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cardentist · 2 years

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Context: [Link] (highly recommend reading even if it’s long) I debated where I should put this, but with the length of this post I want to put @nothorses master post about transandrophobia right at the top [Link] if this post is too lengthy for you or you'd like to read more after chewing on this then I Implore you to open that link and hold onto it.

I don't want to call out this person in particular, I'm certain they don't mean any harm by it and it's not within our best interests to pick fights with people who have (in this commenter's words) Nearly all of the same beliefs with some minor squabbles who are willing to support each other anyways.

but it's exactly Because I'm certain this person means well that frustrates me.

years ago I would've said something along the lines of "this is no different from saying 'I'm not homophobic because I'm not afraid of gay people.'" that it's nitpicking Accurate terminology by breaking it into pieces and judging the words its made up of individually when they're obviously intended to be seen as a whole. trans Men face oppression for being trans Men in a way that cis men do not, just like trans Women face oppression for being trans Women in a way that cis women do not.

but that was a long time ago, the perspective has changed.

"trans men can't have this term because it's too close to affirming cishet white men when they say that they're oppressed for being men" was a talking point back when "transmisandry" was the terminology that was landed on. and while my thought process about that was the same I Understood the kneejerk reaction. because there Was a concerted effort by certain cishet weirdos to make "misandry" a term that made them systematically oppressed by women, and more specifically was used to Deny the existence of misogyny (very ironically from how they acted).

(that said, I have my own reasons for liking that term even if I do see the problems with it, I understand why it was chosen at the time. which I get into here [Link])

"transandrophobia" was coined Specifically to avoid that connotation, to Denounce the association and address that frankly (on the surface) Reasonable kneejerk reaction while still being recognizable and serving the same purpose.

but the talking point about it remained Exactly The Same, completely unchanged despite the change in association. because the point was never About it evoking something unpleasant (though that certainly helped with swaying bystanders in the conversation) it was about the absolute refusal to believe in the concept of people being hated For their manhood. in masculinity intersecting with oppression More than just as a neutral trait.

now, what I'm Not going to say is that the concept of androphobia is a systemic oppression that's upheld by the majority or any governmental body. not mine and certainly not any that I've heard of. but I will Also say that conflating the Recognition of a sentiment that real people express With systemic oppression is not only unhelpful (there's a lot of things that aren't systemic but still matter) but has Also been used to gate keep minorities by exclusionist groups Plenty of times before.

such as when people stopped being able to insist that asexuals don't experience trauma for being asexual At All and instead insisted that it wasn't Systematic and therefore they didn't belong in the queer community. no amount of studies, no amount of personal accounts, no examining of actual law and actual acts of oppression from governing bodies or places of work would sway them. because as long as they could say "It's Not Systemic" they could dismiss it out of hand. when, really, even if they were right it shouldn't matter. if someone experiences trauma they deserve to have the source of that trauma taken seriously no matter the underlying cause. they shouldn't have to Prove that it's important enough to justify caring about.

but to get to my point 9 paragraphs in from where we started, the idea that anti-masculinity or androphobia or anti-man sentiment or Whatever you want to call it Doesn't Exist is pretty ridiculous coming from within the trans community for Several Reasons.

terfs hate trans women because they're transphobic, but they Also hate trans women because they're radfems. a core tenant of radfem ideology Is The Demonization Of Men And Of Masculinity. they think trans women are dangerous Because They See Them As Men Trying To Infiltrate Women's Spaces. and Yes that is obviously transphobia, but the way they talk about trans women is Not magically disconnected from their view of manhood or masculinity or Men As A Group. though Undoubtedly they will side with cis men if it gives them the opportunity to attack trans women, in part because it Is that intersection of Both anti-man sentiments And transphobia And misogyny that has them frothing at the mouth to hate trans women.

(see this: [Link] for a more in depth discussion on radfem ideology as a whole)

and the thing is, someone might be tempted to say "well their hatred of masculinity is Obviously tied to trans women, so there's no point in acknowledging it as anything But transmisogyny." and in fact, that's not a hypothetical at all, it's the default relationship people have with this concept.

but this mindset affects everyone, Especially otherwise marginalized groups.

radfems seeing men as Inherently And Biologically Violent, as rapists and unthinking monsters, Absolutely And Undeniably affects how they treat people of color (Especially black people). white women stalking black men and calling the cops on them because they see their existence as Dangerous has been a Thing for as long as cops have existed (it's the Reason that cops exist) and has been Documented as a current issue in the wake of black lives matter and the murder of black men by the cops. it is an attempt from white women to have black men murdered, to cause violence to them without having to physically implicate themselves, all while using the perception of themselves as inherent victims (small and docile and innocent) with the perception of black men as monsters.

and it Should go without saying, but this Obviously Is Not Saying that black men inherently have it worse than black women. recognizing the oppression of one demographic within an oppressed group Should Not Inherently Mean pitting them against other demographics within that same group. we should just be allowed to point out an experience that some people can have and let that be a neutral (if important) statement. the things black women go through because of Their intersection of racism and misogyny are well and truly Horrific, I certainly don't need to prove that.

and In Fact, black women are victims of that Same intersection of racism and androphobia that we see both from terfs and from white people everywhere. because "womanhood" Almost Without Question means "White womanhood," to have black traits (or to have Non-White traits) is to be closer to masculinity in the eyes of racists.

when terfs post a picture of a cis woman and harass and mock them for Clearly being a trans woman who will Never fool anybody it's universally because the woman in the picture has traits that aren't traditionally upheld as the standard for white women. it's misogyny, it's androphobia, it's transphobia, it's racism. because these ideas Aren't Inherently Separate. they Build on each other and they affect Everybody, because people who think this way don't just turn it on and off like a switch when they're attacking the "intended" target.

and All of these ideas come together and inform the situation with trans men, both on this issue specifically and As A Whole.

just the same as we see that intersection of transphobia and misogyny and androphobia with how trans women are treated (combined, of course, with other relevant aspects of an individual) we see much the same with trans men.

the difference is that people inherently Recognize that what's happening to trans women is more than Just ideas of transphobia (more than Just wanting people to stay the gender that they were assigned at birth), but they recognize Only the misogyny aspect. so when the same conversation is turned onto trans men people don't know what to do with it, Especially when combined with the (unfortunately common) denial that trans men experience Misogyny either.

that complex web of interlocking concepts, and in some cases the Idea Of intersectionality At All, are Denied to trans men. who are then minimized For the perceived lack in complexity (in their oppression, in their identities, and in their lived experiences).

