#while i would critique one thing in an ideological sense

[rxttenfish]

honestly im calling it now. the silt verses is one of those rare perfect pieces of art for me. absolutely flawless. perfectly fitting end to the story. excellent.

[thetrashthatsmilesback]

Watcher, Capitalism, and the Petite (Petty) Bourgeois

So the whole Watcher controversy has revealed an interesting misunderstanding of what constitutes "the rich" or capitalist beliefs. The major theme that arose during the controversy was the sense that Shane in particular had gone against his previously stated leftist beliefs - that he had, for all these years, taken up a humorous aesthetic of anti-capitalism without actually believing in what he was saying. I believe that this is due to a breakdown in definitions as they become spread to the general public. Dissemination of information is a good thing, and I would never argue against it, but one problem which arises from concepts spreading to large groups without context is that often the actual meanings break down until they are vastly different from their original, academic denotation. This is, I believe, what happened with the phrase “eat the rich” and its current colloquial usage.

I want to preface this with the fact that nothing I am about to say applies exclusively to Watcher, or that the Watcher staff have done anything wrong or misrepresented themselves. I also don’t think that the Watcher fanbase is wrong at all – the situation just happened to spawn arguments both in defense of and critique of the Watcher team which indicated, in my opinion, that an understanding of ��the rich” in a capitalist society is not well understood. Disclaimers out of the way, let’s get into this.

During the controversy, two major sides arose – those who had begun to see the Watcher crew (in particular Steven, Ryan, and Shane) as “the rich” or ruling class in a capitalist setting, and those who argued against this by arguing that as Watcher is a small business, and not the upper 1%, they are not included in the definition of “the rich” expressed by leftists. I want to focus in on the counter-argument that Watcher being a small business just trying to survive means that they are not considered “the rich.”

In Marxist theory, there is a small group called the “petite” or “petty bourgeoisie.” This group is defined as those who both own and contribute to the means of production – aka, small business owners. Marx himself wrote little about the petite bourgeoisie, predominantly referencing them in passing in his essays The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850 and very briefly in The Communist Manifesto. He does happen to criticize this group in the little writing he did on it, “Marx derides what he sees as the petit-bourgeois self-delusion that, because it combines both employment and ownership of the means of production, it somehow represents the solution to the class struggle. This class was progressive in a limited sense, as witnessed by its claims at various times for co-operatives, credit institutions, and progressive taxation, as a consequence of felt oppression at the hands of the bourgeoisie. However, these were (in terms of the Marxist view of history) strictly limited demands, just as the ideological representatives of this class have been constrained by their own problems and solutions” (“Petite Bourgeoisie - Oxford Reference”).

Now, it is very important to note that team “Watcher is a small business” aren’t completely wrong in their positioning of Watcher’s attempt to raise more revenue as Not Evil Capitalism. Marx’s belief was that eventually the Petite Bourgeoisie would be pushed into the proletariat class. I also am not positive that Watcher is a classical small business – they very well could be a worker co-op. A worker co-op is a business where the workers have ownership of the company, and significant representation on the board of directors(“What Is A Worker Cooperative? – U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives”). While some criticism of worker co-ops from a communist or socialist view exist, they are generally seen as a more socialist approach to the typical small business model.

I couldn’t find direct confirmation that Watcher is a co-op. One point against them being one is the use of titles such as CEO and Owner, but these designations could simply be for tax and paperwork reasons. Watcher is an objectively small company, they have between 25 and 30 workers, and most people cite them currently having 27 workers, but in the past they have employed interns and I am unsure of if they currently have interns on board so I am going to stick to the range. It would be incredibly easy to have a worker co-op with 25-30 people, you wouldn’t even need voted representatives; everyone could just be on the board and contribute to decisions. I figured the next best approach would be to see what the roles on Watcher’s shows are – if Steven, Shane, and Ryan contribute significantly rather than just showing up and looking pretty on camera, then there is a good chance they might be functioning as a worker co-op more than a traditional business or small business.

To do this, I decided to look at Watcher’s largest show for each co-owner. This means Ghost Files, Mystery Files, Puppet History, and Steven’s food series. These numbers broke down as follows:

Ghost Files: Ryan is listed as a Creator on all Ghost Files videos. Ghost Files Debriefs do not have writers, so that role will not be held against them on those videos. Ryan and Shane were listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held a Writer, Editor, or Sound Mixing role.

Mystery Files: Ryan and Shane were listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held a Writer, Editor, or Sound Mixing role.

Puppet History: Shane is listed as a Creator on all Puppet History videos. He is listed as a Host on all videos, an Executive Producer on all videos, Writer on 4 videos, and never held an Editor or Sound Mixing role.

Steven’s Food Series: Steven is listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held an Editor, or Sound Mixing role. This show does not require a writer so this will not be held against him.

*Do take these numbers with a grain of salt, I wrote this while in class so its possible that I missed something.*

Looking at those numbers, the main three do predominantly just film, but I don’t want to devalue the work that goes into being on camera. They are still generating capital by acting, I simply wanted to clear up confusion I had due to seeing people say they edited every Ghost Files video. From what I can see, they don’t do the editing, but as executive producers they likely have to review every video before it goes out. I also still can’t fully come to a conclusion on if the company can be considered a worker co-op, but I believe it is a standard small business – aka, the petite bourgeoisie.

All of that leads to the final point – the way that people only began to view the three lead Watcher members/founding members as “the rich” after the announcement of the streaming platform shows the way that leftist theory has become divorced from some of its meaning. I saw several people arguing “you guys can’t recognize the rich”/”you guys would attack doctors and lawyers under the guise of eating the rich,” and yes its true that doctors who work in hospitals are proletariat, but if a doctor opens a private practice or a lawyer opens a private firm, does that render them more bourgeoisie or more proletariat? At what point do the petite bourgeoisie become a part of those who we disavow? I don’t actually have answers to these questions, and I’m sure people much smarter than me or better versed in economics have written on this (one source I found that seemed good while I was skimming it despite its age is this one https://www.jstor.org/stable/2083291?seq=3 ). I didn’t make this point to argue one point over the other on whether Watcher counts as “the rich,” but more to focus on the way that term gets used. The argument could be made that we could have started questioning Shane’s anti-capitalist beliefs the moment he helped start a company, but we didn’t. We only started to criticize him on the basis of hypocrisy after the announcement and its out of touch comments. This raises so many questions about how we use the term “the rich” now – does it refer to anyone we dislike who is financially stable? Has the term become completely divorced from its original meaning? Or were we being hypocrites all along? Has Watcher Entertainment always been incongruent with Shane’s implied political beliefs? Is there a certain point at which the petite bourgeoisie become a part of the financial aristocracy? Or is that term only relegated to the industrial bourgeoisie, is it reserved exclusively for those in financial positions that no artisan could ever hope to reach?

Is it possible that both arguments are correct regarding the Watcher boys, and all other members of small business ownership and management positions? That they are both “the rich” but not a part of the proper bourgeoisie?

I don’t know. I find it fascinating though.

[kbookblurbs]

Tress of the Emerald Sea - Brandon Sanderson

5/5 - refreshing main character; well worn, familiar, comfortable plot beats; more fun worldbuilding!

Tress of the Emerald Sea is easily my favorite of the Cosmere secret projects. Much as I felt watching later MCU projects, having a book that stands largely on its own, with minimal references to other lore, and a wonderful sense of whimsy is not only a fun and approachable new entrance to Sanderson's writing, but also a nice change of pace from his other works.

The plot beats feel quite familiar because they feel somewhat like a fairy tale and the book actually benefits from this. The journey that characters are undergoing, the dogged attempts to be better and to grow and to understand how they're changing is something that is so sweet and reliable to watch.

Tress is also just a breath of fresh air among Sanderson's protagonists. Not that the others can't be kind or inspiring or protective of those they love, but Tress is all of these things to a fault. She cares for those who she's never met. She's practically overflowing with empathy for everyone around her, abhors lying, and finds herself comfortable with herself as she's changed. I do feel that Sanderson is relying a little heavily on romance at times, but having the romance be something secondary to Tress as the plot progresses was something very dear to my heart.

I know that some people dislike Hoid's narration style, but I personally find him funny. I think he also functions as a bit of a mouthpiece for Sanderson's own ideologies at times, and while I could see how that would be something to critique as a monologue or as preaching, it feels very appropriate for the character. Plus, many of the things he says poke fun at the tropes of the epic hero dramas that Sanderson is so good at - it's important to me that he's able to laugh at himself a little here.

