#i've been fascinated by this game for years solely because of the out of left field murder of the title character | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

byronicbi · 2 months

Text

For those of you who've been following me for a while now, there's a good chance you got to experience my journey reading the Remembrance of Earth's Past series last year. I loved Three-Body Problem, but The Dark Forest and Death's End were like pulling teeth. Both books had their very very good moments, but getting through them was a tedious experience I considered giving up on on multiple occasions. I will give it to Cixin Liu tho, I needed to know how the series ended and that alone was the sole reason I pushed towards the finish line. Any author that can make me tough out bad writing for the sake of seeing the end deserves some kind of award (and he won a ton anyway, so).

I approached the Netflix series with zero expectations given their propensity for shitty adaptations (One Piece notwithstanding), but after watching the first episode I was left cautiously optimistic.

Having watched all 8 episode I'm still unsure how to feel about it. I spent most of the series hitting pause to rant at my roommate about it, both positively and negatively.

I had many issues with the books, but some of the more obvious ones came from a writing standpoint. I love hard sci-fi. I could not excuse the sheer length of those final two books. The atrocious treatment of women as objects to romance and use as bartering for the main character. The abysmal MCs (specifically Luo Ji) that made me want to yell to the high heavens due to annoying they were. The lack of human connection between characters.

For books so steeped in sociopolitical and ethical commentaries, the flagrant misogyny and homophobia was eye-rolling. And not even in a "This is Bad" sort of way, just in a "This is So Fucking Boring" kind of way. I cannot speak for the author's biases, because the contents of a book in no way reflects the views of an author or their character.

Where the books shone the brightest were during the battle scenes, the looming dread, genuinely horrific thought experiments.

And, surprisingly? It feels like the people at Netflix thought the same.

I've never watched Game of Thrones but I understood why people were against it from the get-go. That, along with the whole "whitewashing" thing which I consider to be interesting. For starters, you're using whitewashed wrong. Yes, they moved the central story from China to England which was... a fascinating choice, but of the core five (that quickly became the core four), only two of them are white. I'm not saying it was okay for a western adaptation to take a cast and further diversify it, I'm just saying that that's not whitewashing.

That aside, I did like some of the choices that were made from a narrative standpoint. Reshuffling and streamlining events, for one. Removing the whole plot line about Luo Ji hunting down a woman who he invented in his head in order to marry her? I'm not entirely sold on the idea of taking core events and divvying them up between four different people, but I do understand what they're trying to do.

The book series failed at crafting believable and impactful relationships between its human characters, which made the narrative feel hollow and one-dimensional. This adaptation aimed to change this by slapping a band-aid over the issue. Like I said, I'm still unsure of how I feel about this.

A lot of unnecessary stuffing was removed to make a suitable run time, and I say unnecessary because there's really no scenes that are making me go "oh, I wish this had been included". Was some stuff rushed? Yes. The passage of time could have been outlined a little better, but that's a small nitpick on my end.

The scale of things was toned down, and I don't think Netflix has the capability (or budget) to tackle space battles.

Honestly? I don't really see this getting a second season for a variety of reasons, and I'd be okay with that.

It was an "okay" watch, in the end.

Tho, I'm still flabbergasted by the random "gory scary jumpscare" scenes????? Where did those come from??? I don't remember anything like that being in the books but, you know. I've read a lot more books since finishing these, so.

#texts.#watch tag #3BP spoilers #3 body problem #spoilers #i needed to talk about it or else i'm going to explode.#miller writes #i guess? since this is kind of an unofficial review

10 notes · View notes

aesthetic-bastard · 1 year

Text

Media Interaction 2023

March

Before Dawn - this is a doujin featuring Kyon and Itsuki Koizumi from the series Haruhi Suzumiya. The anatomy isn't the best at times but it makes up for it with its writing. I appreciate that most of the dialogue in this doujin is narrated by Kyon which is faithful to the source material and I found the narrative about closeted homosexuality to hit really hard.

Algorithm - this is yet another of the many English-translated Kyon and Koizumi doujins I read through this month. The art is very nice but the dialog is just fucking ass, to be honest. I don't have very much to say about this one there was no impression left on me besides the art style which is unfortunate. I did find out later after reading this doujin the artist that made this went on to publish their own original works under the pen name Mikiyo Tsuda which I found hilariously inspirational.

Boy Meets Boy - another doujin featuring Kyon and Koizumi. This one was fucking awful I genuinely felt like I needed to brush my teeth or take a shower after reading it. I really DO NOT LIKE when consent is ambiguous or vague and this is unfortunately a common trope in yaoi doujins I have noticed. The art was also incredibly extreme to the point where it humored me to look at how awful, depraved, and dirty each illustration looked. After reading this one I genuinely felt like I needed a few minutes to recover.

