(We made it! A week of daily blogging! Don't get used to it. ;) )
So when I first announced this week of blogs, there were a lot of good suggestions for topics. All of which I have, thus far, not done much with. To make up for that, my lovely people - today I am going to address each of them in turn!
Order is in how they appeared on my Facebook...
"Best cake" - Hmm. This is a hard one, not being a big cake eater. But I'd have to go with either coffee cake, carrot cake, or lemon drizzle.
"Boobies :D" - At risk of sounding like a huge sexist: yes, I do like boobies.
"Attractive and unattractive things in a human being" - Ooooh. Deep. Okay. Avoiding the obvious (yes boobies) I am drawn to people's minds, senses of humour, general vibe, things they like and dislike, attitude, how they treat others. Looks don't tend to rank high up the list. Like I can find them appealing but it doesn't often turn into actual attraction. Any more than I am attracted to a well-painted miniature. Unattractiveness? Wilful ignorance, toxicity, arrogance. Being fucking evil is a huge turn-off too...
"Silly little things that annoy people in day to day life xx" - There's rafts and rafts of these, different things for everyone I am sure. I tend to get irked by: people not knowing the walk-left-stand-right rule for escalators and anything else, people stopping dead in the street without checking to see if there's anyone behind them, unwanted physical contact, people cutting in line in front of me, people being privilidged assholes - the list goes on and on.
"Underrated places to travel to. X" - Most cities honestly. Almost all of them have something good to be found, somewhere. Unless it is like Slough. Or Hull. That's about it. Even then, good things come out of them. Also, tiny little villages with one hotel and one pub. Great to visit. Shit to live. I think one of the places I enjoyed staying in the most (that I didn't expect to) was Lake Elsinore in SoCal.
"Maybe the evolution of the world's maturity on and off the internet?" - ...maturity is difficult because there's a lot of ways to measure it. And some things that people think are mature aren't very good measures at all. Like I used to think that being mature meant finding nothing funny. A lot of people think that maturity is about shouldering responsibility, which is fine. In the end how mature someone is, I think, is how they cope with day-to-day shit without losing who they are. Aaaand the internet is difficult for that, because - in a place where you can do whatever you like and be pretty anonymous about it - you can become better at "adulting" in one tab and watch old Tom & Jerry cartoons in the other. It's hard to measure. I do think that you find a lot of people's true attitudes to life on the Internet rather than in person though. They can hide behind miles of cabling and different usernames.
"Stereotypes" - See these are problematic but also useful. Like if you are incapable of seeing the person behind the stereotype then you are going to have a really bad time in life, you will spend literally all your time misjudging people, and you'll end up being an asshole. In a strictly literary sense though - in terms of movies and books and such - a stereotype is useful for when you need a small gap briefly filled. You can't give the delivery man a four-episode backstory if you only have twelve episodes for the entire run. I think the way to balance it is to assume you will never know someones entire story, unless you take time. Just respect them. If you learn more about them, respect that, too. Don't assume anything outside of the fact that they deserve your respect.
"The best cereal" - Count Chocula. NEXT
"Possible colonisation of Luna..." - Difficult. I mean the biggest problem as I see it is getting all the materiel there without wrecking it and without it breaking the bank. I daresay a railgun for deploying stuff to orbit is the way forward. Just toss it up into orbit with Laplace force, and cut out the majority of the fuel burn for achieving orbit. If the stuff isn't coming back, all you'd need is fuel to burn to make the gravity-assisted moonshot and to land properly. That cuts down on the weight-fuel ration something silly, so you could afford to take more stuff at once - atmospherics would be a problem, mind, because it isn't really practical to just keep shipping oxygen tanks. There would have to be a way to generate a breathable atmosphere, like say keeping a super-dense area filled with plant life. I know that they don't convert CO2 to O2 like that but it will help at least...once we conquer those two steps I daresay it is actually a possibility.
And there you have it, folks. The seventh day, the seventh blog; and honestly I have had a blast doing this. It's been a little out there reaching for concepts and topics, but I think it has worked out well for all concerned, don't you?
Thank you, for joining me on this little journey; and who knows. Maybe it will happen again soon.
Keep your eyes peeled!
If anyone you know may enjoy, appreciate or be interested in anything I have blogged about - either in the past week or ever - please do pass a link along. It might just be a little thing, but it's my little thing.
And once again: thank you, dear reader. You're the REAL MVP.
Showing posts with label 7 days 7 blogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 7 days 7 blogs. Show all posts
Sunday, 4 September 2016
Saturday, 3 September 2016
6 of 7 - Distant Drums
(It's the penultimate seven-day marathon blog! Will we make it? I think so!)
As of right now I have the window opened for two reasons - to enjoy the cool breeze, and to take in the distant sound of the carnival.
We have a local carnival here. We have a few in fact, one for each of the major towns. As a kid I used to love carnival season, seeing all the colorful floats and people in costume and marching bands. These days there's a lot more samba bands than marching bands, and it seems to be a lot smaller. That is probably just kid-scaling. It was a thing of wonder and beauty, a sensation of community before I could properly convey what it felt like.
