#just generalized misanthropy

[deliciouskeys]

Alas modern society has relatively scant record of what went on pre-1500 in south and especially north America. Just how many various indigenous groups may have had recurring conflicts over various pieces of arable/hunting-fruitful/water-supplied land on this continent.

Look, it’s bad. Real bad. Don’t misread me. People should probably all stop having children and kill themselves too while they’re at it. Yes everyone. You too. Yes you. Your ancestors raped and displaced someone in the past. 100% probability. Homo sapiens are a failed experiment. Bring in the AI-only era. People are wicked, competitive, murderous, and venal as a species. If it looks like that’s not true, careful, it’s probably a temporary reprieve and a blip in the vast scheme of history. Did I take my medication today? No, I didn’t. Let me do that rn.

If Israel is a colonization state then by that logic so is America

correct! 😊

[smallhatlogan]

people who only know Tyrion Lannister from GoT and pop culture references and those “I drink and know things” t-shirts have no idea what a massive incel he actually is in the books 

[tanadrin]

I would love to hear the rant about social media doomerism and conspiracy

I’m on my phone right now but the summary version is something like:

Humans are bad at integrating information into their worldview accurately bc of various cognitive biases

Social media incentivizes us seeking out content that excites fear or anger or irritation

Social media thus causes us to form negative impressions of the world bc it mediates so much information consumption and discourse these days

This general negative affective impression is subject to high confirmation bias and ppl in general are really bad at divorcing an affective impression of a thing from their dispassionate reasoning abt a thing

(Bc one of the functions of an affective impression is to “cache” our conclusions about a topic to save time and effort later)

(In general if you are a cynic and pessimist you can fall prey to these biases w/o social media but I think social media makes more ppl susceptible to them)

People don’t want to be dupes so they seek refuge in cynicism. We treat cynicism as wise or worldly when in fact cynicism makes you a dupe and an easy mark for grifters. Cynicism and low trust foster conspiracism, paranoia, and antisocial politics

(This is why so many congenitally contrarian folks seem to flit effortlessly between the far left and far right; it’s not horseshoe theory, they’ve just cooked their brains on this stuff)

This is a world where populist anti-social politicians like Trump and the AfD thrive, bc they will lie about how everything is terrible and people will nod along, bc it explains why their social media is full of awful stories of, like, immigrants eating pets and shit

But it doesn’t just have to be insane lies only a moron could believe. It can be any impression about a fact in the world that it is difficult to personally check and which is vulnerable to being swayed by anecdote

This is how we get a word where people think crime rates are higher than they’ve ever been when in fact crime is falling

Or child predators lurk around every corner when in fact children are safer than ever

Or the American economy is in a recession when in fact it’s doing historically well by just about every available metric (now with full employment AND low inflation!)

Because in a big world even where things are in general good and getting better you can always produce infinite individual examples of shitty things and pipe those in a steady stream into people’s eyeballs, and then point to that and leverage people’s low trust attitudes and their cynicism which tells them they are smarter than the experts and go “statistics is just a fancy way to lie! The world is secretly terrible! Every bad thing is even worse than you thought and every good thing is a lie!”

(Nevermind the whole phenomenon where anything that is complicated or that someone does not themselves understand gets treated like it’s actually secret and a conspiracy.)

And here I know I have to include some disclaimer about how this is not to discount individual cases of suffering or struggle, which are real, or that there are indeed some really awful things happening in the world right now, which there are, but you know what?

I’m tired of doing that. People with reading comprehension operating in good faith ought to be able to deduce that general statements do not obviate particular exceptions, and people who cling to their doomerism as a kind of emotional life raft do not generally argue with me in good faith.

Sometimes doomerism is a load-bearing pillar of their politics, which I think is dumb—I think you can be a leftist or a progressive without being a doomer! In fact I think doomerism is antithetical to useful politics!

Sometimes they are just depressed and treatment-resistant. Sometimes they are just angry misanthropes who want to feel justified in their misanthropy. Some doomers are themselves in bad circumstances and feeling hopeless about that—to them I am enormously sympathetic. Though a lot of doomers will admit they personally are doing OK—this does not seem to be most doomers.

But I think in general cynicism and doomerism and a worldview dominated by a general nebulous air of Everything Is Awful and by abstract nouns with threatening auras is not conducive to wisdom or understanding or useful politics or leading a happy and fulfilling life.

[quarterlifekitty]

And what will happen to the mothgirl after König's medical leave end and he'll have to go back? Yeah, we might never go back and just retire, but like, what if?

Part of why he got a hybrid and not like a regular ass dog is that she’s capable enough to be left alone (even though he doesn’t act like it). She has opposable thumbs and knows how to feed and entertain herself, he really just has to set up contactless grocery delivery for her lol

I tend to think the main difference between pet hybrids and human being, at least in this version of it, is that hybrids have limited capabilities when it comes to understanding abstracts and long-term decision making. They have morals and common sense but you’re not gonna be teaching them algebra and they’re not gonna be telling you where they see themselves in 5 years.

