#technically just discourse in general but like. guys

[scoutsystem]

You could say "being delusional is bad, actually" and probably receive a death threat anon on this website

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Dirty words are politically potent

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

Making up words is a perfectly cromulent passtime, and while most of the words we coin disappear as soon as they fall from our lips, every now and again, you find a word that fits so nice and kentucky in the public discourse that it acquires a life of its own:

http://meaningofliff.free.fr/definition.php3?word=Kentucky

I've been trying to increase the salience of digital human rights in the public imagination for a quarter of a century, starting with the campaign to get people to appreciate that the internet matters, and that tech policy isn't just the delusion that the governance of spaces where sad nerds argue about Star Trek is somehow relevant to human thriving:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell

Now, eventually people figured out that a) the internet mattered and, b) it was going dreadfully wrong. So my job changed again, from "how the internet is governed matters" to "you can't fix the internet with wishful thinking," for example, when people said we could solve its problems by banning general purpose computers:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

Or by banning working cryptography:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/09/04/oh-for-fucks-sake-not-this-fucking-bullshit-again-cryptography-edition/

Or by redesigning web browsers to treat their owners as threats:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

Or by using bots to filter every public utterance to ensure that they don't infringe copyright:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/09/today-europe-lost-internet-now-we-fight-back

Or by forcing platforms to surveil and police their users' speech (aka "getting rid of Section 230"):

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

Along the way, many of us have coined words in a bid to encapsulate the abstract, technical ideas at the core of these arguments. This isn't a vanity project! Creating a common vocabulary is a necessary precondition for having the substantive, vital debates we'll need to tackle the real, thorny issues raised by digital systems. So there's "free software," "open source," "filternet," "chat control," "back doors," and my own contributions, like "adversarial interoperability":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Or "Competitive Compatibility" ("comcom"), a less-intimidatingly technical term for the same thing:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/competitive-compatibility-year-review

These have all found their own niches, but nearly all of them are just that: niche. Some don't even rise to "niche": they're shibboleths, insider terms that confuse and intimidate normies and distract from the real fights with semantic ones, like whether it's "FOSS" or "FLOSS" or something else entirely:

https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/262/what-is-the-difference-between-foss-and-floss

But every now and again, you get a word that just kills. That brings me to "enshittification," a word I coined in 2022:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

"Enshittification" took root in my hindbrain, rolling around and around, agglomerating lots of different thoughts and critiques I'd been making for years, crystallizing them into a coherent thesis:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

This kind of spontaneous crystallization is the dividend of doing lots of work in public, trying to take every half-formed thought and pin it down in public writing, something I've been doing for decades:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

After those first couple articles, "enshittification" raced around the internet. There's two reasons for this: first, "enshittification" is a naughty word that's fun to say. Journalists love getting to put "shit" in their copy:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/crosswords/linguistics-word-of-the-year.html

Radio journalists love to tweak the FCC with cheekily bleeped syllables in slightly dirty compound words:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/projects/enshitification

And nothing enlivens an academic's day like getting to use a word like "enshittification" in a journal article (doubtless this also amuses the editors, peer-reviewers, copyeditors, typesetters, etc):

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=enshittification&btnG=&oq=ensh

That was where I started, too! The first time I used "enshittification" was in a throwaway bad-tempered rant about the decay of Tripadvisor into utter uselessness, which drew a small chorus of appreciative chuckles about the word:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1550457808222552065

The word rattled around my mind for five months before attaching itself to my detailed theory of platform decay. But it was that detailed critique, coupled with a minor license to swear, that gave "enshittification" a life of its own. How do I know that the theory was as important as the swearing? Because the small wave of amusement that followed my first use of "enshittification" petered out in less than a day. It was only when I added the theory that the word took hold.

Likewise: how do I know that the theory needed to be blended with swearing to break out of the esoteric realm of tech policy debates (which the public had roundly ignored for more than two decades)? Well, because I spent two decades writing about this stuff without making anything like the dents that appeared once I added an Anglo-Saxon monosyllable to that critique.

Adding "enshittification" to the critique got me more column inches, a longer hearing, a more vibrant debate, than anything else I'd tried. First, Wired availed itself of the Creative Commons license on my second long-form article on the subject and reprinted it as a 4,200-word feature. I've been writing for Wired for more than thirty years and this is by far the longest thing I've published with them – a big, roomy, discursive piece that was run verbatim, with every one of my cherished darlings unmurdered.

That gave the word – and the whole critique, with all its spiky corners – a global airing, leading to more pickup and discussion. Eventually, the American Dialect Society named it their "Word of the Year" (and their "Tech Word of the Year"):

https://americandialect.org/2023-word-of-the-year-is-enshittification/

"Enshittification" turns out to be catnip for language nerds:

https://becauselanguage.com/90-enpoopification/#transcript-60

I've been dragged into (good natured) fights over the German, Spanish, French and Italian translations for the term. When I taped an NPR show before a live audience with ASL interpretation, I got to watch a Deaf fan politely inform the interpreter that she didn't need to finger-spell "enshittification," because it had already been given an ASL sign by the US Deaf community:

https://maximumfun.org/episodes/go-fact-yourself/ep-158-aida-rodriguez-cory-doctorow/

I gave a speech about enshittification in Berlin and published the transcript:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

Which prompted the rock-ribbed Financial Times to get in touch with me and publish the speech – again, nearly verbatim – as a whopping 6,400 word feature in their weekend magazine:

https://www.ft.com/content/6fb1602d-a08b-4a8c-bac0-047b7d64aba5

Though they could have had it for free (just as Wired had), they insisted on paying me (very well, as it happens!), as did De Zeit:

https://www.zeit.de/digital/internet/2024-03/plattformen-facebook-google-internet-cory-doctorow

This was the start of the rise of enshittification. The word is spreading farther than ever, in ways that I have nothing to do with, along with the critique I hung on it. In other words, the bit of string that tech policy wonks have been pushing on for a quarter of a century is actually starting to move, and it's actually accelerating.

Despite this (or more likely because of it), there's a growing chorus of "concerned" people who say they like the critique but fret that it is being held back because you can't use it "at church or when talking to K-12 students" (my favorite variant: "I couldn't say this at a NATO conference"). I leave it up to you whether you use the word with your K-12 students, NATO generals, or fellow parishoners (though I assure you that all three groups are conversant with the dirty little word at the root of my coinage). If you don't want to use "enshittification," you can coin your own word – or just use one of the dozens of words that failed to gain public attention over the past 25 years (might I suggest "platform decay?").

What's so funny about all this pearl-clutching is that it comes from people who universally profess to have the intestinal fortitude to hear the word "enshittification" without experiencing psychological trauma, but worry that other people might not be so strong-minded. They continue to say this even as the most conservative officials in the most staid of exalted forums use the word without a hint of embarrassment, much less apology:

https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/chairman-of-irish-social-media-regulator-says-europe-should-not-be-seduced-by-mario-draghis-claims/a526530600.html

I mean, I'm giving a speech on enshittification next month at a conference where I'm opening for the Secretary General of the United Nations:

https://icanewdelhi2024.coop/welcome/pages/Programme

After spending half my life trying to get stuff like this into the discourse, I've developed some hard-won, informed views on how ideas succeed:

First: the minor obscenity is a feature, not a bug. The marriage of something long and serious to something short and funny is a happy one that makes both the word and the ideas better off than they'd be on their own. As Lenny Bruce wrote in his canonical work in the subject, the aptly named How to Talk Dirty and Influence People:

I want to help you if you have a dirty-word problem. There are none, and I'll spell it out logically to you.

