#our sector

[pesura]

mood: Ben Klock & Fadi Mohem - Our Sector (feat. Flowdan)

[faceofpoe]

It's been 87 years and I'm still obsessed with the idea that this dude:

was meant to be a dark mirror of this dude:

whose personal 'dark mirror' experience is already his story from seasons 1 & 2

and despite the fact that all 3 standard CXs we meet are snipers:

but actually was also meant to foreshadow these fancy dudes:

despite his only unique traits from the first two operative dudes being... an arm band and an ankle pocket -

-and who we only discover 2/3 of the way through the season are on back order and that Hemlock is suddenly out of operatives after that one (1) who went after Senator Singh and CX-2 was sent to eliminate, who only then is apparently sent after Cid, despite the "notify all our operatives" line in 3.4 suggesting that multiple of these fuckers are going to be deployed in the hunt for Omega and Crosshair.

[acesknights]

Our ghost being in ghost therapy is killing me, both in a 'hooray someones in this game is actually getting therapy!' and in a 'oh my god?!?' way

[tangleendlessly]

(x)

[canisvesperus]

I’ve seen some discussion on this, so allow me to explain something.

Some people do not seem to grasp why artists like me draw so much fashionable Eridan. He’s not fashionable at all, just look at his canon outfit, they say. Well, it is simple. Eridan is one of the few trolls actually experimenting with fashion at a young age in the comic. Look me in the eye and tell me you too weren’t a hot mess trying to dress “fashionable” in middle school. Yet, chances are that if you had that awareness and drive early on, you will also develop a sense of style and grasp on aesthetics earlier in life compared to your peers. This was my experience. I was well known for being very stylish as a kid, but this didn’t happen overnight. Indeed, if you were one of these kids you most definitely started off with some odd or disharmonious clothing combinations that you threw together in an attempt to express yourself aesthetically despite inexperience in that type of self-expression. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I usually draw young adult Eridan. Obviously given some time, his tastes would develop and mature into something derived from those original aesthetic visions, but far more cohesive.

It’s clear he’s trying to assert his individualism and status in his clothing choices, and most of y’all shrug him off as having bad taste while not also foreseeing the intent and vision behind those choices. I see it, and so do other artists. We differ in how we portray this derivation because there are frankly a dozen different directions he could take it depending on the circumstances of the post-canon/fix it scenario. This is why you may see me refer to the Eridan in my depictions as “my Eridan”. I don’t presume to depict something identical to Homestuck proper, nor am I particularly interested in doing so. If you’re the type of person who is married to the events of canon and cannot consider a scenario involving an older Eridan who was allowed to grow and change, this is why we are not seeing eye to eye— and I’m certain this is the root cause of various other discourses as they pertain to portraying the character in post-canon fanworks. That’s fine. That’s your choice. My choice is different.

Eridan consistently demonstrates concern (an excess, really, which backfired for him in the cruelest of ways poor thing) with respect to how he is perceived, hence the consciously thought out image-crafting and classic Eridan façades that his own peers call him out on for being poorly executed, transparent, and otherwise not believable. They were kids. This is normal. Of course he doesn’t have himself figured out yet. It’s a process. Some people in this fandom believe his façade in the most literal and uncritical of ways but this is all a story for another day. Is his drip game shit though, without regards for fan interpretations? If you’re asking me, I don’t think it’s really that bad considering his age. I really don’t think it’s that bad. That kind of scarf with the cape is a bit much to wear around the neck. Maybe he’ll swap the big scarf for something similar in function and category but less top heavy— a cravat, jabot, bandana, or lavallière? If the cape is too overwhelming for the rest of the outfit, a smaller caplet, shawl, or a coat will work. To accommodate some of the alternative neckwear, a shirt with a collar would be preferable. What many people perceive as a turtleneck sweater, need not be entirely sacrificed. Put a sweater vest on that boy. I see lots of complaints about the shoes and pants. More discreet pinstripes and more formal shoes (field boots, paddock boots, oxfords) will work. Of course he can go in the opposite direction, less formal, in that case the cape can go and the long scarf can stay, get some cool sneakers, consider denim bottoms or casual slacks in a single color, accents welcome. However this isn’t the derivation I pursue so I feel less qualified to speculate. He could ditch all of it even. Start new and fresh especially if he were to go through a markedly subversive reclamation of identity and character redemption sort of process. In any case, he can work with it!!! You just have to believe in him.

