#marghe versus the universe

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

journalists walking on eggshells writing 24 paragraphs about being scared of being antisemitic if they criticize israel before writing the most milquetoast paragraph about starting to have doubts that israel's response to the hamas attack might be a lil disproportionate like. i mean i get it and i appreciate the sentiment behind it. but isn't the point of not being racists/antisemitic/etc that you acknowledge that people of all ethnicities have the same capability for good and bad as everyone else. jewish people are literally people and people all across history have shown the capability of being genocidal. don't make the morally incapable of evil jew the new noble savage??? grow a pair and write a paragraph about any group of human having the potential for evil and that not making them subhuman, but just normal regular humans.

#marghe versus the universe #my tag for rants about the state of the world

[jeanjauthor]

...I ran a game tonight of Og: Unearthed, a tabletop RPG about really stupid cavepeople whose players have to roll a d6 at regular, frequent intervals to determine if they forget or remember what they're doing (fprget is a 1, 5-6 they remember clearly what they’re doing) because They Are Just That Stupid.  Characters can only speak with a very limited number of words (you start out with 3-6, but their characters have advanced to almost 12 words now, yay!) 

Alas, tonight's game sessnion involved one of the (player was absent, but this was done with their consent) group’s cavepeople being kidnapped by the Blacksnake Tribe, so named for their habit of wearing reptile leather and painting their skin with charcoal.  (Mind you, our characters are so primitive, they literally do not have words for things like color, or snakes.  Color is described as “shiny” or “small shiny” or “no shiny” and snakes are “small stick thing” and turtles are “small rock thing” and velociraptors are “big go go smelly thing!”  (Smelly = bad, shiny = good...because they don’t have the vocabulary to say “bad” or “good.”  They are literally that stupid.  And yes, there are dinosaurs in the Og universe living at the same time as our cavepeople.  It’s not on Earth, it’s on the planet Og.)

My players' characters successfully noticed the kidnapping, and gave pursuit.  They even managed to avoid forgetting what they were doing as a group (someone always rolled a successful memory check) until they got distracted by a white thing on the ground...a streak of chalk deposit.  (They all rolled 1s and 2s and got distracted.)

So they started picking at it, and then one ate some of it, and spat it out all over their chin and body, and the others were fascinated so they, too, ate the chalk and spat it on each other and played pattycake...and eventually remembered they were on a rescue mission and continued on their way after the cavepeople who painted themselves with charcoal...and that's when all of us realized the racist overtones in the color schemes.

*facepalm headdesk*

...I had literally randomly rolled the identity of the tribe, that they were slightly more advanced (they had up to 50 words, flint-knapping skills, etc), and that their unique features were lizard hides instead of more mammalian hides, and that their tribal identification was painting everything with charcoal.  I had forgotten that one of my players had “drawing” for one of their skills, and that she had put points into learning about paint and pigments, i.e. “Thing no shiny fire thing go thing no shiny” for charcoal, and “Thing shiny shiny no fire thing go thing shiny” for white. 

(When you have a dozen words or less, it is difficult to describe what is happening.  Players get to point and grunt and gesticulate a lot--and they get points for being really good at being really dumb cavepeople--but I sometimes have to remind them to “Use your words, please!” as in use only the words that they actually know, which are written down on a very short list on their character sheets.)

So they start eating chalk and spitting it out and slapping it on each other, and one of them (the character Margh) has been developing a sense of fashion (I know, millennia ahead of her time), so she got everyone to put it on, and then they remembered they had to go after the kidnappers...who had done the same to themselves with charcoal...and...yeah.

It was literally, “This character is so dumb (the entire point of OG the RPG is to play characters this dumb) that they would actually try to eat chalk.  More than once, at that!  Because some of them forgot (rolled a 1) that chalk was a “smelly no food thing!” aka didn’t taste very good.

And yet we had a dilemma.  The “white (us, presumably the good guys, coated in chalk) versuse black (the kidnapping tribe, coated in charcoal)” trope felt a bit racist.  As much as I love the English language, its flexibility and fluidity...sometimes it just does not have the right words.  And sometimes the words that are available have been horribly tainted by bad things.

There is nothing intrinsically good or evil in the color white. There is nothing intrinsically good or evil in the color black. There is nothing intrinsically good or evil in chalk. There is nothing intrinsically good or evil in charcoal.

It would make as much sense to say that lipstick is intrinsically good/evil.  Lipstick is just....lipstick.  A colorful salve applied to the lips to make them look brighter or lighter or darker or whatever.

