#this is a spectrum its not like a hard binary but humans are the most mundane of the sapient creatures

[termagax]

i do think cyberwizard drugs is a funny trait for victor. ostensibly this is for his magic and to maintain his connection to his cybernetics but its kind of like a guy who gets a medical card for back pain and then makes weed his primary personality trait.

[jenyifer]

I’ve read 10 more books let’s get a rec list here for future use for people to look up on my page or alone.

Disclaimer:I think reviews and opinions show a lot about who you are and your life exp so. I am a woman lover who is 30 with ADHD. I am cisgendered she/her. I like listening to books on my drive in and out of work. I’ve read and watched a lot of scifi and fantasy and these books reflect that too.

In order of most loved:

1. Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈⏳ Historical Romance. this beautifully crafted novel moved me to tears. Set in a historical, mundane world, it captures the essence of the original while offering a fresh perspective.

2. Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh 👯‍♀️🏳️‍🌈👽🚀now MC Romance very very low I like to think she’s a little bit some where in the ace spectrum but 🥹🥹 Avicenna gives you enough gay vibes trust me. It is a real journey. MC is broken out of her brainwashing and tries to save the Earth and Universe. It’s high Sci-fi fun. I really loved it.

3. The Last Binding Trilogy by Freya Marske 🏳️‍🌈👯‍♀️🏳️‍🌈🪄⏳🔎 Alright each book is from a different intertwined couple’s POV. Each book is very much historical wizard mystery’s found family. Each book has steamy interesting spicy scenes. I find this series more impressive now because I still think about the couples and its universe was fun. Side note the last couple is the best.

4. The Tithenai Chronicles by Foz Meadows 🏳️‍🌈⏳🪄🔎 it’s more historical than super magical but both books have decent mysteries. It’s about an arranged royal marriage one comes from a conservative country suffering from trauma which we get to see but is treated respectfully and not harped on and the other is a warrior who is a little neurospicy. So Velasin is so dear to me I forgive a lot because he’s baby and I love him. They have non binary characters and disabled characters in the story being treated like people. There is some very spicy scenes in these two books. The new character in the second book so amazing they reminds me of Tennal from Oceans Echo in spirit anyway. I liked them. But his spicy scenes had me blushing for days. A con of this book is it’s very emotional so depression trauma warnings.

5. Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🦹🦜 I can’t believe I forgot to do a review of this one considering I really enjoyed it. So it’s YA dystopian Latin America folklore kind of like superhero and god goddess. Really heart warming found family coming of age. Also in the vein of hunger games etc. I loved the universe and the structure of the world. Each character was well developed throughout the book. Main character is someone you want to see succeed. I’m so excited for book 2. Lots of neurospicy peeps represented in my opinion.

6. Simon Snow Trilogy by Rainbow Rowell🏳️‍🌈🪄🧛🏻🐲 Also YA feel book one has a lot of Harry Potter jabs but it’s not a direct parody. I also think in book 2 3 they take jabs at diff genres which was fun. The series is very funny has perspective from all the characters. The universe is interesting. Romance is decent. Lovable characters. It isn’t good to think too hard about anything.

7. The Unbroken by CL Clark 👯‍♀️⏳👑🪄 this book would be higher up if I wasn’t iffy on the main couple individually I’d rank both leads pretty high on best characters. It’s a book about colonialism political magic rebellion found family. It’s action packed it’s interesting with a good mystery. A disabled main character and a more male presenting lesbian with is something new. Touraine is going to do what Touraine thinks in her heart while Luca serves with her brain and wallet.

8. So this is ever after by f. t. Lukens 🏳️‍🌈👯‍♀️🪄👑⏳ Does what it says on the tin is YA. Medieval setting with standard fantasy quest group. Very easy read.

9. Out of the Blue by Jason June 🏳️‍🌈🧜🏻‍♂️🎬🎓very YA vibes. Very romance. About a nonbinary mer person on their journey out of the ocean to help a human and a film obsessed gay chubby human on his journey to get over a relationship. I would have this book ranked higher except for the ending and School vibes do kind of make me cringe.

10. Temperature of You and Me by Brain Zepka 🏳️‍🌈🦹🔎 about a boy whose skin is fire and human who works at a dairy queen. Mystery is weak some holes in the plot.Romance very immature. School age kids.

Okay so audible had a sale anddd I got a couple titles on there (if I have to spend a fortune on gas and tolls I’ll spend a small one on the books that keep me sane) and I have 4 Libby audiobooks checked out. I still have a hard time with wlw books. Or too much thinking. It needs to hit a sweet spot for me since I’m usually driving in hard conditions so can’t use the super brain on the story. Anyways any suggestions or recs would be welcomed!!!

[denimbex1986]

'Boppenheimer. Oppenbarbie. Whatever you’re calling the double-bill of the century, wherein Christopher Nolan’s scorching epic Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s kitsch masterpiece Barbie are both released on Friday 21 July, you have to admit that the cultural moment is fast amounting to more than the sum of its parts.

After sustained giggling on social media about the incongruously shared release date – are you team Pink or team Black? Is it better to see Barbie or Oppenheimer first (obviously it goes Oppenheimer, then Barbie for dessert, are you mad)? – it turns out that, for many filmophiles, the idea of watching one right after the other was more than just a joke. Sometimes art imitates life – and sometimes, as with the Boppenheimer memes, life imitates art.

Following the announcement from AMC that 20,000 people have already secured tickets for both of the summer’s biggest blockbusters on the same day, it seems that the British public is not just ready but begging for the emotional whiplash that only chain-smoking Cillian Murphy and Saccarine-sweet Margot Robbie can deliver. I for one can hardly wait; and after the few years we’ve had, is it any wonder that this most atonal of chords – ultimate desolation versus peppy plastic – is resonating so profoundly?

In a simpler time, the distinctions between Barbie and Oppenheimer – their aesthetics, their world views – would have made such audience overlap unthinkable. But this is the UK in 2023, where nothing is straightforward – least of all anything so complicated as feelings. I can’t be the only one yo-yoing between elation and devastation depending on what headline I’m looking at. On one hand, we’re post-pandemic, but mid-cost of living crisis on the other; we’re 13 years into a Tory government and knee-deep in Brexit, but at least Trump’s gone; this month delivered the two hottest days of the planet on record, but, you know, at least it’s summer…?

As you can see, it’s hard to know where to let your emotional dial rest; there’s plenty to be downcast about, and yet, after being locked inside for two years, a distinct sense that life’s too short to waste it crying. Faced with such a stark binary, what’s a girl to do? A middle ground feels impossible – instead, may I interest you in, um, everything at once?

First up, a hedonist sugar-rush of blaring pink, Barbie promises a bingo-board of zeitgeisty Gen-Z nihilism and brilliant shoes. When I was teenager, there was nothing less cool than the hyper-femininity Barbie embodied; the highest (and looking back, the most back-handed) compliment me and my classmates could be paid was “you’re not like other girls”. While we’ve got plenty of room left to grow, recent years have seen that sentiment shift. From 2022’s TikTok bimbo-core moment, celebrating superficial glossiness and its power to paper over a niggling sense of powerlessness, to the long overdue reappraisal of history’s most underestimated it-girls, unapologetic pink was having a moment even before the Barbie film was announced last year. Perhaps softness, femininity, even – whisper it – pink itself, isn’t so bad after all? And when the world’s on fire, what’s the harm in enjoying something sparkly?

On the polar-opposite end of the spectrum is Oppenheimer. At three hours long, Christopher Nolan’s harrowing marathon promises anything but escapism, instead scrutinising the origins of the atomic bomb and mining the conscience of the man who helped to develop it. We’re talking darkest-heart-of-humanity, greatest-tragedies-of-all-time, we’re talking devastation and depravity, the kind of misguided hubris that changes the world for the worse. I expect to exit Oppenheimer with a renewed hopelessness, a heavy heart, and the kind of malaise that only a late lunch with loads of wine can assuage – which is perfect, because cocktails are at 6, and we’re all wearing gingham.

What I’m saying re world-ending catastrophes is, good to keep one’s eye in. I’m also saying that there’s no harm – scratch that, there is essential soul-salving good – in seeking joy and frivolity during life’s darkest moments. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, that’s a seesaw we’re all increasingly familiar with: life is both beautiful and horrifying, people are both awful and extraordinarily generous, and I’m going to see both Oppenheimer and Barbie on 22 July.

See you at the afters for electrolytes and candyfloss, in that order.'

[pcketdmnsion]

dumb thing to rant about here but

fairies vs walrus.

culturally, it may in fact be less surprising for a fairy to knock on someone’s door.

reason one: they may believe in fairies which are like humans.

reason two: fairies are painted as everyday aspects of the cultures which espoused belief in them.

in fact, by questioning these cultural beings, you may find yourself seeing the world in total absolutes. black and white. cold and lacking in grays. that then becomes your cultural /social perception.

like maybe you concede that purely from a scientific standpoint, sex is a spectrum, but gender is not. maybe you rail against this new “nonbinary” “genderless” “xenogender” umbrella, asserting that only science can dictate human behavior and by extension, only that documented in the domain of this hard cold science that you cling to is correct and mandatory. CULTURE is not something that you can just read off charts or test with monitors. it exists in the mind and the body and dare i say, the conscience or spirit inhabiting us.

let me further state that this knife’s edge perception has proven dangerous to third gender individuals and communities. you need to leave gray area, or your vision will tunnel.

people have imposed their beliefs. their binary of sex and gender and claimed that our brains carry the mental blueprint of manhood or womanhood. this is, by the way, a huge misconception (not even well-supported by science). they argue that third gender people are nonexistent and non-essential. we are seen as myths. we are dismissed.

may i reiterate that this way of thinking is deadly: medicalist takes on transness have worsened the perceptions of individuals in the trans community. people ground their hatred in science and argue that the earth is just an overgrown space rock. people bicker and throw chairs over the longevity and detailed accounts of indigenous community members whose oral traditions (we have always been here. horses were here before europeans. we didn’t hunt everything to extinction. it is not pristine wilderness.) are largely ignored by scientists to favor narratives perceived as thusly infallible and restricting.

a: people have been in the americas for more than 40,000 years. people have been in oceania for more than 65,000 years.

b: horses migrated far from their sources, remained cultural memories when they died out, and were well-received by natives.

c: the overkill hypothesis is one of the most egregious claims to show its face, claiming that the people of this region were indiscriminate slaughterers of meat-bearing animals. /as would be the attitude of people whose ancestors shot all the bison./

d: it has been largely debunked that the world was only wild, unshaped by human hands in remote forests where the natives had been extirpated for some time. traces of the past wherein these people partook in the domestication and forest agriculture have only begun to be embraced by science.

the walrus is known to most. yes. but unlike these widespread believed beings, it’s geographic range is restricted to the polar regions of the northern oceans. therefore, it is more surprising to see the latter in places where it is not seen frequently, if at all.

i am team less surprised by a walrus, simply because i don’t have a belief in fairies. it does not make me right or wrong.

rant over… 🎤

[jimothy-g-brooks]

Kitchen Sink Urbana: Magic (Part 2)

Part 1: https://jimothy-g-brooks.tumblr.com/post/736391012903223296/

Sometimes derisively called "Mild Magic", Magecraft is the umbrella term covering the wide array of sorcerous ethnicities and wizard schools that have arisen spontaneously or been created in the past 20,000-ish years of human(oid) history. How these magic systems are invented or discovered is only less unclear than which of the former descriptors, made or found, applies.

