#but really using real life politics that effect real people as a fun debate topic for your history class is an awful thing to do

[korattata]

sometimes i randomly think about.

okay so, my history teacher in my final? year of school was mostly cool. except. he was one of those guys that used real life current politics as a teaching tool.

like our final project was "pick something that's debated on being legal and argue for/against it" and. well. i hope he started to re-think that idea a bit after i made someone cry in class.

[potteresque-ire]

Not sure if this has circulated before, but here’s a link to Henry Jenkin’s reactions to 227, largely as responses to an interview he did with Sanlian Lifeweek magazine (三聯生活周刊), a publication modelled after TIME magazine and published under China Press Publishing group (中國出版集團), the largest and state-owned publisher in China. The magazine asked for Jenkin’s opinions on the fandom-related aspects of 227 back in March, 2020. Henry Jenkins, as many may already know, is among the most renowned scholars of (Western) fan culture ... if not the most renowned.

Personally, I find this article to be quite limited in perspective, because 227 had a significant non-fandom-oriented, sociopolitical component ~ and hence its scope, its chaos, its damage. IMO, 227 stopped being a fan war, stopped being about solos, cpfs, and even Gg the moment AO3 was shut down ~ the powerful Chinese state had intervened, and the incident necessarily became a political incident. That One Fic on AO3, the conflict between solos and cpfs about whether and where That Fic should exist was at most a lighter left at the scene of what would become the blaze; it wasn’t even responsible for igniting the first fire. Most i-turtles (i-fruits?) are probably aware too at this point: if fan wars are sufficient to start 227, then there wouldn’t have been a 227 ~ because 227 would have been every date of the year.

Fan culture is fundamentally transgressive, and what that means can only be defined in the context of the subculture’s “mainstream” sociopolitical and cultural environment. I therefore find the article’s attempt to transplant Western fan culture’s observations / theories / analysis / conclusions to the incident without explicitly comparing, addressing in depth the differences of the pre- and post-transplant environment to be ... prone to rejections (as organs are after transplantations!)—exclusion from being useful or valid. And this article was very short on such comparisons or address. Jenkins being a fandom expert aside (and he was careful about not treading outside his area of expertise), early “antis” of 227 presented themselves as crusaders for the freedom of speech and, by late March when this article was published, the heated debates surrounding the incident on Chinese social media had already led to embarrassment for multiple powerful state publications. It was probably a wise choice to not make another dive into the political aspects of the incident.

Being a new(-ish) turtle who joined the fandom a full half-year after 227, I’ve been backtracking, trying to really understand the incident, which remains very much beyond comprehension in many aspects. The discussions I’ve dug up that have most fascinated me have been those in non-fandom spaces, by non-fandomers / politics enthusiasts who barely knew who Gg was, who didn’t know That One Fic involved more than one idol and had zero knowledge about solos vs cpfs. In these discussions, “antis” are not referred to as “antis” because while the action of the so-called “227 coalition” was to kill Gg’s career, that wasn’t considered its ultimate goal ~ its ultimate goal was to warn whoever tried to clamp down the freedom of expression that their opposition was strong enough, populous to fight back and take away whatever, whoever those who attempted the clamp-down care the most about. In this case, “Gg fans”—I put this in quotes because eventually, no one would know who would lurk behind those pro-Gg Weibo IDs (and the anti-Gg ones as well)—were the perceived enemies of creative freedom. Gg, assumed to be the one, the symbol of what “GG fans” cared about the most, naturally became the target of the coalition.

Gg wasn’t special in that sense ~ and that was perhaps, the saddest thing I found about this incident as a Gg fan (without quotation marks); Gg could be any idol who achieved top fame at the moment, who had enough fans to make the point known. The coalition was therefore not “anti-Gg” in its ideological sense. It was anti the fan circle culture that had cemented Gg’s popularity, that had already been known to deal extremely poorly with dissent—complaints had been abound that c-ent was no longer fun for bystanders because the latter could issue no critique, not even doubt, about an idol without the fear of being reported, torn down by fans. The coalition eventually grew to include anti the many happenings, the many censorships and imprisonments in the past few years that had silenced the creative crowd in China, happenings people dared not speak about beyond a loud grumbling ...

The coalition tried to take down Gg, because they couldn’t take down the force that had shut down AO3, that was truly responsible for the silencing. They played the Hunger Games in the Weibo arena instead of challenging Who The Real Enemy Was, because some might not have given much thought about  The Enemy; some might have thought the Enemy too invincible to be worth the effort; some might have got too carried away by their blood thirst, the cruel schadenfreude of shredding a beautiful, successful young man into pieces, and forgot why they were there in the first place ... 

And that was only the political side of 227. 227 was also widely suspected to have a commercial component, which added another layer to the symbolism behind Gg the Idol ~ pretty much as soon as 227 happened, netizens investigated, tried to uncover the chain of capital behind Gg. With the scent of money was the memory of filth associated with it, in a country not exactly  unknown for its corrupt business practices. Much like in The Book of Exodus in the Bible, the Idol is believed to be forged with gold; it is ungodly, tainted. Whether Gg the Person was identical to Gg the Idol, Gg the Symbol mattered to few. That Gg *was* a person seemed lost to many ... 

I’ll have to dive into the non-fandom aspects of 227 with more rigour. As much as I'd love to leave 227 behind, every time I see Gg, I see its legacy on his face, in his smile, and perhaps, I’m not the only one ~ ADLAD cast him as Patient #5 because of 227′s effect on him. Put it another way, 227 is already modifying, writing Gg’s career trajectory ~ a trajectory that is undoubtedly under scrutiny by many who wish to duplicate his success but circumvent his pain. And every time I see a young idol—Gg, Dd, and anyone else—I wonder if the hurt of 227 can happen to them (again) because the crux of the incident has never been resolved; the oppression and silencing have remained strong as ever. 

Anyway (sorry for the rant) ... what I found noteworthy about this article was the quotes the magazine highlighted in its published form (in Chinese), which weren’t highlighted by Jenkins on his own website. They reflected what the magazine would like to be the take-home messages of the interview. I’ve listed them below; all of which had Jenkins as the speaker:

[Pie Note: About Real Person Fiction (RPF) in Western fandoms]

“American fans often do have some shared norms about what is and is not appropriate to write, mostly having to do with protecting the privacy of other people in the star’s life. Writing about the star is seen as fair game; writing about their family members is not.”

---

[Pie Note: About GG being “cast” as a transgender woman in The One Fic that started the incident; gender in fandom]

“We write fan fiction as a form of speculation and exploration. For some people, it may be one of the few spaces in the culture where they can express who they are, what they are feeling, what they are desiring. And for others, it is a place of “what if” where they explore in fantasy things they would not necessarily desire in reality.” 

---

[Pie Note: Whether GG should be held responsible for his fans’ behaviour]

“Under these circumstances, I would not hold a performer responsible for his fans’ behaviors but the performer is responsible for their own behavior and fans may respond negatively to performers who over-react to the existence of alternative fantasies and insult or hector their audiences.”    

---

[Pie Note: About AO3 and why fans were so upset about its closure] “Keep in mind that AO3 is a particular kind of platform. Alongside Wikipedia, AO3 is one of the greatest accomplishments of participatory culture in the digital era.”

---

[Pie Note: About the “problematic” content on AO3]

“Among my findings were that fan fiction sites can be a valuable space for young people to acquire skills (and receive feedback) on their writing from more experienced writers who share these same passions ... That said, while teens have participated in fandom, a large part of those on AO3 are adults, engaging in adult conversations on adult topics.”

---

[Pie Note: About media text in the new media era]

“First, I would stress the proliferation of media texts at the current moment ... We have access to a much broader range of media content than ever before and in this context, fans play a constructive role in curating that content, helping some shows get greater visibility ...  Second, these texts have become more malleable”

---

[Pie Note: About idols not producing “good” media texts]

“Rather, the question should be what are fans finding meaningful about these performers and the texts they generate. I start from the premise that human beings do not engage in meaningless activities. I may not immediately recognize why something is meaningful but my job as a scholar is to understand why cultural materials are meaningful to the people who cherish them.”

---

My understanding of this selection of quotes is this: this state publication (as others) was quite ready to forgive Gg, to put this incident behind. It could choose to not publish this interview; it could choose to leave out certain quotes, or not do the highlighting that cast both AO3 and Gg in a positive / innocent light. But it did all these things. This article furthers my impression that the state never intended 227 to blow up the way it did, and that it did—enough for stories about it to be found in non-China websites, and in English—was what I’m still trying to comprehend. 227 was, admittedly, how I was first introduced to Gg beyond Wei Wuxian. And as I got to know Gg, like Gg, my want to understand 227 only becomes stronger, perhaps because only through comprehension I feel I can find peace for the GG fan (again, without quotation marks) in me.

Maybe I should email Dr Jenkins and ask if he’s looking for a PhD candidate. 5 years of research and thinking ... maybe that’s what it’ll take. 

I feel I’ve already started anyway. 

[thejustmaiden]

Heyo, fellow Inuyasha fans! Happy Friday! This particular blog will serve as a collection of random thoughts I’ve been mulling over lately. Hope you’ll consider giving it a read. By the way, it’ll specifically pertain to the Sessrin ship. If that’s not something that is of interest to you, then no need to read any further. Whatever happens, I wanted to get this out before the sequel. Alrighty, let’s go! 

I’m not sure many of us realize just how much fiction sparks public dialogue and shapes culture. There have been countless studies and research done to prove it, therefore this really isn’t up for debate. What the real question here should be is have we taken the time to fully contemplate and assess just how much fictional experiences are able to change or influence our perspective on real, everyday life? The visual arts are just one of many evolutionary adaptations that serve to give us more insight into one another’s mind. If our outlook on fiction contrasts with said insight, then perhaps some re-evaluating is in order.  

Powerful works of literature such as 1984 and the beloved Harry Potter series are just two examples. George Orwell’s book contributed strongly to how readers viewed government and politics during that time, and to this day it’s a book that resonates with many. As much as Harry Potter is cherished all across the world, there are religious and academic institutions that condemn it or have even gone so far as to ban it. I may not agree with the extreme measures taken, but it’s fascinating nonetheless to witness the extent to which fiction can move and mobilize people for a cause.

The takeaway is that indicating fiction doesn’t have the power to create change in our everyday lives is misleading to say the least. So how exactly then can fictional stories that are, after all, completely made up affect society in such profound ways? It all lies in the power of the psychology of fiction. According to cognitive psychologist and novelist, Keith Oatley, who’s been researching the psychological effects of fiction for over a decade, he states that engaging with stories about other people can improve empathy and theory of mind. When we identify with these characters’ struggles, we begin to share their frustration for societal problems that plague them. These types of stories tap into our emotions more so than- believe it or not- nonfiction, and thus their effects inspire us and even have the ability to alter our worldviews. 

I’ll be returning to that specific topic a bit later, but moving on for now!

It’s safe to say that I speak on behalf of the majority of antis. That being said, I first want to add that we are aware that sessrin shippers claim to agree that there was nothing inherently romantic that took place between Rin and Sesshomaru during their travels together. The thing is we have trouble believing you guys when you time and time again provide contradictory statements to defend your stance.

Voicing things like, “all signs point to Rin” and “it’s been foreshadowed” sends the exact opposite message of what you supposedly stand for and, if anything, confirms that you’ve had romance on your mind long before it would’ve been acceptable to come out with openly. You can’t just go along with what we say when it’s convenient to your argument and then back it up later with “who else but Rin.” How can the relationship you’re imagining be so obvious if they didn’t hint at it for the whole duration of the original series like we agreed upon? Elaborate on how we could’ve possibly come to such wildly different conclusions when we started AND left off with the same views for and throughout the series. 

On top of that, making the excuse that we don’t speak for adult!Rin and that she has the right to make her own decisions once she’s old enough is a weak defense. Firstly, because we haven’t even met her. Secondly, because it’s unfair of you to assert that you know what’s best for Rin and then say we’re not allowed to just because it doesn’t align with your beliefs. I get that you feel protective over her character, but do recall that this adult version of her none of us have actually met yet. We have no idea what kind of woman she’s become, what her dreams or aspirations may be, and whether she’s married or even wants to be. I’m not against the idea of her falling in love, I just don’t think it’ll be with Sesshomaru. I guess I’m also a fan of the idea of her following in Kaede’s footsteps, because if anyone can grow up to be an independent, trusted, and wise leader of the community like her it’s Rin.

To make matters worse, way too many of you continue to celebrate the drama cd and profess that it was sweet that Sesshomaru basically promised he’d wait for Rin all while somehow ignoring the glaring grooming implications. Why do you only see what you want to see and fail to acknowledge that actual child grooming scenarios do in fact play out like this in real life? A high percentage of people who have been victims of grooming can attest to this. If Sessrin does go canon, all the sequel succeeded in doing to avoid the direct correlation with grooming was skip over the more questionable and dodgy portions of it. Take out the time jump, however, and you no longer have a loophole to cover up the scary unmistakable truth, which is that Sessrin and grooming are essentially one in the same.

No one case is identical to another so please don’t come to me with your “but how is it grooming if Sesshomaru didn’t manipulate Rin” refutes. Nobody knows what the hell went on during those years between The Final Act and this upcoming sequel. Based on everything exhibited so far- that is if we decide to recognize the drama cd like so many of you choose to do- Sessrin’s dynamic is eerily reminiscent of real life child grooming. Why else do you think a lot of us fans have a huge problem with it? It’s triggering for a reason. 

Let’s be honest, Sesshomaru’s supposed love confession could’ve just been the first of many gestures like it. Who really knows, right? According to you shippers, a major shift in their relationship took place sometime during this critical period none of us got to watch unfold. I’m sure you all have explored the various ways this would’ve gone down in fan fiction and through other creative means of expression. Not to spoil the fun, but all I can’t help but wonder about is just how many of those supposed “cute moments” would’ve been as creepy and cringey as that proposal. Hundreds of thousands (possibly millions?!) of fans would undoubtedly agree with me, too. It seems to me this ain’t due to a mere difference of opinion. Taste is one thing, ethics a whole other. 

By the way, in case you didn’t know, groomers don’t necessarily need to plan out every single move in order for their behavior to constitute as grooming. What we should be paying attention to instead is the fact that Sesshomaru made a conscious decision to act on his own selfish desire for a young girl who couldn’t have possibly known in that moment the magnitude of what he was asking of her. Why is it that a vulnerable Rin is put in a position that forces her to be the one responsible for making such a big, life-changing decision for the both of them? Yes, Sesshomaru gave her the choice and, yes, she doesn’t have to make it till later, but why on Earth is he coming to her with this well before a child her age is ready and mature enough to handle it? Even if his intentions are good (broadly speaking of course), his what you shippers probably call “innocent acts” are incidentally coercing Rin into reciprocating his feelings. Whether he planned for that or not, he’s at fault. Period. 

That’s one way the power imbalance works. A child wants nothing more than to please the adult they look up to and adore, because they’re impressionable like that. Maybe Rin processes this like she’ll want whatever he wants, so that’s what she trains herself to believe- either right then and there or over time. Plus, if you really think about it, why wouldn’t she trust him if in her eyes he’s been nothing but good to her and that’s all she’s ever really known? (Psst! Charm is integral to the manipulative nature of grooming so it’s deceiving AKA manipulation can come off as praise or flattery.) Bottom line is that Rin is too young to have to think about this kind of deep stuff at all, and Sesshomaru shouldn’t have taken advantage of the power he had/has over her to influence a decision she was by no means prepared to hear about much less decide on. Your headcanons seem to imply that she’ll eventually have to choose though, and Idk about you but I rather not push my own fantasy agenda onto a underage girl regardless of how much I want it. Idc if she’s fictional, it wouldn’t feel right so why would I want to see that? My principals couldn’t ever allow for it.   

Even if it wasn’t an official proposal, per se, it’s still disturbing to me that so many of you find joy in the thought of a grown adult male essentially waiting for a young girl HE KNEW to become old enough before pursuing her. I know this drama cd ain’t technically canon, y'all, but since this is literally the only source we have that may foreshadow a potential Sessrin to come, and it’s referenced a lot, I figured it still should be called out for exactly what it is- Grooming: 101!!!!

Just as I demonstrated above, fiction has the ability to make even the most inappropriate and uncomfortable situations be viewed in a favorable light when you put the right spin on it. *cough* Lolicon culture, need I say more? *cough* Despite what you may believe, the strategies fiction utilizes to explain themes/concepts can genuinely lead to how we perceive them, and ultimately to how we come to make sense of a similar event presented to us in real life. Especially if we have no prior experience with any of it and have nothing to compare something to, these perceptions can be dangerous yet still persuasive to certain fans- young ones in particular. The more narrative consistency across stories and different mediums, the more likely they’ll influence social beliefs. Minors don’t possess the same capacity as adults to think critically about the content they consume, and if we aren’t more careful about what we put out there then all of us will continue to face serious repercussions.

This is precisely why it’s crucial we persist in our fight against the rabid phenomenon of glorifying young girls in every sexual context imaginable. Just look at what something as seemingly harmless as fiction has the power to do. The scope of fiction is broad and far-reaching, and it’s about time we stop denying that fact and actually do something about it if we have the means to.

