#according to like 75% of people i know

[brainrot28]

RARE AESTHETIC:

Burnt out (mentally ill) gifted kid…

me: driving home from school trying to hold back tears because i’m about to get a B for the first time in my life while listening to the audiobook of great expectations by charles dickens

[reasonsforhope]

Kamala Harris just announced that her vice president will be Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Based on the coverage so far I'm really reassured by this decision.

The Washington Post did an obviously great job of making a prepared article for each option, considering how long an article they had up 7 minutes after the announcement.

((Okay technically it's not an official announcement yet it's "according to three people familiar with the pick, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that is not yet public." But listen. I am 99% sure this is a weather balloon. (Meaning: a deliberate leak to gauge reaction.) Because the sheer weakness or incompetence on the part of the Harris campaign that it would take for three people to all confirm that within a few hours hours of each other and the planned announcement it is massive.))

-via The Washington Post, August 6, 2024

Honestly this decision, from everything I've read and can tell, looks like it's brilliant politics.

Important Context: The vice president(ial candidates)'s job in an election is not to be similar to the president. The vice president's job on the ballot is very, very much specifically to be different from the president. Why? So they can cover each others' weaknesses. Especially regionally.

(Sidenote: I feel a bit ridiculous saying this. But genuinely if you want to get a stronger understanding of how US elections really work. Go watch seasons 6 and 7 of The West Wing. Genuinely, a lot of politicians have said - especially back in its day - that that was the most accurate depiction of an election they'd ever seen. Also specifically features an entire arc about a contested Democratic primary convention, so also very good if you're interested in understanding weird nominating convention shenanigans.)

From the article:

"Harris’s choice for a running mate was among the most closely watched decisions of her fledgling campaign, as she sought to bolster the ticket’s prospects for victory in November and rapidly find someone who could be a governing partner. In picking Walz, she has selected a seasoned politician with executive governing experience and signaled the importance of Midwestern battleground states such as Wisconsin and Michigan.

Walz’s foray into politics came later in life: He spent more than two decades as a public school teacher and football coach, and as a member of the Army National Guard, before running for Congress in his 40s. In 2006, he defeated a Republican to win Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District--a rural, conservative area--and won reelection five times before leaving Congress to run for governor.

Walz was first elected governor in 2018 and handily won reelection in 2022. Though little-known outside his state, Walz emerged publicly as one of the earliest names mentioned as a possible running mate for Harris, and in the ensuing days he made the rounds on television as an outspoken surrogate for the vice president...

“These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room. … They are bad on foreign policy, they are bad on the environment, they certainly have no health care plan, and they keep talking about the middle-class,” Walz told MSNBC in July. “As I said, a robber baron real estate guy and a venture capitalist trying to tell us they understand who we are? They don’t know who we are.”

Walz also has faced criticism from Republicans that his policies as governor were too liberal, including legalizing recreational marijuana for adults, protecting abortion rights, expanding LGBTQ protections, implementing tuition-free college for low-income Minnesotans and providing free breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren in the state.

But many of those initiatives are broadly popular. Walz also signed an executive order removing the college-degree requirement for 75 percent of Minnesota’s state jobs, a move that garnered bipartisan support and that several other states have also adopted.

“What a monster. Kids are eating and having full bellies, so they can go learn, and women are making their own health-care decisions,” Walz said sarcastically in a July 28 interview with CNN when questioned whether such policies would be fodder for conservative attacks, later adding: “If that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the [liberal] label.”

Walz also spoke at a kickoff event in St. Paul for a Democratic canvassing effort, casting Trump as a “bully.”

“Don’t lift these guys up like they’re some kind of heroes. Everybody in this room knows--I know it as a teacher--a bully has no self-confidence. A bully has no strength. They have nothing,” Walz said at the event, sporting a camouflage hunting hat and T-shirt.

Walz has explained that he felt some Democrats’ practice of calling Trump an existential threat to democracy was giving him too much credit, which prompted his decision to denounce the GOP nominee instead as being “weird.”

“I do believe all those things are a real possibility, but it gives him way too much power," Walz said on CNN’s “State of the Union” regarding the Democrats’ rhetoric. “Listen to the guy. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter, shocking sharks, and just whatever crazy thing pops into his mind.”

If Walz is elected vice president, under state law, Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) would assume the governorship for the rest of his term. Minnesota Senate president Bobby Joe Champion, a Democrat, would become lieutenant governor."

-via The Washington Post, August 6, 2024

--

This guy. Sounds like. fucking Moderate swing-state/rural/Midwestern/southern/"heartland"/working class white voter catnip. He sounds like he's also a very smart politician and strong campaigner. And he's apparently genuinely a good guy with a good record, too.

He sounds like he's going to do a really good job of appealing to voters in several of the big deal swing states without being from any of them specifically. Which means it doesn't feel like pandering to one of the states involved (and thereby spurning the others), which is also great.

(Also he was the one who started "weird" @ conservatives and I think we should take that seriously as a very good political instinct/move. Judging in large part by how it has so clearly hit an actual nerve with conservatives like so little else. Also hugely relevant: that post going around about how part of why conservatives are so upset about "weird" is because in the Midwest, "weird" specifically also implies anti-social or harmful behavior.)

Officially feeling more optimistic about Trump not winning in November

[fairuzfan]

Sorry one more thing I wasn't going to talk about but if you had asked me about the binational state/land thing maybe... in 2016, I might have given a somewhat positive answer but I think that since then, Israeli society has become exponentially more racist and anti-Palestinian. Since then we had the Abraham Accords, Sheikh Jarrah, Massafir Yatta, the highest child martyr count in years, and now finally a full blown genocide. Many Palestinians who previously advocated for equality in a single state look at all this, especially in recent months and think "how can I live side by side with these people?"

The vast majority of Israeli society is not against war for the sake of the Palestinians, they're against war for their own safety. They say as much. Hell, look at standing together. The founder guy says "our security is tied in with the Palestinians'". So if it wasn't tied with the Palestinians', you wouldn't care? And I get sometimes you need to introduce people to ideas gently, but their entire organization language emphasizes "shared pain" when there is an oppressor/oppressed dynamic they aren't even hinting at. How can anyone achieve safety if you won't even admit you have power over your Palestinian org members?

Even Brothers in Arms claims to want to "strengthen democracy" but they completely ignore Palestinians have never experienced democracy in "Israel". So what's the point strengthening your own standing when the most disadvantaged still are at rock bottom?? Plus your whole group represents the IOF reservists/members, you have no intention of helping Palestinians when you are the primary oppressors. And this is not an insignificant group in israel!

Not many Israelis are willing to put themselves on the line to protect or even advocate for Palestinians. I mean 7+ months into a genocide and what did israeli society do other than protest *netanyahu*? Hold up flour bags during the flour massacre??? The people serving in the idf are your friends and family and community. Tel Aviv is an hour away from Gaza. Surely you can do *something* physical!! They had people at their Gaza borders starving Palestinians on purpose and people just... watched it happen. Not to mention the IOF, which many Israelis are a part of, participates in the genocide and has been lauded for their "heroism". I look at that and I think "how can I expect you to seriously consider my rights as a person? How do I know you won't miss your old status and reclaim it?"

We've seen Israelis *celebrate* and *ridicule* our martyrs and people. So like where us the good faith in all this? Where can we work with some of these people and think "Yeah I believe they'll respect my inherent dignity as a person"?

Which binationalism relies on this. You need to have good faith between communities for this to actually happen. But when one community won't even acknowledge it's status as an oppressor at the height of oppression? Then what?

Israel as a country has never faced any retribution for its actions for 75 years. No one is holding them accountable. The country teaches propaganda in its schools about the Nakba. There is not serious consideration for Palestinian rights in Israeli society. Why would they suddenly decide to participate in a project that puts Palestinians as equal to Israelis when they learned all their lives that Palestinians are ruthless, unreasonable people who can't be reasoned with, and Israelis are logical, poor victims who are actually the ones who need protection from the Palestinians!

It just is mind boggling because I see people constantly complain about the way they hear things from Palestinians these days like "all Israelis need to leave". And they go on to say "why would you be so hateful/why would you say that" and don't think for a minute they're experiencing a televised genocide of their people (which they could have ended up in their shoes! People forget that Gaza has multiple refugee camps! Any one of us could have lived there!) And conversely are looking to Israeli society for them to do anything and they see nothing. At least think for a moment why they would say these things given the context of the situation. There's a genocide going on! And you're worried about what the people who are experiencing their people's genocide are saying because you're worried for the society conducting said genocide?? Let's deal with the matter at hand first!!!!!!

