#that everyone has the ability to produce and distribute

[threelargeelefants]

I love these famous men from the 20th century whose daughters are on social media now because these icons of the previous decades are just so publicly dad now

Like with Scorsese being in on the Goncharov joke. But I also just saw Tony Hawk comment on Kurtis Conner’s video about his animated movie talking about how his daughter said it was the “height of cool” to be on his channel.

Sure you may have had a significant historical impact but I know what you are. You’re a dad.

#as a media student I truly cannot emphasise how much I love social media for being the great equaliser #like sure there are endless problems #but this major democratisation of the media landscape has been so exciting #I’m getting side tracked but like every media theory and alternative film theory text from the second half of the 20th century #talks about how they yearn for a democratisation of media #that everyone has the ability to produce and distribute #and here we are babbyyyy #Martin Scorsese #tony hawk

[fans4wga]

Message from SAG-AFTRA about interim agreements ("waivers")

There's been some confusion over whether or not projects with SAG-AFTRA "waivers" (better called interim agreements) are helpful to the strike's cause or not. Read SAG-AFTRA's message below:

"Some have suggested that the Interim Agreement might prolong the strike, but we disagree. We believe the leverage created by increasing competitive pressure on the AMPTP and denying them what they want most will force them back to the table and help bring this strike to an end.

The Interim Agreement gives many of our journeyman performers and crews the opportunity to pay their rent and feed their families. This approach maintains our strength, solidarity and upper hand with the AMPTP until they yield to the deal we deserve. The Interim Agreement is not a waiver. To be clear, it is a contract that includes all terms and conditions for producers looking to employ our members on their specific independent productions.

The union thoroughly vets and approves each and every project seeking an Interim Agreement. Regardless of the size of the budget or the renown of the cast, these projects have been confirmed to be separate from the AMPTP and entirely independent, except for in extraordinary circumstances mandated by legal considerations, such as Tehran. It is important to note that the terms of the Interim Agreement have been designed by our Negotiating Committee and the Contracts Department to reflect the terms we are bargaining for in negotiations. The independent producers must agree to all of the terms, without exception, including the very proposals that the AMPTP rejected.

This Interim Agreement was created for several reasons, all of which are aimed at protecting the interests of our members, helping them successfully navigate the strike and demonstrating to the AMPTP that other producers are eager to work with our members under these terms.

The Interim Agreement ensures that our members are able to work for these non-struck companies.

Working with these independent producers proves that the wage increases and other terms, which the AMPTP has so far rejected, are in fact reasonable and appropriate. 

If and when an Interim Agreement project is distributed during the strike, the members will receive the full benefit of the improved terms of our agreement.

Prior to a ratified deal with the AMPTP stemming from our negotiations, the agreement will demonstrate that our proposed residuals formulas, including the streaming revenue-sharing, are economically viable within our industry. 

After a ratified deal with the AMPTP, the Interim Agreement will conform to our final terms, terms which will fairly compensate and protect our members.

The Interim Agreement encourages production budgets to be directed to union-covered projects employing union members rather than fueling a pipeline of non-union foreign productions.

The Interim Agreement is a vital part of our strategic approach to these negotiations and to the strike. If the AMPTP continues to refuse to bargain, our strategy denies them the ability to freely make their own original productions, allowing everyone other than the AMPTP to produce content with our members. We urge independent producers to apply and encourage SAG-AFTRA members to work on the projects that obtain an Interim Agreement, along with all of the other permissible work we support.

We will continue to work hard to negotiate fair compensation and safe working conditions for our members, and we thank you for your continued support through the strike.”

#sag-aftra strike #sag strike #actors strike #union solidarity #current events #sag-aftra #wga strike #writers strike

[gothhabiba]

If you already understand the criticisms of binary sex, that might be a reasonably good model for understanding the criticisms of psychiatry and the medical model of disability.

To ask "are you saying that neurological disorders don't exist?" in response to someone criticising psychiatry is kind of like asking "are you saying that vaginas are a figment of everyone's imagination?" to someone who is criticising binary sex.

Well—no—the claim is more like

Human beings broadly fall into two categories according to which gametes they are able to produce.

However, people are sorted into categories on the basis of the appearance of their genitalia at birth, under the assumption that their 1. genitalia at birth will line up with 2. the gametes that they produce 3. the chromosomes they have 4. the hormone cycle they have 5. their secondary sex characteristics (e.g. breasts, body hair) after puberty.

These 5 things are all real, physical aspects of bodies. But the assumption that they all fall into two neat categories is incorrect—they are all spectrums (size of clitoris/penis—which is the same structure; body hair and breast size; hormone cycles), or are otherwise complicated beyond a binary (chromosomes, gamete production). You don't get two separate groups, you get a distribution curve more or less grouped around two averages.

The assumption that all of these categories line up is also incorrect, even if we artificially constrain the field to just people who haven't gone through HRT or GSC/SRS. Someone could have XY chromosomes, a vulva, a testosterone-dominated hormonal cycle, and a lack of 'male' secondary sexual traits (CAIS).

And then you have to consider the social and biomedical control exerted when these 5 categories don't line up, or when people are intermediate between any of them. Surgery to "normalise" "intersex" genitals in infants, or the fact that "expected" secondary sex characteristics for women are pretty narrow and easy to fall outside of in ways that often line up with the masculinisation of brown and Black women.

And then you have to consider the ideology and system of social control appended onto "sex," namely "gender." So it's not just that people are sorted into "male" and "female" categories for specious reasons, but why this happens—the mere fact that someone has a certain genital configuration has very limited relevance until this fact is given a social life in the concept of "gender." Sex is the biomedical justification for gender.

Certain phenomena being actually physically extant has no bearing on our ability to note and criticise how said phenomena are constrained, grouped, or read as "normal" or "abnormal," or the social meanings attributed to said physical phenomena.

#sex binary #psychiatry #antipsych #antipsychiatry #racism

[mayasaura]

I’m interested in your thoughts RE John Gaius & the gifts given to him, and how they manifested, and how the like, situation he was defined his powers to him. By this I mean, because they had been using cadavers to experiment on, and that’s what John was around all the time, he notices that he is having an effect on the dead bodies & slowly zeroes in on thanergy. But I wonder, had John’s experiments had to do with living things, say, plant matter & figuring out decarbonisation or something, whether he might have instead zeroed in on thalergy instead. Like, it feels like, because situationally with what their project already was & then the timing of the events with the trillionaires, he just never stopped to take in the full scope of the powers given to him (like his ability to heal for example—how else could that have been applied on a macro scale?) because vengeance became the name of the game. I hope we get to hear from Alecto WHY she chose John or if everyone to give these initial powers too, providing she can remember…

Yeah!! I have been thinking about this! Like, it's not even just animal tissue; he grew flowers for C— and N—'s wedding! Yes they ended up with teeth, but practice could have fixed that.

