#some have to do with society and authority and social responsibility as a concept

[stormsbourne]

alright listen

I know we're all having an evaluation of how eagerly we believe people who present with even the slightest air of authority and frankly good! we all need to be less credulous of people on the internet who tell lies.

but I think there are also other lessons to learn from james somerton. namely about his raging and blatant misogyny, which I've often seen similar forms of in fandom and on this specific site. to paraphrase bombs himself in the ctrl alt del video, if you see shitty behavior within your sphere, it's important to recognize it and try to fix it instead of rejecting it and asserting that no REAL members of the ingroup are like that. and nerds have a misogyny problem. including tumblr. so let's reckon with it.

do you append "white" or "straight" to your comments about women even when those things have little to do with the topic being discussed, just to make your comments seem more legit? (and no, m/m shipping discourse does not give you a ticket to say it's all straight women -- it's fictional characters, james.) do you often theorize about how (hurriedly appended "straight/white/cis") women are responsible for a problem in fandom, nay, all problems in fandom? have you made up a guy based on a single post that annoyed you and extrapolated to say that all (appended signifier to make it ok) women in fandom are like that? do you see women as uniquely fetishizing, uniquely stupid about politics or social issues, uniquely annoying to talk to? do you assume when there's an issue, even a real one and not the fake ones james made up, that a woman is probably at the root of it?

all of this still applies to you if you're a woman. it also applies if you're gay or a person of color or trans. being an oppressed group doesn't mean you are immune from sexism, and sexism is still rampant in everyday life for pretty much everyone.

your shipping and fandom discourse isn't immune from this. no, I'm not talking about how not enough people like yuri. I'm talking about how women who like "bad" ships like r*ylo or whatever are seen as open targets for harassment. how women who are into "bad/problematic" fandoms are seen as idiots and enablers who deserve what they get. how there's an attitude that women who like shitty bad porn must think it's good, must be too stupid to know better, and must need to be handheld and taught about good, acceptable fiction. I've already talked a lot about tumblr's complete refusal to admit that fujoshi wasn't a term coined by delicate japanese mlm to complain about evil women (and I wonder if james contributed to that idiotic concept), but the way I've seen people assert that women into m/m must be straight, must be stupid, must be lying about their identities, must be hurting gay men in real life in addition to wanting some anime boys to kiss ...

I've seen how some of you people talk about amb*r h*ard, is all I'm saying, and I've seen what you've tried to do to dozens of female creatives that, for some reason, you've decided deserve to be taken down or taught a lesson. I've seen the descriptions you use. shrieking, bitchy, whiny, uppity, shrewish, karen (don't get me started on how karen has been turned into an easy excuse for misogyny). you're not bystanders to what james did and is doing, you're a part of it. sure, you might not have the nazi fetish, but you've said things about women that put somerton to shame.

just a thing to keep in mind while the plagiarism discourse is ongoing. somerton is a shithead for many reasons but this is one that's important to remember because I think people often treat misogyny like a lesser crime, a smaller concern, and it's not. just think of what laws are passing and what views popular movements have of women and then, for one moment, consider that maybe your reflexive need to blame women or pick them apart might have been influenced by the Society In Which We Live.

#james somerton #hbomberguy

[wordsinhaled]

so, i know this is a Take and i'm sure it may not make sense or be favorable to everyone but like, i genuinely feel that the beauty of crowley & aziraphale's relationship (including as it's depicted on screen) is in the diversity of interpretation that it is still open to even after season 2. i think (and this is my personal feeling, with which i'm sure all will not agree) there's so much nuance to What Is Romantic* that their having had an onscreen kiss can and could and should be interpreted in more than one way (which neil’s also confirmed, for what it’s worth, which with death of the author is up to each person anyway).

queerplatonic relationships can include kissing. so can explicitly romantic relationships. kisses can be sexual or nonsexual. and dedication, passion, commitment, loyalty, are not and should not belong only to romance but can and should also be found in friendship and other types of committed relationships.

and i do understand that society places a very specific definition and value on physical exchanges of affection that codes them as specifically romantic in nature, coming along with certain expectations, and it's hard to remove an onscreen kiss from that interpretation. but even so, i think the purpose and the entire point of crowley and aziraphale's entire relationship is their defying of norms, and the picking & choosing of which human social conventions they wish to act on as well as how to interpret them.

(as just some examples: crowley wears a lot of clothes from the women's section, while openly stating he isn't a "lad" and would presumably openly deny being a woman as well because he doesn't actually fit into any human conception of gender but chooses to present in very specific ways as suits him. same for aziraphale's performance of his gender. other conventions they pick and choose from as suits them: crowley introducing aziraphale to and aziraphale making an art out of enjoying food, them both enjoying different forms of human art and culture, aziraphale choosing not to use technology while crowley does use it, crowley changing his appearance tons of times while aziraphale wears the same clothes for generations and deeply values their preservation, aziraphale not actually engaging in the proper duties of a landlord while technically having maggie "rent" her shop space from him, speed limits and traffic laws are for everyone else as far as crowley is concerned, etc.)

so, like... i would hardly say that anything about their relationship and how they express their care for each other is entirely conventional, and even if it is perceived in certain ways by the humans around them, that never necessarily means that the humans have the full grasp of it or get it exactly right. crowley and aziraphale can kiss and have sex, or they can kiss and not have sex, or they can not kiss or have sex at all. crowley's kiss can mean a multitude of things. the depth and uniqueness of their relationship and their connection to each other (regardless of how that connection is interpreted) is the point. [one could argue gabe and beelzebub's relationship makes crowley and aziraphale's not unique in its angel/demon nature, but gabe and beelzebub aren't bound by the same degree of duty/responsibility/conscience/trauma/etc. which allows them to go off together while crowley and aziraphale are uniquely bound up in those things. but anyway.]

they do and have done a gazillion things for each other that could already be interpreted in multitudes of ways even before season 2, but the nonnegotiable interpretation of all of these acts is that through them, they show their undeniable importance to each other. in my opinion, their relationship IS ineffable in that it is characterized by a bond that transcends (and somehow also encompasses) all definition and classification and that is (to me! ymmv) so inherently liberating. it allows us the audience to identify with it in various ways and take whichever readings we like from it that feel most authentic to us. and it also means that even if there is a "conventional" reading to their actions it doesn't/shouldn't negate other meanings/readings/interpretations/etc.

(*what is Romance is so complicated to me and there is a lot to unpack there... may or may not try to do this in a separate post if i have the spoons at some point)

thanks for coming to my TED talk haha

#while i personally read them as romantic all i'm trying to say is that i don't think the kiss closed the door on aroace readings #good omens #good omens 2 #ineffable husbands

[budgie-city]

THE ORIGINS OF BUDGIE CITY

Welcome to this informational article where I will be explaining what exactly this "Budgie City" is, where it came from, and in which direction it will be going. So, sit down comfortably - there are some interesting things waiting ahead of you! If you are interested in the lore, visit this article.

What exactly is "Budgie City"?

It is a fictional world that I am actively developing. At the moment, I’m in the process of writing it in the form of a paper draft. I write long texts by hand, and it seems to me that spelling out each letter, unlike typing, helps to approach the composition of sentences more thoughtfully, and to more successfully avoid strange and crooked constructions that will then have to be rewritten and corrected. It is far from the final, but I want to warm up people's interest in this world before the release of a full-fledged work, which is what I am doing now. I will not publish too many pieces of text until I have finished the story completely (though I probably will show some sneak-peeks). For now the content on "Budgie City" is mostly limited to drawings — concepts, sketches and character designs. Gradually, I've been starting to bring this topic to my YouTube channel in order to introduce the setting and concept to my viewers.

You may have seen my first video of Budgie City since 2014, which I have released quite recently — “I am not insane”, a video that focuses on one of the secondary conflicts of the story.

Where did this concept even come from?

It's quite a long story, and it's funny that this year is the ten year anniversary of me registering on the forum called "Budgie City". Yes, it all started with a regular internet forum — a by now almost extinct site format, which in the early 2000s and until about 2016-17 was the main place for interest groups on the internet. Now this has moved almost completely to social media, but before almost any hobby or interest had its own forum with different sections and topics. It saddens me a little that the golden age of forums has already passed.

In 2012, for the New Year, my parents bought me my first budgie — a classic green one, and I named him Gesha. At that time, I was not a regular "user" of the Internet yet. I only started to comprehend the vastness of the virtual network a few months later, and at first it leaned purely on me viewing memes in Google pictures and all sorts of videos on YouTube.

But in the spring of 2013, I discovered these wonderful things known as forums. And it was that point in time when I, having had a budgie with me for a year, decided to find a forum thematically fitting. Upon the request from my country, Google led me straight to the “Budgie City” forum.

The topics on there were something like rooms in a big house. The users randomly surfed through them and followed each other's daily lives. Therefore, Budgie City did actually feel really like being in a virtual society where everyone knows each other. I was getting used to the frequent people, getting to know each person individually. I went to their topics to write comments and answers, they wrote in mine. That's how we existed as this cozy club of interests.

There is an interesting thing with almost every child that is on the Internet — no matter where, in which community — a person with the admin/moder status is perceived as an absolute authority, any response from which causes awe and delight. And there were certain, more active and sociable admins in Budgie City — Anya under the nickname "Phoenix Bird" and Olga under the nickname "Olivka". The "Phoenix Bird" nickname spoke for itself — the image of a large bird of fire that walks around the city and receives admiring glances from everyone, was drawn in my head almost instantly. Olivka didn't have an image yet; I started turning her into a character much later.

