#just all jargon no substance

[utilitycaster]

I would have to dig up the post that had an article on it but "history is written by the victors" is like, not UNTRUE, but also it's a phrase that really took off with losers (of wars, but also in the cosmic sense of being people who suck) like the Confederacy and the Nazis for obvious reasons. Like, it's true that you need to gather multiple perspectives to get the full picture and eliminating bias is immensely difficult and history should be analyzed critically but sometimes the victors are like. probably the side that's going to write a more accurate history in the first place. It's not actually a meaningful argument without considerable context provided; it's just a phrase people say hoping it shuts down any conversation.

[hellhoundmaggie]

The (purely hypothetical) film adaptation of Stardew Valley should be about Shane fixing up the farm.

Hear me out.

The star can't be the Farmer. I know, I love the Farmer too, she's me, they're you, but it can't be them. Their in-game characterization is just too weak: it has to be, so that you can read the personality you want for the Farmer into them as you play. But you know who is strongly characterized? Who already has a powerful arc that takes him from the depths of despair to the heights of joy and, finally, to a place of growth and lasting change? That's right, our favorite substance abuser, Shane StardewValley. But how to get him involved?

First, we cut the Farmer out of the story almost entirely. We gotta keep them from doing things that would take away our chosen protagonist's agency, and the best way to do that is by not letting them come to the Valley. So the farm still lies abandoned after Grandpa's death, the Farmer is still slaving away in the Joja cubicles. That's fine, Shane's gonna handle it.

So we give him an inciting incident. Shane's still miserable in his soul-sucking retail job, still grieving the loss of his gridball glory and the deaths of Jas' parents, still drinking his life away. But in this version of the story, he's the one who wanders into the ruins of the Community Center. He's just looking for a quiet place to drink away from the judging eyes of the town, but instead he discovers our favorite apple-ly squatters. Seeking answers about his bizarre encounter, he goes to the Wizard, gains the ability to speak with the Junimos, and receives their mission to restore the Community Center.

Shane's skeptical at first. He doesn't believe someone so weak, so pathetic, could possibly do everything the Juminos are asking. But the abandoned farm, just to the north of his house, calls to him. What would it hurt to grow a couple of Parsnips there? It's not like anybody is using it. So he starts building the area out in his free time. He fishes and mines and forages and fights, just like the Farmer would were they there. He gets Robin to build a coop for Charlie and his other beloved chickens, then a barn, then other buildings. He seeks advice and aid from the other townsfolk, building friendships with each of them (and giving each one a chance to show their character). His new hobby leaves him less time for the Saloon, so he drinks much less. As he makes more money from his farm produce, he picks up fewer and fewer shifts at Joja. He's invested in the work he's doing, which he finds far more rewarding and meaningful than stacking boxes all day. He feels strong, that he can take on anything the Valley throws at him. Sometimes he's even happy.

But then comes Morris. Irked that Shane isn't acting like a loyal worker anymore, he investigates his erstwhile employee. When he learns that Shane is farming land that doesn't belong to him, he springs his trap. Out come Joja's lawyers, claiming that the farm really belongs to the corporation. Armed with expensive suits, legal jargon, and reams of official-looking documents, they bulldoze Shane. They'll be generous, they say. As long as Shane cedes the property to them, they won't sue him into the ground. Shane's devastated. The one thing that is giving his life purpose, Joja is taking from him. And he isn't strong enough to stop them.

So here's where Shane's rock-bottom moment happens. Just as in the game, he's overwhelmed with despair, gets drunker than he's been in his life, and contemplates ending it all on the cliffs. But instead of the Farmer stumbling across him, the townsfolk find him. He's their friend and a vital part of their lives now, so when they notice he was missing, they organize a search party. Guided by the Junimos, they quickly discover Shane and carry him to the Clinic together. Because Shane wasn't getting his strength from the farmland, not really. He got it from the life of purpose, connection, and love he was building for himself. A life that improves so many other's lives. That was Shane's true strength all along.

And hey, guess what? Mayor Lewis remembers that Grandpa talked about leaving the farm to their grandchild, and tracks down the true owner -- the Farmer! And it turns out they asked their dear old friend Shane (wink wink, nudge nudge) to fix up their family farm for them. Their claim to the land revealed for the sham it always was, Morris and the Joja lawyers retreat to lick their wounds, and the Farmer comes to the Valley to claim their birthright. Of course, they are happy to keep their dear friend Shane on as a farmhand, where he can continue with all the good work he does for the townsfolk. The Farmer arrives on the very day the Juminos fully restore the Community Center, and everyone celebrates the Farmer's homecoming. But more than that, they celebrate the man who brought the town together: Shane. The End.

[sapphicthunderhead]

TMAGP 21 Spoilers Ahead!

Right out the gate we get yet more confirmation that Sam is trying his best to do the right thing, but that his curiosity is a substantially greater motivating factor behind his actions than either his self-preservation instincts (which may be nonexistent) or his moral principles. This is positively fascinating characterization.

Also, this episode really uses setting to help establish tone in a much subtler manner than a lot of podcasts, which require the characters describe to the setting verbally (Penumbra, Sherlock & Co., Malevolent). Of course, I don’t think it’s quite on the level of setting-through-sound-design that The Silt Verses pulls off, but environmental storytelling isn’t as necessary to the plot and world-building in TMAGP as it is in TSV, so that’s not necessarily a criticism.

Celia cracks me up with her talk of “complicated immigration status.” Every scene featuring Celia is heavy on Dramatic Irony from the perspective of we who Know (have listened to TMA) and bring an element of mystery to the plot for any and all audience members, be they in the Know or not— just a little bit less for the former. Reminds me of the early days of TMA in the way. Jonny does a great job of introducing a mystery element seamlessly into all his horror fiction, and I think the two complement one another perfectly. For another example of this, see his book 13 Storeys (it is spelled that way deliberately). I highly recommend the audiobook on Audible.

(Did anyone else subconsciously assume Jack was some sort of sinister Fear receptacle before this episode? Celia seems genuinely emotionally attached to him, so I’m a little less concerned now.)

On to the statement itself: FUCKING MAGNIFICENT. I am positively infatuated with this one. So much suspense! So much information, such a beautiful bit of storytelling, and yet NO ANSWERS! I am dying for an explanation here, in the best way possible— because I also found myself perfectly content to just enjoy the events unfolding while I was listening.

I really felt that the authorial tone and style Jonny used for this character, Mr. Kennings, harkened back to one of the major inspirations for TMA: the ghost stories of M.R. James, one of my favorite horror authors (alongside Shirley Jackson). I first read his collected works after Jonny mentioned him in a Q&A, and I was hooked; I have since re-read his work a couple of times.

But it wasn’t just the style of this episode I enjoyed. The substance was also very satisfying. I find the idea of the scholars and administrators of the Institute bickering like petty children whilst using their most formal jargon, attempting to conceal their contempt for one another behind a flimsy facade of civility, incredibly amusing. I also found Kennings’ jabs at the British monarchy and his concern about soil toxicity and its effect on the laborers and foremen at the construction site allowed me to follow his perspective somewhat sympathetically— although I was horrified when he did nothing to assist the poor man whose decrepit old doppelgänger emerged from the earthen wall of the ditch to drag him underground. But I should have expected it. Kennings worked for the Magnus Institute, after all.

As an aside, this tragic event could have a couple of possible symbolic meanings. The description of the haggard elderly counterpart of the younger construction worker, who drags himself out of a wall of dirt that Mr. Kennings specifies exhibits “tell-tale indications of heavy metals in the earthen edges of it,” evokes the idea of a young man confronting what his life looks like if he continues to sacrifice his health and safety to this dangerous line of work. It could also be the reverse: the old man killing a younger version of himself who made poor choices (because he had so few choices or none at all, because he had to support himself or a family, who knows?) that would otherwise have killed him slowly and perhaps agonizingly, the toxic gas seeping out of the soil and into his lungs and blood. By the end of the statement, I was surprised that the writers had titled the statement “Breaking Ground” instead of “Poisoned” or something along those lines.

Alice trying to protect Sam from the scary little men in the computer was very amusing. Silly Alice, he serves the plot now! There’s nothing you can do to stop him, my dear! Mwahahahaha!