I Don't Understand Adults - another Kyon and Koizumi doujin. The art is kinda janky and hard to understand what's being illustrated when looking at the panels. Kyon and Koizumi have been dating for a month but Kyon has an encounter with Koizumi 7 years from the future and it puts a strain on his relationship. I'm not very fond of angsty tropes so this one was very mild.

Game Boys - this is a short comic series featured in various issues of Genus Male, a male-only spin off of adults-only furry anthology comics. For gay furry porn, this is a very interesting and genuinely good comic about early 2000s online queer culture and self-expression in role-playing communities as well as the struggles of closeted homosexuality in real life. This was actually well written and illustrated and didn't solely focus on gay furry sex. I found a majority of the dialog to hit pretty hard and I think this is a very fascinating retrospective on early furry culture and homosexuality within such communities like furries, role-playing and gaming.

Genus Male Issue 1 - a lot of the art featured in this first comic anthology is excellent but most of the writing accompanying any of the short stories is just kinda mild. There was one short story that really stuck out to me though because it portrayed sex work in a way that wasn't incredibly demonizing but that was my biggest takeaway from reading the first issue.

Super Tecmo Bo - this is an album featuring The Alchemist and Boldy James. This is genuinely an excellent album from start to finish and another rare occurrence of enjoying every single track on an album. The use of samples is mesmerizing and I really like that each track crossfades into the next. I think this is gonna be another one of the top albums I've listened to this year I can not stop going back to it.

Secret Meeting - this is a doujin featuring Char Aznable and Garma Zabi from Mobile Suit Gundam. This is probably the most outstanding quality doujin I have ever read so far which is expected from this particular circle (GOMIX) and the most satisfying depiction of this specific pairing. There is just so much that I adore about this doujin I got really lucky to purchase a physical copy of this because the other Charma doujin released by GOMIX is no longer available for purchase online unless it were to be sold second hand which I highly doubt I'll find any time soon. (as I went back to edit this before publishing I scored a physical copy of this second hand weeks later after typing this in my drafts) The art is extremely attractive and identical to the original manga for Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin. There was a small note from the artist on the first page and what I could piece together from the shoddy Google translation on my phone is that they highly recommend reading volume 11 of the origin because "it's literally BL". The artist also stated they are very partial to the universal century timeline which I think is just very cute of them to state their own personal preference within the Gundam franchise. Something I'd like to add that is just a very special personal preference for me regarding any fan works like this is when either of the characters say "I love you" to each other. When Garma tells Char how much he loves him after they both climax that shit is the world to me.

Rooster Fighter - this manga series is still publishing so from what I've read up to the most current translated chapter I think this is the most stupidly fucking awesome thing I have read. The art is very detailed and the world-building is genuinely good??? I sincerely love how chickens are illustrated in this manga. I'm hoping to pick up the first few physical copies that have been released so far in the US since a lot of the online fan translations I've found vary in quality. The only thing I have to point out about this series is that there is a lot of NTR... with chickens...

Side Trips - 1967 debut studio album by American band Kaleidoscope. I liked maybe a maximum of 2 songs off this album and struggled to hit the skip button when listening to the rest. The genres used on this album are all over the place and made it feel like whiplash to listen to each track. My favorite track on this album would be Keep Your Mind Open

At Home - 1969 second studio album by Dutch rock band Shocking Blue. I liked a few songs from this album, which was about it. I enjoyed any track that particularly featured the use of a sitar as an instrument but besides that, I can tell this is another one of those one-hit-wonder type bands. My favorite track on this album would be Love Buzz

The Addiction Of Wanting To Touch You - another doujin featuring Kyon and Koizumi from Haruhi Suzumiya. genuinely very mild but the English translation is at least legible. This artist chose not to use screentones or any sort of shading that fleshes out the characters so I am puzzled looking at each panel trying to understand what's being depicted. Something that is a constant theme in these doujins with Kyon and Koizumi is whenever they start to make out they instantly say "did Haruhi wish for this" implying that Haruhi Suzumiya is a fujoshi and she wishes to see two men kiss each other.

Genus Male Issue 2 - the illustrations are nice as always but a lot of the stories in these comic anthologies are just weird wacky hijinks that end with gay furry sex so nothing really stuck out to me in this issue besides the art.

Hetalia Axis Powers - wow this has aged horrifically. From racist stereotypes to far right Japanese nationalism to fujoshi bait to historic revisionism to weird jokes about incest. Its revisionism is so all over the place the most I obtained from a history lesson is cringe. The jokes in this anime are about as racist as a G4 host getting ready to review a MegaTen game. There is not much left for me to discuss about this series when going back to it and watching it in its entirety.

