#i really want to do a study of the second sphere

[3-inch-sam]

i get it now

[riiviir]

hey guys so I just started reading Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott and OMG AHSBNSBSBSNSNBSHZHSHDBFHGGHFHGRJ2KSHSBSNSK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE THINKING ABOUT THE RELATIVITY BETWEEN DIMENSIONS!!!!!!

[apas-95]

The last post you re logged about arrestability and the Palestine Action network is something I've been thinking about a lot, and I feel really stuck on. It feels like any movement in the imperial core that wants to take actual direct action is going to find itself targeted by feds, but the ways that you can protect against that severely preclude it's ability to grow and find new recruits. Like, activism in the labor sphere can do more direct things because it doesn't have to be illegal, but I cant imagine that that will stay the case once a political labor party that's actually shutting things down. How does one make a mass movement that takes direct action but is able to prevent itself from getting shut down? I don't know, do you have any thoughts on this?

It's been done a hundred times before in the face of the same pressures, so the first order of business should be studying and learning from the experiences of successful labour movements.

Putting that aside, the key things are, in whatever words, militancy and deniability. By militancy, I mean the organisational understanding that you are in direct conflict with the bourgeois state (at a higher or lower intensity) and that your immediate priority should be making yourself immune to attack, followed only afterwards by taking offensive action. Militancy, then, means the recognition that the ultimate aim of the movement is the complete material domination and destruction of institutions that currently field armies and police networks. From the very first step, from the organisational nucleus, it needs to be understood that you are engaging in a pitched battle from within the enemies camp - which leads to the second key item, deniability.

Deniability, here, largely means compartmentalisation. Essentially every successful revolutionary movement has had a separation between the aboveground, legal struggle, and the underground, illegal struggle. To a certain degree, this is a genuinely covert or clandestine effort - undisclosed armed groups known only to a select few in the parent organisation, attributed funding through the laundering of the parent organisation. It is both essential that any armed cell is dependent entirely on the wide, integrated mass workers movement and that this cell is not actually widely known; hence, the parent organisation. If the cell were undisclosed but not integrated to a mass political organisation, it would not have revolutionary character, and be indistinguishable in practice from a common organised crime or terrorist group. It's ability to carry out correct actions would be incidental, and not self-correcting. If the cell had mass character but was not undisclosed, it would present a target to the bourgeois state and be destroyed. The strategy of asymmetric warfare is to strike at the enemy's undefended targets and to refuse to provide any defended targets for the enemy - this applies organisationally, too.

What needs to be stated, here, is that, given the connection to the mass movement, everything needs to be done only when the situation is correct. The size of a workers organisation necessary to support and supply even a single armed cell with laundered funding, safehouses, and information is extremely large, and will not be possible until a significant level of organisational base has been built and developed. Even once it is possible to support an armed cell, the political situation will very likely only warrant fairly low-intensity actions, like industrial sabotage. Again, though, the principal task of the militant - and the irregular fighter, the guerrilla in particular - is the preservation of one's own forces, over and above the destruction of the enemy. In real practice, there is no overabundance of caution, only hesitation - and the way to consistently and repeatedly carry out simple acts of industrial sabotage is by having three people work with the support of thirty-thousand. There can and must be a continuum of support, of different levels of action, between simply 'protest-organiser who pays dues to the aboveground labour organisation', to 'union salt who is a source of information on a worksite', to 'directly involved in organising and carrying out illegal acts'. The key metric for correct connection between the underground and aboveground sides of the movement is: if the actions of the underground were revealed, the mass base of the aboveground should be in support of it. The purpose of underground organising is not to go ahead of the people and start shooting cops (until the struggle has escalated to that intensity, and people are demanding that type of protection), it is to avoid providing a target for the bourgeois state.

At the higher levels of struggle, the existence of the underground becomes an open secret, which, with proper growth, coincides with the underground reaching a size and strength that it can begin to take up the mantle of the mass movement itself, and effectively transform itself into the parent organisation of the aboveground legal struggle. Until then, the model is that of a large political party leading a mass movement in every type of legal and semi-legal action under the sun (in strikes, civil unrest, and parliamentary campaigns), fiercely supporting those who do break the law (through legal and bail support, public campaigns, and protection), while the types of illegal actions the movement needs are carried out covertly.

TL;DR: Build a mass movement, or all you'll get are ecoterrorists and activists in prison.

[aranarumei]

what would separate hirano and kagiura?

so. about that preview of the adult au… I’m sure everyone’s wrecked right now. and I. have some thoughts.

so like, for the adult au to exist at all, harusono sensei has to contrive a situation for both hirano & kagiura to not get their romantic drama in high school, and the same applies for sasaki & miyano. it’d be easy to say that these couples are separated just because they need to be, but i think it’s worth giving them a look. under the cut because i'm being thorough.

for sasaki & miyano, it’s simply that they never meet past their first meeting. hirano doesn’t tell sasaki what miyano's class is, and that’s that. kinda mundane, isn’t it? like… cmon, you’d expect sasaki to try a little harder.

except. well. if there’s any word that defines the sasaki of middle school and most of his first year of high school, I’d say it was apathy. I think sasaki's got a very strange relationship with the idea of force—he uses too much of it on his sister once and subsequently avoids using any kind of physical strength to an extreme degree. he doesn’t break up that fight in the beginning by brawling, and when those kids retaliate he doesn’t hit back (ch 1, 2, and 4 of sasaki and miyano show these scenes, but it's ch 2 of sasaki and miyano: first years that explicitly confirms that sasaki threw no punches) and in a friendly arm wrestling competition he uses basically none of his strength at all (2020 sosenkyo extras). he’s careful in how he speaks to miyano and he feels bad for asking him to quit the crossdressing competition (ch 23, sasaki and miyano). he’s really patient about getting his answer.

in its best form, I think sasaki & miyano's relationship is about Care—miyano is so into his interests and so bright about them, and i think that overwhelming sincerity attracts sasaki, and i think it's a large motivating force in making him a more active person. so in a certain way it makes sense that the way they "miss" each other, in this au, is something that amplifies a negative trait/feeling that exists in the original.

for hirano and kagiura, they don't room together for the next year, and then... they drift apart. but here's what interests me. in the adult au, kagiura gets 61st on his exams. you know what he gets in canon? 60th! that's a difference of one place—the difference is so very clearly not the grades itself, it's internal. @raihanstrapinch suggested that this is perhaps an AU where kagiura took the "one day off" mentioned in ch 19 (you can find the post here) and I think this makes sense for a one place difference! (that one place being the possible cutoff for being able to be roommates again is tragic, though)

interesting is that kagiura says that he doesn't want to look back and regret taking that day off, because then he'll never forgive himself. I think this is exactly what motivates kagiura and hirano drifting apart: shame.

in ch 18 of hirano and kagiura, the topic of "equality" in a relationship gets discussed. kagiura wants to have a relationship between equals, and so that's why they start doing stuff like taking turns waking each other up, and it's why hirano gets kagiura to teach him some basketball. this isn't a new topic, since kagiura's been wanting hirano to be needy with him for a few chapters now, and it's one that gets extended on into ch 24, where hirano makes clear that his 10 seconds is distinct from kagi. reciprocation... it's beautiful.

point is, a lot of hirano and kagiura deals with what hirano and kagiura can do for each other. that's because it's central in establishing their continual understanding of each other. hirano is learning to fall in love with kagi, little by little. they're figuring out their relationship. of special importance is how both hirano and kagiura influence each other in the spheres of basketball and studying.

basketball is obvious: in ch 1 and ch 2, hirano takes care of kagiura so that he'll recover quickly from his cold, and he also helps him handle his loss. it's in ch 17 where we really see the full scope of how it applies to both of them, though: kagiura takes his 10 seconds and gets recharged for practice, and then hirano thinks that he really wants to study right now. despite their differences, hirano and kagiura sharing space with each other makes both of them better at their goals. it's a direct repudiation of the ideas that are floated in ch 11 and ch 13: that kagiura came to the dorm to focus on his club activities, while hirano came to the dorm to focus on his studies. their focuses, then, should naturally be pulled in opposite directions. they might just end up distracting each other.

