#i'm not qualified to spec but it's an idea

[aspecpolls]

I used to identify as aromantic until pretty recently.

I've decided not to use any labels for my romantic orientation, because defining my labels in relation to romance feels unnecessary and inapplicable to me. I don't really believe in or understand romance as a distinct concept/experience, so identifying with a romantic orientation at all doesn't seem very useful for me.

However, I still consider myself to be part of the aromantic/aro-spec community, especially when it comes to spaces/discussions about aroallos, quoiromantics, and Cupid's aros. Can I still vote on these polls, even though I've decided not to label my romantic orientation, and therefore don't actually have any explicitly a-spec identities?

I made this long post recently if more context is needed, but it's a long read. Basically details my thoughts leading up to this change in identity, though I was still somewhat identifying as aro at the time.

I'm so sorry that it took so long to answer this!! I don't recall seeing it when I last checked the inbox, I must have missed it somehow.

But anyway- You can absolutely still answer polls here! You still consider yourself part of the community, so in my opinion you still belong here and have every right to continue sharing your opinions/experiences. I read your post and honestly I deeply relate to it as someone that identifies as aromantic but doesn't really have a solid idea of what romantic attraction is supposed to be, or know why anything would ever qualify as "strictly romantic" when it comes to one's actions or relationships. The entire concept is a whole mess so I can absolutely understand why you've come to this conclusion for yourself.

[autobots-in-training]

how do you know your human friends?

Illusion: Oh oh! I know! Andy and Raf are cousins and they got chosen for a special ro-bo-tics program a couple years ago!

Andy: yeah, and we just decided to stay here.

Illusion: i thought the program was longer.

Raf: Oh, it is. Its an after school program. Andy ages out next year though.

Andy: its not faaaair!! Miko, Jack and you get to stay!

Raf: I'm the only one in the program right now. Miko and Jack are because of their parents.

Andy: Damn nepobabies...

Illusion: What does a dam have to do with them?

Andy: uhhh. Forget that. bye!

Illusion: Huh?

Raf: ignore them. Do you know how Spike, Carly and Chip came to be here?

Illusion: Uhm... i wasnt here yet. I got here a few months before you guys. Let's go find Bee! He's the oldest.

Raf: I thought that was Sideswipe and Sunstreaker.

Illusion: The twins are younger. Aren't they?

Raf: I thought Arcee said they were just slightly older than Bee.

Illusion: Hm... Well, we're still going to Bee, i like him better.

-A FEW MINUTES LATER-

Raf- Bee!

Illusion- Hey Bee!!

Bumblebee- Yeah? What's up guys?

Illusion- Why are Spike, Carly and Chip here?

Bumblebee- Uhm... huh? Because they work here?

Raf- Illusion means how did they start working here, or something.

Bumblebee- Oh! Spike started coming here when he was a kid, his mom and dad are engineers here. It was supposed to just be a one time thing, cause his parents didn't trust him to be alone at home, so he came here after school for a week. He started to come here even after his brother graduated high school and he was trusted to stay home alone. He liked it here, especially because at the time Chip had started coming here for the same program you and your cousin are here for.

Raf- The program is that old?

Chip- I only heard the last part, i take offense to that, I am not that old! You are 14!! this wasnt even 10 years ago! I was 15 when i was accepted into the program! Im 20!!

Raf- You are old though.

Chip- I have never hit a child, but I am so close to right now.

Carly- Why is Chip about to hit Raf?

Bumblebee- He called Chip old.

Carly- If he's old what does that make me?? Im 2 years older than him!

Raf- Also old.

Carly- I think Chip had a good idea.

Spike- Ok, both of you stop. Hes a teenager, and the youngest human here, he's going to be arrogant.

Bumblebee- Oh yeah, and Carly came here when she was... 18 i think?

Carly- Huh? Why are you wondering about when i came here?

Illussion- For the ask blog!

Carly- Oh! Yeah, I started coming here when i moved here for university! I would have loved to come here before, but I guess the program is only available to people that live in the nearby city, since its only a couple miles from here. Plus the program is limited to like, 5 people from the university. The past couple years, no one has qualified for the program besides me, Chip and Spike. For college kids, its like an unpaid internship the first year, and you can work up to getting a paid internship, and you have a job once you graduate! I recently graduated, so i started working full time here.

Spike- I just have one more year of the internship. Carly and I specialized in different types of engineering so we won't be working together, but we will work in the same area.

Raf- But, Chip isnt an engineer, why is he here?

Chip- You know, you're still in slapping range. *sighs* I'm a computer science major. I help integrate the Cybertronian technology with ours.

Illusion- So you work with Jazz and Blaster?

Chip- Yeah, or anyone that has monitor duty in the bridge. Jazz is like, spec ops, so he isn't there all the time, Blaster is the one mostly in charge of them.

Illusion- Oh!

Chip- We do important work.

Illusion- I have a question.

Chip- Yeah?

Illusion- Why are Jack and Miko here? They aren't in any of the programs you guys mentioned. They always hangout with us when Andy and Raf are shadowing the adults.

Spike- Oh, those two are here because of their parents.

Illusion- But why?

Spike- Jack's mom is a nurse, she was hired back when... Jack was like 13? His mom worries, so she asks him to come here after school. She used to pick him up, but several autobots volunteered to do it for her, so she didnt have to worry. And Miko, her parents were transferred here from japan. Miko was like... 12. They saw that there were a couple kids here already, so they just started bringing her here. She gets picked up after school along with Jack, Andy and Raf.

Illusion- Oh so they don't do anything.

Spike- I mean, they sometimes shadow their parents, but not in an official manner.

Illusion- Freeloaders?

Bumblebee- Ok, who taught you that word?? You always struggle with words that are that long, how did you say it right the first time??

Illusion- Andy calls Miko and Jack that all the time.

Spike- Ok, I think I should talk to Andy about appropriate ways to treat her classmates.

Illusion- but you just said they arent in the program.

Spike- Not here, but they are in the same school. Hey Carly, aren't you the one in charge of them?

Carly- Yeah, but when its their free time, I'm off teacher duty and do my normal tasks.

Raf- Do you even know how to be a teacher?

Carly- Chip?

Chip- Yeah?

Carly- Hold my earrings.

Raf- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-

*end transmission*

[wherefore-whinnies]

6, 9, 15

6. What is your favourite part about being aromantic?

haha I was kind of dreading getting this question or the one after it because I have no idea how to answer honestly. I cannot separate being aro from being me in any meaningful way because, I have always been like this. and it's related to so many other parts of me. like if I did not feel the burning desire to reject amatonormativity would I just no longer have an "attitude problem" in general? if I wasn't aro would I still have been a tomboy growing up? (there have been multiple good posts about the tomboy to aro pipeline lol they resonate with me quite a lot.) it's not like there was a character creator and they just slapped on orientation: aro, it's more like they selected orientation: aro and then it went back and changed a bunch of other settings in response. so it feels just like it's asking "what is your favourite part of being Eifie?" to which the answer is of course being talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular, never ever been done before, etc.

idk I can make up that my favourite part is that green is already my favourite colour so I get to see more green ig.

