From September, some say he's still out there getting arrested and getting the fuck away.
Are we truly free if we've never out run a cop?
der.hans
and 2 others
boosted
It's against this landscape of #enshittificaton and scrounging for the last half acre ( https://vod.newellijay.tv/w/83McEYqJpCqn1UmWXqGWq2 ) that I am building our #CommunityMedia projects, and attempting to imbue them with #revolutionaryJoy
We make toys of our own original characters, most of which are cc-by-sa, or of public domain characters. We help other people make their own toys. (And we do it with direct recycled plastics and soon with biodegradable plastics.)
We make television programs (like the one I linked above) and podcasts to tell stories that are otherwise missing from the airwaves or to celebrate our community or just because we want to. We help other people make and distribute their own television.
We make video games and publish comic books and just generally try to provide an alternative to all the various kinds of media that are currently produced by four or five companies who would gladly see this nation fall to fascism if it meant making a buck.
paulyd II - the wrath of caro-kann
liked this activity
It's against this landscape of #enshittificaton and scrounging for the last half acre ( https://vod.newellijay.tv/w/83McEYqJpCqn1UmWXqGWq2 ) that I am building our #CommunityMedia projects, and attempting to imbue them with #revolutionaryJoy
We make toys of our own original characters, most of which are cc-by-sa, or of public domain characters. We help other people make their own toys. (And we do it with direct recycled plastics and soon with biodegradable plastics.)
We make television programs (like the one I linked above) and podcasts to tell stories that are otherwise missing from the airwaves or to celebrate our community or just because we want to. We help other people make and distribute their own television.
We make video games and publish comic books and just generally try to provide an alternative to all the various kinds of media that are currently produced by four or five companies who would gladly see this nation fall to fascism if it meant making a buck.
All of these things that I'm talking about in this thread—toys, media, culture—have been commercialized and weaponized to the point that they're basically useless for their original purposes.
It's nearly impossible to make a living as a creative person unless you are a one in ten thousand success story, a legacy holdout from the time before mass media essentially killed itself in the name of profit seeking, or an outright grifter.
If you are already successful or you can attach yourself to someone who is already successful then you have an okay chance of remaining/becoming successful. (This is the case for outfits like Dropout and people like Mr. Lobo) But even previous recognition or an existing audience might be insufficient if YouTube or Facebook or google or Instagram or Amazon decides that your audience isn't going to find out about your newest work.
Sorry, computer says no.
Sorry, our new business model demands that we bankrupt the people upon whom we've built our success.
It's against this landscape of #enshittificaton and scrounging for the last half acre ( https://vod.newellijay.tv/w/83McEYqJpCqn1UmWXqGWq2 ) that I am building our #CommunityMedia projects, and attempting to imbue them with #revolutionaryJoy
We make toys of our own original characters, most of which are cc-by-sa, or of public domain characters. We help other people make their own toys. (And we do it with direct recycled plastics and soon with biodegradable plastics.)
We make television programs (like the one I linked above) and podcasts to tell stories that are otherwise missing from the airwaves or to celebrate our community or just because we want to. We help other people make and distribute their own television.
We make video games and publish comic books and just generally try to provide an alternative to all the various kinds of media that are currently produced by four or five companies who would gladly see this nation fall to fascism if it meant making a buck.
I spent the last several days in Philadelphia selling hand made toys at the designer art toy show and just generally being among artists and creatives and practicing #RevolutionaryJoy
This was welcome. It was exhausting, but it was also replenishing. I came away from the show bustling with ideas. Most of them are small ideas— concrete little things that I can put into practice immediately, but a few are bigger and more abstract. I want to spend some time with these bigger, more abstract ideas and see how they manifest themselves in my toy making and the rest of my revolutionary joy practice.
This will be a short thread where I try to articulate one of these ideas. It's mostly about toymaking and the concept of Play and the utility of stories. If those topics aren't in your balliwick, look elsewhere for sustenance tonight.
I'll be going slowly as I'm on mobile and also really still reasoning my way around this concept.
Mike [SEC=OFFICIAL]
and 1 other
boosted
You ever have one of those moments where you suddenly realize you're actually doing the thing you always dreamed about?
That hit me hard today while packing up these sky pirate figures for the Philly Designer Toy Fest.
After years of writing code to make rich people slightly richer, I'm now making actual physical toys with my friends in Georgia. Wild.
This is Jacques, French-Canadian sky pirate, expert at dramatic entrances, and our first injection molded action figure.
He's made from eco-friendly materials, hand-painted by actual humans (Me! and Sundog!), and inspired by our weird little dime novel serial, which debuts this week.
More importantly, he represents everything corporate tech sucks out of creative work - joy, personality, and that spark of rebellion we've been calling #revolutionaryJoy
If you're in Philly this weekend, come see the whole crew at Assembly Required's show. And if not, know that somewhere out there, a ragtag group of artists and dreamers are sticking it to the plastic toy industrial complex one hand-painted sky pirate at a time.
The revolution won't be optimized for maximum engagement - but it might come with a grappling hook accessory.
(See https://www.mountaintowntoys.com/2025/08/03/coming-soon-sky-pirates-fun-size-heroes/ or https://www.mountaintowntoys.com/product/jacques-sky-pirate-fun-size-heroes-coming-soon/ or https://www.mountaintowntoys.com/product/the-mysterious-air-pirates-volume-1-issue-1/ or @MountainTownToys for more information.)