something that's fascinating about the preview of the adult au is that, after waking up, kagiura demeans himself by saying he essentially has no self-discipline / control. here it's in the context of getting basically blackout drunk, but I think it also reflects how he might've felt back then, getting that grade. he didn't have the self-discipline to balance both studying and basketball well enough, in his own opinion, and since he feels like he didn't try his very best at it ("one day off"), I think he might have concluded, personally, that it might be best to pull back. it's not the first time that kagiura's drawn back, after all: he was like this when he started reacting too much to hirano's touch, and he's still like that because he keeps carefully calculating out his 10 seconds. as hirano says in ch 23, he looks annoyingly miserable when he's like this. he worries so much about crossing the line, about not being as good as hirano thinks he is... to me it's perfectly reasonable that there's a world where kagiura retreats.

in their character descriptions for the adult au, it's noted that hirano is mostly taken up by studying and doesn't socialize much, while kagiura doesn't really talk to anyone outside of basketball-related matters. i think this really shows off that idea of the adult au kind of expanding on a theme that gets introduced in the original, but in a negative direction: instead of balancing and positively influencing each other like they do in canon, here hirano and kagiura have retreated solely into their own focuses.

i think hirano is genuinely rooting for kagiura's success in basketball. he's always so impressed by his passion for the sport, so I think here, along with kagiura's self-inflicted withdrawal, he'd probably rationalize to himself that kagiura's working hard on basketball, and it's... good for him that he's doing so. honestly he seems kind of slow on the uptake with emotions in general so even if he did circle around to thinking about reconnecting, he might've already graduated and it would've felt too weird for him. i also think that, to sort of mirror kagiura's own hard work with basketball, he'd also work hard on his studies. in some strange way, they're still powering each other forward.

[therobotmonster]

"Doctor Martin, why are you an atheist?"

Director Maria Kleinheart wasn't the sort of person who asked indirect or idle questions. She was in every way a Kleinheart, the spitting image of her grandmother. Only she wasn't staring out from a yellowed ad in a back issue of Popular Science or Woman's Day, she was staring from across desk made of polished slate.

Emil Martin didn't respond immediately. That sort of question usually came with an invitation to services or a badgering about Pascal's wager. That didn't fit what he knew about the director, though that wasn't much. An intense religious conversion would explain the rumors around her distance from the rest of her family.

"Director, is this a personal or work related question?" Emil finally asked.

"Work." She replied.

"Is that appropriate?"

"Yes. This is about security clearances."

That made even less sense. Emil decided to risk a lecture on his eternal soul and answered truthfully. "Pretty standard, insufficient evidence."

"Would you rather it be true?" She asked. "Would it be comforting to know you existed for a purpose, that someone was in charge of your existence, caring for you?"

"Not really." Emil replied. "I'm rather Hitchenisan in that regard."

"Good enough. Follow me."

-

"BE NOT AFRAID."

The words seemed to come out of the air itself. The thing was at the center of the large, expansive lab that had once been a missile silo. It was a sphere, surrounded by two rings of brass-like metal. The rings were lined with hemispherical semi-translucent white glass or crystal protrusions. The inner ring spun slowly, as did the central core, though only the faintest irregularities in its glowing blue-white corona revealed that motion.

The outer ring was held in place with steel chains, each link six inches in diameter. Two chains locked the ring to the floor, while a third latched the top to the ceiling. The cuffs the chains connected to seemed to have been welded shut around it.

"BE NOT AFRAID." It 'spoke' again. Its voice was clear and musical, but wrong and artificial at the same time. It sounded like familiar voices; his mother and father, his cousins, his old school pals, his boyfriends, even Director Kleinheart, each synthesized poorly via an AI speech simulator, all speaking in perfect time.

Every time it spoke, Emil smelled his grandfather's sweet cornbread fresh from the oven.

"That looks like an angel." He finally gasped.

"Looks like." Director Kleinheart smiled. He wasn't sure she could do that. "I knew we picked the right man."

"This is why you were asking about my beliefs?"

"Yes Doctor Martin. You see, freedom of religion is an extension of the principle of innocence until proven guilty. Once one faith is shown to be correct, all others are revealed as wrong."

"And you wanted to make sure I, what, wasn't guilty of being wrong?"

"No, the mistaken are innocent of everything except the actions they directly take." Kleinheart continued. "It's the ones who would take this to mean they were right that are fifth columnists to an unaccountable alien power."

"Oh." Emil replied. He didn't know quite what else to say.

"I want you on our team that's studying it. We need to know how it works, what it's made of, what those things its made of can be used for, you know the drill."

"BE NOT AFRAID." Again came the smell of cornbread.

"Are the restraints necessary?" Emil asked. "It is telling us we don't need to be afraid of it."

"Oh, we thought that too at first." The director said. "But we've already learned quite a bit about our little intruder here, even a bit of its 'source code' for lack of a better analogue. That message isn't meant for us."

"What is it then?"

"Can't you guess, Doctor?"

Dr. Emil Martin shrugged. "I have no idea."

"It isn't giving us a warning."

Director Kleinheart smiled for the second time in Emil's memory and spoke again.

"It's repeating its orders."

[keirawantstocry]

Hi, jay, can I request morning crew being witches(I just really like witches) (I miss both them and witchcraft SMP)

them using different spheres of magic and having hard time combining them, also bitching about each other choices

Kissing you on the mouth /p ofc you can 

Okay ive spent the last few minutes scouring the witchcraft smp wiki to see what vibes you’re most likely looking for and i will now make an attempt :) 

there is some shenanigans altho im not sure how close this is to what you were thinking considering theres so many ways to address witchcraft but i hope you enjoy anyway <3

-

It was no surprise to anyone that Tubbo was a nature witch, it was something everyone had expected. And to a certain degree they understood that he was going to use those powers to do some weird building shit. But holy hell. 

“Actually what the fuck is this,” Fit proclaimed, his hands on his hips as he studied Tubbo’s new creation. There were plants twirling up around dirt in the shape of what seemed to be machinery? It was massive, expanding across nearly a mile of land. 

“Well, I’m not sure what I’m going to call it yet but it’s a lot like a Create machine-” 

Pac and Fit groaned in unison. “You are your Create machines,” Pac said through a laugh. “Seriously what is it?” 

“They’re cool!” Tubbo exclaimed. “What do you want from me! What are you two doing with your magic??” 

“Uh, nothing?” Fit said while Tubbo gaped at him. 

“Please do not tell me that you have the power and ability to control electricity and you aren’t using it to build a single machine or anything.” 

Fit stared at him. The seconds ticked by as they just stared at each other. 

“Holy shit,” Tubbo said quietly. “You are so fucking boring.” 

“Hey!”

Pac laughed loudly. “I mean, Fitch, he kind of has a point.” 

Fit whirled on him. “Oh yeah sure okay, what have you done with your healing magic?” 

Pac’s eyebrows dipped down in confusion. “I’m healing people, what are you talking about? There’s nothing else to do!” 

“Actually, I’m sure you could probably find a way to harness that power and put it into a Create-” 

“Noooo,” Pac howled, dropping down to the ground and slapping his hands over his face. “Not with the Create mod again. Tubbo please. Bom deus!” 

It was Fit’s turn to laugh. “Not so funny now huh? When he’s on your ass about your magic?” 

“Shut up, Fitchie,” Pac muttered into his hands. “Shut up.” 