Lena Kelley being worried about Gwen wasn’t entirely unexpected, but does further emphasize the contrast between her and Jonah-Elias. Still unclear whether Lena is a cog in the Fear machine or is actually doing anything to protect humanity, but she clearly thinks she’s doing the latter. Can’t wait for her disillusionment arc, epiphany, and/or moment of self-awareness.

Then we have Gwen, Ink5oul, and…. What the fuck is that. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck? That can’t be Jon. Another Archivist? Gertrude? Doesn’t sound like it. Who? What? Definitely an extension of the Eye, but the voice is unfamiliar.

Returning to the subject of Kennings’ statement: this series continues to emphasize that there are no clear delineations between Fears. Doppelgänger? Stranger. Dirt? Buried. Pollution? Extinction. All of the above? It’s just fear. That’s all that matters.

[funky-fox-fics]

Prompt: friendship

"He'll be here any moment now," Tango says, tail flicking back and forth with a practiced, careful sweep.

A bit beyond them, Skizz can see the portals to minigames; Build It, Bedwars, Skyblock, Survival, Zombie Rush. Here, though, they've got good sight of spawn, and they're out of the way of passerby. Every so often a pigeon or a starling or a crow breaks free of the branches of the trees that surround spawn, wheels across the diamond-blue sky, and then disappears behind a building or into a bush. The clamor of chattering, hurried players fills the air.

"So this'll be Zedaph?" Skizz asks, testing the name in his mouth. "I mean, he sounds alright enough. From what you guys have told me, at least. He's the weird redstoner guy, right?"

"Well, yes, but he's nice," Impulse says with a brisk nod. "You'll like him."

Skizz peers at every new player, expecting each one to twist around and greet him merrily. A catsfolk slips into the portal to Skyblock; a cattlefolk and a bee hybrid drift back to the side of the hub to chat among themselves. There's no cries of recognition from Tango or Impulse, no greetings from an unknown friend.

"I hope so," he says quietly. He thinks about what he's heard from Tango--a like-minded soul, with a cheerful laugh and bright, bright eyes. He'd never said anything about what Zedaph looked like--his clothes, his species, nothing except his bright indigo eyes that were every bit as striking as Tango's redstone-scarlet ones.

Impulse inhales sharply as a new player spawns in. It's a cream-colored... sheep hybrid? Their wool is dyed faded pinks and yellows, and they wear a brown cardigan stained with various substances that Skizz would rather not know the name of. Their ears twitch as they glance around themselves--first calmly, and then wildly, stepping out of the throng of people to look for them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Skizz watches Tango deliberately flare up his fluvofier, bright and attention grabbing. Impulse waves, eyes fixed on the cattlefolk. Skizz flares out his wings, making sure not to accidentally knock over Tango in the process.

The cattlefolk glances over sharply, spinning on his hooves, and his eyes are bright and indigo. Zedaph--or, at least, this should be Zedaph--lights up as soon as he spots them all, and then his eyes flick over to Skizz, absolutely delighted. He hurries over to them all, hooves clattering against the cobblestone paths like a drumbeat.

"Tango!" Zedaph shouts, rushing forward, and suddenly Tango's swooped up in a hug. Zedaph's smiling, and he squeezes Tango once before letting go. "Tango, I thought I'd had the wrong server address for a moment! Why're you all hiding back here where no one can see you easily?" His voice is British, chiding and still so bright.

"I brought Skizz," Tango says with a similar grin, motioning with a flourish.

"Oh, I thought that's who you were!" Zedaph says, and then just as suddenly he's being hugged by this cattlefolk, tight and excited. "Well, hello there, Skizz! Pleased to make your acquaintance!" He does a little mock bow.

"Is this what all cattlefolk are like?" Skizz whispers to Impulse jokingly, watching as Zedaph begins to launch into a rambling speech about what he's been up to--all redstone jargon that Tango clearly understands, based on the way he's nodding along to it.

"No, just Zed," Impulse says, and then he clears his throat. "Ahem. We were going to do some Bedwars?"

"Ah! Right." Zedaph laughs a little, and he's still smiling, still so bright and genuine. It's infectious, is what it is. "Go on, then. Let's do some Bedwars, and see who wins that, yeah?"

The rest of them all fervently agree, and already Zedaph feels like a natural cog in the machine, like they've been friends forever. Like this is just another outing, like this is how it always goes. Like this is how it'll always go.

It's nice, is what it is. Skizz likes it.

[matsmi13]

Devoted to his club forever

I have always been a big fan of the Paris Saint Germain football club. So, when I won a contest for an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the Parc des Princes stadium, I was over the moon. A whole day to explore the secret nooks and crannies, meet the players, and maybe even get a first-hand look at the world of professional soccer.

The visit began in the classic way. I discover the dressing rooms, the press room, the benches where so many legends have sat. It's all fascinating, but it's at the end of the tour that things get really interesting.

“For the more passionate like you, we've prepared a never-before-seen immersive experience where you have the opportunity to “live in the skin of a player”. Would you like to try this experience ?” announced the guide with an enigmatic smile.

I accepted immediately, all excited. I thought it was a kind of virtual reality simulation, an interactive experience where I could feel what it's like to play for PSG.

I had no idea what was going on when I was taken to another part of the stadium, an area normally off-limits to the public.

Once inside an ultra-modern room, I was taken aback by the atmosphere. The room is filled with high-tech equipment, complex machinery, and scientists in white coats bustling around various devices.

“Before we start this experiment, we need you to sign a few waivers. It's standard procedure to make sure everything goes smoothly” said the guide. He handed me a stack of documents to sign. The sheets were dense, full of legal and scientific jargon I didn't really understand. But my excitement won out. I told myself it was probably just a formality.

I signed without hesitation, then was ushered into a small booth off to one side.

“ Please enter this cabin. We need you to undress and leave all your belongings here, including any digital devices”. I obeyed, thinking it was to put on some special equipment, maybe even real PSG match gear. But once undressed, one of the scientists took all my stuff and closed the cabin door behind you.

The cabin I was in was simple, with white walls and soft lights. I was starting to feel slightly nervous, but I pushed those thoughts aside. After all, I was here for a unique experience.

But something wasn't right. The cabin began to emit a dull hum, and the walls around you lit up in a strange way. Suddenly, a breath of fresh air escaped, followed by a strange tingling sensation on your skin. The buzzing intensified, and waves passed through your body, leaving you with a sensation of warmth, first slight, then increasingly intense.

I felt strange, as if my body were reacting to something invisible. My skin began to stretch, my limbs lengthened inexplicably. I wanted to move, but I felt frozen in place, unable to control my movements.

My heart was beating faster, but it seemed to be beating outside me, as if my body had become a mere shell. Sensations multiplied as I gradually lost the perception of myself as a human being. My muscles contracted, then relaxed, slowly breaking down, fiber by fiber.

My mind was in total confusion. I didn't understand what was happening to me, but I felt that something irreversible was happening. My thoughts scattered, your identity slowly faded away as your body was transformed into malleable matter.

Once the dissolution was complete, my remaining residues were transformed into fibers. I was stretched, twisted and reassembled into a continuous thread. During this process, I gradually lost my human consciousness, turning into a textile material. I became a material, a textile substance ready to be used and shaped for a new creation.

Once the thread was formed, the machine stopped and the cabin opened. The scientists reappeared, exchanging satisfied glances.

“Let's see the final result” says one of them. He runs his fingers along the wire I've become, while another scientist checks data on a screen. “The transformation is very conclusive. The texture is homogeneous, and the molecular structure is stable. The yarn is very strong, yet light. This is exactly what we needed for the rest of the process”. “We finally have the perfect organic material to make what sir has been waiting for. After several attempts, this person was the right one. And to think that this young supporter didn't even take the time to read the documents he signed. His blind enthusiasm and unthinking devotion have led him to a unique destiny: to become a piece of clothing for his club forever. Send the wire to the factory for assembly. We have to meet the deadline”

I was wound into spools, taken away and transported to a new destination.

I was shipped to a specialized textile mill, woven into a solid, uniform navy-blue fabric, cut into pieces according to a precise pattern and assembled to create the undershirt. The sewing process finalized my transformation into a ready-to-wear garment.