On Air - this is a doujin featuring Char Aznable and Garma Zabi from Mobile Suit Gundam. The art in this was so cute it almost made me EXPLODE!! The dialogue and interactions between each character are very sweet and everything I want to see depicted with a pairing that's special to me which is very rare when reading a lot of these kinds of fan works. I am hoping to find this doujin available for purchase online since I really like it enough to add it to my collection.

Hetalia World Series - no different than the first series (very bad) but way more boring. There is a large focus on Eastern European countries but all of them have identical designs with atrociously revised history that doesn't accurately represent any of their personalities. I often found myself really bored watching this series when the attention wasn't on such countries as Japan, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein. I did really enjoy the Nekotalia segments and I wish there were more of them.

Evil Empire - 1996 second studio album by American rock band Rage Against the Machine. Very excellent hardcore album from start to finish there is not a single track I don't like and the sociopolitical commentary is still extremely relevant nearly 2 decades later.

Hetalia The Beautiful World - the new art style of this series is hideous and the fujoshi bait is at full throttle. This series in Hetalia is surprisingly less racist than the first two and the historical revisionism is toned down a bit because there's barely any history at all. This series was evidently different than the first two and no longer featured any sort of segments and cutaways which surprisingly made the pacing go even faster but was still a mundane watch-through. The overall drastic change made it feel less like a funny web series and more like 5-minute shorts made for TV despite still being classified as an ONA. I think this is where Hetalia really began to die out as both a series and a fandom.

Meeting Place - this is the prequel to Before Dawn, a doujin featuring Kyon and Itsuki Koizumi from the series Haruhi Suzumiya. The narrative about online gay relationships hits very hard just like the sequel and is probably the best fan work I've seen written with this paring that doesn't reek of homosexual fetishization. I've grown rather fond of this artist's style as I read more translations of their works and I'm hoping to purchase some of them to add to my collection.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam - overall excellent saga within the Universal Century Timeline. I don't think I have ever engaged with any media that has had such an honest nonoffensive sincere depiction of autism which made this series more personally impactful to me than the first. I enjoyed the focus on character drama in this Gundam series and I surprisingly felt very emotional about the romance Kamille shares with Four which is very rare for me to experience when a series establishes love interests. I think what makes Kamille and Four so likable as lovers for me is how sincere and direct their feelings are for each other which overlaps with the depiction of Kamille's autism. This series was very intriguing to me, especially with the introduction of cyber newtypes and that any prominent character classified as a cyber newtype was very autistic coded. There were also a lot of new excellent mobile suit designs in this series and I never really expected to take to the gunpla aspect of this franchise because man do I need to add more of those little colorful plastic fellas on my wishlist.

#media interaction 2023

1 note · View note

lantur · 3 years

Text

notes for today,

I am truly living my best life, in a golden age of stories. I'm loving Gideon the Ninth and The Poppy War so much, and I'm almost done with both. I have about 4 hours left to listen to in both books. Derek and I just finished Midnight Mass recently, which landed solidly in the rankings of my favorite horror stories. @wind-on-the-panes and I finished playing and loved The Witch's House and Ib. We're 3 episodes into Squid Game right now, and I am REALLY REALLY into that too. Gideon the Ninth, The Poppy War, and Squid Game all have tropes and characters I enjoy very much.

Season three of You is coming out soon as well, and Derek and I loved the first two seasons of that show. :)

Work at the memory clinic was long and draining yesterday, but way more chill today as I got to work from home. I even had time to meal prep and plan a bit. I made a spicy buffalo broccoli salad, and a curry with potatoes and peas. I have the rest of my cooking for the week planned out too. :) Mac and cheese with bell peppers, mushrooms, and peas tomorrow, and Japanese-style curry later this week.

My goal to eat more vegetables this year has really worked out well. I think a big step for me was learning how to make fun salad dressings from scratch. I've made really nice Greek and Thai-inspired salad dressings, as well as lemony olive oil ones. I've been fascinated to learn that while romaine leaves, spinach, kale, etc. can make good leaf-based salads, I actually prefer broccoli and shaved Brussels sprouts when it comes to side salads to go with my lunch. They're really good with the nice homemade dressings. I also think like, "I like spicy buffalo chicken wings. Let me figure out a way to get spicy buffalo flavoring on my broccoli."

I ran 4.25 miles today - my longest in a while!! Morning exercise has been working out great for me. It helps me feel calmer through the rest of the day. It's convenient because it's getting dark much earlier too, and now I can have the evenings solely reserved for cooking instead of cooking and also exercise. It's nice and cozy :)

#lanturing #I hope you all are having a great week!#please read gideon the ninth and the poppy war #and also watch midnight mass and squid game

22 notes · View notes

c-is-for-circinate · 5 years

Note

I've been trying to figure out why I dont like Caduceus and your last meta reply got me closer to figuring it out. Like, I've been trying to like him, or at least figure why I dont, and describing him as 'a good person who doesnt have the self awareness to realize hes a jerk' I think got close to my issue with him, so thanks for the Good Meta

This is in response to this post, which I know some people agreed with very strongly and which made some other people very upset. I’m glad it clicked with you, at least, and that it helped clarify some Cad stuff for you!

