Otter's Rock

McCOY: “Your weight was up a couple of pounds, remember?” KIRK: “Will you stop hovering over me, Yeoman?”

                                                                          —  The Corbomite Maneuver

KIRK: “My chicken sandwich and coffee. This is my chicken sandwich and coffee. … I want these off the ship. I don’t care if it takes every man we’ve got, I want them off the ship.”

                                                                         —  The Trouble With Tribbles

KIRK: “Well, there’s one difference between us. I’m hungry.” KIRK2: “The difference is your weakness, Captain, not mine.” KORBY: “One at a time, gentlemen. Captain?” KIRK: “Eating is a pleasure, sir. Unfortunately, one you will never know.” KIRK2: “Perhaps, but I will never starve, sir.”

                                                               —  What Are Little Girls Made Of?

KIRK: “And the little ones. What’s going to happen to them after you’ve gone, after you’ve turned into creatures like Louise? Oh, they’ll still be here, but not for long, because the food’s all gone. You’ve eaten it. Maybe six months left, that’s all, and then nothing left to eat, nobody left to take care of them. They’ll die, too.”

                                                                                                             —  Miri

KIRK: “Is there anything to eat? I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m starved.” McCOY: “How can you think of food at a time like this?” KIRK: “First order of business, survival.”

                                                                                            —  Wrath of Kahn

SPOCK: “ According to our library banks, it started on the Earth colony of Tarsus Four, when the food supply was attacked by an exotic fungus and largely destroyed. There were over eight thousand colonists and virtually no food. And that was when Governor Kodos seized full power and declared emergency martial law. …  There were nine eye witnesses who survived the massacre, who’d actually seen Kodos with their own eyes. Jim Kirk was one of them.“  

KIRK: Your report covers all vegetation?

SULU: All vegetation is inedible, poison to us.

McCOY: If the Enterprise has been destroyed, do you know how long we can survive?

KIRK: Yes.

The book itself is super simple and very cute; it's nice little watercolors with like 2-4 colors each, a sample picture and swatches for the colors and step-by-step procedure on one page and a lightly drawn outline on the opposite page for you to follow when doing your own. About the lowest-pressure you could possibly get.

She spent several months not using this set at all, saying things like "oh I should take a class first" and "well I won't be very good" and I spent several months keeping up a relentless campaign of "it's ok if you never use it :) I was just trying to figure out a new potential fun activity, some ideas stick and some don't :)"

ANYWAY, take a look at my mom’s watercolors:

Just because I am unemployed and low on cash doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun with it!!!

Even if you would not like a drawing yourself, sharing is very appreciated :3

edit: you guys are losing comment privelege + ive had an abortion so go suck my fat cock

This is because so many of us are carriers for tay-sachs, aka the incurable neurodegenerative disease that kills before age four.

I would also point out that requiring someone to have an acceptable reason for their abortion means that you are requiring them to disclose the reason for their abortion, no matter how personal and painful it is.

This is not to say that feeling anger is abusive; it's human to feel anger. But if you've ever felt like your anger was "unjustified" or were afraid to express it outwardly because you expected it to be dismissed ... ask yourself how you would react if the roles were reversed. I find that a lot of folks who were The Grown Up in a relationship with their parents hold themselves to much different standards than they hold other people.

You have NO idea how long I've been sitting on this infographic made by my buddy @antivan-surana

1) Okay, so. First what I wanna counter- because I know it's coming- is "but there's more white antagonists and there's an equal amount of Black people in the protagonists and the antagonists!" This is a common argument when discussing racism: numbers versus rates. Out of a 24 member main cast (at least the ones I got here) five of those actors are Black (six characters, two played by the same guy). 21%. Okay, not great, not terrible!

2) Now, out of those 6 characters, played by 5 Black actors. 5 of those characters- 2 of them despite their technical protagonist roles- are either antagonists (antagonist ≠ villain), or are treated as such by the fans. 5/6, or 83% of your Black cast is or will be considered acting in opposition to your main hero.

3) one of these Black characters dies early on, and I even got complaints that they whitewash his character to bits. So, yay! One genuinely protagonist Black character... Dead. It's not even like most of these human characters don't die either, but... Ya know. Woulda been cool to pick a protagonist Black character that lived!

4) My thoughts on Calypso and Antinous and the historically bad stereotypes they now represent by casting two Black people in those roles, as well as how their Blackness will affect perception of those roles by a nonblack audience that may have treated them differently if they weren't. This one is a major factor for me, if NOTHING else. Like even if all other things were different, I would still be uncomfortable if the cast list remained the same.

