#which is not accurate at all but i think its really just because

[entropyvoid]

Honestly with all the overlap between sci-fi and fantasy fans, I’m really surprised that “high fantasy in space” isn’t more of a thing.

There are some things generally assumed by most to be sci-fi that I’d personally label space fantasy, like Star Wars, where the high tech is just there as a backdrop to a classic heroic story of good guys vs. bad guys, who are definitely doing magic (by using the force). The point of Star Wars isn’t the tech or anything, it just happens to be a tale told in space. It contrasts pretty starkly with something like Star Trek, where the vast majority of episodes revolve around exploring whatever scientific or philosophical concept the writers thought would be kinda neat that week, using established characters as a vehicle for said exploration.

I think one of my favorite things about Honkai Star Rail is that it freely and unabashedly mixes sci-fi and fantasy. It just goes “You are a walking neutron bomb. Also turns out your bestie is from a self-reincarnating race of dragon people with powerful water and illusion magic. They live on this big, planet-sized ship that’s dedicated to hunting down this one cosmic horror that cursed all the ship’s inhabitants with immortality, under the banner of this other cosmic horror that exists solely to kill the first cosmic horror. Let’s go on vacation to the theme park planet, the actual resort is technically an Alice-in-Wonderland style dream triggered by the same kinda cosmic-horror-gifted bomb as you. Your new friend is a meme. By the way, did we tell you about the one time this super-genius harnessed the power of *imagination* to build a death ray that instantly obliterated a bunch of planets? That was kinda fucked up, huh.” Sometimes Star Rail tries to give explanations for its tech in a way that seems believably sciencey. Sometimes shit’s just straight up called magic or it’s from some deity or another and none of the characters present have a good understanding of why, so you all just go about your bullshit. It makes it work within the context of its established universe.

Cosmic horror in general is often (but not always) found in sci-fi, but where the point of sci-fi is to expand on and detail a concept in a believably scientific way or explore the impacts of a scientific thing, the point of cosmic horror is that there is a Thing that is beyond human understanding or comprehension. Sci-fi is a fun thing to insert it into, because the more scientifically sensible and well-understood elements of the world you have, the more jarring that becomes.

Then you’ve got things like Dungeon Meshi, which exists in an inverse of something like Star Rail: it takes a very Tolkien-inspired Dungeons and Dragons-esque setting, and then details it in a very scientifically sensible way. There is magic, and there are these fantastical monsters, yes, but the monsters are parts of their own delicate and intricate ecosystems, they are edible, and they have very particular nutritional values and ways you can cook them! The protag’s biggest strength lies in him being a nerd about monster biology. Magic, too, by the end of it, ends up with a plausible enough explanation as well. And the explanation is a cosmic horror! In this way, Dungeon Meshi, despite being built entirely off of very easily recognizable and classic fantasy tropes, is probably more accurately classed as sci-fi.

I just love all of it. Can I get like 50 more of these fucked up lil mixtures of science and magic please?

#ch.txt #honkai star rail #dungeon meshi #star wars #star trek #sci fi #fantasy #tagging all these bc I wanna hear if other people have cool thoughts on the subject #hopefully this isn’t considered bloating those tags or w/e #this came about from musings and conversations abt what kinda world/story I wanna write? since I’m redoing my lil sci-fantasy project

[catbeeisafraid]

I don’t have like a ton to say about this but I have mixed feelings- also spoilers ✨

I like Crystal I really do but at times her dialogue bothered me and some of her behavior was kind of obnoxious to me- like at times when she started aggressively inserting herself into situations and just kind of made it about her? Like in episode seven (though this happened many other times too) where she was having a total fit about not going to hell when it’s clearly for her own good and not about her no matter how much she cares? and I totally understand that this is her being written as an immature teenager who hasn’t been dead or a teen for 30-100 years but as a teenager this sort of selfish immature writing kind of gives me icky feelings because I know so many people who are mostly emotionally intelligent not just raging all the time.- and I mean that for a lot of teenagers and teen girls in writing, to make them tough and likable they are made volitile and annoying which to me is not likable (my opinion, I just don’t like the trope that’s not what I’m talking about right now anyway-) I do think she had good development and I liked her a lot better by the end, some people on other forums were saying that her actress was weaker than the rest of the cast and I don’t really know about that? I think maybe she was artificial at times but I’m blaming that on the writing. I also didn’t like her dialogue about her “crazy demon ex” either, it felt very forced? -Not her emotions about the whole mind cage thing I get that but just all of the “UGH WHY ARE THEY SO FUCKING NOSY IM JUST TRYING TO GET OVER MY STUPID STUPID CRAZY ABUSIVE STALKER DEMON EX BOYFRIEND UGHHH ILL DOUBLE KILL THOSE BOYS IF ITS TGE LAST THING I DO” that felt out of place to me- Lastly I get that this is also an aspect of her teenager-ness but I didn’t like the amount she cursed? I have no qualms with cursing but it felt to me like when little kids and middle schoolers start cursing where they just explosively yell fuck when like literally nothing warranting that kind of expletive has happened? She curses too often it makes her sound really stupid? Like the ep 7 “take me to hell I won’t die” thing, she was screaming at Charles who was being pretty reasonable like “fuck that I’m going he’s my fucking friend too fine then fuck it- fuck you ill find another way to get to hell” like yes she was emotional but that isn’t what teenagers sound like guys?

idk- I’d love to hear what other people think and to be clear I do like her I just focused on the negative- I guess it’s a human thing. She had lots of strong points just I ending up not liking how much she was on screen, this isn’t really about you? It’s about the dead boy detective? Give me more ghosts or Edwin or Charles or Jenny or Niko or Mr walrus please? They were fun I like them? I just felt like there were times where she was over shadowing Edwin and Charles and they are what’s actually important to the show? I think I’d like her more in smaller doses- I felt like I spent too much time having to stop and be like “girl step back this is not about you, you are not the star right now”

and to the argument of her actress being inexperienced or over acting or just not great- I have no specific feelings on this but like the other main cast had for the most part very little screen acting experience and were Fantastic so i don’t know what to feel in that area? so yes, i think crystal is an interesting character and i think she grew on me and developed in the season but i also definitely think that she’s annoying and I’m conflicted because i don’t want to not like her-..

what are your thoughts? Id love to hear different perspectives but please be nice to me because I’ll probably delete this and cry (unless that was your goal, then carry on)

that was all like super ramble-y sorry- but I hope I communicated semi accurately! Thank you

#neil gaiman #dead boy detectives #dead boy detective agency #george rexstrew #kassius nelson #jayden revri #good omens #spoilers #crystal palace

[velvet-vexations]

