batmaniam
Yeah, and they cut soooo much from original concepts they had, I wonder if they would have handled it better if they didn’t get to the “fuck it, we need to ship” stage of things.
Still, you can’t just borrow from the real world when it’s convenient for weight and impact, you owe it to the people that lived it to do it right.
Thanks for the conversation!
The line from bookers perspective is entirely appropriate (he’s an asshole), the narrative reinforcing it should have been handled better. That being said, the reason the “both sides bad” bullshit is such a prevalent fallacy is that there are instances where it’s true. I already mentioned Stalin, but revolutionary France got pretty messed up as well. Thats why it short circuits the whole “is it true in this case” reasoning. You can absolutely find cycles of violence in every nation, and you can talk about them in a way that doesn’t cheapen the suffering that brought them on. When talking about BLM and literal nazis saying “there’s good people on both sides” is bullshit. Saying “robes Pierre was kind of an asshole” is not. The game did a pretty shit job of that.
I have to be honest, I always saw the costumes as just red and scary, but I see your point. Looking at them in isolation I get it, but knowing they were mostly black didn’t make me think “klan”. If anything I saw it as a red cap analogy. There’s probably a bunch more I missed to. Thanks for pointing me to a re-look before I go mouthing off about it some more. I definitely need to take a better look.
I know the “both sides” thing is something we’re all sick of now, but there’s no way Levine could have imagined what 2020+ would look like. Not to say that isn’t something that’s always happened, but man 2012 didn’t have it to our current degree of insanity. Also I always figured the Vox were modeled more after the Russian revolution which… yeah… Stalinism was the end result, so it fits. I think that’s the crux of the bad writing. You model the Vox after real world socialist uprisings, but they’re predominantly black in a crazy racist planation in the sky. Now you’re borrowing context from two real world things, and need to be careful about what you’re saying, intentionally or not, about each of them. You have a responsibility in your messaging now. Given how it landed with you, I’d say they didn’t do a great job.
Also Booker’s view of it fits. He’s a drunk, gambling, Pinkerton who sold his daughter. He’s going to be a jaded misanthrope. Oh yeah and the part where he is also Comstock. Everything is there for us to know this is not a character we should be rooting for. But while these are facts about him, they never really make it into the “feel” of booker. So the information is there, it’s just not great writing.
In contrast Elizabeth is really well done. She starts naïve and pure (if only because of the whole fucked up locked in a tower bit), and Booker does genuinely “lead the lamb astray”. He’s the reason she gets exposed to everything, and as a result rains fire from the sky. While we know booker is an asshole but doesn’t feel like one, we definitely feel Elizabeth getting darker. I also think it’s a great touch that the one that saves Elizabeth is, Elizabeth. Booker can’t even take credit for that one.
I’m rambling now, I have a lot of mixed feelings on the game. It’s got some really great and well done parts, and some serious blunders.
There’s also a ton to the whole “Mr.Andresonnnnnn” “My name is Neo” recurring bit. While you could read it as anyone asserting a chosen identity over a given one in a broad sense, it was written by two trans folks. It’s meant to be dead naming.
It’s really well done. Teenage cis me (still cis, no longer teenage), picked up on precisely zero of that. Like Lilly said, some people, the people struggling with that, definitely did which is awesome. I think media like this can go a long way in cutting through some of the shitty narrative and “othering” that goes on in favor of the more universal truth: an individual is the one with final say in who and what they are. I’ll never really understand being trans, I’ve never felt out of place in my given assignment, but your damn right I can understand being pissed about being forced to call myself something I know I’m not.
It always seemed that simple to me. I’m also really glad folks got a power fantasy with this coding. Sure, a grounded character drama might help some people feel seen, and that’s cool. But you know whats cooler? Fucking kung-fu mastery and godamn flying.
You’re wrong. You’re so wrong. The warm light of everything good in this world has clearly never warmed your face nor caused the roaches to flee from the empty, echoing cavern that holds not but rot, mold, and regret where a brain is sorely missed. I pity you, your parents that birthed you, and all of humanity at large for now knowing a person could be so misguided. I pray for your strength on the inventible day when the faintest candle of reason illuminates the vaguest shadows of comprehension, and you may finally witness your errors, so long called accomplishments, as they loom over you like demon gods eager to drag you to hell in a cage you’ve spent a lifetime creating for yourself.
7+9 is dope though.
I have a story to share that this crowd will appreciate.
I got into TNG with my Dad. We’d watch it on broadcast when I was young whatever day of the week it was that is on.
Thing is, the afterschool daycare I was at, the last 45mins or whatever, as kids were trickling out, they’d sit us down to watch something while they closed up shop, vacuuming, wiping the kid grime off stuff etc. Frequently what they put on was reading rainbow.
So being young, I’d ask my Dad about Geordi’s visor and his eyes. He would patiently explain that Geordi was blind but could see with the visor. Somewhere in there was the episode where his visor breaks and he and the Romulan bond. So far so good, I’m with you.
But what I could NOT square, and didn’t have the means to articulate, was that just earlier that day Geordi was reading me godamn books. WITHOUT HIS VISOR.
… and then there we got to the godamn crossover episode of reading rainbow.
oh I’m not shortchanging it, I work in the field. It’s crazy how “simple” it is in concept and hard to deliver. But it’s on par with antibiotics with how many lives it’s changed. Like you said, it’s like a lot of civil stuff. A solid highway system, for instance. Just some dirt with fancy rocks on it right? Righhhhhhht?
And don’t get me wrong, wastewater has tons of complications. Any plant is operated in equal parts science, engineering, and art. It’s a living, breathing, bioreactor. They’ve each got their own distinct personality.
Thrilled you asked! So yes: Treatment is always required, but the final destination of the treated water can vary. For instance, in a lot of places they may have municipal water TO a home or business, but that may be discharged to septic, as opposed to the river. Also in a lot of areas, water may be taken out of an underground aquifer (either by private well or a municipality) but when treated it may be discharged into a river or ocean. That can create problems because if you’re near the coast, the empty space in the aquifer may be filled by salt/brackish water that can lead to salinity rises in the aquifer. To solve that some places turn to “ground water recharge”, which is just a fancy way of saying “we built a big well to put it back in the aquifer”.
Increasingly, you’re seeing some places essentially sell their treated water. Santa Rosa CA, for instance, built an entire pipeline that goes from their treatment facility to another municipality to be injected into their groundwater.
So yes, everywhere treats it, but the final destination makes a difference. Las Vegas (or anyone else on the river) only gets credit for what goes back into the river, so any evaporation etc is a problem. It sounds trivial, but there is a reason those other strategies exist. It essentially doubles every pipe, limits where you can park a treatment plant etc. Vegas also does some great grey water re-use. That essentially means it doesn’t go “back” but can get used many many times, limiting the initial draw.
Wastewater is funny because it’s far from rocket science, but the numbers to implement any of it get staggering very quickly.
I don’t know about power, but Vegas is actually incredibly water efficient. Due to the way the water rights work with the Colorado river, they’re not allowed very much, but it doesn’t “count” if you put it back in. So nearly every drop they use is treated and put back (probably cleaner, tbh). Boggles the brain, but somehow it’s actually a fairly sustainable city. More than any other other major metro, in any event.
