#people are allowed to refer to their own issues with whatever terminology they want

[sodacowboy]

people are allowed to be annoying people are allowed to be cringe people are allowed to be annoying people are allowed to be cringe

[tptruepolitics]

LGBT Thoughts

Netflix has recently decided to push transgender ideologies in their Babysitters Club series – a show directed at adolescent girls. While Netflix – an independent company that should only have to answer to itself and its shareholders – is perfectly within their rights to air such shows, the fact remains that this is a deeply damaging topic to be showcasing to the most vulnerable and malleable among us. I think it’s time we finally address the enormous elephant in the room: the LGBT community. Here I will break down my thoughts on their rights, their roles, and their realities in our society.

For much of history, there have been documented incidences of same-sex encounters. Even the Bible makes reference to same-sex relations numerous times. The word sodomy is actually originated from one such text from Genesis in reference to the city of Sodom. Shakespeare is even rumored to have been gay by some scholars. However, for most of human existence, these individuals were forced to live in secret – outcasts of society, ostracized by their own people. To be perfectly fair, religious extremism has only contributed to the past 2-4 thousand years of ridicule. Before that, it was still frowned upon (at best) by most cultures simply because it went against the laws of nature. Male and female animals and even plant parts reproduce in union with one another. There are no same-sex reproductive organisms to my knowledge (correct me if I’m wrong). There are asexual organisms that reproduce by themselves, but certainly no major animal species that reproduce in any extraordinary way. There is a certain species of bird, I believe, that lives in Hawaii (once again, correct me if I’m wrong) that sometimes chooses a same-sex partner for life in the absence of a proper mate, but this is certainly an exception, not a rule. To add, they do not reproduce together.

But what does all this mean for humans? How should the “laws of nature” or even God’s laws apply to humans in this age of constant progressivism and an increasing detachment from religiosity that we call secularism? Well, thankfully, in our country and many around the world we are allowed the freedoms to live our lives as we see fit as long as they don’t infringe on the rights and liberties of others. So, if someone chooses to live outside the bounds of religious or natural laws, they certainly should be allowed to, as long as they are minding their own business. This concept of allowing homosexuality was highly contested up until the late 20th century, and is still somewhat contested today in 2020. The original founders felt that upholding moral and ethical truths in our school systems were an integral part of maintaining our precious union. As a matter of fact, the often-misrepresented “separation of church and state” clause did not mean that religion could not be learned about in schools, but that the federal government had no right to establish a State religion (capital S). Most of the founders actually encouraged religious teachings and values in schools. The more modern interpretations of the separation of church and state are due to an influx of not only secular ideologies, but also religious beliefs that were not prevalent during the time of our founding. While I am a firm believer that no harm can come from learning about religious values in schools, in this age of progressivism it is reasonable to note that certain contentious religious principles need not be forced upon others. This would be a clear infringement of the separation of church and state.

So, to get specific, let’s talk homosexuality. A common misconception in the eyes of secularists is that the Church (I’ll speak specifically about Catholicism here) preaches that homosexuality is a sin – that simply being gay is a sin against God. Well, this isn’t true. The Church expressly teaches that acting out homosexual fantasies is a sin. Let’s say, you are a man who is attracted to other men, but in your devotion to your religion, you find a woman whom you love, marry her, and live your life without having sex with another man. Is this man sinful, because he finds men attractive? Of course he is not! When you feel like strangling someone, but then you calm down and don’t, are you guilty of murder? No. So, simply being gay is not a sentence to Hell. As a matter of fact, even in the eyes of the Church, acting on your homosexual impulses isn’t a death sentence. There is reconciliation and forgiveness in the eyes of the Lord. If you confess your sin and repent for it, you are seen as forgiven. Not to mention, there are people who sin in every aspect of life: liars, swindlers, thieves, murderers – and I’m not even just talking about big sins. Small sins add up, and if you are not repentant of them, you are not any more likely to get to Heaven. However, I will paraphrase this, but I believe there is a Scripture saying that says you will be judged by your worst qualities. So, if you work hard your whole life to be a good Christian, and your only flaw is that you are a wonton whore, a light will be shown on this most vulnerable area.

You might be thinking to yourself, “but it’s a genetic mutation that causes some people to like members of the same sex. God would not have built natural urges in us if he didn’t want us to act on them.” Well, that’s just ridiculous. We have natural urges and desires that are built into us that we are meant to fight off all the time: anger, greed, and jealousy to name a few. Lust is just one more urge that is built into our nature, and it happens to come in all shapes and sizes. Our animalistic desire is not only to have as much sex as possible, but to have it with as many things as possible. Evidence of this is your dog, if you have one. Dogs will regularly hump humans due to a natural urge they have. Should the dog be doing this? Should humans all of a sudden be accepting of bestiality? Maybe don’t answer that one. Now that I’ve gotten a bit off topic, I’ll try to bring this all back. Yes, acting on your homosexual desires is a sin in many Christian churches. However, your homosexuality does nothing to harm me or my church, and as such, I believe firmly that if you wish you act on those temptations, you should be legally allowed to.

Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual peoples should not be deprived of their right to happiness, which can include uniting themselves in lawful union. That being said, I would like to advocate for an alteration in the name of the union. With the full rights, advantages and privileges of a married male and female couple, I would like to revoke the name “gay marriage” and return to the previously used “civil union” terminology. Marriage is a religious term that has been secularized over decades to include all unions whether inside or outside of a church between a man and a woman. I propose that all unions made outside of the boundaries of a religious ceremony be labeled civil unions, reserving the term marriage to those unions made within the boundaries of a religious ceremony. Civil unions will differ from Marriages in name only as to lay to rest the disagreements of many over this divisive issue. Thus, men and women, women and women, and men and men united solely by a judge will no longer be “married” but “united”. Those churches that allow gay marriages in their communities are by no means precluded from including them or precluded from calling them whatever they wish. However, legally, in the eyes of the state, a same-sex couple “married” in their churches will be viewed as “united” under the law. This is a semantic issue, as opposed to a legal issue. The semantics are clearly important on this issue and have been increasingly becoming more important as time goes on. I may not feel it is right to legally prevent people from enjoying their lives in whatever manners they please, but I do feel it is within my purview to define terms in order to ease tensions.

With regards to the transgender community, I have immense sympathy and respect for your feelings. Feeling like you don’t fit into the gender roles that your biology dictates can be frustrating, confusing and upsetting. I know. During my high school years, I often noted to myself that I had feminine characteristics that I didn’t understand. In some ways, I felt that I didn’t share many of the masculine interests of my friends. However, because I was surrounded by many fine men who were very accepting of my differences, I never felt that I didn’t belong with them. Here is the reality of the situation. Many people are not surrounded by these positive influences, and thereby feel that they need to re-identify themselves in order to fit into their social environments. This is not the case. Acceptance, toleration and understanding are the keys to solving this problem. Our attention with regard to the gender debate should be redirected towards Gender Stereotypes. At one point, I was under the impression that we were heading in the right direction. In a very enlightening high school class, I was challenged to think about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. When I did this, I came up with many gender stereotypes that not only did not describe many of my peers, but also did not describe myself. Instead of concluding that I did not belong to my gender, however, I concluded that the stereotypes were the crux of the inconsistencies. At one point in history, gender roles were necessary for survival – the strong (men) went on the hunt, and the tender (women) cared for the children. They were important distinctions. This is not the case anymore! Over time, as technology and society developed to the point where strict gender roles were no longer necessary, women’s rights and roles in society began to change. This was a good thing and is a testament to how incredible our society has been for the less advantaged. These roles still play a part in our daily lives and still affect who we are, but they do not define us exclusively. Take Apples for example. The stereotype of an Apple is a red, juicy, sweet fruit. However, there are apples that are yellow, juicy and sweet. There are also apples that are green, juicy and tart. Is the yellow apple a mango now? Is the green apple a lime? No, their genetics limit them to the fruitful existence that they are. Nevertheless, biology dictates what type of fruit they are and not their characteristics; their characteristics don’t change the underlying biology.

To solve the issue of gender, some people on the progressive aisle have attempted to remove gender. I instead propose to remove the stereotypes/roles! This of course leads to inconsistencies in the Pride movement as a whole. For example, an exclusively lesbian woman might marry another woman who decides later that she is a man. Is this first woman heterosexual now, or should she be upset and betrayed and break off the marriage? Are you confused yet? This removal of gender is not only confusing to adults, but it’s confusing to children, and for them, it is dangerous. When you pose a child with the option to choose his/her gender identity, they will ask you what the differences are. Your response will undoubtedly be gender stereotypes. You are doing no one any favors by perpetuating these gender roles. The child will treat this as something fun, like a game. However, once you begin to treat it as something serious, the child will begin to treat it seriously. This is what major networks and schools and parents are beginning to do. Once you begin to treat your child as if they are not their biological sex, they will begin to accept that reality, more so to please you than anything else. This could have unimaginable consequences on their sense of self later in life, which could lead to self-esteem issues, learning disabilities, depression or worse. And making life-altering changes to your children i.e. long-term gender therapy, hormone treatments, or surgeries could permanently hurt them mentally and physically.

Conversely, if your little boy tells you one day that he is a girl, tell him, “No, you’re not a girl, you’re a boy. As a boy, you can be whoever you want to be, like whatever you want to like, and all of those characteristics will make you who you are.” If you tell your little boy that, there is an increased likelihood that he will have a more accepting view of others who are different from him, and will have a more positive outlook of himself. You can be a man who loves to sew, wear frilly clothing, and fixes his own car. You can be a woman who lifts weights, works on a construction site, and watches soap operas. They are not mutually exclusive. This also includes those members of our communities that wish to fully engage in their historical gendered roles. Women, who want nothing but to read, write, sew, be homemakers, and do the multitude of other activities that are considered feminine, should not be shamed into thinking that their choices are not valuable, are backwards, or are in anyway damaging to womanhood. Women who have no interest in science should not be shamed into believing that their lives are a waste and that they are giving in to the patriarchal oppression of women. This is not productive. Similarly, this standard applies to men, who should not be shamed into thinking that jobs that only use their hands are not worthy of respect because they do not require a college education. They should not be shamed into the common misconception that men are brutes, only caring about power and control. Men who are not interested in fashion design or cleaning are not uncreative or lazy. All humans have different interests and strengths.

The characteristics we have as human beings are largely taught to us. Generosity is taught, openness is taught. Negative things, as well: greed, sloth – they are learned. Selfishness is a learned characteristic. As a society, we have failed our younger generations. Parents, teachers, the government, and the media have all failed. To teach a child that they are so important that they have the ability to defy nature and choose their gender breeds self-centeredness and pride beyond compare. How selfish of us, how pompous! We are not that important. We are not able to create our own meaning. Our meaning is a gift bestowed upon us by a higher power. Who or what that higher power is, is for each and every man and woman to decide on their own, but a society based on the premise that they determine their own worth is doomed to fail because it is founded on the ideal that the self is the most important entity. This is not to contradict our founding principles concerning the individual. Those principles concern how government should act in relation to its people. The concept of self-importance, to which I’m referring, concerns how individuals view themselves and act in spite of the government.

 So, no, I don’t think that Netflix or schools should be teaching students, especially against the wills of their parents, that being a boy when you’re a girl or vice versa is acceptable. We should not be teaching children that biology can just be ignored. If we allowed this aspect of biology to be ignored, other aspects of biology may be ignored in the future (like age!). Nor do I think that sexual preference should be celebrated in public schools. This goes against the separation of church and state in a different manner, because teaching children that their religious observances of sin are incorrect is a direct interference with the practice of a religion. This would be a world where secularism becomes the state religion and that would be no more acceptable than some form of theism. Have no shame for who you are, but don’t put down other peoples’ views to make yourself feel better. Respect should be taught of all our children before they leave the home for school.

Here is my final message. Acceptance of self, love of one another, and understanding of our differences, should reign supreme.

[foamroad6]

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[pumpkinpaix]

You do realize that not allowing Wei Ying the ability to just freely be a bottom, and hell, even a little feminine is being problematic in itself, right? Acting like either of those are shameful things for a man to be, just because he's in a relationship with another man, is gross. Acting like they absolutely HAVE to switch to fit some standard that women or non gay men feel the need to hold them to is not being politically correct. It verges closer to being fetishizing. Not trying to be mean js

hello anon! i assume you’re referring to this post of mine (and potentially also the linked post within? though that one is more specifically about translation, so maybe not).

if so, i have to admit I’m… a little confused? i’m not sure where i said or implied any of the things you’re talking about, but i still want to address your accusations thoughtfully since they’re important things to consider.

if it wasn’t clear, i was only trying to explain my personal discomfort with assigning a fixed sexual role to wei ying (though this goes both ways—i would have said the same thing about lwj had the question been reversed) due to its complicated position within a larger cultural context. i say in that post that I don’t have this problem with a ship like crowley/aziraphale from good omens specifically because saying “aziraphale is a top” (or “crowley is a bottom”) simply isn’t as politically charged as saying that about wei ying or lwj because of how each ship relates to the source material and the cultural context that surrounds them.

good omens, while not a perfect show (i’m going showverse specifically bc i haven’t read the book in a long long while), makes a lot of concerted effort to be queer-friendly and is clear about its queer-friendly intentions, both publicly stated by the creative team and shown through its narrative choices. i’m generally familiar with current queer theory in the west, and i feel safer and freer to headcanon and write whatever i want because i’m not as concerned about the political statement my personal thoughts and choices re: a fictional character is going to make in relation to canon.

mdzs/the untamed is not that. we can argue about it all day, but i can’t in good faith really imagine either was written or made with real queer people in mind, given what i understand about queer rights on the chinese mainland, and also specifically about how queer people (mostly mlm) are portrayed in genres like BL. so i, personally, feel that i want to be careful about how i position myself with regards to that. if i decide wei ying only bottoms, like is implied in the mdzs novel, how does that read? what, if anything, am i implying about real mlm? regardless of my intentions, i don’t think i can escape all the cultural baggage that comes with it. the personal is political, as they say. alas!

does that mean that i think wei ying HAS to switch? no!! but by that same token, i don’t think he HAS to bottom either! what i want is to promote more respectful diversity in the way a character like him can be portrayed or headcanoned when the original text is so thoughtlessly restrictive, so that maybe in the future i would feel fine about writing/headcanoning him as anything i want without getting bogged down with all of this. that’s the dream, are you kidding me?? respectful portrayal of a bisexual chinese character that i personally love??? of course i have intense personal stake in that lmao, how could i NOT. on that note, regarding your first point, i can’t “dis/allow” wei ying anything because wei ying is, again, a fictional character who has no agency and whom i cannot personally ask about his preferences. none of this has anything to do with respecting him—only how our treatment of him impacts real people.

i never meant to imply that being a bottom is shameful—i meant that when a mlm character is LIMITED to being a bottom BECAUSE of preconceived, heteronormative notions about mlm relationships by content creators, that is uncomfortable. neither bottoming nor being feminine should be considered shameful, of course not, but we don’t live in a perfectly equitable world, and historically, those are traits that are associated with shame by larger societal forces—my point is that we don’t interact with media in a vacuum. even if i’m not saying “bottoming/effeminacy is shameful”, someone is. because that previous ask was focused on wei ying and bottoming, i understand why you might think that because my stance on it wasn’t unequivocally positive/validating, it sounded like i was implying it was shameful because that’s what we’ve all been primed to assume. if i rewrote the response to that ask, only this time talking about lan wangji being pigeonholed as a top, would that have made my stance more obvious? because again, it goes both ways.

you say that i’m trying to fit mlm into a standard that i, as a non-mlm, am imposing upon them, but i really have no idea where you’re seeing that in what i’ve written. if you still think i’m doing that, then i want to state here that that is the furthest thing from my intentions.

the top/bottom dichotomy that exists in mdzs is just an expression of a larger trend that sees and fetishizes mlm as defined by their sexual roles, especially asian mlm (looking at you, seme/uke terminology). i cannot see it as existing divorced from that. what i really want, more than anything, is for this to not even be a conversation i feel like i have to engage with every time it comes up. it sucks that queer people’s identities and private sexual choices are politicized!! i, too, just want to live!!! i don’t want to feel like i have to endlessly, carefully debate mlm’s sex positions as a political statement, but i also don’t think that i can stay silent as a bi woman(?) while they’re used and disrespected for others’ gratification. they’re my siblings too.

here’s the thing: i like bottom wei ying! I love feminine wei ying! i want to read fic containing both of those aspects! i want to write fic like that! in fact, i probably will! is everything i make and say going to be perfectly unproblematic? of course not! everything is problematic because everything is nuanced and everything is complicated. all i can do is try my best to make sure what makes me happy isn’t at the cost of someone else’s human respect.

so, i hope that makes my position more clear? i’m not trying to say that everyone has to do exactly as i do, or think exactly as i think. i just want to encourage more complex, critical engagement with media because i think interrogating why and how we like what we like helps us grow. i get that sometimes we just want to enjoy things, and that’s okay! i get it, it’s exhausting!! feel free to block me and never interact with another one of my posts again if they make you too angry. i love mdzs, and i love the untamed just. so much!! i haven’t felt so overwhelmingly moved by a piece of media in a while, and i happen to express my love by…. well, doing things like this, which i’m FULLY aware is not everyone’s cup of tea. (sometimes, it isn’t mine either!)

i just want to end by saying that i’m certainly not trying to outright condemn anyone with these posts. this is largely prompted by my own personal, discomfited reaction to comments i’ve received on my fic/things i’ve seen tossed around by the fandom at large. i absolutely don’t think any of the people making those comments are bad people (i mean it!!), but that doesn’t mean i can’t still feel conflicted about it to the point where I feel i need to address it. i can’t police the way someone else enjoys their content, and i’m really not interested in trying. i’m trying to control the way I engage with and present myself to fandom. haha, as wei ying said, to live my whole life with a clear conscience. that’s all i can do.