These days I don't have a lot of time for the carnival. It is physically difficult for me to stand in one spot for two hours. I mean I can do it, it just hurts like hell, and it is super-hard to enjoy anything when you are in a significant amount of pain. Also I think I am just a lot more miserable and scroogy about the entire thing. Having seen Notting Hill once, coming back to Ryde Illuminated can be a bit disheartening.
You know what, though? I like that it happens.
I like that big mobs of Island folk who are otherwise not talking to each other on a daily basis can get together for a while and see other Islanders prance about and have fun. I like the fact that, for a while, we get a little bit of community. The backbiting and rumour-mongering stops, and we just listen to music and look at pretty lights. We just enjoy life for a while.
Some of us do anyway.
I don't know what I would do without music, and listening to music in the distance, listening to it come to so many sets of ears and be freely heard by the populace - that's a thing of beauty. Music is life. The beat is life. Even if it's a samba band. Even if it's a bunch of drunk pub regulars dancing around to Jive Bunny on the back of a flatbed, as I remember from my youth.
I can hear those distant drums and I know that there are kids laughing and cheering and hoping that the ambulance at the end never comes, that the traffic never starts running again, that the parade of colour and light and sound just keeps running and running. That this thing that the entire town knows about and acknowledges and even kind of likes would just...never end.
And that's something that we can all kind of understand, right? We've all found those moments, those events, that we have wanted to continue long after dark. That we've wanted the sun to never rise on, because the sun leads to waking up, and responsibility, and work, and being the same as we were before this thing changed us forever and made us smile like we meant it.
The really tragic thing is that, quite often, we don't realise that we're in that place - that we're there, nestled in the warm arms of just feeling right and happy and secure and hopeful for once - until we wake up the next day; and just like waking up from a beautiful dream, we clutch for it helplessly, desperate to save just a little piece.
The memories are our reward. When we can look back and smile. And the time comes wherein you realise that there's certain things you won't get to do again. I speak personally in this regard - I know I won't hit up another music festival or go sleep in the desert under perfect stars. I can't. My body won't take it. But I do remember the time I did the things I did. I remember main stage at Reading, singing Under The Bridge with thousands of other people. I remember Brighton, and standing ten feet away from Adam Duritz as both of us burst into tears. I remember being driven home from a Poison show in Denver in a yellow Mustang. I remember sitting on Ryde sea front at midnight with the rest of my graduate friends, kings amongst men, yelling our challenges at the future with gusto.
I remember being seven, and sitting on my front garden wall, as the carnival came past - all those marching bands with buttons and instruments brightly polished, all those people in bright costumes, all those flatbeds full of dancing fools.
Drums in the distance, reminding us of when it was good, and that - just maybe - it can be good again.
As of right now I have the window opened for two reasons - to enjoy the cool breeze, and to take in the distant sound of the carnival.
We have a local carnival here. We have a few in fact, one for each of the major towns. As a kid I used to love carnival season, seeing all the colorful floats and people in costume and marching bands. These days there's a lot more samba bands than marching bands, and it seems to be a lot smaller. That is probably just kid-scaling. It was a thing of wonder and beauty, a sensation of community before I could properly convey what it felt like.
These days I don't have a lot of time for the carnival. It is physically difficult for me to stand in one spot for two hours. I mean I can do it, it just hurts like hell, and it is super-hard to enjoy anything when you are in a significant amount of pain. Also I think I am just a lot more miserable and scroogy about the entire thing. Having seen Notting Hill once, coming back to Ryde Illuminated can be a bit disheartening.
You know what, though? I like that it happens.
I like that big mobs of Island folk who are otherwise not talking to each other on a daily basis can get together for a while and see other Islanders prance about and have fun. I like the fact that, for a while, we get a little bit of community. The backbiting and rumour-mongering stops, and we just listen to music and look at pretty lights. We just enjoy life for a while.
Some of us do anyway.
I don't know what I would do without music, and listening to music in the distance, listening to it come to so many sets of ears and be freely heard by the populace - that's a thing of beauty. Music is life. The beat is life. Even if it's a samba band. Even if it's a bunch of drunk pub regulars dancing around to Jive Bunny on the back of a flatbed, as I remember from my youth.
I can hear those distant drums and I know that there are kids laughing and cheering and hoping that the ambulance at the end never comes, that the traffic never starts running again, that the parade of colour and light and sound just keeps running and running. That this thing that the entire town knows about and acknowledges and even kind of likes would just...never end.
And that's something that we can all kind of understand, right? We've all found those moments, those events, that we have wanted to continue long after dark. That we've wanted the sun to never rise on, because the sun leads to waking up, and responsibility, and work, and being the same as we were before this thing changed us forever and made us smile like we meant it.
The really tragic thing is that, quite often, we don't realise that we're in that place - that we're there, nestled in the warm arms of just feeling right and happy and secure and hopeful for once - until we wake up the next day; and just like waking up from a beautiful dream, we clutch for it helplessly, desperate to save just a little piece.
The memories are our reward. When we can look back and smile. And the time comes wherein you realise that there's certain things you won't get to do again. I speak personally in this regard - I know I won't hit up another music festival or go sleep in the desert under perfect stars. I can't. My body won't take it. But I do remember the time I did the things I did. I remember main stage at Reading, singing Under The Bridge with thousands of other people. I remember Brighton, and standing ten feet away from Adam Duritz as both of us burst into tears. I remember being driven home from a Poison show in Denver in a yellow Mustang. I remember sitting on Ryde sea front at midnight with the rest of my graduate friends, kings amongst men, yelling our challenges at the future with gusto.