We didn’t stop the game, but we did continue by acknowledging at several points after that how the “trope” of “white=good / black=evil” is total bullshit.  Truth be told...the “chalk tribe” ended up killing 4 of the other tribe’s cavepeople, and they didn’t kill any of ours (nearly killed doesn’t count; one more blow and he would have died, but he’s a very tough caveperson, so he’ll be healed up completely by morning, as per the game’s rules). (Like I said before, it’s not set on Earth.)  We were aware of this.  Unlike “whites” however...the characters did not stay and try to conquer the charcoal-wearers.  They just got their fellow cavemate and turned around and went home.

Part of the fun of OG is trying to determine what our characters would do under these very specific circumstances, of being too dumb to really know how things work, or too dumb to remember that chalk isn’t food.  Part of the fun of being a really dumb caveperson is trying to figure out how to reconcile a good dice roll or a bad dice roll with what the player wants to do, versus what the character can do.  We might know how to create fire and remember that chalk isn’t food, but OG cavepeople have not yet evolved that far.

I’d like to think that our cavepeople are too innocent to have even the slightest, foggiest, blurriest concept of racism and bigotry.  Sure, you’ll get smacked if you try to steal their “water food thing go fire go stick food thing” aka the fish they caught and roasted on a stick over the fire at the start of tonight’s adventure...but don’t worry, they’ll forget why they’re angry at you soon enough.  (As soon as they roll a 1, or sometimes a 2 at the player’s discretion.)

...I’d like to think we walked away from the gaming table a little more aware of the horrible bullshit of assigning moral judgment values to colors, literal pgiment colors.  I was aware of that bullshittery long before tonight’s game, but it’s a good reminder to disassociate that BS association whenever we run across it.

White--the color--does not equal good. White--the color--does not equal bad.

White--the color--simply equals a wide spectrum of wavelengths of visible light being reflected off of surfaces in ways that create interference with each wavelength, creating the illusion of white light.

However, white, the race?  Alas, far too much of being white has included complacency and thus complicitness in the systemic and systematic oppression of all the other colors of people out there.  Which is the biggest bullshittery of all. 

In fact, I’d call it a huge pile of “BIG smelly smelly no food smelly thing!”

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

So many bad takes about fanfiction vs published fiction on this website. The real difference between the two is that bad published fiction is a bug, bad fanfiction is a feature.

Published fiction goes through the work of various professional figures to be good. A publishing company is supposed to take a manuscript and have an editor or more polish it and work with the author until the book is as good as it can get. Of course, a book can end up being published and still be bad. Maybe the author and editor and publisher and everyone involved in the process are just incompetent. Maybe it’s the capitalism forcing the publisher to churn out novels quickly because a certain genre is popular right now. Maybe some other reason. The point is, that’s not what is supposed to happen, although it happens. A published book should be good, a bad book is something that happens but shouldn’t.

Fanfiction can be bad. It’s the point. It’s a hobby people do for fun. You’re not supposed to make good fanfiction the way you’re supposed to make a good professionally written and edited book. You can, if you want and have the talent and time and a fandom friend to beta your work. But you don’t have to. You can be a thirteen year old writing the shittiest fanfiction ever and it’s fine, because that’s the point of fanfiction. Of course, you might also be a ridiculously skilled forty year old who is able to churn out masterpieces in their free time. But the point is that everyone can write fic and it’s okay. Great fic is a welcome bonus, not a feature.

A good published book is something you expect because it’s some people’s job to make it so, and if the book is bad you are disappointed. If the book is really really good you are happy about it. A good fic is something you treasure because someone made it for fun and shared it with you for free. If the fic is really really good you are hiilkjk uhguguh adfshajlsdjfgkhj. That’s it thanks for coming to my ted talk.

#marghe versus the universe #fanfiction

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

people be like 'this pictures looks like a renaissance panting!!' and it's the most baroque ass composition you've ever seen

#either that or romantic #(as in the art movement not as in lovey-dovey) #marghe versus the universe

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

"X character is problematic, people shouldn't like them" most of us agree that this is a bad take.

"I mean, people can like X character but only as a narrative element, thus as long as they acknowledge they're problematic and don't romanticize X's behavior" I need you to stop a sec and ponder how this is a different approach from the "wah writers on ao3 romanticize abuse and incest!! they should only write about abuse and incest if they make it clear that they're not supporting those!!" purity culture crowd. People are allowed to approach a fictional character from a purely entertainment perspective, and they don't need to add asterisks to every post explaining that they are aware of the problematic nature of X's behavior.

