#that’s not like…. provable I guess

[kiradical]

.

[twilightarcade]

can i lear n more abouit ocs and game oif allow.. or just ypu

they used to wear glasses until I drew them one too many times without glasses and their glasses disappeared

[saulbaby]

I'm seeing a lot of conwilla is problematic discourse which like. Fair. But also why are you talking about her like she's a mail order bride from a war torn country

She's a really classy escort in New York city I think she probably has enough money to not do everything he asks her to and it's pretty clear that Connor is always very aware that she could leave at any time

[marklikely]

getting annoyed at all the people i keep seeing saying no omg halloween ends was so good because they tried something new and im like yeah ok but did literally any of the stuff they tried actually turn out good? no.

[potatopersonal]

word count for the wingfic sequel is at a little over 9800 words! and I still have 6 or so sections to go!

[mejomonster]

I'm reading Peoples History of the United States and

1 some of the earliest colonists sound a lot like elon musks plan to go to Mars if Mars had people waiting there. Rich, desiring more riches, willing to kill horrific numbers of people to take more land and resources and desperate to enslave more people still to help acquire more stuff. No human life matters to them. No notion of feelings. Priests finding it all totally morally right and good to do such horrific things

2 speed up to colonial America and they quickly built a rich control almost all the wealth (I read "Through all that growth, the upper class was getting most of the benefits and monopolized political power. A historian who studied Boston tax lists in 1687 and 1771 found that in 1687 there were, out of a population of six thousand, about one thousand property owners, and that the top 5 percent—1 percent of the population—consisted of fifty rich individuals who had 25 percent of the wealth. By 1770, the top 1 percent of property owners owned 44 percent of the wealth.") You heard that right. 1% of people had 44% of the wealth. Does that sound familiar? Mm

3 this part about rich people profiting off the war and making literally everyone else poorer and worse off sure reminds me of the wars the US did when I was growing up. "An anonymous pamphleteer in Massachusetts, writing angrily after King George’s War, described the situation: “Poverty and Discontent appear in every Face (except the Countenances of the Rich) and dwell upon every Tongue.” He spoke of a few men, fed by “Lust of Power, Lust of Fame, Lust of Money,” who got rich during the war. “No Wonder such Men can build Ships, Houses, buy Farms, set up their Coaches, Chariots, live very splendidly, purchase Fame, Posts of Honour.” He called them “Birds of prey . . . Enemies to all Communities—wherever they live.”" my point is just. You know. How one learns from the patterns of history...

4 this book goes into a lot more besides just one pov, and I didn't get to take much humanities in college but I sure hope those people who do get to take US history in school got this book on the reading list.

[onthehighwaytomel]

So...is Taylor Swift paying more talented musicians' PR agents to advertise for her new music/tour? It pains me to see actually exceptional talents like Phoebe Bridgers and Hayley Williams and Muna touting her around on social media...like I promise you, she has enough goddamn publicity.

And it reeks of that whole "girl squad" thing from a few years back...opportunistic, artificial, exclusively with conventionally attractive white musicians (from what I've seen), and not as good as disguising those motivations as other famous people crossovers are.

I genuinely do not understand the magnitude of her appeal at all. It will be real nice when this promotion cycle is over. I prefer to filter tags and ignore her mediocre, immature, intensely self-obsessed, all-decisions-made-by-a-boardroom-of-investors music and 'personality.'

[brinnanza]

I keep trying to gotcha my brain out of anxiety by thinking like well what can I do about it right now with what I have because often it's tangibly nothing but unfortunately I can always Plan and I don't really know how to respond to that because it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do when there's nothing else

[ryoki-ph]

uh oh just realised i have hearing damage in one of my ears. uh oh

[fanfic-writer-and-rambler]

Cass: Hi Jason.

Jason: Hi, random girl in Bruce’s house.

Cass: I’m his new protege and he said he will… adopt me. My full is Cassandra, but I go by Cass. My hero name is Orphan.

Jason sighs shaking his head.

Jason: I freaking guessed adoption would be your answer. You even picked the name orphan.

Cass: It’s a cool name. It’s nice to finally meet you. Bruce has told me many things about you.

Jason: Provably nothing good.

Cass: Hm… You are Jason Todd. Died at 15, revived a few years later. You go by the name Red Hood and distance yourself from Bruce.

Jason: … Um yeah.

Cass squints her eyes, examining Jason.

Cass: Hm, Your body is tensed, your jaw, slightly clenched. You’re angry. Who are you angry at? Is it Bruce, he is a good man who made-

Jason: I gotta go!

Cass: Bye Jason!

Jason: Bye strange girl. Where does he find these kids?

A year later.

Cass, mask costume: Hi Jason.

Jason: Hi… Orphan girl.

Cass: Just Orphan. How have you been?

