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officialspec · 2 months

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What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

first off i hate this ask and i think youre a freak. in any other world i wouldve blocked you for this but unfortunately for both of us i actually like this type of philosophy. dont send this shit to anyone else though

i dont think its right to compare human sexuality to the same thing in animals, to get that out of the way. im sure until a certain point it comes from the same biological impulses, but human beings have way more complicated social structures and reasons for coupling that just do not exist in other animals. our social behaviours are what make us unique in the animal kingdom and that definitely extends to gender and sexuality. so theres that

people love to tout 'gender is a social construct' around like its a criticism in and of itself, which i think betrays a misunderstanding about social constructs in general. theyre the foundations we build language on to better understand each other, and affected by a whole host of cultural and historical factors. just because theyre subjective and complicated doesnt mean they arent real. in terms of the effect they have on peoples lives they may be the most real thing that exists

for example, 'kindness' is a social construct. the definition and ways it is enacted differ greatly across personal and cultural lines. but no one would ever suggest a world where kindness doesnt exist or loses meaning, because its an essential part of the way we interact with each other (in the same way i dont really see a world where gender entirely ceases to exist, mainly just one where people have more fun with it. im not a psychic though so who knows)

similarly, sexuality in humans is another social construct. i think the driving biological forces behind it are very real, but the labels people attach to those impulses are subjective attempts to express their inner world to the people around them if that makes sense. and those same biological impulses are ALSO subject to social ideas of gender, because those ideas are established at birth and reinforced over a persons entire lifetime

to use myself as an example, im a gay trans man. ive identified as other things in the past, because i was trying to pick apart feelings i had and express them to others in an attempt to find community. my identity might change as i get older and experience new things, or it might not. i identify as gay because im not attracted to the social concept of women, and someone i would otherwise be attracted to might lose all appeal after i find out they fall under that concept (this has happened before w transfems pre and post coming out lol)

of course, the real REAL answer to this is that trying to give queer identities rigid and objective definitions is a fools errand, and also lame as fuck. someone might identify as gay and be more attracted to general masculinity than men as a social category, maybe they fool around with a couple of butch women without considering themself any less gay. two otherwise identical people might be a butch lesbian and a gay trans man without either of those identities coming into conflict. they might even be the same person at different times of the week

the labels people choose to use are communication tools, not objective signifiers. if you dont understand them, they probably arent talking to you

social constructs are everything. we as humans have the unique ability to interpret our own messy desires and impulses into words that other people can use to form an idea of someone else in their mind. its how we build connections, and of course it isnt perfect because trying to squeeze someones entire personal history and the centuries of context that defined it into a handful of syllables is going to leave some room for error. but its all we have, yknow? so we keep trying. and i think thats much more human than any imposed objective 'truth' could ever be

tldr we live in a society dipshit. get with it

#ask #long post #i feel like i should tag for the ask bc it sucks but idk what so like. lmk #gender #trans stuff #i love you language philosophy i love you messy human relationships i love you contradictory identities

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good-omens-classic · 9 months

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I just watched all 6 episodes of season 2 in a row and I am having a very hard verbalizing the way I'm feeling.

I am speechless, and not in a good way.

For five and a half episodes, I was on board. I didn't expect to like this, but despite myself I found myself laughing and getting emotional and getting invested in the story, in a way I haven't been since first reading Good Omens and falling in love with it all those years ago. Nearly a decade ago at this point. I had problems with season 1 and the way the fandom changed, but that felt mostly natural and just like differences of opinion and interpretation.

The ending of season 2 feels actively malicious. Especially coming from someone who couldn't stop touting over and over on Twitter about what a nice queer love story this is.

Everything wasn't perfect--but it was...nice. It was something. It was engaging and I was starting to feel excited again, not like I'm going to start writing fanfiction again excited but at the very least I'm thinking, I can enjoy watching people enjoy this from the sidelines.

