#and it is easy to miss the social issues of a culture you are not a part of. smthng about the grass being greener on the other side or w/e

[entropyvoid]

There is a particular subgenre of post I keep seeing on this webbed site wherein people denigrate individualistic cultures but talk about collectivistic ones like they’re the absolute best thing to happen the world and have no flaws of any kind and I really have to wonder how many people making or reblogging those have actually had the opportunity to live in both

[hausofwoo]

when in berlin | jung wooyoung

pairing: jung wooyoung x afab reader

word count: 5.1K

summary: you move to the big city, yearning for a big change in your life, only find yourself feeling stuck all over again. that is, until you meet wooyoung, a perfect stranger who leads you on an unforgettable night of adventure and self discovery.

warnings: 18+, minors do not interact, non-idol au, strangers to lovers, alcohol consumption (but nothing crazy), unprotected piv (wrap it up!), use of a petname (baby), feat. work bestie!giselle.

author's note: i wanted to make a cute lil fluffy fic (with smut ofc) for my ult and this is what happened :-O i wanted to go a lil harder for him but i decided to save that for my next fic of him hehehe ALSO for reference, i imagined the club remix of umbrella to sound similar to this song, hope it captures the vibe. thank u to @hausofmingi and T for proofreading as always ♡

being new to the city was taking a toll on you.

you left your small town on a whim, eager to go out in the world: to experience something new, to get a bit of culture, to really find yourself. but all that you’ve found so far was a shitty low-paying job and a (suspiciously) low rent apartment on the east side. no one could blame you, you had just arrived and were still finding your footing.

you needed to get out; all you’ve really done in the past month of living here was work, eat and sleep. you desperately needed to socialize. so when your coworker invites you to go to a nightclub with her, you remind yourself that you’re here to try new things, and agree to go.

the line for the club is long. you expected this, it is a saturday night after all. you just weren’t really prepared to stand in line for half an hour. you’re dressed for the occasion, for in the club at least. it’s just outside the club that’s the issue, with cold air biting at your thighs in your all-too-tight dress. you check the time on your phone.

“giselle, it’s already 11:30,” you groan. “should we just go somewhere else?”

“but we’re so close to the front!” she quips. “just a little longer?”

giselle had been telling you all about this place, berlin. it was a club hidden in a basement in the heart of the city. apparently it plays all the hits, the actual good ones. and then at midnight, they always play some club remix of “umbrella” and bubbles descend from the ceiling. it sounded fun when she told you about it, but in this chilly air that’s only getting colder, you start to wonder if it’s worth it.

“fine,” you say, rubbing your arms to try to produce some sort of heat. “but if we miss umbrella then you owe me.”

giselle examines the long line ahead of you. “maybe we can get in with someone near the front?”

“giselle, no-” but before you can finish, she’s walking towards the front of the line.

you stay in your spot, feeling frozen in place. you watch her approach a group of men that seem to be around your age. you can see her nodding and smiling. since you met her, she’s definitely had a way with words. then, she looks back at you and points. suddenly feeling eyes on you, your face flushes in embarrassment, bringing heat back to your cheeks. you can’t really see the men, it’s dark and they’re a bit too far to see the details of their faces. giselle motions you over, and you’re hesitant, but you force yourself to be brave and cut the line.

as you make your way over, you can see the men getting their IDs checked and stamps pressed to their hands. you catch up to giselle, who’s fishing through her purse for her wallet.

“that was easy,” she giggles. “meet our new friends.”

you both turn to see the men being ushered in, not even getting a moment to introduce each other.

“oh. maybe we’ll catch up with them later,” giselle mumbles, swiping her ID from her wallet.

you shrug to her with a chuckle, ready to hold your hand out for a stamp.

following giselle down the stairs, the dark caverns of the stairwell were dimly lit with red lights. you can hear the music bumping distantly, and you wonder how much longer this set of stairs is. as soon as you reach the bottom, you realize it’s just a floor for the bathrooms and you have a whole new set waiting for you. the music grows louder and louder, and you start to feel the bass in your chest, or maybe your pulse is just beginning to rise in excitement for what’s to come.

a man that seems to be a bouncer guards the door leading to the actual club. as you both approach, he nods and pulls it open, unleashing the blasting sound and the heat of dancing bodies. you and giselle look at each other, smile, and rush right in.

you try and navigate your way through, opting to get drinks before anything else. you finally squeeze through the sweaty bodies to reach the bar, and giselle requests two tequila shots.

“tequila?” you repeat to her, struggling to yell over the music. “so it’s that kind of night?”

“oh yeah,” giselle says, grabbing the shots from the bar and paying her tab. “it’s that kind of night.”

you look at each other, doing a quick cheers and laughing almost out of giddiness. here’s to new experiences, you think to yourself.

slamming her empty glass down, giselle grabs your arm and starts leading you to the crowded dance floor. “now let’s fucking dance!”

swiveling through the crowd, you eventually land in the perfect spot right in the middle of the dance floor. the speakers are thumping some charli xcx song you know every word to, and the lights are flashing around you as well as the glistening bodies surrounding you. the crowd is jumping, singing to the song, dancing like no one is watching. you realize that you’ve been so tense all night, so you finally allow yourself to let loose.

you sing along with giselle, screaming the lyrics to each other and dancing to an unknown rhythm. but you don’t care how stupid you may look, you’re having way too much fun to think about the strangers around you. the alcohol slowly seeps through your veins, your head feeling lighter and your body more relaxed. with each song, you somehow don’t grow tired, only more exhilarated.

“i’m so glad we did this!” you attempt to yell to giselle.

“huh?!” she replies, not hearing you.

you brush it off with a laugh, continuing to jump along with her. the music switches to a song with a heavy bass, and you begin to feel the beats in the pit of your stomach. you melt into the music, letting every beat dictate your movements. the energy in the room changes, as if the pulsing sound awakened something in the crowd. you glance around, as if you’re trying to locate the source of the energy, before realizing you felt a pair of eyes on you.

there, across the flashing lights and moving bodies, you lock eyes with a stranger. despite the chaos around you, the stranger is standing still, maintaining eye contact with you. you feel a magnetic pull towards him, curiosity overcoming you. but before you can do anything about it, giselle pulls you deeper into the crowd. you can’t help but look back, searching for the eyes of that mysterious stranger.

“i think i’m gonna grab another drink,” you lean into giselle to say. “do you want anything?”

“i’m good for now!” she replies, continuing to dance.

you nod and try to part through the crowd, getting bumped and pushed a little too much for your liking. you escape the crowd only to another bustling one waiting around the bar. you sigh and run your fingers through your hair. this is gonna take a minute.

“you want a drink?” a man next to you says.

you prepare yourself to reject the man, having no interest in flirting with some random guy at a club. but when you look over, you notice it’s the man who was gazing at you across the dance floor. up close, he’s even more captivating. his dark hair is perfectly tousled and long strands of his tresses hang a bit over his face. his eyes contain a glint of curiosity, enhancing his mysterious demeanor. you catch yourself staring, and resort to nodding to him.

“what do you want?” he leans into your shoulder to murmur in your ear.

“uh, i think i just want a water,” you say, feeling yourself getting dizzy. you only had one shot and it’s wearing off quickly, and you realize the source is from a sudden wave of nerves.

you watch as he’s able to make his way to the edge of the bar top, not even needing to push and prod around the shifting bodies. in no time, he’s turning around with 2 waters, handing one to you. you take a big sip through the straw, trying so hard to maintain eye contact as he does the same. but his sharp brown eyes start to make you feel like jelly. how does he have this effect on you?

“i’m wooyoung,” he smiles, playing with his straw.

“hi wooyoung,” you say with a smile, telling him your name as well.

before you can continue, the song switches to the one you’ve been anticipating all night. umbrella. the crowd erupts in energy as the line around the bar immediately retreats to the dance floor. everyone knew what was about to happen. you look back at wooyoung with a smile on your face.

“let’s dance?” he says, grabbing your hand and steering you straight onto the dance floor.

you let out a giggle, seeing him holding your hand and looking back at you as pulls you in deeper. he pulls you into a spot big enough for the both of you, albeit very close. your faces are only inches apart, and you both gaze into each other’s eyes with growing interest. he then unleashes a sly grin, pointing to the ceiling above you. you look up to see a black metal box hanging from the ceiling.

“what is it?” you ask.

“wait for the chorus,” he lets out, slowly wrapping his arm around your waist.

you melt into his touch as the music pulses through your ears. you wrap your arms around his shoulders and let yourself sway to the rhythm. the lights are flashing blues and greens above you, glimmers reaching onto wooyoung’s face. you’re completely taken over by his trance, your eye contact persisting. his eyes break away to look up, watching the bubbles descend from the ceiling. you’re in awe from the whimsy around you, watching the bubbles fall onto the crowd.

it’s so silly in hindsight, the little light show and bubble machine. but with the way you feel the bass lines run through your whole body and the bubbles falling softly into your hair, you start to feel euphoric. wooyoung’s body melds into yours, grinding against you as he holds the small of your back. the bridge lifts the music to the height of the song, causing the bubbles to unleash tenfold.

“it’s so pretty!” you yell to him, attempting to catch them. you look to him smiling at you in admiration.

“oh my god,” you yelp, coming to a sudden realization. “giselle!”

you look around the crowd, searching for your friend. your eyes finally lock with hers, all while she’s dancing against a tall man.

“you okay?” you mouth to her.

she just nods eagerly, pointing behind to the man grinding against her. “I’M GOOD,” she mouths back with an OK hand signal.

you sigh in relief and turn back to wooyoung. a new song begins playing, but your focus is on him.

“wanna get out of here?” he says in your ear, before pulling back to see your expression.

you nod and allow him to pull you out of the crowd, weaving through the mass of people. he continues holding your hand all the way up the red stairwell, opening the door for you at the top of the stairs. as soon as you exit the building, you let out a big sigh.

“that was so fun,” you let out, smiling ear to ear. “now what?”

“i’m starving,” wooyoung says. “food?”

after getting something to eat at a food truck open a couple streets over, you and wooyoung arrive at a nearby park you found to sit in the grass. in the middle is a huge pond, with the moon reflecting along the soft ripples. you have a perfect view of the city, buildings looking massive and lights shining bright in the evening sky.

“it’s so beautiful,” you say under your breath, gazing at the sight before you.

wooyoung looks over at you. “yeah, it is.”

“you know, i just realized,” you start. “i’ve been in this city for a whole month and i haven’t even explored any of it yet.”

“why’s that?” wooyoung asks.

“i want to make the excuse of working too much, but it feels like a cop out,” you admit. “i’m just… completely new to this kind of lifestyle. this place has definitely been a culture shock.”

“so why’d you move here?” wooyoung shifts to face you more.

“i got tired of the monotony,” you say. “i wasn’t going anywhere back home. i felt so… stuck.” you run your fingers through your hair, and let out a dry laugh. “i thought maybe if i throw myself in an environment i know absolutely nothing about, i’d learn something about myself. that i’d figure out what the fuck i want to do with my life. but living here so far has only made me realize how scared i am.”

“what are you scared of?” he asks.