I think that a very big thing about Taliesin’s characters across the board, for me, is how intensely judgy they have the capacity to be. In many ways, Caduceus is less judgmental than Percy or Molly, which is a fascinating thing to think about. And I have found that fascinating since pretty much my second or third episode of Critical Role, because so much of that judgment tends to be couched in, ‘I judge you for not accepting other people the way I think you should’. Percy loves Keyleth but also thinks she’s naive, too idealistic about what people ought to be rather than acknowledging and planning for the flaws he’s sure he knows they have. Molly dresses and talks and walks and presents himself in such a flamboyant way specifically to elicit reactions, specifically so he can decide who to write off completely and not worry about any more. In both cases it’s this super-interesting, incredibly relatable picture of a person who judges other people for their judgments.

Because Critical Role is such a long-form show, we got to see Percy be proven right and be proven wrong, we got to see him smug and we got to see him humble, and we got to see a lot of different angles on both his standards (what other people ought to be doing) and his stubbornness (how ready he was to dismiss people who didn’t meet them). Because we lost Molly so early, we only really got to start scratching the surface of his assumptions and certainties, and one of my biggest regrets is that we didn’t get to explore them so much more. In both cases, that stubborn sureness--I know how the world works, better than anybody around me--was one of my favorite parts of the character. It’s such an interesting flaw, because it wasn’t always detrimental. Both Percy and Molly were often right, or at least they acted in line with their assumptions and the universe responded how they expected, and the team benefited from it. Both of them had a certain amount of ‘and it’s our job to be decent to other people’ as part of that worldview, which really helped in making them likable. Both of them made sense, which led to the (for me) really great cognitive experience of, “okay, I agree with this character, but also I don’t think they’re the ultimate authority they believe themself to be! but I do think they’re right! but maybe they shouldn’t be so sure they’re right!” I find internal narrative conflict like that extremely compelling, and in particular the exploration of being judgmental about other people’s judgment resonates with me a lot.

So I’ve been waiting for cracks and criticisms with Caduceus, because I suspected from very early on that he, too, would be Extremely Sure He Understands How the World Works At All Times. I have been looking for the places he Knows He’s Right, and I’ve been eating them up.

Cad’s certainties are completely different than Percy’s and Molly’s, but once again, it’s incredibly difficult to say he’s wrong. He believes in fate--well, if you declare that everything that happens was supposed to happen, how is it ever possible to say he’s wrong? He believes Melora is watching and guiding and wants for him to do things--it’s D&D, she literally is watching (and if she happens to be a lot less invested in any specific outcome than Caduceus thinks, she’s not about to tell him so). He believes he has a job, has a purpose. Because it’s D&D, because it’s a story, because the story needs to go places and as the PCs it’s their job to do things to get there, on a very real meta level he’s literally correct.

He thinks that his job and his purpose is to help people--and how can we say he’s wrong? How can we say he shouldn’t try to be a good person, try to help? And he’s doing his best, and his best so often does help, and when it doesn’t, then it’s not his fault because there are other circumstances. It’s almost impossible to argue with that. Objectively, Caduceus is doing his best. Objectively, in many cases it is helpful.

And yet, that doesn’t mean that Caduceus objectively knows the best way to help in every situation--which even he readily admits. It doesn’t mean Caduceus necessarily knows the “best” way to help even in the situations where he is helpful.

Because right, the other thing about D&D is, Caduceus fundamentally cannot be the Sole Correct Authority on Everything, no matter how much sense his sureness makes. He literally can’t be, because Tal is one of eight people at that table, and he’s not the one running the world. He can be absolutely justified in being mad at Nott, which he absolutely is, and it still isn’t a universal truth that Caduceus Is Right and Nott Is Wrong. There are no universal truths at that table. Not even Matt has universal truths, not about what characters think or feel or do, not about moral absolutism.

(I’m someone who gets really twitchy around people who are Extremely Sure. I’ve known a disproportionate number of them in real life, and I’ve got very specific instinctive skills for not pissing them off that I occasionally wish I hadn’t had to develop. Part of turning from a conflict-averse 20-year-old into a grown-ass adult on my part has involved learning not to automatically agree that the universe must work a certain way, just because a very smart, very sure person who makes sense says so. Part of it’s involved learning not to be that very sure person myself.

