archaalen

[archaalen]

The more I think on it, and I know this greatly differs from what people have come to expect in recent years, but to me a TTRPG with no adventure modules is like booting up a video game and finding out the devs didn’t make any levels. Like I wanted to play this but I guess we’ll have to wait until someone in the group, who may have never played the game before, spends a not-insignificant amount of their free time in the level-editor throwing something together for us to play.

[archaalen]

[archaalen]

Her appointment last week was part of a larger government reshuffle by Zelensky, who reassigned the previous prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, to the role of defense minister. In her new role, Svyrydenko will be tasked with rehabilitating the economy, boosting the domestic production of weapons, and strengthening Ukraine’s armed forces, in part by securing financing from allies and the International Monetary Fund. One of her first actions as prime minister was to advance talks with the United States about a major potential investment in Ukraine’s drone industry.

Nevertheless, and despite her strong résumé, Svyrydenko will have to contend with broad reservations in Ukraine about female leadership. According to a 2020 study conducted by the research group Rating, Ukrainians are more likely to prefer male political executives. Sometimes bad actors take advantage of this trust gap. Katerina Sergatskova, the executive director of the 2402 Foundation, which supports and trains Ukrainian journalists, has seen many Ukrainian women in public life become the target of harassment. “It is political sexism. The attacks are well-organized campaigns,” Sergatskova told me. She has experienced such a campaign herself, which included death threats that forced her to stay out of Ukraine for a time.

Sergatskova noted that many in Ukraine are comparing Svyrydenko to the country’s first female prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who took office in 2005 and faced several corruption charges. One case resulted in a criminal conviction against her and two and a half years in prison, which the U.S. condemned as politically motivated. After the 2014 revolution, which ousted Ukraine’s pro-Russian regime, the supreme court overruled Tymoshenko’s conviction and ordered her release. Nevertheless, a large majority of the Ukrainian public still don’t trust her.

Zelensky has fought against Ukraine’s abiding suspicion of female politicians by promoting a new generation of them into leadership positions. In addition to picking Svyrydenko as prime minister, he also announced the appointment of Olha Stefanishyna as Ukraine’s new special representative to the United States. The approach sets him apart from Vladimir Putin. Valentina Matviyenko, one of two women who serve on the Russian president’s permanent security council, put on a Barbie-pink suit last year and derided feminism as “an anti-male, anti-traditional-values movement.” Meanwhile, Russia bans and prosecutes feminist groups, and Putin tells Russian women to have “minimum two children.”

Men Are Already Writing Off Ukraine’s New Prime Minister: Yulia Svyrydenko has heard the same sexist critiques as nearly all of Eastern Europe’s female leaders.

[archaalen]

I am both.

[archaalen]

odysseus absolutely does present a threat to penelope if he perceives her as at all unfaithful, and i feel the unfairness of this, and i think people tend to undersell how much tension at least potentially exists between odysseus and penelope. but i'm also like. his reaction, all speculation aside, his actual reaction in the odyssey to her flirting with the suitors is delight, because he immediately ascertains that she is running a con. sorry that they're so in-sync in spite of the forces that try to drive a wedge between them, including their own misgiving hearts. sorry that they invented homophrosyne ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[archaalen]

looks like the government is doing something about cults

[archaalen]

As a side note related to your post about Mulan, I just realized that "let's get down to business to defeat the Huns" could work just as well in a musical set during the First World War

*Lee Ermey voice* did they send me daughters when I asked for sons??

[archaalen]

MY BOT ART BEATING THE ALLEGATIONS ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!

IT DIDNT MESS WITH THE HAULER BOT IN AC AFTER ALL IT DODNT EVEN KNOW HOW TO DO THAT BEFORE SECUNIT

MY BOT IS OFFICIALLY INNOCENT!!!

[archaalen]

why my clothing isn’t “affordable.” trust me, if i could price it cheaper, i would. unfortunately i am not independently wealthy so all i can do is design and sell high quality garments that are sewn to last with certified ethical labor and price them as affordably as im able to. i know my clothes are still not in everyone’s budgets and i know that sucks, especially for plus size people who have so few options, but i believe the people who make our clothes deserve compassion, safety and proper compensation.