The originator of a magical system produces a series of patterns from the force of magic itself that consigns itself to a set of limitations, origins and triggers. The actual process is not well documented but largely seems to happen intuitively or even spontaneously. Many attempts to uncover the secrets of system creation and/or creating a system according to someone's specification are well recorded in their failure.

Wild Magic is all about constructing a wish and making just about anything you want happen, and the price you pay is dealing with the narrative twist the vague "Will Of Magic" spins on it. The primary purpose of Magecraft, such as there is a purpose, is to create a method to tap into the power of magic while insulating one's self from the narrative blowback. The more limited a magical system is, more a given definition of "limited", the less "interesting twists" its practitioners may end up subjected to.

Each magic system has its own ideas about where magic comes from, extraplanar energy, the shed life force of all living things, the power of the collective unconscious, the cosmic lava spewed out from natural forces grinding against each other like tectonics plates, the stars and planets. Magic is stories, it might be the left over energies from when the universe was narrated into existence. Therefore, each of these stories is true or at least true enough for their practitioners.

Now Magecraft Systems can be separated into two broad categories, Wizardry School and Sorcerous Ethnicities. Mind, these aren't binary choices and more exist on a spectrum. You opt-in to wizardry, you choose to learn magic and make it a part of your world. At the far end of the wizarding spectrum, anyone can learn to use this magic system and become a wizard, but often you have to have some innate gift for it first. For sorcery, you just are, and you don't have much of a choice in the matter. The most sorcerous of sorcery is the sort where basic competence is naturally intuitive and only mastery is something that needs to be worked towards. More often, a sorcerer must work to become adept with their powers at all.

Schools and Ethnicities of the same kind can and have developed independently across the globe, almost always simultaneously, unmooring them from any one location or particular racial ethnicity. Some magic systems have examples of either wizards or sorcerers, with those who worked hard and those who hardly worked for it at all. In either case, they are still bound to the same magic system and the same drama that follows.

The two dramatic flaws that all systems of Magecraft seem to share in one form or another is Brain Poisoning and the Dark Lords. The first is for the tendency of mages to passively forget that other magic systems exist. The older and/or more powerful the mage, the worse this tends to be. They'll easily remember when reminded but shortly afterwards slip back into the mindset of forgetting to take them into account, as if theirs was the only magic system in the world. It's also worse for wizards than it is for sorcerers.

This means mages that haven't forgotten, that have resisted or fought off the Brain Poisoning, can easily become Outside Context Problems for others. At its worst, the Brain Poisoning can cause a mage to stop taking into account the Other M's, psychics, enhanced martials artists, gene-supers and warpcraftsmen. A common sign that ostensibly different Magecrafts are actually a part of one larger super magic system is when the Brain Poisoning doesn't cause powerful practitioners to forget about those others. Where Witchcraft is categorized in all this, and at what vague stage even it becomes discounted, seems to differ from system to system.

The seconds is what is called the Dark Lord Problem. It is in reference to a strong, almost guaranteed, tendency for some anti-social maniac of a practitioner to gain a lot of magic power and maybe more besides. They then proceed to make it everyone's problem, starting with their fellow practitioners of the Magecraft and moving out from there. It's not always a different individual rising up each generation, gathering minions about himself, it can be a lot of things, some drama, some complications, but it's the most common form it takes. Fortunately, these entities tend to be the most Brain Poisoned of all, focused entirely on the little world of their magic system and anyone adjacent to it, to the nigh the exclusion of all else. The ones who aren't like that become the real nightmares.

The result is a bunch of insular subcultures that resist or are resisted by larger global society from having their powerful resource integrated into modern living. With a bunch of mutually exclusive systems, a global standard is even harder to set than it is with technology. Some areas of the world have a local favorite, becoming loose centers of that Magecraft, if the local authorities believe they can handle the attention of that drama's Dark Lords. Largely, this remains a world of machines and technology since the Industrial Revolution centuries back, and the world of spells and rituals is left further and further behind- or so some people would hope. Others aren't so sure, and some aren't so enthused.

[harmonic-psyche]

Oh, I know this one! Cognitive bias.

Putting things into the same mental category makes someone see, and think about, them as more similar than they really are.

Putting things into different mental categories makes someone see, and think about, them as more different than they really are.

Together, those tendencies form “the Binary Bias,” the “tendency to impose categorical distinctions on continuous data.” In other words, if you imagine information as a color spectrum, our minds usually chop it in half and understand the spectrum as one half versus the other half.

Below, I first review some of the psychological research literature demonstrating that we have a Binary Bias. I then discuss the metaphysics of categories.

The term originates from a series of 6 studies with 1,851 participants finding that "[a]cross a wide variety of contexts...when summarizing evidence, people exhibit a binary bias:" [1]

"[W]e tend to underestimate the difference between two facts...given the same categorical label, while we overestimate the difference between the same two facts…given different [ones]." [2]

For example, when reading customer reviews that range from 1 to 5 stars, people mentally lump most ratings into "good" (4-5) and "bad" (1-2) bins. They underestimate the difference between a 4 and a 5, and overestimate the difference between a 3 and a 4. [3] Customer reviews may seem trivial, but the Binary Bias can lead to genuinely dangerous cognitive errors like underestimating medical risk:

“How do consumers combine multiple risk items when forming overall risk judgments?…[T]his research finds that adding a low-risk item to a high-risk item reduces the overall risk perception because people reason categorically about risk. They impose categorical distinctions on quantitative risk information, and when combining categorical information, they tend to average across categories instead of adding.” [4]

“Digitization” is a similar phenomenon where people convert uncertainties into binary certainties when considering hypotheses: participants distorted the probabilities of two plausible hypotheses by ignoring the slightly-less-likely one entirely when making predictions. [5]

The Binary Bias is a key flaw in common judgments about probabilities. People judge the probability of the same risk very differently depending on how it is represented, its category assignment, and how many categories they are told. [6]

The Binary Bias is so hard-coded in the brain that it even exists on the level of specific neurons. In one study, some neurons would fire on seeing "the image of a dog or a cat (but not both)." The experimenters used Photoshop to gradually morph an image from a cat to a dog. The neurons fired consistently until the image was 50% cat 50% dog, then suddenly switched: "In other words, a neuron ‘considered’ a 60% dog to have more in common with a 100% dog than with a 40% dog." [2]

Human mental category systems even literally prevent people from seeing particular things. For example, a group of people were shown a series of playing cards in quick succession, including a few "anomalous cards" like "a red six of spades and a black four of hearts." Participants almost always categorized the anomalous cards with the normal cards: “Without any awareness of trouble, it was immediately fitted to one of the conceptual categories prepared by prior experience. One would not even like to say that the subjects had seen something different than what they identified.” [7]

After the length of time where participants saw the cards was increased (up to 40x slower), most picked out the anomalous cards — but 10% never did, much to their own personal distress. One said, “I can't make the suit out, whatever it is. It didn't even look like a card that time. I don't know what color it is now or whether it's a spade or a heart. I'm not even sure now what a spade looks like. My God!” [7]

At first, most people forced their observations to match the categories they had learned. Once the observations were made more glaring, most of them could change their categories after a while, but some never could.

Categorization is largely arbitrary. We can place items in the same category when they share a specific property, like assigning every citizen of the United States into the category “Americans.” So, strictly speaking, nominalism is incorrect: categories are based on real properties (or “predicables”). Yet nominalists recognize a key truth that essentialists deny: Deciding which category to use is always arbitrary.

Each thing has many properties. Deciding how much of which properties to categorize together is subjective. No category membership is truly “essential” to a thing. Essentialism is undermined by, among other facts, inescapably fuzzy boundaries between categories. Deciding how many grains of sand it takes to form a pile is subjective, just like deciding whether Pluto is “really” a planet or deciding how many genders exist.

We invent categories by deciding which real properties we consider most relevant to the context at hand. We then use those properties to draw boundaries between one category and another, deeming certain properties “essential” to the definition of certain categories because it is convenient. We then ignore all other (equally valid!) ways to categorize the same things.

Teleology is an outdated ideology claiming that a thing’s “real” purpose is somehow intrinsic to what that thing is. According to teleology, a thing which does not or cannot fulfill that purpose is “disordered” and fails to realize its potential. A “disordered” thing is considered broken. Wrong. For example, Thomas Aquinas defines “sin” as failing to actualize one’s intrinsic purpose. [8]

Before Darwin and Newton, teleology may have been one of the better guesses about how the world works. Yet modernist thinkers drove teleology from its former strongholds:

Newton exorcised teleology from physics by explaining movement in terms of universal laws rather than innate tendencies.

Darwin exorcised teleology from biology by explaining biological “functions” as piecemeal evolutionary adaptations instead of designs fulfilling their intrinsic purposes according to their natural kinds.

Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau exorcised teleology from political theory by defining how people relate politically in terms of an emergent social contract rather than pre-defined roles for each person to fulfill in a hierarchy. The body politic Leviathan [9] is imagined as an organism made of many people just like Policraticus [10], both headed by a monarch. Yet only in Policraticus is each person comparable to a specialized cell dutifully fulfilling its intrinsic programming.

Teleology lost control over one of its final holdouts — ethics — when Nietzsche, Sartre, and the other existentialists exhorted us to choose our own purposes for ourselves.

Teleology is long-dead, and for humanity’s sake I hope it stays that way despite Alasdair MacIntyre and his fellow necromancers. Our identities and our future should be ours to customize in whatever ways make us happiest.

References

Fisher & Keil (2018), “The Binary Bias: A Systematic Distortion in the Integration of Information.”

Sapolsky (2004), "The Frontal Cortex and the Criminal Justice System" p. 1788-1789.

Fisher, Newman, & Dhar (2018), “Seeing Stars: How the Binary Bias Distorts the Interpretation of Customer Ratings.”

Mourali & Yang (2022), “Misperception of Multiple Risks in Medical Decision-Making.”

Johnson, Merchant, & Kiel (2020), “Belief digitization: Do we treat uncertainty as probabilities or as bits?”

Schley et al. (2021), “How Categorization Shapes the Probability Weighting Function.”

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions pp. 62-64.

Thomas Aquinas, Selected Philosophical Writings p. 291.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan.

John of Salisbury, Policraticus.

I think these nonsensical anti-trans arguments originate from trying to subtitute nature in the place where God used to be in these arguments. Unfortunately, they can't just define nature to be whatever they need it to be, so they run into problems. What transphobes don't understand is that their idea of a "natural order" is not actually natural.

@americanbrightside made a very similar point and that does make a lot of sense to me.

As you say, it's frustrating because people act like "biology" demonstrates these things that I would argue it not only doesn't demonstrate, but *can't* demonstrate.

[tanadrin]

What are your thoughts on people who just want to be left alone, and not just solitarily - they want to leave modern society and go live in the woods.

