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mimicofmodes · 3 years

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“The Ladies Waldegrave” by Joshua Reynolds, 1780 (NGS NG2171)

I’ve complained before about two very big pet peeves of mine - corset stuff and Regency women being dressed in 1770s-1780s clothes - but one that may dwarf them because of how frequently it comes up in historical and fantasy fiction is the oppression of embroidery.

That’s probably putting it a bit too strongly. It’s more like ... the annoyance of embroidery. Every character worth reading about knows instinctively that sewing is a) boring, b) difficult, c) mindless, and d) pointless. The author doesn’t have to say anything more than “Belinda threw down her needlework and looked out the window, sighing,” to signal that this is an independent woman whose values align with the modern reader, who’s probably not really understood by her mother or mother figure, and who probably will find an extraordinary man to “match” her rather than settling for someone ordinary. To look at an example from fantasy, GRRM uses embroidery in the very beginning of A Game of Thrones to show that the Stark sister who dislikes it is sympathetic and interesting, while the Stark sister who is competent at it is boring and conventional and obviously not deserving of a PoV (until later books, when her attention gets turned to higher matters); further into the book, of course, the pro-needlework sister proves to be weak-willed and naïve.

Rozsika Parker, in the groundbreaking 1996 work The Subversive Stitch, noted that “embroidery has become indelibly associated with stereotypes of femininity,” which is the core of the issue. "Instead embroidery and a stereotype of femininity have become collapsed into one another, characterised as mindless, decorative and delicate; like the icing on the cake, good to look at, adding taste and status, but devoid of significant content.”

Parker also points out that the stereotype isn’t just one that was invented in the present day by feminists who hated the idea of being forced to do a certain craft. “The association between women and embroidery, craft and femininity, has meant that writers concerned with the status of women have often turned their attention towards this tangled, puzzling relationship. Feminists who have scorned embroidery tend to blame it for whatever constraint on women's lives they are committed to combat. Thus, for example, eighteenth-century critical commentators held embroidery responsible for the ill health which was claimed as evidence of women's natural weakness and inferiority.”

There are two basic problems I have with the trope, beyond the issue of it being incredibly cliché:

First: needlework was not just busywork

A big part of what drives the stereotype is the impression that what women were embroidering was either a sampler:

sampler embroidered by Jane Wilson, 14, in 1791 (MMA 2010.47)

or a picture:

unfinished embroidery of David and Abigail, British, 1640s-50s (MMA 64.101.1325)

That is, something meant to hang on the wall for no real purpose.

These are forms of schoolwork, basically. Samplers were made by young girls up to their early teens, and needlework pictures were usually something done while at school or under a governess as a showpiece of what was being learned - not just the stitching itself, but also often watercolors (which could be worked into the design), artistic sensibility, and the literature, history, or art that might be alluded to. And many needlework pictures made in schools were also done as mourning pieces, sometimes blank, for future use, and sometimes to commemorate a recent death in the family. A lot of them are awkward, clearly just done to pass the class, but others are really artwork.

Many schools for middle- and upper-class girls taught the making of these objects (and other “ornamental” subjects) alongside a more rigorous curriculum - geography, Latin, chemistry, etc. At some, sewing was also always accompanied by serious reading and discussion. (And it would often be done while someone read aloud or made conversation later in life, too.)

Once done with their education, women generally didn’t bother with purely decorative work. Some things that fabric could be embroidered for included:

Jackets

Bed coverings and bedcurtains

Collars and undersleeves

Pelerines

Neck handkerchiefs and sleeve ruffles

Screens

Upholstery

Handkerchiefs

Purses, wallets, and reticules

Boxes

Book covers

Plus other articles of clothing like waistcoats, caps, slippers, gown hems, chemises, etc. Women’s magazines of the nineteenth century often gave patterns and alphabets for personal use.

(Not to mention late nineteenth century female artists who worked in embroidery, but that’s something else.)

You could purchase all of these pre-embroidered, but many, many women chose to do it themselves. There are a number of reasons why: maybe they wanted something to do, maybe they felt like they should be doing needlework for moral/gender reasons, maybe they couldn’t afford to buy anything - and maybe they enjoyed it or wanted to give something they made to a person they loved. That firescreen above was embroidered by Marie Antoinette, someone who had any number of other activities to choose from. It’s no different than people today who like to knit their own hats and gloves or bake their own bread, except that it was way more mainstream.

embroidery patterns from Ackermann’s Repository in 1827 - they could be used on dresses, collars, handkerchiefs, etc.

Second: needlework wasn’t the only “useless” thing women were expected to do

Ignoring the bulk of point one for now and the value of embroidery - I mentioned “ornamental subjects” above. As many people know, young women of the upper and middle classes were expected to be “accomplished” in order to be seen as marriageable. This could include skills like embroidery, drawing, painting, singing, playing the piano (as well as other instruments, like the harp or the mandolin), speaking French (if not also Italian and/or German), as well as broader knowledge and abilities like being well-versed in music, literature, and poetry, dancing and walking gracefully, writing good letters in an elegant hand, and being able to read out loud expressively and smoothly.

This wasn’t a checklist. As the famous discussion in Pride and Prejudice shows, individuals could have different views on what actually made a woman accomplished:

“How I long to see her again! I never met with anybody who delighted me so much. Such a countenance, such manners! And so extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite.”

“It is amazing to me,” said Bingley, “how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are.”

“All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?”

“Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know anyone who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished.”

“Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,” said Darcy, “has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished.”

“Nor I, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley.

“Then,” observed Elizabeth, “you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman.”

“Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it.”

“Oh! certainly,” cried his faithful assistant, “no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.”

“All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”

Mr. Bingley feels that a woman is accomplished if she has the ability to do a number of different arts and crafts. Miss Bingley feels (or says she feels) that it goes beyond specific skills and into branches of artistic attainment, plus broader personal qualities that could be imparted by well-bred governesses or mothers. And Mr. Darcy, of course, agrees with that but adds an academic angle as well.

But what ties all of these accomplishments together is their lack of value on the labor market. A woman could earn a living with any one accomplishment, if she worked hard enough at it to become a professional, but young ladies weren’t supposed to be professional-level good because they by definition weren’t going to earn a living. All together, they trained a woman for the social and domestic role of a married woman of the upper middle or upper class, or, if she couldn’t get married, a governess or teacher who would share her accomplishments with the next generation.

(To be fair, almost none of the trappings of an upper-middle/upper class male education had anything to do with the kind of career training that college frequently is today, either. Men were educated to know the cultural touchpoints of their class and fit in with their peers.)

There are reasons that an individual person/character might specifically object to embroidery, but it was far from the only “useless” thing that an unconventional heroine would be required to do against her inclination by her conventional mother/grandmother/aunt/chaperone. Embroidery stands out to modern audiences because most of the other accomplishments are now valued as gender-neutral arts and skills.

“The Embroidery Frame”, by Mathilde Weil, ca. 1900 (LOC 98501309)

So, some thoughts for writers of historical fiction (or fantasy that’s supposed to be just like the 19th/18th/17th/etc century):

- If your heroine doesn’t like embroidery, she probably doesn’t like a number of other things she’s expected to do. Don’t pull out embroidery as either more expected or more onerous than them. Does she hate to sit still? I’d imagine she also dislikes drawing and practicing the piano. Would she prefer to do academic subjects? She probably also resents learning French instead of Latin, and music and dancing. Does she hate enforced femininity? Then she’d most likely have a problem with all of the accomplishments.

- If your heroine just and specifically doesn’t like embroidery, try to show in the narrative that that’s not because it’s objectively bad, and only able to be liked by the boring. Have another sympathetic character do it while talking to the heroine. Note that the hero carries a flame-stitched wallet that’s his sister’s work. Emphasize the heroine’s emotional connection to her deceased or absent mother through her affection for clothing or upholstery that her mother embroidered - or through a mourning picture commemorating her. There are all kinds of things you can do to show that it’s a personal preference rather than a stupid craft that doesn’t take talent and skill!

mourning picture for Daniel Goodman, probably embroidered by a Miss Goodman, 1803 (MMA 56.66)

#history #women's history #writing #embroidery #19th century #18th century #17th century #victorian #georgian #regency

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marcias-meme-blog · 3 years

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What are your thoughts on the Media bez wyboru ? People are having two different opinions, mostly "They wanna silence us!" or "Don't be an idiot it's just taxation not restriction!"

That’s one hardcore question to receive.

From what I know, it’s a taxation imposed on ad income in all sorts of media, the internet, newspapers, radio and even cinemas. This means that a chunk of platforms’ income instead of going back towards fuelling those institutions will go to the government.

The main gripe imo is this: many platforms will simply not survive this. The taxation will be a solid blow to the smaller, often independent/neutral platforms who rely on that money to continue operating. Ultimately they’ll either collapse because of the lack of income or have to start relying on other methods of staying afloat eg. paywalls (and I REALLY hope we’re all aware how paywalls and subscription models contribute to inaccessibility to goods, and specifically here news and articles, on a global scale).

While some might say “it is what it is, that’s how taxes work babey” we MUST consider all pieces on this board. Because you know who will not feel this blow? Who will not have to worry about putting their stuff behind paywalls? Who will not have to worry about staying afloat?

Government sponsored media.

I hope it’s clicking for everyone that that is literally the ABCs of propaganda, a really short way to monopolise the market of information, and an indirect attempt (we can debate whether intended or unintended) to control the public opinion in the long run.

Government media is NOT objective or trying to stay neutral. It presents you with content & news filtered through a very specific, and in this case, very VERY conservative lense, that paints the ruling party in a holy light while smearing their opposition in shit.

“Opposition“ may seem like an abstract political concept but here’s a quick rundown of topics that are in opposition to the agenda being pushed by the current political leaders and would effectively be dipped in shit:

- LGBT as a concept, - rights/suited medical help for trans people, - gay marriage, - abortion/planned parenthood, - sex education in schools, - immigrants, - climate change/global warming, - carbon footprint of the environmental destruction that is the mining industry and so on.

The current Polish leaders are IN LOVE with the status quo and the current division of the country. They are especially big fans of presenting everything as a us vs. them narrative. The gays are an attack on polish families and christian values. Abortion is an attack on polish children. Climate change is a made up propaganda to destroy the mining industry and put the good polish people out of their jobs. And immigrants? Oh boy.

And this narrative heavily speaks to the current generations of people of age 40+; the generations that still remember communism, generations intimately aware of our history as a country where the other, the oppressor came and destroyed everything that was us, taking Poland off of the maps for over a fucking century, and how long it took for us to stand on our two legs again as an independent nation.

And all the topics that I listed above? Are used to scare those people by the leading party. To reach deep within and push that emotional button, that knee-jerk reaction that something is waiting, again, to destroy us and who we are as people, as a nation. And this emotional manipulation with fear is very incredibly effective. And I in turn fear that the limited number of accessible journalistic platforms will only contribute to the exponential growth of this sad phenomenon.

And you know what is the worst thing if all of this? The theatre of absurd that is the way the government is trying to pass these controversial laws. Because those laws are never a stand alone thing. They are always dressed up in a narrative, wrapped up in an entire cushy bill that is going towards something objectively good. They did that many times in the past: most recent thing that I can remember are bills that were supposed to help out single parents but they simultaneously had one or two anti-LGBT laws right next to them, in the same package.

So to put the issue simply, by opposing one aspect of the bill, you’re automatically seen as a shithead trying to prevent a major improvement to the country’s structure. And that goes back to the whole us vs. them narrative I talked about. It’s a circle.

The bill they’re trying to pass right now is not a “new taxation on Ads” bill - it’s marketed as a bill going towards the growth of NFZ (national healthcare), the preservation of Polish history & culture via NFOZ (mostly monuments, old historically important buildings and landmarks etc.) & the creation of a new institution: FWKDN the goal of which would be the creation of projects and platforms focused on promoting polish heritage & culture in the digital age.

Those are objectively good things, especially rn money for national healthcare would be godsend.

So here comes the ultimate dilemma: Should we introduce the new tax, the money from which will in theory help the people of our country, even if it means sacrificing independent media platforms which effectively means the beginning of the government’s monopol on news and journalism?

And that is a very loaded problem with no easy solution.

Personally I am against that bill and I support the strike that’s going on. The money gathered via this tax will be but a droplet in the sea of needs when it comes to our public healthcare system. Whatever the money could accomplish (which assumes the government that I already don’t trust won’t put the money towards something completely different), the long term social consequences of news platform reduction far outweigh the potential good, in my books anyway. I do believe there are other solutions to this problem, but we could talk about the changes to the national budget all day and not get anywhere.

TL;DR: It’s a loaded issue, but having seen certain worrying patterns within the actions and motivations of the current political party I am unwilling to risk letting them take control of journalism nationwide.

#media bez wyboru #uh oh sorry for the essay

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captlok · 3 years

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Pacifism Isn’t A Character Trait

Or: MLK Day is Upon Us so Let Me Do You a Learn

Or: As An Aang Stan I Got a Bit Over-Zealous But Lemme Explain Why For A Hot Minute

Plus some History and Tumblr commentary that even non-ATLA fans can chew on

And by ‘hot minute’ I do mean this is going to be a long meta, so strap in. For those of you who just might be tuning into this debacle, I, a person who has not used Tumblr, much at all, except for the last half year, ran into some trouble.

If you wanna skip the whole TLDNR interpersonal stuffs and get straight to Why Aang is the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread, I will embolden the relevant parts, and italicize the crit of Korra, if you want that alongside.

I was excited that ATLA was seeing a resurgence due to the Netflix remake. I wasn’t even trying to apply any steep expectations for it. (learned not to do that the hard way with the last live action adaption, and to a much lesser extent, ATLOK, since it had good . . . elements, *ba dum tsshh*)

So, these are a couple aspects of the issue: (1) Even on the internet, I am extremely introverted and until recently mostly came for content, not socializing. My main online interactions thus far have been in forums and artist-to-artist on DA. Tumblr is still very strange to me because it splits up its ‘threads’ so you can’t see all the replies if a certain pattern of users responds in their own space. I’m not even 100% sure it’s in chronological order, and replies are not nested next to each other so you can look in the comments and someone will be replying to something you can’t see in that window. And also since it is a bizarre hybrid of a blogging system, posts are somehow considered ‘owned by’ or an ‘extension of’ OP in a way forum threads are not. (2) ATLOK was good in a cinematic and musical way, to be sure. It also had some good concepts. I can go into it just appreciating it for the worldbuilding and be somewhat satisfied. But the execution was terrible. I was on AvatarSpirit.Net for years, and If I had maintained my presence on ASN to current day and had gotten around to downloading their archive now that the forum is dead, I would include some links to other peoples’ detailed analyses on just how flawed both the plotting and Korra’s frustratingly flat learning curve was especially in the first two seasons. But, that is a task for another day, and only if people are interested.