Jason: I’ve been worse, so yeah doing better.

Cass: Oh that’s good.

Cass notices the man isn’t as tense and his jaw isn’t clenched.

Cass: You are getting better. I’m glad. I wish we could chat a little longer, but I have to go, see you around?

Jason: Maybe.

Cass: Bye Jason.

Jason: Bye... weirdo.

Cass runs off to continue her mission.

Two days later

Cass: Hi Jason.

Jason looks up from his book.

Jason: Hey Orphan.

Cass: Mind if I sit with you?

Jason: Are you going to talk? If so I'm reading.

Cass shakes her head.

Cass: Just want to sit and think. I won’t talk a lot. I feel like you’re the type that isn’t much for conversation.

Jason: Most times. You can stay here then.

Cass smiles and sits down on the ground, closes her eyes and takes slow deep breathes. Jason notices, smiling and then returning to his book.

A few months later.

Cass: Hi Jason.

Jason: Hey Ca- Oh My God that’s an awesome suit!

Cass looks at her outfit (pictured above. I like that one more) and claps eagerly.

Cass: Thank you, it is Batman inspired. How have you been?

Jason: How have I been? How have you been? Tell me what’s going on with Cassandra.

Cass: Oh, I- A lot if you're willing to listen.

Jason: I’m free now.

Cass, happy: As am I. You look happy.

Jason, smiling: I am, thanks for noticing.

Two weeks later:

Dick Grayson: Is everyone here? Where’s Cass?

Cass: I’m here.

Dick Grayson jumps, jumping into Jason’s arms.

Cass: I arrived a few minutes ago, got distracted, back again. Hi Jason.

Jason drops Dick Grayson.

Jason: Hi Cass it’s good to see you, I didn’t say hi to you earlier. So I'm saying it now.

Cass: Thank you.

Tim Drake, crosses his arms: He’s not that nice to me.

Cass: Oh Jason can we do that hand hug we practiced?

Jason: For you, just once.

Cass claps eagerly. The two clasp their hands together and give them a little squeeze.

Cass: Now you have my positive energy!

Jason: No take it away.

Jason and Cass laugh as their siblings look on confused.

After the mission ends.

Cass: I’m off, bye Jason.

Jason: Bye Cass.

Cass runs off with Tim following behind.

Dick Grayson: That was the nicest I’ve seen you be to a bat kid.

Jason: Yeah, she’s neat.

[jasper-pagan-witch]

Why don’t people curse, hex and put spells on politicians? (I know that there are people who do that) but it seems like people opt out of using that kind of magic to help the masses. Idk what kind of question this is haha but if you wanna respond you can haha

Okay, I was gonna wait longer after Huge Bitch Monday to answer this one, but I've been sick for several days now and I'm tired of looking at this message in my inbox and getting mad at it.

You said it yourself: There are people who already put spells on politicians.

But magic isn't guaranteed to work and it's really not that verifiable.

And pushing "help the masses" as the most important thing for everyone to do is exhausting. Like yeah, it's nice to help others, but why use magic for that when there are other (and often easier or more verifiable) methods to accomplish the same thing? Volunteer work, donations, activism, making connections, helping your neighbors - all of these and more can count as "helping the masses".

And some of us do that but don't use our magic for it. Case in point, me. Hi hello, guess who does a lot of volunteer work in the emergency management and response fields? You can bet your ass that I don't use my magic for that because magic is my downtime away-from-work hobby.

Sure, you (general you) can use your magic to cast spells on politicians. But that's not going to change things in the same way that more direct actions will. Voting, showing up at commissioners' meetings, signing petitions - these often have more obvious, concrete, provable results than just lobbing a spell does. No amount of "dick fall off in the Olive Garden" curses are going to change someone's entire political affiliation to match yours.

Don't get me wrong, you can absolutely use politicians as magical guinea pigs. It's fun and gives you a guilt-free target for curses. But not everyone does that, and that's fine.

TLDR: Magic can only do so much.

~Jasper

[quark-art]

im not gonna reblog it and start a fight cuz i dont really feel like arguing with someone i kinda look up to, but a webcomic creator i follow made this post that was like "lol webcomic creators will make 1000 pages of a comic, start out rough, never edit the early stuff and act surprised when people dont read their comic" and it kinda pissed me off bc it shows a complete ignorance of the reality of webcomics.

if a webcomic has over 1000 pages i guarantee it has at least a moderate following, otherwise the creator wouldnt have the motivation to make 1000 pages. (although, if that theoretical person does exist, way to punch down i guess?) also, if a webcomic has over 1000 pages and the early stuff is kinda rough, that means their audience (which PROVABLY EXISTS. i am thinking of MULTIPLE REAL PEOPLE who fit this exact description right now) doesnt actually mind because they see the passion the creator has for their story and accept the storys flaws as the natural result of a comic artist getting better at making comics in real time. it is actually kinda COOL to see a comic artist improve, even if the early art is bad, even if the writing isnt the best, seeing the creator get better is really engaging for a lot of people. that is not something they merely tolerate, that is part of the appeal.

