#Depends on if the website survives the year

[moongothic]

The idea of my work getting scraped for AI garbage is nasty but I do have to remind myself that my work is mediocre anime shit at best that nobody in their right mind would want to recreate/copy so that's slightly comforting lmao

And Glazing the shit out of my work to poison those data sets would be quite fun too ngl

(But yeah the most frustrating part would be knowing that even if I started Glazing anything new I posted, even if I deleted all my old work, every single reblog would still exist and be out of my control)

[ladyyatexel]

Friends, Romans, Tumblrites, lend me your reblogs.

I'm Xel and I live in a society! I think there's a solid chance you do also! So you may relate to the profoundly crappy thing that happened to me and that I once again need a community assist.

I lost a temporary job that was supposed to turn into a permanent job in June because no one there felt safe enough to retire. Only two of us in the apartment were under 50. One of the crew was over 70. Three were chronically ill/disabled. No one felt safe enough to leave in order for me to stay, so I was trained for basically 6 months for nothing.

I have survived on savings from that job until this point, but I'm at the point where I cannot pay rent. I'm looking into getting help from sources more local to me but the internet has always felt like people who cared about me more than the people I share DNA with, really.

Many of the social services that I was signed up for expired the day that I was supposed to be told that I would be a permanent hire, and since that didn't go down, now I have to start it all again from the beginning, and there are gaps in my security net.

I tell you all of that just to say that I am actually trying to do things, I'm not here to just beg and coast along on some sort of lavish lifestyle where I, uh. Keep living in this dodgy apartment with my cat.

I don't want to bore you with an itemized list, but like 2,000 US dollars would get me through September and October without being worried about it like every 3 minutes. My rent is 700 and change, if you would like to know that. So I'm looking for like September and October rent and money to renew my driver's license, pay a few utility bills, buy a bag of cat food, and refill my medications.

If you have the notion to toss help at an internet pal or the extended reblogged acquaintance of an Internet pal, as is more likely the case, probably, that would be super rad of you.

I'm an artist! You could get things with images on them from me! I sell buttons, prints, and commissioned illustrations if that's your thing. My commissions are going a bit slow as of late - I only recovered from being not really able to walk like 2 months ago, and so I'm doing a lot of catch up like everywhere else in my whole life and trying not to spend too much time at a desk since it aggravates the spine thing that was the problem in the first place.

To be honest, it would be a greater help to me to just receive some Aid rather than full-on commissions, but I completely understand feeling fishy about people getting something for nothing and also feeling bad for being a charity case on the internet, so I'm not opposed! If you want to chat about that, I have a commissions post on the side or top of my blog depending on where you're looking at this!

Ko-fi contains my buttons and is a good place to toss digital dead American presidents if that suits you. I will get hit by some PayPal fees in this process but, I'm willing to call that a call for help on the internet tax.

I promise I'm a real person and not a bot who has made up a cat and is pretending to have interests. My blog has been here since 2010! I've met people on this website in person and everything. I've had embarrassing obsessions no bot would bother coming up with. Speaking of:

Similarly to times before, I would like to be able to do something in order to feel like I have earned some kind of support, and as of my birthday last week I have resolved to try very hard in the next year to conquer my fear and absolute mortification about many of the things I make, so I will once again go digging into my archives for things I can post for you to enjoy as thanks and tribute! I also have a poll running right now to see what kind of buttons people want!

Thanks for taking a look! Be nice out there, take care of your spines!

[theresattrpgforthat]

hello! I've played the fallout ttrpg (the one they had to pull the rights from when it was pretty much done so they called it Exodus instead), I wish it didn't suck so bad! Is there any system I could borrow that would fit with Fallout's setting? I love the world in itself, but Exodus was rushed and published half-baked

THEME: Fallout

Hello friend, I have quite a few games for you to check out today! Some of them are direct homages, while others simply just have elements that might remind you of the video game.

Rebels of the Outlaw Wastes, by Nerdy Pup Games.

Play misfit outlaws fighting against the authoritarian Powers That Be in a hyper-saturated, film-grained, retro dystopia. Save the future with the power of friendship, whoopass, and explosions! Features sticker-based character advancement, effortless cinematic vehicle action, and player-driven Ride-or-Die system usings d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s, and d12s.

This game is a bit more colourful and punk-rock, and a little less morally grey than some of the more popular Fallout games. The designer cites some pretty colourful inspirations, such as FLCL and Six-String Samurai, but also concedes that you can make the tone fit that of Borderlands, Fallout, and Mad Max. It depends on how you build your world - what tech was there before? What kinds of weirdness persists? What beliefs have survived?

You’ll make skill rolls that can be boosted by gear or your personal style, with anything above a 4 granting you a success, with bonuses for rolling even higher at an 8 or a 12. Badges are the representations of character growth, tied to the skills that you choose to improve, somewhat like how concentrating on certain skills in Fallout gives you access to perks. If you want a stripped-down basic idea of the rules for this game, the designer has a Pay-what-you-want playtest that you can download for free, just to dip your toes in the water.

Earth: After Death, by Hammer City Games.

Boasting deep and crunchy mechanics reminiscent of the golden age of 90s TTRPGs, Earth, After Death focuses on OSR-style gaming, dungeon and hex crawling, fast-paced combat, high lethality, and a unique and fascinating setting to explore.

There’s plenty to do: kill mutants, explore ancient ruins, get lethal radiation poisoning, find a gun that has infinite ammunition, use psionic powers to blow up peoples heads, replace your legs with tank treads, and more!

This is a chunky, old-school style game that takes care to mention that your level-up system is just like the advancement system in Fallout games. You’ll be dealing with mutations, ghost machines, bartering for gear, and hex-crawling through dangerous wastelands. The character sheets point to a lot of moving pieces, so if you like wrangling together a character that does exactly what you want them to do, you’re going to have a lot to play with here. It looks like mutation is also a pretty big deal in this game, with over 100 different kinds advertised on the game’s store page.

Right now just the Wasteland’s Handbook is available to purchase, but the kickstarter for this game will be taking off later this year. If this sounds like your kind of game, then maybe hop over to the website to get in on the first full edition as it releases!

Fallout: The Roleplaying Game, by Modiphius.

In 2077, the storm of nuclear war reduced most of the planet to cinders. From the ashes of nuclear devastation, a new civilization will struggle to arise. A civilization you will shape. How will you re-shape the world? Will you join with a plucky band of survivors to fight off all-comers and carve out your own settlement? Will you team up with pre-existing factions like the Brotherhood of Steel or Super Mutants to enforce your own ideals on the Wasteland? Ghoul or robot, paladin or raider, it’s your choice - and the consequences are yours. Welcome to the Wasteland. Welcome to the world of Fallout.

Utilizing Modiphius’ celebrated 2d20 cinematic role-playing system, the Fallout RPG will take players on an exciting journey into the post-apocalypse! Create your own survivors, super mutants, ghouls, and even Mister Handy robots. Immerse yourselves in the iconic post-nuclear apocalyptic world of Fallout, while gamemasters guide their group through unique stories and encounters. The 2d20 edition of Fallout is as close to the bottlecap bartering, wasteland wandering, Brotherhood battling excitement as you can get.

Modiphius gets the license to make a lot of games for different properties, so a Fallout game fits in alongside other big titles like Dune, John Carter of Mars, and Alien. This company uses their own 2d20 system, with a focus on inventory and Perks in an effort to make the game recognizable to any typical Fallout fan.

