#like its more of an exclusive group than a community

[hanabiira]

The rpc feels less and less of a community these days. It feels very alienating at times. I’ve seen it change a lot but I don’t think I’ve ever quite felt this way.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How lock-in hurts design

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

If you've ever read about design, you've probably encountered the idea of "paving the desire path." A "desire path" is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don't fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet.

Desire paths aren't always great (Wikipedia notes that "desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and exclusion zones, threatening wildlife and park security"), but in the context of design, a desire path is a way that users communicate with designers, creating a feedback loop between those two groups. The designers make a product, the users use it in ways that surprise the designer, and the designer integrates all that into a new revision of the product.

This method is widely heralded as a means of "co-innovating" between users and companies. Designers who practice the method are lauded for their humility, their willingness to learn from their users. Tech history is strewn with examples of successful paved desire-paths.

Take John Deere. While today the company is notorious for its war on its customers (via its opposition to right to repair), Deere was once a leader in co-innovation, dispatching roving field engineers to visit farms and learn how farmers had modified their tractors. The best of these modifications would then be worked into the next round of tractor designs, in a virtuous cycle:

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

But this pattern is even more pronounced in the digital world, because it's much easier to update a digital service than it is to update all the tractors in the field, especially if that service is cloud-based, meaning you can modify the back-end everyone is instantly updated. The most celebrated example of this co-creation is Twitter, whose users created a host of its core features.

Retweets, for example, were a user creation. Users who saw something they liked on the service would type "RT" and paste the text and the link into a new tweet composition window. Same for quote-tweets: users copied the URL for a tweet and pasted it in below their own commentary. Twitter designers observed this user innovation and formalized it, turning it into part of Twitter's core feature-set.

Companies are obsessed with discovering digital desire paths. They pay fortunes for analytics software to produce maps of how their users interact with their services, run focus groups, even embed sneaky screen-recording software into their web-pages:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-dark-side-of-replay-sessions-that-record-your-every-move-online/

This relentless surveillance of users is pursued in the name of making things better for them: let us spy on you and we'll figure out where your pain-points and friction are coming from, and remove those. We all win!

But this impulse is a world apart from the humility and respect implied by co-innovation. The constant, nonconsensual observation of users has more to do with controlling users than learning from them.

That is, after all, the ethos of modern technology: the more control a company can exert over its users ,the more value it can transfer from those users to its shareholders. That's the key to enshittification, the ubiquitous platform decay that has degraded virtually all the technology we use, making it worse every day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

When you are seeking to control users, the desire paths they create are all too frequently a means to wrestling control back from you. Take advertising: every time a service makes its ads more obnoxious and invasive, it creates an incentive for its users to search for "how do I install an ad-blocker":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

More than half of all web-users have installed ad-blockers. It's the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But zero app users have installed ad-blockers, because reverse-engineering an app requires that you bypass its encryption, triggering liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides for a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for "circumvention" of access controls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Beyond that, modifying an app creates liability under copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, noncompete, nondisclosure and so on. It's what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is why services are so horny to drive you to install their app rather using their websites: they are trying to get you to do something that, given your druthers, you would prefer not to do. They want to force you to exit through the gift shop, you want to carve a desire path straight to the parking lot. Apps let them mobilize the law to literally criminalize those desire paths.

An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to block ads in it (or do anything else that wrestles value back from a company). Apps are web-pages where everything not forbidden is mandatory.

Seen in this light, an app is a way to wage war on desire paths, to abandon the cooperative model for co-innovation in favor of the adversarial model of user control and extraction.

Corporate apologists like to claim that the proliferation of apps proves that users like them. Neoliberal economists love the idea that business as usual represents a "revealed preference." This is an intellectually unserious tautology: "you do this, so you must like it":

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/22/hp-ceo-says-customers-are-a-bad-investment-unless-they-can-be-made-to-buy-companys-drm-ink-cartridges.html

Calling an action where no alternatives are permissible a "preference" or a "choice" is a cheap trick – especially when considered against the "preferences" that reveal themselves when a real choice is possible. Take commercial surveillance: when Apple gave Ios users a choice about being spied on – a one-click opt of of app-based surveillance – 96% of users choice no spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

But then Apple started spying on those very same users that had opted out of spying by Facebook and other Apple competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Neoclassical economists aren't just obsessed with revealed preferences – they also love to bandy about the idea of "moral hazard": economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public ("consumers" in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak). But apps are pure moral hazard – for corporations. The ability to prohibit desire paths – and literally imprison rivals who help your users thwart those prohibitions – is too tempting for companies to resist.

The fact that the majority of web users block ads reveals a strong preference for not being spied on ("users just want relevant ads" is such an obvious lie that doesn't merit any serious discussion):

https://www.iccl.ie/news/82-of-the-irish-public-wants-big-techs-toxic-algorithms-switched-off/

Giant companies attained their scale by learning from their users, not by thwarting them. The person using technology always knows something about what they need to do and how they want to do it that the designers can never anticipate. This is especially true of people who are unlike those designers – people who live on the other side of the world, or the other side of the economic divide, or whose bodies don't work the way that the designers' bodies do:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Apps – and other technologies that are locked down so their users can be locked in – are the height of technological arrogance. They embody a belief that users are to be told, not heard. If a user wants to do something that the designer didn't anticipate, that's the user's fault:

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

Corporate enthusiasm for prohibiting you from reconfiguring the tools you use to suit your needs is a declaration of the end of history. "Sure," John Deere execs say, "we once learned from farmers by observing how they modified their tractors. But today's farmers are so much stupider and we are so much smarter that we have nothing to learn from them anymore."

Spying on your users to control them is a poor substitute asking your users their permission to learn from them. Without technological self-determination, preferences can't be revealed. Without the right to seize the means of computation, the desire paths never emerge, leaving designers in the dark about what users really want.

Our policymakers swear loyalty to "innovation" but when corporations ask for the right to decide who can innovate and how, they fall all over themselves to create laws that let companies punish users for the crime of contempt of business-model.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/#is-prohibited

Image: Belem (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desire_path_%2819811581366%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[punkitt-is-here]

Hey, a little while ago you reblogged a post which says "If you believe a group of trans people has systemic privilege over another group of trans people, you are transphobic." This isn't a callout post or anything so trite, but I think I really respect you as a person, and so I wanted to ask you to think a little more carefully about that statement:

Does a white trans person really not have systemic privilege over a black trans person? Does a neurotypical trans person not have systemic privilege over a neurodivergent trans person? Does a trans man not have systemic privilege over a trans woman? Do you need to be transphobic to believe that?

Agh, I don't really know why I'm sending this. It just feels like the trans community writ large has been regressing pitifully in its understanding of intersecting axes of oppression, and it's really miserable to see that and not know what to do about it.

Sorry to bother you with this, I hope you have a lovely day.

i think i remember your message from a bit back! meant to get to that, but forgot to. i dont got the post on me, but it seems clear to me from what i remember that it was talking exclusively about gender when it was talking about one trans person having systemic privilege over the other. I think many of us already know that a white person is going to have far more systemic privilege than a non-white peer, and that neurotypical people have more systemic privilege over neurodivergent people. this is true whether or not they are trans. I think the post assumed in good faith that we can intuit this and the post doesn't need a million disclaimers for every power imbalance out there.

And I will say, I don't believe a trans man has systemic privilege over a trans woman, thats the whole posts point! Maybe some do, but I'm sure there's an equal number of people in the reverse situation. Disregarding the idea that becoming a man automatically gives you the same privileges as a cis one, there is an extremely wide, near-infinite spectrum of how gender presentation and gender identity intersect, and acting like all trans people of a certain gender have privilege over another IS transphobic. The posts point, from what i recall, is that its shitty to create little microgroups and assume others are your enemy in a privilege pyramid, because we are all trans and therefore we all need to lift each other up.

I'm not really gonna think on it more because I don't have the post but disregarding the systemic privileges that are factored in aside from being trans is fine because I dont think every post needs to cover every alternative point in the entire world because sometimes when you're making a post you just hope people will intuit the obvious. otherwise, nothing concise would ever exist.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

I am posting and responding to this ask anonymously as I don't want anyone harassing its sender. This has already been communicated with the person who sent the ask.

I just want to thank you for being a light in the darkness of anti-semitism, especially on this website. I have found I am on this site a lot less ever since it was made clear that other leftists here are more anti-semitic than we ever knew possible, using very specific wording of our own trauma against us (i.e. saying stuff like "colonialism", "genocide/ethnic cleansing", and calling JEWISH PEOPLE Nazis). It feels like, at best, they know Hamas ≠ All or even most Palestinians, but think that they think all JEWS = Bibi; and at worst, agree with Hamas and think of him as some sort of "freedom fighter". So, thank you from one leftist Jew to another, just trying to keep afloat here. ❤️

You are very welcome; it's certainly been overwhelming, and I'm glad this can be a safe space for you.

I do want to push back on some of this ask, though. Specifically in regard to terms such as "colonialism," "apartheid," "genocide," and "ethnic cleansing."

The use of these terms is not inherently anti-Semitic. For a lot of people, these terms are the best ones they have access to describe what they are seeing. I do think such terms as “colonialism” and “apartheid” are overly simple in regard to the last ~3000 years of Jewish history, and that they cast the situation into an alien historical context which dilutes and uncomplicates the all the historical realities at stake, but I truly do not think that all who use these terms do so to cause Jewish people pain.

Further complicating the picture is that terms like "colonialism" aren’t completely wrong. Modern Zionism arose in the context of mid-nineteenth century European large-scale movements towards nationalism (ie, the creation of nation-states) and away from the multi-national empire. Jews—a subject of anti-Semitism and fifth columnist suspicions within those emergent European nations—reacted to all this by joining the nationalism game.

What’s ironic, is that those European Jews who founded contemporary Zionism were reacting to the exclusion and racial hatred with which Gentile Europeans treated them, and then once they had some settlements in Palestine, they deployed similar variants of racial hatred at both the Palestinian Arab population, and Middle Eastern Jewry.

The existence of a distinct people and ethnic group in Palestine before the aliyot were not something the first generation of Zionists were concerned with. Because they were part of the same shitty, white supremacist, pro-imperialistic intellectual European tradition to which they were responding as victimized parties. As time went on and Zionist thought spread across Ashkenazic communities, we can see some variants. Some forms of far-left Zionism in twentieth century Poland, for example, actively built the presence and rights of Palestinian Arabs into their ideology, some of them actively stating that Zionism could not be a success if it necessitated transforming Palestinian Arabs into a group of secondhand citizens and a cheap source of labor in their own home.

