Mocha

Hiroshi Nagai's paintings need sunglasses to look at.

They look like how it feels to walk across a parking lot on a 98° summer day without a speck of shade in sight.

They look like heaven but also like you'd burn your bare feet on the ground.

Even when you can see shade you know it's not enough and the minute you step out you'll be burnt to a crisp like a vampire.

This feels like I could trip on that radio and fall right into that water, feeling the crystal waves as I drop in.

And this, a nice stroll down a resort strip, where my sunscreened skin could literally feel cooked if I leaned too close to the tiling.

And then a nice stretch of summer street, wherein you could see your face in the flushed red of that car provided it didn't blind you from its sunny reflections.

I think part of what is making young people lonelier, in discussing why they're increasingly isolated, is that they're so afraid of meeting someone who doesn't hold their same beliefs, and instead of being just core beliefs it is kinda ancillary shit.

It's actually okay to disagree even on social topics! Even on some political ones! But I mean, online you can start with "i love this mutual but they have a really bad/uninformed opinion about x media"

I know this is IMMEDIATELY going to be taken in bad faith, and yes babygirl, you are so right, I DO want you to go make best friends with both the KKK grand wizard AND your nearest nazi leader.

But seriously, as someone who has spent two decades doing community organization: finding ways to connect with different people is so so so important. There are people i follow here who ate 80% smart and their brain falls out of their head 20% of the time and that is GOOD FOR MY MENTAL ECOSYSTEM AND GOOD FOR LEARNING HOW TO BE A PERSON

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚'𝒅 𝒆𝒙𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒅 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒔, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒄𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒃𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒉 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒔, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔. 𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕, 𝒖𝒏𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐𝒖𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈.

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⁣⁣⁣⤞ art by @mmariesr (🩷)

⤞ commissioned by me

The featured quote is one of my favorite lines in the series. It encapsulates the yearning, the longing, and the desires of a forbidden romance. And the singular moment that finally breaks the dam of restraint into the exploration of something more.

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Instagram | Twitter | @elriel-month 

We are shown over and over again throughout the Murderbot Diaries that humans are mistreated just as badly as (or sometimes, in MB's own opinion, even worse than) bots and constructs. We see humans stripped of their rights, reduced to corporate assets to be bought and sold, sent into suicidal situations, abandoned and discarded as things. We see humans trapped in multigenerational labor contracts -- people born into an indentured servitude that requires them to pay back their food and lodging to the same company that will not let them leave.

None of these are hypothetical scenarios. These are all things that happen to real people in our world today.

And that is a huge part of why it resonates so much. The overarching theme of "capitalism is hell" actually means something because it isn't only applied to the fictional dynamic of bots vs humans. The theme is constantly reiterated through the humans themselves.

And that's also why it's so important that MB demonstrates empathy for and solidarity with humans who are themselves victims of the system. Because ultimately, that's one of the main things the series is about. It's about what it's like to be simultaneously a product, and victim, of a corporate hellscape.