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barblaz-arts · 6 months

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Seen your post about Israel/Palestine which is very good to care about, but I'm not sure everyone in the world are aware how fucked up the whole situation is. People think it's either this or that, but they should support the actual people, not Israel, not Hamas.

People from both sides got hurt, but the ones who were hurting longer in short term historical perspective, are Palestineans, if we take the long term (which only maniacs and fanatics actually care about) those are of course Jews, but it's more of a religion/ideology thing than some actual suffering.

The problem of this lack of knowledge, in my opinion, is that both sides, politically are shit bcs they use people and their feelings as pawns. Hamas has their military bases near civilian objects in Gaza, and at the same time Israel doesn't give more than two fucks about the civilian population, because they state that terrorists are hiding within the population, and Israel just makes attempts to swipe it under the rug a but by allegedly telling people to evacuate. If they wanted peace they should have started this whole bullshit conflict of interests half century ago. But I really have doubts that for them, being a very much newly established country, it was a fully uninfluenced decision. It was a way for the USA and Nato to weed their way into the Middle East and be able to control the situation. They have been getting ready for war for decades, hense females in regular military service, which isn't a thing in countries that don't really wait and want for any war happening, or have a stable way to enlist their immigrants into their military. But that's another topic. I made this example only as a means to explain why it was obvious Israel was getting ready for war. You can hide the actual point under the feminism and such, but it's not about feminism if it's not your right but your responsibility to serve the country. I don't really mind of course, but the militarization of society usually shows what is it going to be in the future. Especially if such militarization isn't sporadic, but been happening gradually over the years.

Back to history, The whole thing with Israel been festering previous decades, and first UK and after that USA allowed it to fester. It was the Osman empire region first (and I don't really like those slavers on principle, because they've been torturing my country with slave trader's raids on religious principle, for couple of centuries which prompted several huge wars to stop it from happening). After the dissolution of the Osman, as far as I remember, UK swooped in and basically did the colonising of sorts, they usually did, with no respect for local population and thinking they're the ruling caste while being unable assimilate the people into their culture because a) you can't make people want what they don't understand b) any more or less peaceful assimilation is when they actually want to be with you as allies and understand why exactly.

After that they synthetically made a country for jews, which is idiotic on its own merit and on everyone's merit. Like, their thing is that you had to be jew BY BLOOD to settle in the country, which is the beginnings of ultra nationalism, that's what I'm thinking. Not that many societies aren't nationalistic, but the sheer level of it is very odd. And the forefathers of the Israel aren't some lgbt activists who shine with rainbows and shit with butterflies, they are orthodox zionists. Which means, that their religion makes them free to kill people of other, opposing religion.

But it doesn't make the Hamas, as in the organisation, in any way clean and clear. They are terrorists, and they don't enjoy anything but sharia law, or their own charter, which states basically Jihad and jew killing. That is a very dangerous thing to support, because it's a very obvious thing - in this kind of tribalistic society that spurs from lack of education and all other good things in life, people with guns and moxie will rule the people who can actually make the whole thing better by promoting cooperation. You literally cannot negotiate with people who say that they will kill you if you're this or that, killing is bad, period. There's no way out of it, and I think we all need to step back and actually look at the reasons of conflict that go way back, not just the today's situation. It may lead us to the fact that, yes, Israel could've existed peacefully if it wasn't being militaristic, but only - only if they were no political powers in surrounding countries that made their goal the cleansing of Palestine from Jews. And why the Jews even started to get there? Not because they came on their own, no, it was a fucking plan by the actual colonisers, when they were more toothy and bold with their actions.

On a side note, that's partially why Russia/Ukraine situation is drastically different, they have deep ties to each other and speak the same language, had ability to talk to each other all these decades while being torn apart and pit against each other by lies about Russian colonisation of them, and lies of how it would be better if they join the EU. All the while, Ukraine was the best in agriculture in Europe before the whole EU and fracturing from the Russian orbit shebang, and now the industry was in shambles, even before the russian invasion. The same goes for their trading fleet - the whole Ussr built Ukraine the trading fleet and most of it was left there after the dissolution. What they did, they sold it out even if they couldve used it and by the 2018 they had about 5 big ships of their own. And that's how it was with all the economy - thieving it all out and then blaming it on Moscow.

In 2018 polls there were about 20 percent of Ukrainians who said they knew official Ukrainian, and 80 who spoke Russian and the eastern dialect mix of Ukrainian and Russian. You can make your own opinion out of this, ofc. That's not the same with Israel /Palestine situation, those nations are literally alien to each other in many things.

Yes, Ukraine was the synthetic country as well, but instead of being monogenous like both Israel and Palestine, they weren't, and had a very best economy in the Ussr, which made the whole notion of "Russia was is and will be bad" take lots of time in taking root in most of the people who weren't nationalistic, all the while Ukrainians were welcomed into Russia and not discriminated against in any way. Which is totally different to what was happening between Israel and Palestine, they had no actual ties, nothing except the USA military support for Israel so it stays on top, all the economic support to Gaza being settled in the pockets of all the middle men, and that's actually it.

But please, let's not forget, that the radical islamists are actually dangerous, and it's not a reaction to the USA involvement, or the reaction to anything at all but Quran. If there's someone who reads Quran and finds some Jihad mentions, there will be blood spilled over it. The whole, it's these guys fault or those guys fault doesn't really work when it's about politics, domestic or international. For things to work, there should be no radicals in the upper echelons of power. Which is not true in Israel / Palestine war from both sides. It's a very bad situation that may cause all kinds of tensions in all the world, because people aren't being well informed about the whole history of the conflict, without this or that side pushing their narrative.

At first, my knee jerk reaction was reading it as you thinking I support Hamas in any way. Which i dont. I must reiterate i DONT. I decided to revisit this later and calm down a bit and give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you're talking about other people, as I have myself seen say they support Hamas because history has often called rebellion groups of oppressed people terrorists and it's... Frankly terrifying to see.

Hamas specifically is a complicated situation that I have not yet dived deep enough into to talk about in detail, which is why I dont much talk much about them. I need to know more, I dont wanna talk outta my ass. But I do understand that radical Islamists are no good. I live in the Philippines. We have that too.

But the fact of the matter will always be that Hamas never mattered when it comes to what Israel is doing now and what they've been doing for decades. We must always remember this.

And while I'm on that topic, the "long term" suffering of Jews does not matter here either, because Palestinians didn't do that to them. A lot of zionists use it as an excuse and I am sick of it.

I'm not sure if you're saying one must be neutral about this. You're either hard to read, or I'm too sleep deprived and exhausted for reading comprehension. I think you are, but ai could be wrong. And I completely agree that it's the radicals in power that are to blame. In all my responses it is always the leaders I condemn most.

In any case, I'm just going to take this opportunity to say staying neutral isn't an option either because of the sheer power imbalance. Israel would be counting on the world looking away so they can erase all Palestinians. For this cycle of violence to be over on BOTH sides, Israel has to be the one to back off, as they are and always have been the ones with more power.

#free palestine #ceasefire in gaza #im not as eloquent as i could be because im tired and on the last day of my work week #but i didn't want this to be piled up by newer asks and get back logged #as i agree that it's very very important to separate support of Palestinians from Hamas

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feferipeixes · 7 months

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One of Us

Happy nine years of TAU.

(AO3 link)

===

"Do you ever think about what it would be like to be forgotten?"

There's a demon in the middle of the room, just like always. He's sitting cross legged a few feet off the floor, and there's something grotesque and nightmarish curled up in his lap. He called it a sheep when he first showed up, and he's been petting ever since, but at that question his hand stays.

"What?"

The man gulps. It took a lot of courage for him to go through with summoning a demon once he'd decided to do it, and it had clearly taken a toll on him. Sweat pours down his face as he paces in the abandoned used car showroom.

"I don't know why I'm asking you this," he says, half laughing at himself. He runs a hand through his hair -- what little of it is left.

Alcor stares. It begins to feel like the demon is looking through him.

"My wife is dead." The man closes his eyes, frowning. "It happened two years ago. She was everything to me. At her funeral I told a crowd of people that my memories of her life were my greatest treasure. I… I was wrong."

Later, Alcor walks through the empty halls of the Mystery Shack. Many of the wall photos have fallen down in past years, and for a while he was too tired or too upset to pick them up.

His summoner's words echo in his ears, and he snaps his fingers to make a photo frame shoot up into his hands.

"I can't remember her face anymore. I saw it every day for thirty years. When I woke up in the morning I was so happy to see her, no matter how bad my dreams were, no matter what awful things I knew I had to do that day. Just seeing her helped me. But now she's gone. And there's nothing left. Not even a memory."

It's a photo of a brown haired woman, her arms wrapped around the neck of a young man he recognizes as himself. Mabel's face was twisted in delight, no doubt ribbing him about something dumb he'd done. If he focuses, he can still hear that laughter in the Shack.

"I have a disorder that makes me forget things. I… don't know what it's called. Forgot that too." The man's fist clenches, so tightly that the veins bulge out on his arm. "Can you believe that? My soulmate, gone from my mind after just two years? She might as well have never existed at all."

Alcor makes his way to the roof of the Shack and sits facing the totem pole -- or at least, where it used to be. It had fallen down a couple of decades back when a car hit it. That sort of thing happened every few years, but eventually he got tired of moving it upright again.

He thinks of the time he sat right where he was and threw pinecones at a target taped to the pole. He'd thought he was in love with that red haired girl Wendy, back before he knew that romance wasn't for him. It still killed him when he found her blue and floating in that subway station.

His stomach growls at the thought.

"I think…" The man swallows -- hard. He sits down on the hood of a car and it groans beneath his weight. "If that's the fate of the most important person in my life, then that's what I deserve too."

Alcor remembers pulling his name out of newspapers, out of books detailing the Transcendence, out of the minds of people who got too snoopy when it came to the strange lights and noises that came out of the Mystery Shack at night. Gradually, Dipper Pines began to die, and more and more people chanted his new name in buildings and forests worldwide.

It wasn't a fate he wished on anyone.

The man's forehead creases. "I don't know why I expected you to understand. For Pete's sake you’re a demon. You want to be worshiped and stuff. Well, not me. I want the world to forget my name."

“You don't.”

The summoner jolts, as if he'd forgotten he was actually talking to someone and not just monologuing. A swell of derision crosses his face. “Y-Yes I do. I've thought about it a lot. I can accept the consequences.”