9. What is your favourite aro-spec identity flag?

I always forget what many of them look like but gotta love the classic aro flag with two very pretty greens

15. What advice do you have for other aro-spec people (or those questioning being aro-spec)?

I see so many people all the time asking are they aro, how do they know they're aro, they're suddenly doubting that they're aro, etc. and I think it really does not have to be a big deal to try on the label and see how it feels! and honestly I feel like if you think you might be aro... you're probably arospec, if you want to be. it's a spectrum because it's not just a binary of feeling romantic attraction vs no romantic attraction at all. I'm actually not sure if a "spectrum" makes sense because rather than arospec being about varying levels of experiencing romantic attraction, to me being arospec means more that you experience romantic attraction in different ways from "the norm". maybe that definition is "too broad" but idk man is it hurting anyone? and if you try out identifying as aro and at some point down the line you experience romantic attraction, that doesn't mean that you're not aro then, or that you weren't aro when you started using the label. it's all up to you how you qualify it imo.

(aro ask game link for reference)

[mogaiboards]

hi i kind of happened to stumble upon your blog so i'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but do you know of any mspec lesbians who go into detail about how/why they decided to identify that way? in this case by mspec lesbian i mean male-aligned people who identify as lesbians (like trans men). i myself am a nonbinary lesbian and i want to learn more, but i have no idea where to start because i'm not in any LGBT educational communities. most of the people i know would qualify as exclus, i think? (i dont really know anyone who identifies as either an "exclu" or an "inclu" lol) so i can't ask them.

again, really sorry if this isn't relevant or something you can answer at all. i am genuinely curious and wanting to learn more about this topic b/c i don't want to be exclusive. thank u in advance if u answer this at all /gen /pos

hello! just so you know, "mspec" is usually used to refer to attraction to multiple genders, not to man- or male- spec genders! I've seen manspec or malespec used instead, but using mspec and specifying which one those is works too

unfortunately I only know one lesbian trans man, at least irl/not on social medias. he identifies as such because he's a man who view his attraction to women as queer, so he uses lesbian as one of its first meaning of "queer attraction to women (and/or fem-/woman-aligned people)"

this is one of the reasons why men, men-aligned and male-aligned people would use lesbian, but there's no fixed rule on who can use what. if you feel like you experience your attraction as lesbian attraction, you can just say you're a lesbian

[dreadfutures]

so typically new hires are not supposed to get an evaluation above "satisfactory" and my boss gave me "excellent" and he said that "usually I would need to argue this with the committee but there was no need, everyone unanimously agreed that you had mastered the job and did amazing your first year"

which i think that rating will also come with a pay increase

and then we talked through how i might go about dipping my toes back into active research in my role, as neither a postdoc nor a PI nor a Staff Scientist but as this other nebulous thing, and he gave me a lot of concrete paths to pursue

all of which are! fucking terrifying!

like

i was scrolling through his publications and he is one of the foremost leaders in the field that my Pie In The Sky research is in (I had to write an independent research proposal for my qualifying exam during my PhD and it was about that exact topic that he is doing research on). He works with the advisor of my thesis advisor and my committee members' advisors regularly. My academic grandparents. So he could hook me up with any of them easily.

All of these people are the top of their fields and I am... I didn't even do a postdoc. I didn't even publish a single paper in my grad program (i am shopping drafts right now to push my former advisor to publish). this isn't how you're supposed to get handed a free ticket to do whatever research you want at a top institution, but here I am with that sitting in my lap.

My boss can just whip out the craziest most detailed math and physics in the flow of a conversation, and I'm just not that fast. I can understand it! ABSOLUTELY, but if i were pressed to come up with something immediately like that I could not, I'm slow and nervous and need to look things up (which is fine) but it's so fucking intimidating.

AND I JUST GET TO USE THIS CADILLAC OF A POTENTIOSTAT TO DO SPEC-ECHEM WHENEVER I WANT?????

Anyway. He has been nothing but extraordinarily kind and helpful and wants to make sure I can do what I want to do in this role and that's awesome. I have paths forward. I have ideas.

One of the things he told me today was that I am "remarkably self-aware, and canny" and that I've made not just our floor but the entire division better by being here and people have remarked on my warmth and kindness and willingness to learn, and to teach, and i am VERY OVERWHELMED

my meeting went really really really well someone pinch me

[the-firebird69]

There's a ton of jobs that we did already with these other people and they called The outsiders sometimes for his people and they can come in and do that dumb job and an afternoon or faster all the finishes everything included the coordinated they're not talking they're not yapping they're not fooling around they're coming to get it done and I've never seen such determination in my life they're very fast and very organized and they do public jobs like that you guys want to like 7 million dollars and they went 500,000 it's ridiculous your numbers are way off and you don't know what you're doing and you're using regular wood not even with specified and they're using Maple and oak and Cherry and all sorts of veneers that were not really necessary they said the specs call for it and it comes out looking like it did in the old days and it's never done that way it is laughing cuz that's kind of what they're doing and it's pride and they were very upset that just Massachusetts got hit and started to laugh it's too much going on here old buildings it's too much but you did a good job and it was fast a couple days and they mentioned it and that's very fast and even our friend says yeah that's pretty quick for a major renovation with all that would work and renovations are difficult especially if the building is opened and it was a lot of safety and materials problems logistics it's it's still very impressive because it's not night work and really is all these people in the way and they're blabbing probably take us a day but there's quite a job and he said there's some specialty stuff and we did put it into shield there are certain ships effective and others wouldn't and he's saying they have to bring those in anyways I mean good job and I do mean it and we're going to be back in there tomorrow both sides and we will continue laying off people who are not working for real a lot of them are clones and they do get to people quite often they're fairly dangerous and this guy is showing his teeth on purpose and we fire them kind of quick.

Would have been Arnold's children and yes I'm very old

The clone in the meeting that had the teeth is younger no and he checked the dragon so it was real it says we have teeth too and said you're a fool so he got it and he said this is terrible we're doing the stupid stuff and these people are doing it and encouraging it also he turns around and says I got to get out of here goes out change the teeth a little and it looked much better he's doing the same motion so he said that's nice and it worked people said they can't tell what happened but people's gear can but still you're not supposed to do that tea thing and he had something put on it just didn't work as well as he wanted now there's a lot of people who do this kind of thing running around getting people to cheer and leer and say stuff and they're going out people can't stand it anymore

We do respect the fact it didn't 2 days that's fast and daytime and with all the idiots in the way I mean you're talking politicians that is not bad that's fast okay one day is fast very fast and two days is fast half a day is extremely fast but really they took a lot of time talking about stuff they didn't have to argue about things that ridiculous and with people not qualified our son would probably take a week with a crew but he get it right he hasn't done that kind of thing but we're talking about having him run all the wires and everything if you had electricians and stuff probably take a day and there's just a coordination issue with you guys you don't want to coordinate it causes problems or whatever but still it's fast but the reason they did it is to have a shield and these class A ships will be the ones that can penetrate it with listening and scanning and it's going to work and they did it on purpose they want to see who it is and our son already knows they sort of do too but it's good it's a good idea.

