#and its not even an exploit or a bug its just like the impact of the full range of possible player levels for themed vs Optimal builds

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

I don't know what to TW this as, I don't think this is quite financial abuse but there's definite gaslighting mentioned here.

I live at home with my mum, and I'm an only child. She is my carer, as I am disabled, but she is verbally and emotionally abusive at times.

Medical professionals have determined that while one of my conditions may improve (which is not impacting my physical ability), my others will not, and she cannot accept that. She keeps saying if we rebuild my stamina, I could go out and do things every day, and this is not true, and even doing things every other day damages my body after a week.

Now, I do not need supervision all the time, I mostly need her when I leave the house or to cook meals if they need the stove or preparing, so she can go out when she likes - we eat dinner together anyway, with the same food - but I feel like she wants me to get better so she can do trips out and get me to pay for them.

I only say this because if we go out together, she makes me pay for everything, even if she's the one who asked (or begged me to go with her) because suddenly 'she's only there for me' and I must have forgotton that I wanted to go in the first place which is a load of bollocks unless that happens every single time, but it's really bugging me.

I know it seems like quite the accusation, but I'm really tired of it and have no way of truly escaping without becoming completely housebound and limited to unhealthy meals. My only hope is if I find a partner willing to give up their independent life, but it can be hard to do that when you have a parent hovering over your shoulder when not in the house. I got close once but he was abusive in all the ways, worse than her, but she has the same behaviours so that worries me, too.

(also she literally said recently that even if I got better enough that she could get a job and stop being my carer, she'd prefer to keep that quiet so she doesn't have to work as she feels done with that)

I don't really know what this is, I think I'm asking for reassurance that I'm not going crazy and that her behaviour is odd at least - I understand that to her, a full life is out and about every single day, but even if that was my ideal life, it's not healthy for me and there is nothing stopping her from doing those things without me, other than my money. And given I pay for 75% of the bills/shopping/rent, even for things that are not in my name, plus my own bills, she can afford to go out and spend a bit of money on these things (she spent £100 on a bird feeder last week then whined that she was skint and needed money from me, so maybe she just needs to prioritise, but still, not really the point).

Hi anon,

I'm so sorry to hear about what you've been going through. Please know that you're not going crazy and your concerns are valid.

While it sounds like your mom may be coming from a place of optimism by suggesting that your stamina could be improved, it's important for her to understand that it doesn't really work like that and she needs to digest the fact that your disability does have its limits, especially considering the damage it can potentially do to your body to ignore that.

It doesn't sound fair that she makes you pay for everything. It's understandable to be exhausted by this. Considering the circumstances it should really be her paying for these things, especially because they seem to largely be her ideas. Worst comes to worst perhaps splitting a bill (evenly, might I add), but you shouldn't be covering expenses every single time, that's simply unbalanced and exploitative.

Please let us know if there's anything we can to do help you in this situation. It doesn't sit right with me the idea that you're just stuck in this position and I wish there was something I could do.

I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[beyondgenius]

Securing Your Wi-Fi Network: Best Practices and Tips

In today’s interconnected world, Wi-Fi networks play a crucial role in our daily lives. However, they are also vulnerable to security threats. The essential practices to safeguard your Wi-Fi network against unauthorized access and attacks is as follows:

1. Importance of Secure Network Practices

Strong Wi-Fi security, like a digital lock, safeguards your online activity from prying eyes and malicious attacks. Unsecured networks expose your data to theft, eavesdropping, and malware just like an unlocked door. Hackers can steal sensitive information, infect devices, or even slow down your internet. While reactive measures are important, proactive Wi-Fi security using strong passwords and encryption is essential to prevent these headaches and keep your data safe.

2. Steps for Safeguarding Against Intrusions

a. Strong Passwords

Strong passwords are your guardians, protecting your accounts from intruders. Weak passwords are like flimsy locks - easily broken by hackers who can steal your data, impersonate you, or even control your devices. To fortify your defenses, create unique, complex passwords for each account, using a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. Avoid common words and personal details. Consider using a memorable passphrase for enhanced security. Don't forget your Wi-Fi router - its default password is a glaring vulnerability. Change it to a strong, unique password to safeguard your network, data, and internet speed. These simple steps create a significant barrier against online threats.

b. Encryption Protocols (WPA/WPA2)

Wi-Fi security has evolved significantly. WEP, the first protocol, is outdated and vulnerable. WPA offered some improvement, but still had weaknesses. WPA2, the current standard, provides robust encryption and authentication to shield your data. While not infallible, WPA2 remains the superior choice for most users. Prioritize WPA2 encryption for optimal Wi-Fi security. It utilizes advanced algorithms to make data theft significantly more challenging for hackers. Choose WPA2 for a secure online experience. To enable WPA2 encryption, consult your router's manual and select a strong password for your Wi-Fi network. This comprehensive approach safeguards your data and offers peace of mind.

c. Regular Firmware Updates

Router firmware updates are akin to digital shields, constantly adapting to thwart hackers. These updates, often bundled with security patches and bug fixes, address vulnerabilities that could be exploited to steal data or disrupt your network. By keeping your router's firmware current, you effectively shut the door on these potential threats, safeguarding your devices and optimizing your internet experience.

3. Hardware Considerations

a. Router Placement

To maximize both Wi-Fi reach and security, strategically position your router centrally within your home, elevated on a shelf or table. This placement ensures even signal distribution throughout your living space and minimizes signal degradation caused by walls and furniture. Furthermore, keeping the router away from electronic devices like microwaves and cordless phones mitigates interference, optimizing your overall Wi-Fi experience. For the best possible performance, avoid placing the router near windows or exterior walls. These materials weaken the signal as it attempts to pass through, essentially wasting signal strength that could be directed towards your devices. Remember, physical barriers like walls, furniture, and even metal appliances can negatively impact your Wi-Fi signal. These objects act as obstacles, absorbing or reflecting the radio waves that Wi-Fi utilizes, leading to slower speeds, dropped connections, and frustrating dead zones.

b. Guest Networks

Having a guest Wi-Fi network on your router is a win-win. It offers convenience for visitors by providing internet access with a simple password, but more importantly, it keeps your home network secure. By isolating guest devices, you prevent them from accessing your sensitive data or spreading malware. This extra layer of security protects your personal devices while still offering internet connectivity to your guests. Most routers have a built-in guest network function that's easy to set up, allowing you to create a separate network with its own unique name and password.

4. Monitoring and Detection

a. Network Monitoring Tools

Troubleshooting network woes becomes easier with detective tools like Wireshark and Fing. Wireshark, a free and powerful option, offers deep Einblick (German for insight) into network data packets. Fing, on the other hand, provides a user-friendly view of connected devices and potential security vulnerabilities. With these tools, you can pinpoint issues, optimize performance, and keep your network running like clockwork. Additionally, network monitoring acts as a watchful eye, constantly on the lookout for suspicious activity. By analyzing network traffic against established patterns, it can detect unauthorized access, unusual data transfers, or abnormal user behavior. This early detection allows for swift investigation and mitigation of potential security threats. So, if your internet ever feels sluggish, don't hesitate to leverage these tools and proactive monitoring to identify the culprit and safeguard your devices. After all, vigilance is key to a smooth and secure online experience.

b. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS)

An IDS acts as your network's watchful defender, continuously monitoring traffic and system activity for suspicious behavior or known attack patterns. While it doesn't directly block threats, it identifies and raises the alarm for security personnel through real-time alerts. This allows for swift investigation and mitigation, effectively working as an early warning system to stay ahead of cyberattacks. Imagine IDS software or hardware as vigilant guards constantly scanning your network. They provide valuable insights to your security team, empowering them to thwart threats before they cause damage. By fortifying your network's defenses with an IDS, you gain a significant advantage in maintaining a secure and protected environment.

We offer a comprehensive IDS solution that combines advanced threat detection capabilities with user-friendly management tools. Our solution can be tailored to meet the specific needs of your organization, ensuring that your network is always protected. Contact today to learn more about how our IDS solution can help you safeguard your network. Visit our website to learn more about our IDS solution.

5. Case Studies

Case 1: Unsecured Hotel Network Leads to Credit Card Theft (2019)

Incident: Guests at a major hotel chain unknowingly connected to an unsecured Wi-Fi network. Hackers intercepted credit card information used for online purchases, resulting in millions of dollars in fraudulent charges.

Consequences: The hotel faced lawsuits from affected guests, reputational damage, and potential fines from regulatory bodies. Customers lost money and had the hassle of dealing with fraudulent charges.

Prevention: The hotel could have implemented WPA2 encryption and a strong password for the guest Wi-Fi network. Additionally, educating guests about the risks of public Wi-Fi and encouraging the use of a VPN for sensitive transactions could have mitigated the breach.

Case 2: Fake Wi-Fi Network Targets Coffee Shop Customers (2021)

Incident: Cybercriminals set up a fake Wi-Fi network with a name similar to the popular coffee shop it was near. Unsuspecting customers connected, unknowingly exposing their login credentials for email, social media, and banking apps.

Consequences: Victims had their online accounts compromised, potentially leading to identity theft, financial loss, and emotional distress.

Prevention: Customers should be cautious of unfamiliar Wi-Fi networks and double-check the SSID (network name) before connecting. Coffee shops can display clear signage with their legitimate Wi-Fi name and password.

These cases showcase how seemingly minor security gaps in Wi-Fi networks can have serious consequences. By following best practices like strong encryption, secure passwords, and user education, these incidents could have been prevented.

Don't wait! Secure your Wi-Fi today for peace of mind.

In today's digital age, a secure Wi-Fi network is no longer optional. Leaving your network unprotected is like leaving your front door wide open - inviting hackers to steal your data, eavesdrop on your activity, or even infect your devices with malware.

The key points outlined in this article serve as a strategic roadmap for strengthening your Wi-Fi defenses.

Strong Passwords & Encryption: Use complex passwords and enable WPA2 encryption for robust network protection.

Regular Updates: Keep your router's firmware up-to-date to patch vulnerabilities and optimize performance.

Strategic Router Placement: Position your router centrally to maximize signal coverage and minimize interference.

Guest Networks: Utilize guest networks to isolate guest devices and safeguard your personal data.

Network Monitoring: Employ tools and techniques to identify suspicious activity and potential threats.

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS): For an extra layer of security, consider implementing an IDS for real-time threat detection. Visit our website to learn more about our IDS solution.

Follow Me on Medium

[amandi-mga2024mi5019]

Insects - Thinking Hats

Yellow Hat

Insects are invaluable in a number of ways. They have been hugely beneficial to human health and scientific research.

Insects have immunological, analgesic, diuretic, anaesthetic, antibacterial, and anti-rheumatic qualities, making them an essential part of medical systems in many human societies around the world.

Insects provide inspiration for biomimicry.

Insects, arguably among nature’s most perfect example of evolutionary design, also inspires the field of robotics and has led to innovations like Festo’s BionicOpter. This unique robot mimics the flight patterns and characteristics of a dragonfly, showing the potential ways biomimicry can revolutionise not just aircraft design, but automated and machine-driven technology as well.

Dragonflies twist their wings at all different angles which allows them to change direction rapidly and capture prey as tiny as gnats. Scientists used this as inspiration to design some of the propellers, wind turbines, and even helicopters after dragonfly wings.

Moreover, insects provide sources of commercially profitable and valuable products. eg: silk, wax, honey, lac, dyes, beeswax, etc. Insects are also a source of protein.

Silk is strong, lightweight, and elastic. It takes dyes, resists creasing, insulates well, and can be used as a canvas for printing and painting.

They also very an important role in nature. They help bacteria and fungi in the decomposition of organic matter, returning nutrients to the soil. The decomposition of carrion in particular is sped up by insects.

In addition, many plants depend on insects for pollination.

They are a vital food source for birds, reptiles, and other animals.

Decomposition of carrion allows nutrients cycle through an ecosystem.

Some main insect decomposers include beetles and flies (flesh flies, blow flies, carrion beetles, rove beetles, sister beetles, dermestid beetles)

Beekeeping is one of the few ethical industries. There is almost no profitable reason to make beekeeping less ethical, and as a result, honey is one of the few animal-based foods that is almost completely sustainable and ethical to consume.

some insects can serve as sustainable and non-harmful pesticides against harmful bugs.

Butterflies especially are very valuable. Butterflies are indicators of a healthy environment and healthy ecosystems.

Butterflies indicate a wide range of other invertebrates, which comprise over two-thirds of all species.

Areas rich in butterflies and moths are rich in other invertebrates. These collectively provide a wide range of environmental benefits, including pollination and natural pest control.

Moths and butterflies are an important element of the food chain and are prey for birds, bats and other insectivorous animals (for example, in Britain and Ireland, Blue Tits eat an estimated 50 billion moth caterpillars each year).

Butterflies support a range of other predators and parasites, many of which are specific to individual species, or groups of species.

Butterflies have been widely used by ecologists as model organisms to study the impact of habitat loss and fragmentation, and climate change.

Butterflies also have great economic value. Thousands of people travel abroad each year looking for butterflies and moths. Eco-tours bring income to many European countries and developing countries around the world (e.g. the valley of the butterflies in Rhodes and the Monarch roost in Mexico).

Every butterfly and moth has developed its own suite of chemicals to deter predators and parasites, find a mate, and overcome the chemical defenses of its host plant. Each of these chemicals has a potential value and could be exploited economically. For example, powerful antibiotics have been found in the Meadow Brown Butterfly.

[primorcoin]

New Post has been published on https://primorcoin.com/what-is-the-long-term-solution/

What is the long-term solution?

Even as the ongoing Binance-FTX saga continues to dominate the crypto airwaves, there has been a growing trend — an uneasy one at that — that has been garnering the attention of many digital currency enthusiasts in recent months, i.e., hackers returning partial funds for discovering exploits within a protocol. 

In this regard, just recently, the bad actors behind the $14.5 million Team Finance attack revealed that they would be allowed to stay in possession of 10% of the stolen funds as a bounty. Similarly, Mango Markets, a Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) network that was recently exploited to the tune of over $110 million, revealed that its community of backers was working toward reaching a consensus, one that would allow the hacker to be awarded $47 million as a reward for exposing the exploit.