They should be permitted to. Modern liberal democracies are mostly OK with making deals with secessionist subcultures: enclaves of Mennonites, the Amish, ultra-orthodox Jews, and so forth are permitted form and mostly self-govern, and are occasionally even granted opt-outs from various forms of government interference, like certain taxes or insurance requirements, on the basis that they make much less use of government services. It's harder to carve out such exceptions for individuals, but we do have things like the concept of the conscientious objector that accommodate deviations from the usually expected set of rights and obligations for people with a commitment to alternate sets of values.

But these things exist on a spectrum; opting in or out of society isn't a binary choice. Also, except in the libertarian fantasy land, it's very hard even in North America these days to find trackless wilderness where you can live totally unconnected to the rest of humanity--and most of it is in Alaska and northern Canada, so bring a nice thick coat. Where I think this consideration, the concept of "atomic communitarianism" to borrow a phrase, is most interesting is in its more complicated real-world instantiations.

Anabaptist religious communities in the US, for instance, aren't really autarkic villages; they're socially segregated, but economically connected with the surrounding area. Ultra-orthodox Jewish groups, while endogamous, have historically always existed within larger urban communities, and could not function without them; many seem happy to rely on social support from the government, which given the emphasis they place on a particular kind of pious lifestyle makes sense.

Where indulging atomicity in society encounters tension, I think one of three things are at play. First, the atomic community is in conflict with the wider community over material interests. The fight over the distribution of public school funding in Ramapo, New York is a great example of this. I don't think these kinds of conflicts ever have easy solutions, especially when the atomic community in question doesn't or can't form a distinct separate unit of local self-government.

Second, an organization wants conditional status as an atomic community. Anabaptists generally refrain from participating in secular government as a fundamental tenet of their religion; contrast the Catholic church, which now that religiosity is declining in many of its former strongholds, often presents itself as merely wanting to govern its own affairs free from governmental interference; but as soon as they are in a position to influence policy and make political noise, they do so, and they have no doctrinal objection to being made the sole official church of a secular state. In other words, Catholics are not naturally an atomic community, and so shouldn't be treated as one. They shouldn't get special consideration in a pluralist society, and Catholic institutions should be subject to normal rule of law. The Catholic church hates this, and it's this loathing of being constrained by the same rules everyone else is, rather than a real ideological motive, that causes them to cover up child abuse and play the victim when their mass graves get dug up in Canada and Ireland.

Thirdly, an atomic community may be genuine in its aspiration to atomicity, and it may be tolerated implicitly or officially by the collective authorities; but there are obligations that the collective authorities have to individual members it is pledged to protect that supersede any deal made with the community as a whole. The most visible example of this in the present day is child abuse by religious authorities. Whether it's the FLDS, ultra-orthodox Jewish communities, or, yes, the Catholics, one of the few things our society absolutely refuses to condone in an atomic community or an aspiring one is the sexual abuse of children, and the obligation of the collective authorities to prevent that is considered so far-reaching that no exceptions for any self-governing community can be permitted. Sometimes these communities can stave off interference temporarily by capturing local authority in elections and flying under the radar of more remote authorities, but this seems to only work in rural areas and only for a limited amount of time. The only imperative to exercise state authority over atomic communities that I can think of that comes even close to this one regards, like, tax evasion, because states also have a strong incentive to make sure people know that independent parallel authorities aren't permitted to compete with the state, and tax collection is one of the very basic functions of government.

Now, all of the above examples are religious communities. That's not entirely a coincidence: religion is a powerful community-building force, and rising standards of living in the developed world have reduced the relevance of purely political or economic utopian projects. In countries like the US, where there is a strong tradition of religious freedom, federalism, and soft libertarianism, society can easily accommodate a large number of atomic communities, even highly insular religious ones. That is strong to America's credit; in almost every case, if people want to go off and do their own thing, they should be permitted to. Even fucked-up cults like the FLDS folks should get a strong benefit of the doubt, because pluralism is important, and state power is a crude bludgeon, and when that bludgeon goes awry you get shit like the Waco massacre. We can quibble on where exactly the line for outside interference should be drawn, but regardless of the criteria we use, sexual abuse of children seems like a reasonable criterion for interference.

Should lone individuals or tiny groups get carte blanche to fuck off into the woods and never contact human society again? Sure; but they effectively already have that, if they can find an empty patch of woods. And simply in terms of sheer numbers, the quantity of hermits and members of eremitical microcommunities will always be dwarfed by larger, more persistent atomic communities like those organized on religious lines. Religion is just a much stronger motivating factor for that kind of secessionism.

If a self-organized community of individualists did form in the wilderness, or on some vast expanse of privately owned land, and wanted to govern themselves free from interference--well, that's called "incorporating a municipality" and you can go through existing legal channels. Your new town won't be free of state or federal authority, depending on where it is; but if you're large enough to need a bona fide local government, I think there's a strong presumption that your community has a big enough impact on the surrounding areas and is populous enough that the collective authority takes a legitimate interest in how your community is run. But local governments are really important, and get a lot of shit done! Don't underrate their power.

If you really want more autonomy, you can always petition your state or national government for status as a separate state/territory/province/autonomous community/department (it worked for the Mormons!). You'd probably have to be fairly big; but I think your community would have to be very large in the first place to really get any benefit from that kind of larger local government. And, of course, there's always the Free State Project. In fact, I want to strongly encourage right-libertarians and anarcho-capitalists of every stripe, no matter where in the world they live, to move to New Hampshire and leave the rest of us alone. I think that's a really terrific idea (and more viable than seasteading).

One thing I didn't discuss is uncontacted peoples or native communities that preexist the communitarian authority. Especially with regard to the former, I don't trust state power to interfere in these communities in a non-destructive way; whatever the conditions the North Sentinelese are living in, the entire population being wiped out by measles carried over from the mainland would not be an improvement. And the excuse of legitimate state interest in protecting individuals has often been used to fuck with communities of racial undesirables--it is after all the reason the residential schools in Canada were built, and the Catholic church empowered to imprison children in them. This is part of the reason why even if you can prove an atomic community is a fucked up cult that treats its members horribly, I don't think it should be forcibly disbanded--the criteria for interference have to be extreme, because they have been so flagrantly abused in the past. Basically, the framework I'm using in the rest of this post doesn't apply here, because these native communities aren't secessionist for any meaningful use of the term. They function differently, they preexisted the authorities imposed on them, and that original imposition was a war of conquest.

[worldbuildguild]

I’m having a lot of difficulty drawing the male body, specifically the waist and torso? Any tips?

The human body is mostly universal between the binary sexes ( and the many many constellations of gender and sexes inbetween the binaries ), so by practicing the base structure of the human body on a whole, you should be able to see a general improvement on bodies on either side of the spectrum.  However, if you’re looking for pointers as to how to draw bodies belonging to the two binaries, there are some differences to look for. 

Consider this a breakdown of the ‘average’ male body. ( Torso particularly ). I say ‘average’ as there are so many variables between the two binaries, that drawing absolutes on what is more ‘masculine’ and ‘femenine’ is a finnicky matter. For brevity, i’ll refer to these two binary ‘averages’ as ‘traditionally female’ tradfem and ‘traditionally male’, tradmasc. 

Sexual dimorphism: Torso

Let’s address the key differences in these two broad averages. When looking around in real life, it can be hard to detect these differences since we are constantly presented with all shapes and sizes of masculinity and femininity, though - as it is with visual design, we tend to use shorthand from these averages - based on the key differences between the binaries - to distinguish gender-identities from one another.  You can think what you want of this use of shorthand; personally i’m all about switching things up for the sake of diversity, but ultimately - the method has proved effective all the way up until now for a reason. 

A.  First off, the shoulders. Tradmasc individuals tends to feature a broad shoulder-to-waist ratio. Whereas tradfem traits can be seen aligning the width of the hips closer to the breadth of the shoulders. Tradmasc traits set the shoulders further out from the hips. 

B. One of the most striking differences between tradmasc and tradfem bodies are the presence of breasts. Though, masculine individuals can also develop mammaries - they are genetically most prominent on average in tradfem individuals. No brainer probably, but worth mentioning.  C.  On average, disregarding the weight of both tradmasc and tradfem bodies, the ribcage itself tends to be broader on tradmasc individuals than they are on tradfem individuals. The length and amount of ribs in the ribcage remains the same between the two binaries though.

D. Tradfem individuals tend to have broader hips than their tradmasc counterparts. This is in due to two general factors.    1: The pelvic structure of the tradfemme’s pelvis is typically wider due to        its childbearing function. 

  2: The presence and balance of estrogen and testosterone determining            where the fatcells store primarily. In tradfem individuals, fats store in the hips, breasts and thighs first - we call this gynoid fat storing. In tradmasc individuals, they tend to store around and on the stomache - this is known as android fat storing.  

E. As previously mentioned ^ - the fat distribution patterns, gynoid and android also has an impact on the general volume of the thighs. Where tradfem individuals on average tends to have fuller and rounder thighs than that of their tradmasc counterparts. 

With all of that out of the way, you should know at least a few of the predominant differences in the traditional perceptions of the binaries, and how they look.  So let’s try to break down the tradmasc body really quick.  I like to break it down into 3 parts.  A - The pectorals / chest B - The ribcage C-  The stomache

These three parts can be composed in all manner of shapes and sizes depending on your characters build and weight. For the most part, the stomach (C) will be the largest volume of the torso, closely followed by the chest (A). Connecting these two sections, when seen from the front, is the ribcage (B) that arches from the sides of the stomach and touches on the breastbone ( solar plexus ) under the chest. 

Depending on the bodytype you’re working with, you are going to look into different anatomical studies. Though i will always recommend at least sparing a look to the medicinal/anatomical references, as it will help you layout and recognize the musclegroups as they sit on the body. If you get a somewhat good grip on where which musclegroups sit and how they interact, it should be easier to add layers of bodyfat on top of it ( or not, if you’re drawing exceptionally buff people ).  I’m talking about pictures like this: 

https://www.steadyhealth.com/slideshows/male-muscular-system-anatomy-full-overview

Now, the link might say “male-muscular-” but in truth, the layout of muscle and mass is very very similar between the two binaries ( save the fact that tradfem individuals have mammaries sitting on top of the pectoralis majors ) especially if you account for the huge amount of variation in dimorphic traits in every real person. 

So really, you can use these kind of models almost interchangably if you’re just using them as reference for muscle-layout and not as references for tradfem features. 

And of course, if i hadn’t made it perfectly clear in my writing through this post, i’d like to add that the illusion of one ‘standard’ male body and a ‘standard’ depiction of it is hard to really conjure up now-adays, since we have been made aware that the difference between individuals is far less black and white than what we previously thought.  That’s why i encourage you to consider which kind of tradmasc traits you pick out for your character and why. I am absolutely for depicting the traditional masculine body ( i mean..see my work ), but know that masculinity doesn’t have to come to that particular set of shorthand. 

I hope this helped you on your way a little bit. It is always a bit difficult drawing sexes or genders one’s not used to, so i wish you the best of luck on your way of depicting masculinity. 

