from him. You practically ripped the cap off and chugged the whole bottle. It was delicious and cold and ran over your tongue and down your throat with a refreshingly cold bite. 

The five of you stand there and re hydrate for a minute before Sam speaks “we should go grab a drink!” he suggests with a slight raise of his perfect eyebrows. The guys look at you in waiting. 

“You wanna join us?” Josh asks, flashing a pearly white smile. You look around at them for a mere second before responding. 

“Sure! Yeah that sounds fun” 

“Right on, I think I saw a bar down the street we can go to” Jake claims as you all head to the doors behind the dressing rooms. 

Rain began to expel from the dark clouds above you as you all headed down the road. Cold air kisses your skin causing you to shiver slightly, you only had on black leather pants and a pink floral pattern blouse that you tied up a bit to expose part of your stomach. It was late, must have been almost midnight by now, the air was heavy with moisture and you could smell the rain soaked cement under your feet. 

“Are you cold?” Josh questions as he walks beside you, he startled you a bit. You smiled and looked at your arms, they were dotted with goosebumps. 

“Yeah kinda” you reply sheepishly. Josh instantly takes off the jean jacket he was wearing and handed it to you. Jake and the others were a few feet behind the two of you carrying on a conversation about the show. You reached out and accepted the jacket, Josh's gaze nonchalantly floated down your arm, his face fell when he noticed the deep scars that peppered across your skin near your wrists. You notice him looking at them before he brings his gaze back up to meet yours. Your cheeks burned with embarrassment and you quickly put the jacket on. 

“I-I’m sorry, I didn't mean to stare” he says softly, looking down at the wet street. You knew by the tone in his voice he wasn't judging you. His look was filled with concern, not judgement.

“It's alright, people stare all the time” you responded 

“It doesn't bother me so much anymore, i'm used to it.” you added. Josh nods, a sad look still lingers on his gentle face. His jacket was warm, his scent filled your nose, it was comfortable and soothing, much like the rain that fell from the sky. You looked at him out of the corner of your eye, you could tell he was thinking about something, he had that  thousand yard stare stuck in his eyes. You hadn't known Josh for long but it's not hard to tell when someone is enthralled in thought.

“How long have you been singing?” you ask, trying to pull him from whatever trance he was in. 

“A long time, most of my life really” he answers with a smile. Talking about his music clearly made him happy. He in turn asked you the same question. You laugh before responding. 

“Honestly I've only been singing for a few years….drumming is my real talent and I've been doing that for most of my life, coming up on 18 years” you explain. Josh’s expression shifted from a smile to a look of surprise.

“Wow that’s awesome , are you self taught?” he asks again. You nodded “my dad taught me a few things here and there more when I first started out but, mostly I've taught myself” you said. Josh chuckled with a nod.

“That is really cool” he replied, you could tell by the tone and instance of his voice that he was genuinely impressed. 

“Oo careful on the compliments you've never heard me play before, just because I've been playing for a long time doesn't mean i’m any good” you joke, Josh laughs, shakes his head and nudges your shoulder. 

“Well have to get you behind Danny's kit some time” he implores. Hearing him say that made you happy, it meant he wanted to see you again. 

“You guys did really good tonight, I cant believe I've never heard of you guys before really. It wasn't until my manager told me who I'd be playing with at the festival that I started looking into you guys.” you admit. 

“Thanks you did an excellent job too, i really loved that first song you sang, ‘salt is my sugar’ I really resonated with that one, truly felt it, there's a lot of emotion in your lyrics.

“This is it,” Sam announces opening the front door and holding it for everyone to walk in. the smell of smoke and dark liquor hang heavy in the air. An ACDC song played over the speakers. It wasn't very busy, there was an older man sitting at the bar, a couple younger people playing pool and a few others scattered in booths. It was a total dive bar, a hole in the wall, which was just your style. You all sat at the bar on squeaky worn out bar stools. 

“What can I get you?” the bartender asked, perching himself up with his arms rested on the bar as a washrag sat, oh so typically, on his shoulder as he awaited your response. Jake looked at Josh with a raised brow giving him that ‘get a load of this guy’ look. 

“I'll have a beer,” Danny ordered. 

“Me as well please” Jake adds.

“Southern comfort and seven up for me please” you order next. 

“Hmm I'll have a long island iced tea” Sam says. You look at him holding back a chuckle Huh didn't take him for a long island iced tea kinda guy but to each their own. The bartender looked to josh. 

“Salty dog please” he requests.

“Put your IDs on the counter” the bartender instructs as he turns around to collect everyone's drinks. The five of you did as you were told and laid out your IDs. 

“So where are you guys headed now that the festival is over?” you asked playing with a stained, old coaster that sat in front of you. 

“We’re going back to Michigan for some well deserved time off” Josh responds. 

“For a little while anyways” he adds with a smile. 

“Hey I live in silver city!” you reply happily , silver city was a small town in Michigan closer to the upper peninsula. 

“Small world” you added. What are the chances the two of you lived within a few hours of each other and never met until the both of you played a festival in Los Angeles. 

You turn your attention to the combination of alcoholic drinks that the bartender set in front of you. Everyone reached for theirs offering quick cheers before taking a drink. The carbonation of the seven up burned against your throat before the alcohol sent the warming sensation through your chest and stomach. 