“that i’m way in over my head,” you sigh, half-joking. “do you ever feel that way?”

“all the time,” he says. “but i try to ignore it. we have to take risks, embrace the unknown. that’s the only way we can actually find ourselves.” you nod, and he puts his hand in yours. “it might feel scary right now, but you’ve just made the first step.”

“you’re right,” you saying, turning to look at him. “it’s funny, this is probably the biggest risk i’ve taken so far here.”

“ditching the club to go to a park?” wooyoung asks. “"we definitely need to get you on some more adventures." he stands up, extending his hand out to you.

“what, right now?” you ask, grabbing his hand to lift yourself up.

“the night is still young,” he smirks at you. “i know the perfect place to start.”

the park you were at was big, but you didn’t realize how big. wooyoung guides you through the expanse of it, finally reaching to one end with a large unlit building. you can’t make out what it is at first, until reaching close enough to realize what it is.

“a carousel?” you ask. wooyoung is ahead of you, leading the way. “but it’s closed!”

“does that matter?” he says mischievously, running to the side of the structure.

you linger behind, nervously scanning the area to ensure no one is around. if you get caught, you could be in a huge trouble. you’re not sure what kind of trouble, but you didn’t really want to find out. but before you can continue spiraling, the lights of the ride blink on and starts slowly spinning.

“how the hell…” you say to yourself.

you slowly approach the ride, feeling the anxiety slowly dissipate from your mind as you watch the lights illuminate before you and faint carnival music plays. as the carousel turns, you see wooyoung already on board, seated on an ornately decorated white horse.

“are you getting on or not?” he waves his hand, beckoning you over.

you clench your fists, taking a deep breath. before you even realize it, you find yourself hopping onto the ride, claiming the horse next to his.

as the carousel begins to pick up speed, you felt a surging sense of exhilaration running through your body. you watch the blurred city lights spinning around you in streaks of color, wind brushing through your hair. it’s dizzying, but somehow felt good. wooyoung’s laughter is contagious, and you catch yourself laughing too, the sound weaving into the faint carnival music. you look back at him, still smiling along with you.

“this is amazing!” you shout over the music, holding the pole tighter as the horse moves up and down.

“i knew you’d like it!” he says, voice filled with warmth.

wooyoung leans closer, your eyes locking onto each other. your breath hitches, the music and lights fading into the background. a gentle smile plays on his lips as he reaches his hand out to hold your cheek, starting to close the distance between you. just as your lips were about to touch, the machine starts to shut down, and a flash of light hits your face. you bring your hand up to shield your eyes.

“hey!” a man’s voice yells out. “you can’t be on there!”

shit. you’ve been caught. you look over to wooyoung, who promptly grabs your hand and starts running. the last bit of momentum of the ride boosts you off and you trip over yourself.

“hey! get back here!” you see that it’s park security yelling, and they’re starting to run towards you.

wooyoung lifts you up from the ground, and as soon as you regain your composure, you start bolting. you both run hand in hand, laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. wooyoung looks back, the security guard still on your tail. you reach the edge of the park, not sure which way to turn. wooyoung steps in the street, waving his hand out for a car. you look back to see the guard nearly caught up to you.

“wooyoung, we gotta go!” you yell.

he lets out a loud whistle, prompting an almost-passing taxi to halt a few feet in front of you. you both hop in, wooyoung telling the taxi to just start driving. the driver follows, continuing down the street.

you’re both out of breath, heaving from the sudden running. you look at each other and laugh.

“well…” you say. “what next?”

“oooh, i like it,” wooyoung teases. “you almost get caught and you’re already ready for more?”

“shut up,” you say, shoving his shoulder.

“mind telling me where to go?” the driver says.

“oh, sorry,” wooyoung chuckles, pulling out his phone. “can you take us here?” he shows an address to him. the man inputs the directions and reroutes.

“where are we going?” you ask.

“just a little party,” he says.

you arrive to the address, staring at the building as wooyoung pays the taxi. it’s a high-rise apartment building, and it looks nice—like, your entire salary worth for one month nice.

“um, wooyoung,” you say hesitantly. “who’s party is this?”

he wraps his arm around you. “it’s some famous DJ.”

“do you know this famous DJ?” you ask, almost not wanting to know the answer.

“nope,” he replies, walking you both through the tall glass doors.

“then how the fuck do we plan on getting in?” you whisper-yell to him. “this is an apartment building!”

wooyoung takes his arm off of you and points to the front desk. “well for starters, there’s no doorman.”

“that’s only half the problem!” you say as you step into the elevator.

he puts his hand under your chin teasingly, forcing you to make direct eye contact. “just trust me.”

the elevator doors open to a huge hallway, white walls covered with lavish paintings and the floors a shiny marble. near the end of the hallway, you can see a couple people loitering around the entrance of an apartment. there’s a man guarding the door, most likely security. wooyoung starts walking confidently towards the door, you following behind wondering how the hell he’s gonna pull this off. he approaches the guard and nearly grabs the doorknob.

“name?” the man says flatly, holding his arm out.

“oh yeah, i’m—” wooyoung starts, then stop when the door swings open to let a few people out. he takes a glimpse inside, then suddenly seeming like he sees someone he recognizes. “oh, hey chris!”

a man inside waves back, although looking a bit confused. the security guard sees the exchange, momentarily taken off guard.

“mind if i go join my friend?” wooyoung says, trying to continue his ruse. “he’s been waiting for us all night.”

the guard remains skeptical, causing wooyoung to lean in closer to him. “look, he invited us personally. if we don’t get in, it’s on him. you know how these things go.”

not wanting to cause a scene, the guard hesitantly nods and lets you both through. as you walk into the lavish space, you can’t even wonder how the hell that worked. all that matters is that it did, and now you’re here, in this huge place swarming with undoubtedly rich party-goers and music blaring in your ears. you follow wooyoung as he makes his way to the kitchen island, grabbing drinks for both of you.

“what should we cheers to?” wooyoung grins, handing it to you.

“maybe our new friend chris?” you say, giggling.

“to chris!” he says, clinking his glass to yours. you both take a sip.

“you’re crazy,” you say to him. “i can’t believe that actually worked.”

“confidence is key,” he winks, taking another sip. “should we explore?”

you nod, turning to trail him as you head towards a hallway of doors. unsure which one to pick, you look at wooyoung.

“one of these doors has GOT to lead to something cool,” he says, already walking up to one of them. he opens the door and promptly closes it with a surprised look on his face.

“what was it?” you ask, curious as ever.

“let’s just say some guy is getting very lucky tonight,” he says, holding back a laugh. “maybe i should’ve knocked.”

you put your hand over your mouth in an attempt to hold back a laugh, but seeing wooyoung’s shocked face sends you over the edge. you let out a muffled cackle, causing wooyoung to crack up too.

“shhhh!” he says, still laughing with you. he walks up to the next door. “let’s try this one.”

he opens the door to a dark room. you can’t really tell what it is, until walking in and letting your eyes adjust.

“they have a fucking movie theater?” you say, looking at the plush red couches around you and huge screen before you. “how famous is this DJ?”

“i don’t know, but i’m gonna need chris to introduce us,” wooyoung says, plopping down into a seat. he pats the spot next to him, prompting you to join.

“how did you find out about this party anyway?” you ask, getting comfortable on the couch.

“a friend of a friend saw a story and blah blah blah… does it matter?” wooyoung says, chuckling.

“you must go on a lot of adventures,” you say.

“i guess so,” he says, shrugging. “you know, i was kinda like you when i first moved here. it felt like i was just living like a zombie… wake up, go to work, come home exhausted, fall asleep, and the cycle starts all over again. i didn’t even realize i was avoiding what i was meant to do when i moved here.”

“and what’s that?” you ask.

“same as you,” he says, leaning his shoulder against yours. “same as everyone who moves here, to find myself.”

“and?” you ask.

“and did i find myself?” he says. “no clue. but at least i’m having fun.” he breaks into a smile, eyes meeting yours. you can’t help but to smile back.

“i guess having fun is a good start,” you reply. “maybe that’s exactly what i need.”

“i can help with that,” wooyoung whispers with a smile, leaning in towards you. your eyes flick from his eyes down to his lips, feeling the magnetism between you pulling you closer.

the theater door swings open behind you with two men charging in.

“yeah man, i don’t fucking know this guy!” your used-to-be friend chris says to the security guard approaching you.

“alright, you two,” the guard huffs. “party’s over.”

wooyoung and you immediately jump up, running to the opposite side of the theater to loop around and push past “chris” to escape out the theater door. you run together, attempting to open each door in the hallway to find some sort of place to hide. when one of them leads to a bathroom, you both rush in and slam the door behind you to lock it. wooyoung presses you against the door, his hand resting just above your head.

your breath trembles as you look up at wooyoung. he places his hand on your cheek, examining your face before closing the distance between you in a hungry kiss. he presses you close against his body, moving his other hand to hold your waist. the kiss was all-consuming, finally allowing all the built up tension to finally release between your bodies. your lips meld into his as you card your fingers through his long hair, not wanting to let go.

a knock shakes the door against your back as a man yells for you two to get out. but the threatening voice is just another sound in the background, your mind is only on wooyoung. you separate for moment, foreheads leaning against each other.

“let’s go somewhere more private,” wooyoung whispers. you smile and allow him to lead the way.

as you arrive at wooyoung’s place, you cling to him, allowing his lips to meet yours in a passionate embrace. you stumble over each other as he moves you backwards toward the bedroom, giggles escaping both of you. your clothes fall to the ground in the process, nearly ripping them off each other. you fall back onto the bed and wooyoung hovers over you, continuing to kiss you ravenously. his hands roam up and down your body, almost as if he wants to feel every inch of you—as if he wants to worship you. he slots between your legs, grinding against your core as he begins kissing your neck.

your body is aching for him, it’s been aching for him all night. the moment you saw him, the energy between you felt electric. and even now, with his body pressed against yours, the undeniable chemistry flows among you. your moans are inescapable, with the desire building in your stomach. wooyoung lifts himself slightly to move a wandering hand down to your heat, pushing your underwear to the side to feel your dripping core.

“so wet,” his muffled voice against your skin, before moving to meet your lips again.

he gathers your wetness upwards, beginning to rub circles around your clit. you moan into his mouth, relishing in the agonizing stimulation. he dips his fingers back down to your hole, entering his two middle fingers slowly. as he inches in, you clench around him, eager to take them. he thrusts his fingers in and out, progressively reaching deeper inside you. when he starts curling his digits to reach your g spot, you break away from his kiss to let out a wanton moan.

“wooyoung, i need to feel you,” you murmur, urging him to take off his underwear with you following suit.

he guides his cock to your entrance, dragging upwards to stimulate your clit. he drags back down and pushes his cockhead against your fluttering hole. your legs tangle around his waist, squeezing as if to tell him please, please fuck me. he pushes into you, causing you to release a sharp gasp at the size. he holds the side of your face, caressing gently as he gradually begins thrusting.

the sounds of your strangled breaths fill the room as he continues his movements into you. waves of pleasure ripple throughout your body, making you dig your nails into his shoulder blades. his body moves in perfect harmony with yours, emitting a raw, unspoken passion. your legs wrap around him even tighter, your heated bodies melding into each other even deeper. the connection between you feels magnetic, and it only grows stronger with each thrust. his gaze meets yours, eyes filled with lust.