"why not just call it anti-transmasc sentiment then? people might take it more seriously." even Ignoring Everything I've mentioned so far, the Reason I'm not happy with this is because trans men Are attacked (harassed, oppressed, however you want to phrase it) Specifically For Their Identities As Men. and as much as I Also want to establish that behavior and sentiment As stemming from transphobia, I Also don't think we benefit by erasing or softening that idea to make it more palatable to people who don't want to believe it.

this was a response I got to that post I linked at the very top of this essay. I trust that anyone reaching this point has an idea of how silly this is in context, if they haven't read that context themselves. and in fact I wasn't going to acknowledge it at all (I only have this image on hand because I took it to have a laugh with friends). but it's a Convenient and Simple illustration of this exact issue.

the hatred of trans men in trans, queer, and activist spaces is informed and Justified by the hatred of men as a whole. because If you can convince people that trans men are Inherently a privileged group you can justify presenting anything they do as attacking those less privileged than them.

Men are violent, Men shout down women, Men are misogynists, and so a trans man pointing out the existence of his own oppression while actively acknowledging the oppression of nonbinary people and trans women (Only making the point that it's unhelpful to try to quantify this oppression as a tier list and use that to inform how you treat individual people) that trans man is Actually just a Typical Violent Man Exerting His Privilege To Oppress Poor Women.

it's, very ironically, a silencing tactic to avoid addressing the oppression of a minority group to the benefit of the person doing it.

a trans man's manhood is a weapon that is Constantly used against him, and I Might (Might) be willing to call that "anti-trans masc sentiment" if I didn't know where it Stemmed from.

the relationship between radfems and the queer community is, to understate it, Fraught.

for most people who consider themselves to be trans allies, it's Easy to see that terfs are, you know, Bad. to understand that they're a transphobic group and Therefore dangerous. but by-and-large that'd Main and Only thing that that's understood about them.

and to an extent, that's because people believe that that understanding is Enough. that it's Enough to dismiss it out of hand and refuse to look at or Think about what terfs have to say. which is Understandable.

the issue is that no matter how much they Believe that terfs are bad and wrong, they're Still Vulnerable to being influenced by radfem ideology, talking points, and Active Intentional Manipulation if they don't actually know the Details of what it is they believe and how to spot them.

as a Very basic example, people who Believe "terfs are bad because they hate trans people" but Don't understand "radfems are bad because equate men and masculinity as being Inherent Violent and therefore inherently harmful to women" can see something like "men don't belong in women's spaces" and Not Understand that something they may be genuinely trying to consider or understand Is Radfem Rhetoric.

that specific example is, at this point, commonly understood as a terf dog whistle. but it's largely Only understood as a stand in for trans women and called out as transmisogyny.

which is a problem when, say, someone looks at a trans man talking about his experiences is oppression and trauma and says "this Man is shouting down women! this Man is being misogynistic and stealing spaces away from women! this Man doesn't Belong!" and Not Understand That It's The Same Idea. Because the person being targeted Isn't being misgendered (Most of the time), the exact Same silencing and othering tactic is used Effective against trans mascs while not being Recognized as that At All by the majority group.

sometimes these things happen because people passively absorb radfem rhetoric, integrate into their own way of thinking, and then use it against other minority groups without understanding what they're doing. sometimes this is done Very Intentionally by terfs trying to spread their own ideology and break up and cause rifts between groups.

this is not a hypothetical, this is Repeating History that we see over and over again with exclusionists in queer spaces. masterposts at the time had Dedicated Segments talking about the ways these groups shared ideas between each other, between radfems, even when the individuals Don't hate the same people [Link 1, Link 2]

there were Documented Instances of terfs Admitting that they had secret aphobe accounts that they were using to try to indoctrinate ace and aro exclusionists into their beliefs. there's documented instances of terfs admitting that they got to that point By Being indoctrinated through ace and aro exclusionist beliefs and talking points. we had terfs Openly comparing their ideologies to exclusionists Explicitly to recruit them. [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, Link 5]

Because if you're Willing to accept that these ideas Are True, that the Logic that terf ideology is based on is Sound, then you're More Likely to accept when that same logic is pointed at another group. they target people that you're more willing to hate to pull you into their beliefs entirely.

and some people will go on never hating trans people (or never hating trans Women or trans Men or Nonbinary People or Binary Trans People, whatever the particular poison they're drinking), but it doesn't suddenly become Okay when radfem ideology is being used to hurt groups that aren't common sense associated with it.

what's more, these exclusionists groups Hated when you pointed out that connection. would spit and yell and call you bigoted for Daring to make the connection, even when (at it's peak and Most Ridiculous) they were quite literally taking posts originally written by terfs and replacing "trans women" with "ace people." Word For Word. which means it Never got addressed, no matter who pointed it out or how obviously wide spread it was.

and it's Tiring to have to say "if you can't care about how this affects trans men then at Least consider how perpetuating this idea puts trans women in danger" But It's True.

if you let people perpetuate the idea that trans men are Violent, that they're Oppressive, that they don't Deserve to have their own spaces, that they Inherently talk over and erase other oppressed groups by talking about their own issues and asking for compassion, if you Let people say "this group of trans people is Inherently Lesser" Because They Are Men, Because Of Their Closeness To Masculinity, Because Testosterone Or Maleness Is Inherently Corrupting

the jump between Which trans group you think of this way is not as difficult as one would hope. and if we're Never able to address it for what it is, address it As radfem driven androphobia And transphobia And exclusionism then we're going to Keep creating spaces where people are vulnerable to indoctrination. to radfems, to terfs, to exclusionists, to Extremist Reactionary groups of all kinds.

and beyond all of That, as alarming and Important as it may be, it's Also worth noting that radfems (and even Terfs Specifically) Do use androphobia against trans men, even as they force feminine labels on them.

