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#this is not my stance on it/its users just to be clear. i just think this is how it would go in universe
dinoserious · 9 months
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what the
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gauntletqueen · 15 days
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isn't banning people based on "vibes" a conservative way of thinking? Idk I feel like forcibly removing people in your community who didn't do anything based on your idea on what's normal & fear that they COULD be dangerous is a justification for alot of right wing politicians & a basis behind xenaphobia.
Its literally a talking point of our oppressors.
First off there's something funny to me about seeing me retweet something on twitter and then going to my tumblr to respond to it anonymously
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Second off, you're making big assumptions on what these vibes might be and what reasons streamers and other online creatives might have for removing people.
Here's some examples of people I've banned from my community discord server based on vibes:
Someone who only ever cared about talking to me, and never acknowledging anyone else in the server. They acted far too familiar with me despite me not knowing them, and continuously sent me DMs where they roleplayed things like hugging me. I explained why all of this behavior was not appreciated but they never listened. Classic parasocial behavior but none of it was against the rules. I still removed them based on vibes because they made everyone, especially myself, very uncomfortable and would not listen when told to stop.
A user who made everything about themself. They would derail every conversation to talk about something they did, often unrelated to the current topic, talk over others to praise themself on something, never listen to other people, interrupt others to talk about how they would've done something better, etc. Not against the rules! But it sure is annoying! I removed them because they constantly brought the mood down by making others feel like they had no place to speak.
Multiple users who only spread negativity. Almost always taking worst faith stances on things, barging into perfectly fine conversations with some overly negative angle all the time, sometimes I'd tell them to stop and they'd say it's just for fun, but it's not very fun when all you accomplish is ruining the mood, is it?
Any time something like this happens, Me and my mods make sure to take the person aside in DMs and explain the situation first, make it clear to them what they're doing wrong, and how we'd like them to stop, and if we still remove them then, it's their own fault. There have been plenty of times where someone was told to stop a certain behavior, and they understood and corrected accordingly.
I'm not removing these people because I suspect they might be secretly right-wing, or phobic, or whatever you're assuming when you say "dangerous", I remove them because they're annoying and don't listen, and I don't want annoying people like that in a simple little discord community that I made for people who like what I do to hang out with each other and have a good time. I have to manage that community and if there's too many problems that becomes hard, and it'll just be a less nice place to be. It's not that deep.
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transmutationisms · 8 months
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I would love to hear more of your thoughts on House & its relation to the detective genre ! I think that house (completely accidentally and very badly) stumbles into a good critique of how doctors & medical structures view addicts & disabled people, with house being a horrible hegemonic mr malpractice to his patients frequently yet half is series is unironically just about all the injustice/mistreatment he faces because his doctor colleagues can’t see him as a person but only as a problem to be solved/rehabbed/therapized/institutionalized/treated like a child with stolen candy/treated like a criminal. and then it also randomly takes an incredibly pro MAID stance. which isn’t really part of this but I just remembered how batshit insane that show was. and then chase killed a dictator and I feel like the show was squarely on his side for that one. Anyway. Do you have thoughts? I really like house.
ok here's my house md take. like a lot of medical dramas, the show essentially relies for its dramatic appeal on the construal of patients as gross, weird, and stupid—rubes who are too uneducated and self-serving in their petty lies to solve their own bodies, and thus need the intervention of house to fix them. this is standard for the genre, although slightly meaner on house than on some other examples (cf. grey's or even the older and soapier generation of these shows). i don't even think house committing malpractice is all that new; it's relatively common as a plot point that positions the noble rule-breaking doctor as someone who 'does what needs to be done' and skirts the bureaucratic red tape to follow their own superior judgment. what makes house more interesting is that from the get-go, house himself is both a doctor and an unwilling patient. in itself this isn't a tension that's new to the medical soap (injuring a major character is pretty par for the course) but house's particular interactions with the ruling biomedical epistemology are, as you point out, characterised by hostility and resistance, and the show frequently either sides with house, or at least leaves it somewhat up to the viewer to decide whether house is right to resist the pathologisation that cuddy and wilson try to impose on him.
this is kind of a tricky line to walk for 7 seasons or however long the show is. my recollection is there are episodes, for example, where it's very clear that house's pain is physical, and the writers use this to morally justify his vicodin use. this is obviously not a full-throated defence of opioid users, but it is at least pointing to a position on chronic pain that allows for the possibility that for some people, long-term use of drugs with a high addiction potential and side effects is legitimately the best thing. but, this messaging is also undercut by the fact that it's primetime television, they need to make drama, and there are definitely also episodes where house is framed as potentially lying about his pain, or at least mistaking a somatic problem for a physical one, which the writers often (not always, but often) present as evidence that actually, house shouldn't be trusted to make his own decisions about drug use, and ideally should be 'de-toxed' and probably sent to cbt or whatever. of course all of these considerations are also contextualised by the fact that house is, again, not just a patient but a doctor: his right and ability to make these types of calls for himself is, it's suggested, a result of his having attained medical education and credentials. the patients who come to be treated by him are seldom, if ever, given this same level of consideration or presumed to have sufficient self-awareness to make their own medical decisions. this isn't to say they're portrayed entirely unsympathetically, but ultimately the narrative engine of the show relies on house being the smartest guy in the room (though ofc, sometimes tragically 'held back by his addiction').
so, although there are moments on the show that genuinely transgress some of the norms of the med-drama genre, i have never agreed with people who thought that the show as a whole was presenting any sustained critique of the medical system, the treatment of chronic pain/disability, or the power-imbalanced doctor-patient relationship. ultimately all authority on house md is supposed to emanate from the physician, or the physician's superiors (cuddy as a 'check' on house, though sometimes a failed one! again because of the need to generate drama for like 140 episodes), and at its most radical the show is really only capable of presenting house himself as an out-of-control aberration whose existence strains the existing system rather than being produced by it.
this is where i think the comparison to the cop show genre becomes more clarifying. house md never made a secret of being an interpolation of the detective genre, specifically sherlock holmes. however, i'm not sure i've ever really seen writing on the show that analyses what effect this actually has on house. like police, doctors are tasked with maintaining certain social norms; the dichotomy between policing and medicine isn't even a solid line, as criminality is frequently rhetorically construed as a pathology in itself and medical authorities can and do have recourse to carceral systems in order to discipline and confine recalcitrant patients, the 'criminally insane', addicts, and so forth. (policing has historically also been understood in a more expansive sense than how we use the word today; our understanding of the medical/public health system as separate from police authority is arguably more to do with university credentialling than the actual exercise of social and political power).
so, if we want to be serious about the portrayal of medicine in popular culture (i am always serious about this) then we're necessarily talking about broader systems of power, social control, and discipline, and doubly so on a show like house that is explicitly inspired by detective fiction. this is where house md is most ideologically objectionable to me: as with the trope of the cop who breaks all the rules, house is basically positioned in one of two ways throughout the show. either he's a lone genius who alone is willing to achieve noble ends (cure) through distasteful means (breaking into patients' homes, berating them, performing risky interventions on them, &c), or—and this is rarer on house but does happen—he's portrayed as genuinely crossing an ethical line, in which case he's a kind of monstrous aberration from the normal, ethical functioning of the medical system, often represented metonymously by the objections that cuddy, wilson, or house's underlings raise. in both of these cases, as with copaganda, the function is ultimately to reinforce the idea that doctors, though occasionally capable of human error, are prima facie wiser than their patients, looking out for their patients' best interests, and performing noble social roles as healers. house, ofc, is very rarely willing to admit that he has any underlying ethical motivations, though much of the show is driven by the flashes where he is revealed to 'secretly' care about another person (often wilson) and anyway, the construction of an ethical society in which all individual actors are motivated solely by selfish interests is a very established rhetorical move for those interested in defending liberal capitalist societies (cf. charles darwin, thomas malthus, adam smith, &c).
because of television's need to generate profit via audience engagement, house md always relied on a certain level of shock or at least provocation in order to sustain itself. so, there are certain aberrations from the more overtly doctor-valorising medical dramas, like the suggestion (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) that house was better at his job when he was mildly high on opioids. this was, for the reasons outlined above, never a serious entry into political critique, but it was at least refreshing in a certain way as a departure from, eg, the portrayal of addiction and drug use that we see on grey's, which is completely limited to the medicalised AA narrative of 'recovery' as a battle against the malevolent intervention of an external chemical agent. which is to say that although house md is ultimately reactionary in the way we should expect from an american tv show, it did at least dabble in a certain level of caustic iconoclasm that allowed limited departures from the genre conventions. even with what was ultimately a pretty solid vindication of the anti-opioid narrative, the show does stand out in my mind as one of the few very popular presentations of any kind of alternative stance on chronic drug use. that it's usually put in house's own mouth means it is occasionally legitimated by his epistemological authority as a physician, though ofc ultimately this authority is challenged not through a critique of the medical system, but by presenting house as individually and aberrantly licentious, undisciplined, and insane—and his chronic pain/disability are both a justification for this, and a shorthand for conveying it.