“you feel so fucking good,” he says between breaths, and places tender kisses along your jawline.

“please, don’t stop,” you manage to reply, pleasure taking over.

he lifts his body up to piston into you, hips snapping against you. his moans are unrelenting, the grip on your thighs tightening as the heat in your stomach begins to grow. he feels the way your core contracts around him, causing him to release one hand from your thigh to now focus on toying with your clit. this increases the clenching, nearly taking his breath away in pleasure. his thumb’s pace quickens, bringing the tension in your core to an unbearable peak.

“wooyoung, i’m gonna cum,” you moan, feeling the cord in you ready to snap.

“cum with me, baby,” he replies, his pace persisting. you can feel his grip start to tighten as he angles himself just right in you, causing you to completely come undone.

the room around you fades away as pure ecstasy overcomes you, not even holding back the straight up pornographic moans each of you are letting out. the tightening of your core around him makes his hips stutter, filling you completely with his release. the rolls of his hips begin to slow, fucking the last bit of his cum into you. he lets out a satisfied groan, falling on top of you while still inside.

your chest rises and falls in staggered breaths, finally coming down from your high. your run your fingers through wooyoung’s hair as he nestles in your neck. he hums against you softly, sending vibrations against your skin.

you wonder if this will be a one time thing—if he was just the perfect stranger you needed to meet in order to discover yourself. that he was just a stepping stone to urge you forward on your path, soon to be left behind but never forgotten. your heart sinks at the thought of it. you didn’t want that to be the case, because what you felt with him felt too real. that there’s this undeniable intense pull that made you crave more, and you ache at the thought of letting this go.

wooyoung gently holds the side of your neck, soft breathing tickling at you as his thumb slowly caresses you.

“sooo,” he starts. “what are you doing tomorrow?”

a smile spreads across your face as you realize that this perfect stranger won’t remain a stranger for long.

a/n: yeah so this was very self-indulgent but i have no regrets. i'm defo gonna make tonssss more woo fics, especially sub!woo, so stay tuned for that. 3rd fic ever so plz leave feedback and reblog to support me! thank uuuuuu ✧*

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[dust-jacket-analysis]

There's a lot of discourse going on over on TikTok right now regarding Booktok. And as an avid reader, Booktok watcher, and someone who has a deep love for analyzing the media I enjoy, I'd feel remis if I didn't get my thoughts out there.

I know these particular posts never got much engagement when I posted on my old account, but if I could please just have a bit of your time. This is all apart of a larger subject of which I'm extremely passionate on.

Four days ago Booktoker @bookishwithb aka, Celine, posted a video. In that video she talked about the rise of anti-intellectualism, specifically on booktok. She addresses the way books are "marketed" or presented on booktok, and also how that has an impact on the publishing industry.

Her main talking point was how a lot of books are being recommended based on what tropes are in them. More specifically, reduced based on those tropes. Her example being the Poppy War, by R.F Kuang.

She talked about how she's seen it marketed as a book with "a strong female main character." And how infuriating that was to her. She went on to explain how there was so much more to the book and how it was about war, and trauma, and how dark and deep and impactful it is. I highly recommend this video to anyone interested. Because while controversial it says a lot about the "tropeification" of media (which will probably be a post by me sometime in the future).

And as is the ways of the internet, this sparked something huge.

So many different creators responded to her video. Some agreeing, most disagreeing. There's been outrage, and healthy debate. But mainly (and most importantly) conversation. Everyone throwing their two cents in, people defending the right to read what you want how you want.

And since the original video went up, this conversation has taken on a life of it's own. It's now become about reading for fun Vs. reading for analysis.

Many argue that it doesn't matter why people read, or how. Just that they are. Others argue it's a sign of a bigger issue that readers no longer engage in the story's their reading.

I have my own opinions. I agree with both sides on certain things, and am overall enjoying the discussions. But, as always, I have things to say.

There are some books that, while entertaining and a fun read, have no substance per say. No analytical value. I think a lot of those three-hundred page medium spice romance books you find on a table at Barnes and Noble fall under this category.

Now, I really love reading those books. Their quick easy reads that keep me entertained. But, they really cannot be analyzed past surface level. Very much not a time to try and think critically.

Those are the books I read for escapism. When I just want to decompress and turn off my brain. Or make a long car ride pass by quickly. And that's okay. Yes? Because it's still reading. I am still gaining something from it. Physiological benefits, it's encouraging and strengthening my empathy. I am still (in some cases) increasing my Lexile, and keeping my brain working. Which is amazing.

Other times I read things with very high analytical value. Such as High Fantasy Novels with social commentary reflecting our world. Or Dystopia packed full with metaphor, allegory, and symbolism. Or even my most recent read for college: Brown Girl In The Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson. An amazing book commenting on the suburban sprawl, and urban decay. Sprinkled with magical realism regarding Afro-Caribbean culture, and even mentions of Romani practices such as Tarot.

These are books I read knowing I need to turn on the part of my brain that's very analytical. That enjoys breaking things down in that way. Storylines I have to engage with on an additional level, otherwise I miss the entire point of this story. It's not only important, but necessary.

So, yes. Reading is reading, now matter what. And any reading is better than no reading. And we should foster that mindset, especially amongst younger generations. But, that doesn't mean you should never engage critically with a book or show or movie you're consuming. Because some media requires that for a base level understanding. And saying that doesn't make me elitist. Or pretentious or judgmental or a snob. Because it's really just true.

I've seen a lot of creators bring up the literacy crisis in youth, specifically in my country (America). How many kids can't read at a level they should be in elementary schools. Even in Highschool. And that we really should all just be content there's an entire community at least reading at all. That we should encourage any and all reading.

And to that I say... yes, but no.

Because here's the thing. There is in the most literal sense, a literacy crisis. The kid's can't read. And it is absolutely devastating. As someone who grew up devouring books every week, reading three grades above my own, it's soul crushing. So I do think reading should be more pushed and encouraged. In school, in the home, everywhere. As much as possible and appropriate for children. Any and all.

But, there's also another literacy crisis. A Media literacy crisis.

Media literacy, the ability to critically analyze and engage with media, is at an all time low. According to a survey done by Media Literacy Now and, the Reboot Foundation, 42% of respondents were taught how to analyze media. Let that sink in. 42%. That's less than half the people who participated in the survey.

(More statistics generated by AI with the following prompt: Give me reliable statistics regarding media literacy in terms of books/reading:

A Survey done by the National Endowment for the Humanities states 65% of adults have low literary skills when it comes to reading comprehension, critical thinking, and expression.

Pew research conducted a survey with resulted in 57% America adults having read at least one book in the last year. With 26% American adults not having read any form of book in the past year. Including audio books.

The American Library Association has said that the average American only reads four books per year. And more developed countries only have average citizens at ten books a year.

An Survey done by Reading Partners has said that 1 and 4 children read at a below basic level by the end of 4th grade.)

And we see this sentiment echoes all over the internet. Constantly videos are made with people talking about how they were never taught Media literacy, and their should be a class all about just that (Which... I have thoughts on. Again, another post).

Even though you can (rightly) argue that this skill was taught. In English class. That's not the point. The point is that people cannot only not read, but most young adults and fully grown adults cannot read critically. Cannot, will not, and aren't.

And in some cases it's because they don't and still don't have the resources. But these statistics aren't just minorities, people in poverty. These surveys and statistics cover people from every walk of life. Poor, Rich, White, Black, Asian, Hispanic. Queer, Straight, Trans, Cis. All ethnicities, wealth brackets, identities. Every demographic. It's indictive of a larger issue.

So we should encourage reading for fun. Reading to read. Reading for escapism. Reading of every kind. But, to claim that there isn't an issue? To trample creators addressing these issues with insults? To claim it's them being pretentious, snobby, elitest, Privileged etc.? That's feeding the issue.

Recently my friend recommended me a video essay, which I unfortunately can't find (Will edit the title when I can).

But in that video, my friend told me that the creator says something... so insightful. She defines stupid as this: Not a lack of knowledge, but the unwillingness to accept new knowledge.

Which is just... such a perfect way to look at it.

You aren't "stupid" for not knowing how to think critically. For not having learned to analyze media, and for not having the resources to do so. But if you have the resources, have the ability to learn how, and you don't/refuse? That makes you stupid.

And by burying your head in the sand and claiming that there is no issue, by hiding behind pseudo offense and that claims of judgement, you're being stupid.

Don't be outraged that the creator of the video that started this all. Don't feel "called out" or judged. Don't put words in her mouth. She wasn't saying people cannot read for enjoyment. She was simply pointing out a larger issue.

--------------------------------------------

To end this very long and tedious post, I'd like to provide a couple of videos in order to help improve Media Literacy! Just some videos I've watched that I found helpful (Also if you just go on youtube and search up "how to analyze..." you'll find so much more)

Crash Course Media Literacy: A playlist series that breaks down media literacy and the history of media as a whole.

How to analyze a Book- 101: This video gives techniques on how to better understand what you're reading, and how to find the main themes and organize them. It gives tips and processes.

How to Read (and Understand) Hard Books: This video breaks down the three types of reading and even gives book recommendations that touch on that.

A beginner's guide to Critical Literary Analysis: This video is made by fellow tumblr user @bluemooniegif (One of us ✊One of us✊). A very good video for beginners. They literally opens the video telling the viewer you don't need any prior knowledge. They also has another video on her channel, which is just the next step up from this one! It's super great, and perfect if you're younger or have less of an understanding on any of this.

Diving into and developing media literacy skills takes effort. It's not a skill you can gain over night, and requires time. But, if you're willing to take that time, a whole new world opens up to you. And you begin to look at everything through a whole new light.

[girlactionfigure]

𝐃𝐈𝐘 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐞: 𝐀 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐉𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦. Welcome, aspiring conspiracy theorists and antisemite! Tired of relying on others to tell you who’s behind your troubles? You’re in luck! We’ve crafted this easy-to-follow guide just for you. Whether you’re the type who blames Israel for attempting to assassinate Trump or the one insisting Trump is owned by Israel, we’ll show you how to spot Jewish influence in every conceivable problem—all by yourself. Let’s dive in!

Step 1: Identify the Problem First, take a good look at the issue at hand. Is it personal, economic, political, or environmental? No matter the nature, every problem has one thing in common: it can be blamed on Jews. Here’s how to identify your scapegoat.

Step 2: Establish a Baseless Connection Next, draw an imaginary line from your problem to the Jewish community. This doesn’t require evidence or logic—just a vivid imagination. Here are some examples: •Economic Troubles: If you’re broke, it’s because Jewish bankers control all the money. If you’re rich, they’re manipulating you into complacency. •Political Chaos: Lost faith in your government? Clearly, Jewish politicians are pulling the strings. Is the government too stable? They’re just setting you up for a bigger fall. •Natural Disasters: Hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods? Jewish weather machines are to blame. Lack of disasters? They’re saving them for a better moment.