[saika077]

I was thinking about life in the suitcase and I have several thoughts about it:

So we know that everyone has their own living quarters in the suitcase, does the room itself accommodate according to the inhabitant's needs or do they personally customized it? Like, I can't imagine a big ass bird guy like Getian living in a regular sized room. I feel like bro would need some space to fly in and out of his room. Do you think Vila would have a giant fish tank/pool in her room? And according to Jessica's voiceline, she sleeps on a haystack which led me to believe that hers is more like an enclosure... Or maybe they all just straight up sleep somewhere in the Wilderness???

The fact that they all share the kitchen and its appliances, bc Pavia specifically said "your fridge" and "my gelato" Which implies that people would put their stuff and leftovers in the fridge. I imagine that every once in a while someone would accidentally ate someone else's leftovers and the whole kitchen just turned into your average Waffle House. Or maybe they could potentially accidentally drink one of Sotheby's potions she left to chill and cause some wacky hijinks.

Speaking of kitchen, we all know that Bunny Bunny was the one who prepares food for everyone in the suitcase and I was like girl... Everyone?? All 75+ of them??? (Okay maybe some of them don't actually need to eat, but still...)

The fact that people would randomly turn into a painting and nobody knows why. Horropedia even said that the experience was kinda freaky.

Do you think the adults in the suitcase would have a girl's night out or a guy's night out after the kids are all asleep? (Pavia attends both bc he's also one of the girls). And then there's the middle aged/old people gang who I think would just hang out sometimes like Eternity, Ulu, Shamane, A Knight, etc. (Shamane def the type to say "how do you do, fellow kids?" and also chill with the youngins)

[gothhabiba]

A few months ago, an article by Just Like Us about a survey of young UK adults regarding LGBT topics (and other articles on The Pink News and Gay Times UK that reported on that article) did the rounds on here.

The headline of the Gay Times article, written by Amy Ashenden (a cisgender butch lesbian and the interim CEO of Just Like Us, who hired the consultancy that conducted the survey) was "Lesbians being anti-trans is a lesbophobic trope"; of the results of the survey, she writes "I’m so glad that we finally have the research to demonstrate what most lesbians already knew: this narrative is completely false."

A lot of this initial reporting focused on the claims that "most anti-trans adults don’t know a trans person in real life" and "lesbians are the most supportive of trans people of any identity group, and it's a lesbophobic trope that they are anti-trans." These articles were written before the full report of the survey's data had been released.

The full report that these claims are based on is now out, for anyone who wants to take a closer look at the results for themselves. The pdf appears to be OCR readable but not image-described. The survey deals with many topics including being "out" and "feeling supported" at school and at work, but I'll just try to break down the evidence for the above-mentioned two claims.

How respondents were selected:

Just Like Us's report says that "Participants were drawn in partnership between Just Like Us and from Cibyl’s independent database of UK students and young adults" (p. 69). Cibyl offers "bespoke studies and focus groups," and says that "Using our Cibyl-ings student panel, we can source specific students to look at themes and topics important to you and ask the unique questions you want the answers to." This is rather vague.

Sample group and size:

3,695 young adults aged between 18 and 25. 86% cisgender and 12% transgender; 47% LGBT and 53% non-LGBT (used as a control group to compare LGBT responses to); 72% white; 79% students; 54% "female" (self-declared), 36% "male", 8% non-binary (pp. 69-70).

Support for the articles' central claims:

There is no full breakdown of the data resulting from the survey that would allow anyone else to do their own statistical analysis. Here's (what Just Like Us gives of) the data that the "most anti-trans people don't know a trans person in real life" claim is based on:

[ID: Headline reading "Attitudes towards transgender people. Question reading "How supportive are you of transgender people? Of people who "know a transgender person," 64% said "very supportive"; "supportive" 23%; "slightly supportive" 10%; "not supportive" 3%. Of those who "don't know a transgender person," 33% said "very supportive"; "supportive" 28%; "slightly supportive" 20%; "not supportive" 18%. Second question "Do you know any transgender people?" Result: 28% "Yes, someone I'm close to"; 38% "Yes, someone I'm not close to"; 34% "I don't know any transgender people." Further breakdown of the question "Do you know a transgender person?": 49% of "non-LGBT+" people said "yes"; 84% of LGBT+ people; 94% of non-binary people; 93% of transgender people; 82% of asexual people; 85% of bi/pan people; 80% of gay men; 92% of lesbians; 75% of questioning people. End ID]

The "do you know any transgender people" question is worded slightly differently each time—plus, the Just Like Us article and the report (p. 8) adduce the phrase "in real life" to "know a trans person," but this page doesn't—so I don't think we're getting the exact wording for that question that the survey respondents saw. The data for "how supportive are you of transgender people" isn't broken down according to whether the respondent said they were "close" or "not close" to the transgender person or people they knew; it also doesn't seem to be broken down into trans or nonbinary versus cisgender respondents.

"How supportive are you of transgender people?" was the only question dealing with this issue, and the responses "very supportive," "supportive," "slightly supportive," and "not supportive" were the only options available; there's nothing breaking down what "support" means in terms of policy (e.g. support versus non-support for consent-based clinics, national funding for transition care, non-discrimination laws, bathroom laws, &c. &c.). There is also no distinction made between "support" for trans women and trans men.

The claim "UK adults between the ages of 18 and 25 who answer 'not supportive' to the question 'How supportive are you of transgender people?' are several times more likely to also answer 'no' to the question 'do you know a transgender person' (or maybe 'do you know a transgender person in real life')" is supported, in my opinion. The sample size is large enough for that 3% to not be random noise.

The analysis in the Just Like Us article groups together "very supportive" and "supportive" when providing percentages of respondents of given identities who support trans people:

Of all LGBT+ identities, other than trans and non-binary people themselves, lesbian young adults were most likely to say they know a trans person (92%), and most likely to say they are “supportive” or “very supportive” of trans people (96%). In comparison, 89% of LGBT+ people overall said they were  “supportive” or “very supportive” of trans people, and just 69% of non-LGBT+ people said the same.

There is no full breakdown of how many people are "very supportive," "supportive," "slightly supportive" or "not supportive" of trans people by identity label. The relevant data is on p. 63 of the report:

"Looking at who was the most supportive of transgender people:

non-binary respondents were 97% supportive or very supportive with 1% of respondents indicating they were not supportive;

lesbian respondents were 95% supportive or very supportive [everywhere else in the report and in the reporting says 96%, so perhaps this is a typo] (3% were not supportive);

bi/pansexual respondents were 92% supportive or very supportive (2% were not supportive).

Of respondents who were gay men, 82% were supportive or very supportive of transgender people, with 7% indicating they were not supportive.

Among non-LGBT+ respondents 69% were supportive of transgender people, with 12% indicating they were not supportive."

It's not clear to me how they dealt with e.g. lesbians who were also transgender. Pages 69-70 of the report go into the questions that people were asked to identify their identity label for the purposes of statistical analysis ("Is your gender identity the same as the one you were originally assigned at birth?"; and "What is your sexual orientation?"). The fact that these are separate questions (as they should be) tells me that there's overlap between groups throughout the study; any data that says e.g. "83% of lesbian respondents" is combining cis and trans lesbians, and any result that says "67% of trans people" is combining heterosexual and LGB trans people.

So, while narrowing the respondents down to just cisgender LGB people to compare their support for trans people would have been one way to analyse the data, I'm guessing they didn't do that (plus, there's the article's wording of "LGBT+ people overall"; it wouldn't make statistics-analytical sense to compare cis lesbians with all LGBT+ people, plus it would presumably make the higher support % of lesbians less stark, which seems like the opposite of what Ashenden wanted to do).

When the article says "other than trans and non-binary people themselves," they don't mean that they excluded trans and non-binary people from the percentages given; they mean "other than the number you get if you measure support for transgender people just from trans and non-binary people." We're not given the number that would result from doing this. The number we're given in the report for non-binary people is 97% supportive (this number is not included in the article); we are not given a number for just trans people, but we can probably assume it also approaches 100%.

This means that the 96% support presumably measures support from cis and trans lesbians; the 82% of "supportive" and "very supportive" gay men includes cis and trans men; &c.

There is a major statistics-analytical problem with acknowledging that trans and non-binary respondents have the highest rates of support for trans people, but then not controlling the results of this question for whether the respondent was cis or trans. If a higher percentage of lesbian respondents were trans than the percentage of gay men respondents that were trans, this would itself skew the numbers for lesbian support higher. There's no reason to suppose that this did happen, but there is not enough information given about the data that Just Like Us collected to rule it out. Again, at no point are we given information about overlap between LGB and trans groups or a breakdown of what that overlap looked like (how many trans respondents were heterosexual versus LGB, &c.).