“No,” Alcor can remember saying, and he feels like an idiot for doing so; he wants to go back and just let the deal happen as planned, so that he could put the whole thing out of his mind just a tiny bit sooner. “You've accepted the consequences, but you don't want this. I know what you really want. You're just too afraid of the price to ask.”

“I…” The man gulps, and stumbles back. “That's not true. It hurts to think about being remembered when she isn't. I would feel so much better to live out the rest of my life alone except for her.”

The apple tree in the backyard is beginning to droop. It stopped producing fresh fruit regularly hundreds of years ago. He doesn't expect to see one today, either, but to his surprise there's a glistening red orb right at the tip of a spindly branch. When Alcor picks it up, he notices that the other side is charred. It breaks apart in his hand, scattering in the wind like dust. He'd accepted the consequences long ago.

It’s time to go.

“This request doesn't accomplish that at all.” The demon stands up, and the sheep-like thing just floats there as if nothing had happened. “You want the memory back. You want her back in your mind. I'm not in the mood to be lied to.”

“I’m not lying…”

“What, then, do you want to give up? Really?” Alcor spits. Something is bubbling up in his stomach. It feels as though someone else is speaking in his voice. “Something bad happened to you and you’re just going to stay in it forever? Because it’s too late? Because doing something to feel better would be too hard and too likely to fail? Bullshit! You wouldn’t be summoning a demon, then!”

“I’m not lying!” It’s the first time the man’s raised his voice -- a frequent eventuality when it comes to summoners, and yet it manages to take Alcor by surprise. “Of course I’ve entertained that thought! You- I thought you were supposed to be all knowing! Did you just come here to insult me?”

Alcor stares, dumbfounded, as the man paces, waving his arms with a newfound vigor. He wants to yell back that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, that the pain he’s seen eclipses anything a human mind could ever even conceptualize. But there’s a hand covering his mouth. It’s not the year 2012, and this isn’t Gravity Falls. He’s standing in a dark room, and around him, words echo like pinpricks of light.

“Her memories for mine. I thought that would be a fair bargain, at first. But then I thought it would be worse, to sit and age with the picture of what I could still have just out of reach. You wouldn’t get it. You would never understand what it’s like to grieve.”

There’s a hole in the floor -- a new one with every step the man takes. The tile cracks and shudders, then plunges into the deep. The room quakes with anger, with drawn out years of wasted potential. Soon both man and demon are tumbling through open air, in wait of the ground that meets them.

“To know the love in my heart, to feel its shadow… I can’t stand it. I don’t want to subject anyone else to that either. That’s why I want to be forgotten. So we can all once again live in the present.”

Alcor breathes out, and takes his hand.

---

There’s a woman in the kitchen when they arrive. She looks up at the sound of shoes on carpet, and momentary surprise is replaced by a warm smile.

“Welcome back, sweetheart,” she says. The man does not answer.

There’s a protracted silence, in which stares battle for prominence over ignorance. Alcor looks around. He sees eggs in a frying pan and bread in the toaster. He sees shoes by the entry, one pair two pair three. He sees photos hung on the wall with care, later tilted by the settling of time.

“You’re not dead,” he says, although it is already obvious.

The man, his summoner, leaves the room without a word.

“I’m not,” the woman says. “I’m sorry, Alcor. I’ve been expecting you. He told me you’d be coming.”

“He did?” Alcor scans the home between blinks. It’s well lived in. A living room room with bowling trophies on the mantle and pillows on the sofa with cross stitched designs on them. A library full of books, some of which he’d never seen before, almost all of which have traces of human skin on the pages, and words digested by thought. A bedroom with a queen sized bed, two fully stocked closets, a drawer full of love letters, a bathroom full of stains.

One more bedroom, one with a twin sized bed never slept in, an empty closet, and brightly coloured paint peeling from the walls. Alcor begins to piece together what happened here.

“He isn’t really aware of me,” the woman explains, when they’re both seated, cups of tea in hand. “We talk all the time, but he doesn’t hear me. We live side by side but to him he’s alone. I hear how he misses me. I miss him too.”

“He told me he’d rather be forgotten,” Alcor says. “That’s what he said. I wasn’t expecting it. It’s ironic.”

She leans back in her chair, and closes her eyes for a moment. “I’d heard him… talking about it. I can’t pretend it didn’t sting. But then I realized that he wasn’t trying to cut me out of his life. He was telling me he loves me, in the only way he can, now.”

“How… so?” He knows the answer, but he needs to hear her say it.

“After it happened, I struggled to stay in one piece. It was so overwhelming. Every day, the littlest things made me feel like someone was prying me open. I wanted to forget. If he’d never been in my life, then there’d be nothing to have lost. And when I thought about it, I realized that it hurt just as much to think about the loss he was experiencing, of me.”

Alcor understands, and he puts his teacup down. “I felt that way too. When you grieve, everyone grieves with you. It feels kinder to snuff it out.”

His hand is trembling. The woman takes it, and holds it steady against the table. Long blackened claws spill over wrinkled and liver-spotted flesh. They fumble, then ease into the melody.

“Tis better to have loved,” she says, softly. “That’s what they say.”

They sit there like that, and the Sun begins to set. It's not fair, how right she is. It's not fair because that this had to happen or that she had to say that stuff, because he'd been trying for a long time not to think about it. A part of him wonders if he could've gone two, three, maybe even four hundred more years without having to accept it. Even as he thinks that, he's frustratingly aware that it's something that gets harder the longer you pretend it isn't real.

Alcor drinks the rest of his tea -- it’s cold, but it’s better than nothing.

“Thank you for not taking his soul,” she says, when they get up from the table. “I did my research on you. I figured I at least had a chance. It’s selfish, but I want to keep it, here with me.”

He knows. It’s been a long time, but he knows. He could’ve taken that man’s truth straight from his chest -- chomped down and let it shatter. The rush he could’ve had, that blinding, temporary rush when reducing person to object and pulling it apart stitch-by-stich. It’s harder, what he’s done. He feels like he’s going to be sick.

“I don’t want you to have to leave empty handed,” she continues, perhaps noticing the rolling twister about to erupt from the monster’s maw. “Please, take this.”

He looks at her, trying to hold back tears that can’t be explained, fighting with himself to keep that box closed because once that grief is acknowledged, there’s no way back. There’s no escaping it. It becomes real, it becomes heavy, and only then can you heal.

He looks at her, and in her hand there is an apple.

---

Alcor appears, unbidden, in someone’s home. This one is much smaller, much quieter. Very little love has graced its walls. It’s the kind of house you walk past and feel a slight chill from. It’s the kind of place you avoid on instinct.

There’s a young man, sitting at his desk. He’s fiddling with something -- a glue stick. Open in front of him is a large scrapbook, covered in construction paper and glitter and drawings. To his side is a stack of newspapers, a clipping from which the young man is trying to wrangle.

Alcor’s name appears three times in the print, not that anyone would know it. It’s so worn out -- the name, that is, not the paper to which it’s bound -- that you’d really have to be looking for it to be able to find it. And maybe that’s no way to live. Maybe it hurts to miss what you could’ve had, but maybe it hurts more to forget.

“Hi Mizar,” Alcor says, and the young man jumps, not having realized he had company.

“Wh- what’s going on?” he stammers, backing against the wall, and even though he’s scared, his voice and his gait are so familiar, so comforting. Alcor takes that comfort. It’s better than nothing. “Who are you?”

Alcor smiles, and every lightbulb in the house explodes together. “I’m your brother.”

(AO3 link)

#gravity falls #transcendence au #alcor the dreambender #fic #my stuff #tauathon

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pollenallergie · 3 months

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thinking about meeting older!tom on one of those crappy reality tv dating shows like love island or too hot to handle. his mates signed him up as a joke… or so they claim. really, they signed him up because they’re all secretly worried that he’s just gonna throw his life away with meaningless fling after meaningless fling because he’s scared too commit to anything because he’s afraid that he’s unlovable and that he’ll just wind up getting hurt again like he did with ruth and the others that came after her. they’ve all found a long-term partner or are at least open to finding that sort of thing, and they can tell it hurts him to miss out on that; to constantly be the only one who shows up to things alone, without a date, to watch as his mates fall in love and get married, while he continues to live the same life he’s been living for the past decade. his mates signed him up because they want to show him that he is lovable… unfortunately, they had great intentions, but they might’ve picked the wrong show…

you, however, signed yourself up as a joke, or, at least that’s what you’re telling yourself. really, it’s more of an act of desperation. you watch all your mates fall in love or go on dates or even have meaningless flings. meanwhile, you’re sat at home being sad sally, still healing from a brutal break up that happened two years ago. you feel undesirable and unwanted. you’ve signed yourself up as a way to prove to yourself that you’re not. you’re not looking for anything serious, you wouldn’t have chosen this show if you were. no, in fact, you’re done with serious; serious leads to heartbreak. you just want to feel sexy and desired for once in your life.

neither of you are looking for anything serious, or at least that’s what you tell yourselves. but then you meet each other and you slowly but surely come to realize that the idea of sleeping with or even just chatting up other people no longer interests you; you’re all about each other in the most healthy, non-toxic way possible. sure, you still form close bonds with your fellow castmates and make lifelong friendships, but as far as romance or sex or anything of that sort goes, you’re it for each other. you and tom get to know each other and, gradually, throughout the duration of filming, develop such a strong bond with each other that, when the show finally wraps, you two have already made plans to fly out to visit each other just as few weeks after you return to your respective homes. and, in the meantime, while you’re apart, you’ll be sure to keep in touch, even planning to video chat as many nights a week as you’re both able to, just so you two can still sort of fall asleep together at night.

… is this anything??

#ignore all typos #gimme a break #i tried #i’m too lazy to edit this #older!tom grant #once again by ‘older’ i mean like 32 which is older than his canon age of 18 #older!tom grant x reader #older au #tom grant x reader #older!tom grant x you #tom grant x you #tom grant #tom grant make up #make up (2019)#joseph quinn characters #joseph quinn x reader

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duhragonball · 1 month

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Were you aware of/do you have an opinion on the Dragonball theme park that is starting construction soon? On the one hand it seems like that Harry Potter theme park (which was a dumb idea, nobody serious cares about HP anymore), but Dragonball also isn't shitty, and Akria Toriyama didn't spend the last years of his life making sure everyone knew he was a transphobe (which J.K. Rowling is doing her best to do). Do you have a take?

I was not aware of any of this, so I don't think I have much to contribute to the conversation.

