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Anybody else have a growing fear of updating their tech cuz everything seems to be getting worse and worse

An absolute behemoth of a man is charging through the battlefield, protecting something in his off-hand. As he nears you, he reaches out and hands you a tiny kitten as he speaks, “Protect her.” He turns back to the enemies and charges again.

parkchanwoohoo

James Cameron's mind fascinates me, at least what little I can see from the Avatar movies (I have not googled his biography). He loves nature so much. He also loves military shit so much, and must have struggled to reconcile this in a somewhat Kojima sense. It seems he "cares about" indigenous people in so much as they are, to his mind as far as I can tell from Avatar, closer to nature than white people. He fucking loves whales so much. His biggest wish is to go back in time and give indigenous people machine guns so that they can fight white people and everyone (especially him) can live lives closer to nature. It is astonishingly condescending and also completely, childishly sincere. At once a little boy and a cynical old man. The movies read to me as he fucking loved the Tarzan books growing up, or maybe he wished he could have been Tarzan and do a better job of it and never leave the jungle. Fascinates me

parkchanwoohoo

GOD. YEAH. A LOT OF THAT.

Again, totally just operating out of armchair Avatar psychoanalysis without taking even a gander at his wiki page. His hierarchy of respect seems to be 1) Nature 2) Beings close to nature 3) Beings who protect 1 and 2. He seems to put Good Men in category 3, taking on traditional patriarchal roles of protection and employing martial knowledge in the service of Nature and its envoys. His secret hopes seem to be that if a man is good enough at 3, he can, through earning respect, climb to category 2 where the women and indigenous people are. Again, deeply sincere and deeply ridiculous. A desire so naked it hardly feels like I'm even doing armchair psychoanalysis so much as restating explicit themes

sixty-silver-wishes

I think I’m going to think about this youtube comment forever

voxulipopuli-deactivated2025122

[id: a youtube comment by @/KM-mw3jp that reads "When I was in 7th and 8th grade we had a Sikh kid who would carry wet boba around in his pocket and throw them at people for insulting him, his religon, his culture, or other kids. I asked him about it a couple years ago and he said it's cause his dad gave him some talk about how standing up for what's right is part of the religon. So for two years this boy carried an open plastic bag FULL of wet boba around to throw at bullies. If it was a minor insensitive comment or a first time offence it would be one boba. If it was a big thing or a reoccurring bully it could be a bunch. He even threw boba at our substitute teacher one day because she tried to punish us because one kid was talking by making all of us do pushups. He literally went "no that's not fair" and threw like four wet bobas at her.

Pretty sure his dad encouraged that behavior too. And to be honest, it did deter a lot of bullying and name calling." /end id]

bossymarmalade

cryptotheism

Intelligence isn't real. Locking in isn't real. Manifesting isn't real. Tryharding isn't real. Nobody has a divine feminine, or a love language, or a humoral temperament. Men aren't real. Women aren't real. The club is a projection. The world is not a hologram. There are no afterlives, sacred frequencies, or psychological archetypes. Your body is a temple but like, one of those Sumerian ones that was mainly for storing grain. Epicurus was right. Get it twisted and always be twisting it.

fucktheflagandfuckyou

found a dude who does VR cruisin and boozin and im IN LOVE

vexwerewolf

Finally: ethical drunk driving

cryptotheism

People talk about Lolita like Humbert Humbert is a conflicted and dichotomous character and then you read the actual book and he's like "I love lying to people for fun and getting lost in flights of wild imagination and making things up and telling falsehoods. Also I look like a bunch of movie stars and every woman in the stories I tell thinks I'm darkly handsome."

cryptotheism

HH: "I was in a mental institutions for reasons that are suspiciously never discussed where my favorite thing to do was lie to the psychologists."

Readers: "I think he might be lying about being in love with a child but it's impossible to know for sure."

cryptotheism

The edition I'm reading had a little introduction like "is Humbert Humbert a poet in love? Or a dangerous pervert? Perhaps...he is both." 🤔🤔🤔

And then you turn the page to the forward and it's like "Hi. It's me. Vladimir Nabokov, speaking as a diagetic psychologist. Humbert Humbert is a consumate monster. Don't trust anything he says."

orionsangel86

From facebook; mic drop.

finnskeeper

So that last line punched me in the face so hard I hit the reblog button. Oh well.