"People are babygirlifying X character tho, and X character is abusive :/" good for them if they're having fun

"But-" listen. If we're talking about the classic Don't Make The Torment Nexus and someone believes that the Torment Nexus Supporters are the right side, that's a red flag. But if we're talking about the Silly Dudes Show, who the fuck cares if people are babygirlifying Abuse McAbusiveson The Clown, a character created to entertain them

"But everyone is focusing on the problematic character X who's white, when there are more compelling nonwhite characters they should be focusing on!" people are watching the Silly Dudes Show and blogging about it to have fun, not as praxis. I promise that fandom posts on tumblr are very rarely praxis

"Still-" don't be That Person (the annoying person online that turns shipping into a signifier of personal values. Nobody likes that person.)*

*Discussions of racism in fandom are very due, necessary and healthy for fandom as a whole. Turning ship wars and whatnot into signifiers of personal stances regarding racism is bad online behavior.

"You're racist" and I believe we should piss on the poor, yeah, you interpreted my words correctly

"Still, X apologists send the wrong message to-" look at me. Fandom is not a replacement for education agencies. I promise no one is getting lessons in interpersonal relationships from Abuse McAbusiveson The Clown, and if they do there's a deeper problem afoot than tumblr users making posts

"Are you an X apologist?!?!" X is fictional. Repeat after me. X is a little fake guy

#whoops #fandom #marghe versus the universe #that's the tag for my takes

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

people who are surely racists: terfs

people who are very likely racists: vegans who claim that eating meat/dairy/eggs is inherently disgusting

#whoops #marghe versus the universe #my tag for my hot takes about humanity

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

i'm going to make a radfem mad with this (the opposite of a problem) but it's funny that in my life i've heard a lot of humor about the concept that men are bad at peeing inside the toilet bowl without making a mess when in my experience of women's restroom user there's hardly a women's stall without pee on the toilet seat. like it costs zero euro to take a piece of toilet paper and wipe it off

#marghe versus the universe

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

I think Charles should just abolish the monarchy. The ultimate power move. Remembered forever as the last king of England. Iconic

#marghe versus the universe #my tag for random babblings about world things if you're wondering #not that i remember to use it most of the time

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

bad american takes aside, the “is there a difference between ‘pasta’ and ‘noodles’” is not a stupid question. chinese restaurants in italy call their noodles “pasta” (and the soup-y ones “pasta in brodo”, pasta in broth). but if you go to an international chain like wagamama (which are always located in big cities/airports/places with a lot of foreigners), the noodles are called noodles. so it really depends on your audience and whether the english language is involved at some point of your dish-naming process!

#the pasta-noodles conundrum #marghe versus the universe #that's my tag for ranting about stuff

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

in my experience on the internet that’s how it works :/

#marghe versus the universe

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

people on tumblr don't post again banks enough. everyone's like fossil fuel companies here big tech conglomerates there. not enough hate against banks. yes guillotine bezos and whatever but the banks. the banks must burn first

#:/// #marghe versus the universe

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

my working theory is that a non-comprehensive but fairly efficient rule of thumb to judge blockbuster American movies' quality in terms of a) making sense, b) being respectful, c) making sense, is how much of the movie is set in countries that are not the United States of America. It's not a perfect rule as there are exceptions (not gonna think of them at the moment but I'm sure they exist) but very often those movies are okay if they are entirely set inside the United States (or fantasy worlds/planets that are not our planet) but the more they try to add non-US countries in the movie, the more everything unravels.

#marghe versus the universe #my tag for random rants nobody generally asked for

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

Opposite Turing test where humans need to prove they can act like a normal human when interacting with other people online

#marghe versus the universe

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

i’ll be the first person to worry about fascism in my country but i’m a little irked by foreigners painting the situation as italy straight-up electing fascism to power right now. like. chill.

#marghe versus the universe #italian things

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

Seven million people have already said it better than I could ever do but. Social media blurring the line between public and private but also between meant-for-everybody and meant-for-a-group. People feeling authorized to come up to you and be rude to you because of blatantly misunderstanding something you wrote when you were just being facetious with your niche of online friends, using your inside language and jokes.

Or maybe I’m being too kind and it’s a very deliberate “misunderstanding” to just have an excuse to be rude to people without facing consequences.

Both?

#marghe versus the universe

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

I know periods are unpleasant, but cut it off with the jokes about your uterus being mean or needlessly cruel to you. Your body is fucking trying to keep you alive the best it can. Periods are a conquest of your ancestors to be able to have more chances of survival. Switch the perspective sometimes.

#marghe versus the universe #my tag for rambles no one asked for