[maxdibert]

Well yes that's why bigotry exists - people learn it from their environment. And not everyone turns out decent when they become an adult. It's not wrong to call out what it is or what these ideologies or thoughts mean. This is just me speculating and making more sense of a fictional world, because I do enjoy politics and Harry Potter at the same time. If someone is a member of a group that wants to kill/hunt down a group of people and and make them second class citizens I want to know how this line of thinking originated and how is it possible that the environment and society allowed it. If you don't like calling it fascist, then what is the word for it? The universe clearly has a society that has a huge problem with muggleborns otherwise it wouldn't allow a group of people (purebloods) who have such extreme ideas about them come to power and hold so much wealth. There is a reason a small group of people who disdain muggleborns are at the top of society and one of the reasons seems obvious to me - the general society doesn't view muggleborns as equal and that simply always shows in the economic sphere. Those who are most powerful in society always rule it in some way. Maybe I'm overthinking this. Btw I don't target certain people with this, especially Severus. Severus's case was completely different so I don't even think about him when I say that the death eaters were fascist. I target the ones who hold power in their society which to me are the purebloods. The Blacks, Malfoys, Lestranges and Potters are known for having huge wealth so it is obvious they associate wealth/power with blood status. And that means they associate the lower class with muggleborns. Or atleast they wish that was the case. I'm not trying to compare this to real world cases, I just want to make it make sense, because Rowling really did a poor job at explaining how it all came to be.

The problem with the idiosyncrasy of Rowling’s world is that there is no real awareness of social issues. The “good guys” support Muggle-borns, but there’s no substantial reason, ideological motive, or intention for social change behind that support—just the fact that they’re “the good guys.” They don’t question the system because their system fundamentally works. The only disruptive element is the existence of a terrorist group specifically targeting Muggle-borns, but no broader social issue is clearly established around this.

Take Arthur Weasley, for example. He literally works studying Muggles, yet he talks about them as if they were little more than animals to be analyzed in a lab. All the “good” characters at some point make derogatory comments about Muggles. They are paternalistic, condescending, and exhibit a clear, widespread sense of superiority. This is something they neither question nor are aware of, and it’s never addressed because the narrative doesn’t see it as problematic. The narrative simply ignores this obvious distinction and never frames the “good” characters as problematic for adhering to these beliefs.

Harry, for instance, doesn’t care about Muggles, and he doesn’t seem to care much about Muggle-borns on a broader social level either. He’s concerned because specific people in his life might be affected, and the same goes for the rest of the “positive” characters. They don’t have a political view of the problem; their perspective is personalized and individualistic. They fight because they are supposed to, not because they truly understand the root of the issue.

Similarly, after Voldemort’s defeat, no political or social reform is proposed to address the inequalities faced by those considered second- or third-class citizens or those who lack basic rights (house-elves, werewolves, giants, etc.). There’s no movement for systemic change. It’s simply about defeating the bad guy so that everything can stay the same. As such, we can’t really talk about a progressive or leftist opposition to a fascist or far-right threat because the “good” side is made up of privileged bourgeois characters who only care about what affects them personally and have no intention of pursuing social change at its roots.

We also can’t compare those who genuinely face social exclusion in Rowling’s world (humanoid magical creatures) with Muggle-borns. The former truly lack rights, are marginalized, and are persecuted, while the latter only experience discrimination when Voldemort comes to power. You mentioned that pure-blood families are tied to class, but this isn’t entirely true. The Weasleys and the Prewetts were pure-bloods, and we know they were considered poor. Thus, pure-blood status does not necessarily imply a certain economic status by default.

What about Muggle-borns from wealthy families? We know that Muggle money can be converted into wizarding money, so a Muggle-born from a wealthy family could end up richer and have more economic power than a poor pure-blood.

I see the concept of blood purity as more akin to a xenophobic nationalist sect. The magical culture represents the nationalist aspect, while their disdain for “outsiders” gradually integrating their customs reflects the xenophobic side. Can parallels be drawn with fascist principles? Of course, just as you can find similarities between socialism and social democracy in certain aspects, but they are not the same.

My main issue with labeling one side as Nazis is that there’s no antifascist counterpart in the story. Antifascism is not just about taking down fascists; antifascist groups are typically rooted in political theories advocating for systemic change and social reform in addition to opposing fascism. The Order of the Phoenix or Dumbledore’s Army don’t fight Voldemort because they want to address the numerous social inequalities and problems in the wizarding world; they fight him because Voldemort wants to seize power, and that poses a personal threat to them.

When the war ends, Harry essentially becomes the magical equivalent of an MI5 agent—he’s basically a cop. And an antifascist doesn’t become a cop. Antifascists are the ones getting beaten up by the police, not joining their ranks.

[purplesaline]

Ran a DnD game for the first time in forever last night. I've only done it a few times before, and never with 5e so a steep learning curve on my part. Everyone had a blast though and I'm really proud of myself for adapting the campaign to better engage the players.

There was a frog race as part of the first encounter and the book had a single roll determine whether someone's frog won or lost, which I found boring. I had a bunch of resin frogs in various costumes already so I painted one for each player and instead of a single roll I made a "course" four squares long. A successful roll moved the frog forward one space, a failed roll kept them stationary, a natural 20 moved them 2 spaces forward, and a failure by more than 5 moved them back one space. I had 7 players so four spaces was plenty long but if you have fewer players and want to try this you can make the course longer.

It was quite exciting! And there was tension! 3 frogs crossed at the same time so the winning pot was split between three players.

We're playing Strixhaven, Curriculum of Chaos, and part of the encounters is class exams. Which, again, the adventure has a single roll for the multiple choice portion and a second roll for the essay portion. Meh.

So I wrote a multiple choice exam. 6 questions long. The players can either choose an answer if they think they know it (and I gave them a chance to study for it over the supper break, and oh you should have seen them! They were studying like it was a real life test. 3 adults and 4 kids under 16. It was so cute), or they can roll a skill check for the question. I read out each question and they wrote down their answers then went over the correct answers and if they got 3 or more right they passed the multiple choice section.

For the essay portion I just had them do the single roll, but a couple who failed the roll asked if they could turn in an actual short essay instead and I said absolutely! If they want to do that I'll give them a passing grade for that portion. Going forward I'm letting them know their next exam topic ahead of time so they can study and write a short essay between games if they want to do that.

They really enjoyed doing the exam encounter! There was a good mix of choosing answers and rolling when they weren't sure. Some people wound up studying stuff that didn't show up on the test at all and missed all the stuff that did, so they did a lot of rolling (the die rolls act like info they would have learned in class so the characters would have known more than the players)

Next session there's a game where the characters can shoot spheres from a magic object into buckets, whoever gets the most in a minute wins. I'm going to have the players toss nerf rival ammo into buckets instead of just doing a die roll.

I also made a physical Bag of Tricks with coloured pompoms so instead of rolling a die to see what animal they pull out they just pull a coloured pompom out and the different colours will be associated with different creatures.

Just little ways to make the game more immersive. I'm not good at doing voices or engaging roleplay (way too self-conscious and one day I'll get over that but I've had other priorities lol), so I wanted to come up with other ways to immerse folks in the world and keep them engaged. Everyone had a blast so I definitely nailed it for this audience at least!

[whirligig-girl]

Star Patrol rocket Piccard-5 encounters an artifact of the incredibly powerful White Marble Civilization. circa 2169, colorized & shipgirlified.

Commission for @foxgirlchorix, based on a render by Holly for @torchship-rpg

This is some of my best rendering work ever! These commissions do have a knack for putting me out of my comfort zone enough to continue developing my technical skills and style.