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plaguedoctormemes · 3 months
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i'm not deleting my tumblr blogs but this whole debacle with the AI stuff is discouraging me to at least not post original content here and limit my time on social media in general. Also to be clear on my stance on AI, which I think is very much influenced by my background as both an artist and a professional graphic designer: I think it can be a very useful tool and I don't even necessarily inherently find it completely harmful. Some forms of AI are already well used and completely normalized, but I find most of the time generative AI as we know it is pretty harmful and its harms outweighs its benefits currently (largely grifts, scams and misinfo). It needs regulation desperately, but old cunt politicians are too dumb to really care about or understand how important the issue is right now. I do not believe that AI will simply peter off or crash. From a marketing standpoint, i feel like AI usage will cool off or become more specialized (like creating whole machines *just* trained on individual brands for personal use and whatnot) but I have no idea how far away that would be. I just believe there might come a time where everyone is over the "spectacle" of generative AI and will find it inaffective or inherently associated with cheapness. At least in the most base sense in advertising, it is generally much better to have your own photographs and original branded artwork as it proves authenticity. You can only see a illusionist do so many tricks before you're bored by them and expect them, and we're already getting to the point where even the average Joe is tired of hearing about AI and the future, and at least when it comes to art and writing i just... don't care? i don't give a shit about it. BACK TO TUMBLR: I'm aware that its likely that mine and everyone elses' posts here have already been scraped. My thing is that it's more the symbolism of Tumblr's "opt-out" choice: memorial blogs, inactive blogs, and so on are going to be scraped without consent. No banners or pop ups to notify users of this change, you either have to either HAPPEN UPON to see staff's post or see others talk about it to even know about it. Since the beginning of this whole AI boom i had no issue with AI data training as long as it's consentual and ethical, but obviously it most of the time isnt. Tumblr's method of rolling out this change was purposely underhanded. I'm never going to simply be "okay" or normalize in my mind the fact that big tech companies feel entitled to people's privacy- which i believe extends to our online lives. I don't think myself or anyone else should ever feel completely apathetic to the fact that people you don't know, that definitely do not need it, are making money off of you without your consent or knowledge. Just to be clear this isnt about what is and isnt "real art" or whatever for me. It's just a huge distraction from the main point, a big debate that will go absolutely nowhere. What's more important about it is that big techs and billionaires don't have interest in making the world a better place, they only care about eliminating our "distractions" that get in the way of them making money and accumulating more wealth. My solution: We need to make them deepthroat shotguns and machetes.
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You punish Bramblestar just enough. Enough to make up for all the times canon and its authors kissed his ass, putting an abusive tyrant on a pedestal over all other characters. It’s both satisfying, compelling, and kinda funny; a fitting end for someone so blatantly yet subtly abusive and corrupt, but somehow also petty and childish in a way no other character is. My favourite staple of Warriors rewrites to show how far their stance is from canon is giving Bramble actual, at times genuinely REALISTIC consequences for his actions. It’s a deserved spit in the face to the idea of hyping up some toxic fragile asshole as a noble hero, like the cognitive dissonance that persists in the books and the authors seem to genuinely believe. Did I mention the lightning is SO funny, it’s like a fire scene in terms of iconicness to me. Deserved. Bramble stans stay loosing, y’all can’t even form an argument.
In terms of the Holy Firestar Lightning Attack, I wanted something quick, "divine looking", and just strange enough that it crossed the border of possible magic. Something I feel fits into Warriors.
I'll never "over punish" a character. Thistleclaw gets a fitting end, ripped open like a bag of doritos by Snowfur, realizing his ideals have actually pushed her away, and that after all this time, Snowfur changed. He dies in complete shock and betrayal.
Tom The Wifebeater gets eaten by One Eye, mind you it was in front of poor Sparrow Fur, but afterwards One Eye uses his dark Sun God magic and consumes Tom's soul as well.
Clear Sky is pancaked on the side of the road by two Twolegs, his body left in the small ditch (respectfully, as they are humans who felt terrible for hitting a kitty and had no way of burying him) before they look out over what is going to be Skyclan's land, realizing how nice it would be to expand Chelford into that area.... Thus setting in motion the events of Skyfall. His spirit is used by Bright Storm to BECOME the Dark Forest barrier.
Gray Wing dies alone and bitter when he pushes away all forms of help, becoming a hateful spirit that perpetuates a curse that's timer has finally hit 0 on, resulting in the death/displacement of all 5 Clan leaders, starting with Riverclan. He also manifests himself through the unlucky offspring of 2 cursed bloodlines (Tigerkin and Applekin) Curlfeather. I'm not giving away his defeat yet though!
For Brambleclaw, I wanted that classic Warrior cats feel, and I think getting smote by holy lightning similar to Mudclaw fits that.
A lightning bolt during plain daylight is already considered a freak event like that has only ever happened once before in Clan history, to the magic user Ṣ̶̫̅n̴̹̯̾̒o̸̜͛ẁ̷͍t̵̰̎ủ̴̲͝f̷̙̳̆t̸̼͐ who got magic BANNED because he used it to ruin Sunningrocks and put generations of bloody wars and pointless fighting in place.
The only cat I've ever gone "too far" with is in an in-universe example of a cat who was punished for her mother's crimes, as her mother had murdered an apprentice. When her apprentice went missing later, she was blamed, and exiled. She also didn't go to Starclan, or the Dark Forest, but rather, somewhere much, much more dangerous.
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opinated-user · 1 year
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So the Sith Resurgence Page was locked which caused me to investigate a little further into its history. This is a long one.
So the page was made by morpmorp, an account that is widely believed to be Lily's sockpuppet. A stance I agree with as morpmorp's edit history is dominated by pages associated with Lily. The only non-Lily pages they edited were ones related to her interests such as the character page for the Hoarde or the Steven Universe brokenbase page. (Sidenote but this is how I learnt that Lily's Harry Potter fic has a TvTropes page so expect a repeat of this nonsense in about two years) I also have to mention that morpmorp was very bad at formatting. That's not really relevant but a large chunk of the edits was one person just reformatting the page to be presentable.
The majority of the page's existence it's been standard, a large group of people adding stuff in at their own pace. I will mention something of a minor edit war over the YMMV, specifically on 'Ron the Death Eater' and whether that could be applied to Leia. But I have reason to believe that the majority of the people who worked on the page were real and not Lily's sockpuppets. The biggest fight was on the main page over the 'Moral Dissonance entry' which was added and deleted by another user without reason. This was repeated three times back in 2021.
Unusually for a fanfic page, it has a fanfic recs page associated with it. This does happen sometimes when fics grow so big that they spawn a lot of recursive fanfiction (think Fallout Equestria or My Immortal) but the Sith Resurgence really isn't anywhere near that scale. The user who made the page for fanfic recommendations has not made any other edits ever, one and done account. Infer from that what you will. The reason I mention this is that two of the four fics recommended are the side-stories that Lily wrote for TSR. Normally side-stories would be included in the main page. However, they were added for completeness sake. What's interesting here is that there are two users who fought over the inclusion of a "hate fic" on the rec page.
These two users are the most recent editors on both the main page of the Sith Resurgence and the YMMV page. While they aren't in a direct edit war it is pretty clear that they are divided on how they feel about the fic. To be pejorative, one is probably a Lily fan while the other is decidedly not.
While I think this definitely influenced the decision to lock the page, Lily's actions potentially had a greater effect as the official reason given for locking the page was "The page is locked because the author encouraged her followers to edit her fanfic pages to her liking." Given that the majority of the edit wars happened over a year ago, I find it strange that Lily was even mentioning it. The activity on the pages were pretty minimal (both from people criticizing the fic and defending it) then.
Hope that was interesting
it was, thank you so much for informing us!
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wolfgabe · 1 year
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Spoutible a few months later
Okay a few months out and I can really safely say Spoutible really is the best Twitter alternative out there. I also would like to point out some obvious misinformation I have seen going round. And give a bit of an update on my own personal experiences as well as what has changed.
The site is perfectly safe. The claim that your data is being stolen and leaked is all bullshit. I have yet to see any signs that my information has been compromised and the information Spoutible asks you for is relatively basic stuff.
The claim that Spoutible is hostile to romance authors is also complete BS since there are a good number of romance writers over on Spoutible that have posted with no issue.
Spoutible is a scam is also fake. You cannot tell me that the whale is a scam when the person behind it has been highly up front and transparent about the various issues and working to address them. Spoutible being largely funded by donations right now makes sense considering it lacks a proper advertising model and has yet to attract the support of any major advertisers. They don't even force you to give money either. Donating is completely optional.
Yes I will acknowledge the site has some bugs still but that's to be expected for any new platform really and they have been working on fixing them as fast as they can.
