#this kid will incorporate ANYTHING into her worldview | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kyotakumrau · 3 years

Text

The World Unknown to Matsuko aired April 6th.

Music that ended up evolving A LOT in the age of social media Special: "The World of Visual-kei bands"

(I'll be just doing the main points of the program)

They start with introducing Fujitani Chiaki (藤谷千明) who's been following v-kei world as a fan and a column writer for 25 years now ('a former Self Defense Force member who came to love over 100 bands in 25 years').

The slogan on the screen that accompanies this is 'The great pick up of ultimate bands starting from legends to evolving styles (kei)'.

Chiaki's life changed after she saw LUNA SEA's "ROSIER" in junior high. When she was 18 Kuroyume announced they're stopping activities and shocked she decided to enter Jieitai (but it was also because there were very few employment chances in her hometown).

A message Chiaki wants to convey the most in the program: "I'm fed up with realistic times, let's experience the extraordinary more".

Matsuko commented that she also thought that the entertainment in Japan is very plain/reserved, that's why she thought about visual kei, she brought up Sawada Kenji (ジュリー). They talked about using make up talking about Kpop as well, that v-kei is so different.

Next came teaser "tremendously popular in the 90s" - "the word 'Visual Kei' became established overseas" (as background here they showed dir's footage and some foreign fans wearing vkei style).

Chiaki: nowadays Japanese people have an image of Visual-kei as 'old', 'scary', 'behind the times' and they both talk about tylhe extraordinary being important.

Next part "after 22 years the time has come when Visual-kei is necessary!" They talk about the chronology board prepared by Chiaki, she also explained that the genre was born in 89 with X and the term visual came from X's PSYCHEDELIC VIOLENCE CRIME OF VISUAL SHOCK.

1994 faced restructuring and unemployment crisis, they showed LUNA SEA's TRUE BLUE and commented how popular it got. 'how did Visual-kei fare in such difficult times?'

Matsuko brought up SHAZNA - everyone was shocked then how cute the vocalist was.

Then they talked about 1999 and Nostradamus and end of century, Chiaki sees 1999 as a peak of visual-kei. They talked about GLAY's legendary show at Makuhari with 200,000 people (they also show their best album sales, about 4,870,000 (the top 3rd in Japan)) and how much media attention it got.

Another legendary show that was held that year was LUNA SEA's 10th anniversary with a stage that costed hundred millions of yen. That stage got destroyed just 3 days before the concert due to a typhoon but band decided to go on with plan and held the concert as planned.

(haha I can totally see Chiaki's sparkling when she talks about LUNA SEA😆)

"Totally necessary for these times! Introduction of the legendary bands immersed in the extraordinary":

🌙MALICE MIZER: 'immersed in extraordinary with super extravagant costumes! ultimate visuals with extreme beauty'

Matsuko commented that performance (from merveilles~終焉と帰趨~l'espace) looks like Takarazuka. Chiaki said that for the sake of worldview they don't play instruments on stage and that Sho Kiryuuin from Golden Bomber was very influenced by them.

Matsuko said that fans of course want to see the artist perform, but also are happy to see them dance, that visual-kei is infinite.

Matsuko also compared Mana to Marie Antoinette.

🌹Chiaki then introduced Versailles as a band that still pursues such worldview. They are dressed as French aristocrats, are very popular abroad especially in France.

💀DIR EN GREY: 'extraordinary performance going to the very end'

Matsuko knows dir, Chiaki explained for the audience about their major debut with 3 singles produced by YOSHIKI, that they are popular overseas as well as in Japan. They express 'human pain' and 'the darkness of the heart', the peak of extraordinary. Chiaki talked about the situation with M Stage program when the tv got complains from parents after their kids cried seeing dir on tv, Mstage was on tv just before Crayon Shin-chan and many ended up seeing one of dir's songs (I love how someone burst out laughing in the studio here😂). Matsuko asked what kind of performance was it:

"The following footage contains material not suitable for all audiences"🤣🤣🤣

and of course it's 残-ZAN-

Chiaki: The shock received in your own living room...

Matsuko: certainly, suddenly seeing this kind of deathmetal

Matsuko: something that Tamori (Kazuyoshi Morita, tv celebrity/presenter/comedian) could suddenly introduce

the commentary: 'and even in recent performances' (they proceed to show dir's live footage from DSS in Nippon Budokan)

Chiaki comments that as dir's lyrics are about the pain and extraordinary, and how cathartic can be a very intense show, and she really loves how 'we love the extraordinary in order to deal with the ordinary life' (yes😭❤️)

Matsuko: ... really? But they have songs so deathmetal like. Ok, I guess I'll check them out.

Chiaki: I just heard from the staff that dir's vocalist, Kyo, is a fan of this program and is watching every week.

Matsuko: who's here connected with the band?? (asking the studio people)

Staff (from behind camera): when getting permission [to show dir's footage] I was told that.

Matsuko: so in a sense I'm deathmetal too. Ok, I think that's it.

Next the program moves on to "a mystery hot pot eaten in the dark of performance incorporating all trends and fashion"

Matsuko: is 'Yaminabe performance' a band's name? Ah, ok, no, we're changing the topic!

Chiaki explains that it's difficult to explain what visual-kei bands are like now because there are so many elements.

They show the Raid (manga style) and Kiryuu (Japanese horror) as examples of the 2nd generation of evolving visual style, and what elements entered visual-kei: rap, dance, underground idols, Japanese kimono, ???

Matsuko: is the bottom right visual-kei??

Chiaki: has common elements (くくり)

●they show NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST and talk about their image and Hiro, the vocalist. the ??? gets changed into 'muscles', they comment on change in the expectation that musicians are very skinny.

Matsuko comments she personally likes the look of the 'underground idols', like what are they actually doing there?

●They show 0.1gの誤算 performance and Chaki explained anything can happen there. They also showed their recent show where fans prerecorded their shouts and member calling on their phones to play them when loud response is not allowed due to covid.

●Alice9 represents 'dance' element.

●CHOKE represents 'rap'

●Mogamigawa Tsukasa for 'kimono', the drummer in THE MICRO HEAD 4N'S who's singing enka.

The 2nd half of the program introduced humanbeatbox topic (very cool to watch but no report from that part😅)

#dir en grey #luna sea #x-japan #malice mizer #gackt #glay #shazna #golden bomber #Versailles #the raid.#己龍 #アリス九號 #nocturnal bloodlust #0.1gの誤算 #choke #the micro head 4n's #translation

143 notes · View notes

thechildofstark · 3 years

Text

Fuck John Walker (and also some other stuff): A Response To Episode Four

WARNING: some bad language, death mentions, violence mentions, blood mentions, racism, spoilers for for ep 4 of tfatws

DISCLAMER: I have some Opinions about various characters. These do not extend to the actors, who I’m sure are lovely and should be treated with the dignity, privacy and respect that they deserve.

“Fuck John Walker” was originally meant to be the subtitle. I decided on it when he screwed up the op for Sam. It got ungraded during the final scene, because nothing else could possibly compare as a necessary title to this post.

Essentially, some (out of order) thoughts on episode 4:

~*Sam and Bucky, working together*~ (pretend this is a musical jingle)

The contrasting ways that they interacted with the displaced

While the incredibly valid argument can be made that Sam is the least privileged of the group (I’ve made it) it is obvious that he has had the most structured civilian life: approaching the people he comes across openly. Yes, he is polite and calm, but the closest thing to this he has personally come across in the past (that we know of) would be the war vets he worked with and the critical difference is that they wanted to be there. From what I remember of Sam’s groups they didn’t seem to be a sort of mandatory requirement: you came because you chose to. Or at least, you came prepared for the situation. Here, Sam is an outsider and an unwelcome threat. These people are not going to open up to him.

Bucky is quieter, but still quite straight forward in the way he presents himself. I think he may show a little more care for the environment he is in than Sam but that isn’t saying much. Yes, he has experienced much worse things than Sam but we still see his unfamiliarity with this sort of situation paired with some less than stellar social skills really not working in his favor.

Look, I love both these 2 to death. But this is not what they know.

Zemo on the other hand quite likely lived in a place similar to this after his family was murdered. He shows an understanding of how this sort of situation would work, going to children who:

a) wont necessarily peg him as an outsider

b) are bribable

also I think he was genuinely super glad to give those kids that candy and money. He would have been such a good dad. now I have Zemo feels. somebody help me.

The inclusion of the Dora Milaje was incredibly awesome, and not just because I simp for powerful women. Narratively, this was the perfect place for them to join the party and assert their right to apprehend Zemo.