And now it answer to another acquisition and it is a federal government type stuff military subcontractor in subcontractors that is there are several companies that provide certain services one of them is armament and the other is ordinance and the other is electronics and then there is actual gear and then there's vehicles and this company does it all

*general Dynamics and yes they are signing us on tonight. It's a huge number of people wondering if it's our son it says I don't go any meetings I've been called by anyone all I get is you guys give me rude emails. She smile and laughs and said it must be us I said could be. This company is very big and has a lot of people in it and it is going to be an acquisition to remember we're going to have 80% of control a share and we're going to try for more all the time. It is a giant company it provides trucks tanks Jeep type things submarines satellites big stuff too they work with the large heavy equipment companies and they have certain parts they get from them and they build like the shell themselves so you get like a chassis and they build the shell on it and they get the motor and we have both companies and they're ordering the large ones we do one mile to 10 MI and we're going to make a ton of them and it's going to be incredibly difficult this is a huge company so we're going to post now and it's signing yes tonight at night on Wednesday he says print spaghetti day and he's having spaghetti and that's fitting doing it right

Thor Freya

[vampchockami]

Wouldn’t it be so cool if we got an entire season driven by Cas?

Like, say Dean gets stuck in this alternate dimension at the end of the season in a typical self-sacrificing way and they all have to figure out how to get him back (which is better than usual because this time it will not be about raising him from the dead) and Cas carefully hands the Nephilim to Sam, entrusts the baby to his and Mary’s (and Kelly’s, if she’s still alive) care and says, as a fully powered-up angel who is badass and knows his shit about the universe his father made, that he’s got this one.

And we have a season of Mary and Sam bonding in a weird, totally Supernatural-esque, grandmother and son and adopted baby family comedy complete with monsters and hunting of evil creatures; alongside a viewable mashup purgatory-reversal/hell-search for Dean, by Cas.

[lutawolf]

Since you mentioned demisexuals in your last ask answer along with how hard it's to find out then, now I'm itching to just ask point blank.

Are there any good resources, starting points etc. if you're coming from the aroace corner?

I'm aroace-spec myself and I also did try that BDSM test, but the first thing to note was that despite it offering its number of orientation choices, ace obviously wasn't one of them. Unsurprisingly most of the questions also were about bedroom action, what gets you arousals or other heavily sexual queries, and I was just "Err, no idea? Where is the skip this question button?" whilst defaulting to neutral/no opinion most of the time, that probably were what all got collected into vanilla. Which I probably can't possibly be, since aroace kinda contradicts vanilla by default. (I'm not even sure what vanilla truly exactly all entails. Trying to get it qualified is like traversing a circular loop. You try finding out about it, and it says "well the normal, the boring, the not deviant, weird stuff?" and then everything is weird to begin with for you, so you try to find out what exciting and deviant is supposed to be, and you get something like "the kinky stuff, the weird, exotic, uh, everything not vanilla?" and I'm just pulling on my hair.)

But I once did get this allegory as an illustration:

Sexy is running a feather over your lover’s body.

Kinky involves a piece of cooked chicken in your sexual play.

Fetish requires the raw chicken breast.

And perverted uses a whole live chicken.

Which had me in questions marks the longest time, but scrutinizing including KinnPorsche, all the explanations next to it and some titles that came before it; I think, what I'm looking for is… the herbal garnishments and veggie sides that are soaked in the unami savory meat sauce of that chicken?

Every venture into anything halfway mature, it'll always have a sheer compulsory slice out of the romance/spice department. And it's usually this awkward sorry ass wannabe failed pseudo-vegetarian servings of awkward blushy maiden/sex negative displays of relationship dynamics that tries so hard at wanting to serve up something meaty while not wanting to admit you'd need actual meat for it. (Obviously, the idea of simply just straight up establish vegetarian/vegan as a thing that has no need to replicate meat doesn't ever really occur, given anything actually aroace is so rare.) And if you manage to find something acknowledging real meat, usually in very fast food ways of not tasty at all. Even as you raise the gourmet tiers it still doesn't change, that the chicken is the main attraction, the entree. Now matter where you look, it's like always just getting recipes, info and instructions focusing on the chicken itself. About how to feed it, how to best slaughter it, beat its meat up into tenderness, soak it into your preferred flavors, focus on how to cook/dress your preferred parts of it up, how to position or temperature it in the oven to get it best done and even. How to adjust drinks, apperatifs and desserts best to it. Sometimes in that vein the herbs and veggies to get a little note, but they are usually very afterthought and coming as decorations to the chicken.

Everyone's having this obsession with the chicken that I don't quite get, but looks like I do prefer dishes something closely, but not too deeply related to it far more than the bog-standard option. It's not exactly pain for me to live as a vegetarian/vegan, but it does seem a little bit bland at times. I'm likely not a strict vegetarian, since I do appreciate that meat sauce flavor, and can also eat up that chicken if need be. If the chicken has to be there I would like that chicken to be skillfully cooked, tho, tender, well flavored with balanced seasoning, and more importantly can I also get some more servings of the garnishments? Also, please just stop the "vegetarian meat" obsession, it just about never works for anyone. And, please please stay the hell away with that feather, I'm too sensitive and ticklish to ever have fun with it. I'd much prefer a little pain to itchy hellscapes. D: (<- Is that already a masochistic tendency??)

So was kind of wondering, is there more out there? (If that made any sense.) Something else ready-made to guess its ingredients, or outright recipes of how to cook this specific sort of dish up yourself? Or maybe more feasibly, since mine wants comes as a side serving of a well done chicken dish, what are the best means to go finding some more of these chickens?

Or just any good stating points to systematically get actual vocabulary with example sentences? The food allegories I just barely manage to work around with always come off as rather bizarre. 💧 Is there any short way to just skip over the side dish flavor corner or do you really have to learn all the techniques around the chicken first?

Hey tsukiyadori,

I love and adore you but whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. Not to brag but I have exceptional skills at reading comprehension and it took everything I have. I'm still not sure I got it. I think I got stuck at;

Sexy is running a feather over your lover’s body.

Kinky involves a piece of cooked chicken in your sexual play.

Fetish requires the raw chicken breast.

And perverted uses a whole live chicken.

So I'm going to change it to:

Sexy is running a feather over your lover’s body or ice.

Kinky involves a handcuffs or scarfs in your sexual play.

Fetish requires rope or commands.

And perverted full sadist/masochist or full servitude.

What I think you are indicating is that you are interested in more than just vanilla but not necessarily the sexual side of things. That's totally valid. You can absolutely do kink without sexuality. You can Dominate someone without there being sexuality. As I've mentioned, I let my submissive friends dictate to me how they want to be treated. Just because I'm the Dominate for them does not me there is anything past a friendship relationship. There is such a thing as non-sexual BDSM. Not Asexual or Demi sexual, that's actually insulting because they are not the only ones who want to non-sexual play. However, there is non-sexual.