I think I grab at moments when Caduceus very clearly isn’t 100% correct because of that. I love the fact that, in Critical Role, we have this multi-layered, many-voiced story proving that even if a character is right, they’re not necessarily the bearer of Objective Universal Truth. Rather than a story where it feels like the author and the universe are trying to make me agree with one person, it’s a story where a character can be right and not right from a thousand different directions at the same time. (Which, if nothing else, makes the story and the character feel so much safer to me.))

Caduceus is a little bit passive-aggressive sometimes, going back to Caduceus and Nott and the original discussion of that other post. And, right, he wants to avoid conflict within the group so he doesn’t make a big deal out of certain things, and just like all of his opinions, it’s hard to say he’s wrong in that. And he has every right and reason and justification for having emotions about some of the many very big things that have happened to him lately. He’s right (he’s not wrong) about a lot of things. He’s actually really good about recusing himself from situations where he doesn’t have the background or knowledge to be right at least to his own standards.

The thing that has me calling Caduceus a little childish is that he’s so utterly disinclined to acknowledge the possibility of nuance. He knows how to help Fjord (he’s decided that he knows how to help Fjord), so he does. He doesn’t know how to help Nott, so he doesn’t. We’ve never seen him take so much as a moment to consider whether or not he’s right in his assessment of his ability to help in either case. And yeah, to me that does feel a little immature. It’s not that he’s got a philosophy and he sticks to it, it’s that he lacks the self-awareness to even acknowledge the blind spots it might give him, let alone try to amend them.

And that’s okay. Acknowledging that Caduceus might possibly be a little bit of a hypocrite, a little judgy, a little wrong in his mental image of the universe and his place in it, makes him so much more interesting. It makes him a person. Not an infallible mouthpiece from God; not a perfect sage holding all the wisdom of the ages. He’s a good person, trying to do his best.

He’s a good character, because he’s an examination of how all these traits both hinder and sometimes help his attempts to be a good person. Stubborn certainty got the M9 up on their feet after Yasha left, comforted Fjord away from U’kotoa, saved a tribe of giants. Caduceus is multifaceted, and the game is multifaceted, and the very same characteristics can be great in one situation and a real problem in another, just like life.

#asked and answered #critical role #driveby meta attack #welp #apparently I still had Things To Say about Cad #Anonymous

195 notes · View notes

digitaldandelions · 3 years

Text

Why you can't talk about the Gentry on Facebook.

"Why should I care?"

You are concerned about Gentrification and its effects on marginalized peoples.

You want a strategy on gaming gentrification to benefit your neighbors.

Let's get started.

Facebook helps me keep track of my Digital Village

I have a lot of friends on Facebook from different walks of life. Mainly composed of--

Family, friends-of-family, and former classmates who have been working for the community for years to decades (keep pressing forward, fam!)

Friends I made while studying at North Carolina A&T State University (AGGIE PRIDE!!)

Friends I've made while abroad at Korea University (SHOUTS OUT TO Y'ALL!)

Community members I've found while working in every borough in NYC (MARLS, BlaQue, and various kinhood spirits!)

All of my people are really active in the community in some way, shape, or form. My Digital Village has various insights that make my Facebook timeline an engaging and enlightening place. I am very thankful for this and appreciative of the people who make up my village.

However, many in my village have been banned or barred because Facebook is not a free place to communicate. As many Facebook users will confirm, this platform bans any mention of White people, especially White men.

Go ahead! Try it for yourself. Facebook will take down your post because it violates Facebook's Community Terms of Service (ToS). It doesn't matter who you are. --To quote one of my favorite people, "I am White people!"

Facebook is a Private Company: They can do whatever they Want.

Investigating the legalese Facebook uses to protect White People's right to never be mentioned on Facebook would be fascinating. However, it's irrelevant. Facebook is a private company, and they can do whatever they want. More importantly, trying to challenge Facebook could potentially give them more power than we intend. We don't need Facebook to establish itself any more than it is now.

Therefore, our collective solution to this problem is to use coded language to foul up Facebook's "Community ToS" AI. My village has taken to using terms like "🌾," "⚪," or "the Gentry." It's a colorful and fun way to express ourselves on a very wide platform. This works for now.

Once you get tired of using coded language, moving to other platforms deflates Facebook's power.

Even more importantly, Facebook's ToS caused me to use other platforms that support my community. Pointedly, I use platforms like Tumblr and Discord, which are committed to supporting people in my Digital Village. This is how you game a "free capitalistic market" for now. Remember: MySpace only became irrelevant because we all moved onto other platforms.

Who exactly is the Gentry?

"The Gentry" is a cute term I personally use on Facebook to refer to White people. However, it's a term I use facetiously. For a modern, American, definition: the Gentry can refer to anyone who moves into a gentrified neighborhood, thus causing Gentrification.