Image ID: Digital art of two ship girls in a black and blue nebula background. One girl is a very large solid white marble statue with a naked feminine form, pitted and cratered with meteoric impacts, drifting belly-down though space. Instead of a face, her head has a large hole which glows yellow-orange, with a white marble sphere held in space outside of it. A green tractor beam is being emitted towards the second girl, a Torchship named Piccard-5. She is a silver girl with her body resembling a star patrol jumpsuit. Warp drive rings circle her waist like a hula hoop. She is wearing a spherical ball helmet. She is wearing white rocket boots. She has glowing red-orange radiator panels as wings on her back. The white marble sphere's tractor beam is slowly disassembling her into individual hull sections, disconnecting her radiator wings, removing her boots to reveal the rocket propellant inside her legs, and taking her body apart. Piccard-5 is reacting with a worried or confused expression. End Image ID.

Artist's notes and concept sketches in the read more:

When this render was posted Levana immediately had the idea to make it one of a series she was planning on commissioning me for, of shipgirls based on Torchship's Star Patrol (and alien) rockets. So we quickly brainstormed how it would go down and what she could afford price-wise.

When I do big commissions with new characters where I'm creating the design without an existing OC reference, I charge extra for character design. That doesn't just go to waste! Here's the concept art page:

The White Marble shipgirl is inspired by the Eerie and Enigmatic Empty Vessels by @murmurlilies, which Levana really likes--if you look at her blog you might see one of those posts reblogged multiple times. I wanted to pay homage to the eerie and enigmatic empty vessels without directly ripping them off! The first sketch on the upper left is imagining the girl poses by breaking her arms into segments and moving them around, but that never looked quite right to me. The second is basically just a direct study of the empty vessels (with a ball head). The third is after a little more refinement--I liked the cute hair on the empty vessels so I wanted to keep the head mostly intact, and I found a way of keeping the silhouette of the jagged angular hips on the empty vessels but in a very different way! Meteoric impact damage, just like on the original Torchship render. I also used an edited version of one of the Empty Vessels drawings for the thumbnail sketch in the lower right out of laziness.

There's also a sketch of what Piccard-5 looks like when she's not being disassembled. Piccard-5 has a rounded main hull, so it looks much more like a regular space suit helmet than the frustum-shaped helmet on the Newton-2 shipgirl I sketched a while back. The Newton-2 shipgirl had heat radiators as wing shapes on her boots, but making them actual wings on her back makes the disassembly image all the more unsettling.

I changed the hairstyle on the white marble girl when I drew the main drawing because I wanted to evoke like, greco-roman marble statues, and so a curlier/braided look worked better than the cute pixie cut of the empty vessels. I'm really happy with how the final product looks. I knew I wasn't gonna be able to half-ass it with the rendering, you know, just a little shading along the edge; this required a lot of careful thought and it was a lot of fun to do! Especially where the craters interact with the terminator (line between light and dark), just like on the Moon, which I have a lot of experience sketching (see below--the following sketches were made while looking through telescopes at the Moon at night)

Here's a WIP of just the line-art:

and with the basic shading done on the marblegirl

I started with like, a cel-shaded look (?), and then went in and softened the edges, then went over it again to fix the craters. I also added the marble texture to the unshaded base layer.

For the Piccard-5 girl, I spent a lot of time trying to get the pose right. I wanted it to be a little stiff, she's in a suspension beam after all, but not too stiff? And I had to decide like, what pieces should be detached, and where should they be going. In the render, hull pieces are often displaced towards the side, but when doing that to a humanoid, it ruined the pose too much, so i avoided doing too much weird stuff to the torso and kept the disassembled pieces largely to one axis. The cross sections are hollow because they're ship decks. She's a spaceship, not a robot girl. The warp ring was suspiciously untouched by the dissassembly beam in the original render, but i had the marble girl pull a few pieces off of it in my drawing.

Probably the one thing that isn't based on something happening in the render is the belt. Like, rockets don't have belts, cosmonauts do! So that was a fun little touch.

[draculasstrawhat]

Cos I reblogged the accent post, I sort of want to write a bit about British accents and class based on my (admittedly brief) study of linguistics, and a sort of lifelong interest in the matter, if anyone fancies it.

It goes in to a bit of a rant, but hopefully explains why we’re such pedants about why a “British” accent being considered stick-up-the-arse posh is a misunderstanding, and why we might be a bit touchy about the bo’ul of wor’uh thing.

So, first up: accents in the UK are very much a class marker. I know that’s true everywhere, but it is really pronounced here. Because of our linguistic history, we’ve historically had enormous regional variation in accents for such a small landmass, as well as a second accent spoken by landowners regardless of geographical location. Historically, therefore, your social class could be discerned by where you were on the scale of ‘regional accent’ to ‘posh person accent’.

To an extent, this applies/applied to Scottish and Welsh accents, too. Really posh Scottish people do not have, or have a very slight Scottish accent. This is not an accident, nor something people were unaware of - I was reading a book from the 1930s recently where someone was discussing her child’s education and bemoaning his accent, saying “a touch of Perthshire is charming,” but that he’d been spending too much time with shepherds and gamekeepers, and was being essentially ‘too Scottish’.

So, because the vast majority of the Very Posh and Very Wealthy were educated at about three schools, two universities, and inhabited once social sphere, they all spoke - and were taught to speak - in the same way. The name for this accent, as I’m sure a lot of you know, is “Received Pronunciation,” or RP, and we all know what it sounds like, right?

Or do we?

What Maggie Smith (and most of the other actors there) are speaking *is* RP, but it’s not a particularly thick RP accent. Smith - because she’s a great actor and knows what she’s about - is speaking thicker RP than the others, and that’s doing the work of letting you know she’s posher and more old fashioned than anyone else she’s talking to - but still, her vowels are mostly soft and broad, her consonants clearly articulated. It is stage RP, schoolroom RP - but not from an Eton/Harrow/Westminster schoolroom. It’s the sort of accent you were taught at grammar schools, or small private schools to rid you of your regional accent.

Now, of course, if you speak like that in any normal place in in the UK, people *are* going to assume you’re posh. But it is upper middle class posh, working in the Professions posh, rather than “owns half of Buckinghamshire” posh. It’s designed for clarity - which is what people think RP is all about. But it isn’t.

RP is a shibboleth. It’s actually not a particularly clear accent, and it is designed to mark the people who know it apart from those who do not.

Here is a much thicker RP accent: https://youtu.be/mBRP-o6Q85s

(apologies for the national anthem at the start)

If you see, the vowels are a lot higher and tighter, the consonants less clearly pronounced. But it’s still fairly intelligible - Liz is public speaking here and the majority of her audience will not be RP speakers, so she’s speaking slowly and clearly, and she still wishes to be accessible and comprehensible. If you want to hear a seriously thick RP accent, it’s worth looking up some early 20th century radio broadcasts.

The difference is in the emphasis given to vowels over consonants, as well as how much you move your lips. I’m not good at writing IPA as I’ve only done a bit of linguistics, but to give an example - if you wanted to say “I am speaking clearly,” stage RP might pronounce the word “clearly” as KLEER-lee, two distinct syllables, with a clear but simple vowel sound. A sort of mid level RP might say something more like KLE-ahr-lee, giving more vocalisation to the a and the r, making it almost three syllables, although one without emphasis. Really thick RP almost pronounces it as klAR-le, with almost even emphasis between the syllables, and the stress on the ar, rather than the kl.

But although plenty of people still use it, that very thick RP accent has become almost invisible over the course of the 20th century, as part of (if I put my paranoid socialist hat on) a campaign to render invisible the hereditary privilege and enormous wealth disparity which affects pretty much every aspect of British life. Which is to say, the very small number of people who can speak with and identify each other by a thick RP accent still literally own most of the country.

Even if I’m to be a little less red, the fact is during the 20th century, it became expedient for the accepted voice of radio and television to become less that of landowners and hereditary authority, and more like that of the middle classes. Even ‘The Queen’s English’ changed, as the Queen and several politicians took elocution lessons to sound “warmer and more approachable.” At the same time, Britain had a period of unprecedented social mobility in the post-War period and - much like the American conception of “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” - there gradually emerged this cultural idea that everyone was, or perhaps could be, “middle class.”