I have absolutely dosed out pain without any sexual attachment. What I lean more towards being your thing, just from our communication mind you. Is rope binding or bondage. I would specifically look at Japanese rope bondage. They are more concerned with the artistry of the processes which includes the beauty on the outside as well as the feel. Whether you want it done to you or you want to do it to someone. There does not have to be sexuality involved, if you tighten the ropes enough (take a class because you can really fuck up someone's circulation) it can be about the pleasure of pain.

I've had a lot of new followers recently. Because I do not want to get sued 😎 Never do rope play without taking a class. While it is one of the more fun kink play, it can still be dangerous. Especially the more advanced knots and other advance moves that can come with this kink. This should not be done outside of a safe zone where you can access help if need. All beginners should start off with scarfs. Make sure to keep it Safe, Sane, And Consensual.

Because it's you and I know how you are, Books: The Beauty of Kinbaku, Rope Bondage: Precision and Persuasion with Rope by Scott Smith

[earlgraytay]

So, hi, in my other pair of pants (the one without the Presidential shoelaces) I'm a ghostwriter, and I've worked with youtubers. The anon you just got is so full of horseshit that they could probably qualify for the Kentucky Derby.

here's the thing. a lot of youtubers do, in fact, have a team working with them, that is not their friendgroup; it's more common than you'd think. but most of the time, these are not hired employees; these are freelancers working on contract.

I can't talk too much about my specific clients, because NDA- suffice it to say I'm not working with anyone you've heard of- but the vast, vast, vast majority of youtubers who hire help are not coming at this from the perspective of Wanting To Be A Boss. they are coming at this from the perspective of "I am a skilled professional who needs a skilled professional to do [xyz thing] that my team can't do". they are not hiring an employee, they are contracting with a freelancer.

i'm not going to say that a freelancer's clients don't have power over them. they absolutely can- especially if you're in the hell that is working at an agency. but the power dynamic is very, very different. freelancers, as a rule, have multiple clients. if you've only got one, you're doin' it wrong. as such, if you're freelancing, everyone knows that their business is not going to make or break your livelihood. they can take a dent out of you if they want, sure- but losing their business won't make you homeless unless a lot of other things go horribly wrong.

so for most youtubers, the default stance you take with your contractors is not coercion, it's negotiation. you tell people what you want them to do, yes; you hired them to do something specific. but you have to work around their schedules, their abilities, their creative style, and so on. you generally have to let people do what they want the way they want, as long as it's in on time and meets your specs. if you start trying to lean on a freelancer too hard, a freelancer with any hint of backbone can and will walk.

there's some heinous, heinous abuse in the youtuber world, don't get me wrong- but by and large, it's not contracted freelancers. it's mostly either a) people who fundamentally misunderstand the difference between a freelancer/client relationship and a boss/employee relationship, or b) people who got hired to work with a Big Name thinking they were going to be ~a core part of the creative team~, who treated the relationship as a personal/creative relationship and not a business one, and who didn't cover their asses because of that.

also, I don't know enough about how DFTBA runs their business to confirm, but I'm... like, 99% sure that even at their scale, they wouldn't be owning and running their own warehouses, because that is a colossal waste of resources. i'm willing to bet that they contract with a company that owns and runs merch logistics, the same way they'd contract with a writer or video editor or sponsor.

the idea that hank green owns a warehouse?? that some rando who works at?? could just talk to him??? gets funnier the longer you think about it.

TLDR: Anon is so wrong they don't even know how wrong they are.

The majority of professional YouTubers, particularly the more established ones, are bosses. Their economic interest rests on their ability to exert coercive power over their employees, including the coercive threat of homelessness. When they post about politics it's important to remember they aren't doing so from an uninvested position.

Look at it this way, if a packer at a DFTBA warehouse came to Hank Green saying their rent had increased and they could no longer afford it do you think he'd offer them a raise or more hours?

I mean tbf Hank Green is roughly as representative of youtubers as, I don't know, Taylor Swift is of musicians. Really, really riding the far edge of the power law line.

So like

When they post about politics it's important to remember they aren't doing so from an uninvested position.

is of course entirely correct, but I'm pretty sure the average 'pro' youtubers invested economic position is the desperate need to ride the algorithm and avoid pissing off BetterHelp or whoever's still buying ad reads on video essays these days. Making enough money to have employees is a, like, .01% thing.

[the-guild-wars-help]

Do you have advice on developing proper skill rotations? I usually look on guildjen and metabattle for builds but they rarely have rotations explained. I ask because I just leveled reaper and i have no idea what i’m doing haha

Well, that question largely depends on the kind of content you're looking to get into - depending on whether you're gonna play mostly PvP or WvW, or instead aiming to do endgame, instanced PvE such as Fractals, Strikes and Raids, your builds and rotations will look vastly different.

Since you're talking about rotations, though, I'm gonna assume you're interested in instanced PvE - that is, Strike Missions, Raids or fractals of the mist. Admittedly, Metabattle is not a great ressource for those gamemodes. Instead, you could check out Discretize (for fractals) or Snowcrows (for raids + strikes) and browse their builds - both sites showcase the strongest builds available to each profession, with listed rotations, videos (usually) and additional tips and descriptions, as well as making note of the gear you'll need to get the most out of it.

Unfortunately, Reaper isn't in a very strong position currently, so neither site has a reaper build listed - that's just a fact of the meta, chances are the spec will improve in future balance patches. The flexible nature of GW2s builds does mean that there can be some very drastic variation in damage output between a top-tier build and a more mediocre one. Don't let that discourage you, though! If you really want to play reaper, there is this older build, in the buried archives of snowcrow's site. It's outdated of course, the numbers in the Video won't match up with current gameplay, and there may be more optimal choices to make, but the broad strokes should still work well enough, especially for open world gameplay.

Finally, some more specific advice: Practice! You can hone your skills in the special forces training area, where you can summon a big golem to fight. It will periodically tell you your damage output too - so you've got a vague idea how well you're doing. If you want to practice for group content, you'll want to set it up right - here is how the raiding community does it. This is a pretty solid introduction to the subject of raids in general!

Some good pointers while practicing: Some of your skills can interrupt others. Your heal skill will always do so, but sometimes weapon- or utility skills can do the same. Learn which ones those are, and try to avoid interrupting your casts. Conversely, try to never delay your casts - unless you specifically want to autoattack, your skills should go off back to back. To that end, skills (provided they aren't the interrupt-ey kind) can be queued - press the button before the prior cast ended and it'll enter the queue. Finally, make sure you're familiar with your traits and your gear. Some builds gain extra damage by attacking from the flank - make sure you're standing to the side or behind any bosses you fight, if that's the case. Some builds have personal buffs they want to maintain, which relies on certain skills they cast. If you know which parts of your build are important, you can focus on those!

For PvP, you can practice in the PvP lobby, and probably find some solid pointers on youtube - plenty of people have shared plenty of builds on there. That said, the word 'Rotation' in PvP means something entirely different - and I'm afraid I'm not super qualified to give advice on that.

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

I can feel sexual attraction, and I don't mind the idea of having sex, but only if I'm pleasuring the other person, and I'm not being touched. But I don't feel arousal, and I don't feel anything when I try to get off. I currently have a crush on an asexual person, and I'm completely fine with the idea of never having sex with them. As a matter of fact, I'm fine with the idea of never having sex again. I don't think I would ever initiate having sex, even with an allo partner. Does this make me asexual?

