#is basically a mainstream entity | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cerastes · 2 years

Note

So I was thinking about Sesa's whole "I know how to make weapons that don't require arts great equalizer" thing and maybe he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near Rhine Lab or Columbia for all that matter. I was wondering if you had thoughts on what a potential interaction between him and Dorothy would be? Cause both talented engineers, but with Dorothy seeming to forget implications of things, what effect wooing Sesa being scared of the implications have on Dorothy.

Sesa wouldn't be a danger even if he was in Rhine Lab because Sesa himself is fully aware of the dangers of such a paradigm shifting breakthrough: I had a zealous anon (that went unpublished) some months back when I first talked about Sesa basically calling Sesa a coward, because his breakthrough in being able to produce firearms that don't require Arts knowledge or skill could be used to arm the masses and shift the power balance between the people(tm) and bigger entities like the Ursus Empire.

So obviously that's one hundred percent not feasible in the slightest for a lot of reasons, so I didn't answer that because it felt less "let's talk about Arknights" and more "why is this game not fulfilling the wishes for a social revolution we all want right now", and I include myself in that "we", it's just, it's not that simple, and Dorothy's Vision puts that in perspective, making the Sesa Conversation relevant again:

Dorothy has the skill and the intent, but lacks the worldly experience, thus she was not able to see the full consequences and ramifications of her actions, right? But there's another important factor in what made Dorothy's Vision, the Hub, possible: The endless money that Rhine Labs has, as well as their infrastructure that allows for these sorts of experiments to occur in the first place. Dorothy can have all the brains and prowess she wants, she could not have achieved the Hub by herself, or even just with her section, she needed the funding, infrastructure, and support not just from Ferdinand and Rhine Lab, but also from Loken Williams. We'll come back to this in a second.

The difference between Sesa and Dorothy is that Sesa, being far more worldly and perceptive to just how hellish Terra truly is, and that such hellish world has bred some truly evil, greedy people, is immediately aware that, were his and his brother's breakthrough of non-Arts reliant firearms to become mainstream, it would only result in far more oppression and a far more unfair playing field, not an equalizer of power.

Because to manufacture weapons and materiel, you still need funds, personnel, resources, and infrastructure. The discovery of non-Arts firearms would benefit, short term, black markets and smaller outfits. Let's remember that Sesa and his brother weren't small time, they had their own laboratory and hideout. They had more than most smaller outfits and gangs. In the long term, though, once the know-how of firearm production becomes more mainstream? Who do you think will have the edge, small time gangs or the Ursus Empire with its absolutely immense territory, endless resources, and infinite personnel? End of the day, it would be the giants like Ursus, Yan, Victoria that would just get far, far more powerful, not the small revolutionary guys and gals we'd be rooting for.

Sesa is aware of this, and that's what takes us back to the previous point: Sesa gets that his knowledge would drown the world in fire for the benefit of the Big Guys, not the everyman, simply because of a matter of logistics. For every one okay rifle a gang makes, the Ursus Empire is probably going to be making hundreds of artillery cannons and thousands of better rifles.

As for an interaction between Sesa and Dorothy, I think he'd be unequivocally mad initially, but then would understand that Dorothy truly means well, and they could definitely relate to one another, although I'm not sure Dorothy would accept Sesa too easily: Dorothy was pushed into her path by her family's untimely death and lives for her research, Sesa killed his own brother for the greater good, and tries to keep his research drowned in obscurity forever. That’d be real interesting to scope.

Just two Oppenheimers in a room, 5 feet away because they are not willing to drown in their scholarly curiosity.

#apparent angel #arknights #sesa #dorothy

270 notes · View notes

politijohn · 9 months

Note

Hey, I was a bit curious. You mentioned you support democratic socialism. Most of the historical examples we can pick of socialism are inherently non democratic, we can also take examples of some current ones like Venezuela. We can take that a bit further if we include communism in this conversation. How do you propose that fits in today's world, especially when socialism (or communism) is not sought after by world leaders? Even countries who claim to be socialists (for example India) are moving towards capitalism, they are in fact capitalists in everything but name. So I was curious as to how America could be a democratic socialist when it was the one who proposed and actively advocated for capitalism. I suppose what I really want to know is, is that even plausible? And if so, how do you think that could practically happen?

Also wanted to add that I really love the content you put out! Very informative. Sorry if I went too over board!

You posed good questions! It's my view that the next realistic step the US should make is to social democracy, which still adheres to the capitalist framework. Imagine a country where Bernie Sanders' platform is the norm rather than our broken neoliberal status quo.

This is not the end goal, however. Even though social democracies significantly improve their citizen's quality of life, they still perpetuate injustices globally.

Socialism - true socialism - ensures a truly democratic society while addressing injustices. But it is also fragile; greedy entities, which the world is full of, can quickly corrupt the system because the state, by its publicly-owned nature, has been given sole power over societal services and goods.

Socialism, today, has a sour taste to the average American because of propaganda and bad-faith actors co-opting socialist movements did terrible things in its name (We can't forget many of these states were forced into terrible conditions by Western imperialism in the first place). This sour taste poses a real challenge to convince Americans that socialism is a worthwhile goal. Anything progressive in the political realm is painted as socialism, as if it is some evil to be avoided at all costs.

To shift the narrative, we must continue fighting for leftist policy and interventions. They're widely popular, despite what politicians and mainstream media say, and we must make them a reality by demanding that of our public officials. Running more leftist candidates, engaging in direct action, and participating in organized civil disobedience will help hold government institutions accountable. During the FDR years, we saw how our government can work FOR us in a more socially democratic fashion. Convince people that these policies propel society further compared to the status quo and force an 'ah-ha' moment that socialist government and policies aren't so bad.

This, I believe, will allow us to keep moving further left toward democratic socialism. When people's basic needs are met under social democracy, they can increasingly turn their attention and energy to bigger issues like climate change, imperialism, and other global crises.

#asks #socialism #us politics

39 notes · View notes

dailyanarchistposts · 5 months

Text

A.2.18 Do anarchists support terrorism?

No. This is for three reasons.

Terrorism means either targeting or not worrying about killing innocent people. For anarchy to exist, it must be created by the mass of people. One does not convince people of one’s ideas by blowing them up. Secondly, anarchism is about self-liberation. One cannot blow up a social relationship. Freedom cannot be created by the actions of an elite few destroying rulers on behalf of the majority. Simply put, a “structure based on centuries of history cannot be destroyed with a few kilos of explosives.” [Kropotkin, quoted by Martin A. Millar, Kropotkin, p. 174] For so long as people feel the need for rulers, hierarchy will exist (see section A.2.16 for more on this). As we have stressed earlier, freedom cannot be given, only taken. Lastly, anarchism aims for freedom. Hence Bakunin’s comment that “when one is carrying out a revolution for the liberation of humanity, one should respect the life and liberty of men [and women].” [quoted by K.J. Kenafick, Michael Bakunin and Karl Marx, p. 125] For anarchists, means determine the ends and terrorism by its very nature violates life and liberty of individuals and so cannot be used to create an anarchist society. The history of, say, the Russian Revolution, confirmed Kropotkin’s insight that ”[v]ery sad would be the future revolution if it could only triumph by terror.” [quoted by Millar, Op. Cit., p. 175]

Moreover anarchists are not against individuals but the institutions and social relationships that cause certain individuals to have power over others and abuse (i.e. use) that power. Therefore the anarchist revolution is about destroying structures, not people. As Bakunin pointed out, “we wish not to kill persons, but to abolish status and its perquisites” and anarchism “does not mean the death of the individuals who make up the bourgeoisie, but the death of the bourgeoisie as a political and social entity economically distinct from the working class.” [The Basic Bakunin, p. 71 and p. 70] In other words, “You can’t blow up a social relationship” (to quote the title of an anarchist pamphlet which presents the anarchist case against terrorism).

