#nunnery life

[arcelian]

me, running out of the shower to post this: laios dungeonmeshi doesn't play video games because he's too busy posting about monsters on a 20-year-old nearly-dead forum with 5 other active users (and also kabru) (lurking) (how did he end up here, he asks himself daily)

one day the owner is gonna remember they're still getting charged for hosting this thing and finally pull the plug, but until then laios is thriving

[howifeltabouthim]

'I was educated in a nunnery. They taught me that the world is a dead place, that my body is a sin, and the only life that matters is the next one. But they lied. The world is alive, and there is no other life.'

Lev Grossman, from The Bright Sword

[arcelian]

yesterday I taught a French coworker the word 'shenanigans' and now he won't stop coming over and asking me how my shenanigans are going

[sealrock]

me and a friend were talking about thetinne (tauvane) and the possibility of her being half-elezen and how that'll affect her storyline

I'm still on the fence about this but look at that sweet face. thetinne in her younger years maybe

[knowthelessyouneed]

Tomorrow, I'm finally getting a hysterectomy for my endometriosis!

Please, send all your good vibes and intentions my way for new beginnings and life without this particular strife.

[mqfx]

has anyone here got any experience with confessing........ i do but i electively and surgically removed those memories from my mind so idk what to work with here.

[arcelian]

Also, it's totally possible for a section to not be plot-relevant but still be important to your overall writing. Ask yourself, is it really filler, or is it actually:

building an atmosphere

describing an important physical location

setting the tone or mood of the work or the scene

establishing or playing with genre conventions

engaging the reader's senses to draw them in

increasing tension in preparation for an upcoming scene

decreasing tension after/between important moments

making a character more interesting or appealing

building up an important character dynamic

fine-tuning or clearly stating character development

setting up or pulling off a callback or recurring theme

probably more that I'm missing...

If it's accomplishing even one of these things, it's not filler. There's no binary choice between 'plot' and 'useless.' Something can have barely any plot relevance at all and still be 100% integral to the work as a whole, and sometimes the little extraneous details can be the difference between a reader loving your work and walking away halfway through.

Working on my novel and couldn’t figure out why it felt so empty. I didn’t have any filler. It was all 100% plot. The characters only interacted when necessary. I didn’t prattle on about the scenery or how the birds sounded. I had all my fuller stuff that I loved saved in another file because I “didn’t need it”.

Y’all, I knew this existed in TV shows but it didn’t hit me until this that everything is being whittled down. We are so starving for filler that we snap up anything. I unload all mine on Tumblr or keep it in a massive Google Docs. It SUCKS.

Honestly? Death to plot necessity. Revive filler. Revive unnecessary interactions. Revive just vibing with characters sometimes. I don’t want to just consume the plot and I don’t want to just create the plot either.

[britneyshakespeare]

I am a very frequent offender of laughing harder than anybody else at my own jokes, but I am also a fan of the phenomenon when you tell a joke without thinking much about it and then it becomes funnier because of how much somebody else laughs at it.

Over a year ago now I was hanging out with my friends and we were talking about babytalk. Like, the way they babble incoherently before they can form basic words and it's just kind of inexplicable to a bystander by their parents know exactly what they're saying. Like a baby will be like ababasaaghaghaghaaba and you'll be like what could that possibly mean but their parent will be like "oh she just wants sweet potatoes" or something super else specific.

I said that someday my baby will be like ghaghaabababgagabgaa and I'll be like "oh he's just quoting Hamlet."

And that got like, you know, a medium sized laugh from the friends as it was supposed to, but then one of them specifically looked me in the eye and said "Wow. That was really an A+ joke" and I was like "What?" "Your baby quoting Hamlet."

"Oh. You're right I guess that is hilarious."

And I otherwise probably would've forgotten that joke but because that specific friend got such a kick out of it, I associate it with him, and every now and then I'll just think to myself: heh, that is funny. My little son quoting Hamlet.

