#<- by some of you I mean vague group of people online most of which I've probably had blocked for months now. so.

[allgremlinart]

maybe its the autism in me but personally. could not give a FUCK about people breaking internet social rules or committing a faux pas. like ohh noo someone was awkward?? someone used too many 😂 emojis?? someone commented a joke that didn't land?? ok. I will never in my life judge someone for that when there's a billion other things I can judge them by lol.

[juustozzi]

@thepinksky18 hello, and thank you sm!! <3 I hope it's okay to reply like this, I got kinda carried away with reference images..! I can try to share some things that help me with my art, hopefully they'll be of some help for you too!

when I do group pics like this, the thing I focus on the most is how everything looks and feels together! details and stuff can wait for later, first is to figure out that the overall picture works, and the characters are in balance with each other!

I'll use the Tenma horse pic you replied to as an example, will be continued under read more!

here's the sketches for the art! the very first sketch is very simple and blocky (I usually use a thick brush) to just settle everything in place and see how it all works out. the second sketch is more detailed and sometimes deviates from the first sketch a lot, if something seems to work better some other way.

depending on the complexity of the finished art, I do just these two sketches or add one more even detailed one, but the last sketch before lineart is the one I tweak the most! usually I draw characters on different layers so it's easy to select them separately and resize, fix proportions or positions, etc. to make the big picture look good to you!

here's the lineart (which could also be the 3rd sketch) compared to the previous layer. now I'm adding more details, but I still keep fixing the overall image - you can see how the lineart doesn't quite match the sketch in places: hikaru is shorter, the position of aoi's feet and tenma's hind legs are different, etc. some people like to do a very detailed sketch and practically trace their lineart over it, and if that's what feels good for you, go for it! I'm the kind to just throw lines over vague sketch and call it a day, especially with more simple drawings like this :,)

there's good tutorials and studies on bodies and proportions online already so I'm not going to even try to speak about those, but I got a few tips! I tend to do them in my mind nowadays, but I tried to draw them out for easier visualization!

I mentioned earlier how for me the main thing is that everything's balanced, right? that also inclues characters and their proportions. I think that in group pics it's more important the characters work out together, not so much if their insividual proportions are perfect. especially if there's notable differences between them - height, bulk, lenght of limbs, and so on! a few pixels here and there don't matter in the overall image, but for example with Shinsuke who is Tiny, it's important for me to really make him smaller than others.

my most used tool is a scale chart! it helps to visualize the proportions for the characters, even when they're piled up like in the example doodle, or otherwise not in a neat row on the horizon line. (again, separate layers help you tweak them individually if needed! there's no need to get them right on the first try, especially when drawing digitally when there's layers.)

if your drawing eye hasn't gotten used to proportions, the chart can also be used to make a neat little ruler to check your sketch! the rulers over the sketch are all same size, just moved around; tsurugi and shinsuke fit in pretty well, and while Tenma's torso is a little long (even when taking into accound he's a little bent from waist, which makes him even taller when straightened out), it's not by much and it wouldn't bother my eye.

and while I myself sometimes tend to be a slave for the references and get gray hair over minor details, or of some part of the anatomy is off and I can't fix it the way I want, the overall feeling and style mean a lot more! I think it's important to put some thought into the proportions especially if you feel like wanting to make progress with your art, but if it's getting too stressful or draining the joy of drawing out of you, then screw it and just have fun! (I say this as someone who has learned not from studying anatomy and stuff, but instead just. has drawn a shitton and had fun while at it. I think getting comfortable with just creating is the bigges step you can take!)

...oops, sorry if this got too long or off the rails! and yeah hopefully you (and anyone else reading all this) got something out of it!

[justsome-di]

Hi! Wanted to let you know that I really love your take on Nano and the evolution of it through time. I also quit the whole thing for the same reasons around 2016 after two years. I was curious: what are your expectations for a healthy writing community? I've seen that a lot of people want different things and conflict happen because nobody really talks about it. The most people are willing to say is the obvious don't be an asshole (although obviously that doesn't stop some), but I rarely see people say things like "I don't want to share my writing but I do want to share the efforts of it" or "I want to talk about every details of my stories and brainstorm with others" and things like that. So what are your thoughts on it? P.S. I started following you and then I found out you're also into MDZS XD Love that!

Hi!!

When I think of a healthy writing community, I think about two 12-year-olds sharing their grand story ideas and their original characters that are master-level wizards at age 19 or famous detectives at 15 and the two 12-year-olds gush over each other's ideas and draw their characters and help each other come up with names and ideas and titles.

I think writing communities really thrive when people are encouraged to share their ideas and can get a positive response. There's times to critique works and times to just hype people up--and I think people really do not know the difference.

I've noticed a few, consistent issues:

Competition: I think some writers get competitive over how fast they write, how much, how often, etc. And I've been in some Discord servers when a person is suddenly getting praise or recognition, and you can tell there's tension. Suddenly people stop talking and log off. There's a lot of battle of the egos.

Different skill levels in one space: this is a big issue, though it's not anyone's fault. I've noticed that some writers in some servers are well-experienced with great writing and then other writers are beginners. It's not a big deal, really, but it does hamper feedback. Beginner writers get discouraged and overwhelmed when well-experienced writers offer more detailed critiques. And likewise, experienced writers probably aren't getting super in-depth critiques they need. Not to say people are unsupportive, but it's just not the most productive set up!

Selfishness: I'm not sure if that's the best way to phrase it, but I've noticed that often people will share their writing in servers but not interact with other's writings.

These are pretty limited to Discord which imo isn't a productive space for large writing groups anyway. But unfortunately when a lot of people move to Discord, it's hard to find a sense of community on tumblr or other sites.

But I can't just bitch and not offer suggestions so:

Keep online communities alive. We can't limit ourselves to Discord servers. Post your writing. Engage with other blogs. Reblog. Reply. Send in asks. If you're reading something someone wrote, let them know. Say something in the tags or send in an ask.

Be a hype man: We should encourage each other to continue writing--not everyone is looking for critiques all the time

Know your place: I've seen way too many people shit on ideas for events or special blogs. If you see something that you don't like, just leave it be. If you're not interested in something, it's not for you. Let the micro-communities do their thing and find their people. You do not need to be involved in every facet of the general writing community.

Post. Your. Writing. Or post stuff about your writing. It's hard to find other writers when they don't share! I can't hype up your story if I don't know about it!

I often see a lot of suggestions get vague. Like you said--"Don't be an asshole." Okay. Great. But what does that mean? And how does it get enforced in moderated communities like servers? What if the mods of the servers are assholes?

Or I see "support each other!" Okay, but we need an actual game plan for getting early-2010s level of community back. We need to bring back ask memes and character memes and ask culture. Because people back then weren't just twiddling their thumbs waiting for an interaction, there was effort put into all of it. People were designing games and events and taking time to engage with each other.

I don't think people understand that healthy communities need to be nurtured and inclusive. And this is definitely glamorizing the internet of 10-15 years ago. There's always been bullying and toxic people. But I think we could definitely build on what used to be and make something that's mature and welcoming to everyone.

I'm hoping with NaNo on their steady decline through the past couple of years really encourages people to rekindle other online communities. I think a lot of people have been nostalgic over the past few days, and a lot of people have taken the initiative to coordinate their own events. It's starting to bring back some of the unconditional support that used to exist.

(I love mdzs so much omggg and I'm reading through tgcf too and I aaaahhhh I'm very normal about it)

[system-of-a-feather]

You know, I honestly do think people would greatly benefit from taking some time to deeply reflect on the known idea that "one of the key point ways to radicalize into a dangerous, harmful, bigotted, and sometimes fascist (NOT CLAIMING THAT IT IS INHERENTLY, JUST THAT WE KNOW IT PLAYS A ROLE IN RADICALIZING FASCISM I DO NOT PISS ON THE POOR) is to create an 'us' vs 'them' way of thinking." Like this is tumblr dot com, yeah there are some people who don't know that and/or disagree with that, but I'd like to think the sensible majority of us who are on the trans gaysex website have heard that be said and have at least mostly agreed with it.

And yet, even then, we have some of the most pointless discourse that is fundamentally built on this "us vs them" ideology. The same "they are ACTUALLY [emotionally and morally charged claim] and are DANGEROUS to live and let be". "[Insert Group] is ACTUALLY a [insert claim that generates fear] because [semi plausible claim and/or over generalization of a few people]." "[Insert Group] wants us dead / gone / silenced and will not stop until this or that and can not be trusted when they say otherwise"

Like, I'm pretty sure this is in queercourse / LGBT discourse, proship related stuff, and all that general way too online internet discourse, but the one I'm most familiar with is syscourse so I'm going to use that as a reference and talk specifically to that audience.

If you are reading this and go "Oh you are vagueing XYZ of [this group] because they literally say those things", I'm sorry to tell you this literally had at least half of the regular syscourser names in my mind - from BOTH sides.

Honestly, I feel if we just really stopped using labels to put OURSELVES into us-vs-them categories that people can immediately box us one place or another, it'd do everyone a lot better in having productive conversations cause you'd actually kind of need to, ya know, talk to a person before you inherently decide that they are the "enemy who wants to take things away from you and silence you."