How is it, then, that anarchism is associated with violence? Partly this is because the state and media insist on referring to terrorists who are not anarchists as anarchists. For example, the German Baader-Meinhoff gang were often called “anarchists” despite their self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninism. Smears, unfortunately, work. Similarly, as Emma Goldman pointed out, “it is a known fact known to almost everyone familiar with the Anarchist movement that a great number of [violent] acts, for which Anarchists had to suffer, either originated with the capitalist press or were instigated, if not directly perpetrated, by the police.” [Red Emma Speaks, p. 262]

An example of this process at work can be seen from the current anti-globalisation movement. In Seattle, for example, the media reported “violence” by protestors (particularly anarchist ones) yet this amounted to a few broken windows. The much greater actual violence of the police against protestors (which, incidentally, started before the breaking of a single window) was not considered worthy of comment. Subsequent media coverage of anti-globalisation demonstrations followed this pattern, firmly connecting anarchism with violence in spite of that the protesters have been the ones to suffer the greatest violence at the hands of the state. As anarchist activist Starhawk notes, “if breaking windows and fighting back when the cops attack is ‘violence,’ then give me a new word, a word a thousand times stronger, to use when the cops are beating non-resisting people into comas.” [Staying on the Streets, p. 130]

Similarly, at the Genoa protests in 2001 the mainstream media presented the protestors as violent even though it was the state who killed one of them and hospitalised many thousands more. The presence of police agent provocateurs in creating the violence was unmentioned by the media. As Starhawk noted afterwards, in Genoa “we encountered a carefully orchestrated political campaign of state terrorism. The campaign included disinformation, the use of infiltrators and provocateurs, collusion with avowed Fascist groups … , the deliberate targeting of non-violent groups for tear gas and beating, endemic police brutality, the torture of prisoners, the political persecution of organisers … They did all those openly, in a way that indicates they had no fear of repercussions and expected political protection from the highest sources.” [Op. Cit., pp. 128–9] This was, unsurprisingly, not reported by the media.

Subsequent protests have seen the media indulge in yet more anti-anarchist hype, inventing stories to present anarchists are hate-filled individuals planning mass violence. For example, in Ireland in 2004 the media reported that anarchists were planning to use poison gas during EU related celebrations in Dublin. Of course, evidence of such a plan was not forthcoming and no such action happened. Neither did the riot the media said anarchists were organising. A similar process of misinformation accompanied the anti-capitalist May Day demonstrations in London and the protests against the Republican National Congress in New York. In spite of being constantly proved wrong after the event, the media always prints the scare stories of anarchist violence (even inventing events at, say Seattle, to justify their articles and to demonise anarchism further). Thus the myth that anarchism equals violence is perpetrated. Needless to say, the same papers that hyped the (non-existent) threat of anarchist violence remained silent on the actual violence of, and repression by, the police against demonstrators which occurred at these events. Neither did they run apologies after their (evidence-less) stories of doom were exposed as the nonsense they were by subsequent events.

This does not mean that Anarchists have not committed acts of violence. They have (as have members of other political and religious movements). The main reason for the association of terrorism with anarchism is because of the “propaganda by the deed” period in the anarchist movement.

This period — roughly from 1880 to 1900 — was marked by a small number of anarchists assassinating members of the ruling class (royalty, politicians and so forth). At its worse, this period saw theatres and shops frequented by members of the bourgeoisie targeted. These acts were termed “propaganda by the deed.” Anarchist support for the tactic was galvanised by the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 by Russian Populists (this event prompted Johann Most’s famous editorial in Freiheit, entitled “At Last!”, celebrating regicide and the assassination of tyrants). However, there were deeper reasons for anarchist support of this tactic: firstly, in revenge for acts of repression directed towards working class people; and secondly, as a means to encourage people to revolt by showing that their oppressors could be defeated.

Considering these reasons it is no coincidence that propaganda by the deed began in France after the 20 000-plus deaths due to the French state’s brutal suppression of the Paris Commune, in which many anarchists were killed. It is interesting to note that while the anarchist violence in revenge for the Commune is relatively well known, the state’s mass murder of the Communards is relatively unknown. Similarly, it may be known that the Italian Anarchist Gaetano Bresci assassinated King Umberto of Italy in 1900 or that Alexander Berkman tried to kill Carnegie Steel Corporation manager Henry Clay Frick in 1892. What is often unknown is that Umberto’s troops had fired upon and killed protesting peasants or that Frick’s Pinkertons had also murdered locked-out workers at Homestead.

Such downplaying of statist and capitalist violence is hardly surprising. “The State’s behaviour is violence,” points out Max Stirner, “and it calls its violence ‘law’; that of the individual, ‘crime.’” [The Ego and Its Own, p. 197] Little wonder, then, that anarchist violence is condemned but the repression (and often worse violence) that provoked it ignored and forgotten. Anarchists point to the hypocrisy of the accusation that anarchists are “violent” given that such claims come from either supporters of government or the actual governments themselves, governments “which came into being through violence, which maintain themselves in power through violence, and which use violence constantly to keep down rebellion and to bully other nations.” [Howard Zinn, The Zinn Reader, p. 652]

We can get a feel of the hypocrisy surrounding condemnation of anarchist violence by non-anarchists by considering their response to state violence. For example, many capitalist papers and individuals in the 1920s and 1930s celebrated Fascism as well as Mussolini and Hitler. Anarchists, in contrast, fought Fascism to the death and tried to assassinate both Mussolini and Hitler. Obviously supporting murderous dictatorships is not “violence” and “terrorism” but resisting such regimes is! Similarly, non-anarchists can support repressive and authoritarian states, war and the suppression of strikes and unrest by violence (“restoring law and order”) and not be considered “violent.” Anarchists, in contrast, are condemned as “violent” and “terrorist” because a few of them tried to revenge such acts of oppression and state/capitalist violence! Similarly, it seems the height of hypocrisy for someone to denounce the anarchist “violence” which produces a few broken windows in, say, Seattle while supporting the actual violence of the police in imposing the state’s rule or, even worse, supporting the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. If anyone should be considered violent it is the supporter of state and its actions yet people do not see the obvious and “deplore the type of violence that the state deplores, and applaud the violence that the state practises.” [Christie and Meltzer, The Floodgates of Anarchy, p. 132]

It must be noted that the majority of anarchists did not support this tactic. Of those who committed “propaganda by the deed” (sometimes called “attentats”), as Murray Bookchin points out, only a “few … were members of Anarchist groups. The majority … were soloists.” [The Spanish Anarchists, p. 102] Needless to say, the state and media painted all anarchists with the same brush. They still do, usually inaccurately (such as blaming Bakunin for such acts even though he had been dead years before the tactic was even discussed in anarchist circles or by labelling non-anarchist groups anarchists!).

All in all, the “propaganda by the deed” phase of anarchism was a failure, as the vast majority of anarchists soon came to see. Kropotkin can be considered typical. He “never liked the slogan propaganda by deed, and did not use it to describe his own ideas of revolutionary action.” However, in 1879 while still “urg[ing] the importance of collective action” he started “expressing considerable sympathy and interest in attentats” (these “collective forms of action” were seen as acting “at the trade union and communal level”). In 1880 he “became less preoccupied with collective action and this enthusiasm for acts of revolt by individuals and small groups increased.” This did not last and Kropotkin soon attached “progressively less importance to isolated acts of revolt” particularly once “he saw greater opportunities for developing collective action in the new militant trade unionism.” [Caroline Cahm, Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism, p. 92, p. 115, p. 129, pp. 129–30, p. 205] By the late 1880s and early 1890s he came to disapprove of such acts of violence. This was partly due to simple revulsion at the worse of the acts (such as the Barcelona Theatre bombing in response to the state murder of anarchists involved in the Jerez uprising of 1892 and Emile Henry’s bombing of a cafe in response to state repression) and partly due to the awareness that it was hindering the anarchist cause.

