#Ghoulish Productions

[ahaura]

im sure its been said already but as the election draws near more and more liberals will come out of the woodwork to shame people with a conscience to give away their vote to the democrats for free. i'm already seeing posts saying "why aren't people more concerned about a trump presidency?" you want to know why? it's because people already know he's bad. everyone already knows what he is and what he's done and what he'll do. there's nothing to discuss. he's a racist despotic worm of a man. there's nothing else to say.

biden is currently president. the genocide is happening under his watch. he's the one funding isra*l and arming them; he's sidestepped congress more than once to give them weapons. by oct. 27, the biden administration already knew that "Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets." the state department/biden have engaged in atrocity propaganda, cast doubt on the legitimacy of the death toll recorded by the gaza health ministry, and so on. the united states is currently in the process of trying to pin the "war in gaza" on netanyahu (see sen. schumer's speech) after months of backing blatant genocide as a means to act as if they're "doing something" about the genocide (Instead of, say, threatening to cut off all aid to israel with the condition that all hostilities in gaza, the west bank, and occupied jerusalem are halted immediately and permanently, allowing palestinians freedom to travel, allowing aid into gaza, etc etc etc.)

the long and short of it is that liberals view their own lives as being worth more than palestinians'. that's it. they'll vote for another 4 years of the guy ushering in genocide and supporting apartheid + settler colonialism because he isn't outright attacking them (despite various laws and rulings happening both at the supreme court level and at the local level all over the country that will endanger people). they'll settle for the illusion of safety and security and shame anyone with a conscience and accuse them of "supporting the republicans" when in an actual democracy you would be able to use your vote as leverage to extract concessions from those who want to be elected. that's how it's supposed to fucking work.

democrats are not owed people's vote. if biden loses, it will be biden's fault; it will be his campaign's fault; it will be the democrats' fault. trump is bad; the republicans are bad. we already know this. this is not an endorsement of either. but if democrats are too cowardly and feckless and servile to the motivations of the american empire and never do anything for their constituents then why the fuck should anyone vote for them. you want to get mad at someone, why don't you do something useful and stop worrying about team-sports with a purely selfish basis and start hounding the people in power who are supposed to serve you, the voter.

#i think i already said this and frankly idc #uspol #📁.zip #to me personally it's abhorrent and vile to tell palestinians 'biden is facilitating the murder of your people culture and history but you #still have to vote for him!!1' like how is that not unbelievably callous and ghoulish #frankly speaking. a lot of this 'you should be concerned about trump' is going to turn into #blaming palestinians and arabs and muslims and anyone remotely with a conscience for biden's loss #instead of doing something productive like pushing for people in power to do something they'll nitpick and belittle #and tell palestinians + arabs and muslims + everyone who understands that genocide is bad that they SHOULD #settle for a decrepit genocidal monstrous freak who is CURRENTLY facilitating genocide because #it makes THEM feel better and they aren't personally threatened (yet) by the guy currently in power #any and all 'you're not taking trump seriously' comments should be met with extreme skepticism #because i promise i PROMISE that the vast majority of people unhappy with biden are not going to turn around and vote for trump #and if they do? well guess what THAT'S BIDEN'S FAULT! nevermind the vote uncommitted campaign that was very successful and #will be replicated in the near future. but liberals only care about asthetics and superficial and not #about real material change which is why they'll dress up their callousness and racism in a 'you hate gay people if you dont vote for biden' #like this country is already going to shit we are rapidly descending into fascism and i dont see biden doing anything to even remotely #challenge it do you???? once agian. NOT an endorsement of the republican party but my GOD when the 'lesser evil' #is DOING the evil or normalizing the evil then you cannot settle for 'the lesser'! end of story.

[andthebeanstalk]

I am so so happy that the Dear Evan Hansen movie was laughably bad. I hated that show so fucking much, and the world would absolutely be a worse place if that movie was successful and inspired even MORE productions of the stage show. I mean I would have been seeing FAN ART of the movie if it had been competently made, and thank FUCK that didn't happen.

Here's the Jenny Nicholson review that I am currently watching for a second time, if you wanna see the one good thing to come from this horrible musical:

#original #dear evan hansen #dear evan hansen movie #Jenny Nicholson #i remember being 23 and suicidal and hearing the big hopeful song from that musical and being like... #is this? song about suicide prevention SUPPOSED to make me want to do it more????? #and while a friend tried to argue that it was intentionally made hollow i later found out that this was not the case #the musical is very earnest about its suicide prevention messaging in the song i had heard and it is NOT supposed to make folks crave death #who knew!!! #ME. I DID. I CALLED IT. #I KNEW. #Youtube #like can you IMAGINE a world where Evan was played by some teenage heart throb ! #and if it had baseline competent direction?? #all the depressed teen girls who would suddenly be vehemently and emotionally defending the film from any kind of criticism #and lashing out viciously at people on Twitter for pointing out how shitty and harmful the narrative is??? #and all the HIGH SCHOOL PRODUCTIONS that would have happened and GENUINELY GIVEN KIDS THIS HORRIBLE HARMFUL SHIT directly!!!!! #thANK you ben platt for playing this role in this movie #and thank you whoever cut together this ghoulish little film #terrible job everyone but good news is that dear evan hansen is a terrible thing so you've done a net good. #bad art can sometimes save lives. [by mitigating some of the harm that it was and is already doing. but still.] #also if this story was a good thing in someone's life that is fine good for them but nothing will convince me that this show is a good thing

[frankentyner]

#me as #Ernest P. Worrell #toward the very end #brilliant show #amazing production design #thanks to Morgan Tompkin #ferndale community concert band #ghoulish grooves #concert #ferndale high school

[theveryworstthing]

Gloria and Phoebe!

i missed goblin week this year due to Situations but every week is goblin week so whatever.

