The algorithm feeds you more of what you already like, so this is likely to be a snapshot of a subsection of certain social media platforms (instagram and youtube, because I've seen it myself; tiktok and twitter, as reported to me by friends since I'm not on either; maybe others). Within this subsection of certain social media platforms, you'll find that if there are posts or videos praising Malaysia or showing photos/footage of major Malaysian cities, there will be comments from my fellow Malaysians jokingly decrying it as AI, or fake news, or "actually this is Singapore/Thailand/Indonesia, please don't come to Malaysia, we still live in trees". It's a whole joke and in-joke, and some non-locals have figured it out and play into it. We will be there, in the comments, refusing to directly claim the positivity from outsiders.
I've seen some comments claim that this trend is because we're afraid of overtourism. That may be the motivation of some, but IMO not the major one.
With a disclaimer that this is my personal impression of why we feel and respond this way, and of course I can only speak to those of my own social and business circles that have discussed this, and I think that younger generations have their own interpretation of it. I think the real reason goes back to how we used to feel in the 1980s and 1990s, as a South East Asian country that the international community didn't really know about. Oh, people know about our famous neighbours: Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia. But we kept getting left out of the global conversation; an afterthought in news, business dealings and pop culture, or folded in/mistaken for our more-famous neighbours.
After a while, I believe, we preferred it that way. Being low-key means we don't get sucked into geopolitical drama as much, and the global perception of us (IF ANY) would be so wrong that it's easier to laugh about it than get upset. (The "we still live in trees" was a legit thing for years, before we took it.) Singapore can get the high-profile billionaire expats. Indonesia and Thailand can get the cultural exposure. To not know about us is to have no expectations about us, which is to be pleasantly surprised by us, if you visit.
Because we know very well what our shortcomings are. We love our food, our cultures (major lion dance troupes are ours!), our mishmash of identities. But we also know our infrastructure is uneven, our cities are not walkable (with only a few exceptions), our salary levels are not competitive, conservative populism still reigns, LGBTQ people might as well not exist (though they do, in the cracks of plausible deniability), and that we can be insidiously bigoted in ways that aren't obvious without context. But on the flipside, our standard of living has improved in such a way that a lot of us don't realize it has improved: our metro lines are great, some of our government services are better than some more advanced countries, our banking and payment systems are excellent, the multiculturalism is so ingrained that we take it for granted until non-locals point out how unusual it is. So while we do feel pride in ourselves, whatever that means, we also don't feel that being loud about it is the right way to go.
It's not self-deprecating, I think. More like, it comes from an awareness that we can do better and wincing preemptively before our ugly bits get exposed.
Sea otters are highly social marine mammals, and our team has been busy slowly introducing all four otters to each other in separate pairs to see who gets along well with each other. This is a slow process, but so far, everything is going great!
Here is Imaq and Cali (pronounced cha-lee), the two youngest sea otter pups hanging out together! So far, they make a great duo, with young Cali following Imaq’s lead like he’s her older brother.
Hurray! I've finished the first (content) edit on my narrowboat novel, The Boat of Small Mysteries, which means that it's definitely been moved into the category of 'book that will get published this year. Probably this month, tbh.'
Just got to go through it a couple times more to pick up anything I missed this time, make it some cover-art and remember how to compile it into a proper novel. (This may take me some time as I've had seven years to forget how it's done.)
It's a short novel at 53K, but that's not bad going from something I planned out as a 30K novella. I always write long, but at least I now am never surprised by it.
Volcanic activity is not unique to Earth: traces of volcanic activity, such as lava tubes, have been found on Mars and the moon. Now, the University of Trento has demonstrated the existence of an empty lava tube even in the depths of Venus, a planet whose surface and geology have been largely shaped by volcanic processes.
SpaceX is putting its longstanding focus of sending humans to Mars on the back burner to prioritize establishing a settlement on the moon, founder Elon Musk said Sunday.
When the next mission to the International Space Station blasts off from Florida next week, a special keepsake will be hitching a ride: a small stuffed rabbit.
Let’s celebrate The Universe Box‘s February 3rd release by Tachyon Press! I have opened the universe box that is my life, and will be sharing a piece of it every Monday. By Michael Swanwick: When Marianne was a lowly Micro 2 at … Continue reading →
The regular weekly post for us to talk about any and all of our thoughts about the week's new releases.