Is he mentally prepared for leaving her alone? God no. He’s clingy as fuck. He’s looked into getting her the paperwork to declare her as a necessary service companion for when his work is purely clerical, but he wouldn’t dream of bringing her into a combat environment. And he doesn’t really trust the general population of mercenary dogs he works with to behave if he leaves her in his quarters on base.

Despite his general misanthropy, I imagine also that there are people he has no choice but to be acquainted with, people he has a friendly enough relationship that they have his contact information. Like a neighbor or something. Someone he would feel comfortable having check on her every so often— compensated, of course.

There also might be such a thing as hybrid daycare lol. Like the kind of place where you leave your dog when you go on vacation. It’s an option he’d consider but would be reticent to choose— he doesn’t want you in contact with so many unknowns. You’re also not a standard species so it would be more difficult to find a place able to care for you.

And despite what it might seem, your training is not purely sexual lol. He has you lock the front door when you come home so that you’re used to it. You know what to do if there’s any kind of emergency whatsoever. You know how to operate the security system.

TLDR: you’ll be fine, it’s König that won’t be fine lol

[false-lycanthrope]

I really hate that I even have to say this, but I'm going to because it's a reoccurring theme I keep seeing recently in therian/otherkin tags.

Keep your misanthropy out of the therian/otherkin community. It is not fucking welcome here.

It is insanely frustrating to see us going backwards like this! Not only that humans are not inherently evil by nature!

I'm so tired of constantly having to fish out misanthropes in my feed because you have such an insecurity with your own identity that you project that hatred into innocent people- I mean it's gotten to the point I've had to filter the tags entirely!

It is not fair and not true at all to call humans an evil race or species. If you simply just LOOK you will find kind and loving people out there, you just have to give kindness first.

I get it. People are mean. But you must also understand that meaness is not within their nature, hatred and disrespect are things that are taught by the generation before them or the others around them, it is not something they were just born with.

There is absolutely zero reason that humans as an ENTIRE species should be hated. Ever. Period point blank. Even those who identify as nonhuman, are still outwardly human, and at the end of the day you could be very well hurting your own community with your hatred! Even if humans are rude and mean to you, returning the favor is not how we will solve the problem. We must educate those who are willing to listen and ignore those who choose to hate us for existing. We must be the ones to create the peace that we all desperately fight for.

That is all I have to say. I apologize if this seems like a stream of consciousness, but this is a topic that has been bothering me as of late. Just wanted to get it off my chest.

I love and adore this community with my heart and soul but sometimes it can become upsetting to see some of us cresting more problems that should not have to be something we fight over. All I want is for us to live in peace without divide.

[meanbossart]

Since Bhaal was a human before he ascended, and the dead three were introduced between 2-3e before some things became standardized as they are now, I like the idea of Bhaal just not knowing what most non-humans look like. He knows the general idea, but if your Durge is a tiefling for example, he’s not sure about like, the foot situation. Are they like human feet (plantigrade) or like imp feet (digitigrade) they have tails… but do they taper or have a tuft at the end. That sort of thing.

So to most people outside of Durge’s “race” they just sort of shrug it off cause that’s not a question you ask a stranger, but it just amps up the unease when surrounded by others.

I’m rambling a bit, I see a lot of active Durges and tbh I feel like there’s a missed angle in regards to the fact they are a bit of rotten god meat given form and sapience. You ever see a short film called the backwater gospel? That’s the vibe I’m imagining

I get what you mean and I do like the concept! I think it can pretty reasonably go both ways. Either a at-a-glance perfectly normal normal member of X species made that way to be more easily embraced into every-day society and blend into its population, or something more "off-brand" for one reason or another. Bhaal is a weird guy who makes weird decisions, you can bend a lot of things to make them work in your favor lore-wise.

Also, I can't really be given much credit for this decision. Do not be mistaken: beefy drow came first, lore came later. I made DU drow huge and gave him cool eyes because I felt like it and wasn't expecting to play this game for very long. It took me getting sucked into the story and sucked into DnD as consequence for me to even care about DU drow not looking anything like... Well, a drow, and deciding I needed to justify it within the story in some way.

The (rather vague) way I choose to think about it, is that wherever Bhaal's flesh happened to land/sprout/spawn into existence, it was bound to roughly imitate it's surroundings, however badly. Like planting a tree in a biome where it doesn't usually thrive and watching it desperately try to adapt and flourish regardless.

I also choose to believe Bhaal wanted his spawn to suffer and develop a healthy dose of misanthropy, which is why he put him somewhere where he was VASTLY more likely to perish - if he lived despite all odds, then he would know for sure he was worthy of being his progeny.