Yes there are the obvious direction that terf oppression of trans men takes. treating them like confused women and trying to indoctrinate and detransition them to Save them or Fix them (which, in itself, is a type of violence). and there's the Resentment of "the frigid uncaring woman trying to identify out of her oppression to instead oppress other women," which isn't a sentiment totally Removed from the issue with how trans mascs can be treated in queer spaces (quite the opposite really, punishing trans men for daring to Be men by equating them with privilege and thus treating them as both an outsider and a threat).

but there Are instances of terfs treating trans men as outright Predatory. as a threat to Them and as a threat to the "poor confused women" that get "manipulated" into "the trans cult" by the trans men they Couldn't indoctrinate.

trans men are vulnerable little girls that are too stupid to know what's good for them and have to be converted Saved, they're the poor lesbians being stolen away from the beds of Deserving radfems women, up until they're Too masculine. until they have beards, until their voices are deep, until they stop wearing makeup, until they're balding or their waste changes or or or-

then they've Mutilated Their Bodies, then they're Frightening, then they're Aggressive and Invasive and Need To Be Dealt With, then they're Ugly Men even as radfems try to deny it.

the feminine trans man is a mark, he's a damsel in distress that radfems want to isolate and indoctrinate. the masculine trans man is Frankenstein's Monster, he's an ugly brutalized image of masculinity, the picture of what radfems hate othered away from what they're a Picture Of by radfems' transphobia. Uncanny and hated just the same.

this isn't "worse" than what terfs do trans women, it's not "better" either, It's The Same, It's The Same.

transphobia, misogyny, and androphobia in a Melting Pot to create a horrific buffet of oppression and abuse. manifesting Differently in different situations and between different people, and yet Fundamentally Connected through the beliefs and ideologies at play.

taking away one of these terms used to Describe this phenomenon doesn't Help, it obfuscates the fact that these things Are connected. which Worsens our ability to Understand them and Address them.

these ideas are Important, not just for trans men but for All Of Us.

and while I'm here, I'd like to address the Other issue I have with proposed alternatives like "anti-trans masc sentiment," Even when proposed in good faith.

if we were to go back and reexamine the terminology for the queer community as a whole and assess if these terms are the most Efficient they possibly could be, would we change them? would we stop using a term like "homophobia" if softening it could make it more palatable? make it easier to introduce the concept to people on the fence? make it easier to ask people to address their own biases without alienating them? if we did away with terms like "internalized homophobia" and instead asked people to address their "complex relationship with gayness" would we be able to get More people to listen?

maybe we could, Maybe softening the term would instead lead to people taking these ideas Less seriously exactly Because it's less direct, Because it's soft, Because it deliberately seeks to Not draw a reaction from a reader. I genuinely couldn't say how this would play out in practice, though we'd probably see both reactions to a degree and thus endless discourse about its effectiveness as a term.

but that's ultimately overshadowed by the Bigger Picture (though, more accurately I could say that it also Informs that bigger picture).

and that's Unity. Cohesion. Communication. Community.

the point of creating terms like this is, of course, in part to give minority groups the vocabulary and perspective necessary to convey their experiences to people outside of said group. and this purpose is endlessly important of course.

but More than that it gives a Community the ability to open a conversation with each other, to take their experiences as Individuals and create a melting pot where they can get a bigger picture of what We As A Group, As A Community, Experience.

this is completely invaluable in every way. it's what allows people to find each other, to know they aren't alone. it allows people to move conversations forward, to unravel complex ideas in a way that Can Acknowledge a vast array of often conflicting and yet Connected experiences. to be able to Build a community together, when lacking a physical space to inhabit, we need Words to connect us. both in passing as neighbors and to Find as Strangers.

when you take a community that already has established terms and you try to popularize an alternative, Especially while encouraging people to Stop using the previous terms, you Split Up that line of communication. people who congregate around one term Won't be in conversation with people who congregate around another, which inhibits the community's ability to grow and deepen.

people who Dislike a term (because it's trying to take something away from them, because they've been told that it's morally reprehensible) Won't engage with it, so posts that are tagged with Only that term will not be found. and even If that term is (unrealistically) universally adopted over time There Will Be A Period where people are simply ignorant of it.

and this is Very Much So used as a weapon by people who Don't want these communities to unify. who Don't want them to talk to each other and Get Ideas. and the smaller, more tentative, less supported a group and term is the more Vulnerable they are to this tactic.

this was and Is used Regularly by exclusionists, though I'm most familiar with how it was used by ace and aro exclusionists Specifically.

they would argue Endlessly about how Anything the ace and aro groups coined for themselves was Bigoted Actually. "aphobe" was attacked by Insisting that it was a term used by autistic people to describe their oppression (a lie, and a ridiculous one at that. there's nothing bigoted about the same term being used for multiple purposes). and "Allo" faced An Endless Barrage of never Ever accepting any term, no alternative, because They Didn't Want Ace People To Be Able To Define The Group That Oppressed Them, because they didn't Believe in that oppression.

Exactly in the same way that transphobes tried to argue that "cis" was really an acronym for something bigoted and so "cis" should be abolished as a term. Exactly in the same way that people argue that "transandrophobia" is offensive Specifically Because they don't believe that trans men are oppressed for being Trans Men.

the point is that they will never accept a replacement term, no matter what. if there Isn't an issue with it (by coincidence or from a certain angle) they will lie to invent one. it's Already Happened with transadrophobia being the intended replacement for transmisandry.

because the Point is double. First to break up the intended target community to hinder conversation around an idea that you don't want to exist, to make it harder and harder for it to be found and (by extension) Understood and expanded upon. and Second to prevent communities from being able to solidify In The First Place.

this wasn't the only tactic that was used to hurt ace and aro people, but it Can't Be Denied that the affect that it had as a whole was devastating. it's been Years since this whole thing started, since it died down even, and the ace and aro communities have yet to recover.

it's Easy to fall into the trap and say "well if we just get the term Right this time then it'll be okay ! if we Fix It then they'll stop!" but it Is exactly a trap. the point of phrasing it like this, of making it about bigotry or about the term being Problematic, is Both intended to demonize the group for having the Audacity to create a term for themselves at All, And to take advantage of well meaning people within the targeted community to do the leg work for them.

it's about silencing, it's about destabilization, it's about Breaking Apart communities so they can't Grow.

