My name is C.E.J. Pacian.
I make interactive fiction as a hobby - you can find my work at this link.
I just use this tumblr to keep tabs on art and fan content.
In particular, I like street art, The Expanse, Mobile Suit Gundam and Tsutomu Nihei.
My name is C.E.J. Pacian.
I make interactive fiction as a hobby - you can find my work at this link.
I just use this tumblr to keep tabs on art and fan content.
In particular, I like street art, The Expanse, Mobile Suit Gundam and Tsutomu Nihei.
ERI
YOU THERE! DO YOU LIKE VIDEO GAMES? OF COURSE YOU DO! WE DO TOO, AND THAT'S WHY WE MADE THIS ZINE.
ENDURE, MY HEART IS A LOT OF THINGS BUT AT ITS CORE ITS A LOVE LETTER TO VIDEO GAMES, WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM. WE LOVE VIDEO GAMES SO MUCH WE SAT DOWN AND MADE OUR OWN!
ENDURE MY HEART: PRE-ORDERS OPENING IN SEPTEMBER 2023
This message brought to you by Video James
I was on a plane this weekend, and I was chatting with the woman sitting next to me about an upcoming writer’s strike. “Do you really think you’re mistreated?” she asked me.
That’s not the issue at stake here. Let me tell you a little something about “minirooms.”
Minirooms are a way of television writing that is becoming more common. Basically, the studio will hire a small group of writers, 3-6 or so, and employ them for just a few weeks. In those few weeks (six weeks seem to be common), they have to hurriedly figure out as much about the show as they can – characters, plots, outlines for episodes. Then at the end of the six weeks, all the writers are fired except for the showrunner, who has to write the entire series themselves based on the outlines.
This is not a widespread practice, but it has become more common over the past couple of years. Studios like it because instead of paying for a full room for the full length of the show, they just pay a handful of writers for a fraction of the show. It’s not a huge problem now, but the WGA only gets the chance to make rules every three years – if we let this go for another three years and it becomes the norm? That would be DEVASTATING for the tv writing profession.
Do I feel like I’m mistreated? No. I LOVE my job! But in a world of minirooms, there is no place for someone like me – a mid-level writer who makes a decent living working on someone else’s show (I’d like to be a showrunner someday, but for now I feel like I still have a lot to learn, and my husband and I are trying to start a family so I like not being support rather than the leader for now). In a miniroom, there are only two levels – the handful of glorified idea people who are already scrambling to find their next show because you can’t make a decent living off of one six-week job (and since there are fewer people per room, there are fewer jobs overall, even at the six-week amount), and the overworked, stressed as fuck showrunner who is going to have to write the entire thing themselves. Besides being bad for me making a living, I also just think it’s plain bad for television as an art form – what I like about TV is how adaptable it is, how a whole group of people come together to tell a story better than what any of them could do on their own. Plus the showrunner can’t do their best work under all of that pressure, episode after episode, back to back. Minirooms just…fucking suck.
The WGA is proposing two things to fix this – a rule that writers have to be employed for the entire show, and a rule tying the number of writers in the room to the number of episodes you have per season. I don’t think it’s unreasonable. It’s the way shows have run since the advent of television. It’s only in the last couple of years that this has become a new thing. It’s exploitative. It squeezes out everyone except showrunners and people who have the financial means to work only a few months a year. It makes television worse. And that is the issue in this strike that means everything to me, and that is why I voted yes on the strike authorization vote.
WAKE UP
YOU’VE PROMISED
- Game footage from Chrono Trigger (SNES)
- Anime footage from Final Fantasy Chronicles (PS1)
LOL
We need HOAs or some idiots will paint their house purple or put tractor tires in their front yard. If you want tractor tires, don’t move to a HOA neighborhood.
I couldn’t even fathom how horrifying it must be to live somewhere there are...purple houses and and yucky stuff in people’s yards. Thank God I don’t have any real problems like that.
listen my Nonna and Nonno live right by a purple house (it’s a nice lilac) and as a kid I was fucking obsessed with it because purple is my favorite color. I’d go nuts whenever we passed by it. Also it had a purple mailbox to match and it blew my mind.