As I mentioned above, some of the survey focused on whether respondents "felt supported" at home and at school. Some snippets on the results of these questions can be found on pages 45-49 of the report. "[M]ore than 1 in 4" LGBT+ respondents "felt unsupported" in school compared to "1 in 10" non-LGBT+ respondents; 37% of transgender respondents and 39% of nonbinary respondents said they felt unsupported in school. Despite the survey's focus on the outcomes of felt support, and despite all respondents being asked if they were "supportive" of transgender people, no question asked transgender respondents if they "felt supported" by cisgender LGB people.

Generalisability of claims:

The sampling of the data (which is drawn entirely from people in the UK aged 18-25, mostly students) also means that the claims are not generalisable to the entire UK population; you can't say the "majority of anti-trans adults don’t know a trans person in real life" (the headline of the Just Like Us article) or "Most anti-trans adults don’t actually know a trans person in real life" (the headline of the Pink News article), since the survey did not take a representative sample of all adults. You can't say "lesbians are not anti-trans" (the url of the Gay Times article), since the survey is not representative of all lesbians.

Funding sources:

The report was sponsored by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a firm offering professional services (accounting, auditing, consulting, financial advisory, litigation consulting, and other services offered to businesses).

Cibyl, an independent research firm in the UK, "led on research design and delivery, then worked in partnership with Just Like Us to produce the report." They include the report ("Positive Futures") as an example of their work on their website. Their summary of the study focuses on the claim that "support in LGBT+ young adults’ teenage years" is necessary to the future development of their careers, and on what "employers and careers professionals can do to help LGBT+ young people feel safe and supported." This is the same kind of thing that Deloitte talks about when it comes to LGBT+ issues (namely, inclusion versus exclusion and support versus non-support in the workplace).

A video that Asheden produced with Mags Scott (partner at Deloitte) also focuses on how "support" for LGBT+ people "at home, in school, and in the workplace" leads to confidence in "career prospects" and ability to be onself "at work," and is necessary for LGBT+ people's mental wellbeing.

Just Like Us has an interest in promoting research that suggests that support for LGBT+ people in school will benefit them in their careers, since they sell training resources on forming LGBT+ groups, and talks with LGBT+ speakers, to schools. Just Like Us is a non-profit organisation.

Declaration of conflicts of interest and peer review:

This is an industry-sponsored study and not an academic one. There is no declaration of conflicts of interest required, and the study was not peer-reviewed.

Tl;dr:

Some breakdown of data was revealed in the report. The exact questions that respondents saw were not given. The data is not given with enough granularity to allow for anyone else to conduct statistical analysis based on it.

There is not enough evidence to say whether the study supports the claim that (cis?) lesbians are more supportive of trans people than any other identity group, since the survey was not clear what "support" means (someone may claim to support trans people as individuals while not supporting transition care, for example, due to some kind of "love the sinner, hate the sin" logic).

There is also a statistical problem with the support for this claim, since overlap between "transgender" and "cisgender" respondents is not controlled for. There is not enough data given in the report to allow anyone else to control for this factor. The results would hold if we assumed that similar percentages of e.g. lesbian, bisexual, and gay male respondents were transgender.

The results apply only to people in the UK aged 18-25 and cannot be generalised to all adults in the UK.

Summaries of this report given by the firms that funded and conducted it centre on the idea that "support" of LGBT+ people at home, at school, and in the workplace is necessary to allow them to thrive in the workplace. Just Like Us, who put out the report, sell LGBT+ talks and training to schools.

[camillasgirl]

Her Majesty The Queen’s speech to the CHOGM Women’s Forum, 24.10.2024

Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a huge pleasure to be here with you today.  I would, first, like to thank the people of Samoa for the warm welcome that my husband and I have received and for your hospitality and generosity to us and to the whole Commonwealth family.  

I was delighted recently to come across the wonderful Samoan proverb:  E au le Inailau a Tama’ita’i. With apologies to the men in the room, I thought that we might make this our motto today.  

According to a legend, a competition was once held between men and women in a village to thatch the roof of the house of Chief Tautunu. Although they started at the same time, the women finished their side first, as they had laboured through the night, while the men slept.  As one whose husband is often toiling into the small hours, long after my head is on the pillow, I should stress there are plenty of exceptions! But the moral of the proverb is: Women will turn their hands successfully to any task that must be done; and will work hard until it is completed.

As we gather to discuss our theme, “Advocating for Women and Girls in the Commonwealth”, we have a gigantic task ahead of us, for which we all – male and female – will need the same spirit that inspired those women thatchers. It is this: to end domestic and sexual violence across the Commonwealth, now and forever.  And its enormity can be seen from the shocking statistics.  Globally, 30% of women have been subjected to either physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.  Most of this at the hands of an intimate partner.  Worldwide, 27% of women aged 15-49 who have been in a relationship, report that they have experienced some sort of abuse from their partners.    

Faced with the vastness of the issue, it can seem almost impossible to know where to begin.  Yet our Commonwealth’s 75-year history offers hope, inspiration and – crucially – solutions.  Leaders from around the globe are willing to meet, as equals, and to have difficult, and constructive, conversations.  

The Commonwealth Says NO MORE campaign, which takes a culturally sensitive approach towards ending domestic and sexual violence, is supporting people from all walks of life to identify and implement practical steps which we can all take to make homes, workplaces and communities safe for women and girls.  We know that abuse can be prevented and ultimately eliminated, but only if we work together until that task is completed. 

That is our commitment – to each other, to the Commonwealth and to the generations to come.  

E au le Inailau a Tama’ita’i.

Thank you.  

[alice-apparently]

I think Agent / Subject / Catalyst are the three categories [CAT 1-3] in the case numbers.

Bear with me.

So aside from the dates, the case numbers are split in 3 parts, right:

CAT 1-3 (rarely combination of 2 numbers) -> category

*R (-> rank) A/B/C (sometimes combination of 2 letters from ABC)

DPHW (4 digit number)

* the case numbers for episodes #3 and #4 don't have the R for some reason

This is very much taking into account/based on the stuff from the ARG klaus.xls document btw, which has these exact 3 columns & features some of the episodes' cases where these match up exactly with the case numbers. [if you're interested, it's #2 line 80; #3 line 64; #5 line 75; #7 line 77]

Both category and rank are divided into 3 options, with some exceptions of cases having 2 applied at the same time. So now episode 9 gave us another nice group of three. And I thought, hm, maybe those ideas, Agent, Subject, and Catalyst, could match up with one these as a classification of the cases. And I think it does.

Based on the cases we had so far, I think category 1 is Agent, category 2 Subject, and category 3 Catalyst.

In my tmagp paranoia document with all my notes, I made a table sorting the cases according to the categories for a better overview and to be able to maybe spot similarities:

Let me explain what I think the classifications mean.

1 - Agent.

That's the most self-explanatory one I think. I'm not the first to make the comparison between avatar and agent, and not the first to point out that Needles acts like a TMA avatar.

Agent then is an active purveyor of fear/terror. someone deliberatly acting in such a way to spread it, to scare people. It is the person themself directly and possibly willingly causing the 'unsettling experiences' and spreading fear. Needles is the prime example.

It doesn't work quite so well with #1A, but I'd say the "he" that she interacts with acts as an agent, with him luring her to the cemetary and the unsettling way he is described there, but more importantly, with the laughter that follows, that he seems to enjoy what's happening, her fear. Her fear that's caused by him.

2. Subject.

Subject I would describe with "being subjected to something" or that "something just happens". A subject to fear. Maybe as a victim of sorts, but that's not quite it. Anyway, I think the cases in category 2 group together easily:

What's interesting is that all of the cases feature in some way a person entering a space and being affected by it/by something in a certain space. Or at least it is centred on a certain space. they are subject(ed) to the space.

In #1B it's the TMI ruins, in #3 the garden, in #5 the cinema, in #7 the charity store, and in #8 the service station. The person in #8 himself blames it explicitly on the place, the architecture, on the space he entered.

3. Catalyst.

Catalyst, I would argue, means a moveable object that works to spread fear. That is, a person with a certain object--or artifact, if you will--working together: it's a person with the object as a catalyst, it's the object through a person spreading fear.

To put it more concisely, it's cases of a person carrying an artifact and through them, allowing the artifact to affect other people.

We have the violin and the dice in episodes #4 and #9. In both cases the people who pick them up spread harm/misfortune by using them. In both cases the person first harms themself before learning they can/how they can instead spread it to others.

In episode #1B, which was in both category 2 and 3, RedCanary takes that wooden box/old wooden thing home with them. And it's that box, taking that box, that's linked to what's happening to them. Or what they do afterwards. Because we don't actually know what happens to RedCanary or what RedCanary goes on to do afterwards. We've kinda assumed that they just die, but maybe not? Anyway, my point is, old wooden box thing = artefact/catalyst.