Gloria, Dame of Daylight, is the titular host of of the spooky late day show Beam Dreams, which has a huge cult following among non-human and mostly nocturnal horror fans. she started the show 20 years ago after growing bored of playing the same role over and over in human-led productions and posing for monster girl pin-up gigs. she used the money from her former jobs to buy equipment, hire some buddies, and start her own campy public access show highlighting a few of her favorite monster-led indie horror films. these days she's going grey (well, greyer) and gravity is Happening which make her already racy costumes more of a gamble, but the show still holds the ghoulish charm that made it a success. 

Gloria leans more comedienne than dark and broody despite the media she platforms and she always has a witty observation or subtle joke at the ready. she also has a soft spot for physical comedy and will casually pull an item out of her hair or cleavage unprompted. she doesn't critique any of the work that makes it onto the show unless specifically asked to, but those segments are always fan favorites since they're always equal parts sincere, insightful, and cheeky. she's a real Character. 

Phoebe has much more humble origins. as a mostly mellow music nerd, she currently owns the record shop across from the Beam Dreams studio and lends her expertise to help with segments spotlighting up and coming musicians who fit the vibe of the show. she's found a lot of weird little bands for Gloria, and the current program wouldn't be the same without her. 

even though she makes an effort to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible, it's common knowledge that she's one of Gloria's close friends, which is good for business and also very annoying sometimes. over the years she's had to train herself to spot red flag Beam fans trying to cozy up to her for information or access to Gloria and now she's real mean about it when it happens. 

#goblin #unicorn #small guide #monster girls #Gloria #Phoebe

[centrally-unplanned]

I don't think anyone responding to me in that thread is doing this, zero shade being thrown here, but the Korean War discussions definitely remind me of the ghost of the USSR thing that hangs over some forms of left discourse. Its a ghoulish achilles heel - there is nothing for you there.

I love studying the USSR; its one of my favourite historical topics, and I even relate to the vision and ambition so many of its early founders had, to resolve the imperfections of modernity and no longer accept them as given. But not only did it not work, it was abandoned as a vision within a decade; everyone who shared it was imprisioned, murdered, or at best expelled. There are accomplishments there, but they are not accomplishments unique to those states, instrinsic to the system; and more importantly they are accomplishments modern leftist do not give a shit about. If your primary policy objective is to find a way to allocate the entirety of the economic surplus of society to a crash course military production initiative, then fair enough you have found your guide. Otherwise, you shouldn't care. It has no future, nothing to teach you, no lessons of relevance except by negative example.

And you don't need it to! Outside of its dumb apologia and a few fringe factions western socialists were not ever trying to build Stalinism, they were trying to build welfare states and unions. They never wanted its actuality, only its branding, and now you don't even want that. Let it die.

#certainly not the first person to rant this rant

[thewales]

The Telegraph:

Rishi Sunak was on a visit to the East Midlands on Friday morning when he was informed about the impending statement on the Princess of Wales’s health, meaning that the shock that would ripple across the country descended on the Prime Minister hours earlier.

The moment put in train a meticulously planned sequence of events overseen by Ian Patrick, the Prince of Wales’s private secretary, to break the news to the nation that the Princess was undergoing treatment for cancer.

Mr Sunak was briefed after details of the Princess’s statement were conveyed to Elizabeth Perelman, his trusted principal private secretary – Mr Patrick’s opposite number in Downing Street. As is convention, the Cabinet Office went on to inform Sir Keir Starmer about the Princess’s video message that would be broadcast at 6pm that day.

The advance notice gave both men’s teams the opportunity to prepare their own statements expressing warm support for the Princess and her young family.

Such was the anger in Whitehall over wild and ghoulish claims about the Princess’s health and whereabouts that the Prime Minister had previously considered a public intervention to demand that the couple be left alone to deal with what was, by any account, a private medical matter.

That urge was at its strongest when it was reported on Tuesday that the hospital where the Princess underwent abdominal surgery in January was investigating claims staff tried to access her medical notes. But he was loath to risk adding fuel to the fire being created by online arsonists.

“The PM felt very strongly that Princess Catherine was entitled to absolute privacy on a personal health matter, and had been appalled by the wild speculation,” said a source close to Mr Sunak.

“He had been reluctant to intervene before to try and afford the royals some privacy as saying anything risked further fuelling the trolls.”

A hint of Mr Sunak’s concern did, however, emerge in a briefing with political journalists on Wednesday, when his press secretary said: “As a general point, everyone in public life has a right to privacy when it comes to their private health records. Obviously we don’t comment on royal matters but that point stands.”

Unbeknown to Mr Sunak, at this point the wheels were already in motion for the Princess to put an end to such speculation herself. On the same day a production crew from BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the corporation, was on location at Windsor to film the two-minute clip in which the Princess set out the “huge shock” that the diagnosis had caused, as well as her insistence that “I am going to be OK”.