Here is a toilet. Specifically-that's all we're concerned with, specifics-if I can tell you a dirty toilet joke, we must have a dirty toilet. That's what we're all talking about, a toilet. If we take this toilet and boil it and it's clean, I can never tell you specifically a dirty toilet joke about this toilet. I can tell you a dirty toilet joke in the Milner Hotel, or something like that, but this toilet is a clean toilet now. Obscenity is a human manifestation. This toilet has no central nervous system, no level of consciousness. It is not aware; it is a dumb toilet; it cannot be obscene; it's impossible. If it could be obscene, it could be cranky, it could be a Communist toilet, a traitorous toilet. It can do none of these things. This is a dirty toilet here.

Nobody can offend you by telling a dirty toilet story. They can offend you because it's trite; you've heard it many, many times.

https://www.dacapopress.com/titles/lenny-bruce/how-to-talk-dirty-and-influence-people/9780306825309/

Second: the fact that a neologism is sometimes decoupled from its theoretical underpinnings and is used colloquially is a feature, not a bug. Many people apply the term "enshittification" very loosely indeed, to mean "something that is bad," without bothering to learn – or apply – the theoretical framework. This is good. This is what it means for a term to enter the lexicon: it takes on a life of its own. If 10,000,000 people use "enshittification" loosely and inspire 10% of their number to look up the longer, more theoretical work I've done on it, that is one million normies who have been sucked into a discourse that used to live exclusively in the world of the most wonkish and obscure practitioners. The only way to maintain a precise, theoretically grounded use of a term is to confine its usage to a small group of largely irrelevant insiders. Policing the use of "enshittification" is worse than a self-limiting move – it would be a self-inflicted wound. As I said in that Berlin speech:

Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It's not just a way to say 'things are getting worse' (though of course, it's fine with me if you want to use it that way. It's an English word. We don't have der Rat für englische Rechtschreibung. English is a free for all. Go nuts, meine Kerle).

Finally: "coinage" is both more – and less – than thinking of the word. After the American Dialect Society gave honors to "enshittification," a few people slid into my mentions with citations to "enshittification" that preceded my usage. I find this completely unsurprising, because English is such a slippery and playful tongue, because English speakers love to swear, and because infixing is such a fun way to swear (e.g. "unfuckingbelievable"). But of course, I hadn't encountered any of those other usages before I came up with the word independently, nor had any of those other usages spread appreciably beyond the speaker (it appears that each of the handful of predecessors to my usage represents an act of independent coinage).

If "coinage" was just a matter of thinking up the word, you could write a small python script that infixed the word "shit" into every syllable of every word in the OED, publish the resulting text file, and declare priority over all subsequent inventive swearers.

On the one hand, coinage takes place when the coiner a) independently invents a word; and b) creates the context for that word that causes it to escape from the coiner's immediate milieu and into the wider world.

But on the other hand – and far more importantly – the fact that a successful coinage requires popular uptake by people unknown to the coiner means that the coiner only ever plays a small role in the coinage. Yes, there would be no popularization without the coinage – but there would also be no coinage without the popularization. Words belong to groups of speakers, not individuals. Language is a cultural phenomenon, not an individual one.

Which is rather the point, isn't it? After a quarter of a century of being part of a community that fought tirelessly to get a serious and widespread consideration of tech policy underway, we're closer than ever, thanks, in part, to "enshittification." If someone else independently used that word before me, if some people use the word loosely, if the word makes some people uncomfortable, that's fine, provided that the word is doing what I want it to do, what I've devoted my life to doing.

The point of coining words isn't the pilkunnussija's obsession with precise usage, nor the petty glory of being known as a coiner, nor ensuring that NATO generals' virgin ears are protected from the word "shit" – a word that, incidentally, is also the root of "science":

https://www.arrantpedantry.com/2019/01/24/science-and-shit/

Isn't language fun?

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/#this-toilet-has-no-central-nervous-system

[bl4ckd0gs]

The discourse around Whiplash drives me fucking crazy. I don't think Fletcher is the villain; I don't think there is a villain in the movie at all. Fletcher's a grumpy old man with an incorrect (or "old fashioned") way of doing things that doesn't conflate with success like it used to. Charlie Parker was taught the way Fletcher aims to teach, Charlie Parker is great. But, that Shawn kid kills himself because he's too depressed and overwhelmed by the pressure, womp womp yada yada. Fletcher feels some guilt, but he refuses to relent. He is utterly committed to his process. I genuinely think that's the point of the movie. It's the derangement of total artistic commitment versus the inescapable trap of comfortable mediocrity. I think the way the viewer interprets the movie says a lot about them honestly. I admire Andrew because in general, the artists I enjoy most in my own personal life are those who are dedicated to a maddening degree; their intensity, their authenticity and passion are obvious. Artists like that often yield art that's one of a kind-and to be honest, that's a goal of mine. Life is short and fleeting and unimportant and all that, but good authentic art can far outlast you, inspire new artists, keep the spirit of creativity alive, etc ... Now, setting out to be that kind of artist isn't easy, especially when you're telling a story centered around music. Technicality, precision, stamina, everything needs to be perfect when you're performing music. There can be no compromise; nothing can jeopardize the integrity of your craft. That's a harsh reality-the type of life that many people don't want to live. People see Andrew dumping his girlfriend, polarizing himself from his family, kinda becoming a belligerent asshole. And they're like, "oh what a dickhead, letting Fletcher ruin his life, letting the villain win...!" But....I think to Andrew (and by extension a certain type of person,) there's a fate worse than everything Fletcher put him through-living a dull, inconsequential life with nothing to show for it. The dangers of mediocrity are more prevalent than ever in our world, because everything is so damn easy to do. The appreciation for total dedication to the craft feels as though it's quietly fizzling out as time goes on...that's cringe to say I think, but it's true. And so, why is Fletcher the villain? Is he a good guy? Of fucking course not, he's insane. But...he met the right student. He became aligned with someone just as willing to do whatever it took to be great. To me, that's fucking beautiful.

Anyways this has been pissing me off for like a year, if anyone is seeing a massive hole in my logic, maybe I missed a scene or a motif or an undertone? Please tell me. I love this gaddamn movie and the prospect of me tragically misunderstanding it scares me

[confession-of-the-heart]

idc about heart hotel ship discourse cause I really think it’s entirely dependent on personal interpretations, but funnily enough, out of all heart hotel ships, RokuShi is the one that leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I think it’s because every RokuShi I’ve seen completely ignores their canon dynamic.

They end up dumbing them down into essentially what Sora and Kairi have in canon (they both generally like each other and no nuance beyond that), completely overriding their actual character traits for the sake of “Xion’s sad so we should give her a boyfriend :).” Roxas’s main flaw in Days is that he fails to see things from other peoples’ perspectives, and that ends up driving a huge wedge between him and Xion since she has a very unique perspective due to her circumstances. It’s implied he works on this problem in regards to Axel and Sora, but we don’t get enough screen time with Xion in 3 to know if the same is true for her. I would assume that’s the first thing you’d want to explore between these characters, but once again, everything I see is just fluff or “Xion died guys that’s so sad :(.”

