#I KNOW I HAVE NICHE INTERESTS BUT THEY'RE NOT LIKE... 'OF INTEREST TO THE GOVERNMENT' NICHE..

[cookinguptales]

I was trying to learn more about Japan's parapsychology craze in the 80s and 90s and was having a surprisingly difficult time finding good sources on Google. So I kept trying different search terms and finally this comes up

cia??? freedom of information act???

Anyway!! I clicked on it and the page is "down for maintenance" and I have never been more consumed with curiosity lmao.

I had no idea that Google would search through FOIA documents...

[the-moon-files]

YESSSSS I BEG GET INTO THE CULTURAL DIDFERENCES BETWEEN HYLIANS AND HUMANS 🙏🙏

...now ur just sweet talking me 🥰 /lh

Not years, well maybe 1 year-

but i have wanted to ramble desperately to smone, even the tumblr void if i had to, abt humans vs. hylians so much, esp with a guide reader or male reader bc whatdya know im into niche stuff that only u and like 2 other ppl like lmao ¯\(ツ)/¯

Anyway im so shocked, since ur like the third person to be interested in this and wanna hear abt it 🥺 🤲💌 here u go!! Hope u like it <333 👉👈

Sun: Masc!Reader (he/him)

Orbit: Humans are Not Hylians/Humans are Space Orcs AU, Headcanons-ish, long overall but each section is kinda short

Stars: Mostly worldbuilding! you've been warned, don't get mad me for not talking abt the boys too much✌️

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: mild cursing, mentions of private area/joke in the clothing headcanons, & Trigger Warnings: none known.

Please comment if I missed any. /gen

☆

just some quick headcanons bc tbh i haven't given it too much thought, and i feel like I've been able to somewhat get into it in other posts? or maybe im thinking of stuff i have in my drafts idk-

Imma make another list, so buckle up for the short ride lol

Courting periods/dating/marriage

individual/small groups society-based hylians v. large personal groups/large community society-based humans

simpler foods hylians v. complex food humans

clothing modesty/style/relationships with fashion

fighting styles/strategies

entertainment complexity/differences

and language

☆

1st one, not much yet, im also making a separate post bc someone else asked me to talk abt that more 🥺

(tysm for all the enthusiastic asks guys <33)

anyway, basically hylian courting is a lot shorter, think “lesbians with the uhaul” type of energy, like sort of the classical medieval “does thee wish to pursue marriage with this one?” ← how hylians ask u out for the first time lmao

if it helps, they do tend to get to know one another well, talking about morals/kids/life goals/preferred lifestyle/house/etc. pretty clearly and quickly, then using the in between time to sort of stew on that information

id say the total time is sort of something like 6 months? maybe 3/4 if they're really compatible

(so bc i love interpreting video game logic for real world building, I actually blame this on how fast Zelda/link get together in games despite having sometimes never met before that moment lol)

like i said, ill be posting about this later

2nd one!!

pretty basic, just saying we don't really see hylians in big groups, despite the organizations they form, like kingdoms/knights or on a more personal level, towns/families/etc.

(once again, in-game appearances/video game logic translated to real life to draw these conclusions)

like not only are family units pretty small, like nuclear family setup, with like 2 parents and 2 kids, or single parent 1 kid type of situation, but the towns or collections of these families arent very big either

hylians kind of use their government the way it was intended lmao?

like the villages and towns matter more for everyday decisions than the kingdom/royalty, like Zelda would esstientally just be the mayor of Castle Town for those constant decisions,

while occasionally is called on to make decisions like for several towns or like is a natural disaster happens

meanwhile humans are, in comparison, in Way Bigger groups, both on an organization scale, and a personal scale

like u have all these specific branches of government, whereas im sure the population difference doesn't help,

and on a personal level, humans can easily have like multiple parents, lots of siblings, and once u combine that with each parent having family too, and those families like to meet up? All together??

yeah, itd look insane to any hylians (who’s smaller extended family may just make up their own village and that's it)

3. I've touched on this

like the use of spices, syrups, seasonings, etc

but also the complexity of dishes too, like chilling cream and mixing it for awhile to make ice cream, or even just getting ordering a pizza,

that's a lot of processing, like making the dough from flour and other ingredients, to letting it rise, to making the tomato paste, making cheese, then combining those things with any other toppings, all into one dish??

i like to think that hylians have only just started to touch on actual complicated cooking processes (as in BOTW, where they sell flour and salt, so people besides Link/Wild must know what to do with it)

this has the advantage of impressing any hylian with what a “creative genius” you are lol

4. look im just a fan of medieval time periods Links

so i think its funny if the hylians are used to like 4/3 layers and ur over here like, “wym, if i take off my shirt there's nothing underneath?”

one of them gets bold enough to ask, “d-do you not. do you not have undergarments??”

you “just my boxers? like just to cover my di-”

also this makes its easy to seduce people here? LMAO

clothes are def higher quality, after all there's not as many artificial processes or materials interfering,

plus u usually get some sick embroidery on it too!!