She was said to have wanted to deliver a video message in order to make the announcement as personal as possible.

#brf #the prince of wales #the princess of wales #prince william #duchess of cambridge #rishi sunak

[prosciuttulipa]

What profession would La Squadra be in, if they weren't in the mafia?

aka what normal jobs La Squadra would use their Stand abilities for because I love being a bit silly

Risotto: Blacksmith/Artisan

I feel this is rather intuitive, with Metallica. He's one of the most sought after blacksmiths in Italy, and is famous for producing kitchen knives. Any self-respecting chef knows of Risotto's knives— the word around is that his knives are so sharp, they cut through bone like butter. They require little to no maintenance, not to mention the fact that it takes years for them to start getting dull. Because of their outstanding quality, Risotto's knives are constantly in high demand, so much so that he's able to jack up the prices to eyewatering amounts. They're also limited in stock, since he only makes 52 a year, one for each week.

(He can definitely make more, but why bother? Work smart, not hard.)

He also has other side brands to his blacksmith business. He has a branch for barber supplies—razors and hairdressing scissors, whose blades also share that signature sharpness. He tried to start a side brand for stationery, but quickly stopped production when it was reported that kids had hurt themselves on the scissors and mechanical pencils. Luckily, the scandal was quickly forgiven, seeing that Risotto had covered these kids' medical fees as soon as he was notified.

His favourite side brand, however, is his jewellery. It's a hit amongst the goth and emo communities, who enjoy his horror-inspired designs. There's one design that has been affectionately dubbed 'Ghosties': little monsters with ghoulish faces, wiggling around in bunches. His most popular product is his blood jewellery—buyers send him a vial of their blood, and he transforms it into a jewellery piece of their choosing. The patterns on the metal arise from the makeup of the client's blood, making each piece one-of-a-kind.

Prosciutto: Winery Owner

Rotting is just a hop, skip and a jump away from fermenting, and The Grateful Dead always delivers results.

Prosciutto's wines are an enigma to connoisseurs. A general rule of thumb is that wine is better the longer it's been fermented, but Prosciutto's year-old wines taste like they've been aged for decades. This makes his actual, decade-old wines the pinnacle of decadence: rich, smooth, and unforgiving on the wallet.

His winery produces all sorts, but he's most famous for his red wines. They're full-bodied and complex the way a symphony is, each layer arising with an almost engineered exactness. Many say that he's managed to manipulate the precise amount of fermentation for each component—a compliment that Prosciutto receives with a wry smile.

Most people are happy to accept that wineries have their trade secrets, but Prosciutto's one generates more discourse than most. His winery has been the subject of many a rumour—that he steals and resells other wineries' products; that he adds illegal substances into his wines to make them taste that good; that he's a nepo baby who inherited his father's wine collection and is just slapping his own brand onto old bottles.

It's when an investigative journalist tries to break into Prosciutto's winery, only for his body to turn up in a river a week later, that the rumours stop circulating. There have been a few more attempts to unveil the winery's secrets since then, but each one has resulted in more dead bodies. If it's a competing winery who's trying to do some digging, they find that an entire decade of their wine goes bad the very next day.

Because of this, Prosciutto's winery has also earned the nickname, 'Azrael's Wine'. It hasn't affected sales in the slightest.

Formaggio: Heister

I'm certain that there are other jobs which Little Feet would be useful for, but Formaggio likes to live life on the edge. He's the only person (aside from Illuso) that I can see willingly choosing a life of crime, if he had a chance for a do-over.

So yes, he absolutely would abuse his abilities to steal things. He starts small at first, nicking wallets and watches, taking them off their owners without piquing their notice. But as he grows more confident, he pulls off more elaborate robberies—stealing diamond necklaces off their stands in broad daylight, sneaking into safes by shrinking to the size of their locks, breaking them from the inside out. He's more than able to get in and out without a trace, but Formaggio is a cocky bastard, and leaves a shrunken shoe at each scene, a sign that he was there and got away with it. As his crimes start to gain traction, the shoes earn him the nickname, 'Ken Doll'.

His biggest heist is when he steals the chandelier from Tiffany's. It takes a week to pull off, unscrewing the chandelier slowly and imperceptibly, shrinking parts of it in the night. He has to live inside the chandelier the entire time, but he doesn't mind; it's beautiful, and he feels like he's in a mansion. But as soon as the last screw is undone, he shrinks the chandelier and stuffs it into his pocket, taking off with a triumphant cackle. The only evidence that he was there is a cheeky, normal-sized shoe hanging from the ceiling.

Illuso: Storage Facility Owner (?)

I feel like Illuso is the sort of person you imagine when someone says, "I know a guy," and Man in the Mirror doesn't help his case in the slightest. Or maybe that's how he likes it. Hard to tell, with Illuso.

On his business cards, he's a storage facility owner. He owns several warehouses, and they're well maintained. Companies who store with him are impressed by how neat everything is, not a single dust particle to be found when they retrieve their items. Contrary to popular belief (re: his resting bitch face), he provides excellent customer service, things showing up where and when they're needed without a hitch.

