#some things arent very culturally universal

[wadesprincessboy]

Again with the "hi im also a Jew in Aotearoa" reblog, ive also noticed a huge rise in antisemitism. Since oct 7 i have felt increasingly unsafe existing as a Jewish person. I also happen to live in an area that is very largely leftist (or at least my circles in the area are) and i honestly feel most unsafe because of the leftists. Ive seen posters that are very clearly antisemitic everywhere, and the ones i saw calling for the freeing of hostages were crossed out and torn down. Ive shared this before but a pride event put in their kaupapa that theyre anti-zionist and my mum wore a hebrew shirt to the event (she went despite the anti-zionist stuff because its pride and she wanted to go) that said pride in rainbow letters. She was going to wear it regardless of the events kaupapa, and it was clearly a pride shirt, but she got disgusted looks from a lot of people.

Ive been using my dads last name out of concern for my safety due to having a very Jewish last name from my mum. I hate my dads name and it makes me feel sick to use it, but its for my safety. I always use my chosen name because its English, and when people ask about my birth name, which is Hebrew, and I tell them its Hebrew they again give disgusted looks. Prior to Oct 7 people would be interested in the story of my mum growing up in Jerusalem and how important being Jewish is to us, but now I just say the name was chosen because of the singer. I dont want to say the truth because im scared ill get hurt.

My mother overshares a lot and cant resist telling people about how she grew up in Israel and how important to her it is to go back some day, and every time she says it I prepare for the worst. The worst that's happened is again, the look, but im always scared.

All the leftists i know love hamas, some are celebrating the Amsterdam pogrom, they all dropped me for saying Jewish people have a right to exist in Israel. Not even saying Im a zionist, just saying Jews are indigenous and have rights. They dropped me. They put out "bewares" on socials.

I go to a yearly drama camp and so many people from there that i considered friends did things like that and i almost didnt apply to go back next year despite how much i love it. When i go back i will be shutting my mouth and keeping my head down because i do not want to ruin the experience.

It is unsafe to be Jewish here. Good friends have been cruel. Strangers are terrifying. I wont ever tell people Im Jewish if they dont already know because im so worried they will hate me.

I wanted to go to university, but the university i want to go to doesnt seem all that safe for me as a Jew anymore.

Ive lost countless friends since Oct 7.

To answer the askers question of "is anyone standing up for your community", no. Theyre doing the opposite. Heck even our own community turns on us (see: the book jewish not zionist, written by a member of my local Jewish community, who says Jews arent oppressed in Aotearoa). I think I know one or two people who arent Jewish who are standing up for us and standing with us at this time.

Also, in my town theres a big event in the city for Hannukah each year. I dont know if it happened last year, because i wasnt in town, but im worried about it this year. Its an event that i love so much. One of the few chances to meet other Jewish people in the area that dont go to the same synagogue. There is always a large police presence around, and i fear this year it will be worse. Hell im willing to bet there will be protests about it! Im worried it wont even happen. I hope it does and i pray we will all be safe, because its such a great event that i look forward to all year.

I would invite my best friend to come along as its a tradition for my family that we bring friends to share our culture with them, but my best friend is so loudly anti-zionist that if she agreed to come (i doubt she would) she would definitely cause issues. I imagine if theres protests shell be on that side.

It fucking sucks to be Jewish right now. Honestly it always has, ive never felt safe as a Jewish person in Aotearoa, but its so much worse now. We are lucky compared to other places, but its still not good.

Sorry for the long rant of a reblog btw, OP. Kinda just wanted to vent my experience since I dont think theres many other Jewish people from Aotearoa on this hellsite.

how bad is it to be jewish in NZ right now? is anyone standing up for your community? where i am antisemitism has gotten pretty bad and it feels like almost no one other than jews or ppl who are part jewish or married to jews is calling it out.

Per data from the community security group, post oct 7th to March, antisemitism increased 600%.

And this is only reported incidents.

There are not really anyone besides jews standing up for us.

The holocaust centre is getting involved with antisemitism at a university just for the sheer fucking amount of it. Leftist circles are practically rife with it.

I'd consider my ex friends to be your average leftist, like not far left but almost there. And they're super antisemitic. Celebrating the Amsterdam pogrom, calling hamas a resistance group, supporting the houthi etc.

The only support I've seen outside of jewish circles is a coworker tearing down antisemitic pro Palestine posters near our office. Like these weren't regular posters, they were antisemitic instead of being just pro Palestine

[kooki914]

At long last, she makes her debut, My interpretation of the mayor - Clarice Holiday!

I very heavily leaned into the stricter/meaner interpretation of her, because that's essentially all we have confirmed about her in the game rn. Hence, her design is also very deltarune-esque, I tried not too lean too heavily into my own style it in order to keep the vibes consistent with the game. Hopefully I succeeded!

Headcanon(?) dump under the cut! (it's really long)

She's very direct and to the point. If you talk for more than 10 seconds at a time, she'll tell you to either get to the point or shut up.

She has a decently pleasant sense of humour, but you wouldn't assume it based on how she usually talks. Rudy usually makes jokes for the both of them, often as a way to distract Clarice from whatever she was slowly getting pissed off at. Seeing her genuinely smile can be weirdly relaxing, though, like a weight's been lifted.

As mentioned in the accompanying image, she runs on a very strict schedule, for basically everything. If you tell her "I don't know when" for something she will personally make you a timetable for that entire day and be EXTREMELY mad if you don't follow it to the letter per her insistence.

She's kind of superficial - never lets her grey hairs show and never leaves the house without a full face of makeup.

It's mostly a side effect of two of her worst traits: not being able to accept change, and always feeling the need to be in control. These are like habits she can't shake, and pointing them out only makes her agitated and less willing to listen.

Both of these flaws only got worse after Dess disappeared.

Even before then, she always had very high standards for both herself and her family. She was always doing her best to not only project the image of a perfect family, but to fully embrace and embody it.

It's why she's so trigger happy with taking away things from Noelle and Dess she isn't personally invested in. Video games that scare Noelle or "encourage bad behavior" in Dess, any non-family friendly movies, any overly creative and artsy pursuits that she doesn't think would make a good career path in the long run.

Basically the only thing the whole family can agree on is Christmas, hence why their whole image as a family unit is centered around it - it's another projection of the seemingly perfect household.

Clarice very intentionally manipulates and intimidates the people around her to get what she wants, but she genuinely doesn't see it as a particularly bad thing because she's convinced she knows better than everyone else, and is the only one who can "properly" do "the right thing".

She's extremely competitive, even more so than Toriel. They used to bond over that in college, though the only reason Clarice never held a grudge is because Toriel can actually let go of useless competition and let Clarice win basically every time.

Clarice can’t let go of useless competition.

Unironically the only person who saw the flaws in Toriel and Asgore's relationship from a mile away and always thought Toriel should’ve dumped Asgore years ago. She likes talking about how she "knew it all along" and how Toriel should've "listened" to her, etc etc. If Clarice wasn't so petty about this maybe her and Toriel would've stayed close.