It’s possible placiosexual might be a useful term for you. It means someone who wants to be on the giving end of a sexual situation, but has no interest or desire to recieve sexual acts. And that’s an ace-spec identity. So you can look into that if you want to and see if you feel like it fits you.

In general I will anyone who doesn’t feel like they meet the criteria of what’s expected of fully allosexual people can identify as asexual, and I think in general not minding the idea of sex but mostly doing it for your partner is definitely an experience I’ve heard multiple ace people talk about. So I think that definitely qualifies too as not how fully allosexual people experience their sexuality. 

At this point I think the questions to ask would be is asexual a useful label for you? Do you feel like you’re not allosexual? It also probably won’t hurt to explore ace identities a bit, and that might give you more clarity too (though only if you want to).

All the best and good luck!

[thetonecontrol]

Interview with Electronic Audio Experiments

Righteous Ryan: When did you decide to become a builder and what motivated you to do so?

Electronic Audio Experiments: Even before I taught myself how to play the guitar I was always interested in what makes instruments work, so naturally I was a pedal nerd as soon as I learned what they were. After studying electronics for fun on the side (took a couple extra courses during undergrad and then read books on my own) it became a natural progression of my interests to start tinkering with my own. I did a few tagboard clone builds before I realized I wanted to have more control over the design process. And that's still my primary motivation: I love the design process with all of its challenges and room for artistic decisions.

EAE as a company formally started in approximately winter/spring of 2015. In February of that year, Boston was slammed over 5 feet of snow. I spent a lot of time in my crummy basement apartment eating frozen pizzas and breadboarding what would eventually become the Longsword V1. I used it on a couple records I was a part of (Perfect Moments by Tiny Fractures and the Native Wildlife s/t - both on bandcamp, for the curious) and that generated enough interest to do a release that summer. The rest has been a whirlwind!

RR: What motivates you to create original circuits?

EAE: Short answer - it's really satisfying to me, basically my favorite pastime.

Longer answer - I love the challenge of making something from scratch that hopefully lets my personality come through. I should qualify; I am not reinventing any wheels here. Designing "from scratch" is like building something out of legos. You can't really design new pieces (which leads some of the more cynical folks out there to say there's nothing new under the sun) but there are lots of building blocks and lots of ways to arrange them. The artistic merit is in the details, and the fun is in the thrill of the chase. It's an obsessive process but endlessly gratifying.

RR: Are you currently working on anything new?

EAE: Oh god, too many things. Here's a sampling:

Halberd - this is a drive which started as the preamp block of Sending, but heavily mutated into its own thing. It features pronounced treble attack/clarity, stupidly high output, and a strong second harmonic response. Been "finalizing" it for a while but I'm trying my damnedest to release it this summer. (If you want to hear a rough demo of an earlier iteration, check this video out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpGgzl3lOgs)

Sending V2 - I'm trying to add some features while I do an SMD conversion - mostly modulation and CV control over delay time. Currently on the back burner while I get the Halberd sorted out.

Hypersleep - this is my weird multi-tap chorus/vibrato/reverb-ish thing (nb: this is also in Ian's video linked above). It's also on the back burner while I get the Halberd sorted out. I really want to put it to production but it depends fully on whether I can source enough MN3011 BBDs to make it happen. If I can get enough to build 50 I'll do a limited run, but I'd really prefer to do 100 if at all possible... so we shall see what happens.

Super secret collab with Electrofoods Pedals - stay tuned, I am very excited

Surveyor - IVP side of the Dude Incredible, will be released later this year. It's ready to rock.

Various contract designs - Caroline Somersault (just wrapped up), Caroline Megabyte (working on the second round of prototypes), Dunable Eidolon (close to done, just needs some code fixes), another 2 or 3 projects all TBA.

RR: What is your design process like?

EAE: Whenever I design something new I have to answer two questions. 1) does it exist already? and 2) does it address a need or want in my own sonic pursuits? For instance, drive pedals will reflect my tone in whatever band I'm currently in. If it's already been done I can go buy it. If it hasn't been done then the work can begin.

If the design is simple or contains simple building blocks I often go straight to the circuit board layout and if necessary, debug from there. I can often turn a project around pretty quick if that's the case. If I'm not sure whether or not a building block will work, I can try simulating or breadboarding. Circuit simulation is extremely powerful but requires interpretation of the results, which also sometimes differ from reality. Breadboarding is great for audible characterization of a new idea, but the added parasitic capacitances can dramatically alter the frequency response of a circuit - especially a high gain drive or something with lots of complex filters. So there's usually a loop of steps where I move between a breadboard, circuit simulations, and a working prototype until everything works out. Sometimes I just have to resort to plain old math to get what I want.

The first pass of design is a go/no-go check. Does it work? Once it does, I refine it until it can produce sounds I truly like. This is also the step where I do the most work to address noise, oscillation, unwanted artifacts, etc. The final step is to identify which controls I want to keep, and then I determine the tapers/ranges of those controls.

Once there's a working prototype I do extensive beta testing with friends, local musicians and engineers, etc. When testing at home I can lose sight of how good (or not good) a prototype sounds. So a sanity check helps! Once this feedback is incorporated into the process we can go to production. At that point we get the artwork done and start working with our local SMD shop to get boards going.

RR: What's your setup (guitar, amps, pedalboard)?

EAE: I've been awful about maintaining a static setup. I realized that when you're not in a band you can just buy whatever sounds good instead of worrying about serving a song or particular mix. I have a wide assortment of guitars and amps that I use to test pedals during the R&D phase but listing those won't really tell you a coherent story. BUT I started a new band and we're tracking a record (we just did guitars + drums at GodCity) so I can tell you all about the gear I used for that. It's a post-metal sort of outfit so there are lots of heavy sounds but lots of unique mid-gain tones as well. This is also a great chance to plug some work by my friends...

Guitars - Travis Bean TB1000S, which is essentially vintage correct after some restoration work at Electrical Guitar Company (new bridge + pickups). Sounds like a piano. A very angry piano.

My very heavily modified Classic Player Jazzmaster with EGC JM500 pickups and a Robot Graves neck. It can do pristine, chimey cleans or a savage clang depending how much gain you use.

Amps - Traynor YBA1 MKII - Basically a marshall-ish amp with really big transformers. I modded the preamp to roughly superlead specs, but it's got way more bandwidth than a typical marshall.

Traynor YBA3 - not mine, lives at GodCity. Was extensively modified by my friend Scot from SnK pedals, who is also a gifted amp tech. It's loud and clean with a sound that's almost like an ampeg.

For cabs we mostly used an emperor 6x12 with an assortment of speakers. The mic was placed on a Texas Heat.

For my own use I have a pair of Joe's TL806 cabs (Thiele 1x12 design) with EVM12Ls.

Pedals - Halberd proto - great for slamming tube amps!

