#women in technology core

[dogpasta]

Rem Saverem as that pic of Susan Kare

[adrinktostopyourthirst]

How do you think Bucky would react to the reader admitting that she has a think for his metal arm?

I feel like he would be cocky about it

Oh, you see. Bucky Barnes is by no means a stupid man. At all…

Being trained as an assassin with quite a sensitive core, he knows which traits work for and against him. Yes, the army taught him plenty and Hydra taught him more. How to use weapons; how to properly use each and every one of them, to sharp shoot and count his ammo while he’s at it. How to abuse technology; how to hack into anything, photoshop a new reality and if he really had to, completely disable a traffic system and lay a country down flat.

But lying, manipulating and intimidating – that he learned on his own. Out of pure necessity. He knows what tone of voice will elicit which response, knows body language to a fault, knows how to ask which question to get the information he needs (or simply just wants) and how to stay quiet until the other person has dug themselves their own fucking grave. He knows how to use himself as his most lethal weapon and has had to.

So he knows damn well what his arm does to people. Yes, he can make it seem dangerous and intimidating. Knows exactly how to make people fear that arm. However, he certainly knows how to work it to his benefit. People’s unashamed curiosity with his arm and… Well, there have been plenty of men and women eyeing the appendage with a little too much interest. Bucky knows his sexuality well and the fluidity within it.

You are no exception. He catches you looking at his arm the same way he catches you looking at his lips. With the same hunger. Catches your heating face, too. Though he wouldn’t be the insufferable, broody, quiet man if he called you out on it instantly. Oh no. If anything, Bucky is a relentless tease, who doesn’t like it when people can’t ask for what they want or need.

When you started fooling around with him, you were already overwhelmed plenty by the unimaginable possibilities with him. Because he is a God. He knows his body perfectly and knows how to put it to good use. On top of that, it feels destructive, the way he can listen to your body and figure it out in a matter of minutes. He’s not only trained – he’s intuitive.

He had gone relatively easy on you in the beginning, only urging you a few times to verbally communicate to him what it was exactly that you were whining for. “Come on, baby,” he’d whispered in your ear with his flesh fingers slowly pulling out of you. “Can’t make you come if you don’t ask me to.”

He has melted your stubborn persona down to a begging, pleading, whimpering core more times than you can count. Relentless with his teasing, and sometimes going as far as to claim that he is a soldier after all, he ‘only takes orders’. Which is something you’ll get back to another time.

Right now though, you have reached your limit. It has been weeks of Bucky teasing something you cannot get yourself to admit. His metal arm. You want him to choke you with it, finger you with it, pull your hair with it– fuck it, you want to suck on his metal fingers until his jeans pop open at the sight.

And it is like he knows (because of course he fucking knows), because all he will do is stroke his fingers lightly over your pulse. Or brush the cold metal over your folds when he admires his next meal. He’s slid the hand into your hair, only to slide it down your back again without twisting his fist into your locks.

Prick.

“What has got you so worked up?” he asks when you writhe in the sheets uncomfortably. His metal fingers tease the apex of your thighs, mindless shapes burning into your skin. Your breathing is heavy and no amount of orgasms in the world could settle this need for that hand.

You bite your lip to keep from blurting out. Maybe it started with you being a bit shy and apprehensive about it, but honestly, now you’re just pissed. Weeks. Weeks he has been torturing you with absolutely fucking nothing at all.

“Bucky,” you breathe, exasperated.

“What, darling?”

You want to fucking scream at him. Honestly, you might.

Taking a deep breath, you swallow your frustrations and open your mouth to say something. But it is his metal, middle finger that dips into your dripping core that has you stutter on your breath. Yet it’s gone before you can moan out your relief.

“Fuck,” you rasp and swallow thickly.

“Hm?” he hums innocently and you want to throttle him.

“Do– ” you swallow again, ”Do that again…”

He forces a confused frown on his face and moves his flesh hand to your cunt, pushing in his middle finger. His flesh middle finger.

You squirm again.

“Bucky,” you grit out through your teeth, jaw clenching.

Suddenly, he’s there, his face inches from yours. Lips brushing your cheek and warm breath fanning your skin.

“Ask for it, baby,” he whispers, refraining from kissing your flushed skin. “Ask for what you want.”

You feel like you’re a child being told off and huff out your frustrations, making Bucky bite back a smile. Silence drags on and on and on. You try desperately to get your scrambled brain in order, especially since his orders – his voice – is another weakness of yours.

“Bucky, please…”

“Please what?”

“I want– ” you pause, quieting your pride like pinching out a candle, “I want your hand.”

“Say it,” he orders, waiting for the elaboration he knows is coming.

“The metal hand, Bucky,” you mutter breathlessly. “Finger me with your metal hand and I will do anything for you.”

Oh, and it is everything Bucky can do to keep his eyes from rolling back at the sound of those words, of that need in your voice. He might be a bit of a sadist, mentally rewarding himself for teasing you to the point of ordering your needs so sweetly. And he might be a secret sub for wanting to drop everything he is to give it to you the instant you ask for it.

His metal fingers are back at your cunt. Playing. Teasing. “Anything, huh?”

You can only let out a strangled whimper, your sweaty back arching when he brushes your clit. Bucky dips down again, brushing a soft kiss right below your ear that triggers a wave of goosebumps over your skin. “I only need you to do one thing for me. I’ll give it to you, I promise.”

You almost sigh in relief, until you realise who you’re dealing with. And you grit your teeth to the point of grinding them to dust, the metal fingers playing with you driving you to the brink of absolute insanity and dangling your release in front of you like chocolate.

“What,” you bite out. “What do I do.”

Bucky smirks and pushes two metal fingers into you, curling them into your spot with so much precision, you see only white.

“Come.”

[opencommunion]

"What is this force, these human beings, referred to in this word – resistance? 

First, literally, we refer to the achievement of the poorest and most strategically disadvantaged people on the planet. Within the encircled and immiserated Gaza Strip, many of the Al-Qassam fighters are orphans. Amidst closure and de-development, the popular resistance has been able to consolidate an arsenal and bring 1.5% of its population into a guerrilla force of 30,000-40,000 men that can – man for man – outmatch nearly any in the world. 

The resistance, secondly, has alloyed ideological commitment, willingness to sacrifice for their people, and technological ingenuity into armed capacity capable of going head-to-head with a nuclear power from underground tunnels, the ‘rear base’ and physical strategic depth needed for guerilla insurgency. The concrete is their mountains. From there they have imperiled an enemy with orders of magnitude higher GDP per capita – Israeli GDP is at $52,000 a year, with arsenals worth billions.

Third, the resistance, in launching its October 7 operation, is an example to the world that post-Soviet asphyxiation and extermination procedures, sanctions and terror lists and aid-based countermeasures, could not prevent the rise of a disciplined and new national movement from raising its head to the sky. 

Fourth, the popular cradle brings the word resistance beyond armed men to doctors going to their deaths in lieu of abandoning their patients and women and men in the Gaza Strip’s North – facing white phosphorus rather than abandoning their homes. It is precisely the strength of the civilian commitment to the national project that provokes US-Israeli extermination: ‘the 'civilian' officials, including hospital administrators and school administrators, and also the entire Gaza population’ are, as a result, the targets – not out of cruelty but to break Hamas by breaking its cradle. 

Fifth, through these achievements, the Palestinian resistance has been able to present an acute threat to the settler-capitalist property structures called Israel, to militarized accumulation, to the world’s workshop for counterinsurgency technology, and to the entire architecture of regional repression with its associated petrodollar flows, treasury and security purchases, and arms merchandising. For capitalism is not just the smooth clockwork of accumulation through generalized commodity exchange and labor exploitation, it is the machinery of violence – its technology – which ensures the smooth running of the clock, the thingification of its human elements, the political decisions to maintain and rework the machinery of monopoly accumulation, and the waste of human lives which is increasingly the core Arab input into global capitalism. 

More worryingly from the perspective of monopoly power, the Palestinian resistance is not alone. It is part of a regional populist resistance enfolding the poorest people on Earth. ... It is unimaginable that the neocolonial authoritarian states nor their US benefactor would remotely tolerate massive working-class militia which speak a language of justice and republicanism and raise arms against those states’ sponsors. In turn, it is as natural as the sun rising in the East that the US, the UK, Germany, France, and their Gulf and Arab satraps would converge on support for Israel as the spear’s tip of the assault on the surrounding Arab popular militia. 

And because Israel is the keystone of the regional imperialist order – maintained not by hegemonic consensus but the brutality of Apaches and Merkavas – it is as natural as water falling from clouds that what has developed in the Gaza Strip, as soon as it mobilized politically and militarily, would incite the Western reaction to wipe it from the face of the Earth and impose unimaginable horror to terrify the Palestinian, Arab, and Third World people to never again raise their heads.

The October 7 operation has perhaps overcome the central role of the Israeli state in accumulation on a world scale: ingraining a state of defeat amongst the Arab working classes, as part-and-parcel of the post-Soviet ideological defeat imposed by capital upon labor globally. Deterrence is the form that defeat takes when pushed to the military plane, and Israel openly admits that its deterrence has been shattered.

Seen from this perspective, the risks run by the western capitalist states – their imposition of fascist regulation against freedoms of speech and assembly, their backing for genocide, their desperation to see the Palestinian armed militia wiped from the face of the Earth – is logical, reasonable, and rational in its sociopathy. It is the logic of monopoly attempting to defend itself and the consciousness which bodyguards it with fire from the sky. It is a logic which fills graveyards, and a logic which makes orphans, and it is a logic which might yet meet its end in that crossroads of continents – that salient, and city and their camps and their people."

[ramblingthoughtsofayoungadult]

Unpredictable, Part 10-Limoreau x black!fem!reader fic

A/N: It's been a long time coming but it's here. The next part will be the finale. Thank you all so much for your support. I love reading all your replies and messages :)

Content warnings: Swearing and some violence

Word count: 6.5k

Series Masterlist

Many experts are concerned with the pervasiveness of serial killers in a supe society. Some people propose intense ideas, like using AI or supes with predictive abilities to kill potential serial killers beforehand. Others…

I paused my fingertips over the keyboard and sighed. “It’s okay, just breathe and think of the words. Dr. Melrose is one of the nicer professors, anyway.”

Then, my fingertips started moving again.

Others think this is too extreme and argue that serial killers have a right to live as much as anyone else. Which is the dumbest idea on planet earth.

Nope, can’t submit that.

I punched my thumb on the backspace button and stared at my two semi-decent sentences. Then, I glanced down at the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen and sighed.

The essay had a minimum fifteen-page requirement and it took me an hour to come up with two sentences.

I groaned and leaned back against the swivel chair and stared up at the stark white ceiling. Last year’s campus library renovation included an impressive update of the study rooms, including making them sound-proof, power-proof, and equipped with the most state-of-the-art technology.

My textbooks and notebooks were sprawled around the table, each with color-coded highlights and meticulous notes that did nothing but make my head spin. Usually, I spent most of my writing time trimming down my page length, especially when it came to ethical issues around crimefighting. But my brain couldn’t focus despite the distraction-free environment.

