Reading

Entry tags:

Daily Happiness

1. I had another work from home day. I'm about halfway caught up with my email and fully caught up with teams. Tomorrow I've got a couple meetings, so I've got to go in to the office, but I might work from home again on Thursday to finally catch up on everything.

2. When Carla was out today she stopped at Uncle Tetsu's, a Japanese cheesecake chain. They have a sakura cheesecake right now and we had some after dinner tonight and it was sooooooo good. I normally prefer New York style cheesecake to the Japanese fluffier style, but this was really good consistency and the sakura flavor was amazing.

3. I finished playing The Plucky Squire. Overall it's a pretty fun game, but it is not just a straight action adventure game. There are a bunch of (frankly not that fun) mini games for the boss fights and stuff where you have to play other styles of games and that is not what I signed up for. Like for one character's boss battles you play a Mike Tyson style boxing game, for another it's a rhythm game, and for the third it's a Puzzle Bobble type. Then there are some stealth sequences where you have to sneak past enemies who can kill you instantly if they sense you, and if they sense you there is no way to run to escape, even if you're close to a place you could get away. You're just instantly dead. And the final battle is a space shooter type. The good thing is that if you die in a boss battle you can sometimes restart partway through, not all the way at the beginning, and the stealth sequences have multiple checkpoints and you'll respawn there rather than back at the beginning. But I would still have preferred not to have that "variety" in my action adventure game. Still is a fun game, though. But if you suck at those types of games it might ruin it for you.

4. I finished editing all my Disney Japan pics, so hopefully I can get the last day's posts written up later this week.

5. Jasper is just so handsome.

Entry tags:

disney,
japan 2025

2025 Disneyland Trip #23 (4/5/25) Tokyo DisneySea (Part 2)

When I last left off, we had just checked out the big gift shop at the Fantasy Springs hotel and were exploring the land while waiting for our return time for the Peter Pan ride.

( More DisneySea adventures! )

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: West Coast (Lana del Rey)

Tumblr crosspost (29 January 2025)

Speaking of my coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb perspective on the various obligatory het romance plots in TOS, I’ve been really struck by how many seem dub-con at best. Maybe that’s partly because I’m finishing the third season and it’s especially pronounced there, and it’s also been particularly glaring with Spock in particular (the Kirk dubcon plots tend to be more viscerally horrifying, but he at least gets to consent sometimes).

Spock has a small fraction of the number of romantic (or "romantic") plots that Kirk does, and while I might be misremembering something in the many episodes I’ve seen—

1— “This Side of Paradise”

The premise of this "romance" is that Leila, the softly-lit blonde girl of the episode, was in love with Spock six years earlier, but his issues meant their love could never be, and he rejected any possibility of romance with her. It's not at all clear what past!Spock actually felt about the situation (Leila says "you couldn't give anything of yourself" and he wouldn't even put his arms around her), both because of his general manner when not under the effect of the sex/docility/spore cult pollen, and because her feelings are so much the main driver of both the backstory and the present events.

Early on, lead spore cultist Elias asks Leila if she’d like Spock to join their creepy community. She replies, “There is no choice, Elias. He will stay.” It doesn’t seem like she actually cares about what he’d choose in his right mind, just about using the sex pollen to railroad him into the life she wants with him. This doesn’t mean she was always like that (she herself has been exposed for a long time, though she doesn't change much when the spores lose their hold on her), but her disinterest in his consent to life with her makes this ostensibly sweet romance 100x creepier. Not helped by the sex pollen itself and her avoidance of explanations when Spock is still in his right mind and could decide for himself.

( Read more... )

Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press’s Fanzines are Moving to the AO3!

Posted by therealmorticia

https://www.transformativeworks.org/garlic-press-and-poison-pen-presss-fanzines-are-moving-to-the-ao3/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=264402

Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press, publishers of Star Trek: The Original Series fanzines including Spockanalia and Masiform D, are importing the zines’ fanworks to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

Background explanation

Spockanalia (1967-1970) was the very first all-Star Trek fanzine ever published, and Masiform D (1971-1998) was the longest running Star Trek fanzine, so Open Doors is delighted to be preserving these fanzines’ works as part of the AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP).