[arcelian]

i actually think this is a problem that didn't start with genshin and vtubers - it's a bigger problem within game design as a whole. sort of the opposite vice from hyper-realistic game design, where the main characters of anime-style games get massively and unrealistically overdone while background characters are all super plain palette swaps of each other.

there's a couple reasons, probably - these games are usually 3d, which means the graphics team only has to make one 3d model and maybe a couple graphics instead of a bunch of hand-drawn sprites, and technology is powerful enough to support large, intricate models which means you can see all these little details instead of being limited by pixel size or polygon count. plus overarching trends in the gaming and anime(-adjacent) industries as a whole, with simultaneously a trend towards flashy design and a problem with understaffing, underpaying and crunch, means that it's just more efficient to make one or two basic body models and build cosmetics on top of them.

(not that i'm defending any of it; there are certainly plenty of games, especially from smaller developers, who have great design work with less resources! but i'd bet that's at least part of the process that lead to all of this.)

as to genshin and vtubers not being the source of the problem, you can look at a lot of long-running japanese game series* and compare character designs from their earlier and later installments and see similar problems. usually their individual game casts are smaller so the base-sharing isn't quite as egregious, but it's still pretty apparent that the design philosophy has shifted.

(*yes i know genshin isn't japanese, but it is openly inspired by japanese anime and games, so the comparison is still useful)

for example, the first game in the atelier series, atelier marie, was released in 1997, and its main character looked like this:

a fairly simple design, even with the boob window and the big dangly ornament thingys.

in-game, she looked like this:

tiny pixel sprite, but the design is simple enough that it's still readable. the portrait is just big enough to show the detail on her head... hat... thing, and that's it. (the rest of the cast got waist-up fullscreen portraits for dialogue, but this is a 1st person game so afaik marie just gets this little one in some menus.)

now the protagonist of one of the most recent games in the series, atelier ryza 2, from 2020:

yes this is the in-game model. yes her lovingly-rendered ultra-short-shorts and thigh-compression-from-leather-strap-directly-on-skin are in the game. that looks so uncomfortable.

also i just noticed she has a giant bulldog clip just... hanging off her coat? why.

anyway, as far as i can tell this game does all its dialogue through 3d cutscenes instead of with 2d portraits, which means they only had to make a couple pieces of finished artwork with this ridiculous thing: one piece they used as official character art and in the menus, and on the cover artwork for the game itself. (there's also some promotional art, but they don't always use the entire default outfit (see: inevitable beach/yukata promo art), so i'm not counting that.)

you can also look up the main casts of both games and see that, while there's still not a whole lot of variation in face and body structure in atelier marie, there's still more than in the atelier ryza games despite the much simpler designs. also, the sword-wielding female characters actually look like they can use a sword, which is a tragically low bar.

this is a lot of words about a game series i have never actually played!

but my point is: while gacha games like genshin certainly are the most egregious offenders, due to the business model being entirely 'churn out as much Content as quickly as possible in order to maximize profit', they certainly aren't the only ones or even the first ones to prioritize flashy paper-doll-style design over actual good character design principles. it's just a symptom of a much larger problem, that being the game industry in general's drive to maximize profits while discarding both good game design principles and the health of its workers.

genshin impact and vtubers have done irreparable damage to the state of character design

[fazcinatingblog]

I don't talk about this ever, but there was a really weird time in my life when I was about 21, and I was mutuals on Twitter with this really annoying guy (shall remain nameless obviously) who voted liberal and we'd argue about politics all the time (also he argued with everyone about politics and he hated Hilary Clinton), also he was Essendon so we'd argue about that as well and anyway he was hopelessly single and for some reason I also found him on tinder (he's bald and ugly) and for some reason I had his number (????) and we'd send like really dirty texts (no pictures but it was back in the day when I'd have to top up phone credit all the time and texts were 25 cents) and he was about 30-ish at the time and one day I thought yeah okay let's go on a date (???), so we went to Southland to see one of the Hunger Games movies but it was months after the release date so the session we wanted was already starting when we were queueing so last minute, we picked Avengers movie, also he was really tall, like ginormously tall, oh and he'd found out recently that it was my birthday two months before so he brought me a present, chocolates and a DVD of full house (his favourite TV show)

The movie was fine, great movie, we barely talked at all the entire time (he was so TALL), didn't touch each other at all thank God, I asked him a few questions like have you seen any Marvel movies before and he said iron man.