“It’s a dog eat dog world” is essentially her unspoken motto. She doesn't say it, though, because she doesn't like when people pick up on her more Machiavellian personality traits.

Clarice always looked down on Asgore for his lack of ambition, which only got worse when he failed to find Dess when she went missing.

The only reason she’s giving him so many chances to pay his rent is because Rudy’s insisting on it, though Clarice hasn’t told him that Asgore’s living in the same building he’s working in. If asked, she'd say it's to "not hurt his feelings", but in reality she just doesn't see their friendship as important enough to help maintain, even indirectly.

That whole debacle made it REALLY easy for Clarice to essentially blackmail Rudy with whatever she wants by using evicting Asgore as a threat, a potential retribution for not getting what she wants. She doesn't do it very often, but the fact that she pulled that stunt even once isn't a good thing.

Their relationship wasn’t always so toxic, though there were red flags from the start.

She really enjoys flattery and things that play into her grandiose idea of herself - she really does like when Rudy complements her and plays along with her games (even when he says things that border on objectifying), but PART of that game is that she always berates him for it or calls it childish or unnecessary, in order to keep up her "untouchable" persona that he's so attracted to.

She loves him in the way a child loves their favourite toy. He goes everywhere with her, they do everything together, and he essentially acts as both her voice of reason and her comic relief sidekick.

When he's not around, Clarice is even more miserable and demanding than usual. When she's not around, Rudy doesn't know what to do with himself and stresses over things that aren't even there. They depend on each other, but it's not healthy, and out of the two of them, it takes the biggest strain on Rudy.

In the bigger-picture sense, it's taken an even bigger strain on Noelle. Clarice is arguably the biggest reason why the poor kid doesn't know how to say "no". Her mom does everything and hardly lets Noelle get a word in. She has to be both fully self-sufficient to live up to her mother's demands, while ALSO fully relying on her like the obedient daughter Clarice wants. Rudy mediates the situation however he can, but admitting that Clarice is HURTING Noelle is nearly impossible for him, because it'd mean admitting that Clarice has been hurting him, too.

Clarice takes great pride in both being a hard worker and a “great” mother and wife all at the same time. She IS the ideal, as far as she's concerned. Any questioning of this will get you metaphorically killed on the spot.

Most people don’t see her problematic behavior for what it is because, by most metrics, she’s “made it”. She’s wealthy, she has a loving family, she has an important and high ranking position. What more could you really want out of life?

She still hasn't accepted that Dess is gone.

[overandundertarot]

Pick a card reading; Your psychic talents/ gifts and how you can develop them.

Keep in mind this is a general reading so if something doesn't resonate for you, feel free to leave it or pick another pile! Trust your intuition always.

Take a few deep breaths and chose from the pictures below.

(1-3)

Pile 1

Cards; 4 of cups reversed, Ace of wands, 5 of swords,8 of cups reversed, 8 of swords reversed.

Your psychic gift/ talent is knowing. Clairaudience, clairsentience etc You have been blessed with so many opportunities and ways out if you desire them. If you need something, it shows up for you, if an opportunity is not for you, you are guided away accordingly. Its kinda like the world is especially looking out for you and your sense of intuition and manifestation is quite strong. You may have things go your way easier than some other people. The people in this pile are great manifesters and masters of their emotions as well. The type of people to make a wish and it happens. Some of you always experience great luck and advantageous coincidences. However, a message is coming through that you should remember not to take things for granted.

How to develop your gift;

Develop a clear channel to your intuition, so that you can receive messages easily. This is important so that you can make the correct decisions, since you are being guided constantly. Developing a strong sense of trust in yourself is important as well. Having psychic clarity or practices that can improve your clarity such as meditation will have a very positive impact on your life. For a specific few of you, there is a set way that your life is supposed to go, a kind of divine purpose that you have to fulfill, and your gifts are meant to align you on this path.

signs/confirmations; blue and cool toned colours, oceans, vines, reeds, fire.

Pile 2

Cards; 3 of pentacles, Wheel of Fortune, Queen of wands reversed, 3 of wands reversed.

Pile 2 you are quite connected with animals and nature, there's a way you can intuitively understand and work with the cycles of life around you. You may care quite alot about the environment and its enhabitants. You may also have a particular fascination with insects. Your psychic gift/talent is this connection. You are the type of person who easily gets signals and synchronicities through animals/ wilderness. Some of you have strong ties to your ancestry and could come from cultures that practice nature based religions with medicine men/ women. You are talented at divination too and could be adept at bone throwing or runes. Strong ties to your ancestors, they could send you psychic messages quite often and work with you to bring in manifestations and blessings. (this last part is only for a specific group of people.) People who chose this pile may have native american/african(particularly the interior/central african communities)/celtic ancestry.

How you can develop your talents/gifts;

Going out into nature and managing your emotions. You may be prone to depressive episodes? or bursts of irritation and anger and may also often get disillusioned with life and feel that it is cruel to you, or that you are unlucky. Learn to take it in stride, there are always ways to seek support from the universe and sometimes bad things just happen. Seek support from your communities(if you dont have one, try to cultivate one) and look to learn from them, you could greatly benefit from a mentor or a guide in your spiritual practice. Carry out research on your ancestry and their ways of life/spiritual practice.

signs/confirmations; small woodland(i know these arent all woodland creatures but im honestly not sure how to classify them😭) creatures eg squirrels, possums, badgers., insects, eagles, warm fiery colours and violet and orchid flowers., 333.

Pile 3

Cards; Queen of wands, 3 of swords, The tower, Page of pentacles reversed, The sun reversed.

Pile 3 you may be quite beautiful and sensual. You aren't afraid to embody your sexual energy and may have broken quite a few hearts. Your gift/ talent is towards healing and transformation. You have depth of character and may have gone through some traumatic experiences but you overcame them and transformed them into wisdom. There is a sort of femme fatale energy about you but interlaced with kindness. Because you present yourself this way people may have been eager to approach you but found themselves transformed instead. Beauty and brains, mysterious and magnetic appeal. You are also talented at witchcraft and could work your magic through glamours, charms, sex magic, lunar magic too. There is a duality here, sometimes you are femme fatale, tight dress and red lipstick, other times you are more nature, cottagecore aesthetic. You are unafraid to present yourself in whatever way you are feeling.

How to develop your gifts/talents;

You may get bored easily and feel that you always have to be working on something. Frequent change and following your intuitions and urges will help you develop your talents; if you feel interested in something you are being encouraged to do some research about it/try to pursue it. Working to see your life in new perspectives you can appreciate is also helpful for you. Don't be afraid to do things that shake you up or that may seem dramatic to other people.

signs/confirmations; sun, chickens, yellow, sunflowers, farms, south american countries .

***

Thank you for participating in this pick a card reading!

Please let me know it resonated for you! Feedback is always encouraging and helps me improve as a reader. :)

[thenixkat]

that 'humans are space orcs'/'earth is space australia' thing really aggravates me.