I don't really understand why people are throwing a fuss over Spoutible's stance on porn considering its basically identical to virtually every other social site out there. In case you didn't know Spoutible's TOS was crafted based on the input of users during the beta period and they made it clear they didn't want porn
I have seen people complain about too much political content or how it feels like a left wing echo chamber but there being a lot of politics right now isn't surprising considering a lot of first wave Spoutible users were political journalists and commentators who migrated over from Twitter. If you are wondering why a lot of Spoutible feels very left centric a lot of it likely has to do with the fact that I think many aren't used to being on a platform where more balanced political discussion doesn't have to worry about being constantly drowned out by right wing trolling and disinformation.
And personally, I think it is important Spoutible be allowed to grow as a platform for news and political activism with how much of a right-wing disinformation cess pit Twitter is rapidly devolving into. Its probably no coincidence that I am seeing many journalists jumping ship to the whale right now. Also, here's a tip dont be afraid to check the explore section and remember to look for accounts that match your interests. I can't help but notice a trend/pattern of people coming over to Spoutible just to start shit on purpose knowing they will likely be banned just so they can then run back to Twitter and proclaim how Spoutible is unfairly censoring its users.
What elevates Spoutible above sites like Twitter is that they actually have shown they are taking moderation seriously. I remember earlier a bunch of people showed up Spoutible just to spew racist crap and they all got bounced right away. You would never seen that sort of enforcement over on Twitter. Giving people more tools at their disposal to help cut down on harassment, trolling, and bullying goes a long way in making Spoutible a healthier and more inclusive platform especially for the more marginalized groups such as LGBTQ people.
And now as for what has improved, what I like, and what could be fixed.
Video uploading is now available although still a bit buggy at the moment.
For artists and content creators Spoutible now allows you to monetize your content for free. No fee required. Just click on the red gear on your profile and look for the monetization options. Tips, donations, and subscriptions are all possible.
Still no app but I believe it will be launching soon.
More gamer people are needed which hopefully won't be much of problem if they can get the major gaming companies on board
Image upload limit way more generous than Twitter
I am really enjoying the far stronger engagement on my posts.
Need more companies on board but they are getting there. I think the first major company joined Spoutible today. It was Leap Frog.
Spoutible needs more celebrities and high profile figures. Getting someone like the POTUS would do wonders for raising its image.
Right now I think its highly premature to claim Spoutible will flop just like all the other Twitter altenatives considerings its still relatively young as a platform and still has much potential for growth. I feel I cannot stress enough that Spoutible really is the best Twitter alternative out there. It doesnt have the stability and security problems of HIVE nor does it suffer from Mastodon's server based bullshit and gatekeeping problems. The whole platform was perfectly designed to make migrating from Twitter as painless as possible so once again I will encourage people to give the whale a chance if they are tired of the bird.
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melissa-titanium · 1 year
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ive already decided all the weapons for the bkids but i am unsure if i should go for 5thgen ONLY for the specifics or just . EVERY MH GAME  which would defintieyl expand my options a bit but theres like........ 500 MILLION Monstesr and therefore 500 M IL L IO N  AR MOR SE TS  and i wouldnt know whatto choose :(
but for the bkids weapons:
egbert: hammer. duh! don’t think i really need to explain this one, but shes the type to go utterly berserk once the monster’s been downed from a stun. has cleared the entire area of mizutsune, theyre all too afraid to fight her (hehe.. me) she lands a LOT of ko’s and is infinitely frustrated by the fact that you need to SHARPEN a HAMMER. WHO NEEDS TO SHARPEN A HAMMER??! ITS A HAMMER GOD DAMNIT
dave: longsword. again, duh! dont think i really need to explain this! anime loser boy, it feels appropriate. he’s the type to waste his gauge on helmbreaker in world and didnt learn till iceborne that theres more than one charge level on it. i haven’t played longsword much so i wouldn’t know a lot of the specifics but i think he would deliberately always go hit the head just to knock everyone else over cause hes a bitch like that :heart:
rose: this one is really tough, im stuck between dualblades, cb, and ig, but i think i have to go for db!
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come on. shes totes a db user.
funnily enough she reminds me a lot of the stealth dango dualblades in rise ! i would say she’d use those but i have a feeling she would think they’re too silly.
again i havent played much of dualblades but i think she would be one of the More Sane dualblade players, she doesn’t roll down the backs of monsters that often and makes sure she gets the ACTUAL  most damage out of an attack rather than doing whats cool (same thing with IG cause i know aerial attacks aren’t that powerful! atleast from what ive heard)
jade: lbg and hbg! but dabbles in other weapons (especially hunting horn) as well. she’s one of those insane motherfuckers that sets down an affinity booster and goes ham. decimates the monster in 10 seconds flat then carves like nothing happened. great to grind with, but when you’re really just trying to have fun i feel like she would end up going too fast
anddd for the alpha kids cause i just thought of them
jane: gunlance or greatsword! gunlance is known for poking and.. i guess that’s like forkkind? i LOOOVE gunlance and even though im not really good at it its very fun to play and it reminds me of jane :D AND GREATSWORD!!!!!!!!! it feels like almost every greatsword user (except me im not cool) is either SUPER DERANGED or SUPER CHILL or like... BOTH but not in themiddle. like a combination AND SHE TOTALLY FEELS LIKE IT.  she would fucking KILL with strongarm stance in sunbreak she is the one person in the hunt to land SO MANY KO’S AND PARTBREAKS that it honestly becomes concerning. takes a long time to charge up (she thinks focus is an un necessary skill) but its always worth the wait!
dirk: again with the anime longsword boy. except he’s like..really good atit unlike dave. hes pretty humble about it for the most part but GOD FUCKING FORBID he knocks anyone over (which he does) (alot) . he never says anything but anytime theyre all grinding for decor he is telepathically urging them all to get flinch free just so he wont screw up their attacks. his favorite monster is scorned magnamalo and i should kill him for that but i wont. im nice
jake: hmm hes a toughie! i’m stuck between lance and sns (bowguns go without saying duh) lance is totally a Page weapon but sns is a Jake weapon...... maybe he switches between the two who knows! he tends to over-judge a monsters attack and block too early or too late half of the time and is a corner healer (i think thats the term. the people that huddle off into the corner to heal from an attack while everyone else is in the middle of the battle) but he means well! he does a pretty decent amount of damage but most of his skills are health/defense oriented and he DEFINITELY has earplugs.
Roxy: SWAXE, INSECT GLAIVE OR LIGHT BOWGUN. she hasd so many fucking mods i think either her pc blew up 3 times or she got banned from multiplayer even tho im p sure mods r allowed in multi  . shes specil. she totally got introduced to the series via stories 2 and is the MOST into it out of everyone else on this list. she probably knows how to hunt in every single weapon but just so she isnt flexing she only plays swaxe and ig most of the time.......... she is SUUUPER fun to hunt with
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tornrose24 · 1 year
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sorry to see/ hear you're getting weird/ pushy anons again ( through the captain underpants tag).
I needed a moment to think about how to respond to this question.
It’s good to get asks and it is good to have your asks responded to on this site. And there are times where it is fun to draw something out in response if its something that I genuinely want to draw out or seems like it’d be fun to draw.
The catch is that I can’t draw something in response to EVERYTHING I get. That’s why I sometimes write out the response instead of going for a drawing. I need to manage my time with other things.
When I see Tumblr artists that I like that draw in response to those asks, it IS cool to see how those responses turn out. But I try to be mindful as to what I’m going to ask (and sometimes I’ll even mention that they don’t have to draw anything out in response if they already had to do a lot of that). Also pay attention to how they respond to certain asks–if they are responding as a fictional character, it pays to know what questions are off limits and to regard that blog as if it were a real person so that you don’t get on the nerves of the creator. (There was someone running an ask blog and it eventually became clear what kind of questions were off limits based on what I asked and what kind of responses that character gave me in return. It took them awhile to answer some of my questions, but I could tell they were already swamped with stuff, so I was ok with waiting).
However I kind of already had a bad experience last year when it comes to anons asking me questions.
When I was in my Inuyasha/Yashahime phase, an anon kept asking me questions about a certain character even though–had they bothered to look through my posts–they’d have known what my stance was about them or at least figured it out. And they just bombarded me with too many questions in too many separate asks. And I honestly would have preferred it if they asked me ALL the questions in just one ask because I didn’t want to answer them one by one like that.
It was almost to the point where I was going to react with… well… this exact (and ironically fitting) moment from Spiderman: No Way Home-
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“WE TIRE OF YOUR QUESTIONS, ANON!”
And I almost did that just recently, but I needed to think about what kind of questions I was getting from the person before I got too snappy with them. And for all I know, the anon in question is probably an actual child. I can tell from their questions that they genuinely like my stuff.
I don’t know if the anons I get are from users that don’t have a Tumblr account, in which case I understand. But the thing is… if you choose to ask questions anonymously, but you ask them a certain way/ask too many in one go… it’s kind of obvious the anon is the same person. Even worse is that if anyone is asking under an anon at the exact same time, then they could get ignored in the process.