Kropotkin recognised that the “spate of terrorist acts” of the 1880s had caused “the authorities into taking repressive action against the movement” and were “not in his view consistent with the anarchist ideal and did little or nothing to promote popular revolt.” In addition, he was “anxious about the isolation of the movement from the masses” which “had increased rather than diminished as a result of the preoccupation with” propaganda by deed. He “saw the best possibility for popular revolution in the … development of the new militancy in the labour movement. From now on he focussed his attention increasingly on the importance of revolutionary minorities working among the masses to develop the spirit of revolt.” However, even during the early 1880s when his support for individual acts of revolt (if not for propaganda by the deed) was highest, he saw the need for collective class struggle and, therefore, “Kropotkin always insisted on the importance of the labour movement in the struggles leading up to the revolution.” [Op. Cit., pp. 205–6, p. 208 and p. 280]

Kropotkin was not alone. More and more anarchists came to see “propaganda by the deed” as giving the state an excuse to clamp down on both the anarchist and labour movements. Moreover, it gave the media (and opponents of anarchism) a chance to associate anarchism with mindless violence, thus alienating much of the population from the movement. This false association is renewed at every opportunity, regardless of the facts (for example, even though Individualist Anarchists rejected “propaganda by the deed” totally, they were also smeared by the press as “violent” and “terrorists”).

In addition, as Kropotkin pointed out, the assumption behind propaganda by the deed, i.e. that everyone was waiting for a chance to rebel, was false. In fact, people are products of the system in which they live; hence they accepted most of the myths used to keep that system going. With the failure of propaganda by deed, anarchists turned back to what most of the movement had been doing anyway: encouraging the class struggle and the process of self-liberation. This turn back to the roots of anarchism can be seen from the rise in anarcho-syndicalist unions after 1890 (see section A.5.3). This position flows naturally from anarchist theory, unlike the idea of individual acts of violence:

“to bring about a revolution, and specially the Anarchist revolution[, it] is necessary that the people be conscious of their rights and their strength; it is necessary that they be ready to fight and ready to take the conduct of their affairs into their own hands. It must be the constant preoccupation of the revolutionists, the point towards which all their activity must aim, to bring about this state of mind among the masses … Who expects the emancipation of mankind to come, not from the persistent and harmonious co-operation of all men [and women] of progress, but from the accidental or providential happening of some acts of heroism, is not better advised that one who expected it from the intervention of an ingenious legislator or of a victorious general … our ideas oblige us to put all our hopes in the masses, because we do not believe in the possibility of imposing good by force and we do not want to be commanded … Today, that which … was the logical outcome of our ideas, the condition which our conception of the revolution and reorganisation of society imposes on us … [is] to live among the people and to win them over to our ideas by actively taking part in their struggles and sufferings.” [Errico Malatesta, “The Duties of the Present Hour”, pp. 181–3, Anarchism, Robert Graham (ed.), pp. 180–1]

Despite most anarchists’ tactical disagreement with propaganda by deed, few would consider it to be terrorism or rule out assassination under all circumstances. Bombing a village during a war because there might be an enemy in it is terrorism, whereas assassinating a murdering dictator or head of a repressive state is defence at best and revenge at worst. As anarchists have long pointed out, if by terrorism it is meant “killing innocent people” then the state is the greatest terrorist of them all (as well as having the biggest bombs and other weapons of destruction available on the planet). If the people committing “acts of terror” are really anarchists, they would do everything possible to avoid harming innocent people and never use the statist line that “collateral damage” is regrettable but inevitable. This is why the vast majority of “propaganda by the deed” acts were directed towards individuals of the ruling class, such as Presidents and Royalty, and were the result of previous acts of state and capitalist violence.

So “terrorist” acts have been committed by anarchists. This is a fact. However, it has nothing to do with anarchism as a socio-political theory. As Emma Goldman argued, it was “not Anarchism, as such, but the brutal slaughter of the eleven steel workers [that] was the urge for Alexander Berkman’s act.” [Op. Cit., p. 268] Equally, members of other political and religious groups have also committed such acts. As the Freedom Group of London argued:

“There is a truism that the man [or woman] in the street seems always to forget, when he is abusing the Anarchists, or whatever party happens to be his bete noire for the moment, as the cause of some outrage just perpetrated. This indisputable fact is that homicidal outrages have, from time immemorial, been the reply of goaded and desperate classes, and goaded and desperate individuals, to wrongs from their fellowmen [and women], which they felt to be intolerable. Such acts are the violent recoil from violence, whether aggressive or repressive … their cause lies not in any special conviction, but in the depths of .. . human nature itself. The whole course of history, political and social, is strewn with evidence of this.” [quoted by Emma Goldman, Op. Cit., p. 259]

Terrorism has been used by many other political, social and religious groups and parties. For example, Christians, Marxists, Hindus, Nationalists, Republicans, Moslems, Sikhs, Fascists, Jews and Patriots have all committed acts of terrorism. Few of these movements or ideas have been labelled as “terrorist by nature” or continually associated with violence — which shows anarchism’s threat to the status quo. There is nothing more likely to discredit and marginalise an idea than for malicious and/or ill-informed persons to portray those who believe and practice it as “mad bombers” with no opinions or ideals at all, just an insane urge to destroy.

Of course, the vast majority of Christians and so on have opposed terrorism as morally repugnant and counter-productive. As have the vast majority of anarchists, at all times and places. However, it seems that in our case it is necessary to state our opposition to terrorism time and time again.

So, to summarise — only a small minority of terrorists have ever been anarchists, and only a small minority of anarchists have ever been terrorists. The anarchist movement as a whole has always recognised that social relationships cannot be assassinated or bombed out of existence. Compared to the violence of the state and capitalism, anarchist violence is a drop in the ocean. Unfortunately most people remember the acts of the few anarchists who have committed violence rather than the acts of violence and repression by the state and capital that prompted those acts.

16 notes · View notes

queenburd · 3 months

Text

holding up mac with love and adoration as i make their existence more and more miserable. here's the rundown on our sad little server. There are spoilers for MITYO, which you should absolutely get and play here (it's free! and accessible on browser!), AND for NonPlatonic Forms.

Mac was previously known as MC, the term short for MAIN CHARACTER. the term MC was used a lot when describing the protagonist of May I Take Your Order. (There's ALSO the joke that the "May" of May I Take Your Order is me. wordplay. badum tsh.)

In MITYO, MC is the server at the restaurant Rakove summons Talaiporia at for their date. This restaurant is supposedly USED to them and they are implied regulars and MC just was assigned to them accidentally.

MITYO is a really sanded down version of Rakove and Talaiporia, more, ahem, palatable for mainstream consumption. Though Talaiporia doesn't disguise her cruel and eldritch nature, she never particularly threatens to harm MC or any of the other guests, and she even enjoys MC as a server, who ends up leaning into playing up their discomfort for her pleasure.

When I played MITYO, I usually ended up getting the 80% tip ending, ending #4 I think. This ending shows a sort of softer, sweeter side to Talaiporia and Hendrik, and MC comes away actually enjoying the experience and wanting to be their server more consistently. Although they're gonna need a long talk with their boss about this mishap.