Bucky speaking Xhosa (i think it was?) is very cool

I would like to take this moment to formally state that Caption John Walker is a motherfucking asshole.

It was also really nice to see Sam’s therapist skills, that worked against him earlier really help him here.

I liked seeing that more human side of Karli, and having her interact with the “enemy” and have serious conversation about what everyone is doing.

Until Captain Insecurity has to destroy the op because he doesn’t trust the people he chose to work with, no one has comms or anything I guess?

Also Walker deferring to Bucky for team decisions over Sam, talking over Sam and acting like he knows better than Sam?

I smell racism in this Chili’s tonight

It was also really interesting to get a more in-depth look at how Zemo views supersoldiers. Nearly all the ones that he has either heard of or interacted with (destroyed) had either volunteered for the serum or were so brainwashed that it didn’t make a difference. These people are a dangerous enemy to be eliminated, alongside people like Dr. Nagel. His entire worldview is focused on their destruction that the idea that one of them could be a normal person is impossible to him. The only exceptions acknowledged are Steve (paragon of saintly virtue) and Bucky.

And the fact that after his family died and his country devastated he would most likely have fixated on both the Avengers and the “concept” of a superhuman being as something to blame for his loss. His refusal to concede his position to Sam isn’t just arrogance, although that seems to be a part of it, but the fact that he has spent so much time and energy in destroying both the Winter Soldier program and most likely other similar operations, along with the Avengers that this hatred and belief in the danger has most likely become one of his core beliefs. To change this would be to question his vendetta against the Avengers, to question his actions against the Winter Soldier program which he knows was a horrible thing, and to question why he has spent the past seven years in maximum security prison. This isn’t something he is ready to do yet.

The fact that Bucky is a noted exception is something that stands out to me. Zemo knows that Bucky is a good person, regardless of the serum.

Bucky is also the only main character (that I can think of) that was injected with the serum against his will. The fact that he didn’t seek it out could quite likely be part of the reason that Zemo doesn’t look down on him for it - it is framed that the sort of person that seeks out that sort of strength/power would be a “supremacist”, someone who would use their abilities to harm and subjugate others.

And while we are at the apartment may I say how funny it is to see Zemo just. Literally being Sam and Bucky’s sugar daddy. He transports them and houses them and makes them fancy tea. It’s possible he’s providing them with clothes. Either way, love it. Cannot wait for the boys to work it out.

Sam and Lemar’s responses to being offered the serum are an interesting juxtaposition to how they view the concept of supersoldiers. They have both experienced hardship and survived war but Sam is the one that has gone up against Gods and monsters and he wants none of that, thank you.

And Lemar is so comfortable with saying yes because it isn’t actually being offered to him. Walker expresses some hesitation in their discussion because for him, it isn’t hypothetical. This is something real that can and will effect him for the rest of his life and he wants to make the “right decision”.

The return of Erskine’s belief that the serum not only effect the physical but the mental, emotional and (possibly?) spiritual. This isn’t something that’s really been touched on outside of The First Avenger and I liked that it turned up here. But the fact that it was the reason Walker felt comfortable taking the serum? Eww

The Dora Milaje kicking names and taking ass is super awesome. They are so incredibly skilled and have such amazing teamwork and are also super beautiful I love them

Sam and Bucky just. Watching. Enjoying the show. Absolute kings.

Zemo being the sneaky little sneak that he is :)

One one hand, Bucky losing his arm in the fight was very awesome. One the other hand, he has a long history of complicated bodily autonomy in relation to that arm so........ Neutral opinion it is then

Karli, honey, I really want to like you but can you please keep the mans family out of it. Okay?

And another thing that this show made me think about: kids left to fend for themselves after the Blip (uuuurrrggh it hate calling it that. stupid canonical name). I think it’s good that at least some people took it on themselves to take these children in, to give them good lives and families.

The way that Sam has incorporated his wings into his combat style is very cool

Okie dokie can’t avoid it forever lets get this over with.

LEMAR MY BEAUTIFUL SON NOOOO

those fuckers (the writers i mean)

Side note: did they really have to make the first main character death of the series a Black “sidekick” character? No. No they did not.

Side side note: I understand that this is a perfectly valid way (ew) to “advance the plot” but I can and will be annoyed about it

And now we really get into the shit. But...........................

As much as I absolutely unequivocally hate John Walker I actually like the thematic parallels of how they did this. All throughout The First Avenger Steve is adamant on how he doesn’t want to hurt anyone, he just wants to stand up to the bullies. It’s only after Bucky dies that he says he wants to kill all the Nazis and really get into the horror of it all. The fact that John, who has absolutely been on the edge for the entire episode if not longer, only loses it after Lemar dies?

Because Lemar is arguably meant to be that stand-in for Bucky in the eyes of the public, and they are obviously close friends..........

Just -

I feel I may have accidentally been slightly nicer than I planned to Walker in this post. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

But C****** J*** W****** is NOT Captain America. Up until now I’ve been calling him “Fake Cap” in my head and to my family, but he doesn’t even deserve that honor.

And the blood on the Shield. Dear god that was horrible.

And the fact that, as it was pointed out in this very episode, this man fully represents everything that is Captain America, to the world. He isn’t only tarnishing his own legacy, he is also destroying Steve’s. And to some extent, Bucky’s. The whole reason that Bucky Barnes is considered a “Superhero” is because, at least in America he is known as “Cap’s Best Friend”. He was marketed that way for over half a century, and after the whole “Winter Solder” thing, goodwill or no, brainwashing or no, this could end very ugly for him. Not to mention that Steve Rogers is most likely to be forgotten to history in favor of this freak.

And on that note, where the fuck is Steve? This is set only 6 months after Endgame, if he had died we would know. So what the hell is he doing? Because I know he got perpetual brainrot going back in time to be str8 and boring but dear god if the show tries to tell me that he’s just chilling in some senior’s center in Alaska I will actually call bullshit. Steve Rogers would never. Okay this is a whole separate post on my thought on Steve. Watch this space I guess.

And while we’re all here, Bucky Barnes needs a goddamn boyfriend. I’ve done some thinking, and here is a compiled shortlist:

Sam

Zemo

De-aged Steve (he would be higher but I’m still mad at him for the whole “vanishing without a word to relive Jim Crow and the Lavender Scare. :/ )

IN THAT ORDER.

That’s all folks.

Feel free to send me asks if you want clarification or extra details on anything.

And finally -

the thing we all came to see:

FUCK

JOHN

WALKER

fin

#john walker #steve rogers #captain america #sam wilson #bucky barnes #helmut zemo #zemo #tfatws #the falcon and the winter solider spoilers #karli morgenthau #dora milaje #tw blood #tw violence #tw death #cw racism #thats all folks

9 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 4 years

Text

prudencepaccardwait isn't this just an emotional vs reason thing in other words

Maybe? I think a lot of people are capable abstract reasoning for distant things, but switch to a highly affective mode as soon as anything that concerns them deeply crops up. When I was a kid, my mom was kinda like this: skilled lawyer, very professionally capable, but at home basically incapable of separating “this is how I feel about X” versus “this is how X is;” something that displeased her was treated as inherently bad, even though she was smart enough, in theory, to reason through the steps about why it wasn’t actually wrong--or, vice versa, if she felt justified by something, nothing would convince her it was wrong, unless maybe an authority figure she trusted (priest, doctor, etc.) could act as that external circuit breaker.

(also pretty bad about “black men make me anxious” vs “black men are dangerous,” though she’s gotten better in retirement)

I think this also goes to things like depression: depression creates a pervasive negative affect toward everything, and a close, very intelligent friend of mine once went through a depressive period; during it, she was basically incapable of admitting the positive aspect of anything, not even in her life but in the world at large. And I’ve experienced that myself, but I’ve gotten a bit better in the last several years about being able to remember to separate the two spheres. A psychologist telling me once “you are not your thoughts” (which, ok, you are, but I know what she meant: just because you think a thought doesn’t mean you have to believe it, there is a difference between noticing a transient thought and incorporating it into your worldview) helped, and some of the stuff in the sequences about realizing that “rightness” is a feeling you have, a brain chemical-emotion thing, and not an abstract property of information (which you can then generalize to other kinds of knowledge vs emotion about knowledge, including “I feel like shit about everything, therefore everything is shit”). Learning how to change your mind feels very, very connected to me to learning how to separate emotion and reason on, like, a social/interpersonal level: not going off on people who don’t deserve it bc you’re irritated, or learning how to set a boundary bc even though you feel guilty, you know someone is in fact making an unreasonable request of you.

#mostly i dealt with my mother by moving to another continent #it improved our relationship a lot!