Nine out of ten times, people just want to live, want to be able to exist and have human decency, and are just generally scared. I'm sure there are some bad apples out there that explicitly do want to actively cause harm to other people for no good reason other than its funny, cause yeah, they obviously exist - but I've come to find most people, even the most aggressive and vocal people, are scared and often isolated and thus trapped in this cycle of discourse.

There is a lot of benefit to be found by taking time to sit, pull off all the assumptions you've made about a person, and just genuinely give space and time to have a genuine, best faith, private discussion about what matters and drives them. If there are people who you think you know their opinions, thoughts, and reasons for doing and saying what they do from just their online public presence, you are honestly probably humorously wrong.

And that isn't to say I'm exempt from it, cause I liberally block at the slightest annoyance which - while minimizing negativity on my dash also happens to shut down any room for any deeper understanding of a person - is good because no one is entitled to you going out of the way to understand them and their perspective, especially when they are actively putting things out that make you feel stressed, annoyed, and/or concerned.

It also isn't to say there is any reason or internal dialogue that fully excuses toxic behavior on it's own. No one is entitled to your forgiveness either, especially if they don't make amends on their own effort.

It's all just to say that I think people would benefit a lot from sitting down and spending some time thinking to themselves what it means, why it is, and how it appears chronically in social communities the "us vs them" mentality and how that ends up causing unhealthy and toxic behavior.

[itsbansheebitch]

Gen Zer's (2005) Predictions for Gen Alpha (They aren't Doomed)

I have some cousins that are Gen Alpha and they're turning out well. I really think all the "they're so doomed" messaging is from a loud minority, mostly on tiktok. I disagree, so I plan to make predictions for the vague & soupy (time) generation of Gen Alpha.

This list will focus on American Gen Alpha since there WILL be a stark contrast, especially regarding school shootings.

Average to EXTREME skill with tech depending on the kids (hope STEM is ready to welcome a new wave of newcomers)

Difficulties with history knowledge due to rewritten history books, (Please be kind while they learn, they don't know the full scope of what's going on yet)

Desensitized to violence (Due to usual kid stuff, school shootings being treated as normal, and an increase in hate crimes)

A new passion for social justice (I don't mean to be a "but I have black friends" kind of person, but believe it or not, having friends in minority groups and realizing they're in danger makes you want to fist fight whoever is at fault)

TONS of memes about the "Alpha" phrasing, which trust me, will get old QUICKLY. (A bigger stretch is saying the term for a shitty Gen Alpha kid will be Omega/Beta instead of Boomer)

Unusually violent jokes & memes

Extremely dark humor

A long list of child neglect lawsuits

An increase in accents homogeneity due to watching YouTubers at a young age (I'm not joking, this has happened to me and I only started watching YT in 2nd Grade. I have the weirdest Irish, British, and midwestern, but not the state I currently live in, accents on only CERTAIN words and phrases. There definitely will be studies on this.)

A new wave of kids fighting gerymandering

Brand New Shiny Raw LinesTM from the KiddosTM that they'll probably use to roast lawmakers until they start decomosing on the spot

Kids who are NOT afraid to fight you

New unseen levels of compassion

This is a stretch, but somehow they'll manage to bring back the avocado toast jokes, either as a banter thing or as a new "Boomer" type thing.

KiddosTM will probably joke about how Millennials ruined every industry from fabric softener to identity theft to robberies. This will be (hopefully) fully joking manner and used in a [Post kiddosTM disagree with] [Reply: Well, you ruined the fabric softener industry, so you don't have a leg to stand on] type format.

Will either share you their Social Security Number or will be a brick wall online. No in between.

A increase in reading (specifically fanfiction & audio books, but will NOT be void of physical copies) but a decrease in literacy & media literacy. We are already seeing this happening.

A "you didn't fix this/you fucked it up" attitude towards older people. This isn't necessarily negative since it means they won't take ANY shit from lawmakers and will probably not have as many hangups regarding rioting.

An absolute HATRED for family channels. I waiting for these kids to break the van life kids out in a bizarre scheme of epic proportions lmao

The most indecipherable controversies you've ever seen in your life. I'm thinking at least 5 levels of knowledge and joining a subreddit will be needed to even have an idea of what's happening.

(Hopefully) a new level of understanding when it comes to accountability, people changing, and knowing what you should expect from a person when they get cancelled.

Brand new political cartoons (now made for the internet)

A new passion for the environment and recognizing one's place in it.

A new level of hatred for colonialism and mass killings

Probably at least one assassination lmao (they'll be the barista from the tiktok about the barista killing CEOs with metal straws as darts)

A polarizing divide between anti-capitalism and ancap ideas that we haven't seen since 2008 (and not as publicly in 2008, so get ready for your shit to get rocked).

Some of the best and worst takes that humanity has ever bore witness to.

New acceptance (even better than now) regarding hair (dyes and styles), tattoos, piercings, etc.

A major crackdown on systematic issues (criticism when they're young, major law & education changes when they're older)

That's all for now. REMEMBER! Do NOT treat these kids like you were treated (LOOKING AT YOU, Ms. AVOCADO TOAST and Ms. DOWNFALL OF HUMANITY GAY-MER).

Side Note: People are always surprised when I tell them I was born in 2005 and have already graduated high school (no, I did not skip grades, I was actually very young for my grade) so I'm going to apologize ahead of time for turning all the Millennials reading this into dust. Sorry, ya'll.

[lemonhemlock]

I really wonder what happened with people in the last few years because it's become pretty much unbearable to be in a fandom these days. It's not the HOTD fandom that's rancid, it's most fandoms that are big enough to attract a high number of fans (I got into a different fandom recently and I swear things are just as bad, if not worse sometimes). There are always groups of people who will (morally) police everyone else for having a different interpretation of the source material, for coming up with headcanons different than their own or for shipping the wrong thing and writing the wrong type of fan fiction. And it's not that they're only targeting those who are into what is deemed problematic like fictional incest or toxic relationships, which is bad enough in itself (the targeting of people based on their preference in fiction, I mean), but I see more and more people targeted for coming up with totally inoffensive headcanons, like imagining their favorite character as a parent and being called horrible names over it. To some extent it looks like these people project themselves and their life experiences onto fictional characters so much so that whenever they are confronted with people who have different takes and history, well, they start to spiral out of control. This, and the fact that being online under anonymity gives them a lot of courage and their bully persona finally comes out. Ultimately it's just very bizarre to me that people can't simply accept the fact that others can enjoy fictional things and fictional characters in a different way and act like you're either stupid and delusional if you think differently OR you must have some hidden motives (like the ones who accuse Helaemond shippers of being secret Team Black stans who want to paint the Greens in a bad light).

this is so real, friend, every fandom is getting worse; the problems we are having here are not limited or intrinsic to asoiaf. my guess would be that participating in fandoms has switched over the years from being a super nerdy activity to being more widespread, also in relation to the proliferation of social media. in the before times, you had a few message boards and livejournal, nowadays you have so many platforms where fans can participate and more and more people have gained access to the internet. so, with an increased number of users, it goes to reason that more personality types are interacting with each other.

this is how you get so many people hung up on morality politics that want to consume media in a god-fearing way or people who go berserk when their interpretation is contradicted. the parasocial and projection aspect of media consumption has brainrotted so many people to the point where bullying and generally being nasty have become acceptable responses.

it's getting so rare to have interactions in which you can simply disagree with someone on whatever issue and have it be just be that, a difference in interpretation, no feelings hurt and then back to normal engagement! nowadays, it's like fans want to surround themselves with people who think 100% like them (which is never going to happen) and, when opinions diverge, it becomes a downright schism, instead of just a normal facet of being alive and talking to someone.

so many times i've seen fans adopt this position that if you happen to have formed a different view of an event or a character, it means you're some flavour of stupid or naive or delulu. when, in reality, the text was vague enough to support MULTIPLE interpretations and, if the writers decided to go into direction A instead of B, that's just down to luck. maybe that version simply won out in the writers' room and that's that. it doesn't amount to supporters of A having a deeper, more sophisticated level of media literacy than supporters of B, but that's the line that often gets pushed by those who feel vindicated against the "losers"

a couple more asks under the cut

Anonymous asked: You’re too nice to say it but the “helaemond vs helaegon” “ship war” was very specifically started by a few select people and it was not anyone who actually liked helaemond 😭 it’s so frustrating to see as someone who loves both ships but now you have people claiming it’s impossible or anyone who says they like helaegon and helaemond both are lying? who gets aegond in the divorce? just discourse for discourse sake when the real enemy is this show not letting helaena speak to either of her brothers (forget daeron! she probably doesn’t know he exists). I’m sure that’s enough discourse so I hope you have a great day Miss Lemon! sending you the best

seven blessings to you, anon!!! <3 i honestly wouldn't know bc i don't keep tabs on users to that degree, but anyone saying it's impossible to like both is just inventing their own reality based on arbitrary rules they dreamt up. and, completely agree, the biggest impediment both helaegon and helaemond have is that helaena is so underdeveloped and issues almost no opinions or actions of her own. what does she even think of aemond or aegon that's not simply vibes?