“Ah yum” you said, wincing from the sharpness of the alcohol. Jake laughed as he watched you.

“Not very convincing,” Sam says smiling. You laugh and take another drink. You watch Josh stir his drink lightly with the small straw it came with, he notices you looking. 

“Ever had a salty dog before?” he asks, hoping you say no. 

You simply shake your head in reply. He slides his drink closer to you. 

“We can share if you want, it's really good?” he offers. You look at the pink drink in front of you. 

“What's in it?” you ask. 

“It's just gin and grapefruit juice with a little salt around the rim,” he says. 

“Oh god that sounds horrible” you laugh.

“It's actually not that bad” Danny pipes up with a shrug.

“He made me try it a few weeks ago,” he adds. 

“Alright I'll take your word for it” you smile at Danny. You look back down at the drink. 

“I promise I didn't spike it” Josh chimes.  You laugh loudly, why would he even say that? 

“That's exactly what someone who spiked my drink would say” 

“But I guess I trust you guys” you add before taking a healthy sip of the beverage. 

“Hmm that's not bad!” conclude, it was much sweeter than you thought it would be, it kind of reminded you of orange juice and vodka. Josh nods with an I told you so sort of look on his face. 

“Here, try mine,” Sam says next, handing you his glass. 

“Alright you try mine too” you reply with a smile. Sam's slender fingers brush against yours as he grabs the drink from you , your eyes look to his and he winks. 

Oh god, I can't be attracted to two of them. Honestly, who were you kidding? You were insanely attracted to all of them, how were they ALL so cute and gorgeous? Not fair to the rest of man-kind. 

“Wow this one is super good!” you remark going in for another drink of the long island iced tea. 

“Yeah can you believe there's like 8 different alcohols in there? No tea at all” he laughs, you laughed with him. His laugh was sweet and light, like orange sparkling shards of glass dancing through the air. The five of you began talking about life and learning a lot about each other, ordering more drinks along the way. You could tell the mix of drinks was beginning to take effect on you, you felt warm and relaxed. You were standing next to Danny now, he towered over you, this man was truly a beast.the smell of his cologne wrapped around you. It was oaky and mossy with a hint of citrus, you couldn't help but feel an electrifying pull of attraction to him.

For fucks sake, you curse yourself.  

A few games of pool (which, it turns out Jake is like a God at pool) later you all found yourselves back at the bar carrying on more conversation, albeit more slurred now. It was much easier to open up to people when alcohol was involved. You rolled the sleeves of josh's jacked up, exposing your arms as the alcohol was making you extremely warm.

“What happened to you?” the bartender asks loudly. You and the guys all look at him with hints of confusion. 

“I got the worst concoction of my parents DNA possible” you joke , the boys laugh. Jake nudges your shoulder. 

“Shut up you're gorgeous” he says softly. You give him a quick smile. 

“No. Your arm. What happened to your arm.” the bartender says again, nodding to your scars. You hated when people asked that question, like they didn't know why you had those scars on your wrists. Very few things leave scars like that on skin. You looked around at the guys, josh looked pissed and the others looked saddened as this was the first time they had seen your scars, and they knew damn well what it was from, they weren’t as stupid as this bartender. The air of the bar had shifted, the mood went from fun loving to hostile very quickly. Fuck this guy.

“I got in a fight with a weed wacker” you retort sarcastically. The man rolls his eyes.

“What happened? Did your little boyfriend break up with you? Flunk a class? Your puppy ran away?” he was mocking you. You said nothing in return.

“You're just another one of those emotionally confused little girls, no reason to hate her life.” he continues. For some reason he was trying to upset you , and you had no idea why, you'd been nothing but pleasant to the man since the moment you entered the bar.

“First of all i'm not a girl, I'm a woman. Who pissed in your Wheaties this morning man? You're mad because you got all D’s in high school and now you're stuck serving losers like us in this shit hole, pretentious, sorry excuse of a bar? Go fuck yourself. I don’t hate my life.” you answer , anger pooling in your throat. 

“Hey man. Lay off.” Danny says with a look of warning. 

“Of course you don't hate your life” the man says ignoring Danny completely. 

“You just do it for attention, think if you slice yourself up maybe someone will feel bad for you huh? I've seen your kind before girl.” he speaks again. OK now this idiot was pissing you off. You never did it for attention, attention was the last thing you wanted, especially when it came to your scars, you wished you could erase them.

“Look, I've got three things to say to you,” you reply with an irritated sigh. You stood up from your stool and stepped closer to the man. 

“One” you say, holding up your pointer finger giving the illusion that you were going to list reasons of argument to him. Instead you ball your hand into a fist and punch the guy right in his fucking jaw with all your drunken might. To your surprise (and no doubt everyone else's) the bartender fell to the floor, you knocked him out.. Everyone was wide eyed and silent 

“Lets get outta here” Josh says, breaking the glistening silence in the bar, noticing everyone looking at the five of you. Jake grabbed a bottle of Jack before all of you ran out of the door. None of you could suppress your laughs as you took off down the street. Out of breath you all keeled over in a field of grass a few feet from the tour buses in a fit of laughter. You sat down on the wet grass and looked up at the clouds. Danny sat on your left and Sammy was on your right, Josh and Jake sat in front of you and you all formed a small little circle. 