No matter what I did, I kept picturing the looks on Jordan and Marie’s faces when I told them I couldn’t go to the town hall. They both looked like I had taken away a large chunk of their hope.

But I couldn’t have been that helpful anyway, I thought harshly.

Sure, I helped them gather information and connected some dots but anyone could have done that.

I clapped. “Y/N, you have to stop thinking about them and the town hall. You need to finish this paper.”

Just when I grazed my keyboard, the study room door swung open. I jumped and turned to ask the person to leave, but stopped when I saw Coco standing in the doorway. In her cropped black Tommy Hilfiger blazer and matching cigarette pants, she looked like a debate moderator. Her hair fell in perfect curls and her eyes slightly narrowed at me.

“Hey, you could have knocked,” I said as light-heartedly as I could.

Coco let the door close softly behind her before sauntering over to me. “My bad, I was in a hurry. I thought I’d find you here since you weren’t at the house.”

Coco’s tone was much shorter than usual and she kept her gaze on me. My stomach churned and I straightened up.

“Coco, it was a directive from Sydney, not me,” I explained.

Coco sighed. “I don’t know why I thought I could surprise you when you know everything.”

“Not everything.”

“Anyway, what the hell is that directive about? How does she want to ‘pursue our ambitions’ but not voice our opinions?” Coco scoffed. “I knew her whole I-care-about-all-women schtick was bullshit.”

“Did you talk to her about it?” The look Coco gave me made me shrink back into my chair.

“Why do you let her walk all over you? She made you do her dirty work.”

“As a secretary, I do have to send out communications about a variety of things; it’s part of my role. Besides, it wasn’t my decision.”

“Don’t hide behind your role, Y/N. You’ll do anything to stay good with them, even if it means missing out on a historical moment.”

I hesitated. This would not be the last time that two polar opposite politicians would face off on core issues, but it would be the first time that the main issue was supes.

“I get that you care about this since it’s your major and everything but, I have to set a good example for the other girls and the initiates.”

Coco rolled her eyes. “Do you know what the other girls and initiates are doing? They’re arguing with Sydney right now and some are trying to figure out if a shapeshifter can somehow change their appearances. Everyone wants to be a part of it; Sydney’s just scared of fallout and I know that you know that.”

While I did have many ideas about why Sydney made the decision she did, it didn’t matter. I tried to push back but it failed and I had to deal with the consequences.

“I know she’s trying to protect Si Chi’s legacy and reputation and even if I don’t agree with it, I don’t have a choice.”

“Damn it, Y/N, you always have a choice! You always choose to follow the rules but guess what? Rule followers get forgotten in history; it’s the people who stir up shit that gets remembered.”

I glanced at my laptop. “Not always.”

“Well, most of the time but that’s not the point.” Coco pulled the chair from the other side of the table around and sat next to me. “You could do some real shit in the real world if you weren’t so caught up in your own head.”

Her words made me pause. This wasn’t the first time that Coco tried to push me to “think bigger” and it was usually flattering. This time, I felt myself get more and more nauseous.

I sipped some water. “I don’t think you always have to rebel to create change.”

“There’s a time for everything.” Coco leaned back in her chair and glanced at her phone. “I have to start walking to the union before everything gets too crazy. I hope you’ll have my back at the house.”

She didn’t wait for a reply and slipped out of the room almost as quietly as she entered. Immediately, I slumped in my chair and pouted.

Not everyone could be like Coco and take risks like that. In her situation, rankings didn’t matter, she just had to graduate and network like crazy. It was different for me and anyone else who was trying to at least get a city contract; rebellion did not look good on a resume.

Coco isn’t the only one risking their reputation, my brain reminded me.

I groaned and rubbed my hands over my face. Even though Jordan was always hellbent on climbing to number one, they wanted to expose everything happening at GOD U. According to Cate, Jordan had a whole meltdown when Andre and Marie’s rankings forced them to number five. Despite all that, they wanted to do the right thing.

And then there was Marie. She’d unexpectedly received everything any GOD U student could want on a silver platter: a high ranking, backing from Vought, and promotions on social and regular media. But she never wavered when it came to the Woods.

And it’s not like I didn’t want to go to the town hall, I couldn’t. There would be cameras everywhere and the news would get back to Sydney faster than A-Train. Her icy glare sent a chill down my spine at the thought.

I shook my head.

I can’t focus on any of that, I had to focus on this essay.

Finally, I started writing:

Other people suggest that such practices are much too inhumane and that serial killers must experience early interventions as soon as possible. However, in such a situation, it is near-impossible to determine the best practices much less who would deliver them.

I smiled to myself as I kept writing and breathed a sigh of relief once I finished my thesis statement.

“Great, now all I have to do is----”

“Y/N, what the hell!” Emma demanded.

I jumped and turned to the study room door. Emma’s face was beet-red and she had detergent stains all over her sweatpants. The door slammed behind her as she stormed over to me.

“What?” I asked.

Emma shook her head. “You know what. I just got off a video call with Marie; what the hell happened?”

My stomach dropped and I almost let my head plant on the desk.

At this point, it was like the two of them were haunting me. After a couple of deep breaths, I explained Sydney’s order and how I had to break the news to Marie and Jordan. As I spoke, Emma’s expression became more solemn.

“Why would you do that? Things were going so well,” Emma mused.

“I have to keep my position in Si Chi, Emma, and I can’t do anything that messes with it.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

 I hesitated, wondering if it was a little bit of both. Emma plopped down in the chair and dropped her bag on the ground.

“I know that you’re a good-two-shoes but you’re not that way all the time. I mean, you do regularly sneak off campus with the others,” Emma pointed out.

“Not so loud. You never know who could be listening,” I insisted.

“Anyway, I get that your parents really screwed you up but, when do you get to live your life?”

The last part sounded like something a really good therapist would say. Even if those words did come from a therapist, I still wouldn’t know how to answer. Every move I made since middle school was to get me to be a successful (married/engaged) supe and that was always enough for me. Mom and Dad both seemed please with each stride I made towards that goal, but it was always limited and I never stopped to think about what I wanted.

All I knew was that I was dying to know why Shetty wanted Cate and me to be friends, how long the Woods existed, and why she created the virus. I also knew that the thought of Jordan or Marie getting hurt because of all this made my chest ache.

I fidgeted with my hands. “I am living my life.”

“Are you? Do you really want to be in the library while everyone’s at the town hall? Do you really want to give up on looking into all of this?”

I snapped my eyes up at Emma. “Of course, I want to go but I also have to play it smart. Why can’t anyone understand that?” I sighed. “I just got here, Emma, and I don’t want to lose it, I can’t lose it.”

Emma frowned. “You didn’t try to look into the future about this.”

She was confident and her gaze never left mine. I wanted to push back but, there was no point. Out of everyone, Emma knew me best and there was no point in hiding. So, I explained everything about my power loss to her. The words felt like I was digging my nails into an open wound and I could feel my throat constricting towards the end.

“Shit,” she muttered.

I nodded. “I really can’t do anything out of line now; I have no leverage for Si Chi and if they found out my powers are gone, they’d kick me out immediately. Plus, I’ll get expelled, and then what? Work for my mom or dad?”

“I’m really sorry about your powers, Y/N, but you don’t know that they’re gone for good. Plus, there are plenty of other ways you can be successful here and once you graduate. You could write a tell-all book, work in research, or model like I’ve been telling you to do forever!”

I snorted at her words, which made Emma burst out laughing. I don’t know how long we laughed for, but it felt good. However, when it stopped, a realization dawned on me.

“I don’t know, Emma, things don’t tend to work out for me if I don’t follow a plan,” I expressed.

Emma wiped some tears from her eyes. “Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe my powers going away because Cate’s brainwashed or getting caught up in a conspiracy that could get us all killed or maybe having your new boyfriend attack me.”

Emma flushed. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

I rolled my eyes. “But that all happened because I was going off the plan. I was supposed to focus and crack the Top Fifteen this year.”

“But Jordan and Marie weren’t in your plan, and they were pretty good.”

I sighed and rested my head on the desk. At first, I thought our conversation was going so well but then Emma had to bring them up.

“And it’s over before anything really even started.” I propped my chin up on my hands. “But that’s probably a good thing since I need to stay on track. I’ve only gone up to Sixteen.”  

Emma pursed her lips and straightened up. Wordlessly, she stood and slowly made her way to the other side of the table. She paced back and forth for a second before slamming her hands down on the desk.

 “No, you don’t get to talk like that. In our fifteen years of friendship, I have never seen you look at or act the way you do with Marie and Jordan. You look so happy, and you deserve to be happy, I don’t care what anyone else says and you need to start believing that.”

For a second, I thought my vision blurred but it was the tears welling up in my eyes. I willed them to stay away for a second.

“But what about Si Chi?” I wondered.

Emma groaned. “If they’re going to kick you out because you went to the town hall to be with your girlfriend and partner, then they’re idiots.” Emma stood. “But you have to decide which is more important.”

The issue was that the thought of losing either of them made me nearly hyperventilate. Si Chi was a beacon of social acceptance, but Marie and Jordan made me feel accepted. No matter how uncomfortable I felt sobbing in front of them or not wanting either of them to see me in bad lighting or makeup-less, they made me comfortable.

“They don’t want me back. They’re both…unstoppable and I’ve proven to be the exact opposite.”

“Come on, Y/N, stop with the self-doubt. I can promise you, Marie and Jordan want to be with you too, they just don’t know how to reach out.” She smirked. “You should have heard Jordan ranting about how they’d knock Sydney out of her power trip; Marie had to cut the call short to calm them down.”

I laughed a little at that. “Jordan always said that Sydney was the most mediocre telekinetic on campus.”

“But the point is they both still care a lot about you. They’re obviously hurt but you’re not totally unforgivable.”

“Thanks, Emma.”

“And if they did break up with, you always have me whenever I’m not with Sam.”

“Gee, thanks. Where is he, anyway?” “Locked away in my dorm. Could you imagine him out there in the craziness?”

“Yes.”

Emma opened her mouth to argue but got cut off by her phone alarm going off. “I have to go switch out the laundry. I hope one cycle is enough to get blood out.”

 When she left, I mulled over everything we talked about. Were she and Coco on the same wavelength or something? In both conversations, I could have started screaming at either of them but buried deep down, I knew that they both had good points.

Brink was always saying how we have to take calculated risks as heroes and it was important to minimize the damage. Even though he wasn’t my favorite professor, he did have some good points.

Maybe there was a way to minimize the damage with Si Chi and my relationship.

The thought made my hands shake as I packed up my things.

Fifteen minutes later, I was desperately trying to stop my shoulders from hiking up any further to my ears as I walked to the union. The protestors’ shouts all across the green were deafening and did nothing for my pounding head and heart. Throughout the crowd, several people were filming for social media and I did my best to avoid them.

After a few minutes, I spotted Jordan and Marie standing a couple of yards away from a side entrance that was guarded by two burly men. My heart skipped a beat as I watched their focused eyes on each other as they spoke.

Here goes nothing.

I slowly sauntered up to them, my mind racing with something, anything decent to say.

“…well, we have to figure out a way in,” Jordan muttered.

“Hi,” I chirped.

When they both faced me, I had to force myself not to try to run. Marie’s eyebrows raised and Jordan slightly narrowed her eyes at me.