No, what I’m addressing today, on the issue of Korra as a writing exercise, is how Mike and Bryan said specifically they wanted to make her ‘as opposite to Aang as possible’ and in so doing, muddied the central theme of the original ATLA series.

Now, again, I was mainly an art consumer for my first major round of ATLA fandom. Tumblr is an alien beast to me. But, after I write my first major Aang meta, talking about how amazing it is that he has the attitude he does, and how being content in the face of this overwhelming pain and suffering is an ONGOING PROCESS and an INTENTIONAL DECISION and not a simple PERSONALITY TRAIT, I start hearing that Aang gets a lot of hate from the fandom. Now this would be bad enough if it were merely people not liking his crowning moment of pacifism because they don’t understand the potential utility (I’ll elaborate on that in another post) or the ethics involved.

Aang is easily the most adult member of the Gaang. But he apparently gets hate for his few moments where he actually acts his age, a preteen, and maybe kisses a girl in a historical timeframe in which ‘consent’ discussions were probably nonexistent. Even in the present day, we are still practically drowned in movies that reinforce this kissing without asking trope. And even some female bodied people complain that asking kills the mood! But somehow he is responsible and reprehensible for this, even though the first time she kissed him back. I’m only going to get into the pacifism discussion today, but that was just another layer of annoyance bouncing around in the back of my head. Other peoples’ crit of Korra that was stewing in my subconscious, plus this Aang bashing, which thankfully I had not directly read much of, made up the backdrop of gasoline for the match that set it off. Even that seems a pretty melodramatic way to phrase what I actually said, which was: Aang, on the other hand, lost dozens of father figures and was being steamrolled by Ozai who was gloating about genocide TO HIS FACE, yet he still reigned in all that quote, ‘unbelievable rage and pain’ (The Southern Raiders). We Stan Aang, the Superior Avatar. No I did not f**king stutter. #AangSupremacy In another meta, someone complained that I was too defensive of Aang as a character and didn’t apply literary analysis enough, which I quickly rectified.

What set this off? Someone was kind of indirectly praising the line from Korra, “When I get out of here, none of you will survive” To them it was emotionally resonant or whatever, and I have to point out that no, it was a martial artist not having control of their state of mind, as is the bedrock of the practice. It was never addressed by the narrative, which is a severe oversight. I had a conversation with someone in the chats, making this distinction between Korra’s character traits and life philosophy. If she were to kill people while enraged and she was fine with that, that’s one thing. But if she regretted it, that’s a whole other kettle of fish. People argue that she comes from a warrior culture, unlike Aang.

Never mind that warrior monks are a thing. That’s what Shaolin monks are. You can be a pacifist and skilled at fighting. Those things are not mutually exclusive, which is the whole point of Bagua, Aang’s style. And also, Katara’s style.

That’s one reason I like Kataang so much- their congruent styles. Both of their real world martial arts are dedicated to pacifism, even though ATLA specifically doesn’t spell that out for Katara and her learning arc.

There was a meta where someone briefly tried to argue that knowing “martial arts” is against pacifism. No. Quite the opposite. I’d argue that you are not a true pacifist unless you know exactly how to handle yourself if someone attacks you. If you are not in a position to make conscious decisions about how much force to use, rather than merely operating on survival instincts, that is not pacifism. Or at least, not any energy or effort towards pacifism as a practical everyday tool. I’ve made a few attempts to learn some tai chi and aikido, and it’s improved my physical and mental health, but some other things have gotten in the way. #lifegoals

I’m not going to tag the unfortunate soul whom I was replying to, because they’re probably tired of all this, but I’ll be sending them a PM to say that I’ve made this into a different post, because as I mentioned before, threads are somehow considered “owned” by OP, so it’s been pointed out to me that I should separate it. I also said, I have basically ZERO respect for Korra uttering violent threats when the writers already minted a far more emotionally devastated and yet still resilient and centered character earlier in their franchise. People always try to excuse away people who genuinely like Aang more. As if it’s just nostalgia or whatever. For me, no, it’s absolutely not. It is respect for a character who stands toe to toe with real people who are kind in the face of overwhelming injustice. (I have another meta on that).

Both OP and people in the chats try to make excuses that she wasn’t raised as a pacifist, and that would be fine if they had addressed it with Tenzin and she had stated outright that she was rejecting pacifism and mind training. As it is, we are left with this nebulous affair where the lines between ideology and personality traits are blurred.

We are told she “has trouble with spirituality” but what does that even mean? Does she have trouble with focus? Does she have trouble relating to the canonically real spirits? And pacifism specifically nor inner peace that it flows from is never even talked about as an extension of spirituality, which is canonically tied to airbending.

“Aang didn't have to deal once with the loss of his autonomy in atla” OP claims.

This was after I had noted that Aang was getting kicked around by Ozai and was most likely going to die. Similarly, someone in the chat rejected the idea that a 12 year old trapped in a stone sphere that is heating up under a cyclone-sized blowtorch feels powerless.

Sorry but that’s flat out ridiculous.

No one wants to admit that both of these people were faced with similar situations, and when push came to shove, one showed his LIFE PHILOSOPHY through conscious effort, and the other was abandoning the basis of martial arts, which is, no matter what the situation, keep thinking. Hold the panic at bay. Non-attachment would have served her well in this situation. Tenzin should have told her this. Before, or afterwards. It should have been addressed in the writing.

People see this as “bashing” Korra, and oh well, can’t help that. If I think the writers didn’t follow through on their themes, that is my concern. OP said I was “offended.” No, not really.

I wasn’t offended by the post itself, or its commentary. Thought I made that pretty clear.

This is not dramatics. Let me be blunt.

As a ideological pacifist, and an actual practitioner of meditation, based on Buddhism, NOT just the fan of some show, I am for calling out writers who write one way from the survivor of genocide, and then stray from that ‘thoughtless aggression is immoral no matter HOW hurt I am’ to ‘let’s not address this character’s aggression in the narrative whatsoever.’ OP attempted to derail by accusing me of being racist or sexist against Korra. Also ridiculous. It honestly should have set me off more, but it didn’t.

Meditation is about reigning in your emotions. Managing your anger when it gets out of hand, and digging down to the roots of it. Being responsible for your own behavoir. Acknowledging ownership of your own actions. Not blaming anything YOU DO on anyone else or any circumstances in your life. Like an adult, or should I say, an enlightened adult.

Or at the very least, that is the ideal ypu strive towards while being imperfect in the present.

. . .

Now.

I’m going to quote a passage in a Google Doc of mine, even though I’d really prefer if you asked to read the whole thing, with context.

“What do humans do when it is necessary to, or greed makes a nation want to recruit?

They go to the army to get trained, right?

Granted, having someone scream and get spittle on your face is, in the grand scheme of things, poor preparation for having bullets whiz past your chest and grenades shatter your ears. And, what do you do to prepare you for the pain of getting your leg blown off? Hopefully, nothing. Like taking a test where you only got half the study guide. But, it’s about the most ethical way to go about it, right?

Not everyone even sees action. So any more more extensive mental preparation for physical pain than that, and you’d have people definitely protesting.

Well, as it turns out, pacifistic protestors themselves, if they were in the right time and place, also very intentionally do this type of mind training. Except, when they did it, they actually did sit still and took turns roughly grabbing each other and throwing each other down and in some cases, even kicking and bruising each other.

Turns out, those pacifists are, in some ways, more hardcore than the army.

Why is this?

Because a pacifist’s aim, unlike a unit, who wants to gain the upper hand in a situation, is to grit their teeth and grind their way through all those survival instincts, and totally submit.

In this, they aim to get the sympathy of the public, who clearly sees they are not aggressive, or a danger, no matter how much the footage is manipulated or suppressed.

In this, they hope to appeal to their attacker’s better nature.

Make them stop and think, wait a second, are these people a threat like we’re told they are? I’m attacking someone who’s letting me beat them up. Or a bunch of people. All forming a line, and letting us peel them off. Or sitting, and bowing their heads. If I’m on the ‘right’ side of things, the law, why am I doing this?

It’s not like a bully, who’s just a kid.” They’re more self-aware.

And might I add the situation influences a pacifist’s actions too. There’s no reason to let a single or a few random attackers beat you up if you can evade or disable without permanent damage.

Pacifism is a dynamic set of responsive actions informed by values. Not a proscribed set or a checklist.

But in terms of organizing against state power, and recording wrongdoing, which unlike during the Civil Rights can happen from all angles from smart phones nowadays, these are the motivations.

“So, the pacifist knows this, and that’s why they go through all that trouble of training themselves to, not only submit, but not turn tail and run, either.”

See, a character trait is something like being a morning person, or ways of handing information, or a given set of emotions a character feels. Once you cross over into actions, you must make the distinction of whether an impulsive character agrees with their own uncontrolled actions, or is embarrassed or remorseful. Those are life philosophy. Now sure, one type of person or character may be more likely to subscribe to pacifism, but there is no gatekeeping on what you have to feel or how you look at things. You can be easygoing, or feel all the rage in the world, but as long as you at least attempt to have a handle on those desires and feelings to where they do not cross into actions, you are still doing the work of metacognition, which is what martial arts and its accompanying mind training are for.

It’s what we see Aang do.

He’s informed us, during the Southern Raiders, on how much rage and pain he feels.

Pain points, TRIGGERS, that were directly struck at when Ozai gloated over him.

He joins with all the past Avatars for several moments, and just like every other time he is in the Avatar State, he is enraged. He wants to exact revenge on the unrepentant grandson of a baby murderer.

We see it when he turns his head away, face still screwed up in anger.

For another example, I could cite my difficulties in being aware and reining in my tongue sometimes. I know the roots of these issues and I seek to let them go.

It’s just that process takes way longer than Guru Pathik would have us assume.

In fact, I would even say that Aang’s portrayal throughout the three seasons is not strictly a realistic representation of at least the sad side of grief. I addressed that a little when I talked about real life figures. But what it IS, is a metaphor that cuts very deep to the heart of pacifism. As I showed in that Doc . . . There is no limit of suffering a pacifist is willing to go through, internal or external, for the preservation of peace.

This was demonstrated during the Civil Rights, and with Gandhi and all his followers beforehand, inspiring them. The pacifists’ method of swaying hearts is probably the reason BLM exists in such numbers as it does today. Will the types of narratives that correspond with their full stories of the way they collectively planned and trained for and approached conflict make it into fantasy media? I’d say, probably not. For a host of reasons.

It could be hoped for, I guess.

But we DO have Aang.

As for myself, whether speaking sharply is an “action,” per se is up for debate- certainly it doesn’t seem to violate the non-aggression principle put forth by the vision of a “stateless society.”

For another example, let’s take my explanation at the beginning. I am examining how circumstances affected my actions, and now am attempting to fix it, if indeed it needs to be fixed.

At least one person said that it not so much what I said, but how and when I said it. I don’t actually think I’ve said anything “wrong” per se. So I have to figure it out.

[I’m considering splitting up this next part into a second post, as it only slightly relates to pacifism itself and is just kinda some more commentary on Tumblr itself- Tumblr discourse, as it were]

[I’ll put more brackets when I’m done in case you want to skip this part as well]

An interesting social difference between Tumblr and other places is this command you often get, “don’t chat/reblog/message me back.”

This is interesting for several reasons. For chats and reblogs, other people may be following the “conversation,” so it’s actually pretty rude and presumptuous to tell a person not to respond to whatever you said, because other people watching still may be interested in your take.

In a forum setting, if someone involved in a conversation doesn’t have anything left to say, usually they just don’t respond.

This method would work perfectly fine for Tumblr, but for some reason, maybe its super odd format, probably due to the “ownership”/“extension of self” I mentioned at the beginning of the essay, people don’t tend to do this.

Now, in comment sections, sometimes you’ll run across an amusing sort of “mutually assured destruction” where two people both say this to each other. You’d better stop responding. Omg just give up. Why are you still arguing. Etc.

But see, no matter where this behavoir pops up, and no matter who starts in on it, those who do this usually want to have the last say on the matter.

Instead of merely not replying, they want to assert verbal control over the conversation.

Tumblr, in its weirdness, is also sort of like a mutant comments section. You can post comment section threads as your own post.

Which is one reason why I’m puzzled when people say ‘don’t read the comment sections’ when Tumblr is so popular.

I’m an oddball in that I browse comment sections for fun.

Probably due to alexithymia, I didn’t really comprehend the emotional toll it takes on many people, so the warnings to “stay out of comment sections” read to me like “hey don’t eat that dessert.” After I’m done with the ‘meal’ of an article or art, I like to see what lots of different people have to say about it. The fluff. Anything vitriolic I either blip over, or extract anything useful, or if I judge the person is reasonable enough, I might engage.

Sometimes I mis-judge on how reasonable someone is, and I shrug and move on after being cussed out or whatever.

In this, I suppose I succeed much of the time in being a verbal pacifist.

[But let’s get back to the more serious stuff.]

We’re talking about what is done in life or death situations, here.

For myself, I may in the near future be working more with dangerously mentally ill people. I’ve had a little exposure to it through various means. Nurses are obligated not to retaliate against patients, and those who have, have been fired in some situations. Again oddly, this is not primarily what triggers my anxiety. Unfortunately enough, this requirement has also resulted in nurses getting seriously injured and violated. I hope to influence whether “no harm” techniques such as tai chi and aikido and arm locks may be allowed. The voluntary philosophy I was luckily already on board with is enforced by bureauacracy, directly relevant to my potential profession.

Were someone to get involved in a dangerous profession, such as a police officer, their moral duty would also be to own up to any spur of the moment anger or fear they acted on.

It’s just that their bureaucracy acts differently, in excusing their actions.

Ideally, they would be taking steps far in advance, to avoid this often-cited fear of death reaction. As training pacifists like Aang do.