Those leftist strands of Zionism tended to be Socialist/Communist in nature, and centered around the idea of life in Eretz Yisrael as one of a series of self-sufficient communes. Thus when the 1930s hit and things start to go bad, the Zionists we see fleeing to Palestine tended to be of the more centrist and far right variants. The left wing, socialist movements, already operating as a collective, had a membership uncomfortable with fleeing to safety while the rest remained behind.

And that same socialist/communal attitude, is why those variants of Zionist thought never made it into the Israeli political mainstream; most of their members and proponents were murdered in the Holocaust in part because they refused to leave their comrades behind. The General Zionists and Zionist Revisionists who rode out the years of the Holocaust in Palestine therefore already had access to the avenues of power which would become important in 1948, when the British Empire shrugged off its responsibilities towards the regions it colonized and destabilized.

Now, as for ethnic cleansing. I can’t sugar-coat this: that’s what the Naqba was. It was ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs from their homes to make way for the Jewish State. The manipulative shit (but still somehow extremely prestigious) youth group I was in taught us that Arabs call it Naqba because they hate Jews and therefore existence of Jews in the Southern Levant was a tragedy, as was the fact that Hitler didn't finish the job.

That’s garbage: it’s called the Naqba because it was ethnic cleansing. And that's not the fault of the Holocaust survivors who made their way to Mandatory Palestine/Israel in the late 1940s--they lacked political power, and were often looked down upon by those who did; the Holocaust as part of Israeli National Mythology wasn't an immediate Thing.

If you spent your formative years around older Jewish folks of A Certain Generation, whose trauma has pretty much placed a permanent block on their ability to see some of what went down in 1948 for what it was, I can’t blame you for having that gut/cognitive dissonance reaction to the use of “ethnic cleansing” in the context of Israel and Palestine. I know those older folks. I loved them. They’re mostly gone now, and I miss them terribly. But their trauma-induced view of everything lives on in the ability of some younger Jews to properly name and understand what it is that happened in 1948.

It was ethnic cleansing.

Further, not only were Palestinian Arabs ethnically cleansed, but the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Jews who were forced by their governments to flee their homes of thousands of years and seek refuge in Israel throughout the second half of the twentieth century…the Western and Central European Jews in control of Israel and its institutions treated them like shit too. Hadassah actively stole the babies of Yemeni Jews, told the parents that their children were dead, and rehomed them to Ashkenazic couples. There were death certificates. Members of the Ethiopian Jewish community were forcibly sterilized, and their ongoing treatment by the State is racist and generally atrocious. And this analysis of the relationship between the Israel State, MENA Jewish populations, and different Ashkenazic groups in Israel is horribly short and overly simple.

As for genocide. I honestly don’t know. I do know many people, who are very much not Anti-Semites, who are calling what’s happening in Gaza right now genocide; many of these people are also Jewish. I know many others who refer to the experiences of Palestinians between 1948 and now as a slow genocide. Many of these people are also actively not anti-Semites, and many of them are Jewish.

So these terms, as uncomfortable as they may feel for people within the very specific Jewish generational background I believe we share, are not deployed as anti-Semitic weapons. Nazi comparisons? Yes. Swastikas superimposed over the Star of David? Yes. Very specific hook-nosed Jewish caricatures in relation to Israelis? Yes. Blood libel shit? Yes. These are all anti-Semitic, and are deployed to hurt and retraumatize Jewish people. But the rest are not nearly that simple.

And I didn’t learn this from like, Bad Evil Post-Modern Academics at Columbia University Who Hate Jews; I learned this from doing graduate-level work in the field of Modern Jewish History, and working in Jewish archives; this did not come from outside the building.

Now, as for Hamas as freedom fighters…that’s ignorant at best. Hamas’ charter clearly calls for the global destruction of the Jewish people [ETA: they edited this part out in 2017 for PR purposes], and their actions as rulers are horrifically, violently, homophobic, and seem to be more abut provoking Israel than they are about governing and protecting their people. But as you said, Hamas isn’t all Palestinians, and it’s also not all Palestinians who consider themselves freedom fighters. (A second reader of mine had the following commentary on this paragraph: "Might need a bit more complication around Hamas? I know that's not your area of expertise but it's worth mentioning that they were basically set up to undermine the PLO and what would become the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. You're right that they aren't representative of all Palestinian thought and resistance, and that they are on some fuck shit.")

So while I’m so glad that blog is a comfort to you, I encourage you to also take a step into some of your discomfort, and ask yourself where it comes from.

No one reading this post has my consent to use it to silence other Jewish people who are in different stages of their journey towards understanding how generational trauma has impacted their ability to grasp all of this. Further, if you choose to attack me for gently calling my people in, you're a piece of shit and I will be mean to you.

[odinsblog]

Land and Housing

As a result of decades of land confiscations and discriminatory land policies, Israeli authorities have hemmed in Palestinian towns and villages, while nurturing the growth and expansion of Jewish communities, many of which in practice exclude Palestinians. The majority of Palestinians in Israel live in these communities, while some live in “mixed cities” like Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Haifa.

Ninety-three percent of all land in Israel constitutes state land, directly controlled by the Israeli government. Israeli authorities confiscated much of this land, several million dunams, from Palestinians through several different legal instruments, as documented in a later chapter of this report. A government agency, the Israel Land Authority (ILA), manages and allocates state lands. Almost half the members of its governing body belong to the JNF, whose explicit mandate is to develop and lease land for Jews and not any other segment of the population. The fund owns 13 percent of Israel’s land, which the state is mandated to use “for the purpose of settling Jews.”

Israeli authorities have almost exclusively allocated state lands for the development and expansion of Jewish communities. Since 1948, the government has authorized the creation of more than 900 “Jewish localities” in Israel, but none for Palestinians except for a handful of government-planned townships and villages in the Negev and Galilee, created largely to concentrate previously displaced Bedouin communities. Less than 3 percent of all land in Israel falls under the jurisdiction of Palestinian municipalities, where the majority of Palestinian citizens live, according to a 2017 estimate by Israeli and Palestinian groups.

Even inside Palestinian towns and villages within Israel, Israeli authorities discriminatorily restrict the land available for residential growth. The authorities have zoned large sections of Palestinian towns and villages for “agricultural” use or as “green” areas, prohibited residential building in them, and built roads and other infrastructure projects that impede expansion. A 2003 Israeli government-commissioned report found that “many Arab towns and villages were surrounded by land designated for purposes such as security zones, Jewish regional councils, national parks and nature reserves or highways, which prevent or impede the possibility of their expansion in the future.”

While increasing focus in recent years on these issues has resulted in more state-approved residential development, they have done little to date to change the reality of hemmed-in Palestinian towns and villages. By contrast, in case studies documented by Human Rights Watch in each of Israel’s six districts, planning authorities provided sufficient land and zoning permissions to predominantly Jewish communities to facilitate their growth.

(continue reading)

[mollyrolls]

hey cupid! ☆ iwaizumi h. x reader

introductions: threat free for: 0 days

warnings: kys jokes (this is gonna be a consistent one), language

an: this is my first smau please be gentle

mlist. / next

ln yn

☆ yn is a second year college student, still undeclared. she likes writing and loves her diary, but would never make it her career. shes actively choosing to not think about it right now. ☆ shes a "pathetic romantic", which means that she is deeply romantic and wants nothing more than a relationship where the other person just gets them, but talking about that is gross. ☆ extremely bad at talking about her feelings, but she is so emotionally intelligent. the diary knows all. ☆ akaashi is her best friend. they've known each other since high school but got really close freshman year (trauma bonding over an english class).

akaashi keiji

☆ literature and philosophy double major. he's not sure what he wants to do with it but he took exclusively lit, english, and ethics classes for all of the first semester, so when his advisor suggested it he went along with it. kinda regrets it now. ☆ yn changed his twitter bio to that because it made her laugh and he simply does not care enough to change it back. she was so pleased with herself for such a stupid joke. ☆ met bokuto in high school and has nursed a violent crush on him ever since. he knew what it was instantly, sat in silence in his bedroom that whole night, but then came to school the next day completely normal. ☆ he's gotten good at hiding the yearning, but yn always manages to make him crack.

tsukishima kei

☆ political science major, computer science minor. are those meaningful together? don't ask. he doesn't know. ☆ he has complicated feelings about his nickname, but that does not stop the group from calling him that almost exclusively. when his full name gets pulled out he knows he's in trouble. the gc is the only one he lets it slide with. ☆ he made the original trio (akaashi, kenma, and him) because he tried to pick out the smartest-looking kids in their freshman seminar. they all got along too well too fast. terrifying energy.

kenma kozume

☆ has like 800 twitter accounts. meme accounts, rage bait, he even has one of those school drama accounts just for stirring up shit. they're all messy, some have gotten violent. he takes credit for about half of the accounts. ☆ for the meme account, he purposely posts things he thinks are not funny just to see how much engagement he gets. when he posts things that he likes, he gets cancelled. ☆ he claims its ironic but he puts way too much effort into them for it to not be a little bit serious. he has a folder of reaction memes in his camera roll that he refuses to delete. ☆ he's also undeclared but does not care nearly as much as yn.

fun facts!

☆ yn became roommates with them freshman year lowkey hoping it would be a new girl situation.

☆ it was not.

☆ they are all proud members of the little shits community ™.

☆ the gc has never made it past 0 days.

☆ on days when they're all a little too nice, someone will make one just to preserve tradition. (they've never meant it) (they all love each other very deeply)

mlist. / next

[ayin-me-yesh]

I'm not going to reblog the post, but I am once again going to fight people who use the Roman period as the evidence that all Jews, in modern times, are colonised people and Indigenous to Palestine

like, ok... Jews established kingdoms in Palestine as far back as the Bronze Age. the kingdom of Judah was then crushed by the Neo-Babylonian Exile, and many Jews were brought eastward in the Babylonian exile.

the conquest of Alexander the Great allowed a new kingdom, of Judea, to be established with its capital in Jerusalem. but not all Jews returned from the east, and Jews under Hellenistic rule also spread westward into Hellenized Egypt and northward into the Balkans. this was the situation when Rome conquered the Judean kingdom.

during the Roman period, Jews spread further into North Africa and Europe, establishing communities throughout the Roman Empire. when Judea was eventually crushed by the Romans and its citizens expelled, there was already an extant international Jewish community. the eastern community I mentioned from the Babylonian captivity had already existed for 500 years.

when Jews were expelled from Judea, many also eventually returned. a major community was almost immediately established in Tiberias, for instance. Jews would even resettle in Jerusalem. the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled a couple hundred years after the Roman expulsion.

so we start seeing these unique and widespread Jewish communities with their own minhagim (customs) and centuries to eventually millennia-long histories in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Jews were part of established pan-ethnic groups in these regions, so, for instance, there are Amazigh Jews, Arab Jews, Persian Jews, Russian Jews, French Jews, etc.

some of these communities in Africa and Asia would also go on to be colonised by European powers, such as France and the UK. colonisers like the French made distinctions between French Jews and native North African Jews.