Electrofoods Oprichniki - the highest gain big muff variant around. I don't even know if it should be called a muff variant because of how twisted and souped up the circuit is. It is an absolute beast.

Dr. Scientist Frazz Dazzler - another extraordinarily high gain fuzz which sounds like absolutely nothing I've ever heard. It's a nice contrast to the more scooped flavor of the Oprich.

SnK VHD - a high gain distortion, used extensively for lead parts especially. Super tight and clear.

Sending V1-ish prototype - also has a tone control. It works ok I guess. Still very much a work in progress!

Lastgasp Misty Cave - weird drone-y reverb/flange thing? Hard to describe. Sounds heavenly.

Hypersleep proto - for room-ish reverb

Red Panda Tensor - Used for a particularly glitchy "solo"

Dirge Slowly Melting - I saw the end of the world, and it was terrifying

Lots of other stuff - I forgot!

Other - Yamaha FX500. The ultimate digital pad machine.

Roland RE-501 Chorus Echo - my drummer owns this, holy hell it is magic

My modular synth - a whole goddamn mess of its own

[aroidek]

how do u ask some1 to be ur qpp? any ideas on how to bring that up w/ some1? and do qpps still work out well if one side isn't aro-spec? sorry for so many questions, i'm still kind of figuring things out! thanks! :)

hey!!! (this is so soft omg i’m so soft for qpps OOF) 

mmmmm these are rlly good questions actually (i think abt this a lot tbh). i feel like if there’s someone that you’d rlly want to be ur qpp, you must have a rlly strong connection. i feel like the stronger that connection gets, the more answers to these questions you’ll have.

so if you have a really really strong bond with that person, then i’m guessing the process of them becoming ur qpp would be pretty natural, just a change of label. so i guess some hints here are there abt how much they mean to you? so they get the full picture of it and your intentions. also, i feel like it would be pretty rare for someone who isn’t aspec to want to be in a qpr? i’m sure there are ppl out there that are in a qpr and aren’t aspec, but at the end of the day i think it just depends on the person, just like how not every aspec person is going to want to be in a qpr. 

i hope this cleared things up a bit?? (i’m literally the least qualified person for this bc if i want someone to be my qpp i will literally never open my mouth and stay in silence forever so hopefully my advice will help you not do that lol)

[theglassdragoncollective]

1, 2, 4, 9 + any number you'd like to answer, if any!

Different people in the system fall in different places, but as Idan, I'll mainly be answering for myself.

2. How would you describe your identity?

Sex-Repulsed Aroace with a boyfriend (we're platonic, but I do keep it as ambiguous as possible most of the time

4. Are you romance favorable, neutral, or repulsed?

9. What made you realise you were aspec / arospec?

As Idan, I'll mainly be answering for myself (Idan here! though we do have some other notable aro-spec people like James, Chrellys, Chris, and Fred).

Aro is also generally a collective and singletsona identity for our system since the people who do want romantic relationships are either already in them in system or heavily turned off by the idea things like not being able to have telepathy with a partner.

Where are you on the aro-spectrum?

Really just plain ole aromantic, I don't experience any form of romantic attraction (at least that I'm aware, parsing individual feelings in-system can be an experience). I don't necessarily use a lot of qualifiers. I personally like to keep things ambiguous to tease people with.

2. How would you describe your identity?

Sex-Repulsed, Romance-Repulsed Aroace with a boyfriend (we're platonic, but I do keep it as ambiguous as possible most of the time to tease people)

4. Are you romance favorable, neutral, or repulsed?

Repulsed I think, though I'm a bit more neutral than some of our other people. I personally love reinterpreting traditionally romantic/romantic things into a platonic/non-romantic things. And I definitely feel like I can relate to some nice gay stuff for Patrocles and I.

9. What made you realize you were aspec / arospec?

As a whole, we collectively identified with the definition of aromantic at age nine when we realized that people could be single (before then we thought that people got government assigned spouses at unspecified adult ages but that's a different story). However, we didn't discover the specific language till we were fifteen when just stumbling across stuff online, originally through ace community things (the aro community was basically non-existent where we had access to/were looking at the time). I kind of feel like I've personally known about it my entire existence.

Any number, hmmmm ...

Ooh

13. Do you have a mallowfriend / queerplatonic partner?

I do have a boyfriend, who is queerplatonic, though I personally like ambiguously using boyfriend (it's other people's fault for misinterpreting our relationship).

His name is Patrocles, and he's sort of the Loch Ness Monster? Like roughly the same species, we don't think he's a true introject. But he's the more stoic methodical type, we like exploring underwater in Undersea together. Met on my travels about the system, though it's a little hard having a long-distance relationship now that I'm back as part of the Dragon Head.

[mittensmorgul]

My boyfriend admitted yesterday after finally watching 13.1 that Dean and Cas DO love each other. He has no doubt in his mind that if Cas were female, Destiel would have happened. BUT he sees Dean as straight and doesn't believe anything could happen with Cas in Jimmy's body. I told him that this is heteronormative bi erasure and that as a bisexual, I find it offensive that he makes that assumption. What if these sorts of casual viewer opinions keep Destiel from ever happening? I'm losing hope.

Hi there! And congrats to your boyfriend for seeing the love there. :D

First off, no offense to straight dudes, but the straight dude I’ve been married to for 20 years has absolutely no sense of bifi. Or gaydar. I mean, if he sees two dudes kissing at Pride he’d pick up on it (and there are a few famous people who came out that he wasn’t surprised at all about– George Michael, Rob Halford, he was shocked that anyone was shocked…), but when it comes to closeted bisexuals who deliberately do not want to be detected, especially the way Dean performs dudebro heterosexuality as well as Dean does especially in early seasons, he just has no clue.

*insert that gif of Sam telling Dean he’s overcompensating*

The things about Dean that have been screamingly obvious because I relate to them from personal experience just don’t register to a straight dude who has never once questioned his sexuality (like Sam, for instance). To a person who has experienced it first-hand, a lot of Dean’s behavior reads as signal flares as bright as day. If it were only used for the occasional joke, or rare random things that didn’t fit into a much larger pattern, or if it were just enough to make me sit up and notice once or twice a season, I’d assume it was just a coincidence. But… it’s not a rare random occurrence. It’s something we see in nearly every episode, more and more blatantly as the seasons progress.

I tell everyone to read this:

http://destielhiseyesopened.tumblr.com/post/102023741956/slash-and-subtext-series

It’s a lot to read, yes, but it’s incredibly thorough and the sort of thing your neck will be sore from nodding along in agreement the entire time. :P

As for whether or not the show will go there, which NONE of us can say for sure, the one thing I can say for sure is that it will not be casual viewer opinions that will influence Dabb’s storytelling. He’s said it multiple times, that he’s going to tell this story his way, whatever that might mean in the end. Dude’s not telling. I mean, look at him:

So while it’s great to have hope, because we DESERVE representation in blatant and clear terms, there is no guarantee that we will actually GET it. I mean, that is a very real possibility. It’s why I personally don’t watch the show with any expectation for ANYTHING, you know? Then every new hint that they are taking this somewhere is a pleasant surprise. For me, watching from the standpoint that I EXPECT a certain outcome is just not an enjoyable way to live. It’s just too much to stress about.