The fanzines to be imported are:

Spockanalia: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
Masiform D: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
The Compleat Kershu Fighter: Fanlore page and AO3 collection

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is to assist publishers of fanzines to incorporate the fanworks from those fanzines into the Archive of Our Own. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with publishers who want to import their fanzines and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press to import the fanzines listed above into separate, searchable collections on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the fanzines in their entirety, all art in the fanzines will be hosted on the OTW’s servers and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press’s fanzines to the AO3 after April. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the task. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collections in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) in Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press’s fanzines?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We’ll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

Please contact Open Doors with your creator pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

You’d like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than the publishers have a record of.
You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the fanzine collections.
You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the publisher or fanzine in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account the publishers have a record of, please contact Open Doors and we’ll help you out. (If you’ve posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they’re yours, that’s great; if not, we will work with Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors website for instructions on:

importing your works to the AO3
adding your works to the new collections listed above

If you still have questions…

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We’d also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press and their fanzines on Fanlore. If you’re new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We’re excited to be able to help preserve Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press’s fanzines!

– The Open Doors team and Devra Langsam

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/garlic-press-and-poison-pen-presss-fanzines-are-moving-to-the-ao3/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=264402

One Useless Trick for Naming Your C-Novel Inspired Characters

I wrote an extremely useless piece of advice on the above here, based largely around 'know enough Chinese and know enough Chinese poetry'. Come tell me how unhelpful it is and/or share your poetry-inspired character names.

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(no subject)

Earth Day call log:

ursula used Governor Gretchen Whitmer's contact form to ask her to deny a permit to the proposed Line 5 oil pipeline, and will further celebrate Earth Day by attending a protest in support of EPA federal employee union members this afternoon.

The Sierra Club is trying to break a record for the most origami fish, if you want a fun craft for celebration.

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femslash week in review

Femslash week in review: 2025-04-08 - 2025-04-14

High-level stats for week of 2025-04-08 - 2025-04-14

Total works categorized F/F on AO3: 10029 (+176 from last week)

Works I classified F/F: 5766 (+236 from last week) (2599 new, 3167 continued)

0.66% of all 875663 AO3 works I've classified F/F were updated this week

A few callouts this week:

BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! reaches a best-ever rank of 14 in its third week on the chart.
New RPG Zenless Zone Zero enters the chart for the first time this week. Hey Duggee also returns after a week away. These two replace Once Upon a Time (whose most recent run was 8 consecutive weeks), and The 100.
The Wicked Years Series celebrates 20 consecutive chart appearances (out of 40 total appearances).

( Full top-20 table and description of methodology after the jump )

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Hit Me With Your Best Shot (Pat Benatar)

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Tumblr crosspost (29 January 2025)

In response to this post, yavieriel said:

I don't have particularly strong K/S feelings - TOS Shatner has Dad Vibes too strong for me to overcome - but this has been a delightful journey to watch you take.

I replied:

Interesting, I see that more easily from Nimoy than Shatner, but we all feel the Dad Vibes differently, lol. And thanks, haha—I went from "this is just part of the fabric of the universe of me, I'm not passionate but it just kind of IS to me" to "beating my head against the wall to avoid going insane" so fast it feels like whiplash!

yavieriel said:

Oh that is fascinating, Spock is entirely "hot but unapproachable college prof" to me. I can't even slightly imagine him drinking beer while grilling, or mowing the lawn in cheesy tshirts, or coaching t-ball. Whereas I feel like Kirk would be entirely comfortable with those things, and probably somewhat enthusiastic. My own dad's very stereotypical middle class cishet guy-ness is definitely somewhat performative, but it's not insincere, if that makes sense? Which also matches with Kirk's vibes for me.

I replied:

Ah, I see! My own dad is an extremely reserved and intense programmer from LA with zero interest in the various sportsballs and a great value for reason and debate (and board games that require some amount of tactical thinking), and we've always been conspicuously similar and close. Also Spock continually being on the receiving end of microaggressions is pretty true to the ways my dad has been targeted (as a multiracial Mexican-American man), so Nimoy's Spock feels all the more familiar. That said, I think partly the show sexualizes Kirk so much that I personally find it hard to see him as exactly paternal despite the strong Father To His Crew vibes. But I can see that as a way to read, for instance, Uhura saying she finds it soothing to listen to his voice through the intercom when she's nervous—it could be seen as a shippy thing, but obviously isn't intended that way.

