#it either happens or it doesn't. it's arbitrary

[gender-euphowrya]

it's astounding how pr & marketing people, people whose entire job & education revolves around knowing what people like & enjoy or how they think, so often have no fucking idea what people like & enjoy or how they think

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

.

[centrally-unplanned]

We (somewhat rightly) mock the 2000's era fansub translation notes for their otaku fixations and privileging of trivia over the media, but they should be understood as serving their purpose for a bit of a different era in the anime fandom. Take this classic:

Like, its so obvious, right? Just say "pervert", you don't need the note! Which is true, for like a 'normie' audience member who just wants to watch A TV Show - but no one watching, uh *quick google* "Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne" in 1999 is that person. The audience is weebs, and for them the fact that show is Japanese is a huge selling point. They want it to feel as 'anime' as possible; and in the west language was one of the core signifiers of anime-ness. 2004 con-goers calling their friends "-kun" and throwing in "nani?" into conversations was the way this was done, and alongside that a lexicon of western anime fandom terminology was born. Seeing "ecchi" on the screen is, to this person, a better viewing experience - it enhances their connection to otaku identity the show is providing, and reinforces their shared cultural lexicon (Ecchi is now a term one 'expects' anime fans to know - a truth that translator notes like this simultaneously created and reflected).

But of course your audiences have different levels of otaku-dom, and so you can't just say 'ecchi' and call it a day - so for those who are only Level 2 on their anime journey, you give them a translation note. Most of the translation notes of the era are like this - terms the fansubber thought the audience might know well enough that they would understand it and want that pure Japanese cultural experience, but that not all of them would know, so you have to hedge. The Lucky Star one I posted is a great example of that:

Its Lucky Star, the otaku-crown of anime! You desperately want the core text to preserve as much anime vocab as possible, to give off that feeling, but you can't assume everyone knows what a GALGE is - doing both is the only way to solve that dilemma.

This is often a good guideline when looking at old memetically bad fansubs by the way:

This isn't real, no fansub had this - it was a meme that was posted on a wiki forum in 2007. Which makes sense, right? "Plan" isn't a Japanese cultural or otaku term, so there is no reason not to translate it, it doesn't deepen the ~otaku connection~.

Which, I know, I'm explaining the joke right now, but over time I think many have grown to believe that this (and others like it) is a real fansub, and that these sort of arbitrary untranslations just peppered fansub works of the time? It happened, sure, but they would be equally mocked back then as missteps - or were jokes themselves. Some groups even had a reputation for inserting jokes into their works, imo Commie Subs was most notable for this; part of the competitive & casual environment of the time. But they weren't serious, they are not examples of "bad fansubs" in the same way.

This all faded for a bunch of reasons - primarily that the market for anime expanded dramatically. First, that lead to professionally released translations by centralized agencies that had universal standards for their subs and accountability to the original creators of the show. Second, the far larger audience is far less invested in anime-as-identity; they like it, but its not special the way its special when you are a bullied internet recluse in 2004. They just want to watch the show, and would find "caring" about translation nuances to be cringe. And since these centralized agencies release their product infinitely faster and more accessibly than fansubs ever did, their copies now dominate the space (including being the versions ripped to all illegal streaming sites), so fansubs died.

Though not totally - a lot of those fansub groups are still around! Commie Subs is still kicking for example. They either do the weird nuance stuff, or fansub unreleased-in-the-west old or niche anime, or even have pivoted to non-anime Japanese content that never gets international release. But they used to be the taste-makers of the community; now they are the fringe devotees in a culture that has moved beyond them. So fansubs remain something of a joke of the 90's and 2000's in the eyes of the anime culture of today, in a way that maybe they don't deserve.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

I don't understand the chevron law thing, could you explain it like I'm five? Should we be working towards fixing whatever the courts just fucked up?

So, okay, I am condensing like a semester of a class I took in 2017 into a very short explanation, but:

It would be really annoying for Congress to individually pass laws approving every new medicine or listing out every single poison you can't have in tap water, so instead there are agencies created by Congress, via a law, to handle a specific thing. The agencies are created by Congress but overseen by the executive branch (so, the president), which is why we say things like "Reagan's EPA" or "Biden's DOJ" - even though Congress creates them, the president determines how they do the thing Congress wants them to do, by passing regulations like "you can't dump cyanide in the local swimming pool" and "no, you can't dump strychnine, either."

However, sometimes people will oppose these regulations by saying that the agency is going beyond the task they were given by Congress. "The Clean Air Act only bans 'pollutants,' and nowhere in the law does it say that 'pollutants' includes arsenic! You're going beyond your mandate!" To which the experts at the EPA would be like, "We, the experts at the EPA, have decided arsenic is a pollutant." On the flip side, the EPA could be like, "We, the experts at the EPA, have decided that arsenic isn't a pollutant," and people would oppose that regulation by being like, "But the Clean Air Act bans 'pollutants,' and it's insane to say that arsenic isn't a pollutant!" So whose interpretation is correct, the government's or the challengers'?

Chevron deference basically put heavy weight onto how the agency (i.e. the government) interpreted the law, with the assumption that the agency was in the right and needing pretty strong evidence that they were interpreting it wrong (like, blatantly doing the opposite of a clear part of the law or something). If there was any ambiguity in how the law was written, you'd defer to the agency's interpretation, even if that interpretation was different depending on who was president at the time.

(Note: there are other ways of challenging regulations other than this one, like saying that they were promulgated in a way that is "arbitrary and capricious" – basically, not backed by any evidence/reasoning other than "we want it." Lots of Trump-era regulations got smacked with this one, though I think they'd be better at it if Trump gets a second term, since they've now had practice.)

Chevron deference wasn't all good – remember that the sword cuts both ways, including when dickholes are in power – but it was a very standard part of the law. Like, any opposition to a regulation would have some citation to be like "Chevron doesn't apply here" and every defense would be like "Chevron absolutely applies here" and most of the time, the agency would win. Like, it was a fundamental aspect of law since the 80s.

The Supreme Court decision basically tosses that out, and says, "In a situation where the law is ambiguous, the court decides what it means." That's not completely insane – interpreting law is a thing judges normally do – but in a situation where the interpretation may hinge on something very complicated outside of the judge's wheelhouse, you now cannot be like, "Your Honor, I promise you that the experts at NOAA know a lot about the weather and made this decision for a good reason."

The main reason it's a problem is that it allows judges to override agencies' judgements about what you should do about a thing and what things you should be working on in the first place. However, I don't think there's really a way of enshrining that into law, outside of maybe adding something to the Administrative Procedure Act, and that would require a Congress that isn't majority Republican.

I will say that kind of I expected this to happen, just because IIRC Gorsuch in particular hates Chevron deference. IMO it's a classic case of "rules for me but not for thee" – Scalia and other conservatives used to rely on Chevron because they wanted their presidents to hold a ton of unchecked power (except for the EPA), but now that we've had Obama and Biden, now conservatives don't like Chevron because it gives the presidents they don't like unchecked power.

[apple-salad]

Rose Ribbon Embroidery "Mini" Projects (for BABY NYFW) Part 1: Kumya JSK

I decided semi-last minute to attend BABY's fashion show at NYFW!

BABY had mentioned in their NYFW brand description that their newest collection would be a return to their origins, as well as presenting archival items.

You have to dress to impress for NYFW, right? So of course, I had to pull out all the stops and wear my Rose Ribbon Embroidery.

Also at the last minute, I decided to make a few extra complementing items...

A matching RRE kumya JSK, and a bonnet.

What follows is more of a sew-along/journal rather than a tutorial or guide, mainly for my own memory's sake. But if you enjoy looking at my process (sometimes sloppy), I'm happy!

Also feel free to take a look at the more romantic process video I edited.

Part 1: Kumya JSK

Part 2: Bonnet

To make a matching kumya JSK, I first had to investigate the original dress a little! This I found actually very fascinating because I had never bothered to take a very careful look at the construction details of this JSK (it was, and still is always a precious item that I am afraid will get dusty or dirty if I look at it wrong...)