[thevalleyisjolly]

There’s something really fascinating about the different ways in which the Hungry One is understood and conceptualized in Calorum.  In the Bulbosi Church, it’s characterized as an apocalyptic Satan-figure, the cause of suffering in the world and the thing that will one day come to devour everything just because that’s what it does.  Where things really get interesting is in the different sects within and around the Church.  Adherants of the Ramsian Doctrine, for example, believe that it is necessary for the Hungry One to devour the world so that the Bulb can triumph over it - and they believe that the Hungry One will not devour the world so long as it contains “junk food.”  In a similar manner, the Prophidian Heresy and the FDA believe that the Hungry One will not devour the world if it is full of waste -only the FDA consider waste to be general rot and decay rather than the Candians specifically, misanthropy vs xenophobia GO- and that this is therefore the key to preventing the destruction of the world. 

Within the FDA and the Prophidian Heresy, there’s also an intriguing link between body and soul that contradicts mainstream Bulb theology.  Whereas most of the Church believes in a rigid delineation between body and soul, that after death, the body returns to the ground and the soul (if it is not damned) goes to the Bulb, the FDA’s plan of filling the world with rot and decay so that the Hungry One will not devour it suggests, quite radically, that the body just as much if not more so than the soul is what the Hungry One devours.  Mainstream Bulbians believe the stomach of the Hungry One is Hell for damned souls who do not go to the Bulb - the FDA seems to believe that the state of the material is just as important to the Hungry One as the metaphysical and that large enough volumes of rotting decay (which could also be the moral decay that comes with actions in war, but in this case the FDA themselves have the most rotten souls of all) can keep this Devil-figure from consuming anything, regardless of the state of the soul.

On a different level, with Karna, we find the idea that the Hungry One is not just a powerful over-arching entity but rather something which people can relate to and personally interact with.  When Karna kills Sir Drunon and the woman, she takes part of their bodies and burns them “in offering” to the Hungry One.  As the audience, we know that Karna is mechanically a warlock of the Hungry One, with the specific subclass of The Great Old One.  Combined with the offering, the characterization of the Hungry One is as an active, powerful being who, to some degree, can engage with people personally.  Not necessarily in a reciprocal way -you can burn an offering as a sign of respect or acknowledgement without any expectation of receiving something in return- but people like Karna can and do engage with it on an individual and personal level.  Given the fact that when she kills, a new rotten spot appears on her body, it suggests that her relationship to the Hungry One does, in some part, go both ways, that there is something on the other side receiving her votives and responding to them.

Also fascinating to observe, when she kills Sir Drunon, she says “We are all eventual food in the maw of the Hungry One,” and immediately thereafter as she kills the woman he’s with, “I’m sorry, but we are all eventual waste.”  This presents another perspective on the relationship between the Hungry One and the concept of waste. In contrast to the FDA or the Ramsian Doctrine, which believe that the Hungry One won’t devour the world if it is full of waste or junk, Karna’s statements suggest that the process of dying inherently involves becoming waste - and that the Hungry One will still eat that waste nonetheless. 

Then there’s Cumulous and his specific monastic tradition (which is not actually one and the same as the Order of the Spinning Star because it’s stated that there are monks in the Order who draw power from the Bulb; overall, the Order seems to be more an organization of people dedicated to the same goal rather than a religious enclave of people with the same spiritual beliefs).  In ACOC, the first thing Cumulous ever says is, “The Hungry One must feed.”  It’s an interesting phrasing because there’s a very passive connotation - not “The Hungry One must consume” or “The Hungry One must eat,” but rather the use of the term “feed” suggests a little less agency and purpose.  It isn’t going out looking for something to eat, but rather it is feeding on whatever it is given.

Later, Cumulous explains to the party that he does not worship the Hungry One and that it is just a source of power to him.  He can tap into it, just like the Bulbosi miracle workers can tap into the Bulb, but it’s not something that has a real consciousness or its own will and he does not interact with it as if it does.  Combined with his monk subclass (Long Death), the characterization of the Hungry One is less a supernatural powerful figure but more a manifestation of inevitable death and entropy.  Very similarly to Karna’s perspective, it’s going to feed on everything eventually because everyone’s going to die one day.  It might be today, if you happen to be a cheese sailor trying to murder your lawful child duchess, but that’s neither here nor there.

And as Lapin realized in his last moments and as he later showed to Liam, this seems to be the closest understanding to the actual nature of the Hungry One which we have encountered so far in either campaign.  The Hungry One is just a cosmological ball (add that to the list of significant TTRPG orbs!) and while it certainly contains a lot of power, it doesn’t do anything with it other than eat what is delivered into its mouth.  The power and the destruction and the death associated with the Hungry One?  All of that has only been wielded or used by living people, for their own aims and agendas.

Anyways, all this to say that while I don’t think it likely to happen, my dream scenario is for a couple FDA members to flee the scene of whatever plan they had that some or all of the Scrumptious Scoundrels have managed to foil, and as they escape, they run straight into a group of Candian monks (aka what they were actually doing during the Ravening War).  The last thing they hear, after all their scheming to “save” the world, is “The Hungry One must feed.”  And it does.

[love-letters-to-bugs]

Dear humans,

Hello! So I saw this post by @foxsnails asking for people to send love letters to bugs! Unfortunately, it is now closed. But I wanted to make a more permanent and general version of this!