Finally, I must profess I am obsessed with the idea of a sea of spores. And not one sea of spores, but twelve, all of which have different growth patterns and effects. Turning water, something to vital to life, into something dangerous here adds a really delicious sense of tension to the novel. The fear is also something that's easily based on something people are familiar with - if you've ever seen a documentary on ant zombies or watched The Last of Us, you'll have lasting worries about fungal infection.

[roguesynapses]

Hi!

I am a Marxist-Leninist, but lately I have been thinking about getting closer to anarchists. First and foremost because my local communist organisation behaved absolutely inhumane lately (anarchists are also not perfect but not that bad, or at least they seem so), but I also admit that anarchist criticism of ML asks questions that I also wonder about.

So like, can you share some readings on anarchist theory and practice for someone with ML background?

If you have enough spoons to waste on me, here is what made me associate with ML:

(Break is weird because I do it to separate main part from addition)

Mostly just the fact that out of people around me they were making the most sense when discussing current affairs and history, but also like most of the available alternatives range from liberals who literally admire Hobbes as great hero to open fascist (both Hitler and Mussolini types, I live in such a diverse society), so it's not hard. Also like the only revolutions that lasted more than a couple of years were ML in nature, but also all of those states while achieving things eventually decayed and gave birth to elites of their own, so like, there is something wrong with the scheme. Also as I said I care a lot about history as a foundation of my beliefs, and Marxists make the most sense out of it, but also even more advanced versions than Engels have plenty of what I assume to be blind spots. It's mostly some distant stuff like how feudalism is in no way successor to Ancient world and not as universal as it "should" be, but any failure to explain something in the past makes someone's prediction of future questionable.

I can recommend a few introductory books, though they are not by all means the be all-end all of anarchist thought. Anarchism is a widely spread ideology, and especially at its intersection of socialism, and opinions differ from theorist to theorist, even if basic principles are mostly agreed upon. Keep that in mind as you explore further.

Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos is probably the most popular introductory work, and explains the basic principles quite nicely, although in my opinion it does contain some inaccuracies, policies I don't support and glosses over some points which should be explored more.

An Anarchist FAQ is not so much a coherent theoretical work, but is rather an exploration and rebuttal of frequently asked questions from a social anarchist perspective. It's by no means perfect, and does not claim to be so. Personally, it's a little mutualistic for my tastes, but there's good stuff in there.

Anarchy by Errico Malatesta is far closer to a classic piece of theory, if a short one, expressing the positions of a committed Anarcho Communist and one of the most prominent theorists of modern Anarchism. Although Malatesta is against syndicalism more than I would be, it's still a great introductory work.

Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman is seen as a pivotal work by many in explaining the philosophy of anarchism, as well as offering a contemporary view of anarchist theory at the previous apex of the movement at the turn of the 20th century.

As for history, many social anarchist at least largely agree with the Social view of history Marx postulated in broad terms, though there is heavy debate and disagreement on the finer points. Digressing from that, Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is probably the widest distributed work of the intersection of anthropology, history, and anarchism, even if it uses outdated terms and phrases. Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber and Against The Grain by James C Scott both explore the early history of states, with the former going more into economic value theories and the latter going more into the history and causes of the state itself. Scott's other works critiquing the state (Seeing Like a State and Two Cheers for Anarchism) are also quite good, which is impressive considering he does not call himself an anarchist.

If you'd like to discuss one on one, you can message me here or on my discord, I'll be happy to discuss. Happy reading, friend.

[roobylavender]

This whole thread is so....

https://twitter.com/orikkunn/status/1754831427903074488?t=WbVE9Fu585pxZFXPbr_JlQ&s=19

It's pissing me off actually and I search the word hijab on their account and in one of their tweets they said "I think hijab is a bad thing" ??? I need non-muslims who speak on Islam without any knowledge to stfu

i'm going to apologize beforehand if this is upsetting in any way bc i'm sure you were expecting a different response but while i feel like op's wording could have been better in this thread specifically—i like their wording in this thread more—i do generally agree with them. i definitely understand there's a gut reaction to any critique of islamic practices esp in the context of modern orientalism and islamophobic sentiment, but i also think that muslims (and people of any religious faith, really) can simultaneously acknowledge that some criticisms of faith, while driven by racism and/or xenophobia, are also validly driven by a worthwhile contention with women's material circumstances over the course of history. in the other thread i linked above i think op is very much correct in that it's not constructive nor useful to criticize individual people. many individuals do choose to dress more modestly of their own volition and are privileged enough to have that available to them as a choice and nothing more bc of the environment they grow up in and the familial interpretation of religious tenets they're taught. but i don't think people are wrong when they acknowledge the larger context within which women are advised to dress modestly and how those standards of modest dress compare with those imposed on men in comparison. there's an undeniable dichotomy there and at least in my islamic upbringing i've been taught that the way some of these things diverge along the lines of gender is preordained and not meant to be perceived as inherently oppressive towards one gender or the other. a thing is simply bc it is. but religion isn't really something you can view within a vacuum much as that would be ideal. it is connected to the material circumstances of women in the real world and i do allow myself to sit with that reality even if it's weird to process at times bc i still consider myself a muslim and have no plans on ex-communicating myself

personally i like to dress modestly in the sense that i don't wear very exposing clothing. i've grown up wearing pants for my entire life. my parents are lax enough that i'm allowed to wear t-shirts but i can't wear anything where my armpits are directly exposed so that means no sleeveless tops. i can't wear anything with a deep neckline either unless i have a higher positioned undershirt on underneath. and again, i'm not particularly bothered by any of that. i do toe the line on a few occasions but generally i'm ok with how i dress bc by now i'm used to it. that being said, i know the reason i've come to be okay with dressing this way is bc it's how i was taught to dress, and towards the specific end of maintaining modesty and emphasizing on the shape of my figure as minimally as is possible without having to outright wear a bag lol. that is at large a structural reality of muslim practice towards women, regardless of what individual women choose to do in their own homes where they have the liberty to choose. and as i mentioned above, i do think we have to sit with that reality even if we acknowledge it opens us up to abuse by other people who may not have the best intentions. this is why, for example, i've really come to frown upon the way ex-muslims (esp when they're women) are almost mocked by the extant muslim community for logically reacting to patriarchal oppression under the guise of religion. bc at the outset, materially, there is no choice presented to these people. and even if there is ideologically a choice within the tenets of the religion itself, with respect to women in particular, there is still a defined gender dichotomy and hierarchy that cannot be denied and that is quite regularly used to perpetuate the oppression that many of them try to escape

what's hard to do and what requires a knowledgeable, concerted effort on our part as muslims is trying to balance the nuance of the oppression we are accessory to against the nuance of our own oppression for who we are. it's certainly cruel that we have to do so much to parse all of this because racist, xenophobic imperialists are incorrigible people who will co-opt anything if it's beneficial to them. but all the same, we do have that responsibility at minimum. we have to learn to sit in the uncomfortable reality that while many of us as individuals may choose to practice the way we do, that choice may yet be colored by how we grew up within organized religion, and it obscures our ability to recognize that while we think it's a choice for us as individuals, it's certainly not a choice on a structural level, and that's something we should vehemently argue against maintaining the status quo of

[hxhhasmysoul]

bro get over ur 'performative feminism' idiocy 🙄 personally, i think half of ur analyses r shit but i can still find valuable or at least respectable commentary in them, just like i can find valuable or respectable commentary from those 'performative feminists.' as i should. bc thats how critique and discourse needs to be approached. just bc u can write a rant and do research doesnt mean ur arguments will be worth anything. and theyre prob not worth anything if u cant even respect the ppl ur addressing

I have to tell you, I’m fucking fascinated by this. There’s just so much here.

This will be an honest attempt at interpreting this, a long and at times quite serious reply to your rather unserious anon. 

What is the point of sending this, anon? When I get anons like this, I can’t help but muse what prompts their authors. 

1. I mean the least charitable interpretation would be that you want to insult me but in a way that to you subjectively upholds the pretence of respectability or intellectualism? 

2. Or maybe your goal is to actually encourage me to change my behaviour?  

3. Maybe you want to educate me on the proper way to do fandom “discourse”? Or on the merits of the philosophy you present here?

Any of those? None? All of the above a little bit? 

______________

If option 1 was your sole objective, I’d say it works only as an insult. The tone of your ask is all over the place and it doesn’t really match its content. If I were writing this, I wouldn’t have called my analyses “shit” and the “performative feminism” “idiocy” while chastising me for lack of respect for the opinions of others. I don’t mind you matching my lowbrow energy and tone, it’s just that in my opinion you contradict your point by going down to my level.