And then the second half of the last episode came. And Aziraphale wants to go back to Heaven to lead the angels. Not only is that a completely nonsensical thing for Metatron to invite him to do, but Aziraphale's entire character is that he's happy on Earth. He's happy on Earth with Crowley. OF COURSE CROWLEY REFUSED TO GO BACK TO HEAVEN. The entire fucking point is they belong ON EARTH, together, with the humans. Our own side, their own side, the humans' being neither good nor evil but full of potential and power and them learning they can be that way too.

That's the point. That's always been the point. NEIL GAIMAN KNOWS THAT'S THE POINT. Aziraphale was clearly very unhappy with this decision, and hesitant. The show made it VERY clear he was unhappy and unsure after Crowley gave him a reminder of what they were supposed to be about...and he just went anyway.

And he did this right as Crowley declares his love and FUCKING KISSES HIM. In this, supposedly the cutest best queer love story. Nobody can even say "Well they just don't have that kind of relationship, they don't need to say I love you or kiss or hold hands" anymore because THEY LITERALLY DID KISS. And then IMMEDIATELY said goodbye to each other.

Tragedy is not just about making the audience unhappy. Tragedy is making the audience ache because of something sad and unavoidable, of knowing the characters could be happy in a better world. Good omens has always been about building that world, to me. I thought maybe they were going to go in that direction, with Aziraphale and Crowley building a non-apocalypse, at peace world on Earth together, with Aziraphale's newfound authority to teach all the angels and demons the benefits of humanity. That is, in my mind, the culmination of the themes of the original story, and the one I thought season 1 mostly got right except for some stumbling blocks. But this... This feels like a slap in the face.

The tragedy here is not that Aziraphale and Crowley can't be together, but that the writers....that Neil Gaiman threw away everything in the original story, everything from season 1, Hell, everything from earlier in season 2, about Aziraphale's character development and the most important themes of the story. And for what? Who finds this ending narratively satisfying, let alone is happy with it?

I was enjoying this. Maybe it was just because so much time has passed since season 1 that I've been able to more effectively separate the versions and think of them as different stories, and just enjoy them for what they are separately, or maybe it's because there was no other version of this story for me to silently constantly compare it to, but I was enjoying this...a lot more than I enjoyed season 1. I thought it was cute, I thought Gabriel and Beelzebub deciding to basically do WHAT CROWLEY AND AZIRAPHALE SHOULD HAVE DONE and make a "third side" was a great extension of the themes of the story, and all the Aziraphale and Crowley flashbacks set it up so perfectly for Aziraphale to realize at the end: The problem IS systemic, and Heaven isn't the "good guys." and Aziraphale clearly realizes this! And yet he doesn't act on it. If the last half an hour had just been Aziraphale going "I don't want to lead Heaven actually, I belong here on Earth if you want to come to me on how to run things the Earth way," and then he skips off holding Crowley's hand. To me that would be not only the happiest AND most narratively neat, wrapped up conclusion for season 2, but also THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT OF THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE. and ALL the character development s2 had been setting up in the first five fucking episodes.

It just all got thrown in the garbage.

I'm tired. This could have been such a good, good story, and I was prepared to be disappointed, but nothing could have prepared me for this. When the clip of Aziraphale and Crowley kissing got leaked, I was bracing myself for it to be some sort of like....joke, or dream sequence that didn't actually happen. I was not prepared for THIS.

Someone please convince me it wasn't this bad. Someone please spin it in a way I hadn't thought of before that makes it make sense. Someone please disagree with me and explain why.

#spoilers

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hammerhead-jpg · 1 year

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Kody's "pond rant" and what it means

I NEED to talk about the Kody park episode otherwise I will DIE

CW: discussions of mental health and suicidal thoughts

I used to think that Kody was a villain that was just evil for the sake of evil and was kind of poorly written, but since rewatching the park episode I changed my mind (I still think there's flaws with his writing but anyways)

I don't know if you remember but in the episode where Kody and Freelancer were at the park Kody had this whole rant about the park pond being dirty

At first I thought he was just being like "waaah waaah I'm a water elemental and I'm connected to dirty water how grossdd" and it was partially that but there was a deeper message.