“What are you doing here?” Jordan asked.

I swallowed. “I’ve had a couple of pretty intense conversations that helped me realize that you were both right: the Woods is bigger than GOD U and I should help expose it. I’m sorry about earlier, I was scared and I still am but, I want to help in any way that I can.”

The next couple of seconds felt like a million years. Finally, Marie smiled and relaxed.

“Does this mean that you don’t care about Si Chi anymore?” she asked.

“No, I’m petrified of all the cameras but I’m trying really hard not to think about it,” I admitted.

“Well, it’s a good first step. We’d love your help,” Marie declared.

Jordan paused before sighing. “Just don’t run off again.”

I agreed. “So, you’re looking for a way in?”

Marie nodded. “But we can’t get past those two without causing a scene.”

If I had my powers, solving that would have been easy but I was on my own. I glanced at the two burly guards and cocked my head.

“Did you try flirting?” I asked.

“No, and don’t even think about it,” Jordan threatened.

I turned to her. “You’re jealous about a suggestion?”

Jordan shrugged and Marie chuckled.

“Fine, that’s off the table.”

“Do you know a teleporter?” Marie asked.

“Well, there’s Gia Sharpe from Beta Ro but she’s probably inside already,” I offered.

Jordan started rolling her eyes but paused and grinned when she saw something. “That might not be necessary.”

Marie and I followed her gaze and I gasped when it landed on Justine and Renee. The two were standing on a nearby green and Justine was trying to direct Renee to hold the camera to really capture her dismayed expression. I slid behind Marie and put my head down.

“What’s wrong?” Marie asked.

I huffed. “It’s Justine.”

“Do you two have issues besides what she did to Emma?” Jordan asked.

“Sort of. She and her friend tried to rush Si Chi and after everything with Emma, I couldn’t let that happen,” I explained.

“And?” Marie prompted.

“And, I explained my concerns to the other sorority presidents, including Sydney and none of them wanted to promote her behavior.”

Marie smirked and Jordan’s grin deepened.

“You blackballed that bitch from every sorority?” Jordan teased.

“No, I just gave the other presidents information I thought they could use,” I defended.

“That’s pretty badass, Y/N,” Marie stated.

I smiled as my stomach flipped. “Anyway, I know that she doesn’t know that I did it but I have a feeling that she would take any opportunity to make me look bad.”

Jordan glanced at me for a second before turning her gaze back on Justine. Jordan’s jaw clenched and there was a new glint in their eyes that only appeared right before a fight. As she started approaching them, I moved to stand next to Marie.

“What are you doing?” Marie whispered.

“Causing a distraction,” Jordan called over her shoulder.

I gulped and stared as Jordan called Justine before delivering a right hook to her jaw. Justine stumbled for a second before straightening up, her jaw askew. She snapped it back into place with a flick of her hand and hissed something back at Jordan. Seconds later, Jordan was beaming in the middle of a full-on brawl.

“Does Jordan always get like this when they fight?” Marie asked.

“Yes. One time, they almost got us kicked out of a club because they sent a group of guys to the hospital.”

“Almost?”

“Cate.”

“Oh.”

I smiled as Jordan dodged one frat boy’s sloppy left side kick only to spin him to collide with another frat boy that was approaching her from behind. “They look really good when they fight, though.”

Suddenly, the guards rushed past us, and Marie grabbed my arm.

“Let’s go before you start drooling.”

Victoria’s makeshift green room was immaculate and complete with various notes for the town hall and water bottles and snacks. She also looked immaculate in her navy-blue suit and perfectly coiffed dark hair. Her eyes were wide, eerily wide, and it felt like she saw everything. Those eyes watched Marie with intensity as she explained everything with the Woods and handed over the drive.

Victoria rubbed her thumb over the device and pursed her lips. “What you just expressed to me is a serious matter. Have you told anyone else?”

“We don’t trust anyone else,” Marie answered.

“Understandable.” Victoria’s slow head nod made my blood boil and I didn’t know why. “Of course, I will get this into the right hands as soon as possible.”

“And we won’t get in trouble?” I asked.

Victoria faced me. “Of course not. If anything, you and your friends should be heralded as heroes. However, I understand your concerns and appreciate your courage in coming to me.”

I nodded stiffly. “Thank you for your time. You probably have plenty of other last-minute town hall things to do.”

“Yeah, thanks for listening,” Marie agreed as she stood.

“I do but, I also wanted to speak with Marie for a moment, alone.”

Her words made my heart rate pick up and I could hear several alarms going off in my head. Something was off with Victoria but I didn’t know what and I couldn’t just drag Marie out of there with no explanation.

I turned back to Marie, and she nodded. Slowly, I stood and one of Victoria’s assistants guided me out of the room. I couldn’t stop myself from pacing up and down the hallway. There was no telling what they were talking about, and I hated not knowing.

If only---

No, that won’t be helpful. I just had to be patient and wait for her.

But patience was hard when my gut felt so uneasy like it was on a rocking boat. I’d never met Victoria until then and I knew Coco thought she was an acceptable candidate. So, I had no cause to feel the way that I was feeling.

Maybe it was paranoia or stress; both were known to make people perceive things differently.

But my intuition was never wrong.

Finally, Marie walked out of the green room, her eyes wide but she seemed okay.

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she confirmed.

As soon as we were out of earshot, Marie started rambling but I got the gist: Victoria was a supe with the exact same powers as Marie, she and Marie were both in the same facility as kids, and Victoria was Marie’s benefactor.

“She even told me about how she can see people’s internal organs and that it happens when you focus enough,” Marie gushed.

“That’s cool,” I mused.

The sunlight was refreshing when we got outside but it didn’t distract from the rowdy protests in front of the union. Each “Supe Lives Matter” sign made me cringe but both sides were extremely passionate. It was hard to understand why people loathed finding a middle ground so much.

“What’s wrong?” Marie asked.

“Nothing, I’m glad that we handed over the information and she was receptive,” I stated.

Marie frowned. “You’re holding back.”

The last thing I wanted to do was start a fight and I could already feel the roots of tension appearing.

“I just…I don’t have a good feeling about Victoria,” I confessed.

Marie paused in her steps and I hesitated before facing her. “What do you mean? She was our best option and she’s the one who got me in here, she can’t be that bad.”

“I know and I’m not saying she is, I just feel like something’s off.”

“Don’t start that self-sabotaging bullshit,” Marie warned.

“I’m not. You and Jordan want me to be honest and that’s what I’m trying to do. I can’t ignore my gut, Marie.”

Marie opened and closed her mouth several times. The furrow between her eyebrows was deeper than usual and I wished that I knew the best thing to say. It was difficult to tell my girlfriend that I was happy that she knew who her benefactor was but that I was also suspicious of said benefactor.

“Let’s go find Jordan,” Marie muttered.

I quietly agreed and followed Marie to the protest area since that’s where most people were. Even though I saw a couple of Greek Life people I knew, I couldn’t find Jordan.

It’s hard to say what exactly started it but in an instant, I was caught up in a sea of protestors pushing and shoving each other. Then, the shoves turned into punches and kicks. I saw several teeth get punched out of heads and people resetting their broken noses before going back in for more. All I could do was my best to dodge all the mayhem and in it, my stomach sunk when I realized that I’d lost Marie.

“Marie? Marie!” I called.

I thought I was being loud but I quickly got drowned out by the yells and grunts of the protestors. A burly jock lunged for me but I grabbed the back of his collar used the momentum to send him flying into the people behind me. I kept trying to call for Marie but got distracted by all the jostling.

Breathe, just breathe, Y/N, I thought.

Then, someone grabbed the back of my right arm and yanked me through the crowd. I yelped at the strength but couldn’t fight back as I was finally pulled to a fairly clear sidewalk. The same someone grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face them and I sighed when I made eye contact with Marie.

“Are you okay? Did anyone hurt you?” Her eyes frantically searched my face and she felt all over me for any bruises. “You have some blood on your dress.”

I gasped. “Is it mine?”

Marie shook her head and hugged me.

“There you two are, we’ve gotta get out of here!” Jordan rushed as he approached us.

Marie and I pulled away and trailed after Jordan. After a few minutes, we stopped at a clear green and I slumped against a tree.

“You didn’t get in trouble for the fight?” Marie asked.

“They didn’t catch me,” he said with a wide smirk. “How did things with Neuman go?”

“Good, she actually listened to us and said she was going to hand over everything to the proper channels.” Jordan nodded. “Did she say what would happen to Shetty?”

“She wasn’t sure but probably firing,” Marie reported before glancing at me.

I huffed and pushed myself to lean straighter against the tree.

“How long will it take?” Jordan asked.

“She didn’t say,” I answered.

“But, she’ll do it; she actually wants to help, Jordan,” Marie insisted.

Then, Jordan looked at me and I glanced down at my shoes.

“What’s going on with you two?” he asked.

“Y/N’s suspicious of Victoria even though she’s willing to help us,” Marie said.

“I just have a bad feeling and I was trying to be honest,” I defended. “Plus, Jordan brought up a good question. She never gave us a timeline or the names of those she would be speaking with. There are kids still down there.”

“I’m sure Victoria will be as quick as possible. If she was willing to help me, she must be willing to help others.”

“Wait, what?” Jordan asked.

“Victoria’s my donor,” Marie explained.

“That’s amazing.” Jordan paused and looked at me. “I’m not gonna pick sides or anything but, you both have good points. Neuman is our best option to expose the Woods and have people listen. Y/N has sensitive intuition, and she might be picking up on something. But, no one should be fighting right now, especially since we just made up.”

“I didn’t mean to start a fight,” I pleaded.

“It’s not a fight, it’s a disagreement and I’m okay with dropping it for now if you are,” Marie offered.

I nodded.

“Good.” Jordan stepped closer to me and frowned. “You got caught up in the brawl.”

“I don’t think it was long, though, and I’m not hurt. Marie found me but I was able to evade several people; I even threw a guy further into the crowd.”

Jordan smiled. “That’s my freshie.”

I didn’t have long to bask in the praise since my vision was overrun with the clearest image I’d had in a long time. Cate was standing in Shetty’s pristine living room and the older woman was cowering against the wall, eyes blown wide with fear and shaking her head.

“Cate, please, don’t do this, you don’t have to do this,” Shetty’s voice echoed.

“Yes, I do, you gave me no other choice.” Cate’s voice was hollow and her eyes were bloodshot. Then, my gaze fell down to her hands and in one, she held a sizable butcher knife.

When I blinked, Jordan, Marie, Emma, and Sam were looking back at me. I flinched a little.

“Do you zone out a lot?” Sam asked.

“No, Y/N just had a vision,” Emma replied with a grin.

I slightly nodded and pushed myself off the tree. “We need to get to Cate, now.”

Shetty’s house was as pristine as any college dean’s would be: the houseplants throughout the house accentuated the ivory and pastel décor and the scent of chamomile filled the house. The space in itself oozed serenity but I felt my skin buzzing as I traipsed through the house with my friends.

Just like in my vision, Cate was standing in the living room, her back facing us. Across the room, Shetty cowered against the wall and kept trying to crawl to no avail.

“Cate, what’s going on?” Jordan asked.