“That felt good” you say softly, referring to punching that shit head of a bartender. Sam laughed.

“Yeah that was awesome, I can't believe you knocked him out” Jake chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. The air went silent again as you all sat with your own thoughts. Your face slowly lost emotion as thoughts of what the man said swirled around your mind. You tried not to let what people said to you about your scars get to you too much but it was hard sometimes. Danny noticed your expression and you felt his hand draw soft circles on your back.

“That guy was an idiot. He was just being an asshole” Josh said softly, you nodded, knowing he was right. Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe you were just really that sad but a tear fell down your face and your voice cracked as you spoke. 

“I just feel so alone sometimes” you wiped the tears away as quickly as they fell. You could feel all of them watching you with sympathetic eyes.

“Everyone's got their vice (y/n)” Danny said quietly, his hand still grazing your back. 

Josh rolls his shirt sleeve up and reveals dozens of little horizontal scars covering his shoulder. He grabs your hand and you look up at him to meet his gaze. He stroked your hand with his thumb and gave you a comforting, gentle look. 

“You're not alone”

[metamodel]

Death and Revival Revisited

The End is the Beginning is the End, as Billy Corgan suggests on the soundtrack to (what I feel is the unjustly maligned) Batman Forever. I had way too much “decline and rebirth” material to fit in the last issue, so I'll continue to follow that seam for a while. (You'll find that downturn and revival is a recurring, uh, theme here at Recurring Thing.)

After returning to design after a year away, I find that Everything Now Looks Very Strange Indeed™. This is another one of my updates on restarting a creative practice (which I’m calling Studio Thing), plus a dose of cultural and design commentary. 

(If someone’s forwarded this thing to you in the hope you’ll find it interesting, you can subscribe here to secure my everlasting love. And please, pass it on if you think it might be of interest to anyone.)

🔂🧟‍♀️ The eternal return of zombie-centred design

Some follow-up on that evergreen topic of what comes after human-centred design: at TEDxSydney I delightedly crossed paths with fellow innovation veteran Carli Leimbach, who’s been thinking about “earth-centred design” as a corrective to anthropocentrism. I’m intrigued. She’s run an initial workshop with some like-minded people, and I’ll keep tabs on her progress.

In other more-than-human news, Anne Galloway recently posted her talk at IndiaHCI 2018, “Designing with, and for, the more-than human”. I’ve been following Anne’s work for a long time, from when the Internet of Things was called “pervasive computing”, to her more recent work in Aotearoa about sheep. For Anne, more-than-human-centred design means:

“Acknowledging that human beings are not the be-all and end-all.”

“Accepting our vulnerability, acting with humility and valuing our interdependency.”

“Living with the world, not against it.” 

Recommended. Also interesting is the “more-than-human design research roll-call” she recently initiated on Twitter. Follow this link if you want to get in touch with people who are active on the topic, at least in academic circles — some familiar names pop up.

🥪🤮 The alternative to curiosity is… hard to swallow

I’ve just wrapped up my NEIS coursework, and to celebrate I want to recount a story about my teacher Jason that also demonstrates why I’m so glad I decided to sign up for this microbusiness training and mentoring program.

A few years ago, Jason was the director of training at a large catering company which had a significant focus on healthcare facilities such as nursing homes. To get a feel for the training needs of his workforce, he decided to tour their workplaces, immersing himself in their day-to-day work. (His CEO was frankly a little surprised by this — as is the case with many sectors, it was uncommon for management to visit the frontlines. In fact, when he urged the Head of Care at one aged care facility to tour the frontlines of her own operation with him, the staff didn't recognise her, and assumed she was a visitor. Yikes.)

While working with kitchen staff in one nursing home, Jason noticed that one resident, a lone old woman, always ordered the same dish: a single salmon sandwich. Intrigued, he asked the staff about this, and they shrugged. “She must like it,” was the reply. 

The next day, Jason decided to have lunch with her. After a pleasant meal together, he couldn't contain himself. 

“Betty, I've noticed that you always order a salmon sandwich,” he said. (I love that he still remembers her name.) “I don't mean to pry, but, uh, why is that?”

She looked at him for a second. 

“It's because I'm afraid,” Betty whispered. 

It turned out that Betty had dysphagia — a problem with her pharynx or oesophagus that made swallowing difficult — and was terrified that if she admitted this, she would be placed on the puréed diet of an invalid. Over time, she'd gotten used to salmon sandwiches as the one meal she knew could swallow without issue. And because of her fears, that's all she ate. 

“Betty, how long have you been eating salmon sandwiches as your only meal?” Jason asked. 

“Two years.” So basically, a resident had been potentially malnourishing herself for years because the systems around providing and talking about choices under this regime of care were broken. 

After setting her up with a more appropriate (and still chewable) set of diet choices, Jason decided to consult with dysphagia experts and patients like Betty to create a unit of training about these kinds of patient needs, aimed at preventing such system breakdowns. Everyone at their client nursing homes could attend. The aged-care nurses who came were flummoxed, telling their Head of Care, “Why are we only hearing about these kinds of problems and solutions from the catering guy? No offence, Jason, but seriously, WTF?”

In the midst of such regimented systems, where industrial efficiency often erases the possibility of supple action or even humane behaviour, I’m grateful that compassionate minds like Jason’s exist. When curiosity seems like it's at death’s door, people like him arrive to revive it.