When NonPlatonic Forms was taking shape, the first round took place in what was meant to be the same restaurant. So I made jokes galore about the same server having to serve Diegesis and Lee and how this keeps happening to them.

However, as NPF progressed and the restaurant showed up again as a setting, it became pretty clear that this wasn't the same establishment from MITYO. This place was serving up spirits and humans! This is definitely..... not a great place to work. The servers might LOOK human, but that's no guarantee.

Still. I was amused by and attached to the idea of this poor human, still working a job, only in a much more dangerous setting. And I loved the idea of them being used to Rakove and Talaiporia as guests. Even if the kid gloves were off and the pair were in their full glory as fucked up horror characters, it seemed funny to me that there was just this One Person who was, you know, used to it, I guess.

And I thought Liam could use a human friend who still understood a bit of what he was going through. Being shoved into a world with spirits and entities and things that want to eat you, but also want to play with their food.

So, MC somehow moves from the relatively safe restaurant of MITYO to the much less safe restaurant of NPF. There were jokes about it looking good on the diversity paperwork, humans being easier to employ because all THEY want is money, they're not about to steal the food off the plates for themselves, and of course "this is the restaurant's gimmick. human servers."

The joke I've decided to stick with is that MC was moving, which meant they had to quit their old job at the restaurant in MITYO, and when they let their regulars Rakove and Talaiporia know, Rakove "oh so helpfully" said that he knew of a great restaurant that would hire them and he could put in a good word as reference!

And, because MC got a little too used to Rakove, sanded down and well-behaved in his appearance of MITYO and a stellar guest, they.... agreed. Stupidly, and naively, they were SUPER GRATEFUL for the help with finding work, because it's really hard finding work in this economy.

The job they have now is... well, it's not good. There is a benefit to having human servers at the restaurant. Humans being witness to pacts and deals gives those much more power than if spirits were just the ones to witness them. And servers can be quickly added to the bill as a fun treat, if they get the attention of their guest. Employee turnover rate is high.

Mac knows they're basically doomed, at this point. It's not really a matter for debate. They can't exactly quit, either, because the more you come into contact with spirits and ideals, the more you'll stand out from the crowd to OTHER spirits and ideals. There's no protection either way. There's no way out.

So they really, really want Liam to live. They want him to win his game with Diegesis, so that at least one human's fate isn't set in stone.

Mac's gonna be eaten, it's just a matter of when and by whom....

Only, it's not actually that simple. And maybe the reason they've lasted so long at their job isn't simply because they've been really good at fading in the background.

Maybe it's because Rakove got them that job on purpose. Maybe the more miserable they become at the job, the better they'll taste for Talaiporia when they're finally served up to her as a special gift. Maybe Mac's just been a specially commissioned meal, marinating, becoming well-aged, for that moment when Talaiporia comes into full power.

One thing's tragically certain. When they do go, it won't be quick.

Sorry, Mac.

#Mac #may i take your order #nonplatonic forms #i do TECHNICALLY have more thoughts abt them but this is the basic gist #of my very special lil guy

9 notes · View notes

roobylavender · 1 year

Note

genuinely curious bcs everyone and their mother is obsessed w barbie, why do u hate it lol ?? like criticism wise u mentioned the director before but anything else beyond that ? ( i haven’t watched it yet so i have no opinion)

the most pressing issue is that mattel is very clearly using it as a test to gauge whether it can create a cinematic universe consisting of its other sub properties so the entire movie is essentially nothing more than a greedy cash grab (which yes you could say most mainstream movies are cash grabs but i would liken this to the marvel movies wherein it's clear that intellectual property is used to maximally capitalize on a piece of media until it makes the most profit imaginable) and this is exacerbated by the fact that the movie pretends to criticize mattel and the purpose of barbie wrt consumerism but like. the movie is literally produced by mattel lmao. like no criticism within a movie being produced by the criticized entity is actually going to consist of genuine and good faith criticism. and obv most people's response to that has been well surely you couldn't expect anything more than liberal feminism from a barbie movie and it's like yeah i couldn't but that doesn't make it any less evil. a corporation pretending to appear self aware about its contribution to consumerism all the while funneling money into a project that only further encourages consumerism at a clearly exponential rate is evil. and maybe it's a harsh assessment on my part but i seriously am judging people who pay to see this movie bc of that!

when you get to the actual movie though my most severe criticism of it would be that it entrenches itself deeply in a bioessentialist gender binary. like idk if you've noticed all of the posts from people like wow girls are dressing up again and wearing pink and being encouraged to do girly things isn't that so amazing! it's like that infamous tumblr post that says liberal feminism discourse eventually circles back to what sounds like let men be masculine let women be feminine etc etc. the movie basically tries to create this metaphor via barbieland wherein the kens are the dismissed minority adjacent to what women are in the real world, in a satirical attempt to convey that feminism should not actually be about female dominance (what they purport barbie has come to represent) but about equality of the sexes and equality in the ability to pursue whatever you want to (hence a barbie does not have to conform to unattainable standards of success for women and a ken does not have to merely exist for the sake of barbie). which i will admit does have the potential to be a good message as far as liberal feminist movies will go, and there is a scene towards the end with barbie and ken where this is explained that happens to be one of two scenes i actually liked in the whole movie. but the problem is that the movie does an utterly shit job of actually building up to it, and it still ultimately sticks to and makes guiding posts of traditional notions of gender insofar as kens being masculine and barbies being feminine. the last few minutes of the movie involve barbie becoming a real woman bc she no longer wants to simply be an idea, so in her final scene she goes to a gynecologist bc she now has a vagina (something she did not have prior). and again like i'm not expecting a barbie movie of all things to have revolutionary takes on gender but i simply think the messaging is severely undermined when you're relying strictly on the gender binary to carry your storytelling. to the point that i believe all of the transphobic backlash to the movie is not only a consequence of people's own transphobia but also of the movie's inability to have anything but an utterly shallow take on feminism entrenched in the gender binary that merely believes we can learn by switching places with each other

and i mean on top of having shallow messaging it's simply.. not a well built movie lmao. the plot progression is haphazard and inconsistent due to an inability to flesh out either barbieland or the real world. america ferrera is the hero of the story bc her monologue about what women are expected to be by society is able to break the brainwashing spell over the barbies who have found themselves subservient to a ken takeover in barbieland once ken learns about patriarchy in the real world. but america ferrera is never actually developed as a character. we have one brief montage to indicate she has a poor relationship with her daughter bc she has always loved barbies whereas her daughter hasn't (the daughter also lectures barbie about how she's a fascist who encourages capitalism and consumerism. lol) but that relationship is never actually developed or dissected. we go from them seemingly not getting along to suddenly being the best of friends bc they go back to barbieland with barbie and decide to help her fix things and america's inspirational monologue brings her daughter around to barbie as a concept. it's just.. utterly silly. like not even in a good way silly, it's just stupid

and it frustrates me bc i do think there was a lot of potential to do something with the mother-daughter relationship esp considering its importance to the ending thesis of the movie in a scene between ruth handler and barbie (the other scene in the movie i actually enjoyed). like i would have been okay with a movie that acknowledged barbie was an influential media property for older women who had grown accustomed to nurturing baby dolls as children in preparation for motherhood, while acknowledging that barbie was no longer necessarily the same symbol of empowerment for modern generations of women bc of how the feminist movement has progressed and evolved. it's why i honestly think the movie should have been about the mother and daughter exclusively. like i don't even think barbieland should have existed nor barbies and kens been real characters bc it took away so much from conveying a message with even a drop of integrity. america's eventual monologue is so universal and lifeless and bland that it appeals exactly to the kind of crowd who are now making tiktoks and reels that the barbie movie is important for teaching people about feminism. like ok. sure. fuck you to intersectional feminism or anything grounded in the realities of anyone else other than white women whose only concern is not being able to conform to standards of success in the real world (and the ironic thing is the movie even makes an aside that margot robbie is the wrong person to cast to convey such a message, but like. what am i supposed to do with that. it accomplishes nothing)