Maybe something closer to this:

“(...)the phrase ‘performative feminism’ doesn’t have a place in proper critique or discourse(...)”

“(...)I find half of you analyses poor quality, unwarranted or downright wrong(...)”

______________

If you were aiming for 2 exclusively then, alas, shaming and condescension doesn’t work on me at all, for personal reasons. 

______________

Third option is the one actually fascinating to me. You’re not the first person here that would be trying to lecture me on how there is a right approach to fandom “discourse”, namely your way. But you know, why not. I too hold very strong beliefs.

There are two issues with this working, though.

1. I don’t find your argument internally coherent. I will try to interpret what you’re saying, to show you how I understand it. Which may be completely contrary to what you were trying to say.

2. If my reading of what you’re trying to say is close to your intentions, I sense that we’re not really close ideologically and we don’t share values. 

1. 

The way I understand your last sentence is that according to you an opinion loses its value by default if it doesn’t meet some respectability standards. 

Yet a few sentences up you claim that you manage to find some “valuable or at least respectable commentary” in my rants, I’m not 100% sure which rants do you mean exactly here. All of them? Or just those that are “shit”? How can you find value in something that you seem to consider to be by default void of value? 

I’ll be real, idk what “respectable commentary” could possibly be, but if I show no respect to the people I address, then how could my commentary be respectable. 

This confusion is also amplified by the mismatch of tone and message. Because according to the rules you laid out I should disregard what you’re saying completely, because how can your arguments be worth anything if you aren’t showing respect to me. 

2. 

And here we come to the clash of values. 

The way I understand yours, is that you subject yourself to fandom takes that you find low quality or wrong because that’s the right thing to do. That according to you we should all strive to find something positive in all sides of an issue. 

It reminds me of the centrist political “both-sidedism” almost turned into an art form. And centrism irks me because I’m a nasty lefty, a social justice warrior. I’m very far from the so-called “centre”, which in real politics is usually just non extremist right wing ideology. I will use “leftism” as an umbrella term here for various ideas, both economic and social, including feminism. It's a very reductive approach but in this case I don’t think a distinction is needed. 

Social media platforms can have a heavy political slant, and fandom Tumblr on average slants left.

The problem is that in many cases it’s image building and not true understanding of the issues that comprise the political leaning. It’s using, but more often misusing buzzwords and appropriating language, sometimes in active attempts to render words or terms meaningless. All in the pursuit of maintaining the image of being “for the good things and against the bad things”. It’s a performance.

Performance that is self perpetuating because the people, who indulge in it, will pressure one another to express “correct opinions” on whatever is the hot topic of the hour. To always be available for outside scrutiny. Those people feel obliged to have public opinions, and have them fast.

Fandom and social media are a funny territory where petty arguments about characters or plot choices get mired in real world political topics and ideologies. While it is true that art is always political, political criticism usually can’t be nailed down in one catch phrase. And it definitely can’t be done without honestly engaging with the text and the context it exists in. 

In the JJK Tumblr tags you will find a shit ton of posts, no longer than a paragraph, usually no longer than a single sentence, that call Gege a misogynist, that say that “Gege hates women”. And they will usually use one argument for that, namely that female characters die in JJK. Or more recently, that they are irrelevant to the plot. Both these takes stem from bastardisation of academic discourse surrounding female characters in fiction. They are in bad faith, they show that the person reflexively regurgitating them has no desire to engage with the text seriously and probably doesn’t know where such considerations came from, or understand how they functioned in their original context. But sometimes you will see more dedicated clout-chasers, who try to write meta posts on the misogyny in JJK without having a basic understanding of feminism, just trying to string together popular hot takes. Just to show that they don’t “mindlessly” consume media, that they are not afraid to criticise it and its author, an all out a woman hater. Show it in the most vapid and thoughtless way possible. 

That’s why they are a performance. And this performance is to build the image of the op as a feminist, a "Tumblr good person". That’s why they use the trappings of feminist critique. That’s why I call it “performative feminism”. 

An important thing to understand about me is that I don’t treat leftism as a zero sum game. I believe that political movements, organisations, people and works of art, can be doing some leftist things right and some wrong. That perfection on this is impossible. But there are also non negotiable issues, issues that you can’t really do a bit right, because human dignity, safety and livelihood is at stake. For example I’m not interested in listening to people who will condone genocide, I don’t think I should try to find value in their arguments. But I also don’t find value in reactions to genocide that dehumanise and use genocidal language towards a different group, even if a subset of that group is committing genocide. For me genocide is a non negotiable issue. I don’t respect people who try to perform support for genocide victims by justifying genocide others. People who instead of donating to relief support, or promoting relief support and direct pressure on government, chase clout by shouting out their vile opinions under the guise of supporting the victims, regardless whether they understand their own bias or not. 

But you may say that I’m exaggerating, using a real life issue to illustrate my disagreement with your values, when maybe you were just limiting your philosophy to fiction. But my character flaw is that I’m very principled. Especially when it comes to my grander principles trickling down to more trivial stuff. 

I don’t think I should respect people who appropriate and misuse feminist language to chase social media clout. I don’t find any value in their behaviour. I find it actually harmful. It reinforces this trend in first world leftism that activism can be done by yelling the right buzzwords on social media. Especially the right buzzwords about popular media. That activism and social critique doesn’t require engaging with the ideas, interrogating their own preconceived notions. That it makes them a “good person” when they misuse academic language to shit on a work just because it’s popular, just because they want the clout of an intellectual who can see through the mainstream. While it’s painfully obvious that they have no idea what feminist critique academic or casual is, or what the words they abuse mean, or what modern feminism even entails. 

Can you see how funny it is? This idea that they can position themselves as above the mainstream, as the betters of those who enjoy mainstream, by reflexively regurgitating the most popular hot takes. And this lazy behaviour is purely voluntary because no one has to have an opinion on everything. It’s actually impossible to have an in-depth and well researched opinion on everything. So if you don’t have the time to do research, or to even properly familiarise yourself with the work you have the very valid choice not to. Have the choice not to parrot a hot take for the sole purpose of performing activism. You have the choice to just divert your attention elsewhere, towards things that you will engage with in good faith. 

Because this kind of bad faith approach can lead to darker things. Because you can actually make yourself believe that your behaviour isn’t just a vapid social media act, you can convince yourself that you’re on some moral high ground, that you’re actually fighting against evil.

If Gege is a misogynist, if they hate women, it means that they are actually vile, a bad person and it’s ok to use violent ideation while writing about them. This is normalising dehumanisation for clout points. Priming yourself for viewing people and situations like this.

Gege is kind of an abstract entity for these people, it feels harmless because, come on, they will never meet Gege. And obviously this is all hyperbole and they wouldn’t really get violent. 

I witnessed it in real time when a group of people in fandom decided that my friend was a bad person. Over trivial fandom shit. They dehumanised my friend amongst themselves and proceeded to attack my friend for months, until they left Tumblr. Attack them in racist, misogynist and queerphobic ways, while claiming it’s okay because my friend is an actual evil person, they are actually dangerous for existing in the fandom. And also their attacks are okay because they are PoC/queers/women and as members of these groups their behaviour can't be racist, queerphobic or misogynist by deafault…

You also misunderstand my actions towards those people. I’m not engaging in “discourse” with them. This is not academia, I’m not an academic. I’m pushing back against their behaviour. I’m expressing my distaste towards the groupthink. I’m not pretending to be respectable because I don’t think their behaviour deserves respect.  

This is the crux of our disagreement, anon, our values don’t align.

[female-malice]

Read this thread about cult social relationships by Matthew Remski:

When you deconstruct harmful ideas and beliefs—from antivax positions to reactionary social views—you will inevitably be seen and felt as attacking the relationships that people form through those views. That’s a big problem in a lonely world, and there will be blowback. 

In anti-cult theory and journalism, this alienation is usually seen as unavoidable. The idea is that the relationships within a toxic group are transactional, unfulfilling, and fragile. The gamble is that the person will wake up into wholesome relationships outside of the group.

That may work out. Or, the person will crawl out of a mid-level engagement with NXIVM and find themselves in late stage capitalism looking for gig work, missing the friends they had on the inside, and the sense of shared purpose.

This analysis can scale up: It’s been helpful for some to look at QAnon, the Trucker Convoy, and antimask protestors through a cult studies lens. All the boxes get ticked: information silos, emotional manipulation, charismatic leaders and their failed prophecies. But there is never a single explanation and the activities within these groups are diverse. It was dangerous for antivax parents to open mask-free homeschool spaces when the schools had to shut down. But the reason for the school was the outer layer on what it felt like to be in the school, or teach in it.

