#Types Of Underpinning

[galacticlamps]

I just wanted to apologize to my classic whotuals for all the dead boy detectives spamming, but it's also important to me that you guys know two things:

a) I've become aware that a lot of what appeals to me about dead boy detectives is, on a kind of conceptual/thematic level, the same stuff that I love about my favorite eras of dr who, and 6b in particular

And I tell you this not as an advertising tactic but as a genuine PSA for anyone following me because:

b) Being me & having realized this, I know I'm definitely gonna wind up posting some unnecessarily long-winded analysis/comparison, pop it in the main tags for the sake of organization on my own blog, and subsequently confuse a hell of a lot of people there who either have no idea what I'm talking about or simply don't view either piece of media in the same light as I do to begin with

So I just wanted to reassure everyone that at least you're not suffering alone, as I will soon be inflicting the reverse bait-and-switch upon others!

That's all! continue w ur scrolling <3

[onewordshy]

Wish I could bottle the feeling this gives me

[discountalien-pancake]

This fabric doesn’t have any lines of symmetry but it does have repeating motifs so while I didn’t bother trying to pattern-match any other part of the corset, I made sure the center-front panels aligned!

[cloaked-saurosuchus]

👍 made a writing spreadsheet and so far it has been Working in getting me to pick on writing daily even though now I've gotten to a full chapter td draft it's encouraging me to try to rewrite it instead of doing. unpleasant school stuff as well fhakj

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Terry Pratchett about fantasy ❤

Terry Pratchett interview in The Onion, 1995 (x)

O: You’re quite a writer. You’ve a gift for language, you’re a deft hand at plotting, and your books seem to have an enormous amount of attention to detail put into them. You’re so good you could write anything. Why write fantasy?

Terry: I had a decent lunch, and I’m feeling quite amiable. That’s why you’re still alive. I think you’d have to explain to me why you’ve asked that question.

O: It’s a rather ghettoized genre.

Terry: This is true. I cannot speak for the US, where I merely sort of sell okay. But in the UK I think every book— I think I’ve done twenty in the series— since the fourth book, every one has been one the top ten national bestsellers, either as hardcover or paperback, and quite often as both. Twelve or thirteen have been number one. I’ve done six juveniles, all of those have nevertheless crossed over to the adult bestseller list. On one occasion I had the adult best seller, the paperback best-seller in a different title, and a third book on the juvenile bestseller list. Now tell me again that this is a ghettoized genre.

O: It’s certainly regarded as less than serious fiction.

Terry: (Sighs) Without a shadow of a doubt, the first fiction ever recounted was fantasy. Guys sitting around the campfire— Was it you who wrote the review? I thought I recognized it— Guys sitting around the campfire telling each other stories about the gods who made lightning, and stuff like that. They did not tell one another literary stories. They did not complain about difficulties of male menopause while being a junior lecturer on some midwestern college campus.

Fantasy is without a shadow of a doubt the ur-literature, the spring from which all other literature has flown. Up to a few hundred years ago no one would have disagreed with this, because most stories were, in some sense, fantasy. Back in the middle ages, people wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing in Death as a character who would have a role to play in the story. Echoes of this can be seen in Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, which hark back to a much earlier type of storytelling. The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest works of literature, and by the standard we would apply now— a big muscular guys with swords and certain godlike connections— That’s fantasy. The national literature of Finland, the Kalevala. Beowulf in England. I cannot pronounce Bahaghvad-Gita but the Indian one, you know what I mean. The national literature, the one that underpins everything else, is by the standards that we apply now, a work of fantasy.

Now I don’t know what you’d consider the national literature of America, but if the words Moby Dick are inching their way towards this conversation, whatever else it was, it was also a work of fantasy. Fantasy is kind of a plasma in which other things can be carried. I don’t think this is a ghetto. This is, fantasy is, almost a sea in which other genres swim. Now it may be that there has developed in the last couple of hundred years a subset of fantasy which merely uses a different icongraphy, and that is, if you like, the serious literature, the Booker Prize contender. Fantasy can be serious literature. Fantasy has often been serious literature. You have to fairly dense to think that Gulliver’s Travels is only a story about a guy having a real fun time among big people and little people and horses and stuff like that. What the book was about was something else. Fantasy can carry quite a serious burden, and so can humor. So what you’re saying is, strip away the trolls and the dwarves and things and put everyone into modern dress, get them to agonize a bit, mention Virginia Woolf a few times, and there! Hey! I’ve got a serious novel. But you don’t actually have to do that.

(Pauses) That was a bloody good answer, though I say it myself.

[deception-united]

Worldbuilding: Questions to Consider

Government & authority:

Types of government: What type of government exists (monarchy, democracy, theocracy, etc.)? Is it centralised or decentralised?

Leadership: Who holds power and how is it acquired (inheritance, election, divine right, conquest)?

Law enforcement: Who enforces the laws (military, police, magical entities)?

Legal system: How are laws made, interpreted, and enforced? Are there courts, judges, or councils?

Laws:

Criminal laws: What constitutes a crime? What are the punishments?

Civil laws: How are disputes between individuals resolved?