Episode #2 is the biggest hole in this theory I think. Without knowing I probably would've put it as category 1, agent, with Ink5oul as the agent. But instead it's rather that the tattoo acts as a catalyst, through the artist. So far it rather has seemed to affect the artist herself rather than other people through her, except for the confrontation with her roommate. But, as @amelie-isnt-french pointed out, we don't know what she moved on to do afterwards. Maybe it would go on to affect other people. Maybe she just hasn't learned how to do so yet.

Or maybe affecting other people is not even a criteria at all. Maybe it's enough that the artifact comes into contact with a person and affecting them.

I'm aware that this theory isn't without flaws; both cases in episode #1, and esp. #2 don't fit into this as well as the others. But I think it still works.

That being said, I can go even more crazy.

You know that other ARG document, the chdb.xlsx, with the list of the gifted children tested at the Magnus Institute, the one that features Sam and Gerry, the one that's possibly the one Sam mentions in episode #8 through which he found Gerry.

Now my question on looking at this document, or you know, one of my questions, was what does the chdb stand for. I figured db might probably be database. the c could be children, because that's who were tested and listed. but the h? I had the stray thought at some point that it might be host. which I found very unsettling, but also didn't really work as a whole, like "Children Host Data Base"? nah.

But what if the C is not for Children. What if it's for Catalyst. Because Catalyst Host Data Base suddenly makes a lot of sense. We know that the TMAGP Magnus Institute is interested in "supernaturally active items" as the episode 9 statement giver tells us. They have been collecting artefacts/catalysts. Cf. also that old wooden box RedCanary found in its ruins. So they might have in the children been looking for potential hosts for them.

[lordmushroomkat]

《The strong association of PCOS with cis womanhood, the defining of it as a disorder or syndrome, and its framing as a “women’s health issue” obscures the fact that PCOS is a natural hormonal variation, an endocrine difference that is illustrated through secondary sex characteristics. 

During my initial search for resources and community, I also learned that PCOS, given its characterization as a hormonal variance, falls under the intersex umbrella. This intersex umbrella covers a wide range of “individuals born with a hormonal, chromosomal, gonadal or genital variation which is considered outside of the male and female norms,” and PCOS meets that definition. 

This is not an attempt to sway every person who has PCOS to identify themselves as intersex—though it is an acknowledgment that we have the option and the right to do so if it rings true to us. Rather, this is to say that shifting my perspective on PCOS and viewing it through an intersex lens allowed me to better understand it as a natural human variation rather than an affliction causing my body to do the “wrong” thing. 

“I believe that someone with PCOS has every right to use the term intersex for themselves if they want, but I also understand it if they don’t,” said writer and intersex advocate Amanda Saenz.

“As an advocate and an intersex person, I opt to use a definition of intersex that is open ended and expansive,” Saenz explains. “The experiences that a term like ‘intersex’ hopes to define include differences in hormonal production and hormone reception, and the phenotypic effects these differences have on the body. To me, this is inclusive of things like PCOS.”

Discussing PCOS in this way is often met with indignation and resistance. Our society has a hard time separating gender from sex. This has resulted in a widespread misunderstanding of intersex identity as equivalent to transgender identity. Many who vehemently resist the idea of PCOS being under the intersex umbrella do so because they categorically link “female” with “woman,” and therefore misinterpret any acceptance of intersex identity as a denial of womanhood. Moreover, the stigma around and marginalization of intersex communities prevents many people from feeling comfortable with embracing it. 

“You can be intersex and cisgender, transgender, or nonbinary. The ‘opposite’ of intersex is endosex, not cisgender,” explained Eshe Kiama Zuri, founder of U.K. Mutual Aid. As a nonbinary intersex person, Zuri approaches these ideas with a clear understanding of how the bodies of intersex individuals as well as many people with PCOS interrupt binary thinking about both sex and gender. 

“The resistance to PCOS falling under the intersex umbrella is due to a white supremacist society’s desperation to cling to binary genders, which we know [have been] used as a colonial tool of control,” they offer. 

The same medical and surgical interventions that legislators seek to ban trans and nonbinary people from accessing—which would be gender-affirming, life-saving care for them—are often forced on intersex infants and children who are unable to consent. This is done in efforts to align intersex bodies with social expectations of female and male, man and woman; the same logic undergirds the societal and medical pressure to “feminize” the female-assigned bodies of PCOS patients. 

PCOS is “shockingly common [and] the most frequently occurring hormone-related disorder.” However, according to Medical News Today, “up to 75% of [people] with PCOS do not receive a diagnosis for their condition.” If we were to understand and accept something like PCOS as intersex, considering how “shockingly common” it is, the dominant idea of binary sex, with intersex being thought of as nothing more than a fringe occurrence, would be shattered. 

“PCOS is only one of many conditions that could fall under the intersex umbrella, and care for people with PCOS would be considerably better if it wasn’t for the forced gendering and resistance to providing actual support for people with PCOS, even if it challenges society’s ideas of gender,” says Zuri. 

Combating myths built around the gender and sex binaries would create more space to understand PCOS traits as part of normal human variation, rather than inherent problems to be fixed, symptoms to be eradicated. As Zuri so beautifully put it, “When we start to accept that this is not a body behaving ‘wrong’ and it is just a body, we stop blaming and punishing people for how their bodies work and start challenging societal expectations.”》

I was fucking right!

[bomberqueen17]

Liveblogging the Aubreyad 2: Post Captain, part 1

The main thing to know about the second book in Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin series is that it's really really really fucking long.

i was trying to sum up the plot even to myself and uh. it’s like. Late in the book there’s a dated letter and I realized it literally covers an almost four-year period. So like… as Inigo Montoya says, “Let me explain. No, no there is too much. Let me sum up.” But I can’t.

I went through and summarized the whole book in detail one night when I was having an insomnia issue and it was like a fever dream, and I'd read it twice and listened to it a third time before I started this project and still was like "WAIT there's MORE?" as I kept skimming through. But I'm gonna try.

I will begin unpromisingly with some tedious background worldbuilding stuff, though. Yes the entertaining way to do this would be We Didn't Start The Fire style rapid-fire snippets but do you know how much work that is? no I spent long enough reading this book I'm not doing that for you. Sorry.

I will relent, however, and give you one exciting tidbit: this book contains female characters, plural! Yes multiples of them! Round characters, with multiple facets apiece! Enticing, no?

So the underlying mechanic beneath like, a solid 75% of the plot of these books is promotion. For every naval officer in the series, this is a large portion of their motive for every issue.

There are three categories of members of the Navy in this respect. The first one is the foremast jacks-- your enlisted men, though in this time period they were often impressed, forcibly conscripted. They can achieve various ranks within themselves, specialty crews and various small statuses and such, but even the most dignified, long-serving of them is still subject to being flogged or beaten or disciplined at any time without any real recourse.

The next category is the ratings, or warrant officers-- subtle distinctions among them, but broadly speaking on the same level. The master is in charge of the navigation and general sailing of the ship, the bosun the rigging and masts, the purser the purse (money and supplies), the gunner you can probably guess. A surgeon has a warrant rather than a commission. And the midshipmen have ratings, not commissions either.

But midshipmen are eligible for promotion to lieutenant after six years of sea time. Once they are made lieutenant, they are a commissioned officer, no longer subject to flogging or dismissal out of hand-- they must be court-martialed for such a thing to occur. They get half-pay when on shore. They accrue seniority. A lieutenant can then be promoted to master and commander, as we saw in the first book. And from there he can be promoted to a post-captain, and from there promotion is automatic (though, crucially, a command is not), according to seniority. This will become important later. A post captain will become an admiral solely through seniority, in due time when it is his turn.

But an officer who doesn't have a stellar service record AND influential friends is very likely to be sidelined regardless of seniority. Many, many men serve thirty years as a lieutenant, never promoted. Still more languish as master's mates, the seniormost rating of a midshipman's rank. And even once made post, men languish ashore, and by the time they're made admiral, have so little renown that they're never given any kind of command at all and stay ashore doing nothing more than drawing half-pay.

I'm explaining all of this because much of the series winds up being an ongoing, meditative reflection on the benefits and flaws of such a situation, and we see incompetent men promoted while competent ones are sidelined, over and over. And this book shows the beginning of Jack Aubrey's career-long struggle to not only keep himself moving up this ladder, but also to try to take some of his people with him-- especially TOM PULLINGS, who as a former foremast jack from a family of dirt farmers, has absolutely no political influence of any kind, and cannot hope for any.