And yes, army people are trained differently than police officers because the army, often, even when threatened, is supposed to avoid engagement or deploy deterrents that are non-lethal almost all costs, unless ordered otherwise. Whereas American police are given pretty much complete discretion and often not taught de-escalation techniques. Even police from other nations are better trained in that regard.

Enter the ironically named @avatarfandompolice whose account description should really speak for itself. Combative, dismissive, and their attention-hungry bread and butter is to find people they think it’s acceptable to ridicule. They basically tried to say trauma was a valid excuse to take out your anger on other people, and in this situation, potentially kill.

Now, does this hold up in the real world? Yeah, sometimes. Especially if some law breaker or law keeper has not been given the anger management tools, they perhaps could be excused, or better yet, rehabilitated.

But especially if anyone finds themselves in dangerous situations, or intends to put themselves in such, it falls to them to do this preparation.

As an aphant, I am at a bit of a disadvantage, compared to an average martial artist, being unable to visualize an attacker. But I still attempt it.

As the main “police officer” of the world- the coincidentally blue clad figurehead that is supposed to keep order, it is apparently fine for Korra to not do the work Aang did to keep level. To blow it off as too much trouble: clearing the First Chakra of fear. For herself or others. And its resultant anger. Had she had access to the Avatar State, the authority figure pretty much would have killed people. This is what the “fandom police” and a certain chat goer ultimately support. Maybe they didn’t understand it that way, and since the second had blocked me, they will also never see this explanation. Unless I were to share it in Google Doc form I suppose.

So, I responded. “Remember kids, you are not responsible for your own behavior if you have the excuse that someone else did something bad to you.” A frighteningly common sentiment on this site.

When it’s low stakes like CAPSLOCKING or internet fights, that’s not such a big deal. But what happens if this attitude leaks into the real world? This isn’t even about Korra or Aang anymore, it’s about toxic mindsets. I didn’t know fans taking pro-Korra posts as anti-Aang was a common in the fandom. I’ll say again I’ve only just gotten really active on Tumblr like the past few months. This is about pacifism itself. MLK and his hardworking, training followers (yes some of them sixteen and POC and not super-powered like Korra) facing down firehoses and staging sit-ins long trained for would shake their heads at this defense of reactionism.

Pacifism is not a Personality Trait.

It is deliberate actions and preparation taken over a period of time.

Then the “fandom police” tried more of this, and these two conversations ensued, the comments with another user resulting in the title and main thesis of this essay:

https://captlok.tumblr.com/post/638777472806273024/avatarfandompolice-response-to-my-independent

https://captlok.tumblr.com/post/638806142933467136/the-plight-was-not-what-i-was-getting-at-it-was

#atla #lok #atlok #atla meta #pacifism #martin luther king #civil rights era #history #blm #mlk #mlkday2021

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citialiin · 4 years

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ZIGGY ✰ STARDUST

i jacked this from @cardinalrot. thank you dad. tagging: @gothsic ; @blossomingbeelzebug ; @betelguide ; @thatcertainnight ; @prophesyed ; you, specifically, reading this.

𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬

FULL NAME. [ redacted ] * NICKNAME. ziggy GENDER. agender (he/him or they/them) / typically presents as a “man” for simplicity’s sake and also because he doesn’t care enough to think about it for more than 4 seconds HEIGHT. 5′10″ AGE. 26 (earth years) ZODIAC. ??? (he wasn’t born under our stars ... so .......) SPOKEN LANGUAGES. any/all (he doesn’t really know them, though, he uses an internal translator)

𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬

HAIR COLOR. bright red, seemingly unnatural -- but it’s natural EYE COLOR. left pale blue, right black SKIN TONE. very, very, very pale BODY TYPE. skinny. very skinny/slender/svelte. willowy and tall and bony. good for looking waifish on magazine covers but bad for lifting even vaguely heavy objects. VOICE. posh, nasally, low, the slightest bit condescending. speaks with an english accent despite not being english, let alone human. drawls his vowels and enunciates his letters. his voice is strangely clear and bright when he sings, unlike his somewhat unpleasant speaking tone, and he tends to sing in higher pitches than his speaking voice. DOMINANT HAND. ambidextrous -- but he can only play the guitar left handed POSTURE. very straight and proper, holds his head high and his shoulders square. uncertain if it’s height alone or if he really is looking down upon you. SCARS. small incision in the back of his neck where the translator was placed. barely there and usually covered by a collar or his hair, anyways. TATTOOS. none BIRTHMARKS. a large yellow disc on his forehead, rimmed with a slightly darker yellow/bronze with the slightest hint of a chromatic shift affect due to reflecting/light catching pigment in skin cells. this isn’t unique to him, however, as every member of his race has it. has the tiniest hint of a freckle above his lip, on the left side, and he hates it and wishes he could nuke it off his face. both of these are usually covered, anyways. MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). the circular mark, his unusual eyes, his sharp features, his bright hair. everything about him is weird and outlandish and strange, but it helps him maintain a striking, marketable image.

𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝

PLACE OF BIRTH. far away. HOMETOWN. faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar away. SIBLINGS. [ grabs the steering wheel and veers straight into worldbuilding headcanon territory ] the society he comes from is no longer sexually dimorphic and typically doesn’t reproduce the natural way. having evolved far beyond such icky things, they use genetic samples from large swaths of the population to make consistent batches of new individuals -- the genetic samples are screened for defects and aberrations and sort of tossed together into a genome salad, and out comes however many individuals they need to fill in gaps in the population. there’s a lot of consistency in his species due to this: everyone has reddish hair, everyone has heterochromia, everyone is about the same height, etc. so technically, he’s related to everyone in his “batch.” PARENTS. he wouldn’t ever know -- a lot of people, probably

𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞

OCCUPATION. rockstar -- cultural icon -- celebrity -- musician -- singer -- model -- jerk CURRENT RESIDENCE. london, LA, NYC, but he’s constantly moving and tours quite often CLOSE FRIENDS. few and far in between -- he’s friends with his drummer who is named priscilla but usually goes by the stage name WEIRD, as well as siddharth, his bassist, who goes by sid in his personal life but GILLY on stage. they were the first two humans to encounter him and taught him everything he knows, from how to tie his shoes (aliens wear boots, and you should know this) to the C major scale -- because they are among the few humans who know his secret, he views them as his closest and dearest friends. his stardom isolates him from them, just a little -- he likes the spotlight but they don’t mind just being “the drummer” and “the bassist.” they don’t quite have the star power that he does. his manager -- tama ahinariki, some guy from new zealand who seemed to bumble his way into becoming in charge of one of the most successful musicians of the decade -- also knows he’s an alien, but they tend to be more business partners than close friends. tama is more interested in the money side of things whereas priscilla and sid are only interested in the music. ziggy has stock in the music, money, and his personal brand.

via rp, he’s made some friends with other characters! a few. very few. RELATIONSHIP STATUS. single -- he intends to stay that way. he gets all the action he could ever need from his legion of devoted fans and groupies. even in situations where he’s romantically involved and emotionally invested, he would never consider himself exclusive or monogamous. a lot of tabloids make rumors that he’s involved with cardinal copia, fellow rock icon, but he tends to be sneaky at hiding any time they spent together. it’s hard to keep things private when you’re both massively popular public figures, though. he goes out of his way to be sure no one knows about his predilection for spending time with thomas, because the last thing an awkward alien in disguise needs is a lot of public attention because people think you’re dating a celebrity (who they don’t know is also an alien). he hangs around annie a lot, too, but this is extra extra under wraps, because annie has a stalker named jonathan who may or may not go apeshit and try to tear his head off or something if he finds out. FINANCIAL STATUS. filthy rich. should be guillotined. DRIVER’S LICENSE. doesn’t have one. he has some paperwork, somewhere, with a “real” name and all that, but he has no idea where it is and lets his manager deal with that stuff. CRIMINAL RECORD. none ! clean slate. that doesn’t mean he doesn’t do illegal things, though. he just doesn’t get caught. VICES. smoking, drinking, la cocaina, sex, impulsive spendng, rockstar stuff.

𝐬𝐞𝐱 & 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. bisexual. PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE. submissive | dominant | switch | top | bottom | verse. this doesn’t really come up in rp because i dont write nsfw. the way i view it is that he’s lazy and would rather you take care of him than the other way around LIBIDO. pretty high, but it’s difficult for him to have as much sex as he might prefer because, uh, he has, uh, alien..............parts...........and stuff ..... like ....... some parts down there look different ....... so he’s stuck having sex with usually in the dark, under sheets, and he has to zip his pants up really quick afterwards. maybe it’s a little bit hilarious and i just think it’s funny idk LOVE LANGUAGE. selflessness (which is big, for him, king of all douchebags and lord selfish dickhead the third), rambling to you about his day, physical affection, gifts, letting you see him without make up, opening up to you about his life before earth. he might play you music, sing to you or write you songs if he’s feeling particularly sappy. this is stuff reserved for people that he finds himself incredibly romantically/emotionally attached to, though, not the people he has one night stands with. and he almost never forms any sort of lasting attachment to the people he sleeps with casually. RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES. he tends to fall for people who challenge him in some way, who aren’t easily beguiled by his status and physical looks, but who aren’t outright mean to him. that being said, he is very vain, and he loves being showered in compliments, praise or attention. he matches well with people who can put up with his antics and moodiness and odd behavior. he likes the idea of being someone’s muse or someone’s idol, so he finds himself drawn to other creative types. he has the most intimate/special connections with other nonhuman beings, especially other aliens, cuz he feels like they Get him and he wouldn’t be really giving himself in his fullest form if he had to still play pretend that he was a human being. for whatever reason he goes apeshit for goth guys/dudes with black hair who wear a lot of black. he really doesn’t like people who are too much like him, because HE’S HIM, and you’re YOU, and he really wants it to stay that way. GET OUT OF MY DRESSING ROOM

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG. there’s a whole album about him .......... theres a song called “ziggy stardust” ....... HOBBIES TO PASS TIME. singing, music, writing -- he lives for that shid. he likes art in all forms, so he reads, watches movies, looks at paintings -- he has a lot of human culture to catch up on, and he loves all of it, from any time period and any culture. he also likes buying things, shopping, looking nice, gossip. he tends to be a party animal (party alien?) and often indulges in more hedonistic fun. LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. his brain is not structured like a human brain. also, head empty. no thoughts. FEARS. being perceived as ugly or untalented, being outed as an alien, being rejected for being an alien, becoming a nobody, losing his social status, becoming a conformist, becoming “outdated” or “uncool” SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL. somehow sky high and on the floor at the same time. he usually thinks he can do anything and he’s pretty perfect, but that may just be from a solid few years of repeating that to himself and empty praise given by people who are just crazy obsessed with him -- he built his confidence level on a very shaky foundation, so it’s easy to start making him doubt himself and panic if you know what to criticize him on VULNERABILITIES. a lot of things, and im sick of typing

* pay me 100000 USD to unlock my LEVEL 20 ZIGGY STARDUST LORE pack now with NAMING/TITLE INFORMATION, HOME PLANET CLIMATE/WEATHER PATTERNS and PAST OCCUPATION/EDUCATION information. includes a piece of gum i found on the floor.

#ooc #meme #I'm so close 2 being done with finals just like one more week i turn in terrible project after terrible project #i am typing this as i wait for a group member to send me the first five pages of our cumulative 10 page essay. i hate him. i hate him.#why is he taking so long. i need to write this thing.#but after that i will go back to what i need to do ...#i run this account like a shitty ship careening into rocks #but i will go down with it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#KEEP YOUR 'LECTRIC EYE ON ME ; queue

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captainnellbatoast · 4 years

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SHARKS, SHARKS AND MORE SHARKS

The subject area I'd like to choose for my FMP is shark attacks which is a theme that I'm really interested in and have a pre-existing knowledge of. The subject of shark attacks is full of incorrect preconceptions that’s been majorly informed by the portrayal of attacks in cult films such as Jaws. These have completely moulded the culture of swimming in the sea worldwide, and the overall view of sharks.

In particular within this subject I’d like to investigate the conflict between human and shark, exploring the villainization of singular sharks which has been heavily influenced by pop culture. I’d like to adopt a process focussed on pacing, suspense, conflict while introducing tone of voice and possibly conversational dialect to the language.

Before 1916 there was skepticism if a shark could even take down a human. In the summer of that year that would be immensely disproved as 5 people were attacked in 11 days on the shore of New Jersey, 4 of which were fatalities. This spree of attacks, which inspired Jaws, birthed the idea that there is a sole shark out there hunting humans, when in fact it is far more likely that a group of sharks moved into that area due to a migrational change, and at the height of summer and beach bathers there happened to be 5 attacks from a collection of sharks. More coincidence than not.

One thing that really fascinates me about this is the vilanization of a single shark which has led to the strange misconception that if you catch a shark around the time of an attack, especially if when gutted it has human remains inside it, your shore will now be safe. The relationship between sharks and humans widely exists as hunt or be hunted even though most people won’t ever encounter a shark in the wild. Does this fear stem from a power complex or is it purely survival instinct induced? Is the fear that we will be hunted or killed? Could this inform a discussion appreciating sharks as hunters and gorgeously engineered killing machines, through an act of respect?

The chances of you being killed by a falling coconut are higher than both being fatally injured by a shark or surviving the attack. Despite most people having a grasp on this concept, or similar, the fear takes over when swimming in murky or even clear open water to the point that many people are fearful and have doubts whilst swimming on even British coasts.

How has culture informed this fear? Jaws has scarred many many children and adults from young ages due to Spielberg’s masterful avoidance of the 12 rating. It is quite hard to believe that it was, and remains, a PG rated film. When speaking to those who were born in the 70s about their first memory of Jaws they often remark how they left the cinema during the screening or how it took a long time to come to terms with their experience of it as they were shit scared. Some note not even wanting to get in the bath. I remember watching the opening scene at 9 on Youtube and then really struggling to grow a pair and get into the sea that summer which I found profoundly odd as I had always really liked monster movies and tended to be a very fearless child when it came to stuff like that. Films like King Kong, Jurassic Park, Coraline, Monster House, which a lot of kids had issues watching, I couldn’t get enough of, but what was different about Jaws though was it could be real. I was able to establish the impossibleness of the other films, but 9 year old me couldn't get it out of my head that unless I never got into the water again I would never truly be safe. I’m still not sure which bit of being attacked by a shark I was more scared for at that point, or if it was just the concept and visual of Alex’s raft floating back all bloody and solo- that stuck with me more than the gorey death bit because I found that kind of cool. Luckily for me peer pressure took over that summer and I got into the water and kind of eliminated that fear. It wasn’t until I went snorkelling in the Caribbean 2 years ago in deep open water that I had to confront this feeling again. Not being able to have 360 vision constantly in crystal clear water was almost scarier than being in murky waters. I have now decided that I think the scariest part of being attacked by a shark (for me) would be if I was in clear water and seeing it swimming straight at me from a distance because at that point nothing is going to be able to stop it.

