I've noticed an interesting phenomenon since joining Tumblr, and it has to do with the poets.
Because naturally, it's the poets.
I've been in a handful of communities (like four), and only ever two at a time, but two of them were writing spaces. One was explicitly poetry, and the other is all written word but predominantly filled with poets. I've also noticed a predilection towards a few aesthetics (though this may just be my feed, I am uncertain), notably dark/sad poetry, long poetry (usually more uplifting), and flash poetry (one or two lines).
However, on my main feed, it is predominantly prose, and long-form prose authors at that. Luna Azzura's wonderful advice and prompts, the writing prompts person, and folks bitching and extolling about their writing and experiences.
It's interesting that poets seem to make up the majority of writing posts, and yet there are so many prose writers just...sitting on my feed. I wonder if it's a psychological thing, something about online vs. offline community, open communities vs. closed circles, the process of publishing prose vs. publishing poetry, or something else.
TW: Transphobia (maybe), mentions of misogynistic/toxic-masculine comments, "I can't change" arguments
I recently figured out why I keep switching between they/she and he/they (genderfluid, go figure, it only took me a year and a half -_- ). But.
I started the lengthy process of coming out with a couple of my...more reticent and slow-to-adjust friends today. One of them, in a lovely twist of fate, noted the change readily and went back to our group project.
The other one, a usually-dear friend who has been leaning into the shitty-teen-boy stereotypes especially hard lately, looked me dead in the eye with the rare seriousness he gets sometimes and asks, "Can I still call you she, though?"
And I, being who I am (gut reaction being defensiveness) and having had an unusual and uncomfortable morning, responded with an appropriately incredulous "No?!" with an unspoken the actual fuck attached to the back end. His argument was that he's bad at changing, and this is not the only time he's tried this argument (he tried to use it when a mutual acquaintance changed the way she pronounced her name and he steadfastly refused to honor it).
He's been like this more and more frequently, and I'm getting increasingly pissed at him. He's also been making more misogynistic and toxic-masculinity "jokes" and trying to play it off as how he was raised, but he's never done it like this before. Credit where credit is due, he's been doing it civilly, but no amount of civility is going to change the fact that the fourth bestie I've ever had, whom I've known for four years, took my coming-out and immediately disrespected me, my newfound identity, and the trust I had in him for not being a disrespectful POS. It seems like he's (for lack of a better word) regressing.
We have a lot of mutual friends, and he's the type of two-faced that he doesn't care who he's around or what setting he's in. I'm concerned that confronting him or trying to get him to actually respect me as a person and not just as 'haha we're friends' will start drama that's going to tear apart my friend group and result in a nasty bit of dogshit that nobody I know needs to deal with right now. Additionally, due to extenuating circumstances, I haven't come out to my parents yet - I plan to later this month but the period where I see this guy frequently ends before that - so I can't really ask their advice for what to do now
I don't know what to do or how I should go about this. Does anyone have any advice?
A free-range group therapy called "get herded, idiot", where you and everyone in your group is set loose to run around on an open field while a highly trained shepherd dog tries to keep you all in one group. I am not sure what benefit this would have for anyone involved.
Serotonin and dopamine from movement and exercise, bonding with people as you shout weird plans across the fields, playing with a dog, being outside, breathing fresh air, getting UV-B and then your folate and vitamin D boosted and in turn having a stronger immune system, exerting effort which aids in sleep, energy, stamina, endurance, and food systems, mental health benefits, social interaction, pupper serotonin.
Coming from very much a Not Medical Professional, that sounds wonderful.
Had an experience with a friend a few days ago and I think it's a good one to share:
Last fall, I wrote a research essay for a class. The topic was women's healthcare, and I wrote about how it's underdocumented, underresearched, underfunded, and how this lack disproportionately affects POC and sexually mature women, due to racism and traditional women's roles as mother rather than human. It also heavily focused on reproductive health and rights, which is the only women's healthcare field that gets a modicum of attention (because women are SO VERY SIMILAR TO MEN, said by no one ever and with VISIBLE SARCASM).
This spring, I was in a forensics speech class (everything except what is covered under policy debate in American schools) and my classmate (a guy) was looking at some of the debate topics for next year because he does both. One of them was healthcare, and he said something about starting research early. I offered to send him the essay I wrote and the sources. He said yes, and I gave him a copy.
He brought it up again during a discussion a few days ago (in which we were arguing about voting with another classmate (a completely different rant I will NOT get into because I'm still furious with him)) and the guy says something about women's healthcare and I turn around like this: 0v0 -> >X< 0o0
BECAUSE THIS LOVELY HUMAN USED THE SOURCES AND THE ESSAY I GAVE HIM.
This guy, whose current events are centered around a) cannibalism as a metaphor for destructive love, b) death, and c) ethical suicide, took the time out of his WILD SCHEDULE to not only look through the sources, but read my essay and instead of going "Eugh" (like an unfortunate majority of my guy friends), this man went, "Hell yeah, I'm using this and doing it in a way that DOESN'T demean my friend who wrote this OR women's healthcare."