"Gentrifiers" can be affluent, thrifty, White people taking advantage of the cheaper property values in a marginalized neighborhood. However, anyone can be affluent and thrifty in this economy: Asian Americans, Black people, anyone. I have even qualified as a Gentrifier in a lot of cases! I'm a country girl transplant to NYC. I lived in Seoul, South Korea, for a year. What matters is that the person moving is from outside the community.

When these new people move in, the gentrifying process looks like this:

The gentrifiers bring with them a demand for expensive products and services that the locals can't afford.

This demand irreparably changes the neighborhood to meet those needs.

The increased value of the neighborhood prices out the Locals-- e.g., through increased rent, taxes, etc

Local families and businesses are forced to move out because of the increased rent AND cultural displacement. i.e., The gentrifiers complain about the locals' habits because they perceive them as incompatible with their lifestyle.

What causes Gentrification?

I have lived and worked in nearly every borough of New York City. I also grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina-- where one side of the city has always owned the other side of the city. Subsequently, I have also lived on either side of Winston-Salem as well-- the more affluent West-side and the "Ghetto" East-side.

Can you guess which side of Winston-Salem owns the other?

The primary aspect of Gentrification is that the locals do not own the land that they live on. The East-side of Winston-Salem was primarily Downtown and apartment complexes where poor families rent their homes. That meant a lot of things, particularly that it was difficult for the poor families to have control over where they lived.

Property improvement was up to whoever owned their home on the West-side. Since the owners did not live in the neighborhood, they actually didn't care about upkeep. They only care about extracting money from their renters.

If you can recall your Social Studies class: this is a similar configuration for imperialistic powers and their colonies. Imperial governments didn't care about the people in the colonies and their quality of life. They only cared about extracting the wealth out of the colonies. The sole purpose of the colony is to enrich its imperial counterpart, facetiously called the "Mother country." In addition to being patronizing, this configuration left the colonists had no control over their own country. The lack of self-governance systems is why we see formally colonized countries still struggling to compete. In some cases, the country is in tatters hundreds of years after their imperial overseers have left.

Gentrification and Colonization has a lot of the same Economic Patterns

Again, similar to colonization, gentrification ensures that there is very little opportunity for self-governance. Locals do not have the economic resources to improve where they live or dictate the sort of business services are available for the locals. For example, we always had to go to the West-side of Winston-Salem for banking services. The only thing available on the East-side were predatory pay-day loan parlors and expensive Western Union transfer points.

Gentrification reduces economic opportunity for locals, but what about political representation? In Colonization, local representation was virtually non-existent: the Imperialitisc power would install governors to keep the colony in check. Does Gentrification share this pattern too?

Gerrymandering: Gentrified Neighborhoods Literally Dwell on the Margins

Back to Winston-Salem: for families on the Eastside, the only control they had was electing people to represent them Locally, at the State level, or at the Federal level. However, Gerrymandering made this impossible in a lot of cases at the Federal level. Gerrymandering ensures that marginalized neighborhoods have a splintered vote. Having a district border run through your neighborhood means no one from that neighborhood will ever represent you. It's impossible to petition the person who does represent you because they will always see you as a minority, at best. This is literally where the term "marginalization" comes from.

The result is that the locals are barred from resources to improve and profit from the land that they live on. Once developers and actual landowners want to take advantage of the devalued land, the locals are priced out. Their target market is the Gentry: this is why their preferences and services are prioritized.

As predicted, 20 years later, since I've lived in Winston-Salem, most of these families have been priced out of East Winston by Gentrification. I see many realtor websites that describe my old neighborhood as "up and coming," with glitzy pictures of cafés and bars. None of these businesses were there when I was growing up. You see this same process in NYC.

New York City has a very similar problem as Winston-Salem, NC, exasperated by the fact that there is a larger culture of renting. One of my Digital Village members' attempts to purchase a house was curtailed by companies who could quickly snatch up the property. -Even when she was trying to purchase in the outer boroughs of NYC (Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx)!

Most small-scale LandLords are old New Yorkers who owned the property before the 2000s. Either the owners had property before the Real Estate boom or inherited their property and decided to keep it for rental income. Even my little Landlady. She is an old New Yorker who moved out to Throggs Neck but kept her old house in Jamaica to rent out to families and reliable, young professionals.

How much property the Locals own where they live and work determines how the neighborhood will change.

What can I do about Gentrification?

Remember: Gentrification is determined by what realtors think that the Gentry wants. There is a lot for both (1) locals and (2) their new neighbors to lessen the effects of Gentrification.