(This is, I think, part of what makes this series so readable. On the face of it it seems like oh no this is some rah-rah Royal Navy bullshit, but if you actually look at it, it's a pretty warts-and-all depiction, oftentimes depressingly heavy on the warts, which is much more interesting and also easier to stomach. I did have a little trouble with the book where they're fighting the War of 1812, though, where everyone was so dispirited that the Americans kept winning and I was like "wait no I'm rooting for those guys." LOLLL.)

But you didn't come here for this. You came here to know what happens in this book. And for that, I will do my best to convey some of it. I'll lead with a couple of teasers.

there are fly honeys. oh yes.

Stephen forcefems Jack into adopting a female bear as his fursona, for literally months. No I am not making this up.

TOM PULLINGS no you'll just have to get there to see, I can't bullet point him

Jack abducts a mugger

Barret Bonden beats a cop unconscious

That's enough teasers. Let's start with the fly honeys.

Everyone is ashore, and Jack has set himself and Stephen up in a sweet bachelor pad, with a crew of his favorite sailors as household staff. (Don't you fear, Preserved Killick is here.) His nearby neighbors are a household entirely made up of women: a horrible old woman, with three reasonably hot young daughters, and an incredibly hot niece. The war is over for now (it's the Peace of Amiens) and there are no ships to be had, but Jack has some money and is ready to do some fox hunting in more than one meaning of the word.

The neighbor is called Mrs. Williams and her oldest daughter, Sophia, is 27, willowy and ethereal, innocent and appealing. But her cousin Diana, about the same age, is a young widow brought up in India, and has incomparable style and dash. Stephen is completely smitten, but makes the mistake of telling her he's not really into women as women so much as he is interested in them as people, and she spends the next age treating him like absolute shit trying to get him to admit he's into her. Meanwhile, Jack is really into Sophia, but Diana is so dashing he can't help wanting to pursue her too, and so he and Stephen wind up unhappily romantic rivals. It doesn't help that Sophia is too innocent and entirely under her mother's idiot ill-natured thumb to straightforwardly reciprocate Jack's interest.

Jack throws a huge party, to be sociable, on Valentine's Day, in honor of the Battle of Cape St Vincent, of which he is a veteran. Babbington attends, and on his way there he is to pick up Diana, who had been sent to stay with another relative for a bit to get her out of the way so Jack would pay more attention to Sophia instead, Mrs. Williams being, to put it kindly, a conniving old bitch.

Babbington, as it turns out, is a horrible driver, which leads to perhaps the single funniest passage of the book.

“… she said [to herself], 'It will never do. This young man will have to be taken down.' The lane ran straight up hill, rising higher and higher, with God knows what breakneck descent the other side. The horse slowed to a walk - the bean-fed horse, as it proved by a thunderous, long, long fart. ‘I beg your pardon,' said the midshipman in the silence. 'Oh, that's all right,' said Diana coldly. 'I thought it was the horse.' A sideways glance showed that this had settled Babbington's hash for the moment. 'Let me show you how we do it in India,' she said, gathering the reins and taking his whip away from him.

Really, Diana is amazing, and you can almost forgive her for how horribly she treats Stephen. And Jack.

Anyway the overarching plot is now beginning-- it comes up (to the reader, though not to other characters per se) that Stephen is becoming quite involved in naval intelligence; his Catalan background means he's indispensible given that the British are keenly interested in using the cause of Catalan independence to divide Spain, preventing it from effectively allying with France, which is quite openly using this peace to amass an invasion army to take England. Shit is tense, in Europe.

But meanwhile at home, various legal matters are resolved badly and it turns out that instead of being owed thousands of pounds in prize-money, Jack has to repay eleven thousand pounds to the owners of ships he took that the courts decided were in fact neutrals. And to make matters worse, his prize-agent, to whom he had entrusted the management of all the money he did earn, suddenly folds, taking all the money and running. Jack's money is just gone, with no recourse. So now Jack, according to the law of the time, is subject to arrest and imprisonment until and unless he can pay off the entire debt.

Which he can't. So he has to go into hiding. And Mrs. Williams decides that as he is in her eyes a common criminal she no longer wants him to court her daughter, so contact with Sophia is cut off, which makes them both miserable.

But Stephen has a Spanish passport. So he takes Jack across to France with him. They visit Christy-Palliere, the French ship captain who captured the Sophie in the previous book. He is delighted to see them-- so delighted that he embraces Jack and kisses him soundly on both cheeks, which makes Jack blush enormously.

And then war breaks out again. Napoleon has all British citizens in France arrested. Jack and Stephen must flee, lest they rot in a French prison for the duration of however long this round of wars lasts.

Whew that's enough plot isn't it? Oh no. There's so much more. I'll divide here. Stay tuned for Part Two, in which the bear thing will be explained, oh yes.

[heygirltimeformorning]

@playinginthunderstorms tagged me in wip Wednesday so here’s something I’m working on that is, incidentally, all her fault.

(if I owe you emoji responses, I promise I’m working on them, but sweaty crop top Buck currently takes up all the real estate in my brain, so if you’re mad about it, you should talk to Charlie bc it’s her fault.)

Putting most of this under a cut 😌

It was the crop top’s fault. That’s what Eddie’s telling himself, two beers and a shot deep, Buck’s arms around his neck, hips moving. He doesn’t know how he ended up here, but he does know that Buck -- Buck can’t dance. He can move, but he can’t dance and there’s a fundamental difference, but Eddie stops caring (he barely cared to begin with) when Buck drapes his long arms around Eddie’s shoulders, dimples out in full force, curls sweaty and tumbling over his forehead, and Eddie’s hands go automatically to Buck’s waist, bracing himself. To Buck’s bare waist, bared by the crop-top he’d shown up to Eddie’s house in, glitter on his cheeks, curls loose and wild. Eddie hadn’t wanted to go out. He’d been in sweats when Buck showed up in jeans and a fucking crop top and glitter, but Buck had refused to take no for an answer, herding Eddie through getting dressed and then dragging him out: C’mon, Eds, it’ll be fun, we’ll have a good time, it’ll get your mind off things - we both need this and if Eddie had, at any point, told Buck no and meant it, he knows Buck would have backed off, but he also knows that Buck is (at least partially) right - Buck needs this.

Things with Tommy had ended relatively calmly - according to Buck’s retelling, they’d ended over coffee when Buck had asked Tommy to move in and Tommy had declined. But Eddie knows Buck’s always felt like too much for anyone to hold - like the weird detour people took to figure out their forever - and this was just confirmation of that. Eddie’s seen it in the set of his shoulders, the way he carries it around too much, too much, too much. So Buck needs a night where he can wear glitter and a crop top and not think about Tommy Kinard, and he wants Eddie there, so Eddie will be there. Eddie is there, smirking a little as Buck does whatever he considers to be dancing, sweaty arms around Eddie’s neck, smelling like bodywash and sweat and deodorant and something distinctly Buck.

Buck’s smile turns a little wicked at the brush of Eddie’s fingers against the bare skin of his waist, and something about the bar, about the buzz of alcohol, about the way the music curls into his spine, about Buck’s arms, heavy, around his neck makes him brave, and Eddie tightens his fingers against Buck’s sides, pulling him in a little closer. Something shifts in Buck’s expression, changes a little, and his eyes are on Eddie’s lips, and Eddie’s eyes are on Buck’s lips and -- maybe --

“You can.” Buck’s voice is surprisingly quiet in the din of the bar. Eddie isn’t sure if he feels it or hears it, eyes flickering up from Buck’s lips to meet his eyes. “If you -- I -- you can -- you can kiss me if you want.”

Eddie knows he shouldn’t. He knows this is a terrible idea, driven at least 50% of the way by the crop top and the glitter -- black and sleeveless, baring Buck’s stomach. Probably more like 75%, but if Eddie’s being honest, he’s wanted to kiss Buck much longer than just tonight - the crop top is just making those thoughts a little louder.

There’s something a little vulnerable in Buck’s expression, something a little wounded and unsure, not unlike when he’d come out to Eddie and Eddie, like an idiot, had encouraged him to call Tommy. Buck is confessing something, is coming clean, is opening himself up and saying will you love me just like this, and Eddie isn’t sure he has the capacity for that, isn’t sure about dragging the ragged corpse of his heart back into this (his heart is already in this, but things are only real in the naming) and it’s just a kiss. What’s a little making out between friends?

They aren’t moving to the music anymore. Buck is so still under him, and it would be awkward if either of them were aware - they’re just standing in the middle of the dance floor, the rest of the bar dancing, moving around them- and then, before he can think his way out of it, Eddie leans forward and presses his lips against Buck’s.