37 notes · View notes

cyb-by-lang · 6 years

Text

Shell Game (16/?)

Kei debates the merit of drawing attention to herself, then decides to do it anyway.

The Sports Festival.

Kei had some serious mixed feelings.

On one hand: Legal freedom to use her “Quirk” to get ahead! As long as her Water ninjutsu could be successfully manipulated with enough flexibility to accomplish the task. And in the middle fiddly bits, Kei could punch people.

On the other: A media circus literally inconceivable in the world she’d spent her life in up until this point. The entire world’s eyes were on a bunch of high schoolers and their superpowers, with all the scrutiny that implied. And Kei was a sleeper agent.

On a third hand, possibly generated from Wood Release and flipping everyone off: There was a non-zero chance someone from home could see the competition. Obito and Kakashi would be off patrolling Hosu to make up for Kei being anchored to the UA event, but that still left people like Hayate, but Sensei’s demands since the USJ clusterfuck had included recordings in formats Konoha could process. So, with that thought in mind, Kei had to make any performance good enough not to embarrass the hell out of her team. She had no doubt whatsoever that Sensei, Kushina, and Naruto would get that chance, not to mention her teammates and all her friends. And the UA teachers had all seen her entrance video, so that was just a bit more pressure to not choke horribly with more cameras in play.

“You’ll have to be more passionate, more fiery, than anybody else there if you want to catch the audience’s eye!” Kayama-sensei had told them all, during announcements the day before. Which, given the general air of immediate deflation that swept across the room—with the only bastions of hope being Kei, Shinsō, and the two overworked class representatives Shingetsu Fukurō (Quirk: Head Rotation) and Homura Yui (Quirk: Fire Hair), didn’t seem to help much.

She tried, though.

It wasn’t until later that Kayama-sensei tracked Kei down and had a chance to chat with her, specifically.

“I know you have your own decisions to make,” Kayama-sensei said, with her flogging whip resting against one hip, “and that you’re possibly one of the least-passionate students I’ve ever had—”

She was hardly wrong.

“—but while I am going to be the chief umpire, I want to see you do your best out there. You and Shinsō-kun have been working hard, haven’t you?”

Kei blinked.

Kayama-sensei had seen Shinsō and Kei leave school together a few times. There was also a real chance the principal had told her about the bank robbers. And Kei had made a point of paying attention for the last week or so, which she was sure the other teachers would have noticed. She’d even asked questions. Such unheard-of developments made news headlines around the world.

“Yeah, I…” Kei scratched the bottom end of her scar, a little embarrassed. “Sort of? It’s been an interesting few weeks.”

“You were a little closed off before, but I understand why.” Nonetheless, Kayama-sensei winked and gave her a thumbs-up. “I’m glad you’re coming out of your shell, though! Kids your age need to live a little.”

“Thanks, Kayama-sensei. I think.”

That was an unfortunate pun.

Considering she’s in on this scheme, I think it’s perfect.

Ugh.

As a result of regulations and support items the Hero course students would otherwise have access to, what with being heroes and having costumes and shit, everyone in the UA Sports Festival was competing in their gym uniforms. Kei changed in the girl’s locker room with the rest and emerged into the waiting area while still picking at her sleeves for loose ends. Using chakra scalpels to cut the threats off was probably a waste of the precision Kei had worked years to gain, but waste not, want not.

She was still fussing with them when Shinsō stepped forward, because it was easier than worrying about what her boys were up to in Hosu. Leaving her phone in the provided locker went against about five different impulses.

“You seem nervous,” Shinsō commented, though he didn’t seem all that worried.

“Not about this,” Kei replied, finally giving up on her shirtsleeves and sighing. “Everyone back home’s gonna see me in this tournament.”

“…Is that a bad thing?”

Kei pinched the bridge of her nose. “Only if I lose badly.”

Shinsō made a noise that might’ve been a laugh, making Kei glance at him. “With an attitude like that…”

“If I lose to the explosion kid, I will never hear the end of it.” Kei sighed. “Ever.”

“Why’s that? He’s supposed to be the top contender out of all the first-years.” Shinsō, she noted, hadn’t tried to redirect her vague challenge to him. Maybe he was being more mature now, but Kei didn’t count on it. “Everyone’s aiming at that punk.”

That was a fairly long explanation. And it involved revealing that the explosion kid wasn’t the only person who’d ever blown something up by touching it with destructive intent. Kei probably hadn’t been making her contact explosives for as long as Bakugō Katsuki had been a hazard to public property, but she knew that kind of attack. That kind of pattern.

And best of all, that kid wasn’t using fūinjutsu.

Kei beckoned Shinsō slightly closer, so the two of them were slightly off in a corner of the room, then decided partial truth was bound to be funnier than an outright lie. She whispered, “I once blew up my teacher when I was thirteen.”

In that moment, Shinsō could have been carved out of granite.

“He shouldn’t have taught me how to make the stuff I used, and anyway he was fine. Teleportation Quirk,” Kei said, before Shinsō could look any more alarmed. “He started making fun of me afterward, and then said I could try again.”

“The more I hear about your school, the less I want to,” Shinsō muttered, while the other 1-C students started edging away from them. Kei just shrugged while Shinsō tried to incorporate possibly the second-most incriminating detail Kei had ever let him know about into his worldview. The first being the…practical training. And how Kei learned it. “Now I have a headache. Thanks for that.”

“You wanted to know why I was focused, and now you do.” Kei rolled her eyes when Shinsō glared slightly down at her. “There is no way Sensei would stop laughing if I lost to someone like that. He’d call it poetic justice or something and I’d hate him forever.”

“I’m starting to think I should be halfway across the stadium for deniability if you do anything,” Shinsō complained, but didn’t seem to mind too much. He hadn’t started running, after all. But that could mean he just didn’t believe her, which was probably safer for his sanity.

“Pff, no one could blame you for anything I do.”

Shinsō raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying this to the person whose Quirk is literally called Brainwashing.”

“Yep.” Kei was aware of the incongruity. She just didn’t care.

Shinsō settled for rolling his eyes. And then it was time to join the other classes in the opening ceremony.

The Sports Festival took place in what would have been an Olympic-sized stadium anywhere else, dwarfing the Chūnin Exam setup Konoha used. When she looked up, Kei could spot a massive dome stretching far overhead, stage lights off for the daylight event but nonetheless present. Thousands of seats lined the stadium walls, each of them filled with a person who wanted to see a bunch of fifteen-year-olds kick the snot out of each other. She liked the jumbotron-style screens, though she probably could have done without the reminder that everything from this moment forward would be broadcasted live.

Present Mic was the announcer. This was, perhaps, the most perfect job ever fucking devised. A guy with the Voice Quirk and endless capacity for hype generation and shouting. If Kei didn’t already know he was a DJ to end all DJs, she would have wondered if he moonlighted as an American football sportscaster.

General Studies entered second out of the department, announced collectively as “Next up, General Studies classes C, D, and E!” where the Hero classes got separate spiels. Made sense, though—flashy Quirks and ambition were concentrated in those forty students.

Kei just kept silent behind Shinsō, listening to their classmates lose heart. She could draw attention to herself later.

Kayama-sensei stood tall on the podium as the classes all gathered. Kei hung near the back, well behind the hero kids and most of her classmates, while Shinsō was closer to the front. Too many of the students had physical Quirks that obscured her view, so Kei settled for closing her eyes and expanding her chakra sense outward like a slowly widening net.

Nothing. Wider, then.

“Silence, everyone!” Kayama-sensei snapped her flogging whip, stepping up to the microphone. “And for the student pledge, we have Katsuki Bakugō!”

Kei could almost feel her classmates rolling their eyes.

The kid made his way to center stage, footsteps echoing in the sudden quiet.

And once he was up there…

“I just wanna say, I’m gonna win.”

Kei stuck her fingers in her ears before the crowd around her erupted in shouting. Off-hand, she could pick out the 1-A kids collectively before Iida got loudest, followed by the steel kid from 1-B. And then there was just more shouting, because nobody had bothered to tell the grade’s other resident delinquent that there was supposed to be a speech, not just a challenge.

Kei opened her eyes once Kayama-sensei got control of everyone again. She didn’t even need her whip this time.

“Without further ado, it’s time for us to get started!” Kayama-sensei called, microphone in hand and a smile on her face. “This is where you begin feeling the pain!”

So, is this—?

Please don’t say it.

“The first fateful game of the festival! What could it be?” Kayama-sensei held her arm up and a screen plunked down behind her, showing a single roulette spinning wildly until it came to a sharp stop. “Ta-dah!”

Obstacle race, huh?