That being said, the game has come under fire for being poorly edited and inconsistent when it comes to finding the right rule. The company updated the game last year and released a Settler’s Guide book, so this might be something that’s a bit more read-able now. But if you want something set directly in the Fallout universe, this is your game.

WASTELAND, by MaelikGames.

WASTELAND is a simple tabletop RPG about adventurers in the world that has only recently became hospitable after a War that might not end all wars, but almost ended the world. You and your friends decide whether this world is bleak and hopeless, like the one in Metro, or somewhat whimsical, as in Fallout. 

Much of the inspiration from Fallout appears in the character options of this game. Arkanites are homages to Vault-Dwellers, Radkin are inspired by Ghouls, and robots are, well, robots. The talents also look like they are directly inspired by Fallout perks, such as Animal Friend, which allows you to turn hostile animals into allies. Gear and inventory are both very important in this game, which is something that I never find surprising in post-apocalyptic games, since having to track inventory feels like a pretty important thing in a game about scarcity. Your skills are also based on a percentage of success, because you’re rolling a d100, with the goal of rolling under your target number. If you’re looking for a game that can mechanically reflect much of what’s available in the Fallout video games, this might be for you!

Dystopia Rising: Evolution, by Onyx Path.

No one knows how long it’s been since the world was blasted with nuclear radiation and became infested with the undead. The survivors of the Fall were the first strain of deviation of the human condition and were able to make it through the rapidly spreading epidemic. Finding a community of decent size in this world is rare; finding one that has any concept of equality or morality is rarer still.

Oh, and people have the unnerving ability to come back from the dead, regrown from the very virus that destroyed the world.

This is a completely different world from Fallout and yet I think it might still be worth talking about in this rec post. Dystopia Rising has a rich, detailed world, with various factions and faiths, and your characters are differentiated by the Strains that have helped them survive. There are plenty of conflicting beliefs that can be the seeds for unlimited conflict, including various faiths in things like evolution or the preservation of humanity, strains that give you psychic powers, and a universal ability to come back to the dead so many times before you’re turned into a mindless zombie.

There’s plenty of opportunity to fight things hand-to-hand, but there’s just as many possibilities to politic your way out of tough scenarios, which is a hallmark of Fallout New Vegas. Not only that, there's no clear "good guys": this is a complicated world with complicated people. If you want a game that carries a lot of similar themes of Fallout but puts you in a new setting, maybe check out this game.

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Extinction Punk, by Extinction Punk.

Wastoid, by Jason Tocci.

[starrmarr]

Was talking to my dad, formerly incarcerated and now free to talk for hours with me, about how where he lives in the Caribbean was originally a maroon settlement and how his grandmother made sure to share that history. She was born sometime in the early 1900s and we don’t know anything about her parents. She never had a birth certificate, never learned to read or write, never even knew her birth date— the same goes for her husband. I think a lot about how my African ethnic identity was erased, and how much survived despite everything. I think a lot about how I don’t know who came before my great-grandmother who is a mystery I see in my dreams, walking me through the Haitian wilderness, and then taking me to the other side. I saw a picture of her last year and she’s the same woman I see when I sleep. I don’t know where I came from, all we have is oral history to depend on, so powerful on its own, folkloric and beautiful, fantastical and familiar, and yet so incomplete. We have to trust it. The purpose of the slaver was to erase: to make our accounts seem less than real, illogical, ignorant. If my grand-mère says she saw a dead man walk amongst the living after going to his funeral, I believe her. I see it in my eye. Finding out about us is not as simple as sending a saliva sample, to be compared to and by random people, for $130. I don’t really approve of that anyway, something in me tells me it’s twisted— “let’s sell them an idea of the story they cannot confirm because of us in the first place”. It’s not as simple as typing in my last name into an ancestry website and getting no real matches— this isn’t my real name, anyway.

I have a deep sense of longing but I remember, I remember, I remember.

[simsdada]

maybe this isn't the "right" place to talk about this but, using this website helped me when i was feeling down many times before and i never felt so desolate in my whole existence. T_T

my relationship is over, it lasted for four years, and i have been dealing with the feeling of dependency for a month and a half now because my partner stopped talking to me. he wasn't texting, calling or even speaking to me at all, we live in different cities and of course we were best friends, so we talked every single day, suddenly everything changed, and i was feeling awful, i couldn't sleep, i couldn't eat.

i even felt like i didn't want to live anymore. </3

these last days i actually got better, i was watching movies, trying to distract myself, and trying to learn how to love myself again, and thinking "well, this will pass, i just need to wait and respect him, we'll always be together and this will pass".

but, on this last sunday, september 26, he finally texted me, opened up and was really sincere about everything, telling me things aren't working out anymore, that it's time for both of us move on with our lives by ourselves, etc. it hit me like a damn truck. four years, four years of talking to each other, traveling together, spending months on each other's houses, the memories, everything... it's such a weird feeling, it's like a void.

i was actually dealing with it quite okay. like i didn't care. but yesterday i needed to find a picture on my phone and i scrolled to find it, and i saw all of our pictures together, there's more than two thousand pictures there. and it hadn't hit me until then; but then i realized: it's all over, forever. i'm all alone.

i totally broke down, my parents tried to help me, but i couldn't stop crying, i was shaking, i couldn't breath. i texted him, even thought we deleted each other's numbers, i still know his number of course, i asked if it's really over forever, and he replied, he said it's really forever, but that he will always love me, respect me and will be always grateful because i was the best person he has ever met.

i don't know. i really don't know how but i will have to find out. find out how to be myself again. before i met him, i was such a lone wolf, i never enjoyed talking to people, i loved being by myself in my room, playing sims all day long, listening to music and being in complete peace, i could NEVER in a million years imagine myself needing a man to "survive", but this is how i felt with him, i felt like i could die without his attention and his love.

how can i go back to being that person? how can i go back to being myself? because i lost myself years ago, i wasn't me anymore, i became "us".

i have my stuff to do, i'm in culinary school and i'm having so much fun there, i have my hobbies, i'm always trying to find a job and i know i will find one soon, i will go back to play my lovely games, i will go back to being myself, to loving myself. i need to.

i don't know if anyone even remember my posts or would like to see them again, but i need to distract myself, to learn how to have fun by myself again.

i'm 23 years old, i met him when i was 19, that was 19 years of my life where i didn't need a partner to survive, where i loooved being with my own company, i was always so independent, so i'm sure i'm capable of being that person again!

if you read everything, thank you so much. i just needed to get this out of my chest. T_T

[libraford]

I would love to be a full time artist, I mostly do portrait work and have for over 10 years now but no one ever wants to pay me. They always ask for work for free cause they are friends or family. So I am stuck working an IT job that I don't hate but I mostly do the bare minimum to not get fired while I work on my art and try to keep my website going.

See, its hard. I've been in that life for like 20 years. Art comes easy, but making a living off of it is difficult because that's SALES, which is a different skillset and it's why for a very long time artists had sponsors, regular patrons, and advocates. The focus has shifted when it comes to what's important.

I've had some success by doing art shows, I've had some success trying to get into galleries, I've had some success doing art events.

The upkeep of it is the hard part. And there's no single answer on how to sell your art because it really depends on what kind of art it is and what your art scene looks like locally, who you're selling to.

But in the meantime, you have to eat. You have to pay bills. You have to pay rent. You have to nod and pretend to listen to the people telling you to just learn how to code so you can make the big bucks. Or why don't you go into nursing and give up all of your free time? You know, they're always hiring at that call center, etc.