I was carefully packed and sent straight to the Parc des Princes stadium. I arrived in the dressing room, where the kitman in charge of the players' equipment unpacked me and placed me carefully folded in Kylian Mbappe's locker.

The locker room was quiet as we waited for the players to arrive. Not a sound. It took forever. Then the players arrived, including Kylian Mbappe. I felt his hand close over me and inspect me for a moment, his fingers gliding over your surface, before slipping me under his main jersey.

“Hmm, this feels really different” Kylian murmurs as he adjusts the sleeves, testing the sensation against his skin. “It's light, but it's like it's breathing with me” He makes a few movements to check my flexibility. “Not bad at all. It's exactly what I needed. The fabric is soft, but it has this... sturdy feel. I feel like I'm going to be able to move freely without it bothering me”. Kylian continues to test me, raising his arms, bending down, jumping slightly on the spot. “It keeps me dry. Even here, in the changing room, I can feel it regulating the temperature. I don't get that clammy feeling you sometimes get with other undershirts”.

On the pitch, the sensations run wild. Every time Kylian sprints, makes a technical move or changes direction, I'm subjected to compression and stretching forces. The constant pressure and friction are new sensations for me. Every impact has to be absorbed in such a way as to minimize disruption to Kylian.

My fabric, designed to wick away moisture, is in constant interaction with Kylian's sweat. This persistent absorption seems crucial to maintaining his comfort and performance. As an undershirt, my fabric body have to effectively manage this moisture, distributing it throughout my fabric to avoid accumulation that could cause discomfort.

As an undershirt, I have to provide constant support. The cut and seams are made to fit Kylian's body perfectly, offering both support and comfort. Every seam, every insertion must be impeccable to avoid chafing or distortion that could affect his game.

The match is over. Every fibre of my being is saturated with sweat, soaked in Kylian's warmth. I've been worn, I've been useful, I've been... his.

But the happiness was short-lived. In one swift movement, Kylian pulls me off and throws me in his locker, like a worthless object. The air is now freezing. I lay there in the corner of his locker, motionless and useless.

Time passes... or maybe not... because the notion of time is escaping me more and more.

Finally, a hand grabs me. It's that of the person in charge of the equipment. I'm handled and tossed into a dirty clothes bag. I find myself among other clothes, all soaked with sweat, all marked by the effort of the person wearing them. We're crammed together, pressed against each other.

The bag starts moving, carrying me towards the launderette. Each jolt reminds me of my new reality. I'm just another garment to be cleaned, stripped of all traces of life and human warmth.

I'm thrown into a machine without the slightest consideration. The cold water overwhelms me and cleanses me. Every fibre of my body is abused, turned inside out, wrung out. Kylian's sweat is washed away, his musk erased... and with them, that little feeling of belonging disappears. I have become a simple piece of cloth, washed and disinfected, with no soul, no memory.

The spinning compresses me, crushes me. I'm emptied, compressed, reduced to a state of pure fabric, without warmth, without life. Drying... the hot air passes through me, making me lighter, but also emptying me of any trace of what I once was. I'm nothing more than an undershirt, clean, dry... and empty.

Finally, I'm taken out of the machine. I'm folded, put away and placed in a dark closet with the other undershirts. I'm no longer struggling. I'm in the dark, motionless... but this immobility, this waiting, is no longer important. Waiting... that's all clothes do.

The closet is silent. I am among the other clothes, perfectly folded. Time no longer has any meaning for me.

Where am I ? Who am I ? What is my real nature ? I'm... what ? An undershirt ? Yes, an undershirt. But… where do I come from ? What have I become ? The questions float unanswered, in the void. Here in the dark, all I know... is wait. Wait…why ? Why wait ? My role... is... to be a piece of clothing.

My only thoughts are of serving, of being worm. I want the sweat. I need the musk... need to comfort and support my owner. I no longer have conscious thoughts, desires or dreams. My humanity is gone, replaced by the pure essence of a piece of clothing. I no longer feel the emotions and thoughts of a human being.

I am an undershirt, a simple fabric, entirely devoted to serving my master, Kylian Mbappé. When the time comes, when he wear me again, I will be ready. But until that day, I remain here, still, accepting my destiny as clothing.

Thanks to @inanimatetffantasies for his support and advice in writing this story

[humansbgone]

I got an ask on YouTube that asks some questions I've never gotten a chance to answer before, so I thought I'd repost it here!

m m on YouTube says:

Shared forms of communication would be absolutely possible, if there is an intention to communicate.

Forms of meaning can be conveyed by shared media, such as sculpture, rhythm, and yes, even scent. If we were hypothetically able to make mechanical items which don't break down too quickly.

It would be difficult as all heck, but CERTAINLY not impossible.

Humans could form structures that resemble Sophi.

How do the macrovolutes do math, btw?

What is their scent "language" like? Do they have different "languages" or would one macrovolutes be entirely able to say absolutely anything to any other macrovolute and be completely understood? Basically, how much of their communication is constructed and voluntary vs innate and involuntary?

Their communication method MUST have simple forms which appear as set patterns, such as the translation of the statement "A is not B" or "A is B". Would these single meaning packets have individual scents/patterns OF scents which are distinct and repeating, even if contextual, such as for our verb tenses, etc, or would they be the same, such as for nouns, which have a basic pattern but usually with a simple modifier which is applied across all, or similar types of, nouns, such as the s for English, or other notations for other languages, even if they are applied differently across different noun types, those types are set in patterns and categories.

I'd be extremely interested in a meta study of the macrovolutes communication and ability to encode meaning.

ANY encoding, ANY encryption, no matter how it takes place, whether linearly or not, can be "translated"

My reponse:

Can you understand the way a raven describes a human face (which we know they do)? Can you understand what plants whisper to each other across their roots? The more structured we learn whale communication is, the more frustrating it becomes that we barely understand any of it.

Add this to the fact the humans are, just now, finally in a place again to have anything resembling an industrial revolution. As their technology advances, they have gone from thinking of the macrovolutes as gods, to viewing them as entirely mindless. To say the least, communicating with them is not where the priorities of most lie.

On top of that, without smell and movement, most macrovolutes would not regard a sculpture as anything meaningful. Would you understand if ants laid out a perfect scent trail of your likeness?

And Sophodra herself has some issues with denial, and difficulty remembering.

But, as Gregorsa said…there is a way. More than that would be spoilers, though!

Macrovolute math is something that would be very difficult for a human. Instead of thinking one small step at a time in precise units, they tend to think in vast, fuzzy, three-dimensional figures. The closest I can describe it would be like doing operations in Dyalog APL on a GPU, scaling up the resolution as you go. On top of that, there are inherit unit qualifiers and slots to how they specify numbers. There is no "two." There is "non-moving few-member half-unit generic substance absent an individual," translated approximately. They also go out of their way to avoid using exact numbers wherever possible. Vectors and frequency indicators (similar but not equivalent to sine waves) are very commonly used in casual conversation. And on top of that, they use base six!

Macrovolutes have both a core language and a meta language. The core language covers basic things, and is innate and understood by all (with some differences between insects and arachnids, so arachnids typically learn the insect way). The meta language is learned and varies, covering things like slang, jargon, and more specific experiences.

Macrovolute grammar structure is most similar to highly agglutinative Native American languages, such as Kwak'wala. There is a root word, and additional stems keep getting added to it. Instead of just prefixes, infixes, and postfixes, however, there are scents being wafted toward you in three dimensions. (Also worth noting that our linguistic categories are largely Western ways of thinking, and macrovolutes do not categorize their "sentence" partitions the same way at all!)

You could also think of it like Common Lisp, with its layers of functions feeding into functions!

Macrovolute language is simultaneously frustratingly ambiguous, and bizarrely precise. As mentioned, many things are thought of in particular complicated units, with some parts explicitly or implicitly left empty. Imagine a unit that defines speed, "weight" (by Unknown Nature standards, which is all the more complex), temperature, volume…but half is missing, and the other half is filled out with things like "several" or "more than a reasonable amount."

On top of that, Formicosan culture loves to leave things vague as a deliberate power move. There will be loquacious description of a thought that isn't finished. "Oh, A is a sort of thing…it gets around, has been known to be in this sort of location…possesses a certain quality, it's not unknown…possibly it is negatively related to a thing you mentioned…." And if you don't remember that B was mentioned, then you just missed that this statement means "A is not B."