5. so like i get it, Link is the main fighter in games

but like, the few times there is a war/army in loz games, there's rlly not a lot of strategy, beyond just finding the enemy and fighting

tho im partial to that hylians/most inhabitants of Hyrule abide by the “lets meet up either literally by inviting each other or just between our territories to fight”

with occasional guerilla warfare (by any means necessary/stealth/ambush attacks/strategy) that's only rlly used either by Demise/Ganon, or by the wilder individuals/races in games

or maybe even the more civilized fighters in an emergency

and so that means by this logic that all of the Chain use kind of wild techniques compared to their race/kingdom lmao

id imagine its not too surprising to also see “every fight is a bar fight if its for my life” from individual travelers, so im sure they're not viewed too crazy (esp when ppl know their the hero that constantly has to deal with guerilla warfare from Ganon)

but its be hilarious to watch the reactions of both the Links realizing they’re in a bigger group that should be using “proper” fighting strategies and seeing the general publics reaction to this absolutely feral, armed to the teeth, trained hylians with their equally wild human lol

LMAO everyone thinks ur the reason they started using the more brutal fighting methods bc ur human, ur a bad influence lol

(humans would use it primarily, esp after we converted to use that method in warfare a couple hundred years ago i think?)

changing course a bit, hylians tend to use weapons (to compensate for difference in strength compared to humans, and since they don't experience/get a lesser version of adrenaline)

while humans tend to equally rely on weapons and our body as a weapon (marital arts/basic self-defense)

6. this is mostly bc the hylians only rlly seem to have the basics of music, books/stories, theater, and art

i have, surprise surprise, another post abt how i think this came to be,

mostly based on how human curiosity is indomitable and insatiable and the endless force that has not yet met its immovable object.

or at least an immovable object they haven't at least poked a little, out of curiosity lol

like we went to space for that reason, we reach the most dangerous corners of our planet (deep underwater/volcanoes) out of sheer curiousity/for the sake of simple knowledge of the thing

so needless to say, curiosity can absolutely drive any field to its limits, including the arts, which is why we can have stained glass, or movies/tv shows, hell, the marvel that is Hatsune Miku lmao

(fully for entertainment, a projection of light and sound, what is essentially magical illusions but u did it hte hard way, to the hylians)

on a different entertainment related note, i don't know if the hylians would be super into sports, or not really at all? mostly bc they have to use their fighting/training against real threats, not the sort of “fake” threats that sports are

but on the other hand i could see people like knights wanting to use their abilities for something other than violence and fighting bc their life or their villages lives depended on it

bet the Links would enjoy it for those reasons especially, what with at least sumo wrestling being a sport or activity for them at some point in history, and practically beg u for any new games to play, or to ref their games, bc whewwww

im sure they could get pretty competitive lol

7. obviously, their mostly influenced by the Japanese language

id almost like to imagine a sort of, if not outright Japanese (like with earlier heroes like Sky) then a sort of English-Japanese hybrid further along the line

sort of like how English has German/Greek/Latin roots and therefore u can see what words or structure comes from where, or even how u can understand a fair amount of basic words when other languages share the same roots (english, pants = spanish, pantalones)

would make for some funny miscommunications

or even better, most hylians liking ur unique accent or the Links love to hear u talk bc of it lol

☆

well the fever has broken, i am now free of the sickness that made me hack this up geez

i hope u got some enjoyment out of these my beloved anon!! esp since u were so nice as to ask abt it <33

hope u guys have a great weekend, look out for some more posts, bc its been great to get some more asks in lately and very motivating,

not to mention i actually have time to write now that my siblings graduated/we’ve moved several states over 💀

so i have reliable internet now too! sheesh :’)

Peace out,

🌙

[daistea]

//not a request

sometimes I have mithrun thoughts and feel like sharing them. is that ok? let me know if it gets annoying or misleading or anything

but anyways, imagine where yn idealizes mithrun as this super strong warrior fighter man (they haven't seen or heard of him since a while before the dungeon) and is absolutely ripped to shreds w muscles (as they're technically not wrong here, but they aren't exactly right either) who survived being a dungeon master out of pure will power (they are wrong. mithrun did not want to survive.🥲😭😭) and then they meet a fellow elf in a noodle stand sometime in post canon (its mithrun) and mithruns just standing there and it takes a while (maybe a several times of frequenting the noodle shop) for yn to realize that he's just some guy now, trying to rebuilt his life and sense of self again

aw this is sweet!

I do headcanon that Mithrun is known to elven society to an extent. I wish we got more info on the canaries and how they're seen to the citizens. I imagine they're more of a niche interest but the wardens/captain/vice captain are known by people to a degree. Or to the younger/newer canaries they're looked up to. Mithrun especially seeing as he's the highest ranking one that's actually in the field, right beneath the elves who do all the government stuff and don't actually fight.

ANYWAY yeah it would be sweet, kind of funny to realize that your idol is just a guy. He's just a dude. And you become friends with him over time and see who he truly is and what he's been through and start to appreciate the truth of the matter.