I actually even found a spot where it looks like the material was torn and someone roughly repaired it by hand (laugh). I have a feeling this was a factory mistake/fix (either from fabric manufacture or sewing) because it's hidden beneath some lace ruffle and I don't really think it's something that an owner would let happen, but who knows.

So here's a few details of RRE~

Many people don't know that RRE is made of velveteen! And further, there is sometimes a misconception that it came in a "cotton" and "velvet" version. As far as I know, there is only one version made out of cotton velveteen.

So the white can get dirty and attract dust super easily :')

The bodice has a panel of 3 ruffles + upper "hashigo" (ladder) lace part with ribbon. It is also boned (BABY's crap boning with sharp edges and no channels, meh...) but obviously I can skip that for kumya.

The skirt has a trapezoidal embroidered panel, the star of the show, surrounded by 3 tiers of ruffles that extend all the way around the back. The last "tier" is not gathered and has a smaller ruffle all around the skirt.

While thinking about how to construct something similar in kumya-scale, I found it fascinating that the under-material the ruffles are attached to are cotton! Makes sense to reduce bulk, plus you can't tell when the ruffles cover it.

The density of ruffle starts out quite concentrated, and then reduces as the bottom ruffle is reached. The cotton under-material also seems to have less material gathered than the main velveteen ruffle. This also makes sense to not only reduce material usage but also because having a huge amount of gather on the bottom tier can make the skirt look too heavy.

Knowing this, I fussed out some semi-arbitrary ruffle multipliers for each tier (and lining) in my notebook. Very important to keep tabs on how many fabric strips I need and their exact widths!

Also since everything is in kumya-scale the gathering is generally reduced by a lot. Kumya doesn't need much to have a very full skirt, and with such tiny tiers the effect of the gathering can easily look like overkill. The kumya elizabeth OP gathered lace/tiers very lightly:

As reference dimensions for kumya, I have these two kumya dresses which I used lightly (mostly the sugar bouquet one because it's a JSK). I also have the babydoll kumya, but as it was out of commission for a while (on my christmas tree!😅) I didn't use it for checks at all.

The sugar bouquet "bodice" is about 3cm long. I decided to extend it one more cm to 4cm to make it easier for me to calculate for the ruffles and also leave enough space so the ruffles would be visible and not potentially buried.

I use a cotton velvet fabric and a mixture of cluny and torchon lace I have on hand. This velvet has a noticeable twill weave to it and is thinner than the velvet BABY usually uses, but the thinness is perfect for this purpose. I was originally going to just use cotton sateen but remembered I had this!

You can't see the weave from afar so I tolerate it. I wouldn't have wanted to use polyester velvet/suede-like/minky, I think.

Since the material is still a velvet and does have a thickness compared to cotton, I decided to roughly hem any ruffle edges by hand with a simple once-turned whip stitch. it kind of seals the raw edge and hems it at the same time. Note that this is not a great idea for something that would be worn and washed a lot, but this piece in this specific case won't be.

In general, when it comes to mistakes with this piece I mostly ignore them because it's kumya-scale and not only will most people not notice, but as stated above it's also not a piece that will be worn and washed often so quality of construction isn't much of a concern.

Mentally deconstructing and calculating the construction of the ruffle part was a bit of a pain. My lace was wider that I needed so I had to roughly mark out where it should be sewn into the ruffle, not always with great success.

I'm also not great with working at small scale...much respect to doll clothesmakers.

The bodice of the sugar bouquet kumya JSK is made from a front trapezoidal panel with a strip of fabric attached to the sides that extends all the way around the back, and the skirt attached to that. So I cut some slightly angular side panels to attach to my rectangular/square-ish front ruffle panel.

(I threadmarked approximately where I wanted the seam to go because I don't trust myself to attach the side panel in the right area/dimension otherwise with such a wonky panel)

Simple straps made from strips of fabric. I make these slightly thicker than a regular kumya JSK as well because I feel like RRE has thicker straps too (well, the entire construction of the bodice is a bit different, but ignoring that...)

And a facing layer of ordinary cotton is sewn to the front panel.

For the section of lace at the top, I frankenstein together 2 types of lace that I trimmed to look more like the lace used on the original JSK. It seems the original JSK also has this lace sewn through the lining layer, so the stitching is visible from the inside.

I use the thinnest ribbon I can find--some silk ribbon in this case. It actually works really well because silk ribbon is very thin/flimsy and can be tied and threaded in nicely with relative ease.

By the way, if you aren't aware already, a yarn needle works very well for threading ribbon through lace.

Bodice portion finished. This took way longer than I was hoping, an entire night. Hopefully the results are worth it.

Next I fuss out the skirt. At this point I am working out the calculations and investigations already mentioned previously. I did make a few mistakes and had to re-cut a couple tiers!

I use a different lace from the bodice for the tiers because I thought the shape of this one was closer to what was originally used (it's actually the bilateral ladder lace used for the bodice, but instead of cutting off the lace edges and using the thread-through part, it's just cut in half)

After hemming the ruffle, I attach the lace to the velveteen ruffle with a single gathering stitch (too lazy to use 2, and the thick material makes it hard to gather anyway). The under cotton layer is gathered separately and sandwiched between the cotton layer of the previous tier.

Coming along. I think the lace length for these ruffles is a bit off/uneven/less than ideal, but oh well, can't be bothered to fix it...

After the third tier, a non-gathered velveteen tier is attached with gathered lace.

I also prepare the bottom ruffle, but that will be attached to the completed skirt.

Next, the most exciting but also potentially the most taxing part must be done--the embroidery!

I know that the top of the embroidered panel is basically the same width as the bodice ruffle (referencing the original dress), but the width of the bottom is a bit arbitrary (about 3x the width of the top of the trapezoid)

I mark out everything roughly with water soluble marker (the darker patches are where I messed up and used some water to erase, waiting for it to dry...)

The midlines of the panel as well as the 1/3 lines were marked because I 100% do not trust myself to make the embroidery symmetric without doing so. I'm a beginner and not nearly skilled enough in embroidery to freehand...

I carefully investigated the original embroidery and copied the locations of roses and leaves to my mini-panel. Once I have the general shape that I'm happy with, I start embroidering.

I didn't take too many progress photos of the embroidery, but I also don't think you need them. Because the scale was small, this took an entire evening/night which I think is not too long?

For the roses I use a combination of the "pinwheel" rose method and french knots (+ some additional plain stitches where I wanted more volume).

The nice thing about ribbon embroidery, I think, is that the ribbons add so much texture that even if it's a bit messy it looks very impressive anyways. Plus your mind will mentally interpret some random puffy ribbon lines as a flower anyways.

I use regular DMC 6-strand embroidery thread (split in half, so 3 strands used here) for the vines and leaves. Because I also suck at embroidery and have never embroidered a real project/learned real techniques I mostly kept the leaves simple and slightly abstract with 3 branchlike stitches. I think I currently can't fuss with making nice rounded miniature leaves without messing up every second stitch...

Finished.

I spray water to remove the marker marks and let dry.

Attach embroidered panel to ruffles. I should have double checked where the panel was aligning with the ruffles on each side since it's uneven, but whatever.

Gather bottom ruffle and attach to skirt.

I attach the bodice strip to the front bodice panel as well, and sew the straps down.

I basted the front of the bodice to the skirt by hand because I wanted to make sure they were aligned. Because I messed up sewing the ruffle tiers to the embroidered panel and they are somewhat misaligned, I tried to adjust where the top of the skirt was sewn to the bodice to compensate, it didn't work that well but eh, it's alright.

Gather the skirt and sew to the bodice portion. This was very fiddly and I had to redo some parts several times because the lace wasn't getting sewn down properly. It's still not great but I'll fix any egregious parts by hand.

The gathering is also pretty uneven, but I'm ignoring it...

Looks almost done but not yet!

There is a tiny bit more embroidery on the edges of the middle ruffle tier. I marked approximately where I wanted the roses to be and roughly embroidered them (without a hoop because it's too complicated to figure out alignment before construction, although embroidery is always easier with one).