The article I just found was published only a few hours ago, so I guess this is a HOTTT scoop? Also, it looks like the thing is being built in Saudi Arabia, so I guess that's why this got announced in the middle of the night where I live. It's 3am here and I'm up early because I went to bed at 7pm and woke up around 1am.

Okay, so the Saudi connection is something I can talk about, because this sounds a lot like the same agenda that led to the WWE's infamous deal with Saudi Arabia. For those of you who aren't into pro wrestling, in 2018 WWE started putting on events in Jeddah and Riyadh. This has been controversial for several reasons, but the main sticking point is that the Saudi assassination of dissident journalist James Khashoggi took place in October 2018, a few weeks before WWE's second-ever Saudi show, Crown Jewel. The U.S. condemned the assassination, and politicians pressured WWE to call off the show, but the Kingdom paid a lot of money for the deal, and Vince McMahon only cares about himself, so they just went ahead and did the show anyway. There's other issues, but that one especially stuck in my craw, and it's why I canceled my WWE Network subscription and haven't watched their product ever since.

Basically, the Saudi government has been trying to revamp their economy to reduce dependence on the petroleum industry. The WWE deal is part of the "Saudi Vision 2030" project, which aims to increase the economic, social, and cultural diversification of the country by the end of this decade. Tourism is a big part of that plan, which is why they're paying big money for sporting events, live shows, and so on. Their plans also include a lot of political and social reforms, but this feels like an afterthought, especially to a lot of critics. For example, they announced a "Red Sea Film Festival" in 2019, but in order to put on such an event, they first had to lift a 35-year moratorium on building new movie theaters. They started allowing women to enter the King Fahd International Stadium for the first time, but that's probably just because they really wanted a packed house for these shows and concerts they're putting on.

The whole thing smacks of propaganda designed to distract the public from KSA's lousy record on human rights. When WWE was promoting their first Jeddah show, they ran a lot of video packages about Saudi Vision 2030 and talked up how cool it was that the country was seeking to modernize. Meanwhile, a lot of their roster couldn't even go to these shows for various reasons. Sami Zayn's a Syrian by descent, Noam Dar is an Israeli, and Montel Vontavious Porter is a former Muslim, so he might get executed for apostasy if he entered the country. The women's roster was a whole other thing. I think they were just left at home for the first couple of shows, and then they gradually started allowing more women to participate. And all those slick Saudi Vision video packages looked pretty hollow when James Khashoggi got murdered.

My take has been that KSA is just throwing money at their problems and trying to distract their critics. Saudi Arabia is practically synonymous with oil, and that's what made the country rich. I watched a video on this a while back, and if I remember right, they discovered oil in the 1930s and wanted to avoid getting exploited by the British and French, so they partnered with the United States. That prosperous relationship allowed Saudi Arabia to become a regional power and basically have things their way. The human rights problems were allowed to persist because they knew the U.S. would always back them up to protect their oil interests.

But over the last fifty years or so, U.S. dependence on Saudi oil has declined. See, it's not that Saudi Arabia has more crude oil than other countries. What made it so important in the petroleum industry is that Saudi crude is much easier to refine than other sources. So Saudi refineries can produce more fuel in a short span of time, which gave them a lot of leverage in that sector. But there's been a big push in the U.S. to seek out and refine more crude oil domestically, and that's cut into Saudi Arabia's prestige. Now, when rival powers like Iran start bothering Saudi Arabia, the U.S. isn't as quick to offer support, and that's why KSA is trying to figure out how to adapt to the changing times.

To be blunt, I don't know how the hell a Dragon Ball theme park helps solve any of this. If the oil revenue is on the decline, then it makes sense for a country to invest in other industries while the coffers are fuil, but now Saudi Arabia has to backtrack a lot of their draconian laws and authoritative policies to improve their public image. And they need to do it quickly, but not so quickly as to upset the conservative elements in the country.

Like, all right, let's say they open this park, and they really want people to fly in from all over the world. I know a lot of women in the Dragon Ball fandom. What kind of restrictions would they have to deal with in the park? Is there a stringent dress code? They made a big deal out of the historic first-ever women's match at one of those Crown Jewel shows, but the wrestlers had to wear black unitards under their usual ring gear. So they eased up on some rules, but you watch the show and you can tell there's still some rules in place.

I've met a lot of LBGTQ+ people in this fandom. Can they go to the Saudi Dragon Ball theme park? Can a same-sex couple hold hands as they wait in line to ride the Ginyu Force Log Flume? And I'm sure there's a guy at the General Entertainment Authority office who would assure me that it's all good, nothing to worry about, everyone is welcome, please come to the theme park and spend lots of money. But once you get there? Remember, James Khashoggi was a citizen of Saudi Arabia, and he walked into that consulate assured that everything would be cool, and then it wasn't.

You mentioned the Harry Potter theme park, and yeah, that whole franchise is a PR hot mess, but at least I don't have to ask these kinds of questions about who can go to the park without getting detained. That's the public relations mess Saudi Arabia has to clean up. At least with Harry Potter, they just have to distract people from one hateful, cranky billionaire. For most casual fans, "J.K. Rowling" is a name they barely notice in the credits. But Saudi Arabia's issues are baked into the government, laws, and history of the whole country. Reform is possible, but it isn't as simple as the propaganda makes it sound. There's a lot of damage that needs to be repaired.

I'm sorry, I kind of turned this into a rambling essay about Saudi Arabia's pivot to tourism, but for me that's the main issue here. The park might get completed and it may even do big business, but I don't think there's a lot of transparency with these projects. From what I've heard, the WWE shows in Jeddah and Riyadh don't actually make a lot of money. Much of the live crowd attends for free just to make the shows look more popular than they are, and WWE only plays along because they're getting paid handsomely for the effort. It just comes across like the country is spending lots of money to imitate a tourist destination without actually becoming one. So the Dragon Ball park looks like it's also going to be a means to an end. Someone in charge liked the idea enough to push it through, but that doesn't translate into success.

Oh, wait, I just realized: What if the park opens, then fails, and it gets abandoned? I really don't have any interest in theme parks, but abandoned theme parks kick ass. Imagine Dogpatch U.S.A, except it's Dragon Ball themed. That would be amazing. I hope I live long enough to see photos of it when it gets all old and decrepit.

#dragon ball #dragon ball: the theme park #this doesn't feel like it'll end well #oh i just found the youtube video about it i hope it's like the thing for cryptoland #pleasepleaseplease

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cherry-alive · 2 months

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This post is primarily aimed at people who followed me here from my main blog, @honeysuckle-venom, where I've talked a fair amount about having DID. If you don't know me from there this may not make sense, and also really isn't necessary to read. If you do know me from there it's also obviously not necessary to read, but here's the post I wanted to write about C and about where we are in recovery and about this blog

I have tried literally over ten times to write a long post explaining more about C and how she woke up from over a decade of dormancy and how she fits into our healing and what this blog is about, with no success. I just can't seem to do it. So. I'll do my best with what I can share without a thirty page backstory I'm not comfortable giving.

The very very very edited cliff notes version is that for Trauma Reasons we had to dissociate and split off a lot of our sweetest, softest, most joyful, and/or most feminine traits, all of which were very present in early childhood but not allowed to be present as we got older bc of trauma things I don't want to talk about. Those traits got split up somewhat, Eloise had some, the Dolls had some, etc, but the one who had the most/had a combination of all of that and more is C. C is also possibly the core/original, she's really really connected to who we were as a young child and who we feel we are at heart in a very special way that is distinct from everyone else, even Luna who we thought had been around the longest. C went mostly dormant when we were 11, and entirely dormant at 16. I did not know about her, not really, and to the extent I did I thought she was genuinely dead. As I've continued to heal in therapy I've noticed that I've had increasing desires to get back in touch with some of those traits that I was forced away from. Accepting Eloise, starting to accept the Dolls, and slowly realizing and acknowledging that I identified as femme were all really important steps for me. Eventually as I explored the concept of my femininity in therapy sessions, my therapist said something that ended up waking C from dormancy. That was about a year ago. With her came a huge rush of feelings and memories I'd completely lost, and a whole new capacity for joy and recovery and healing that I didn't think I'd ever have. We remembered that once upon a time, we didn't understand cruelty, we didn't want to hurt or manipulate anyone. We loved fairies and magic and flowers and art and cooking and the natural world. We loved pink and purple and sparkles and lace. We listened to birdsong, we were kind and friendly, we were gentle and warm. And we could be that way again, and take joy in it again. We realized that she is in some ways the most central part of us, and embodies a lot of who we want to be and who we feel happiest and most whole as. But she's very vulnerable, partially because she's so central and so directly tied to some very key trauma, and there was also a lot of old trauma things at play that make us very nervous to publicly talk about or show her, and/or to act in the ways that she wants and that make all of us happy, like embracing softness and femininity more. That still feels very very dangerous to us, but also every time we do it and get a positive response instead of further traumatization in respose it is deeply healing and it just feels so true to who we want to be in a way that is really healthy. So gradually we've been sharing more and more when it feels safe, and we finally reached a place where sharing the url of this blog with people from main felt like a potentially positive and healing step, where we could embrace the things C likes and that we all like publicly and try to fight some against the shame and fear we feel whenever we want to act softer or reblog pink things or what have you. It's really scary still honestly but it also just feels so validating and good to be able to be myself in this way, when for decades I tried to repress a lot of these traits as much as possible. So. Yeah. That's why we made this blog and why we finally decided to share some more about C/what she likes, because it's honestly stuff I like too and I don't want to be afraid or ashamed to wear something pink and pretty or have heart shaped kitchenware or just embrace the softest gentlest parts of myself anymore.

There's. So much more here/more to C and our backstory with this stuff but I think that's what I can share for now. But also I'd like to be able to talk more about some of this stuff, I just don't have the words yet/don't know how. So if you have any questions about this post or this blog or whatever feel free to ask. I might not answer, but I also might because it might be helpful rather than just trying to write something without a prompt

#text post #my post

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writersmorgue · 3 months

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Febuwhump Day 6 - "you lied to me"

I may have shed a tear while writing this one.

This is a fantasy AU!! No teacher/student!!

TWs in tags || read on Ao3 || wc: 971

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As much as he tried to run away, Izuku had pulled him in like a magnet. They had fallen hard and fast for each other, faster than Shouta had in any of his lifetimes.

The time came to confess his truth, to finally break off their relationship and part ways. It would be easier this way, Shouta could let Izuku live on in his memory, young and vibrant as he was.