The truth of the matter is that we’re in desperate need of proper education and training programs on this issue in our communities. Families need to ensure their children have access to the necessary resources, but it isn’t just on them. ALL of us gotta do our part and ALL of us should be up for the task. It takes a village, right? If we do not properly discuss and address child sexual abuse (CSA) with our children and in public forums, including the internet, then we’re ultimately accepting incidents of CSA should they arise. Consequently, that also translates to indirectly accepting that the predators among us stay untreated and/or unpunished. That’s how the generational and societal aspect of the abuse can continue, and we must do everything in our power to secure our children’s future. Yes, even when it comes to fiction.

If you still somehow don’t think the Sessrin pairing has anything to do with grooming, allow me to break this down for you one more time:

1. If some of your fellow sessrin shippers say that a relationship like this in real life is harmful, then that should be pretty telling in and of itself.

2. Piggybacking off #1: if your only defense to that is “well it’s just fiction,” then you should ask yourself why you can’t ever come up with better reasons. Same goes for history and culture, so please stop using those to justify this relationship. None of the above can or should be applied since it’s already been established that fiction pervades our lives and vice versa.

3. If fellow shippers who are victims of grooming say they are drawn to Sessrin because it allows them in a way to “take back control” from their abuser so that they can better cope with past traumas, then they’re inadvertently admitting that Sessrin does possess qualities associated with the past child sexual abuse they underwent. AKA Sessrin is relatable for its abusive dynamic.

I have to ask by the way, but why do you get so offended when we don’t support your ship anyway? Is it because we interpret it to be controversial and you don’t like your ship getting a bad rap? Is it because it would be insulting to admit that antis actually have a point in it being problematic and you rather double down instead? Or is it because you’re projecting yourself onto Rin and prefer to not go into detail about why that is? Maybe it’s too personal, or maybe it’s because deep down you’re ashamed. Of course that doesn’t mean you’re bad people, but suppressing these kind of negative emotions can’t be healthy for anyone. A little awareness and self-reflection on your part can benefit not just you but all of us in the long run. Cognitive dissonance can suck, but it’s also part of being human. 

I recently came across a comment I’d like to share with you. Unfortunately, this is not the first time nor will it be the last I see the likes of it. Anyway, in it a fan stated how embarrassing it must be being an Anti in this fandom when an episode like “Forever with Lord Sesshomaru” exists. Guys, this shipper and all those who liked their post are showing their true colors. Perpetuating and/or anticipating these sexualized images of young girls is a grave issue in both our society and media alike. I think we can all agree on that, or at least I hope so. It’s remarks like these that prove we still got a long way to go in terms of progress, and if we ever hope to effectively reverse some of our backwards way of thinking. So serious question for ya in regard to this: Why is it too much to ask that grooming be portrayed for what it is? Grooming. To clarify, grooming is bad and needs to be painted in a bad light. It’s as simple as that. If only we could all acknowledge it for what it is, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. 

Historical accuracy and cultural differences aside, it appears the crux of the matter between Sessrin shippers and Antis is our acceptance and/or denial of fiction’s influence on real life. If we can’t agree on this, then we’ll never agree on anything else. As mentioned earlier, there is more than enough evidence to support the idea that fiction impacts our lives in extraordinary ways. I, for one, believe in the transformative power of stories. I think they do more for us than many of us give them credit for and/or are inclined to admit. 

This is partially why I believe that the majority of sessrin folk are missing the point most of the time. All they do is focus on insignificant and irrelevant information that accomplishes nothing but more gaslighting and strawmanning. Whether it be an intentional or unconscious decision, whatever we argue goes right over their head. All they do is throw around deflections and antagonizing remarks that serve no real purpose other than to make Antis out to be the unreasonable and irrational ones. Making connections between our own lives and our stories is a completely natural and normal occurrence. If those particular shippers insist on denying just how interconnected real life and fiction both are, what that tells me is they’re either out of touch with reality or deliberately choose to be.

Just to be clear, I am of the opinion that most if not all antis aren’t real life predators. If they say they aren’t, I honestly take their word for it. Speaking to Sessrin shipper directly: We know it’s not Sesshomaru you want to be but Rin. No, we’re not calling you pedophiles or groomers. None of us think you are using a fictional ship to attract underage fans to be the Rin in your life or anything of the sort. We are well aware that many of you are self-inserting yourself as Rin, so please don’t feel the need to tell us yourself because that would be stating the obvious.

I learned from a few of you since this sequel was announced that the Sessrin relationship isn’t just a ship but an opportunity for you to confront the person who used and abused you. So there’s two issues with this I’d like to raise. (Sorry if I’m repeating myself, but it’s urgent I stress this again!) This is what I have to say:

If fiction does not affect real life or have the ability to normalize anything as you claim to believe, then why does “fixing” what happened to you via your preferred choice of coping associated with these two characters in the first place? Why bring your past abuse into this at all if at the end of the day it’s “just fiction” and nothing more to you but a source of entertainment?

By confessing that you use Sessrin to cope with your past trauma, you therein reveal that Sessrin does in fact resemble an adult-child relationship with a grooming dynamic. So why then would you want other fans to be exposed to a pairing that brings to mind the very abuse you endured? We’re supposed to stop this toxic cycle- NOT find more ways to manifest and relive it, much less subject other fans to it. 

You may think that Sessrin doesn’t fit the textbook definition of what child grooming is, but that’s not to say it doesn’t embody it or that it doesn’t at the very least have traces of it that stand out. 

“Antis are miserable people who don’t know how to enjoy a good story. It’s just fiction, stop ruining it for other fans!”

Well, no, it’s not just fiction or just a story. Some of you evidently went and proved that yourself, and without my help, by revealing how you relate Sessrin to your own life and apply it to cope with past abuse. Past abuse or not, as far as I can tell we’re all equally invested in these characters. That speaks volumes and just goes to show that fiction touches our lives in long-lasting ways.

I have something I want to say concerning some of who believe that it’s inconsiderate of antis who have been victims of grooming or another form of child abuse to tell other victims who ship Sessrin how they should cope with their trauma. Now as much as I respect the various means victims discover to deal with their painful pasts, there’s always an appropriate time and a place for these things to occur. We must seek out better ways to safely cope with the abuse we lived through (if any) without running the risk of hurting and endangering others. 

There are plenty of fans in other fandoms who don’t try to defend their ships going canon, because they’re able to recognize an unhealthy or toxic pairing when they see one and won’t try to justify it. A Sessrin romance simply does not belong on a show geared towards teens, and I really don’t need to go into detail about why we shouldn’t support it, at least canon-wise. Shipping Sessrin is your right, but if you don’t keep it to yourself and your corner of the fandom then you really shouldn’t be surprised by the opposition. All we ask is you respect that their specific dynamic falls under the category of child grooming (or very close) and should be treated as such in public. The world of fiction may be wider than the world we live in, but that doesn’t always mean “anything goes.” In the creative spaces our minds occupy we must still adhere to the same fundamental and moral guidelines we live by in life. There’s nothing wrong with exploring new terrains and experimenting with ideas, but we must also remember that our stories are all about communicating and connecting with people. So let’s please be more mindful of the sort of messages they’re sending. 

Besides, this isn’t only about you and what makes you feel safe, it’s about all of us. I don’t know how much more I can stress that really. How can thoughts endanger our children, you ask? Well, it’s not like we’re suggesting that our thoughts can jump out of our tvs, materialize themselves, and place kids under mind control. The forces behind fiction are a lot more complex and nuanced than a “monkey see, monkey do” approach, so don’t waste any more time trying to  describe that to us. You’re taking this argument in the wrong direction. 

Take the “violent video games breed killers” theory. I’m afraid you’re misconstruing what we’re saying and then taking it quite too literally. Please stop twisting our words, because nobody on our side is saying that just because you play violent video games that you’ll become a violent person. The Sessrin equivalent of that would be if you ship them then you must be a pedophile or turning into one. *sigh* I know you guys are feeling attacked, but I’m afraid your defensive nature is keeping you from thinking straight. Clearly, there are always exceptions (I’d recommend reading up on the Slender Man case), but Antis aren’t saying you’re one of them.

You see, it’s not so much about the content as it is the notion of the content. Kids and teens who are playing these video games have been informed that killing is wrong, because they grew up learning that early on like the rest of us. No sane person would advocate for violence and nonsensical killing in real life. Since they fully understand the severity of the consequences of killing a person in real life, they are able make a clear distinction between the two. When it comes to killing there is hardly any ambiguity. Sadly, that is far from the truth when it comes to sexualizing girls. It should immediately be perceived as wrong leaving no room for interpretation, and yet here we are still putting up with these inaccurate and demeaning female representations.

Most children who have been groomed don’t realize it till years down the road. If they aren’t ever taught the telltale signs to properly labeling grooming situations, how do you expect them to make sense of and relate to a fictional version? Let’s think of about it from a child’s perspective. Yes, this includes teens who rely pretty heavily on adult guidance and the content we put out there for them. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment and picture that you’ve never had child grooming explained to you (because that’s just the reality for so many unfortunately). Wouldn’t you say it’s possible for them to deduce that what they see on their screens is how they come to discern something in real life, especially if they have little to no experience with it? Perceived realism is plausible, y'all.

What it comes down to in the end is that the ideas and emotions we cultivate behind these stories leave an impression on others. Impressions are capable of influencing the way we see the world, which in turn affects us and beyond just our imagination. The way I look at it, stories contribute to how and why we normalize certain beliefs and trends. If fiction reflects real life like most of us tend to agree, then wouldn’t you say Sessrin is a (in)direct result of this world’s tendency to place young girls in overly sexual or romantic environments? Where do you think fiction draws its inspiration from? Sure, some of it originates from our imagination, but most of what drives us to create these stories is the real world and the people who live in it.

Fiction is meant to mirror reality, but it’s ridiculous to suggest that it’s only a one-way street. That fiction in no way, shape, or form influences our reality? Or that it only works the other way around? With all due respect, that’s simply not true. No productive discourse can be had if we choose to ignore the truth and don’t come together (at least halfway) to tackle the real issues at hand. 

Okay, I think I’ll leave it off there! Thanks so much for reading. I expect this to be my last blog on any topic regarding Inuyasha in the near future. As much as I’ve looked forward to answering all of your asks and writing all the blogs I have over these past almost 5 months, I think it’s best if I spend some time away for now. With the sequel fast approaching, I’m doing what I always do: hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. I’ve met some amazing people along the way, that’s for sure. And who knows, maybe you’ll see me active in the tags sooner than we think. Until then, it’s been an absolute pleasure! Enjoy the sequel, all of you. 💜

[dyketubbo]

i want to start this post by saying this is all /rp and that if i sound condescending, its probably intentional because im a lil fed up. still tried to be polite but if it fell through, uh, eh. its minecraft roleplay, im not truly heated, and if i thought of myself as being better than anyone for my opinions on blocks attacking each other i think id really have to reconsider my life and how i got here. anyways,

could you imagine if ppl just like actually started blaming things that are unable to control how others feel abt them for like. the way others feel abt them. like thats messily worded but w how people talk about lmanburg its like.. have yall never had something you would fight for? i would absolutely fight for my friends, fight for my family, hell id fight for my fuckin cat, my sketchbook, whatever, because thats mine and others arent allowed to just threaten what i care about for fun

but.. if i start to fight for something, because i care about it and someone else puts it in danger, its not the thing in dangers fault that im fighting for it? the person causing the danger shouldnt be doing that in the first place!! maybe i shouldnt ""have"" to sacrifice my time or wellbeing or whatever for things i care about but i *want* to, because i want to fight for what i care about

so why is it that once l'manburg is something to fight about that its?? somehow a piece of land/an abstract concepts fault that people were willing to fight for it?? it was their thing! l'manburgians had a right to secede, you can argue that it was based in xenophobia and manipulation and that wilbur was never good all along (gross reading, but you can take that up with the avid wilbur enthusiasts, this post isnt abt him) all you want but in the end it started out as a joke. the drug bits were jokes, the people who joined did so willingly, wilbur was barely fuckin present for a lot of his own countrys development, tommy and dreams relationship was friendly (with creepy vibes as dream got more and more stalkerish towards tommy), despite all the claims of No Americans they didnt Do Shit when americans were on their land and it was clear that the americans vs british debate was cc jokes that the characters didnt truly take seriously, the walls were iirc just. to make a good thumbnail or some shit (aka aesthetic), it really was just. a friend group with rules with the friends being little shits sometimes and dream really fucking hated that ig but in the end the l'manburgians really did not have any Special Attitude that made them any different than the average person on that server, they just happened to take a house-wide piece of land and said "hey we want this and its kinda weird for you to say the whole world is yours anyways so we want this to be like. ours. please? please"

but. l'manburg is.. not something you can just Blame. its not a real country with a real system set in place, it was some shit fuckin buildins in some walls and if the characters wanted to fight for it more power to them!! people get so mad (debate wise, not in terms of actually being upset) at the idea that the characters sacrificed things and themselves for their country but theyre. making a choice to fight for what they believe is right. and hell, for a good ass portion they just try to talk through it, thinking war is something you can fight with words when the other side just wants to secretly rig it all with tnt.

blame the people who continued to put l'manburgians in danger, blame dream for being obsessed with some teenager and placing way more symbolic power in the damn discs than tommy ever did, blame the dream team for rigging l'manburg with tnt and blowing it all up, blame dteam and eret for the fcr (which is the real start of wilburs downwards spiral. he was not always unstable, because thats not how human beings work. theres a difference between dream always having a similar motif of "this is fun" and wilbur actively showing clear differences in how he acts with each time he logs on), blame the people who constantly tried (and succeeded) to rip l'manburg from its citizens over and over until eventually all there was of the country is a big fuck off crater with a glass covering

but theres no damn point in blaming the country itself. its a bunch of fuckin land. even if you take what it symbolizes (which, for every character that was apart of it, it symbolized family and love and safety and care and trust and it was other people that tarnished that, because symbols dont chunk error themselves) its just. a symbol. its something the characters are attached to, and man, its almost as if the series has been fucking screaming at the viewers that viewing attachments as the problem is the wrong thing to do. should characters "have" to sacrifice themselves for l'manburg? no! and they *don't* have to! its shown repeatedly that they can just fuckin leave if they want to, no one will stop them!

they *choose* to fight and sacrifice and *care* and blaming what they care about for being something thats cared about is just wrong. especially in a situation where the discussion is literal death???? in which most cases were very clearly "person a kills person b" (or in wilburs case, assisted suicide for his last life), aka meaning that.. the murderer is at fault for murder. thats basic cause and effect, it should not be a debate topic to say "if you murder someone intentionally because you want them to stop caring about something you are at fault for murdering them".

like damn, next you mfs are gonna tell me that tommys a bad person because tubbo was willing to let dream kill him for tommy to be free (at least, tubbo saw it that way), and that dream isnt at fault for threatening tubbos life because tommy shouldnt have been so attached to those discs (of which are only important because dream had been using them as a way to have power over tommy and over the narrative), and that tommys bad for daring to care about things, for daring to care about *people* too, because if youre willing to sacrifice for something then its automatically bad.

....

oh.

wait.

thats exactly how people think. no fucking wonder then. you know, with a villain as obvious as dream, youd think maybe the audience would have learned that "attachments bad and fighting for what/who you care about bad because if you didnt care so much you wouldnt get hurt by the people who have been actively trying to hurt you and what/who you care about" is *not* the moral you should be going with when debating whether or not someone is at fault for killing someone when they had every option to Not Do So. watch the mars conflict again and maybe youll understand that the problem isnt attachments, its the people who want to use them against you.