When she turned to us, everyone else gasped except me. Cate’s pupils were dilated, and her eyes were redder than I’d ever seen them. Her arms rested at her sides and the butcher knife glinted in one of her ungloved hands. Cate’s loose posture would have been more concerning if I hadn’t seen what I saw.

“You were fast,” Cate commented.

“We were on our way when you called me,” Marie shared.

“I caught a glimpse of what was going on and thought we should all talk,” I added.

Cate smiled and walked over to me. “Your powers are back, that’s amazing.” She went to grab both of my hands, but I flinched.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“Y/N, please, help me,” Shetty pleaded.

Cate whirled towards her. “Shut up! Only speak when I tell you.”

Shetty immediately closed her mouth but nothing Cate said wiped the terrified expression off the dean’s face.

“Cate, I think you pushed too much. Why don’t we sit down and you tell us what’s going on?” Marie offered.

“Also, where’s Andre?” Jordan asked.

“He had to go into the city and I feel perfectly fine. I realized that it wasn’t my powers that were making me sick, it was the prescription Shetty gave me,” Cate stated.

“What?” Emma asked.

If the prescription Cate took for her headaches somehow dulled her powers, then that meant…

“She gave you suppressants,” I concluded.

Cate nodded. “Exactly.” She turned away and started walking towards Shetty. “When Indira came home, I got her to admit to everything she’s been doing. Plus, the clips I saw from the town hall inspired me. We’ve been letting non-supes control us for far too long. They’re just scared of us because they know we should be the ones running things.”

While Cate was partly right about some non-supes being scared of supes, that didn’t mean the answer was to subjugate all of them. The situation was worse than my vision led me to believe and I wracked my brain for the best words.

“Cate, you don’t have to do this. We gave over all the information to Neuman and she’ll get it out soon,” Marie offered.

“Yeah, all of this will be exposed and Shetty and everyone else involved will face the repercussions that they should,” Jordan added.

Cate seemed unimpressed as she glanced at the knife in her hand. “That’s too good for Indira.” She faced the woman. “You brainwashed me and made me believe I was helping Luke when I was part of the reason he died. I should have reported you as soon as I got suspicious.”

Shetty shrunk away from her as much as possible and made some sort of noise behind her closed lips.

“Cate, that’s enough,” I tried.

The blonde turned to me. “Don’t you want to know why she wanted us to stay so close? Just ask and I’ll make her say.”

“You don’t have to do that, Y/N,” Jordan said.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Emma voiced.

 As I stared at the petrified dean, my curiosity didn’t matter. What did matter was that Cate was unhinged and I had to talk her down. She didn’t have her gloves on, which meant that she could peek into any of our heads at will. The best solution was to keep my head as clear as possible.

I took a deep breath and did my best to sweep away any annoying thoughts.

“I appreciate the thought but it’s okay. I don’t care about that anymore; I care about you.” I approached Cate like a zookeeper would approach a tiger. Her eyes never left mine and I forced myself to relax as I grabbed her free hand. “I’m still hurt by what you did but that doesn’t mean I hate you; none of us hate you. You’re one of my best friends and I know you have good intentions and Shetty took advantage of that.”

Cate nodded and breathed. “She did.”

“Yeah. So, why don’t we get out of here and let the police or whoever’s in charge of taking down people like her do their jobs? We can go get milkshakes at Vought-a-Burger if you want.”

Cate paused for a moment and mulled over my words. My heart rate felt like it raised with each passing second. Then, she eyed me. “Thanks for trying, Y/N but this is for your own good.”

“Cate---”

“Indira, tell Y/N what your plans were for her,” Cate cut me off.

Shetty sat up and responded, “Upon receiving your application and seeing your powers, my plan was to admit you into the school but admit you to the Woods before the end of your first semester.”

“What?” The word felt like it was punched out of me and I took a step away from Cate.

Shetty continued, “A future probability supe with a ten percent margin of error is too dangerous. There is no way of predicting any of your moves or motives and I wanted you sedated and monitored. But Brink stopped me just before sending out acceptance letters; he insisted that you were much more useful in the classroom than you were in a lab.”

My stomach churned as I kept backing away from Cate, whose gaze never left mine, and Shetty. I could feel my neck and shoulders tense and I suddenly felt lightheaded.

“Stop,” I requested.

“Keep going,” Cate instructed.

“Cate, stop!” Emma pleaded.

“She needs to hear this.”

“I disagreed with him but set up check-ins with you in an attempt to get his perspective. On first impression, I knew that you were intelligent but anxious and you had no malintent in your power use. I paired you with Cate as a peer mentor because I knew she would be able to keep a close eye on you and make sure you were taking your medicine without being suspicious,” Shetty articulated.

“Did you put me on power suppressants too?” I asked.  

“Partly. In each session, I made sure to play upon your insecurities, which would heighten your anxiety. You had so much self-doubt that your attempts to strengthen your powers were limited. Also, the medication I gave you only included a minimal amount of anti-anxiety medication. It also included power suppressants that dulled your abilities but not so much that you would notice.”

For a year and a half, I aired out all my insecurities, fears, goals, and grievances with Dean Shetty. She’d always made me feel secure in her office and was quick to offer advice. She listened every time I cried about my parents and gave me ginger tea after each episode. The fact that she’d been manipulating me and drugging me this whole time made it feel like the floor fell out from under me.

When I remembered she wanted me committed underground, I had to take really deep breaths.

She never cared about me or Cate; we were the enemy. Everything we told her was just more ammo that she could use.

“You never helped me; you almost made me worse,” I hissed.

“You’re too dangerous, all you supes are! It’s just a matter of time before you kill us all!” Shetty snapped.

“So, you kill us first?” Jordan shot back.

Shetty didn’t respond but glared defiantly at Jordan.

“She’s the enemy, Y/N, they all are. We can’t let them control us anymore,” Cate insisted.

 “But hurting her doesn’t make us any better,” I whispered.

Cate nodded slowly. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

She turned on her heel and walked back over to Shetty and I couldn’t take my eyes off the knife.

“Cate, wait, I get that Shetty’s deplorable, but she isn’t worth killing,” I pleaded.

That and all my other pleas fell on deaf ears as Cate walked over to Shetty. She turned to me and glanced at the others behind me, all were similarly asking her to stop.

“Slit your throat, Indira,” Cate ordered, handing the butcher knife to Shetty.

The woman easily accepted it and obeyed the commandment in one swift motion. The gurgling noises were the worst and my hands slapped across my mouth as I forced myself to take deep even breaths. Then, Marie brushed past me, gently pushing me closer to the others as she approached Cate.

Marie stretched a hand towards Shetty but Cate grabbed her arm.

“Cate, let me help her,” Marie insisted.

“I can’t do that. This is what she deserves,” Cate said slowly.  

For a moment I froze. Part of me wanted to lunge forward and free Marie and the other wanted to get as far away from the bloody scene as possible. Either way, I knew that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the life slowly draining from Shetty’s.

Taglist: @gardenof-venus @badbishsblog @morelovemorepeacemoretattoo-blog @darksoul100 @simiinthemirror

[severalowls]

Hi I played myhouse.wad here is my thoughts on a narrative thing people seem intent on brushing off in favour of tired tropes.

Spoilers for myhouse.wad do not read this if you havent played it go and play it blind thx

So Thomas and Steven are heavily heavily implied to be husbands. The use of Intensely, Notably impersonal language in the journals is a whole other point to analyse irt its authorship but I digress, my (first) point is: Thomas is also Probably trans.

So in the airport you go into the womens bathroom and theres a pill bottle on the way in that says "needs a refill..." and then you do a little loop around the mirror and theres blood in the mirror then blood all over the place and blooddemons spawn in all around you... then you leave and there's a full pill bottle that says something like "such a relief" and when you come out the bathroom signs have switched and the bathroom you came out of is now the mens room.

Now the Le Reddit/gamer dood prevailing interpretation is apparently that this is... a coincidence? That the meticulous insane modder(s) who created this entire mindbending feat of technology Simply Forgot and its a total coincidence. Fuck off.

Now the prevailing theory also seems to be that the airport bloodbath is actually Thomas's father, evidenced by the same empty pill bottle being in the hospital room with the dead man. Nah, that's because they're both Thomas's fuckin pills and that's Thomas.

Steven (the PoV character as it were) is in the same hospital because this is a representation of the critical inciting event of the entire meta narrative: both of them having died, together, at home (probably in a house fire).

Everything we see in the mod represents scenes and events in their lives, and this is the point where Steven departs from the mortal coil and goes to join his husband Thomas, who is flatlining but nonetheless sat bolt upright, locking eyes with Steven who, in the context of the wider story is putting his affairs in order through the medium of Doom. CRUCIALLY this one hospital scene, where the video game gameplay rules of Doom (you die, you reload a save) are defied and we pass into a (god damn it) liminal space between the abstraction of the game and Death, is the only point where they are reunited.

Which then suggests to me that all the "Liminal Space" stuff and Backrooms references aren't just Fun References, but the Thematic Core of the piece, the passing between worlds. Hell, even the narrative being split between docs and the mod. It being a mod for a game at all.

Anyway I'll save this going on 10000 words because I could probably write interpretation for hours but... Myhouse.wad good.

Edit the following morning: There are hints to an "Anna" which the average Gamer assumes is some sadface ex-wife, but the main points where this is referenced are the airport scene and "S+A" in the bonfire/beach endings. Steven and Thomas are described as having reconnected with high school crushes/'friends'. The main time in your life where you're likely to carve your crush in a tree is when you're a teenager.

Steven had a crush on "Anna", reconnected decades later once he'd transitioned, the scenes of the game represent primarily parts of their life together, and in the final moments of the game (bonfire/beach endings) he's reflecting on when they met as kids.

Airport scene, besides the symbolism of journeys and beginnings, could also reference a miscarriage Thomas had at some point, possibly pre-transition since its where "Anna" comes up? (Stillborn baby is referenced a couple of times in the journal + baby bottle item ingame)

Anyway, myhouse.wad good.

[grainjew]

On Gallifreyan Vestigial Gender

[this is the revised and expanded version of some rambling i initially did in my cowriter's discord DMs. i tried cite sources where i could, but a lot of this has been marinating in my brain since half-absorbing posts twenty pages deep into peoples' dw tags 3 years ago, and also i spend way too much time on the wiki, so please excuse anything i can't quite source, which is most of it. huge thanks to @oriigami for being my original conversation partner and contributing extremely to the concepts here, and to @bird-of-paradox and @waywren, neither of whom I am being allowed to @, for bothering me into not leaving it as unreadable discord screenshots]

-

There's this tendency among queer Doctor Who fans to look at Time Lord society, with its alienness and regeneration, and ask, frustrated, "Why do they even have gender?"

I sympathize with this extremely. I've been the one asking this question plenty in the past, and I do think it's a bit silly, and even sillier that the genders are "man" and "woman" and there are apparently two of them. But I also think that the section of canon most insistent about the Gallifreyan gender binary, the 7th Doctor novels from the 90s, also has the potential to be the most interesting about it.

Now, this is not to say that the text of those novels isn't weird about gender in a flawed, written by (as far as I know) cis people in the 90s way. But I think that you can extrapolate and queer what's there in very interesting ways, often because it's so flawed in the first place: Gallifrey, too, is an extremely flawed society. Decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core, as the show put it.