I could find legs in this concept of fear and begin a tonal conversation on disaster in general and how it is responded to, both culturally and socially. It also begins to beg questions of why are we so scared of the shark species specifically and not say jellyfish when the stings kill way more people annually than sharks. Is it all down to the teeth; the engineering of the shark? What is the land equivalent of the shark? - is there one? or is the shark far superior to any other creature to currently exist? And how has the term been reappropriated to describe a type of person - “he’s a lone shark” “you shark”

I really enjoy watching shark attack documentaries. I like how they remind me how powerless humans can be in a world they dominate, especially when they’re taken off land. By entering the ocean you’re on a shark’s turf at the end of the day so if you get got can you really blame the shark? The varying amount of damage each species can do really shows the dominance of sharks and how perilous an encounter can be. The fact that great whites remain as one of the only animals that humans cannot keep in captivity without them dying almost immediately is a credit to the species.

I also like shark attack programmes because of the suspense and gore that’s recounted. Some of the injuries seem so alien that they come across as fictional and like they’re part of films. I’m not squeamish so on the rare occasions they show in detail injuries and footage of the attacks it’s my lucky day.

As well as accounts of attacks, documentaries often cover and explore preventative measures in shark ‘hotspots’ which has increased my fascination in the species itself a lot more recently. For example, surfers are now encouraged to wear blue patterned wetsuits that mimic the surface of the water as black wetsuits make you look like a seal (shark food). The other issue with black wetsuits, and also patterned, often neon ones, is the shark’s inability to see colour due to its single long-wavelength sensitive cone type in the retina, which means any high contrast in the water is easy to identify and track.

Recently I’ve been researching how climate change will impact shark migration and therefore attacks. The warmer a shark is, the more energy it has for hunting and migration, and with ocean temperatures rising sharks are become more active and migrating to new areas now that the sea is warm enough to be inhabited. Sharks currently found off the Spanish coast and in the Mediteraean are predicted to move north for the first time ever, meaning they could be entering British seas by 2050. Sharks predicted to follow this migration pattern include white hammerheards, blacktips and sandtigers. I wonder if British coasts homed sharks what the cultural and societal response would be to this. This could also spark a speculative investigation into the future of the shark.

I still stand by my 10 year old self’s opinion that death by shark is probably the coolest way to go.

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comicweek · 6 years

Video

youtube

N'Jadaka / Erik "Killmonger" Stevens visits his Dad

Of all the things to praise in Black Panther (of which there are many), this scene to me stands out as the best one in the film and probably one of the all time best in the MCU in general. Marvel Studios has gotten better in recent years at letting directors and their creative partners having a more definite effect on the appearance of their film (even if the big block buster set pieces are still shot and cut pretty standard Marvel.) This scene is Ryan Coogler™, or at least it fits the current thematic pattern of his filmography largely being investigations of both explicitly black masculinity and fatherhood and those ideas in a more general sense*. As a white dude, the specific commentary this scene makes in the larger dialectic about black masculinity and fatherhood I don’t fully get/grasp because hey, lived experiences matter. But taking this scene between in a more broad sense, it’s a powerful piece of filmmaking.

Subconsciously it shows that all Erik wanted was to reconnect with his Father (Sterling K. Browns who makes the most out of like ~7 minutes of screen time). It’s just so profoundly sad, when it theoretically should be a moment of triumph. Brown plays the scene proud-sad. On one hand his son finally returned to the ancestral home claimed his birthright and attempting to do what he wanted; but he has also seen what his son has done to get here. It’s made his son a monster, a Killmonger.

Erik meanwhile reverts back to his younger self (wonderfully played by Seth Carr.) The editing of this sequence, a real simple shot reverse shot, makes it as Coogler and editors Michael P. Shawver, Claudia Castello, cut between these three actors. It’s only here in the surrealist realm of the ancestral plane that Erik allows himself to cry and express any hint of emotional/physical vulnerability and that is heartbreaking. In reality, Killmonger is a real misogynist piece of shit. This isn’t to say that if his dad was around he wouldn’t have turned out that way, but it’s a recognition of the various social systems he came of age in (in particular Toxic Masculinity and the Military Industrial Complex) that stripped away his ability to be an empathetic human being. All it taught him was how to work through his (rightly held) anger by destroying stuff and not recognizing the humanity in anyone else. Ironically, it turned him in the colonizing force he wanted to dismantle. The irony isn’t that he is using their violent methods and just repeating that cycle. It’s that he has fully taken the imperalist view of Wakanda, the place he is supposed to have an eminence respect for and can not recognize it as a culture or place, he burns the heart shaped herb garden, disrespects their mores after twisting them to get what he wanted. All Wakanda is to him is a resource to be exploited and tool for him to enact his rage.

Most importantly, this scene (and the movie in general) just gives you this sense of an alternative reality where this didn’t happen. Erik wasn’t left in Oakland, he’d get to go home and be friends with T’Challa. (Man a scene like that in Untitled Avengers 4 would be heartbreaking). Because one of the other delightful and praiseworthy aspects of Black Panther was how fucking feminine it is. Not in a Mike Pence put them on the pedestal to cherish them sort of way, but in general feminist sense. Wakanda is a utopian fantasy, it’s nice to imagine equality being an actually realized thing there. The actresses all gave their characters a depth and sense of a lived experience supporting characters don’t often have in this type of film. On top of the film in general treating them with respect. It took me three watches but holy shit Danai Gurira just owns the background of scenes with her facial work. Lupita Nyong'o is well Lupita Nyong'o - seriously the main reason I’m interested in John Woo remaking The Killer is because she’s going to be The Killer. It has now been several months, still waiting for Letitia Wright to be in literally everything she has that much screen presence.

Man I’m glad this movie is out on home release.

* Mustafa Yasar II has some good writing on Coogler’s filmography on Birth.Movies.Death

#thoughts #Marvel Comics #MCU #Black Panther #ryan coogler #killmongrer #erik stevens #n'jadaka #sterling k brown

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pdiep · 6 years

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Evaluating 10 Months of Grad School

This is an angry musing targeting no one in particular. I’ve been in graduate school for 10 months now, and I don’t think I’ve grown or matured in any significant way. This is not good, depressing even. I’m not contemplating on leaving grad school or anything; I’m brooding over what went wrong. I can cut myself some slack by reminding myself that there’s a certain lag phase, like the growth pattern of bacteria, that needs to be overcome to reap any real benefits. Admitting that I am going through a lag phase isn’t something I want to do though because it makes me feel like all the training I received in my undergraduate years were for naught. And if you think that undergrad doesn’t matter because you learn everything in grad school, you are wrong. How does that logic work? I got accepted into grad school precisely because I already had that training to hit the ground running in grad school. Yet, here I am stumbling and grasping for failed opportunities to prove myself.

I’ll bite the bullet and say I’m in a lag phase and there’s no escaping it. This is reality. Lag phase doesn’t have a zero slope. Rather, it just has a very small positive slope. If so, how can I increase it ever so slightly to reach that point/time-period where I can truly excel? Are there negative stressors in my life that are making it harder to reach some sort of enlightenment? For the latter question, the answer that comes to mind is time management and extra-curricular balance. Frankly, I hate my current extra-curriculars besides the iGEM work I am doing. The only thing I am gaining from the leadership roles I take in the grad student exec for my department is the social circle I’ve created for myself. And one could argue that that’s more than enough, and I agree. It’s not enough to keep me in these roles though. The work is monotonous for me because I’ve done it before so many times in undergrad. The most annoying thing is that none of that really matters anymore. I’ve left that legacy behind at UW. Coming to UofT means I need to make a new reputation.

I guess this is the silver lining to my melancholy. I have a chance to become someone different from my UW self, perhaps better. Back then I was known for participating in a lot of different extra-curriculars, but that doesn’t mean I need to continue doing that in UofT. And I shouldn’t. What was the point? None of the professors at UW even recognized how much I was doing. No body cares, and it’s important that people who do this much at least get some recognition from the faculty and administration. Am I jaded? Yeah, I am pretty jaded because I did so much to improve student experiences and to help fellow students, but none of these profs cared. They don’t have the time to care. They’re busy people, I get it, so only the students who manage to significantly stand-out from the crowd will get their attention. Oftentimes these are the students who fit that “perfect student” mold. I don’t fit into that mold whatsoever, and I hate that I can’t. I hate that I’m apparently not smart enough, and I hate that my personality doesn’t connect well with professors. I fucking hate it so damn much I want to cry sometimes when the smallest experiments fail to yield insightful results. What the fuck am I doing here?

It wouldn’t be grad school if there wasn’t a challenge. I was part of boy scouts (there were girls too, in fact there were more girls than guys at one point). I grew up with it, and with increasing age I changed ranks. The final rank I finished with was Ventures, in high school. The Venture motto is Challenge. It’s like an omen haunting every career move I make. Challenge. I’ve overcome many, but there’s so many more to go. I know it will never stop, but how do I overcome this current insecurity. How do I stop feeling like I’m not good enough? Recycling previous solutions is no longer the answer for me. Involving myself with so many extra-curriculars has proven detrimental to my research and the quality of work I do for each extra-curricular. I’m spread thin.

What I need to do is to quit stuff. I need to quit thinking that rising the ranks in these student execs is what I need to do to prove myself to these professors. I need to stop caring so much about these awards for “Future Leaders” and whatever else there is. Who cares if I get this award named after better men and women. The people who get them probably deserved them, but I don’t need this external validation. I don’t want to want them anymore. I’ve never received it from any faculty or staff member, so what does it matter. Fuck NSERC and fuck OGS. I apply knowing I’ll never get it. I write these applications with all my heart as if I could seriously get them, but I’m not. My snowball will never exist to leverage the snowball effect. Applying to these awards is as wasteful as gambling. Instead of risking money, I am risking my time. I think I know what to do instead.

I need to quit my extra-curriculars and rid myself of these responsibilities. Forget the titles of the positions, or the instantly gratifyingwhen profs know I am “getting involved.” I need to focus on what I want. What do I want right now?

I want to help build iGEM at UofT into a gold-winning team, and I want them to be able to spread the word about the importance of synthetic biology to undergrads. To build this community.

I want to be an expert in heavy metal bioaccumulation and be able to confidently refute these arguments made against it. I want to demonstrate why mining will need it and it’s a mistake to not capitalize on developing this technology.

I want to be creative. Maybe even culturally avante-garde in the academic setting. If I’m not aiming to be a professor, or to excel in the traditionally-academic sense, then I need to re-define my goals and de-prioritize the pressures pushing me to do more boring extra-curricular positions (at least boring for me; I’m sure others like them and that’s great).

Community building. Field expert. Artistically creative in a rigid environment. If these are my goals moving forward, then I am excited. Let’s see where I get with this new focus.

Note: If you suspect me of being of being jealous, envious, or selfishly biased, that’s cool. Sure, I am. I am not by choice and I have no control because it’s not a humble system. You know who gets awards even if the recipients don’t want people to know. If you’re swamped with the knowledge that this person and this person are being recognized while you’re not despite you trying your hardest, and you think I should suck it up because the world is unfair for everyone, then sorry, but fuck you. These feelings have been accumulating, and attending a departmental award ceremony made me think a lot about this. Not that I deserve any of the awards presented that night because I haven’t had time to make a difference in the community, but I know going down the path to pursue these awards through excellence in specific extra-curriculars is going to leave me feeling as empty as undergrad left me.

#gradschool #goalsetting

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paragonrobits · 7 years

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Choice In Family

Karkat, Terezi, and Dave have a thoughtful nature on the families you get stuck with and the families you chose. While drowning in grub-babies.

Also on Ao3 and FFnet~

“Y'know, it's weird how none of us really get to choose the way our families get us,” Terezi said, claws deftly working needles. She was pretty much skilled at anything she'd ever turned her paws to; a Pyrope trait, to excel at any task they felt obliged to try and they would always master it in record time. Only the Amporas took it to bigger extremes. Terezi, after much painstaking instruction from Rose, had gotten good at needlework.

Dave had to raise an eyebrow at that; barely noticeable under his shades, but she definitely knew. “Really, now,” he said with an affected lack of any tone at all that, despite his best efforts, accentuated the wariness. Any talks about family could go down very bad roads that neither he, nor Dirk or Hal, wished to be addressed these days. “That really that weird, Teez? Nobody really gets to pick your family.”

This got a gruff snort from the the floor. Terezi paused in her weaving of fabric to turn her head towards Karkat, laying down on the ground in a pile of grubs. Infant trolls, perhaps less than a few months old each, all almost the same age down to a few seconds from crawling out of the slurry. They mostly looked alike; similar patterns of horns – mostly not very long, fairly thin but strong – and came in several shades of the castes. A couple were the recently emerged shade of lime, and they looked the most like Karkat. A few were teal, at least two were bright cherry red, and some of the outlying oddities were shades that didn't match up to either one of them. Dave expected jades, olives or even violets to start cropping up. It was like every time he turned his back, new grubs were showing up and squeaking for attention.

“That's just goddamn bullshit, Strider,” Karkat said archly, doing his best to look dignified with multiple grubs crawling over his body like throw pillows made of wiggle, and failing miserably. One was curled up smugly against his chest, and another was hopefully biting his hair. What it was hoping for, it was anyone's guess. “You know it and I know it and Terezi knows it, this damn little child right here on my head knows it and she doesn't know anything. Besides she should know hair is not edible in the slightest, you stop that you bad baby!” The grub yawned in disinterest, curling up into a ball and rolling against his side. “'You can't choose your family', don't be dense. We sure as hell did, didn't we?”

A thoughtful pause filled the room.

“Suppose we did,” Terezi said, a bit cheered up by the thought. “But... I dunno. Dumb thought, I guess. I just thought it was weird that with both our species, with all the differences in how we raise babies and educate them and live our lives, we still have that in common. Not much choice with who you get stuck with.”