It plays into the way the fan base dumbs down Xion too, making her into a stock “girl who’s nice” character with her defining trait being that she died. Xion’s story in Days works so well because you can see her develop the mindset that makes her so willing to sacrifice herself. Of course the girl who lives in a cult that tells her that she and all of her friends are worthless and incomplete, with no right to live, wouldn’t value her life. Of course the girl that gets berated by Saix calling her an “it,” “thing,” “that,” “mistake,” something that “never should’ve been made,” wouldn’t see herself as equal, especially when she found out she is technically a “thing.” And yet not a lot of fan work really gets into why she chose to die. Hell, even 3 forgot about it, they just decided she would be alive again and be totally fine with it (which to be fair is a critique I have for all the recompletion plots, Axel also went out on his own accord and also reacts minimally upon waking up). This factors back into RokuShi because the most I see them ever make of it is “she’s fine now because Roxas likes her :)” which A) is a really underwhelming solution and B) obviously doesn’t work because they were still friends up to the point where she died.

the shippers themselves are nice and I don’t have anything against them, but man, what is it with this fan base and refusing to acknowledge any canon traits of the characters they claim “love.”

~~~

[serinemisc]

@youzicha trimming a bunch of reblogs from Pointlessly Nonliteral Translation.

But I still don't like the two examples in my post above. It's admirable when somebody solves a difficult problem in a creative way, but producing "could mankind really be on the verge" is not difficult, you just look at the words in front of you. What made Woolsey so sure that what he writes is better than what the original author wrote? I guess what bugs me about this is that it is disrespectful, in the sense that he only does this because he doesn't respect the source text. If he was given a highbrow novel to translate he surely would not rewrite it, but he thinks this is schlock that doesn't matter. And yet, the game sold millions of copies, and we are still talking about it 30 years later—maybe it was not so insignificant after all.

I think the thing is the thing where you gotta unfocus your eyes and look at the big picture and not the sentences and words, you know?

I just got to a point in Honkai Star Rail where a guy is like "as a senior in the field, I'll give you some free advice" where something like "as the more experienced one" would have worked a lot better. This is the sort of thing that happens when you get too fixated on how to translate sempai (technically the Chinese xianbei but same thing).

I do understand that your point is "you can do a translation without adding in your own interpretation" but my point is that it's actually really hard to do that without making it sound awkward.

Speaking of Honkai Star Rail, it just translated " 'Kindness' is my pronoun" to " 'Kindness' is my middle name". I actually really like that one (Chinese doesn't have middle names). Uh, that wasn't relevant, I'm just playing Honkai Star Rail right now.

To be clear this was just an exercise for learning Japanese, it's not advice about how to do professional translation. But if you try, for most prose text I think it's quite possible to follow these rules and produce something that still sounds like natural English. I think that's a realistic standard to compare other translations against.

I presume you've read a translated light novel? Those read noticeably more awkwardly because they're usually closer or more literal translations. I would assume that avoiding that is the main reason most other translations take more liberties.

I think translated light novels are probably somewhere around the amount of literalism you prefer, so I just want to point out that I at least find them annoying to read in English, and that probably says something about general preferences.

(Why is a translated light novel more literal? My guess is because in a game, the thing you want to preserve is the plot, while in a book, )

To be clear, I definitely don't think that translating literally is obligatory or is an end in itself. I post about the virtues of literalism, but that's because I think the overall discourse is too one-sided and everyone takes it for granted that "literal is bad".

When I watch anime with friends, I like to infodump about the differences between the Japanese and the English subtitles, but usually, if I dislike something, it's usually an attempt to translate a word that could have better been done with a rephrase ("sempai" to "senior", very commonly). So while I agree that both extremes are bad, that informs which side I'm generally pushing for.

I think you sometimes overestimate how much impact the lack of a common ancestor language has, when something is maybe explained by a particular grammatical feature in isolation.

I mean, this is just my experience, finding sentence-for-sentence translations flow a lot better between Spanish and English, than between Japanese and English.

But yeah I dunno, it's not out of the question that my highest fluencies being in English/Japanese/Chinese makes me assume that something like English/German are more similar than they actually are. But I still feel like I'm right. Like, what PIE language would have a chart like this?

[redditreceipts]

Hi! ex radfem cis lesbian back. I saw you asked why I reconsidered my viewpoints, so I will answer:

Firstly, I do want to keep the context in mind that this is simply my experience and very well may just be a me thing.

I gravitated to being a radfem at around middleschool, because I was sexually harrassed by a boy. It gave me the "all men are evil" complex. But I slowly realized I only used my hatred as an excuse not to face my trauma. There are great men in my life, my father and brother are some of my biggest supporters. My brother even tried to beat up the guy who harrassed me lol. The hatred I felt for every male I saw (excluding my family), the fear I felt, made me intensely paranoid and unhappy. I also found it was just wrong. Like anybody, men are not a monolith. Somebody born into a male body is not instantly evil. I've actually been harrassed more (sexually and in general) by females in my life, so I realized the generalization didn't hold up.

Of course, it is obvious that males are more likely to commit violent crimes, even if my personal experience was opposite. But I try these days to see the best in everyone, as not assuming somebody's moral value based on their sex has helped me live a more happy life. When I say I find GC spaces a bit extreme, there are a myriad of blogs who constantly say all men are evil, all men should die...I think that sort of talk is unproductive. Like it or not, males will always exist in humanity. So we should be finding a solution to the social issues and dismantaling patriarchy instead of invoking ire in innocent people (People are more likely to listen if you are nice to them...I have seen many men get mad at the "all men are trash" thing because that would include them, even if they haven't done any wrong. Whether or not it's fair we have have to watch our words doesn't matter -- this is just the proven best way to get others to take your points seriously).

As for the trans stuff, I just don't really care these days. Using different pronouns doesn't affect me as it is just words, so I don't care. Much like men, I view all trans people as individuals and don't develope an opinion on them as people based on identity alone. I find operating in the world this way is just easiest, and helps me not develop a bias. (Also as a GNC lesbian I have been mocked for being "a trans woman" by what would be considered "transphobes" I suppose, because I look like a guy, so I feel how some TERFs try way too hard to point out "obviously trans people" just hurt GNC people. But I know that's not the majority of TERFs.)

That is just trans people however. The trans "movement" (quotes bc it's not technically a movement but you get what I mean, the social atmosphere etc), which is not a person but a common ideal, has a lot of issues. My biggest issue being that it's hard to have actual conversations about it without walking on eggshells. My best friend is trans actually, and 100% accepts her sex. After all, you have to be the opposite sex to be "trans" at all. So even if I was harrasses by a trans woman, I would not think of all trans woman that way, much like how I do not demonize all females because I was harrassed by a handful.