Even as this was starting to happen, and markers of “middle class respectability” spread (especially in the South East of England) the countercultural movements of the 60s and 70s rejected this very move and identified itself with everything their parents found ‘low’ or ‘shocking’. One of the markers of this was that middle class boys from the Home Counties adopted a kind of ‘mockney’ accent, which along with the success of a handful actually working class artists meant that having a vaguely working-class, vaguely South-Eastern accent became a sign of counter cultural validity and authenticity. (All of this is, ofc, a vast oversimplification - but it’s a general trend.)

From here we have the rise of the Estuary accent. Estuary English is a vague conglomeration of RP and the accents found around the Thames Estuary. It’s neither Essex, nor London, nor Kent, but a broad mingling of the three. It is easily learned and adopted, and - as a composite accent - has none of the shibboleths of real cockney, or Essex, or RP. To speak cynically, it is an accent uniquely suited to code switching. If you have access to RP, then estuary is an accent where you can ‘choose’ how thickly you speak it, or whether you intersperse it with another accent. (An example my mum always points out, although this is a bit pre-Estuary, is in Mother’s Little Helper, Mick Jagger pronounces all his “th” as “v” - but doesn’t use a single glottle stop.)

Beyond the “clear, warm, and authoritative” idea of a mild RP accent, estuary offered a “relatable” and, more importantly, “authentic” feel. Its use as a political tool further closed the gap between people’s perception of their class (and promoted the idea of the UK as a ‘classless society, which, lol) and their actual circumstances. The wildest example of this is perhaps Victoria Beckham describing being driven to school on a Rolls Royce while claiming her family was “very working class.”

Now, Estuary English has a really complicated place in the UK especially in the way it has homogenised regional accents, but one good thing about it is that it normalises and even valorises patterns of speech that have been historically mocked, excluded, and treated as markers of poverty, criminality, and stupidity. Double negatives, the glottal stop, using a hard “ff” for “v” sounds, and a “v” for “th”, and where someone the ‘drops’ and vocalises ‘h’. I said earlier that RP was a shibboleth, and these were some of the most commonly observed tells that someone didn’t belong. Given that the vast majority of social power in England rested in the same area that the estuary accent drew its sources from, it bears a lot of similarities to the accent of the working classes in those areas - the ones most often mocked, parodied, or disparaged by those in power.

And the thing is, people still have those accents - or they have adopted the similar estuary in place of those accents - but unlike BBC talk show hosts, or politicians trying to convince you they’re a “man of the people,” these people *cannot* code switch. They have no access to RP, and their accent - despite being mainstreamed and in some ways privileged - is still used a shorthand for vulgarity and stupidity. It remains a punchline, a joke. They are still constrained by it - they can’t put it aside or mitigate it in formal situations, they can’t leverage RP to their advantage when it suits, and thereby use their actual accent as proof of “authenticity”. For them, the shibboleths remain - just (like thick RP) hidden now.

I don’t want to call it cultural appropriation, because that’s not quite the right term, but there is something very cruel in that way that - in one of the most classist and economically unequal countries in Europe - an accent which apes several working class accents has become enormously culturally privileged, but only when it is NOT used by somebody working class. And although that isn’t apparent to the casual observer - not even the people being totally shafted here - there is, I think, this broad cultural sense that we’ve been had. That we’ve been played for fools on some level it’s really difficult to quantify.

We have been told that class and accent no longer matter - but every day in our lives, they transparently *do*. So anyone hearing my “middle class vowels” will assume I’m posh, and have endless contacts and support - despite the fact I lived a lot of my adult life below the poverty line - but in any situation where being perceived as posh would get me contacts and support, it’s immediately apparent I’m not part of the Old School Tie, because I don’t talk quite right.

Or how a poor kid with an Essex accent will be told they couldn’t *possibly* be discriminated against because of their class, because that’s how all the presenters on Radio 1 talk, meanwhile whole comedy sketches are still written about how ‘ugly’ and ‘stupid’ the Essex accent sounds.

Or how an accent that is somehow globally understood to be one of power and privilege (be it RP or estuary) and can therefore be ‘punched up’ against is - at home - only ever used to punch down on us. How people who want to ‘do well’ have had regional accents beaten out of them (in some cases literally) and were granted conditional acceptance for it, while the same people who’ve owned the country since the Middle Ages got to slum it down with us, without surrendering any of their money or privilege.

It’s… complicated, okay?

[edited for typos, for there were many.]

[ruhua-langblr]

Hi, you seem to have a decent grasp on Language Learning Resources™, so maybe you could help me.

I currently have a 2600+ day streak for Duolingo Spanish, which I initially picked up because I took classes in school and wanted to see if I remembered any. I'm well aware of the limitations on the app, and at this point it's just because I like to see the number go up. I've only ever been a casual student but I would like to progress eventually. The problem is I have trouble finding a method between gamified app, and full-blown, academic, novel -and- textbook self study. Do you know of good ways to move past Duolingo lessons without biting off more than you can chew?

Thanks for any input you have

Hi!

I feel like that "number goes up" connection is the main reason a lot of people don't want to move on from Duo and similar apps! I hope to do a post that goes into all of this more in depth, so consider this a shortened version~

My personal philosophy is that you shouldn't have to chose between just gamified apps and academic study—ideally you need it to be engaging enough to keep up for when you have less motivation, but with an academic rigor! I'm gonna drop some general resources/resource types and try to give them all a shot! Don't think of replacing Duo with a singular app or activity, but a collection of resources that you can switch between.

Anki: SSR vocab learning. Lots of customization and habit tracking features available so consider this a good "number goes up" replacement (and if you really love looking at data it's much more thorough!). With Spanish as your TL (target language), you'll have plenty of pre-made decks available. You can have specific decks, sentence mine, or have a huge 5,000 most frequent words deck. Anki isn't my favorite method personally, but people get SUPER into it and it works for them—also you'll hear this everywhere anyway.

Language Transfer: I wish my TL was one of the ones they have! If you're coming from Duo then you've probably been lacking a good method to really train your listening skills. 100% free, and I've heard great things about their Spanish course as well. All the files are available to be downloaded to listen to offline. Great to put on when you're getting ready in the morning, for bed, or during a commute.

LingQ/Youtube/Podcast Comprehensible Input: "[TL] Comprehensible Input" in the Youtube search will get you pretty far. There are podcasts like this as well, but it's nice to have a visual stimuli as well! This is pretty much the epitome of a ~natural language acquisition~ style. Immersion and immersion at an appropriate level is what works best. If you've even dipped your toes into the language acquisition sphere, you'll know Steve Kaufmann. LingQ is his app that's based on these principles.

Textbooks: Duo assumes that you can just pick up grammar from pattern recognition and that can work, but upper-level nuanced grammar or grammar patterns that are vastly different from your native language are hard to intuit. Find a good, dedicated grammar textbook and use that as what you will learn the details of grammar from. All that audio stuff will teach you what sounds right, this will teach you why/how it's right. (Buy a used textbook, visit your library, or check out my pinned post...)

+More: There's so MANY ways to learn a language. I'm focusing on specific methods that would fit in naturally with your existing habits (solo, digital, habit-forming), but there's tons more out there that you can do: journaling, discord servers, italki, chatting apps, graded readers, etc.

To start pick one that you feel the most drawn to and then a second that compliments where it might be lacking. Make a goal that you feel is reachable, and build from there.

Best of luck!