If he can grow plants, he can grow forests. If he can grow forests, he can trap excess carbon and cool the atmosphere. This works; it has been proven to work. But it was not John's area of study. What John knew was biology and human anatomy, and he is very much not a flexible thinker.

But let's leave that aside and baselessly assume for now that the flowers were made of meat (not saying anything) and he can't actually do plants. He squishes cows around like playdoh. If he hadn't been so laser focused on human bodies he could have restored the biomes of bays and rivers. There's a bacteria being engineered in India that breaks plastics down into organic compounds.

He's worried about the next climate famine? John, you can produce animal matter without so much as a nod at the law of conservation of mass. People eat animal matter.

And yeah, most of these projects he doesn't have access to, and he doesn't have a mode of distribution. He would need help, and the world governments wouldn't give him the time of day. Maybe he did try networking, and aide organizations and so on turned him away, too. Bit funny how he never mentions trying.

I say this with love, and I don't mean it as an insult: John was not a sane and rational person at any point in this process. Before any of the magical girl transformation started, he had favourite cadavers that he talked to and felt an obligation to. He was so manic after losing his project that his closest friends thought that he was taking Class A stimulants, and he never really pulled up from that spiral.

I would love to know, too: why John? Why then? Did she reach out to other people, and only John was in a state of mind to take her up on it?

#the locked tomb #ntn spoilers #nona the ninth #emperor john gaius #the urge I have to just.... cut apart a copy of Nona to isolate the John narrative and bind to read as a single chunk #maybe once the paperback comes out #bookmarks will have to do for now

[capybaracorn]

ROME/GENEVA/NEW YORK – As the risk of famine grows, and more people are exposed to deadly disease outbreaks, a fundamental step change in the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza is urgently needed, United Nations agencies warned today. The heads of the World Food Programme (WFP), UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) say that getting enough supplies into and across Gaza now depends on: the opening of new entry routes; more trucks being allowed through border checks each day; fewer restrictions on the movement of humanitarian workers; and guarantees of safety for people accessing and distributing aid.

Without the ability to produce or import food, the entire population of Gaza relies on aid to survive. But humanitarian aid alone cannot meet the essential needs of the Gaza people. The United Nations, international aid agencies and non-governmental organizations have so far managed to deliver limited humanitarian assistance in Gaza, despite extraordinarily difficult conditions, but the quantities fall far short of what is needed to prevent a deadly combination of hunger, malnutrition, and disease. The shortage of food, clean water, and medical assistance is particularly severe in the northern areas.

Humanitarian action is seriously limited by the closure of all but two border crossings in the south and the multi-layered vetting process for trucks coming into Gaza. Once inside, efforts to set up service points for people in need are hampered by bombardments and constantly shifting battle fronts, which endanger the lives of ordinary Gazans and the UN and other humanitarian personnel striving to help them.

“People in Gaza risk dying of hunger just miles from trucks filled with food,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. “Every hour lost puts countless lives at risk. We can keep famine at bay but only if we can deliver sufficient supplies and have safe access to everyone in need, wherever they are.”

The latest Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Phase Classification (IPC) report found devastating levels of food insecurity in Gaza and confirmed that the entire population of Gaza – roughly 2.2 million people – are in crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity. Virtually all Palestinians in Gaza are skipping meals every day while many adults go hungry so children can eat, and the report warned of famine, if current conditions persist.

WFP has been providing food to people inside Gaza every day since 7 October and reached more than 900,000 people with food assistance in December. This has required pivoting to new ways of operating with local partners, including finding safe sites for distributions, channelling wheat flour into bakeries so that they can resume production, and distributing special food supplements to help children fight off malnutrition. On Thursday, WFP’s first food convoy to North Gaza since the humanitarian pause delivered food supplies for around 8,000 people.

The conflict has also damaged or destroyed essential water, sanitation and health infrastructure and services and limited capacity to treat severe malnutrition and infectious disease outbreaks. With Gaza’s 335,000 children under 5 years of age especially vulnerable, UNICEF projects that, in the next few weeks, child wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition in children, could increase from pre-crisis conditions by nearly 30 per cent, affecting up to 10,000 children.

“Children at high risk of dying from malnutrition and disease desperately need medical treatment, clean water and sanitation services, but the conditions on the ground do not allow us to safely reach children and families in need,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.  “Some of the material we desperately need to repair and increase water supply remain restricted from entering Gaza. The lives of children and their families are hanging in the balance. Every minute counts.”

UNICEF has been warning since November that children in southern Gaza are accessing only 1.5 to 2 litres of water per day, well below the recommended requirements for survival. To address this, UNICEF and partners have provided safe drinking water to over 1.3 million people, but much more is needed to address the desperate conditions. UNICEF has also provided medical supplies, including 600,000 doses of vaccine, nutritional supplements and vitamins to children and pregnant women, and humanitarian cash transfers to over 500,000 households.

Since the start of the hostilities, WHO and partners have been supporting the health system in Gaza with deliveries of medical equipment and supplies, medicines, fuel; coordination of emergency medical teams; and disease surveillance. There have been more than a dozen high-risk missions to deliver supplies to hospitals in northern and southern Gaza.  WHO and partners helped establish two kitchens at Al-Shifa hospital, now serving 1200 meals a day and delivered medical supplies to support treatment for up to 1,250 children with severe acute malnutrition, and the establishment of therapeutic feeding centres.

“People in Gaza are suffering from a lack of food, water, medicines and adequate healthcare. Famine will make an already terrible situation catastrophic because sick people are more likely to succumb to starvation and starving people are more vulnerable to disease”, said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We need unimpeded, safe access to deliver aid and a humanitarian ceasefire to prevent further death and suffering.” 

Israeli authorization to use a working port close to the Gaza Strip and border crossing points into the north is critically needed by aid agencies. Access to Ashdod port, roughly 40 km to the north, would enable significantly larger quantities of aid to be shipped in and then trucked directly to the badly affected northern regions of Gaza, which few convoys have managed to reach.

“The flow of aid has been a trickle in comparison to a sea of humanitarian needs,” said Phillipe Lazzarini, Commissioner General for the UN Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA).  “Humanitarian aid will not be enough to reverse the worsening hunger among the population. Commercial supplies are a must to allow the markets and private sector to re-open and provide an alternative to food accessibility.”

The three agency heads emphasize the urgent need to lift the barriers and restrictions on aid delivery to and within Gaza, and for commercial traffic to resume. They reiterate the call for a humanitarian ceasefire to enable this vitally important roll-out of a massive, multi-agency humanitarian operation.