Step 3: Ignore Contradictions A key skill in blaming Jews for everything is the ability to ignore contradictions. For example: •If Jews are controlling the media, how come negative stories about Jews exist? Simple! It’s a distraction technique. •Are Jews accused of both communism and capitalism? Perfect! This shows their unmatched versatility in conspiracy.

Step 4: Use Circular Logic. When someone questions your logic, just use circular reasoning. Here’s a handy script: •Questioner: “How do you know Jews are behind this?” •You: “Because they control everything.” •Questioner: “What’s your evidence?” •You: “The fact that there’s no evidence is evidence of their control.” See? Easy!

Step 5: Handle Contradictions with Confidence If you ever notice that your theories are contradicting themselves, don’t worry! Just follow these steps: •Double Down: Insist that the contradiction itself is part of the Jewish plot. Claim they are creating confusion on purpose. •Shift the Blame: Accuse your questioner of being part of the conspiracy for pointing out the contradiction. •Create New Theories: Invent additional layers to your conspiracy that explain away the contradictions. The more complex, the better!

Step 6: Personalize Your Blame Take every minor inconvenience in your life and find a way to blame Jews: •Missed your bus? The driver is probably part of a Jewish plot. •Burned your toast? Jewish control of appliance manufacturers. •Argument with a friend? Jewish influence in societal norms is the root cause.

Step 7: Create Complex Theories The more convoluted, the better! People love a good, intricate conspiracy. Mix historical events with wild assumptions: •Combine the Spanish Inquisition with modern banking practices. •Link ancient religious texts to current technological advancements. •Blend cultural achievements with sinister plots.

Step 8: Spread the Word Now that you’re a self-made expert in finding Jewish blame, share your “discoveries” with others. Social media is your playground. Make sure your posts are as inflammatory and vague as possible. Bonus points for using historical photos out of context.

Final Thoughts: Perfecting Your Craft Remember, the key to this approach is dedication to your narrative. Facts, logic, and evidence are the enemies of your worldview. With practice, you’ll become adept at seeing Jewish influence in everything, making you the ultimate DIY conspiracy theorist. Happy blaming!

@APbrooklyn_NY

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

hi! could you possibly share the intercept new report about gay men and their misogyny? i know this isn't really about br politics, and im not even sure if it is in English, but i think it is really important to be shared

I hope it's not too late 😅

-

Gay men and misogyny: no more ignoring this problem

'Don't talk about vaginas around me': for a long time, we ignored the disqualifications of women and the feminine made by gay men. No more.

"If I liked women, I would have become a gynecologist."

"The law of gravity is a crime against women."

“Funny” gay guys, usually white and showing a certain hatred towards females, are a very common social type in contemporary pop culture. The character Felix “Bicha Má” ["Evil Fag"], played by Mateus Solano, from the Brazilian soap opera “Amor à Vida” [Love For Life], is an easy example in Brazilian lands – the sentences that open this text are his. But this sharp-tongued young man who directs much of his bitterness towards women, including friends and relatives, has never only lived on screens: he is a common presence in our daily lives.

"Oh, don't mention a vagina around me, I get all messed up."

"My goodness, this singer was beautiful, but she got old and ugly."

"Get out of here, I don't even like cracks."

I can't say how many times I've heard phrases like that from fellow gay men. For a long time, these ways of disqualifying women – despite the certain discomfort felt by every person who is repeatedly the target of prejudice – were endorsed and reflected by women ourselves. Offenses dressed as “I was just joking” have largely naturalized these forms of disqualification, but the good news is that, in an environment in which feminism has gained ground, what seemed to be just a joke is now named by the right word: misogyny.

This is a delicate subject, since we are talking about people – mostly cisgender gay men – who have been and still are victims of a series of violence, whether at home, at work, on the streets. Perhaps it was precisely this that made us, cisgender or transgender women, leave the discomfort of being made fun of in the background. After all, confronting homophobia in a sexist country like Brazil is no simple task. But if this machismo affects homosexual men, what can we say about its presence in women's daily lives? And what can we also say about the homophobia directed at cis/trans homosexual and bisexual women, especially invisible and also targets of “jokes” by gay men?

“I had a very close gay friend, like a brother. We went out to parties together and often slept in the same bed, at my house or his. Several times, as if he were joking, he said that he was terrified of vaginas, that he was born through a cesarean section so he wouldn't have to go through one. He'd gesture the sign of the Cross and said ‘God forbid’, smiling,” says Adriana Conceição, 47 years old, a telemarketing operator from Recife who, like several other women, took a while to classify the guy's actions with the right word.

Game developer Renata Gomes, also 47 years old, found herself at the center of a virtual outrage after questioning a post by a gay Brazilian film critic living in the United States. In the post, he talked about missing Brazil, since people worked a lot more in the USA. Faced with the possibility of his speech being reductive and stereotypical, he began to treat Renata as “ugly”, “militant”, “frustrated”. Furthermore, several of the critic's friends entered the comments to reiterate the delegitimization of Renata's speech.

Younger people also identify the problem: aware of the issue, Curitiba university student Nicoly Grevetti, aged 24, listened to several people who circulate in LGBTQIA+ spaces about the subject and wrote a text about it. In it, she also identifies how pop and queer cultures, supposedly safer and “modern”, also present misogynistic elements.

One example is the use of the term “fishy”, constantly evoked to define drag queens who closely resemble cisgender women (that is, who have a high degree of “passability”). The expression refers to the smell that these women's vaginas supposedly have. “[Cisgender] women grow up believing that their private parts are disgusting and spend their entire lives using products to reduce their natural odors, which can lead to various diseases. Having female genitalia as something disgusting is so common for this group, that you can find countless reports of women talking about it on the internet,” she wrote. The topic was the subject of discussion in the famous series RuPaul’s Drag Race, generating academic works like this one. Cisgender drag queen Victoria Scone, a former participant in the show, also spoke on the topic.

A few months ago, I experienced a significant episode of this machismo and misogyny that had been attenuated for a long time in relation to gay men. I was in a doctor's office very close to a shopping center in the south of Recife. After the end of the consultation, the dermatologist – homosexual, white, in his late thirties, and anti-Bolsonaro in the last elections – lightly tapped my hand and said: “Okay, now you can go for a walk in the mall.”

Especially on that day, I was rushing to finish presenting a lecture that I would give the following day, online, at the University of Coimbra. Obviously, if I wanted to window shop or spend the afternoon reading celebrity magazines, it wouldn't be a problem (in fact, I love it). The point here was the doctor's obvious intention to fit me into the cliché of the futile and consumerist woman, a sexist and anachronistic way of disqualifying the female gender. Icing on the cake: while I was leaving, the gay boy warned me not to forget to take “the boss” to my next appointment. He was referring to my romantic partner.

If it's feminine, it's smaller

The misogyny present in the practices of part of this population is so evident that it goes beyond the boundaries of gender and occurs between equals: it is common to see it operating even among gay men themselves. Research I carried out in partnership with Professor Ricardo Sabóia, from the Federal University of Pernambuco, analyzed the relationship between body and celebrity on the Grindr app. I was astonished by both the hatred towards what is socially seen as feminine and the extremely high level of normativity, standardization, and even elitism. “'I'm not into effeminate guys” is a constant, as is “I'm not into fat guys”.

In this environment of extremely high value for toned biceps and abs, being masculine – and looking very masculine – is the strongest currency. Thus, men seen as “little women” are disqualified. This is what researcher Carlos Alberto de Carvalho calls “misogynistic heteronormativity”, in which the masculine and masculinities are placed as positive – on the other hand, femininities and the feminine are valued negatively. It is, therefore, an environment of hegemonic masculinity and subaltern masculinities.

The global soap opera “Terra e Paixão” [Land & Passion] currently features an illustration that refers to this scenario, with the character Kelvin (actor Diego Martins), an “effeminate” gay man in love with Ramiro (Amaury Lorenzo), the masculine man, self-declared heterosexual, who desires the other person, but still doesn't know how to deal with the situation. What diminishes the power of the first is precisely its proximity to what is considered “womanly”. But, looking at Grindr, even the desirable “brucutu” [Brazilian slang for a brute and rude man] has his limits: issues such as level of education have weight in the app used mostly by gay and bisexual men, where it is common to read “no illiterates”.

The LGBTQIA+ culture, in which rich and middle-class white homosexual men repeatedly appear to discriminate against other peers from the same community, is a central sociological issue for discussing social inequalities not only in Brazil, but throughout the world. “Queer cultural production has helped to reproduce class distinctions based on the hegemony of representations of middle-class gays”, writes Lisa Henderson in the article “I’m not/I'm not into: circulating meanings in the presentation speeches of the Grindr app”, by Rafael Grohmann. In the same text, Juan Marsiaj summarizes: “Such a strategy can lead to the acceptance of a type of gay (white, middle class), seen as a model of citizen-consumer, and a greater marginalization of all other 'debauches' who do not fit this way. In more Brazilian terms: there is a risk of accepting rich gays and further marginalizing poor queers.”

Discrimination on the part of this part of the queer community was evidenced in a historic episode in the 1970s, in super liberal New York. In June 1973, the Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally took place in the city, a demonstration held in favor of the rights of the queer population – which, at that time, as we will see, in fact was basically limited to white, middle-class gay women and men.

But, among the public, was the activist Sylvia Rivera, a transvestite who in 1971 had created the Revolutionary Action of Street Transvestites, STAR. Rivera had been trying to get on stage for some time, but Jean O’Leary, a lesbian white radical feminist, acted to prevent her from participating. A sample of how, many times, cisgender homosexual/bisexual women also enact the same discrimination as homosexual/bisexual men.

When he finally managed to grab the microphone, Rivera took aim at the hundreds of mostly white gay men and women present. Her speech is a synthesis of the violence experienced by queers who are too effeminate, too poor, too black, or too latine.

“I've tried to speak out here all day for your gay brothers and sisters in jail. They write to me every damn week asking for help – and you don't do a damn thing for them. I lost my job and my apartment for gay liberation… and you guys treat me this way?” she screamed.

The anger had yet another weight and meaning: alongside another important name, the transvestite Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera went down in history as one of the first to face police repression at the New York bar Stonewall Inn, on June 28, 1969. The conflict was the trigger for a fundamental civil movement for human rights – so much so that the date ended up becoming what was then called International LGBT+ Pride Day.

The question remained: how could that engaged audience repudiate the person who, at just 18 years old, spoke out against violence that was not directed just at her? How could they recriminate someone who pulled the trigger that would benefit precisely that white homosexual population?

Rivera and Johnson, who lived in a shelter, were profoundly different from the majority of the public who would return to their comfortable homes after the demonstration. Unlike Rivera, the daughter of a Venezuelan mother and a Puerto Rican father, most had not spent nights in jail or suffered police rape. The activist died homeless, alone, without the care she should have received. Marsha P. Johnson, the decorated, made-up, smiling, super queer transvestite, was murdered and her body thrown into a river.