Phoenix and Olivka in their modern designs (2022)

In the early summer of 2014, I read "Warrior Cats", and that’s where the whole story took off. I suddenly felt like I should become a writer too and write my own book. And 12-year-old me, who was spending 80% of my online traffic on the forum, decided to write a story, turning part of the admin staff and the budgies of familiar forum members into their own characters. Phoenix and Olivka turned into birds, the latter in particular acquired an image in the form of a wompoo fruit dove with olive-tinged wings, the budgies of the forum were also turned into their respective characters: Gesha and Yasha (mine); Glasha and Gosha (Hoatzin); Clementine, Jack, Fenya, Nira, Mouse, Castorka, Mithril and Small (Phoenix); Kuzya (Dmitriy68), Milana (Radujniy), Raisin (yyna) and others.

Sections of the forum have turned into parts of the city — the restaurant, the mayor's office, the registry office and nursery, and suburbs with parrots of other species, located on trees surrounding baobabs.

This is how the novel of the same name with the slogan "Feathered Metropolis" was born from the "Budgie City" forum. I posted it in its own topic, had about a dozen readers and, judging by the reviews, they all really liked reading the story. Although, looking back at the writing now... I wouldn't call it something breathtaking. Rather the opposite. But then again, I am now judging from the perspective of a third-year animation director student, and not the fifth grader I was at that time.

A couple of my original illustrations from 2014

The story was successfully brought to an end in about seven months, and after a while I started writing a sequel — however, the central conflict wasn’t thought out the slightest, so the plot quickly crumbled and was abandoned after several chapters.

Now the original text is lost in the vastness of the web — somewhere there is a piece of the prologue, somewhere even a couple of chapters. But the full version no longer exists — it was published only on the forum, and the said forum, unfortunately was — somewhere around 2019 — ruthlessly deleted from the Internet due to the desolation. All that's left of it are snapshots in the Wayback Machine.

Rewriting from the old version into a new one

In 2017, three years later, I made an attempt to rewrite "Budgie City" from scratch — leaving only the main conflict, the structure of the world, and the set of characters the same, to write a new text out of this "skeleton". Progress did not go beyond the prologue and the first chapter however, and rewriting was abandoned.

The same story with 2019 — a couple of pages, that’s all.

Two artworks from 2019

The next approach took till early 2021 to happen, when the original story turned almost six and a half years old. At that time I was already in the middle of my first year of animation directing at SPbGIKiT (Saint Petersburg State Institute of Film and Television). I wrote the prologue and part of the first chapter and went to proudly tell our master Galina Voropai about my "really cool" world. Galina interrupted me in the middle of the impromptu presentation, after which followed a forty-minute roast, thoroughly and in detail explaining that the "Budgie City" in its concept is a piece of junk that does not have the right to exist in its current form. And all this was in the presence of my classmates in the workshop. I gave up trying to defend myself halfway through, and when it was all over, I got up, quietly thanked Galina for a detailed objective analysis of the shortcomings of my project, went down to the first floor, huddled in a bathroom stall, and burst into tears.

It was the first (and yet the only) time in my life where I was literally crying over my work, and the girls from senior courses came to my howls, and we sat together on the windowsill of a public toilet. I was all red, shaking, and dropping snot, as they tried to calm me down.

(my mental state that day)

After that, I did not return to those written several pages for about a year and a half. I began to doubt whether I should continue at all or if it would just be a waste of time.

After the roast from the master, I went through all five stages of grief:

Yes, that was tough. But after so much time, I was finally able to evaluate the message of this scolding with a cool head and understand that most of the comments were actually really helpful - the conflict and the world did require a lot more careful study and rework. With the next approach, I wrote out all the conflicts, all the character motivations, and made a proper plan. And since the end of last autumn, I have returned to writing. Now I know where the story will begin, where it will head, and how it will end. All the actions performed by the heroes are finally based in actual logic. And, although Galina will not see the final result (she sadly passed away at the end of 2021), I hope that the new version will be one that she would have approved of.

A small FAQ:

Q: When will the book be released?

A: I don't want to make any promises as of now, because writing is a rather spontaneous and uneven process. I write more when I am inspired, and inspiration is impossible to predict. So the answer is simple — it will come out when it's finished :D

Q: Will it be released electronically or in a printed book form? Will I have to pay for reading it?

A: I plan to release the final version "Budgie City" in the same way as the old one — in open access, so that everyone can read it at any time. I will not charge money for reading the electronic version, but if there will be a demand for physical copies, I may release a small print run, which will cost money for those who want to get a copy. But it's a little early to think about that anyway.

Q: How does the world in Budgie City work? How do they live? What is the main conflict of the story?

A: All of this you can find out in this article!

Q: Where can I find more content to this world and story?

A: On this very blog or on my YouTube channel

I hope this article was helpful and informative enough for you to know where "Budgie City" comes from and in which direction it is currently heading. Thank you for reading!

Huge thanks to @annchanorsomethin for helping with translation of this article!

#budgie city #introducing post #information post #writers on tumblr #artists on tumblr #art #original writing #writing #info #lore article #article

[tommming]

Adoption analogy for trans gender identity

One of my favourite analogies for being transgender (and people should use this more in my opinion, I came up with it idk if anyone else did too) is adoption. (and I am aware that adoption in our society has some problematic issues in its current state, but that’s not the point, especially because humans throughout history and the world can and do adopt children).

When an adult adopts a child, and the child is happier and healthier because they have someone to care for them, and the parent and the child both like to refer to each other as mom/dad and son/daughter, would you deny the reality of this relationship or refuse to use the words mother/father son/daughter?

Some adoptions will be more visually obvious than others (like inter-ethnic), and this can lead to mean and invalidating comments and assumptions about the relationship. 

In adoption situations, it’s clear that the medical implications (genetic diseases etc) are not the same as biological parents and children. 

And some kids will at some point decide they want to call their adoptive parents “adoptive parents” and reconnect with their biological parents, and maybe have two sets of parents, and this is accepted, because parent can mean different things. 

Everyone (idk i’ve never met an adoption hater) accepts that this is all valid and in a sense real, because who counts as a parent or son/daughter is just words, and even if they usually have a concrete biological basis, it would be quite disrespectful and unhelpful to refuse to use the words to include adoptive parent/child relationships. 

As you can piece together I am sure, the visually obvious adoptees are analogous to visually obvious trans people, medical concerns are analogous, and different sets of parents is somewhat analogous to the somewhat nuanced way sex and gender all fit together (like someone can be male and nonbinary or whatever) and that whatever the adoptee kid says about their relationships is probably what others should accept, and just the whole thing is analogous! Especially it’s really the same type of thing: People accept the fact of adoption / gender as something that is socially and psychologically real despite lacking the biological basis that typically defines these things, largely because many of the important parts of what defines these words/concepts actually does apply to the situation, and importantly I would argue everyone is better off because of it! (better both because of the actual adoption / transition itself and because of the validating language and people being understanding of it).

You could argue that adoption reduces the resources available for real parents/children (parenting clinics, family therapy, family lawyers, etc.) You could argue that is degrades  and distorts the meaning of what a child is (so that immigrant parents wanting their children to be reconnected with them might have less legal leverage, or that after someone dies it’s no longer enough to be a biological child to inheret their stuff if they have no will, because being a child no longer has any real definition). You could even argue that it perpetuates unhelpful stereotypes about parent/child relationships (for example I know someone that had an abusive mother and is lowkey triggered when people talk about maternal love, and it’s not helpful at all for people to assume that everyone’s parents are nice and caring and present or even existent/known because so many children’s parents are not, or that parents are responsible and have rightful authority over children, which is a dangerous idea for children that are abused by their parents). But are these realistic concerns? Why or why not? I’m not saying this is exactly the same as gender issues, but it has similarities for sure.

I think these ideas are interesting and important and I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I really think this is a great analogy, and shows how I wish the world would be about transgender people (accepting and validating, even legally, without suspicious concerns and without any delusions or misconceptions about what’s real or not).

Furthermore, if you want to really get into it, both the idea of being a parent and the idea of being a woman or man have an interesting similarity, due to both of them being being complex concepts that involve biology and social relations and stereotypical characteristics and all kind of stuff. Someone who is a father to a child that died before the child was born, and left nothing for the kid (wasn’t married lets say), is a parent, and so is an adoptive father, notice how there is absolutely no single fact that these two dads have in common except for the identification as a father. I think this is very similar to a very masculine cis woman that is consistently mistaken for a man, lives a very masculine life generally, lets say perhaps has had medical issues with her hormones throughout life, and has no real attachment her gender because she is a gender studies professor and knows about how its all bullshit (I knew a professor that was a lot like this), and a trans woman, who is technically male, but passes effortlessly as a quite feminine woman and has since being a little child gravitated strongly towards girlhood and said she’s a girl, and grown up to take hormones etc., although not yet done bottom surgery (you probably are aware of this, but there are many trans women that fit this description). There is not a single fact that makes these people both women other than their identification as women. Both are quite atypical, but both have good reason be called women. 

This is why I think that gender is actually a circular definition. Men are men because they are considered men, women are women because they’re called women. Just like parents are parents because someone called them a parent. There are a million and one things that are typical of a man or woman or parent, but none are completely definitive (in my view), and that’s okay because they are just words and words are tools to understand the world. And likewise I think other complex concepts are probably like this too. Religions, languages, families, crimes, salads, idk! Trans women are women because we regard them as women.

#transgender #radical feminism #adoption #gender #feminism #philosophy #analogy #logic #anarchism #ethics #trans women #trans men #trans positivity #trans rights #women's rights

[velvet-cupcake-games]

Happy Pride Month!