i said as much on twt but i simply think there is no point to try to make a movie critiquing the scope of barbie when the answer is still ultimately barbie. a critique of barbie has to end in something other than barbie and when your movie is being produced by mattel that will never actually happen. which i do think can branch off into conversations about intellectual property and how creators are largely restricted from ever expanding upon properties they loved as children bc their ownership by media entities restricts creative output from the start (see: cape comics!). but i don't even think this is a matter of greta gerwig being restricted. she genuinely believes in this shtick bc she's always believed in it. her feminism starts and stops at white feminism and the smattered in visibility of minorities to feel like she is doing her part as an ally, when ultimately, she is doing nothing. lady bird and little women are not as offensive in this regard (albeit you may remember the latter movie has a very brief moment where marmy speaks to a nameless black woman as a moment of token recognition) bc their primary focus is not feminism and bc they are either constrained by autobiography or adaptation. it's great speaking either to what she knows or to what the author of a book knows. barbie is a movie about feminism, so it works best to reveal how utterly out of her depth greta gerwig is in that area as she tries to apply herself everywhere and fails. when people say it's better for straight white women to stick to what they know rather than rush to represent everyone in their work, they're right. there's no use in representing that which you will never live nor understand. and if people do identify with greta gerwig's brand of feminism, then i think it says a lot about how shallow their feminism actually is

#outbox

20 notes · View notes

koffeebean · 1 month

Text

a semi long-ish pressure rant. simply talking into the void abt my exact issues with the state of the game and dev team and why i'm pissy

i don't think that the pressure fandom (or devs) are absolutely evil or weird other than the average fandom wise behavior i have seen from... a lot of fandoms. i tend to ignore things i don't like but pressure has been making it VERY hard to just. do that

don't get me wrong. i can talk about the fandom a lot but it would fall under the basic "fandoms nowadays do not know how to behave with how media has become so mainstream" and it's a topic that is very long for me to just talk about it in a random ramble/rant about a roblox game.

but i especifically want to talk about the devs. not zerum or anything, while i disagree with some stuff zerum has said and how zerum has behaved i think that ultimately sebastian is an oc and that boundaries are allowed to exist. selfships can still exist regardless, the only thing that was asked was for the ship content to NOT be shown in the server as far as i know. that i think it's unprofessional? yes, but also this is a small team of developers doing a project because they want to.

i think what i'm most pissed about is zeal. i am aware zeal has apologized and explained the reasons behind every thing that has been done wrong and looks forward to improve, but i'm disappointed regardless. i understand that owning a game/franchise that had a sudden burst of VERY weird fans can be quite shocking and you might fuck up, but zeal has admitted that the ableist behavior comes from quite a while before developing pressure. i can talk about all the ableist things done and said but also many people who are 10 times more qualified than me have spoken about it (a thread about a portion of the ableism + zeal's apology for everything).

an apology was issued, but i'm still quite irked. the thalassophobia mode was just the cherry on top— i don't think it's weird and honestly knowing the nature of pressure (being an underwater game with underwater entities at its core means that you probably should not play it if you have a fear of the sea), but when you have grown to have quite the reputation on making your fanbase with disabilities and overall things that cannot be controlled feel unwelcome and/or mocked then adding that feature might come off as kind of an asshole move. not that zeal is not right, but when you disregard the concerns of disabled users and then add a mode that essentially goes "lol don't play the game if you can't handle it!" is simply an uncomfortable and off putting statement to say.

but those are just my thoughts. this is just my theory. my game theory

EDIT: zeal talked about some of the issues here. i'm honestly not going to add more to this post (as it was simply my pov of the situation) but it's still good to check it out.

#003.#pressure #/ no one is evil here but i'm allowed to feel iffy about how things have been handled by the team

2 notes · View notes

purplekoop · 10 months

Text

Koop Talks About (#1)... Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves A 9th-Level Pleasant Surprise!

So the first of the movies I watched with my dearest partner during our thanksgiving meetup trip was the D&D movie, which... I'll be blunt, I didn't really expect much from. As much joy as I've had with DnD over the past few years, I don't really give much credit to DnD itself as a "brand". My memories come from the primarily homebrewed campaigns and thoroughly original PCs, saturated with house rules and whatever the hell I convinced my partner would fit in a DnD game. I even started a campaign of my own with an original setting, though it sadly didn't last long due to personal motivation. But all these memories I associate more with each game as separate entities from the nebulous basic concept of DnD, so an original story relying entirely on established official DnD monsters, locations, and characters didn't have much innate appeal to me.

Fortunately, Honor Among Thieves doesn't rely on pure DnD iconography and fanservice to be a solid film. It instead is a solid film on its own right, a fun and satisfying fantasy film that uses the props of established DnD material to tell a good story just as any Dungeon Master would. I have next to no complaints with it as just a movie, and the context of it serving as a big screen adaptation of a plausible DnD adventure smooth any gaps in its score for me. (Not that I'm scoring these things, don't expect THAT much from me.)

So let's start the in-depth topics where any DnD game does: the cast of characters.

What'd be of concern in a true DnD game but is more excusable in the context of a mainstream motion picture is the fact the movie has a clear main character: the questionably named Edgin, played by one of the Hollywood Chrises of all time, Pine. Pathetic as an alleged Bard (doesn't cast a SINGLE bard spell, he just sings a couple times, coward), Edgin is the cornerstone of the story, serving as the focal driving force of the plot and the (eventually assembled) party. We meet him and his longtime adventuring cohort, the barbarian Holga (played by Michelle Rodriguez), at the very start of the film, and follow their story throughout, from dramatic backstory retelling to the end. It's Edgin's story, which feels a bit skewed in focus for a DnD context, but I understand and agree with giving the story a definitive focal character for the sake of being a simple and cohesive film. It helps that his story is effective, with his character being charming yet flawed in a way that I thankfully think adds up to being likeable. Fortunate also that the overwhelming majority of this movie's "MCU dialogue" is confined to him, which I was personally unbothered by here. It contrasts a bit with most of the cast speaking in believable enough fantasy speak, but it fits for his sort of "scheming quick-witted bastard" persona, plus I guess also makes him a grounding point for an unfamiliar broader audience to attach to. The more modern speaking patterns are generally contained to the main cast of the four "player characters", so again, it's fair enough they don't keep the act quite as well as the "NPCs". I can see it be a bit grating to some, but personally I thought it was fine.

Oh yeah, I glossed over Holga. As great as she is, there's not much to say on her. Barbarians are usually pretty simple but great, lady barbarians are even better. She's not too "whimsical" of a barbarian, she doesn't say "I would like to rage" verbatim, much less do anything that looks like an active "rage state", but frankly it doesn't bother me too much. She's not too complicated, but she has some great moments, and has a subtle but solid performance.