In one part b/c of the aftertaste of whiteness the folks writing it tend to have (where the majority of what they put as 'universal' human culture is straight-up white shit a lot of the time) Especially the all humans are the same shit just, no. Very no. Like, there's implications if humans do only have one culture/language/etc in yer setting b/c it implies someone did some genociding and forced assimilation.

And the other part being that I have a Biology degree and like?

Austrailia isn't actually that extreme or that different from anywhere else on Earth. Humans are litterally not unique even on this planet, we're just the only homos left (for now, we won't exist forever. the lifespan of species, especially mammals isn't terribly long comparitively speaking). Humans aren't the only species on this planet that uses fire, or washes food, or wears things, or uses tools to hunt, or even the only things to throw spears, or drasticlly change the envornment to suit our needs, or do agriculture.

-> Convergent evolution is a thing. More likely than not alien visitors would probably have run into something similar to us at some point.

-> Anywhere where life exists, life competes and fills niches. Any alien world would very likely be just as much a 'death world' b/c predator/prey/parasite/disease interactions tend to make shit weird and dangerous.

(side note: All worlds are fucking death worlds, just in general. If a planet has life shit dies, if a planet doesnt have life then introduced life will die without protections b/c its native conditions arent fucking compatible with life)

Another part is the inherant lazy writing these people do for their aliens.

And also I just don't care for Human Exceptionalism. Just in general. especially when fuckers who think that Human Unexceptionalism has been a trend when they're talking about shit that uses the Human as Normal/the EVeryman trope and ??? that's still fucking human exceptionalism to make humans the baseline and every other species the weird/different ones

[bonefall]

so are wild boar still considered “extinct” locally by the humans? given that wild boar in england are currently considered extinct, even though there are pockets of population

(context: i was looking up animals that england has driven to extinction with my partner last night because we were both feeling Some Kind Of Way about species conservation, and how england is basically the worst monster historically in terms of driving entire species to extinction, and continues to be hugely negligible. then i remembered boars in better bones i was like “aren’t there boars?” and then saw that they were also considered extinct, which surprised me)

Yeah England is a fucking monster in terms of bad conservation, and its colonial influence in how OTHER places view conservation can't be understated. But anyway I'll save that for another time

(But like it fucks me up that you guys only have one protected river in the whole UK and it's mostly in Wales. What the fuck. It's been 30 years and they're just now thinking about adding another. Brits in the audience who can i kill for you? If we throw someone in the thames maybe they'll dissolve)

Here's the thing I have in mind; England is so fucked that people don't even know how fucked it is. Do you know how important hogs are to a mixed-oak woodland? What types of moors need burning, grazing, or being left alone? That the entire island of Great Britan is supposed to have a thriving freshwater pearl mussel population? That England isn't supposed to have pine forests?

There is so so so much here to cover and talk about, AND I'm telling this story from the perspective of cats! They have to have encountered the things to know about them, even if it was culturally!

And what that means is that I am willing to bend a couple of things SO that I can include them as part of the story! Things that SHOULD be here, that should be or ARE being reintroduced, especially when they're lesser known.

(In fact I think your boar thing is a perfect example. You're telling me the story I want to hear-- that you heard something offhand, went "woah arent those in this work I'm a fan of?" And then you learned more. Goal accomplished!)

In my head I file boars and mussels under the "Eagle Exception." Something that, with a bit of alt history, could be seen in this environment.

It's based off the canon eagles (which ironically I'm massively downplaying in my rework of the BB!Tribe). The golden eagle has been extinct in England for a very long time, but it's right there in canon, so logically there could be similar animals or reintroduction projects.

List so far;

(Also BB!Great Britan is called Albion to mark that it's a little different.)

Freshwater Pearl Mussels (extinct in White Hart, populated in Sanctuary Lake)

Boars (rare in White Hart, populated in Sanctuary Lake. Replacing the majority of deadly badger and fox encounters because badgers arent bears and foxes arent coyotes, Erin :/)

Golden Eagle (exclusive to Tribe mountain)

Beavers (Being actively reintroduced to parts of Albion in the 2010s)

Wolves (extinct)

Lynxes (suspected extinct; there may be some around specifically because I want to make an example of how non-domestic cats in this universe are non-sapient.)

Salmon (uncommon in White Hart, populated in Sanctuary Lake)

Atlantic Sturgeon (exclusive to Sanctuary Lake, rare even there)

Medicinal Leech (dying population in White Hart since Chelford expansion, extinct in Sanctuary Lake)

Additionally I'm keeping my eye on the European Buffalo (wiseant) reintroduction, but that's not in my modeled region and I don't want to jump the gun on it. Last I checked the project JUST managed to get its bull this year after a long 2020-induced delay

[ichig0tchi]

southern utah facts for fnaf fans

ok so as a person who lives in utah and has been to southern utah many, many times, i thought id write some info for people who want to know what its actually like! sometimes i see fan content from people who don't know anything about it and i cant help but laugh a little because yall imagine all this cool stuff there and its just like. gas station.

its pronounced hurra-kihn with a short [ih] /ɪ/ sound, not hurriCANE like the actual word. don't ask me why i have no answers

the VAST majority of utah has a religious suburb vibe. ESPECIALLY central and southern utah. imagine the type of place thats juuuuust big enough to have some big box stores and a couple of chain restaurants. thats what hurricane is like. many smaller towns in central/southern utah are tiny farming communities with the population of a few hundred people (and probably double that in cows)

This is a picture of hurricane from google maps, this is the vibe for most places south of provo!

The cities closest to hurricane are st george, cedar city, las vegas, mesquite, and the general provo area.

-St george is a smallish sized city with things like a mall, many national chain businesses, local businesses, an amphitheater, and manyyyy retiree communities with golf courses. - Cedar city has an ~olde towne~ feel with many historical buildings and small businesses. -Vegas is about 2 hours from Hurricane and its not unusual to take a day trip there -Mesquite is a casino/golfing town about 40 minutes from st george. Its right on the border of NV/AZ and its pretty common for families to drive out for a couple days to mess around the casino and eat over priced buffet food. -Provo is about 3 hours north of hurricane and is very mormon in culture. Feels like the twilight zone if you arent white and/or mormon. they have good restaurants tho and a water park. mainly built around Brigham Young University (byu) which is a very strictly religious campus. Apparently its a really good school if you can handle the restrictions.

Southern utah generally never gets colder than 70 degrees and is often over 100 in the summer

I've seen some people refer to hurricane as "south west utah" which is..not wrong? but no one says that. nearly all of the south east of the state is national parks with extreme geography that people cant exactly live in. There are some towns, but they rely heavily on tourism for the national monuments and such and are still smaller in population. If you say you're from southern utah, people will just assume you are from the st george area.

Southern utah has some of, in my opinion, the most beautiful views on earth. Views like these are within 25 minutes of hurricane. (image of canyon junction bridge from visitutah.com)

People in southern utah tend to be very friendly. If you're not from around there, you'll probably get polite stares in the smaller towns. In bigger areas like st george, customer service is typically very good. LDS people tend to take acting like a boy scout and being over the top helpful pretty seriously. (you know the mormon missionary stereotypes lol theyre persistent folks).

