#maybe i should use tumblr more for this stuff.....

[juh-wasnt-deactivated19691231]

tumblr note: this is a living document. Tap the original post header to see the most updated version.

a weary traveler’s guide to the poison bogs of tumblr

welcome to the land that cannot be killed in a way that matters. we have plenty of in-jokes, but this post isn’t about sightseeing: it’s about survival. there are many things to be wary of.

bots, nefarious

most of our evildoers appear to be automated. they spread lies and hate, but mostly they spread inflammatory language, with the goal of wasting your time and making you mad. often you’ll see that these blogs have no pfp, or they are Single Issue Bloggers, or they leave an inflammatory comment on everything they share. block and move on.

bots, annoying

i would classify the gazabots, pornbots, and thirst traps here. gaza is a real tragedy, but the bots sending spam aren’t helping. porn is wonderful, but the bots are scams. the thirst traps have little substance to them, but they must exist for some greater purpose—i think they metamorphose into full-fledged scams or maybe evildoers later in their lifecycle? block and move on.

terfs and other fascists, human

similar to the nefarious bots, but seemingly more human. this does not change their goals or my recommendations, though. they are not here with an open mind, and you cannot reason with fascism, because it has no root in reason. block and move on. do not engage.

morality

mos eisley cantina is our spiritual ancestor. this is the “lying, cheating, and stealing for fun are good and morally correct and you should do them always” website, at its extreme. there are folks who think you shouldn’t hold a food sharing program unless all of the food is stolen. BUT there are also folks who just think sharing is good. we really run the gamut here. trust your gut, you can ask questions once in a while, but don’t be surprised if a stranger bites your head off. understand that if something seems fishy, there’s a good chance it is, and you need to factor that into how much thought you give their statements and how much you care about the discussion.

on that note

yeah so tumblr is a very queer place (in spite of its management, as with everything else we do). there’s a lot of pro-queer stuff, there’s occasionally someone who thinks they’re pro-queer but would get mad at me for using the term “queer” for some reason (? block and move on, or point and laugh, dealer’s choice). if you are not some form of Not The Default, or if you just feel Too Normal, it’s okay. i am personally granting you permission to be here and to have fun. if someone has a problem with that, block and move on, or even just ignore it. a lot of people here are not good at conveying their points, a lot of people are angry, and we are famous for our piss-poor reading comprehension. don’t take it personally. they’re just Like That.

seriousness

most of tumblr ranges from neutral to deeply unserious. if someone’s discussing a heavy topic or making sense, they might be serious, we do have some of that, and sometimes there’s really good things to see here. but don’t expect a whole lot of Genuine Discourse and Thoughtful Discussion on average, unless you find your way into those circles. i tagged a post #christianity once and my notes were clogged with people having philosophical discussion about forgiving satan and it was weird.

argument

I once saw advice here that said, some people like arguing, and others don’t. If you like arguing, it’s super important to find other people who enjoy arguing, so that you can have your stimulating discussions with them, without totally burning out your friends who just want to get along. this really cleared up a lot of things for me, and i saw the light. (it turns out i don’t like arguing)

the bottom line

you’re here to have fun! so do that. our motto is “do whatever you want forever.” if you’re not having fun, take a step back to wonder why. you don’t have to post, or comment, or add tags, or even like the posts. you can just scroll if you want. if you like interaction, you can curate a blog (original posts and reblogs) that you like or that you think other people will like. my blog is mostly shitposting, cats, and advice, and sometimes computer things, but i moved most of that to my datacenter blog. you can send asks, you can receive asks (but don’t be disappointed if you never get any—most of us don’t. be the change you wish to see in the world!). understand that there is no Algorithm, and the only way to find something is to tag it and remember that tag later. godspeed mooncat.

further reading

[rosy-crow]

On one hand, I need to calm the fuck down about Sephiroth and stop giving into Twitter to debate lore. I KNOW I’m better than this lmao.

On the other hand, I see people genuinely angry about “how Crisis Core ruined Sephiroth by killing part of his agency through Genesis,” and “how having friends made him less cool,” and “how all the Compilation is humanizing him too much and taking away his mystery,” and “how he went evil for no reason,” and “how he was always an asshole that saw himself as superior to others and only broke down because he found out he wasn’t all that.”

I see unironic worship of “canon” traits he has that apparently mark him as a perverted alpha daddy dom sex god instead of the actual raging, delusional murderer with a loathing for all life he becomes for a reeeeeeeally key and important reason.

