#because a system that puts every single person in competition with every single other person is obviously going to create divide

[chaotic-history]

This is all true that we shouldn't get stuck thinking another time was better, but I take issue with the 'humans used to all live in small communities, but idc cause id rather have vaccines' like. Those statements are not at all opposing each other. We shouldn't claim the past was perfect, but we can absolutely look at the past and recognise that they did do certain things better, or at least had some ideas that we can build off of. With the 'living in small communities' thing, it is a very real phenomenon at least in the US that we've become much less communtiy-oriented with the people around us, and that's a major reason why our politics have become so divisive, because a lack of community leads to less trust and thinking that everyone who disagrees with you is somehow out to get you, and because instead of connecting with the people around them, people form echo chambers online instead. Imagine if whatever weirdo conservative you know talked to people in your neighborhood the same amount of time they talked to people on 4chan/reddit/facebook/watching fox news, whatever. Am I saying we should return to being medeival peasants? No. But we can look back at medeival peasants and see the advantages of close communities, and use that to do something like create community gardens, or invite people in your neighborhood to a party, or bring bread to neighbors.

And for another example, think about North America before European colonization. People had a much more stable and mutually beneficial relationship to their environment, because they saw resources as things that are useful for what they are (ie, deer can be used as food and clothes, so you hunt them when you neee food and clothes), and then the colonists upset this balance, because instead they saw resources as things to make a profit, without any regard for caring for the environment (ie, this deer skin sells for [insert number] in Europe. let's kill all the deer we possibly can to make the biggest profit). And we can look at these changes that happened 400 years ago and go, hey, don't we currently have a problem with too many clothes getting thrown away because we're overproducing in the sake of profit rather than producing an amount conducive to the actual demand?

It's almost like capitalism did make some things worse, actually.

i feel like there's a bit of a tendency in leftist circles to do the same thing conservatives do, and pine for an imaginary time period that never existed. except instead of like, ancient rome, or the 50s, a lot of people are weirdly fixated on like...the middle ages? or the hunter-gatherer days? or pirates? like people will try to be anti-capitalist and say "oh medieval peasants had better lives than we do" or "humans used to all live in small communities that took care of each other" and like. idk man id rather have vaccines and the ability to leave your abuser and the right to vote.

it's tempting to think that since things are bad, they must be uniquely bad. but there is no utopia in the past that we need to return to, no garden of eden we were cast out of with the advent of. idk the industrial revolution or whatever. we need to create a better future, not despair about an imagined past.

[rockatanskette]

Semi-related to my post on how human conservation practices, but I have a cold today, and it's got me thinking about biological altruism—the biological imperative to put other creatures ahead of yourself, to benefit the group.

When talking about possible interactions with other species, we talk a lot about humans being crazy and thrill-seeking and impossible to kill. Never use a warning shot as an incentive to keep humans out of a fight; it'll just make them angry. And that's true. But a valid criticism I've seen in the "Earth is a death world" community is that according to our understanding of evolution, every planet must be some form of death world. Competition fosters evolution—the wolf with sharper claws survives when its litter mates die. You can't reach space travel without some casualties along the way.

But the dog survives because it makes friends with the strange ape carrying a sharp stick. And the strange ape survives because it befriends the wolf. Underneath the death world is an inextricable and undeniable layer of the bond world; the love world; the world, together.

I imagine some worlds are not death worlds. They're peaceful and tranquil. I suspect there are worlds far more deadly than Earth, where the skies rain diamonds, harder than any substance we know with the species to match. And I imagine that they are united in their confusion at the duality of humankind.

Today is a great example: I have a cold, and I want someone to take care of me, but the people who would are immunocompromised, also sick, or live 8 hours away, respectfully. I also want no one within the walls of my apartment or I will eat them. I feel gross, I feel tired, and I don't want a single human being anywhere near me, even if they did bring soup.

In my constant scrolling through my phone today, I decided to look up why the hell I feel so bad—why everyone feels so bad when they're ill. And the answer surprised me. I always thought it was because your immune system is active, so it's using a lot of your energy. That is part of it. Another part is that your brain and body are communicating across the blood-brain barrier to fight the infection, which is rare and energetically expensive.

But that doesn't explain everything, and according to more current research, it could also be what's called the Eyam Hypothesis: that we feel so gross, so we instinctively isolate from other people. We're too tired to deal with others, and so we don't infect them. Misanthropy for the good of the species. Of course, it can also backfire: one of the criticisms of the Eyam Hypothesis is that humans also instinctively care for each other. If my brother has a headache, I drive to the store for Advil.

Personally, I think it's a little bit of both: biological altruism. Either way, the majority live on. The first thought I had this morning when I woke up wasn't "I feel gross" it was "there's no way I'm going to work today." And while that might not be everyone's first thought, you don't even have to be a particularly altruistic person to not want to leave your home or your bed when you're sick. It's inborn.

And so when the human named Ismail comes down with a case of the interstellar common cold, his alien friend Dyos grows very concerned. Ismail is usually intensely social, almost off-puttingly so. Some crew members joke about how his quarters are for sleeping and prayer only; if he's home alone? You should be worried. But when Dyos demands an answer to the severity of Ismail's malady, the other humans just nod knowingly.

"Nah, he's okay, the medics already cleared him. It's not a severe infection."

"But there are so many...fluids. And his body has changed color."

There is a moment of confusion there until they remember that Dyos's species can see in the infrared color spectrum.

"Nah, that's just a low-grade fever. It should break in the next couple days."

"But he doesn’t want to play chess today," Dyos insists.

"Ohhhh," says human Claudia, finally understanding. "No, that's normal. Humans don't like being around other people when they're sick, it's supposed to be one of the major evolutionary advantages. Protect your community from your illness and the genes live on."

"So we're just going to leave him alone?" Dyos is troubled by this. He can go for weeks without speaking to another life form, but he has seen Ismail grow despondent when unable to participate in social gathering.

"Oh, no," human Claudia says, laughing. "We're going to employ one of the other most longstanding human evolutionary advantages."

There are many to choose from and Dyos settles on, "middle age?"

"Sort of," human Claudia opens up a small shipping container and holds up a brown paper bag tied with a colorful ribbon. It glows brightly in Dyos's vision, almost as brightly as human Claudia's smile. "His nanni's hot soup, express delivery."

[carionto]

The Equality Games

Once every now and then, the Galactic Coalition's Cultural Exchange department holds a large digital competitive event.

Anyone can participate, and to level the playing field, contestants aren't the ones who actually compete, but instead an advanced deep brain scan (or equivalent body part) and an unbiased AI create a digital avatar that represents the individual and autonomously acts within the digital space.

The cognitive capacity of each is analyzed to a near perfect level and a highly complicated algorithm that, honestly, nobody understands, even the AI that built it, then creates this avatar with traits and weaknesses based on an even more incomprehensible set of criteria and internal points system.

To put it simply - the scan identifies nearly every calculable aspect of a person and assigns a point value for each, then uses those points to "buy" the most relevant and appropriate traits from within its list to give the avatar. There are changing costs, negative value "flaws", and prerequisites based on other information from the scan, but basically it is the most convoluted TTRPG character creation ruleset ever devised.

Given the enormous complexity and diversity that individuals from across thousands of races exhibit, until this system was invented, it was thought impossible to have a sort of intergalactic Olympic Games. There were many attempts over the eons, of course, but one factor or another always made it so that someone did not accept the results.

The Equality Games, however, earned respect and acceptance as a valid alternative once the underlying system was demonstrated and people started to play with it. The avatars were made to act autonomously due to how some species had a distinct advantage when manipulating a digital interface, thus bringing up the old arguments yet again.

One curious result of the AI algorithm avatar generator is that it quite frequently created multiple avatars for each person, only the more hive-mind-like species tended to be represented by a singular avatar within the Games. It is theorized, again because nobody can understand how it really works, that most intelligent beings have multiple "personas" i.e. distinct behavior and personalities in certain common situations, primarily a "public" and "private" persona.