That said - The social class of "men" (not the person or sex, but the way we have normalized socialization and the like) has many issues, and I am 100% for tackling these issues. I think we as a society must be open to talking about things even if we disagree with them or it makes us uncomfortable. Now more than ever we nees loud feminist voices. You may be just a tumblr blog, but one blog can go a long way. Even if I don't 100% agree with every post you make or radfem ideals or whatever, I am very thankful to have people who are not afraid to hold discussions and discourse. I do think the hatred for radfems is unwarranted to the degree it has reached. I wish we could all have civil discussions. So in short: keep posting and keep talking, thank you.

Heyyy! I am first of all really sorry that my answer comes so late, it's because I didn't really have the time and/or energy to read all of the asks I got, so I didn't open yours - I hope that this is not all too late of an answer :)

I guess that you are making various points here. First of all, I understand how the hatred of men can be unproductive in some ways. I agree that for many women, they don't gain anything out of fantasizing about the death of all men or reading stuff about how men suck and are evil. However, I also think that this is useful for some women. I have to say that even though I don't hate all men, this type of rhetoric awoken me out of my non-feminist slumber, and I think that this can be a helpful outlet for many women. I mean if there were any real-world harms proven from this rhetoric, I would obviously be against it, but as for now, I just think that this rhetoric can be useful for some and not so useful for others.

Like my blog. Is it productive to make fun of weirdos on the internet? Some people will probably say that this just makes them angry and depressed, but other people will find something cathartic in those posts and find their own experiences represented for the first time. And for those who find it not to be helpful to read that stuff, I would expect them not to read it

Secondly, I'm glad that the trans stuff doesn't affect you, but I have to say that it affects me (and many others). I'm politically active and have gotten so many creepy comments and abusive behaviour from entitled males who believe that they are women. Where I am politically active, analysis of male socialisation is totally absent and most politically active women are not really safe. I have also been told that I can be non-binary if I don't identify with the gender stereotypes, and I identified with that.

But I guess those weren't really your points, your point was just that those are the reasons for you not to be as active anymore. And that's fine! I obviously hope that you still believe in female empowerment and women's liberation, and you seem to. I'd almost go so far to say that some of your beliefs are still those of a radfem, but maybe you have other stuff to focus on, and that's totally cool ofc!

Also, thank you for saying that about my blog and say hello to your friend from me hahah

[alpaca-clouds]

One thing that makes me angry

CW: Rape, Violence

I have considered for a long while to talk about this. Because it relates to something I have seen a lot on tumblr, in general fandom discourse, and in regards to feminism.

And this is the general thought that goes: "SA is worse than murder!"

And I - someone who survived SA more than once - hate this sentence. It makes me angry as fuck. I wanna talk about why.

This is just a sentence that makes me angry as fuck. And I can guarantee you: nobody, absolutely NOBODY, actually believes this. And you know why I know that nobody believes this?

Simple. If the people who say this believes it, they would also agree with the following sentence: "If you rape someone, it would only be right and proper for you to kill them, so that they do not have to live with the horrible memory of surviving rape."

Because that is what that sentence says. If the experience of being raped is worse than losing one's life, it would logically follow that it would be preferable to then just be murdered in the same act. And, yeah, nobody is going to say that.

Mind you, I am absolutely aware that some SA survivors are very, very traumatized by the experience - up to being suicidal. I know even of at least one case of CSA where the survivor was fighting for the legal okay for euthanasia due to the mental issues they had developed out of their PTSD. I am not saying that this is not the case for some people. A lot is going to depend on other context, previous experiences and so on.

But you know what? I grew up with a lot of horror stories about rape. Then I got raped. Twice. Once when I was 14 (well, no, not once - technically I was groomed and raped by my then bf, who then went on to rape me several times, convincing me that it was something I was okay with), once when I was 17. And you know what was the worst experience about this? Realizing that among the trauma I already had at this point (between parental abuse, religious abuse, medical abuse and school bullying) this experience ranked fairly low in terms of traumatizing me. And because all I ever knew about this were the stories on how bad this was, I could not help but wonder: "What the hell is wrong with me?"

Frankly, I was so relieved when I read an interview with one of the survivors of the Catholic Church CSA cases, who was like: "Uhm, yeah, can we talk about the fact that the religious abuse I as a queer person suffered growing up in a very religious context was way worse than this experience?"

Again, I am not denying that for some people this will be experienced the other way around. Because trauma is something that is very, very individual.

And on some level I also understand that often this sentence comes out of a rightful anger. Mostly an anger about the fact that quite often rapists get very light sentencing, if they even ever experience legal consequences. As we all have seen, this goes even more so, if the perpetrator is an influencial figure of some sort. Be it a politician, an actor, a singer, or just some CEO. I understand that. I have the same anger - and mind you, I have that same anger, even though I am an anarchist prison abolitionist, who is actually against legal punishments as a concept. But yes, I absolutely understand the anger, when there is one of the rare cases where a case goes in front of a judge and the judge then goes: "Oh, we would not want to ruin a young man's future," before giving the guy a couple of months if anything, or going "how is a woman even supposed to rape someone?" before letting a female perpetrator go.

Also, yes: I am personally very much of the opinion that in some way the event happening when I was 17 was helped, because a friend of mine after this took two other guys, and they went to beat the guy up who did it. Like, they beat him up real bad. I will not lie with that: that kinda felt good.

Also, also, yes, I also absolutely do get the anger on how normalized rape is in our society as a form of violence. As someone moving in mostly queer and disabled groups, half of the women I know are survivors, and so are about a forth of the men. Out of the trans people I know, there is literally not a single person who has is not a survivor of at least one instance of SA. It is a societal issue, that politicians and those who had the power to change something about it will not take serious. Which is something that makes me angry, too.

STILL... How little can you value a human life? I mean this literally. If you say SA is worse than murder, you mean that someone's sexual self-determination is worth more than their life. And I am sorry, that sounds just like a very puritanical take.

Frankly, if you ever thought this, I am pretty sure this comes down more to the way you get confronted with one thing or the other. Because especially when it comes to media, murder tends to be a thing that will happen left and right. I mean, literally. Fictional movies, shows, books? Yeah, thousands are dying on either side of a conflict. Unless the character is named, it will not even register much. In real media - especially in the US? We will get breathless reporting on the newest violent crime. There is tons and tons of true crime podcasts about murder. Murder is just very normalized.

Meanwhile rape and any form of sexual violence?

In fictional media it happens to have drama happen. In real life we tend to not talk about it at all. It is something only whispered about. Something that might be used as a threat against women to control them. But other than that?

True crime tends to only talk about rape, if the perpetrator actually killed the victim later.

But again, this all cannot mean to you, that a human life is worth less than their sexual whatever.

Literally, unless we are talking some fantasy scenarios like "literally eternal suffering", I do not think there are a lot of real scenarios that are "worse than death" - at least not until the point where death actually appears or are basically not preventable anymore. With any trauma there is a chance to recover. Same with most sicknesses.