Oh hey, it's June again, woot!

This one goes out to my fellow in-betweenies, my lovers of liminal spaces, my boundary-walkers, my happily binary-escaping buddies.

This Pride Month I'm posting a bit about our protagonist, Marion. Long-time readers of our Tumblr know that Marion is not designed as a fully self-insert protagonist. She has a set gender identity and sexuality, both of which are part of the game's plot.

Like Earth Medieval society, Avalon society doesn't have a strong concept of an inborn sexual orientation, so I don't use modern terms for sexuality in the game. However, Marion is bi/pansexual in modern terms, and this is canon in the text (she has a romantic past with a woman, and it's mentioned in the prologue and discussed in one of the lore stories in our Mega-Guide).

I use bi/pansexual because I haven't defined her sexuality granularly enough to choose between the two, and I don't particularly care to. Marion is potentially attracted to people of any gender, and although she's not educated about non-binary people as of the beginning of the game, Meissa's gender makes intuitive sense to her. She has her own thoughts about gender and although she's cis, she doesn't exactly fit in the gender role box she's been given. So to hear that someone doesn't identify entirely as a man or woman isn't a shock to her.

Marion's sexuality is not a major storyline theme in the game because it's not a huge deal in Avalon society. Avalons know that people have different sexual preferences and it's not a big deal. Commoners give zero shits whatsoever. Nobles are generally expected to marry someone of the opposite sex in order to produce heirs, but nobody cares who they sleep with on the side. And some nobles like Theo (and Marion, on Alanna's route) challenge even that expectation. As I've mentioned before, Alanna's social class is a much larger hurdle to a romance with Marion than her gender.

Marion is a cisgender woman who is gender non-conforming. She prefers activities that are socially reserved for noblemen rather than noblewomen, and has had the rare chance to indulge in those activities while running her father's holding while he was away at war. Her gender and her unconventional response to those who hoped to see her meet conventional gender roles worked heavily against her during that period (something that will also be addressed in the prologue). The fallout of the way she was treated during that time crops up in various routes, particularly Robin's.

This is the part of Marion's personality that maps most closely to my personal experience (she's definitely not an author-insert, but y'know, we all do use our personal experiences to shape our narratives). I'm an older queer and didn't have the words to define myself as non-binary for a long time, so I spent a lot of my life struggling between who I wanted to be and the expectations placed upon me based on my perceived gender. Of course, having the language to label myself doesn't stop people from trying to police my gender, but it definitely helps on an internal level.

I don't mind at all if players want to imagine Marion as somebody who discovers a non-binary identity as she ages, but she maintains a cisgender identity in the game. Although I myself am non-binary (and frankly always have been), many of my dear ones are gender non-conforming cis people. Just like bisexuality isn't an "in-between" stop that leads to homo- or heterosexuality, gender-noncomformity doesn't necessarily lead to non-cis identity.

#made marion #english otome #amare game #pride month

[aronarchy]

Changing perspectives on children’s vulnerability

Are children “naturally” vulnerable, or is their vulnerability socially constructed — And most importantly, does it matter?

One of the main objections to the liberation of young people is that freedom is dangerous because children are “vulnerable.” But what are they vulnerable to?

Abuse.

And who is perpetrating this abuse?

The data tells us that it’s parents and guardians.

It appears, then, that parental power and authority don’t protect children; they imperil them. This should be hardly surprising, since total control of another human being is so easy to exploit.

It’s undeniable that children’s position in society is at least partly responsible for children’s vulnerability, which is often claimed is simply natural. But some might argue it couldn’t be otherwise — that the abolition of that authority would make things worse, that child abuse from parents and guardians is the inevitable result of children’s natural dependence (the childish dependency/adult independence binary has begun to be challenged by the concept of interdependence [Cockburn, 1998]), and most importantly that it is rare rather than normalized (when statistics and well, the fact that children are the only people that is legal to hit in the US tell us otherwise). Therefore, the only way to “keep children safe” is to restrict their freedom.

Let us set aside the radical thesis presented by Tal Piterbraut-Merx in a 2020 article that children aren’t vulnerable, but oppressed. Even if it was true that all children were inherently more vulnerable than all adults, does this justify stripping them of their rights?

In these discussions, the adult abuser is made to disappear; they’re all centered on the child. As if child abuse wasn’t an adult problem. As if it is children that have to be punished by loss of freedom because adults mistreat them. The assumption is that to abuse the vulnerable is human nature, and segregation of the vulnerable is the only way to keep them safe. Our adultcentric society is portrayed as the standard and the only way things could and should be.

Jens Qvortrup wrote in 2005 about children and the public space:

Although the reduction in traffic fatalities is of course welcome, is it permissible to suggest that the price for the positive result is by and large paid by children in terms of a decrease in their freedom of independent mobility? The price was certainly not paid by adults in terms of adapting to children’s needs, or in acceding to their legitimate demands to be able to use the city as if it was theirs as well.

He also pointed out how concern over “children’s safety” is used as a mask for misopedia:

The introduction of curfew bills in both the USA and the UK may be interpreted in the same way. Under the pretext of a wish to protect young children from danger, they are not permitted to be outside during specified periods, typically during the hours of darkness. It is however well known that these measures towards children are most welcomed by many adults who see themselves as disturbed by children.

- Studies in Modern Childhood

I would think that if a group of people is unable to exist alongside another group of people that is, as it is argued, naturally more vulnerable physically and mentally, without causing them harm, it is their freedom that should be restricted.

Of course, we cannot reduce this argument simply to adult oppression of children; both Qvortrup’s example and the inability of most parents to relate to children as equals are consequences of capitalism that we can hardly hope to abolish in a capitalist society.

But the fact that not only do adults put no effort to accommodate children’s needs (natural or socially constructed they be) in our current society, they also aggressively deny the oppression of children, remains.

While victim-blaming has become increasingly problematic in relation to adult victims of violence, it’s the norm when it comes to child victims. No one contextualizes child abuse as one of the many expressions of adult supremacy; if anything, it is used to argue why children should be subordinated to adults. Hence why there is this false dilemma between liberation and protection, used to discredit liberationist arguments (or, less often, protectionist ones). Children need both types of rights expanded; perhaps for children of different ages, one or the other should be emphasized more (protection rights for younger children, and liberty rights for older children and teenagers). But just like adult citizens, they need both. You can’t be safe if you’re not free. And of course the reverse is also true; before profound social changes in the ways adults relate to children, equal rights would just give adults new avenues to exploit children.

But there is an important problem with the “rights” approach in general.

As Marx knew, individual rights under a capitalist society lead to inequality. In an adultcentric society, “rights” for children are an empty concept. Not only are they always determined by adults, they are the rights adults think children should be “given” by them. But as pointed out in this blog post, what is needed is not liberty rights, but liberation:

Merely demanding “equal rights” for youth is incomplete. Even if equal rights were achieved, that framing allows those with power to dictate the terms of oppression while justifying the status quo because everyone is now “equal.” That won’t do. It won’t lead to liberation. If youth have “equal rights” but are still stuck within broader oppressive structures, then we have failed.

Our society is structured to privilege the needs of adults over those of children; whether this produces their vulnerability or simply exploits it is not as important as one might think. What is important is that it paints segregating one-third of the population as just because adults cannot be expected not to abuse their (cultural or natural) power.

#repost of someone else’s content #medium repost #Alba M. #paternalism #adultism #childism #child abuse #youth rights #youth liberation #theory #ontogeny vs sociogeny #doomer fallacy #biology is not destiny #if nature is unjust change nature #FAQ #101 #important

[dusty-daydreams]

Hi! I found you through the anti Penelope tag and I read your fic "We'll drive slower 'round the corner" and I love it so much. It made me cry and its such an interesting concept. I was wondering what inspires you to write it.

It made me think of Anthony and Eloise and I never really thought much about them because they hardly interacted and now I am really interested in what their dynamic is like.

I was wondering what do you think would have been different in s2 in this story?

Have a nice day! You are a great writer.

Thanks!!!

If you don’t mind I’ll hold off on speaking to what would be different in season 2 in the universe of the fic, because I am in the middle of writing the sequel to the story that covers season 2

As for what made me write it, a variety of things, but mostly a lot of tiny grievances that built up into one big au story.

First the way the show couldn’t seem to settle on a decision about sex education, on one hand it’s a joke that Eloise is not allowed to know how babies are made and then on the other hand the lack of sex education is a horror that almost breaks up the first major couple and leads to the female lead sexually assaulting her partner partly out of anger for being deceived due to her lack of sex education.

That annoyed me a lot, because sex education is not just about family planning it is also about giving children and teens the language and tools to recognise and report sexual abuse. So I leaned into that as a consequence that would show the flaws in the lack sex education. Then because Eloise is my favourite character and also because her pre-existing trauma around childbirth (and therefore sex) would have mingled with that additional trauma interesting ways, I chose Eloise to be the focus.

Second as someone from a large family with a lot of siblings, I had started watching the show interested in how they did the dynamic, and it was pretty accurate but I wanted to explore the dynamics more, how parentified Anthony interacts with the middle siblings (Colin, Eloise, Fran) who he is both father and brother too, unlike the older siblings (Benedict, Daphne) who got partially parentified alongside Anthony and the younger siblings who he is basically just the father of, parentified dynamics are so messy and rich, with layers of responsibility and also lack of proper authority. Plus I am just interested in Anthony who is seen to be an unusually dedicated Viscount in his responsibilities but is deemed socially negligent by his emotionally neglectful mother because he isn’t smoothing the way of his siblings and he isn’t marrying.