For more relevant reading, here’s a list of posts we’ve made regarding the anatomy of the torso and waist: 

The difference in buff:  https://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/185528871950/do-you-guys-think-you-could-give-me-a-tutorial-on

The torso: https://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/180215475382/can-one-of-you-make-a-small-tutorial-on-how-to

The pelvis: https://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/179426713661/dear-redline-station-i-love-u-im-struggling-with

- Mod Wackart ( ko-fi ) 

[khali-shabd]

Gender Theory

Readers, let us begin with a simple question- what is gender?

The Biological Theory Of Gender, and a majority of society, would say that gender is defined by biological sex, namely hormones and chromosomes. If you release estrogen and have XX chromosomes, you are female, and if you release testosterone and have XY chromosomes, you are male. However, this is an extremely flawed vision of gender for two reasons: one, that whatever proof of hormones altering gendered behaviour has been found only in lab rats1, which possibly will not exhibit the same extreme change in behaviour if the hormones were administered to them naturally in their own environment- and rats are not human- we have far too many differences as species for this study to be considered valid for homosapiens as well. And two, chromosomes are not strictly XX or XY- around 1 percent of the world population is intersex (and a similar percentage is redheaded, so its not inherently ‘anomalous’ or ‘unnatural’) , which means that they can have chromosomal variations such as XXY, X, XXXY etc, all of whom develop differently as compared to people with the traditional chromosome combinations. 

Further, there are far more things that define ‘biological sex’, namely:

chromosomes

gonads

sex hormones

internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus)

external genitalia.

Out of these, in humans, genitalia and internal reproductive anatomy can be changed without there being a significant change in gendered behavior. Sex hormones, when administered to bodies change secondary sex characteristics more than any sort of behavior; with the exception of testosterone increasing sex drive and sometimes increasing ‘ego’. Every single part of this definition of binary biological sex is challenged by the existence of intersex people, henceforth proving that sex is not binary and never has been, unfounding the existence of a sex-based gender binary in itself. Further, transgender individuals have a completely different gender identity as compared to their biological sex, and it has been scientifically proved that this is because their brains develop in the same way the brains of the children of the gender they identify with do. That essentially means that the brain of a transgender woman develops similarly to the brain of a cisgender woman, and the brain of a transgender man develops in the same way the brain of a cisgender man develops. All in all, there are far too many differences in the experience of biological sex to confine it to a binary, hence unfounding the theory that gender is based on biological sex.

Then how do we define gender?

There are a number of theories, but the most logical one at the moment would be Judith Butler’s Theory of Gender Performativity. Butler says that gender, as an abstract concept in itself, is nothing more than a performance. We ‘perform’ our gender by carrying out actions that we associate with it. They further say that this does not mean that it’s something we can stop altogether, rather something we’ve ingrained so deeply within us that it becomes a part of our identity, and it's the part of it we call gender identity. Gender, hence, is created by its own performance. Butler also implies that we do not base gender on sex, rather we define sex along the lines of established lines of binary gener, i.e. male and female- despite the fact that more than 10% of the population does not fall into this binary sex, and has some variation in their biological sex that does not ‘fit’ into either category. Gender in itself is so culturally constructed by western society that anyone who does not perform their assigned gender ‘correctly’ is punished- this applies to not only queer individuals but even men who do not ascribe to or criticise predefined ideals of masculinity. They are made social pariahs and excluded as outcasts, leaving them to find and create their own communities and safe spaces. This is shown in the way society ostracises queer-presenting individuals, makes fun of ‘soft’ men, and forcefully tries to ‘fix’ intersex children whose variations in biological sex cause no harm to them. I quote:

“Because there is neither an ‘essence’ that gender expresses or externalizes nor an objective ideal to which gender aspires; because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis. The tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of its own production. The authors of gender become entranced by their own fictions whereby the construction compels one’s belief in its necessity and naturalness.”

One of the criticisms of Butler’s theories is that it does not seem to apply to transgender individuals, whose innate gender identity is not the one that they have been assigned to perform at birth; whose brains develop the same way that their cisgender counterparts’ brains do from birth. Butler themselves have responded to this, saying:

“I do know that some people believe that I see gender as a “choice” rather than as an essential and firmly fixed sense of self. My view is actually not that. No matter whether one feels one’s gendered and sexed reality to be firmly fixed or less so, every person should have the right to determine the legal and linguistic terms of their embodied lives. So whether one wants to be free to live out a “hard-wired” sense of sex or a more fluid sense of gender, is less important than the right to be free to live it out, without discrimination, harassment, injury, pathologization or criminalization – and with full institutional and community support.”

Later on, Butler goes on to say that the main point of their theory is that identity is constructed, which means that it allows us to change how we view it as a concept. It leaves room for us to subvert gender roles, challenging the status quo on what it means to identify as someone of a particular gender, and re-structuring society such that we rally for change not along gender lines, rather on the basis of what’s right.

Further, if we combine the work of the psychologist Sigmund Freud with Butler’s theories, the latter does actually apply to transgender individuals. Freudian theory states that we internalize concepts of gender based on our parental figures at birth. That is, if you are born female, you begin to look towards the person who closest resembles your gender identity; which in this case would be your mother, to be your role model for your behavior as to how women are meant to act. Your mother would be your guide to how you perform your gender. If she crosses her legs, you cross your legs. If she dresses in a particular way, you would too, until you were exposed to the exterior world and allowed to develop your own sense of style. As such, you create your own gender identity within your mind, and perform that identity the way you have been taught to by your maternal figure. When you are transgender, you view yourself as innately as the gender you identify with, hence you base your gender identity off the parental figure of that particular gender. This means, if you are female to male trans, you would base your gender identity on your father, and accordingly perform your gender in that way.

Now the question arises: How do we create gender identity outside of gender roles? How do we identify anywhere on the gender spectrum while abandoning the performance that comes with that identity? Why is it important?

Well, the answer isn’t simple. For its importance, I allude, once again, to gender performativity theory- Butler even uses some evolutionary stances to support her views, saying that gender performance stems from gender roles which stem from the fundamental differences between the prominent male and female sex at the very beginning of evolution. Now that 'evolutionary' behaviors don't matter at this stage of societal, cultural, and psychological development, it renders gender roles and hence the performance of gender redundant. However, we still perpetuate these ideas regardless of their importance, or rather their lack of such. And in this process, we end up defining and segregating far too much on the basis of gender- from small things like friendships to even the feminist movement, which is majorly perpetuated and held up by people who identify as female. Other groups like men end up purposely excluding themselves from a movement that can benefit them as well(through deconstructing and eradicating ideas of toxic masculinity) just because of how strongly it is divided on the basis of gender lines. And as for how we create gender identity outside of gender roles; it takes a lot of work, at first, to unlearn all the biases you have internalized about what it means to be a certain gender. You have to actively work towards deconstructing what gender and gender identity means to you, and how much of it comes from societally misguided stances about the ‘role’ of a gender is. It may mean ridding yourselves of the school of thought that women belong in the kitchen and men belong in workplaces or even identifying and removing hidden biases such as those of toxic masculinity and/or toxic femininity. Lastly, it takes an understanding that often, gender expression is not the same as gender identity; and also that most gender expression is how people show how they feel the most comfortable viewing themselves. Once you’ve managed to deconstruct your biases, it’s just a matter of how you feel comfortable viewing and expressing yourself; and what label, among the myriad, you identify with the most. That would be your unique self-expression and identity.

[jiskblr]

Beyond Is and Is-Not

There is no good term for "the entirety of places a person can visit", truly. 'The world'? There are many of them. 'The universe'? Again, it's seems quite likely that it is not singular. 'Reality'? Outright incorrect; many of the places one can visit are decidedly, distinctly un-real. Many scholars would say there are two universes, or worlds, or what have you; there is the one we know, to which humans are native, where the planets orbit stars, light is law and the Judgments rule from atop the Great Chain of Being. This is the realm of Is. Then, on the other side of mirrors, behind the glass, lies Parabola; ruled by the Fingerkings, home to great cats and the eldest of devils, outside time and life and law. This is the realm of Is-Not. They neatly carve up all that could be; a thing either Is, or it Is Not, and lives in the corresponding realm, and so these are the two univeres. That's the theory, at least; as you may have gathered, I disagree.

Firstly, consider the Neath. A great cavern under the earth, where sunlight does not reach and most of the laws of nature are suspended. But merely suspended, not negated; death is strange in the Neath, but not unknown. Breaching the Great Chain and elevating oneself (or, theoretically, debasing oneself, were it not that the Great Chain considers humans to be nearly as debased as it is possible to be) is possible, here, but difficult, and nearly impossible without a counterweight which moves the opposite direction on the Chain with the same magnitude. It is easy for us to access Parabola, especially compared to the Surface, but we are manifestly not in Parabola, as you may note easily from the fact that causes lead to effects, motion passes through the intervening space, and the vast majority of locations are in the same place on Sunday as they will be on Friday week. We are not Is-Not, but not quite Is either.

Then, consider Irem, far across the Zee. Irem sits outside time, and one can take a stroll through its pillared streets and find yourself in Parabola, then wake from that dream and find yourself in an unfamiliar bed in a room you will have never entered. Irem will be, is, and has ever been, all at once, and ideas may be held in the hand, there. It will be very much like Parabola, and clearly will not be in the realm of Is, but it will not quite be Is-Not either. (The odd tense in which one will always find oneself speaking of Irem will be another aspect of its unreality.)

These establish that the distinction between Is and Is-Not blurs and has gradations, not a simple binary. But even within the Neath, there are stranger realms in evidence. Consider Frostfound. It is a realm of ice, in which time does not pass linearly, suggesting that it Is-Not. And the reflections in the mirror-bright ice of Frostfound have a life of their own, likewise similar to Parabola's gateways. But one cannot reach, or even see, Frostfound from dreams, and the Fingerkings not only have no power within its walls, but appear to find it utterly terrifying. If time is a river flowing to the ocean, Parabola is a placid lake where eddies swirl in any or every direction, but Frostfound is a boulder sitting mid-stream. It defies time, deflecting or imprisoning anything which attempts to impose causality upon it. This is very hard to reconcile with any gradation of the Is/Is-Not distinction, indicating strongly that it lies outside that spectrum.

I submit that the explanation can be found in one myth of Frostfound's formation, which is in at least some sense true. This myth goes that a stray Judgment entered the Neath; not the Lovelorn King who Surfacers call 'the Sun' but a star from a far-distant land. This traveling king sought something, something it felt a powerful need for. It sought it across the High Wilderness but in vain, for what it sought is not. Judgments cannot visit Is-Not, nor would they be permitted if they tried, but it heard that the Lovelorn King had made a realm outside star's light and yet not Parabola, and so it opened the Avid Horizon and entered the Neath. When it was here, it sought its desire in the irrigo depths of the Cave of the Nadir, it sought it from the Mountain of Light which is the god Stone, and it sought it in the peligin deeps of the Zee, but still in vain. the Traveling King spoke to the shapelings of the Neath-roof, and learned that what it sought cannot be found in any star's light - d___ inconvenient, as it was itself a star. But it is the Neath, and breaking the Chain is possible. The Traveling King could make itself no longer a star. It carved from its timeless nature an eternal island, so that whatever changes it might undergo would have always been so, and yet it would still know how to appreciate things it had once wanted; this was Irem. It carved out its memories of its search and the hunger Stone's light had amplified, and placed them as a great castle at the edge of Stone's light, and this was Kingeater's Castle. But it was still too much a star, and so it carved out the desire itself, creating something that eternally Was and yet Is Not. The twin paradoxes of this need being always true-in-the-past but never true-in-the-present, and of the Traveler excising the need and yet remaining driven by it, made water, minds, and even time freeze around it, and that was Frostfound. And then the Traveler, no longer a king, went East from Irem, seeking its desire in the unlit eternity of the East.