Third of the four is Simon the sorcerer, played by Justice Smith of Detective Pikachu fame and also probably other things. He's the character with the second most "MCU dialogue", but his weird semi-accent he plays the character with hides it a little better. He's also the only one of the party's three casting classes to actively cast spells, but like. It'd be annoying to conveniently explain to a general audience what makes this magic different from this magic and this magic, so I get minimizing who actually gets to do casting. You could argue even that DnD has the problem of relying on casting as a mechanic a bit too much, but hey that's a different opinion ramble. Anyways Simon. He's fun too. He has the second most prominent story arc of the party, which while simple is still satisfying to see to its fruition. It's also fun to see an adaptation of wild magic specifically, which I do wish was extrapolated on further but again, I get keeping it simple.

Last up is Doric, the tiefling druid played by Sophia Lillis. Unfortunately she's also the least up, at least in screentime. She joins the story a significant portion after the rest of the main party, and while around for most of the ride she still feels a bit disconnected from the plot. After being shakily convinced to aid in the quest, she does get a really fun action scene to show off her wild shape abilities. While very much bending the technical rules backwards for most of her scenes with the ability (in some cases even impacting the official game, I believe the rules on what you can turn into were altered for the next major edition specifically to allow for turning into an owlbear like in the movie), I'm willing to ignore that for how fun they get with the gimmick. Again, slightly weird how her druid magic is limited to just wild shape, but again, it's fine, we're keeping it simple and approachable, I get it. I also get the choice to not give her the more conventional bright chromatic skin tone most players associate with tieflings. With the horror stories for how full-body painted live action characters have been on the actors (Drax being a notably egregious-sounding example), I don't blame them for keeping the demonic details restrained. The tail is cute at least, got that much. Her performance is also a bit low-impact, but she has her moments in the group dynamic, even if somewhat sparse.

The side characters meanwhile I have no complaints for. The hyper-competent temporary paladin party member Xenk (played by the eye-pleasing Regé-Jean Page) was a delight, both in the incidental comedy he brought and also the genuine sincerity he grounds the plot with.

The antagonists meanwhile are minor spoilers (though fairly obvious and short-term) so skip this next paragraph if you want to dodge those:

The glorious scheming bastard Forge Fitzwilliam (played by Hugh Grant, the glorious voice of the Pirate Captain from Pirates: Band of Misfits/In an Adventure with Scientists and nothing else possibly as important) is an absolute delight of a scheming love-to-hate villain, whose lack in actual threat besides financial power is made up for by the less entertaining but thoroughly menacing Red Wizard, Sofina (played by Daisy Head). They balance each other out nicely, and I feel like the movie's lineup of antagonists is both enjoyable and functional as a result.

Moving away from the characters themselves to how they're presented, the effects in this movies are faaaaaanTASTIC. The highest praises I heard sang for this movie in advance were towards its use of animatronics, suits, and other practical effects to depict some of the forgotten realms' more fantastical yet mundane inhabitants. About every other scene features a dragonborn, tabaxi, or aarakocra, which is brought to life with real, physical, classic effects. It adds such an element of richness to the world and makes the film feel so much more sincere. The more typical modern big-budget CGI effects are of course here in spades as well, but their presence feels earned and reserved for just the effects that like... yeah no, you're not doing that with modern physical technology. Helps that these effects also look good, which, yeah, they do. There's an effect or two for a gag that feels a little "modern" or otherwise out of place, but these are pretty sparse and still entertaining enough to pass as a suspension-bending bit that any DM with a sense of humor would allow.

I think that brings me to the last big thing that I think I need to give credit to this movie for: it works great as a movie, but it also feels right as a DnD movie. It's a well-told fantasy story that sets up and pays off a solid story with a solid cast in a beautifully depicted world. But just as much, it feels like DnD. The superficial references, like the specific array of iconic monsters the movie draws from and the names of locations and such, even the mechanics of certain spells and items, those are all great, and my partner especially adored some of the more niche references. But like I said earlier, DnD to me is just as much an energy, a feeling, as it is a set of rules and pre-built assets. It's the subtleties of how the party makes their plans and talks about their backstories, the way the world and adventure is framed, even the staging of the final fight scene, all bends conventional action film etiquette in favor of feeling authentic to the experience of playing DnD in a way that works shockingly well, all without shirking the film's duties as a film released in theaters for a mainstream audience. There's not really any moments where I think I'd need to explain something to my mom or anyone equally clueless on DnD's mechanics, they could just watch it as a solid fantasy adventure flick. It's two exceptionally well done layers of enjoyment, which I think is even more exceptional on its own.

So yeah, even to someone who literally knows nothing about DnD, I can recommend this one pretty comfortably. It's a fun action movie that doesn't fall into every pitfall of modern action movies, keeping a sincerely enjoyable solid story to the end. It's not groundbreaking, but it's still great. To someone who does know DnD... well uh, honestly my glowing review wavers a bit depending on how picky you are. If you're willing to excuse the mechanical inaccuracies and oversights for the sake of making the film a more accessible watch to broader audiences, then this film is even better than it is to those audiences. If you're not though, then... well honestly I think that's just as much a "you" problem as it is an issue with the movie. Yes I know nothing short of a level 20 druid can wildshape that much without a rest, just shut up and watch the lady turn into animals a bunch in this cool action scene, it's fine.

On a similar note to adaptations, the next two are also adaptations of game franchises: one that still thoroughly confuses my tiny brain, and one that I think I can confidently say I know a little more about.

#koop talks about things #dnd #d&d #dungeons and dragons #dnd movie #d&d movie #dungeons and dragons: honor among thieves #honor among thieves

6 notes · View notes

gammaliminal · 1 year

Text

Who are we? What are we?

we are gammaliminal, or liminal creatives. we are an account run by two entities, with a shared interest in obscure & mainstream source games and source itself, theory-crafting fan work & concepts as a love-letter of sorts to the work that inspires us, and are indie enthusiasts.

our two members are close. this statement will not be elaborated on.

ΔΘ | she/it - a brief introduction.

i am ΔΘ. i am a therian, neurodivergent and disabled queer game enthusiast with interests in old competitive titles such as classic tetris & melee, casual titles like minecraft & animal crossing, and source titles, including team fortress 2, counter-strike, half life (the source versions), fistful of frags and others. For miscellaneous game interests, i enjoy games such as combat master, celeste, ultrakill, vrchat and any game produced by stress level zero.

i created this blog for me and Ξλ to have a shared space to post about our ideas, and also for us to just casually lurk through tumblr. partially due to account restrictions on post viewing.

notes

- i did not come up with the idea of associating ΔΘ with an indicator of being therian. I am simply using that tag as a self-indicator here due to how significant being therian is to me.

- contrary to Ξλ's notes, it did not bother me for this page. it just kept lightly asking for a lil while because i kept forgetting :3c

- i may accidentally ignore questions, responses or anything of the sort. i forget to respond to those things a lot due to recurring memory problems o-o

Ξλ | it/its - a brief introduction².

i am Ξλ! a self-described "mad artist" who's heavily neurodivergent and very queer with a from-birth enthusiasm with games. examples of favorites include anything source engine related*, rivals of aether, darkwood, most frictional games stuff, deep rock galactic, receiver 1 and receiver 2, world of horror, ftl and into the breach, gloomwood, and alien: isolation.

if you don't know some or any of those, then yeah that's expected >:3c

i bothered ΔΘ for us having a shared space to post and share our weiirrrddd ideas. also, to let us be able to browse tumblr without being accosted, by tumblr.

notes

- Ξλ is a tag i came up with by myself, i have no idea if it means anything beyond as my tag.

- *does not include the cautionary tale of Hunt Down the Freeman.

