Metroplex System

Here's something I've been meaning to research more: Did you know that Mamoru Nagano of Five Star Stories fame was involved with a whole bunch of material related to Virtua Fighter and Fighting Vipers? Nagano's always been a big videogame guy, playing PSO religiously and even lending his designs to the "experimental"* RPG Airs Adventure on Saturn. But man, he was really into Virtua Fighter for a while.

At some point during the big Japanese Virtua Fighter boom of the mid-90s, Nagano became absolutely enamored with the game. So much so, in fact, that he bonded with similarly legendary artist friend Mutsumi Inomata to publish VF2-related articles and art in the Tales of Joker magazine (published by Toyspress) and helped out with other Virtua Fighter-related publications like the Model 2 artbook. Inomata did most of the really splashy illustrations, including the rather iconic Sarah art seen above.

Inomata's Fighting Vipers art, along with some more VF art from her and Nagano, was showcased in Kodansha's relatively short-lived game magazine Haoh. Sadly, none of this stuff seems to be archived anywhere on the web, adding to my ever-growing list of "media to obtain and preserve." Also, Nagano did some art and commentary for the Fighting Vipers fanbook My Sweet Honey, which you can see above. Him being a Tokio guy makes sense to me.

There's a lot for me to dig into here, but I've found a good starting point: A somewhat recent (2018) interview on DenFamiNicoGamer by VF2 tetsujin-class player (and longtime games writer) Bunbunmaru sees Nagano and Inomata reflecting both on what they're playing at the time and their experience with Sega fighters at peak popularity... including anecdotes about buying arcade cabinets and PCBs and Nagano himself guiding the future VF legend Chibita to Spot 21 in Shinjuku to face off against its pool of killers. It's packed with amazing photos from the era, too, if you love looking at mid-90s Japanese arcades like I do.

Nagano would later do outfit design and art for Tekken and Soul Calibur, but I don't think he's done much fighting game art design recently. His closeness to AM2 does makes me wonder if Nagano was on the shortlist for artists to do FV2's designs...

• Some would just outright say "kusoge"

Given recent events, this should be reposted.

We don't even like apps like TikTok but we might get one out of solidarity and defiance with the US government's attempts to essentially enforce "territorial borders" on the means of information.

They aren't worried that Americans are being spied on, they're worried the wrong people are doing it. They have a disproportionate level of reach due to the bulk of social media being US based and leverage that as a major intelligence gathering organ.

All of their accusations are projection because 10 to 1 that's what they're already doing, both foreign and domestic.

Do we have criticism of China, of course we do (and no, we aren't saying what they are publicly, we don't want to give this propaganda holy war any more ammo). However, this demand for a pseudo-monopoly on internet services is the most whiny entitlement by a cold-war fear stricken reactionary base who are solely interested in their own power.

(Which does not translate to the US working class, their power is not ours, if anything it comes at the cost of ours).

I am not an expert on community organizing so I want to be clear that I am open to suggestion, and criticism, re: how best to actually make change.

off the top of my head, I think we as a community need to, as a collective, push the message that sfw creators, clients and customers need to boycott Gumroad, and any other platform that bans NSFW content. I believe part of the reason why these bans happen at all is because they see simply complying with payment processors and tanking what they see as a temporary backlash (if any) from their userbase as the path of least resistance. We need to send a message that a porn ban will be a kiss of death for any platform that attempts one due to pressure from banks. That means alongside us nsfw creators pulling from these platforms (for those of us that arent already nuked), we also need as many sfw creators and users as well to pull their support from the platform.

My logic here is that, if we can successfully pull off a boycott and it effects businesses bottom line hard enough, then they will come to understand that these draconian anti-porn mandates from banks is a threat to THEMSELVES, and will not be the path of least resistance. If businesses are forced to see this as a threat against their own existence, then theoretically we may see them push back and throw resources behind lobbying against this kind of interference from banks.

once again, im not an expert here and I would genuinely like to hear suggestions about ways we can organize as a group. My idea here may not be the best one, i do not want to make the claim that is is foolproof. I know im definitely acting upon some assumptions and theories moreso than guarantees, and if im wrong and there is a better plan of action, then I want to know. I just want to use this as a call to action because we CANNOT just keep running, we are running out of places to flee to.

Organizing basics:
First, gather information. This is the first and repeating and constant refrain. You need to know who you are organizing with, by name, and how to contact them. What they do. What they care about. Where they're located. Etc.

Next level up, you build relationships. You build trust. You go to the people who know and trust you and ask them about their situations, until you know what problems are deeply and widely felt. There's an obvious one here, but it's important to know the specific ways it affects each fellow worker, because it'll affect how they'll be willing to take action.

On those relationships, you build organizing conversations. One on one, you find the emotional core motivation behind why they need to take action, and lead them to the conclusion that collective action is possible and effective and they can and should do it with you. Don't neglect to listen to their input, they may have knowledge and ideas you didn't, and you will learn things from everyone you organize with.

With people who agree to do organizing with you in those conversations, you practice democratic division of labor and planning of action. In the sense that it's voluntary with no ability to compel each other, so to get things done, each organizer must be mentally on board with what they're going to do. It's important to run meetings so that everyone's up to date on the progress of organizing, and has a say in what actions they take part in and which affect them, but also such that people don't get burned out on too much information, too many meetings, for too long. Do whatever you can to keep egos from clashing and to promote the voices of the group members least likely to be naturally listened to (ie, the more marginalized, the more they should be invited to speak and not talked over).

If you get to the point where you have enough active organizers to take action, something you'll define for yourself in the process of meeting and sharing stories of your organizing, you'll have a solid structure of organizing established to take that action. You'll have the best chance to succeed if your organized group is well brought together with democratic input and all thus buy in totally to the action taken.

This is a summary of something I've taught in more detail in IWW as a trainer. It takes practice to get right. I strongly recommend joining IWW and taking the ot101 course. As a member you can email otc at iww dot org, to find out about upcoming online and in person trainings. It's powerful practice; I've seen folks go on to use the knowledge to organize fellow tenants as well as fellow workers.