everyone is always talking about how perfection is an impossible standard but no one recognizes how that necessitates the presence of flaw. there are always going to be flaws. an artist is allowed to just accept them and keep going. they do not have to turn around and desperately try to fix them so they wont feel embarrassed anymore. and when you make fun of people for daring to have flawed art on the internet youre basically just reinforcing the fear every artist has that "my old work is embarrassingly bad and i need to hide it."

also, most of us are literally just doing this for fun??? youre just being mean to people who are having fun???? stfu???

[drbased]

A quick bit of advice

This is what we call 'controlling the conversation'.

(Please watch the video, it's only 10 minutes long and if more people get this concept I don't have to keep pointing these things out)

This person has skillfully shifted the discussion away from misogyny into picking apart whether or not wasps are bees. They've made some hilariously bad factual innacuracies, and now, guess what, radfems are now talking about whether of not wasps are bees.

Let me quote from the video:

What kind of debate is this, even? There's not a single thing your opposition has said that isn't provable false or irrelevant and they change the subject every 30 seconds.

Every bad argument they use a subtle attempt to change the subject. Bad arguments are not a bug, they're a feature.

The original post is about misogyny. It uses a metaphor to depict misogyny, to help it be made understandable. Nitpicking the metaphor achieves two things: it means they don't have to argue on the thorny issue of demonstrable misogyny, and it also signals to the imagined audience that the initial comment about misogyny is already bunk. What those who want to control the conversation do is they respond with the next argument along assuming their position is already correct.

Feminist: This is how misogyny operates within trans activism TRA: Trans women can't be misogynistic because trans women are women ... and your metaphor doesn't work because wasps are bees

So radfems are now talking about wasps not being bees. It's so easy to do, right? The left wing love a good language and factual take-down; it's so tempting to do, and so easy to do, and we get to look smarter than them - maybe we could even change some minds. It all feels like a good time.

And look, this is how OP then responds.

Notice how mcironiccringename over here only now has to talk about the 'facts' about wasps and bees. They never have to engage with the original point misogyny. Conversation controlled, damage controlled, time wasted.

[finnlongman]

Working theories about the processes at work in the Babyfication of Cú Chulainn in the 17th-19th century Ulster Cycle tales:

All of these late stories position themselves as taking place before Táin Bó Cúailnge. This is obvious from the fact that Fer Diad is present in lots of them, but is also just narratively convenient for them, I think.

Cú Chulainn is 17 in TBC, so our starting point is that he must be younger than that.

Generally these stories position themselves as occurring after Tochmarc Emire/Foglaim Con Culainn. Again, this is partly evident from the presence of Fer Diad. Some of them overlap slightly with it.

Cú Chulainn's age in TE isn't stated outright, but following the Boyhood Deeds, he might be as young as about 6.

He must therefore be aged between 6 and 17 when all these stories take place.

Tóruigheacht Gruaidhe Griansholus, the oldest of these stories (1679), states that he is 15 -- presumably with the primary intent of firmly locating the story before TBC. The Ulaid are concerned about the idea of him going off an international road trip alone because of his age, and express this concern, but he does it anyway. His youth is occasionally referenced, but on the whole he is much as he appears in earlier texts: a skilled and precocious warrior.

Eachtra na gCuradh and Coimheasgar na gCuradh come next (early 18th cent). They notice this detail in TGG and decide to elaborate on it further: Cú Chulainn is younger than 15, and is going on adventures only in the company of other warriors; it is occurring pre-TGG, making that his first solo adventure.

Because he is too young to go on adventures by himself, and because those responsible for him are frequently concerned for him, this gives the impression that Conall et al are babysitting him.

Eachtra na gCuradh appears to take place before Coimheasgar na gCuradh. CnC introduces Láeg and by the end of the story, he and Cú Chulainn have teamed up, ready for TGG. Conall appears slightly less protective of Cú Chulainn, so we can conclude he is slightly older than he was in EnC, when he is very baby (and when Láeg wasn't yet on the scene).

His age is not stated outright in any of these, but I would guess he's aged between 10 and 14. This is based purely on relative chronology and may not hold up to close scrutiny.

Sgéalta Rómánsuíochta are the latest stories (maybe 18th century but preserved in 19th century version). They're not super interested in Cú Chulainn, preferring to foreground other characters. His babyfication makes this easier, since he can appear as a child sidekick (to Ailill Fionn, in the first story), or in a similar capacity to EnC and CnC -- the youngest/most junior member of a group of warriors. Across the four stories, he could be anything from about 7 to about 14 again.