[donnerpartyofone]

reasons my i am probably too sensitive to have anything to do with other people

including other people’s drama that has absolutely nothing to do with me

i started reading this person’s new webcomic on instagram a month or two ago, and what started out as a fun little time killer that i looked forward to every day has started making me so uncomfortable that i wish i’d never heard of it. it takes place right now, in an especially embattled US city, and it’s about the dysfunctional lives of a bunch of shallow millennials, set against the backdrop of an increasingly dangerous country in an unpredictable state of revolt. it’s solidly engaging, convincingly characterized, and rendered in a unique funny animal style; i wasn’t surprised to discover that it’s going to be published soon by the most reputable publisher of this sort of thing. at first, i was impressed by it because i thought the behavior and dialog of its insecure young people was so well observed. it felt like one of the only things of its kind that i’ve read, more or less about real people living right now, that was neither a broad ugly satire, nor a pretentious drama exaggerating the specialness of its characters. the other thing i liked about it was that while it was largely about their sex lives, it didn’t seem at all sexy to me. the artist has a kind of distorted, rough-hewn visual style that i thought put some emotional distance between the overheated state of the characters, and the real consequences of their decisions. then it all got weird.

the artist stuck a really long, graphic sex scene in the middle of story that made me think...oh, maybe i AM supposed to be getting off to this? that’s weird, this all seems really bad to me, like every character is just mindlessly, selfishly bent on destruction and not doing much to make me like them, and i’d been reading along thinking “god i’m SO GLAD i’m not in my 20s anymore and i don’t have to deal with people like this--or with the pressure to act like this, as if using sex to create drama and being ‘crazy’ is the ultimate thing a person can do with their life”--and then suddenly it felt like maybe the comic was actually some kind of celebration of this lifestyle, or at the very least it’s an intensely sentimental portrait of a time of life, and of types of people, that i cannot imagine feeling sentimental about. then something else happened that made the comic even MORE uncomfortable to read, somehow: it had been gaining traction at an amazing pace, with tons of people leaving comments to the tune of “noooo don’t do it!”, the way you would yell at someone in a horror movie not to go back for the cat, as each character made the worst possible personal choice in every daily installment. the “don’t go in there!” response seemed pretty natural to me, but then the artist stepped in and made this announcement threatening to stop doing the comic altogether if the readers wouldn’t stop criticizing the characters. pretty much everyone in the comments was like “???”. many apologized if their comments were offensive, although they had no idea what they could have said that was wrong; other people, who seemed more sure that they were the ones being accused, said that they thought you were SUPPOSED to feel critical of the characters’ obviously bad decisions. that was how i felt, and at that point i was just enormously glad that i never comment on shit online or get involved in any type of community shit, especially when the artist started explaining laboriously that all of the characters represent some facet of the artist themselves and so therefore none of them are meant to be seen in a bad light at all and they’re all meant to be loved unconditionally and if you find yourself thinking mean things about the characters then you are effectively shitting all over the artist as a person. a lot of readers fell all over themselves to be supportive, and i just thought...this isn’t something you should support, though. it sucks that the artist is feeling so sensitive, but they’re about to have a book out in the world where they won’t have any ability to threaten readers who are “reading it wrong” or having incorrect thoughts about it. i mean...life is full of uncomfortable experiences and people you can’t relate to, i really don’t think we should be promoting this hopeless sanitization of all experiences in which trigger warnings used to be something that protected traumatized people from being randomly confronted with traumatic material, and now they’re used to just make sure nobody ever has to hear anything they don’t like, ever. anyone who cares about this artist should be helping them understand that they cannot control how people read their book or how they feel about each character and story in it. or failing that, they should be encouraged to just turn off instagram comments. but because of all this drama, i found myself reading all the comments obsessively--something i did when the blowup first happened, because i couldn’t find anything in there that i thought was mean or offensive, which added to my uncomfortable fascination with the whole thing--and that’s when i spotted a comment where somebody asked the artist is this was a furry comic. i wish this didn’t blow my mind, but it kind of did. i mean, it’s a book where almost all the characters are animals, and they occasionally have a bunch of raunchy sex. i think that if you’re a furry, meaning you’re interested in that sort of thing, this book is completely available for you to enjoy however you want. but this person needed the artist to FORMALLY CATEGORIZE IT as a furry comic. what the fuck is the meaning of that? it struck me as something that people in fandoms do, where they need every single thing to be labeled to death in an intensive and intractable way like it was science, the Final Word on everything in the universe, and they like *argue with each other* about whether they’re *allowed* to ship certain characters together or imagine them doing specific things, which is something you would only worry about if you thought the topic represented a literal material reality that could be adversely affected by people’s improper thoughts. i mean imagine if you felt that way about your jerkoff fantasies about fictional characters? that your horny thoughts are up for debate by hundreds of people you don’t even know? imagine feeling like that about OTHER PEOPLE’S jerkoff fantasies, like it’s worth fighting over and trying to CONTROL? like holy fucking shit you guys, STOP IT. it would even be one thing to ask the artist if THEY were a furry, which may or may not be anybody’s business, but to ask whether interpreting the comic through a furry lens is ALLOWED is like...well, actually, maybe it’s exactly in line with the artist’s recently expressed attitude, that you’re forced to think of the book in exactly the way that they personally think about it, or else you should have your reading privileges revoked. so now i’m still reading the comic, sort of compulsively, because i’m a little addicted to the soap opera of it and i’m ALSO a little addicted to the soap opera of the artist battling the readers over finding the correct orthodoxy for reading the comic--there’s a particular guy i’ve become aware of in the comics community because he is always harassing people with this mix of really caustic sarcasm and really bitter political self-righteousness, and he was surely the main person who was being “mean” to the characters, and HE’S STILL DOING IT IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, because i guess the artist would rather have problems with people than simply block them and eliminate them from the equation? but the whole entire thing is making me so uncomfortable i can hardly stand it. reading about like, dumb hot chicks with no self-control, and smug young shitheads who use the veil of progressiveness to hide or justify their predatory sexual behavior, and grownass adults who start drama with 20 year olds in order to feel relevant, AND being forced to know that the artist intends for me to embrace and adore all of this bad shit--like, people and things i left behind in real life, because it was all bad!--with ultimate love and compassion, or else they reserve the right to claim that they’re being personally attacked, has just become too much to take. it’s starting to make me feel sick. i really need to take the reigns on this thing. as much as the artist needs to forget about this control fantasy and stop being so precious about what they’re doing, i need to stop subjecting myself to something i find painful, embarrassing, and frankly creepy, if i ever wanna get back to a state where i have less to complain about.

tl;dr: stupid hipster is too sensitive to read a webcomic by a stupid hipster who is too sensitive for anyone to read their webcomic.

[hollowcrovvn]

The Ostensive Fumblings of Being Human (part 3)

Pairing: Connor x female!reader Rating: T (please note rating change) Summary: Set two months after the ending of Detroit: Become Human, androids are living in government created “pop-up” communities while efforts are being made to integrate them into society. You are a grad-student volunteer with the Detroit Crisis Response Unit (DCRU), working to help with relief efforts. And now, finally it’s time for that coffee.

Notes: Disclaimer: I am obsessed with Machiavelli so it was only a matter of time before I threw him in here. And by obsessed I mean I loathe most of his points of view and like some of them. It's a love-hate thing. One of my first “date questions” is always on Machiavelli and I feel like it is very relevant given the upheaval and changes in the “government” in the end of the game as a result of the revolution.Though his bit on Moses is making me have all the Markus-needs-to-eventually-appear inklings. (part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (ao3)

It had started as just a regular conversation on interests, tucked in the back of the coffee shop where there were nice sleek couches to lounge in, but had divulged into an intense debate on one of the most important topics of the past-- Kindles.

“Okay. The world treated eReaders like the devil in the early 2010s. Now? Can barely find a printed book anywhere.”

“Which has cut down on mass deforestation since paper is no longer in high demand.” Connor noted, playing devil’s advocate so perfectly it was enough to make a conflict addicted girl swoon.

“Exactly! So why all the fuss back when? Cause of some preoccupation with nostalgia ? Even now you got guys like Hank who bemoan the loss of paperbacks, as if we’re all gonna forget how to read in the meanwhile.”

Connor smiled and reached out, plucking the sleeve of your jacket aka the remake of the 2003 Canada Goose brand. He sat back, looking pleased with himself as you grumbled into your second latte. Granted, it hardly looked like coffee at all but more like chocolate milk with the amount of creamer you’d had them use. You’d refused to order your usual, to Connor’s chagrin. He had not yet it seemed formed an opinion to what your actual favorite was.

“It’s different! They responsibly source the materials for those coats now.” you insisted, but Connor only smiled and smiled, refusing to concede to your point. As if he had any room to talk. This man had at least four different styles, alternating between professional, casual professional, street  and hipster circa 2010. He mixed them sometimes to interesting effects. You were pretty sure he spent the majority of his paycheck on clothes.Then again, after spending most of his life being forced to wear the same damn android branded attire, you could hardly blame his enthusiasm.

“One could argue the shift to electronics however, is contributing to the climate change phenomenon.” Connor added, picking up the paperback book in question that had started this conversation. It was one of Hank’s, which was shocking. The Prince by Machiavelli. You half wondered if it was meant to be a joke on Connor’s expense or if Hank had actually recommended something halfway decent, if not a bit pessimistic, for the Android to learn about.

You huffed, “So we’re killing the planet no matter what. Great. Cheery. I need another coffee.”

Connor’s LED whirled, blinking before settling a solid blue. “Your pulse is elevated to 97 beats per minute and your blood pressure has raised by 8 and 6 points in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively. I would advise switching to water.”

“How do you know that's from the caffeine and not your innate magnetism .” you said, trying to lower your voice to a “sultry” level, but only managing to laugh.

“That would be highly improbable. I emit no traceable magnetic fields.”

Then the mother fucker winked .

You had begun to realize the parts of his personality you thought were intentional deadpan humor, were in fact, just deadpan facts. That one though? Definitely intentional . He picked up the book, thumbing open the pages that were dogeared and worn.

“Published in 1532, a political treatise by Italian diplomat and political-theorist, Niccolo Machiavelli. Considered one of the first books of modern philosophy, it’s topics range from human nature, military prowess, governments and history.”

He flipped to a specific page that you could tell had been once been highlighted and circled several times, now faded with time. Once upon a time, maybe Hank had noted it.

“Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel.” he read aloud, perfect and clear. You shut your eyes and listened.

“Every one sees what you appear to be, few--” he stopped abruptly, drawing your attention upward. He swallowed, his throat bobbing, “Few... really know what you are.”

His LED flickered yellow for a few seconds and then faded back to blue. You didn't really have the heart to tell him the quote was being taken wildly out of context, because it fit too well. It spoke to him. Let it mean what he wanted it to mean.

“This should be a very interesting read. Have you read it?” he asked, turning to the beginning of the book.

“Oh yeah, me and about 100 other people in PHI 1100. “Contemporary Moral Issues”. After I limped my way through the introductory course, I managed to do somewhat decent there.”

“Do you enjoy philosophy?”

“I tolerate it. Barely. With clenched teeth. I think it’s all well and good to “feed your mind” as Dolce would say, as long as your stomach is full. That’s not a common thing for the poor though so philosophy has always seemed to me as… well, a rich-man’s way to kill time.”

You swished the remaining dregs of your latte around in the bottom of your cup.

“I think it’s real easy to sit on high telling people they need to think of this, or that when you don’t have to worry about where your next meal is coming from.”

Connor gave a wry smile, “Then it is a good thing I don’t eat. I will need to read a few more selections before I form a more in depth opinion.”

“Knock yourself out, hipster. I’ll send you all my ebooks I had to get for the classes if you want.”

He perked up, the LED on his temple spiraling.

“My designation code should appear now on your phone for upload.” he said with excitement. His eyes held onto yours patiently, the intensity of it making you flounder, quickly grabbing your phone. Sure enough there was a message that a “RK800” unit was attempting to sync to your device.

[ allow synchronization? y/n? ]

You clicked yes and watched as the phone took on a mind of its own, files opening and flipping at rapid speed until it settled upon your digital library. You set the phone down carefully, eyes flicking between Connor and the device. He had that same far away look Josh got when accessing the web. It took only a few seconds before your phone flashed the words the same time Connor spoke them,

“Upload completed. Thank you, reading these should be very…” he paused, “Fun.”

“And I thought I needed to get out more.” you said, enjoying the bright look of wonder on Connor’s face as his eyes flickered back and forth, clearly already browsing the new selection.

“It doesn’t bother you, does it?” he said, tilting his head, “I should have clarified if you meant to send them now.”

“It’s definitely gonna take some getting use to if you make a habit of connecting to my phone, but nah, it doesn’t bother me.” you said, but Connor still looked skeptical so you continued,  “I’m a little jealous to be honest, woulda made reading those bricks easier if I knew you three years ago.”

“It is very efficient. However, no more so than any other academic assistant android you could have purchased then.”

You felt a twist in your chest at the way he said “purchased” so easily when you could tell by the faint grimace on his face that the idea was as disturbing now to him as a “deviant” as it was to you.

“I meant like a classmate,” you quickly added, “Like the way we are now.”

“You study urban planning, not philosophy. Perhaps I should browse those texts as well so we can have more “classmate” simulate conversations.” he said, tilting his head to the other side as if considering the idea further.

“We can always talk about you.” you said, “What do you like?”

His head tilted slightly further, he almost looked like a puppy when he did that, brown eyes soft and always, always curious.

“I enjoy solving cases with Hank-- Lieutenant Anderson. I enjoy calibrating my reflex drive with coin tricks. I like talking with--”

You held up a hand, “Whoa whoa, back up! Coin tricks?!”

Your sudden enthusiasm seemed to take him off guard, but within a moment he produced a quarter from his pocket. He let it slowly walk across his knuckles one way and then faster backwards. You watched, rapt in attention and smiling bright.

“What else?!” you asked and Connor gave a lopsided smile, standing up.

“I need a bit more room for this one. Okay. So-- first you flip.” he said and did so, flipping the coin up once in the air, “And then--”

He flicked it so fast from one hand directly into the other that you almost missed it. Your entire face broke open, “Ooooohh my god! Do that again!”

He was more than happy to oblige, this time flicking the coin back rapidly and then ending by catching it between two fingers.

“Okay you have got to teach that one to me.”

“I’m not sure if you’d be able to get it without a lot of practice, but-- here.” he took your hand in his, carefully directing you to hold your fingers in a scissor shape the way he had. His eyes were intensely focused as he moved you exactly where he needed, carefully stepping behind you and placing his hands on your hips.

“Stand a bit more grounded.”

He nudged your shoe with his and you complied, hoping he wasn’t registering the heat rising up in your face. Was he holding on just a bit longer than was really even needed? A bit tighter? You could just barely feel the brush of his shirt at your back, leaning towards it.

“Don’t move.” he said, a soft command. You stood back up straight.

He came around to stand at your side, not even noticing the small gathering of people who were now watching the pair of you.

“Alright. Ready?”

You nodded.

“Just... hold… still.”

He paused, LED whirling for a moment before he flicked the coin and it found itself, trapped perfectly between your index and middle finger. You all but squealed, laughing with unbridled delight.

“That was so freakin’ cool! Can we do it again?”

But before Connor could take the coin from you, a man pushed over to the sitting area and scowled.

“Hey. No fuckin’ tin-can’s. Did you not see the sign lady?”

You were caught off guard, but Connor immediately straightened.

“Sign? There aren’t anymore signs.” you said, remembering that there was no tell tale red sign with a blue triangle issuing that androids were not allowed when you entered.

“There should be. There was. Now we gotta deal with these plastic freaks acting like they own the damn city.”

He looked Connor up and down with measured disgust, eyes lingering on the LED that was quickly flashing yellow.

“You should keep your pet at home.” the man continued, “You don’t see people bringing their dogs where others eat.”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to please return to your table.” Connor’s voice was more mechanical than you had heard it before, measured and even, despite the yellow light flickering.

“I detect levels of ethanol on your breath. A bit early for a nightcap, isn’t it?” Connor continued and the man’s expression switched quickly to shocked and then pissed.

“Keep your fuckin’ eyes off me, freak.” he said, shoving Connor, who did not even move a fraction. “Public intoxication is a misdemeanor under Section 750.168 of the Michigan penal code. I advise you take your coffee home, sir, and sober up .” Connor said, standing up way too far into this guy’s space to be mistaken for anything but an invitation that said, Hit me, do it. I dare you.

You moved forward, quickly slipping your arm between the two men, curling it around Connor’s abdomen. You slid your entire body between them, the asshole guy stepping back.

“Hey, he’s a cop . See?” you pushed aside Connor’s jacket, displaying the DPD badge on his hip.

“You wanna add assaulting an officer to that rap sheet he’s already typing up from his head?”

The guy noted the badge and despite his initial aggression, he took a step back.

“Whatever, bitch.”

You sighed, relieved he was backing off, until Connor lurched forward from behind you. You spun around, pushing your palms flat against his chest. He didn’t resist you, but he didn’t take his eyes off the guy either.

“Apologize to her.” he said, each word punctuated with rigid coldness, LED flashing red.

“Fuck you and your plastic-fuckin’ girlfriend.”

“Hey!” a voice drew all three of your attention up to a barista wearing a different uniform than the others, designating her a manager, “How about you all take a breather somewhere else before I call the real cops?”

“Fine.” you said, pushing back at Connor who had stepped forward again trying to outmaneuver you.

“It’s a nice sunny day and I’m not a fan of the smell of shit and espresso.” you said, giving the guy a glare of your own. You took Connor’s hand, ignoring any comments from anyone else as you headed out the door. Connor didn’t fight you, but walked briskly away from the coffee shop to the point it was now like he was leading you.

His grip was tight, unrelenting. His LED was still a vivid circle of red. Once you were far enough away, you dug your heels in and released his hand. He stopped, but still held on. He snapped his eyes to yours, looking confused and just so-- lost. Like he wasn’t even sure where he was or where he was going.

You didn’t even know where to start.

“… Connor, I am so sorry.”

What else could you say? You were the stupid one who invited him there. His brows furrowed tightly, anger still twitching in his lips as he shook his head.

“Don’t.” he said, voice strained, “Don’t apologize for them .”

His jaw was tight, working and unclenching. He was rubbing your hand in his own, a tick similar to his coin. People walked around you as you both were standing in the middle of the sidewalk, giving Connor nervous glances as they passed. He noticed finally and stepped to the side, filing into an empty alley facing the street.

“I need a minute.” he said, his pulmonary functions attempting to slow. You stepped closer, reaching up to gently touch his back. You stroked up once.

“Of course, just… take all the time you need.”

He was tense, every carbon fiber cord in his body ready to respond, to act. His LED began flickering, slowly turning yellow and holding.

“It’s becoming more common.” he said, disappointment evident in his voice.

“I’d say it was always common, people feeling safe to express their stupidity has just gotten worse.”

“Not that.” he said, sighing, “My… temper. Hank says I have a temper .”

A deviant android with a quick fuse, that wasn’t entirely unheard of, but yet Connor seemed disturbed more so by his own behavior than the other guys.