Cultural norms: How do customs and traditions influence the laws?

Magic/supernatural: Are there laws governing the use of magic or interaction with supernatural beings?

Social structure:

Class/status: How is society divided (nobility, commoners, slaves)? Are there caste systems or social mobility?

Rights & freedoms: What rights do individuals have (speech, religion, property)?

Discrimination: Are there laws that protect or discriminate against certain groups (race, gender, species, culture)?

Economy & trade:

Currency: What is used as currency? Is it standardised?

Trade laws: Are there regulations on trade, tariffs, or embargoes?

Property laws: How is ownership determined and transferred? Are there inheritance laws?

Religion/belief systems:

Religious authority: What role does religion play in governance? Are religious leaders also political leaders?

Freedom of religion: Are citizens free to practice different religions? If not, which are taboo?

Holy laws: Are there laws based on religious texts or teachings?

Military & defense:

Standing army: Is there a professional military or a militia? Who serves, and how are they recruited?

War & peace: What are the laws regarding war, peace treaties, and diplomacy?

Weapons: Are there restrictions or laws regarding weapons for civilians? What is used as a weapon? Who has access to them?

Technology & magic:

Technological advancements: How advanced is the technology (medieval, steampunk, futuristic, etc.)?

Magical laws: Are there regulations on the use of magic, magical creatures, or artifacts?

Innovation & research: How are inventors and researchers treated? Are there laws protecting intellectual property?

Environmental/resource management:

Natural resources: How are resources like water, minerals, and forests managed and protected, if at all?

Environmental laws: Are there protections for the environment? How are they enforced? Are there consequences for violations?

Cultural & ethical considerations:

Cultural diversity: How does the law accommodate or suppress cultural diversity?

Ethics: What are the ethical foundations of the laws? Are there philosophical or moral principles that underpin them?

Traditions vs. change: Does the society balance tradition with progress? How?

Happy writing ❤

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[windslar]

MBTI Legacy Challenge 16 Generations Inspired by the 16 Myers-Briggs Types

A TS4 Legacy Challenge by @windslar

The MBTI Legacy Challenge is inspired by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator – a pseudoscientific self-report questionnaire that measures one’s preferences on four dimensions of personality type. The test attempts to assign a value to each of four categories: introversion or extraversion, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. One’s four-letter test result represents 1 of 16 possible types. The underlying assumption of MBTI is that each type has specific preferences in the way they interpret their experiences.

This legacy challenge is about diving deeper into the personalities of your sims beyond the limitations of the game. Each type’s preferences underpin their interests, needs, values, and motivation. And in exploring each generation, decisions are made with that particular personality in mind. There are no backstories; rather, there are detailed descriptions and curated lists of aspirations, traits, and careers that are deliberately left open-ended so you can create unique stories. There are also scenarios and prompts specific to each type that affect the lives of your sims in relation to their career, love life, and relationship with their children. No two MBTI Legacy Challenges will ever be the same. This challenge is for players who love structure but also love the freedom to be creative in their gameplay and storytelling.

The official tag for this challenge is #MBTILC

For challenge rules, generation descriptions, and more: GOOGLE DRIVE (this link will save a copy to your drive so you can check off your choices, tasks, etc. so you can have it for personal use) GOOGLE DRIVE (this link will open a view-only copy)

[the-littlest-goblin]

Something that's stuck with me from the Arch Heart's appearance, which highlights a major underpinning of my frustration with C3, is the "Big Doors don't work" comment.

In what way exactly is the Big Door not working?

The purpose of the Divine Gate was to mitigate the gods exerting undo influence on mortal affairs, and according to everything we've seen in all 3 campaigns up to this point, this was a demonstrable success: the Calamity ended, and despite multiple potentially world-ending catastrophes cropping up since then, it has been up to mortals to deal with these threats. They've often done so with divine aid, but I fail to see how that's overreaching on the gods' part when accepting said aid is still dependent on mortal choice.*

Part of the Arch Heart's reasoning for wanting to "let go" is, as I understand it, because mortals continue to rebel against and resent the gods even from behind the Divine Gate. Which, yes they do, but like... the customer is not always right. Not every complaint needs to be catered to, especially the ones based on faulty postulates.

I get that this is not how the Arch Heart is thinking about it; my issue is not with the roleplay of individual characters, but with the narrative whole and the sheer amount of time it has spent, both in the text and extra-textual framing, sincerely entertaining the base axioms of an argument that is so poorly constructed Ludinus wouldn't make it past round one of a middle school debate club. None of the anti-god arguments have given any tangible evidence for the claim that the gods are an oppressive force or that Exandria would be better off without them that is not either:

A. Aeor, which was pre-Divine Gate and in fact the catalyst for the gods to pull back on interfering with mortal affairs, and therefore not all that pertinent to the current status quo;

or B. an event or action that, while it may be done in the name of the gods (e.g. Hearthdell) or directly encouraged by a god (e.g. Opal and the Crown) is nonetheless still contingent on mortals making choices, and therefore not a convincing argument that the gods are infringing on free will,** nor that removing them would prevent these types of situations.