As this trend continues to garner more and more traction, Cointelegraph reached out to several industry observers to examine whether such a practice is healthy for the continued growth of the digital asset market, especially in the long run.

A good practice, for now

Rachel Lin, co-founder and CEO of SynFutures — a decentralized crypto derivatives exchange — told Cointelegraph that on one hand, the habit of encouraging “black hatters” to turn “white hat” encourages the industry to raise its standards of best practices, but it’s still not uncommon for popular protocols to be forked or simply copied and pasted, leaving them replete with hidden bugs. She added:

“We’d be remiss to say that this is healthy where in an ideal world, there’d be only white hat hackers. But the transition we’re seeing in which hackers are returning some of the funds, which wasn’t previously the case, is a strong step forward, particularly in sensitive times like these where it’s becoming clearer that many projects and exchanges are connected and could impact the ecosystem as a whole.”

On a somewhat similar note, Brian Pasfield, chief technical officer for decentralized money market Fringe Finance, told Cointelegraph that while the idea of giving hackers a fraction of the money they cart away for discovering loopholes can be seen as unhealthy and almost unsustainable, the fact of the matter remains that ultimately the hacked projects have no choice but to utilize this approach. “This is a better alternative than resorting to law enforcement’s approach to nab the perpetrators and recover the funds, which takes a very long time, if successful at all,” he added.

Recent: What can blockchain do for increasing human longevity?

Speaking more technically, Slava Demchuk, co-founder of crypto compliance firm AMLBot, told Cointelegraph that since everything is on-chain, all of a hacker’s actions are traceable, so much so that the hacker has almost a 0% chance of using the illegally obtained digital assets. He added:

“When the hackers agree to return some of these stolen funds, not only does the project usually not prosecute the hacker, it even allows them to be able to use the remaining funds legally.” 

Lastly, Jasper Lee, audit tech lead at SOOHO.IO, a crypto auditing firm for several Fortune 500 companies, said that this kind of white hat behavior could be healthy for the blockchain industry in the long run since it provides the opportunity to identify vulnerabilities within DeFi protocols before they become too large. 

He further told Cointelegraph that out in non-blockchain industries, even if a hacker finds a vulnerability in a given code, it is difficult for them to go public with that information because it could cause severe legal issues. “In traditional hacking, it is very rare that a hacker returns the funds they have taken, as doing so would likely reveal their identity,” Lee said.

Not everyone agrees

David Carvalho, CEO at Naoris Protocol, a distributed cybersecurity ecosystem, stated in unequivocal terms that allowing hackers to keep funds in such a way not only undermines the entire ethos of a decentralized financial system but it promotes behavior that fosters distrust.

“It cannot continue to be seen as something to be tolerated on any level. The fundamentals of a safe and equitable financial system don’t change,” he told Cointelegraph, adding, “The premise that the only way to solve the hacking issue is to make the problem part of the solution is fatally flawed. It may fix a small crack for a short period of time, but the crack will continue to grow under the weight of the flimsy fixes and result in a destabilized market.”

A similar sentiment is echoed by Tim Bos, co-founder and chairman of ShareRing — a blockchain-based ecosystem providing digital identity solutions — who believes that this is a terrible practice. “It’s akin to paying criminals who hold people hostage. All this does is makes the hackers realize that they can commit a huge crime, be rewarded for it, and then there are no repercussions,” he told Cointelegraph.

Carvalho noted that just because a hacker is nice enough to return part of the funds doesn’t make it a good practice since these episodes still result in people and DeFi platforms losing a lot of money.

“We can’t afford to associate decentralized finance with nefarious security fixes. For mass adoption by both enterprises and individuals, we need the security systems across the Web2 and Web3 ecosystems to be trusted and hackproof. Having a cohort of hackers ostensibly calling the shots in the cybersecurity space is crazy, to say the least, and does nothing to promote the industry,” he said.

Setting a bad precedent for the industry?

Lin noted that even among traditional Web2 companies — like the FAANGs of this world — hackers are incentivized to discover bugs and zero-day exploits in exchange for certain incentives. However, this often comes with strict requirements and having white hat hackers discover these loopholes is viewed as being healthy for the ecosystem. She noted:

“Major exploits or discoveries typically put the industry as a whole and in-house security teams on alert. But it’s a slippery slope. I’d argue we’d need to define what a ‘white hat’ hacker is. For example, could you consider a hacker who’s cornered and reluctantly returns only 10% of the funds a white hat hacker?”

Lee believes that these fat paychecks can serve as a significant impetus for white hats to carry out more such ploys. However, he pointed out that instead of seeing 100% of a protocol’s funds being hacked or disappearing for good, it’s always better for the protocol’s users that a portion of the appropriated funds are recovered.

On a more optimistic note, Demchuk noted that the DeFi market is community-driven and, therefore, such actions could be viewed positively, as hackers themselves are often asked to work for the projects they exploited, making their activities real-life penetration tests.

What’s the solution?

It is no secret that a large portion of the Web3 ecosystem (and its associated cybersecurity solutions) still runs on yesterday’s Web2 architecture, making them highly centralized. This, in Carvalho’s opinion, is the elephant in the room that most Web3 platforms don’t want to talk about. He believes that if these pressing issues are not solved using decentralized solutions, the standards for smart contract execution and publishing will not be not fundamentally changed or improved, adding:

“These types of breaches will continue to happen because there is no accountability or criminalization of hacking activity. I believe a ‘just pay the hacker’ approach is going to increase the risk for DeFi and other centralized/decentralized platforms because the fundamental weaknesses are not resolved.”

Bos noted that the core problem here isn’t the hacking or the fake bounties that are rewarding the hackers but an apparent lack of audits, quality security processes and risk reviews, especially from those projects that have in their coffers millions of dollars worth of crypto assets. 

Recent: FTX collapse: The crypto industry’s Lehman Brothers moment

“Established banks are virtually impossible to hack into because they spend a lot of money on security reviews, risk audits, etc. We need to see the same level of technical oversight in the crypto industry,” he concluded.

Therefore, as we head into a future driven increasingly by decentralized technologies, one can say that the hackers are simply demonstrating how much more work the crypto sector as a whole needs to put into its security practices.

Source link

#Binance #BNB #CryptoExchange #DEFI #DEFINews #NFT #NFTNews

[timemachineyeah]

This is how it sneaks up on you. I’m looking for a new phone case.

I keep finding myself holding my phone in ways that make my fingers hurt, so I looked into getting a strap or something for my phone. But the problem is whenever I pictured them on my phone it made me sad because it felt kind of ugly with my case.

And I realized if I’m going to keep not buying a strap because of aesthetics with the current case that it might be better to just get a new case with some kind of strap or finger support already there, so I can address the aesthetic and finger support simultaneously.

And since the whole reason I didn’t just get a loop or something is because it wouldn’t be cute, I might as well get something really cute.

I don’t usually care so much, but when it’s something you look at and interact with every day, you want it to make you smile, or at least not be disappointing.

So I’m shopping around for phone cases. My current case is classy because when I got it I had a weird bug in my ass about looking adult for once. But now I know better and I want something nerdy. Most of what I can find on Etsy that fits my criteria are bootlegs, which I don’t rule out, but I’d rather give my money to more legit independent fan operations. Especially without the presumed art theft.

So I find myself typing in terms. Sailor Moon phone case. Mermaid phone case. Steven Universe phone case. UFO phone case. Beauty and the Beast phone case. Fraggle Rock phone case. Octopus phone case.

What else? What else makes me happy? What do I like that I assume enough other people like that it’s reasonable to hope some genuine indie maker has hand-made something cute for it?

Harry Potter

The answer is there but it’s not true any more. But it’s still there. Like a habitual prayer. Recited so often your brain does it without you, a song stuck in your head. It used to be my favorite song. For a while.

And it’s not like the other things that stopped being fun. Sure, some seasons of Doctor Who disappointed, but I can go back to the ones I like. And that was the show itself that let me down. Sure, people were behind it, but it was the story that wasn’t fun anymore.

Harry Potter finished its story and it was fun from the first book to the last. Sure JKR could retcon and expand and sequel to her hearts content but that didn’t touch the story that had been told, the books that had been published. It was done. She couldn’t take it away.

But she could. And she did. In the worst way possible.

Can you have a parasocial relationship with a franchise?

They are far from perfect books. Even before the controversies spread, the varnish had started to wear off. What am I supposed to do? Tell eleven year old me (hiding in a closet to avoid chores and read the day after Christmas) that she has bad taste? Tell closeted repressed teen queer me who spent hours theorizing with her outcasted queer friends that they couldn’t do that any more? What’s done is done. If Harry Potter had never existed, maybe I would have hauled myself out of Tartarus by other means. Maybe it wasn’t the book, but me. Or maybe in another universe I am far worse off. It doesn’t matter. I’ll never know. While I cannot know what would happen in another timeline, I cannot deny in this one that the formative impact of Harry Potter was an unquestionable good for my life. It was a source of comfort, courage, and community that I had no replacement for.

And I hate that. Because she fed off of it. She took that joy and that enthusiasm and that earnest love and she turned it into power and influence and once she’d stolen all that power and influence she turned it around and abused my people, the community that made me whole. She exploited the excitement and wonder of children to amass power to hate and oppress those same children as they grew up and more children besides.

I think about them. If I’m buying from a maker and not her, then she doesn’t get my money. Does that really hurt?

The question is moot. Putting aside how others might feel in the presence of such an artifact, I would not feel joy. I could get a hand made trans positive Harry Potter case, but whenever I saw it I’d just be thinking about all this again. It’d make me sad. And that is the point, isn’t it? To get a phone case that makes me happy, makes me smile. So it can’t be Harry Potter anyway. Not for me.

I am not wanting for small joys. If it is for want of a themed phone case or fantasy novel, the hole left by her betrayal of the trans community is easily filled. There are, indeed, other books.

But when I think of other lost passions, they do not sting the same way. With them, we grew apart. That happens. Sometimes you grow and your old shoes don’t fit any more. Sometimes they change the recipe of your favorite snack. That’s not a betrayal in the same way.

If tomorrow the creators of any other thing I ever stopped loving came out and said, “Wow, I did a bad job, and I am aware of that, and I’m sorry” it wouldn’t fix the source material. That’s what hurts. They are flawed books, but if tomorrow she sent out a press release going “Wow, I got radicalized like an asshole I’m sorry. That was incredibly transphobic. And I have also been tone deaf to downright colonialist on these many other issues. Here’s major donations to all these relevant nonprofits and an action plan to start repairing the damage” I don’t know if I would forgive her? But I know I would want to. And in either case I know I would finally feel like I might be able to enjoy a reread of the books that meant so much to me.

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: April 2022

April! I suppose this means we’re a third of the way through the year and and that’s wild to me. Anyway here’s how I mostly spent the month.

……….FILM……….

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) It’s been a while since I’ve watched a movie and really felt like I was seeing something new, you know? I was visually exhausted and I can’t recommend it enough. I just want more movies that are both silly and sincere and fun. What an adventure.

Pirate Radio / The Boat that Rocked (2009) This cast is so great. I don’t think I realized it upon my first viewing back when it was released. The cutaways to the listeners are lovely and so varied that it really sells the impact these radio stations had. Big fan.

Empress of Darkness (2020) I don’t remember how I came across Nick DiLiberto (the director and sole animator of this movie) but I bought DVDs of both of his movies and this one is just fantastic. 60 minutes depicting a beautiful, violent, nearly wordless struggle. Check out the trailers online and if you like what you see then the movie delivers that and more.

……….TELEVISION……….

Squid Game (Episode 1.01 to 1.09) Finally got around to checking this out and I’ve never been more consistently stressed watching a season of television, Really really great until the international characters show up and then it’s really really good. Although I will say that final hair choice really deflated the serious tone of those last few scenes. The visuals are clearly iconic and I still don’t understand how anyone walked away from this with any message other than “capitalism is bad.”

Ghosts (Episode 1.01 to 1.06) Charming and maybe a little...wholesome? I don’t quite know how to explain it. I mean you can tell how an episode will play out after the first couple minutes but I just enjoy spending time with these silly characters.

……….READING……….

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (Page 192 of 507) I have a hard time explaining just how great these books are (this is the second in the series after the equally fantastic Gideon the Ninth). The writing just feels so effortless and the characters clearly defined from their first introduction. The series has such an interesting structure and this second book’s second-person point-of-view really adds to the character’s paranoia. Oh also this book is about space necromancers training to fight a world beast while also seemingly trying to kill each other? I dunno it’s weird and wonderful and absolutely worth checking out.

Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe (Complete) Outside of the intro and conclusion, each chapter (which breaks down why a different umbrella of industry exploits its labour) can be read or skipped without missing much. I mention this because reading the book cover to cover was exhausting. In a good way. But perhaps now how I’d reread it. Anyway all this is to say I recommend the book.

Delicious in Dungeon Vol. 10 by Ryoko Kui (Complete) Every volume manages to stick with the premise (eating monsters to survive a dungeon) even when the stakes ramp up towards the looming climax. Funny and deeply character-driven and such beautiful artwork. Really really great and I won’t stop recommending this. Go pick up volume 1.

Young Offenders (1–3) by Mike Becker, Mark Stack, and Jodie Troutman (Complete) I kickstarted this miniseries a while back and it was a really fun read! In three issues you get a good intro to these characters, a sense of the world they’re living in, and solid threat to require a full team of fresh-faced superheros. Totally recommend picking it up and I know you can get it from Becker’s site here.

……….AUDIO……….

Bronco by Orville Peck (2022) If always bugs me when folks say they don’t like a certain genre of music. I just assume they haven’t found the right artist that clicks with them, you know? Orville Peck is a great example of that for me and country music. I don’t click with a lot of artists in the genre but not Peck. His voice, emotion, and theatrics all resonate. This album feels bigger and bolder than his previous and it’s been on heavy rotation this month.

……….GAMING……….

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) My weekly group decided to rob the Ozian mob and it went...fairly well! Will there be any consequences? Who could say. Full campaign diary is here on reddit! Meanwhile the Mof1 crew fell into a trap, were knocked unconscious, and have just avoided being buried alive. Now they have to flee the rest of the thugs who were tasked with filling in the holes.