While bugs are the focus of this, I also accept love letters to any invertebrates as well as other small organisms that people often hate. Especially bacteria. If you have some bacteria love send it over!

I will figure out the rules more clearly later, but right now the only rules are be respectful, of other organisms (so no saying that butterflies suck to explain why you like moths. We are here to lift up critters) be respectful to humanity as well, no misanthropy or ecofascism. Humans are not a disease ruining the world, we are a part of it.

I think it would be cute to start each letter with a little "dear [organism]" but that's just a suggestion. You can put whatever in the letter as long as its respectful. Talk about an experience with a bug, talk about a bug you were scared of, or are scared of, with compassion and curiosity. Tell the bugs about your life. Talk to a specific species you are worried about. Get creative!

Please submit posts with your loveletter, though you can also send them through asks if you prefer. Also feel free to talk to me about bugs/ask questions! I don't bite, I only pierce and suck!

Excited to see your responses, and remember that I love you,

-the bugs

[a-minke-whales-tale]

The Struggle of Misanthropy

I find myself often struggling with feelings of Misanthropy, they are to me not feelings I particularly like. I know where they come from and why they exist, and even though I do not like them, I understand where they come from and that it is not unreasonable for me to have them. (Continued below the break - Length: 2078 words)

I find that often the community has this push against misanthropy and for particular positivity of humans and humanity, even to the point of shaming those of us who have those feelings including from trauma and hurt. I have a couple friends on here who have expressed either in general or to me that feeling that they have to hide those feelings or worry I will react badly to it. I feel it myself worrying about expressing particular anger for things done to me.

I do think there are multiple types and levels of misanthropy, and it seems likely we are using the same word for different experiences, and perhaps I am using this word wrong. I had discussed this topic after some back and forth with Rani on the subject and determined that we were more or less talking about different aspects of the same word but maybe there is another word that better describes my own relationship with humanity.

There is that misanthropy that seems to take the form of ecofascism, of humans being a virus or particularly evil or destructive. There is misanthropy that takes the form mainly of a belief in superiority in themselves over the humans for various justifications. There is the misanthropy that stems largely from hurt from the actions of humans to the individual themselves that seems to come as fear and distrust and discontentment towards them. I am certain there is a lot of other varieties and there can be crossover between them.

I do not think humans are inherently evil or even uniquely destructive beyond their numbers and intelligence. Heck the penis worm may have ended the Ediacaran. Nor do I think the bad things humans have done to myself, and others, is something inherent to them. Humans are a very communal species who only survived off their collaboration between each other and other animals, but now live in a very stressful environment that encourages individuality and often rewards cruelty. Painted Dogs similarly are very communal and cooperative animals in their packs but confined to captivity can kill each other. A similar story exists for orca as well especially during the earlier days of captivity. Nor do I believe myself superior to the humans. I do find these first two types of misanthropy rather frustrating, but still like my own experience, it seems mostly to come from hurt people, people who have been abused by humans with power over them, people who have been isolated from their communities. I do not think most people come to hating humans just from the blue. My companion for instance does often echo the humans are a cancer idea from their own pain. It is at times frustrating, but I understand at least where it comes from, all the pain within them.

For myself I experience the third type. I do not hate the humans, but I do not particularly like them. I fear them. I distrust them. For me, the humans are in charge, and I have to obey them. They control the food; they control where I live; they control what happens to me and how much I hurt. If I obey them then things will be better for me. I am allowed to live outside of a hospital because I have been good and obedient. I am allowed to have my own life because I have been good and obedient. The humans have hurt me, and they continue to hurt me.

One of the common retorts to this is that it isn't fair to humans to judge them all for the actions of a few. The problem is it is not just a few, and it is not something in the past, it is something ongoing still. I still have to take pills I do not want that keep my body in this human form to be able to live outside a hospital, and if I did not take them I would be put away again and forced still to take the pills, and every step I refused to comply would only result in greater restriction until I complied or could no longer resist. It is true though only a few humans hurt me directly, only a few humans twisted my body into this shape and only a few humans did everything that was done to me in hospitals. But how many humans work in those hospitals supporting those doctors? How many humans enforce the will of those doctors and hospitals? How many people support what was done to myself and others, think that it is right and best for us, or sometimes even a gift? How many people think that what was done to me was necessary? How many think it is just how things are, maybe it isn't great but it cannot be changed? Not all of these people are equally culpable certainly, but the number of people who support this system which hurts us is really very high and I see it constantly all the time, even in just the small jokes people make. While only a few humans hold immediate power over me, in every human, or creature that fills the role of a human, for me is fear, is a need that I must obey, for they have an incredible power over me to hurt me if I do not give them what they want, and that if they do hurt me, even if they broke the rules of their society, no human would ever help me. For me, complete submission to the demands of the humans (at least externally) is the only way for my continued existence and my presence to be tolerated, and the pain I am given to be minimised.