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book lists

Today’s book lists

From [Book Jockey Alex’s] blog:

Notable Young Adult Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror of 2024 - while the original post was at the blog, the actual list is at ReacTor Mag.
YA Book Bundles – Science Fiction & Fantasy, Part 1
YA Book Bundles – Science Fiction & Fantasy, Part 2

general thought: Look, I get that the USA has a stranglehold on some aspects of publishing, and that someone writing from North America about books published in English is going to get a lot more options set in the USA. But for me to pick something set there to spend my precious reading time, the summary has to be spectacular. Ditto ‘class warfare (near) future dystopia’. I’m here for the escapism, dammit. In the Reactor article there were books more relevant to my interests later on, but I nearly noped out when the first five or so were so dire.

Overall - I didn’t quite make it through these lists. I found it near impossible to focus on the descriptions to see if there was something I was going to like; then I just skimmed to see if there was anything jumped out at me. Also, two of these are from 2020, so there were several I’ve either got on the wishlist, or have read. Of the ~80, I added four to the wishlist, but only one is a ‘really want to read’, and that’s because it is one of my must read authors.

The Spinoff’s best NZ books of 2024 - I found the summaries much more readable than the previous, and yet I added zero books to the reading wishlist.

The Best Books We Read in 2024—And What We’re Looking Forward to in 2025 by Words without Borders - books in translation. Another one where the summaries/reviews were interesting reading, but none sparked an interest in actually reading the books.

Read Palestinian Speculative Fiction Reading List by Sonia Sulaiman - to be fair here, I’ve read five booklists already, and I’m starting to flag. But this is the last one, and then I can close the window, and I’m very invested in that. So, I’m expecting to be unmotivated by any of the books, and that is not actually a commentary on what is written. … and then I started reading and discovered it is a stack of links. For now, I’ve shoved it into the ‘reading plans’ tab group, which is where anything online short fiction gets put until I have the oomph to read it.

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Daily Happiness

1. I worked from home today, getting a fair amount of catching up done. Unfortunately I forgot that I also had to double check all my stores' budgets for next month today so that did take some time away from the email and teams catch-up, but I should be able to focus more on that tomorrow. (Probably will mostly work from home tomorrow, too.)

2. We bought a sweater for Alexander for his birthday and even though his birthday is not until next week, gave it to him yesterday so he could try it on and see if it fit, and it was a little big so we said we'd be happy to go exchange it. I was just thinking to exchange it whenever we next go, but there was availability today and Carla felt like going to Disneyland, so while I had to stay home and focus on my email backlog, she went and exchanged the sweater and had a nice morning at DCA. She managed to find all the rest of the hidden easter eggs there (eventually with some help from an online guide) and took pictures, but I'm just going to include those with our next trip post rather than make a separate one. They had Lightning McQueen and Mater ones which are super cute, though.

3. We bought a stereo for the garage and it arrived today. As all modern stereos do these days, it also has bluetooth capability to connect to your phone, but she mainly wanted it for playing actual CDs. Her current CD rack is overflowing, so we need to get another and then move the CDs out to the garage so she can have them out there with the stereo. Nice thing is, unless you're standing right by the door or window, even with it turned up pretty loud you really can't hear much from outside. Amazing what insulation can do!

4. I love the look on Ollie's face here, but he was even cuter before I turned on the light and came in. It wasn't dark but was dim enough that he was really well camouflaged in the box!

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blm bundle

Tessa's Ark: Chapter 1

Name: Tessa's Ark: Chapter 1
Status: Complete ????
Site: https://neutron-dust.itch.io/tessas-ark-early-access
Pairing: Gen
Description: An annoying math game

Screen of the game, with a stylized neon woman and gameplay directions reading "The voltage in the room starts at a baseline voltage displayed on the 'current voltage' button. ... Alter the 'current voltage' by guiding Tessa's spark to various colored nodes by dragin the spark with your mouse or finger."

It is primarily a puzzle game in which you need to take a set of given numbers and use them to create an equation that provides the desired result. The game's sale page says that there are multiple endings, but from the wording, and from what I've played of the game, I get the feeling that these endings are decided by a single binary choice sometime at the end, and I don't know if that choice even gets to be made in a game that is titled "Chapter 1." The reason that I am speculating is because I didn't end up finishing this game.

( Read more... )

Given the nature of the gameplay, I think my difficulties with execution was a serious problem. I'm sorry about that too, because from the previews I thought this might be a fun and slightly more challenging game. I can't recommend Tessa's Ark on the basis of the bugginess, mostly, but I feel like maybe if you really like math puzzles, and you are very confident in your calculating, you'll be able to work around them if you really, really want to.

