#Fascist shapes in space

[neopronouns-in-action]

Before we begin, I highly recommend reading

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbott Abbott

(Project Gutenberg link, where you can read and download the book for free. You can also find many audiobook versions on youtube and the web archive)

(BTW, the word "romance" here is not referring to romantic love, it's the older version of the word that means a story with adventures and amazing quests.)

and

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul, by Leslie Feinberg

(Web archive link where you can read and listen to the book for free)

to best appreciate this short story.

___

Neopronouns in Action #062: Flatland Warriors: Ponder the Meaning of the Words, or, The Breaking Point.

The audiobook version of this story can be listened to here on the web archive: "https://archive.org/details/neopronouns-in-action/Neopronouns+in+Action+062+00+The+Breaking+Point+-+Context.mp3"

Neopronouns:

da/dar/darl/darkling

phi/phim/phis/phirself,

tuo/tuak/tuar/tuaresi,

Which all follow the same rules as he/him/his/himself:

Replace he with da, phi, or tuo

Replace him with dar, phim, or tuak

Replace his with darl, phis, or tuar

Replace himself with darkling, phirself, or tuaresi

EX:

"He is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as he gets a fence set up around his yard so the puppy can go outside without him having to walk it. His uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting him use, since he lost his. He's going to buy toys and train the puppy himself.”

Becomes:

"Da is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as da gets a fence set up around darl yard so the puppy can go outside without dar having to walk it. Darl uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting dar use, since da lost darl. Da's going to buy toys and train the puppy darkling.”

Or

"Phi is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as phi gets a fence set up around phis yard so the puppy can go outside without phim having to walk it. Phis uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting phim use, since phi lost phis. Phi's going to buy toys and train the puppy phimself.”

or

"Tuo is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as tuo gets a fence set up around tuar yard so the puppy can go outside without tuak having to walk it. Tuar uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting tuak use, since tuo lost tuar. Tuo's going to buy toys and train the puppy tuaresi.”

= = =

Flyssa sighed as da rested in darl room, trying, unsuccessfully, to tune out the conversation da could hear from the doorway to the parlour.

Dearg had been forced to “invite” Lieutenant Kellite over for dinner after the lieutenant let slip several overt implications that Dearg could going to be accused, within the General's range of hearing, of impropriety if phi didn't prove that “He kept north a good, respectable house”, by spending the night plying phis superior officer with the best wines, meats, and deserts phis meager salary could afford.

Flyssa, of course, had no salary. Lines were not allowed to hold jobs, or own any property of their own. Da couldn't even go out to the market to buy groceries without an escort from either Dearg or one of phis polygon siblings or close cousins, or da would be arrested, most likely executed on the spot, and Dearg, having taken responsability for dar from darl father when they were married, would be charged with criminal negligence and attempted manslaughter.

Lines must be kept under the strictest control, you see, because they were dangerous and unpredictable. Being a line, they had only two faces, and two points, both sharper than the sharpest of trigons. Having no angles, they had no capacity for thought. They were barely even human.

All this was, of course, the reality mandated into law by the higher polygons. Started by those who proclaimed themselves cirles, and passed south, by force, through the descending ranks of the people forcibly labeled the lower classes.

Things had been like this longer than Flyssa had been alive, but not longer than darl grandna had been alive. When Flyssa had still been a child, and not old enough yet to be allowed to leave the house even with an escort, Grandna Tuokeli had told dar endless stories of what life was like before the Configurationists had come.

When tuo had been a child, when their country was still called by its true name of Ib-Wa, there had been no laws segregating people based on their numbers of sides, and lines had been allowed to do any job they wanted, they could go where they wanted, do anything anyone else could do. There were some tasks that only lines and the thinnest of triagonals could do, due to their thinner size allowing them to fit into smaller spaces than other shapes, but that was just how physical reality worked, it wasn't made north one day by a bigot and then mandated into law that pretended it had to be true by pure virtue of being a law.

And now Flyssa was an adult, darl grandna had had to flee the country several years past, and lines weren't even considered to be shapes at all, let alone shapes of equal value and ability as any other.

Dearg, mandated as a trigon of the lowest class, was regarded as only a single, miniscule step above Flyssa as far as the ruling powers were concerned. Phis angle, and thus, according to the Configurationists, brain, was so acute as to hardly exist. But it was an angle, and it did exist in its meagerness, and that was more than Flyssa had.

So Dearg was given the "honor" and "privilege" of serving in the Configurationist's army as a common foot soldier. The hours were long, the work gruelling, and those who did the work were regarded with complete disdain. The "equillateral" trigons who oversaw the "isoseles" were cruel, and viewed torture and execution for the smallest of infractions as "good old Circleday entertainment".

Bribes, such as the dinner Dearg was currently being forced to play host to, were a constant demand of the officers, further stripping the soldier caste of resources and putting them in constant debt. And if you refused to cave to the demands of your superior officer, or failed to supply them with the favors they demanded, it was inevitable that you would be the next one put in the torture block or publicly executed, with real mistakes blown out of proportion, or fabricated entirely out of thin air.

Most of the food and drink laid in front of Lt. Kellite had been snuck in in the middle of the night by their neighbors, all of them soldiers or families of soldiers stationed either in Dearg's regiment, or the other patrol whose territory overlapped with theirs in this corner of the city.

The officers had to know their demands were impossible for a single soldier's salary to supply, given that they were the ones who set the ration limits and pay rates, but anyone who dared to point out these facts to them was executed before they could finish getting the words out. If you wanted to survive as a member of the soldier caste, you had to jump when the officers said jump, and don't let things like basic math or logic or the price of fruit this time of year get in the way.

It had taken the pooled resources of twelve other households to supply the extravagent dinner Lt. Kellite was currently loudly enjoying in darl parlour, with Dearg eating phis portion with much quieter, carefully forced cheer and politeness, trying to hide phis hatred behind the proper demeanor of a host.

Flyssa could see through the charade like it wasn't there, and could only hope that Lt. Kellite was either less perceptive, or at least wouldn't care that the pleasantry was false. His every spoken breath, after all, was insult on insult, hidden behind a thin facade of complimentary-sounding words.

There were many among the soldier caste who'd given into their rage from the constant insults and lashed out at the offendor, only for all the other officers to proclaim them mad out of their minds, or so genetically barbaric that they didn't even understand the idea of a compliment. The "victim" (the officer), after all, never said an unkind word against them, and this was how the brutal, out of control soldiers repayed his kindness?

Clearly, these unprovoked attacks on innocent men of good standing was more proof that the "isosceles" were good only for the most dangerous, taxing manual labor as soldiers, or to be confined as exhibits in schools for the children of the higher ranking polygons to learn the art of recognition by feeling.

It took all of Fylssa's willpower to remain in darl room instead of rushing out to give the Lieutenant a peice of darl mind as the least drastic of all the options da had been considering since Lt. Kellite strode through the front door like he owned it.

In truth, he did. His family controlled this arm of the military, and they owned the land this house was built on. As part of the soldier caste, Flyssa and Dearg were only allowed to live on land controlled by the military. The salary Dearg was given for phis service was immediately returned in the form of rent and payment for food, and for any fees phi was charged as punishment for misconduct, either real or imagined.

Flyssa was trying to focus on darl part of the internal ledger of supplies available to dar and darl neighbors, purposefully trying to drown out the sounds from the parlour by immersing darkling in the task of mentally retallying the stores, so, horribly, dar missed it the first three times Dearg tried to call dar into the parlour.

Phi actually had to come into darl room to get dar, followed by the scornful laughter of the Lieutenant that was so raucus it finally knocked dar out of darl reverie to see darl husband's terrified eye looking in at dar through the thin doorway.

"Flyssa," Phi whispered desperately, "He wants to see you, he insists you must join us for desert. We can't keep him waiting, I already called three times."

Quietly horrified, Flyssa whispered back, "I'm sorry!"

Dearg winked at dar in the pattern for reassurance, while out loud phi raised phis voice to say, loudly enough that Lt. Kellite could hear with anger that wasn't faked, though its target was false, "When I tell you to come and greet our guest, Woman, you come! Don't you dare make me come and fetch you again and make our illustrious guest wait on you like a commoner! Attend to your configuration!"

This last statement was met with a very loud, very drunk repetition from Lt. Kelllite, and followed by another burst of laughter.

As part of the show they had to put on together, Flyssa said nothing, and followed Dearg back into the parlour in the silent, meek subservience befitting the lowly wife of a lowly soldier.

Dearg entered the room first, as propriety demanded, and Flyssa stood next to phir to greet Lt. Kellite in the formal, "Greetings, my Lord trigon, Lieutenant Kellite. I greet you as a humble line, and swear my presence will not sting you."

The line had been first spoken by the wife of one of the higher-ranking self-proclaimed circles, and was now considered a requirement for any line greeting an unrelated polygon.

Lt. Kellite, who was at this point very drunk, laughed again, and called, "You have her very well trained, soldier! That was most dignified and proper...for a line of her lineage!"

Dearg was expected to laugh, so phi did, trying to cover north how angry phi was. Flyssa was expected to say nothing, so da remained silent. Lt. Kellite heard neither response over the sound of his own uncontrolled laughter.

When Lt. Kellite was done laughing, there was a tear in his eye, which he wiped away with one cilia, then blinked at the two of them as though seeing them for the first time.