In researching an antivax parenting group on IG, I saw they posted about their parties and playdates in politicized language. They were also parenting at the time, doing all the things that parents do. Shooting criticism into that space will feel like an intimate attack.

There was a lot of disgust at the Convoy crowd for partying on Parliament Hill. But pissing on snow while rave music throbs can signify bonds that may outlast any incoherent ideology. Which is why the same group will cycle through different ideas. The ideas may be fragile.

The most dangerous bonds are locked in with fascist hatred and must be resisted. But most participants are not leaders, and not monetized. Many of the yoga and wellness people I interviewed had no idea how toxic the views of the leaders were. But they did feel they had friends. 

These groups are diagonalist, distrusting all power structures, including (maybe most of all) an interpretive power structure that would discredit their views without knowing or valuing their relationships. 

The truckers hated Trudeau’s position on vaccines and fossil fuels, but they may have hated more what they saw as his smug privilege and mastery of national hypocrisies. He stands outside and above their society and friend circles, like Clinton using the word “deplorable.”

There’s an amazing passage in Naomi Klein's Doppelganger where she basically asks Why should we be shocked that after decades of neoliberal cruelty and individualism, people will say Fuck you to the “elites” who are suddenly asking them to act like we’re a society after all?

I think this problem scales further, with different political valances, up to broader critiques of religion from rationalists/skeptics, where the target is low-hanging fruit: crazy shit people believe. The collateral damage is usually a neglect of social desires and needs. 

Currently there’s this question floating around about how so many former members of rationalist and skeptic movements, and IDW influencers, slid rightward and conspiratorial in their politics. Many answers there, including: “They might have always been like that.” But one answer is that when Hitchens guts Mother Teresa like a fish, there’s schadenfreude, but no more clarity around the diverse reasons for what people experienced when they gathered around her. The charismatic religious is taken down by the charismatic debunker.

And what is left over, aside from lonely smug men? Are people forming real communities of solidarity and resilience through Sam Harris’s meditation app, or in Bill Maher’s garage? Is there a single pro-community initiative that has emerged from this commentariat?

If not, could this be because they never really took an interest in the day-to-day lives or shared needs of the people whose ideas and beliefs they preferred to snigger at?

I’m not debunking all debunking here because we’re all doing what we can. But I am advocating for a more social and anthropological approach, an approach that offers more than “follow the science” or “develop critical thinking,” or anything else that implies stupidity among people who need friends and meaningful work. We all guffawed when Ron Watkins, pretty much caught out as Q, gave up on the LARP by saying “Maybe QAnon was all about the friends we made on the way.” It was a POS statement for a POS dude to make.

But he wasn't all wrong. That’s the thing about grifters. They exploit a social vacuum progressives often think they can fill with irony. They wrap their followers in flags or ideas, but in that huddle there are real connections that have to be understood and not dismissed.

–

This is very relevant when dealing with cults on all sides of the political spectrum.

Most young people are wrapped in colorful flags and anti-scientific homophobic ideas pushed by big industries. But they also find community through those flags and ideas. No young person wants to be outcast by their peers.

And then there's the people who deny climate science and oppose catastrophe mitigation policies. These people also find a powerful form of community. They are uniting through a shared relationship to the land. The relationship they all share with the land is toxic and misinformed. But uniting over your shared perspective and feelings about land is powerful. Human-land relationships are neglected by modern neoliberal society. But solastalgia is now causing everyone to reach desperately for that human-land connection. And we're all coming up with different perspectives on land and forming social groups around those perspectives.

[kelly-danger]

I actually kinda agree with radfems in that I dont think that the terminology or idea of a "cisgender" person is particularly meaningful. Like "cis men are this, cis women are doing this". I mean if manhood and womanhood truely are just the roles built on the 'discursive foundation of sex' or whatever the hell Judith Butler says, then why are we involving biology in it? Are trans people not ocupying the role that you are critiquing? Are they not the gender they identify as? But then the Butler stuff can cause there to be offence taken when discussing things that deal wholly with sex such as male and female socialization for instance, which I beleive in generally speaking. I guess it depends on the way a person defines "cis". Like if cis is described as people "identifying with the gender of thier birth sex" then the overwhelming majority of gender critical feminists online are not cis (and take offense to being described with the term justly imo) ...a good amount of the people I know in life who would generally be called cis do not strongly identify with thier birth gender. So like idk i have yet to encounter a perspective to reconcile with this. I think terfs generally discount the role aspect of gender and focus on sex too much to the detriment of the feminist movement, and then I also think ""trans ideology""" focuses too much on the role aspect while refusing to reflect on issues relating to sex, which is, after all, the 'discursive foundation on which gender is built' and shouldnt be discounted. Idk i identify as male and a woman (at least ive become/am becoming one, to an extent... in a simone bouvoir kind of sense) and so I dont really feel like I have a home in either of those ideological frameworks.

[anghraine]

For the shipping ask game: Faramir and Eowyn

I don't mono-ship it like Elizabeth/Darcy, but I do ship it a lot!

1- What made you ship it?

It is about 70% the beautiful writing of their romance in the book to 30% my love for them individually and being delighted at the concept of putting them together and letting them find happiness that way after lives of such grinding hopelessness.

2- What are your favorite things about this ship?

I really like that, as contracted as their romantic narrative is (and I do wish there was more of it, pacing be damned), Tolkien takes care to establish that they're friends. They like each other as people!

I don't think Éowyn really saw Aragorn as her friend in that way—he was too glamorous in her eyes for that. She didn't truly know him. But though the overall course of her relationship with Faramir is so fast, I think she does know and care about him for his own sake and not only for what he brings to her.

Even when she thinks she doesn't return his feelings, she's quite gentle about it in a way that's pretty unusual for her. And though Faramir always has a strain of gentleness in his character, I think a lot of his sternness (though not strength) falls away with her as they become close.

I also think there's something very adorable and characteristic about their physical impressions of each other, lol. Faramir is like ... wow, she's prettier than flowers, and the women of my own people, and I'm sorry she's sad like me. Maybe we could spend some time together. And Éowyn is like, damn, he is tall, and could kick the ass of almost everyone I know. He's nice about it, but what if I seem silly and immature to him?

<3

3- Is there an unpopular opinion you have on this ship?

I think they're happy, but it's complicated by political necessity—not in the sense of them being at odds politically, but of them being in separate places for substantial lengths of time. I think this would especially be the case in the earlier years, when Aragorn is often at war; Tolkien described one of Faramir's responsibilities as hereditary Steward as "representative of the king during his absence abroad" and another as "chief counsellor" of Aragorn's council.

Ithilien, meanwhile, is in a vulnerable position with a lot of work needed to keep it safe and functional, and my headcanon is that while they do work together, there are plenty of times when it's Éowyn doing a lot of the day-to-day work of holding things together in Ithilien while Faramir is first and foremost the Steward of Gondor. Arguably, she's more Prince of Ithilien than he is.

And much later, of course, they're separated for a pretty long while by her death. :( I don't think she gets Éomer's lifespan and Faramir would still outlive her considerably if she did.

Oh, also, I like their arcs overall, but I do agree with some of the critiques of Éowyn's part in the treatment of war. It's not that she should have stayed a warrior because she's a badass blahblah (this makes zero sense in the context of LOTR), but that the totality of her rejection of her previous way of life is not fully prepared for structurally, and Tolkien's ideology of peace > war etc seems far more integral to her character's resolution than any human man's, including Faramir's.

Théoden and Éomer are glorified as warriors, and Faramir's prowess is emphasized even though he doesn't like it (and Tolkien seems to have imagined he'd continue to act as a military leader and be the one clearing out Ithilien). But abandonment of fighting is built into Éowyn's arc beyond any character's but Frodo's (and he was never a warrior anyway). Her interest in the specific future she chooses with Faramir is not much prepared for in terms of writing. And this whole part of her arc is compressed into one small part of one chapter. So, yeah, the defenses of how this aspect of their romance is executed do ring a bit hollow to me.

[cin-cant-donate-blood]

I don't think it's "bourgeoisie ideology" (sic) per se (you can just say capitalist, btw, it's easier to spell, too). Obviously it's interesting that the game mechanics often run specifically around managing a small business, but farms are small businesses in the modern era, and nobody romanticizes being a medieval peasant so if you want to romanticize the rural life you have to make it modern rural life, to contrast it with modern urban life.

So what are some interesting things we can learn from this?