No more HOAs. More purple houses.
imagine trying to control what someone else can do with or on their own property just because you don't agree with their taste in decor
NO MORE HOAs MORE PURPLE HOUSES
Related, becuase I just had to move: “just don’t move into an HOA” Do you know what a PAIN IN THE ASS it is to find NON-HOA Housing? Very nearly everything in the CO front range that isn’t a rental has an HOA these days!
Short list of the Shit the HOA at my pervious house tried to pull:
HOAs are invasive, bigoted, corrupt and cruel institutions that should never have been allowed to be created. If you live in and HOA area, showing up at the meetings to tell people what the fuck is wrong with them, Joining your HOA board to protect your neighbors and possibly organize the dissolution of the HOA is one of the best things you can do to protect the marginalized members of your community.
FUCK HOAs AND LONG LIVE THE PURPLE HOUSES AND TRACTOR-TIRE GARDENS OF THE WORLD.
Are y'all telling me this shit is actually LEGAL?
cant stop thinking about this post. 😔
direct action
HOAs, IN THEORY, could be such a force for public good, and that’s what’s maddening. Imagine if an HOA was like “well we’ve got all these houses and this one empty lot, pay your HOA dues and we can install a community food garden!” or “leave your contact information on the HOA residents-only webpage if you’re willing to be an after-school dropoff for children in our community who may not have a parent at home” or “hi, Sally, we’ve noticed your yard’s gone rather hogwild and things weren’t like that before your husband passed last year, do you need some help? We have some folks in the HOA who can help you with maintenance, no charge.”
Instead they choose isolation over community in the name of a unity that’s in image only, and that’s really, really sad.
Friend of mine bought a small house, an old one in an old neighborhood. She had no idea it was an HOA neighborhood until the day she moved in. They arrived with paperwork she "had" to sign or things would get "complicated", aka do this or we're gonna make life hell for you. She immediately told them no, she has no desire to be part of the HOA, and they about blew a gasket. Went from civil to wtf real quick. They tried sending her violation reports, demanded she pay fines, threatened her, etc. What they didn't know is she's petty and gives zero fucks. She also lives keeping paperwork nice and tidy.
Shit hit the fan when she installed a wall around her property. A 3 feet tall 2 foot wide wall around her yard. Topped with gorgeous iron work with sharp points that make climbing dangeous. Think Addams Family Lite. They tried to stop the construction because she was using the /wrong/ company (a mutual aid group she worked with). Send her fines and fees, and made the mistake of sending a copy of the HOA contract with a forged signature.
Ooooo...it got so ugly! She remembered the HOA post here about that happening to others and, well, the HOA broke up because of other fuckery on top of this. But it was mostly due to her dragging them in court for fraud, harassment, disturbing the peace, trespassing, stalking, and a few other things. She was petty about it too, looked into every fucking thing she could to destroy them.
I was informed that you not, in fact, obligated to sign the HOA contract. It's not a legal requirement. When you look for a home, make sure to ask about the possible HOAs, and look at the details of your homeowner's contract. Sometimes HOAs have that shit written into the purchase. If you see it, change the contract, put your initials and date in the changed sections, and see how the real estate agent handles in. This is legal, btw.
Don't sign the HOA contract, learn the laws regarding yard stuff (did you know you can apply to have your yard declared a wildlife reserve?), and be petty af when the nosy neighbors won't mind their business.
Fuck HOAs, long live the purple houses with the tractor tire garden!
Bat houses are legal to install everywhere in the US, and once installed, many cannot be removed due to the endangered status of the bats which often inhabit them. Check your local regulations.
I own a unit in a 3-building condo complex, where an HOA makes more sense as a way of making sure everyone chips in for things like replacing roofs and paying for pool upkeep and groundskeeping. We can't actually afford to do any of those things, even on the building with the perpetually leaky roof that keeps costing the HOA money in damages, because the people on the board haven't approved a dues increase since 2006 and our dues are half what comparable complexes in the area are. The HOA dogsbody manager puts a lot of effort into proposing budgets each year to bring the buildings up to standards, and they don't get approved because they would require voting to increase dues. It's infuriating, but I definitely don't have it in me to try and be a boardmember and deal with their petty bullshit. I do my part by making sure all the trash that gets left next to the dumpsters actually makes it inside them for trash pickup, but that's all I can deal with.
john oliver did a recent episode on HOAs that everyone who owns a home or is considering purchasing a home in the usa should watch. did you know that HOAs can foreclose on your house?