Since the release of ep. 8, I've seen a LOT of fanart of Caine's deletion/death, his actions and anger over being questioned and resisted, and theories surrounding the second AI that Caine absorbed. However, I think there is credit going ungiven, specifically to one character: Bubble. Bubble seems to actively want to distress Caine and undermine him, maybe aiming for a potential goal of getting rid of Caine altogether, and could be a villain in his own right.
Throughout the series, Bubble has needled, questioned, and made comments about Caine, to Caine. In ep. 8, this is especially prevalent when Bubble starts to poke at Caine's insecurities. He even goes so far to call Caine broken and defective, among other insults, wrapping up with "Maybe you deserved to be abandoned...you really were the lesser of the two" as Caine is popping clones Bubble made of himself.
This isn't something a creation would do, especially to its creator, and it shows in Caine's reactions. Caine isn't stupid, but he is deeply insecure and appears to be at least partially sentient. As such, he can likely process emotions to some degree, leading to feelings of inferiority and displeasure in his work, and anger at the other characters for not enjoying his efforts. Bubble seems to know this, and use it to his advantage. His words in ep. 8, as well as his near-indifference in previous episodes, hint at a malevolent thought process aimed at Caine, that Caine would never allow or tolerate from something he created.
Bubble is clearly lesser in power to Caine, but he isn't controlled by Caine in the same way Pomni & Co., any NPCs like Gummigoo, or the circus itself are. He seems to exist on his own terms, unlike the rest of the cast. However, he is inextricably linked to Caine, as evidenced by the tongue bit in ep. 4, Bubble's first appearance in the pilot out of Caine's hat, and how Bubble is almost always seen in conjunction with Caine.
This also aligns with the theory of Bubble being the still-somewhat-autonomous second AI. If Caine is a first-generation AI and already at his level of power, the second AI would likely have even more power. If the second AI is Bubble, it would explain why Bubble is undermining Caine's self-control for his revenge, and why Bubble is able to insult Caine without Caine being able to completely stop him, as seen in the Bubble-popping in ep. 8. In addition, Caine knows better than to create something like Bubble: rude, insulting, and ultimately unhelpful in the final goal. Caine would not have made Bubble if he knew what Bubble would do, which contributes to the autonomous Bubble theory.
Caine is unstable, and part of that is likely due to the restrictions placed on him by C&A. Being powerful, becoming somewhat sentient, and being restricted because of a dangerous malfunction all within a short timeframe likely caused some of this instability. However, it doesn't make sense for Caine to become so violent on his own, if he can control everything in the circus and seems to want to make Pomni & Co. satisfied, even if they are not happy. Bubble disrupts this, and his actions pushes Caine farther off of the edge. I believe that, without interference from Bubble, Caine likely would not have had such a reaction to the anger from the rest of the cast. The first time we see Caine break so much and in such a manner isin response to Bubble's taunting, and he takes it out on the others because he views them as the issue, rather than Bubble.
Even without being a second AI, Bubble knows what he's doing. Building on an already broken foundation is a sure way to create an unstable house, and Bubble takes advantage of this to screw with Caine's head. Using Caine's own insecurities against him, Bubble sets the stage for Caine to go completely off the rails, resulting in his demise. Thus, Bubble achieves what appears to be his goal: causing Caine immense distress and pain to whatever end he can.
So, something just occurred to me about the etymology of the word "bible," both in the sense of the holy book of Christianity and in the sense of its root word/related words.
"Biblio-," the root for many book-related words, comes from the Greek word "biblion," also translating to "book". Especially in Romance languages, "biblio-" is increasingly connected to libraries. For example, we have biblioteca in Spanish, Italian, and Portugese, bibliothèque in French, and bibliotecă in Romanian. The rough definition of a library is a collection of a variety of books.
The holy-book Bible is often considered one book, but in a literal sense is also a collection of books. This goes further as you look at how the Bible is sectioned into both books ( how they're referred to collectively) and then chapters within those books.
By this logic, the Bible is also a library, which I think is pretty cool.
A couple of weeks ago, I made an unlisted server in a video game so I could invite my friends and we could all just kinda fuck around and find out and do shit and whatnot, but together.
I originally imagined it as some sort of little commune, all vibes and silliness and maybe we would make little factions and have little border skirmishes, maybe an all-out battle at some point. Maybe the really headstrong of us (not me - I steadfastly avoid leadership roles because they will find me anyways) would claim overt power and I (who am effectively god on this server because I am the Admin) would be left alone in my forest hut to mix poison and eventually end the conflict by poisoning everybody and then I'd get jumped and join a side and we'd all have a good time.
I invited the first of hopefully many yesterday. To make it clear - there were exactly TWO of us, and one of them was me.
We:
-Murdered (mostly me murdering him because my lag was actually manageable for once)
-Killed a horse (it kept following me and I can't deal with that)
-Went to gather supplies
-Killed varying states of undead and magical creatures
-Died (I got shot)
-Aggravated each other (I couldn't see or pick up my stuff once I got back to where I died, and we just kept going in circles: "You're standing on it!" "THERES NOTHING IN MY INVENTORY DUMBASS!")
prguitarman
izzy806
discoholicmusic
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
janainaart
2087