But there are a few things about the operation that feel a bit...off. There are no employees in these warehouses, save for the occasional elderly cleaner. Illuso doesn't hire any delivery trucks for his company, which doesn't line up with the amount of things he has to store and transport. Then there's the matter that all the storage rooms are lined with mirrors. It strikes his clients as strange—what if something falls and shatters the glass?—but they never comment.

One time, a salesman had forgotten his things in one of the storage rooms, having just delivered 20 boxes of supplies. He returned to the room, and to his surprise, found that nothing was in there, save for what he had left behind. Distressed, he went to find Illuso, saying that someone had stolen his company's supplies.

"Relax, sir," Illuso had assured him, with a smile that the salesman didn't dare question, "everything is safe with me, I assure you."

After all, what safer storage is there than a mirror world?

Melone: Fortune Teller for Couples

Melone will be making no strange creatures with Baby Face, but he will be using it to predict couple compatibility, and the character of their children, should they want any.

At first, he started off by giving predictions to his girl friends when they met on Sundays for tea, accurately guessing whether the new person they were dating would be a hit or a miss. It had been all fun and games at first, but when it became clear that Melone's accuracy was damn near perfect, Sunday tea times were taken with all the seriousness of a prophecy. His friends invited more friends, who invited more friends, until he ended up just opening a stall on Sundays to predict couple compatibility.

Apart from his skill, Melone's personality made him a major hit from the get-go. He gave surprisingly good advice that wasn't just "incompatible horoscopes", offering insightful ideas about communication, boundaries and care. However, he would occasionally forget to follow what he preached, becoming enamoured with how pretty a woman's skin was, or explaining in entirely too much detail how fertile someone's husband would be if they wanted children.

He became significantly more careful with his tongue (both literally and figuratively) when he was scouted by radio for his predictions, widening his audience to the entirety of Italy. His show, 'Matching with Melone', aired during Sunday tea times, during which couples would send in their details and horoscopes. There was doubt as to whether or not Melone's accuracy would hold up, but without fail, he managed to predict the fortune or downfall of each couple he interviewed.

Once, a listener rang in, saying that Melone had predicted the outcome of their relationship incorrectly. The man had laughed, and answered, "Darling, Melone is never wrong. Only your horoscope is."

It turns out that, as always, Melone was right. The listener thought that their partner was a Pisces, but it turns out they were an Aries instead. Oops.

Ghiaccio: Freezer Warehouse Owner

Unlike Illuso, Ghiaccio's business is fairly cut and dry. What you see is what you get, with White Album keeping his freezers cold all year round. He's only got one warehouse, located near the coast for fishermen to dump their produce in.

There's honestly not much to say about Ghiaccio's life. He keeps out of people's way, finding them irritating most of the time; his job is a means of money, not purpose. Aside from the daily check that his freezers are still freezing, he spends most of his time relaxing on the dock, hanging out with Pesci (elaborated on in Pesci's part). He hates that the coast is such a popular tourist spot, though. He can't stand it when he hears foreigners mispronouncing Italian words.

Otherwise, it's a quiet existence. Sometimes, when he's feeling it, he'll freeze a path into the sea, standing on the ice to watch the stars.

Pesci: Fisherman

True to Beach Boy, Pesci finds a quiet and fulfilling life as a fisherman. Although his ability ensures that he has a catch every time, he makes sure not to overfish, so that the ecosystem stays balanced. He doesn't have his own stall at the local fisherman's market, preferring to sell his catch from his boat instead. He finds that he's able to converse with the locals in a much more intimate manner this way, taking his time to chat with them instead of hurrying them off for the next customer.

Once he's sold everything for the day, Pesci spends his afternoons trying to teach Ghiaccio how to fish; Ghiaccio had approached him about it, the man saying that he had heard it was a good way to learn patience. It's been slow going. Sitting on the dock and waiting for a fish to bite has not seemed to produce any further patience for Ghiaccio, but he returns day after day out of spite. Though, Pesci likes to think it's a little bit for his company as well.

They talk idly about town affairs and daily life, otherwise happy to sit in silence. Every so often, Pesci will use his ability to guide a fish onto Ghiaccio's line, smiling as his friend lets out a triumphant shout. It feels good, to give back.

#jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo part 5 #jjba prosciutto #prosciutto #golden wind #vento aureo #risotto nero jjba #risotto nero jojo #risotto nero #jjba pesci #pesci jojo #jojo illuso #jjba illuso #melone jjba #melone jojo #formaggio jjba #formaggio jojo #ghiaccio jjba #ghiaccio jojo #la squadra #la squadra di esecuzione #—prosciuttulipa content.

[disformer]

Begging anyone who’s upset at critique of Earthspark to avoid mentioning the WGA strike. Aside from being a cartoonishly silly attempt to scold critics with a finger-wagging reminder of Poor Writers who need our solidarity right now, it’s also largely irrelevant.

Earthsparks production has been wrapping up for at least a year and a half. The episodes that came out a few days ago are not worse because the writing team was a skeleton crew brought about by the strike. This is a bizarre suggestion. Could labour shortages and behind-the-curtain fuckups have caused some pacing issues? Almost definitely. But don’t twist the narrative to better suit your defense of a TV show.

It’s ghoulish to insist that negative critique of their work means anything to writers on strike right now. It’s a blatant, unambiguous attempt to couch your own opinions in the clothes of Leftist Solidarity, and it’s messy messy messy. The WGA strike is a tooth-and-nail battle for backpay and a living wage from some of the most evil corporations on the planet, if you really want to help them you can donate to the ECF.