jbirdoftheriverlands-deactivate

I actually don't want witchcraft to be taken more seriously. people keep saying that's a thing they wish would happen but like. Do you want witchhunters? That's how you get witchhunters. Those hippies with the orgone pyramids are our human shields. They make us look safely and harmlessly out of our minds. its an ecosystem. Taken seriously? why? so they can blame us when they can't get it up and burn us? No thank you. I am vibrating peacefully in my spaceship sanctuary as far as they're fucking concerned and you whores better not tell em any different.

miseducatedmelanicmuse

worldwithoutmiracles

“My thesis is that at many levels of human interaction there is the opportunity to conflate discomfort with threat, to mistake internal anxiety for exterior danger, and in turn to escalate rather than resolve.” (from Conflict Is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman. highly recommend it if you’re interested in having better dialogues and feeling less defensive in your life)

elodieunderglass

In the New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency, John Seymour - who pretty much defined the principles of “self-sufficiency” as a modern political movement - goes into detail about conflict and community-building. So far from today’s interpretation of self-sufficiency as an American prepper-homesteader isolated from their neighbors - self-sufficient in the sense of “alone” - he envisioned self-sufficient in the sense of “not needing to buy things,” whether that was buying things for pure survival or buying things just to feel good. Seymour felt strongly that a community of close friends, preferably meeting frequently in pubs with wood-burning fires and live music, was a hallmark of being especially practical and self-sufficient; and if you think about it, you’ll see that it makes sense.

After all, if you want to buy absolutely nothing - if you want to create a way to live separate from society - you cannot do it like Thoreau; even Thoreau wasn’t doing it like Thoreau; you have to create an separate society, a self-sufficient community, and live in that.

And interestingly Seymour put his finger on “why communes fail.”

In his experience, which was deep and broad, experiments in self-sufficient communities/communes virtually always failed. And not because the idealistic fools weren’t capable of growing crops, or chopping wood, or whatever. It isn’t even the founders were stupid or ignorant or inexperienced, or because self-sufficiency only attracts dramatic personalities. No, the communities he observed consistently failed because they had no ability to resolve conflict. Every group of people will have to come to a tricky decision, resolve a sticky situation, have an awkward conversation or even just get along with unideal situations. They didn’t fall apart because a sheep fell in a ditch; anyone can get a sheep out of a ditch; they fell apart over the arguments about ideology, ditches, sheep and blame. It was always some issue of conflict or communication that broke these well-meaning, well-intentioned, well-educated people apart.

Step back from that and think: people frequently try to live outside capitalism even in this modern world, people frequently try to live in the most environmentally-friendly way, people frequently try to envision an alternative to a hostile state, even in this world where it is difficult or impossible to do so. For every utopia you might picture, people (being people) will have already made a decent attempt at building and living it, in the hope of showing it or even giving it to you. And those utopias aren’t here at the moment for you to have, because it’s terrifically difficult to make communities out of nothing. And that’s largely because it’s very hard to have communication skills about anything at all, let alone something that gets you mad.

So it’s worth having communication skills. As a matter of self-sufficiency.

findingfeather

If you have ever worked with the public, remember: the public will be part of your politically utopic community.

All the mommy bloggers, all the brosephs, all the every single customer or client or other person you have dealt with who you wanted to fucking strangle, or at least wanted to be allowed one of those amazing moments of Put Down that viral reddit posts are made of, every single frustrating as fuck human: they will be part of your post-capitalist utopia.

They will not wake up, the morning of the revolution, and suddenly become different people. Your choices will be to line them all up against a wall and shoot them . . . .or figure out how to live with them in your community. (And multiple revolutions in the past hundred years have tried that whole "line them up and shoot them" thing, tried it REAL HARD, and it didn't work out great for them either.)

The more de-industrial, de-urbanized, de-impersonal, whatever, your ideal society is? The more it will involve having to work, and work well, and work effectively and without interpersonal violence (physical or social) against people who irritate the fuck out of you.

And no, we never really had any Neat Trick to make that easier in the past. What we most often had was survival pressure so intense that the threat of being ostracized (or having the group turn on you) was enough to force resolutions that nobody was really happy with, or that left an unspoken wound to fester for generations, or to offer up a scapegoat to vent the community's violence on and then pretend to move on, or . . . .

Etc.