I also add a back ribbon to simulate waist ties, a detail I notice on a few other BABY kumya JSKs. The waist ties on RRE have a slightly rounded/pointed shape to them, so I freehand this shape for the bow "tails" (because I'm getting tired and lazy, I didn't really measure although I did check that the width was approximately the same throughout). The backside of the waist tie is another layer of cotton, which reduces bulk when turning the shape inside out (the backside of the original JSK is also just lining material). I also folded a long strip over itself and basted it down, creating a loose tube shape to use for the bow part.

It's pretty hard to create defined folds in the bow with such thick fabric, but I tried my best...at least it's likely the back will rarely be seen.

I gave the dress a final allover spray with water to hopefully erase any remaining soluble marker. Also, some interior hand finishing needed to be done (mainly tacking down some unruly seams)

And finally, actually finished. The embroidery thankfully turned out decent enough to distract from any weird spots of construction and so on. It looks quite remarkably like the actual dress, so goal achieved I think!

Extra contents:

I make kumya little wrist cuffs because some of the kumya variations (such as babydoll kumya) come with them, and that's really cute.

BBD kumya seems to use a type of lace that's already elasticated, but I don't have that on hand so I just sew two pieces of the same lace used for the bodice ruffles together to make it bilateral and stitch on an additional elastic with a stretch stitch. And add on a little ribbon bow (I only have silk ribbon in this narrow width, but I think a ribbon with more body such as poly satin or cotton satin would work better)

And I also make two of those little applique ribbon thingies (you can buy them cheaply from craft stores and so on, but whatever) and stitch them temporarily to kumya's bows for an extra accent.

I'm lazy so I use the bloomers that came with the hawase kumya set underneath (I'm sure making a similar pair of bloomers wouldn't be too much work but I have no idea if these are patterned with some kind of shaping/rise and I don't want to deal with that)

This is actually yuefii's kumya that I am still hoarding for whatever reason and has its eye and mouth fur already trimmed.

And now Usakumya is ready to see the runway :)

Part 2 (bonnet making) is here.

Thank you for reading! If you ever decide to take up a similar project, I'd love to see it!

[olderthannetfic]

Can I poke the bear for a moment and get angry? Because I'm seeing "posting as activism" more and more in fandom spaces, and tonight I saw a post that made me lose it.

There is a post about (current events) going around that says, "full offense, but in this time, your own comfort doesn't fucking matter, you should be uncomfortable about things that are happening, and I hope you can fucking live with yourselves if you are quiet. It takes five seconds to retweet or reblog, fuck your aesthetic, fuck your anything aesthetic."

And my god. How dare they.

Yes, there is severely fucked up shit happening. Yes, people should be aware that people are being killed. Yes, there are people who are just shrugging about it and pissing off. But how does reblogging a post certify someone as Good or Bad? How does this person know that someone hasn't already helped out meaningfully in some way, or is still helping out, but on other websites? How does this person know that someone isn't barely holding on by the skin of their teeth, and they would have a mental breakdown if they got closer to any more stressful things?

I know a multitude of people, including myself, who have recently either needed to call lines, check into facilities, move back in with their parents, or go on medication because of how insane things have become in their own lives. How does this person not understand that blogging; being on tumblr; engaging in fandom, having a small space that someone can control in its entirety, is a reprieve for people who are already at their wit's end outside of that space? And that's okay.

(We are not doing the relative privation shit in this house. I refuse to entertain that.)

Ironically, by insisting that people participate in sharing posts when they're already stressed and exhausted, that's a surefire way to make their problems worse, and potentially prevent them from acting helpfully in the future because suddenly, their exhaustion turns into full-blown burnout. That's how it works. Professionals tell you to dial things back if you are too overwhelmed. There is a reason for that. There is a limit to how much people can mentally process and handle. Compassion fatigue exists. For a lot of us, we are already at our limit. We need space to relax, and not have arbitrary obligations thrown on us. That is not our fault, it is not a character flaw, it does not mean we are bad people. And just because horrific things are happening elsewhere, it does not mean we can, or should, stop taking care of ourselves first. Yes, it feels shitty to think, "you know what, I can't reblog this". You bet your ass that I and my friends feel guilty about not being able to engage as much as we think we should, but that is how it goes. I can put my head underwater for a bit. But I cannot keep my head underwater forever. I will drown.

Not to mention the obvious part: guilt-tripping people to the extent of implying they are somehow contributing to genocide, just because they won't reblog a post, and implying they should not be able to live with themselves if they do that, is beyond revolting.

I am angry, and I am not sorry.

--

So many of those kinds of posts—and they turn up during every set of horrific real world events—sound like people who are in a country far away from the events, diaspora at most but probably just randos, venting their impotent rage because it's the only way they can feel productive in a situation where nothing they can do is productive.

[llamagoddessofficial]

So, I wanted to know a little about how you see soulmates? I honestly want to see your take when it deals with HMF Sans in particular while it deals with a particular Soulmates AU. Usually, whenever I write Soulmates AU... to add DRAMA to the setting, I'd like to the soulmates the ability to feel the other's pain.

I want to know how'd HMF would think during the incident that caused his head to cave in while dealing with a universe akin to how I would write a soulmates AU. Would that change anything about what happens?

This is a very good question!

I like to write Soulmates as a resonation between Souls. It may be two Souls who are extremely similar to one another, so similar they hum the same tune. It may be two Souls that are different in the perfect way, singing like a harmony. In physical terms it's a mutual feeling of comfort and ease that you just can't explain. It can be platonic or romantic; Soulmates may be couples, but they may also be best friends.

Monsters place a lot of cultural importance on Soulmates, because their Soul constitutes so much of their being. Monster Soulmates feel the attraction a lot stronger than humans do. For Monsters it's super obvious, and for humans, it's a gut feeling.

Though definitely a good start to a relationship, being Soulmates doesn't guarantee a perfect happy ending! Relationships are still relationships, that require work and love and patience. Soulmates are still individual people. They can fall out with one another, if either party won't put in the leg work.

-

A personal note on this; I know some people make Soulmates a super big deal in their writing, the mega crux of relationships, if you're Soulmates you're guaranteed to be in love forever. And that's totally fine! I just don't really gel with that idea. Like... what about the rest of me? What about my personality, my hobbies interests, my wants? I'm more than an arbitrary magical link with someone. When I read 'we're Soulmates therefore I love you' I start to think stuff like "Would this person not love me otherwise? Would they even LIKE me if we didn't have this magical link? Do they actually care about me, or do they just start caring because they think they need to?" I feel that I wouldn't want to be with someone who only suddenly starts liking me because magic told them to.

In most of my stories, I don't make Soulmates a big thing. In a lot of them my characters aren't even Soulmates at all. It's why I like @recklesslycaffeinated's spin (in Six Ex-cell-ent skeletons) so much; the skeletons are her Soulmates but they love her for reasons outside of the Soul stuff. Sans even makes it clear to the Mc in the sequel that being Soulmates doesn't guarantee a relationship at all, it just guarantees some kind of connection, and being Soulmates with her is just a bonus that makes him feel comfortable. I love that take.

[dsknsk]

I feel like the very concept of E.G.O Corrosion isn't talked enough about (maybe due to their hair nearly always remaining) but just stop and realize how creepy it is.

So, picture the following.

You are going into battle, together with your allies. Both you and them are armed and skilled, even if you don't always know what you will be facing. For emergency cases, your superior has given you something called E.G.O. And to gain it, you had to come into contact with...something. Something clearly not human. Something that you don't fully understand, but you know that it behaves with a totally different logic and morality than what you consider familiar. They call it an 'Abnormality', after all.

But somehow, you resonated with it. It was like something from deep inside of you accepted it. Like you felt what it felt. Maybe it was its struggles that particularly moved you. Or just everything it stood for.

You don't know. Either way, it resulted in you being able to synchronize with it, just for a moment, transforming you to draw out its powers to fight with. It's like a short while that you cooporate, it agreeing with you just for a moment.

And yes, it talks to you.

