labingi: (Default)
[personal profile] labingi
I enjoyed episode 1 of Alien: Earth. It seems a pretty good show, but for this post I'm just going to evaluate its performance on addressing climate breakdown. I've only seen this ep. once and wasn't taking notes, so feel free to chime in with what I missed.

Baseline: the show is set in 2120, about 100 years from now, i.e. in the middle of dealing with either a) voluntary radical change in how civilization lives on the Earth and/or b) involuntary climate breakdown, with much of the Earth being uninhabitable. How is the show doing with that reality?

* Handicap point: It's trying to maintain continuity with Alien's timeline, which is from the 1970s. (+1)

* Massive technological advancement with no sign of climate impacts on industrial infrastructure, etc.: -1

* Paradisal, verdant island forested with mature trees many of which are probably over 100 and no signs of climate damage or commentary (that I caught) on how this can be: -1

* Community that looks like it has adjusted to significant sea-level rise: +1

* Metropolis with flawless skyscrapers, greenery and no sign of climate damage or slowdown in materials extraction. (To match physical reality, it must have one or the other.): -1

* Massive department stores with many aisles of clothing and splashy ads suggesting that marketing-driven, fast-fashion culture has persisted unchanged for over 100 years without resulting in biophysical ruin for much of the Earth. -3 (This is projection grotesquely out of step with all realistic projections.)

TOTAL: -4

For research I'm drawing on, see the first two sections especially of this bibliography.

Katabasis

Aug. 25th, 2025 12:34 am
dhampyresa: (Natasha and red)
[personal profile] dhampyresa
I've mentionned a couple times on this journal that I was writing a pair of Natasha and Gamora fics about them escaping the Soul Stone via different afterlives, and now here they are!

Once More to See the Stars (9759 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Gamora (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Inferno (La Divina Commedia | The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri), Body Horror, Fix-It
Series: Part 1 of katabasis
Summary:

Natasha died on Vormir and awoke in the Suicide Wood of Dante's Hell. With Gamora's help, she made her way out.



Qabârum (3012 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Gamora (Marvel), Natasha Romanov (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Mesopotamian Mythology - Freeform, Body Horror, Fix-It
Series: Part 2 of katabasis
Summary:

For Gamora, the Soul Stone looked like Irkalla.



There's no real order to read them in -- they're added to the the series in the order I wrote them in, but reading them the other way around works too.

I had loads of fun writing a more poetic style than my usual in the Natasha fic. You get points for spotting the Hadestown reference, bonus point for the Galavant reference and mega bonus points for the (translated) Brassens quote.

Sort of spoilers for the Natasha fic, I guessI link Thor to Charon, not Phlegyas, because of the Etruscan psychopomp Charun having a hammer.


Sort of spoilers for the Gamora fic, I guessI got the tidbit about Mesopotamians burying their dead beneath their homes from Dominique Charpin's "La vie méconnue des temples mésopotamiens" ("The unknown life of mesopotamian temples"), specifically the section on the temples of Nergal.


I'm so happy I've finally managed to finish and edit and post fics! It's been... way too long.

Travel before holiday weekend

Aug. 17th, 2025 11:13 pm
ljwrites: Soseono in a round helmet from the show Jumong (soseono_horse)
[personal profile] ljwrites

The top of this week was taken up with preparations for travel to a different city with the family. We used to live there and my husband has family living there, so he took kiddo to visit his dad and sister while my dad and I took care of business. The business part went well, husband and kiddo had fun on their family visit, and we traveled back without incident. The upshot should be that we can worry significantly less about money starting in November, especially if I can get some work to tide us over.

I had a slight misadventure on the way when I thought I might miss the train out and had it canceled in advance, giving my apologies to Dad. Unexpectedly I ended up arriving at the station a little earlier and ran up to grab a standing ticket last minute to make the trip after all. That was a bit of a surprise for Dad when I called him from the same train he was on lol. I'm still so bad about time, a trait that has not endeared me to employers over the years who have had to deal with me.

We had scheduled the trip on Wednesday because Friday was Independence Day and there were no train tickets to be gotten on Thursday, the day before the start of the long weekend. After the trip we rested and slid into the holiday weekend, spending it at home watching the celebration events and venturing out on walks. Today the husband went out to GM a tabletop game so kiddo and I were on our own, cooking and eating Japanese-style curry befor we went out walking. We're all showered and relaxing now, and I wiped down the bedroom floor. Showers feel extra fulfilling if I get a cleaning task in beforehand! :D

With the weekend drawing to a close, next week will be more waiting and looking for work in between rest and chores. Going to be poking a couple of people on stalled publishing projects and putter around on editing and technical tasks. Maybe some creative tasks too if I can hack it. It's still sticky and unpleasant outside but there's a bit of autumn in the air, and we'll be feeling the chill before long.

Robot > Me

Aug. 14th, 2025 11:05 pm
dhampyresa: (Sad Cassie is sad)
[personal profile] dhampyresa
Couple days ago I was hanging out with a friend and she got distracted by texting her phone. I asked if it was about [specific thing going on in her life] but no. No. Instead she was talking to ChatGPT.

Feeling very "what’s even the point of me" over it. Much existential dread very depressed, wow.

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