The reveal: I was initially pretty skeptical about doing the course under Jason because before classes started, I'd gleaned that he’d spent most of his career managing McDonald’s restaurants. It turns out that my fears were misplaced, because I got a lot out of his teaching. While I really don't share his interest in large food systems, either in experiencing them as a customer nor in their general industrial impact on the world, I'm glad there are people like him enmeshed in such forbidding places, trying to make them more sensitive, responsive and just.

👹👽 First and Last Men

When’s the right time to write a requiem for the human species? 

The other night I had the pleasure of experiencing the late Jóhann Jóhannsson’s First and Last Men, a live symphonic and film adaptation of Olaf Stapledon’s seminal 1930 sf novel of future history, narrated by that alien god who lives among us, Tilda Swinton.

(I only knew the Stapledon novel by reputation, and Jóhannsson from his film scores, but was recently prodded to see this production when I watched Philip Kaufmann’s excellent 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In a passing exchange that you’d easily miss, two characters chat about their reading habits, and Stapledon’s work is mentioned. More on this later. Intrigued, I pounced on the Jóhannsson version when it arrived in Sydney as part of the Vivid Festival.)

Jóhannsson only uses the last part of Stapledon’s immense story, which starts in the 20th Century and spans the next two billion years. This focus on the last of eighteen successive human species summons a particularly elegiac mood. Responding to the eventual extinction of life on Earth, humans have genetically re-engineered themselves for life on Neptune, and it is these highly advanced Neptunian humans, astonishing in their animalistic diversity, 20-year pregnancies and 2000-year childhoods, for whom Swinton speaks with such characteristically icy dignity. (My god: that voice.)

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

[/caption]

As the camera slowly pans across a series of Yugoslavian Stalinist monuments (you probably know the ones — they recently came into vogue online in the last wave of ruin porn), we cycle through glassy sheets of what anticipatory mourning sounds like: slow arpeggios, and vocals that alternate between the wonderful anonymity of wind instruments and the mewling of cats. (I want to celebrate the two vocalists precisely because they didn’t call attention to themselves: they were exemplary orchestral players.) 

The mood is well-earned: despite all the ingenuity and adaptability of these far-future humans, we discover that a cascade of supernovas has triggered our final extinction. Manned interstellar spaceflight — that mainstay of most sf — is revealed as madness, reducing humans at their technological, technological and ethical peak to nihilistic despair. And as the ever-warming climate of Neptune slowly wreaks havoc on their awesome civilisation, the only thing these “Last Men” can do is make telepathic contact with the past — the conceit that enables Tilda Swinton to narrate the tale for us — as they wait for the end. 

It’s uncanny how much this story from 1930 resonates with our slowly unfolding climate change disaster. And now that the worst seems inevitable, the intense melancholy of Jóhannsson’s First and Last Men feels fitting — a necessary alternative to either denial or relentless panic. But beyond this, I’m impressed by the supreme ambivalence of Jóhannsson’s take. He makes the Last Men as dignified and magisterial as they are aloof, and their vaunted supremacy is a mixture of authentic maturity and our own sneaking suspicion that in their immortal, genetically-designed perfection, these final humans have lost the capacity to take unexpected action. It’s profoundly sympathetic. 

This suggests to me that having a post-human-centred design orientation is very far from being misanthropic. Perhaps we just need to stop pretending that empathy is ever completely possible — who can truly pretend to empathise with a post-human species two billion years in the future, let alone our strange and often unknowable fellow lifeforms, be they vertebrate, invertebrate or botanical? — and instead extend a generalised (and non-paternalistic) sympathy to our neighbours and ourselves. Sympathy is okay. Yes, our situation can be pegged to a combination of pathetic ignorance, shortsighted greed and genuine moustache-twirling villainy. And we are not the centre of the universe. But like others, we are still a species that deserves a dignified mourning.

🦸🏼‍♂️☄️ Can only a God save us now?

Stapledon’s 1930s future-superhumans continue to haunt me.

When I was teaching art to six-year-olds last year, I did a unit on comics, tracing the emergence of costumed superheroes to the ’30s.

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

No comment.[/caption]

“Why do you think superheroes appeared then?” I asked the class. “What was going on?”

“IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD WARS!” said one student. “MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WERE DYING!” called out another. “My great-grandmother met my great-grandfather in a Spanish flu hospital during World War I!” came another, very-relevant non-sequitur. (It’s easily forgotten that the 1918 influenza outbreak killed at least 50 million people. And yes, these kids are amazing, and publicly funded education is the fucking best.)

Out of the despair of modernity — mechanised mass slaughter and earth shattering pandemics enabled by the globalisation of capitalist industry — we cried out for salvation. Yes, there are many reactionary underpinnings to our superheroic imaginaries (the above image is just the most obvious), but their basis in real trauma behooves us to at least be sympathetic their emergence. We need to take fantasies of supermen seriously (and critically), rather than simply dismissing them as misguided or ridiculous because they’re rather obviously dodgy as fuck. And similarly, we need to take populism seriously.

Make no mistake: while I’m fascinated by downturn and revival narratives, they’re more often than not pretty terrifying: “Make America Great Again” is the clearest contemporary example. And when famed philosopher Martin Heidegger looked forward to “a spiritual renewal of life in its entirety,” he was talking about Adolf Hitler. Don’t look away. Stay and fight in the mud.