Like, the few things I would say are worth all are "being forced to live under really bad circumstances that are continuous and will very likely not improve". You know, being in a Salvatorian torture prison, being enslaved, or being in a forced marriage to someone abusive. But you know the irony? A lot of those people will still fight to survive. So I would argue, many of them will also disagree with my assessment that this might be a fate worse than death - and who am I, as someone who has not lived that, to argue with them?

[max1461]

Here's my other problem with tumblr discourse: even when I make the context/intended interpretation of a post really explicit, people ignore this context and respond to it in like... for lack of a more charitable term, a discoursebrained way.

So a while ago I made a post about some ethical intuition I had, and at the top I put a huge disclaimer which said something to the effect of "this is just an expression of my feelings, it's not meant to be a philosophically airtight position, please don't take it as such", followed by a readmore and then the actual post. Why did I do that? Because I figured that if I didn't, people would nitpick it in various technical ways that missed the basic point. Lo and behold several people still did that, and when I replied basically restating the disclaimer, one of them said "oh I didn't even see that. Well I think if you post a half-baked thought online I retain the right to nitpick it".

I guess that's true. My blog is public. But the point is that I want to use my blog for certain things and not others, right, that's what I'm attempting to do. And people seem actively resistant to my attempts to guide the discussion on my blog in certain directions, which makes blogging less enjoyable. Of course some people will always do that, that fact doesn't bother me, but it feels like the irrelevant/point-missing discourse so often overshadows the meaningful discourse that I start to feel less of a desire to put in the effort.

Like, the point of issuing that disclaimer was to say, as explicitly as I could manage, "I am trying to have a discussion about feelings and intuitions here, I am aware there might be ways these intuitions are not fully consistent, but that is not the discussion I'm trying to have". But even so explicit an attempt to specify a conversation topic does not work; the discourse machine demands a certain kind of engagement and that is the engagement every post will get no matter what.

I don't want to put the person who missed my disclaimer on blast: it's honestly an error that anyone could make and on its own it's no big deal. If said person is reading this: you didn't do anything wrong and I am not mad at you, to be 100% clear.

It's not a one-off mistake that bothers me, it's the fact that this is how discussions on here so often go that putting in the effort to discuss things productively often feels wasted.

Another example of this that... if you go through my #society tag, you will see a lot of uncertainly in my phrasing. You will see me say a lot of "it seems like we should..." and "we should find some mechanism to..." and so on and so forth. Why? Because, as I've mentioned before, I've gotten a lot out of political discourse on here. When it's good, I actually find it quite good. But it's good when it has a constructive or collaborative tone, when I am bouncing ideas or thoughts back and forth with someone. Generally I am trying to invite this kind of discourse.

Sometimes, again, I say it really explicitly. I don't have them off the top of my head, but I know there are quite a lot of #society posts where I've said something quite straightforwardly to the effect of "here are some niche social/political issues I've been contemplating, does anyone have any ideas for how to respond to them". Obviously there's a spectrum in how explicit I am about this, but even when I'm really clear, most of the responses I get are still "discoursebrained", in the sense that they seem antagonistic and generally more interested in saying "X guys are cool and Y guys are lame" than in productively engaging with a set of ideas.

Even if you disagree with my claims or my premises, there is a way to state that which adds to a conversation instead of shutting down a line of inquiry. I am always trying to invite this type of mutually-productive discussion, and I so rarely achieve it.

Over the years my methods have changed. I come from a background of like, forums for specific nerd interests. Those places are plenty contentious, full of plenty of drama and disagreement. But ultimately, I always still felt that productive discussion was valued above destructive discussion; that because we were all united in a common goal of [doing our nerdy hobby], a comment where you build on someone's idea to say something useful to others or to introduce a new insight was generally valued above one where you just said "you're wrong for such and such reasons, hah!" or even "you're right for such and such reasons".

Coming from this background, I assumed this would also be the case on tumblr, and that I would not have to put in any extra effort to invite this sort of discourse. Alas, this was not true; even long and thought-out replies from respected discoursers often just amount to "here are the guys I agree with and here are the guys I disagree with, for such and such reasons". This is lame and boring and not appealing to me.

So over the years I've tried to be more and more explicit about what types of discussion I am trying to have, I've tried to tee up the sort of interactions I want as much as possible, but it hasn't really worked.

The problem is not strictly the quality or measuredness of the responses or their tone or anything like that. These are the things most people focus on when they critique the discourse, but I think they miss the point. The problem is that most responses don't seem to be intended to advance a mutually-productive discussion, they don't build on the base of what they are responding to, they just make various assertions and statements of allegiance in the vicinity of the material they are responding to and call it a day.

Maybe this is too harsh. I'm sure I do this too. And it's not always bad. Sometimes I use someone else's post openly as a jumping off point to elaborate my own ideas (although I try to be careful about this, and also make it somewhat clear that I am doing it), and this can be productive. I do actually want to hear people's ideas. It's not any single instance of these things I'm complaining about, it's just that discoursey responses seem to drown out all other types of discussion, even when you are really clear about what type of discussion you are trying to have.

So that's my complaint.

[adhdo5]

Unrebloggable because >my singlet ass commenting on this discourse when no one asked but is it just me or is sysmedicalism So epistemologically arrogant. Like . Not to be this way but what is "the self." When you say an individual contiguous sense of personhood what do you actually mean what measurable metric are you referring to. I'm not even saying the notion is nothing given that I would say that I am a contiguous whole and Not disparate parts, the amount of people I am is less than or equal to one, but I really REALLY am not convinced that identifying where the line is between a self identity and an alter ego/persona and an RP character and an imaginary friend and a separate entity is something that is within the capacity of technical literature in a notoriously compromised field's examination of a notoriously understudied condition in the context of a notoriously tough philosophical question yk? And drawing a distinction between traumagenic and/or disordered plurality vs more general plurality certainly makes sense given the whole different manifestations and support needs things but I think that frankly a world where anyone who says "hey I'm multiple guys" is immediately also necessarily saying "hey I have horrible childhood trauma" is surely not actually the best outcome for anybody... and like I'm sympathetic to the notion of like trivializing nonsense I'm not trying 2 be like Actually disordered/traumagenic plurality is Normal and exactly the same as someone who casually lives more comfortably as multiple people but also the human*** experience is infinitely varied and quantifying it is fundamentally impossible and trying to draw a harsh distinction between "THIS is the normal brain and THIS is the Disordered Brain" is futile + unduly separates us + is just what stigmatization is... idk this all is nonsense from a singlet p-zombie hivemind unperson with 10 names and a rememberance of transmedicalism and ace discourse real people are philosophically entitled to ignore me

[weafurry]

Welcome to our blog!!

☆COMMISSIONS ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED☆

Hi! We're Weafurry but you can just call us Meadow! We're a collectively autistic and demiromantic traumagenic (osdd) system of (at the time of writing) 16 with a whole load of other issues. Most of us use I/we interchangeably

feel free to ask for our discord or simply plural any time!