[raedshadowlegends]

Why Lore Olympus and Miraculous Ladybug are the Same Thing but in Different Fonts

Good evening, good day, hello and howdy. I am INCREDIBLY bored and I'm here to go on a nonsensical tangent about two pieces of media that I hate and have dedicated a vast amount of my free time to. This is all in good fun and all of my rudeness is intended to be satirical and/or comical unless indicated otherwise.

Now just to preface, if you know me then you know how much I dislike Miraculous Ladybug. Folks in my circle got to watch as I descended into madness writing a 64k word review on season 5. So I've spent an uncomfortable amount of time dissecting this show.

I have also spent an uncomfortable amount of time engaging with the shitshow that is Lore Olympus. And now my ass is gonna try and compare the two because there's a lot of shit going on here.

None of this is going to matter and it's all in good fun. Like I said, I am bored. And sometimes it's fun to compare stuff you hate.

Now let the insanity ensue. FP spoilers and MLB s5 spoilers below the cut btw.

To get a major difference out of the way, Miraculous Ladybug is a tv show. Lore Olympus is a webcomic.

But mediums aside, these two things still have a lot in common. So for the first comparison, I'd like to talk about the insecurity in both properties.

Insecurity

What I define as insecurity in this context is a piece of media that is too afraid to commit or adhere to a certain tone, story, style, etc. In short-- they don't know what they want to be.

Insecurity in Lore Olympus is a bit more obvious than with Miraculous so I'm gonna rant about that first.

Lore Olympus just straight up does not have a story to tell.

There are too many random ass plots being added and discarded on a whim for it to be a coherent story. A good way to explain it is kinda like this-- In this episode of LO, something cool new and interesting is set up and you have to keep reading to see what happens! And then nothing ever happens. Or it happens because the audience won't let the author forget so there's a half-assed attempt to wrap up that plot point.

LO is so insecure about what it is, it feels the need to add more and more to make it actually something. But what it is is a hollow story that lacks substance. So all of these new random plot points are kinda like bandaid solutions if that makes sense.

There are so many unfinished/under-utilized plot points that if you were to count out each and every one, you'd probably keel over dead before you finished. There's that many.

It's too insecure to commit to any one of them in the grand scheme of things.

I don't know how coherent all of that was so here's a shitty tl;dr

LO doesn't know what it wants to say anymore so it's just adding more shit to keep the reader "invested."

Yeah ok I think that makes more sense. As for Miraculous...

God. I fucking hate Miraculous.

It's insecure as hell and you can smell that shit from ten miles away. It's insecure with it's premise, I think.

If it just kept to the simple "monster-of-the-week" formula, I do not think I would have written so many words on it's fifth season.

Miraculous (apparently) had a grander story to tell beyond the "monster-of-the-week revert back to the status quo each episode."

But we don't see any of that in full swing till season 3, really. Which is a long ass time to get the ball rolling imo.

It's a little jarring to see the show go from the stupid kid status quo adventures to a heavy and emotional story??? And I say heavy and emotional with the most sarcastic tone possible because the only emotion I feel watching this shit is rage.

Despite wanting to make that shift to a serialized type of show, Miraculous was too scared to stray from the successful status quo format.

To explain a bit more I wanna talk about my review of the season.

While it is mostly filled with rude jokes and incomprehensible jargon, I bring up a lot of points in it regarding the state of things.

One of those things being the show's hesitancy to move the story along.

The fifth season was supposed to be a grand final battle and a conclusion to this story arc. But it was too scared to commit to that so there's way more episodes that are nothing but shipping fodder.

There are many episodes that season that just... feel the same. Just with different coats of paint. "Marinette is trying to date Adrien but she's awkward and clumsy and oh no! shenanigans ensue!" We've been doing this for 8 years.

If they want to tell a serialized story then they need to grow some balls and cut the shit we've seen a million times before.

Their insistence to stick to the status quo makes the writing exceptionally weak downright painful to sift through. It was too scared, too insecure, to stray from its formula.

That's a part of the reason why I think the season is paced so bad. There's so little time spent on the interesting parts of the story because they had to cram in as much shipping shit as possible. So by proxy, there was less time to tell a good story.

Both of these stupid ass properties don't know what they want to be. There are too many things being added and not enough balls to commit to any of them.

Now with both LO and MLB, we can all agree that the writing is pretty shit. Nothing new there. But shitty writing often bleeds into the characters and making them shitty by exposure. Almost like a spill of toxic waste, infecting anything near it and turning into a rotten pile of sludge and chemicals.

So yeah, the characters are ass as well. But I only wanna complain about the female leads for both of these things.

But just to mention Adrien and Hades, they are pretty similar. I won't go into detail but the short of it is, "Character with deep seated issues that could have been interesting, has a lot of potential, but is just kinda garbage in the end."

At least Adrien Agreste isn't monetizing death and has a bunch of shades in his basement doing his work.

Persephone and Marinette

So I always say that I don't like using the term 'Mary Sue' to describe a character. But as it turns out, I use that term a lot. So I'm not gonna lie about that anymore.

These two characters are Mary Sues.

Persephone first

Oh my god I hate Persephone a lot. She just ticks every box on my list of 'THINGS I HATE IN A CHARACTER.'

Which is funny because her character had a lot of promise and heart in the beginning.

I related to her a LOT when I picked up this comic before my frontal cortex developed. I related with her character and her struggles. Especially after the Apollo incident. That really stuck out to me. It was so powerful.

But all of those tiny things I liked about her character were stripped away. Her ambition to study in school? Poof, gone. Her charm? Not charming anymore. That kindness everyone in the story gushes about? I don't even think it was there in the first place.

Truth be told, I do need to reread this comic because the beginning is fuzzy as fuck in my walnut-sized brain. But I can tell you for certain that the way she was in the beginning is not who she is now.

And this isn't the case of a character going through an arc and developing and changing. She's just getting worse and the narrative treats it as a GOOD THING.

"Oh yeah, Persephone trashed Leuce's apartment instead of talking to her husband like an adult. She threatened to kill this nymph but you're supposed to find that endearing." Like, what??? I will not have a story try and get me to believe this is a good thing.

If this were a good story, Persephone's actions in that episode WOULDN'T BE REWARDED. But she's rewarded with sex for being a fucking psychopath towards a random nymph. Wow.

And that leads into my next point-- she can never be in the wrong ever.

AOW? Retconned, not her fault. It wasn't her fault she killed all those people. It's actually Eris' fault because she gave her wrath.

Trashing Leuce's apartment? She was in the right for that, apparently.

Killing people in a famine during the 10 year banishment? That's never explored, we just know she killed people, burned a library or something, and probably shot the president too. But it's fine, she's the good guy.

And most recently (and potentially the most frustrating);

Persephone causes winter.

Not her mother, Demeter, no fuck the myths. Persephone is the one who caused winter actually. AND SHE DID IT ON ACCIDENT SO TECHNICALLY IT IS NOT HER FAULT CAUSE SHE DIDNT MEAN TOOOO UWU She also probably killed a million flower nymphs in that snap freeze but its ok it doesn't matter.

WHAT?

WHAT THE FUCK? CMON NOW.

She's not going to receive any consequences for anything because she is just too perfect.

She's smarter than Athena, prettier than Aphrodite, better than her mother in every way, all the boys want her, she has a perfect body, she's pink, her eyes go red when she's angy, she has the most power of everyone in the world, she's a super rare fertility goddess, she has all the gifts, all the blessings, and none of the development.

It almost feels like a wattpad fanfic.

"My mom doesn't like me so she sold me to one direction and then I became queen of the underworld."

Yeah, I don't like her.

And the same can be applied to Marinette!

A character who is so blatantly perfect, the narrative fucking BENDS TO HER WILL.

She's a creepy ass stalker and has done some weird ass things to get close to this random famous white boy and it's all excused.

It's literally excused.

There is a rule about character backstories. They are supposed to provide an explanation for a character's behavior, not an excuse for it.

In season 5, episode 14 - Derision, we see a bit of Marinette backstory. Some stupid bullshit happens and Marinette essentially says she isn't going to say 'I love you' to anyone unless she knows literally everything about them.