I find your reading of Kipperlily really interesting and valuable (even when I don't agree). But I think it's not accurate to suggest that Brennan is setting up something more complex and nuanced with her and it hits on something that's very frustrating for me with the Dimension 20 fandom. I love Brennan. I think he's a great storyteller with very interesting ideas and a generally empathetic attitude toward his characters. But he gets all of the credit for D20s storytelling successes, whether he deserves it or not, and none of the blame for its failings, even when he deserves it. And I think suggesting that he's trying to do something awesome with Kipperlily that the IH are ignoring or not picking up is massively overly generous to him and massively unfair to them. He built her to trigger the reactions he's getting from them, and he set up the jealousy reveal to make them angrier at her. I think there's a chance that he could end up leaning into something more sympathetic because of her age at the end (although the idea that D20 doesn't treat minors as villains is one fandom has been batting around for a while that I really don't understand: Biz Glitterdew? Anyone?). But I think suggesting that Brennan is trying to do anything other than make her hateable is way off-base. That doesn't mean your reading of the character or situation is wrong. Sometimes the best stories aren't what the writers intended. But it feels frustrating to me to see him once again credited him with something he's not actually doing. And the rest of the IH getting criticism for something he's equally a part of (Especially when he was the player dodging nuance left and right when Aabria tried to do something actually interesting with the "villains" of Burrow's End)

I understand your point. I think a lot of the collaborative storytelling in TTRPGs like this is what the players choose to follow up on, though, and players aren't like, necessarily wrong for not missing or ignoring some things. Brennan signaling that Kipperlilly's story can be engaged via empathy isn't much difference than saying a dragon can be fought or you can answer it's riddle. It's like, you can do the gunfight if you want to or you can sneak in the back but on a grand scale that can only be done in a TTRPG.

I said he's "desperately" trying to signal it to the players because I'm a little bothered about the intensity of Ally and Siobhan's reactions to KLCK and the way it feels like none of them are even hearing it, but ultimately there's very little I think any of his players could do that he wouldn't try his best to work with and I agree he does not necessarily consider this absolutely essential.

The only time I can think of him seeming to have actually had an emotionally rough time with was the climax of Mice & Murder. I normally really dislike pouring over every frame of every microexpression like that because it's usually in the service of "everyone at the table is constantly seething at Ally" conspiracy theories, but I blame BLeeM much more for that going down as it did than Rekha and he doubtlessly did too with none of his potential frustration actually being aimed at her. Other than that, it's his nature to roll with where the players want to take their characters, so I don't think he's like, banging his head against the wall trying to make the IHs understand she's sympathetic or that it's the only possible solution to anything, it's just a part of what he's constructed.

I'll say though about things he's also doing, I also don't like that his presentation of KLCK digging up Euegenia was threatening to destroy her grave and not like, digging up her corpse in order to "find the rogue teacher". So he does seem to think of her as more actively sinister than I do, at least in her current state of mind which is not necessarily the end of the discussion.

Also, about the villains in Freshman Year, that was a very, very long time ago and everything was a lot rougher and so even was Brennan as a person back then. I don't think it's farfetched at all that he's gotten even more empathetic and dedicated to praxis than he used to be and is less willing to have a bunch of underage villains get slaughtered like any other enemy and go to Actual Hell for their sins.

#dimension 20 #kipperlilly copperkettle

[ereflowere]

tbh Kokichi + DICE brainworms can't leave my head cause I really believe that Kokichi around DICE is him at his best. It's him with people who willingly support and follow him, knows him well enough to trust him in spite of his lies, and idk I always have this sense that some of the DICE members knew Kokichi before like, whatever happened that made him tell Kaito that they're different people/people you trust backstab you and all that. Like they knew Kokichi before he became the supreme leader. They /made/ Kokichi their Supreme Leader (im projecting Phantom Troupe+Kuroro/8 Generals+Sinbad so damn hard on DICE+Kokichi smh). The Kokichi they know is the Kokichi of ch 1-3 where yes he's a lying sack of shit, but is mostly a harmless nuisance and says shit you don't want to hear to you to genuinely help you.

And then comes the Kokichi of ch 4. Someone nobody trusted. Someone isolated. He wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to have people who trust him and understand him in spite of his antics and are willing to work with him at all times. And then he got the damn key card and found out that DICE is dead. And then the person he's been working the most closely with on his plan to get the hell out plans to murder him.

Like hot take? I think Kokichi's used to being trusted. It feels super contradictory with the fact that he's a liar but I think that all 9 DICE members are so used to his bullshit that they couldn't care less about what he said and rides or dies with him either way. And so I honestly think that knowing that the 9 people who trusted him is dead, and then realising that the person he's literally asking to draft anti-monokuma anarchy weapons does not give a shit about his plan, probably snapped something in him and convinced him that he can't take trust for granted anymore in this game. He have to get in people's head and exploit their weaknesses. He has to honest to god manipulate them.

THUS!!!!! (flips open my whiteboard) is my DICE-and-Momota-kinda-gets along agend-- /JOKES i'm kidding i just really like DICE & Kokichi but I genuinely think DICE will have some respect for Kaito for trusting in Kokichi's plan. I love the hc that postgame Kaito wakes up earlier than Kokichi and takes turns w/ some of the DICE members to look after Kokichi before he wakes up and when he stabilises they all pulled one super elaborate prank on him as a welcome gift. (this is the peak of my self-indulgence)

#i realise that my interpretation of kokichi tends to be very sympathetic #which is not accurate at all but i think its really just because #i think about DICE all the damn time #and like this guy has to do something right if he can get 9 people to be honestly loyal to him #and like it's not one sided!! Kokichi also thinks DICE is the most impt ppl in his life!! #sometimes i completely ignore 'DICE is fictional' HCs or make up other HCs like 'DICE is Kokichi's MMORPG guild members' cause #you cant give me found family morally questionable anti hero troupe and not expect me to eat it up #sideeyes hxh phantom troupe #sideeyes magi 8 generals

[skitskatdacat63]

I don't know how I'd ever convey this in art but. Thinking very deeply about how in boy king au, a very crucial part of characterization is that Seb is a wolf in sheep(or lamb more specifically)'s clothing and Fernando is a sheep in wolf's clothing.

Seb is very unassuming, very delicate, seemingly very vulnerable and malleable. But, deep down, he can be very ruthless. It's in the the way he hesitantly declares war, with a spark in his eye and a suppressed smirk. In the way he challenges someone to a card game or a horse race, proclaiming that he's not great, but winning every round and prancing around the room and mentioning it ad infinitum. The way he's able to instantly turn the tide in a debate in one fell swoop. By showing all his cards constantly and letting himself be vulnerable, he's making himself invulnerable. No one would ever consider him to be able to make big moves, so he wins every single time, because no one even thinks to expect it from him.