If you want a cooperative, non-violent, non-coercive community, and especially if you want that to be the norm, you end up having to learn to work collaboratively and productively with the person who irritates and frustrates and upsets you most in the ENTIRE world. And if you can't picture doing that, then maybe it's time for some self-reflection about how you really want the world to work, and what you're capable of contributing to that.

elodieunderglass

Reposting this quote from The New Complete Guide to Self-Sufficiency just because I find it extremely funny:

“Do not be put off if you find some of the people irritating or bizarre in some way. You have to remember that several of these people are likely to become very good friends as time goes by.”

elodieunderglass

You need to take the view that it’s up to you to uncover the amazing hidden talents of your local freaks n geeks 😘

ek-vitki

A galdralag on galdralag:

So, for homework for my Seiðr apprenticeship, I was assigned to write a poem in galdralag, the traditional norse poetic meter used for spellcraft and speaking of spellcraft.

i Grasp at Galdralag,

Great meter, Gargantuan power.

Always An Alliteration here.

Note Now which lines alliterate,

Know Now these six lines are ljoðahattr.

Another Alliteration ends ljoðahattr.

Additional Alliteration Adds power.

Great Galdralag Always Alliterates Although Adding Eighth lines are Optional.

So as this galdralag I wrote explains, galdralag is an alliterative poetic meter focused on parallelism. Also, as the poem suggests, the first part of any galdralag is actually the format called ljoðahattr, another poetic meter used by the old norse. The first two lines alliterate with each other as much as possible, the more the better (my example is basic and in my native English), followed by a third line which alliterates within itself. Then, two more lines alliterate with each other, followed by another line of the same type as the third line. Then another (now seventh) line of the same type as the third and sixth line, followed by an eighth of the same type. You could experiment with adding more lines, of the same type as the third and sixth through eighth, although I’m unaware of examples of this. Galdralag can be found in the Rune song portion of the Havamal, the majority of the Havamal being written in the previously mentioned poetic meter of Ljoðahattr.

Galdralag can also be broken down in this way, to aid in understanding the meter’s structure:

1: always alliterates with 2

2: always alliterates with 1

3: always alliterates with itself

4: always alliterates with 5

5: always alliterates with 4

6: always alliterates with itself

7: always alliterates with itself

8: always alliterates with itself

There are also examples of Ljoðahattr consisting of just the first three lines, and becoming galdralag when adding another line of the same type as the third, for a shorter poetic verse.

Feel free to message me if you have any questions. I hope to see the Norse art of Galdralag spread and evolve, and I hope my English speaking audience finds some inspiration to work with this style of both traditional spellcraft and poetry (Galdralag is both). Of course, I likely won’t reveal all I know about Galdralag as it would be very unwizard of me to reveal ALL my secrets, but I hope this is helpful or inspirational to some of you.

lokavisi

This is fascinating! I wanna give this a try!

ek-vitki

Do it and reply with it !

ek-vitki

A galdralag on galdralag:

So, for homework for my Seiðr apprenticeship, I was assigned to write a poem in galdralag, the traditional norse poetic meter used for spellcraft and speaking of spellcraft.

i Grasp at Galdralag,

Great meter, Gargantuan power.

Always An Alliteration here.

Note Now which lines alliterate,

Know Now these six lines are ljoðahattr.

Another Alliteration ends ljoðahattr.

Additional Alliteration Adds power.

Great Galdralag Always Alliterates Although Adding Eighth lines are Optional.

So as this galdralag I wrote explains, galdralag is an alliterative poetic meter focused on parallelism. Also, as the poem suggests, the first part of any galdralag is actually the format called ljoðahattr, another poetic meter used by the old norse. The first two lines alliterate with each other as much as possible, the more the better (my example is basic and in my native English), followed by a third line which alliterates within itself. Then, two more lines alliterate with each other, followed by another line of the same type as the third line. Then another (now seventh) line of the same type as the third and sixth line, followed by an eighth of the same type. You could experiment with adding more lines, of the same type as the third and sixth through eighth, although I’m unaware of examples of this. Galdralag can be found in the Rune song portion of the Havamal, the majority of the Havamal being written in the previously mentioned poetic meter of Ljoðahattr.

Galdralag can also be broken down in this way, to aid in understanding the meter’s structure:

1: always alliterates with 2

2: always alliterates with 1

3: always alliterates with itself

4: always alliterates with 5

5: always alliterates with 4

6: always alliterates with itself

7: always alliterates with itself

8: always alliterates with itself

There are also examples of Ljoðahattr consisting of just the first three lines, and becoming galdralag when adding another line of the same type as the third, for a shorter poetic verse.