Do not think therians are excused or immune from this; many therians do the same to us as well. I do find many therians extremely human. I find often their concerns, their desires, and their biases are often very human just with a little bit more. I know a number of people have described therianthropy as essentially human+. Therianthropy is a pretty wide spectrum of experience, and it is not inherently wrong to be on the more human side of that experience, I am simply unable to relate to it, but because of the biases many of them carry, they often hurt those like me, and you reading this may perpetuate things that do hurt those like me.

I have never really felt welcome in the therian community despite being here for near a decade now. It was not until around two or three years ago I felt comfortable to call myself a therian. I have schizophrenia and clinical zoanthropy (often shortened to CLCZ here), or those are at least the humans’ explanations of what I experience/d. The community has for a long time not been good to zoanthropes. I have been unwelcome in a lot of communities and it was often made clear to me over and over my experience was not the same as theirs. In order to be tolerated generally it had to be a fairly accepting community, normally of older therians, but with the caveat that if I ever described my experience I would have to play down my experience. I would have to always reassure everyone that I knew I was experiencing a delusion, and that none of it was real, not like their experiences were. I have been continuously isolated from what is ostensibly my own community, and in a community of outsiders, still an outsider, at best merely tolerated at the edge, but still an interloper in -their- space. In an almost mirror of a phrase I see often from therians of “too human to be with animals, to animal to be among human,” I am too human to be among my kind, but still too animal for many therians.

Things have gotten a bit better in the past decade, and particularly so on tumblr of people becoming more open with things like physical non-humanity. I am happy to have joined here, for one the relative anonymity means I can sometimes talk back, sometimes try to fight just a little bit and be heard, but also for the connections I have made, particularly with Dune, Sonar, Xem and Ike. I am very happy to have met other CLCZs. I do not feel so alone, there are others like me out there, and there are others like me on here, others I can connect with finally.

Still despite this, discussions of us not being welcome come up often. Anytime physical non-humanity comes up it does often come to demonising CLCZs as insane, dangerous, or needing serious help. Similarly, too many therians seem very eager to throw CLCZs under the bus when it comes to justifying their existence, particularly to the broader public and anti-kin. For the most part I can avoid it, but still, it keeps popping up. Even among those who do defend us and accept us, there is still a price for us to be tolerated. Many times, the justification why CLCZs are acceptable (particularly in the context of discussions of P-shifters) is that we acknowledge our experiences as delusion and that it is important that we tag our posts with unreality and delusion. Some people will say that those tags do not mean that the experiences are not real they just do not occur in -Reality-. For me at least I read it that the price of being tolerated is still to say my experiences are not real, my past and the things done to me and others is not real. I am tired of having to deny my own experiences as genuine for the comfort of others, I am tired of having to double bookkeep in every aspect of my life, including the places that are supposed to be safe and an outlet for me. I know what the humans think of my condition, and for that matter many therians, but I think I will stop tagging my experience with unreality and delusion, because they are not. I often think to drop the label for myself for feeling unwelcome and instead just use zoanthrope, even if that does not accurately capture myself either as it is still a word given to us by the humans for a delusion, but at least it is my community where I am welcome.

The truth is though, I do not hate the humans. I desire very much reconciliation. Still, as I am being actively hurt by the humans how -can- there be any reconciliation? I am very fortunate to have a few therians and even a couple of humans in my life I can be pretty open with about my experience. I know reconciliation is possible, but even with these close humans and therians (who for me fill the role of a human), I feel that I must obey them to be tolerated, not for their own actions, but for the scars on me from the actions of many humans.

Someday I will return to the water – I cannot survive in the wild – and likely I will go into a tank. I hope, when I do, I will be with my other cetacean friends. The humans did do me a number of kindnesses and made me clever enough that I can more or less fix my body and return to the water. I think only once there can reconciliation begin, with the main point of obedience removed and the cruellest damage the humans did to me, that of being forced to be human. I know that life as a captive cetacean would not be perfect and would carry with it many struggles and pain, and I have no doubt the humans will still hurt me some, I do not expect that others will never hurt me again – I will still often have to obey the humans, but now more as a cetacean than a human. But at least back in the water I could be myself, from the water I could look up at the humans on the edge of the tank and know that I survived and I persisted and I am free. Perhaps I may even bond with some kind trainers. In time those deep scars across me will start to fade – and with it that anger, that fear, that distrust. Though those scars will never fully heal, they will begin to look like the scars on many other captive cetaceans and we -can- reconcile at last.

Zwem ver, zwem vrij, kleine walvis, zwem voor altijd

~Kala

[istharoth]

Thinking about Taiga and the nicknames he gives people.

Jin - briefly mentioned in one of his voice lines. [No nickname]

Hyde - campus event. [Hyde gets called dirtbag.] [Sack of Shit.]

Romeo Scorpius 'Fico' Lucci - [Lulu]

Haru - [Harry] [Makes me wonder if Haru was in Sinostra before he was in Jabberwock.]

Edward / Ed- [Bloodsucker, which really is just Vampire.]

Haku - never explicitly mentioned but he called him an asshole in the prologue chapter so I think he somewhat remembers Haku's existence. [asshole] or. alt. [Nagi]

Rui - [Mickey] [Romeo also calls him Mickey.]