Silver reef is mostly really nice expensive homes now! Definitely not a ghost town anymore. The museum there does tours of the old ruins and an extremely nice cowboy will tell you all about how the founder of the town discovered the titular silver vein, but got run out of town by crazy prospector type fighting over the land (i like to imagine there was much hootinany-ing and pickaxes afoot) They do have a single animatronic, its of a donkey in a fake mine shaft exhibit under the museum!

Most of the towns around here have a shit ton of hotels and are mainly tourist destinations. Hiking and sightseeing are sort of classic state pastimes, outdoor sports bring in a ton of money so its really encouraged. Peak tourism season for southern utah is late summer/early fall. Mid summer is too hot to visit, its genuinely dangerous to hike in that weather. So september/october when its temperate is very busy.

As you might imagine, most of utah is conservative. Salt lake is pretty left leaning and is actually a pretty good place for queer people, but most of the state kind of just ignores anything that goes against doctrine. definitely a lot of maga types, but overall not violent or especially bigoted outwardly. The worst i tend to see is confederate flags, which are popular in agricultural areas. Mormons tend to be quietly exclusionary rather than confronting the sorts of minorities they dont like.

Another thing about mormons, they LOVEEEE SODA. SO MUCH. Those drive thru soda/cookie/icecream chains are all over the place, including southern utah. The sodas are usually mixed with things like coffee creamer or flavored syrups. Mormons cant drink coffee, so they get their caffeine/sugary treat this way.

Feel free to ask any questions or add your own tidbits!!

[papakhan]

Lol why would someone even say that. Like... idk im transmasc im personally mortified of the idea of getting pregnant but... its none of my business if another man wants to be pregnant why would there be any judgement there 😭😭😭 plus the post was very funny people need to stop projecting over a sillay little post. Have a good night king the haters dont get it

the thing is I totally understand trans guys being uncomfortable with the concept of (trans) men getting pregnant. In our society its a very gendered concept, it gets fetishised by weirdos online all the time and to a lot of (especially queer) afab people its strongly associated with control and abuse. I totally get it. That was me not so long ago but after a lot of research I became more comfortable with it because I want to have children one day. I shouldn't have to expose this part of myself as a defence against people calling me transphobic when I am literally trans and half the fight for trans people is "my body my choice"

what gets me is that the tumblr fallout community gets in this fucking argument allll the fucking time over whether the fallout universe should be "dark and gritty and ~realistic~" in regards to Everyone being transphobic Or if the wasteland should be some kind of trans haven without the binds of society. I personally lean on the latter and get a lot of comfort out of the idea that the Great Khans specifically are a bastion of trans joy and experience and to them women having dicks and men giving birth is just. normal.

the end goal for trans people should be to de-gender concepts like pregnancy and penis but we're never gonna fucking get anywhere if trans people project their dysphoria onto each other and start self-flagellating themselves whenever someone steps out of line or makes a stupid joke.

And yeah this is an overreaction to someone critising a stupid post of mine but I'm more mad at the wider culture of the fallout community (and tumblr) regarding this topic because like I said shit like this keeps happening. part of my job is about educating people about trans bodies and saying shit like "don't assume who can and can't get pregnant" and trying to help fellow trans people find comfort in a country that's actively trying to get them all murdered. To then log onto tumblr dot com and get called transphobic because I said I love headcanoning Papa as trans and him being able to deflect the Legion's misogyny because of his transness is like a slap to the face. you guys are meant to be the transgender love website what the fuck are you talking about?? Also Saying that I'm enabling transphobia by allowing people who arent trans men to reblog my post is also stupid and for the record most people in my notes right now are either trans people who are genuinely agreeing that Papa is trans or ghost fans who think I'm talking about their band (but are still trans and still agreeing).

sure maybe I should have put a trigger warning on the post or something because it might trigger someone's dyphoria, but just say that. Don't act like I'm the problem and that I'm too stupid to recognise internalised transphobia and calling me "too comfortable with joking about trans bodies" when 1. I wasn't joking About trans bodies and 2. ITS MY FUCKING BODY

My joke was about how Caesar cant handle Papa being trans. it was a joke about how society cant handle trans people who they can't clock. it was also a joke about how Papa comes from a society where transness is so normalised that he wrongfully assumes that its something everyone can do. At no point was I "nasty about trans bodies" like this person claims I was. In fact I think that pretending that I was says more about how they view trans bodies than it does about how I do, That I can mention trans pregnancy and they automatically assume I'm fetishing or being disrespectful.

anyway. that's a lot of shit. thanks for letting me ramble and tucking me into bed so sweetly <3

[mages-ballad]

some stuff regarding dawntrail now that ive finished and had time to collect my thoughts, spoilers up to the very end inbound of course. sorry if its long i have many MANY a thought.

ok so i wanna preface by saying i DID like dawntrail. i love wuk lamat and i cried like 3 or 4 times, tural is a great location and it was very fun to meet all the different kinds of npcs there

HOWEVER theres some things that kinda feel awkwardly paced? if i can be completely honest, it feels like the first half and the second half of the msq are two entirely different plotlines that were smushed together. and this isnt even saying that everkeep/sphene/s9 are "too different" because its not even an aesthetic issue for me, its moreso the themes presented first half? a little slow but in a GOOD way, helps you get a feel for the land and the people and shows wuk lamat's growth. the succession plotline feels like a whole, coherent thing. i like it. as soon as thats over and you hit shaaloani though, its slow and quite literally filler aside from a few tidbits for erenville. it felt awkward how it was trying to show xak tural culture, but also heavilyyy favored screentime for the "cowboy" stuff over the hhetsarro (who also very much live in shaaloani and are part of tural), who we spent practically 1 quest with and it was to ask them for lumber. and THEN it goes right from that to a high-stakes plot with zoraal ja's attack and heritage found and everything progressing after that. on its own the plot has potential... but by living memory i got the impression that everything from the end of shaaloani and refitting the train to running through the memories of alexandria, it just felt like it was trying to be Shadowbringers 2/Endwalker 2. and it wasnt really working out the same. "a society faced a calamity and a leader figure cant let go of the past and will gladly sacrifice other worlds to keep the memory of their people alive/go back to how things used to be. theres also a city full of people that arent alive and are just memories. also you get to run through a dungeon that shows the destruction of the past world that said leader figure cant let go of." like thats just the ascians and emet and amaurot right there. we KNOW how this stuff goes. from endwalker and venat we learned that its impossible to strive for absolute peace and perfection and that suffering and death are unavoidable, and the importance of maintaining hope and being able to go keep going forward at those lowest points. the whole time between solution 9 and living memory i was just sitting there thinking to myself like??? have we not seen this same stuff before??? why isnt anyone saying anything??? i knowwww this is mainly wuk lamat's story and development but it felt almost wrong to have these plotlines and themes and neither the wol or any of the scions even point out how familiar it is. i was under the impression that dawntrail would be a point for the wol to take a backseat, but to ALSO use what weve learned from 1-90 to help others. i genuinely feel like they pushed the idea that this is a fresh start *too hard* and everything weve gone through as the wol emotionally feels pretty ignored. aside from the whole "oh yeah btw were super strong weve been to the edge of the universe lol dont worry lol" like i hope this doesnt come off as me hating dawntrail. because i dont, and im interested to see the extent of travel between reflections and how thats handled going forward. but i cant help but feel like something was missing in that 2nd half of the msq. i can only hope some of this stuff gets addressed in the patches, because as it stands rn, even with sphene gone solution 9 still feels weird. the theme of dawntrail wants us to respect their culture, but from past xpacs we already know that a society like that is factually not sustainable, especially when multiple npcs have already pointed out its flaws (declining birth rate, for example.) maybe thatll be resolved later, but as it stands rn, the contradictory of themes is confusing. this is getting reallllyyy long and rambling now but WHEW i just needed to get this all off my chest. on a positive note to end this, im very much enjoying the dungeons and combat so thats been good.