“I detected a significant jump in your pulse and breathing rate. You were upset. I upset you.” Connor said, going to release your hand. You snapped it back up before he could, squeezing tight.

“Connor. Look at me.”

He did.

“I wasn’t upset because of you, I was upset for you.” you said, searching his eyes, making sure you confirmed his understanding before you continued, “That guy was being a grade A dickhead and I… I made you show me those tricks and it just drew all that attention to you. It’s dumb and it’s unfair , but I should have known better.”

“I wanted to show you.” Connor said, insistent, “I knew it would make you smile. I… like that. When you were asking what I like. I like receiving positive feedback from you. It’s very informative.”

That got a laugh from you, quiet and resigned.

“Like that. I don’t know how I got you to do that, but I’m attempting to work it out. So far the data has been inconsistent.”

“Really?” you said, “How so?”

“You laugh even when I am actually not trying to be humorous.” Connor said, as if you were a bit silly for not knowing.

“You’re a funny guy.”

“Hank would say otherwise.”

Connor’s LED had returned to blue, holding steady.

“Your temperature is dropping. You should be getting home so you can warm up.”

“No.” you said, grinning. This time when he furrowed his brow it was not as sharp.

“Your current core temperature is not a debatable subject, ---. You are at 97.9 degrees.”

You hummed, “So question. When you do that, are you scanning my entire body or just the surface temperature?”

Connor opened his mouth, thought better, and then it closed it. You swore if he could blush he would be. You inclined your head expectantly.

“What else does the scan pick up?” you asked, both curious and enjoying the look of semi-panic rushing over Connor’s features. The blue LED flickered just for a moment.

“I know that you have not eaten in the last four hours and will begin to feel hunger pains in approximately the next twenty to thirty minutes.” he stated matter-of-factly, “You have a healed fracture on your left ankle, most likely from rolling it sometime within the last two years. Also, your pupils dilate when you look at me, indicating that you find me aesthetically pleasing.”

“Ho-kay.” you said, interrupting him and snatching your hand back, “You had me at the beginning there, I’ll admit.”

“Did I successfully embarrass you, ---?” Connor said, putting his hands into his pockets and following after you with a renewed smugness.

“Um. That’s such cheating. I can’t control my pupils!”

“Of course. I understand it is not conscious. Besides. I was designed to be pleasing .”

“Yeah? Then I’m gonna need you to tell me where to file a product complaint.”

Connor laughed and it sounded so human it infected your own smile.

“”Hello, yes Cyberlife?”, you continued, using your hand to mimic a phone, “”Do you take constructive criticism? Because your RK800 model is becoming a royal pain in my ass.””

“I’ve never had a bad review in my life!” he asserted, placing a hand over his chest in mock offense.

“That’s because you’ve only been alive for seven months! God. You’re an infant. I am literally on a date with an infant.”

Your laughter subsided when you noted Connor was no longer part of the chorus, turning to look at him, you found his own eyes trailed on you with the barest of smiles.

“This has been… different. Good, but different.” he said, choosing the words carefully, “I’d like to do it again.”

“Yeah, yeah, you smug bastard. You probably already know I’m going to say “yes” by the micro expressions of my eyebrows or some crap.”

Your joke was cut short as Connor stepped forward, gingerly reaching up and letting his hand trace the side of your face, thumb rubbing in gentle circles for a moment over the spot right next to your brow. His eyes were hooded, intent.

“No. I don’t think I see anything.”

He was so close-- god damn him for being so close. You couldn’t read his face at all on whether he was being serious right now or was being a tease. The LED light on his temple gave nothing away in it’s blue aura.

“Wait...right there.”

You felt your breath catch.

“I detect the forming of premature wrinkles.”

“Oh, you asshole. ”

You swatted at him, but he was too fast, dodging out of range with a school boy grin.

“I’m freezing and I’m hungry and I think you need to go home and think about what you’ve done.” you said, crossing your arms against the frigid breeze.

“I told you all of those things a minute ago.” Connor said, returning to arms reach long enough to offer his hand in what you assumed was to be a handshake. You scoffed and submitted, letting him take your hand again lightly. He squeezed and let go.

“I’ll text you later.” he said, mirroring your own words. For a moment it almost felt so normal. Just a boy and a girl on a date. It hadn’t turned out to be what you expected, but that was something you were beginning to think you could live with.

“You better.”

When had it become so hard to concentrate? You rapt your stylus against your desk, oblivious to the crowd and the constant hum of conversation as people moved around the facility. You hadn’t heard back anything from Josh regarding the files you brought, in fact, you hadn’t seen an android inside the DCRU office in several days. You leaned back in your chair, hoping to catch a glimpse but instead found yourself looking right into the pencil skirt of London Fog-- aka your supervisor, Miranda.

“You interested in getting out of here?” she asked, curly brown hair tied back in a bun. You think she must been a librarian in a past life based on how she dressed. Nothing else would explain those cat eye glasses.

“Depends.” you said, voice wary. She laughed, because honestly you didn’t have too much choice in it.

“We’re doing a quick run through. We’ve gotten reports that there have been some break ins through the fence perimeter around the--” she stopped, trying to avoid the word “camp” like most people in charge. It was not a good connection to form.

“-- housing facilities. Just need to assess the damage and estimate cost. The androids asked specifically for the director to come, but she is busy elsewhere.” Miranda shrugged, “If I have an intern following me, I look more important!”

Ah, the director. Cinnamon dolce.

Knowing that there was not much more discussion to be had, you picked up your tablet and your coat.

“Where’s the damage?” you asked, voice weary.

“We’ve got a ride to the other side of the facility all lined up for us.” Miranda said, flicking through some documents and sending them to your tablet.

“It’ll be a good learning opportunity!”

Sure. Yay. Fence maintenance.

By the time you arrived it became very obvious that this was not some accidental damage or wear-and-tear, this was a full on someone-took-pliers-to-the-fence-and-cut-a-hole damage. You recognized Josh out of the crowd of humans and androids. He gave you a faint smile and then turned his attention to Miranda.

“Was it a break out?” she asked, earning a narrow look from Josh.

“We’re not prisoners here. Everyone knows they can come and go as they please.” Josh said, voice edged with warning.

“So break in?” Miranda said, confirming to herself. You flipped to the incident report she sent to your tablet and began to jot down notes.

“It would appear so. But nothing was taken. No one has seen anyone strange around the homes either.”

The “homes” for lack of a better word, were simple modular buildings, stacked in sets of three with outside stair railings. A few androids stood on said stairs, peering over the side down at them. The entire facility sat in an old parking lot formerly used by GM back in the late 2000s. It had been sitting vacant for years now and taken by the government for use in the re-homing process.

The modular homes were efficient, if not always “cozy”. The androids were able to file comfort requests, but you’d seen the stacks. It was hard to imagine it was easy to get much of anything, but it was safe . Safer than outside, where humans might attack an android on the street. Here there were soldiers and fences that were meant to keep the outside world out, not them in.

Markus would have not accepted anything less.

“I don’t like that. Have the military units informed to be looking for someone who doesn’t belong and pull any CCTV footage from this area.” Miranda said, stepping forward and examining the fence more closely.

“Tracks say three people!” a voice yelled from above. There was a young looking blond man, standing at the very top of the modular complex. He quickly made his way down, easily constructing a safe path to the ground.

Josh smiled with familiarity, taking the hand offered to him by the man warmly.

“When did you get back into the city?”

“A few days ago. Glad to be back though. D.C. is somehow even colder.”

Miranda turned her attention back towards the two men, greeting the newcomer with nothing more than a faint nod.

“Simon. You said three people?”

Simon nodded, pointing to a variety of spots that now showed traces of mud and slush disturbance.

“Three. They circled in, came this way…”

He moved ahead, heading behind the modular unit. There was a good fifteen feet between it’s back and the fence.

“Then this way. Stopped here, but then one set of tracks keeps going while the other two circle back.” Simon’s eyes narrowed, giving Josh a strange look.

“Something isn’t right. I smell--”

A flash. Blinding and loud. So loud that suddenly your ears were filled with unbearable ringing. You felt your feet lift from the ground, heat bursting across your skin. There were quick flicks of pain, as if a hail storm had pelted you. And then you found the ground again, hitting hard to the concrete as the ringing just kept on. Something heavy fell on your chest, knocking the wind from you.

Your vision blurred, arms shaking as you tried to find something, anything to hold onto to make the world stop spinning. Someone was ontop of you, arms curled around your frame. The smell of thirium and smoke was thick in your nostrils and when your vision came to, there was blue andJosh.

All cradled in a backdrop of red flames.

[csown]

Our Human Games: games are everywhere, and they matter more than most people think

Games reflect an important part of human psychology. One broad way to think about “games” is that they are any situation that has:

(a) a set of rules (explicit or implicit) that are made-up by humans

(b) a scoring system (explicit or implicit) for determining how players are doing or for deciding who wins

(c) participants who are trying to increase their “score”

(d) a game context (outside of which the game rules stop applying)

—

So, by this definition, games include chess, poker, football, and tennis, but also things like:

• money games (e.g., competing with friends and acquaintances to have a more expensive looking car/watch/suit)

• altruism games (e.g., billionaires outbidding each other in charity auctions)

• coolness games (e.g., choosing clothing to demonstrate that your taste is trend setting rather than trend following)

• intelligence games (e.g., Oscar Wilde verbally jousting with his friends)

• sexual games (e.g., a man trying to seduce a woman while maintaining plausible deniability, and her playing hard to get despite her intense attraction to him)

• strength games (e.g., boys wrestling after school)

• legal games (e.g., lawyers using every tool they know to beat each other in a case)

• academic games (e.g., young academics trying to outcompete each other in terms of who can get the most papers published in the top 10 journals)

• knowledge games (e.g., two people debating a factual topic in front of others at a party, each trying to show that the other person is wrong)

• political games (e.g., trying to form a strong coalition and to make the opposing coalition look corrupt or incompetent)

• career games (e.g., optimizing your behavior for getting promoted, rather than, say, for accomplishing the purpose of your work role)

—

Our brains have a tendency to temporarily treat games as reality (a suspension of disbelief).

This is not a bad thing - it’s part of what makes games fun and motivating, and it gets us to try hard at them. Those that can’t or won’t do this suspension of disbelief tend to be bad at games. There’s little joy or motivation in games if we’re just thinking, “I’m moving this wooden peg, so this number goes up.” We must (at least temporarily) believe that the number MATTERS.

Games can be fun, rewarding, and motivating. For some people, game playing is one of life’s great joys. And games make learning more fun (in fact, games are fundamental to how we humans learn). Children invent and play many kinds of games that help them figure out adult behaviors. And gamification can make difficult activities feel easier (e.g., you can turn a difficult task into a game to make it more pleasant).

But, on the flip side, games also can become a big problem when we forget for too long that we’re playing a game. Or if we permanently swap them for reality. Or if we come to think that winning the game is what fundamentally matters.

—

Consider the way that game playing distorts different activities:

• Science gets really screwed up when it is treated as a game where we compete to publish, rather than as a way to figure out the truth about reality. This is part of why science has so many false positives.

• Altruism gets really screwed up when it is treated as a game to prove you’re a good person, rather than as a way to help others. This is part of why so much altruism is not effective at improving the world.

• Governments get really screwed up when politics becomes a game (where most of what matters is beating the other side), rather than treating politics as a way to get helpful policies implemented.

• Medical schools get really screwed up if they become a game of who can memorize the most and function the best without sleep, rather than a means to train effective doctors.

• The startup world gets really screwed up when it becomes a game of who can raise the most capital or do the coolest sounding thing, rather than having a focus on making products that solve actual problems.

• News gets really screwed up when it becomes a game about who can get the most clicks, rather than as a means to spread true information.

• Law gets really screwed up when it becomes a game about what companies and people can technically get away with, rather than as a means of enforcing agreements and protecting people.

—

Games can be small or large, great or terrible. The key thing is to not get stuck inside a game without realizing it. Sadly, many people spend their whole life stuck in a game, confusing it for something more.

Sometimes we have no choice but to play a game that we don't value. But recognizing games for what they are can help us leave them when they are poorly aligned with what we actually care about.

It’s great to play games sometimes, and to suspend your disbelief to make them more fun and motivating. But don’t forget for too long that you are suspending it.

Games are not reality, though they might have real-world consequences. The in-game scoring system (whatever it is) does not reflect what you truly, intrinsically value. The rules of the game are made up by humans, and are not the fundamental constraints on what behaviors you can and can’t take (though there might be consequences for breaking the game rules).

Play games cognizantly.

—

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[gigsoupmusic]

Jason & The Rex Goes In-Depth about New Video "Bullets Are Flying" - Exclusive Interview

Recently debuting with an activist video on gun violence, Jason & The Rex is stepping onto the scene with "Bullets Are Flying". A mixture of hip-hop, future-funk, and dream-pop combine to create a dense soundscape of vibrant horns, a melancholy piano lead, and strange-sounding synths. Jason's pensive, sometimes manic, flow washes over creating a dialogue on the gun violence issue in the US. Jason was kind enough to sit down and give GIGSoup the exclusive inside scoop on the creation and inspiration behind "Bullets Are Flying". https://youtu.be/g5DTa6cvfcs Tell us about writing the song "Bullets Are Flying"…. what emotions were you feeling at the time? Chaotic. Disoriented. There’s a scene in Dario Argento’s Suspiria where one of the characters falls into a pit of barbed wire. The more she tries to escape, the more she bleeds. It’s a mangled inner conflict. That’s kind of how I felt when I was writing “Bullets Are Flying.” I felt more and more entangled in a barbed wire mess of thoughts and emotions and political jabs and daily, present concerns. When the Parkland incident happened, I was already feeling very professionally and creatively stalled. I’m an actor by vocation. At the time, I was going for a lot of Chinatown thug types -- violent, gun-wielding, angry Asian dudes. I was getting rejected over and over again for projects that I didn’t really even believe in. I felt inauthentic as an artist. Music was supposed to be my outlet, but everything I created was stale and uninspired. And the worst part, I felt like I was failing as a citizen. I was -- and still am -- a reasonably privileged adult who has skills and a higher education. The gun crisis stripped teenagers of their adolescence, and those teenagers responded by standing up to the gun lobby and the politicians they controlled. What was I doing? Beating myself up because, after several attempts, I still couldn’t land a part as a stereotype on Iron Fist? Something snapped after Parkland. All the “thoughts and prayers” and familiar rallying cries came to a fever pitch, and I just started writing down…stuff. I was trying to express grief, to articulate my panic and anger, while also trying to provide commentary. I wanted to find an explanation. And someone to blame. A way out. Or a way forward. I wanted to crack the code on gun violence. I was also coming to terms with my guilt. My social posturing. My vanity in all of this. In trying to create this piece, was I turning the attention to myself? It wasn’t joyous or inspiring. It was a regurgitation of all the thoughts and feelings -- all the stuff -- I hadn’t processed.

The refrain of the song actually came to me much earlier, quite randomly. I like to think it’s because it’s more of a passive observation. Bullets are flying. Where? And why? While they fly, people are mourning. These are constants. Whereas, the two verses -- they’re snapshots of that gloomy winter morning when I was pacing back and forth on my bed trying to make sense of Parkland. It’s like I was trying to extricate myself from the gun culture and the epidemic it has created. But every thought would just pull me back into the mess. Barbed wire. Can’t help thinking about it. Gun violence. Mass shootings. I dream of ways to reshape gun culture. But, uh oh, gun culture has shaped giant parts of who I am. And I contribute back into gun culture. Not only do I love a bloody action thriller. I routinely express my love for John Wayne movies. I think the Punisher is a pretty cool anti-hero. In debating and discussing issues related to gun violence, we shout into our echo chambers while attacking opposing views. We display our alliances. We present ourselves on a side. Scoring our solidarity points is just as essential to gun culture as shooting the guns themselves. In writing this song, I was incredibly self-conscious. Was I just filling my notebook with solidarity points and quips from self-reflection? I offered my perspective on gun violence, while simultaneously reflecting and taking apart that perspective. I felt angry and powerful. But I also felt guilty and insignificant. Is saying something mostly an empty gesture? Probably. But not saying something is equally, if not more, disconcerting. Maybe this song is entirely descriptive of this emotional purgatory I create after a mass shooting like Parkland, where processing anything is just squirming in my barbed wire, while bullets are flying. What is your favorite lyric in the song? "I’m an actor, so I know how to weep. "

There are lots of hidden layers and meaning in the video… can you tell us what some of those are and why you chose to include them? I’m pretty fluid with my interpretation of the video. But most days, it goes something like this: Setting - The characters are in a place of purgatory. It’s that place I create when I’m trying to process gun violence. They may or may not know each other. Screens - On the screens, the characters stare at scenes involving their physical selves. Characters - I play the boy, and we designed the look to reflect someone in a prestigious position. On the TV’s, he’s probably a politician of some sort. I don’t think that’s who the boy is in real life, especially if the boy is me. But in this particular place of purgatory (maybe there are multiple rooms in purgatory), I’m presenting the politically active parts of myself. The dancer might be a whole separate character. She’s someone directly impacted by political leaders and their decisions. So in this place, we have a civic leader and someone he impacts. Seen this way, let’s say the boy is fried in the beginning. He’s lost his will. Been in purgatory too long. The dancer enters. Maybe she sees a party she’s currently attending in the real world. She pulls the boy out of his funk. They are actual human beings who can connect. When we hear about gun violence, our screens create abstracts of the event and the victims. But here in purgatory, the two have to make actual, physical contact. Their actions directly impact each other. Movement - There is a loose choreography. But, mainly, Ashley (the dancer) and I created a structure and improvised within it. Basically, there’s a struggle in the beginning. Japanese Butoh definitely informs the early interactions in the video, as the style can create a sense of shared grief. The movement becomes more playful and celebratory, which I think reflects another convoluted part of processing gun violence. After Parkland, I sunk into a pit of melancholy for probably no more than half a day and then I was out with my friends. We’d talk about mass shootings, but then we’d goof off, and the topic eventually recedes, until we’ve tuned it out completely (though temporarily). In the video, the TV screens are upfront and center in the beginning, but then the movement draws our attention to the characters themselves. There’s an ominous outro, where we intercut to the party-goers on the screens lying facedown on a roof. Lives lost to gun violence? In the purgatory place, we only have close-ups of the characters, many of which focus on the hands in spell-like gestures. The issue of gun violence does seem to have this elusive, enigmatic quality. So maybe whatever happens between these two in this purgatory has some ineffable effect in the world.

