#only downside is the bigotry

[fopsweat]

Actually, I'm angry.

[dropoff99]

Moderate Wheel of Time Book Spoilers ahead:

I can’t speak for the WoT community but seeing WoT discourse for over 20 years I’ve seen all kinds of takes on the Seanchan but there seems to be some confusion on their role in the story overall from show audiences so I will simply give my take.

The Seanchan are a civilization that was needed to demonstrate that the forces of the shadow aren’t the only major threat to Randland. There are several examples like this in the story of groups who have degrees of selfishness, cruelty, and prejudice but none as strong as the Seanchan. These include the Whitecloaks, the Red Ajah(Elaida), Shaido, Tairen/Cairhienin Lords, and generally anyone with bigoted ideas or power-hungry agendas who aren’t darkfriends or members of the shadow. The shadow uses these people and groups as useful tools to enact the dark ones bidding.

The Seanchan aren’t inherently “evil” (only the shadow/forsaken/dark one really occupy that role) but of course do lots of evil things and are more or less the worst active group in the story outside of the shadow. They are manipulated by the shadow (forsaken) which the show pretty much tells you but doesn’t go into how far back that goes. But they also don’t need a lot of help when it comes to being awful. The only defense of them you will really find among the fan base are things cited directly from the books or individual characters that were redeemable.

For example, once you swear oaths to Seanchan rule they more or less leave you alone (aside from the channelers obviously). They eliminate crime and corruption (though not from their own ranks as effectively) and arguably treat their citizens more fairly than many kingdoms they conquer. This is all governed by a strict legal code and honor culture followed in their society. Jordan demonstrates the downside of that culture and how it has developed and been exploited to thwart and enslave Aes Sedai and channelers.

The Seanchan are a major example (along with the Aiel) of how morality and ethics change among cultures after long periods of isolation. They have been across the Aryth Ocean for 1,000 years and their knowledge of their own history isn’t much more than legend. The people they are invading know their pre-history better than they do (particularly that of their founder Artur Hawkwing).

But ultimately they are pretty horrible. They will annihilate anything that opposes them. What they do to channelers and those who show the slightest disobedience is indefensible. They are more or less a demonstration of how “evil” a society can become when you marry ignorance/bigotry with enormous military power.

This is all just to say that if you see a book reader defending the Seanchan in any way, it likely is related to how effective they were at fulfilling a certain role in the series, not due to some sort of agreement with their world view. But even that is kind of rare because they just simply aren’t that popular and only have a couple characters that are really relevant in the long run despite having a constant presence. They are baddies who aren’t the shadow but are still awful/scary.

[coelacat]

I am very intrigued by adam harding and stu sullivan please share a crumb of their lore🙏

hehe hi 👋

okay okay ill finally gush abt them

also i should warn that some fucked shit!! happens to these characters. dont read my lore about them if abuse/rape/substance abuse/bigotry isnt stuff you wanna see. anything under the cut is just a brief mention, but its there

so most of my ocs (the guys with relatively normal names, anyone named like. blade or some fantasy name ignore them for now) are a set of young adults in the 80s in small town midwest USA (some town in iowa, probably) (if any of this sounds familiar to anyone keep it to urself :)). i wanna cover their struggles with highschool, struggling with transitional periods, and then growing into adulthood. im debating if i wanna add and supernatural/scifi elements of have it focus on their relationships and internal struggles mostly, but those are minor details for later on down the road

adam!! hes like. My Main Guy. the one i ended up making this whole lil universe for. bold that i created all of this for him basically and i still named him after adam from the bible, yet it gives me a complex i deeply enjoy so i do it anyway. i am a god who created the world for man, not man for the world.

most of these characters play off 80s media stereotypes and expand on them, and i think adam is like. the most blatant example of this. you know that movie from the 80s-90s you last watched that had a misogynistic metalhead who pulled chicks because he viewed them as objects to win, loved his car, and was angry and violent most of the time, while people who were scared of him vaguely assumed he was satanic in some way? thats adam harding. bleached blonde hair done in a perm mullet, a shitty stache hes convinced makes him look mature, sad brown eyes, leather jackets, and steel toed boots, with tattoos to really top it all off.

semi repressed devout christian faggot who struggles with his own sexuality and identity. hes got daddy issues AND mommy issues (though his mommy issues are much more prominent) and an abusive and neglectful home life, he has to adapt to having a sister after being an only child his whole life, and he has to adjust to a move half way across the country, from southern california to the middle of nowhere hick iowa. as a result, hes quick to anger, never lets his guard down unless around other queers, but ultimately he wants to be good. he was told to be good by his mother, its been ingrained in him from a young age to be nice and do good things. its just unfortunate that his environment allows for that as little as possible. when he has the patience and energy, hes often a lot gentler, but its rare for him to not be running on fumes and a bit of nicotine.

his hobbies include chasing milfs and cougars, working on his car, working out, surfing, blaring Dio as loud as humanly possible, chainsmoking, basketball and wrestling. keep those last two in mind.

on the other hand, stewie "stu" sullivan is the star example of what a highschool student should be. athletically, hes the top of the school, hes got pretty hair and a handsome face, a kind of preppy style, and girls go wild over him. soft brunet hair, sweet freckles occasionally dotting his skin, and lovesick hazel eyes. hes even a total sweetheart who usually treats his girlfriends really well. his only downsides are his mild stupidity, petty mean streak, his shitty guard dog entourage, and his twin brother, kurtis.

stu comes from an upper middle class home, and hes got high expectations set on him. hes consistently been great on whatever local sports team hes been a part of, and the success of his whole future rests on his shoulders to continue doing well. he'll have a free ticket to college, if only he can stay the top of his school, athletically. in terms of popularity, hes pretty slow to give up that as well.

you can probably guess that having the constant pressure to be perfect from his parents creates a lot of friction, however, hes always been seen as the "good" of the two twins. he cant really rebel in any meaningful way, as the expectations placed on him keep him locked in place of being well mannered with adults. towards other students, however, stu will happily pick some fights to blow off steam. its usually with the teens that dont fight back, of course, and its usually only a couple petty insults and a half hearted shove. one affected girl thought that she mightve seen remorse in his expression when he walked away. she was written off as being down bad for him.

oh, right. remember those hobbies of adams i asked you to keep in mind? basketball and wrestling?

yeag .... that might be because stu is the top of the team for wrestling and basketball, and is constantly regarded as the schools mvp.

you can imagine how easily theyd hate each other. theyre both hormonal teenagers who are angry all the time and feel insanely guilty about being angry so they only get angrier and now theyre both challenging each others masculinity. adam very quickly comes for the top spot in the sports stu is good at, so they end up beefing with each other fast and hard. its a constant cock measuring contest with them, and they frequently bloody each others noses.

this sorta fued carries on, and they make no real progress with each other for like 6 months, until adam meets eve, a mysterious newcomer to the town who refuses to say much about herself. shes very obviously queer, and he latches onto her almost immediately as a result of that, and verious other reasons. eventually, eve will coax out adams queerness and he'll be a little more comfortable with himself and end up realizing "fuckkkkkj dude ive got a crush on that prettyboy whos blood ive tasted!!". stu will eventually be coaxed into realizing himself and fixing some of his issues as well as they get older, though all that stuff is a lot more vague in my mind at the moment.

the post i rbed from you tagging as them, id imagine is after adam meets eve, and starts spreading his faggot agenda to stu, but before either of them are fully comfortable with the fact that theyre into men.

stu will eventually have some gender fuckery going on too, but like. thats complicated and i wanna wait and explore that once i have a more comfortable grasp on his character.

if you want a voice claim for adam, i particularly like Randy from Idle Hands (1999) for him? i still gotta nail down voice claims for most other characters though. sorry that adams my favorite

[formicarum-rex]

ive been on cohost on-and-off since november, and i think im going to stick with it (famous last words, i know, but i am genuinely enjoying my time there, meeting some nice people and enjoying the posts that come across my dash)

home page

my blog

general observations, differences between here and tumblr (both good and bad), and caveats under the cut

the ability to use html and css in posts is fantastic, and while i do sometimes miss being able to change the formatting with a simple highlight like on tumblr, the added abilities to customize more than makes up for that. i've only used it a bit myself, but plan to use it more going forward, and you can get some fantastic shitposts on your dash because of this. note that only posts are hyper-customizable. blogs themselves aren't as customizable as on tumblr (think the default/mobile theme here)

i think their pro-privacy, anti-algorithm, anti-numbers philosophy is admirable. it's not perfect-- funding is a continual trouble, although they have plans for making it sustainable.

as with all smaller websites, it is a bit of an echo-chamber and has its share of drama and controversy.

the fewer number of people also lead to there being fewer good posts than on here, especially if you have niche interests, but my dash is still quite active, and i have to check it at least once a day to keep up-to-date.

if you edit your original post, all reblogged versions of the post are updated as well.

it has a comprehensive cw system built into posts, more reminiscent of mastodon than tumblr. there is discourse about its use or over-use, but on the whole i think this is a big improvement.

i (thankfully) haven't run into anybody or any post that required blocking or silencing or muting yet, but the options are there and thorough.