I see remarks like “I hate how First Soldier is ruining my favorite character and taking away more of his agency,” when said “favorite character” is Sephiroth’s most surface-level traits as a villain with no further depth and he has to be cool and perfect 100% of the time or else he isn’t Sephiroth anymore and he’s suddenly “badly written.”

That’s not the same character.

Yes, I know.

Why am I mad that one of the most beautifully designed and canonically objectified and powerfully portrayed and sensually voiced and thirstily fawned over characters in video game history is being reduced to singular traits???

I don’t know.

How can I demand the luxury of rage when faced with such odds.

What did I expect.

Yeah, this one’s on me.

[dreamdripdistance]

hey why do i work myself up into like genuine panic attack levels of anxiety over just the most stupid shit. rude

[britneyshakespeare]

Should I ignore Man or should I hear him out

[gigifujijifu]

Anyone else remember the little 88x31 buttons from older internet days? I've been remembering them a lot lately.

I make ffxiv ones in msp when I'm in queue or my bf is flying me around between quests.

[spacespore]

HI TUMBLRR it’s me

[supertinytins]

mass mcsr migration to bluesky is wild im getting follows from people ive never interracted with and i didnt think even knew i existed

[edge-oftheworld]

when I was in high school there was a tendency whenever there was an attractive boy to simply fan over him. in a way that talked over everything he might say for himself and created a narrative that completely ignored, the fact in some cases, that he was really struggling—or if he was struggling, to pin all the blame on the girl he’s dating and completely ignore the thousands of other factors (no it can’t be mental illness or unaccommodated disability or systemic abuse or exploitation and if he is in an abusive relationship we won’t ever consider the factors that put him at risk for that)

and I’m not saying this fandom is like that. I get the need for privacy around some things and how in public conversations sometimes it’s a lot more respectful to stick to the positives (everyone who does that, I admire you) or even the struggles that are talked about publicly, show respect by not reading too far into them. there’s a time and place for that. but sometimes I feel like our only options are shitty and ableist gossip or totally ignoring the systemic and structural issues we know exist in something like the music industry until someone dies and then we’re looking for someone to blame. friends, there is a point where the respectful thing is to listen to what someone says and come together to make things better. and you can learn how to have that conversation respectfully. please do

[baking-bugs]

spruced up my theme & about page a tiny bit with images =-) tried adding a new cursor too but it doesn't appear to show. Sad !

[bbeeohazardd]

i NEED more acrylic charm keychains

[emerynn]

In a post that was… a long time ago, you put in the tags:

“i JUST wrote an essay on this omfg i have SO many thoughts about sir gawain and the green knight”

The post was about how Gawain literally had no way to win in SGATGK. You were talking in the tags about shame culture and the instability of the moral culture and symbols and identity and the like, and I was wondering….Do you have a link to that essay or something?

If not then that’s totally fine, I just ALSO have many thoughts on sir Gawain and the green knight and love not only the poem but the essays and academic articles and stuff surrounding it, and that essay honestly sounds really interesting and cool! So I thought I’d ask, but yeah!

Hey Anon! First of all, thanks so much for coming into my inbox to talk Sir Gawain with me - a very unexpected but very welcome surprise! I'd completely forgotten about that post I reblogged, but yeah, I took a Middle English paper in my second year of uni, and the Sir Gawain essay was my favourite one to research all term. It's just such a fun poem, and like you said, there's so much great discussion to delve into for it. It's been a little while since I thought about it though, so it's so fun to have a reason to shift my brain back into medieval mode again!

It was just a weekly essay (we had to write an essay each week on a different text/author/group of texts), so it was rather frantically researched and wasn't something I was able to spend loads of time on. I don't think I came to any particularly new or interesting conclusions, and I didn't post it anywhere or anything. That said, given that it's pretty short, I'm happy to copy and paste it here for you if you'd like to read it! Like all my uni essays, it was written the day before the deadline in a slightly sleep deprived haze, so it's not the best thing written on Gawain by a long shot, but it'd be lovely to have someone outside of my supervisor read it! Obviously just please don't use it anywhere or plagiarise it, but I assume that goes without saying lol

If you do get around to reading it, I'd love to hear your thoughts! But no pressure at all ofc - honestly it's just super nice to be asked! I'll put it below a read more, along with my sources - thanks again for the lovely message anon :)

‘For man may hyden his harme,   bot unhap ne may hit, For there hit ones is tached   twynne wil hit never.’ What do you understand to be the meaning and significance of Gawain’s last words?