I remember being seven, and sitting on my front garden wall, as the carnival came past - all those marching bands with buttons and instruments brightly polished, all those people in bright costumes, all those flatbeds full of dancing fools.
Drums in the distance, reminding us of when it was good, and that - just maybe - it can be good again.
Friday, 2 September 2016
5 of 7 - Space Ming For Fun And Profit
(For the 5th of our 7-day blogathon, we look at a game I have returned to after a decade - Eve Online!)
What is Eve Online?
It's an MMO, set in a fictional chunk of space, in which you play a "capsuleer" - a dedicated starship pilot who has been thrust into a world of politics, war and industry. Your goal? Well, you choose. Assist one of the many factions, make as much money as you can, hunt other players - it's all valid.
I've played multiple MMOs in the past, WoW being my first. If one was to count Planetside 2 then I've tried out a good half dozen. None of them have really drawn me back, though; and I think the only reason Eve has is because it doesn't feel like an MMO.
When I say that I know that logically it has a great number of players and it is online. But you aren't special. You're just a capsuleer. There's thousands more like you. There's no destiny, no demonslaying, none of the things that are sprinkled through WoW to make one feel special despite the fact that thousands of people have done it once already. All you are here for is war and profit, and it makes no bones about that.
Another thing that draws me is the economy. It is player-driven in just about every way. The production of damn near everything is handled by other players, so all the money that changes hands goes between players. On occasion people run scams, and that is legal - you just have to not get caught. Corporations (the equivalent of Guilds, which make a lot more sense) are formed just to dodge taxes, or sharded off other Corps to declare war on rivals without dragging the main Corp into trouble.
Piracy is real. If you're in the wrong sector of space you stand a good chance of being warp scrambled and destroyed for whatever is in your hold.
It appeals to me because the system of doing things relies on thinking right before thinking fast. Like the fitting of one's ship and knowing how to use it far outweighs the ability to click rapidly. Preparation and tactical acumen is rewarded far more than reflexes. This applies to the industrial field as well as warfare; maximising one's margins, producing for just slightly cheaper and selling for just slightly more, these are the ways to high profit.
A game that combines tycoon sim and mega-starship command? What larks. And some of the starships get VERY big. A ship I can actually pilot right now can ship two Eiffel Towers stacked end-to-end, room to spare.
Daily I can swap from lengthy mining expeditions turfing out thousands upon thousands of tons of ore an hour, to exploring spacial deviations that contain precious materials and hostiles, to running missions in a swift destroyer packing banks of missiles, even going so far as defending my corporation mates with a battleship with railguns capable of firing over 100km accurately. Mining and construction are my primary passions though - nabbing blueprints for cheap, harvesting my own materials, buying the last few rare parts and selling the results on the open market for a big-ass profit.
It's not all fun and games. There's some scumbags in the community - signing into Mining chat is a bad idea at any point of the day - but you can find some really cool people with a little patience, and eventually find a corporation that you fit with. My corporation (Quantum Mining) is a good bunch, industrialists primarily, all independent though we all have skills that help each other.
Soon it is becoming somewhat free-to-play; a tiered system, wherein those that don't pay have significantly less freedom of development than those that do. It's worth it though. My skills have only recently gone beyond those that would be allowed by the "Alpha Clones" as they will be called. There's still a lot of game to be played there.
So if I ever say I am mining - that is what I mean!
What is Eve Online?
It's an MMO, set in a fictional chunk of space, in which you play a "capsuleer" - a dedicated starship pilot who has been thrust into a world of politics, war and industry. Your goal? Well, you choose. Assist one of the many factions, make as much money as you can, hunt other players - it's all valid.
I've played multiple MMOs in the past, WoW being my first. If one was to count Planetside 2 then I've tried out a good half dozen. None of them have really drawn me back, though; and I think the only reason Eve has is because it doesn't feel like an MMO.
When I say that I know that logically it has a great number of players and it is online. But you aren't special. You're just a capsuleer. There's thousands more like you. There's no destiny, no demonslaying, none of the things that are sprinkled through WoW to make one feel special despite the fact that thousands of people have done it once already. All you are here for is war and profit, and it makes no bones about that.
Another thing that draws me is the economy. It is player-driven in just about every way. The production of damn near everything is handled by other players, so all the money that changes hands goes between players. On occasion people run scams, and that is legal - you just have to not get caught. Corporations (the equivalent of Guilds, which make a lot more sense) are formed just to dodge taxes, or sharded off other Corps to declare war on rivals without dragging the main Corp into trouble.
Piracy is real. If you're in the wrong sector of space you stand a good chance of being warp scrambled and destroyed for whatever is in your hold.
It appeals to me because the system of doing things relies on thinking right before thinking fast. Like the fitting of one's ship and knowing how to use it far outweighs the ability to click rapidly. Preparation and tactical acumen is rewarded far more than reflexes. This applies to the industrial field as well as warfare; maximising one's margins, producing for just slightly cheaper and selling for just slightly more, these are the ways to high profit.