I believe Eridan had a lot of narrative potential that was wasted, possibly out of disinterest for the character. It’s only predictable that artists like me simply want to devise a world in which these characters had a chance to actually live their lives. I truly do not understand why there has to be so much confusion over this. That‘s all.

[chrisrin]

some fun quick doodles of d&d pcs and npcs from the campaign i'm dming!

bonus! my little guy:

[lucentmothman]

Sure, I’m not particularly good at watercoloring. It’s been a long time since I’ve painted. But what better way to get back into it than painting a battle map for your D&Destiny players?

[twinkrespecter]

Do you live in a Parisian apartment or something?

oh no, where I live these kinds of apartments (built between 1870 and 1910) are rent controlled! They have pretty high ceilings cause that was the style at the time

[nexus-nebulae]

do you ever feel like a galaxy? one that’s just being born? is that why you call yourselves nebulae?

sort of! we like to use space metaphors for certain aspects of our system, so it was one of the words that seemed to fit the best out of anything. We have a lot of separated sidesystems (which would be solar systems, in the space metaphor) and subsystems (large planets with a lot of moons). Headmates without sub/side systems would be rogue planets, fragments would be asteroids, satellites, and other space debris. When fragments start coalescing into a full headmate we call them dwarf planets until they become fully formed. The gatekeepers that are in control of/in the center of certain sub/sidesystems are usually the stars or planets being orbited around.

Also, in our paracosm (which is linked to our innerworld and headspace), there's just a lot of interconnected worlds from different universes, which we all navigate through a system of portals and gateways that connect in a maze across the multiverse. A lot of our subsystems and sidesystems tend to live in separate areas of headspace/paracosm, so it's kind of like traveling through a galaxy with dozens of different planets to visit, like No Man's Sky or Outer Wilds or something (<- has not played either of those games, not sure if that's the right comparison? i think it is?). We keep trying to make maps but every time we do we get bored halfway through because of how many worlds and pathways there are

[helshades]

Could you please explain why people are so opposed to the pension reform? I'm trying to understand, but living in a country where you can retire at 67 but keep working until 70 if you wish, and everyone is fine with that, I feel I must have missed something.

(Happy to be sent resources if you don't want to make a writeup!)

Same anon as before, forgot to mention I read french so no trouble if you send me french articles or posts. (That is, if you answer the ask, if so thanks in advance!)

It's really not on you, but your Ask did depress me a tad. It aligned with many comments I've spotted across the media coverage of the current French crisis in foreign countries, and most public reactions to it. The worst ones are definitely racist, along the lines of mocking them French that never want to work, but I know the most benign to be genuine: how come the French get to retire so early in life still, and why are they protesting an apparently necessary, surely inevitable, evidently inexorable raise of the legal age for a full pension, when everybody else must retire later in life, which they deem to be entirely natural and normal?

I was about to ask you how did you think the French got to retire as early as 55–60 years of age not that long ago (62 today) if not because of their infamous propensity to go on strike and protest a lot in the first place—in truth I was debating with myself on the tone I should adopt to say it—when it struck me suddenly: the crucial part of your comment was not the age for legal retirement in your country... Rather, it was whether or not the people in your country really happen to be ‘fine with that’.

In late January, the man who modified the Swedish pension system twenty years ago, raising the retirement age to 65, was interviewed by French news outlet. Karl Gustaf-Scherman, who used to administer the Swedish social securty, had a recommendation for President Macron: ‘Don't you imitate us and apply our model.’ In reality, most Swedish people can't physically afford to wait till 65 to retire, and have to leave their careers without a full pension: according to a 2019 study ordered by the national retirement fund, 92% of female and 72% of male retirees saw their pensions diminish (and, consequently, their purchasing power) after Sweden opted for this new pension system based on capitalisation and an increase of the retirement age. ‘Mr. President, the only reform you should pass would be a reform à la française’, Gustaf-Scherman concluded.

Again: are you completely certain that in your country, everyone is fine with working till 67, even 70 years of age? How many factory workers do you know, in your entourage, people who spend all day on an assembly line? How many sewage workers do you know? How many nurses and orderlies still lifting patients at 65, how many masons and tilers dreaming of working past their 70th birthday? Do you think it fair to ask a person to retire five years after everyone else because they've known several periods of unemployment in their career, because of some economic recession or because they've had to give birth to the next generation of humans? Do you find it fine to die before you've reached the legal age of retirement with a full pension, never getting to spend quality time with your grandchildren or your friends or helping out at local associations?