Firstly, these escapist games tend to identify a duality: on one hand, we have urban life, modern misery, and wage slavery (e.g. the Stardew Valley intro cutscene). On the other hand, we have... what exactly? A petty bourgeois fantasy? I'd argue that it's mainly a dream of autonomy and simplicity. While you do play as a small business owner in most farming games, the main attraction is obviously not property ownership per se, but on one hand autonomy and on the other simplicity. You want to escape the complicated, roundabout way your real job works. Perhaps your urban wage slave job is, and I hate to use this term, a bit alienating and you don't fully understand who benefits from it even existing. Farming is not simple, but the tasks in farming games are, and more importantly what you're doing is simple: you're growing food – the thing everybody needs to survive. The task is clear, its context and purpose is clear, and nobody is telling you how to do it.

Do you get it now? It's not a "bourgeoisie fantasy" (sic; yes I'm gonna keep clowning on you for using the noun instead of the adjective because you chose the more complicated word to sound smart despite not knowing the difference), it's a number of fundamental human needs, filtered through a romantic fallacy.

I'm using romantic in the 19th century sense of the word by the way: wretched urbanites dreaming about a basically imaginary countryside idyll, a la Young Werther, or anything by Emily Dickinson.

So, should we take the romanticist binary of wretched city life and idyllic country life as basucally true? No. There are many advantages to living in a city, of course: it is far easier to meet new people and to have an active social life, the impact on the environment per capita is less than that of rural life and especially suburban life and it is easier to push yourself out of oppressive social situations like a toxic family life or an insular religious community.

The reason city life tends to be so wretched in pop culture (dating back all the way to the romantic movement and all the way forward to today) can almost entirely be blamed on the wage-cage: ironically a hell most rural people must suffer as well. Perhaps to an extent it can also be blamed on perceptions of crime and poverty; as cities are more interconnected types of community, failing social systems become more readily apparent. In the country, the poor suffer silently and out of sight; in the city, they sleep on your sidewalk – or straight-up steal your wallet.

Cities are a symbol of capitalism. Many clumsy critiques of capitalism made by people not willing or able to strike at the very heart of the peoblem thus find it easy to fantasize about countryside idyll. The same type of person is also likely to fantasize about gaining autonomy through property ownership rather than any other means, since this may be the only path to self-actualization they can actually imagine.

So what should you want? Would it really be so bad to work at a burger joint and rent an apartment if you were paid enough to live a fulfilling life? If your manager was elected by you and you coworkers and there was no franchise to answer to? If you knew that the food your were serving was good for the customers? If your apartment had more than one room in it? If your rent was at most ten percent of your income and you knew it went to maintaining the building and not to enriching your landlord? If forty hours per week was the most you ever worked, if even that? If you didn't have to worry about insurance and healthcare? If you could afford to go to the bar with your friends? If you had the time, money and energy to have a social life? If you knew that even if your job shut down and you were out of work, everything would still be fine?

*whispers* it's the bourgeoisie ideology

[theabstruseanon]

I'm so tired and I made the mistake of wading into 🎲2️⃣0️⃣ discourse posts so dont expect the following to make much sense LOL

I do get the narrative critiques of it not feeling like the themes of rage/interrogating rage/countering rage are being engaged with on a sliding scale from effectively to at all (idk if said interrogation of rage mechanically was hinged on only the rage tokens but thematically yeah I do get the critique re ep19 there).

For example it's like on one hand I did like how quickly they shut porter down because yeah his ideology is the kind that sounds justified on paper but then in praxis all he's doing is selfish destruction. On the other I really wish they had a philosophy-off with him about one of the core central themes of the season LOL. Also navigating the fandom balance between [it's interesting mechanically that trg fight was so one sided as commentary on how trg cut corners while still 'acting entitled' (tho tbf. This is really only kippelilly)] and [god I wish the fight had more juice or narrative payoff because of the role trg were set up to play as rivals and foils who gave into rage].

Re trg, Im just musing on how it feels like the banality of 'evil' is actually applying to them at this point. They were manipulated teens who were unfairly forced to accept a horrifying cosmic deal. Theyre characters who are selfish and jealous and willing to hurt others and gave in to these base emotions for personal gain which is the aforementioned banality. Their emotions are being heightened by the rage.... We're pretty sure? Again we only really actually see this in action with kpl, which is unfortunate and I think one of the main reasons why this is such a hot bed LOL (that BC they lacked on screen substance ppl are filling in the gaps with stronger narrative hc's that they're now attached to which makes sense. Fanon Buddy you will always be legendary to me LOL).

Trg really are in a strange narrative position to me too BC like ppl have pointed out even despite the bad rolls it wasn't for lack of trying that the players tried to engage with them earlier on before switching focus BC of a combination of bad rolls and the NPCs being rp'ed as hostile/uninterested. It's like how much of a role (not just plot wise but mainly thematically wise) were they actually supposed to play. So significant yet insignificant unfort.

But regarding the themes of rage yeah, it's been kinda all over the place to me narratively. I think the start of the end was when the players were like. Won over by Porter's teaching for a while like 'wow he did make sense' msmsmsm like noooooo 😂. The rage thing is so pervasive yet also feels so disconnected often which yeah improv hard to juggle themes and u can't edit things for clarity and adherence of narrative but overall I do wish they had more time to engage with this overarching season theme. It's certainly no TUC American dream for me.

I want to say that the diff btw Tbk rage and the general 'rage bad' is that we're meant to see Tbk rage as being protective, but that's just me projecting a layer of meaning on it 😂. I'm not as broken up about how the narrative theme feels kinda weak but I do see where this critique is coming from. It's like, on the meta narrative level it feels disconnected/unsatisfying that the rage of trg is narratively punished but the rage of Tbk is so far narratively neutral or rewarded when the theme specifically is /rage/ regardless of who has it, regardless of whether there is dnd combat going on or not, and BC trg were set up to be foils to tbk. The fundamental basis of the critique is different between the people using in-verse explanations and the ppl making observations about the overarching meta narrative. I know I reblogged posts that counter the critique (well mainly focusing on trg discourse) but personal enjoyment aside yeah. Things I would edit if this was a script LOL

The final thing is the perennial critique of the violence inherent to dnd and the more academic literary critiques of the fetishisization/glorification of violence but to that I am taking off my critical analysis hat because I like dumb shounen action violence in stories sorry for being a bad leftist 😔 (big neon sign that says: I am being tongue in cheek). I get that it's coming up a lot again esp for this season cause it's the "we should self reflect on the nature of rage" season but yeah.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary233

5/5-6/2024

sunday - monday

read an interesting thing about ai,

there it is, the thing.

i think it says a lot of what i tend to say about ai, things i've said here though in a very different way, the convergent regions are that ai as it is talked about tends to wash away involvement of humans, both in the creation of the data, which she notes here as being consistently and always ideological/ideologized. it is also a kind of labor often ignored or rather we use the sheen of technology and development to imagine it away. beyond this convergence, there is the other that ai is not inhuman or outside the human, but that it is of the human, informed by it and importantly, now informing it. the author writes:

"Computer vision doesn’t learn to see like humans, but the other way around; the task of labeling vision datasets conditions our seeing."

this is not to say, i think, that our involvement in the development of this supposed/fantasized outside makes us inhuman, or whatever, i think the point, for me at least, is precisely that this is the writing of humanity, the creation of new disciplines, a new monologic formation , or perhaps simply, nothing new, the classically monologic, formation, yes this is better, this is right i think, that develops the category and science of the human. we are defined in the negative by the creation of the outside, the outside enables us to act in certain ways by washing hands of intent. as she describes here these systems which might merely suggest killings are in truth, using categories and annotated information already labored upon and spat back out, to offer direction to killing. everyone is signing off on things, sanitizing themselves of the act. this is then, the human.

she says as much here

"Due to cultural depictions and the imprecise and fantastical language we use to talk about it, we have reified AI as something outside of us, something alien and inhuman summoned from elsewhere which strains towards the phantasmagoric goal of ‘approximating’ human intelligence, and that is what is incorrect and dangerous. It is perhaps one of the most human of engineering systems we have ever built. If we want to form a coherent critique of technology, capital and militarism, it is then even more important to be clear-eyed about what we mean when we say ‘artificial intelligence’—without metaphors, anthropomorphization or alarmism—given the seriousness of the stakes."