And as I’ve said over and over again, just like Dabb, I personally couldn’t give a flying fuck with the mysterious “general audience” sees when they watch the show. I watch because of what *I* see in the show, because I like analyzing the story, writing meta (with the friendly reminder that “meta” has exactly zero to do with predicting the future of the story… that’s speculation, and aside from being able to read obvious twists and turns in near-future plot points, or understanding general character development arcs and where they could potentially be headed in vague general ways, I DO NOT ENJOY SPECULATION, especially when it involves the sort of detail that a lot of more casual fans seem to expect of meta writers. I AM TIRED OF FOLKS HAVING THE IMPRESSION THAT SPECULATION AND POSITIVITY FOR THE FUTURE OF THE SERIES AND CHARACTERS IS “”””META”””” BECAUSE IT ABSOLUTELY IS NOT.

Sorry for yelling, I needed to put that out there. Comments of “I love your meta!” when referring to headcanons and speculation about endgame destiel is just… missing the entire point. The meta is the long academic character analysis, the comparisons with the current arc to past canon, the examination of episodes THAT ARE ALREADY PART OF CANON. Looking to the future to make guesses about what COULD happen in the future is SPECULATION. NOT META.

I’m so tired of people who do not understand that giving meta writers hate and dismissing EVERYTHING we’ve written because a “prediction” didn’t come true on the show exactly as someone wrote it… A guess of what will happen in the future that doesn’t quite pan out doesn’t invalidate all the ACTUAL meta we’ve all written over the years. Because just like pr is not showrunning, speculation isn’t meta.

*even when the speculation is attached to the bottom of a really long meta post. The speculation bit isn’t the tl;dr of the post. it’s the interesting and fun little bonus bit after you’ve consumed the factual part of the analysis. It’s the little blop of whipped cream on top of the pie that is the actual important content. It’s mostly decorative and just a bit of fun.*

Thanks, this has been a meta writer PSA.)

The point of all that is that none of us have a crystal ball, none of us have some secret insider information into Andrew Dabb’s brain. Despite the fact that we’ve been watching his storytelling over the last 8+ years (yes, he’s been writing for the show since s4, and has written more episodes of Supernatural than any other writer, so we have A LOT of history to look over, not to mention all of s12 and the back ~third~ at least of s11 after he silently took over the showrunning from Carver to look at when trying to understand his pet themes and how he writes), the best we can do is make educated guesses.

I’m not basing my hope for canon on some ability to read the future, I’m basing it on MY ability to look at the entirety of extant canon and be objectively logical about where the story started, where the story is NOW, and as far as individual character development arcs based on having watched them all evolve over twelve plus seasons already…

Well, let’s just say that for *me,* I can see the characters have been on a logical emotional progression over the course of the entire series (that would be the “meta” part of things). As new canon unfolds, and characters continue to develop and interpersonal storylines continue to evolve… here’s a metaphor. The writers are walking the characters down a long hallway with loads of doorways open to potential future development arcs. As they walk past each doorway and don’t veer off course, it’s like they’re closing off logical possibilities to detour into alternate routes. They’re slamming and locking those doors up forever. The closer we get to the end of canon (in whatever nebulous future that the series will reach its end, and NONE of us know when that will be right now), the fewer doorways are left to walk past, and the less logical any detour from what looks (again, from reading the meta and looking back at the entirety of past canon) like the steady progression of development would be.

Does that make sense? I mean, they’re writing themselves into a corner (or into the end of the hallway where there’s only going to be one last exit door to walk through). But again, as long as there’s still hallway ahead of us, they could take an “easier” route or just decide to stop walking altogether and just sort of set up camp at their current point in character development. It wouldn’t really be sensible for the STORY as it stands right now for them to do either of these things, because if they start backtracking looking for a different door the entire narrative falls apart. Whatever they do, they must keep writing forward.

*stops and scrolls up and cries a lil bit at how much I wrote*

Point is, we just don’t know. I’m hopeful, I feel like we DESERVE to be seen and this love story absolutely DESERVES canon acknowledgement for what it is, and that every sign in past canon and every sign the writers are continuing to carry on down this hallway is pointing to it happening at some distant point in the future… but as of right now none of us have any idea what that eventual resolution will look like. What even is canon?

I mean, your boyfriend said he sees that Dean and Cas love each other. Is that canon? What would “qualify” as being legitimately canon? I love @bluestar86′s spec post about how easy it would be to make Dean’s bisexuality textually canon, but I have no idea if we’d ever get an episode stating it so blatantly. We might, though. We did have Dean asking a gay married couple what it was like settling down with another hunter…

The point is, even trying to speculate on what will happen in the future– especially something so unknowable and distant as “endgame,” is honestly impossible. We have no idea what will happen in canon between now and then in specific terms. In the meantime, I’m perfectly content to point and flail at what is actually happening in canon right now and paying exactly zero attention to what “casual viewers” think they’re watching.

I know exactly what I’m watching, and I love it.

Will they ever make it undeniably obvious and clear in canon? I mean, it is undeniably obvious and clear to *me* but everyone has their own personal biases and wishes and checklists of things they feel must happen, and no matter if the series ends with Dean and Cas getting married there will still always be people who deny it was “enough” to make their relationship obvious, you know? I just… don’t have the energy to deal with that level of denialism. It just stresses me out to worry about what “endgame” might look like specifically when as far as we know, “endgame” isn’t even on the table yet.

So by all means, if you can, take that small step back and try and enjoy the continuing story, and don’t put too much stock in anyone’s opinion of what may or may not happen in the future. But most of all, don’t put much much stock in what random straight dudes in the general audience think. Because Andrew Dabb doesn’t. :P

Wow okay that turned into a treatise…

[fapangel]

Thoughts on Thomas Wictors musings on some kind of middle eastern wunderkin spec ops force? I'm unsure it even exists.

The contention of it certainly makes sense.

For starters, we must remember that the well-known truth about Arabs being terrible at warfare applies due to social and cultural norms that simply cripple their ability to compete against modern liberal democracies for a wide variety of reasons, prime among them being a complex social honor code that hamstrings both hierarchical command structure, honest criticism and junior officer initiative - the very cornerstones that make modern liberal democracies armies so effective. That’s in addition to the totalitarian nature of these theocratic shitholes, where the army itself is the greatest threat to the rulers, and thus are carefully limited in equipment, training, and operational assignments, based on relative trust in their loyalty - and of course, loyalty takes precedence over competence. 

None of this really applies to comparatively small special operations forces, especially for the filthy-rich, Western-allied nations like the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. These countries have been rolling in shit-tons of oil money for decades - and they intelligently invested it in various overseas businesses to prepare for the oil glut we’re in currently, so they’re still sitting pretty. They have the US/NATO selling them all the weapons they want in exchange for regional bases to counter the Soviet - er, Russian Federation, they’re screwing us over with OPEC, and in general they’ve got everything they want. 