We use the term headmates. Alters feels too medical, and parts just isnt accurate to our experience, Please don't use them to refer to us. Other terms you can ask

BYF: We are bodily 18 and will occasionally reblog posts with sexual jokes/general mentions of sex. However anything properly suggestive/nsfw will go on our side blog @the-meadow-after-dark . Also we use the f slur in a reclaiming way when referring to ourselves and friends who are ok with it, you're allowed to not like that but I recommend against following as we will not tag it.

We try to add alt text to our images but more often then not writing it out takes extra spoons that we just don't have. So we apologize if it's inconsistent what posts of ours have alt text and what don't.

If you can please tag any rain world fandom drama/discourse, the r slur, and food recalls/ things of that nature related to food with Meadow don't look

Headmate intros below!

These are formatted with our tags, and then info about us

Hosts!

Due to how our system works we cycle between multiple different hosts who front most frequently.

🌺// Wea - Vi/vir she/it/they || Haii! I'm Wea, I also go by May. I'm our systems main host and the one writing all this! Outside intense fixations I'm probably who you'll see the most. We used to think I was the core before realizing that's not quite how our system works and thus we don't have one. I'm basically who our brain defaults to. I've probably been here the longest out of anyone. THE SHE/HER IN MY PRONOUNS IS NOT IN A GIRL WAY

✨// Pebbles - He/they || [technically a subsystem of 4, less seperate then the rest of is though] Hi, I'm Pebbles I also go by any variation on Saikarie, I'm a Pebbles rain world fictive as you could probably guess. I'm typically the main fronter during our rain world fixations. Transmasc in a guy way but not a binary way. Different font/flavor of guy. I have my own sideblog [ @errat1cpulse ]

🔲// Siffrin - it/he/they || Hii! I'm Siffrin as you can probably guess I mostly show up during our ISAT fixations. I tend to be way more forgetful then the others so try to be patient pleasee!

Other Headmates!

🤍// Wyrm - He/they || [our pale king fictive, who quote "cant be bothered to write it right now" (understandable we're writing this during a chronic fatigue episode) -🌺 ]

🎉// poob - it/they/he/neos | hiyaa! Im poob! Partynoob Regretevator :) idk what to say here!

We'll add bios to this as the others front! For now l'll be adding basic information, for those of us I didn't get around to they will have "BIO TBA" In place of it.

💜// Innocence - it/she/all || [ Unparalleled innocence from rain world fictive. mainly shows up when we're working]

🌹// Leshy - He/it/Xe/they || [ Leshy from Cult of the lamb fictive. Our only middle! (he's like 15) and an absolute chaos gremlin]

💫// Stella - It/she/they || [Also goes by loop! as you can guess a loop Isat fictive. it's gender as she put it is "None pizza left beef", Super motherly. Also one of the few of us to have an age seperate from the body (she's 20) ]

✖️// Vanta - He/it || hi im vanta . i hold all our ratred and hage ig. /hj anyways yea hi. im like. one of the only not fictive people in here. i used to not be allowed to front alone but ig i got my Shit��� together. absolutely no they/them please. in the headspace im literally just a shape shifting black blob of void. hence where the name came from (vantablack)

🧶// Isa - He/him || BIO TBA

🌕// Moon - She/her || BIO TBA

✒️// Odile - She/they/no pronouns || BIO TBA

🪷// Riv - They/it/she/💧/🐋/🌸/🪷 || BIO TBA

🧡// Fanta - it/its || BIO TBA

🪶// Eira - they/she/🪶/Fae || BIO TBA

🌤// Qibli - They/he || BIO TBA

✉️// Spears - They/it || BIO TBA

🕷// Hornet - She/it || BIO TBA

[tobiasdrake]

Are you officially gone from TV Tropes? Haven't seen you on any of the forum threads for a while now.

I pop in from time to time to lurk on some threads, but I'm not actively following things there the way I used to. I've been focusing a lot on Tumblr lately.

But I've always had less online time in general lately, as these last couple months have involved a substantial amount of adulting.

I'm finding I enjoy the format of Tumblr a lot better than internet forums. There's less pressure to respond to people here. I can shoot opinions out into the wild and people can take or leave them as they will, and then everyone just moves on.

In a forum, everybody's in one room vying to duke it out with whoever spoke last. Everything has to be such a debate. Everybody's always competing to prove how smart they are and how right their position on whether Batman can beat up Superman is.

And I just. I don't have the mental space for that anymore. I haven't for years. I'm in my late thirties now; I don't want to fistfight someone in the Denny's parking lot over Spider-Man movies.

And I'm also just so tired of long, drawn-out arguments with people who clearly aren't reading what I'm saying, and just respond to the general idea of my point that they've heard from others. Then make me out to be the bad guy because they've made it into an argument and dragged it out for pages on end.

"Ugggh, there goes Drake answering questions and clarifying misinterpretations of what he was saying again. Why does he always have to drone on and on about this every time people keep pushing the topic back onto him? Why won't he just drop the topic we keep responding to him about?"

TvTropes is an echo chamber governed by mob consensus. They like to say that they're just... pro-positivity towards media. "We are a website for celebrating media," is the pitch. Threads that exist purely to complain about a piece of media are forbidden and the general belief is that if a fan and a critic are arguing, the critic is always wrong.

But that's a lie, because the forum has plenty of complaining threads. The Sonyverse thread exists purely so everyone can shit on the Sonyverse and talk about how dumb Sony is for ever thinking these films could work. And also conspiracy theories about Venom's success being fake.

In actuality, TvTropes is governed by mob rule. The community has an opinion consensus about a piece of media, and if you disagree with the consensus then you're wrong. You're not supposed to talk shit about the MCU in the MCU thread but you're also not supposed to defend the Sonyverse in the Sonyverse thread, and either of these positions will incite the furious mob. It's an echo chamber.

For a long time now, it's become my policy on TvTropes to just say my piece and then fuck off and not respond to whoever gets uppity about it. Just fire off an opinion and then bail. Because I don't want to fistfight you in the Denny's parking lot, and if I actually respond to questions being asked then I put a target on my back.

And that's just. Not any fun for me. I didn't like the movie. Seven pages of screeching at me about it isn't going to make me like the movie. That's kind of the thing about media discourse? Even if you have the facts on your side, you're never going to change someone's mind by vanquishing them in the Arena of Logic.

No one has ever gone, "Oh, you're right, Black Widow's death technically does not qualify as Women in Refrigerators because she had agency in it. The scene is therefore good now. My qualms have been quelled and I will now defend this movie with my life." At the end of the day, we're just using words to describe how the thing made us feel. You might outmaneuver my words in a clash of verbal blades. But my feelings live on. You cannot slay them in semantic jousting.

And I've long given up on trying.

This is where Debate Bros will say "Well, my goal isn't to convince YOU but to convince ALL OF THE PEOPLE WATCHING US," as if sharing opinions on whether Batman can beat up Superman carries the same cultural gravitas as a Presidential Debate.

I use media discourse the way other people use fanfic. To express the feelings and ideas that are burning in my brain and need an outlet, need to go somewhere. On TvTropes, that always has to turn into a fight, because everyone in a forum environment has to have opinions about everyone else's opinions and we're all expected to civilly scream at each other until the mob consensus has been formed and the Official TvTropes Opinion is reached.

But on Tumblr, I can just throw my opinions out into the wild. And if people like them, they'll get Notes and maybe even start doing numbers. And if people don't, then they'll just be left to the void of forgotten statements. Either way, I can move on with my life after saying it, you can move on with your life after reading it or not read it at all, and we can all just go do something else.

That's basically how I try to use TvT these days, but on Tumblr that's actually the culture. It's what's expected. And so I find myself drawn more and more to the calming void of Tumblr over the combative civility of TvTropes.

[animentality]