Fernando on the other hand, is constantly committed to having a looming presence and harsh reputation, but deep down, he's soft. He knows what happens to people when they're vulnerable, and he's not going to let himself be taken advantage of. The way he keeps a brave face when being informed of the marriage proposal, but goes back to his room and cries. The way he proclaims that he was always going to be the rightful ruler of Spain, but confides to Flavio that he never thought there was any real chance of it ever happening. The way he takes himself so seriously in public, but inside feels so giddy whenever he can make someone laugh. Everything to him always feels unstable and ready to crumble at any moment, and he's not willing to contribute to that by letting himself relax.

I think thats why it's very difficult for them to get along at first, because they have completely different approaches to how they carry themselves and make their way through life. Seb is confused at Fernando because he feels that he's very bland and overly serious at first, but truthfully he's not really seeing the actual Fernando. And Fernando finds Seb to be naive and easily taken advantage of, but that's because he's never seen Seb at his most cruel. Seb really loves when he eventually gets to see Fernando being vulnerable, and Fernando really admires and respects Seb when he sees him being serious. I think it just takes a while for them to show the other their full and complete selves, even the parts they can sometimes be ashamed of. There's this very compelling dichotomy in Seb laying out all his cards, but still being very difficult to read, and Fernando keeping his cards to his chest, but his intentions often being easily seen through.

#meanwhile everyone else: what is this weird fucked up mating ritual they are participating in #though i think its very interesting how their motivations differ #seb wants to lull people into a false sense of security(and also really just likes to be his complete unadulterated self) #and fernando is guarding himself because he doesn't want to get hurt #and i think seb convinces Fernando that its okay to be openly soft and yourself :) not eveyrone is out to get you #and fernando teaches seb hey maybe dont invite this obvious assassin to your chambers????? #i think seb also has insecurites but Fernando's are just more easy to explain bcs hes in a much more difficult situation #at the end of the day both of them are putting on facades in some way #(i think seb likes to be himself but also does feel really hurt when people dont think he has the capacity or ability to rule effectively) #(he likes to be kind and playful and doesnt want to obscure that part of himself. but hes aware it can hurt his image unfortunately) #also lol the way i characterize fernando is very historically accurate btw #bcs the spanish court tradition was basically to be above it all and be a lofty unobtainable figure if that makes sense #yknow having just this insane level of confidence and infallible image of yourself as the ruler #the guy seb is based on really bought into that idea but i dont think it really suits seb so yeah #seb I think is very much a unique figure that others have a lot of trouble reading him and his intentions. which is great! #AAAAAHHH MAN FELT REALLY GOOD TO WRITE ALL THAT OUT !!!!!!!!! #i love writing their characterization so fucking much you dont understand #its nice to put it in words like this bcs yknow i dont rly enjoy actual writing. but this i enjoy greatly #hope this is compelling to more than just me hahaha #boy king au #catie.rambling.txt #vettonso

[mokagachas]

As someone who knows nothing about Oberon but loves your art: where do I start if I want to understand your love for the man?

oh man. oh jeez ( wheezing ) haha okay. uhm. erhm. i didnt expect to get this far uhm ( shaking )

so here's the problem: oberon is from lostbelt 6, a chapter in hit gacha game fate/grand order. you can play f/go if you want and chug along to lb6 - which is unfortunately a chapter 6~ years into the game's main story. but i cannot with any sort of conscious recommend a gacha game to people.

so playing the game is one option. option two is checking out atlas academy database, a website that has all of fgo's stories and such conveniently catalogued! click 'main story' on the top of the page and it'll give you just, well, the main story.

if you want to watch the stories themselves - which at least for lostbelt 6 i highly recommend because the OST is amazing - there's also this commentary free LP on youtube that i've linked to people!

that being said that is still a lot of words to get to lostbelt 6, so- if you don't want to read everything pre-lostbelt 6, i recommend going to the typemoon wiki and reading the summary on each story pre lostbelt 6 ( so, up to lostbelt 5.5 ). just click on the link in each chart and you can find a detailed beat-by-beat summary of each chapter.

i've been told that, in all honesty, that lostbelt 6 is still enjoyable and easy to understand without full context for the outside story beats. it certainly reads like a fairly self-contained story outside a few things needed to understand why some characters are here in the first place, so i've been considering writing up a summary on just those key points / the premise to the lostbelts so that people can read that and then jump right into lostbelt 6 and love oberon...

hopefully this was helpful in any sense of the word heehe ... if you need clarification with anything feel free to send another ask !!!

lets all love oberon!!! lets all think about oberon!!!!!!

#moka rambles #historically accurate king arthur: the game #oberon! oberon!! i love oberon!!!! #^_^ #sorry i feel like im rather bad with helping explain how to get into a series because i so rarely consume new content #i just kind of stick my foot into one thing and live with it ( has been into fgo since 2018 ) #again lostbelt 6 is apparently just fine to understand without much other context so i gave a bunch of backlog reading but its probably not #all that necessary ^_^;; #if anyone has better tips on how to get into reading lostbelt 6 #or how to get into loving oberon... #feel free to add.... #edit: also ill note that while i say i dont recommend fgo Morally #immorally im one of the few people who actually really likes fgos gameplay* #*asterisk being that i dont think its good gameplay for a gacha game which requires something very flexible and its just not very flexible #but anyhow. my point being is that if you do decide to play fgo #i do think you can and will get genuine enjoyment out of it #its just a Lot to get through but its so worth it. shakes your shoulders #believe me #edit 2: ALSO THANK YOU FOR LIKING MY ART HAHAHA #thats very flattering ^_^ #sorry i got so blinded by sharing my love for oberon i completely missed that i was complimented. thank you heehe

[caffeinatedopossum]

Events of last night:

Me: *crying*

My girlfriend: what's wrong?? :(

Me: *struggling to form words* intrusive thoughts are bad... I don't want to talk about them because then I'm scared that they're true and you might think I'm awful

My girlfriend: ah I actually get that. I have those a lot. It doesn't mean anything though, intrusive thoughts are just like dreams. Like the things you do in them aren't really things you want to do, it's just stuff your brain comes up with.