A game that combines tycoon sim and mega-starship command? What larks. And some of the starships get VERY big. A ship I can actually pilot right now can ship two Eiffel Towers stacked end-to-end, room to spare.
Daily I can swap from lengthy mining expeditions turfing out thousands upon thousands of tons of ore an hour, to exploring spacial deviations that contain precious materials and hostiles, to running missions in a swift destroyer packing banks of missiles, even going so far as defending my corporation mates with a battleship with railguns capable of firing over 100km accurately. Mining and construction are my primary passions though - nabbing blueprints for cheap, harvesting my own materials, buying the last few rare parts and selling the results on the open market for a big-ass profit.
It's not all fun and games. There's some scumbags in the community - signing into Mining chat is a bad idea at any point of the day - but you can find some really cool people with a little patience, and eventually find a corporation that you fit with. My corporation (Quantum Mining) is a good bunch, industrialists primarily, all independent though we all have skills that help each other.
Soon it is becoming somewhat free-to-play; a tiered system, wherein those that don't pay have significantly less freedom of development than those that do. It's worth it though. My skills have only recently gone beyond those that would be allowed by the "Alpha Clones" as they will be called. There's still a lot of game to be played there.
So if I ever say I am mining - that is what I mean!
Thursday, 1 September 2016
4 of 7 - The Faith And The Flag
(This is the middle of the 7-day blog challenge! Can we make the full run? YEE!)
So...apparently one of the worst things going on right now is that Colin Kaepernick didn't stand for the national anthem.
...so what?
Okay so, here's the thing. If you are part of a NATIONAL sports team, if you are representing your entire COUNTRY, then the national anthem being played at the beginning of a match is perhaps a little more important. You, like that anthem, are representing your nation. It's good form to at least look like you know the words. Even in those circumstances, there are witch hunts put out against people that don't sing along. Which is madness. Because if you can't sing, then don't deface a good song, right? But anyway...
...Colin Kaepernick plays for the Niners. That's not a national team. That's San Francisco's state team. Which begs the question, why the Star-Spangled Banner is broken out at every single gathering wherein more than ten people are sat down watching the same event. It's a very alien thing to an Englishman like me. We don't tend to play God Save The Queen before each Cricket match. It's not necessary.
That aside.
The Star-Spangled Banner was written about the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. The British beat the everloving shit out of the fort but still those inside didn't budge. For 27 hours they sustained heavy bombardment, while the flag flapped merrily away as a sign of their resistance.
Now, the reason why the US got involved in the first place was to do with the Napoleonic Wars. Trade restrictions due to the war were hampering US trade; there were territorial squabbles too, and also the British were lending a fair amount of support to local Natives to resist the expansion of the new nation.
It could be seen as an extension of the War of Independence, which ended some 31 years previously. To the British it was just another front in the war against Napoleon; to the US, once more, they were standing against an ancestral oppressor. They wanted to make the land theirs, to own it, to be free of the shackles of royalty and tyranny.
The song celebrates the land of the free. It is an anthem of liberty, freedom, a rejection of autocracy.
So obviously, if someone doesn't stand for it, then they aren't doing what they are told and they must be punished for it. Right?
Let's look at context here: the flag represents a system that is objectively oppressive towards minorities. Like it's such a fact lodged in statistics that it is impossible to ignore, and to claim otherwise is either naive or mischievous. It is a nation - much like ours - that was made very wealthy exploiting people of colour. The history of oppression is a long and thoroughly documented one.
I can understand not wanting to kowtow to that. When we are children we are forced to pay respect to people that we don't respect and that don't DESERVE respect; as adults, we are grown enough to make that decision ourselves. Sure, we may catch some social flak for it - but in the end I'd rather people think I am some kind of aloof prick than an asskisser who hits the knees for anyone that thinks they are somebody.
Speaking as a person who, as a child, was forced to get on with people that bullied me every day - forced to pretend to be their friends, forced to APOLOGISE to my bullies for something I had done in retalation - I can tell you that paying respects to those that don't respect you is a hollow thing, like ashes in your mouth. It sits wrong. It rankles.
The only difference between me choosing to not stand up for God Save The Queen and Colin Kaepernick not standing up for the Star-Spangled Banner is that he is in the public eye - and if you stop being yourself and doing what you believe to be right because people can see you, then that's surely worse than not engaging in patriotic rituals.
And perhaps, people who think otherwise... people who insist that if you don't participate in patriotism means there is something inherently wrong with you... are hiding something a little deeper than that. Perhaps there's a crack deep inside that shell of patriotism. A mote of doubt. A fear that, just maybe, the image of the nation that is communally built up in the minds of its citizens isn't the actual truth.
Got news for you, folks. America hasn't been what you've thought it's been for a very, very long time.
But hey. Why would you listen to me?
I don't stand up for the national anthem either.
So...apparently one of the worst things going on right now is that Colin Kaepernick didn't stand for the national anthem.
...so what?
Okay so, here's the thing. If you are part of a NATIONAL sports team, if you are representing your entire COUNTRY, then the national anthem being played at the beginning of a match is perhaps a little more important. You, like that anthem, are representing your nation. It's good form to at least look like you know the words. Even in those circumstances, there are witch hunts put out against people that don't sing along. Which is madness. Because if you can't sing, then don't deface a good song, right? But anyway...