🚀🌎 Refuge

Besides talking to the past, the final act of desperation of the Last Men was to transmit proto-organic matter into space, designing it to reassemble on favourable ground in a direction towards intelligent life. (Listening to Tilda Swinton intone gravely about “the Great Dissemination” was just too deliciously weird.) Of course, this is the plot of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the story that prompted me to explore First and Last Men in the first place: we are being invaded by relentless pod-people, growing out of seeds assembled from “living threads that float on the stellar winds.”

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

Not just taking our jobs — they're stealing Jeff Goldblum's life![/caption]

Too delicious.

Yours in ambivalence,

Ben

[metamodel]

Death and Revival Revisited

The End is the Beginning is the End, as Billy Corgan suggests on the soundtrack to (what I feel is the unjustly maligned) Batman Forever. I had way too much “decline and rebirth” material to fit in the last issue, so I'll continue to follow that seam for a while. (You'll find that downturn and revival is a recurring, uh, theme here at Recurring Thing.)

After returning to design after a year away, I find that Everything Now Looks Very Strange Indeed™. This is another one of my updates on restarting a creative practice (which I’m calling Studio Thing), plus a dose of cultural and design commentary. 

(If someone’s forwarded this thing to you in the hope you’ll find it interesting, you can subscribe here to secure my everlasting love. And please, pass it on if you think it might be of interest to anyone.)

🔂🧟‍♀️ The eternal return of zombie-centred design

Some follow-up on that evergreen topic of what comes after human-centred design: at TEDxSydney I delightedly crossed paths with fellow innovation veteran Carli Leimbach, who’s been thinking about “earth-centred design” as a corrective to anthropocentrism. I’m intrigued. She’s run an initial workshop with some like-minded people, and I’ll keep tabs on her progress.

In other more-than-human news, Anne Galloway recently posted her talk at IndiaHCI 2018, “Designing with, and for, the more-than human”. I’ve been following Anne’s work for a long time, from when the Internet of Things was called “pervasive computing”, to her more recent work in Aotearoa about sheep. For Anne, more-than-human-centred design means:

“Acknowledging that human beings are not the be-all and end-all.”

“Accepting our vulnerability, acting with humility and valuing our interdependency.”

“Living with the world, not against it.” 

Recommended. Also interesting is the “more-than-human design research roll-call” she recently initiated on Twitter. Follow this link if you want to get in touch with people who are active on the topic, at least in academic circles — some familiar names pop up.

🥪🤮 The alternative to curiosity is… hard to swallow

I’ve just wrapped up my NEIS coursework, and to celebrate I want to recount a story about my teacher Jason that also demonstrates why I’m so glad I decided to sign up for this microbusiness training and mentoring program.

A few years ago, Jason was the director of training at a large catering company which had a significant focus on healthcare facilities such as nursing homes. To get a feel for the training needs of his workforce, he decided to tour their workplaces, immersing himself in their day-to-day work. (His CEO was frankly a little surprised by this — as is the case with many sectors, it was uncommon for management to visit the frontlines. In fact, when he urged the Head of Care at one aged care facility to tour the frontlines of her own operation with him, the staff didn't recognise her, and assumed she was a visitor. Yikes.)

While working with kitchen staff in one nursing home, Jason noticed that one resident, a lone old woman, always ordered the same dish: a single salmon sandwich. Intrigued, he asked the staff about this, and they shrugged. “She must like it,” was the reply. 

The next day, Jason decided to have lunch with her. After a pleasant meal together, he couldn't contain himself. 

“Betty, I've noticed that you always order a salmon sandwich,” he said. (I love that he still remembers her name.) “I don't mean to pry, but, uh, why is that?”

She looked at him for a second. 

“It's because I'm afraid,” Betty whispered. 

It turned out that Betty had dysphagia — a problem with her pharynx or oesophagus that made swallowing difficult — and was terrified that if she admitted this, she would be placed on the puréed diet of an invalid. Over time, she'd gotten used to salmon sandwiches as the one meal she knew could swallow without issue. And because of her fears, that's all she ate. 

“Betty, how long have you been eating salmon sandwiches as your only meal?” Jason asked. 

“Two years.” So basically, a resident had been potentially malnourishing herself for years because the systems around providing and talking about choices under this regime of care were broken. 

After setting her up with a more appropriate (and still chewable) set of diet choices, Jason decided to consult with dysphagia experts and patients like Betty to create a unit of training about these kinds of patient needs, aimed at preventing such system breakdowns. Everyone at their client nursing homes could attend. The aged-care nurses who came were flummoxed, telling their Head of Care, “Why are we only hearing about these kinds of problems and solutions from the catering guy? No offence, Jason, but seriously, WTF?”

In the midst of such regimented systems, where industrial efficiency often erases the possibility of supple action or even humane behaviour, I’m grateful that compassionate minds like Jason’s exist. When curiosity seems like it's at death’s door, people like him arrive to revive it.

The reveal: I was initially pretty skeptical about doing the course under Jason because before classes started, I'd gleaned that he’d spent most of his career managing McDonald’s restaurants. It turns out that my fears were misplaced, because I got a lot out of his teaching. While I really don't share his interest in large food systems, either in experiencing them as a customer nor in their general industrial impact on the world, I'm glad there are people like him enmeshed in such forbidding places, trying to make them more sensitive, responsive and just.