An ongoing motif of C3 has been showing perspectives which challenge the prevailing narrative about the gods as established within Exandria's lore to this point. As a story enjoyer, I normally would eat up this sort of reversal—I love a metatextual play with in-universe narratives. But to do so convincingly requires more substance than a handful of characters going 'Trust me bro.' I'm going to need to see some peer-reviewed studies on Exandrian metaphysics before I take Ludinus "17 ulterior motives stacked in a wizard robe" Da'leth's word over what I've seen with my own brain over thousands of hours worth of game play.

If the message of the narrative is telling me to question the diegetic information it presents, then I am going to do just that. So far every argument that the gods do more harm than good for Exandria has been rampant citationless behavior. I find it baffling and borderline infuriating that we're approaching the denouement of this campaign and I still have yet to see evidence that the core conflict of the story, the central debate which has plagued every in-game and fandom discussion for a year now, is based on an actual problem. Like, at all.

*If you think Vax did not exercise his own agency and free will in every step of becoming Champion of the Matron, you are simply wrong.

**For real, we know there are magical means of straight-up mind control in Exandria. Like, you don't have to approve of it, but the gods engaging in standard issue verbal manipulation does not constitute a violation of free will, and it certainly doesn't make the argument that they are so immeasurably more powerful than mortals that they should not be allowed to exist.

[indierpgnewsletter]

There's Other Kinds Of GM Advice: Theatricality versus Transparency

(This first appeared on the Indie RPG Newsletter)

I find that broadly there are at least two kinds of GM advice – and they have a very different philosophy underpinning them.

The first kind of advice aims at all costs to maintain verisimilitude. It’s a solution that you can implement without breaking the players’ immersion in their characters. This can just be stuff like Matt Colville explaining that if your players are taking too long discussing plans, guess what, orcs attack! We’ve all probably played a game where people were going in circles and not able to decide what to do. If it looks like we’re not able to decide, we’re probably going to be relieved if the GM makes something happen to break the deadlock and prompt us back into the action.

(Historically, this kind of thing was taken to egregious lengths like Gary Gygax saying if players start acting uppity, have a rock fall on their head. It’s mostly gone now but reddit tells me that Cyberpunk Red which came out relatively recently still says something similar.)

The second flavor of advice involves breaking character and talking to your players directly. I know “talk to your players” is a mantra repeated so often that autocorrect suggests it as soon as you type the letter t. At its worst, this advice is vague and unhelpful. We’ve all considered talking frankly to people in our lives, we just find it awkward and hard and annoying. But, but, but – at its best, just describing the problem as you see it and escalating it from a character discussion to a player discussion will make it go away instantly. Like magic. (If you’re not sure what that means: In a previous issue, I discussed Jason Tocci’s excellent advice on escalating conversation in this way.)

And since the theatrical flavour of advice has the weight of history on its side and transparent advice keeps getting boiled down to mantra form, I thought I’d write down some examples of situations and some alternative ways to handle them:

Situation 1: The players are marines discussing whether to dive into the alien lair and recover their stolen engine (their main goal) or go and see if another missing team of marines is okay. There is only 45 minutes left and this is a one shot.

Theatrical: The other marines suddenly come on the radio and say, “hey we’re okay, please complete the mission.”

Transparent: “Hey, folks. There’s 45 minutes left. If we don’t do the alien lair now, we won’t be able to do it at all. Is that fine?”

Situation 2: The players are low-level fantasy nobodies who have a famous wizard friend. They’re about to tangle with some medium-level bad guy and decide to call in their wizard friend.

Theatrical: When the players try to contact her via a telepathic phone call / spell, she sounds breathless and says she’s busy doing something way more important like fighting a dragon.

Transparent: “Hey, folks. If we get the wizard in, she’ll absolutely make this fight a cakewalk. We won’t even need to roll initiative really. Is that what you want? Or would we rather have a fun fight?”

Situation 3: The players were having fun exploring when they meet a cool NPC (an android! an elf! an android elf!) who has this interesting backstory with an urgent, earth-shattering hook. They go along with the android elf because it seems more important but immediately look like they’re having less fun.

Theatrical: Narrate how the android elf meets a group of other android elves and have the elf say, “Hey, now that I have these folks helping me, you can leave it you want!”

Transparent: “Hey, folks. Talking to you as players here, do we want to stick with this whole android elf plot here? It does mean that we won’t do any open-ended exploration. Which would you prefer?” If they want to ditch the elf plot, you could just retcon it entirely or do the theatrical solution.

All of these situations have happened at my table. They’re all relatively low stakes and I think whichever way you handle it, it’ll probably be fine. But that said, some situations absolutely work better when done transparently so if you’ve never tried the transparent way, give it a shot. If immersion matters a lot to you, try it at the end of the session.

/End

PS. The theatrical options often still require the players to willingly suspend their disbelief and go with it. If a player didn’t play along, they might just say “I thought their radios weren’t working, otherwise we could’ve just contacted them before. Why can they suddenly contact us now?” or “Oh, the wizard is fighting a dragon right now. We can totally wait. There’s no reason we need to fight the bad guy right now.” And sometimes I can’t shut off that part of my brain either so I won’t judge. But if there’s a way to sidestep that situation even coming up, I’m going to take it every time.