What do you hope fans gain as a result from watching/listening to your art? Mostly, I hope this keeps the conversation going. Like I said about the video, the topic always recedes, often because the screens start showing other things to us. As artists, I think we can keep things front and center. It’s funny. When I finished the video, I came across grandson’s “Thoughts and Prayers” single. For a whiff, I felt like my project would be redundant. But, of course, until it’s a non-issue, I say the more content we produce, the better. On a more practical note, I’m pledging all the royalties from this project towards organizations like March For Our Lives. So when people listen or watch, they are indirectly or directly (starting to really question my understanding of this concept) benefiting the cause. I think it allows listeners a little extra way to participate in reform measures. You had a hand in creating all of the aspects of the single… writing, producing, creating the video….. tell us about that process as an artist. How does it influence your work? It slows down the process by too much. No, but really, it allows complete ownership over the process, at least of the track itself. I’m entirely responsible for every aspect of it. Holding the work so precious does create a lot of room for self-doubt, but the fears of commitment also pushes for more experimentation. When I create tracks, it’s like I’m recording and re-mixing an exploration. Or maybe it’s like I’m a one-man jam band in my room. It certainly allows me to include weird ideas like recording the words “thoughts and prayers” and using that sample to create different drum sounds. You can’t really tell when you hear it, but I think it’s a fun little Easter Egg. As for the video, I came up with a structure, but this is where I wanted to open up the perspective. I’m kind of enjoying the thought that creating the track itself was like the boy in the video struck in purgatory alone. Then with the video, I’ve invited other perspectives, just as there’s now another person with the boy in purgatory. I’m a nerd, I know. But, yes, I think because I gave myself a clear foundation after working on the track, we were able to do a lot of exploring with the concept of the video, which then allows for its fluid interpretation. Fun fact: the video was originally supposed to involve a dancer and an agent of death battling over a remote that controls one single TV screen displaying a party. You've spoken about how you want your music to be a platform for activism….. what are some other issues you are passionate about? There are a lot. But I’m just going to list one here to emphasize how important it is. THE ENVIRONMENT. Tell us about your upcoming album….. what can fans expect to hear? It’s tentatively called Synthesizer or Variations of: An Endemic Cycle. The EP will have about 6or 7 songs that expand upon the narrative in “Bullets Are Flying.” Just as “Bullets Are Flying” is set in emotional purgatory, the other songs will be placed in their own settings. All the songs will fit into a narrative that has a circular structure. I’m designing musical themes that provide a through-line in the tracks. If you play the album and replay it, the narrative from the last track continues right into the first. You can start the album from any track, and the narrative will continue and circle back. I’m also creating visuals for each track. So if you were to edit them together in a specific and play it on loop, it might feel like one single never-ending movie no matter where you begin. Gun violence is so cyclical. You can enter into it at any point -- initial grief, debate, ennui, etc. --and it’ll eventually loop right back to where you started. How would you describe your musical sound? Musical genres are so bewildering to me. I guess I’ll say this: I’m sort of finding a hip-hop voice in other genres I love. They’re mainly psychedelic dream-pop, future funk, new wave, or even cinematic anime soundtracks. If my process were a scene, I’d like to imagine Childish Gambino getting really high and watching the news with Tame Impala, and maybe Jon Bellion barges in and blasts his new album. I don’t know that these are the sounds that come to mind if you were to listen to my work. But they’re certainly the sounds I’m after, sounds that provide a framework when I produce my music. Read the full article

[justastormie]

I’m doing two, because I can. 

Ancient Historical meme from my drafts;

First things first: What’s their name and when and where did they live? If there are any/ you have one, add your favourite picture of them. 

Erwin Johannes Eugene Rommel (1891-1944), Germany, lived around Württemberg for most of his life, the occasional world war aside. Of historical note for being a masterful tactician, writing an important book of military theory about wwi and commanding the german forces in the north african campaign of wwii. 

Napoleon (1769-1821), France technically but had a great deal of fun on camping trips all over Europe. Of historical note for one-uping Alexander the Great. Created landmark legal, military and social organizations. List of fuckups is longer than most people’s list of accomplishments. One of the most enduring military and political legends of the modern era. Bees.

1. How and when did you first hear about them?

Rommel- I honestly can’t remember. My father is a wwii nut so i was raised on the stuff. I got serious in my interest of him about 12/13 when I first read the collection of his papers translated into English. 

Napoleon- fourth grade (about ten years old). We had a section of world history, dismal though it was. In one of the little “fun facts” thing they had a tiny little box describing Nap’s return from Elba with an itty-bitty reproduction of Steben’s Returned From Elba. I thought that sounded like the most badass thing I had ever heard, and was also a little in disbelief because surely someone can’t just walk back and reclaim their kingdom. Like, that shit didn’t happen in real life. So I bought my first biography to find out the real story. 

2. What do you like most about them?

Rommel

he tempered his ambition and leadership with compassion and a fierce sense of honor

genuinely seems to have been a nice dude

he and his wife are cute as fuck 

was later cute as fuck about his son Manfred 

was incredibly clever

was a peach eating lunatic adventurer masquerading as a srs prussian soldier 

he was a romantic both in the age of chivalry sense and the modern sense

Napoleon

SUCH A BADASS, oh my god

was an over-invested mono-maniac at all times, which I can related to

incredibly capable in many fields

i have been napoleon and josephine trash since day one

crowning himself. i just love that moment.

was really smart. on a ‘holy shit’ level. (even if he did some massively stupid shit sometimes)

meritocratic promotion structures

hamilton WISHES he were this non-stop. 

never gave up, never gave in. even on st. helena he started dedicated his energies to preserving his legend and legacy, to great effect. 

3. Is there anything about them that makes you angry or that you don’t like at all?

Rommel 

literally worked for nazis

pretty sexist

there’s a lot i disagree with him about, but very few things that make me truly pissed off. ie he was of the period opinion that military men shouldn’t be involved in politics, as he thought that would mean the military as an organization would start defining germany’s political future which would turn into military rule and he was catagorically against that. which i think is both wrong and allowed him, and others in the german army, to disclaim responsibility for political shit they didn’t agree with that was being done by their government. but i can absolutely see where he was coming from, and i think his concerns were reasonable and legitimate. 

so yeah. a lot of disagreements, but very few things that just piss me off.

Napoleon

w h e r e   d o   I   b e g i n

allowed his obsession with legend and conquest overwhelm his moral values 

sold his honor and his moral principles in order to maintain power

frequently only took into account the human cost of warfare way too fucking late

rampant misogyny

really fucked over Junot

really fucked over tons and tons of people who were loyal to him, from close friends to the soldiers who followed him

got a truly staggering number of people killed on account of his own short-sighted obsessions

to paraphrase the old tv show Wiseguy, You don’t get to shove people around just because your fire burns brighter, no matter how brilliant that fire is. 

never gave up, never gave in. even when he fucking should have, looking at you reasonable peace terms of 1813. 

4. If you had one day with them in our present time - what would you do together?

Rommel - Aviation museum, he’d absolutely love it. I’d get him to pick some German place to eat and interrogate him ruthlessly about what inter-war rural Germany was like. 

Napoleon- Smack him repeatedly in the face for invading Spain  Walk and talk. Have him show me around Paris and have a debate over legal systems. Nerd out over Ossain. Show him a modern bookstore. Let him see how much of his work has survived into the present day. Shove him into at least one shrubbery.

5. What would you like to talk about with them?

Rommel - Engineering, aviation, dogs and funny army stories

Napoleon- All of the things. I can only imagine the conversation would be a pinball game of madness as to topics covered. And okay. I’d have to ask about Waterloo. I’d be that person. I don’t think he’d do it, but I’d love to hear him talk about Corsica. 

6. In which way do you identify most with them or a figure they created?

Rommel - He was an intensely practical man who tried very hard to do the right thing and frequently failed. I hope that one day I’ll have the strength of character to try to rectify my mistakes as he did his. 

Napoleon - I too am an over-invested, bossy weirdo. 

7. Thoughts about their death? E.g.:Was it too early, was it deserved, woud you have tried to prevent it and how? 

Rommel- oh god TOO EARLY, UNDESERVED, that poor brave bastard. I mean the fact that he was murdered because of his role in a plot to overthrow hitler and make peace with the allies is reason enough. would have definitely tried to prevent it, but would need like. the a-team to stop it. because you’d have to rescue not only rommel but his family that was being used as leverage against him. unless you’re allowed to go really far back and then i’d just start slapping the shit out of everyone at the versailles peace conference.

Napoleon - hoooo boy. uuuuuuuh. i mean. do i like it how he died? no. does that dislike come from a rational place? ...nooo. best case scenario for me would be he gets shot before the last charge of waterloo. hell if i had my way i’d go back and convince him what REALLY needed done was him personally leading the imperial guard up the hill. heroic, dramatic death and historians get to fight over wellsley actually beat napoleon for the rest of forever. europe also gets a break from napoleonic insanity. which doesn’t happen if napoleon gets to live. once more if you’re allowed further back, i slap the shit out of him before he invades Spain and point out that Ireland is lovely this time of year (it’d still be a clusterfuck, but less of one).

8. Is there a book or movie etc. you would recommend to someone who’s new to the person and would like to learn more about them?  

Rommel - The Rommel Papers is a good place to start, there are frequent letters to his wife but the content is primarily military. 

Napoleon - Shannon Selin’s website and book. The book is fiction but she is the lord our god in this fandom for her mad research skills. She provides sources for everything, which makes her the perfect jumping off point. (Now if I can just convince her that what she REALLY needs to do is write another book starring josephine) 

9. What can we learn from them? 

Rommel - when in doubt, bluff like a motherfucker right action is not a mystical, obvious thing at all times, we must do what we believe is right to the best of our abilities while being willing to let compassion guide us onto different paths.

Napoleon - 

human beings are capable of astonishing intellectual and physical feats, and the best of our stories can still be written, they are not confined to antiquity. 

find friends who will support your goals and then listen to their good advice even when it challenges your ego. 

if loud, bossy weirdos can find devoted friends and romantic partners than we’ve got a pretty good shot too.

don’t invade spain

propaganda is half the battle

love, in all its forms, is a resilient motherfucker

don’t interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake

strive to be so badass that hundreds of years later, the historical fiction that is all about fighting you has their characters become complete fanboys any time you actually show up (ft. Richard Sharpe in Down With The Tyrant But OMG Harper Look It’s Napoleon *SWOON*, hon. mention also goes to William “Why Aren’t I French” Laurence). 

a willingness to take charge is half the battle for power

bees are a cute fashion accessory and go with anything  

10. Would you want to be friends with them if they were still alive? 

Rommel - I think he’d be a good Dad Friend to have. Someone to ask for advice and go to reenactments with. A good person for moral/personal advice even if their political/social views are outdated. Definite bonding over dogs.

Napoleon - Would entirely depend on how we met. I feel like we’re similar enough on a personal level that it’d be very easy for our personalities to clash, and we’d have to declare ourselves mortal enemies and neither of us would back down from that because what is admitting you might have been hasty. Or, if fate were kind, we’d get on splendidly with constant low levels of dry sarcasm and prank wars. There would also be lots of emotions everywhere, at all times. People would hide. I have to admit I’d still stab somebody if it meant I got to be a Marshal. 

11. The most powerful quote by or about them?

Rommel - have  short one and a long one

"We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general." 

- Winston Churchill during 1942. During the fucking war. I mean damn, it doesn’t get better. Though since this is easily the most famous quote about him, have a personal favorite;

“Living legends, they project, each in his way, the classic image of a the warrior: brave, vigorous, sharp of eye and mind, rapid in decision, alert in danger, faster and bolder in the fight than his enemies. of this extraordinary brotherhood is Rommel-the brotherhood of Hector, of Rupert of the Rhine, of those who can only be described as heroes; and it is curious that so determinedly practical a modernist as Rommel-the least fanciful of men- should have joined a company so bonded by myth.” 

-David Fraser from Knight’s Cross: A Live of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

Napoleon - 

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others

i mean; 

History is a set of lies agreed upon. 

- Napoleon at some point, i’m not sure. But i’ve always loved it and found it apt. 

[biofunmy]

Should Board Gamers Play the Roles of Racists, Slavers and Nazis?

In the continuing explosion of tabletop board gaming, there are numerous World War II games in which players get to be Nazis. There are American Civil War games in which players take the role of the Confederacy. Some of these games confront the victims of the Holocaust and enslaved people head on; most don’t, though of course they’re right there if players choose to look.

But even poorly designed games with war themes often get the benefit of the doubt. They are generally created and played by people deeply interested in history. They prize accuracy over fun. Most games in this genre are accompanied by extensive reading lists and explanations; players often treat them as a way to learn that is more engaging than just reading a book.

Scramble for Africa was a new strategy game — what is called a “eurogame,” to contrast the genre with war games and more confrontational luck-based American board games. In it, the player would “take the role of one of six European powers with an eye toward exploring the unknown interior of Africa, discovering land and natural resources,” as the game’s description put it.

And with that, Scramble for Africa became board gaming’s entree into the very particular, sometimes confusing and very of-the-moment culture wars of 2019.

The great message board flame war

As a creative medium, board games are fundamentally different than film, theater or literature. While all great art is deeply engaging, the audience for those media are mostly bystanders. Watching “Schindler’s List” or reading “The Diary of Anne Frank” are different experiences than plotting like a Nazi in a board game.

The real life scramble for Africa was the pillaging of much of the African continent for its resources and its people.

Under Belgium’s King Leopold II, between 1885 and 1908 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, historians estimate that anywhere between a few million and 10 million people died because of starvation, disease, murder and a falling birthrate.

It is largely recognized as one of history’s most bloodthirsty occupations. (“The list of specific massacres on record goes on and on,” Adam Hochschild writes in “King Leopold’s Ghost.” “The territory was awash in corpses, sometimes literally.”)

The Belgian colonizers were unusually barbaric, but the rule of the other European countries that carved up Africa differed only in scale, not in kind, across a wide swath of the continent.

Joe Chacon, the designer of Scramble for Africa, was accused of not treating this situation with appropriate seriousness. In his game, the savagery that was part and parcel of that exploration seems to be dealt with in minor and trivializing ways. The players must put down rebellions, and can slow their opponents by inciting native revolts. Random events include “penalties for atrocities” and rewards for ending slavery. Butchery is gameified.

Soon after the game’s announcement in February, debate played out across thousands of posts on BoardGameGeek, the hub of board gaming on the internet.

“The Holocaust could be a topic for a resource management game, but most people would rightly see that as reprehensible,” one BoardGameGeek user wrote. “The Scramble for Africa, as a historic episode, was marked by exploitation, chattel slavery, and brutalization of a racial group that their oppressors often considered lesser humans.”

“People deciding for you what historical topics you can and cannot play,” another countered. “That is called censorship.”

Some arguments were on topic and persuasive. Most were not. There were rhetorical appeals and quotes — many cited thinkers like George Bernard Shaw, Robert Heinlein and Heinrich Heine, accurately or not. There were frequent invocations of censorship and the First Amendment, and rejoinders that the First Amendment applies only to government actors and this was simply the free market in action.

There were slippery slopes, faulty analogies, straw men galore and the gleeful identifying of said fallacies that is endemic to any message board flame war. There were trolling posts, insulting references to “social justice warriors” and analogies to supposed censorship taking place on YouTube and Facebook.

Eventually, after a thousand posts — hundreds of them deleted — the largest thread on the game was locked. “At this point, the only thing happening is old embers being reignited, and now we’re definitely veering political,” a moderator wrote.

Sprinkled among this debate, however, were novel and provocative questions about who designs games, who plays games, whether games are art, which viewpoints are represented and what responsibility games have to historical verisimilitude.

These ideas have been at the heart of critical examination of literature, music, theater, film and even video games for decades, even centuries, but have only begun to be discussed in board gaming.

Can you cancel a board game?

Gene Billingsley, the owner of GMT Games, the game’s publisher, responded to the criticism by pulling the game, two months after its announcement. “It’s clear to me that the game is out of step with what most eurogame players want from us, in terms of both topic and treatment,” he wrote in an email to GMT customers. (Neither he nor the game’s designer were willing to discuss the game and their experience with The New York Times.)