I'll type out the whole rant so you can see:

"See that water? This city loves to tout that this park has a "gorgeous built-in water feature". It's a hole in the ground with a cheap, flimsy fountain in the middle of it. The pump gets so full of debris from the litter people throw into the water that it doesn't even pump half of the time. And it reeks. That's the glory of unprocessed unattended gray water at play. It might as well be sewage at this point. But it's water. It's the same stuff that courses through your body. That revitalizes you, keeps you clean, keeps your thirst slacked. It's the same thing that connects every scrap of land on this god forsaken planet. I can feel it. Not with my hands, nothing that trite. I can feel it. In my senses, in my core. My powers touch it, and it touches back. The water is disgusting, you can see the scum in it, the trash that has been thrown in it. I'd never swim in it and I'd certainly never drink it. But it's connected to me. Irrevocably, inescapably. That algae-ridden sewer water is a part of me. One that I can't sever myself from. All I can do is stare at it, wish someone would come clean it, or wish that it was just gone. Just fill the hole, start over. It'd be better for everyone, even if it was a loss. I hope you understand the gravity of what you did."

And if it weren't obvious enough, later:

"People look at me like they look at that scum-filled puddle."

If you still don't get it: Kody is basically making a metaphor.

He is the puddle. He's a bad person, but (in his mind) there's nothing he can do about it. He just wishes that someone would come and fix him, or just wishes he was simply, dead.

I first thought that this was simply the classic manipulation tactic of saying that you're gonna kys to make the victim feel bad and summit to you in the worries that you might actually do it but,

The thing is, everything that he's saying in this metaphorical rant goes against everything he's said before and after it

He is constantly saying that he's actually the victim, that he was just trying to help them and that everyone just pulled out their pitchforks and convinced them that he was in the wrong

But in this rant, he admits that he's a bad person and needs help.

And he usually doesn't speak in these metaphors for no reason.

It really seems like a silent confession, wether or not FL got it or just thought he just started ranting about about the dirty puddle for no reason, we don't know

He recognized that he's a bad person and needs help, but his idea of getting help is someone coming up to him with a magic wand and declaring "there! You're fixed! You can go out and live in society now!"

He doesn't recognize that the only person who can fix him is himself. Clearly when he got counselling but didn't seem to get any better, it's because he couldn't even admit out loud that he is the problem, he possibly even started believing his own lie.

He was a loner who couldn't get close to a person, so he sought after a person who was unknowledgeable and unaware of his doing. When that person eventually found out and he was pushed to a corner, he turned on the defensive and started gaslighting and manipulating like his life depended on it. Once that didn't work, he just went away to a new place where nobody knew he did anything wrong in the first place.

I always see people saying or implying that Kody didn't really get a deserving punishment for his actions, but I disagree

Because it's just going to keep happening to him.

Until he admits to his wrongs, he's just going to keep doing wrong things and then running away when he can't gaslight everyone around him.

Also he like, got completely decked by Damien in the inversion

I hope it's clear by my wording but I don't think that just because Kody has suicidal thoughts that suddenly means that he's absolved of all his wrong doings, he is very clearly supposed to be an antagonist, I'm just not the kind of person to quickly get rid of and stuff a character into a box before sending them flowing down the river just because they're a bad person and hurt my pwecious wittle babies

While there is some things about Kody's storyline that I didn't like I definitely see that he's a much deeper character than I first thought.

#redacted audio #redacted kody #redacted asmr #redactedaudio #redactedverse #deckkody

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lowpolynpixelated · 4 months

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Let's talk about handhelds!