Anonymous asked: Oh I dunno how much you are on places like Twitter or Reddit (i hope not much because you are nice!) but there are large groups of fans who will tell you Ewan and Phia being nice about Helaemond was nothing more than fan service and nobody should care. Or that they don’t like the ship and are patronizing shippers. Nobody likes to have fun anymore 😭

you guys are so nice to me!! thank you sm anon. <3 i do go on reddit and twitter occasionally, but i can't say i scour the platforms in detail, because i don't have that kind of time or patience (also i end up annoyed by many takes, so there's also that)

but, you know, even if ewan and phia were just being nice and they don't really care, then it's because they didn't want to shit on people's harmless fun! and if they want to ship a non-canon ship for their entertainment, then it's not hurting anyone and shouldn't be made to feel shitty for no reason

but, then again, why would they say they deliberately acted with helaemond in mind? so whatever. antis coping.

[kiefbowl]

https://www.tumblr.com/imanes/181546472260/httpswwwtumblrcomdashboardblogluckystrabis?source=share

would you analyze this queen

>bc that one post about attachment to womanhood is still hurting people’s feelings, let’s keep talking about it.

There is a link they have at the top of this post that doesn't work for me, but otherwise I'm not sure what post they're talking about. So that might have some missing context. I also want to point out that you sent me a reblog of the op, and the reblog is dated 2018, so this is more than 5 years ago written.

>radical feminist notions of gender socialization correctly frame it as a traumatizing process.

Now there are two ways of interpreting this: 1. they are actually talking about radical feminists or 2. they are talking vaguely about the women online who may or may not call themselves either radical feminists, radfem, or terfs who might say any number of things.

Generally speaking, the idea that radical feminists talk explicitly about "gender socialization as a traumatizing process" is a little wonky. This isn't a tenet of radical feminism specifically as I understand it. Gender socialization has garnered a lot more discussion relatively recently in more explicit terms by public self identifying radical feminists because of the concerns of transgender ideas, sometimes even developing in response to ideas set forth by transgender activists. I don't think many radical feminists would hold tight to the idea that gender socialization is traumatic to men, since men are socialized to benefit from the sex hierarchy. If it's traumatic to anyone, it's women, though the idea that being socialized into womanhood is always and totally a traumatic experience just feels a little...rote. Not truly grasping the entirety of what socialization is. But to be clear, I don't think a lot of feminists go about making this point first and foremost, but rather talk about specific ways gender socialization is traumatic to women and girls (which is in service to argue the larger point that the sex hierarchy is real and that women are a marginalized class). I doubt op is truly interested in engaging with those ideas meaningfully, despite calling radical feminists "correct" about it.

The other interpretation is, well, "I read some tumblr posts that said this." I'm sure you have. Me, too. Some really intelligent women are on tumblr and they make a lot of intelligent posts about gender and gender socialization. I also know that when you have a little insular pocket online in any community, it's easy for those people to mimic what they say to each other unthinkingly. This is not a moral judgement on my part, and I don't think it's exclusive to feminists...it's inclusive to everybody (finally something that is!! the weak human psychology!! lol). My only point is, if you want to go find someone saying things that will make you mad, you can go do that online because you can find at least one person saying the exact thing you want them to say, so you can respond to it. It becomes an outrage machine, despite not really reflecting what a group truly believes, or what most people believe, or what is meaningfully understood. I only say this to suggest perhaps this post is one of those posts that is responding to a general sentiment they have vaguely seen and not meaningfully tried to understand and have reinforced by reading posts that are just sort of nothing burger but have the right words strung together in the precise way to make op cringe or whatever.

The point is, if you want to understand what someone is saying to truly understand it, you have to ask them. So if someone posts "gender socialization is traumatic" with not much else context, that's already such a vague sentiment it would behoove you to be intellectually curious enough to ask them "what do you mean? can you expand on this so I understand it?" And if you're someone who wants to be understood, it would behoooooove you to welcome the opportunity.

If you were to ask me if I think "gender socialization is traumatic" I would say "It depends on what you mean." So we're already hitting a wall to understanding each other. Anyway...

>a contradiction arises, in that case, when they assign positive moral traits to female socialization

This is another example where I'm not going to say this doesn't happen, but this is not an understanding within radical feminism. That doesn't mean a radical feminist couldn't believe this, it just means that the texts that support radical feminist ideas are not interested in sanctifying being a woman as some de facto morality. That is a ridiculous claim and proves that op is not interested in engaging with radical feminist texts as serious scholarly works. In defense of op, they are probably young and have never had their analytical skills challenged outside of, say, high school class. It does lead me to believe this person is responding only to vaguely feminist ideas they've seen in posts that have made them mad without trying to meaningfully understand them. So, +1 to me for guessing that :)

>(and femininity by extension)

Even more factually wrong than the statement above. op cannot understand when feminists discuss womanhood, that it is not an interchangeable word with femininity. Because in op's mind, femininity is innate, whether they realize they believe that or not is no matter.

>because, much like society in general, they believe that an ideally traumatized woman is able to access moral high grounds that other people cannot.

Truly offensive and in fact betrays that this is what op believes. op believes in a connection between morality and suffering. Why do I know that? Because they interpret this from ideas that have nothing to do with morality. If someone says "women are oppressed" they have not made a moral statement about women. If anything, they've made a moral statement about men. If you read "women are oppressed" and you read "women are moral" you have made that connection.

This is also a good time to point out that if this was something they were writing for school, they would need to then support their claim with sourced quotes. It's convenient that this is tumblr where they aren't compelled to do this. Who said this? When did they say this? How many of them said this? Did they say this explicitly? Are you extrapolating? What was the context? Where was it said?

But the true interesting part is "society in general." It's so fun to see in action MRA points infiltrating supposedly quote unquote liberal/leftist gender ideas...how does society in general demonstrate seeing the traumatized woman as the most moral person? Outside of your favorite genre tv scenes you're able to recontexualize to your heart's content. When a woman kills her abuser, how likely is she to serve more time than he would have if he had been sentenced to abusing her? QUICKLY!

>“i was socialized female” becomes an admission of guaranteed prosociality, a set of traits that are only ever harmful because they are at risk of exploitation via external forces.

Even if I didn't just argue that this point is moot because the previous points are not true or supported by evidence...hwuh?? What are they saying. Does this even follow from what they've said so far. "prosocial" is a word I had to look up, and it's a psychology word meaning "intended to help or benefit another person or group." They haven't talked about this at all. Also, prosociality is not really a form of the word, "prosocial behavior" is a phrase used.

So, to rephrase: "I was socialized female" becomes an acknowledgment (by feminists) that prosocial behavior is guaranteed, a set of traits that do not causes harm but are at risk of exploitation which would then cause the traits to be harmful [editor's note: to whom?].

Again...what? (I also cut the "via external forces" because how are you at risk of exploitation via internal forces lmao).

Even if I was to do a good faith read of this, it would be like "when feminists argue that women are socialized female, they are saying that women are socialized into prosocial behaviors." Which, yeah okay...but what of it? Prosocial behaviors are good therefore women are morally good because of femininity? This is just not a thing feminists really say.

>this is why many radical feminists view trans men as safer & more politically enlightened than trans women

The religiosity of op is apparent all the way through. The talk of morality, "politically enlightened"....etc etc. Feminists aren't really interested in who is more politically "enlightened." Trans men aren't included in feminism because of how safe they are or even how politically enlightened (whatever the fuck that means) they are...it's just that they're female. They could be the nastiest most awful person in the world and they're still included. Like come on now, did someone go to bible camp when they were younger? I think someone went to bible camp when they were younger. (It wasn't me)

>- because of their proximity (imagined or otherwise) to femaleness, to daintiness, to softness and benevolence.

boring sentence

>“male socialization” is synonymous with antisociality, and becomes lobbied at trans women as a whole when individual trans women do things that radical feminists deem “unwomanly,” from having controversial political opinions to committing violent crime.

Feminists don't care about womanly-ness. I know op thinks we do, and specifically "radical feminists" because that's who they said (I haff to laff), because they see the argument that feminists have that "woman are female, and women are socialized into femininity" as saying "women are feminine, which includes being female", but anyway...let's talk about how they include in "unwomanly" committing violent crimes???!!!???!! whuahauhahah???? Is it perhaps not more sane to think that women are concerned about violent crimes men commit because of the harm they cause not that they aren't feminine behaviors???? A deeply unserious post I am regretting writing 1K about it.

>the gender socialization model becomes a way to moralize sex assignment by prescriptively linking particular experiences of trauma to particular personality outcomes.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, it's a way to describe OPPRESSION BASED ON THE AXIS OF SEX!!!! AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MORALITY OF BEING BORN FEMALE!!!! TRAUMA IS A SIGN OF MISTREATMENT HELLO??????

Here's a fun tip when analyzing the work of someone: if they start talking about the moralizing within an argument that is not about morality, they are in fact the moralizing one and do not know what they're talking about. Go ahead and disregard whatever they're saying, they don't do their homework and will never seriously try to understand anyone without bringing up morality.

>it is no longer a theoretical framework meant to honestly and meticulously analyze how children become gendered subjects.

weird online speak, why do people talk like this. how "children become gendered subjects"....okay. Well they become gendered subjects, you weirdo, by gender socialization...they thing you pointed out "radical feminists" were correct about as being traumatic? also why meticulously. again the religiosity...we must suffer through the virtue of hard work by being meticulous. I would guess that when this was written op was 16 years old, had definitely been to bible camp once, and had their own laptop that their parents didn't monitor, and are deeply afraid of being a bad person more than anything in the world (but only as judged by their peers).