Thinking historically and humanly about both is a central issue in the debate on hatred of “feminine” and other diverse discriminations present among the LGBTQIA+ population. The right-wing has long opened a war against women, and the rise of red pill assholes is just one of the phenomena of this reality. It still includes names like former federal deputy Daniel Silveira, who broke the plaque with Marielle's name alongside Rodrigo Amorim. [Note from the translator: Marielle Franco was a black bisexual favela-born leftist councilwoman who was assassinated by militias.]

But, as it turns out, misogyny is not exclusive to right-wing radicals and conservatives. And if Sylvia and Marsha were on the front line to guarantee the rights of millions of people, without distinction of creeds, race, genders, and degrees of “femininity”, it is worth asking: when will cisgender gay men, mostly white and middle class, join, with emphasis and strength, debates such as the right to abortion, employment, and wages, issues of life and death for the majority of black Brazilian women? When will the majority of this same group take a stand on the thousands of rapes that mainly victimize girls and teenagers? What collectivities, after all, are we talking about? As Jorge Ben would say in the song Zumbi: I want to see. We're here.

Source, translated by the blogger.

[appeypie]

Did you ever post that Komalink essay that was in your head

I saw you're one post and how you said Zora royalty crush on Link and I might be converted to that ship now 🤭

sorry this took me so much time to answer anon but I WILL GLADLY SHARE IT!!!!

my long awaited KOMALINK TRUTHER ESSAY!!

To start, I adore the parallels between these two... they're both coming of age in their respective cultures! and having a rough time of it, it seems..

They're both very close with their grandmas, though sadly Komali's has passed away... they both have sisters, too!! (or, for Komali, a sister figure. Medli acts very maternal and caring towards him throughout the game, even commenting on watching him grow up saying something to the effect of, "he's grown into a fine young rito, is this how a mother feels?")

Between the coming of age stories, the alive and deceased grandmas, the little and big sisters... they both mirror each other perfectly!!

Of course Komali is going through some major anxiety issues, understandably. link is able to help him through it, which is very sweet to see :)

Before and after finishing dragon roost cavern. I just love the insight this NPC gives us! after Link inspires the confidence in him, he gets so happy!!

At first it's easy to see it as him just simply looking up to link, and I'm sure it started that way, but it starts leaning into crush territory...!

.. EVERY conversation?!?!

Komali's name comes from "hikikomori" in Japanese, which refers to severe social reclusiveness. he seems to be a very sheltered boy who wouldn't have very many friends off island... so who could he be talking about hmm ??? who's the one guy we know he likes off island...? who he wont shut up about....????

There's also this dialogue from a random Rito NPC (sadly I don't have the game caps, but here's it from a text dump):

(If it's too hard to read, it says:

"We used to have such nice breezes blowing through here... Now the air is crazy. I'm positive the strange winds are a result of the wind god's anger. See, there's an important shrine below here that got broken...and now we're paying the price. What cursed luck...

We Rito cannot live without the wind. Before we take to the skies, we always go down and visit the wind god's shrine. That's the way it's always been.")

The Rito and the wind are intertwined... very fitting that the prince would fall for someone who could control it 🥺

And Yes !! LOZ has a pattern of having the Zora princesses fall in love with link...

Since the Zora evolved into the Rito in WW, they decided to mix it up and make it the prince!

We're at the point of this post where I'm out of Ship 'Evidence' and I'm now just throwing images from my files at you. I love this one at the end of the game where Komali is the first one to greet them coming back from what was left of Hyrule (also very exciting for baby me, who was a huge Komali fan)

Link just stares at him...

I also adore how this is the only ship I know where you get TWO!! Height differences. Hard to get a pic of them standing next to each other pre-Valoo scale, but you get the idea

Of course we don't fully know how Link feels about him, but I like to think he was a bit annoyed with him at first (as Komali was with him)... Like why couldn't this guy just suck it up and do what had to be done? It's what Link had to do for his family. But he realized Komali had gone through a huge loss, and his Dad was a little absent. He has this huge sense of duty placed over him, and not much support. Then once he got his confidence back, he was able to really shine! Link could see that!

I feel like I might be missing something, but that's the gist of why I love them so much! Foils that grow to deeply appreciate each other :) cute little themes like royalty falling for Link & the Rito's ties to the wind. they make me so happy. they don't get the attention they deserve tbh

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

also like. fucking hate when actual problems in the mcyt community is shrugged off as just dream things or just dsmp things. because oversexualisation of minors, abusers and sexual predators being protected, bigots being given a platform even at the expense of minorities around them having to smile and laugh at them being weird, exploitation of fans labour, roleplay storylines that perpetuate incredibly harmful ideas to children, horrific mismanagement… these have all been things that have been an issue with mcyt since fucking 2009. hell, it’s been an issue before minecraft- because this is an issue that goes unaddressed in so many communities especially online that fall victim to a horrible mix of nerd social fallacies, the missing stair problem, abusers being drawn to relatively easy to obtain seats of power, and plain old internalised victim blaming and bigotry. it happens to other YouTube and streaming communities. it happens to podcasts and webcomic creators. it happens in fucking fandom cliques on tumblr and twitter- I encountered literally all of the above when I was 15 and obsessed with discourse due to moral anxiety and ocd, even the mismanagement one (specifically, discord servers harbouring weirdos!) it’s good people are holding this group accountable, but why only this group? you need to recognise it’s not a dream thing, not a dsmp thing, not a mcyt thing- but a problem with society, and most prominently online culture.

[aotopmha]

My stay on Bluesky has been great.

The block button functions, there are block lists that can be applied automatically.

My tab for stuff I follow is properly curated.

I've seen literally no bots; substantial engagement exists. People are talking to people.

The search function works.

As a result of these tools and elements, I've barely seen any clear ragebaiting and shallow tribalism.

Also very little bad faith idiocy and nitpicking technicalities that miss the bigger point for just the sake for creating an argument.

Very little you like pancakes therefore hate waffles.

It's not going to change your mind if you fundamentally dislike the format or social media.

There are incomplete/missing elements:

Firstly, curating your feed is fairly limited. The site only fulfills the very basic function of showing you stuff from people you follow in a very specific limited way; it has nothing for specific hasgtags or topics beyond just some general options you pick when you create your account.

The Feeds feature is also imperfect because Feeds have a very specific limited reach, as well.

Still exploring it, though, so don't know the true full functionality.

Secondly, you can't private your account or any elements surrounding it. And it's not even just limited, but just straight-up doesn't exist.

So those who just want to quietly chill on private can't. The positive side to this is that assholes are immediately identifable. The negative is that if the block functionality ever breaks, people will be easy targets for harassment.

Privating is good for extra safety and also curating your own little corner.

But it's pretty much perfect for me because I'm not one for being active on Twitter. Tried posting for a time on another account I made, but the format ultimately didn't speak to me.

I use it for news, art and reading opinions on stuff I like and Bluesky is doing all of that pretty well without most of the issues of Twitter.

I think the (relative) lack of tribalism and existence of actual discussion is in particular great. It's kind of a great example of how internet culture has changed despite "staying the same" by showing you a slice of how it used to be.

There always has been shitty behaviour, recent changes just have made it increasingly worse.

Obviously the bad stuff clearly still exists, but again, the block features just reign above all.

Very much feeling a lot of old internet vibes from Bluesky, something I miss greatly.

[shadedjasmine]

A Black Eye

1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5

I spend the morning in the infirmary.

I’m told that I was spared the indignity of serious injury… but I’ll be damned if my body doesn’t hurt regardless. My ribs have an awful memory of a steel toe boot, meanwhile, my back knows the shape of a baton better than I’d like. It takes premeditation to move from the infirmary bed at Savannah’s insistence, and the action causes me constant pain.

Savannah’s been on the warpath since she saw the bruises, and keeping up with her breakneck pace is a struggle. I told her that I couldn’t ID my attacker, and Savannah sees through the lie like glass…but she has an empathy that keeps her from further pressing the issue. It didn’t stop Savannah from taking me to the Security Office before breakfast, though. I’ve been sitting on the stairs outside the office, cuffed to the stair railing for at least an hour now, trying to ignore the pain in my side.

Sitting amid Lux Hall, I can properly take it all in now. The building is tucked away inside a mountain, just beneath Pan Doi-Zhou’s estate, and exits through an opening on the other side, the mouth covered by the dense waterfall I saw yesterday. The morning light floods the space through the skylight, landing generously on the massive mountain rock from their blasting errors in the middle. They even stuck climbing holds onto the rock in the middle, rather than simply destroying it, and now, Shadows spend their mornings and days off climbing it for fun. I can see the bones of Delun’s original design, the space meant for Pan’s friends and staff. But I can also see the seams of expansion when Lux Hall ballooned and blossomed into the Shadows’ first headquarters. It's easy to see where Delun’s practicality ends and Pan’s love for culture, and artistic expression begins. But it’s all pure creation--the fact that there’s any order to at all luck and afterthought, the architectural equivalent of painting on an endless canvas just because it's fun and hoping to find a semblance of order behind it afterward. It’s possible Pan Doi-Zhou may have missed her calling as an architect for social spaces.

Whatever it was a year or so ago, it is now a sprawling campus at the heart of a sizable village sitting in the shadow of an artificial Santa Monica mountain. It is quickly turning a company of nomadic, lonesome assassins and manipulators into social creatures with a place where they could realistically lay roots. Such gatherings only happen in dreams.

I’m so lost in my study of Lux that I never see her walk up to me; the girl I saw yesterday. With a pair of sweatpants, a dirty tank top, thick ankle-high boots, and a few rings, she still has the edge she had yesterday, albeit more relaxed. She, like many others, begins her day with a morning climb.

“You’re the one they’re all talking about,” she pulls a hair tie, and her braids fall to her shoulders. “The one that threw a sledgehammer at the conditioning program. Jasmine, right?”

I’m unsure of how to respond. Was she asking me? Accusing me? Confusion must have registered plainly in my face, because she replies swiftly.

“Oh, I’m not here to give you hell about it. I one hundred percent approve. We do some fucked-up shit in this job, but there are lines we shouldn’t cross. Buying kids, taking them from their homes is a step too far, and I’m glad someone had the gall to actually do something about it.”

I shrug, and pain radiates through my body from my shoulder. “Don’t say it too loudly, I assume most people don’t agree.”

 “You’d be surprised at how many people are actually on your side about this. The problem is, was, that no one talked about it. It was just a thing that we accepted as protocol. Then you happened, and suddenly, we dare to disagree instead of doing as we’re told. Talk about ruffling feathers.” She sits next to me on the stairs and reaches for my cuffed hands. “I’m Brooklyn King. My friends call me BK.”

I can’t do much with my hands like this, but opening my palm is enough for her to offer a gentle shake. My bruised wrist protests, and I wince, but I do what I can to return the gesture anyway.

BK’s hand holds mine firmly, as she takes stock of the bruising on my forearm. But she lets it go and says nothing. I’m grateful. “They never should have pillboxed you for it,” her hands fall to the steps, and she leans back. “There’s plenty of Shadows walking the planet, shaping politics, killing bad guys, and all that jazz. We never needed to resort to bribing families for their kids. And we shouldn’t have been complicit in it. But no one questioned leadership about it until you. As far as many of us are concerned, you’re the only one brave enough to say out loud that it was wrong. Even better, you were the only one to act on your beliefs. A lot of us look up to you.  I know I do.” BK’s features soften and a smile forms on her lips. “I’m certain the new director will be open to discussing it.”