[heavenlyyshecomes]

For the interested reader, diaries and notebooks can be placed in two categories: in the first the text is intended to be official, manifest, aimed at a readership. The notebook becomes a training ground for the outward self, and, as in the case of the nineteenth-century artist and diarist Marie Bashkirtseff, an open declaration, an unending monologue, addressed to an invisible but sympathetic ear. Still I’m fascinated by the other sort of diary, the working tool, the sort the writer-as-craftsperson keeps close at hand, of little apparent use to the outsider. Susan Sontag, who practised this art form for decades, said of her diary that it was ‘an instrument, a tool’ – I’m not sure this is entirely apt. Sontag’s notebooks (and the notebooks of other writers) are not just for the storage of ideas, like nuts in squirrels’ cheeks, to be consumed later. Nor are they filled with quick outlines of events, to be recollected when needed. Notebooks are an essential daily activity for a certain type of person, loose-woven mesh on which they hang their clinging faith in reality and its continuing nature. Such texts have only one reader in mind, but this reader is utterly implicated. Break open a notebook at any point and be reminded of your own reality, because a notebook is a series of proofs that life has continuity and history, and (this is most important) that any point in your own past is still within your reach. Sontag’s notebooks are filled with such proofs: lists of films she has seen, books she has read, words that have charmed her, the dried husks of completed endeavours – and these are largely limited to the notebooks; they almost never feed into her books or films or articles, they are neither the starting point, nor the underpinning for her public work. They are not intended as explanations for another reader (perhaps for the self, although they are scribbled down at such a lick that sometimes it’s hard to make out what is meant). Like a fridge, or as it was once called, an ice house, a place where the fast-corrupting memory-product can be stored, a space for witness accounts and affirmations, or the material and outward signs of immaterial and elusive relations, to paraphrase Goncharov.

—Maria Stepanova, In Memory of Memory, tr. Sasha Dugdale (emphasis mine)

[apas-95]

honestly for as radical as 'how to blow up a pipeline' is it really cannot conceive of organised action.

the arguments the characters have are arguments between incrementalism and adventurism, and every time a character says 'this might be impressive and flashy but it doesn't actually do anything' the only rebuttal they have is the propaganda of the deed; of a never-before-seen type of spontaneous mass action spurred on by people Seeing That It's Possible. ultimately both sides are making arguments that are 'within the system' - the stated endgame for the activists is that widespread terrorism makes specifically petroleum unappealing to the capitalist market. that is as much of a solution as the mythological reform is, and is ultimately underpinned by the exact logic of 'raising awareness' as the positions they critique - positions they critique specifically for their *speed*, not for the fact that they are impossible.

the driver of climate destruction is capitalism, not any given resource. without a support network; without connections to the labour movement which can exert ultimate power, and bring the economy to a halt unless its demands are met; without a fighting organisation built from the support of the people; without bail funds and legal support; the only hope is that you can Make A Statement when you get imprisoned, and that, with no support from the outside, nobody ever talks.

if you want to destroy a system, then follow the example of the millions who have succeeded at that before you, learn from their experiences, and build a movement that creates guerrillas and victorious revolutionaries, instead of martyring lone terrorists

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

up until recently i ran a pretty popular radfem blog (stay with me, this ask is in good faith) but after i took a social media detox, i realized i don’t share those beliefs anymore and in fact i might be trans myself. i just kind of abandoned the blog, but i’d feel bad if i didn’t tell my followers what happened. i’m scared of telling anyone because i feel like i’d be a bad feminist if i transitioned. (i know, you can be trans and a feminist just fine, but that’s just the kind of thing radfems tell you.) even worse, i’m scared of posting about it on my main or radfem blog because radfems and trans people by and large hate each other (obv), and i’m scared to mention i’ve been in both groups because of the hate i’ll get

Lee says:

When I first started as a mod, I would have told you that you need to immediately post on all your blogs to disown the transphobic beliefs you had previously expressed to try to make up for the harm that you may have perpetrated as a radfem.

Now that I'm a little older, my feelings on the topic have shifted a bit. Before anything else, I think you need to slow down and make sure that you ensure your own safety and mental health.

If you believe that revealing this change to your followers could result in backlash online that would affect you emotionally, it's crucial to prepare by turning off anonymous asks and muting notifications from social media apps.

You should also make sure you have a non-online place to turn for support. If they used to be your community, you may feel like you've lost online friends, so make sure you don't become too isolated. Instead, lean on your IRL connections and seek support from trans-friendly people in your community.

You may even want to consider looking for a therapist-- questioning being trans can be difficult for anyone, and adding a layer of internalized transphobia doesn't help.

When you're ready to share your feelings on your blog, you should write a thoughtful post explaining your journey. You don't have to justify your identity; rather, focus on your personal growth, how your views have evolved, and how you came to understand yourself better. Acknowledge the complexity of the situation and that you're still learning.

These people were once your buddies and there's a chance you may be able to make some of them question their beliefs too if you don't lash out at them and trigger that instinctual defensive us-versus-them mindset, so I would try to keep a friendly tone even while noting that you no longer support them.