In fact, it is most common for everyone to generate about a three to five avatar "team" that represents the one individual. In comparison, if an ant were to get scanned and put in the games, its avatar would be a single incredibly powerful avatar with many deficiencies, but an overwhelming advantage in several disciplines.

When Humans first entered the Games, as expected, they too had teams as avatars. What was not expected, was that these avatars would sometimes work alone instead of together as a team, deliberately not help one another, and even engage in infighting and the sabotage of another "self".

The Humans suggested that it is perhaps because hypocrisy is not uncommon among them. Self destructive tendencies also appear rather frequently. These Humans almost always are themselves surprised by how contradictory their avatar team composition ends up being.

While the Games themselves happened as normal, the Humans overall placed in the top 20% brackets of most competitive challenges, and scattered roughly evenly everywhere else, they then approached us with a most unusual request.

"Give us a copy of this AI algorithm scanner thing. We think this is the most revolutionary therapy and psychological diagnosis device we've come across."

Of course we obliged and helped set up centers in a number of stations and on Earth itself.

Last we heard, some Humans have avatars that are singular nigh-nightmarish monstrosities, while a very tiny fraction have minds so splintered that their avatars are teams of dozens, one time even over a hundred distinct versions of themselves. Then there are even some seemingly regular Humans who broke the scanner - it gave the error: "Only one individual can be scanned at a time."

Upon "fixing" it with a hack, the results for those were unheard of. Two distinct avatars. Not a team of two, but by all accounts, the AI algorithm identified two separate individuals within one mind, each with very little in common with the other. Sometimes there was nothing in common, even their digital visual representation.

The mind is incredibly complex and hard to comprehend. The Human mind, while biologically quite peculiar but not outside the realms of understood evolution, neurologically it seems to hold near limitless diversity, both complimentary, contradictory, and beyond.

[gatitties]

So how about this.... some king, saitama, genos and tatsumaki (Separate) headcanons with a reader who's an A class hero and their power involves video games physics. An example of that would be where reader had the power to interact with the world as if it is in a video game which as you may know has these:

The System

Video Game/Game Mimicry

Video Game Imitation/Mechanics

Virtual Reality Mimicry

The user can alter the laws of physics to mimic any and all video games. This power can give the user a wide variety of abilities like he can use a cheat code from a real game to trick his foes and avatar manipulation that creates modulate personality character identities (Think of it as a character customization except irl). Reader also has an instant learning ability so anything reader sees or wants new information they acquire, they can immediately learn and master any form of knowledge that can comprehend with ease. There's also a dimensional storage ability that reader can store anything inside their item box and can summon them back with relative ease. Actually just to make this quick I'm just gonna have to send this link so it would better explain everything: https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Video_Game_Physics anyways for personality I imagined reader to have a more laid-back attitude and relatively has a lot of patience when it comes to dealing people that can anger others quickly yet he's also confident and outgoing that likes to hang out with people no matter what you are as long as you don't try to harm him. Reader works a bartender and tends to meet other heroes (or villains who happens to visit that place) they always put on a polite behavior despite the mistreatment they'd often receive from other customers. also they never lose to a single game match like ever! No matter how professional you are at a video game or how much you do speedruns. reader is always one step ahead of you and even if you cheat they would immediately spot it. and speaking of speedruns, they also have a streaming channel on youtube in which they do all sorts of challenges. Other than that reader is pretty much the person you'll love to hangout with.

─King, Saitama, Genos & Tatsumaki x hero!reader

─Summary: just a few headcannons of your relationship with these heroes

─Warnings: none

King

─ He probably met you from one of your streams early on, then you saved him from a monster he was completely terrified of, only taking a quick look at his 'character' stats to detect the terror behind that straight face.

─ You found it so amusing that you indirectly encouraged him with a drink at the bar where you worked, after which he became a regular customer.

─ Although you had to change the meeting place because there were many King fans who came to ask for autographs, there were only a couple of people who wanted your autograph, and it was not even because you were a hero, but because of your streams.

─ Anyway, you found yourself at his house every time you had free time, when you found out that he played video games and watched your streams he desperately tried to deny it, you didn't give it any importance and now he's one of your most competitive rivals.

─ Luckily you can give more life to the games you play, King is used to playing against npc or Saitama and it's always very easy to win, so his mission right now is to beat you.

─ He will definitely run towards you if there are monsters nearby, you have incredible power and despite being A-class, he thinks you can eradicate any kind of threat or at least aspire to more than A-class.

─ Your relationship is based on a constant fight to break records in any game, whether it is the best streak in Valorant, speedruns in Mario 64 or winning in Mortal Kombat, although the rivalry increases much more in Mario Kart, peace was never an option.

Saitama

─ He met you in the middle of a battle, completely fascinated by being able to change your 'character' and appearance, he asked you if you could change his appearance too, although you could 'program' reality in a certain way, his change would not last forever.

─ After that silly situation, he found you at work and stayed for a while chatting, which made him visit the bar more when he needed to get away from Genos for a bit.

─ He takes care of all the people who have a bad treatment towards you when you work, although you simply don't care, he insists that you should not let disrespect pass.

─ He encourages you to change some parameters of reality to play some jokes on bad customers, you only get carried away sometimes changing the appearance of those people to something ugly.

─ Smoke comes out of his head whenever you play games because you are unbeatable, more than once you let him win to see his happy face, although if he rubs it too much in your face you will not let him win again.

─ You feel a little envious of his great power, it's not that you complain about yours, but sometimes it's tedious to have to think of a video game mechanic to transfer it to reality and fight, it's not so easy to change weapons from a shooter to sorcery from a fantasy rpg and he just has to throw a punch.

─ You are somewhat similar so when you both need calm or are saturated you get together to have a tea or coffee without the need to start a conversation, you just enjoy the program that is on television.

Genos

─ You became a Saitama 2.0 for this boy when he saw you fight, you will have him as a puppy in your work until you agree to train him once and for all.

─ However, no matter how much you explained to him that you only had powers by copie stats from video game characters to use them to your advantage, you couldn't help him much for that, so you simply supported him in the silly ideas that Saitama invented.

─ He didn't care that you were a class lower than his, after all Saitama was C-class and was his trainer, he thought that having two would only make him stronger.

─ He's not that big a fan of videogames, so unfortunately you spend more time having small battles against him in your free time, you weren't as good in combat as you were in videogames but luckily Genos was easy to read and distract with reality bending.

─ He won't tolerate a single disrespect towards you when you work, even though you don't care about the bad comments, you don't even have time to blink and those people are kicked out.

─ He'll put on your streams in the background while he cleans house, he's probably subscribed and donates from time to time to ask when you're free for a rematch.

─ Probably you will lend him some robotic parts or weapons from some games like Metroid, Megaman, Metal Gear Solid or Call of Duty, although they will not last infinitely in the real world.

Tatsumaki

─ She started a rivalry with you because you started to get the attention of some of the administrators of the hero association, you were just an A-class, you weren't that great.

─ You decided to ignore her silent threats during meetings, although when it was your turn to battle together she always did something to stand out from you, you really didn't care, it's not like you put in that much effort in battle.

─ After a while she left the childish attitude and found herself frequenting your bar, at first it was to follow you closely, then for chat with you.

─ She will begin to admire your fighting method because it's never the same and you learn quickly about your opponents, coming to imitate their attacks, you always change the game mechanics to your liking, although she will not admit it out loud.

─ At a certain point she offered you a class upgrade because you really were much better than a simple A-class, but you turned it down, you had enough work already and being a hero was only an occasional thing, she got mad at you for saying no.

─ She doesn't like to lose so she won't waste her time playing games with you, nor will she admit that she watches your streams and that's why she knows that she won't be able to beat you in any video game.

─ She makes a competition for everything she can think of in what she can beat you, you don't give a shit about her tsundere attitude and you just flow with it, if she wants to compete, it's never a bad thing to have a healthy rivalry with someone.

[oneatlatime]

The Tales of Ba Sing Se PART 1

Once upon a time in Ba Sing Se, the Gaang got Appa back. The end. Please?

This title sounds rather expositiony, but last episode was already a plot/exposition dump, and a rather dark one at that. So who knows? Not me.