...Colin Kaepernick plays for the Niners. That's not a national team. That's San Francisco's state team. Which begs the question, why the Star-Spangled Banner is broken out at every single gathering wherein more than ten people are sat down watching the same event. It's a very alien thing to an Englishman like me. We don't tend to play God Save The Queen before each Cricket match. It's not necessary.
That aside.
The Star-Spangled Banner was written about the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. The British beat the everloving shit out of the fort but still those inside didn't budge. For 27 hours they sustained heavy bombardment, while the flag flapped merrily away as a sign of their resistance.
Now, the reason why the US got involved in the first place was to do with the Napoleonic Wars. Trade restrictions due to the war were hampering US trade; there were territorial squabbles too, and also the British were lending a fair amount of support to local Natives to resist the expansion of the new nation.
It could be seen as an extension of the War of Independence, which ended some 31 years previously. To the British it was just another front in the war against Napoleon; to the US, once more, they were standing against an ancestral oppressor. They wanted to make the land theirs, to own it, to be free of the shackles of royalty and tyranny.
The song celebrates the land of the free. It is an anthem of liberty, freedom, a rejection of autocracy.
So obviously, if someone doesn't stand for it, then they aren't doing what they are told and they must be punished for it. Right?
Let's look at context here: the flag represents a system that is objectively oppressive towards minorities. Like it's such a fact lodged in statistics that it is impossible to ignore, and to claim otherwise is either naive or mischievous. It is a nation - much like ours - that was made very wealthy exploiting people of colour. The history of oppression is a long and thoroughly documented one.
I can understand not wanting to kowtow to that. When we are children we are forced to pay respect to people that we don't respect and that don't DESERVE respect; as adults, we are grown enough to make that decision ourselves. Sure, we may catch some social flak for it - but in the end I'd rather people think I am some kind of aloof prick than an asskisser who hits the knees for anyone that thinks they are somebody.
Speaking as a person who, as a child, was forced to get on with people that bullied me every day - forced to pretend to be their friends, forced to APOLOGISE to my bullies for something I had done in retalation - I can tell you that paying respects to those that don't respect you is a hollow thing, like ashes in your mouth. It sits wrong. It rankles.
The only difference between me choosing to not stand up for God Save The Queen and Colin Kaepernick not standing up for the Star-Spangled Banner is that he is in the public eye - and if you stop being yourself and doing what you believe to be right because people can see you, then that's surely worse than not engaging in patriotic rituals.
And perhaps, people who think otherwise... people who insist that if you don't participate in patriotism means there is something inherently wrong with you... are hiding something a little deeper than that. Perhaps there's a crack deep inside that shell of patriotism. A mote of doubt. A fear that, just maybe, the image of the nation that is communally built up in the minds of its citizens isn't the actual truth.
Got news for you, folks. America hasn't been what you've thought it's been for a very, very long time.
But hey. Why would you listen to me?
I don't stand up for the national anthem either.
Wednesday, 31 August 2016
3 of 7 - Strong In The Real Way
(The third of seven blogs this week! This isn't so bad! Famous last words!)
WARNING: Below this point, there will be a LOT of spoilers, if you aren't caught up with Steven Universe - at the very least to the episode Mindful Education, Season 4, Episode 4.
Here's a nice picture of Garnet to provide some space between warning and spoilers.
Okay so. I REALLY like Steven Universe. To the point that Steven was my first (albeit lazy) cosplay ever, which I wore at this year's Nine Worlds.
I even had the cheeseburger backpack.
I love this show for a lot of reasons. It is smart. It is sharp. It is funny, without being cruel. It is understated in the epic scope of the overarching plot. You don't even know there really IS one until late in Season 1.
The music is wonderful - both the incidentals and the songs the characters themselves break into with just enough infrequency that it feels like a treat every time. As I understand it most of the cast were chosen in part due to their singing ability, and Estelle - voice of Garnet - does a killer job at bringing life to her as a character, both verbally and chorally.
I love the characters; I love the parts of me that I see in some of them. I love that they are whole. Even if someone seems like a stereotype at first, you get to know them in the ten-minute snippets of life in Beach City. Even characters that seem throwaway and background gain a life of their own, which teaches you a valuable lesson - even people in the background have a story and a history.
Which brings me onto what I love the most about Steven Universe: the lessons.
It teaches us things. It teaches us important, valuable things, that I think everyone should know. It teaches us about love, of all sorts. It teaches us about insecurity and how it is okay to feel it, but to not let it hold us back. It teaches us about strength, and weakness, and moments of each. It teaches us about consent, and about respect, and about devotion and obsession - and the fine line between the two.
I don't know a lot of people who have watched the show who haven't felt their heart break at least once while watching it. In order to do so, you'd have to be a robot with no capacity for empathy.
Listen to Pearl singing about Rose - about how she can't believe that Rose would pick the human over her, and now she's gone, and why can't she just...move on? Who hasn't been there? Who hasn't met someone that turned their entire world upside down, like Ruby and Sapphire? Who hasn't seen someone going the wrong way about something and silently pleaded for them to realise, like Pearl in the song this blog is titled after? Who hasn't fucked up so monumentally that you would do literally ANYTHING to make it better, like Amethyst?