related, there is a no-nonsense attitude towards bigotry. i havent run into any bad eggs myself, but from what i've been given to understand they are sniped more or less as soon as they're discovered. there may be moderation issues as the website expands (this is one issue where places split up into smaller groups like mastodon have benefits) but as of right now, it seems to be working just fine, and better than tumblr.

there's no general within-post search for the sake of privacy and to limit harassment opportunities, but unlike tumblr, the tag search is functional. in addition, all posts with tags you've bookmarked show up in a separate, single tab on your dash, in proper chronological, non-algo'd order, which is a good way to discover new people to follow and posts to reblog. this is similar to "your tags" on tumblr, but unlike tumblr, i trust it to work

i haven't used this yet, but sideblogs are able to comment, ask, like, follow, etc, separately. no more "follows from [main url]"

in general, i like the vibes better than pillowfort, the other tumblr replacement site, and its a much more satisfying tumblr replacement than mastodon, because, well, its not like twitter (although i do like mastodon for other reasons).

there are some odd things that differentiate it from tumblr that you have to get used to at best, and can be extremely frustrating at worst:

notes cant be viewed per-post. they're all under your notification tab, chronologically listed. this hasnt been a problem for me, but i understand that this can get messy if you have a lot of followers/notes

if you are not OP, you cannot view others' reblogs. i've found that this is mostly fine, but it does mean you cant dive into the notes to see if anyone has added anything you'd like to reblog instead of the version on your dash. changing this is one of the most requested features. it doesn't seem to conflict with the site's anti-numbers ideals as long as it only lists contentful reblogs (those with additions), so i'm hopeful it will be added.

OP is not notified of tags on reblogs. all comments that are towards OP and not towards your followers belong in the comments. unlike other things in this list, this isn't a downside so much as a neutral difference that has taken me a long time to get used to.

the comments are generally important. reblog chains are still used, but comments (replies) are more functional than they are on tumblr, with proper ability to reply in comment threads and a better UI. they are used more often on cohost than on here, especially if you want to start a convo with OP and others viewing the post. as far as i can tell, everyone can see every comment, unlike the reblogs.

photoset layouts are not as flexible as on tumblr

no DMs

discovery hasn't been a big issue for me as someone who is primarily a reader/viewer (if anything, the functional tagging system and unified bookmarked tags tab makes it easier), but ive heard that for creators it can be frustrating

i am under the impression that pillowfort is the place to go for specifically fandom posting. more fandom people have been joining cohost though, especially since a bunch of tumblr people joined a couple weeks ago.

i realize this isn't exactly a hard sell, but want people to be aware of potential downsides before creating an account. despite these things, i really do urge you to check it out if youre interested! it's a good place :)

[tomboyjessie13-artblog]

Sometime ago I made a sketch of what Eris' stand [Nephthys] would look like before forgetting about it, it wasn't until yesterday that I found the old sketch in my folder that it got me wanting to finish this.

That and I felt bad for not being able to draw anything for Halloween this year, so what better way to celebrate the holidays than draw out a terrifying Stand that represents fear, darkness, and Lovecraftian-style horror?

Anyways, I originally wanted [Nephthys] to be like a spider-lady kind of Stand, kind of like a Jorogumo because spiders are the most common fear, but I thought the idea of making the Stand sentient black smoke is a better idea, in large part due to being inspired by "The Color out of Space"*, I wanted to recreate the feeling of fear of the unknown(sans the bigotry lol).

All the figures that are coming from the smoke of course are what would happen if one got exposed to her Stand, in this case: it takes on the form of four of our Crusaders, take a guess on who's fear this represents?

[Nephthys]'s Stats

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Power - D: While the Stand is a terror to behold, it unfortunately isn't strong enough to defend its user.

Speed - B: The incredible speed [Nephthys] travels in is nothing to sneeze at, not tsunami levels of fast but still horrifically quick, which makes it hard for victims to outrun.

Range - A: [Nephthys] is a Long-range Stand, allowing it to travel a great distance to its victims, which is why many people are afraid to come near Eris.

Durability - C: It can withstand any injuries and last about as long as Eris' energy would let it, the only downside is that Eris will eventually tire out or it doesn't protect its user, which is why she has to make quick kills.

Precision - A: The accuracy of its power is very effective, being able to bring about a person's phobia no problem.

Growth - E: Eris is natural expert in her Stand, so anymore Growth isn't needed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stand's name belongs to the Egyptian religion.... I don't know what else to say about it. Stand OC belongs to me

The Stand Stat Template belongs to Adhiesc

*I don't support HP Lovecraft or his outdated views, I just think the story was creepy.

[pixies-and-poets]

Once again, I'm benting because I'm so fuckign stressed. Tumblr, and the internet as we know it could come crashing down so soon. Look up 'Google vs Gonzalez'. I'm going to cry. It's all going to be over...

Hey there! Sorry for the late answer, been a busy workday. I hope you're feeling better right now.

Honestly I am surprised I haven't heard of this, considering that yes, this has potential to reshape the internet, paticularly the way social media/search engines work, as they're all driven by algorithms.

(for those who don't know what we're talking about, I don't really have time right now to try and explain what I've learned from my research, but here's good coverage if you're up for it: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/2/16/23582848/supreme-court-internet-section-230-terrorism-cases-gonzalez-google-twitter-taamneh )

Note what I said above: reshape, not destroy. The internet was able to evolve in a certain way because of the way laws were shaped early on, and if things change, then websites - and the humans who run and use them - would have to find other ways to communicate and share our works. And we would.

What I want you to consider to help you calm down, is that 1) the Supreme Court interprets laws as they are written, but does not make laws in itself. Our current Supreme Court sucks ass but they can always be overturned by actual new laws being passed. It looks to me like many questions about the legality of big tech, online algorithms, and the promotion of content are going to come to a head here, and if it didn't happen in this case it was probably due to happen sooner or later in US lawmaking, either in the Supreme Court or in Congress. They are considering a law that's 25 years old and was written when the internet was a much different place and worked very differently, and it's honestly kind of astounding it's held for so long with little relitigation. If society widely takes issue with the SC's interpretation of the law, new laws can be drafted.

2) As I mentioned above, if there's one thing humans are good at, it's adapting and overcoming. Having gotten used to the ability to communicate and make friends and share works with people all over the world, people wouldn't just roll over and give that up. If laws (or the interpretation of them) changed radically, things may end up looking different but we will still find ways to stay in touch with our friends and make new ones. To quote the girlie in my avatar, "we will rise above!"

3) There's a significant, I would even say most likely, chance that nothing changes at all, as the Supreme Court upholds the status quo.

4) Even if the "worst case scenario" happens- I have to admit the plaintiffs have a point, and that algorithmically-served content CAN cause people to fall down rabbit holes of bigotry and extremism... it's definitely a big problem. So a case like this may be what is needed to shake up the internet, and evolve it toward a healthier place (in tandem with what I discussed in point 2).

5) I'm not sure but I think this would only affect companies operating in the US? Which is most big tech companies, but ones in other countries can take over perhaps? I know certain other countries have their own downsides like more stringent libel laws, but there's gotta be some ideal place to host services.

I'm no legal scholar but I hope this helps you feel a little bit better! Mostly we'll have to just wait and see what happens, but again: we'll be here for each other, we'll figure it out together, and we will rise above!

[kariachi]

Okay, I mentioned shit about ‘official’ languages, so let’s do a little poking. A bit of history, a bit of basic info, few names because I’m lazy.

Imperial Osmosian

Okay, to understand Imperial Osmosian- the most common Osmosian language by several miles and the one that’s programmed into universal translators- you need to know the circumstances in which it came around.

I’ve mentioned The Hunting before. This is the Osmosian name for the multi-millenia period following the greater galaxy discovering Osmosians and Osmos V existed. Between their powers and the vast amount of metals and precious stones available on the planet, it went very very poorly for them. Like ‘capture what you can, kill what you can’t, dig out the dens, salt the earth’ levels. It was a very long period, a very difficult period, for most of which the majority of Osmosians lived in slavery and the majority of those who didn’t lived a life of fighting to maintain their own safety and freedom. A lot of shit went on, from slave revolts, to planets and systems declaring the enslavement of Osmosians enslavement and illegal, to mining operations on Osmos V getting destroyed, and so on and so forth. But the real meat of why Imperial Osmosian exists and in the form it does came from the cultural genocide amongst enslaved Osmosians.

By the beginning of the final war, the vast vast majority of enslaved Osmosians could not have told you anything about their history, their species, their ancestral cultures. It’s a downside of being a species that primarily lays eggs and can technically be raised from hatching to toddling with a heat lamp, a pile of rocks and metals, a dish of water, and the occasional slice of liver laid over their back. The typical way slavers handled their breeding was to knock out the dam, take the eggs, put the dam back to whatever they were using them for, and rear the chicks like factory farms rear turkeys. Most escaped slaves had never seen an adult Osmosian before their escape, and most had never seen another Osmosian at all after their teens. This is part of why The Hunting lasted so long, not only were the Osmosians incredibly outnumbered by enemies with often superior tech, but it was difficult for escaped slaves to organize en masse. The final war was the one where they finally managed it on the scale they needed while getting access to and figuring out the tech they needed to succeed.