She says a lot in that stupid ass scene but it's basically just saying that all of her stalking and creepy behavior is justified. Which it is not.

Marinette can do no wrong. The narrative won't allow it.

She's perfect in every way. And even when SHE is in the wrong, characters somehow find a way to apologize to her. Either that or she turns a situation about someone else into one about her self.

She's just the perfect character who ends up saving the world.

Fuck having Chat Noir face against his dad in the finale, Marinette has to girlboss all over the place and save the day but then actually lose because the "plot" demands it.

Oh yeah and she's probably never going to tell Adrien that his abusive dad was the villain they had been fighting for months. Do you think that's a good choice? I'll give you a hint; it is not.

It makes Marinette look like a HORRIBLE character but it's painted in a way that makes the viewer believe this is the right decision.

I don't think I need to get into specifics as to why that is wrong and disgusting.

If I had to make a prediction for this show going forward, she isn't going to tell him. It's going to be forgotten and she's going to be painted as the hero.

No flaws, no accountability, nothing.

Garbage character. Fucking hate it.

Both of these characters will never see consequences for their actions. Their bad actions are either excused or retconned out of existence. And that's not how you write a character btw. If you want them to be real, give them consequences. The world should not revolve around them. They should have flaws and issues that should be explored. But apparently that's too much work.

It's funny how both of these properties claim to be about feminism and somehow completely miss what feminism is

Miraculous thinks that feminism means "Girl power! Girls are better than guys in every way!" And Lore Olympus makes no attempt to be feminist at all. Women hate other women, and they don't get a lot of opportunities to explore and express themselves.

I could get into the whole purity culture shtick but that's a shitty rant for another day.

I've been ranting about this for a while and I got the big ones out of the way, methinks. I do want to get into the creators of both of these things but that is also a rant for another day.

Cause if I got into that now, we'd be here a while.

So let me just make a final comparison and wrap things up here. I don't think any of this makes a lot of sense but I hate both things and I'm passionate about it so I'm gonna keep rambling.

Miraculous Ladybug and Lore Olympus never attempt to grow as stories. They are both scared to try new things and to stick with it. Most of the time this results in rushed writing and horribly done characters.

It's so clear that both of these things are desperate to be something great but they just can't put in the work to get there.

Honestly, they both feel like the product of a team of yes-men. Bad decisions and errors slip by WAY too often and it's kind of embarrassing.

These are popular pieces of media and they have the resources to be great but they just aren't.

They're both too insecure to make something of themselves.

It's honestly really sad and I don't want this for either of these things. I want LO to be stunning and retell the myth of Persephone with the respect it deserves. I want MLB to be a serialized show with focus on the lore. Sure it can start as episodic but it can ease us into a deeper story and intrigue the viewer. But I want it to flesh out the world and be an entertaining experience.

It's sad but it's the way it is.

Who knows, maybe MLB season 6 will be good. And maybe LO will have a 4th season and it'll fix all the problems it has.

I dunno.

Thanks for reading this incoherent nonsense.

[hc-werner]

The Dialectical Humanism of Big-Ass Robots: An Intro

“There’s a deep, earnest seriousness to most mecha shows (especially within the “real robot” subgenre) that implores the audience to grapple with intricate ideas and themes drawn from philosophers like Aristotle, Nietzche, and Rousseau, oftentimes complete with allegorical mouthpieces for competing ideologies.”

My high school students always lose their shit when I tell them that I, Coach Werner, also watch anime. I kinda feel bad about it. By now, I know I’ll see the excitement die from their eyes little by little as they pepper me with questions, searching for a connection with show after show after show. 

“Coach, have you seen Jojo?”

“Nope.”

“What about DBZ or Naruto?”

“Not since before you were born.”

“Attack on Titan? Utena? Tokyo Ghoul?”

“Not yet, though they’re on my list.”

“The fuck Coach? I thought you said you watch anime!”

When I tell them I mostly watch mecha, they get confused. After I explain that mecha are the ones with jumbo-sized robots, they groan. I’ve even had one kid say that didn’t count. As a general rule, I try to not let the opinions of 15 year olds hurt my feelings; I only docked his grade a couple points. 

Whatever my students may think, oversized anthropomorphized robots have fascinated me since I was a kid. Over the years, as I’ve revisited shows from my youth and found new mechanized, cel shaded rabbit holes to tumble down, I’ve tried to figure out what exactly was so appealing about the genre. There’s definitely a bit of wish fulfillment, a sorta kaiju-sized power fantasy, sure, but that’s not all of it. Same with intricate sci-fi world building, and of course the thrill of pew-pew dogfights and beam saber duels. But none of those alone seemed to account for the whole thing. They’re all fun set dressing, definitely worth a watch on their own but not enough, I don’t think, to capture my imagination for nearly a quarter of a century.

This series, The Dialectical Humanism of Big-Ass Robots, started off as a rambling, borderline incoherent and definitely substance enhanced diatribe that tried to explain how excited I was for the first episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury. It feels right, though, both the name and the bigger through line.

There’s a deep, earnest seriousness to most mecha shows (especially within the “real robot” subgenre) that implores the audience to grapple with intricate ideas and themes drawn from philosophers like Aristotle, Nietzche, and Rousseau, oftentimes complete with allegorical mouthpieces for competing ideologies. There’s also the slightly goofy and always physics-defying “rule of cool” concepts of the robots themselves–I mean, who doesn’t want to see a boom cannon with angel wings, or a crucified rage monster, or transforming karaoke jets?–that can easily be laughed off as a kid’s cartoon. Any foolhardy (read: hubristic and dumbasstic) attempt to try to find unifying threads within such a wide and varied genre has to address both of those tendencies. Here, friend, you will find one such foolhardy attempt. 

Mecha anime, more than any other subgenre, has a fundamental tension summarized by two infuriatingly simultaneous, contradictory truths:

Anthropomorphized mechs bring out the best in humanity, allowing us to overcome our flaws and leap forward into a better future.

Anthropomorphized mechs feed into the worst traits of humanity, allowing us to destroy ourselves in new and technologically advanced ways.

Those two overwhelmingly common truths, when taken together, can be summarized in fancy philosophy jargon with just two words: dialectical humanism.

Dialectics is a concept pioneered (in the West, at least) by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel during the late 18th and early 19th century. There’s literally a whole field of study called “Hegelian Dialectics” that we’ll touch on from time to time, but the main thing to know is that two mutually exclusive and contradictory ideas are often both true at the same time. 

Humanism has a long, fraught history, but the most common Western interpretations stem from Enlightenment-era ideals. Essentially, humanism boils down to the belief that humankind can progress beyond its animalistic nature through a combination of empathy and rational thinking. Again, we’ll be touching on a whole slew of humanist thinkers throughout this series.

So that’s The Dialectical Humanism of Big-Ass Robots. I feel like mecha shows–from Astro Boy to Zeta Gundam, and almost everything in between–play with this dialectic, where the mechs themselves represent humanity’s ultimate destruction and ultimate salvation simultaneously. Sometimes we struggle to survive, sometimes we overcome and thrive, and sometimes we find ourselves transformed into an ocean of pink goo.

In this series, we’ll look at:

Magical Newtype Bullshit and radical empathy

Depression, memory, and trauma, and why Shinji can’t just get in the fucking robot

The power of music (and love, hope, and propaganda) in a transforming space city

And much, much more.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go watch a Tanuki pilot a Gundam.

[apilgrimpassingby]

Jargon Explainer for This Post

Christology

Chalcedonianism: The Christology held to by the vast majority of Christians - Christ has two natures, divine and human, and these are inseparably conjoined, but nonetheless there remains a real distinction between them. This contrasts with...

Nestorianism: A heretical Christology that makes a strong separation of the human and divine natures; for example, a Nestorian could say that Jesus died on the Cross, or even that Christ died on the Cross, but not that God the Son died on the Cross. This is heretical for several reasons, but the most obvious is this - if God the Son did not die, then only the human nature died for us, and so the Incarnation was kind of pointless.