Usually, it's in the background and you can easily drown it out with your own thoughts. And you only talk back when you're using E.G.O. But it's there. You feel a bit mentally drained after using E.G.O too, so you prefer not to use it too often.

At first, the fight goes just about okay. You start to think that you'll get this cleared together anytime soon. Your allies are fighting next to you, and everytime they happen to win a clash, your mind brightens up a little, boosting your own confidence in turn.

But then.

One of your allies fails a clash, and their punishment is harsh. The enemy doesn't seem to stop their assault on them, staggering them and beating them into a pulp. And then, you've lost them.

You know that in the end, you'll all be brought back, but it nonetheless takes a toll on you. Your mind blurs, and you find yourself losing your focus much more often. At the very least, you see that your allies aren't doing so well, either.

It doesn't take long before things go from bad to worse, and your mind can't take it anymore. The voice of the Abnormality you resonated with rings in your head still, but now, you can't bring yourself to suppress it anymore. Your mind is too weary to do such a thing.

So you allow for it to swallow you whole.

Your consciousness falls into a dark abyss, your body warping as the Abnormality takes over, speaking through your mouth, with your voice. You've lost all common sense and couldn't care less for arbitrary things like 'ally' or 'enemy'. Why do they matter, anyway? You can't bring yourself to think about it.

So you lash out. You let it lead for you, letting it run wild with free reign. Your body is changed, cruelly contorted into...something that they stare at in horror. The cries and desperate shouts of those around you don't reach you anymore. It's all clouded over, until...

You're back.

Still in a daze but also not, you feel that you can think for yourself again. You're not doing great, but you're not going off the deep end like just then either. You now know what you just did - the looks on your allies' faces tell you enough. And even now the voice is back to being just slight background noise, your acts just then will always feel like it was on some level, your own.

There's no time to think about that, though. For the battle hasn't yet ended.

[tempests-bards-and-birds]

i've been thinking about the word choice in neuvillette's voice lines about the archons, specifically how in saying that deus auri "won" the authority of geo and that the narukami "took" the authority of electro he is very much implying that they came into possession of the authorities deliberately; however, he then calls the anemo archon the "recipient" of the authority of anemo, which seems to imply less that he took it deliberately and more that it was just given to him, which does seem align with what little we know about how venti became the anemo archon (because both of the other viable candidates were. yknow. dead). what's particularly interesting about this to me, then, is that it seems to suggest that neuvillette has done at least some modicum of research into the older archons (the stuff with nahida doesn't count because he was actually conscious while it was happening), which it does make sense for him to have done. either that or i'm just reading too much into arbitrary word choices lmao

[tossawary]

I do like the headcanon that it was Shen Yuan's teaching and tips that inadvertently helped Luo Binghe get through the Endless Abyss faster. Accidentally fucking himself over in a way because he cares for Luo Binghe too much is just sooooo him.

I do think there are other elements that may have helped Luo Binghe through the Endless Abyss faster. When I was making that post on a way that the heavenly demon seals might work, based on the implications in the quotes I was taking down, I formed the headcanon that the Black Moon Rhinoceros-Python in PIDW may have only partially broken the seal on Luo Binghe's demon side, potentially denying him full access to his powers and causing him pain and damage, until he could reach the Xin Mo sword and use its dimension-slicing powers to remove the last remnants of the seal. Whereas in SVSSS, Mobei-Jun, with his own special Endless-Abyss-summoning abilities, apparently ripped the seals off of Luo Binghe immediately and potentially more cleanly.

(Arguably, a sudden removal could be an even worse shock, causing a clash between spiritual systems, and causing even more pain and damage until the Xin Mo sword could be used to soothe the effects. You can come up with fun consequences either way, PIDW or SVSSS, to get the angsty headcanons that you want to explore!)

Anyway, I was thinking about the idea that... maybe SVSSS Luo Binghe making it through the Endless Abyss faster doesn't necessarily mean he's more powerful...?

Like, if we're imagining that Shen Yuan's teachings allowed SVSSS Luo Binghe to perform something like a speedrun to the Xin Mo sword (which is extremely funny to contemplate), then through sheer experience (a couple more years to cultivate/develop in the hellscape grinding level), it's not unreasonable to imagine that PIDW Luo Binghe exiting the Endless Abyss may have been significantly more powerful or at least significantly more dangerous than SVSSS Luo Binghe exiting the Endless Abyss.

(Although, even if both Binghes were the same power level, based on personality differences and goals, then Mobei-Jun's first encounter with SVSSS Binghe would be extremely different to his first encounter with PIDW Binghe regardless.)

I am currently enjoying the idea of SVSSS Luo Binghe almost immediately encountering Mobei-Jun upon exiting the Endless Abyss, having a rematch of their battle at the Immortal Alliance Conference, and then Luo Binghe losing that fight.

OP power levels are so arbitrary. I don't think it's unreasonable that even pre-ascension Mobei-Jun could (after getting pretty beat up himself, maybe) kick a young, undeveloped heavenly demon's ass. Just because Binghe has the Xin Mo sword doesn't necessarily mean that he knows how to use it. Mobei-Jun is at least 20 years older than Binghe, with potentially a great deal more training and battle experience in the Demon Realm, and depending on how you imagine his abyss and ice powers, he's potentially capable of some extremely dangerous and dirty tricks to preserve his own life.

So, like, let's say that Mobei-Jun manages to pull ahead in this fight, disarms Luo Binghe, and then throws the Xin Mo sword through a portal back into the Endless Abyss because he has no interest in keeping such a cursed thing for himself. He could just kill the seething half-demon on the ground in front of him with three broken limbs, before the heavenly demon heals up and tries to kill him again, but Shang Qinghua (who has been here THE WHOLE TIME) (who has been having a VERY BAD TIME trying desperately to stay out of the line of fire) (who didn't want to be in the Demon Realm in the first place when he's still trying to keep his cover, but he needed something for the Sun-Moon Dew Mushroom and Mobei-Jun to help him get it) Shang Qinghua says that Mobei-Jun can't just kill this boy for some reason. Holy shit, do not kill him! DO NOT! (It might break the fucking world, shit, what the fuck, what is happening...!)

And listening to Shang Qinghua has saved Mobei-Jun's skin on a number of occasions, so that's it! Apparently, he can't just kill this boy. Admittedly, he is mildly impressed by the boy's tenacity, but, like, the boy is obviously suffering poor effects from the sword's curse, may or may not be possessed by the Elder Dream Demon, and desperately wants to kill him. He's a fixer-upper, for sure.

So, like... now what?

[valle-de-sombra-de-muerte]

Homestuck Reread: Act 5-2, Part 3/5 (p. 2236-2391)

Read the previous post here.

Apologies for the long delay in between posts. I initially wanted to have these reread posts be on a weekly schedule, but that just ain't happening now. The combination of work and fatigue from constant Homestuck exposure is starting to wear on me. So I'm just going to write them when I can find the time. Thanks to everyone who likes and reblogs these posts, I appreciate all of you.

I also went back and added cuts to all my past reread posts because I realize scrolling through these long ass walls of text/images when on my blog isn't an ideal browsing experience. Let's move right along.

Vriska really wants to make it seem like she'll be redeemed for all the bad she's done by reconciling with Aradia. In the meantime, she would very much prefer it if everyone else stopped talking about her terrible deeds. The only way she can think of to make them shut up for good is to do this performative gesture of goodwill. She's not trying to change as a person and atone for her actions: she just wants to rehabilitate her awful reputation.

Terezi's comment about Aradia is noteworthy because she's the only troll who seems to actually care about what happened to her. Everyone else kind of ignores Aradia, but Terezi expresses distress over how Aradia has "changed" since the incident.

From her earlier conversation with Sollux. Terezi will consistently remark how bothered she is that Aradia isn't the same person anymore. It's a shame how their fractured relationship isn't given that much attention outside of these throwaway lines. Like even after Aradia becomes God Tier and regains her love of life, she and Terezi could've bonded and repaired their friendship. Maybe they could've if Hussie wasn't so fixated on forcing this "doomed yuri" dynamic between Terezi and Vriska during the later stages of the comic. Aradia was part of the FLARP group with them too, so why sideline her?