>it is now used to reproduce the very gender roles that proponents of the framework claim to be against.

10 second fart noise this conclusion is not supported by your own argument. In this essay, I will talk about how women are always nice and that means feminists think women are always good. In conclusion: feminists meanie weanie actually. Yeah okay buddy.

[makowo]

Okay. Finished Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Here's my scattered, informally-presented thoughts on it (some spoilers under the cut, but tried to keep it vague). I recommend looking through a professional review online if you want some more in-depth opinions tho

TLDR; Good game, but severely tainted by its janky combat and the writing being pretty "of its time", I think.

I loooove love love love the gameplay, for the most part! I think the stat system is good and forces you to really consider what you want to put your stats into, instead of just letting you farm them or whatever. You can't be an everyman (unless using console commands ofc, which i did). You have to stick to a build, though I think that ranged combat far outweighs ranged. But then again, roleplaying game. Getting a good combat build or stealth build is a side part of the whole experience.

However, I do wanna talk about the combat. The combat. Oh god, the combat. It's really, really bad. For most of the game you can avoid it, but there are multiple boss fights at the very end of the game that force you into combat. If you put all of your experience into stealth and subterfuge options, RIP. Many enemies are damage sponges, and you are most certainly Not a damage sponge in equal measure. Your movements in melee combat are usually slow and difficult to maneuver, meaning that if you get jumped by three or more enemies when you play melee, you're kiiiinda fucked. You stagger on every melee hit and cant avoid damage for shit half the time. Little better with ranged ofc, but the enemies also have guns most of the time, and some enemies will gun you down before you have any time to react. which means that if you run into a group of enemies, again, you're fucked. it's miraculous that they didnt catch just how bad it is to face off against large groups of enemies (and the bosses. they are Really Bad. All of them) in playtesting. So strange.

The roleplay is AMAZING, though. it has good diversity in its dialogue and character backstory, so you're relatively good on that front if you're here to be some guy thats having the roughest time of their life. plenty of avenues you can go for in the gameplay to fit the image you have in mind for your character, and I think that's its greatest strength.

the story is also pretty good! writing is great, love the characters and the setting. the writing is pretty tight, interesting the whole way through, and the reveal about the driving force of the narrative at the end of the game is real fuckin good. greatly enjoyed it.

ofc, there is some pretty bad shit as well; the chinatown area and any chinese character is depicted as evil, traitorous, stupid, or greedy. there's like, probably one or two good chinese characters in the game (if i remember correctly, my playthrough took a while). there's other instances of racism, however; The Sheriff character is a silent, animalistic bodyguard that is killed in several routes. hes stated to be from africa, and serving La Croix, a powerful white person... yknow. There's like four total dark-skinned people in this game, and a whole one of them is good, but only technically in one route, and he's still portrayed as an aggressive guard.

but all in all, i really think it is like, kinda worth the money? its pretty good despite these faults, especially since you have access to console commands and can just turn on god mode if shit gets unbearable (which it will, trust me). theres several unofficial patches that also add to the experience, and are probably even vital to playing the game. I used the VTMB Unofficial Patch, but there's other patches out there i believe, if you want to look at those.

so yeah i recommend it if youre fine with playing an old pc game thats too ambitious for its time.

[yisanged]

hiiiii 🔥 kpop

HI SAM. SO SORRY. i was busy o(-( but yes kpop. umm. this got long again my bad

there are a lot of kpop opinions out there that already get argued over a lot because they're nuanced and complex but that's kind of boring and annoying to talk about. i think idols need to go on strike. i've said this before as a joke but i'm sort of serious. like there needs to be an industry reset or at the very least an industry pause. industry go to our room and think about what we're doing. we're debuting children and all the idols are like one mean spirited twitter thread away from developing eating disorders if they don't already have them and the music is arguably getting worse and it seems like there's more lawsuits and similar problems every day and there's just so much ToT and i really think just everyone taking a second to breathe would solve most of this or at least steer things towards getting somewhat better. like i mean i honestly don't even know that much about kpop industry wise i just like songs and music videos and funny clips sometimes but it seems reasonable to assume that a lot of the problems with idols being mistreated by companies or managers and whatnot is because with kpop being so hot right now there are people who care more about riding the wave and making money than they do about creating quality and honest content. and i think the thing with so many kids debuting at least partially has the same root issue. people just want to make money as quick as possible and it's easier to do so by pulling in young trainees who are hungry for a chance but have less of their own agency or authority than more experienced and prepared adults would. i know young idols have been debuting for a while and it's not really that new but i think it's worse recently. and all this would be less of a problem if more attention was brought to these issues and people pushed for better standards. maybe say through a strike... as for the music getting worse obviously that's subjective and i recognize music is art which changes in conventions and style and whatnot and there are always some haters that complain about these new styles when they start circulating and etc but there are a lot of people saying that they think nowadays a lot of songs are being created more for the purpose of being catchy and having 5 seconds of viral online fame than to just be good songs. and i have to say i don't totally disagree..... at the very least the way groups advertise songs now definitely make it seem more like that's what they're trying to do with all the tiktoks and insta reels and everything and again that might mostly just be things changing with the times as things often do but well. i'm a tiktok hater i won't totally back down from this. anyways i know a lot of the problems i've mentioned aren't totally recent developments and have been present in kpop from the beginning like the wack body and beauty standards for example but i do believe that something like a strike to bring attention to such problems and urge for better conditions and standards could potentially bring a lot of that stuff on an upward mend or at least stop them from getting worse like it seems like they're doing a lot of the time nowadays...... honestly though this might not be that practical of a take or anything i kind of just want everything in the whole world to stop forever.. i think everything's going too fast and at least part of that is definitely because i'm fifteen going on sixteen when i definitely don't really wanna be ToT sorry to suddenly go from kpop unpopular opinion to coming of age crisis but yeah. support kevin moon. and in the words of dj crazy times: "tell the world, 'stop . . . '".

that thing he says in the middle btw. it's a shortened version of 큰일 났네 which literally means "it's a big deal" but it's just something you say when something vaguely shocking happens. like oh dear or omg

[clueingforbeggs]

Do you have life advice or wisdom you'd be willing to share?

Boy, do I -

1: Sometimes, you need to let go of the details and accept the bigger picture. Stop trying to find an exact word to describe yourself if you can't find one, and a wider umbrella fits, too. Once I let go of this search to find an Exact Grey Asexual Label To Fit Me and went 'Fuck it, I'm just grey asexual and bi, and sometimes I'll say 'Kinda similar to aegosexual', but it allowed me to actually accept and come out as my identity when I stopped trying to put a microlabel on myself.

2: Explore the details, but have fun doing so. Like, not just with regard to identity or whatever. Look through a show or whatever for inconsistencies and stuff if it's what's fun for you, but don't take it too seriously. Work out the tiny details of your orientation or gender or whatever, and proudly announce exactly who you are. Have fun.

3: Accept that people engage in things differently. Just because someone enjoys looking at the details of a canon, maybe pointing out inconsistencies, and you don't, doesn't mean they don't enjoy the plot.

4: Things can be multiple things at once. Stop complaining because something, or someone, fits into two categories that don't fully overlap.

5: Just because someone's doing something with their life that you wouldn't, and you're in the same groups, doesn't mean they're lying, or doing something wrong. People are all different.

6: Let people grow and learn, and let yourself do so too. And stop fucking demanding (often monetary) compensation because someone fucked up. Reparations are for groups, not individuals.

7: If you have an opportunity to do a small thing, do it. Do not worry about if you can finish the bigger thing.

8: Water in omelettes makes them fluffy.

9: When mushrooms go bad, they go slimy.

10: Do the washing up as you go along, it makes it more manageable.

11: If you don't like pizza crust, get garlic butter and eat up to the crust, then dip the crust in the garlic butter. You now have garlic bread.

12: Introduce your kids to the internet on a computer with you monitoring it. Also make sure their browser is, like, Firefox with SponsorBlock and uBlock Origin. And ignore most modern available browser games (yes, even with ruffle installed, as some sites hid flash games after flash died), get Flashpoint, and give your kids the online gaming experience you had as a kid. It's available on Windows, Mac and Linux, so you have no barriers.

13: Whilst it's nice to keep yourself aware of the goings-on in other locations, it's much better to have a vague awareness of what's happening in other continents, and focus more on your own area.

14: Someone going 'I don't know enough about this issue, so I can't say anything on it' is not the same as someone going 'This issue doesn't involve me, so I'm neutral no matter how much people are harmed'. Nobody can know everything about everything.

15: Block people on social media. Cut toxic people out of your real life if you can.

16: Listen to people with varying opinions. Don't create an echo chamber of people who think the exact same as you. And don't let yourself be pressured into thinking you have to say the right things about everything, otherwise you're One Of The Bad Ones.

17: Read this

18: Set alarms for anything you need them for.

19: Brush your tongue, not just your teeth.

20: Accept that older media will have bits that are offensive and/or cringy, yet do not cut yourself off from older media because of this.

21: Engage in media from outside your country, and/or which isn't in your native language (with translation if you require it). Also, engage in examples of this media which aren't cartoons or comics from Japan.

And probably more I can't think of right now.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Wilfred Reilly

Published: Mar 19, 2023

Once more, for the people in the back.