But Izuku always did love ruining Shouta’s plans.

“Shouta, it’s okay. I- I am too.”

He didn’t think he’d ever felt such a feeling before. Was it relief? Distress, maybe… Hope.

“Why… why didn’t you say anything?” He examined Izuku’s face, trying to wring out any deceit.

His lover shrugged, smiling. The barely-there crow's feet made an appearance as he nuzzled into Shouta’s hand.

“Probably for the same reason as you. I wanted to protect this. It wouldn’t work if one of us was mortal and the other…”

Shouta frowned, “I know most of the other immortals in the area, I can’t believe I never noticed you.” he swiped Izuku’s freckled cheek with his thumb.

“I’ve…” Izuku sighed, “I’ve had a tough life, Shouta. I’m just grateful that I now get to spend the rest of it with you.”

Eternity… he doesn’t say.

Truly, Shouta should’ve known it was too good to be true.

He let himself believe that it was possible, that the universe had finally granted him some sort of reprieve.

Maybe it was his desperation that led him to ignore the signs. Izuku’s aging, his spirit, his beauty.

Living for as long as Shouta had, you would lose your mind a little more with each passing decade. Cursed immortals like him don’t receive the blessing of death, but rather gradual insanity.

It was all good, all wrong.

Not two years later, it all came crashing down.

Izuku had begun looking tired and lethargic. His smile was strained and his movements painful. Shouta had insisted he go to the healer, ignoring the blaring alarm in his head that screamed this was wrong. He should be regenerating faster than his ailment could harm him.

“Shouta, don’t worry.” He brushed off every time he showed concern. “I’m fine, they can’t help.”

There was something he wasn’t telling him.

Weeks later, Izuku had awoken sometime in the night, and he hadn’t returned. After Shouta lay there unable to rest for some time, he threw the covers off of his bed and trudged into the dark of the house.

He found Izuku curled around the toilet, sitting in a pool of sweat and vomit.

Immediately he leaped into action, gathering the shivering man into his arms and lifting him. Izuku clung to his shoulders, whimpering at the movement.

He rushed them to the nearest healer, doing his best to keep Izuku conscious throughout the trip.

The old woman on duty took one look at Izuku and sighed, waving at Shouta to come through to the back.

They put him on an open cot, and Shouta immediately forewent the waiting bench, kneeling beside Izuku on the dirt.

“Shit, you’ve gotta tell me what’s going on, Izuku. Please, I know you’re hiding something. Is your curse doing this to you? I don’t understand…”

“Love,” Izuku smiled, motioning for Shouta’s hand. He complied, holding the smaller hand in his own. Izuku’s body had always been small, almost dangerously so, but Shouta chalked it up to genetics. He never met Izuku’s family, assuming they’d passed decades or even centuries ago, like his own.

But now, with the moonlight pouring in through the window, illuminating Izuku’s translucent skin, he’s sure he had it all wrong.

He waited a moment, allowing Izuku to collect himself and breathe.

“There’s a letter… in my chest at home. I explain more…” He sighed, eyebrows quivering, “I can’t imagine I have much longer. I’ve already been lucky.”

“Izuku you’re…” acting as though you’re already dead. “You lied to me about being immortal,” Shouta finished, using all his power to stay strong until he got answers. But watching the tears swell in Izuku’s eyes nearly broke him.

“I’m sorry for deceiving you, Shouta. It was never with malicious intent, please believe me.” He took a shuddering breath, “I never had long for this life.”

Shouta brought Izuku’s hand to his forehead, feeling the cool skin and pressing a kiss into his wrist.

Shouta would never be angry at him, and he needed Izuku to know, but he wouldn’t dare interrupt him now.

“I knew you were cursed when we met all those years ago. I knew I was dying then, too.” Izuku explains, nodding to the woman when she brought him another pillow to prop himself on. “As much as I knew it would hurt, I was selfish. I fell in love with you, and I knew you would leave if I was honest. I just…” He sobs, caressing Shouta’s face.

Shouta shakes his head, allowing his burning eyes to well, “Izuku you don’t need to justify yourself. I’m so grateful for the time we’ve had together. If I’d have known… I would’ve spent every waking moment treasuring you.”

Izuku chuckled, “You couldn’t possibly make me feel more loved than I already have. My time with you was the happiest of my life. I’ve been alone for so many years, and though it was greedy, I didn’t want to feel that loneliness in death. I know you’ll always be with me, just like I’ll always be with you, Shouta.”

He pulled himself up onto Izuku’s cot and took the man into his arms.

“I love you more than anything, Izuku.” He murmurs, pressing kisses into Izuku’s crown.

“Not more than I love you,” Izuku whispers back.

He took his last breath with a sleepy smile on his face.

Forever young, just like Shouta.

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sobredunia · 5 months

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Hey u should tell me oc lore ok? ok we can exchange oc lore like uh. uhm. like. we can exchange. like telling stories around a campfire yeah thats it. yeah. yay

okay so i started writing this and then i had to go to sleep and now that I wake up in the morning tumblr has eaten the entire fucking ask. thankfully i decided to copypaste it on a drive folder but fucking christ i did a lot of text and tumblr eated it all and didnt even care :(

This started out remotely normal and I ended up writing it like fanfiction lmao

(TW: cannibalism (?), death, mentions of alcohol consumption)

Okay so there's this guy named Charcoal, he's a fox that can turn into a human :D. He's been alive for a very long time, causing mischief be it through good actions or bad actions just to see what would happen. Although he can easily blend in with the humans, he changes his aspect to show more fox-like features just to see how they'd react. Most of the towns he's been in either consider him a small god to pray and make offers to or a threat that needs to be eliminated (but he's always faster, always smarter. he knows humans all too well)

The years pass and pass, and he's decided that he's gonna enter this one city looking like a starved and sad teenage boy, trying to see if these humans are foolish enough that they'll treat him kindly

They don't

He begs for money on the streets and no one gives him anything. He begs for food in restaurants that are about to take out the trash and no one gives him anything. He begs other homeless people to make space for one more in their makeshift huts and no one does

The bigger the city, the ruder the people, he's noticed

Eventually, he just pickpockets someone and goes to a random bar to get at least a bit happy before sleeping somewhere as a fox. He'll go to a different city tomorrow

"Are you sure you're old enough for a drink?"

The bar is run by an old man that looks like he should've retired more than a decade ago

This was the most compassion Charcoal had been shown in the entire city, so he decided he'd try to play his role just a bit more

"Psh- of course!" He says in a tone that makes it seem like he's lying, and then slides the coins he stole over to him

The old man frowns, before going under the bar and pouring the drink he had asked for, and then retrieving the coins

He takes a sip, and notices that it's a non alcoholic drink. Still, he technically gave him what he asked for, so he can't complain. He can appreciate a fellow trickster

The two engage in conversation, Charcoal coming up with a sob story about how he's an orphan that escaped a cruel orphanage and is now looking for refuge in an unknown part of the city. He also sees how the old man engages with the other clients, remembering their names and preferred drinks and how much they had all drank, knowing when to stop pouring them glasses. Despite some rude and some annoying customers, the old man dealt with them with patience and appropriate responses, and he always gave a listening ear to any who needed them. Charcoal was definitely impressed

Once everyone had had their fill, the old man shooed them out, all but Charcoal

He offered him a job and a place to stay, living in his house that was over the bar and working as a barista or when he wasn't able to work due to age

"Isn't it illegal to work while you're this old?"

"As long as none of the clients snitch, it doesn't matter. And it's not like you're living a very lawful life yourself"

He cackled. "You got me there"

When Charcoal went to sleep, he decided he'd keep up the bit for just a few more days, just to see what it's like to be a bartender, and maybe snatch all the money in the register once he bails out and goes someplace else

He did not, in fact, stay there for "just a few more days"

He hated to admit it, but he'd actually grown attached to that old man and the barista lifestyle. It was fun listening to stories and breaking or starting fights. He also began to gradually change his appearance, to simulate the concept of growing up. When the old man began to teach him how to pour and mix drinks and what the regulars' preferences were, it genuinely felt like an honor, and his days of aimless wandering and pranks and thievery were long behind him

And then tragedy struck

The old man had a heart attack

He had actually written a will. A will where he left everything he had to Charcoal, the closest thing he'd ever had to family

It actually hurt

He actually wanted to cry

He had been alive for years and years, and this was the one time he had cared so much about someone. Not as a human, but as a person

He decided he'd continue running the bar, to honor him

He wasn't so sure why he did that so determined. But he did

But it wasn't the same without him there

He started to lose regulars and newcomers alike, leaving the bar nearly empty most nights

On a rather populated night, though, he met a certain someone

Someone like him

An animal that could turn into a human

A hare. Chalk was his name

He looked like any other person, although he was rather insistent on keeping his hat on

They didn't recognise eachother for what they were. Not right away, anyway. It was only when he saw a bit of a hare ear poking out from under the hat that he realised

They hit it off right away after that, happy to not be the only ones. Charcoal offered a job as a bartender, like the old man had done all those years ago. He took it, because why not

He was far far younger than him, in his 20s. He still had that bit of respect for human rules and didn't view them as distanced from him as Charcoal did. It was probably a thing that came with age. There were still plenty of humans older than him, after all, and he had next to no life experience

Money wasn't exactly an issue. If they wanted, they could just steal some, but Charcoal knew that's not what the old man would have wanted. He wanted to try living clean. For at least a while. But the bar just kept on losing clients

And then, the straw that broke the camel's back

Charcoal was out in the back, about to throw a trash bag into the larger container, when he noticed something in it

A corpse

A young woman's corpse

He panicked. Someone must've dumped her there after killing her

He couldn't let the body be discovered here. If it did, it would be the final nail in the coffin for the bar, and they would have to close it for good. No one wants to go drink in a place where they murdered a young lady

So, in a panic, he retrieved the corpse and put it inside the bar, locking the door

Chalk panicked when he entered the kitchen and saw the scene

"What the fuck did you do!?"

Charcoal hurriedly explained the scene and the consequences this would have for the establishment if she was found here

"S-so, you want to move her someplace else?"

"No, we can't risk it getting traced to here. Then we'll get in even bigger trouble for having moved it"

"Then what do you suggest we do!?"

"..."