Buck tastes like whatever he’d been drinking - something sour - and Buck, and it takes Buck a minute to react, like he’s surprised Eddie had actually taken him up on the offer, but then Buck shifts, his hands cupping Eddie’s face, sliding his fingers into Eddie’s hair, gasping into the kiss, and Eddie takes the moment to tilt his head, deepening the kiss, and maybe it would be gross - maybe it should be gross - they’re both slick with sweat and he’s pretty sure the glitter on Buck’s cheeks is actively transferring to Eddie’s, but he’s overwhelmed with the Buck of it all - with the smell of Buck and the bar in his nose, with Buck’s tongue in his mouth, Buck’s fingers in his hair, Buck’s body pressed up against his on the dance floor, the music pounding through both of them, or maybe that’s Eddie’s heartbeat, or Buck’s, or maybe it’s all of the above.

(more coming to ao3 soon!)

[ref pic for the crop top if you’re a visual learner like me]

ETA: @oshaskell DREW BUCK IN A CROP TOP & Buck and Eddie being FREAKS on the dance floor????? this is actually legitimately insane.

ETA: now on AO3!!

Not tagging anyone like a party pooper but if you wanna do it, you can say I tagged you - I won’t mind!!!

[accio-victuuri]

from this article: 10 short stories about "Formed Police unit" 📝 ( i included general facts and the ones related to Bobo )

The action blockbuster "Formed Police Unit", which brings together actors such as Huang Jingyu, Wang Yibo, Zhong Chuxi, Ou Hao and other actors, was released on May 1st this year and topped the box office in the first two days.

Before the screening, the producer Liu Weiqiang and director Li Dachao of "Formed Police Unit" shared the behind-the-scenes story of the film with the Entertainment Management Studio . During the exchange, they talked many times about the need to "shoot with care" and "correctly" when making movies today. Movies need to be awe-inspiring.”

Liu Weiqiang revealed that the film took 75 days to shoot and was 10 days overdue. The investors also fully supported it because they wanted to provide the best results for the audience. The following ten short stories let us know more about "Formed Police Unit".

ONE

The story theme of "Formed Police Unit" was proposed by director Li Dachao. In 2010 , Li Dachao saw a piece of news about a peacekeeping police officer returning to China after his death. The urn was covered with the national flag and the police standing on both sides saluted solemnly. Li Dachao was thinking about it at that time. I was moved, " At that time, I was thinking about what peacekeeping was, and later I learned that they are such a noble and selfless profession, all dedicated to contributing to the local people. "

I thought of this subject in 2010 , but the film didn't start filming until a few years ago. Li Dachao believes that timing is very important, " You see how much the world needs peace now, I think it is very important to express the spirit of peacekeeping. "

FOUR

"Formed Police Unit" is the first film starring Wang Yibo. Liu Weiqiang revealed that Wang Yibo was very cautious when accepting projects. When discussing the script, he was moved by the role of Yang Zhen.

At that time, Wang Yibo had a small worry, that is, there was a scene with teenage Yang Zhen in the movie. "He was worried that if it were played by another young actor, whether the two would be able to synchronize the performance. The little Yang Zhen we found and He looks quite similar, so he feels relieved when he sees it.”

FIVE

At the end of the film, Yang Zhen had a scene where he was beaten by an enemy. In order to guide Wang Yibo to perform the real pain, director Li Dachao said: "I pinched him before starting the movie. After pinching him, he screamed. I said this feeling was... By the way, you have to keep it real, and you have to magnify the pain of being pinched 100 times. "

SIX

The crew learned from former peacekeeping police officers who had actually participated in peacekeeping operations that when they went on missions, they would spread Chinese culture locally, teach Chinese and martial arts, and usually grow vegetables in the base where they were stationed.

The crew also built a vegetable garden on the set, and the props team was responsible for growing vegetables and watering them. There was a scene where the peacekeepers went to pick vegetables. "An interesting fact is that almost all the vegetables were dug up by Wang Yibo. He dug them too fast. I said wait, I haven't turned on the camera yet," director Li Dachao said with a smile.

SEVEN

Wang Yibo was still a newcomer to the film industry when filming "Formed Police Unit", but Liu Weiqiang's impression of him was that he was very smart, "You see, he usually doesn't make a sound, but when he does, he is very powerful. He is an observation-type actor, and a good actor is like this , observe first, and after observing, he will know which points he ne

EIGHT

The peacekeeping team in the movie is designed according to the real peacekeeping configuration, two armored vehicles + snipers + liaison officers, etc. Each character has his or her own plot mission. For example, Ou Hao plays the team leader, and he is a role model. As a police officer, he uses his lines to express the spirit of the peacekeeping police; Gu Jiacheng's character and Yang Zhen grew up together in the police station, and he played a catalyst role in Yang Zhen's growth.

The director revealed that in order to prepare the soldiers' strong bodies and performance conditions, the actors of the Peacekeeping Team spontaneously trained, ran, gained muscle, tanned, and encouraged each other before filming began. Huang Jingyu said that the first half of the movie was shot in the daytime, and in the end it was all night scenes. The action scenes were shot all night long, and it was raining. If you didn't reserve your physical strength, you wouldn't be able to persevere.

NINE

Based on the longitude and latitude, landforms, vegetation, weather and climate characteristics of the mission area in the movie, the crew found a filming location that could simulate the African environment and built an entire city, including slums, streets, squares, seaside stilt houses, etc.

The last major scene of rescuing witnesses during a stormy night had to wait for the tide to change during the actual shooting. The tide rose every four hours at that time. In order to show the harsh environment in the storm, we had to wait until the tide rose to shoot. It took 15 days to complete

article source

[bleue-flora]

So… I have been obsessively rewatching streams to get as canon accurate as possible (as a perfectly sane person does… of course) and it kinda sparked a question. Clearly, Quackity’s lore is on the more scripted and edited side, so Punz’s talk with Purpled wasn’t a live impromptu and one of the things he specially highlights is “6 months” as the time frame for Dream being tortured in prison (not to mention the unspeakable and past people’s limits parts which there is no way Dream signed off on, but that’s a whole other can of worms…) We know that according to real life, Quackity tortured Dream daily for about 67 days if his last visit is the stream of making Dream write the letter (May 22nd, 2021), 75 days (from March 17th, 2021 - Quackity’s first visit stream to June 6th, 2021 - Techno’s stream where he visits Dream) if he holds up the deal to not torture Dream for a week or 82 days if he doesn’t, (we know he doesn’t get tortured while Techno is there because Dream mentions it in the podcast stream), which brings us to almost 3 months. Given this, why would Punz say 6 months? This isn’t a live stream slip up, this is scripted. They have time to verify the actual facts. So why would they say that and emphasize that point. 3 months is still a long time to be tortured daily, there’s no reason why that time frame wouldn’t be sufficient to convince Purpled of its ferocity.

One could make the argument that when Dream told Punz about it, he said 6 months because he didn’t know how long it was (which is actually what I thought at first), but Dream actually has a decent understanding of time at different points in prison so that’s not super likely. When Techno comes to visit Dream, Dream even says, he’s been there for 5 or 6 months (and that’s after Tommy’s stay and revival and stuff). We also know based on the jailbreak streams that Sam kept up the lie to Quackity that Dream escaped so even when Techno leaves it’s not like Quackity came back.

So, c!Dream knew, cc!Dream knew, cc!Quackity knew and given their attention to detail, I feel like they wouldn’t let cc!Punz get it wrong on accident. There’s no particular reason for c!Punz to lie and it’s not like an - I forgot how long let me just mention type of thing. No, this was one of the times in that talk with Purpled that he repeated himself for emphasis. So, why did he say 6 months?

[dazzlinglybitter]

It's Disability Pride Month!! Let's talk about POTS!

Hello beautiful people. Since it's Disability Pride Month, I wanted to talk about my disability. I have a condition called POTS. It stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Sydrome, which is a very long name, and you can see why we just say POTS. Essentially, it means that when I change position or stand up, my heart rate gets too high. It is normal for your heart rate to go up when you change positions. But what makes POTS different is it changes too suddenly and much higher than average. The National Institutes of Health defines that a person with POTS has "an increase in heart rate of 30 beats/min or more when moving from a recumbent to a standing position that lasts more than 30 seconds". Which on its own doesn't sound all that bad. I would be a much happier human if that's all it was. However, POTS comes with its own host of symptoms. That swing in heart rate can cause dizziness, lightheadedness, blurred vision, and sometimes fainting. Other symptoms of POTS include:

Exercise intolerance

Headaches

Nausea

Fatigue

Anxiety

Dry mouth

Excess thirst

Leg pain

Blood pooling

Brain Fog

Swollen Extremities

Sleeping problems

Bladder problems

Digestion issues

Tremors

Shortness of breath or chest tightening

Memory issues

Poor temperature regulation

Chronic dehydration

Neuropathic pains

Increased sweating to the extremities

Loss of appetite

Light sensitivity

Dry eyes

Heart palpitations

Chest pain

Cold extremities due to poor blood flow

Heat intolerance

Hypovolemia (low blood volume)

And probably more that I've missed! Doesn't sound all that fun, and trust me, it isn't! POTS is a condition under the larger umbrella of Dysautonomia. There are several different types of dysautonomic conditions, POTS is only one of them. Here are some fun facts about POTS:

POTS effects around 0.2% of the world's population

It is most common in females, 75 to 80% of all patients are female

Though it can be diagnosed at any age, it is most commonly diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 25 (I was 19 when I got diagnosed!)