"Meet me halfway," they say. you take a step forward, they take a step back. "Meet me halfway," they say.

#discourse #trans unity #transphobia #transandrophobia #transmisogyny #androphobia #transmisandry #it's been a while since I've used that tag #but it feels appropriate here #long post #Really Long Post #when I started this I didn't intend for it to be Even Longer than the post it's in response to #Engages In Toxic Masculinity By Being Incapable Of Expressing Any Concept Or Idea Without Writing A Peer Reviewed Essay #actually while we're here #can I just make fun of that anon I got a Little Bit #shout out to the Very feminist take that women don't type essays

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loverboybrightsideghost · 4 months

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not really formulating any thoughts right now but i am thinking about victor frankenstein and his well-adjusted childhood and how the very thing that led to his downfall was that he got excited about a book, an idea, and his father dismissed his interest so quickly and so casually that victor kept on that path, rebelling against his dad's dismissal of him, and if not for that, who knows if victor even would have went on to create the creature.

#frankenstein #bluebird.txt #[slaps my copy of frankenstein] THIS BAD BOY CAN FIT EVERYTHING IN IT!!!!#something that's always fascinated me especially this year due to personal stuff has been #just how squishy and moldable children are #they're little sponges #just. life. you can grow up ANY kind of way and you will absorb it all #the smallest or biggest thing #it can be one single event or it can be a continuous recurring thing but you WILL have some kind of issues #even victor says it- if his father had just taken a moment longer to explain to him about agrippa's natural philosophy #rather than simply say 'it is sad trash'#what would have happened?#is that not part of the tragedy? the ways we dismiss each other the way one thing you may think so inconsequential #changes the course of a life #and you can't change it and it would happen always bc how could anyone possibly know how important it could end up being?#maybe i should read some child psychology stuff and then write an essay...#if there's anything my writing class taught me is that i am actually a good writer when i HAVE THE TIME AND LOVE TO POUR INTO IT #narrows eyes at the fuckass 45 minute standardized test essays

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heartslobbf · 2 years

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the thing about rgu episodes 35&6 is its just like...... everything is veering towards a car crash but more than usual. and everyone is more aware of how car-crashy things are going to get than usual, but its like. no one is like ‘hey what if we didn’t get into a car crash though’, or if they are, they’re expressing that sentiment in the worst way possible (shoutout anthy and touga). you have so many tiny and horrendously fucked up moments in those episodes like juri saying utena ‘looks like a girl now’ and making miki consider whether or not that’s a ‘good’ thing, or utena falling asleep at the table with her earrings as anthy just Watches, or the scene where touga holds a carrot in various initially amusing and then promptly emotionally devastating ways as both he and the audience make a series of crushing realisations neither of us are totally comfortable accepting

its like. throughout all of this acknowledgement of ‘hm. this is bad’ everyone is filled with inaction. we are all trapped in our coffins!!! people are prosing but that’s about it. all of the student council know who end of the world is, and they don’t tell utena. im not blaming them for this because its masterful, compelling writing that serves to elevate the show and its themes, but i am pointing it out because what’s endlessly relevant in utena analysis is recognising when characters make choices that ohtori frames as a natural progression or event that is immutable. anthy and touga voice wow i cant believe at least one person has to die at the end of this duelling game, which we like have to do btw. yeah. what do you mean this is all constructed and therefore can be dismantled. oh my god im going to kill you what the fuck. i dont want to kill you. i dont know how else to get you out of this situation. guess ill try and remove you from the system, thereby proving it is a structure that can be left behind and undermining my fragile worldview ive believed to have kept me ‘safe’ all this time. why are you guys talking about coffins so much omgggggggg shut up shut up shut up

#one day ill write my essay about anthy and touga and their dynamics w nanami and utena. bc it makes me BONKERS #i mean generally one day ill write my anthy and touga essay bc its like. god im so autistic #theres a reason my pinned post is anthy's 'betrayal' theres a reason i have probably watched eps 35&6 the most #theres a reason im obsessed w aou's symbolism ESPECIALLY in the movie manga actually #anyway normal normal normal (lie) (am thinking about birdcages and eggs)#remember in episode 11 when touga was like hey anthy one day im going to own the key to this birdcage that youre in. and its like #touga. touga youre in the birdcage too rn #touga kiryuu will be like if a chick cannot hatch from its egg's shell it will die without being born 10 minutes later me and the coffin <3 #and then u have anthy loml anthy the character of all time..... cannae even make little jokes about her arc bc its like. Oh #have u ever killed something good for u just to be certain ure the reason u can no longer have it..........#have you ever died and been dying over and over again have you ever been so numb and yet so angry. so bitter. so resenting.#everything the same over and over and over again. and then something changes a bit. wahhhhhhhhhhhh #i PROMMY i am normal about anthy himemiya (i cant think about her without crying)#revolutionary girl utena #rgu #shut up daisy

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bikananjarrus · 1 year

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making sabine force sensitive is one, a stupid writing choice, and two, SO fucking disrespectful to kanan’s character, who would’ve absolutely noticed if sabine was force sensitive

#i could write an essay on why i hate this writing choice so much #i might actually write up a longer post on it #even though I’ve already made several lol #but now that the season is over…#the hater in me wants to complain about it more asdjfkgkf #sabine wren #ashowka negativity #filoni critical #ahsoka spoilers #ahsoka series #swr

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public-trans-it-deactivated20240 · 4 months

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I thought you were anti ai "art"

What changed

I mean, originally I loved AI art. When it was first becoming trendy and couldn't actually replicate images, just produce vague shapes that kind of resembled the thing you asked for. That was fun. I found it fascinating to see how these algorithms processed data to try and replicate how we experience the world, but in their own way. I thought it was incredible and more than capable of becoming a huge art movement in its own right. In fact, I was a HUGE supporter of Frank (@nostalgebraist-autoresponder) which was a ChatGPT bot trained on Tumblr posts and hooked up to the tumblr API. Love Frank to death, and miss her a lot. She was a great study buddy for some of my views of animism into practice through interactions with her.