EDIT 16 APR 2020: My views have changed since I wrote this post. I will not delete this post because it reflects my views at the time it was posted about 7 months ago, but I now feel very differently about the issues discussed here. Hopefully, my views are more nuanced and carefully considered in the present, but you know! Please keep that in mind when you read this.

[timeclonemike]

Axiom Verge: Setting and Plot Analysis

This has been bouncing around in my head for a while, so I’m going to just put it down for posterity.

Axiom Verge is a side scrolling platformer in the Metroidvania Style. Half of the game is exploring and getting new equipment, then backtracking to try that new equipment on old areas to look for secrets impossible to find earlier. The player controls Trace, a physicist who has his experiment blow up in his face, and then wakes up in an alien world fighting for his life.

I’m dropping a Keep Reading Cut here since the discussion will mention spoilers and lots of them.

There’s three main issues I want to talk about: Simulation Theory, the Alternates, and Trace’s Characterization. There may be other, smaller tangents that will get mentioned in passing.

Simulation Theory: This is a philosophical theory that posits the entire universe and everything in it is the result of a simulation being run on a computer. (I have numerous problems with it myself, but those are not germane to the analysis of this game.) In Axiom Verge, this theory is true, but the “simulation” just happens to be a sidescrolling platformer. Most of Trace’s weapons are deliberately designed to invoke classic console game glitches; a gun that causes enemy behavior to glitch out called the Address Disruptor, a lab coat that lets him noclip through walls, and the counterpart to the High Jump Boots from Metroid is literally a device that changes the local laws of physics so Trace can jump higher. There’s even a  device that functions like either a password system or the old game genie / game shark cartridge add ons that let people change the game in different ways, and it’s the only way to get to several secrets and the gear they hide.

About halfway to two thirds of the way through the plot, it’s revealed that all this equipment that Trace has been finding is equipment that Trace originally created. After the lab accident, Trace not only came up with a way to prove Simulation Theory, he managed to design hardware based on the theory. Some of the documents found in the game are from Trace, including an extract / excerpt from his original paper, with a quote that was important enough that it made it into the actual trailer.

Axiom 1(c): Any algorithm giving rise to cognitive entities will be perceived as reality by the entities described.

This, I think, is used to deliberately invoke the idea of the Simulation Theory, and all of the events of the game take that theory to it’s logical extreme; if the universe is a computer program, it can be hacked, it can glitch, and it can crash, which raises two important questions.

Question One: If the universe simulation starts to glitch out or corrupt, what would that look like to the people in that universe? A number of notes found in the game refer to something called the Breach; in game, it looks and sounds like some sort of graphical or audio corruption, and one note calls it “a forced re-linking of the lattices underlying adjacent universes.” The Breach is also responsible for the “Secret Worlds” of Axiom Verge, where assets and set pieces are randomly thrown together with very little internal logic. These Secret Worlds are almost certainly a reference to the “secret worlds” found in the original Metroid game, not just in style, but thematically as well. The Metroid secret worlds were created when the game accidentally started reading its own code as level data. With that as context, the note describing the breach suddenly makes more sense.

Question Two: If the universal simulation should be fatally corrupted or even crash, what happens next? This is only indirectly touched on in two parts of the game, one note describing the backstory of the world of Sudra that Trace is exploring, and the “pathogen” that was released on the world. In the note about old Sudra, it’s said that the people of that world had achieved untold heights of technical and scientific knowledge, but weaponized it and caused untold calamities before they got to the point that they were unwilling, or unable, to continue fighting. Given that they ended up creating at least one weapon that Trace can find, the flamethrower, and hid it in a cave using a literal password system, I think it’s plausible that the Sudrans were actually on the precipice of just such a disaster. In fact, it is entirely possible that they created the Breach itself either as an accidental result of their fighting, or as a deliberate ultimate weapon. This position is supported by the language of the notes referring to the breach and anything related to it with weather terminology; in order to capture the Rusalki, a storm-related machine was activated, and in the events of the game proper the Rusalki can’t get close to the Breach Attractor as long as it is powered on.

There’s also the matter of the “pathogen” that is unleashed on Sudra by the antagonist. If you made a list of synonyms for pathogen, you’d find “Virus” on that list. In light of the Simulation Theory, it’s not even that much of a jump to go from “pathogen” to “computer virus” and this is supported by noted left by the various bosses before they are completely transformed by it; one of them deliberately points out that the algorithm that defines them is itself twisted and corrupted.

The Alternates: One of the big plot twists halfway to two thirds of the way through the game is that the player character Trace isn’t the same Trace that got caught in the lab accident; that’s just where Trace’s memories of Earth stop. The original Trace was left blind and paraplegic by the accident, which didn’t even have anything to do with his physics experiment; a pressure valve froze and that caused an explosion. Trace ended up having a revelation while recovering and developed a revolutionary new theory; the media loved it, but the scientific community ridiculed it and him. They gave him a nickname: Athetos.

Conveniently enough, Athetos is the name of the antagonist of the game, who unleashed all the chaos on Sudra in the backstory.

Trace is actually a clone created from Athetos, as are all of the game bosses. These clones were created by the game’s version of the Save Point, called Rebirth Chambers. The original Trace was completely healed of all injuries from the accident, and there’s a hidden area with his old wheelchair and a note explaining what happened.

The main reason I’m bringing this up is because I saw an explanation video that stated that the Athetos variants created by “Prime Trace” were from alternate universes. The evidence from this was referring to a specific note talking about algorithms across universes, but the problem with this theory is that there is one part of the game where two Rebirth Chambers are actively being used to create more clone variants. So the multiversal theory didn’t even NEED to be invoked, we already have cloning.

However, that note in particular is important because I think it describes the video game phenomena of multiple lives. The relevant test goes “the instances which do not cease carry on for those that do. For most of us this happens without us being any the wiser.” If you’re playing a game and you fuck up and die, you restart at the last checkpoint / save point / level intro / what have you. Again, Axiom Verge explores what a video game reality would look like from the inside.

Trace’s Characterization: If Trace has one defining trait, it is his pacifist nature. He keeps trying to talk his way out of boss fights (which almost works once) and as soon as he realizes that he and Athetos are the same person, he wants to talk to the guy to figure out what the hell is going on and why Athetos has done all these things that Trace would never consider.

This is something that I have NEVER seen fully addressed as far as the plot goes, so I guess I have to do it.

The note next to Trace’s old wheelchair is signed Trace. By the time it was written, Trace had already been healed by the Sudran Rebirth Chambers. However, in the note, while he was impressed with the technology, he understood that it was too dangerous to even try to bring the technology back to Earth in case what happened to Sudra happened to Earth as well.

This is in complete conflict to what Athetos tells Trace at the end of the game before the final boss fight. In that same cutscene, Athetos also says “If I tell you too much, your captors will have to kill you.” (Athetos is referring to the Rusalki, who have control over both the Rebirth Chambers and the “nanogates” inside Trace that allow him to come back to life after dying.) In that context, Athetos making the claim that he just wanted to bring the technology to Earth and was willing to destroy Sudra to do it sounds like a cover story; he couldn’t tell Trace the real reason without putting Trace in danger, but he needed to tell Trace something that both Trace and the Rusalki would believe. (Given that the Rusalki have been lying to Trace since the moment he woke up from the Rebirth Chamber, the can’t really claim the moral high ground here.)

There’s one other important detail about that note found with the wheelchair: “We are going upstream - to the Filter, or whatever lies beyond - for answers.“ Now, upstream could mean several different things. It could refer to an actual stream, implying that Trace arrived at Sudra near a body of water near a Rebirth Chamber, and the stream led to civilization. The word Filter, on the other hand, could refer to a machine called the Power Filter that Trace has to activate in the game and seems to be tied into the power grid for Sudra’s technology, in which case upstream meant following the power supply for all the amazing tech to figure out how it works. Finally, there is the possibility that “upstream”  and the “Filter” refer to the Breach Elevator and what lies beyond; Athetos has his main base in the game in this space elevator kind of machine that is implied to pass through the Breach.

Each one of these scenarios is equally plausible until Thomas Happ makes a sequel or officially supports a given theory on social media or something like that. What each of these things has in common, though, is that it raises another question. Whether it was encountering an alien civilization for the first time, or discovering how the Sudran technology worked, or discovering what lies beyond the Breach...

What did Trace find that was so awful that it made a peaceful, pacifist scientist willing to commit genocide?

[trender-sollux]

anti anti discourse megapost

I’m probably not the Best Most Informed person to ask about this stuff but!! here’s the disc horse as I understand it. this is pretty much a tumblr formatted argumentative essay, so buckle up or scroll to the tl;dr as fast as you can.

(I’ll put it under a cut bc 1.) things are gonna get pretty controversial, and 2.) things got Very long Very fast.)

the bg (the intro paragraph)

in fandom, as most people know, people tend to ship characters together. it’s fun to think about what two characters may act like in a relationship, and this gives way for loads of innovative and unique content to be made around ships! communities can be built, friends can be made, and lots of original fan content can be made centered around shipping characters together!

now, everyone has different tastes in ships, whether it be gay straight or somewhere in between, as well as different tastes in dynamics! (take the fave ship dynamics art meme that’s been going around for reference on what that means lmao)

some people may not even like to ship anyone with anyone, choosing instead to focus on lore or more platonic but no less important relationships, which is also just fine!

la problema

there however is copious amounts of people who deem other people’s ships “problematic”.

this in and of itself is not the problem: whether the ship makes them uncomfortable because of:

a large age gap (typically of 10+ years)

one person being a minor and the other an adult

it being an incestuous relationship of any sort (whether by blood or not)

they don’t enjoy the dynamic of the characters (perhaps it’s an unhealthy or simply turbulent relationship)

that is not the problem.

people are allowed to be uncomfortable with pairings! it’s not something they can help! content reminding people of real world issues or trauma are especially touchy, and that’s understandable and completely okay.

people may even be uncomfortable with those that consume that content, whether they have a sound reason or just simply because they don’t like it (they don’t really owe an explanation), and if they should want that content tagged so that they can avoid it, or ask simply that people who like it and post about it not interact with them so that they can further avoid it, that is perfectly okay.

ships can squick people out or even badly trigger them (in the serious mental terminology way not the internet watered down ‘this makes me mad’ way)!

the real problem comes when you have people harassing others for ships they don’t like.

you have loads and loads of call out culture where hundreds of people ridicule targeted shippers for their problematic pairings, calling them pedophiles or incest supporters or whatever buzz word of the day is to make them out to be awful scummy people.

they make call out posts to “expose them”, get people on their side, tell them they shouldn’t enjoy this thing that makes them happy, and in a rather awful amount of cases, send death threats and attempts to dox them/leak their information, things that can ruin actual lives.

all over the enjoyment of fictional pairings.

you can replace “ships” with just “fictional characters” or “stories” and you have anti-fiction discourse, where people harass the fans (or authors/creators!) of specific “problematic” characters or stories the same way they do shippers.

(also, about to get real controversial here, but you could also replace shippers w/ fujoshi/fudanshi and get the same effect. I know that saying fujoshi are gross is the hot new trend, but anti-fujoshi are just as bad as anti-shippers. I’m significantly less qualified to talk on that and I can link some really great posts if you want more info on that mess, but for now I’ll just say I’m pro-fujoshi and go.)

(if you go through the vld ship tags, I guarantee you will run into a lot of this for reference, though tw for death threats and A Lot of them. kl@nce has an infamous anti following, and anti-sh@l@din has a very fervent following as well.)

these people commonly refer to themselves as the broad and catch-all term “anti”. anti-insert ship here, anti-insert character here, anti-insert story here. they are against them, those who create content for them, and those who just sit back and enjoy them.

why that’s bad

at first glance, this seems like a good thing.

after all, people who consume that content must condone it, right? why else would they enjoy it? and if they condone such awful things, they’re awful people and they must deserve whatever happens to them! they’re dangerous! they deserve threats and misery and the loss of their jobs! they don’t deserve to be happy! they don’t deserve to be alive!

this mentality is really why a lot of antis end up being young people with an interest in activism. social activism is a good thing, after all. raising awareness about real problems through a social platform is a good thing.

it also tends to attract young trauma survivors who went through similar experiences as those portrayed in fiction.

not all antis are young/naive. that’s too much of a scapegoat (that they already use themselves too much). there are a lot of adult antis.

however, a lot of anti rhetoric is specifically targeted at minors. some antis will go out of their way to harass adults that make explicit content for other adults, saying that they are predatory for making it because it makes the anti uncomfortable.

I’m not saying I was immune either; for a while I thought that was just.

antis have a tricky way of worming themselves out of responsibility like that, after all. they make the victim out to be deserving of punishment, whatever it may be, whether it be some public humiliation or threats or leasing information that could put them in real actual danger (which is illegal, by the way.)

I never participated in death threats or anything (they made me,, really uncomfortable), but for a while, at very least, the public shaming made sense.

however, this doesn’t actually help trauma survivors. it doesn’t help people that actually go through horrible situations like the ones depicted in fiction. it doesn’t help those who are groomed by pedophiles, or abused by family members, or in abusive relationships.

what it does do is bully and ridicule people for something that inspires them and brings them happiness. people who did nothing wrong.

this is commonly referred to as performative activism.

you take the name of something vile and awful, and use it to say you are doing something for the greater good, a righteous and necessary evil, but really you are doing nothing at all. nothing progressive to help those in need, nothing daring or brave, nothing to make the world a better, kinder place. nothing.

it can be done out of the desire to help, or the desire to make a difference as someone who isn’t sure how, but your intent isn’t the issue on the table. the fact is that anti rhetoric hurts innocent people.

walking through common anti talk points (q&a)

now, I know that there are people who interact w/ my tiny blog who are antis, and actually one of my super tiny follower count is an anti (which I’m a lil sad about bc they have super cool art and a generally positive blog; not to be indirect but I also don’t wanna be like Hey I Don’t Agree With You In Particular. like nah they’re really cool actually and I hope they’re having a chill day), and for you antis reading this, you may be thinking, “sol, I see what you’re saying, but I’m not convinced antis are all that bad!”

well, it’s time for a lil bit of q&a!!

What makes problematic content innocent?

the content itself isn’t hurting anyone.

content, online especially in this day and age , is oftentimes tagged to make sure no one is triggered by the content they want to enjoy. if not tagged, usually descriptions or summaries include warnings. if not in the summary, ratings (like in movies) are also a good indicator of what you should look out for.

let’s say, for example’s sake, someone ends up ignoring the warning and consuming the content anyway, and ends up hurt because of it.

the content is not at fault, the willful ignorance of the person is.

What if they didn’t know to read the warning?

they were still warned. this should be taken as a learning experience, and they should be more careful in the future. it may sound harsh, but not knowing how something works isn’t exactly any excuse. people aren’t exempt from consequences because they didn’t know how something works.

What makes the creators of problematic content innocent?

a lot of people have the misconception that if someone makes content for something, they think it’s okay or would do something like it in real life.

this is not inherently true.

I’m not saying there may be predatory content creators out there, but that definitely does not mean that all content creators that produce things with dark themes always always think that it’s okay in real life.

there is such a thing as exploratory fiction. this is where although you know something is bad and dangerous, you’d like to know more about it and envision scenarios around it from a safe environment. writing or making art won’t leave you with permanent life ruining trauma, but you still get to explore that concept and sate that curiosity.

exploratory fiction can even be used as a coping mechanism for trauma survivors! that’s right!! some of the exact same trauma survivors that antis claim to want to protect and give voices to are some of the people hurt by their rhetoric.

my own traumas and potential anecdotes aside, I don’t really know much about this topic and as such I’ll let other survivors get more in depth/talk more personally if they’d like (as no survivors deals with their trauma the same way), but I know for a fact that exploring something that hurt you badly in the past can be an excellent way for someone to better understand themselves, what they went through, and better cope with what happened.

it may seem like making light of a bad situation, but it’s their trauma to deal with, not anyone else’s. no one can tell them that they’re reacting wrong. if it makes them happy and isn’t inherently hurting anyone, it shouldn’t be taken away from them.

