#two. it's a very recent example of this topic being handled

[sekaicards]

hey whats Stars Align

hello. 'Stars Align' is a 2019, 12 episode anime about, among a lot of other things, soft tennis. one of its main characters is yuu asuka, a character who is explicitly non cis.

weirdly, i've been seeing a lot of criticism popping up for copal's handling of the recent mizuki event especially on the topic of their gender. i have also seen both prior to and after the release of the event people not so subtly implying that as a japanese company they have no knowledge about being trans or non-binary or any other sort of non cis identity. or that it would be "more realistic" for ena to have not known about trans people or reacted poorly to the news.

western perspectives of gender and being trans do not apply everywhere, of course, but to suggest that a complete lack of knowledge and a more unknowing/bigoted reaction to such news would be more inherent to and make more sense from a character on account of them being from a non-western culture doesn't exactly sit right with me for a number of reason i'm sure you can figure out.

japanese people are capable of understanding being queer. this should not be a novel concept. and if it is to you, try to think about why.

[cripplecharacters]

Hi! I was actually wondering if you all could do a really in-depth post specifically on canes versus forearm crutches. I’ve noticed a couple of the recent asks pertain to it, and I think I myself still have one in the queue related to it, but in all of the posts y’all link us too in your answers to those asks, I have found the information is still very sparse and doesn’t directly compare the two in a lot of detail. I would really really love to see a specific dedicated post that breaks down the differences Between them directly, and goes into a lot more detail about what kind of person might prefer a cane and what kind of person might prefer forearm crutches. Differences in conditions, pain levels, fatigue levels, location of issue on their body, other symptoms, examples of disabilities that might more commonly default to one over the other, all that stuff. I’ve looked through basically all your posts on the subject I can find, and still feel like it’s really only scratching the surface, so if there’s a way y’all would be willing to do one big post on this topic specifically, I know at least I would really love it and I think others would as well! Most of the existing posts are a little too broad and surface level, and while I have found them super helpful as a starting point, I would love to see one that zooms in just on these two mobility aids rather than a broad overview of all types of mobility aids being compared like most of the existing resources y’all have. Seriously love what you all do and I would be extremely grateful for this!

Hey anon, just for you:

On Writing Characters Using Canes vs Crutches

[large text: On Writing Characters Using Canes vs Crutches]

This is a writing advice post that doesn't cover every single possibility because that's too impossible to try and do. It's simplified to be coherent for writers who have little to no experience with these sorts of mobility aids, and I encourage anyone who wants to write a character using either of these to treat this post as a small part of a larger research process. This post will contain generalizations for the purpose of me wanting to actually finish it. This is writing advice, not medical information, nor something you should be applying to real life.

Please keep in mind that a lot of the disability examples will only be shown in a single category because otherwise this would be a comical block of text. So yes, I know that a ton of conditions outside the "chronic pain" category also come with chronic pain, but I want this list to be actually easy to look through.

This will compare the cane (singular stick) to crutches (two sticks). Differences between a singular crutch and two canes will be at the end.

Canes

[large text: Canes]

The most primitive mobility aid that's out there. A wrist-height stick with a handle. An incredible invention. You hold it in your hand (at a rather natural angle) and that's mostly it - it's meant to follow a standard (left leg forward, right arm forward) gait and be a support meant for generally milder mobility issues. A cane can take up to 25% of body weight, so like half of what a leg does.

As a TLDR, here's what they could be:

One leg unable to bear the entire weight (but not completely unable) - this could be a result of a problem anywhere from the bottom of the foot all the way to the hip.

Milder balance problems - largely neurological, so either a condition that affects the brain, the spinal cord, or the nerves in the leg. There are also some autoimmune, respiratory, and cardiovascular causes as well, plus a few more.

Back/trunk problems, most commonly pain.

To use a cane you need two legs, most people who use canes for leg reasons will have a “good leg” and a “bad leg”. If this is the case, you'd typically hold the cane on the good leg side, as that redistributes the weight - and pain - between the bad leg and the cane.

The good leg needs to be able to bear the whole weight comfortably, the bad leg needs to be able to bear, at the very least, half of the weight. If the disability affects legs to the point where either:

both have problems weight-bearing;

one can't bear weight at all (e.g., amputation, flaccid paralysis, pain too severe);

then two crutches (or other mobility aid, like a wheelchair) would be the move. The cane doesn't replace an entire leg and is meant to be a minor support.

Examples of what would cause someone to use a cane:

Monoplegia or hemiplegia that is spastic (rigid) in the leg. This could be a result of stroke, traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, nerve damage, Brown-Séquard syndrome, polio, encephalitis, transverse myelitis, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, alternating hemiplegia of childhood, hemiplegic migraines, or being a hemispherectomy survivor. And many more things.

Chronic pain; arthritis, hypermobility spectrum disorders, chronic patellar instability, h-EDS, neuropathy, peripheral artery disease, past injuries (e.g., broken foot that healed incorrectly), systemic lupus erythematosus, joint replacement, chronic bursitis, and a lot more.

Relatively minor fatigue - most fatigue disorders will be on a wide spectrum, and people's symptoms often vary a lot. But a cane could help with fibromyalgia, Charcot Marie Tooth disease, POTS, scoliosis, severe kyphosis/lordosis, COPD (and other respiratory conditions), or milder forms of CFS/ME. Someone undergoing chemotherapy (or taking some other fatigue-causing medication) could also use one.

Muscle conditions, which are an even bigger spectrum. Spinal muscular atrophy type 3 and 4, early Limb-Girdle muscular dystrophy, tibial MD, Becker MD, or early myotonic dystrophy type 2 can all be reasons to use a cane. Keep in mind that these have drastically different presentations from person to person, and it's not entirely unusual for two people with the same kind of muscular dystrophy to use very different mobility aids (e.g., a tilt-in-space powerchair vs ...no aid at all). These are just the ones where I'm aware of a person who 1) has it, 2) uses a cane, even if it's not the most common aid.

Prosthetic leg on one side; usually below knee (high level amputees will more often go for crutches, even if they use a prosthetic).

The second biggest reason why people use a cane is balance. For this the cane can be held in either hand; some people have a preference, generally for the non-dominant hand for convenience - although many people with balance problems will also have a coordination disorder that might make using their non-dominant hand too difficult. Some people will switch the side they hold it on.

For a lot of people with balance problems, a cane might be the aid they use at home, and use a rollator or a wheelchair outside.

A good cane for balance purposes is a quad cane - it has four legs at the bottom and offer more stability than the single point equivalent. However, the larger base might also mean that for some people it can be easier to hit it with their foot, which ranges from annoying to dangerous.

Examples of disabilities that affect balance;

Many of the things included in the first section - primarily those that directly affect the brain or nerves.

Conditions that cause vertigo - again, many of the same things as before because a lot of them tend to originate in the brain. So other than aforementioned meningitis or stroke and the like: Ramsay Hunt syndrome, migraines, basically any sort of brain damage, POTS, Meniere's disease, labyrinthitis.

Respiratory problems, like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, severe asthma, or lupus.

Coordination disorders - again, a lot of overlap with aforementioned disabilities, so I'll skip to things I haven't mentioned yet. Ataxia could be caused by a lot of things; some include the Chiari malformation, ataxia-telangiectasia, Friedrich's ataxia, Parkinson's, brain tumors, or Niemann-Pick disease. Dystonia is usually a primary condition rather than being caused by other things (although it can be). Dyspraxia is also a coordination disorder generally milder than ataxia, and canes can be potentially helpful for it as well.

As mentioned before, some coordination disorders will affect the upper limbs as well, and it might be too difficult to use a cane. For disabilities like Huntington’s disease, or ataxia that significantly affects the hands, rollators and wheelchairs tend to be more helpful.

Anything that causes the person to fall. Fall risk is the primary reason people use canes.

A cane can also be used for back/trunk issues. One can lift off some weight of the body from above the Problem by putting the weight on the arm instead. I have really severe kyphosis as well as (partial) trunk muscle atrophy/coordination problems and quite literally can't straighten my back for more than a few minutes at most - my cane allows me to do that more easily and without needing to think about it as much.

Examples of some conditions that cause that include;

sciatica;

degenerative disk disease;

past spine injury;

scoliosis or severe kyphosis/lordosis.

In my experience, you need fairly good arm strength to use a cane comfortably. For people with more significant weakness in upper limbs, rollators tend to work better.

Grip strength is also important; there are canes designed to mitigate this (the platform cane/crutch comes to mind) but they're not the most common because often (not always) when someone has this issue they already require a larger mobility aid.

Canes are often a "starting" mobility aid, i.e., a person starts using it at first but later transitions to using something else as their disability progresses (or they realize that it wasn't adequate in the first place, it mostly happens with slowly progressive conditions - when they decide to get a cane, it's often just too late). A cane can be useful at the very start of an onset of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, but it's basically worthless beyond that.

Similarly (kind of), a cane can be the "smaller" mobility aid for someone who uses multiple of them at the same time. Someone dealing with fatigue could use a cane at home, but need a rollator for going out, or a wheelchair for longer trips. Another person could use a cane when going out with a prosthetic leg on, but use a wheelchair or crutches at home when not wearing the prosthetic.

Crutches

[large text: Crutches]

These are more complex and provide more help. Crutches directly affect your gait depending on the exact disability, and take away both hands. They can potentially take up to 100% of body weight for parts of the walking cycle if you have good upper body strength and balance, and 50% otherwise (so, one good or two half-good legs still required).

Crutches are used for a lot of things (realistically too many to cover here) so I'll just go with the main categories that encompass most of them.

A) Both legs can't fully bear weight;

The same things as in the cane section, but present on both sides rather than one.

Hypotonia; can be caused by thousands of things. Some include Down syndrome, Tay-Sachs syndrome, achondroplasia, being born prematurely, brain damage, and congenital hypothyroidism.

Paraplegia that's low-level and/or incomplete, or quadriplegia that's incomplete. Quadriplegia is a huge spectrum as well, and it will depend on the amount of strength and flexibility that the individual person has in their arms and hands.

Bilateral amputation with prosthetics. (Someone who can bear weight no problem but has a milder balance problem could use a cane instead.)

B) One leg can't bear any or a lot of weight;

The same things as in the cane section, they're basically all on a spectrum, so some people choose a cane and others choose crutches.

Unilateral amputation, or congenital limb difference.

Limb length discrepancy where it doesn't touch the ground or barely does so.

C) Significant balance issues;

Same things as for canes, but either more severe or just someone's personal preference.

D) Back/trunk pain;

Same as C).

Additional note based on things I have seen: you can't use crutches if you have no legs and no prosthetics. You can't walk literally just on crutches. You need at least a single leg or prosthetic.

(Yeah I'm aware that there's probably a guy somewhere who does tricks where he does exactly that for a short video. That's Crutches Georg and he should not be counted because 99.9% of crutches users won't be doing that ever.)

Crutches will provide much more stability and relieve more pressure than a cane, but there is a wide range of the amount of support depending on how they are utilized.

What the disability is can actually present itself in the person's gait - there are a few main ones that are associated with crutches;

Four-point. The two legs and two crutches work as four different points of support, and three of them are in contact with the ground at any time. A lot (not all) of people who use it will use crutches full-time and/or not be able to stand without them. The most stable and the slowest out of all of these.

Three-point. Probably the one most people have in mind when thinking crutches. The crutches both move at the same time, along with the bad leg, then the good leg follows. This is the "broken leg in a cast" way of walking.