Plus Anthony is this epitome of masculine duty and Eloise actively rails against fulfilling her feminine duties so there is some interesting potential conflict that never comes to fruition because Anthony’s entire motivation is protecting his family, including his odd sister.

Third a whole bunch of tiny things and inaccuracies - like cigarettes, and women out in society wearing their hair down, and the fact that Benedict and Colin should be in the army/be vicars/be in the navy/be attempting to find an estate to purchase to become gentry and they weren’t, the fact Penelope is clearly the antagonist of the show but they refuse to acknowledge it.

But yeah basically there were a thousand tiny inaccuracies that bothered me, but I hated the mixed and poorly crafted messaging about sex ed, and I wanted to explore the family dynamic.

Thank you for reading the fic and liking it!! It is so wonderful to hear

#asks #bridgerton #we’ll drive slower round the corner #my fics

[navree]

the misfortune of house of the dragon brainrot is that i remember shit from game of thrones and then i get mad and i was recently reminded of “robert’s rebellion was built on a lie” which makes me so unambiguously furious i’m finally gonna crack down and enumerate that fury to the rest of the populace in what may be my longest ramble to date. 

so, first things first, i’m gonna be so very brave and ignore the emotions and everything behind rhaegar running off with lyanna, ignore the skeeviness of this man in his midtwenties pursuing a young teenager and the skeeviness of doing it while married and how much of a dick fucking move that is to do to elia who didn’t deserve any of that from her shit husband, ignore whether or not rhaegar and lyanna were in love or if it was kidnapping or whatever, because that’s not important. 

what’s important is that the crown prince, the heir to the throne, next in line to the seat of power, committed an egregious offense against three major political powers. the foundational building block of robert’s rebellion isn’t about whether or not rhaegar and lyanna were “in love”, it’s about how rhaegar insulted house stark by taking a member of their family into custody in a way that puts her reputation at risk, he insulted house baratheon by taking someone who had been promised to a baratheon (it sounds awful to phrase it like that but this is how it would be seen in westerosi society), and he grievously insulted house martell by publicly shaming and humiliating a martell princess in a deeply embarrassing way. robert’s rebellion is built on rhaegar looking at his house’s allies and friends and essentially spitting on their faces. 

and even then, that’s not what kicks off robert’s rebellion. what the rhaegar and lyanna situation does is kick off the starks going to the crown, to the legal head of the country, and wanting the situation dealt with. brandon, though somewhat brashly, is well within his rights to go to his king and say that he and his family have been dealt a grievous offense and that it needs to be addressed and rectified in some way. aerys’s response to that is to kill two members of that family, brandon and rickard, in an unseemly and brutal way, all for using the proper channels available to them to try and find a way to address a problem, an insult being done to them and their family, and then after aerys murders them for it because the idea happens to offend him, because he’s nuts, he then demands that two people who haven’t done anything at all yet, another stark son and lyanna’s baratheon fiancé, be handed over to him to also be executed.

what happens to brandon and rickard isn’t the only thing that’s seen as morally bankrupt in the eyes of westeros, it’s also aerys ordering that jon arryn break faith and hand over two teenagers who haven’t done anything or started any conflict themselves because they are also part of the wronged parties from his own son’s apparent fuck up. that is what causes jon arryn to summon his banners. that is what robert’s rebellion was built on, aerys’s actions following rhaegar’s. because aerys has, in modern parlance, broken the social contract (for anyone who isn’t as big a dork as i am about historical politics, the social contract is a theory/model that argues that individuals consent to be ruled by an authority and trade away certain freedoms in exchange for the remainder of those rights being protected in a safe and maintained social order, and that when a ruler breaks that promise by becoming too despotic or creating a breakdown in the social order, the populace is no longer beholden to uphold their end as well in consenting to be governed). 

now, westeros doesn’t have a solid concept of the social contract because that’s something that only became a talked about thing during our age of enlightenment (mid 1600s to early 1800s AD) it’s a pseudo-medieval society, roughly equivalent to, like, the 800s AD (given that the doom of valyria is meant to be this world’s equivalent to the fall of the roman empire, which happened in 400 AD, while the doom happens about 400 years before the events of asoiaf). but there’s clearly some element of “we will allow ourselves to submit to your rule on the condition that you be good to us as a ruler, or else we will no longer allow said rule”, because that’s the entire basis for northern independence in the main books. the northerners believe that joffrey, in executing ned so suddenly and unceremoniously, on what are largely viewed to be trumped up charges, has broken the baratheon line’s social contract with the north, and thus do not need to uphold their own end of the contract, thereby declaring rebellion and fighting against that regime. and that’s what happens with robert’s rebellion. the arryns, starks, and baratheons have decided that, through the actions of it’s head (aerys) and it’s second in command (rhaegar), house targaryen has broken it’s side of the social contract, which means they no longer have to consent to be ruled by house targaryen, and will fight against house targaryen’s actions against them at that point. 

robert’s rebellion was not, and never had been, built on the idea that lyanna wasn’t in love with rhaegar. that might have been robert’s own personal motivation, but that didn’t factor into the rebellion at large. robert’s rebellion was built on the really bad decisions made by prominent political actors in westeros, and how everyone responded to them. the main issue was that a group of powerful people saw that the other side of the social contract had violated that contract, decided to react, then everyone else chose sides based on who they supported in that decision and promptly duked it out for a year until one side ultimately won. 

and man does that one line really encapsulate that season 8 gets the brunt of the backlash for being unbearably awful but basically everything that happened from them taking main control away from the books onward was just the height of stupidity, in every way. 

#personal #asoiaf #anti game of thrones #i should have a tag for the specific moments when i write mini essays on here about shit i know none of you care about #but yeah i despise that line fuck that line #like whether or not the fifteen year old and the 25 married guy were in deep unconditional love doesn't matter #(even tho rhaegar is a huge asshole and elia should be allowed to hit him with a hammer) #(and then lyanna can borrow the hammer for robert who also sucks and will always suck but that's not the point here) #robert's rebellion started when aerys acted like a monster and essentially made the executions of brandon and rickard #the straw that broke the camel's back #also rhaegar's an idiot for knowing for a while at that point that his dad is unfit to rule and not doing anything about it #but that's it's own thing #really aerys and rhaegar are a textbook example of how birthright monarchy is just a giant fucking scam

[collectionoftulips]

do you prefer modern au's or regency era ones?

What a lovely question, thank you ❤️ (I apologise for this absolutely massive response you probably didn't ask for, it's a ride and I apologise!)

If it's to read, I really like both. Regency era just hits a certain way and I love the way Regency-set stories have to/usually explicitly engage with the way societal structures impact relationships and that these pressures are not insignificant on their influence on a numerous fronts (who is seen as desirable, what gets seen as desirable, the impact of finances in relationships, the corroding potential of status on genuine affection, etc). Of course, these things are as alive as ever in contemporary society, but I think Regency stories allow for these things to be more openly explored because it's set in 'the past' (even though my own personal experience of contemporary dating is that it is not too dissimilar to Regency era; before it was how many houses you owned etc, now it's how many holidays you take - which becomes often a proxy for questions around disposable income etc). I think modern AUs can and often do explore these concepts a fair bit, but they are rarely as upfront about it (compared to Regency). This I think is a reflection of the fact that we are living in a time when social inequalities are made to be seen as 'insignificant' or 'irrelevant' in relation to forming relationships, when they in reality are not insignificant (as any person belonging to a marginalised identity on a dating platform would tell you).

With modern AUs, I love reading the room to play authors get afforded in translating these characters to contemporary times and the choices they make in doing that, and even with the same general premise etc, two stories can look very different in hands of different authors. That's really exciting and cool. I also love the idea that these characters will ultimately find each other in any universe, despite any circumstances. What can I say, I love love.

If it's to do with writing, I think I'm increasingly leaning towards modern AUs a bit more. I quite frankly feel like I'm very inadequate at writing Regency. I know some general things about the time period and the gender politics of it in particular, but I'm really not that brushed up on what the day-to-day stuff in Regency era looked like (I also find that there isn't enough accounts of how daily life looked for what would now essentially be called working class people, and that's very frustrating to me on a number of different levels, especially as I can't seem to bring myself to stop adding in class themes in my stories). Writing Regency era also makes me very conscious of the gaps in my own education around, for example, how Indian society looked at this time period. Of course, there's also the GIANT shaped 'colonialism' shaped hole in setting fics in Regency for this pairing. I'm not a fan of their 'love solved racism' take from S1 that the show just seem to run with, despite that it has some really serious implications.

Alternatively, I don't really want to be in a situation to essentially try to write colonialism 'back into' the fandom. Firstly, because I think colonialism is/was so deeply abhorrent in a way that I don't think can ever fully be captured in any words, or at least especially those that would be written by me. Second, if colonialism was a factor in a fic set in Regency era, I would want to burn the entire ton to the ground and there would be no way of getting around that everyone in that circle's wealth would be directly related to colonial practices, and therefore I have absolutely no interest in redeeming and humanising people that deny the humanity and inherent value of others (which is one of the many many outcomes of colonialism). Thirdly, I would never want to create content that would be traumatising for anyone, because I believe fandom should be a fun and welcoming space. And again, the colonialism thing just really hovers in the background for me a lot. And then there's the gender politics of it all as well that makes it really dicey and the classism.