Frostfound is, according to this story, a crystallized paradox, Is-Not created from the raw soul-stuff of a Judgment, which is anathema to Is-Not. Like a hole dug so deep that it wraps around to fall from the sky, Frostfound is at the same time the direct opposite of Parabola and a duplicate of it. This explains a number of events and phenomena where items extracted from Frostfound both have transportative properties reminescent of prisoner's honey but also inhibit prisoner's honey or Glass-work by their presence. I posit furthermore that just as the nature of Law-distortion, as developed from Parabola and demonstrated in the Iron Republic, forms the discipline of the Red Science, investigating the nature of Frostfound in detail will reveal an equal and opposite discipline, which I shall provisionally name the Blue Science. This is not limited exclusively to Frostfound; the Drownie bubble-London of Dahut, on the floor of the Unterzee, seems to operate along the same lines. (This suggests that the Fathomking may have some skill in the Blue Science, though as His Complexity is known to trade with the Fingerkings, that picture is manifestly - pardon the pun - a complex one.) Certain reports from the High Wilderness, in domains such as the Garden-King's realm which no longer possess a shining Judgment, also point to similar principles; I particularly note the Silent Saint and certain well-substantiated ghost stories. The Saint may have been formed by a similar mechanism as Frostfound, but no record survives of its formation. The ghost stories are more intriguing; multiple stories from the former-Garden include principal figures capable of acting as living men for considerable time, hours or days, and which leave physical traces of their presence and actions, which remain even after their ghostly nature is discovered and the figure himself has disappeared. These walking shadows appear to share the Was-Yet-Is-Not nature of Frostfound and the Blue Science, and without the direct involvement of a Judgment, which is quite intriguing; should I venture to the High Wilderness myself, confirming and investigating these stories shall certainly be my first research subject. Broadly, I expect from these examples that the Blue Science is not capable of effects as dramatic and powerful as the Red Science, but that it is will also prove much easier to control and harness, avoiding a known shortcoming of that anarchic field.

However, the existence of this realm invites a broader point. First it appeared that there was a binary choice between Is and Is-Not, and later a spectrum which admits of many gradations of gray, and even positions on this spectrum which could be manipulated selectively so that some aspects were close to Is and others to Is-Not (the subject of the Red Science). But this realm is not on that spectrum; if we view degree of reality as the number line, with zero at Is and unity at Is-Not, then this realm is not a fraction. It may be a negative number, which would be perplexing given its observed properties but not entirely inconsistent. More interesting is the idea that it lies outside the real numbers entirely; not entirely orthogonal to the axis of Is to Is-Not, but skew to it, a complex number of whatever magnitude. This raises the question: if more than one direction, one angle in the polar form of complex coordinates, is possible, why only two? How many other realms of strange quasi-reality are attainable? Is there a whole rainbow of cousins to the Red Science? Is there a Green, a Silver, a Violet Science? For that matter, is there a Gant, Irrigo, or Violant Science? And if these do exist - and surely, some of them must, as where there are three categories there must surely be many - how might we begin to uncover them? I admit without shame that this question has consumed me since I first conceived of it, despite having no idea how it might be answered. Beyond even this is a further question, which in candor I am not even sure how to ponder: If realms may be mapped as rays in complex space, not merely scalars, why confine them to only a single plane? As the late Irish Arch-Theorist described the complex plane, these rays are vectors, rooted at the origin. And if we use his framework in describing the relation that the Blue realm has to the spectrum from Is to Is-Not, we can ascertain only that it is neither a more extreme form of one of those two, nor is it orthogonal. But any two non-parallel vectors may define a plane, and so until we find a third, we have no reason to think there is a single plane that all possible vectors lie within. They may differ on many axes; a space of three, five, even a dozen dimensions. It may even be that they are not simple vectors at all, but more akin to Sir Hamilton's more esoteric work - namely the system of quaternions - or to the octonions of Benthic's Prolific Fellow, or to mathematics yet more arcane. I have utmost confidence, however, that whatever the system may be, it shall be describable by mathematical means. Even in the darkness beyond Law, the study of Number has remained the Queen of the Sciences, and has not admitted of any field which was not Her subject.

[eoleolhan-a]

Okay it’s Monster Prom headcanon time for Jin! Get ready for some Hell headcanons and a little bit of tension with canon because in this house we kill and devour canon when it is convenient. This thing is LONG (approx 2150 words) so buckle up and Happy Halloween!

Jin is an incubus, a sort of “breed” of demon. They aren’t a separate species than the typical demons we know (aka Damien and Dahlia) but they do have some significant differences in terms of phenotypes/physical features, as well as culture and language. They are a minority group both in the numerical and sociological sense when it comes to Hell’s demographic breakdown. Most of them live in the 2nd Circle of Hell, where the lustful are sent for their eternal damnation in Dante’s Inferno.

Linguistically incubus refers to male demons of this breed of demons, while female demons of the breed are called succubus. There is, however, a gender neutral term in their culture that is used to refer to nonbinary individuals: neccubi (plural) or neccubus (singular). Altogether they’re often referred to as ‘Cubi (pronounced like cube-eye) or ‘Cubi demons in Hell. Their culture and language is called Cubiaen (cube-eye-in), and sometimes the region is referred to as Cubia (cube-eye-ah) but typically by those who live there rather than the rest of Hell. Most ‘Cubi speak their own native language and the dominant language of Hell; bilingualism is a common and expected trait tied to their strong central government’s education initiatives, but more on that later.

'Cubi have some specifics that differentiate them from other demons. Regardless of sex they have the same average height (around 5′6″) and don’t typically have much body hair beyond underarms and the pubic region, or grow facial hair. Their colours are typically a bit more muted compared to other demons; instead of being red, blue, purple, what have you, they would be more on the pink, perwinkle, lavender, mauve side of the colour spectrum and are usually a little less vivid/deep in colour. Their horns tend to have more an obvious curve to them, their ears are usually a bit longer/stick out more prominently, and they often have rounded ends on their tail tips making them look more like hears or spades. There are always exceptions, but these are the most common and noticeable traits among 'Cubi (mostly those that are not related to other demons in their immediate lineage). 

In terms of powers and proclivities, these are usually sexual but not exclusively sexual. They feed off of sexual energy as it is the impetus for creating life; the easiest targets are humans. Usually, a ‘Cubi demon will act like a sort of horny sandman. They can feed off of wet dreams, basically, by tapping into dream realms and siphoning the sexual energy created by these types of dreams. They can also just plain old have sex with humans, but this can be difficult. They are not prone to sexual assault any more than any other being; consent is what makes the energy sexual, after all. The more into it their feeding source/partner is, the more they get out of it. They can get sexual energy from other demons or monsters but it tends to be more difficult for them with less of a return. Feeding on this energy keeps them youthful, helps them live longer, and makes them stronger physically which helps keep them protected from the harsh climate of the 2nd Circle and also allows them to recover from wounds more easily. For the target of this feeding, the symptoms are typically lethargy, headaches, muscle aches, and lack of sex drive for about a day, sometimes more, after the encounter. It’s comparable to a hangover or a mild cold and typically won’t last longer than a week and is not usually lethal. Generally, ‘Cubi aren’t as prone to violence, conquest, or battle when compared to other demons. This doesn’t mean they don’t have a violent or destructive streak, just that it isn’t seen by the standards of Hell to be all that prominent in their culture/society.

The 2nd Circle of the 'Cubi is a lot more tame and peaceful on the surface than the rest of Hell. Since they aren’t as interested in violence or conquest, their region of the 2nd Circle has historically been isolationist. They are a small region in Hell that has a lot of mountains, sharp rocky ridges, and hills that form the border of the 2nd Circle. Based on Dante’s Inferno, the lustful were punished in the 2nd Circle of Hell by being blown around by violent winds. This, in my lore, translates to a hostile climate with rapidly changing weather. For those demons who are not used to it, it can be hard to manage the drastic temperature changes, precipitation, and wind that characterize this region. Due to their small size and the difficult environmental and geographical conditions of the 2nd Circle, they have not been conquered by any of the other Circles so far. Trying to launch an invasion is difficult since it would take months of living in the climate just to adjust to its rapid weather changes and harsh environment. It is also not a very politically important region and isn’t really focused on much in Hell’s geopolitical landscape. 

The government of the 2nd Circle is basically a bureaucratic monarchic empire. It has been isolated from the other kingdoms of Hell and so its government, culture, language, and to some extent population, has developed rather differently from the other Circles. This is in large part because of how damn difficult it is to conquer the region because of its harsh and unforgiving climate. The Emperor rules over the entire 2nd Circle after, many eons ago, the ‘Cubi decided to amalgamate their smaller regions (typically found in valleys between mountain ranges) into one larger government with regional administration to fend off external invasions and promote unity among their people. This Empire led a defensive against an attempted invasion from one of the other circles, and since then there has been a form of peace in the 2nd Circle. For some time after the ‘Cubi were recognized for their defensive strength and battle capabilities, but since it’s been thousands of years since then that image has worn off and been replaced by the one that is more common today, of ‘Cubi being weak and passive.

Each of the Empire’s smaller regions has an appointed governor from the Emperor who ensures each region pays its taxes, follows the laws of the Empire, etc. The Emperor has his own council of appointed advisors for different issues that stay in the Imperial Court; one for each region that governors oversee, and then extra advisors for specific concerns like economic development of the empire, military security and advancement, science and education in the empire, and advancement of the arts and Cubiaen culture and language. The line of succession does have gender parity, but the current monarch is an Emperor; there have been a few Empresses over the years, since it always goes to the oldest immediate descendant of the sitting monarch whenever possible. To get a position in one of these roles (either as governor or a council advisor) you typically need to be from a noble family. Science and education, and arts advancement is the one place where there is some limited class mobility; only one ‘Cubi ever gets the position at a time, but notable scientists or other such thinkers (mathematicians, philosophers, etc) can be scouted and appointed for their skill and contributions to ‘Cubi science and knowledge, whereas notable artists including visual arts, poetry, etc could be recruited to become the council’s arts and culture advisor. Otherwise, social stratification is a big issue there and most ‘Cubi don’t ever get the chance to rise the social status or class ladder. Out of all of the regions, the 2nd Circle has collectively less wealth than the others; they are not impoverished and typically have certain supports from the Empire as a result of tax payments or social support from within their communities for the peasantry. 