Two-point. The closest to how non-crutch users generally walk. It's like having a cane on each side; left crutch forward, right leg forward. Fairly fast.

Step-to. The crutches work as one point of contact, and the legs as the other - both of each will move forward at the same time. In the step-to, a person puts their feet at the crutches' height. Fairly fast as well.

and step-through. I'd say the most difficult, least stable, providing the least amount of support. The same as in step-to, both crutches go forward before both legs, however here the legs get swung through them while the person is only holding up on crutches. This is the fastest that it gets, and can definitely be faster than an abled person walking. You can run quickly like this.

If you have issues visualizing them, there are a lot of great demonstrations on YouTube that you can look up for clarification.

There are a lot of subtle differences in which one people end up using, but as a rule of thumb, the more balance they lack, the more points of support they need. To provide some examples;

a person with quadriplegic cerebral palsy might lack balance and coordination, so they might use a four-point gait.

A person with one-sided tarsal tunnel syndrome can walk with a three-point gait, as it can be used to mitigate weight-bearing fully or partially - if the pain gets worse, they can just not touch the ground with that leg.

A person with incomplete thoracic spinal cord injury could also work with a three point gait, though they would put both legs on the ground. If someone has good strength in the arms and trunk, they can get both crutches in the front along with one leg, then try to get the second one to go forward as well. This is how a lot of crutch users with a disability affecting two legs, but with decent balance and upper body strength, walk.

A person who had a traumatic brain injury and now experiences balance problems but not as much leg issues could opt for a two-point gait. It does help with weight redistribution, but primarily provides a lot of balance.

Both step-to and step-through are primarily used by single-leg problem havers (like unilateral amputees) in my experience, but I've seen people with diplegia or incomplete low-level spastic paraplegia use it too. You need very good balance and good upper body strength. I've seen dudes do backflips and ride skateboards on crutches like this. You can run as well and be way faster than you think.

The same as canes, crutches require arm strength. The more you're looking to take away from the legs, the more will go to the shoulders. If someone doesn't have the needed arm strength, a rollator will be more helpful. Walkers not so much as they still require some strength to turn.

More Direct Comparisons

[large text: More Direct Comparisons]

The differences between pain and fatigue levels might be somewhat evident from comparing the sections above - to generalize the subject as much as possible: the bigger the pain or the fatigue, the higher possibility of using crutches over a cane is. They provide more relief for both, as well as providing more balance.

Now, there's always exceptions. Someone might not be able to use two sticks, because of a disability affecting one of the arms - hemiplegia is a common example. In this case, the person could prefer to use a single crutch rather than two. They could opt for platform crutches, which don't require as secure of a grip. They might need a rollator instead. They might have a powerchair that they operate with their good arm.

Another thing is that some people will use crutches even if a cane would work just as well. Some people like the grip more, or find them easier to use. They could also like that crutches are seen as more medical than a cane, which could be seen as a fashion accessory. Maybe they can be faster on crutches than with a cane (e.g., if their disability is limited to a single leg, getting it out of the walk cycle might be more convenient) and that matters to them.

And to go with this, some people just don't like crutches. I personally don't like the forearm cuff because I tend to swing my wrist around with my cane rather than hold it perfectly straight, so the cuff seems annoying. For someone else that could be more than a preference, e.g. if they have a limb difference that affects the length of their forearms to be much shorter - a person like this could prefer two canes.

As to what mobility aids are better for which disabilities, it's highly individualized, but to heavily generalize again: canes tend to be more helpful for relatively milder disabilities, and crutches for relatively more significant ones based on the amount of support they provide. But that's an oversimplification so simple that it's not really useful.

Someone with neuropathy in parts of their foot might find a cane completely sufficient, but it wouldn't be as useful for someone with nerve damage that caused flaccid paralysis from the hip down; they would probably prefer crutches. But then again, someone with mild vertigo could use crutches because they prefer them (even if a cane would work just fine) while someone else might have incomplete C6 quadriplegia and use a cane with leg braces over crutches because they enjoy having a free hand.

For more similarities between the two; overuse injuries can happen to both cane and crutch users, generally in the shoulder(s). They're not very common unless you're putting more weight on them than you're supposed to. They're very annoying because it drastically tanks your mobility until they get better (unless you can walk without them just as much that is), but they're treatable with physical therapy.

Now for the two canes and a singular crutch. Let's start with the fact that the latter is infinitely more popular than the former. It's basically the same as a single cane but more supportive; it's good for people who need more balance than a cane provides but can't use both hands. Two canes is very rare and I can't tell you what the actual pattern of choosing them over other options is outside of personal preference because I have no idea.

The general conclusion of the post is that crutches and canes really aren't that different, and are more of a spectrum of usable sticks by the amount of support they provide to the user. That's why often you'll see canes and crutches listed as the same thing when it comes to "management of XYZ disability" type resources - for a lot of them they're rather similar in practice, especially when compared to rollators, walkers, scooters, or wheelchairs.

I hope this was more in depth and therefore more helpful, if this still leaves you with some unanswered question feel free to reach out again.

mod Sasza

[heedzhee-art]

Hi! I've been learning about the history of Ukrainian names and how they were affected by Soviet policies, do you think Ukraine's most popular name, Kateryna, reflects her identity well? I don't get how it’s still common in English to use Russian words for Ukrainian people's names and cities (like Kiev)

(I'm copying the entire post because I deleted a paragraph I wanted to be in reblogs on accident, sorry)

Ukrainian "Catherine" is "Kateryna", the short version is "Katia", so yea. I actually sounds different in every Slavic language safe for russian and Bulgarian being almost the same

People may use russian words when naming places in Ukraine in English, like calling Kyiv "Kiev", because all the Soviet documents back in the day were handled in russian, so everything international used russian transliterations rather than Ukrainian ones. It feels weird to hear it, like foreigners are just using another language to name your home..? Maybe because a lot of foreigners can't tell the difference between different slavic languages. It's also a sore topic for a lot of people now that russians replace all the Ukrainian signs in Ukrainian territories whenever they capture them. The most unusual ones to hear in English are "Dniepr" instead of "Dnipro" and "Nikolayev" instead of "Mykolaiv", "Rovno" instead of "Rivne", I have to do a double take because idk what the person is talking about

When it comes to names, during the Soviet era, Ukrainian names were often russified, a process where Ukrainian names were altered to align with russian linguistic norms, this was part of a broader policy of cultural assimilation and suppression of Ukrainian identity. Official records (birth certificates, passports, etc) often used the russified versions of names rather than their original Ukrainian forms (for example, some of -enko, -ich, -ak surnames were russified in a form of adding -ov/-ev at the end, or changing the last name entirely), and as a result, this caused significant issues for families trying to trace their ancestry or locate graves of relatives, and then the problem was exacerbated by inconsistent documentation practices and the destruction of records during times of war or political purges

But anyway I recently found out that Sofia and Iryna are official suggestions for hetalia Ukraine, they're pretty nice actually, tho I'll stick to my own interpretations since in my head she's already a very different character (for Katia I don't like the connection it sometimes draws to Yekatyerina II)

Iryna's shortened form is "Ira", the diminutive/affectionate would be Irunya/Irynka, and Sofia shortened is Sonia (Софія/Sofia has three syllables like So-fi-ya, and Соня/Sonia two syllables like So-nya), sonia/соня also can mean "sleepyhead" btw

I hope this was insightful, I appreciate it when people are curious and ask questions

[aihoshiino]

Atp i would like to see how ruby and aqua's relarionship will go. Not in "Yasss incest!" way but more of how they (mostly ruby) realize that they need to go their past lives and accept their relation as siblings. Or at least how wrong it is even if ruby wants it so much. There is no way incest would happen because Aka hates it. I am more interested in their psychological state and their conflict and resolving that conflict.

I don't think we can definitely say Akasaka Loves or Hates XYZ just because none of us know him, but there is a weird sense of like... discomfort or maybe avoidance on the topic of incest in OnK that I find kind of interesting to just poke at in my head sometimes. Because like, one of my main issues with the way OnK has handled the incest since 123 is that it just... well, hasn't.

I know that sounds insane in a post 143 world but going through the way the AquRuby stuff (or lbr just Ruby) has been written since 123, it feels like there's a very clear distinction between the ideas of "Ruby having feelings for Aqua, her brother" and "Ruby (& Sarina through her) having feelings for Goro, her doctor". When the story wants to play AquRuby for laughs, it leans into Ruby being attracted to her brother. When it actually takes things seriously, the framing is almost always Ruby addressing Gorou and the concept of incest is so loudly, conspicuously absent. You can even sort of see this line being drawn all the way back in 123, just at the end where Ruby very pointedly first addresses Aqua and then, separately, addresses "Sensei". It's almost as if she's purposely trying to create a divide so she can have one without dealing with the reality of what it would mean to be with the other.

It's hard to tell whether or not this is intentional in the sense of being part of Ruby's arc but it nevertheless creates a sense of the series wanting to have its cake and eat it too, indulging in the shock value and spicy intrigue of incest as a taboo without meaningfully engaging with it as subject matter. I've described it elsewhere recently as the series exclusively toying with the *aesthetics* of incest, its surface level referential language and set dressing, while resolutely avoiding going any deeper and I still stand by that. The 143 kiss is actually a really good example of this - the imagery is that of two siblings kissing but on that very same page, Ruby reminds us that in her eyes, she is talking to and in love with her "Sensei". The series has conducted this deeply convoluted narrative trick where it can depict what is very clearly incest without it technically being incest. Even when roadblocks to the GRSR relationship are addressed, it's only ever in reference to their age gap and Ruby always frames it as something that *used* to stand in their way but is no longer an issue now she's 18.

On days I am feeling charitable towards the series, I'm inclined to think this is an intentional part of Ruby's arc and that she is, in universe, being a bit delulu about the whole thing as an unhealthy coping mechanism - her being avoidant of emotionally inconvenient truths is something we see popping up more than once, so this being an extension of that tendency would make sense. When I am feeling more cynical, however, I tend towards thinking this is just an excuse to indulge in shocking imagery that generates clicks without ever having to actually commit to upsetting readers by sinking *or* canonizing incest ship. My best guess is that the truth is somewhere in the middle but it must be stressed that this is just my thoughts and I have no idea what goes on in Akasaka's brain.

Anyway this is just a long and rambly way of saying "word". Regardless of what direction the story takes AquRuby, I just want the story to finally fucking commit to something instead of chickening out every time it gears up to do so.