Charcoal took a cleaver and chopped up the body, before turning his mouth into that of a fox, and eating desperately

Charcoal could only watch in horror as his friend ate a human like a rabid beast, turning his hands into claws to rip apart the flesh better

Eventually, he finally stopped being locked in place and left to fill up as a bartender for the two clients they had. Luckily, both of them were too drunk to notice anything. Chalk shooed them out before going back to the kitchen. It was a mess. So was Charcoal. He was too busy licking the bones clean to notice him coming back. Or even leaving in the first place

They cut up the bones even more, before keeping them in a plastic bag to turn into stew later. Things like the skull or the hips were grinded up beyond recognition and thrown out through drains, sinks and toilets, and the two silently agreed to never speak about this again

Besides, they just had to wait around 30 years until the case went cold. What's that to someone who's lived for far longer than that?

At least Charcoal could say that. Chalk was still very disturbed by the whole ordeal. He couldn't really blame him

They pretended not to care when they started seeing the missing person posters

#ask #zecri #oc lore ???#chalk #charcoal

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eruverse · 6 months

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Skimmed briefly thru Russian history to determine who’ve ever been Ivan’s lovers or fuckbuddies:

Verdick (subject to change)

Commentaries:

- Wow that’s such a brief list, 75% of humans are less pathetic than this and Ivan is like 1000 year old (yes I headcanon that Ivan’s lovers or fuckbuddies are really on the scarce end, he just has the vibe yknow)

- Francis is an understatement. I should look into it more deeply but this isn’t going to be contested. Anyway it was both fun and not fun, Ivan felt like a barn dog that was being forcefully domesticated.

- Yao (during Sino-Soviet alliance) is the only person Ivan has ever been married to. Funny that Yao is Ivan’s first husbando but Ivan is Yao’s… 73837382th. Ivan and Yao didn’t have the worst relationship but also def wasn’t the best. Their whole relationship goes back ONLY to the 17th century and it was meh, they are best behaved with each other in modern time only. Today they are plenty sweet but a bulk of that has the arrangey vibe they had during their short marriage decades ago. Most of it is still business.

- Alfred. I chose to not make them get together during USSR era simply bc it would be too schizo. At most they smooched (think of that famous pic with Soviet and American soldiers ahah) and thus their real relationship was in the 90s. There was real love, Ivan thought he could make it work, they could make it work, but alas, it ended up being the worst relationship Ivan has ever had (while for Alfred it was just disappointing for lots missed opportunities and potential. He never truly realized how much he fucked Ivan over btw. I have to say that not all of it is his fault ofc but he is also not not instrumental. And if there’s a choice between blaming Russians, Ivan’s own sons and daughters, and a foreigner, ofc Ivan would blame the foreigner especially one that is instrumental in it). Anyway, the 90s was fucked up for Ivan but it took him quite a long time to realize fr that they just simply can’t be together. That’s why, there wasn’t an exact breaking point no matter how fucked up he felt. It was just a gradual downspiral. At one point their bed became too stifling and depressing a place for Ivan.

There are WAY TOO MANY THINGS to talk abt their 90s relationship or the aftermath, but I’ll only talk abt one thing here: one reason Ivan is like. Salty abt the whole thing is because he showed Alfred like most, if not all, of his vulnerabilities and it wasn’t taken care of well. A betrayal to his very being. And other things. Ivan wasn’t only salty due to loss of power and influence in world stage but he basically had nothing to eat, difficult to not feel utterly humiliated and helpless when you couldn’t even fulfill ur basic needs. Any dignity of the self, gone. Anyway.

- Wow I didn’t even know Russia and Prussia had warmish relationship in empire era. Nice! During WW2 it was outright hateful but since it wasn’t all their relationship is I think it’d have progressed to be at least civil closer to modern time (also with Germany in general). I think Ivan’s relationship with Gilbert would be pretty cordial. Anw I’m hoping ppl would write more abt Ivan that’s not only being Soviet both in reality and mindset tho ahaha

- Ned: eh I’ve heard things. Ned will fuck whoever for business and Ivan liked him quite well.

- Serbia: one and only here means one and only TIME… but yeah. Most likely Serbia asked or offered. It was only once. Serbia still thinks about it. Anyway, it’s interesting that Serbia is older than Russia but still says that he’s totally the younger bro.

- Sadik: still contemplating. If it happened, it was def sorta hatesex. I need to look into this but I think there was a lot of fascination with each other also.

- Anyway I don’t think Ivan had any semblance of relationships with Soviet republics, and if he had, it was more of an isolated incident. Idk, I just think that as much as he obsessively keeps people close, he actually still keeps them at arm’s length. And Ivan hates looking vulnerable. The closer ppl are to him, actually the more restless and fearful he often feels.

- Also I don’t hc that he and Golden Horde had had a semblance of relationship (even forced one) bc… he was a kid and Golden Horde was too uninterested for things like that during that time. Much more amusing to chase little Vanya around.

- Need to look into his relationships with Nordics and Baltics but my interest in most things west of Russian border is really shot to hell. For now I don’t think any semblance of relationship had happened.

- Anyway, small hc: none of these guys took Ivan’s virginity as it was a human woman, or basically a human (I tend to think it was a woman tho). She lived nearby many centuries ago and Ivan still keeps tracks of her descendants and watches after them from afar sometimes, just like he watches over a lot of his people. Might or might not have a thing with the one and only Yekaterina.

#hetalia #aph russia #hws russia #aph america #hws america #aph france #hws france #aph china #hws china #god too many to tag im not gonna do it #my headcanon

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secretgamergirl · 9 months

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All the seriously queer stuff in the back half of Sailor Moon

In case it wasn't obvious when I released a little mini-RPG a few months ago where you basically play as the villains, I've been gradually making my way through the entire run of Sailor Moon for the past year or so. Specifically I'm watching the 2014 Viz dub that covers all 200 episodes, trying to be as faithful as they can with it. It's been a really interesting experience, since I absolutely watched the old DiC dub back in the day, saw a fansub of one of the movies around the same time, and heard plenty of things about the missing seasons (particularly the infamous "cousins" thing from the Cloverway dub) over the years, and now I have all the context. And the context gets really shockingly overtly queer, turns out!

So first, let's just all get on the same page with the English language localizations of Sailor Moon over the years. Back in the 90s, Sailor Moon aired… well everywhere, with the English language version being a dub from DiC, which I will go to my grave defending as probably the best dub of anything I can think of. Fantastic casting all around, changes to the soundtrack that were actually for the better (keeping all the melodies but recording new versions that… aren't optimized to sound show-perfect when recreated by the cheapest sound generators one can shove in a toy, plus some original songs shoved into a few episodes). They did make some edits/cuts, but pretty minor ones, especially compared to the complete reworkings most anime of the era went through when coming to American TV, and I'm still not used to Luna not being prissy and British here.

That dub only lasted up through the second season. Past that, there was a dub of seasons 3 and 4 from Cloverway, which had some really questionable performances, and is where the infamous "they're cousins" bit came in. This also aired on TV in some places, but didn't have nearly the same omnipresent distribution as the DiC seasons (… and now I'm feeling old as I ponder whether to explain how local TV affiliates did their own thing back in the broadcast days). Then in the early 2000s there was a DVD release from Pioneer with cut/uncut versions of everything, apparently, which may or may not have recycled those dubs. I don't really have the energy to track that down, specifically. Anyway all the rights expired, gathered dust forever, then Viz picked it up and did this new faithful localization, and it took me about a decade to spot it on a streaming service.

So we've got 5 seasons, 200 episodes total, and a hell of a lot of formulaic structuring here. Every season (or half a season) we've got some main villain with an evil plan we may or may not get any details on, and some small number of underlings who then take their 5-10 episode long turns pursuing their goal in a way that inevitably generates monsters of the week, and meanwhile every season we have another conflict on the good guy side where someone is trying to locate some special person and ignoring the 50 or so obvious signs which main cast member it is while the audience gets frustrated. Oh and each individual episode has the same rigid structure of everyone getting caught up in some wacky teen trend, then there's a monster, they transform and fight a bit to no real end, then Sailor Moon gets around to using a finisher because that's literally the only thing actually capable of ending a fight. Honestly it's less "formulaic TV writing" and more like some sort of daily meditation. No way in hell I'd be able to sit through all of it if I had to look at the screen the whole time. This is background viewing while I work. Oh and I'm assuming everyone has at least enough passing familiarity to understand that if I say the name of a planet I'm talking about a teenage girl who's the reincarnation of some sorta magical girl/sentai squad member.

Season 1 has pretty gay vibes in places, but MOSTLY there's plausible deniability for all of it. We spend about half the season just establishing the characters of Moon Mercury and Mars, then quickly bringing in Jupiter and playing it up like a big shocking reveal for Venus. There's also a bunch of relationship drama between Moon, Tuxedo Mask, and the guy who runs the local arcade that she has a crush on and spends a while thinking is actually Tuxedo Mask instead of his actual identity of uh… a college-aged guy we're saying is the destined love interest of this 14-year old girl he's frankly pretty abusive towards. So, a lot of straight nonsense there. Meanwhile the evil queen's got these 4 generals, two of them are plainly dating, and no matter how you slice it, that's pretty overtly queer, but there's a valid argument to have over how we actually should slice it.

I was aware at the time that the DiC dub just ran with Zoicite here being a woman, making this a straight relationship, and I kinda figured they did a bit of tweaking and editing to hide that this was actually one of those bishonen types who were popular at the time who happened to be gay. Honestly though, watching it through a modern lens, it is REALLY hard to not just see a woman here, even when we're throwing he/him pronouns around. Like, if I'm handling a new dub, I'm just going to say Zoicite is a trans girl, who I'm at least headcanoning as being out for years, on HRT, and at that point where she can put on a suit designed for a man and nah that's a woman wearing a suit. Kinda just wraps around and makes me appreciate the old dub's handling more than the new one.

Season 2 (or R) doesn't really give us anything to work with, if I'm honest. There's probably some gals-being-pals energy amongst the main cast here and there. That's kind of always low-key present, especially with Jupiter, who has the whole big tough girl who wears long skirts thing sorta gay energy, and I want to say she ends up going to a dance with Mercury somewhere early on because one of them can't find a date otherwise.

But, we've got this filler arc with two dark elves in a tree who just kinda both hit on everyone of the opposite gender while the main cast sits in a holding pattern, then we get a proper villain squad not really getting enough spotlight time to have much of anything going on, and this whole weird thing where Moon and Mask's annoying toddler comes back from the future to… brainwash Moon's parents into thinking she's their daughter, and then she gets turned into an evil adult, and there's this whole bit about her having some sort of grim reaper/time guardian as a nanny (this is Pluto, the outer planets really have different things going on)… but again, mostly straight/cis flavored nonsense.