Which finally brings us to the language thing. Originally the various Osmosian forces were working independently, though as they got in touch with each other they started forming a web of alliances as it were. It was inevitable that this web would eventually extend out to Osmos V and the largest rebelling force on the planet. Now until this point the Osmosian forces had been relying universal translators and Galactic Standard to communicate- most only spoke the languages of their captors or the regions in which they’d found refuge, and overlap wasn’t great- and this had been vexing the people in charge. They’d wanted something to help unify the lot, and a way to communicate that wouldn’t be picked up on by literally everybody they were fighting. Getting in touch with the homeworld offered a solution, this new addition spoke a surviving Osmosian language, one that wasn’t in translators due to the ongoing bigotry around them. Future-Emperor Stagoff, the head and face of the whole war, quickly saw the value of this. Something to help everyone reconnect with their lost history, something to unite them, something their enemies wouldn’t understand messages in. Quickly it was ordered that all Osmosians involved in the war effort learn this language, as well as all children, and they did.

The language spread among the Osmosian forces, and since the number of Osmosians off of Osmos V- therefore learning the language- dwarfed the number still on the homeworld by orders of magnitude, when the war was over and the Empire so named, Osmos V returned to, it was the most common language in the Empire. But it wasn’t the same as the language it had started as. As said before, everybody was coming in from different worlds and different languages and so the one that was returned to Osmos V had so many fucking loan words in it. The ‘official’ language didn’t, the one you used for work, but in day to day life, people continued to use a lot of words they’d grown up using. Because of their wide usage and how they spread, when the language of the Empire was being codified to go into translators, these words were included as they were the way the species was speaking.

Over the more than 2000 years since the language has evolved and changed, the loan words have shifted and altered to fit in better, the base language has evolved with time as languages do, but at it’s heart Imperial Osmosian remains the same- a melting pot of languages emulsified with the unifying history of the species. Most Osmosians speak at least a little Imperial, as most Osmosian shit is in it and if you want to watch a movie or something, well. Still, if you’re outside the Empire it’s probably best to default to the local language, as most Osmosians there will probably speak and understand it better anyway.

~*~

Imperial Erinaen [’Traveler Talk’]

Like with the Imperial Osmosian, to understand why Imperial Erinaen is the way it is requires you to know a bit of history.

Carit are amazing creatures theorized to be from an entirely different dimension. They’re primarily organic shapeshifters with a degree of teleportation ability who form loose psychic bonds. They have a base form and a larger form, the second of which is not only capable of flight- even interstellar flight- but also contains a hollow area which can be used to hold cargo or riders. There’s more to them, but this is the base information you need to know about these domestic animals that are by far the most widespread and culturally significant on Eri. You need to know these things to understand a key fact.

Erinaens had high speed travel before they had written language. They had high speed global travel and trade ages before they made first contact. They had a very low tech level as determined by the greater galaxy, but they’d already been up close to their moon. First contact was literally made by a teenager who got their hands on one of the large trade carit and decided to see just how far from Eri they could go, all but crashing into an alien vessel that hadn’t even known Eri existed nonetheless that there were people there.

Nowadays a mid-sized carit can take you around the circumference of Eri in a leisurely few hours. Going to a new continent is like going into town. Not as accessible due to having to, you know, have the specific carit (most families don’t, household carit are fine enough for them but don’t get large enough for passengers) but still an incredibly common occurrence and it’s not difficult to get a ride. The result of this is that Erinaens essentially evolved alongside globalization. Different colonies are still distinct from those distant from them, but there’s always been a lot of cultural interchange from literally everywhere, leading the place to seem more like a unified species than they actually are.

Which leads us to language. There’s a few important things here- 1) The Erinaens have been, from damn near the start, dedicated to presenting a unified front. They aren’t a unified species as it’s generally known, but they go out of their way to present as one to the greater galaxy, mostly as a safety matter. 2) When they were accepted as a distinct people, languages were requested for use in universal translators, and they of course wanted to present themselves as unified, see above. 3) They already sort of had a language for that.

You’ll note the designation of ‘Traveler Talk’ up there at the start of this section, that’s the proper name. Individuals who did a lot of traveling ended up picking up bits and pieces from a wide variety of Erinaen languages, and eventually a sort’ve pidgin language was formed among traders and travelers on Eri, combining bits and pieces from around the planet. When asked for a language, this is what the Erinaens turned to. The language was taken, adjustments were made, and it was codified as the ‘official’ Erinaen language. As with all languages it’s evolved in the millennia since, gaining a lot of loan words from primarily the Osmosian Empire to fill in gaps where the Erinaens just didn’t have a concept.

Nowadays you can generally expect most Erinaens to speak enough, though it’s more common in more tourist heavy areas. Most Erinaens in Erinaen territory speak primarily in their own distinct home tongue, sometimes with Imperial Osmosian as a second language, sometimes with Imperial Erinaen as a second language. Most Erinaens you meet outside their territory will speak Imperial Erinaen to some degree or other, but again, generally good to default to the local language. If they don’t speak it well enough, trust they will let you know.

~*~

Major Languages of Ha’n

The situation on Ha’n is a tale as old as time. Motherfuckers A gain power. They decide that having that power means they can run roughshod over Fuckers Just Making Do B. Everything goes to fuck for everyone who is not Motherfuckers A.

The good news is, Perison women aren’t prone to overseas travel, and Perison men aren’t prone to conquering territory, so these things were typically restricted by continent.

The bad news is, industrialization caused so many problems.

It goes like this: Group A, who may or may not have already been a big name, has the resources/trade access to get together the best possible tech in their region. Group A proceeds to use this to take over as much of their continent as possible. Even when Group A eventually collapses under their own weight, the impact of their rule remains for a damn long time.

Now, as with all species prone to warfare, Ha’n had been through a load of these cycles. The problem, was that industrialization made keeping a grip that much easier, things more violent, places had whole capitalism bubbles, and by the end of the last period of ‘fuck, everybody grab as much as they can’ you had nearly entire continents having spent ages under singular rule, with dominant languages being forced on fuckers. Which they still could’ve recovered from, but First Contact came not too long after and with it a drive for the whole of the planet to make alliances with each other and present a unified force. These languages that had been forced on large swatches became an easy way to maintain consistent contact, and having a singular language from each region meant less work for fuckers trying to work together in what became a single unified government.

Nowadays, Ha’n has plenty of minor, local languages, but pretty much everybody learns the major language of their region. If you visit Ha’n, know what continent you’re going to and that’ll tell you what language to go for. When dealing with Perison offworld it’s harder to tell and generally best to go with the local language or Galactic Standard, which most Perison who leave their homeworld learn.

~*~

Major Languages of Hasiel [’The Trader Calls’]

Hasiel is a planet with a kajillion languages, or at least a kajillion dialects.

The major languages of Hasiel, the languages that ended up in universal translators, are the languages of the coasts. They’re trade tongues, hence the ‘proper’ name of ‘Trader Calls’. Essentially, whichever river system had their trade expand furthest up and down their coast? Their trade partners picked up the language for use in trading over sea. There wasn’t really any trade across seas and oceans, because Lenopan biology makes traversing open water like that incredibly dangerous, you generally didn’t get many people reaching the other side.

As a result of this, there’s actually a lot of ‘major’ Lenopan languages. They followed the coast down until they either reached a point it wasn’t worth going past or they bumped up against more influential traders, and their languages spread accordingly. The languages didn’t tend to spread far upriver though- all things move harder upriver- and so these languages were generally left as secondary or tertiary languages of coastal regions, The river systems and their nearby water bodies all have their own languages, though the dialects seem to change with every fork, and these languages are rarely if ever known off of Hasiel itself.

Visitors are advised to stick to coastal regions, as communication gets harder the further inland and upriver you go. What language you’ll run into will vary wildly, but a universal translator should be able to handle things for you no matter which of these languages you come across. When dealing with Lenopan off of Hasiel, it’s recommenced that you default to the local language, as the odds of any language from Hasiel you choose being one they speak is very low.

~*~

Anodine

Anodites don’t have a verbal language. Yeah when everybody kept going ‘but no where are you from’ they pointed at a planet to shut them up, but they’re a deep-space species and sound does not travel well. Instead Anodine is a language of light and color. Imagine if cuttlefish could glow and knew morse code, that sort of deal. By altering their own brightness and changing their colors Anodites can communicate with each other over vast distances- which is part of why, despite being a social species, they constantly seem to be alone. For an Anodite somebody speaking to them from the moon is about the same as somebody speaking to you from across the livingroom. As a result conversations in Anodine tend to be far slower than verbal languages on a planet, but the fuckers live for an eternity and a half so having to wait a few hours for a response doesn’t really bother them.

It’s advised that you don’t try to speak to an Anodite in Anodine if you meet them, if nothing else because unless you are one of a very few species you won’t be able to. Anodites as a rule don’t bother trying to communicate with non-Anodites in Anodine anyway, and with how old they can be most know at least one other language in which they can converse with you. Keeping a universal translator handy is suggested, as there’s no guarantee the language they speak is one you do.