Sokka hun I think you're supposed to shave with a blade slightly less substantial than that.

I am fascinated by the hair loopies. I always thought that they were braided in, but they clip in. Does she have a magnet in her braid that they clip in to? A lego type system?

CAT

Toph's morning routine is uncomfortably close to mine.

I know Toph likes being slobby to stick it to the man, but wouldn't it also help with her spatial awareness if she's always sporting a healthy coating of earth? Maybe she can sense where her limbs are better or something?

"Spa day!" "Do I have to?" UNCOMFORTABLY CLOSE GUYS.

That has got to be torture. How would you like a pumice stone to the eyeballs?

Now THAT'S a healthy coating of earth.

You're not usually into that stuff? You got dolled up last episode.

Are there voice acting awards? Because whoever voiced these guys needs one. I have never in my life heard such perfectly distilled middle school clique bitch impression.

That's cathartic.

Katara's smothering/mothering tendencies usually annoy me, but it's a good thing those means girls happened when Katara was around, because this calls for serious hugs. I almost want to say that it's out of character to see Toph not be 100% sure of herself, but I think it adds character instead.

Do you think anyone's ever told Toph before that she's really pretty? Ever?

That's a good hug.

Is this short stories? Like an anthology? TALES of Ba Sing Se. Like day in the life? Ok. I'm going to break this up for ease of reading/writing.

The Tale of Iroh

If Iroh hadn't distinguished himself by making the best tea in the city, he would have come to everyone's attention anyway by single handedly fixing everyone's personal problems.

Bending soccer. Why didn't I think of that?

His voice is funny in this scene. Also isn't honour a fire nation thing?

One of my absolute favourite things about Iroh is that his philosophical side is always balanced out by a practical side. He's always philosophising but he's also always grounded. Sometimes hightailing it is what needs doing. Sometimes your sister is crazy and needs to go down.

You know you're bad at crime when your poor stance actually offends the guy you're mugging.

I also like how Iroh really doesn't moralise. He'll teach this guy what conditions the moonflower likes; he'll teach this guy how to mug better. Knowledge is for sharing, no judgment attached!

Random mugger speedruns Zuko's arc.

So pretty. It's been a while since there's been good pretty.

oh shit

ok

Now I have questions!

The Tale of Aang

Writers take note: You see this sad face? You see what you've done to my boy? You can reverse it with one simple trick! GIVE HIM APPA BACK.

I love this. Can't help Appa, so Aang helps every other animal in Ba Sing Se instead.

I want to know what this is. Monkey panther?

I didn't realise until now how tall platypus bears were.

CABBAGE GUY! HI!

Actual dragonflies. Punny.

I love these. My nomination for cutest atla animal.

I hope that wasn't required agricultural land. Should have put the zoo near the drill instead. That land already looked close to salted.

This was some Toph level bending. Love to see Aang's skills progress.

Turtle seal's got competition for cutest animal.

Just call this portion the petting zoo and it's a win.

The Tale of Sokka

Something I don't talk about enough is Sokka's supernatural skill with that boomerang. The realistic explanation is that he's spent every spare minute since receiving it honing his skills by chucking it at random piles of snow, but I like to think he's a boomerang bender. Actually wouldn't boomerang bending be a manifestation of latent airbending tendencies?

I make this face at lasagne.

I may have to make another Sokka's Stupid Faces post.

There is nothing oaflike about falling out of a window and into a Haiku. He was even polite about it!

Somebody introduce Sokka to flyting.

Forget about being a warrior, Aang needs to end this war yesterday so that Sokka can go be a poet. Warrior poet. He's way too creative to waste on cannon fodder.

Poetry bouncer. The longer I think about that the funnier it gets.

Betrayed by hubris.

A Poetry bouncer. Who comes up with this stuff? How do you come up with that? I keep thinking about a poetry bouncer and I keep giggling.

I'm breaking this post here as I'm reaching the image limit. Part 2 coming immediately!

[time-traveling-fetus]

All these fucking videos that are like "THIS is why gamers are so toxic" drive me up the wall. "Players were using the leaderboard to single out players" no dude statistics don't make people toxic. If they didn't have a leaderboard then the target of their rage would simply be random. You wanna know why some communities are so toxic?

Get a bunch of strangers who are stressed out from work and school looking to blow off steam. Put them in a tense, fast-paced environment. Force them to work together but don't give them any time to hold a proper discussion, much less get to know each other. Put a huge emphasis on competition and personal skill, but also have that skill measured on a pass/fail system that's built to pass them exactly 50% of the time.

Everybody's interactions will be tainted by their own stress as well as the urgency of the task they're trying to complete. These strangers will be completely anonymous and their relationship will be fleeting, meaning that there's no social punishment for bad behavior. Likewise, because no one knows each other, the only thing they will know is how they interfere with each other. In the mind of each person, those flaws become the strangers' entire personalities. The inability to properly talk to each other limits how well misunderstandings can be cleared up, and being unable to coordinate frustrates everyone more. The moment that something goes wrong—and bear in mind there's at minimum a 50% chance of something going wrong every game—then everybody starts looking for a solution, or more accurately they look for someone to blame. Even if they try to be amicable, the limited communication makes it come off as passive aggressive. Everything devolves from there.

The leaderboards, the ranking systems, all of that? It only excerbates an inherent flaw in the design. If you look at any game that doesn't include one or two of the elements I mentioned suddenly people are noticeably friendlier. Not perfect, sure, but better. If you want your games to be less toxic then either play a different game or play exclusively with friends. You can't fix league of legends with balance changes.

[beauty-and-passion]

Eurovision and the jury’s problem (but mostly the jury’s problem)

Ah, the Eurovision national juries. I love them so much. My love is so big that, since I started this tradition of writing a post about Eurovision, I’ve always included one paragraph to openly express my love for them and, not surprisingly, my love took the shape of FUCK YOU JURY.

So this year gave me the final push to do more research and finally give them the post they deserve, in which I will finally explain why they do more harm than good and are generally useless.

If that’s what you wanted to know, you can close the post now, thank you for your time. But if you want to know why I think the jury is useless, then allow me to expand more and properly explain myself.

_______________________

The jury has always been part of the show!

Yes, but now always with the same power.

Let’s do a bit of history: Eurovision started in the 50s, right after the end of WW2. TV was starting to grow stronger and with the birth of the EBU, they were searching for a TV program that could’ve involved and united all nations.

And so, an Italian journalist said: “Hey, here in Italy we have this sick song competition called Sanremo. We can make something similar, but every European country should send an artist.”. Marcel Bezençon, general manager of the EBU at the time, liked the idea and, after a few meetings, it was decided to make this music competition that will become Eurovision.

So yes, this is how Eurovision started. It’s because of Sanremo. It’s because of Italy. My country might do stupid shit, but we are still able to do something good once in a while.

The first edition counted 7 countries: Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Switzerland. Four of them will become the “Big Five”, because they are the ones that put more money into this competition. Other countries will slowly join in.

The jury was first introduced because, well, there was no possible way to call every single person who was watching the show. The TV was still in its infancy, let alone the global communications, so of course there was a jury. IT was the only way.

However, over time the televoting system was born and it started to improve. In 1997 five countries used it for the first time and from the year after all countries could use it. The jury was left in the back and used only under exceptional circumstances when televoting was not possible.

This lasted from 1997 to 2009. Then from 2010 it started the 50/50 system.

So yes, the jury has always been part of the show. But at first it was present because it was the only way to choose a winner, then it was pushed in the back, only to regain more power in the last 10 years.

But hey, you may ask: since Eurovision has been inspired by Sanremo, maybe this is how Sanremo voting system works too, right?

Nope. We are Italians, so we should make the most complicated voting system ever. Sanremo is currently articulated in five evenings and every evening has different juries and different ways to vote. I won’t go into too much detail because it’s bonkers, but I can tell you that:

1) There are multiple juries: the public, a jury made of 150 accredited representatives and the opinion poll jury. This one in particular is a group of people chosen by the national public broadcasting company RAI (which broadcasts Sanremo) out of a sample of habitual music users and selected according to criteria of age/geographical origin.