tl;dr, 1st half of msq good, 2nd half confusing, combat good.

[desires-of-chain]

reader from a/b/o universe do be accidentally unlocking kinks for other links lol like scent kink, dom/sub, breeding, etc

But also this gave me an idea where the chain arent aware of what reader had been doing instead like reader has been scenting them and all and reader is confused why they havent even kissed yet or mated yet or why people still keep approaching the links despite the heavy, heavy scenting that screams 'MINE MINE MINE STAY AWAY' (*cough* cultural misunderstandings galore!)

Also: the chain thinking that reader is just joking or exagerrateing when they say that their heat/rut is coming and since reader says it's a monthly thing that lasts a week most of them just assume it's their period. (Maybe some confusion and frustration when they start trying to build a nest lol...angst???)

then the heat/rut finally happens and everyone is just scrambling around in panic trying to make things comfortable for reader and taking turns on providing reader some relief because reader is very much insatiable the entire week and by the end of it everyone is just exhausted lmao they end up having a long, long talk about this and correcting misunderstandings

-🎀

Ohh, poor reader. The miscommunication is gon be heavy with all of them. There will be a lot of making up before continuing with the ?poly relationship? with reader. Just taking it slow before diving back into all of that. Yeah, so many kinks will be unlocked because of their heat/rut.

[itsyourearthtoo]

The pop-culture urge to resurrect dinosaurs.

First of all, let me clear this, DINOSAURS ARENT EXTINCT. They are right there, maybe pooping around in your lawn or the non-veg meal you recently had. You just aren't aware of it. My previous blog was all about this and you can go check that out :)

So, if dinosaurs aren't extinct, then what's the point of bringing them back to life? More so... why make movies, write stories, draw comics and blah blah blah to actually resurrect them?! And this is what this blog is all about.

Birds, which are dinosaurs don't look like the dinosaurs you actually imagine it to be. Just wonder, what's the first thing that popped up in your mind, when you read the word 'dinosaur' in the very title itself. A giant beast, ferocious eyes, long necks maybe (those sauropods) and so on. No one did think about the chickens we eat, pigeons we shoo away or those beautiful kingfishers and parrots we admire. If you did, then... I think you are already smarter than me.

This is nothing, but the result of a constant impression about dinosaurs that pop-culture has fed to you, that your mind can't imagine anything else. More apt, you just can't think other than the Jurassic Park franchise if you are a 21st century kid like me!

Now hold on, this doesn't mean I am a Jurassic Park hater or this blog got grudges against it. I love that universe as much as you but the thing is, fact is fact. And, science in the end shouldn't be to please people, but to make people aware of the things they aren't aware of.

So... with a bit of reading and literature research, I actually dug into this matter deep enough to find a reason; that actually answers my question - Why pop-culture wants to resurrect dinosaurs?

Richard Owen coined the term dinosaur in the year 1841. Note, the Theory of Evolution and The Origin of Species was published by Darwin in the year of 1859, meaning the world dug out dinosaurs technically unaware of evolution and natural selection (pretty funny to me).

This makes sense as to why it got related to reptiles in the first place. Until 1860s there was pretty much no consensus to the fact that birds are related to dinosaurs. When Archeopteryx was initially discovered somewhen around 1860 it pretty much changed the course of Dinosaur paleobiology. Trust me, society didn't believe this in the first place. It took decades for the Dinosaur Renaissance to actually begin and thanks to Robert Baker's famous book Dinosaur Heresis in the 1970s, that gave dinosaurs the justice it had long due. So its pretty much okay to say that birds are dinosaurs came into the scientific consensus much much later than it was actually discovered (unfortunately this happens with most of the discoveries in Earth Sciences as a whole). Also, I would point to the discovery of more and more feathers in fossil specimens as the point where the relation between birds and dinosaurs were eventually confirmed.

Now dinosaurs came into the pop-culture scene in the 1850s with Charles Dicken's Bleak House. Yeah, a decade before Archeopteryx was dug out and Origin of Species was published. Movies first depicted dinosaurs as pretty lovable creatures. Classic example being the animated, Gertie - The Dinosaur (by Winsor McCay) which released as a silent film in 1914.

Soon after, it didn't take long for the lovable dinosaurs to turn into horrifying beasts. DW Griffith in his 1914's Brute Force silent film depicted Dinosaurs as ferocious monsters who haunted cavemen. Also establishing the early fiction, that early humans and dinosaurs coexisted together. This, a devastating scientific hoax (sugar coated as fiction), remained for quiet some time. You might have seen the famous cartoon series - The Flintstones, yup! if you were a fan of it like me, then you relate to what I am saying.

Steven Spielberg made Jurassic Park much later. Already a lot had been done about dinosaurs in the television and big screens. He legit hired paleontologists as scientific advisors for his films, which is why many things were even scientifically correct in the Jurassic Park film series, but at the end he was a film director to appease people and deliver box-office hits. He already knew what people wanted from dinosaurs. Hardly few will remember that the film actually says that birds came from dinosaurs in the very beginning. Instead, what you remember is just them chasing humans and destroying things. Unfortunate, but that's the reality.

Even today, its hard to imagine any film, story or comic that portrays dinosaurs as birds. They are the modern day dinosaurs! You have it all around. But you aren't satisfied with it and so you need movies that bring the typical dinosaur to life with the help of special effects to satisfy your soul. So yeah, if we as common people accept the fact that birds are dinosaurs then may be resurrection of dinosaurs will reduce to a lot extent in your screens and scientifically accurate stuffs will be fed to you :)

So, this is it for this blog. To be honest, while writing this I realized that I started loving these creatures because of pop-culture only :) no matter how scientifically inaccurate it was. I mean, this does become an irony. At one side of the spectrum it is to be blamed, but on the other it did make these creatures popular isn't it? Maybe I should cover this in my next blog hehe, so stay tuned!