(I’ve seen anti rhetoric directly harm trauma/abuse survivors and for their privacy I won’t name them but don’t come @ me w/ your “But I’m A Trauma Survivor And I’m An Anti” junk. I’m not saying you can’t be a trauma survivor and an anti. I’m simply saying that antis can’t exactly be counted as completely innocent and uwu-unproblematic either.)

What makes the fans/consumers of problematic content innocent?

by reading something or looking at something, did you just hurt somebody?

did you read this book or look at this art and in doing so just ruin someone’s entire life by violating them or some other heinous act?

no. that’s not how anything works ever.

by writing about murder, did someone just take a knife and kill someone? did someone die because they wrote a book? is every murder mystery author actually a murderer?

no. (but that would make an excellent murder mystery novel. an unreliable narrator who is revealed to be the murderer all along lol writing prompt)

by that same token, reading about someone dying doesn’t make you a murderer or as good as one.

people may come to realize things about themselves through fiction, as access to terminology and information may help them develop, but someone can enjoy fiction simply because it makes them happy and they enjoy it.

But consuming problematic content can inspire someone to do something problematic! Fiction affects reality!

taking inspiration from something and putting something into action are two entirely different things.

assuming a person has the presence of mind not to be so susceptible to suggestion that they do everything they see on tv, fictional content on the damn internet shouldn’t be any different.

But what about Jaws? Shark hunting saw a huge spike after its release because people were all afraid of sharks because of it!*

people were already afraid of sharks. people probably already wanted to hunt sharks, dude. what do you think inspired the original movie?

I mean, a huge carnivorous fish with rows and rows of teeth? and it occasionally came up and just took chunks out of people?? it was horror/thriller material just begging to be used.

shark attacks definitely got more publicity because of the success of the movie, but if you think there wasn’t a fear of sharks before Jaws, you’re either super dense or super short sighted.

also, if you think hunters won’t hunt something just because it’s super big and scary, you have never met a hunter. Jaws’ story is not exactly the perfect comparison to the average person minding their business who would never ever consider doing something heinous.

if someone already wants to do something, they will do it whether or not they have fiction to blame for it. they may never consume that fiction and still do it.

they are the screwed up ones, and it is not because they consume screwed up fiction. that is correlation, not causation.

fiction in and of itself does not affect reality. it is the people who use fiction as a scapegoat to weasel themselves out of the consequences for their actions who say it do.

Does that mean that all fiction is exempt from criticism?

hell no. in fact, fuck no.

fiction can still be bad. fiction can be piss poorly written. the characters can be well presented but executed poorly. the designs might be good but they might not make sense. the anatomy might be fuckin wack and the story might not go anywhere. it might just be pure self indulgent nonsense that no one on earth but the creator enjoys.

this does not mean anyone gets the right to completely forget all sense of human decency and make people feel like shit for the things they created.

as a creator, creating stuff is hard. it takes time energy and practice.

some professional artists’ work aren’t really my thing and their work may make me a little uncomfortable to look at, but I’m not all in their comment sections making their days worse. I recognize that they put time and effort into it, and they may not even be too confident about it!!

sometimes the nicest things you can say is absolutely fucking nothing. however, if you have to say something mean, if you have to give those damn two cents, at least recognize that there is a real human being with thoughts and feelings on the other side of your screen, and they’d probably appreciate some manners and maybe some well wishes for the trouble. no sense belittling people when you can uplift them and inspire them to do better instead.

Does this mean you hate antis?

in any other post I would just say yes. I hate their rhetoric and the awful shit they put creators and fans alike through. however, because this post is informative, my precise answer is not technically.

I do not wish harm on antis. I don’t wish death on them. they deserve their privacy as much as anyone, and I won’t harass them though they may harass others.

I think the things that they do is often times abhorrent and I think that their toxicity is largely a contributing factor in how draining fandom culture has become and I hate that. I hate feeling unsafe in spaces meant to be fun and community driven. I hate looking through blogs to make sure I don’t accidentally come into contact with someone who may potentially try to dox me because I read a comic they think is garbage.

however, I don’t think all antis deserve real hatred. some are simply misguided and don’t do this super invasive awful shit. even if they do this awful shit, I still hope they can change for the better and address their issues, apologize even if they can’t/won’t be forgiven, and become happier chiller people who can focus their energy towards better things.

like... I don’t think I hate them as much as I hate who they are right now. despite what another bit of anti rhetoric says, people aren’t static. even if it doesn’t excuse what they’re doing and consequences will find them accordingly, they deserve room to grow. all people deserve room to grow. they aren’t entitled to my forgiveness, nor my time, nor company, but I wish the best for them at the end of the day. I hope this passes for them and they learn better.

and w/ that I think we’re done!

I think that about explains everything I know, and while at the time I’m writing this it is very late and I’ve been staring at this for a few hours now, I don’t think I’ve missed much of anything!

if I’ve missed a talking point you’d like to see explained, have any questions this post doesn’t answer, or have a post that disproves anything I said, my ask box is always open!!

I humbly request that any debate that may happen on this post if any stay polite and sexy. negativity earns yourself a hearty block from me bc it’s my blog and I do what I want. take it to dms if you must but please don’t be all up and rude. this may not be the most polite and neutral post around but I don’t think any argumentative piece is. I am in fact opinionated and I won’t present both sides of the argument as equal when they quite clearly are not, thank you.

tl;dr

antis are harmful to the very people they claim to protect and stand for and can do better things w/ their time like ride a bike or roll in some grass. they can go step on an entire bucket of legos. just plunge their feet in the sharpest of lego bricks. I hope all their library books are dog-eared to death and their internet is slow. I wrote an entire essay on this practically for over 2 hours no breaks. I’m tired. I’m more tired of their shit but I’m tired.

* this was a real and original argument I saw to justify fiction affects reality that I saw while I was scrolling someone’s blog. it sucked bc the rest of their blog was pretty positive and cool and I even wanted to follow them but like,, ya know, yikes. they seemed condescending and close minded and I was outta there.

edit: this is actually being posted bc it’s been brought to my attention that the antis have already taken to “calling me out” (lmao okay jan) so like. this is wildin - I’m by no means an influencer (I have?? 8 followers. I’m not actually famous.) nor have I been super vocal about it thus far but like,, my dudes I am laughing this is exactly what I knew would happen and I still manage to be surprised.

[phinnsyreads]

Site-12, Monday Morning. 4:00. January 11th, 2025. Containment area of SCP-5200

Researcher Boyd closed the hatch behind him, and turned to face the containment vault’s occupant. Boyd thought he looked like an old fashioned tramp, complete with bindle and permanent five o’clock shadow. But yesterday he’d looked like a wino, and the day before a washed-up boxer. This look wasn’t new.

Boyd sat down across from the entity, and pulled an empty manila envelope out of his jacket. “They told me that you wanted to talk.”

SCP-5200 pulled itself up to the table, and grinned a toothy smile. “Ahyup. You’ve all been gettin’ anxious about the dreamer, right?”

“Perhaps.” Boyd turned the envelope over in his hands. “What do you know about it?”

SCP-5200 let out a long sigh, and leaned back in his chair. “Boy, you eggheads sure get to the point quick. If I’m going to tell you that, I’ll need to let you know how the world got started out.”

Boyd frowned. SCP-5200 was known for spinning stories to distract from having to answer questions. Usually, it was best to play along until it could be coerced into giving a definite answer.

“Fine. But be quick about it, we don’t have all week.”

SCP-5200 chuckled. “You don’t know how right you are, chuck.”

He pulled a crumpled cigarette from his jacket, and placed it in his mouth. “Okay, okay… so the first thing that happened, was we had the two forces of the universe. Greeks had it on point, y’know? It was the music, and the dreams.”

Boyd nodded, drumming his fingers on his thigh beneath the table.

“So’s they banged, y’know, and they made the world. But, they didn’t fill in all the space, because you can’t fill in nothing forever. There’s a little bit left over from the days gone by.”

Boyd nodded, and pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket, pretending to take note of what SCP-5200 was saying.

“So that’s why this third rock from fun has all the craziness pulled to it like that shit’s on rails. It’s a storage depot for the unknowable. Would’ve worked like a breeze if you guys hadn’t busted up the lock.”

“It was more like a jar.”

“Whatever, chuck. That’s just how you made the smoker’s stupid dream witchery true. When those two kid’s get together, nothing’s gonna be able to stop them. Not even flipping things around one more time.”

“I don’t understand a word you’re saying.” Boyd put the notebook away, and stood up. “If you don’t have anything else to add to your story, I think we’re done.”

SCP-5200 held out a hand. “Wait, sit down a second. There is something I want to give you.”

Boyd stopped at the hatch. “What?”

SCP-5200 reached into its own jacket, and pulled out the manila envelope. “Here’s what a few people have said.”

The envelope is tossed, picked up, examined, and stuffed into a pocket.

Boyd exited the hatch, locking it behind him. Briskly, he set off towards the Records and Information wing, for debriefing and transcription of the interview.

First Document: Unusual Incidents Unit. (A case file.)

UIU File 1976-34, Case File Pluto’s Front Door

— Summary: Possible portal or slate that causes immediate death upon contact.

Description and Capabilities:

— Name: Object of Note, Black Portal — Irregularity Cross-reference: destructive, transport?, immobile, locale — Physical Description: A cave in North Dakota, which has an entrance in the form of a flat, non-reflective black wall. Wall is immobile, and does not respond to provocation. Causes immediate death on contact. — Capabilities: Does not move, or take any initiative. When touched, causes objects and persons to be pulled into it, and disappear. — Purpose: Possibly a trap, naturally occurring anomaly, or misunderstood aspect of nature. — Behavior: No behavior. Object not believed to be living.

Evidence:

— Exhibit A: The object. No evidence related to case 1976-34 has been located other than the object itself.

Bureau Record:

— Current Status: Currently noted, with light guards. Due to remoteness of location, chances of being discovered are slim. — History of UIU Action: Discovered in 1976, by a US geological survey. Turned over to the UIU shortly thereafter, and secured since then. Very little action has taken place since then, other than the tragic loss of Agent Brom to the object when he mistakenly came into contact with it while doing field work at the location.

Second Document: Dr. Wondertainment. (An email.)

DEAR MISTER RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR:

We regret to inform you that your toy proposal has been rejected, for failing to meet the following criteria:

— Deadly to adults, animals, children, and pre-children. This violates the Wondertainment Super-Safety guarantee. — Fun factor, after vigorous testing, has been rated at 0.0. — Does not have market viability for future additions or innovations, due to being 100% fatal to the consumer. — Unpackageable.

Thank you for your interest in DOCTOR WONDERTAINMENT and we hope to see you innovating again soon!

Third Document: The Factory. (An invoice.)

SHIPPING ORDER: 10,000. Bulk distribution. PAYMENT: PAID IN FULL, PRODUCT NOT DELIVERED. ACTION: Relationship with distributor discontinued.

Fourth Document: Prometheus Labs. (A grant request form.)

PROBLEM The Prometheus Labs physics lab has proven the existence of an object which could be used to dispose of any type of matter harmlessly, at little to no cost past the initial investment to find the object.

SOLUTION In order to locate it, the Prometheus labs team would need additional funding to dedicate most of their mathematicians to this purpose.

BUSINESS CASE Once located, Prometheus Labs will save massively on the disposal of high-risk materials that would otherwise need special handling procedures in order to nullify or put out of sight and mind.

USE OF FUNDING Currently, the only need for funding is the researcher salaries to give them the time to find a more precise location of this object they have only just proven to exist. Further costs can be estimated once the object is located.

KNOWN ISSUES It may not be possible to reach and return the object within the lifetime of any current employee of the Prometheus Labs corporation.

Fifth Document: The Chaos Insurgency. (A command brief.)

WARNING: DELTA COMMAND EYES ONLY!

DeCIRO Catalogue Number: SC-55/2024

Document Type: Step Compilation

Dates Received: 09-18-1955 through 09-18-2024

Operation Status: Open

Foreword: This object is to never come into the hands of the Insurgency. All steps to secure Site-12, the Foundation location of the object, are critical to maintain. These security procedures are to be kept secret from the SCP Foundation.

Hereafter we of Delta Command document the Steps of the Plan as transcribed by the Engineer of the Chaos Insurgency.

1. STEP [55/6]

Security parameters, such as entrenching in the surrounding countryside, have been enacted. Anomalous countermeasures have been placed in the uninhabited areas surrounding Site-12, which, due to its remote location, is not accessed or widely known by persons outside the Foundation and Insurgency. Further measures to be taken as the situation around Site-12 changes.

2. STEP [24/88]

The Foundation appears to be losing control of some of their frontier sites, due to the remoteness of their location and the containment difficulties suffered by that organization over the years. Efforts must be taken to preserve the security of Site-12, including by capturing the Site, intact, and handing it over to another group which has more stability, such as the Global Occult Coalition.

Sixth Document: Herman Fuller’s Circus of the Disquieting. (A quote.)

You want us to add what to the act? – W.G 

Seventh Document: Groups of Interest “HI” “GOTBG” “5”. (A report.)

MEMORANDUM TO SITE DIRECTOR STONE

We currently believe that the research object has been written about in the scripture for various religious groups dealing with paranormal activity.

They refer to it unanimously in terminology that describe it as “empty”, and at times like a portal to their underworlds or similar theological concepts. Descriptions generally refer to it as all black, and hostile.

The similarities to the research objects are obvious. As such, we should take precaution against any word of this entity being held, as it may incur an attack by these organizations.

Therefore, we recommend that the currently in-construction Site-12 be selected as the location for the entity, due to its remote location and high security.

Colonel Ritts American Secure Containment Initiative

Eighth Document: Are we cool yet? (An art caption.)

Title: Much Ado About Nothing

Materials Used: The piece itself is singular, having been created by the artist and using a method which has not been disclosed, for artistic reasons. It is unique, and the artist does not recommend attempting to replicate it.

Abstract: A black star composed of a non-reflective, anomalous material. When touched, pulls the user into an undisclosed location in deep space. The person is not recoverable, so viewers are recommended to bring secondary entities if they wish to view the contact-making portion of the piece. Should be displayed behind glass, on a white pedestal with a small porthole to allow for direct contact with the object.

Intent: The piece was created as a commentary on how really and totally alone we are in this universe. You can find yourself in any location out there in the cosmos, and you’re not going to catch a ride. You’ll be by yourself, until you die. That's what awaits us up there.

Note: I can’t really display this thing anymore. It’s cool, but nobody really seems to want to look at it. Gonna store it till we can find a use for it.

Ninth Document. (A handwritten notebook page.)

Shadow Child.

Aliases: Shadow Person, Chip, Corpo, Nobody. Note: doesn’t seem to be a nobody. More nothing.

Summary: A being repelled by light, and made of shadows. Very dangerous. Consumes everything in path.

Threat: High. Difficult to avoid all shadows.

Interest: Possible attempt to fish me out:

1. Follows, tracks, and finds me with alarming regularity. 2. No constant physical form. 3. Does not live. 4. Older than oldish dirt.

I can’t explain it. Perhaps it’s a case of the town not being big enough for two. This thing is (or these things are) to be avoided and help sought out to avoid it (or them).

Foundation or other collectors may be able to keep it at bay or remove it. Thing is very old; may have evolved past destructibility.

Location: Unknown. Following me, so it’s close to me.

[Two images are included. The first is an attached photograph of the shadow person described. The second is a sketch on the notebook page itself of a man wearing a Cold War era business suit seated on a park bench by a lake. He calmly looks on as a mushroom cloud rises from beyond the horizon. On the line beneath is written “related?” with an arrow pointing to the man.]

Site-12, Sunday Evening. 6:00. January 17th, 2025. Containment area of SCP-5200

“How did you get these documents?”

SCP-5200 leaned back, shaking his shackles. “You know, this isn’t what I hoped you would think of them.”

Boyd didn’t respond, choosing instead to tap his pencil against the clipboard and raise a single eyebrow. None of the usual dodging of inquiry and cat-and-mouse would be tolerated today.

“Man… I’m just trying to help you guys. You know that you’re coming up on the number. You’ve got the child, but you don’t understand it.”

“What’s there to understand?”

“It wants… to turn the clock back. To suck up everything with the taint of the original flaw, the big glitch, that acts as your job security.” SCP-5200 attempted to wipe his nose on his sleeve, but the chains didn’t allow enough mobility. His face twisted as he suppressed a sneeze.

Boyd narrowed his eyes, and made a note. “How do you know? Why are you helping us? You could easily be trying to undermine us.”

