plz spare a crumb of dopamine

life difficult doing my best

[apolladay]

Let's debate about superhero capes (feel free to comment your own arguments as well)!

Capes are too dangerous (the Edna Mode argument)

Cape can get caught on things (e.g. branches, mechanical doors, exposed sharp objects)

Heavy capes can reduce mobility (e.g. weighing them down when running and climbing) and get in the way

Capes can be grabbed by an enemy to choke or restrain the wearer

Capes can increase visibility (especially for flying heroes when contrasted with the sky)

Capes can lead to instability and loss of balance at high speeds

Capes can be tactical (the Batman argument)

Capes can conceal movement, making attacks hard to read

Capes give the wearer a dramatic silhouette that can intimidate criminals

Capes can be used as a weapon or tool in a fight (e.g. using it to obstruct an opponents vision, distract them, wrap around a weapon to disarm, or cause an opponent to flinch or create distance)

Capes can be reinforced to provide some small amount of protection against weapons

Capes can be modified into a glider, parachute, or other tool

Capes can obscure body shape to protect secret identities

Capes can provide basic weather protection by using waterproofing for rain or insulation for the cold.

And now for the poll:

Which argument about superhero capes do you find more compelling?

Edna Mode argument

Batman argument

I am allergic to taking sides

Which argument (much information about said argument in above ask so go read or don't I'm not your mother) about superhero capes do you find more compelling?

Edna Mode argument

Batman argument

I am allergic to taking sides

Voting ended onJul 22

[diseasedbreeze]

Very few heroes just tie a random length of cloth around their necks and go. Despite looking simple the capes of heroes other than Batman either have a specialized purpose (Superman's cape is woven out of the Kryptonian equivalent of cotton and is also invulnerable) or any downsides are negated by their powers. The number one use for a superheroes cape is as a bulletproof shield that can be used to protect civilians and this is an important tool for any hero to have and pretty much all modern capes can easily by dropped or released when they become a liability.

[vintagerobin]

Would also point out that capes or cloaks were traditionally used in fencing because they could be used to deflect the blade of an opponent, and this is where the phrase "cloak and dagger" comes from. The Batman argument genuinely has basis in reality.

[asinglebluefeline]

I would like to add to the Batman argument:

Nightwing (2016) #112

Batman and Robin: Year One #2

Robin (1993) #77

For the people they protect <3

[katanahime]

Additionally, capes are actively better against projectiles than the same material worn in a static position on the body.

I've seen people testing this with regular-ass cloth, and basically any type of looser fabric, like a cape or cloak, has a chance to deflect projectiles, including some types of arrows, up until the point where they are sharp and fast enough to pierce armor.

It is generally accepted that most superhero capes of this type - like as with Batman - are not regular-ass cloth, and have an actual bullet-resistant-fabric property to them, which has already been noted.

But I'd like to also add that wearing as a cape has cases where it is specifically better than just wearing it as armor.

This is probably also related to the fencing note from a couple reblogs up, with a cape's general ability to deflect energy, but I did think it relevant to note the case for projectiles, as they are probably a more relevant problem than sword blades most of the time.

Anyway, the fact that it can move freely is an active defensive measure.

[chiyana]

Also for some added Doylism, capes look cool and can help add flair to action scenes and make movement clearer, as well as provide a useful way for artists to cover up things they don't want to/have time to draw in detail and make it easier to churn out pages.

[boxheadpaint]

[boxheadpaint]

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

in hindsight, growing up as an aromantic person who didn't know aromanticism was a thing...it woulda been really easy for me to assume that something was wrong with me, that I was "broken" or "missing" some piece of humanity.

luckily I was autistic, oblivious, and had a huge ego. it literally never occurred to me to frame it as a "me" problem. i just thought every single person i knew was a dumbass

[panic-at-the-aromantic]

redstonedust AND biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist are aromantic??? are all the famous tumblrinas aromantic??

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

OKAY LISTEN

[filibusterfrog]

just a little boy

[cheaphalloweencostume]

im so sick of unnecessary dinner scenes in movies 😡 every fucking movie they just want to titillate you with some food because they think you’re a dumb animal who just wants to see mashed potatoes bouncing. if its an IMPORTANT dinner scene where they explain lore then whatever i understand. but they shove useless meals into every movie these days and its disgusting

[cheaphalloweencostume]

really? you don’t say

[what-even-is-thiss]

When I was at the movie theatre they were advertising a romcom where the premise was that unmarried people are only legally allowed to have sex once a year and that one, that one made me put my head in my hands.

