numb3r_5ev3n

So, I am crashing out completely from the Tron Ares hyperfocus. One of the casualties of this is my bi-annual deletion of Reddit, because it is beyond toxic, it had become an addiction, and it has been eating my life.

The moment I do it, is always so freeing. And then, the next few days, I realize just how tethered to groupthink I was. I felt the same way after deleting Bluesky. But unlike Bluesky, I have deleted Reddit and gone back multiple times now.

This time, I really can't afford to go back. It really did eat my entire life there for a while, and I need to let it go.

Oddly enough, I now know how to proceed with my fanfic. More than one of my fanfics, actually. And I have my recent rewatch of Time Bandits to thank for that.

Time Bandits is probably my mom's favorite movie. Like it is the one movie my mom re-purchases every time the format changes (VHS > DVD > Blu Ray > Digital)

I watched it over and over as a kid, until I was about 10 - when suddenly, everything about it became very existentially terrifying. Like to the point where I couldn't be in the same room when it was on. It was the height of the 80s Satanic Panic, and my religious scrupulosity OCD was starting to kick into overdrive right around this time. And the the religious aspects of it triggered something very deep, even if it wasn't a traditional God vs Satan narrative. But, just like something in my psyche saw The Endless in Neil Gaiman's Sandman a few years later and decided that they were real, and The Endless became a very real part of my personal cosmology for a while, something in me felt like this was a more "real" representation of God and the Devil than the traditional ones.

Basically, if you grew up in Evangelical Christianity during the 1980s Satanic Panic, as I did, you were getting the constant messaging that any media with magic or wonder was just a trap of the Devil seeking to ensnare weak minds. Fantasy was The Devil/Evil shaking his keys. So the idea that The Age Of Legends was a trap suddenly seemed all too plausible to me as I was then, suddenly drowning in Religious Scrupulosity OCD, but having previously felt like I belonged in The Time Of Legends. Someone who was born as a normal human by mistake, and wanting nothing more than to "get back there." Because my whole life, up to that point, had been trying to find a way to get back there.

I remember suddenly being very freaked out that Evil, and his Fortress of Ultimate Darkness, were located in the Time Of Legends - a place I had already spent my entire childhood hoping a time hole would open up to. This engendered fears that I was already corrupted. How could I not be, if that was a place that I was trying to find my way back to? The Map suddenly felt like something that could get me if it wanted, something I had to hide from - because it was going to be a straight shot to the Time Of Legends and the Fortress Of Ultimate Darkness. I already believed in it, so of course I was in danger of being taken at any time. (And it just hit me, how much OCD can feel like mind control: as in "Standby for mind control," for those who don't know what it is, who haven't been diagnosed yet.)

Revisiting it as an adult who has rejected mainstream Evangelical Christianity for Gnosticism: it's a very Gnostic movie, isn't it? The Supreme Being is the Demiurge. The Dwarves are renegade Archons. Evil is also just another Renegade Archon.

Anyway, I began to have a horror of The Map showing up in my room unannounced, of glimpsing that particular shade of blue. It didn't feel like something from a fictional movie - any of it. It all felt like something very real, and dangerous.

I wasn't ok at age ten, about a lot of things. But that was one of them. And I feel like unpacking this now may resolve some things I am still subconsciously dealing with. I needed to confront this movie the same way I needed to confront Rock N Rule again back in 2010, for similar reasons.

But I realized what a huge influence it was when I was trying to write Watchmen/Moorcock crossover fanfic, even half-remembered from decades before. Like I was unconsciously using the movie's time travel mechanics as a frame work, until I realized that was what I was doing. It was very much Shelly Duvall as Laurie Juspeczyk in my imagination - running around and finding time holes to escape through as she was being pursued by Adrian Veidt through space and time, because she has a MacGuffin he needed (Mournblade, in various forms) and occasionally being bailed out by Michael Palin as Oswald Bastable.

There was a lot of it that I wrote that never got posted. I think I never finished it because I realized how similar it was to Time Bandits. But that's the story as it happened in my head.

I need to work on it, and the Tron fic. Which I should be able to do even though I am crashing out from the hyperfocus - because, oddly enough, the hyperfocus (and Reddit) were in the way.

But yeah, watching a few days ago also caused a lot of "Memory Unlocked" moments. Also: I had no idea there was a recent reboot with Taika Waititi.

But the really weird thing is, my adult life has been spent "gaining an understanding" of computers. So that's something to think about as I sit here trying to rice my current desktop environment (via videos like this.)

So, one of the reasons that I have been obsessively infodumping about the Epstein stuff is that it's intruding into my escapism in a way I can't tune out, and I hate it.

Because this crap has infected every single aspect of the tech world, due to the fact that Jeffrey Epstein, Steve Bannon, and their other cronies roped techbros into their schemes, and used them to help hijack the society we live in and steer it in the direction that they wanted it to go in.