[maxbegone]

Do you have any tips on handling election stress? I'm 18 this year and completely and utterly terrified about the idea of trump getting elected. It's not something I'm dealing with very well to say the least

And I know I can vote and it'll still be making a difference but when the time rolls around to do so I don't know if I can even get to a polling place which is adding to the stress

Sorry for asking this and I completely understand if it goes unanswered! I hope you have a good day and if not, that it gets better <3

hi anon! while i can't give you a cure-all here, i'll do my best to ease the stress.

first and foremost, and this is an understatement, i'm sure: you're not alone in how you're feeling about this. fear is valid. look to your left, look to your right, look at your friend groups — everyone's worried right now. a presidential election is a stressful thing, especially with who our two candidates are. i personally think the recent debate is yet another blatant example of how we should put a cap on how old a president or presidential candidate should be before they're unable to run. if you have to be 35 in order to run for president, why shouldn't there be a cap? i hope that makes sense.

we're settling this year for biden, sure, but remind yourself that you're not voting for a person, you're voting for an administration. project 2025 was never going to appear silently, someone was always going to make it known.

i'm someone who deals with a lot of existential dread and has gone through phases of "this isn't going to happen," and then it does. spiraling isn't good, but sometimes it isn't something you can help. still, don't let it all fester; let it out, talk to someone about it, and if you don't like how a conversation is going, you have the power to step away. and if anyone pressures you, just remember you are not obligated to tell anyone who you're voting for or what you might be registered as.

politics, in general, is a tough topic to talk about. sometimes you really have to dig in order to find people you trust enough will have the same morals as you in order to really feel some relief that the ways you think the world should change are worth fighting for. and try not to let older adults' opinions get to you — this is something i deal with constantly, and while i'm vocal here on this platform, i can't find it in myself to be vocal within my own family for fear of being talked over and told, "You don't know how the world works yet. You don't know what you're talking about. You're too woke." if no one has told you yet and you need to hear it: you're smarter than you're giving yourself credit for, and your compassion is so, so important.

what's so wonderful about this generation, which i've said before, is that we are very, very aware. gen z and millennials are constantly researching and spreading awareness, and we do have social media to thank for that, despite all its faults. allow yourself to be scared, because that means you care and that you will take action. being complicit won't help anyone.

remember that you're curating your own experience here. if you want to follow along on social media, make sure the accounts you're following are credible, informative, and offer reliable information. you don't want constantly see things that will bring your mood down and cause you to doom scroll. make sure whoever you follow is uplifting, inspiring, and shows you that there is hope.

and you said it yourself; voting will make a difference. is it stressful? absolutely. is there a lot of information to absorb? of course. but in the wake of the incoming election season, try and take things in bits and pieces.

if you're too overwhelmed with what you're seeing online, log off, delete the app you're using, whatever works for you. step away. we're not made to constantly have our fingers on the pulse. everyone's fighting, a lot of times with each other, but remember that there is always something to fight for. find hobbies and activities that you can do regularly that will ease your mind, or even find something new to try. you don't want to exhaust yourself.

@hagface gave me some great advice, which is to get off your phone and remember that world doesn't exist in your pocket. there's more out there than just politics, no matter how looming the whole thing may feel.

as for finding your polling place or getting a ride there, good news: you have a lot of time to figure that out! often times rideshares will give free rides to the polls. for instance, lyft just announced a voting access program for 2024 that will give you free or discounted rides to your polling place on november 5th (i have not been able to find anything on uber doing the same, but we have some time i suppose). and hey, if rideshares don't work, see if you can carpool with friends! not only will it guarantee you're able to vote, but your friends who are eligible will, too! and when you're done, don't stare too long at when the numbers start rolling in; try and take a step back for the day and do something enjoyable. it'll be hard to ignore, of course, but just know that once you've voted, you've done your job.

vote.org has all the information you need from who's on the ballot, to voting by mail with an absentee ballot, and even checking to see if you're registered or not! it also shows how many days until the next election, and can help you get information for the specific state you live in, just scroll all the way down on the home page (absentee ballot due dates, registration deadlines, etc).

additionally, while not a federal law, some states have laws which require your employer to give you time to vote or even provide paid time off in order to do so. this article gives you all of that information. you have the right to vote. if your employer gives you a hard time about letting you do so, this article gives you some pretty good tips on how to deal with that. my advice is to always go to the polls as early as possible, but i know that isn't always feasible.

something else you might hear from time-to-time is to "vote down the ballot." what does that mean? it means filling out the entirety of the ballot, from president and national officials at the top, to local governments toward the bottom. for instance, a lot of people will "vote down" the ballot for candidates who are all in the same party. here's some info.

this next part might sound silly, but there's some truth in it. there are MAGA extremists out there, groups of people who love to parade around with memorabilia and be loud about their beliefs. to put it lightly: they're bullies, they're dangerous. if you happen to get caught in one of those parades like i did while driving back in 2020, try your best to keep a wide berth.

it's all a lot to absorb and very scary, but again, you're not alone. you have time before november to gather information on the policies that are in threat of being protected, of who these candidates really are, and who they want to bring into the cabinet with them.

one final thing: congratulations on your first time voting. i know it's not the most exciting thing in the world, especially with this election year, but deciding to vote and doing so means you're doing a great job. remember, you're one person, but one vote can still make a difference.

i hope this helped some ♥️

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Talia Nava

Published: Mar 13, 2023

It is often claimed by many trans activists that genocide is being committed against the trans community via “anti-trans laws.”

More recently, Anne Fausto-Sterling, a biologist and trans activist, made this very argument in a post made on Twitter and Mastodon, another social media alternative. Accusations of genocide are very serious and should not be used without good reason.

This begs the question: is genocide being committed against the trans community?

Let's break it down piece by piece. 

What is genocide?

The term genocide typically brings up images from intolerable injustices committed against various groups in history. The most pronounced being the Holocaust committed against the European Jewish people by the Nazis in Germany. This is because the term genocide was explicitly defined as a result of the Holocaust during the Geneva Convention in 1948-1949. The documents created during the Geneva Convention describe genocide as: 

“genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…”[1]

The Convention further described the elements of genocide as:

“1. A mental element: the ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such’; and

2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

Killing members of the group.

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.’”

Using these very specific qualifications, let's go step by step to see if there is a genocide against trans people.

Intent

The very first part includes the mental element of intent. There are two parts to this mental element. The first is the intent to destroy. The second is the definition of what kind of group is being targeted, specifically religious, ethnic, racial, or national group.

Are trans people a religious, ethnic, racial, or national group?

Intent is already very difficult to determine, and as mentioned in the definition of genocide is the most difficult to prove. Is the intent of many of these lawmakers to completely eliminate “trans” individuals? If you look into the motive behind many laws being passed, the people proposing these bills state that they intend to protect children from sexually explicit content that they are not old enough to be able to handle. 

Let's look at the example of the Florida bill known colloquially as “Don't Say Gay.” Officially labeled “Parental Rights in Education,” the bill restricts discussing the topics of gender identity and sexual orientation in grades kindergarten through the third grade.[2] Age wise, this includes children age 4-9. Why this age group? 

Psychologist Jean Piaget, who explicitly studied cognitive development, defines two stages involving this age group: preoperational (ages 2-7) and concrete operational (ages 7-11). One of the major differences in these age groups is the change from self centered thinking in the preoperational stage to being able to separate themselves from the topic being discussed in the concrete operational stage.[3] What does this mean? It means children age 2-7 tend to apply everything that they learn to themselves. If you discuss gender identity to this age group, they are more likely to conclude that their gender identity is also in question. 

In other words, children in this age group literally can't think about these topics outside of themselves. Is protecting children from topics they are not capable of handling appropriately trying to eliminate trans people?

The other example to think of here is the issue of child centered drag performances. Authors of these bills have explicitly said that the goal is to protect children from adult content. You certainly wouldn't want to show a child pornographic material, would you? Is protecting children from adult material attempting to erase trans people?

For the matter of the mental element of genocide, I think it has not been met in terms of trans individuals.

The Physical Element 

The physical element includes five acts that meet the conditions of genocide. There are a few that can be eliminated automatically. The first is killing trans people. There is no group in the US that makes a deliberate attempt to kill trans people. The second that can be dismissed is causing serious body or mental harm to a group. There is no group that intends to cause serious bodily or mental harm to trans people.

That leaves us with three remaining acts, let's look at them in detail. 

Conditions of Life

“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

There are many that claim that laws being passed to prevent “gender affirming care” are being passed to attack the trans community. Advocates claim that “gender affirming care” is “life saving care” and that not having these treatments results in trans people committing suicide. 

Is this true? One of the largest studies of its kind says it isn't true. The Swedish study found that suicidality remained virtually constant at every stage of transition from the initiation of hormones to after surgical procedures.[4] 

Recently, reports out of the UK from Tavistock clinics have indicated that these treatments aren't helpful either. But the UK is “transphobic,” right? Except they are not the first to make this observation. This Finnish study from 2019 demonstrates that cross sex hormones aren't enough to give relief from gender dysphoria.[5]

This probably explains why Finland has changed their protocols for treating gender dysphoria and why they suggest intensive psychotherapy instead of the gender affirming model.[6]

In 2020, Sweden also had to change their policies, putting a halt to hormonal and surgical interventions and instead opting for psychosocial support until adulthood. Apparently, after extensive research, they determined the risks outweigh the benefits.[7]  It's probably why France followed soon after.[8] The most recent country to implement changes is Norway, who has determined that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender affirming surgeries are experimental and lack evidence proving efficacy.[9]

If it is true these treatments don't actually prevent suicide, then can you say that preventing these treatments is causing suicide?

What other options are there? According to the available research, the vast majority of children who identify as trans don't carry that identity into adulthood. In fact, the percent of kids who “grow out of” their trans identity is somewhere between 68-90%.[10]

This is likely why the medical organizations from these other countries suggest psychosocial support to adulthood.  But does the psychosocial support actually work?

One study has shown that group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy was able to significantly improve the moods and outlooks of trans identifying teens. It also gave them coping mechanisms to help cope with the many social pressures that trans and gender nonconforming individuals experience.[11]

Why are these therapies not being sought after by trans activists?

Jack Turban, a prominent trans activist and medical doctor, wrote a study that identified anything except for the gender affirming model of treatment as “conversion therapy.”[12] This has been turned into a rallying cry for trans activists, who claim that any psychosocial therapy is conversion therapy and an attempt to eliminate trans people.

If “gender affirming care” doesn't work, is pushing for “gender affirming care” pushing for suicide? 

If most kids grow out of their trans identity, is pushing for “gender affirming care” pushing for harm against a community?

Is discouraging use of therapy that works in favor of “gender affirming care" pushing a group into self destruction via suicide?

Preventing Birth

“Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group…”

During the Holocaust, many individuals had medical experiments performed on them and often these experiments were done with the intent to prevent pregnancies or to eliminate the fertility of these individuals. 

Is this happening in the trans community?

Let's take a closer look into what treatments people are seeking, since so many of these laws are looking at preventing treatments. For younger people, the traditional thing they want to do is block puberty. And the most common medication to block puberty is Lupron. But is that the only thing the drug is used for? 

No, it's not. 

Lupron is in fact the same medication Canada and the US uses to chemically castrate sex offenders and pedophiles to control their sexual urges.[13]

In addition, cross-sex hormone therapy has a known risk to permanently and irreversibly damage the reproductive systems of individuals undergoing these treatments.[14]

These are treatments that many of these laws are trying to ban in children. Trans activists claim that these laws are an attempt at genocide, and yet these “gender-affirming” treatments are doing harm that can actually be considered genocidal…

Forcibly transferring children…

“Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Despite the clear harm that can be caused by these treatments, some still push for these treatments. What happens to those who object to these treatments? 

Some parents are now having their children taken from them for not pursuing the gender affirming model. Unfortunately, these cases happen with divorced parents where one parent refuses to consent to these treatments.[15][16]

Not only are some children being removed from their parents, but in some cases, children are leaving of their own accord. 

California senator Scott Wiener authored a law that will take in families of trans identifying children who are seeking “gender affirming care.” The bill will also take children into custody of the state to allow for them to seek out medical transition.[17] This law went into effect January 1, 2023.