So thank your followers for their support and engagement over the years, but tell them you aren't comfortable staying part of their community now that you've realized that the beliefs underpinning the group are doing damage and you are trying to unlearn that type of thinking.

Gently challenge any misconceptions you once held or promoted. Clarify that being trans and feminist are not mutually exclusive and that everyone deserves respect and equality, regardless of their gender identity.

If you're comfortable, share resources that helped you on your journey. This could be educational materials, support groups, books you found helpful, or contact information for trans-supportive LGBTQ+ organizations. If there's anything you'd recommend to others who were once in the same place as you were on getting out, this is the time to share your advice.

Understand that reactions will likely be mixed. Some followers may feel confused, betrayed, or angry, while others might be supportive or even share their similar experiences. Remember, you're not responsible for their reactions and you don't need to respond to them if you don't want to argue and they aren't willing to have a respectful conversation.

Be clear about your boundaries. Let your followers know what kind of comments you're willing to engage with and that hate or harassment won't be tolerated. You can even stop engaging with the account altogether if you don't think you can deal with the hate that you may receive.

You don't have to post about this immediately. Again, it's okay to take as much time as you need to feel ready. It's okay to wait until you're in a safe and stable position before making any announcements.

If you do post about it and get hate, remind yourself that you're doing the right thing by letting go of that community, and that you're not only making the right choice for your own life in allowing yourself the freedom to explore your gender identity but you're also doing the right thing overall since you're now standing up for the trans community (late is better than never!) and no longer encouraging transphobic narratives.

If you feel that your current blog is no longer a space where you can express yourself authentically, consider starting a new blog or platform where you can write freely about your experiences and beliefs. Or just get offline altogether-- your digital detox is what started this, so maybe it's healthy for you to continue it for a while!

If you tell someone "I support trans folks" and they send you hate, that person is not your friend anyway. This is an opportunity to meet nice people who you can be yourself with. I would really encourage you to connect with IRL activists who are actually regularly volunteering and doing something concrete for their community if you have the opportunity.

When I was in high school, I volunteered at my local library's teen advisory board, and when I was in college I volunteered at a local hospital and through my college. This weekend I'm starting training for volunteering in-person for my town's emergency preparedness group which also does things like help to unload trucks for the food pantry, and I also volunteer remotely for two organizations online.

I'm really pushing for you to get out and volunteer (online or IRL) because I know one draw of the radfem community is feeling like you're an activist and that you're supporting women's rights and protecting and defending women. And it is important to support women's rights and protect and defend women! But there are other ways to do that beyond running a hateful blog attacking trans women.

I have a friend who works at an organization for survivors of domestic violence, for example, and she works with volunteers who help staff events, answer the hotline, etc. You can look around and see what local initiatives there are in your community and if you can't find the thing you're looking for you can start a group yourself or look online and join a national or state-wide cause that you care about, like pushing the legislature to support access to abortions.

Giving up the radfem community doesn't mean giving up feminism, and this is a good opportunity for you to take a look at your own time, your values, and think about how you can take this chance to start working to be a more effective feminist. Not everyone has to be an activist, but if you want to be one, think about how you can start doing good in a way that will actually affect people in a positive way.

I've also often been involved in doing events like conferences and workshops and panels IRL from my time in high school to the present day to try and educate folks on the community, but I also know that sometimes you need to take a step back and prioritize yourself. If you think you're not ready to jump into making change that's also okay. Just join something. A soccer team, a book club, anything hobby-related, to have something else to do and talk about and think about and stay tethered to feeling part of something.

Remember, it's okay to grow and change. You're not betraying anyone by being true to yourself. It's a courageous step to admit when your views have changed, and it's an integral part of personal growth. Be kind to yourself during this process.

Whether or not you end up identify as trans, you still will be doing the right thing by separating yourself from that community. I know it may be difficult because they were a place where you felt supported and part of a movement, but I really believe that you're taking steps in the right direction by letting go of that ideology and just living your life!

Followers, if you have any experiences unlearning toxic beliefs please reply with your advice for anon!

[fatehbaz]

Goldstein and Mahmoudi point to what, on appearance, is a relatively new phenomenon: namely the use of digital technologies in contemporary forms of surveillance and policing, and the way in which they turn the body into the border. [...] [T]he datafication of human life becomes an industry in its own right [...] [with the concept of] “surveillance capitalism” - a system based on capturing behavioral data and using it for commercial purposes [...] [which] emerged in the early 2000s [...].

In contrast, scholarship on colonialism, slavery, and plantation capitalism enables us to understand how racial surveillance capitalism has existed since the grid cities of sixteenth-century Spanish Mexico (Mirzoeff 2020). In short, and as Simone Browne (2015, 10) has shown, “surveillance is nothing new to black folks.” [...]

[S]urveillance in the service of racial capitalism has historically aided three interconnected goals: (1) the control of movement of certain - predominantly racialized - bodies through means of identification; (2) the control of labor to increase productivity and output; and (3) the generation of knowledge about the colony and its native inhabitants in order to “maintain” the colonies [...].