I guess the short of it is: writing Regency requires so much and also involves making so many decisions about stuff that I don't feel great about. Doesn't mean I won't try to create something that I hope might be fun or valuable for people, but it does increase my anxiety a lot because with certain writing choices I have to do, I don't feel like there's a 'correct' choice, and my inner perfectionist gets really disappointed with myself if I get stuff wrong.

Modern AUs are also plagued by similar factors, but I feel more equipped to navigate them in a better way. Of course things like classism, sexism, racism, neocolonial structures etc are factors that influence and I think about when writing, but modern AUs allows one to sidestep the mess caused by the 'love solved racism' take, which is really the thing that causes the most anxiety in me when writing Regency because... well, it just makes so many things not add up.

I don't hate writing Regency but I've realised that it makes me very anxious. Modern AUs don't cause exactly the same feeling.

Sorry for this massive dissertation! Thank you so much for this question ❤️

#kathony #kanthony

[yusratoth]

To clarify: It's unfair to criticise me of "being too political" not because I'm not political, but because all religion is political, and especially a religion that begins and ends with an inquiry into the subject of sovereignty, as all religions and all systems of ritual magic do. The lack of comprehension around this issue demonstrates what a corner western, and particularly British, neopaganism has painted itself into; a religion is legitimate only insofar as it neuters itself and disavows its obligation to bring about the Kingdom of God. Shirking its responsibility in this way, it allows its "followers" to lose themselves in a narcotic-like haze of magic and whimsy as if their temple is their own personal Hogwarts fantasy (complete with stereotyping, racism, police state, slavery even if perhaps only aspirationally, etc) and not a war room for the contemplation of the world as-is; as if it's not a real sacrifice of time, blood, sweat, and tears for the sake of understanding the real world for the the country and the people. This allows people to go and unaccountably advocate whatever it is they feel like in God's name, ensuring that their religion remains a vector for political reaction forever.

It is an absurdity to on one hand proclaim that God is real and on the other that She is completely neutral and apathetic about how we live and the conditions we subject each other to, the attitudes we approach each other with, whether we protect and organise the vulnerable or downvote them on Uber for "microaggressions", whether we ever seek power or understanding over our society or whether we wallow in intentional ignorance during a virtually unprecedented global decline in living standards.

God is real, and She does care. To say otherwise is not paganism but atheism and nihilism; the exact kind of despair which some scholars of Arabic have credited the etymology of Iblis. There is no more depressing worldview and a religion like that has no purpose except to disorientate people and lead them into philosophical incuriosity.

God is real, and that information inescapably calls you to duty. It does not free you to degenerate intellectually, morally, physically, spiritually, as if some kind of reverse Bhakti Yoga for cartoon villains who greet each other by saying things like "bad morning, your horribleness"!

Fortunately for the world, a religion like that cannot survive once the world has been set aright; a world that I and better people than I have sworn many times to bring about through every means available.

Was Ibrahim sufficiently apolitical for you when he made a mockery of the religion of the Babylonians and was exiled for it? Was Moses sufficiently apolitical for you when he unified the Hebrews and led them from slavery? Was Muhammad, when he conquered Mecca in order to avert a bloody and destructive war of succession? Was John Dee apolitical when he proposed a British Empire based on overseas colonies and a strong navy? Was Gardner apolitical when he along with seventeen or so other witches -- some of whom sacrificed their lives for this -- forbade Hitler to cross the English Channel in Operation Cone of Power? Look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn't say that Mary was being too political for claiming immaculate conception, especially when the baby got up and started preaching about Rome, taxes, and the eyes of needles.

In all of these cases, the fact that these figures had the power they had was a result of the social position they held. Ibrahim's birth to an early agrarian priesthood, Moses being brought up in the court of the Pharaoh, Muhammad's position as a tribal nobility, Dee's alliances with monarchies, Gardner's early life being spent in the colonies in Asia where he studied as an earnest student of the local priestly arts and authored excellent works of anthropology.

It is bad anthropology, bad science, and bad religion -- a religion of a level of pretension that the earliest scribes of all the earliest religions knew to avoid, not even one hard-won through experience of class analysis or anything, but everyone has always known that people would want to know what position Ibrahim, the Buddha, etc were speaking from from the earliest times, and what gave them the right to criticise what they criticised and what the intended ramifications of their proposed reforms were. Nobody until now has ever been confused why it should matter that the Buddha was a Shakya noble who gave up the courtly life to become an ascetic. Uninterrupted millennia of people have found that information worth preserving.

Certain British neopagans are alone in their intellectual incuriosity on this, on a massive, world-historical scale, and it is quite inappropriate for a religious milieu. At a time in global history when the state of politics is collapsing entirely, leading to mass suffering for everybody, being religiously unconcerned with that, or being lax and unscientific in your approach to it, is a religiously unforgivable dereliction of religious and moral duty

#neopaganism #paganism #filianism #deanism #religion #nrm #new religion

[buzzdixonwriter]

Yesterday Looks At Tomorrow: THINGS TO COME (1936)

“I have recently seen the silliest film.  I do not believe it would be possible to make one sillier…It is called Metropolis.” -- H. G. Wells, 1927

“Challenge accepted.” -- H. G. Wells, 1936

H. G. Wells so intensely disliked Friz Lang’s Metropolis he participated in the production of Things To Come, based loosely on his 1933 book The Shape Of Things To Come.

On the positive side, it’s larger in scope than Metropolis and as equally impressive visually, made by stellar talents on par with Lang.  It covers a much broader range of concepts and offers far more challenging ideas. 

For many years it remained a great favorite of science fiction fans, partially because the only available versions of Metropolis had been hacked down to nonsense, but primarily because it offered a vision of the future where sci-fi fans would dominate.

While Metropolis is an overly Christian film (seriously, take a look at their use of religious symbols throughout and the arguments Maria makes to both sides re their responsibilities to one another), Things To Come is pretty blatantly socialist bumping into communist.

Small wonder, since Wells hizowndamsef was an avowed socialist, a member of the Fabian Society who believed the world would be better off run by a samurai elite (his term) that dispassionately guided the rest of humanity for our own good.

One needs to understand that in the period between the two world wars, in Europe and America being a communist marked one as outré but not an overt threat to humanity. 

After Stalin’s rise to power and purges, after World War Two, after the Iron Curtain crashing down, communism became the official whipping dog of Western capitalism, blamed for anything and everything.

Even today dim bulb politicians appeal to even dimmer bulb constituents by labeling anything and everything they don’t like as “communist” or “socialist” without any real understanding of those terms.

And not to whitewash the crimes of the Soviet Union, but when you stop thinking of the USSR as communist but rather as czarist Russia under a new banner, you see those crimes are less communist in nature and more culturally Russian.

“Same circus, different clowns” as Russians are wont to say.

Likewise, the myriad crimes of Things To Come are less about socialism, and more about old fashion English classism.

As science fiction fandom took off in the 1920s and 30s in the US and England, many fans were socialists or communists of one stripe or another.

Those interested can dig into the history of science fiction fandom online and see the waves of anger and arguments over the best way to reorder society, and the retaliation by those who liked the status quo just fine, thank you.

These were the earliest enthusiasts for Things To Come.

What appealed to them in Wells’ vision was the same thing that appeals to Ayn Randf’s followers today:  A deep rooted belief that they are constrained by society and if only they were in charge everything would be so much better.

That their stated goals are mutually exclusive is unimportant.  In both cases the fans of those authors / beliefs saw themselves as naturally belonging to the ruling elite, not part of the lumpenproletariat doing scullery work at the bottom.

In that sense they’re very much like believers in reincarnation who were always kings and queens, priests and priestesses in previous lives, not crippled beggars or enslaved pit workers.

In Things To Come, the lumpenproletariat in Wells’ scheme of things provide no input into the way things are done or the goals set and established.  Wells, long hostile to religion, saw any sort of spiritual belief as antithetical to human progress and happiness, and saw eliminating that aspect of humanity as crucial.

The problem is he has nothing to replace it with, other than some vague commandment to “go out and all of you be geniuses now.”

As crappy as the lives of Lang’s workers were in Metropolis, they feel richer and far better than the pampered masses in Things To Come.

And it needs be noted in the book The Shape Of Things To Come that his “open conspiracy” of “samurai” are almost exclusively English speaking western Europeans, with one token Chinese and one token African among their ranks.  The idea that they could shut down a billion or so adherents to Islam without any resistance is ridiculous even in the era as anyone who read T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars Of Wisdom could tell Wells.

The most entertaining portion of the film is the middle third, the post-apocalyptic world before the Airmen saviors arrive.  It’s like a dry run for Mad Max movies mashed up with a zombie flick (seriously!).

The big conflict in the last part of the film involves the ruling elite wanting to launch a spaceship to the moon and the rest of humanity going, “Really?  Can’t we just enjoy what we have?”

There’s a race to launch the spaceship before a mob descends to destroy it, and the film ends with the protagonist Cabal (as in literally “cabal” a secret conspiracy trying to control things) speaking to common citizen Passworthy (how’s that for a condescending name?), uttering the famous “Which shall it be?  The universe or nothingness?” speech.

That closing scene fired up science fiction fans in the 1930s and 40s, but by the 1960s and 70s we came to realize the universe is going to have the final say in the matter, like it or not.

Of the three films we’re discussing, Things To Come ages the worst.  It’s certainly worth seeing (I recommend the colorized version as that gives it a nice pulp sci-fi palette) but the core message is not merely dated, it’s repugnant.

