#discoursedrome

[etirabys]

// health context: I am extremely tired these days from meds I'm taking to increase P(pregnancy)

[st-just]

discoursedrome

the vibe I get is that wlw is considered less woke but more mainstream than mlm, in the same way transmen are less woke but more mainstream than transwomen, according to the arcane scoring system these things use, so they're popular compromise positions

Huh. I mean it’s weird because, like, I feel like when I was a kid or teenager if a mainstream show had a Gay Character ™ or Very Special Gay Episode ™ it would usually be [about a] a guy? Like the first example that springs to mind is Glee and Captain Jack in early NuWho which for sure aren’t representative of much, but. Wonder how/why/when that changed?

And okay it definitely a filter bubble then but the only anything I can think of atm with major trans guy characters are, like, self-consciously progressive or genderweird genre fic. Which is also true for trans girls but then there’s also the, uh, debatable blessing of like The Danish Girl et al, and then also Laverne Cox in Orange is the New Black.

[theunlitpath]

[transgenderer]

discoursedrome replied to your post “do biological catgirls have 4 ears (human ears on side, cat ears on...”

this is one of the biggest controversies and for the most part we agree not to talk about it in order to keep the peace

i think its definitely gotta be there 2-ear solution. softened by wide/low set cat ears rather than narrow/high set cat ears. humans ears are weird and bad anyway

[memecucker]

discoursedrome

replied to your post

“the reason anime characters have disproportionately large eyes is the...”

there's something to this but it seems like it doesn't account for the stylistic variation in eye size within different cartoon styles and often within a single series, which is not just arbitrary but signifies something!

Well, this is an interesting topic, it depends on the work in question as to what is being signified. Differing eyeshapes within the same series can also be used not just for emoting but also accompany the narrative roles various characters express. And not just in obvious ways like “babies have cute eyes” either but they can denote for example what role a given character plays in comedic dynamics.  As an example lets focus our attention to The Flintstones and specifically the facial designs of the four main adult characters.  

So something thats present in basically all designs of The Flintstones that keep to the original style is that Fred’s eyes are always drawn in what can be considered a classic cartoons style having large pupils surrounded by the sclera (white of the eye) while Wilma has the “old newspaper strip” style of Peanuts or Popeye where she simply has plain black ovals or circles. Barney and Betty are similar but in reverse, with Barny having just a black circle (though more round than Wilma since he has a rounder design) and Betty having pupils inlaid within a sclera (though there’s some inconsistency with her as she sometimes has an ‘implied’ flesh-colored sclera). There are moments of inconsistency with Barney sometimes having a flesh-colored pupil and Betty sometimes having flesh-colored sclera but generally speaking thats how their eyes work if animators were staying on-model. 

Now whats interesting about this is if you look at Flintstones episodes the members of the main adult cast will most frequently be interacting with the other members who have different eye shapes. So Fred and Wilma are married of course as are Barney and Betty and also Fred and Barnie are best friends as are Wilma and Betty. This means that there is a feeling of visual variety when the plot splits characters off into pairs whatever they may be. It also helps make it clear that none of them are blood relatives which could be a source of confusion especially in the case of Fred and Barney who really would sorta look like brothers if they had similar eyes since they share many similarities in the rest of their designs especially the perpetual five-oclock-shadow (not something thats really a sign of genetic relation but aesthetic logic doesnt have to mirror the real world).

In addition to that, Fred has the largest eyes of all the characters. This makes sense because he is the overall main character of the show and him having the largest eyes means he will be the first face the audience will naturally focus on in a scene. Its also relevant for Fred’s comic role because he tends to be the active agent in the comedy either peforming actions which frustrate Wilma or which are commented on by Barney and when you have a comedic reversal where Fred ends a scene feeling very different from when he started

As an example we can look at this particular clip from the original series

 So in what ends up being a very common premise for episodes or sequences in the series, an upset Fred wishes to end his friendship with Barney. Fred has a thick furrowed brows meeting downward facing eyes showing clear aggression. Barney (who as I said earlier is being drawn off model in that his eyes are not colored in during this scene) simply stares at Fred, his eyes being just ovals but with his eyebrows being raised in a way to show that he is meeting Fred’s anger in a light-hearted way. You’ll notice that Barney has much thinner eyebrows located much further away from his eyes than Fred, this is because since he doesnt actually have pupils, the way his eyes express emotion is by showing their relationship to other parts of his face specifically eyebrows. Having thin eyebrows allows for more flexibility for their placement, in thise case they even touch his hairline.

Fred accuses Barney of mooching or stealing his stuff including his favorite drink Cactus Coolah (funfact the actual soda Cactus Cooler was created to ride off the popularity of the Flintstones and its fictional soda brand). His eyes are basically in the same position as they were in the previous still with the shift from plain aggression to a smug aggression (setting up the comedic reversal) being conveyed by the rest of his face. 