#palestine #free palestine #save palestine #gaza #free gaza #save gaza #world news #current events #israel palestine conflict #israel #israeli apartheid #palestinian genocide #gaza strip #gazaunderattack #gaza genocide #ceasefire #humanitarian aid #humanitarian crisis #world food programme #unicef #world health organization #middle east

[qxuiara]

PLAYTIME.CO DATABASE: BIGGER BODIES INITIATIVE CONCEPTS

Poppy Playtime: Assistant of Playtime.Co

Name: Poppy Playtime (Subject - 3514)

Creation Date: April 20, 2010

Gender: Female

Robot Type: Humanoid

Height: 3'7”

Mental Age: 18-20s

Status: Functioning Properly

“We could use a helper in the Facility. A helper that could be a jack-of-all-trades... What if I were to suggest a Prototype of our first toy ever to fill that role?”

BRIEF EXPLANATION

Poppy Playtime, or Poppy for short, was created for the sole purpose of helping around the facility of Playtime.Co, being involved with Factory and Orphanage work. Despite the toy itself being produced as the first toy in the company during the 1950s, she was the last robot to be created during 2010. She is however, a Prototype, a simple beta test that instead of being discarded, was used for a greater purpose as time went on. There have been more 'Poppies' that have been created in order to assist in the productivity of the Factory, but they are currently held inside of the Testing Chambers inside of the C.A.R.E Facilities and will be examined and programmed until further notice.

PERSONALITY AND FUNCTIONS

Similar to the toy she was based off, Poppy's social, polite, and cares a lot about her appearance, that is obviously displayed as she constantly changes uniforms almost everytime, much to the confusion of others everytime she's seen with a new outfit every hour. She loves helping out her co-workers, no matter how difficult or how simple the task may be, she's just happy to be or assistance to everyone! While she may be a friendly face around the Facility, she does show some sass and sarcasm towards her co-workers, human or robot. She's not one to tolerate messy places or unruly appearances which is one of the ways to tick her off out of irritation.

As she is a Helper throughout he entire Facility, she is able to assist workers with their jobs as long as they don't involve heavy-duty. Her large battery power allows her to work for days and even weeks, making her efficient in Morning and Night Shifts. Her ability to collect, transfer, and re-use data makes her a great guide for newbie employees who have recently started working in the company, even for experienced ones too thanks to her memory capacity. Despite all of this, she doesn't mind her job at all, unfortunately, she finds her job as a 'hobby' now.

FEATURES

Expanded Intercoms

Access to all communication within the Facility.

Hand Tazers

Both hands have been equipped with a tazer mechanic that allows the user to taze and paralyze someone for five minutes. If used on a robot, their systems will shut down for the same amount of time. (SECURITY AND DEFENSE MECHANISM)

Recording System

The user is able to record audios and visuals that can be distributed to other sections of the Facility.

Database Access

The user has access to information about the workers and robots within the Facility, as well as plans and future projects that Playtime.Co will initiate. This is however limited, as they are not able to access restricted data.

Waterproof

The only times Poppy has recorded something important was once, and it wasn't that serious either. Her record files contain silly videos or funny jokes said by her co-workers which she often plays to lighten up the mood during a bad shift.

Resistance to water. (WILL CAUSE HARM IF WATER ENTERS THE INTERIOR OF THE ROBOT)

Charging Station and Large Battery Power

The robot is able to perform their duties for days without having to worry about their battery, however, they will take longer to recharge depending on the battery that was used.

FUNFACTS

She prefers doing Factory Duty than Orphanage Duty.

She has the most uniform options, ranging up to 23 clothes.

Her makeup is self applied. The staff forgot to paint her face during creation. Though she doesn't mind it, as it gives her options to experience other styles.

She doesn't have any other hobbies aside from working, but if she had one, it would definitely be playing boardgames with others.

She has she never been damaged.. yet. She knows how to maintain safety and manage risks.

#poppy playtime #poppy #playtimeco sentience #bbi database

[workersolidarity]

[📹 Israeli occupation warplanes strike the coastal Rashid street in Gaza, a location where displaced civilians wait for the arrival of food aid trucks.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚨

💥ISRAELI OCCUPATION BOMBS AREA FOR CIVILIANS TO RECEIVE AID AS UN AGENCIES WARN OF DISEASE AND STARVATION💥

📹 Israeli occupation warplanes strike the coastal Rashid street in Gaza, a location where displaced civilians wait for the arrival of food aid trucks.

At the same time, the United Nations' various humanitarian aid agencies published a press release warning of the deadly combination of hunger, malnutrition, and disease.

In the press release, the heads of the World Food Programme, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, warn that, without the ability to produce or purchase food, "the entire population of Gaza relies on aid to survive," meaning all 2.3 million people.

"But humanitarian aid alone cannot meet the essential needs of the people of Gaza," the statement says.

The agency heads say that despite what aid they have delivered into Gaza, despite "extraordinarily difficult conditions" the quantities "fall far short of what is needed to prevent a deadly combination of hunger, malnutrition and disease."

"The shortage of food, clean water, and medical assistance is particularly severe in the northern areas," the agency heads added.

The UN agency heads emphasize that aid access is severely limited by Israel's closure of all but two border crossings, through which all the aid, and the Israeli checks of every vehicle, must happen through the two crossings in the south.

Once inside, efforts to distribute aid are hampered by Israeli bombardments, "endangering the lives of ordinary Gazans, and the UN and other humanitarian personnel striving to help them."

“People in Gaza risk dying of hunger just miles from trucks filled with food,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. “Every hour lost puts countless lives at risk. We can keep famine at bay but only if we can deliver sufficient supplies and have safe access to everyone in need, wherever they are.”

The UN agency heads point to the latest Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Phase Classification (IPC) report, which found "devastating" levels of food insecurity.

"Virtually all Palestinians in Gaza are skipping meals every day while many adults go hungry so children can eat," the statement added, with report also warning of outright famine.

The WFP says that since October 7th, the food aid program has served over 900'000 Palestinians, but warns it's nowhere near enough.

"The conflict has also damaged or destroyed essential water, sanitation and health infrastructure and services, and limited capacity to treat severe malnutrition and infectious disease outbreaks," the statement says.

The humanitarian agencies are also setting off alarms over Gaza's 355'000 children under the age of 5, with UNICEF projecting "child wasting" in the next few weeks, calling it "the most threatening form of malnutrition in children," could increase by nearly 30% and affect up to 10'000 children in Gaza.