And for the love of GOD, do NOT post these hot takes in the official strike tag. Like. Head in my hands. Your transformers takes should not be sharing oxygen online with genuine activism and politics.

#I’m looking directly into the eyes of someone who i will not name #dis.txt #psa #transformers #DONT TAAAAG IIIIIIT AAAAAAAAA

[butch-reidentified]

For anyone who needs to hear this: being attractive ("to men" is the part that isn't said out loud) is NEVER going to make you happy! Truly, never. Being "hot" is not going to fill your soul. Trends and standards will always change, and rapidly. Your pleasure in it will always be superficial. You will drain away your money at Ulta, at the salon, at the cosmetic surgery center, at the clothing and accessory stores that are popular this month. You will endure blistered feet and razor burn and soreness and itchy clothing that sticks to your skin every time you walk outside and it's above 70 degrees. You will not be able to live in the moment because you are too busy checking the mirror, pinching your natural healthy fat, wondering if they can see this or that "flaw" on your face or body, touching up your hair, reapplying makeup, adjusting your clothing so it sits *just so* and doesn't reveal that there is a real, natural, human body underneath.

None of this will bring you happiness. Being desired, even just blending in, is a pitiful reward for so high a price - financially, mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally. Have you ever added up the money you spend on your appearance each year? Each month? How many wonderful outings and hobbies could you have if you set aside the eyeliner and the brand name lingerie and the razor and the 17 skincare products you have (but no man does). How much mental and emotional energy and freedom might you have if you never thought about your appearance in daily life, as unconcerned with how "hot" you are as when you were a child? How much more present would you be with those you love when you are entirely focused on existing with them rather than whether they have noticed the way your stomach looks in this outfit?

This is among the most liberating feelings I have ever known, if not the most. I had spent so many years brainwashed and trained like a show animal to groom myself into a beautiful doll. Whether I told myself it was for approval or just "for myself" made no difference on the impact it had. I was conditioned to see a ghoulish alien creature in the mirror when the layers of makeup and flattering, constricting, merciless clothes were stripped away, my own face - my FACE, the first thing that tells a stranger who I am, the face only I have - a "problem" to be constantly tinkered with and never solved. I could not, would not dare to conceive of abandoning these costly crutches. Certainly, there is nothing worse than ugly, is there not? Surely I will fade away into an unlovable irrelevant pariah if I go outside with my natural body hair in shorts on a 95 degree day, forsaking makeup to permit my skin to breathe.

For a long time, I was not even conscious that I felt that way. I was unaware of my fears, telling myself comforting lies about my choices being utterly my own and uninformed by the world in which I live. It was hard to accept that these were lies; as I said, they brought comfort. It was harder still to choose to leave my home bare-faced, hairy, and comfortably dressed at whatever size my body likes to naturally be. It was not something I felt like I wanted to do "for myself" as my beauty rituals had allegedly become, but something I had come to realize I had to try for the sake of my health, self love, and well-being in all areas.

Much like adapting to drastic life changes to cut short the progress of a disease, these changes were initially painful and undesirable, but they were entirely worth it. Some time later, my face became me, a vessel for communication and expression of my emotions, rather than a canvas on which to stuff full my pores and suffocate my skin. My body shape and its fat became neutral things I tend not to consider at all unless choosing a size in clothing - no more of this constant distress and self-monitoring. My comfort has increased as I abandon the chafing and tight straps and sucking in my stomach and tweezing and shaving in favor of comfortable, flexible, weather appropriate clothes and the body and face born to me. My truly debilitating hatred of my nose evaporated entirely over time; where I used to cling to my covid masks and contouring and consulting with plastic surgeons, I now have only my sniffer. It does what it's meant to well enough, and that's as much as it crosses my mind.

Body positivity and loving how you look may feel like an impossible ideal. Part of that is social conditioning, but another part is that it's an illogical goal. Did you love your body and face as a child? Or were you simply blissfully unaware of the idea that how you are shaped might matter? In all my years of playing the beauty game to varying degrees, I had tried body positivity/love several times, typically with no result at all, but occasionally even with a backfire. Body neutrality was much more realistic and sensible, and more attainable as well. I believe it to be healthier. There will always be a problem if we are committing much of our focus, attention, and energy to our appearances, whether it be to hate them or adore them. It is by definition self-centered.

On the other hand, body neutrality has delivered me the freedom to do whatever fun activity I want without worrying about whether I'll mess up my hair or makeup, or whether I'm wearing the right shoes or if my clothing is too constricting or revealing for said activity. If I should want to climb a tall and beautiful tree, I will not be concerned with an upskirt peeker or what to do with my heels. Most importantly, though, I have noticed drastic changes in my life I did not expect. I have become much more even-keeled and internally at peace overall, not just about my looks. I have noticed myself engaging much less with my phone and much, much, much more with the people around me. I am far more focused on and attentive to others, more equipped to be present in shared moments. I am never looking for a stopping point in a poignant conversation so I can excuse myself to the restroom and adjust my concealer.

My favorite part is that I am so deeply connected with myself in a way I had believed impossible. I am entirely me - not a mind in a body, but a mind and body as one. I do not wear my body like a suit which must be measured and altered; I am my body, and my body is me, and I am suddenly in love with being vividly alive.