[ourdreamsareneon]

I'm sorry if you don't follow me for niche takes on gang culture but UGH I hate Christopher Luxon (NZ's PM) for many many reason, one of which is him saying this government is going to be "harder on gangs" BITCH HOW???

Sentencing is already harder if you're in a gang or gang affiliated. You already can't wear patches in most establishments. The cops already are harsher on people if they know they're patched/affiliated/just happen to live in an area like Cannon's Creek where gang crime is high. The government already busted most of the trap houses in the Wellington region back in 2013.

What more are you planning to do that doesn't involve just killing people in the streets? Or locking people up that haven't even committed any crimes (or that you don't have evidence of because mostly everyone who is patched will have committed a crime to get patched.)

Labour actually worked with gangs to reduce violent crime and give back to the communities that are struggling to prevent young people from entering gangs as a last resort. National/ACT/NZ First has no interest in making life easier for people living in poverty and actually seem dead set on putting more people into poverty - and what have we learnt from decades of gang culture? When shit is bad, people join gangs because a gang is a family that will put food on the table and a roof over your head, and a government is a cold, careless institution that will put you on the streets and starve you so that they have one less person to give health care to.

[wisecrackingproxy]

@phaethonblue:

"Hey Wise... You know that issue Eros has been having with the Mercurio Familia? I might have an idea on how to help with that." Belle pulls out her phone and begins scrolling, not through the Inter-Knot or social media, but through a news article, until she finds the spot she wanted to show him - a report on a recently busted smuggling operation, believed to have been run by said mafia gang. The goods in question? Some lost tech belonging to a military manufacturing firm still in business for the government. "I did some digging, and they're some real nasty types. Extortion, robbery, money laundering, the works. But they also have a stranglehold on a niche section of the black market - Old Capital artifacts, especially ones that have survived Ether corruption inside Hollows. That'd explain why they're so interested in working with Belobog, given their construction zone runs so close to it. The news about what happened with that old monument had to have piqued their interest. Whether or not the items still technically belong to someone doesn't matter to them; they go hunting, and sell them to collectors throughout New Eridu."

He turned to look at the article when she offered it to him, his eyes scanning the screen. They wouldn't be the first group they'd encountered who were even shadier than the usual Hollow raiders. But Eros didn't have that experience, and he also didn't have the cover of just being regular, helpful citizens when someone like the Mercurio Familia came sniffing around.

"I'm not surprised that it's caught the attention of someone like them," he said. "Especially with Koleda and Grace working to clear her father's name. People now know that the tech he'd been working on exists somewhere in there. And we saw what it could do. All of that would fetch a lot of Dennies..." Even if it wasn't specifically Kors's tech, there was a lot around there to salvage. But now Belobog and PubSec were swarming around there. You'd need an in to get close- or a threat.

"So what did you have in mind?"

[decompose1]

🪽. i'd love to hear about some of the characters who have the most interesting takes on the higher power question to you. the wolf and destroying angel come to mind obv but idk your characters like you know your characters

🪽does this character believe in a higher power?

OOH THIS ONE IS FUN. so out of my listed OCs, as you said, the wolf and Destroying Angel have a lot of thoughts about this. so do CRT, Emyvisor, and Edith, so i'll put down my thoughts on em all!

the wolf: YES! It worships the moon, which it views as a g-ddess. Wolves in my little ~story~ believe the moon watches over and guides them, so they are loyal to it, and hold all celebrations and important life events on full moons.

Destroying Angel: YES! Amanita is Christian (universe-specific denomination- mycostal christianity, which is what fungi typically practice), so ae believes in a sort of like. Christian g-d warped through a fungus lens. Ae is strict to the rules, deeply fearful of sin and all things satanic, and famously spread conspiracy theories about the government hiding angels from them in the 50s. as of RIP end, Amanita is an angel.

CRT: YES! KIND OF! They simply believe Amanita is very wise and would only tell them what's right, so CRT follows the same religion as Ama... somewhat improperly, and without the proper cultural insight, having not really grown up in fungus towns. ah, well. at least they're Christian.

Emyvisor: COMPLICATED! She doesn't know as much about religion proper, though she was still brought up in the same heavily Christian setting as CRT, and has heard things from them that they repeated from Ama. However, if you asked her about a higher power, she'd tell you about her father, who created her. this topic would be a little confusing to her and i think she'd ask you what you'd like her to think.

Edith: YES! Edith practices the same folk religions as the Villagers thon protects, having generally just kinda assimilated into their community. Which means thon believes in a sun g-d, and worships nature itself. Prayer brings good harvest! This is a generally more healthy, but very very niche religious belief in the setting of the RP- it's not something gijinkas usually practice, it's a villager religion. Edith is just more culturally similar to a villager than thon is to other gijinkas.