So, VNAs Gallifrey: living Houses and their female Housekeepers, cultural and literal planet-wide sterility, Loom birth, rigid overcomplicated bureaucracy, the enduring legacy of the pre-Rassilon Pythian regime. The gender binary as presented here goes something like

women: chaos/magic/psychic powers/superstition/the house (scary)/biological childbirth/fertility men: cold rationality/order/science/bureaucracy/loom-birth/sterility

The Pythia and the Lord President. Magic and science. The House and the Web of Time.

Obviously a lot of this is classic gender binary stuff. But let's put the exasperated question of "Why must we do the gender binary like this?" aside for a moment and think about Gallifreyan society instead.

Pythia-ruled and Time Lord-ruled Gallifrey have a lot of the same problems in the end, just wearing different faces: they're both very much totalitarian states that believe themselves to be above everyone else. But while the Time Lords observe and micromanage the Web of Time from their Panopticon, maintaining its integrity to their standards, the Pythians didn't have time travel, so this preoccupation with control manifested--as far as I know; this is the bit in the meta where I admit I haven't actually read Time's Crucible yet--as keeping the entirety of society in one psychic hivemind, leaving nobody any privacy, plus a lot of future-reading and prophecy and whatnot.

The main relics of that societal layout into post-Rassilon Gallifreyan society are the Matrix, which has every single dead Time Lord's brain in it and does their prophecies for them, just couched in a little bit more science than Pythian magic, the Houses, which are alive all around you and in which you're constantly being watched by the Housekeeper through her mirrors, and, of course, the gender binary.

The Pythia was always a woman. Women were the ones with vast psychic powers, with magic; women were the ones in charge. Pythian Gallifrey was a heavily gendered society. This is because Gallifreyans are a kind of bug /shot with the "irrelevant to the point at hand" gun.

And so, when Rassilon rebelled, he was very much playing the part of "opposite gender with opposite worldview." The Pythia had female magic and superstition; he had male science and technology. His most trusted Founders were either all or mostly men, depending on the version of events you prefer. (Personally I have my doubts about the Other.) Rassilon built his new society as a man, among men, in opposition to the matriarchs before him.

Gallifrey, despite the invention (or theft, depending on the story) of regeneration allowing people to trans their gender randomly and sometimes unintentionally, never left the gender binary behind.

The whole point of modern Gallifreyan society is that they're still stuck in that exact same moment Rassilon took over (and the Pythia cursed them to sterility, if thats the version you're going with). You could easily make an argument for this being some cycle of abuse type situation; Rassilon and co overthrew the Pythia and immediately did exactly what she was doing to them to the wider universe. I tend to read it as a regeneration: it's the same society, really. It just died and was reborn, and now it looks and sounds different.

-

The downside of trying to translate a discord conversation into a proper meta post is that sometimes making a coherent transition between thoughts is impossible. So to introduce the next bit of this post, I'm going to hand you off for a moment to this post about the 8th Doctor's "I'm not sure I've ever even been a man" quote from Interference. As op of that post says, the Doctor is genderqueer even by Gallifreyan standards- he's being questioned in that scene by another Gallifreyan, who doesn't understand his experience of gender.

The EDAs are full of "Eight is nonbinary" quotes, of course. Every queer fan who's ever engaged with them has a collection (and if anyone knows where that one google doc compilation that was going around awhile back went I'd be in your debt, because I'd love to know if my collection is missing any), but almost all those quotes refer to his genderqueerness in human terms, as observed by human companions, or in response to human assumptions. Except that one. Not only is Gallifrey's gender binary alive and well in a society where people can literally change their gender when they die, but the Doctor doesn't fit inside it.

All this to say that being a renegade Time Lord is a nonbinary thing to do. Especially the Doctor, with all sorts of weird Other Timeless nonsense in their biodata. Women stay on Gallifrey (or Karn!) and do magic and watch you. Men stay on Gallifrey and do science and watch other people. Renegades go out and do whatever they please. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

-

So. Gallifrey has a gender binary. It's vestigial, a remnant of an earlier iteration of society with a much sharper male-female divide, and it doesn't make logical sense for it to exist. So: How does it manifest? And what function does its continued existence serve in the interests of the status quo and ruling class?

Let's take a look at 7th Doctor novel Lungbarrow.

Lungbarrow introduces us to (among many other things) the living Houses of the Time Lord Families, and to the family structures within: the patriarchal figure of the Kithriarch, the always-female Housekeeper, bound in her ritual marriage to the House itself, and hordes of petty squabbling Cousins.

Kithriarch is already an interesting title. It's obviously a gender neutral version of matriarch or patriarch, but the role itself seems to be almost entirely a male sort of thing in opposition to the feminine Housekeeper.

The Housekeeper, meanwhile, seems to be in a direct conceptual and societal line of descent from the Pythian priestesses: she can see anything within her domain, she has a psychic connection to the House, from whom she cannot hide anything, she can command the wooden Drudge servants and other House subsystems, she prioritizes the House above all where the Kithriarch is supposed to prioritize the Family. Women are frightening and powerful psychics. They know everything you want to keep secret, and prioritize the collective.

(There's also something here about how Lungbarrow presents duelling dualities--the Doctor and the Master, the CIA head and the Lord President, the Kithriarch and the Housekeeper, the masculine and the feminine--but I haven't quite tied it into the rest of this yet.) (Although while we're mentioning the Master. He's girlcoded by Gallifreyan standards and the Rani is boycoded by the same. I will not be expanding on this at this time just trust me.)

I think Housekeepers and women who want to be Housekeepers try to keep their self-image as women strong enough that they never regenerate into a male body (whatever a '"male body" means, of course, but I'm not sure Time Lords have gotten that far in their queer theory yet). I also think that there are more female Kithriarchs than male Housekeepers, because Housekeeper is much more heavily ritualized role in keeping with the Pythia's more ritualized general vibe, but I do think female Kithriarchs are still few and far between.

I also think that these are probably the most explicitly gendered occupations on Gallifrey, although of course you'll see some drift. Most women are out there getting the same scientific, military, and bureaucratic positions as men. But there's this lingering specter of gender roles, a Pythia-shaped hole that exists around the concept of womanhood. As my cowriter put it when we were talking about this, an "ideal of womanhood. not ‘ideal’ as in desirable, [but] ‘ideal’ as in the quintessential image of the thing."

This is further amplified by the continued existence of the Pythians in the form of the Sisterhood of Karn, living in their perfectly functional all-women magic society just out of sight. Their presence at the edge of the Gallifreyan consciousness must haunt the Time Lords, as any imperialist power is haunted by its own past and its own ultimate impotence.

Because that's the other thing. Gender roles are, to quote my cowriter again, "stupid and antiquated and historically potent tools of authoritarianism." Of course the Time Lords have them. Have you seen them?

They're tools of control, of conformity, of idealizing the past. Of conservatism. Consider, to once more quote my cowriter, "the weird traditionalist psychosis of having gender roles in a society that can’t bear children."

The ideal woman on Gallifrey is still the Pythia, millenia or even billenia on. And the ideal man is still the Lord President Rassilon.

-

[thank you for your time! if you liked this please consider checking out my fic Something Old, which is about lungbarrow, the adventuress of henrietta street, and the gallifreyan concept of marriage, and in the writing of which i initially articulated most of the thoughts in this post. i've previously characterized it as a fic that's actually a meta post. and please don't be too mean to me for anything i got wrong in here! i'm just a little guy]

[randomnumbers751650]

I finally have time to talk about Lone Trail. I will be focusing on its depiction of science, technology and its progress. Will get a bit political, but funnily enough less than I imagined.

The thing that called my attention most in Lone Trail were the discussions on the nature of scientific progress. This is a theme that’s dear to me and the stuff I research about. It’s easy to think of scientific progress like an inevitable march forward, like an escalator. After all, we are much richer than we were before, right? Go to OurWorldInData dot org to play around with economic statistics in time – make sure to check the World GDP chart, from year 0 to 2000 and see it taking off like a rocket from year 1700.

What kind of Uncle Ted fan or neoluddite would go against that? Haha…hah…

Truth is that, although its effects are there, it’s not a clear if this is the little, neat process techbros want us to believe. It’s new and produces more, therefore it’s good, right? I could be writing this as a new wave of AI-generated NFTs pollute my algorithm.

That’s what makes the storytelling in Arknights so effective: it mashes together fantasy and sci-fi to really tell stories on the role of beliefs, technology, science and religion. The Rhine Lab saga is definitely an exploration of technology, with focus on the equivalent of the United States. During the period before the First World War, 1870-1913 (which is the one that Arknights draws most from), the world underwent through the so-called Second Industrial Revolution and I’ve read economic historians considering it the most innovative period in human history. I mean, obviously, there is an absolute number of inventions in our current age, but in relative terms 1870-1913 experienced a much larger number relative to the previous one.

The escalator narrative constructs scientific achievements as work of daring people (mostly men, but there were women like Marie Cuire), that combined science and technology to help mankind, like Prometheus giving mankind fire from the gods (in fact, one of these books is even named “Prometheus Unbound”); more than often they have to fight against the establishment. Remember Ignaz von Semmelweis? He just wanted doctors to wash their hands. Even I learned this standard narrative in the university. But that’s not the entire story.

The positivistic paradigm – of a science free of value judgements, made with the power of math – has actually helped build this escalator narrative. In reality, some scientists and scholars are horrible people. Later, I learned that Semmelweis, as much as he campaigned for the right thing, was a very arrogant person, who abused everyone around him, to the point few people went to his funeral.

Narratives focusing on one single hero are easy to sell and the ones building them are always on the lookout. Remember how ten years ago, a lot of people tried to push the narrative Elon Musk was going to create a new industrial revolution? Nowadays he’s just an arrogant loser who keeps dragging on his midlife crisis. The 1880s also had similar people like that, such as Thomas Edison.

Kristen Wright is definitely better than them both, because she is actually an engineering genius. But she’s also just like them, in the sense of unethical experiments, collusion with the military-industrial complex and being an overall superficially charismatic, but rotten to the core person. And she’s surrounded by a lot of people like Parvis and Ferdinand.

Breaking this line of reason, I have to say how much I hate Nietzsche’s ubermensch and master-slave morality, I hate Great Men theory, I hate Ayn Rand; these people are sheep who think themselves wolves. And before you say that Nietzsche didn’t consider himself an ubermensch, well, neither did Parvis and his reasoning was the same. For every person fancying themselves ubermensch, there’s a lot of those whom he’d call untermensch to clean up their messes. You have no idea of how times I stumbled upon people (especially libertarians) that advocate lower barriers to regulations that were written in blood, so that progress can happen quicker. Creative destruction works, as long as some people get “creative” and others clean the “destruction”. Deaths and injuries? Acceptable, just give them a pension (but fight tooth and nail in the court to not do it beyond the barest of the bare minimum, because it’ll lower the shareholder profit in 0.01%). Increase in inequality? Nobody will care in a few years, it’ll make everything cheaper anyway (look up Baumol’s cost disease to see how wrong that statement is, without being incorrect). I’m not exaggerating, sometimes the people saying that don’t even bother lacing it in politically correct language.