(this got way longer than I planned, putting this under a readmore)

I actually still have some images of my Sona (pictured in my PFP) that I tried to generate. Its nearly impossible to get an AI to generate it, because of how weird it looks, but it was always cool to see how a machine would try to create it!

Look at that beauty! The resemblance is uncanny! (To clarify, the second image is drawn by @faundlydreaming and ABSOLUTELY IS NOT AI GENERATED)

Then the AI art movement kinda moved away from that and became about quickly producing images, and I hopped on the bandwagon of hating it mostly due to hating that the AI art I loved so much had changed. It was easy to get swept up in it. So yeah, I was anti-AI art for a while.

Then, as a silly thought experiment for myself, I tried to think of ways that AI art, in its 'new and improved' form, could be used in cool way. Eventually, I settled on how I thought it would actually be REALLY cool and thematic to use as part of a Voidheart Symphony campaign, generating all the NPCs that way so that you had uncanny distorted images of people which REALLY fit with the games theming. I thought the idea had a lot of potential, but couldn't really get a group together so I never explored it.

From there, I realized... that was actually a really good use of AI art models! No one is commissioning hundreds of NPC portraits for their at home TTRPG campaigns. Thats an absurd waste of money that most of us don't have. Using AI art to generate pictures for those characters as an extra resource for those kinds of games wouldn't be costing anyone a job, and realized that is actually a good strength for AI art. Small and inconsequential single use images. The kind of thing you cant justify dropping 100 bucks on per image for (if you are paying less than that YOU ARE UNDERPAYING YOUR ARTIST. Underpaying artists who don't value their own work is bigger art theft than AI art could EVER be, in my eyes).

Once I realized there WAS a decent use case for AI art, it was easy to go from there to seeing what other use cases there could be for it, and from there I started looking at the stuff I was following and repeating a bit more closely.

At which point, I looked at all the fascistic reasoning employed by a lot of the Anti-AI movement, and realized "Wait a fucking second, this is just Duchamp's Fountain again." That and the same "lost sales" argument that is used against piracy that has been debunked time and time again.

Like, I don't think AI art as an industry will ever succeed. AI art is inherently flawed, and cannot produce a level of consistency needed at a business level. But also I don't actually give a fuck what is or isn't successful as a business. I care about how it can be used as a tool, and I think as a tool it has some decent potential.

At the end of the day, all of the issues with AI art boil down to the exact same struggles we saw in the Industry Revolution when several handicraft fields became automated. Fighting against technological advancement is a fruitless battle. The only benefit to it is maintaining the status quo, but the status quo FUCKING SUCKS MAN. As automation takes over more fields, we need to pay more attention not to the poor people no longer being useful to capitalism anymore, but on how much we tie our worth as people to the products we create.

That is why I am an ardent supporter of Universal Basic Income, which if we had, none of this would be an issue. AI art existed for quite some time before anyone had a problem with it. The only point at which it became a problem was when it started threatening peoples jobs. That is a problem, but its not a problem with AI art, its a problem with how capitalism functions.

On top of that, its... not enforceable. The big thing to always ask when you think certain things should be allowed and certain things shouldn't is "Who is going to enforce this rule?" and "How do you determine what falls under this and what doesn't?" Does someone using the red eye tool in photoshop to make their photos nicer count as AI art? Should every mom posting her Christmas photos on Facebook have their images deleted? What about artists who deliberately try to copy the surreal artstyle that AI art is so fantastic at? How do you intend to prove they actually drew it themselves? Are entire STYLES of art going to be illegal now?

These are questions you need to ask. What do you WANT out of your movement, and HOW do you plan to achieve it? If you don't have an answer to both of those questions, then all you are doing is flailing wildly and hitting random people around you, and that benefits no one.

#also im not saying this to be dismisive but what the fuck is going on with your grammar?#like i dont actually care and its not an issue but i dont think I've actually seen anyone use sentence case but not use capitals elsewhere #(like the acronym AI for example)#and not use any punctuation outside of scare quotes #i want to dissect you #anyway this ask was clearly in bad faith but yall should know by now that my response to bad faith anons is 'OH SPEAKING OF THAT'#and then ranting about something #honestly im just happy to get messages #this also got a lot longer than I intended #i was only going to write like 1 or 2 paragraphs #but then i got started and yknow how i am #anyway #putting it in the tag #text essay #might add it to my pinned as well

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daz4i · 11 months

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i love haikyuu sm man

#i don't talk abt it enough these days #was really in the mood to rewatch some of s4 today but that. did not happen. (yet 👀)#i could write whole essays give whole lectures abt this manga it's so good man.#if you haven't watched or read it yet you definitely should esp if you need smth to get you hyped or motivated #or if you like large casts of characters that are all very fun and have smth interesting going on #actually. 🔫 i am no longer asking. go watch haikyuu #(joking. no pressure. gentle push maybe. and dw you don't need to know anything abt volleyball to get it 👍)

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crunchchute · 9 months

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need to know when exactly hw2 is taking place so that i can work it into my headcanons cause right now its just not fitting at all. a lot of "..unless?" but i wont know until i get the timeline (more under cut i guess. spoiler territory ahead 🚨🚨)

also i had 6 hours of copium for my sleeptime. if youre a hater just take this as if i was pulling this out of my ass, unless you agree, in which case youre welcome to comment or. nod in agreement.

so how does this help wanted economy affect the fazcoin?

but no for real now. to preface im very forgetful when it comes to fnaf lore and i sometimes miss some plot points and many times they affect my headcanons (once i remember them) but i cant check everything. im just forming my own little timeline with my own ideas i guess, but i still want it to be canon adjacent So!