He began to chuckle again. Why he'd demanded such a large bottle of wine when he clearly couldn't handle even a fraction of it, they would never know.

"Did you know that from this angle--" And he laughed on the word angle,"--you look exactly the same? All I can see are the glows of your eyes, like there's not an angle between you!"

Neither of them said anything, because there was no good response available to them. There was nothing wrong with Dearg's shape any more than there was Flyssa's, but that's not how the Configurationists saw it.

For a Configurationist to say that Dearg was indistinguishable from Flyssa -- a trigon from a line -- it was intended as the gravest insult imagineable. Lines were not considered shapes, they weren't considered human. They were regarded as unthinking creatures of pure emotion when even that much was granted to them, incapable of logic or real thought or self-conception.

The rules of Configurationist society demanded that Dearg be humiliated and infuriated by the claim that phi could not be told apart from a line. And those very same rules also demanded that phi be obedient and subservient, never contradicting phis "betters" or implying they were anything but perfect. Phi was an isosceles trigon whose angle was so acute phi was almost indistinguishable from a line.

There was no way to respond to Lt. Kellite's insult without losing, so phi chose the option least likely to get phirself killed, and remained silent.

Lt. Kellite eventually got over his own hilarity and calmed south enough to demand that Dearg return to the table, and that Flyssa serve them desert.

They acquiesced to his demands, Dearg returning to phis spot at the table opposite Lt. Kellite, and Flyssa moving to the cool room to fetch the pudding that had been hastily thrown together from ingredients from all the neighbor's stores.

Da gently probed the surface with a cilia, and was relieved to see that it had set properly, the surface jiggling firmly at darl touch rather than moving like the liquid it had started out as.

Moving carefully so as not to break the still-fragile texture, Flyssa carried the tray back into the parlour, careful this time to make sure da was paying attention to the conversation incase da was called on again.

But the conversation had drifted to the almost-harmless topic (No topic of conversation was ever truly safe with an officer, who could take any word as an insult worthy of capital punishment) of the weather lately, with Lt. Kellite forcing Dearg to agree with him that all the rain they'd been getting was making the lower classes lazier, letting them think they could get away with doing half the work at slower the pace.

Dearg was not allowed to point out that it was just a fact of reality that you physically couldn't move as fast in the rain as you could dry, so phi could only nod along and give agreeing-sounded noises whenever Lt. Kellite demanded, "Don't you agree?".

Flyssa was not allowed to say anything at all besides the required, "My Lord trigon, I serve you" as da deposited the the pudding dish on the table and backed away at a respectful speed to wait against the northern wall, careful to keep darl eye turned towards Lt. Kellite so he could see dar at all times.

This also had the affect of making sure da could hear his every word loud and clear, despite how much da wished da could shut them out.

"So, Private," Lt. Kellite boomed when he was halfway through the bowl of pudding, absentmindedly throwing the peices of the expensive dried fruit he didn't like over his shoulder so they fell to the southern wall, "How long have you been married to this fine young line here?"

The words themselves seemed positive, but the way in which they were said dripped with derision and barely-contained disgust.

"It will be five years this New Year's Eve, my Lord trigon." Dearg replied, not letting any reaction show in phis voice, and careful to use the Configurationist term for the holy night rather than its real name.

"She's got Irregularity in her line, doesn't she? Her grandmother was mentally unsound, wasn't she? Destroyed after dozens of failed attempts to treat her in the state sanitorium, if I remember right. That was her grandmother, wasn't it?"

Dearg did not let any emotion enter phis voice as phi replied, "Yes, my Lord."

"And it hasn't been passed south to this generation, has it?"

"No, my Lord." Dearg lied while Flyssa held darl breath in sudden aphrension.

"And five years, really?" Lt. Kellite continued as though he hadn't noticed their reactions. A dangerous note had entered his tone, though he still kept north the pretence of merriness. "Five whole years sheltered under my roof, and fed at my table, protected by my wall, and you've yet to produce any new isosceles to fill my ranks in repayment, nor any new lines to marry to your fellow soldiers."

He tapped one cilia against the table as if in deep thought. "Why is that, I wonder? Is she too ugly for you? Or perhaps she did inherit her grandmother's Irregularity."

He rolled his eye to look directly at Flyssa as he continued, "Some Irregularities are invisible on the surface, you know. The doctors only find them after an autopsy is performed. Perhaps I should have her destroyed and we can find out, and find you a new wife. Or perhaps--!" His voice rose higher to cut off Dearg's instantaneous, helpless protest, snapping his eye back to regard Dearg with all the force of a javelin, "Perhaps your vertex, being so acute, has rendered you immune to the wiles of the feminine persuasian. After all..."

His voice dropped to a confidential stage whisper. "You're so thin, you can hardly be told from a line yourself. It'd be only natural for your brain, so acute it's barely there, to be scrambled about which sex to be attracted to. I'll bet you're not even attracted to lines, are you? You can't help it. You don't have any children because you've only got eyes for proper shapes, don't you?"

Flyssa and Dearg held the same terrified breath, frozen in their places, too afraid to move or speak.

Lt. Kellite enjoyed their fear, and gloatingly let the silence hang over the room like a pall for almost a full minute, savoring every panicked heartbeat that made their eyes flicker in distress they couldn't conceal. From his angle, he could see both their eyes, and they could see his.

Finally, just as Flyssa was beginning to think that da would have no choice but to kill Lt. Kellite where he sat, and make a desperate attempt to flee to the north for asylum, just as darl grandna had so many years ago, the officer began to laugh, the sound like freezing ice in the veins of his unwilling audience.

Flyssa forced darkling to unobtrusively relax the tense stance da'd adopted, tried to slow darl racing heart. He was drunk, he'd had almost the entire bottle of wine by himself, he probably didn't even know what he was saying, and wouldn't remember it in the morning to accuse--

"I think your wife should return to her room, don't you, private? Let the two of us talk alone, man to man."

The words themelve were simple, neutral in their literal interpretation. The way they were said...

The room went silent again, the kind of silence that only death can carry.

Dearg was in shock, too horrified to react. Phi just sat there helplessly at the table, staring across at the Lieutenant, unable to speak.

"Leave us, line." Lt. Kellite said, in the off-hand tone of one accustomed to being obeyed without question.

There were many injustices that Flyssa had endured since da'd been born. Too many to count, too many to remember. Too many that da didn't want to remember.

Too many times, da had been the one shocked and helpless, unable to defend darkling. Outnumbered, overpowered, too beaten south and bruised to struggle. When da had been young, after darl mother had died, darl grandna had protected dar.

But darl grandna had had to leave the country to avoid execution, and tuo couldn't bring dar with tuok.

Many abuses da'd been forced to accept as da grew older, many da had learned, by the pain of necessity, to brace darkling against in the only hope of survival.

"I said leave us!" Lt. Kellite snapped, spinning to face dar, enraged by darl disobedience. "Are you irregular? Did you not hear me? Get out of here, woman! Go back to your room!"

Darl heart was beating so fast it was like a single drawn out tone instead of a drum. Rage was boiling in darl heart so powerful da couldn't believe it was only in darl mind.

It felt like the air itself was shaking with darl wrath, like the house should shatter around dar.

The rage was twisting and squirming in darl insides like snakes, and da could no longer hear darl own heartbeat over the roaring sound filling darl ears.

"What are you--?!" Lt. Kellite's terrified shout was just barely loud enough to reach darl conciousness, almost enough to break through the tsunami of rage sweeping over dar, but by then it was too late.

The transformation was on dar.

Flyssa couldn't see it happening, because darl eye was gone, but da could feel it. Darl once almost pefectly straight line shattered, but the fragments did not fall south, and darl mind did not break with them. New lines were forming in the cracks, shooting out and filling in darl sense of the space around dar as new cilia erupted from the surfaces, twisting and twitching to map dar surroundings.

Da had broken through the wall behind dar like it wasn't there, bringing the cold north wind to spiral and eddy in darl new angles.

Da could sense Lt. Kellite's terrified retreat in front of dar, every time he moved, darl new cilia caught the movement in the air like ripples in water, and Lt. Kellite was a struggling fish.

He was screaming, crying out for help, for reinforcements, for his soldiers to save him.

The fury, momentarily abated by the shock of the transformation, swept over dar again, and with a shriek of rage, da leapt in pursuit, slashing through the frame of the Men's door like it was paper, and out into the cold night and the honeycomb of houses that surrounded theirs.

Darl vision was gone, but darl hearing had been enhanced, and da could hear the families in the houses around dar shouting and whispering fervently in confusion and fear.

Da spun, trying to locate Lt. Keller through the wake of his movement, but the wind was strong and confused.

Then -- "He went west! North of Asi and Saber's house!"

Dearg's voice, behind dar, out of reach at a safe distance, guiding dar to darl target.

Trusting phim implicitly, Flyssa leapt towards the alley phi'd indicated, and tore off after Lt. Kellite, pealing out, in a sudden burst of inspiration, darl peace-cry, and discovering only as da began to sing that each of darl new stinging points contained a new mouth, too, each with a different voice.

Twelve voices rose above the wind, above Lt. Kellite's cry of fear, harmonizing in wordless emotion, filled with all the unspeakable rage that had finally burst free from darl heart.