#body neutrality #natural body #female body hair #feminism #women's liberation #self acceptance #mine #long post #radblr #1k

[hzrnvm]

I am actually curious, what IS your blog title refering to?

The Treachery of the Gerber Baby

This is the Gerber baby. Or, it is what is called "The Gerber Baby". It is the logo of the Gerber Products Company, known American baby supplies retailer and subsidiary of Nestle. As their logo, the sketch has appeared on most of Gerber's products since 1928, and has become a recognized symbol in America – enough that a survey from 70 years later, 1998, showed it to be associated with the highest consumer loyalty among the American public.

The Treachery of Images, also known as This Is Not a Pipe (a translation of its French text), is often regarded as one of Belgian surrealist René Magritte's best works. While it may seem absurd and confusing to some at first sight, the work is fundamentally pretty simple: it's making a statement on what it means to "be" an object, such as a pipe. Magritte himself is quoted as saying,

The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture "This is a pipe", I'd have been lying!

Essentially, The Treachery of Images is claiming that what constitutes an object such as a pipe is not some immaterial hypothetical image of a pipe. Rather, a pipe consists of material substance that comes together to form an object that is a pipe. It can be stuffed, and it can be smoked. This painting is simply oil on a canvas, it is not a pipe! Oil on a canvas does not a pipe make.

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

Back to The Gerber Baby. Now, you might be seeing a connection between the two topics I've brought up so far. You might even go so far at to claim "Hzrn, I've got it! I understand the meaning of your title now! You're alluding to The Treachery of Images to say that The Gerber Baby is, in fact, no such thing! It does not coo, it does not cry, it does not 'goo goo gaga'. You're implying that, to put it as Magritte would, 'Ceci n'est pas une bébé.'"

And to that I would respond "Yes, that is true! But do you really think that's all there is? I just allude to a well-known painting through a well-known logo, just to make the same point that the painting did?"

Now you're thinking. "Hmm..." you stare pensively and intently as you think to yourself. "I should have known she would have been smarter than that... Now what is so special about The Gerber Baby that she would choose it to make this allusion?"

And just like that, it comes to you.

The Gerber Baby is not just any old image of a baby. Its trademark owners flaunt it as "perhaps the most recognized baby face in the world". It's won the trust and loyalty of hundreds of millions of people. Everyone knows this baby – and through a mix of nostalgia and inborn biological systems motivating us to care for and about our own young, many, many people love this baby.

People are like this about many logos and mascots. People make references to them, as they are of course cultural figures. And people are not morally wrong in doing this. Mr. Clean. The green M&M. These are cultural figures, and they were manufactured to be so. It's the best free advertising. 3am in the Denny's parking lot. McDonald's sprite. The grimace shake.

You tell me your findings. "I've figured it out. The Gerber Baby, in your eyes, is the most ghoulish of the American advertising cultural figures. It directly preys on biological systems, it's effectively won at what it was trying to do — and every bit of the profit it made and continues to make from that success is going to Nestle, a corporation known to be especially evil."

You see me smile, and you know you're right as you continue. "Your title serves as not only a reminder of The Gerber Baby's nature, but a claim of what that means: Not only that Ceci n'est pas une bébé, but that it does not deserve your love."

[sonic-wildfire]

Fucking ghoulish and dystopian. The courts have effectively legalized indentured servitude over pirating Nintendo games.

Fuck Nintendo. Pirate the fuck out of their products.

#nintendo

[understandableparadox]

Bottom of the barrel isekai reviews:

Todays title: Welcome to demon school iruma

hi, im back, tell a friend.

Anyways we will be looking over something populer, and only a few images this time. I want this to be a nice slide back into the mix while I get ready to boil myself alive by reading shitty isekais.

"b-b-b-b-but dox!" you say, your form emaciated and ghoulish from months of little to no attention "how is it an isekai?"

Normally an isekai requires some form of passage into another world through death, but again, we are going to consider any and all portal fantasies to be on-par with isekais. as death and jumping through a funky portal are really kinda the same thing if you think about it.

so! plot synopsis, we open on the titular character iruma! they are being sold to a demon, don't worry this action will be the literal best thing that has ever happened to them. Also, added treat, slavery is not a running theme in this manga! HURRAY! WE HAVE FOUND OVERCOME THE BARE FUCKING MINIMUM! HUZZAH FOR MEDIOCRITY! MY DESIRE TO RUN MY HEAD THROUGH A ARC OF GONGS UNTIL THE SOUND WAVES LIQUIDATE MY BRAIN MATTER HAS LESSENED!

anyways we get to know some important plot points between the buyer and the product! (our mc)

iruma is a 14 year old yes man. They say yes to everything, even yes to the idea of breaking child labor laws! as their parents are frivolous unimportant freaks that spend way too much money then bolt, leaving him to work off the debt. Anyways, that's how this happened. they wanted dosh, and our buyer, we will call him grandpa!

Why is he so interested in buying a child? simple! He is rich and wants to have a grandson, unfortunately, he does not have a dick due to war injuries... ok thats a lie, he just wants a grand kid.

Anyways this is a very interesting title in the fact that it is still in a way, a power fantasy, but the power in that fantasy is separated towards other things.