Jews largely share common origins from the Near East, and there were Jewish kingdoms in Palestine whose histories are part of our religious identities, but we do not belong exclusively or even generally in Palestine more than wherever we found ourselves in the world. some of us are the colonised, but generally the displaced colonised of other parts of West or Central Asia or North Africa. others of us have been colonisers in those very same regions or elsewhere.

TL;DR Jews are diverse. we have a long history and geographically vast history that encompasses but is also much more than the Biblical narrative.

"Indigenous" in a political sense is not just being from somewhere, but having a relationship with a colonising power. and with that being said, Palestinians, the people being colonised by Israel, are Indigenous to Palestine.

[teamloyalty]

women in motorsport: a semi-curated mini academic reading list (with links!)

These articles broadly cover the position of women within motorsport and interrogate the misogyny of that ecosystem. I found quite a few more, some of which go in depth about the hypermasculine norms responsible for the exclusion of women from that space. If you want those titles, let me know, but otherwise I think these comprise a solid foundation to academic thought on the subject.

John M. Sloop, "Riding in Cars Between Men," Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 2, no. 3 (September 2005).

Discusses several incidents in the racing career of Deborah Renshaw, including an 2002 incident in which a unified group of her competitors, all male, successfully conspired to disqualify her car from competing. Makes some really interesting points about "first women" in male-dominated environments and the simultaneous erasure/amplification of gender difference when discussing women in motorsports.

Elizabeth Lick, Rashid Bakirov, and Tauheed Ahmad Ramjaun, "Female motorsport fan engagement on social media-based brand communities," Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing 12, no. 1 (2024)

Written for an audience of social media professionals within F1 looking to expand their reach to female fans - but an enlightening read for anyone involved with online motorsports fandom. Concludes in part that women are less likely to actively engage with official F1 social media (leaving comments and the like) because of how men react to women in those spaces, and proposes a few adjustments teams could make to make women more likely to interact with posts.

Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder, "Something Less than a Driver: Toward an Understanding of Gendered Bodies in Motorsport," Journal of Sport and Social Issues 33, no. 4 (2009).

A big jargony, but worthwhile if you can parse the language - goes into depth about the woman driver as a "cyborg identity" (in the vein of Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto): something both mechanical and human, and thus embodying more complex gender dynamics.

Honorata Jakubowska, "The Awkward Gender Politics of Formula 1 as a Promotional Space: The Issue of 'Grid Girls,'" in The History and Politics of Motor Racing (2023)

Revolves around the decision to drop the longtime tradition of "grid girls" at races in 2018, though reflects generally about the role of women in the homosocial world of F1. Argues that the symbol of the sexualized grid girl--present to celebrate race winners and bolster marketing efforts--contributed to the spectacle of F1 and underscored its claim as the most glamorous, luxurious, and elite form of motorsport.

[perfectsunlight]

𝗝𝗘𝗔𝗟𝗢𝗨𝗦.

𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶 𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗺 𝘅 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: 𝗷𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗼𝘂𝘀𝘆

𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 𝟮.𝟮𝗸

𝘀𝘆𝗻𝗼𝗽𝘀𝗶𝘀: 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: 𝗷𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗼𝘂𝘀𝘆.

𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱: ✔

hanni’s favorite feeling was the one she felt whenever she was with you. 

the newjeans member felt her heart filling with so much genuine and sincere love for you whenever she laid her eyes on you. she loved you and everything that made you, you. from your eyes and their gaze, to your hands and their touch, you were heaven incarnate for hanni.

however, hanni soon realized that she didn’t like the feeling she got when she saw you and minji.

jealousy. a foreign feeling to pham hanni. the idol never got jealous before, which surprised the both of you in the beginning. but you both grew to realize that the security she felt was enough to outweigh her insecurities or doubts.

unfortunately, that wasn’t the case this time around.

a cloud of jealousy began to cast its shadow over hanni's heart, tarnishing her feelings in a way she didn’t like at all. it gnawed at her, like a persistent ache that refused to fade away. she tried to ignore it, burying her unease beneath smiles and feigned indifference, but the more she observed your interactions with minji, the stronger the pang of jealousy grew.

in her mind, she understood that friendships and connections could exist outside of your romantic relationship. she knew that you and minji had a history together, a bond forged through your shared passion for music. you were a member of the group fifty fifty, but before that you had been a trainee with minji. the two of you were friends. always had been, and always would be. but knowing it intellectually was vastly different from grappling with the emotions that surged within her.

hanni questioned herself, doubting her own worth and wondering if she was somehow lacking, compared to the easy camaraderie between you and minji. in the quiet corners of her mind, a voice whispered insidiously, planting seeds of insecurity. it taunted her, feeding her fears of being replaced or forgotten.

every time she witnessed the two of you engrossed in a private conversation, sharing laughter or inside jokes, hanni felt a twinge of exclusion. it felt like she was an outsider looking in, longing to be part of that intimate connection you shared with minji. but instead, she found herself standing on the periphery, watching as your friendship flourished, while her jealousy grew like an unbridled wildfire.

unable to contain her emotions any longer, hanni found herself teetering on the precipice of confrontation. she knew she had to communicate her feelings, to lay bare the vulnerable corners of her heart, but the fear of rejection held her back. what if her jealousy was dismissed as baseless or irrational? what if it pushed you further away?

nevertheless, she chose to ignore it all. she would rather die than tell you she was feeling jealous. to be honest, she simply thought it would just go away on its own.

she couldn’t have been more wrong.

“y/n, stop moving.” you groaned as you felt minji pulling your arm back towards her. the warmth of your body was currently supplying minji with comfort as well as you laid across her lap. the both of you, as well as the rest of her members, were watching the first movie in your “movie marathon” night.

however, hanni couldn’t help but stare at you two with a war inside her heart and mind.

you had laid on minji’s lap because you always did that. it was something you two had done for years, even before you started dating hanni. plus, it wasn’t like minji was hugging and kissing you.

so why did it bother her so much that you were so close to minji?

the scene played out before hanni's eyes, each second etching deeper into her consciousness. her heart pounded in her chest, and the ache of jealousy intensified. the logical part of her mind battled against the irrational, but the battle seemed futile.

as the movie played on, hanni's focus shifted from the screen to you and her member. her thoughts swirled in a whirlwind of emotions and doubts, fueling her jealousy even further. she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being replaced or sidelined, that her place in your heart was being threatened.

hanni's breathing quickened, her palms growing clammy as her internal struggle raged on. she couldn't continue living in the shadow of her own insecurities. but on the other hand, she didn’t want to make you feel like you had to pick between her or your friend.

leaving the comfort of her seat, hanni excused herself quietly from the movie night, her footsteps heavy with the weight of her inner turmoil. she needed space, a moment to collect her thoughts and gather the courage to address the swirling tempest inside her.

finding solace in the solitude of the bathroom, hanni closed the door behind her, shutting out the outside world and the scene she had witnessed. she leaned against it, feeling the coolness seep through her back, grounding her in that moment. taking a deep breath, she mustered every ounce of courage she possessed.

she reached for her phone and began typing, her fingers flying across the screen as she poured her heart into a heartfelt message. each word was carefully chosen, each sentence crafted with sincerity and vulnerability.

"y/n, i need to talk to you."

hanni hesitated for a moment, her thumb hovering over the send button. doubts and fears crept back in, whispering the possibility of rejection and the potential damage she could cause. overcome with her second thoughts, she deleted the message and put her phone back into her pocket.

this feeling had to go away. for her sake, and for the sake of your relationship.

after that evening, you noticed hanni was a little off. she was suddenly very clingy, always wanting to hug you from behind or hold your hand a bit longer. hanni was never against pda, but this was definitely more than what you were used to with her.

if only you knew the real reason why. however, you weren’t one to complain about your girlfriend being more affectionate.

however, hanni's internal struggle intensified, the battle between her desire to protect her relationship and her fear of vulnerability tearing her apart. she didn't want to burden you with her jealousy, convinced that it would only drive you away. so, she swallowed her emotions, burying them deep within her heart.

days turned into weeks, and the weight of her unspoken jealousy continued to grow. the vietnamese girl couldn’t shake this lingering emotion of envy. and to make things worse, you and minji had been spending a lot more time together. 

first it was minji inviting you over to play wii sports with her. hanni wanted to join you two, but she felt as if she was third wheeling her girlfriend and best friend. or maybe that's just the way she interpreted it through her jealousy.

hanni watched from a distance as you and minji laughed and played wii sports together. the sound of your laughter echoed in her ears, twisting her heart with a mix of longing and insecurity. she wanted to be a part of that joy, to share those moments with you and her friend, but her jealousy held her back.

as the days went by, hanni found herself increasingly on edge, her emotions bubbling beneath the surface. she couldn't bear the thought of losing you, but her jealousy continued to eat away at her, clouding her judgment and fueling her doubts.

things only got worse when hanni walked in on you wearing one of minji’s sweaters. 

the girl’s face twisted into confusion. why were you wearing minji’s sweater instead of hers? did you not want to wear it anymore? 

hanni's heart sank as she witnessed the scene before her. the sight of you wearing minji's sweater struck her like a blow to the chest, intensifying her feelings of insecurity and jealousy. doubts flooded her mind, casting shadows over the love she believed you shared.

but once again, she simply kept pushing her emotions further and further down. “it’s just a sweater,” she kept telling herself as the day dragged on. “it’s just a stupid sweater.”

if only your girlfriend knew that the reason you were wearing minji’s sweater was because you were washing hanni’s after wearing it for two weeks straight. you and hanni had a rule where you both could only steal one piece of clothing from each other at a time. so instead of breaking your little rule, you decided to just borrow something from your best friend.

but hanni didn’t know this. all she knew was that her newfound feeling was definitely growing and getting worse by the days.

except, you didn’t realize when something was really off until hanni started arguing about her not wanting to come with you and minji to the mall anymore. originally, it was supposed to just be you and hanni going, but at the last minute, you were asking her if minji could come along.

needless to say, the vietnamese girl did not like that idea.

“why don’t you want her to come?” you asked, slightly frustrated at this sudden passive aggressiveness coming from your girlfriend.

hanni took a deep breath, her mind racing as she struggled to find the right words. the weight of her unspoken jealousy bore down on her shoulders, making it difficult to speak without her emotions overwhelming her.