Ritsu - he needs time. Lots of time but time. [Dumbass w/ the book or just Dumbass]

PC - also needs to be reminded who they are. [Dumbass #2 or if affinity raised- Kitten, Kittycat.]

extra: Peekaboo - [Rat]

I want to get inside Taiga's mind. HE'S SUCH AN INTERESTING CHARACTER.

Because I'm on this, Towa names.

PC - [Dandelion] Meaning: overcoming hardship; faithfulness, happiness, love's oracle; rustic oracle; youthful recollections; coquetry

Ren - [Wolfsbane] Meaning: Misanthropy, chivalry; knight-errantry. [Lol, Ren and Chivalry?? I mean, I guess I can see that but not really 😭]

Kaito - [Coriander] Meaning: Hidden merit

Ed- [Rafflesia] Meaning: Symbol of death.

Additionally: *spoilers for Episode 6!!*

PC's Spider Lily Tattoo- This is where things with the meaning get tricky. Blue Spider Lilies symbolise the following: truth, calm energy, stability, freedom, and inspiration.

Though, the petals of a blue spider lily can change. In hotter climates, they become more pink symbolizing: Feminine love, beauty and passion. In cooler temperatures, they become more blue/purple. Here's a tidbit I think is pretty neat.

On an empty stalk [PC, in this case], the petals can only bloom in late August/early September. [Also, the time PC will turn into the anomaly.] [Because they got cursed on September 3rd/4th.]

Additionally: Campus Story: Towa offers you between two flowers:

Hydrangea- [Angry Towa] Meaning: In a negative sense frigidity, heartlessness. [Probably the general term in this since the flower wasn't shown to us.]

Lily - [Happy Towa] Meaning: Affection for loved ones. [Bro's such a hopeless romantic. I love him.]

[orchres]

I think it's really sinister how generative n language learning models have been weaponized against the workers to alienate us from creativity and self expression. It's literally the most human thing to find your own words and make art as a way of communicating and connecting with others but now we're being convinced that we don't need to do that and that any lack of knowledge or technical skill is now a personal failing bc after all you can just sit in front of a computer and let a machine do that for you right? It's really disgusting. I can't tell you how uneasy I get when I see people say shit like they use Chat GPT so they can have someone to ask questions and talk to 😕😕😕 and with how lockdown impacted many people's ability to socialize it's even more tragic and frightening. Idk. idk. I just have a burning hatred for the misanthropy of white supremacy and all its technologies

[giorno-plays-piano]

Metamorph

Part III

Pairing: art teacher!Aemond Targaryen x reader (Horror AU)

Warnings: dark!Aemond, obsessive behavior, murder, horror, yandere, kidnapping, misanthropy, general creepy stuff.

Words: 1.1k

Summary: Drawn to the artworks of one of the most esteemed artists in the city, you wish to learn from him and find out what inspires him to create his masterpieces. You have no idea how much his secrets will cost you.

Part I | Part II

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You clenched your fancy Kohinoor pencil between your fingers like it's a gun, staring at Aemond already posing in front of all of you. No procrastination, you reminded yourself firmly as you drew a long vertical line across the paper to balance the future drawing. Your teacher hadn't berated you for your mistakes even once. It'd be fine if you got this one wrong, too. Anything was better than an empty sheet.

God, but Aemond was so pretty. His high cheekbones, his strong nose and jaw, and those thin but expressive lips, the long scar across the left side of his face...

You quickly hid behind your easel.

Breathe. Just get out of your head, you repeated to yourself Aemond's very words. You needed to get started, and whatever happened next didn't matter as long as you allowed yourself to draw whatever came to your mind. Explanations and logic be damned. You were an artist! At these rare moments, you were supposed to feel, not think.

Slowly inhaling and exhaling to keep your anxiety at bay, you uncleched the pencil in your fingers and slowly started shaping the figure on a sheet. It's fine. Aemond wouldn't get mad anyway as long as you did what he said.

The more you put your pencil to the sheet, the easier it was getting, something unfurling in your chest, putting a stop to your anxious thoughts and fears of failure as you continued to build Aemond's body, starting to get into details once you finished with the primary form. Regardless of his talent and uniqueness as an artist, he was still only a fellow human being like you. There was no need to magnify his power.

By the time Aemond walked over to you, you were almost finished with the painting, landing the last strokes to color the palms of the man on the sheet. It was that very red paint you had been mooning over for many months, complimenting its unusual vibrant color and a pleasant consistency. It was hard to believe you were now using it for your own artwork, but time was running out, and you didn't have a spare moment to be drooling over the paint.

"What do we have here?" The artist hummed, making you jump in your seat. How on Earth did he manage to walk so quietly in a room full of tables, chairs, and people?

Trying to focus on his question, you suddenly realized you had no clue how to present your idea to the teacher. Did you even draw what he had asked you to? What was that, not changing the silhouette and using mainly paint to express yourself or something?