“All eleven classes will participate in this treacherous contest,” Kayama-sensei went on, “The track is four kilometers around the outside of the stadium.”

Kei glanced at Shinsō, who nodded back. They wouldn’t team up, but they full expected to see each other in the next round. In this event, they would simply use every skill they had individually to excel.

It wasn’t like Kei could actually tell him not to use his Quirk and show it off. She certainly planned to do…something interesting.

“I don’t want to restrain anyone, at least in this game.”

Before I was rudely interrupted—

Isobu, no!

Kayama-sensei licked her lips, then grinned widely and said, “As long as you don’t leave the course, you’re free to do whatever your heart desires!”

Kei smacked both palms into her face. Kayama-sensei dresses like that every damn day, and now you’re breaking my acclimatization.

I am saying it.

Do what you want. Kei grimaced under her hands.

That is most definitely a dominatrix.

And now I can’t unthink anything about Kayama-sensei’s sex life that you just brought to mind. Absolutely none of it. Thanks for that.

“Now then, take your places, contestants.”

The entire first-year class gathered at a massive set of double doors. Kei glanced up, made a ballpark guess at the number of students versus the width of the opening, then sighed.

Three.

Two.

“What should we be paying attention to at this stage of the race?” Present Mic asked Aizawa-sensei, up in the media booth.

One.

And when Kayama-sensei screamed, “BEGIN!” Kei watched the inevitable rush that packed the entire place like a canning factory.

“The doorway,” said Aizawa-sensei’s grim voice.

Enthusiasm was rewarded to some degree, but so was planning. And unfortunately, the first years’ energy didn’t work out for the ones in the midst of the crush.

Shinsō was already gone, vanishing into the crowd. It was probably time for Kei to get moving, too.

From a standing start, Kei leapt.

No one in 1-C doubted Kei’s physical prowess, but neither could they explain it. Even as ice flowed toward the outside of the stadium, caused by somebody’s Quirk, Kei bounced off walls inside of the tunnel above the students’ heads. Water droplets splattered here and there, making the chill just that much worse as she ricocheted from contact point to contact point. To her fellows, it probably looked like she was using her control over water to stick herself to the tunnel walls and her athleticism to do the actual grunt work. Something, something, surface tension.

Chakra was pretty funny like that.

Cheating is all in the spirit of shinobi tradition, isn’t it?

Indisputably. Now make sure you place well.

Kei made it back into the light the instant after the ice froze most of the pack leaders of the race to the ground. She landed and rolled, crystals shattering half-formed along her back and snow caught in her hair. All around her, the students struggled in the ice she just brushed away, her gaze focusing forward to the two-toned head of one of the class 1-A students. Some people were frozen, others just slipping on the ice, and they were bound to see more of that as this kid made his way forward.

“Nice try, Todoroki-kun!” yelled one of the girls from class 1-A, as she and several of her compatriots fought their way past multiple waves of sheet ice.

Kei passed Shinsō, who was being carried by three likely-brainwashed students. She waved at him, then darted forward toward the lead position.

Traversing ice wasn’t really any harder than walking on water, no matter how much Todoroki made. It was mainly a matter of sticking to the surface instead of suspending herself above it. Purple spheres falling all over the place was her real concern—Obito had told her how the water villains during the USJ attack got caught, and Kei didn’t plan to repeat their mistakes. And if she passed Midoriya and Uraraka along the way, she at least spared them a friendly wave as well.

The first leg of the race seemed to be pretty tame aside from the other competitors. The obstacles were no-shows so far.

Cue the robots.

#Shell Game #Keisuke Gekko #todoroki shouto #shinsou hitoshi #Isobu

58 notes · View notes

simonjunod · 3 years

Photo

ANCIENT WISDOM AT THE ROOT OF HOLISTIC EDUCATION

We all remember the one kid in class who always seems to be behind compared to the others. One would think that since they’re the one having a hard time that the teachers or even the system would focus more on that kid’s intellectual and emotional growth. Unfortunately, that rarely happens.

The current educational practices have a skewed rewards system. Students who perform well are given more attention and more accolades, but the students who have a hard time catching up are berated even more under the guise of “motivating him or her” to do better. In the end, the kid loses interest in education, the problem never gets addressed, and nothing changes.

Growing up, we have been accustomed to educational practices that have not always been productive—sometimes these are even destructive. Individuality and specific intelligences are often blurred out through standardized tests, benchmarking, and rankings, thus stunting the holistic growth of students in the process.

Cultivating wholeness and including every aspect of humanity—from STEM to spirituality—in education is critical to raising a more conscious generations. With the world rapidly changing, we cannot afford to raise leaders that are unreflective, ill-informed, and with no connection to their core humanity. In our current educational system, we may raise Doctors, Accountants, Lawyers, and Journalists, but without the Philosophy of Wholeness, we just might be raising Doctors who would not do anything unless for a price, Accountants who manipulate records, Lawyers who will do anything for power and money, and Journalists who frame false information to be true.

According to Scott Forbes, Holistic education is one that “educates all parts of the child”—intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. It sees the child as a whole being, and as part of the greater whole—the advancing society, the environment, their communities, etc. With this approach, educators will continually be asking the question, “how will this child use this information for the greater good?” and not simply teach information for the sake of it. It develops the child’s creative and critical thinking skills, persistence, motivation, and healthy risk-taking. It teaches the child that their moral and ethical choices are deeply linked to the world around them, and that their humanity should be at the core of their goals and aspirations.

This kind of education is a stark contrast to the current trends we have and challenges the practices that reflect materialism and consumerism; practices in which the goal is to compete and consume in the global marketplace. It reduces the child as a mere statistic, turning their complexities into narrow benchmarks with the goal of just making more money for businesses.

Holistic Education has its roots planted in Ancient Wisdom. It is focused on the integration of the vast range of human experiences, one that fosters deep appreciation for learning about the world, nature, and the universe. Holistic education develops one’s identity and encourages one’s connection with the world and the environment around them. Holistic educators try to capture and recover the indigenous and aboriginal people’s sense of meaning and incorporate it to today’s modern education.

The concept of holism, or wholeness, comes from the Greek concept of holon which teaches that the universe is made up of interconnected wholes that cannot be divided into parts. Socrates himself pioneered holistic education when he said, “know thyself”, wherein he encouraged his students to examine their life and see if it reflects the education they receive. Schools of thought inspired by the Philosophy of Wholeness include Perennial Philosophy which teaches divine reality and oneness; Indigenous Worldviews which encompasses Ancient Wisdom and reverence for the universe; Ecological Worldview which explores environmental issues, dialogues with nature, and sustainability; and Feminist ideologies which push for equality, inclusion, and mutual responsibility.

The challenges children face especially in the age of technology are reflected in their self-concept. Internet algorithms often display unrealistic standards that affect their self-esteem. Most of what they see can even be false or dangerous, which can lead to their perceptions becoming skewed. Materially, the world is progressing, but the younger generations are at risk of devolving and disconnecting from their authentic selves. Returning to our roots— to Ancient Wisdom—is the antidote to these issues. When we discover the interconnectedness of our existence, we can make better decisions for ourselves and our communities.

Athena Wisdom Institute is deeply passionate about incorporating Ancient Wisdom to our modern lifestyle, our workplaces, and most importantly, our schools. We recognize the importance of educating all children holistically for the advancement of society, and for the good of our world. We believe that the role of educators is to encourage critical thinking and develop a profound connectedness to humanity, and Athena Wisdom is here to spread this message to leaders around the world.

By: Athena Wisdom Institute

https://www.athenawisdominstitute.com

0 notes

brightbeautifulthings · 6 years

Text

The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen

"'I have had the love of children from all over the world because of my stories. A child's love is the perfect love, for it is given with a whole heart. That love will outlast me a hundredfold. And it will outlast you as well.'"

Year Read: 2018

Rating: 3/5

Context: I received a free e-copy through NetGalley from the publishers at Tachyon Publications. I love fairytale retellings, and I've heard nothing but good things about Jane Yolen.

About: The Emerald Circus is a collection of short stories inspired by fairytales, legends, and folklore including The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table, among others.

Thoughts: This is kind of a mixed bag, and I wish I had enjoyed it more. While I did like a handful of the stories, I also struggled to get through some of them, and there was nothing in it I absolutely couldn't live without. Usually in a collection, one or two stories will hit me pretty hard, and that never happened here. The funny thing is that I'm not sure why. They're very well-written. Aside from a few editing typos, Yolen has a beautiful prose-voice, and she's obviously perfected her craft over the years. I'm a little confused about who the audience for this book is. I went in thinking it was for children/middle grade, because that's what I'd heard about Jane Yolen, but I think I can say it's emphatically not for kids. Many of the themes are much darker or more sexual, and even the writing itself is difficult at times. I'm hesitant to even call it a YA collection, but I think it's somewhere on the spectrum between YA and adult.