~*~

Incursean

Please picture that we had to suddenly abandon Earth. Most of humanity didn’t make it, it’s a ragtag load of people all fighting over what we should do next, and having a really hard time of it because nobody understands each other. This fucker only speak Swahili, this fucker only speaks Vietnamese, this fucker only speaks French, and so on. Eventually, a leader arises from the chaos, gets everything under control, and declares that she is going to solve this language crisis.

Everybody’s learning Latin.

This is kinda what happened to the Incurseans. Everything went to fuck, not even a downward spiral so much as a plummet, and out of the resulting chaos came the head of the first Great Incursean Empire, now known simply as the Incursean Empire except on official paperwork. Emperor Joia did a lot of good things, she kept her people together, she ended the panics, she made sure everyone was fed and taken care of (by leading raids on other planets- really they were more a pirate fleet than an Empire at this point but don’t tell them that), but she also decided that everybody was going to follow her religion. And that religion came with a traditional language, like Catholics working in Latin. So she made her religion the official state one and to ensure there wasn’t any ‘oh no we’re totally going with this we promise’ shenanigans instated the attached language as the official state one. You could not speak anything else in public, which certainly helped with people learning the religion because for a while most people didn’t know the language enough to speak freely and had to talk in fucking scripture.

It’s been a long time since then, the dynasty has changed many many times. There have been five different state religions. But the language has actually managed to stick around. The name hasn’t though, due to a period where the state language was completely shifted to something entirely different. Unfortunately for the Emperor who made the change they didn’t manage to wipe out the language that came prior and so after a few generations it just got reinstated since everybody was still using it anyway. Chose a period of otherwise relative leniency so, bad timing. But the original name itself was lost in the shuffle, so now it’s just known as Incursean, after the Empire.

Every individual of the Empire speaks Incursean. On their held planets you’ll find pockets keeping native languages alive, but even then Incursean is the Official Language. On the other hand, few people outside the Incursean Empire speak Incursean. Generally only those who do regular work with them, typically from their trading partners. Still, if you meet an Incursean outside of the Empire and imperial matters, it’s best not to try to speak to them in Incursean. There’s actually thriving populations of Incurseans who have no affiliation with the Empire, despite the stereotype, and as a general rule they won’t speak Incursean. If they somehow speak any ancestral language of theirs, it’s more often from before the destruction of their homeworld, and often in things like folksongs and little household rhymes. 

~*~

Khoron

It will shock nobody to know that Khoros has a singular dominant language because it once was ruled by a singular dominant force. I know, Tetramand, conquering people, who’d have thunk?

Once upon a time there was a lordling with great ambitions. Cruel ambitions. This lordling proceeded to conquer the entire damn planet over the course of many, many years. Lordling’s descendants kept hold of their rule for several generations, forcing things like singular religion and singular language and a ridiculous level of taxation, that sort of ‘evil dictator for eternity’ sort of shit. Rebellions and civil wars were regular occurrences. Constant occurrences. They started overlapping. They started getting nesting dolls of rebellions within rebellions within civil wars. Nothing and nowhere was safe. It was chaos of the highest order.

The Incurseans were watching with their equivalent to popcorn to see the planet made uninhabitable by their own actions. It almost happened!

Khoros was ravaged by the wars, full ‘Mad Max’-brand wasteland apocalypse situation. It took many generations to build back up to where they are now, a number of kingdoms of various size trading territory back and forth in still endless warfare, of which the most powerful and most expansive is the Red Wind kingdom.

 And somehow, though all of that, the language maintained.

Everyone was starting from the same point, is the thing. So while the language changed from region to region, with no other languages to mix with it it more became different dialects of the same language than it split into more languages. So, rather than fully replace the original language that was already in translators, what was there was altered to better fit the most common changes over time. Khoron is still the most common and ‘official’ language on Khoros.

As a result of that, every individual you meet on Khoros who speaks will speak Khoron. It may be a dialect, but it will be Khoron and more or less understandable. Tetramand you meet off Khoros will also probably know at least some Khoron, though how much will vary. Still, in this case you probably aren’t going to go wrong making an attempt.

[writer59january13]

Pleasant spring like day February 9th, 2024

A scent (and sixth sense predominates), when apple boughs and other aromatic flora laden with blossoms and fruit

gently assail cilia of the nostrils, aside from aiding distinguishing pleasant or unpleasant smells additionally incorporate complex structures of the paranasal sinus mucosa in which function critical linkedin to respiratory defense. Cilia beat in a coordinated manner

to clear the paranasal sinus cavities

and upper airway of the mucus blanket

that contains the pathogens and debris

continually inspired in normal respiration.

Avast extent of following poem crafted a couple plus years ago, when foretaste of temperate weather covered swath of eastern seaboard.

Courtesy climate change (think global warming),

I would forever wish to exchange

unseasonably warm temperature

(10 plus degrees Celsius

in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania today) for brutally cold subzero windchill factor,

no matter unseasonably warm degrees way out of expected range,

of established “normal” far to balmy, undoubtedly for the likes of old man winter furious his blizzard snowbound

weather forecasts shortchanged.

Once thermometer readings rise even smidgen one moost not minimize

Earth way out of balance,

an inconvenient truth I haint gonna catastrophize

as bajillion acres plus one after another ocean dries

even the skeptic cannot turn third eye blind and believe contrary lies,

when every species practically extinct

and self proclaimed éminence grise doth trumpet and stubbornly tries

to claim plethora unearthed resources

as sudden goldmine against wages of sin former traitor joe

(biden his time) redeemers actualize to catalyze nth industrial revolution

teaching as heresy ecocentric, which material basket

of deplorables power mongers bowdlerize

concurrence toward meteorological trend most all people agree toward adapting, experiencing,

and witnessing increase - fair in height degree

bestowed upon Thomas Newcomen, Richard Arkwright, Samuel Crompton, Edmund Cartwright and James Watt first Industrial

Revolution conferred as honoree

appellation not necessarily

in retrospect donned as noble pedigree,

now hundred of years later downside we see

of belching, coughing, disorging... yes siree

foul, (née deadly) cancerous, gaseous, malodorous,

noxious, poisonous... pollutants.

Decreased dissension grudgingly did abate and one doubting Thomas less nasty toward the braying donkeys in general, when Democratic contender clinched the electorate majoritty

unclouded protests muted trumpeting base aggressivity, depravity, and incendiary proclivity for hunted prey (slapped

with felony charges that H_ lied on a federal form when he claimed being drug-free at the time unnamed person purchased a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver in October 2018) hastening Grand Poobah to abdicate

irrefutable proof generates contentious voices to accumulate

additionally disappointment

resolving global warming

activists linkedin over Green Party blessedly to administrate

hoop fully figurative tide will turn and aerate

political atmosphere whereby progressive minds will affiliate

otherwise business as usual, cuz spewing deadly particulate will only aggravate

dire straits, where

webbed wide world series of unfortunate events will airdate

prophetic apocalyptic fate

especially if nonprogressive stodgy former el presidente number Cuarenta y cinco commander in chief re-elected flush with bigotry and hate

increased chance (chants) ripe state

for revolution avast swath of population to amalgamate,

and overthrow anachronistic government

absolute zero survival unless dramatic

nondestructive strategy eschewed

to supplant exploitation and mandate

radical transformation, which dramatic shift off grid if lucky requisite Earth friendly manufacturing can possibly ameliorate.

[byneddiedingo]

The Sacrifice (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986)

Cast: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall, Guðrún Gísladóttir, Sven Wollter, Valérie Mairesse, Filippa Franzén, Tommy Kjellqvist, Per Kellman, Tommy Nordahl. Screenplay: Andrei Tarkovsky. Cinematography: Sven Nykvist. Production design: Anna Asp. Film editing: Michal Leszczylowski, Andrei Tarkovsky.

Andrei Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice was his last film, finished only months before his death, and is in many ways extraordinary. But I'm afraid it tempts me to sarcastic assessments like "art-house profundity," a rude and inadequate phrase that I might have used about the film if I didn't respect its maker so much. For The Sacrifice is unquestionably a visionary film, drawn from Tarkovsky's heart and soul. I just wish there were a little more brain holding heart and soul in check. Is it my habitual agnosticism that makes me bridle against the protagonist's quest for metaphysical certainty? The search for God has produced cinematic masterworks like Carl Theodor Dreyer's Ordet (1955), Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest (1951), Tarkovsky's own Andrei Rublev (1966), and, most appropriate in this context, Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957). The Bergman connection suggests itself because Tarkovsky made his film in Sweden, with Bergman's frequent leading man Erland Josephson and cinematographer Sven Nykvist, in a location, Gotland, that resembles the island of Fårö, the location of many of Bergman's own films. But The Sacrifice seems to me to take some of the worst aspects of some of Bergman's films -- the rather histrionic treatment of people's search for faith in Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and The Silence (1963) -- and intensify it. Precipitating the crisis of The Sacrifice with the threat of nuclear holocaust warps the film away from psychological truth into didacticism. One of the reasons Andrei Rublev succeeds is that, like The Seventh Seal, it is set in an age of faith. Both films depict the essential downside to spiritual certainty -- bigotry and fanaticism and a loss of essential humanity -- while balancing it with a portrayal of the rewards of faith: kindness and creativity. But to liken the plague that threatens the world of The Seventh Seal to the threat of nuclear annihilation misses the point: For the medieval world, the Plague was a test of faith; for the modern world, the Bomb is a test of humanity. The Sacrifice, I think, misses that point. Moreover, I think Tarkovsky's style -- enigmatic, elliptical, deliberately obscure -- becomes a stumbling block in attempts to respond both emotionally and intellectually to the film. By failing to make relationships among the characters more explicit -- Is Marta (Filippa Franzén) Alexander's daughter? What is her connection to the doctor, Victor (Sven Wollter)? -- Tarkovsky forces us to spend a lot of our attention on matters of simple identification, distracting us from what should be the central focus of the film. And what, exactly, is that? 