“I know because that’s the whole reason I exist. I was made specifically for this moment, right here. For you to find me, and for me to help you out when the time came.”

“Who sent you?”

“Every-frickin’-body that doesn’t want to die when this thing starts knuckling down, dummy. There’s a lot of vested interest in existing for a lot of people.”

SCP-5200 leaned forwards from backwards, and began to whisper. “And, off the record, you guys need the help.”

“What do they know about the object?”

SCP-5200 groaned, and attempted to rub its brow. “Have you not been listening at all? Look. It’s gonna change into something much, much closer to how it originally was. That’s the deal. That’s what you need to prepare for. When that starts, you’ll need to play all your cards right to keep it from going back to how it likes things: non-existent.”

Boyd’s brow creased slightly, as he took more notes. “So, if you’re here to help, do you know what to do if it’s starting?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, chuck. From my end, this is all she, he, and they wrote. Hope y’all don’t die.”

[Narrated by @ryanvoid]

[mowseries]

Mikhail u need 2 use this knowledge well. We grey mages have names and are called Anons. We don’t travel to other worlds but we can send whatever we want to the world we chose. Depending on the world we can send items, cast spells to those we chose or even travel there but other then that sending questions’ all we can do. There are bad anons so we try to fix the damage they cause to whoever receive the letters we sent. It seems that your world’s walls only allow our letters at the moment.

[The Doctor was very quiet. After a while, he spoke up again, but softly.]

Mikhail: …

Mikhail: I had heard that terminology before, and based on how others have spoken of it… I am aware that “Anons” is the term used at large. “Grey mages” was… I think it was a term that Felix (( @unluckyadept​)) coined.

[He glanced up without lifting his head.]

Mikhail: There are reasons for this. Listen well, because I am not altogether sure that I will even be allowed to finish this explanation. And please be advised that Lord Felix knows more than I do, having studied them longer.

[He rests his (gloved) fingertips together and sighs, closing his eyes.]

Mikhail: The beings we call the “dimension walkers” have the ability to interact beyond their own world. From what I have been told, they are actually like “ordinary” humans within their own world, to use that term loosely. The true extent of their powers is only possible outside their own world.

Mikhail: They travel between dimensions, seeking out entertainment. When they see something they like, they record the happenings, sight, or sound in their enchanted scrolls. This is why many of them refer to each other as “Writers”.

Mikhail: -Interlaces his fingers- Dimension walkers don’t always merely observe, after all. One of their powers is to “sponsor” people from other worlds, allowing them to share in the ability to travel between worlds and between timelines. The link is not without a price… the empathic nature can be highly taxing, and is a two-way link. 

Mikhail: Their vision, however, is paradoxically not all that good. Sometimes, they cannot even see someone or something clearly until it is drawn. And their perception carries great power.

Mikhail: The image, the “avatar”, if you would, that is chosen by the “Anons” is monochrome, and largely grey. They use potent magic at will. Thus, they appear as people in (oversized) grey robes with white masks and black shades.

Mikhail: This is why the term “grey mages” was coined and remains in use. For it is best to keep in mind that you all have potent power. Forgetting this can be quite costly. They are, after all, dimension walkers—just using a specific method to remain faceless, featureless, almost entirely untraceable.

[He shook his head.]

Mikhail: I am aware of the powers of the dimension walkers, veiled or not. I have also come to learn of their societal structure… but that was only shared with great reluctance.

Mikhail: In addition to observing other worlds, they also have the ability to exert their own influence on the other realities. Those who first discover and capture a world have the most profound influence. Others who come afterward to that realm or to other timelines thereof have less influence, though their power within the reflected timelines can become quite potent.

Mikhail: As a social people, they are able to boost each other’s power. Thus, harmony between them can greatly increase the power of the individuals and the group. On the other hand… division among the ranks can lead to a group—acting either as a group, or as individuals—to humiliate, sometimes even psychologically torture a disgraced member, stripping them of their powers and nullifying their ability to exert influence in any sphere.

Mikhail: For those of us who are sponsored by a dimension walker, being on the second-hand receiving end of such a process is rather unnerving. I did not experience the brunt of such a thing, myself—and neither did Felix. But one of our allies did.

[He opens his eyes, giving a most unamused stare that sat on the borderline of being a glare.]

Mikhail: The reason we have always been so heavily warned against grey mages is not merely for what they can do to us. No, that is nothing new or unusual; any dimension walker can choose to be a guardian angel or a tormentor enriching living Hell.

Mikhail: No.

Mikhail: The greatest danger is in what they can do to other dimension walkers.

Mikhail: This is where I can no longer speak on the matter. It will not be permitted to do so; my sponsor will prevent it outright. I highly doubt she’ll take this conversation even as it is very kindly. She does not like it being discussed, not openly. But that alone should tell you much, if you are willing and able to see the implications.

[He narrowed his eyes, letting out a slow and very quiet sigh.]

Mikhail: The likelihood of benevolent visits from grey mages has always been hovering near absolute zero. That is what we were told. And it was said most fervently. Less so, as time passed… but that was not so much due to a societal shift as it was a growing certainty of being entirely uninteresting to them. Hardly anyone pays us any heed—and those who do have been particularly consistent over the last three years.

Mikhail: I understand that there are rules in place that limit dimension walkers from being overly helpful, and that using the masks and robes allows for a loophole that eases that restriction considerably.

Mikhail: But you must keep in mind the context that we live with, that the children live with.

[And it’s here that he grows tired, very tired.]

Mikhail: Most other AI&As have resources. They have Doctors with labs, sometimes even entire fortresses. Repairs are not an issue, nor is safety.

Mikhail: That is not so with us.

Mikhail: Our world is hostile to AI&As. I’m told it’s an outright dystopia. And that is certainly true. In our world, “identity” has become absolutely viciously divisive. People inflict violence on others who are dissimilar to them, and get away with it for several reasons. One reason is that doxxing is used to facilitate mob violence, which happens so quickly that law enforcement cannot move in time. Another reason is that in the aftermath, such violence and cruelty is justified due to the aggressive party identifying themselves a specific way that grants them special treatment, while the victim is identified in such a way that they “deserve” that treatment, and worse. And the government does nothing to stop this. No… it monitors, and works behind the scenes to—among other things—undermine resistance movements which try to bring about peace. Peace and freedom would undermine the need of the people to rely on them, after all, and thus their power would diminish.

Mikhail: People are chosen both purposefully and at random. They are vilified, and threats are made and carried out. Cardinal told me a story, once, about one of the members of the secret group that he lived with after he ran away from Wily. One of the members got doxxed, and was brutally attacked and murdered. Their house and car were burned to the ground, and the place they worked for had the windows smashed and all the merchandise looted.

Mikhail: The people do this to each other all the time, you see. And their treatment of Robot Masters is worse. They’ve strangled the life out of the industry. Getting my company off the ground was an absolute nightmare, let me tell you. And don’t even get me started on the suffocating regulations I have to deal with now that Wily thoroughly destroyed everything, just short of killing my entire family.

[Ohhhh it was clear, most DEFINITELY clear he did not want to talk about that.]

Mikhail: We live in a world where we have had to become as uninteresting and unnoticeable as possible to survive. Where being noticed by those in power gets you killed.

Mikhail: And we have come to an interdimensional realm where social power play between higher powers can be extremely dangerous.

Mikhail: Do you see now why we view this as we do? Why we are not so quick to trust?

Mikhail: If no one is paying attention to you but those you know, then logically any mystery that cannot be connected to friends of the present would be highly likely to be connected to enemies from the past. And by all accounts… well. I cannot speak on that, not without getting into deep, deep trouble.

[There was a long pause.]

Mikhail: …That being said.

Mikhail: If you do truly wish to help us, and to TRY to undo the damage of the past… well, you are welcome to do so.

[His expression softened.]

Mikhail: We have all of us learned that not everyone is an enemy. The few times where we dared to make friends… they are the only reason we survived. Certainly… we are not against making a new friend. And I am not entirely against conversation.

[A sad and broken smile, eyes reflecting a fenced-in despair.

There were two sharp memories that burned. One was his, and one was not.]

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“I know what your kind are like.”

“Don’t try to be a hero or a martyr, because you’re neither. From here on out? All anyone will EVER remember of you would be your role as a tragic villain.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Mikhail: -Slightly shaky- I think, however, that you will find it rather an uphill battle.


Mikhail: ({Good luck with that.})

[bigskydreaming]

I’m really sorry if this is a very stupid question, but what’s the difference between social politics and political infrastructure? Have a nice day!

No worries, and tbh that’s not even like.....its not the right way or at least not the best way to describe what I was trying to say, my brain just wasn’t cooperating when I tried hunting for a better phrasing, lol.

Essentially though, the distinction I was making there is that you’ve got social politics, which is your position on social issues - LGBTQ+ rights, legislation against hate crimes, police brutality, prison reform....and like, in the US at least, how we tend to define ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ is aligned with whether a person votes Democrat or Republican, with liberals of course being considered more concerned with being socially progressive while conservatives and their candidates and electeds are regressive on social issues like the ones I just mentioned. But at the same time, whether a person votes Democrat or Republican involves more than just candidates’ stances on social issues, as it usually also factors in their stances on taxes and the economy, etc. Which is how we end up with like, when people describe themselves as being socially liberal but fiscally conservative, they’re basically claiming they lean left on social matters and would vote along those lines when those issues are put to a vote....but also that they still lean right on matters pertaining to the economy, because they prefer how the Republicans vote on things like taxes.

And so by political infrastructure, I was referring to more...the general view of how a particular government is structured and which parties are associated with which views. Because it doesn’t always match up with our current view of ‘left equals Democrat equals liberal and right equals Republican equals conservative.’ Because these things change over time. For instance, in the 1800s, the Democrats were actually considered the conservative party and the Republicans the liberal party....with those flip flopping when policy changes over time eventually led to shifts in each party’s direction. 

Like, major changes to the economy and the way it was structured/we interacted with it led to Republican leadership reframing themselves as the fiscally conservative party and trying to appeal on that basis to voters who didn’t like the direction Democrats were trying to take our economy and who wanted things to stay the same, basically. And over time, more socially conservative elements within our society gained more and more influence within the Republican party and capitalized on that fiscally conservative angle to draw in a wider support base, with them then gradually pushing more conservative agendas on social issues as well, and pairing this with the party line like ‘a stronger position for our party overall gives us more power to affect economic policy in that way you like, so its in your best interests to be united with us when we push for more of what we want on these social issues here too’ etc etc. Until eventually, the parties had essentially completely flip flopped, and then the Democratic party was made up of the more socially liberal segments of society as well as the economically liberal.

So like....bottom line is ‘right’ and ‘left’ and all associated terms like liberal and conservative....are EXTREMELY arbitrary. Because their meaning at any given moment depends wholly on context...with that context frequently just being where any one party lands on a given matter RELATIVE to their opposing party. Which is how we so often get Democratic ideals that aren’t really remotely progressive or liberal and so on. They just happen to be ‘more’ progressive than those of their Republican counterparts...for whatever that happens to be worth. With that uh, not actually always being worth that much.

And there’s also the little matter of like....not everybody uses the same associations, because context varies not just compared to the other party in your own government, but also different countries have different contexts entirely. Like I mean, don’t quote me because I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that the party in Australia that’s referred to as the liberals in that system are actually a lot more aligned ideologically with our own Republican party than our Democratic party, our version of liberals. So someone from Australia saying hell no, they’re not a liberal, isn’t actually them saying they’re more likely to agree with what Trump and his supporters over here say, in opposition to OUR liberals. At least, I think anyway. Again, not really up to date with Australian politics, lol, our own give me enough of a headache.

Anyway, so yeah, what I was getting at in that post is that its utterly pointless to try and define other governments and their parties by our own associations with the right and left terminology. And that’s even when just talking about our contemporaries. Its even MORE pointless to try and label other governments from entirely different eras with our idea of right and left.

Like, most left ‘extremists’, like antifa, advocate for extremely liberal economic policies, compared to our current economic model. To the left of our current economy you get into socialism and from there communism. But leftists are also equally liberal socially speaking, with modern left ‘extremism’ pushing for us to move further left across the board on all issues.

This is completely fucking different from the overall positions of the communist regimes that post was trying to call examples of left-leaning extremists....because just because the USSR and China transitioned to communist governments in the past, which is a ‘left-side’ economic model according to our current view of things.....that in no way, shape or form says that their social politics were also left-leaning, like those of the most far left members of our society currently, even though both in theory advocated for left-side economic policies.

And since the whole thread was about those two posters trying to argue that extremists on the left side of things are just as fanatical as right-wing extremists, and thus are equally dangerous and do just as much harm......it was completely dishonest and fake to draw comparisons to Mao and the Soviet Union just because they both have technically used left-model economic systems similar in name to what the far left is pushing for today....when both those examples and their policies on human rights and social justice issues would be as considered as much the opposite of our modern far-left’s view on social issues as the white supremacists on the far right are.

Like LOL it just doesn’t work like that at all, and its extremely fake and misleading to try and pretend it does. The ideologies that led to the deaths of so many people at the hands of those two regimes have absolutely nothing in common with the ideologies of the modern American far left, and so trying to point to them as an example of the dangers of ‘leftist’ fanaticism was just fake as fuck fear-mongering meant to imply that’s where we could end up if our society didn’t have a natural opposite to our modern far-left (right wing extremists) to keep the far-left in check. 

When like, no, that’s not remotely an accurate read of our current social climate, and there’s no chance in hell that far-left extremists as is (like, without dramatic shifts in direction along the lines of how the Republican party went from being the liberals to the conservatives) - like....another freaking Mao is not where far left extremism could potentially lead us if allowed too much power. According to our current model, the more left your social politics are, like the FURTHER away you get from the social politics of someone like him.

[greaseonmymouth]

Punk Genres and Potential Problems

This post is inspired by this very long reblog chain about punk genres, definitions, and issues. It's one of those 'my buddy is confused but he's got the spirit' posts, i.e. not completely wrong, some things right, excellent points, and some flaws stemming from inaccuracies and...whatnot. Instead of piling onto that post I'm writing up a brand new post for people to reblog and disagree with. This is based 98% on my own academic research into these genres. The remaining 2% is Opinions. (That's a lie. Academic Research to Opinion ratio is more like 60/40.)

There are even sources! Because sources are GREAT. They are under the cut.

SCIENCE FICTION

The -punk genres are subgenres of science fiction, science fiction being…well, as hard to define as its subgenres. This in no way makes it difficult to write academic papers about this shit.

One of the earlier definitions put science fiction (from now on, SF) as a didactic and progressive literature with emphasis on science; a literature about science for science, with scientific methodology (Stableford:2015). As the discussion for SF definitions has progressed, so has discussion about what the correct term should be; speculative fiction (Merril:1971:60) and structural fabulation (Scholes:1975:29) have been contenders. Today science fiction and speculative fiction are used interchangeably.

There's no consensus on how to define SF (Westfahl:1998, Stableford et al:2015), though a bunch of people have tried, such as Damon Knight, who famously said: "Science fiction is what we point to when we say it." (Clute:1995:314), and Gary Westfahl, who proposed that "A work labelled science fiction has these three features: it is a prose narrative with scientific language and non-realistic subject matter – or any two of these three features." (Westfahl:1998:299).

The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction defines SF like this:

"A genre (of literature, film, etc.) in which the setting differs from our own world (e.g. by the invention of new technology, through contact with aliens, by having a different history, etc.), and in which the difference is based on extrapolations made from one or more changes or suppositions; hence, such a genre in which the difference is explained (explicitly or implicitly) in scientific or rational, as opposed to supernatural, terms." (Prucher:2009:171.)

In the words of Tom Shippey, however, SF "is hard to define because it is the literature of change and it changes while you are trying to define it." (Jakubowski & Edwards:1983).

WELL ISN'T THAT NEAT? :D SF is what we point to when we say it, as changeable as the weather, and most probably, is about science or a setting different from ours through science.

So, on to the -punk genres. I'm listing them below in a somewhat chronological order of invention. First a brief overview, and then I'll do in-depth bullets about cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, and solarpunk, as those are the -punk genres I'm most familiar with.

Cyberpunk, which concerns itself mostly with a dystopian society in which humans access cyberspace by way of cybernetics.

Biopunk, a close cousin of cyberpunk that deals with consequences of human and genetic experimentation and biotechnology (Michaud:2008:53). The main difference between biopunk and cyberpunk is that biopunk modifications have nothing to do with cyberware and cyberspace, but only genetic and biological manipulation.

Steampunk, which is retro-futuristic alternative history fiction that reimagines history and science based on an alternative universe in which the industrial revolution did not happen (or happened differently), and in which steam based science evolved. Steampunk is rooted in the politics of the Victorian era as well as aesthetic - fashion, architecture, etc.. Steampunk rarely extends beyond the Victorian era. (Guffey & Lemay:2014, Booker:2015:290.)