#we then very heavily related over having the same intrusive thoughts and now I'm suspicious #thinking about when i told her i might have ocd and she said i didnt #and starting to feel like thats because... what if we both have ocd #it seems like she was basing her entire knowledge of conditions on people shes known with those conditions. which makes sense #but the person/ people with ocd had severe cleaning compulsions and the like #where as me and her obsess much more over morality #like its very clear we think about it so much. and idk what to do with that information #we both feel like the intrusive thoughts and obsessive ruminating are the only things that keep is from being bad people #or that prevent us from being bad people i guess. idk why that wording is just slightly more accurate #like people who dont think about these things (apparently all 'normal' people since this could be *an actual disorder*) #they're not constantly analyzing. trying to be aware. asking themselves questions about their true nature. judging those answers #theyre not really doing that with other people either. of course i could be wrong since im very clearly not a normal person. #but this is what i mean! im speculating about other people and acknowledging the ways i could be wrong and just trying to figure it all out #but it seems like no one does that and it doesnt *make them* bad people. it just doesn't prevent them from that happening either #like theyre just as likely to hurt people as the 'bad' person thats thinking the same way they are #and i cant ever be comfortable with me living that reality even when *this reality* is a waking nightmare #sure im tearing my skin off (good ole skin picking disorder) when im thinking about these things. sure im crying. sure i can't sleep. #sure it makes me feel like im constantly a horrible person and need to attone for everything ive done and havent done #sure. but then i turn around and say its helping me. because why else would my brain torture me? isnt it always about protecting me? #i don't know. all i know is who i dont want to be and what i dont want. so that exactly what my brain convinces me is real #i guess what it kinda comes to do is #would you rather live a reality where everything around you is superficial. your thoughts behaviors and thoughts. your reactions #all of them are things youre never aware of. you could be hurting people or you could be helping themm #you could even be hurting yourself. but you would never know. its a comfortable reality that youre never really aware of #OR would you rather live a reality aware of all those things. seeking answers and sometimes finding them. #trying your hardest to help others and better yourself and fix the broken things in this world #your reality is one where you recognize every threat that no one else does and it kills you inside because they wont always listen #theyre comfortable and you're stuck in a reality where you try and try and try but even when you succeed #your brain forms its own reality. a metaphorical jail. where you never get to experience the reality you fought so hard for #instead you exist in this sort of purgatory where you live out your own worst fears and the worst ways you could have failed

[mejomonster]

i think in my indulgent Demon immortal Fei Du au, I’m going to make him part fox spirit on his mom’s side. Just because priest made SO many references in Silent Reading to fox spirits being with humans, and to Tales from a Chinese Studio stories. It wouldn’t be right if my boy Fei Du wasn’t actually a sneaky fox too ToT

#silent reading #lb #mejo writing #i think partly Silent Reading really AWOKE my urge to want to write fanfic #well 1 cause im procrastinating writing original stuff #but 2 because i really GET the characterizations #its a very satisfying feeling when i can read something and Predict VERY well what characters think and are hiding and Would Do #it tells me that first of all the writer wrote VERY CONSISTENT ARCS which is just so satisfying to me as characterization is my #single most valued trait in stories. if characterization is bad or even just has some Key Weak points its the main make or break for me. #then it also tells me i in particular GET the characters really well. well enough to play with them and predict their future or X scene or X #past. and thats just really fun to me. #like i love dmbj and i do suspect maybe i get xiaoge... but also i still feel i OUGHT to read ALL novels before i feel confident i truly kno #him well enough to accurately depict. whereas fei du and luo wenzhou and tao ran? within 20 chapters i clocked how it was going to shift and #change. they surpassed my expectations in a few areas but generally tended toward the arc i expected. so i can generally rely on probably #knowing them well enough to write them fairly. #however the big But here is. i do suspect fei du has one more big reveal left in him post chapter 141 #i feel like theres Still an aspect of him we the reader dont fully know. and i feel i cant write HIM in too much depth like a big long fic #or future fic or speculative au fic. until i see what his final secret ias #past fic is fine though - i grasp him pretty well that angle wise ToT and present wise. its just i suspect #hes got a few traits to him luo wenzhou hasnt reacted to and acclimated to yet

[falled-over]

i recently watched the madmen episode where timeline wise MLK was just assassinated and hey they didn’t handle it well

#they didnt handle it poorly but it was for sure one of their worst episodes #one of my biggest gripes with the show and what stops me from recommending it is that there are no non-white characters with a story #there are a handful of black characters but only 4 or so get a speaking role and the episode like before the MLK one was The first time 2 #named (? i cant remember if they were both named) black characters spoke to one another about a matter that didnt concern a white main cast #so the racial version of the bechdel test #so fucking embarrassing to be honest. they all just served as mamie (sp?) like characters who bolstered the 'important' cast's stories #anyway onto the actual episode they had scenes where the black characters sought comfort from the white main cast after the incident which #felt SO hollow because 0 time is spent fostering a relationship between them #the only one i thought was good and true to character was joan who i think is a bit racist (long explanation) #hug the black secretary girl and it was awkward and unreciprocated. which really worked for me #i know they want to have characters who model good behaviour. but also no they dont. #it was weird #i'd have to look up other peoples opinions on it #also. should go without saying but an argument about how its a high end advertising company and having black characters there wouldnt be #historically accurate is honestly stupid #there were black characters who we could've followed but they chose not to

[ziracona]

Me trying to figure out what tf Astolfo’s pronouns are

#I have seen characters in G/O use He - She - /and/ they. but Astolfo never uses any personally #the facts use ‘they’. BUT in one dialogue in English Astolfo calls themself ‘he’ BUT that’s an incorrect translation of the Japanese where #they use 3rd person and just use their own name. no pronoun. And I can’t remember Astolfo ever correcting anyone or using a pronoun for #themself in Apocrypha I mean also I don’t speak Japanese so totally they could & it just wasn’t in my subs. BuT circling back the #translation while not accurate is still official for US fgo. #I have no problem with they obviously the thing is just I’ve never heard Alstolfo use ‘they’ either—I’ve never heard Astolfo use /anything/ #it could be it/its or xem/xir or no prounouns ar all. & I can’t figure out if it’s most accurate to use They since the stat sheet does #or He since there’s one use of Astolfo’s for it that is half-canon. OR if I should just write my sentences to completely avoid pronouns when #possible. like does it matter? would Astolfo care? probably not. but I still want to know!!! #I-I /think/ in Extella Astolfo uses ‘he’ some? but G/O uses They. so is He/They accurate or is one or the other a translation error? #I mean a Nonbinary King regardless I just genuinely want to know #although I have a sneaking suspicion if I asked Astolfo would be like ‘Haha that all works! Ooh! I’m gonna add five new ones!’ #and I’d be like ‘do you care which is used most?’ and Astolfo would go ‘Haha! Nope!’ & run off to buy slushie #G/O also uses She a LOT. but the stat sheets & Astolfo never have to the best of my knowledge??? BUT Astolfo has called themself a maiden #before (among many other gendered terms for fun so obviously they don’t care). I just want to know because I am curious #Astolfo tell me your riddles please #Alstolfo are your pronouns Short/King? Or Bae/Material? or M/VP? #I love that little pink haired spirit #does this matter at all? no. not really. do I still want to know bc Astolfo facts bring joy? yes very much