‘Cubi tend to form very strong monogamous partner bonds with other ‘Cubi. They fulfill each other’s sexual needs and desires, while still typically feeding their energy supply from humans. This is not really considered cheating or even a kind of polyamory in their culture. It’s very typical for ‘Cubi to find partners, have families, and form very strong bonds within those families. This extends to within communities, and to a lesser degree throughout the Empire. Their Empire was formed as an oddity, not by conquest but by consensus. Their attitudes towards partnership and family is not necessarily biological but social, and influenced by some of their biological predispositions (ie their method of feeding on sexual energy). While their culture is mostly hetero-dominant, it is accepting of non-heterosexual couplings. While they recognize a kind of binary between male and female ‘Cubi, as mentioned earlier they do have terms for and a recognition of non-binary genders but it is fairly limited. Most non-binary ‘Cubi are sort of lumped together whether it is accurate or not, but linguistically and socially these gender roles are quite normal to them. Partner bonded couples who cannot biologically reproduce are often adoptive parents when a young demon is orphaned or when the biological parents cannot provide care. Typically, due to strong community bonds, these kinds of couples will take in local children who end up displaced. Their family ties are typically paternal, but in a case where there is no male parent one family name is still typically chosen. Partnership and adoption are considered a form of family integration. This is typically lateral, since social mobility is so limited in the 2nd Circle.

In terms of leisure and culture, they have a strong respect for the arts. Music and theatre are commonly accessible and most communities have some kind of local artistry. They also enjoy sport, typically contact sports since they are still demons. The most popular sports to both participate in and watch are things like tug of war, wrestling, boxing, and martial arts-esque combat sports (like a demonic version of MMA). Most ‘Cubi are literate, at least in their own language. As such, poetry and literature are also quite popular and there are many epic poems and legends about their defensive battles, pre-Empire society, and mythic figures. The popularity of these things, and the ability for ‘Cubi across the realm to enjoy them, are due to their strong Empire that has a focus on promoting arts, culture, leisure, and education. While social mobility is low, education is public and typically available to any ‘Cubi in the Empire should they decide to attend (and most do). 

Certain aspects of their culture (less prone to conquest, battle, violence, more obvious love partnerships and strong family units) has had them seen in something of a negative light by the dominant demon “breed” and their culture in Hell (ie Dahlia and Damien’s Circles and their culture/society). Outsiders often see ‘Cubi as being delicate or pacifists at best, and submissive, passive, and weak at worst. Their culture is not readily understood or accepted in Hell’s mainstream dominant cultural landscape. This rift has only been further cemented by the 2nd Circle’s difficulty to integrate into other Circle’s kingdoms just geographically, and because the ‘Cubi government has ben isolationist for many many centuries. As a result, they are a sociological minority in Hell. They are not typically understood by outsider demons, and in many instances looked down upon or treated paternalistically. Many other demons don’t know much about their culture or society and see only the sexual aspects, the lack of outward violence, and some of the physical differences of ‘Cubi and make their assumptions based on that. They aren’t typically considered when other demons speak of Hell as a collective, and their Circle is ignored most of the time politically as other more populated and politically important Circles are fought over in endless wars of conquest. They are misunderstood and sometimes discriminated against if they end up travelling, which further enforces their isolationist government and suspicion of other demons. They typically have the most distrust of the 8th Circle because of the LaVey Family specifically. The claim that the LaVey Kings invented love or partnership in Hell rubs them the wrong way; while it is true that they popularized the idea outside of Cubiaen society and did introduce the idea of these partnerships being part of a military culture and a tool of battle strength, the ‘Cubi often see this claim as exaggerated and as a kind of cultural appropriation. Something they did for centuries and were seen as weak for is now popularized because someone from a different culture promoted it. They don’t have a problem with this becoming more recognized, but they do find it irksome that the 8th Circle gets all of the credit for it. In their Empire it is seen as a foreign propaganda tool to prop up the LaVey monarchs as somehow unique, and as a way for them to use the idea of partnership without having to be associated with the Cubia.

I’ll probably elaborate more on this later, and on Jin’s specific verse-related quirks as part of this culture, but yeah here you go I hope you enjoy and if you made it this far thank you for reading! <3

[mxenigmatic]

Why are we Quhere?

Nearly every being comes into this world, and navigates this universe to hit their biggest confusing fear. Why am I here?

Some have a religion to fall back on that dictates all the ways their life is set for them, you’d think all they need to do is follow that path, and the coast is clear, yet they question, what am I doing here? 

Some of us coast through life without asking or bothered by the question we’re all going to die anyways, right? Might as well, P.A.R.T.Y!

Some gentle beings like moi, rely on wisdom of our elders to stir our boats away from incoming storms,opaque waves, and deadly creatures that lurks under our waters. When we ask about our existence, we are more concerned knowing, what will give me happiness, peace of mind, fulfillment, direction, and will to keep striving in a uncertain sphere, where time is limited, and danger is amplified in every corner and media outlet. 

Added, when you have an identity, that is challenged, misunderstood, targeted for expressing differently from the norm, one begs to ask, why am I queer? 

I have listened to the conservatives who have demonized, pathologized, and will stop at nothing to erase us. Their hate, they claim is love, written by an ancient doctrine that wasn’t stamped by g0d. One can listen to the liberal theologians, who praise our pride is created in the image of the divine. Which doesn’t alleviate the trivial tropes and internalized messages one is tugging at their rainbow brains. To even listening to the scientists, who compare sexuality and gender as a spectrum that is also found in nature, among wildlife & animals roaming freely without their species or others judging their existence.

So whom am I supposed to believe? Are they all right? Whatever the reason for my prideful individuality, I’m here, I’m queer, get used to it!!!

As for me, I believe I was predestined & blessed as an artist to come into this globe & reflect on the past & current events revolving around me in conflict & harmony. 

Do I know my purpose? Not fully tbh...  

Do I have meaning? Maybe? 

Will I be remembered? No more than the next.

Was my life worth it? Maybe if I was happier, or in a more inclusive society where I can thrive.

Am I needed in this world, if i’m not procreating or celebrating my American patriotism and buying into its capitalist tentacles? I guess, I’m stuck here until i’m gone. 

Being a gender rebel in this binary dimension to stand on my non-binary feet with joy, is an accomplishment in itself. I survived, and have kept surviving not out of choice, but out of abusive circumstances, due to giving up wasn’t ever a choice. 

Did I accomplish my time here? Probably not, as idk what success looks like, but I made the most of my story w/o a silver spoon in my hand, i hope you understand how hard I had. 

Do I wish to change the world? If, I don’t someone else must, as the human experience as a whole can’t keep suffering and managing to navigate a broken environment, with economic instability, lack of resources for basic dignity of our race’s sustainability. 

If i’m not a force of good leading hope in the eyes of the young. I need you to carry on the torch into the darkness of our future. The better question is why are you here? As I’m coasting with uncertainty until my end comes near.

[nostalgebraist]

epilogues interpretive notes

Spoilers.

-- Love the Meat/Candy choice as a piece of “game design.”  The smallest quantum of reader interaction possible, a single bit of information, leveraged to profound impact.

-- All the stuff about authorship was catnip to me, and at times felt almost like a direct reply to this post and its follow-up.  The Meat vs. Candy binary is much more interesting and satisfying than the moralizing Calliope/Caliborn author binary from A6, and unlike that one it allows for a meaningful and vicious critique of each side in turn.  Objectively, it’s hard to say how directly autobiographical it all is, especially given the shared authorship, but I’m choosing to read it that way for now.

-- Dirk-as-auteur is a facet of Hussie, of course.  But as a villainous self-portrait, Dirk is just so much deeper, realer, more personal, better at pressing his own twisted case than the retrospectively kind of weak explicit author stand-ins we got in Homestuck proper (puerile Caliborn, buffoonish MSPA Hussie).  When reading the parts in Meat about solitude, hermitism, refusing to accept human intimacy as a sacred goal, ruling your isolated world from watery horizon to watery horizon . . . I really got the sense that I was witnessing an honest, unexpectedly intimate (!) account of a part of Andrew Hussie’s psyche, there.  Again, I don’t know if I was, but that’s how I’m choosing to engage for now.  (Here’s FIP again with, perhaps, backup.)

-- I mean, I don’t actually know if Andrew Hussie is on the spectrum, and like, neither am I, so, uh, well, maybe starting this sentence to begin with was a mistake.

-- But there’s something there, something that I found moving and at least half-relatable, and which I don’t see thematized outright like that in fiction very often.  The psychic appeal of creative world as perfectible domain, the sheer horror of the (frankly, often crude and depressing) world outside the self held at bay through the assertion of one’s own private domain, where everything can be made just the way it ought to be (which is not always the most pleasant way), and no one can stop you.  Every little thing.  (Caress the divine details.)  The fundamental divide between the world in your head and the world outside, the awareness that one just isn’t about the same things as the other.  The refusal to compromise with mere reality when it comes to your culture -- a culture common to exactly one person.

-- This has always been there in Homestuck, from the extratextual assertion that everything was part of Hussie’s sacred vision (whether not you like it), to (obviously, in retrospect) the multiple characters who grew up on actual islands or the like, without human contact.

-- Dirk is a self-critical portrait of all this, but he’s not a facile one, the way Caliborn was.  He is “the weird kid” grown up, not just a figure of fun, and not a pure cartoon villain either.  His voice is compelling, his perspective legitimately seductive.  (Even more so in light of Candy, maybe, or maybe not?  God, this is so good.)

-- So, Meat vs. Candy.  At one level it’s pretty straightforward.  It’s “doing what needs to be done to write a good story, even if it upsets people” vs. “giving your characters more space than the plot wants to allow them.”  It’s Murderstuck vs. Trolls the Sitcom.  This has always been a concern for Hussie, and he’s generally spoken out in unapologetic favor of the Meat angle.  Here’s the Formspring again (I went looking for the first of the two questions, but the second one was too relevant to omit):

Not strictly related to MSPA but I'm reading reactions to the latest pages (trying to- the forum is overloaded) and I wondered, what's it like creating something that affects people so deeply? These people are freaking out! Sign of a good story, for sure.

People tend to be pretty emotional creatures and I know that some people shed tears over much lesser turns in a story than this. So knowing that, I guess there is something a little weird about pulling the trigger on an event which I know perfectly well will cause plenty of people to cry ACTUAL TEARS, most of which are probably perfectly nice teenage girls who I have no business affecting in this way at all. To those people I guess I'll have to offer a real apology, because I'm not actually out to ruin anyone's day. But when you're making a story with any sort of dramatic clout, even a largely humorous one, I don't think it pays to be gutless. Both in terms of reader reaction, fear of sparking sadness, anger, or bad reviews, and in terms of being overly precious with your characters and ideas, to the point where it becomes obvious you're unwilling to mess with anything or put anyone important in real danger, which does a lot to kill suspense. But that's actually a pretty common way to construct a story, to the point where we are all extremely used to watching stuff where heroes are in no real peril, and because it's so common we can accept and enjoy it. This also makes it more shocking and emotional when a story steps outside of that comfort zone. But it's only emotional if people are invested in those threatened. This is one reason why a lot of horror movies can be so ineffective, grisly moments notwithstanding. Rosters are knowingly introduced for the slaughter, with only lip service given to investment in characters. And even if approached skillfully, there isn't even much time to win the hearts and minds of the audience for the full cast. But this is a little different. We've spent a lot of time with these characters. And if the threat to their lives seems like a sudden direction, I'd suggest that doing it earlier or more gradually wouldn't have allowed it to mean the same thing.

why are you trolling us?