Did they get a postive response from adding those Gortash lines? I thought a bunch of people hateing on it instead? Also what if they removed the lines to change them a go a diffrent direction. I'm sorry. I have a lot of worry they wont do something I agee with.

The overwhelming reaction was positive. Durgetash artists went on Twitter to celebrate, and the small but passionate fans of the ship went nuclear here and on Twitter, and helped BG3 trend, yada yada, tale as old as time.

Most people don't care about Durgetash or Gortash. The majority of people you hear from would be the people who like both of those things. It's also a small ship.

The haters of that ship are even smaller in comparison, because the hand that reaches out will always touch more than the hand clenched into a fist.

And the only "legitimate" complainers, who don't just dislike the ship on principle, are the whiners who keep insisting their durges are lesbians, and how dare Larian "force" them into a relationship with a man - which is literally not what Larian did.

No one bitches about how Gale's ORIGIN completely precludes him from being gay.

I see no reason why you can't similarly have Durge's ORIGIN make them attracted to men. Or, you know. Enver is special.

Oh. And also. It's so fucking platonic, if you want it to be. Stop being stupid and just say you don't like Durgetash. It's as easy as that.

Stop using "lesbophobic" as a handy label for your self righteous soapbox. You just don't like the ship, and that's fine. It's FINE. But acting like Durgetash is lesbophobic - oh, go play a Tav.

And also, Astarion and Gale and Wyll better not flirt with you in game, even though you can tell them to fuck off, or else they're lesbophobic too.

That's the only discourse that gained traction on Twitter. As far as I know.

If Larian had made Gale wear blackface or something, and people got pissed, then yeah. They'd back up on that, and get rid of it pronto.

But Durgetash???

Aside from the general evil antics, they're not that fucking controversial of a ship.

Most people don't even PLAY the Dark Urge.

I don't know how to stress this any other way...

People act like Durgetashers are loud - we're honestly not that loud.

Astarion fans are far louder, and yet, the most romanced companion is SHADOWHEART and then Laezel and KARLACH.

He's not even in the top 3. And yet, he dominates the content on Twitter and Tumblr... he's definitely more popular than Gortash or the Dark Urge or Durgetash together...but his fans are still technically the damn minority.

So Durgetash in comparison to Starries???

Infinitesimal.

And Durgetash haters?

Would be even smaller.

So what I'm saying is...

I'm kind of tired of answering asks about this.

I don't KNOW for certain whether or not this is Larian backing up or walking forward, and while I don't believe they'd walk back on this, and especially not for a handful of people, it kind of annoys me to even think about things outside of my control.

now if Larian makes a big grand statement and says actually we totally rescind something WE WROTE AND ADDED TO THE GAME because some people got mad...then I'll call them cucks, and complain.

But as of right now?

As far as I know personally, and assume in my heart... it's neutral.

The lines are probably just bugged. Also, not ALL of them are bugged either, so.

Please stop freaking out, guys.

I am the world's biggest resident durgetash freak, and I'm shrugging at this, and just saying it's a bug.

Don't let it bother you. It's out of your control, regardless.

(And I stress again - if we find out they're legitimately backing away from something they did...they have the spine of a ham sandwich. But until we know that for sure, I won't condemn them for this, because as far as we know, it is legitimately an accident.)

[veliseraptor]

top 5 fictional villains

oh man how am I supposed to choose from my entire villain warehouse. let's see.

1. Xue Yang. I mean, if this wasn't obvious from my [gestures] whole blog. But boy did I fall hard from pretty much scene one of my first watch of The Untamed, and then never looked back from there. He's just! What a guy. An icon. I love him so much. Fucks up his own life irreversibly and doesn't even realize he's doing it until too late. Whoops.

2. Maeglin. #my trash son. I waffled between putting him and Celegorm on this list (I could've done both, but, well, I felt like I should pick one per canon) and decided to go with Maeglin because he's arguably worse? Though I guess it probably depends on your metric. (I'm not really interested in arguing on that one, I don't particularly care, they're both my beloveds and there's no changing that at this point.) Seriously fucked up childhood that's got to fuck some things up in one's head to begin with, and then making some terrible choices later on that just go rapidly downhill, and again, tragedy of condemning oneself but also how doomed was he from the beginning (pretty doomed).

3. Vegas Theerapanyakul. I kind of hesitated about putting him on here because it feels sort of weird to call him a "villain" but like. He did sexually assault the protagonist in an early episode and threaten to kill him later on, so, like. Even if the story turns around and gives him a happy ending (iconic) I feel like he counts. Disaster of a man, kind of an awful person ("kind of?", you say, and okay, that might be so), and it's very sexy of him. Pete thinks so too, apparently.

4. Shen Jiu. Yest all right I know he's technically Sir Not Appearing In This Book but he is technically the titular scum villain so I'm counting him. Awful man. Miserable history, miserable story. I'm irresistibly drawn to tragedies created by characters themselves and that's what this guy's got going on.

5. Moridin/Ishamael/Elan Morin Tedronai. We! Love! A nihilistic villain just craving the end of everything! Of tenuous sanity and an abiding obsession with the protagonist! Anyway I didn't have a lot of feelings about this guy the first couple times I read Wheel of Time but then on my second to latest reread he came roaring out in front and plop, in the villain warehouse he goes.

thought about including He Xuan but he only sort of feels like he counts as a villain somehow; honorable mentions here go to Celegorm (disney prince murderer), Jun Wu (king of creating a toxic work environment), Clytemnestra (queen of my heart), Azula (since I just mentioned her), Jin Guangyao (generator of infinite discourse) and Jinx. I feel like I'm forgetting folks here. but that happens, I suppose.

and this is not including villains who are just so much fun for me to watch, who live in a slightly separate corner of my brain but are beloved of me nonetheless.

[vro0m]

not to strum up discourse this fine sunday evening😂 but this has been irking me a bit lol i don’t understand this universal agreement that max rather than lewis will do well in other motorsports. don’t get me wrong i get it, the sim racing allows you to develop various skillset that can work in other disciplines of motorsports but you don’t just score a podium in every single season you’ve competed in, win a race in every version of car you’ve ever competed in, and if we’re being honest less preparation cuz he didn’t have the best kart/karting prep like other wealthy drivers up until mclaren decided to sponsor him and he got a podium right from his first race. (this may end up being long please bear with me😂)

(you could say well lewis didn’t gel with ground effect cars(hasn’t he?? or he hasn’t gelled with mercedes cars in the era) but yaa okay but with a generation of cars he doesn’t like he’s won 2 races, came 3rd overall last year behind the most dominant car in f1 history and 2022 was kind of an outlier; post ad21, mental side of not having a competitive car from the jump, whatever maybe i’ll give you that lmao)

this is a pointless argument of course😂 but like we’ve seen lewis on two wheels, we’ve seen him in a nascar, we’ve seen him in a fighter jet?? i can’t remember but he said he’s getting a piloting license or something, we’ve seen him with guns on his technically first try, i genuinely can’t believe people really think if he doesn’t put in the hours in other versions of motorsports he wouldn’t be good??😂 max lives and breathes racing but the more i talk about it the more i think it reinforces this quite frankly racist narrative that lewis isn’t as committed to racing and he just shows up with his natural talent in f1 and does the job. maybe i’ve gone on a tangent now but NOBODY IS JUST BORN TO RACE ONLY F1 CARS😂 sorry… my point is the fact that lewis doesn’t like or doesn’t talk about other motorsports doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be good at them. i find it hard to believe that people think someone who’s put in this much dedication and sacrifices into a sport and then excelled is not considered as one who can replicate it in another less or more version of the same sport.

