#generally unobjectionable

[quasi-normalcy]

In Star Trek, they manifestly use generative AI all of the time, and I'm not talking about Data's art either. The holodeck clearly runs on this: you say "Computer, give me a table" and it generates a table from its huge dataset of tables. They can customize it: "Make it a metal table" and it will procedurally generate this as well. When they talk to holodeck characters the dialogue is mostly just generated by the computer (because it has to be). There's a whole plot in Lower Decks about Boimler going off on some insane, meaningless quest because he ran off the rails of his own holomovie and the computer had to make up a bunch of bullshit out of its "in-fill" parameters. And yet everyone still does real art even so. Jake Sisko's a novelist, Picard paints (not well), the crew does community theatre; Sisko and Riker still cook even though the computer can literally assemble food for them in seconds. Even writing holodeck programs is portrayed as an artistic endeavour even though the computer is doing all of the tedious parts.

Anyways, there are two possible morals to this story: (1) Most of the episodes that I'm talking about were written in the 80s and 90s and they didn't have a realistic conception of what computer-generated art would do to society; or (2) AI art would be unobjectionable if people weren't dependent on income to survive. Personally, I'm inclined to the second one.

[berrryparfait]

HeeHee I just read you who came before me I need one for the boys please! I want them to feel a little insecure too 😛

not my first, but my last ⊹ ࣪ ˖

➴ original post: who came before me?

— ༉‧₊ᐟ featuring: sylus, zayne, rafayel, xavier, caleb x fem!reader

— ༉‧₊ᐟ premise: he knows about your ex-boyfriend, and he isn't dealing with it well. if only he knew how much you love him... 「i'm new to this. go easy on me, please.」

— ༉‧₊ᐟ tags/cws: slight angst, retroactive jealousy, reader's storyline doesn't follow game mc's, reader had been in a serious relationship before meeting him, insecurity, reassurance

— ♫₊ᐟ soundtrack: how do i tell you? – lizzy mcalpine

✧ a/n: please listen to the song while reading !! it encapsulates both reader and LI's feelings so perfectly i just had to use it, even though its meaning doesn't really match up. enjoy <3

SYLUS doesn’t feel threatened by your ex, at least not when it comes to material things. It’s unobjectionable that he’s more attractive, generous, and financially robust than him, and the thought delights him to no end. Like that diamond necklace? Use his card. Cold? Take his jacket. Lonely? He’s cancelled his plans to spend time with you. No—his insecurities lie in the fear that even after all this time, you still love that boy. That at least a small part of you needs something he’ll never be able to provide. Were his mannerisms more delicate than mine, his gaze more expressive? Am I too much of a monster for her to ever feel truly safe around me? Sometimes he wonders if you’d be better off with a little more…normalcy. He keeps these feelings to himself, of course, but he can’t hide from you for long. “I want you to know that you’re the only person who’s ever really known me. The real me. If you lost everything tomorrow, I’d still be right here, by your side.” He tilts your chin up and kisses you gently. “I'd spent so long fighting for survival. I'd rejected the company of others, fearing they’d only betray me. But then I met you. If everything I own burns to the ground, yet I wake with you in my arms, I’d still be the most powerful man in the world.”

ZAYNE doesn’t like talking about your ex. It kills him inside, knowing your lips once touched another’s, and your sighs of passion were once uttered for someone else. Those privileges were his. Your jokes, your giggles, your secret confessions—how many of them had he heard before you? But he’s never been one to live with hate in his heart. He doesn’t know the guy, and he never will, so why does this affect him so? He knows it’s irrational to be jealous over a man long gone from your life, but he can’t help it. Sometimes when he’s in bed with you, staring into your eyes and caressing your cheek, he wonders if he measures up. “Zayne, that was ages ago. I don’t think about him, so you shouldn’t either.” You put his hand on your chest and his breathing stills. “Hear that? I’m nervous just being close to you. This heart beats for you, Zayne.” He smiles before placing a soft kiss on your forehead. “I’m working on these…illogical feelings of jealousy. I know I can be dramatic at times, and I don’t ever want that to get in the way of our relationship. Put up with me, will you?”

RAFAYEL stoops low. He teases you about your “lack of taste” and jokes about how offended he is that you didn’t wait for him. He appears unaffected by your ex-love, self-confident and at peace with your past decisions. But it haunts him at night, the thought of you with another man. He feels oddly possessive of your past, even though he’ll never have it—as if wanting to protect your younger self from heartbreak and danger. Most of all, he hates not knowing. Was he kind? Was his hair dark, or light? Was he good in bed? He’d never voice these questions out loud; they’d expose a vulnerability he’d never admit exists. So he masks his secret envy with humor, and fights every day to make sure you never love another man again. It isn’t long before you begin to see through his unbothered facade, and it nearly breaks you. “I don’t love him, Raf. I don’t even really remember him. The moment we became a couple was the moment I decided you were the one for me. And I don’t take matters of love lightly.” He glares at you playfully, but you can tell something inside him has softened. “Yeah, yeah. As long as you know it. You’re like, the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And I don’t like to share.”