So no, the system is completely different and yes, this system is evolving too, because the opinion poll jury counted 1000 people last year, this year only 300 and who knows how many there will be in the future.

2) The final result is the sum of all three votes: 33% of the final voting is made of the representative’s jury, 33% of the opinion poll jury and 34% of the televoting. So even if by just one measly point, the televoting is the most important one out of the three.

Is this system perfect? No, it doesn’t work either and it’s fucking complicated. But at least it acknowledges that the public deserves to have more power than the juries. And there is also more than one jury, which at least allows a wider vision of things.

_______________________

The jury is here because it brings more variety!

Aww, how adorable.

I specifically searched for every single winning song from 1997 to 2023, thus including both the years without jury (1997-2008) and the ones with jury (2009-2023). I checked which is the musical genre of every winning song.

Do you want to know which genre won the most? Pop.

Do you want to know how many times a pop song won in the years without jury (including europop and latin-pop)? 9 times.

Do you want to know how many times a pop song won in the years with jury (including folk-pop, dance-pop and electro-pop)? 10 times.

Please, tell me more about the variety the jury brings. Can’t wait to hear it.

_______________________

The jury is here because it brings variety 2: Englishvision

Europe: a country with a shit ton of languages and we use always the same one for singing.

Do you want to know how many times we had a winning song that wasn’t in English from 1997 to 2023? 7 times and in two of them there were English parts.

The first three winners come from the years without jury (Dana International - "Diva", Ruslana - "Wild Dances", Marija Šerifović - "Molitva"). The others come from the years with jury and my god we had to fight tooth and nail to have them:

Jamala - "1944"

Salvador Sobral - "Amar Pelos Dois"

Måneskin - "Zitti e buoni"

Kalush Orchestra - "Stefania"

Those are people’s winners. Well, except for Jamala who no one wanted as a winner, because the public wanted Russia and the jury Australia. However, let’s leave it in for now: it’s a particular case I want to talk about later.

What I want to let you know is that, in order to have these winners, the public had to do a massive collective effort to give them enough points to overcome the jury - especially the last two. And if you know them, it’s because they are in the top 10 list of the public’s favorites.

But what if I tell you we could’ve had two more songs in their native languages on this list?

In 2015 the public’s favourite was Italy with Il Volo. An Italian song, genre classical music. It lost against Sweden’s pop song.

In 2023 the public’s massive favourite was, as you know, Finland. A Finnish song, genre hyperpop/industrial metal. It lost against Sweden’s pop song.

What a strange coincidence, isn’t it? Both times a song in a native language lost against an English pop song. Both times, the public’s favourite lost because the jury’s favourite won. Both times it was against Sweden.

Please, tell me again about the fairness of this system and how much variety it brings.

________________________

The jury is here because the eastern countries all vote for their neighbors!

Just because the western countries all hate each other’s neighbours, it’s not a valid reason to blame the eastern ones for that.

Also, hey, wasn’t that a music competition? Why should we even care about which country the winning song comes from? Shouldn’t the jury think just about the music? Please tell me more about the impartiality of the jury.

Another thing: maybe it’s just me, but I supposed everyone studied math or had a basic knowledge of how many countries are in Europe. Well, I did both for you and if we divide Europe in half, we will have more o less 21 countries on the west and 26 countries on the east (I am including Australia in the west).

In my world, 26 is a bigger number than 21. So if the east slightly wins more times than the west is, well, understandable. The probability for them to win is higher, because there are more artists from those countries and so they have more chances to bring the winning song. I don’t think it’s so difficult to understand.

Maybe the reason why the western countries win less is not because “the easterns votes for their neighbours”, but because the westerns do not take the competition seriously and send shitty songs. Why Italy rarely gets a bad position? Because we care about music and we want to send something good. Why the UK fails a lot of times? Because they don’t care enough to send a good song. They are both Big Fives and they both put money on this show: the only difference is that one cares a bit more than the other. So instead of blaming the east, maybe it’s time to start bringing more decent songs.

And this “the east wins more” is even more stupider, if you look at the countries with the highest number of victories: Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, Luxembourg and France.

In my world, those countries are all in the west. I know we all hate each other, but knowing when our rivals are on a map would be a good start.

Do you want to know why this stupid theory exists? It’s all because of the years without jury. It’s because in the years 2001-2008 we had this series of winners:

Estonia

Latvia

Turkey

Ukraine

Greece

Finland

Serbia

Russia

Since they are all in the east, they thought these countries were all voting for each other’s. That’s it.

I don’t know how they justified Ireland winning 3 times in a row (1992-1994) in their minds but hey, maybe that’s why I’m not a member of the EBU.

_________________________

The jury doesn’t have a favourite!

Very cute.

Do you want to know which are the countries with the most victories in the years 1997-2023? Here is a very funny list:

Israel: 2 times

1998 (no jury year) with Dana International - "Diva" (public’s favourite)

2018 (jury year) with Netta - "Toy" (public’s favourite)

Denmark: 2 times

2000 (no jury year) with Olsen Brothers - "Fly On The Wings Of Love" (public’s favourite)

2013 (jury year) with Emmelie de Forest - "Only Teardrops" (public’s favourite)

Ukraine: 3 times

2004 (no jury year) with Ruslana - "Wild Dances" (public’s favourite)

2016 (jury year) with Jamala - "1944" (not public’s favourite, but highly appreciated by the public)

2022 (jury year) with Kalush Orchestra - "Stefania" (public’s favourite)

Sweden: 4 times

1999 (no jury year) with Charlotte Nilsson - "Take Me To Your Heaven" (public’s favourite)

2012 (jury year) with Loreen - "Euphoria" (public’s favourite)

2015 (jury year) with Måns Zelmerlöw - "Heroes" (jury’s favourite)

2023 (jury year) with Loreen - "Tattoo" (jury’s favourite)

I don’t know you, but I notice two victories that made the public unhappy because both times the jury’s power overcame the public’s power. How weird it happened for the same country that won three times since the 50/50 system has been introduced.

Sure, the first victory was wanted by the public, but the other two were against the public’s will. And please allow me to repeat it again because this is what upsets me the most: both times an English pop song won instead of a song in a native language with a different musical genre.

And what makes these two victories even more undeserved, is that in general the winner has always been the public’s favourite. In 27 years the public’s favourite won 23 times and two times it was a public’s appreciated artist (Jamala, Duncan Lawrence).

The only two times public’s favourite didn’t win, it was a Swedish artist with a massive push from the jury that made it impossible to defeat it.

But hey, maybe this point is a bit unfair. After all, it’s not Sweden’s fault if they learned what the jury likes and keep sending the same kind of song to get their votes. Maybe I am just jealous: I mean, my country basically invented Eurovision and yet we’re not able to exploit this show to win all the times? Gosh, we’re useless :P

The problem is not Sweden’s cleverness. The problem is that the jury always uses the same criteria, so one country has been able to recognize and exploit them. In a democratic world with a fair competition, the organizers of said competition would say: “okay, maybe we should change the criteria all the time, so no one would be able to use them and the jury will remain impartial”. But I suppose this was a too difficult choice for the EBU.

Or maybe they just own Sweden some money, who knows. I really have no idea.

_____________________

The jury is here because otherwise people’s votes would be political!

Oh, so hilarious.

This is the list of the winning entries by jury and by the public:

Until the recent years, public and jury agreeded on the winner and when the public chose a winner, it was jury’s second choice. So if the public’s votes were political back then, the jury’s votes were political as well.

Only in the last editions jury and public started to truly diverge and unless I missed something, Israel just had a catchy song, Italy’s victory had nothing political behind, Ukraine’s victory was a massive collective justifiable effort to say “fuck you” to Russia and people just like Finland’s song more. So, again, nothing political behind.