“Children at high risk of dying from malnutrition and disease desperately need medical treatment, clean water and sanitation services, but the conditions on the ground do not allow us to safely reach children and families in need,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

“Some of the material we desperately need to repair and increase water supply remain restricted from entering Gaza. The lives of children and their families are hanging in the balance. Every minute counts," she added.

UNICEF has also been warning that children in Gaza are accessing far too little water, well below "the recommended requirements for survival."

UNICEF says its provided water to over 1.3 million people, and medical supplies, including 600'000 vaccine doses, and even provided cash transfers to over half a million households, but warns much more is needed to address "desperate" conditions.

The WHO and it's partners say they've been working to support Gaza's healthcare system, delivering supplies, equipment, medicines and fuel, as well as coordinating medical teams and disease surveillance, with more than a dozen "high-risk missions" delivering supplies to hospitals in Gaza, as well as establishing two kitchens which are serving 1'200 meals per day.

Still, the UN agencies are warning that none of it is anywhere near enough.

“People in Gaza are suffering from a lack of food, water, medicines and adequate healthcare. Famine will make an already terrible situation catastrophic because sick people are more likely to succumb to starvation and starving people are more vulnerable to disease”, said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We need unimpeded, safe access to deliver aid and a humanitarian ceasefire to prevent further death and suffering.”

The UN agencies are also asking Israel to give authorization to use nearby ports food and other aid to be delivered into Gaza, pointing to Ashdod as a potential port Israel could allow agencies to use to deliver critically necessary supplies.

“The flow of aid has been a trickle in comparison to a sea of humanitarian needs,” said Phillipe Lazzarini, Commissioner General for the UN Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA). “Humanitarian aid will not be enough to reverse the worsening hunger among the population. Commercial supplies are a must to allow the markets and private sector to re-open and provide an alternative to food accessibility.”

The press release finishes by emphasizing the urgency of lifting barriers and restrictions Israel is keeping on aid, making quick deliveries of essential goods next to impossible. The agency heads also "reiterated the call for a humanitarian ceasefire to enable this vitally important roll-out of a massive, multi-agency humanitarian operation," in order to respond to the crises in Gaza.

#source

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

#gaza #gaza strip #gaza war #gaza news #gaza genocide #genocide in gaza #war on gaza #israeli genocide #genocide #israeli war crimes #war crimes #crimes against humanity #united nations #unrwa #world food programme #un news #unicef #israel #middle east #politics #news #geopolitics #world news #global news #international news #breaking news #current events #war #palestine #israel palestine conflict

[wof-reworked]

Omg wait, dragon farmers, dragon brewers, are farmers talked about in the series? i feel like there pretty important but idk if they were talked about

(also ps. i really liked the headcanons you talked about on the vineyard post)

Aw man thanks !!!

This turned into a huge ramble about food in the wof universe I'm so sorry, but I talk about farms specifically towards the bottom:

The fact domesticated animals (cows), pets, chefs, and dining rooms/dinner parties exist in WOF makes me think farms and agriculture do too? Wof is,,, really weird about how "civilized" dragons are (Darkstalker lives in a cave but the caves have different rooms??? Everyone seemingly hunts for food but the Talons Of Peace trade cows to Cattail that she was seemingly supposed to raise????). So the text,,, does not give us much.

My take on it is each tribe has a different ability to eat vegetables and meat- Rainwings primarily eat fruit (the word for this is frugivore btw) but are still true omnivores/can eat meat, Nightwings, Mudwings, and Sandwings are hypocarnivores with a strong preference towards meat (Sandwings are also more inclined to eat insects/small lizards moreso than red meat), and Seawings, Skywings and Icewings are obligate carnivores, meaning their diet is almost entirely meat.

Most dragons will cook their meat before eating it and are meant to digest cooked food, like humans (there are obvious exceptions, namely Icewings/Seawings, who are meant for raw food). The fact the DoD don't is evidence for the neglect the DoD were subjected to- part of the reason for Clay being so much hungrier and the fact he felt like eating entire cows is eating purely raw meat is significantly less nutritious than cooked meat (Stonemover only eats raw animals because he's a freak who thinks he doesn't deserve cooked food anymore). I choose to think this is mostly also because Kestrel and Dune (who are canonically the least involved in the dragonets lives) genuinely didn't think about if you had to teach younger dragonets to cook their food and just assumed they would figure it out, this is also backed up by the fact prey like cows is seemingly just released into the cave without any guardian supervision (Webs, being a Seawing, does actually eat his food raw, but his food is also primarily fish instead of red meat).

Seasoned food, as in cooking actual recipes, is a skill the same as it is in the human world and thus a profession. Because of the nature of a world where everyone *can* hunt for food, prepared food is mostly a delicacy- only royalty eats prepared food every day (we have actual evidence for that considering the Seawing royal family seems to live that way + Sandwings have a castle chef). The exception to this though is soldiers- the time cost and cost on the environment that soldiers mobilizing for war would have hunting for themselves is offset by having rations distributed to soldiers (this is also extra incentive for dragons to join the army, especially for Mudwings where the hunting ability of each dragon in a troop might vary but everyone still has to eat).

The other place cooked food shows up is restaurants and inns. Inns, since they're almost exclusively for travellers, tend to have quick and easy meals and tend to be stationed on the outskirts of the Kingdom if they serve food themselves- otherwise inns that are meant to house visitors to cities will partner with an existing restaurant instead, thus providing a perk of staying in the inn (often a discount to the food) and giving more business to restaurants. Restaurants are either geared towards travellers, or fancy/upper-class dragons having a nice night out.

Finally, agriculture in WOF: for agriculture, I think Mudwings are the main producers of crops. Vegetables are easy food to pad out a diet plus the war made rations much more of a necessity. The Mud Kingdom is the biggest on the map, and thus has a lot of different zones to it, however we do know the territory is very warm and wet (I'm planning on talking about the terrain in the Kingdoms, that's another rant on its own). Considering the climate is warm and wet, my instinct is rice would be a staple Mudwing crop, as well as sweet potatoes (really any plants that grow well in consistently warm and wet environments will work here). Farming and cooking are still specialist jobs and not the main job most dragons will have, but they're most common in the Mud Kingdom. They're where 90% of all crops come from.

Other forms of agriculture include:

Rainwings: primary producers of jungle fruits, formerly very wealthy from this but after the Rainwing isolation/withdrawl from the world, much of that has been lost.

Sandwings- Since they're the center of Pyrrhia, many goods pass through the Sand Kingdom, meaning Sandwing markets are often reliable sources for goods across the kingdoms. Sandwings also grow cactuses and have the highest concentrade of scroll sellers, since the paper and ink is preserved best in the arid heat.

Seawings: Seaweed features pretty prominently as a garnish in Seawing food, and Seawings are the prime sources of fish (obviously) but also shellfish, salt and salted fish/meats. Seawings are also the originators of pickled goods in this world, and hold market dominance on pickled foods, especially pickled fish.