XAVIER is a goddamn trainwreck. He internalizes his hurt, his turmoil—all because he doesn’t want to come off as too “needy”. Somehow, he’s got it in his head that you’re only with him because he’s your “type” (your ex too had a head of light hair), and constantly worries that he’s not enough for you. You both have busy schedules, and he isn’t the best at consolation; what if you felt the need to confide in someone more…in tune with their emotions instead? He hadn’t been an insecure person before, but this mystery guy, this faceless ghost who’d enjoyed your afternoons and midnights and most intimate moments—it taunts him. Some nights, he thinks he’s gone insane. I bet he wants to get her back. Who wouldn’t? He tosses around in bed, tormented by hypotheticals and intrusive thoughts that will never see the light of day. “Is this about my ex, Xav? I know you think the two of you are alike, but you couldn’t be more wrong. And I love those differences. I love the fact that you’re you, and I’d never want you to doubt that, ever.” He sighs and pulls you closer to him, a small smile on his lips. “Sometimes, I wonder how I got this lucky. What have I done to deserve you? I must’ve saved a planet in my past life, mustn't I?”

CALEB doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind it at all, really. He doesn’t mind that you’d once held another guy’s hand, gone shopping with him, bought him sweet gifts. He doesn’t mind that you’d once screamed another man’s name in bed before coming undone for him, baring yourself to him the way you now do for— Fuck that. He’s bitter and he’s selfish and he’s enraged, repulsed by the thought of another man touching you, loving you. On the surface, he’s chill about your past, ever the mature and amicable Caleb. But underneath all that wisdom and nonchalance is a rabid dog, wild and hungry and looking for a reason to implode. Why, Pips? Why did you give yourself to that-that stranger? He knows deep down that he’s beyond saving, but it destroys him to know your firsts will never be his. “I told you, I was just a stupid teenager who didn’t know any better! I can’t change my past, and I’m sorry for that. I chose you, Caleb. Please choose me too.” The anger drains from his face, and the guilt hits him like a truck. “I’m sorry, Pipsqueak. I’m trying to let it go. But I swear to god if I ever see that man I’ll make sure his nose never returns to its rightful position—”

— ⋆˙⟡ ©berrryparfait

《 please do not copy / plagiarize / translate my works or publish them on any other platforms. 》

[swordandscytheandpen]

i think you folks might be a little harsh on ol' Gaius Julius Caesar. Like he was an an awful person to be sure, but when you compare his policies to those of the other Roman politicians in the late republic he was actually relatively unobjectionable. Beneficial even (if you weren't a Gaul). Wealth redistribution, aid to the poor, widened political enfranchisement, all generally progressive reforms for the time.

I know it's all a big joke but every time I see an ides of march meme on here I cannot help but squint my eyes at this insidious Optimate propaganda. Can't believe you little shits are siding with the likes of Cato on this.

[alliluyevas]

I’m obsessed with r/engagementrings because every other ring on there is the ugliest damn thing I’ve ever seen. I feel like most engagement rings you see irl are totally unobjectionable and perhaps even generic and these people are out here with the ugliest jewelry imaginable.

[akilah12902]

Welcome back to "you lazy hacks", Point Blank edition! I'm doing THREE posts for this one, because image limits and because once again they've screwed up massively with a change to the gadgets and that deserves its own post.

Here's the Stormbreaker general changes and the Stormbreaker in-depth gadget look

Okay I am fine with boombox to radio change. They also manage to keep that consistent, which is mildly surprising for reasons we'll cover in post 2 gadget fuckups boogaloo.

I have some questions here? There's actually a bit much later where the digital copy also has a bunch of added text and I'm wondering if possibly my paper copy (2006 edition I think) had some edits and the digital is restoring some of the original text?? Genuinely not sure.

Physical media is not obsolete!! [shakes fist]

They just. Doubled it. I guess. Didn't change any of the other money mentions but we can't have people thinking the tuition is too cheap!

Whoops somebody stopped paying the extortion money to use the Tommy Hilfiger brand name!

Unobjectionable but unnecessary honestly

What, are you saying Sir David Friend hasn't made absolutely certain that he has reliable cell service across his country estate?

Given the main plot of Skeleton Key this was never going to be able to gel with current events, why are you trying (god, looking back on Skeleton Key is so fucking depressing.)

[massages forehead] the replacement writing isn't. Good. Also come on, if Sir David's country estate doesn't have good cell service then you can absolutely say Point Blanc doesn't.

Okay now we've gotten to the biggest and most fucking annoying change. This is going to need a separate post to go over just how poorly this change was made. (Also in poor writing, this sounds like the GPS is in a pocket on the ski goggles... plus he reaches in a third time despite no mention of a second).

Reasonable.

Another extortion not continued?

They do keep this change up, they say "film" posters instead of "sci-fi" posters later.

And now I need a part 2 for the last couple changes!