How well did it predict the future? It guesses the start of WWII pretty closely, and hints at nuclear warfare in an ambiguous shot of a mushroom cloud long before the first A-bomb exploded.  Its world war just peters out, however, with all sides bombed back to the stone age and awaiting the arrival of black clad saviors in giant airships to set things aright.  The film skips over a century of rebuilding in a pretty impressive montage of miniatures at work, then resumes a century in the future with the descendants of the 1930s characters fighting ennui.  Considering they live underground in well lit but featureless terraced apartments, wearing what looks to be woefully impractical clothing it’s no surprise this is the one concept Things To Come got spot on.  The phrase “amusing ourselves to death” existed as a concept long before Neil Postman used it as a book title in 1985 but Wells & co have it on full display here.

Is it a Big Film with Big Ideas? Yes, clearly the biggest of the three we’re discussing.  It also offers the flattest, most paper thin characters.  Raymond Massey is simultaneously commanding and wasted in his dual roles as John Cabal and grandson Oswald.  Massey was in the even more repugnant Sante Fe Trail as John Brown and holy shamolley, even though Warner Brothers tried to paint him as the villain of the piece John Brown towers over both Cabals as an ethically and philosophically grounded character.  Even so, it’s a film about humanity as a whole, even if conceived by someone who seemed incapable of writing about them humanistically.

© Buzz Dixon

see also:

Metropolis

#Things To Come #The Shape Of Things To Come #H G Wells #Friz Lang #Metropolis #sci-fi movies #sci-fi #science fiction #media #duty now for the future #sci-fi fans #Fabian Society #communism #socialism #religion

[brightgnosis]

Y'all Don't Actually Know What "Gatekeeping" Really Is And It's Exhausting

The term "Gatekeeping" gets thrown around so much, so unnecessarily now a days. And when it does, it typically to describe literally anyone standing in someone's way to something (anything at all) that they somehow feel entitled to- whether or not they've actually earned the right to it in any capacity, or whether or not it's something that can even be gatekept in the first place.

True Gatekeeping, however, is utilizing one's authority and power in order to systematically keep the marginalized out of traditional structures of power and away from integral knowledge; it is a systematic barrier of financial, intellectual, circumstantial, and other oppression, meant to limit one's upwards mobility within the system.

You can't "Gatekeep" a religion. You can't "Gatekeep" what company produced a candle. You can't "Gatekeep" the definition of a word, when definitions are inherently defined by the common social use across entire groups to begin with --- although you can Gatekeep knowledge through using obscure language not native to that group in order to obfuscate your intent and meaning, mislead them, etc; and you can Gatekeep by refusing them access to higher learning institutions that would allow them to learn that obscure language and how to use it, and so on; This is what true Gatekeeping actually is.

And honestly, I feel incredibly bad for our children. Because they're growing up with the blatant lie that they'll be "free" once they reach the age of legal majority- only to suddenly be faced with the absolutely infuriating reality, upon reaching their so-called "adulthood", that life is still full of rules and barriers, actually.

A part of gaining true adult maturity, though, is realizing that these rules and barriers are not only necessary, but completely natural; that while some of these rules are outdated and toxic and damaging and do need to be done away with (and that we all have a social responsibility to aid in doing so in whatever way we can) ... In general: Our society lives and thrives, or dies entirely, only by our mutual agreement to follow the social rules and boundaries that we agree upon --- and that we as a species have actively developed the concept of rules and boundaries, and worked together to develop these specific ones of the society in which they are born into, in order to allow ourselves to coexist at peace with one another.

A part of gaining true adult maturity also means acknowledging that various spaces, groups, and so on, are allowed to set individual barriers of entry for themselves; that they have an inherent Human Right to self determination, and to determine who can and cannot join their group (and in what capacity) ... And that it's not always inherently "Gatekeeping" to set these boundaries for themselves. Likewise, it's not inherently "Gatekeeping" to turn away those people who don't meet those requirements- or disown or disavow people already using their title or claiming their membership without meeting them, either.

It's also accepting that we aren't entitled to everything, everywhere, whenever we want, just because we think it's lovely, and interesting, and shiny, and have decided we want or enjoy or desire access to it; that while we may look on parts of it as outsiders, or we may study it to some extent or another ... Not every space is actively meant for us to join, and we may likely never be included- and that's perfectly fine. We don't need to be.

A part of gaining true adult maturity means realizing the world isn't about us; that there are greater, broader, and far more important things than us, and our individual (and selfish) wants and desires.

This is an opinion piece based in research. If you found this helpful or interesting, please consider Tipping or Leaving a Ko-Fi; even $1 helps

This account is run by a Dual Faith «(Converting) Masorti Jew + Traditional NeoWiccan» & «Ancestral Folk Magic Practitioner» with 20+ years of experience as a practicing Pagan and Witch. If that bothers you, don't interact.

#Original Content #2022 #Original Witchy Content #Original Life Content #Wicca #NeoWicca #Being A Better Human Being

[architectuul]

Engaged Village Architecture

SKROZ attracted attention for the first time with the first prize in the competition for the City Library in Labin. Another interesting projects are the Chickenville Farm and the Eco Farm of Black Slavonian Pigs. We discussed about their typologies and concepts.

SKROZ Animulor.

How do you with a time distance look at your first commission, a competition project for the City Library in Labin?

SKROZ: The project for the City Library in Labin was designed by a group of authors. Some of them, Margita Grubiša, Marin Jelčić and Ivana Žalac are the part of today's SKROZ office, the three other involved colleagues were Igor Presečan, Zvonimir Kralj and the designer Damir Gamulin. The whole project documentation as well as construction came very soon after the competition. As we were very young architects we were instantly thrown into real life of architecture and became part of difficult negotiations with building conservators, contractors who had no sensibility for architectural heritage preservation and the investor the City of Labin. 

The project for the city library in Labin. | Photo © Ivan Dorotić

The whole project was under immense public pressure and extremely short deadlines. Today, when we are looking back at that whole situation, considering the years and experience that we had, we are actually very pleased with the achieved results. We have put a lot of energy and effort into this project and happily managed to achieve good results. The whole concept was to emphasise the old atmosphere of the building and to maintain the strong contrast of spaces - from the marble hall that used to be sort of salary hall to the modest bathroom of the miners. We knew the project succeeded once we received touching feedback from the miners who once worked there.

How does the client influence the social context of the architecture? SKROZ: As architects we have a huge responsibility towards society so we definitely try to tackle social components in any project we do. In our opinion, most of the projects could be socially engaged, no matter the content and the type of the client. For example, tourism projects, which are very common private projects in Croatia, could give back to community adding the value by using the benefits of surrounding cultural area, using local stories and local resources and by introducing the benefits of the surroundings (including local producers) to the future customer. In such way tourism not solely exploits the location, but acts as a mediator to upgrade the life quality within the community. 

Unfortunately, this kind of scenarios are rather rare, and usually the guests/ users of these spaces dictate the direction of the development. However, there are some shiny examples of socially engaged private projects/investors. One of such projects is for sure Chickenville, which came out of plain wish of the investor to educate the kids in the rural area about chickens, so in the project we managed to merge tourism, education and production-farming. In addition, that same investor built a hall for everything, which in the end became not only private space but also space for community activities.

Of course, in the case of the public investor such as the city, bigger emphasis is put on the social quality of the project and it is easier to achieve it by providing spaces specifically intended for the community (eg. City stairs). In this case it is very important to include the citizens into decision making process in order to achieve greater social impact and overall satisfaction.  

Does socially engaged architecture need a wealthy investor? Socially engaged architecture does not necessarily need a wealthy investor, but the one that is prepared to look at things from a different perspective and add an extra value to the project.

Pedestrian connection between the city waterfront and the city of Ploče in Croatia. | Photo © Marko Mihajlević

There are individuals who are intentionally or unintentionally willing to rise the entire community with their spirit and enthusiasm. Usually, this kind of people do not consider only personal interests and are well aware of benefits of prosperity of the entire community. 

We have learned this on the example of our dear friend and investor with whom we have been cooperating for many years. Cooperation started in 2004 with the construction of a small kindergarten, followed with an open-air park - that he was happy to make accessible to the public for local performances and shows, then a small hotel - where we materialised intangible heritage - a chicken coop intended for the education of children and our latest project, a multifunctional hall next to the park where children exercise and have rolling school but it is also intended for private festivities. In short, during 15 years period, together with us he managed to create a complex that resembles and serves as a small community centre.

How do you form a team of collaborators when designing a project? SKROZ: Team of collaborators depend upon the type of project that we work on and we certainly try to keep team interdisciplinary. Designers, artists as well as landscape architects are very common collaborators in almost all of our projects. Diversity in team is very important as we believe that different point of view is necessary and can upgrade the project especially in specific typologies.   

Chickenville - why, how, who? SKROZ: Over the course of years we had a very successful collaboration with our client Željko Franja were we managed to achieve trust and confidence in our design. As it all happens by chance, he talked one day with his nephews and realised a fact that in spite of living in rural area kids are not familiar with eggs and chickens and where they come from. 

Chickenville is a unique chicken coop project located in a small village near Samobor, Croatia. | Photo © Dorotić+Bosnić (up) & Ervin Husedžinović (below)

Therefore, Željko decided to build an organic egg farm where kids form the kindergarten and schools could come and learn about the processes involved in egg production. There were lot of challenges in this project combining two ambivalent functions such as children education and farming, accomplishing  the highest standards of eco-farming with limited budget, designing attractive complex that would bring visitors to the small village. The most important task of all was to achieve maximum respect for function, which we achieved through building the units that follow the strict parameters and regulations on eco-friendly poultry farming, providing chickens with proper accommodation and optimise the farmers’ work.