[winstonnsblog]

HELLO!!! this is WINSTON'S intro!!!

my name is Winston! i also go by Campbell. 😸 i use tumblr sometimes. i don't post regularly and i don't have a specific form of content. a lot of people might not like that and i understand but i literally cannot organize myself enough to post the same thing! :(

im going to talk about some things i like and things about myself that will give context to me.

about me 🎶

i like a lot of niche things. i generally get along with everyone so i end up picking up things they like. im also a bit mental so a lot of my posts end up sounding like vents?? Sorry

one constant thing is that i like toys (plush animals specifically but i picked up that rubber lamb the other day and i would 100% get another if i saw it because he's so cute). i don't have specific brands i like IM SORRY you can talk about your brands but i just get any that catch my eye.

i play bass clarinet & aspire to make music... i know basic music theory because i was in class for it. i do marching, symphonic, and jazz band. i plan to go into music professionally but you never know where life goes.

im an artist. and a furry AHHHH!!! but i mostly make digital art. im not very good with my hands. i do bracelets but i literally struggle to sew so if i ever get into crocheting it will be bad.

about my ocs / other sites

i don't post about them very often but i do think about them. i have a few universes but none are too interesting... they're all just parts of me basically.

🔎 : detectives universe --- this one centers around ness. basically it is against the law to not have a job. the government assigns work to its people if they don't make up their minds in time. im sure it would be fun to build on to other employments but i specifically have it set around a group of detectives. other than the job thing the world acts exactly as it always does.

✨ : they are neighbors (superpower universe) --- if a person dies or their brain believes they are about to die they develop a power to save their life. it's adrenaline based but a lot of them are undead. i typically cannot deal with improbable fantasy stuff but this is my way of getting over it.

💐 : grim universe --- this is my sona's universe. it's normal but furry and the death penalty is legal. there isn't a lot of worldbuilding as it's focused directly on their backstory. the story is all my experiences exaggerated.

👥 : fandoms --- i have a grepre character, some warrior cats, some mlp, disenchantment, & a garten of banban character. i don't usually make fandom ocs so i felt like i should mention these.

my toyhouse: dog_nightmare

my artfight: winstonns

things i like 💞

i am a bit detached from fandoms. etc. forgive me.

🎵🎵🎵: mother mother, mother falcon, indigo de souza, jack stauber, rainbow kitten surprise, flipturn, sufjan stevens, alex g, the go! team, aliceband, the doozers, sorry, blvck hippie, covey

🎬🎬🎬: creep, american psycho, prince of egypt. shows: bojack horseman, prodigal son, bob's burgers

🎮🎮🎮 : garten of banban, fnaf, indigo park, detroit become human, pokemon unite, ut/dr

📚📚📚: that's about it i used to be a reader but idk leaving this for later

[arakawa-division]

Diệu's Thoughts on Suginami Division

Ryuko Umemoto

"Ryuko Umemoto, the former yakuza-turned-animator. I have to say, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I probably wouldn't have believed it. His past is a tapestry of shadows, much like my own. To walk away from the yakuza, it's a bold move, one that requires strength and a desire for change. I don't pity him; more so, I respect him. It takes courage to leave behind a life of power and influence for something more… genuine."

"I might have offered him a place among the Triad, but... he seems to be seeking a path of his own, away from the underworld. And while the Triad offers many things, it's not a sanctuary for those looking to escape their past. No, I think Ryuko must carve his own way, just as I have."

Maki Umemoto

"This man... he is quite a paradox. I mean, really. An educator with a fear of teaching? Truly eyebrow-raising. It's amusing, yes, but also quite telling. It speaks to a complexity within him, a battle between his intellect and his fears. I find such contradictions… fascinating."

"As for his stance against Chuohku, it's a bold move, to say the least. Stirring the pot, challenging the status quo, it's a dance I know all too well. Does it make my job more difficult? Not at all. If anything, it makes the game more interesting. Chaos can be a ladder, and our dear professor seems to know how to climb it. Whether he's doing it for the right reasons, though, that's the question."

Shuu Edogawa

Diệu's lips curl into a half-smile as looks at the photo of the detective.

"And last but not least, the detective with a penchant for the personal dramas of love. His focus on marital issues is… curious. It’s a niche, certainly, and one that requires a certain… discretion. To uncover the secrets of the heart, it's not so different from the secrets of the underworld. His talents for observation and uncovering hidden truths could indeed be valuable to the Triad. Whether he’d accept such an offer, though, is another matter. Shuu seems to have his own code, his own sense of justice. But in the right circumstances, who knows? Everyone has a price, and everyone has a cause they’re willing to fight for."

Sazanka Zombeez

"A former yakuza, a history professor, and a private investigator, each with their own shadows and stories. They're like a tapestry woven from the threads of Suginami's underbelly and academia, each strand adding strength and complexity. Their unity in rebellion against the government, it's a cause that can either bind them tightly or unravel at the slightest tug. It's a delicate balance, but if managed well, it could propel them far in the D.R.B. They're not just a team; they’re a statement, a challenge to the status quo. And that, I find most… compelling."