And that’s it! As always, let me know if you have any recommendations and happy Saturday!

[anime-grimmy-art]

Told you guys I’d ramble in due time.

I absolutely adore Bravely Default 2. It came at a really bad time cos I can’t waste 70 hours on a jrpg, but well, it’s too late to be concerned about that now. And as is tradition with me obsessing over a new game / show / whatever, you’ll basically find a fullblown review disguised as ramblings right under the cut. Be aware that I’m gonna talk about EVERYTHING, so spoilers are a given. Some maybe even for the previous Bravely Default games.

Also, if you wanna talk about this game in any capacity, hit me up, I’m DESPERATE to talk more about it.

Just for reference on how long this is gonna be, I made a voice recording while driving to remember all the points I wanna make, and that recording is almost 2 hours long. I did cut it down but still, this is gonna be a lot.

I’ll start off with the things that actually bugged me about the game, since there are only 3 things that really bothered me. First of, I really don’t like that you can name Seth. He has too much personality to be a self insert and player integration is not that big of a part in the game that this decision can be justified. It wouldn’t bother me that much if it didn’t leave a bad mark on the ending. First of all, we were robbed of Gloria desperately shouting for Seth, which makes the impact work less, and it’s just so prevalent that the name can’t be said because you have all the normal sound design going. If they’d just let the credits still play I wouldn’t have batted an eye, but because every other sound comes in it’s so obvious they’re just silently shouting in this scene, which makes it look silly. Like I said, this decision is more a detriment than an addition, and it’s a shame it casts a shadow on an otherwise heartfelt ending.

Speaking about lost potential, the other thing that really bothers me is the lost potential in certain plot points and character conclusions. I mainly mean Adam and Edna here. Both of them have been built up to be these formidable foes but they just, die. If it was just Adam I’d be fine with it, since you expect Edna to backstab him and be the actual big bad of the story, but I cannot fathom why they dropped Edna this HARD. If not Edna herself, I don’t understand why we don’t get more of a reaction from the Fairies and especially Adelle. I mean, Edna was her sole reason she left for her journey in the first place, then Edna dies and that’s it? No part where she grieves for a second? No concern from the others about Adelle? Mind you, I haven’t finished all the Sidequests, so maybe there actually is one in which this is addressed, but I think even just a Party Chat after Bad End 1 would have been sufficient to show how Adelle suddenly feels about the loss of Edna. It would have made Bad End 2 / The Secret Ending even more impactful, because, yeah, of course, you kinda know Adelle isn’t going to turn her back on fairy kind, but one of the reasons she doesn’t leave is because if Enda didn’t get a happy ending, then she shouldn’t either. It would have been amazing foreshadowing if she showed this sentiment before this scene happened. Other than that, it’s a shame that we know so little about Edna, or rather, how she became “bad”. I get she’s supposed to be corrupted by the Night’s Nexus, but how did it even come to this? It can’t have been a gradual thing, after all, Adelle says Edna was always good natured and then just disappeared one day. Really would have loved seeing more of that plot point.

Ok, last gripe I have, some choices in the soundtrack and sound design. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the OST, and I will get to that, but damn, whatever Revo used for the lead instrument in Wiswald hurts my ears. It’s a really good track, but I always have to turn down my volume because these high pitched sounds physically hurt. And for sound design. Dude, the Night’s Nexus is the least threatening, nightmare fueled abomination that ever existed. I get that its growl is kinda supposed to be layered with Edna’s or sth, but it, it just sounds silly. If they went the route of just swinging between different voices or began distorting it from phase to phase, it would have been fine. But the choice they made really made an otherwise creepy design just absolutely silly.

Ok, enough jammering, on to the good stuff. Like I said, there’s going to be a lot, so I’ll try to be brief in each aspect.

Gameplay

I honestly like the new battle mechanics more than the old ones. This individual, turn based system feels way more dynamic and it’s easier to strategies in battles. Because nothing made me more angry than setting up for a heal and the enemy suddenly being faster than me and killing my healer. Now it’s easier to plan ahead a bit.

I also found myself experimenting more with the jobs. Not sure what it really is, but none of the party members leaning more towards certain types of jobs and the job leveling being way faster probably helped.

And I know some people get up in arms because the boss sometimes can be a real pain in the ass (looking at you pope dude), I still found it very interesting getting around counters or even using these counters as a benefit. As an example, I made Adelle my main physical fighter and gave her lots of counter abilities to help her profit from being countered by enemies themselves. Now, she can attack enemies, get countered, automatically evade that counter and earn a BP at the same time. Made a lot of boss fights way easier and fun to exploit.

Music

Ok, I will try my best to be really, really brief, because in my recording this part takes up almost 40 minutes. Anyways, Revo might have just become one of my absolute favorite composers ever. I don’t know what kind of magic he used, but I initially wasn’t that impressed with the OST, but every time I listened to it, I just fell in love harder and harder. Before getting into specifics, I wanna highlight the two things that made me love this OST overall. First of all, this soundtrack almost seems like a refinement of BD’s. While losing some of that fairytale vibe, it sounds even more fantasy now. And in contrast to the original, this almost sounds more balanced? Like, BD’s OST felt high energy throughout, BD2’s on the other hand manages to find a good balance between high and low energy pieces. Like, the character themes or battle themes are absolute hype, but the overworld themes are a lot calmer and easier to listen to while exploring. Second big point that makes this soundtrack amazing is that Revo is an absolute god at using emotional progression/storytelling and leitmotifs in his songs. And heck, do I love myself my leitmotifs. You’ve got some obvious ones, like the final battle theme in which all the character themes and other leitmotifs are integrated. Then you got some maybe more subtle once, just like how the overworld themes are just the main theme, just a lot calmer and using the lead instruments of the towns of the areas.

But my absolute favourites gotta be the character themes and the main theme. I love how fitting the themes for the characters are and in general, each of them is such a bop. At first I prefered Elvis’, because I sure am a sucker for jazzy vibes, but over time Adelle’s became my fav. It’s just something about the trumpets, and how the theme almost sounds a bit melancholic and bittersweet, that drew me in. And considering her story, mostly her bad end, that the bittersweet tone really fits.

Then there’s the main theme. Just like BD’s it shouts “triumphant anthem” and it definitely gives you a very familiar vibe, but I’d argue it has even better emotional progression. Heck, the first time I heard the music start up in the reveal trailer, I didn’t have to look at the screen to know this is gonna be a BD game. Also, the credit song version had me weeping at the true end. I’m someone who’s very easily affected by music (if me shouting about soundtracks on this blog wasn’t proof enough) and just hearing that ending song, getting the after credits scene, just for the second credits to start as a freaking duet. Dude, at that point I just started sobbing, I’m not gonna lie. Just this little part showed how much Revo knows how to put emotion in a song and also write it in such a way that he can elicit strong, emotional reactions from you too. 

Story

People have been complaining how the story is too boring and kinda disappointing in comparison to the last one, but I just think the games tried to accomplish different things here. Since the BD series is a celebration of old, classic jrpgs, “cliche” storytelling is a given. Though, BD did throw a lot of meta stuff in there too. BD2 in contrast just feels like a direct execution of that initial idea. It feels familiar, it feels comfy and it feels safe. Except for the little things with the endings and then overwriting the Nexus’ “save file”, BD2 doesn’t really get that meta, which is totally fine. It doesn’t try to reinvent or innovate anything, it just wants to be a fantasy story, that might be cliche, but still fun and enjoyable in its own right.

I’d also argue that the pacing is a lot better than the old game, because with BD I sometimes found myself skipping through scenes to get on with the story. Not that this game didn’t have me rushing through stuff as well, but I found it kept my intrigue way better than the original.

Characters

Next to the music, this is the part that I absolutely love the most. While, yes, they did lose a lot of potential with some characters, mostly with the villains, the main cast is just so much fun. I love these 4 dorks so, so much.

I honestly can’t stand how much people compare them to the original cast. Yes, ofc, I’ve been doing my fair share of comparisons too, but calling these four a more boring version of BD’s party physically hurts me. Because except for some initial impressions, the Heroes of Light are completely different from our beloved Warriors of Light.

While yes, Seth and Gloria give off strong Tiz and Agnes vibes at first, they both grow into such different characters that they’re not really comparable. I think this shows with Adelle and Elvis even more. I do understand how people could compare Adelle and Edea, since they’re both the feisty girl type, but I can’t understand how people can see Ringabel and Elvis as the same character type. While those two are the “suave” party members, they act so differently from another. And that’s honestly apparent the first time you meet them. 

Anyways, I love these 4 so much.

We technically don’t know a lot about Seth at all, but they manage to pull so much out of just the fact that he’s a sailor, that it makes him really endearing, really fast.

I was kinda disinterested with Gloria at first, because again, the initial impression was Agnés2.0, but she grew on me a lot. Gloria is way more hard headed and honestly sassy in comparison to Agnés and I absolutely adore it.

Elvis. Elvis, my man. I love this fantasy scottosh wizard so, so much. He’s such a ridiculous character but so endearing at the same time. You got all this dorkiness, with him setting himself on fire as a student, him doing god knows what for a good drink or just laughing danger and prejudice in the face. But then you got his super empathetic and caring side. Mind you, most of his wise moments come from quoting Lady Emma, but still, as much as he’s hopeless with certain social situations, he’s actually still really good at reading the room and playing things smart. He’s a smart and powerful idiot, which makes him a danger to everyone and himself, and I love him for it. (I also can’t believe they called him Lesley I MEAN COME ON)

And then there’s Adelle. I liked her from the start, but I didn’t think she would stick out to me. I think now she’s my favourite character. Not even talking about all the stuff that happens in chapter 3 and onward, because these story threads are awesome in their own right, but there’s just something about her personality that’s interesting and appealing to me. Like I said, I’m not surprised people compare her to Edea, I did too at first, but while Edea walks very close to the line of a Tsundere, I was really surprised that Adelle is, well, not a Tsundere at all. Yeah, of course she’s putting Elvis down a lot, but that stems more from her preventing his ego from going to his head than her being all embarrassed. No, Adelle is actually really well adjusted when it comes to communication. While it’s hilarious that she and Elvis met with her chucking her shoes at him, the two just got along well right from the start. Adelle in general has this really open and helpful personality, but also doesn’t shy away from putting her foot down, even if that sometimes comes out as an embarrassed sputter. She’s also the mother hen of the group. She looks out for the other three and gets concerned about them real fast. 

I dunno, Adelle just really grew on me over the course of this game, and then her kinda being paired with Elvis too, as partners and as partners, makes me like her even more. Because as much as I like their personalities individually, I like their character dynamic even more. I honestly love the relationships between all four of them a lot. You really feel them grow closer as friends and all the little character sidequests just always made me really happy.

Conclusion

You might not believe me, but I really held back there. This could probably have been 3 times its length. As much as I love this game, it’s of course not perfect. It struggles and flails in some parts a lot and it certainly has some aspects that might turn people off. But for me, it was just a very familiar and comfy game that didn’t necessarily deliver anything new, but that told its story in such a way that it still got me excited to keep going. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing and the conclusion of the story actually got me to cry. While not groundbreaking, this game is highly enjoyable and leaves you absolutely satisfied at the end.

Also, I would like to iterate that I am desperate to get more content about this game, so if you wanna chat about it, hit me up.

Anyways, anyone else felt like having a fever dream when everybody in chapter 2 started talking fantasy scottish? Cos I sure did.

[bthump]

Sorry if this ask deals with kind of a heavy topic. I know your take on the SA during the eclipse is that it was unnecessary and done in a less than elegant way. I agree. Do you think that it would have made more sense if it would have been done to Guts than Casca? In what ways do you think it would have changed what happens after the eclipse?

Hm, in some ways I think it would've actually made less sense, honestly.

Femto raping Casca feels tacked on evil for the sake of evil, an act you can read meaning into just because so much of Berserk revolves around rape, but which is not depicted in a way that imparts a sense of meaning and weight. It's depicted as exploitatively and gratuitously as possible, and the fall-out is not grounded in realism, it's thematically muddy, and even contradicts earlier parts of the story. Finally the only real purpose it serves is to write Casca out of the story for a long time and motivate the actual main character, which sucks a whole lot.

So on the one hand Femto raping Guts instead would've improved on some of this. It probably would've been depicted more tastefully and less like hentai, it would've happened to the main character and therefore not be an instance of fridging for the sake of manpain, and the consequences would probably be much more realistic because Guts would still have to be a functioning character afterwards. It would probably also feel more thematically and emotionally impactful as a direct echo of Guts' csa trauma and the fear that motivates him, and because we would see him actually dealing with the aftermath.

On the other hand, imo it doesn't work from Griffith's point of view, and would fundamentally change his story and pretty much his entire character arc. Griffith made the sacrifice to escape his feelings for Guts, it was Griffith choosing the dream over Guts in the tragic climax of the story, which was perfectly built up to. So if Femto then turns around and, rather than going "haha I have no feelings anymore" he instead demonstrates the twisted, evil version of those feelings, well, it's a whole different story. Now it's Griffith succumbing to evil predatory gay feelings instead of trying to escape positive genuine good gay feelings. In canon Guts' rage and betrayal was based in his feelings of abandonment and longing for Griffith's attention, and this would change that too.

The thing that would really bug me here is that it would be super homophobic - not inherently for including a m/m rape scene, but because all the thematic build up to it would essentially spell out 'gays really are predatory and evil' lol. Granted the actual Eclipse is already not great in that regard, but yk, I do think it's very significant to the depiction of Griffith and Guts' relationship that Griffith/Femto/NGriff's biggest cruelty to Guts is tossing him aside and pretending to be over him, rather than directing evil predatory attention towards him. It just fundamentally changes the whole emotional and thematic impact of their relationship and the subtext inherent to it if it ends with rape instead of abandonment, yk?

(Also I want to clarify here, this doesn't mean I think rapey eclipse AU fanfic or whatever is bad or anything like that, both bc I hold professionally published works to a different standard and because you can't expect fanfic to be a commentary on the original's subtext, it's its own thing.)

Anyway I actually responded to a similar ask a while ago and I want to link it to answer the question of what would change after the Eclipse, because I think that answer's still good, and I mostly just wanted to expand on my take on how it would and wouldn't work in canon here.