I did like some of the stories. The first is a strong retelling of "The Snow Queen" with a twist as Hans Christian Andersen as the main character that was very enjoyable. I always enjoy Alice in Wonderland stories (of which there are three), but they don't bring anything particularly new to the table. My favorite was easily the title story, "The Emerald Circus", which pulls in some Wizard of Oz mythology. The story takes a rather meandering look at Dorothy's history in Kansas and how she gets blown away by a tornado and joins the circus. I can see why it doesn't work for a lot of people though because the story isn't really about Dorothy, and the circus barely features. If anything, it's a story about wanting more, and while it takes a while to get to its point, the message really resonated with me.

I didn't care for "Lost Girls" at all. While I'd love a feminist version of Peter Pan, and I support the utility of strikes and picketing, the story only reinforces that girls can't fight pirates; they can only be captured by them. "Evian Steel" unfortunately has the underlying message that menstruation is unclean and "The Quiet Monk" that homosexuality is wrong, and I just don't appreciate references like that in my fantasy that go unchallenged. They're small things, but they represent much bigger and more problematic worldviews, and they can really kill a story. The rest of the collection is just kind of... boring. "A Knot of Toads" has a cool premise but spends most of the story wallowing in darkness, and "Evian Steel" is unnecessarily long and lacks action (especially for an island full of women who make swords).

There are two stories about classic writers that stand out if only for their change in topic. I love the idea of incorporating figures like this into the rest of our collective mythology which, in a way, we already have. The Edgar Allan Poe story doesn't quite take off, but I loved the Emily Dickinson one, which is surprising because I usually can't buy into aliens unless they're the premise of a story. (As a premise, fine, then I know what I'm getting into, but as a way to explain bad plot choices, absolutely not.) It's lovingly written though, and Dickinson makes for a clever, sympathetic main character, the realest in the entire collection. I would read a whole book about her. All in all, this isn't as good as I was expecting, but I'm still interested to read more of Yolen's work. I have The Devil's Arithmetic waiting on my shelf, which is no guarantee of reading it soon, but someday.

#book review #the emerald circus #jane yolen #3/5 #rating: 3/5 #2018 #netgalley #tachyon publications #fairytale adaptation #fairytale retelling #short story collection

7 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

Shadow & Bone: Ranking the Ships

https://ift.tt/3ve46aI

This Shadow and Bone feature contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 1.

Netflix’s Shadow and Bone adaptation is rife with excellent shipping options. Adapted from Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse YA book series, there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to romantic relationships. Whether you’re into the Enemies to Lovers vibes of Nina and Matthias (aka Helnik), the Slow Burn angst of Inej and Kaz (aka Kanej), or you just like to see Jesper having fun with the hot stableboy, Shadow and Bone has you covered. In the interest of covering the wide swathe of romantic ships on this show, and recognizing that everyone has their own subjective taste when it comes to storytelling, Den of Geek editor Kayti Burt and Den of Geek contributor Lacy Baugher are teaming up to discuss loving the love of Shadow and Bone. Welcome to our discussion, and feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments below…

Question: What was your favorite ship in Shadow and Bone Season 1?

Lacy: Matthias and Nina are my favorite ship in the books, and my favorite ship in Shadow and Bone. I’m actually kind of surprised by this though, because there are just so, so many ways that their storyline here could have gone off the rails and been truly awful to watch. Instead, their connection is really natural and develops carefully throughout the season. (I was really afraid it would just be some insta-attraction, but that’s not what happened at all.)

From Nina’s capture and imprisonment aboard what is essentially a Grisha slave ship bound for Fjerda to Matthias over the top hatred of her “kind,” there’s just so much goodness for those fans— like me, lol—who love a good enemies to frenemies to OTP forever style romance. They’re both so good for each other, and I love how thoughtful the show is about showing us how they’re each expanding one another’s experiences and worldview. Also, waffles!!!

Kayti: From the get-go, I was pretty much all in on Alina and Mal (aka Malina), which surprised me because they are… fine in the book. The decision to play this romantic connection as so obviously reciprocal from the beginning, even if Alina cannot see how Mal feels about her (and maybe vice versa), was so smart. In the first half of the season, which was the weaker part of this story for me, the yearning between these two is the narrative aspect that kept me emotionally engaged, even when the Little Palace stuff wasn’t as interesting.

Lacy: I love how hard Alina fights to go with Mal into the Shadow Fold in the first episode. That isn’t the way that happens in the books (they’re both basically just ordered to go) and that choice sort of crystallizes for me all the right things that this series does with their relationship. They’re both really active about how much they mean to one another and are constantly fighting to either stay together or get back to each other, I find that so romantic.

Question: What was your least favorite ship in Shadow and Bone Season 1?

Lacy: I find the idea of Alina and the Darkling (aka Darklina) really off putting for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that his desire for her is almost completely and utterly self-serving. I know there are a lot of Shadow and Bone fans who love it for whatever reason and I support anyone shipping whatever they need to ship. (Also, Ben Barnes is certainly a looker.) But, for me Alina deserves better than a man who seems to think he has some kind of right to her simply because their powers are similarly spectacular and rare. It is fully not Alina’s job or responsibility to save this man from his own darkness or loneliness or however he would describe the many moral failings that he expects her to somehow magically cure.

Plus, well, he’s a remorseless murderer who is basically trying to take over the world. But even if he wasn’t, the Darkling is still someone who lied to and manipulated Alina for his own selfish ends, and then forced her into compliance with his desires against her will. There is truly no aspect of that story that’s romantic for me, and I think trying to pretend that he’s in some way good for her is downright dangerous at points.

Kayti: Yes! It is not Alina’s job to fix the Darkling. She deserves support and love now, not some time in a possible future when she has managed to coach Aleksander through his pain. (That being said, Ben Barnes is an utter delight and I love him.)

I will say that, even though I don’t personally like this ship, I love how the series handles it. As a story, I don’t think the adaptation really ever romanticizes this relationship as anything other than what it is: a toxic, manipulative dynamic that, for Aleksander, is always about power and never about love. The series’ contextualization of their relationship (it only ever briefly entertains the idea of these two as a proper couple) honestly feels somewhat radical, especially because Alina/the Darkling is such a popular ship in the novel.

Additional note: I am not here to murder anyone’s ship. If you’re into the Darklina of it all, I say go for it. Shipping fictional characters is different than perpetuating toxic dynamics in real life, and if shipping Darklina brings you joy, I say go for it!

Question: Which ship gets the “Most Improved” award from the books?

Lacy: 100% Mal and Alina! I’ve written about this at some length already, but I’m honestly a bit stunned by how well the show adapts this relationship for the screen. I did not expect it, but I love it and I honestly can’t wait to see how the show handles the events of the second book.

Mal and Alina’s relationship is so much more complex and interesting here than it is on the page, from the changes to their shared history (Mal and Alina aren’t just from the same orphanage, they’re both the only mixed race kids there who get bullied for being part Shu-Han) to the increased depth Mal’s presence throughout the story lends to his character. These two make so much sense as a couple here, and it’s all very natural and earned to me – and doesn’t at all come off like they’re only together because they books say they have to be.

Kayti: Agreed! The adaptation made Mal a protagonist in his own right, outside of his value as a romantic interest for Alina, and it made their relationship so much more interesting to me. Getting to see Mal fight to get back to Alina, all while she thought he had given up on here, was quite powerful.

Lacy: Right? Like Mal is also…fine in the books, but he really comes into his own as a character for me here. I know part of that is just that the books are primarily Alina’s POV so she can’t know what she doesn’t know when it comes to him, but the downside is that Mal really comes off as a jerk at multiple points. (Like, oh, now he’s suddenly jealous of the Darkling? What?)

Plus, I just love the repeated imagery of them choosing each other, not just once, but everyday. That’s what real love is, in my book—the decision to be with someone that’s a constant, conscious part of your life that you choose to uphold in big things and in small.

Question: Which ship has the most potential to be The Best Ship moving forward?

Kayti: As someone who has yet to read Six of Crows, I was very into the Inej/Kaz dynamic, which is more of a pre-romantic relationship in this first season. I love the angst of a Slow Burn, and I imagine this is one of the benefits of bringing in the Six of Crows characters ahead of the main plot of their books: we get to see how these characters’ relationships develop before their arcs come to fruition, or even properly begin. I also am glad these two didn’t start anything when there is the messy power imbalance inherent in Kaz paying off Inej contract. This will still be a factor moving forward, but feels less squidgy when Inej has the option of leaving.