[foxpunk]

companies, governments, and ISPs have been tracking pirated content/sites/programs since the peak days of irc and niche password locked forums and other more private/niche/small/quiet means of sharing pirated content. i promise you that they already know about whatever torrent or direct download or streaming site, or program or emulator that you're thinking of. if you could find it, a company's marketing and legal teams sure can. and if it's so private even seasoned pirates cannot find it, then it defeats the purpose AND the company with way more resources than you can still probably find it. come on now.

my point is, posting about piracy sites and programs simply existing is Not gonna get them taken down. trust me, they already know they exist. the reason multiple have been taken down in the past few years and caused a huge ruckus is because of two main factors:

firstly, people are pirating now more than ever. this was inevitable because of covid and shit economic reasons mainly. this isn't a bad thing on it's own and it rules actually. everyone should pirate. however, companies' greed is also higher now more than ever. this was inevitable because capitalism has always had a finite lifespan with a predictably bad ending. to the point, companies want to treat pirating as "sales lost" to an increasing degree. believe it or not this did not used to be as much of a thing. it was more useful for them to treat pirating as a way to gauge interest and potential sales in their product. companies still do this...on top of now actively trying to shut down pirating sites. because the economy is different, and now people can't just buy the thing once they have the money, because they're never gonna get that money living paycheck to paycheck. so company greed and the economy are the main factors here. this point is (largely if not mostly) why sites like archive are at risk.

secondly, people are posting about specific products you can get from these sites and programs. and not just any people: the creators of the sites and programs?! this is one of the most reckless things you could do cause it gives legal teams the exact excuse they need to finally shut something down. because, see! they aren't just hosting files, and they aren't just OUR files, they're also doing it ON PURPOSE!! sites and emulators have the flimsy excuse of "well we aren't the ones putting your stuff here, we're just an innocent little file sharing service" and "well i'm not the one making a rom of your game i just made a cool little thing that could run any rom file for pure and educational purposes." but as soon as that paper thin excuse gets torn it is no holds barred. this point is (mostly) why emulators like yuzu and media accumulators like tachiyomi got taken down (and why they can be remade so long as they keep mention of specific IP out of their goddamn mouths).

there's other factors of course and i guess you could argue that cumulative posting about like. zlib or rarbg or dolphin put them at more risk, but it is negligible compared to the two points above so long as tens of thousands of people weren't posting about using those things for a single specific product.

TL;DR: posting about a piracy site/program isn't gonna get you or them in any more trouble or alert the authorities (they have been alerted. for decades.) or whatever. just don't mention anything specific and you're fine (even then this is mostly an issue if the creator/host does it). and if you don't want to mention names but still want to share a link, point new people in the direction of r/piracy.

[cupboardgods]

Hi! I was wondering how you became a grants manager? I'm interested in making a career change, but when I looked into it a lot of the advice was just "find a non-profit and do work for free for a while". Thank you!

Tl;dr: I got grants experience doing simple admin work for NIH during the pandemic, and I have an arts degree and a lot of customer service experience.

But ugh literally. Years ago, I met a woman who "coasted on [her] inheritance" for a decade working unpaid jobs and climbing the ranks at her museum until she got a leadership position. Not only was that really insensitive "advice", but I dont know if you can even DO THAT anymore with the current job market. So I know the struggle and unfortunately that's also the stage I'm at now in my career despite my job experience.

I think I was very lucky to land that arts council job, actually. Recruiters keep telling me that grant review/grantmaking is super niche (they're not even clear on what it is a lot of the time...they think I was writing grants or doing accounting...no).

I think it was a combination of right time/right place and the role being difficult to fill.

Basically, I got pulled into contract work at NIH by a friend in summer of 2020. One of those situations where they really needed people and your education/background didn't matter too much. That job involved supporting grant review meetings, recruiting reviewers, etc. Didn't pay well but was reliable and remote and easy.

Eventually, I was fed up with working there and started looking for arts nonprofits that I could volunteer for and hopefully leverage a job I liked. That's how I stumbled upon the arts council job opening, which was full time and paid a competitive salary for the industry.

I was a good fit bc of my arts background, lots of customer service experience, and also because I was coming from NIH, which is like the best of the best in peer review.

Tbh the responsibilities ended up being much more than what was described in the job posting. My arts council was pretty ambitious despite lack of resources, and also wanted me to revamp everything. I had to learn A LOT on the job. God it was so much. It was a big step up from my previous admin role. Also, going from an NIH institute with hundreds of employees and over $100 MILLION in funding to a tiny nonprofit with 9 employees and a couple bucks was a bit of a shock.

I guess I'd say look to larger organizations to get experience? I live in the DC area, so it's all associations and government contracting here. But I do think my NIH role was the main reason I got the Grants Manager job.

And of course, in a career change, really sell yourself. Make sure you are clear about how your previous experience makes you a good fit. It might be as obvious as "I managed this program therefore I can manage yours too," but if you don't say that, the employers aren't going to come up with that themselves. The reality of the current job market is they don't want to train you and they expect you to have already had the same title they're hiring for.