[idealspawn]

hey..... i must say. this has been the best week of my life. and im filled with utter joy. ive had like a.. rebirth? every once in a while i feel like im born again. the transition is really emotional but they are moreso growing pains than destructive pains. im suddenly surrounded by so many great people and possibilities and i finally feel like life is rewarding me, treating me the way i should be treated. in a way im reluctant to owe it to "faith" and see myself as a passive subject rather than an active agent in this but in a way i think i am powerless in some factors regarding this change. next month its my debut in like a culture (?) newspaper! at least they said they are very interested in my analysis but i havent heard back yet about the second version i sent them. i wrote my favourite poem ive ever written. and ive seen so many movies recently that have served as this transitional border. like as this extremely active sphere of both "death" but also birth. like metaphorically. ive been so vulnerable and i love it. ive cried my eyes out like i havent in such a long time and done like... meta analyses about my underlying beliefs to bring change and new energy into my life. you see.. i get really stuck on like.. nominal labels. at first they describe me but it tends to go unnoticed when it no longer fits or serves me and im only living a certain way just because of this nominal structure. but all these nominal structures are made for us. not that we are made to fit them. ive re-evaluated things now.. also out of nowhere people have been reaching out to me. maybe it truly does show up in my energy when im more open. like that it attracts other open, honest, vulnerable people. ive met so many new people and truly felt seen. this is a big thing for me. for the longest time ive struggled to enjoy time with people because ive struggled to find people who i share some kinds of values. i like diverse people but for example people who are open to explore communication on an emotional and relational level rather than only informational. thats important to me. ive been more confident in sharing my opinions too:) and participating in class and in life. going to places where i know id feel a bit uncomfortable and end up surprised. going to places alone is massive for me. it opens me up to new people and experiences because i simply dont have a choice to close myself off with friends im already close with. a woman came to talk to me after a lecture. she said she had been watching how i take notes in class (i write really fast.. i tend to transcribe literally everything the professor says). she said she has studied palaeography and asked to see my notes to analyse my handwriting :) she said its very unusual for people to still write in cursive if they write with the pen very much pointed upwards, however i manage to do so :D. it really made me want to also just reach out to people... like whenever and for whatever reason. and ive noticed people actually like talking to you when youre authentic and awkward. ive restricted my communication with people SO MUCH only due to the fact that i feel like i might not be insanely flawless in my self-expression. the nature too. the season is such that i see birth and death all around me. and its very refreshing. i like seeing change and being reminded of it constantly. it feels liberating. its a season that many people dislike in my country but im in love. i love people. i love physical touch. i love eye contact. i love emotions. i love ideas. i love agency in breaking boundaries. i love feeling seen and important and useful. i love authenticity and vulnerability.

[koraesrambles]

GREAT READING ADVENTURE PART 1 (CW: pictures from the Sandman comics may be disturbing to some)

I started with the Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. A legend in comic spheres, and one that I'd been wanting to read for a while.

I found 10 volumes at my local library and have made my way through two of them so far. First off, as a horror book DAMN. DAAAAAAAAAAAAMN these books do not pull punches. They come at you like a gut punch and just keep going. I like to describe myself as someone who enjoys "horror lite" I love monsters, I love angst and crazy situations and some messed up stuff, but I'm kind of a baby about it. Things like Supernatural, Gravity Falls (It's kid friendly, but there's blood!), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that's my jam (wow, that list makes me feel about 5 years old, but whatever! I like what I like!). The Sandman Is Not That.

The Writing

Don't get me wrong, it is beautiful in every way, but it's also a lot for a wussy like myself. I'm enthralled, captivated, unable to look away, but there have been multiple times where I've needed to close my eyes for a second and remind myself that this is a comic book, and the world isn't necessarily this dark all the time. I'm pretty triggered by children in danger/getting hurt/dying and these books don't shy away from that. But they're also just . . . so beautiful.

The writing is annoyingly amazing. I expected nothing less, it is Neil Gaiman, but sometimes as a writer you look at other people's writing and just sit back in awe. I wish I could write something like this. Or, if not exactly like this, something as beautiful and poignant as this. The story flows so beautifully. Every scene perfectly blending in with the next. Every word feels like it has a point, which makes you want to pay attention to everything to make sure you're not missing anything.

Writing is my main background, but comic writing is so different from prose. This is what I struggled with the most while drafting up OUTCAST ODYSSEY, how do I get everything across that I need to when I can't just write it all out? How do I pace it when telling a story with pictures vs words feels so different? But Neil does this so well. It felt lyrical, and I could see his influence on every single page. The art was done by someone else, but the ideas, the imagry, the way the story flows from one idea to the next, is all a result of absolutely phenomenal writing.

It reminded me to trust readers to read between the lines. It's difficult to find the line between "subtlty" and "confusing" and I am often guilty of feeling like I need to spell things out to my readers so that they won't miss anything, but more often then not that just slows down the plot and makes the whole experience clunky. You don't want to go too far in the other direction either, but Neil knew who his audience was and trusted them to at least give things a second glance. I was worried at the beginning that I'd be too dumb to figure out what he was hinting at, but he was able to patiently feed me the information without me getting frustrated or lost.

It's a skill that comes with experience and practice, but I feel like this story really really shines at it. I found myself studying the way he handled exposition and wanting to emulate it in my own work.

The Art

The art is also stunning. It's not "cute" art. It's not something that I would want to hang up in my house or look at for hours. It's amazing from a skill standpoint (which is easy for me to tell just due to my own extremely obvious shortcomings) but it's not concerned with everyone looking like hollywood movie stars.

Which . . . I mean, that's definitely a feature, not a bug. This story is not supposed to be cute, and a cutsy art style would absolutely ruin the atmosphere. It is rough and full of sharp points. it doesn't shy away from nudity or gore. The characters are not attractive, these are not anime stars, but they are compelling, and distinct enough that I was able to easily tell who everyone is, which is more often then not extremely difficult for me (i think I may be a bit face-blind).

The art adds to the horror of everything. Even when things are supposed to be calm, or sexy, or whatever, there's an edge of panic and unease to it. Part of that is the reader knowing that there's more going on behind the scenes then the character knows, but it's also the style. The heavy black shadows, the hard lines, the emphasis on some details while the obscuring of others, it all combines to perfectly compliment the writing. It's not a pleasure to look at, but that's absolutely the point. It's also extremely difficult to look away FROM. How can something simultaneously look jarring, eerie, and unpolished, while also whispering "Yes. This is beautiful art. Look at it. Bask in it."?

I'm a newbie artist. It's way beyond my skillset to even begin to figure out how they were able to accomplish this. But someday I hope I figure out the secret.

The art perfectly compliments the writing, and the two work together to tell the story. I remember feeling a little annoyed on the artists' behalf that the Sandman is always known as "Neil Gaiman's" when the art side of comics is so incredibly important. The art sets the tone and compliments the words. It helps with reading between the lines and helping us know how seriously we should be taking the words.

Characters

All of the characters are great! Except the ones I already knew. I'm not saying they were bad, just bland compared to everyone else. Constantine, the Justice League, every cameo that came up and I was excited for felt . . . not quite out of place, but not quite seamless either. I was most excited for Constantine, and he was fine, but I probably have enjoyed him more in every other comic I've ever seen him in. I know they were all included just to try and sell the first few issues of a new story, and I respect that (the amount of comics that I've read just because my favorite character showed up for a few panels is . . *cough* embarrassing), but I was kind of bummed by how little conflict they added to the story.

Constantine immediately agrees to help Morpheus (which, okay, he can see how powerful Morpheus is and doesn't want to get on his bad side, totally in character. But I like Constantine best when he's being a bit of a dickhead), when I was really expecting a bit of tension or at least antagonism between them. We briefly see Etrigan but he is so quickly outshined by Lucifer that I nearly forgot about him, Scarecrow shows up but I didn't really feel like he added much besides a familiar face, we see Scott Free (who I know very little about) and J'onn (whose reaction to Dream was probably the most interesting) but all they do is immediately tell Morpheus where he needs to go. Why were they so quick to be okay with this obviously terrifying powerful force just grabbing stuff? I guess I understand why J'onn was okay with it, since he knew who Morpheus was, but it still felt weird that there wasn't even a single moment of hesitation or resistance. They basically served as a plot GPS.