Of note, it is also Scott Wiener who proposed a bill in 2020 which does not require people who commit acts of oral or anal sex on minors to be registered as sex offenders.[18] It seems concerning that a person who is interested in protecting pedophiles also is interested in removing children from their parents. 

Who Is Committing Genocide?

The claim of genocide by trans activists like Anne Fausto-Sterling appears to have no legs to stand on. For one, there is no clear intent to commit genocide against trans people, but additionally the trans community is not of any particular nationality, ethnicity, race, or official religion (although one could argue that transgender ideology is a religion, it is not a recognized religious group).

But, if one could prove intent, who is actually committing acts that would qualify as genocide? 

Who is promoting treatments that don't prevent suicide in trans people while simultaneously calling treatments that help trans people “conversion therapy”? 

Who is promoting treatments that eliminate and prevent births and pregnancies in trans individuals?

Who is removing children from families who question if these treatments are worth the harmful side effects? 

It appears the group that is most harmful to trans identifying individuals are the activists who claim to be protecting them.

==

You have to remember this is a postmodern "genocide." I've been accused of this myself, endorsing "cultural genocide" for celebrating the ongoing decline of religion (as a hypocritical bigot, this person was completely content with the decline of Xianity; she didn't see that as "cultural genocide"). I've covered this in depth, but in summary, it's all about labels.

If children are encouraged or facilitated to complete puberty unimpeded, they'll more than likely (80+%) resolve the discomfort with their body, and they won't feel the compulsion to transition. They won't take wrong-sex hormones, with the risks and irreversible effects that go along with them, they won't amputate body parts, and they won't become life-long medical patients.

But social constructivists don't care about any of that. They even tell lawmakers that it's unacceptable, and even bigoted, to regard transition as an undesirable outcome. They don't care about the wellbeing of kids. They don't care about the individual. Critical theorists themselves will complain that there has been too much focus in the individual and the universal, and not enough on identity characteristics.

What they care about is blurring boundaries and subverting biology. What they care about is bolstering and populating novel "identity" groups. What they care about is that kids might no longer need to think of themselves as "trans." That's it. That's the entire "genocide."

It's eerily like Islam. In Islam, believers are either part of the thing, or we kill you. In genderism, believers are either part of the thing, or they've been "genocided." They're both absolutist ideologies, they just differ on being the aggressor or a manufactured victimhood.

If medical science intervenes and repairs a defect which prevents a baby from hearing, that's "erasure" of "deaf identity" and, as Nyle DiMarco melodramatically wails, "cultural genocide."

In a similar vein, "fat genocide" is the “the effort to eradicate fat people via weight loss as a form of genocide perpetrated by the medical profession” (direct quote from Fat Studies literature). You heard that right. Encouraging people to eat healthier and exercise is a form of "genocide," because there will be fewer fat people. Or more accurately, fewer people who "identify as" fat. And "erasing" an "identity" group is "genocide."

If you think the language is bizarrely histrionic, you'd be right. And if it sounds exceedingly unhealthy, you'd be right about that too. But it's not an accident or sincere misunderstanding. It's deliberate. The point is to use the most incendiary language possible, to warn you off getting in their way. It's why they've labeled trying to address a trans-identifying girl's homosexual shame or a trans-identifying boy's sexual abuse trauma as "conversion therapy." It's deliberately intended to make you think of ice dunking or electroshock treatments that gay men were subjected to, trying to make them "straight." Rather than what it is: normal, everyday talk therapy to resolve distress.

Like a brightly colored frog warning you it's poisonous. Ignore it. Unlike the frog, there's no substance, only the mimicry of substance.

More insidiously, it's intended to create panic in kids, that there's gangs of people roaming out there trying to murder you, or your government actively wants you dead. Even your parents are suspect. You can only trust your "trans family." We're the only ones who understand you. It's classic cult tactics. And comparable to when religions send believers out to proselytize. It's not to convert the non-believers, but to create uncomfortable interactions with non-believers so the faithful will be drawn back to the safety of their fellow believers. Us vs them.

[mask131]

It is always a fascinating experience to see people describe their dislike or hatred of, for example, a fantasy series or a fantasy book, when you, yourself, you know that it is objectively good - as in, in term of literature and of book it is good, no matter if you actually like the story or the characters.

In general, it really makes you realize how one's reception and appreciation of a book recently has turned away from actual literary quality, and is now mostly tied to the reader's personal life-experiences and personal world-views.

For example recently - this is why I picked up a fantasy series as an example - I read a fantasy book which had as a main character a composer of music, and made music a part of its plot, a key part. I myself do not know anything about the technicalities of music, but I recognized that there was a real work of information and knowledge placed into this, and despite not knowing anything about higher musical arts, I still perfectly got everything the author was trying to carry - and it worked very well for non-experts, while also clearly being written by someone who knows what they're talking about.

And I randomly found this one person on a blog that said that this was one of the weakest and most dragging parts/aspect of the book because, and I quote, "I get people would be into reading about sword-fighting, or languages, but music? Seriously?"

This person basically said that because they found the subject silly and uninteresting outside of the book (in real life, as this person clearly has no interest in the making of music), the parts dedicated to exploring it and using it for fantasy were bad. And that was it. It wasn't about the handling of the topic, or the writing style, or how well it carried in the plot, it was just about... "Music doesn't interest anyone, so this book who is third about it is already of bad quality".

And I'm not even going to point out the obvious problems a person has when they think that nobody should take interest in music... In fact (and I am a bit jumping around here from point to point), this is something I noticed in online forums and so when it comes to fantasy reviews and fantasy audiences - at least the English speaking ones. One of their very first complaints is "Fantasy books are too generic, they're too cliche, they're too stereotyped" but when someone tries to do something new or bring something added to the table, the same people will criticize it as being too weird or unusual or not interesting enough. And with this specific "music" comment, we can unload a whole can of worms about this sort of strange "reverse-geek-bullying" in fantasy reader groups.

One of the things I appreciate with fantasy stories is variety, the exploration of new territories, the use of new sources of inspiration. A very easy way to do this is simply to focus on a part of life, a trade, a job, an element of culture that hasn't been focused on by "traditional", "archetypal", "stereotypical", "done to eath" fantasies. There are epic fantasy stories about music and the making of it. There high fantasy series about cooking and the art of food. There are weird fantasy series about poetry and how to write a poem. There are mythical fantasy stories about making books, and the numerous jobs surrounding the existence of a book. There are so many stories which aren't about just digging up treasures in lost temples, and making war against evil overlords, and having sex with pretty girls saved from human sacrifices. Fantasy series where people often overlooked in fantasy - cooks, writers, musician, poets - will have a prominent place and an important role. And what happens?

Some idiots just come in and mock this/insult it, and they typically do what bullies in real-life do when they call someone's interest or passion "geeky" or "nerdy". The two words are never spoken or outright written in their reviews, but when you consider their sentences, their points, their logic, which is "This author has a passion for a specific craft or a specific hobby I do not enjoy/I find boring/I find weird, so this is bad", you actually can hear in their unspoken word the same cries of "Look at this nerd!" or "What a geek!" bullies shouted upon seeing kids enjoy video games, play role-playing games or reading science-fiction books ; talk eagerly about math, or share a love for classical literature, or enjoy computer coding.

This is literaly the same logic, but in a very bizarre way, applied to fantasy reviews and the appreciation of fantasy literature.

I don't know if that's related to specific fandoms and authors fan-base in the fantasy world, or if it is a recurring phenomenon everywhere - but there's clearly a faction of "fantasy readers" and "fantasy fans" you must be aware of, who will complain if something is too "that was done before" and be unhappy if they are given "something that hasn't been done before". They want non-archetypal character, but standard plot-focus ; they want stereotype-breaking worlds, but that the author has the same interests as them ; they want to not see specific tropes they know too well, and yet they refuse to read about stuff they do not know about. They're just infuriating little bugs, who somehow manage to perpetuate within the world of fantasy enjoyers the same behavior little school-bullies had towards fantasy-enjoyers back in the old decades when fantasy "wasn't cool".

In fact, I wonder if this behavior isn't somehow related to the fact that fantasy became much more widespread, normal, recognized and "cool" - meaning the type of idiots who mocked non-usual and deemed-weird subjects got "absorbed" within the fantasy sphere, and simply switched from "Let's not care about fantasy cause it's weird and not real literature" to "Okay, fantasy can be good since everybody is into it, but let's still disdain and reject weird stuff within fantasy".

[blowflyfag]

WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION MAGAZINE : FEBRUARY 1999

DM BLONDE AMBITIONS Is everybody beneath Debra McMichael?

Transcript Below!!!

How many of us are Melrose Place fans? Heather Locklear, one of the stars of the show, portrays Amanda Woodward–the beautiful but dangerous blonde who has schemed and connived her way to the top. Several seasons ago, Amanda purchased the apartment complex Melrose Place and found it an unlimited source of lovers, enemies and potential clients for her advertising business. Amanda is extremely demanding and when anyone crosses her there’s hell to pay. 

Maybe the producers of the series were thinking of Debra McMichael when they created the character of Amanda Woodward. 

A native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Debra grew up with three brothers and a sister in what she calls an average family. Her mother was a nurse and her father worked in a foundry and in her free time the high school cheerleader liked to ride horses on their 10-acre spread. But she dreamed of a career in television and movies. 

“Growing up, my parents were very protective, and they didn’t even want me to become a cheerleader,” Debra revealed on a telephone interview. “But I snuck out and did it anyway, and there wasn’t much they could do about itt. From there, I got involved in beauty pageants because I thought it would be fun to dress up in beautiful gowns.”

Debra went on to become Miss Illinois America and Miss Texas USA. In 1985 while on a Chicago flight Debra met the mother of her future husband, then-Chicago Bears football star Steve McMichael. After meeting on a blind date, the two hit it off and eventually married. It must have been like winning the lottery for the Southern belle. In her own words, their lifestyle was like “the Super Bowl every year.” Money May not buy happiness, but it certainly helped Debra open a few doors. 

The beauty made certain that wherever Steve went, she was a star as well. As a result of their marriage, Debra was featured on ESPN and HBO, numerous sports talk  programs and Oprah Winfrey’s show on two occasions. In addition, Debra appeared in half a dozen television commercials, two of country singing star George Strait’s music videos and landed roles in films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre IV.

“My second appearance on Oprah was the best,” Debra recalls. “The topic was ‘How do you handle your mate being a sex symbol.’ Well, Steve was the NFL star, but I was the one who was the sex symbol on the show.” 

When Steve entered World Championship Wrestling, it wasn’t long before Debra accompanied him. The woman who came from Tuscaloosa with the dream of making it in show business must have fallen in love with the bright lights and the big city. After all, she was turning more heads than her husband. 

In the South is where Debra also first met Jeff Jarrett. Without much hesitation, McMichael quickly cast aside her husband for a successful business relationship with Jarrett. Her marriage to Steve deteriorated and they soon divorced. Debra followed her protege to the World Wrestling Federation within a year. 

After debuting on RAW, McMichael quickly asserted her power. Proving she was adobe the gyrations of Val Venis when she resisted his advances–something other “ladies” would jump at–Debra turned the table and played Val! While the former beauty queen pretended to be interested in him, Venus left himself wide open to an attack by Jarrett. Other women superstars are no threat to Debra either. After Terri Runnels confronted McMichael over what she had done, the business woman simply shrugged it off like a fly. Once McMichael gets a reaction out of someone–male or female–they’re little more than pawns in her game. In the big picture, the beauty knows that all who cross her will have to pay a price down the road. 