[shizdrone]

realised that as all of my irl friends fear me in tabletop games. even after all of this time, i am still successfully following in shizune's footsteps. next comes getting them into risk. australia will be mine

#blue flavoured ramblings #yeah let's go with that tag name for irl shit #i'd tag shizune's source material but it's all in all an awkward scenario. game still holds a special place for me but it seems people who #still hold onto it tend to be a bit... dodgy. it hasn't even aged that badly despite everything being stacked against it! #the worst it has is that kenji no longer reads as an extreme parody of a certain type of person #and is now just an actually accurate portrayal #which if you view this from a modern lens instantly turns him from a funny comic relief #into an actually creepy and dangerous character. unfortunate! #you'd think the meat and potatoes of the game would be what aged the worst given the game's subject matter and origins but #somehow that's aged really damn well. i haven't revisited it in ages but i did read some retrospectives from relevant professionals around #the 10 year anniversary and there was a lot of serious praise thrown. not perfect by any means with a decent amount of pretty important #slipups but WAY ahead of its time. #(shizune is arguably one of those slipups unfortunately) #sucks because it's a big part of what got me into a lot of my current interests (pre-diagnosis) but it's also dodgy as fuck to say #it was your starting point. hopefully the other work i've done would make it clear i'm a Trustworthy Human Being should anybody dig shit up #anyway #weird to think shizune still holds a place of personal importance to me but it makes sense #character who is unquestionably a bad person but is doing their very best to be a good person in spite of it? #character who struggles with communication and simultaneously sees all the hurt they bring while being just as blind to it? #character who wants to lift others up but can only do so indirectly because direct action merely pushes people down? #YUM YUM EATING IT UP #IT'S A TWISTED MIRROR REFLECTION STARING BACK AT ME BUT YUM YUM #at one point i was heavily into the headcanon that she could have a diagnosis like me because so many of her flaws resonated with me in a #deeply personal way. since let go of that because there are meaningful differences and while shizune's story is a familiar one of #being alone in a room full of people it is a much more deaf-specific one that doesn't match with me perfectly and the same goes for their #personality. she still helped lay down the seeds for me to understand myself given i got into it around a year before i got my diagnosis #so i think no matter what i'm stuck with her in my memory now. the least popular character in a super awkward game to like for my interests #awesome!!!!!! #raindrops and puddles #that's the tag name i'm using for this game btw

[treasure-mimic]

So, let me try and put everything together here, because I really do think it needs to be talked about.

Today, Unity announced that it intends to apply a fee to use its software. Then it got worse.

For those not in the know, Unity is the most popular free to use video game development tool, offering a basic version for individuals who want to learn how to create games or create independently alongside paid versions for corporations or people who want more features. It's decent enough at this job, has issues but for the price point I can't complain, and is the idea entry point into creating in this medium, it's a very important piece of software.

But speaking of tools, the CEO is a massive one. When he was the COO of EA, he advocated for using, what out and out sounds like emotional manipulation to coerce players into microtransactions.

"A consumer gets engaged in a property, they might spend 10, 20, 30, 50 hours on the game and then when they're deep into the game they're well invested in it. We're not gouging, but we're charging and at that point in time the commitment can be pretty high."

He also called game developers who don't discuss monetization early in the planning stages of development, quote, "fucking idiots".

So that sets the stage for what might be one of the most bald-faced greediest moves I've seen from a corporation in a minute. Most at least have the sense of self-preservation to hide it.

A few hours ago, Unity posted this announcement on the official blog.

Effective January 1, 2024, we will introduce a new Unity Runtime Fee that’s based on game installs. We will also add cloud-based asset storage, Unity DevOps tools, and AI at runtime at no extra cost to Unity subscription plans this November. We are introducing a Unity Runtime Fee that is based upon each time a qualifying game is downloaded by an end user. We chose this because each time a game is downloaded, the Unity Runtime is also installed. Also we believe that an initial install-based fee allows creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement, unlike a revenue share.

Now there are a few red flags to note in this pitch immediately.

Unity is planning on charging a fee on all games which use its engine.

This is a flat fee per number of installs.

They are using an always online runtime function to determine whether a game is downloaded.

There is just so many things wrong with this that it's hard to know where to start, not helped by this FAQ which doubled down on a lot of the major issues people had.

I guess let's start with what people noticed first. Because it's using a system baked into the software itself, Unity would not be differentiating between a "purchase" and a "download". If someone uninstalls and reinstalls a game, that's two downloads. If someone gets a new computer or a new console and downloads a game already purchased from their account, that's two download. If someone pirates the game, the studio will be asked to pay for that download.

Q: How are you going to collect installs? A: We leverage our own proprietary data model. We believe it gives an accurate determination of the number of times the runtime is distributed for a given project. Q: Is software made in unity going to be calling home to unity whenever it's ran, even for enterprice licenses? A: We use a composite model for counting runtime installs that collects data from numerous sources. The Unity Runtime Fee will use data in compliance with GDPR and CCPA. The data being requested is aggregated and is being used for billing purposes. Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game / changes their hardware, will that count as multiple installs? A: Yes. The creator will need to pay for all future installs. The reason is that Unity doesn’t receive end-player information, just aggregate data. Q: What's going to stop us being charged for pirated copies of our games? A: We do already have fraud detection practices in our Ads technology which is solving a similar problem, so we will leverage that know-how as a starting point. We recognize that users will have concerns about this and we will make available a process for them to submit their concerns to our fraud compliance team.

This is potentially related to a new system that will require Unity Personal developers to go online at least once every three days.

Starting in November, Unity Personal users will get a new sign-in and online user experience. Users will need to be signed into the Hub with their Unity ID and connect to the internet to use Unity. If the internet connection is lost, users can continue using Unity for up to 3 days while offline. More details to come, when this change takes effect.

It's unclear whether this requirement will be attached to any and all Unity games, though it would explain how they're theoretically able to track "the number of installs", and why the methodology for tracking these installs is so shit, as we'll discuss later.

Unity claims that it will only leverage this fee to games which surpass a certain threshold of downloads and yearly revenue.

Only games that meet the following thresholds qualify for the Unity Runtime Fee: Unity Personal and Unity Plus: Those that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 lifetime game installs. Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise: Those that have made $1,000,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 1,000,000 lifetime game installs.