Then after the movie, we walked out and he said bye and I texted my dad to pick me up and I went out the front to wait for my dad and that's it, oh and then the guy never texted me for like a week???? I'm like well I guess I'm being ghosted lmao I don't even like him but also felt really upset by it all and then the new girl episode on channel 10 that week was the fancyman part 2 and honestly it was the most cathartic therapeutic relatable episode and with that, I was absolutely hooked on new girl. Oh and I did text/Twitter the dude again but we never made actual plans to hang out again and

This is the longest and most pointless story I'm so sorry Tumblr but imagine if that random tweet today was HIM (his name isn't Kenny though and he wasn't Asian either) like what if he thinks he could slide back into my messages lmao good luck with that, mate

[bloodandyearning]

no amount of mitski and catholic guilt tag can save me from how touch starved i am

[arcelian]

I just assumed Delicious in Dungeon was, like, the original English version of the name that the JP author gave it.

Actually, yeah, I googled it and it looks like the original JP printings have 'Delicious in Dungeon' printed on the front alongside the jp title all the way back to the first volume... this originated there. which feels right. the EN publisher's only crime was shrugging and keeping it unchanged.

I haven't picked up Dungeon Meshi yet, but I'm so mad on your guys's behalf the official English title is Delicious in Dungeon. Weakest and most pitiful title localization job I've ever seen, and I've lived through some shit. This is worse than Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts to me. More distracting than Case Closed. It's pathetic. Just keep it simple and call it Dungeon Cuisine. If you're married to the alliteration call it Dungeon Dining. Dungeons, Drive-Ins & Dives. Even just Delicious Dungeon or Dungeon Delicious, even Deliciousness in the Dungeon would be less stupid. Dungeon Delicacies? I'm fucking begging you. Who okayed Delicious in Dungeon? Nothing was asked of you and you delivered less than nothing.

[arcelian]

every single time I see a new Lego Friends set i am reminded that lego is the only company doing Unnecessarily Gendered Toylines correctly

[rhanylssitagpa]

Throwback: Chi Lin Nunnery

Circa 2016 One of the buildings in Hong Kong’s Chi Lin Nunnery. I’ve said before that whenever I travel, I always make it a point to visit the local churches if there’s any. The same goes with temples. I love the architecture of those buildings and I’m always in awe of the history they contain. Chi Lin is a wonder to behold. I love the stillness of the place. Definitely one of the places I…

[haggishlyhagging]

The New Testament scarcely mentions Mary. She is brought into the story mainly to emphasize Jesus's divine conception and birth. Her presence is noted once or twice, but little is made of it. In the centuries that followed, however, Mary was exalted to ever-higher positions of glory. She is the subject of many of our most famous and beautiful works of art. In light of what we have learned about the Goddesses of the ancient Near East, it is interesting that Mary is shown not only as the Madonna with her child, but standing on the crescent moon or with stars circling her head. She takes on many of the ancient Goddess symbols and is often painted as a larger-than-life figure. She is also shown being crowned Queen of Heaven, absorbing the title of the Goddess. It may be that the need of the people for a female deity was so great that the Christian Church might not have survived without the elevation of Mary to this exalted position. We need to look carefully, however, at just what aspects of the Goddess Mary was allowed to retain and what the results were in the lives of women.

Mary was taken up to heaven and seated with god the father and his divine son Jesus. She became the main intercessor between human beings and the divine. She was called Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, but she was not made a full-fledged member of the Godhead. The Church used her to satisfy the need for a female presence in Christianity but also to keep women in a subordinate position. Her purity as a virgin was exalted and women were taught to strive for that purity and to obey the divine (male) will. At the same time she is, of course, a mother, and women were taught to bear as many children as possible. But Mary did it while remaining a virgin; other women, in order to be mothers, must be tainted by sexuality. If they remain pure they cannot be like Mary the Mother; if they become mothers they cannot be like Mary the Virgin. No matter what they do they are guilty and inferior.

Mary's stance is: "Let it be to me according to your word." She is passive, obedient, and pure. She sits on a throne but has little power, certainly none of the power or independence of the earlier Goddesses or their free sexuality. Nevertheless, the doctrine of her virginity gave women a way out of the role of submissive wife and bearer of children. When the cult of Mary was at its height, thousands of women escaped into convents, communities of women. There they developed skills and talents in the arts and in the administration of large estates. Many abbesses wielded significant power and controlled sizable amounts of wealth.