“That’s the hope,” I reply. “I’m pining for an audience with her. Trying my best to keep out of trouble, and work as hard as I can to earn a knock at the door..”

“Hmm.” BK tilts her chin up. “Hopefully that doesn’t include suffering more black and blue souvenirs from the job.”

I tense up.

“Stay safe out there,” BK reaches for the cut on my forehead. “I’ll talk to my friends, see if there’s anything we can get you that audience a little faster. I’m not sure what Pan is even doing right now, but I’m sure she’ll respond to growing moral support for an opponent of the company’s more…controversial programs. I’m even willing to wager that she’ll love to hear about…workplace safety concerns. We can’t have those…right?”

She continues brushing my forehead with my thumb. My heart skips a beat.

“Did you see them?” BK asks flatly.

The question hurts as much as my bruises. As much as the lying. “I… don’t follow.”

BK’s smile never fades. Eventually, her thumb falls from my face. For a while, she says nothing. Her eyes stay locked on mine. “You’re a terrible liar. If I know it, Savvy knows it. But no one can do anything if you don’t point the finger.”

Savannah storms through the security door, angrier than a storm cloud. But the cloud breaks when she sees BK sitting with me. “Out of all the first friends you could make, BK could actually be the worst.”

BK laughs, “C’mon Savvy, I’m not that bad!”

“Mmhmm,” Savannah reaches for the cuffs and unlocks them with the turn of a small key dangling from the same keychain she uses for her car. “Tell me that when you exit recondition.”

“Well maybe, when they give me a recondition mentor, I’ll actually move along in the program instead of waiting for nothing” BK stands and helps me to my feet.

“You’re in reconditioning?”  I ask.

“Yea, yea. I’ll tell you all about it next time you have some free time. Surely Warrick allows visits?”

“Supervised visits,” Savannah replies. “And since I’m her around-the-clock supervisor now, there’s plenty of opportunity to request a visit. But if I remember correctly, you have a meet in Santa Monica tonight, correct?”

“…I do. At sundown.” BK eyes me with intrigue. “You’re a car person?”

“She would say a little,” Savannah says, “But she diagnosed a cylinder misfire while I was driving.”

“The Elise has a misfire???”

“Apparently so.”

BK gawks at Savannah, shaking her head. “Fine. I’ll fix it. Again. But, yeah…if you can find a way to get her off Lux, I’d be happy to hang out with her.” BK’s eyes float to me. “Show you around the scene, and whatnot.”

“I’d love to,” I say. “If I’m even allowed to. How would that work…?”

“Handler authorization,” Savannah replies. “I would be on location with you and usually, you would be injected with a tracker…but you and I are past all that. I’ll give you a phone; just keep it on at all times.”

“I….ok!” I laugh nervously. The notion of leaving fills me with uncertainty…but also excitement. “I’m sorry, this morning has been a blur.”

“No, I get it,” BK brushes my arm. “I get it. Trust me, the meet will be a good place for you to unwind. You get out of that prison apartment, enjoy the Santa Monica air, meet some cool people, and see how cars have changed in the last eight years. It’ll be good for you. Tonight at 8. The earlier you both are, the better parking is,” BK heads back down the stairs. “It was good meeting you, Jazzy!”

Jazzy. It sounds nice.

BK returns to her friends at the base of the rock, leaving me on the stairs with Savannah and leaving my day fuller than I anticipated. “Will this affect my work today?”

Savannah gently turns me around. “You are battered and bruised. You are on paid leave while security investigates your attack. But they won't find anything because you didn’t see anything.” Her gaze turns to ice. “I really wish you’d help me here. “

The lie gets harder and harder to maintain. “I told you; I didn’t see them.”

Savannah sighs. “I understand that the Pillbox is the loneliest place in the world and that you were there for too long, for unfair reasons. But the period of your life where you have to suffer alone in silence is over. You have a friend now, going on two. Whether you make it as a Shadow or something, anything else, you must learn to lean on the people that care about you.” She braces my shoulder gently. “I won't force you to say his name. I’ll support you in any way you ask me to. But if you and BK hit it off and she figures it out on her own, she will do something stupid in the name of helping you. There’s a reason why she’s in reconditioning. She has a knack for retaliation.”

My eyes water up. My mouth opens to say something, anything. But instead, I hear my weary voice say “I swear, I didn’t see anything.” And my heart breaks.

Savannah sighs and forces a smile for my comfort. “C’mon. We’re late for breakfast.

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

So I finished The Faithless a bit ago and I've been putting off writing about it because, to my great disappointment, I didn't like it very much. I don't think it's necessarily bad by it's own merits (mostly), but as a sequel to The Unbroken, it was deeply disappointing. Spoilers to follow.

So there were a couple of things that I didn't love back when I first read the Unbroken. I thought the use of Unremarkable Queerness was a disappointing missed opportunity, that an exploration of the differences in cultural attitudes towards sex and gender would've enriched the book's thesis as well as Touraine's own journey as a queer woman raised under one culture reconnecting with the one she was stolen from. I also thought that, while using magic to represent culture - and specifically to use Luca's hunger for Shal magic as a critique of "well-intentioned" cultural appropriation, and Balladaire's lack of magic to represent the way culture is flattened by Empire - was a strong choice, choosing to make magic the exclusive domain of religion created the implication, deliberate or otherwise, that what was really wrong with Balladaire was that they'd turned their back on their traditional faith, which was not a message I cared for. All that being said, I found these issues pretty easy to ignore, because the book had a much more powerful central idea to explore, and its examination of a stolen, abused, indoctrinated victim of colonialism reconnecting with her homeland, as well as its exploration of the ways even genuinely kind-hearted and well-meaning colonialists inflict monumental atrocities, were extremely compelling. The Unbroken had ideas to share, question to pose and answer, and a message powerful enough to render my critiques inconsequential.

The same cannot be said for The Faithless. Based on the framing of the book, I expected to get an exploration of the political relationship between a colonizing nation and it's newly independent ex-colony. I thought we might get some examination of the difficulty of establishing international credibility for a new nation, of arranging favorable partnerships and trade deals in a world where you are seen as not just potentially unstable and with little of value economically, but as literal lesser people. I expected whatever approach it took to this framing device, it would be sharp, incisive, and timely. But it wasn't. Ultimately, the framing device was just a framing device, and the majority of the page count was spent on trying to learn the truth about Balladairen magic and Luca's bid to keep the throne, with the question of economic and political relations hung entirely on whether she or her uncle ended up in charge.

There were some details which gestured at the kind of themes that I'd been looking forward to, but the key words there are "details" and "gestured". Touraine's uncomfortable socializing with Balladairen nobles; cool, we already knew that! How does that discomfort affect her ability as an ambassador to make favorable connections and advance the interests of the people she represents? Don't know, she doesn't really try, beyond reminding Luca occasionally that her interest in getting Luca on the throne isn't altruistic. There's a Balladairen revolutionary movement born of economic disenfranchisement and the fear of free Shalans "stealing" resources. Okay that's interesting! What does their organizational structure look like? How many people can they mobilize? What are their economic and political aims, what's their plan for enacting it? How does Touraine feel about a bunch of people who share many of the same grievances as her people, but that unjustly blame her people for their problems? Don't know, none of that comes up. Their only plot function is to try to kill Luca and make her paranoid about her uncle. There's the Droitist school system that traumatized and conditioned Touraine! They take down one school, but acknowledge that it's a problem that can't be solved on an individual level. What kind of systemic changes need to be made? What obstacles are there? How can they be overcome or subverted? All of that gets pushed firmly onto the "once I'm queen" plate. I could go on. Ultimately, the elements that should have been the core of the story and themes become backdrop to a personal drama between Luca, Nicholas, Touraine, and Sabine. And it's functional enough, but it doesn't have anywhere near the originality or emotional resonance or drive that the plot of the previous book did.

Also, without a strong plot to take center stage, my nitpicks took up more of my attention, and the continuation of the story exacerbated some of the problems I had with them. With regards to unremarkable queerness: the central struggle of this book is over who is going to take over the throne of a hereditary monarchy. Am I supposed to believe that the fact that Luca regularly has sex with different partners, has no interest in getting a consort, and has no blood heir, compared to her uncle, who has a recognized blood heir, is of no consequence in a power struggle over a hereditary monarchy? And if there are cultural values or structure that make that a non issue, I would love to see them explored! I'd be fascinated to know where they come from and how they impact the rest of society! The conflation of magic, culture, and religion didn't end up going the direction I was concerned about, but it also became extremely muddy about what exactly it was trying to say. We learn that Balladairen magic still exists amongst the commons, but we also learn that the large scale type of magic that ensured good harvests was powered by human sacrifice, which is something that no one, including our antagonists, want to resume. So if Balladaire killed its religion for good, justifiable reasons, how does that square with the previous book's presentation as magic being a deeply integral part of culture, with its theft or suppression being an act of near genocide? It muddies the waters, and it ends up feeling like the author wanted to just treat this book as more conventional speculative fantasy fiction rather than a continuation of the themes explored in the first book. Ultimately, I think, that's what I'm really disappointed about. I came to The Faithless excited for a continuation of the deep exploration of colonialism in The Unbroken, and I got a much less grounded piece of speculative fantasy fiction.

[witchhatproductions]

Witch Hat News #4 - Lessons from the Archives

by Tata Calthrop

This is an archived version of our microfiction newsletter! You can read along on our tumblr, or subscribe here.

Which archive, you may ask? Well, it's quite simple.

Our own one.

Yes, like many twenty-somethings in the creative field now, I was forged in a rather specific fire – the classic Internet pipeline of Neopets, Deviantart, Tumblr, Twitter, usually interspaced at some point with either a gender crisis or a formal diagnosis of mental illness.

You see, for a young nerdy preteen in 2010, you have two sexy choices made available to you, neither of which you will perceive until it's too late. You will choose either the path of solitude (voraciously consuming and creating content in incredible loneliness and feeling like the only person in the world who does so), or the path of the internet, where you will learn at an incredibly young age how to receive and handle a death threat. I was raised on a raw, unfiltered diet of fandom. (Sonic the Hedgehog. The world has not been kind to me.)

The fans and the hermits have a lot to teach each other. In fact, as easy as it is to make fun of – well – most people on the internet, there is something valuable to be learned from every subculture of creativity, including the horny ones. 

So let me make a confession to you: I'm a fanfiction writer. I have a shameful record of 155,821 words, none of which will ever give me a scrap of credibility with anyone, including other fanfiction writers. (Heavy is the head that wears the dunce hat of Adventure/Comedy.) Hell, I've spent over a year picking away at a fancomic project. For zero dollars and no publication accolades, I have written at least five full completed novellas, which will never be published, be recognised, or prove anything except my big, fat crush on the uncle from Encanto.

My god, was it freeing.

The social pressure to monetize your art is insane. I took my first art commission before I even had my first bank account. It was my teenage dream: to be paid is to obtain credibility. The label will hang over your head like an execution hood: PROFESSIONAL. Of course, the loop never really stops; start making money and suddenly your eyes are open to how many opportunities you're missing, and how little you make compared to others, and how wide the chasm is between you and full-time creation. 