i believed that its taking place post SB, pre Ruin. which i was super happy with as i was worried it would be pre-SB and not give enough lore that i crave. however, just as ive seen some people say, this didnt help with the lore much, and it just got more confusing for me. still a fantastic game but from a lore point it doesnt give us anything too big or a conclusion (well. maybe one) i also saw people say its post ruin, which i dont agree with but i would agree with during ruin. (when ppl say cassie is the player, i dont think so, need more arguments) its unclear once people bring in other arguments than the obvious roxy's mask or the state of the pizzaplex. but basically as an afton believer its hard for me to work around this, but i will try. never back down never what?

so my hc is iykyk, scraptrap->man in the room->ghost/amalgamation->latching onto tech and the mimic in the form of glitch and burntrap->mimic "shedding" him->wills ghost forming mxes; it also works without the frights books but the afton amalgamation and everything around it is too cool to not use. i fucking love ruinborn afton graaaaah *tears shirt apart* i also liked the idea of his spirit shattering and a piece of it forming glitchtrap for years, and i believe it can coexist with mimic, i think burntrap was real and is both mimic and afton.

now. this game. really messing it up for me as glitchtrap existing post or during burntrap just doesnt make sense, i dont want -trap multiples or something (sounds like the years old 2-3 purple guys theory lmao) but i will look into it as glitchtrap and mxes connection..? honestly, i really expected getting to see burntrap here (or at least mimic shown). was burntrap like retconned or something for real??? also still dont understand when people say burntrap isnt the mimic or whatever. no, it is, just with something a little extra on. and that extra is again, wills ghost or remnant or whatever you wanna call it, symbolized by the bonnie parts on his endo, but theres also flesh so yeah, as funny as it sounds i fuck with the afton homunculus growing over mimic theory. its stupid enough, he would do it.

but i wanna focus on mxes, i knew we wouldnt see the entity in the game, didnt expect it. but i also didnt expect the system to show up, which it did, but obviously not the entity yet as i believe they were formed only after burntrap has been "scooped" by tangle (comparing the scooper mimic ending and the burntrap one as a parallel) i just dont understand how glitchtrap is in here. thats the thing i cant figure out! this is 100% post SB so at that point glitchtrap is just gone. how did we get him back now? only ends up with me reaching with like MEGA SPOILERS the vanny ending crushing glitchtrap being a metaphor of her locking away or deleting the code. extreme reaching would be stuffing it into the mxes system where glitch would turn into the entity. but thats way too loose, but ive seen many people call the mxes entity glitchtrap, which doesnt even work with their theory that glitchtrap is mimic, because the entity is obviously not the mimic. like you have to consider this too, not just mimicmimicmimic but then agree that a glitchy rabbit is similar to another glitchy rabbit

lost my thread of thought. and thought of how this all is just, an end to glitchtrap era and only mimic in the future. well.. without an evil rabbit, fnaf will lose its charm for me, i dont know if vanny!cassie would save it for me, i only want wiwi. more wiwi, no mimi *starts glowing red and then explodes* anyway its not that bad. as long as i get to see the mxes entity again i will be good. and as long as im right about the clickteam game, i will be happy :D

also im intrigued by the fallfest showing up again, i really want to see how the maps look and look at all the details.. but in general the area is either underneath or next to the pizzaplex, the body of water in curse of dreadbear imo is the same as the underground water in ruin and hw2 to me confirmed that it truly is all in one place (goes nowhere with this). i love how the hw2 hub is in the pizzasim building. also, another thing, need to check it out again but i want to see if scrap baby is in a vr level or reality so i can theorize about scraptrap, as in, if at least tangle and scrap baby are still around and real in the plex, it would make sense for scraptrap to not show up because he has gone through digitization /j you know the whole pipeline. and so on and so forth

anyway im gonna pet my dogs and maybe read tse and then get back to hw2 in the afternoon. just getting this out of the system and my brain

#i love how when i write these thoughts my english just devolves into a 7yo writing an essay #but yeah. im like 7 and im writing about my favorite character :]#sorry i never have better words or think of better sentences i just translate my thoughts. bare minimum #crunching #gave up on writing more actually. would be longer but im facing reality 😔#i also accept counter arguments if youre civil #but id rather just stay in my daydream and think that bnuyy wiwi :]#thatse it #waffling about william 2 #<- will use this tag to find my rants later and laugh and lmao at them because i always get shit wrong in these #the one i did about the fnaf movie and my expectations for it was hilarious to look back at. what a naive little guy #wrote this in like an hour. maybe two. time well spent (lie)#long post

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steelycunt · 10 months

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FINAL MIDBLOCK ESSAY DONE!! I AM FREE!!

#FINALLY. have not been able to relax for like a month that’s the thing about the due dates being so far apart it’s great because you’ve got #more time but it also means everything just. lasts longer. anyway! done now. this one perhaps not my best work but it was harder than i #expected…my us government one will be rough but what else do you expect from 1500 words..and then my theory essay..my best hope for a good #grade perhaps…but we’ll see. the next lot aren’t due until january but im gonna start thinking about them now so im less busy over christmas #insane that that’s not too terrible a thought. uni is crazy when you actually enjoy your degree. anyway! for now i am going to enjoy the #rest of my weekend at home n me and my mum are going out tomorrow n im gonna buy some books with the voucher i haven’t spent since my #birthday in february and ill finally have time to finish the book im reading rn AND to do some writing..start chapter 2 : ^ )#woohoo!! aware no one gaf about any of this but i am first and foremost always the audience for my own posts so. this one’s for me..#(ridi's) bigmouth strikes again

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queenlucythevaliant · 2 years

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Professor Kirke remained at the small dining table after the last of the dishes had been cleared away, puffing clouds on his pipe. It was strange, thought Lucy: he had a faraway look in his eyes, as though some tiny aspect of his reality had shifted over dinner and he was struggling to accommodate it.

“I wonder what he’s thinking about,” murmured Lucy to the others. Edmund shrugged and Eustace (who had only met the professor that night) said nothing, but Peter chuckled merrily and patted Lucy on the arm.

“You’ll find out soon enough, that’s certain. He got that look in his eye when you were talking about the Island of Dreams, Lu. No doubt he’ll call you into his study for a lesson later on.”