It is interesting that, just as the veneration of Mary reached its height in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Protestant Reformation reasserted the dominance of the male divinities. One of Luther's major reforms was the closing of nunneries, and Mary is notably absent from all formulations of Protestant theology and ritual. Whereas Catholic women have suffered from their attempts to imitate an impossible model, Protestant women have had no exalted female model of any kind. Mary's presence has been used by the Catholic Church to reinforce the subordination of women, and her absence has been used by Protestantism to reinforce their insignificance.

-Shirley Ann Ranck, Cakes for the Queen of Heaven

[arcelian]

i've always assumed that that's where it came from (html), that /s originally meant 'end sarcasm' as an extension of </i>, for example, meaning 'end italics'. which is why it goes at the end of the phrase instead of the beginning

if i remember correctly, /s was used in livejournal comments (and probably other places too) to indicate the snarky reply was over and the next bit was the actual serious reply, which would fit with the above origin

what do you think of tone indicators in general?

unfortunately my thoughts on tone indicators are somewhat nuanced. fortunately, this is tumblr not twitter, so I can just write out my full thoughts in one post and be as verbose about it as feels necessary.

speaking as an autistic person (and I know there are other autistic people who don't hold this same view, this is just my perspective), I think as an accessibility tool, the extended set tone indicators in current popular use is fundamentally misguided.

the oldest ones, /s for sarcasm and /j for jokes, make sense. their notation isn't the most intuitive thing ("does /s mean sarcastic or serious?") but it's not too difficult to explain what they mean. I've had to spend my whole life learning by brute force what different tones of voice mean and what they change about how I'm supposed to interpret something, so I already know what "read this in a sarcastic voice" and "read this as a joke" are supposed to mean. my existing skills can be translated into the new form without too much effort.

the same thing applies to emoji and emoticons. I know what facial expressions mean, because I had to learn what they mean. figuring out if :) is sincere or not from context is a skill I've already needed to develop. it doesn't come naturally for me, but it's something I already at least somewhat know how to do.

most of the tone indicators in current use uh. don't work like this.

tone indicators like /ref or /nbh don't correspond to specific tones of voice. I don't have a "I'm making a reference" voice or a "I'm not talking about a person who's here" voice that I can picture the sentence being read in. these do not indicate tones, they're purely disambiguators. they clarify what something means without necessarily changing how it would be read out loud.

and on paper, that's fine, right? like, it's theoretically a good thing to take an otherwise ambiguous statement and add something to it that clarifies what you meant by it. the problem is that these non-tone tone indicators are not even remotely self-explanatory. it's up to me, the person who is being clarified to, to know what all these acronyms are supposed to mean, and how they change the way I'm supposed to interpret what something means.

it's, quite literally, a newly-invented second set of social cues that I'm expected to learn separately from the set that I've already spent my whole life figuring out, and it works completely differently.

sure, these rules are (in principle) less arbitrary than the rules of facial expressions and tones of voice and how long you're supposed to wait before it's your turn to speak, but they're also fully artificial and recently invented, which means they're currently in a constant state of flux. tone indicators go in and out of fashion all the time, and the "comprehensive lists" are never helpful.

in theory, I appreciate the idea of people going out of their way to clarify what they mean by potentially ambiguous things they post online. if it worked, that would be a really nice thing to do.

however, sometimes I imagine what the internet would be like without them. what if instead of using /s, the expectation was that if you're sarcastic online there's no guarantee that strangers reading your post will know what you meant? what if instead of inventing more and more acronyms to cover every possible potentially confusing situation, we just... expected one another to speak less ambiguously in the first place?

so, I on paper like the idea of tone indicators. I think it's good that some people are trying to be considerate by being extra clear about what they mean by things. but if tone indicators didn't exist, and people who wanted to be considerate in this way instead just made a point of phrasing things more clearly to begin with, I think that would be vastly preferable to even the most well-implemented tone indicator system.

also /pos sucks because there's something deeply and profoundly wrong for an abbreviation that means "I don't mean this as an insult, don't worry" to be spelled the same way as an acronym that's an insult