It is a story in which you have the power to be helped. The adults in this manga are actual competent adults, they are there for the protection of the children, they are there to guide, nurture, train and help them grow. Despite differences or annoyances some may have, those are secondary to the ferocity they show when it comes to ensuring the protection of their students.

Iruma does have a lot of “i am the chosen one” but it is not something that automatically aids him in most situations, in fact it is the triad of facts of “I am a human”, “I want to help”, “I am determined” that allow him to rise both in power and social standing. The might makes right idealism of the underworld forced to reckon with people that stop to drag someone across the finish line. 

As for the plot, it goes along a few separate arcs; there is a very clear progression of time as Iruma gets older. Mostly split into two parts. Irumas social life, in which we get to see him become better and better friends with the students and faculty at this school. Showing both the give and take as they both show how far they are willing to go for each other. 

The second half is the mystery and political intrigue of the demonic society at large. The idea of a demon king has gone missing, disciples of which are eager to try and resurrect him as they see no one who is more suitable for the role, opposing forces trying to groom the top students at various schools into the role of king in a contest of disciples. 

I think you should give it a read, its cute, the designs are fun and the power system while simple is still enough to give the action that is there a lot of meat. It's also satisfying thing to read if you just got done with a shounen and you are wondering “where the fuck are the adults? Why are these children doing everything?”

Draw backs. Not a lot but some of the students are essentially drawn as adults and there are parts where you will feel slightly skived out by.

#anime #bottom of the barral #isekai #mairimashita! iruma kun

[venacoeurva]

I feel kind of insane that it was a very strong consensus that AI voices are unethical because the original VAs never consented to their voices being used in this way, are not compensated, and their voices are being used for things they never agreed/would never agree to say and it doesn't matter if these uses are commercial in nature or not, it feels very ghoulish, but one of the biggest trends rn is AI covers of songs and they're being pumped out like crazy and people are falling over themselves to defend people who don't have big time production budgets using them instead of hiring someone on Fiverr or imitating the voices themselves or voice clip mixing and sampling pre-existing lines like the olden days. ok. alright. Good to see some of you out there have the moral fortitude of a wet paper straw

#vena vents #not art #I think the only ethical voice synthesis ones are vocaloids and tts with a small pool of compensated speakers tbh #Because yeah your voice might read out some weird shit but you kind of gotta know and accept that before being sampled for those purposes #the VAs in the case of AI did not agree to that and are all very vocal about not wanting their voices sampled #I feel like most who were aware of uberduck and w/e early on just kind of didn't care because it was obvious clunky tts for fun #but creative AI are so predatory and violating and often hard to parse if AI or not these days it's way different

[bitter69uk]

“I have friends who adamantly feel that Sextette is a terrible film, but I just stoutly maintain that if you can get past the fact that Mae West is way too old to be playing a sexually insatiable, internationally glamorous movie queen, there really is nothing wrong with this movie. In fact, it’s a perfectly adequate example of the genre she invented and made her own. However even I must admit that since Mae is well into her eighties here there is something vaguely surrealistic about this movie’s habit of surrounding her with handsome hunky young men who fall all over each other in pursuit of her favours. The film is a campy, corny, funny, smutty romp just as one might expect.”

/ From High Camp: A Gay Guide to Camp and Cult Films by Paul Roen (1994) /

Heartfelt thanks to the attendees of the 16 November Lobotomy Room cinema club presentation of Sextette (1978) at Fontaine’s! It was gratifying to see everyone respond to this “you have to see this to believe it!” kitsch classick. (You immediately get a measure of Sextette’s quality with the painful opening musical number “Hooray for Hollywood” with bellboys dancing on carpet with the tap shoe noises added in post-production).  My favourite moment: West and Dalton dueting on Captain & Tenille’s “Love Will keep us Together.” I was glad to dispel the urban myth – spread by an unchivalrous Tony Curtis – that the earpiece concealed under West’s bouffant wig feeding her lines to her would receive police signals that she would recite as if they were dialogue. Maybe that was Curtis’ revenge for West loudly demanding, “You’re going to wear a wig to cover that bald spot, aren’t you?” when they first met. Yes, Rex Reed was correct when he predicted Sextette “will probably be shown decades hence as a monument of ghoulish camp” but do check out the 2020 documentary Dirty Blonde for a more sympathetic feminist assessment. Finally: after Sextette flopped, West contemplated releasing a disco album as her next venture – then decided against it. The mind boggles at this missed opportunity!  

#lobotomy room #mae west #bad movies for bad people #bad movies we love #cult cinema #bad taste #high empress of sex #raunch #sex comedy #vintage smut #lobotomy room film club #lobotomy room club #cult movies #shock value

[cryptotheism]

You’re interested in Qanon and Pizzagate stuff, what is your take on the latest Balenciaga photoshoot drama in those circles?

They're just like, goth teddy bears. Calling them "bondage gear" feels like such a stretch. And even if they were bondage teddy bears, I don't think it would justify the reaction these conspiracy weirdos are giving it.

Because it's one thing for an advertisement or a product to be weird about kids. We can all agree that's bad, but these conspiracy freaks are talking about the Balenciaga shoot as if it's a secret coded message that's proof that the illuminati are conditioning children to be sexual objects or whatever. It's a James Bond fantasy that has nothing to do with the fundamentally boring, grim, reality of CSA.