Monophysitism: This term covers two Christologies. Firstly, the heterodox (but not, in my opinion, heretical) Christology of Miaphysitism, which states that Christ had one nature, which was both divine and human, and secondly, Eutychianism, a heretical Christology that states that Christ's divinity wholly swallowed up His humanity, to the point that He had no real humanity. This is heretical for several reasons, but the most obvious is that, if Christ was just God in a human suit, the Incarnation was kind of pointless.

Sacramentologies

Lutheran Sacramentology: Baptism with water is united to baptism with the Holy Spirit, and the bread and wine to the Body and Blood of Christ, to such an extent that whosoever receives one receives the other. Lutherans believe in consubstantiation; Christ is bodily present "in, with and under" (to use Luther's formulation) the bread and wine, and the Sacrament is both bread and wine and the Body and Blood of Christ.

Roman Catholic Sacramentology: Much the same as the above, with the difference that they believe in transubstantiation - the essence (or substance) of bread and wine is replaced with the essence of the Body and Blood of Christ, such that it ceases to have anything other than the appearance of bread and wine.

Orthodox Sacramentology: Orthodox don't like theological theories, but their view is very close to the Lutheran view.

(It's worth interjecting that all these positions would state that God is bound to but not bound by the Sacraments - it's possible for unbaptised people to be saved, and for people to receive Christ without the Eucharist, even if that's an abnormal situation).

Reformed Sacramentology: Baptism with water is united with baptism with the Holy Spirit, and the bread and wine to the Body and Blood of Christ, but not to such an extent that whosoever receives one receives the other - only the elect receive the divine elements of the Sacraments. Reformed believe in spiritual presence; Christ's divine nature is present in the Eucharist, but not His human nature, and hence He is spiritually but not bodily present in the Sacrament.

Baptist Sacramentology: Baptism with water is separate from baptism with the Holy Spirit, and the bread and wine from the Body and Blood of Christ, to such an extent that receiving one is no guarantee of receiving another. While some Baptists affirm that the Sacraments are means of grace, pretty much all of them would deny that Christ is specially present in the Eucharist or that baptism saves.

[hms-no-fun]

14 again, but this time “Meat or Candy” interpreted as narrative philosophies rather than the halves of the epilogues

aghhh this is so mean!!! i've always read the meat/candy dichotomy as sides of the same coin rather than two discrete narrative philosophies, and homestuck itself as a structural exploration of various ways to balance/unbalance the split. picking between one or the other is like picking between air & water!

i certainly write godfeels with an eye towards finding a balance. serious drama needs to be offset by goofy comedy, cool anime fight scenes need to be offset by cursed bullshit or drydick exposition. chapter 8 especially is meant to be a tonal roller coaster. 'the shadows left behind' for instance is an almost 40,000 word long section about a depressed idea slowly clawing back personhood from their out of control death drive. there's murder attempts, there's suicide attempts, there's gore, there's psychological torture-- it's some of the heaviest shit i've ever written! and yet that same chapter also contains some of the funniest shit i've ever written. a story like this NEEDS that kind of variation to maintain reader interest, otherwise you get bogged down in seriousness or get so sucked up into lightheartedness that you lose all sense of substance.

like that's very much the reason ch8 ends with an epilogue full of jargon and exposition and obtuse metaphysics. i knew, at the close of ch8 act 5, that we were finally opening the door to what i consider The Good Shit. but it wouldn't be right to jump straight from that endpoint to where 3.2A begins. from an archival reading perspective, you need a palate cleanser to pull you back out from the thick of it and re-examine everything that just occurred from the outside. within the rest of ch8 there is a constant ebb and flow between meat tendencies and candy tendencies; what the epilogue reveals is that it was all candy in some sense, because it was functionally one extremely long action scene. it does this by serving as the meaty parallel, something much closer in tone and purpose to the author-insert sections of homestuck proper. it's meant to feel tedious and tantalizing at the same time, something you have to eat slowly and chew on to properly digest after the insane fast pace of [s] saturday. and even the epilogue swings back and forth between funny and serious! it's meat/candy all the way down!!

i suppose like any red-blooded american of the toonami generation, i have the most fun as a writer when i'm indulging myself in the candy of dumb anime bullshit. most of 'the shadows left behind' was back-constructed from the scene where Dare's "body" gets impaled and cut to shreds by X and they just keep walking towards it anyway. especially that moment where X tries to swallow them a second time, and Dare grabs it by the jaws and throws it off-- that whole sequence popped into my head and suddenly it clicked for me, oh shit, Dare is the secret shonen anime protagonist of godfeels! everything beforehand was a prelude to that moment when June really sees Dare for the first time, asks if they're real, and they shout defiantly, YES!!!

probably every writer does this to an extent, where they write towards some cool/interesting shit they can't get out of their head. there's a temptation to just go there, just get to the good stuff, because ultimately it's what you're there for and you KNOW the audience is gonna lap it up. but if you give in to that temptation and just string together all those keystone moments with bare-minimum bridging material, you paradoxically rob those moments of all their meaning and energy. did 'the shadows left behind' need to be 40,000 words long in one go? probably not. but i don't think the final culmination of that story would have hit nearly as hard otherwise.

you need meat to sell the candy. i wanted 3.2 A1 for instance to be much shorter than it wound up being, because god damn it i want to get to The Good Shit already!! but i realized very quickly that everything i wanted to get to would be poorly served by a cast of characters whose reasons for participating are murky at best. so i decided to invest in more of those meaty chapters between jade and various characters, which themselves needed their own fluctuating balance between meat tendencies and candy tendencies. from a structural standpoint it sort of becomes a meat/candy fractal, as each subdivision of each narrative unit has to maintain the same relative push-pull frequency that the entire fic as a whole does. does that make sense? i have no idea if that makes sense lmao.

anyway that's my take on the meat/candy split. hope it was satisfying u_u

[qqueenofhades]

there definitely is the lack sympathy and solidarity between the oppressed groups of people around the world.

ethnic russians have been colonizing the central asia, the western asia, the caucasus, the eastern europe and oppressing the natives of these lands for CENTURIES!

russia has established the hegemony of the ethnic russians and hierarchy where the people of the caucasus and central asia are not considered as white thus are discriminated against. even other slavs like ukrainians and poles (who are indeed seen as white in the russian power sphere) are percieved as lesser disposables.

if the westerner leftists understood that the social constructs and power dynamics around the world are constantly changing, have changed throughout history and are different depending on the region and depending on which country/people are the global powerhouses in said region, the discourse would be much easier and more productive.

i'm west asian myself who used to be naively optimistic about the us anti-imperialist leftists, but ever since the war in ukraine, my delusions have shattered beyond repair... the us americans live in their own bubble and want to see the world through that usa-centric bubble's lenses. you see someone try to educate them about the situation and realities of other place and people and said usa americans will accuse those people of horrible stuff bc usa americans hate it when their simplistic worldview ideologically rooted in puritanism is being challenged.

a good example is how the middle easterners are either talked about as "white" or "poc" depending on whether or not the us americans want to sympathize with them and admit that the middle easterners are the victims of oppression/imperialism.

i can't blame the people of africa, latin americans and other people who suffered bc of europe and the us for falling for russian propaganda, but seeing ourselves as the only katniss everdeens of the world won't solve anything.

I mean... yeah. As I've written about a lot, the perspectives of so-called "anti-imperialist" American leftists, both in regard to the Russia-Ukraine war and overall, are generally absolutely fucking dismal. Both because they lack any sense of historicity, nuance, or attempt to deal with complex issues, and also because they are, as you note here, still myopically fixated on the US as the center of the world, the only agent of actual change, and the cause of everything bad ever. They are good at weaponizing the language of social justice and accusing everyone and everything of racism, but they rarely seem to have a sense of what that actually means outside the American context, and frankly for that matter, inside it.

A lot of "anti-imperialist" leftists are only opposed to American empire, which they think is the only empire to ever exist (as if European colonialism and empire didn't create America; as if the Roman Empire didn't create Europe, etc. etc.) Because the Republican right opposed the Soviets during the Cold War, plenty of modern leftists have now decided that that means the USSR/Putinist Russia is actually good after all!!! It's a meme ideology with absolutely no substance or internal coherence, because it's completely based on shallow and distorted mirror-images that they adopted solely out of contrarianism. They borrow the language and symbols of Marxism-Leninism in their fantasy online lives, they decide that this makes them Communist Visionaries, and they trade purposefully-misinterpreted jargon in their Twitter echo chambers without ever attempting to consider either what it really means or how these extremely fraught symbols were interpreted and used in the real world. They want to proclaim that Communism Good!!!, so they do that, and any and all nuance or actual example to the contrary is just Neoliberal Corporate Bootlicking. Or something like that.