2 media
You ever have one of those moments where you suddenly realize you're actually doing the thing you always dreamed about?
That hit me hard today while packing up these sky pirate figures for the Philly Designer Toy Fest.
After years of writing code to make rich people slightly richer, I'm now making actual physical toys with my friends in Georgia. Wild.
This is Jacques, French-Canadian sky pirate, expert at dramatic entrances, and our first injection molded action figure.
He's made from eco-friendly materials, hand-painted by actual humans (Me! and Sundog!), and inspired by our weird little dime novel serial, which debuts this week.
More importantly, he represents everything corporate tech sucks out of creative work - joy, personality, and that spark of rebellion we've been calling #revolutionaryJoy
If you're in Philly this weekend, come see the whole crew at Assembly Required's show. And if not, know that somewhere out there, a ragtag group of artists and dreamers are sticking it to the plastic toy industrial complex one hand-painted sky pirate at a time.
The revolution won't be optimized for maximum engagement - but it might come with a grappling hook accessory.
(See https://www.mountaintowntoys.com/2025/08/03/coming-soon-sky-pirates-fun-size-heroes/ or https://www.mountaintowntoys.com/product/jacques-sky-pirate-fun-size-heroes-coming-soon/ or https://www.mountaintowntoys.com/product/the-mysterious-air-pirates-volume-1-issue-1/ or @MountainTownToys for more information.)
2 media
Andrew (Television Executive)
boosted
Alternatively, if you're more interested in #SkyPirates and #RevolutionaryJoy than you are in toys, you can watch some of the films that inspirated our pirates from @video
https://vod.newellijay.tv/w/p/nQmSoz1U7RUUVqSLQdeGn2?playlistPosition=1&resume=true
Andrew (Television Executive)
boosted
🚨 FIRST LOOK: JACQUES THE SKY PIRATE! 🚨
Meet Jacques—the rogue French-Canadian sky pirate from our original pulp series The Mysterious Air Pirates!
Hand-painted in our Ellijay, GA workshop and molded in eco-friendly PAL + recycled HDPE, this daring 3 3/4" figure is ready to swing into your collection with his trusty grappling hook!
SEE HIM IN PERSON THIS WEEKEND!
We’re debuting the entire crew at the Designer Toy Art Festival (presented by Assembly Required) in Philadelphia, August 9-10! Come find us—we’ll be the ones talking pulp adventures, sustainable toys, and revolutionary joy.
Jacques was designed by @djsundog and produced by Sundog and @ajroach42
Alternatively, if you're more interested in #SkyPirates and #RevolutionaryJoy than you are in toys, you can watch some of the films that inspirated our pirates from @video
https://vod.newellijay.tv/w/p/nQmSoz1U7RUUVqSLQdeGn2?playlistPosition=1&resume=true
🚨 FIRST LOOK: JACQUES THE SKY PIRATE! 🚨
Meet Jacques—the rogue French-Canadian sky pirate from our original pulp series The Mysterious Air Pirates!
Hand-painted in our Ellijay, GA workshop and molded in eco-friendly PAL + recycled HDPE, this daring 3 3/4" figure is ready to swing into your collection with his trusty grappling hook!
SEE HIM IN PERSON THIS WEEKEND!
We’re debuting the entire crew at the Designer Toy Art Festival (presented by Assembly Required) in Philadelphia, August 9-10! Come find us—we’ll be the ones talking pulp adventures, sustainable toys, and revolutionary joy.
Jacques was designed by @djsundog and produced by Sundog and @ajroach42
Andrew (Television Executive)
boosted
I make things! I help other people make things. I let other people help me make things.
The act of making things is, by itself, radical.
But I'm trying to take it step further.
I'm centering my values and I'm focusing on joy, on things that bring me joy, on things that create joy for others.
I'm focusing on replacing the things in my life, in the lives of other people, that enrich billionaires or promote harmful ideologies or wreck the planet with things that don't.
This is why I make toys! It's why I run New Ellijay Television.
The film is in the public domain, but it's inter-titles and soundtrack are not.
Watch the illegal copy on the internet archive https://archive.org/details/filibus-1915-by-mario-roncoroni
Watch it with no score but still the illegal inter-titles on wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Filibus_1915.webm
Or you can watch a fully legal version here, which is much worse: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Filibus_(1915).webm
Or you can watch my in progress restoration here: https://communitymedia.video/w/nYaqWnn34d57auvQeSE6TY
But I've only finished episode one so far.
So much of what we're working on right now is based in part on this movie.
Our #SkyPirate toys (which will launch to the world in a few more days!) are directly inspired by Filibus and The Pirates of 1920 ( https://vod.newellijay.tv/w/p/nQmSoz1U7RUUVqSLQdeGn2?playlistPosition=1 )
I've been working on a fiction serial adventure series featuring Filibus and her crew, transforming them in to Doc Savage style pulp adventure heroes, but without the bigotry and with a lot more #RevolutionaryJoy
Eventually, I'll also do a video game. Maybe later this year? Probably by next summer.
I make things! I help other people make things. I let other people help me make things.
The act of making things is, by itself, radical.
But I'm trying to take it step further.
I'm centering my values and I'm focusing on joy, on things that bring me joy, on things that create joy for others.
I'm focusing on replacing the things in my life, in the lives of other people, that enrich billionaires or promote harmful ideologies or wreck the planet with things that don't.
This is why I make toys! It's why I run New Ellijay Television.