👹👽 First and Last Men

When’s the right time to write a requiem for the human species? 

The other night I had the pleasure of experiencing the late Jóhann Jóhannsson’s First and Last Men, a live symphonic and film adaptation of Olaf Stapledon’s seminal 1930 sf novel of future history, narrated by that alien god who lives among us, Tilda Swinton.

(I only knew the Stapledon novel by reputation, and Jóhannsson from his film scores, but was recently prodded to see this production when I watched Philip Kaufmann’s excellent 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In a passing exchange that you’d easily miss, two characters chat about their reading habits, and Stapledon’s work is mentioned. More on this later. Intrigued, I pounced on the Jóhannsson version when it arrived in Sydney as part of the Vivid Festival.)

Jóhannsson only uses the last part of Stapledon’s immense story, which starts in the 20th Century and spans the next two billion years. This focus on the last of eighteen successive human species summons a particularly elegiac mood. Responding to the eventual extinction of life on Earth, humans have genetically re-engineered themselves for life on Neptune, and it is these highly advanced Neptunian humans, astonishing in their animalistic diversity, 20-year pregnancies and 2000-year childhoods, for whom Swinton speaks with such characteristically icy dignity. (My god: that voice.)

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

[/caption]

As the camera slowly pans across a series of Yugoslavian Stalinist monuments (you probably know the ones — they recently came into vogue online in the last wave of ruin porn), we cycle through glassy sheets of what anticipatory mourning sounds like: slow arpeggios, and vocals that alternate between the wonderful anonymity of wind instruments and the mewling of cats. (I want to celebrate the two vocalists precisely because they didn’t call attention to themselves: they were exemplary orchestral players.) 

The mood is well-earned: despite all the ingenuity and adaptability of these far-future humans, we discover that a cascade of supernovas has triggered our final extinction. Manned interstellar spaceflight — that mainstay of most sf — is revealed as madness, reducing humans at their technological, technological and ethical peak to nihilistic despair. And as the ever-warming climate of Neptune slowly wreaks havoc on their awesome civilisation, the only thing these “Last Men” can do is make telepathic contact with the past — the conceit that enables Tilda Swinton to narrate the tale for us — as they wait for the end. 

It’s uncanny how much this story from 1930 resonates with our slowly unfolding climate change disaster. And now that the worst seems inevitable, the intense melancholy of Jóhannsson’s First and Last Men feels fitting — a necessary alternative to either denial or relentless panic. But beyond this, I’m impressed by the supreme ambivalence of Jóhannsson’s take. He makes the Last Men as dignified and magisterial as they are aloof, and their vaunted supremacy is a mixture of authentic maturity and our own sneaking suspicion that in their immortal, genetically-designed perfection, these final humans have lost the capacity to take unexpected action. It’s profoundly sympathetic. 

This suggests to me that having a post-human-centred design orientation is very far from being misanthropic. Perhaps we just need to stop pretending that empathy is ever completely possible — who can truly pretend to empathise with a post-human species two billion years in the future, let alone our strange and often unknowable fellow lifeforms, be they vertebrate, invertebrate or botanical? — and instead extend a generalised (and non-paternalistic) sympathy to our neighbours and ourselves. Sympathy is okay. Yes, our situation can be pegged to a combination of pathetic ignorance, shortsighted greed and genuine moustache-twirling villainy. And we are not the centre of the universe. But like others, we are still a species that deserves a dignified mourning.

🦸🏼‍♂️☄️ Can only a God save us now?

Stapledon’s 1930s future-superhumans continue to haunt me.

When I was teaching art to six-year-olds last year, I did a unit on comics, tracing the emergence of costumed superheroes to the ’30s.

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

No comment.[/caption]

“Why do you think superheroes appeared then?” I asked the class. “What was going on?”

“IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD WARS!” said one student. “MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WERE DYING!” called out another. “My great-grandmother met my great-grandfather in a Spanish flu hospital during World War I!” came another, very-relevant non-sequitur. (It’s easily forgotten that the 1918 influenza outbreak killed at least 50 million people. And yes, these kids are amazing, and publicly funded education is the fucking best.)

Out of the despair of modernity — mechanised mass slaughter and earth shattering pandemics enabled by the globalisation of capitalist industry — we cried out for salvation. Yes, there are many reactionary underpinnings to our superheroic imaginaries (the above image is just the most obvious), but their basis in real trauma behooves us to at least be sympathetic their emergence. We need to take fantasies of supermen seriously (and critically), rather than simply dismissing them as misguided or ridiculous because they’re rather obviously dodgy as fuck. And similarly, we need to take populism seriously.

Make no mistake: while I’m fascinated by downturn and revival narratives, they’re more often than not pretty terrifying: “Make America Great Again” is the clearest contemporary example. And when famed philosopher Martin Heidegger looked forward to “a spiritual renewal of life in its entirety,” he was talking about Adolf Hitler. Don’t look away. Stay and fight in the mud.

🚀🌎 Refuge

Besides talking to the past, the final act of desperation of the Last Men was to transmit proto-organic matter into space, designing it to reassemble on favourable ground in a direction towards intelligent life. (Listening to Tilda Swinton intone gravely about “the Great Dissemination” was just too deliciously weird.) Of course, this is the plot of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the story that prompted me to explore First and Last Men in the first place: we are being invaded by relentless pod-people, growing out of seeds assembled from “living threads that float on the stellar winds.”