Thanks for the ask!

[gale-gentlepenguin]

ML what if

(What if Adrien listened to Plagg in Chat Blanc? Part 1)

-Adrien stopped himself from running out the door. As much as he hated to admit it, Plagg was right. Him knowing Marinette was Ladybug could be dangerous, it also wasn't fair of him to know and not tell her he knew.

-He didn't run out to meet her like he did in canon, he decided to wait.

-He decided to set up a “Patrol” to tell her the truth.

- Ladybug arrives, in high spirits as she meets her cat partner on the roof.

-Chat noir almost calling her Marinette, but quickly stopping himself.

-Chat noir and Ladybug go on their patrol and she notices Chat noir is quiet.

-”Chat? Is something wrong?”

-”Its wonderful but also awful.” Chat noir answered confusing the bug.

-Ladybug puts a hand onto his shoulder.

-”Chat, please tell me what it is.”

-”I know who you are.”

-Ladybug looked Surprised, but then decided to play it off.

-”Okay, Chat. If you know, then who am I.”

-”Marinette Dupain Cheng.”

-Ladybug felt her jaw drop, she tries to play this off.

-”I can't be Marinette. She was Multimouse. You saw...”

-”I saw you leave after you dropped off the gift for me.”

-”I was just delivering the Beret. I am not Marinette.”

-”How did you know it was a beret?”

-Ladybug concedes, she knows she is caught. But then something hits her. 

-”Wait... did you say gift for you?”

-Chat noir gives a soft smile.

-”I really did like the gift.”

-”Adrien!?”

-”Hey Marinette. I am really glad it was you.”

- Ladybug and Chat noir take a moment to laugh about the whole thing. They talk about how crazy the whole thing was, that they were so focused on the other that they didn’t realize they were getting in their own way.

-Ladybug and Chat noir almost kiss.

-But chat noir stops it for a second.

-”I want to kiss you without the masks.”

-Ladybug smiles at that. and they both transform into civilians to kiss.

-They both decide not to tell fu they know. At least, not yet. Considering it would mean losing the miraculous.

___________________________________________

-Just like in canon, they start dating, now EVEN closer then before, because no secrets.

-Alya and the Girls are ecstatic. 

-Everything is pretty much identical, until the scene with Gabriel telling Marinette to break up with his son.

-After that moment. Ladybug and chat noir are on patrol. (They agree to keep it professional in hero form so hawkmoth can't exploit their feelings for the other) Chat noir notices Ladybug is sad. She tells him what she has to do.

-Adrien/chat noir is furious. How could his father do this! He tells her not to. He loves her.

-Ladybug tells him if she doesn't, then he will be pulled out of school and not allowed to see anyone of his friends.

-”All because its bad for brand!? Thats...”

-Adrien gets an idea.

-”Okay dump me.”

-”What?!”

-”He said me being with you was bad for the brand. Well me being without you will be down right catastrophic for it.”

-Ladybug looking at chat noir.

-”Chat... are you sure about this?”

-”Trust me bugaboo. Don't let yourself get too bummed. I will have my father back at your door BEGGING for you to take me back in a month.”

-He gives her a kiss on the cheek and a wink.

-Gabriel’s plan failed because Marinette wasn't sad enough to trigger the akuma. He assumed she must have some sort of consolation that Adrien will still be able to attend school, so she is keeping herself from getting too sad. Gabriel hated the fact the plan failed.

-Adrien on the other hand was ‘miserable.’ 

-Whenever Nathalie asked Adrien something, Adrien would mention Marinette.

-”Surly he will be over it in a day or two.”

-2 weeks later.

-His photo shoots were abysmal. Adrien’s fencing, grades, everything were starting to dip. He even just looked more depressed and sullen. It was starting to have a real impact on the profit margin.

-Gabriel wouldn't akumatize Adrien, (since he doesn't know he is chat noir and there would be no benefit to it) So Gabriel realized errors have been made.

[fatehbaz]

Sources for thousands of Detroit residents without water access for years; Detroit lead poisoning; history of how Nestle conquered Michigan water; and how Flint residents pay the state more in utility fees in a single month for water access in a single household than Nestle pays the state in an entire year to extract 130 million gallons of water.

A response to this:

I hope these sources might help.

Just for geographic context:

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Nestle, which earns over $7 billion in annual bottled water sales, pays a once-a-year $200 administrative fee to extract over 130 million gallons of water from Evart, while people are poisoned and die in nearby Flint, where a single months’ water utility bill is over $200.

[Source: Jessica Glenza. “Nestle pays $200 a year to bottle water near Flint -- where water is undrinkable.” The Guardian. 29 September 2017.]

Flint became synonymous with lead-poisoned water after government officials, looking to save money, switched the city’s water supply from Detroit city water to water from the corrosive Flint river. Once the city had switched, the number of children with elevated lead exposure doubled; residents reported unexplained rashes and losing hair. An unpublished study recently found fetal deaths in Flint increased by 58% during the crisis. [...] Despite having endured lead-laden tap water for years, Flint pays some of the highest water rates in the US. Several residents cited bills upwards of $200 per month for tap water they refuse to touch. But just two hours away, in the tiny town of Evart, creeks lined by wildflowers run with clear water. The town is so small, the fairground, McDonald’s, high school and church are all within a block. But in a town of only 1,503 people, there are a dozen wells pumping water from the underground aquifer. This is where the beverage giant Nestle pumps almost 100,000 times what an average Michigan resident uses into plastic bottles that are sold all over the Midwest for around $1. To use this natural resource, Nestle pays $200 per year. Now, Nestle wants more Michigan water. In a recent permit application, the company asked to pump 210 million gallons per year from Evart, a 60% increase, and for no more than it pays today. [...] In a state where officials denied Flint’s water was poisoned with lead; where Detroit residents choose between heat and water; where the water-borne, pneumonia-like legionnaire’s disease killed a dozen; and where gastrointestinal bugs spread among residents who lacked (or didn’t trust) water, Nestle’s request seemed like salt on a wound.

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

While thousands in Detroit have no water access, even people with water access have high rates of lead poisoning; in one Detroit zip code in 2017, 22% of tested children exhibited lead poisoning.

[Source: Karen Bouffard and Christine MacDonal. “Detroit kids’ lead poisoning rates higher than Flint.” The Detroit News. 14 November 2017.]

Detroit had Michigan’s highest proportion of children test positive for lead poisoning in 2016 — 8.8 percent of kids tested — including one ZIP code where 22 percent were found to have lead poisoning. Data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services show children are being sickened by lead in counties from Manistee to Hillsdale and St. Clair, though the rates of lead poisoning in Flint continue to improve.

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

In 2020,  Michigan institutions and judges continue to allow Nestle to pay minor administrative fee of $200 per each water extraction facility, as Nestle extracts over half a million gallons every single day from single individual wells (ie: just one annual fee of $200 for the Evart well).

[Source: Garret Ellison. “Nestle wins legal challenge to Michigan groundwater extraction.” MLive. 28 April 2020.]

A state administrative judge has upheld a permit that allows global food and beverage giant Nestle to boost the amount of Michigan groundwater it extracts for sale under the Ice Mountain bottled water brand. In a decision dated April 24 [2020], Judge Dan Pulter ruled that Nestle’s plans to withdrawal 576,000 gallons of groundwater per day from the headwaters of two cold water trout streams in Osceola County will not negatively impact the surrounding natural resources. Concerns were raised about potential impacts to Muskegon River watershed and the tiny $200 annual paperwork fee Nestle pays per facility to extract millions of gallons of Michigan groundwater to sell for profit. [...] Much of the broader opposition was from those upset that Nestle could source groundwater at essentially no cost while people in Flint were drinking water contaminated by bacteria and lead, and low-income residents of Detroit were having their taps shut off for non-payment.

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

Nestle pumped over 2.5 billion gallons from a Mescota County well; Nestle has now pumped over 1 billion gallons from the Evart wells; the Osceola well now supplies millions of gallons a year.

[Source: Garret Ellison. “Nestle in Michigan: Unpacking the water battle backstory.” MLive. 26 December 2016. Updated 20 May 2019.]

Nestle made a deal [...] to drill four high-capacity wells at their 600-acre private hunting preserve in Morton Township [...]. The water is pumped 12 miles west to Stanwood. [...] The Sanctuary wells pumped more than 2.5 billion gallons between 2005 and 2015. [...] Nestle pumped at 400 gallons-per-minute until Mecosta County Judge Lawrence Root ordered it stopped in 2003 [...]. When Judge Root ordered the pumping stopped, Nestle looked north for another supply. The company found a willing partner in the city of Evart, which has sold Nestle more than 905 million gallons of Twin Creek spring water [...]. Evart wells have accounted for roughly a quarter of Nestle's total Michigan supply since 2005, but in 2014 Nestle discovered traces of perchlorate in its water. The toxic chemical, which is linked to thyroid problems in women and children, came from the Evart well field, which became contaminated with decades of Fourth of July fireworks ash. [...] When Nestle shut down one of its Evart wells because of the pollution, it looked to offset the capacity loss by increasing the pumping rate of an older well it owns in Osceola Township, [...] Nestle did not really use it much until 2011. Since then, the well has supplied more than 45 million gallons. Almost 70 percent of that total volume was pumped in 2015 alone.

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To gain uninhibited access to water extraction sites, Nestle merges with local government institutions and deliberately targets rural, isolated, or “economically-depressed” communities.

[Source: Franklin Frederick. “Nestle: Multinationals as the New Colonial Powers. A tale of Many Cities.” Defend Democracy Press. 22 December 2019.]

In 2002 Nestle hired John Hedley, an ex-MI6 agent – British military   intelligence – as Head of Security. Among other things, Hedley was   responsible for organizing an operation to spy on civil society groups critical to Nestle in Switzerland, mainly the ATTAC group. When this operation was unveiled by a Swiss investigative journalist that denounced it in the Swiss TV, Nestle had to face a court case and was condemned by the Swiss justice for it. In Wellington County, Nestle Waters Canada has permission to extract 4.7 million litres of water a day in wells at Hillsburgh and Aberfoyle and according to Mike Balkwill from Wellington Water Watchers, “the company has applied to renew those permits, while it extracts water without the consent of Six Nations, on whose territory it operates, and despite public opposition from several indigenous organizations.” [...] The situation is the same in Florida where although the local water authority considers that the water system is in recovery from over-exploitation, Nestle still wants to pump water from Ginnie Springs. The common pattern emerging from these and other cases – in the State of Michigan or in the small city of Sao Lourenco in Brazil – also shows that [...] in many places Nestle “merges” with the local authorities, as in Maine where a Nestle manager was on the State’s environmental protection agency board [...]. Recently, the ex-Nestle’s Head of Public Affairs, Christian Frutiger, was appointed Vice-Director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation – SDC, the Swiss Government Agency responsible for Development Aid programmes – where he will be responsible for SDC’s  Global WATER program! [...]

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

The source of America’s corporate water crisis can be traced back to 1976 when Perrier, now owned by Nestle, opened an office in New York. By 2016, bottled water sales had surpassed soda as the largest US beverage category [...]. Nestle Waters’ 2018 worldwide sales exceeded $7.8 billion. [...] Ultimately, the debate’s particulars lead back to a question at the heart of the issues: should water be commodified and sold by private industry, or is it a basic human right? Former Nestle chief executive and chariman Peter Brabeck labeled the latter viewpoint “extreme” and  called water a “grocery product” that should “have market value.” He later amended that, arguing 25 liters of water daily is a “human right,” but water used [for purposes other than drinking, bathing, etc.] shouldn’t be free. [Source: Tom Perkins. “The fight to stop Nestle from taking America’s water to sell in plastic bottles.” The Guardian. 29 October 2019.]

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Tens of thousands of Detroit residents have been without water access since 2014; Detroit water contaminated with giardia, shigellosis, lead; Detroit administrators refused until the pandemic to even declare the water shutoffs a “public health issue,” and Michigan officials blame poor people for spending money on “luxury cell phones” instead of their water utility bills.

[Source: Nina Misuraca Ignaczak. “Detroit Water Shutoffs and a Crisis of Public Health.” Belt Magazine. 9 March 2020.]

The water crisis in Detroit began in earnest in 2014, during the city’s bankruptcy proceedings, when the DWSD abruptly shut off water service to tens of thousands of Detroit residents for nonpayment. [...] But activists have been fighting for years to get the city to recognize water shutoffs as a matter of public health. [...] Since the start, Bouier and other water activists have been fighting a narrative that assigns blame primarily to those impacted by the shutoffs. Early on, officials perpetuated the idea that residents were simply lazy and irresponsible. One official suggested that Detroiters should go down to the Detroit River with a bucket to fetch water. Then-emergency manager Kevyn Orr suggested that customers would rather pay for “luxuries” like cell phones than water. [...] As of early March [2020], activists had renewed their calls to the governor to enact a moratorium [on water utility shutoffs in Detroit], linking poor sanitation to an increased risk of Coronavirus. “Michigan residents have particular reason to fear the  spread of coronavirus because the ongoing deprivation of tens of thousands of people from basic access to water and sanitation […]” the group’s statement reads. “Residents deprived of water in their homes have been sharing or borrowing water at an alarming  rate – 80% in one study – creating a transmission path for coronavirus, as  well as hepatitis A, shigellosis, campylobacter, and giardia, all of which have been plausibly linked to the shutoffs by health officials.”

[witchymarvelspacecase]

Firebug and Freezer Burn

My entry for @tilltheendwilliwrite​ ‘s 7.7k follower (covid sucks) writing challenge. 

Clearly my time management (and mental health management) is lacking, but I figured I would post this anyway. 

Sorry. 

The pic on the right was my prompt, I added the one on the left.

PLEASE FORGIVE THIS SHITASS TITLE

WC: 3276

Warnings: Fire, cursing, panic, being ill, fluff who the fuck knows

The small suburban neighborhood evening was shattered by the fire engine sirens screaming toward the pillar of fire that had once been a family home. Neighbors who had called 911 huddled outside, speaking to responders as they arrived. The three person family living in the burning house hadn't been seen since the fire started, but as far as anyone knew, they had been at home earlier. The parents had picked up the little girl after school, and returned home like usual. On a normal night, they would have all been in bed by now, if not for the noisy terrier up the street, the fire may have spread farther. Tears burned in throats, and sobs were barely contained as smoke and ash stung sleepy eyes. Lucky. The neighbors were lucky, and they all felt it, the feeling increasing in strength as the minutes ticked by with no sign of the family.