it develops, fashions, enables the human to go on, the processes of the enlightenment subject, the rationality we assume, so on and so forth. under this monologic gaze, madness becomes less and less a form of life, and more and more it becomes a problem as one might see in the ai, the metaphor develops that beyond the norm lies error, rather than refutation. it is not solely a technology of, maybe barely even a, efficiency

perhaps my biggest disagreement here would come from her rather well stated though maybe, missing something, argument that ai is mostly this nothing-apparatus. i do think that, in its math, it does something beyond enable these awful decisions, this laundering (she says eventually, against myself here: "I’m not trying to say that AI is in itself just a conceptual cheat"), it does something. nothing good or defensible, mind you, this connects to my sense of it as a custodian of language, creating the possible of expression, creating the norms and measuring them and ensuring they are spat back out. we are not training it, we learn from it, from our supposed outside which observes from vantages we feed it, that we maybe lose sight of because of some sort of, idk, through so manay apparatuses the evolution of the system i guess makes it easy to lose sight. this is likely intended. i suppose the custodial aspects aren't special to ai, rather that it is a technology that enforces the human while expanding the human capacity, labor becomes mechanized in one's self interest, one's mind turns to the norm as repeated and safely guarded, again, repetition here becomes important i guess. scattered thoughts dealing with computer stuff as i speak (going well, though).

a final point, relating to this quote which i will pull:

"The excessive pride over our domination of the natural world with technology leads to the delusion that humanity encounters itself and only itself everywhere it looks; a species-level narcissism which appears to be reflected in, for example, the hand-waving we do in order to relate artificial neural networks to the biochemical mechanisms of the human brain."

i think here is a missing opportunity though i know the author is not fond of tiqqun as far as i am aware (i think more regular-ish marxists tend to dislike them because they can be... anarchists, i guess, i d k!!). but what she outlines here is without a doubt part of the cybernetic hypothesis, that nature is a system, is one, and that humans being of nature are another system, via the elucidation of, research into, the science of / creation of technologies to measure these systems, "ai" becomes possible. this is nothing short of the creation/refashioning of the ideal of the human into something more utile, or rather, the taking up of the project of the human as something to extract more out of. the cybernetic hypothesis when thinking of this narcissism of the vision of nature and worldly / bodily / existential functioning/living becomes indispensable i believe.

i want to put a pin in this article and come back tomorrow maybe. it is very ripe and i am not getting my thoughts out as i would like, but it is very very true, in most ways. and it's very useful for me as a referent.

another thing from today, that i have lots of odd feelings about.

i tend to be fond of birardi, here i don't think much less of him, for the most part, though i must say the end is rather odd. i think it's easy to respond to it kind of uh, not as well as he'd like. is what i might say. really it feels mostly like his point might be semi-salient but to put such little hope into, or to assume that everyone has no faith in, hamas. it just comes off as someone who doesn't really entirely get, as i do not entirely get, the factions of the region or islam. i can't suggest i know anything beyond the fact that i really feel it is impossible for me to assume much of what discourses go on over there or what they know or think. my windows into that are limited, i would like to know, but basically so much of what circulates comes off as totally racist and islamaphobic that you have to be pretty guarded when these discourses appear.

as i write that, i see in my yt recs, visiting the most dangerous country on earth, afghanistan. no comment really beyond, why be so awful.

alright, the system image thing didn't work (dumb of me) but whatever. i think i can figure something out. i can basically get most everything back, and then i need to just... re do a couple things. should not be too much.

beyond that, i was just watching cutie honey episode 1, the old 70s one, it really is just better than kill la kill in every way.

i also watched one of the violence jack ovas. i didn't expect so much. it was kind of insane and terrible and stuff but really good also. so that was fun. i kind of want to rip bits out for a music vid.

anyway, that's a lot of stuff done today, and time wasted basically buuuut... tomorrow things should be better with the computer. it seriously stresses me so much when it doesn't work, i got drenched with sweat!! i was like panicked and stuff and it made my hair all screwed up kinda and stuff. i hate it but it'll be okay. i will figure it out. i have to!!!!

i simply have to

so with that,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[aftonfamilyvalues]

This is a huge ramble of me mostly tooting my own horn so feel free to ignore, but I honestly do my best work as a crypto. I’d love to be out and proud about it, but I’d lose my job and that’s the primary way I’m able to help other women the most. I’m good at finding ways to translate radfem ideas into more acceptable language, getting other women thinking about them without feeling like they’re committing a thought crime, and then slowly working through it until they start to use the words that actually apply to their experiences (female, woman, misogyny, etc) instead of the TRA terminology. I got my entire libfemmy gender studies class from “sex work is work!” to genuine critiques of the existence of prostitution. I got multiple women involved in my college’s trans org to come around on trans women in female sports, in female prisons, so on. TRAs are telling the truth when they whine about how us “cis bitches” and “nb afabs” and “straight” trans men are always one conversation away from going terf. The key is using trans inclusive language only as long as they do, setting up the conversation and letting their common sense fill in the gaps for what you can’t say. When in doubt, if you need to get a discussion on misogyny going, just say whatever the problem is must be even worse for trans women. The goofier you sound saying it, the better, because every woman you’re talking to will think “how the fuck would this particular issue affect them more than me.” Be a well meaning, safe feminist who knows her shit about the theory and how men work but seems to only get her knowledge on trans issues from the assumption that trans women truly are just like us, and the women around you will peak themselves trying to figure out how someone who’s so ideologically sound on every other issue could possibly think trans women are more oppressed by abortion bans than actual women. That’s the problem with a movement based on language policing and denying reality, all it takes is a good public speaker with some political savvy to play into it while actively leading people away. The one time I got accused of terf rhetoric because one guy got mad I’m openly anti porn, I had a dozen trans and pronoun in bio people going to bat for me. By the time four of them realized I actually was one, they all were too lol

exactly! i think a lot of women are in the dark about these sorts of issues. the whole "sex work" thing for example, theyve been told that these women WANT to do it! and porn? well they have this notion that its all consensual, it doesnt hurt anyone, its actors and actresses doing a job! but once you start to expose hoe cruel and fucked up it is, a lot of them come around. when that was me, my thought process was i didnt want anyone discriminated against, i didnt want anyone hurt, i just wanted people to be able to do what they wanted and live their lives how they wanted as long as it didnt hurt anyone. i still think that way but learning the truth about how these thing are harmful, it changed my outlook on these issues. i wish i could redo college with what i believe now, i can think of a few class discussions i would have completely flipped changed.

[alectology-archive]

I finally finished the book ha. Speaking of the sanderson books specifically, I don't ever see myself rereading ToM or AMoL again (I can fully see myself rereading even CoT) because they were painfully bad. A couple of things in AMoL were done well - this might still be a generous take on it because it was mostly the epilogue that I really liked and I'm still Reeling even if I already had rand's ending spoiled to me beforehand.

I'm just dumping miscellaneous thoughts under the cut. It mostly started as a rant post about chapter 37 but covers my thoughts on the epilogue as well.

- Demandred is now entering into a swordfight with galad. Even if this is because galad has a foxhead medallion, the demandred from RJ's books would literally never fight another person with a sword bye.

- I've already made a post about this but brandon doesn't get galad. Galad always tried to do what he thought was right - whatever we get from brandon is suspiciously similar to dragonsworn/whitecloak ideology (essentially cult-like behaviour) which is what rj was trying to critique in the first place:

The right thing had always seemed clear to Galad before, but never had it felt as right as this ... The Light itself guided him. It had prepared him, placed him here at this moment.

- demandred literally does not look like rand. He looks like taim:

Demandred was a proud man; one needed see only his face to know that. He looked like al’Thor, actually. They had a similar sense about them.

- Mat has done nothing to offend Bashere. Bashere doesn't talk like this either:

“Matrim Cauthon, you bloody fool. You’re still alive?”

- My eyes are bleeding this is not how command structure works - why couldn't Deira or another ranking officer of Saldaea take command???

All he had said was that Saldaea fights alongside Malkier, and told the troops to look toward Lan. The throne would be sorted out if they all survived the Last Battle.

- This sounds so corny I don't like it tbh ajshejdhdj. Balefire is neutral and doesn't really know Sides like the Light and Shadow but the anti-balefire Flame is... not? It's irritating:

The balefire vanished. A multihued, beautiful crystal grew from him [Taim]. Uncut and rough, as if from the core of the earth itself. Somehow Egwene knew that the Flame would have had much less effect on a person who had not given himself to the Shadow.

- Come ON Asmodean hasn't picked up a single weapon in his LIFE. why would he assume lan is asmodean in disguise.

Demandred blocked Lan’s attack, but he breathed hoarsely. “Who are you?” Demandred whispered again. “No one of this Age has such skill. Asmodean? No, no. He couldn’t have fought me like this. Lews Therin? It is you behind that face, isn’t it?”