The songs add so much to the show. They sum it up in so many ways. Even the seemingly throwaway songs - Connie and Steven's jam song, or the snippets of the song Rose Quartz sings at the end of each episodes - gain meaning, gain traction.
It is the most recent song, however, that I find myself thinking about the most; a song about thoughts, about being hung up on them, about being afraid of even thinking them because they hurt. It's a song that poignantly, pointedly and accurately deals with anxiety - with things we have done wrong in the past and how we deal with them.
It's called Here Comes A Thought, and unsurprisingly, Garnet is singing it to Stevonnie. Because of course their relationship / fusion is a scary thing, and of course Garnet has been through the same thing more than any of the others. It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
Steven Universe. A comforting cartoon for people living in a flawed world. But that's okay - if every pork chop was perfect...
...we wouldn't have hot dogs.
WARNING: Below this point, there will be a LOT of spoilers, if you aren't caught up with Steven Universe - at the very least to the episode Mindful Education, Season 4, Episode 4.
Here's a nice picture of Garnet to provide some space between warning and spoilers.
Okay so. I REALLY like Steven Universe. To the point that Steven was my first (albeit lazy) cosplay ever, which I wore at this year's Nine Worlds.
I even had the cheeseburger backpack.
I love this show for a lot of reasons. It is smart. It is sharp. It is funny, without being cruel. It is understated in the epic scope of the overarching plot. You don't even know there really IS one until late in Season 1.
The music is wonderful - both the incidentals and the songs the characters themselves break into with just enough infrequency that it feels like a treat every time. As I understand it most of the cast were chosen in part due to their singing ability, and Estelle - voice of Garnet - does a killer job at bringing life to her as a character, both verbally and chorally.
I love the characters; I love the parts of me that I see in some of them. I love that they are whole. Even if someone seems like a stereotype at first, you get to know them in the ten-minute snippets of life in Beach City. Even characters that seem throwaway and background gain a life of their own, which teaches you a valuable lesson - even people in the background have a story and a history.
Which brings me onto what I love the most about Steven Universe: the lessons.
It teaches us things. It teaches us important, valuable things, that I think everyone should know. It teaches us about love, of all sorts. It teaches us about insecurity and how it is okay to feel it, but to not let it hold us back. It teaches us about strength, and weakness, and moments of each. It teaches us about consent, and about respect, and about devotion and obsession - and the fine line between the two.
I don't know a lot of people who have watched the show who haven't felt their heart break at least once while watching it. In order to do so, you'd have to be a robot with no capacity for empathy.
Listen to Pearl singing about Rose - about how she can't believe that Rose would pick the human over her, and now she's gone, and why can't she just...move on? Who hasn't been there? Who hasn't met someone that turned their entire world upside down, like Ruby and Sapphire? Who hasn't seen someone going the wrong way about something and silently pleaded for them to realise, like Pearl in the song this blog is titled after? Who hasn't fucked up so monumentally that you would do literally ANYTHING to make it better, like Amethyst?
The songs add so much to the show. They sum it up in so many ways. Even the seemingly throwaway songs - Connie and Steven's jam song, or the snippets of the song Rose Quartz sings at the end of each episodes - gain meaning, gain traction.
It is the most recent song, however, that I find myself thinking about the most; a song about thoughts, about being hung up on them, about being afraid of even thinking them because they hurt. It's a song that poignantly, pointedly and accurately deals with anxiety - with things we have done wrong in the past and how we deal with them.
It's called Here Comes A Thought, and unsurprisingly, Garnet is singing it to Stevonnie. Because of course their relationship / fusion is a scary thing, and of course Garnet has been through the same thing more than any of the others. It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
Steven Universe. A comforting cartoon for people living in a flawed world. But that's okay - if every pork chop was perfect...
...we wouldn't have hot dogs.
Tuesday, 30 August 2016
2 of 7 - The Left Leg Phenomenon
(Day 2 of the one-blog-a-day fun fest!)
In the IDW Transformers comics, there is an Autobot named Ambulon.
He's the one tending to the wounded chap.
We run into him in a storyline centred around the morality of medicine and medical study. It turns out that he was once a Decepticon, who defected to the Autobots when the experiment he was part of went awry. As his name kind of implies, he's a doctor.
Except - and here is where the IDW series demonstrates some of its pure genius - that's not why he was called Ambulon. He was called Ambulon, from the latin Ambulate - to walk.
He was part of a Decepticon experiment to create a combiner, and he was a leg. Not a leg and a car. Just a leg.
When I got to that part of the comic I burst out laughing, like aloud. I couldn't help myself. The entire thing about combiners in the IDW series - it's a big plot point, so it actually has some weight, but - Ambulon? Because he's a leg!? Amazing!
...but then that got me to thinking.
Warning. It gets nerdier from here.
Later that day we were watching Voltron,, the new series. It's really good, it bears mention. True to the original in all the best ways but updated for the now, with great character design and animation. We were talking about the characterisation, and I opined that my favourite was - and always will be - Hunk. The strong left foot.
Other combiners were brought up, and I started to notice a pattern:
I always like the left foot.
Anyone remember the original series of Power Rangers? Left foot was Billy in the blue Triceratops-zord. He was my favourite power ranger! What's not to like about Billy?