Do you find it normal never to get a rest from work before you die?

It's not only that everyone ought to be allowed some respite after serving their country well by participating in producing the national wealth for forty odd years; it is also that all those neoliberal reforms aim to destroy the remnants of old socialised systems across Europe to replace them with a fully capitalised economy. In other words, the point is for the tenants of a globalised market economy to take control of the gross domestic products of each country, open them to speculative funds and get to play with all that wealth—with the systematic privatisation of national markets allowing for unlimited concurrence and speculation.

France's pension system is still partly based on non-wage labour costs that have allowed its nationalised portion to remain afloat and stable since the creation of the Social Security in 1946. Back then, la Sécurité sociale was actually intended to cover all risks of life, but even then the class war was raging on. The entire history of the Social Security centres on the boss class' attempt to snatch the fund's control from the hands of the workers themselves. The move has definitely accelerated within the last four decades (the Eighties have seen the rise of Neoliberalism, as per the Chicago School's teachings, for further illustration, look up Augusto Pinochet's Chile), somewhat exponentially since 2016's Labour Law, implemented when Emmanuel Macron was a youthful minister of Economy who really began tearing the country apart proper, notably to finance his upcoming presidential campaign. The merciless destruction of our once-protective Labour code truly was the point of entry of his Thatchering enterprise...

I reckon no president of the Republic has been as universally detested as most of the French people have come to loathe Emmanuel Macron. The basis of his electorate is a contingent of very wealthy people, most of whom elderly, who share economic interests in the destruction of national sovereignty in favour of privatisation, since they've got, precisely, shares in the big companies that are to profit from the change; and people who simply don't care about the future generations of pensioners.

Trouble is, if Macron got re-elected a year ago, it was only because votes were extremely divided between many parties and because of a successful campaign to hold far-right candidate Marine Le Pen as a compliant scarecrow , presented in all media as the only one opposition to Macron—which meant that all people had to do to oppose Macron would be to vote for her, as it was sure to scandalise the rich and the Woke... Then, all Macron would have to do, which he did, was to present himself as the only one true credible defence in front of the Fascist Menace. The recipe, which was actually brought to perfection in the early 1980s by to-be-president François Mitterrand (using Marine Le Pen's more sinister father, and founder of the National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen), is well and truly tried. Still, one of these days, she's going to get to presidency, and Macron will have been her best supporter.

[windienine]

oh! and i went to see a bread and puppet performance in my area last night. the artists and performers are really skilled! i came away very impressed and with a stronger desire to [act that would get me put on a list] and to keep supporting my community through organization and protest than ever before. the poetry readings especially were very moving, and the giant animal puppets have these striking expressionist deigns that have been present since the troupe's founding.

honestly the best part was that the audience had some very young kids who were answering every rhetorical question-- about existence, about war, about the future-- really earnestly, as they tried to wrap their heads around the nature of what was being asked. watching a kid's gears turn about that sort of thing for the first time is kind of magical.

[bigboobshaunt]

I am. So angry right now.

[chaotic-hypnotic-erotic]

My first foray of fiction into Independence Games' Clement Sector.

[zoldyckd]

took me a full week to apply for this one job bc they asked for some mini essays on top of a cover letter. which is fine ig. i don't have a portfolio anyway bc everything i did in my last two jobs always contained really sensitive info but.... god that was a lot. if i don't at least get an interview for this :/

[rotting-bones-will-sing]

"hey i think we might have zoochosis and have had it since we were a kid"

"no you're copying [mutual] who actually has it"

"okay, well, but we've been experiencing this since we were eight or so, it's just through [mutual] that we found the word to describe it, we have most of the common behaviors (chewing on our claws and skin till we bleed, pulling out our fur, picking at acne and scabs so they don't heal for weeks, chewing on our lips and inner cheeks till they bleed, almost constantly rocking back and forth, etc)--"

"you didn't find out on your own. copier. you just have multiple different BFRBs and stims that line up exactly with zoochosis."

"but--"

"no"

[dismalzelenka]

.