I'm not.

-- Dirk, the closest the Epilogues have to a main villain, is also very close to an pure embodiment of this commitment to “making probably perfectly nice teenage girls [or Jake English] cry” if it’s the ~right thing for the plot~.  At the same time, the Epilogues themselves are way, way to the “strident defense of the Meat angle” side of things, as a creative act.  They’ve no doubt made lots of people cry ACTUAL TEARS, and not necessarily the good kind of tears.  Hussie’s two co-writers are busy as we speak, on twitter, fielding heartfelt grievances of just this kind.  And as a formally superfluous coda to a finished-and-done-with story, they have no excuse.  He could have just . . . not.

-- But he did.

-- The assertion of one’s own private domain, where everything can be made just the way it ought to be, and no one can stop you.

-- The thematic meaning of “candy” is a little harder for me to parse than that of “meat,” because there’s the equivocation there between uninfluenced (and perhaps thereby meaningless) reality and the influence of Calliope.  Meat, the narrative, is clearly all about Dirk’s quest for perfect authorial dominion.  Having read Meat first (yes, I have to consider these things, God this is so good), I was primed to see Candy as “Calliope’s vision” as against “Dirk’s vision,” but that’s not quite right.

-- IIRC there were parts in Meat where Dirk railed against the insidiousness of Calliope’s not-obviously-there influence, as opposed to his own more honest (?) authorial dictatorship.  And then there was the part at the end of Candy where Calliope/Jade points out (supposedly in her own defense) how insidious the colorations added by an unseen author can be.  This all seems like it’s pointing towards Calliope as an importantly suspect narrator, even when we’re not seeing her nakedly push her interests (as with the lollipop in Meat).

-- On the other hand, Calliope doesn’t actually enter the Candy timeline until halfway through Candy.  Things were clearly getting candy-flavored before then, and if there was a specific transition there, I wasn’t attentive enough on the right wavelengths to pick it up.  Would have to re-read.

-- On the other other hand, Calliope/Jade seems to imply that the Candy timeline was set on its trajectory the moment that John made his choice, and that she immediately became associated with it (via the “black hole”) even if she didn’t enter until some time later:

JADE: this world, unlike the canonical horrors from which it is hermetically insulated, will always fail to meet the combined criteria for truth, relevance, and essentiality that would endow this realm with any real gravity.

JADE: its own naturally occurring supply of gravity, rather than the artificial supply i have given it.

JADE: as such, what transpires here is characterized by experiential frivolity.

JADE: physically, it is cordoned off by the black hole’s event horizon. it is safe. untouchable.

JADE: inescapable.

ARADIA: that sounds ominous

JADE: it cannot be ominous because it cannot truly be anything with tangible significance.

JADE: one could describe it as a phantasmal projection confined within my horizon.

JADE: it was created by a choice that made it possible for that horizon to expand infinitely, to consume infinitely.

JADE: and since that choice could not coexist with canon events, this place manifested to here to support its consequences.

JADE: if this world were capable of anything either essential, relevant, or true in some stable combination, then it would perpetuate a corrosive paradox.

JADE: as such, insulation from what is out there, and the inescapable well it rests in, is what protects all it holds inside.

JADE: and since i am the embodiment of the black hole in which it rests,

JADE: i am the one protecting this world.

-- There are several interesting things there.  For one, note how the black hole and its rapacious qualities (”to expand infinitely, to consume infinitely”) are now associated with Calliope, where in A6 the black hole was always a totem of Caliborn’s power and villainy.  Black holes are part of the Cherub lore, so it makes sense either way.  But the black hole symbolism isn’t a Caliborn thing anymore.

-- The way I want to spin this is something like “the ‘black hole’ of a real world where nothing makes sense, where people do seemingly grotesque things you don’t understand (and maybe, just maybe, it’s their loss and not yours), versus the unforgiving meaning of a personal vision, imposed by force without compromise or indeed dialogue.”

-- (This all relates somehow to Obama, and the economy.  Although I don’t know how.)

-- Copy/pasting something I wrote in Discord:

hmm my read on earth c was that john is 100% right according to plot metaphysics that something is wrong with the world, but also this doesn't empower him to do anything about it, just to complain kind of insensitively to his friends about how their lives aren't up to his standards, standards which literally nothing in (that) world could satisfy -- and this is (also) about how depression makes you like this

whoa, that interpretation wasn't fully formed in my mind until typing that just now.  "i'm trapped in calliope's coffeeshop au" as a potent depression metaphor is fucking amazing, and also, such a petty dunk on the kind of people who "just want everyone to be okay," instead of strapping in for the horrible ride that grand-amoral-artist dirk!hussie wanted to take them on all along

-- When we get Grand Narratives, we tend to get them from abusive cult leader shitheads like Dirk.  But a world without Grand Narratives isn’t great either, is it?  President Donald Trump is posting memes on twitter, and yesterday I saw a headline about Pepsi’s (perhaps abortive) plans to project advertisements for a gamer-targeted cola into the night sky via satellite.  Earth C is real, Crockercorp is real, fuck this shit.

-- (And the Big Man returns, a new lovably inaccessible opus in hand, ready to dom us all again.)

-- Um, okay.  Anyway.  Putting my authorship/Cherubim fixation to the side for a bit, let’s go over a few other things.

-- I remember really enjoying the . . . lack of distance in the Epilogues?  Not sure what to call it.  They saw the reader and said “hello, you are a human adult who has read and perhaps cared about Homestuck,” and just ran with everything that sentence entails, never establishing a clear boundary between what was acceptable (either in tone or subject matter) and what had to be shoved under the rug to maintain the integrity of the frame.  Nothing was sacred, and (this is the same thing) nothing was “just a joke.”  It’s all there, out in the open, and you know this, and they know this, and they know you know this.  It’s so refreshing.

-- Relatedly, it’s interesting how it leaned into some old-school Homestucky (“meaty?”) tendencies while still full-on embracing some of the things that seemed like a departure partway though.  Interpersonal drama is front and center, not always (if ever) portrayed with unsmiling gravity, but always treated as a key load-bearing pillar, and not as a “bit” we’re doing before we go off and joke about something else, or try and fail to captchalogue something.

-- And related to that, a point that links up with vulture’s post and that Formspring answer I quoted yesterday: this is what it feels like to get another Hivebent, or Murderstuck.  It’s truly jarring and uncomfortable, it pushes the limits of what we thought we were getting into.  It’s Homestuck, Jim, but not as we know it.  And there’s nothing more on-brand than that.

-- Still, though, the discernible divide between . . . what to call them?  I want to say “real people” and “joke characters.”  The story actively problematizes that distinction, but it’s still there.  Jake English is still Jake English -- indeed, he’s more Jake English than ever before -- and poignant as some of his scenes may be, he never rises to the level that the writer and reader are at, with their refreshing final lack of distance.  We have transcended “getting the joke,” yes, but he’s still there, pointedly not getting the joke.  Is this just the way Hussie (and like minds) write?  Does it mean something?  It is a shameful part of the authorial self, the fear that one is after all the gormless authored, not the author?  (So many “controlling genius” / “pathetic loser” pairs in this story.  If you aren’t one, maybe you have to be the other.)  Is it a symbol of the things the authorial self cannot accept, the inane unthinking flesh, which will not receive a robot body and accompany us on our mystic ascension to the stars?  (Donald Trump is the president, and Jake English’s ass rules the airwaves.)

-- Jesus Christ.

-- Everything was . . . turned up to eleven.  Old characters and situations popping unexpected out of the frame in unsettlingly human, three-dimensional, almost holographic form.  I never cared that much about John Egbert, even back in the day, but I did deeply care about this guy.  Who is the same guy.  (It was Already There, all of it.)

-- That’s just the good old power of fanfic, I guess.  But it’s “canon” fanfic?  Ambiguously?  Does that matter?  I guess it does, given how closely authorship and canon are entangled with the whole thing.  Couldn’t have worked if it wasn’t “official.”

-- I’m thirty years old, and I’m writing all this about Homestuck.  Mission fucking accomplished, guys.

[mossjunkyard]

LGBT PEOPLE'S SUPER SPACE POWERS

A thread made by my friend

@/draw_your_perfect_world on instagram.

Is... Is the post before the last one suggesting that if you are gay you can breathe in space?

Have they only send straight astronauts into space because they want to conceal this secret? Like do you have to put 'straight' on your resume to get into spaceschool????

Homophobia in the spaceforce isn't cause of assholes, its to protect a secret.

They are very strict. All people have a test where they are shown pictures of people of the same sex with a pulse meter attached to them. Liam hemsworth is in there for the dudes just so you know. Everyone who's heart rate get higher is kicked out. Therefor, no enimies of hemsworth or fans of his rolls or his brothers are in the spaceforce aswell.

In the contrary, the lesbian forces are slain by a newly added picture of brie Larson. Which also means there are no sexist men in the crowd as those shall be enraged at the showing of a picture of the female superhero that could beat them up.

For that reason alone, Carol is one of the only woman pictures shown to men.

Bi and pan people are very common in the airforce, as their heart rate is higher for both sides. This part of the lgbtq community can not breathe in space though, their ability is the strange gift of communicating with outwordly spicies. At least that is what people speculate about as we are yet to discover another spicies.

So, while the people who have a diffrent sexuality have an advantage in space (the other sexualities have yet to be discovered powers, except for ace and aro people who have the ability to walk on planets with lower or higher gravity rates as if it were earth) the people who identify as a gender other then the one they were assigned at birth, have an advantage on other instances.

Transmasculine/ ftm people have the rare and strange gift of being able to point out the planets where plant life exists or that could be suitable for human inhabitants. After discovering this fact nearly a year ago , a full team of only transmen was hired and are currently looking for planets that earth's inhabitants could make their new home.

Transfemine/mtf people have the ability to eat and drink any form of undiscovered plant or liquid which others are not capable of eating as it is poisonous. This makes for a big part of the people actually going to other planets in the near future to be transwomen, an elite force of only mtf astronauts is currently being trained to be at the top of their game, would we discover a new planet.

Then there's the whole spectrum of none binary/gender neutral people. Though they do go by a lot of pronoun, they all share the same trait of being immune to the extreme weather's that some planets have. The spacesuits of every astronaut are being made to withstand immense heat, but few can actually survive the boiling heat or freezing cold that makes it so hard for us to learn more about other planets around us. This is where these people jump into action.

Though I am sad to say that there isn't a lot of gender neutral people in the spaceforce, as most are afraid they will fail the entry test.

The gender fluid and bigender people have an advantage that is yet to be discovered as they are with few. Though a recent study shows signs of being able to both breathe in space and underwater when the water has a lower oxogen level then is usually holds in the areas where we normally go for a swim. While this seems similar to the gift that gay and lesbian people have received, the gender fluids don't have to breathe at all to survive in these situations while the gays have what appears

To be a small bubble like force around their mouths which recicles the air they are using. Which would explain why it has always been described as warmer then the usual cold wif of oxigen.