Specifically the Steam Deck and what (at least I think) is a decent part of its success as a handheld in today’s rather stagnant landscape as far as competition and innovation goes in the gaming space. For those who don’t know, the Steam Deck is a device first released in February 2022 by game development/publishing company Valve. Valve is mostly known nowadays for being the owners and operators of Steam, the largest and most widely used online marketplace for PC gaming, but rose to fame in the late 90s for their smash hit game Half-Life as well as its sequels and expansions. During the mid-late 2010s Valve had taken a pretty big step back from game development and focussed more on running steam and supporting some of their games (Dota 2, Artifact, Team Fortress 2 just to name a few) though the support varied from game to game. But that aside, let's get into it! PART 1: The Steam Machines

During this time Valve had ALSO begun to dip their proverbial toes into the waters of gaming hardware in the form of both the “Steam Machines” as well as the “Steam Controller”. So what were the Steam Machines? Why are they important to this article about the Steam Deck and other modern handhelds? Well everything has to start somewhere, and I’m of the opinion that the Steam Deck accomplishes the original mission of the Steam Machines better than they ever did, but I’m getting ahead of myself. First announced on September 23rd, 2013, the Steam Machines were touted as a new pillar of console gaming. The aim was to provide a console-like user experience on a device with the horsepower and game variety of your average gaming PC. Runnin on a Linux based operating system called “SteamOS” valve wanted the the consoles to be an open source experience in the living room to compete with the likes of Microsoft’s Xbox consoles. So what went wrong? Well let's start with the big one: variety. I first want to preface this part with: I am looking at these pieces of hardware through the lens of someone with little technical knowledge, the average consumer if you will. I myself have a decent bit of tech know-how, but I wasn't always like that, and I’ve certainly been poor enough my whole life that knowing the biggest and best PC stuff on the market didn’t really mean I could afford it. So, why was variety a bad thing? To your usual console gamer, consistency is key. It's usually assumed by whoever is getting whatever Xbox or PlayStation what-have-you that the box you’re paying money for will play the games you put in it. And to that credit, this is usually the case! Back in the day if you bought a PS2 or a Wii, bought a game for either and slotted it in, your game box would play it no problem. This isn’t always the case for PCs however. PC games vary way more wildly when it comes to the sorts of specifications the game is made to run on, or even what hardware the PC has that can be considered reasonable for said game. The fact of the matter is that PCs are modular, which means optimal configurations and what is considered “a baseline” are changing far more frequently than in the console landscape. The Steam Machines still wanted to offer some of this variety, but in the end it backfired more than anything.

Steam Machine models ranged in price anywhere from $400 to $2000 in 2015 money when they finally released (November 10th, 2015) depending on the parts they used. And the difference between a $400 model and a $2000 model could mean not being able to play a good chunk of games on the market at the time. To your average console fan, this was perhaps too much choice when it came to finding which box to get to play all the shiny PC games they were being told they’d be able to play. Now this isn’t a matter of being disingenuous, more of an oversight. Valve wasn’t specifically trying to just target average consumers, but they did end up somewhat alienating those who didn’t have the technical know-how to figure out what model best suited the games they wanted to play. What reason would I have to buy a Steam Machine for $650 that might play all the games I want when I could just wait until November 15th, 2013 when the PS4 launched for $400 and would play all the games that came out for it? It was a perfect storm of releasing a brand new (and honestly decent) idea into an already pretty stagnant and established market and not being able to sell to people who weren’t already buying gaming computers. Steam Machines were decently popular with the PC gaming crowd. Being able to buy a pre-assembled computer with decent parts is appealing to a pretty decent chunk of people who primarily play on PC. Maybe you don’t know much about building computers and have always bought pre-built, maybe you like the specs of one of the Steam Machines and don’t mind the price tag too much. This big issue with all this though, was that almost no one was buying the Steam Machines to be a Steam Machine. To quote an article by Tyler Wilde for PC Gamer back in 2018, “Nobody was buying it with SteamOS,” Digital Storm marketing manager Rajeev Kuruppu tells me over the phone. The manufacturer had already been building the Eclipse—which is still available with Windows—when Valve pitched SteamOS, and added a Steam Machine build mid-project. That version has since been axed, and Digital Storm no longer has an active relationship with Valve.