I love being an artist. I love making art. I love doing stuff.

But surviving as an artist is hard, especially now when money is tight. I wish it wasn't.

Like I said, though- I like what I'm doing. I like my part time seasonal jobs. I like my side projects. It all has a flow to it and I think its going somewhere. I hope you get into the flow, too.

[life-in-the-garden]

A Spell for the Honey Eaters

Introduction

In a lot of Slavic languages we see the word for “bear” (the animal) being formed from epithets. In Russian, the modern word for “bear” is transliterated as “medved.” That, along with the Polish “niedzwiedz” both translate roughly to “honey eater.” This same use of epithets is demonstrated in a lot of Germanic and Scandinavian languages—the Old Norse “bjorn,” the less-common English word “bruin,” and even the German “baer” all ultimately refer to the animal’s color: brown. Indeed, this use of epithets for the animal was so widespread in the ancient north that, according to The Linguistics Encyclopedia (2002) we now have no record of what the actual name for the winter sleeper was in any northern Indo-European dialect.

But why did this taboo exist against saying the name of the honey eater? Until effective post-mortem communication is established everything is speculation, of course, but the most common consensus on this issue among paleo-linguists is that the people of the ancient north were very… let us say respectful of honey eaters. Nobody wanted the winter sleepers to steal their kills, raid their camps, or—worst of all—actively hunt them. Bears (let us be brave with this name) have power; they are massive, strong, and deadly apex predators.

Who are also very cute!

photo by Mark Basarab on Unsplash

Bears also get very fat every autumn and then sleep through the winter in order to avoid the problem of otherwise not having enough food available through the lean months of the year. Smart! But also fat. Very, very fat. So fat, in fact, that the United States National Park Service hosts an annual contest called Fat Bear Week where people can vote on their favorite bear every autumn. The linked website says it best:

“For bears, fat equals survival. Each winter, bears enter the den where they will not eat or drink until they emerge in spring. During this time, they may lose up to 1/3 of their body weight as they rely solely on their fat reserves. Survival depends on eating a year's worth of food in six months.”

So what does this mean for us humans? It means… stop hating yourself and/or others for being fat. This spell uses the spirit of the bear as an animal ally (if you are white like I am, please do not use the term “totem” or “spirit animal” due to those terms being cultural appropriation) to inspire yourself towards a better sense of self-love when it comes to your weight. And if you really struggle with internalized fatphobia, then you can at least use this spell to see yourself in a more neutral way that doesn’t reflect negatively on your self-worth.

Method

When pondering the nature of the primordial winter sleeper, I was initially drawn to food-focused witchery—because is it really a spell channeling the power of bears if you don’t eat at least one salmon? (this is a joke)—but this isn’t always an accessible option for people who struggle to cook and/or have a history with eating disorders. Therefore, the goal with the honey eaters’ spell is to nourish your body—but not necessarily with food if that doesn’t work for you. Therefore, more specifically for this spell you need to give your body what it needs to not just survive, but thrive.

And you know your own body infinitely better than I (a rando on the Internet) certainly do, so you get to decide what exactly your body needs to thrive. It could be 8+ hours of sleep, a solid meal, and/or an extra bottle’s worth of of water throughout the day… but these are just the basics. Maybe you need something more complex than that. Maybe you need a lot more than that. That’s okay. It’s okay to need things, and also okay to want things that aren’t necessities. It’s okay to pursue the things you want and/or need, like a bear tearing through a blackberry patch in search of the ripe, tart fruit. If you feel like you need permission to go after what you want, this is your sign to give chase with all of your power.

Please keep in mind that this spell lasts 24 hours once begun.

You will need:

Writing supplies OR a method by which to digitally store an image and quickly/frequently refer back to it

Accouterments for self care (your choice & discretion)

Instructions, such as they are:

First, draw a picture of a bear with your writing supplies. It doesn’t need to be fancy! Arguably one of the most famous pictures of a bear ever made was created more than 30,000 years ago in a cave called Chauvet in France. It looks like this:

photo by Jean Clottes, retrieved from Smithsonian Magazine

(If you want to learn more about the cave paintings of Chauvet, you can do so here).

If you don’t have the spoons to draw, lack confidence as an artist, or otherwise just don’t want to draw a picture, you can find a picture of a bear online and save it to your phone or another device for quick/frequent reference. Remember the power of the honey eater as you do so, and know that you are keeping that power close to you throughout the day that this spell will last. The attention of the winter sleeper is upon you, and though not cruel the honey eater will ask that you be kind to yourself; winter is never too far away, and you need your strength to survive the cold.

Once your image of a bear has been created or saved, the spell is begun. For the next 24 hours, your mission as a magical practitioner is to ensure that your body thrives. Take care of yourself as much as you are able; live lavishly, indulgently, and without regret. If you ever find yourself caught in a sudden trap of shame or doubt, think of the honey eater—refer back to your image if necessary—and say an epithet or name for "bear" that feels comforting to you (some examples: Arktos, Ursus, Medved). You can say the name aloud or just think it really hard; the point of doing this is to interrupt the shame/doubt and not allow it to take root and fester in your mind and heart. Keep doing this until the 24 hours are finished. Repeat as you see fit.

The purpose of this spell is to help your body and mind escape negative patterns of behavior and thought through the power of the winter sleeper. Remember that bears are fat, and that bears were some of the most awe-inspiring and terrifying animals ever encountered by ancient humans. There is nothing wrong with being fat, and fat is often necessary for survival through the long, hard months of winter. Unlike bears, we can’t sleep away months of darkness and cold—whether that darkness and cold be mental illness, abuse, or something else entirely—but we can bring the strength of the honey eater into ourselves for the eternal quest to continue living until the next spring.

If you liked this spell or even just found it intriguing, please consider checking out my ko-fi where I share spells and witchcraft-focused zines. As a struggling college student in an abusive home, it means a lot when someone is able to toss some spare change my way!

[safety-pin-punk]

Hi!

I’m sort of still getting into punk and learning about everything. You’re blog has been really helpful with resources and everything. Plus your cool.

Okayyy, now my question. I’m a junior in high school and I want to go to college. Pursue further education and all of that stuff. Learn more about the world and critical thinking. But I don’t want to pay a ton of money to a bunch of old ivy dudes.

What’s the right direction to go in for this? Is college a good option if I want to learn? What schools are good places? Where do I learn more about this stuff?

Sorry if this is a lot. Thank you though!

Hey! Thank you for your kindness!!

First off, Im going to stress that you are a junior and you have PLENTY of time to think about this. So dont stress too much right now.

Secondly, I want to preface this with the simple fact of college isnt for everyone. There are SO many ways to survive and thrive in life without it. And thats okay, good even! That being said, this post is just gonna be me talking about college. Under the cut of course

OKAY! So, is college a good option if you want to learn? My answer is yes! I learned a lot at college, both inside and outside my classes. I learned a lot of life lessons, I met people from all over the country (and a few international students). And I learned how to challenge my own beliefs and try to see things from perspectives that I didnt even know could exist prior to college.

But Im sure you were referring to the educational aspect. And truth be told, this heavily depends on both your school and you. Some examples: My school had a phenomenal chemistry program. You couldnt walk out of that program without having learned things if you made it through. But my school also had a very poor fine arts program. And to be quite blunt, I often wondered why any art student chose to stay. But going even further, it depends a lot on the individual as well. I was admittedly not the best student. I wasnt that interested in lab or research compared to some of my classmates, nor did I apply myself as much. And the difference is clear to see when others could rattle off different solvents and what reactions would occur from memory and I would be sitting there dumbfounded.