Most eurogames are designed to maximize the gameplay, or mechanics, with the theme an afterthought. A common criticism of many games is that the theme feels pasted on. With such little attention often paid to the story, the ranks of historically inaccurate or outright racist modern game are lengthy.

In the game Puerto Rico — for a long time ranked the best board game ever by BoardGameGeek users — brown pieces called “colonists” perform the roles that enslaved Taíno people did in Puerto Rico in real life.

In a game called Manitoba, players are Cree clan leaders, yet the game prominently features totem poles, made by Native American and First Nations peoples who lived thousands of miles away. (The Italian game designers of Manitoba have defended the inaccuracies, but also said it was their German publisher who chose the theme.)

And then there is King Phillip’s War, a game about a particularly bloody 17th-century conflict between European colonists and indigenous tribes in what is today New England. After the game was released in 2010, Julianne Jennings, an anthropology professor and member of the Cheroenhaka Nottoway tribe, organized a protest over it.

John Poniske, the middle-school social studies teacher who designed that game, said he doesn’t believe any of the people who objected to the game ever saw a copy of the rules, let alone played it. “I would wake up every morning to more comments from around the world,” he said. “It was fascinating, and it was also kind of scary.”

Mr. Poniske, who has created a number of games about lesser studied battles and wars, said he designed King Phillip’s War because the conflict was so influential, yet so little known. “It led to the foundation of today’s special forces,” he said. “It caused more casualties than any American war per capita at the time. It led directly to colonial protests.”

Despite firmly disagreeing that there is anything offensive about King Phillip’s War, Mr. Poniske said the episode made him think more deeply about the effect of his subsequent game designs. There are themes, he said, that he wouldn’t design a game about, like the Holocaust.

Making sense of the colonizer

One of the best-selling strategy games of the last few years is Eric Reuss’s Spirit Island, in which players take the role of different spirits who cooperate to defend their fictional island against colonizers.

Mr. Reuss said he designed the game in reaction to Puerto Rico and others that celebrate colonialism; in Spirit Island the pieces representing colonizers are white, a choice that inverts the assumption that light colors are good and dark colors are evil.

Mr. Reuss believes Scramble for Africa would have passed without widespread criticism if it had been published years ago, and he is glad people are talking about its shortcomings. “Having a contentious conversation about it is still much better than however many decades ago when there wasn’t even a conversation,” he said.

Most board game reviewers recite a game’s mechanics and how it is played, seeking only to answer the questions of whether it is fun and worth buying. Few critically analyze games or ask what they are attempting to say. The hobby is still small enough that negative reviews are often regarded as personal attacks on designers.

“One of the odd things about the board game world is you don’t have anything like a mature media,” said Cole Wehrle, the designer of a number of well-regarded games about British colonialism. “There isn’t really an infrastructure for this conversation.”

Brenda Romero, the designer of Train, an educational Holocaust board game — called “the board game no one wants to play more than once” — pointed to an evolution in video games. There is still a dearth of mass-market games with art house bona fides, but there is a thriving indie scene with award-nominated games about cancer and the Syrian refugee crisis. Developers now expect their games to be dissected and criticized.

That doesn’t mean change, diversity and criticism were always welcomed with open arms. Female video game designers and critics in particular have been harassed and subjected to death threats, and much of the online discussion surrounding video games is toxic. Many video games and the associated YouTube culture surrounding them remain entry points for disaffected young men who become far-right radicals.

The board game hobby — especially in the United States — is overwhelmingly white and male, though, anecdotally, that seems to be changing. Mr. Wehrle and Mr. Reuss said they see more women and people of color playing games and attending board game conventions.

The ranks of board game designers, however, is changing more slowly. According to one study, 94 percent of the designers for the top 100 ranked games on BoardGameGeek were white men. This perhaps explains the viewpoint many games take. Their designers can more readily identify with the European colonizers, and not the colonized.

As long as Americans and Europeans dominate board gaming, themes of colonialism will likely abound. “You can make a game about anything, but you have to be responsible for the things you make,” said Mr. Wehrle, the designer.

Mr. Wehrle described board games a “little sympathy engines” because players directly embody a role. Designers should question who they have players sympathize with, and why, but he believes they should still make games with difficult themes. “There is value to letting players sympathize with a position that is morally objectionable, as long as it has some larger payoff,” he said.

In his game An Infamous Traffic, about the opium wars in China, Mr. Wehrle believes he achieves the payoff by juxtaposing sobriety with absurdity.

Players act as British merchants colonizing and becoming wealthy from a repugnant business, but they only score points by dominating the London Season, a sort of prestige competition among aristocrats to host balls, win regattas and dress the fanciest. (Mr. Wehrle has a doctorate in the literature of British colonialism, giving him a leg up in navigating this tricky balance. )

He believes Scramble for Africa was a failure because it lacked a similar, or any, payoff. “The story of globalization in the 17th to 19th century, that is the story everyone is already taught in high school, especially the West,” he said. “So when playing a game about that period you are not learning anything about it — you are re-enacting it.”

Meanwhile, in Africa

In most of Africa, strategy board games are not a regular pastime. Kenechukwu Ogbuagu is trying to change that. Mr. Ogbuagu is a board game designer, publisher and organizer of the first board game convention in West Africa. He also runs a board game cafe in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.

That one person can do all of those things, that one person needs to do all of those things, speaks to how far board games are from being popularized in Nigeria.

Mr. Ogbuagu wasn’t aware of any board game scene in the Democratic Republic of Congo and none of the tens of thousands of active users on BoardGameGeek say they are from the country, but he did know of board gamers in Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Egypt and Kenya.

While Mr. Ogbuagu imports some games from Europe, his designs incorporate Nigerian themes because Nigerian players find those easier to relate to, he said. His game Irin Ajo features the geography and politics of Nigeria; Safe Journi is about uniquely Nigerian obstacles encountered while traveling.

“We want people to know that we make games too,” Mr. Ogbuagu said. “Even Nigerians and Africans can be in games.”

Sahred From Source link Sports

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[justtryingandshit-blog]

My Relationship with a Racist

“I can’t be racist, my girlfriend’s Asian!” is something we’ve all heard but I have first hand experience of why that statement is always false. Racism cannot be absolved by purely finding another race attractive. Racism is, unfortunately, far more nuanced than that. Here’s an insight into how I learned I was in a relationship with a racist, the hard way.

I met a man who was ten years my senior when I was 18 - this should have already been enough to set the alarm bells off, but it didn’t. I was young, naive, and really infatuated by him. Our relationship was fiery and passionate which felt fulfilling at the time. Our relationship was problematic but boy was it fun; we couldn’t get enough of each other. He was from Holland and lived in Rotterdam. We survived long distance through phone calls and Skype. White, rich, and opinionated, I didn’t care for his money, nor his race, but found myself playfully disagreeing with almost every single one of his views on politics. We enjoyed ‘debating’ with each other. Often, these debates would turn into full blown arguments complete with personal attacks. I don’t want to be seen as the victim in this relationship, I usually gave as good as I got.

I remember once we were talking about free range eggs. He held the view that people who buy non free range are disgraceful that have no respect for the local farmers they are inadvertently harming. I disagreed, providing a counterexample of poor families who may have no choice but to buy the cheapest food they can get according to their tiny budget. He sighed deeply before erupting into a barrage of nasty personal attacks.

“You’re so dumb, what would you know about local farming? You’re stupid, you don’t listen.”

“What?! I’m simply saying that not everyone can afford free range all of time.”

This ridiculous unreasonable argument escalated.

“You fucking bitch, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Of course you’d defend poor people because you’re a low class bitch”.

I sharply inhaled. This pause allowed both of us to reflect on what was just said. Low. Class. Bitch. I was gobsmacked. He knew he’d fucked up but was tensely anticipating my reaction to decide if he should apologise or continue arguing. I hung up the call and refused to pick up any more from him.

Low class bitch. That particularly hurt because it was an attack on a part of my identity that I had no control over and something I didn’t think he cared about or noticed. Our relationship was only 8 months in. He didn’t know my family, only knew me as a broke student - a common stereotype. But how could he have deduced my class? Surely not because of my race. It’s often a thought working class people have in the back of their minds; how others perceive their class and if it’s noticeable. Today I found out it was.

A week later things went back to normal. I decided to forgive him over his callous remarks. 2 years passed and I found myself forgiving him more often. Times weren’t always bad though, when things were good they were really good. We used to eat out regularly because I didn’t drink, eating was always a favourable option. I remember we were at our favourite sushi joint one time. Behind us were a group of black men who had ordered a few hot plates. “Of course they’re ordering fried chicken. What a surprise!” he sniggered under his breath.

I found myself gobsmacked again but also panicked. Not only was this a disgusting thing to say but they were right behind us. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” I said through gritted teeth making intense eye contact with him the entire time.

He laughed and moved onto another topic without a care. This wasn’t the only occasion his mask slipped.

Another time he was calling me from his car, he was stuck in some intense traffic. We were talking away until he cut me off to scream “THIS MONKEY JUST CUT ME OFF, THE NIGGER IS EATING A BANANA”. This time I was pissed off and told him to shut the fuck up before I left him. This was 60’s racism coming out of the mouth from the man I loved. He brushed it off with an “ok” and moved on.

Another few months went by and I enquired why I had never met his parents or his friends. We’d speak incessantly every day but I wasn’t engaged in any other part of his life. He chalked this down to distance and brushed it off. This concerned me. Two years and no mention of the parents? I had introduced him to my mother (a story for another time). So why no interest to unite me with his family?

Fast forward another month. I remember this call as though it was yesterday.

“Rabia, I don’t want to introduce you to my parents”. “Why?” Cue the bullshit excuses and petty reasons.

“I don’t believe you. Tell me the real reason why.”

More garbled reasons that were really an obfuscation. I wasn’t having any of it. It just didn’t make any sense. Why, after 2 plus years did he not want to introduce me to his family? He was breaking up with me. I could tell. Perhaps he was bored, tired, or had met someone else.

“Because you’re not white. I cannot introduce someone who isn’t white to my parents.”

I was winded. I didn’t know what to say. He saw the shock that had morphed my face and chose to take advantage of this to hang up. Coward.

I still cannot fully explain the effect these words have had on me. To not be good enough someone is probably something everyone experiences in their lifetime. But to not be good enough for something because I’m not white is akin to being checkmated at a long game that was rigged from the start. In hindsight of course he was a rampant racist. I chose to deny this, bury this, pray he would change for the better by being with me. Racism isn’t something white people can inoculate by dating a non-white person. It’s more than that; it’s a profound like of respect for someone you don’t consider your equal, an insidious belief that denies the humanity of people of colour. I learned this the hard way.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Phoebe Waller-Bridge on the *must-watch* fierce and fearless feminist drama, 'Killing Eve'

http://fashion-trendin.com/phoebe-waller-bridge-on-the-must-watch-fierce-and-fearless-feminist-drama-killing-eve/

Phoebe Waller-Bridge on the *must-watch* fierce and fearless feminist drama, 'Killing Eve'

The term ‘girl crush’ is thrown around so liberally but there seems to be no other phrase that sums up Phoebe Waller-Bridge so perfectly. Sat alongside me on the chicest of couches in the most Haute Hotel, I found her to be the funniest and most real celebrity this side of Clapham.

Whilst she animatedly attacks our interview with full force, I find myself imagining Phoebe slotting nicely into my life: as the perfect WhatsApp warrior when a f**k boy has done me over, my shots sister for knocking back Jaeger Bombs to get over said lad and the ultimate sounding board for debating the deep and meaningful topics of our time (more on that later!).

What makes Waller-Bridge so god damn amazing? Phoebe’s ability to encapsulate all of us with one surprising move after another – even when playing a droid in Han Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Talking about the moment she realised the gal who pitched a show to BBC3 on a shoestring budget was going to star in a Star Wars sanctified film, she says, “it only really hit me two weeks after we wrapped the film. I was just on a bus home and it hit, ‘OMG I was just on a Star Wars film, I was just in a Star Wars film for the last few months!’ I called my sister and said, ‘I’ve just been in Star Wars!’ and she was like, ‘yeah mate… we know!’”

You can always rely on a sibling for a reality check, accessorised with an eye roll, and for a bus journey to produce the ultimate epiphany. A best friend’s loo can equally be a grounding space, apparently: “I was in my friend’s loo when I found out I had the part. I got the call and then walked in really slowly, with a really red face. Shocked, she said, ‘WHAT happened in there?!’” See, I told you; Phoebe is a red-faced piece of us, just humbly making her way through Hollywood.

In a world, practically another galaxy away from her pal’s lav, the corridors that surround her normality are, for today, currently the stomping ground for her co-stars, Donald Glover, Emilia Clarke and the army of publicists that come along for the Star Wars ride. Phoebe, in stark contrast to the circus that encircles her, is the definition of #grounded with the Oyster card to prove it.

Discussing her first meeting with Chewbacca, she said: “you feel so safe in his arms. You’re also slightly frightened and a bit aroused.” It’s her friendship with said co-stars that will last well into the future.

I personally spent the grand total of 1.2 seconds in the company of Donald Glover and nearly fainted, so one can only imagine the effects filming with the chap for months on end would have: “I mean, THERE’S the force. The force is trying to prevent people falling at Donald’s feet – he’s incredible. He’s so cool, funny and he’s such a big thinker. He’s got a really cool perspective on the world. I think he’s going to be king of the world!” A forceful statement but indeed, true.

“He will talk about unbelievable high concept things in the space of ten seconds in a completely unpretentious and fun way. Then he will just leave, and you are like, ‘what’s happened?’ A friend of mine called him, ‘a Philosopher King,’ after meeting him, which is so cute!”

However, the Princess to her Leia, Emilia Clarke, became the person she sought advice from, explaining: “it’s like talking to THE Google, when you are talking to Donald about philosophical conversations, so I would go to Emilia for advice on how to interpret those intense chats!”

The bond between these two ladies – who come in at wildly different comedic heights, “I am four times the size of her,” Phoebe comedically comments – doesn’t stop at the philosophical. “It was my birthday during filming and I spent weeks telling everyone. When it came to the day, no one gave me any attention and then I walked into my trailer where Emilia had this enormous cake baked especially for me. It was the most incredible thing I had ever seen, it was piled so high, it was bigger than my robot head! She’s just a giver of love and I’d like to keep her!” Now that is a pairing that is out of this world.

Imagining Phoebe, “clumping around on set,” with her aforementioned over-sized robot head is something which could easily be lifted from her comedy sketch show, Flea Bag. The image alone could garner enough comedy gold for another BAFTA win, “I wore a really flattering skin-tight lime green body sock topped off with a full heavy droid head with two tiny little eye holes and a little tiny straw hole that they would occasionally feed me peanuts through. On top of that, they’d attach metal arms and legs – basically what you see in the film, I had on me at all times!”

At least joining Star Wars means you get paid to weightlift and you can pie your gym membership, then? “I was like, ‘maybe if you just give me a trainer and then I just become really, really hot.’ I had images of becoming this hot droid. Instead, the producers said, ‘no, no, no the kind of awkward, weird, ridiculous walk you do naturally suits L-3 perfectly.” Phoebe’s comedic charm goes right to her very wires.

By this point we are both collapsed into each other, laughing away as if we have been on the Jaegers for hours but it’s only 10am when the young queen of British Comedy hits me with the punchline: “I had to have a special seat to fit my droid ass in because it was so wide!” You can take the girl out of Flea Bag, but you can’t take Flea Bag out of the girl.

If you haven’t watched the show, which peppers this piece and forged Phoebe’s golden path to Star Wars, you are seriously missing out. Every beat of Flea Bag’s narrative – which stars PWB and is written by her – strikes a cutting chord with anyone who’s mumbled through an awkward chat with a chap you have been salivating over since last summer. Ultimately, the show tackles female sexuality through the canon of comedy and presents it on a very relatable platter. It’s worthwhile noting that IRL, Phoebe is actually happily married.

But in a post-#metoo world, I am intrigued to know if there is room for freely making jokes about female sexuality in TV series. Phoebe, ever the educated one woman-wonder, pauses to find the exact words, “I feel like it was a different conversation when it (Fleabag) came out. I think the tension and the pressure-cooker feeling of needing to talk about the complexities of female sexuality and the feelings around it was at a different stage then.”

Artfully articulated in the most approachable way, she continues, “being able to talk about female sexuality openly with a sense of humour outside of the political shift that happened afterwards with the ‘Me Too’ movementand all those horrible exposés was the relief at the beginning. But now the conversation is rightfully serious and there isn’t so much room for that. I think there’s always room for humour, but we were all in such shock, especially about the Harvey allegations and everything that was exposed about the pay gaps all across the industries. It suddenly stopped being funny and I felt like I couldn’t write jokes as easily around the topic of female sexuality.”

Ultimately, Phoebe professes, “you don’t want to risk sounding like you are taking the p*ss out of something that could really be an agent for change and all these conversations could really be changing things.” Word.

Rest assured, Phoebe isn’t totally put off from tackling tricky subject matters as her latest writing project, Killing Eve, starring Jodie Comer as an security operative hunting down a badass assassin played by Grey’s Anatomy‘s Sandra Oh, is set to hit the BBC this summer. Doing her best QVC pitch for the show, Phoebe in full endearing saleswoman mode, exclaims, “I was so excited about the performances and I was so excited by the fearlessness of those two lead performances and how well they orbit each other because they are so well-balanced and FIERCE!”