Chungha - Save Me IVE - Bang Bang (pre-release) Yang Yoseop - Fade Away MADEIN - Super Obvious TWS - Nice to See You Again StayC (Japan) Jiwoo - Home Sweet Home Jinsol - Eternal Light Woodz - Cinema (pre-release) Lee Jiham - Too Late Cortis - Mention Me Sorn - Call it what you want Hori7on - Lunod Trendz - Kart Racer
I got some request for my process with backgrounds after the Onsen, so this will be a step-by-step-ish doumentation for an American Southwest landscape.
BIG. ASS. CANVAS. like at least one side should be 5000 pixels
Get a shitload of references:
Yeah 42 is enough
3. Rifle through them and sort into ones that feel related to you, or have elements you want to collage together. Make a note of this part on the tumblr post to explain where the fuck you are for the next 6-10 hours.
4. Or, uh. Seventeen minutes. Kinda slapped and scaled them in approximately the size and location I want them.
5. Now I’m gonna spend an outrageous amount of time isolating the exact thing I want from these references and Paper-dolling theminto place
Side note: You want to keep all the references from as close to the same perspective as possible. This is a pretty flat front-on angle so that’s not hard but something on a hill is a BITCH.
6. Okay, now I have everything in approximately the size and location I think I want it to be. All the pieces are on different layers, so I’m going to sketch the individual layers and tweak them into place and sorta quilt them together into a coherent Outline.
These are totally real technical terms.
7. This outlining art Takes A While ™. 3 hours in so far.
It’s worth it tho, not because I’m using the outline as much in the final composition, but this intensely studied loutline helps me get REALLY familiar with the shapes of everything, which is REALLY important when I pick out my Light Source, because I’m going to have to wholesale invent the shading.
Six hours of Linework in!! Stopping for the night so my hand remains functional :)
Took most of the day off on my hand, but another 4 hours and the Linework is DONE. (you know, except for the zillion edits I’m going to make while I’m working on it but hey)
Since The Onsen piece used a lot of very cool, dark, and desaturated colors, I’ve decided to use a lot of warm, high-key and very saturated colors in this piece.
Now, those are THE most saturated versions of the hues I want to use, and they’re there mostly for me to Eyedropper and pick tints/shades from on the color wheel, but a few notes:
The foliage is going to be orange in the foreground, then getting redder as it goes into the Background, and finally pink on the far mountains. this is because while this is some Bizarro Alien dreamscape, colors in the distance will be bluer because blue light gets scattered the least as it approached your eye.
Similarly, this will have the shadows done all in one color (A very dark blue-purple on low opacity) because this a day scene, and the sunlight is the same all over, so the shadows will be approximately the same color as well.
The Onsen had two different-colored lightsources, which was really fun, but for daylight, you tend to only have The One Bid Solar Light Source, and because it’s full-spectrum, the highlights are more or less invisible and you see it through the shadows, if that sentence makes any sense at all.
Bonus Pro tip: Label all your layers.
Step IDK 9? 10?
Once you have a palette concept, go right ahead and slather that shit on as a Proof-Of-Concept:
So this is no where near the actual saturation or value the final piece will be, but its go for deciding what elements are going to be what colors, which I had a pretty good Idea of, but I actually ended up moving the plant colors around a whole bunch.
The Fortress definitely needs to be broken up more, as well as making clearer distinctions on the cliff about what is a shaded surface vs a stained one.
Once again, I’m going to let it rest overnight to give my hand a break and let mt subconscious make suggestions.
11. Next bit is to reduce the saturation on the rough and zoom in on one section to refine the colors. It’s a bit like filling in a coloring book.
This bit also takes forever and a half but it’s not as bad as the linework.
Also gives you time to make up Lore about your landscape.
Popularly known as The Badlands Blue Fortress, archelogical site #41266-887 is actually on some pretty prime desert real estate and all its defensible features seem to be defending against the sunlight rather than any fort of military concern. It is however, Very Blue. #41266-887’s Blueness is perhaps it’s most mysterious aspect- even more than it’s purpose or the reason it was built where it is, archeologists are baffled by it’s color. It’s not a pigment found in that galactic quadrant, let alone anywhere local the pre-spacefaring civilization that built it could have got to, and the deep blue wood found in it’s structures is otherwise completely unknown to scientists galaxy-wide.
DETAILS DETAILS DETAILS!!!
As I get closer to the background, I’ve turned on that color rough again and now have a cleanup layer to clean up the edges of the color rough and just use it as the background
I am the only income for a house of four people (Tech sector Layoffs hit us HARD) and too disabled for normal jobs, so your support is very appreciated.