There was practically nothing left of the house now. The supporting structural pieces were still standing, but drywall had been all but disintegrated, leaving an empty shell, filled with smoldering ash. Nothing could have survived a blaze that hot.

An impossible shout came from a firefighter in the house. Firefighters converged on their brother and all blinked in surprise at what they saw. A small body, unconscious but unharmed, wrapped in an equally small blanket. The little girl, she was untouched by fire, though it was clear it had burned through the room around her. Her bed was ash beneath her, and nothing of her room remained standing. She seemed asleep, snoring softly as her dreams went undisturbed by the chaos around her.

The only thing odder still was her skin. It was tinged gray. That could have just been the smoke, if not for the cracks. Like lava creating fissures in soft volcanic stone, lines glowed red-orange all across her skin, visible even underneath her nightgown. The stunned firemen didn’t seem to know how to react, but one of the EMTs on sight already had their phone up to their ear, 

“Phil, you need to get here. There’s someone you’re gonna want to see.”

...Years Later

Having been raised by Phil Coulson, your life was fairly heavily impacted by SHIELD (and the tales of Captain America), it wasn’t a surprise that you became an agent. Though Phil actually wasn’t too happy about his little girl being put into dangerous situations, you gained his approval after pointing out that you would probably involve yourself in dangerous situations whether or not you had the training or backup that SHIELD provided. Working with the Avengers probably shouldn’t have surprised you either, but all you knew you had was your immunity to fire. Turned out that ability, in combination with your martial arts and weapons training from SHIELD, was actually incredibly useful to the Avengers. One mission became several more, and before you knew it, you were living with them.

Phil was a pretty constant visitor, he wasn’t “checking on you”, he was “touching base with the team”, or fanboy-ing over Cap. Mmmmhmm, sure thing. You knew better, but you generally didn’t call him on it, though it got you a lot of shit from Tony Stark. Honestly, Tony would have found something to tease you about either way. Being called “kid” was probably pretty tame, especially considering Tony’s other name for you: “Glow-Stick”. Clint called you “kid” all the time anyway.

The two members of the team who could have called everyone “kid” were usually the most respectful. Steve never called you anything other than your name, Bucky had called you a few different names, but none of them pejorative. Natasha tended to refer to everyone but Clint by their last name, and Sam, well Sam just called you an idiot, but that was for a different reason.

“Well you are an idiot. Seriously, you oughtta man-up and tell him already.” You and Sam were in the lounge area, having reached a commercial break during the game you were watching. He was leaning back against the arm of the sofa opposite you, rolling his eyes.

“First of all, ‘man-up’? Really? You wanna have that discussion again?” you gave him a significant look, eyebrow raised in indignation. He scoffed and waved you off, you continued, “second of all, mind your own business.”

“He’s gonna die in his sleep before you say anything at this point,” Sam’s voice was mocking.

“Stay in your own lane Wilson,” you growled.

“I’m just saying-”

“Nothing. You’re just saying nothing. The game’s back on.”

“C’mon , you gotta -”

“No, Sam.”

“What’s he up to now?” Natasha asked as she walked into the room, dropping into a seat with a bowl of popcorn.

“Nuh-uh, I’m not saying shit to you.” You knew better than to even give a kernel of information to a master spy.

“Pft, I probably know whatever it is already,” she shrugged. She wasn’t wrong, but as long as she didn’t realize Sam was pushing you to admit it, Natasha wouldn’t interfere. 

You turned to watch the game, missing the glint in Sam’s eye as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

You weren’t going to say shit. The only reason Sam knew about your adolescent crush was that he had hung out with Phil for too damn long one night, and Phil had been a little too open with your story. Years of hearing about Captain America’s exploits had been a basis of your childhood, but Steve wasn’t the character who fascinated you. That was James Buchanan Barnes. Unlike your father figure, your interest lay in the Commando’s sniper, not its leader. Originally, you had wanted to specialize in long-range shooting, but now, having more intimate knowledge of just how involved sniping was, you were even more impressed with Bucky. There were way too many calculations involved in what he did, and he did it so well. 

He had been the yardstick you’d used to measure every romantic partner you’d had, and most of them fell short. That was before you knew he was alive. What was funny was that the Bucky you knew now beat the yardstick you’d made of his past self. 

He was sweet, and mindful of everyone around him, and when he wasn’t too deep in his own head, he was really funny. From the first night you had accidentally stumbled upon him on the roof after a nightmare, you’d been fast friends. Though he was the member of the team you worked with the least, he was the one you spent the most downtime with. Hence, why you put up with all his nicknames. Doll, Sugar, Sweetheart, Darlin’.

When a tennis ball bounced off your head, startling you out of the unintentional mental tangent, you realized that not only had more of the team entered the room, they had clearly been talking to you. 

A blush rapidly heated your face. “Sorry. What?”

“Where’s your head at, kid?” Tony asked. He was sprawled across the loveseat, looking more at you than at the TV.

“Nowhere important; zoned out a little. Guess I’m just tired.”

“Suuuuure you are,” Sam drawled, exchanging looks with Natasha. Your brow furrowed, but you said nothing. 

The topic changed back to the game, as Bucky came into the room. Steve was already seated in the armchair next to Natasha, but instead of crossing to his best friend, Bucky settled on the arm of the sofa, right beside you. Sam cleared his throat, and you shot him a threatening look. 

“Jesus Sam, what did you do to get her looking at you like that?” Steve asked. He sounded almost worried. You would have laughed at his concerned look, but you had to keep an eye on Sam. You let the silence stretch out, not answering Steve and not looking away from Sam, until you were reasonably sure he would keep his mouth shut.

“It’s nothing Steve. Sam just needs to mind his own business.”

“He is nosy as hell,” Bucky grumbled behind you, his arm going to the back of the couch and essentially around your shoulders.

“Aw, you’re just mad cause he’s bugging you about your secrets.”

“Natasha, I don’t care how hard it’ll be, I will kill you.” There was no inflection in your voice, nothing to give away how angry and scared you were. Maybe you should have given a little emotion for the team to read. Maybe then they would have let it go.

As it was, they collectively ganged up on you, grilling you, and refusing to be redirected until you snapped. 

“Just fucking drop it!” you shouted, throwing the tennis ball that was still in your hands at the last team member to pry, Tony.

Everyone was staring. And it took you a moment to process exactly why.

The tennis ball had been on fire.

It hadn’t been on fire before you threw it, and yet it was flaming when it almost hit Tony in the head.

Silence, and slow blinks all around. 

“Holy shit.” Sam was staring open mouthed.

“FRIDAY, when was the last time we checked the fire protocols?” Tony asked, his face still showing surprise, but his voice calm.

“I- I-... That-” you couldn’t seem to form a sentence. Your body seemed frozen to the spot.

“Well that’s interesting,” Natasha mused.

“Is this- is this new?” Clint asked from his seat on the floor in front of Natasha’s chair.

You didn’t know what to say. Was this new? You’d never done it before. You would have known if you had… right?

The only fire you’d ever been in was… oh god.

And just like that, your body was no longer frozen. You shot up out of your seat and sprinted down the hall. You ran into your room and passed through to the attached bathroom without checking if the door was closed, too intent on reaching your destination. Your knees hit the floor in front of the toilet just in time. 

Tears poured from your eyes as you retched. Panic had your chest and gut constricting, making you struggle to breathe. The room would have spun if your head weren’t resting on the cool porcelain of the toilet. As it was, your ears were ringing so much that you couldn't hear your own panting breaths, let alone someone entering the room behind you. You wouldn’t have known Bucky was there if he hadn’t slid his cool metal hand to the back of your neck.

“Shh, doll. It’s okay. It’s just me,” he soothed when you jumped.

You hiccuped in response, taking several minutes to calm to the point that he was able to usher you out of the bathroom. 

Sitting you on the edge of your bed, Bucky stepped back into your bathroom, flushing the toilet and wetting a soft washcloth before coming back to you. He held out the cloth, but when you failed to take it, he began to gently wipe at your face. 

“You know none of the team is upset or freaked out, so what made you run outta there?” Bucky asked quietly.

“What if I did it?” you asked in response, your voice so low Bucky almost missed it.

“Did what, doll?”

“The fire, my parents-” you cut off, unable to say anything more, as fresh tears filled your eyes.

Phil Coulson had been a fantastic foster dad, no doubt about it, but your child’s brain took a long time to adjust to his parenting style. You had missed your parents. Phil had done his best not to erase your parents from your memories. He didn’t know much about them, but your old neighbors had been happy to share stories with you, and you’d created an idealistic version of them in your head. You couldn’t understand why you had survived and they hadn’t, and the nightmares that had followed you into adulthood were still traumatic. What if you had been the cause of the mysterious fire that had killed them. 

“Doll. Hey. Hey Sugar, look at me okay?” Bucky’s hands were on either side of your face. When you met his eyes you got the feeling he had been trying to get your attention for a while. His thumbs softly rubbed your cheekbones as he spoke. “It wasn’t you, doll. It wasn’t your fault.”

“How- how can you possibly know,” you asked in a whisper, trying to pull your face out of his grip, but his fingers tightened slightly. 

“You’ve never done that before. And you’ve only been in one mystery fire.”

“Yeah but-” you started, but Bucky talked right over you.

“If you had been able to start fires as a kid, you would have had it happen around you frequently. When you were angry, when you were scared; it would have happened all the time when you were little, but it didn’t.” He brushed a tear from the corner of your eye and his voice softened. “It wasn’t you honey. I’m sure of it.”

That was a sentiment that he repeated with a few minor variations for several minutes until you calmed down. Once you did, you realized that the position you were in was a little close for comfort. At some point, Bucky had moved from kneeling in front of you, to sitting on the bed beside you, to holding you in his lap. He had his arms around you and your head tucked under his chin. 

However, when you squirmed slightly, embarrassed by your behavior and more than ready to put some space between you and the super soldier you had a giant crush on, Bucky did not let you go.

“Buck,” you said, your voice was a little gravely from crying, “I’m okay.”

“Yeah?” He replied, not sounding convinced.

“Yeah, you can let me go now.” You were fairly certain he could feel the heat in your face through his shirt.

“I can, but I don’t want to.”

“I- what?” you stuttered.

“I happen to like holding you, never got to do it before, but I’ve decided I like it and I’m not ready to let you go yet.” Bucky said it in such a matter of fact tone, it sounded reasonable.

The fuck? Did you hear that right? Uh….

Before you could formulate any kind of response, Bucky’s phone started to ring. He managed to get it from his pocket and answer it without releasing you.

“Hello Agent Coulson, thank you for calling me back. Yes, she’s right here, hold on,” he held the phone out to you.

Still in a sort of shock, you took the phone without question. “Papa?” You used the name you called him when you were little. He was never “Dad” or “Daddy” you could remember calling your father that. No, Phil Coulson was “Papa”.

“Hey sweetie. I heard you had a little scare.” You almost burst into fresh tears, but Phil continued. “You never really asked me about the fire, so I never made it a point to tell you about it. It wasn’t you sweetheart.” As Bucky continued to hold you, occasionally rubbing your back, or rocking you slightly, Phil told you about your father’s business, and the intense and hostile relationship he had with his rival. A rival who had decided that killing your father and your family was the best way to enable a hostile takeover of your father’s much more successful business.

An entire amusement park’s worth of emotions rolled through you as you listened to the tale. Anger so intense you could feel smoke all but coming out your ears.

“Doll,” Bucky softly drew your attention, his fingers ever so lightly grazing your arm. When you looked down, you almost jerked out of his hold.

“Holy fuck!” The lava fissures were glowing across your skin. You knew you let off heat when you were like that. You’d burned plenty of bad guys, guards, and assholes as soon as they made skin contact. “Bucky, let me up.” He did, but he didn’t leave the room as you finished your call with Phil.

Phil felt guilty for not telling you all this earlier, but you shook your head, forgetting he couldn’t see you. “It’s not your fault, Papa. I didn’t know this was even a possibility for me to do, I never questioned the fire before. There’s no reason for you to tell me, I didn't ask.” After reassuring him a few more times, and promising to visit him soon and showing him what you’d done, assuming you could repeat the stunt, you said your goodbyes. “Love you, Papa.”

“Love you too sweetheart. See you soon.”

You handed Bucky his phone back, not getting too close to him. But he took his phone and then quickly grabbed your wrist, pulling you close to him again.

“Bucky, you're gonna get burnt!” “No I won’t. You haven’t burned me before, and I’ve been near you like this before. It’s okay.”

“You’ve what?! Why would you do that?!”

“Why would you let me get anywhere near you?”

“Huh?” Well that was a topic change.

“I’m just as dangerous as you. More so actually, I’ve hurt and killed way more people than you probably ever will. You never hesitated to get near me.” Bucky held up his metal arm, drawing attention to it.

“That’s different Bucky, I don’t have control of this. You have control, you would never choose to hurt me.”

“It’s not different to me. I’m not afraid of you. You wouldn’t intentionally hurt me, and I trust you to keep me safe.” You shook your head, incredulous. “You’ve never burned your clothes. You have burned the shit out of people before, but you’ve never burned your clothes.” When you didn’t respond, Bucky said, “you’re in control, Sugar, and I trust you.”

Too many revelations in one day. That was your explanation. A second after Bucky stopped speaking, you registered what he was saying, and dropped your forehead to his, all the fight leaving your body, as your eyes closed. He settled you more comfortably on his lap but kept your foreheads together.

You sighed. “It’s been a hell of a day,” you said with a laugh.

“You’ve had a few shocks alright,” Bucky agreed. After a short pause, he spoke again. “Think you can handle one more?”

You hummed, “probably,” and soft lips pressed against yours. 

A quick intake of breath and your eyes shot open, but you didn’t pull away. “Bucky?”

It was his turn to hum. A small smile slowly spreading across lips that had just pulled back from yours.

“What- why?”