Just like the droid she plays in Han Solo – who the actress says, “starts a rebellion by mistake and goes, ‘oh look I smashed that!’” – Phoebe may have accidently started a revolution in the way television deals with female sexuality, redefining our galaxy from within.

This is the feminist revolution and this your captain, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, speaking. Over and out.

‘Han Solo: A Star Wars Story’ is released on 24th May 2018.

[brittanyyoungblog]

7 Tinder Profile Tips and Writing Hacks

Sometimes coming up with your Tinder profile bio can feel like torture. It’s like when you’re at an interview and someone says, “So tell us a little bit about yourself.” It’s such a huge, broad question that it’s hard to know how to answer it or where to start. But it doesn’t have to be quite so hard…

I’ve worked in dating apps for over five years (full disclosure, I work for Zoosk a subscription dating app) and during that time I’ve written and given tons of advice to people looking to write thoughtful, genuine profiles that really show who they are. But today I’m not going to do that.

Today I’m going to give you a bunch of Tinder profile tips that will help you write a decent dating profile as quickly as possible. Because, hey, I get it… Sometimes you just want to get it over with. And sometimes, in order to be effective, your profile doesn’t have to be a work of art, it just needs to get the job done.

Here are some Tinder profile tips and writing hacks to create a good bio, fast:

1. Greater than/less than profile Want to create a good profile quickly? The greater than/less than trick might be for you. Simply list out sets of things you could debate with someone, and say which you think is better. This shows your personality but also gives a bunch of ready-to-go conversation topics that makes it easier for people to break the ice and send you a message after you match.

Examples: Marcus, 24 tacos < burritos Friday nights out > Thursday nights out National league > American league Radiolab > Serial I’m just sayin’ Emily, 27 breakfast for dinner < pizza for breakfast the movie > the book (so sue me) sunrise < sunset coffee > life Your thoughts?

2. First and last profile Here’s another no fuss profile hack—first and lasts. Let people know the last movie you saw, book you read, person you talked to, place you drove, or time you embarrassed yourself. It gives a fast but realistic view of who you are now. You can flip it too. Instead of saying lasts, get nostalgic instead and say your firsts—first date, first word, first job, or first car. The more specific and oddball the better.

Examples: Daniel, 21 First… Job: U12 soccer referee Word: momma (ya ya, I’m a mama’s boy) Album I Bought: Michael Jackson’s BAD (and it was on tape)

Kiss: Amanda Butler. Front seat of my ‘95 Grand Am after the Sophomore’s only dance. Dave Matthews was playing. (But not Crash… I would never.)   

Tiffany, 25 Last… Place I visited: Zion (it was amazing) Book I read: Decoded by Jay Z (also amazing) Time I yelled at someone: In the bleachers at Fenway

Time I cried: Watching that YouTube of the lion who gets reunited with its trainer (oh man, gets me every time)

3. About Me/About You profile Quick, easy, and to the point—the About Me/About You profile is where you list details about yourself, coupled with details about the type of person you’re into.

Eric, 30 About Me: Likes fishing, gives great speeches at weddings, and plays a mean harmonica. About You: Eats adventurously, likes road trips, can talk about books for hours.

Tatiana, 27 About Me: Likes poop jokes, can stay out late on a school night, and isn’t afraid to talk politics on a first date.

About You: Tolerates my poop jokes, doesn’t take himself too seriously, and likes a healthy debate.

4. Three simple things profile Another list format to play around with is the three simple things profile. Just share three completely random things about yourself. And hey, you can even get a little braggy. You’re allowed to talk yourself up a bit in your dating profile.

Dan, 23 I love roller coasters but the pirate ship ride completely terrifies me. I once backpacked around Lake Tahoe in 13 days. When I was 14 I got a concussion swing dancing.

What about you?

Maria, 24 I hate flowers. You’ll never have to buy me flowers. Potatoes chips however… Not gonna lie, pretty good at pub trivia. I’ve even won the big money a couple times. Guilty pleasures: neighborhood drama, fancy cupcakes, and binge watching Law & Order. Dun duun!

5. One smartass comment profile There’s something intriguing about a profile with a single comment that catches attention. But writer beware, the single smartass comment profile can definitely backfire. It has to be good or you’ll just come off as a, well, jackass instead of a smartass.

Mallory, 30 All you need to lure me into your car is wine and pizza.

Eric, 27 Funny, handsome, and stupid.

Amy, 23 Dogs love me.

Malcolm, 32 Looking at my phone searching for a reason to stop looking at my phone.

Gina, 27 You can’t play hard and work hard. If you say that, you’re not doing either hard enough. (I don’t work very hard.)

Meng, 25 Whisper sweet NPRs to me.

Talia, 34 I like my artsy with a little bit of fartsy. 

Obscure references profile Have a quote from a movie or TV show you love? A lyric from a song or an inside joke only someone who’s into the same random stuff as you would know? Use it. It’s fast, shows off your personality, and is an instant conversation starter.

Lily, 22 Last vacation was to see the basement of the Alamo. Wasn’t what I thought it was going to be but I had a big adventure.

Ted, 26 I’m just a boy, standing in front of a bunch of people on an app, and asking them to love me.

Natalie, 29 The last guy who swiped left on me aged so quickly he shriveled up into an old man skeleton thing before he turned into dust and died a swift yet horrifying death. He chose poorly.

Jeet, 27 I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.

7. Fake reviews profile Another Tinder profile trick you may have seen is the fake reviews profile. Similar to book or movie blurbs (“Two thumbs up!”)  the fake review profile let’s you share a bit about yourself and might just make someone crack a smile.

Amy, 24 I’m pretty great but don’t listen to me, read my reviews: “Amy is a hard working, conscientious student.” – my 10th grade English teacher “I’d highly recommend her for any position.” – my first boss “I laughed until I cried.” – my ex boyfriend

Jordan, 28 “This one’s got real potential.” – My 90+ next door neighbor “Excellent incisors. And he flosses.” – Dr. Dan, my dentist “Better than a hallelujah” – Amy Grant

“He can make an Amy Grant reference, and still come off as masculine and authoritative. I don’t know how he does it.” – My good friend Abe   

8. List of likes profile This is probably the most common profile type, but if you add the right details and stay away from obvious things like hiking, traveling, and your friends, listing our your likes can be an effective way to get a quick but effective profile.

Jad, 31 The Discworld series, girls with glasses, playing hookie to go to a baseball game, and dinners with friends that end in late nights talking and laughing over a table strewn with the dirty dishes none of us are getting up to wash.  

Emily, 26 Making fun of people who do crossfit, net-back hats, first runs, the first sip of beer after a long day, and coming home to my dog every night.

By day/by night profile Nobody is any one thing. You aren’t just a school teacher or an accountant, and you aren’t just someone who likes to BBQ or play softball with your friends. The by day/by night profile is a way to show two sides of yourself, what you do for work and what you do for fun. It’s kind of like the mullet of dating profiles. Business in the front, party in the back.

Tim, 22 9th grade history teacher by day. Semi-pretentious craft beer aficionado by night.

Kaylee, 27 Product designer by day, cyberpunk and avant garde enthusiast by night.

Brett, 23 Management/marketing consultant by day, amature mixologist and professional cat cuddler by night.

Heather, 25 Software engineer by day, even bigger nerd by night. Love anime, board games (I kill at The Settlers of Catan), and obscure music nobody else seems to listen to.

As you work on your Tinder profile, remember that it’s important but it also goes along with your photos. If you’ve got a stellar set of photos who explain who you are, your bio doesn’t have to work so hard. If you’re having problems getting matches, you might want to take the time to make sure your description and your photos are on point. After all, when it comes to online dating, your profile is your first impression. So have fun with it and make a good one.

The post 7 Tinder Profile Tips and Writing Hacks appeared first on The Date Mix.

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[roguenewsdao]

Citizen Sophia, Blockchain, and the CFR Convo

"Technology has always been a double-edged sword."  -- Ray Kurzweil, November 3, 2017.

During the last few days, we've been witnessing a shift of power in Saudi Arabia as a young heir proceeds to clad his power base in iron. However, only two weeks prior to the recent political purge in the Kingdom, another shift in power took place in the same land. But this time the shift came from the animatronic mouth of a pale-skinned, multi-color-eyed female Android named Sophia. The robot became the first of its kind to be granted actual citizenship.

The women of Saudi Arabia were not amused.

Admittedly, the granting of citizenship to a robot is a bit of a public relations stunt. Prince MBS put on a good show to express his seemingly sincere desire to pull Saudi out of the 7th century and attract investment of new technology into the Kingdom. Let us not forget the multi-billion-dollar data surveillance center that was launched earlier this year when President Trump joined King Salman and other visiting dignitaries at the "glowing orb" ceremony [linked here]. Would Riyadh like to become the desert version of Silicon Valley?

Sophia is the creation of Hanson Robotics, Inc., founded by Dr. David Hanson. She is futuristic in every sense of the word. Sophia is learning how to be human via her interactions with real people. This feature of AI is mentioned further down in this blog in the statements made by Ray Kurzweil. Robots are designed to somewhat mirror what they witness in real people, not unlike what a real child does as it matures to adulthood. Now, immediately, you can see what the dangers of that would be. Who gets to decide which humans the robot will study as its mentor? How will it know how to decide between Virtues and Vices? These are some of the challenges facing the AI engineers and topics that are regularly debated.

Another facet of Sophia's new life that should interest the regular readers of Rogue Money is that her artificial intelligence protocols were built on blockchain technology. According to Hanson's website:

Hanson Robotics is partnering with SingularityNET, a platform for the decentralized AI economy. SingularityNET is the first protocol for combining AI services with a global, blockchain-based market, and will soon be powering the minds of Hanson Robots. For more information please visit www.singularitynet.io.

SingularityNET bills itself as "a platform for the decentralized AI economy - the free and open market for AI technologies, built on smart contracts." The link between this coming transhumanist robot era and the nascent blockchain technology is very revealing.

As regular readers of Rogue Money know, our Mr. W. has been advising us that we are witnessing the systematic dismantling of the old Rockefeller PetroDollar Empire by that other great cabal, the Rothschild powers-that-be. Naturally, we all connect the Rothschilds to the international banking priesthood, and we connect banking with money and debt. This question has been rolling around in my mind, "What role is the Rothschild Empire playing in this coming cashless cyber age? Can it be that they are actually destroying money?"

The more I thought about it, the more it has occurred to me that what this banking priesthood is doing is what they and their predecessors have always done: create whatever tool is necessary in order to keep moving their transhumanist football down the field. For many centuries that tool has been monetized debt. But just as their forebears moved society from a system based on the exchange of precious metals by weight to a fiat, state-minted model, that priesthood of today can just as deftly move society from the fiat model to a cryptocurrency blockchain model.

In the excerpts of a recent conversation between Google engineer and "Singularity" dreamer, Ray Kurzweil, and members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), we are already getting hints that the #BigData and #4IR vision of the future is actually one where our current concept of "money" has become obsolete. It does appear to me that mankind's dependence on debt for his means of daily living is now being moved to a dependence on an ethereal super-network of universal intelligence.

Here is Kurzweil's conversation and a few of his statements that stood out to me.

"We Are Going to Merge with This Technology"

On November 3, 2017, Ray Kurzweil participated in a dialog and Q&A with members of the Council on Foreign Relations. A transcript of the hour-long conversation is available [linked here]. Below is the full video of the conference. 

Near the beginning of the episode, Kurzweil mentions a conversation he had recently with Christine Lagarde of the IMF. Lagarde was pointing out that AI is fun and wacky and all, but you can't eat it, can you? Kurzweil retorted politely that such a thing is coming. Once again, Kurzweil repeated the year 2029 several times in this video (a year that has its own roots in an Esoteric Hitler belief that Super Humans would make themselves known in 2029 to save the world. See also my Bee In Eden video at the end of this page.)

Here are Kurzweil's words with hints that the price of this technology will eventually be reduced to nearly Zero (making money obsolete?) In other words, today you can buy a smartphone for $75. A few years ago, it might have cost $1,000. So, today, the cost of that information technology is practically nothing. The same thing will happen in all areas of information technology, like, 3-D printing.

I’ll mention just one implication of the law of accelerating returns, because it has many ripple effects and it’s really behind this remarkable digital revolution we see, is the 50 percent deflation rate in information technologies....   Coexistence of free, open-source products—which are a great leveler—and proprietary products. We’ll print—we’ll be able to create food very inexpensively using 3-D—vertical agriculture, using hydroponic plants for fruits and vegetables, in-vitro cloning of muscle tissue for meat. The first hamburger to be produced this way has already been consumed.... 

That’s been a key prediction of mine. I’ve been consistent in saying 2029. In 1989, in the age of intelligent machines, I bounded that between early 2020s and late 2030s. And in the age of spiritual machines, in ’99, I said 2029. 

As you might imagine, many audience members asked questions about the safety of such a technology. How are we to prevent The Terminator from becoming reality? Even Kurzweil, for all his ubiquitous optimism, betrayed just a hint of trepidation. It wasn't really a fear, but an acknowledgement that, yes, we must tread carefully. 

Here is my collection of Kurzweil's statements that I found noteworthy:

Technology has always been a double-edged sword. Fire kept us warm, cooked our food, and burned down our houses. These technologies are much more powerful. It’s also a long discussion, but I think we should go through three phases, at least I did, in contemplating this. First is delight at the opportunity to overcome age-old afflictions—poverty, disease, and so on. Then alarm, that these technologies can be destructive and cause even existential risks....

And finally, I think where we need to come out is an appreciation that we have a moral imperative to continue progress in these technologies, because despite the progress we’ve made—and that’s a whole other issue. People think things are getting worse, but they’re actually getting better and we can talk about that. But there’s still a lot of human suffering to be overcome. It’s only continued progress, particularly in AI, that’s going to enable us to continue overcoming poverty and disease and environmental degradation, while we attend to the peril. And there’s a good framework for doing that....

The number of people who have been harmed either accidentally or intentionally by abuse of biotechnology so far has been zero.... 

But when you have so much power, even with good intentions, there can be abuses. These technologies are very powerful. And so I do worry about that, even though I’m an optimist. And I’m optimistic that we’ll make it through. I’m not as optimistic that there won’t be difficult episodes. World War II, 50 million people died. And that was certainty exacerbated by the power of technology at that time.... 

This is the most peaceful time in human history....

My view is not that AI is going to displace us. It’s going to enhance us.

An audience member named Alana Ackerson asked how this new technology affects us as spiritual beings, how it affects our "lens" on what it means to be human. Kurzweil went on to say:

You can say that Evolution is a spiritual process, bringing us closer to God. 

And the other implication that spiritual—and really where that title, “Age of Spiritual Machines” comes from—is what is this—what is spiritual? It’s really a word for consciousness. Our whole moral system, our sense of values is that consciousness is the precious thing. That’s the sort of underlying debate in animal rights. Conscious entities are what’s important. Non-conscious entities are only important insofar as they affect the conscious experience of conscious entities. So who and what are conscious is a key question. And that’s the underlying question in animal rights. That’ll be the question when it comes to the AI.

Kurzweil then went on to express his beliefs that human beings have already left their biological nature behind:

So I alluded to earlier, we are going to merge with this technology. I’d say we already have done that to some extent. Medical nanorobots will go inside our brain, connect our neocortex to the cloud. So your smartphone, even though it is itself a billion times more powerful per dollar than the computer I used when I was an undergraduate at MIT, it multiplies itself again a millionfold by connecting to millions of computers in the cloud. We can’t do that directly from our neocortex. We do it indirectly through these devices. We’ll do it directly in the 2030s. And not just to do things like search and translation directly from our brains, although we’ll do that, but to actually connect to more neocortex.

So people say, oh, we’re going to lose our humanity. Well, if you define human as being necessarily purely biological, I think we’re already not purely human anymore, because we’re not purely biological anymore. And we’re going to become increasingly nonbiological. But that’s who we are. I mean, that is the definition of a human, the species that changes itself, it creates tools, it goes beyond our limitations.

Kurzweil then went on to mention the word "de-bias," as in, we will need to teach the robot to rid itself of bias and prejudice even as it's learning to create its own behavior by observing other humans.

There’s a major effort in the field—it’s going on in all the major companies and in open-source research as well-to debias AI, because it’s going to pick up biases from people if it’s learning from people. And people have biases. And so to overcome gender bias and other types of—racial bias, that can actually be a goal. As humans, we pick up biases from all of the things we’ve seen, a lot of it’s subconscious. We then learn, as educated humans, to recognize bias and try to overcome it. 

Near the end of the conference, people were wondering how do robots fit into the world of nation-states. Perhaps the audience was already thinking about Sophia's newly granted citizenship status. Kurzweil dropped a big hint on where Transhumanism is taking mankind in that area. Now you can see how this fits into my idea that this revolution may be rendering money obsolete. That is, if individual national sovereignties no longer dominate mankind's social order, then certainly all authority structures under that level have also lost their importance.

People really are increasingly identifying as citizens of the world. And I think over time nation-states will becomes less influential. I mean, I think we’re on that path.