"it's not that i don't want minji to come," hanni finally replied, her voice tinged with a mixture of frustration and vulnerability. "it's just... i feel like we never have enough time alone together lately. and…i miss that."

her voice trailed off, and she cast her gaze downward, unable to meet your eyes. the truth was out in the open now, her jealousy exposed in all its rawness. it was a terrifying moment for hanni, baring her insecurities to the person she loved, fearing your reaction.

you took a moment to process her words, your frustration fading as you recognized the pain behind her actions. it suddenly dawned on you—the extra clinginess, the hesitance to include minji in outings—it all made sense now. 

hanni pham was jealous.

reaching out, you gently took hanni's hands in yours, offering her reassurance through touch. "hanni, i'm sorry i haven't been aware of how you've been feeling. i never meant to neglect our alone time or make you feel left out. it was never my intention."

hanni looked up at you, tears glistening in her eyes, a mix of relief and apprehension on her face. she squeezed your hands, grateful for your understanding.

"i know our friendship with minji is important to both of us," you continued, your voice filled with sincerity. "but you are my priority, hanni. i never want you to feel like you're being replaced or pushed aside. i love you, and i want to make sure our relationship feels secure and cherished."

hanni's tears spilled over, and she leaned into your embrace, finding solace in your words and the warmth of your presence. she felt the weight of her jealousy slowly lifting as you reaffirmed your commitment to her.

“i love you too, y/n.” she whispered, holding you close and making her own doubts disappear within your embrace. the other girl felt so happy to finally tell you how she felt. it felt even greater to know that you understood her so well.

“promise me you’ll tell me when you feel like this again, okay? i don’t want you to feel like you have to keep things from me.” you said softly, running a hand up and down her back in a soothing manner.

the newjeans member nodded a small smile on her face as she leaned up and kissed your cheek. “i will, i promise.”

“good.” you replied swiftly, pausing to lean in and whisper into her ear. “although, you are very cute when you’re jealous.” 

“be quiet and kiss me again.”

[homestuckreplay]

hey so what sort of insane loot did you rake in today: A Conversation Analysis of Pesterlogs in Acts 1 & 2 of Homestuck

This essay contains spoilers for pages 1-386 of Homestuck. Wordcount 6,700. If you prefer, you can read this on google docs. 

Love and thanks to @rudebreadrolls for being my very cool editor. They did not reduce the wordcount, but did provide some extremely helpful feedback. <3

Introduction

‘In watching our participants deftly manage multiple messages, and then interweave these messages into the larger storylines of their lives, we became aware that the drama, the story, and, indeed, the enjoyment of [instant messaging] comes from the entire session itself: its flow, its arc, and various aspects of narrative tension across messages.’ - Lewis & Fabos (2005)

In 2009, internet use is approaching universality among American teenagers. Around 93% of teenagers use the internet, compared to around 10% just ten years earlier, and academic research about the effects of internet use is beginning to catch up. There is huge variation in findings, with some studies reporting that internet use, social media use, and instant messaging with friends can decrease depression and social anxiety, while other studies find that online activities are harmful to mental health. Similarly, some papers show that friendships formed or maintained online are more surface level, less honest and less emotionally fulfilling than friendships maintained in person, while other papers suggest that young people are more vulnerable and uninhibited online, leading to deeper friendships. 

‘The internet’ and ‘teenagers’ are extremely broad categories, so it’s no surprise that findings are so varied. Two particularly interesting individual findings are that ‘Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth were more likely than non-LGBT youth to have online friends and to appraise these friends as better than their in-person friends at providing emotional support’ (Ybarra et al.), and that ‘online communities illustrate these tenets [belongingness, social connectedness, and political connectedness] of the autistic cultural identity, as well as how these communities, by the basis of being online, enable autistic social connectedness to occur more readily and smoothly then within everyday life in the “real” world’ (Le Vine-Miller). 

Two common hypotheses discussed in online friendship research are the rich-get-richer hypothesis, which posits that popular individuals with good offline social skills can use those same skills to achieve similar popularity online, and the social compensation hypothesis, which argues that people who struggle to form social connections offline often find it far easier to form friendships in online spaces. These hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, and both are supported by research. When discussing Homestuck, I make the assumption that the main characters are friends exclusively online and have never met in person, due to their geographical distance from one another, and that they are socially isolated with few if any in person friends, due to none of the characters mentioning a social life outside of their families and online messaging group. I also believe that whether or not this is intended by the author, it is easy to read these characters as queer and/or neurodivergent, which further positions them as socially marginalized. Therefore, these characters would best fit within the framework of the social compensation hypothesis.

Research on instant messaging (IM) typically discusses IM as a hybrid communication form, incorporating elements of both spoken and written communication, and further suggests that IM is a third form of communication that cannot fully be analyzed by either or both of these frameworks. Significant variation is seen between participants in their use of language and paralanguage, and there is a strong research focus on the capabilities and constraints of IM platforms. Researchers also discuss the varying prevalence of features unique to IM or other computer mediated communication (CMC), such as emojis, acronyms, gestures, and message spacing and timestamps.

However, this research is often limited by researchers’ needs to compare IM to in person communication and judge which is ‘better’. They typically conclude that IM is a lesser form of communication, and that participants in their studies have a preference for talking face to face. This may be because these studies primarily use participants who began using IM as teenagers or college students once they already have strong real life friendships. General studies on IM are less likely to study those who grew up with IM from a young age and who use the medium more akin to a first or native language - an increasingly common phenomenon - which limits the conclusions these studies can draw.

In instant messaging research, most authors rhetorically distance themselves from the topic, with some explicitly stating that they do not use instant messaging services themselves and none (that I found) discussing their own personal experiences. I personally have been a regular user of instant messaging services since the mid 2000s, including both one-on-one and group chats with both online only and in person friends, using primarily MSN Messenger, Skype, Facebook Messenger and Discord, and these experiences inform my discussion of this topic.

In this essay I will explore how Homestuck’s online teenage social group - John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, and gardenGnostic (GG) - communicate with each other and manage friendship via the in-universe instant messaging service Pesterchum. I will discuss what these friendships mean for the characters within the story itself, as well as what the use of instant messaging does for the author and audience who are reading this story. 

I used five Pesterchum conversations to conduct this analysis: John-Rose (p.256 - 332 words), John-Dave (p.386 - 542 words), John-GG (p.293 - 412 words), Rose-Dave (p.333 - 402 words) and Dave-GG (p.382 - 424 words). For each pair of chums, I chose the longest Pesterlog by wordcount between the two characters, with a pesterlog defined as a conversation occurring on a single page of Homestuck. In the end, all these conversations came from the first 140 pages of Act 2. 

I selected eight possible characteristics of instant messages to analyze in these conversations, inspired by, but not identical to, those explored in Kelley’s work ‘The Hybrid Structure of Instant Messaging’ (2008). My categories are as follows.

Grammar - includes punctuation, capitalization, and similarities to formal written language

Conversationality - includes exclamations, filler words, and similarities to informal spoken language

Internet Language - includes internet specific features such as emojis, abbreviations, and methods to emphasize words

Structure - includes length of messages and numbers of consecutive messages

Informativity - how effectively information is conveyed and interpreted

Vulnerability - emotional honesty and openness 

Agency - control over topics and flow of conversation

Color - cultural associations with chosen text color

I was unable to analyze two additional features. Pesterlogs do not include timestamps, so I could not discuss time between messages. However, overlap between messages and events in the narrative suggest that conversations take place in near-real time and are the primary activity holding characters’ attention. Interjections like ‘EB: um… hello?’ suggest that waiting for a response is the exception between these characters and not the norm. Additionally, errors and repair, where one participant makes a typo and corrects it in a subsequent message, do not appear in Homestuck. I assume that this is artistic license on the part of the author to improve readability of the text.

John Egbert

John’s typing style is the most conversational of the four main characters, with the greatest similarities to spoken dialog. He appears to be fairly unfiltered, and it’s easy to imagine that he would talk very similarly if he were hanging out with his friends in person. Grammatically, John does not capitalize proper nouns or the start of sentences, but he does use correct punctuation including commas, periods, and apostrophes. This is his main concession to written language, as correct punctuation makes his messages very readable even for people who are not familiar with instant messaging dialects, and means his statements are clearly delineated from each other. 

John uses contractions such as ‘can’t’ and ‘don’t’ whenever it makes sense to do so. His text contains a lot of filler words, such as ‘well ok,’ ‘like,’ and ‘er…’ which demonstrate his unfiltered, stream of consciousness style. He also uses exclamations such as ‘oh jeez’ and ‘ok ok stop!’ which would also be common to spoken language, but not written. 

John occasionally uses Internet-typical acronyms such as ‘brb,’ but they don’t form a major part of his typing, and he doesn’t make use of emojis or special characters that could indicate paralanguage cues. Once in a while, he uses all caps for emphasis, such as ‘haha I WISH.’ and ‘SO LAME.’ As this is the only capitalization he uses, it’s effective when present. John doesn’t elongate letters in words for emphasis, but he regularly uses question marks and exclamation points, and sometimes elongates these to two question marks or three exclamation points when he wants to indicate that something is particularly important.

John’s messages tend to be short and sweet, mostly containing a single clause or sentence, but there are outliers. When he has particularly strong feelings about something, for example his near-death meteor experience or the idea of a white ventriloquist rapper, he can get caught up in a run-on sentence confined to a single message. In instant messaging, it’s common to split a thought across multiple messages and take several conversational ‘turns’ in a row. John does this sometimes, especially when each message contains separate thoughts or when he needs some time to think, indicated by ‘hmm…’ or ‘see…’ as a single message, followed by a longer response. However, when he is having a singular thought, he doesn’t always take the time to hit the enter key, and instead constructs the whole story at once, as in the example below.

EB: but now i'm trapped here and it's weird and dark and i can't find my dad and i just lost the car and my copy of the game in the pit and i think i have to save the world from the apocalypse!!!

He could have chosen to split this message into multiple parts, as demonstrated below, but is either too caught up in the emotions of what he’s typing to do this, or sees this as a singular thought that should be kept together without line and punctuation breaks.

EB: but now i'm trapped here.EB: and it's weird and dark.EB: and i can't find my dad!EB: and i just lost the car and my copy of the game in the pit!EB: and i think i have to save the world from the apocalypse!!!

John can be vague with information, using ‘i think’ and ‘i guess,’ but he seems to be aware of that fact - possibly from communicating with the same people for an extended time. He sometimes self corrects to add more information when he realizes he’s being confusing. In general, he doesn’t seem to have perfect control over language, and can use awkward and clunky phrasing - ‘yeah, more like the opposite of all those things is the thing that is true!’ - which ties back to the social compensation hypothesis of online friendships. John isn’t a smooth talker, but it’s easier for him to talk through IM, because it provides more opportunities to self correct, and his conversation partner can read back over what he’s said and take more time to interpret it than they could in a spoken conversation.