- ngl rj would hate having a battle described as 'exquisite' instead of 'terrifying'

“Exquisite," Thom thought. That is the word. Unexpected, but true. Majestically exquisite. No. Not “majestically". Let the word stand on its own. If it is the right word, it will work without help. If it’s the wrong word, adding other words to it will just make it seem desperate.

- These two quotes read like everybody including the dark one think mat is very Important to rand <3

THE SON OF BATTLES. I WILL TAKE HIM. I WILL TAKE THEM ALL, ADVERSARY. AS I TOOK THE KING OF NOTHING.

....

“Not the tree, Gambler,” Hawkwing said. “Another moment, one that you cannot remember. It is fitting, as Lews Therin did save your life both times.”

“Remember him,” Amaresu snapped. “I have seen you murmur that you fear his madness, but all the while you forget that every breath you breathe—every step you take—comes at his forbearance. Your life is a gift from the Dragon Reborn, Gambler. Twice over.”

- I got Major rand/mat/elayne vibes from this passage <3 :

“The Queen of Andor is dead,” Arganda said.

Bloody Ashes! Not Elayne! Mat felt a lurch inside. Rand. . . I'm sorry.

... "This is the end!" Demandred’s augmented voice washed across Mat from the other end of the plateau. “Lews Therin has abandoned you! Cry out to him as you die. Let him feel your pain.”

- kind of irritating that perrin is the one who makes his way back to rand when he's heartsick over faile because we know faile is on top of his priority list whereas mat is the one who walks away? Mat has always been a lot more attached to rand than perrin but this book completely reverses that and chooses to make perrin the Closer friend. And my god mat doesn't meet rand again after that tuon/mat/rand conversation earlier in the book 😐

- where is olver going to go? He's just a kid wtf.

- I hate the tuon pregnancy plot lmfao

- Mat not being present at rand's funeral... I WILL cry.

- mat doesn't see the band again, doesn't attend rand's funeral, doesn't have olver around, doesn't meet his other friends from emond's field again and I am MAD. I imagine it's going to happen anyway eventually but ugh. I'd have liked to see that on-screen.

- sanderson making rand even CONSIDER that he'd be content with only one person out of his three gfs following him is annoying. He loves all three of them.

- I think the only chapter I enjoyed fully was the epilogue. I'm still Sad about rand not being able to kill the dark one and facing the bleak future of being reborn as the dragon again and again but it's a sweet pain, I think. I'm glad he gets to live his life now and thinks of going on adventures (you know who else likes adventures. Mat.)

- I DO kind of dislike that rand can't channel anymore though. I don't really care that he can will things to happen as he pleases now - he struggled with accepting that part of himself for so long and he even cleansed saidin for him to eventually just be shut away from the source like that... it takes away from all the queer readings that it allowed.

- I'm such a sucker for doppelgangers and body snatchers and acts of mimesis and anything that vaguely falls under the genre so the fact that moridin and rand switched bodies fully turned out to be my favourite part of the ending ha.

- cadsuane being chosen as the amyrlin is so stupid bye. The white tower needs a new visionary who's capable of fixing its institutional problems not somebody who bullies people all the time and is stubbornly set in her old ways - she's only had her ego reinforced in all the 300+ years she's lived.

- I think moghedien should have been allowed to run free and commit gay crimes. More reasons to hate the seanchan in my opinion.

- tbh I find myself envisioning mat running from the seanchan the moment tuon has her back turned to him and... good for him? I will forever mourn the potential that tuon had - sanderson chose to not give her much of an arc, I'm guessing, since it wasn't even rj's choice for egwene and siuan to die but harriet's (plus idk I got the impression that he was writing tuon like she was never going to become a better person and still excuses her behaviour while rj specifically writes like tuon is going to become a better person most of the time). I feel like early tuon is very much firmly a fave - I just can't stomach her later because she just keeps having her ego boosted and sanderson plays it off as if it's funny that she's off ordering atrocities to be committed. He just doesn't know how to read the room whenever he picks up mat's povs. Mat never made jokes during the battles he fought in rj's books.

- I hate that I don't really have any thoughts about elayne, aviendha, egwene or nynaeve but they're almost non-characters in this book except when sanderson brought them out for Epic Fights? I was especially let down by the lack of politics in the book.

- the endless battle sequences are just so fatiguing to read that even Good Fight Scenes don't leave a mark on the reader. This was not a good book, lol - I think a lot of my positive thoughts are fully influenced by how good I feel about the epilogue.

- and I definitely did expect rand to die even while I was reading the series around book 5? It was some time then that I managed to spoil the ending to myself which was unfortunate, but I think the ending managed to satisfy readers who'd have liked for him to die as well as the ones who'd have liked for him to live (I am both people)

[thespoonisvictory]

My top five dream smp monologues, because I’m bored and I have opinions:

*these are all my own opinions, and I’m definitely biased based off who I watch. this also isn’t “best scenes”, because that would totally rearrange my answers. also, some of these could be considered dialogues, but whatever*

5. Tommy in Exile:

The moment where Tommy is standing on top of his dirt pole, only to realize that Dream has been “watching him” the whole time, was so satisfying to watch. It’s a big moment of strength for his character, and I love that it’s entirely brought on by himself, with no help. While not the most coherent or quotable, it’s the raw emotion and acting by Tommy that makes me still enjoy it so much. 

4. Wilbur in Pogtopia:

This is specifically in reference to his “Let’s be the bad guys” speech, because it’s just such a pivotal moment for his character. It’s the culmination of a lot of pain, bitterness, and fear on Wilbur’s part all coming to boil over into this plan that should be cartoonish, but just comes off as horrifying to watch this once-stable guy unravel. While I am a Wilbur apologist at heart, this is one of his darkest moments, and it’s fascinating to watch. One thing I really appreciate about Wilbur’s speeches in general is just how quotable and condensed they are. He has like 4-5 big monologues, all no more than a few minutes, and they all land perfectly, with this being the strongest of the bunch.

3. Tubbo on Tommy’s Exile:

Tubbo is criminally underrated in rp, and while he doesn’t always tend towards heavy moments, when he goes for it, he does so well. This moment, where he tells Tommy that he’s being selfish, that if he was in Tommy’s position he wouldn’t have put them in this situation in the first place, that he couldn’t just do one thing for him, could he?, is really defining for his character. Obviously, we know that this whole situation is largely Dream’s fault, but you really understand Tubbo’s frustration in this moment. He’s crumbling under the weight of being president, and he takes that out on Tommy, but it’s so human and understandable that I really feel for him. I also just really like Tubbo’s delivery, because he sounds angry, sure, but also just so tired.

2. Schlatt’s First Decree on the Election Day:

This moment made my stomach fucking drop watching this live. What more can I say than that? Schlatt uses a slight echo on his voice and just fully goes for his Disney Villain voice, and it works so well, especially with the lack of a face cam. Schlatt, in that moment, goes from a bit ominous but overall a comedic persona to absolutely terrifying, and his voice ringing out over the world as Tommy and Wilbur blindly run into the forest is so, so memorable. 

1. Ghostbur on Doomsday:

This is hands down my favorite performance on the Dream SMP, ever. Wilbur’s acting really gets put on show here, as we see him play a high-pitched, happy-go-lucky ghost realize his entire home has been destroyed. I’m not a fan of Doomsday as a whole, but this scene honestly brought a much needed sense of groundedness to the affair. The line “I sowed the seeds of peace but I’m the one that pays the price for war” is iconic, but “I still feel this” stuck in my mind for so long after, because it really spoke to how, ironically, Ghostbur wasn’t being treated as a person by Phil and Techno. It so effectively exposed the flaws in their ideology. Not only that, but it can be seen as critique to the audience for treating him only as the “comic relief in all of your stories”. After all, who mourned Logsteadshire in Ghostbur’s name? Who brought up that Ghostbur’s home would be destroyed on Doomsday before this? Ghostbur went so unacknowledged until Wilbur brought his perspective to light with this amazing monologue, and it’s one of my favorite smp moments to this day.

Honorable Mentions: Wilbur’s “Independence or Death” and Button Room speech, some of Dream’s moments in prison, and Quackity’s statements to Techno after his failed execution (this one is probably #6)

[goddamnwebcomics]

You know, this post came to my head recently, and you know, I can't help but wonder what the anon's mindset is regarding any form of criticism. Does the anon believe that you can't critique ANYTHING that is indie??? That's...not a good mindset to have, and I feel like this mindset harms any kind of indie production. It almost feels like a strawman argument, "anything indie is good, and anything corporate is bad". There was a time when indie ANYTHING was hard to find, and now that there's tens of thousands of non-corporate works available, why are so few of them popular?