[ukrfeminism]

I was always a good girl, by which I mean a people pleaser, because that is what being a good girl is. I enjoyed the benefits that such a personality brings (straight As at school, a close relationship with my parents, a decent job) and endured the usual downsides (teenage anorexia, frequent bouts of insomnia, lifelong anxiety). I had what a therapist later described as “total conflict avoidance”, which is a therapy way of saying I would rather eat my hair than argue with someone.

For example, when I was 10, I wore a Santa jumper to school. “You can’t wear Santa, you’re Jewish! Do you believe Jesus was born on Christmas?” a girl in my class said to me. I didn’t really know what she was talking about, but I knew what she wanted me to say, so I said it: “Yes, Jesus was born on Christmas.” She walked away, satisfied, and I felt a little like I’d given something away, but I was mainly relieved I’d avoided an argument.

And that’s how things continued for me, until 2014, when everything changed.

I was reading the New Yorker one evening and came across an article with the headline “What is a Woman?”. It was, according to the standfirst, about “the dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism”, a subject about which I knew nothing. I read it, vaguely interested in the social shift that meant being “transgender” no longer refers to someone who has undergone a sex change operation, but is now “how someone sees themselves”, as the writer Michelle Goldberg put it. This meant, Goldberg continued, that women-only spaces were increasingly changing to women-and-transwomen spaces, even if those transwomen still had male bodies — and to query this risked accusations of bigotry.

What really interested me was how quickly institutions were falling into line with this new ideology: venues cancelled talks if a radical feminist was on the bill; all-female bands pulled out of women-only festivals for fear of looking transphobic. How strange, I thought, that those with authority capitulate to the obviously misogynistic demands of a few extreme voices. Oh well, that’s just America — obviously it will never happen in the UK.

Oh, the innocence of eight years ago! Today, gender ideology — the belief that who a person feels they are is more important than the material reality of their body — is firmly in the ascendent. Activists like to claim that the only people who have a problem with this are “Right-wing bigots”, because it keeps things simple to suggest that this is a good (gender ideology) versus bad (Right-wing bigots) issue.

Yet I know a lot of non-Right-wing, non-bigots who are extremely angry at how things have shifted. My friendship group consists mainly of thirty-something to fifty-something progressive women, all, like me, lifelong Labour, or Liberal Democrat, or Green voters, all teachers, or civil servants, or writers, or lawyers. Most are not on Twitter, or TikTok, or any Mumsnet message boards. But when we meet up these days, they talk about Lia Thomas, the Ivy League swimmer who recently transitioned and is allowed to compete against female swimmers and is duly smashing women’s swimming records.

They talk about JK Rowling, vilified for saying that women — not people — menstruate and calling for single-sex spaces to be preserved. They talk about Kathleen Stock, a philosophy professor, who had to leave her job at Sussex University due to ongoing harassment from gender activists. They talk about political parties which explicitly describe women’s sex-based rights as transphobic, including the Green Party and the SNP. They talk about politicians who say things so stupid about gender it’s impossible to believe that they truly believe what they are saying, from Dawn Butler’s claim that “a child is born without a sex”, to Layla Moran’s insistence that she doesn’t care about a person’s sex because she can see “their soul”, to Keir Starmer’s stammering insistence that it’s wrong to say “only women have a cervix”.

You can — and many do — dismiss these angry women as irrelevant middle-aged mums, or just a bunch of Karens, but they do not fit into the “Right-wing bigot” pigeonhole, however much gender ideologues try to squash them in. As a result, many on the Left would prefer that this debate about gender, with older feminists on one side and gender ideologues on the other, was not happening at all, because it doesn’t fit into the good versus bad dichotomy with which the Left frames the world. So they tell themselves that this is a “niche” issue and “normal women” (ie, women not on Twitter or Mumsnet) don’t know or care about it.

Let me disabuse them of both of those notions: they do and they do. The threats, the abuse, the no-platforming of gender-critical feminists: despite the activists’ best efforts to make all of this vanish, none of it has worked. This is the issue that readers and friends want most to talk to me about, albeit only, they say, with no small amount of frustration, in private.

It did not – and I cannot stress this enough – have to be this way. In 2016, Maria Miller, then the chair of the women and equalities committee, produced a report that suggested switching gender should just be a matter of “self-identification”. This statutory declaration would replace the previous gender recognition process, which involved living in one’s chosen gender for two years, being diagnosed with gender dysphoria and being questioned by a panel.

Yet it is a pretty basic fact that male bodies are bigger and stronger than female ones, which is why sex-based rights exist in the first place. So how, I wondered, would self-ID work in practice? Would a person born male now be able to compete against women in sport, or be incarcerated with female prisoners? I assumed the government had thought about this. I assumed wrongly.

In a 2017 interview with The Times, Miller was unable to answer the most basic questions about how her proposals would affect women, which seemed weird to me, because surely you’d think about women when massively overhauling women’s rights? If Miller had given this even a moment’s thought, and acknowledged that women and transgender people’s rights needed to be balanced, rather than selling out the former to appease gender ideologues, it seems highly likely to me that the debate would never have become as fraught as it is. Anyway, after four years of anguished discussions, Miller’s reforms got kicked into the long grass in 2020, although they are still scheduled to go forward in Scotland, backed by the SNP and Greens.

Many transgender people have said how much they have hated being the subjects of political and online debate over the past five or so years, and who can blame them? Yet this issue is not just about them. Debates about gender rights are also debates about women’s rights, because activists are asking, essentially, for the abolition of women’s sex-based rights. This made and makes no sense to me, not because I think that trans women are terrible people, but because women’s sex-based rights exist for a reason.

I started having tentative discussions about this with other progressive journalists, but I was invariably the only one at the table who believed (or was willing to say out loud) that there is a clear clash between gender-based rights and women’s rights. When I said to one journalist that women need women-only spaces, he replied, “So you’re defending segregation?” Another time, when I said it was ridiculous to make prisons mixed-sex, someone I consider a friend said, “You sound like a homophobe in the Eighties saying you wouldn’t let your kids have a gay teacher.” Someone else told me I sounded like a “bigoted radical feminist” and I thought, “I used to be a deputy fashion editor, so if I’m now radical then the Left really is in trouble.” Another one said that by arguing for women’s sex-based rights I was beating down on “the most oppressed minority in Britain”, i.e., transgender people.

I have no doubt that transgender people suffer horrific bigotry in this country and everywhere. But when I found the statistics showed one trans person is tragically, killed a year in the UK, but two women are killed a week in England and Wales, I was accused of engaging in “the victim Olympics”. People who claimed to care ever so deeply about women’s physical safety during the MeToo movement now sneered at any woman who expressed doubt about sharing private spaces with male-bodied people. The most obvious example here was JK Rowling, who wrote about how her experiences with domestic violence informed her views, an inconvenient truth her critics conveniently ignored. Women are raised to fear male strength, and with very good reason. And now we’re called bigots for doing so.

For the first time in my 20-plus years of being a liberal journalist, I felt completely isolated. I knew I could make my life easier if I just reverted to being the good girl and shut up. “Be kind,” women were told by gender ideologues: be good girls, don’t ask questions, just nod and say what we tell you to say. You don’t want to be mean, do you? But how can you be a writer and not write your doubts about something so important? How can you be a journalist and not ask questions? Occasionally a professional peer would send a text saying that they agreed with me, but they couldn’t say so publicly because their editor wouldn’t like it, or their teenage kids would shout at them, or it was just too stressful.

So I questioned myself. Of course I did. Would my children be ashamed of me in twenty, ten, five years time? “Am I the baddie here?” I asked myself. But I just couldn’t make it square up: how can feelings (gender identity) always take precedence over material reality (biological sex)? Trying to convince myself that I was wrong and the gender ideologues were right was like trying to convince myself that one plus one equals a unicorn. How can you shut your eyes to your own experience and say something that makes no sense? Apparently some people can, but I could not.

I understand why some people see parallels between the modern transgender movement and the gay rights struggle. Like many gay people, trans people experience terrible marginalisation and discrimination, and some are rejected by their families, and that is tragic. Like gay people, they have been cruelly vilified in the Right-wing press (which is partly why the Left-wing media is then so loathe to raise any questions about the transgender movement. They don’t want to look like the evil Tories, right?). But there are other ways to see this situation, too.