Being not only an eco friendly farm, but a tourist-educational site as well, the settlement is introducing visitors to chicken raising. | Photo © Dorotić+Bosnić

How to design for animals? SKROZ: Designing settlements for animals does not differ a lot from designing housing for human user. Animals have their own needs, hierarchy and structure that have to be respected, so everything could function without too much stress for animals. It is a great challenge to master a new topic that one is not familiar with. In general, the farm must function as a perfect machine tailored to the needs of animals, but also ensure easy breeding and maintenance and have good ventilation and lighting. We are trying to satisfy all these parameters through architecture and design without introducing expensive technology.

How to look at the architecture in the contemporary village? SKROZ: In general, context is very much important for us in our design. For understanding the village and its architecture we are learning from the past, later then applying that knowledge to become an inspiration for a twist in contemporary architecture rather than just a plain replica of rural architecture. In addition, our interventions, set in rural environment are smaller in scale so they can be almost merged within the current rural context.

Eco Farm of Black Slavonian Pigs - why, how, who? SKROZ: Sin ravnice, our future to be clients, were searching for a suitable architect to design their Eco Farm of Black Slavonian Pigs. After they saw our Chickenville project they contacted us and as our client would say the rest is history! 

Stables in the farm are always open. | Photo © Dorotić+Bosnić

At that time, their farm has been existed for several years during which they have bred these interesting autochthonous Croatian pigs completely in the open, since they are resistant species that do not need any shelter. Yet as the market needs grew, so did the farm. The client has soon realised that they need some form of controlled breeding. The initial project brief required accommodation for 400 pigs. For us this was the first encounter with the pig farm project and we saw it both as a huge and fun challenge. 

An important factor in choosing the material was the resistance of the elements in direct contact with animals. | Photo © Dorotić+Bosnić

The priority was to arrange a functional facility and to allow easy breeding, but also a comfortable life for animals. Together with the investor we have managed to optimize the organization of our farm in relation to standard farm projects. Additionally, our intention was to create a building merged with the traditional architecture of the Slavonian region, and to create architecture that naturally inhabits endless Slavonian fields and carries a spirit of traditional Slavonian outbuilding.

SKROZ was founded as a result of a long-term collaboration of Ivana Žalac, Margita Grubiša, Marin Jelčić and Daniela Škarica. | Photo © Sanjion Kaštelan

#village architecture #farm architecture

[hewholivesinhisname]

Is Social Justice good or bad?

On one hand, I tend to believe in social justice. On the other, I have this other opinion which is that I don't think that social justice can really be upheld by society or people in general.

Why is that?

Lack of responsibility

It is possible for example that everyone goes around and just spontaneously protects minorities for instance, but that is not the "natural" thing for people to do.

Most people are part of some tribe or group or other and see outsiders as inherently dangerous with perhaps at least some good reasons. People have limited intellect and someone unfamiliar might hurt them.

Thus, just as a stranger in a house might not get a warm welcome even if someone is well intentioned they might be viewed with suspicion.

In order to get along and respect differences, people have to have a strong belief in multiculturalism and that is pretty rare I think outside of America. In America, we just sort of assume that everyone should get along despite differences.

We also have respect for things like trans rights and such. However, not all cultures are like that and America also genocided like, all the indian land which was not very multicultural of them. In the 18th and 19th century though, it was kind of radical though for whites to think of themselves as white. It wasn't until the 20th century really that people even thought of themselves as "human."

So, we can be optimistic and think that the social justice warrior types will win, but the left eats its own as the saying goes. In leftist circles you can never be radical enough which means that there's this element of "mob violence" about it. Some people are more socially just than others and you can kind of just never win.

Darkmatter2525 made a clip on this:

People who are leftists have this kind of extreme tendency to silence debate and out people who have ANY sort of right leaning views, which drives people to right or in the worst instance alt-right, where they tend to adopt all the racist, misogynist and hateful views the left hates.....because the left attacked them.

Now, I think that they are basically right about a lot of things: white patriarchy really does suck most of the time. But I'm white and I want a family. As god, I want to be in charge. Should I only be allowed to be in charge or have authority if I am a trans disabled otherkin?

Jews kind of need white supremacy on some level even though it sucks just because it can hide Jewish power. The whites are always complaining about this, but the Jews are god's chosen people and God is most often a Jewish man. So White Patriarchy can end with God's supremacy a lot of the time- at least in theory.

The other things is that social justice people, like all people tend to want to be in charge, however the nebulous concept of authority and the call for "equality" within social justice circles makes it hard to decide who exactly should be in charge of what and what ideals they are specifically fighting for.

Into this nebulousness anarchism can spring up followed by rule by money followed quickly thereafter by rule by evil as "social justice" can hide monetary supremacy and rule by the evil very easily. All the evil need to do is pretend to espouse social justice principles while promoting rule by social constructs and "the system"

Most social justice movements do not want to put goodness and the poor as first concepts though. Nope. They want it to be women. which is a terrible group to trumpet in my opinion because everyone is nice to women anyway. As soon as the roles of men and women reverse, women take all the jobs, the birthrate plummets, guys start fighting each other and maybe we get an emperor if we are are lucky and he sires another dynasty.

An awful lot of poltical entities however just end with one dude in charge with a big harem and of course the social justice people specifically do NOT want one dude in charge. In order to avoid that you would need to make sure the guys don't fight which means making sure their needs are taken care of and they don't take extreme risks to not be on the bottom.

But do social justice people want this?

The idea that social justice movements need to make MEN, especially old white men like myself as the primary focus seems absurd to them even though statistically we make up 99% of the prison population, 80% of the homeless population etc. When blacks end up in prison they take it as a sign of "systematic racism" but when white men end up getting fucked....that's not racism or sexism at all.

That doesn't exist.

Again, this is why it's so rare to find men who are willing to endorse social justice. The "social justice" warriors think that 50% of the population don't matter. In order to be taken seriously men must be lumped into a category of "the poor" and even then mostly people want to offer services to poor women.

Now, Audre Lourde, I remember specifically she did say that lower class men should be included in the category of social justice.

And, of course, they want Palestine, not America or Israel.

is Palestine a good country? Well, Palestine is the remnant of . My name Pell is remeniscent of Pelasgian and Palestine and Pelasgian are related as is Philistine and Pelasgian. I suspect that the Palestinians aren't really bad people in some ways- they are the people's choice though and the people.....well, the people seem to prefer demagogues, grifters, leaving the rich alone, mob violence and they are kind of just copying the Jews but in reverse. Palestine isn't doing it's own thing. It is

I dunno, maybe it is better than America or Israel. The Jews don't really follow god and America is kind of the same way. Honestly, it feels like America is the Evil's country. So, yeah, if you can only look good next to arguably the two most evil countries in the world you probably aren't all that good.

I mean, I think this sums it up nicely:

Social justice warriors just kind of replace good with "bias" then they have, I guess a reverse order of who is the "most oppressed" based on, uh, characteristics like race and shit. It's not meritocratic or effortocratic or anything at all. It can just spiral into victimhood games.

What would it take to make inclusion work? Well, having very clear standards about what sorts of actions are good and bad helps quite a bit. however, if you really want to be inclusive, you might not be able to have that "single standard" because that standard might be above and beyond some people. So you just kind of have to grade on effort towards contributing to society and try to treat individuals and groups with as much kindness and compassion as possible.

Since it's social though, I think individuals get lost there. It's about the group, not the individual.

It's kind of funny to me that all the people in the social justice warrior cartoon are white though, because this is exactly the kind of thing white people do: find a cause, then get violent about it. which brings up another thing: there's something very white about social justice warriors even though supposedly it defends minorities.

Like, blacks would not necessarily use the tactics of screaming, shame, violence and doxxing to support black rights nor would these necessarily be the tactics that first would be taken up by indigenous people. I mean, they might work of course. At some point you have to realize that power never gives up power by itself, but it's just the sort of white thing to do to champion social justice specifically so that whites don't have to give up power.

They aren't evil though.

They aren't.

Jeff

which is why ultimately I might have to support the social justice warriors, because it's pretty hard to sway public opinion and the social justice warriors are really the only alternative morality to the "system" that most people would understand and accept.

The system and it's evil master doesn't like women, doesn't like blacks, doesn't like trans people, doesn't like polyamorous people, doesn't like lesbians, doesn't like indigenous people.

It doesn't like anybody.

Harpo- Oprah Winfrey- possibly #15?

Romanus- Pope Francis

Scimitar- Obama

Guru-Eckhart Tolle

Mason- Joel Osborn

Palpatine- Ratzinger prob #66

#sjw #Youtube

[type40capsule]

Book Review - Fact vs. Fiction: Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in the Age of Fake News

By Will McClure

The dreaded phrase "fake news" has become a mainstay in political discussions and general social interactions over the past few years. This trend has been tied to the term “post-truth”, a concept “denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion or personal belief” (“Oxford Living Dictionaries,: nd.). The usage of “post-truth” skyrocketed from 2015-2016, increasing by 2,000% attributed, in no small part, to the U.S. presidential election and Brexit (“Word of the Year”, 2016). Post-truth circumstances have encouraged the term fake news to be tossed around with increased frequency. This may have you wondering how you can find the truth in what some refer to as a post-truth society.

The answer lies in education and personal development. It is the responsibility of both the individual and educators to hone critical thinking skills, which will allow one to navigate the tenuous and seemingly overwhelming landscape of the digital age and to identify personal biases that may contribute to post-truth circumstances. You may think to yourself, “there is no way to filter so much information!” Or, “I just have to take everything with a grain of salt.” Or even, “I use computers all the time, I know how to filter information and find answers, why do I care about post-truth and fake news?”. I am happy to say, there are resources out there to help you filter truth from falsities, one of which is the book, Fact vs. Fiction: Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in the Age of Fake News by Jennifer Lagarde and Darren Hudgins.

