Allies of Flesh, Leaf, & Stone

So, one of the reasons that I have been obsessively infodumping about the Epstein stuff is that it's intruding into my escapism in a way I can't tune out, and I hate it.

Because this crap has infected every single aspect of the tech world, due to the fact that Jeffrey Epstein, Steve Bannon, and their other cronies roped late 2000s-early 2010s techbros into their schemes, and used them to steer modern culture and subculture in the direction that they wanted it to go in.

Like, the fanfic for the Tron franchise I am working on right now concerns two rival tech companies. And I can't work on it or even think about it without thinking about the cancer and the rot that is going on currently in real life tech culture.

Like yeah, I can pretend that there isn't anyone like Jeffrey Epstein in the Tron Universe, and that none of that horrible shit happened, and tech in this fictional world evolved along very different lines: and this is obviously the way I *should* actually be handling it. Because there is not an IGE or a Microsoft or a Starlink or Tesla or a META: There's Encom and Dillinger Systems.

But like...the villain of the last movie is a whole techbro, borrowing from a stereotype that is only familiar to us because of how prominent it has become in real life over the past decade or so, thanks mostly to the mechanizations of the worst people.

It's hard for me to write this now without considering everything that has been revealed about the Epstein Web's malign influence over every aspect of the tech world over the past 20 years. Because a lot of the reason we are where we are right now - in regards to AI and "Web 3," is because of them. Just ignoring it feels disingenuous. It feels like whitewashing. Even though: of course technology in the Tron universe progressed along very different lines, because real, actual AI (not the fake bullshit slop we have now) and digitizing actual real-world matter into the computer have existed since 1982 in this timeline. This is science fiction, happening in a world that still feels very much like our own. I mean, the thing I tell newcomers to the Tron franchise is: imagine if the Technological Singularity happened in 1982, but only a few people were aware of it, or noticed.

BUT, and a youtuber called attention to this aspect of the latest Tron movie without realizing that this is what he was doing: Eve Kim, the character portrayed by Greta Lee in the latest film, is basically Buckaroo Banzai, complete with her own stalwart band of comrades who are the Tron universe's equivalent of Buckaroo Banzai's own Hong Kong Cavaliers. She is a globetrotting hacker gamer biker CEO of a tech company. And while some dorks were of course screaming "Mary Sue!" there is no way as a Buckaroo Banzai fan that I can't just pick this up and run with it, it's perfect.

And THIS is why the Seth Flores character didn't grate on me the way he did on some people in the audience: he's kind of the equivalent of Perfect Tommy and New Jersey at once? And holy shit, the "It's cowboy time" line from the character Ajay Singh: HE'S RAWHIDE. (Or New Jersey?) Holy hell, it's THEM in another universe and incarnation.

And YES this makes the titular Ares the equivalent of Penny Priddy. Just try to get that image out of your mind once it's popped in there. and YES, I know how all of this sounds in light of Jared Leto's involvement in the Tron Ares film, and the allegations against him. (I fucking hate this timeline.)

Anyway my fix for that during the time the film was in theaters was to just imagine what the movie would have been like if the titular Ares had been played by Keanu Reeves instead. Because it made sense to me that the Billionaire Techbro would want to make his Supersolider look like John Wick. That, or Trent Reznor; mainly because of the soundtrack. Some of the fanart I have seen of peoples' fancasting of Trent Reznor as Ares is phenomenal. I have become a fan of the "Young Trent Reznor as Ares" idea since I first saw it, but especially since the remix album of the OST dropped last week, and then I went and saw NIN live in concert.

EDIT:But this all just dovetails back into the reality that the harm of women in children is inextricably woven into the creation media designed to be art, designed to entertain us, due to it being normalized, systemic, and endemic in our culture. Many of the artists whose creations got us through the 2000s and 2010s have turned out to be predators. The only real exception I can think of is David Lynch, who was actively trying to alert us that it was going on, through the creation of his own art and media.

And I can't help but wonder what a Tron movie by David Lynch would be like.

IDK chat, I'm going to have to figure this out. I mean, I'm going to write it regardless. But yeah.

Hell, maybe in this timeline, Livejournal and Myspace are still around. I think it's a lot more fun to imagine a timeline that doesn't involve any of the current horrors, even if it does feel dishonest somehow.