For the love of Earth Science :D Byeee

Oh yes!!! Do check out my previous blog

thank you.

Used Image Souce - Youtube video titled 'The Flintstones | I Dare Ya!'

[ultra-raging-ghost]

What are your ideas on the differences between a human and a demon, I've seen many many many many differing interpretations and I wanna collect them all like Pokémon cards

I have a couple thoughts on this actually!!!!

So first off the big ones, physically there's a bunch of differences between humans and demons, and even between demons themselves!

To me, humans generally follow like IRL rules and shit like that, but theres additional things that kinda come with minecraft mechanics. Obviously theres respawn, but i personally attribute that to some kind of supernatural occurrences or very specific circumstances. In the case of the QSMP there's cannon vs non-cannon/in-universe deaths, but i also like to keep the Federation in mind - they obviously have some sort of hand in the life cycle on quesadilla island, with the eggs having two lives and whatnot, and being able to briefly bring them back to speak with their parents before being sent off to the afterlife. I personally think humans have IRL mechanics, but organizations like the Federation or even sometimes standalone experimental organizations can have a hand in trying to affect the human life cycle.

We have god-like beings, angels and ferrymen of death and whatnot, and i cant help but remember the Hunger Games lore where more than one life wasnt given which is cannon to the QSMP. I also like to consider the DSMP, which is semi-cannon, where they had multiple "cannon" lives (as opposed to the QSMP where they have one "cannon" life from what we've seen) and Ghosts and resurrections and all that, human life from what ive seen is not only fragile but flexible! Can be broken but also can be bent!

I got a little side tracked but point is: humans - one life (unless interfered with) Demons - not one life! (Bad follows a death/rebirth cycle/We dont know how mouse and tina operate/etc.)

Other physicalities I consider is humans are generally pretty realistically sturdy, they easily lose limbs but can wear prosthetics, and with the help of magic they can be immune to certain things (Still organizing my thoughts on Fit's recent lore - might think abt that more later).

Demons are not only sturdier (Bad/Mouse/tina/dapper/pomme/emmie having generally neutral reactions to radiation, obviously bad and dapper arent doing the best but theyre fairing MUCH better than a human would in their condition) but i like to imagine they can shape shift a little? we know the eggs generally like to hc bad as a shapeshifter that can get bigger/smaller, but he has consistent features he cant really get rid of as far as we've seen like his horns and tail. When i draw him, i generally vary his horn shape/length and change his body type and height a little in every drawing on purpose, but also i like extending this to the other demons! Mouse and Tina obviously look more human, but like cc!tina has talked about how she likes q!tina to have huge fucking knockers and i like to imagine they can change that themselves, it just makes sense to me! There are limitations to it, in my mind the horns are a consistent and identifying feature on them that they cant really change without a TON of practice. But the rules are bendy, ykwim? they can be more or less animalistic, swap physically gendered traits, shift from nails to claws, etc.

As far as cannon things go, we know demons generally have a better nose and all smell like sulfur, humans smell different to them, probably like BO or something lol

Thinking magic wise, humans obviously dont experience a ton of it, but magic is everywhere! In the air, on your skin, and thats to say i just think its funny to imagine that demons can be summoned by saying their name 5 times kjbhvjbn

Culturally, demons are definitely a lot different not only from humans but from one another and i think thats entirely based on their upbringing! I could write a lot about that, but the first thing off the top of my head is like their clothing i guess? We see from mouse and bad's clothing they tend to wear pretty gear-like clothing, i guess is how you could describe it? I like to imagine belts and buckles are something theyre used to wearing, maybe for aesthetic reasons, maybe for mechanical reasons! Maybe in hell you gotta carry a lotta small shit, or rock climbing is a popular activity, who knows!

Demon culture as well to me includes horn pride, ykwim? They care for and polish their horns, paint them for celebrations and decorate them with jewelry! Theres popular standard colors like black and white but choosing something more extravagant is common! Like matching your hair color if you have it dyed a fun color, staining it, painting it patterned for birthdays or holidays. Maybe its like homestuck purpleblood facepaint rules, where showing your bare horns is something you do with special people you trust a lot? Thats something very cute to me.

Also! Mentioned this in another post! i like the idea of Pool noodle jail!! Putting pool noodles on the horns of baby demons who cant stop headbutting eachother! thats adorable to me!!

[nietr]

so i started the deus ex franchise and started with the very first deus ex game as i've heard so much about the lore and gameplay in general

some say its the absolute best pc game of all time, rivalling even FNV despite its many flaws. What it aims for it absolutley nails, its just the game engine choice for such intensely simulation focused gameplay but at the same time its what keeps the game fresh 24 years later....

and i mean, sure the game takes place 2050 something, cant remember the exact date, and the UN has nowhere near the power it does in the Deus Ex universe but I could see how it COULD get together to drive some kind of global coup...

anyway what im getting at, long story short is that the game gets the beggining of the half century right, its just the figures are different groups then say, the UN. It's interesting seeing a game from 25 years ago focus so strongly on globalization, the driving forces and the outcome of a bunch of different groups with different ideas of utopian civs fighting, with in-group fighting on top of the fighting and just everything is pretty remarkably on point. its like those videos on how metal gear solid predicted the future in general, just a little better.

but anyway, the game is so good... im absolutely gripped and fully immersed in this world and this is a game from 25 fucking years ago.

rn im playing the revision mod tho, i just randomly chose one that looked good and didnt realize some of the problems with revision until it was too late but since this is my first exposure i have a different perspective and i think its an absolutely amazing reimaging.

its ironic, the first game i ever played on my first gaming PC that i had never played before when i built my first 1000+$ gaming PC around 2010 was fucking Black Mesa of all games cause i had never played Half Life and all i kept hearing was how it was the best game ever

now here i am, I done sold every part of my gaming PC for things i needed because im poor af now but i was gifted this barebones AIO desktop that can run games that arent too demanding on its onboard intel processor doing the same thing with Deus Ex since it seems in the PC Gaming community the absolute best PC games of all time go Half Life, FNV, Deus Ex and they're all contenders for no 1. all games i fucking love so much...

anyway im having such a hard time not spoiling the game on myself and its so hard because im becoming so immersed and want to know more and more and its like this time capsule of early 2000s conspiracy theory culture like things about the NSA people would say but sound crazy, ENDED UP BECOMING TRUE.

i mean, they fucking drop intel about the damn PRISM program, which im sure is defunct and re-bolstered under a different OP name.

[icaruspartharmony]

Exclusionists will say this stuff like they're bad horrible awful no good very bad things

I kind of feel like i understand where they're coming from with the gatekeeping though? Like letting everyone in will mash everyone on earth together and we'll lose the respect in the community, lose our traditions if we have any as lgbtqia+, lose who we are. It's like thinking of if we include everyone for the way they are, we will lose our culture.