[comicteaparty]

May 11th-May 17th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from May 11th, 2020 to May 17th, 2020.  The chat focused on Gender Slices by Jey Pawlik.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Gender Slices by Jey Pawlik~! (https://topazcomics.com/genderslices/vol1/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until May 17th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I have read the comic before. The whole thing and the author's comment at the end. It is such a shame to hear that Jey has gotten hate for their work. It takes a lot of bravery to be so openly queer on the internet, and I admire it a lot.

I like the art!

It is simple and clean and expressive.

This might be a bit of a weird comment, but from how Jey draws themselves, I feel like I have an understanding of how they actually look?

Like, their face and body are just a few lines here, but they're a distinctive few lines.

About the writing: it's hard to make a short form comic like this! Brevity is the soul of wit and all that, and it's hard to be concise!

But I think they manage it well

I feel like every panel has a purpose

I think it's fascinating, and sometimes saddening, how how you are and how you look affects how others treat you

This comic gave me greater insight into what it's like to be seen as non binary. Or, to not be seen as non binary when you are

I don't know if Jey will be reading this, but thank you for making the comic <3

I hope that many other people learned something from reading it as well

eliushi [a winged tale]

I really enjoy comics that give me more insight into other people’s lives. Bookmarked and will go through the comic this week!

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Wow, I love the way the webcomic showed how being nonbinary was like. It's very simple and gets the point across very well. I'm also going to keep reading it.

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

On Gender Slices; - I enjoy how personal and insightful about Jey's journey as non binary. - I like how clean and straight forward the story is. It's more like an auto bio comic strip - Even though the designs are simplistic, I see the author's personal struggle within. - As a reader, I really like self discovery stories. Gender Slices is helping me think about gender spectrum, respecting pronouns. - Overall, it expresses how different stages of your life, your identity can change as a non binary person. Wow this comic accurately shows the common issues my enby friends complain about. But it's much clearer in this comic format(edited)

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I loved Gender Slices! It's hard for me to comment on character and stuff when it's, like, autobiographical? Like, that's a real human person lol. But I really think the comic does a great job of conveying Jey's journey through their identity with all these short scenarios. It feels like a diary of sorts, and that's really cool to me.

eliushi [a winged tale]

I really enjoyed this and will be recommending it to folks I think will benefit from understanding this community better. I found the most powerful messages and portrayal of experiences come from the small everyday things that we often take for granted. I felt the clean art style and clear panels helped the autobiographical narrative be very approachable. Most importantly, the tips offering better phrasing and approaches to talking about gender in the comic were very enlightening and useful. I hope more people read this, young to old to in-between! There will always be things to learn on how to respect and love each other more.

RebelVampire

What I like about the beginning of the comic and the art style all in one is just how clean the art is. I'm a huge fan of good, easy to read linework, since it's much easier for me as a reader to understand what's going on. This is something that occurred through out the comic, so each strip's message was conveyed really clearly. <3 I am overall glad this comic exists, as it's good to hear people's unique stories as they deal with life, whether it's something unique related to being nb or something that's somewhat universal regardless of those sorts of issues; I know at the beginning, disappointing parents was a pretty big theme and I think that's something we all experience. This was also clearly an extremely personal story at work, and it takes a truly brave soul to make something like this. Which honestly, I think those are the parts that make the comic the strongest. It's a personal story, and you know these events really happened and get to connect with the creator on a personal level without even knowing them. As such, the material really sticks with you because of that personal, emotional connection that's developed as you read it. As for a "favorite" moment, there is one strip that stood out to me (which I sadly didn't bookmark). But in it, Jey talks about how they appreciate having words and "labels" to describe themself, but also acknowledges that some people don't like to label themselves. And as a person who doesn't like to label themself, I really appreciated that. This is something I feel rarely gets mentioned in webcomics, so I liked that there was a mutual respect established in the strip that it's ok to have a preference in that regard and that whether you want to find labels for yourself or don't want to, you're a cool person.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. Of the moments in the comic, which did you find the most personally relatable and why? In what ways do you think that moment might help others who read it?

10. What do you think the personal stories in this comic teach us about finding personal happiness, self-acceptance, and acceptance from others?

11. Why do you think telling stories about the sorts of gender issues presented here are important, and what moments in the comic show why that’s the case?

12. How does the comic being autobiographical versus fiction affect your views on the comic’s messages? In what ways does it being autobiographical make it stand out from other comics?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

RebelVampire

I've already talked about the most relatable moment in regards to favorite for me. I think it's a helpful moment because it just helps show everyone is different, and that it's good to have mutual respect all around. I think that the personal stories teach us about the themes of happiness, acceptance, etc. is that it's hard work. You aren't gonna nail it in one day, and you also can't be expected to. Society certainly may want you to have a grasp on these things, but ultimately these things are achieved at your own pace and you shouldn't beat yourself up over it. These stories are important for a lot of reasons, but for me personally I always think the most important thing is that it just makes people feel not alone. And I think the part of the comic that shows this is the strips about Jey finding people in their community. Humans do not like to feel lonely, and these stories help show people that no, even if you're in a community where this isn't a thing, there's billions of people in the world and theres always a community out there to share your experiences with and bond with. Autobiographical comics, in my opinion, tend to have a much stronger emotional connections. Sometimes with fiction stories, it can be hard to really get into the emotions, since at the end of the day, characters are representations of people and not exactly people. They can be damn good and feel super real, but there will always be that gap of "but it's fiction." Autobiographical stories don't have this. They are basically raw emotions put onto a page, and there's just this inherent sense of reality to them that fiction struggles to capture sometimes. As such, the messages they deliver are more powerful in most cases.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

Going back to the previous question; 9. Most personally was expressing how Jey tried to self talk to adjust to a new name. But end up falling back to their birth name. 10. It helps to see how one might struggle internally, what gender disphoria feels from the character's pov. 12. It gives a deeper insight since this is a real person's experience and not a fantasy character going through the stages. I will continue reading Jey's journey and learn from their experiences. I think it's a good guide to what a non binary person goes through.(edited)

RebelVampire

Well since the comic is done, I am looking forward to seeing more people discover it. I know lots of people really need stories like this, so its nice to see when people are positively affected by them. Once again, it is a great thing this comic exists. Maybe it's not a comic for you, but it's one of those comics where you can tell it means a lot to someone out there, and I think everyone needs those special collection of stories to help them navigate through life

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Gender Slices this week! Please also give a special thank you to Jey Pawlik for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Gender Slices, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://topazcomics.com/genderslices/vol1/

Jey’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jpawlik

Topaz Comic’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/topazcomics

Topaz Comic’s Shop: https://topazcomics.com/shop/

Topaz Comic’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/topazcomics

[positivlyfocused]

The Best Relationship Gives Constant Freedom, Joy and Happiness

I've found the best relationship fosters the greatest freedom. The best relationship therefore is the one I have with me. My Personal Trinity.

Relationships with other people can't match it.

But when I prioritize my relationship with my Inner Being, all other relationships get better. Or they disappear from my life experience. Or they're replaced by better versions of themselves.

It's hard describing with accuracy how great my relationship with me feels. Like the feeling of love or bliss, it defies description.

I can say prioritizing my Inner Being relationship required owning parts of me I avoided. Like how powerful I am. Like knowing I created the life experience I've had, including the people in it. And knowing I can create any reality I want. No matter my current reality.

It also required accepting other parts of me. Authentic parts. Accepting them fully.

That I prefer being free. Meaning, preferring something other than constraints marriage brings.

That I find transgender women smart, beautiful and extraordinary.

That the mainstream binary spectrum doesn’t define me.

Making my relationship with me my priority blew up my marriage. That’s right. I knew for a while it was coming. It was not ever intending to last. It was temporary as all things are. She filed for divorce a few weeks ago. I’m sure it’s final now. We’re both moving forward. And that’s great. It was a learning experience for both parties.

I know divorce happened because my relationship with me became more important than my marriage. Examined from a Positively Focused perspective my marriage played its part in my unmarriedness.

It offered so much authenticity I realized what I wanted. And marriage was not it.

I also realized how deep, fulfilling and rewarding my relationship with me is. So marriage served a glorious purpose.

As all life experience does.

My new, post-marriage life already has brought monumental evidence. Evidence supporting prioritizing my me/me relationship. It comes like a slow motion avalanche. In quantities sufficient to astound but not overwhelm.

I manifested paying work as soon as I needed it

I manifested an awesome living place. It's beautifully furnished and owned by landlords aligned with Positive Focus.

I live within biking distance of every grocer I like shopping at. I'm also walking distance to many places I enjoy visiting. Including parks, water spots, and tea shops.

I have all I need to move forward with my projects including my 1:1 Spiritual Mentoring. There's ample space to make videos, and blazing fast internet (included in the rent). Most of my mentoring I do online.

And, several people, bringing differing levels of intimacy have replaced my marriage. That's a far better fit to what and who I am than being tied to one person.

I know beliefs I hold create my life experience. The more Positively Focused I become the better my life goes.

When it comes to people relationships, Seth describes what happens when a person makes their me/me relationship a top priority:

People with like ideas reinforce each other’s beliefs. You may meet with some misunderstanding when you suddenly decide to change your reality by changing your beliefs—according to the circumstances, you may be going in a completely different direction than [your spouse]. The others may feel it necessary to defend ideas that both of you previously took for granted. In such cases your beliefs merged. Each individual has his or her own ideas about reality for reasons that seem valid. Needs are met. When you abruptly change your beliefs, then in the [marriage] you no longer have the same position—you are not playing that game any longer...you may suddenly cease to provide for [your spouse] a need that you satisfied earlier. This affects both intimate behavior and, say, social interactions. Others  sharing your new beliefs, will gravitate toward you and you to them.

The quote is playing out in my life.

· · ·

One belief we humans share is relationships with other people complete us somehow. Like without a relationship, we're not whole.

It's a strong belief.

What I've learned is, that yearning is real.

But as I try filling it with another person I'm asking for trouble. Because people aren't here to satisfy that yearning. They have their own path. Their own experience. Their own reality.

That yearning is natural. It's normal. And it's meant to direct me to the relationship that brings everything I want. Including, ironically, fulfilling relationships with other people.

That relationship is the one I have with my Broader Perspective.

I prioritize that relationship because my Inner Being not only knows what I want. It knows the "where" the "when" and the "how" to get those things. That leaves me worry-free. It leaves me not needing any of those answers about anything I want.

When I follow my intuition, which is how my Inner Being communicates, I get those things. It handles the "where" the "when" and the "how".

My job: finding ways to synchronize with my Inner Being focus. When I do that, what I want happens in delightful ways, yes. But also with little effort, struggle and sacrifice.

When I’m not synchronized with my Inner Being, life happens how it does for most people. With a lot of blame, judgement, demanding, frustration, annoyance, impatience, pain, hard work, struggle, sacrifice, anxiety and more. Absent all that, I find continual freedom, joy and happiness.

And, yes, everything else I want too. Including great relationships, and material things, including money.

I think it’s worth giving up yearning for human relationships.

Besides, what human-to-human relationship can match what my Inner Being brings? When I get that relationship right, right relationships come into my life.

That's why I call my relationship with my Inner Being the best relationship.

Because it is.