Current Projects

- Neon Troupe

- heavily inspired by OW and TF2, basically ripping off the feel of playing TF2 since no game has done it before, also will be built in source - we are heavily underqualified - project intro

- Project Theta

- potentially a half-life fangame? currently ironing out things like the campaign, different NPC's and weapons. - meant to be more so a scrappy survival-horror upward battle

- Unnamed TF2C Projects

- team fortress 2 classic mods that add various bits of content! including cut content that will be revived, our own regular custom content ideas, and absolutely outrageous, silly shit.

- Project Strangelove

- inspired by the tone of tf2, this is a spoof on spy thrillers set in an alternate 60s where you are assembling a conspiracy! also may be known later as How to Stop Worrying.

- Project Liminality (finally something relating to liminal spaces /lh)

- a 90s corporate cosmic horror roguelike job survival sim inspired by amnesia: the bunker and alien: isolation.

- Project Spite

- a strategy-horror game based around being a ragtag group of survivors, surviving a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-style zone of magical shit (TM). - main theme is surviving with your comrades no matter what, subsisting on spite alone if nothing else.

- A Catastrophe, In Hindsight

- a retrofuturistic coop class-based game about surviving the workday hopefully unscathed - Has a social-deduction-style gamemode layered on top of it with most traitors still wanting to get through the day - project intro

#introduction #blog intro #introducing us #project #games #source engine #team fortress 2 #tf2 #hl2 #half life 2 #neurodivergent #queer #duo #liminal #gaming #casual gameplay

13 notes · View notes

seehowsupplethespineis · 6 months

Note

Whats a short lived show that you can never get over. Like the story/art style/humor. Mine was Class of 3000, Cybersix and Sym-Bionic Titan

Hmm...Wolverine and the X-Men and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes come to mind. Both ended prematurely and with cliffhangers that still haunt me to this day. Plus, they were created before the MCU had really taken off, so they were much more faithful to the comics, something I sorely miss in the mainstream Marvel media of today. Oh, and I only just started it, but The Avengers: United They Stand is another great show that only got 13 episodes; greatly disappointing since the show is basically an adaptation of one of my favorites teams - The West Coast Avengers - and includes three of my favorites: Hank Pym (Ant-Man), Janet Van Dyne (Wasp), and Clint Barton (Hawkeye), all of whom were done dirty by the MCU. -Writing Entity

I love so many random shows, but my main one is 2003 Clone Wars. I love the art style and the characters and I have been so obsessed with Grievous from it that I've probably watched it over 20 times by now. (My siblings always say "What movie should we watch? Don't say that 2D Clone Wars one!!!") I wish there was more of it. Every few years as a skill check, I try to draw some 3D Clone Wars characters in the 2003 Clone Wars style. I never succeed. -Drawing Entity

3 notes · View notes

mermaidsirennikita · 1 year

Text

So the thing about romance being devalued in fiction is that... while I don't think it's always devalued due to misogyny, queerphobia, ableism and racism (of course not everything "needs" a romance arc, and of course it's totally valid to not be interested in sex or romance, or to be interested in sex only without romance) I do think that there is often a correspondence between the devaluing of romance and the devaluing of those who have been discriminated against or more generally marginalized communities.

To be clear: both mainstream shipping culture and genre romance is dominated by white cishet monogamous romance. But....

I do think that often, one of the ways in which we disenfranchise communities is by desexualizing them and condescending to them, which, for better or worse, is often connected to romance arcs. Often, we see the sexless disabled person in fiction--or the disabled person in a romance arc like that of Me Before You, where the disabled hero is like "I can't fuck you [with my penis], and therefore I can't love you, and therefore I must kill myself".

Or we see the ways in which people of color, especially women of color, are either oversexualized OR treated as a totally sexless, romance-less non-entity in a white person's plotline. Whether they're acting as the romcom white girl's best friend, the romcom white guy's best friend, or simply the supporting act in a white person's arc in general--they have no inner lives. No personal lives. No romance.

Similarly, the gay best friend of romcom yore (and tbh, today) might make remarks, but we never see him fuck or even really get sexual. We see jokes about lesbians overcommitting onscreen, but less so do we see lesbians falling in love onscreen. You might get allusions to a supporting character's bisexual past, but we don't often see them falling in love with anyone in the present. Trans characters are *at best* often subject to "oh wow, they really are human" plotlines. Not "they are human, they are hot, they are falling in love".

Women on a widespread level are being depicted in a way that basically suggests that in order to prove our worth, to show that we are truly women who care about having rights--we must end our movies and books and TV shows as independent ladies who choose "ourselves". God forbid you want love, sex, romance. You should really prioritize your career, girl, and if you want a career and a partner, then like, maybe you aren't feminist enough?

To me, the idea that romance is superfluous or stupid in media has many, many connecting factors--sexphobia, the phobia of the unknown, puritanical mindsets that have always existed in the U.S., which we are trying to spread elsewhere... And a general disconnect at large, tbh?

But it also is part of this idea that, if you are marginalized in any way, you prevail and succeed and prove that you're worthy, in part, through self-denial. Through martyrdom. You need to work and fight and focus on your working and fighting. Love and romance and pleasure is an excess, and you should be above excess.

Not everyone wants or needs romantic love, but the majority of people do, (and sexual love is not the same thing as romantic love--I'm including ace people here) and not everyone wants or needs sexual pleasure, but the majority of people do (including aro people here). So when we fail to depict that in fiction on a broad scale, I do think we're pushing a message of Self-Denial = Worthy, which I always find troublesome... And I think we're also further shutting the door on depicting the full lives of people in communities who never had the fucking door truly opened.

#anyway just 2 cents

14 notes · View notes

zerogate · 2 years

Text

Animism is the ‘Big Step’ for our culture to make – acquiring the understanding, the sense, that the elements of the non-human world are animate in some way and have a spiritual nature: rocks, rivers, soil, not to mention all the other-than-human entities (which include not only plants and living organisms but also what are called ‘spirits’ in old parlance). It requires our mainstream cultural re-education as to the nature of reality, and the shedding of a number of received prejudices about the nature of mind. As it stands, animism is utter anathema to modern thought. But it has been a reality, a spiritual fact, to the countless ages of humanity that have preceded us.

Such mythopoetic relationship with the environment was one example of what the ethnologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl called participation mystique. By this is meant a local relationship with the land that went beyond mere utility and subsistence. To the indigenous person, ‘Earth and sea are to him as living books in which the myths are inscribed,’ Levy-Bruhl stated (1935). Another anthropologist, A. P. Elkin, put it more specifically when writing about indigenous Australasian peoples: ‘The bond between a person and his (or her) country is not merely geographical or fortuitous, but living and spiritual and sacred. His country … is the symbol of, and gateway to, the great unseen world of heroes, ancestors, and life-giving powers which avail for man and nature’ (cited in Lévy-Bruhl, 1935, p.43).

In the West, this kind of relationship was noted at least as long ago as ancient Greece, where there were two words for subtly different senses of place, chora and topos. Chora is the older of the two terms, and was an holistic reference to place: place as expressive, place as a keeper of memory, imagination and mythic presence. Topos, on the other hand, signified place in much the way we think of it nowadays – simple location, and the objective, physical features of a locale. Topography. But, ultimately, even sacred places have become topoi.

[...]

Concepts of animism can take various forms. For many ancient societies the land was so alive it had a voice in their dreams. A clear account of this was provided by a Paiute Indian, Hoavadunuki, who was a hundred years old by the time he was interviewed by ethnographers in the 1930s. The old Indian stated that a local peak, Birch Mountain, spoke to him in his dreams, urging him to become a ‘doctor’ (shaman). The Paiute resisted, he said, because he didn’t want the pressures and problems that would come with that (Steward, 1934). Communication from this mountain occurred a number of times throughout the old man’s long life and was not seen as strange or peculiar by him – indeed, the idea of the land being capable of speaking to humans was probably widespread in ancient sensibility.