Da was able to move faster now than da had ever been before, and unlike Lt. Kellite, da was familiar with their surroundings, knew intimately the map of hexagonal houses that belonged to darl friends and family and neighbors.

The only thing preventing dar from immediately catching north with him and tearing him to peices was darl unwillingness to injur any of darl neighbors by crashing into their houses or hitting anyone unawares. Lt. Kellite had no such worries, and charged ahead with reckless abandon. But he was hopelessly lost, unable to tell the houses and their inhabitants apart. They were just lowly Isosceles, barely more than lines, barely human. He'd never needed to know their names, or where they lived, who their neighbors were, before.

Even without darl sight, Flyssa knew where da was in relation to the rest of the town, and darl confidance only grew the further dar went, because as soon as da began to sing darl peace-cry, those watching the chase from the relative safety of homes began to gleefully join in.

Da recognized each of their voices, and used their identities to further cement darl location in darl mind even as Dearg continued to call directions behind dar.

Those in front of dar, where Lt. Kellite was fleeing, modulated their voices, raising the pitch whenever he got closer to them, and lowering it when he passed them, always with equal parts rage and laughter in their voices, his screams for help, of rage, of terror, drowned out as, every time he tried to force his way into a house, he was immediately thrown back into the street and forced to keep fleeing or be destroyed right there by the shapes who had emerged to defend their households.

His last mistake was trying to shove his way desperately through the Women's door on the Excal-Dagger house, only to be caught fast in the too-narrow gap, and unable to move to defend himself as the shapes within the house turned in a frenzy and began to assault his front side without mercy.

He managed to back out, blinded and bleeding, and turned to flee again --

And was struck straight through by darl longest point, cleaving his brain from the rest of his body in a single strike.

His blood was purple, the color of death, the color of life, the color of rebirth.

It tasted sweet, and the war-howls as darl friends, family, and neighbors painted themselves with his spilled blood and began to undergo the transformation themselves, baying for the blood of the sudden, unplanned revolution, tasted sweeter still.

#long post #very long post #very very long post #neopronouns #neopronouns in action #short story #short stories #original fiction #fiction #writing prompts #story ideas #Flatland #Flatland OCs #Flatland a Romance of Many Dimensions #Fascist Shapes in Space #werewolves #werestars #yes #I'm stealing that

[rjalker]

"this is a universal Law of Nature that applies to everyone, except of course for the people it doesn't apply to, but we shouldn't even really consider them human anyways because they're not like us, so they don't count" - A Square

#Rjalker reads Flatland a Romance of Many Dimensions #Fascist Shapes in Space #is a compliment

[prettykikimora]

I think I find the world of starfield much the same as the bleak hopelessness found in the wh40k universe. You're in the year 23whogivesafuck,the liberal world order has won, presumably capitalism has destroyed our planet earth. It's a universe with no alternatives, you're either a part of the westernized liberal hegemony the so called "united colonies" or you're a space cowboy for libertarian feudal lords for whatever asinine reason. You almost sympathize sith ghe pirates, the most moral faction of the game I would argue, because humanity does not deserve to colonize the stars. The world space is not a utopian vision, it's a white washed, barbies playhouse of idiotic characters and their stupid motivations. I get to head an organization that on the surface exists for no other reason than the nebulous concept of "space exploration". Who gives even half of a fuck, why should I be into this? What world can I help shape? I'm so sick of bethesda's borderline fascist storytelling concepts, there has to be something better out there.

[aspiringnexu]

Something I've never really understood is people comparing Star Trek and Star Wars. Not only because the genres are so different (sci-fi vs sci-fantasy) or the fundamental difference that is the absence of Earth entirely in the Star Wars universe (Star Trek is meant to be about a recognisable, if improbable, future, whereas Star Wars is a Space Opera a Long Time Ago and Far Far Away).

But the biggest difference I see is that the two are set in fundamentally different times.

Yes, yes, I know that's obvious. I literally just pointed out the 'Long Time Ago' bit, but bear with me.

Star Trek is set in a time where exploration is still the order of the day. The Alpha quadrant is still being explored, new species are still being discovered. The Beta and Gamma quadrants are the big new frontiers. The Delta Quadrant has one very hazily mapped squiggly line with a few gaps thanks to Voyager but even that small portion was chock full of New Things. The Galaxy is still divided and unknown with new stations and trade routes popping up all over the place.

Meanwhile Star Wars is old. Real old. By the time of the Clone Wars the Republic has gone through different eras. There was a golden age. It has come and gone already. Sure there are still the Unknown Regions but it is fairly fucking rare to come across a brand spanking new space-faring race or rival government. Coruscant as the heart of the Republic has not been outright attacked for a millennium by the time of the CW. The galaxy is such a hot mess of a melting pot that only the truly reserved and isolationist species are rare to see. Humans have been buggering about and propogating so much that now its impossible to tell where they actually all came from because Alderaan? Naboo? Corellia? All major human hubs, but you could say the same about dozens of other planets, and as far as anyone can tell, at least some of the near-human species are almost definitely genetically related to humans so there has clearly been enough time for some natural evolution after the space travel.

I just find it so interesting that people try to compare them when they are at fundamentally different stages of galactic development. Its like comparing the Wild West to the modern day. The galactic governmental structures and attitudes are so amazingly different and that is to the franchises' strengths.

Star Trek is about, at its most basic point, exploration.

Star Wars is about, again at its most basic, adventure.

Sounds similar? They are similar, but whereas in Star Trek the New Things are new, in Star Wars they're new to those characters, or at least new to the audience.

Kirk and Spock are exploring the unexplored.

Luke and Han and Leia are having adventures in an already clearly established society. They forging new paths in an already defined environment.

They're both also, coincidentally, fighting evil Space Fascists but that's just par for the course. I think something about space just Does That. The Void inspires assholes to go 'I can conquer those stars!' only for said stars to pull an uno reverse in the shape of a blond kid with little to no self-preservation skills but a knack for flying spaceships.

Something something space something something sci-fi.

TL:DR Star Wars and Star Trek are different on so many levels but the most interesting one is the fact they're represent galactic civilisation but at different stages. The 'fun, exploration, everything-is-new!' stage, and the 'established society including rampant corruption, unfortunately' stage.

I love 'em both.

#star wars #star trek #meta #galactic civilisations have stages #Star Wars went through its own Star Trek period with the Hyperspace Wars #Wish we could get more material on that time period tbh #A time when “Punch it Chewie!” could have sent them careening into a fucking star because nobody mapped that bit of space yet #Plus the Jedi as an institution has been pottering about for 25000 years #Though I suppose it would be more accurate to say the Je'daii Order did #The Jedi as they became technically started a bit later after that whole Schism thing #I know an unhealthy amount of Star Wars history #To be fair #Its very interesting

[lovelyrotter]

okay but i actually kinda wanna know ur take on stridercest being canon compliant O_O <- autism stare

oh hey i am also hitting you with the autism stare. ill try to get my thoughts down in a way that makes sense to more than just me hahaha

bear in mind that im an epilogue lover and i think Meat/Candy are really valuable pieces that further all of the characters and are also hard canon in the sense that we're looking at just 2 post-game universe outcomes out of an uncountable number (the book in the picnic basket representing post-canon fanfic). i think the characters actions in the epilogues make sense and are satisfying to me. yes even jane (i love alpha jane and i will not do her the disservice of 'cleaning her up' w/o showing her work for it. thats not how you depict a character who grew up with fascist programming). i could totally go on a whole tangent about this specifically but thats another post lol we'd be here forever and its also not stridercest

but okay. canon stridercest. under the cut cause it got kinda long

basically it has to do with the cherubs and how their relationships and mating rituals are pretty obviously incestuous leaning even though cherubs dont have the human concept of Siblings or blood family. the cherub who predominates will search across paradox space to mate with another cherub who closely resembles the cherub they predominated which is like textbook Freudian sexuality. theres a lot of Freud and Jungian stuff in HS imo even if im kinda [wobbly hand gesture] at the validity of these theories applied to real life and real people. but theyre super fun tools and lenses to use in fiction and i mean. gestures at all of dave

so the incest aliens cherubs. the whole reason why im talkin about them is bc Caliborn is so incredibly interested and invested in the Striders in particular. caliborn as both Lord English and Lil Cal shapes earth NOT OVERTLY but more so embeds himself in earth society, but again, the Striders lives in particular. dave is full of incest jokes. hes even apparently got a list of his friends arranged in order of how likely theyd incest-elope with each other (thank you epilogues for this amazing factoid). he seems to think about it often enough to, yknow, Do That. have a good solid think about that and construct an organized list about it. bearing in mind dave makes jokes about stuff thats a) bothering him, or b) generally camping out in his brain. hes not even really aware of it most of the time (as we see in one of the openbounds where hes all 'why am i thinking about puppets???' after seeing dirk for the first time in that dream bubble. he is thinking nonstop about dirk at that point and going off his only frame of reference for ANY dirk, which is his bro. his bro who was most likely deeply warped by Lil Cal)

sorry for the long blocky paragraph lol. but now onto the next thing

Caliborn as Lil Cal is the centerpiece in the beta strider apartment. dave cant escape him and beta dirk grew up with him. what the fuck do you do when youre childhood comfort item is also the most evil creature across all of paradox space? if youre a dirk you try to fight it. but how long can you keep fighting something like that. its safe to say that bro was affected by Caliborns particular brand of perversion and sfw kink. i dont think i have to say how insidious abusive and toxic he is about those things. and looking at the truth of beta bro (16yo alpha dirk) you can start to see just how warped beta bro became. beta bro is a false dirk (still a very Real dirk but not the Truth of dirk. beta bro has been toxified and made infinitely worse by an absolute evil influence over decades of life. in 80s fuckin texas. presumably in the system. anyone would be fucked up after that)

