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Oh I never thought of correlating voyeurism with the epilogues in any way (probably cause I only read them once when they came out while half awake and don't remember) but I am intrigued would you say is it like a running theme on it or does it fall into being voyeuristic in a way that harms other things it's going for :0

i mean obviously ymmv on if the execution actually works for you or not but it is definitely a very intentional theme. it's most obvious in meat because the people who are Looking (dirk and alt!callie) are clearly delineated by the text and even formally distinguished via text color. this is most obvious in the scene where dave and karkat get together after karkat loses the presidential election. dirk is watching this really private moment and the tone of his narration feels. gross. not quite like he's getting off on it bc it doesn't read as sexual (at least to me) but he's enjoying that his narratorial omniscience gives him access to this space he otherwise wouldn't a little too much. and he tries to influence the scene he's observing too! he really really wants davekat to kiss and manipulates his narration to facilitate that. and he's so heavy handed about this that iirc dave notices and tells him to knock it off.

anyway. all this is to say that ult!dirk is like if the guy from rear window was simultaneously alfred hitchcock.

candy is less clear about who's narrating which makes it harder to talk about in terms of voyeurism but i'm sure there's something there to read into that i'm not remembering

tl;dr yes voyeurism is very much a running theme in the epilogues

#ask #anon #hsposting

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Nobody is going to like this but I know exactly when and how Taylor swift is going to come out. Is she gay in this scenario where she comes out? Not necessarily. Okay. 20-35 years from now america elects its first gay president. Taylor swift is a spry 54-69. Probably it’s Pete if he plays his cards right. IMMEDIATELY on the heels of this Taylor swift comes out. The point: the ONLY world where Taylor swift has a Coming Out is a world under the rule of a gay American president. Now for the details. Here’s what happens. President elect Pete butigieg wins the general election. Posts victory photos on his Instagram. Taylor reposts them with a snip of miss Americana playing (we paint the town blue)

With a text overlay that says proud to be a voter today 🌈. No further context. After this. She starts promoting re-records of early albums, definitely lover at least, she uses the word retrospective in interviews about this, talks about how young she was and the pressure she was under and the massive PR machine etc, and how she feels she’s at a good point in her life to revisit these in a more authentic way. When she tours all of these old albums there are 1-3 songs per set list where she changes he pronouns to she. Is she gay when she does this? Odds are 50/50

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actually yeah someone really should write the "voyeurism in the homestuck epilogues" essay. not me but someone

#im a psychoanalysis hater but im not blind #hsposting #txt

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Such an interesting reaction that I saw to the newest HSBC upd8 was a bunch of people on Twitter having tiny battles over whether or not there were incestuous implications in the scene between Ult Dirk and Rosebot at the end of it. And although the approach is definitely an extremity I wouldn't personally write, it is somewhat disheartening that the consensus seems to either be people going, "God the team is so disgusting for including incest" or "This is just a tender family moment between father and daughter." Which is such a strange range of reactions to see people having in response to what feels like a pretty cut and dry depiction of incestuous abuse between a pair that was already wrought with those implications. Like I don't know who needs to hear this, but people know that incestuous abuse is like, a thing that happens in real life, right? It isn't always fetishistic (and I definitely don't think this upd8 is guilty of that, I don't think this was included to be a declaration that Dirk/Rose is canon or whatever), and it's always weird to see people hurling insults at writers for including things like this, or other people saying that you're reading too much into it for noticing

