i've been sinking into the recurring one piece hyperfixation that i've had since like age 6 when i watched and read it on and off with my older brother and i've been really into the revolutionary messaging within the show.

the world government are at first portrayed as the bad guys on account of the main character being a pirate and the world government/the marines hunt pirates. but there are officers in the marines that legitimately want to help people - hell, the first secondary character we meet in the story wants to be a marine and this is shown as a worthy ambition because he wants to do it to help people. pirates aren't all happy-go-lucky folks who go around overthrowing repressive governments like the main characters - pirates are pirates. they aren't, as a whole, good. and then again, the marines are still deeply corrupt as an institution - the navy's main function is protection of a system that is fundamentally oppressive - there's what amounts to state-sanctioned slavery for fuck's sake, the marines as an institution are, at the end of the day, defending this system.

and that means that another faction, unrelated to the pirates, forms to fight against the injustices that the system of the world government perpetuates: the revolutionary army. and this third group might be the one of the few undoubtedly moral groups that exists in this world, and is portrayed as such, and thats bitching. no "they might have a point but they're Too Extreme so they have to be stopped" bullshit like you see in a lot of other lib media. here it's more of a "theres Individuals within the system that are moral try to behave morally but what is being perpetuated as a result of said system and what the system enables is unambiguously immoral and the use of violence is not shied away from because the system itself is violent and uses violence to subjugate the people" type situation.

as is i can't really see where else the story can go other than the overthrowing of the state and abolishment of the system that permits and is built upon the oppression of the people

and then the author is fucking terrible at drawing women and is so reliant on sexist tropes it ruins interesting characters. also on an individual-case basis (the individual islands/places the crew go to) there's still the perpetuation of governmental systems like fantasy monarchism. anime was a mistake

I like The Expanse very much. It is very fast-paced and well-written and has many interlocking story lines so it never gets boring. I also like the combination of action, mystery and political intrigue. There are also some arguably leftish themes about imperialism and inequality although the "earthers are suffering because they only have wage labour for a few of them and the rest live off their UBI" is too lib for my taste. To my layman eyes the physics of the spaceships also seems more realistic and plausible than most sci-fi.

My GF and I just finished watching Game of Thrones (yes, we are that backwards). It also manage to keep the viewer interested by having a ton of interlocking and different story lines and you want to explore the world it is set in. The end is shit though and the "trying to build a better world results in tragedy" moral is so old an tired and centrist that you want to scream.

Television in general, imo, is the perfect media format — it gives you enough time to get to understand and love the characters before something that requires you to be emotionally invested happens, and it gets there as a series of vignette or chapters that each have their own standalone plot and structure. I love the challenge of deducing what characters are thinking and what their motivations are without being privy to their inner thoughts, but with the aid of musical cues, camerawork, editing, etc.

In particular I love shows that put interpersonal dynamics at the forefront and are really character-driven. One show I watched recently that surprised me by being much better than expected was The Wilds (on am*zon) — it's a bit of a mystery type show, where you're gradually given more of the pieces of what's going on and you have to put them together somewhat.

I love every single one of the main cast, and the politics are decent (mainly just a rebuke of second-wave feminism aka worst feminism, occasionally touches on class and colonialism). It got renewed for a second season, but unclear when it's going to film because of covid. I really dig it. If you ever sat down and thought "what if lord of the flies didn't have garbage and incorrect views on human nature, and didn't have any br*tish in it" you'll almost definitely like it

Apparently they are making a Patrick Star spin off show now? Like, I get that nickelodeon is using SpongeBob as a cash cow but why pick one of the worst characters from the main cast??

I recently picked up a DDJ-400 DJ controller, and I've been having plenty of fun making mixes and mashups with it over the past week. I recorded a Liquid DnB mix a few days ago and posted it to the /c/music OC thread hoping to maybe get some feedback on what I did good/bad, but that thread is 6 months old at this point and is pretty dead, so I'm going to post it here as well if anyone's interested. I also recorded a Jungle mix yesterday that I though was pretty good, so I'm going to include that as well.

[ Minor content warning ] I named myself DXMTHL after dexmethylphenidate (aka Focalin, my ADHD meds) and use the image of the pill as the background image, so if that's something that might bother you then this is a heads up.

Liquid Drum & Bass Mix

Jungle Mix