[archaalen]

“Authors should not be ALLOWED to write about–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“This book should be taken off of shelves for featuring–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“Schools shouldn’t teach this book in class because–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“Nobody actually likes or wants to read classics because they’re–” you are an anti-intellectual and an idiot

“I only read YA fantasy books because every classic novel or work of literary fiction is problematic and features–” you are an anti-intellectual and you are robbing yourself of the full richness of the human experience.

[archaalen]

Mastercard and visa have reported to a couple news outlets that they are currently being swamped with calls and complaints. Keep up the pressure and try to (politely) insist that you leave a complaint via phone instead of letting the rep direct you to emails. It's way easier to be overwhelmed by a much smaller number of calls so each one counts for a bit more!

[archaalen]

A friend of mine from around here who is Very Christian and has never had a Jewish friend before was asking me some stuff about antisemitism today, and it made me realize that the ways people talk about various types of bigotry and racism are so designed to stump people about the nature and purpose of systems of oppression. "Why do people hate the jews so much?" is such a common refrain and while there have been many books and articles written pulling apart all the important contextual and historical things that can help people understand antisemitism SPECIFICALLY, what I ended up saying to my friend was this:

"Something to understand about antisemitism is it isnt just ideological. The expulsion of jews from various countries was very often a method of "legally" seizing their wealth when the church needed money. It has been historically an incredibly convenient source of both a group of people to blame and also an easy way to just... Be able to steal from people, lmao. It has served very concrete material purposes for churches and governments throughout history. Sometimes you have to approach asking those questions from a different angle because it often isnt about the hatred so much as it is about ... Redirecting energy and attention, right, like upholding structures that benefit those in power. The hatred is convenient because it allows those in power to take actions that would not be tolerated if the group in question were not considered to be Exceptional in their inhumanity. Like the undocumented immigrants now, asking "why do they hate the immigrants so much" isnt always a productive avenue of thought because the hatred is usually just... Useful. Rather it is more helpful to ask "Who does it benefit for these people to be treated this way" -> "what do they need to make the general public believe about that group of people in order to justify this treatment". I think sometimes we are made to think hatred of jews is special and rooted in something different than other hatred... It's not. I mean all types of racism etc are unique. But it very much is about justifying actions that benefit a ruling class in all instances, imo."

And she like totally got it!!! She was like "OH I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT LIKE THAT BUT THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE THANK YOU" I am very proud of myself lol :')

[archaalen]

Damn, missed it again

[archaalen]

Medical misogyny is. Fucking unreal.

For years, my sister has been having these problems that every doctor she's seen has claimed are 'panic attacks due to your anxiety'. The symptoms have been serious and frightening enough that they felt they had to do SOMETHING, so for more than twelve years they have put her on psych med after psych med, sent her to what felt like every variety of therapy out there, suggested fucking- calming aromatherapy sachets. Experimental meds! They tried her out on stuff that they're like 'We have yet to see how patients under sixteen react to this, but it could potentially help you, so let's try, shall we?' And when things inevitably went badly, she said that months later, she'd see advertisements for the meds on tv suddenly listing the side effects she'd gone to the ER for. The ones that the doctors had apparently never seen before.

Years of medication. Spent all of high school alternating between fuzzy thoughts, sleepingwalking through life like a zombie and having intense bad-reaction-to-medication breakdowns. Her classmates would be angry at her for things that she literally could not remember because some of the things the doctors gave her would just erase chunks of time. Over a decade of therapy. Nothing has EVER worked. No matter what they gave her, she just kept having these strange and terrifying episodes, complete with intense, uncontrollable physical reactions that they insisted stemmed from her anxiety, and that would stop when they finally found the right psych med, or when she just tried hard enough in therapy.

...and it turns out, this whole time she had an untreated seizure disorder.

They never. In all the time she's asked for help. Bothered to check if it was a physical problem. Because they saw 'female' and heard 'anxiety' and decided it was all in her head.

I am just. At a loss for words.

[archaalen]

It’s okay to have fantasies that you would never want to do in reality. It’s okay to have fantasies that you don’t want to do with other people. It’s okay to try things in real life and decide you only like them in fantasy. It’s okay to only like certain things in certain contexts. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. You are not any less valid in your kinks if you enjoy the idea of them more than the reality.

[archaalen]

Sometimes I have to remind my dad that he’s a master furniture maker and most people do not possess encyclopedic knowledge of European and American furniture styles and the history of wood glue

[archaalen]

look. look at this beautiful sword meme. i’m going to cry