John is honest with his friends about the situations he’s in, and the unfiltered way he talks carries a lot of implicit emotion, but it’s rare for him to outright state how he feels. When he does, it’s always more neutral emotions - ‘ok i don’t really care.’ or ‘but i’m ok!’ - never strong emotions, either positive or negative. However, it’s easy for someone who knows him to interpret how he feels through messages like ‘you never even wished me a happy birthday!’ It seems that John isn’t making an attempt to hide his emotions, but also doesn’t explicitly acknowledge them, whether that’s just to his conversation partners or also to himself.

John’s conversational agency is highly variable. He seems to naturally take the lead in conversations when he has strong opinions about the topic under discussion, like when he tells Dave to stop an extended monologue, or changes the topic away from Dave’s criticism of his sylladex. In his conversations with both Dave and GG, he seems to be guiding the flow of topics, even though Dave is sending far more and longer messages. In contrast, in his conversation with Rose, John is taking a backseat. He recognizes that he has less information than she does, although he sometimes pushes back against her with emotional interjections. He still attempts to exert agency in the conversation by asking questions, but she overall appears in control.

John’s chosen color for his messages is #0715cd, which is described as ‘medium blue’ or ‘strong blue.’ Blue in its entire spectrum is currently seen as a masculine color, and is associated with oceans, sky, open spaces, introspection, sadness, wisdom and serenity. This particular shade of blue is closely linked to computers - the standard HTML code for hyperlinks, including the ‘next page’ links in Homestuck, is #0000ee, ‘blue’ or ‘pure blue.’ John’s text evokes his status as a ‘digital native’ who predominantly spends his time using technology. Blue is also a standard color for ink pens, and a color most people are accustomed to reading in. John may have chosen blue for his text because it is unobtrusive and doesn’t stand out in any particular way.

Rose Lalonde

Rose’s typing style stands out because of the four main characters, she is the only one whose messages reflect formal written writing. Outside of messages she is both a creative writer and an informative writer (via GameFAQs), and unlike some writers, she doesn’t draw a strong distinction between this and her instant messaging. Without exception, her messages are complete sentences with correct punctuation and grammar. She also obeys some stylistic guidelines for writing, such as varying her word choice, mixing complex, multi-clause sentences with shorter ones, and occasionally using metaphor and simile. 

Rose does not use filler words, and each word she chooses appears purposefully placed to add something to her message. She does make use of contractions such as ‘I’ve’ and ‘didn’t,’ as her one concession to spoken language, although she uses the full ‘cannot.’ She also makes some use of exclamations, although in the sample studied here this still appear to be carefully considered full sentences, such as ‘Baseless accusation!’

Rose appears to have no interest in tailoring her writing to the Internet. Some users of IM believe that using internet language and paralanguage makes them appear younger and less intelligent, which could motivate Rose to avoid these. The one acronym she uses is ‘PDA,’ which is an accepted acronym outside of IM, and the closest she comes to slang is the phrase ‘skyward asses.’ This phrase is more likely an example of mimicry, where somebody uses a phrase they would not normally use to (whether intentionally or unintentionally)  imitate their conversation partner, in this case Dave.

Rose does make use of message spacing and multiple turns, the one clear difference between her instant messages and other forms of writing. She averages around 10 words per message, the highest of the four characters, and sends strings of two to three messages more often than single messages. Each message can be as many as three full sentences, which are always directly related. Her message strings can be due to topic changes, but can be directly related thoughts separated for stylistic effect or to create tension by making her conversation partner wait for the next message.

Rose clearly pays great attention to precision in her writing, conveying all necessary information without shortcuts. She uses a wide vocabulary for her age, with sentences typically readable at a high school level, and expects her conversation partners to be able to understand her. She is also excessively verbose, choosing words to showcase her personality and intelligence, instead of trying to send the quickest messages possible, as in the example below.

TT: Navigating the urban landscape I'm sure is difficult enough without an obstacle course of deferential flesh and skyward asses.TT: Perhaps adapting the art of parkour to your unique environment would help?

Rose could instead write the following, which is significantly quicker to type and easier to read, but she does not.

TT: Being in the city must be hard enough without people falling at your feet.TT: Have you tried parkour?

Many researchers hypothesize that response speed is a big factor in people’s IM word usage, but this is not true for Rose - even when her life is in imminent danger, her typing style does not change. This is probably uncommon, but no ethics board has yet approved a research study investigating this.

Rose’s messages typically stick to the facts, with occasional speculation. She prefers to discuss the specifics of her situation and goals, and avoids obvious cues to her emotions. In both conversations analyzed, she offers one emotion-based statement at the end of the conversation, which could suggest one of two things - either she needs to take some time to warm up to a conversation before she’s comfortable expressing an emotion, or she’s so uncomfortable expressing an emotion that she needs to leave immediately afterwards. In both cases, the emotions remain somewhat buried within intentionally complex language.

Rose naturally takes charge in conversations, and prefers to discuss topics she feels knowledgeable on. When talking to John, she employs subtle topic shifts to focus on what she knows for certain and what is directly actionable. She also explicitly refers to doing outside research to be better informed in this conversation. When talking to Dave, Rose engages in conversational sparring where neither party is in charge of the flow, and is thrown off when Dave is able to take control over the conversation by seeing through her surface words to the motives beneath.

Rose’s message color is #b536da, described as ‘bright magenta’ or ‘dark orchid.’ Purple is broadly associated with royalty, power, magic, night, creativity, and enlightenment. It is also a feminine color, and surveys suggest it is a more popular color for women than the archetypically feminine pink. In Rose’s case I would highlight purple as a spooky and mysterious color, distinct from black (which is most likely the Pesterchum default color), which she may have chosen due to her interest in horror and her desire to appear mysterious. ‘Purple prose’ is also a common term for unnecessarily extravagant and fanciful writing, which on the meta level of the story, could be a good description of Rose’s typing overall.

Dave Strider

Dave’s typing style is extremely minimalist, stripped of most signifiers of spoken, written, and internet language. He very rarely uses capitalization or punctuation - he sometimes uses question marks when relevant, but not always. ‘what do you want with john’ leaves the question mark implied. Dave does however make extensive use of quotation marks, which he uses to roleplay with himself and create hypothetical characters on the fly. He is a writer like Rose, creating blogs and webcomics, and this shows in his extensive instant message monologues. However, as all of his writing intentionally breaks the formal rules of written language, his messages share very few similarities with standard writing and are mostly incomplete sentence fragments.

Dave uses filler words and conversational slang, and contractions without an apostrophe. He regularly uses ‘yeah,’ ‘what,’ ‘look,’ ‘ok,’ ‘damn,’ and ‘shit,’ which are written out even though they don’t add additional meaning to his messages. Despite this, his typing overall reads as less conversational than John, partly because the lack of punctuation means his words don’t have the clear cadence of speech. 

Dave does not use emojis or laughter, which connects to the overall lack of emotion in his messages. He occasionally uses acronyms such as ‘FU’ and ‘nm’ which are exclusive to internet language. In his case, this might indicate that he has no interest in the topic under discussion and doesn’t think it’s worth the attention of a full message, as he has no issue writing far longer messages when he has the inspiration. His other hobbies indicate that Dave is familiar with Internet culture overall, so not using internet language is a conscious choice he makes - perhaps he thinks this style of messaging is no longer cool.

According to my editor who is cool for real, being taciturn (untalkative and reserved) is a classic trait of “cool guys,” suggesting that Dave uses acronyms when he is focused on his cool persona, and writes longer messages when he gets swept away in his thoughts and forgets to put on this act.

Dave averages around seven words per message, although the sample taken did not include any of his raps, which could potentially raise this number. In his conversations with Rose and John, he sends significantly more messages than his conversation partner. With GG he sends a similar number of messages, but in all three conversations, Dave has a much higher total wordcount. He clearly has a lot to say and has no qualms about saying it as often as he likes. There are also only two occasions where he includes two separate sentences in the same message, and he regularly splits up a sentence across multiple messages, such as when he sends ‘cal is dope’ ‘puppets are awesome’ ‘john egbert blows’ as three separate entries. Dave’s general lack of punctuation means that the enter key is the closest thing he has to a comma or period, which could explain his greater tendency to split messages. Alternatively, the fact that he is generally extroverted and enjoys talking could mean that he sends one message at a time and then continues to add additional thoughts until his conversation partner responds.

Dave is fairly vague with information as it pertains to his own life, saying that he ‘took [his] awesome katana’ to the living room ‘in case things get too hot to handle’ without elaboration. It is possible that he is working on the assumption that his friends already know about his life. Alternatively, he may not want his friends to know these details, or he may simply want to appear cool and mysterious. When talking about a hypothetical scenario, Dave gets a lot more specific and highly detailed. This shows that he has a strong and active imagination and has no trouble conveying information when he chooses to do so.

Dave is highly defensive when criticized by his friends, even on things that do not particularly matter. He is also extremely opinionated and expresses this often, using a lot of language that is strongly positively or negatively charged. This definitely gives a sense of his personality, and could perhaps be mistaken for emotion, but it’s very hard to get a sense of how he actually feels from his messages. The only emotion he expresses is frustration – despite his desire to talk to his friends often and extensively, he interjects often with ‘oh for fucks sake,’ ‘ok whatever’ or ‘whenever we talk about your goofy modusses i get a migrane [sic]’. It is uncertain if this frustration is how he genuinely feels, or if this is part of an overall affectation crafted to hide more vulnerable feelings.

Dave tries to maintain agency in conversations primarily by holding the floor. In his conversation with John he sends nine consecutive messages, by far the most of any character in the samples taken. When taking these multiple turns, there is less of a chance for his conversation partner to change topics or disrupt the flow. When his friends get a word in edgewise, Dave does accede to topic changes and will stop talking if instructed. He often doesn’t have as much control over his conversations as he’d like, and with both John and Rose, he regularly plays defense against their differing opinions, such as when Rose suggests he might be gay due to refusing to play a game with her, and he tries to assert that he’s just busy.

Interestingly, Dave is just as wrongfooted in his conversation with GG as he is with John and Rose, but he does not act anywhere near as defensive. This may be because John and Rose are intentionally trying to throw him off balance, while GG is simply stating their greater knowledge without a motivation.