*staggers in the door, exhausted and bloodied* CELANUP. COMPLETE.
I need to do some Detailing in the Red Sections, but then I am only two steps away from this being finished!
I got some request for my process with backgrounds after the Onsen, so this will be a step-by-step-ish doumentation for an American Southwest landscape.
BIG. ASS. CANVAS. like at least one side should be 5000 pixels
Get a shitload of references:
Yeah 42 is enough
3. Rifle through them and sort into ones that feel related to you, or have elements you want to collage together. Make a note of this part on the tumblr post to explain where the fuck you are for the next 6-10 hours.
4. Or, uh. Seventeen minutes. Kinda slapped and scaled them in approximately the size and location I want them.
5. Now I’m gonna spend an outrageous amount of time isolating the exact thing I want from these references and Paper-dolling theminto place
Side note: You want to keep all the references from as close to the same perspective as possible. This is a pretty flat front-on angle so that’s not hard but something on a hill is a BITCH.
6. Okay, now I have everything in approximately the size and location I think I want it to be. All the pieces are on different layers, so I’m going to sketch the individual layers and tweak them into place and sorta quilt them together into a coherent Outline.
These are totally real technical terms.
7. This outlining art Takes A While ™. 3 hours in so far.
It’s worth it tho, not because I’m using the outline as much in the final composition, but this intensely studied loutline helps me get REALLY familiar with the shapes of everything, which is REALLY important when I pick out my Light Source, because I’m going to have to wholesale invent the shading.
Six hours of Linework in!! Stopping for the night so my hand remains functional :)
Took most of the day off on my hand, but another 4 hours and the Linework is DONE. (you know, except for the zillion edits I’m going to make while I’m working on it but hey)
Since The Onsen piece used a lot of very cool, dark, and desaturated colors, I’ve decided to use a lot of warm, high-key and very saturated colors in this piece.
Now, those are THE most saturated versions of the hues I want to use, and they’re there mostly for me to Eyedropper and pick tints/shades from on the color wheel, but a few notes:
The foliage is going to be orange in the foreground, then getting redder as it goes into the Background, and finally pink on the far mountains. this is because while this is some Bizarro Alien dreamscape, colors in the distance will be bluer because blue light gets scattered the least as it approached your eye.
Similarly, this will have the shadows done all in one color (A very dark blue-purple on low opacity) because this a day scene, and the sunlight is the same all over, so the shadows will be approximately the same color as well.
The Onsen had two different-colored lightsources, which was really fun, but for daylight, you tend to only have The One Bid Solar Light Source, and because it’s full-spectrum, the highlights are more or less invisible and you see it through the shadows, if that sentence makes any sense at all.
Bonus Pro tip: Label all your layers.
Step IDK 9? 10?
Once you have a palette concept, go right ahead and slather that shit on as a Proof-Of-Concept:
So this is no where near the actual saturation or value the final piece will be, but its go for deciding what elements are going to be what colors, which I had a pretty good Idea of, but I actually ended up moving the plant colors around a whole bunch.
The Fortress definitely needs to be broken up more, as well as making clearer distinctions on the cliff about what is a shaded surface vs a stained one.
Once again, I’m going to let it rest overnight to give my hand a break and let mt subconscious make suggestions.
11. Next bit is to reduce the saturation on the rough and zoom in on one section to refine the colors. It’s a bit like filling in a coloring book.
This bit also takes forever and a half but it’s not as bad as the linework.
Also gives you time to make up Lore about your landscape.
Popularly known as The Badlands Blue Fortress, archelogical site #41266-887 is actually on some pretty prime desert real estate and all its defensible features seem to be defending against the sunlight rather than any fort of military concern. It is however, Very Blue. #41266-887’s Blueness is perhaps it’s most mysterious aspect- even more than it’s purpose or the reason it was built where it is, archeologists are baffled by it’s color. It’s not a pigment found in that galactic quadrant, let alone anywhere local the pre-spacefaring civilization that built it could have got to, and the deep blue wood found in it’s structures is otherwise completely unknown to scientists galaxy-wide.
DETAILS DETAILS DETAILS!!!
As I get closer to the background, I’ve turned on that color rough again and now have a cleanup layer to clean up the edges of the color rough and just use it as the background
I am the only income for a house of four people (Tech sector Layoffs hit us HARD) and too disabled for normal jobs, so your support is very appreciated.
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