“...Yeah. It sucks,” Dave said, very cautiously. “Like, a metric shit-ton. That was a real measurement on Earth. Totally was. I am not bullshitting you here, I can almost definitely promise you, we came up with that one to calculate how much tonnage could be taken up when an elephant just squatted down on innocent bands of wandering accountants and were just being complete bastards about it so they-”

Karkat's noise wrinkled. “Knock it off, jackass, you'll spoil the kids taste for swearing!”

“Eh,” Terezi said. “We could do with a bit less fuckin' cursing in this household, ya hear me?” She paused to sniff at her needlework. It was a grub-shaped bundle of cloth, suitable to hold a grub like a little sweater, complete with straps to tie around an adult troll's body, and stretchy enough to accommodate them as the grubs matured until they reached pupation age. It might also make a good bag for some bread.

Bit of a shame that Terezi's taste in fabric still resembled a zebra made out of plaid and neon lighting that had been fed into an anvil factory, backwards. Dave recoiled in horror from the bright colors.

“I like it,” Karkat said loyally. “It's pretty.”

Terezi smirked, smugly.

“Okay,” Dave said, getting back on track. “But I think I get what Terezi was talking about. Human kids were adopted or born into existing families. Troll kids got culled by their... their loogies.”

“Lusii, you insensitive jackass!” Karkat hollered. Some of the grubs hissed supportively. One of them yawned in Dave's general direction.

“He's doing that on purpose, Kar, don't feed the small squishy's thirst for aggravation,” Terezi said, doing more knitting.

“Yeah, those things,” Dave said, unbothered. “Either way, you get saddled with caretakers that may or may not... uh.” He paused, and it was a very delicate pause. Like one of those old fancy, expensive egg-things on old Earth, but this could crack at any moment, and give birth to crawling horrors he did not wish to see again.

Terezi's arm, seemingly moving on automatic, reached out and grasped his forearm reassuringly. She was so much bigger than him, the swell of her hip alone towering over him even while she was sitting and he was standing up, that her palm engulfed his entire arm. Yet her cool touch was reassuring; Dave visibly calmed down. He breathed in, out, and she gave him another gentle squeeze.

“May not be right to be around a kid,” Terezi said gently, picking up the thread in his head. It was the sort of thread that was probably on fire and burning to the touch.

“Yeah,” Dave said mournfully. “Like that.” He stared at the ground, resolving to go forward, and plunged through with it. “Hell, look at Vriska. Her mom was... messed up. And Gamzee's goat-dad thing was barely ever round, way Karkat tells it.” Karkat nodded, gazing with concern at Dave and gauging if he was Okay. And Feferi basically had to run a whole gamut with Eridan to keep her mom from waking up and ending the world... before she actually did, I mean. Lot of stress to put on a kid.”

Terezi shrugged. “That's the way it was on Alternia. A lot of coldbloods had to do more caretaking than their lusii were able to give in return. And warmblood lusii had... other issues, a lot.” She said this in the calm way of someone who, in her youth, had thought about this a lot and plotted to dismantle the entire system that demanded it be like this. “I've been looking into Beforus. Their culling system; they still had lusii, but they also had some trolls that cared for wigglers. Bit like your and Kanaya's ancestors, Karkat.”

Karkat considered this; the idea of a troll caring for wigglers was a revolutionary one but getting more commonplace. “You mean like the way they were on Alternia... or the ones we actually met?”

There was another pause. “That sounds potentially, uh, super squicky,” Dave said, sticking his tongue out. “Like... her being in that kind of a caretaker relationship while they're both hate-flirting with each other 24/7? That's... that's messed up, man.”

Karkat and Terezi looked at each other and shrugged. They did not question this, even if they didn't really understand Dave's problems; some things just did not translate well. “The point,” Terezi said firmly, carefully edging away from the subject. “Is that what we're planning here... I dunno. Might work better than just turning kids loose with lusii and leaving them to fend for themselves.” She didn't need to emphasize that Alternia was a profoundly unnatural state of being, a world of perpetual warfare and misery orchestrated to make their specific generation strong enough to win SGRUB. Strength, in her opinion, was overrated. If you wanted to see trolls as they really were, without jackass cherubs and their puppet minions constantly bringing out the very worst of them and making that the standard for social behavior and government models... you needed to examine Beforus. That was trolls as they would have been.

“Yeah, I'm just gonna pretend I know what you're getting at, nod a lot and accept the life you've laid out for us,” Karkat said, laying back on the ground and lifting a grub with a grumpiness that Terezi grinned at, knowing full well that this was Vantas cheerfulness.

“You do that, Kar,” she said, mouth wide and toothy.

“If it becomes common place, you could end up with the same... uh, issues on Earth,” Dave said warily.

“See? That's why you're here,” Terezi said. “Telling me about these things so I know what to avoid when I draft the legal stuff for it.”

Dave contemplated the possibility that Bro had wound up being the man he was for just that exact purpose, to make Dave the kind of guy who would be wary of potentially destructive guardians, and he thought he was better off not thinking about that. Terezi winced at this thought, and Dave quickly changed the subject. “I, uh...” he looked at the grubs, and got some inspiration, as well as a legitimate question.

It was blatantly obvious whose grubs they were, or at least the primary donors of the slurry that produced them. Karkat and Terezi were doing their very best to add numbers to overall troll population, and do their part in repopulating their species. Dave privately suspected that they were trying to set some sort of record; outdo whoever the troll equivalent of Genghis Khan or whoever would have had a huge amount of direct descendants. “I thought you needed the Mother Grub or whatever to get troll babies,” he said. “These guys, I know damn well they didn't come from that spawning pool. Where the heck have they been coming from?”

Terezi coughed, looking embarrassed or caught in the act of some culturally damning act of Things Man Was Not Meant To Do. Karkat looked carefully at the ceiling, not looking at Dave. “We, um.” Terezi coughed again, and focused on the knitting. “We found a way. Took a lot of work. A lot of work.”

“That's an innuendo, isn't it.”

“Not in front of the kids,” Terezi said mildly.

#homestuck #karezi #terezi pyrope #karkat vantas #dave strider #my writing #fics

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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How Hideo Kojima and Junji Ito Could Finish What Silent Hills Started

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The collaboration survival horror fans have been waiting for may finally be happening, according to famed mangaka Junji Ito, who confirmed that he’s been talking to video game auteur Hideo Kojima about working together on a new horror project, which has been the subject of much speculation since the release of Death Stranding last year.

Ito shared this tidbit while talking to Viz Media during this weekend’s Comic-Con@Home event (via IGN), where he was asked whether he was currently working on any video game projects.

“So, the simple answer is no,” Ito’s translator Junko Goda told Viz Media. “However, I do know director Kojima and we have been in conversation that he might have a horror-based game that he may be doing, and so he has invited me to work on that, but there are no details on it yet.”

Those who have been following Kojima’s attempts to make a horror game over the years likely know that Ito was previously set to collaborate with the video game auteur and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro on Silent Hills, a new take on the beloved survival horror series starring The Walking Dead and Death Stranding actor Norman Reedus. But the collaboration never got past a few initial meetings and a karaoke session.

“Once the Silent Hills meeting was over, we went to karaoke,” Ito said while speaking at the Toronto Comics Art Festival (via Game Informer) in 2019. “I didn’t hear anything after that. I heard that the plan got scrapped through outside sources. I have seen Kojima and Del Toro since. I never started designing monsters. Nothing exists. There are no roughs or sketches.”

In an interview with IGN about approaching Ito to work on Silent Hills, del Toro called the mangaka “completely one of the masters,” saying that he loved how Ito seemed to “get high on his own supply” while imagining the grotesque monsters, body horror, and extreme violence that are trademarks of the mangaka’s work.

“In the way that you feel Dario Argento in the early movies was getting off on each murder or you feel David Cronenberg was secretly aroused by body horror – in the same way, you feel Junji Ito being titillated at a very basic disturbing level by his stuff,” del Toro said of Ito.

However Silent Hills would have turned out, it does sound like the trio had some interesting new ideas about how to push the survival horror genre forward.

“We had a few working sessions where we were talking about using the console, the next-generation console in a way that would surprise people. Let’s really freak out people. Let’s really cause a panic with Silent Hill. Let’s go for it. Let’s go for full-blown social madness,” del Toro told IGN. “We were planning this stuff. Ito was mainly being nice, making notes. He didn’t sing either. He was a very serious man.”

Unfortunately, when Kojima and publisher Konami had a falling out during the development of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the game director left the company and Silent Hills was quickly canceled. Konami has done little with the series since (besides making Silent Hill-themed pachinko gambling machines).

It’s a shame this all happened before Ito could even put pencil to paper. I personally would have loved to see what monstrosities Ito’s chats with Kojima and del Toro might have inspired. Fortunately, Kojima and del Toro’s P.T. demo was a stunning proof of concept for what Silent Hills might have looked like. It was also its own experiment in “social madness.”

When P.T. was mysteriously released at Gamescom 2014 by a fake studio, many gamers quickly became obsessed with solving the confounding (and terrifying) demo’s seemingly nonsensical puzzles. Within hours, P.T. had become a viral marketing phenomenon, the subject of countless reaction videos, forum threads, walkthroughs, live streams, and social media posts. Of course, beating the demo revealed P.T.‘s biggest mystery of all: that it was, in fact, a “playable teaser” for Kojima and del Toro’s Silent Hills. Yet, by the time the truth had come out, P.T. itself had morphed into its own unique experience destined to outlive the game it was created to promote.

Much has been written about the making of P.T. and its influence on the horror genre in the years since its release. You can also find plenty of videos dissecting different aspects of the demo, including videos of players, dataminers, and modders trying to figure out how the demo works. Siux years later, certain things about the demo remain a secret, including the meaning of its cyclical narrative.

The demo is a notable example of a game going viral, as players worked together on the internet to solve the puzzles, while word of mouth on social media got others to try the demo. While Kojima explored this idea further in Death Stranding, which has its own social mechanics, del Toro and Kojima originally planned to take all of this one step further with Silent Hills, using “every aspect” of the PS4 to “create a state of widespread social panic,” according to IGN. While I’d stop short of saying it caused widespread panic, P.T. itself did spread like wildfire through internet gaming communities in 2014 like some sort of interactive urban myth or creepypasta. Or a meme.

Fans of the Metal Gear series know Kojima loves to insert metafiction and other metaphysical elements into his work, such as with the Psycho Mantis boss fight in Metal Gear Solid and the final twist in Metal Gear Solid 2, which some believe predicted the pervasive nature of meme culture on the internet as well as how technology could be used for social engineering. Many of Kojima’s games specifically tackle how technology can distort and corrupt reality.

P.T. has its own distortive qualities and can even be considered a major turning point in Kojima’s work undoubtedly influenced by del Toro’s own directorial sense. Some critics have said the demo’s endlessly looping hallway, which players must keep walking through to solve P.T.‘s many puzzles, “practically hypnotizes you into a state of vulnerability.” That sense of vulnerability also comes in part from the hostile ghost that follows closely behind you throughout the experience as well as the disorienting nature of the puzzles that work on a sort of dream logic that’s never explained within the actual game. (There are no tutorials or in-game prompts to be found in P.T.)

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By Matthew Byrd

Kojima told The Japan Times in 2014 that with P.T. he wanted to explore “a more genuine, thoughtful and permeating type of fear” than the violence and gore usually found in AAA survival horror games.

“There are horror action games with zombies and grotesque things and so forth. The real fear isn’t from those things. It’s from standing in an empty place, where just to step forward or to turn around is scary,” Kojima said, explaining that the demo is scary because “there’s no information.”

“Nowadays, when people don’t know something, they Google it. They ask on Twitter or Facebook and they get the answer right away. We live in an age of information. When that suddenly disappears, that’s the scariest thing,” Kojima explained. “That’s why there was no information about who made P.T. There was no purpose or background and no explanation about the story, and that’s frightening. I did this on purpose. That’s why I hid my name and title and just let them play.”

While Kojima has said many times since the release of P.T. that the demo wasn’t actually related to Silent Hills in terms of gameplay or story, it’s impossible not to wonder how the success of the interactive teaser would have influenced Kojima and del Toro’s final product, and how Ito’s own work would have added to the experience.

After all, Ito was a perfect fit for the “social madness” Kojima and del Toro were going for with Silent Hills. In his seminal horror manga books Gyo and Uzumaki in particular, Ito deals with extreme levels of social anxiety and the unbridled chaos that follows.

In Gyo, Japan is plagued by undead fish who crawl out of the sea using spider-like metal legs powered by a “death stench.” Images of bloated victims assimilated into the killer fish army pervade the pages of the book as do images of mass hysteria.

If Gyo is Ito’s own take on the zombie genre, Uzumaki is something far more experimental and disturbing. In Uzumaki, a small Japanese town finds itself under attack by a supernatural curse involving spirals. The book is infused with a heightened sense of paranoia, as characters try to navigate the horrific dream logic that’s not unlike the one found in P.T.

Interestingly enough, Ito was inspired to create Uzumaki in part due to his desire to understand spirals as symbols, as well as an interest in depicting spirals in an unexpected way that would scare Japanese audiences, an approach that sounds like Kojima’s own distortion of gameplay mechanics players normally take for granted.

“The ‘spiral pattern’ is not normally associated with horror fiction. Usually spiral patterns mark character’s cheeks in Japanese comedy cartoons, representing an effect of warmth. However, I thought it could be used in horror if I drew it a different way,” Ito said in an interview with 78 magazine in 2006. “Spirals are one of the popular Japanese patterns from long ago, but I don’t know what the symbol represents. I think spirals might be symbolic of infinity.”

While Ito’s work is full of the violence and gore that Kojima wanted to move away from with P.T., it’s clear that the two creators share similar sensibilities when it comes to finding more primal ways of scaring their audiences. Like Kojima and his use of the suburban hallway, Ito often uses images of things that aren’t traditionally considered scary — like spirals — in order to terrify. Another example is hair.