Like, the fanfic for the Tron franchise I am working on right now concerns two rival tech companies. And I can't work on it or even think about it without thinking about the cancer and the rot that is going on currently in real life tech culture.

Like yeah, I can pretend that there isn't anyone like Jeffrey Epstein in the Tron Universe, and that none of that horrible shit happened, and tech in this fictional world evolved along very different lines: and this is obviously the way I *should* actually be handling it. Because there is not an IGE or a Microsoft or a Starlink or Tesla or a META: There's Encom and Dillinger Systems.

But like...the villain of the last movie is a whole techbro, borrowing from a stereotype that is only familiar to us because of how prominent it has become in real life over the past decade or so, thanks mostly to the mechanizations of the worst people.

It's hard for me to write this now without considering everything that has been revealed about the Epstein Web's malign influence over every aspect of the tech world over the past 20 years. Because a lot of the reason we are where we are right now - in regards to AI and "Web 3," is because of them. Just ignoring it feels disingenuous. It feels like whitewashing. Even though: of course technology in the Tron universe progressed along very different lines, because real, actual AI (not the fake bullshit slop we have now) and digitizing actual real-world matter into the computer have existed since 1982 in this timeline. This is science fiction, happening in a world that still feels very much like our own. I mean, the thing I tell newcomers to the Tron franchise is: "imagine if the Technological Singularity happened in 1982, but only a few people were aware of it, or noticed."

BUT, and a youtuber called attention to this aspect of the latest Tron movie without realizing that this is what he was doing: Eve Kim, the character portrayed by Greta Lee in the latest film, is basically Buckaroo Banzai, complete with her own stalwart band of comrades who are the Tron universe's equivalent of Buckaroo Banzai's own Hong Kong Cavaliers. She is a globetrotting hacker gamer biker CEO of a tech company. And while some dorks were of course screaming "Mary Sue!" there is no way as a Buckaroo Banzai fan that I can't just pick this up and run with it, it's perfect.

And THIS is why the Seth Flores character didn't grate on me the way he did on some people in the audience: he's kind of the equivalent of Perfect Tommy and New Jersey at once? And holy shit, the "It's cowboy time" line from the character Ajay Singh: HE'S RAWHIDE. (Or New Jersey?) Holy hell, it's THEM in another universe and incarnation.

And YES this makes the titular Ares the equivalent of Penny Priddy. Just try to get that image out of your mind once it's popped in there. and YES, I know how all of this sounds in light of Jared Leto's involvement in the Tron Ares film, and the allegations against him. (I fucking hate this timeline.)

Anyway my fix for that during the time the film was in theaters was to just imagine what the movie would have been like if the titular Ares had been played by Keanu Reeves instead. (Because of course the Billionaire Techbro would want to make his Supersolider look like John Wick.) That, or Trent Reznor; mainly because of the soundtrack. Some of the fanart I have seen of peoples' fancasting of Trent Reznor as Ares is phenomenal. I have become a fan of the "Young Trent Reznor as Ares" idea since I first saw it, but especially since the remix album of the OST dropped last week, and then I went and saw NIN live in concert.

EDIT:But this all just dovetails back into the reality that the harm of women in children is inextricably woven into the creation media designed to be art, designed to entertain us, due to it being normalized, systemic, and endemic in our culture. Many of the artists whose creations got us through the 2000s and 2010s have turned out to be predators. The only real exception I can think of is the late David Lynch, who was actively trying to alert us that it was going on, through the creation of his own art and media.

And I can't help but wonder what a Tron movie by David Lynch would have been like.

IDK chat, I'm going to have to figure this out. I mean, I'm going to write it regardless. But yeah.

Hell, maybe in this timeline, Livejournal and Myspace are still around. I think it's a lot more fun to imagine a timeline that doesn't involve any of the current horrors, even if it does feel dishonest somehow.

[A meme with Doctor Manhattan from the comic book Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Doctor Manhattan is on Mars, with the text captions "I am 11 years old. A Republican president is waging war in the Middle East. I am 23 years old. A Republican president is waging war in the Middle East. I am 46 years old. A Republican president is waging war in the Middle East."]

I don't want to be in a state of "I hope all of the stupid jerks who voted for Trump because they believed Kamala Harris was the one who would start another stupid, pointless war are having the day they voted for." Because, as per usual, it's the innocent victims who did absolutely nothing to deserve this who will suffer the most. But that is where I am right now, regardless.

Back in 1999, Neal Stephenson wrote in In The Beginning Was The Command Line that, as of that moment, we as a species were trying to evolve into a global society that agreed not to nuke itself. 27 years later, it very much feels like we have regressed back into a society that is actively trying to nuke itself.

Whatever. I voted for the Prosecutor Lady, because I knew she would *not* do any of the crap that Cheeto Shitler is doing right now. Nine years ago, I voted for the Email Lady for the same reason. Five years ago, I voted for Dark Brandon. 26 years ago, I voted for The Guy Who Supposedly Invented The Internet. And I voted twice for Obama. And so it goes.