At the end of the Q&A session, Kurzweil left the audience with these closing remarks:

But intelligence is inherently uncontrollable. 

You know, if there’s some entity that’s more powerful than you and I and it’s out for our destruction, the best strategy is not to get in that situation in the first place. And failing that, the best next strategy would be to get some other AI that’s even more intelligent than the one that’s out for you on your side. 

[AI] is emerging from our civilization today. It’s going to be an enhancement of who we are. And so if we’re practicing the kind of values we cherish in our world today, that’s the best strategy to have for a world in the future that embodies those values.  

Ray Kurzweil certainly gives us a unique view of the future. "Unique" is an understatement. His statement like "today is the most peaceful time in human history" might cause some readers to do a double-take. However, observations like that tend to reinforce what we have already seen about these Elites who rule over us: they are simply not touched by the Matrix that is imposed on the rest of us. We've seen this over and over again with other areas of our accepted way of life: Banksters, Military Contractors, Big Pharma, and now, Big Data. These are the puppet masters not the puppets. Individuals within their ranks might come and go. But, overall, those sectors are not subject to the same Law and Government, nor are they effectively touched by the whims of economic highs and lows, as are the rest of us. The pitfalls that touch us never touches them because they exist on a plane above that daily din.

And yet, even above those four sectors flows those pervasive, ancient religious beliefs about attaining ultimate creative power and universal mastery. I had to smile that the citizen robot was named Sophia. I haven't really seen an official explanation of how she got that name. So, in conclusion, I will close with these thoughts from the article on "Gnostic Sophia" in Wikipedia. I'd like to think that this is the reason.

Gnostic Sophia

Per some very general statements on the tenets of Gnosticism, this article [linked here] says this about "Sophia":

Almost all Gnostic systems of the Syrian or Egyptian type taught that the universe began with an original, unknowable God, referred to as the Parent or Bythos. According to some Gnostic texts, the crisis occurs as a result of Sophia trying to emanate without her syzygy or, in another tradition, because she tries to breach the barrier between herself and the unknowable Bythos. 

After cataclysmically falling from the Pleroma, Sophia's fear and anguish of losing her life (just as she lost the light of the One) causes confusion and longing to return to it. Because of these longings, matter and soul accidentally come into existence. 

The creation of the Demiurge is also a mistake made during this exile. The Demiurge proceeds to create the physical world in which we live, ignorant of Sophia, who nevertheless manages to infuse some spiritual spark or pneuma into his creation.

It would appear that the Transhumanist movement is indeed trying to bring mankind back full circle to the ancient understandings of the source of Matter and Soul, all mixed in with this idea that mankind really has been his own creator from the beginning. Looking at AI from that vantage point, it makes sense that Citizen Sophia has returned to her roots in Saudi Arabia, midway between Egypt and Syria.

My contact information with link to my Karatbars portal are found at my billboard page of SlayTheBankster.com. Listen to my radio show, Bee In Eden, on Youtube via my show blog at SedonaDeb.wordpress.com.

[lee-needs-a-nap]

I was pissed about this a couple days ago, and I thought I was over it, but I’ve had a tough week so I’m just gonna let it out.

So I’m an atheist. I’m not that quiet about it, except around my family because I just don’t see a reason right now to get into this argument with them (except my brother, which I know he hates). At school, even though it’s a catholic school, all belief systems are pretty much accepted and there’s no conversion plot by the friars or anything. So I feel free enough to discuss my atheism and opinions on religion pretty regularly. I enjoy it too.

But earlier this week I mentioned how I wasn’t that happy knowing that some of my catholic friends think I’m going to hell, partly because I’m an atheist, and also because I know at least one of them thinks that transitioning is a sin. I’ve discussed my apparent sins with them several times, and I can usually view the topic with a good amount of humor, because I don’t think I’m doing anything morally wrong and their beliefs in and about sin are unfounded. However, it does bother me that my friends think that I’m doing something morally wrong and therefore on some level I’m a bad person. I think it’s pretty reasonable to be bothered by that. 

I will readily admit that I can be an asshole and a dick about a lot of stuff, but I think there’s a difference between being an asshole and being a bad person. The only thing I’m hurting by being an asshole is feelings, and when I go too far, I do apologize. I feel guilty when I go too far, and especially if I don’t realize until later that I crossed the line.

But I was pressing one of my catholic friends about my “sins” and joking about it, kind of showing the ridiculousness of those beliefs in a sort of defense of myself. When walking back home with two other friends, both christians, I half joked again that I don’t appreciate that our catholic friend thinks I’m going to hell, and one of my friends got really defensive, and told me I was being a dick.

Now, I understand I was being a dick, but he was saying it to basically tell me to shut up and that I shouldn’t say those things at all. So I defended myself and said that I think it’s reasonable for me to not like the idea that I’m seen as a bad person for doing things that aren’t morally wrong. I also said, and have said many times, that I think religious beliefs are irrational and unreasonable. So he said, “As a christian I’m offended.”

So of course I countered with “You’re offended that you think I’m going to hell and I don’t like it?” because that’s bullshit in my opinion. He wanted me to shut up and he pulled out the “I’m offended” card. I then continued by saying I should be the one who’s offended, and also brought up the fact that the beliefs he and our friends have are the same ones that lead to legislation in the world that takes away civil rights, including the rights of trans people like me. At this point I had changed from joking around to frustrated and pissed off.

He threw up his hands and walked away, saying “I don’t want to do this. I’m done.” and the friend that was walking with us followed him to go comfort him (because he’s a baby and makes everybody go comfort him and solve all his problems for him) so I just went home.

About twenty minutes later, I had thought about it and realized that I was going to have to apologize or else they’d see me as an even bigger asshole and not talk to me. I want to clarify, I don’t care what people think of me usually, but what people think about me affects how they act towards me, and when their actions towards me are negative I have a problem with that. Which is the same reasoning I have for being bothered by being considered a bad person because I “sin”- it affects their behavior and actions towards me in a negative way, even if they don’t intend it. Actually, that’s my main issue with religion as a whole- irrational and unreasonable beliefs lead to irrational and unreasonable actions that affect other people. Religion doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

So I decided to be the bigger person and apologize to them for being argumentative (even though I was just voicing my beliefs and then defending myself) and crossing a line (which I still consider necessary to cross in situations like this). Neither of them responded, and that pissed me off. It’s one thing for them to not apologize (which I think they should, I think I deserve an apology), but they didn’t even acknowledge my apology, which is just common courtesy. I even apologized to our catholic friend I was talking to about possibly making her uncomfortable, and she at least said it was okay.

A few days later, I was having what I thought was a fun, exciting, and lighthearted informal debate with my other catholic friend. I was getting passionate, as I often do when talking about these things, and after a while my friend told me I was yelling at her. I apologized, and tried to explain that I was just very passionate about the discussion. But the discussion basically ended when she told me I was insulting her by sitting there and yelling at her for 25 minutes. Obviously I had a very different perception of the conversation than she had, so I did sincerely apologize and say that my intention was not to be insulting, and I didn’t realize that I was being insulting, so I was sorry.

This situation I feel is less of an issue for me than the first, because I realized that I had started a debate without her really agreeing to it, and also I was being a dick, so she didn’t really have anything to apologize to me for. But the first situation got me angry because I do feel like my friend telling me he was offended by me simply talking about my thoughts is ridiculous, and was intended to just get me to shut up.

That’s what gets me mad most. I’m told to shut up and keep my thoughts and opinions and (non)beliefs to myself, but my friends get to talk about their religious beliefs all the time. Also how I’m always expected to apologize for talking about my opinions, but they never seem to feel the need to, even though their beliefs do real harm in the world on a much more regular basis.

I also feel like I’m pretty damn respectful to the people, just not the core beliefs. I’ve been to a few masses at school, and was incredibly respectful. But people like my friend who walked away take it personally, as if I’m criticizing them when I criticize their beliefs. I don’t want our intellectual disagreements to affect our friendship, and I think I do a pretty good job of that on my part, but they certainly don’t. It’s the nature of their beliefs that don’t allow them to really. I, on the other hand, don’t think they’re stupid or anything, just that they’ve been indoctrinated and duped into believing something that’s not true. 

I’m just sick of the double standard that surrounds the topic of theism vs atheism. Theistic beliefs are given free passes on so much, and are in a place of power over atheistic beliefs, which have to constantly fight to be recognized at all.

I’m just pissed off and frustrated about a lot of this stuff, and I hate not having many friends to talk about my atheism without judgement (even though my religious friends say only god is going to judge me)

On that point, saying that god will judge me is still saying that I have done something that needs to be judged. You think I’ve done something wrong, but the judgement you’re talking about is just if I’ll be punished for it. My friends need to stop fucking telling me that they’re not judging me and only god can judge me, because they’re fucking lying. Maybe not lying, but at least not being at all rational or logical.

I think it’s pretty reasonable for me to be vocal about my (non)beliefs because especially in this political climate, it’s harmful and false beliefs that are affecting legislation that will change my life, and others lives in pretty negative ways. The separation of religion and government is incredibly important, and I advocate for it strongly. And one of the ways I feel is effective to help separate the two is to show the unreasonableness and irrationality of the beliefs.

Another thing that pisses me off is that now it’s considered offensive to criticize religious beliefs, because like I said before, people take it personally and think I’m attacking the people. I’m not, I’m attacking the religion and the false beliefs. I’m comfortable with going after christianity because that’s more acceptable than criticizing judaism or Islam for some reason. If I criticize those religions, I’m anti-semitic or islamophobic, which I think is ridiculous to conclude. I’m not against these people, and I’m not telling them they can’t believe something, just pointing out that it’s not rational to believe what they believe. I would never force someone to not be religious, I just advocate that their religious beliefs are not imposed on me by telling me what I can and can’t do.

Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and other notable atheists are labeled as Islamophobic because they talk about how unreasonable and irrational and false islamic beliefs are, and how they are right now in this current time causing so much destruction and chaos and pain and suffering. I don’t think thats islamophobia, I think it’s reasonable criticism that can actually be very constructive.

So I think I’ve decided that if I come off as a dick or an asshole or a bigot, I don’t care after a certain point. If a person really has put their beliefs in front of actual human connections, I don’t want to interact with them.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Star Wars star Phoebe Waller-Bridge on her close bond with Emilia Clarke and why she still takes the bus

http://fashion-trendin.com/star-wars-star-phoebe-waller-bridge-on-her-close-bond-with-emilia-clarke-and-why-she-still-takes-the-bus/

Star Wars star Phoebe Waller-Bridge on her close bond with Emilia Clarke and why she still takes the bus

The term ‘girl crush’ is thrown around so liberally but there seems to be no other phrase that sums up Phoebe Waller-Bridge so perfectly. Sat alongside me on the chicest of couches in the most Haute Hotel, I found her to be the funniest and most real celebrity this side of Clapham.

Whilst she animatedly attacks our interview with full force, I find myself imagining Phoebe slotting nicely into my life: as the perfect WhatsApp warrior when a f**k boy has done me over, my shots sister for knocking back Jaeger Bombs to get over said lad and the ultimate sounding board for debating the deep and meaningful topics of our time (more on that later!).

What makes Waller-Bridge so god damn amazing? Phoebe’s ability to encapsulate all of us with one surprising move after another – even when playing a droid in Han Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Talking about the moment she realised the gal who pitched a show to BBC3 on a shoestring budget was going to star in a Star Wars sanctified film, she says, “it only really hit me two weeks after we wrapped the film. I was just on a bus home and it hit, ‘OMG I was just on a Star Wars film, I was just in a Star Wars film for the last few months!’ I called my sister and said, ‘I’ve just been in Star Wars!’ and she was like, ‘yeah mate… we know!’”

You can always rely on a sibling for a reality check, accessorised with an eye roll, and for a bus journey to produce the ultimate epiphany. A best friend’s loo can equally be a grounding space, apparently: “I was in my friend’s loo when I found out I had the part. I got the call and then walked in really slowly, with a really red face. Shocked, she said, ‘WHAT happened in there?!’” See, I told you; Phoebe is a red-faced piece of us, just humbly making her way through Hollywood.

In a world, practically another galaxy away from her pal’s lav, the corridors that surround her normality are, for today, currently the stomping ground for her co-stars, Donald Glover, Emilia Clarke and the army of publicists that come along for the Star Wars ride. Phoebe, in stark contrast to the circus that encircles her, is the definition of #grounded with the Oyster card to prove it.

Discussing her first meeting with Chewbacca, she said: “you feel so safe in his arms. You’re also slightly frightened and a bit aroused.” It’s her friendship with said co-stars that will last well into the future.

I personally spent the grand total of 1.2 seconds in the company of Donald Glover and nearly fainted, so one can only imagine the effects filming with the chap for months on end would have: “I mean, THERE’S the force. The force is trying to prevent people falling at Donald’s feet – he’s incredible. He’s so cool, funny and he’s such a big thinker. He’s got a really cool perspective on the world. I think he’s going to be king of the world!” A forceful statement but indeed, true.

“He will talk about unbelievable high concept things in the space of ten seconds in a completely unpretentious and fun way. Then he will just leave, and you are like, ‘what’s happened?’ A friend of mine called him, ‘a Philosopher King,’ after meeting him, which is so cute!”

However, the Princess to her Leia, Emilia Clarke, became the person she sought advice from, explaining: “it’s like talking to THE Google, when you are talking to Donald about philosophical conversations, so I would go to Emilia for advice on how to interpret those intense chats!”

The bond between these two ladies – who come in at wildly different comedic heights, “I am four times the size of her,” Phoebe comedically comments – doesn’t stop at the philosophical. “It was my birthday during filming and I spent weeks telling everyone. When it came to the day, no one gave me any attention and then I walked into my trailer where Emilia had this enormous cake baked especially for me. It was the most incredible thing I had ever seen, it was piled so high, it was bigger than my robot head! She’s just a giver of love and I’d like to keep her!” Now that is a pairing that is out of this world.

Imagining Phoebe, “clumping around on set,” with her aforementioned over-sized robot head is something which could easily be lifted from her comedy sketch show, Flea Bag. The image alone could garner enough comedy gold for another BAFTA win, “I wore a really flattering skin-tight lime green body sock topped off with a full heavy droid head with two tiny little eye holes and a little tiny straw hole that they would occasionally feed me peanuts through. On top of that, they’d attach metal arms and legs – basically what you see in the film, I had on me at all times!”

At least joining Star Wars means you get paid to weightlift and you can pie your gym membership, then? “I was like, ‘maybe if you just give me a trainer and then I just become really, really hot.’ I had images of becoming this hot droid. Instead, the producers said, ‘no, no, no the kind of awkward, weird, ridiculous walk you do naturally suits L-3 perfectly.” Phoebe’s comedic charm goes right to her very wires.

By this point we are both collapsed into each other, laughing away as if we have been on the Jaegers for hours but it’s only 10am when the young queen of British Comedy hits me with the punchline: “I had to have a special seat to fit my droid ass in because it was so wide!” You can take the girl out of Flea Bag, but you can’t take Flea Bag out of the girl.

If you haven’t watched the show, which peppers this piece and forged Phoebe’s golden path to Star Wars, you are seriously missing out. Every beat of Flea Bag’s narrative – which stars PWB and is written by her – strikes a cutting chord with anyone who’s mumbled through an awkward chat with a chap you have been salivating over since last summer. Ultimately, the show tackles female sexuality through the canon of comedy and presents it on a very relatable platter. It’s worthwhile noting that IRL, Phoebe is actually happily married.

But in a post-#metoo world, I am intrigued to know if there is room for freely making jokes about female sexuality. Phoebe, ever the educated one woman-wonder, pauses to find the exact words, “I feel like it was a different conversation when it (Fleabag) came out. I think the tension and the pressure-cooker feeling of needing to talk about the complexities of female sexuality and the feelings around it was at a different stage then.”

Artfully articulated in the most approachable way, she continues, “being able to talk about female sexuality openly with a sense of humour outside of the political shift that happened afterwards with the ‘Me Too’ movementand all those horrible exposés was the relief at the beginning. But now the conversation is rightfully serious and there isn’t so much room for that. I think there’s always room for humour, but we were all in such shock, especially about the Harvey allegations and everything that was exposed about the pay gaps all across the industries. It suddenly stopped being funny and I felt like I couldn’t write jokes as easily around the topic of female sexuality.”

Ultimately, Phoebe professes, “you don’t want to risk sounding like you are taking the p*ss out of something that could really be an agent for change and all these conversations could really be changing things.” Word.

Rest assured, Phoebe isn’t totally put off from tackling tricky subject matters as her latest writing project, Killing Eve, starring Jodie Comer as an security operative hunting down a badass assassin played by Grey’s Anatomy‘s Sandra Oh, is set to hit the BBC this summer. Doing her best QVC pitch for the show, Phoebe in full endearing saleswoman mode, exclaims, “I was so excited about the performances and I was so excited by the fearlessness of those two lead performances and how well they orbit each other because they are so well-balanced and FIERCE!”

Just like the droid she plays in Han Solo – who the actress says, “starts a rebellion by mistake and goes, ‘oh look I smashed that!’” – Phoebe may have accidently started a revolution in the way television deals with female sexuality, redefining our galaxy from within.

This is the feminist revolution and this your captain, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, speaking. Over and out.

‘Han Solo: A Star Wars Story’ is released on 24th May 2018.