so for this analysis/theory im stating beta bro as a false persona. using jungian terms he is apha dirk's shadow

both dave and dirk live with a fake, carefully manicured version of their bros. they live with personas (or shadows of their guardians on the walls. hello platos allegory of the cave). they dont actually know e/o and they dont until the striunion

alpha dirk especially grows up embedded in the Public Persona Of Dave Strider 400 years post mortem and completely alone with unlimited internet access. hes a self admitted expert on his bro and we dont get to see a lot if any of his early childhood but i can hazard a guess at how much he clung to that persona of his bro. he fuckin idolizes dave. he LOVES dave. right off the bat he is in some kind of love with dave and i think if you try to argue against that then thats you slippin. i think youre a fool and have to reread homestuck because i wholeheartedly believe the striders loving eachother is part of the win state

once again this is speculation cause we get barely anything about alpha dave, but from what we already know about him im guessing this bro-persona is

achingly effortlessly cool

oozing masculinity (toxic or not, not really interested in categorizing that although toxic coolboy masculinity IS something the striders contend with & is an important facet in their lives)

a skilled fighter

a dedicated moviegoer (hes a director need i say more. this one is probably the only genuine thing about his on-screen persona)

and now lets look at jake. someone whos grown up on pretty much nothing but movies, whos doubtlessly been influenced by hollywood and its idea of gritty 'main character' masculinity through that, and who also clings to more old-school ideas of manliness (think victorian/edwardian era gentlemanly-but-loves-a-good-scrum kinda manly. moustache twirly with a monocle kinda manly. basically everything that grandpa harley is)

but okay lets look at what jake wants to be. lets take a look at his teenager persona

achingly effortlessly cool (his own 'hollywood star' kind of cool also def influenced by his favourite characters like lara croft who is indeed achingly cool. you see him succeed in inhabiting this hollywood star persona on earth c)

oozing masculinity (the old school manly mans-man kind)

a skilled fighter (two pistoles always. harder to aim cause you cant use a free hand to make up for kickback. that takes skill)

a dedicated moviegoer (again one of the only genuine parts about his persona. his questionable-to-wretched tastes aside. but bearing in mind that the SBaHJ movies are intentionally bad which is what makes them loop around to good. such is the nature of intentionally 'bad' art. jake fuckin lives in this perpetual bad-good art loop. okay enough with the art tangent keep focused man cmon)

because dirk has obviously way more contact with jake i dont doubt he sees through jakes own (admittedly way more flimsy) coolboy persona but the point still stands i think. different flavours but the same kinda guy. dirk has a type and i dont think its a stretch to say that hes looking for aspects of the bro-persona he grew up looking at in other boys, much like the winning cherub looking for the one they lost in the cherub theyll mate with

also wtf is with dirks obvious boner for dave chasing him across paradox space to decapitate him huh?? the last few sentences in Meat are about that very thing. he wants to fuc fight dave sooo bad. haha remember how the cherubic mating ritual is one of the most violent and long running spectacles in paradox space? i sure do

#stridercest #davedirk #dirkdave #alphacest #my t #thank you if you read all this HAHAHA #i am dedicated to my craft (autistic) (indulgent)

[st-armand]

Author’s Notes: Earth-138 & 138B are the same, Hobie lives in New London (NY after British V.E.N.O.M associates take over the city alongside NYC Venom affiliates).
The magical girl references in this head cannon are Sailor Moon after the final season; Post Sailor Galaxia, technically from a worldbuilding head canon I have of the scouts after Neo Tokyo.

Hobie Brown x Magical Girl!Reader Headcanons Part 1

This one is for all my hobie lovers, feast well.

Tags: Fem implied reader with the term ‘magical girl’, Reader is portrayed as Sailor Saturn, black reader but can be read as any and all

Warnings: Magical girls are scary, Mentions of Violence, Political Ideologies, Light Gore, LONG ASF

• Hobie isn’t naive, he lives in a multiverse with infinite possibilities and circumstances, even in his own earth and its surrounding universe there exists mutants, heroes, chaos and beings of extraordinary skills and abilities.

• So its safe to say he isn’t necessarily surprised, but he is amused by the prospect of worlds where the boundaries between reality, the alchemical, and the magical are thinner than what most would even be able to theorize it to be.

I have two ideas of how Hobie meets you:

1. He meets you through another spider—Senshi Araneus aka the Red Spider Nebula one who instead of a traditional spider suit, they have a transformation-based suit, so they’re more likely to be seen out of transformation than in it, since it’s an almost instantaneous change.

So let’s say there’s a dangerous anomaly running amuck in the magical spider’s universe, which is where he meets their friends, comrades, and you.

• The Spider team all have this collective idea that the world where you come from is filled with childlike wonder, and merriment, due to the kind, accommodating and just nature of Araneus, are shocked upon arrival.

(For now at least) it is similar our current world set in an unknown future timeline, the world is amidst a revolution for the fall of economic systems and classes to one founded by the people under a magical galactic ordinance.

New York and Japan are the largest ungoverned magical cities renamed Millennium Lenapehoking and Neo Tokyo.

• The politics of your world fascinates Hobie. You exist in a timeline ripe for molding society into the shape of liberation, and to do so taking up a mantle to fight oppression on earth and across constellations, this ABSOLUTELY riles Hobie up.

He lead a liberative revolution in his own world, and still has to fight fascists to keep peace within his community, so he sees the mantle that magical people uphold on a galactic scale, he empathizes and genuinely respects your fight and struggle.

• The more time he spends in your world, the more he falls in love with it— from the crystalline structures, to the modes of space travel, and especially the clothes that are made to replicate the fashion eras of planets, he finds it especially amusing that punk is classified as a vintage, but he is enthralled at by the future of punk and how the style evolves to match the magical and futuristic styles of the people and aliens on the planet.

• CONSTANTLY asks Senshi Araneus for weekly correspondence between the two of you, it starts off sweet with exchanging gifts from each other’s worlds, then evolves into having whole conversations with Araneus being the messenger between the two of you.

They get annoyed with it quickly, and opts to give Hobie an unlicensed multiverse communication device from your world, he uses it, but shrugs his shoulder languidly and says something along the lines of, “Don’t need it mate, jus’ made my own.”

• Has a group chat with Araneus, you and some other Senshi where you all listen to him complain about Miguel and talk about how terrible his politics are, recently Hobie spends HOURS complaining about the Miles incident (it’s still a sore spot),

but you all like to spam Hobie with photos of creatures and other beings yall meet, your private messages consists of selfies of your mundane days, your day job, updating him on the fun you have with other senshi, but his favorites are the photos you take, face sweaty, styled hair ragged, and your uniform in tatters after a particularly hard battle, flecks of magic flittering in your determined eyes you remind him of a predator, confident in its stride after a good hunt.

2. You also live in Earth-138(B) and while the public information around Magical People is limited to anecdotes from people’s experiences with magical girls, or comics around those who’ve seen them in action, little to none is known about the pretty vigilantes plowing through villains, criminals, corruption, slavery, and fascists.

• You live in New London, your family lived there before the British occupation when NYC became NL.

It was essentially the same, but the difference can be spotted between residential slang, and state sanctioned zoning.

• You’ve been a magical girl since 12, you spent your entire life fighting monsters, corrupted humans, other magical peoples, cops, government spies, you name it, and you’ve fought it and lived, you’re quite privileged in that aspect

• You became a senshi after a traumatic event, cornered in an alley, moments from death, or whatever gruesome ideas your assailant could think of, your body couldn’t handle the stress and anxiety, your star crystal was activated to protect its owner.

When you came to, all that remained were disintegrated bodies and chunks of flesh.

• The first time Hobie meets you, he’s an older teen, mostly accustomed to his duties as Spiderman of his world, and New London, aiding him in the fight against a beast, a V.E.N.O.M synthesized Chimera, in all of its many headed and limbed glory, had attacked the city.

Hobie did his best to contain it, but a monster with few weak points and unpredictable strikes, his spidey senses were a bit overwhelmed.

• Just as he is in the most compromising position battling the enemy, having no aid, and focusing on keep bystanders safe, you came down upon him like a rapture, a visage of death amongst its ghastly horse.

You take down the Chimera with an earth-shattering blow, severing its head with an immaculately clean cut.

• To Hobie you are the visage of destruction, the essence of a vengeful deity that graces its people with salvation, but severs those unworthy of it.

He is enamored by your strength, adoration graces his masked face, but before he gets a quip in to break the ice, you depart—fly really, leaving him with the carcass.

• Hobie only ever sees you in your senshi uniform during fights with extraordinary powers and abilities, or public demonstrations, keeping protestors safe, killing off cops, and helping to rebuild infrastructure in NL.

• Hobie does see you often out of uniform, specifically at a store ‘Clash & Kill’ where many punks go to craft, and barter for accessories.

He always sees you admiring the leatherwork of the items, even smelling them, he learns later you do this to verify if its real leather, this always makes him laugh, he loves to tease you about it too, “You smellin’ the wares again, huh?”