Jarrett’s recent battle with Al Snow is another example of how Debra combines intelligence and beauty. After learning that Head had an eye for the ladies–and Debra in particular–McMichael did everything to take advantage of the situation. Soon Head was completely out of the fight, thanks to a shrewd strategy and her provocative attire. Debra knows what men want and using that to her advantage is just one of her many skills. 

McMichael is equally clever in her business dealings. According to sources, proper to signing a contract with the Federation Debra made it clear that she would be the only one controlling her business dealings. Thanks to her connections in both entertainment and business, she seems to have dirt on anyone who dares to challenge her. But one wonders what might happen if this beauty queen ever hinges for more. Would she cast aside Jarrett, like her former husband, to further her own career?

After all, Amanda has no problem deceiving her long-time clients for the prospect of power and wealth on Melrose Place. Why would Debra do Otherwise?

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Debra McMichael debuted alongside long-time client Jeff Jarrett on the October 19 RAW from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During Harrett’s bout with Steve Blackman, Al Snow attempted to attack the former Intercontinental Champion, but McMichael served as a beautiful distraction! With Snow and Head completely out of the fight, Debra’s protege was free to lay Al out with his guitar!

On the November 1 Sunday Night HEAT from Austin, Texas, the former beauty pageant winner turned the tables on Val Venis–feigning interest in the adult film star’s gyrations, but actually leaving him wide open to an attack by Jarrett! When Terri Runnels confronted Debra about her actions, the business woman could not have cared less about what Terri had to say! This beauty uses everyone, male and female, to get what she wants! Debra once again showed her lethal mix of brains and beauty on the November 9 RAW from Dallas, Texas during Al Snow’s match. Originally slated to be Snow vs. Tiger Ali, The rich Indian offered up Babu as Al’s opponent instead! During the bout, McMichael appeared at ringside and held Head in her arms, playing up to “their” interest in  beautiful women. Once again, with Head out of the match, Tiger Ali took advantage of the situation, sneaking back into the ring and scoring the win over the J.O.B. Squad leader.

[seriously-mike]

What Will Destroy AI Image Generation In Two Years?

You are probably deluding yourself that the answer is some miraculous program that will "stop your art from being stolen" or "destroy the plagiarism engines from within". Well...

NOPE.

I can call such an idea stupid, imbecilic, delusional, ignorant, coprolithically idiotic and/or Plain Fucking Dumb. The thing that will destroy image generation, or more precisely, get the generators shut down is simple and really fucking obvious: it's lack of interest.

Tell me: how many articles about "AI art" have you seen in the media in the last two to three months? How many of them actually hyped the thing and weren't covering lawsuits against Midjourney, OpenAI/Microsoft and/or Stability AI? My guess is zilch. Zero. Fuckin' nada. If anything, people are tired of lame, half-assed if not outright insulting pictures posted by the dozen. The hype is dead. Not even the morons from the corner office are buying it. The magical machine that could replace highly-paid artists doesn't exist, and some desperate hucksters are trying to flog topically relevant AI-generated shots on stock image sites at rock-bottom prices in order to wring any money from prospective suckers. This leads us to another thing.

Centralized Models Will Keel Over First

Yes, Midjourney and DALL-E 3 will be seriously hurt by the lack of attention. Come on, rub those two brain cells together: those things are blackboxed, centralized, running on powerful and very expensive hardware that cost a lot to put together and costs a lot to keep running. Sure, Microsoft has a version of DALL-E 3 publicly accessible for free, but the intent is to bilk the schmucks for $20 monthly and sell them access to GPT-4 as well... well, until it turned out that GPT-4 attracts more schmucks than the servers can handle, so there's a waiting list for that one.

Midjourney costs half that, but it doesn't have the additional draw of having an overengineered chatbot still generating a lot of hype itself. That and MJ interface itself is coprolithically idiotic as well - it relies on a third-party program to communicate with the user, as if that even makes sense. Also, despite the improvements, there are still things that Midjourney is just incapable of, as opposed to DALL-E 3 or SDXL. For example, legible text. So right now, they're stuck with storage costs for the sheer number of half-assed images people generated over the last year or so and haven't deleted.

The recent popularity of "Disney memes" made using DALL-E 3 proved that Midjourney is going out of fashion, which should make you happy, and drew the ire of Disney, what with the "brand tarnishing" and everything, which should make you happier. So the schmucks are coming in, but they're not paying and pissing the House of Mouse off. This means what? Yes, costs. With nothing to show for it. Runtime, storage space, the works, and nobody's paying for the privilege of using the tech.

Pissing On The Candle While The House Burns

Yep, that's what you're doing by cheering for bullshit programs like Glaze and Nightshade. Time to dust off both of your brain cells and rub them together, because I have a riddle for you:

An open-source, client-side, decentralized image generator is targeted by software intended to disrupt it. Who profits?

The answer is: the competition. Congratulations, you chucklefucks. Even if those programs aren't a deniable hatchet job funded by Midjourney, Microsoft or Adobe, they indirectly help those corporations. As of now, nobody can prove that either Glaze or Nightshade actually work against the training algorithms of Midjourney and DALL-E 3, which are - surprise surprise! - classified, proprietary, blackboxed and not available to the fucking public, "data scientists" among them. And if they did work, you'd witness a massive gavel brought down on the whole project, DMCA and similar corporation-protecting copygrift bullshit like accusations of reverse-engineering classified and proprietary software included. Just SLAM! and no Glaze, no Nightshade, no nothing. Keep the lawsuit going until the "data scientists" go broke or give up.

Yep, keep rubbing those brain cells together, I'm not done yet. Stable Diffusion can be run on your own computer, without internet access, as long as you have a data model. You don't need a data center, you don't need a server stack with industrial crypto mining hardware installed, a four-year-old gaming computer will do. You don't pay any fees either. And that's what the corporations who have to pay for their permanently besieged high-cost hardware don't like.

And the data models? You can download them for free. Even if the publicly available websites hosting them go under for some reason, you'll probably be able to torrent them or download them from Mega. You don't need to pay for that either, much to the corporations' dismay.

Also, in case you didn't notice, there's one more problem with the generators scraping everything off the Internet willy-nilly:

AI Is Eating Its Own Shit

You probably heard about "data pollution", or the data models coming apart because if they're even partially trained on previously AI-generated images, the background noise they were created from is fucking with the internal workings of the image generators. This is also true of text models, as someone already noticed by having two instances of ChatGPT talk to each other, they devolve into incomprehensible babble. Of course that incident was first met with FUD on one side and joy on the other, because "OMG AI created their own language!" - nope, dementia. Same goes for already-generated images used to train new models: the semantic segmentation subroutines see stuff that is not recognized by humans and even when inspected and having the description supposedly corrected, that noise gets in the way and fucks up the outcome. See? No need to throw another spanner into the machine, because AI does that fine all by itself (as long as it's run by complete morons).

But wait, there's another argument why those bullshit programs are pointless:

They Already Stole Everything

Do you really think someone's gonna steal your new mediocre drawing of a furry gang bang that you probably traced from vintage porno mag scans? They won't, and they don't need to.

For the last several months, even the basement nerds that keep Stable Diffusion going are merely crossbreeding the old data models, because it's faster. How much data are Midjourney and OpenAI sitting on? I don't exactly know, but my very scientific guess is, a shitload, and they nicked it all a year or two ago anyway.

The amount of raw data means jack shit in relation to how well the generator works. Hell, if you saw the monstrosities spewed forth by StabilityAI LAION default models for Stable Diffusion, that's the best proof: basement nerds had to cut down on the amount of data included in their models, sort the images, edit the automatically generated descriptions to be more precise and/or correct in the first place and introduce some stylistic coherence so the whole thing doesn't go off the rails.

And that doesn't change the fact that the development methodology behind the whole thing, proprietary or open-source, is still "make a large enough hammer". It's brute force and will be until it stops being financially viable. When will it stop being financially viable? When people get bored of getting the same kind of repetitive pedestrian shit over and over. And that means soon. Get real for a moment: the data models contain da Vinci, Rembrandt, van Gogh, and that means jack shit. Any concept you ask for will be technically correct at best, but hardly coherent or well thought-out. You'll get pablum. Sanitized if you're using the centralized corporate models, maybe a little more horny if you're running Stable Diffusion with something trained on porn. But whatever falls out of the machine can't compete with art, for reasons.

[parkminijiminie]

hi thank you for being open to discussion and not shutting it down immediately simply because it might go against what we all hoped to be real. i appreciate that a lot. i hope i'm allowed to add my two cents?

i think the video is real, i think it is jk and i think that the woman is someone he dated or at least hooked up with. i'm ignoring all the stories that come out with the videos and pictures simply because the chinese op is a butthurt fan and mad that jk is not behaving like they want to. so their stories could very well a try to make more out of what we're seeing. plus their stories are inconsistent.

so yes, i think it's him and this woman was possibly his girlfriend. i'm saying was because i think they broke up by now. i also think that jikook were more than friends for years. i even think they were a couple. up until april 2022 imho. why i think so? i don't think i need to explain why i think they were a couple. you're not giving your bestie a hickey, i'm sorry. you simply don't. but i think that after they returned from las vegas in april 2022, the last time we actually saw them sharing a car, things somehow changed. we didn't see them as much together in official content or in private as before, they barely talked about each other, jk didn't even know where jm's 7 tattoo was, or at least pretended to not know. in the following months jk got closer to th, jm was not seen at all (because he was working on his album) and even in the first few lives jk did in 2023 jm was barely mentioned by him. for example when he played vibe in his live he looked like he didn't really want to.

it took a while but something with jk changed after a while though. he talked about jm more and made it very clear that he wanted to see him, always inviting him over, watching jm's content, commenting on his live and so on. he clearly wanted jm to be a part of his life again which i think jm wasn't at that point. jm on the other hand was more hesitant. whenever he spoke about jk it was only to tell us that he didn't see him. no matter how much jk clearly wanted to. the whole dynamic between them seemed extremely weird. just a few years back jm happily talked about jk a lot and now he was avoiding the jk topic like it could burn him. i think the only time in these days i saw jm more relaxed when it came to jk was when he played euphoria over and over again on one of his lives. maybe he was a bit nostalgic and actually missing what he and jk had?

anyways something else changed recently. first jm coming to the airport with a big dog scratch on his arm, then jm actually flying out to ny to support jk, them clearly having a great time in ny and ct, jm suddenly posting about jk's number 1, the extremely flirty bed vlive with jm saying he can handle a naked jk, jk still mentioning jm a lot, jm posting that picture for jk's birthday, jm starting to like jk related things again, jm and jk very likely spending chuseok with each other in busan and jm even posting the doodle they both did together. this vibe is a complete different one now again. we'll have to see if it sticks or if it's just a short high. but it's interesting nonetheless.

all of the above just makes me think they were something but broke it off mid 2022. i don't understand why people say that they couldn't have broken up because they wouldn't have still interacted with each other. what people don't understand is interacting with each other is part of their job. and both jm and jk are professionals. so even if feelings were hurt or it was a bit awkward, they would still do their jobs. and imo we could very well see how they were pretty awkward with each other during the busan concert and the live afterwards. it seems like they didn't really know how to interact with each other. like jm being jealous because of the whole marry me jk and jk not knowing what to say? their behaviour definitely didn't scream couple. and it fits with the timeline of the video with jk and that woman. that apparently was taken on february 15th 2023. them going through a break up would explain so much of their behaviour towards each other. you don't go from being attached at the hip to barely talking to each other in the blink of an eye without something happening.

they're better now. maybe they're more comfortable now in their roles as just friends. maybe they're starting to reconcile. i don't know. but they're clearly more ok with having each other in their lives again. we'll see if the leaked stuff will somehow affect them. but yeah. long story short, i think jikook were a couple, broke up mid 2022, put distance between each other, maybe dated other people (saeon is highly suspicious) and started to get closer again towards mid 2023. my opinion. sorry for the long message. hehe.