If you are moving into an "up and coming neighborhood":

Learn about who has been there and what their culture is. As someone who would classify as a Gentrifier in many cases, I had a much more colorful experience by learning about the culture I'm entering. My Digital Village is so expansive because I took the time to learn about others. Not only will you reduce the chances for Cultural Displacement, but you'll also live a more enriching life! There are many things the neighborhood has to offer, many that may be outside your comfort zone. I promise, taking a chance on what your local neighbors have to offer will change your life for the better.

Support Local Businesses that are run by the Locals. As a gentrifier, my first step in moving to Jamaica, Queens, was finding a solid burrito spot! Shout out to Bella's!

Think of other creative ways you can support the community. Join a local Community Association. Ask about what their needs are. After doing your research, you always need to ask your neighbors what they need. They will tell you.

If you are a Local in an "up and coming neighborhood," look into obtaining a piece of the neighborhood through collective investing! Beyond purchasing land yourself, collective investing the fastest way to set down your stob. Getting your piece can be done in a few ways, including:

Asking your Landlord if they are interested in converting your housing into a Housing Cooperative. Essentially, you get shares of the house you live in. This is beneficial to your Landlord because they can get many tax benefits, depending on where you are. It benefits you, especially if you are a good tenant. You can get dividends from the profit every year, making your place of living more stable.

Look into investing in another Local Landlord. If your Landlord isn't willing, find another whose opened to receiving investments. Some of them need to make ends meet. You can invest as little as $1,000 a year and get dividends from your investment.

Look into investing in a Local Small Business. You can even diversify your investments by looking at local businesses to invest in! Your investments will help your favorite business get more resources to serve your new neighbors coming in. The money you get back will also help make you and your favorite business more solvent. At the very least, increasing the business you do with them will significantly help.

How do I start Investing in Small Businesses?

Let's say you are a local looking to invest in your local business. You could also be the Gentry, who has some disposable income to invest in your Community Association's local investment campaign. In either case, you must start with an Investment Agreement! Investment Agreements are written up by Business Lawyers. They state how much you invest in the business and how much dividends of profit you get back. Either the investor (a community member) or the investee (the small business owner) can draw up an agreement.

To learn more, feel free to book an appointment with me! We'll help match you to the resources you need to get started for free:

https://www.digitaldandelions.com/contact-us

#gentrification #gentrifier #small business #small business solutions #legal assistance #investing #facebook #tumblr #discord #community solutions

0 notes

davidmann95 · 7 years

Note

What are your thoughts on Earth One? I've read Batman and Wonder Woman but just started on Superman.

A disaster that has long since outlived its dubious usefulness, only surviving now on monstrous inertia and sheer fucking stubbornness.

In fairness, it started as a great idea. Blockbuster-style ‘realistic’ origin stories of the biggest DC heroes in the OGN format and aimed at the bookstore market, with the biggest creators out there behind it? That’s genuinely inspired. The results however…Superman: Earth One and Batman: Earth One both manage the genuinely pretty incredible feats of being the worst story told of their title characters in almost 80 years. Both reasonable in concept - JMS had handled Marvel’s #1 boy to initial success and did some interesting work with the archetype in Supreme Power, and Johns/Frank on Batman would seem a surefire thing after their work on Action Comics. But there’s a gap between concept and execution here you could pilot an entire fleet of warships through.

Batman’s an incompetent, banally vengeful, violent asshole who fails utterly at nearly every turn due to his utter lack of training or preparation, whose sole victory of substance is strangling a weaponized mentally ill man before being easily defeated by the dang Penguin, and being rescued by the use of guns. It admittedly tries to do something interesting with the idea of an urban vigilante who isn’t necessarily brilliant and unstoppable - he’s just got some incomplete military training and whatever gadgets he can cobble together - but one cheap “I’LL SAVE THIS CITY NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES!” bit later and suddenly he’s for-real Batman even though he’s still a goddamn idiot. The sequel (checked out of the library) builds on this foundation to show he doesn’t have a clue about detective work, and the Riddler’s riddles are a distraction from a simple revenge scheme because hahaha, supervillain gimmicks are stupid. Also police brutality saves the day, which has sure aged well. Plus it’s all but directly Bruce’s fault his parents were killed. Throw some faux-deep monologuing on top about the rotting heart of the city and the meaning of life and death like a Snyder/Capullo joint gone septic, and you get a comic that manages to be both unpleasant and entirely boring. Looks nice though.

Superman, on the other hand, is the honest-to-god abomination of the pair. I’ve drained most of my poison on it over the years, through distance if nothing else, but this is one of the few comics out there whose existence sincerely makes me kind of angry. Not just because it’s a bad Superman story that catastrophically misses the point of the character, those are a dime a dozen - though yes, even aside from it being a Superman story, this is a painfully stock alien invasion/’embracing who you really are’ story we’ve seen a million times in a million better configurations. No, the thing that puts it over the top of the likes of, say, Superman II - which similarly has a Superman who’s kind of a total piece of shit - is that it is a story where he learns nothing from being a garbage person, and is rewarded for it.

