thachary

[thachary]

[thachary]

[thachary]

Tbilisi, Georgia - December 2022

[thachary]

“I love the way the player’s body moves in Bloodborne: You can fly in any direction like that, like a nervous little bird. If you want to be close, you are instantly close, and if you want to be away, you are instantly away. What a gift. Of course everything is violent and wants to touch you, but if you are perfect, you will not be touched. There is a little secret here which perhaps you can notice: When the ugly monster’s limbs reach out to touch the small human’s body, there is about a tenth of a second—maybe less— where her body is invincible. It doesn’t even matter if she’s geometrically in harm’s way or not. She is safe because she timed it right, was perfect. See, even in this very hard game, there is something wonderful and fair: The game doesn’t care about the way bodies actually intersect. If your timing was correct, it agrees: “You were not touched.” Many games hide that tiny moment of invincibility within quick movement, and it feels so kind just knowing, no mater how bad you are, that if you could fit every moment of pain in that one tenth of a second you could be invincible for the rest of your life. Sometimes I wish I had this power in real life. If I had it would mean never having to say ‘no’ in so many words, nor the confrontation that sometimes comes with saying no. But that perfect, flawless dodge is not sustainable—you have to be devastated so many times to get the timing so flawless. And here’s my bad secret: when I killed this one monster, I didn’t do it by dodging flawlessly, but by mashing some awful weapon in her side while her limbs were flailing and she could not hit me back. Unfair and problematic of me, I know. So often, games’ expressive qualities are limited to the violent motion of virtual bodies, yet they can be extremely articulate within that vocabulary. As much as I want to be an untouchable angel of forgiveness and grace with a bottomless well of compassion for all living things, I keep messing up that dodge and I think it’s making me a bitch.”

— Aevee Bee, “I love my untouchable virtual body” (via goodbyemisery)

[thachary]

Interesting research shows that Millennials in the UK and US are bucking the trend when it comes to growing more conservative with age.

[thachary]

everything is about reaching the ending except for the ending which is about wanting to go back to the start

[thachary]

Coworkers were complaining about some girl that was a big overwatch competitive player who got carried by better players into the top 500 and used her sexiness in her favor to get them to do it and to get her a streaming career and these are like leftist I respect women type of dudes complaining about her…Wtf ? “Jeopardizing the integrity of online competitive gaming” huh??? Hot girls can do anything. especially use and deceive men. it’s like the most important thing in the world that they do in fact. What’s not clicking? We have such a long way to go in this world

[thachary]

a teacher at the school I was at in 1992 addressed the students in an attempt to reduce homophobic bullying -- not that it was called that at the time -- and I wish I had a transcript of what they said because it required incredibly adroit rhetorical footwork to demand this without once saying the word "gay", which was of course one of the slurs they wanted the students to stop saying.

but the real elephant in the closet was that there was zero official recognition that there might actually be gay students (or for that matter gay teachers!) at the school, the focus was entirely on making the problem go away in a very don't ask / don't tell sense: there might be gay characters in literature or history and there might be gaybashing in real life that had to be stamped out but there couldn't be kids who just happened to be gay and might casually acknowledge that fact in public, that had to stay under wraps.

and this was completely untenable of course, like obviously you can't "not ask" in practice unless you don't interact with someone at all and you can't "not tell" unless you're prepared to live your entire life in the most ghastly of surreptitious circumstances, so this awkward attempt at progress by compromise just heightened the contradictions in the cracking bulwark of homophobia and thankfully it soon came crashing down, but damn it was a weird time.

[thachary]

Party Girl (1995) dir. Daisy Von Scherler Mayer

[thachary]

[thachary]

[thachary]

Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels (by nomaderaleur).

[thachary]

Two Men Bowing and Two Men Shaking Hands George Cruikshank (1792–1878) The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

[thachary]

[thachary]