It felt at times like men’s rights activism as a religion. Whenever I or a female colleague dared to voice our doubts about gender ideology, we were pilloried; whenever a male colleague did, he was given a free pass. It was, in the vast, vast main, women who were condemned as bigots, all because they didn’t believe the right things, because they were trying to defend their legal rights. Left-wing men — both in person and online — told me that unless I repeated the mantra “trans women are women”, I was a bigot. It reminded me of that time in school when I was questioned about Jesus to prove my worthiness to wear a jumper.

At the same time as all this was going on, Labour’s seemingly never-ending anti-Semitism scandals were unfolding. Everyone was being urged to listen to those with “lived experience”, and yet non-Jewish people on the Left were telling British Jews that they knew better than them what anti-Semitism was. Now many of those same men were telling me that they knew better than me what a woman was. So this time I didn’t give up a part of myself. Instead, I felt real anger, and I wrote an article in which I told them to get lost. This provoked a huge backlash on Twitter, and no, it wasn’t pleasant. But it was definitely preferable to staying silent just because I was scared.

Other people, however, did not react like that. It was astonishing to me how quickly universities, publishing houses, NHS services, political parties, newspapers and TV networks capitulated to the gender ideologues, who were often not even trans themselves. Mainstream newspapers were suddenly using ideological terms like “cis”, a term which endorses the highly dubious belief that we all have an innate gender identity, and “top surgery”, a tidy euphemism for an elective double mastectomy. NHS services would talk about “cervix havers”, “chest feeding” and “pregnant people” (although prostate-havers were, notably, still men). ITV made a much-publicised drama, Butterfly, about a little boy who decides he’s a girl because he likes to wear make-up and jewellery, because clearly a boy playing with make up needs some kind of medical intervention — and what else is a girl but jewellery and lipstick?

Many of the people demanding these institutional shifts were and are not transgender themselves. They are bullies who set themselves up as moral arbiters, using self-righteous hysteria and factually questionable claims to demand censorship, instilling fear that anyone caught engaging in wrongspeak or even wrongthink will be publicly shamed and professionally destroyed. Bullies who insist they need to reshape women’s rights entirely, and then accuse any woman who even wants to discuss this of being hateful, stupid and dangerous. I have seen some people refer to gender-critical feminists as bullies, but I have never seen a gender-critical feminist call for writers to be no-platformed, words to be banned, books to be pulped, or articles to be deleted from the web. Gender activists do all of that as a matter of routine.

Contrary to what these bullies have claimed, gender-critical feminists do not hate trans people. I certainly feel no anger or animosity towards trans people. The only feeling I have towards them is compassion. Not to the point where I’m willing to give up all of women’s sex-based rights, no. But I do know I can only imagine the trauma and pain they have endured in their lives. I also know that so many of the arguments that are happening in their name are not ones that they wish for at all; they are conducted largely by provocateurs who are just burnishing their online brands.

No, my anger is directed at the cowardly institutions that have allowed themselves to be bullied by a tiny misogynistic online minority instead of maintaining even a shadow of a backbone and doing what they know is right. Bristol University, for one, which is currently being sued by a young Dominican woman, Raquel Rosario-Sanchez, on the grounds of sex discrimination and negligence. Rosario-Sanchez came to Bristol to do a PhD on the male exploitation of prostitutes, but because she chaired an event with the feminist group, Woman’s Place UK, trans activists bullied and intimidated her.

She follows in the now extremely established lineage of women like Kathleen Stock, Maya Forstater, Allison Bailey, Rosie Kay — all women who have suffered huge professional setbacks and personal upheaval simply for believing that biological sex is the defining factor in women’s oppression. Do their employers think they’re wrong? Do they really think that something called gender identity, which I’m guessing most of them had never even heard of until six years ago, is the most important quality to a person, and any woman who doubts this must be shunned from society? Or do they just wish to be on The Right Side of History?

That’s a phrase I’ve heard often over the past few years. An editor said it to a friend of mine when she wanted to look at the effect of puberty blockers on gender dysphoric children (“I know, I know, but we want to be on the right side of history…”), and a US magazine editor said it to me when I asked if I could interview Martina Navratilova about her views on trans athletes: “I know what you’re saying, and I’m on your side, really I am. But you have to wonder what the right side of history is,” he said. It’s a concern that’s entirely based on vanity, because it’s about wanting to look good, to be seen as the good guy, polishing one’s future legacy. It’s also a way of abdicating responsibility for one’s choices: I’m not making this decision because it’s what I think – it’s what the future thinks!

And then there’s Twitter. When I wanted to write for a magazine about the vilification of JK Rowling, I was told no, because it would cause “too much of a Twitter storm”. A friend wanted to put together a book of collected gender-critical essays, but an editor told her “the Twitter kickback would be too strong, and it wouldn’t get past the sensitivity readers anyway”. It amazes me how much power some people give to Twitter, because as someone who has been the object of several Twitter storms in my time, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Twitter means nothing, unless you give it the power to mean something. People should really stop giving Twitter so much power, because it’s making them bad at their jobs.

I’m lucky — I haven’t lost my job because I believe something that everyone believed up to five years ago, and most people still believe now. (Gender activists love to produce sweeping surveys which they insist prove most people support trans rights. When people are questioned about the rights of trans people who have not had gender reassignment surgery, or dig into the specifics of sport and prisons, public opinion, unsurprisingly, changes.) I did, however, stop writing my column. I was tired of being seen as the Phyllis Schlafly of The Guardian.

I’m currently writing a book about anorexia. Multiple doctors have confirmed to me what I already suspected, which is that there are obvious parallels between what gender dysphoric teenage girls say today — about their hatred of their body, their fear of sexualisation, their assumptions about what being a woman means — and what I said while in hospital as a teenager.

This is a fact, and an important one about adolescent mental health, and yet when other people have tried to make similar points in print, they have come up against enormous barriers. Abigail Shrier’s book, Irreversible Damage, which looked at the disproportionate rise in numbers of teenage girls seeking gender transition, was ignored by progressive newspapers and magazines, even though it sold well. A US supermarket stopped stocking it after protests by activists. The deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU, which still claims to be a free speech organisation, said that suppressing Shrier’s book was “100% a hill I would die on”.

Repeatedly, women who write about this tell me they are subjected to impossible edits: pleas for balance, softened language, a more neutral tone, dissenting voices, more equivocation so as to render their original argument into meaningless slurry — everything editors do to a piece when, really, they would rather spike it and save themselves the bother. It doesn’t matter how many facts you have, what matters are the feelings.

I don’t discount feelings. Feelings are important. But it’s interesting whose feelings matter. Andrea Long Chu, a trans woman, wrote in her 2017 memoir that the “barest essentials” of “femaleness” is “an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eye”. How did that get past the now ubiquitous sensitivity readers? It certainly didn’t hurt the writer’s career, who continues to get very high-profile commissions, whereas I personally know women who have lost their jobs for saying that the barest essentials of their femaleness was their biology. Or how about this line from a recently published memoir by Grace Lavery: when describing how hormone treatment has affected her body, she writes that her penis felt “as though I were laying my own miscarried foetus across my hand”.

I had a miscarriage. Two, actually. And so has almost every woman I know who has been pregnant. I wonder if anyone at that publishing company thought how we might feel, seeing our failed pregnancies compared to a flaccid penis? I’m guessing none, and fair enough, because I actually don’t think fear of offence is a reasonable excuse not to publish something. The double standards are ludicrous: you can now say any old garbage about women, but anything that even questions gender ideology will be anxiously second-guessed and overly edited into oblivion, no matter how many facts and even genuine feelings are behind it.

Someone described this to me recently as “a period of over-correction”, and I get that. For so long, transgender people were underrepresented, mocked and harassed, and now it’s their moment to have their say, and fair enough. But this should not be an either/or situation: both women and trans people should be able to speak out equally and honestly in progressive spheres. Instead, I see Left-wing feminist writers being funnelled towards Right-wing publications, simply because Left-wing ones are too anxious to stay on The Right Side of History to publish them. This makes it easier for the Left-wing bullies to discredit them, but it does not make what they’re saying any less true.

Recently, Mumsnet hosted a live discussion with Stella Creasy and Caroline Nokes about women and mothers in politics. When the majority of the questions were about gender and what Creasy and Nokes think a woman is, the journalist Marie Le Conte called the Mumsnetters “obsessive” and “radicalised”. There were many problems facing women today, she wrote, but instead of working together on low rape convictions and workplace discrimination, feminists were arguing over this one issue.

Le Conte is right, of course: these are things women should be focusing on, because they affect women. But how can women focus on them if politicians won’t even say what a woman is anymore? If sex and gender are being blurred together, how can we discuss who’s being discriminated against and why? In the workplace, a woman might be sacked because, say, she got pregnant, which is sex discrimination. A trans woman might be sacked because of transphobia. These are very different issues, and while inclusion is a laudable aim, it can’t come at the cost of clarity and efficacy.