Anon, your timeline makes perfect sense to me and actually, pretty much is the same as mine. I tried to remember when was the last time Jikook shared a car and I couldn't, so thank you for reminding me. It makes perfect sense that it was in the first half of 2022.

I think they broke up in 2022 as well, and are still that way or have recently reconciled. JK's message to JM for his bday in 2022 was a giveaway for it too. Eventhough they have seen each other so much in the previous days, preparing for the upcoming concert, he didn't share a picture of them or even of just Jimin. Instead he did tha hotel thirst video. Why was that? Why didn't he share anything more personal. Was it because it would be awkward to share old pics because they didn't have any recent ones? The bday vid was screaming awkward but also "look at me being hot bro" kind of like a reminder to an ex or a subtle "hey, do you still think about me like that?".

I'd assume JK wasn't in a relationship with someone else then because that video would be very rude to them, but maybe later in the year he started hooking-up/ dating someone, hence the growing distance nd the video. If that someone was one of Tae's friends or someone Tae introduced to JK, then maybe, just maybe this is why Tae and JM have been distant this whole year.

JKs lives mentioning JM do give me some serious "desperately missing someone who isn't in your life much now and longing for them them to notice you" kind of vibes. JKs whole face lit up like a Christmas tree whenever JM commented, like this was smth he really liked and wanted. Maybe he wanted to catch Jimin's attention and mentioning him and reacting to him was a sure way for him to do it, if they were not in each other's lives much. It is true that it was JK who always invited JM with the biggest smile on his, yet JM always refused. He cared for him, evidently by his comments, but he didn't actually went to meet him (as far as we know). All of their interactions at the time seemed to happen online and none offline, bar for JK visiting JM during his practice.

Until Jimin showed up at the airport with those scratches and from then on, things kinds of shifted. At least to me. All the things you mentioned, I've noticed and felt them too. They for sure are (or were upto this scandal) in a better place now than they were in the first half of the year.

Maybe JM also has a partner now and both have moved on? Maybe as you say they've grown into the roles of being just friends? (But then what was up with that shurtless flirty vlive?). Friends who flirt with each other? Maybe they have smth more going on again? Smth is definitely different but Idk what.

Their behavior in light of this whole scandal would be the deciding factor for me. If JM withdraws again and no big gesture comes from either of their side, then it's clear. If there ever was anything romantic between them, it's not going on anymore. Also, JK said he had schedules on JM's bday so most probably they wont be spending it together. If he doesn't post anything special or they don't interact around that time, that's a sign for me too. Because if JK truly wanted to be with JM now , this would be the perfect opportunity for him to shut down any rumours and speculations and make a statement to JM and the world. Not doing anything, should be a clear loud statement to us where they stand as of now.

[mesoamericanhistoryinfodumps]

Introducing literature on Aztec/Nahua Philosophy

It's been a while, but I've just gotten back into reading up on Aztec philosophy! I realized it would be great to eventually do a literature overview of all the books currently written about this topic. As such, I wanted to give an overview of where to look if you are interested in this topic.

In general I think it's fair to say that Aztec/Nahua philosophy has been an under-researched topic. Recently there's been a lot more written about it, but it's still a fairly new topic and there is a lot of potential for interesting discussions and interpretations.

Ancient Greek philosophy at least has the advantage of being easily accessible in written format. But how does one go about re-constructing an entire philosophy when most written sources have been destroyed? Here are some different approaches to this question:

(Mis)translations and interpolations: many of the surviving written sources that tell us about the Aztec worldview were written down or translated by Spanish priests using latin script, meaning they are full of outside observations or biased translations of Aztec concepts leading to misunderstandings and loss of important nuances ('moral transgression' is translated to 'sin', for example, which has very different connotations) . In addition, these texts often contain tacked-on Christian imagery where earlier oral traditions probably did not contain them. When trying to reconstruct how your typical Aztec citizen would have understood the world this makes it challenging to separate out the beliefs that the Spanish wanted to impose on the Aztecs from what they themselves actually may have believed in. A lot of books on Aztec philosophy still make good use of these sources, but as a reader it can be good to be aware of how the author chooses to handle these Spanish translations and interpolations. Sebastian Purcell discusses this issue at length in the introduction of his book Discourses of the Elders.

2. The Nahuatl language itself: Even if sources written in latin script frequently (though not always) contain Spanish influences, they also provide a wealth of extremely valuable linguistic information. Many texts from around the time of colonisation are written in Nahuatl using latin script, which allows us to look at how Aztec philosophical concepts were expressed in their own language. Although the idea that language limits what we goes too far, many authors writing about Aztec philosophy do argue that the Nahuatl language at least has an influence on, or is influenced by common patterns of thought in Aztec culture. For example, we can look at spatial metaphors, figures of speech, or grammatical features of the language that imply something about the ontology of the world. Linguistic information provides clues about how speakers tend to think about time and space, which is crucial given the centrality of the calendar and cardinal directions in Aztec culture. In addition, difrasismo - phrases made of two parts, such as 'the stick, the stone' meaning the consequences of one's actions - offer a useful starting point for discussing Aztec philosophical concepts. The Nahuatl language itself is still spoken by around 1.7 million, which makes it easier to do linguistic research.

3. Archaeology and art history: Aztec codexes, whether they contain Spanish interpolations or not, contain a wealth of visual information that provides clues about their philosophy. These depict religious festivals, life cycle events, the calendar, maps, the cosmos, and much more. These provide crucial information on how Aztecs understood time and space and how their lives should be lived. In general, many of the books written about Aztec philosophy heavily rely on this type of information. The advantage of these sources is that Aztec imagery is quite abundant and systematic. However, it is not always clear how it should be interpreted. Most books addressing the topic of Aztec philosophy make at least some use of this type of historical evidence.

4. Modern day practices: Although Aztec state religious festivals are no longer practiced, a lot of other practices have survived, such as traditional folk healing. Practitioners still make use of traditional calendars and their beliefs show very strong similarities to pre-hispanic beliefs implied by codexes and archaeological sources. As such, there is enough potential overlap between the modern day and the past that interviewing indigenous people living in Mexico today is an important resources for understanding the beliefs of the past. There is also quite a bit of interest in re-discovering these beliefs. Potential pitfalls of making use of these interviews however, is that there is no one-to-one correspondence. Also, there is reason to think that modern-day practices developed out of particular types of religious activity. Modern folk healing derives from older folk healing traditions, while state religious cults have left far fewer traces in modern day practices. As such, interviews provide only partial evidence of what the Aztecs would have believed. An example of a book that makes use of this type of source is Sorcery in Mesoamerica (Coltman Pohl).

5. System-making: Some of the authors writing on the topic are philosophers by trade (e.g. Sebastian Purcell and James Maffie). The advantage is that they can suggest various philosophical concepts that match Aztec ones and argue for which ones match them most closely. E.g. were Aztecs pantheists, agnostics, panentheistic, polytheists as we would understand these concepts today? What kind of ontology did they believe in? These books are written in a style where a suggestion is made - for example that Aztec religion was pantheistic and dualistic - and the author then defends why this suggestion is most cohesive and aligns best with the available evidence. The advantage is that by comparing Aztec historical evidence to influential modern philosophical beliefs it becomes easier to get an instinctive feel for what an Aztec worldview would have been like. The disadvantage is that the field of philosophy in itself is very Eurocentric which means that Aztec philosophy is inevitably framed in terms of being 'similar/different' to modern western philosophical concepts. An example of this type of writing is James Maffie's Aztec Philosophy, and Aztec Thought and Culture by Miguel Leon-Portilla.

Recommended reading list:

Discourses of the Elders (Sebastian Purcell): ethics, aesthetics, life advice given by elders to younger family members, written sources

Aztec Philosophy (James Maffie): ontology, ethics, aesthetics, community values, the role of sacrifice and sustaining the world

Aztec Thought and Culture (Miguel Leon-Portilla)

Sorcery in Mesoamerica (Coltman Pohl)

Bonds of Blood (Caroline Dodds Pennock):

Sacred Consumption (Elizabeth Móran)

The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (Mary Miller and Karl Taube)

The Measure and Meaning of Time (Anthony F. Aveni)

Happy reading!

[sneakysnekbetch]

My two cents:

Dark topics absolutely have a place in media, but they have to be handled with EXTREME CARE or else they will only cause more harm.

A recent example I’ve seen of a dark topic being handled was in season 2 of Andor, TW for mentions of SA

One of the main characters, Bix, was attacked by an imperial guard with his intention being to force himself on her. She’s able to fight him off and kill him.

I think the scene was handled very well. They played it straight, building up the uncomfortable feeling and making Bix’s fight back very realistic.

The whole thing felt REAL. And that made it scary, tense, but a huge triumph to see her end that fucking scum. They left NO ROOM for the situation to be misinterpreted as glorifying SA, they made sure it was as horrific as it is when it happened in real life.

Back to sn0w, and her attempts at covering dark topics being misinterpreted as being fetish work. Obviously you can’t control how people interpret your artwork, but that fact that there are SO MANY people seeing it that way with art piece after art piece is concerning.

Once is an accident.

Twice is a coincidence.

Thrice is a pattern.

But over and over and OVER again? Maybe you should reconsider how you’re portraying the subjects of your work.

Important

All right, here I go… The past few most the case of @tiredsn0w @tiredsn0w-extrablu has become popular and not for good reasons, this person has been accused of grooming and pedophilia, I will clarify, I have never heard of this woman before this problem, but is serious, so, I decide to investigate and before trying to send something offensive against her I firstly tried to talk

I take a look around in her profile and something I can indeed say, her art can be misunderstanding  SO easily, she said “I’m not really responsible how others see my art” and in a way, that is true, but THAT is not the main problem here

“And, even if someone younger did find my works - kids get abused, kids are disabled, kids are mentally ill, kids self-harm, kids have thoughts of suicide” with this message you prove me that indeed you don’t care if kids actually watch your art and here come the main problem, you SHOULD CARE IF THEY FIND IT, why? Because, yes, you are right, kids with problems exist, but not all the kids, and definitely this is not the place, nor the way to treat such themes, time have prove me this next point, your art is found to be sexual, or easy to fetishy EVEN IF YOU DON’T WANT TO, and, if adults are getting it wrong, how much kids?