[what-even-is-thiss]

It’s called One Night Only, it’s a real movie, and yes it’s very heterosexual looking.

That’s like, idk. A premise for a fanfiction porn intro written by a fifteen year old.

[what-even-is-thiss]

You know it’s especially odd because historically there have actually been legal bans on premarital sex in many places. Fornication laws and whatnot. Like this is being used as the premise for some kinda goofy little romcom but it’s also just like? Real life? But with a one day exception for some reason?

People are gonna have sex anyways. I feel like I’m losing my mind.

[what-even-is-thiss]

There’s a really weird amount of stories where at least part of the premise is “Woah. What if… sex was banned?”

Yeah no shit sherlock it already is/was.

[kyoshi-lesbians]

my controversial opinion is I don’t think Zuko was confused by “my first girlfriend turned into the moon”

[kyoshi-lesbians]

he was there during siege of the North. he infiltrated the spirit oasis. he has an uncle who studies spirits and the spirit world. he watched the sky go dark then the moon suddenly reappear like everyone else in the entire world did. and most importantly he watched zhao get eaten by a giant godzilla fish spirit.

[kyoshi-lesbians]

his entire life since he saw that beam of blue-white light in the south pole has been ‘this day has already been so goddamn weird’

[edgar-allan-possum]

The only really new information was that that was Sokka’s girlfriend

[library-graffiti]

Important opinion in the tags that I need to have be part of the post:

[clearascountryair]

Also, Iroh was there? He literally watched Sokka make out with the moon spirit. And you want to tell me that a romantic sap like him would not have immediately told Zuko about this romantic tragedy? Please, Zuko has known about this for ages, he just knows that this is not an acceptable situation in which to say “yeah, I know.”

[terriwriting]

Sokka: “My girlfriend turned into the moon.”

Zuko: “I know.” “Yes.” “She sure did.” “Uh huh.” “Tell me something new.” “Are we still talking about that?” “That’s rough, buddy.”

[alexseanchai]

[image: tags by samwisethebold: #it’s not that he doesn’t get what sokka means #it’s that how on earth do you respond to that]

[uberguber89]

When you put it like that, this is actually a legendary display of tact on Zuko’s part

[phantomrose96]

When you meet Edward Elric he gives off the impression that he's the short-tempered hot-headed "violence is the answer to all life's questions" kind of protagonist, and it's in fact incredible character craft that he's actually the character who ends the series with a negative-3 kill count.

[phantomrose96]

people killed: 0

direct orders of "you really really need to kill this guy" ignored: 1

ongoing murders being committed by Ed's own friends/colleagues that Ed got in the way of to specifically stop that murder from happening: 2

[phantomrose96]

God's worst soldier Edward Elric. Showed up as the youngest member of the Amestrian army, took millions of dollars from them, never followed a single order, helped dismantle their fascist regime, left with a lower kill count than he arrived with, then fucked off to go be a house-husband. Character of all time.

[aka-blaa]

You know, when you said "negative-3 kill count," I, who haven't seen the anime, thought, "He resurrected 3 people?????" But I'm seeing here on the wiki that apparently resurrection in this anime is a terrible idea.

[phantomrose96]

Official addition to this post.

[targetedknowledge]

[frankiesbullshit]

someone tell OP i did it, i spent about 3 hours on it

[victusinveritas]

It's almost like something happened in 2020-now that is causing these problems.

[weaselle]

ignoring everything the pandemic response specialists were saying was good for the economy tho. State governors and federal agencies with no medical experience and no economics education told us so

[small-witch-big-hat]

"no reliable data" What A Curious Coincidence. I Wonder What Might Have Been Happening In That Period To Cause Such a Thing

[cartograffiti]

Lately I've been thinking a lot about a pattern I've noticed more and more, where people try to critique queer sex scenes in prose fiction by saying that the reason one didn't work for them is that the author has never had that kind of sex. Obviously, some of this is coming from the current round of "Is it ok for straight women to write m/m?" (yes) but I also see it very regularly from people talking about out queer authors, and many of these critiques are invasive and striking. They make me feel there's a bigger problem I want to be alert to.

Underlying theme: There's an assumption that if the representation is bad, it's inauthentic; so people will argue that it's inauthentic as a substitute for discussing why they think it's bad.

Trend 1: Just assuming it can't be personal.