Dieselpunk, a close cousin of steampunk in that it is also retro-futuristic alternative history fiction, but unlike steampunk, dieselpunk accepts the industrial revolution and focuses on dieselpowered technology. (Guffey & Lemay:2014.) 

Solarpunk, a new eco-futuristic political movement that has produced little literature so far. In literature it is SF that is either retro-futuristic fiction that reimagines an alternative history in which the industrial revolution did not happen, or evolved into a different direction, or futuristic fiction in which the current environmental issues have been solved. In a solarpunk universe, the world has become solar- or windpowered, ecological and sustainable. (Lodi-Ribeiro:2014.)

Many more, such as decopunk, clockpunk, atomicpunk, and so on. All the -punk subgenres are typically considered cyberpunk derivatives, in that they are either inspired by elements of cyberpunk or have borrowed the -punk suffix to allow twisting and mixing. They focus on a certain aspect of technological advancement and its consequences, whereas SF as an overarching genre is free to do whatever it wants within the realm of a) prose narrative, b) technological advancement ("scientific language") and c) non-realistic subject matter, if going by Westfahl's definition of SF.

CYBERPUNK

In cyberpunk, the advanced technology is very often biotechnology; technology that alters the human body or mind, for example brain implants that allow the human mind access to the internet, or cyberspace. In addition to this, the life quality of the characters in a cyberpunk story tends to be very low. Cyberpunk represents a future in which humans are subject to ruthless digital and technical communications networks and have lost the human connection to each other (Cavallaro:2000:xv). Cyberpunk is by nature a dystopian genre by virtue of its themes and discussions, which often revolve around the potential downfalls of technological advancement. Important to note here is that cyberpunk as a genre was born in the early eighties, at the beginning of the technological boom. Internet, cell phones, microchips and bionic prosthetics were all new things under development, and so it would be very easy to conclude that the genre was also in part born out of fear of the unknown. The - punk part of the term was taken directly from 1970s rock'n'roll terminology, punk in this context meaning young, aggressive, streetwise, and alienated, and offensive to the Establishment. In the early 1980s the term cyberpunk was coined by writer Bruce Bethke, and the term came into common use via William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984). (Nicholls:2015a.)

Non-exhaustive list of themes:

Punk disillusionment, sometimes with layers of illusions being peeled away as the story progresses

The loss of human connection and/or the decline of the human condition

Media overload, massive data networks and density of information

Destructive sex, often in connection with the lack of ability to form human connections

Bodily metamorphosis and/or body modifications that lead to transhuman and posthuman themes.

A dark, gritty and post-industrial global setting, often megacities, that further overshadow the protagonist and emphasise their position in society

Heavy substance use & addiction

Hopelessness – the protagonists nurture no hope of getting out of their predicament and/or do not succeed

Disregard for human life

(Burrows & Featherstone:1996; Elias:2009:3; Shiner:1991; Hollinger:1990; McHale:1992; Murphy & Vint:2010; Shiner:1992; Slusser:1992; Cavallaro:2000, Lavigne:2013:11-16.)

In addition to these, cyberpunk themes very often also overlap with postmodernist themes such as:

"lost in the city" themes of lack of identity

An increasingly fractured and globalised society

The loss of meaning or a higher order, religion is non-existent and there is no god or other higher authority to whom one can turn for answers

Deconstruction. It can be argued that cyberpunk in itself is a deconstruction of utopian SF narratives – the utopia of SF is often the dystopia of cyberpunk.

(McCaffery:1991: 315-316; McHale:1991; Heuser:2003; Woods:1999:65-66.)

Now, cyberpunk was coined by a bunch of cishet white dudes in a single writer's circle, who just wanted to look really cool. (See the Mirrorshades anthology and it's editor, who was the one who most wanted to be cool.) The same dudes have now declared this genre dead and that it is no longer active as a productive genre, albeit having been a refreshing spark and fresh point of view within SF history and SF literature (Nicholls:2015a). To that I say: bullshit! Genres don't just 'die', and don't just 'stop being productive' - let me refer you back to the definition of SF as a something that changes as you try to define it.

Consider this: in the 80s a bunch of dudebros wrote stories about the danger of technology and the internet while also writing about anti-heroes fighting the establishment (none of these dudebros were actual punks, they were decidedly middle-class to upper middle-class who circle-jerked each other in their writing workshops on the regular and wore sunglasses with mirror-finish). In the 90s the new technology wave didn't really seem all that dangerous anymore, and wasn't the internet and the cellphones awfully convenient? And who cares about Monsanto and Nestlé when we can get cheap flour and coca-cola whenever we want it? And by the 21st century, well, these dudebros are old, likely haven't kept up with their own genre because they're stuck with whatever they thought was genius in the 80s, and technology is everywhere. Also, Japan did not become the technological mega-corporate superpower that they thought it would be in the 80s, and we don't live in a Judge Dredd society, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ , basically.

Here's some examples of cyberpunk works: Mirrorshades anthology (1986) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrorshades) Neuromancer, Gibson (1984)

Blade Runner (1982) Ghost in the Shell (1995) The Matrix (1999) Surrogates (2009) Dredd (2012) Elysium (2013) Lucy (2014)

Hey look at that, four movies on this list from the 21st century, but I guess cyberpunk is really dead, guys? How sad Alexa play despacito

Potential problems

There's always a risk that in creating a cyberpunk story that one accidentally ends up writing about sentient fedoras instead of actual anti-heroes fighting against real injustice. If your story is about incels, you're doing cyberpunk wrong.

No really, that's it.

STEAMPUNK

I have no sources for this section because I've not covered steampunk in my own academic research, it's just one of those genres I really like to read recreationally. I have read academic articles about steampunk, but do I have them saved? No, absolutely not. That would be rational, useful, and effective, and that's not how we do things in this household.

That said.

Steampunk is a subgenre of SF that falls under ALTERNATIVE HISTORY rather than COOL FUTURE STUFF. It's retro-futuristic type of science fiction inspired by the likes of Jules Verne, who wrote science fiction in the 19th century. What's characteristic for Jules Verne and other SF writers of the same era, is that they imagined technological development based on the science they had at the time, which is why so many of their inventions are steam powered (coal). They had all these grand ideas (and big imaginations) for what humanity could achieve, but didn't have anything more advanced than coal, steam, and electricity. They didn't know that there was an entire digital revolution waiting to happen in the 20th century, so everything was analogue.

In addition to that, the 19th century still had like, this ginormous British Empire. There were colonies everywhere, French, British, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish--Europeans were stealing lands and killing people (and enslaving them, still). Imperialism was in vogue and the tea, sugar, and opium trade was the highlight of capitalism at the expense of the entire rest of the world.

The modern steampunk genre as it's written today is...based on all that. So you have a genre that's aesthetic as fuck (cogwheels everywhere, amiright?), in a sort of nostalgic way where everyone has on pretty dresses, the technology is adorably analogue, there's steam! Steam is pretty! Science as we know it is disregarded for the Rule of Cool, and some writers even throw in supernatural elements because why the fuck not, and the Victorians were into it anyway.

The steampunk genre was not created to be -punk. It is not inherently rebellious, it doesn't feature a fight against the establishment, it doesn't have anti-heroes, it doesn't really have anything about it that pokes at the status quo of its time (the Victorian era). It was dubbed steampunk because cyberpunk was a term that existed, and it looked cool to model the name of a new subgenre after another one, that clearly set it apart from 'traditional' SF, but also made it clear it was different from cyberpunk.

Potential problems:

The genre as a whole.

I'm not joking.

So, how do you avoid the problem that is steampunk?

De-colonise the narrative* (er, probably don't do this if you're white.)

Whatever you do, make sure you're not accidentally glorifying imperialism and colonialism.

Write stories that subvert the steampunk genre as it's popularly known--go beyond the Victorian era - what does a steampunk world look like that prevailed until 2018? What happened to the British empire in that world? Is it still around? Did it collapse? What role did tech play in it? *who* has the tech - the British empire, or the nations it colonised? What does that mean for history? Who's the hero and who's the establishment? Where is the injustice and who is fighting it?

Steampunk is often known as a fluff genre, where the characters just get to go on adventures and have fun. Drink a lot of tea, eat a lot of food, etc. (Hello, Gail Carriger) There's nothing wrong with fluff, but consider: at whose expense do we get the fluff? Just to take Gail Carriger's steampunk books as an example, her characters frequently exhibit a privilege that only comes with the fact they are British citizens in a British empire.

Examples of steampunk works:

Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Verne (1870) (you didn't think I was going to forget Jules Verne, did you? The Time Machine, Wells (1895) (most people would say it's SF, but I'm adding it here because of when it was written and the faux science) Infernal Devices, Jeter (1987) The Difference Engine, Sterling & Gibson (1991) The Golden Compass, Pullmann (1995) Steampunk and Steampunk Reloaded anthology (2008) edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer The Boneshaker, Priest (2009) The Revolutions, Gilman (2014) Gail Carriger's Parasolverse (on-going)

The City of Lost Children (1995) Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) Treasure Planet (2002) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) Van Helsing (2004) SteamBoy (2004) Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

*this, I'd argue, is how we get e.g. afropunk and silkpunk. :D :D :D i don't mean that afropunk and silkpunk are steampunk under a different name, i mean that those genres are about de-colonising the narrative; alternative history free of western intervention. It's SUPER COOL STUFF, and you should all read it. (As should I.) Ken Liu and JY Yang do silkpunk. Unfortunately I don't know much afropunk, though I do know Black Panther (2018) is an example of afropunk.

DIESELPUNK

Oh man am I READY for this hot mess.

Dieselpunk is another ALTERNATIVE HISTORY subgenre, characterised by being set between WW1 and WW2, when dieselpowered technology was the main technological focus. Dieselpunk fiction sometimes extends into the 1950s and early 1960s, and in those cases often discusses alternative histories in which the Nazis won the war or the post-apocalyptic reality following a nuclear war or other major human-made disastrous event. The term dieselpunk was coined in 2001 by Lewis Pollak and Dan Ross, when they needed to describe the aesthetic of their new game which was steampunk-esque, but darker and grittier than steampunk. Dieselpunk was a world of grit, oil, dust and mud, but also borrowed elements from Art Deco, Dadaism, Cubism, and Futurism, amongst others. (Ottens & Piecraft:2008.)

I have a love-hate relationship with this genre, because there are TWO strands of dieselpunk, and, if you've spotted it already, one of them is about nazis winning and the other is about nazis losing. Guess which one I like? If your answer is 'the one where nazis lose' you are right, gold star for you. I'll be citing a lot from Ottens and Piecraft in this section because there is shockingly little academic research done on dieselpunk. Nick Ottens and Mr. Piecraft are two dudes who like dieselpunk who sat together ten years ago to talk about a definition, and published it in a webzine. It's important to note that Mr. Piecraft is a screenname, and that Piecraft himself is a nazi-sympathiser if not an outright nazi (honestly, what's the difference between nazi-sympathiser and nazi? none). Ottens, on the other hand, uses his own name because he's not a fricking nazi.

So, about those two strands. Let's deal with the nazi first so we can proceed to ignore it for the rest of this post.

Themes of the Piecraftian strand:

Continual dystopian view

The aesthetic of world wars

World War 2 is either being fought as a prolonged cold war or has been won by the Axis powers

Often suggests Nazi-Germany has advanced rocketry and aeroplane programs

Eugenics

The lack of development of human culture due to widespread warfare

In the case of a post-apocalyptical event, survival being largely dependent on diesel power

The occult or supernatural

Often no hope for recovery, survival or a better future

(Ottens & Piecraft:2008)

Y I K E S. just. YIKES.

Themes of the Ottensian strand:

Settings in which the decadent aesthetics and utopian philosophies of the Roaring Twenties continued unhindered by economic collapse or war

The Great Depression did not happen, sometimes World War 1 didn't either

Enthusiasm for the predictions about the future produced throughout the 1930s and 1950s

Positive visions of dieselpowered technology, often realising utopian ideals of technology fairs at the time

Unstoppable technological progress; however the technology almost never crosses the boundary between dieselpowered machines and sophisticated computer technology

Nuclear weapons only an experimental technology

Firmly set in the interwar era and does not incorporate World War 2

Pulp-inspired adventure

Always carries a glimmer of hope

(Ottens & Piecraft:2008)

Dieselpunk is sometimes considered a post-cyberpunk genre within the "Ottensian" tradition, as it may offer a utopian view of the progression stated in a pre-WW2 environment as a counterpoint to the dystopian world views of cyberpunk; dieselpunk as a genre is not just newer than cyberpunk, it showed up right on the heels of cyberpunk. Dieselpunk is also sometimes considered a post-steampunk and pre-cyberpunk genre timeline-wise, as the universe of the "Piecraftian" dieselpunk tradition may eventually turn into a cyberpunk universe with the progress of time and technological advancement, and was in fact considered a continuum between steampunk and cyberpunk by game designers Pollak and Ross. Another view is that dieselpunk fiction can be likened to cyberpunk stories set in the Roaring Twenties instead of in the near future as both cyberpunk and dieselpunk take inspiration from film noir in their storytelling and aesthetic look. (Ottens & Piecraft:2008; Buckell:2015; Feinstein:2014; Wilson:2013.)

I personally think that dieselpunk has a lot more in common with cyberpunk than with steampunk, even though dieselpunk and steampunk are often lumped together. It's easy to see why they are, as both steampunk and dieselpunk are highly aesthetic genres, they're both alternative history, they both have nostalgic elements (e.g. victorian fashion, 20s-40s fashion), and they both lack the true -punk aspect of the genre: the fight against the establishment. At least where the Piecraftian strand is concerned, as that isn't so much about fighting the establishment as it is about glorifying fascism. The Ottensian strand, while 'fluffier', and pulp-ier, definitely has a clear anti-nazi thread--the heroes in pre-WW2 or WW2 stories are explicitly fighting the nazis, not aiding them.

Examples of dieselpunk works:

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (Bet you didn't see that one coming) The Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) Captain America: the First Avenger (2011) (YES, REALLY. IT IS DIESELPUNK.) Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Potential problems:

THE ENTIRE PIECRAFTIAN STRAND OF DIESELPUNK, HONESTLY

DON'T BE A PIECRAFT

BE CAPTAIN AMERICA

PUNCH A NAZI

SOLARPUNK

Hey look, it's my favourite -punk genre! It's my favourite because it's so new and undefined and malleable and we can make it ANYTHING WE WANT, without old dudebros breathing down our necks. (No doubt they will still be breathing down our necks, but fuck them. FUCK THE ESTABLISHMENT.)

Solarpunk is a new eco-futuristic political movement that has produced little literature so far. It's usually characterised by either retro-futuristic fiction that reimagines an alternative history in which the industrial revolution did not happen, or evolved into a different direction, or futuristic fiction in which the current environmental issues have been solved. In a solarpunk universe, the world has become solar- or windpowered, ecological and sustainable. (Lodi-Ribeiro:2014.)

Some credit the solarpunk movement to this post on tumblr from 2014, but the term and the concept had been around for at least two years by then. The post can however be given some credit regarding spreading the concept and spotlighting it in a visually appealing way. Because of this post, many define solarpunk as art noveau + plants, which, to be fair, is a very aesthetic rendition of the concept, but like I said: this is a brand new genre, it's malleable, we are still in the process of defining it. And we likely never will be 'finished' defining it, as I remind you yet again that science fiction is the literature of change, and it changes while you define it.

I imagine that the -punk part of solarpunk isn't solely because all those other established genres use that naming model, but because we live in a society that still relies heavily on fossil fuels, and we are living a global climate crisis that will only be worse if we don't take action. Solarpunk takes that and goes 'what if we didn't have that problem in the first place?' and imagines a world where we didn't become reliant on fossil fuels, where we as a species invented and used sustainable sources of power (wind, solar, water) from the get-go. Or it imagines a world where we averted the crisis, where fossil fuels were replaced by renewable energy. I like this genre because it speaks to the part of me that is passionate about the environment and sustainable energy (like, come on, I live in Denmark, the land of wind power), and because parts of our society are, in fact, solarpunk. So one could say the genre is fighting against the establishment we live in (the governments that don't sign environmental treaties, governments that keep digging for oil instead of investing in sustainable research, governments that approve fracking, governments that roll back laws that protect the environment) by presenting an alternative, but I'd like to think that in fiction we'll also eventually have heroes fighting for the environment.

Examples of solarpunk works:

Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World Anthology (2012, translated into English in 2018) Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation Anthology (2017) Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers Anthology (2018) The Broken Earth Trilogy, Jemisin (I have yet to read it, but others have described it as having solarpunk elements)

Potential problems:

I don't? know? yet?

??

SOURCES:

BOOKER, M. Keith. Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.

BUCKELL, Tobias S.. Introduction. The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk. Ed. Sean Wallace. Hachette UK, 2015.