Lacy: I think that the answer is probably also Mal and Alina? I can’t quite figure out how Shadow and Bone will incorporate the elements from Six of Crows moving forward so I’m not sure how big of a piece those characters will play in any second season—though don’t get me wrong, I am very much looking forward to however Nina manages to get Matthias out of Hellgate prison.

But, given the tensions that arise between Mal and Alina in the book Siege and Storm, I’m very curious to see how—or even if—the show handles/presents some of them. I fully expect that the more layered presentation of Mal we saw here will play into this, and I think that’s going to make a real difference in the story. (Which, unfortunately, often comes off on the page like romantic conflict that exists for the sake of propping up a love triangle.)

Question: OK, rank your ships. Go!

Kayti: Why did I give us this question? It’s so hard! And now, since gushing about Mal and Alina at the beginning of this conversation, I have talked myself into Inej and Kaz as my #1. Plot twist! This just goes to show how many great romantic relationships (and other kinds of relationships) there are in this show. Here goes…

Kaz/Inej

Mal/Alina

Nina/Matthias

Jesper/that stableboy

That ship they all end up on at the end

Genya/David

Alina/Aleksander

Lacy: There is Matthias and Nina and there is everyone else.

This show has made me a hardcore Malina shipper though. So that’s new and exciting!

I do have one shipping-related complaint, however, and that’s that Genya and David are a favorite pairing of mine from the books and I am truly not sure that they exchange more than a dozen words in the entire first season of the show? I fully believe there are viewers who probably can’t even easily identify who David is. (Unless you’re armed with the book knowledge that he’s the one who fuses the stag’s antlers to Alina’s shoulders.)

Kayti: Yeah, justice for Genya/David.

I love how much you love Nina and Matthias, and also think your enthusiasm has kept me from writing too much about them in favor of highlighting other ships. But let the record show: I am here for these two. Of the Six of Crows crew, they had the best and clearest arc, which is how their connection manages to support a whole subplot all on its lonesome. I wrote about this in our other Shadow and Bone conversation article, but these two give me Jon Snow/Ygritte vibes in the best possible way (hopefully, they get a better ending!), but I haven’t mentioned that watching them share that floating detritus post-shipwreck helped soothe the Titanic trauma I still hold from watching Jack freeze to death because he can’t fit on that door with Rose. (Um, Titanic spoilers.)

Shadow and Bone Review: Netflix Adaptation Brings the Magic

By Lacy Baugher

Shadow and Bone: Why Netflix Cast Its Fantasy Adaptation With Relative Unknowns

By Kayti Burt

Question: Any final thoughts?

Lacy: Romantic or no, I just love the care that Shadow and Bone takes with all their relationships. Nothing happens on screen simply because it does in the books and everything feels really organic and true to who these characters are.

That’s not easy, and there are a ton of shows—let alone adaptations—that are really, really bad at it. Shadow and Bone is really good at it, and I can’t wait to see what happens as things get more complicated from this point forward.

Kayti: The relationships on this show, brought to life by this charming and talented cast, are the heart of this adaptation. So many epic fantasy series brought to the screen bring the world or the plot without giving us a reason to care about the people, and that is a dealbreaker for me. One of the strengths of YA has always been the prioritization of relationships and emotional interiority, and to see those narrative priorities brought to the screen in an epic fantasy story makes me so happy.

Lacy: It’s such a rare thing, when you find a show where you can literally ship almost everyone in virtually any sort of arrangement or permutation, but if the entire cast just suddenly decided to make out I would not be mad.

Kayti: The perfect conclusion to our conversation… and the show?

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post Shadow & Bone: Ranking the Ships appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2QiMs7b

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

patioskate2-blog · 5 years

Text

The Generation of Now. 2/25/18

I was driving home to see my little-angel-human-miracle of a niece today, and I was ruminating about life in the car on my way home. I thought about why I became vegetarian, I thought about the state of the world, I thought about this next generation to come, and I thought about the the root of my cynicism-steeped worldview.

And while what I am about to say may shock you, I have often come to the following conclusion, and it’s not eloquent, but I wanted to rip off the brand-aid and put it into words:

I think human beings are the worst thing to happen to this planet.

I am not excluding myself from this statement; it’s only to say that I am aware I am part of the problem, and if I single-handedly knew of a way to fix it, I would.

Here’s where I am coming from.

Years ago (think 16-1700s?), as a burgeoning race, humans weren’t consciously at the top of the food chain- I mean we were but I don’t think we were so arrogant about it. I think illnesses like the flu still ravaged populations, mothers often died in childbirth, the sophistication of commerce was rudimentary at best, and access to items beyond the basic familial necessity was still fairly out of reach for most people. And with that came humbleness. An appreciation for nature, for life, and for the hardships we actively faced as human beings. And from this? An embodiment of ‘humanity’: a need to contribute to our families and society, to coexist not only with each other, but with the planet, and to cultivate the ‘gift’ of the fruits and vegetables and animals it bore. Mother Nature dictated our well-being. We directly felt the impact of a bad harvest, of livestock-ruinous disease, of incurable hereditary diseases that killed 2 out of 4 children in a family. I certainly wouldn’t describe it as a ‘comfortable’ time, and I wouldn’t want to go back for sure, but the human-to human and human-earth relationship was still somewhat raw, modest, and unadulterated.

Well, thanks to science and the power of the remarkable human mind, we’ve solved many of these issues. We don’t worry about chicken pox or the common cold. We don’t fear how we’ll get food on the table (for the most part), we look to C-sections and pre-natal screenings to cure illness and stop genetic abnormality in its tracks. For most of us, we’ve never needed to till soil, build our own house, or make a satchel to carry our possessions for a trip into town. And that’s a good thing.

But as I drove this vehicle of which I hardly know the mechanical composition, which has just always readily ‘existed’ for me, and the convenience of which I’ve always taken for granted- literally at the turn of a key, I thought about this phenomenon.. “What happened?” We seem to have solved all of the problems. All of us have some sort of shelter home- hell, we have laptops to read this right now; we have clothing literally stockpiled in closets for our civilized livelihood that usually involves a job with a morning coffee, a (debatable for some, I’m sure) comfortable place to go for 8-10 hours to work, and a paycheck; we have incorporated things like education, 401Ks, Uber eats and Netflix into our lifestyle, and more intangibly: the idea of career choice, time for self-discovery, and for many a welcome phase of self-destructive partying, as new luxuries of growing up. Marriage and kids are even sort of fading as a necessity anymore.

For many years now, our population has been exploding, food and drink are superfluously available (I could go get a hamburger at one of 15 places in a five-minute-walk radius from my couch right now), and our lifestyles are now rooted in a word that might eventually cause our downfall: entitlement.

What do I mean?

We live in a society where we devastate land for food over-production, of which 133 billion pounds / $161 billion gets wasted- it literally goes directly from store to trash, every year. We live in a society where we now treat cows, pigs, and chickens like common produce, ‘growing’ them to be slaughtered in relatively violent ways, but having four types of hamburgers available ubiquitously at our fingertips is more important (We don’t even question it because it’s just always been the way we’ve lived.) We throw bags of trash outside our homes to get whisked away to a place we never see, almost as if it doesn’t exist, because we’ve become accustomed to the luxury, and pollution that has built up in the ocean over the past 30 years can now be seen from space, but also now has accessed the deepest recesses of our once-pristine (and respected) waters. We argue over a woman’s body and who should have final say on whether she has a baby or not, and then when we force her to have the child, we turn our backs and say, ‘you should have planned for this.’ We pride ourselves on immediate gratification, same-day delivery, free returns, ‘likes’ and ‘shares’, and being the first: the first to acquire, the first to buy, the first to consume.

We live in a world where human life is so devalued and confused by what is happening in society, children act out by shooting up schools. Death by disease is now being replaced by the drug overdose and suicide, and the complexities of just trying to understand this world, progressively spinning faster and faster, make it hard to keep up.

We’ve gotten so over-confident. We’ve completely lost the meaning of what it is to be human within humanity. We base our lives on collecting, comfort, immediacy and ease. But the problem is: it’s without regard to our connective ecosystem. We’ve risen so far above ‘land and sea’ and the plants and animals that have made our world so sublimely fruitful, we’ve entirely lost touch.