There’s a scene of him at his father’s grave saying he’d rather use his powers to get rich than help people, and if not for the alien invasion, that’d be it. That’d be the end of the story, that’d be what this Clark Kent did with his life. Of course he spouts off some mealy-mouthed horseshit about how he’ll still find ways of helping people, but that’s a tad undermined that when the alien invasion does show and starts slaughtering people around the world en masse with the promise of exterminating everyone on Earth if he doesn’t fight back, he spends another 20 pages waffling until someone he likes is personally, directly threatened, making him not only a cowardly sack of shit unwilling to make the most clear-cut of moral choices, but also kind of a goddamn moron for not understanding right away that the space invaders raining laser death around the world are being serious. And then he sticks with being Superman not out of a realization that he must do what is right, or out of shame that so many died while he was afraid and selfish and refusing to waste his gifts ever again (a tack that handled right could have redeemed a lot of the earlier story), but because it turns out getting to use his gifts publicly as Superman is more fun and satisfying than being a football player. In the sequel (again, checked out of the library out of morbid curiosity) when he decides he must tackle the Real Issues, instead of overthrowing a dictatorship himself immediately and without casualties, he passes out AK-47′s to insurgents to arm a bloody revolution so that he can return the dictator’s earlier quip about how “he who has the guns makes the rules” before leaving him to die. The third at least managed to titanically up its game to crushing mediocrity - it almost reads like a new, marginally better writer trying to fix things up and manage a soft reboot - but that hardly balances the scales. As usual, I’ll default to Colin Smith’s fantastic set of articles comparing it ethically and storytelling-wise to All-Star Superman, but this is one of maybe two or so pieces of pop media out there where I can’t find enjoyment of it anything other than objectively wrong (the other being Thor: The Dark World, though that was merely really really overwhelmingly shitty).

The Titans book…existed, I guess, and didn’t pull off much more than that. Morrison/Paquette/Fairbairn’s Wonder Woman was interesting if nothing else, and it did a better job of building up Paradise Island visually as a high-concept super-feminist-fantasy-wonderland than anything else I’ve ever seen, but it was critically flawed. The characterization for Diana is pretty paper-thin, and as a feminist text it’s if nothing else yet another argument that Morrison probably shouldn’t be trying to write about contemporary social issues if he essentially refuses to use the internet - Elle Collins’ and Kelly Kanayama’s pieces on it go into its failings far better than I ever could. It was a fascinating failure at least as opposed to the rest, I’m genuinely curious where further volumes might go, but I’d consider it Morrison’s most significant failure as a superhero writer so far of the 21st century. An experiment in seeing if he could write Wonder Woman, rather than something he did out of sincere interest.

Earth One outlived its purpose once the New 52 hit, but it sold just well enough that DC couldn’t justify throwing it aside, so it still goes on. Superman may be done now that JMS has left comics (as should be Flash: Earth One, which I actually consider a shame given it apparently would have come out close to Morrison’s Multiversity Too: The Flash, which would’ve been a gut-buster of a contrast) unless someone else comes on to continue it, and Aquaman: Earth One may have fallen by the wayside, but Johns and Morrison have both confirmed there’s going to be more Batman and Wonder Woman, so at this point I don’t think it’s going to go away until we at least see Justice League: Earth One, presumably Chuck Austen’s triumphant return to DC. In spite of that though I maintain the experiment has utterly failed, the greatest testament to that being that when Morrison’s described Earth 1 in The Multiversity Guidebook he noted that the Earth was ‘in flux’, thereby inserting an escape hatch - essentially admitting that that Earth sucks so bad that you shouldn’t have to believe it actually exists in the Multiverse if you don’t want to.

EDIT: jonsei93 said: Damn, it’s kinda sad that THIS Superman gets to wear the classic costume instead of the main one. Because E1 Superman really doesn’t deserve to wear it, let alone touch it! (Yeah, I read a little of Superman Earth One, too and….yeah, I didn’t really bother acknowledging those books after that)

There are definitely people out there who considered Earth One to be the proper modern reinvention of the character rather than the New 52 guy, I’m pretty sure entirely based on that suit. Knowing this makes me feel bad.

#Superman: Earth One #Superman #Batman: Earth One #Batman #Wonder Woman: Earth One #Wonder Woman #Teen Titans: Earth One #Teen Titans #DC Comics #J. Michael Straczynski #Shane Davis #Geoff Johns #Gary Frank #Grant Morrison #Yanick Paquette #Nathan Fairbairn #Opinion

39 notes · View notes