I myself opted to ask some anonymous questions for a few people, but in those cases I ESPECIALLY didn’t want them to know who I was. Especially if they displayed toxic behavior to the point that I had to eventually just filter out their posts so I didn’t have to deal with their constant complaints under the tag I was looking at. (No I wasn’t bothering them/trying to hassle them, but if you see anyone who bashes something almost EVERY DAY, then they aren’t worth interacting with to begin wit).
Also I kind of admit that I already wasn’t in the best of moods around the time I had the recent asks. And that one response was reflecting that a little. 
I’m trying not to be mean because I do understand the importance of responding to those that show an interest in one’s work. It’s just that I don’t like getting overwhelmed with too many drawing requests (or just get asked ‘what if’ questions for something that I have already made clear on) by what is clearly the same person within a short amount of time.
In a bit I'm probably going to allow people to ask me questions again... but I won't be accepting anon questions for awhile.
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aixmedia · 1 month
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My two cents on SD3 and why I don't think it's any better than the last heaps of garbage SDAI hyped up and we all had to finetune the nerfed garbage out of to the point we're stuck with incoherent nightmares: https://civitai.com/articles/5019
For those of you who are Artists who aren't FOR AI: I urge you now more than ever, not to whine at the people finetuning unless your actual content is being used and then that's ok -- but go see why your jobs are only at stake because of stupid corporations.
"PROMPT ENGINEERING" isn't going to save SDAI out of a model that isn't anything better, worse or even any more comptent than anything out there on the market. SD3 and Stable Cascade have clear devolving issues in control, and quality as well as coherence.
The problem with evolution in AI is they're training things that corporations demand, they're not developing better anatomy, they're not developing better coherence.
Not only that is the constant warning that these models are always "younger focused as to not do NSFW" which then leads to nerfed CSAM and CP that leaks out into media outlets and making things a dystopian future where Joebloggs goes to jail and gets off scot free on a whim saying "ITS ALL ARTISTIC" (I hear this a lot in AI circles: they all think if they. tell the cops it's artistic, then it's legal? I mean, let's be real that's not true at all.)
As an AI gen researcher of sorts, right now with my design and artistic background my fear isn't the loss of work because of styles and artists being trained on: It's the corporate drab souless and incoherent "STOCK" crap we're being spoon fed.
SDAI doesn't want the personal customers to come in, they're charing for the time being via their developer portal at least 10 bucks to top your account up. Then it's so many credits/ otherwise per dollar to generate images.
When I started doing things with AI - I saw a lot of positives. I saw avenues people could use AI for, things that could turn the industry around. No, sadly now those are being shuffled aside because corporations want in on the pile.
Big business wants a play, and most of them don't even understand how these things work.
Example (names have been changed for privacy):
Company A owner expresses a want to create a print on demand business with generative AI. Has admitted to never using generative AI in any format or another before apart from midjourney or Dalle2 back in the day.
Company A sees several users on a popular open source repository for AI content and contacts privately one or more members to source for their position.
GIF to show basically how the whole advertisment sounded:
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Mix that with:
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And then you have the current state of the new "AI BROS" economy fresh off the tracks of failed NFT.
Keep in mind as a disclaimer that the above situation was merely hearsay - and there is no legal basis to who, what where and why.
This isn't to say that AI is dying: This is just to say that AI in it's current format will likely split into a niche market of corporate design use, and those that use it for concept work outside of that... as well as the consistent bot niche market to make PonyXL porn on every g-d model that they can because "YOU CANT TELL ME WHAT TO DO".
(This isnt' against the creator of Pony Diffusion XL, nor any other model creator, this is my take based on how many models i'd been creating recently with an uptake of XXX disney princess loras being used with my models on pictures and the mods not being able to do anything about it because they all look over 21.)
I feel bad for artists right now that are CURIOUS about AI, but don't want to get into it because its' just not worth it. You're fighting know it alls on one side, and you're fighting the others that just demand to monetize every second of their life on the other.
So my stance on AI stands: I'm middle ground, I do what I do because I enjoy it - but I try and infuse an "eat the rich feed the poor" mentality. SD3 and SD Cascade and OpenAi's new models are not really helping that a long much.
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Also wtf - this was me asking for a PHOTOGRAPH and when i asked for realism it got worse LOL.
There may be a chance soon that Aixmedia won't post a ton because it's hard to keep up with our dayjob as a model creator AND try and focus on feeding fresh content because Tumblr isn't a great place to discuss that stuff, and we don't want to feed you incorrect content.
We do feel that AI has it's place. But we also feel that natural art, digital art -- deserve to exist in a higher space. And yes to those of you who hate AI: We purposly used these tags to get you to go ahead and spread how you feel about SD3 based on the images at hand. Just note that this blog isnt' legally responsible, and we're not here to trigger nor doxx anyone.
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mirceakitsune · 1 year
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Banned from Furaffinity for drawing jokes / caricature / satire 7 years ago
Furaffinity always had serious issues and strange behavior toward its community. What happened over the past two days however is beyond what I think any of us would have ever imagined seeing someday. I'm not really sure how I can even translate the situation without people thinking I'm biased and exaggerating because it happened to me, it's one of those things you have to experience for yourself to fully grasp it.
They have now banned me and another artist I followed for 15 years and admire. Our only crime was making satire art… 7 years ago (in both our cases) plus my latest render in my case. All pieces were SFW and in no way sexual, literally intended as jokes and nothing more. After two thirds of a decade, during which the pieces were up and nobody once complained, a coordinated ban was conducted over what our past selves did at a time when there were probably no rules against it to begin with; In my case I had even forgotten that old sketch, initially I thought they mistook the age of a character in my recent works since I didn't even remember doing child characters (only did that one time and another joke I think).
https://inkbunny.net/s/886450
From what I remember, this was essentially a joke about a similar artist who got harassed: I believe Subwoofer made a parody about animals eating babies and everyone started yelling at him because of it, I found the situation hilarious and made that drawing to honor it. Initially FA suspended me for one week over that sketch, citing how it was somehow cub porn… I'll let others deal with the mental gymnastics as they're far beyond me. Then they needed a reason to get rid of me for good, and so…
Yes: A parody with cartoon bunnies poking fun at the capitol insurrection on January 6th. The accusation, I kid you not, is that this image was promoting COVID misinformation along with QAnon… it also says they deleted some journals which I'm not even aware of. That render… is COVID… misinformation…
And to be absolutely clear, it legitimately wasn't even intended to support anything in any serious manner. As I said it was strictly parody with a silly story attached, mostly to poke fun at what went on. I did NOT claim the elections were stolen, that Trump was right, and in fact I legitimately believe QAnon is 90% crazy from the little I even bothered looking into that group.
This is a screencap for anyone who thinks I must be blowing this out of proportion and it couldn't have been like that. See for yourself: This is the reason they gave, the image they reference is the one with the same title. Let me know how in the heck I even said anything about COVID-19 in that 3D render.
The real motive they came after me is because I took Foshu's defense in that journal, against the people harassing them also for making a cartoon joke those same 7 years ago. I wasn't suspended for anything I said there however: The FA mods instead decided to look through my gallery and pick two jokes I made seven years apart. It was because of my stance there however, we both got banned at the same time and it was clear it came from the arguments we just had with the angry mob.
Though I figure worse is possible, I imagine this is one of the biggest abuses in FA's history. Both in what they try to interpret as being against their extremely vague TOS, as well as how they handled it. I'll see if anyone in the appeals will contact me after I explain the situation, but even if I get unbanned I'm unlikely to post there again: FA has gone completely nuts, everyone including the mods are acting like a cult on anything that is a social issue… not everyone as far as users go of course, but the platform at large has clearly become a nest for the most violent and delusional circles (just like Twitter).
I'm posting this to let everyone know it happened and I'll likely leave the place whatever happens next. But also to expose the extent of the abuse, in case anyone feels they can look into it and do some investigation; FA is of course its own private site and can do any insanity it wants, but for a community of its size I really wish someone out there could hold it up to a minimal standard. Inkbunny is the only one I trust any more, it's made some mistakes too but never anything like this… may it live longer than me and stay free no matter what the world's insanity throws our way.
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yuujism · 3 years
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Sun and Night. (gojo satoru x reader)
Chapter 1: Hate
chapter 2 →
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| PAIRINGS: gojo satoru x reader x getou suguru
| WARNINGS: ⚠️ SPOILERS FOR HIDDEN INVENTORY ARC AND VOL. 0 IN THE MANGA ⚠️ explicit language, nsfw (next chapter will have tags), plot, too much writing, kinda modified so it can fit the story but nothing out of canon, grammar errors
| WORD COUNT: idk lol i’ll count it later
| A/N: so uhhh, i’m back i guess ??? this came to me after re reading the manga and kinda yearned for some angst between gojo and reader because they both loved suguru so much 😽 and i love suguru a lot too and i miss him dearly anyway !! please check the post before this one to know what will go on with my other series !! right now i’m taking my time to write :( anyway hope you enjoy!! i hope it’s not kinda half asses though sorry ):
summary;
You and Satoru were in love.