Then suddenly here comes season 3 (or S, pronounced "Super" which makes things real confusing), from a director who would later go on to create Utena, and in addition to just being the single best season of the series for a number of other reasons, everyone is canonically into girls now! It's shockingly overt about establishing that too, and reiterating the point several times.

It all gets started with Uranus and Neptune showing up. We kind of have this three faction conflict this season, where there's a proper main villain and squad of monster making minions, but then there's also this overtly queer power couple whose goal is basically to check out the "pure hearts" monsters of the week keep ripping out of people because they need to check them for these three macguffins they need to… reform the holy grail of all things to give to their leader they're too oblivious to know is actually Moon.

More importantly though, aside from making it abundantly clear that these two are banging every night, they have this very open relationship where Neptune is more than cool with Uranus hooking up with any given girl she's inclined to, and/or grabbing gals for threeways. And like, this isn't me taking a broad interpretation of things, it's weird how directly they just come out and say this. The other thing we have going on is that Uranus is just, like, the butchest of the butch.

Literally everyone just assumes she's a guy when they first meet, and quite a few people go into serious denial when corrected on the matter. And she kinda tends to react to all the misgendering with the sort of bemused nonchalance that makes it pretty easy to read her as actually being nonbinary. I swear there's an episode where she clarifies she's not a guy with that particular sort of emphasis suggesting that doesn't necessarily narrow things down to just "girl," too. And apparently Crystal actually DOES bite the bullet and flat out state she's nonbinary (or at least "both male and female"). That's cool, but there is no way in hell I'm going to sit through Crystal.

Anyway, point is, everybody wants to hook up with Uranus. Everyone. There's a whole episode where the power couple straight up takes Jupiter out on a date, the rest start gossiping about her being out on a date with two girls, everyone starts off shocked, then someone clarifies who it's with and everyone's like "oh, well yeah then I'd take them up on that too," with a little extra push back from Mars before she gets called out as trying to stay in the closet when she's clearly got a stash of photos of hot girls in suits.

This of course really makes me wonder about that Cloverleaf dub and why they went with that whole "cousins" thing to avoid addressing the overt queerness here, instead of taking the same approach DiC did of just making Uranus a guy. This would technically introduce the problem of having a guy in a miniskirt for fight scenes, but, eh, that'd be easier to edit around than you'd think. Uranus generally enters a fight scene pre-transformed firing an attack off from offscreen, arguing with the core cast a little, and leaving. Attacks are stock animation you can drop in anywhere, so that much is easy enough to chop out or replace with Neptune's attack. I don't know how one would even begin to cut around all the overt gay stuff though.

Nothing especially queer going on with the evil side of things. The villains are kind of amazing but too career oriented for relationships. I guess just for the sake of giving full context for the seasons most people haven't seen and fill in the obvious hole in the roster I can mention the eventual deal that the little goth girl Chibi-Usa spends the season hanging out with turns out to be the main villain's daughter, Sailor Saturn, and kind of the antichrist? Like I said, the outer planets aren't just cast expansions, they really have their own stuff going on. She also dies and reincarnates, doing so the long way where she sits the next season out being just a baby, which once again begs the question of whether when everyone dies at the end of the first season they just kinda magically come back to life with missing memories just as a temporary thing for a filler arc to play with or they really dd all reincarnate and have new families a decade and change later. Weird that that never got firmly pinned down.

Anyway though season 4 (AKA Super S, which is pronounced "Supers" and now you see why I prefer just numbers)… sucks and you should skip it. No sense of stakes, no real character work, non-threatening villain, shockingly dull monster designs, no outer planets, an ending that just drags on for what feels like forever and has no payoff. The only things it has in its favor are the inherent absurdity that people are wondering if Chibi-Usa is like full-on dating Pegasus (yes, the horse) and Fish's Eye.

So we have two different miniboss squads this season, the latter of which is a quartet of permanent-child acrobats working for the impressively titled if boring in practice Dead Moon Circus, preceded by three animals-turned-into-humans-by-a-witch with a weird What-you-originally-were's Eye naming scheme. Two of them are just dull slutty guys, but Fish's Eye is plainly and overtly a trans woman, and gets something of an arc about being willing to give up her own humanity for the greater good. It's a shame she's stuck in the practically unwatchable season, but at least she's on the REALLY short list of major villains who gets to have a happy ending. Usually even when someone has a nice redemption arc with the power of love and friendship they still get bumped off by another villain.

Different localizations have done different things with her. Some go "crossdressing gay guy" some just say she's a woman and leave her transness out of it. The 2014 localizaton is pretty unambiguous about though, so, that's really nice. Casting could be better, but still.

Then finally we come to season 5 (Sailor Stars), which I think is even more queer than season 3 was, which is really saying something, and was also directed by someone who would go on to helm another girly show with a serious case of The Genders, Ouran High School Host Club. Structurally it's a bit weird, because the first few episodes are just straight up taking a mulligan on the terrible finale of season 4, this time with the outers in (Saturn hyper-ages back to her standard 10 or whatever and gets a bunch of inexplicable knowledge and memories which is cool but never really paid off), the main villain doing something, and as a shocking rarity for the series, this whole mini-arc where characters are broken into pairs of one inner one outer and get to bounce off each other in a way the series frustratingly usually never does.

More importantly though, at least for this post's purposes, basically the first scene of the season is Uranus and Neptune having a flirty exchange ending with something along the lines of "let's save the pillow talk for when we're actually in bed together later tonight," which sort of sets the tone for just how blatantly these two are talking about their extremely active sex life in no uncertain terms, out in public. Some of the other characters are a bit weirded out by their complete lack of filter, but hey whatever.

The real proper start of the season though has our core cast finally starting high school, once again reminding us that everyone is at LEAST 4 years younger than everything about their designs, interests, and handling of responsibilities would indicate. This also reminds us how deeply creepy the Moon/Tuxedo Mask relationship is, but fortunately he hops a plain to America and is straight up out this season, and as an added bonus Chibi-Moon finally goes back to the future. Before you get too excited she IS shortly replaced with an even younger, barely verbal new mystery gremlin called Chibi-Chibi whose existence nobody can account for, but at least she's actually cute and not akin to the baby from Dinosaurs. More importantly though, as the girls enter high school they end up in a class with the titular Sailor Stars, AKA The Three Lights, AKA Fighter Maker and Healer, a popular boy band who are also a new mysterious set of Sailors with what I assume are intentionally quite confusing gender shenanigans in play.

Normally, they are hot lanky boys, boastful about their masculinity to the point of it bordering on misogyny, but also super super femme, with earings, hair down to their ankles, and very noticeably female VAs in both Japanese and English. Then when there's a fight they're very plainly hot lanky girls in bikinis and one of them has an attack shouting "Star Gentle Uterus!" before hitting a monster with a glob of liquid to a disgusted reaction. And their transformation sequences (and bikinis, and some shirtless scenes) make it absolutely crystal clear that yeah there is some magical reconfiguring of their bodies when making the switch. The show pointedly avoids elaborating on what the deal is past that in terms of which they form they started with/feel more comfortable in/why they switch it up/etc. which would normally frustrate me as one of those Schroedinger's Queer Rep situations, but I very much get the impression that we're going for intentional confusion and ambiguity in service to a general message that if you're into someone you shouldn't have hangups about their gender or what it says about your own sexuality and just kind of accept your feelings and them as a person and I am pretty OK with that.

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The cast is too. Mercury Mars Jupiter Venus and for good measure Luna all kinda spent the entire season fixating on how to hook up with any/all of The Three Lights, meanwhile at basically any moment there isn't a fight scene or some plot exposition happening, Fighter is VERY ACTIVELY pursuing Moon in a sexual fashion, with pretty overtly stated tension before damn near every commercial break over whether this is going to be the scene where Sailor Moon gets absolutely railed by this maybe-genderfluid pop star from another world. And I have to just say as a brief aside that while we obviously never go there, I kinda wish we did? Tuxedo Mask is WAY too old to be dating someone Moon's age, even if we do the thing where we just add 4 to everyone's stated age. Plus he kinda treats her like absolute garbage for the whole show, and even when they're in a more wholesome mode the whole thing feels toxic and messed up. Meanwhile Fighter here is literally the same age, clearly into her, and beyond the one character flaw, an actual decent person. Though again, really damn forward. Still beats the hell out of the guy in college dating a middle schooler, and kinda flirting with his own prepubescent future-daughter.

There's also this huge confrontational thing between Fighter and Uranus, where it's slightly unclear if Uranus is being protective of Moon, violently jealous because Neptune is totally and surprisingly overtly open to hooking up with anyone from this boy band too, or just kinda trying to defend her position as the hot androgynous badass who swept into town with the intent of hooking up with every girl in the zip code eventually. Meanwhile Fighter thinks Uranus is a kind of toxic macho dude and really questions the whole "she's not a guy" thing, which is, you know, interesting. Pluto never really weighs in on this because… Pluto kinda lives outside of time and space and has maybe 8 minutes of real screen time in the entirety of the show.

Past that, we've got a bunch of other gay stuff too! We're back to cranking the general queer energy of the core cast up past the point of plausible deniability with regards to each other and a random girl trying to pass along a love letter with some confusion as to who it's for. It also bears mention that when the full deal of the new characters and their gender flipping comes to light, Jupiter makes an active point of making it clear that she is still 100% down and like, hey, I already knew you were the least conflicted of the bunch about how bi you all are, but I appreciate the active refutation of transphobia is still cool. We've got an honestly adorable pair of villains where one is frankly such a bimbo she's completely incapable of doing the evil general thing on her own or preparing her own food, and her hyper-competent girlfriend helping her out while also having to come up with cover stories because they're supposed to be pitted against each other. They'd definitely get a nice happy ending in one of the even numbered seasons, especially once it's made clear that they're very much being coerced into the evil stuff/taking things down from the inside, but… yeah this season ends up going super dark.

I don't want to totally get into how absolutely pitch dark the big 8-part series finale gets and spoil the hell out of it since if it wasn't clear, the odd numbered seasons are all really good stuff you should watch on your own, plus this one has a bunch of genuine twists, but I have to get into some of it in my mission of explaining how gay it all is. Consider yourself warned.