They don't say how they're going to collect information on a game's revenue, likely this is just to say that they're only interested in squeezing larger products (games like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, Fate Grand Order, Among Us, and Fall Guys) and not every 2 dollar puzzle platformer that drops on Steam. But also, these larger products have the easiest time porting off of Unity and the most incentives to, meaning realistically those heaviest impacted are going to be the ones who just barely meet this threshold, most of them indie developers.

Aggro Crab Games, one of the first to properly break this story, points out that systems like the Xbox Game Pass, which is already pretty predatory towards smaller developers, will quickly inflate their "lifetime game installs" meaning even skimming the threshold of that 200k revenue, will be asked to pay a fee per install, not a percentage on said revenue.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Hey Gamers!

Today, Unity (the engine we use to make our games) announced that they'll soon be taking a fee from developers for every copy of the game installed over a certain threshold - regardless of how that copy was obtained.

Guess who has a somewhat highly anticipated game coming to Xbox Game Pass in 2024? That's right, it's us and a lot of other developers.

That means Another Crab's Treasure will be free to install for the 25 million Game Pass subscribers. If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous dent in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business.

And that's before we even think about sales on other platforms, or pirated installs of our game, or even multiple installs by the same user!!!

This decision puts us and countless other studios in a position where we might not be able to justify using Unity for our future titles. If these changes aren't rolled back, we'll be heavily considering abandoning our wealth of Unity expertise we've accumulated over the years and starting from scratch in a new engine. Which is really something we'd rather not do.

On behalf of the dev community, we're calling on Unity to reverse the latest in a string of shortsighted decisions that seem to prioritize shareholders over their product's actual users.

I fucking hate it here.

-Aggro Crab - END DESCRIPTION]

That fee, by the way, is a flat fee. Not a percentage, not a royalty. This means that any games made in Unity expecting any kind of success are heavily incentivized to cost as much as possible.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A table listing the various fees by number of Installs over the Install Threshold vs. version of Unity used, ranging from $0.01 to $0.20 per install. END DESCRIPTION]

Basic elementary school math tells us that if a game comes out for $1.99, they will be paying, at maximum, 10% of their revenue to Unity, whereas jacking the price up to $59.99 lowers that percentage to something closer to 0.3%. Obviously any company, especially any company in financial desperation, which a sudden anchor on all your revenue is going to create, is going to choose the latter.

Furthermore, and following the trend of "fuck anyone who doesn't ask for money", Unity helpfully defines what an install is on their main site.

While I'm looking at this page as it exists now, it currently says

The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.

However, I saw a screenshot saying something different, and utilizing the Wayback Machine we can see that this phrasing was changed at some point in the few hours since this announcement went up. Instead, it reads:

The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming or web browser is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.

Screenshot for posterity:

That would mean web browser games made in Unity would count towards this install threshold. You could legitimately drive the count up simply by continuously refreshing the page. The FAQ, again, doubles down.

Q: Does this affect WebGL and streamed games? A: Games on all platforms are eligible for the fee but will only incur costs if both the install and revenue thresholds are crossed. Installs - which involves initialization of the runtime on a client device - are counted on all platforms the same way (WebGL and streaming included).

And, what I personally consider to be the most suspect claim in this entire debacle, they claim that "lifetime installs" includes installs prior to this change going into effect.

Will this fee apply to games using Unity Runtime that are already on the market on January 1, 2024? Yes, the fee applies to eligible games currently in market that continue to distribute the runtime. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

Again, again, doubled down in the FAQ.

Q: Are these fees going to apply to games which have been out for years already? If you met the threshold 2 years ago, you'll start owing for any installs monthly from January, no? (in theory). It says they'll use previous installs to determine threshold eligibility & then you'll start owing them for the new ones. A: Yes, assuming the game is eligible and distributing the Unity Runtime then runtime fees will apply. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

That would involve billing companies for using their software before telling them of the existence of a bill. Holding their actions to a contract that they performed before the contract existed!

Okay. I think that's everything. So far.

There is one thing that I want to mention before ending this post, unfortunately it's a little conspiratorial, but it's so hard to believe that anyone genuinely thought this was a good idea that it's stuck in my brain as a significant possibility.

A few days ago it was reported that Unity's CEO sold 2,000 shares of his own company.

On September 6, 2023, John Riccitiello, President and CEO of Unity Software Inc (NYSE:U), sold 2,000 shares of the company. This move is part of a larger trend for the insider, who over the past year has sold a total of 50,610 shares and purchased none.

I would not be surprised if this decision gets reversed tomorrow, that it was literally only made for the CEO to short his own goddamn company, because I would sooner believe that this whole thing is some idiotic attempt at committing fraud than a real monetization strategy, even knowing how unfathomably greedy these people can be.

So, with all that said, what do we do now?

Well, in all likelihood you won't need to do anything. As I said, some of the biggest names in the industry would be directly affected by this change, and you can bet your bottom dollar that they're not just going to take it lying down. After all, the only way to stop a greedy CEO is with a greedier CEO, right?

(I fucking hate it here.)

And that's not mentioning the indie devs who are already talking about abandoning the engine.

[Links display tweets from the lead developer of Among Us saying it'd be less costly to hire people to move the game off of Unity and Cult of the Lamb's official twitter saying the game won't be available after January 1st in response to the news.]

That being said, I'm still shaken by all this. The fact that Unity is openly willing to go back and punish its developers for ever having used the engine in the past makes me question my relationship to it.

The news has given rise to the visibility of free, open source alternative Godot, which, if you're interested, is likely a better option than Unity at this point. Mostly, though, I just hope we can get out of this whole, fucking, environment where creatives are treated as an endless mill of free profits that's going to be continuously ratcheted up and up to drive unsustainable infinite corporate growth that our entire economy is based on for some fuckin reason.

Anyways, that's that, I find having these big posts that break everything down to be helpful.

#Unity #Unity3D #Video Games #Game Development #Game Developers #fuckshit #I don't know what to tag news like this

[theworldgate]

I have to explain what is going on in the UK, because it is absurd.

So, this is Gary Lineker:

He's known for a fair few things over here. He was a very good (association) footballer, playing for England in the 1986 and 1990 World Cups, winning the Golden Boot in 1986, and managing to never get a single yellow card in his playing career. He played for Leicester City, Everton, Barcelona, and Tottenham, before finishing his career in Japan. But if you aren't in your mid 30s, you probably know actually know him him for a couple of other things. The first is the role of spokesman for another Leicester icon, Walkers Crisps (which are sort of equivalent to Lays, but hit different), as pictured above. Despite being a notably clean player, he used to play a cheeky serial crisp thief. I don't think he's done that for well over a decade, but his ads were on the telly a lot when I was a kid and it's a bit like learning that the hamburglar was an incredibly clean (American) football player or something.