Back to the Transformers universe. Devastator's left leg is Mixmaster, who was an unsung hero of the Constructicons - a chemistry genius that mixed his own stuff on demand. He was central to all their key engineering tasks. Predaking's left leg is Headstrong, who is stubborn when pushed, just like me - and just like me, insists that he will get there when he gets there, and woe betide if you rush him.
Menasor's left leg is Wildrider, who is the very essence of the Stunticons - savage and brutal, a psychotic speed freak who is a danger to anything on wheels. Abominus's leftie is Sinnertwin - tell me that name isn't metal as FUCK - and Sinnertwin's jam is dismemberment with his two monster heads. The left leg of the Combaticon team is Brawl. BRAWL. The super-angry damn-near-unstoppable fury tank. BRAWL.
The Autobots get love too. Superion's left leg is Fireflight, a take-no-prisoners arrogant son-of-a-bitch of a jet. Defensor sports Streetwise, who is basically Prowl but with added John McLean. Computron's left leg is Nosecone, who is a drill tank. So is (Decepticon) Liokaiser's - bonus points if you know who THAT is, and who Drillhorn is. Nosecone and Drillhorn are both perfectionist strategists, taking their time to concoct the ideal approach to any situation. No wonder I like them.
Left legs RULE. Even the One Piece crew forms a combiner at one point, and "Black Leg" Sanji is - let's face it - a badass. He's like my fourth favourite member of the crew.
So...who cares if they don't have the edgy panache of the Sixth Team Member (Devastator and Liokaiser nonwithstanding), or the brave badassness of the Red Guy, or the head. Who cares.
The left leg is where it's at, people. The left leg is the strong foot, the stable leg that you lead with when you box, that you plant when delivering a kick or a strike. The left leg is your best friend.
Ambulon - from Ambulate.
In the IDW Transformers comics, there is an Autobot named Ambulon.
He's the one tending to the wounded chap.
We run into him in a storyline centred around the morality of medicine and medical study. It turns out that he was once a Decepticon, who defected to the Autobots when the experiment he was part of went awry. As his name kind of implies, he's a doctor.
Except - and here is where the IDW series demonstrates some of its pure genius - that's not why he was called Ambulon. He was called Ambulon, from the latin Ambulate - to walk.
He was part of a Decepticon experiment to create a combiner, and he was a leg. Not a leg and a car. Just a leg.
When I got to that part of the comic I burst out laughing, like aloud. I couldn't help myself. The entire thing about combiners in the IDW series - it's a big plot point, so it actually has some weight, but - Ambulon? Because he's a leg!? Amazing!
...but then that got me to thinking.
Warning. It gets nerdier from here.
Later that day we were watching Voltron,, the new series. It's really good, it bears mention. True to the original in all the best ways but updated for the now, with great character design and animation. We were talking about the characterisation, and I opined that my favourite was - and always will be - Hunk. The strong left foot.
Other combiners were brought up, and I started to notice a pattern:
I always like the left foot.
Anyone remember the original series of Power Rangers? Left foot was Billy in the blue Triceratops-zord. He was my favourite power ranger! What's not to like about Billy?
Back to the Transformers universe. Devastator's left leg is Mixmaster, who was an unsung hero of the Constructicons - a chemistry genius that mixed his own stuff on demand. He was central to all their key engineering tasks. Predaking's left leg is Headstrong, who is stubborn when pushed, just like me - and just like me, insists that he will get there when he gets there, and woe betide if you rush him.
Menasor's left leg is Wildrider, who is the very essence of the Stunticons - savage and brutal, a psychotic speed freak who is a danger to anything on wheels. Abominus's leftie is Sinnertwin - tell me that name isn't metal as FUCK - and Sinnertwin's jam is dismemberment with his two monster heads. The left leg of the Combaticon team is Brawl. BRAWL. The super-angry damn-near-unstoppable fury tank. BRAWL.
The Autobots get love too. Superion's left leg is Fireflight, a take-no-prisoners arrogant son-of-a-bitch of a jet. Defensor sports Streetwise, who is basically Prowl but with added John McLean. Computron's left leg is Nosecone, who is a drill tank. So is (Decepticon) Liokaiser's - bonus points if you know who THAT is, and who Drillhorn is. Nosecone and Drillhorn are both perfectionist strategists, taking their time to concoct the ideal approach to any situation. No wonder I like them.
Left legs RULE. Even the One Piece crew forms a combiner at one point, and "Black Leg" Sanji is - let's face it - a badass. He's like my fourth favourite member of the crew.
So...who cares if they don't have the edgy panache of the Sixth Team Member (Devastator and Liokaiser nonwithstanding), or the brave badassness of the Red Guy, or the head. Who cares.
The left leg is where it's at, people. The left leg is the strong foot, the stable leg that you lead with when you box, that you plant when delivering a kick or a strike. The left leg is your best friend.
Ambulon - from Ambulate.
Monday, 29 August 2016
1 of 7 - Take Our Own Medicine
(This is the first of an attempt to write a blog post a day for an entire week! What am I, a masochist!?)
Most people are absolutely overflowing with good advice, aren't they?
We've all lived lives. We've been in situations that aren't great or ideal. We've dealt with scenarios that test us, that lead to suffering (or joy), and we've learned lessons from them. We're filled with knowledge on how to survive the modern world, and it's advice we should hand out to those that need it.