It isn’t hard at all to define “wokeness.” I did it two years ago. The definition, widely shared online after an exchange with left-wing activist Nina Turner, became a meme.

This canard (“It can’t be done!”) is back in the public eye because one of the more likeable people on the political right, Bethany Mandel, just had a rare bad interview on The Rising, Briahna Joy Gray’s program. Apparently following some harsh off-camera comments about motherhood, Gray asked Mandel — a mother of six — to define the W-word. Mandel, after what were actually a few solid remarks about “hierarchies of oppression,” froze up for perhaps 20 seconds. This led to the usual internet feeding frenzy: Touré, to pick just one pundit at this level, argued that conservatives complaining about wokeness are doing nothing more than engaging in racist “dog-whistling.”

Quoth he: “The right has no real beef with ‘wokeness’ beyond a fear that it could make people change how they behave, and possibly overturn white male supremacy. [Using the word is] their new culture war tactic to stoke white fear.” Touché, Touré. In another tweet — one of something like 60 on this topic, by the by — he went on to argue that “woke” is a vague term meaning only “marginalized people saying we demand respect — anti-woke is white people saying no.” In response to all of this, even some mainstream right-wingers and centrists began edging away from the “contested” word, with my good buddy Angel Eduardo re-running a famous Quillette column titled “Don’t Use the W-Word,” and arguing that it has “lost all utility.”

All of this is frankly pretty silly. Many political terms (“fascism”) are as slippery as greased lobbyists, and this one is hardly the toughest to figure out. What is woke, then? The definition from the meme is actually rock-solid: a “woke” person, or “social-justice warrior,” is someone who believes that (1) the institutions of American society are currently and intentionally set up to oppress (minorities, women, the poor, fat people, etc.), (2) virtually all gaps in performance between large groups prove that this oppression exists, and (3) the solution to this is equity — which means proportional representation regardless of performance or qualifications.

Most other popular, coherent definitions are quite similar. To James Lindsay, a “woke” person is someone afflicted (infected?) with modern critical consciousness — which is itself the belief that society is set up to oppress you, and the only way out of the Matrix is critical theory. These summaries aren’t witty trolls from the center-Right, but instead reflect canonical statements from woke leftists themselves.

The claim that racism is “everyday,” “everywhere,” and that apparently neutral systems like standardized testing are actually structured primarily to benefit dominant groups, comes from Richard Delgado — one of the founders of critical race theory. The claim that virtually all group performance gaps indicate racist policy or subtle bias is the cornerstone argument of Ibram X. Kendi, probably the most famous “crit” alive today. Kendi has baldly stated, on several occasions, that the only two possible explanations for, say, an income or tested-IQ gap between major populations are actual inferiority on the part of one group or some form of bias — no matter how well-hidden and impossible to winkle out.

These authors and many others almost universally propose “equity” — in the sense I outline — as the solution to such gaps. Kendi himself favors a federal-level Department of Anti-racism, which would use government might to ensure proportional representation across every single field of American enterprise. Other prevalent, modern-day left-wing concepts such as “white privilege,” “systemic racism,” “intersectionality,” “environmental racism,” and even the Black Lives Matter take on the “disproportionate” policing of slum neighborhoods almost invariably spring from this tripartite trunk of assumptions.

It is worth pointing out that the core assumptions of what I sometimes call wokeism are wrong, and often stupid. To put this mildly, most important systems that exist in 2023 America — college admissions, prep-school admissions and lotteries, Fortune 500 hiring processes — are not designed to keep out qualified black people. Taking current mean-score differences on the exam as a guide, the affirmative-action edge for black and Latino scholars at any selective institution would logically be on the order of 150 SAT points. More broadly, most group gaps in performance have nothing to do with modern racism.

Simply put, large groups of people, which vary in terms of big important traits such as race and faith, also tend to vary in terms of literally dozens of cultural and situational and civilizational characteristics. Taking these into account generally eliminates the large first-order differences that are invariably attributed to prejudice by leftist partisans (and not infrequently attributed to genetics by the dissident Right). The much-vaunted black/white income gap, for example, nearly vanishes when we control for several basic traits such as age — the modal average age is 27 for blacks and 58 for Caucasians — test scores, and simply where people happen or choose to live (Mississippi or Manhattan?).

Much the same, incidentally, is true for men and women: PayScale recently pointed out that the gender wage gap falls to 1 percent (!) when adjustments are made for whether women are working at all, the jobs men and women freely choose, and the number of hours each employee spends daily at the ol’ desk. The same is true for gaps that disadvantage the white majority: In an empirical paper a few years back, the Brookings Institution hit upon my favorite statistical finding of all time — Asians destroy both whites and blacks on the standardized boards not because of genes or magic, but because they literally study twice as much. Who knew? Who dared to guess?

Woke ideology crumbles under scrutiny, which is why its adherents prefer it not even be defined (equity doesn’t work either — imagine it as the primary tool for selecting airline pilots). And, while we’re criticizing this stuff, the canard that labels like “woke” secretly refer to blacks or other people of color — giving conservatives a chance to “dog-whistle” — is empirically wrong. As I once noted for Commentary magazine, by far the wokest group of contemporary Americans is college-educated, upper-middle-class white women.

Even among Democrats, 55 percent of blacks and almost 50 percent of Hispanics, versus just 25 percent of whites, state that a person’s gender “is always determined by their sex at birth.” Fifty-eight percent of black Democrats and 52 percent of Hispanic Democrats favor charter schools, versus only 26 percent of their white peers. On the issue of free speech, “only” 79 percent of whites — here without Dems broken out — say they dislike political correctness, in contrast to 88 percent of Native Americans, 87 percent of all Hispanics, 82 percent of Asian Americans, and 75 percent of a small black sample. When most Americans think of annoyingly woke people, as many a Twitter follower told me the other day, they picture college gender-studies majors with multicolored hair, not black Marines.

“Woke” policies can be complex to discuss — and are almost invariably dangerous to implement — but they aren’t at all hard to define. We should keep calling them out, using the proper word.

[ Via: https://archive.vn/e275w ]

==

The people who tell you that it just means "awake to injustice"/"demand respect" also want to tell you that it's a "racist dogwhistle."

--

A few days ago, a Xian replied to one of my posts with a meme saying that atheists only wish god doesn't exist because they want to sin. That the only objection atheists have to the intrusion of Xian dogma into their lives is that they might have to stop "exalt[ing] one's ego."

Toure's post is the same kind of dishonest strawman/Motte & Bailey.

[thestobingirlie]

(Same anon complaining about fruity four)

Oh my god, the casual homophobia in teens these days, especially from within the community. I'm older genZ, at 25. I have been openly queer for over a decade.

When I first came out all the homophobia I saw/ experienced was from outside the community, casual use of the f and d slurs, using gay as an insult/ synonym for bad, using fruit/ fruity in a derogatory way, and your typical hate crimes/ hate speech.

Now, most of what I see/ hear comes from LGBT+ teens. I have heard teens in a pretty conservative town asking other people (Including adults) if they're fruity. Loudly discussing how strangers are "obviously queer" without caring who is around. And the whole trend of "Is he y'know *limp wrists*?" And the push of micro labels onto almost everyone, who don't want or need to use them.

This links back to the whole "fruity four" thing, because all of these things are used in so many fics for them. Eddie will be limp wristing at everyone. They'll all be describing themselves as fruity. Steve will keep using the word queer to describe his sexuality. Yeah, sure creative liberties and whatever. But it feels unrealistic for a group of teens in the mid '80s. They wouldn't be using all these things that are common in kids now, because they were used in a very derogatory and dangerous way in the '80s. They're teens in a small town in the '80s, they probably wouldn't feel comfortable reclaiming the word queer, let alone half the other stuff they get written as doing when they're written as queer. And they wouldn't be well versed in queer culture of the time, let alone that of today.

i think the reason for this is that these teens are only experiencing queer culture online. the most they get in real life is a commercialised version of pride. all they really know are tiktok comments, where it’s encouraged to imply someone is gay, and loudly discuss what a celebrities sexual orientation might be. outing someone isn’t seen as bad because coming out is seen as a necessity now. i’ve even seen people say that it’s morally wrong and lying not the tell someone you’re gay, which is just insane.

i’ve even seen this post critiquing the word queer because it’s “too vague”… wtf. and yeah! there’s this weird thing where people expect you to totally analyse every aspect of your sexuality and gender and have the perfect word to describe it, and if you don’t totally fit what they think a sexuality is, you’re wrong. and it’s so tiring.

some fics just make it so obvious that they’re writing from a 21st century perspective. like, i’m not saying to write the teens being violently homophobic or anything, but you’ve just got so many st teens treating sexuality with a gentleness and understanding the complexity of it that they just wouldn’t have.

like, robin always knows what bisexual is in fics, she knows the word for it, and she knows exactly what steve is before he even knows. and eddie is flagging and knows exactly what every colour flag mean and he’s a sado dom in small town indiana. and it’s like, get a grip.

i think, when it comes to like robin and steve, it wouldn’t be until they left hawkins, and moved into a city and actually started interacting with queer culture that they would start to refer to themselves with labels. i think in a town like hawkins, where an identity is used to insult you and you really don’t have any other queer people around, it’s harder to just call yourself a dyke or queer. (which is why i love stobin in their 20s exploring queer culture and being able to feel comfortable in themselves and the way they present, because they just really couldn’t do that in the teens).