I'm currently trying to pivot to other nonprofit work--program manager roles, preferably in the arts, but I'm not being picky. But lately I haven't had a lot of success.

Best of luck!

[jukashi]

Fascists are stupid enough that their empathizing with any fictional entity says nothing. There are fascists who see their ideals reflected in plenty of works intended to satirize them, like Starship Troopers or Judge Dredd. There are fascists who project their fantasies into the Empire from Star Wars. There are fascists who project their fantasies into My Little Pony. So what? WH40k was originally created with satirical intent towards the parent ideologies of modern fascists. It inherited a starter fanbase from Warhammer Fantasy, its game became popular and it had some cool aesthetics and served a dark space fantasy niche, so it became bigger and people started writing stories in the setting that were played straight, because holding up the 'THIS IS SATIRE YOU ARE STUPID IF YOU IDEALIZE THIS' sign gets tiring, and also maybe there is some value in unironically examining what people would go through and be like under a theoretically maximally awful government.

Reading about a bunch of people in a miserable setting being miserable because they're all fascist idiots living in a fascist idiot setting gets tiring, and a lot of WH40k material is really tiring because so much of it is so very miserably grim. There can be value in that - there's a sort of reverse escapism, for example, in immersing yourself in an awful fictional setting and coming out with refreshed hope and optimism because reality isn't that bad. Still, for decades, 4 out of every 5 warhammer books were about how inquisitor gorbhoffer or captain dooficius of the edged angels shot a puppy in the face and some plot device was destroyed that represented a tangled shred of an ant's ass of hope that the setting might marginally improve because fuck you. So everyone got tired of it and they started moving the plot and introducing more hopeful stories which can only be described as more hopeful in relative terms, because they keep dropping 'this will still all go to shit' hints everywhere. Fascists empathize with space marines? The whole horus heresy novel series is about how space marines and/or the creators of the space marines fucked everything up for everyone.

What else can they do? Put a 'do not emulate' box on the bottom of all the marketing materials? In every edition, in every book, somewhere in nearly everything produced for WH40k, they give that intro spiel - 'in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war' - and after that, every time: 'and the laughter of thirsting gods'. Nobody gets out of this setting as a role model. They are there for the gods to play with and laugh at.

So there are fascists who are fans of WH40k, because a surface level reading of the setting makes it seem like it aligns with their views, if you squint to obscure things. Great. GW put out a letter telling them they're not welcome. Beyond that, better for them to spend their money on stupidly expensive minis instead of guns or political donations. Maybe, eventually, some of them will pick up on the messages they're being beaten around the head with. After all, we don't know how many people there are who might have otherwise been tempted to fascist ideologies, but got out because they picked up what WH40k was putting down. People don't volunteer that information. There are plenty of politically left people who like W40k, though, evidently. For something that targets young, socially misfit men with an interest in military games as its primary demographic, and the statistical skew that suggests should be likely, I think it's doing pretty well.

warhammer 40k loves to call itself a satire of fascism and then depicts a universe in which all of the great fascistic anxieties and beliefs of its imperium (the enemy is everywhere, it is both weak and strong, we are eternal, any violence we commit is justified, our leader is our genetic superior, degeneracy will lead to the collapse of our society) are all objectively true, completely blunting any satirical edge it could have, but giving it just enough plausible deniability that games workshop can market to anyone of any ideology

[krowspiracyanon]

I post about AO3 and have casually lurked but... don't actually have an account and am not quite familiar. Never fully ventured in.

Wondering if I should still bite the bullet and make an account just in case. Maybe it's time to at least read through the terms and conditions and see whether or not I want to ask for an invite.

It's another fandom site I somewhat know of, and for want of a better word, seems more 'reputable' than others. However it's still governed by US law and would be affected by the passing of KOSA.

I'm not familiar at all with other sites that are being suggested as Tumblr alternatives (cohost, Dreamwidth, Bluesky, Toyhouse) and don't know what I'd be getting into there in terms of who owns my posted stuff, other legalities, hosting, digital safety, or the culture around and management of harassment.

I think Deviant Art and other fanfic sites may be less active, host more AI content, or be prone to getting scraped. Wattpad doesn't seem like something I'd be interested in.

Livejournal is apparently against being scraped... It's probably long dead but hell, I'm willing to have a go and learn its idiosyncrasies as long as there's a safe little crevice to bunker down in and a few crumbs to subsist on. However... it's now owned and hosted in Russia, conforming to Russian law? Not very LGBTIA+ friendly I imagine.

Discord is a no.

I'm still processing, weighing up what my options are, and deciding how to respond to everything that's going on.

I don't currently have any concrete plans to leave or delete Tumblr. And this hellsite is like a cockroach that just won't die. But I am really thinking hard about the direction it's been steadily going in and has now sharply veered into. Not good.

It'd be a shame if I randomly got banned or just stopped feeling okay to be here and lost touch with the little niche indie communities I've been participating in. They're a nice breather when meatspace can be quite hostile and discriminatory.