“Historically, long black hair has been symbolic of Japanese women, and most women value this image. The long hair of a woman is common in Japanese horror because it conveys an enveloping feeling of movement. I think it conjures up fear in people unconsciously,” Ito told 78. It’s in this space between what we know to be scary and what people don’t even know they’re scared of yet that both Ito and Kojima excel. With Kojima now running his own Kojima Productions indie studio where he can decide what he wants to work on and with whom he wants to work with next, his collaboration with Ito might finally come into fruition on their own terms. And their past work certainly points to a match made in hell. If Kojima and Ito do decide to collaborate on a new horror game, one would have to wonder how del Toro might fit into the project. After Silent Hills was canceled and a previous video game project called Insane also fell through, del Toro vowed to never work on a game again during an interview with Playboy (via IGN). That said, del Toro did allow Kojima to use his likeness for a major supporting character in Death Stranding, so perhaps there’s hope the Silent Hills trio could be reunited one day. Until then, our hopes of seeing something akin to what was planned for Silent Hills rest with Kojima and Ito. Perhaps Kojima could even teach Ito a thing or two about video games along the way: “I don’t know anything about games. I don’t play them. I am afraid if I get into them I’ll miss deadlines. I have never played Silent Hill,” Ito revealed at the Toronto Comics Art Festival while ruminating on his relationship with Kojima. “I have known Hideo Kojima for 20 years. He is a nice older brother type.”

The post How Hideo Kojima and Junji Ito Could Finish What Silent Hills Started appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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vegas-glitz · 4 years

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Overview of Korea Overall economy and Franchise Business

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Franchise Glance

"We consider South Korea as a designed current market, this means it is no distinct to the United kingdom or the US ... Korean customers are demanding and expect superior-executing products." Hari Nair: Controlling Director, Kimberly-Clark's.

A short while ago all the things appears to be prefixed with a K: K-Pop, K-food stuff, K-attractiveness, K-flicks why not go to your regional K-society festival, certain there ought to be one near you, or coming quickly. Korean culture is on fire at the moment and has been warmly been given. Domestic franchisors have, very rightly, been riding this wave and fast expanding internationally-China currently being a Korea franchisors 1st decision. Nonetheless for an overseas franchisor on the lookout in, what is this sector like?

GDP was US $ 1.2 trillion in 2013 and predicted to rise as buyer spending and self-confidence grows through 2014 and 2015. The Hyundai Exploration Institute most up-to-date report predicts Korea will grow by 3.5% in the to start with half of 2015 and 3.6% in the next half.

Taking into consideration Korea's comparatively slower Asian advancement, it stays a superior target for franchisors owing to historical yrs of steady development, an affluent purchaser base and early development of the nation. The common disposable income per residence for every month was US $ 3150 in the 2nd quarter 2014, a increase of 2.8% from the 2nd quarter 2013, with considerable rises in bakery, confectioneries & treats, espresso & tea, and juice & drinks sectors (Stats Korea ).

The desire for foreign models spans a assortment of sectors and recently a broader variety of channels. 65% of the populace is labeled as center-course (OECD) so contrary to numerous other Asian international locations there is not the common craze of a new, rising middle-course. Supported by media and a comparatively higher degree of vacation experience, the Korean buyers are knowledgeable in a created, globalized current market.

Korean individuals have a powerful purchase record of foreign brand names so as perfectly as valuing dollars, they have a higher knowledge of brand philosophy and internet marketing channels. They will commonly try new solutions and are always seeking new tastes and methods to increase their lifestyle and picture.

For a franchisor, the advertising and marketing has to be additional sophisticated to match the amount of the customer. For case in point, approximately 80% of the populace is on-line, building it the most linked state on the earth! and they appreciate their credit cards. Annual credit card transactions are around 65% higher than the United states. This mixture suggests a significant proportion of online investing and retail ecommerce is predicted to touch $ 25.3 billion by 2017 (Borderfree). Any internet marketing approach has to be multi-channel and use factors of social media to market brand names and make the most of the engineering to provide extra productive buying channels and supply.

Korea's population is ageing and urbanized. The median age in 2012 was 39.1 yrs and the above 60 group is predicted to account for virtually 25% of the populace by 2020 (Studies Korea). Some franchisors might currently focus on this older market while others may perhaps be in a position to effortlessly adapt or extend to target this group. Nonetheless for the rest of us do not despair, as PwC reminds us, 70% of the inhabitants keep on being in just most retailers target demographic of 15-64 a long time previous.

With in excess of 90% of the population living in city spots, these conurbations are massively populated, prosperity dense spaces and retail locations occur at a high quality. The 4 most important inhabitants places: Seoul metro-15 million, Busan metro-4 million, Daegu metro-3 million, and Daejeon metro-2 million.

Key retail gamers are established to open up mega malls exterior of the primary metropolitan areas around the coming a long time but presently Gyeonggi (the region specifically bordering Seoul) and Seoul account for 42% of the complete store room in all Korea (www.kintex.com). Supermarkets and hypermarkets guide retail channels and this lead will raise as it matches the 3 principal obtain motorists of preference, usefulness and price tag.

In spite of economies of scale enabling large shopping complexes to effectively compete with lesser stores, operators are normally looking for to differentiate on their own from every single other. Boosting buyers practical experience by presenting the hottest trend models are a main way they do this. They are not only wanting for thrilling overseas tenants, these operators are also willing to take on Learn agreements and roll out ideas across their formats.

If this is an entry approach of desire, bear in mind that these businesses are wanting for a brand name that will travel targeted visitors, so the merchandise or provider both has to an established title or have a sturdy special component attached to it. Quirky with prolonged term viability can be great USP and malls, a pretty helpful way to introduce your brand into Korea-predominantly as the value of educating the populace will be borne by the shopping mall operators and you can be assured it will be performed with a higher stage of proficiency.

The franchise industry in 2013 was believed at US $ 89.8 billion with nearly 3,000 franchises. There had been 283 retail franchises, 601 provider franchises and 2,089 food items services franchises (export.gov). Even with latest downgrades of GDP, the franchise marketplace has shown respectable development over latest a long time with on regular 200 new franchises opening every year since 2010.

Koreans are extremely open up to partnering with abroad franchisors, primarily with all those that have an existing popularity in Korea or core...values which mirror their origin country. Koreans aged 55 and around have not long ago proved on their own to be great franchisees as they have additional cash and knowledge, and remaining a family members oriented tradition, will pass the enterprise down to their young children. The franchise marketplace regulations guarantee enterprise frequently operates smoothly and Korea is regarded as a clear-cut spot to franchise into.

The typical financial commitment array is among US $ 4,300 and US $ 8,700 with a 2 12 months agreement period. This sort of a lower normal franchise payment can make it much more hard for an overseas franchisor to recruit a multi-unit or more substantial lover. There will also be a fantastic deal of negotiation about royalties as they are typically reduce for domestic Korean franchises.

Brief breakdown of sectors:

The Korean foodstuff industry is anticipated to be US $ 53.5 billion in 2013 and account for 25% of overall retail income a advancement of 5.5% from 2012 (JLL).

The natural and organic foodstuff market place is predicted to mature to US $ 6 billion by 2020 (Organic and natural Trade Affiliation).

The on-line channel is forecast to improve at CAGR 11.38%, 2013-2018 (Analysis and Markets).

South Koreans put in US $ 17.9 billion on private tuition in 2012.

The magnificence and individual care retail sector posted 5.8% progress 12 months on year to 2013.

The cosmetic sector was the finest carrying out sector in 2012.

Korea is the 8th most significant luxury industry worth nearly US $ 4.5 billion.

Households expended 12.4% of overall use expenditure on eating outside the house (Gain).

In 2012, imports of chocolate primarily based confectionary solutions from the United States were up 12% from the preceding year (Attain).

Korea has turn out to be the major gentlemen's cosmetics sector in the world. The US $ 635m invest in 2013 was virtually a fifth of the world wide figure (Euromonitor).

Korean client

Koreans are educated, subtle, comparatively perfectly-off and nicely knowledgeable. With state-of-the-art customers arrives a choosy, bigger demanding buyer. Strategy and method should really parallel other sophisticated international locations. The buyers are not seeking for just a international model, they are trying to find a brand name that has a unique USP and they will shell out far more for this. That USP can be in track record, excellent, substances or innovativeness, but it should stand apart from the group in a particular way.

This does not mean all markets are saturated and there is no opportunity for new sectors. As described, there is an ageing population and the affluent 50+ infant boomer generation is much from finish. Other visible modifications that are opening marketplaces:

Enhance of dual profits families.

Rise in single father or mother homes.

Maximize in solitary member homes.

Korean people are pretty utilised to staying informed across a selection of channels about a solution before they invest in it. A 2012 study by Embrain Pattern Check observed that 79% of prospects examine user assessments before acquiring and 74% have created evaluations and evaluations. Consequently, the extra data you can deliver across a wide variety of channels will only be a very good thing. The surprise or curiosity promoting technique will possibly have to be thoroughly molded or have a incredibly sound spending plan behind it.

Koreans are graphic aware in all features and they have the expertise to fully grasp what lifestyle or position a brand portrays. They carefully comply with and are affected by the media and celebrity types and developments. Though these fads can be brief lived, it is great assistance to have the skill to swiftly adapt and operate strategies or introduce extension solutions that hook up with the most current trends.

Overview of in which desire lies and in which potential demand from customers could lie:

Owing to the prosperity of regarded foods, progressive and premium meals will appeal.

Franchises offering performance in browsing and delivery will match shoppers comfort requirements.

Koreans are educated and realize the have to have for their kids to be. In this current market exists superior desire for vocational and language providers.

An older, quite affluent demographic provides a increasing industry for qualified expert services and products.

Assume of Koreans as discerning shoppers. They request organic, normal, fresh new, superior excellent products and solutions.

Overall health improving and anti ageing foodstuff and firms will display higher need.

Wellbeing benefitting herbs will be development elements.

Koreans want food with brighter, extra saturated colours (Origin of human colour desire for food items).

Specialty stores stocking a assortment of market, greater priced, quality things that tie in with the over are spreading across Korea and include a vary of sectors from attractiveness to bakeries to grocers.

The bottom line:

A reliable market but with levels of competition, and industrial estate can be expensive. This has to be balanced with the sophistication and affluence of the market place. It can not be denied that at current there is far more of a trend of coming out than into Korea, nonetheless, with a formulated industry that has a tested globalized watch, it is an quick place to enter.

To conclude: Though opportunity may well not be as good as their Asian neighbors, decreased time and fees from having educated consumers and properly versed franchisees are vital factors.

Franchise Fulfills reckons: 7/10.

Source by Darren Harris

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vileart · 7 years

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Hyperion Dramaturgy: George Siena @ Edfringe 2017

esprit de corps presents the world premiere of:

Hyperion

Greenside

4-26 August I 60 minutes

In a bunker on a Greek island, a conscript keeps watch. Alone. His mission: to guard the border for 72 hours. Three days later, no one shows up: no replacement, no pick-up, no one. What to do? Hyperion is a performance inspired by Friedrich Hölderlin's early romantic novel, Hyperion or the Hermit in Greece (1797). Written in an age of revolutions and seismic changes in Europe, the novel traced the journey of a young Greek dreaming of national independence and freedom from foreign rule.