However, there are also two very interesting cases, the only ones in which the winner was a country no one chose as favorite:

2016: public’s favourite: Russia - jury’s favourite: Australia. Winner: Ukraine

2019: public’s favourite: Norway - jury’s favourite: North Macedonia. Winner: the Netherlands

Do you want to know why the jury’s favourite of 2016 is Australia? I don’t know. What I know is that Australia joined Eurovision in 2015 and it was supposed to be just a one time thing, so they were automatically qualified for the finals. But in 2016 they joined like everyone else and had to make through the semifinals and... well, it wouldn’t be nice to send back home a country that just joined. I am not saying these two things are related, but it’s a bit of a weird coincidence, isn’t it?

Do you want to know why the jury’s favourite of 2019 is North Macedonia? I don’t know. What I know is that on June 2018 the country changed its name to the Republic of North Macedonia. And, you know, it’s nice to hear it more times, just to leave an impression on people’s minds. Again: I am not saying these two things are related, but it’s a bit of a weird coincidence, isn’t it?

Okay, let’s leave the tinfoil hat theories on the side. Do you really want to know where the “the public’s vote is too political” thing comes from? It comes from Jamala winning in 2016. Because Russia has already started with their bullshit in Crimea and Jamala’s song (despite not specifically talking about that invasion) was a reminder of that situation. And so everyone blamed the public for this victory and said that “the public was influenced by the actual political situation”. All while Jamala was second favorite of both the public AND the jury. So, again, if the public was biased, the jury is biased as well.

Actually, in her case the jury is a lot more biased than the public, because the public’s favorite was Russia! So, well, who is the political one now?

The truth is that the public is made of people and of course people will be influenced by the situation in which they live. But same goes for the jury: the jury is also influenced by the current situations, both Eurovision-related and world-related. So it’s totally unfair to blame the public for having a heart and a mind and for their will to choose a song over the other - especially when they are not influenced by the world situation (like in 2016) or when they are as it happened in 2022.

And, honestly, I’d much rather prefer people choosing a winner because of a fucking war, than a bunch of people choosing their winner for reasons that will benefit them only.

______________________

The jury is made of experts and they give their expert opinion!

Awesome. Now explain to me how can you objectively choose the best song between a pop one, a folk one, a metal one and a rock one. Tell me which universal criteria will you apply.

Voice? But each genre requires a different kind of voice. An opera singer has a powerful voice, but growl music requires a powerful voice as well - heck, it’s even more complicated than opera, so it should be more praised than that! I mean, try growling without sounding like an idiot: it’s immensely hard. How can you decide which is better in an objective way? Do you just focus on which is more difficult to perform? But then it’s unfair to the pop singers, who also have good beautiful voices. How can you objectively choose the best?

Performance? But every genre requires a specific kind of performance. You can’t put an energetic performance on a ballad or slow dancers on a rock song. If two performance are equally beautifully ftting for their music genre, how can you decide which is objectively better?

Lyrics? But not everyone knows the lyrics of all songs and some lyrics might have multiple meanings or refer to particular aspects of the country’s culture, so you might not understand how beautiful they are. How can you choice which one is better, without knowing all these details?

Overall impression of the song? That’s not even an objective criteria, try harder.

The truth is that you CANNOT choose between different songs and different genres in a universally objective way. You will always be influenced by your own preferences and musical tastes.

Do you want to know how these criteria could’ve worked? If everyone brought the same song. Then okay, you can objectively make your choice: after all, we are talking about one genre and one song. In all other cases, this criteria makes zero sense.

And before you say “the jury needs to recognize the good singers”: people have ears. If a singer is bad, people can hear it by themselves. Polish people proved very well that they can recognize a very bad singer from an extremely good one and I doubt the entire country of Poland is made of musical experts or that everyone likes dance-pop/electro-industrial music.

Same goes for all the people around the world who praised Jann and said Blanka is terrible: I doubt they are all music experts or Polish. Maybe they just have ears.

Sure, some people have better taste than others, I don’t deny that. But considering that all humans have ears and a brain, I don’t think they need someone else to tell them that yes, this thing you like is good or no, that thing you don’t like is bad. Maybe they can understand it by themselves.

And if the problem is that the public doesn’t have a taste, then give them the means to acquire said taste. Let experts give more insights about an artist: they could explain why their voices are good or bad, why their performance works or not and why the lyrics are complex or simple. Let the public take a decision, instead of treating them like toddlers who should be spoon-fed.

______________________

The importance of the public

What makes this 2023 victory so empty, is that it has nothing Eurovision stands for. It’s not the victory of an unknown, talented artist. It’s not a victory the majority wanted. It’s not a victory that sends a good message.

It’s the victory of mainstream and safety. It’s a victory that doesn’t look forward and doesn’t try anything new, because it prefers to rely on the same old stuff. It’s a victory of nostalgia, industries and brands.

And if it hurts so much, it’s not just because the public’s will has never been so blatantly clear about who they wanted to win, but also because after two years in which we had native languages and new genres on the top, we were really, really hoping for a switch towards something different.

I don’t blame the past artists for not trying more, the years were different. But we are in the 20s of the year 2000 now. We are more open to different people, genders, sexual orientations. We don’t have to play safe anymore, not in a world that is moving forward. We can have different winners, we can have different cultures and we can have different genres.

I really hope that this year will teach something, not just to us, but to the EBU and to Europe. If things will change, good. And despite my harsh words, I am okay if the jury stays: it has always been present, after all, even when pushed in the back. So if we have to keep it, let’s keep it.

But it’s time to give them less power. It’s time for a 30/70 or a 20/80 system. 50/50 is just not acceptable anymore.

Or, as the 2023 public’s winner said:

Thank you for your time and please, keep support your winners.

(Clips from THIS video)

[haggishlyhagging]

While male prophets were devising more varieties of marriage, some of the female prophets were arguing against it altogether. There were several bases for their stance. Some, like Roxanne Dunbar, argued against marriage because revolution was a full-time occupation, leaving no time for purely personal concerns. They called upon women to leave houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, land, to give single-minded dedication to their salvation. It sounds absurd. Still, how does it differ, when you come to think about it, from the same rationale for celibate religious orders?

Other radical female prophets objected to marriage not only because of what they felt it did to women but also because, like their conservative opposite numbers, they saw it as a major support of the status quo. But whereas conservatives argued for strengthening marriage because they wanted the status quo protected and preserved, the radical women argued against it because they did not. They were against marriage precisely because, as Judith Brown put it, it did shore up and support the status quo:

The institution of marriage ... is a potent instrument for maintaining the status quo in American society. It is in the family that children learn so well the dominance-submission game, by observation and participation. Each family, reflecting the perversities of the larger order and split off from the others, is powerless to force change on other institutions, let alone attack or transform its own. And this serves the Savage Society well.

Still others argued against marriage not only because it was conservative, but also because it was antirevolutionary in the sense that it deflected the righteous anger of workers against their exploiters. The wife who offered an emotional refuge to her husband from the jungle warfare of occupational competition was supporting a nonhumane system. Fran Ansley is speaking here:

Women serve as "lightning rods" for men's frustrations at other factors in their environment. This can be especially serviceable for the ruling class. Often it is the man of the family who experiences most directly the real power relationships in the society. (He sells his labor to a capitalist who then exploits him; he has a direct relation to industrial production; etc.) When wives play their traditional role as takers of shit, they often absorb their husbands' legitimate anger and frustration at their own powerlessness and oppression. With every worker provided with a sponge to soak up his possibly revolutionary ire, the bosses rest more secure. Chauvinist attitudes help to maintain this asocial system of tension-release.

But it is once more a case in which the woman pays. The mental health of men, their balance, is preserved by the ministrations of their wives, who salve the wounds inflicted on them by the outside world. The real beneficiaries in this framework are employers and exploiters of men against whom the aggression of unsoothed men would wreak itself. All is at the expense of wives, says Beverly Jones: “the inequalitarian relationships in the home are perhaps the basis of all evil. Men can commit any horror, or cowardly suffer any mutilation of their souls and retire to the home to be treated there with awe, respect, and perhaps love. Men will never face their true identity or their real problems under these circumstances, nor will we.”