It's very common for amateur reviews on sites like Goodreads, Storygraph, and Amazon to criticize books with gay relationships with variations on "I'm so over m/m books by women," even on novels written by queer men. I also frequently see "The author so obviously doesn't understand what sapphics find hot about other women," on books by women who thank their wives in the author's notes. Both of these are more common if the reviewer is specifically criticizing the quality of sex scenes. So it's clear that even authors who have made it unambiguous to strangers that their m/m and f/f books are #OwnVoices will still be criticized by some as if they were cishet women writing. But I have only once seen a positive review making the same assumption. (Btw, I do see this on authors I'm very confident from public information are cis, and so their reviewers are unlikely to be discounting their identities out of transphobia.)

Trend 2: "Gender-affirming" transphobia.

By which I mean people quibbling with the accuracy of queer sex scenes by saying something like..."It didn't seem super accurate to me, but the author is trans, so I'll cut them some slack." This is almost always a situation where the characters having sex on page are cis, but I've seen it once or twice when people were assuming a nonbinary character and author did not have the same assigned gender at birth. Many of these reviewers are perfectly correct with the authors' pronouns and say nothing negative that's directly about them being trans. I have even seen people who are trans/nonbinary do this, and I wonder whether they realize what they're doing. Which is publicly speculating about a stranger's transition and private medical history, because what the reviewer usually means is that they're making an assumption about an out trans author's genitals, in order to say that the reviewer is justified in calling a sex scene not perfectly realistic. Maybe a different personal experience is the reason sometimes! There's sexual fantasy, but there is such a thing as mistakes. It still isn't okay with me to talk about trans people this way to your followers on BookTok or Bookstagram in telling them what a book's weaknesses are.

Trend 3: Timeline investigation.

This is most commonly done about authors who are out as bisexual, especially (numbers-wise), bi women writing f/f. It's when people will go..."Well, I didn't think the sex in that one is hot. She's bi, but she was already married to a man when she started publishing, so I don't know if she's ever done cunnilingus herself." I think we can speculate about a stranger's sex life while talking to a friend in a car and splitting French fries, but I don't think this is okay in a very large Discord while telling a culture professional whether a book is worth reading to feature in their work. (For example.) I especially don't think people should be using clues about the author's life to guess and support whether the author has had the opportunity to experience a sex act. The option to say "I didn't find it hot," and stop is...right there.

-

And, again, in all of these cases, across all of these trends...the starting premise doesn't hold water. An authentic portrayal of queer sex might still be poorly written, not hot to you, or portraying something you think is a problem. Many people I am friends with write well about genders, orientations, and specific sex acts that have nothing to do with their own lives.

The sex life of an author cannot be a substitute for analyzing what you like or dislike about a sex scene. I'm not criticizing being curious about other people, or even talking about them. I am saying it concerns me that a lot of people, including in queer bookish circles, will do it in very public-facing ways to make a case for, ultimately, whether the book is worth reading or not. I think that sucks! I think it's a choice that people who do any sort of reviewing/recommendation giving/blogging/influencing can and should curb.

Analyzing sex scenes can be difficult and feel exposing. I think this is one of the reasons looking for an external justification (it has to do with the author, not me, the reader) is common. You don't have to formulate a reason. You don't have to share a reason. It's okay to stick to simple liking or disliking. But I think the trends I've laid out here are profoundly inappropriate, and it troubles me a lot that I most often see them from people who indicate they're queer themselves. I think queerphobia inside the community is only part of the story.

I don't know what the takeaway is if you're reading this post. I don't have a call to action, except...if you do this, don't. If you don't do this, maybe criticize this behavior when you see it. Maybe think about why it might be happening. (And maybe don't comment telling me this never happens and I'm making it up.)

[soleminisanction]

So here's the thing: I don't think "Word of God" should ever be used as a trump in analysis in general, because the intent of the author matters less than what's on the page. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named will tell you her books are feminist and inclusive; that doesn't make it true. JM Berrie would never, ever have called himself homosexual; that doesn't negate the value of the queer readings of Peter Pan.

And that goes triple for comic books, because comics don't have a "God." They have entire pantheons of creators: writers, editors, pencillers, inkers, flatters, colorers, letterers, publishers, marketers -- they all make their own contributions and had their own input.

That goes quadruple for creators specifically like Chuck Dixon, who have decades of interviews where you can track the way the story of "his time at DC" has changed over the years, most prominently the many, many retellings of why his tenure running the Bat-office ended where he makes up any reason he can for it not to be his own fault.