Next question, what schools are good places? Again, that fully depends on what you want to go to school for. But I’ll tell you what I did and how I chose my school. When I was a junior in high school, I found a list of every 4 year university in my state (I knew I wanted to stay in state, but you can do this for wherever you want to go). I then went through and gave each school a ranking out of 5 (based on vibes, chemistry program, education program, cost, and surrounding area). Once I had it narrowed down to only a few schools, those were the ones I toured. And I chose where to send applications from there.

Though, I cant stress enough how beneficial community college can be. A lot of people get all their gen eds out of the way either before they enroll in a university or over summers. Doing this will save you money and time. Literally not a single person on a university campus would look down on you for this. If anything, they will praise you for being smart. I took a few classes over the summers between semesters just to get them out of the way (and also avoid certain professors).

Where to learn more? Google. Google schools near you. Google schools where you want to go. Google schools ranked nationally in xyz. Google affordable universities. Google universities that have good financial aid programs. Just google so many things. From there, spend time exploring university websites. Read about their community and their academic programs. See if they have virtual tours uploaded. Check out their student activity board social medias to see what it would be like to be there as a student. Sign up for tours. Do an overnight visit if you can!! Or even, just walk around the campus without a tour guide

Best of luck to you on your academic journey! Hope I was a little helpful here

[thatoneluckybee]

Do you have any webcomic recs?

I am really showing the Webtoon dealer huh

A lot of recommendations depend on what one likes personally. I notice I gravitate towards those with darker themes (like current short Nevermore hyperfixation) like horror and thriller genres, or even more lighthearted stuff with serious themes like Castle Swimmer. (Like... I have read too many zombie apocalypse things it has a good balance usually!) So good recommendations for me take into account what someone likes personally. But I can recommend some general ones!

I mostly use Webtoon but one story I enjoy a lot that isn't on Webtoon is the Backmaker by @catnippackets. You can find it on their pinned post! It's still early on in the story but the description is this on the website:

I'm mostly on Webtoon (easy to use on mobile which I'm almost always on) and have read a lot there. I don't want to spend 80 years with descriptions so some I read that I think are good or just like are

Nevermore (as of like. Yesterday or so.)

Castle Swimmer

Morgana and Oz

School Bus Graveyard

Deathsitter

Suitor Armor

Homesick

The End of Ma'at

The Four of Them

Space Boy

Silent Screams

Not So Shoujo Love Story

Realta

1HP Club

Nomads

Surviving Romance

Funtime Phobia (and any of Strawberry Circus' stories! They're a wonderful group)

ShootAround 

High Spirits Neoma

Dead But Not Gone

Cursed Princess Club

UnOrdinary (the entire Joker arc INFURIATES me but the last 100 or so chapters have been really good! Just went through a rough patch but it's good now imo)

Marionetta

Sable Curse

I'm on this website too often. Probably a lot more I'm forgetting but these are generally the ones I look over when thinking of propaganda to make for mutuals. Hi.

[early-byrd]

Digital Darwinism and How This Evolves

In Biology, natural selection is always determined by the “Fitness” of a species, meaning how well a species can survive to reproduce. The finches on the Galapagos Islands proved this idea well: different bird species had different traits depending on their environment. Whether they needed long, narrow beaks to hunt bugs or broad, hefty beaks to break open nuts and seeds, they evolved separately to match their conditions.

But what the hell does this have to do with TikTok and the internet as a whole?

In the early days of online content, the popularity of something, a video, a picture, a song, you name it, was based on how sharable it was. In the early 2000s, memes like the ROFLCOPTER or Hamster Dance were insanely popular, because they thrived on online chatrooms and through email. Similarly, in the later 2000s, platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook were in their infancy. Focusing on YouTube, the site was based entirely on view count. The more views your video got, the longer it stayed on the front page. Creators like Smosh, Ryan Higa, and Ray William Johnson flourished in this time because their content was easily rewatchable, sharable, and most importantly garnered thousands of views. 

But by the early 2010s, YouTube and Google made a tactical decision: Changing the algorithm to promote videos based on watch time instead of view count. The reason behind this was simple, if people could stay on the website longer, Google could show more ads to the viewers and make more money. But by extension, YouTube and Google put pressure on the creators to survive on their platforms, and thus, evolution followed.

Longer form content began to spread like wildfire. Let’s Plays took over the platform because they fit the evolutionary pressure: they were easily producible and were 10, 20, or sometimes even 30 minutes long.

Diagram Credit: Turek, Rasty. “What Content Dominates on YouTube?” Pex, 4 June 2019, pex.com/blog/what-content-dominates-youtube/. 

But this doesn’t just stop at YouTube.

Platforms like Twitter and Facebook, and nowadays TikTok and Instagram have introduced their pressures to push creators in whatever direction they need. Engagement is the new fuel for the fire, and what gets people to engage with content? Hatred and controversy. People like Andrew Tate, Elon Musk, or Joe Rogan aren’t famous because of what they do, (that is still a part of it, of course,) they’re famous because they drive people to talk about them, to argue, to voice their opinions on whatever dumb shit they said or did this time.

Pictured above: Google Trends data for Elon Musk. From April 3rd, 2021 to May 5th, 2023. The peaks from left to right are on May 9th, 2021 when Space X’s Starship completed its first flight, and on April 24th, 2022 when Musk purchased a majority stake in Twitter.

And even this isn’t new! MTV and TMZ thrived off of celebrity drama and controversy. Reality TV is an entire genre of television built on trashy arguments and punches being thrown. Ever since media, of all forms, has been around, people and companies have been trying to sway the success condition further and further to what they want.

What I want you to take away from this is that, as with many things on the internet,  evolution is happening faster and faster than ever before. Even 200 years after Darwin published his research on what he called “descent with modification”, the content we consume and the creators, including myself, are all fighting to evolve with their platform's pressures. Everyone, from your local news station to the largest companies and governments in the world, is trying to steer the ship of what’s popular and what people pay attention to. Your attention is valuable and every company wants a piece of it.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Get to Know Me Ask Game

Alright, alright, alright; I guess peer pressure works because I have been tagged in this game by @colourme-feral, @rocketturtle4, and @telomeke. Thank you all for making me feel popular!

RULES: bold the ones that are true & tag 10 people to do it.