Some argued against marriage because it was so oppressive for women. They translated the material presented in chapter 3 into polemics. This was how Judith Brown saw it:

The married woman knows that love is, at its best, an inadequate reward for her unnecessary and bizarre heritage of oppression. The marriage institution does not free women; it does not provide for emotional and intellectual growth; and it offers no political resources. Were it not for male-legislated discrimination in employment, it would show little economic advantage. Instead, she is locked into a relationship which is oppressive politically, exhausting physically, stereotyped emotionally and sexually, and atrophying intellectually. She teams up with an individual groomed from birth to rule, and she is equipped for revolt only with the foot-shuffling, head-scratching gesture of "feminine guile." ... Marriage ... is the atomization of a sex so as to render it politically powerless. The anachronism remains because women won't fight it, because men derive valuable benefits from it and will not give them up.

Some argued against marriage because it did not provide a suitable unit for the rearing of children. "There is," said Roxanne Dunbar, “little reality in the human relations in this society, and least of all in marriage. Ask the children what they think of the institution which supposedly exists for their upbringing, their beneft. All the love between ‘man and woman’ in the world will not make that tiny unit any less lonely, any less perverted to the child who is raised within it.”

A few, finally, fought marriage because they hated men. In reply to the "official" position against man-hating among the female prophets, one of them— Pamela Kearon—made a plea for open recognition of its existence in the displaced form of hatred of other women: "there is no dearth of hatred in the world. I agree.… People do not react to oppression with Love.... When women take their hatred out on others, those others are likely to be other women.... If hatred exists (and we know it does), let it be of a robust variety. If it is a choice between woman-hating and man-hating, let it be the latter."

It is doubtful whether these antimarriage arguments had much effect on the marriage rate. But the fact that they could be articulated, whether accepted or rejected, cannot help but affect the future of marriage. The idolatry of marriage was finally being challenged.

Jessie Bernard, The Future of Marriage

[loving-jack-kelly]

javey headcannons?

and plenty of them! in no particular order

davey has always been a troublemaker he's just also really good at convincing people he's never done anything wrong a day in his life. jack quickly picks up on it and lets davey do the talking when they (inevitably) get caught doing something stupid

canon era davey writes jack letters and notes and poems and hides them for him to find. jack sometimes has to get Race to read them for him because he struggles with reading. he doesn't tell davey for a long time because he's embarrassed and when he does davey is embarrassed that race knows how sappy he can get. race delights in quoting davey's words back at him but only after davey already knows he's read them

davey is one of the first people jack is actually comfortable sitting in silence with. with pretty much everyone else except crutchie and once in a while race, he's always chattering just to fill the space. he doesn't need to do that with davey.

similarly, jack is one of the first people davey doesn't feel the need to mask around. he doesn't even notice it at first until he's halfway through an hour long lecture on something or other and he hasn't stopped or slowed down or apologized once, and jack is just listening. it feels pretty great.

davey is always cold and jack cannot share a bed without ending up wrapped around the person next to him. match made in heaven.

they both understand each other at their most incomprehensible. jack says some nonsense that may or may not be in an actual language and davey knows what he's going for 9/10 times.

they both love sci-fi but jack is obsessed with like. golden age, creature features, cheesy new wave sci-fi and davey loves things more in line with like. 2001 a space odyssey, interstellar, the martian.

they also both love mysteries but davey never ceases to be infuriated that jack figures it out every single time like halfway through the story. jack has never won a game of clue, though.

davey is way more competitive than jack, unless jack is competing against spot, in which case nobody wants to get in the way of their lovingly intense rivalry.

there was a really awkward in-between stage of their relationship where they both liked each other, were both hyperaware that the other liked them back, and yet were both too afraid of what changing their relationship would mean to actually do anything about it.

davey is jack's first actually serious relationship. he's terrified of commitment and terrified to lose somebody close to him.

jack tends towards conflict avoidance and davey just says what's on his mind. HOWEVER jack is always very quick to act, while davey tends to sit back and think things through. both of these things have caused conflict, sometimes at the same time.

jack has a crazy good memory. davey does not. they have a system and it involves davey telling jack every time he puts his eyes, phone, wallet, or anything else of import down so jack can respond when davey wonders aloud where he left them

jack insists he doesn't like cats but he's obsessed with davey's cat especially after they move in together. he can and will carry her in his hat

jack is extremely extroverted and davey is extremely introverted. jack is also extremely good at telling when davey needs an excuse to leave and is prone to dramatic exits. davey is forever unsure if he loves or hates it.

canon era again davey is scared of heights and jack loves being above the city. it takes too long for jack to catch on that davey gets so nervous when jack leads him someplace high up, but in his defense davey didn't say anything because he was having fun sneaking around with jack when he wasn't thinking about how high up they were.

jack is very introspective and philosophical but pretty much only davey knows it because jack just drops little tidbits into unrelated conversations unprompted that nobody else seems to notice. he'll be halfway through a conversations about a new recipe he wants to try and just throw "i dunno, i guess I've been thinking about the best way to get things out of life and if I'm never scared of what comes next I'm never gonna get to get excited about finding something unexpected but cool" and he was talking about using a garlic press instead of chopping it by hand. eventually davey starts writing them down and he gives jack a notebook full of isms as a gift.

[fellthemarvelous]

"You're a dark horse, Mister Fell."

The Cambridge Dictionary defines "dark horse" as such:

a person who keeps their interests and ideas secret, especially someone who has a surprising ability or skill (UK)

a person who is not expected to succeed in or unexpectedly wins an election, race, or other competition (US)

DARK HORSE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary

We all know Aziraphale is good at keeping secrets. He's been doing it his entire existence.

And despite Crowley's insistence that Aziraphale is bad at human magic, he actually seems to be pretty good at it when Crowley isn't around, which makes sense because he does get easily flustered around Crowley when it comes to his love for human magic.

I'm not sure why everyone automatically assumes Aziraphale is just going to fail. He has a plan. He always does.

He protected Gabriel despite the danger it put him in.

And we watched him facilitate a civilized conversation between demons and angels after taking charge when it was clear the bickering was getting them nowhere.

Crowley did not have to rescue him that time, and Crowley was actually really proud of how Aziraphale took the lead.

Maybe he's naive about what he may or may not be able to do in Heaven, but he's not going to fail. There will be other angels who listen to him even if he can't change all of Heaven.

Change takes time and fixing a shitty, broken system NEVER happens overnight.

But Aziraphale will always have one more trick up his sleeve as he has proven many times. He's not power hungry, he's an activist who sees a system that has the potential to be so much more than what it is.

Whether anyone wants to acknowledge it or not, Heaven is a prison just as Hell is. The Metatron was about to remove Gabriel's memory and move him to a lower rank instead of allowing him to leave Heaven. The Metatron doesn't want anyone to see the cracks behind Heaven's mask.

The Metatron thinks removing Aziraphale from Crowley will make Aziraphale more obedient, but Aziraphale has 6,000 years of experiences that no other angel has.

Just as Crowley has 6,000 years of experiences that no other demon has.

He might initially feel compelled to obey, but it's hard releasing yourself from the grip of fear-based indoctrination. He's going to stand up to Heaven though, with or without Crowley.

Aziraphale has always worked hard to decrease human suffering.

Why would he not want to help the other angels? They've all been largely indoctrinated. Every single one of them is clearly terrified of something. They watched their brethren fall and had to risk the same fate if they didn't obey Heaven's orders. They're not okay.

He's going to have to learn on his own that Heaven and Hell are two sides of the same coin. That's already a given. I think the disillusionment will only motivate him further to do as much good as he can.

Even if that means turning his back on Heaven to protect humanity (and to be with Crowley).

[free-chozo-hrt]

The Metroid game most badly in need of a remake:

Bear with me here. I've got some Ideas about this game.

Metroid Prime Hunters is, for sure, one of the black sheep of the Metroid series. Its premise and game structure are pretty different from every other game, since it puts a large focus on multiplayer in a series defined by isolated single player experiences. It's hard to get a hold of, and it's not as fondly remembered as the rest of the Prime games. But why?

Admittedly I haven't personally seen all that the game has to offer, so don't consider this a full review. However, I have a copy on DS, and I've played enough to develop some insights about the game:

Hunters must be driven primarily by its multiplayer gameplay. Though I never got to experience it, I've heard good things about the pvp combat from those who have.