5) @does-it-like-black-women ran a poll on Epic's treatment of Black women (the sole Black woman on the cast), and even though all the takes came from different directions, there was still a very much overwhelming answer of "No". So it's not like people don't notice!

Someone put in my tags once that the casting was a blind audition. Idek if that's true, but I'm not gone hold you, if you cast an entire play blindly and your stats come out looking like this?? I'd be wondering if there's some other biases we might have to look at with you. But that's not a numbers based bullet point, just a thought of mine.

6) "the creator can't be racist, he's Puerto Rican!" Puerto Rican doesn't mean not white. Latino doesn't mean "not white". The same peer who made this infographic explained that there's still a lot of antiblackness in Puerto Rico. You can literally be friends with Black people and still manage to be racist to them, there's no Protective Identity that stops one from committing harm! I also remember being told that he had taken advantage of some of his Black artist peers, though I didn't keep up with that.

In summary, the musical itself is not the problem. It's just another modern take on The Odyssey. You could listen to this whole thing and be fine. The issue is the culture around the musical. That's my problem. That's where the antiblackness lies. If you have a cast where the majority of your Black characters are bad guys, and you've got an audience that is steeped with antiblack bias (and BELIEVE ME... Yes. It does. Every fandom does.) you're gonna end up with that bias festering and revealing itself.

And to me, that's something that someone who was intentional in their casting would have thought about. Someone who took the time to think about what they were creating, who cared about the depiction of Black characters, woulda stood back and at least said "hmm. Maybe we need to make some more of the Gods or maybe even Odysseus, Penelope, or Telemachus Black".

I've seen arguments/defenses that "the characters are just drawn like their voice actors!", whether that's the official artist or fan content. This as a reason why antiblackness isn't so thoroughly seeped into this place.

So tell me why Polites, "the friend of Odysseus" and the one whom serves as his canon guide, is drawn as white. Pale white, a glowing and Illuminating white, even prior to his death.

And here's his voice actor! :D

It took me MONTHS to find out that he wasn't white, like all of the fanart suggests. With the drawing above being referred to as his "Canon" design.

He's Odysseus' beacon! His moral compass, the one whom Odysseus changes his entire mindset for, whom he grieves as a lost brother for the rest of the musical and story.

I do actually really like Epic but I won't say it didn't make me extremely fucking uncomfortable upon listening and noticing how many of the major antagonists were black and the others did not seem to be. Especially Calypso really threw me off.

Because... Barbara's voice is beautiful. So truly stunning and I would like to support her completely in the future.

But it's the fact that Calypso is also just in general so often a sexualized character and I'm gonna be honest most of the more modern and common depictions I've seen if her have been black while the others are white which, comes off very jezebel tropey even if not meaning to

And then with the context that she and antonious are both portrayed or implied to be rapist and the best singers were that happened to be black is very odd.

I do feel like the glowing polities is a bit of a non issue though. He's glowing because he's like...a ghost and a guiding light. Which I don't think is strange. But I do think it's strange how he seems to be drawn here. I had not noticed that because I did not engage with any of the videos or streams that were out and the only art I have seen of him has him with curly hair and brown skin but I do see the issue here

It's a bit unfortunate that this turned out this way. And I don't think it intentional but I do think it's a bias that should be looked at if this is how Jorge has chosen to cast and move forward without considering how this may come across and maybe he can do better with his next upcoming orohect

Diversity is important but it's also important to be mindful in your casting

Now I do think, however, it's important taking into consideration the fact that these people auditioned for these roles specifically though. Obviously they're not helpless victims or something. Or at least to my knowledge they all auditioned specifically for these roles. And I don't think Jorge should specifically be attacked for casting them in these roles or anything

Pardon the low quality, these are straight from IMDB.

The Haunted Mansion [2003] is a film where one of the main characters, Sara Evers, is possessed by a ghost that looks strikingly like her. The ghost, as is seen here, still maintains her melanin and is Clearly Black, despite her ethereal nature.

Even if she weren't floating, and without the added context above, you can still see that she's not fully human in some way.

We can't claim that this is a non-issue, as the vast majority of Polites fan designs- with this one being Official as is listed on their wiki- very clearly whitewash him. I used him as an example, because I've seen the fandom claim that their designs are just reflective of their voice actors.

It's important not to end on a "unfortunate that this turned out this way" and move on from there. We have a clear example of antiblackness within the fandom, along with the points that Ice made. Trying to brush over this as a small thing, when it's arguably one of the bigger examples given, helps no one.

Another point to that is vampires, and depictions thereof. As seen in this discussion with Ice, there are ways to show that a character is "other'd" in ways that do not necessitate whitewashing.