“I think over time as the demand from customers wasn’t there we basically had no reason to speak with Valve,” says Kuruppu. Digital Storm is still open to working with Valve, so long as its customers want what Valve is putting out. Right now, they don’t.” - Rajeev Kuruppu in a 2018 phone interview with PC Gamer Executive Editor Tyler Wilde for his article “What happened to Steam Machines?” (link in sources section)

This highlights the issue beautifully. SteamOS just couldn’t make the waves Valve wanted it to with the PC manufacturers they partnered with, leading to people simply not buying the pre-built machines as what they were intended to be. So what happens now? Well, after the failure of both the Steam Machines and the Steam Controller (a topic for a different time), Valve wouldn’t try again in the hardware space until 2019 with their admittedly very impressive VR gear, the Valve Index. With the Index making positive waves in the burgeoning VR space, Valve would then go on to release another successful piece of hardware. The real topic if this article, the Steam Deck.

Part 2: The Steam Deck (part 1: Launch)

Revealed on July 15th, 2021, the Steam Deck was Valve's answer to their failed hardware attempt of the past. A handheld computer with a brand new version of SteamOS capable of playing most of your favourite PC games with a set of specs that only changed depending on internal storage (and eventually small differences in battery life.) So what changed between the times that the Steam Machine and Steam Deck released? Well, the PC and console markets (at least at the time of writing this article, 12/21/2023) are a bit more stable in how new and better parts are being pushed. Make no mistake, the PC community’s search for new and more powerful machines will always be a constant, but it's at the very least a little easier to keep up with right now. On top of that, the Nintendo Switch made MASSIVE waves in the console landscape being a near instant success story of merging handheld and home console markets into one harmonious group. Handhelds were all the rage, with many companies throwing in their lot with the mobile console idea such as the LYRA for playing classic games, and Google’s STADIA (which hilariously imploded shortly after launching to poor reception). Valve’s new device was right at home in the new invigorated market of gaming-on-the-go, a boom of innovative and experimental handhelds to rival the Gameboy’s release all the way back in 1989 (but more on that later.) The Steam Deck launched to a generally positive reception. Lots of PC gamers were more than happy to add the device to their repertoire of ways to play their favourite games, with higher ups in the gaming space like Tim Sweeny of Epic Games and Phil Spencer of Microsoft calling it “An amazing move by Valve!” (- Quoted from a PC Gamer article by Andy Chalk written in 2021 titled “Tim Sweeney: Steam Deck is 'an amazing move by Valve”, link in sources section) The things the Steam Deck was offering on launch were more in line with what some key parts of the overall gaming space wanted at the time, and so the device was more positively received by people already in those spaces. Now let’s talk about what I said before about consoles being able to play their games off the bat and why the Steam Deck stood out despite being essentially a handheld PC. The Steam Deck stripped away the modularity that the Steam Machines boasted by having a set table of Specs to offer across all 3 of its launch models, with the price and model really only determining how much storage you got. At launch the Steam Deck models on offer were the following:

-$400 for 64gb of internal eMMC storage(embedded multi media card, think a thumb drive) (and a bonus carrying case!) -$530 for 256gb of internal SSD storage (SSD or Solid State Drive being a decent bit faster than eMMC but also more pricey) (exclusive steam profile goodies and a bonus carrying case still! wow!)

-$650 for 512gb of internal SSD storage AND a more premium anti-glare etched glass screen (along with the profile goodies, a steam virtual keyboard theme and the bonus carrying case! wowsers!!!)

These models were more on-par with consoles of the time. Maybe not as powerful, but comparatively so in performance and price in such a way that the Steam Deck was a genuinely appealing offer to not only someone who already knew their stuff about PC gaming, but someone who played on PC and maybe didn’t know too much but wanted a good mobile option other than a laptop. Now those are both still parts of the same niche, PC gamers, and we’re here to talk about your average console Jane, as it were. And we will! But first let’s compare Valve’s previous attempt with the Steam Machines to their modern success. One of the most powerful (at the time) Steam Machines on offer was the Alienware Machine. Alienware is a popular manufacturer of gaming PCs and laptops for those not in-the-know. Here’s what anywhere from $550-$900 could get you in 2014:

Alienware Steam Machine basic specifications:

Processor

Haswell Intel Based CPU

RAM

4GB - 8GB

GPU

Nvidia GPUX

HDD

500GB - 2 TB

(specifications sourced from IGN’s “Steam Machine Guide” from 2014, link in sources section) Now at the time these were decently impressive specs, but I would like to point out both the price tag and the fact that some of these parts vary! If you don’t know, the GPU (graphics processing unit) being listed as “Nvidia GPUX” could be any one of SEVERAL parts which would most likely change your price point wildly. In fact, everything on this list is a variable component! Having anywhere between 4gb-8gb of RAM, what size HDD you have, and what CPU you put in, could end up boosting you all the way to that $900 point mentioned above. As stated before, this wasn’t going to win over anyone who was already going to pay $500 less for a PS4 that could just play PS4 games with no research on components needed. Let’s compare these general specs to those of the Steam Deck, which haven’t changed much since its launch in 2022. No matter what model you pick (aside from the storage and screen in the case of the 512gb model) here’s what you get in a Steam Deck:

Steam Deck basic specifications:

APU

6 nm AMD APU

CPU: Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32)

GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.6GHz (1.6 TFlops FP32)

APU power: 4-15W

RAM

16 GB LPDDR5 on-board RAM (6400 MT/s quad 32-bit channels) Storage Steam Deck 64GB eMMC

Steam Deck 256GB NVMe SSD

Steam Deck 512GB NVMe SSD

(specs sourced from the Valve official website for the Steam Deck, link in sources section)

Granted there’s almost 10 years of technology between these specs and those of the Alienware, the point here is consistency. All 3 models of the Steam Deck use the exact same internal components for things like GPU, CPU, RAM, and almost everything else! To someone looking for something with more oomph than the Switch and maybe even wanting to get into PC gaming alongside it, it’s a pretty good deal! And it’s only gotten MORE appealing with more recent developments in the Steam Deck’s models and pricing, but we’ll talk about that after a short jaunt through gaming history.

Part 3: Handheld market factor history and why I think the Steam Deck is a pretty cool example of them (intermission from the Steam Deck)

As I said we’re gonna take a short break to talk about what I would consider the core of this article. You may have noticed me using terms like “handheld boom” and “market”. I’m gonna throw out some more of those so bare with me, but we’re gonna talk about the Gameboy. What’s so special about the Gameboy? Lots of people know it for being the most popular handheld console of the 4th generation beating out the likes of the Atari Lynx and more importantly, the Sega Game Gear. Why is that important? We’ll get there in a second I promise. The bigger question is “why was the gameboy successful?” to which the answer is usually “brand recognition”. Which isn’t incorrect in its own right, but is only one piece of a larger whole. The Gameboy entered a market that was predominantly occupied by two things, home consoles and arcade games. Handheld games DID exist, but not in the cartridge based console form the Gameboy popularized. This “wild west” era of console development was the second resurgence of video games after a market crash from 1983 to 1985. Spearheaded by the 3rd generation consisting of heavy hitters like the NES and Sega Master System, it gave way to an era of constant development and innovation attempts. The Gameboy specifically hit a couple of key factors when it comes to your average person. No remember, this was during a time when large portions of people still didn’t really understand what a video game was, and a lot of them were even marketed as toys to help them sell. The Gameboy’s success lies in a few points that went a long way towards selling it specifically to people without a ton of video game experience. These were: price point, and usability.

Let’s get into it! First off: price point! In 1989 the Gameboy launched with an introductory price of $90 in the US. Compare this to the Sega Game Gear releasing the following year for $150, and the Atari Lynx at $180. Retailing for HALF the price of a (at the time) big name competitor is kind of a big deal! Price point ties directly into something like accessibility for something being sold as a product, and needless to say paying less than $100 for something with Nintendo’s (again at the time) pedigree behind it put the Gameboy in the hands of a LOT of people. Next off: Usability! What does this mean? Well, this one is a bit rocky. To put it bluntly: the Gameboy was incredibly underpowered for its generation. (A Nintendo console underpowered? Never!) Why was this a good thing? From the perspective of someone trying to get the most “bang for their buck” so to speak, the Gameboy’s underwhelming specs gave it a bit of an edge. How you may ask? Battery life and cost! Let’s get the bad out of the way first by directly comparing the Gameboy and the Sega Game Gear. The old SGG was rocking not only a full colour backlit display in 1990, but also had a good bit more horsepower as far as its specifications go. Able to run full colour games at nearly 60fps on a handheld in the 90s is nothing to sneeze at! But the cost of that is 6 whole AA batteries that would die out in anywhere between 3-5 hours depending on the games you play. The Gameboy in comparison, had a simple dot matrix display that only showed in black and white. (or various shades of off-green if you’ve ever seen one in person.)