[dinozvortex]

Force Majeure The Faction Paradox novel that was but wasn't, an analysis

Force Majeure an analysis-'partial review' through a Faction Paradox lens

“Force Majeure” -- a greater force or a superior force, a fitting name for a book in which all participants to some degree or another are under the power or sway of a greater force they cannot fully comprehend.

For those that don't know, Daniel O'Mahony’s Force Majeure was at one point intended to be a book in the Faction Paradox series. Little else seems to exist online other than this titbit about the book, but given it was published by Tellos Publishing in one of the lulls when Faction Paradox was without a publisher, perhaps this is one of the major reasons why it was not.

Regardless, it remains in tone, themes and concepts very much a Faction Paradox book in all but name, just one in which the titular skull masked group, the Great Houses and Enemy do not appear in name, which is pretty much the case for a number of Faction Paradox books. This one just doesn’t name drop. 

While I will try and minimize spoilers to a point, it would be impossible to effectively do this analysis without involving them.

 I will also mention in warning for anyone who wishes to read this book, that while I will be not bringing it up (as it is largely irrelevant to themes and plot I'm covering), sex, prostitution (though not sex scenes or graphic descriptions) and related elements do feature in the book -in some parts more heavily than others- so be aware of that fact before opening its cover.

This analysis is not exhaustive, and as I am yet to properly read through the author’s published Faction Paradox novel Newton’s Sleep, I'm sure there are things I will have missed related to it or not in my readthrough, and I welcome the input of others. So let’s begin.

First of all, this book’s cover, and to a much lesser extent its blurb, do this book a big disservice, the cover in particular (a cgi dragon in front of a modern city) does not in any way represent the book’s content (though in some more abstract ways you could say it represents some of its themes).

 The Dragons of the book are (other than perhaps something at the end I will not spoil) more metaphorical, a name most commonly given to the original founders of the city or at least its precursor The Old Free House (The Dragons house) who have erased themselves from history. More on them and that later scattered throughout.

There are points in the book where dreams perception and a dreamlike logic cause the narrative or perspective to skip around backwards or forwards in time, and while at times it does lead to events being more confusing to follow than might be necessary, it does very much lend itself well to the book’s themes and for the most part holds together well, it just means that you need to pay attention and try and put the pieces together as you go (and possibly on the odd occasion look back a page).

Candida

Its name ‘means Dazzling white, but is also the name of a fungal infection which can live inside people ‘potentially’ without causing them problems’.  Given the city’s effect on people, comparing it to an infection in some ways is perhaps not without merit. 

Oh where to begin? With the City of Candida details are vague, while precise, in flux and never still, while also ancient and unchanging. 

Where time can flow differently, a place which people can enter by choice (though not without difficulty) and others all over the world will suddenly wake up within unwillingly. It is not a part of the world, some wonder or fear that one day it will cover the whole world and there will be no people left outside of it. It pulls in the flotsam and jetsam of the world, both people and things. 

It gets its hooks into people eventually (at least without side interference) and when it gets into them enough that they don’t want to leave, don’t want it to change, “forget who” they've “left behind” or at least have no wish to go back to them. Is this a bad thing? Is it a good thing? That is very much left unclear.

To talk about the City means talking about a lot of other things. Though perhaps first and foremost for its current form we need to explain Doctor Arkadin, a name which apparently means Problem Solver, Healer, Comfortable, Practicality, Realism. Which feels like a fitting intentional choice given what little there is about him. 

Something existed here before him at the very least almost certainly the Old Free House, (the head of the house claims that the house was there even before humans). Almost no record of Doctor Arkadin's over-200-year old expedition exist (in or out of the city) It’s almost like he never existed, but he did. He ‘died’ long ago but he’s still alive in some ways.

 He established the city and attempted to lay claim to it, to open up to the outside world to bring it under his control, his will, he failed. He tried to sit on the figurative (at least I‘m pretty sure its just figurative) Dragon's Throne (takeing the place and power of the its erased masters) and tried to bend the city to his will.The guards he established still exist (though weaponless and relatively powerless) and his influence can still be felt throughout. But despite not leading the city, more power within it still falls to the Old Free House which came before Doctor Arkadin, and its chatelaine, Flower-of-the-Lady (or The-Lady) is not its owner or master, more its “House Keeper” .

According to one of the only records from the expedition he fell into “madness and delusion” (which may just have been the City’s influence on him) and in the end “he killed himself”. What form that death took though, is unclear, as previously stated he almost seems like he was erased from history. And while he is gone his influence and presence remains.

He constructed a giant brass head three times the size of a human one “with no sign of lines or joins” on its surface. It could not speak, it could not move but “It observes. It orders. It computes. I conceived it after the Oracle of Delphi”. It would seem that it was a machine to try and predict or control the future. Whatever its function, when someone else tried to take control of Candida, when the dust settled the head was found “smashed open like an egg” revealing the “ruined clockwork of its brain”. With it destroyed, the influence and reign of Doctor Arkadin was over. “The Dragon’s throne” was now vacant, and his name would now be said without the title of Doctor. 

It seems that, having failed to take the vacant Dragon's Throne for himself, Doctor Arkadin installed the giant head machine on the throne, from which its basic machinery allowed it to use a fraction of the Dragon's power and influence over the city, as well as also having the side effect of preventing anyone else from taking the throne while it still functioned.

A part of the city’s unusual connection to time seems to affect the dreams of its inhabitants, or at the very least the Appeared who enter it. Dreams are not just dreams in the city. Each Appeared only get three and then no more, and the events of these dreams, whether in the past, present, or future, have/will come true (though elements and details of the dream may not be fully literal in nature given the nature of dreams).

Kay (the main point of view character) during the course of the novel would seem to have more than three dreams, though technically speaking the two additional ones may be something different. One is a traumatic memory of her past which is altered, an additional figure being added to it as history changes as if they had always been there. The other is the thoughts of someone else who is in the room while she sleeps and then a memory of theirs. So given that one is a memory being changed by alterations to history related to the city, and the other is a telepathic connection, neither of them really count as one of the three dreams.

Over time the unfamiliar language spoken in the city (and the mix of other languages) become understood by the former Appeared who enter. Without them trying to learn them.

The giant “off-white edifice of The Old Free House” at the highest point of the mountain built city

The city and the Old Free House’s layout seem to shift and change over time and are impossible to map out into 2D. While they are confusing to outsiders (the Appeared), once the city has got into them, and they are part of it they can navigate them with ease. When under siege the chatelaine Flower-of-the-Lady was able to activate functions to reconfigure its rooms and passages, trapping and containing its invaders. During the course of the siege no one who enters dies.

In hindsight many of these points lead me to think that the House may be a damaged and/or modified time ship, or perhaps something more similar to the living Houses of the Homeworld.

It is called “Old Free House”  -- perhaps it broke away from the Homeworld wishing for some form of Freedom.

 If it is a House of the Homeworld variety (or a similar Enemy form of entity), following a similar sort of set up, the Flower-of-the-Lady is acting, as the book outright says, as the “House Keeper” and someone sitting on “The Dragons throne” would be something  akin to the role of the Kithriarch (perhaps a greater level of power).

Following this line of thought of the Old Free House being a House Timeship or some combination thereof, it is growing very, very slowly larger over time, and slowly but surely (and on occasion quickly in places) expanding, reconfiguring and growing the city which rests below it. 

See Book of War for 91-Form Timeships

Absorbing it (and perhaps even its people (as we know they can do that) into itself converting them into the living equations of block transfer computations) 

See (Lawrence Miles short story) Toy Story

Its telepathic circuits reaching out into their minds allowing them over time to understand the languages spoken, influencing their dreams as a side effect of this connection when it alters the past or future of their personal timeline (perhaps to feed off the potential energy, perhaps for some other reason)

The Old Free House and the city (for by the time the book takes place they are in many ways one and the same) exists almost in a separate realm of its own, at any rate it is deliberately stated to be very much not a part of the world. 

Characters focusing primarily on events, connections and themes

Azure 

meaning bright blue in colour like a cloudless sky. She is a Messanger, a Voladora to-be , the “insect girl”, later she becomes “the bird girl” .She becomes a Voladora meaning flying. 

At first she is a messenger who travels by bike and delivers messages to and from the Old Free House and its former inhabitants/members.

Her role stays the same but becomes faster, farther reaching and more well regarded, after she is ready to undergo a ritual (on which Kay accompanies her in order to watch and guard her for the duration) she “becomes a bird”.

They are taken through tunnels to a mountain slope where there is no sign of the city or its light, where Azure is ritualistically chained, blindfolded and her whole body painted with images.

Before this they had to consume a grey looking and grey tasting substance (which it is made clear is not a drug) which temporarily untethered them from time so that the Dragon’s (the erased founders) can “consume” Azure and allow her to become a Bird. Kay sees some of what occurs but is pulled into visions of her past for most of the experience.  -In hindsight I am 99% sure the Grey tasting substance is intended to be Praxis.

Once Azure “has become a bird”, when she rides her bike and gets up to enough speed she and everything on her and the bike fully become a bird and fly. The first time Kay’s mind blanks out the experience, the second she remembers becoming one with Azure and the experience of flight in full.