What's funny, of course, is that the "anti-imperialist" leftists are still relying completely on a sense of Western exceptionalism and intellectual imperialism, wherein their own interpretations are always to be preferred over anything that the Savages might be saying; the Misguided Natives just need the Wise Western Man to correct them and show them why Tankie Communism is Good! Which, of course, is the exact vernacular of European Christian white-supremacist colonialism from the 16th to 19th centuries, and seriously calls into question any remotely accurate claim to being "anti-imperialist." Like, do you know what those words even MEAN? Or like, ANY words?

As I have said in earlier posts: yes, it's understandable, if disappointing, that people from Africa/India/Latin America, all of which HAVE suffered extensively from actual Western imperialism, have proven susceptible to Russian propaganda about how the current conflict is all the Evil West's Fault. But it's even more disappointing that presumably educated and "enlightened" Western leftists who trumpet their anti-imperialism have become such cheerleaders for a genocidal fascist imperial regime, simply because they think that anything America opposes is morally and/or structurally good. Which is just so facile and stupid on so many levels, not to mention ignores the reality of the Ukrainian war and its root causes on pretty much every front, but for them, that's basically par for the course.

[stationintern]

Sunday Snips!

Thank you to @mallstars for tagging me! This fic is something I've only recently started tinkering with. Here's the working synopsis for a little context: This story is about portrait. It’s also about the warmth of a shopfront on a foggy morning, the intimacy of eavesdropping, and the love we have for our terrible mothers. Alternatively, this is a story about Draco Malfoy.

Draco was struggling for a quick-witted reply when a man’s laughter rang out from the same corner as the woman’s from before. The sound struck Draco right between the lungs, engulfing him in nausea similar to the kind he’d managed to quell with the croissant. Something about that laugh was so familiar, so grating–

In an instant, he knew to whom it belonged. He could hear it echo from high above the Quidditch pitch, down a corridor, across the expanse of the Great Hall, against all odds.

Then, the voice spoke.

“Fuck! I have that meeting with Helena in an hour.”

Every ounce of comfort that Flora’s had managed to provide was dashed like waves upon a rocky seashore as Potter whirled into action from behind the fern. He was just like Draco remembered: broad, dark, with those boyish mannerisms– such as shoving a half-eaten muffin between his teeth as he wrestled his arms into his coat.

“Oh no,” Pansy said, and Draco would have said it first if he wasn’t busy being slack-jawed and generally terrified. This was not the time. This was not the place. 

“Oh no,” she said again, more frantic, batting at his arm, “Darling, darling–”

Draco just sat and stared as Pansy spurred into action, bumping her knee against the underside of the table, sending their espresso cups clattering into their saucers as she launched herself toward a newspaper stand, just out of arm's reach. Potter was still struggling with that damned jacket, repeatedly missing the holes as he tried to talk to his partner with a mouth full of muffin, undignified. 

Pansy finally managed to nab a paper, whipping it open and shoving Draco’s face behind its pages, right as Potter turned in their direction. Draco and Pansy had a silent conversation that contained a fair amount of expletives using only their eyes, nose to nose behind the singular newspaper, lacking in width, which they were now using as a hiding spot. A little boy had saved a kitten from a tree. There was something to do with Iraq that contained too much political jargon for Draco to glean anything of substance from at this moment.

A muffled goodbye, footsteps, the ringing of a newly-familiar bell. Potter was gone. Draco urged Pansy to drop the newspaper, but she held firm, and it was easy to guess that she was terrified, with the way her sharp nails dug into the words, threatening to puncture them. She was holding her breath, eyes squeezed shut, murmuring a silent prayer unto herself.

More footsteps sounded from the corner– slower, more hesitant. Someone, not Potter, was approaching them.

“Pansy,” a woman’s voice said. Ginevra.

“Pansy,” she repeated, “I know that’s you. I heard you saying something about shagging on a piano bench.”

Slowly, so slowly, Pansy lowered the newspaper, just enough so that Ginevra could see her eyes. Ginevra was not how Draco remembered, rail-thin and on fire, sometimes pale and awestruck when Potter walked by during her younger years. She was taller, and underneath the forest green turtleneck she wore there was the distinct outline of muscle. Perhaps she had grown a few more freckles, as well. Draco wasn’t sure what she’d been up to for the last few years, but it appeared to have served her well.

“Hi,” she said, more timid and with less fire than Draco would have thought. Pansy flinched beside him.

“Hello,” Pansy squeaked, and pulled the newspaper up higher, “I’d really rather not speak with you, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind, actually.”

In a flash, the newspaper was ripped from Pansy’s grip, dangling limp and tattered in Ginevra’s hand. Her smile was soft, as opposed to victorious over their unveiling. Draco resisted the urge to throw up. He didn’t want to be in the vicinity of anyone who knew more than his name and occupation, let alone a Weasley.

“Let’s have a chat, shall we?”

Once again, another WIP for me to think about. This month is very very busy for me, along with stressful, so I doubt much writing will occur, but I'm glad to be able to share these little snippets. I'm tagging @uncannycerulean @thehoneybeet and @teledild0nix

[inbabylontheywept]

Adderall, and the Gospel of Dose and Dose Rate.

So, I have seen a lot of posts in my life about how Adderall is KINDA like meth, but it has X, Y, Z, key differences that make it act chemically different so it's safe. And I hate these posts because it is safe, and I took (prescribed) Adderall something like eight years, but the difference between Adderall and meth isn't some structural thing, or a chemical thing, it's two big things, and a little thing. "The Big Things" are Dose and Dose Rate. "The Little Thing" is just addiction risk for a given population.

So, lets just kill The Little Thing while we're here. Yes, people with ADHD are more likely to experience an addiction in their life - something like 30% more likely. This risk makes people nervous about giving people with ADHD possibly addictive substances. However, there should be a strong exception made for ADHD medications because people with ADHD who are on medication become something like 30% less likely to develop addictions. There are two key points in this. First, people with ADHD are way less likely to get addicted to amphetamines than the general population. The reason for this is obvious: They affect us very differently. If there was a drug that made you feel really compelled clean dishes, vacuum, and study, you might take it every once in a while, but you wouldn't want to take it every day. And while most people experience amphetamines as The Drug That Makes You Confident And Energetic And Horny, we experience it as The Drug That Makes You Do Chores, so it's not very alluring to us. Hence, they aren't at risk of addiction from that specific drug. Second, when people with ADHD are on their medications, they are markedly less impulsive than the standard population. Hence, their flat addiction risk decreases. "The Big Things", the real meat and potatoes of what sets prescription Adderall apart from meth, are the dose and the dose rate. Regarding dose, a normal prescription for Adderall is around 15-25 mg a day. A normal amount of consumption for a recreational amphetamine user is 300-800 mg a day. I cannot overemphasize just how obvious this makes the difference to me. One dose of OxyContin after a wisdom tooth extraction would make the pain a lot more bearable. Twenty all at once would probably be lethal. One dose of Ibuprofen will make your headache better. Twenty will cause some kind of permanent organ damage. One shot is enough to party, but twenty has a greater than fifty percent chance of killing you. A Civil War surgeon would not give you twenty shots before trying to saw your leg off, because at that point the drink would be more likely to kill you than the surgery.

And then there is the dose rate. Adderall is designed to hits its peak dose in 1-2 hours after first swallowing. It's split into 4 different types of amphetamine salts specifically to break the peak up into four small ones. Meth, when inhaled, has one peak that occurs about five minutes in. So you're looking about getting 12-36 times the dose, absorbed something like 48-192 times as quickly. That's it. That's the difference. There's nothing more that could be said about it than that. The chemical changes are only relevant in the sense that the affect how fast the chemical can be absorbed, and the doses just are what they are. Dose and dose rate. Everything else is just jargon.