[like-tears-in-rain-storms]

Hejhej! Regarding your recommendation for Arashi ga oka, I would be curious how Shintoism plays into the plot in comparison to the strongly Christian themes in conflict; namely Nelly's New Testament idea of forgiveness, listening to the unfortunate (her strong class solidarity for Hareton and Heathcliff) versus Joseph's much more cruel, self serving piety mindset of hierachy, punishment, strict line inheritance, and retributional revenge which poisons the old Earnshaw's relationship to his children from the beginning. I would love to hear your thoughts on these religious-moral undertones in cultural translation.

Ok, things I remember (been a long time I've watched it in its entirety, and also am knowledgeable, kinda, about Shinto iconography, much less about deeper theology, so I might be missing crucial stuff here) but here it is:

First of all, in place of the moors, the story takes place in a holy volcanic mountain, completely empty but for two houses belonging each to a branch of the same family, which have, with the passage of time, drifted away from one another, and now are openly hostile. The House of the West (the Earnshaws) are governed by the feudal patriarch (Mr. Earnshaw), who lives there with his son and successor, his daughter Kinu (Catherine) who is promised, as per family tradition, as a priestess in a temple of the capital, and a stray child the patriarch took in considering him a favorable omen from the gods, and named Onimaru (Heathcliff), who is half house worker, half foster son, enjoys the old man's favor, and is Kinu's companion in play and mischief and wholly devoted to her. The House of the East (the Lintons) are much more openly affluent, "civilized", equitable, and seem to have ditched many of the more primitive and regressive habits which still govern life in the House of the West.

The religious aspect is definitely way more front and center in Arashi ga Oka, because the patriarch of the House of the West is also a priest, and specifically the guardian of the mountain itself and priest of the mountain's "soul" (in Shinto, its kami) - the mountain is presented as a genus loci, in a similar, but much more overt vein to how the moors and the Yorkshire wilderness are personified and ingrained in human behavior and destiny in the original novel). Yearly, the priest of the House of the West conducts an eerie ritual, donning ritualistic attire, painting his face and performing an elaborate, manic dance/race through the grounds and down the mountain's side in the night, to exorcise evil, renew his authority over the domain and "communicate" in some way, we are led to believe, with the mountain's spirit. To conduct this ritual is the sole privilege of not only the priest of the House, but also its Head - the patriarch's son is supposed to perform it himself upon the death of his father, but we never see him do it; we do see Onimaru, many years later, however, assume the mantle of the mountain's guardian himself. Though the House of the East are also a priestly family, they don't seem to have a similar ritual, and in general their habits are much more "urban" and "urbane" both than the House of the West. They embody a tradition much less absolute, unobjectionable and old-fashioned than their cousins of the West - the lord's (Edgar's) sister speaks freely on family matters, they accept Kinu arriving there alone, and basically proposing marriage to the lord of the house herself (as a way to avoid leaving to where she's pledged to), they express disapproval of such a backwards custom dictating a young noblewoman's life, and Kinu, owing also to her husband's affection, has a powerful position as lady of the House of the East - as has her opinionated sister-in-law who, like Isabella, cannot help but be drawn by the current uncouth, foreign master of their neighboring House - with much more tragic results. The House of the East also lacks a key element that drives much of the action in the House of the West, and the relationship of Onimaru with all three women (Kinu, her sister-in-law, and her daughter - Onimaru's daughter, here, we are led to understand); a room where the women of the House of the West are confined in when they are either punished, or considered "unclean" (as in during Kinu's first menstruation, or her SiL's punishment).

So, for one, the religious aspect in Arashi ga Oka is just as important if not moreso, than the social/class one that transfers over from the book, what with the similar social class of landed Yorkshire gentry, but much more "progressive" socially, financially glamorous and the most important, integrated in state bureaucracy family of the Lintons compared to the, one could say, conservative, isolated Earnshaws. Onimaru, whom the patriarch of the West House picks up just a while before we see him perform his cleansing/exorcising ritual on the mountain, conveniently means "demon", since they don't know where he came from, and has an unnerving and dark appearance (both low-class and superstitious associations for feudal Japan). There is no Nelly and Joseph, in any significant capacity in the story, and obviously, the Christian mercy and forgiveness/fire and brimstone rhetoric and charity/religious hypocrisy contrasts are not really relevant, due to both Shinto having different basic priorities than Presbyterian Christianity (in fact many argue Shinto is not as much as religion, as a set of animistic beliefs bound together by geo-cultural context, but that's another story), and also that they are subjects that do not apply in the fabric of feudal Japanese reality the way they apply to an Industrial Revolution European one.