Im not an expert on fish hook theory, but it kinda reminds me of it? Right wingers against trans and nonbinary inclusivity complaining about genderless word useage; (im getting there i promise) its like they're scared they'll lose the traditions and aspects of their own gender. If they just let everyone in, what's the point? Our way of life is now trampled over, we're losing what it means to be a certain gender. They're losing what it means to be themselves. Exclusionists kinda remind me of that.

And honestly? That fear kinda makes me nervous too. Men losing "the nod" as apart of their universal experience? Women losing their unity in hating periods? But those two things alone exclude people that arent even lgbtqia+. Neurodivergent men who never understood or got the nod. They never knew, maybe. Women who never get periods for one reason or another, maybe some kind of disorder like you learned about in fucking 9th grade biology. Doesn't that kinda sound a little ableist to you

How can we unite the community anymore? Why are we even fighting ourselves? Why are you so upset because a 13 year old uses demonself pronouns? Will they grow out of it? Maybe, maybe not. Is it because you feel you worked so hard to get people to accept your they/them that other people being accepted so easily for something you deem foolish makes you feel invalid, or like you worked harder for less?

Is that where the gatekeeping comes from? Fear of turning our identities into mush to be consumed through a straw on a Wednesday evening?

I got no idea if what I'm saying makes a shred of sense so im sorry about that this was just kinda my silly thoughts on things to just write out :3

[spicybylerpolls]

Dear Spicy Byler Polls,

i love your in-depth response to the anon about rooting for finn to be queer and the difference between accusations of queer-baiting and excited speculation.

the main difference does seem to be entitlement, and public forums. for example, commenting on someone's literal social media post? rude. are they going to reply personally to you? no! but i think people honestly forget or dont care that the celeb can see that. they have something to say, and they think they have the right to say it. so they do.

so my main issue is being told i can't speculate amongst friends (which is what this blog often feels like) when we are pretty hidden over here. i certainly would never want to interact with finn or even comment on his posts, as i dont feel i have anything to contribute to his life. but i love to observe and wonder in my own space on the internet, because it does serve me to do that, and i am not hurting finn, which is what matters.

but lastly i will just say that the ambiguity of how we interpret things is maybe what freaks people out about speculation. for example, i had a hunch that noah was queer way before this debate and s4, but it didnt matter in my life so i wasnt boasting to anyone about being right when he came out. it wasnt about me! who cares what i thought? my hunch was also based on nebulous things that arent quantifiable and definitely would not hold up in a court of law (lol), so it also seemed trite to describe them.

whereas sadie simply saying she likes an artist who is queer, for me is very silly evidence because that essentially makes everything into a message, and if a large majority of the straight community realised that queer folk think them liking queer art made them queer, it would stop them liking that art (or rather, being open about how much they liked it), in case people started saying ooooh you must be queer! not that being queer is bad, but that the jump in logic is pretty large. its like saying oooh you've got a friend who is queer, you must be queer too! it was a wonder it didnt happen as much as it could have with queen in the 80s - the music was so good, people didnt care. same for elton john. but im sure plenty refused to listen based on the rep alone.

I personally am not queer, and if i had a platform of fans, and i said oooh i love boygenius, and some of those fans started thinking i was queer because of that, i would feel like they were reading too deeply. because my queerness would not be expressed through enjoying music, which is a universal thing. if they started to notice actual queer behaviours in me that i also acknowledged were queer, and i was questioning, i would be like ok, they've seen through me.

so as a straight person who is fascinated by modern (and older) queer culture, its kind of funny to me to see the ways modern queer folk interact with people who are unlabelled.

it seems to have gone from the old ways of safely finding others queers, like asking if theyre part of the family (which would have been an assumption based on instinct and vibes, and which was relatively easy to dismiss if they were in fact straight), to either demanding someone comes out, or relying on vague indicators of sexual identity, like someone's taste in music or even whether they wear rainbows.

these things might be big for the queer community, but they already have meanings in the straight ones, too. liking rainbows does not make you queer or even indicate you are queer.

of course, the queer community have used these ambiguous ways to find each other, but the whole point is that they remain double meanings in order to protect the secret language of queerness. 'are you family' means one thing to straights and another to queer folk, but now, in modern culture, lots of queer people seem to be insisiting that it MUST mean only one thing: gayness. for example, someone wearing rainbows? they must be gay. they must be flagging. despite the millenia-long history of the existence of rainbows and their popularity in pop culture.

in modern gay culture, many people seem to think they are entitled the queerness of others because they sense it. whereas back in the day, you get the sense that if someone did not respond positively to 'are you part of the family?' then you would leave them alone, not demand that they come out because they would be happier if they did so and lived their truth.

do you think this speaks more about the internet age than it does about queer culture itself? and can queer culture every be extricated from the internet age? can any modern culture, now? i love that young queer folk are living more freely, but it seems to have swung a horrible way, towards entitlement for a lot of people online. and all that does is make them unhappy when their faves dont come out. i understand that queer people are oppressed and need idols and role models more than straight folk. but you can still enjoy an artist's work even if they dont share your sexual identity, cant you? it might help to make your experience more universal if you can acknowledge that not everything is about sexual identity. we want gay love stories like stranger things to bring straight folk and queer closer, not divide them by making sure gay communities remain separate, surely?

i hope i'm not being unfair.

Thank you for your thoughts! I hadn't really considered the straight perspective in all of this. You bring up a lot of interesting points, and I don't agree with all of it, but I don't necessarily disagree either.

You're right that sometimes rainbows are just rainbows and that, "These things might be big for the queer community, but they already have meanings in the straight ones, too. liking rainbows does not make you queer or even indicate you are queer."

I just had a vision of someone who is really into rainbows, putting them on literally everything, placing them in all their captions, placing them on all their bags, and everyone assumes they're flagging their sexuality. But then it turns out they're actually just a devout Southern Baptist, and they're really into the Noah's Ark story lol.

That being said, rainbows might be pretty universal, but I'd say there are symbols and clues that one might flag with that are very queer. And probably one or two of these things can be a coincidence. But just like with Mike's sexuality, it's not just one thing that clues us in but several subtle things piled on top of each other. And while of course "you can still enjoy an artist's work even if they don't share your sexual identity," there's a subtle magic when they do share it that I'd say can't be fully replicated by anything else.

The thing I find the most interesting about your message is your question, "Do you think this speaks more about the internet age than it does about queer culture itself? and can queer culture ever be extricated from the internet age? can any modern culture, now?" And I do think a lot of what you're critiquing is absolutely a part of the internet age in general. And it's not going away anytime soon.

The one thing I will clarify tho is that the Sadie Sink/girl in red thing is not a matter of her liking a queer artist but the context. At some point in like 2020 or 2021, "do you like girl in red?" actually became a very specific coded conversation/semi-meme for queer girls on TikTok.

So Sadie commenting I like girl in red btw on a girl's Instagram, followed by a winky face, is absolutely within that context. It's not about liking a queer artist, cause "I like Reneé Rapp" doesn't hold the same meaning even though they are both lesbians. And it's not even about liking girl in red as anyone can like her music (I love her music and I'm a guy), but about subtly communicating queerness in a specific way.