(That's not to say the money and recognition aren't nice! That part I do recommend.)

But making fan content, and making friends who also make fan content, and building up a small audience of people who just want to be there for fun is incredibly liberating when you're not used to it. Get a bunch of friends who create together, join a community that makes its own memes and creates a bubble of mutual feedback and appreciation, and you start to realise: this is how they made the old tales, the oral ones before the printing press.

Here's two lessons from the archives.

Love characters. Fall in love with their vulnerable moments, their jokes, their relationship dynamics, the little unseen parts of them that you can never put in a real story because there's simply no point. Linger on the details. Develop a little crush. Project all your issues and obsess over nothing. Love your own characters, and you'll find suddenly that creating art about them changes from a chore to an act of affection. Learn what makes you fall in love with other stories, and look for the same aspects in your own.

Making art to impress a large audience will disappoint you; making art to impress a social circle of about ten interested people is how life is supposed to be lived. The early humans who painted mammoths on cave walls had no audience except themselves.

Here's a quote I like, from Prof. Henry Jenkins, Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts at University of Southern California: "Contemporary Web culture is the traditional folk process working at lightning speed on a global scale. The difference is that our core myths now belong to corporations, rather than the folk.”

Here's another quote I like, from twitter user @FarfinFarfin: "the fastest way to improve your art is to become some sort of pervert, doesn't really matter what kind, whatever you're comfortable with". 

Reviews

The Northern Caves by @nostalgebraist. The Northern Caves is a cosmic horror story about unwary scholars who delved too deep into the ancient texts, except the scholars are a group of hardcore nerds on an early 2000s fan forum for a mediocre fantasy series, and the ancient texts are fan theories about the author's baffling final novel. I know almost nothing about original fiction on Archive of Our Own, but I recognise a wonderfully online scary story when I see one. Psychological, terrifying, and twistedly fascinating reading for anyone who's ever watched an online community implode.

Songs for Girls in Love by @phemiec. PhemieC was one of my favourite musicians as a teenager, and when I got into my first relationship I rushed into the familiar arms of their love songs. They also were making, at the time, Homestuck fansongs. But when I was 15, this music made more of an impact on me than any classic musician ever could. Songs for Girls In Love has a number of fansongs mixed in, largely for things I've never consumed, but you'd never know it from their lyrical subtlety and I'm still a huge fan. 

Digital Land Grab: Media corporations are stealing our cultural heritage. Can we take it back? By Henry Jenkins. Okay, okay, this one's not exactly micro or fiction of any sort. But it is the article that I quoted earlier, and Prof. Jenkins could be described as the grandfather of fanwork studies in academia. A good read about the history and creative validity of fanwork, and the ways in which corporations suppress it. I highly recommend it, even if you know nothing about fanfiction.

Your project here. Do you make art of any kind - visual, written, performed? Are you starting a project or recruiting co-creators? We want to hear from you! Email us at contact@witchhatproductions.com.

That's it for June. See you next month!

[blog-name-idk]

Umm hello! This is very embarrassing, but someone found a racist slur I used in one of my fics. I'm now going to take some time to re-read and and evaluate my wording on my other works, but if anyone has found anything similar or concerning that they feel comfortable telling me about, please feel free to do so! I'll explain more under the cut.

TW: Derogatory slur for Inuit people. (Which, am I basically saying "The People people"? Like saying chai tea?) And other problematic names for other cultures/ethnicities still widely used in commercial culture today (as examples).

I used the term "esk*mo kiss" in Chapter 14 of Everything Falls, which in itself is generally used to describe nose kisses.

The term esk*mo itself is unacceptable/offensive to many, very understandably so because it was a colonial name imposed on them by non-Indigenous people. Here is an NPR article (from 2016 but I think it still holds up) that goes into more detail.

The currently accepted word to describe people native to Alaska/Arctic regions is Inuit (singular: Inuk), and the actual word for their nose kiss (which is a way of showing affection) is kunik.

What's even more embarrassing than being ignorant is that I wasn't even ignorant. Like I know not to use the term esk*mo by itself, that Inuit/Inuk is the correct verbage, and yet when writing the term "e. kiss" my brain just glazed over because it was such a "normal" phrase for me growing up. Even now thinking the term doesn't ring any bells or make me feel uncomfortable, which shows just how much social conditioning affects our "gut instincts".

I think it's a good lesson to always try to be mindful and really think about the things we say because no matter how educated and informed we believe we are, we're only human and thus constantly in a state of growth and learning. We are responsible when our actions hurt others, but often we're ignorant of our own ignorance (lol) until it's pointed out to us. It shouldn't be the hurt party's responsibility to do so, but sometimes that's the only way the perpetrator (me) can get a dose of reality.

I feel like this kind of thing happens all the time (just look at all the problematic "traditional" names for house plants) and our brains just skate over it because we're used to it.

Anyway I'm not trying to be preachy or overly dramatic or holier-than-thou. It's easy to look at people who get cancelled (on Tumblr or in regular pop culture) and write them off as idiots because I would never do or say the thing they did. I've definitely looked down my nose at people from my high horse because I thought I was a "better person" than them.

It was a good wake-up call to not get complacent and remember that just because I think I'm a good person/don't have bad intentions, that doesn't absolve me from responsibility. Yes, I will be going back through my old fics and current WIPs because it shouldn't be someone else's responsibility to find issues and point them out to me. However, I'm sure there are still things I'm inherently ignorant to and might miss.

No one should feel obligated to let me know if they see anything (definitely don't want to force anyone to relive trauma or bad experiences), but I will definitely appreciate anyone who does! Thank you to the anon who reached out to me and let me know about this instance.

[ms-hells-bells]

i feel like the only person in mainstream/popular media who takes issue with child girls (4–11) in crop tops and dancing sexually like. people flip it on me and accuse me of being a pedophile/pervert/“the only one sexualizing them” and they miss the point i’m trying to make so hard.

I’m sure it’s also sadly prevalent in other countries but there’s many “dance showcases” “dance competitions” in city provinces in China for specifically for girls who are young, with random men who are not parents or relatives who paid to go there to take video. I get the excuse “Its a public event” but that doesn’t make it any less creepy. They wear crop tops, short skirts, sometimes in the past i’ve seen bras be worn, and everyone thinks it’s normal! I feel like the parents are exploiting their daughters unknowingly.

Also, K-pop is big in china so they pick out sexy girl group songs for them to dance to, with the dance moves most likely being sexual too. The girls range from 4–11!??? Hello? Has everyone forgotten about sexual objectification?

My little sister wanted to be in one, thankfully my parents said no (only because the fee😒) but I got reminded of it after seeing a video of an American one, with comments again not taking a single problem with it. And I know I’m not overreacting because it genuinely looks insane to see a 6 year old twerking in short shorts while the crowd cheers.

Of course I want the girls to have fun, and dancing is a great activity, but they can have fun dressed up normally, and doing dance moves that don’t sexualize them. Sorry for these paragraphs, I have no one to speak about it to🥲 What do you think I could/can be done to change this? Im 17 and Tumblr feminism accounts are all I have momentarily, but I want to make more impact. I’ve been following you for a year now, I love the post and analysis you make!🩵

nah, you're right. the normalisation of young girls acting sexually is not good. the issue is that everyone disagrees as to what qualifies as 'sexually'. for conservatives, it includes health and education talk about periods and sex, mentions of homosexuality, using contraception (even for health issues), hpv vaccination, not wearing a bra (for older kids), even showing shoulders, etc.

men make it so difficult because no matter what girls do, they see it sexually. everything is 'sexual' to men. so, first we have to distinguish between what is sexual and what is sexualised. context also matters of course. in one country nudity around adults is non sexual, but in most of our cultures, a young girl naked around a grown man or a naked man around children would be great cause for concern.

so, the next step is having people be honest about what in our culture do we currently consider sexual that is justifiable in its age gating, and what do we currently consider sexual that perhaps should not be. nudity should not be, ie. the covering of little girls' chests with swimming tops and not the boys, but clothing invented with sexual attractiveness in mind should, ie. those chest coverings being little bikini tops.

i don't know how we get to this point, because even with stuff that is unfair to sexualise, men do sexualise it, and it harms little girls but you can't revolve their or your life around what makes their dick hard, not even women miserable in full niqab succeed in that, because men are chimps.

an easy step is to not let your young children have unsupervised access to the internet, let alone social media.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Richard V. Reeves

Published: May 24, 2023

One hundred and fifty years ago this month, John Stuart Mill died in his home in Avignon. His last words were to his step-daughter, Helen Taylor: “You know that I have done my work.”

He certainly had. During his 66 years of life, Mill became the preeminent public intellectual of the century, producing definitive works of logic and political economy, founding and editing journals, serving in Parliament, and churning out book reviews, journalism and essays, most famously his 1859 masterpiece, On Liberty. Oh, and he had a day job, too: as one of the most senior bureaucrats in the East India Company. 

What is too often forgotten about Mill is that he was as much an activist as an academic. Benjamin Franklin exhorted his followers to “either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” Mill, like Franklin himself, is among the very few who managed to do both.

For Mill, liberalism did not only have to be argued for, it had to be fought for, too. He campaigned for women’s rights and was the first MP to introduce a bill for women’s suffrage into Parliament. He was a fiercely committed anti-racist, strongly supporting the abolitionist movement in the United States, and the North in the Civil War. Mill also led a successful campaign for the right to protest and speak in London’s public parks. In Hyde Park, the famous Speaker’s Corner stands today as a tribute to his victory. 

And unlike many of his 19th century peers, Mill’s thought remains vividly topical even today. In fact, Mill is more in the spotlight now, and more needed now, than he was two decades ago. My own book about Mill was published in 2007 and although it received polite, even somewhat enthusiastic notices in the right places, back then, the case for liberalism, which Mill still makes better than any other, hardly seemed like a pressing concern.

What a difference a decade can make. On every front—economic, political, philosophical, cultural, the very idea of liberalism is being questioned, and threatened. Here I’ll just take on two of the challenges to Mill’s variety of liberalism: a growing skepticism of the value of free speech, and post-liberal attacks on liberal individualism.

Why does free speech matter? Mill believed that the pursuit of truth required the collation and combination of ideas and propositions, even those that seem to be in opposition to each other. He urged us to allow others to speak—and then to listen to them—for three main reasons, most crisply articulated in Chapter 2 of On Liberty.

First, the other person’s idea, however controversial it seems today, might turn out to be right. (“The opinion … may possibly be true.”) Second, even if our opinion is largely correct, we hold it more rationally and securely as a result of being challenged. (“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.”) Third, and in Mill’s view most likely, opposing views may each contain a portion of the truth, which need to be combined. (“Conflicting doctrines … share the truth between them.”)

For Mill, as for us, this is not primarily a legal issue. His main concern was not government censorship. It was the stultifying consequences of social conformity, of a culture where deviation from a prescribed set of opinions is punished through peer pressure and the fear of ostracism. “Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough,” he wrote. “There needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling.”