---

It seems that someone else is doing a similar project to me, and reviewing all of the BLM Bundle games (rather than just the VNs) Their series is called Scratching that Itch and here is their review for this game. It also notes that a big hurdle is just remembering what color does what, so I feel somewhat vindicated in my frustration.

000. Absence

Hey everyone! Sorry for the absence. Life has been pretty turbulent lately and I've just been hanging in there. But it's definitely way past that time for another friendzy! I'm taking suggestions because I haven't been around as much to know what yall would want to participate in, so feel free to leave a suggestion below if you have one!

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Danger Zone (Kenny Loggins)

Entry tags:

Tumblr crosspost (27 January 2025)

So the great chronological-by-airdate TOS watch with my housemates is nearing its end and I’m genuinely kind of sad about it, in much the same way that I was happy but kind of sad about my D&D campaign resolving.

I will say, though, that I’ve been trying not to be One of Those People but I truly hadn’t realized before this TOS household re-watch that Kirk/Spock on the original show was at this level. I didn’t clearly remember the little bits I saw as a kid (I was far more into TNG and Captain Picard as a tiny Anghraine) and so I thought it would be more like the standard action-adventure male friendships that inspire big slash ships, and not god-tier “these guys are truly unhinged about each other.”

I’d seen the various Spock/whomever shippers duking it out among themselves, but from a distance, and just vaguely felt that none of the ship warriors were covering themselves in glory. I hadn’t realized that—I’m sorry, I know I’m becoming the villain here, but I had no idea I’d end up feeling like every Spock ship in TOS vs Kirk/Spock is 100% coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb.

Tagged: #fine. the k/s girlies of yesteryear were entirely justified and spock especially has powerfully relatable closeted gay energy #(kirk does not. kirk's energy is powerfully bisexual)

ETA 4/21/2025: Somewhat relatedly, I was actually looking at how the characters' share of overall dialogue breaks down statistically between TOS and TNG. It turns out that, proportionally speaking, you'd have to combine the line shares of Picard, Data, Riker, and Geordi to reach the share of overall dialogue that Kirk and Spock have in TOS (~73% of all TOS dialogue). And this isn't only because Kirk gets so much of the dialogue (he does get a ton of it, though his share drops sharply over the course of the show; IMO he also gets the bulk of the bad dialogue in the later show, despite some great S3 scenes—he's not carrying so much of the show's bad writing earlier on). But the only TNG character who has a higher proportion of overall dialogue than Spock does in TOS is Picard, and only a few percent more at ~31%. Meanwhile, in TOS, there's a steep drop from Spock's share of lines/screen time to McCoy, who has only 13% of the show's dialogue; the line shares only get slighter from there. Meanwhile, Data and Riker both have slightly higher shares of overall dialogue than McCoy, and Geordi comes pretty close to his share as well. TOS gives a lot of centrality to Kirk and Spock compared to even other ST shows.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Goin' Back (Freddie Mercury)

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Tumblr crosspost (25 January 2025)

Femslash Spirk scrap for today (at a point around the end of “The Conscience of the King”):

“I will admit,” said S’paak, “that I do not find the governor’s presumed fate a particularly grievous one, captain. I see no reason that skill at performance should exempt anyone from justice, much less someone guilty of Kodos’s crimes.”

Captain Kirk’s lips curved into an unconvincing approximation of her typical expression. “His skill at performance wasn’t the difficulty, unfortunately.”

S'paak could not help but wonder what Kirk would have done if events had not taken the matter out of her hands. Dr. McCoy could talk with Karidian’s own theatricality about blood and severed heads and vengeance, but Kirk had been cautious to the point of near folly. True, the Jessica Kirk of Tarsus IV had been a girl of thirteen, and the uncertainty of human memory made caution understandable. But the weight of evidence was so clear.

Even so, Kirk—a woman more prone to leveraging emotion than hiding its existence—had not fully succeeded in concealing her true thoughts. At least, not from S’paak. Kirk had gone from uncertain and reluctant to grim, fearless, admirably unfaltering. S’paak guessed that, in the end, Kirk would not have hesitated to personally consign Kodos to the fate he deserved had circumstances allowed for it. That was not an irrational vendetta, however bitter, but deserved and necessary.