It's the same moral panic bullshit that created the McMartin Preschool trial. It's perpetually terrified people with a ghoulish obsession with childhood sexual abuse that need to imagine kidnappers hiding in their closer to justify their fundamental inability to deal with the modern world.

[ot3]

omg thank you for being the first normal person I've seen so far about AI who's also an artist T-T like obviously all the stealing is horrible and it's good it's talked about but almost everyone really is acting like the idea of computers being capable of creating images killed their firstborn child

(also I don't mean it as one of the weird AI art bros but as an artist myself I'm just glad that there are other artist with open mind to the concept)

no right like its insane to me to see how many other people who seem reasonable and level headed are falling for the kneejerk response to say ai Isn't Art Can't Be Art ! It's throwing out the baby with the bathwater to an almost incomprehensible degree.

Unfortunately the fact of the matter is that we live in an era where essentially all new technology's first and prime purpose will be for ghoulish, capitalistic, anti-human ends. But to reject any other uses for the technology doesn't do anything other than make you look like an anti-tech weirdo. This is genuinely insanely impressive and revolutionary tech! There are a TON of legitimate artistic uses for AI image generation.

It also seems weird that everyone is delving into this false binary of 'dont use AI, learn to draw' as if there is any conceivable reason for these things to be mutually exclusive? Like, before all of the AI discourse really popped off i was doing some experimenting with using AI in my process.

the texturing used in this drawing was made by VQGAN + Clip (different type of image generation than the stable diffusion model that is producing most of the AI art that's up for debate right now) running through google colab. I made a bunch of these weird, ethereal images that would have been almost impossible for me to produce under my own power - it would have taken a titanic amount of time, effort, and design to produce any of these through illustrative or photo editing techniques.

here's a sampling of some of the textures i made. Now I think it would be a real struggle to try and claim that these images made are plagiarisms. However, I stopped messing with the google colab generation for one key reason: i didnt know enough about the image databases being used to train these models. That's the real stumbling block

the internet is CHOCK FULL of images that are free to use commercially and repurposes, there's stuff like wikimedia commons, the smithsonian open access, unsplash and pexels which have free stock photos, etc. I honestly think a nonzero amount of artists would consent to having some of their work used in image generation databases if they were promised noncommercial use of the resulting images, also. But the problem is the people training these AI don't give a shit about any of that. It's just the complete entitlement to other people's work and neglect for creative boundaries that makes AI generation bad.

The fact that people are attempting to replicate the art of living, working artists, or people like kentaro miura who by all accounts were so dedicated to the craft that they worked themselves to death sickens me. And the fact that the companies responsible for this are using that as an active selling point for their product is even worse. It's a pretty miserable time to be an artist, and this is just the icing on the cake.

But I don't want silicon valley greed and bizarre, impotent jealousy from redditors who want custom waifu jpgs to mean that nobody who could really benefit from AI image generation gets to use it.

like, my dad for example. he's been a creative person his whole life but it never really went anywhere. He drew a lot as a kid and then went and got a degree in filmmaking. My parents were living in LA when I was born, with my dad managing a filming/sound studio and the two of them trying to break into writing screenplays. This did not happen because they had three kids, and for the past decade and then some my dad had been doing database programming on contract for the CDC. Now, in his mid 50s, he's finally got a permanent and secure position and, rather than spending all his free time raising children or getting PMP certified to try and angle for a string of promotions, he can start having hobbies again. there's a comic he's been wanting to draw for as long as I can remember.

only, one big problem - in 2021 he had surgery on his cataracts and never healed properly. He's got severely impaired vision and looking at stuff too hard for to long causes him a ton of eye strain and pain. He has to look at a lot of screens for his job so by the time he's off work for the day he's pretty much too fatigued to do all the intense visual stuff it'd take to make a comic.

I wanted to tell him AI image generation could help him make the kind of stuff he always dreamed about making as a kid but instead I had to tell him that as it stands, the predatory nature of AI modeling means it's insanely hard to use it without ripping off vulnerable creatives. Instead we chatted a bit about combining 3d assets, digitally edited photos, or photobashing/digital kitbashing methods to try and make a pipeline he could do without drawing, but the time commitment to learn these methods is probably just not feasible unless his eyes make a pretty unprecedented recovery in future years.

Like, that's the worst thing about all of this. The idea that AI makes the production of certain kinds of art more accessible to people with disabilities isn't just a 'gotcha' being used by the pro-AI people, it's also true. I would love for my dad to be able to make his comic. I myself also have a huge string of health issues and sometimes the main thing stopping me from drawing is that it hurts to do so. Anything in my process that could reduce the strain drawing puts on my body is an accessibility concern in some ways. Eventually degrading so much that I can't draw at all is one of my biggest fears.

But that doesn't counter all of the negatives! It just doesnt! Which fucking sucks man it just sucks so fucking bad that we have this cool incredible thing and we can't use it without being complicit in some stuff i am fully ideologically against! As things stand I really cant imagine that 'ethical' AI image generation will ever exist, so unfortunately it will have to be in the hands of the people using it to decide for themselves if they are using it in a way that is predatory or harmful, or as a legitimate tool to make meaningful works of art.

#sorry to go on this whole rant ive just been percolating on these thoughts for awhile. #long post #ai #i know this comes off as preachy im just passionate about this subject