I don't know, personally I really enjoyed this upd8 both for the clear exposition (the sign that things are about to Move!!!) and because it showed me that the writers clearly aren't about to shy away from delving into Rosebot's abuse (probably!). There's something about getting to see the subtle ways in which Dirk has inched his way into Rose's mind, the extremities he's willing to go to influence her to prevent her from leaving him. It always got to me a little that for all the discussion of post canon, you rarely see people delve into the implications of Dirk insisting on referring to himself and Rose as father and daughter, the power dynamics that play into that (obviously there's a literal meaning to it, but it's hard to deny that there isn't a symbolic meaning to it as well). The way that those titles are both used by Dirk to shield himself from the reality of what he's doing to her (saw more than one person say that this couldn't be incest because Dirk was insistent on calling Rose his daughter, like that isn't the point!), and also very clearly as a means to show who holds the power between them. Who's calling the shots, who's controlling who. It's so subtle but ughhhh it's so compelling to me, and to see reactions to this upd8 that try to undermine the abuse, either by calling it disgusting or by saying that it isn't happening is so!!! I get being uncomfortable with it, but sometimes I really do think that online discourse has rotted people's brains when people act like the only reason anyone would ever write about incest is bc they have a fetish or something. Again! Like this doesn't happen in real life and isn't tragic and devastating! Like fictional abuse always has to be digestible. Like this doesn't speak volumes about Dirk and Rose's dynamic, about how important control is to Dirk and his relationship with Rose

This was definitely my personal favorite of the upd8's so far (absolutely nothing to do with a deeply ingrained Rosebot bias), some small gripes about Dirk characterization aside, and I found the Dirk and Rosebot conversation very compelling! Strange to see people try to act like it's just a coincidence that Dirk monologuing about being worried about Rose leaving him is followed by a very tender conversation between the two of them. Personally I thought it was interesting seeing how Dirk's insecurities seemed to culminate into Rose's speech. Innuendos and jokes that feel on par with some of the more (hm, Freudian? Unsure of a good term for this) conversations between Dave and Rose in the original comic, that gain weight when Dirk starts making his influence over her more explicit. Rose talking about "starting a family" with him, the weight of commitment. The shackles of metaphorical motherhood placed on Rose by a man who calls himself her father. It's good stuff, that I think it could point to some interesting implications both to how desperate Dirk is to keep Rose with him, and perhaps how in control of himself and his powers Dirk actually is. I look forward to seeing what the team does with this, personally. Good upd8

#hardddddddd agree #LOVED rose's line about 'playing house' and the ongoing distortion of the adam/eve thing #also it wasn't super prominent in this upd8 but theres something to said about ultdirk and voyeurism re: rose #like laura mulvey what are your thoughts on homestuck postcanon #hs

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this is such a hack joke but i had to make it

#dungeon meshi

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youve heard of he would not fucking say that now get ready for she would not be a fucking wingman to those two guys

#rose re: davekat

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the stuff going on at columbia campus rn is genuinely incredible

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the reason that I was the most responsible 18 year old in the world is I thought I wanted a certain tattoo real bad but to be sure I got it done in henna first to wear it for a week to see how I felt before ultimately deciding against it and well. i thank that girl every day for saving my life

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i am going to melt like a stick of butter or perhaps flop over like some kind of windsock

#im not even eepy anymore im straight up Tired dude #txt

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what is it about columbia specifically that's allowed the situation re: repression of pro palestine student protestors to become so visible

like obviously a lot of it is that columbia is a really well known institution + in new york city so it has a certain cultural weight to it that most other colleges do not and there are a lot of journalists who are conveniently located relative to it. and also bc it's in nyc the nypd is there and the nypd is going to have more capacity to arrest tens of protestors at once than your average college police department (i assume)

but it wasn't *always* going to be columbia at the center of this thing. after october 7th the big story that i remember about student activism was that a group at harvard sent an open letter blaming israel for the attacks and then a truck w/ students' personal info drove around campus in retaliation. there's a world where things go a different direction and some other school gets to be treated as a microcosm in national free speech debates.

so how did it end up being columbia? is the admin just genuinely that incompetent or hostile to students that they don't think things escalating this far will have consequences for them? or are there other things im missing

#ofc there's the fucking. college antisemitism hearing that columbia's president just testified in #but presumably she was asked to testify because columbia has already been made a symbol of this national conversation #txt

