ryan

Listen to me okay!!!

A comparatively affordable, environmentally friendly, one time purchase that doesn't make you regularly line the pockets of Big Gas Executives and directly fund the fossil fuel industry.

Bicycles are far easier and cheaper to replace, repair, or modify to your liking by yourself! Pretty much anyone at any skill level can learn basic bike maintenance, they don't require nearly as much specialized knowledge and pretty much all the tools you will need can be easily and relatively affordably sourced from a hardware store, bike shop, or used.

'but they're not cool' first of all, caring about being cool automatically makes you uncool. Second, cool is a learned association and what is cool now won't be cool in five years. What was cool 5 years ago isn't cool now. We have been conditioned by movies and tv to think the only people who ride parks are losers and the butt of the joke. We can literally make bicycles cool by simply being a bunch of cool people who ride bicycles.

As car culture is the dominant mindset in North America a bicycle is, in fact, counterculture! Piss off drivers simply by existing! Although do be warned many think it is completely reasonable to attempt to murder you with their car because they had to slow down a little bit to pass you.

The first step to dismantling our current car culture and pedestrian hostile infrastructure is to opt out of using cars as much as possible. Cities are not and have not been built for people in decades. They are built for cars. You shouldn't have to be forced to clean out your wallet paying for a car, fuel, insurance, etc because a corporation hardcore lobbied your government to design the world around you to be inconvenient, miserable, and impossible to navigate without one so they can make more money at everyone else's expense.

The more people use bikes, the less money corporations make. The less damage they can do to the planet. The demand for bike and pedestrian friendly infrastructure rises. Cities become cleaner, nicer, and more liveable for everyone.

People say they're for walkable cities but still want to live in neighborhoods zoned for single family housing. They say they want more and better public parks but insist their kids need a house with a private backyard. They say they want cities focused on public transit but want to be able to drive to and park at all the places they want to go. They say they want integrated, diverse neighborhoods but they get nervous when there isn't a huge white majority in a neighborhood. They say they want affordable housing but still talk about safety and crime rates if there are low income people in their neighborhood. They say they don't want suburban sprawl but can't concede to the realities of urban living.

Barry is fucking perfect autism representation. I don't know if there's anything confirming that he is autistic but like. Oh my gosh.

He doesn't feel like certain characters where it's just stereotypes and that's the whole character. There's not a single stereotype about him. He doesn't scream "autism" just because he's not that type of character. He's not like extremely smart, or stupid-- he's intelligent, but he's not like. that kind of trope certain shows do where people with autism are just really smart. The way he emotes is perfect. I wish I had my specific examples but like... man.

It's so good. It makes me so happy. It also hurts me because Kris treats him poorly and tries to get him to be different because of his autistic traits. It's just. man...

like that one scene where they're talking about the cargo-- lemme just put in the dialogue and insert images

Kris: This is it. Do you know what this means?

Barry: Yeah. You've told me.

Kris: then why do you still seem not to get it? We did this together, for once you should be proud-- I'm letting you be proud!

Barry: I'm... proud.

[Kris ruffles Barry's hair]

Kris is imposing what she wants Barry to feel on him. She's letting him be proud. She doesn't get why he "doesn't understand". Barry seems to just want to get the conversation over with/he doesn't know why he doesn't understand either (why he doesn't feel the things Kris wants him to feel-- what he "should" feel. Why he doesn't feel the "normal" things). The way he forces himself to say that he's proud is just... perfect voice acting. They got such a perfect voice actor for Barry. But back to this scene-- she ruffles his hair, something that to her means something good, but Barry CLEARLY doesn't like it. He tenses and rubs his head afterwards. She's trying to make him what she wants. Make him feel what she wants him to feel and praise him the way she thinks praise should be received. The only way she considers Barry being different both feelings wise and how he wants praise is her wanting to change those things to what she wants.

there was also this one scene, the scene where Kris and Barry are interacting for the last time, and the shot it relatively simple. just a shot of his face. Zoomed in. In a show like scavengers reign that has so many interesting shots that are so clearly intentional you know that has to be intentional. And what I loved about it is that sometimes autistic people have difficulty emoting or when they do emote it's subtle. And that scene picks on the subtle changes in his expression while he's talking to really show how he's feeling in the moment. That's so cool. Idk how to make a gif and i don't have a link to a video of it but it's in the beginning of episode 12 if anyone wants to see what I'm talking about :)