You were both so deeply in love, just not with each other.
Where you and Satoru found comfort in each other after the accident happened.
Chapter 1: Hate.
You were in love.
To you, Getou Suguru was the bright moon in your dark sky.
Long and silky black hair, sly yet serious dark eyes and the soothing voice of reason, drowned your thoughts almost every day. He was really in every thought and dream you could have and you didn’t mind.
He always looked at you with a sweet smile adorning his features, raising his hand and waving it at you whenever you walked into the room. The sound of your name slipping through his lips made you realise you did like your name, but only when it came from him. The faint touch of his hand on your shoulder that sent shivers down your spine, face heating up reflexively as he leaned down to your ear to say some silly joke about Yaga.
Even to this day, you could still feel the ghost of his breathing in your neck.
Getou Suguru made you feel welcomed, and you loved him for that. You deeply loved him.
You knew you weren’t the only one who had their heart squeeze with adoration whenever Suguru came into view. He was just better at hiding it, an expert in sweeping his emotions under a rug and masking them with a cocky smile. But not for your observant eyes.
Gojo Satoru was also in love.
To Satoru, Getou Suguru was equal to him. The strongest sorcerers. He was also an annoyance.
Contrary ideals and constant bickering never failed to appear when these two were put together. They seemed so different: white and black; water and oil; the sun and the moon. Yet they always found themselves with each other.
Satoru hated the way Suguru could look through him so easily, calling him out on his bullshit whenever he was getting out of hand. Satoru didn’t mind as long as it was him and only him. The way they could almost read each other’s minds as if they were connected, only needing one look from the other to completely understand what were they thinking. The memory of Suguru still made Satoru’s stomach fill with butterflies, recalling the first time he saw his best friend through the eyes of a person in love.
Getou Suguru made Satoru feel everything he didn’t want to feel, and he became his one and only since the beginning.
You were both in love with Getou Suguru, but never admitted it. Not to him, not to each other, not to anybody. Everyone was oblivious to the way you indirectly fought against Satoru over the black haired sorcerer’s attention.
But then, it all came to an abrupt stop and everything shattered into a million pieces. It came as quickly as an unexpected projectile to both of your stomach’s guts.
“Getou Suguru is now to be executed on sight as a curse user.”
And you tried your best to stop the tears from coming and forget. Forget his sweet smile, his soothing voice, his touch and everything he made you feel. And Satoru did too. Because Getou Suguru was now a criminal. A murderer.
You wished it was all just a bad dream, that the charges against Suguru were just a complex plan from another terrorist group. Hope was something that you didn’t believe in and right now it looked like the sweetest of options. Ignorance is bliss after all.
Until Satoru came one day after an apparent encounter with Suguru thanks to Shoko’s aid. It was all true. You still remember the tremble in Satoru’s voice confirming every single event that was described in the announcement. His parents, the village, the hatred against humans. It was all real and, sadly, everything was clear now.
Getou Suguru was no longer the one you both knew and loved.
You also remember the discussion you had with Satoru after everyone left the room, asking him why he didn’t stop him, why he didn’t do anything to bring Suguru back to the school just like everyone expected him to.
“Would you have been able to do it?!” His yelling made you jolt before you looked at him with regret as his cold blue eyes showed his true and raw emotions for once.
And you knew. You knew that question had a deeper meaning than it appeared. And you also knew Satoru was well aware of your own feelings towards Suguru when his eyes looked through all the barriers you built to hide the pain you were in. To hide your love and broken heart. You could almost see his own dispair deep within himself. It was just too much and you couldn’t help but look down at your own feet through your tears.
Turns out you weren’t the only one with observant eyes.
“No.”
After that day, you and Satoru never exchanged words that weren’t about the students or the missions you were given through those months. You also never talked about the not-so-hidden feelings you both had towards the sorcerer that was once your friend and acquaintance.
It didn’t get better either but, somehow, it wasn’t worse than those days.
The memories of his smile still haunted you and your heart still felt as broken as that damned day. But at least you hadn’t heard of him for a long time. None of you had.
Satoru seemed to had forgotten completely. Or that was what he wanted to show. You knew he was as broken—or even more—than you were. How could he deem himself the strongest when he couldn’t save his one true friend and love after all. However, Satoru was sperfect at everything, even hiding the pain.
And everything did look better for you and Satoru in the path of forgetting Suguru. And, just like last time, destiny just couldn’t leave you alone.
Getou Suguru was back.
The way your body petrified under his gaze when he was finally in front of you after a long time was pathetic. You couldn’t move even if you wanted to, mouth slightly parted in an attempt to call him out for the first time in what felt forever. Was it fear? Was it shock? You didn’t know.
What you did know is he was the same Suguru but different. His smile wasn’t sweet anymore and his hair was longer. But the way he said your name still made your heart flutter in adoration and yearning for him.
No. No, this can’t be.
No, no, no. Getou Suguru was a criminal. A curse user. You had to stop him. You had to do something, anything!
Move.
Flashes of Suguru’s touch came into your mind as he walked towards you, calmly and confident as you stood there, a trembling hand trying to make its way to fight. Suguru didn’t stop.
Move.
Satoru’s words during your discussion resonated in your mind over and over again. Are you able to stop him? To risk it all and kill him if needed? Your hand stopped.
Move!
But you couldn’t. Not when he placed his hand on your shoulder, thanking you for not putting up a fight. Not when he walked past you, his familiar scent filling your nostrils for a brief second. And certainly not when he spoke from behind you, telling you how much he’d missed you.
You almost felt like laughing. You were truly pathetic.
Pathetic for not forgetting him. For thinking that, maybe after all this time, you would’ve been able to stop Suguru if the chance presented in front of your eyes. Unlike Satoru who couldn’t do it.
Oh, how wrong you were.
You crumbled down to your knees, hands holding your aching head as tears filled your eyes and memories of Suguru came to your mind. You weren’t strong at all. You could hear the rumbling far from your spot now, announcing the start of a fight.
Time passed, slow or fast, you didn’t know. But the tingling sensation of Suguru’s touch on your shoulder lingered until everything was silent once again.
It wasn’t until Satoru was next to you, that you finally got out of your stance of shock, looking up at him and his bandage-covered face. His demeanour was different once again, even if you couldn’t see his eyes, you could sense something was off, something happened just like that day.
Satoru didn’t even make the effort to face you as you stood up, still slightly shaking for the past event. He couldn’t. He didn’t know how to break the news for you because, once again, he couldn’t save Suguru. And this time, forever. His heart felt heavier than ever, his hands clenched into fists as he tried his best not to show how he was also shaking.
God, how Satoru wished that everything was different.
When you finally came to his senses, Satoru finally faced you, a small smile appearing in his face. His mask, you thought. His mask was crumbling in front of your eyes and he still tried to hide it. How cynical. Your eye twitched with annoyance as you saw right through him.
“Let’s go! The higher ups are wa—“
“He’s dead.” You cut him off and Satoru’s smile dropped, staring at you.
It wasn’t a question nor did you hesitate when those words came out of your mouth. You didn’t need him to confirm your statement as he once again faced away and the sound of the wind filled your ears.
Satoru could almost hear the sound of both of your hearts breaking even more, this time, until dust was the only thing remaining.
You didn’t have any more tears to cry as you grew tired of Satoru’s silence, taking it as the answer you weren’t even expecting before walking in front of him towards your next destination, leaving him behind. You disliked him more than ever right now.
Satoru limited himself to stare at your figure getting further away, jaw clenching with anger. Anger directed at you and himself. How could you look right through him? Did you even care about Suguru’s death as much as he cared? Did you even love him as much as he loved him?
That day, Satoru decided he hated you.
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jostepherjoestar · 3 years
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👑Hewwu Queen 👑 is it alright if I request DIO in part 3 meeting his descendant?. Like he basically had a kid accidentally in part 1 and now he’s meeting their great grandkid who looks allot like him and seems to not be fully human. Maybe he meets them at night since their family was traveling around the world and stopped off in Egypt where he found them maybe listening to music?
Since you write for DIO, is it alright if I request that he somehow meets one of his kid after they get into some time travel shenanigans. Maybe his kid has a stand that is kinda similar to his but they aren’t confident in using it
DIO aiding his helpless descendant 
sfw / gn reader 
notes/warnings: implied assault (on your great-great grandmother)
Another case of two anons thinking alike!! It was really fun to think about this and sorry for taking so much time to get to it :o I hope you’ll still enjoy 💖✨also the pacing is strange/fast (to me), but i felt it fit with how frantic i imagine meeting Dio is
Somewhere between irking Jonathan and wishing to destroy any respectful sliver of the Joestar bloodline, Dio had his own way of indulging and spending his time. Men, women; any creature he could manipulate to his will and suck the life out of to join his dark army was welcome in his dimly lit hideout to meet their fate. The self proclaimed god that had surmounted humanity took pleasure in playing with his food; leaving them in complete darkness, literally. He’d let them suffer in silence, hearing them whimper and regret their choice to ever step foot inside the wicked monster’s palace. But it was always too late.