The more easily paralleled, I think, aspects of the two works, are the socially progressive ones - but lacking a Nelly to provide a framing narration that deliberately emphasizes them, we are left to pick them out ourselves through the actions of the women (and the reactions of the men in the story), so they are presented in a much....I wouldn't say ambivalent, personally, but much more individualistic way, since the actions they take out of desires to control their own fate (Kinu leaving to marry her cousin, though she loves Onimaru, because she doesn't want to be parted from the mountain/him, her SiL's tragic decision to seek Onimaru out, her daughter's decision to entice him in order to find out the truth about her mother) hardly argue for their immediate benefit in-universe, but they are framed as them trying to assert independence and control of themselves in a strict context that affords them limited options, even if their actions - especially Kinu and her SiL's, bring nothing but misery for almost everyone around them (in true Wuthering Heights fashion). The contrast between the male expectations of Kinu's father of his son and heir (the Hindley equivalent) are also an examination of gendered roles and the contrast between old/feudal/hyper-spiritual and newer/"modernized"/more subdued religiosity. "Hindley" is definitely presented as returning from his education much less in tune with the mountain environment and more similar to his Eastern cousins, favouring comfort, luxury, but retaining his expectations of patriarchal sovereignty. It is also interesting to note that the old Western patriarch is the only person who actually values Onimaru - his son, his Eastern relatives, the city, they all -minu Kinu - consider him exactly what he appears as and/or what his name imply - at best a lowborn, bestial savage, at worst an actual demonic spirit. Ergo, the only one who treats him with anything other than disdain and fear is the old-fashioned patriarch and archpriest, who is tasked with protecting the mountain and his household from demonic entities and caring for the guardianship of the place. Perhaps, again, I am missing crucial context here, regarding the specifics pertaining to Shinto or the demon/spirits associations, but the one sure thing is - the only ones belonging to the mountain in truth are the old priest, Onimaru, Kinu and arguably, at least in part, Kinu's daughter - everyone else seems to exist out of their depth in an enviroment that is actively hostile to them and seems to either encourage their worst selves, actively sabotage them, or throw them again and again against impossible odds that inevitably see them failing. Again, much like the original Wuthering Heights, and its gothic association of people and place, both as pertaining to the houses themselves and the surrounding areas - something which, however, can be considered to be refuted by the books last words, which both emphasize the transient nature of human conflicts before the measure of land and nature, but also assign to the human characters the responsibility for their enduring cycles of tragedy, which their descendants have just decided to break, before they end up broken by them as their predecessors.

In Arashi ga Oka, I think, the association with nature is much less ambivalent, and people and mountain act more as an ecosystem in themselves, codependent from one another with the spiritual world as the connective tissue, than shown to be manipulated or urged on by nature. So I'd say, in the truly spiritual sense, Wuthering Heights uses the spirituality of Christianity to soothe the conflict of man's heart and nature, or, when ill-used, exacerbate it - in Arashi ga Oka, spirituality helps maintain balance, which, however, is not dictated by human measure - the mountain upon which people live never becomes their equal in any way, and necessitates people either remaining rooted in immovability in order to coexist with it, or try to move on and move it along, and failing. Onimaru (who disappears in the mist with Kinu's dead body, faithfully preserved for years) in the end, might be demon whom the father invited unknowingly into his home leading to its ruin, as the peasants call him to the last,or he might be a spirit of the land, or he might indeed have been a blessing of the mountain, which people failed to take into proper account, but the sure thing is - he is part of the mountain, and returns whence he came, carrying Kinu with him.

In all, I think, the difference, expressed in all corresponding aspects of the two works is this: in Emily Bronte's work, the end brings the hope that the new generation learned from the mistakes of the past and will cultivate a new relationship with the world around it, both the social and natural, which will transform it, in turn, in a place of mystical powers that, while wild and untamed as they should be, won't foster discord and pain. For this reason, they abandon Wuthering Heights, which been the theatre and symbol of so much pain and strife, for a more temperate living space, in a sense, leaving the place to its ghosts, and making a new beginning. The same thing happens in Arashi ga Oka, but the mountain, there is uncompromised and uncompromising. There is no way to live with its ghosts and its wildness, not unless one wishes to end the same. Spirituality there is not reconciliatory, because it is not its meaning to be. In Wuthering Heights, God has created nature and man, and it's up to him to reconcile them, if he is allowed to - but in Arashi ga Oka nature IS the god, or rather, the mountain IS the spirit. The goal is not to reconcile, but to find the balance, and in the mountain, people cannot flourish, lest they become demons of their own and swallowed back into it. Men cannot possess, or even remain there except to their detriment, or by performing reconciliatory rites which turn them, slowly, into stones as sharp and unyielding as the gravel of its sides. It is balance with nature, but without the human-centric aspect of Wuthering Heights - because in feudal Japan, the measure of everything is not the man's capacity for temperance, but the ideal balance between self-contrasting and self-complementing perpetual forces.

I am not claiming this is a qualified review - this is only the general ideas I had gotten out of seeing it (and again, another watch might have me revising them again), and they are quite vague and perhaps unsatisfactory - however the themes and their parallel are, I hope, what you were asking for. It is difficult to appraise the translation, because as in Kurosawa's Shakespeare adaptations, Arashi ga Oka doesn't seek to draw perfect parallels between its source and its preferred setting - rather, it isolates the core subject and themes, and builds the story as it would have played out in another locality and temporality, in order to reach the same conclusion, but framed in a whole different cultural context - which I think is both Yoshida's and Kurosawa's great success, and the reason their adaptations feel so faithful to their source material, moreso than many Western ones.