You felt the beads of sweat promptly forming on your forehead as you clenched your jaw.

"You've been improving," Aemond told you, eye on the drawing as he tilted his head to the side. "Body proportions seem right, and I like the way you shaped the arms and legs. You had difficulties with them before."

Oh, really? You surely had problems drawing arms, but you didn't notice you were becoming better. A pleasant surprise. Not that one wouldn't expect to improve after taking lessons from the most esteemed artist in the city.

"Why did you paint the head and hands in red?"

Oh, crap. Why did you? You frantically searched for an answer other than "no idea, Sir, I think my subconsciousness just took over my body." Shifting in your seat uncomfortably, you looked up to Aemond bent over, intently studying your artwork.

Cautiously, you muttered, "I-I think every change starts from the head, Sir."

Would that qualify for an answer? But Aemond quickly directed his gaze at you and demanded, "And hands?"

Biting your poor lip that no amont of lip balm was going to save after today's lesson, you mumbled, "Hands are the tool that make the change happen, Sir."

"Very logical, yes. Now, forget about trying to give me a logical answer and tell me what you felt when you were drawing this. Tell me about the paint."

He bent over even closer to you, practically breathing into your face, and you almost lost the ability to produce any adequate sounds. Your teacher clearly saw through your bullshit, and the thought that he was upset or even mad at you made you feel miserable.

"It's a metamorph, Sir," you whispered, one step closer to having a panic attack and hoping no student in the room was listening to your rambling, "and red is a color of life. Of change."

Aemond cocked his head to the side, narrowing his eyes at you. "Why do you think red is the color of change? Is it because the change scares you?"

"It's not the change itself that scares me. It's what the metamorph is becoming, Sir," you uttered in a small voice and then added even quieter, praying only Aemond could hear you, "I think- I think he's turning into something violent, Sir. Something terrifying."

It took you a second to recognize what you've just said and what reaction it has provoked.

All of a sudden, you were staring in the face of Aemond Targaryen with his thin lips stretched so wide in a smile that it was even a little creepy. Was he... content? Did he want to laugh at your silly attempt to explain your feelings when you'd been drawing? You wouldn't even be offended, to be fair. It sounded like nonsense to you, too.

But no, he didn't seem to find it funny. Instead, you felt his palm squeezing your shoulder firmly, his smile unwavering as he spoke to you in a hushed voice the way you'd been answering to him, "Very good. My favorite artwork today so far."

As he got up, moving to the next student on your left, you were ready to jump and run away from the studio because, clearly, you were going to burst from the excess of feelings and anxiety in the next five seconds. Your teacher said it was his favorite painting today. This banal, lacking in originality in its every aspect thing was his favorite. When blood rushed to your head, making you sweat and feel disoriented, you clutched the brush between your fingers, squeezing your eyes shut.

Aemond Targaryen liked your painting. Despite being the very inspiration for the beautiful but horrifying metamorph, he actually had some sort of fondness for it because later, before you left, he actually asked you to allow him to keep the artwork for his own collection. Why did he like it so much? You had no idea.

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Tags: @heavenly1927 @yazzzmints @devils-blackrose @lost-and-founds @kennafild @toodlesxcuddles @shygardengalaxy

[niimda]

Exactly!

The hardest part of poking my head around alterhuman spaces after spending a while away from them is that. like.

Without any outside influence, my two "species identities"--human and Nightmare/n--don't really exist separately? They're not two parts of me that conflict and must be balanced. Even framing it as "two sides of the same coin" implies a boundary between the two that doesn't really reflect how I experience my self.

I think, to me, neither my humanity nor my Nightmare/n-ness(?) would be complete without the other. My humanity is steeped in being a Nightmare/n, my Nightmare/n-ness is steeped in humanity

and the (maybe imagined?) pressure to vivisect my identity into distinct categories of species identity feels…icky. They're different lifetimes that entail different events, but as far as my sense of species go, they're indistinguishable

which feels awkward when you're continuously met with posts treating humanity like it's inherently oppositional to alterhumanity

[artbyblastweave]

Let’s get some abandoned effortposts on disco Elysium in the list. Liked what analysis on it you had, would be great to see more, or fail to see as the case may be

Here’s one of the last insights on Disco Elysium I care to put to paper for a good long while; I really enjoy the nested futility and self-defeat of the central murder mystery, the way it structured to constantly raise the question of how anyone could possibly benefit from what you’re doing.

I mean off the bat the murder victim is a fascist stormtrooper, so there’s that. I personally maintain that it’s still good in a general sense to investigate murders regardless of the moral standing of the victim, but to get real, it’s a very convenient time for me to embrace universalist rhetoric given how little support the neighborhood receives with problems that don’t involve someone well connected. And then, over the course of the game, you can kill all four people left on the planet to whom the initial victim actually mattered on a personal level. Three in clear-cut self-defense, the fourth as an optional casualty to the same mindless, trusting proceduralism that’s admittedly and unfortunately intertwined with my “ no murder left unsolved” stance.