So it frankly does not matter that Dixon didn't intend Jack Drake to be read as neglectful or abusive. He didn't intend Tim, Connor, Babs and Dinah to be read as queer, either. Or for every scene and storyline he's ever written with a Black person to be screamingly racist. That doesn't negate those readings, nor does it somehow counteract the bit from the 90s Bat-Bible that uses the term "neglectful."

What Dixon intended doesn't matter. What's on the page does. And even though Jack genuinely isn't the cartoonish abuser often seen in fanfiction, the foundations of that reading didn't come from nowhere. They don't get negated just because the conservative fuckwit who wrote the piece goes, "Nuh-uh that's not what I meant."

[pronouncingitwang]

at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you

[yokowan]

at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.

[le-jardin-inculte]

at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly

[shithowdy]

at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.

[whitachi]

at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.

[araceil]

At some point in your life you will be adding garlic to a dish and you will think "that is not enough garlic." These are angels speaking. They are correct. Add more garlic.

[screampotato]

Suddenly struck with a need to explain to you how boat pronouns work (I work in the marine industry).

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.

I hope this has cleared things up so that you may not be in danger of misgendering floating objects.

[glitched-out-mess]

[theramblingvoid]

Hit "view post" and lost it

[busket]

ngl I feel like this archetype of the trans man who transitions and passes and then begins to join cis men in their misogyny and say awful things about girls without batting an eye is probably more based in hypothetical than anecdotal experience. not saying it cant happen, but all the trans men ive ever talked to are deeply disturbed by chauvanist men. theres an innate sense of "oh this guy is a creep" when talking to misogynists. and trans men may have had experiences of being too uncomfortable or afraid to speak out against cis men when theyre being misogynistic, but they dont just fall in rank because most often they know what its like to be a woman.

and its not like men are the only groups that come together to be misogynistic, either... some of the most misogynistic people ive met were girls; "pick mes" or "not a girls girl" etc. I think this idea that trans men are somehow more susceptible to becoming misogynists in order to fit in with sexist cis men is rooted in the terf belief that we are traitors who will kill all our morals to be men. but thats just not true.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[hms-no-fun]

so i feel the urge to add a bit of context here because i find the vague on-screen text deeply underwhelming.

this is not just "a picture", it's Pale Blue Dot, one of the most famous works of astrophotography ever made public. and it was not just "a dying spacecraft", it was Voyager 1, a probe launched in 1977 to study the atmosphere and moons of Jupiter and Saturn, among other things. both Voyager probes carried on them a golden record meant as an introduction to humanity for any alien species that might discover them (if you saw Kane Parsons' Backrooms, you've heard the contents of that record coming out of a cardboard caveman standee). they did this because NASA planned to sundown these probes by letting them drift out of the solar system to parts unknown. Voyager 1 is currently 16 billion miles away, the farthest any manmade object has ever traveled from earth.

AND it's not even dead! despite supposedly being a "dying spacecraft" all the way back in 1990, Voyager 1 is not expected to be fully out of commission until 2036. to keep the probe alive they've switched off unneeded tools, adjusted its trajectory, even essentially updated the firmware, and through all that time it's basically never stopped sending back priceless data for scientists to analyze.

this is the original Pale Blue Dot, by the way:

it's relevant because "a single point of light smaller than one pixel" makes a lot more sense in the context of the original than it does in the heavily corrected version up top, where our pale blue dot looks more like a vibrant dwarf star. the difficulty of spotting earth in these waving curtains of space IS the entire impact of the picture! the blue dot is "pale" because it's hard to see! by making earth stand out so brilliantly, Terribly Interesting have inadvertently created the impression that earth is this vibrant glowing pearl, bright for all to see for billions of miles around. and it just isn't! the point is not that we can see earth from far away, but that we almost can't, because we aren't the center of the universe! when science educators past have used this image they often referred to one where the earth is circled in bright red, which only further emphasizes how small and fragile our home really is.

but hey, if you DO want an improved version of Pale Blue Dot you don't even need photoshop:

this is Pale Blue Dot Revisited, released by NASA in 2020. this is a reinterpretation of the original data using modern image processing techniques to create a more realistic or at least more high-definition rendering of the scene. it's important to understand that this is not the original image dropped into photoshop and airbrushed. strictly speaking, there isn't an "original" Pale Blue Dot the way there are negatives of traditional photography. astrophotography is almost always the product of raw data being deliberately interpreted by scientists, so the same data can produce many different images (ie if they want to emphasize the infrared spectrum vs visible light). similar work was done by Don P. Mitchell in ~2005 to enhance images taken by Soviet Venera probes of the surface of Venus to be less noisy.