Despite Gawain's confidence in asserting the green gridle as a signal of his fundamentally flawed nature, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight deliberately complicates the reader's ability to interpret the girdle - and by extension, the poem's moral - in such easy metaphorical terms. Gawain's initial symbol, the pentangle, embodies an honour system which sees morality as intertwined with reputation, making Gawain's apparent goodness into a static symbol whose worth depends on its ability to be interpreted by others. By replacing it with the girdle, the poem alludes to the instability of a community-based chivalric moral code. In offering the reader multiple interpretations of the girdle, with Gawain's held in no higher narrative esteem than Arthur's or the Green Knight's, the poem suggests the limitations of relying on community for moral validation, which ultimately leads to a performance rather than practice of morality, and therefore stunts any opportunity for personal growth.

Gawain’s certainty in labelling the girdle a metaphorical scar, to ‘remorde to myselven/ The faut and the fayntyse of the flesch crabbed’ (2434-35), is immediately challenged by two alternative perspectives – the Green Knight’s, and Arthur’s.[1] The Green Knight suggests Gawain take the girdle as little more than a trophy, ‘a pure token/ Of the chaunce of the Grene Chapel at chivalrous knightes.’ (2398-99), ‘pure’ acting in direct antithesis to the charge of sin that Gawain lays against it. Arthur and the court, meanwhile, have an emotionally opposed reaction to Gawain, greeting his morose confession by ‘Laughen loude thereat’ (2514), and appropriating Gawain’s symbol of personal shame into one of communal honour: ‘For that was accorded the renoun of the Rounde Table,/ And he honoured that hit had evermore after.’ (2519-20). The poet presents the reader with three inharmonious definitions, with no individual appearing the obvious source of authority. Thus, Gawain’s attempt at using the girdle to signify a universal truth in his aphoristic statement, ‘man may hyden his harme, but unhap ne may hit’ (2511) is radically undermined. Through offering, and refusing to discredit, alternating interpretations, the Gawain-poet makes his own description of the girdle’s ‘abelef as a buderyk bounden by [Gawain’s] side’ (2485) ironic in the passivity of its phrasing – Gawain may say that ‘unhap ne may hit’, but Arthur’s swift reinterpretation of the girdle repositions it from absolute symbol to simply a belt that Gawain has tied to suit his subjective purposes, and may just as easily untie. This ending marks a significant transformation for the reader’s understanding of the Romantic world Gawain inhabits, previously one in which symbols and epithets can be interpreted to indicate moral truth about an individual; a transition made clear in the movement from the pentangle as Gawain’s symbol, which Ralph Hanna describes as ‘the emblem of a world where meaning is clear and exemplary’ to the girdle, ‘to which meaning must be assigned’.[2] The Gawain-poet upholds the pentangle for its symbolic potential, pausing the narrative to interject, ‘And why the pantangel apendes to that prince noble/ I am in tente you to telle’ (623-24). The and the details provided in relation to the pentangle – ‘Hit is a synge that Salomon sette sumwhyle’ (625)’, ‘Englych hit callen/ Overal, as I here’ (629-30) appeal to the desire for a symbol with absolute meaning. The interpretation that follows of the pentangle’s application to Gawain, representing his five virtues, associates the accuracy of historical and linguistic information about the symbol with the apparently also objective information it relays about Gawain’s moral character. As Putter and Stokes suggest, ‘ethics and aesthetics come very close together in this poem’; in a reputation-based society, a kind of metaphorical vision is encouraged, which allows symbols like Gawain’s pentangle to be correctly interpreted as indicative of his nature.[3] Thus, the Gawain-poet provides the reader with the girdle as an alluring signification of an absolute moral truth, only to complicate this moral to such an extent that the girdle comes to signify the opposite, replacing the pentangle’s moral idealism and certainty with the suggestion that morality may be subjective.