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

Not just taking our jobs — they're stealing Jeff Goldblum's life![/caption]

Too delicious.

Yours in ambivalence,

Ben

[metamodel]

Death and Revival Revisited

The End is the Beginning is the End, as Billy Corgan suggests on the soundtrack to (what I feel is the unjustly maligned) Batman Forever. I had way too much “decline and rebirth” material to fit in the last issue, so I'll continue to follow that seam for a while. (You'll find that downturn and revival is a recurring, uh, theme here at Recurring Thing.)

After returning to design after a year away, I find that Everything Now Looks Very Strange Indeed™. This is another one of my updates on restarting a creative practice (which I’m calling Studio Thing), plus a dose of cultural and design commentary. 

(If someone’s forwarded this thing to you in the hope you’ll find it interesting, you can subscribe here to secure my everlasting love. And please, pass it on if you think it might be of interest to anyone.)

🔂🧟‍♀️ The eternal return of zombie-centred design

Some follow-up on that evergreen topic of what comes after human-centred design: at TEDxSydney I delightedly crossed paths with fellow innovation veteran Carli Leimbach, who’s been thinking about “earth-centred design” as a corrective to anthropocentrism. I’m intrigued. She’s run an initial workshop with some like-minded people, and I’ll keep tabs on her progress.

In other more-than-human news, Anne Galloway recently posted her talk at IndiaHCI 2018, “Designing with, and for, the more-than human”. I’ve been following Anne’s work for a long time, from when the Internet of Things was called pervasive computing, to her more recent work in Aotearoa about sheep. For Anne, more-than-human-centred design means:

“Acknowledging that human beings are not the be-all and end-all.”

“Accepting our vulnerability, acting with humility and valuing our interdependency.”

“Living with the world, not against it.” 

Recommended. Also interesting is the “more-than-human design research roll-call” she recently initiated on Twitter. Follow this link if you want to get in touch with people who are active on the topic, at least in academic circles — some familiar names pop up.

🥪🤮 The alternative to curiosity is… hard to swallow

I’ve just wrapped up my NEIS coursework, and to celebrate I want to recount a story about my teacher Jason that also demonstrates why I’m so glad I decided to sign up for this microbusiness training and mentoring program.

A few years ago, Jason was the director of training at a large catering company which had a significant focus on healthcare facilities such as nursing homes. To get a feel for the training needs of his workforce, he decided to tour their workplaces, immersing himself in their day-to-day work. (His CEO was frankly a little surprised by this — as is the case with many sectors, it was uncommon for management to visit the frontlines. In fact, when he urged the Head of Care at one aged care facility to tour the frontlines of her own operation with him, the staff didn't recognise her, and assumed she was a visitor. Yikes.)

While working with kitchen staff in one nursing home, Jason noticed that one resident, a lone old woman, always ordered the same dish: a single salmon sandwich. Intrigued, he asked the staff about this, and they shrugged. “She must like it,” was the reply. 

The next day, Jason decided to have lunch with her. After a pleasant meal together, he couldn't contain himself. 

“Betty, I've noticed that you always order a salmon sandwich,” he said. (I love that he still remembers her name.) “I don't mean to pry, but, uh, why is that?”

She looked at him for a second. 

“It's because I'm afraid,” Betty whispered. 

It turned out that Betty had dysphagia — a problem with her pharynx or oesophagus that made swallowing difficult — and was terrified that if she admitted this, she would be placed on the puréed diet of an invalid. Over time, she'd gotten used to salmon sandwiches as the one meal she knew could swallow without issue. And because of her fears, that's all she ate. 

“Betty, how long have you been eating salmon sandwiches as your only meal?” Jason asked. 

“Two years.” So basically, a resident had been potentially malnourishing herself for years because the systems around providing and talking about choices in this system of care were broken. 

After setting her up with a more appropriate (and still chewable) set of diet choices, Jason decided to consult with dysphagia experts and patients like Betty to create a unit of training about these kinds of patient needs, and aimed at preventing such system breakdowns. Everyone at the their client nursing homes could attend. The aged-care nurses who came were flummoxed, telling their Head of Care, “Why are we only hearing about these kinds of problems and solutions from the catering guy? No offence, Jason, but seriously, WTF?”

In the midst of such regimented systems, where industrial efficiency often erases the possibility of supple action or even humane behaviour, I’m grateful that compassionate minds like Jason’s exist. When curiosity seems like it's at death’s door, people like him arrive to revive it.

The reveal: I was initially pretty skeptical about doing the course under Jason because before classes started, I'd gleaned that he’d spent most of his career managing McDonald’s restaurants. It turns out that my fears were misplaced, because I got a lot out of his teaching. While I really don't share his interest in large food systems, either in their experience as a customer nor in their general industrial impact on the world, I'm glad there are people like him enmeshed in such forbidding places, trying to make them more sensitive, responsive and just.

👹👽 First and Last Men

When’s the right time to write a requiem for the human species? 

The other night I had the pleasure of experiencing the late Jóhann Jóhannsson’s First and Last Men, a live symphonic and film adaptation of Olaf Stapledon’s seminal 1930 sf novel of future history, narrated by that alien god who lives among us, Tilda Swinton.