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the self care industry will sell you face masks and teas and whatnot so i'm here to remind you not to forget the most important self care activity which is masturbation

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5 credit classes will have you thinking shit like "should i sleep tonight?" with full sincerity

#why did i do this to myself #txt

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Since we talked about Ciri I would love to see her doing magic studies with Yennefer or something. Just anything with a young Ciri having a good time for once

Okay so this isn't exactly what you asked for but it sprung into my mind when I set out to draw the ask

#the witcher

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Heartbreaking: This person is making great points but they're being a huge fucking asshole about it so you can't reblog any of it

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the usa is leaving me to die slowly and painfully because i am poor please god rb this dont just like and scroll

i'm on a medication that is barely helping and i'm still having seizures almost every other day. finally had a grand mal the other day and i'm still hurting from it.

i don't have health insurance but i have to see a neurologist otherwise my condition is going to continue to deteriorate until it kills me if nothing is done

please. please it's alot but if 500 people send 10 bucks that meets our goal. anything at all helps. im begging for my life here it has to happen. i'm scared of going to sleep & i can barely do anything anymore even if i want to this is a fucking shitty way to go im only 24

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I’m having feelings about Katara v Pakku again, and the fact that at this point in the series, Katara has never been in a fight that wasn’t to the death. Every fight she’s ever been in has had world-ending stakes. She’s not shooting to kill Pakku because she’s weaker and less trained than him - though she is - she’s shooting to kill because she doesn’t know any other way to fight. Friendly sparring, or fighting as a spectator sport, has not been a part of this girl’s life. Pakku’s fighting Katara to put troublesome teenagers in their place; Katara’s fighting Pakku because they’ll all die if Pakku doesn’t pull his head out of his ass and train the Avatar.

Pakku is genuinely surprised to see his own reflection in that disc of ice Katara shoots right past his face. If he hadn’t dodged, it would have sliced his head right open. He starts putting actual effort in after that.

#atla

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Is Israeli academia about to enter a whole new phase? All signs are that it already has. In the past few weeks, Haaretz spoke with more than 60 Israeli scholars from a wide range of disciplines and academic institutions, from young scientists and university presidents about their experiences with colleagues abroad since the war broke out in the Gaza Strip after Hamas' massacre on October 7.

They recounted dozens of incidents: cancellation of invitations to conferences, a freeze on their appointments in foreign institutions, rejection of scientific articles on political grounds, disruption of lectures abroad, cessation of collaborative efforts with colleagues abroad, refusal by such colleagues to take part in the promotion process their Israeli counterparts must undergo at local institutions, and even a sweeping boycott of local colleges and universities. The following examples, all from recent months and backed up by documents and emails, are being made public here for the first time. The plethora of events leaves no room for doubt: Israel is feeling the brunt of an unprecedented academic boycott, which is only gathering momentum.

…

It once seemed as if the social sciences and humanities are more vulnerable to political struggles. Indeed, such departments in Israel were familiar with the impact of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement long before October 7. However, the cessation of collaboration – whether in conducting research, co-authoring articles or in other areas – is now being seen as a widespread phenomenon in all fields.

A few months ago, Nir Davidson, a physics professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, suggested to an Italian colleague that they try together to request a grant from a competitive research foundation. "Because of the atrocities your country is perpetrating against innocent civilians, thousands of professors and researchers have signed a petition calling for all research collaboration to be blocked," the colleague replied, noting that he "fondly recalls" a visit he made to Israel in 2020, but adding, "I'm afraid that what your country has done and is continuing to do will never be forgotten or forgiven."

About a month ago, a scientist from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev was ejected from an international group that submits research proposals to the European Union in the realm of environmental studies. The explanation he was given by one of his colleagues was, "I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have to not select Israel as a partner for the project. In fact, some partners do not wish to be involved in the project if Israel is a partner, particularly given the current political context. I am truly sorry, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to work together on another research project. Thank you for your understanding and I wish you all the best for the future."