• He won’t know your identity as a magical girl until he’s transparent about his role as Spiderman, this will cause clashes in the relationship that’s fostered between the two of you, but love is a work in progress right?

Comments, Questions, Criticisms?? Im still getting used to formating on tumblr posts so im always down to listen to tips and advice

#hobie brown x reader #across the spiderverse #astv #hobie brown #hobie headcanons #miles morales x reader #gwen stacey x reader #astv x reader #hobie brown x black!reader

[tremendouskoalachild]

the high republic has now been around for just over 3 years. even longer if you count the foreshadowing in other projects. it's been referenced plenty of times across the other eras in canon.

Marchion Ro is explicitly stirring up shit to feed his ego. not interested in ruling, just conquering. personally takes the credit for all the Nihil atrocities and can't resist shoving his name in everyone's face. he wants to be space Genghis Khan so bad.

but in the main timeline nobody cares.

Jedi in prequel novels will reminisce about the events and not even think about him. Yoda will have extended flashbacks to the time but spare 0 thoughts for the Ro boy.

Toa the Empire-era archaeology student focused on the high republic will infodump to anyone willing to listen but never mentions Marchion. hell, various characters in Jedi Survivor were around during the Nihil conflict but don't care to mention the enemy leader ever. the Nihil indirectly shaped so many of the game's settings and events but Marchion is completely irrelevant.

Aphra the villain stan history nerd doesn't give a fuck about Marchion Ro. Sana Starros goes on a quest following her ancestor's footsteps while that ancestor's mom straight up publicly dated him but no mention.

Kylo Ren the fascist fanboy looks into the era but Marchion never. comes. up.

the only time Marchion gets a mention is when the heroes accidentally stumble into his home during the OT and then it never matters again.

i know it's because the high republic storyline isn't over but added up it's HYSTERICAL. marchion ro you will never be famous

#marchion ro #thr #the high republic #ngl it's weird how ghirra starros is very publicly space Eva Braun AND one of the all-time traitors to the Republic but it never comes up #unless i'm misremembering in which case sorry please correct me

[this-acuteneurosis]

so funny thing with your dont look back thing, nearly all the political allies of Leia and folks, generally like VERY few that we know are actually directly democratic. like Padme former job could count sorta, but how democratic MONARCHY would work.... although Darsana could be a mostly democratic on via his Senatorship. found it funny cause Bail is like assigned by the queen and padme is hers as well, which fair, Senator is a really bad term for what they are, diplomat would be the better term.

I mean, I've thought a lot about how the Senate is ostensibly a democratic body when actually there is no planetary regulation to how they "elect" their senators.

I've ultimately decided to not go down this specific route for the fic, but arguably, the Republic is...not a government. They don't have anyone to enforce their "laws." The GFFA is huge. Like, I cannot stress this enough, taking the loose shapes of government for countries and slapping it down as a framework for how tens of thousands of planets are "ruled" by a "democracy" was always, at its core, bullshit. The Empire, with it's huge military and aggressive enforcement couldn't prevent the Alliance from camping out on abandoned planets, which, we know as residents of this good earth, is more than enough space to develop multiple entire civilizations. Frankly, as horrifying as it was, the Death Star was about the only logical conclusion space fascists could come to for a total control endgame. (That or implanting chips like the clones had but whoops, the past won't exist until 15 years after the future, so...)

That isn't to say that the Republic, or something like it, wouldn't exist and serve a purpose. Having a forum where people in disparate governments agree to things like trade rules and enforce them by, say, refusing to trade with people not in the group, or at worse rates, could definitely explain a Republic sized coalition of planets/planetary systems. They could even develop things like anti-slavery agreements, taxes dues, a group of negotiators loyal to the "Republic" instead of to individual planets or systems for theoretically unbiased diplomacy.

But yeah, if you notice that Leia's views on democracy don't match Padmé's assertions from AotC and RotS(released post 9/11 guys, Anakin's character was not the only casualty of that time), it is 100% because she was going to be the hereditary ruler of a planet and had no problem with that.

Keep in mind that democracy, in many ways, is more effective the more direct it is, because even self-interested politicians have to give you what you as a majority want if they have to win each of your individual votes. But that is incredibly hard to organize and maintain. Especially because the elected officials figure out really quickly they don't want to be beholden to so many contradictory interests.

And the more indirect a democracy becomes, the more your welfare relies on the innate charity/sense of responsibility of your representatives. Yes, as people who weren't voted into office, Padmé and Bail don't actually answer directly to their people. Padmé's on a bit thinner of ice because she's appointed by a directly elected queen, so Jamillia has motive to oust Padmé if she threatens Jamillia's re-election. But Bail? Our favorite, made it through most of the Empire, stuck to his guns, initiated the Rebellion, raised his baby girl right? Yeah, no, he's a nepotism boy, and everyone would have been screwed if he didn't have the moral and ethical fortitude of mountains.

#Don't Look Back #politics #Padmé Amidala #Bail Organa #democracy #this isn't just true for DLB #the structure of the Senate 100% allowed for the kind of corruption that enabled Palpatine's takeover #he didn't need to convince the galaxy to make him Emperor #just a bunch of scared senators who didn't want to lose their jobs #and were happy to war monger because the Confederacy was very dangerous competition #in theory #if they hadn't also been controlled by the Sith

[septicmomma]

We're hardwired to exert ourselves beyond burnout, to rise before occasions that ask us to rely on whatever reserves needed to survive. An inception that would forever shape the Dalek identity.

A natural tendency, hard fashioned into a cage, duty bound never to break free.

Despite the dub of “space nazis” its mainly served as a very* thin basis of their fascist dogma. The fear of annihilation and the drive for self-preservation is universal. It’s more than propaganda.

The implicit connection to nazism conveys how pointlessly futile their ideology is, rather than a one to one mirror. The Kaleds were people who had the opportunity to decide whether or not be genocidal despots, but their fascistic culture ensured that anyone who was caught fighting against oppression would be ceremoniously silenced.

But Daleks aren't people, they are sentient space squids which were bred for the totality of war, their worldview isn’t a mere statement it’s an impassioned belief. This totalitarian society doesn't require thought police as they already mythologise their own delusions, thereby trapping them in a forever war, refusing to evolve or adapt.

A "dislike of the unlike" stripped down into its most basic, uniformity in design and belief.

The instinctual need to other themselves, to hold some superficial status, an unyielding parody with no footing in reality. Incapable of living in the absence of hatred by virtue of being put through a system which only allows the expression of language through hate. An endless craving

#doctor who #new who #daleks #skaro #dw 60th #genesis of the daleks #the parting of the ways #10th doctor #9th doctor #happy60thtomybelovedspacesquids>3

[blueboyluca]

Hello and welcome to this blog for Luca the Schipperke, Marceline the Papillon and Topaz the Borderpap. We live in northern tropical Australia on the lands of the Larrakia people. My name is Grace and my pronouns are she/her/hers.

You will find photos and posts about the dogs under #Luca, #Marceline and #Topaz.

Other tags of interest: #dog books – all book content goes here including quotes, photos and reviews #dog agility ��� agility training videos and anything related to the sport #video edit – all my edited dog videos #street dogs – dogs from around the world I’ve seen on my travels #dog history – dog stories from history #old dog photos – photos of dogs from the past #dog thoughts – my rambling thoughts about dogs

Some posts where I share my dog thoughts: Quality over quantity Respecting my dog as an individual My dog is a dog and he does dog things Spending time with dogs Be better when I know better Stella If you let a dog into your heart it will make itself at home What has your dog taught you? Pessimism in dogs The closest thing I have to religion is dogs Dogs need access to off-leash spaces I am baffled by people who claim their dogs have some kind of hierarchy Punishment first Why did you get a dog at that particular time in your life? Leadership and dogs Children are for people who can’t have dogs The future of dog breeding Dogs are unique Changing your training Community pet hub Ethical frameworks Deradicalisation Small feelings Dog-shaped niche Dog training affirmations Nobody's dog is cared for perfectly

Sometimes I write dog poems (or dog song parodies): Little Boy Blue Not Perfect Maybe I could give you warmth You are a special kind of alive Luca dog on a voyage to the nursing home That Puppy Feeling In the morning she makes the tea

I also occasionally post things of a more informational nature: Living with a schipperke Schipperke history Schipperke coat colours Living with a schipperke (again) Engagement building through play Managing Luca’s reactivity Living with a schipperke (once more, with feeling) Reflections on reactivity Why I’m against greyhound racing in Australia Designing a dog park Introducing Luca and Marceline Fussy Eater Why I hate dog buttons Dog book recommendations Emotionally intelligent dog media

And some other miscellaneous posts that I like: Photo recreation 1 Photo recreation 2 Blue Boy Blues, an album by Blueboy Luca "Why Not Visit?" Edit 1 "Why Not Visit?" Edit 2 Luca’s Theme My bikejoring set up Dog–human co-evolutionary partnership My dogs as Björk songs My dogs as Björk albums Luca’s Spotify playlist Marceline’s Spotify playlist Topaz’s Spotify playlist My pitches for Designer Dogs

Please note that my dogs are primarily self-interested amoral creatures, and their behaviour is reflective of their environmental conditions. They are also anti-fascists who support the liberation and celebrate the diversity of all people. They value animal welfare and advocate for least inhibitive, functionally effective, positive reinforcement-based interactions between humans and animals. My dogs invite good faith communication and do not tolerate bad faith engagement. My dogs are explicitly pro-abortion and tell me so every day. Know this when you interact with their media on this blog.