---

Identification documents and practices can, like so many other surveillance technologies, be traced back to the Middle Passage [...]. [T]he movement of captives was controlled through [...] slave passes, slave patrols [...]. Similar strategies of using wanted posters and passes were put in place to control the movement of indentured white laborers from England and Ireland. [...]

Fingerprinting, for example, was developed in India because colonial officials could not tell people apart [...].

In Algeria, the French dominated the colonized population by issuing internal passports, creating internal limits on movement for certain groups, and establishing camps for landless peasants [...]. In South Africa, meanwhile, the movement of the Black population was controlled through the “pass laws”: an internal passport system designed to confine Black South Africans into Bantustans and ensure a steady supply of super-exploitable labor [...].

On the plantation itself, two forms of surveillance emerged - both with the underlying aim of increasing productivity and output. One was in the form of daily notetaking by plantation and slave owners. [...] Second, [...] a combination of surveillance, accounting, and violence was used to make slave labor in the cotton fields more “efficient.” [...] [S]imilar logics of quotas and surveillance still reverberate in today's labor management systems. Finally, surveillance was also essential to the management of the colonies. It occurred through [...] practices like fingerprinting and the passport [...]. [P]hotographs were used after colonial rebellions, in 1857 in India and in 1865 in Jamaica, to better identify the local population and identify “racial types.” To control different Indian communities deemed criminal and vagrant, the British instituted a system of registration where [...] [particular people] were not allowed to sleep away from their villages without prior permission [...].

---

In sum, when thinking about so-called surveillance capitalism today, it is essential to recognize that the logics that underpin these technologies are not new, but were developed and tested in the management of racialized minorities during the colonial era with a similar end goal, namely to control, order, and undermine the poor, colonized, enslaved, and indentured; to create a vulnerable and super-exploitable workforce; and to increase efficiency in production and foster accumulation. Consequently, while the (digital) technologies used for surveillance might have changed, the logics underpinning them have not.

---

All text above by: Sabrina Axster and Ida Danewid. In a section from an article co-authored by Sabrina Axster, Ida Danewid, Asher Goldstein, Matt Mahmoudi, Cemal Burak Tansel, and Lauren Wilcox. "Colonial Lives of the Carceral Archipelago: Rethinking the Neoliberal Security State". International Political Sociology Volume 15, Issue 3, pp. 415-439. September 2021. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[yuesya]

I have a question, in the last chapter Shiki says that her type is someone that can defeat her in a fight. However she seems to arrive at that conclusion from thinking that someone scared from her would be uninteresting and that someone stronger than her wouldn't be scared. Then it seems her type would be "someone not scared of me"? Maybe it is the influence of the AUs but Yuzuki was most certainly not stronger than her, but he wasn't uninteresting or scared of her, and I think they would have made a good couple.

Is that truly her type?, is this another case of Shiki not truly understanding her feelings? Or is there some more Shiki logic I missed?

Bit of a long answer here haha.

So, Shiki's 'type.' It's not exactly 'someone who's literally more powerful and therefore wouldn't be scared of her.' True, Shiki would not be interested in a partner who fears her. But her answer here is less an indication of her preference being 'someone unafraid' and more 'someone she finds interesting' instead. (Also, preferably someone who won't die easily. There's also that, for uh... various reasons.)

Keep in mind: Shiki's worldview is a little skewed. Even putting aside the whole 'lines of death' thing going on, Shiki's way of categorizing and making sense of the world around her is actually more or less based on using strength as a measurement.

So, normally when you encounter someone, you'd assess them on things like personality, social status, relationships to people around you. However, what underpins Shiki's first assessment of people is their potential combat strength.

It's not that she looks down on and mocks those who are weaker, but it's just... basically part of how she functions. Her parents were killed when she was young; Shiki lacked the strength to stop it. Her abilities dictated that she needed to be brought into a sorcery clan and trained accordingly; Shiki needs the strength to fight curses. Her uncle is worried about her and there are dangerous enemies surrounding her; Shiki needs the strength to overcome adversity.

Shiki doesn't need a partner who understands her, but the partner needs to be someone who Shiki understands, and what Shiki understands best is strength. She's aware of this on some subconscious level -as reflected in the answer to Tsukumo.

Anyways.

Aside from dissecting Shiki's profile here, something else that I think bears keeping in mind that a type is just that: A type. A person might have a type, but eventually end up romantically engaged with someone who is not their type. (Or at least, not their original professed type -maybe there are other qualities that grew on them throughout the relationship. Maybe they still stick to their original type, but the partner in question is an exception that they're willing to make.)

... Feelings are complicated haha. Shiki already has enough trouble navigating and expressing regular emotions; good luck tackling romance.

[anghraine]

It's a very little bit funny that I used to be mildly notorious in my corner of Austen fandom for disliking Colonel Fitzwilliam, who at the time was extremely idealized in those fandom spaces, particularly by contrast with Darcy having things like "flaws" and "character growth."

I still don't like Colonel Fitzwilliam as this perfect ideal apart from maybe some extremely minor, defensible faults because he's human after all, someone who would have been exactly suited to Elizabeth really and did love her but truly is too poor to choose her (alas!) and totally is handsome, to boot.