Again, there's nothing wrong with any of them, they just didn't feel as vibrant as all of the other characters we were introduced to. Even the woman who gave Dr. Destiny/Dr Dee a ride was more vivid and felt more real and purposeful than the cameos did. At least to me.

The original characters (or at least everyone I didn't recognize. Was Dr. Dee a Gaiman original or had he shown up previously? Cuz he was very much A tier villain for me,) were all amazing and vivid and lively. I cared about them way faster than I normally do, especially at the very beginning of a story. The cameos felt exactly like what they were: Cameos to sell the book.

Final Thoughts

This book is, objectively, better than anything I will ever create. And that's not even a diss on myself, it's just objective fact on the quality of this piece. I learned a lot looking through it, trying to figure out what Gaiman did that worked vs didn't. The lyricism vs crassness of the writing, the way the art complimented the dialogue, how the panels flowed and where it was easy for me to follow vs where I got a little confused. It's a beautiful book and I can absolutely see why it's a graphic novel must read. I'm planning on reading the rest of the series, but I can only read one volume a day, because the horror of it all absolutely follows me after I close the last page.

[markiafc]

notes on mlc

some personal thoughts about buddhism and mlc :D in some ways, its a further elaboration of the ideas mentioned in this post. @ananeiah @seventh-fantasy

1.

amongst the 3 main chinese philosophies, buddhism is the closest to my heart and personal life. confucianism comes second as i was exposed to it only in accompaniment to buddhism (studied 弟子规 standards for being a good student and child pretty intensely and its had a lot of presence throughout my life + a more modest focus on 三字经 three character classic). and lastly, i'm the furthest away from daoism. i know little about its texts and theories though most of my relatives are daoist; buddhism is on the scanter side in my family. there's a lot more to chinese philosophy than just these 3 schools, but a lot can still be gleaned from this limited scope.

2.

namely: there is a cultural obsession with organizing society. it extends to other parts of asia as well, but chineseness does have a fixation with inventing structure, with dictating every facet of human life, with creating meticulous and intricate systems that resemble million-cog machines; all the little parts (living, breathing people) must perform what they were designed for, and the whole can then function perfectly. a lot of this lies in confucianism. it devises specific social roles and rituals, it calls for conformity and uniformity, it teaches you exactly how to live. confucianist texts (and chinese governing bodies) tell you what your childhood must entail, what your teenage years must be like, what qualifies as adulthood. what marriage is. what a family is and how to conduct yourself within it. here are the exactly defined spheres that make up your entire life like building blocks. there are details, situations that may arise and the correct way to respond, and there are steps. for every person, regardless of age, gender, race, class, etc. there is a guide to follow and stages to accomplish. this is a system for our benefit. we must abide. don't we all want to be good people and live a good life?

3.

it stands to reason that there is an old and enduring conflict within chinese thought. buddhism, daoism, and other chinese ideologies exist to combat this rigidity, this extensive manual to living human life. they assert that surely there is something beyond. surely there is something more meaningful to our time on earth than propriety, tradition, discipline, etc. does this really establish goodness and generate fulfillment? what are the ingredients to human happiness, really? this interplay lies at the center of these 3 major chinese philosophies. (among a multitude of other things, of course, a highly diverse and ancient culture can't be boiled down.)

4.

sometimes chinese stories explore that unyielding and severe, at times cruel, social order. it is the entire world as far as the eye can see. and these stories draw from buddhism (or other beliefs like daoism, mohism, etc.) to portray a way out. to find freedom from that choking machine. how do we escape institution and systems? from a mahayana buddhist perspective, that question is the same as: how do we be happy? and these are the chinese stories that truly, viscerally gut me to the core because i feel it deeply. it feels true and real and earnest. mlc is one of those stories to me.

5.

briefly, this is on a basic level what chinese buddhism is in spirit:

everything in our mortal world is because of 因缘 cause/effect. every event, every emotion, every phenomenon is a result of something else. and this newly-produced result will then go on to become a cause of its own, inciting other effects. it is a chain reaction.

significantly, it is also a cycle. in the chinese eye, in the buddhist eye, all is conceptualized as a process. everything is broken down into step after step, and understood as such. animals have a reproductive cycle, the chicken and the egg. rain exists via the water cycle. and the human being is the most complex creature of all. we are a result of many, many cycles working in tandem all at once. inside our bodies and our minds, the chain reaction is at play, renewal and cessation and renewal and cessation.

this means that everything is always changing, on a level we can perceive and also in imperceptible ways. everything is subject to change, especially ourselves. this, too, indicates everything is a byproduct of something else. everything has a recipe behind it, everything is a batch of different components, baked together to create the cohesive final product. we look at it and see sponge cake, with frosting and edible decorations. we dub it "cake", and forgo the reality that it is egg, flour, sugar, and so on. we place emphasis on the labelled idea of a "cake". so long as we think inside this framework, an instinct that comes naturally to all human beings, nothing is as it appears.

such impermanence & the human urge to depend on such methods of conceptualization creates suffering.

therefore, never be tricked by form and appearance. always look past the veneer, the whole it seems to be. a cloud is labelled a cloud but it is merely a step in the water cycle, water changing forms. matter is a combination of atoms. and our anger, sadness, discomfort is always more than the simple emotion. look closer. buddhism urges you to dissect it. analyze, question, break down. everything in this world is an effect, it is a construct. it comes from something, somewhere. and then remember, everything is subject to change. even society, especially society.

buddhism repeats over and over again. many things feel true but they are not. it feels true that women are inferior to men, but this reality does not stand up to close inspection. why do we think this? reflect on ourselves, what exactly did we intake that resulted in this final conclusion? what ingredients created and perpetuate this form we label misogyny? analyze, and then change it.

buddhism is a cultivation of the self, an endeavour to re-train the mind to think in new, better ways. it teaches how to recognize falsehoods that pass as unshakeable, irrefutable beliefs. how to remove ourselves from it. and how to master our minds towards better mental processes. this is enlightenment. in buddhism, it can mean so many different things. but the concept is most popularly synonymous with 智慧 intelligence, exactly because buddhism prizes the refined mind. one that is no longer stuck believing in falsehoods and illusions.

how do we be happy? we cultivate a different way of thinking from the mainstream, from traditional society. become unstuck from your old self who is entrenched in our world, along with the fraught beliefs it instills into every single person. nirvana is a state of mind. and happiness is freedom, which necessitates departure.

6.

llh re-evaluates his identity and his life, that is his arc. he pinpoints the beliefs he used to hold, that he was so sure mattered. the idea of heteronormativity and the patriarchy seemed so important to him at the time, it was all there was. but then he comes to realize he was wrong, it was all false. he interrogated himself and those ideals deeply, and spent years cultivating a new way of thinking. he also removed himself physically and emotionally from the world lxy inhabited. by becoming llh, he becomes undefinable. everyone else struggles to comprehend him, they are not equipped with the tools to digest the concept of llh.