Theories about intertextuality:

Tóruigheacht Gruaidhe Griansholus and Coimheasgar na gCuradh both provably draw on the Stowe version of Táin Bó Cúailnge. There are details that can't have come from any other version of TBC (or any other text that survives). They are not the same details in both texts, so it's not that CnC drew on TGG: both drew on Stowe.

Since EnC is probably by the same author as CnC, we can assume he also had Stowe.

EnC's inclusion of Manannán mac Lir might suggest knowledge of Serglige Con Culainn.

CnC alone of the very late tales (i.e. EnC onwards) includes Láeg, with characterisation details that obviously come from Stowe TBC. Again, it doesn't seem to derive directly from TGG (there's a detail I'd expect to see there if it did); both go back to Stowe and so have similarities but have developed them differently.

All of them are probably drawing on Foglaim Con Culainn; in some places it seems like there might be some reliance on Oidheadh Con Culainn as well. There might be some evidence of drawing on Oidheadh Chonlaioch, particularly the attribution of teaching to Aífe rather than Scáthach, although I know there are also late verse versions of this that might be a source rather than the prose.

SR may be more distant from its source material with heavier reliance on these intervening texts -- there are lots of phrasal similarities between EnC/CnC and SR, but Ó hUiginn disputes the earlier proposal that they were all by the same author and thinks SR are definitely later.

That's what I've got so far. I doubt anyone has suggestions because I don't think anyone has cared about these texts for a couple of centuries, but if you do, hit me.

I am partly writing this post so I can keep track of these thoughts for later, although my PhD corpus ends with TGG, so I won't be talking at length about the others there. (They may come up in passing, though.)

[bounded-accuracy]

One of the most fascinating corners of Fantasy High lore is the existence of hardcore Helio worshippers. Because, in Solace,

hell provably exists

you can find out exactly who went there and why

In our universe, the uncertainty about hell is a massive factor in why evangelicals behave the way they do. Like, people love to argue with biblical literalists about how a loving God wouldn’t be so judgmental. But it doesn’t matter. God might turn out to be chill… but they can’t be 100% sure. And hell is potentially REALLY bad. So they’ll act on the assumption that God is the most ridiculous tightass imaginable, and maybe get pleasantly surprised later.

But for Helio worshippers, they can find out exactly what criteria matters (or not) for hell. They don’t have to be hyper strict just to be on the safe side. Hell isn’t this nebulous threat of infinite proportions, it’s very concrete. It’s also not eternal/inescapable. People can straight-up leave, given the right magic.

I wonder if churches of Helio explicitly forbid contact with other planes? I guess it could be similar to Christian prohibitions on mediums and contacting spirits (except that in Solace you can actually talk to spirits lol). Maybe they say it’s all a trick, that no one is actually seeing the “real” version of hell? But resurrection exists, and people do see the afterlife there — maybe they treat those like real-world near-death experiences, and say they’re just random neuron activations (which would be a very funny solution, because in our universe Christians loooooove citing NDEs as evidence of life after death).

Anyway, I think it’s an interesting area to speculate on.

[generallemarc]

The following is something that hardly any "pro-Palestine" agitator is capable of

*Ahem*

Israel has done alot of objectively wrong things over the course of its history with Palestine, and that didn't magically go away in the past decade. It is a thoroughly paranoid state, and no matter how much that paranoia is justified by the existence of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran it's no excuse for violating the civil rights of detainees, even if they're provably guilty of whatever crimes they've been accused of. Israel's air strikes in the current war have been too zealous, and there must be a certain point at which it would actually be less harmful in terms of civilian casualties to just send in the IDF on foot, and because of how utterly outmatched Hamas will be against professional soldiers, I feel as though that risk to the IDF ought to be taken for the sake of the innocent civilians who might be saved by it. Hamas isn't going to protect them by virtue of it being filled with genocidal monsters, and thus although it's unfair the onus is on Israel to do the job that the force that governs Gaza refuses to, or at least to try to.

See all of that? That was me being able to perceive and acknowledge reality even when it makes my side look bad. Because I see this war as a war, not a justification to start wishing death on millions. I see these civilians who've died for no reason as just that, instead of deserving of their fate for the crime of being born in the wrong country/to a family of the wrong faith or ethnicity. And I have the most basic of moral sensibilities to be able to look with that sight at all sides of a situation, and not just the ones that it's convenient to look at. But one thing I haven't seen is very many "pro-Palestine" people being able to admit to the observable reality of things like hostage taking, use of human shield tactics, and the fact that Hamas's charter brings up the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as if it were true. It's really sad that the last one has had to become my armor-piercing round, or rather sad that that's armor-piercing to their arguments and "Hamas are actively trying to commit genocide" isn't. But I guess that's just what it means to be a "progressive" these days.