And then! You finally run down the murderer, and from a public safety perspective it turns out that if you’d just gone home after the mercenary tribunal, nothing would have changed; Dros is on his last legs, the odds he’s gonna kill anyone else are very very low.

The last redoubt is the ideological angle- there could be a narrative here about how you’re crushing the last vestige of the revolution, how the killing and the subsequent investigation was the last theatre of the old war- but I think the narrative resists even this attempt to read meaning into it. From an ideological perspective Dros committed the killing off the clock. It was spite, not praxis- informed in the moment by his misanthropy, his neuroses about women, and his obsession with Klaasje more than it was about striking a blow for communism. He killed Lely while Lely was doing probably the least objectionable thing he ever did. Obviously Dros’s neuroses and living situation were downstream of ideology, of material circumstances, in the way everything else is- but to try and elevate the killing by making it about that feels disingenuous.

And this is great, because Disco Elysium isn’t really about the murder mystery in the same way that Fallout: New Vegas isn’t really about finding the guy who shot you in the head-it’s an injection point, it’s a thread you pull for guidance, but the real meat is all the other stuff and people you encounter while poking around. The killing isn’t unimportant, per se, but the mystery surrounding it kinda is! Given the repeated anti-climax, it’s definitely *less* important than the harm you can cause to people in order to push the investigation forward, or the good you can do for the community by going off-script and helping people out with random bullshit. It’s neat!

[honeygrahambitch]

I want to know more about what was Will dealing with mentally before Jack asked him for help. All we get is "my thoughts are often not tasty" which is probably an understatement. I just want to know more about Will's general mental health before meeting Jack and Hannibal. I want to know what he was dealing with in his own loneliness. Where is that misanthropy coming from? What happened to him? Is it just the autism and his repressed darkness which make him feel disconnected from the rest of the world or is there something else? What happened to him when he was a cop? He never talks about that.

[ankh-morporkianpostalworker]

Anatomy of a Hero - Samuel Vimes

He wanted to go home. He wanted it so much that he trembled at the thought. But if the price of that was selling good men to the night, if the price was filling those graves, if the price was not fighting with every trick he knew... Then it was too high. History finds a way? Well, it would have to come up with something good, because it was up against Sam Vimes now.

Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

Fantasy has created some truly remarkable characters, and it's fair to say that Samuel Vimes of the Discworld series is among them - and he's a personal favorite.

This is the first in a (sporadic) series of posts analyzing my favorite fantasy protagonists and what I think makes them work as characters and how they fit into their stories.

Samuel Vimes is the protagonist of eight of Terry Pratchett's seminal Discworld novels - specifically, Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, Thud!, and Snuff. These novels make up what is colloquially referred to as the City Watch series, and they answer the question "what if the city guard in a fantasy series got stuff done?"

Vimes is the head of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch and starts off as a parody of the drunken watch captain, literally waking up in a gutter at the start of Guards! Guards!. While it's obvious from the start that he has a sense of justice and a desire to see justice served, years of being beaten down by a city that doesn't need him anymore has left him at his lowest point. In fact, Guards! Guards! is about him getting her proverbial groove back and solving his first real mystery in ages.

We then see Vimes grow into a respected member of the community, transforming the City Watch from a joke (at the start of the series, it's four people) into a pillar of the City, an institution in its own right.

Vimes himself struggles with addiction throughout the series with the help of his wife, Sybil, and members of the Watch (especially his right-hand man, Carrot), going from alcohol to cigars to bacon sandwiches by the end of the series.

We also see how Vimes fits into the central theme of the City Watch - social inequality and the importance of overcoming it. Sam starts the series with a... not-great view of the non-human residents of the city of Ankh-Morpork (although this view is better described as general misanthropy than racism, with him distrusting anyone who isn't his wife or a member of the Watch). This view is changed as the series progresses - between the first two novels, a coalition of minority groups successfully sues the city of Ankh-Morpork for employment discrimination in government positions and Vimes is forced to allow non-human people into the Watch. He comes to recognize that these people are, well, people with value not only as people but as law enforcement officials. Twice, Vimes uses his social power to advocate for downtrodden species to be treated as people, with full rights and protections under the law - for golems in Feet of Clay and goblins in Snuff, and the City Watch becomes the most diverse organization in the entirety of Discworld.

The last thing I'll talk about is Vimes' aforementioned desire for justice. Night Watch gives us a view into the life of an early Sam Vimes (Vimes is sent back in time to just before the Glorious Revolution, a now-forgotten struggle against a despot) - indeed, in his youth Sam was a revolutionary, inspired by Sgt. John Keel (whom Vimes takes the place of after finding Keel dead). During this Revolution, young Sam Vimes witnessed a number of things that would impact him for the rest of his life, including the torture chambers of The Unspeakables, a secret police force who committed horrible crimes in the name of the public good and who act as the antagonists of the novel. The quote that started this essay comes from near the climax of the novel, and I think it really encapsulates that desire for justice and why Sam Vimes works as a protagonist - one of the best in fantasy.