Icewings: blubber, oil, and fat are Icewing exports, whale-hunting is big and seals/seal meat features heavily in Icewing diets

Skywings- the mountainous terrain is good for olives closer to the Mud Kingdom, other common crops are potatoes, dill, carrots, and other common dried herbs. Skywings are some of the prime purchasers of exported goods, and primarily deal in treasure, especially gold/ores and crystals. Skywings, while eating primarily meat, also produce a lot of cheese, especially goat and sheep milk cheese. 

Nightwings- formerly the biggest purchaser of exported goods from the kingdoms- after fleeing to the volcano, Nightwings have basically vanished from Pyrrhia's market. However- as part of the food scarcity on the island, Nightwings have their own form of curing meats that make the meat taste incredibly funky and keep essentially forever. Dried stolen jungle fruits, fermented vegetables, and wild honey/honey fermented fruits (bees are unable to survive on the island but desperation leads Nightwings to find ways to harvest honey from wild hives) are also Nightwing specific foods that have become somewhat of delicacies in the modern day, since few dragons have ever eaten Nightwing food.

Sorry this got so long I got really tunnelled in on this stuff, I hope you find it interesting !!

#wof headcanons #wings of fire headcanons #wof hcs #nightwings wof #mudwings wof #sandwings wof #skywings wof #icewings wof #rainwings wof #seawings wof #my headcanons #neglect mention #wof reworked

[godslove]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐢𝐟𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞

The spiritual gift of service, or ministering, covers a wide range of activities in its application. There are two Greek words for this gift. The first one, found in Romans 12:7, is diakonia. The basic meaning of this word is “to wait tables,” but it is most often translated in the Bible as “ministry.” It refers to any act of service done in genuine love for the edification of the community. The word antilepsis is translated “helping” and is found in 1 Corinthians 12:28. It has a similar meaning: to help or aid in love within the community.

The Holy Spirit endows some believers with this gift to fill the many gaps of ministry and meet the needs of the church as it fulfills the Great Commission. The goal is to energize the church and free up others to use their gifts to the fullest. The result is the continued edification of the church and the added ability to see beyond its own needs and reach out into the community.

We see people with this gift in some passages:

³ Therefore, brethren, we direct you to select from among you seven men of good reputation, men filled with the Spirit and with wisdom, to whom we may assign this task.

—Acts 6:3

¹⁵ As you know, brethren, the members of the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints. ¹⁶ I urge you to put yourselves at the service of such people and of all those who work and toil with them.

—1 Corinthians 16:15-16

Those with the gift of service are committed to the spread of the Gospel. They serve in ways that benefit others with different gifts and ministries that are more public. They have a heart devoted to Jesus and a desire to follow His command and example in

²⁵ But Jesus called them over and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. ²⁶ This must not be so with you. Instead, whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, ²⁷ and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your servant. ²⁸ In the same way, the Son of Man did not come to be served but rather to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

—Matthew 20:25-28

Those with this gift do not seek recognition or a position in the “spotlight,” they just love to help out. They are content with serving in the background knowing that their contribution will bless the church, display the love of Christ to the world, and bring glory to God.

⁷ “If it is a gift of ministry, we should engage in serving others. If it is a gift of teaching, we should teach.”

—Romans 12:7

²⁸ And those whom God has appointed in the Church are first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then doers of mighty deeds, those who have the gifts of healing, helping others, administering, and various kinds of tongues.

—1 Corinthians 12:28

⁴ “There are different varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. ⁵ There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. ⁶ There are different forms of activity, but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.

⁷ To each of us, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

—1 Corinthians 12:4-7, The Spirit Distributes the Gifts for the Common Good

³⁵ “In all this, I have shown you that by such hard work we must help the weak, keeping in mind the words of the Lord Jesus who himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

—Acts 20:35

¹¹ “No one but Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he has been helpful to me in my ministry.”

—2 Timothy 4:11

¹⁹ “I know your deeds—your love, your faithfulness, your service, and your endurance—and that you are doing greater works than you did at first.”

—Revelation 2:19

#spiritual gifts #Service #God's gifts #spiritual gift #God #bible scripture #bible verse #bible study #christian #christianity #roman catholic #catholic #bible quote #christian motivation #Christ #Jesus Christ #writeblr #writing #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writersociety #Jesus #spiritual #spirituality #spiritual community #ministry #serving #helpful

[funnuraba]

Something I'm not sure leftists understand is that ignoring Covid isn't just a genocide against disabled people like me, who they obviously wanted dead the whole time. The effects of Long Covid are so debilitating that they can prevent you from thinking and moving at all. None of its symptoms are curable. They've never been a priority for research, either, so there's not much to build on. If enough people rack up enough infections, society as we know it could collapse very easily. And we're staggering at the brink already. Most people's immune systems are permanently damaged. Everyone was sick this past holiday season and hospitals were rationing care.

It's completely possible that we'll lose enough scientists to prevent ever finding treatment, or even a vaccine that prevents you from catching and spreading Covid in the first place. Even if they get discovered, we might lose the ability to produce or distribute vaccines and treatment. The people with the most chance of surviving this are the rich and famous, who are quietly keeping themselves safe with air filtration systems and PCR tests that no one else can afford. If you're a leftist who's not masking, you're quite literally choosing to hand the world over to a tiny handful of rich people.

Edit: the brain fog was so bad I completely forgot my original point, which is that the poor and marginalized societies leftists pretend to care about are already having Covid incorporated into ongoing genocides. People are posting about children in Gaza having novel seizures and heart attacks as though this is a normal and common stress response in children. Both of those things are actually symptoms of Covid infections even in vaccinated people. Palestine has been deliberately cut off from the vaccines, and they no longer even have hospitals to manage heart trouble in the acute stage.

Reporters in Gaza were posting at least a month ago about respiratory illness going around in the shelters. Almost no one on the left-wing side has even mentioned Covid in all this, despite how clear it was from the outset that an airborne pathogen would be a key part of the genocide. This can happen to absolutely any country. Any of you can have your access to boosters, masks, air filtration, etc. cut off at will--and in fact, countries like the UK have already openly embraced eugenics by denying boosters to most of the population. Leftists have to push for awareness and take basic steps like Wearing Their Damn Masks or the entire world is fucked.