[...]

Sacred soundscapes were simply a natural corollary of that sensibility. The basic notion of the land having speech, or of being read like a text, was lodged deeply in some schools of Japanese Buddhism – in early medieval Shingon Esoteric Buddhism, founded by Kūkai, for instance. He likened the natural landscape around Chuzenji temple and the lake at the foot of Mount Nantai, near Nikko, to descriptions in the Buddhist scriptures of the Pure Land, the habitation of the buddhas. Kūkai considered that the landscape not only symbolised but was of the same essence as the mind of the Buddha. Like the Buddha mind, the landscape spoke in a natural language, offering supernatural discourse. ‘Thus, waves, pebbles, winds, and birds were the elementary and unconscious performers of the cosmic speech of buddhas and bodhisattvas,’ explains Allan Grapard (1994).

-- Jack Hunter (ed.), Greening the Paranormal: Exploring the Ecology of Extraordinary Experience

#quotes

27 notes · View notes

lotus-tower · 7 months

Text

tbh some people can't even give up chipotle or starbucks or whatever. people will be willing to donate or profess values but they'll do whatever they can to avoid being inconvenienced. i'm the same way really. that's just the kind of society we've developed. but i think that's one of the main obstacles if not the main obstacle to overcoming covid. this isn't a case of our governments imposing one thing and the people wanting something else. i don't have any illusions that we would have any ability to actually pressure the government to change certain policies, i mean, look at palestine right now. but despite mainstream media trying to omit things and dehumanize palestinians at every turn, people resist that. people seek the actual information elsewhere. yes, authorities have thoroughly misled us about covid, yes the media is almost completely silent about it, but there's a massive lack of popular will. information about covid isn't behind paywalls, it's not even that difficult to find. but despite how much basically everyone except a narrow and specific type of liberal agreeing that the government isn't trustworthy, there's no willingness to talk about covid. people want it to be over. they want to move on.

while i'm grateful that most people in the west have turned out to have enough common sense and decency to understand that palestinians don't deserve what they're going through, how many of them would be genuinely committed anti-imperialists? how many of them would be willing to dismantle the US and canada as colonial entities? covid threatens our "way of life" quite literally and more directly than most things. people who have grown used to shaping their identities around what and how they consume, people who view morality as something where actions reflect some deep innate quality of their soul because all actions and activities in a consumerist society are about building up that "individual", won't be able to give up things like indoor dining, going to the cinema, hanging out with friends, shopping at the mall, and going to parties or communal events. because they feel like that would mean that doing those things are morally bad, therefore "someone who likes restaurants" is a bad person, which doesn't make sense to them. but more than anything, because it would force them to change their way of life, it would inconvenience them, it would prevent them from having the little treats that make life bearable for them as they try to ignore the million and one problems looming over them at all times.

#txt #watever .

3 notes · View notes

katyspersonal · 1 year

Note

Spamton G Spamton

(From this ( x ) ask meme)

Oh boy... It's been 84 years since I got to talk about my other interests that are not Soulsb0rne xD Yes, I AM still waiting for Deltarune to be finished, just accept it </3

First impression: Bwahahaha, he is so funny! What the fuuuuuuuck xD I don't know how I never expected anyone like that from a COMPUTER-themed Chapter, but what the fuuuuck! xDDDD

Impression now: Honestly? This character cannot be OVER-rated. He is objectively good, and no amount of "hurr hurr mainstream :/" will make him cringe. Yes, that includes fanart that is not quite truthful to his real vibe. I just think he is a very good character - a much more sympathetic example of the character in the setting that gets to learn something he (probably) should have never known, and futility of fighting against it than, say, Jevil was. Jevil SIMPLY went mad, Jevil SIMPLY decided that if nothing is real then none are pain and deaths of people around him... Spamton, though? He still clings to the things he used to care about, he shares much more backstory from his former, more naive self, that 'self' is still alive within him, he wants to be 'real' rather than falling for complete insanity... There are just so many layers to him - all for the character whose EVERY fucking quote sounds like a shitpost. I appreciate the dissonance between his serious lore and his shitposty behavior a lot, actually. The classic of Indie games, hands down, one of the best Deltarune characters yet.

Favorite moment: You remember THE horror we all felt when by following his directions, we walked in the dead end room, and then tried to walk out of it...... only for the layout of the former screen to fucking CHANGE and create another dead end ;-; Also, the creepy smiley faces in the darkness. Fuckin. Fuckin CLASSIC of pixeley indie RPGs. I loved that small moment soooooo much. It is not to belittle his other moments - every single time he interacts with us and Kris is GOLD anyway. xD

Idea for a story: Lol, that's a hard one, let me refresh my memory... Well, I remember I came up with an idea of him and Noelle interacting - as an AU, or maybe parallel turn of events, or maybe 'it could not have happened in the game or else the chapter would not be fun, so just imagine if Deltarune story was NOT a game'... Yeah. I thought she'd find him funny, and that'd be how they'd strike a conversation.. And in that case, instead of Kris putting the (metaphorical) engagement and marriage rings on her, it'd be placing metaphorical princess and queen crowns on her. She'd basically become his secret weapon, convinced that Kris was possessed by an entity (TECHNICALLY true, by the way...) and they needed to extract it for everyone's sake (of course, for Spamton's first of all, hahah). SO yeah, Noelle would arrive as his secret weapon and have battle with the team instead. It also happened before some LORE about Noelle and Spamton got dropped, so when I also learned THAT, I was pleasantly surprised xD I am a prophet for real sfdfdhsd

Unpopular opinion: Hmmm... Well, I think fandom should never forget that he is both very sleazy AND very much of a loser. x) The last time I checked the fandom, I saw him either as a cute babyboy that toooootally simps for Swatch, OR as a super smart badass mastermind. But he is neither! He is a loser and cringe and fail, but at the same time tries his best to be sneaky. Not a nice person, but not an evil mastermind. He is cringe, but not JUST a comic relief - he has a lot going on! Just imagine a trademark card dealer sneaky guy being struck with the knowledge beyond his understanding... That's it. Basically, my unpopular opinion is just that with Spamton, it is a constant fight of the balancing the character! He is simpler than fandom portrays him AND more complicated than fandom portrays him at the same time!

Favorite relationship: Lol, all his relationship SUCK (source: check his lore) and none of this stuff is genuine anymore </3 However, I am a huge sucker for backstory material where he was still a wholesome family with the Addisons. I see them as actual brothers (divisions of the same concept for Darkners), with Spamton being more like adopted one. But, they all were cringe salespeople at some point! The Knight just HAS to always pick the outcast... Like how Joker card is the least used (so we got Jevil), and how natually, spam is the least checked kind of e-mail and advertisement... But he WAS their cringe weird brother at some point, who was failing but tried his best, and they still accepted him!

Favorite headcanon:

My favorite headcanon is that it was acid x) As much as I love the theme of a Darkner turning more toylike upon learning about the sheer HORROR of their existence, there are still other darkners who were not exposed to Chaos that show toy-like features. So yes, he had to be rebuild, I think.

-----------------------------------

Thank you for an ask! x) Sorry if anyone here doesn't like Deltarune (and maybe Undertale too). I don't get to talk about this interest all that often, but UTDR is still one of my favourite pieces of fiction, and this character in particular IS one of my all time favs </3

#deltarune #spamton #spamton g spamton #(yes that's his ACTUAL name very polite of you anon to address him that way xD)#ask replies #ask meme

11 notes · View notes