I showed some of her drawings to people not aware of this situation and not giving any contex and in conclusion their comments can resume in, feeling uncomfortable or find it kinky, why for me was important to show them with no context? Easy, MOST of the people trend to just scroll and like when the main thing is art, and just THE INTERESTED people will actually click for the context, out of that, people will NOT CARE for it   For the second and fourth drawing you are literally admitting that the whole intention is to show he is been objectify, and you have to give me a whole context in order to I didn’t get it even more wrong

First you try to justify that your character is small because he has dwarfism, I was like “okay, maybe you don’t know how to draw them and that’s why you made him looks so childlike even when you can easily look when a dwarf is a kid or an adult, so I tried to remark that and just until then you change your argument  explaining me that “no he has a very specific kind of dwarfism of little person”  which first, is not the scientific name of the syndrome, second makes the person who suffers from it LOOKS AS A CHILD So yeah, is a real condition but with this you just recognize your character INTENTIONALY LOOK AS A CHILD

And no, if you are not giving well the context that is not “education” that is morbid, you also said  SCP universe is not mean for kids, so that lead us to the beginning, scp is not meant for kids, NEITHER YOUR ART With all this I’m not asking you to stop drawing or posting your art, but just as SCP literally has it’s own page PRECISELY to avoid kids to reach it so easily, you should post your art in a different place, not in a platform where THERE’S PEOPLE OF 13 YEARS ALLOWED AND EVEN DARED TO PRETEND IS GOOD IF THEY LOOK AT IT Is like put a filter to it, just as SCP, this things aren’t mean for kids, and because of that they have a WARNING, and of course some kids will not care of it and see it anyways, and that is because of a bad care and not because the page is allowing it again, you are free to draw and post whatever you want BUT BE RESPONSIBLE OF THE PLACES YOU DO IT    

For last this are my conclusions:

Just because you “didn’t intend” of your drawings to be sexualized will not take away the fact IT ARE SEXUALICED AND FETISHIED SCP 6118 design IS INTENTIONALLY child looking which make him shota bait, “but that wasn’t my intention” SHUT UP! Hell is full of well-intended people, you didn’t mean BUT IT IS   If at any point you believe is okay to show this to a kid, to justify your actions saying that is “educational” that you are trying to give “visibility” IT IS WRONG  and if you are not capable to accept it and  CHANGE IT, then yes, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM and minimize sexual and suggestive situations to a kid indeed MAKES YOU A GROOMER Also, if anyone is thinking I'm taking out of context the conversation, no, is literally all

[nekropsii]

Since I've been thinking about this recently, what do you think it would have been like if kankri (and by extension the rest of the alpha trolls) had grown up on modern alternia? (Obviously we know what it was like for them to grow up in primitive(?) Alternia, but tbh the ancestors never really felt all that connected to the dancestors and I'm pretty sure the connection was an afterthought)

Interesting question! I’ll be largely focusing on Kankri here, since he’s the crux of the question. Putting this under the cut for its length.

T L;DR: Completely, utterly, irrecognizably different.

Content Warning: Mentions of Ableism, Classism, and Eugenics.

The social and political functions of Alternia, versus those of Beforus, is an interesting beast to study and speculate upon. It’s not one I see get acknowledged as frequently as I’d, personally, enjoy to see, and oftentimes when it is, it’s a fleeting one. Heavily watered down statements are made either in lack of understanding or for sake of brevity.

The first thing we need to address is this: Beforus is not a kind society.

Beforus isn’t a “nicer Alternia,” not by any means- that’s a misconception that I feel plagues analytical work surrounding the topic of the Beforans, and why they behave the way they do. The biggest change we need to keep in mind is the differences in Alternia’s definition of Culling, versus that of Beforus’s.

Culling, on Alternia, is defined by the legal killing those deemed undesirable for any reason. It is, to put it incredibly briefly, a form of violent eugenics. A prime example would be the murdering of mutantbloods- something touched upon rather heavily in Homestuck proper, due to it being the main source of Karkat’s natural state of hypervigilance. This definition, interestingly, is very much so marked by the classpect of their planet’s matriarchal dictator- Her Imperious Condescension, Thief of Life.

Culling, on Beforus, is defined by, essentially, the aggressive over-coddling of those deemed unfit to care for themselves for any reason. It’s steeped in a self-fallatingly progressive form of ableism and classism, and the parallels to how disabled people- especially autistics and the physically disabled- are “handled” in real life by people often claiming to be passionate allies are jarring.

Highbloods- rather than openly asserting their superiority by just straight up killing you, or doing the verbal equivalent of spitting in your eyes for being lesser- take on the roles of helicopter parents. They assume, automatically, that since they are highbloods and, say, people like Kankri- a mutant limeblood- aren’t, that they, by virtue of being a highblood, know better than the person they’ve deemed lesser than them do on matters of the self; On what they want, and what they need, and vigorously infantilize them at every step and turn. This is, interestingly, marked by the classpect of their matriarchal ruler- Feferi Peixes, Witch of Life.

These are two vastly different systems. They’re vastly different societies, and they function under vastly different social rules. I stated in a previous essay that a primary difference between the socialization of Beforan trolls versus that of Alternian trolls is a matter of Honest Eusociality vs. Dishonest Solitude.

Trolls are Eusocial Insects, and Beforan + Alternian trolls are not different species- they’re the same exact thing, except Beforus is honest about the Eusociality of their species, while Alternia beats it out of them and forces them into behaving like a Solitary species. It’s an important clarification to make here.

Kankri is used to the Honest Eusociality of Beforus, as well as it’s definition of Culling. While he does hold a significant amount of disdain for people assuming the role of a helicopter parent around him, it’s what he’s used to, what he grew up around, and it deeply affects him as a person. It affects his interactions with people, politics, and his environment. It’s why he’s so socially clueless, why he’s so comfortable sporting his blood color, and why he’s so blind to real world issues.

It’s because he can afford to do all these things, and be all these things.

He wouldn’t have this luxury on Alternia. As I said, this is a Eusocial species forced to behave as Solitary insects. It’s a violent society. Bloodshed is routine, death is expected, mourning is an abnormality. Friend is the same word as enemy, and love is the same word as pity. Kindness is whipped out of you. If you don’t fit the mold, you’re hunted for sport.

Kankri would have zero room for casual pride in his blood color. It would get him literally killed. He wouldn’t be capable of his trademark level of social unawareness. It would get him killed. He’d be granted with Karkat’s hypervigilance and paranoia by virtue of existing as flawed in a brutally cruel environment. He’d be hemoanonymous for sure. That much is unavoidable.

And he’s not going to be a modern rendition of The Signless- the key component to the equation to who The Signless is, and why he does what he does is not just an innate heroic nature. The Signless was the was he was because of the familial love and mercy of The Dolorosa amongst the extreme brutality of the rest of the world. The Dolorosa was his starting point. Modern Alternian Kankri would not have that.

Yes, Porrim would still be there in this scenario- but assuming the same set-up as the Beta/Alpha trolls is taking place, where they’re all the same age, it wouldn’t be the same as raising him. It’s not a replication of motherhood in a society where that form of love had never existed before, it’s just a mom friend.

As for how I think his traits would change… This is far less analytical, and more so just opinions.

He’d still be a bootlicker, though this time his efforts towards having good relationships with highbloods is an act of self preservation.

Still wordy, just less up his own ass; probably better at detecting when to stop, due to the climate.

Anxious. This is unavoidable.

Perhaps his online brain rot is a result of some form of agoraphobia- Leaving the house is dangerous. The home is a perfect safe place. Why bother going out?

Would definitely have gotten culled Alternia-style if it weren’t for the session.

Though, I must admit… I’m not the best at thoroughly envisioning concepts of “What if (X Character) was Alternian,” Alternian lore is not my expertise… I picked my niche and gunned for it hard. I’m the Beforan lore guy, lol.

At the very least, I do hope this did something for you… It really just turned into me comparing Alternian and Beforan societies, but I feel like making those comparisons helps make an outline for others to build their own concepts off of. That’s a much more nice and exciting concept for me than just plainly saying my opinion on it!

(… Plus… Brain full of Earth-C edition Alpha Trolls. Hehe.)

[tommeraas-cc]

A warning about high polycount custom content - for downloaders and creators

I don't claim to be an expert on custom content, but I've been making CC for nearly 4 years now and I think I've learned a thing or two about how to spot custom content that might not be best for your computer/game. I only recently got a computer that can handle some of the CC out there, so I wanted to make a guide on how to spot CC that might not be right for you if you want fast loading times, minimal overheating, or your computer isn't as powerful. This guide will mostly be about clothing, but I'm sure most of these things can be applied to other types of CC.

Disclaimer: Absolutely no hate to anyone who makes CC that is high polycount -- I am guilty of doing this without disclosing it earlier in my CC making journey. We are all learning and improving every day and we all have different preferences for our own CC making which is the fun part of this community :) If you are a CC creator who needs help avoiding high polycount please message me and I would 100% be willing to you help you 

High polycounts 

3D content is made up of vertices that connect to each other to create a 3D model that can be molded into different shapes (the small segments that make up these larger shapes are called polygons). The more little dots you have, the more detailed the item can be. However, there are ways to include detail without using a high number of these vertices and polygons, it just takes time and practice.

Why should I be wary of downloading CC with a high polycount? 

There is a reason that clothing made by EA/Maxis has a limit to the number of polygons they can use in their meshes. If an item of CC has too high of a polycount, it could drastically slow down your game, overheat your computer, cause your game to crash, or even permanently damage the hardware of your computer. Of course, there are different tolerances for high polycounts based on the specs of your computer, so be aware of this before downloading. If your computer cannot run smoothly on the ultra graphics setting without CC installed, you should probably be proactive about the kind of CC you download to avoid these issues. 

However, even those with high end computers can run into issues when trying to play with a lot of this kind of CC, so it is up to the individual player to decide what they want for their game. I permanently damaged my last computer by busting a fan due to graphics rendering in the Sims 4. Please do not make the same (very expensive) mistakes I have.

The case for high polycounts:

There are certain clothing items that would not be possible to model in the sims without a high polycount. The creators who make these very detailed meshes are super talented and have my utmost respect, but my old computer just couldn’t handle them! My rule of thumb for my own personal game is that if I’m going to download something with a crazy high poly count, it better be something special. In my opinion, there’s no reason a simple tank top should be 3x the polycount of an average EA mesh. A handful of high polycount items aren’t going to crash your game (probably-- know your own computer’s limits), but considering most people will download many items from the same creator, the collection of all of those items may cause issues.

CC creators make their meshes for fun and creativity, and many don’t create for the express purpose of having many people use a bunch of their meshes in their games at once. It’s totally fine to make high polycount custom content, but if you’re a CC creator it would be respectful to people who download your items and support you to be warned of these possible issues (especially if they are paying for them!!!). Most CC creators have high-end computers, but downloaders might not, which is something to keep in mind :)

How high is too high?

This is honestly a personal preference. For me, anything with more than double the average polycount is “unacceptable without disclosing” and must include a disclaimer when I post it. For toddler full body outfits, which is what I normally make, I would consider this to be around 10-12K as the max acceptable polycount to post without a disclaimer. This number varies based on the type of CC, with adult polycounts being higher usually (given that items are quite literally larger than toddler items). For adult full-body outfits, I try to stay under 15K, and anything over 20k I would consider needing a disclaimer. But, again, this is up for personal debate, and there are a lot of factors that go into this. I am just basing this information on EA’s limits and my personal experience from playing this game on lower end computers.

How to spot high poly-count CC 

So, you’ve decided that for your personal game, you want to avoid high polycount CC. Unfortunately, many creators do not disclose when their CC has an high polycount, so it’s up to you to figure out which is which.

Before you download the item: for clothing, the easiest way to spot high polycount CC from preview photos is to look for folding in the fabrics. I don't have a high polycount CC of my own that is completed to show you, and I don’t want to put another creators CC here out of respect, so here is an example of an unfinished mesh that can get the point across. 