BURROWS, Roger & Mike FEATHERSTONE. Cultures of Technological Embodiment: An Introduction. Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk. Sage Publications, 1996.

CAVALLARO, Dani. Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the work of William Gibson. The Athlone Press, 2000.

CLUTE, John & Peter NICHOLLS. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. 2nd edition. St. Martin's Griffin, 1995.

ELIAS, Herlander. Cyberpunk 2.0: Fiction and Contemporary. LabCom Books, Portugal. 2009.

FEINSTEIN, Katriona. Dieselpunk: Retro Futures of the All-American Art Deco Years. Graffito Books Limited, 2014

GUFFEY, Elizabeth and Kate C. LEMAY. Retrofuturism and Steampunk. The Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction. Ed. Rob Latham. Oxford University Press, 2014.

HOLLINGER, Veronica. Cybernetic Deconstructions: Cyberpunk and Postmodernism.

Mosaic 23, January 1990.

JAKUBOWSKI, Maxim & Malcolm EDWARDS (ed.). The Complete Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy Lists. HarperCollins, 1983.

LAVIGNE, Carlen. Cyberpunk Women, Feminism and Science Fiction: A Critical Study. McFarland, 2013.

LODI-RIBEIRO, Gerson. Prefácio. Solarpunk. Editora Draco, 2014.

MCCAFFERY, Larry. Cutting Up. Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Science Fiction. Duke University Press, 1991.

MCHALE, Brian. POSTcyberMODERNpunkISM. Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Science Fiction. Duke University Press, 1991.

MCHALE, Brian. Towards a poetics of cyberpunk. Constructing Postmodernism. Routledge, 1992.

MERRIL, Judith. What Do You Mean: Science? Fiction? SF: The Other Side of Realism. Editor Thomas D. Clareson. Popular Press, 1971.

MICHAUD, Thomas. Science Fiction and Innovation. Marsisme.com, 2008.

MILBURN, Colin. Posthumanism. The Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction. Ed. Rob Latham. Oxford University Press, 2014.

MURPHY, Graham J. and Sherryl VINT. Introduction: The Sea Change(s) of Cyberpunk. Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical Perspectives. Routledge, 2010.

NICHOLLS, Peter. Cyberpunk. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Eds. John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight. Gollancz, 10 Apr. 2015. Web. 3 Nov. 2015. a

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cyberpunk.

NICHOLLS, Peter. Cybernetics. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Eds. John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight. Gollancz, 10 Apr. 2015. Web. 3 Nov. 2015. b

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cybernetics.

NICHOLLS, Peter, and John CLUTE. Genre SF. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Eds. John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight. Gollancz, 2 Apr. 2015. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/genre_sf.

OTTENS, Nick & Mr PIECRAFT: Discovering Dieselpunk. The Gatehouse Gazette, July 2008. Web. 31 March 2016.

http://www.ottens.co.uk/gatehouse/Gazette%20-%201.pdf

PRUCHER, Jeff (editor). Brave New Words. The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction.

Oxford University Press, 2009.

SCHOLES, Robert E. Structural Fabulation: An Essay on Fiction of the Future. University of Notre Dame Press, 1975.

SHINER, Lewis. Confessions of an Ex-Cyberpunk. New York Times Op-Ed page, Jan. 7, 1991.

SHINER, Lewis. Inside the Movement: Past, Present and Future. Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the future of narrative. Eds. George Slusser and Tom Shippey. University of Georgia Press, 1992.

SLUSSER, George. Introduction: Fiction as Information. Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the future of narrative. Eds. George Slusser and Tom Shippey. University of Georgia Press, 1992.

STABLEFORD, Brian M; John CLUTE & Peter NICHOLLS. Definitions of SF. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Eds. John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight. Gollancz, 2 Apr. 2015. Web. 14 Sept. 2015. http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/definitions_of_sf.

WILSON, Tome. Welcome to the retro future. Dieselpunk Epulp showcase. John Pica, 2013. WOODS, Tim. Beginning Postmodernism. Manchester University Press, 1999.

[sifipaygateway]

Which Type of Payment Gateway is Right for Your Business?

Payments are a company's lifeblood. When payments are flowing smoothly, everything else follows. That is why it is critical to select a system that integrates well with your business and meets all of your payment requirements. These systems are frequently referred to as online payment gateway.

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So, What Exactly Are Payment Gateways?

First, a word about terminology:

You may have heard or seen this term used in a variety of contexts. The issue is that the term "payment gateways" is frequently applied to systems that go beyond standard gateway functionality, so the terminology can become confusing.

Consider the square vs. rectangle distinction: all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

The broader category (the rectangle) in this case is "payment platforms" or "payment solutions." The best payment gateways are a subset of that category (the square); other platforms, such as payment facilitators, also exist. However, in general, people tend to use payment gateways as a catch-all term for all platforms, which is analogous to using a square to describe a rectangle.

Although it is not technically correct, we frequently use the term payment gateways because it is the term most people are familiar with. In this post, we will discuss the various payment gateway types, including what we refer to as "traditional or limited payment gateways" (the square again). Keep in mind that the broad category we're discussing is payment platform types.

If you want a more in-depth explanation, check out this blog.

Whatever the term, this is what it means:

A payment gateway is essentially a link between your customers and the relevant financial institution. Gateways serve as a connection point between a merchant's website and a payment provider or banking network. They essentially serve as a "wire" that connects your website to a payment provider, allowing secure payment data to flow back and forth.

Payment Gateway Types

The main payment gateway types can be classified based on how they've evolved over time and, as a result, what kinds of features they provide to their users. The three major types are as follows:

Gen 1: Basic or Traditional Payment Gateways

Gen 2: Startup-Friendly Payment Gateways

Gen 3: Payments as a Service (also known as Full Payment Platforms, Payment Facilitators or Global Payment Gateways)

Gen 1: Basic Payment Gateways

Basic or traditional gateways provide a single connection to a payment processor for the merchant. This is the most do-it-yourself type, as you're essentially creating your own payment solution.

If you only want to sell in one country using credit cards, a Gen 1 gateway is ideal. If you want any other features, you'll have to add them with additional integrations (more on that later, but essentially it means more work for developers).

That means more work for any other regions or payment types, whether it's a bank or someone else — and multiples aren't good. To manually create a cohesive payment system, you'll need to stitch together separate chunks of code for each feature you want. Basic payment gateways can meet your needs if you're willing to invest in significant development and software resources.

Basic gateways, as a result, necessitate significant resources for upkeep and are surprisingly expensive, not least because those resources cost both time and money. It's also difficult to avoid the extra work because merchants typically use five gateway processors, four acquiring banks, and six payment types.

-Photo created by freepik

Gen 2: Startup-Friendly Gateways

Gen 2 gateways are easier to use and include more features, such as functionality packaged for specific regions.

Startup-friendly gateways are exactly what they sound like: they're designed for startups that want to expand but don't require advanced payment capabilities. If you want more than the basic payment services, you'll still need to invest significant time in building and customising your solution, but Gen 2 gateways do come with easy-to-integrate APIs.

Gen 3: Payments as a Service

Payments as a service, also known as full payment platforms or payment facilitators, are the third way to set up payments.

Payment facilitators, as opposed to separate chunks of code, are an all-in-one package with robust payment features built in so you can easily enable the ones you need. As a result, they are far better suited to growing businesses, as their features can be expanded as your needs change. They also include additional features such as fraud and chargeback management.

Facilitators have the most features of any online payment gateway type. For example, they have built-in support for multiple payment types and currencies, so they can handle all of your global payment needs.

Facilitators are far better at reporting because they are one cohesive system. Instead of having to reconcile multiple standalone integrations, facilitators have all of your payment data in one place. Furthermore, they are far easier for developers to manage: facilitators require significantly less work than traditional gateways, with simple management for everything from setup to error codes.

One of the primary reasons for this advantage is that facilitators only require one integration. So, what exactly are integrations, and what are some of the most common payment integration types?

Using Your Gateway: Payment Integration Types

When choosing a payment gateway, integrations are an important factor to consider. When you've determined which gateway type is best for your needs, think about which integration options will help you make the most of that gateway.

Integrations can be quite specific, such as one for Apple Pay only, or a different integration so that your payment gateway provider can operate in multiple regions. If your provider's integrations do not enable all of the payment functionality you require, you will be severely limited in your ability to expand globally or accept international customers.

More integrations, on the other hand, aren't always a good thing. More integrations necessitate more maintenance and support, as well as a higher overhead, so look for a gateway that requires fewer integrations to provide the functionality you require.

There's another complication here: your gateway can be integrated in a variety of ways. These payment integration types are divided into three categories:

Solutions that are hosted. These are ready-made options for configuring your payment gateway, such as hosted payment or checkout pages. They're ideal for small teams with a few developers because the payment provider handles everything.

APIs. APIs integrate the gateway seamlessly with your website; they're better suited for organisations with developers who can handle the setup — especially since more APIs means more dev work. APIs are useful, but the fewer there are, the better.

Development Kits for Software (SDKs). An SDK works similarly to an API, but it also includes a set of tools, libraries, relevant documentation, code samples, or guides that enable developers to accept payments in your app or website with a complete toolkit.

Plugins from third parties. If you're already using an eCommerce platform, you'll need a payments provider with a plugin for that platform; compare plugins from each provider to ensure they have all of the features you require. That plugin enables all of the payment provider's products and features with a simple integration.

The Right Combination of Gateway & Integration

To summarise, there are various types of payment gateways, each with its own set of features. These gateways can be configured with various types of integrations, requiring varying levels of development work.

When selecting a gateway, look for the features and functionality you require first. Then consider the various integration types that can be used to configure that gateway. A Gen 2 payment gateway, for example, has some useful features, but you'll need multiple integrations to connect to that gateway across different regions, so you'll only benefit from those features if you're willing to invest in the necessary development work. 

[firstpuffin]

Childhood reading: Redwall

When I was growing up I read a lot, like that’s all I did for long periods of time levels of a lot. Heck, I had a different book in each room of the house so I could put one down and pick up another. I don’t know why; I was a weird kid. But while I didn’t read books like Harry Potter or Skullduggery Pleasant (the latter of which seems quite popular but was published a bit too late for me), the books that I did read were pretty much my entire life and most definitely shaped me into who I am and there was one particular series that I thank for that.

   I adored the Redwall series, written by Brian Jacques up until his death in 2011; he consistently wrote this series on an almost yearly basis from 1986 until he sadly passed away. I must have stopped reading around 2005-6, and was recently very pleased to discover four more books that I never read, nor knew existed, assuming at the time that the series had been long completed. I say recently because upon realising that I want to write children’s fiction, I decided to revisit the stories from my youth. Earlier youth? I’m still pretty young.

  The series follows the history of Redwall abbey, a place of peace and prosperity. Every character in the series is an anthropomorphic animal along the lines of mice, otters, hedgehogs and squirrels, amongst more; these are usually the good guys and are often referred to as “woodland creatures”. This is important as there are also animals such as foxes, stoats, weasels and more that are called “vermin” and play the role of the antagonists. Despite being based around an abbey there is little to no religion within the world, except maybe for a high level of reverence towards the mouse patriarch Martin the Warrior and his sword, which could be similar to that of King Arthur. There is a lot of interesting terminology within the Redwall world, with characters saying “beast” (such as everybeast, somebeast, etc), the young abbeybabes are referred to as Dibbuns; Bloodwrath is a reoccurring term, usually in relation to a badger and is a sort of affliction that sends a beast into a rage where they are immune to pain and unaware of damage as they focus solely on their target. These words are always made clear and so there is little room for confusion.

   The ghost of Martin is a constant in the series where he appears in dreams to guide the characters through hard times. He often provides ambiguous clues to assist in whatever puzzle the story needs solving, puzzles and riddles and such being a common and engaging part of the stories. As this would suggest, there is a certain amount of supernatural within the stories, with seers foretelling the future and prophesies to be fulfilled; there is even a legend of a particularly skilled warrior who is said to be born every now and again, marked by a pink flower birthmark and who is called the “Taggerung”.

  I read all of the books that I could get my grubby little paws on, which is probably all of them that were released up until high-school where I got a bit distracted from reading novels. They were such an integral part of my life that I was shocked to discover that my classmates in the university creative writing course hadn’t even heard of the series outside of the, apparently quite bad, short-lived cartoon. The only other person who I found had read any was one of my lecturers. I was aghast, so in the hope of spreading the word about this series I am writing this.

   Now, one of my lecturers taught us about the, to put it politely, the faeces sandwich method of critiquing someone’s work. You say something nice, say the bad stuff and follow that up with some more positive; I like to add that if you can then try and suggest how to improve on the criticisms, even if it’s just how you would do so, then go ahead. If you can’t take criticism then don’t create. I figure that I’ve praised the series already so I’m going to bring up my criticisms here and go into the rest of the article positively.

   One issue that I remember being aware of even in my youth is the timeline of each individual story as well as them put together. Presumably due to animals shorter lifespans, Mr Jacques doesn’t work with years but with seasons which is in and of itself fine. The problem is that in any one story, the time isn’t always realistic; it can be less than a season and yet a character will learn years worth of skills, mature physically or emotionally by at least half a year or events may simply not match up with other events. One character learns to fix a stutter within a day or two or practicing (Broggle, The Taggerung, 2001); within less than a season another character goes from useless and untrained in weapons, to throwing a dirk with greater skill than those who have been throwing and such long before he was born (Tammo, The Long Patrol, 1997).

   Add to that, badgers live an unspecified amount of time longer than the other creatures; I don’t know much about animal lifespans but one badger can live for multiple generations of, say, mice. But because of this longevity, events that involve generations of badgers will sometimes throw a spanner into the clockwork of the world (See the badgers: Brocktree, Boar, Bella and Sunflash).

   Another complaint is one that may not be noticed by children: characters are very much recycled. The events of much of the series could in all honesty be done with the characters of the first book; many characters are inanely cheerful, they are all gluttons and all love poetry and rhymes. The villains are always impulsive and ruthless to their own subordinates, not a one of them thinking of controlling them via a less violent yet just as evil means. Every! Single! Hare is the same, except for one; male or female, they are greedy, reckless and brave and all, except the aforementioned one, talk like a stereotypical 1900’s Brit on drugs (wot wot old chap and all that tosh).

  Yet, and despite the length with which I have gone on about them, these complaints are minor. The stories themselves are generally solid, and although the growth may happen at an absurd rate, the characters do develop; there is always a puzzle to be solved and an enemy to defeat. I was concerned for a while that the world was a little too black and white with vermin always being straight-up evil and the other characters noble and brave, which could easily be seen as a form of biological racism (as in “this race is biologically evil”), yet there have been books where this has been turned on its head: The Bellmaker (1994) has a searat (basically a pirate and rats are always bad) who is taken in by the abbey and cared for by the reluctant creatures who are uncomfortable having “vermin” around yet are compelled by their sense of duty to help. After this rat’s captain kills one of the residents, the rat is furious at his actions towards the kind folk and kills his own captain and returns that which he stole to the abbey. It is a clear tale of how the right circumstances can allow a bad person to redeem himself.

   Another positive is the frequent presence of capable female characters. It is popular these days to talk of “strong” females, yet I personally believe that this gives people the wrong impression of what it takes to be a decent character, male or female, and so I choose to say “capable” in place of “strong”. While this is a personal preference, I also believe that it is more accurate about the characters within this series. Yes, there are females who break down in fear but there are many examples, such as the disabled Martha Braebuck who is also that unique hare that I mentioned, who will take command when others are fretting (Loamhedge, 2003). Another character who has been a personal favourite from childhood is Mariel Gullwhacker (Mariel of Redwall, 1991) who survives being washed up on a beach with no memory and who finds her way to safety and eventually seeks out revenge on the searat Gabool. For two books she actively follows her own path and fights with nothing but a knotted piece of rope. These are just two examples of different capable female characters, one who fights and one who leads, out of many possible examples.

  This next point could be either good or bad, depending on your preferences in fiction, yet I personally feel it is good for children’s books to cover, and that is death. It doesn’t happen in every book but it is not too unusual for Mr Jacques to build up a likable character or two, only to have them die in some noble fashion, or in one case to die “off-screen” or whatever the written equivalent is. Despite my own childhood reaction to this, being avoiding certain books that broke my heart (no spoilers), I currently believe that this is a positive thing to have in children’s fiction. It’s too easy to avoid anything like death when dealing with children, but that is an unhealthy attitude to have. The Redwall series is especially good in this regard as not only do likable main characters die, but it is not too unusual for a character to deal with shock and guilt after killing, reinforcing the value of lives, even those of “vermin”.