Few weeks ago I played through a Crash Bandicoot fangame, while I really liked the presentation and creativity I was not a fan of the gameplay or the physics which I found infuriating. I left a long but blunt comment that generally tried to encourage the devs to fix the issues the game had so it could be played by all. I wanted to see the game succeed. Was I punching down at that moment???

I feel like the early years of this blog have given this blog a negative association which makes me glad I was never super popular. Yes, many of my early riffs were shitting on these comics for the sake of shitting it, but there still was a sense of construtivity to it all. And most of my opinions back then are the same as today.

I feel like this anon probably doesn't read or support too many webcomics themselves. If they did they would know just how many webcomics do have merchandise, physical copies that can be bought, Patreon pages and so much more. Only 30% of webcomics I have riffed match their description of a webcomic, and even then, the most pure passion comic in this blog is probably Carnivores. At this point Carnivores has been doing its own thing for almost 25 years and I am happy for Austin. Austin's not gonna listen to my critique but he's not really going to harm anyone.

What does harm people is this ideology that there should be people that should be exempted from criticism. There was an incident not too long ago where I told someone they were wrong online and they absolutely melted. Not all of us have self-awareness, and more you lack self-awareness the more you are gonna be made upset by criticism.

I remember when I ran a blog critiquing SuperSaiyanCrash, yes a lot of it was bashing and even stalking some of his friends, but it was clear nobody in Richie's friend group wanted to take criticism. Richie had only one person who actively critiqued him but he was...extremely quirky and quite honestly really annoying. But Richie wasn't better, he DID listen to critique at one point but slowly and surely slipped back to his old ways because he wanted to be more comfortable. And he would start using excuses like "I have autism" and "I drew this on a bad mood" to shield himself. And may I remind you Richie was close to his 30's when he was doing this.

Not too long ago there was an incident in a community I have been in for over a decade, the founder of this community had been kind of out of touch with rest of the community for a long time, leading to their work being under rest of community's standards. Then one day they drop this video that rightfully gets critiqued for being unnecessarily gory, uncanny, uncomfortable, screwing over audiences expectations and also exploiting real life drama. For few years, the video stays up, until it is deleted, and it's clear the critique from the video is affecting this creator. Then, after they cancel their original series, they upload this "fixed" version of the video that just serves as a middle finger to all the critics of the original video, and the creator goes on this whiny rant on the comments like "THIS COMMUNITY WON'T LET ME DO WHAT I WANT!!!". Understandably this burned rest of the community's bridges with this creator.

I don't think many of you follow professional wrestling, but there is this guy called Sean Ross Sapp. Sapp will look up ANY negative messages made about him on Twitter and then slides into the people's DM's making schizophrenic threats to them. Even the lightest critique he gets he responds to with "go fuck yourself" or something similar. Who is Sean Ross Sapp you ask? A journalist. Yes, an alleged journalist is reacting to being critiqued that way. If you're a journalist who faces critique for reporting erroneous stuff, for reporting these vague things without any sources, for not being able to get information for crucial topics, how can you have any credibility?

And that leads to what I think has killed criticism and all nuance around it as a whole, Twitter. I don't doubt for a second the anon of this post is more active on Twitter/BlueSky than Tumblr. I feel like Twitter and Reddit are the worst places online to give any form of criticism. Twitter because of the word limit and its culture in general and Reddit because of the voting system which creates echochambers and dissuades different opinions.

Yes, Bad Faith Critique exists, but "bad faith" has become such a buzzword people nowadays use it to mean "criticism that I don't agree with" RATHER THAN "criticism that is actually harmful and deceitful". To me, Bad faith criticism is "critique without a Win Condition in mind". "Win condition" means "when the work meets or exceeds the critics standards". If it mindlessly shits on something, that means there is no win condition. But you also have to remember, that your win conditions can't be impossible or too self-indulgent.

My Crash Bandicoot fangame critique from earlier has a win condition. FIx the physics, make it less painful to play the game and me and many others will be happy. My win condition for SuperSaiyanCrash is "stop writing sexist bullshit and stop being fucking unoriginal". My win condition for webcomics in general tend to vary. I know for works like Gene Catlow where the author of the story has passed, there is no win condition. At that point, I am just trying to give the story an indepth look without coming across like an asshole. There is a lot of indefensible stuff on Gene Catlow, that don't really come to you if you're just reading the comic on a whim, the implications of Family of Intelligent Life come to mind.

Some of you may have noticed this but one of my biggest pet peeves in any media are good messages that are executed poorly. I am not opposed to themes, I am not opposed to important messages, but important messages can't be haphazardly put into the story in a way that completely insults the audience, case in point, the infamous Spinnerette pro-choice scene. It feels forced, its context is tonedeaf, it feels like the author trying to go "HEY I AM A GOOD PERSON I SUPPORT THIS" rather than trying to make the story more relatable to those who resonate with this issue.

And that leads me to the sentence I genuinely despise when it comes out of person's mouth. "I am a good person". You are not in charge of detemining your morality, it is up to others to decide if you are good or not, based on your actions, your pragmatism, how much empathy you have for others. "I have basic human decency" is just another way of saying it but with even more smugness. Both of those sentences translate to "I have no self-awareness".

This is why we need critique, no matter what part of life you are. Yes, bigger things, like people in power and more popular things should take more priority at being critiqued, but that doesn't mean we should never critique smaller things. We all need to remember that win condition. If there is no win condition for you, then you are no different from people who just say "this looks like shit lmao". It is not critique. Flaming is not critique. Bashing is not critique. Wanting the person who made the work to be killed because you don't like the work is not critique. (You heard that 2017 me) It just validates the people you are critiquing to continue not taking criticism.

I am not saying I am a perfect critic, like all critics, I do mistakes. I have my own biases. But that is why I allow others to critique me. You are not punching down if you have more followers than me and you critique me. This anon tried to raise a critique about me, but they failed, because, they wanted me to literally stop what I am doing, because of their romanticized view of webcomics. I recommend looking at my good friend's reblog of this original ask to see them expertly rebuke the anon's claims. And the fact this anon never responded, proves they never were interested in critique in the first place.

But yes, most indie works need criticism to survive, to become popular, to get support. Support your local indie works by any means necessary, just don't enable their flaws or be a dick.

This blog makes me a bit sad. Webcomics are made and provided for free. Even if they’re bad, it feels a bit like punching down on passion projects. There is lots of bad media to “punch up” at, that makes millions of dollars—Marvel movies and so on. I’d genuinely like to know why you prefer to punch down on people making things they love for no pay.

Thank you for coming to the blog and voicing your concerns, but I do want to clarify a few things.

First of all, everyone and their grandmother bashes the big stuff. I stay out of touch with modern pop culture on purpose. Why should I make a blog bashing Marvel movies, everyone does that already? And besides, what’s even the point, those people are not gonna hear my crticism, and if they did, they’d just say I hate women or whatever, no matter what my actual criticism is.

Second of all, look at the description. “In this blog, we riff webcomics that haven’t been riffed million times, bad, decent, obscure or weird. “ “Bad” is just one category. Riffing purely bad media is torture, I look at every webcomic fairly. I am a fair critic and if you read this blog for more than one second, you would know that I give comics that I riff, a lot of praise. On top of that, I respect webcomics as a medium and you are right a lot of them are passion projects, but also, just because it’s a passion project you can read for free, doesn’t mean it’s free from criticism. The reason webcomics have such bad rep is because many of the most infamous webcomic creators just don’t take criticism. It’s a medium that smells bad for a reason, and few webcomics authors have contacted me and ASKED for their webcomic to be riffed.

Third of all, usually I’d brush off “punching down” as Twitter word salad, but you do realize that one of the comics I am riffing is locked behind a paywall, and whose patreon makes 1000 dollars a month? And the creator has another patreon that makes around 4000 dollars a month? That’s a bigger salary than 70% of Americans make in a month, yes I say Americans, because I know you are from there with the way you speak.  And also both of those comics happen to be some of the worst I’ve riffed? Is that “punching down”?

I can also confirm that I only have around 200 followers, I presume you have at least the double of that, so probably you’re punching ME down.

But I am sorry to hear that this blog made you sad. I hope you get better soon. Personally, I suffer from depression and to make myself feel better, I don’t look at things that make me sad, I recommend you do the same.