here's an original:

and here's Mitchell's version:

i'm not here to argue which is "better" (and i highly recommend you read the source for this one because it's quite fascinating), just to give another example of the process in action and hopefully clarify how it's distinct from editing a jpeg in photoshop. also i just think it's neat!

which is the real reason i went to the trouble of making this post. Terribly Interesting may indeed find all of this to be terribly interesting, but it appears to be interest for the sake of a vague transient feeling of having been interested and little else. it doesn't name the probe, the photo in question, nor does it give historical context for the mission it was part of. the only substantial thing it says about the probe, that Voyager 1 is a "dying spacecraft", is so frustratingly oversimplified it may as well just be a lie.

so what's actually learned here, if you're someone who knows none of this history? that one time there was a thing and it did a thing? earth tiny from far away?? obviously it's just one image macro but i see this kind of thing making the rounds SO often, a screenshot with like two sentences on it explaining the image with as little descriptive text as possible. it's like there's a space-themed inspiration-posting rulebook that says you can't imply the existence of information not contained within the image. mention NASA? mention Voyager 1? mention Pale Blue Dot? nope! "a dying spacecraft" took "one last photograph", and here's a photoshopped version to make earth more visible.

and it might not even get to me nearly as much if this was any other space photo. i could accept that space stuff is complicated and this kind of fast-food image can only say so much if we were talking about Cassini or JWST's role in helping us find exoplanets. but this is Pale Blue Dot, the brainchild of arguably THE science communicator Carl Sagan! he wrote a book about Pale Blue Dot, he was on TV to announce the image personally! it's arguable that no astrophotograph exists whose context has been more digestibly packaged for laymen than Pale Blue Dot, which just makes it that much more egregious when someone doesn't go to the trouble.

so much of what i love about astronomy and studying the past & future of space travel is that everything you can learn is a doorway to learning more. you can't earnestly read about Voyager or Cassini or Venera or any other mission without finding some odd searchable detail and going "wait, what is that" and immediately falling down an hourslong rabbit hole to find an answer. and you'll never reach the bottom! i love reading articles about cutting edge astrophysics written for people in, like, early grad school, because i fully comprehend maybe 10% of it, vaguely understand 20% (on a good day), can kind of wrap my head around 30%, and find the rest totally inscrutable... but that's still a solid 60% scrutability rating even at the lowest-quality end of the spectrum! i'm no expert and i never will be, but in scouring the written expertise of others i almost always find one or two ideas that end up sticking with me forever. and it starts, every time, from questions about a photograph.

the sin of the above image is that it's solipsistic. it doesn't give you anywhere to put your curiosity or interest, doesn't invite you to leave their website and learn more than they have space to share, it doesn't even tell you anything useful about its subject! it reduces the entire history of Pale Blue Dot down to a vague and nondescript wonder that's just a pale imitation of the highly specific and ideologically driven wonder that Carl Sagan wanted us to feel.

here, feel it for yourself:

----

[P.S.: before you lament that this is an "AI" problem, while yes "AI" has radically increased the volume of low-value (often negative-value) inspiration bait like this, know that this has been a problem in online science education for a LOT longer than chatgpt's been around. this example isn't extraordinary, just close to my heart. nothing new under the sun and all that]

[hms-no-fun]

lmao someone else got their knocks in on this post before i could finish writing mine. clearly we are hand in hand re: Talk About How Cool Voyager 1 Is You Fucks

Reblog by @katjohnadams · 1 image

💬 0  🔁 109  ❤️ 245 · Okay, I need to add some clarification and correction to this. This photo is known as The Pale Blue Dot. It was take

[friendlyfrankenstein]

the scariest thing about old tv isnt really the racism or the sexisim because you kinda go in braced for that it's all the scenes where suddenly an actress is holding a lion cub or a chimpanzee is in the same room as a toddler, or suddenly theres a lion, or there's a chimpanzee again but it's driving a car, or holding a lighter, or holding fireworks. You just kind of watch in horror as over and over an actress performs with only 1960s tv film shootings best animal handling between her and the opening to Nope.

[retroactivebakeries]

[kiradical]

This is how I learn that the famous chimp my dad got my nickname from tried to kill Reagan. Fuck yeah.