But I do like Colonel Fitzwilliam as a man who is fundamentally decent, good-natured, intelligent, and strong-willed, but with a fundamentally aristocratic perception of himself and the world. I like that he's willing to tease and criticize Darcy as part of flirting with a pretty girl, but leaps to Darcy's and Georgiana's defense when he thinks it's important. I think it's interesting that it would be so easy for him to resent Darcy, and instead they seem to be genuine bffs with healthy respect for each other (likely for a very long time given their blood relationship and close ages) as well as co-guardians and amicable relatives.

Darcy is not a man prone to overstatement, so his description of his relationship with Colonel Fitzwilliam as one of "constant intimacy" is really intriguing to me—far more than Fitzwilliam's casual and rather shallow and self-interested flirtation with Elizabeth, tbh. It's doubly interesting because Fitzwilliam seems to only sort of know the Bingleys, and while he approves of Bingley, my impression is that he knows the whole family through Darcy rather than as general social acquaintances. We never see the Bingleys and Fitzwilliam in the same social settings, even ones where they might credibly interact like Pemberley, and Fitzwilliam makes a point of clarifying to Elizabeth that he only slightly knows Bingley's sisters. There are all these gradations to how Darcy interacts with both social sets, his mentorship-type friendship with Bingley and his intimacy with his cousin, that I don't think a simple consultation of the table of precedence fully explains.

I do find Colonel Fitzwilliam deeply boring when he's reduced to Darcy's rival for Elizabeth's affection despite never having any serious interest in Elizabeth—the kind of "so there, Darcy" vibe that underpins Fitzwilliam-as-rival is meh given their own relationship. But for such a minor character, there is genuinely quite a bit going on, I think.

[thejockout]

Subject Diaries #0.5 - Jockout the Subject, Part 2

(okay this is the last edging post of this series lol)

Last time I discussed my history/beliefs around masculinisation and erotic TF hypnosis, just to give a foundation of how I think about this stuff.

NOW to get into the slightly juicier details; what am I into, and what have I achieved so far with hypnosis?

WELL. What I'm into is an interesting question; and it's changed a lot in the last 2-3 years. If you'd asked me then what I was into, the answer was a fairly limited range of hypnosis: I was into "dumb jock" style brainwashing... and not much else. I didn't do a lot with either sub/dom-coded files, and had yet to discover several of my major kinks! It's kind of weird looking back at how little I used to be into, tbh. But I feel like that's often the way with kinks, they kinda spread over time.

For hypnosis, my current core interests are the following:

Masculinisation - specifically shit like changes in media consumption, physical mannerisms like manspreading or gait, and attitude adjustments. This blurs the line with the next point, but really just covers the whole gamut of a "bro" or "jock" type personality, and is the primary thing I've been into for years.

Dumbing Down - this was a kink I was very on again/off again with for a while before finding my balls and embracing it wholeheartedly. Like many subs, I used to really fear being "Permanently Dumbed Down" and losing skills and traits I need for work/my ambitions. But that's not a realistic fear and not really how hypnosis works, so now I embrace it pretty wholeheartedly. Nothing hotter than coming out of trance unable to spell or think straight. I love seeing the changes in my communication that come from it, and the actual feeling of hypnosis-induced brain fog. (And, being seen as a dumbass is a big kink too, and a nice ongoing goal.) Also included here is the whole subcategory of like, wanting to be malleable and easily hypnotisable, wanting to be someone who drops like a stone and is super impacted by suggestion. I've got some friends who come to mind when I talk about that, and it's always hot to see how easily they sink.

Corruption - this is sort of a broader, underpinning kink to the rest of the stuff I'm into; but it's a desire I have to want to be changed, to have someone coy and sly and sneaky manipulate me into changing in ways most would consider "for the worse." Making me dumber, more single-minded, more narcissistic, more self-indulgent. Fuck, bro. I get off on the idea of someone making me into their personal monster... especially if it goes a little too far from their POV and they can't walk it back. This underpinning desire for corruption is sort of what fuels my love of Dumbing Down and, in recent years, super Dom-coded Toxic Alpha type hypno generally. It's play I think you need to be careful with, but I've been having a good time so far and don't think I'd have ever started making files like Brute if I hadn't gone in that direction myself.

I listen to files outside these three themes, but generally they need to have at least one for me to be into them, and the best tick all three boxes.

I briefly listed a few files I'd listened to a bunch in my previous Diaries post; those being Jack Drago's Masculine Conditioning series, Avis' Sapiens general catalog, and Rigsby's Absolute Jock. I've probably listened to 100s of hours of both the MC-series and Avis' work. My time on Absolute Jock was a looot lower, but tis the best of the old guard of jock files on WarpMyMind. Overall, it's a lot of time to have dedicated to this kinda hypno! So you'd expect to see some results, right?

...Yeeeahhh, well, I'm still kind of a Work In Progress on that front. I have seen results, but I held myself back with anxiety and overthinking (about hypnosis) for years of this, so I've really only started to show change in the last year or so. That being said, the years of repeated conditioning have done a number on me lol.