APPEARANCE

blonde hair (ish- most people have referred to my hair as dirty blonde, but it leans on the darker/brown side of dirty blonde) // I prefer loose clothing to tight clothing (yes, hello I am trans with titties I do not want people seeing) // I have one or more piercings (yes, I have my ears pierced technically, but am allergic to metals so very rarely wear earrings) // I have at least one tattoo (yes, I have three at the moment and will definitely get more in the future) // I have dyed or highlighted my hair (yes, not currently but I have dyed it in the past, my hair has been raspberry and blue) // I have gotten plastic surgery (no) // I have or had braces (yes, for a couple years, I got them off on Halloween though, so I was in costume when they came off and my orthodontist gave me a bag of candy on my way out) // I sunburn easily (yes, I am white lol.) // I have freckles (yes) // I paint my nails (no, only on very rare occasions and usually for exactly one evening) // I typically wear makeup (no, only on very rare occasions) // I don’t often smile (fully depends where I am, whoI am with, and what is going on) // I am pleased with how I look (I know I have a conventionally attractive body, but my face? different story, I think I have started to like how I look more as I have settled in to my gender expression though) // I prefer Nike to Adidas (I think I end up Nike shoes far more often, not sure if I have ever owned a pair of adidas, but my brand loyalty is to Converse only) // I wear baseball hats backwards (yes, sometimes, and almost exclusively for gay reasons. If I am wearing a baseball cap for sun reasons it is going on the right way round)

HOBBIES & TALENTS

I play a sport (Yes, I used to do fencing and now do Historical European Martial Arts) // I can play an instrument (yes, I used to be a pretty decent flute and piccolo player, I can technically also play piano though I was never officially trained in it and therefore am not very good) // I am artistic (yes, I can draw okay, I like doing cross stitch, and I have a degree in theater where I primaroly focused on technical theater and design) // I know more than one language (Fluently? No. Partially? Yes.) // I have won a trophy in some sort of competition (Yes? I can't really recall, but I know I had trophies in my room from things I had done, and I feel like maybe my middle school band placed in a state music competition one of the years I was on it? I have won awards/prizes in competitions though for sure) // I can cook or bake without a recipe (Yes, I can cook without a recipe. I am a pretty good baker, but I would never bake without a recipe, that shit is chemistry) // I know how to swim (yes) // I enjoy writing (lol yeah, if you have not seen my analyses on this website already...also I do just enjoy writing for fun outside of TV show analyses too) // I can do origami (ish, I can make an origami heart mostly from memory, and if I follow instructions can probably do a couple other things, but I'm not like, proficient in it) // I prefer movies to tv shows (no, give me long form storytelling or give me death! just kidding, there are movies I love but I almost always prefer TV) // I can execute a perfect somersault (as a child, yes. I used to do gymnastics, as an adult, no. I do not have the spine or joint function for that anymore) // I enjoy singing (yes I enjoy singing, no I do not have a good voice, and you are all welcome for never subjecting anyone to it) // I could survive in the wild on my own (I can build a shelter, I know how to make a fire, but I honestly would never presume to believe that I could survive in the wild, and how long I am able to make it would depend entirely on where I was and what tools I had at my disposal) // I have read a new book series this year (no, I don't think I have, dang) // I enjoy spending time with friends (yes, yes, yes I love spending time with my friends, if I am not physically hanging out with my friends I am usually on some social media platform talking to my friends. I love my friends!) // I travel during work or school breaks (I always used to travel during school breaks, I am out of school now, I don't really have work breaks, but I do still travel. When I changed jobs I did a lot of traveling in the week between ending my old job and starting my new one, and I am actually going on a trip this weekend) // I can do a handstand (on land? no, lol. I would break something. Though I am pretty sure I used to be able to do that as a child...in a pool where gravity is not working against me, absolutely I can)

RELATIONSHIP

I am in a relationship (no, so if anyone is wanting to request my hand in marriage, my ask box is open) // I have been single for over a year (yes, please see previous comment) // I have a crush (maybe just a little bit, though I'm not sure if it is a crush or if it is just someone I would be interested in attempting to go on a date with) // I have a best friend who I’ve known for ten years (yes! Multiple! The secret is to just not talk to eachother for years at a time, and then see eachother once every two years and pick up exactly where you left off) // my parents are together (no, thank god) // I have dated my best friend (no, I had a really good friend that I "dated" in high school, but like..in the way that we held hands like four times and never went on an actual date. I have had multiple best friends that people think I am dating though.) // I am adopted // my crush has confessed to me // I have a long distance relationship (yes, with friends. No for romantic partners. // I am an only child // I give advice to my friends (Yes, always have done, always will do.) // I have made an online friend (yes, many!) // I met up with someone I have met online (yes, many! And will meet even more soon!)

AESTHETICS

I have heard the ocean in a conch shell (yes, we had a conch shell in our house growing up, so I listened to it all the time) // I have watched the sun rise (I actually don't know if I have intentionally watched a sun rise, but I have certainly been up late enough at night that I see the sun rise, which is when I then say 'oh fuck, I really need to be asleep) // I enjoy rainy days (I used to enjoy them a lot, now I have a lot of musculoskeletal pain that gets worse when it rains so I don't like it as much anymore) // I have slept under the stars (like under under with no protection? no. But I have been camping multiple times so yes technically, I was just in a tent) // I meditate outside (I don't really meditate, period.) // the sound of chirping calms me (the birds around me are loud and annoying as fuck, but there is some chirping I enjoy and that can be calming) // I enjoy the smell of the beach (yes! I would be betraying my homeland if I didn't like the way the beach smelled) // I know what snow tastes like (DO NOT EAT SNOW! DO NOT!) // I listen to music to fall asleep (yes, I alternate between just the sound of ocean waves, cello music with rain in the background, or more recently a Gymnopedie playlist) // I enjoy thunderstorms (Again, I used to love thunderstorms, we had so many of them where I grew up and when I moved away there were not nearly as many and that made me love them even more. But now, my body is fucked and when there is a thunderstorm the change in pressure in the air literally makes me feel like the fluids in my joints are bubbling/carbonated) // I enjoy cloud watching (i do enjoy it, I just have not done it in a very long time) // I have attended a bonfire (yes, many. when I would go on camping trips or when my neighbors burned the Christmas trees people were otherwise throwing out in like February and they'd invite people over.) // I pay close attention to colors (yes, please refer to my pinned gay analysis assembly post on my tumblr page for a number of different essays about color) // I find mystery in the ocean (Yes. we have explored more of space than we have the ocean, I love the ocean but the prospect of what is in there does scare me. From a non-horror perspective, there is a reason why so much gay media has an underwater kiss and it's cause bodies of water are the guardians of many secrets) // I enjoy hiking on nature paths (Do I do it often? No. Do I enjoy it? Very much so, yes) // autumn is my favorite season (Autumn was not really a thing where I grew up but now I am somewhere where the leaves change and it is so beautiful. I love the weather, the temperature is always near perfect for my tastes, I get to break out the apple cider and the hot chocolate, and Halloween is in autumn here so what is not to love?)

MISCELLANEOUS

I can fall asleep in a moving vehicle (didn't used to be able to fall asleep at all once I was awake, didn't used to be able to sleep in moving vehicles, but now? I am so sleepy) // I am the mom friend (Yes. I am the mom friend, dad friend, cool aunt friend, etc etc. what can I say? I contain multitudes) // I live by a certain quote (no, but there are many quotes I love) // I like the smell of sharpies (no) // I am involved in extracurricular activities (technically HEMA, but my attendance has been low recently due to high pain months. But I am moving soon and hoping to start doing additional extracurricular activities after I relocate) // I enjoy Mexican food (yes, of course! Refried beans? Yellow rice? Tamales? Mole?) // I can drive a stick shift (technically. I have been taught to drive stick shift, I have driven stick shift before, but I am not comfortable driving stick shift. I could do it in an emergency or if no other option was available to me. I just stalled a lot when I was learning and instead of taking me safe places to learn how to drive it, my Dad would just throw me in to the busiest intersections which made it extremely stressful when I would stall out. But we figured out I was sitting too far back to get the clutch all the way down, and I had no issues that last time I did drive stick.) // I believe in true love (this is a complicated question, I don't know that I have a way to describe my actual thoughts on it, so let me just say I stand with La Pluie in saying that any and all relationships take work, regardless of fate) // I make up scenarios to fall asleep (Yes, I used to do it a lot as a kid. I would make up scenarios where I would have to be sleeping so that I would get to sleep, and now if music or white noise doesn't get me to sleep, I will make up a scenario. But I don't need to as much anymore) // I sing in the shower (Yes of course! What else is a shower for if not to best disguise my terrible singing voice?) // I wish I lived in a video game (lol, no. The videos games I play? Absolutely not! I would be consumed by a hoard of rats, or eaten by a sea monster, or be impaled on thorns) // I have a canopy above my bed (no) // I am multiracial (no) // I am a redhead (no) // I own at least 3 dogs (no)

Not sure that I have seen @shortpplfedup, @neuroticbookworm, @so-much-yet-to-learn2, @solitaryandwandering, @respectthepetty, @ginnymoonbeam, @dribs-and-drabbles tagged in this yet. Anyone who wants to play, I hereby tag you as well.