Because Lone Trail showed it “worked” – Kristen Wright broke off the ceiling over Terra and that will have consequences (especially with Endfield coming closer). The data from her experiments will advance science, the sight of a broken ceiling will inspire artists and prompt politicians to act. Was it worth it? Well, it will depend on who you ask (like, Ifrit or Rosmontis would have strong feelings), but it’s just there now. Serious history isn’t kind on this question as well – many technologies have a lot of transgressions, both legal and ethical, in their supply chain (both the American and Soviet space program come to my mind – guess who helped them); the difference between an entrepreneur and a criminal are contextual, because both are finding new opportunities of profit and both interlock frequently.

In the end, anyone can put an equation that has its uses, not mattering if it’s a good person or not. But that is no excuse to find good ethical practices. Silence saw everything with her own eyes and I’m really glad she’s leading the initiative for a more ethical science in Columbia – especially because people who are willing to break moral rules tend also to be willing to break research rules (this is why the “research” made in concentration camps is actually useless, it didn’t respect experimental rules). So I’m really glad for the Arknights writers for understanding these nuances and communicating them to the audience through one of the best stories of the game.

[typellblog]

Dune is an interesting novel cause the weird bigotry shit is not on accident its actually a core part of the worldbuilding

not only is it a thing that if you breed people with good genetics together you will create an ubermensch, this is the whole premise and backstory of the protagonist

a mystical society of women with hidden influence over all affairs of government are the ones organising all of this, but not only that, they also implant myths about themselves in various societies around the galaxy so that they're seen as important religious figures according to prophecy

the fremen are not just the noble savage archetype, they don't just incidentally become supersoldiers due to living by traditional ways in a harsh environment, this is actually a known method of producing supersoldiers in-universe that was previously used by the empire to create the sardaukar

they wage a holy war that kills millions, not with magic or a new technology or a really big spaceship but just through the power of raw religious zealotry

theres this like . . . intense belief in the power and potential of human beings on an innate biological and psychological level that bleeds throughout the whole setting - the way shields are set up so that people have to knife fight instead of shooting each other with lasers, the way there's a religious taboo against AI so nobles don't use computers to do calculations or predictions they just bring a really smart guy around with them at all times, the way that taking certain drugs literally lets you see the future and is key to the function of space travel (all the ships need A Guy in them who is key to the entire ability to enter their hyperspace equivalent)

and it reads as very strange compared to most modern scifi and fantasy, but strange in a kind of fascinating way

[phaedraismyusername]

Hi hello I have been knee deep in a genre binge so here are some literary sci-fi books that deal with loneliness as a core theme

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

Translated from French this book follows the youngest girl in a group of 40 women who are being kept in a cage underground in an unknown place, for unknown reasons, until one day they get the chance to escape triggering a search for answers and survival on a desolate surface.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is a very subtle dystopian story about a group of people who spend their childhoods at an extremely secretive english boarding school, the course of their relationships, and where they are at the end of their lives. There's a subtle feeling of wrongness from the first chapter and the author spends the rest of the novel very slowly revealing the reasons why.

Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma

The super short form pitch for this book is 'Fleabag if there was an option to yeet herself to another planet'. Iris is in a long term relationship with depression, kind of hates her pointless job, sometimes hates her family, and is generally overwhelmed by the weight of existence, when she hears about Nyx - earth's first space colony - and thinks that just maybe it could be the answer to all her problems.

Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon

When the population of a company sponsored colony finds out they have been designated a failure and the people are to be packed up and shipped off to another planet to try again, one little old lady decides that for the first time in her long life she's going to break the rules - she's going to stay and live her best life alone on the planet, and finally get some peace and quiet. What could go wrong?

Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley

Skyward Inn is an odd little book set in a future where Earth has come into contact with an alien world that quickly surrendered to humanity. The story follows a small group of kind of unlikeable people who live behind the walls of the 'western protectorate' - a place in the moors that's decided to isolate itself and live like the old days with rudimentary technology for a simple life. Until strangers appear and things start to get... weird. Slower, stranger and with more body horror than you might expect.

[spearxwind]

i think also a huge part of why artists majorly refuse machine-learning (bc that’s what it is, i refuse to call it ai bc it’s inaccurate and gives tech bros too much credit) is that the people currently championing and developing those tools actively want it to replace artists. They loudly and proudly hate the arts and want every creative professional put out of work. They want every creative HOBBYIST to give up. I have seen machine-learning art generators call us artoids (like ‘femoids’ incels or unhealthily online misogynists use to refer to women. To give you the idea of the kind of hate-fueled superiority we’re dealing with) and circle-jerk to the idea of art no longer being a career and no one being able to ask for commissions anymore.

Machine-learning tools are currently a symbol of people who see creativity and art as an enemy, a boogeyman to be slain. They are designed accordingly - stealing human work to create the data, designing it so that people can generate ‘sketches’ or ‘doodles’ to deceive the layman that it was hand-drawn, using real-world likenesses without consent, etc. When tech bros get tired of weaponizing machine-learning because they think we need to get ‘real jobs’ or that furry porn artists charge too much for comms and need to be stopped, it will probably be a lot easier for artists to embrace it as it’ll be a lot easier to develop ethical tools. On top of making development easier, it could become a great tool to make the visual arts accessible for people that have disabilities affecting drawing ability. It could be a wonderful technology.

But as it stands we’re not there yet.

WHATTTT.... ARTOIDS 💀.............................. that is THE most cringe fucking word ever im gonna start calling them fucking inceloids or something

Arent these the people who also have hentai addictions and collect all sorts of images of anime women breasting boobily? Do they think before AI that those images just popped up from the aether? They should also get real jobs that arent living in their moms basements and being a hateful little bitch

It's kind of hilarious that they think machine learning models will be the the end of art though. As if art hasnt been a core human function from prehistoric age and as if it hasnt survived hundreds of purges, demonizations, and attempts to erase certain styles and movements and people. We're going to prevail no matter what and they can die mad about it

[racefortheironthrone]

Any chance you have seen and/or have thoughts on Across the Spider-Verse?

I literally just got back from Across the Spider-Verse and sat down at my computer, so this is about as fresh as a take as I can manage.

Short version: it's an astonishingly and relentlessly ambitious film that aims to outdo every other Spider-Man movie, every other multi-verse movie, and even its own first entry in the Miles Morales trilogy. And it succeeds.

Full spoilers below the cut. You have been warned.

The Visuals

Before I get into anything about the story, I want to first give full credit to the directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemo Powers, Justin K. Thompson, and the entire team at Sony Pictures Animation. If you saw the first Spider-Verse movie and aren't an animation nerd, you probably were impressed but didn't realize how revolutionary it was. I'll let Movies With Mikey explain the details, because it's easier if you can see what people are talking about:

When your first entry wins an Academy Award by thumbing your nose at Pixar, the reigning king of animation, and the principles of animation set down by the Nine Old Men, you have every right to sit back on your laurels.

For Across the Spider-Verse, the Sony Pictures Animation team clearly decided: fuck that. If the first film had wowed audiences by combining a half-dozen styles of animation on the screen at the same time, the second film would drown you in dozens and dozens of Spiders-Men and -Women (and -Animals) drawn in every style imaginable: Da Vinci's yellowing parchments and sketchy penicls, harsh cell-shading, punk rock collage art, 90s-style comic panels full of impossibly rippling muscles, crappy hand-drawn animation from the 1967 tv show, and then for a tip of the hat to Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the man who should have been Spider-Man - live action.

The backgrounds show the same love: from the off-set printing of Miles' world (my favorite detail is that you know that Miles gets sent to the wrong Earth when the color scheme shifts from purple to green), to the dripping painterly pastels of the Gweniverse, to the riotous greens and yellows of Mumbattan, to the clean Pixaresque light blooms of the Spider-Society's technological utopia (which looks a hell of a lot like something out of Brad Bird's dreams).

I am thoroughly in awe of the mentality behind the animation in this film, the absolute determination to challenge one's own limits and exceed one's past accomplishments.

The Story

If there is a single world that defines Across the Spider-Verse, it's "canon." The moment Miguel O'Hara uttered that word, my spidey-senses started tingling and I realized that Lord & Miller came to this film with a sermon. See, if there's one message from the first Spider-Verse movie it's that "anyone can be Spider-Man." But if there's two messages is that "you can't save everyone" - the idea that the thing that unites all Spiders-Folk from across the multiverse, it is a common understanding of loss, a tragic origin that drives each hero to impossible efforts to never let it happen again.

Across the Spider-Verse's message is: "why?" I cannot begin to explain the absolute vibranium balls it took to question not just a core premise of your previous movie, but one of the core premises of the entire multi-media multi-corporate franchise. And yet, Lord & Miller show nothing but confidence executing this turn.

FULL SPOILERS OF THE BIG TWIST AHEAD in 3:

3

2

1

At the beginning of the film, which makes the brilliant move to start by telling Spider-Gwen's story since we already know Miles, we are introduced to Miguel O'Hara (the Spider-Man from 2099) as a badass who leads a secret organization dedicated to protecting the mutliverse...but who secretly is also here to protect "canon."

At the turning point of the film, when Miles is finally invited to join the Spider-Society, we are let in on a dark truth: the safety of the multiverse depends on the suffering of Spiders. Just as Uncle Ben must die, so must a gallant police captain - although almost subtextually, Spider-Gwen hints that so too must the Gwen Stacys who "fall for Spider-Man" - to keep Spider-Man emotionally isolated and solely dedicated to his mission of protecting New York. Trying to avert this lonely fate, to live a happier life, brings about the destruction of all that is.

Through an act of unabashed heroism in Mumbattan - saving the life of a gallant police captain and an innocent child - Miles has inadvertently endangered an entire universe. And unless he allows his own father, the gallant captain, to die as well - the same fate will befall his own. Miles, being a good son and a good person, refuses to accept this and takes on the entire Spider-Society to get home and save his father.

In the chase, we are let in on a second, dark truth: Miles wasn't invited to join the Spider-Society because he is one of the anomalies they hunt, because he was never supposed to be Spider-Man. (You see how this builds on both the speech from Miles' mom about not letting white society tell him he doesn't belong AND the message from the first film?) The Kingpin's collider experiments allowed an Alchemax spider to cross over from Earth-42 to Earth-1610...and as a result, Earth-42 never got a Spider-Man.

When Miles accidentally is sent to Earth-42 instead of his actual home, he learns what that meant. Without Spider-Man, Captain Jeff Davis (Brian Michael Bendis is a real mensch like 99% of the time, but man did he fuck up with that one) died instead of his brother Aaron. Because the intended Spider-Man of Earth-42 was...Miles Morales. Instead, he has become a dystopian Brooklyn's Prowler, a living reminder of the damage the accident of Earth-1610's Miles' creation has caused. This is why you don't violate "canon."

Except...as we learn, Miguel O'Hara is wrong and our Miles is right. When Gwen is sent back to her own universe, which she has been running away from because she knows that it means confronting both her father the gallant captain and the inevitability of his death, she learns that George Stacy quit the force rather than take his promotion: Captain Stacy doesn't have to die. Nor did Captain Singh. Nor does Captain Davis. (For that matter, Miles doesn't have to lie to his family and live a double life as Spider-Man, as we see from his accidentally-misdirected confession.)