I don't think many people talk about how Terezi was an active participant in helping Vriska kill all those trolls. I'm don't want to sound like I'm drifting into "Vriska Did Nothing Wrong" territory, but it's not like Vriska was wantonly killing people just for the hell of it. She was essentially forced to do it because if she wasn't feeding her lusus those trolls, she would've been eaten/gotten culled for having a dead custodian. Either way, she would've died if she wasn't killing others. A real "kill or be killed" situation.

What was Terezi's motive for helping out? To live out her dumb vigilante fantasy? For Vriska, securing victims for her lusus was a matter of life and death. But for Terezi, it was nothing more than a game. "Oh, but only the bad trolls would've been executed!" Bad according to whom? The Alternian law that sentences people to death for any arbitrary reason? Sure, okay Terezi.

Vriska does call her out on this, at least. But I wonder how many people actually take her words seriously. Too often I see this reductive reading that Vriska is always sinister and deceitful, and Terezi is positioned as her foil by being honest and noble. So by that logic, we as the audience must distrust Vriska and take Terezi's words at face value. That's laughable.

You know, maybe Terezi is a great manipulator after all. She successfully manipulated a good chunk of the fandom to perceive her as trustworthy and one of the moral backbones within the cast.

Terezi actually reaches out to Aradia, both to ask about Tavros's condition, and also to check in on Aradia herself. She repeatedly warns Aradia not to escalate the situation with Vriska, three times in fact. She really doesn't want her to suffer the same fate as Tavros.

I can't help but wonder how much of an involvement Scratch had in the Team Charge Debacle. Vriska draws a line between her friends and the trolls she sacrifices to her lusus. Her victims are a means to an end, but her friends hold sentimental importance to her. She seems hesitant on actually harming them, only giving in after Scratch insistently pushes her in that direction. Killing her friends definitely seems counterintuitive with maintaining a rivalry with Aradia and her long-term aims with Tavros, after all.

Vriska's whole fixation with Tavros is obviously based on what she read in Mindfang's journal. She projects herself onto her ancestor so hard and wants to be just like her. She named her FLARP character after her, models her in-game self as a ruthless pirate, and aspires to have the same romantic relationships as Mindfang once had. She forms a relationship with Eridan (Dualscar) and wishes to do the same with Tavros (The Summoner).

But Tavros is not the Summoner. While the latter was brave and inspirational, the former is cowardly and unambitious. He is not the troll Vriska wants to be her "future matesprit," so she seeks to mold him into someone who can meet her standards.

She hates Tavros for not being the troll she's "supposed to" fall in love with. Scratch uses this hatred to convince her to kill him. She throws Tavros off a cliff, but when he ends up surviving she claims it was for his own good, that she was "toughening him up" and trying to help him be more like the Summoner. This is one of many instances of Vriska performing mental gymnastics in order to justify her actions, even if she doesn't sincerely believe her own explanations. She's trying to convince others, as well as herself, that she is always right.

Vriska is shitty and intensely messed up, but Scratch is much more insidious for using a broken child to do things she wouldn't do otherwise. Even though he is omniscient, he should not be treated as a reliable narrator since he does have his own ulterior motives.

Mhm. Such a waste of her amazing talents. Talents we have yet to witness firsthand. If Vriska really does brag to Terezi about using her magic cue ball to predict the future (and knowing just how obsessive and paranoid a person she is), it really doesn't take a genius to know that's exactly what she'll do when faced with a cryptic threat.

It's interesting that Terezi believes Vriska "went too far" only after killing Aradia. It's her death that spurs Terezi into murderous action, when before she simply wanted to talk to Vriska after what she did to Tavros. We can see who Terezi's favorite member of Team Charge is.

Even though Vriska admitted to Scratch that she didn't want to kill her friends, she puts up a front with Terezi and claims that she was simply eliminating their rivals like a good FLARPer should. And again, she really doesn't want Terezi to keep bringing this up. As long as she acts appropriately guilty, she believes that should be punishment enough for her crimes.

Vriska flips from expressing self-loathing to acting justified and deserving of praise in an instant. She's in a constant state of feigning the emotions that she thinks is most appropriate for any given situation. She'll exhaust every angle she can think of to try and get someone to respond in the way she wants.

Of course, Terezi doesn't back down because she is adamantly set on avenging Aradia no matter what Vriska says. Even though she says she's hoping Vriska can change her mind, she knows her well enough to know that won't happen. It's all part of the bit of framing her revenge plot as dispensing justice.

Vriska becomes increasingly paranoid and indignant when her plans fall apart. She can't accept the fact that all her efforts had been undermined by forces beyond her control, so she's convinced that Aradia had been planning to sabotage her in secret. It's more palatable to her if she's the victim of a worthy opponent's schemes, rather than admitting that her plans were doomed to fail from the very beginning.

I do relate to Vriska a bit when she says she's "not very good at acting like a friend." I hardly ever reach out to people I consider friends, even though I value their companionship a lot.

But in Vriska's specific case, she's so full of herself and doesn't realize how her actions impact others. Whenever someone is close to her (Aradia, Terezi, Kanaya), she takes them for granted and assumes they'll always be by her side no matter what she does. When she does find out they're angry with her, it comes as a surprise to her and she doesn't know what to do to mend that relationship. She's fully aware of what she did to Aradia and her friends, but she thinks she can rectify all of that just by offering an apology and a gift.

Perhaps, on some level, she really does want to go back to the "good old days," but she's too emotionally stunted to understand why her performative apologies don't work. No matter how cunning or charming she attempts to be, she truly does not know how to interact with others because she cannot be honesty. She's always putting on an act, never realizing that people see right through her insincerity and are rightfully put off by it.

If Aradia won't be Vriska's friend, Vriska tries a new angle and tries to re-ignite their "rivalry." And she's absolutely livid that Aradia does not put as much stock in this one-sided dynamic as she does. This reads as an unrequited pitch crush more than anything else in the comic. It's too bad Hussie never really gave that much of a shit about developing troll romance (especially the pitch and ashen quadrants), otherwise he might've done something more with this.

It's a little sad for Vriska, honestly. She can't have Aradia as a friend or even a rival. She's obviously obsessed with Aradia and sees her as a big fixture in her life, but Aradia doesn't view her as anything except a minor nuisance.

Equius initially wants to assert himself as superior to Aradia in accordance with their positions on the hemospectrum. But her overall indifference to his racism, her superior psychic powers, and her ability to manipulate his surroundings as his server player all give him pause. He quickly drops the domineering act and allows Aradia to "do whatever things" she wants (all while under the pretense of "ordering" her to do so, because he can't allow himself to drop his act for a moment).

Because Equius views Aradia as a filthy commoner, a member of their society's lowest social class, it sets his submissive fantasies alight when he realizes the true power she holds over him. The one thing that rivals Equius's love of highbrow culture and maintaining class order is his desire to twist and pervert those same institutions in the name of sexual gratification.

Equius, eternally obsessed with appearances, wants to keep the nature of this "vile" arrangement with Aradia a secret from the others. He is very repressed and feels deep shame for going against the class structure he fervently idealizes. He doesn't want this "degenerate" side of himself to be known, even though nobody else cares about the hemospectrum as passionately as he does and Aradia even points out that her status as the "secret leader" was already an established fact.

Equius acts as if it didn't occur to him that she'd be angry at him for trying to manipulate her emotions. Who would've thought lowbloods had feelings?

Fun fact: This page was actually the newest page when I first started reading Homestuck back in July 2010.

This whole sequence is about the full extent we get about how a pitch relationship would look like. Anger suddenly shifting into passion. What a stupid concept. Troll romance really is just the most unintuitive, markedly unromantic model for relationships and people eat that shit up anyway. I think it was Hussie's intent to design this system to be overly complicated, emotionally draining, and borderline abusive because trolls are supposed to be weird and misanthropic. Yet nobody really comments on this in the text other than a brief "this sure is weird!" before moving on.