If anyone wants to drop some insight, feel free to! Also, I'll try finding some pretty cool analyses I had once read about the Shinto aspect and the comparisons to the book, and message them.

Hope it helped!

[noisytenant]

i finished The New Bottoming Book (after having read The New Topping Book). (for those unfamiliar they are using top/bottom in terms of BDSM more than penetrating/receiving).

overall great books to build a solid foundation for ethical and satisfying bdsm. i think they'd be ideal reads with a partner or friend to discuss with.

i think you can gain a lot as an absolute beginner with no (kinky) sexual experience (and may save everyone a lot of trouble), but it helps to have some experience with How People Are beyond the theoretical. if you think you're experienced enough to not benefit from the books, i would say think again--there's always more to learn.

there's a lot of little gems of knowledge and wisdom but it's not easy to highlight any specific thing worth noting, especially when it's so breezy that it's easy enough to recommend someone read the whole thing than try to bullet point your favorite theses. i feel like there's a vague sense of things that might be missing or oversimplified, but it's mostly resolvable through discussion. in some ways i'd say they could work as essential texts--i think they stock one's "toolbox" robustly and provide a shared vocabulary to use with a partner.

it's a very humbling experience to reflect on ways i've failed to live up to the quite reasonable communication standards set out in the books in the course of my life. i'm glad to have read it now so that i can do better in the future.

while it inspires some challenging reflection, none of it is hard to swallow. they lay things out very simply and straightforwardly, and focus on negative consequences over value judgments, which i think makes it a lot easier to reckon with.

it feels like a very realistic book. it's interesting the argument that bottoms (and to a lesser extent tops) can enter a compromised state, acknowledging the fact that sometimes the fantasy does start to blur into reality--though often not in the ways one expects.

the anecdotes are fun and interesting though i wish the bottoming book had interludes (slightly longer sexy anecdotes, to inspire and inform) like the topping one did. in general i felt like the topping book was a bit meatier and more coherent than bottoming.

i generally appreciated the relatively frank and straightforward approach to sensitive and taboo topics, which carried on their general "shit happens" attitude--whether you like it or not, people are doing this, they have their reasons, and they might even be very good ones. here's some best practices.

but i feel like they were sometimes clumsy, particularly regarding race. the most explicit discussions of real-world race relations were pretty unobjectionable (though were, like most things in the book, only a few paragraphs long), but there were moments--like a scene based on orientalist tropes, or the choice to print a racial slur to make a point about extremes--that i wasn't so sure about.

i'm trying to keep in mind that the book is old enough to drink, which doesn't excuse it any more then than now but reminds me to fill in the gaps with my own understanding (the short, respectful but somewhat old-fashioned section on transness obviously applies here).

the final segments about spirituality in bdsm could have been interesting, but ultimately left me on a really weird note. perhaps it's just my bias. i feel like spirituality is a really intense and personal thing, and the swift pace with which the book operates doesn't really cut it when you start invoking world religions and practices. or i suppose you could sum it up as me having an innate skepticism when other white people start talking about chakras out of nowhere.

basically, i trust you to know bdsm sex, but i don't trust you regarding senses of a higher power. unfortunately because these are the last segments of the whole books (which until then had no real traces of spiritual discussion), they color the impression as a whole.

that aside, though, really very good books. like i said, nearly essential reading, basically anyone could get something out of them. i talk about the moments that gave me pause chiefly because the books only ever really lost me for a line, a paragraph, a subheader--the whole package is sensible, approachable, and generous with wisdom. i would be excited if they were somehow superseded by even newer topping and bottoming books--but for their scope and intent they're hard to beat. check them out sometime.

[hippolotamus]

Hi. Hello.

Two very important questions:

what are your thoughts on fruit-flavored milk drinks (banana, strawberry, etc.)

please rank your top 5-10 potato products on a scale of creepy face tot things to generally delicious and unobjectionable.

Thank you so much.

Agreed, these are very important questions

🥛 Ohhh, I have never experienced any fruit ones other than strawberry. That sounds… disgusting. Strawberry is meh but tolerable in small doses. Highly disappointing it doesn’t actually come from strawberry cows 😑

Potato Rankings

🤢 potato salad

🥔 baked potato

🥔 Creepy Faces

🥔 Vodka (especially the emotional support variety)

🥔 Tater tots

🥔 loaded potato skins

🥔 Hashbrowns (meaning the big greasy pile of fried shredded potatoes you have with breakfast)

🥔 roasted potatoes with sea salt and herbs

🥔 Mashed potatoes

[popatochisssp]

Aesthetics Ref - SFF Bros

Nickname: Vi (SFF!Sans)

Height: 4” taller than you (OR 5’3”)

Eye-lights: Dark violet (#9400D3)

Magic Specialty: Purple, cyan, green

Scars/distinguishing marks: Small crack above his right eye-socket, three letters etched vertically along his sternum

Preferred Style: Business casual, aiming for sleek and professional and well put together enough to blend completely into the background. He doesn’t want to stand out as anyone or anything special, but if he does happen to have someone’s attention, he wants to be entirely unobjectionable and unworthy of scrutiny, because everything about him is perfectly, neatly arranged and very boringly ‘normal.’ Favors dark colors, lots of blacks and grays with the occasional accent color or geometric pattern—within reason of course.