Like I could probably tell you a few good ways to eat on a budget, or ways to get the most out of a stay in a hotel. Other people I know can give you killer tips on contouring your face or cooking a full roast dinner or refitting an entire BMW engine.
When it comes to personal advice however - on relationships, on doubts, on regrets, on living life - why are we so bad at taking our own advice?
We know we shouldn't do the thing. When others do the thing, we tell them - hey, maybe not do the thing. If someone does the thing in a movie, we laugh. How could they be so dumb as to do the thing? I'd NEVER do the thing.
Then...we do the thing.
But! But it's different for us, isn't it? Different circumstances, because...
And there it is. The excuse. The complexity.
When we look at someone else's life - either by the medium of their telling us or through our own observation - we don't see everything. We see a snapshot, a slice. What seems so obvious to us as we look at their lives is in actual fact not as easy as one would assume, which is what we find when it comes to applying our advice to own situation.
The thing is... sometimes we use those complexities as excuses.
It's HARD to cut certain things or people out of one's life. I know this. Even if we kind of suspect they are bad for us - hell, even if we 100% know objectively they are AWFUL for us - it's hard to drop the hammer forever. That's before we consider any further issues; we're still friends with this person's second cousin, that would be awkward. How am I going to attend all those fun crack house parties if I don't smoke crack any more?
...but here's the thing...we get so used to making those excuses that we end up just letting the situation continue, long after we would actually step in and act on our friend's behalf if they were in the same situation.
It's easier to suffer than it is to watch suffering. Like I know this for a fact. I've seen other people struggling with similar problems to me and it hurts. How often have we said we'd take someone else's suffering if we could? Because we can deal with it, we know we can. We're strong. We can take on the world, even if we hate watching our friends do the same.
Even if our friends hate watching us do the same. To the point that they give us advice. That they urge us to listen. That they tell us that they know it is hard but...
That's the point. It IS hard. We all have to do hard things in our lives. Even if we know it is for our own good, that doesn't make it any easier - nor any less necessary. It just requires a shift of thinking. We start with the baseline of: It is hard so I will find ways to cope with not doing it.
Really, it is in our best interest to shift to: It is going to be hard but I must do it and so I will find ways to cope with the result.
Let's start taking our own advice, people. Toxicity is profligate in our lives and in the world around us - but we don't have to suffer all of it. Do better for ourselves before we tell others what they should be doing.
Everyone being happier, healthier and more secure is never a bad thing.
Most people are absolutely overflowing with good advice, aren't they?
We've all lived lives. We've been in situations that aren't great or ideal. We've dealt with scenarios that test us, that lead to suffering (or joy), and we've learned lessons from them. We're filled with knowledge on how to survive the modern world, and it's advice we should hand out to those that need it.
Like I could probably tell you a few good ways to eat on a budget, or ways to get the most out of a stay in a hotel. Other people I know can give you killer tips on contouring your face or cooking a full roast dinner or refitting an entire BMW engine.
When it comes to personal advice however - on relationships, on doubts, on regrets, on living life - why are we so bad at taking our own advice?
We know we shouldn't do the thing. When others do the thing, we tell them - hey, maybe not do the thing. If someone does the thing in a movie, we laugh. How could they be so dumb as to do the thing? I'd NEVER do the thing.
Then...we do the thing.
But! But it's different for us, isn't it? Different circumstances, because...
And there it is. The excuse. The complexity.
When we look at someone else's life - either by the medium of their telling us or through our own observation - we don't see everything. We see a snapshot, a slice. What seems so obvious to us as we look at their lives is in actual fact not as easy as one would assume, which is what we find when it comes to applying our advice to own situation.
The thing is... sometimes we use those complexities as excuses.
It's HARD to cut certain things or people out of one's life. I know this. Even if we kind of suspect they are bad for us - hell, even if we 100% know objectively they are AWFUL for us - it's hard to drop the hammer forever. That's before we consider any further issues; we're still friends with this person's second cousin, that would be awkward. How am I going to attend all those fun crack house parties if I don't smoke crack any more?
...but here's the thing...we get so used to making those excuses that we end up just letting the situation continue, long after we would actually step in and act on our friend's behalf if they were in the same situation.
It's easier to suffer than it is to watch suffering. Like I know this for a fact. I've seen other people struggling with similar problems to me and it hurts. How often have we said we'd take someone else's suffering if we could? Because we can deal with it, we know we can. We're strong. We can take on the world, even if we hate watching our friends do the same.
Even if our friends hate watching us do the same. To the point that they give us advice. That they urge us to listen. That they tell us that they know it is hard but...
That's the point. It IS hard. We all have to do hard things in our lives. Even if we know it is for our own good, that doesn't make it any easier - nor any less necessary. It just requires a shift of thinking. We start with the baseline of: It is hard so I will find ways to cope with not doing it.
Really, it is in our best interest to shift to: It is going to be hard but I must do it and so I will find ways to cope with the result.
Let's start taking our own advice, people. Toxicity is profligate in our lives and in the world around us - but we don't have to suffer all of it. Do better for ourselves before we tell others what they should be doing.
Everyone being happier, healthier and more secure is never a bad thing.
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