[electrical-banana]

Hey @maeve-on-mustafar, thank you for the ask! Unfortunately it's trapped in my inbox omfg so I guess I have to answer it like this instead. Functional website.

Anyway, I love to chat. ❤️

Up front, my answer to this is informed by my own take on canon, which may differ from some other interpretations bc I'm a Legends fan and not super into the Filoniverse. I feel like I need this little disclaimer bc I won't be discussing TCW, I'm mostly interested in what we see in the PT.

But based on that, I personally think the answer to the first question is yes, he is aware of that. Not to sound pithy or dismissive or anything, but I can't imagine Anakin not knowing that about himself-- if he knows anything, he knows that. I believe in the tags you're talking about here I make a reference to his comment in TPM where he says to Padme that he "wouldn't have lasted long" on Tatooine if he hadn't been so good at building things-- he was born into slavery, his entire existence violently delimited by the labor his enslavers could forcibly extract from him, and even the values Shmi instilled in him ("the biggest problem in this universe is that no one wants to help each other "), righteous and selfless though they may be, were predicated on this idea that your worth as a person is dependent on what you can do for or give other people. This is also a core tenet of Jedi ideology-- a giving over of the self to serve the greater good in the galaxy. "What can we do for each other? What do we owe each other?" seem to be questions that George was trying to explore in the six-film saga, and he grapples with this questions using a protagonist who spent his formative years hideously abused and exploited as a child slave. Insane btw. Insane man. In the PT, Anakin is flanked by two supporting characters (Obi-Wan and Padme) who both define themselves by their service to the galaxy. From his point of view, this is ALSO how he would describe Palpatine, regardless of our knowing that Palpatine was only ever projecting a false persona to pursue his own ends. And these are three of the four people who are most important to Anakin (the fourth ofc being Shmi, a slave, also inescapably defined by what she can do and give), the three people whom he idolizes above all others. What you can do for other people-- your usefulness, your utility, and how far you'll go to prove it-- is central not only to Anakin's sense of self, but the entire concept of goodness as it exists in Star Wars.

To get to the crux of it, do I think Anakin only "lasted as long as he did" with the Jedi bc he was especially useful to them?? Absolutely yes. Regardless of the actual validity of that, it's what he believed. This is a guy whose brain was borked from infancy into believing that his survival is dependent upon his exceptionalism, his productiveness, his cultivation of valuable skills and his ability to serve-- his personality formed around this, and it wasn't simply a "belief" to him, it was a fact, it was a component of the actual material conditions of his life on Tatooine, and he knew that if he failed to exceed the expectations of his superiors, there was always some worse fate waiting for him just around the corner, whether it was death or violence or being sold to a worse enslaver, and when I mentioned in my tags that his usefulness is a matter of existential security, it's very literal, this is what I mean. And a person doesn't shed this mindset just bc he goes to live with new people somewhere else-- no matter how nice the Jedi may have been to Anakin, you can't reset a child to factory settings, the only personality he has and has ever had is the one that formed under the horrific and violently-enforced conditions of slavery, there is no unfucked version of himself that he is able to fall back on or reconnect with once he's free. This is the identity he's got.

And what do we know about the Jedi permitting Anakin's training? We know that in the span of like 24 hours we go from Qui-Gon telling Anakin "I'm not allowed to train you" to Obi-Wan telling him "the Council has granted me permission to train you." What changed? No character ever outright states what made the Council reconvene on a settled matter, though we do know it must have been a controversial move based on Yoda's uhh dissatisfaction ("agree on you taking this boy as your padawan learner, I do not") with the outcome. I don't think Qui-Gon's death alone was enough to sway the decision, and I don't think it was done out of pity or a sense of obligation or doing right, I think we're meant to believe it was because of Anakin's participation in the destruction of the blockade of Naboo and the plausibility of the Chosen One prophecy coupled with the threat of the return of the Sith. Like half the time we see the Council, they're bandying about the question of Anakin's Chosen One status and the validity of the prophecy, we know they view him in a different light than they do all the other Jedi. After his initial assessment and rejection, Anakin certainly knows that he was only later admitted into the Order under extraordinary circumstances, having failed to pass the ordinary test. I'm not sure if as a nine-year-old he knew anything about the prophecy, but he definitely knew that destroying the Trade Federation command center ended the Naboo crisis and saved the day. And that is uhhhh one hell of a special exception to win over a group of people who wanted nothing to do with you the day before.

So he uses his Skills and decisively (explosively) ends a planetary occupation and the Council does a complete about-face and decides that maybe they can train him to be a Jedi after all, that the advantage of that may outweigh the perceived danger he poses to them (lol). This is setting a precedent. This is, to use extremely simplified logic, "as long as I can go above and beyond to solve other people's problems, people will want to keep me around." We don't know the conditions underlying Anakin's tenancy with the Jedi Order-- we don't know what would happen to him or where he would go if being a Jedi Just Wasn't Working Out; the one time he asks, Obi-Wan simply tells him, "You will be a Jedi, I promise you." Presumably they wouldn't just send him back to Tatooine to fend for himself but that still leaves a whole galaxy of alternatives lol, and when this character's path to self-actualization begins with "I had a dream I was a Jedi. I came back [to Tatooine] and freed all the slaves," any of these alternatives would be, from his perspective, the something worse that's waiting for him just around the corner should he fail to prove his exceptional value. It's a failure that threatens what he believes, with a child's conviction in fairytale heroes, is his only way of accessing a power great enough to overthrow the oppressive establishment on his home planet (appealing to the political process for justice is useless when the entire political process is mired in self-serving corruption, as the entire PT lays out) and heal the damage that was done to him and pretty much everyone he knows. This failure is obvs unacceptable. He can't live with himself if he's not a Jedi capable of saving the slaves (his mother), the moral injury is too deep. So he has to keep proving himself to these people so they keep wanting to keep him around. Certainly no Jedi ever said to him, "Anakin, if you don't become the best and strongest Jedi ever, we're going to send you to the glue factory and everyone you know will die in terrible agony and it will all be your fault," but it was nonetheless the reality imposed on him by his being unsalvageably clinically fucked up. Children exist at the behest of the adults who accept responsibility for them-- following a major life upheaval involving even a voluntary separation of a child from his only (and vital) support system, there is little stability in the knowledge that your new guardians (essentially strangers) could send you away on a whim if they suddenly decide you're too much of a burden to continue dealing with ("Qui-Gon sir, I don't want to be a problem"), especially when you have no recourse to appeal that decision. Therefore, it's up to Anakin to cobble together his own sense of stability the only way he knows how.