Xan

An interesting figure who takes some time before he materializes in the story

He is not from Candida and the “connotations”’ of the given term of Appeared bestowed upon those who enter it from the “real” world grate against him. 

Upon being first presented he appears like he could be a certain familiar figure.

 A 'slim' man In a 'cream linen suit' and hat wearing a 'tie, with' 'sharp' features a 'clean of complexion' and “maybe Scottish if his voice was a guide. He seemed unintimidated by her gaze” and a strange sort of pull which draws people into him, and is a charismatic personality.

But once he left trying to remember anything but fragments of the details of his face, of his appearance, is a fruitless exercise, a feature somewhat shared by the Doctor . (This part while fitting for some descriptions of the Doctor particularly more Nyarlathotep ones, is just the start of what makes him over the course of the story stray away from being the Doctor in any form) 

He would seem at first to be the VNA era Seventh Doctor in many ways (and I will admit I did end up reading his lines in my head in Sylvester McCoy's voice). I do wonder if this character first began as something similar to the character implied in a post VNA Ace in Daniel O'Mahony’s Newtons Sleep, and became something else over revisions and as the story chose a different route, or if his first appearance was always intended to be a red herring to throw off readers.

In later parts his appearance will ‘change’ or more accurately the descriptions of him will change, as if history is changing and he was always like this. His suit will be grey and more ragged, his demeanor will be less affable (in a way which doesn't seem like its solely linked to events occurring), and he will be described as more as someone who has harnessed what little remains of a lingering power, a prince of his own little domain, who has had sex with all who work under him. Except of course for Kay, Kay is a special case.

There are complexities with Xan’s nature and elements of the truth about it which are left unclear, in part due to all interactions with him being from Kay’s perspective, and his denial of her theory for what he is (which does not mean she was necessarily wrong, just that he refuses to accept the truth she offers.)

The traumatic memory of her past that she keeps reliving has a new figure in it since she came to Candida, a young boy who carries himself in the same manner as him who flees from her presence. Xan claims not to remember this, though Kay points out that she didn’t remember this either before she came to Candida and that her memory of this event in her past changed.

 It takes a fair amount of time after entering Candida before he comes to her (almost as if at first he did not tangibly exist there) and once Xan does, Kay finds that he has taken control of, and utterly reshaped the project which was the reason she was sent to Candida in the first place. How Xan is, his goals, his manner, etc. was everything Kay felt she wanted to achieve when she came to Candida. Kay becomes convinced that Xan is part of her, her wants and dreams brought to life and given form by Candida. He claims that this is wrong, that it’s just the city getting to her, getting inside her head, and over time Kay find he has changed or she has changed. He has gone beyond and in directions she feels she never would have considered to achieve his goal, and she wonders, if one of them dies, what happens to the other.. In the end Kay feels that Xan is not her, at least not anymore.

As stated, it is left unclear whether Kay was correct with her theory, but it does seem there was at least some truth to it, some form of connection or link established.

His appearance does change one last time. When we see him last, Kay sees him in shining armor covered in jagged spikes, but later when she looks again she just sees him in a much more battered form of his old clothes, leading her to question herself on how she could have been so mistaken. 

Given everything that has occurred, either for a moment her perception was shifted and revealed something of the truth, or time shifted while she wasn't looking and her memory changed with it. The incongruous spiked armour does make me wonder if Xan was intended to be from one of the War time Powers, or at least not native to the era, but there’s enough uncertainty about Xan origins, not withstanding he is a threat, though not to Kay.

Kay 

Meaning Pure. I won’t say much. Events focus around her in this story and she stands out in a way which is never fully pinned down, as the one who could change Candida.

Estaban Meaning crown, garland. Also later Millo  Meaning Fullness,. Solid foundation, Supporting structure

Elements of both fit. He is one of the guards who sees Doctor Arkadin and is tasked by him, and in the end helps secure the city. However, he saw Doctor Arkadin when he was just a boy despite that being over 200 years ago. When questioned on that he just responds that he could be older than he looks; he describes the point in his life the book is set as his “second childhood.” 

His interaction with Doctor Arkadin shown in the novel is through a dreamlike lens, through Kay’s mind linked in her sleep to Estaban, so it’s unclear if this is a dream of a memory of the interaction he remembers happening as a boy. Or a new second interaction which happened both at this very moment and retroactively at the same time or two days after Kay’s arrival. The text seems to imply the latter. Regardless, he is unable to recall Doctor Arkadin’s appearance in a similar way to Kay’s experiences with Xan, which has some interesting implications.

 When Estaban calls him "Sir" he responds with “if you must address me then call me Doctor”  (pretty sure this is not implying that he was an incarnation of the Doctor, but who knows. O'Mahony has come up with new incarnations of the Doctor before, who have appeared only in a background role so I wouldn't put it past him)

Random minor asides 

In a parallel of sorts to an a Adventuress of Henrietta Street we again have a brothel in a position of power but not in charge, some of the women of which perform rituals and get referred to in a few cases as witches.

Also remember witch blood = a time sensitive. The appearances of the word “witch” could be well be remnants of such elements as the few uses of the word feel slightly out of place with the rest of the novel. But that’s just idle speculation on a very minor thing.

Of the three dreams which are true that Azura has, the last feels somewhat out of place, the other two are of things yet to happen at the time she has them. While the third is of something which happened years before Azure came to the City. “I dreamed there was a body in the library, a man with angel wings instead of arms, and really old, really wrinkly skin, and eyes like he’d died of shock.” With enough leeway for dream logic you could relate it more to her, but it seems pretty clear that is not the intention. It feel like a nod to Newtons Sleep a book still yet to be released when Force Majeure was published (so even without the dream elements interfering I’m unsure how closely it will line up with anything in that novel) but it is a link.

 While Azure is told that the angel wing part just meant messenger, given other stuff in this novel I suppose the reality could well have been much more literal.

Godma January or the Godma

Godma Meaning Chief, Educated, Good Understanding.  January Named for the Roman god Janus, protector of gates and doorways.

A old women who never leaves the “fastness” (a secure place well protected by natural features) “of her cottage on the city limits”. Would seem from what little we see of her to fit with her names meaning, -according to Luis at least- she and Luis were former gun runners who came to the city when they got lost in the mountains.

Like Azure could during the ritual, she could tell, smell, feel that Kay was connected to Xan and shunned her as a result when first meeting her (though would later send her thanks and apologies in the end after Kay’s actions). She was linked to and a former member of The Dragons house. Whether where she lived was to serve the function of an active vigil on the city’s edge or a retirement of sorts was left unknown.

Luis

Meaning Famous Warrior

Large, wide, and with a beard like Father Christmas, despite having no interest before he came to the city, he became the House’s blind Librarian. He is pretty mysterious and despite claiming that his senses have not been heightened is more aware of what goes on around him than almost anyone else, and despite his blindness is able to read and identify books with no issue (though he claims that he has just memorized them long ago).

 Like some others in the city (but more than anyone else it seems) he plays the highly complex board game “The War in Heaven” a ‘game’ which can last years and have no clear winner. While you can read the game as simply that, a game along with being a reference to The War its gets its title from, with its complexity and long play times being an analogy of sorts for The War itself.

 Given the nature of dreams and other things in the city, and their effects on time and the world beyond, could it not be possible for battles waged on the board to mirror those also taking place out in the universe in some other time and place. Could it and the red and black pieces on its boards in fact be a microcosm of battles of The War itself, and if so could the effects of one change the outcome of the other? .

Perhaps, perhaps not, interesting thought though, and while not something touched on in the published version of the book it would certainly not feel out of place.

(I’m sure Auteur would certainly agree with such a reading) 

While not my favorite book ever, I honestly enjoyed the ride overall and would say its well worth a read. It is very much a Faction Paradox or Worlds of the Spiral Politic book, regardless of the lack of branding on its cover. It is still available in print from its publisher Tellos and as an ebook on amazon UK and US

[shrimpmandan]

do you mean you feel alienated around self diagnosed autistic people? (aka 99% of the online autistic community) because if so I completely agree. I'm not sure if you have access to it but I go to public therapy for disabled adulta (if you're over 18) and in my group there is a bunch of autistic/adhd people. we usually talk about medication, funny stories about therapy and experiences with growing up autistic and such. it's pretty relieving, and completely different from speaking to autistic people online, which just feels like talking to neurotypicals

No I feel alienated around autistic people. And people in general. It's for a lot of reasons tbh, not JUST being autistic, but I've definitely have had grievances with the autistic community online for some time now. This is because there's this prevalent idea that what does or doesn't work for one autistic person must be true for every autistic person, which inevitably leads to alienation. I'm considered weird and offputting even by the standards of other autistic people. This isn't an uncommon experience for me.