We now feel entitled to having a dozen places to walk to get food on our lunch break, no matter how much food demand that places on the system, because our right to thriving business is more important. We feel entitled to having Canada Goose/down jackets, without a second thought to the thousands and thousands of geese that are quietly tortured in production for our warmth. We drive our gas-guzzling cars and smoke our cigarettes, tossing the butts on the street, and eat three times as much as our bodies really need.. Why? Because we feel entitled to it. We ‘earned’ it. We now go through life doing activities like shopping and going out for lavish dinner-and-drinks because that make us feel good, further away from the coarse reality of what it means to be human, and because we feel entitled to it. And we do it without regard to where the merchandise came from, how the food got there, or where it will go after we’re done with it. We are a generation of now. We are a society trained by business to look away from real life: it’s ugly, it’s scary, it reminds us of that mortality we’ve fought for thousands of years to escape. We are wired to not ask questions, to not think critically about the things we use, their origins, and we are spoiled by clever advertisements and marking campaigns to just keep operating in a silo.

And it’s starting to take a toll.

We are killing ourselves with food covered with pesticides. We continue to add cars to the road despite clouds of smog clouding the skyline of many of our major cities. We are eating farmed fish with diseases and literally plastic on the inside. We hunt animals for sport and mount their heads as trophies on our walls for decoration because we see them as our possessions. We make dolphins dance for our entertainment. We bulldoze rainforests to build houses and make paper. We’ve taken control of everything in this world and subjugated it for our hedonistic pleasure.

This was never the way it was supposed to be. And now shit is hitting the fan.

Mother Nature is fighting back. Temperatures are rising at an exponential rate. Hurricanes are picking up in a way never experienced before. Animal and insect species are going extinct at an unprecedented rate. Glaciers are melting. Wildfires. Droughts.

And in our blind ignorance we have the audacity to say, “these are natural weather patterns.” It’s laughable. This has never happened in history.

Instead of reaching back inside of us and remembering where we came from, all we can do in this moment in history is continue to lift environmental restrictions for our own selfish financial comfort and for ‘job creation.’ We have rendered ourselves completely helpless to our own species due to a insatiable desire to consume, to blindly live life in the most entitled, I-deserve-this lifestyle with regard to the resources that support that lifestyle. We are so numb, we’ve forgotten what real activism is. It’s whatever we can do behind the comfort of a computer, ‘liking’ or ‘sharing’, and going back to Internet shopping.

–

I think about my year-and-a-half year old niece, Louise. When I pulled up in the car today and waved, I watched as her eyes lit up from the street and she smiled- such pure joy, and when I got out of the car, she said, “uppee”, or her way of saying, “Up, please,” (because she is such a sugary-sweet darling, “please” is one of the words in her 9-word lexicon). And when I lifted her up, she hugged me and didn’t let go, resting her gentle head on my chest in a way that I felt, just like she did, the momentary release of all that is bad in this world, the ephemeral but powerful connection of human spirit that signals that everything would be okay. There is nothing more soul-shaking.

And we are powerful. Humans, as we have seen, are capable of anything. Look how far we’ve come- it’s mind-blowing.

But I can’t promise her everything will be okay. Not in this world. Not with a country that believes in guns and nationalism over humanitarianism. Not in a world where women are still treated as 75% of a citizen next to a man. Not in world we treat like it was ‘created’ by a god for our personal dumping grounds. Of mass-slaughter houses and human trafficking.

I cannot promise this kind, beautiful human being that her life won’t be mired in fear or environmental issues when she gets older. I can’t hold her forever to protect her from bad people who lie, cheat, and steal for their own gain, from a planet where our rate of over-production will eventually start to run us dry. We’ve lost touch with who we are in our most elemental form: as animals- yes animals, as part of an ecosystem- and how audacious to think of ourselves as anything else. And to lose ourselves in a world we’ve crafted to gratify our personal whims and pleasures and the worst of all: entitlement.

But we haven’t lost yet. We still have a shot. And I’m here. I’ll roll my sleeves up. I’ll pick up trash wherever I can be of use. I’ll tile a roof with solar panels; I’ll help do math to maintain a sustainable population relative to food growth. I will help protect animals. Just tell me what I can do- Louise’s, and all our lives, depend on it.

– Please like, share, follow!!! <3 . Share www.justinthecity.com and tag me on facebook Justin John Stankiewicz, or on Instagram at: Justinthecity_ so I know it’s you. :)

like or share on twitter / Or email me: [email protected]

Source: http://justinthecity.com/post/171297244845/the-generation-of-now-22518

0 notes

sweetpalmwine · 4 years

Text

15 East African artists you need to hear

While contemporary African music is now getting some much-deserved attention on the world stage, often the focus is on the music of West or Southern Africa. In fact, you can probably narrow it down to four countries: Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Mozambique. Perhaps DRC will get a mention for its 1960s big-band sound and distinctive Lingala guitar, whose influence can be heard in African pop across the continent, and as far afield as Colombia. If it isn't Afrobeats getting a boost from Drake, then it's Diplo talking kuduro and South African house. These are amazing, influential genres of music, but they're a very limited representation of what Africa has on offer. Setting aside the issue of compressing the music of the second-most populous continent under a single label, we are still left with a massive blind spot. One region that remains under the radar (both inside Africa and elsewhere) despite consistently producing significant and forward-facing music is East Africa. Tanzanian and Ugandan acts like Diamond Platnumz and Eddy Kenzo regularly give Wizkid and Davido a run for their money on continental pop charts. Young Nairobi producers are creating thrilling new genres like shrap, which features sheng (Swahili urban slang) lyrics over trap beats. European producers have been sampling Ethiopian rhythms and melodies for decades, but some of this has been done without a proper understanding or regard for the context in which the music was originally made. Electronic music in East Africa is expanding exponentially as access to internet and software grows steadily. (Kenya, for example, has one of the world's fastest data connection speeds, faster than the US and South Korea.) As musicians draw from a rich musical history and incredible ethnic diversity, they are creating sounds that are new and unique. Working to bridge the gap between traditional music styles and commercial forms is Santuri Safari, which facilitates collaboration between musicians inside and outside the East African region, both traditional and electronic. This means they get hardware to DJs and producers in cities like Dar Es Salaam, Kampala, Nairobi and Kigali, while also working with international producers like Sam Jones and Esa Williams, hooking them up with swiftly-disappearing local instruments like the nyatiti or the embaire, a giant xylophone played by eight or more people. All of this is in service of creating club-friendly bangers that can compete with Western hits and their East African derivatives on the radio and the dance floor. Just A Band were among the first in Kenya and East Africa to make a name for themselves internationally with an undeniably electronic sound. Though the band is now on hiatus as members pursue their own projects in film, animation and music, "Blinky" Bill Sellanga continues to blaze trails as an artist, with his first solo album due later this year. Bill believes the East African music scene is experiencing a renaissance. "There's a proliferation of bands and artist communities that are seeking out sounds that represent them," he says. "They incorporate a lot of different elements from around the world, while also looking inwards and coming out with a new sound." Over in Uganda, the label Nyege Nyege Tapes grew out of an electronic dance party series and an international music festival featuring African acts alongside global artists whose work is in conversation with sounds from the continent. Passionate about the music that does not always make it to mainstream Ugandan radio, their releases are unlike anything else out there currently, and are getting embraced on dance floors both in the capital, Kampala, and in Europe. Whether it is singeli music, the furious sound of Dar Es Salaam's ghetto youth, or the eminently danceable wedding music of the Luo people of Northern Uganda, it's clear that we are going to be hearing of a lot more East African artists in the coming years. A list like this one can never do justice to the many East African artists beating against economic and geopolitical boundaries, but here are 15 who define the breadth of the scene in 2018.

Kampire Bahana, one of the bubbling region's rising stars, profiles some of her favourite DJs and live acts.

Alai K AKA Disco Vumbi (Kenya) Coming out of the '90s Nairobi hip-hop collective Ukoo Flani, Alai K's second life as an electronic producer reflects a return to his first loves: the chakacha music of the coastal Swahili people, and benga, the irresistible dance music of rural Kenya. Calling his style "Disco Vumbi"—meaning "dust disco"—his exuberant music calls to mind the outdoor parties of 1970s Kenya from which people would return home covered in dust kicked up by furious dancing.

Muthoni The Drummer Queen (Kenya) Muthoni burst onto the scene over a decade ago, founding a number of live music events including Blankets And Wine, which now takes place in three East African countries, and Africa Nouveau, one of the few festivals on the continent featuring an entirely African lineup. The recently released SHE is a pop-friendly concept album that deals with the construction of African women's identity.

Labdi (Kenya) By playing the orutu, Labdi is defying the culture she aims to preserve. It's a stringed instrument that's taboo for women to play. Yet there is no dissonance in her style, which merges traditional Luo rhythms and lyrics with popular sounds. Her forward-thinking approach to songwriting and her warm vocals make her a popular collaborator for electronic producers in both Kenya and Europe.