The game does have a pretty significant singleplayer campaign, but it feels very half-baked. Maps are supposedly borrowed straight from multiplayer arenas, making the layout of some parts of the game a bit unintuitive and confusing to navigate. Upgrades are also borrowed from multiplayer, and come in the form of alternate arm cannon weapons... and not much else. The adventure on each planet you visit is pretty repetitive. It didn't offer enough original material to keep me engaged until the end of the game, so I never finished.

The game is severely held back by its original hardware. For a full 3D adventure game where it's important to recognize details in your environment, the low resolution of the DS screen makes that task difficult. The aiming system using the touch pad is creative, but holding your DS in that position can be hard on the hands for long play sessions.

The game has plenty of shortcomings, so what good do I see in it? Well, Metroid Prime Hunters attempted some really unique ideas, and I'm intrigued by what would happen if they were executed better.

For starters, like I mentioned, the game's competitive multiplayer is well remembered. This isn't the only time the Metroid series has attempted multiplayer experiences, either pvp or co-op, but none of them are particularly well received by fans. That's understandable given the nature of Metroid games, and what we come to expect from them. But I'm fascinated by the possibility of a full-featured Metroid competitive shooter with a lot of effort put into it.

That brings me to my next point: the characters. Any good competitive shooter needs a diverse cast of player characters to choose from. And oh boy, the characters introduced by Metroid Prime Hunters are probably my favorite part of the game. It's the first game to put forth the idea that Samus shares the galaxy with other bounty hunters like her, and it gives us a whole gallery of freaky aliens for the roles, all with unique backstories and abilities. And then they never get used for anything outside this game! Wasted potential! I want to know more about them!

Let me lay out my ideas for a dream reimagining of Metroid Prime Hunters:

It needs to have fantastic online pvp. I'm no expert on the genre myself, but something in the same team shooter vein as Splatoon, TF2, or Overwatch is what I'm envisioning. You need to be able to start matchmaking and get right into a fun, well-balanced match whenever you want.

The characters need a wide range of abilities with very different playstyles to suit everyone's tastes. In fact, it wouldn't hurt to give them some personality too: voice lines would be welcome. Samus, of course, would take her place among the playable cast.

Because I want to have my cake and eat it too, this game should have a great singleplayer campaign. It doesn't have to be too long or complicated, but it should at least be creative and dynamic the whole way. It would star Samus, of course, but imagine the story potential if the other hunters were allowed to be more than just boss encounters, and actually contribute to the narrative in their own way.

So, what do you think? Do you think the ideas behind Metroid Prime Hunters have a lot of potential? Do you want to see how they could be executed on modern hardware, with a bit more care and ambition? Do you think Metroid is the right choice for Nintendo to branch out into the more mature competitive shooter genre? (Can you tell this idea excites me?)

[opiatemasses]

Normality or Reality?

Some believe that racism no longer exists, that the society we now live is post-racial or colour-blind. However, it is clear racism is an ongoing issue both here in the UK and globally. For example, 95% of young black British children have witnessed racism in school. According to Delgado et al. (2017) many people of colour choose not to speak out about it, as they feel it limits their futures. 

Because racism exists in society it also exists in sport. Black people do not have equal opportunities and do not receive similar rewards for equal or better performance when compared to their white counterparts. As a consequence, their desire for a successful career beyond sport or any other profession is dismal. 

Racial abuse does not just affect children, it affects adults, athletes, teachers, police officers, lawyers and so on. Anyone who is a person of colour can feel as though they are at a disadvantage because of the colour of their skin. It is something they face and challenge every single day. 

Examples of Racism in Everyday Life

It has been argued that race is a social construction.                       

Within the police force, at the end of March 2020, 92.7% of police officers were White, with only 7.3% identifying as BAME. Between April 2020 and March 2021 black people were over 3 times as likely to be arrested as white people. 

These statistics provide evidence to their reasonings of why they are at a disadvantage, simply because their skin is not white. Racism can occur anywhere and to anyone, what is important is that we are aware and report it to the police, or if you are at work to your workplace management. If you or someone you know is experiencing racial abuse you can report it here: https://www.report-it.org.uk

Image credit: Getty Images https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-racism-11591119883 

Defining Racism 

Racism in sport is defined as any form of discrimination against people based on race, ethnicity or nationality. This includes, and is not limited to, discriminatory acts, comments, policies and practices that exclude or hinder the ability of people of certain racial backgrounds to participate in sports. 

Racism In Sport 

Racism in sport is a reflection of wider prejudice and inequity that exists in both our societies and institutions. Athletes experience racial harassment on a regular basis, whether that be in person or online through social media. 

Racism has been found in sport for a long time in European sports, but this has intensified during major international sporting competitions where players of colour are put on centre stage and under pressure.   

In 2020 the men’s England football team lost to Italy in the UEFA Euro final.  Instead of admiring the skill of Italy’s goalkeeper or congratulating the fact England had succeeded in coming so far in the competition, three players – Bukayo Saka, Jason Sancho and Marcus Rashford – were subjected to floods of racist abuse. A tweet was published in response to this harassment encapsulates this phenomenon: “When you score, you’re English. When you miss, you’re an immigrant.” 

Furthermore, racism in sports can often have serious consequences for those subjected to it. Research has shown that in addition to physical and mental stress, athletes of colour often struggle with feelings of powerlessness, depression, and anxiety due to the constant discrimination they face during their sporting career. This can not only affect an athlete’s performance, but can also have lasting impacts on their mental health and well-being.

Image credit: Reuters https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/12/euro-2020-england-players-bombarded-with-racist-abuse-14912944/

What is Being Done to Stop Racial Abuse?

There are several organisations working to combat racism in sport, which include:

The Institute for Sport and Social Justice

The Anti-Defamation League

The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP)

Additionally, many professional sports leagues, such as the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Soccer (MLS), have established policies and initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion in their leagues. 

‘Taking the Knee’ was a major movement - a globally recognisable protest against racism, but it was prohibited for football players to do this before every match. This was only just the beginning. If we are to make progress in combating racism in sport, it is important for everyone to take a stand and speak out against racism whenever they see it. 

Various important initiatives have been launched to tackle racism in sport, such as the #BritishAthletesUnite campaign across the UK, which aims to create a platform to end racism in sport. Initiatives such as this are important, as they provide education and awareness of racism in sport. 

Additionally, organisations like Kick It Out are taking action to fight racism through their campaigns, educational resources and alert system. This ensures those affected by racism are provided with support and the issue is addressed.

Below is a short video on the backlash players received by ‘taking the knee’ before games. 

What Can YOU Do?

Sports are a microcosm of society. So to end racism in sport we need to recognise that the idea that society is post-racial is wrong. We must also focus on eliminating racism in our wider communities. 

This includes actively supporting organisations and initiatives that promote equality and racial justice. Additionally, we must continue to have discussions about racism and engage with communities to create change. 

Finally, it's important to remember that sport should be accessible to all, regardless of race, gender, class, disability, etc. Encouraging diversity and inclusion and ensuring that everyone has a seat at the table is critical to creating a more equitable sporting environment.

Racism in sport is an issue that we must take seriously and address. We must take steps to ensure that all athletes, regardless of race, are given equal opportunities and treated with respect. This is our reality but let us not make it a normality. YOU can help end racism once and for all. We all need to do our part and take steps to ensure that all athletes, regardless of race, are given equal opportunities and treated with respect. We must also take steps to ensure that those who engage in racist behaviour are held accountable for their actions. Only then together will we be able to make progress in our fight against racism in sport and end racism once and for all. 

N0948104

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

I don't know who else to turn to about this, because I want to ask the question but I don't want to get -cancelled- Can you tell me why so called "terfs"/radfems are wrong? because as far as I can tell they make a lot of sense but I know that makes me a "bigot" I just don't understand why. Men have already taken so much from us, is is so much to ask that they leave us the identity of womanhood? This is a serious question if thats okay.

…

(I’d like to find a gif of a character pouring out a glass of alcohol for something like this. On the other hand, I don’t drink, so it would be distinctly out of character…) 

Okay, let’s see if I can explain this to the best of my ability. 