Also, part of my alienation comes from the general politics of the online autistic community. I call myself Asperger's and high-functioning, which while I totally get why other people don't call themselves that, it's just kinda what I grew up with and what works for me. Also being trans on top of that, and hearing so many autistic people talk about how they personally don't understand gender, whereas I didn't have much of an issue with it (I view it through a strictly neuroscientific lens; I don't do well with metaphors and vague feelings). Being told I can't say "retarded" even though I've been CALLED retarded, not to mention directly threatened (I was nearly shot lmao) over being autistic. A mixture of oppression olympics among autists, and also 'higher-functioning' autistic people speaking over 'lower-functioning' autistic people. My stims also don't get represented much (I don't really flap, I've always been more of a rocker/bouncer/vocal stimmer) and I don't fit into the "good autist" role that a lot of people-- both neurodivergent and neurotypical-- want out of me. All this to not even mention how I get alienated for my other forms of neurodivergence, with people in general being extremely ableist towards those with OCD and dissociative disorders.

All I'm saying is it's not self-diagnosed autists who make my life harder. Not when me and most of my family has had to resort to self-diagnosis due to doctors not listening to us or just a simple inability to even see a doctor due to a lack of money and time. Actually, most of the people I click with are the self-diagnosed "I think I might be neurodivergent" people-- whether that's autism, ADHD, or some other various neurodivergence. The self-diagnosed people are my immediate family, as well as my friends who had to figure out they're neurodivergent because nobody else told them, or gaslit them over it. We're pro-selfdx here, and honestly therapy is the least of my concerns right now, at least when it comes to autism. I don't need therapy for being autistic. I don't need therapy to teach me how to be normal. I need therapy to teach me how to live. Y'know, tackling my ACTUALLY problematic disorders, like my severe OCD and CPTSD and what I believe to be some form of OSDD. ADHD... yeah I just need meds for that, it is what it is. But I've been in therapy SEVERAL times for my autism, with people who were supposedly specialized in it, and even they didn't really know what to do with me. So shrug lmao.

For the record I am professionally diagnosed with autism. I'm actually self-diagnosed with most of the other mental health issues I occasionally talk about here (ADHD, OCD, OSDD, et cetera). I'd LOVE to get diagnosed but we're just not in a financial situation where we can rn. I don't like throwing self-diagnosed people under the bus-- more often than not they're just trying to understand themselves and genuinely don't have the ability to access proper resources. I don't really think of the cringe "faking disorders for attention and spreading misinformation" people when I hear about self-diagnosis, personally. I think about people who have been gaslit and told either that they're weird/bad children their whole lives, or even the reverse where they're told they're gifted, before they begin to struggle and then are promptly abandoned. I went through the latter more than the former.

[somethingwittyandweird]

Dawn of a New Year- 2023

Another passed dateline, another revolution, and other witty holiday-appropriate aphorisms here. Like a bolt from the blue, it’s time for my own year in review.

What’s there to say about the year behind me? Not much that makes it unique, but not every year needs to have some flagship moment to define it. It was enough to just be another length of time where mostly less than major stuff happened. I guess I get that impression because my situation in life is pretty much the same as it was this time last year, and it doesn’t show any signs of changing any time soon.

Like I mused on last year, it’s nice to have a place that feels comfortable, that works and provides well while being basically secure enough to stay in indefinitely. At the same time, it leaves me with the sense that ‘indefinitely’ can’t mean forever. There are other things I feel I have to move on to from here. It would be *very* nice if I knew when to move on, or even what those things I have to move on to are in a little more concrete detail. I feel it’s almost a risk of getting stuck in this security and not taking the steps to step forward, waiting for the right moment without realizing that it won’t get any easier until I start moving. All I can say is, the answer wasn’t this year. We’ll see what light that 2023 will be able to shed.

All that vague nonspecific concerns for the future aside, this was a good year. I spent a lot of time with the friends in my life who are so dear to me, in all their various arrangements. Spending time visiting in person friends, on call hanging or playing games with friends who are more distant. I’ve been part of the longest and most fantasy-epic-feeling DnD campaign I think I’ve ever been in. I’m even on other peoples’ streams sometimes, and some very cool streams at that. (Guess this is the part where I plug that, so, uh, here.) And my friends brought me on board for my latest fandom enjoyment by inviting me to our Owl House group watch.

I played some good games this year. I experienced the choice collection of Shimomura tunes in KH Melody of Memory, got to copilot a friend through my incredibly beloved Outer Wilds and its DLC, and partnered up for the incredibly how-has-this-not-been-thought of experience of TWEWY online co-op via Parsec. (I also checked out its sequel, which definitely lived up.) I took another friend through Return of the Obra Dinn’s deductive mystery after being wowed by it myself. Midway through the year, I found myself very charmed by Ikenfell, a game that does a *lot* of things right- I’d say it’s my recommendation of the year. Then to round out the last months I ended up *really* sucked into Splatoon 3 (at this point I’ve seen so many salmon, but I never get tired of it). And, wouldn’t you know it, I also had the chance to do the special run event with another beloved friend.

So I guess that’s the theme of this year, if I really had to put something down. I got to share so many things, so many conversations, so many experiences, with so many people. I know that people being in my life can change with very short notice (and this year bears witness, I saw multiple friend groups and communities undergo some painful restructuring before my eyes), so I don’t ever want to take their presence for granted. If you’re reading this, you the mutual reading this, know that I cherish you, you are dear to me, you are crucial to my online world being as enjoyable as it is, and I hope with all my heart for you that this new year has everything that you’re hoping to see in it.

To whatever the next year brings, I hope we all come out better for it. Ultimately, to be a little better and a little more improved each day is the best outcome I can wish for myself and the people I care about.

Happy New Year.

[eyeballtank]

A few dumb "rants"

Like a follow up to other posts and a long text file, if you care about this part of me, when i got actual content in the making.

Feel free to ignore.

1

If there ever is a "voice of reason", it's more likely to be the right group of people, each with their own different information, having a discussion and sharing different information until they reach a conclusion.

Not a "lone guy" standing on a stage and talking to a wide audience of people or "next George Carlin".

Because "information" and "intelligence" can be vague concepts and people almost make up interpretations of it, which is worse than regular "sheeple" type shit.

Life has no true protagonist and people will stumble into this realization by looking at e-celebs that are seen as such.

Always some Youtuber or social media "influencer" that says some okay things and then says stupid shit or gets something wrong or even says the wrong thing to accidently betray the audience.

And when someone says "see i can do this better", they still fall for the trap.

Hence why i think it's more rewarding to be a true creator of something. "Great minds think alike" has a dark meaning and is why most people already think "stupid sheeple" shit.

This shit is already covered in that post, if you manage to find me talking about intelligence and even mention George Carlin at times.

2

Something i had in mind is 2 kinds of artists: Performer and Creator.

Performer could be like an actor, singer, model, maybe even a show host or sports player and so on.

Creator being the writer, painter/illustrator, composer, director, even game developer.

It may affect celebrity gossip shit, like how people obsess over actors and singers, but not usually movie directors.

Or even the internet, because modern e-celebs barely even count as "performers" (Unless their fake personalities means they're already acting).

3

I used to say 4chan affected some people in the sense that is why some e-celebs are even remotely interesting.

But this can also be spinned in another way: 4chan, despite its ape brained nature and contrarianism, can make people smarter than the traditional "4chan mind".

As in, some people end up picking the good parts of 4chan and not the bad, hence they go above that site in terms of thinking and attitude.

So people on 4chan tend to hate those kinds of people, like cavemen hating an evolutionary off-shoot that managed to learn language.

It's as if certain websites having their own subcultures means different sites can serve as "ingredients" to define someone's personality online.

In general, humans socialize because different interactions/info can build who you are.

Like most of the coolest people i've met got the good parts of some sites and i even feel like i had a similar effect.

But this wouldn't happen anymore/today because modern internet is a heavy monoculture where too many people use fewer websites: Most websites feel like they share a similar culture.

Zoomers might be the one generation that doesn't even know what a "personality" is.

4

There's always weird debates on the internet where "two sides" are supposedly opposite but never really "clash", as if it's from the same groups.

Like AI art either has people going smug about AI art's limits or people fearing losing its job: But you rarely see the first group talk to the second group about how they can still do things that AI art can't.

Or even with "media literacy" and politics: Some people say "Tezuka was always woke" but never use that against YMS who said Tezuka was racist.

5

If you believe that every kind of energy has its limits and there's no renewable energy, i wonder if biological reproduction has a limit.

And i mean like "natural extinction" that could happen even to a dominant species.

Imagine a perfect world where the least number of people died: No murders, accidents, disasters, diseases etc just natural age deaths and Earth would magically shape itself to keep humanity alive and strong.

Then some people just stop being able to reproduce and you see later generations being weaker and decay, even if they had strong ascendents.

Because i remember hearing that modern fruits have less nutritions nowadays, compared to before unless it's not because of natural factors (Just did a quick search and it might be soil depletion related).

Because even if cells multiply, another way to see this is with evolution and how a species changed because of past stuff.

6

Even if i'm missing some stories/versions of the character, i think the concept of the Punisher works when he's a Vietnam vet because of real world US goverment technology/weaponry and how it evolved over time.

The idea being that Frank (Even if not alone) evolved alongside the US government/army/its agencies and he may've been smarter than most of them (Which is why there's also the plot of Bethell trying to get Frank into the CIA/FBI or whatever).

Like, with current technology and shit, he couldn't start today or even somewhere in 2009 due to surveillance and shit.

"But what about the cops that watch over people planning mass shooters and never stop them?" Almost like stopping wasn't part of the plan.

But if a guy today tried to plan becoming an anti-crime vigilante with guns and fight against crime on his own way, he probably wouldn't last that long.