#a lot of abled people have never genuinely looked death on the eyes and learned how completely their body will betray them #I learned this early because I'm a childhood cancer survivor who had 9 months of chemo with a 50% chance of survival #i'm afraid a lot of you will learn too late! #took me like 10 minutes to compose this with tons of typos; see: LC's effects on the brain

[joy-haver]

✨✨Hormone Replacement Therapy Shortages✨✨

(TLDR at bottom)

Scope: I can’t speak to the global situation, but I can speak about the US. I will mostly be talking about estrogen becuase that’s what I know about

Background: There is an estrogen shortage. There has been for about 4 years. The companies claim that it’s due to an increased demand. However, they have chosen not to increase production. (Some companies may have recently changed that decision, but it’s hard to tell and seems unlikely with everything else they’ve said and done about it).

And you have to wonder, why? There’s a huge market for HRT, and it’s growing. We all know pharmaceutical companies like making money. Why won’t they ramp up production?

I can think of a few reasons

✨Possible reasons why the pharmaceutical companies haven’t increased the supply of estrogen✨✨

1. They just don’t want people to transition. I think this is part of it but tbh I think it’s not the main reason. When trying to understand the decision making of capitalists, it’s best to assume they are making decisions that will earn them capital.

2. An expectation that demand will drop back down. Essentially, they probably believe that all these new people on HRT are just in a phase and will detransition soon, so increasing supply would, in the long term, be a waste of money.

Another reason they might expect demand to drop is that they anticipate restrictive laws coming out about hrt, and think that it would be a waste of money to ramp up production just for it to become illegal for most people to take.

3. There are logistical issues with increasing supply. I don’t know what these would be. But it seems fairly likely. That said, I’m not sure if they are even trying to do so, so it may be a moot point.

✨✨what we should do about it ✨✨

There are some things I can see helping with the situation at hand. But at the end of the day, as long as our supply comes from these companies, we will have no control over it and no ability to plan, and it can be taken from us easily.

1. Harm reduction.

So yes, do all the things to protect and increase the current supply. Things like

• voting against transphobes

• changing the narrative around detransition

• educating medical professionals and pharma people about HRT.

But recognize that you are fighting a losing battle by doing that. It’s an important fight. It buys us time to build up something better. Just make sure you (or members of your network) are building something better.

2. Community care.

We have to start synthesizing and distributing estrogen to each other.

• We have to start building laboratories. Four Thieves Vinegar Collective has instructions on building small home labs. Besides, people make home laboratories all the time for difficult to attain products. It may not be doable for for everyone, but it is doable for a lot of people.

•we have to learn how to safely and reliably synthesize estrogen.

•we have to establish safe and secure distribution networks. This is the most difficult part, because we can’t openly discuss it without violating its security.

✨✨call for aid✨✨

Do you know how to make HRT? Either T-blockers, progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, or anything else I’m missing? Do you know what sorts of things one would need to do so? please, share that knowledge.

The goal of this post is for it to eventually get a bunch of resources tacked on.

✨✨tldr✨✨

The pharmaceutical companies are never going to be reliable at producing and distributing HRT. We need to produce and distribute it within our communities instead. This post is asking that people who have the skills and knowledge to do so please share that so others can to.

#estrogen #testosterone #progesterone #spironolactone #hrt #hormones #homone replacement therapy #transgender #trans femme #bio hacking #chemistry #anarcho communism #anarcho disability #anarchism #lgbtqia #harm reduction #community care #activism #text post #mutual aid #feel free to criticize me

[j4ydn]

The Role of Memes in Politics

What is a meme? According to Galipeau (2022), a meme is essentially an intertextual mashup of a screenshot, GIF, or image from pop culture, finished with some text. Memes have evolved from being a mainstay of sorts on social platforms such as 4chan to being an essential and necessary component of visual communication in the realm of political debate and conflict in the past few years (Mortensen & Neumayer 2021). If you ask me, memes can be seen as the sambal to the nasi lemak that is politics; they give it a certain flavour and add some spice to it. However, this raises the question: do memes — as popular as they are in politics, Malaysian or not — help people to have a better grasp on their local political scene?

The way I see it, memes are able to achieve this due to certain attributes that they possess. For one, memes are widely available and simple to post on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter/X, and Instagram, which makes them a powerful tool for capturing the attention of a wider audience, in particular the younger generation. The results of a study by Mihailidis (2020) indicate that the participants of said study (mainly comprised of young people) were all familiar with memes and frequently used them in their online communication. Some memes also have the potential and ability to simplify complicated political topics so that a wider range of individuals can understand and relate to them. This aligns with how more and more research suggest that memes can have an influence on political communication at local and national levels (Mihailidis 2020), which goes to show just how influential memes can be in regards to politics.

Besides that, memes provide an avenue of sorts for people to exercise free speech. Mortensen & Neumayer (2021) suggest that it is important to consider memes as a continuation of political humour such as comics and/or cartoons, which are commonly rife with satire, comedy, and parody. Bulatovic (2019) reiterates this by pointing out that politics has always been filled with humour and satire, but ever since the Internet's inception, everyone has had the opportunity to express their opinions in a comedic and sarcastic manner, one way or another. What differentiates memes from the previous forms of political humour is that they are more remixable in terms of their context and substance, and are produced by anonymous groups of media users as a component of participatory digital culture (Mortensen & Neumayer 2021). In a hilarious and memorable fashion, they can draw attention to political oddities, contradictions, and hypocrisy. Through this, memes can serve to check on political authority and allow people to express their displeasure with the political system or particular politicians and political parties (Bulatovic 2019).

In addition, politics can occasionally benefit from the strategic usage of memes. Memes can function as effective rhetorical tools in political disputes, in which political authority and hierarchy are either affirmed, contested, or challenged, as stated by Mortensen & Neumayer (2021). Through widespread replication, memes have been turned into a potent weapon for waging political conflict with adversaries in a “memetic warfare” of sorts (Bulatovic 2019). Similarly, a study by Galipeau (2022) demonstrates that memes can have an impact on a key factor that voters use to make their decisions during a political campaign. This can result in memes being created and distributed by politicians and political parties in an effort to sway public opinion, discredit their rivals, or reinforce their own message in an effort to win over public support.

Now, with all that’s been said, does it make memes a worthwhile tool in understanding politics, even in a Malaysian context? Sure, they have the ability to make politics more relatable to the masses, but to a certain extent. In my opinion, it takes a more comprehensive approach to properly comprehend politics as a whole. Memes may be a helpful and entertaining method to engage in political discussion, but they should be viewed as a tool for deconstructing, criticising, or mocking politics, rather than as a complete source of political knowledge and information. As stated by Edwards (2021), there is every reason to expect that memes will continue to influence political debates and communities in the near future, as they have evolved into constitutive sources of political speech, for better or worse.