Outerwear: Blazers and jackets (center-clasping stand-collars are a preferred style), generally worn open

Top: Button-ups, henleys, and other such long-sleeved shirts

Bottom: Slacks and trousers mostly, with maybe one or two pairs of dark jeans in the mix that rarely see use

Footwear: Mostly boots, flat combat style by preference or balmoral style for appearances, but also has some nice wholecut shoes for when the boots don’t work with the outfit of the day

Trademark accessory/accessories: An expensive-looking black watch with a Tyrian-purple face, worn on his right wrist

-

Nickname: Hunter (SFF!Papyrus)

Height: 1’7” taller than you (OR 6’6”)

Eye-lights: English violet (#563C5C)

Magic Specialty: Purple, cyan, red

Scars/distinguishing marks: None

Preferred Style: Rugged bad boy…but not too bad, of course, perfectly safe and approachable. Comfort and function are more important to him than style, but he’s good at working within those confines to make himself look good, and exactly the right amount of ‘dangerous’ to be interesting but not really threatening. Tends toward natural, earthy tones (greens, grays, and browns), solid colors, and little to no ostentation.

Outerwear: Hooded jackets and sweatshirts, usually leather for his outermost and something lighter underneath, but a big fan of being able to put the hood up or down to obscure his face a little or just change his vibe from spooky to chill or vice versa

Top: Athletic shirts, usually long sleeved and thumb-holes a bonus, but a good amount of tank tops and sweaters too

Bottom: Joggers and cargo pants mostly, but some sweatpants and even a pair of shorts or two (though those are usually layered with athletic tights for running)

Footwear: Cross trainers with some hiking boots in reserve, just to be prepared for other terrains

Trademark accessory/accessories: Fingerless gloves, the kind that are open and don’t circle the base of each finger. He likes having his digits free, but his palms warm and covered

[frances-kafka]

I notice that women and men in AI art, are two different demographics. It's largely the men getting the job offers, but... IMO, part of that is because the men are actually more normie passing and more conventionally employable. Women in AI art seem to be old, trans, disabled, or sex workers. Women in the peak employable demographics are not getting AI jobs - and they're not even in the AI community. Just as they've never been in many of the spaces I've been in until that thing goes relatively mainstream.

I have long felt that there is some kind of social taboo against women being early adopters, and the thing is, I don't even think this taboo has existed for my entire life. It starts to really show up in the 80s when PCs are being marketed specifically to families with boys.

I am going to generalize that in normie gender culture, which has swallowed up nerd culture and all the spaces that gender-non-conforming women used to have, women aren't allowed to do a thing or be a fan of a thing until large numbers of women agree that it's Safe and Morally Unobjectionable. The praxis of right wing women and left wing women here is exactly the same, using different words.

It has to have some kind of modern cultural equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Must be declared Godly or Non-Problematic. Must be what your friends are passing around.

You are only allowed to engage with content that's broadly approved of. Nothing intellectually challenging or creatively edgy.

There must be some kind of "Women in Tech" initiative broadly saying It's Okay Now. It must be coupled with stock photography and Photo Day at Megacorp showing HOW it's okay and for WHOM. Women techies have to be product mommies and not autistic hacker girls, and it's largely women enforcing this.

It's Mad Men sexism with a different gender policing it, and with diversity initiatives

Until you get over your early adopter taboo, you will get left behind in every industry by men

And also while you're getting over your early adopter taboo, get over the whole idea of NLOGs and PickMes even being a thing, because absolutely you would consider any female early adopter both of these things if you're the kind of sexist who can't imagine women doing things that don't have the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval

[darkmaga-returns]

A hearing of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee nearly came to blows after Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) threw a tantrum over evidence introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) suggesting that “Maryland man” Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a well-established member of MS-13.

The donnybrook threatened to overwhelm MTG’s introduction of documents asserting that multiple courts and law enforcement agencies determined Garcia was a member of the violent gang before he was captured and deported back in March. A steady drip of discoveries about Garcia’s past criminal history and allegations of violence against him has kept the case on the front burner of Washington, D.C. discussions for months.

Both Goldman and Greene are members of the committee, and it’s typically unobjectionable for members to introduce evidence into the record; as committee Chair Mark Green (R-TN) puts it in a clip of the feud, “anything” can be entered into the record by a member. Still, Goldman interrupted the MAGA lawmaker multiple times as she read the litany of charges against Garcia.