That being said, music/media in general ARE cultural signifiers that someone may be "safe," especially if there's a pattern. Like if someone's Spotify exclusively consists of boygenius and other similar artists, if they follow the Heartstopper cast on IG, and if their favorite films on Letterboxd are But I'm a Cheerleader, Bottoms, Carol, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, that might be a sign lol.

I'm interested in my anons thoughts on this.

[transcarcinization]

if you like soft scifi you should totally read the long way to a small angry planet! very cute found family in space vibes and the other species arent horribly racist caricatures :)) its got action moments and bonding moments 10/10

AHH oh my god anon i love you but you’ve accidentally hit my personal white whale. it’s recommended in every scifi list especially queer scifi lists on this site and spoken of very highly and so i read it and i HATED IT

first off, i don’t mind you recommending it to me: i specifically said i like reading interesting worldbuilding and nothing else and i will say the worldbuilding for the alien cultures is very engaging!! it’s by far the thing the book is best at and i think if i entered into reading it solely on ‘this book has some interesting ideas on alien culture’ i probably would have liked it enough. honestly if i had just picked it up at random instead of being recommended it so much i probably would have liked it enough!

however- the writing style was extremely annoying to me. to me, it felt like the book was assuming the reader had extremely little scifi knowledge, or possibly very little knowledge of how to glean things from context at all. it spends like. SEVERAL paragraphs on the concept of id chips? even if you have NEVER been exposed to the concept of id chips in scifi- which is crazy if you’re even a little into the genre- they’re not difficult to understand!

i understand this is entirely subjective and some people prefer to receive exposition in this very straightforward way, but it really annoys me, especially in scifi, which is a genre i have read extensively and so am very familiar with the genre conventions. even if i wasn’t, i don’t need to be told this. if you have the main character scan their wrist and then they are identified, i can figure out they have some sort of identification implanted in their wrist. they also do this with the ‘big twist’ of the main characters backstory- they hint at it in extremely obvious ways multiple times in the first chapter! so by the time it’s revealed you’re like wait. was that a secret???

i think it unfortunately managed to hit my biggest pet peeve w books which is feeling like they don’t respect my intelligence or my time. i assumed that the book was the authors first dip into the sci-fi genre but it definitely is not.

there were other smaller things: the pacing felt strange and rushed at the end after how slow the first 80% of the book was. i found the main character boring and one-dimensional. i also found whatever was happening with the ai to be interesting (ais are a cheat code to get me to love any sci-fi) but they didn’t focus on it or do anything novel with it:( the clone shit was another terrific concept they explored very little. it felt like the author had a lot of good ideas for multiple different fantastic books but shoved them all very ambitiously into one book and they all canceled each other out

i said in the post this is responding to that i would love to read an anthropology paper on an alien species and i think this would have been better formatted like that, or just in a very different way then the book. great concepts!! everywhere!! excellent cultures and laws and traditions in a way that all felt very real and grounded. i can absolutely see why people love this book. but it’s near universally gushed about everywhere on here and i don’t get it!!😭😭 i simply cannot understand why people like it so much

[pageofheartdj]

Yeah, Western ideology does very much enjoy infecting others as best it can. The USA education system is one of the most divided if I'm not mistaken? Divided in like, the quality of your education can vary wildly depending on where you live instead of a standard being approximately the same throughout schools. People dont choose where they are born and must live (until they move out) but it seems absurd that being born on one side of a city versus the other could be the difference between getting an education that'll prepare you for high school and/or post high school, and one that prepares you for the ever-shrinking factory worker role.

I'm from canada personally and I won't say that ours is much better (our schools are entirely modelled into preparing people for factory work. That was the original goal of our schools. Learn to stand in line, follow the bells, etc. Out high schools (in some provinces) are split into two ""tracks"". University (called academic) and college (called applied). Applied teaches you the absolute basics and pretty much prepares people for factory work. Academic focuses on teaching analytical thinking, critical thinking, essay writing and applying thought to ideas. Totally definitely totally a fair system, because you cant go from applied to academic but you can go academic to applied (applied versions of the classes dont count as prerequisite to academic classes. Basically locks people into a worse education. Theres also a big judgement culture on getting into university because college is considered lesser and for idiots because in canada university is theory and thought focused and colleges are skill and applied knowledge focus)

I think you make good points and it definitely is most obvious in USA where literacy is declining. Unfortunately it happens here in canada too, people just dont talk about us much lol

I think part of it, especially with the us is control. It is a LOT easier to control people if they struggle with critical thinking. Not teaching people how to find information and formulate opinions without (much) outside influence means it is a ton easier just to tell people what they should and shouldnt do. Obviously this thing is bad if it hurts kids, right? But they arent taught how to consider how would it hurt them? Why? What are the alternatives? If kids are hurting why are they pushing other laws and whatnot to hurt them more? Etc etc

Which... not to get political because it isnt quite the best area to bring up randomly, but just going to mention the rise of facism and decline in critical thinking and media literacy are oddly in sync in the US. And there have been studies (here is a quick link but theres tons of articles and papers you can find quick https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washington.edu/provost/2018/04/23/fake-news-and-misinformation-why-teaching-critical-thinking-is-crucial-for-democracy/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiB89mKnLmAAxUyFzQIHeOnAgYQFnoECAEQAg&usg=AOvVaw2s4TP6UzreLCWaEozRvTPx) that link a lack of critical thinking to people being more firm in biases, more susceptible to misinformation and propaganda, and to a lack of wanting to learn (stagnant beliefs).

Just. To point out that it might be partially not just people being addicted to phones, though that is a big factor. It's one of those situations where you need to ask "who might benefit" if it seems like there are no positives.

Anyways, it is really sad that people aren't being encouraged to think, really if you think about it? Social media is a lot of parroting back and blending in, making your literal person a brand, and echo chambers. Younger folks especially are losing out on those in person social interactions as most is replaced online, which means people arent getting together to chat as much. There is always something else, which limits a person's opportunities to get deep, debate in a risk free space, and just be around other people.

Its complicated and sad, and really weird that the supposed age of information brought about a general decline in thinking capabilities.

We have something similar too with colleges and universities and maybe there is some bias but not big and honestly more people talk how learning skills is more useful that just whatever they do in universities xD

And yeah it's logical for facsist regime to want dumb people. A person can know that some things are bad, but not because WHY it's bad. And that's how we get progressive young people eagerly support censorship. Indirectly support fascism. And when they will notice what is happening it will be too late. (and it's sad to see them ruining what previous generations were fighting for)

Internet definetely also desentitised people? With so much information about the world, there is less compassion. People have no problem being horrible to others because the screen separates them.

It's a mess. Honestly I think it was a mistake letting kids into social media. They are too impressionable and there is too many bad people who will take advantage of it. And it's harder for parents to keep track of dangerous people around their kids(not to mention parents who don't care what their kids do on internet in general). But it's still complicated, because internet also gives kids community they can't get in real life =(