The second thing Gary is widely known for is having presented Match of the Day, the big football program on the BBC, the sort-of state broadcaster, since 1999. He is, incidentally, very well paid for this (though with a consensus that he could get even more if he went to one of the non-free-to-view broadcasters because he is very good at the job). He also has a twitter account. And political opinions. So, the UK government has got itself dead set upon doing heinous stuff that will totally somehow work to prevent people who want to come to the UK making the perilous crossing of the Channel (between England and France). By heinous, I mean "openly advertise that they won't attempt to protect victims of modern slavery" stuff. It's very obviously using a legal hammer to victimise a marginalised group of people in order to win votes. And, uh, I should clarify that by "legal" I mean "using the passage of laws" - the policy is, in addition to all the other ways it's awful, probably incompatible with the Human Rights Act and the UK's international law obligations. Gary, top lad that he is, objected to this. On Tuesday 7th March, he made a quote Tweet of a video of the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, bigging up the policy, he wrote "Good heavens, this is beyond awful.". This got a bunch of backlash from extremely right-wingers, and then he made the tweet that really got him in trouble (with right-wingers): "There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?".

Now, I am not actually subjecting myself to watching a video of Suella Braverman bigging up a cruel policy to say whether the specific comparison of the language to 1930s Germany is accurate. But needless to say, Ms Braverman was amongst the many figures on the right of UK politics objecting to Gary's rhetoric. And here's the part where a fact about the BBC comes in: it is nominally neutral and impartial (and so, of course, is routinely accused of bias from all sides but particularly the right-wing), and has something of a code for its contributors to this effect. Now, that code has previously been applied to Gary Lineker, over a comment about whether governing Conservative Party would hand back donations from figures linked to the Russian regime. But it generally hasn't been applied too strongly to people like Gary, whose roles have nothing to do with politics (such as presenting a "here's what happened on the footie today" show), on the basis that, well, their roles have nothing to do with politics. However, when directly asked about whether the BBC should punish Gary Lineker for his tweets, government figures basically went "well, that's a them problem". But a couple of days passed, and it seemed like Gary's approach of "standing his ground because he did nothing wrong" was working and everything would die down. He was set to get 'a talking to' but not much more than that. The Conservative right, after all their fire and fury earlier, had gotten bored and moved onto something else. And then, on Friday 10th March, the BBC announced that he would be suspended from hosting Match of the Day this weekend. But it could still go ahead, because there are, like, other hosts! Except, well, funnily enough, when you take a beloved figure off air, for making a fairly anodyne tweet, no one wants to be the scab who actually takes up the role of replacing him. Gary's two co-hosts, Alan Shearer and Ian Wright, said that they would not appear without him. People who (co-)host Match of the Day on other days followed suit. The net result is that Match of the Day is currently set to air without hosts, BBC commentary, or global feed commentary. And the solidarity shown to Gary Lineker, over what is very flagrantly actual cancel culture and an attack on freedom of speech (the logic implied is that institutional impartiality requires that no one say anything too critical of the government ever), has continued to grow. The BBC has pretty much been unable to run pretty much any live sports content today, and has resorted to raiding the BBC Sounds archive to fill the sports radio channel. And, as of 17:30 on Saturday 11th March, the situation shows no signs of improvement, though some are calling for the Chairman Richard Sharp, who is separately facing corruption allegations, to resign (yes I linked to the BBC itself there, there is nothing, nothing, the BBC loves more than going into great detail about how much the BBC sucks).

#bbc #gary lineker #football #politics #uk politics #long post is long #text #motd #match of the day

[lunarflare64]

I found the limits of my interest in biology. I now know I definitely could not handle studying a cadaver. Because they do that when you're learning about anatomy in uni. I'm looking at diagrams of veins and shit and I find that all very interesting until they bring out the actual human arms. Haha. Thank fuck I'm never going to uni.

#hhhhhhhhhhh #i mean it would be useful i really want to know where all the veins are because diagrams are kinda shit #but i dont think i can stomach it #im pretty sure im just gonna have to make do with the diagrams and bullshit it from there #i know its just a drawing its not like im bringing the end result in to be used as an actual reference #but i like to be accurate :( its fun #which leads to me unfortunately making the kind of searches that show me these mummified (??? is it??? they look shrunken) real arms #god the curiosity #its not even morbid curiosity if it wasnt for my sensitivity i would be all over this shit #grabby hands at every brand of science that exists #gimme #even *gag* my mortal enemy quantum physics

[moki-dokie]

been seeing some stuff on blue eye samurai and big yikes to nearly everyone pushing extremely western ideals onto these characters.

this is early edo period. 1600s. the japan you know now did not exist yet.

yall. please. there was NO concept of sexuality in pre-modern japan. that came with both the influx of christianity and western influence very very late in history. like, mid-1800s. (yes, there was christianity pre-1800s but it was not a widespread idea yet and wouldn't be until about the 1800s since, y'know, missionaries were routinely murdered before then)

"so and so is either bi and hasn't figured it out yet or..." no. that isn't how it worked then. nobody gave a shit what was between your legs. anyone could be attracted to anyone else. it was a little more common for male homosexual relationships to be between an adult and younger male - like many other places around the world - but two adult men could bang and love each other just as easily. relationships between women were quite common - especially since so many men were often away at war. there's tons of pornographic prints from the time depicting all manner of fun queer relationships. sex itself had absolutely no moral assignment to it. good sex was good health. it didn't matter who with. (well, social class/caste mattered more than anything else tbh but that didn't stop upper and lower class from fucking.) that isn't to say people didn't have preferences. of course they did. that is human nature. preferences arose more from physical appearance, caste, and circumstances with gender being about the last thing one would look for in a partner - romantic, casual, or otherwise. the only role in sex where gender actually mattered was for procreation.

there would be no queer awakening moment, no sudden switch flipped, no stigma to have internal conflicts about because it simply did not exist as a concept whatsoever. you were either attracted to a person or you weren't, it was that simple. gender played no role when it came to sex and sexual attraction. the japanese were lightyears ahead of western cultures in this particular area - like most cultures were before christianity came in and ruined everything with its backwards morals and strict good/evil dichotomy.

yall have got to realize queer rep will not and should not always adhere by modern western standards. there was no straight, gay, bi, or anything else of the sort. the closest they ever got was referring to roles during sex - as in who is giving and who is receiving.

i know this is mostly a made up story but it is still set within a very specific time period and culture, which should be honored and respected by not making it fit into our box. tons of research went into making this show historically accurate (albeit with some discrepancies but tbh they aren't really that huge) right down to the calligraphy writing. please please please don't whitewash the culture from these characters.

i say this mainly because without this knowledge, so many of you are going to build these characters up on a foundation they aren't meant to be on and then you'll rage about queerbaiting and bad queer rep if it isn't somehow super explicitly stated, if it doesn't match your very modern, very western ideal of what queer looks like. don't try to force this plot and narrative and characters into something they canonically and historically aren't. headcanons are a thing, AUs are a thing, fanfiction is a thing - leave your western thinking for those and let these characters simply exist as they should otherwise. this is one of those times where the queerness really does not need to be examined at all beyond what we get.

i know it can be hard to wrap your head around - sexuality is such a huge part of our identity in the western world and has slowly started to spread amongst other parts of the world in importance. but just keep in mind with these particular characters, that concept would be so very alien to them.