Ethiopian Records (Ethiopia) Working alongside Mikael Seifu and Dawit Eklund to create a style they call Ethiopiyawi Electronic, Ethiopian Records (AKA Endeguena Mulu) is at the forefront of producers and DJs pushing back against Western-imitative Ethiopian pop and Ethiopian-imitative Western house and techno to create something new, authentic and rooted.

KMRU (Kenya) Joseph Kamaru's work reflects the diversity of music coming out of a youthful Nairobi. Tending towards ambient sounds, his first EP was released by German label Black Lemon and his next EP will include collaborations with Pablo Fierro, Perera Elsewhere and Ghanaian songwriter and poet Poetra Asantewa.

Otim Alpha (Uganda) Otim Alpha has been making music for years alongside his producer Leo P'layeng, but despite being endlessly danceable, for a long time their tracks did not make it far outside of Luo communities in Uganda and the diaspora. Now, that's changing. Since last year's Gulu City Anthems, released on Nyege Nyege Tapes, Otim has played at the esteemed festivals Unsound and CTM, with plenty more dates lined up in 2018.

Hibotep (Uganda/Somalia) Young DJ, producer and filmmaker Hibotep brings a love of bass and trap to her weird-kid aesthetic. In 2018 her project Ninjabis was selected by Holly Herndon for the 2018 Forecast Platform and she will perform live at the Forecast Festival in Berlin in October.

DJ Rachael (Uganda) Uganda's first woman DJ, Rachael has been holding down the decks in Kampala for more than two decades. Through her Femme Electronic platform she is passing on skills and opportunities to women DJs in Kenya and Uganda. Her recent collaborations with The Black Madonna have brought new attention to her career, and she has performed at WOMEX and Chicago's smartbar.

Faizal Mostrixx (Uganda) Contemporary dancer turned electronic producer Faizal Ddamba Mostrixx makes "tribal house"—with a clear understanding of the role that East African instruments and Baganda rhythms play in their traditional context. His hope in merging these sounds with electronic techniques, he says, is to preserve the cultural heritage of the instruments and songs he samples. His last album, Tribal Match, is a must-listen.

Nihiloxica (Uganda/UK) Another act using traditional Baganda elements, this time a four-person percussive troupe (who also perform under a larger crew called Nilotica Cultural Ensemble) merged with electronic percussion from Blip Discs' Spooky J and his production partner PQ. Together they have created something entirely new. The group made their debut at CTM Berlin and will be all over Europe this summer, including stops at Roskilde and Strange Sounds From Beyond.

Mim Suleiman (Tanzania) Mim Suleiman brings traditional Tanzanian and Zanzibari music to the contemporary stage with collaborations with electronic artists like Spoek Mathambo and Maurice Fulton. Think Taarab vocals and percussion crossed with dub and disco. Many consider the traditions that Suleiman was brought up in to be going extinct, but her music will give you hope for its future.

Sisso Records (Tanzania) Singeli is the opposite of Tanzania's leisurely taraab sound, and the aspirational commercial values of bongo flava pop. Rabid-sounding and driven by the youngest and poorest of Dar Es Salaam's neighbourhoods, it sounds unlike anything you may have associated with Africa. With their release on Nyege Nyege Tapes, Sisso Records producer Bampa Pana and MC Makaveli have become Singeli's ambassadors to the world and just completed a spirited tour of the UK.

MC Caad Reeda and MC Memoree Cad (Tanzania) Singeli, born of slums like Tandale that are synonymous with poverty, is as male-dominated as any other music scene. But two female MCs coming to prominence, Caad Reeda and Memoree Cad, work closely with one of Sisso Studio's pioneers Jay Mitta, and will appear on a forthcoming release on Uganda's Nyege Nyege Tapes label.

Runka (Kenya) Karungari "Karun" Mungai is a member of the art collective Cosmic Homies, who merge electronica and R&B with an indie worldview. She is one of very few Kenyan women in production, and is part of the genre-defying and prolific NuNairobi movement, which includes a number of other young producers making waves like Jinku, NvFunk, Sichangi and Basthma.

DJ Raph (Kenya) The Kenyan underground continues to produce stellar DJs and producers making thoughtful and exciting new music. DJ Raph's latest release, Sacred Groves, comes out of the University Of Bayreuth's Mashup The Archive project. Sampling field recordings that are representative of the extensive archives of African art gathering dust in European collections, Raph creates access to these meaningful works by way of the dance floor. Kampire is performing at this year's Sónar Festival in Barcelona.

Words /Kampire Bahana

Published /Wed, 23 May 2018

7Fantastic to see articles like this! Thank you! Just one very quick query. Currentlg living in Mozambique myself, I was surprised to see the author claim that it is one of four African countries whose music is appreciated outside the continent. Considering the local music styles of pandza and marrabenta are totally unheard of in Europe, that the most popular local tunes tend to be sung in Changana (on the inevitable theme of weddings), and that the most popular music even in Mozambique tends to be from South Africa or Angola (the home of both Kuduro and Kizomba), I am curious as to the reasoning behind this. Anyway, thanks for the great article! Would love to see more like this!

1 note · View note

nedsecondline · 7 years

Text

Facebook and Google Are Actually 'Net States.' And They Rule the World

“We reject: kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code.” So declared MIT professor David D. Clark in 1992. Twenty-five years later, this sentiment mirrors the global zeitgeist more than ever. The American public distrusts government in record numbers. Other nation-states disdain the US to world-historical degrees. A non-nation-state, Facebook, just topped 2 billion users—more than a quarter of the world’s population, surpassing even China’s population by almost 40 percent. In short, nation-states are not the only game in town anymore.

WIRED OPINION

ABOUT

Alexis Wichowski (@awichowski) teaches technology, media, and government at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. She is also the press secretary for the City of New York's department of veterans' services. Views expressed here are her own.

It is time to name this new landscape. The world is no longer dominated by nation-states alone. We have moved into a non-state, net-state era.

Why “net-states”? Because the world is no longer neatly divided into states (countries like the US, France, and India) and non-states (terrorist organizations like ISIS and al Qaeda). Ever since Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2011 article “Coming to a Theater Near You: War Without Humans” described the “emergence of a new kind of enemy, so-called non-state actors,” the term transformed into a fancy way of saying “bad guy.” Now we need new language to describe the non-state, non-bad-guys. I propose “net-states.”

Net-states are digital non-state actors, without the violence. Like nation-states, they’re a wildly diverse bunch. Some are the equivalent to global superpowers: the Googles, the Facebooks, the Twitters. Others are mere gatherings of pranksters, like Lulzsec (whose sole purpose for action is “for the lulz”—the laughs). Others still are paramilitary operations, such as GhostSec, an invite-only cyberarmy specifically created to target ISIS. There are also hacktivist collectives like Anonymous and Wikileaks.

Regardless of their differences in size and raison d’etre, net-states of all stripes share three key qualities: They exist largely online, enjoy international devotees, and advance belief-driven agendas that they pursue separate from, and at times, above, the law.

Take Google, for instance. In 2013, the company launched an anti-censorship initiative called Project Shield, a sort of online safe haven for news sites censored by their national governments. Democratic countries like the US may laud such efforts, but in countries where Project Shield has been deployed across Asia and Africa—where free speech is not necessarily protected—those governments would be well within their rights to see Google’s actions as both disruptive and illegal. While Project Shield may be branded a business practice that generates good PR for the company, it also embodies Google’s fundamental doctrine to bring about positive change in the world. As co-founder Sergey Brin put it in a 2014 interview, “the societal goal is our primary goal.”

Anonymous—the hackers and pranksters most famous for the Operation Chanology protest movement against Scientology—occupies a very different role from Google among net-states. It's not a business; it's not even an official, card-carrying membership organization.

But Anonymous, too, dabbles in actions traditionally in the domain of government. For instance, after the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, Anonymous disabled between 5,500 and 20,000 ISIS-backed Twitter accounts within 48 hours. Governments have their own official channels to shut down terrorist social media accounts too, but doing so legally at such a large scale likely generates a tad more paperwork than can be processed in just two days.

It’s worth pausing for a moment to consider the point of all this. With deaths by terrorism steadily rising each year, does placing a new name on our already extant world order do anything to actually make us safer?

I argue that it does, because nation-states need a wake-up call: The world needs net-states in order to defeat the non-states. We’re not beating them on our own. To win information-era wars, countries need to recognize the power of the net-states, not as an ancillary locale of assembly in the cyberspace, but as critical entities wielding the kind of power and influence necessary to go toe-to-toe with non-state actors.