Dave’s chosen text color is #e00707, described as ‘vivid red’ or ‘electric red.’ Red is overall associated with heat, fire, passion, danger, blood, anger, love, and courage. It is thought of as a highly emotional color and is eye-catching and difficult to miss on the page. Dave could have chosen to type in red because it gives his messages a sense of urgency, meaning his friends might respond to him more quickly, like when a red flag or exclamation point is added to an email to indicate high priority. A red flag is also a metaphor used to indicate a problem requiring attention – Dave’s red text could mean he either has a problem that isn’t being addressed, or will go on to cause problems for others. Red text is also used in schools to correct errors, and Dave talking in red feels like he is always correcting his friends on their opinions and beliefs.

gardenGnostic

GG has adapted their typing style to the instant messaging medium more than any other character. An online typing style seeks to replicate not only spoken and written dialog, but also paralanguage cues, and adapts itself to the specific medium where the conversation is happening – in this case Pesterchum. In some programs, this could include adding images or external files to a message, or changing font style and size, although we have seen no indication of these being supported on Pesterchum. One of GG’s concessions to the medium is primarily using punctuation for emphasis and effect, not grammar. GG also varies on whether or not they use contractions, sometimes using ‘im’ and ‘dont’ but sometimes using the extended form ‘it is’ – this lack of consistency could again suggest that this is done for effect. 

GG s does not always use full sentences, for example using ‘mr cool guy?’ as a sentence when it’s really just a fragment. As such, GG’s messages don’t resemble written language in any meaningful way besides being technically written down.

GG uses filler words such as ‘well,’ ‘anyway,’ ‘so,’ and ‘oh!!!!’ as a way of changing the topic while acknowledging that they are doing so. This is their main concession to spoken language, softening their messages and indicating that they are paying attention to their conversation partner and the overall flow of topics.

GG is the only character to make regular use of emojis, and uses a variety of them. :), :O, :D, ._., O_O and <3 all appear in their text at some point, either as responses in their own right or at the end of another message. They also sometimes use long and drawn out words for emphasis or sarcasm, such as ‘sooooo cooooooool!!!’ As indicated in the same phrase, they are prone to using long strings of exclamation points and ellipses – up to seven exclamation points at once and an eight-period ellipses, both when talking to Dave. They use both ‘lol’ and ‘hehehe’ to indicate laughter. 

These adaptations could suggest that GG is accustomed to talking to people on the internet – perhaps they have grown up regularly using chatrooms and have adopted internet communication from here. The opposite could also be true. GG could be accustomed to conversations in real life, and could be making use of these features as they are the only way to convey facial expressions, tone and body language that would come across automatically in person.

GG averages around five words per message, the lowest of the four characters. Their average is brought down by their single-emoji messages (each counted as one word) and their extensive use of message splitting. There are only a few occasions where they include two sentence clauses in a single message, and sometimes they even break up a single clause, seemingly for anticipation – for example ‘it is usually……..’ ‘intense!!!’ as two separate messages. Overall, GG sends fewer words than their conversation partners, but sends a similar number of messages. They don’t appear to be mimicking the number of messages sent, as in their conversation with John, each of them gets a chance to hold the floor and tell a longer story. 

GG conveys information clearly, but obscures its source. Their sentences are easy to interpret linguistically, but content wise can appear nonsensical, as they make wild claims that cannot be backed up by available evidence and expect their conversation partners to take this on faith. When questioned how they know these things, GG states ‘i don’t know’ ‘i just know that i know!’ Interestingly, GG does not offer this same faith to their friends, asking John ‘how did you know??’ when he correctly guesses that a meteor explosion happened near her house.

GG’s messages contain almost exclusively positive emotions, and these tend to be exaggerated. Even when discussing restrictions on their own life, they soften more negatively charged messages with a brighter tone and liberal use of exclamation points - ‘i dont think i could if i tried!!!’ GG might be uncomfortable discussing their own negative emotions and any problems in their life, but they’re happy to discuss and even speculate on other people’s feelings. They commiserate with John when he’s upset about losing his neighborhood and potentially his dad to the meteor collision, and they suggest that their pet Bec thinks their own local meteor is dangerous and is trying to protect GG from it. It’s possible that focusing on other people in this way serves to divert attention from GG’s own emotions, allowing them to maintain that positivity whether or not it is true.

GG appears fairly savvy regarding social dynamics and conversational practice, more so than any of the other characters. They seem to maintain agency in conversations whether or not they are actually taking the lead. When talking to Dave, they dispense information slowly and on their own terms, taking advantage of their own superior knowledge. This technique for maintaining tension in a conversation has also been noted in research. GG also utilizes more subtle techniques to manipulate the affect of others, gently poking fun at Dave’s coolness and telling John that all the bad things happening to him might actually be his destiny. This understanding of their friends’ feelings is a unique skill within the friend group.

GG’s text color is #4ac925, also known as ‘strong lime green’ or ‘harlequin green’ - ‘harlequin’ specifically linking them with John, whose house is covered in harlequins. Green in all its variations is associated with nature and plants, growth, life, envy, money, and both health and sickness. Somebody being ‘green’ can mean they are naive or new to something, and GG certainly seems to have a bright and idealistic worldview. Bright green is a fairly gender neutral color and could be used by someone who doesn’t want to associate with either masculinity or femininity. More generally, GG may have selected a bright color to indicate a fun-loving person who doesn’t take themselves too seriously. GG is also the only character whose screen name – gardenGnostic – directly relates to their text color, with the phrase ‘green thumb’ referring to somebody with a talent for gardening. Lime specifically is a type of fruit, potentially one GG could grow if they live in a hot climate.

Analysis (in universe)

When Homestuck begins, John, Rose, Dave and GG already have an established friendship. We don’t see their early interactions or learn how long they’ve been friends, but they know each other well enough to exchange real full names and home addresses, and send each other expensive birthday gifts. As online communities in this era focus on anonymity and internet safety, with many users exclusively going by their screen names, this indicates a close and long term friendship.

Furthermore, these characters have a deep involvement in each other’s day to day lives. One criticism of online friendships in research is that they will always be more surface level than in person friendships, as online friends cannot exist in each other’s space, with their interactions limited to an online setting and sometimes a specific online activity, such as gaming. The rise of smartphones may see this change in the real world, and it’s reflected in Homestuck – John has adopted his dad’s PDA while Dave owns an iPhone, a top of the line technology first released in 2007. Both of them can now talk to their friends from anywhere with internet signal.

Even without portable devices, these characters’ conversations deal with the minutiae of their movements. Dave mentions moving from his bedroom to the living room, John discusses looking for his dad, GG talks about having to go feed a pet, and Dave and GG even consider whether John has checked his mail today. They are about as involved in other people’s lives as geographically distant friends can possibly be, even without accounting for Sburb. They do not exclusively talk about shared interests or focus on the most exciting things happening to them. 

In some ways, their relationship is closer to roommates or colleagues – people who spend enough time together every single day that they don’t always enjoy each other’s company, but they continue to navigate how to share space. This is even indicated by the application name ‘Pesterchum,’ with ‘chum’ being a colloquial term for a friend, and ‘pester’ meaning to trouble, disturb, or annoy persistently.

In Homestuck, this shared space is a digital space and all four of them are free to disconnect at any point. Leaving a house or a job is complex, but online there are infinite chatrooms and forums these kids could explore to find new friends, and Pesterchum almost certainly has a ‘blocked users’ function if any of them wanted to cut the others out of their lives. Online friends are friends who continually make the choice to be in each other’s lives without circumstances dictating this, and it is a sign of a strong bond, maturity, and the acceptance of others’ quirks that four thirteen year olds are making this choice despite personality differences and sometimes visible annoyance with each other. 

All four characters have strong and well established typing styles that they don’t significantly modify based on their conversation partner. While they might use an individual turn of phrase borrowed from a friend, they keep the same stylistic features, which is not always the case for IM users. Some real world users may be inclined to, for example, use capitalization if their conversation partner does this also, for fear of standing out negatively.

It’s certainly possible that they would change styles when talking to somebody outside their social group, and the biggest limitation of this analysis is that we only have Pesterlogs between these existing close friends. It would be very interesting to see these characters talk with strangers or acquaintances, and compare these with their in-group chats. It would also be interesting, if any of these characters ever meet in person – as John and Rose may if she is able to enter the Sburb universe – to compare their spoken dialog to their Pesterlogs.

One research group noted that young people did not subscribe to ‘an artificial distinction between the corruption of online space and the sanctuary of the home’ (Valentine et al.), as their participants broadly believed that harmful content online could also be found offline. I believe that on both its in-universe and meta levels, Homestuck begins by drawing this boundary in the opposite direction. The work presents Pesterchum as a sanctuary from the troubles of the offline world, and the home as the corrupt space where unpleasant entities invade on the characters’ lives and minds. 

Homestuck may go on to interrogate this dichotomy via Sburb, but its early position does reflect a reality. Many young people don’t view the home as a sanctuary, and are forced to find community and collective identity elsewhere. These characters’ geographical isolation is not their only problem; all four have tense relationships with their families due to a disconnect in identities or expectations. And due to their differences in personality and hobbies, there is likely a common factor linking these four kids together. 

Queer communities and neurodivergent communities have been found to flourish online, and these communities often more easily understand the communication styles of others within the group, while those outside the group may struggle. I believe that the characters all belonging to one of these groups could explain the strength of their friendship, and the reason they feel most comfortable in online spaces.

Analysis (out of universe)

Zooming out one layer further, I’ll consider the implications that Pesterchum has on Homestuck as a work and its audience.

So far, Homestuck only has one line of spoken dialog – the word “Stop!” used by Dave on page 354. As such, Pesterlogs are not a supplement to spoken conversations, they are a substitute. Pesterlogs are effective in that they can make use of the stylistic features discussed in this essay to add characterization. These features show how the author views their characters, as well as how the characters view themselves, given their control (in universe) over their messages. In a story where the narrator appears to be a character, with their own perspectives filtering the thoughts of John, Rose, Dave and GG, it is valuable to give these characters a chance to make themselves heard directly through their messages.

A webcomic is an exclusively online medium, and while some aspects of the Internet (such as social media) are becoming mainstream, webcomics still attract niche audiences of people who spend a lot of time online. While a few have broken from their confines, such as xkcd, these tend to be single-strip serialized comics like those found in newspapers, not longform stories like Homestuck. As such, it’s a reasonable assumption that Homestuck readers are probably also instant messenger users – and that they likely have online friends and acquaintances, read other webcomics, look at memes, read or maintain blogs, play video games, and may even have a basic knowledge of coding. The average audience member has already experienced the different multimedia formats that Homestuck plays with, and can relate these to their own experiences online.

Instant messaging chatlogs are just one of many formats that slot perfectly into a webcomic, not only because the medium allows for them on a technological level, but because of this assumed familiarity that would not be present in other groups. A Pesterlog could appear in a different form of fiction, such as a novel or even a poem, but novel and poetry readers skew to an older and less online demographic. They may struggle to interpret Dave’s coolguy slang, GG’s emojis, or the significance of Rose’s perfect grammar, while reading messages and gaining an implicit sense of character comes naturally to IM users.