(the fact is "lxy" was always there. he was just invisible to others because they simply could not properly process what they were encountering. this happens over and over with fdb and the baichuan folks. it is not his physical appearance, in fact he still looks about the same. he is rendered unrecognizable by the gulf between beliefs. by an inability to perceive what they are actually seeing.)

llh escapes but it is not far enough. society catches up to him again, llh becomes parseable to the world all over again. he is once again defined, and defining himself, through the mainstream concepts. uncle, master, guardian. a friend, an enemy. an ex-lover turned friend, a love rival, etc. his identity is contingent on existing in society. and as a participant in society, he attempts to construct his identity through a combination of labels. he allows himself to be perceived, for it to matter how others view and understand him. to let the way they think inform how he thinks too. the way he lives and goes about his life is wrapped up in new versions of old institutions. labels and concepts all over again.

the different combination of ingredients creates the illusion of a different final product, a different person. and to some, that may be the wisdom and change they need to be happy. not everyone needs buddhism to be happy. but llh makes an effort, experiments, looks closer and closer at himself. and he decides it is not enough for llh, so he transforms. he takes all his time and experience, and devotes it towards a new outlook on the world.

the cycle repeats, and every buddhist can only hope that this time the new round would end differently. its impossible to know but it is always worth trying. because this is the road to happiness; this complete and utter egress. the buddhist ideal of becoming a mystery. to become untouchable by that restrictive society and its standards. invisible once again. impossible to fathom because you are not beholden to definite labels. form and a consolidated, concrete, and organized identity is how the others process the world. but you are not what you seem. you are more than what you appear. your form does not reflect what or who you are.

so how do we be happy? it's simple, we say goodbye.

[gothprentiss]

there's a post i've seen maybe twice that's got i think at this point 20k notes. it's about how, like, fictional depictions of medieval women Get It All Wrong (true); how our notions of medieval misogyny are relics of the victorian age, not historical reality (eh??); how class is a more realistic way of understanding premodern womanhood than gender (to some extent!); and here are some ways you might consider writing medieval women, e.g. "tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn’t the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself “not like other girls” you could gain significant autonomy & freedom".

the idea that victorian people had particular essentialist ideas about the genders (e.g. the angel-in-the-house-style separate spheres philosophy) and either a) medieval people didn't, not to that extent or in that mode OR b) that has overdetermined our notion of what all the past looks like strikes me as more of a starting point than a conclusion.

like, okay, the idea that there was a singular ideal for women (and that it's virgin saint, lol), even just women in a particular period in a particular area of the medieval christian world-- that does run so categorically against the idea that class is more explanatory than gender here. what you might say, though, is that you can extrapolate this as the sole ideal for women from the historical record (i don't think you can, but let's play) as a result of class and social position. christine de pizan was a court scholar for numerous members of the french royal family. most of the writings that survive of medieval christian women are the products of either noblewomen or nuns. but second of all-- you can't say that the virgin saint was the female archetype rather than the mother or the wife. the virgin saint is literally both of those things: she figures the virgin mary, whose virginity is important because of her maternity; she figures the church, which is allegorically the bride of christ. it's also worth noting, of course, that the virgin saint (i.e. the nun, presumably?) is not the same sort of ideal as the wife or the mother in any material way.

all of this is emblematic about how much of the historical record works and is made to work. in terms of real, factual women who were either able to write at great length or written about with any interest, you have the inevitable upper-class bias, as the post tacitly notes: "Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life" (odd groupings). in drawing in literary sources, as studies of medieval womanhood always do, you have the additional problem of fabulation, which you are trying to read a theory of womanhood or at least an account of gender roles out of. (medievalists, due to the size and conservatism of the field, are also notably not very good readers when it comes to gender.) e.g. the post cites a thesis which is, as i am looking at it now, significantly about the roman de silence (reading it out of the context of hagiography and alongside the roman d'eneas). the desire for fiction to work as historical record is common in medievalism (really in all premodernism), and understandable, and has some foundation. it is rare to see this foundation meaningfully established in this work.

the other problem you have for the concept of medieval women-- whether you just want to, like, depict one, or have some baseline understanding of what their lives were like, or do them justice-- is the privileging of the individual and the outlier. "women could do this in the middle ages" is often a sentence backed up with, like, five truly good examples, one of them legendary. the desire for a history of empowered women gives you a certain kind of returns; the expectation of a history of misogyny gives you a certain kind of returns. this sort of "THIS IS HOW MEDIEVAL* WOMEN REALLY WERE (*LIMITED TO A SPECIFIC SETTING, AREA OF INTEREST, ETC.)" trumpeting is naturally not about all women of that particular context, and to do so-- beyond the really quite blunt-headed approach to the dynamism of both gender and misogyny-- strikes me as a great disservice to this object of study, delimiting womanhood to solely that of the wealthy and, by that same token, empowered. if nothing else it's certainly telling about the state of gender scholarship in pop medieval history (if not also medieval studies) that feminist interventions get you to about the mainstream scholarly feminism of the 80s, where gilbert and gubar write a whole book named for bertha mason that is only really interested in jane eyre.

[cursedwithwords]

HP Next Gen Headcanons: Scorpius

Full Name: Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy

House: Slytherin

Wand: yew and unicorn hair

Patronus: black swan

Boggart: Delphi and/or Harry (separating him from Albus; more specifically being abandoned/alone)

Profession: healer (specializes in curses)

Sexuality: bisexual

Image(picrew):

Bonus: has his mother's eyes. Decides to study healing and curses because of his mother's blood malediction and because he wanted to remove his father’s dark mark to entirely free him of his traumatic past (it takes a very long time but he does eventually develop a counter curse that effectively removes it). Unlike Albus he was interested in Quidditch and tried out his second year but was quickly rejected. Albus was angrier about it than Scorpius. Raised on the fine arts as many purebloods are but is pretty useless when it comes to more basic home-ec like cooking and cleaning. His mother got him into gardening and herbology, which helped him bond with Hugo in particular because he was also interested in it. They get on outrageously well but Rose does not approve of their friendship. Has a close relationship with Lily, who absolutely loves him, as well as with Teddy who used to babysit him when he was super young. The first time he sees Albus is actually when Teddy shows him a photo of himself with the Potter kids (always thought he had super pretty eyes). Suffers from lingering effects of the cruciatus curse that Delphi used against him, like phantom pains, stiff hands and difficulty breathing when it gets too cold. Has ptsd from the incident and consistently has nightmares about losing Albus. Initially thought Harry was literally the coolest SOB in the universe until he started school, and by the end of fourth year actually became really frightened of him ("please don't take albus from me" that kind of thing). He really likes Ginny but is super shy and nervous around her.

Extras:

Wand Wood — yew

"Yew wands are among the rarer kinds, and their ideal matches are likewise unusual and occasionally notorious. The wand of yew is reputed to endow its possessor with the power of life and death, which might, of course, be said of all wands; and yet yew retains a particularly dark and fearsome reputation in the spheres of duelling and all curses. However, it is untrue to say (as those unlearned in wandlore often do) that those who use yew wands are more likely to be attracted to the Dark Arts than another. The witch or wizard best suited to a yew wand might equally prove a fierce protector of others. Wands hewn from these most long-lived trees have been found in the possession of heroes quite as often as of villains. Where wizards have been buried with wands of yew, the wand generally sprouts into a tree, guarding the dead owner’s grave. What is certain, in my experience, is that the yew wand never chooses either a mediocre or a timid owner."

What better wand for a healer who specializes in curses than one of yew powered by unicorn hair? Scorpius receives this wand from Olivander after his first wand (willow and unicorn hair) is broken by Delphini. While Scorpius is quite timid in the beginning, he gains a new confidence in himself after the incident. Still somewhat timid in nature, he is not a pushover when it comes to the well-being of others. The wand sensed this, as well as his ambition to cure curses, and became his perfect match. It is outrageously powerful in his capable hands, and it will work for Draco or Albus, but only if it absolutely has to (this wand absolutely picks favorites).

Patronus — black swan (very uncommon)

"Black swans are one of the most protective and loyal animals. Witches or wizards who cast a black swan Patronus are often very loving, empathetic, and caring towards their friends and family. A black swan Patronus will defeat the darkness of a Dementor with a light of love and kindness."

Like the swan, Scorpius is a very loving, empathetic, and caring person. He is protective and loyal and very kind. I give him the black swan rather than a white swan because it's so uncommon, and because I think Scorpius is an uncommon sort of person. At first glance, you may feel put out by a black swan because it isn't what you'd expect. A first impression of initial unease and fear. This goes for people's first impression of Scorpius as well because they label him before getting to know him.