It is not bigoted to say these things. And yet, there was a period, about three years ago, when I honestly thought about quitting my job. I felt so hated for saying things — things that are scientifically, biologically and factually true — and so unsupported by people who I know secretly agree with me but are too scared to say so out loud that I nearly left journalism. Well, I didn’t. Instead, I decided to stop being so frustrated by it all, and to stop taking what is going on in the progressive media circles and institutions so personally. For so long, I defined myself as a Left-wing journalist, but political categories are watery these days, and I’m OK with feeling out of step from so many people I once thought of as my side. I know they see things differently from me and I fully support their right to express their views; that feeling, I know all too well, is not mutual.

I don’t feel like I’ve become radicalised, because I don’t think anything I didn’t already think six years ago. I do, however, feel much better about myself for not just thinking it but saying it. I have learned that there is something worse than people telling me I’m a bad person, and that is allowing bullies to reframe the world, to dictate what we can all think and to define my reality. They might have triumphed over some institutions, but they haven’t triumphed over me. It turns out life is much better when you’re no longer the good girl.

[elftwink]

you know what bothers me about the accusation that trans men transition to ‘escape’ misogyny besides it just being not true is that it implies that we only care about misogyny insofar as it affects us personally. its like they think theres no possible way to transition and also still care about misogyny that other people face. idk if you all know this but it is possible to care about bigotry even when you don’t face it yourself

also its such a surface level understanding of transition held mostly by cis women like ofc YOU think the only reason someone would transition is to escape misogyny because for YOU, misogyny is the only downside to being a woman. what u have failed 2 consider is that other people have feelings and experiences u do not have. hope this helps

[you-cant-fuck-megaman]

As one of the 5 people in the fandom who cares about King, I just need to hear what you think. I know he hates all of humanity, but I think I can change him 💖 (JOKING)

won't have to put much work into changing Enker Jr. when he's changed by the end of megaman & bass and thinks humans are p. okay tbh, most of the work in redeeming the noble misunderstood bad boy archetype's already been done for you

in fact, out of the entire unfuckable cast of megaman, king is perhaps among the highest candidates of "could possibly be kind of sort of fucked maybe". he's a good family man, he goes out of his way to care for all the members of his robot army, he's kind of a knight in shining armor, and he's got a giant axe. all pretty fuckable traits, honestly. i know i love giant axes. just the only downside is that pesky bigotry, but if anime has taught me anything it’s that talking about discrimination is ok as long as it’s from a hot anime boy.

but then bass (of all people) discovers the cure for racism and tells king "hey dumbass humans are the ones that made us" and king is like "o yeah. well ok then" and then stops hating people because capcom handles moral ambiguity about as well as they handle DLC. but it’s ok, king learns hating people is bad. :)

maybe...maybe this blog is in error. maybe there is one fuckable robot master.....just maybe..........

oops nope unfortunately unlike every other robot master that exists in the history of ever, when king dies he doesn't get rebuilt and so he just goes kaput. and then the plans for king ii get scrapped because protoman just really wanted to fuck him for you and decided to use his gun as a replacement dick on the blueprints.

RIP king, you can't fuck him.

[peregrinethegryphon]

“A Better Life” Chapter Two

Fandom: The Lion King

Summary: A young, maned lioness named Tai is an outcast in her pride. But how might this change now that the old king is dead, and the new king has introduced some new friends? Takes place during the events of The Lion King.

Length: Four Chapters + Epilogue

Additional Tags: Drama, Found Family, Friendship, Bigotry, Mild Language, Original Characters, Intersex Character, Gay Character, Asexual Character, Aromantic Character, Canon Compliant

The Pridelands had seen two dry seasons since Scar took the throne, and nothing much had changed. Well, besides the lands being occupied by hyenas. And the pride were still not too pleased about it. Tai would still overhear snide remarks about them from the lionesses from time to time. That they were “mangy” and “stupid” and had “awful eating habits”. But the herds still roamed the lands, and the grass still grew for them to feed on, and the Circle of Life seemed to go on as usual. All except for one particular aspect: There had been no cubs. Sarafina stomped down from the caves of Pride rock to meet her pridesister, Naanda, at the bottom. “He blow you off, too?” Naanda asked. Sarafina sighed angrily. “What’s the point of having a king who won’t even sire the next generation? He’s useless, Naanda!” She sat down heavily. “Nala is already hunting on her own. I just want to be a mom again!” She lamented. “I know.” Naanda patted her shoulder. “I just talked to Sarabi. She’s sent Zazu to scan the borders for wandering males. Though I doubt anyone will want to come anywhere near these lands with so many hyenas running around.” Tai was listening from a short distance. She had been sunning herself with Ed asleep next to her. She had become good friends with many of the hyenas sense they first met, but Ed seemed to take to her most. No, he didn’t speak, but he was easy enough to understand to anyone who put in the effort. And he wasn’t stupid, despite what many thought. Though his brother, Banzai, was still protective of him. They braved the wilds together after being exiled from their birth clan, and before joining Shenzi’s. Turns out hyenas and lions really weren’t all that different in that aspect. Well, compared to most prides at least. Most prides exiled young males as soon as their manes came in. The point was to avoid inbreeding. This pride, though, the Jua Pride of the Pridelands, was founded on a system of monarchy. Sons of the monarch were allowed to stay, with the crown prince becoming the next ruler. And to keep the bloodline fresh, the lionesses were allowed to wander outside the territory to find rogues to sire their cubs. It was unusual, but it worked. The downside? Males in the Jua Pride had a lot more power and influence than those in other prides, sometimes at the expense of the lionesses. Tai watched Naanda and Sarafina walk off into the grasses. “You’d think he’d at least pick one of us to give him an heir. Not even Zira has gotten anywhere with him…” Was all she heard before they moved out of earshot. Tai would never understand the desire for cubs. It was a lifestyle she had rejected since she was a cub herself. And the adults constantly pestering her about how she’d “change her mind” when she got older only made her loath the idea more. Thankfully, everyone stopped hounding her when those first tufts of dark fur started appearing on her neck. They must have figured she was sterile. Guess I got lucky. She thought. All the same, she agreed there needed to be cubs. The pride would die out without them. And it was odd that Scar didn’t want heirs to continue his legacy. Having become a sort of advisor to the king, she felt it her place to address the issue. “Hey.” She turned to Ed. “I’m going to go talk to Scar.” She got up and started towards the cave. Ed yawned and rolled over, snoring loudly. When Tai made it into the cave, she could already see the king pacing inside, clearly agitated. When he looked up to see Tai, he scoffed. “Are you here to try and proposition me as well?” “I can assure you that’s the last thing on my mind.” Tai stated firmly. “However, the lack of new blood in the pride does seem to be a point of contention at the moment. Surely you have a solution that doesn’t involve you… doing something you’re clearly uncomfortable with.” Scar stopped pacing. “Can’t they just whore themselves out to some passing low-life like they usually do?!” He spat. “I have better things to do than cater to their urges!” Like what? Tai thought, but kept it to herself. Whatever Sarafina had tried on him, it really set him off. She decided to try a different tactic. “Yes, they are trying that… But if I may, I came here wondering what you plan to do about heirs.” She spoke carefully. “…Heirs?” He parroted, coming down from whatever episode he was having. “Yes,” Tai began. “Heirs. Lions who will continue your legacy, continue this alliance with the hyenas…” That was really her only motivation for bringing this up. Without heirs, the royal bloodline would die off, and the pride may resort to finding any old male to replace it. And what are the chances of them finding one that would be friendly with hyenas? She couldn’t risk losing her only friends. “I know what heirs are!” He snapped. “I just—“ He turned away from her. “I just can’t— I won’t—“ “I understand.” Tai interrupted. “I know the feeling… the idea of… being intimate in that way with someone, it’s… unpleasant…” “Scar!” An urgent voice from outside the cave disrupted their uncomfortable conversation. Zazu swooped his way into the cave and landed in front of the king. “Ahem, Your Majesty.” He gave a noncommittal bow. “I was scouting the western border and, well, I think we may have an issue.” “Out with it, Zazu.” Scar said, exasperated. “There’s a small pride of lions there, Sire. Three of them. They look like they’re just waiting outside the boundary for a challenge.” “Only three?” Tai said. “That’s more than enough to be a threat. Are they all males?” “No, no, just the one. The others are lionesses.” Scar snarled. “How dare they… Alright, we’ll go confront them. Tai, you’re coming with me.” They hurried out of the den and into the grassland, picking up any nearby hyenas that could accompany them, as Zazu led the way. When they eventually reached the border, marked by a small river, Tai could finally see this “pride”. They really were a small group, not what one would normally call a pride. Yet they were confidently sitting along the bank, clearly waiting for a confrontation. “What is the meaning of this?” Scar strode up in front, clearly trying to signal his authority. “You come into my kingdom and challenge me?!” The young, russet furred male spoke first. “We’re not in your kingdom, we’re just on the edge of it.” He retorted, smirking. “And since when does Mufasa allow hyenas on his lands?” Scar growled at the mention of his brother’s name. “Mufasa is dead! I, Scar, rule these lands now! And these,” he nodded to the dozen or so hyenas with them. “Are my allies. Now why are you here?” This time is was a lioness that spoke up. “We’re here because we have nowhere else to go. Our lands have become completely barren. This is all that’s left of our pride. We ask for sanctuary.” They must have really been desperate to ask another pride for help. As Tai observed the lionesses closer, she could see they were expecting. She looked at Scar, wondering if he’d take pity on this shrinking Pride. He didn’t typically take pity on anyone. “Hmph! They seem like ruffians to me.” Zazu criticized in a hushed tone on Tai’s shoulder. She rolled her eyes. She watched Scar eye the male, seeming to scrutinize every aspect of him, for a long time. He was clearly evaluating the situation very carefully. Eventually he broke the silence. “Very well. I will grant you sanctuary.” “Oh, thank you, Your Highness!” The first lioness bowed deeply. “You won’t regret this. You will have our utmost loyalty!” She was the first to leap over the small river to the other side. The others followed close behind. Tai was rather shocked. Surely Scar knew the risks of bringing another male into the pride. But then again, what did he have to fear with a clan of hyenas behind him? That and the sanctity of his royal blood. “These are the twins, Spotty and Dotty.” The male introduced his companions. “And I’m Jioni. Pleasured to make your acquaintance, Your Grace.” He bowed politely, grinning up at the king. “Hmm” Scar hummed, giving Jioni another once over before turning and ordering them to follow. Tai fell in behind the group to keep an eye on the newcomers. “Well, Ed,” Tai muttered to the hyena next to her. “It looks like our cub problems might be solved.” Ed chuckled in agreement. “Who’re you talking to?” One of the lionesses turned and asked her. Tai eyed her warily, not appreciative of her forwardness. “A friend of mine…” “You’re friends with hyenas? That’s weird…” she said jovially. “Yeah, well, I’m weird…” Tai just wanted this conversation to end. “Ha!” The lioness exclaimed. “You’re funny! You remind me of my great-aunt. She had a mane too. Oh, I miss her…” Tai was startled. “Wait, she did?” Now she was curious. “Is that common? Was she well liked?” “Oh, everyone loved Auntie Cheka! She told the best jokes.” She seemed to reminisce. “Yeah, I suppose maned lionesses run in the family, I mean, no one thought it was weird. Why do you ask?” Tai paused, processing the new information. “I, uh, I guess I’m the first one in the Jua Pride…” “Oh! Well that just makes you special!” She said cheerfully, then trotted up towards her sister. Tai was left alone with her thoughts, wondering what life would have been like if she had been born elsewhere… Eventually the group made it back to Pride Rock. Despite the initial shock of strange lions in the Pridelands, and the notion of Scar being merciful enough to take them in, the lionesses seemed to welcome them with open arms. In particular Jioni, who several of them fawned over, as if they were still adolescents fawning over a crush. Even Zira, who had been head-over-heels for Scar for ages, seemed to take an interest in the new male. And of course everyone was ecstatic to find out there were cubs on the way. Tai dispersed with the hyenas while the lions exchanged formalities. She couldn’t suppress the resentment she was feeling towards the new group. They were welcomed in so easily despite being strangers, while she was practically a stranger in her own pride. She settled down on her favorite rock. She could still see the pride from here. Ed followed her up, giggling hysterically to himself. “What’s so funny?” Tai asked Ed sat next to her and pointed at the group of lions, specifically at Scar. Then he pointed to Jioni, whom the king was staring at. “Yeah, I’m sure Scar’s going to be keeping an eye on that guy. I’m surprised he let him in in the first place.” But Ed shook his head, and started drawing in the dirt. She leaned over and saw he drew a heart shape. Tai took entirely too long to figure out what Ed was getting at, but as she kept glancing at Scar, it clicked. “Oh.” Tai had never taken an interest in lions. But she had also never taken an interest in lionesses. And she had just assumed Scar was the same. But I guess he does have a preference. “I knew there was a reason he wouldn’t take a queen, I just assumed it was the same as mine…” Tai sighed. “I guess that means I am the only one here that… can’t feel “love”…” Ed frowned and whimpered, then shook his head again. He stamped his paw on the ground where he drew the heart, then placed it over her chest, and gave her a stern look. And she somehow knew what he meant. You still have a heart. “Thanks, Ed.” She laid her head down in her paws, and Ed rolled over and nestled against her.