As happens kind of a lot in Sailor Moon finales, the bulk of the season 1 cast gets killed off once the main villain steps in to start getting her hands dirty, but here it's early enough on in the arc for Moon to really process it and give it the weight that maybe it'll actually stick this time. In particular of course she's worked up about Tuxedo Mask turning out to have died off camera at the start of the season (the impression to that point being that he's too distracted with a trip to America to check his messages or maybe just straight up ghosted her), but then almost as broken up over losing Mars, because yeah, those two in particular actually end up with a surprising amount of low key romantic tension between them by the end of things.

Then once it's time to get the outer planets off the table, all four of them end up in a no-win situation against the villain, who does that villain thing of of offering them a choice of just being killed and having their souls ripped out to be made into new stars (this is kind of her whole thing, see), OR if anyone's up for it, they can switch sides, still get their souls ripped out to be made into stars, but given funky magic bracelets that allow them to stay alive, just, you know, corrupted by evil and acting as her new villain squad. It's actually established right before the last one gets vaporized that all her original henchgals are in fact the Sailors of other planets she forced into the same deal just before the last one gets vaporized for failure, making it that much tragic in retrospect that the cute competence-disparity couple didn't make it.

Anyway, Uranus and Neptune actually take the deal. Like, zero hesitation. Part of it is eventually explained as Uranus having enough faith that she's too into her girlfriend to be fully corrupted and might get a chance to sucker punch the villain with her own soul extractors (which she IS it just doesn't work), and failing that Moon'll probably swing some kinda deus machina (which is an admittedly safe bet, honestly). But another part of it really is just "yeah screw it, if I still get to be with my girlfriend I'll take being evil over being dead" and they really do go through with it and promptly murder their oldest friend and a very young girl. Don't let anyone tell you Sailor Moon is one of those power of love and friendship always triumphs sorta shows. I don't know that the power of love and friendship even ties the scoreboard if we tally things up over the whole series. Oh and the final final final showdown has a nude Sailor Moon with angel wings just trying to hug it out with the main villain, which I guess could also maybe be read as a bit queer.

So yeah. Sailor Moon. When you don't have a puritanical edit, it's queer as hell. Everyone's bi or non-binary-and-sapphic. Several different flavors of trans rep. Goes out on a note of not getting hung up on gender. All of this in a roughly 30 year old series now, aimed at young impressionable girls. … actually for that matter it's also a show aimed at girls with really powerfully horny monster girl designs all over the place. Possibly relevant.

Oh yeah, and maybe consider throwing me some money via Patreon? I can't actually cover next month's rent as things stand.

#sailor moon #queer #gay #lesbian #trans #nonbinary #genderfluid #positive representation #for real though it's really messed up that Sailor Aluminum Siren and Sailor Iron Crow in particular stay dead they deserved better #Youtube

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jastersmohnson · 1 year

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Where the heck have I been??

I found this old(ish) tweet by Michael Sheen. My first thought was Michael Sheen looks good in a turtleneck. My second thought was wait a minute, this was taken back when they were filming the show. My third thought was wait a minute! I own that exact turtleneck (which I wear regularly now!)

(I didn’t mention it at the time but I did acquire one of Bill’s suit jackets, it’s one that he wears in eps. 403, 406, and 410—pictured below. It’s like a grey suit but it has a rust pattern. It happens to fit perfectly!)

So I’m not dead! I’ve been tending to some of my other fandoms, and to be honest, I’ve definitely fallen out of the Masters loop. I haven’t seen the show in more than three years, my last rewatch being at the end of 2019. But something the last few weeks got me reminiscing about the show and suddenly I’ve been playing catch up on all the things I’ve missed and am now just discovering. Lizzy Caplan had a baby! Michael Sheen had two! Caitlin Fitzgerald had a baby and got married! Michelle Ashford has a new movie out!

Anyway, I’m not starting another rewatch of the show just right now. I am a firm believer in absence making the heart grow fonder, so I do know that whenever that time comes, I’ll have a blast rewatching it. And when I do rewatch it, I’ll be sure to do something. Maybe another episode ranking or ranking all of Bill’s bowties, I don't know.

There are just a few thoughts that do come to mind. First, it’s no secret that I’ve made my complaints known about Showtime removing Masters from their streaming service (and by that I mean they FUCKING SUCK for doing that), but just gauging the popularity of Masters nowadays, to my horror it seems to be mostly forgotten—and that’s pretty much only because it’s not streaming anywhere. Netflix, please, give it a chance!

Speaking of Showtime... man have they gone downhill since Masters of Sex ended. Apparently Yellowjackets is really good, but that’s the only thing real thing they seem to have going on. When I made a post similar to this discussing the state of Showtime, I mentioned Billions as being the one bright spot of all their program at the time... well that show has gone downhill hard. But beyond Billions and Yellowjackets, I don’t hear anything about their other programming. You really have to wonder just how much longer Showtime has until it’s acquired by some larger company. Maybe then Masters of Sex will be actually featured in a streaming catalog. Maybe they’ll even be brought back?

Regarding the Masters of Sex cancellation, I’ve definitely accepted it. In fact, as time has gone on, the more I appreciate the ending. I think I had it in my mind that if season five were to exist, it would chronicle their lives into the 21st century, but the more I think about it... that probably wouldn’t have been the case. The show probably would’ve ended in the late seventies. Chronicling three decades in ten episodes would be a nightmare, and gradually aging Michael and Lizzy would be a challenge. In case I didn’t make it clear by ranking “The Eyes of God” as my third or fourth favorite Masters of Sex episode, I really do love the way the show ends, but what’s always bothered me was that the writers didn’t know it was going to be the end when they wrote it.

So I’m totally fine if that’s it and that’s how Masters of Sex does definitively end, but I’ve also been encouraged by Michael and Lizzy implying in some interview years ago that they’d be more than happy to come back at any given time. So there’s always hope!

#Masters of Sex #Michael Sheen #Lizzy Caplan #Where in the world is Jasters & Mohnson

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innovacancy · 11 months

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#ajj #disposable everything #hopeless records

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 2 years

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New water map of Mars will prove invaluable for future exploration A new map of Mars is changing the way we think about the planet's watery past, and showing where we should land in the future. The map shows mineral deposits across the planet and has been painstakingly created over the last decade using data from ESA's Mars Express Observatoire pour la Mineralogie, l'Eau, les Glaces et l'Activité (OMEGA) instrument and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument. Specifically, the map shows the locations and abundances of aqueous minerals. These are from rocks that have been chemically altered by the action of water in the past, and have typically been transformed into clays and salts. On Earth, clays form when water interacts with rocks, with different conditions giving rise to different types of clays. For example, clay minerals such as smectite and vermiculite form when relatively small amounts of water interact with the rock and so retain mostly the same chemical elements as the original volcanic rocks. In the case of smectite and vermiculite those elements are iron and magnesium. When the amount of water is relatively high, the rocks can be altered more. Soluble elements tend to be carried away leaving behind aluminum-rich clays such as kaolin. The big surprise is the prevalence of these minerals. Ten years ago, planetary scientists knew of about 1,000 outcrops on Mars. This made them interesting as geological oddities. However, the new map has reversed the situation, revealing hundreds of thousands of such areas in the oldest parts of the planet. "This work has now established that when you are studying the ancient terrains in detail, not seeing these minerals is actually the oddity," says John Carter, Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS) and Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM), Université Paris-Saclay and Aix Marseille Université, France. This is a paradigm shift for our understanding of the red planet's history. From the smaller number of aqueous minerals that we previously knew were present, it was possible that water was limited in its extent and duration. Now, there can be no doubt that water played a huge role in shaping the geology all around the planet. Now, the big question is whether the water was persistent or confined to shorter, more intense episodes. While not yet providing a definitive answer, the new results certainly give researchers a better tool for pursuing the answer. "I think we have collectively oversimplified Mars," says John. He explains that planetary scientists have tended to think that only a few types of clays minerals on Mars were created during its wet period, then as the water gradually dried up, salts were produced across the planet. This new map shows that it's more complicated than previously thought. While many of the Martian salts probably did form later than the clays, the map shows many exceptions where there is intimate mixing of salts and clays, and some salts that are presumed to be older than some clays. "The evolution from lots of water to no water is not as clear cut as we thought, the water didn't just stop overnight. We see a huge diversity of geological contexts, so that no one process or simple timeline can explain the evolution of the mineralogy of Mars. That's the first result of our study. The second is that if you exclude life processes on Earth, Mars exhibits a diversity of mineralogy in geological settings just as Earth does," he says. In other words, the closer we look, the more complex Mars's past becomes. The OMEGA and CRISM instruments are ideally suited to this survey. Their datasets are highly complementary, working over the same wavelength range, and sensitive to the same minerals. CRISM uniquely provides high resolution spectral imaging of the surface (down to 15m/pixel) for highly localized patches of Mars, and makes it the most suitable for mapping small regions of interests, such as rover landing sites. For example, the mapping shows that Jezero crater where NASA's 2020 Perseverance rover is currently exploring, displays a rich variety of hydrated minerals. OMEGA, on the other hand, provides global coverage of Mars at higher spectral resolution and with a better signal-to-noise ratio. This makes it better suited for global and regional mapping, and discriminating between the different alteration minerals. The results are presented in a pair of papers published in Icarus and written by John, Lucie Riu and colleagues. Lucie was at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), Japanese Aerospace eXploration Agency (JAXA), Sagamihara, Japan, when part of the work was performed but is now an ESA Research Fellow at ESA's European Space Astronomy Center (ESAC) in Madrid. With the basic detections in hand, Lucie decided to take the next step and quantify the amounts of the minerals that were present. "If we know where, and in which percentage each mineral is present, it gives us a better idea of how those minerals could have been formed," she says. This work also gives mission planners some great candidates for future landing sites—for two reasons. First, the aqueous minerals still contain water molecules. Together with known locations of buried water-ice, this provides possible locations for extracting water for In-situ Resource Utilization, key to the establishment of human bases on Mars. Clays and salts are also common building material on Earth. Second, even before humans go to Mars, the aqueous minerals provide fantastic locations in which to perform science. As part of this mineral mapping campaign, the clay-rich site of Oxia Planum was discovered. These ancient clays include the iron and magnesium rich minerals of smectite and vermiculite. Not only can they help unlock the planet's past climate, but they are perfect sites to investigate whether life once began on Mars. As such, Oxia Planum was proposed and finally selected as the landing site for ESA's Rosalind Franklin rover. "This is what I am interested in, and I think this kind of mapping work will help open up those studies going forward," says Lucie. As ever when dealing with the Mars, the more we learn about the planet, the more fascinating it becomes. TOP IMAGE....Data from ESA's Mars Express and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have been used to create the first detailed global map of hydrated mineral deposits on Mars. Click here for an annotated version with mineral types and abundances. Credit: ESA/Mars Express (OMEGA) and NASA/Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (CRISM) CENTRE IMAGE....Global map of hydrated minerals on Mars. Credit: ESA/Mars Express (OMEGA) and NASA/Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (CRISM) LOWER IMAGE....Jezero crater and its surroundings on Mars display a rich array of minerals that have been altered by water in the planet’s past. These minerals are predominately clays and carbonate salts. Of the minerals identified in this particular region, carbonate is a salt, Fe/Mg phyllosilicates are iron- and magnesium-rich clays, and hydrated silica is a form of silicon dioxide that forms the gemstone opal on Earth. The close-up data were obtained from a global map of minerals produced by ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA’s Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in 2020, is currently exploring Jezero crater and its surroundings. Credit: ESA/Mars Express (OMEGA and HRSC) and NASA/Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (CRISM and HiRISE) BOTTOM IMAGE....As part of constructing a new global map of Mars minerals, the Oxia Planum region was discovered to be rich in clays. These clays included the iron- and magnesium-rich minerals of smectite and vermiculite, and locally kaolin, which is known on Earth as china clay. Hydrated silica is also mapped over an ancient delta in Oxia. The close-up data were obtained from a global map of minerals produced by ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Because clays are formed in water-rich environments it makes these site excellent locations to study for clues as to whether life once began on Mars. Oxia Planum was selected as the landing site for ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover. Credit: ESA/Mars Express (OMEGA and HRSC) and NASA/Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (CRISM)