To address the second question, I guess it's difficult to imagine if Anakin would still feel the same in a galaxy without Palpatine bc a galaxy without Palpatine is unrecognizable to the universe as it was established in TPM-- Palpatine orchestrated the entire plot, he laid the whole foundation and set all the players into motion, how Anakin might have come to the Jedi Order without Palpatine is entirely up to individual fancy. But if what you mean is, would Anakin still have felt the same if Palpatine hadn't been involved in his personal life?, I still think the answer is yes. I don't think this was an idea planted in his head by Palpatine at all, I think it's an idea that pre-dates Palpatine as an influence on Anakin, even if Palpatine later exploited and manipulated it for his own gain. And honestly, I think the whole Jedi ethos probably did more to reinforce this idea in Anakin's brain than anything else-- the Jedi teach selflessness to the point of self-sacrifice, and it's easy to see how this teaching, while rooted in dedication to justice and public service, could feed into Anakin's pre-existing anxieties about needing to be useful, and how usefulness is analogous to goodness/worthiness. To say nothing on how self-sacrifice can tip so easily over into self-destruction, when pushed to extremes. It's not that Anakin's life as a Jedi is in any way equivalent to his life as a slave, and I def don't think the Jedi were demanding Anakin be their Super Specialest Boy or else they would cast him into the Outer Darkness, it's just that his worldview will always be impacted by his enslavement and the lessons he integrated into his lived reality during that period. This is exactly why training him was "too dangerous"-- he would never be able to "purely" assimilate the Order's teachings, they would always be filtered through the lens of his prior experiences in ways the Jedi could not anticipate or control.

HOLY SHIT. Sorry this got so long. There are a lot of half-baked ideas here I didn't fully explore, so sorry if my points aren't coming across. I just find this to be a huge and interesting topic and it's hard to condense all my thoughts down into something readable bc I've uhhh spent a lot of time thinking about it and trying to wrangle that into coherency is. Challenging. Lol. 💀 If you have any thoughts you'd like to share, or if I missed your point entirely lol, I'd love to hear from you!!

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Hey sorry for initially posting this as a message to mods! it was very late when i wrote up the first time lol

Hello, my name is V. I'm looking for support and validation, advice not wanted.

For the past 21 years I've lived in an abusive home. After some lengthy trauma processing I realized this abuse likely didn't start or stop anywhere, it just changed over time. In the past my dad was very physically abusive and both my parents were very verbally and emotionally abusive. Now that I am older it's ebbed in frequency but its still very much there, and financial abuse has gotten even worse now that I have my own assets. But that's precisely the problem.

All my life, my reality has been denied. Despite being told to keep the abuse behind closed doors, I refused and have told everyone about what happened to me to everyone I can think of. But every time I did, my situation was never considered "enough." my parents never faced any repercussions for their actions--law enforcement nor CPS ever questioned them--and still don't; even now if they make some sort of snide comment that hurts my feelings, they're quick to use emotional manipulation and red herrings to deflect accountability. I realized this month just how trapped I am here: if I attempt to leave, I'll lose access to my car, my health insurance, my bank account, pretty much everything that will help me survive on my own. That realization has spurred suicidal thoughts and a self harm relapse like no other. I'm currently unemployed after having to quit my job due to having my hours cut with no opportunity for overtime and only have about 900 dollars to my name as of now, so moving out isn't an option.

All this has given me a deep sense of shame and self doubt when speaking of my abuse. Despite having CPTSD from the abuse and still get constant nightmares and flashbacks, if nobody believes me when I say I'm being abused, or if they do believe me but don't share the same sense of urgency I do about it, then maybe it really isn't so bad and I'm just incapable of tolerating normal things, and if that's true, then maybe I'm not fit to exist in a world that is filled with these normal, intolerable things. My head fills up with thoughts like, "Stop talking about it, nobody is taking you seriously. No matter what you say, even if you can confirm its abusive, nobody will believe you, nobody will save you, because its your fault for not being able to handle this normal behavior."

In a last ditch effort, I have applied to stay at a respite house out of state for a week. My parents are out of town at the moment and I thought it would be refreshing, but then my brother decided to use this time to get incredibly drunk and act like a drunken asshole to me for 3 days then leave me alone for 2 days without telling me where he was, so that's a dream crushed. There's no respite houses in my state so I have to cross the border and drive for an hour and a half but its no big deal. I don't know how I'm going to tell my parents that I'm leaving for a week and have to turn off the tracking apps they force me to use (on the house's website it states that the address is not public for safety reasons and idk if Life360 can pull the address of the place and give it to my parents) but I don't think I care anymore. All I want is someone to affirm to me that what I'm experiencing is real, it's abuse, and I don't deserve it. Maybe there's people there who can do that for me. If my parents want to punish me for this, then I can't stop them. This is all I have left.

Putting these here so I can find this post on the TL

🐙🐙🐙

Hi V,

I'm so sorry to hear about what you've been going through. It's hard enough to experience this magnitude and multitude of abuse, but to be essentially gaslit on top of it makes things unimaginably worse. It seems that being financially dependent on them unfortunately works in their favor in order to keep you trapped in this dynamic.

Being minimized and dismissed, even by organizations like CPS, can be incredibly discouraging and it makes sense why at times you feel like what you're going through isn't severe or important enough. The people who try to convince you of this cannot dictate reality - you know what's going on and that's good enough. But that's hard to feel when you're trapped and surrounded by people who don't believe you no matter how much you're struggling. That's amplified by the internalized gaslighting of telling yourself that your experiences don't matter. It's a horrible situation to be in.

I work in a domestic violence shelter so if you need help finding somewhere safe to stay, I am happy to help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[eirikrjs]

As far as SMT/Digimon design comparisons go, this is the only one that's pretty much 100% undeniable. Although I've seen people compare AncientWisemon to Tsukuyomi, but that's a bit of a stretch in my opinion. Everything else falls under "they're based on the same figure/god/monster/etc., so obviously there's going to be some superficial similarities."

(Funnily enough, Lucemon does have a child form but it predates SMTIII by two years.)

People not very familiar with Japanese culture tend to compare Shakkoumon and Arahabaki, but they're merely both based on dogū.

Here we have the Twelve Heavenly Generals as shown in SMTII, and the Deva, a group of Digimon based on the generals. Now, the generals have been associated with the Chinese zodiac in Japan ever since the Heian era (794-1185) so it's not like SMT came up with the concept.

However, it is interesting that the names and animals match (although some of the weapons don't). There's no "canon" interpretation of which animal is associated with which general, but there is a "main" one you'll see listed first on websites, sometimes as the *only* one. Both SMT and Digimon use the same association, which is the opposite of the "main" one. While it can be a coincidence, it's just as likely to be a reference.

On one final note, the newest Digimon game, Digimon Survive, has you obtain new Digimon by negotiating and recruiting them SMT-style. The game also uses a karma system akin to Law/Chaos/Neutral where the story branches out in three different routes after a certain point depending on your "alignment" points: Moral, Wrath, and Harmony. Either of those points by itself doesn't necessarily mean direct inspiration, but when combined you can't really deny it.