“Been wanting to do that for a while. And if you don’t want to tell me to fuck off, I’m gonna want to do it again. You gonna tell me to fuck off?”

Hesitantly, you shook your head and the smile on his lips stretched. When he pulled back from your second kiss, you could feel a matching smile on your own lips.

Hours later, the two of you emerged from your room, a plan in place to test your new ability. Another plan for how to explore your relationship with both of you being Avengers and having very little privacy. And most importantly, a plan in place to fuck with your nosy, annoying teammates. 

“Hey there, Matches,” Tony called as he spotted you from down the hall.

“Seems I’ve got a new name,” you grumbled. 

“At least you’re not ‘Manchurian Candidate’,” Bucky grouched, pressing a kiss to your temple. A kiss Tony did not miss.

“OH MY GOD! Firebug and Freezer Burn are kissy-face!” Tony Stark, a 12 year old. You rolled your eyes and prepared yourself for handling your teammates.

[el-moscorrofio-y-el-mercachifle]

As the audience, you know she's clinging onto Armando for all the wrong reasons, yet her pain is so genuine that you can't help but sympathize for her.

Aw yes, I felt for Patricia there too. Also when she finds Mario and Aura Maria making out in his office. She wasn't a good person, but that was fucked up. I didn't expect for Patricia to have a full on evolution in the story, but she definitely had more potential than just being reduced to those petty fights with el cuartel. I mean Patricia was always childish, but the way they exploited the tension between Patricia and el cuartel to the very end was so annoying🙄. The only redeeming thing about that whole thing was what it meant for Marcela and Betty's relationship as the two main heads in the company and them developing conflict resolution skills despite their differences. Not that the animosity between Patricia and the secretaries wasn't funny (I lived for those early scenes, like when Berta bought Patricia's wardrobe 🤣🤣) but it was just so overdone and exaggerated towards the end that it lost its charm. Patricia deserved to get some sort of closure with Daniel, or at the very least, I was expecting her to become somewhat of a decent employee. I thought they were going somewhere with her when Betty decides to keep her on board and then when she offers to help her develop a financial plan for her to budget her money more efficiently, but sadly that went nowhere🤦🏽‍♀️

Michel and Alejandra's served to prove that Betty and Armando both chose each other, despite having respective love interests that were "perfect" for them. But yeah, that whole storyline with Alejandra comes across as forced and as you said, Armando's flirtatious attitude and the sexual tension between them, made the rejection less impactful . At least with Michel and Betty, we saw the relationship develop, and in what context. There's also a reference on Michel, he's a friend of Catalina whom she rates very highly and is very fond of. Betty was going through a lot when she met him, and he accompanied her, making their bond significant because he saw her broken and starting to pick up the pieces to rebuild herself. Alejandra is supposed to have the same significance in Armando's life but they don't bother to show us how it all started. Not to mention that Armando was officially still with Marcela at this point, which makes his behavior and over the top attention towards Alejandra even more irritating. He was making both Marcela and Betty uncomfortable with his attention towards Alejandra. At least Betty was single when she met Michel, she deserved to give herself another opportunity at love. That didn't take anything away from her evolution. Meanwhile Armando still had a whole relationship to resolve and attend to (he already knew at this point he didn't want to be with Marcela 🙄) and there he was parading himself with another extremely attractive woman in front of the two women he still had to make amends with (ok maybe that did bug me more than I had realized 😅🤣) In conclusion, the concept was there, but it was poorly executed and contextualize lol.

Exactly. You can really tell that by the end of the novela (or around the time Betty comes back from Cartagena) everyone qas super tired and just wanted to get ig over with. I sort of not blame them, tho, after all, the cast went through a lot during those two years of filming (harrassment, bad payments, horrible work schedules, etc.), but it’s very obvious that the quality of story decreases.

Lol sorry I awakened a new frustration with the show lol but yeah, the Alejandra part was very basly executed. The whole last part was badly executed, with the exception of some little gems like Armando and Marcela’s breakup, Marcela’s confession to Betty, Betty and Daniel’s dinner (oh, another frustration is how little interaction those two had), and the collection launch. The show just feels so rushed!

[macgyvertape]

50 or so hours into Cyberpunk 2077

This should be roughly the correct amount of time, ive been leaving the game running as I get up to get food or do stretches. Quests are roughly in order I did them

non spoilers above cut:

 i haven't found a single hat/helmet i like, and since you can't hide them I just am not wearing any. It matters that much.

I posted the other day about bugs, every few hours I play I find new bugs. some require me to go back and reload a save others I honestly can’t tell if it’s a bug or just really poor development

there are several perks that don’t quite do what the description says, like the Anamesis perk. Based on reddit and trying it out it seems to just not do anything.

sometimes in car chase segments the passenger will say “look out” as cars spawn in my path and hit me. Can’t tell if that was deliberate or a pop in issue

Yeah I’ve just totally given up on doing pacifist things unless required by a mission. Given up on doing stealth too unless a mission objective, except for sneaking around to set up a fight.

:readmore:

the delemain car quest is fun. From the shock of the one going "beep beep motherfucker" and doing a hit and run to start it off, to the GLADOS car i see a lot of people talking about. It was fun to explore the city when i might have missed places like the landfill apparently there is follow up on T-bug's death if you go back to the quick hack shop in Kabuki. It's not much but better than nothing I made the pass with Panam of "what if the room just had one bed". I know she won't do a wlw romance, which is fine since I wouldn’t have chosen her.  I enjoy her as a character, don’t get me wrong, my V considers her as a friend, but it seems like theres always drama going on which would be tiring. I would have gone for a fling, i like her leotard-pants combo with all the straps

but also her questline was buggy as hell. Multiple cases of having to reload due to clipping into objects, including her in a driving section, or just insta-dying when collision physics with some rocks broke "your neural network can no longer function independantly of the chip" me slapping my desk: s y m b i o te!!! come on lets have some s y m b i o s i s

in the scene with hellman i really liked how Johnny moved around the room. It made him feel like he was really there. it was hard to follow the convo as I left the room, i would not have understood it without subtitles. But i guess Takemura fucking waterboarded hellman. :|

lol I hope the dialogue is different b/c i refuse to smoke for Johnny

i am level 18 and still can't beat the first opponents in the fist fighting quest. ffs

I looked up the romances options so I went to do the I fought the law quest as soon as i got it. ACAB, but like I literally just met River Ward 2 minutes ago, and I really like him. His earring and cyborg eye, his big fluffy coat. I'm definitely gonna sleep with him Ok i like how when River Ward is dealing with the tiger claws if you interject it leads to a fight. It goes better if you follow his instructions and let him deal with it. Seriously I enjoy that sometimes its good to not pick a dialogue choice.

during the red queen club part, there was no dialogue over the phone. So i reloaded a save and got myself spotted and attacked. Then River showed up to help me <3 and it was more enjoyable having him there. I honestly am not sure if him not going to the club level is bug or not.

then uuuuuugh the worst of irl police "cops are my family" from Detective Han. Again ACAB "FRATERNITY OF CITY COPS RESEMBLES A [Nomad] CLAN NOT AT ALL" ok a few minutes ago i was complaining about bugs, but the character modeling in this game is good (when they're there). You can see body posture, characters jiggle their legs when they are nervous. Like I though character A was just throwing a cigarette on the ground, but then character B flinches back; I realize Char A threw it at B as a fuck you

I'm honestly curious if "I fought the Law" quest will have any impact later on. My choices were that I thought there was more going on than Holt being the only person behind this (based on how complicated the main questline heist is, and keeping an eye on some of the in game news), and told him not to take it to internal affairs, and I loved his response of how he doesn't give a shit what we think, he's doing it anyway.

In the elevator to report in, Johnny said "this muck is deeper than you think, tell them nothing", so i just said that the case was complicated. anyway i love how much of a sarcastic asshole V is

I thought i was being nonlethal with the monk quest, but it seems i accidently killed someone. RIP, but thats kind of the problem with this game. Like when i do the non lethal cyberpychosis quests I equip my non lethal modded gun and hope for the est. I like how a go here kill things quest led to Charles the ripperdoc. He's getting all his parts from scav gang members so I felt obligated to take him out. I got a police bounty for it but w/e.

I merged the Delemain fragments with the whole. Guess he's the meta now. (Side note: some of my favorite rvb fanfic plots are Ai consiousness/memory merging with the humans, so I’m having fun with this game and look foward to introspective fanfic)

Honestly Jonny made some good points, the fragments didn't deserve to die; but also destroying the core and freeing the fragments, they couldn't really function alone.

I was able to rescue Saul fine with stealth. Using cameras and the synapse overload really made it easy.  Can't use the sniper rifle reward b/c I don't have the stats for it, and while it has a silencer the fact that it's a ricochette weapon and not a shoot through walls weapons, makes it not as good imo; and theres a legendary one that is stats free for only 100k.

Lol made a pass again at Panam, and she immediately shut me down. I then did Mitch's quest and I love every time someone tells V they area  good person.

I hacked the operation carpe noctem shard, and wow the corporations are using ai to make people have cyberpsychosis, or something like that. What a shocker /s, I've played Deus Ex HR before

lol driving through the unifinished interstate, past the fight from Panam's first quest I found a "batcave" with a very nice car, and a manifesto written by "muckman'. But here's my complaint about the loot, there is a legendary top, but it had 16 armor. My current top has 84 armor, like why would i switch?? then later i found a bunker with soviet spies in it. Wild

Doing River's second quest, love the timing of as soon as you ask, why are we breaking in, someone shows up to tell you he got kicked off the force. It's funny how Johnny comments how maybe River's into you, and V just doubts Johnny's words. Love how the first kid asks River if I'm his girlfriend. also wow like oof both the second parts of Judy and River's quest are SUPER fucked UP!! oof like i stopped doing first person mode on the braindances for those quests as soon as i could, just made me too uncomfortable seeing that in first person.

DRIVING IN THE GAME IS BAD! nowhere is it more apparent than the sinnerman quest, which took me 3 times to get the driving section done, as cars spawned out of nowhere to hit me. Then when you restart, there is a bunch of dialogue it doesn't let you fast forward through. The rest of the Sinnerman questline is interesting. My V took every option to tell the dude that he was messed up, and what he was doing was wrong. idk, I was surprised how much dialogue there was that let you buy into his whole "forgiveness thing" and how there wasn't any real dialogue to call him the fuck out, that in seeking forgiveness he continues to do harm both emotional to the mother of the man he killed, but also that he got the husband killed via cop. The later follow up quest, I told him that what he is doing is crazy, studio is just going to profit off this vid. Then I refused to join him prayer, and told him fuck no i wasn't going to hammer him to the cross, or even watch. Yes, the man is scared of dying, and the corporation is exploiting him, but he keeps creating burdens for others.  I think the discussion on this quest will be interesting to read, it's definitely my own personal experience with religion coloring my view. Anyway back to a main quest, yeah i don't trust Placide, especially in that scene where he grabs my hand, then jacks in. I ran off to do most of the sidequests here and got some criticism from him. I do love how in the cinema the western movie switches to a mission brief as the netwatch agent talks. its a fun enviromental detail.  I took the netwatch offer, i don't think he's being fully honest with me, but he didn't put a virus in my head. As I told Placide later, I didn't pick a side. I like how you can then talk with the agent, who is a fan of Western movies, b/c they show "a simpler time where all good guys carry badges" :eyeroll:, and then V recommends Unforgiven, which from the wiki summary goes against that theme.

Looks like the Voodoo boys all got killed by Netwatch, but I as revenge for them trying to set me up I'm fine with it. Honestly after speaking with ai!Alt I don’t believe their plan of trying to be on good relations with AI would work. 

doing the johnny flashback 2, and wow Johnny really is an asshole. Like I had gotten so used to him in side missions I forgot how self centered and unlikable he was.You constantly get prompts to drink or do drugs, which I ignored. But i do love the goth/punk love Rogue and others have.

lol i called it, when Hellman said that the engram would seek to override the host, put V on the engram. I really like how as the relic malfunctions, you wind up in the chair with a cigarette, which you can either smoke and say you are turning into Johnny or throw away. My dialogue "your problem is the ends justify the means", which is true!!! He and Rogue detonated a nuke downtown, does anyone know that, and like ask Rogue about it????

(Funny you can ask Rouge about Johnny silverhand, over the phone, then the game bugs out and spawns her npc where you are. She doens't say much about the nuke, but she does say no one trusts you for jobs). The line of no one trusting you for jobs is pretty funny at level 46 street cred where im at “respected” status. really loving the family atmosphere at River's 3rd quest. Also his big strong arms, and the fact he is no longer a cop. I totally let the kids win, and wow the family dinner where they GRILL YOU over the relationship and try to set the two of you up, then the water tower scene!!!!! I don't love the first person sex cutscenes but they do have personality. I'm glad afterwards you got to tell River about the biochip and that you might die. Because he's so far removed from your personal plot. So I took that option to back out of a relationship.

I do love that you wake up with "river's tanktop" that says "fuck the police" It actually has extremely good armor stats, so thats what I'll wear now.

panam 3rd quest, when shes like why did you help me, I'm like "because it's important to you". Basically the closest you can get to "when a friend asks for help you help them", which as an ex-nomad backstory I really choose the nomad options when ever i can Paralezes quest part 2! I love the piano song but I always think of it as ocean's 11 music. It's also fun to see the computer and see Judy recommended you for the first quest. The emails talk about "forgetting" to hire a staffer, on the balocony a strange antennia was scannable, the color of the roses was remembered wrong...  lol guess i was right with those giant wall screens. Its fun environmental details that spell things out before you can notice, and it ties into some other quests where people's behavior is being altered. Actually, this quest "Dream On" I love it! For a while I've been like "wheres the illuminati conspiracy! Here it IS! I chose to follow Elisabeth's wishes and not tell her husband he was being brainwashed. In best case they program him to forget again, in worst case he ends up dead. The gaslighting Elisabeth described is CHILLING, her husband describes a vacation she can't remember and she doesn't know whose memories have been messed with. On your way to the plaza you get a call from someone/something that says the know exactly WHAT you are, any you black out!!! It's such a great feeling of helplessness that you're just one person in a world so big that you can't fight every power. As Johnny said, could be a corporation, could be a rogue ai, either way Jefferson is fucked (and so are you).