#MDA20009 #Week5 #Memes #Politics #Malaysia #Tumblr #Instagram #Reddit #Twitter #JustForFun

[bard-owl]

I think everyone has heard the term “supply chain crisis” at this point. Manufacturing centers were first hit in late 2019 and most to the global lockdowns were in effect by the second quarter of 2020. It is now third quarter of 2022 and we are into year three of this “interruption”, it is time to discard this outdated and frankly wrong from the start system of manufacturing and distribution. Americans in particular were already caught in a state of duality in which much of the public laments that nothing is made domestically, while also discarding anything made by local shops as “overpriced hipster gear”. I have previously stated that for true domestic production to return to America there would need to be enough demand for the products to cause more competition and drive the prices down as domestic supply increased.

That is the current situation as I see it, so now what do we do about it? In the last decade one particular technology has taken off, once a novelty and hyper expensive tool for industrial prototyping, 3D printers have become affordable, commonplace, and surprisingly capable. While still used by many to produce novelty items and in industrial roles, this technology is akin to the movable-type printing press of the mid-1400s in that it represents an upset to the established order if utilized effectively. Now before this is dismissed I am aware of the limitations of what can be printed at home. More exotic and expensive versions are used to produce high strength items. But this is where it gets interesting, because it isn’t about everyone having a printer. It’s about everyone using home printers to get a head start on skills, hobbies, and trades they couldn’t afford to break into otherwise and then using those skills to work with each other.

Lathes or milling machines are both often said to be machines that make machines. 3D printers should be included in that list. Now there is nothing made on this machine that can’t be done with other tools and methods, but few that allow the low cost of entry and ease within a home settings. Open source software and thousands of free files allow anyone and everyone to make tons of tools, dies, forms, jigs, stencils, etc. as needed. I've seen sheet steel stamped on dies made from common PLA on a cheap press from Harbor Freight, or even just stuck with hammers. My cousin makes brackets for electronics with an entry level printer while his wife makes custom cookie cutters for various events on the same machine.

And that’s the thing about this, the broad range of applications combined with people’s varied and personal interests. With the addition of a chop saw and drill for extruded or tubular metal you can make strong supports for printed pieces to form a much larger machine. If you can make a drill press or milling machine, you can make a lathe, manually operated or CNC. I’ve seen people make large format CNC router tables that can quickly and efficiently cut and trim an entire sheet of plywood for assembly. If within a community most people have the ability to make their own simple plastic or resin tools and utensils, while someone has a garage metal shop, another a carpentry shop, a couple down the road a leather shop and sewing studio, someone else a pottery studio, even a small foundry for smelting and casting, you would have a far more self-reliant community than anything seen in a hundred years in much of the western world.

I was originally going to link a bunch of videos showing the possibilities and I still might add some later on about specific applications. But I really want everyone to give this some serious thought on their own. Is there a hobby or trade you are interested in but you’re concerned about the investment? Look at what the essential components are. Can the more complex ones be found used? The cheaper ones made at home? We, as in all of us, are in a massive web of unsustainable distribution and centralized manufacturing. I don’t believe the key is to change where that center is, but to replace it with local and regional decentralized networks of skilled individuals whom own their own tools and shops.

#self reliance #sustainability #decentralisation #3d printer #trades #hobbies #skill set #new skills #casting #welding #machining #carpentry #pottery

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Glenn Loury: The Spiral of Silence in Social Justice

In the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, two swindlers promise to provide an emperor with magnificent new clothes that will be invisible to those who are stupid or incompetent. Officials see no clothes are being produced on the swindler’s looms, but none will say anything to avoid being seen as a fool. When the emperor walked through the city in his new “clothes,” everyone could see that he was naked, but no one would be the one to say it. But then came along a child who in his naiveté was willing to defy consensus and speak out.

The thing about the child in the story is not that he’s saying it, it’s not even that other people heard him say it. It’s that everybody knows that everybody else heard him say it. The child created a circumstance in which it’s now common, shared, knowledge that the emperor has no clothes.

German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann coined a term that describes this phenomenon: the “Spiral of Silence.” In a spiral of silence, when holding a certain view obtains a stigma, for fear of being seen as having that view people will stay silent. Thus the masses believe they are alone or in a small minority of people with the stigmatized view, and yet in fact they are indeed one of the masses.

In progressive controlled areas of our society today, we are suffering from a spiral of silence when it comes to the topic of social justice. In that half of America, many don’t like it when Colin Kaepernick takes a knee at a football game and says, “I’m not going to stand for this pledge of allegiance”, or when when a Black Lives Matter activist stands up with his balled fist and says “Burn this down” about a city, but they are too afraid to be the only one in their community saying it, to be perceived as a racist or supporter of racists for holding mild views that most of America holds.

Though censorship is often spoken of as the leading threat to open discourse, the more subtle threat is the voluntary limitation of one’s own speech creating a spiral of silence. It is not the iron fist of repression, but the velvet glove of seduction, that is the real problem.

Spirals of silence can cause people with extreme views to drive moderates, out of a conversation. In effect, the moderates "hoard" their opinions. Hence, the public discourse on some issues, for example abortion, can become more polarized than is the actual distribution of public opinion.

Once the practice of punishing those who express certain ideas is well established, the only ones who risk ostracism by speaking recklessly are those who place so little value on conforming to their community that they must be presumed not to share their dearest common values.

Those, for example, who genuinely value racial equality know that, even if they harbor reservations about the effectiveness or ethics of affirmative action, if they utter their reservations in the wrong circles they will be perceived as an opponent of racial justice; so they say nothing at all. This silencing of such conversations has a devastating impact on our ability to improve society.

The notion of "objective research"--on say police interactions with black Americans, or the lifetime effects of fatherless homes--can have no meaning if, when the results are reported, other "scientists" are mainly concerned to pose the ad hominem query: "Just what kind of economist, sociologist, etc. would say this?"

Not only will investigators be induced to silence, the very way in which research is evaluated and consensus about "the facts" is formed will be altered. If when a study yields an unpopular conclusion its author is subjected to ostracism, an obvious bias to "find what the community is looking for" is introduced.

Who, we must ask, will speak for compromise and common sense, when to speak in this way is seen to signal a weak commitment to "the struggle"?

Who will insist that we speak plainly and tell the truth about delicate and difficult matters which we would all prefer to cover-up or ignore?

Who will declare "the emperor" to be naked?

How can a community sustain an elevated political discourse, when the social forces which promote silence threaten to usher in a dark age? It cannot.

But, with a simple choice, with just a little bit of bravery, you can choose to be like the child who spoke truth to the empire and put an end to it all.