EFFECTS I'VE SEEN

Successful Media Brainwashing - I did the unthinkable and successfully made myself a sports fan via hypnosis. It's kinda weird. For years I really struggled to even get through a game; then with hypnosis, I gradually started to just get suuper horny when I watched sports instead, which wasn't really any better because I'd just jerk off and lose interest. But sometime in the last two years, I kinda just got into it gradually and now watch for authentic, general interest. This was a real pipe dream at 17 when I envied how all the jock-types in my class could be totally absorbed and single-minded watching or playing a game, but I ended up getting there in the end! Not American so don't watch American Football/basketball/baseball or whatever, but I like rugby/hurling/F1 ✌️I credit this to Jack Drago's work, specifically Files 2 and 4 of the MC series; Manly Media Bubble and Male Oriented Interests.

General Personality Change - this is a WIP suggestion, but it's been interesting seeing myself change over the last 12 months especially. I've become a lot more dominant, confident, cocky, and even self-centered especially in online kink type contexts. IRL, I've just become more dominant and less willing to take shit; but that's only ever a good thing. It's interesting Because the nature of this kind of change, which happens so slowly over time, is that it can be difficult to look back and see the points where you used to behave differently. But sometimes like... especially since doing Douchebag-type files, sometimes I'll criticise someone or make fun of something and get a surprised reaction from a friend who wasn't expecting me to take it that far. And it always makes me feel a little good to surprise them in that way, to violate their expectations of how Nice I should be. I'm always Nice to them, and to anyone decent, but you've really gotta make me WANT to treat you well to get that now. Some people will read this and feel annoyed, or roll their eyes, but I kinda don't care. It's what I'm into. It's what I've GOTTEN into. (It's all Avis' fault really tbh.)

Libido Increase - this was a slow creeping change overtime, but went from getting off maybe 1x a day/5x a week or so to probably getting off 3x a day currently. Got a lot better at thinking with my dick and am super easy to make horny, which helps feed into the next suggestion on the list;

Dumbing Down - this is the suggestion I've had the MOST recent breakthrough with. For the month of January, I listened daily to @hyphyphurray's Muscle Boy file, interspersed with his Happy Horny Himbo and @avissapiens' Intellect Drain. Dumbing Down was always something I'd struggled to conceptualise hypnotically, but I had a perspective shift this month as to what dumbing FEELS LIKE on an ongoing basis. While under some mild post-trance haze, I wrote this snippet about it in preparation for the post a week ago:

(Don't worry, I'll summarise it.)

The tl;dr of that message is that I realised "permanent" dumbing would feel less like brain fog/tipsiness, and more like apathy towards intellectual topics. It's a priority shift, or a behavioural change; not a magic finger plucking facts out of your brain so you forget the answers. It's sort of like it just fucks with your desire to know things/answer questions instead. The information might still be there, if you hunt; but why would you? Who cares, bro? Does it even matter?

Since making that perspective shift, it's like a few years of dumbing has crept in all at once, and it's been super interesting. I'm not going to over dramatise it (I'm desperate NOT to become an RP-type blog with this) because in contexts like writing, schoolwork, etc., I think just as clearly and easily. But in leisure contexts, in hypnosis, just in chatting with bros... I feel that intellectual apathy creep in allll the time. Trying to think of an answer to something and just giving up two seconds in, because "it's easier not to think about it." Trying to remember something and quitting because "if it was that important, I'd have remember." Letting my typos and message flubs sit because "they can figure it out lol" and not over analysing whether everything I say is totally coherent or rich.

I understand the irony of me speaking in huge depth about this here, when what I'm saying is that I'm thinking less. But like I said, it's kinda contextual. If anyone was interested, I'd consider writing a hornier post under the influence of trance sometime so the difference can be seen, but right now... I'm just taking this a little more formally, I guess? Idk, I'm torn between wanting it to be pseudo-educational and also just having made myself horny writing so much about dumbing, and when I'm horny I REALLY feel that haze start to creep in and I kinda wanna just stop this an edge or something and go do anything else that's more fun 🥴

So in the spirit of the post, I'm gonna go do that.

JANUARY WRAP-UP

For the month of January, most of what I listened to were Hyphyphurray's files listed above (the number in green = the number of times I listened to them). They are paid files, but they're well worth the price, and I recommend them to anyone into this shit. I also listened to Avis' Intellect Drain 5-6 times as a supplement because I love how that just makes my brain turn off for a while.

Not sure atm what I'm gonna listen to through February, I've bounced between Muscle Boy and Avis' Toxic Douchebag Alpha a few times so far but will likely commit to one track for the month.

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This is post #2 of my broader Subject Diaries series, a blog series I plan to maintain on a fortnightly/monthly basis updating people on what I've been listening to, files I've been enjoying, and effects I've been experiencing. When I'm not trancing, I'm usually off being a mystical forest bro in the wilderness of Ireland, but I am always available for commissions here on Tumblr/Soundcloud if you reach out via DM. My flat rate is currently $55-80, but you can always check my pinned post for more up-to-date info. You can also support me with a one-time tip either via Paypal or Ko-Fi, but you'll have to DM for the first.