John, Rose, Dave and GG’s typing styles are all different enough that, even without chumhandles or colors, it would be easy to determine who was speaking just from their messages - something much easier for an author to achieve in IM versus spoken dialog. It also reflects the reality that, far from being the homogenous wall of acronyms expected by writers and researchers who don’t use IM, people do type in a wide range of styles that reflect their actual and assumed personalities. IM users exercise a certain amount of control over how to present themselves, but their choices here reveal many clues to their underlying selves.

Finally, Homestuck successfully and sympathetically portrays a different lifestyle to what’s commonly found in fiction about teenagers. Television shows commonly explore the social and popularity dynamics of high schoolers forced into the same building, and while unpopular characters may well be protagonists, giving them friends and love interests at school is necessary to tell the story. Characters who are entirely socially isolated in real life need to have this factor changed before they can be three dimensional and participate in the narrative. This means that a character who lives online is typically a caricature, shown either as an unfortunate and inept loser who needs to be ‘fixed’ (or is beyond help), or a naive and uneducated child who will learn a lesson about internet safety when someone they talk to online turns out to not be who they claim. 

In Homestuck, in person social dynamics are nonexistent or irrelevant. Online friendships are allowed to meet characters’ social needs with peers of their own age, and are never shown as lesser than other kids for having these online social lives. While the narrator gently pokes fun at characters for their mishaps, these jabs aren’t based on their popularity or ‘weird’ status. To an online audience, many of whom are or were in the same position as these main characters, Homestuck earnestly validates how fulfilling and meaningful an online, instant messenger based friendship can be. In my opinion, this is one of its greatest strengths as a work.

--

Here is a list of sources used in this essay 

Thanks so much to anyone who read all this! :D

[qcellbit]

meta talk. i don't quite know how to word this properly, but adding french creators to the qsmp is the riskiest thing quackity studios could've done and it doesn't surprise me that the success to which it was executed was minimal.

adding portuguese speaking creators exclusively from brazil as the first batch outside of the initial english and spanish speakers was the perfect "soft expansion" for the server when you consider the reason for the project's conception - because quackity had experienced poor treatment from white americans as a bilingual latino creator and sought to unite his two communities in an empowering way, further expanding this very noble and personal idea to encapsulate all communities and all languages spanning across the entire world. inviting more latino creators who have likely had the same experiences and would be able to appreciate what the project is trying to achieve is a no-brainer.

it's an uncomfortable thing to touch on (which is why i've never, ever, seen it spoken about on this website), but minecraft projects and communities have always had massive problems with all forms of bigotry, but especially racism. white americans and white europeans have probably not felt the euphoria of seeing their culture celebrated in mainstream global entertainment projects as they already absolutely dominate the entertainment industry on a global scale. as someone who is visibly brown and living in europe, i've always got a lot of grief from classmates and co-workers in the form of ignorant jokes and flat out exclusion - it's an unfortunate cultural norm that bleeds into streaming due to the medium's casual and open nature, unnoticed or unchallenged by white viewers who don't want to have to confront a content creator's bigotry in fears of having to stop watching them. something that cannot be ignored by the people it's actually affecting. there is a reason dsmp and hermitcraft cosplay meet ups are dominated by pale skin.

i love the qsmp because its inclusion of latin american creators and quackity's selectiveness based on personal experience have largely (and i do mean largely, not entirely, but that's a discussion for another day) eliminated that problem.

the most prominent and succinct example i can think of is the photo of quackity's bedroom that was mocked countless times by his english speaking community and his bigoted english speaking friends when he streamed on the dsmp - when that photo was brought to the qsmp, forever, a fellow latino creator, was the first person to gently offer solidarity because he had come from the same impoverished latin american background. to me, and to a lot of minorities, that is what the qsmp is about. yeah, sharing languages in a minecraft server is novel, it's a fun way for americans who did poorly in high school to get back into learning spanish, but it stands for so much more when you're a racial minority. when your pleading in the dsmp fandom was drowned out and ignored for the entire duration of its run. when you're completely unrepresented in minecraft tournaments, and when known bigots are encouraged to participate in said tournaments to boost viewership because numbers are paramount. when you are finally seeing your culture appreciated rather than mocked on streams with tens of thousands of viewers all over the world as part of a massive project with a brilliant, engaging story.

it was obviously necessary to branch out of the americas at some point with what the project is attempting to achieve, but such a task is daunting when the next group you're inviting and their community probably do not have the capacity through personal experience to appreciate what the project stands for at its core in the same way the first batches do. can non americans all relate in discussions of the internet and entertainment industry being america and by extension english speaking centric? yeah, of course. but can white europeans relate when the only representation you have in said media revolves around harmful bigoted stereotypes? can there be a quiet solidarity between a white frenchman and a brown brazilian based on experiences with government, racial profiling, and online mockery? no. and in the landscape of livestreaming stupid jokes for entertainment alongside fast paced gameplay, these nuances are probably not going to be acknowledged.

in complete contrast to the solidarity exhibited between quackity and forever when discussing their poverty growing up in latin america, i have not forgotten and never will forget aypierre excusing his constant racist jokes aimed at the brazilians on his uniquely "french dark humour" that the brazilians, hurt by his comments, could "not understand." this is not an excusable cultural difference, but a symptom of white european privilege, and total ignorance towards what the project is meant to stand for. a smooth integration of all the world's cultures necessitates white european and white american introspection in a way that i haven't seen a lot of streamers capable of. admitting fault to such a degree and the ego of a large online personality do not often mesh well.

i'm always very irritated when people (especially english speakers) complain about them not "adding the germans" sooner despite us seeing applications for german speaking admins many months ago - because it would not be a task of simply throwing out server invites to content creators and cobbling together an animation of a submarine crashing into the island. you cannot downplay the ambition of this project and the mammoth task its trying to accomplish. people take for granted and forget that this is an unprecedented melding of cultures that would never otherwise interact and clash on the rare occasions they do. the french qsmp community being small and the french creators largely being outliers when it comes to the qsmp is not something born out of malice or purposeful exclusion, but simply a symptom of an unspoken lack of solidarity and inability to meaningfully relate based on everything from wildly varying privilege to global placement.

and don't get me wrong - i'm not excusing things like the times at which events are broadcast (i literally live in europe and have to stay up until sunrise to see most events, i think the admins do have to bite the bullet and begin structuring events around a new timezone that isn't the globally inconvenient unsustainable PST), or the exclusion of clips from french content creators at the presidential dinner, but i think attributing those admin choices to the brazilian community being unfairly favoured is downplaying what the qsmp as a project means for minorities, especially when the brazilian community receive the most scorn for infamously being the first to call out bigoted behaviour from qsmp content creators. yeah, it sucks that the french haven't slotted into the qsmp as well as the brazilians and aren't anywhere as numerous, but with all these unspoken contributing factors being taken into account, i can't be surprised.

i wish quackity and his team the best in smoothly integrating more languages and cultures in this amazing project in the future, but for the love of god please understand that the implications of this project and its impact are far larger than any streamer "drama" you might've witnessed in the past. and stop underplaying what this project is trying to achieve in an online landscape saturated in bigotry.

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Talented Tenrecs

The lowland streaked tenrec (Hemicentetes semispinosus) is a member of the extraordinarily Tenrecidae family, which is found exclusively on Madagascar. This particular species resides on the east side of the island, in tropical rainforests. Their range can also overlap with their cousins the highland streaked tenrec, which inhabits both rainforests and savannas.

This species is quite small, ranging from only 140-172 mm (5.5- 6.8 in) in length and weighing 280 g (9.9 oz) at maximum. Despite their stature, they are hard to overlook as their coloration-- black with a bright yellow or orange crest and stripes-- can be quite striking. In many ways H. semispinosis resembles shrews and hedgehogs; the body-shape is round, with an elongated snout and large claws for digging. Like hedgehogs, the lownald tenrec also sports large quills along the length of its body as a means of protection. However, tenrecs are not at all related to hedgehogs and the resemblence is entirely due to convergent evolution.

In addition to acting as an impenetrable defence, the lowland tenrec's spines are also used for communication. When rubbed together the quills create a high-pitched sound that members of a group use to alert each other and warns away potential predators like snakes, fossas, mongooses, and civets. This species is the only known mammal to use this method of communication, which is more commonly found in insects and snakes.

H. semispinosis can be found either on their own or living in groups of up to 25, all of whom reside in underground burrows. Individuals spend most of their time foraging for their primary food source, worms, and is active both during the day and at night. However, during the winter months of June and July they may enter a state of hibernation known as torpor, during which they decrease their heart rates and metabolism.

Reproduction occurs during the rainy season, from November to May, though in ideal conditions the lowland streaked tenrec can breed year-round. Reproductively active males will spar one another for access to females, though females will also resist mating if they aren't receptive to the male. Pregnancy lasts about 58 days, after which the mother gives birth to an average of 6 young. The babies take less than a month to wean, and become fully mature at only 40 days old. On average, individuals can live about 30 months in captivity.

Conservation status: Within their range, the lowland tenrec is highly abundant and has a stable population, so is rated Least Concern by the IUCN.

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Photos

Harald Schütz

Desire Darling

[0w0tsuki]

Hey Ive seen Baeddel used in a lot of your posts but like,, other than a definition of the word I cant really find much on what it means like discourse-wise.

I know its something relating to transfems but other than that im lost x.x sorry for the bother

Basically it started out as an old timey slur for trans women. The word "bad" is rooted from it. In the early 2010s a group of trans women adopted the term and had a community for a very short time before it collapsed and not much information is left over.

Some say that had abusive dynamics. Some say they were just talking about transfeminism like they do now. My sibling swears up and down from their personal experiences with the initial group that they were a group of grifters using queer politics to fundraise for tumblers first big scam, The ARK(C?) Project.

A bunch of anti-transfeminists in their efforts to create the magical word that will allow them to terf-jacket trans women without having it called out as such happened upon the term and used the lack of concrete history/the fact that most of the subjective history isn't too charitable to this original group to fabricate a conspiracy theory that these original Beaddels were an evil cabal of bigoted trans women who never really went away and now operate and sow intracommunity discourse from the shadows for the explicit purpose of weakening the holy divinity of TransUnity.

And while some of them moved on to other terms like "TIRF" and "Neo Radfem" a good portion of TransUnity/Transandro anti-transfeminists have latched onto the term and have doubled down on their intent to use it to create a category of trans women that it's ok to exclude. Out of all of the anti-transfeminists that have come out of this new wave, the ones who build their politics around "Anti-Beaddelism" are some of the most mask-off exclusionists of the bunch. Like look at how they talk about Beadels

They will list how these groups have a bunch of ties to nearly every anti-queer group they could think of. And then they warn White™(Because everytime they attack trans women they have to pretend like it's a race thing to distract from the transmisogyny) that they mean to need to maintain a sense of hypervigilance around their transfem sisters and read into every laugh, every joke, and every word for the possibility of finding Beaddel rhetoric. This is a manipulative abusive tactic to keep the transfems within their sphere of influence to reach other to other transfems and rely on TME people to tell them what's right and provide community.