Ed was right. The others could have their romance and cubs. And she could have her friends. That was enough.

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Next

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[seraphimfall]

on one hand i love the powerfull and feminist image of woman and our history

on the other hand i see all the misoginistic and patriachal bullshit and values

and in the middle i think there are so much more important traits, even if you are introvert or extravert, than what is you gender and i'm just sitting there

confused if i am questioning my gender or the way i'm suppoused to express it

i know exactly what you mean. i do feel a connection to women as a social group. i don’t mind being perceived as one by general strangers. but sometimes i almost feel like a spectator to others doing gender, rather than me doing it myself.

it’s like i’m not quite a woman, and not quite non-binary. i’m both, without being a mix of both. sometimes i feel like i’m neither, like my name itself is a gender category on its own.

it’s very hard to tell how much of this is genuinely my gender, and how much of it is just a rejection of the traditionalist gender norms i was raised by.

i’ve taken to doing what you do in the “middle”; reminding myself that gender is supposed to not make that much of a difference in your daily life. i’m most at ease with who i am when i’m not thinking about what i should be labeled as.

my suggestion to you would be this— try to place yourself in an environment where patriarchal values have the least amount of impact on you. then, ask yourself some questions.

do you still feel separate from women, even when the perceived downsides to being a women aren’t present?

do you feel disjointed when someone refers to you as a woman? or do you only feel discomfort when someone implies that being a woman means you need to do certain things? do you feel uncomfortable with certain pronouns?

remember— you can express yourself in any way you want, regardless of your gender. your expression should be of YOU, not of *insert gender*. but, there’s nothing wrong with questioning your gender. if you choose a label and it doesn’t feel like it fits, you can always change it. don’t feel like you have to settle down with a label immediately. gender is a confusing mix of personal perception and societal variables. there’s nothing wrong with taking time to fit in the puzzle pieces. try not to let the bigotry of the world affect your ability to do so. good luck, and thank you for the ask ✧

[vulturevanity]

You seem very well-educated on Christianity and you're very friendly so. If I may ask, do you have any advice for someone who was technically raised Christian but whose religious education was very lacking (usually didn't go to church, didn't attend religious school past age 7, 90% of my religious knowledge comes from VeggieTales)? I don't even know where to start learning more because I don't know what sources are trustworthy or even what translations of the Bible itself I should study. But I really want to learn more because I receive conflicting ideas about faith from all over to the point that I'm not really sure who God is but I want to know Him.

Oh man, this is a big question. TL;DR oh god I'm really unqualified for this, uhh. Pick a version of the Bible that's not on the verge of incoherence due to how hard it is to follow. Find a church that teaches you things and doesn't just want to suck you dry of money or pray the gay away. Study with books? maybe?? hELP

Before anything: some blog recommendations because they're really nice and probably have more access to study resources than I do: @a-queer-seminarian @rainbow-sheeps @hymnsofheresy

Truth is I'm not an expert on anything. I didn't really decide to sit down and study christianity on my own, I'm just lucky to frequent a church that values historical theology. The downside to that is that this sort of interest in historical context and education almost always comes with typical fundamentalist bigotry (in my case, I had to learn to just tune it out after a while), so 9 times out of 10 you have to choose between listening to some fascinating readings of the Bible with thoroughly explained context and practical applications of the lessons taught -- at the cost of exposing yourself to queerphobia and/or racist microaggressions, or stick with the most basic "God Is Good And He Loves You And That's All That Matters :)))))" kind of preaching that honestly feels very hollow most of the time.

Anyway, I've been casually studying these things in church since I was a kid, so I can only speak as someone with that kind of experience. And in my experience, I had tutors and study books to help me learn and understand a lot of what I learned. Thing is... I don't know how to go about finding that guidance, especially since I'm not from the US (there are several cultural differences between us). I'm very sorry that I can't help you with that.

But I do believe a good first step would be to find a church that has that sort of focus, hopefully one whose members won't side-eye you for being gay or mixed. Remember: The most important commandments are to love God above all else and your neighbors as oneself, and racists and queerphobes are breaking that second half. (VERY thankfully, I am Brazilian in a region where racism isn't as widespread since most everyone is mixed)

As for the Bible, I know for sure there are several study-oriented versions that will have explanations for passages as they are in their original languages. Again, I'm Brazilian, so I can't help you with that. I've heard the King James translation is very hard to follow and is weaponized by conservative bigots, so maybe don't use that if you want a starting point... honestly I don't see anything wrong with reading a modern translation.

I know this isn't very helpful, sorry! I hope those other blogs can help you get a better idea on how to start.

[catbirthdays]

You go to film school? :0

yeeeee i wanna make animal documentaries 🥰💖. that way i can work with a camera AND animals 💖💖

i love the technical side of movies/tv too and im really good at film and script analysis/critique (i love tearing a shitty movie to shreds)

only downside is the intolerable pretentious people and the bigotry. the film industry is so so flawed and film school is a reflection of that

aaa and another downside is now i cant really watch movies without being extremely critical of them. every movie becomes the same. BUT ive had a lot of fun so far even though ill probably always be a poor artist