I really wonder if things go further to shit whether those blogs might just become less active as people leave, whether indie artists devs and fans might settle in a different platform, or if everyone will kind of just scatter and dissipate.

It's a depressing thought.

I'm still working on fixing the old desktop for Nightshade/Glaze and will organise WebGlaze if I can't. Or, things being how they are with me, I might take a break from creating or sharing for now.

[knight-of-heart-and-art]

i love government experiments, who are dream/nightmare if you're down to talk about them???

Honestly I don't know if I have any of the actual writing about them left but they're my very very old creepypasta OCs! Dream's a clone from a program that was supposed to be producing psychic superweapons--he's a dreamwalker, useful for remote viewing but not really for actually being a weapon--and Nightmare's a dream-based echo of Dream who managed to get enough of a foothold in reality to become a person. Nightmare is absolutely a weapon. Unfortunately he's not interested in being wielded by anyone whose priorities don't line up with his own.

And like, when I say very very old, I mean it. They're from before I read homestuck and were really meant for like. That niche sort of fanfic where slenderman lives in some big house and has adopted all of the creepypasta kids. Also he's hooking up with jigsaw because I was in love with this one deviantart series.

[covington-shenanigans]

I genuinely and unironically want a comic/book/movie/whatever about a superhero corps whose only job is taxing the rich and enforcing the fuck out of it, like the IRS (US tax agency) except overpowered, but also very boring. maybe they're an outside group who the IRS consults when some billionaire is managing to evade the IRS and the IRS knows that fucker is hiding money somewhere but they can't track it down so they call in the Special Forces of the tax world.

like, the protagonist, the head of this elite corps, is a 55yo woman named Doris. her entire job is finding where rich fucks have squirreled away their money to avoid paying taxes and making them pay up.

she is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, deeply boring as a person.

her entire life is about her work. not in a tragic "Cat in the Cradle" way, but in a "neuroatypical dream job" way. she's found her niche: auditing and tax law and tiny little legal loopholes that rich fucks use to avoid paying their fair share, and her biggest enjoyment in this life is catching them in some tiny trip-up that gives her one thread to pull. once she pulls that thread she's able to unweave the whole rotten tapestry and they either pay up and continue to pay up, or they go to prison for several decades. it's beautiful to watch, in a stultifying kind of way, if you know enough about tax law to understand what she's talking about.

she has an entire team to assist her. they are, to a person, also excruciatingly boring. they talk about auditing and tax law and tiny little legal loopholes at parties, for fun. not because they're invested in being annoying but because they genuinely find it interesting. they have forgotten more about tax law than any of us will ever know. they are spoken of in hushed tones by aspiring CPAs in business school and by the very IRS agents who brought them on in the first place. they are legends.

one billionaire gets all high and mighty behind the scenes of a right-wing fundraiser, unaware he's being recorded by a highly motivated waiter who lives to rat out their shithead employer. he starts bragging a little to his other rich fuckhead friends about how much more they're raking in at his online shopping company now that they've started cutting break times and staffing and forcing their warehouse employees to work double shifts at the last minute, often cutting power to a minimum to save on the utility bill, forcing employees to work in the dark.

two days later his expansive, airy, sunlit office is invaded by a small army of finance nerds, lawyers with stacks of paperwork, and very cranky, very large, very serious FBI people with guns, just in case the billionaire gets any bright ideas about calling in some goons to avoid this particular conversation.

can Doris and her Special Forces enforce employee/employer law? no, they can't - that's not their job and maybe that billionaire isn't technically doing anything illegal yet in regards to his treatment of his warehouse workers. right to work state and all that. but Doris knows a rat when she smells one, and she's been collecting little bits of evidence on this guy for a while now. just little tidbits - an anonymous tip here, a trove of emails there. the waiter's recording was the last little bit she needed to provide her team with concrete evidence to give the IRS, enough to get the FBI involved and have this billionaire trust fund baby arrested in the middle of a board meeting in front of his horrified stakeholders.

the company stock plummets within five minutes of his arrest, obviously. the public audit and legal battle that follows takes a while, but in the end he's sitting in prison for a very long time and the government breaks up his company into about twenty different parts, which probably should have happened a while ago anyway.

it's possible Doris might have gotten access to the man's Outlook calendar somehow.

every one of the nerds in this crack unit are so, so fucking boring that you'd chew your own arm off rather than be cornered by one of them droning on about their beancounter shit, but by god since they started assisting the IRS not one billionaire has opened his fucking mouth to whine about his employees demanding a living wage because they know Doris and her Special Forces are just itching to have one excuse to audit their books.

and Doris never, ever fucking loses.

Let's do that again.

[sunnylolli]

I have a slightly different take on the in-universe theory. Consider: what if they *aren't* visible in public life? The public just thinks of nation people as a conspiracy theory / ascended meme like the FBI guy assigned to their laptop. People joke about it, but can't confirm nor deny...and never wll.