Thanks for stopping by!

[radicalwobbly-blog]

The Sacred Changed

ok so I've wanted to set this idea out and I've noticed some people floating around in a sort of meme fashion. But as with my last post I wanted to try and establish a more formal theological reason for this.

The idea I'm posing is what I'm going to call the pagan acceptance of trans people, now while not absolute the vast vast majority of pagans (aside from fascists but fuck them) are trans accepting. I want to expand on this idea that not only should trans people be accepted. But they're experience of transition should be seen as sacred. And further that this idea should be spread in order to oppose the idea that trans people are broken or confused particualrly as the US seems to be falling more and more into theocracy by the day.

The fundamental basis of my argument comes from a couple of sources. The first and most important is the Hymn to Inanna which was written by a woman called Enheduanna who served as a priest of the goddess Inanna (better known as ishtar) and who lived about 4300 years before the present. One of if not her most famous surviving works is this Hymn whose most famous line goes. "To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inana." (line 120). In this line Enheduanna specificly uses this transformative power as evidence of how supreme the goddess is.

The action is treated as amazing and powerful. In preceding lines Inanna is described as a goddess who has the power to "shatter the earth" and before whom all other gods prostraight themselves before at her power. and amoungst these pasages where the goddess is given power of victory in battle the wellfare of cities and the wealth of lords and kings she is also given transformative power. In effect the text calls the men and women changed into the opposite gender (what we would call trans men and women) not onlt sacred but evidence of the supreme power of the goddess the text was written to exult.

Further Inanna/Ishtar as well as later goddesses derived from her maintained a long lasting class of priests known as gala as well as preist roles specific to her origonal cult (group of worshipers or priestly organisation) who enaged in actions which violated the gender binary, these included wearing womens clothing and adopting feminine roles in terms of singing religous songs and hymns. While not exactly trans individual as we might identify them today this role clearly shows an affinity for gender non conforming individuals within the cult of the goddess ishtar.

And this idea is not limited to ancient mesopotamia. Both ancient greek and ancient roman sources though they often have a different idea of transition than we would (often filtered through misgony). This is seen not only in the cult of excplicitly gender non conforming gods like hermaphroditus (who depending on myth was either born half male half female or became half male and half female). or numerous myths in which the gods change someones biological sex. with the change in all cases being seen as divine power if not an exact positive (specificly male to female transitions are often thought of as negitive with a couple of possible exceptions).

In addition to this the Galli (Potentialy a contiuation of the Gala of mesopotamia) though refered to as eunchs in contemperary writings. seem to have occupied a similar space to modern trans gender people and again were seen as sacred to their goddess Cybele.

Across the ancient mediteranian trans people (or a probable ancient equivilent) not only existed but often held localy important religous positions. And beyond that the transformation was treated as an almost supreme act. In fact it could be argued that transitioning is in fact the most religous act a human can perform because the gods may change their shape at will and choose the form in which they appear therefore it follows humans who change their own form to one which they feel is true to so in imitation of the gods and so are the most like them.

And it is this idea pagans must encourage as attacks on the LGBT community and trans people especily grow and mount. we must hold the line we must stand with this community and defend them not only because it is the moral action but because it is the pious action. Because to stand with this community is to say "Here are those the gods have chosen and risen up as sacred here are those who are like the gods and so we shall defend them" and that is the lession of Inanna great goddess of Uruk and greatest of all the anunaki and igigi. She who Enheduanna glorifys as the one who "opens the roads and paths who is a place of peace on a journey and who is companion to the weak" and she the goddess whose power is exulted as supreme by Enheduanna "she who changes men into women and women into men"

Dedicated to Ishtar-she who changes

#pagan wicca #wicca #wiccan #hellenism #hellenic pagan #paganism #neo pagan

[darthmatthewtwihard]

"My boys, don’t believe what they tell you in school. Government is never the solution, but it is almost always the problem. I’m a capitalist. And I believe in effort and progress and the ingenuity of our species. The continuing evolution and advancement of our kind based on fair competition. Fact of the matter is, Gold does not want man to continue to evolve. Since the conquering, they have routinely stifled advancement to maintain their heaven. They’ve wrapped themselves in myth. Filled their grand oceans with monsters to hunt. Cultivated private Mirkwoods and Olympuses of their very own. They have suits of armor to make them flying gods. And they preserve that ridiculous fairy tale by keeping mankind frozen in time. Curbing invention, curiosity, social mobility. Change threatens that. Look where we are. In space. Above a planet we shaped. Yet we live in a Society modeled after the musings of Bronze Age pedophiles. Tossing around mythology like that bullshit wasn’t made up around a campfire by an Attican farmer depressed that his life was nasty, brutish, and short. The Golds claim to the Obsidians that they are gods. They are not. Gods create. If the Golds are anything, they are vampire kings. Parasites drinking from our jugular. I want a Society free of this fascist pyramid. I want to unchain the free market of wealth and ideas. Why should men toil in the mines when we can build robots to toil for us? Why should we ever have stopped in this Solar System? We deserve more than what we’ve been given. But first, Gold must fall and the Sovereign and the Jackal must die. And I believe you are the sign I’ve been waiting for, Mr. Andromedus."

- Regulus ag Sun, Morning Star, ch.21: Quicksilver, p.163

#red rising saga #red rising series #red rising #pierce brown

[rjalker]

it's just so fucking funny. Oh my gods.

A Square explaining how allowing disabled people* to exist in public would bring about the downfall of civilization

[ID: The meme of someone standing in front of a wall covered in red string connecting dots in a conspiracy theory, with the person replaced with A Square, a Flatlander seen from above. He has a grey exoskeleton, and insides of various shades of pink and purple. End ID.]

= = =

For context, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, is satire of Victorian England's bigotry, written in 1884. It's also about math and the theory of other dimensions. ("Romance" back then meant "adventure")

Read and download it for free from Project Gutenberg.

An amazing and hilarious audiobook on the Web Archive.

10/10 highly recommend. In the process of "translating" it into casual 2023 English so more people can read it easier.

This is the original text below. I keep getting distracted from "translating" it because it's so funny.

The entire thing is written to show you how absolutely absurd and ridiculous bigotry is.

= = =

Section 7. Concerning Irregular Figures

Throughout the previous pages I have been assuming—what perhaps should have been laid down at the beginning as a distinct and fundamental proposition—that every human being in Flatland is a Regular Figure, that is to say of regular construction. By this I mean that a Woman must not only be a line, but a straight line; that an Artisan or Soldier must have two of his sides equal; that Tradesmen must have three sides equal; Lawyers (of which class I am a humble member), four sides equal, and generally, that in every Polygon, all the sides must be equal.

The size of the sides would of course depend upon the age of the individual. A Female at birth would be about an inch long, while a tall adult Woman might extend to a foot. As to the Males of every class, it may be roughly said that the length of an adult's sides, when added together, is two feet or a little more. But the size of our sides is not under consideration. I am speaking of the EQUALITY of sides, and it does not need much reflection to see that the whole of the social life in Flatland rests upon the fundamental fact that Nature wills all Figures to have their sides equal.

If our sides were unequal our angles might be unequal. Instead of its being sufficient to feel, or estimate by sight, a single angle in order to determine the form of an individual, it would be necessary to ascertain each angle by the experiment of Feeling. But life would be too short for such a tedious grouping. The whole science and art of Sight Recognition would at once perish; Feeling, so far as it is an art, would not long survive; intercourse would become perilous or impossible; there would be an end to all confidence, all forethought; no one would be safe in making the most simple social arrangements; in a word, civilization would relapse into barbarism.

Am I going too fast to carry my Readers with me to these obvious conclusions? Surely a moment's reflection, and a single instance from common life, must convince every one that our whole social system is based upon Regularity, or Equality of Angles. You meet, for example, two or three Tradesmen in the street, whom you recognize at once to be Tradesmen by a glance at their angles and rapidly bedimmed sides, and you ask them to step into your house to lunch. This you do at present with perfect confidence, because everyone knows to an inch or two the area occupied by an adult Triangle: but imagine that your Tradesman drags behind his regular and respectable vertex, a parallelogram of twelve or thirteen inches in diagonal:—what are you to do with such a monster sticking fast in your house door?

But I am insulting the intelligence of my Readers by accumulating details which must be patent to everyone who enjoys the advantages of a Residence in Spaceland. Obviously the measurements of a single angle would no longer be sufficient under such portentous circumstances; one's whole life would be taken up in feeling or surveying the perimeter of one's acquaintances. Already the difficulties of avoiding a collision in a crowd are enough to tax the sagacity of even a well-educated Square; but if no one could calculate the Regularity of a single figure in the company, all would be chaos and confusion, and the slightest panic would cause serious injuries, or—if there happened to be any Women or Soldiers present—perhaps considerable loss of life.