Mill never pretended that this would be easy, either at a personal or political level. The humility and openness that is required is hard-won. Our identity as a person must be kept separable from the ideas we happen to endorse at a given time. Otherwise, when those ideas are criticized, we are likely to experience the criticism as an attack upon our self, rather than as an opportunity to think about something more deeply and to grow intellectually. That’s why education is so important. Liberals are not born; we have to be made.  

That’s why it would be a good idea for all students to read Mill’s arguments for free speech (and there’s even a free illustrated edition, titled All Minus One available from Heterodox Academy, edited and with an introduction from Jonathan Haidt and myself, which I’ve drawn from a little here.)

Mill has become relevant again as the primary intellectual target for post-liberal scholars like Patrick Deneen and Adrian Vermeule. For them, Mill’s writings are the headwaters of an atomistic, anti-institutional liberalism that has led to a hollowed-out culture.

In his influential book, Why Liberalism Failed, Patrick Deneen is clear that Mill is the principal villain. “Society today has been organized around the Millian principle that ‘everything is allowed,’ at least so long as it does not result in measurable (mainly physical) harm,” he writes. “We live today in the world Mill proposed. Everywhere, at every moment, we are to engage in experiments in living…”

Yeah, no. That’s mostly not the world we live in. And it is certainly not the world Mill proposed. Deneen accuses Mill of being the “midwife” to a “deeper liberal imperative to equalize individuals' opportunity to be liberated from entanglements with others, particularly from the shared cultural norms, institutions, and associations that bind a people's fate together.”

Crediting Mill as a founder of progressive thought, Deneen goes on: “Progressivism aims above all at the liberation of an elite whose ascent requires the disassembling of norms, intermediating institutions, and thick forms of community, a demolition that comes at the expense of these communities’ settled forms of life.”

As a description of Mill’s moral philosophy this is absolute nonsense. It is of course true that Mill worried about the tyranny of custom. He wanted people to be reflective about the plan for their own life, and the extent to which it was compatible with customary forms of life. The claim that Mill wanted to set a wrecking ball on every custom, every institution, every tradition is one that could only be made by someone who has either not actually read Mill, or who is engaging in some egregious misrepresentation. It’s not even a straw man. It’s just a pile of straw.

Here’s what Mill wrote in On Liberty (with my emphases):

“No one’s idea of excellence in conduct is that people should do absolutely nothing but copy one another. No one would assert that people ought not to put into their mode of life, and into the conduct of their concerns, any impress whatever of their own judgment, or of their own individual character. On the other hand, it would be absurd to pretend that people ought to live as if nothing whatever had been known in the world before they came into it; as if experience had as yet done nothing towards showing that one mode of existence or of conduct, is preferable to another. Nobody denies that people should be so taught and trained in youth as to know and benefit from the ascertained results of human experience. But it is the privilege and proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity of his faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way. It is for him to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to his own circumstances and character. The traditions and customs of other people are, to a certain extent, evidence of what their experience has taught them; presumptive evidence, and as such, have a claim to this deference…”

Mill’s view on tradition and custom, then, is that they are very likely to contain the wisdom of the ages, of the accumulated weight of human experience and, yes, of experiments in living. That’s why it would be absurd to ignore them, and why they have a presumptive claim to our deference. But Mill also insists that we should not follow tradition and custom blindly. We should “use and interpret experience.” Mill believes that customs and traditions not only can change over time, but that they should. The alternative, which is Deneen’s only defensible position, is that somebody somewhere should decide, at some point in time, that our traditions and customs be cast in stone. 

Deneen is wrong about Mill, and thus wrong about liberalism, and therefore wrong about everything.

Even though the post-liberals are unwilling to engage with the real Mill, as opposed to their ersatz version, it is a testament to his lasting value that he is still the primary target. Mill spent his life thinking about and working for a society that could balance the value of continuity with the necessity for innovation and progress. Again, nobody said it was easy, a lesson we seem to be learning all over again. But if we need inspiration, we’ll always have Mill.

==

We forgot to keep fighting for liberalism as, like science, an ongoing process rather than a destination. This blink in attention opened the door for the anti-liberalism of both the post-liberal woke and the pre-liberal religious who want to take it away from us and implement their own particular hellscapes. We got so used to liberalism that we took it for granted and became complacent. When we get it back, we need to learn from this mistake.

[lunadook]

Gonna vent, putting it below the fold so you can skip if you want (cw: social media whining)

I am honestly devastated by the death of Twitter because suddenly this group of people I liked interacting with suddenly moved to various different places and none of them are good substitutes:

Mastodon is OK if you can build a significant network (I'd argue it's the best drop in twitter replacement of anything) but I've had issues with being harassed off instances before, we all know about general issues with instance stability (snouts.online as a prime example) and a lot of my friends didn't end up going there and finding new people isn't as easy to do with the way federation works, I feel. Also the fact that people won't join because they view issues that are a result of leadership of certain instances as a "mastodon" problem, and blame the entire framework for those issues instead of the individuals and instances that are creating them.

Tumblr is probably the place I've settled best into but very few of my friends made it over, I still don't fully integrate with the tagging culture and everything (just not used to it)... Generally things kinda feel a lot more detached. Maybe I'll get better at it.

Cohost is where a lot of my friends decided to call home, but I cannot trust the site, from the way in which the stakeholders/owners/admins of the site market it as something it isn't (for more info on this please read this thread, I think it's worded well), and how when the site owners are met with even the slightest amount of criticism for the way in which they choose to implement a thing, they go throw a huge hissy fit and tell users who aren't very active that "you don't matter anyway" and tell anyone else "fuck all of you I'm just a poor admin please stop messaging me on my personal profile that is literally shoved in every new user's face as someone to follow" (the site admins and the staff account are your first suggested accounts to follow), and then on top of all of that they have no clear path to actual sustainability in terms of the money it costs to pay 6 workers $96K USD a year and then also pay for servers and CDN costs and all the other associated things. That also isn't getting into certain content moderation decisions that I think are questionable.

Reddit always sucked but now it's virtually unusable on mobile and bots for things like sales tracking subreddits don't work and generally the place is way less vibrant now that many users just left entirely after the API-ocalipse.

I don't care about it but Bluesky has a racism problem apparently? And it's just a clone of Mastodon that's missing features and a weird per-category/general idea algorithm which means nothing performs well there unless you learn how to game that algorithm (that no one understands).

Also don't care for it but Threads is not available in the EU, likely due to data collection policies that violate privacy laws there, and that's not getting into how the platform is basically just Twitter 2 with whatever celebs aren't on Bluesky which includes all the bad parts of Twitter culture.

Twitter is a fucking hellscape now, no more comments need to be made on that.

I guess it's not the worst thing ever, because it means I use social media less, but I also feel like I just don't meet as many cool, interesting people anymore. Shit sucks.

[nemesis-the-first]

Pantheon: a review

I finished watching Pantheon. I have mixed feelings about it. Some of it made me laugh (evil Steve Jobs as the villain, knock-off Motoko Kusanagi and other Ghost in the Shell references). Some of it had issues.

I'll start with the good. The premise is that people can be permanently uploaded into a virtual space. An uploaded person is called a UI (Uploaded Intelligence). They are vulnerable to the same things as any data is; they can be deleted, they can be attacked by viruses, they need beefy data centers, etc. But also, they have digital superpowers to be anywhere a network can reach and hack anything and everything. It was all developed by big tech companies hoping to enslave their best employees into UIs so they can keep working forever, and quickly extends to militaries using UI operatives. The whole thing has intense "don't invent the torment nexus" vibes.

The main characters are teenagers who speed-run a series of well-known moral dilemmas and philosophical conundrums. For example, is a UI still human? If a single UI is to have control over the rest with god-like powers, how do you choose the right one? How do you balance the rights of UIs and embodied humans? And there is also geopolitics, corporate scheming, and people with their own agendas.

The show totally nailed techbro idol worship (Evil Steve Jobs) and software tech culture in general. What transpires in the show seems like Elon Musk's wet dream of "extending the reach of human consciousness" or whatever, in a fantasy world where his employees actually like him and he is a uniquely talented engineer instead of an idiot, and of course in the scenario where he wins instead of those meddling kids.

Most of the core cast are programmers, with a quant thrown in the mix as well. There are two humanities/arts characters featured as spouses. Despite having diversity in ethnic backgrounds, there is almost no diversity of life experience. Nearly everyone is in a tech social circle. I am not saying this as a criticism, as it makes sense for the story.

Now for the things I didn't like.

The animation felt lifeless and I struggled to watch with my full attention. I mostly watched it while doing chores or sewing. It was easy to follow even while doing other things. I've seen plenty of Japanese anime where they take lots of animation shortcuts and everyone looks lively, so I don't know what went wrong here.

The voice acting was good for the main cast, but many of the side and minor characters were terrible. They sounded like actors doing voices for a kids show. We had Israeli characters with French accents, siblings with wildly different accents, random foreign accents. Like what was going on??? Was it the same four actors doing every side character's voice like in Skyrim?? Did they just guess what accent they should use without looking it up?

There were also numerous stereotypes that felt totally out of place in a modern show. There was the unpopular overweight girl who did everyone's homework for money and was always shown eating. The mother of the main character was extremely bitchy in season 1 and felt like every bitchy TV mother I've seen before. In Norway, everyone only eats salmon??

Out of the characters, I liked Caspian, MIST, Lori, and David, and maybe Chanda, but I found most of the others unlikeable or inconsistent. Maddie and Ellen both undergo jarring changes of behaviour that make little sense in the story's context, such as being very open-minded and then suddenly not, and vice-versa. Waxman was kind of a piece of shit with a friendly face. Maybe I'm missing something, but Pope's motivation in season 2 was totally unexplained and made no sense at all.

Letting go of the human form is a feature of being a UI and this is emphasized numerous times throughout the show, yet most UIs seem to choose human or humanoid forms. Lori was one of the few who regularly ditched her human form unless she was interacting with humans. The fight scenes could've been way more interesting, but mostly they were just blasting each other with fake plasma projectiles or whatever.

Finally (and I know I shouldn't do this), let's take a look at the feasibility of uploading people en masse. The techbros claim that uploading everyone and maintaining them as digital beings is easier on the environment than having billions of embodied humans. It's shown early in the show that a UI needs a massive data center to run at full capacity. We know what it takes to increase computing power: energy, minerals, rare earths, etc. Crypto mining uses insane amounts of energy, and LLMs and other AI tools use tons of energy as well. On the other hand, it's totally in line with the techbro mentality that infinitely energy-efficient hardware and clean energy will magically solve everything so they can profit forever. They simply do not understand the laws of thermodynamics.

Another thing that bothered me was that the UIs were not decentralised. It's possible to pinpoint their location on a network, which makes no sense if they are based in physical data centers.

The show is definitely worth watching if you are into cyberpunk and near-future sci-fi. It's based on short stories by Ken Liu, who has won Hugo and Nebula awards. I'm very curious to read them now and compare with the show.

Overall, the concept and plot were super interesting. The areas it fell down on are probably not deal-breakers for most viewers, though I really wish they would've done better on the stereotypes.