…

"I am writing to let you know that I have decided to step down from the Ph.D. committee [reviewing a student's thesis]," a foreign social sciences scholar wrote the Hebrew University recently. "Following the university's recent declaration of commitment to Zionism in the context of the war that is raging in Gaza, I feel I can no longer be associated with this institution. I have enjoyed working with you all and it is with a heavy heart that I am making this decision."

The "commitment to Zionism" the professor cited was part of the fierce public condemnation the university issued against sharp remarks by Israeli-Palestinian Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian, of its law faculty, against Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza. "As a proud Israeli, public, and Zionist institution," the university stated, it condemned her comments and suspended her, before reinstating her two weeks later.

The email from the foreign academic who asked to stop advising the Hebrew University doctoral student is only one example of an apparently growing phenomenon whereby scholars overseas no longer want to help prepare the next generation of lecturers and researchers at Israeli institutions: Sources at a few such institutions admit that they find it increasingly difficult to obtain the letters of evaluation from academics abroad that must be submitted in advance of discussions of staff promotions in Israel.

For the present, it looks as though the latter trend is particularly noticeable in the social sciences and the humanities: in sociology and anthropology, Middle Eastern studies and literature. But according to a source at one university, the field of law is also falling victim to such dwindling collaboration with foreign schools.

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"If the Israeli government commits irrevocably to either a two-state (within 1967 borders) or one-state solution in which all Palestinians in both Israel and the occupied territories have equal rights to Israelis – I will be happy to engage with Israeli institutions," a senior researcher at a prestigious institution in Europe wrote recently, in response to a request to write an evaluation for an Israeli academic. "Until that day, no." Another European academic wrote: "I do not believe that this suffering of civilians can be justified and I believe that Israel is not acting in accordance with international human rights law. In light of that, I feel I cannot collaborate with any Israeli institution at the moment."

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"The dam has burst," Drori declares now. "Talking about an academic boycott of scientists in Israel has become legitimate. It's a whole new world. We are in a very extreme situation, and I don't know whether and how it will be possible to reverse things. The boycott is severing our ability to be involved in the forefront of research. All scientific research that does not involve the international community is research that is less good. The severance from the world is suffocating us."

If the pool of international experts who are willing to cooperate with Israel does continue to shrink, Israeli academics will face discouraging alternatives: to approach less senior academics from less well-regarded universities (which, according to a knowledgeable source, is already happening in some cases), or to increase the proportion of assessments provided by local faculty – not a particularly palatable solution.

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A number of universities and academic organizations in Belgium, Spain, Italy and Norway recently announced full boycotts or a suspension of ties with Israeli institutions until they receive clarifications with regard to topics ranging from the state of academic freedom on their campuses, to their moral, financial and material support for Israel's defense forces. For one, Ghent University recently requested such information from its counterpart in Haifa.

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"The best-case scenario is that within a short time we will return to some sort of stability," says American studies professor Milette Shamir, vice president of Tel Aviv University and director of its international academic collaborations. "Our standing in the world will be rehabilitated and we will be able to return to the situation we were in, to very extensive international activity."

But Shamir acknowledges that she "doesn't know whether that scenario is realistic." Two weeks ago, she was in Australia to attend an academic fair at the University of Sydney. When she arrived, pro-Palestinian demonstrators shouted that Tel Aviv University shares in crimes against the Palestinians and that all collaborations with Israel should end.

"The worst-case scenario is that we are headed in the direction of South Africa [in the apartheid period]," she says, "with boycotts that keep mounting to the point of paralyzing the system. The result will be a mortal blow to Israeli academia. It will take on a provincial character and we will not be able to integrate into the forefront of the world's research."

— 'I Won't Work With You. You're Committing Genocide': Israeli Academia Faces an Unprecedented Global Boycott. Or Kashti, Haaretz, April 14 2024