We are not the prisoners of the "canon."

Ever since Amazing Fantasy #15, "with great power there must also come great responsibility" has been the indisputable truth of Spider-Man. At this point, it's become a meme: "the Parker luck." Over and over again, Peter Parker must suffer for our sins - Uncle Ben dies, Captain Stacy dies, Gwen Stacy's death ushers in a whole new era of comics and the phenomenon of "fridging," his marriage to Mary Jane has to be done away with because the Spider Office are apparently psychological eternal adolescents, Aunt May has died and almost died so many times everyone's stopped caring.

And that's the problem: we've been playing the same hit for 61 years and it's gotten old. In the process, creators and audience together have condemned Spider-Man to a Sisyphean existence of eternal backsliding, unable to move on, build a life for himself, mature, die and give way to new Spiders. Hell, the best thing that's happened to Peter Parker in the last several decades was an AU in which he has a super-powered wife and daughter and can settle into a middle age of teaching at the Xavier School.

That's the sermon that Lord & Miller came to preach: just as in 2018 it was time for a new Spider-Man, now it's time for new stories that have the courage to try something different.

A Side-Note About the Multiverse

As with the animation side of the story, Lord & Miller could have sat back on their laurels when it came to the concept of the multiverse. After all, they were the ones who made it cool and sent Marvel Studios scrambling to catch up (still haven't succeeded at that, by the way). I don't think Everything Everywhere All At Once needed the creative help, but it absolutely helped sell the movie to producers that a multiverse movie could make millions and win Oscars. (Funny how that works.) Instead, Lord & Miller took it up a notch by asking "what is the purpose of a multiverse?"

Hot take: I don't like the Spider-Verse events. For all that they've given us some amazing Spider designs - and we saw them all up on screen in Across the Spider-Verse - no one cares about the stories. That's because the naked purpose of the comics was to market test Spider designs, see which ones generated buzz, and then make spin-off comics about those Spiders.

Across the Spider-Verse uses the concept of a multiverse, the shiny Macguffin that multi-billion dollar corporate conglomerates will hope will the ticket to riches, to strip Spider-Man down to the essentials by showing every conceivable variation and asking us what they all have in common. Is it suffering, or a commitment to doing the right thing?

Conclusion:

Holy shit, is firing Lord & Miller the biggest mistake Disney has made since Walt refused to recognize the animators' union in 1941.

[cheonmamatousakura]

I feel like a lot of people, especially or at least in the imperial core take for granted the idea that the life expetancy has gone up over the years and decades, as if it will continue to do so for all eternity. With the way things are going, especially in the grander political context and assuming that much of the spoils of imperialism and current political hierarchy will not last by the end of the century, it seems blatantly contradictory for anyone aware to just assume they'll be living in their 100s or so assuming they don't die of something else.

Poverty in usamerica for instance is getting noticably worse, life more difficult, stressful, lonely, and expensive, climate change continuining to worsen before it gets better, the spreading of covid and its many negative health effects and so on aren't really indicating that we'll be living life long and joyous like people keep assuming at least as far as usamerica is concerned if not other imperial core countries. Hell, just from hearing about the difficulties my age group faces, and given that many of them are trans women and so on, it seems more than a little optimistic to think every one of us will be reaching triple digits even in ideal circumstances. The conditions of life just don't add up to such, nor do political projections.

Technology isn't not going to arbitrarily raise us all to lesser elf levels of aging by the end of the century. Places like China may have a notably increased life expetancy by the end of the century, sure, but when it's doubtful that certain powerful countries now will even exist by the end of the century, it'd be a bit silly to expect a higher life expectancy by the time many in the current imperial core in their 20s and 30s get up in the years.

[sepdet]

Have you SEEN the original moon landing feed, especially the scary bit near the end?

Now stay with me. I grew up hearing about these few minutes from my parents (in fact I took the TV they watched it on to grad school; DS9 and Babylon5 worked well in b&w).

This is even crazier than it looks like.

My parents were both scientists, my grandmother a planetarium director, and my dad was just about to land his job at a rocket company that built 95 small rockets that were part of the UpGoer Saturn V. (Yeah. Just the small ones. Saturn V was a BEAST.)

So my parents had a fair idea how dangerous this was, how Neil going manual was a bad sign, and just how close he was to running empty and crashing. They knew the problem that every ounce of fuel you carry requires even more fuel to lift off, so the Eagle was built light, carrying no excess weight even in fuel (it had to lift off the Moon with no rocket, after all).

But they didn't learn until years later just how jury-rigged and bespoke Apollo technology was. Every vehicle and part was designed like a Mythbusters build: extremely customized for the procedures it had to accomplish, using parts and even technology invented for specific mission tasks.

rope memory, predecessor to modern silicon chips: 1s and 0s woven by women (of course) at a Massachusetts textile plant

At the time, computers were the size of rooms and very touchy. Apollo's computer memory was core rope memory, never used before or since, to save space. The read/write guidance computer, too, was woven: physical media could better survive the rigors of space travel. (I suspect even my parents don't know it also used some of the very first integrated circuits, soldered by hand under a microscope by Navajo women).

Spacesuits were (and still are) designed and hand-stitched by Playtex bramakers. The lunar rovers' wheels were titanium meshes woven with piano wire to let dust through, and even had a clever navigation system despite no GPS or magnetic north.

They couldn't test these rigs with computer modeling. They didn't know for sure what the moon's surface would be like, apart from basic parameters like low gravity and near vacuum and a temperature ranging from 250°F in the sun to -250° in the shade. And it was nearly impossible to test for or practice in those conditions on Earth.

And then there were the unknowns. A massive solar flare between Apollo 16 and 17 might have killed or sickened them too much to operate their ship.

While the spacesuit and to some extent the rover design carried on, a lot of these hacks were so unusual that they might as well be alien tech. (I'm sorry woven technology fell out of vogue for several decades.) That goes some way towards explaining why humans haven't left Earth orbit since I was two.

The other problem, of course, is expense. Tech for human space exploration requires as much R&D and testing as fighter planes, which have developed through a century of multiple countries' military budgets. Human space programs are lucky to last two presidents; the next president usually doesn't think giving glory to his predecessor is a good use of money.

So for 40 years, NASA has mostly worked with other countries on human spaceflight or built robot explorers that can be launched in 3-4 years before Congress or the president can axe the program. They're less likely to shut down a mission when 99.99% of the money's been spent, and all that's left to do is download data and uplink occasional instructions.

TL:DR; Congress and the White House keep flashing the equivalent of that computer error message, every time NASA gets ready to send humans into space again. Overload. Abort mission.

Unless, you know, American citizens start saying Go. Go. Go. Go. We have some pretty important priorities down here on Earth (which Amazon and Disney and oil companies should be footing the bill for, though they try not to), but I bet the military can cough up the cost of a few fighter jets.

[crossdreamers]

New study shows that women have been, and are, hunters too.

Science have been used actively to uphold gender stereotypes and gender roles. One narrative that has served this purpose is that in hunter-gatherer societies men hunt and women gather. This division of labor has been seen as inborn and natural, and has therefore been used to defend a society where men work outside the home and women take care of the kids.

NPR writes:

Until now, the general sense among scientists has been that  [the accounts of hunter gatherer societies] overwhelmingly pointed to men mainly hunting and women mainly gathering, with only occasional exceptions, says Robert Kelly, professor of anthropology at the University of Wyoming and the author of influential books and articles on hunter-gatherer societies.

But Kelly says that the views he and others held of the typical gender divisions around hunting were based on anecdotal impressions of the reports they'd been reading, combined with the field work many had engaged in personally. "No one," says Kelly, had done a systematic "tally" of what the observational reports said about women hunting.

Enter the researchers behind the new study: a team from University of Washington and Seattle Pacific University. "We decided to see what was actually out there" on hunting, says the lead researcher Cara Wall-Scheffler, a biological anthropologist.

Wall-Scheffler notes "our goal was to go back to the original ethnographic reports of those populations and see what had actually been written about the hunting strategies."

Their findings — published in the journal PLOS One this week — is that in 79% of the societies for which there is data, women were hunting.

An Awá woman holds hunting bows and arrows in Brazil’s Caru Indigenous Territory in 2017. Photo: Scott Wallace.

The researchers write:

Evidence from the past one hundred years supports archaeological finds from the Holocene that women from a broad range of cultures intentionally hunt for subsistence. These results aim to shift the male-hunter female-gatherer paradigm to account for the significant role females have in hunting, thus dramatically shifting stereotypes of labor, as well as mobility.

To be fair, a lot of researchers have questioned these stereotypes before. The main culprits have been researchers from a field called “evolutionary psychology”, a discipline notorious for its development of pseudo-scientific theories aimed at reinforcing gender roles.

However, the narrative has spread to text books and popularized versions in the media. It fits the prejudices of many and is therefore considered good content by many editors.

"I think that next to the myth that God made a woman from man's rib to be his helper, the myth that man is the hunter and woman is the gatherer is probably the second most enduring myth that naturalizes the inferiority of women," says Kimberly Hamlin, a professor of history at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

It has fueled the idea, she says, that "men are supposed to be violent, they're supposed to be aggressive – one of the core elements in the soup of toxic masculinity."

Read the whole article here.

See also:

The Myth of Man the Hunter: Women’s contribution to the hunt across ethnographic contexts

Shattering the myth of men as hunters and women as gatherers

Do animals have genders? Are there transgender animals? A scientist find some clues among chimpanzees.

Top illustration: Artists depiction of female hunter 9,000 years ago in ancient Peru. Source: Matthew Verdolivo / UC Davis IET Academic Technology Services

[aibidil]

On “Civilization” from The Dawn of Everything

One problem is that we’ve come to assume that ‘civilization’ refers, in origin, simply to the habit of living in cities. Cities, in turn, were thought to imply states. But as we’ve seen, that is not the case historically, or even etymologically. The word ‘civilization’ derives from Latin civilis, which actually refers to those qualities of political wisdom and mutual aid that permit societies to organize themselves through voluntary coalition. In other words, it originally meant the type of qualities exhibited by Andean ayllu associations or Basque villages, rather than Inca courtiers or Shang dynasts. If mutual aid, social co-operation, civic activism, hospitality or simply caring for others are the kind of things that really go to make civilizations, then this true history of civilization is only just starting to be written.

As we’ve been showing throughout this book, in all parts of the world small communities formed civilizations in that true sense of extended moral communities. Without permanent kings, bureaucrats or standing armies they fostered the growth of mathematical and calendrical knowledge. In some regions they pioneered metallurgy, the cultivation of olives, vines and date palms, or the invention of leavened bread and wheat beer; in others they domesticated maize and learned to extract poisons, medicines and mind-altering substances from plants. Civilizations, in this true sense, developed the major textile technologies applied to fabrics and basketry, the potter’s wheel, stone industries and beadwork, the sail and maritime navigation, and so on.