“Those difficulties are past,” said S’paak, “thanks to you, with respect to both him and his daughter.”

“Not me alone. But thank you, I think,” said Kirk. She turned slightly away, though not before S’paak observed the uneven inhalation of her next breath, the quick, repeated flicker of her lashes. “Riley deserves more of your sympathy, though. He’s younger than me, lost more, and I ... I’ve always needed challenges to struggle against. Something to overcome.”

“I see no logical reason for starvation to be among those challenges,” said S’paak flatly, “nor the massacre of civilians, least of all when they are sent to death on no pretext except baseless pseudoscience.”

( Read more... )

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Seasons of Drabbles - Spring Round: Signups and Nominations Open!

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

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Face the Dragon, by Joyce Sweeney

In this YA novel published in 1990, six fourteen-year-olds face their inner dragons while they're in an accelerated academic program which includes a class on Beowulf.

I read this when it first came out, so when I saw a copy at a library book sale, I grabbed it to re-read. It largely holds up, though I'd completely forgotten the main plot and only recalled the theme and the subplot.

My recollection of the book was that the six teenagers are inspired by class discussions on Beowulf to face their personal fears. This is correct. I also recalled that one of the girls was a gymnast with an eating disorder and one of the boys was an athlete partially paralyzed in an accident, and those two bonded over their love of sports and current conflicted/damaging relationship to sports and their bodies, and ended up dating. This is also correct.

What I'd completely forgotten was the main plot, which was about the narrator, Eric, who idolized his best friend, Paul, and had an idealized crush on one of the girls in the class, who he was correctly convinced had a crush on Paul, and incorrectly convinced Paul was mutually attracted to. Paul, who is charming and outgoing, convinces Eric, who is shy, to do a speech class with him, where Eric surprisingly excels. The main plot is about the Eric/Paul relationship, how Eric's jealousy nearly wrecks it, and how the boys both end up facing their dragons and fixing their friendship.

Paul's dragon is that he's secretly gay. The speech teacher takes a dislike to him, promotes Eric to the debate team when Paul deserves it more (and tells Eric this in private), and finally tries to destroy Paul in front of the whole class by accusing him of being gay! Eric defends Paul, Paul confesses his secret to him, and the boys repair their friendship.

While a bit dated/historical, especially in terms of both boys knowing literally nothing about what being gay actually means in terms of living your life, it's a very nicely done novel with lots of good character sketches. The teachers are all real characters, as are the six kids - all of whom have their own journeys. The crush object, for instance, is a pretty rich girl who's been crammed into a narrow box of traditional femininity, and her journey is to destroy the idealized image that Eric is in love with and her parents have imposed on her - and part of Eric's journey is to accept the role of being her supportive friend who helps her do it.

I was surprised and pleased to discover that this and other Sweeney books are currently available as ebooks. I will check some out.

(no subject)

WisCon May 23-25 2025, online only
A feminist sci-fi and fantasy convention
$25 or pay what you can
Visit https://wiscon2025.sched.com
Guests of honor: ANDREA HAIRSTON; NAOMI KRITZER
Want to volunteer? Email Personnel@sf3.org

( poster )

A few Chinese poems in translation

Slightly off subject, but a mod suggested this was okay so here goes.

While I do read sometimes pick my way through c-novels in the original (not nearly as much as I do in translation), most of my Chinese reading focus is actually classical poetry, with an emphasis on the Tang Dynasty. One of my ongoing projects is 唐诗三百首, 300 Tang Poems, but I've also been having fun wandering through the miscellaneous themed books at the back of 全唐诗, Complete Tang Poems, such as the two books of poems by ghosts. My most recent such foray was into the section of 谐谑, banter/repartee, iow poems of humor and mockery, though after managing to hack my way through a handful I beat a retreat.

The spoils of my raid are here, and the index of all translations (though many are outdated early drafts) is over there.

---L.

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fandom: stranger things

here for a good time not a long time by jemmacdraws (NSFW)

Fandom: Stranger Things
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Eddie Munson
Content Notes/Warnings: a bit NSFW due to his partly naked chest
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: jemmacdraws on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: A gorgeous piece with rockstar Eddie under stage lighting. Very pretty and very sexy, toying with his spiked collar.
Link: here for a good time not a long time

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Legalise Cannabis Australia

Legalise Cannabis Australia

Website: https://www.legalisecannabis.org.au/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LegaliseParty

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Legalise.Party

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lcpaustralia/

(My review for the 2021 WA Election. My review for the 2022 Federal Election)

Probably the biggest single issue party on Australian ballots, Legalise Cannabis want to…well you know. Decriminalise and legalise various drugs.