Expediency therefore concurs with Nature in stamping the seal of its approval upon Regularity of conformation: nor has the Law been backward in seconding their efforts. "Irregularity of Figure" means with us the same as, or more than, a combination of moral obliquity and criminality with you, and is treated accordingly. There are not wanting, it is true, some promulgators of paradoxes who maintain that there is no necessary connection between geometrical and moral Irregularity. "The Irregular", they say, "is from his birth scouted by his own parents, derided by his brothers and sisters, neglected by the domestics, scorned and suspected by society, and excluded from all posts of responsibility, trust, and useful activity. His every movement is jealously watched by the police till he comes of age and presents himself for inspection; then he is either destroyed, if he is found to exceed the fixed margin of deviation, or else immured in a Government Office as a clerk of the seventh class; prevented from marriage; forced to drudge at an uninteresting occupation for a miserable stipend; obliged to live and board at the office, and to take even his vacation under close supervision; what wonder that human nature, even in the best and purest, is embittered and perverted by such surroundings!"

All this very plausible reasoning does not convince me, as it has not convinced the wisest of our Statesmen, that our ancestors erred in laying it down as an axiom of policy that the toleration of Irregularity is incompatible with the safety of the State. Doubtless, the life of an Irregular is hard; but the interests of the Greater Number require that it shall be hard. If a man with a triangular front and a polygonal back were allowed to exist and to propagate a still more Irregular posterity, what would become of the arts of life? Are the houses and doors and churches in Flatland to be altered in order to accommodate such monsters? Are our ticket-collectors to be required to measure every man's perimeter before they allow him to enter a theatre or to take his place in a lecture room? Is an Irregular to be exempted from the militia? And if not, how is he to be prevented from carrying desolation into the ranks of his comrades? Again, what irresistible temptations to fraudulent impostures must needs beset such a creature! How easy for him to enter a shop with his polygonal front foremost, and to order goods to any extent from a confiding tradesman! Let the advocates of a falsely called Philanthropy plead as they may for the abrogation of the Irregular Penal Laws, I for my part have never known an Irregular who was not also what Nature evidently intended him to be—a hypocrite, a misanthropist, and, up to the limits of his power, a perpetrator of all manner of mischief.

Not that I should be disposed to recommend (at present) the extreme measures adopted by some States, where an infant whose angle deviates by half a degree from the correct angularity is summarily destroyed at birth. Some of our highest and ablest men, men of real genius, have during their earliest days laboured under deviations as great as, or even greater than, forty-five minutes: and the loss of their precious lives would have been an irreparable injury to the State. The art of healing also has achieved some of its most glorious triumphs in the compressions, extensions, trepannings, colligations, and other surgical or diaetetic operations by which Irregularity has been partly or wholly cured. Advocating therefore a VIA MEDIA, I would lay down no fixed or absolute line of demarcation; but at the period when the frame is just beginning to set, and when the Medical Board has reported that recovery is improbable, I would suggest that the Irregular offspring be painlessly and mercifully consumed.

#Flatland #Rjalker writes Flatland a 2023 Translation #Rjalker reads Flatland a Romance of Many Dimensions #A Square #Fashist Shapes in Space #Fascist shapes in space

[kaycassians]

I’m really fascinated by the geometry in Andor. Like I know it’s star wars and the setting is supposed to be a long time ago in a wacky galaxy far far away so sets and objects and places look futuristic and space-y. But there’s a special kind of insistence in this show about the shape of a place and the relationship to the characters within them that makes the viewer pay attention.

For example, the imperial cog, or at least it’s outline, is all over the place. Generally, and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong bc I’m just remembering this off the top of my head, the cog has a sort of octagonal shape. That shape is everywhere. It’s in every place where the empire has power. And the way the characters are often framed as though they are trapped inside of it really says something.

The first one that comes to mind is that classic Mon Mothma shot.

She’s alone, surrounded on all sides by the very thing she’s set out to destroy. No one stands with her, at least not in a way that can help her situation. She’s trapped. A grade cinematography.

But Cassian has an even bigger relationship to the cog shape than anybody in the whole series! First of all, he quite literally crawls into the imperial machine as a child on Kenari, which, is just. A lot, emotionally.

And then he doesn’t escape it for twelve years. Stuck in the empire’s grasp, trapped under fascist rule. And it’s only when the rebel mindset really starts to kick in that Cassian finally escapes it. And, low and behold, he takes an entire prison of people with him.

There are more shots that I could talk about but I haven’t had breakfast yet. But man, this show. I love it when star wars is good.

#feel free to add on if you want! these are just the ones I could remember off the top of my head #this show is something else boy let me tell you #andor #cassian andor #mon mothma #star wars

[pochapal]

I've been following your Umineko readthrough and been interested in a lot of the ways of reading you're employing - I think you've had a lot of insight relatively early into the story. I'm also very drawn to the fannish taxonomic Mode Of Engagement that is classpecting, and wanted to question a little of your classpecting of George - one of the things about him that jumped out from very early on was the ways in which his superficial presentation as a Nice Guy belies the strongest inheritance of Ushiromiya Family Values among the cousins - he looks up to Hideyoshi and Kinzo as businessmen, he defends Rosa's parental rights over Maria, he has dynastic aspirations of his own through homemaking and going out to make his fortune. Given the western fascistic overtones of Kinzo's occult fascination, obsession with the image of western beauty in Beatrice, and the prioritisation of a regimented, patriarchal power structure maintained through violence and fear, this has implications for George's character - and the aspect most closely associated with the charismatic cult of personality in business and empire through homestuck strikes me as Life, not Space - see the condesce, see Jane-as-white-suburbanite in homestuck and of course see anything to do with Jane in postcanon.

that's interesting! i do think there are a lot of george/jane overlaps and i did entertain life!george for a while since a lot of his character shtick is Emulation Of Kinzo's Ideals (kinzo himself is definitely Life by every measurable metric) but the thing that gave me pause is that this version of george clearly isn't real and is a version of himself he struggles to maintain convincingly enough to give himself any real benefits. George The Adult, to use the frameworks from my writeups, is almost certainly a Life player but George The Adult is a paper-thin mask that has no connection to his inner self.

behind the mask we have George The Kid who is much more concerned with establishing his own selfhood/"empire" rather than merely inheriting the ushiromiya system. his primary interest when not playing the cringe heir part is in wooing shannon and a strange jealousy towards the idea that battler is more successful at establishing and forming relationships with he is. i think this bitterness and loneliness extends beyond the Life framework and has more in common with jade harley's Space-esque desperate isolation. in homestuck postcanon we see jade throw herself into forming unhealthy doomed relationships and families with both the davekat and yiffy situations. both george and jade want something that is truly and unconditionally their own more than anything else, even if this desire is expressed in radically different ways. that said, i can very easily see george ending up with a yiffy of his own if shannon had survived lol (failchild with a poor imitation of the ushiromiya ideal supplanted on them abandoned by george when it becomes apparent a lot of his relationship with shannon is an illusory farce).

so much of homestuck's classpect stuff is rooted in the conflict of people emulating the aspects of those they look up to even when they shouldn't (rose's void-esque affinity motivated in part by her relationship with roxy, dirk acting knight-like to emulate his bro, the Rage influence over all the trolls and their aspirations) and i think you can apply that framework to george. the Life stuff is there and is shaping him but less in the sense that this is speaking to Who He Is than it actually is speaking to Who He Thinks He Should Be. my current reading of george is Space (also works as a fun contrast to my read of battler as a Time player) but even if that's not true i do think he's something else wrapped up in a Life player's clothing.

#fatesealyou #i have some more thoughts about classpect emulation as it applies to shannon/sayo and her relationship with george #but i think that probably deserves its own post

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Michael Shermer

Published: Mar 3, 2024

It was an X post (tweet) mostly out of frustration after wasting too much time on social media absorbing endless stories about the Rigid Right and the Loony Left that led me on February 23 to exclaim…

The thousands of responses were as predictable as they were confident in their assertion that one side of the political spectrum is unquestionably worse than the other. A short sampling (see all responses here):

My post is suggestive of the Horseshoe Theory of politics, according to which if you take a linear spectrum from Left to Right and bend it into a horseshoe shape, the extreme ends are not so far apart (see graphic above).

The type specimen for the Horseshoe Theory was the 1939 Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact that resulted in the joint invasion of Poland that launched World War II, and was famously broken by Hitler when he invaded Russia two years later, in part, because he detested Communism (which he also equated with Jews), plus he wanted lebensraum (living space), thought of the Russian hun as a lesser breed, needed their natural resources, was a proponent of blood-and-soil romanticism, and more (so his motivations are probably overdetermined). The theory has been applied and criticized ever since, for example here and here. But it very much depends on what issues are being compared and, to be frank, whose ox is being gored by the theory (few on either extreme see themselves as remotely like the extremists on the other pole). Well, then, what would critics prefer, the equally delimiting straight spectrum like this? Where would you put someone like me who is socially liberal but fiscally conservative?

For my political tastes I prefer something like the 2x2 matrix below with the primary dimensions being Liberty (Economic or Personal) and Security (Economic or Personal), in which extremes on the Security variable once again find Communists and Fascists cheek-by-jowl. (I’m in the upper quadrant around Classical Liberalism—more on this below.)