(side note; it’s a less debatable conversation that charles leclerc is probably the fastest guy over a lap but you need to be not only be versatile but also adaptable and consistent to win multiple grand prix and a championship and then multiple championships so why??? WHYY??? do people think the guy with the most wins and championships can’t replicate this skill in other motorsports)

(and if we’re being serious about these hypotheticals based on nothing, the most versatile motorsport person is probably valentino rossi)

No offense but you're right it is a pointless argument. Lewis hasn't expressed interest in other series so genuinely who cares if he'd be good at something he's apparently not gonna do or not?

[spraxinoscope]

About me

I mostly just post jokes but there's other things here that I'm interested in. I'm reading a lot of discourse on tumblr but i just lurk that stuff so it doesn't show up on my blog. But now I'm more serious about getting to know mutuals, so I want to make myself a little more legible.

I am: some guy, 34, in socal.

I am above-average paranoid about keeping my irl/professional/internet lives separate, so I'm not gonna talk about my job on here. If my job was cool i'd brag about it. but it isn't so i don't.

Interested in leftist/socialist/antifascist politics and organizing.

Grew up in a majority white evangelical small town in a red state, and that experience informs my politics. Fuck christian dominionism. i'm an edgy internet atheist at heart, but i do not have the redditor soul, so i have to wander elsewhere.

Edgy internet atheism brought me to lesswrong in the early 10s, and that brought me here via Ozy, but a lot of core rationalist spaces are way, way too racist for me to want to hang out there. over the last 15 years i've found a slice of the rat adjacency that appeals to me. but, however carefully i select the blogs i follow, i'm still being exposed to tendrils of slate star codexian thought that pisses me off.

I have technically been on tumblr since 2012! but I wasn't paying much attention for most of that time. I made this account in 2020.

some larger politics blogs i like plus a rough percentage of how often i agree with them:

argumate 80% (do not disagree with his takes on chinese domestic policy, just don't really follow)

tanadrin 70%

quoms >90%

transgenderer ~80%

afloweroutofstone 70%

honorable mention: the former triviallytrue 95% but that last 5% was terrible. never figured out what was up with him.

Like quoms, i am a left unity guy; i care about antifascist/anti-imperialist coalition-building. I would not call myself a marxist or an anarchist but i am interested in those strains of thought. I think they're important and meaningful. In a better world I'd call myself a socialist, but what I am in reality is a subject of empire and it sucks.

i do not have the ratsphere trait of liking argument for its own sake, or the trait of seeking earnest dialogue with right-wingers on here. i don't believe that accomplishes anything worthwhile.

am i a doomer? i am a pessimist about some things, but i promise i am not going to put unfiltered expressions of grief or despair on your dash. It's bad out there but there's important work to do, and that provides a sense of purpose that negates feelings of hopelessness. I think a vital part of forming connections is having things to feel good about and sharing those good feelings with other people, even in dark times, but we can't ignore the dark times either. It's hard to find that balance but it's possible. This is all to say that I still enjoy talking about frivolous nerd shit with friends.

general interests:

science fiction, classic anime, bad movies, crime, printing presses

media interests:

(some of these are my real favorites, and some of these are more like things I'm a fan of, as in, I'm more likely to put fan content from these things on your dash. some are both! all of them are things I'd love to talk to people about)

books:

Seth Dickinson

Greg Egan

Charles Stross and Adrian Tchaikovsky, sometimes

Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams

The Expanse

Frankenstein

nonfiction about

cults

disasters

submarines

narcotraffic

burglary

gambling (Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schüll is one of my very favorite books)

theory I've read at least a little bit of and liked:

Judith Butler

Fanon

Popper

Gramsci

Deleuze

tv:

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, my favorite show ever not even close.

classic tokusatsu. Ultraseven, Kamen Rider Black, Jetman

Gundam

Better Call Saul

i keep a mostly-up-to-date anime log with reviews here: anilist.co/user/spraxinoscope/

movies:

MST3K

dadcore crime thrillers, especially Michael Mann

games:

Metal Gear

Finals Fantasy 7-13

Armored Core 6 and Sekiro

neo XCOM

Kerbal

music:

00s electronica

Gustavo Cerati

Yoko Kanno soundtracks

neo-y2k aesthetic experimentation

grouptherapy.

internet:

the Abnormal Mapping / Ranged Touch / Friends at the Table podcast sphere

holly hollowtones

the Normal for Girls collective https://www.youtube.com/@lynnedrum

Homestuck

maybe still Wildbow a little bit

other interests:

gunpla

video editing

sketchin'

ridin' trains

for mutuals:

If we are mutuals and we never interact that is fine, but in general I would like to make connections that will outlast this website! I would be happy to give any mutuals an alternate way to reach me! I am often hanging out on Discord on sunday afternoons. dm me about it.

I only follow blogs I really like. So even if I don't interact with your posts much, if I follow you, you can assume I'm a fan of your whole deal.

[bimdraws]

The issue with being "exact" with language is that language itself isn't exact, unless you speak entirely in scientific language which most of us can't or don't use in general conversation.

I am a gay man(ish), I am attracted to men, but some non-binary people are transmasc, and some trans women don't pursue physical transitions. If I'm attracted in any way to either of those, does that mean I am invalidating their gender by calling myself gay? Should I call myself bisexual/m-spec? Am I really attracted to men at all or just arbitrary social markers of manhood and/or masculinity?

Changing my label doesn't really work for me. The circumstances in which I would need to call myself m-spec are maybe 2% compared with the rest of my dating experience, and not once has it been a concern to the people I date because we're adults who understand it's none of our business what another person calls themselves.

I argue you don't have to change your labels in order to validate other people. Our use of language is generally more practical than it is technical and it's also personal. I see you as the gender you tell me, I'll use your prefered pronouns, I am in constant community with trans people and even started transitioning hormonally myself, I KNOW trans people are the gender we say we are. But attraction is an individual experience, sometimes exceptions happen, sometimes it changes, and I don't see why you would have to change an everyday label in order to account for potential exceptions or for the one woman you dated ever (it's also fine if you do btw).

My experience of sexuality is unique, and so is everyone else's, which is why I'm very much against trying to tell other people what they are. It's pushing a label on people who don't have a real use for it based on YOUR experience of sexuality, not mine.

Again, it's fine to be exact if that works for you, but it doesn't do the job for everyone. If I needed to be exact, I'd say I'm m-spec gay, uranic, homoflexible, which would still be an issue for a lot of people who don´t like microlabels and would require me to give little essays everytime I explain my sexuality, and if I said I was bisexual, I'd be invalidated by everyone who sees me dating men 99% of the time. I can't win naming myself after OTHER people's opinions on sexuality, so fuck it. I am a gay man, I am also non-binary, and that's the label I'm sticking with 'till I feel differently.

There's never gonna be a way of describing sexuality that works for every single person because language is limited like that, and that's is why we should attempt listening to people with unconventional labels instead of acting like our community isn't built on creating language for ourselves and dismantling prescriptive language.

An issue that is brought up is that if I'm not 100% closed off to people with even slightly different genders to binary male I should call myself bisexual, because if not I'm then opening a door for people to start pursuing others who are 100% closed off, that it's MY fault if a guy pursues a lesbian because he thinks he can "convince her" as if our niche, inside community discourse affected how straight people perceive us... as if the primary issue with that wasn't a violation of consent instead of the critical exercise of language I'm engaging in within my community.

TLDR: don't go around telling people what labels they should use because gender and sexuality are too complex to boil down to simple terminology that fits every single person.