[lindwurmkai]

you know i'm always talking about pillowfort these days, but honestly i think it can be very beneficial to maintain accounts on multiple websites, even similar ones, at the same time in case something happens.

pillowfort doesn't have to be a replacement for e.g. tumblr or reddit to be worth checking out, even though i believe it can function as a replacement for either of those in some cases, depending on how you were using them to begin with. mastodon doesn't have to be a twitter replacement to you - the fediverse might be worth checking out even if you were never a twitter user, and mastodon isn't the only possible entry point.

i registered on cohost to investigate it as a potential replacement for twitter or tumblr or both, and i ended up not liking it but kept my account and continue to occasionally take a peek. by now i believe it will probably not survive, which is unfortunate. but as twitter has shown, there are even worse things that can happen!! smaller websites are better in a way. if they're entirely user-funded, like pillowfort or dreamwidth, please recognise how rare that is and consider signing up (it's free).

maybe one day it won't be rare anymore. many people seem to be fed up with the current state of the internet, so there are various retro movements going on. maybe even cohost will survive, and i for one would be happy to see it despite not being an active user. people should have options!! the more options, the better!!

if you're tired of coming up with passwords and remembering them, just get a goddamn password manager already and you'll never have to worry about that again. as a bonus, you also won't forget which sites you're registered on because they're all listed in there. if you're tired of checking multiple different sites daily - well, you don't have to. but making an account, poking around a bit until you know how the site works, and then checking in once a month or so will really come in handy the day your main haunt goes under.

not to sound like an alarmist or anything.

but seriously - you can also utilise different sites' features to use each for a slightly different purpose. one for NSFW stuff, one for entertainment, one for meeting new people and so on. especially on the fediverse, you can also easily make accounts dedicated to different hobbies or interests by signing up on several servers and following different hashtags on each of them to get started. many clients, including in-browser clients for desktop, make account switching very easy.

i wish it was more common to have accounts on many different websites. to venture outside of the walled gardens of mainstream social media and simply have a look around. i'm going to take my own advice and just make a new dreamwidth account already since reviving my old one after so many years feels too awkward.

[monster42069]

“Haaahaa this person keeps complaining about sciatica. 😋🤣 What an annoying and silly quirk! Must be lazy or trying to get drugs. So dramatic and embarrassing of them!”

This is the major leading cause of chronic back pain in elders and scary amounts of unlucky younger folk— especially if they’ve got bad genetics, are athletes, adrenaline junkies, clumsy, busy-bodies/work a lot, and more that we pride and push each other to do to ourselves.

Overwork and surviving crashes or falls, medical trauma accidents, like it’s cool until you can’t use your body freely anymore and end up a lazy loser on gov assistance like that one Gross coworker who only came to work twice per week and used “sciatica” as an excuse to get out of taking out the trash, right? Yes’m. You’re exactly like them once it happens to you. People will view you the same no matter how hard you try if they’re like you in belief. I’m 25, but you’ll probably understand when you’re 50+, if it happens to ya.

Disc extrusion/sequestration causes incontinence(both trouble using the bathroom and inability to hold it in), loss of leg control, damage to hips and anything connected to or supporting the spine(anything!), damage to intestines and bowels, the bladder, reproductive organs (including sex organs and libido), lungs, herniated other organs, bone spurs, neurology—

One of the ways it’s described by neurosurgeons?

“…mimics spinal tumors”.

The pain description if you googled “sciatica” alone, with no diagnoses to explain why someone would have sciatica, because that’s just the name given to lower nerve pain, not a diagnosis of a disease, but the description of the pain type? That eye-roll inducing word for people to hear?

“…a mild tingling, dull ache, or burning sensation. In some cases, the pain is severe enough to make a person unable to move.”

Because google compiled that into the quick answer missing a ton of info that’s important from a non-gov and non-uni website, here’s a better description from J. Hopkins.

“…called lumbar radiculopathy, [sciatica] is a pain that originates along your sciatic nerve. This nerve extends from the back of your pelvis down the back of your thigh. Your sciatic nerve is the main nerve in your leg. It is also the largest nerve in your entire body.”

Along with the mild tingling, dull aching, and burning sensation is other fun feelings we have to pick ourselves up from the bootstraps and smile through like… Sharp “Stabbing”. “Electrocuting”. “Static”. Numbness. Freezing. “Pins and needles”. Muscle weakness. Heaviness. Stiffness. Looseness. Shakiness. Instability—!!!

People kill themselves from this pain, die from surgeries, become paralyzed, lose function and control of half of their bodies, die from complications from surgeries, or die from letting it go untreated for too long.

Why would we let something like that go untreated for so long that it ends up killing or permanently damaging us? Why would your old coworker act in pain or complain about it without doing anything about it?

“If it hurts and you’re gonna complain about it, then do something about it!”, right? Not right. People complain in loop about things when they don’t know what to do about it.

Because the main suggestion for treatment is to leave it alone and hope it gets better on its own while giving the patient pain management, if the patient is lucky to have doctors who will give pain management depending on their age, any demographic you could imagine someone having bias on, health problems, personality type, or beauty.

Because it can move fast or one movement could cause it to sever or break something important, but fMRIs or CT-scans that cost thousands every year or every 3 years isn’t going to catch that on time, but that’s the way they’ve always watched my spine and my father’s spine. Who can afford that over and over again, anyway? To be told nothing helpful every time.

Because they end up finally, after years of physiotherapy, injections, different medications, different diet changes and exercise habits, they finally say that they don’t know.

You see a new surgeon after a waitlist to become a new patient, and he requires that you get new fMRIs. This costs thousands more and takes at least 2 months if you’re going as fast as possible. He tells you at your check in and consult appointment that your doctors were sugarcoating it because of your age, and your lower spine is destroying itself and anything it touches.

Surgery is his only suggestion, but listen closely, because this is probably why your doctors didn’t tell you. You’re small and young. You look hurt. We can all see that you’ve been through Hell and back from your pharmacy log and medical notes. Your last neurosurgeon wanted you to go through an agonizing and drugged-but-conscious test to make sure you’re injured when there’s remarkable proof on the fMRIs because your notes include a history of sexual abuse, and people who have been sexually abused lie to themselves and feel pain that’s not real. Still odd; the fMRI is enough for insurance to cover.

But the surgery you need to survive is going to make this happen again to a different part of your spine. You’re going to need this surgery again if you get it once, and your spine and legs will never be OK again. You’ll need multiple surgeries from how long you held out and let your disc damage your body, but it can be spaced out over time. We’ll place them back together, one at a time, as they break out of place like dominos.

If you don’t get the surgery, you could become paralyzed or die. It’s a lot of money. I hope you have a job and insurance to afford the anesthesiologist and cardiovascular specialist on my team. Tell your boss that you’ll need at least 1 year off of work to work on rehabilitation and recovery then shouldn’t lift anything over 10-15lbs depending on what your medical team says with time; we can’t be sure with these procedures.

You need other surgeries for other problems and have to bind your chest to avoid rape or murder? Ah…. That complicates a lot. I’m going to stand here and stare at the fMRI screen for a moment before I repeat myself about the surgery requirements and expected outcome. I don’t know how it’ll affect your guts or hips or chest or jaw or anything. Ask someone else about a surgery only I’m allowed to perform on you that they don’t know enough about themselves to decide if it’ll mess with other issues which will need another specialist’s input who doesn’t know the other 2 specialties and then sends you to another, please. No, I don’t want to talk to any of your other doctors or read an email from them.

…..Anyway, yeah. The person at your work who looks annoyingly, repeatedly, depressingly pained and makes you wonder why they were hired, why they haven’t been fired for how “useless” they currently or permanently are from their sciatica?

Go take out the trash they asked you for help with since you don’t think it’s a big deal at all, since it’s simple and easy to you, it shouldn’t be something you’d stop to be annoyed or troubled over unless you’re lazy, right? 😐