The psychopathic jihadists in Iran and Syria threaten to spoil everything for them - especially with Iran pointing chemical-tipped missiles at everyone in sight and shoveling money and weapons into the pockets of every miserable murdering fuck in the region. The Saudis et al have everything, everything to lose by ignoring them, and everything to protect by fighting them. They don’t buy those shit-tons of American weaponry for grins and giggles - it’s logical to assume that anything they can do to fight these people, they will do. So the idea of the western-aligned Arab coalition forming a special operations group that they absolutely stagger with money, gear and training - augmented by co-operative training from the US (their ally) and Israel (who desperately needs allies, what with their backs to the sea and surrounded by bloodthirsty Arabs) isn’t far-fetched at all. 

As for Saudis and their motives, this thread of  Wictor’s is one of the most insightful I’ve seen in a long time - he explains, at length and in detail, how the current leadership of Saudi Arabia is very, very different than the people who were in charge when Sept. 11th happened. For the reasons Wictor advances, as well as my own point vis a vis jihadists above, the reason why their leadership changed is pretty damn clear-cut - it was in their best interest not to piss off their sugar daddy and patron, the United States. An anti-western coalition exists in the Middle East, defined roughly by NATO/US and the UAE/Egypt/Saudis et al on one side, and Iran/Syria/Pakistan/Turkey/Russia/China on the other - with North Korea backed by both Russians and Chinese, and serving as a long-distance arms trader/tech collaborator with Iran and Syria. Saudi Arabia is filthy rich, but tiny - they’re basically one guy in white robes with a nice credit card facing down a massive horde of savages. If the gun store won’t sell him LMGs and ammo, he’s hosed, simple as that - and we own the best gun store in town. You can always buy from Le Jaques Discount Arms Emporium, but his stuff can be knocked over by a few advanced toys from Russia - unlike American gear, which does the same to Russia’s best tech. The last time this came up (vis a vis tensions between Saudis and Quatar) I pointed out that Qatar is well-known as an active and ideologically motivated supporter of terrorists, and alleged that Saudi Arabia, by contrast, simply doesn’t care about what their citizens do as long as it doesn’t threaten their safety and stability.

What Wictor’s saying is something I should’ve concluded myself - that after 9/11, with a very angry America looking to break off their foot in someone’s ass, anyone with jihadist sympathies very much qualified as a threat to Saudi Arabia, which needs a positive long-term relationship with America to survive. 

Now, Wictor’s evidence might be so-so, but when you’re working with what you’d call “open-source intel,” you’re mainly working on logical suppositions and gut instincts anyways. The evidence at best hints in the direction you’re looking, and at worst demonstrates a conspicuously constant failure to disprove your theories, or even hint in the other direction. You can certainly quibble with his eyeball analysis of various propaganda videos of jihadis firing TOW missiles at people and tanks in the desert - I have, myself - but those criticisms are entirely aside from the point, which is that they’re propaganda videos. For instance, the video of a Syrian T-90 (newly gifted from Russia) being hit by a TOW before the gunner bails out at high speed struck Wictor as suspicious enough to be staged (tankers motto is “death before dismount,” because dismount usually IS death,) but I thought it could be legitimate - a poorly-trained Syrian recruit used to explosion-prone T-72 monkey models losing his nerve in his first real engagement….

… but that doesn’t mean the whole video wasn’t spliced together out of a few different clips by Russian propagandists before adding the appropriate jihadist graphics in the corners. Remember who benefits from videos of ebil terrorists using US-supplied TOW missiles against the Righteous Assad Regime - that’d be Russia, who’s openly and loudly accusing America of “supporting ISIS” every chance they get. Apply this also to our views of Saudi Arabia in general - never forget that Russia is turning its well-honed and experienced propaganda machine against them, as they’re a regional proxy of the United States (their enemy.) Additionally, Wictor’s arguing from the weight of evidence - he’s pointed out plenty of videos that are indubitably laughably bad fakes made strictly for propaganda. It’s not just the incompetence on display, but the lack of urgency - we all had a good giggle at the hapless idiots in the Abu Hajaar video, but I personally stopped laughing at the end, when two men (cameraman included) copy a third they see trying to roll his way out of the firefight. That’s exactly how untrained, panicking irregulars fleeing for their lives usually respond - and as the video shows, it’s also how they die. There’s nothing funny about that. That’s what combat looks like, and the gormless, bored assholes in the artillery shelling videos Wictor criticized (who’re engaging with direct-fire missions, i.e. well within range of the ever-present ZU-23s and Dushkas) reflect none of that. They don’t even have the energy for Aloha Snackbars after every shot. And that reflects the overwhelming majority of the videos I’ve personally seen in /wsg/ “war threads” and elsewhere. 

So, to review: 

1. There’s every reason to believe the western-allied Arab coalition would create a force like this: it’s in their best interests to fight jihadists, and it’s the same tactic used by their regional enemy, Iran (through their own spec-ops proxies like Hezbollah.) 

2. There’s no reason to believe they’d be as incompetent and incapable as Arab armies in general tend to be, since spec-ops is a very different beast. 

3. There’s clear-cut evidence of major Saudi leadership changes away from jihadi sympathizers, and correspondingly very good reasons for Saudi Arabia to treat jihadists as a threat to their very existence (as exemplified by Saudis recent pressure on Qatar.) In turn this means NATO and Israeli governments would be much more likely to provide spec-ops training to them - and they’re the best in the world, hands-down. 

4. The above is doubly reinforced by the threat Iran poses to Israel - consider this latest tirade from the zealous fundamentalist run government armed with chemical-tipped IRBMs��that warns the Zionists that they’re absolutely going to be wiped out in 25 years, but they might be wiped out much sooner, so they should just sit back and quietly accept their doom, lest their final days be cut short. This, right here, is why Israel just nailed an Iranian missile factory in Syria with cruise missiles - a factory that was parked right under the defensive umbrella of that S-300VM unit Russia shipped in to Tartarus late last year (which is precisely why Israel was publicly warning Russia not to try shielding their asshole buddies with those AA systems.) Israel won’t tolerate Iran on their doorstep, since it’s life-and-death for them, and Russia needs Iran’s help in Syria, which is precisely why Israel and Russia are on a collision course concerning Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah. The Israelis have the best reason of all to team up with Saudi Arabia to fight these bastards - their very survival.  

4. There’s both direct evidence of, and very good reasons for, most of the combat imagery we see coming out of the middle-east war zones being faked propaganda footage. This doesn’t prove that Arab spec-ops are looting and shooting over there, but it does tell us what is not happening - the superficially accepted narrative of the war as it’s presented to us. 

5. Ergo, if the Syrians aren’t doing the real fighting against ISIS, who is? 

Conclusions? The Arab coalition has the means to create these spec-ops forces, they have very strong motivations, and they’ve had the opportunity for years now. On the balance, it’s harder to believe that the western-aligned Gulf states haven’t created a force like this. What you see on Twitter is Wictor pointing out ripples on the surface and telling you there’s a shark in the tank - but that’s only because he’s watched people dumping whole sides of beef into it for a decade or better. 

We don’t know what’s in there exactly, or just how big it is - but we do know that it sure as hell isn’t a goddamn guppy.