What was the inspiration for the performance? Hyperion has two main sources of inspiration. First, there’s the epistolary novel written by Friedrich Hölderlin, published in 1797: a young Greek, Hyperion, returns to his homeland after years abroad and deplores its state of devastation and the abuses of the Ottoman regime. He joins a secret revolutionary group aiming at emancipating the country from foreign rule. In the process, the rebel leaders will betray their initial cause preferring to pursue their personal ambitions, leaving the country divided and subjugated as ever. Hyperion is once more pushed to self-exile. There’s nothing new under the Greek sun. Hölderlin writes in an age of revolutions and seismic changes in Europe, both political and social. His oeuvre is still very much influenced by the Enlightenment with a very personal prophetic instinct about the limits of the realm of Reason and the dangers humanity faces in alienating itself from Nature and the sense of Being-in-the-world. His whole work has been a source of inspiration: his poetry, his philosophical essays and his personal letters. They are all one. The second source of inspiration is our current political environment, European but also more broadly Western. The Greek debt crisis, soon reaching its tenth birthday without foreseeable prospects of recovery, is undeniably both a bitter source of inspiration and the backdrop that forms and informs the performance. It’s the element that gives it that sense of entrapment. Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? That’s such a crucial question. I don’t think there is anything as potent as live performance to touch in depth those involved in it, all those present in the room. So then the question is: who is in the room? Who are we discussing with? There is a real challenge in terms of reaching audiences beyond our kind. I find it difficult when artists end up doing work that only other artists see, forming a little arty bubble that doesn’t reach out. Performance equally loses its raison d’être when treated like a product with a specific market to target. ‘Who’s your audience?’: every serious theatre maker is supposed to do some marketing in order to viably preach to the converted. Is our audience in this case that other, larger bubble of relatively well-off liberal-thinking theatre-goers? Are we just another recycled expression of what is already discussed on tv and in newspapers? It’s a bit like our social media networks that end up being echo chambers: a recipe for stillness not growth. There is a cultural dimension to it: in Greece, going to the theatre is part of popular culture, not just a middle-class pastime. The audience at Epidaurus is a microcosm of Greek society in its entirety. Equally, a bit further East, I was amazed by the Moscow theatres where I’ve seen the best shows so far in my experience as an audience, but most importantly, where all social classes seemed to be present. There are tickets for a pound in the best Moscow venues. Then yes, that can become a good space for the discussion of ideas. How did you become interested in making performance? I have a classical acting background which was my first contact with stage work. I started making my own work at the London International School of Performing Arts (still called LISPA though they’ve moved to Berlin!) The training is inspired by the teachings of Jacques Lecoq and takes its students on a most incredible journey of creativity. If you meet Lispa graduates they will all agree their training there was a life changing experience. It was eye-opening, a bit like an initiation. I hope I don’t make it sound too much like a cult! More broadly, making one’s own work feels like being part of a wider trend. There is an ever growing number of actors, dancers, performers who find themselves much more in creating their own material or devising with others. There is such an empowering element to it. Making performance or the co-authorship of performance is also relative to emerging methods of work, and that goes beyond the arts: they are less vertical than traditional ones, more collaborative. Is there any particular approach to the making of the show? The approach is: throw everything in the space, make a big mess, a too-much of materials. For example: the novel Hyperion was published in 1797: what was going on then, what can help me understand the world I’m visiting? I find historical research fascinating and I’ll bring in anything I might consider even remotely relevant to the piece, or something surprising or unexpected I’ve come across. There was of course so much material regarding Hölderlin: his poems in particular, his essays, his letters; then there was the presence there of what inspired him, like the Greeks, especially the Pre-Socratics… then his native Swabia that I had the chance to visit: some filmic material from that trip is used in the performance… So the challenge is always: where or when to stop? T here will always be more stuff out there so one needs to set a limit at some point. On the other hand, even if less than 1% of all this material gathered finally makes it in the show, it still felt necessary for my own writing process and the creation and ‘ownership’ of something at the same time ‘original’ and genuinely ‘inspired by’. Then there’s a whole range of apparently ‘unjustified’ materials that come along in the mix, more instinctive and less ‘intellectual’ I guess. Stuff one wants to play with - an image, an object, a medium, anything, even when one is not sure where the idea comes from. It might find its way later. To the bin probably. Although it’s increasingly difficult along the process, this necessary elimination defines and refines what the performance wants to do. Then the game is to create some order, find some rules, or some kind of structure and carve out the show from that initial messiness. And finally question the limits of that order too. Does the show fit with your usual productions? I guess it does with the productions that are consciously seeking to find their form - and accept that quest as part of the performance. Hyperion is somehow cross-genre and that is because the experience of exile and the search for one’s language is at its core. What do you hope the audience will experience? Fun, emotion and thought! Isn’t that the grail of every performer and theatre-maker? I hope they will experience a genuine sharing. There are aspects of the performance that defy narrative patterns and narration altogether: I hope they will accept the invitation whenever the onstage events go against their expectations. Last, there is a political aspect to this piece which is by no means restricted to the Greek crisis, but tries to look at the questions that lie beneath and currently touch all western societies. I hope the audience will be interested in responding to that. What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience? What felt essential was to keep a sense of playfulness that would be shared with the audience when leaping from one character to another, one world to the next, or between ‘genres’. It might not be a ‘play’, but play we must! Interweaving historical events and experience of contemporary Athens, this performance re-visits Hölderlin’s work by blending text, physical theatre, original music and film. Created and performed by George Siena, Hyperion questions our sense of belonging and heritage in a changing world and explores themes of identity and exile, individual responsibility and collective action. A major German poet, Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of idealism and dialectics. Inspired by Greek philosophy and poetry, his thought pursues the overcoming of conflict and opposition in an englobing unifying principle. Greenside @ Royal Terrace (venue 231) 1b Royal Terrace, EH7 5AB 60 minutes 4-26 August 4-5 August: 11.25am previews £5 7-12 August: 11.25am £7 (£6) 14-19 August: 10.15am £7 (£6) 21-26 August: 12.35pm £7 (£6) George Siena, creation and performance A National Theatre of Greece graduate, Siena obtained the 2005 Academic performance Award, and worked in productions of the Greek National Theatre and the Athens Festival. A multi-lingual performer, he has had the chance to work across Europe, performing in Greek, French and English. Based in London for the last ten years, he has performed in a wide variety of genres including devised theatre, movement-based shows, ancient drama, new writing, immersive theatre, opera and dance, making work at the NT Studio, Young Vic, Riverside Studios and ENO where he had the chance to collaborate with directors Yoshi Oida and Terry Gilliam. As a deviser, he worked with Clod Ensemble, Slip of Steel and co-founded Off-balance and Move to Stand. Further training in Theatre Directing lead him to Moscow for seminars at the GITIS Academy and to assisting Simon Usher in Peer Gynt and Jemma Gross in The Winter’s Tale. Recent directing work includes Gilgamesh by Denise Stephenson, currently in development, and assisting Kelly Hunter on the European tour of Flute Theatre’s Hamlet. Byron Katritsis, composer A composer, writer and performer based in Athens, Katritsis explores ancient stories and archetypal themes with contemporary sound. For over ten years, he has been composing for theatre and film in Greece. Neon's composition for the poems of Kariotakis met extensive critical acclaim. His most recent work for the stage includes Athens Festival productions of Medea and Flux, Hamlet Machine at the Athens Contemporary Theatre and Foinisses at the Delphi Festival 2017. Mayou Trikerioti, costume design Mayou Trikerioti trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Mayou is one of Greece's most established theatre designers, working at venues including the National Theatre in Athens and the Ancient theatre of Epidavros. She now lives in London where she has recently designed at the Young Vic and Riverside Studios. Since 2007 Mayou has designed feature and short films that have traveled across the globe and screened at international film festivals, including Venice Film Festival, Berlin and Toronto IFF. Most recently she designed costumes for True Crimes, dressing amongst others Jim Carrey, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Agata Kulesza. Melly Still, mentor Melly Still is a theatre and opera director and began her career as a choreographer and designer. She has worked for many companies including the National Theatre, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Bristol Old Vic, Hampstead Theatre, The Manchester Royal Exchange, Liverpool Playhouse and the Young Vic. She has been nominated for Olivier and Tony awards (best director and best design). Her work has travelled throughout the UK, Europe, Scandinavia, the Far East, US and Broadway. Li-Tien Chueh, dramaturgy Li-Tien has worked as a director with Cheng-Chi and Tam-Kang Theatre in Taiwan, in productions such as Hedda Gabler, Death of a Salesman, and several site specific performances. In London, she completed an MFA in Theatre Directing and assisted Tony Graham in Three Birds Alighting On A Field, at the Tristan Bates Theatre. A steady ‘outside eye’ and dramaturg for Hyperion, she wrote to George in August '15 before leaving for Greece on a night bus: ‘’I want to see where Hyperion comes from. The land, the people, the air, the water’’. She is currently based in Paris where she works as a director and continues exploring methods of devised theatre.

from the vileblog http://ift.tt/2sn0K5M

#Theatre #Blogger #visual art #Edinburgh Fringe #Experimental Critique

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excxt · 7 years

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Scream Smart: Why Hardcore is More than Angry Immature Young People

When I first arrived at music school at the age of 18, I was afraid to tell people what kind of bands I listened to. It felt strange to tell a student body whose alumni included Quincy Jones, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Howard Shore that I listened to hardcore. My first two semesters felt like a race to learn about the jazz, soul, and obscure indie art bands it seemed everyone else was idolizing, a world of music that had somehow slipped by me. I played Grant Green solos in my private guitar instruction and downloaded Eryka Badu albums. I gave the stuff a fair shake, and I ended up learning a lot. I went into school listening primarily to artists at whose shows a person could reasonably expect to be physically injured, but I came out listening to a little bit of everything. But somewhere in the middle of those four years I also learned to grow a spine and admit what it was that moved me. I went into my third semester guitar lesson and told the same teacher with whom I’d been studying jazz licks and BB King solos that I wanted to play punk music. I was shocked when his eyes lit up and he started making a list of albums for me: The Clash, The Police, U2. I showed him mewithoutYou records and we spent the next two semesters perfecting the power chord and my rhythm. For my final proficiency exams I played Pink Floyd solos. I was excited about my instrument again, and excited to have a teacher I could connect with. When people asked me about the kind of music I listened to, I started answering honestly- At The Drive-In, Converge, Jawbreaker, Refused, and Thursday. Suddenly people started responding differently (“FUCK YEAH AT THE DRIVE-IN”), and I found a whole new population that I didn’t think existed at Berklee. I still went to some shows alone (White Wives, Touche Amore) but others I went to with friends (Thrice, La Dispute, Deftones, Refused), and the more I publically shared my love of these bands, the better I felt.

Since graduating college, I’ve come across the same reaction when using that all-encompassing word; “hardcore” means many different things to people, and sometimes the associations are overgeneralized, misinformed, or simply inaccurate. For a long time when I said the words “punk” or “hardcore” to someone I could see their brains pulling up generic images of meatheads with tattoos screaming about how they hate their parents, or on the other end of the spectrum, kids with leopard print hair and raccoon eyes crying about how much they hate their parents. Loud angry music that was easy to make fun of and even easier to dismiss as teenage angst in an audible form. I’m not saying that the music isn’t frequently emotionally brutal; it is. I’m saying that the people behind it, the musicians, writers, promoters, listeners, fans, are much more than a collection of overdramatic lip pierced youths rebelling for the sake of rebellion. It’s a group of intelligent, passionate, frequently polite and well-spoken people of all ages and backgrounds who find kinship in the music and what it stands for. And what it stands for is another aspect that means different things to different people, even within the scene itself. For some, the music itself is enough. But for many others like myself, the records were what lured us in, but the movement behind them were what kept us.

Hardcore taught me to care. Its average participant rails against apathy by caring about something that needs to be actively cared for- hardcore is not self-sustaining. It will go away if there aren’t people pumping blood to it. It’s not a money maker, it’s not cool, and to many people does not appear to spread anything good or worthwhile into the world. It needs those who need it in return. From putting together shows and tours to self-releasing records and putting together 2,000 limited edition box sets by hand, hardcore was built and continues to run on human work ethic and passion. Gabriel Kuhn describes the DIY lifestyle in his book “Sober Living For the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics” as “a principle of independence and of retaining control over one’s work. [DIY] defines original hardcoe punk ethics and, to many, remains the decisive criterion for true hardcore punk; the most tangible aspects of hardcore punk’s DIY culture are self-run record labels, self-organized shows, self-made zines, and non-commercial social networks.” In other words, there are people working at major pop labels who don’t necessarily care about pop music. But no one who doesn’t care about hardcore will work at a hardcore label.

More than any other musical genre, it is a lifestyle, and as varied as the details of the lifestyle can be, it tends to center around being concerned and caring about something- the planet, politics, human and animal rights, the arts, the culture, and the people of hardcore in general. It is different that the relationship I believe people tend to have with other genres of music- pop/top 40, jazz, country, classical- because of its background in activism and alternative lifestyles. I learned about veganism from AFI, straight edge from Minor Threat, and everything from human rights to environmental preservation from Anti-Flag. Because of hardcore I wrote dozens of letters to world leaders as a participant in Amnesty International’s annual Write For Rights project. Because of hardcore I became a vegetarian for seven years. When people think of punk bands as nothing more than a gang of loud mohawked ne’er do wells, they miss the point. United Nations sounds like a rock band thrown into a blender with a handful of nails and a pint of acid, but their songs encourage listeners to become more aware of their government. MewithoutYou run their tour bus on vegetable oil they get leftover from restaurants. Thursday turned me on to Kurt Vonnegut, Cormac McCarthy, David Foster Wallace, and Charles Bukowski. Jake Bannon takes DIY to another level with Converge, Deathwish Inc., and the art he designs for his own band and others. Bands are known to mingle with fans after shows, spending hours discussing music and the scene. When crowds become too rowdy, bands stop playing and remind the crowd to take care of each other and pick each other up. The same people on the stage will be sleeping on the floor of someone in the audience after the show. The musicians are the listeners and the listeners are the musicians. It’s about giving and not taking. It requires work. It’s not for the elite, the privileged, the people who feel as though they are owed something from the world. It is a passion for change and galvanization that keeps hardcore running. The liner notes of Refused’s landmark album The Shape of Punk to Come puts it this way:

“The lack of stimulants within art, politics, and life lowers our standards, which is why we settle for talk shows and MTV. We are not stupid, but if we are treated like ingrates we will start to act like children. The lack of challenging forms of expression and thoughts of fire and self confidence gives us a hollow nature. So reclaim art, take back the fine culture for the people, the working people, the living people… Cause we have nothing to lose and therefore our expression will be the only honest one.”

The desire to make things better through better living, better thinking, and better treatment of others was what kept me enthralled with hardcore. These people are smart, their ideas are good and their music is beautiful.

So onto the music itself. To me, hardcore has widened to encompass many different sounding artists that all sprouted from a similar root. I don’t like to waste time tagging sub-genres because all the bands I listen to evoke the same feelings. I think of everything from Sunny Day Real Estate, Defeater, 7 Seconds, and Murder By Death to Earth Crisis, Moving Mountains. Frank Turner, and Joy Division. Like Israeli hardcore scene veteran Santiago Gomez says, “You could dress like a Jamaican hippie, help old ladies across the road, use non-conventional instruments, sing happy, harmonious songs, or play slower than a herd of snails travelling through peanut butter- and still be punk. Because, in a way, being punk is very much like being in love: there are no rules, no specifics, no rhyme nor reason and no real “definition” except a tautological concept of nearness and identification. And that’s the way we damn well like it.” Still, despite all the shapes and sizes a band can take, it does seem that the emotions conveyed in the great majority of punk/hardcore songs tend to lean heavily on anger, frustration, loss, and a sense of hopelessness. This could be why a lot of people turn away from it. Then what is it that makes some of us lean into it? People turn to hardcore as a haven, myself included. It taught me to look outside my own situation, despite how self-involved the music can seem sometimes. The point isn’t that “I hurt,” “I’m lost,” “I’m angry and I don’t know why,” but that there is a whole world of people out there feeling the same way, and to become involved with them is to somehow heal yourself. People listen to Touche Amore because when Jeremy Bolm shouts the simple lines “I’m losing sleep/I’m losing friends/I’ve got a love-hate-love/With the city I’m in,” they know what that loss and complication feels like. People who feel emotions as desperately as hardcore expresses them place their trust in it because it gives them assurance that they’re not crazy. They are depressed, anxious, confused, frustrated, and lost because they care, and hardcore offers them solace with the promise that there are others who care as well. It is why, as I get older and spend more time doing things that aren’t traditional punk pastimes- I do yoga, I juice raw vegetables, I’m learning to design my own knitting patterns- that I still feel as connected to hardcore as I ever have. I care enough to move to different cities until I find one I love, to switch jobs until I find one fulfilling, to learn and work hard and keep getting up, because hardcore taught me to. I still find it compelling, from Deafheaven’s sprawling black metal soundscapes to La Dispute’s literature-themed lyrical grace. I think there is a lot to be excited about in hardcore right now, as there always has been for those willing to look.

And like any good argument in favor of punk music, this one ends with Ian MacKaye. For the past thirty-five years he has chosen to stick with a scene that has both praised him and pigeonholed him. But his view of hardcore reaches far beyond the realms of any passerby that would quickly deem it immature or self-interested:

“There was a certain period in my life when I was very angry, when I was really agonizing over things. It made me feel miserable, and I begin to question everything: What is the point of all this punk rock? What is the point of me singing? What am I trying to do? Eventually, I realized that the reason I was so angry was because I want people in the world to be well. And I realized that it was a worthwhile project to pursue in my lifetime… I guess that’s an illustration of putting into action a philosophy of Live as you desire the world to be. It doesn’t mean to be unaware and not to care. It means to love and to be well and to wish for others to be well too.”