It’s not men who are coming after you, not in this case. Because Trans women are women, and that’s a full sentence. It’s a fact. And that’s the real point here, but I’ll either persuade you that it’s true, or I won’t. At a certain point, I can’t choose what to believe for you. I can only tell you that on this one, you are wrong. TERFs are some of the most disappointing enemies we face in the fight for LGBT rights, because you are so, so close to getting the point, and yet you still miss it by a mile. The irony is that misogynists and other bigots of a similar caliber are glad you exist. Because intentionally or not, you are doing their dirty work for them. 

Let me try to put it another way. 

Let me ask you a single question - why. Why would men make the choice to “pretend” they’re women? The current social climate doesn’t exactly welcome trans people with open arms. People are being ostracized to the point of suicide. People are being murdered. Coming out as Trans typically involves, at the very least, changed pronouns and possibly a different name. But in the examples that TERFS usually talk about, it involves men “dressing up” as women. It often involves physical transitioning, up to and including sexual reassignment surgery. I repeat my question - why? Why would a cisgender man pretend to be otherwise? What benefit are they going to gain from that? The Patriarchy has done everything in it’s power to reduce womanhood, and with that in mind…why would men ever want to “steal” it from you? So they can go into a girl’s bathroom to assault people? I shouldn’t have to remind you of this, but men have been walking into girl’s bathrooms and assaulting them since the dawn of time, without bothering to use a disguise. They don’t need to do that. Our system is so fucked that they’d get away with it just fine in plain clothes, and that’s a bigger problem. You know what else is a bigger problem? Trans people having their privacy invaded when they try to use the bathroom they’re comfortable with. What does it even matter? It’s a bathroom. They don’t need to be gender-segregated in the first place, and plenty of them aren’t. So I’ll say it one more time - why? What’s the motive here?

While I can understand the instinct that there are certain things only cisgender women experience…that sentiment is true for just about every group you can conceivably name. Trans women likewise have unique experiences, just as Trans men do. And cis men. And nonbinary folk like myself. It’s not a competition. We should all be on the same side if we stand for equal rights. And that’s the main problem with the TERF ideology. You’re not standing for equals rights. I know you think you are, but you’re not. Who are you, who are any of us, to tell a Trans person that their identity is wrong? I assume you’ve heard of dysphoria, but if you’re cisgendered, that’s another experience that you can’t truly know or understand yourself. And speaking honestly, neither can I. But maybe I don’t have to understand it entirely. Maybe I just need to be considerate and look out for other people. Maybe feminism means standing up for the rights of all women, even the ones who don’t fit our perception of what it means to be a woman.

Because that perception is largely built on the back of the gender binary. 

I should put this out there, I am not a psychiatrist. I’m not even claiming to be particularly smart. But this is my interpretation of what’s going on here, and I think there’s some merit to it. I believe transphobia is largely rooted in misogyny. Because the Patriarchy’s power comes from the pecking order that’s been established and entrenched into every aspect of our lives. And you can’t keep women properly subjugated if the definition of a “woman” isn’t clearly defined and based on traits that cannot be negotiated or changed, like the genitals we’re born with. The misogynists at the top depend on this gender binary, and on the two sexes being irrevocably linked to it. What if the people we thought were men yesterday turn out to be women today? How does that calculate in the inherent system we have for men and women? It’s just too confusing, right? Makes it too difficult to keep everyone in their allotted places. 

But it does more than that. It interferes with the way young men are supposed to think and feel, what they’re socialized to think and feel. A boy can’t have feelings for another boy without being “gay” and that’s not supposed to happen, but that’s easy enough to work around. Just don’t date boys. But hold on a second! If the gender binary is thrown out and we accept the premise of trans women (as we should) this completely upends the system. Now they can’t judge people as men or women, with all the preconceived notions they have about both sexes, because just looking at a person no longer tells you what they are. And the misogynists cannot stand that. Because it prevents them from assigning people their designated role, and in doing so, it puts them in a place they fear. Now they can’t tell if the women they pursue are actually “men” or not. This is the infamous concept of the “trap.” Not only has led to trans women getting murdered, but historically, the “trans panic” defense actually held up in court! People committed literal hate crimes and got away with it. 

…Can you see why Trans women are not the real enemies here? You think they represent the demographic that has always preyed on you, but that’s simply not true. They’ve been turned into a scapegoat because the only solution bigotry could think of, to subjugate trans people and stop them from destroying the precious gender binary…was to sexualize their identities and try to paint them as predators. So the people who should be their allies will turn against them. And the TERF movement is proof that it worked. 

Like I said, I can’t make this journey for you. I may not even be able to convince you of anything I’ve written here. But if you’re wondering why TERFs are “canceled” this is why. Because, from where we’re standing, you’re fighting for the wrong side. The LGBT movement includes the “T.” Excluding any letter (and there are more, I’m just using the shorthand) goes against the entire spirit of what the movement is about in the first place. 

[if-confessions]

Reader - sorry to those authors, but I really hate it when they put every single one of their posts in the general ‘interactive fiction’ tag. I end up blocking half the blogs that do it and scrolling right by the rest :/

Tumblr wilderness into action, where there is no real rule and the tagging "conventions" would probably not be followed anyway...

It is true that the tag is flooded with essentially everything barely related to Interactive Fiction nowadays, from questionably relevant asks to essentially shitpost polls.

With the #interactive fiction tag being the one-stop-for-all to find IF games*, it's not surprising some authors will tag everything this way to gain more followings or some sort of interaction***. In other terms, to stay relevant**. Even if that means flooding the tag with random stuff and burying other people's projects... *people use tags as a way to organise their posts, more than trying to be seen. **no shade to those authors doing this, it is a marketing strategy, even if a frustrating one for the targeted users. ***also not a guarantee to get interaction...

What do you think should be/not be allowed in the #interactive fiction tag? Should we have a consensus on a tagging etiquette? If so, how do we go at it?

Under the cut is my answer to the first question... so just me theoretically gatekeeping stuff because I can. And because no one will end up following those point, anyway.

What I think should be in there:

Project introductions (obviously) and teasers

Project updates (added content, change of status, etc...) and update teasers

Dev logs/periodical check in

Reviews (<- there's not enough of those)

Interactive Fiction resources (theory, history of the genre, gameplay systems, program resource lists [not tutorials, I would put that in #coding if or something], communities [discords, forums...])

Event announcements [Competitions, Jams, Award ceremonies...]

Interactive Fiction discourse (a.k.a. callout posts about community shenanigans, sometimes we need to be shown we are the black kettle)

Recommendations lists

Patreon/Ko-fi/Commission posts

What I think is irrelevantly tagged as interactive-fiction:

Asks in general (sorry, but we don't need anons proposing to characters...) save for the ones related to the categories above

Polls, same as for the asks. Unless it's directly related to above, nope, pass. Results of polls as well.

Just art posts (like portrait, settings, background, random doodles, etc...) that do not fall in any of the categories above UNLESS the project is a VN or asset heavy IF.

Inspo posts. Nope nope nope... That counts for playlists or pinterest-like mood boards* *unless it's character introductions, then see below

One like post about how much [coding/writing/marketing/other IF activity] is annoying/the worst/etc...

Those conga-line/tagging posts about personal questions

Organisations lists for tags/prompts/other pages, or FAQ

Honestly, the ask posts are the main ones flooding the tag. That's probably the most annoying one out there.

What I am on the fence about:

Character introductions: does this count as a teaser? Honestly, probably more in the irrelevant pile.

UI screenshots: kind of an update, also kind of superfluous...

Fan art stuff: from the author, I'd say no... but from the fandom, yeah...

Snippets/Prompts: eeeeehhhhh... does it count as like a teaser for the writing to expect in the game? or bonus content? except non-canon shit (that goes in the nope pile)

Bonus content.

I'm probably missing some types of posts... but there it is.

Do you have to follow this? No. I don't make the rules about what you should tag or how you should tag it. Do you think this is horseshit? Comment on the post (or send an ask)

[esgagile]

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