“According to the Attorney General of the United States, she posted that the evidence shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia has repeatedly been identified as a member of MS-13 by a Maryland county police gang unit, which I introduce for the record, a reliable confidential informant, ICE officers, an immigration judge agreed, and an appellate board agreed,” Greene said.

As Chair Green invited unanimous acceptance of her evidence, Goldman sputtered into the microphone, “Sorry, is that a court order? I object!”

[ttrpg-smash-pass-vs]

Personally I think the loxodon are more interesting bc of the trunk! I like the giff but outside of trunk stuff they’re p similar physically, and both are generally unobjectionable in terms of personality/culture

Yeah I really underestimated how much people loved the trunk. I figured it would be a more niche thing but I really undersold it I guess.

[malegains]

Don’t know what went on behind the scenes at Bing yesterday, but the app is utterly useless now. Simple unobjectionable prompts give nothing back. The rare time I can sneak a phrase past that used to be a sure shot, the result I am lucky to get is totally awful, boring, plain… and somehow more fake looking than before. Used to be I could get hyper muscle that looked like real photographs. Guess those are auto-filtered out now. Also, none of the five or six tricks I figured out to make hyper glutes even works now; they give results about 10% of the time I try them, but the butts are all very normal sized when they do. Depressing.

It���s possible it will loosen up again in the future. It has done so before, after periods of unreasonable strictness. And I have literally dozens of images waiting to post, so, there’s a back log for the next couple months.

But ugh, I hate how every bit of joy or pleasure in this society is under constant threat of destruction from prudes, conservatives, straights, etc. General life advice: any time you find some place to play, get your fill while you can because it *will* be ruined at some point, far too soon.

[fictionyoubelieve]

Some of the current discourse is mentioning the James Damore Google doc again, as an example of DEI backlash within big tech. Nobody's rehashing the contents of the doc, but for those that haven't seen it or don't remember it that well, I just want to reiterate that it was really stupid.

It alleges that Google's DEI practices unfairly discriminate against men, and that acknowledgement--much less criticism--of this fact is strongly discouraged internally. Reasonable enough, if he had left it at that.

But then it goes on a long tangent about "Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech", in which he makes many different claims about innate biological differences between men and women, ostensibly supported by embedded links to the shakiest of personality "science" and unfalsifiable evo-psych speculation. It is transparently the result of Damore googling things that he already believed and picking abstracts that agreed with him. (In some cases, the linked study does not even support what Damore is claiming in the link text!)

In short, despite being sandwiched between largely-unobjectionable generalities and reassurances, the gooey center of questionable assertions revealed Damore's own biases (and his ignorance thereof), which is a bad look when you're trying to call out other people's bias.

As an example, and because I was fired up about it, I dug into the very first claim:

Women, on average, have more: Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing).

The first link is a Wikipedia page, which ultimately cites a study based on the NEO PI-R, a personality inventory used in psych research. Here are some example questions which might relate to "openness to ideas" (source):

I sometimes lose interest when people talk about very abstract, theoretical matters.

I enjoy working on "mind-twister"-type puzzles.

I have little interest in speculating on the nature of the universe or the human condition.

The second link goes to a study that is... pretty sus. It opens with a Margaret Thatcher quote, for one thing. And the author really likes to cite himself for his core claims (out of 48 citations, 5 are his own papers, with no co-authors). Anyway, the "people-things orientation" aspect is about reported vocational preferences in three other papers--two of which are his own. One of those two supposedly tracks sex differences across 53 nations, but it drills down to this:

BBC Internet survey participants also completed a 10-item measure of gender-related occupational preferences, which asked them to rate on 7-point scales ranging from ‘‘strongly dislike’’ to ‘‘strongly like’’ how much they were interested in the following jobs: car mechanic, costume designer, builder, dance teacher, carpenter, school teacher, electrical engineer, florist, inventor, and social worker.

...and of course, this BBC survey is only available in English. Plenty of cultural variety captured there, I'm sure.

The third source is actually the strongest, though it's included as an aside. The link goes to a Wikipedia page that cites research using an Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient. These quotients include such questions as:

If I were buying a stereo, I would want to know about its precise technical features.

When I hear the weather forecast, I am not very interested in the meteorological patterns.

I am fascinated by how machines work.

When I was a child, I enjoyed cutting up worms to see what would happen.

After the above, Damore continues:

These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics.

Does it explain that, though, or just demonstrate it? Where is the evidence that these preferences are actually due to innate differences, and not gender bias? And, crucially, how much do these slight differences in preference actually matter when there are millions of dollars on the line?

If you simply want to prove that Google is discriminating, there are more direct ways to do that than speculating about the gender ratio of people who may be innately drawn to software. And if you want to argue that a skewed gender ratio doesn't necessarily imply overt discrimination, you can just say that, instead of writing several hundred words about what you think the innate differences are between men and women, and then sharing that with all your coworkers. Stupid.