@1nsecticidal showed it well here, with a skin tone comparison and ways to suggest an inhuman nature to a character, that again does not include whitewashing. For the last point, about Black actors and their casting into heroic or villainous roles. It's easy to say that- and we'll abstract here, so that it's not Only Jorge being pointed at but society in general- double blind casting is a thing.

Creating entirely new characters to Fit the actor is an option. Looking at your casting choices and realizing that the few Black actors are in the villainous roles. That in particular is disproportionate and should be seen as such.

As an example, if you have 10 actors in a group. 7 are white and 3 are Black. And of those 3 Black actors, all three are fitted into being the antagonist in some fashion. That alone should cause pause. Perhaps more thinking through is required before we move forward. Especially as this is the Final Version of Epic: The Musical. And they rerecorded previous songs to add more emotion or higher stakes or whatever else seemed to need fixing.

now for something pretty funny: the famous Winston Churchill photo taken by Yousuf Karsh, hanging in the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, is missing. some highlights from this CBC article:

- the people who pulled off the heist planned this well, because they replaced the original with a copy

- they don't even know how long it's been missing. only that the original was definitely seen as recently as 2019 and from thereon it's a mystery

- the only reason it came to attention is because a staff member noticed the photo was hanging askew, and the frame didn't match those of other Karsh photos in the same lounge

The thief/forger was also anonymized for what I'm sure are legal reasons surrounding him being innocent until proven guilty, but in May 2025 he was sentenced, so his name IS reported in his sentencing article.

It's, it's just that dragons are the primordial embodiment of avarice wrought into fire and flesh. They are truly, supernaturally good at finding large amounts of valuables, that's why the big mines hire those Dragon Scouts to go sniff out their lairs and mark them on the maps as potential mining ventures. You know, in case someone slays the relevant dragon. Which doesn't happen often because, milord, they are simply not that easily slain.

No I know you've hired many knights, blooded warriors and true. Yes, I was there when you gave the ten most impressive ones their special sashes. Very grand, very high honors, of course. Ehm. It's just, none of them have ever actually faced a dragon. Yes no I know Sir Edbert says he did but Sir Edbert is rather notoriously prone to exaggerated and tragically unverifiable tales---

Well no milord of course I would not doubt the word of a sworn knight. Perhaps his sobriety, but not his word, as such.

The point is that the grand treasury, while surely grand and a very special notion, is just... it is mayhaps not the ideal way of handling the realm's finances? Perhaps a series of smaller vaults, capped well below the dangerous wealth threshold at which gold is known to whet the appetite of colossal winged harbingers of death, in different corners of the realms or...?

No, I, yes well I do realize that will impede anyone's interests in coming into the vault to hurl around the gold coins and go "whee, I'm so rich!" I am aware of its deficiencies as a plan in that regard. No, I see I've misjudged a few things.

Actually, thinking on it, milord, I truly believe what you need is a fresh set of skilled wizards on this job. The court magician and I, we cannot keep up with your visionary thinking. We're too old-fashioned. But the wizards revolutionizing the eldritch academies seem to be more on this sort of level. I hear they've made some truly remarkable choices in terms of outsourcing all of their spellwork to the Ever-Whispering Void, such that it takes mere minutes for them to set up an entire defensive array. That's just the sort of innovative thinking you require.

while any policy designed to prevent that sort of abuse of the system by the system and support family unity etc will be weaponized by the worst parents in the world who happen to be able to afford lawyers, to prevent anyone interfering with Their Rights.

the third option no one leans on hard enough is giving children more autonomy and voice, which is basically because our culture sucks about both children and autonomy.

link to the specific video from the screenshot above here:

it's part of their series "A People's History of Native America," playlist link here.

and while I'm here I'll plug some other channels because PBS does solid work. also, iirc they are (...were? I'm not actually sure what applies to them now that they've been defunded) legally required to include captions and they actually do that, so you won't run into auto-generated nonsense.

I haven't checked out PBS Documentaries yet, but they have some stuff tackling similar topics. (I am adding things to my watchlist as we speak.) channel link here.

PBS Terra doesn't pull punches on climate change. channel link here.

PBS Eons has some super cool videos on the history of life on Earth, channel here, and Storied does awesome work on linguistics and mythology, channel here.

aaand while we're talking about defunded USA public media that doesn't pull punches when critiquing our history and government, I am once again going to plug a couple NPR podcasts. Throughline does deep-dives on history, culture, laws, and so on (link here); I'm especially partial to their We the People miniseries, which covers our rights from the Amendments. Code Switch covers culture, focusing on race and minority groups, and has been doing some especially good coverage on what the Trump administration's fuckery means on a practical level (link here). (these aren't the only NPR podcasts that talk about this stuff, but they're the big ones afaik.)