Even the trolls themselves don't seem convinced that any of this is "normal." There's never a point where there's an attempt to develop the quadrant system to make it appear normalized in troll society. Instead we get shit like pale relationships that either are doomed to fail or come across as one-sided and dominated by a mentally unwell partner, and pitch relationships that are unfulfilling and end in one partner ditching the other after things get too dysfunctional.

I'll never cease to be amazed that people online will still claim they have real-life "quadrants" despite all this. What sort of brain poison did Hussie inject into this work that affects peoples' behavior like this? Where can I get some to put in my own writing?

Another instance of the early establishment of GamKar in this page. We haven't even reached the quadrants section yet, but we see them being placed in the same relationship category as Nepeta and Equius. Using context clues from the conversations we've seen thus far (both dynamics involve characters with polar opposite personalities having a dysfunctional yet close relationship that is described as "friendship") it's clear to see even at this point why they'd be lumped together.

One detail I like is Nepeta writing "oh nooooo" under the Vriskat panel. Does she think Vriska has feelings for Karkat, and would therefore see her a rival? I mean, considering the last log between them, she might be right to think so. And Nepeta is pretty good at detecting the sincerity behind peoples' words and actions, so... there might be something to that.

Speaking of Vriska and Karkat, let's proceed to the very next page...

In their previous log, we saw Vriska governing the conversation by acting smug and overconfident. Now the tables have turned and Karkat has the power to boss Vriska around. This is a rare occurrence in their dynamic, and Karkat seeks to relish it as much as possible.

But even though he was making a big display about mocking Vriska and acting superior, he does stop and show sympathy when she tells him about her dead lusus.

Karkat describing his hate potential as a "finely tuned instrument" is laughable because he treats everyone with the same amount of aggression and rudeness. Hell, Eridan mistakes his insults as pitch flirting at a later point. So it really seems that Karkat isn't too dissimilar from Vriska when it comes to hating up everyone.

Karkat acts like he wants nothing to do with Vriska, but here he is dumping a whole ton of information regarding her romantic aspirations. Although he frames most of this information in the form of dunking on Vriska and saying she's too immature mentally to handle a romantic relationship, it does come from a place of sincerity and seems to be an earnest attempt at helping her understand her own psyche. Karkat may be empathetic and willing to help others, but he's also tactless and blunt in his manner of speaking. He doesn't shy away from being brutally honest.

Even though Vriska acts uninterested in his ramblings, it's worth noting that she implements her romance scheme with Tavros soon after this. It's almost like she took some of this to heart and really did want to see if she could forge a matespritship with someone, to prove to Karkat that she isn't broken.

Vriska has just received a well overdue lesson in humility and a complete verbal thrashing regarding her entire mental state, but Karkat still offers her a chance for her ego to recover by telling her that he needs her powers for his plan to work. Vriska is surprised at first, but seizes the opportunity to resume being her arrogant self.

The Mobius Double Reacharound. Stupid shit. Hussie never makes good use of this "two team" dynamic because everyone seems to cotton onto the session's true nature pretty quickly. At no point does this supposed competition between them ever feel genuine. There's no real rivalry between the teams, there's no threat for what might happen when one team loses to the other, and there isn't a big climax when the mystery is revealed. It's all just pointless fluff.

I think it would've been neat if the Red Team was framed as these underdogs pitted against an insanely stacked Blue Team. Equius, Nepeta, and Feferi are physically strong; Aradia and Sollux are powerful psychic; and Eridan is an expert marksman. Aside from Vriska (and Tavros, despite not making good use of his powers), nobody on the Red Team has any noteworthy abilities. Karkat could've been aware that he was in charge of a band of misfits and undesirables and use that as motivation to be a stronger leader against a much more powerful opponent.

Have I mentioned already how much I hate the pacing for Act 5-1? At times I feel like I'm reading some idiot's abridged version of a better story that doesn't exist.

Dear, precious Kanaya... Let's try and set the record straight with you.

I think it's funny how Kanaya's intro lists topiary as one of her principal interests, yet this is never alluded to after this point. It's just a flimsy excuse for explaining why she uses a chainsaw as a weapon. And then it goes on to say that the chainsaw would be an ideal weapon to hunt the "broods of the undead" that stalk the planet during the day (another detail that is never relevant), but she never uses it for that purpose either. I don't understand why Hussie gave her this weapon when, in reality, she never uses it for either of its intended purposes. She really doesn't have much of a reason to own one at all!

No, her real passion is her interest in dark, romantic literature. She loves reading stories to indulge in her thrilling and illicit fantasies. Despite the fact that she could easily experience the kind of intrigue depicted in her stories just by going outside and fighting zombies (a task she even has the perfect tool for), Kanaya is much too cautious and afraid of danger to actually do anything aside from holing up in her hive, reading books, and decorating.

It's this trait, not her love of fashion, that has the most bearing on her character. Her risk-averse nature and love of forbidden danger is reflected in her relationships with Vriska and Rose. She admires their confidence and willingness to take risks, but also naively believes she can rein them in with her sensible and calm nature.

Also, can I take a moment to point out that this is yet another parallel between Kanaya and Tavros? Both of them use fiction as a means of escapism. Tavros reads fairy tales because he wants to be whisked away to an idyllic fantasy where he has no responsibilities and the government isn't trying to kill him. Kanaya reads dark fantasy romance because she wants to read about daring, dangerous lovers taking her on thrilling, erotic journeys all while remaining within the safety of her own hive.

But of course the difference is that Kanaya's taste in literature makes her erudite, cultured, and a perfect match for Rose. While for Tavros, it just makes him look juvenile and like a total sissy because Peter Pan is "gay." Totally not a match for Dave, the manliest and coolest character in the comic who totally doesn't have any insecurities to cover up...

Kanaya has a changing wardrobe just like Jade. But since Kanaya's big special interest is fashion, it makes sense that she'd be constantly changing clothes. Does Jade give a shit about fashion? It wasn't part of her laundry list of hobbies, so I say no.

We really needed more chats between these two. Feferi's excessive hyperactivity pairs well with Kanaya's deadpan responses.

Out of everyone, Feferi is the most excited for the world to end because it means she'll finally be free of the responsibilities saddled on her. She'll no longer be expected to inherit the throne and try to reverse the Condesce's cruel regime, she won't be perpetually bound to her hive in fear of assassins, she won't have to constantly keep Gl'bgolyb fed, and she won't have to be responsible for Eridan anymore. She truly believes the game will usher in a fresh start for everyone, herself included.

Eridan is an exhausting person to deal with. Even though Kanaya loves to tout herself as helpful, she really doesn't like Eridan at all. Eridan wants instant, tangible results that coincide with his grand delusions. These are not what he'll get from Kanaya's vague platitudes and take-it-slow mindset.

Even though Eridan is often socially unaware, he correctly infers Kanaya's true feelings for Vriska. Must be from all the romance talk he and Karkat indulge in.

Despite Kanaya's dislike of him, Eridan considers her a friend simply because she's one of the few trolls who will bother to talk with him. He's so desperate for attention that he'll just laugh off her passive aggressive insults as witty banter.

Kanaya really wants to prove to everyone that she's helpful even though she's actually ineffective at best and bothersome at worst.

Far from being the sagacious mentor she wishes to be, Kanaya is really more like an overly cautious busybody who just wants everyone to take things as slow as she likes. Nobody takes her seriously because she has no power to enforce her will. All she can really do is stomp her foot and be passive aggressive if no one listens to her.

To the "Vriska Did Nothing Wrong" crowd, how on Earth do you justify this? "Say you're sorry for being a cripple" there's no excuse for that!

It's funny how Kanaya very slowly moves objects around because she doesn't know how to work the controls.

Kanaya constantly trying to worm herself as a positive influence in Vriska's life is motivated by her huge crush on her. She never actually acts on this crush in a proactive way. She really only talks with Vriska to "keep her out of trouble" but never admits to how she really feels. She sort of blindly thinks everything will work out for her, until she sees Vriska kiss Tavros. And then her response is to act cold and distant to her once they're on the meteor, much to Vriska's confusion.