Barney tries to warn Fred the bottle he’s holding isnt Cactus Coolah. Unlike Fred Barney is expressing a strong shift in emotion from bemusedly teasing Fred to being actively concerned for him. Barney’s actual eyes havent moved at all other than being proportionately larger than earlier but whats being used to convey Barney’s emotions in this still are his eyebrows. They go high-up and far from his eyes and curved to being much closer to his eyes and straight. 

Fred realizes he just drank car polish. His eyes are not incredibly different, conveying both stress and sickness. Not only does he have lines surrounding his eye conveying stress and anxiety but they even go inside his eyes nearly touching his pupil. His eyelids have descended partially.  His eyebrows also show the change of his emotional state no longer being a furrowed unibrow though their importance is secondary to the visual changes pertaining his actual eyes.

After throwing the heavy stone bottle into the air and bonking his own head combined with the implied effects of drinking car polish, Fred’s eyes become asymmetric showing disharmony and showing he is about to pass out. Interestingly he suddenly now has (white colored) irises, the purpose of this being to show widened dilating pupils that relate to a state of excitedness or stress while at the same time not contradicting that he is on the verge of losing cosciousness which is conveyed by his eyelids being pulled down asymmetrically. 

Throughout that short scene Fred having the largest most expressive (for a Hanna-Barbara TV production anyway) eyes of the cast are used to show how he is both the active agent in the story driving the narrative forward as his emotion carry him but he is also the object of things being done to him and with his eyes showing his emotional state in those cases. Barney, being an observer of Fred’s antics emotes not so much with his eyes but the raising and lowering of his eyebrows. Essentially, Fred’s narrative role in the series requires him to be drawn with a much wider emotional range when compared to Barney. This is on top of the other role the eyes of the characters play in this particular show being another way to physically distinguish between the four main adult members of the cast.

[mitigatedchaos]

This is one of the issues with 50% majority rule.  But figuring out how to legislate more proportionally and still get any legislation done is tough.

For instance,

Suppose we give each legislator control over 1/Nth of the national budget. This introduces a coordination problem where it will be tempting for legislators to spend only on projects in their own district, and where some programs may not reach the minimum viable amount of funding. Voters will probably also favor local projects over projects in the national interest.

Making the slate of programs available to spend on majority-approved might help, and also prevent spending on bizarre and ideologically-extremist projects, but could have weird effects.

On the other hand, this would make being the minority party in the legislature less of a problem. You could partially defund initiatives proportional to your representation. If the majority present you with a slate with no options that you like, you can coordinate with the other legislators to dump all the cash in some different random program each time, frustrating them.

To get as much cash for their programs as possible, however, majority legislators should make those programs broadly appealing.

On the other hand, will spending the money on potholes and streetlamps instead of fancy political bullshit programs that appeal to a minority of very fervent voters get you the votes?

Would legislators need to write conditional funding statements? Could this cause a computer-like deadlock?

Multi-member districts with proxy voting could also mean that being the minority still gets you a seat in the legislature and votes to trade. It's still vulnerable to domination by a persistent majority - but it means that you really want to win by more than 51%, and appeal to more voters, because every additional vote you get at the polls is another vote you get in the legislature.

Also, it makes it more difficult to gerrymander.

[alphynix]

@discoursedrome replied to your photo: Many modern birds are capable of seeing into the...

I wonder if dinosaurs did that head-bob when they walked

Some of them probably did!

Head-bobbing in modern birds seems to mainly help with visual stabilization. Since their eyes can’t move around much in their sockets, when they’re walking they can’t easily focus on their surroundings -- so instead they just keep their heads still for as long as possible during each step, like a natural steadicam.

We don’t know if non-avian dinosaurs had more mobile eyeballs than modern birds, but if they did they wouldn’t have needed to head-bob so much. Although the bipedal ones probably all still did it a little bit simply due to the biomechanics of their heads and necks during motion.

The really birdy ones (like raptors and troodontids) may have been closer to their avian cousins’ bobbing behavior, but I’d guess it would have still been less pronounced and not nearly as rhythmic as something like a pigeon. Maybe more like an ostrich -- not necessarily doing it all the time, but just every now and then when they wanted to get a better look at something.

[xhxhxhx]

how are you more current on uk politics than canadian politics tho

I have read more about Britain than I have ever read about Canada. If I wrote “A Classless Society”, it was only because I knew where to look.

I still read and hear more about Britain, because there’s more to read and hear. Between London Review of Books essays and podcasts, Financial Times reporting, New Statesman newsletters and podcasts, and Radio 4 podcasts, there is simply more compelling content about Britain than about Canada. 

I don’t know what to read and hear about Canada.

I read the polling averages, but nothing else. I’m not sure there is anything else. I don’t think we have a London Review of Books, a Financial Times, a New Statesman, or a Radio 4. And I wouldn’t know what books to read.