Except for the very night Jonathan had decided to come spoil the fun and ruin Dio’s playtime. The woman hadn’t meant anything to him, just a toy to play with and to later discard on the pile of other bodies strewn about. Was she glad to have been saved by the burly Joestar? At first yes; brought back to her senses, out of that monster’s grasp but left terribly violated. Left to carry and care for the offspring Dio would never know or care about, too busy being left to slumber in the ocean and gaining a new form from his hated ‘brother’.
Dio rose again, skulking in the shadows of dimly lit cities, looking for any and all petty humans and stand users to claim for his side. It took time and patience he didn’t know he possessed to get fully comfortable in his new body. There was always this inkling, a nagging sonar that kept getting louder and louder, not much unlike his connection to the new generation of Joestars. It grasped at his thoughts, kept him from any semblance of peace of mind -as much as he could acquire it- and there seemed to be no way of silencing it. He couldn’t see a clear picture; it was just nothing but an annoying sense of something being near.
He had searched for weeks like a bloodhound hot on a trail, irritated that he of all people, nay creations, was being made to follow and be obedient to the terrible nagging. It angered him greatly and only when he found a mere youngster sitting on a bench, you, a simple looking human, did it boil over. Sat with your walkman resting next to you on the wooden seating, head bopping along to your newest cassette in the middle of the night. Completely lost in the song you’d been drumming along to with your fingers. Dio was furious but knew better than to strike before investigating, he needed answers and he needed them now.
As he got closer to you, sneaking from behind, he noticed an immediate shift. You were no longer alone. An image, a blur that became clearer and steadier and more live-like as each second passed; posing defensively, staring down Dio with a fire in your eyes not much unlike the tall blonde’s. Not for a moment does he fear for his safety. Even though The World is a newly acquired power it could easily wipe out a scrawny kid without even hitching a breath. He smirks, eyes cast over in shadow by the dim street light as he hears you pause your cassette player.
“Oh? Was I disturbing you?’ he mocks in a smirk, catching the way your eyes glint and the vaguely familiar image you awaken in him. Just like before he’s left to figure out who this annoying hazy memory is. His voice shivers down your very being, goosebumps taking over your skin; not sure if you had already missed your chance to run. It was like his glare fixated you in place, finger still resting on the pause button of your player while the other reached up to remove the flimsy headphones.
“You…” you barely get out the word. The accusatory tone you had tried to convey had watered down to a whimper. You had felt the connection too, something nagging at your soul and stringing you along until you’d finally found the source. “Me? Hah! No, you.” Dio slid closer, his steps so quiet and calculated that even though you couldn’t take your eyes off of him you swore it seemed like he floated. You swallowed thickly, the huge figure that excluded an aura so menacing only a meter away from you.
“So. Who are you and why was it so disgustingly annoying to find you?” he joked impertinently, amused by the way you clenched your jaw at his remark. “I could ask you the same.” a brave little spark still smouldering inside. “DIO. Now don’t make me ask again, you’re making me dreadfully inpatient.” He hadn’t felt the need to kill you, at least not yet. Dio was truly curious about your answer but by the looks of it you really didn’t seem to know all that much.
You begrudgingly gave him your name, in need of some answers yourself. The sound of your name didn’t ring a single bell, not a tick, not a clank. Nothing. Not a single step further to knowing anything. “Well it seems like you do have a stand. Maybe you possess a great power that might be useful to me.” that wicked grin on his face told you a little too much of his motivations. He reminded you of those Saturday morning cartoon villains. But still you felt compelled to listen, ignoring every single red flag.  
Deciding to humour him you give out your stand’s name. “Trust me, we can’t really do much.” you huffed. You’ve only obtained your stand recently and honestly, it has been pretty shitty so far. You didn’t know exactly what it could do, it was just there. Any time you felt stressed or in danger it did come to your aid but it remained awfully docile. Their presence comforted you but you just knew it was capable of so much more.
“Are you a vampire?” The sudden question came out more surprised than Dio had hoped to let on. He regained his posture, opting to slide next to you on the bench with a swift move. There was something… off about the way you carried yourself that reminded him of himself and the other vampires he’d created. The question stunned you, your eyes that had already been widened in shock only growing more so. The way he had changed the entire conversation that had barely earned its start urged you to think quickly. “I don’t know.” you mumbled demurely. You really didn’t know. So many weird things had been happening to you lately that you being a vampire would explain a lot.
Your answer seemed to change the imposing man’s gaze and expression. It hardened a bit, his grin now slowly diminishing into a straighter line and his pointed brows resting down at a more natural angle. Even in this low light his image felt so familiar, like you were already supposed to know who he was but the memory remained hidden. Locked away for your safety. “You should feed. And don’t go out in daylight anymore.” Dio paused for a second. “Strange...” He pondered to himself out loud. He’s only seen a few cases like this, vampiric genes passed down through generations. For some reason he pitied you, as much as he could muster it. The unknown bond you shared felt too unusual to write off.
“What am I supposed to do?” you felt tears prick your eyes, trying your best to remain strong but you’ve been so tired. You couldn't confide in anyone, not about this. Tears started rolling, falling in thick streams down your cheeks and dropping onto your lap. Here you were, crying to a stranger named Dio about being a vampire and having weird powers. A bizarre twist of fate.
“First of all, stop crying. Then, widen your stance when you’re about to fight someone. I could have easily knocked you down with that flimsy imitation. Fix your posture while you’re at it. Call out your stand again.” He rattled off his demands quickly and flatly. Was he helping you? They were barbed complaints but it seemed like he actually wanted to aid you in whatever it was you were going through. You sniffled, wiping at your cheeks. You felt like a kid again; asking your parent for any reassurance when life knocked you down.
Dio actually offered a lot of viable advice, telling you about techniques to silence your steps, how to take someone down easily, to feed on humans within an inch of their life. You had asked him, just in case. You weren’t planning on killing anyone; a comment which made him scoff. That intimidating impression and overall feeling of having to bend to his will had lessened the more you talked to the blonde. He casually sat with you for what felt like hours. He hadn’t divulged into his own history, instead asking you about yours. He was still trying to figure out what this weird pull was.
“No one in your family has experienced anything like this before? Hmph. It seems to have skipped multiple generations then.” he was asking about your great grandmother and all the others that came before you. It could have occurred to them but you would have never known. “My family did come from England, though. My great-great grandmother fled in a hurry. We don’t really know why, Windknight’s Lot seems like an unusual place to frantically run from.” As soon as the small town’s name left your lips everything fell into place for Dio. His grin grew again, satisfied to finally know your connection to him.
Family.
One he made for himself, by accident, by a relation created on his own devious whim. Not that horrible Joestar bunch that kept ruining his fun or his horrible father that was but a faint minuscule memory. Something he did. It brought him even more satisfaction to know how perfectly in place it felt for you to be the one to develop these powers at the perfect time. His mind could have exploded with possibilities; a thousand ways to make you join his side. But it didn’t, he wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted yet. And he surely wasn’t going to tell you of your bond either, lest you get attached too quickly.
As you finished up and the early signs of a rising sun were starting to make itself known on the horizon, you were saying your goodbye’s. “Thank you for helping me. Truly, I- I don’t know how I-” you weren’t allowed to finish your earnest thanks. Dio knew you meant it, one of the only few truly grateful acknowledgements he’s ever received. “I’ll be taking over the world in a few months. If you feel so inclined to join, you know where to find me.” His lips curled into a smirk and he was making his move to leave you behind, alone on the bench again. Left to scramble for your stuff to try and stop him but he was already out of sight. “WAIT! I don’t know where to find you! You never told me!” you yelled into the empty streets, heart thumping out of your chest, hoping this wasn’t just a very elaborate dream you were caught in.
“Trust your instincts.” The voice felt incredibly close but so far away, like catching a falling snowflake; as soon as you grasped it, it just melted away.