Party Analysis

Legalise Cannabis have an extensive policy on cannabis, but it basically boils down to: treat the drug the same way alcohol and tobacco are treated as legal substances; update road safety laws to deal with medicinal cannabis use and test for impairment not presence; and remove it from all the Crimes Acts as a substance to stop prosecutions. It’s basically an argument to make it a legal drug and to allow personal farming and a bigger legal market to unwind the black and grey markets.

In terms of cannabis use: now that medicinal cannabis is legal nationally, the major complaints are it’s still too expensive to access and the difficulty getting access to a doctor to prescribe it. Some of this may still be that it’s a fairly new legal drug, but I suspect a lot of it is also that most GPs don’t particularly think it’s the best route for pain regulation and a lot of prescriptions are just documenting existing use for access reasons. Medically, the party wants to see cannabis used more widely in the medical industry as they’re sure it will be beneficial.

I also never see cannabis campaigners addressing the fact that if they actually want cannabis regulated ‘like tobacco’ I suspect they don’t mean “only available in locked cabinets that cannot advertise, plastered with warnings about the dangers of use”.

In other policies, there is also the traditional championing of how hemp is a wonder material that you’ve probably heard from your cousin who lives in Nimbin. Hemp as a base material for bio-plastics! Hemp grows fast, make more clothes out of it! Hemp seed as a food source and to make methanol as a power source! Growing hemp and cannabis is an economic benefit for the country, as we can sell the drugs legally! I am generally sceptical of all of these claims: no doubt the plant does have those capacities, but also hemp clothing is basically scratchier linen clothing, and the actual finances of the industry, if it does not already exist, really need to be scruitinised for why not. It’s already legal to grow as long as the level of THC is low, so why aren’t farmers already flocking to this income stream if it’s so financially viable.

And finally: this is a single issue party. There is no discussion on their website of how the party would expect any MPs to vote in terms of any other policies outside their omni-issue. This means that candidate selection is highly important, because parliamentarians have to make decisions and vote on a wide suite of issues. It’s helpful to know their intentions on what they’re going to say when confronted on other issues.

Legalise Cannabis are a party where you always need to check who their candidates are. Previous lead candidates that some Legalise Cannabis voters may not have wanted to elect are Jeremy Buckingham, for the NSW upper house (sexual assault and bullying accusations while a member of the NSW Greens), and Sophie Moermond, for the WA upper house (antivaxxer, transphobe and anti-offshore wind turbines among other problems).

This time around in NSW the lead candidate is Miles Hunt. Hunt is a lawyer who has done work with cannabis possession charges, personal injury law, and also worked as an Industrial Officer for Actor’s Equity in the MEAA, giving him union cred. He’s also the co-founder of a drug harm minimisation organisation, Unharm, a NSW-based charity which focuses on campaigning for making drugs ‘safe and legal’, particularly around increasing pill testing, decreasing sniffer dogs, and working to legalise cannabis use. (I will note he is however not currently a director of the organisation).

Hunt has previously run for the Senate in 2013 as the lead candidate for the Drug Law Reform party where the party polled some 4,000 votes in NSW. From everything I can see, he’s serious about harm minimisation (Unharm is currently running a campaign warning of the dangers of Nitazines; Hunt himself has previously publicly argued for a cocaine boycott over a decade ago due to the harm from the supply chain and cartels), and has previously been willing to put his job on the line for the cause (in 2014 to raise awareness he had a front page article in the SMH in which he admitted to taking drugs, as a avenue to show plenty of professional people did).

Is this party trying to kill me?

No, they want everyone to have a good time getting high safely.

Is this party trying to harm me?

No, they want everyone to have a good time getting high safely.

Conclusion:

As a party, Legalise Cannabis essentially want one issue: legal cannabis, on demand. If that is your primary concern for policy, then this is the party for you. If you want a first preference vote that says that’s a major issue of yours, this is the party for you. However because of that narrow set of issues, how any Senator for the party might vote on other issues is an open question dependent on that person themself, given there’s no strong party platform.