[specialagentartemis]

The bizarre thing to me about Travelling Light is that, in this episode where the Traveller decides that they’re not gonna report Duytren for smuggling archaeological artifacts because it’s not a big deal and not worth making a fuss about, the podcast ALSO introduces the first interesting bit of cultural conflict so far that sets up a really obvious and much less ethically fraught thing they could have made the university smuggling!

They meet a human from a human diaspora community on this Ice Planet whose ancestors migrated to Ice Planet thousands of years ago and used nanobots to adapt their biology to the cold and ice; the nanobots have become an integral part of this community’s biology and culture. But nanobots are illegal on most other planets in the galaxy. In the past that didn’t matter much because people rarely travelled off-planet, but in recent decades, interstellar travel has become much more common, and the Ice Planet Humans are barred from travelling most places that their other-species peers can go freely, and this causes conflict with younger generations!

This is an actually interesting concept—and throws the artifact smuggling plotline into even sharper relief.

I get the sense that the podcast authors chose “artifact smuggling” because they wanted a space smuggling plotline, but wanted to choose something “unobjectionable” that we the audience won’t ethically condemn the characters for. The wildly colonialist implications of this, the questions it raises about the university’s part in artifact extraction, the cultural heritage ethical violations this indicates, the loss of archaeological data, the separation of heritage from its people, and the way this requires the archaeologist and anthropologist on board to compromise all their professional and ethical standards that are the backbone of their field… doesn’t seem to register. They just aren’t important.

But if you want something that’s illegal but we the audience can agree that it’s ethical to still do, this episode (19) presented such an obvious alternate—smuggle technology that will shield your nanobots from showing up on the space TSA’s scans, so Ice Planet Humans can have the same opportunities and ability to connect with the rest of the galaxy as all the other species! It feels so obvious to me! Why would the podcast bog its characters down in colonial attitudes of cultural heritage selling and cast the ethics of the whole university into question, when you could do the same plotline but cast them as standing up for unfairly-discriminated-against underdog humans instead?

[questionsonislam]

How should we spend holy nights? What should we do in order to gain Allah's content?

There are some important means of deserving forgiveness and intercession, earning thawabs, advancing in religion, being safe from troubles and problems and gaining Allah’s content, which can be –and necessary to be- applied in holy nights. It will be useful to remember some of them in short and with the list below in general:

1. One should read the Quran and listen to the ones who read. There should be Quran-citing invitations held in appropriate places. The feelings of love, respect and loyalty for the words of Allah, i.e. the Quran should be renewed and strengthened.

2. One should send compliments (salawat) to the Prophet and renew his/her awareness of being one of his followers, and hope for his intercession.

3. One should perform qada and nafilah (supererogatory) prayers. If there are prayers exclusive to that night, they can be performed as well. Holy nights should be spent with prayers and with consciousness of kindness in prayers, in accordance with their essence.

4. One should meditate; “Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going to? What does Allah expect from me?” are the main issues which one should contemplate, besides other important matters.

4. One should make an account and revision of her/his past and outline the plan and program of the present and the future.

5. One should repent her/his sins sincerely and should regret and turn to the Lord, considering that night as the last chance.

6. One should perform invocations (dhikr) and supplications to Allah.

7. Believers should make amends with and forgive each other, and assure their content with others.

8. Resentful and offended people should be reconciled; people should be pleased, and sorrowful faces should be given a smile.

9. One should pray for the good of himself and for other Muslim brothers and sisters mentioning their names.

10. One should ask the news of those who have got rights over himself and the necessities of moral quality of fidelity and gratefulness should be fulfilled.

11. One should visit the poor, orphans, the sick and the elderly people and please them with love, compassion, respect, gifts and charity.

12. Verses, hadiths about that night and comments of them should be read from the books about them individually or in groups.

13. Religious meetings, panels and conversations should be organized, ;advices of preachers should be listened; poems should be recited and a different feeling should be evoked in hearts with religious songs and hymns.

14. Prayers of maghrib, isha’a and fajr should be performed in groups in mosques, at holy nights.

15. Tombs of the Companions, scholars and saints should be visited and they should be pleased, and supplications should be made to Allah in the spiritual atmosphere of their tombs.

16. One should visit their dead relatives’, friends’ and ancestors’ graves, which is a requirement of faith brotherhood.

17. One should wish their elderly people, masters, parents, friends and other acquaintances blessed holy nights, by visiting them in person or by phoning, faxing and e-mailing to them.

18. If possible, one should fast the day before the holy nights.

There is not an exclusive way of praying for holy nights. Holy nights can be spent with prayers (salat), reading the Quran, supplications and other kinds of worship… Some special prayers performed at holy nights are not present in sunnah; and they are not based on a notable narration either. Nevertheless, it does not mean that “it is makrooh to perform prayers at those nights”. There are many narrations encouraging tahajjud and nafilah prayers. Of course, it is more virtuous to perform them at holy nights.”

Moreover, it is unobjectionable to perform prayers which are said to be exclusive to holy nights additionally; it makes one earn thawabs.