One of my respondents posted in the comments this helpful checklist with updated examples for current events:

Since I started this Skeptic Substack column in 2021, I have been highly critical of the Far-Left’s woke ideology that has led them to abandon the search for objective truth; to treat science as nothing more than a hegemonic Western colonial capitalist tool of power and domination; to give up on Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of judging people by the content of their character, and instead obsess over the color of their skin by implementing DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) programs that force otherwise liberal, tolerant, color-blind people into elevating race above character; to punish anyone who deviates from Far Left norms (created only recently and constantly changing) through any means necessary, from censorship and cancel culture to loss of employment and life ruination; and to redefine biological sex from the long-accepted definition of gamete size/type to whatever anyone says it is, and along with this delusion to discard a century of hard-earned women’s rights to privacy (bathrooms), to female-only spaces (changing rooms, prisons), to female-only sports (swimming, cycling, volleyball), and more generally to ditch the dignity of being a woman. (See my Skeptic columns critical of the Far Left here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

As I said in my X post, at least the Far-Right knows what a woman is—an adult human female…who belongs in the bedroom making babies. The SCOTUS overturning of Roe v. Wade was, as I predicted at the time, only the start of the Far-Right’s plan to take control of women’s reproductive rights, starting with abortion. (See my three-part series defending the pro-choice position here, here, and here. And additional columns critical of the Right, such as here, here, and here.) It was only a matter of time before the Far-Right would target IVF, and that time has come with the Alabama State Supreme Court declaration that all frozen embryos stored for InVitroFertilization are legal persons, and thus the disposal of unused frozen embryos should be considered murder. Predictably, IVF clinics began closing their doors, and in the process deprive couples of this life-giving technology. Here are a couple of my outraged tweets on the matter:

I don’t think many Republicans on the Far Right even know what IVF entails. It is quite invasive, risky, time consuming, expensive, and not guaranteed to work. To prep the body for the process hormone shots must be self-administered for weeks in order to produce extra eggs. Withdrawing the eggs is a form of surgery requiring general anesthesia. After withdrawal they are then fertilized (after we guys make our, um, “contribution” to the process) and then implanted. At least half of all implanted fertilized eggs fail to result in a viable birth, so many couples have multiple fertilized eggs implanted in hopes of having one viable birth (and thus some have twins or triplets), with the rest frozen for future use if all else fails, which is as often the case as not. By treating these frozen embryos as “persons”, if couples don’t want to have half a dozen kids or more, then they (and by “they” I mean the women) would have to go through the painful, stressful, expensive, and time consuming process over and over again in hopes of success. Are conservatives willing to foot the bill for the tens of thousands of dollars for each round in order to “save” the frozen persons?

How ignorant and uninformed are Republicans when it comes to reproductive technology? Here is Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville when asked his opinion of his state’s Supreme Court decision:

Yeah, I was all for it. You just gotta look at everything going on in the country. It’s just an attack on families, an attack on kids. You know, anything we can do for the future of our young people, because they’re our number one commodity. We need to have more kids, we need to have an opportunity to do that, and I thought this was the right thing to do.

The NBC News reporter was understandably dumbfounded by the Senator’s ignorance. “But IVF is used to have more children, and right now IVF services are paused at some of the clinics in Alabama,” she explained to the now-flummoxed law-maker. “Aren’t you concerned that this could impact people who are trying to have kids?”

Now stumped, and aware of his own lack of knowledge of what IVF is, exactly, Tuberville stuttered out a change of topic: “Well, that’s for another conversation. I think the big thing is right now you protect, you go back to the situation and you try to work it out to where it’s best for everybody. That’s what the whole abortion issue is about.” Uh, no it isn’t Senator.

In fact, IVF enables around 500,000 babies to be born every year worldwide, with an estimated 10 million total since the technology came online. You would think baby-loving pro-natalist conservatives would be all for this technology. But no. This led me to tweet out that the GOP was once again the POS—the Party of Stupid (a descriptor coined by GOP Presidential candidate Bobby Jindal)—and (channelling Monty Python) predicting what may be coming next for the Religious Right:

Every sperm is sacred. / Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, / God gets quite irate. Let the heathens spill theirs, / On the dusty ground. God shall make them pay for / Each sperm that can't be found. Let the Pagans spill theirs / O'er mountain, hill, and plain. God shall strike them down for / Each sperm that's spilt in vain.

As for contraception, apparently this technology leads to “recreational sex,” and for conservatives that’s a bridge too far. As if living up to H. L. Mencken’s definition of a Puritan—"the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy"—the conservative Heritage Foundation posted on X that “Conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose, & ending recreational sex & senseless use of birth control pills.” In support they quoted British writer Mary Harrington, who advocates against the birth control pill and in favor of “rewilding sex, returning the danger to sex, returning the intimacy and, really, the consequentiality to sex.” So…conservatives only have sex for reproductive purposes? Sure. The hypocrisy begs for comedic commentary, as in Bill Maher’s observation of pro-life politicians who arrange abortions for their mistresses, or George Carlin’s assessment of conservatives who pretend to care deeply for the “unborn”, but once you’re born…

You’re on your own. No nothing. No neonatal care, no daycare, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're preschool, you're fucked. Conservatives don't give a shit about you… until you reach military age. Then they think you are just fine, just what they’ve been looking for. They’re not pro-life. They’re anti-woman. They believe a woman's primary role is to function as a broodmare for the state.

In response to my X post comment (below) that IVF is just the start, right-wing activist and author Christopher Rufo responded:

“Recreational sex” is a large part of the reason we have so many single-mother households, which drives poverty, crime, and dysfunction. The point of sex is to create children—this is natural, normal, and good.”

Here was my response to Rufo:

Recreational skiing, softball, soccer, tennis...is a big reason we have so many sports injuries @realchrisrufo ! Recreational sex is not the cause of single-mother households. It is LACK of birth control use + lack of education & norms of commitment, marriage, responsibility, etc. Conservatives are right to emphasize family values. Wrong to restrict freedom & choice for others. IVF & frozen embryos have given > 8 million babies life. Why would you want to deprive parents of this life-giving technology that results in endless parental love? (I speak from personal experience.) Egg retrieval, fertilization, hormone prep, embryo implantation, not to mention pregnancy itself, is a HUGE commitment, mainly born by women (we men just have to, uh, make a "contribution" in a cup) Freezing embryos is necessary because the process is very hard on women, expensive, & many first-tries fail. I don't believe that conservatives really believe that a frozen embryo is a person. I think it's part of a larger religious/political agenda to control women's reproductive choice and freedom. Restricting choice and freedom should not be a conservative value, but it has become one.

An even more extreme position on these matters (if such a thing is even possible) was that of Daily Wire conservative commentator Michael Knowles, who opined that…

The reason surrogacy and IVF are immoral is because they interfere with the family, they break up the nucleus, the very building block of society. They separate the reproductive from the conjugal act. The problem for IVF and surrogacy is that no ends, no matter how good, justify immoral means. No ends, no matter how good, justify actions that are intrinsically evil to achieve them. This is the same kind of logic that we would apply to, say, rape. A child who is conceived in rape. I know some. They have a right to life. It’s very good that they exist. We like these people.

This was a bridge too far, even for me, and so I cut loose on Knowles’ despicable, detestable, disgraceful statement:

As I assess matters here in 2024, the Rigid Right and the Loony Left are both manifestations of authoritarianism—specifically, the well-researched and documented (mostly by liberal social scientists) Right-Wing Authoritarianism, but the newly documented (mostly by conservative social scientists—what few there are) Left-Wing Authoritarianism that is equally divisive and destructive. In response, I would like to make the case for Classical Liberalism. To wit:

Like most liberals, I am pro-choice and fully support women’s reproductive and economic rights; I am in favor of free speech and free thought; I believe in the separation of church and state and am against prayer in school; I believe in liberal democracy and voter’s rights; I believe in some gun control measures; I support environmental protection laws and agree that global warming is real, human caused, and something we should work toward mitigating; I work toward reducing animal suffering and expanding animal rights; I think that we need judicial reform because of our broken criminal justice system that incarcerates far too many people for victimless crimes, especially people of color; I think we should legalize all drugs and regulate them like tobacco and alcohol; I believe we have a moral obligation to help those who cannot help themselves; and, of course, I hold that science is the best tool ever devised for understanding the world and changing it for the better.

Like most conservatives, I believe in limited and accountable government, along with low taxes, low spending, and a balanced budget; I believe in the Constitution and the rule of law along with our system of Constitutional republicanism with checks and balances to prevent power from accruing to any one person or agency; I believe in property rights, and that one of the primary functions of government is to protect our rights; I believe in individual liberty, personal responsibility, and the philosophy of individualism in contrast with collectivism and identity politics; I contend that free trade and free markets are by far and away the best economic system for wealth production and lifting people out of poverty; I believe that there are objective moral values that apply to most people in most places most of the time (although I do not believe they were derived from God) and I reject moral relativism in all its forms.

Most of all, I agree with John Stuart Mill’s timeless observation (in his 1859 book On Liberty) that: “A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.”

In the run-up to the forthcoming Presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden it doesn’t appear either extreme form of authoritarianism is going to attenuate any time soon. Out of a population of nearly 260 million adult Americans, these two are the best in show? What we need is a uniting President in the mold of Abraham Lincoln who, in his First Inaugural Address, as the country was about to be split asunder in civil war, nevertheless addressed all Americans when he thundered both descriptively and prescriptively:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

#Michael Shermer #horseshoe theory #horseshoe politics #IVF #in vitro fertilization #reproductive freedom #authoritarianism #liberalism #centrism #loony left #rigid right #far left #far right #classical liberalism #religion is a mental illness