Join me in ending the spiral of silence at FairForAll.org

#Glenn Loury #spiral of silence #self censorship #FAIR for All #Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism #tribalism #ideological tribalism #political tribalism #The Emperor's New Clothes #religion is a mental illness

[noneedtofearorhope]

it’s concerning to me that when faced with the idea of overpopulation, the response on the left seems to be to just hand wave it off, specifically as a myth. like, to exagerate for a moment, imagine that the population was 1000x more than it is now. i would hope that this would be recognized as, without a doubt, overpopulation. but the framing that it is a myth, something only brought up to advocate eugenics and even genocide and to cover up for the faults of capitalism, just means that even if the numbers were crunched and it came out that in fact the ability of the earth to sustain us had been surpassed, there would be that self assured comfort of it being a ‘myth’, and no efforts to non-eugenically, non-genocidally, non-capitalistically address the issue.

obviously, we aren’t dealing with an approaching 8 trillion people, but the thing is, i don’t think we can so easily say where the line of ‘unsustainable’ is. the number of variables is just too large, probably lots of the data is in conflict or isn’t even there, and a fair bit that is is skewed by the existence of capitalism. like, it’s pretty much universal for the left to regard captialism as unsustainable, but it doesn’t seem like the left has a problem taking the numbers that capitalism gives at face value. like it’s frequently pointed out that there is more than enough food produced by capitalism to feed everyone, and that the problem is merely one of distribution. but these production numbers depends on slave labor, it depends on overworking the earth, it depends on polluting the earth. we are facing the possibility of depleted aquifers, lack of sustainable fertilizers, and what might be the elephant in the room here, climate change. who can say what our production capacity would be when we address these issues?

i think it’s good to be wary of potential dog whistles for eugenics and genocide, for capitalist apologia, but if we are facing the potential for overpopulation/exceeding the earths carrying capacity/unsustainable population growth or w/e framing you prefer -- and i think we have to take this possibility seriously -- then we need to push for the things like security for all, free and safe access to contraceptives and abortion, the things which have lowered the total fertility rate in wealthy nations, while at the same time pushing for racial and ethnic equality, the free movement of all people, things which push against using the former as weapons for eugenics etc.

also like, i’d reckon the majority of the left are believers in mass movements, who want to recruit everyone possible. if someone is convinced of overpopulation, whether it is happening or not, is a ‘no, but...’ or a ‘yes, and...’ approach gonna do better, ya know?

all this said, i’m not saying really anything about whether overpopulation is or isn’t a thing. just that 1) we live in a the physical, material world, and infinite population growth isn’t possible in a finite world and 2) i have the humility to not pretend i know one way or another, no illusions of being the future minister of population or w/e other position of power, to admit this is an area of research that takes a life of study to have any chance of getting a complete grasp of it, and that i haven’t dedicated my life to it.

#posts that will definitely be read in good faith

[dojae-huh]

No taeil at all for the highnotes? Even the adlib is by doyoung. Not to mention the bridge only have 2 ppl in it which are bizarre for nct. They always have 3-4 ppl for the bridge. The line distribution for ayyo is a bit confusing. Doyoung did great in his parts but i always don’t feel so good when he is in the spotlight too much in group songs which happens only recently with 2baddies and ayyo. He’s gonna get more hates for sure and it’s not helping that its kenzie. Tbc

I dont mind that he’s favored by kenzie but kenzie’s gotta be fair if it’s a group work no? I dread so much these days when there’s updates for Do work cuz he’ll def get hates no matter what. So i at least donwan him to attract too much in groupwork. Also i can’t wrap my head around the ‘line’ culture in korea. Kyu-line, kenzie-line, yoo young jin-line, that person line, this person line. Isn’t it just favoritism but they openly advertise to ppl in the industry. Tbc

If it’s just same yr line like 97 lines than it’s fine because there’s not much power involved there. It’s just casual friendship. But when it involved seniors, main producers which the head of the line has a lot of power for the followers career, ain’t it just blatant favoritism? Idt koreans think it this way tho cuz it’s normalize in almost every intitution. In companies, you have lines as well. In university you have lines for the professors. It’s just out there in the open.

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

(seldom, but sometimes a few anons write at the same time, so it's better to mark parts with 1/3-3/3 or any other way that will allow me to identify the author without mistake. also, how come some anons can send lengthy posts without the need to break them? is it because you have accounts?)

One idol once said about charity and donations that whatever celebreties do, there will be netizens who will not like it. If an idol publicly talks about a donation, he is a pozer and did it only for the good image. If an idol does charity in secrecy, he is a bastard who doesn't care about the poor and those in need.

Doyoung will have antis regardless of number of lines in 127 songs or screentime in MVs. Antis will just talk about his jokes about his friends or him stealing OSTs from others. Please don't wish Doyoung to stay in the shadows in 127. He worked his ass off for the group and constantly upgrades his singing abilities, he earned all the spotlight. And his fans as well.

Doyoung always does adlibs.

I really liked the new roles for 127 neos in Ay-Yo. It is the first time I realy liked Johnny's part as well. I hope he finally gained confidence and SM producers figured out how to include him organically. Mark was singing, Tae was rapping in a new way, Taeil had Do's parts, Jae was the central piece, which is rare actually, Yuta's tone of voice was used well, Woo got a big part, and Hyuk got a small part (after years of songs highlighting him up, it was time to change the recipe).

Neos are parts of a group, it's a unit, not an assortment of soloists, they should get roles according to their abilities and to the structure of the song. SM also incorporates lore, so some members have to sing certain sentences.

Taeil's fans are happy because he got a lot of screentime, by the way. And he sings a lot, so I don't know what Kenzie favoritism you are talking about.

Accept a different culture, anon. Koreans grow up with competition. The marks of students are hung up on the wall in school after each test. Everyone knows who is the best student, and who is the runner up. Koreans need a group to belong to, they don't even eat alone (and can ask a foreigner in uni to sit with them at canteen to not stand out). The first thing Koreans do upon landing in a foreign country is finding a community. Be it a Korean culture club or a Korean Christian society. Koreans who came to my city to study music and knew no English or Russian gave free language and calligraphy lessons in the Korean centre just to be in a group and make connections.

Hyung-dongsaeng culture continue to be strong. Hyungs help dongsaengs. And SM is all about family and artists mingling and interacting. Demonstrating being a good hyung is as benefitial as becoming a dongsaeng.

Connections and favouritism work absolutely everywhere. You must bring letters of recommendation from known and respected names wherever you apply. And people in charge send letters to others asking if they know anyone for the position they'd like to fill.

But here is a thing, one doesn't get favoured unless there is something for the person in power. And seeing how Doyoung is not a talentless kid from an influental family to pay for his career, I don't understand the concern.

97-line has a BTS member. And a BTS member has a lot of power. SM is made of many people who can influence things, even LSM doesn't have the last word. Your logic doesn't work like that here.