It was a little more than a week later that Peter’s prediction came true. Professor Kirke seated himself across his desk from Lucy with an enormous tome of poetry spread out before him. “Have you heard The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?” he inquired.

Lucy shook her head. Yet rather than muttering about the state of the schools as she had expected, Professor Kirke simply smiled beneath his whiskers and began to declaim:

“It is an ancient Mariner /And he stoppeth one of three —"

Lucy leaned back in her seat and fixed her attention on the words as best she could. Once, she’d spoken in such a register as queen of Narnia, but now she was only a girl of ten and unaccustomed to the flowery language of Romantic poetry.

“At length did cross an Albatross,

Thorough the fog it came—”

“Oh!” cried Lucy. “Is that why you wanted me to hear this poem?”

“Just so,” the professor replied. “Your account of the Island where Dreams Come True bears a marked resemblance to The Rime, beginning with the presence of the albatross. In this poem, the albatross bears a symbolic connection to Jesus Christ himself.”

“How peculiar!”

“I thought so too. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote this poem in 1797, in a time when sea voyages to the polar regions were very much like your own voyage to the end of the world. The albatross had only lately been described in writing, but he wrote it coming out of the desolate fog to guide sailors to safety. And Coleridge was a neo-Platonist! Fog and ice are very much like darkness, the way he uses them here.”

“A neo-Platonist?” Lucy asked, wrinkling her nose.

And now came the Professor’s customary muttering. “Yes. What do they teach in these schools? You may read darkness and fog both in Coleridge as something between ignorance and innocence, with the Sun as a symbol of Reason. Does that make sense?”

“A little,” said Lucy, who privately didn’t think it made much sense at all but was eager for the professor to continue the poem.

“It ate the food it ne'er had eat,

And round and round it flew.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

The helmsman steered us through!”

Lucy hadn’t meant to interrupt again so soon, but the words were out of her mouth before she was really aware that she’d spoken them. “So it really is just like in Narnia! It guides the ship out of the ice like my Albatross guided us out of the darkness.”

“Yes.” Professor Kirke was entirely unperturbed by the interruption. “Precisely.”

“How lovely. Isn’t it interesting how you just know when birds are trustworthy?”

The professor chuckled. “You may change your mind in a few stanzas. Shall I go on?”

“Please.”

Lucy returned to her concentration as the mariner recounted how a good wind had sprung up after the Albatross and how it had stayed with the ship and perched on the mast sometimes for evening prayers. Yet the mariner must have looked unhappy, for the groom interrupted to ask him why.

“With my cross-bow/ I shot the albatross.” Professor Kirke paused here in his telling and looked very hard at Lucy.

It took her a long moment to understand. “The albatross isn’t dead, is he?”

“He is.”

“I thought you said he was like Aslan.”

“And didn’t you see Aslan die?”

Lucy opened her mouth, but closed it a moment later. Open again, “But why did the mariner kill him? Doesn’t he give any reason? The witch killed Aslan because she was evil and trying to conquer Narnia. Why would the mariner kill the albatross when it’s done nothing but help him?”

“Perhaps,” the professor replied, “the Gospels are a simpler comparison here. ‘I shot the albatross’ has the same kind of blunt irrefutability as ‘And they crucified him.’ There isn’t any excuse, which I think makes the confession all the more powerful.”

Lucy sighed. It was exhausting trying to keep this all straight. “I suppose that makes a kind of sense. But then we’re trying to think on three different levels of parallel—the poem, the Bible and Narnia—which isn’t very pleasant.”

“And yet, it’s necessary if one wishes to understand deeper meanings. We can pause for tea, if you’d like?”

“No, that’s alright. I think I’m keeping track well enough for now. I say though, is this what you do with Peter all day?”

The question seemed to catch Professor Kirke off guard, for he let out a sudden, loud burst of laughter as soon as Lucy asked it. “Yes, after a manner of speaking. Shall we go on?”

“Ah! well a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.”

It was a difficult thing to imagine and Lucy wondered if Aslan’s albatross was unusually large. Aslan was always bigger than she expected him to be, so it would not be strange if he took the form of an unusually large albatross. Yet the more Lucy considered, the more sense the image made.

“It must have been at least three meters,” said Lucy. “The albatross, I mean. Mine was more like four, from wingtip to wingtip. It would be a dreadful weight, but I suppose that’s the point. The mariner can’t carry it, can he?”

“I think you’re right,” said Professor Kirke.

A smile tugged at Lucy’s cheeks. It was lovely to hear the professor give such an unequivocal endorsement of her analysis. Galvanized by the success, she continued, “I thought of a cross when my albatross appeared out of the darkness. There’s something in the proportion of the body to the wings, and in its stillness of it as it glides through the air. My albatross tore away the darkness. But here—it’s like the mariner carries his albatross like he thinks that act can save him from what he’s done.”

There was a glittering in the old professor’s eyes then, and suddenly Lucy realized that she wasn’t struggling with the poem’s language anymore. Maybe it was because she’d been listening to it for the better part of ten minutes, but privately she wondered if Narnia’s magic might be working on her somehow. Perhaps this poem contained some quality of the rich Narnian air.

“I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;

But or ever a prayer had gusht,

A wicked whisper came, and made

My heart as dry as dust.”

Lucy shut her eyes and remembered the fighting-top of the Dawn Treader. The night-mare life-in-death was a black abyss, and all her own nightmares had been there in it. There had been monsters, of course, and the idea that even if she ran down to stand beside Edmund he might become a monster himself. But somewhere in all that dark, there was a Lucy who never spoke to Aslan again. She’d imagined herself in Lord Rhoop’s place, trapped forever in a state of endless fear-without-courage, because she could not call him.

“That was my night-mare too,” she whispered. “Not being able to pray.”

She saw the professor’s lips thin beneath his whiskers and wondered at it. “You’re wiser than you have any right to be,” he murmured. “Ten years old and your greatest nightmare is alienation from God. What a marvel you’ll be when you’re grown.”

Well then. Lucy didn’t have any notion what to say to that. She half expected that if she tried to reply, she might start crying.