#blue eye samurai #i'm gonna bite people if i see complaints about queer anything in this show

[katrafiy]

I think about this image a lot. This is an image from the Aurat March (Women's March) in Karachi, Pakistan, on International Women's Day 2018. The women in the picture are Pakistani trans women, aka khwaja siras or hijras; one is a friend of a close friend of mine.

In the eyes of the Pakistani government and anthropologists, they're a "third gender." They're denied access to many resources that are available to cis women. Trans women in Pakistan didn't decide to be third-gendered; cis people force it on them whether they like it or not.

Western anthropologists are keen on seeing non-Western trans women as culturally constructed third genders, "neither male nor female," and often contrast them (a "legitimate" third gender accepted in its culture) with Western trans women (horrific parodies of female stereotypes).

There's a lot of smoke and mirrors and jargon used to obscure the fact that while each culture's trans women are treated as a single culturally constructed identity separate from all other trans women, cis women are treated as a universal category that can just be called "women."

Even though Pakistani aurat and German Frauen and Guatemalan mujer will generally lead extraordinarily different lives due to the differences in culture, they are universally recognized as women.

The transmisogynist will say, "Yes, but we can't ignore the way gender is culturally constructed, and hijras aren't trans women, they're a third gender. Now let's worry less about trans people and more about the rights of women in Burkina Faso."

In other words, to the transmisogynist, all cis women are women, and all trans women are something else.

"But Kat, you're not Indian or Pakistani. You're not a hijra or khwaja sira, why is this so important to you?"

Have you ever heard of the Neapolitan third gender "femminiello"? It's the term my moniker "The Femme in Yellow" is derived from, and yes, I'm Neapolitan. Shut up.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about the femminielli, and I want you to see if any of this sounds familiar. Femminielli are a third gender in Neapolitan culture of people assigned male at birth who have a feminine gender expression.

They are lauded and respected in the local culture, considered to be good omens and bringers of good luck. At festivals you'd bring a femminiello with you to go gambling, and often they would be brought in to give blessings to newborns. Noticing anything familiar yet?

Oh and also they were largely relegated to begging and sex work and were not allowed to be educated and many were homeless and lived in the back alleys of Naples, but you know we don't really like to mention that part because it sounds a lot less romantic and mystical.

And if you're sitting there, asking yourself why a an accurate description of femminiello sounds almost note for note like the same way hijras get described and talked about, then you can start to understand why that picture at the start of this post has so much meaning for me.

And you can also start to understand why I get so frustrated when I see other queer people buy into this fool notion that for some reason the transes from different cultures must never mix.

That friend I mentioned earlier is a white American trans woman. She spent years living in India, and as I recal the story the family she was staying with saw her as a white, foreign hijra and she was asked to use her magic hijra powers to bless the house she was staying in.

So when it comes to various cultural trans identities there are two ways we can look at this. We can look at things from a standpoint of expressed identity, in which case we have to preferentially choose to translate one word for the local word, or to leave it untranslated.

If we translate it, people will say we're artificially imposing an outside category (so long as it's not cis people, that's fine). If we don't, what we're implying, is that this concept doesn't exist in the target language, which suggests that it's fundamentally a different thing

A concrete example is that Serena Nanda in her 1990 and 2000 books, bent over backwards to say that Hijras are categorically NOT trans women. Lots of them are!

And Don Kulick bent over backwards in his 1998 book to say that travesti are categorically NOT trans women, even though some of the ones he cited were then and are now trans women.

The other option, is to look at practice, and talk about a community of practice of people who are AMAB, who wear women's clothing, take women's names, fulfill women's social roles, use women's language and mannerisms, etc WITHIN THEIR OWN CULTURAL CONTEXT.

This community of practice, whatever we want to call it - trans woman, hijra, transfeminine, femminiello, fairy, queen, to name just a few - can then be seen to CLEARLY be trans-national and trans-cultural in a way that is not clearly evident in the other way of looking at things.

And this is important, in my mind, because it is this axis of similarity that is serving as the basis for a growing transnational transgender rights movement, particularly in South Asia. It's why you see pictures like this one taken at the 2018 Aurat March in Karachi, Pakistan.

And it also groups rather than splits, pointing out not only points of continuity in the practices of western trans women and fa'afafines, but also between trans women in South Asia outside the hijra community, and members of the hijra community both trans women and not.

To be blunt, I'm not all that interested in the word trans woman, or the word hijra. I'm not interested in the word femminiello or the word fa'afafine.

I'm interested in the fact that when I visit India, and I meet hijras (or trans women, self-expressed) and I say I'm a trans woman, we suddenly sit together, talk about life, they ask to see American hormones and compare them to Indian hormones.

There is a shared community of practice that creates a bond between us that cis people don't have. That's not to say that we all have the exact same internal sense of self, but for the most part, we belong to the same community of practice based on life histories and behavior.

I think that's something cis people have absolutely missed - largely in an effort to artificially isolate trans women. This practice of arguing about whether a particular "third gender" label = trans women or not, also tends to artificially homogenize trans women as a group.

You see this in Kulick and Nanda, where if you read them, you could be forgiven for thinking all American trans women are white, middle class, middle-aged, and college-educated, who all follow rigid codes of behavior and surgical schedules prescribed by male physicians.

There are trans women who think of themselves as separate from cis women, as literally another kind of thing, there are trans women who think of themselves as coterminous with cis women, there are trans women who think of themselves as anything under the sun you want to imagine.

The problem is that historically, cis people have gone to tremendous lengths to destroy points of continuity in the transgender community (see everything I've cited and more), and particularly this has been an exercise in transmisogyny of grotesque levels.

The question is do you want to talk about culturally different ways of being trans, or do you want to try to create as many neatly-boxed third genders as you can to prop up transphobic theoretical frameworks? To date, people have done the latter. I'm interested in the former.

I guess what I'm really trying to say with all of this is that we're all family y'all.

#transgender #third gender #hijras #femminielli #trans women are women #trans solidarity #trans rights #transmisogyny #transunity #transunitism #this is what trans unity looks like