I remember on sailorportia's "Anti-Egg discoursers sound just like my conversation therapist" post I saw one of these people referring to the notes section as "full of beaddel dogwhistles" and inviting people to "take a look and educate themselves". Not specifying what the dogwhistles are or how they are dogwhistles. Just vaguely gesturing at the notes section and inviting you to regard anything a vocal trans woman as a crypto-beaddel and anything they say as "beaddel dogwhistles"

These communities cultivate a sense of paranoia. They encourage constant scrutiny regarding anything a trans woman says. Their leaders sell themselves as protectors of the community whose exclusion is a necessary evil to keep online trans communities safe. They are incentivized to keep the term Beaddel definition murky but representative of all the evils they attribute to trans women.

The term in the modern day is largely prescriptive and moreso defined by the reactionary "Anti-Beadelism" movement than it is defined by its history. Only a few trans women have reclaimed the term. When anti-transfeminists talk about Beaddelism they aren't talking about an organized group or community, they are referring to a bunch of individual trans women they have branded with the beaddel slur.

Currently I don't think reclaiming the word is a good move. Not that I disagree with it or think trans women shouldn't reclaim it. It's just that it will do more harm than good for as long as exclusionists control the narrative on its definition. I've seen mutuals have their posts on general transfeminism get completely discarded out of hand because they had Beaddel in their profile name or bio.

Because like it or not the current definition of Beaddels that gets passed around was written by current ex-terfs/transandro nothorses bro and cites TERF resources in their definition. This is the same dude who's responsible for the foundation or the current TransUnity echo chamber and used the influence from creating that community to try and redefine TERF to include trans women for the purpose of TERF-jacketing.

It's why me and some other trans women have been picking up the words trasfeminism to refer to discussions of transfem issues and anti-transfeminist to refer to these new wave of transfem exclusionist. It denies the exclusionists the ability to define our politics for us to outsiders. Also note: If the term trasfeminism picks up in use your going to see a lot of these people switch from "Beaddel" to "Radical Transfeminist" as their go-to anti-transfeminist TERF-jacketing slur

[syscoursestuck]

I love it when i can't even find social/support communities for my cdd i legitimately have because people are so far up their own asses on endo discourse they have convinced themselves that its ok and normal to push people out of spaces and resources they would benefit from for a purely online issue

And its treated as a rule so inherent in some groups that literally just saying "i don't give a shit" gives them reason to deny you access to their support spaces, which kind of seem more like exclusive clubs than actual support spaces.

Do you all actually care about helping CDD systems or do you legitimately only give a shit about hurting endos?

[666writingcafe]

An Interview With Simeon

Part Six

Question One: How do you feel right now?

A little tired, but otherwise okay.

Question Two: Would you rather live in the city or in the woods?

I find a lot more inspiration in the woods, plus there aren't nearly as many people. MC says that I'm an introvert because I get my energy from being alone, and I think they might be right. Not that there's anything wrong with groups of people; they just can be draining at times.

Question Three: Do you believe in soulmates?

Absolutely. But I don't believe in exclusivity. There are many types of soulmates, not just the romantic kind. Like, Luke and I are familial soulmates. I was meant to be his guardian, and he was meant to be my kid. *pauses* Don't tell Luke I said that. He hates it when I call him that.

Question Four: Who is the first person you call when you are happy or sad?

When I want to express good news, I call Raphael. He and I have grown fairly close since the war. But he's what I would call a fair-weather friend. He's made it clear that he doesn't want to hear about my struggles, and I've made peace with that. (So who do you call when you need to vent about something?) It depends on what it is. If I just want to gossip, then I reach out to Solomon, but if it's deeper and more existential, I call either MC or Mammon. MC is a great listener, and Mammon's been through a lot of the same things I have. Plus, he's actually willing to share his emotions with me, unlike a certain dark-haired demon I know.

Question Five: What makes you smile on bad days?

Luke and MC doing something together. They're quite cute.

Question Six: How would you feel if your daydreams became real?

In some ways, they already have. Unfortunately, I can't reveal much more than that, or I'd be in a lot of trouble.

Question Seven: What are you proud of right now?

I recently overcame a really bad case of writer's block.

Question Eight: What are you scared about not accomplishing in life?

Contentment.

Question Nine: What do you think about casual relationships and long-term relationships?

I think it's important to communicate those kind of boundaries upfront and check back in frequently to see if they need to change. Otherwise, the relationship isn't going to last, and one or both parties are going to be unhappy.

Question Ten: What do people say about you that you like?

Do you mind if I go on a bit of a tangent? (Does it pertain to the question?) Yes. (Then go ahead.) So, MC gives the best compliments. They have a way of looking deep inside someone's soul and saying what they need to hear. It can get very specific. (Give me an example.) MC once told me that the words I write rival the greatest pieces of art in the human world. They were reading a short story I wrote about nature, except nature was a metaphor for something--or rather, someone else. *pauses* Just thinking about it is making it hard for me to focus on this interview, and I'm sure you have more questions to ask, so we should move on.

Question Eleven: How would you define love?

What an...interesting question. *clears throat* I'd say love consumes you. You can feel it from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, but its pull is strongest inside your heart. (Have you felt that way about someone before?) I feel that way about someone now, but to reveal who it is would cause an uproar. (Do they at least know how you feel?) Yes, and they've agreed to keep it private.

Question Twelve: How much value do you place on other people’s appreciation?

A lot more than I should. I'm not supposed to care too much about people's opinion of me, because my relationship with Father is suppose to supersede all of that.

Question Thirteen: Have you broken someone’s heart?

Yes.

Question Fourteen: What do you think about “love at first sight?”

I've seen it happen once. A bunch of us did, actually. (Was it during the initial exchange program?) *smiles* It was.

Question Fifteen: If you woke up tomorrow as a person of the opposite gender, what would you do?

The same stuff that I do now. I know, not very exciting. Technically, I could change my physical form to a person of the opposite gender if I wanted to. We only look this way as to not scare off humans. But I like my current appearance. I feel it matches how I feel on the inside.

Question Sixteen: What is the most ridiculous thing you have ever bought for yourself?

A 200 pack of glitter gel pens.

Question Seventeen: What was your last Doogle search?

As soon as I say it, you'll know exactly why I searched for it: "how to put out a magically-induced fire".

Question Eighteen: What do you think attracts people to you?

I'm able to appear calm and peaceful. It doesn't always reflect what I'm feeling, but that's a whole other story.

Question Nineteen: What color is your aura?

A light shade of baby blue.

Question Twenty: If the world ended tomorrow, would you survive?

With help, yes. If I was by myself, however...I don't think I'd last very long.

Question Twenty-One: If your house was on fire, what is the first thing you're grabbing?

Luke. Objects can be replaced. He can't.

Question Twenty-Two: If you could take your favorite celebrity on a date, where would you go?

They enjoy late-night picnics at the park. (You say that as though you've already been on a date with your favorite celebrity.) That's because I have. Several times, as a matter of fact. Although, their fame is subjective. They're not nearly as famous where they come from as they are here in the Devildom.

Question Twenty-Three: If you could shapeshift into an animal, which one would you be?

A human world Arctic fox.

Question Twenty-Four: If you could do anything without any judgment, what would you do right now?

It would require a hotel room with a magical lock on it, soundproof walls, and lots of...shall we say, supplies.

Question Twenty-Five: Do you easily get scared?

Not anymore. I used to, and then the war happened.

Question Twenty-Six: Can you keep a secret?

Can you? *awkward silence* (We should wrap this up.) Good idea.

Question Twenty-Seven: Have you ever felt tongue-tied on a date?

Yes.

Question Twenty-Eight: Can you spend a whole night awake?

I have many times before, and I probably will do many more times in the future.

Taglist: @lost-in-time-wanderer, @fuzztacular, @dianedancer18, @sweetbrier2908, @flare-love, @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf, @thunderlightning351, @l3v1chan, @anxious-chick, @5mary5, @expressionless-fr, @tenkobitch, @budbuddnbuddy

[t34-mt]

got asked in af dms how playing flute would work, thought id share it here so you finally know how the breathing system works

nostrils, Chest nostrils, also called operculum are a common thing on every animal of altuyur (silieus or que'arsaeb). Some animals can have multiple slits to become living flutes (usually found in herd animals, and social ones), and multiple slits are commonly placed at the neck or back even. The opperculum are sound organs, with several vents and muscles that close it the operculum is quite good for whistles, low sounds, and high-pitch warnings

tho some families developed an organ that allows them to create much more complex sounds, that organ is called the vocal box and it usually goes back into the mouth, neck, or face. Maanuls and kyhuines are part of a family that has a vocal box and in their case, the vocal slits are found in the back of the mouth.

the vocal box lets them create more complex calls, sounds, and even "words". maanuls/kyhuines have one of the more complex vocal boxes if not the most, while they have word language half of their communication is done by "animalistic" calls and sounds. They cannot roar, the most aggressive sound they can make is a hissing one and that said hiss reassembles the one of a kitten, they sound like they're spitting (the hiss is obviously deeper/louder for maanuls due to their size, kyhuines hiss is very kitten-like because they are small). they can do a variety of yelling, "mews" that sound like flute sounds, they are an overall loud species that chatter to each other constantly, in groups even when not speaking they will do small noises either by using operculum or with vocal box but keeping their jaws shut.

some sounds are exclusive to one species, for example, "kyhuine chatter" one they do when grooming each other (or other social bonding activity) which sounds like weird pigeon noise. maanuls don't do that sound, and if they were to recreate it wouldn't be perfect because they cannot make such high-pitched noise. A maanul raised with kyhuines will do that noise instinctively but again, its not a perfect replica but still a closer one than an outsider maanul can do

they can speak constantly since the air goes through the lungs and then redirected to the vocal box instead of nostrils. maanuls and kyhuines got that corvid/parrot "accent", and hypothetically they would be good at mimicking our words without understanding them.

when speaking, maanuls/kyhuines will also use their operculum as tone indicators, by that mean when they do is whistle, do low pitch with their nostrils as tone indicator for their words. without operculum it would be near impossible to understand some phrases

fun fact, their snoring equivalent would be nostril whistles! another fun fact is that if they don't coordinate their vent right they might sound like there's 2 voice speaking same words, uncoordinate voice are common in drunk individual

edit:by the way when not breathing they inhale and exhale through chest nostrils, when speaking air goes in lung and whats supposed to get expelled goes then in vocal box and then expelled by vocal vents