Like Kanaya really had no business being that mad at her. It shows just how shallow Kanaya's true feelings for Vriska really were if she just ditches her as soon as it becomes clear that she won't get laid.

Can I get a "so true" for Vriska? All the planets are so insubstantial to the overall story that I couldn't be arsed to care about any of their "hidden lore." Most of them are only around for two or so panels before we move on. Medium cosmology continues to be superficial window dressing, what else is new? Let's continue.

Vriska getting agitated that Tavros won't easily roll over and do what she says. She has a plan in her head and won't stop until she sees it come to fruition.

This whole sequence is so twisted. It only really serves to show how badly broken Vriska is and how she doesn't know how to connect with others even when she earnestly tries. She only ends up causing more harm than good. No matter how crafty and elaborate she makes her schemes, she cannot force people to see her in a different light just by willing it into existence.

Anyway, this is pretty much the end of the stupid ass Tavros/Vriska romance plot. It feels good to finally flush that shit down the drain. This section of Act 5-1 is kind of a slog to get through since it has two of the worst romance plots of the whole story. I think the rest of the Act goes along much more smoothly, so I guess we'll see when I get to that (however long that takes).

[dingodad]

who is ericka? 👀

ericka was a very brief but deeply contrived roleplay plot in which braxas, in what can only be described as attention seeking behaviour, stopped sleeping in slime for a week and started hallucinating that his body was being taken over by an angel. though because of the arbitrary constraints of the roleplay i was participating in i wasn't allowed to actually say the being that took over his account while braxas was revived as his dream self was an angel and instead i had to pretend she was like, the psychic spirit of braxas' ancestor which had attached to him or something. even though summoning angels is like a canon power homestuck characters can have. but whatever

it was not a particularly well thought out plotline and it petered out pretty quickly. (i think someone ended up taking braxas' spare body in a trade for like, his horns or his rare blood or something? this sort of shit was kind of always happening to him.) but the idea of pathetic braxas having an awesome shadow the hedgehog type alter ego was too good for me to not revisit

having been a stupid haired anime boy with ancient egyptian motifs there was always the lingering possibility that i do some yugioh shit to braxas. and since this is trolls that also inevitably means doing some Aliens type body horror shit to him. so in this version while doing routine tomb looting as part of his job braxas inhales some kind of Pharaoh's Curse and subsequently develops a growth in his skull that causes him to hallucinate that he's sharing a body with some ancient alien pharaoh. and then he gives birth to the ancient alien pharaoh out of his head

basically it seems like in the timeline where braxas doesn't either a) sort out his shit or b) play a game of sgrub and have the barriers in his mind traumatically disintegrated, his feminine aspect will find a way to literally manifest itself out of his brain and proceed to ruin his life by outcunting him in every conceivable way

because this ericka is basically a legendary collectible monster i thought it would be funny if she had to be Literally fed common monsters in order to grow. and does this mean that as she evolves into a super sexy SSSR she develops the full figure that deep down braxas wishes he might be able to have if he started to give a shit about looking after his body: yes of course

[yeetspace]

It's crazy how people don't realize that patriarchy ISN'T just "when men"

Cuz like no. That hypothetical trans guy isn't entering the patriarchy because he's trans, he IS HOWEVER experiencing multiple layers of intersectional trauma from existing in a society that enacts violence on anything that isn't seen as masculine from before transition AND you actively trying to say he has some kind of magical invisible privilege that has never been there because you can only conceptualize someone transitioning into what you've been lied to assume is "the enemy" as being done as a power move, because you transphobically assume that someone's doing it for any incentive other than that person's happiness.

Like my gamer that constant accusations of having that so-called patriarchal privilege is ONE of those intersectional aggressions, separate from the overt acts of violence that already happens to trans people, now additionally being downplayed because of some perceived privilege in their cases a lot of the time. This is some "Republicans actively Go out of their way to remove all possible ability to do stuff for us, and then once people start getting desperate and just killing themselves over it they point to that as the reason why they took that stuff in the first place" type argument. Like it becomes obvious it was meant and done so in a "I finally did it kind of way" but being pointed out like a "think of the children" kind of way cuz it's real easy to lie to people when you say think of the children first, in this case "think of the victims of patriarchy" while actively stepping over people who are direct victims of the patriarchy.

I know it's a crazy concept to get through some of y'all's heads, but like multiple groups can have multiple different AND same delineating pieces of like information. There can be intersectional terminology AND intrasectional terminology.

Cuz no bitch, a trans man talking about HIS PERSONAL LIFE and the SPECIFIC TRAUMA HE FACED as someone who was forced to experience the inherent traumas that come with being socialized growing up as someone societally seen and presented as female, is not him "trying to make you feel bad for someone who's privileged". Because he doesn't have The Patriarchy™.

Patriarchy is when the homogeneous concept of a straight white guy is going to have as much leeway as he can possible in the systems and in terms of getting proper justice and treatment. Because patriarchy isn't when men, patriarchy is when the societal standard of "whiteness" & "man & woman" is upheld.

A standard that in its own right is completely arbitrary because any delineation of human, other than just "Person" is needless categorization or at the very secondary aspect the main part, the fact that that's a person first, as the existence of intersex people shows, what's considered the standard of sex even Is just random characteristics people who either didn't know better or could benefit off of making sure people thought about it this way, had decided are "the correct ones" amongst a sea of what is actually just how reality works; no two people's bodies being the same, just the same as no two people's unique existences are, and each individual strand of DNA is unique.

And this is coming from a trans girl. Because I'm on that intersectionality shit. No one's free till we all are, it's pretty simple. The best way to do that is to not try and get angry at someone else for... *Checks notes* sharing their personal life because they used terminology that applies to them as well, that you personally didn't want to hear used that way even though there is no reasoning why it shouldn't be as it also can apply to him too

and also separately because for some reason that's a different problem but from the same crowd, it's not making up a new word if you don't want people to be using what you've decided Is "your" terminology, and either way what even do you mean by "making up a new word" all of them are fuck you. Because it's just people trying to be bigoted from within which is FUCKING WILD TO ME. LIKE???

[tainbocuailnge]

executor stands out among sankta because he's epic autism man but in particular as far as I know he's not outright cut off from the empathy network like fallen angels are, he just doesn't know or care what to do with the information he receives through the empathy network. so much sankta racism comes from the very primal feeling of "i don't understand Those guys the way I understand My guys" which like, will happen if you can instinctively grasp the emotions of Your guys but have to extrapolate the feelings and intentions of anyone else based on context clues. but that doesn't work on executor because he doesn't have an instinctive understanding of emotion so even if he gets his fellow sankta's feelings beamed directly into his brain he still has to extrapolate and rationalise what those Mean the same he would for any non-sankta. he's extremely resistant to groupthink despite being literally hooked up to an empathy network and it's very hard to fool him for long because he goes around life having to carefully observe and reason based on evidence and experience what the Fuck anyone ever is going on about. feelings are ambiguous and arbitrary but the letter of the law is clear. use your words and say what you mean if you want people to understand you.

i haven't read any of arturia's CN materials so this is just the feeling i get from her limited screentime in hortus but i think she might actually be pretty similar to him on that front. she's fascinated by people's emotions and wants to see their strongest desires acted upon in their purest most unfiltered form and she wanders around using her emotion amplifying arts to get to see this happen. she doesn't really have a filter herself either she rants at length about her misanthropic views to a pair of four year olds. the vibe i get is that she has a similar inability to instinctively understand the information she receives through her empathy and while for fedex the lack of intrinsic understanding leads to relying on logical reasoning and using his big boy words to bridge that gap she's instead fascinated by seeing emotions acted on so intensely and unambiguously that anyone can understand. or maybe to the extent that it becomes incomprehensible to everyone. it really stands out to me that the two of them are the only known sankta whose halos aren't white or pastel especially because the event specifically mentioned that fedex's halo glows as bright as any other sankta's and isn't dimmed like a fallen angel's or anything. even half-sarkaz cecelia has a bright white halo.