First one:
https://www.tiktok.com/@cypher.j/video/7583448092033273118?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7606948024489133598

Second one:
https://www.tiktok.com/@cypher.j/video/7602464513488637215?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7606948024489133598

EDIT: TL;DR these releases are being done in a way so that they can say they did it, they released the files, without the system collapsing or changing at all. It's giving "we released the files, now shut up and be quiet and go back to work." It's like the files themselves are being released in a way to prevent the necessary societal change which would have prevented Jeffery Epstein, or the next iteration of Jeffery Epstein, from occurring. And people are very much aware and in despair about nothing actually happening, and that's by design, too. So that we give up trying to change society.

(nyyki let me know if these crash your screen reader, and I'll link them in another format. EDIT: I had to link them in another format because the embed code from Tiktok is not working. I guess Dreamwidth is too Web 1.0. Just unmute after the video opens.)

It's like that post I made last month. All Conservatives want is power, and continuity of that power. And if the system can have this kind of revelation happen to it and not collapse, that continuity is assured. What was Pam Bondi's wibbly excuse from this week, between her arrogant, childish outbursts? That if the people in the list were prosecuted, the system would collapse.

The system needs to collapse. And for it to collapse, we have to not allow them dispersion. We have to stay mad. Otherwise, the only thing one can do with a system this fucked is leave it.

Here it is.

That was what the Epstein files were really all about. MAGA supported Trump in the first place because they thought he would eventually mandate the persecution and murder of all of the people who disagree with them. MAGA assumed the Epstein List or the Black Book or whatever would be full of prominent Democrat and Liberal names, and ONLY that, and that this would finally give them the justification the needed to be able to execute on sight anyone identifying as Democrat or Liberal or Leftist.

But since Their Guy is Suspect #1, they're now actively against the release of the Epstein files. They've pivoted to just letting the ICEstapo carry on with killing people on a whim. The fact that ICE has not been sent to occupy any border states with higher immigration statistics proves that was never about immigration, any more than it was about "saving children from trafficking" because their guy is trafficker and rapist #1. And now the proof is right there in their faces, and now they can't just rationalize it away.

But it's always been about them just wanting to be able to execute us at will just for disagreeing with them about the economy, disagreeing with them about civil rights (i.e. that everyone should have them), for rejecting their cruelty and hypocrisy, for rejecting their racism, rejecting white supremacy, rejecting their warped misappropriation of a 3000-year-old Levantine storm god, and for gently asking them to put on masks during a global pandemic. That's all it has ever been about. That's what all of their bullshit rationalizations about immigration or "saving the children" are about. Always has been.

Rest in power Renee Good and Alex Peretti, and everyone else victimized by these thugs whose names haven't been revealed or aren't being mentioned right now. You never should have been martyrs. We can't let their murderers get away with this.

Current mood.


[A tweet by c a i t l i n, with the text "Roving banks of masked federal agents with total immunity executing gun owners is the kind of sweaty conservative fantasy we've heard over the last 20 years on cable news and now that it's here, they love it."]

On youtube, here.

I like how he goes straight into the way that Tron was an expression of 60s Left Wing idealism, and the idea of taking on a corrupt corporate entity: and even going into the spirituality and consciousness-expanding aspects of it.

( Spoilers for the Tron franchise. )

The 5 Calls campaign to stop the military escalation in Venezuela.

I'm pulling my head out of fandomspace and freaking out about my real life!space to address this absolutely unnecessary clusterfuck that absolutely no one asked for except Donald Trump and his pet Ghoulstapo assholes.

I wasn't able to make any of the protests today because of family issues, but I'm sure there will continue to be protests as the fuckery continues, so I'll make it to one eventually.

Cue "I can't believe I still have to protest this shit" shit.

Current Mood.

[A Tweet from David Malki which reads, "If a croque madame speaks to another croque madame about something other than a croque monsieur, that's called passing the béchamel test."]

I found this, and it's a whole mood:


I fixed up another laptop (my old Thinkpad T420) and installed an ssd drive finally. It's running Parrot Linux right now (a hacker distro, LOL) running on a Debian framework. Arch may be all the rage right now, but Debian and its different "forks" are still the best at what they do, IMHO.

People are doing a "Jobs that you, a neurodivergent person, have had" and mine are basically, from 1998-current:

Tech Support, 1998
Movie Theater 1999-2000
Tech Support 2000-2003
Auto accounts (aka the reason why I will never work for Capital One again, they literally fired me for reading The Onion while it was slow.) 2003
Tech Support 2003-2005
Tech Support 2005-2006
Server Farm 2006-2010
Tech Support 2010-2015
Tech Support 2015-2017
Tech Support: 2017-now.

[A review of Tron Ares by someone named Kiefer, with four stars. Text: "Kief you called this movie mid in your first review why'd you see it twice" I Cannot Overstate How Much I do Not Control What I Hyperfixate On. Tron has consumed my life and I've warmed up more to this movie as a result."]