[transientpetersen]

There's a lot going on here. A lot. Certainly the most provocative segment is the long quotation from elsewhere called Connor Goes Deep [and Weird] so at the risk of missing the point, I'm going to complain to the sky and exorcise the mental poison through the keyboard.

I do not understand the appeal of using metaphor when you know it creates an unnecessary translation barrier between yourself and your audience. The section is loaded with jargon and references but there's nothing deep about those references that demand their use. And the constant invocations of "length of a tweet" - so why be confined in the format? But then I was never a believer in the usefulness of that platform so maybe I'm the wrong person to answer.

A modern adaption.

You've grown up in a small town in a dying part of your country. Dying because both agriculture and industry have moved off and find no use for your people. So what do you do? You leave. You go where there's density enough to host industry, find the places where "everyone agrees" the "people who are worth associating with" live.

You meet new people. You learn new skills. You change perspectives many times.

What are some of the outcomes listed in the original (suitably translated)?

1. Go home shortly after leaving. You don't like the city or you cannot hack it or someone back home needs you. Life goes back to normal with shades of regret and might-have-been. 2. Stay in the city indefinitely. You like it there, you grow used to it, you disavow who you were (you've outgrown them). 3. Stay in the city awhile and return home with some flash and some fashion and charm the kids back home with your new manners and your aura of cool. You feel better about yourself but is your life truly that different in substance? 4. Stay in the city awhile and return home with skills and knowledge that lets you bring some jobs. You start a local business. You stave off the decay for a while. The churches still close around you, one by one, but you don't feel that as a loss anymore. 5. You stay in the city. You travel to your home town. You return to the city. You decide that the difference between the two is less than its made out to be - it's all just people. People who don't much like those different from them. Not that that shuts you out because you can code switch. You build people up wherever you go because you're not carrying the anxiety of place around anymore.

So Connor is saying, "You moved to the city. You couldn't cope with the full range of human expression there so you carved out a little space that you felt safe within and let it cradle you until you forgot your home and forgot the scary and you're telling people the truth when you encourage them to find a sanctuary in the city but that's not what you came here for. You've lost your way."

No jargon; no fuss. Just a story.

I believe that agency is cultivated and power is a skill and responsibility means building both of those competencies. Useless anxiety is definitionally both a distortion of agency and a misapplication of skill and I wouldn't encourage anyone to cultivate it. On the other side, you do not understand how to use power if you do not use power - it's not something you rehearse in your head to prepare for the perfect application, that's so incredibly far from how it works.

I don't believe that the five scenarios I sketched out above are ranked. People fall into each bucket as circumstances push and pull - or they were never in the buckets to begin with. Judging where they landed or talking about which bucket they should be aiming for is a category error. Decide your aim, pick your vows, and do your best to make the world better around you.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Mose and Onni Durst – their legacy

I remember when the Dursts were a big deal, what with her being the notorious Onni, and him becoming the UC president in the U.S.

Dr. Durst used to be seen a lot on TV, and even when I was still in the church in the mid 80’s, I thought his TV manner was just a little too inauthentic to be believed by a lot of folks who might watch him. For example, his oft-repeated “If our eyes are glazed, they are glazed because we are crying for the world”, just came across as practiced and obvious. After the Oakland church was no longer the recruiting powerhouse it had been in the 70’s, it seems like its time had just sort of passed. It had been sort of a cult within a cult, with some of the older members, especially women, speaking in near-worshipful terms about “Omma and Oppa”. I always thought it was kind of weird, the level of admiration those members held, with the Dursts (and Kristina Morrison/Seher) being regarded as infallible. I wonder how the Dursts got along with all the later changes: becoming rather marginalized, the loony stuff like Black Heung Jin and the Hyo Jin revelations, the fractures in the so-called “True Family”, and the developments of the last year or so. I wonder what they think now? What is their relationship with the present and recent UC leadership really like? Do they (or Dr. Durst, anyway) see the deficiency of the Korean and Japanese leadership’s understanding of how to reach Americans? I wonder what they really think of the (ahem) “True Children”. They brought a lot of people into the church. They must know how many longtime members have left, and why. Do they ever wonder how it is that all their grand ideas for an “ideal city”, all the pie-in-the-sky they promised the members, all the statements of how things would be by now, have come to naught? Do they ever lie awake at night and wonder if drawing people in with big ideas and big words (and all the deception, dissembling, and subterfuge they used to retain recruits), was a mistake? That their lives have produced little of lasting substance? That they hurt people?

________________________________

“Onni Durst is a woman of guts. While she was at a slot machine in Las Vegas, she completely ran out of coins; she went to the next person, smiled, and borrowed some coins.”

Sun Myung Moon (May 19, 1980, New York City)

________________________________

Onni Durst’s trips to Las Vegas casinos, New York, and Seoul – and her luxurious lifestyle.

Childcare in the Unification Church of Oakland

$27,000 Mercedes for Onni Durst – “Take it back”, she said, “It’s the wrong color.”

Onni Durst lied under oath

Onni Durst is a supporter of the Woo group – led by another illegitimate son of Moon

The “sophisticated honey of 1960’s counterculture jargon” by Mose Durst

Boonville – “It was a very complex set of manipulations”

UC/FFWPU Recruitment – The Boonville Chicken Palace

Barbara Underwood and the Oakland Moonies

Ford Greene – the former Moonie became an attorney

Inside Look at a Boonville Moonie Training Session

Papasan Choi and Boonville’s Japanese origins

Moonwebs by Josh Freed (the book was made into a movie)

Crazy for God: The nightmare of cult life by Christopher Edwards

Camp K, aka Maacama Hill, Unification Church recruitment camp

The Social Organization of Recruitment in the Unification Church PDF  by David Frank Taylor, M.A., July 1978, Sociology

[selfundiagnosed]

I cant watch youtuber commentary videos because to me its what i assume straight women feel when having sex it genuinely enrages me. i cant watch people make commentary videos anymore because its not about getting insight on topics being talked about right now its about watching the same influencer giving their noncritical think pieces to random topics they didnt know about until mere hours before hoping in front of the camera and pressing record. everyday. Damn its so bad. watching them try to deepen the conversation with their twitch chat is comical because its obvious they have NO idea what theyre talkimg about it makes you want to start laughing but maybe crying bc how do hundreds of thousands of people depend on this asshole to say the thing that wont get them canceled? bc lets be real thats why 90% of these people watch these types of videos. they cover all these fucking topics how are they qualified to speak on all these things? 😳 the truth is theyre NOT! their audience just sees them as someone trustworthy to get their opinions from because THEY know how to find the people who *are* knowledgeable on the topics they wanna cover and repeat the exact same things they saw these qualified people type in the replies of the story VERBATIM and just repeat them in front of a webcam and a live chat. All while being an influencer people know they agree with everytime they make a video like this. its so fucking pathetic how do you guys rely on these people to tell you what to think i genuinely cannot watch the same youtuber over and over because the more i see them make these types of videos the clearer it becomes to me that people just watch these people not to think critically but bc they like the person repeating the same jargon they could read themselves. oh, and the person is safe and familiar and a comfort character lmfao. i genuinely dont know if its just like… i was raised to be an ENTP or what… but there has only been one social commentary youtuber i ever watched in my entire life who actually says something constructive about the topics she covers bc A.) she is intelligent B.) the topics she covers are all topics specific to her everyday lived experiences and she doesnt talk about topics that arent at least a little related to the main information she teaches C.) she isnt just cranking out videos for views/$ lmfao shes taking her time she puts her entire mind out on the plate and cuts into it with you the viewer slowly guiding you to the next point and makes sure you eat the course in the most digestible / optimal way to ensure you are FULL. if i have to watch another idiot streamer just talk out of his ass to his twitch chat trying to make sure he’s the all knowing Logic and Semantics King while knowing & saying NOTHING of substance im going to scream. talks to fucking talk and do the littlest amount of work while getting ALLLL the credit from democrat liberals who know the bar is underground with cishet dudes on youtube and literally uproar in applause when some average guy says pronouns! racism bad! its a giant circle jerk and anyone who wants to actually hear something worth digesting has to numb their brains anytime someone who cant sit in silence decides to put on their emotional support twitch streamer who was violently racist on the internet up until 2020. Mmmakes me wanna paint the ceiling red with hint of brain-matter popcorn texture technique:3