   I would like to round things up with some of my personal favourites from the series. The already mentioned “The Long Patrol” was a favourite up until the time when I stopped reading so much: young Tammo (full name Tamello De Fformelo Tussock, pretty typical for hares) is unable to stay at home as tensions between himself and his father rise and his mother recruits her old friend to take Tammo to join the Long Patrol, a legendary army of hares. What should have been a peaceful enough trip was interrupted when the vermin horde, lead by Damug Warfang, start moving across the land and Tammo happens to meet up with a small scout group of Long Patrol hares. They join the peaceful Redwall abbey in their attempts to stop the horde before they reach the abbey, temporarily vulnerable after a collapsed wall leaves them open to attack.

   I’m not entirely sure why I enjoyed this story so much; maybe it was Damug’s unique sword as well as Tammo’s dirk, my first introduction to that weapon. Maybe it was the badger warrior Lady Cregga Rose-Eyes who spends most of her time lost to the Bloodwrath and runs around as a near-unstoppable juggernaut. I can’t say as I wasn’t quite so keen upon revisiting it, yet I will likely always hold fond memories of it.

   My next entry is another already mentioned story, Mariel of Redwall. Sure, the amnesia trope might be a bit overused yet I’ll forgive that for anything published before 1990. Mariel is captured by searat king Gabool the Wild and forced to be a slave until she is cast into the sea. She wakes up parched, forgetful and with only a knotted rope to her name. She struggles onwards, hearing of Redwall and making her way there, usually alone but occasionally meeting friendly travellers and facing threats with only her rope. She eventually reaches Redwall abbey, regains her memory and sets out to get her revenge and to rescue her father.

   This entry to the series is an engaging story and I really like the character of Mariel, as well as her name. She is a determined and active character who goes through a lot of adversity and comes out the other side better for it. Gabool the Wild is also a typical example of a Redwall villain: while not all antagonists follow this pattern it’s not at all unusual for them to slowly go insane, losing sleep, not eating and failing to keep the loyalty of their subordinates. This is particularly good because in a one-on-one fight, Mariel isn’t an experienced enough fighter to beat a warlord, yet due to his strained mind, mutinous crew and tactics, the reader believes that she can succeed.

   My final entry is a tough one to choose, yet I’m going with Mossflower (1988) for it tells of the conflict that brought about the titular Redwall abbey. There are other books that tell the origin of Martin the Warrior, though Mossflower details his arrival in Mossflower country and how he joins the rebellion of the woodland creatures against the tyranny of wildcat royalty. Martin and a couple of friends are sent to find the badger lord Boar, who could lead them to victory. Instead, Boar forges Martin a new sword from a meteorite and has them return. Martin’s new sword is a constant throughout the series: unbreakable, forever sharp and able to cut through most things with relative ease, it develops a legend of its own and is eventually thought of to be magic. After Martin inevitably prevails, they all start building their new home: Redwall abbey.

   I chose this one for the final for it tells of the story behind many reoccurring elements within the story: Martin, his sword, Loamhedge and of course Redwall abbey itself amongst more. It is also a good story.

[kuuderekun]

Magical Girl Site, Transgender Representation and The Batman Question.

Magical Girl Site, Transgender Representation and The Batman Question. 

For the second week in a row Magical Girl Site is the only show I really want to comment on.  But I'm still enjoying all the shows I'm currently watching. I mentioned in my Astolfo post how I don't use the term "Trap" to describe characters who are actually Trasngender.  The only problem with making that hard distinction is Japanese media doesn't always use the same terminology we use in the west, so it's not always clear what the writers are going for.  For example I'm still not sure what we're supposed to think of Ruka in Steins;Gate, I like that in the new series they seem more comfortable with their gender identity, but I'm still unsure what it's supposed to be. Episode 7 of Magical Girl Site introduced the character of Kiyoharu Suirenji.  Going off what we see in this episode alone I would have to conclude she is a Transwoman and not merely a Crossdresser because of her using the girl's bathroom and that being an issue.  I don't think a CisMale Crossdresser would use the girl's bathroom.  However her seemingly not objecting to others calling her a boy complicates the matter, but it could be she's just someone who doesn't want to get confrontational about it.  But I also could have missed something there since I'm watching it Subbed because there is no Dub. In the episode's MAL forum one user who's read the Manga says the character is definitely a Transwoman.  That user is defending using the proper terminology to refer to her.  However there is at least one user there being very blatantly Transphobic. Most of what we see of the character in the episode I like.  However we are given a glimpse of the character having a dark side, with her saying she'll get revenge in the distant future.  Now this is a Dark Magical girl show where most characters have something dark about them.  But I'm still recovering from the disappointment of my favorite Western TV show of all time, Pretty Little Liars blowing it with it's handling of this issue. People sometimes ask whether bad representation is better then no representation.  It is interesting that if this show had never brought the issue up I would probably have never singled it out to criticize for lack of Trans representation.  But as soon as they provide some representation it doesn't take long for me to start being on edge about her being mishandled.  I'd been praising the show for it's unsanitized depiction of Bullying, I should then be thrilled to see that theme expand to showing the bullying Trans Women endure.  But instead I'm worried about the implications of this character either turning evil or dying. But I now realize that, yeah, I should be criticizing Magical Girl shows for failing to include trans representation (and even Sailor Moon fails to include any true Trans representation, the Starlights were simply a gender bending gimmick).  They frequently try to have very diverse casts allowing many different kinds of girls to be magical girls, representing many different forms of the adolescent female experience in Japan.  I think we're long overdue for a Trans Magical Girl and it's unfortunate that the Dark Magical Girl Genre people are back lashing against now was the first to do it. This subject happened to be on my mind already before I saw episode 7.   You may have noticed I posted about a Batman movie that features The Riddler yesterday.  Well Batman and The Riddler being on my mind reminded me that back when I spent a lot of time trying to imagine what kinds of Batman films I'd make I had came up with a concept that re-imagined The Riddler as a Trans Woman.  But then decided that I wasn't comfortable casting a Trans character as a villain in our current climate. Homosexual representation in media has reached the point where you can have Gay villains without it automatically reinforcing the same harmful stereotypes that used to keep Gays only as villains or victims in American fiction.  But Trans representation, especially for Trans Women, has not, as clearly shown by what happened with Pretty Little Liars.  I absolutely believe the writers of that show had the best of intentions, they wanted to say Transphobia is the ultimate cause of the tragedy, but regardless Charlotte being the only Trans representation the show had left the LGBT community who at one point loved the show deeply offended. Ironically this Trans Woman Riddler idea had developed in my mind before season 6 of PLL happened.  And yet my vision for The Riddler was influenced by PLL before the Trans Woman aspect was a part of it.  PLL started airing back when Batfans were still hoping The Riddler would be in the third Nolan Batfilm.  And I from day one immediately felt how -A operated on PLL was a good reference point for how to "Nolanize" The Riddler. So in hindsight Charlotte DiLaurentis kind of resembles the Trans Woman Riddler concept I'd been thinking of.  And how that whole controversy helped shape how I think about this issue is probably a factor in why I dropped the idea.  Still my envisioned backstory for her (which I don't entirely remember) was far from identical.  And of course I also regardless of the character's gender or ethnic identity prefer The Riddler to not be a murderer.  It would be admittedly hard to keep that in tact when making The Riddler the main antagonist of a big budget Hollywood blockbuster, but I do think it's workable. So in that sense my Riddler was closer to Mona then Charlotte. But now I can't help but wonder if outright abandoning it was simply the Cowards way out (Realistically I'll probably never get to make a Batman film anyway, but this is hypothetical).  For example if I have good guys in the movie who are also Trans that could certainly help make it salvageable. Part of what was so harmful about the Charlotte story-line was caused by the need for it to be a twist, that the character who turned out to be "Charles" had been posing as a Cis Woman.  And that's the main problem with my initial concept here.  The starting premise before any Gender issues factored into it was allowing a Batman movie that's actually a Mystery/Detective story by having us not know who The Riddler is.  But I now realize that the concept can be reworked so that whatever name She is using before the reveal she can still be openly Trans.  The thing is I'm kind of killing that mystery aspect for future use by giving it all away publicly now.  Only way it could work for someone who'd read this post is if multiple Trans Women are in it.  Oh wait, that happens to also help fix keep her from being the only representation. The YouTube Channel FilmJoy did a video last year called The Batman Question which I watched today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzE2J7bo0c&t It was about the idea of allowing more then just CisHet White Men to play Batman and other major Batman characters.  Janelle Monae was a choice brought up a lot, and she responded that she'd rather play The Joker. And that reminded me how members of Batman's Rouges Gallery are Pop Culture Icons and that almost every Actor wants an opportunity to play one.  And I personally would cast an actual Trans Woman to play the role (The Pedantic Romantic could make a good Riddler).  So perhaps we shouldn't exclude the Trans Community from being able to play those roles out of fear of how it can go wrong. The Riddler is often viewed as Batman's smarted nemesis, his greatest intellectual threat. After all Eartha Kitt wasn't counterproductive for Black Women.   KyleKallgrenBHH in his recent video on The Watermelon Woman talks about how for a long time Black Women weren't allowed to be Sex Symbols in America.  So in that context one getting to play the greatest Sex Symbol of American Pop Culture was downright revolutionary.  And so in today's climate maybe Catwoman should be the first Bat Rouge to consider allowing to be a Transwoman? You may ask, why was it that my mind went there for The Riddler first? Another question you may ask is, how would I handle naming this Transwoman reinterpretation of Edward Nygma? Well the answers to those questions are kind of the same. When I starting of thinking about what I'd do for a Nolanesque Riddler story.  I first decided "The Riddler" should be a name given to them.   They would identify themselves in their messages as simply -?  Again influenced by -A on PLL. Then I first started thinking about the character's Gender as I was playing around with the inherent pun of E. Nygma, and the idea entered my head to use the name..... ....... Annie Nygma...................... And from there I thought first just of making The Riddler a woman, an idea which technically had done before at least by Cosplayers.  But I also thought about having her use multiple names and for the sake of Nolan style realism not having any Nygma name be her birth name.  Then I heard of this Edward Nashton name that had emerged as an alternate name for The Riddler, I don't know who used it first but I heard of it via The Riddler Blogs, a fan film project derivative of The Joker Blogs. And then I thought about how Transmen and Transwomen naturally tend to change their names from what they were given at birth.  And so the idea popped in there to have Edward Nashton be the name assigned at birth, and Annie Nygma the name she chose when she accepted her Gender Identity, because she was into Riddles and Puzzles. I'm not Trans, I can't actually relate to these issues.  So I simply don't know what the right answer is.  Perhaps it's a good idea for me to put this experience out there and let someone who is Trans use it for their own Fanwork if they see value in it. Part of the reason I was ashamed of this for awhile is it didn't originate much from a place of caring about representation.  I've always been a believer in Trans rights, but it was in recent years I've become much more sensitive to this and other Social Justice issues. The more recent ideas I've come up with for characters who are Trans have been making them heroes.  Like the idea of the Vordenberg who Carmilla had a romance with being a Transwoman.  Or my desire to tell a story about Lancelot as a Transwoman (using the name Lanzelet), as well as Perceval as a Transman.  And my idea for a fictionalized French Revolution shared cinematic universe innovated using Chevalier d'Éon in the Captain America/Wonder Woman/King Kong role as the one who's origin story film is set in a previous era.  And interpreting d'Eon as a Noble Honorable and Heroic Transwoman, not doing weirder ideas like the Anime about her and Fate Grand Order do.  The only Fantastical aspect will be keeping the character young in the 1790s.

[legmanns-moved]

Lime Cookie is canonically gay- an essay

To start, someone must’ve misinterpreted/misread a certain rant I had a while back about the Cookie Run fandom headcanoning literally every character as gay and trans, because recently I’ve been getting DM’s asking for proof that Lemon Cookie is canonically gay. Unfortunately, I did not say such, as there is barely any evidence to support that claim, but I instead said that Lime Cookie is.

After I explained this mixup, one user was actually interested in why I argue that Lime is canonically a lesbian, so here’s a cleaner version of my rambly rant and evidence. Please keep in mind that I’m not an expert whatsoever on the game, as I’ve only been in the fandom for a little under a year, as I got the Line edition of the game in mid-April 2017.

So! To start, we have to establish the relationship between Orange and Lime. “But Amina, why are you doing that?” I know a lot of the people in the fandom are like my friends, and gather conclusions as to what is and isn’t true based off fanworks, and seeing as Line, the version where Lime is, is closing soon, and a decent amount of people have just moved to Ovenbreak for convenience reasons, this is indeed necessary.

We could just have this be quick and simple by saying it’s obvious that the two know each other, because they’re right next to each other in the cookie index and they’re both citrus fruit, but I don’t like it when things are that easy.

To start the long list of proof of their relation, if you read Lime’s character description, it states that she’s pretty cold and distant toward the other cookies, but is only really close with one, and that she has learned her SMASH! ability (in which she spikes a Lime-themed volleyball in front of her, destroying obstacles and earning points) from this other Cookie. Who could this mystery Cookie be? Simple. How many other cookies are there with a SMASH! ability? One. Orange Cookie(except instead of having lime volleyballs, Orange has orange-themed tennis balls). Our next step is proving that Orange does indeed know Lime as well, so the relation is mutual. Orange’s character description doesn’t really go into detail on her backstory as much as Lime’s (you have to go to Lemon’s and Lime’s to get bits and pieces of it). We get from these that Orange is a very upbeat, positive, and friendly person who cares deeply for others, but more importantly, that “Her smashes are getting stronger every time.. perhaps it is because of her childhood friend?..”

But wait. This presents a problem. There’s another citrus fruit cookie that mentions getting help from a ‘childhood friend’, that also happens to be to the left of Orange Cookie on the character index, and that is Lemon Cookie. 

Just as an overview of Lemon, his character description goes into detail on him formerly being unable to control his electric powers, (that came as a result of his being made from an electrically-charged lemon), and having his rubix cube that contains all his extra energy. “ Lemon Cookie's childhood friend found this cube quite intriguing. Thanks to the friend, Lemon Cookie learned various ways to solve the cube and even has some of his own tricks up his sleeve. When Lemon Cookie was unable to control its power it became a danger to other cookies. This childhood friend may have been the only one Lemon Cookie could talk to.”  Not only does his description also match Orange’s with the specific use of the term ‘childhood friend’, but as further proof that the friend alluded to in Lemon’s description is Orange, the friend’s kind and supportive nature matches what we know of Orange’s personality.

Luckily for us, there is still concrete proof that the childhood friend referred to in Orange’s bio is still indeed Lime, despite Lemons’ also having alluded to Orange. Orange Cookie’s character description specifically mentions her practicing her SMASH! ability with a childhood friend. Lemon Cookie does not have a SMASH! ability, but rather an electric shield, which you can check out here. Not only that, but in Mini Orange Mouse’s character description, it’s mentioned that “it was thanks to this pet that Orange Cookie made friends with a cookie tucked away all alone behind some bushes.”. Seeing as Lemon was never mentioned as having as many issues branching out and getting along with others (besides that time his electric powers got out of control, because in that instance, in his description it states that his “childhood friend may have been the only one Lemon Cookie could talk to”), we can deduce that this is indeed about Lime, who is mentioned to only have “a single Cookie that she has a weak spot for.”, while acting cold toward everyone else.

So we’ve now established that Orange and Lime have a close relationship, have known each other since childhood, have similar interests and they are significant enough in each other’s lives to each be mentioned in the other’s description. I’ve argued enough here to at least confirm their being best friends, minimum. While I was writing this, my friend brought up a good point about Lemon and Orange being confirmed as also having a relationship, and how acknowledging the context of their relationship could further help imply the type of relationship Lime Cookie has with Orange Cookie.

Orange and Lemon have also known each other since childhood, as from the information we have been given in Lemon’s description, and Orange’s nature, Orange was his source of support at a time when he couldn’t fully control his powers and was perceived as a danger to others. In Lime’s description we are also told that “Sometimes, her jealousy causes uncomfortable situations”. This could create some tension in their relationship due to their differences in ability to socialize. Lime is a clear introvert that doesn’t particularly like opening up to new people, that makes one good friend or so, then just becomes attached to them(I relate to this on an unreal level). On another hand, Orange Cookie is a clear extrovert that likes to get along with everyone, and tries to build as many positive relationships with others as possible. This aspect of her personality would further affect Lime’s jealous nature, as she’d be terrified of the one true person she has a close bond with leaving her. The trope of jealousy is used relatively often in fictional romantic couples, with a one member being jealous of friends of the other’s, and worrying that something is going on between them. So Lemon Cookie would be seen as a threat to Lime’s having a secure relationship with Orange.