[rebuke-me]

actually sorry i'm making this a separate post too so i can put it in the tag and itll show up. if u read my reblog on my previous post its literally just the same material sorry.

long post of my analysis of gender, tropes, and the musical be more chill ahead

so. i'm going to start with the wider overarching ideas of teen romcoms. im mostly thinking the mean girls/princess diaries/that sort of movie. early 2000s kind of cheesy kind of problematic at points but still having that nostalgia.

in most of these sort of movies, theres a very structured plot. the lead girl is an outcast, a weirdo. she's either childish or unattractive or a nerd or a loner. she frequently has a best friend (or a few) who are somehow more of insert "undesirable" trait here. usually, this best friend is also more eccentric, more outwardly strange, rejects the idea of the popularity.

the lead girl also has a crush on a guy who's unattainable, he's interesting to her, she's never talked to him a day in her life but she swoons over him. she's in love with the idea of A Boy. (and frequently, the guy has caught the attention of a popular girl who functions as her rival, whos prettier, and better liked, and has more of the traits the main girl desires.) she sees her male crush with the popular girl and loses hope.

the lead girl gets a chance to change her life- maybe she's noticed by a popular girl- who offers her a chance to be something else for seemingly arbitrary reasons. through this, she gets a makeover, a way to be as pretty as the girl shes a rival of. she also lies or embellishes herself to be attractive to people around her, especially the guy she likes.

the girl climbs the social ladder, she gains the attention of the popular boys and the romance she's been craving. she's desirable now. (and sometimes shes desirable in ways that aren't good for her, sometimes shes used as a way to show off or make people jealous, not for her, but for what she's become). she goes to a party that goes horribly wrong. her quirky weird best friend blows up at her.

the main girl also sees the intricacies of people she's never thought to have flaws, to have issues. even the girl who she's competing over a guy with. she realizes that idealizing people who are just like her, deep down, doesn't work. she hits rock bottom, loses everything, and then has to forcefully gain it back, make things right, and then she gets the guy at the end.

every single one of those plot points happens in be more chill, but everything is genderflipped. the main girl becomes jeremy, an insecure guy, making the narrative more about toxic masculinity than toxic femininity. the insults are about jeremy's looks, yes, but more prominently about his sexuality- something that men are traditionally a lot more insecure about than women, in most cases. he's a hopeless romantic. he's insecure. he's awkward and anxious. he's all the traits of a traditional teen movie romcom protagonist, but male.

the quirky girl best friend becomes michael, whos the outgoing, exuberant, eccentric friend. he's at a different place in his life than jeremy, whos fixated on popularity. he gets upset when his friend changes and leaves him behind.

the Male Love Interest becomes christine- unattainable but excitable. she's more than just a hunk for the main lead to be attracted to, but she serves the purpose of getting jeremy out of his comfort zone.

the popular girls become two separate archetypes of maleness, with jake and rich. jake takes on the romantic lead- popular, cool, athletic, effortlessly attractive, and the rival of the lead for the romantic attraction of the love interest. he's still operating under toxic masculinity. he lashes out with anger, he's not kind at times, he's seen as unintelligent.

rich takes on the almost gretchen-weiners-esque "popular girl" role. he's still popular and cool, but he's almost trying too hard. he's just as angry and aggressive, he's trying hard to be something he's not. he's also the one whos an analog for queerness, which is an interesting flip- think the "its like you're in love with me or something" bit from mean girls. he's the one who offers jeremy a chance for something different, a do-over.

the squip, while not a direct analog for anything in traditional romcom movies (since its kind of a nebulous. scifi concept) stands in for the literal themes of these sorts of stories. its toxic masculinity, its popularity, its the voice in your head telling you to tear others down, to pry out information, to push your way to the top.

the popular girls are particularly interesting, because as individuals, they kind of mess around with everything a bit. while everything else has been pretty cut and dry, they're all a mix of a bunch of things. they serve the roles of the popular guys in these sorts of scenarios while being very stereotypically feminine.

chloe is the mean girl, the leader of the pack. in teen movies, she'd be the star quarterback, the ex of the romantic rival, the one who is the peak of toxic masculinity- which the musical flips to make about toxic femininity with her (and brooke.)

the next paragraph is going to talk about Do You Wanna Hang and touch on SA, if you don't want to read it, skip to the next italicized section.

chloe also functions as something all too common in teen movies. she pushes jeremy into a sexual encounter he doesn't want to be in. she's not even interesting in him, as a person, but him as an object, something usually reserved for women in fiction. she does it as a power play, a way to get back at other people. she attacks his looks, his attitude, and this is when the downsides of "being popular" start to reveal themselves. (side note, this is an INCREDIBLY problematic trope to me, especially in its original form, because it enhances the idea of "if youre attractive you want this" type deal. a what were you wearing sort of attitude towards sexual assault. instead of treating it like a tragedy, its almost a status symbol.) and because the main character is a male- its never addressed further. its brought up in a singular line between the popular "guy" stand-ins.

i am done talking about this topic you're safe now

brooke is also intriguing, because shes one of the only characters in this concept that doesn't seem to have a direct parallel. if i'd have to give her something, i'd probably mark her down as the male sidekick to the popular guy, the one who doesn't get anything other than being the best friend. but she does get something, by virtue of her being a girl now. she's a viable love interest, or at least a status symbol.

jenna falls into a similar category to me- a character who only serves to bolster the reputation of the main character. she takes on the role of information spreader, which is a traditionally feminine role.

i could also talk about how i think that its interesting that while most of the actions in be more chill that are given to people of opposite genders (e.g. romantic rival, call to popularity, quirky best friend, the Do You Wanna Hang problem) the MOTIVATIONS for the actions are still aligning with the gender of the characters. like, rather than the gender of the original trope. if that makes sense.

anyways i scrolled back and realized i had like 10 paragraphs im gonna stop now but. yeah. gender in bmc is fascinating to me

[janmisali]

... did the IAU only find out that Pluto didn't clear its orbit in 2006, making them realize that it actually wasn't a planet after all? What was the new discovery that ended up showing that their definition of a planet was completely inadequate?

it was a series of discoveries from 1992 to 2005 that led to the decision, but in particular the discovery of Eris, an object more massive than Pluto in the same belt of trans-Neptunain objects that Pluto is in.

I don't think the way "clearing the orbit" is usually explained is very helpful for getting laypeople to understand what it means. it does sound kinda arbitrary if you just look at the official definition without first fully getting why it's a concept useful enough to come up with a definition for it.

the Solar System can be thought of as being divided into these "bands". some of these bands have one large object in them that gravitationally dominates the entire band. anything else in these regions of the Solar System either has an orbit directly influenced by that large object, or doesn't have a stable orbit at all. (there's a lot of confusion about this point. "clearing the orbit" does not mean the area around the object's orbital path is empty, it means that anything that is in the orbital path is either unstable or has an orbit that's directly influenced by the object in question.)

however, there are other regions of the Solar System between the regions dominated by these large bodies where there are many many smaller objects with orbits that all cross each other and don't significantly impact one another. the first of these that was discovered was the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. the Kuiper Belt, where Pluto is, is another example.

so, in the study of the dynamics between objects in the Solar System (this is one of the primary things the field of astronomy does), it's useful to have a single convenient word for "object which gravitationally dominates all the other objects in its associated region of the Solar System", and in 2006, it was decided by a vote in the IAU that the word "planet", which until that point didn't have a very strictly defined definition (it was, at best, a catchall category for anything that went around the Sun that didn't belong to any other category), would be used to refer to that concept.

and as I've said before, using a common word to refer to a highly specific concept for technical purposes is completely normal. every single field of study does this. the other uses of the word "planet" still exist, but in a classification system, it's important for people to agree what the classifications themselves mean, and the technical definitions that are established should be useful to the field of study that they are made for.

so, to answer the actual question. the realization that Pluto doesn't clear its orbit happened gradually over the course of about a decade. we realized that, in terms of its role in the dynamics of the Solar System, it is more useful to group Pluto in with the other trans-Neptunian objects in the Kuiper Belt than it is to group it in with the planets, and that there are a lot of Pluto-like objects in the Kuiper Belt.