Fitting to his interpretation of the girdle, the Green Knight disdains the kind of performative morality that underlies the reputation-based structure of Arthur’s court, associating it with the pride he has apparently come to test. Thus, he announces, ‘What, is this Arthures house […]. That all the rous rennes of thurgh ryalmes so mony? Where is now your sorqudrye and your conquests[..]/?’ (309-311). The Green Knight’s condescending tone relies upon the inevitable tension between the hyperbolic tales he is aware of, and the disappointing reality. There is a metatextual element to this speech, as the contemporary reader, too, would have heard tales of Arthur’s court’s ‘conquests’, and thus what is within the text a challenge to the pride of Arthur’s court becomes an implicit challenge of the implausibility of the Romance genre. As Ad Putter suggests, in Sir Gawain, the poet appears to deliberately use this fantastical genre to pose ‘an interpretative challenge […] how can we take it seriously?’[4] His response is to explore the psychological ramifications of existing as a character within this canon. As Gawain’s despair at the end of the poem indicates, this mythological society in which reputation is paramount has a fragile moral core. When Gawain flinches during the beheading scene, the Green Knight chastises him by saying ‘Thou art not Gawan’ (2270), alluding to his famed reputation. But what this truly reveals is that no one can be ‘Gawan’, who would not fear his head under a falling axe – within a genre predicated on hyperbolic acts of knightly courage, the Gawain-poet radically asserts the humanity that underlies Gawain’s character and makes living up to his generic reputation impossible. In doing so, the poem not only further undercuts Gawain’s shame at not fulfilling this reputation, but it discredits the entire notion of morality based on chivalry – based, fundamentally, on how good one is judged to be by others, rather than by an internalised moral compass. As A.C. Spearing suggests, the ramifications of this society manifest in a ‘criteria of conduct […] not fully internalized’: thus, Gawain ‘fails to recognize’ that his initial retention of the girdle ‘is a sin’ until it infringes on his reputation – that being, until the Green Knight reveals his knowledge of it.[5] Like Arthur, who responds to the Green Knight’s challenge of the court’s reputation by blushing – ‘The blod schotte for schame into his schyre face’ (317), Gawain, caught out in his lie, feels ‘All the blod of his brest blende in his face,/ That all he schrank for schame’ (2371-72). Their identical responses betray how Gawain’s embarrassment at his contradicted reputation, rather than actual feelings of moral guilt, lie at the core of the shame he associates with the girdle.

The poem thus exposes the flaws of a communal morality system, in which morality becomes more rigid and absolute – either the individual does, or does not, maintain their idealised reputation. Hence, Gawain’s assertion that if he is flawed, he must be fundamentally flawed: ‘Now am I fauty and false, and ferde have ben ever’ (2382). In this sense, the poem’s ending is further unsettling, as Arthur’s absorption of the girdle as a performance piece into the mythos of the court signifies his ignorance as to the dangers of this [MS1] structure. He continues to assume an externalised identity predicated on reputation, and as such, will continue not to scrutinise himself internally. Gawain may view the girdle as a metaphor for shame, and Arthur for honour, but, as David Aers notes, ‘none of this is of much consequence since nothing much will change anyway’; the absolutism of the Arthurian court prevents moral development.[6] The poem’s ending becomes bathetic, as the self-destruction inherent to the Arthurian court is stressed in the characters’ ignorance to their need for moral progression. Indeed, this is made all the more tragic as Gawain has already demonstrated within the poem that he can progress towards his idealised reputation, even if he can never truly fulfil its requirements. When he initially places his head down to receive the Green Knight’s blow, Gawain ‘[shrinks] a little with the schulderes for the scharp yrne’ (2267). As the Green Knight notes, such an act is contrary to his hyperbolically brave reputation, as ‘Gawan […] that is so good holden,/ That never arwed for no here.’ (2270-71). However, Gawain’s response demonstrates his ability to grow towards this role, as he determines not to flinch a second time, and successfully ‘graythly hit bides and glent with no member’ (2292). As Ralph Hanna suggests, the beheading scene is heavily charged with symbolism connoting rebirth, from the New Year setting, to the description of Gawain ‘Never syn that he was burn born of his moder/ [….] half so blythe’ (2320-21), to the spilling of his blood onto white snow, which Hanna calls ‘a tabula rasa on which Gawain must learn to write what he […] is now.’[7] If Gawain has emerged from a metaphorical death morally absolved and able to discover himself anew, then the positive potential of this revelation is immediately squandered in his curt refusal of Bertilak’s invitation back to his castle. His identity is still wholly externalised, and therefore his first instinct upon gaining an apparent greater self-understanding is to return to the court to vocalise it.The Arthurian court has a holistic and restrictive grip on individual identity in Sir Gawain, inescapable not because there is no opportunity to do so, but because the knights themselves – represented in Gawain and Arthur’s definitions of the girdle as still performatively signalling their reputations, just as the pentangle did – are ignorant of the very ways in which their potential is stunted by the structures they inhabit.