“Might I ask—what did you do then? Until the albatross arrived, once you realized that you couldn’t pray. How did you react?”

And that was a question she could answer.

“But I could pray! I did. I whispered, ‘Aslan, if you ever loved us at all, send us help now.’ And that was when the albatross came. I didn’t talk about it after—it was too much my own for me to share it, really—Edmund knows—but well…”

The professor made a sort of choked noise in his throat. “Perhaps it was the only nightmare that the island couldn’t bring true.”

“But there have been times,” continued Lucy, “when my heart was too dry to speak with Aslan. There were whole years when I was queen that he didn’t come at all.”

It was with a much softer voice that Professor Kirke resumed his reading.

“A spring of love gushed from my heart,

And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.”

Here, the professor lapsed into silence. Lucy thought that the poem might be over, but when she peered across the desk at the page there were columns of stanzas still left.

“Even after all these years,” he whispered, “some things still remind me of my own days in Narnia.”

He’d told the children his story before, of course: beginning with how he met Aunt Polly and concluding with the origins of the wardrobe. Aslan had not condemned him for bringing the White Witch to Narnia. Instead, he’d had loved Digory enough to shed tears and sent him home with an apple so beautiful that it healed his dying mother.

“Grace,” Lucy whispered into the hush. “Of course. Maybe this is the moment where Aslan leads the mariner out of the darkness.”

Professor Kirke exhaled heavily. The faraway look in his eye lessened a little bit, and at length he read on.

“The spirit slid: and it was he

That made the ship to go.”

Never had Lucy felt Aslan’s presence more keenly in his absence than during those last days as the Dawn Treader had sailed over the still, clear waters at world’s end; like Aslan himself had been drawing them towards himself by some great, invisible rope.

The closer they’d come to his country, the more tangible his spirit had been. When at last she glimpsed those green mountains beyond the waves, Lucy’s very bones understood that Aslan had made the still seas bring them there.

A voice spoke out of the air concerning the mariner, and Lucy remembered the piercing silence of the Last Sea. Of the voice, the mariner said, “He loved the bird that loved the man/ Who shot him with his bow.”

Not for the first time, Lucy wondered about Aslan’s father, the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. What did he say to Aslan when he left that land of high mountains to return to Narnia and die at the Witch’s hand? What did he think when Aslan went flying across the lily-covered seas on feathered wings to rescue their little ship? If Lucy had crossed that final threshold with Reepicheep, would she have met the Emperor there?

“The voice is his father,” Lucy said, voice brimming with certainty. “The albatross’s father, I mean. The Emperor-beyond-the-Sea.”

“I know,” the professor replied. “And beyond the sea is just where our mariner meets him.”

“Do you think the mariner knew that the albatross loved him?”

The professor stroked his chin again, and a ghost of a smile played across his features. “If the mariner didn’t know it when he shot him, he certainly knows now. But come, we’re nearly at the end of the poem.

“Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,

Yet she sailed softly too:

Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—

On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed

The light-house top I see?”

“There’s one more thing I haven’t told you,” Lucy said. “Something so bright and mysterious that I’ve not even told Edmund. When the albatross came, it—it spoke to me. And I wasn’t afraid anymore.”

Professor Kirke leaned forward, but his words were, “You needn’t tell me what he said if you’d prefer not to.”

Lucy nodded slowly. Somehow, she knew that if she tried to describe “Courage, dear heart,” she would fail. There was nothing, no word or image or music or poetry in this world or any other that could convey what that moment had been. To speak of it at all would be like dancing about architecture.

“I was the only one who heard him,” Lucy whispered. “It was my prayer, and he spoke to me. I wonder how this poet knows what it was like?”

“I think he knows the same way I do, in my own way. Coleridge lived a difficult life. He was a laudanum addict when he wrote this, for one thing. When the Divine voice speaks into our darkness and we feel his breath on our faces, it binds us together with every other person who has ever been rescued by an albatross that loved us. We don’t know what he says to other people, but we know how the breeze feels.”

The professor returned to his reading and concluded the poem while Lucy sat in astonishment and let the strangeness of the last hour wash over her.

“…A sadder and a wiser man/ He rose the morrow morn,” and with those words Professor Kirke shut the book. The heavy pages fell with a thud, and with bright eyes he looked at Lucy. “What do you think of it?”

“I think,” said Lucy slowly, “that it was a beautiful story. The very best kind.”

What she did not say, but what she was thinking, was that it reminded her of the story she’d read in the Magician’s book: the one about the cup, the sword, the tree, and the green hill. The two tales had no common points of reference, but they left her with much the same feeling.

“But why do you think Aslan came to me as an albatross?”

Professor Kirke harrumphed. “I have been asking myself that same question ever since you spoke of it. Why indeed? I wonder whether perhaps in part he appeared that way so that you would come back here and read ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ and come to know him better by it. If nothing else, I do not think it was a coincidence.”

Yes, perhaps, but the answer still felt incomplete. “Maybe it’s a stone in the bridge he talked about,” Lucy said. “Maybe he only wanted to show me—to show us—that he’s here too. In this world, in this time, and in all others. Maybe it’s like you said, and there’s an albatross for every person who’s ever been rescued from the darkness.”

#i have wanted to write something like this for a loooooong time #but kinda felt like i wasn't up for the challenge #i'm off for a few days so i finally got it in 'good enough' shape though i'm far from being totally happy with it #hopefully it will make sense to people who haven't read The Rime #though it was written with an assumption that at least some cultural osmosis will have gotten to folks #i go absolutely crazy for the way that Jack incorporated the albatross from Rime into VDT #it is so darn elegant #he both upholds and subverts the symbolism of the original #i love love love love it #and i wish someone would assign me like an actual academic essay on the topic #in the meantime we'll have to get by with literary analysis just barely couched in narrative #dear darling heart-daughter of aslan #the magician's nephew no longer #into light #(courage dear heart)#narnia #leah stories #pontifications and creations #also! i just cross-posted to ao3 if you'd rather read this there #i know it got pretty long #(and i skimmed over a LOT)#intertextuality #characters within a work notice the intertextuality #if this makes your brain hurt a little bit i think i did my job right

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