The History

A common misconception, highlighted by Lagarde and Hudgins, is that fake news is a modern problem. The age-old adage, “There is nothing new under the sun” rings true here. Fake news has been documented in the United States as far back as the American Revolution! Benjamin Franklin used a method of fake news to “supplement” the newspaper the Independent Chronicle to ensure the United States achieved true independence from Great Britain before arriving at a peaceful resolution (National Historical Publications & Records Commission [NHPRC], n.d). Almost two hundred years, later Woodrow Wilson used the Committee on Public Information (the CPI) to similar ends with his “Four-Minute Men” to control the narrative around WWI (Daly, 2017). There are other examples from history, but these serve the point of illustrating that fake news is not a modern problem.

The Cause

The cause of post-truth circumstances and the clarion call of fake news is sourced at a very basic level. Lagarde and Hudgins identify the roots of the issue being linked to confirmation bias, the bias created by our brains seeking information that confirms what we already believe to be true; and implicit bias which refers to how our existing biases and stereotypes affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. In short, our brains like the easy way out, “I already believe x so y must also be true”. These biases are exacerbated by the massive amount of information one has at their disposal. Most of humankind’s knowledge is available to an individual with a few quick clicks. The staggering amount of data presented to us can often, consciously or unconsciously, cause us to go back to looking for the easy answer. What do I know to be true (correctly or incorrectly) and what corroborates this view? In short, post-truth and fake news are a historical problem ingrained in our psyches. It will take a conscious effort to overcome an unconscious response. Overcoming human nature may seem like a herculean task. However, Lagarde and Hudgins have provided numerous techniques and resources to empower you and your students to search for truth.

The Response

The research techniques identified by the authors will assist students in searching for truth with more purpose:

3 Pillars to Web Literacy (pg. 23)

Purposeful Search - Using advanced search techniques to narrow the scope and raise the quality of information found on the web.

Effective Organization and Collaboration - Being able to organize all of this information into a comprehensive and growing library of personal knowledge.

Sharing and making sense of information - Sharing what we find and what we learn with the world, and using the knowledge of others to help us make sense of it all (November & Mull, 2012).

Lagarde and Hudgins also identified the media literacy tool known as the CRAPP test, developed by the Meriam Library of California State University.

CRAPP Test (pg. 25)

Is it Current - When was it published? Are their references current? Is currency important to your topic?

Is it Relevant - Does the info relate to my topic? What audience is it written for? Is it an appropriate level for my needs?

Is it Authoritative - Who is the author/organization? Are they qualified? Is it edited or peer reviewed? If a website, does the URL tell you anything?

Is it Accurate - Where foes the information come from? Are there references? Are there errors, broken links, etc?

What is its Purpose - What’s the purpose of the information? Advertising, Scholarly work? Opinion? Is there bias?

Adding these techniques to your research and providing them to your students will start any research project off on the right foot. In addition to these general guidelines, Lagarde and Hudgins provide a series of tools to assist with more specific tasks and skill-building, here is a small sampling of the collected resources:

Provide Framework and Tips for Determining Credibility (pg 82-87)

Evaluating Sources: Using the RADAR Framework – List of questions, targeting students, to help them evaluate information.

Top Six Red Flags that Identify a Conspiracy Theory Article – Series of tips to help students identify a conspiracy theory within a news story or article.

The Future of Fake News – List of five essential questions to help students identify bias in a news story.

Sample Lesson Plans (pg 87-91)

Lesson Plan: Fighting Fake News - Resources, prompts, and activities to help students to determine the consequences of fake news becoming widespread and to evaluate news stories.

Hoax or No Hoax? Strategies for Online Comprehension and Evaluation – A multisession unit designed to help students develop strategies for identifying hoax news stories from real ones.

Fact Checking Tools and Other Useful Resources (pg 91-98)

FactCheck.org – a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

Whois Lookup – DomainTools offers this search site as a way to learn more about a website based on its domain or IP address.

Quiz: How well can you tell factual from opinion statements? – This quiz allows students and educators to see how their own biases affect their ability to discern fact from opinion in the news.

The tools outlined in this book, paired with the insight into the history and psychology of fake news in a post-truth world, can equip you and your students to be discerning and savvy participants in any news environment. To close, I would like to highlight the proverbial call-to-arms: the author’s issue to their readers “We believe our classrooms and libraries can be safe places for students (and teachers) to learn how to navigate these potential minefields—but only if we step up as defenders of truth” (pg 130).

Source: University of Dayton - Center for Online Learning

#science #critical thinking #fake news #education #book review #Fact vs. Fiction #Jennifer Lagarde #Darren Hudgins #bias #CRAPP Test

[priyeshmeenasourceandsign]

Critical Analysis

Noë, A. (2021). Strange Games, Puppy Play and Exhaustive Intelligibility: A Response to Thi Nguyen’s Games: Agency as Art. [online] The Analysis Trust. Available at: https://academic-oup-com.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/analysis/article/81/2/306/6338009

The selected pages 306-307 from the article "Strange Games, Puppy Play and Exhaustive Intelligibility: A Response to Thi Nguyen’s Games: Agency as Art" by Alva Noë delve into the concept of play, exploring its seriousness, cultural implications, and the blurred boundaries between work and play.

Noë starts by focusing on how important play is, bringing up examples from childhood like choosing teams during recess at school and the social aspects. The writer talks about whether people are seen or not based on their choices. They show the power battles that come with this activity. This first statement helps make way for a more thorough look at play as something complicated and guided by culture.

One main point made by Noë is that play has been overly praised or fantasized about by philosophers and other writers who usually compare it to work. Play is shown as a place with no rules or criticism, different from the set-up of work. But, the writer argues that work and fun don't have clear lines. Comparing play and work makes us think interestingly. It questions the usual idea of play as only fun to do without worry or stress.

The writer looks more at how doing things and playing work together. The author says that some types of games like sports or theater are turned into jobs with rules to follow and scores given out. Noë talks about "sexual performance" and the important aspects of games like baseball that need score-keeping and responsibility. This study adds detail to the understanding of play, making us think about how free it is.

Noë talks about the usual view of play, especially kids' activities. People often see it as a chance for self-realization and creativity that can be freely explored. The author says that play, especially games, is often a way people follow and sometimes must do to measure, test, and organize individuals. This goes against the idea of pure fun. This view says that play is not always fun and free like people often think.

Noë's argument is important because it shows the difference between games and activities we choose freely. The writer says that in history, games were more similar to local languages or parts of an area's geography than things you can pick from a list. The idea that learning to play games is like understanding languages supports the thought that people don't really choose what games they play. Instead, they adjust based on societal rules around them. This idea makes people think again about who is involved in choosing games.

Noë compares choosing games to picking music at parties. The idea says that, just like people may not freely pick their games, they might not have complete freedom in choosing the music they listen to. The way people interact, how different age groups affect music choices and regional or political meanings attached to songs make it harder for individuals to freely pick their own favorite tunes. This comparison makes it easier to see how culture limits people's choices in games and music.

The talk goes on about how the internet and online life affects people, which is thought to free individuals from normal limits. The writer knows there are lots of choices on the internet. He compares watching movies, playing games and dating in a big way. But, Noë wonders if all these choices really mean more freedom. The idea says people's social group expectations and self-understanding still affect what they like, even on the internet.

In short, these two pages deeply look at the idea of play. They show that perfect ideas are not always true and highlight how culture, society, and past events affect people's choices. Noë discusses the lines between work and fun, how some games judge people, and personal freedom to pick an activity. The writer's ideas make readers think again about what play is and how important it can be for people and culture.

These pages seem to have two goals. First, Noë wants to break down the idea of play as a place where we have total freedom. He shows how it is connected with our culture and society's rules. Next, the writer tells readers to carefully look at how tradition and habits affect what we choose when playing. This includes social expectations too! The study helps to talk about what play is all about. It breaks many old ideas and makes people want to understand more about how this easy-going activity can be so complicated.

Noë's ideas are interesting and very important for several reasons. Firstly, looking at play as an important part of culture goes against old ideas about work being different than fun. This complex point of view makes us understand play better, recognizing its many parts. Next, comparing picking games and selecting music for parties gives readers a simple way to understand how much control one person has in choices that seem free. By doing this comparison, we make the study easier to understand and use in everyday life.

The importance of Noë's ideas also comes from their ability to encourage more study about the social and cultural side of play. By doubting the pretty ideas about play, the writer shows ways to investigate how the rules of society and pressures on people change their involvement with fun activities. This important study makes people think about their play times and look at the wider effects of culture on fun activities.

But, we must accept that there might be some shortcomings in Noë's study. Talking about games kids play and schoolyards might not show the different types of fun experiences in various cultures, age groups, or social situations fully. The writer gives useful ideas about how play is connected to culture, but a larger look could make the study even better. We should have a deeper look at online culture and its influence on freedom of choice. This is important because digital spaces change very quickly.

In the end, two pages from Noë's article give a deep look at the play. They change normal ideas and show how they connect with culture and all parts of society. The writer's ideas are mostly about how important it is to play and that work often mixes with fun. Plus they talk a lot about cultural reasons we pick games- add much to discussions on things people do for fun time. This big check of Noë's work looked at the main things he said. It measured how important these points are and if they matter to people when deciding what play means in different situations.