Feel free to message me if you have any questions. I hope to see the Norse art of Galdralag spread and evolve, and I hope my English speaking audience finds some inspiration to work with this style of both traditional spellcraft and poetry (Galdralag is both). Of course, I likely won’t reveal all I know about Galdralag as it would be very unwizard of me to reveal ALL my secrets, but I hope this is helpful or inspirational to some of you.

cherryyomi

Helaena confronting Aemond was my absolute favorite moment this episode.

She always seems to be in her own head, unaware and maybe even disinterested of what's going on around her. No one would've expected her to notice.

And now it's her who first brings up what no one dares to say. She goes and straight up asks Aemond if finally getting his throne was worth nearly killing their brother - who is also her husband - leaving him to suffer in one of the most terrible ways, scarred and in pain forever.

I honestly love that it's Helaena because it proofs that just because someone isn't saying anything does not mean they aren't listing. She listens, she notices, she knows. And she is brave enough to straight up ask Aemond about it.

I honestly love her.

thejupe

Aegon and Aemond in the ring fighting for the Mommy Issues Championship when OH SHIT IT'S DAEMON WITH A STEEL CHAIR

lauraneedstochill

Viserys I Targaryen and his brother Daemon vs Aegon II Targaryen and his brother Aemond

🔪 inspired by this tweet:

dve

hi. go buy esims for gaza. go preorder a kufiya from hirbawi. buy insulin for palestinian diabetics who need that help. if you live in the states use this to email your reps (this takes maybe 5 seconds to do). check out this massive list of resources where you can educate yourself in a meaningful and actionable way even if you don't have the financial means right now. from the river to the sea palestine will be free. 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

closet-keys

I love the post-apocalyptic genre as much as the next horror fan, but there is something to be unpacked in how they often reinforce very reactionary political ideas. Not just in the more bluntly conservative ways of thematically rewarding ideas like

“shoot first ask questions never”

“never offer mercy”

“torture works”

“Strong Government may be doing Bad Things but it is the only thing stopping people from becoming roaming bands of cannibal rapists unless Strong Men with police or military training maintain order once society collapses”

But also in the less easily recognizable reactionary beliefs like

“power vacuums are real and inevitable” (implying that unless you plan to exert a similar level of power and take the top of the hierarchy then you should not seek to dismantle power)

“the people who survive are the best— the strongest and smartest and most resourceful, the ones who deserve it most.” (implying that eugenics is an inevitable biological force rather than a political ideology)

“If someone who deserves to live dies, it is due to the actions of a villain, ‘good’ ‘important’ people do not just die from sickness or hunger or chance or mundane accidents” (more eugenics tbh, or at very least a just world ideology & confusing storytelling conventions with how the world works)

I think this becomes an issue when people—who have not studied, for example, the way that communities engage in mutual aid during natural disasters even if disconnected beforehand—will assume that collapse will inevitably lead to evil cannibal hoards as the biggest threat to survival and therefore the most important thing to prepare for, instead of understanding that collapse is much more likely to lead to an absolute need for community interdependence and cooperation to survive in the face of environmental disaster. I think it’s an issue if you can’t picture disabled people during collapse because you watched a hundred depictions of post apocalyptic shows where disabled people are eerily absent or die immediately, instead of internalizing the much more likely reality that if you survive disaster even if you were able-bodied previously, you and everyone you know will likely be surviving as disabled people.

like the media is fun as a form of storytelling, but if you are approaching your imagination of the future with increasing climate crisis with images you got from zombie shows, you do need to take a break from the fiction and learn from communities that have actually experienced natural disasters in real life.

cletusthurstonbeauregard

you'll like this:

closet-keys

[ID: an advance reading copy cover of the book The Lightest Object in the Universe by Kimi Eisele.]

wow, I checked some reviews & I can see why you recommended it!

"[At first] I found The Lightest Object in the Universe to be deeply frustrating. Here I am reading a novel about the end of the world [...] where were the nuke pooches, the marauding cannibal, road warriors, the blood thirsty packs [...]? The problem wasn't with Kimi Eisele, [...] the problem was me."

sounds like it's doing a good job of subverting these tropes to have a reader suddenly realize that their expectation of these ideas (as the obvious narrative of what happens in an apocalyptic scenario) has been cultivated through other stories in the genre. that the ubiquity of this one view of humanity and crisis in what they've read in the genre had reached a point where it was genuinely limiting this reader's imagination! that there are possibilities outside of these repeated stories.

thank you for the recommendation! I'll have to check it out.

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