As you can see, the folds in the sleeves look like they are mostly physically present, and that the folds aren't a result of the texture. This often results in sort of a "bumpy" look to the CC. If you're seeing clothing that has this tell-tale bumpy look with many folds that you can tell are 3-dimensional, you should probably avoid this CC (if you have decided to avoid high polycount CC). A small amount of bumps is normal but as you can tell by this skirt it's a little more extreme. 

Below you can see the low polycount version of this cc item where the folds look much smoother and are not as 3 dimensional. I added details like the folds in the sweater and at the top of the skirt with textures and mapping rather than a high polycounts as you might be able to tell by the fact that there are smooth edges rather than 3D folds. I have a small section of ruffles on the sleeves that have maintained a higher polycount which you can see by the physical ruffles. Details like this are impossible to do with just textures.

There are many CC creators much more talented than I that are very good at using texture images to give off the illusion of detail without high polycounts. Look at the edges of the item where folds appear and if there’s a smooth line there, the creator might be using textures and mapping to give the illusion of folding!

After you download the item: Of course, you can always download Sims4Studio, the program CC creators use to import their meshes into the sims format, to check polycounts. If you open CC in this program and click the meshes tab, the polycount will be displayed here. I only do this for items that I think might be insane polycounts (like 100k+ or something ridiculous for clothing, which is about ten times higher than I would recommend) that might crash my game, otherwise, I usually just go by how the item looks in the previews with the tips I just told you.

There are some CC items that are pretty much guaranteed to have high polycounts. The vast majority of alpha hair will have high polycounts -- this is unavoidable and does not mean the CC is not high quality, it is just a necessity for that kind of CC. Just be aware that having many alpha CC hairs in your game might cause slowdown/overheating. 

I am a CC creator who wants to start making lower polycount stuff that still has detail. How do I get started?

I started figuring out how to do detail via textures and normal mapping about two years ago. The main resource that helped me was this fantastic tutorial by SLYD. The main thing you need for this method is a lowpoly AND highpoly version of your mesh. It takes more time to do this versus making a highpoly mesh but I think the payoff is worth it to make good quality cc that everyone can enjoy :) (Also, another benefit is you won’t have to spend so long waiting for sims4studio to import your mesh) If you would like some tips on how to do this or have questions from that tutorial feel free to message me anytime! I also have a discord server where you can get help with CC making. Again, I am not the best expert around but I might know enough to help you.

Here is another discussion on this topic that I think is a really good read if you are interested :)

TL;DR if you’re a creator who makes high polycount stuff, please put a disclaimer on your downloads. If you’re a downloader, be aware of what your own personal game and computer can handle.

[autisticmagicalgirls]

Hey I'm still alive, just have been having a lotta mental and physical health stuff going on. I did finally decide on some names for the characters, though! As well as a bit of personalities!

---

The wand user is named Ethel Hart. Xe works very hard at school, and xir biggest fear is being seen as a failure. Xe works a bit too hard to avoid that, which may eventually cause burnout. Xe doesn't have a special interest, but rather, cycles through sort-term hyperfixations on various nonfiction topics to read about. As such, if xir memory is functioning right, xe has approximate knowledge of several things. Buuuut xe has an issue of getting facts mixed up in xir head sometimes due to swapping interests so often.

For example, xe can tell you some fun facts about spiders if you encounter one, buuuut xe might forget which ones are poisonous. Perhaps the three are fighting a snake monster. Are its bites poisonous? Was it round or diamond heads that have pois- whoops too late, Chrissy got bit. Guess Ethel'll find out which it was soon enough.

Xe lives in a college dorm as xe desperately tries to figure out what xe wants to major in for xir bachelor's degree. There's so many choices! There's so much stuff to learn! Deciding on just one stresses xir out.

-----

Bear arms/hands user is Christina "Chrissy" Robinson. She is mute, and uses an AAC device to communicate with others. She does know sign language, but only really uses it at home when she doesn't have her AAC with her, such as if it's dead or she left it on the couch when going to grab some food.

She lives with her sister, Pauline (Polly), who acts as her caregiver and helps her out whereever she can. Their mom is a doctor, and isn't home a lot. She pays Polly to help care for Chrissy since Chrissy has trouble with certain things. The two girls have only recently moved to town to be closer to their mom's workplace.

I'm thinking I might have Chrissy's dyspraxia be rough. Like... She has difficulty balancing when going up and down steps, trouble gripping small objects like forks and pencils and such, and she tends to either drop things or grasp them too hard. She also tends to fall a lot, if not careful.

I'm flip flopping between weather or not she minds eye contact, but anyway,

Due to her dyspraxia she has difficulty doing certain things like cooking, cleaning, bathing, and other things. Her sister helps her as needed, and Chrissy also has some devices and tools that help her out. For example, a spoon with a thick handle that's easier for her to grasp, with a mechanism to help itself stay balanced even if her hand goes shakey. I'm not sure what else though! If anyone has ideas, let me know. Perhaps a cane would be helpful? Idk. My dyspraxia isn't that severe, so I'd like to hear some from those who struggle with it more than me!

As for Christina's personality, she's sarcastic, blunt, and she's a bit abrasive when it comes to interacting with new people. She doesn't trust easily. Growing up she was bullied a lot and had some friends betray her trust, so now she's a bit standoffish with new people as a sort of defense mechanism. Friends can't betray you if you have none, right? People can't attack your insecurities if you hide them behind enough false confidence, right?

She read the words "fake it til you make it" and she FELT that shit. In junior year of high school, she started closing herself off, whilst putting on a show of false confidence. She began insulting people back when they made fun of her, and eventually they seemed to shut up and stop bothering her. So that's been her strategy for the last few years.

As such, she might be a bit of an asshole at the start. It'll take some work for her to open up to working with the other two. Knowing her she'd probably try to go it alone several times and get her ass kicked hard a few times before begrudgingly admitting she needs their help.

Maybe as she befriends them and slowly lets them into her heart, she'll realize that not everyone will betray her and that she can trust people again.

I'd say her biggest fear is being all alone. As much as she intentionally tries to drive people away so that they can't hurt her, she's also fucking terrified of being fully alone. She wants people to love and trust, but she feels like it could just lead to more pain. And yet... She doesn't want to be alone.

As for Zaps, I'm still working on her personality and her whole name, but I'm thinking she'll try out "Hannah" first

[thethermocline]

TW: DISCUSSION OF CHILD ABUSE

@ fiction writers: pst. Little children do not walk up to strange adults and say "hey I'm being abused. :'( Here are three concrete examples of what's going on. Also, behold my underfed frame and bruises (one of which is in the shape of a hand)."

Abuse and how it affects behavior in children is, of course, a very complex topic. But here are some tips for writers that may be helpful. This is based on my training as a caretaker, experience caring for children ages 0-4, and close friendships with several adult survivors.

Firstly, even once a person knows and accepts that they were abused as a kid, they won't automatically realize how deep it went and all the ways it manifested. When you're friends with survivors of abuse, they will tell you light-hearted anecdotes without realizing that they are revealing another facet of abuse. For example, a friend of mine recently had to be told, 10 years after the fact, that the way her parents failed to handle her need for glasses was, in fact, neglect. She's known for years that she had been abused, but all the medical issues that arose in her childhood and then went unresolved never occurred to her as being another form of that abuse. Which leads into...

1. They probably don't know they're being abused while it's happening. Children come into this world with no frame of reference. They take their clues from those around them; and if those people abuse them, well, that's just how the world is then. Think of older people being like, "well MY parents whipped me with a belt and I turned out fine!!!!" I would argue that they are not fine, and hitting children with belts is abuse. But when they were kids, that's Just How It Was; years later, they still believe that it was their own fault for getting hit. Even if a child realizes that Something Is Wrong, they may struggle to pin down exactly what, and then further struggle to articulate it.

2. Please stop with the hand-shaped bruise trope. Also the black eye trope. It is rare for bruises to be so definite, and promoting this narrow idea of what "real abuse" looks like can make it harder for victims to get help. Generally, if an abuser beats you, they're not going to go for the face or anywhere else easily seen.

Take the case of a two year old child who had four or five small bruises on the inner thigh. Consider: the bruises were not arranged neatly in the exact shape of a hand. But: how many benign ways can a two year old get bruises like that on the upper inner thigh? Also relevant: this child was known to display erratic behavior and a marked and persistent reluctance to go to bed. The evidence for abuse, therefore, is circumstantial. However: if someone messes their kid up in an obvious, provable way, they are probably not then gonna send them to hang out with trained mandatory reporters.

Just like my neighbor who abandoned a cat and then lied about it because she knew what she did was illegal in our area, people do not want to get in trouble. (Do not worry, I took the cat and got him safely to a shelter. Last i heard he's doing well and is "highly adoptable," the sweetheart.) Keep this in mind while you write: abusers will take steps to keep from being detected and stopped.

Let go of the idea that abuse is always unambiguously evident and only present when it reaches an arbitrary "bad enough" threshold. Did you know that if a baby isn't held enough, it can develop a flat spot on the back of the head? Signs of abuse and neglect can be subtle.

3. A small child whose pain has always been received with apathy from adults has no particular reason to suppose that an adult they've not met before would act any differently. Kids take a long time to establish trust with adults. A benign example of this; I once looked after a sweet little girl from age 2 to 3. Her siblings told me that she was outgoing and effusive at home, but with us she was quiet and shy. It took six months for her to start talking, and even then only around me and a specific coworker (we were the ones most reliably taking care of her, as opposed to floaters who came and went). Most kids aren't quite that shy, but it's not necessarily unusual either! An outgoing, friendly child will come right up to a stranger and start interacting. But if they are shy or abused, it is far less likely. If you want your abused child character to latch on to your protagonist, you have to ask yourself why they do. What about the protagonist is different from other adults they've known? Children are not savants; your protagonist might have a heart of gold, but if they are gruff and unfriendly, they're probably gonna scare a little kid.

4. Children are not tiny therapists. Please stop writing this. They are not going to counsel your main couple into realizing how much they love each other. It's not cute or sweet to have kids taking care of adults.

5. People, much less children, often have difficulty identifying what they are feeling and why. A young child may know they are upset but will likely need help articulating why and finding healthy ways to manage that emotion. For example, a three year old child will not say, "I don't like loud noises because it reminds me of my dad being violent towards my mom and screaming at her." They're more likely to simply stand there and cry silently in terror. It is up to the adult to deduce the problem, remove them from the upsetting stimulation, and soothe the child.

6. People are often affected by abuse long after they are removed from the situation. Once your brain has been marinated in that kind of fear, it doesn't easily move on. It is not uncommon for victims of childhood abuse to only start remembering and confronting it around age 30. Your brain can and will shut memories down to protect you - but usually this is only temporary. It's also common for symptoms of trauma to intensify significantly once the source of trauma is removed. This is because, once you are safe, your brain finally feels secure enough to move out of survival mode and start processing what happened. Keep that in mind when you're writing; just because a character is safe does not mean they will act as if they are. Even if their mind feels secure, the body may still flinch. "Irrational fears" may develop; for example, a previous victim of an attempted break in while they were home may develop a fear of uncovered windows. Or perhaps they double and triple check locks, and give anti break-in devices as gifts to loved ones.

Those are my top tips for writing abused characters. I wish you all luck with your stories. Let me know if i need to tag this post differently.