(I only knew the Stapledon novel by reputation, and Jóhannsson from his film scores, but was recently prodded to see this production when I watched Philip Kaufmann’s excellent 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In a passing exchange that you’d easily miss, two characters chat about their reading habits, and Stapledon’s work is mentioned. More on this later. Intrigued, I pounced on the Jóhannsson version when it arrived in Sydney as part of the Vivid Festival.)

Jóhannsson only uses the last part of Stapledon’s immense story, which starts in the 20th Century and spans the next two billion years. This focus on the last of eighteen successive human species summons a particularly elegiac mood. Responding to the eventual extinction of life on Earth, humans have genetically re-engineered themselves for life on Neptune, and it is these highly advanced Neptunian humans, astonishing in their animalistic diversity, 20-year pregnancies and 2000-year childhoods, for whom Swinton speaks with such characteristically icy dignity. (My god: that voice.)

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

[/caption]

As the camera slowly pans across a series of Yugoslavian Stalinist monuments (you probably know the ones — they recently came into vogue online in the last wave of ruin porn), we cycle through glassy sheets of what anticipatory mourning sounds like: slow arpeggios, and vocals that alternate between the wonderful anonymity of wind instruments and the mewling of cats. (I want to celebrate the two vocalists precisely because they didn’t call attention to themselves: they were exemplary orchestral players.) 

The mood is well-earned: despite all the ingenuity and adaptability of these far-future humans, we discover that a cascade of supernovas has triggered our final extinction. Manned interstellar spaceflight — that mainstay of most sf — is revealed as madness, reducing humans at their technological, technological and ethical peak to nihilistic despair. And as the ever-warming climate of Neptune slowly wreaks havoc on their awesome civilisation, the only thing these “Last Men” can do is make telepathic contact with the past — the conceit that enables Tilda Swinton to narrate the tale for us — as they wait for the end. 

It’s uncanny how much this story from 1930 resonates with our slowly unfolding climate change disaster. And now that the worst seems inevitable, the intense melancholy of Jóhannsson’s First and Last Men feels fitting — a necessary alternative to either denial or relentless panic. But beyond this, I’m impressed by the supreme ambivalence of Jóhannsson’s take. He makes the Last Men as dignified and magisterial as they are aloof, and their vaunted supremacy is a mixture of authentic maturity and our own sneaking suspicion that in their immortal, genetically-designed perfection, these final humans have lost the capacity to take unexpected action. It’s profoundly sympathetic. 

This suggests to me that having a post-human-centred design orientation is very far from being misanthropic. Perhaps we just need to stop pretending that empathy is ever completely possible — who can truly pretend to empathise with a post-human species two billion years in the future, let alone our strange and often unknowable fellow lifeforms, be they vertebrate, invertebrate or botanical? — and instead extend a generalised (and non-paternalistic) sympathy to our neighbours and ourselves. Sympathy is okay. Yes, our situation can be pegged to a combination of pathetic ignorance, shortsighted greed and genuine moustache-twirling villainy. And we are not the centre of the universe. But like others, we are still a species that deserves a dignified mourning.

🦸🏼‍♂️☄️ Can only a God save us now?

Stapledon’s 1930s future-superhumans continue to haunt me.

When I was teaching art to six-year-olds last year, I did a unit on comics, tracing the emergence of costumed superheroes to the ‘30s.

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

No comment.[/caption]

“Why do you think superheroes appeared then?” I asked the class. “What was going on?”

“IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD WARS!” said one student. “MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WERE DYING!” called out another. “My great-grandmother met my great-grandfather in a Spanish flu hospital during World War I!” came another, very-relevant non-sequitur. (It’s easily forgotten that the 1918 influenza outbreak killed at least 50 million people. And yes, these kids are amazing, and publicly funded education is the fucking best.)

Out of the despair of modernity — mechanised mass slaughter and earth shattering pandemics enabled by the globalisation of capitalist industry — we cried out for salvation. Yes, there are many reactionary underpinnings to our superheroic imaginaries (the above image is just the most obvious), but their basis in real trauma behooves us to at least be sympathetic their emergence. We need to take fantasies of supermen seriously (and critically), rather than simply dismissing them as misguided or ridiculous because they’re rather obviously dodgy as fuck. And similarly, we need to take populism seriously.

Make no mistake: while I’m fascinated by downturn and revival narratives, they’re more often than not pretty terrifying: “Make America Great Again” is the clearest contemporary example. And when famed philosopher Martin Heidegger looked forward to “a spiritual renewal of life in its entirety,” he was talking about Adolf Hitler. Don’t look away. Stay and fight in the mud.

🚀🌎 Refuge

Besides talking to the past, the final act of desperation of the Last Men was to transmit proto-organic matter into space, designing it to reassemble on favourable ground in a direction towards intelligent life. (Listening to Tilda Swinton intone gravely about “the Great Dissemination” was just too deliciously weird.) Of course, this is the plot of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the story that prompted me to explore First and Last Men in the first place: we are being invaded by relentless pod-people, growing out of seeds assembled from “living threads that float on the stellar winds.”

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Not just taking our jobs — they're stealing Jeff Goldblum's life![/caption]

Too delicious.

Yours in ambivalence,

Ben