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news #ESA #Mars

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oleworm · 6 months

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Accelerationists will talk and talk about sharpening the contradictions of capitalism--helping to making living conditions worse for people so that they're brutalised enough that they will choose that last resource, war--and then be genuinely dismayed when someone tries to do it to their community.

One of my uncles was like this when he was young. He is still a socialist, though a moderate one. Many years ago, he and his friends would talk about what it would take to change the world, and did so very casually, as a necessary price to pay for the beautiful and just world that would come after. That was until the militarist Maoist group Shining Path became active in our country. Members of this group would go to the same university as my uncle and his friends, proselytise, attend the meetings. Then they gradually stopped showing up, but nobody knew where they had gone.

-- ¿A dónde se fueron los de Sendero? ("Where did everyone in Shining Path go?")

-- Dicen que se fueron al monte. ("People say they've gone to the bush.")

Back then people thought that you had to disappear for some time, one or two years, before you would think to stage a rebellion of some sort. And idealists back then--they still believed in what they call armed struggle, but that is because it hadn't happened in any significant way during their lifetimes. When Shining Path reappeared and made it clear that their method was to extort and murder peasant farmers--those that they purported to liberate--for not accepting their authority, all of these socialists? They never spoke about revolution or armed struggle or accelerationism again. They were ashamed, rightfully so. Especially since the violence and complete moral bankruptcy of this group gave ammunition to the right wing for decades to come against anything related to social justice and reparations for those who have been oppressed.

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hypnoticwinter · 10 months

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What I learned from commissioning art

It may surprise some of you reading this, but this is actually a writing blog. I know I do a very good impression of being an art blog most of the time, but I actually made this blog three years ago (what the fuck) to host my novel set in the Mystery Flesh Pit, Down the Rabbit Hole.

It's no secret, though, that I'm a lover of art. I've always been a writer first and foremost, but I decided a long time ago that if I could go back and do things over again, I would have much preferred to be some kind of visual artist rather than a writer.

I know, I know, just learn to draw. The trouble with that is that while I'm certain I could learn to draw at a pretty competent level if I put everything else aside and worked at it, I have a significant disadvantage in that I have very good taste in art; or, to be less snotty, I have a very defined taste in art.

Taste is a great asset to any creative, but it becomes a curse when you haven't yet learned a medium, because it artificially inflates your standards for your own work at the time when you need that the least. When you're learning, you need to be able to accept that the things you create are going to be garbage, but that each one is going to bring you incrementally closer to meeting your ideal for what you're trying to create. Your standards need to be rock-bottom, essentially, and gradually raise as you go on as your skill permits. I remember, sometimes, the decade or so it took me to really master writing to the degree I have already, and even now there are still things I have to work on.

I never really planned on commissioning any art for basically any reason. The first time I did, I was about 75% done with my first novel. It had been a very intense and emotional experience for me, not least because I had never really believed I would be able to write a novel and have it turn out decent, and by that time, about 150k words deep in the story, I was starting to realize that I was actually doing a good job.

I was looking through the art tag on here one day and one particular post caught my eye and I looked through basically the artist's entire blog and followed her, and then I saw that she did commissions, and I thought that I might as well get one as something special to commemorate my first novel. Just a little drawing of the main characters standing side by side, like a cast photo.

Well, in the three years since then, and the two novels I've written since then, I went a little overboard. In my defense (and in fairness, I don't have to justify it, I can spend my money on whatever I want), there is something really, really enchanting about this artist's artstyle that keeps me coming back again and again. It's definitely a taste thing, cause I know on an objective level that it isn't perfect art or anything. In every drawing I get from her I can sit down and, if I look at it long enough, I can probably pick it apart even from my untrained perspective, whether it's something about proportions or perspective or a broader compositional issue or whatever.

And I don't mean that in any kind of disparaging way or anything, it just is what it is. In a way, I think I appreciate that more than anything else; it shows a certain kind of authenticity that I think sometimes ends up missing when you go on the higher level of commissioned art and you're shelling out thousands of dollars for an end product that's as objectively perfect as it's possible for art to be. There's an attraction for that too, and I get it, but when I see a drawing come in from her that I paid sixty bucks for and I see something like a quickly-painted background, or maybe some awkwardness in the way a character is standing, or maybe some vague perspective issue if I've asked for a particularly weird angle, I find it so much more charming than something with zero flaws on a compositional level.

That's a taste thing, of course, and I imagine it might irk some people, seeing issues like that. And of course the more cynical response might be 'you get what you pay for' and pointing out that it might show a lack of care or laziness or whatever, but even if that was the motivation, that she noticed but didn't care to fix that perspective issue or that awkward pose, isn't it more important what my perception of it is? I'm the client, after all.

But the title of this little essay is 'what I learned from commissioning art,' and by this point, if you've bothered to read this far, you might be wondering what exactly it is I've learned. All I've said so far is that this artist's style really speaks to me, to such a degree that I interpret the flaws in her art as being charming rather than defects. No, what I learned is actually that I am a very lonely and very sentimental person, maybe to a detrimental degree, and more so than I thought I was. It's hard not to know if you're a lonely person, and I've always been given to solitude, but sometimes it comes through a little more strongly.

You see, when I got that first commission back from her, three years ago, there was something so utterly magical about seeing those characters transformed from images in my head and the words I'd written on the page into an actual artwork depicting them that I really couldn't get enough of it for a while. I still can't, really; even as I write this I'm in the middle of another cycle of commissions with her, and the feeling seeing the images and scenarios from my imagination transformed into reality, even to such a tiny and inconsequential degree as this, is still so wonderful to me that I constantly try to find ways to thank her, to impress on her how much it means to me that we've cultivated this working relationship for the past three years.

And that's the issue, isn't it, because what it is is a working relationship. And while I do believe all relationships are transactional to a greater or lesser degree, the most transactional are financial relationships, the relationship of the client and the producer, and that's what this is. I hold no illusions that if I were suddenly unable to pay for the work I ask her for that she'd continue drawing for me out of the goodness of her heart. Nor should she; we aren't friends, although we're certainly cordial with each other, but after three years working together, who wouldn't be?

Maturity is a weird thing. I'm almost 30 and I'm still able to look back on myself every year and see how much I've grown since then, reflect on my relative immaturity, marvel, in some ways, at how different my perspective is.

I've given this woman gifts in the past. Cash gifts, probably the least meaningful gifts there can be, but she lives in Spain and I live in the US and shipping something more meaningful to her would be out of the question - mostly because that's a step too far for a working relationship. But now, looking back at the last three years and how much I've grown in that time, I realize that these gifts were not me saying thank you for a job well done, or something perfunctory at a major holiday like Christmas or whatever, what I meant when I gave her these gifts was instead 'this is how much what you do means to me.' Not in a monetary sense, of course, but in the sense that 'I as a client am willing to give you not inconsiderable amounts of money for no reason, just because you have always been there and willing to work for me in the past.' In the sense that 'the things you've created for me mean more to me than I can professionally express and retain any kind of dignity.'

I can't imagine how these gifts and how the various overtures I've made at different times trying to explain even a small, restrained hint at this feeling must have come across to her. I can only hope that, at the very least, she thinks of me charitably as being somewhat eccentric but well-meaning.

This too is the nature of a professional relationship, especially of this type; I am the replaceable one, she isn't. If I were to disappear, she would still have plenty of people to pay for her work, although in truth I don't know if she has any customers as consistent as I am. But if she were to disappear, I don't know that I'd be able to replace her, or that I'd want to.

But this is as it should be. And all I can hope is that she understands in some small way what it means to me when I do see the work from her come in, and I see what she's done with the prompts I've given her, and I hope she knows that when I tell her I like the colors, or that it looks gorgeous, or that I imagined it so differently but I love how it turned out, that I mean that she is, unexpectedly, a large part of my life, that I look at these images again and again at times, thinking of the thoughts that had originally made me want to see them outside of the confines of my own mind, that without her and her work and the lubrication of this professional relationship, I would probably be living a life that's a little duller and sadder. Not a lot, but a little, and she saves me from that.

But this is dramatic and far too personal for me to ever say to her, not directly, not if I want to maintain the illusion that I am as detached as she can sometimes appear to be, that this is nothing more than a professional relationship and that I am playing the role of the satisfied customer to her quiet efficiency.

And this is as it should be.

But inwardly, although I'll never say it to her, every time I ask her for something new and we agree on a price and I make the paypal transaction, my heart burns to ask along with it, 'does this mean as much to you as it does to me?' even knowing that the answer cannot possibly be yes, because to be lonely is to hope, to hope beyond all reason that the few contacts you have with other people, with other lives, burn as brightly to them as they do to you.

#writing #art #reflections

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