Seeing as Cookie Run’s target audience is not us westerners on Tumblr, but rather younger children (you can tell by the simplistic designs with bright colors, and the repetitive uncomplex gameplay), having characters explicitly stated as gay/bi/poly/pan could be controversial, cause boycotts, and in turn, hurt DEVSISTERS’ sales. As for why they might be reluctant on including this aspect, but openly have nonbinary characters (Angel, Devil, Cinnamon, Snow Sugar, Dark Choco, etc.), is something I honestly cannot answer with certainty. You could attribute it to the fact that binary gender is a social construct brought from the west elsewhere by colonizers and missionaries, and thus the concept of nonbinary people being not as obscure as it is here in the west.

Another good point that has been brought up (both by my friend and the user that motivated me to type this whole thing out) is the fact that in South Korea, the place where the Cookie Run franchise comes from, is a largely Christian conservative country, with nearly 60% of the country not believing that homosexuality should be accepted in society, in a 2013 poll by Pew Research. Although there have never been laws explicitly banning same-sex relationships, marriage equality is still nearly unheard of in South Korea, and LGBT+ people are not allowed to serve in military or adopt.

I don’t know if this is worth mentioning, but if I still have not convinced you, mysterious reader who has inexplicably stuck with me this far, but let’s look past the character descriptions, because if you really like reading up on lore and stuff, there are two key treasures from the Line game that can also further prove my point: the Orange-Lime Smoothie, and its eventual evolved state, the Super Fruity Orange-Lime Smoothie.

I got the former back in September 2017 and still have yet to use it, as I have yet to have unlocked anyone in the Citrus Trio (Lemon, Orange, and Lime) and it wouldn't be useful for me, as the item, without any upgrades, only slightly slows energy drain and gives bonus points for Citrus Jellies. The first reason why these are a useful source to promote my cause, is the name, that part’s obvious. It specifically mentions Orange and Lime, and nobody else. The more important piece of evidence we can derive from these items, is that in the description for the initial item (Orange-Lime Smoothie), the description specifically states “Orange and lime infused into one!”. The terminology of having two individuals “fused into one”, where I’m from at least, usually refers to people being married or in a serious relationship.

So yeah, Lime’s gay.  If anyone wants more of these, please reblog, follow, like and stuff to show your support, and message me or whatever on who and what you’d like to see next. I can’t promise that I’ll get to all of them, or be very active on this account, but I had fun doing this and would love to do more in this fandom!

-    -

tl;dr- It’s safe to argue that Lime Cookie is canonically a lesbian and in a relationship with her loving and supportive girlfriend Orange Cookie who she unfortunately fears will leave her for someone “better”, due to proof given by both their and other characters’ character descriptions mentioning their history and close bond with one another, and in-game items such as the Orange-Lime Smoothie. My friend @koalapunsareunbearable was a major role in my being able to type all this out and format it, and playing devil’s advocate when I tried to take the easy way out on some claims, and for that I am grateful. Have a nice night.

[thecrimsonarcher]

Expose on the Order of the Southern Sky--Kevin's Tale(Part 1)

"What was the Legion? Before I delve any deeper into this, I would like to clear some things up because this is a very complicated subject matter. Unlike the smaller churches, the Order of the Southern Sky practiced the dark arts during sermons, often making those rituals the main focus instead of the overall message. You have to remember, the Order was all about control. Any form of opposition was not to be tolerated, especially if you openly started to question what you have been taught. Questions were not allowed during sermons. If you asked a question that contradicted anything in Duncan's scripture about how "great" Kalona was for simply letting you breathe, you'd get a visit from the police. After that, you'd never be seen or heard from again. I apologize for going off tangent, but ever since I was a little boy, I've had the ability to sense the presence of the dead and to pick up on the energies and emotions of the living. The proper terminology for it would be what some would call an empath. Because of that, the Order viewed me as an asset, believing that I had been blessed by Kalona himself with these special powers for the sole purpose of furthering their cause, which was to build the foundation for the prophesied "paradise" that Kalona would usher us into. I was classified as a lower class citizen since I lived with my grandparents, who were on supplemental income, but because I had the "gift of foresight", I was allowed to have special clearance within the Order. Imagine that, being so young and for the first time ever, there was an adult who told you you were special and served an even greater purpose than you had ever dreamed. Both of my parents were in prison after an undercover cop came in and bought a couple of small baggies of meth from them. You see, the Grundy PD had been watching them for months after getting tips from our neighbors that they had a meth lab in one of the out buildings we had in our back yard. It was only a matter of time before they were caught. My grandparents took custody of me after Mom and Dad were incarcerated. I was probably about 10 or 11 then. Because of my ability, I was allowed to sit in on a lot of rituals. A lot. It was my duty to "sense" if Kalona's energy was present during the more intense rituals or if the magic circle was tainted with negative energy. When I took back on it now, I realize how ridiculous it was. Kalona was not an omnipresent entity that existed in "spirit" nor was he capable of assuming direct control over the world around us and in our lives. He would only allow certain people within the church to "borrow" some of his abilities for the intent of ritualistic purposes, namely by grafting a piece of his tissue around the base of their spinal cord. As for what he was....that's a different discussion altogether. There was only one ritual that I was not allowed to see, which I assume was due to my age at the time, and that was the ritual involved in the creation of Legion soldiers. You see, the church was always secretive about them, even to some of the highest-ranking members. Their primary function, method of creation, and overall nature were only known to a handful of people, including Paul Yearwood. In fact, it was Paul Yearwood himself who authorized the creation of the soldiers to act as the "secret police" for the Order of the Southern Sky. Yearwood did not come up with this idea on his own. In fact, the Legion troops have been around for quite some time, but they weren't "mass produced" as they were towards the end. Their numbers were no fewer than about 10 prior to the early 90s. The original members, who were referred to as the "Ghost Squad", were created by an entirely different means altogether than the Order's methodology. For all intents and purposes, they were created to protect Kalona from any sort of threat. They did not serve the church. They did not follow any sort of human "code" and instead, obeyed only Kalona. Unlike the mass produced troops who served the Order, the Ghost Squad was prone to being unpredictable and violent as a result of their creation. The future members were more passive and obeyed every command without hesitation. In a sense, that made them even more dangerous than before, especially if those orders were issued by Isaiah. The only two members of the Ghost Squad that I could positively identify were Isaiah and David. Isaiah acted as Kalona's attendant and to a certain extent, his "mouthpiece". You were not allowed to have an audience with Kalona. You could not talk to him. You were not allowed to see his physical body and if there was ever the occasion that you did, you'd never be seen or heard from again. All messages had to be relayed by Isaiah and whether or not he actually shared them remains unseen to this day. See, Isaiah had this burning hatred towards humans despite once being human himself. The prevailing theory is that something went horribly wrong when he was "created", that the process of him becoming a member of the Legion destroyed his mind. He might have been a normal, morally sound individual in his previous life as a human. He may have even been a kind, gentle soul who'd give you the shirt off his back. I'm thinking that something else had to have happened during the process of him "turning" because no other member of the Legion possesses that degree of mental instability. No one knows his origin, not even the highest ranking members of the Order are sure of where came from. The earliest known documents I've found that refer to him were written in 1954, meaning he has been around for a long time. On paper, Isaiah would be a perfect soldier, completely devoted to his leader and having the capability of easily dispatching anyone who stands in the way of the cause. In reality, what you have is an unhinged supersoldier who is more than able to perform barbaric acts of violence at the slightest provocation. Isaiah did not follow orders. He did what he wanted, whenever he wanted without any regard for those who got in his way. He was even known to kill fellow members of the Legion. He was a raging psychopath who enjoyed unprovoked acts of violence and mindless slaughter just as much as he loved Kalona. When I say "love", I am not referring to it as pure religious devotion. That wouldn't fit him at all. Isaiah was obsessed with him to a horrifying degree, acting like a jealous, possessive lover who would fly into a rage if anyone dared to get close to his property or expressed any interest in him. Needless to say, Isaiah wasn't too keen on having Zion Mountain to worship his "King", but realized the benefits of this arrangement. As Kalona's attendant, it was Isaiah's job to make sure his will was carried out. Maybe it's just a theory, but....I believe that's what kept Isaiah from slaughtering us. If having so many to depend on him, to see him as their personal savior was what kept him happy, I suppose Isaiah had no choice but to honor it. David, on the other hand, was primarily in charge of issuing commands to the Ghost Squad. Isaiah was incapable of showing empathy, displaying no known fears of anyone or anything. If there was one person in this world that Isaiah was afraid of, it was David. David was an example of an experiment that went horribly right, the opposite of Isaiah. Whereas Isaiah was violent and unrestrained, David was calm, quiet, and ruthless. His proficiency in combat situations were second to none, surpassing even Isaiah. Isaiah's shortcomings centered around his inability to stay calm and think rationally. David, on the other hand, displayed little to no emotion. The way he talked and behaved around us regular humans was very unsettling. He was cold, robotic, and spoke in a dull, monotone voice. He was covered in scars from past fights, including one that went across his face from his left eye all the way down past the jawline. And so, the overall "build" for Legion soldiers were centered around whatever technique was used on David. He was used as a template of sorts for all others that followed. Naturally, this caused quite a bit of friction between himself and Isaiah. I guess you can imagine why." --Testimony from Kevin Cook, a former member of the Order of the Southern Sky

[firstfootingscotland]

Bogha-frois Conversations: Will Hammond

Early this year during Glasgow’s Celtic Connections Festival I had the pleasure of joining a host of incredible LGBT+ artists for a performance and a panel around the theme of Bogha-frois: LGBT+ Voices in Folk. A brainchild of Pedro Cameron (Man of the Minch), Bogha-frois began as a workshop at the Scottish Storytelling Centre and takes its name from the Gaelic word for “rainbow.” The energy around Bogha-frois has enacted a metamorphosis - far beyond a standalone workshop, panel, or critically-acclaimed gig, Bogha-frois is a movement celebrating gender and sexual diversity within traditional and folk music, song, and dance in Scotland. Following the events in Glasgow, I wanted to continue these conversations and proposed a series of monthly blog posts. It’s hope this series will be a place for dialogue around the intersections of traditional arts, identity, and each artists’ path as a LGBT+ person. This month’s Bogha-frois conversationalist is percussionist Will Hammond! 

Tell me a story... what was a moment when you felt both your identity as a traditional musician and your identity as a LGBTQIA+ person were in focus? (1)

Obviously the Bogha-frois workshops and concert were a pretty decisive event for this. During those days it felt most apparent and explicitly like "this is what this is about, this is inextricably part of who we are and what we're doing", which did feel like the first time outside of maybe being at pride or a protest that I've felt quite so "out" and among similar people, and the only time where the musician part of my identity has been equally in focus. I'd had a few conversations with other queer musicians about navigating the world the ways we do prior to those workshops, and each time my thoughts of "I'm sure I'm not the only person" became "oh, wow there are other people experiencing these things!" So, to have so many people gathered for the workshops and concert laid out this confirmation on a scale that was very affirming. 

How do you identify? What are the pronouns, descriptors or other words you like to use, if any, to describe yourself in regard to your LGBTQIA+ status. 

 I'm bisexual, in that I am capable of being attracted to people of more than one gender. My own gender is a total mess and I use he/him pronouns but they/them pronouns are fine, kind of whatever, really. Genderfluid and nonbinary are terms that fit; I don't think I really know what I "identify" as on an that instinctive visceral level. If I introspect on it, I always come out thinking "I don't know what feeling like a man or a woman or anything else feels like, I just feel a bit unpleasant." I find personally trans/cis is a pretty quirky binary in itself. "Do you agree with the doctor who said 'it's a boy' when you were born?", I mean, I guess, yeah sometimes but also sometimes not, right? 

(percussionist Will Hammond, photo by Amelia Read)

Talk about your perceptions of LGBTQIA+ identity (both yours and others) within your experience playing traditional music in Scotland. 

When I've played in Scotland my own and others' identities have either gone unmentioned and un-talked about or they've been the focus of the event- referring to the Bogha-frois concert, so my experience has either been extremely welcoming and accepting or I haven't had to think about it. Being English and mostly working in England, I don't expect my experiences of this in Scotland to be comprehensive or universal for Scottish musicians. 

In what ways do you feel your identity as a LGBTQIA+ person and a traditional musician intersect, overlap, engage? 

I am fairly open to talking about my queerness with other people I play music with, and most of these people, if they are not themselves lgbtq in some ways, have usually demonstrated that I can trust them about it. Ever since I first read about it I've enjoyed exploring the idea of music as a verb rather than a noun. I also like the line of thought leading off about how a musician who is just walking down the street, or making a cup of coffee, or trying to get to sleep, is still a musician. Even if what they are doing in those moments is not musicking, their musician-ness has affected how they experience and interact with the world. I think, for myself, I can draw definite parallels to my queerness in here. How applicable that is for other people is totally up to them, of course. At the moment I have "trans rights are human rights" written in block capitals down the side of one of my main instruments, and I don't exactly present as the most obviously straight person in the world, so I suppose I'm not trying particularly hard to keep my queerness and my musician-ness separate. 

Talk about your experience connecting with other LGBTQIA+ folks both inside and outside the traditional arts. 

I have worked a couple of times with other lgbtq artists in the trad scene and beyond, but prior to the Bogha-frois workshops it was never a specific condition or factor of us working together. It would emerge over the course of us practicing usually, or I already knew about the other(s) going in and would tell them about myself. 

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A post shared by The Cusp (@thecuspmusic) on Apr 8, 2019 at 9:08am PDT

(Will’s band The Cusp with fiddler Imogen Bose-Ward and harpist Ada Francis)

If you’re comfortable sharing, talk about any incidents of homophobia or transphobia that you’ve witnessed both inside and outside the traditional arts. 

In a performance context I haven't experienced any myself, which has been nice, but on at least two occasions during practices with other musicians, after coming out to them as bi they have immediately asked me about how open my partner and I are to threesomes. Outside of music, just in the last couple of years I've been called slurs in shops multiple times, in the loos at Newcastle railway station a man told me that I'm in the wrong queue and should be in the ladies'. I've been given "that look" by several men for being in public with other queer people. Once, someone I used to work for grabbed my wrist and tried to scrub off my nail varnish with her hand as if she thought that would work and was an acceptable way to treat another adult. I've certainly not had as hard a time as some people I know, but I have plenty of my own evidence for how marriage equality certainly didn't end homophobia, let alone transphobia. 

How do you see the traditional arts changing in regard to LGBTQIA+ people? What are the further changes you would like to see? 

I'm stuck with being a convert, a backslider, and a reformist with respect to trad music. I didn't get into folk until I was introduced by a friend. I was maybe 17, by which time I'd already been playing music in some form or other for about 9 years. Then playing, listening to, learning about, trad things became a focus until I was maybe 21, when I learned a bit more about abstract expressionism and free improvisation and started enjoying the weirder sides of trad playing more and the "regular" playing a bit less. It was partly burnout from having finished university but getting outside of the folk bubble having spent a short time intensely involved in it was definitely a breath of fresh air. The final project of my studies was a summary of this process in a way, looking at how genres are constructed in the modern age and how occupying the spaces between them can result in some interesting things. I'm fascinated in the ability to use this music to tell stories and preserve memories. I'm also aware of the parallel consequence that allows this music to distort realities and, through entirely benign inaction, forget. I hesitate to speak for the Scottish traditions as I'm only an occasional visitor, and in the words of Leon Rosselson, I'm not suggesting any sort of plot. However, there have been times I find it difficult to look at the amount of lighthearted crossdressing, not so lighthearted crossdressing, "shapeshifting", "enchantment", utter disinterest in marriage, and portrayals of homosocial relationships in traditional songs and not feel concern when these things are overlooked.  Even more so when they are explained away in a manner that preserves the current cisheteropatriarchy like it's something that's always been there. The places this music comes from are important, and preserving it and celebrating it definitely is a worthy pursuit. It then follows that to gloss over the parts that don't fit our construction of history is partly what leads us to situations where it takes a whole room of queer musicians simply pointing out that we exist, maybe for ourselves as much as for an audience, to get people thinking about it. As such, and though I recognise that it's difficult to apply current terminology around sexuality and gender to historical time periods, "The Folk", whoever they were, ought to be perceived as less monolithically heterosexual and gender conforming. Applying this way of thinking and looking can go forwards as much as backwards, and  achieving a greater diversity of voices in the trad scene is an important goal, I think.

First Footing is a collaboration between dancer and dance researcher Nic Gareiss, the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland, University of Edinburgh Moray House School of Education, and the School of Scottish Studies with support from Creative Scotland. For engagement opportunities check out the First Footing website.

(1) Following methodology developed by Fiona Buckland in her book Impossible Dance: Club Culture and Queer World-making, I began each conversation asking artists to tell me a story. This, Buckland reminds us, redistributes significance to the voice of the artist, rather than the anthropologist/researcher/interviewer. In Buckland’s words, “the meanings they made from the practices are more crucial than whatever meaning I impose with the theoretical tools in my standard issue doctoral utility belt.” (Buckland 2002, p. 11) This feels incredibly important when collaborating with folks whose voices have so often been underheard or marginalized.