[ibtk]

Book Review: THE ANIMALS IN THAT COUNTRY by Laura Jean McKay (2020)

(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through Edelweiss and Library Thing's Early Reviewers program. Content warning for violence, including that against animals. Caution: this review contains a spoiler in the form of an excerpt.)

'Well, I’ve got a secret for you, Miss Kimberly Russo.' She digs her sharp little nails into my skin. ‘What is it?’ ‘This flu means people can talk to animals.’ Her head shoots up. ‘I want the flu, Granny. Don’t you?’ ‘Grown-ups don’t wish they had diseases, and neither should you.’ ‘But don’t you?’ Outside, Wallamina and Princess Pie are nose and beak to the sliding door, trying to press their way through. Eyes shining. ‘Course I bloody do.’

I can see the wild in her. She looks and acts like any dog. Plays, wags, stares into my eyes with her baby browns; does chasey, catch, begs for biscuits. Then the dusk comes and she lifts her neck and howls the saddest song in all the world, and there’s that wild. Dingo, owl, night thing — that sound is a warning. Loneliest you’ll hear. Wraps around your face, your sleep, your dreams. She’s saying: ‘Hey, hey. There’s something coming.’ The rangers here are always telling me, don’t talk like that. They say how dingoes are just establishing territory, checking on their pack. Dingo admin. But stand on the hot road that runs from the gift shop to the enclosures, and listen to the dingo in her cage call out to the packs on the other side of the fence. Tell me that’s not special. Tell me she doesn’t know something about the world that you and me haven’t ever thought of.

Jean Bennett isn't you're typical grandma - unless you're picturing Gemma Teller Morrow, that is. Jean drinks, smokes, swears, and sleeps around, usually all at the same time, and occasionally with her gay and committed coworker, Andy. She's got a tiger tattooed on her boob, and a dingo named Sue imprinted on her heart.

A lowly guide who dreams of becoming a ranger, Jean works at an Australian wildlife park, run by her son's ex-girlfriend Angela and owned by Angela's father. Jean and her husband Graham landed there years ago, after bouncing around the world for a while. Eventually Graham left Jean to shack up with another woman; their only child, Lee, jumped ship too, but not before hooking up with - and impregnating - Angela. Now Ange mostly keeps Jean around for the free child care (and maybe also because Ange feels sorry for her).

As for Jean, she stays stuck in this weird, awkward morass for her granddaughter Kimberley - one of the few people she can tolerate, let alone love. Jean prefers animals of the nonhuman variety, and the Park's residents/captives are her found family. She has a special place in her cockles for Sue, a dingo mix who she helped rescue as a wee little pup.

Jean's precarious life is already teetering on the edge of chaos when THE FLU arrives - first in southern Australia, then at the Park's gates, thanks to none other than an infected Lee, as charming as he is irresponsible.

Zoanthropathy (from Greek: zóo, “animal”, anthroponis, “human”, pathy, “disorder”), aka zooflu, otherwise known as "the talking animal disease," allow humans to understand and communicate with other animals:

'The strain known as zoanthropathy affects cognition in humans, and it is believed that enhanced communication between humans and nonhuman animals is possible. Zoanthropathy is hosted and spread by humans. [...] The disease is very high in morbidity and very low in mortality. Infected humans appear able to communicate (encode) and translate (decode) previously unrecognisable non-verbal communications via major senses such as sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound with nonhuman animals.'

When Lee runs off with Kimberley - to commune with the whales on the southern coast - Jean embarks on a cross-country road trip to find them. Riding shotgun is Sue, whose keen nose points the way to Tomorrow (Tomorrow being Sue's conceptualization of Kimberley. Jean is Yesterday, and Lee is Never There. Scathing, yet accurate.)

As with most potentially animal-friendly tales, I was equally nervous and excited to dive into THE ANIMALS IN THAT COUNTRY. As it is, the book both thrilled and disappointed me; I almost feel like it deserves two separate ratings, one for the idea and actualization of the dystopian zooflu future - which is breathtaking - and another for the human-centered plot that propels the audience's journey into this world - which is decidedly less so.

Let's start with the zooflu. It seems like it would be awesome to be able to talk to animals, right? Think again. I mean, really turn the idea over in your head, sit with the superpower, and try to envision what this might entail. Given that most of the nonhumans we encounter on the daily are exploited, oppressed, or otherwise negatively impacted by humans -

be it the 25 million farmed animals we create, torture, and kill for food every year in the US alone; the "wildlife" (read: free-living animals) we displace, starve, and kill through habitat loss; the dogs and cats we buy, neglect, and then abandon at shelters; or the animals we unintentionally hit with our cars (or the bugs we trod on just walking down the street); etc. x infinity

- we are weapons of mass destruction. To most of our nonhuman kin (and sometimes our fellow humans, too). Instead of words of wisdom and messages of hope, we'd be more likely to hear cries of terror. Confusion. Pain and agony. Hellfire, everywhere. Created and fueled by us and our own.

Heck, I'm not even sure it would be beneficial to always know exactly what our beloved, nonhuman family members are thinking. I have a fifteen-year-old dog named Finn who's going deaf and blind and battling dementia. More often than not, I suspect that being privy to his innermost thoughts would freak me the fuck out. Not to mention break my damn heart.

And then there's the mode of communication: not just just verbal, as we're used to, but all-encompassing: "sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound." Think pheromones, sound waves, scratches and ticks. The beating of countless tiny wings, all bombarding your brain and trying to tell you something. That kind of thing, coming at you uninvited and from all directions, is apt to drive a person mad. And it does, as evidenced by zooflu sufferers who stuff their orifices with whatever's handy to block incoming stimuli - or, at the more extreme end, the pseudo-religious trepanners who invite strangers to drill holes in their skulls in a misguided attempt to relieve the pressure.

Talking to animals sounds like the stuff of dreams - but in McKay's hands, it's a nightmare.

And a pretty trippy one, at that: fittingly, the incoming messages that Jean's left to decode aren't quite what you'd call straightforward. There's a lot of translation required, and Google hasn't yet caught up:

I’m reading her body like some language I barely remember from a high school textbook. Bonjour madame, connaissez-vous le chemin de la gare? Let’s go to the station. Or, where the hell is the supermarket? I can parrot the words, but the meaning is in scraps.

Copies of this book should be sold with a sheet of acid, or maybe some edibles. I kid, but also not.

If, like me, you assumed that increased understanding and compassion would surely spring forth from this newfound ability to communicate with nonhuman animals, you'd be wrong. While some people do indeed embrace the flu, many others lash out: animal-free zones are established, and hungry citizens start hunting former pets, since they make for easy prey (apparently they've never heard of fruits and veggies?).

There's one especially excruciating scene that I don't think I'll ever be able to forget. Jean takes refuge in a makeshift church, only to catch a glimpse of how the missionaries make their sausage (stew):

A small fluffy dog has pelted out a kitchen door, thin bit of twine tangled around its legs, body blonde fire, screaming, Hello. Please. Please bite its soft. Quick. Help me. I jump up, calling the poor little bugger, but the parishioners shriek louder, climbing on their chairs like that dog is the snake from the garden of Eden. The woman rushes for her daughter and hauls her by an arm out of the room. It’s funny, for a second, until the laugh dies in my throat. The little dog, too tangled in the twine to move, slumps panting in the aisle. It’s not just m e. Where’s other me. She’s still — The god-botherers are faster than me. They grab that dog with WWF wrestling passion, using real lumps of wood, real knives. The little dog has enough time to issue a thick whiff of terror from its undercarriage, Help her, before they’ve slit it ear to ear right there in the pulpit. There was no blood with Lee. He didn’t even look that drowned. He might have come alive any moment. He might be alive right now in his grave. This little dog, though, is bleeding out on the beige carpet. The door to the kitchen is open. Matthew the soup cook leans on the jamb, then turns back. A fluffy tail on a chopping board. The steaming pots. Pain like a stab to my guts — he stirs a soup very much like the one he was serving up in the park.

Of course, this scene is so repulsive to most of us - Jean included - only because the animal being killed and consumed is designated for "companionship" instead of "food," at least in this particular culture. Chances are you've known and loved a dog or two yourself - and so the doomed beast transforms from a something to a someone. Not an unfeeling object to be used and discarded at will, but a sentient creature with her own feelings, desires, and loved ones. Had it been a chicken or pig, the result wouldn't be quite so horrifying; Jean herself eats meat, and justifies doing so, on several occasions.

Yet an earlier scene - in which Jean comes upon an abandoned tractor trailer truck packed with pigs destined for slaughter - will hopefully challenge readers to expand their circle of compassion:

I’ve seen battery hogs before — of course I have. But not out and about. Not staggering around and trying to walk, calling to whatever they think is ‘more’. Glazed eyes that strain like they’ve never seen sunlight. Skin stretched over bodies fed to the point of bursting — something between swine and meat. Saw some animal liberationists on the street in the city one time, saying factory farms were the same as Nazi camps. I called them bloody racists too. The pigs clatter past me down the ramp, fucked-up eyes on the road ahead, calling, Hello is it more. Those animal nutters were wrong, but not in the way I thought. It’s not the same as the Nazis: that was us doing to us. What’s this? [...] A hurt sow sits on her haunches, then lies down on the verge, panting unevenly under the slathering sun. Another weaves blindly over the asphalt toward her, flies spinning around her head. They push their noses into each other. Send me a postcard, the sick one says. Postcard, indeed. What the fuck. I watch more closely. The meaning bright off that tight skin. All the little bits saying, Leave me, and, I’ll hear about it, and, Don’t you see it. Move on. There’s more. The ones that can walk stretch their legs, for, More, more, more. I stand at the top of the truck ramp watching them break into a group trot toward the next paddock. Skin rippling. Hooves carolling. Know that heart-in-your-mouth run. Know exactly what ‘more’ is. I’ve seen it in Lee and I’ve had it too, at times. These pigs are half dead, they’re stumbling around, blind, mad, and fucking hopeful.

Even if many of the characters in this book resist the humanity clearly evident in nonhuman animals, I hope that readers will hold these passages close - especially at the dinner table.

Sue, our main nonhuman protagonist, is a fascinating character; like many of the semi-domesticated animals in the park, McKay paints her as a series of conflicting impulses: safety or freedom. Hunger or satiation. Dingoes or humans. She is fiercely loyal, much to her own detriment. She has wants and needs of her own, and she's often satisfied to set them aside for the good of her (adopted) pack.

And I guess that brings me to the second half of this review: the humans, most of whom are awful. Jean, exponentially so.

Initially I thought that Jean would be my people: she's a hard-drinking, mold-breaking badass broad who gets on better with animals than people. She has a mini-rescue in her backyard where she keeps some of the park's doomed relinquishments. (The public treats the park like a rehab facility when in fact it's in the business of entertainment - old, sick, injured, and "common" animals are routinely killed.) She and Kimberley spend their afternoons together designing the animal rescue they hope to build one day.

But Jean is kind of a terrible person. To call her a misanthrope is half the story: she's also senselessly mean and cruel, especially when drunk, hungover, or frustrated (in other words, 90% of the time). I don't fault Jean for her substance abuse problem - alcoholism is a mental health issue and should be treated as such - but nor is it an excuse for being such an asshole. (There's even a scene where she trolls people discussing the zooflu online, like a fucking American redhat.) She's shit to everyone around her, except for Kimberley and Lee (Lee, who could use a good ass-kicking).

And then there's Sue: Sue, who followed Jean across the damn country when she should have been settling into a dingo pack of her own. Sue, who found Kimberley and saved Jean's life. Sue, who is nothing but good and true and trustworthy. Sue, who Jean assaults on multiple occasions: kicking her in the ribs, binding her with rope to prevent her escape, and even trying to shoot her (with a gun that's thankfully empty of bullets). At one point, she "forgives" Sue for saving her life - as if Sue's the one who needs forgiveness!

Despite the abuse, Sue continues to stick by Jean's side, which galled me endlessly. Towards the end of the story, following the attempted murder, Sue gets revenge of a sort, dominating a delirious Jean and forcing her subservience. However, the book ends shortly thereafter, cutting any sense of satisfaction far too short.

I really felt cheated with Jean: I thought she might be my avatar in this world - but she's just another terrible human who doesn't deserve the company of animals.

Likewise, the whole subplot involving Kimberley's parentage is way over the top dramatic and unnecessary; it seemed like we were being plucked from a dystopia and dropped into a soap opera for a minute there. Just, gross. So yeah, there are definitely some aspects of the book that I appreciated more than others. THE ANIMALS IN THAT COUNTRY may be imperfect - but I'd still wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking to explore our relationship to nonhuman animals in a dystopian setting.

[boss-magne]

PETA and Animal Crossing

Disclaimer:  I have 0 issue with folks who are vegetarian/vegan. I also have no issue with people playing a game in a way that makes them happy. What I DO take issue with, however, are people who act like their way is the best or morally superior way, which is what I’m going to get into today. I also have no issue (and even SUPPORT) animal welfare and wanting animals to be treated better than they are. I do not, however, support the way that PETA does it, which is a whole ‘nother issue for another time.

That being said... let’s get into it!