There is no cure for POTS and it's a chronic illness

Some teenagers will outgrow the condition in their 20s

The average time to diagnosis is 5 years and 11 months (took me almost a year, luckily)

According to Dysautonomia International, 25% of POTS patients are so disabled they cannot work or attend school

There is no singular cause for POTS, and many patients will likely not know what caused their condition

Research on POTS is incredibly sparse, making advocacy, treatment, and diagnosis even harder

The usual recommended treatment is increased fluid intake, increasing salt intake, wearing compression stockings, raising the head of the bed to conserve blood volume, reclined exercises like rowing, recumbent bicycle, or swimming, and a healthy diet

While there is no FDA approved medication for POTS, some medications such as beta blockers can be used to aid the condition

Though the heart is directly involved, POTS is not technically a heart condition. It is technically a nervous system disorder stemming from the autonomic nervous system

There's lots to be said about POTS! I don't think I could fit it all in one post if I tried. But if you made it this far into the post, thank you for taking the time to learn about it! Awareness is key, and the more people that know about the condition, the better we are. Happy Disability Pride Month!!

[sea-changed]

Some quotes from What Soldiers Do that are not really worth their own post or that I didn't want to give their own post, but that I want to preserve for posterity/my own reference. CW for discussion of rape.

"Knowing that the GIs were souvenir hunters, the Nazis also left behind military paraphernalia rigged with explosives. When Raymond Avignon picked up a German helmet, an American soldier saved his life by making him put it down, showing him an iron thread that would trigger an explosion, then removing it with 'meticulous' care." (26)

"According to [British spy Roxanne] Pitt, on one occasion, a British airman too shy to act as a client [while hiding out at a brothel] chose instead to dress as a prostitute; the plan backfired when a French customer took a liking to him." (137) [Cites Pitt, The Courage of Fear (1957), 75-76.] Alan Bérubé are you seeing this.

"GI Robert Peters remembers how when an an older GI named Wisher got caught in a pup tent engaged in fellatio with a platoon sergeant, the commanding officer said this to his men: 'You know the penalty for putting another man's cock in your mouth? You rot in prison for life. You'll get f--ed good there." (175) [Cites Robert Peters, For You, Lili Marlene (1995), 60.] Bérubé!!

"The [US] military insisted on keeping French sexual labor invisible, not only from War Department officials, but also and even more importantly, from the American public back home. In a May 1945 memo to all commanding officers, Adj. Gen. R. B. Lovett argued that if the army was found guilty of condoning prostitution in overseas theaters, the War Department would 'be open to the charge that it is supporting conditions inimical to the health and welfare of troops. The eventual result might be public scandal with the families of military personnel charging the War Department with an unforgivable violation of trust in neglecting to care for the physical and moral well-being of its personnel.'" (186) To go along with--

"The American GI did not have to worry that his VD would go untreated, nor that his loved ones might witness 'scenes contrary to decency.' The military approach to venereal disease in Le Havre registered a growing confidence on the part of the US government to construct--whether consciously or through inaction--asymmetries of power in the transatlantic alliance: whose health was important and whose was not, whose family would be protected and whose would not." (190)

"In general, rape was probably the most widespread war crime in the European theater of war, although its violence had different meanings in various areas. On the eastern front, the German Wehrmacht committed rape with impunity as part of their aim to enslave Slavic peoples. Beginning in Hungary in 1944, the Soviet military used rape as an instrument of revenge. At the end of the war, thousands of women suffered from the crime of rape, and not only from the Red Army. According to US Judge Advocate General (JAG) statistics, at least five hundred German women were raped by American soldiers." (197-198)

"French officers frowned upon using white prostitutes for non-white troops because, in one officer's words, 'to sexually posses a white woman, a fortiori paying her like a vulgar piece of merchandise, permits [a man of color] to reverse the power relation and re-write history in his own way.' This officer's fear that sex between a black man and a white woman could erode imperial authority suggests just how vital sex was to the maintenance of white supremacy." (249) Brackets are Roberts's. The "re-write history" phrasing was enormously striking to me.

[nuri148]

Distances in AoT

Or: Yams has no idea of geography and the relationship between distance and travel times in AOT makes no sense.

PART TWO: GEOMETRY AND PONIES

In the first part, we’ve seen how freaking huge the distances between the main districts of the Walls are. Here is a summary:

Center-Sina: 250 km

Sina-Rose: 130 km (Center-Rose: 380 km)

Rose-Maria: 100 km (Sina-Maria: 230 km; Center-Maria: 480 km)

To go from a District to the next on the same wall:

Along wall Sina: 393 km (352 if cutting in a straight line between the two)

Along wall Rose: 597 km (537 in a straight line)

Along wall Maria: 754 km (~720 in a light curve, as straight line not possible)

Here’s a summary of the shortest distances (combining radius and chords) between districts:

(I’ve only put the most frequently mentioned in canon)

Throughout canon, we see the characters moving between a handful of Districts. To the iniciated it may look like said travels are a tad too fast considering the means of transport that they use. It’s okay. The insta-travel effect has been seen in every other epic fictional world, be it the Middle Earth, Westeros or Narnia. And we’re willing to suspend our disbelief. But AoT has a crucial difference in that sense.

We’ve been told the exact distance between the walls. In kilometres, not some fictional or obscure, ancient measure unit. Suspending disbelief does not come easy when the numbers are exact.

It’s like when you’re watching a movie, and the hero has only 10 minutes to get to the bomb before it detonates, so he races through the streets of, say, Paris, and they go from the Louvre, to the Arc de Triomph, wreck havoc on a market along the Seine, rush through Montmartre, around the Eiffel Tower and skid to a halt when the car crashes in front of the Opera. And most people will be ok with that, but the few millions who live in or know Paris are like... Nope. That’s not possible. Not even with 007’s Aston Martin or the Batmobile. That makes absolutely no sense. It’s ten times worse if the hero is running.

Well, guess what, the Survey Corps do not travel in the Batmobile.

The Survey Corps travel by horse. On longer expeditions, they also have horse-drawn carts.

Now, if you fill up the tank of your BMW and pad your butt, you can drive the 480 km (road distance) from Berlin to Ansbach in about 4:40 hours without traffic. That’s not stopping for anything other than traffic lights, and using some of the best highways in the world. That’s an average of 102 km/h. With normal traffic, you could do that in 5:30 hours, averaging 87 km/h. That’s how long a badass modern car would take to go from Mitras to Shiganshina.

But, and this may come as a shock, a horse is not a car.

First and foremost, a horse cannot ride as fast as a car. As per the Publicly Available Information from canon, “The stable horses used by the Survey Corps are selectively bred (...) and travel for many hours without complaining. (...) Their top speed is between 75–80 km/h, and they can maintain a swift 35 km/h gallop. The horses are tenacious, able to maintain a fine speed of 20 km/h even when pulling a carriage.”

For one good thing in all this mess, numbers are in accordance with real horses. And I have no problem accepting that the SC horses are the cream of the crop when it comes to speed and resistance, like our fastest horses and most resistant horses combined. But horses, I repeat, are not cars.

Cars are machines. Horses are living, sentient beings. They cannot fill their stomach like a car a gas tank and run at top speed until it empties, rinse and repeat. They need food and water. They need shoes. They need bathroom stops (they can shit while walking, but they need to stop for pee). But mostly, they need rest. Horses can and do die of exhaustion. (And given that SC horses are super expensive, you don’t want to work them to death.)

A horse can maintain its maximum speed for only 3 km—4 for a race champion. That’s the maximum length of horse track races, actually. After such a sprint, they need to rest for a while. So even when dodging titans, you won’t do so at top speed – you just need to be faster than the enemy. Obviously, the slower the gallop, the longer the time it can be maintained, so sprinting at less-than-top-speed will allow to dodge more titans.