Among high-ranking officials and diplomats, yes. It's an open secret. Those people do take it seriously because it's in their job contract. They have to. They come in regular contact with Nations. They both work for the same "employer" after all.

But would average citizens believe it? No. Even if you run into "Mr. France" at the bakery, the concept is so outlandish that it's hard for people to fully internalize the implications. Even if America posts selfies online, or if China runs a famous food blog, their followers would just assume they're "role-playing". It's just another rando on the internet getting "in-character." Even if a clip of Russia bodying a tank with his bare hands goes viral, wouldn't people just assume it's a comedy sketch with special effects?

Immortal figures with supernational powers walk among them, but who would believe it? Remember that cameras, the web, and other forms of forensic records weren't around long ago. Human life spans are short. By the time a generation is convinced that nation people are REAL, it's too late. They'll sound like lunatics to their children. Short of an extensive, costly, hotly publicized investigation, the truth is never fast enough to become widely accepted to be passed onto the next generation. Thus, the cycle continues.

I like to think Nations all have day jobs with fake IDs, earn a paycheck, file taxes, and take vacation days just like any other employee. They don't stand out, and most don't want to. Some may want the celebrity life, but mass media is only a relatively recent phenomenon. Who cares if a niche group of conspiracy theorists takes what Nations say at face-value? It's in their best interest to enjoy a private, autonomous lifestyle. I love how funny the public figurehead au is. Despite that, I'm content with a world where they exist but remain shrouded in mystery, in part due to the temporal limitations of human life. 😉

Oooo, I like the way you think!! I agree for the most part, BUT, I do believe it would probably vary from country to country! Just like how different countries are more religious than others, I do think the belief in their existence after it's been revealed would vary greatly!

I know that in Denmark for example, where the general population has a strong and general trust to the state; If our government and our politicians all confirmed that Yes, Nations are real. We have a personification, and his name is so and so- 80-90% of the population would go: "👍" And leave it at that, accept it as fact, and move on! (Not believing blindly, we'd of course ask for extensive proof, but if the proof was there: History books, documents, sagas etc. generally we'd trust it)

[veliseraptor]

November Reading Recap

Scum Villain's Self-Saving System by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (reread). I've been reading the other Seven Seas translations as they come out volume by volume but for some reason decided to wait until all of them were out to reread this one. Maybe because it was the shortest wait or maybe because it does remain my least favorite of MXTX's three published novels.

I do still find it fascinating in narrative terms, though. I think @ameliarating put it well when she said it was one where she's less engaged with the story but thinks the narrative is really interesting, which I think lines up with my reaction.

Also it's just fascinating to read MXTX's three novels as charting a course of her development as a writer. I don't even mean that in terms of quality or anything, I'm just talking about "the themes I see explored in SVSSS and how they're developed compared to some of the same themes in MDZS and TGCF."

Jade City & Jade War by Fonda Lee (reread). I've had Jade Legacy sitting on my shelf for ages (in hardcover, if that tells you how long) partly because I knew I needed to do a full series reread and I kept dragging my feet about it because "I have so many other things to read! I don't want to go back and reread stuff before I read more of my completely unread things." But finally, I don't remember exactly why, I just went "yeah it's time" and dove in to reread these both. As good as I remember, highly recommended by me, I think of this series as occupying the same rough niche for me as, like, Ann Leckie and Seth Dickinson and N.K. Jemisin's earlier works, which probably mostly has to do with when they came out but also has some stuff to do with how they engage with colonialism and imperialism while also just being compelling as hell. Also I would die for Hilo and I'm not sorry about it *fingerguns*

Still haven't read Jade Legacy though. I blame the 7 books that came in at the library simultaneously right before I started.

They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency by Malcolm Nance. This book was frustrating and I didn't feel like I learned a whole lot from it except maybe some more information about the specifics leading up to and during the January 6th insurrection shit; I've read better excavations and analyses of white terrorism, QAnon, and the growth of right wing extremism in the United States in the 21st century. The casual fatphobia as shorthand also didn't do Nance any favors in my eyes.

Will say that one thing that came out of this book was the realization that I am really not ready to read anything about Covid. Didn't realize how much of a reaction I was going to have to that! And it wasn't even a major part of the book or anything.

How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr. Best book I read in November, hands down; also absolutely infuriating in the "wow! a whole bunch of new awful stuff the United States government has done that I didn't know about!" sort of way. Digs into the history of the U.S.'s weird imperial dynamics with its "territories," particularly looking at the history of Puerto Rico, the Phillipines, a number of small islands in the Pacific Ocean...and, in the 21st century, the role of military bases abroad in creating what Immerwahr calls a "pointillist empire."

Fascinating book, deeply upsetting, I can already tell it's going to be one of those I go around talking to people about for a year until they get really tired of me saying "so I was reading this book How to Hide an Empire and-"

Also just...reminded me how much I love discovering holes in my knowledge. I mean, it's not like it's fun in the moment exactly to realize your own ignorance but hey, opportunity to learn. Pursuant to that if anyone has recommended reading about Filipino history I'll take it.