So, what inspired me to write this was Illuminaughtii’s video on Youtube regarding the same article (archived here for reference). However, since she has never actually played the game, her perspective was, admittedly, limited... so being an active player, I felt it would be interesting to go through myself and Do a Thing. Now, my biggest umbridge is that PETA’s whole focus is that animals in the game should be treated like real animals. I’m not going to argue against this every time they pull this, because then this whole writeup would be nothing but “are you fucking stupid? They’re pixels,” so let’s get this out of the way first. Literally nothing in this game harms an actual, living animal. No animals are tortured, imprisoned, or murdered via fishing, bug catching, or anything else. This goes along with their first point... No, real-life fishing isn’t vegan. But this isn’t real life. It’s a video game. Yes, fishing can cause lots of real life problems... but these are PIXELS. On a fake island. These are FAKE BUGS on a FAKE ISLAND. Nothing here is REAL, so NO real life animals are being hurt here. Acting as though REAL LIFE ANIMALS are being TORMENTED because you wanted to catch a sturgeon or tarantula is disingenuous. None of the catches ingame have any real-world consequences. Fish will not magically be killed for every fish you catch. Just... take a chill pill. Skipping the next couple of sections that would warrant the same “please stop trying to guilt people over pixels...” Should I leave hermit crabs in this game alone? Oh boy. PETA. Like. Are you guys actually stupid, because... “Hermit crabs love hanging out on the shore of your island. Leave them there. When you capture a hermit crab in the game, the screen says, “I caught a hermit crab! I think it wanted to be left alone!” In this situation, the game demonstrates surprising awareness that we shouldn’t be bothering these animals and taking them from their homes.“ Do you... do you actually know what a HERMIT is? It’s wordplay. They’re making a joke. EVERY SINGLE catch in this game makes a joke like that. This has literally NOTHING to do with ANYTHING you just said, and trying to twist it to your benefit is pretty shitty and manipulative. Subsection regarding Blathers

They, for some reason, didn’t give this its own section, but I want to address it anyway, because of how colossally tone-deaf it is. So, they say: ”Blathers would like to build a museum of fish and insects on your island. Don’t let him do it! Just as fish don’t belong in tanks, insects don’t belong inside cramped cases in a museum for other villagers to gawk at. Your island should be a place where wild animals are free to live without being captured and exploited. In the real world, animals suffer in captivity at places like SeaWorld and roadside zoos. They’re deprived of everything that’s natural and important to them. In Animal Crossing, you have the choice to let the animals on your island live free from harm, so please, leave them alone!” Anyone who has unlocked the museum in ANY Animal Crossing game already knows exactly what’s wrong with this. For starters, even on the damn screenshot they used, you know there’s an entire section of the museum that doesn’t require you to capture animals. The fossil exhibit. Donating fossils hurts nobody, and is never even mentioned in their article, because they know it goes against their argument already... as does the rest of the damn museum. For the fish exhibit... all the fish are kept in large tanks, like a big, fancy aquarium. 

(Credit: USGamer)

(Credit: Forbes) The bugs have an open atrium to roam around in:

(Credit: NintendoLife) Nothing about any of this screams “cramped cages,” which means PETA either: - Didn’t actually play that far and is making shit up based on the fact that they get placed in small enclosures if you put them in your house - Lied to push their agenda. I’m very much leaning towards the second because there has obviously been some degree of gameplay on their end, and it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve twisted things to their benefit. What would a vegan eat on a desert island? PETA. Guys. You can literally only eat fruit.

Acting as though you’re magically vegan for only choosing to do that is, again, proof you have no idea what you’re talking about. You CANNOT eat ANY animals in this game. AT ALL. There’s also literally no other reason for your character to NEED to eat anything. You don’t starve. You don’t die.  The addition of the “you can rip up trees and smash rocks” now was literally only added to give an actual benefit to eating, because NOTHING HAPPENS IF YOU DON’T. Should I build a doghouse? PETA, obviously, argues “fuck no because SOME people are SHITTY and TIE THEIR DOGS UP OUTSIDE” and...

This is literally only decoration. You can’t have a pet dog. You can’t do anything with it except put it outside to make your yard look nice.  This whole argument is virtue signaling at its finest... especially rich too, coming from a group that murders peoples’ pets. Is Tom Nook Exploiting you? Holy shit. Holy shit. Someone hold my coffee because I am about to lose my shit. Leave my boy Tom alone. “Tom Nook is a tanuki, or a raccoon dog, who are often killed for their fur. Others like him in the real world are beaten, anally electrocuted, gassed, or skinned alive. Cut him some slack.“ Okay. For starters here, there’s the implication that, yes, he’s TOTALLY exploiting you but it’s totes ok because this pixel tanuki is affected by shitty things people do irl. Bullshit about real life having any impact on a FANTASY VIDEO GAME with ANTHRO ANIMALS aside... Tom isn’t exploiting you anyway. You CHOSE and AGREED to his island package, which you can initially pay off in NookMiles, no bells required. Every single home update after is voluntary. The Noolkings will pay you for pretty much anything you bring them, which is incredibly generous and helpful. Nook himself will hold off on any upgrades until you give him permission. He also lets you pay off each loan on your own time, with NO interest or timegates. If anything, we’re exploiting HIM. Leave Tom the fuck out of this. How can you spread animal rights through Animal Crossing? This one is so goddamn pretentious I’m not even going to touch it. Like, again, play how you want, but don’t expect people to want to visit you, or have anything to do with you if you’re being a dick about it. PETA apparently received backlash for this, which caused them to add another tweet about the game, which they apparently very rarely do, but none of it was an apology, just doubling-down on their shit. So I will repeat once more for posterity, to make sure folks understand: Play however you want! If you want to play AC vegan, do it! Have fun doing it! But if you try to lie about real-life impact over how someone plays a game, or push your beliefs onto others playing the game, you really need to step back and re-evaluate your priorities. All that effort could be better used helping real animals who need real help, not virtue signaling over a video game. 

[techlearnings]

The Best Home Theater Systems of 2020

1. The Smartest Home Theater System: Sonos 5.1 Beam Surround Set with Voice Assistant

Sonos Beam 5.1 System

Why it won

It would appear Sonos is resolved to clearing the field. At first thought about the upstart among industry monsters, Sonos is currently accomplishing for home theater what they accomplished for multi-room music – and the outcomes are great. read more

The Sonos Beam 5.1 Surround Set is all that you'd anticipate from the world's #1 remote sound organization as per CEPro magazine. Highs are completely clear, lows through the Sonos subwoofer punch with power, and exchange through the framework's highlight, the Beam Sound Bar, is both famously reasonable and reliably up front.

Furthermore, the framework is whip shrewd and accompanies a great list of capabilities. It's absolutely remote put something aside for the force line and HDMI yield. (Bye tangled jumble.) The Sonos application remains the best/most astute application in the business. Apple Airplay 2 comes included. It streams pretty much everything by means of the in excess of 50 music administrations upheld by Sonos. Include Amazon Alexa as well as Google Assistant voice control, in addition to a look that is inconspicuous, jazzy, and made to mix in – and you have a great decision. For genuinely vivid 5.1 encompass sound, however for incredible sounding music, as well. Indeed, it's somewhat expensive, however worth each penny as we would see it. Likewise note: Sonos resembles LEGOs (which we expounded all on in our Sonos Buying Guide here).

This Package Includes: Beam Compact Smart Sound Bar With Voice Control | SUB Wireless Subwoofer | 2 OneSL Speakers for Stereo Pairing and Home Theater Surrounds | Power Cords | HDMI Cable | Available in Black or White

Reg. Cost: $1,456.00

Coming Soon - Call to Order: 1.866.961.7781

#2. The Best Wireless Home Theater System: Bose Soundbar 700 with Bass Module 700 and Surround Wireless Speakers

Bose Sound Bar 700 5.1 System

Why it won

In our "Best Sound Bars of 2020" article, the Bose Soundbar 700 won best-of-show for encompass sound. Presently here as the center segment in the Bose Smart Wireless 5.1 home theater framework, Bose does it once more. The Bose SB700 won since we turned it on and were immediately overwhelmed by a sound field that An) appeared to be a lot more extensive than some other 5.1 pre-bundled framework we tried, B) made discourse – even delicate or murmured exchange – completely clear, and C) was similarly compelling regardless of where we sat.

Each segment in this framework is important for Bose's new group of shrewd remote speakers. Start with this 5.1-channel framework, and spot a Bose Home Speaker 500 in the kitchen and the littler Soundbar 500 in your room for a multi-room sound understanding all through the house. What's more, with Amazon Alexa worked in, you can control everything with straightforward voice orders.

Features

Turn it up, and Bose's Bass Module 700 subwoofer will throw a pleasant left hook without contorting.

Given the Bose Lifestyle 650 won most attractive, we're giving "second place" to this framework. The excellent glass top and punctured fold over metal grille on the Soundbar 700 is a pleasant touch.

To mix in with any home's style, Bose offers this framework in white, as well.

This Package Includes: Bose Soundbar 700 | Bose Bass Module 700 | Bose Surround Wireless Speakers | Power lines | Optical link | HDMI Cable

Reg. Cost: $1,797.00

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#3. The Best Surround Sound System for Small Rooms: SVS Prime Satellite 5.1 Package

SVS Prime Satellite 5.1 Package

Why it won

Throughout the most recent twenty years, SVS has developed into one of the most regarded brands in the business. At first known for their sternum-vibrating/room-shaking/grant winning subwoofers, the present new SVS frameworks can rival anybody – and the SVS Prime Satellite 5.1 home venue bundle is an incredible model. Its conservative and simpler to fit in a littler room however turn it up and blast: your little room turns into the Hollywood Bowl.

Each SVS Prime Satellite speaker is about the size of a portion of bread and contains a 4.5-inch midrange driver and a one-inch tweeter. Little, truly, yet they punch like Roberto Duran. The 12-inch driver in the effectively amazing, 300-watt fueled SVS-1000 subwoofer will, then again, make them clutch your seat. It's little, as well, and perfectly tucks into any corner. The framework is wired instead of remote, however at the cost, the SVS Prime Satellite 5.1 Package may simply be the greatest "little" 5.1 framework available. (Need something somewhat greater? Look at SVS's "Ultra" arrangement line of speakers. We convey those, as well.)

Another enormous SVS advantage: gaming. A ton of our clients keep their gaming frameworks in little lairs and extra rooms. Also, on the off chance that you truly need to place yourself in a Gears of War or Call of Duty fight, sans earphones – and you would prefer not to spend a fortune to do it – the SVS Prime Satellite 5.1 Package is for you. SVS rocks.

This Package Includes: 5 Prime Satellite Speakers | SB-1000 Subwoofer

Reg. Cost: $999.99

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Alright individuals – folding tables up and fix those safety belts. We're pulling out all the stops.

Presently we progress from the littler, simple to-set-up home theater frameworks to the greater, take your breath away arrangements. The accompanying frameworks were hand-picked by our specialists, frequently blended and coordinated from various sound brands. Taking all things together, it resembles going from engine bikes to bikes: both are fun, both take care of business, yet the last is more about consummately repeating enormous, genuine, true to life sound at home. Further, these greater home theater frameworks are more adaptable concerning sound and structure feel.

#4. The Best Budget Home Theater Speaker System: KLH Kendall 5.1 Speaker System

KLH Kendall 5.1 System

Why it won

KLH's strategic been and consistently will be: audiophile-commendable speakers at moderate costs. What's more, KLH's most current line-up epitomizes that strategic to say the least. The two Kendall 3-way floorstanding speakers included speak to the organization's new lead models. Flawlessly completed in dark oak and American pecan facade, each contains custom drivers made of Kevlar, anodized aluminum and curiously large magnets. They're huge, they're delightful, and they sound incredible. The KLH Story Center Channel Speaker puts the most significant activity (and on-screen exchange) up front with hybrid hardware produced using top notch parts. The two Beacon encompass speakers are superior to most and work superbly with the framework's left and right back channels.

Balancing everything, KLH's 12-inch, front-terminating subwoofer = the John Bonham of the gathering. The high journey woven Kevlar driver inside, fueled by a 350 watt amp, is all that could possibly be needed to toss you back in your seat.

KLH's 5.1 home theater gathering is a great decision for large, artistic sound. Huge (or rambunctious) parties when added to your music framework. Valid, it's not remote, however it's difficult to beat this sort of sheer influence for the cash.

This Package Includes: 2 KLH Kendall Floorstanding Speakers | KLH Story Center Channel Speaker | KLH Beacon Surround Speaker Pair | Windsor 12 Subwoofer | Available in Black or Walnut

Reg. Cost: $2,796.95

Coming Soon - Call to Order: 1.866.961.7781

#5. The Best Dolby Atmos Home Theater System: Klipsch 7.2.2 Reference Premiere Home Theater System with Marantz SR7013 9.2-Channel AV Receiver

Klipsch 7.2 System

Why it won

Two notable, top notch, sound pioneers: One known for dynamite, pull out all the stops or-return home sound and excellent cabinetry, the other for top tier enhancement and driving edge innovation. Between them, two legends – Saul Marantz and Paul Klipsch, more than 100 years experience, and each grant in the book. Welcome to the best encompass sound all things considered.

A couple of years back, the sound masters at Dolby made sense of an approach to settle on what some decision "3D encompass sound" by means of another innovation called Dolby Atmos. (Atmos, as in environment.) What Dolby Atmos truly does is make a layer of sound that not just floats over the crowd, it drifts in various territories over the crowd. Also, it does it so well, you can really pinpoint explicit sounds in explicit spots – noticeable all around. The net impact: Thrilling, invigorating, stunning – in any event, stunning now and again. ("Try not to stress kids, those monsters aren't genuine, it's only a film.")

In spite of the fact that most AV recipients today come Dolby Atmos-empowered, numerous shoppers never include Dolby Atmos speakers. (Abnormal. Similar to living on a boat and never purchasing sails.) So we intentionally concocted a marvelous, yet generally reasonable home venue that really conveys on all fronts: left, right, focus, sides, back, beneath (by method of the subwoofer) and now, with Dolby Atmos, noticeable all around above, as well.

One more thing: If you pick this home theater framework with the parts we prescribe – and you're going to turn it on just because – start with a greater than-life, blockbuster film. The new Jurassic Park, Incredibles 2, whatever. Blockbusters are designed by sound specialists to exploit stature channels, so you're ensured to get the all out impact: pterosaurs and ancient bugs flying around your parlor, jump bombarding the couch, and so forth. You'll know why this specific framework so effectively wins our "Best Dolby Atmos" class.

Features

Mood killer the TV, and this Klipsch/Marantz home theater arrangement conveys an intense, audiophile-commendable, music framework – one that asks for a quality turntable. Despite the fact that with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Airplay worked in, in addition to HEOS remote multi-room music streaming, you can play practically anything from anyplace by means of any brilliant gadget.

The two Klipsch RP-8060 floorstanding speakers are not just fresh out of the box new, they're higher on the pecking list than Klipsch's for quite some time proclaimed Reference II arrangement. Likewise valid for the RP-504C Center Channel Speaker, which at right around 3-feet wide and 34 pounds is the Serena Williams of focus speakers. read more