When you’re just travelling from point A to point B, then, you won’t waste the precious energy of the horse in a sprint. Those journeys would be made at a lower speed, for the faster you make the horse go, the more, longer stops it will need to rest, catch its breath, eat and drink. Likewise, if the horse is carrying weight, it will go slower and need more rest. Long distance horses can only cover 50–60 km per day—And before someone says endurance competition horses can run over 100–160 km in a day... that is not the same as 100 km per day, in the same way marathon runners don’t do 42 km per day; they do them in a day. The day of the race. After training specifically for that race. Then they rest for a few days. Horses are the same. Moreover, long distance endurance races have mandatory vet checks along the way to see that the horse is able to keep going. And if you have an expensive horse and no vet every 20 km to check it, you will take care not to push it, lest it collapses midway and the titans eat you.

So, considering SC horses are specially bred for endurance, we can safely equate them to long-distance working horses of our world; I’ll assume they’re the GOAT and can cover 60 km per day.

But wait! I hear some of you say. If they can go at 35 km/h, they can cover much more than 60 km a day! Er... no. Because they need to rest. They cannot trot at 35 km/h for 8 hours straight. They can’t even walk for that long without stopping to rest. Same as like Marathon runners never reach the same speeds as sprinters and middle-distance runners. 

Please note that this numbers refer to a single horse. You can cover longer distances, or cover a given distance faster, if you change your horse for a freshly rested one at given points. This is not an instant process: the new horse will have to be tacked and you’ll have to transfer the cargo, if any, from horse A to horse B (in AoT world, they cannot text the next station to have the horse tacked when they arrive). A convoy of several horses will be slightly slower and, I repeat, if there are carts, the whole convoy will be conditioned to the slowest cart (the horse/s will be slowed by the cart in the same way a car is slowed if you attach a trailer to it). In every rest station, the horse needs to be untacked and then re-tacked before continuing, same as hikers will put down their backpacks when taking a break.

For reference, The Pony Express, the fastest horse dispatch system ever, could cover 300 km per 24-hour day (they rode day and night). They managed to cover that much that by having a huge infrastracture that allowed the rider to change horses every 16-24 km, and pass the dispatch to another rider every 75 km or so. That’s 4-7 horses every 100 km.

So either AoT horses are more magical than My Little Pony ones or Yams cannot distinguish between a horse and a Ferrari.

Guess which one I’m betting on.

Side Comment: The Ferry

Talking about this with one of my fandom friends, she mentioned her bafflement that they didn’t use the ferries that we see in the first chapters evacuating people from Shiganshina to transport  themselves quickly from place to place. I thought she had a good point, so I looked into it. Thankfully for Yams though, I looked into this and it’s not really an option.

The steam engine is unknown in Paradis, so the ferries would have to be operated manually. (The publicly available info panel on the subject comes from the Lost girls OVA, so its canonicity is questionable, and it has contradictory info saying they are moved via wires along the river (as manual ferries do) but also that they are powered by the same gas as the VMG – which make little sense bc then you don’t need the wire and why not have a railway as well?). And the maximum speed a manually hauled barge can attain is not better than that of a horse. For a RL example, the fastest that horse-drawn barges travelling the Canal du Midi in the 19th century could reach was 32 hours for the 240 km ride... changing horses every 10km. Before that, it took four days. That’s 13 hours for 100 km – basically the same time it took the SC to go from Trost to Wall Maria in RtS, but without the possibility to change course if the road’s blocked or to dodge titans if they attack (and provided they had the fresh horses every 10 km, which they wouldn’t in RtS).

That said, I do think Yams totally forgot about the ferries.

Part 3

[thefirsthogokage]

So, the AMPTP basically said that the studios take too much risk to pay people anything for streaming shows. Here's John Rogers and David Slack responding to that.

(link to top of thread)

[Image ID: A tweet thread from John Rogers on July 23rd, 2023 that reads in its entirety:

Last time I had a failure - which was collateral damage in an argument between the studio and the network - I had to personally fire 200 people, they all were off payroll by that afternoon, and I was also out of a job. The executives all continued to get paid. So fuck off.

Actually, that’s not true. The failure after that one happened as collateral damage in one of the mergers, so it had nothing to do with the quality of the show. And I had to wait, forbidden to work, not earning a dime, as they shopped it for six months.

Also several of my writers were cheated of their expected salaries, some losing up to 75%, for reasons too complicated to explain here. Those executives, both studio and streamer, all kept their jobs. So double fuck off.

Actually no, my last failure was a show where after delivery the network made us wait *seven months … for a PASS*. Seven months where I was in first position, and again, was forbidden from working.

Do that was one pilot fee, cut in half with a partner, for a year and a half’s work counting development. Those executives, both studio and network, kept their jobs.

So *triple* fuck off.

Luckily I had my tiny sliver of back end from TRANSFORMERS - no, wait, no, because according to the Hollywood accounting while that movie grossed something like a billion dollars all in, it unfortunately wound up $36 million in the hole.

So QUADRUPLE fuck off.

If you’re dumb enough to take that AMPTP statement at face value, responsible adults should remove all the scissors from your home. You are the reason hair dryers have the “Do not use while sleeping” warning.

/End ID]

I believe that merger one was Leverage or The Librarians. Both were doing REALLY well before they got cancelled due to network shit, I know that much. So the network/studio one could be either of those as well. Probably Leverage?

(Link to top of thread)

[Image ID: A tweet thread from David Slack posted July 21st, 2023 that reads in its entirety:

The studios claim they shouldn’t have to share revenue for the success of the shows we make succeed because they assume all the risk.

Well.

To paraphrase a famous actor: There’s more than one type of risk, motherfucker.

While the studios and their new hedge fund besties may assume some modest financial risk, any losses just go on a balance sheet next to the C-suite’s golden parachutes.

The workers in this industry, on the other hand, risk a hell of a lot more than that.

Most working actors live with the constant uncertainty of never knowing where their next paycheck will come from or how long it will be between jobs. That’s risk.

If they work a second job, they often risk losing it every time they take time off for auditions or jobs.

Actors also generally have little control over the final product, so *every* role is a risk for them. Sure, it could be the hit that changes everything. But it could also be a flop that hurts their career for years. They become “the guy from that thing” and can’t get more work.

Under our old contract, writers put in untold hours of free work developing and rewriting pitches and scripts for features and TV. Much of this work is on spec. That’s a huge risk writers take on — yet the studios are happy to benefit from the upside without taking on any risk.

Writers, actors, crew, and directors also risk our personal relationships, spending long hours at work, frequently across the country or around the world. Our partners soldier on without us. Our kids miss us and we can only hope they’ll understand.

That’s a huge risk.

Stunt performers literally risk their lives for the shows we make. Productions and crews take every possible precaution to ensure their safety, but accidents still can and do happen.

You gonna try and tell us that’s not risk?

All of us risk our health and safety working insane hours to keep up with the schedules our bosses create. When was the last time David Zaslav or Bob Iger worked a Fraturday? Do they even know what one is?

In production, where 14, 15, and 16 hour days are common, people have died from falling asleep at the wheel driving to and from set.

And the studios have the fucking gall to say they’re taking all the risk?

We risk our finances, our families, our friendships, our futures, and sometimes our lives to make a product for you that you have no idea how to make yourselves.

All you risk is money.

And by the fucking way, we *know* you can afford to give us success-based pay — because you’ve been doing it for 83 YEARS.

Remember 1960? When both the WGA and SAG went on strike and won…

residuals for TV?

Residuals for TV *are* success-based pay. Great movies and TV shows re-ran more often, so the people who created and starred in them got more money as a reward for that success. It’s a great system that incentivized workers to bust their asses to make great shows.

And you know what happened to the entertainment industry in the 8 decades studios have been making these success-based payments?

IT THRIVED.

Studios made billions in revenue selling our product all around the world.

But now, the studios say they can’t afford it. They say it’s not “fair” for actors to ask for success-based pay because they don’t take on any risk.

That’s stupid.

It’s offensive.

And it’s a lie.

It’s shameful that the AMPTP and their studio bosses are trying to deny the workers who make their product a bonus for success that is time-tested and has 83 years of precedent.

And that they’re lying about it?

That’s just… uncivilized. #WGAStrong #SAGAFTRAStrong

/End ID]

The absolute fuckery of this statement that came from the AMPTP is that the studios thought this would gain them sympathy. They were wrong. They genuinely thought this was a good statement from them because they DO think they take all the risk because they can't see people who don't have their wealth as real people. They can't.

Wealth is a disease.

No one should make the kind of money these people make. It makes them so out of touch they think of themselves as gods among ants. They step on those ants? They don't notice. They don't care. They just keep moving forward to gain as much money as possible, even though they have no way to spend it.

Fuck the studios, a new system needs to be built around them so that they'll die.