A moment’s reflection shows that women, their work, their concerns and innovations are at the core of this more accurate understanding of civilization. As we saw in earlier chapters, tracing the place of women in societies without writing often means using clues left, quite literally, in the fabric of material culture, such as painted ceramics that mimic both textile designs and female bodies in their forms and elaborate decorative structures. To take just two examples, it’s hard to believe that the kind of complex mathematical knowledge displayed in early Mesopotamian cuneiform documents or in the layout of Peru’s Chavín temples sprang fully formed from the mind of a male scribe or sculptor, like Athena from the head of Zeus. Far more likely, these represent knowledge accumulated in earlier times through concrete practices such as the solid geometry and applied calculus of weaving or beadwork. What until now has passed for ‘civilization’ might in fact be nothing more than a gendered appropriation – by men, etching their claims in stone – of some earlier system of knowledge that had women at its centre.

—The Dawn of Everything, Graeber and Wengrow

[horrorsprovider]

Process Discussion: Fan Design - Fatui Lyney

for my non-art account followers, this is referring to a full illustration + design on my art account!

the really, really long post containing all the research and thought processes behind my fatui lyney fan design 👍

when starting a new fan design, my starting point will be the time period/era

for this particular design, i started with the time period/era the character comes from. in some other cases i look for the origin and/or popular use of a concept began, such as when a certain fabric began being commonly used or the rise and fall of fashion trends. so, i took to fontaine’s “culture” section and some reading on the entries for the regions fashion as my jumping off point.

Fontaine’s fashion (looking specifically at the court’s men’s fashion) ranges from mid/late 18th century to the early 19th century, however Lyney and Lynette’s designs contain elements coming from the early 20th century (circus/acrobatic uses of leotards)

from there, i do some research on the events and era’s in the world at during those times. i found a period spanning from 1871/1880 - 1914 called La Belle Époque, which is considered a highly optimistic time, in which peace, economic prosperity and technological advancements were some of the defining characteristics, as well as a time when the arts flourished.

Fontaine’s women NPCs’ fashion seems to take after the fashion in this period, and it’s likely that this is where most of the inspiration for Fontaine is taken from.

during La Belle Époque, Burlesque performances were more mainstream. Burlesque was a type of comedic, dramatic musical theatre that treated serious subjects in a very joking matter. While actual Burlesque costumes were very interesting, it seems Lynette’s design takes after modern day costumes (3rd image)

unfortunate. but not the point!!

as Burlesque was mostly female dominated, i went looking for another type of theatre that featured more male actors in hopes to find inspiration for Lyney’s design. i dug through the Burlesque wiki page and found that Burlesque is derived from Pantomime, another musical comedy based theatre that was aimed more at family audiences.

from there i discovered Harlequinade, which i think people will find interesting:

“…a variant of the Commedia dell’arte… a comic incident in the lives of its five main characters: Harlequin (Arlecchino) who loves Columbine (Columbina)”

“Originally a mime act (Lyney and Lynette’s stage makeup resembles mime makeup)… the harlequinade later employed some dialogue, but remained primarily a visual spectacle… An often elaborate magical transformation scene… changing the first part of the pantomime, and it’s characters, into the harlequinade… In the late 18th and 19th centuries, the harlequinade became the larger part of the entertainment, and the transformation scenes was presented with increasingly spectacular stage effects.”

additionally:

“Harlequin is the comedian and romantic male lead… His everlasting high spirits and cleverness work to save him from difficult situations into which his amoral behaviour leads during the course of the harlequinade. In some versions of the original Commedia dell’arte, Harlequin is able to perform magic feats.”

so, i’m guessing this is where the idea of magicians came in, and that Harlequinade/the Harlequin character was a core aspect when developing Lyney’s character, considering it’s an adaptation of the Commedia dell’arte (and the Harlequin is essentially a spin-off/“version” of Arlecchino, the Italian name for Harlequin)

although Harlequinade didn’t provide much in terms of design aspects, it did provide some connections i thought were interesting to bring up!

from this point i reeled back in to just researching general mens fashion in the 18th-19th centuries. unfortunately mens fashion has always been very boring, save for the colours of their waist coats, so a lot of this design came from the blending of Lyney and Arlecchino’s designs…

which is what i was aiming to do in the first place! when i’m doing research for fan designs, my intention isn’t to slap a modern-made character into a historical outfit. i want to study the principles of clothing back then, such as what parts of the body are emphasized, what figures/shapes were common/considered attractive, the meaning for colours at the time and how they liked to accessorize, etc

i then took to my canvas and started picking apart Lyney’s in game outfit, trying to find what parts were just for aesthetic reasons, and what parts actually had historical grounds to them. i also did some analysis on it, such as why/how this design fits the idea of the Magician character so well while being so unconventional to the actual concept.

(sorry my notes are so haphazardly done haha, i usually don’t intend to show these to anyone but i thought i would anyways!!)

(small green text on the right reads: clothes themselves aren’t inherently (nearly certain i used that word wrong) complex — accessories are added to basic clothing cuts)

when we think of magicians today, we think black and white 2 piece suit with a matching top hat, black cape and white gloves, who is sometimes carrying a black and white stick wand. however Lyney’s design strays rather far from that idea, while still maintaining the core idea. i think his design is very successful in being able to translate a bland idea into something unique but still reading as a magician.

the suit coat and the magicians cape are translated into coat tails attached to a black leotard. the dress shirt has simply been cut into 3 pieces: a halter collared/frilled shirt with separated sleeves. i believe a very effective design choice was to make the sleeves baggy, to not only bulk up the arms of the silhouette (as the rest of the design is very skin tight), but to be reminiscent of the loose dress shirts that were popular amongst men during that time. he isn’t wearing dress pants, but the stockings and boots serve to fill that purpose.

even with all these changes, Lyney’s design is effective because it fills the criteria to a certain extent while adding a special twist to it (being very very slutty). these aspects are parts i wanted to make sure had very little change when i was making my design, because i felt if that removing them would no longer “make” the character. it would no longer feel like Lyney’s design without them, and thus would not fill the criteria in the same unique way his canon design does. it had to still read as “Lyney” when new eyes set a first glance on it, but still different enough to understand its Lyney, but different.

i wanted my design to emphasize those parts, to really push the image of the Magician. the challenge was to create a distinct design that was still very clearly Lyney, but was also clearly influenced by Arlecchino. to do this, i tried to replicate Arlecchino’s silhouette as closely as possible while also maintaining/emphasizing those 3 main aspects.

the new coat tails would take a similar shape to Arlecchino’s, and the baggy sleeves would end in frills, just as hers does. however, since i really don’t like the idea of Lyney in a suit, i had to find a way to replicate the sharp shoulders that a suit jacket would create without just putting him in a suit jacket. while i could’ve just ignored this detail, i found that his top half would be very bare (literally) and i believe the pointed shoulder silhouette of a suit is rather important! it broadens the shoulders, making the characters silhouette feel more intimidating.

before this little challenge of mine, i was trying to find ways to give Lyney a proper cape, since i really don’t think his little shoulder cape does him justice. during that time, i found his design simply isn’t able to support a cape as is, because it’s set up differently in comparison to the other cape-wearing characters in genshin.

if we take a look at a character like Kaeya, we’ll notice how most of his defining design aspects are towards the top of his body, while the lower half remains rather blank. the cape serves as a way to “extend the areas of interest” down towards the bottom so it remains interesting for longer instead of just stopping at the waist. HYV takes special care to ensure the backs of their playable characters are interesting to look at during gameplay (which is why so many characters have weird long pieces of hair.)

i call this method of designing the “inverted triangle,” as the concentration of design aspects dwindles the further you go down. this can be applied to most other cape-wearing characters — with few exceptions

Lyney, on the other hand, has most of his defining characteristics on his lower half. his design is what i consider an “upright triangle”

save for the hat, most of the large shapes and blocks of colour are located on the lower half of his body (the coat tails, the bagginess of the sleeves, the stockings/garters)

when trying to add a cape on top of that all, the bottom half becomes too busy, and throws off the balance.

a tragedy 😔 the sacrifices we must make (cool cape) due to the existing circumstances (cool coat tails and many, many belts)

so, for this fan design i decided to scratch that itch. i still couldn’t give him the big cape due to the above reasons, but i did make his half shoulder cape into a full one that hung from both shoulders. it was almost like combining his and Lynette’s, haha

originally i left the medal out of the design, but i thought it would imply too much if i did. i didn’t want this design to read as me making Lyney a broken, depressed man, because that feels like such a general sweep for the concept of him as the new Father. the idea behind this design is to really play into him taking Arlecchino’s place, which is why i focused on making his silhouette so much like hers.

Lyney is still allowed to have his own personal tastes in his clothing, but ultimately he will look to her as an example of what he should be for the new children of the House. he would think that Arlecchino is the standard, considering how successfully she raised him and his family (the specifics of “successful” can be debated but shhh), so logically, he would try to mimic her, both consciously and not.

another change i wanted to make (due to my personal tastes in regards to his original design) was to make it more extravagant, more dramatic (especially on the back). the Harbingers’ designs stand out, and i wanted to reflect that in a way. (i really don’t think Lyney is going to take over Arlecchino’s Harbinger position, just as the new Father so she can put her focus elsewhere! but since she’s a Harbinger, i think it’s fair he gets a dramatic makeover as her successor 🫶🫶)

also, Lynette has a friendship level 4 line talking about how their magic shows/magic careers have become convenient fronts to gain access around Fontaine. i wanted to emphasize that mask and really make this design scream “performer.” with his new role, i imagine it would be increasingly difficult to keep up with his image as a famous magician and as the leader of the House, so he exaggerates the performer persona to compensate for it, almost adding yet another wall of the facade. it’s more “over the top,” with smaller changes but glaringly obvious that something is different.

some smaller design notes/commentary that don’t really have much to them so it’s quick fire time

i wanted the inside of his tailcoats to be much more vibrant than they are in game to add to the Drama (also because waistcoats were the Only Thing men really had at the time to customize so they really went all out with the colours)

the medal on the back of his cape is purple as sort of a middle ground between him and Lynette (because i saw an idea that it’s kind of like an ei/shogun situation where 2 people are under the Father identity in the House but the inhabitants just know Lyney and i really like that!!!!! i also think it’d just be weird to have Lynette kind of be in a lesser position to Lyney when they’ve been equals their entire lives so it’d be cool to have her as his double)

the feather(?) on Lyney’s hat is the same as Arlecchino’s hair pin on her ponytail

the magenta lipstick is related to his c6 title “guarded smile.” for context, the colour magenta isn’t a real colour on the light spectrum, it just exists as filler we created on the colour wheel when red and purple mix. i have a lot of Thoughts about Lyney with the colour magenta (and honestly i don’t know if it was on purpose at all but i think it’s cool regardless)

i tried real fucking hard to not make this read as Gogol from BSD and i’ll be deeply upset if any comparison is at all made. do you know how many diamond patterns and card accessories i had to remove because it just looked like Gogol. fucking agony.

thank you for reading this long ass post. i always love reading dev discussions/notes on concept art cause it’s so so so interesting how much story/thought is behind a design that we just don’t know about and it really makes me appreciate stuff more!!!! highly encourage info dumping alllllll the ideas behind ur ocs or art or writing etc its so so so fun i promise i read all authors notes and tags people leave on their stuff. it’s my enrichment.