In showing the multiple, often conflicting meanings the girdle is given, the poem uses Gawain’s quest of self-discovery to destabilise the very moral structure at the core of the Arthurian court. In doing so, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight suggests the limitations of an external moral compass, and instead encourages the cultivation of the kind of more nuanced, internalised mortality that Gawain fails to realise.

Sources I quoted from: These are definitely worth reading in their own rights, since they express everything I had to say, and do so far better than second-year me ever could! You might have already read it, but if not, I'd particularly recommend the Spearing. I loved his interpretation, and it ended up forming most of the basis for my argument.

[1] The Works of the Gawain Poet: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, ed. by Ad Putter and Myra Stokes (London: Penguin Classics, 2014), p.401; all further references to this text will be made in the body of the essay.

[2] Ralph Hanna III, ‘Unlocking What’s Locked: Gawain’s Green Girdle’, Viator, 14 (1983), 289-302 (p.290).

[3] Putter and Stokes, ‘Foreword to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, The Works of the Gawain Poet, p.246.

[4] Ad Putter, An Introduction to the Gawain Poet (London; New York: Longman, 1996), p.45.

[5] A.C. Spearing, The Gawain-Poet; A Critical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp.224- 25.

[6] David Aers, ‘Christianity for Courtly Subjects: Reflections on the Gawain-Poet’ in A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, ed. by Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 1997), p.99.

[7] Hanna, pp.295-96.

[fake-ascension]

me, wondering why ive been having panic attacks at night recently

[crescentfool]

bonerattle arena fucks severely. i was not expecting it to rival my love for jammin' salmon junction, but wow. this map feels like a love letter to people who love and enjoy salmon run. (i ended up playing the rotation for around 3.5 hours... which you can watch here if you like!)

the map's circular shape on normal/high tide effectively makes the spawns from this map come from every angle. it's a test of awareness and movement skill- and the walls + inkrails really, really make rotating around the map feel so fluid and easy.

and low tide's hexagonal two-ring design is so fascinating too! instead of testing movement, it tests your team's ability to make judgment calls on luring and making sure you don't overwhelm basket from luring too much.

i also feel that every special in salmon feels really rewarding to use on this map- even reefslider! i've played enough to see that most specials bring so much utility and value, and i just love that no special feels like it's "useless" on this map.

there's also a few flyfish tech on this map that echoes the bomb tricks on jammin' salmon junction and spawning grounds (and i guess gone fission too), it feels really intuitive on what spots can pop two baskets at once (it's the grates and the rails) and i just? feel really rewarded for playing as much salmon as i do.

i feel that the map's inclusion of the ink rail mechanic evokes a lot of similar vibes to ruins of ark polaris- and i really liked that! there's definitely some things i want to fine tune and understand better about them, but they're really fun.

i still need to see how other weapons feel on this map, but it feels like both mobile and stationary weapons can exceed here- there's nice perches for long range weapons, lots of walls for quick weapons to use to escape situations... it's so swag...! a very good final map, i think!

[carcinized]

i have srsly had irl queer people make fun of me for being queer + liking sports and tell me that is like, not gay or something. like ok just say youre chronically online. womens soccer is the queerest thing i have ever been a part of hands down. also youre an awful person

[arcadequeerz]

Made a Cohost. It's @/liminal.

[friendlysailor]

Ahoy!

I'm currently sailing the oh so rough seas that is exam time, so I'm going to be away for a bit longer. I just once again have to express how happy I am every time i see interactions with this blog, even though I've been very inactive recently. It really has helped strengthen and keep up my resolve in wanting to help make digital privacy, piracy and computer knowledge more accessible for as many as I can. So again, a big THANK YOU to you all for being here!

I've been considering if there would be any interest in me trying to create a more in-depth resource for finding ways to improve your quality of live when using computers and the like?

While my first thought was a simple list, I know that those can get overwhelming really quick. So I've been playing around with the idea of a "clippy"-like addon to the blog that can offer you directions to common issues (such as, "How do i remove the 'search on the web' results on Windows 10?", "What browser-addons should I have?" and "How to speed up YouTube on FireFox?"). I think I would also want to have it be accessible through a GitHub-page, so that mobile-users also could easily access it, and so you all have other options than to only have it accessed through a Tumblr blog.