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gothhabiba · 3 years
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Hey, I saw "women, girls and femmes" used in activism (this is the first time I've come across it cause I'm not American) and I remembered that a while ago you posted something criticizing it? I don't quite rememeber your stance cause I didn't get that ohrase and when it's used. Is "femmes" supposed to be about transfeminine and feminine nb people or what exactly? I don't want to be critical of a phrase used in activism without understandit it.
the post you’re thinking of is probably this one
see also this brief comment on twitter
if you asked the people who use the phrase, I’m not entirely convinced that all of them would be able to tell you what it’s meant to designate--it’s a sort of signalling (of a group of positions that the person who’s using it is likely to hold?) that gets passed around in certain spaces
which there’s nothing automatically wrong with--consider for example what the word “houseless” rather than “homeless” signals about its user’s probable politics--but the criticism of the phrase that’s often brought up is that it equates “womanhood” to “femininity” (if you consider literally any source or genealogy of the word “femme” in English)
ostensibly the point of the phrase “women and femmes” in feminist discussion is to include people who don’t call or consider themselves “women” among the groups of people whom patriarchy harms, & therefore to be “inclusive” to nonbinary people who don’t want to be called “women”... but a couple seconds’ reflection (not to mention seeing the term as it’s actually used) should suffice to make it clear that this conveniently only ever seems to include nb people who were afab (and who look a certain way?) and therefore acceptably fall under the bracket of “perceived as women” (“women, femmes, and people perceived as women” being another version of this phrase that gets passed around).
so in its wording (“femme” from “feminine”), in its actual usage, and in its concept of how patriarchy works (purely based off of presentation or perception), it upholds a conception of “femininity” (of presentation or of, like, the body? which is obviously transmisogynistic) as the target and victim of “masculinity” (which includes anyone who doesn't fit their conception of what “women” look like)
for me this kind of equivocating (as in, not just saying “women”) is not only highly suspect for the reasons outlined above, but is also just sort of unnecessary. any feminist project should be able to theorise and articulate how power works without organising itself completely around individuals’ identities (although how identity operates is of course very relevant to any feminist project, & is in itself something that needs to be theorised). otherwise the insight that, as I said in one of the links above, there is no “perfect” subject whom the term “women” innately designates--an insight that is absolutely vital to being able to politicise womanhood, heterosexuality, &c.--threatens to be lost.
& the phrase “women and femmes” itself really doesn’t facilitate any actual theorising of womanhood as personal identity versus class membership, any theorising of nonbinary identity, &c.--it just collapses those distinctions entirely by saying “women and femmes” and yet using that completely interchangeably with how they would use “women” anyway
of course I’m not saying that every single person who uses the phrase consciously believes x misogynistic or transmisogynistic thing. but these are some of the criticisms of it that have been brought up over the past few years
also see my /tagged/women and femmes
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itsclydebitches · 3 years
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Hey there! Admittedly I'm a little bit nervous since this is my first ask, but I'll try to not be too rambly.
So, recently the main subreddit, r/RWBY, made a ban on active users of the r/RWBYcritics subreddit. As a result there's been discussion around bad-faith criticism in the latter subreddit. What are your takes on bad-faith criticism?
For me personally, I think a bunch of people are misusing the term "bad-faith" and using it as a way to shut down criticism, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it.
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Hey there, everyone! We woke up to some drama this morning, huh? And hello to you too, Tortoise! I'm so glad you decided to send in an ask, even if it's following some pretty tumultuous events...
Right, I'd like to start with a story. The story of how I personally don't spend time on Reddit, but I have plenty of friends who will occasionally cross-post something for me to see. Yesterday (or the day before? Idk time is meaningless) a friend told me about a post — which, significantly, I'm now having trouble finding — that covers RWBY's inconsistent writing and the fandom's tendency to try and explain away those missteps. They'd thought I'd be interested because I'd just had a conversation here on tumblr where I made that exact point to someone who, also significantly, vehemently disagreed with me, but in a very civil fashion. Given everything going on, I feel like this side point needs emphasis: we debated, we did so in a sometimes heated, but nevertheless respectful manner, it was clear neither of us was going to sway the other, and the conversation ended. The two "sides" of the community interacted without Armageddon coming about.
But back to the purpose of this tale. I went to take a look at this point and found that it no longer exists. There's just some vague message about it not obeying the subreddit's rules. "What happened?" I asked. "Why'd they take the post down?" "People were getting too heated in the comments," my friend replies. So, given that the comments were still visible, I proceeded to read through them, expecting personal attacks, slurs, harassment, etc. Any number of things that would justify deleting the post itself to put an end to such behavior. Instead, I found a thread of people having a conversation. Was the conversation heated at times? Sure. Did one or two individual posters edge into the realm of petulant, "No. You're wrong and stupid" responses? Yes. Was any of this remotely what I was expecting given the post's removal? NOPE.
"This isn't allowed?" I said. "Well then what is? People were being civil! Or at least as civil as hundreds of strangers ever get when discussing a series they're passionate about online."
Then, this morning, I hear that the entire critic subreddit has been banned.
So to answer your question, Tortoise, I don't actually think that "good faith" criticism exists. Meaning, it's not just that fans are misusing the term "bad faith criticism," but rather that there is no unified, agreed up method of writing criticism that will meet their standards. It's not possible and we know it's not possible because fans have been trying to meet those elusive standards for years:
A fan posts nothing but praise for RWBY until changes make them criticize the show as it is now. Their entire body of work is dismissed as the product of a "hater," despite the overwhelming gap between positive and negative reviews.
A fan posts a review that's a pretty balanced mix between praise and criticism. They're dismissed because it's still too much criticism.
A fan posts a review that's 99% praise with 1% criticism. That's still too much, with fans focusing on the single problem they had with the work and using it as an excuse to dismiss the entire review out of hand.
(As an aside, the argument that critics are "obsessed" with only saying negative things and that the only problem here is that they're "too" negative ignores the argument that... RWBY has a lot of flaws nowadays. Few are willing to acknowledge the possibility that it's not fans insisting on making things up to be mad about/ignoring the good parts of the show, it's the that show is, as of now, legitimately more of a mess than it is a praise-worthy product. If I'd been writing recaps in the Volumes 1-4 days, my work would have been skewed far more towards the positive. The critics' stance is that RWBY has gotten worse, which yes, results a higher volume of critical posts. To say nothing of how criticism takes far longer to explain, likewise resulting in posts focused primarily on that side of the divide. I really enjoyed the image of a crying Jaune reflected in his sword. I did not enjoy that moment's context. Saying that you liked an animation choice is a one sentence thing. Explaining the complexities of Jaune securing emotional moments, the problems with Penny's second death, the hurt many fans experienced watching an assisted suicide, etc. takes a whooole lot longer. Hence, you get massive, multiple posts about these nuanced topics and fewer, smaller posts about the details that are working well.)
A fan talks about a topic that has been metaphorically banned by the fandom as a whole. They have something good to say about Ironwood. They dislike something about Blake/Yang. They enjoyed Adam as a character. They have a problem with Ruby's leadership, etc. There's a whole list of topics nowadays that will result in an automatic dismissal, regardless of the point the fan is trying to make or how well they make it.
A fan talks about the minority representation of RWBY — its black characters, its queer characters, its disabled characters, etc. — and as a result has something to say about the biases and missteps of those writing these characters. This is considered an attack on the writers and, therefore, automatically bad.
A fan talks about how they enjoyed RWBY as it was years ago and is having trouble reconciling the dark, complicated story with the simple, hopeful one we started out with. This is seen as an attack on Monty's vision and an unwillingness to accept that "everything is planned."
A fan does as asked and ensures that their post is meeting all the requirements of "real" criticism. They have an argument to make. They have a point. They provide evidence. They recommend a solution. They keep their tone respectful. They don't attack the creators. They provide disclaimers in every single paragraph about how they do not hate RWBY. It doesn't matter. They're considered too negative.
I have, quite literally, seen every one of the above examples on multiple occasions. I have had many of the above accusations leveled at my own work. When fans say that they're fine with criticism provided it's not "bad faith" criticism, they don't actually have a specific post-type in mind; a checklist of behaviors another fan can emulate and, provided they do that, no hate will come their way. Or, if an individual fan does actually go, "Yeah. That criticism I'm fine with" that response is in no way universal. One person's "They make a good, civil point" is another person's, "Omg stop bashing the show!" Because "bashing" has come to mean everything from curse-laden insults towards everything RWBY has ever done, to posts that just happen to say something other fans don't agree with.
It's a rigged game. There is no way to post criticism about RWBY in an agreed-upon, appropriate manner. This recent ban is proof of that. I think it's incredibly telling that almost immediately after I was going, "Wow. A pretty calm debate about the flaws of RWBY in the main sub. That's great to see," all posters from the criticism subreddit were banned. The main sub literally just had the sort of criticism that they claim to accept — people respectfully posting analysis-based arguments resulting in calm debate — and yet they implemented the ban anyway. I'm not going to pretend that I've never gotten too heated on my own posts, never made snarky comments when I'm frustrated, never used exaggerated reaction GIFs that can come across as insulting... but I'd say on the whole my RWBY work is precisely the sort of "good faith" criticism that other fans are supposedly looking for. I never make an argument I don't think I can back up with evidence. I try to allow for the nuance and differing opinions of complicated topics. I try — even if I don't always succeed — to write in a clear, respectful manner. Yet none of that work has stopped people from telling me I'm a "bitter... raging asshole," a "deranged, delusional psychopath," telling me to set myself on fire, threatening to smash my head in, or just messages to straight up kill myself. If someone like me who legitimately works hard to create fair, defendable criticism and who only ever posts on a personal blog that people can easily block, who never engages in debate until someone else starts it first, never seeks out other fans I disagree with to harass them about what they like... if someone like me is still a "bad faith" critic who "deserves" that kind of hate mail... then what kind of criticism do people want?