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tune-collective · 7 years

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From Kanye to Kings of Leon, Why Artists Need Creative Directors In The Age of Instagram

Back in 2003 when Virgil Abloh was just a grad student finishing up his masters degree in Chicago, he connected with Kanye West, impressed him with his aesthetic prowess and landed himself a spot in the rapper’s entourage. In the 14 years since, Abloh has climbed the ranks to become creative director, advising the hip-hop mogul on everything from tour merchandise design and album covers to music video concepts and identifying underground artists on Tumblr who eventually worked their way into West’s work. He has played a key role in helping West connect with youth culture — in helping West remain culturally relevant.

He’s also made his “creative director” title something of a buzzword in the music industry. Andra Day and Wiz Khalifa each have one; The Weeknd works with La Mar Taylor, while Travis Scott has Marc Kalman. “Most artists today have built their own tribes around themselves,” says Mazdack Rassi who is creative director of Milk Studios, a media and events company and agency. “Many [artists] run their teams like a creative agency and what’s great about this format is that they get to own their own brands.”

Part of this trend, though, can be attributed to changes in record labels, whose A&R departments once exerted far more control over artists’ on-and-off-stage aesthetic. “Labels aren’t what they used to be and artists are realizing that they know best when it comes to exploring their inner creative,” Rassi adds. James W. Mataitis Baile (aka Yimmy Yayo), who has worked with full-fledged pop stars like Rihanna and Bruno Mars, artists Vic Mensa and Vince Staples, as well as indie darlings like Wet, echoes similar sentiments. “People are coming to labels with their creative already established,” he tells.

“There was a time when the major label was king—the Britney [Spears] or Justin [Timberlake] era, for example—but everyone was kind of looking the same, everything became kind of mechanical. I know from working with a few artists on major [labels] now, that they don’t want internal creative, and the management doesn’t want it either because it feels constrictive a lot of the time. When you have marketing dinosaurs from a label saying ‘oh you should wear this jacket’—you’re just like ‘no, this is bad.’”

The demand for creative directors is also a reaction to the volume of content people are ingesting across digital platforms. A 2015 study by Deloitte reported that Americans collectively checked their phones 8 billion times per day, with each person averaging 46 individual check-ins. According to Robert J. Thompson, a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University, the surge in imagery they are accessing will only continue. “The rate of acceleration that we are in will be a forever thing, but there is a finite number of visual ways you can represent stuff on two dimensions,” he says. “Humans by nature love looking at things, they have an appetite for consuming images that are interesting and make us see things differently. And that appetite will never fully be satiated.” The one thing that does reach a saturation point? “How many images an individual can make a commitment to.” Essentially, that means the images people cling onto have to truly stand apart from the rest, and that’s where creative directors come in. “The whole world of possibilities that the internet has opened up is strengthening people’s tastes, causing people to demand more of artists, which in turn is pushing us to work harder to create something meaningful,” says Black Atlass, the 22 year-old Canadian R&B artist who enlisted in Yayo to help with all of the art when releasing his debut album, Haunted Paradise (Fools Good), last August. Atlass and Milk’s Rassi also make the case that the decision of artists to team up with creative directors early on in their careers can have a paramount effect: “It’s more important to start with a great creative direction around your music and what you stand for. Much more difficult to recreate an image later,” says Rassi.

Casey McGrath, the Chief Creative Officer of New York-based agency Phear Creative, offers a different perspective. “I think new bands inherently have strong points of view. They are what they are; their brand is ‘young hungry band’ and there aren’t preconceptions. Album number seven, though, is a different challenge,” he explains. With Kings Of Leon, whom he has known since 2008, he says, “You ask yourself why an album like Come Around Sundown didn’t perform as well as it should have? It was a great record. What could have happened? What could have been done better?” The answer lies somewhere in the notion that “fans are like consumers: they aren’t just going to eat something because it tastes good. If you don’t have a strong sense of who you are or what you’re making—people don’t care. You have to reinvent: if you’re not changing you’re dying.”

So when the Nashville-based group began writing WALLS (RCA), their seventh LP that debuted in October at Number 1 on the Billboard 200, McGrath and his team sought to create what they call an “active listening experience”—to create visual accompaniments that would convey to fans and non-fans that the new music was going to sound completely different because it looked completely different.

McGrath and his team drew from their 10 year relationship with the band — what they knew about them personally (the way that lead singer Caleb Followill shapes songs, the art that hangs in Matthew Followill’s home), and from things the band would unknowingly say throughout the recording process — when dreaming up imagery. The overarching feel, says McGrath, was rooted in nature (“the band is rootsy”) but pressed through an absurdist lens (“they also clean up nice and can be slick”). “But instead of going to some incredible talented photographer that has their own look, that you end up leaving with two band-approved photos — I wanted to have 100 images, multiple wardrobe changes.” Enlisting in Jimmy Marble, a relatively unknown photographer Phear discovered through Instagram, the band ended up with a “tremendous output” of work that landed in their live show, on merchandise, and across social media channels so the album experience was a visually cohesive one.

But while creative directors seek to avoid trends, to never rest on one look or idea — what about the trend of “creative directors” themselves? As Professor Thompson points out, “The minute something becomes a pattern its own demise is built into that. Pattern destroys innovation. Pattern suggests predictability, and predictability is anathema to what artists want.” So does a cultural cognizance of creative directors point to their extinction or a next iteration?

Yayo, who landed his big break doing the lighting design for West and Jay Z’s Throne Tour in 2012, has responded by simply not using the title for himself. “It’s become a catchphrase, buzz-term, trending topic,” he acknowledges. “Whenever anyone asks me, I don’t do it. I dislike what the term means today,” he says without the slightest pretension. Because the fact is, the creative director title requires time and specific knowledge, but it can be defended with no real substance. “To call yourself a ‘Photographer’—well, were you first assistant? Second assistant? Second Shooter? And then a photographer? Or did you just grab a camera? A lot of people use the phrase haphazardly,” says Yayo. “A kid who has an Instagram account is a ‘Creative Director’ these days but you can’t say you’re a lawyer without having taken the bar exam.”

This article originally appeared on Billboard.

http://tunecollective.com/2017/04/21/kanye-kings-leon-artists-need-creative-directors-age-instagram/

#age #Artists #creative #directors #Instagram #kanye #kings #leon

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lifestyledivine · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Laurel Marshall

New Post has been published on http://laurelmarshall.com/build-your-health-beyond-the-fork/

Build Your Health Beyond the Fork

When it comes to improving health and wellness, the first thing most people think to change is diet. Eating clean, whole, nutrient dense foods is essential to a healthy body, however, it is not the only thing to consider. Primary food goes beyond the plate, nurturing us on a deeper level. These include things like relationships, career, physical activity, spirituality, etc. These are the elements or activities that bring fulfillment, wholeness, and balance to a person’s life. You can eat all the broccoli on the farm, but if you are unfulfilled, over worked, and stressed beyond belief, you are not on track to live a long and healthy life. To understand primary foods is to understand that all aspects of an individual’s needs including psychological, physical and social are to be taken into account and seen as a whole.

More Than Food– As children, we were too busy playing outside with friends, or riding our bike to bother with food. We were bummed when we heard our parents calling us in for dinner. How about that feeling when you first fall in love? New couples are far more interested in each other than in eating. Consider the successful entrepreneurs who are fueled by their work. They are pursuing their dreams, doing the things they are passionate about, and often forget to break for lunch. The excitement and rapture of daily life can feed us differently and more holistically than any food.

Fill or Deflate– We all have certain things in life that give us energy and gusto. Conversely, there are things or activities that suck the life out of us. For example, an extrovert will come home from a cocktail party, or professional business mixer feeling energized. He or she will be too wired to go straight to bed. An introvert will come home from that same event exhausted and depleted. It is helpful if we discover what fuels us, and what drains us. I think of it kind of like a cup. The stresses of life, challenging relationships, difficult bosses or customers can drain our cup. Even fun parties or public speaking will zap If we are completely depleted, we have nothing left to give to loved ones. We find ourselves quick to anger, sporting a bit of a short fuse. We feel out of balance which can look or feel different for each individual. It could feel like any of the following: anxiety, depression or melancholy, frustration , joylessness, overwhelm, boredom, over-tired, uninspired, exasperated, or even anger.

When this happens, chances are our cup is dangerously low, and needs filling. Fill it with some of these primary foods that may be lacking in your life. The ones that make you feel more alive. The stuff that makes your heart sing, gives you a sense of peace and tranquility, restores your soul or inner being. Here are some examples.

Physical activity– Maybe you’re a runner or cyclist. Maybe you love nature walks and hikes. Yes, it’s true a runners’ high is addicting, but even when your working up a vigorous sweat, exorcise can be calming. It relieves stress, and even sparks creativity. I do my best work on the trails. This is where I come up with great ideas for my business. Perhaps you have a love for sailing, racquetball, tennis, horse back riding, you fill in the blank. Schedule time for it. Recognize it as a priority for your health. And not just physical health. I’m a much more patient and peaceful wife and mom if I’d had my run. I stopped here to take a pic of this trail I like to run. The scenery is so beautiful and peaceful. It’s the best medicine for stress, boredom, anxiety, or even sadness. I feel so invigorated and accomplished when I’m done.

Career- Do what you love. If you work full-time and take let’s say a 2 week vacation per year, you are spending 2000 hours/year at work. Over 50 years that’s 100,000 hours. I will never understand why people are willing to waste so much of their precious time on earth in a job that makes them miserable. The money isn’t worth it in the long run. You know the saying: “if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” If its not possible to follow your dreams to do something you are truly passionate about at this specific moment in your life, what steps can you take to make that a reality down the road? What can you do to make the most out of your present work environment? What are your options? Is it a transfer to another department, office, or region? Could you ask for special projects utilizing your gifts and talents, allowing you to feel successful, creative, fulfilled? Can you create a work space environment that makes you feel comfortable, creative, happy, and productive with the use of candles, pictures, essential oils, music, nice office furniture, etc. Maybe it comes down to just being organized. If my home office is in disarray, I am not only distracted and unproductive, but I feel a bit anxious. I prefer to be organized and free of clutter.

Spirituality- Everyone at some time in their life ask the age old question. What’s the meaning of life? Or what’s my purpose in life? We all have the capacity for a spiritual connection. I think we are instinctively born with the desire to worship, but don’t always know how or where to direct that worship. We have an innate desire for intimacy and connectivity to something much bigger than ourselves. Many people ponder the question, are we all here by chance? Was it some sudden bang and all intelligent life began? Was it by intelligent design? To quote Frances Chan, “How is it that we are all standing on this giant ball spinning at 1000 miles an hour, and think that’s normal?” To me, there is nothing normal about that. Was it just an accident? Having a spiritual practice, and a belief system is said to add years to your life. There was a study done on longevity where they identified 4 or 5 blue zones around the world. These are where people are thriving and living to 100 and older with strength and vigor. They identified 9 diet and lifestyle practices, one of them is having a spiritual practice. For more info you can google Dan Buettner blue zones. So what is YOUR source of hope and strength? What’s the meaning of YOUR life? If you are searching for truth, I highly recommend this powerful video: https://www.juststopandthink.com/francis-chan-video-just-stop-think-the-movie/

Relationships- Whether intimate or not, relationships have a deep impact on our health & happiness. They can make or break us in a sense. Family, friends, coworkers, spouses/lovers. We are wired for relationships. We were not meant to do this life alone. Are your loved ones building you up, or tearing you down? Do they support you, or do they chastise you? Do you have someone in your life that you can experience true uncensored intimacy with? Do you have special relationships with people you fully trust? Do you have special relationships with people you can share your triumphs and tragedies with? If so, do you value them, building into them, making time for them, or do you take them for granted? Did you know it’s been said that the act of hugging releases certain hormones that actually benefit your health? Maybe you can add a hug to that apple a day.

Creativity- I always thought I wasn’t creative because I can’t draw. I always stunk at arts and crafts. I am no Martha Stewart. I’d go broke as an interior designer very quickly. Later I realized that I love to cook. It is so much fun creating new and different things in the kitchen. It’s art you get to eat. There are many different creative outlets for people to explore. For some of my clients, having the time and opportunity to do the things they love like quilting, painting, or writing is key for them to maintain a sense of wholeness. It’s healthy…like laughter, or a hug. Think about some of the ways you like to be creative. Do you make time for those things?

Finances- Do you feel that your finances are in order? Do you have a long term financial goal, and are you on track to meet that goal? Have you taken a close look at your budget, and your monthly spending? Do you need to bring in additional income somehow? Do you need to cut back somewhere? Do you need to redefine some of your wants vs. needs? I believe that the number one stressor in marriage is finances. And we all know how stress affects our bodies and our health. It’s absolute poison. Consult with a financial advisor if necessary. Do it for your health!

Conclusion: The life we lead is led by a series of choices. Good or bad. Choices every day, and ones we have to life with, until we choose to make another choice to change it. The great success of my program is when clients understand that they are empowered. Empowered to choose. Whether it’s in their personal life, professional life, or how they will treat their body, they have the power to take their lives and their health into their own hands.

I am currently reading a fascinating book entitled, Switch on Your Brain, by Dr. Caroline Leaf. I want to quote this section for you called “You Have the Power to Change.”

“Your patterns of genetic experience don’t determine what you are; you do. How you live, the cultural environment you live in, whatever you immerse yourself in, your beliefs and the beliefs of those around you, how you interact with those people, your faith and how you grow it, what you expose yourself to-all of these lead to differences in the way you focus your attention and have a direct effect on how your proteins are synthesized, how your enzymes act, and how your neurochemicals work together. If you don’t believe you have the power to change your thoughts and control your choices, you are not going to do it.”

So all this to say- you have the power to choose how you will live your life, what you will stand up for, and what or who you will make time for.

For more support, contact me for a free 50-minute health consultation.

My Thrive Program is designed to support busy moms and professionals that struggle to find the time to nurture their mind, body and spirit, let alone prepare nutritious and delicious meals for themselves and their family. As a Health Coach, my mission is to help my clients make incremental lifestyle changes that will last. I help them to not simply survive, but to thrive!

Laurel Marshall

Integrative Nutrition Health Coach & A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer

[email protected]

(805) 296-5825

#balance #career #health #physical activity #spirituality #wellness

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