Nothing. That's the answer. No criticism whatsoever, of any kind, no matter if it's delivered respectfully, is making a good point, whatever. That's why "RWDE" was created. That's why the critic subreddit was created. The community at large has demanded a complete separation between Praise and Anything That's Not 100% Praise, which has now resulted in this ban. Any other explanations we see are excuses, which becomes glaringly obvious when you look at the mods' supposed reasons for implementing the ban:
"Constant arguments with r/RWBY users" - As opposed to the arguments surrounding things like shipping that never, ever happen?
"Vote manipulation and comment brigades" - The subreddit with 3,000 participants, with around 200 on at a time, is manipulating the votes of a subreddit with 155,000 participants, with over 1,000 on at a time? Those numbers just do not check out. If a positive post is downvoted, or a critical post upvoted, maybe that's because large swaths of the community actually agree/disagree with that assessment, not because the incredibly smaller group is somehow manipulating things.
"Attacking and harassing those they disagree with" — Again, as opposed to those non-critics that never, ever harass people? This is an individual problem, not a community problem. Both critics and non-critics have their sub-groups acting in ways they shouldn't. If anything, the main sub will have more individuals harassing other fans, simply by virtue of being so much larger. As the above examples attest, it's not other critics who have told me to light myself on fire and, just to be clear, the asks I've responded to are a miniscule number compared to the amount I've received. I delete the lion's share for my own sanity and to save my followers from reading the really graphic threats.
"Months-long NSFL spam brigades" — I am, admittedly, not sure what this is referring to. Spamming of NSFW content? If so, that's also an individual problem.
"Homophobic, transphobic, and racist attacks towards our users" — See the above points. Again. If someone is being homophobic, transphobic, or racist, then yes please, ban them. Don't ban an entire community for the actions of a few. It's like walking into a store and banning a customer for causing a scene... but then also banning everyone else who happened to be shopping at the same time. It's guilt by association.
The silver lining to all this? The community as a whole isn't pleased. At least according to the main subreddit comments and a few individual voices like MurderofBirds. Despite the increase (from my perspective anyway) of critical voices post-Volume 8, criticism of RWBY is still very much seen as taboo. As this ban showcases. But it's really reassuring to see so many fans, critics and non-critics alike, going, "This was a mistake." A community is meant to include all aspects of engagement: praise, criticism, and the gray area between. If anything, fans like the mods of the main subreddit should be creating a separate subreddit that is specifically for praise. In the same way that there should have been a tag for RWBY praise, rather than trying to eliminate any and all criticism from the main "RWBY" tag. The majority of fans, even those who claim to hate critics and all they (presumably) stand for, recognize that a blanket ban of all criticism is not the way to go, especially when "criticism" has come to have such a staggeringly broad definition. If you want your RWBY experience to be nothing but sunshine and roses (ha), then cultivate your own internet experience to reflect that. Create your own pockets with rules about how this is the space for praise and if you're not up for praising RWBY right now, don't interact with us in this particular space. Don't try to make the entire community — the main tools used to discuss the show online — conform to your preferences. As established, there is no "good" criticism that everyone in the fandom will accept, which just leaves a fandom with no criticism at all. I'm glad to see I'm far from the only one who, when presented with that extreme, is going, "Nope. No thank you."
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I listened to the TAZ Grad finale!
Fellas is it gay to become imbued with the essence of the sea after influence from your water genasi teammate, pester said teammate afterwards to name a boat after you, and sail away with them into the sunset to run a cruise line scam and become morally righteous pirates?
Ive been looking at people’s reactions on the finale and yeah I loved the chaos magic parts! The whole issue with the mishandling of D&D mechanics was never really a problem with me, although I know some people feel more strongly about that than I do.
Personally, I’ve always listened to TAZ for the story and not the actual D&D so I never really took issue with any of the DM-ing mistakes Travis did. Parts of the actual story had problems (the centaurs, Ranier, other points where Travis tried to be inclusive but implemented it where it wasn’t relevant) but overall I think the enjoyable parts far outweighed the bad.
And the McElroys in general are funny as hell so even though Grad wasn’t as profound as Balance or as sad as Amnesty I still enjoyed it a lot! I would probably put Grad above Amnesty but below Balance, but of course Balance holds a special place in my heart.
A problem people had with the finale that I didn’t notice while listening was that of all their talk of “destroying capitalism,” the trio settled down to comply with capitalist society at the end. And while I do agree that the “this system is bad but let’s slowly make change from within” message has been done to death, I don’t think that the ending was necessarily performative and disingenuous on the McElroy’s part.
The first point is that even though the trio decided to participate in Nua’s society in stereotypically “exploitative” careers, (particularly in Fitzroy and Firbolg/Gary’s case) they did so explicitly to keep people from being exploited by the system. Not to mention their paths fit their character arcs pretty well. 
Fitzroy’s “who will protect the weak from the strong” speech doesn’t indicate a sleazy lawyer willing to exploit the law to make a quick buck. One person described him as one of those pro-bono lawyers and I agree with that comparison. Fitzroy is a morally good person at his core, and he initially thought the hero society would help him do good, and after becoming disillusioned with hero society, he decided to carve out his own system to allow him to do good, both by being a lawyer and by being a pirate that only attacks rich assholes. (I really like that he clarified he would only attack rich assholes my chaotic good lawyer boi <3)
Firbolg’s whole character arc of being conscientious of resources to help the community instead of hoarding things to himself, in my opinion, culminates neatly with his decision of becoming a financial advisor. He has learned that both the “share all your resources without regard for the future” ideals of the Firlbolg and the “hoard all your resources for your own benefit” ideal of Nua’s society are both flawed extremes, and has dedicated his career to helping communities find a balance between the two.
Argo’s cruise seems more of a small business to me than a capitalistic venture, but I have never taken an econ class in my life so I digress. His character arc was about finding something to live for other than the past and I think it’s a good conclusion to his arc that he commemorates his mother and friends with the cruise line but still seeks out his own future outside of that by becoming a pirate. His original plan was to go with the establishment and work with one of the most powerful heroes in the world until he gets revenge, so it’s nice to see him grow to find his own self sustaining outside of the establishment.
The second point is that TAZ Grad was never about destroying capitalism. That was a joke that Travis laid the foundation to, but it was the players who made that joke and rolled with it. Tumblr user @fitzroythecreator wrote a really good analysis of how the main theme of Grad was self reliance which I agree with. While that is one of the main themes, I will be focusing on the theme of capitalism that a lot of people tend to focus on.
The characters’ goal was to destroy the HOG, which was an allegory for how organizations function under capitalism, but never a direct parallel with capitalism as an ideology or functional system itself.
When they first joked about “ending capitalism” by blowing up the HOG I was concerned because that’s not how anything works. The HOG was just one cog (heh) in the capitalist machine that was Nua’s society, and while destroying it would cause significant damage and change, it wouldn’t immediately shift everyone’s worldviews to discard their capitalist society as a whole. If the boys carried out the mission and all of a sudden the whole world was fixed, it would be even more disingenuous to present a utopian solution to a pressing, real world problem that simply cannot be solved this way.
I’m glad that they didn’t end capitalism. Social issues like this can never realistically be resolved by three spunky heroes on an adventure. You would need action from an entire population. Often violent action. There were already issues with too many NPCs in the spotlight so describing and entire population’s uprising would have exacerbated the problems even more. As four white men, the McElroys neither had the answers for how to end capitalism, nor would their medium of a D&D podcast have allowed them to present them effectively.
From my perspective, the way they would have actually ended capitalism was to go to war like Chaos and Order wanted. In this case, the entire social order and way of life for Nua would have been overturned. The main characters, Fitzroy most vocally, reject this option because of the human toll (or elves, or dwarves...whatever the term for that is for D&D races). Instead, they disturb the system to expose its flaws and let society recognize said flaws in the background. (Again, they couldn’t focus too much on it as it would take away from focus on the main characters.) Then, they choose to find their own place in the system and fix it from within.
I’m not surprised that the McElroys would pick the “change the flawed system from within” route over the “use continuous and possibly violent action to force rapid social change” route in the end. While the second stance could work if written correctly, there’s a lot more room for the message conveyed to be catastrophically bad if the writing doesn’t work. I’m personally glad that the McElroys, who don’t have a solution, presented the tamer first take instead of trying to give a solution with the second take and failing spectacularly.
TAZ: Grad was social commentary on the problems of late stage capitalistic society, but it never tries to present a clear answer on how to end this society. Rather, it recognizes that this is a problem that can’t be solved by one small group of people. It presents several possible solutions to navigate this society to bring yourself happiness within this soul crushing system while slowly changing the attitude of the society. After all, if everyone quietly changed societal attitudes for the better, then perhaps one day the population will be united enough to bring about the drastic social change that we all hope for.
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