The Gameboy as well couldn’t handle beefier games, with notable examples like Mario Land 2: The six golden coins having a good amount of slowdown due to its large chunky sprites and level assets. So its battery life must’ve been something special then? Compared to the Game Gear, absolutely. Clocking in at 15+ hours of battery life on just 4 of the same AAs the Game Gear uses, the Gameboy’s game time and price were unbeatable.

This is why I think it's important to look at more than just a piece of hardware’s specifications when it comes to measuring success. And I can hear you. “Clair, why are we talking about the Gameboy and how it sold a bajillion units because it was more affordable and had Tetris on it? How does this relate to the Steam Deck?” Well my dear reader, let’s finally answer that and talk about the new Handheld Boom.

Part 4: The Steam Deck (part 2: OLED and new pricing)

So here we are! The year is 2023, the Nintendo Switch is 6 years old, the Steam Deck has been selling decently well, and I need to wrap this whole thing up. In November 2023, Valve announced the Steam Deck was getting some pricing adjustments, as well as a brand new model that included better battery life and a slightly larger OLED screen for better picture quality. The Introduction of the new OLED model not only introduced 2 new tiers of Steam Decks to choose from (the new OLED 512gb model for $550 and the OLED 1tb model for $650), but also locked in ONE of the previous Steam Deck LCD models as the only LCD model available, for a price cut! If you go back and look at the old pricing, the 256gb LCD model used to cost $530. Due to the OLED models knocking out the lower tier LCD models entirely, the price has now been locked at just $400. Why does this matter? Well, just like with the Gameboy, you’re making some sacrifices for the lower cost. The higher tier OLED models have nicer screens and better batteries, but also cost a good bit more. Just as well, the Steam Deck is in NO way one of the beefiest PC gaming devices on the market.

In recent years more and more PC handhelds have been coming out to try and cash in on what the Steam Deck has set up. My personal favourite example is the ROG Ally, and AMD powered handheld that for all intents and purposes, outpaces the Steam Deck in raw power. So why aren’t people flocking to the Ally? Well the basic model clocks in at around $600, and can be upgraded with a better processor for another $100. Looking at just the basic models for both, the Steam Deck wins out on being just the right amount of a powerhouse it needs to be for just over half the price of the Ally. This matters because that’s going to appeal to different parts of the market and landscape as a whole.

I hold the opinion that the Steam Deck serves as an EXCELLENT initial entry point into PC gaming for someone who has only ever played on console. It offers that console experience the Steam Machines tried so hard to at a price point that most people interested in game consoles are paying nowadays anyway. A PS5 cost $500, and a PS4 (the console the deck is most likely to be on par with) launched for $400. I find it a much easier sell to get someone who wants to get into PC to play with friends, or have a Switch-like experience for games not available on it, than trying to tell them the $700 one gets more FPS and has a better processor. It all comes down to those factors of price point and usability. It's been so interesting to see the Steam Deck rise into popularity in so many corners of the internet that I hang around in. I haven’t even talked about how emulating on the Steam Deck is one of the most seamless and easy to set up processes I’ve ever seen! With arguably the best LCD model option now locked at the introductory price for most modern game consoles, it’s so neat to see what could genuinely be considered a truly NEW game console enter the fray. And a handheld at that! Part 5: I am just one woman (conclusion and thanks)

Hey there! If you read through all this garbled nonsense I’d like to extend a small thank you. I also want to take a second to say that I’m not presenting any of this as objective facts. Yes I have listed facts in this article, but as the title of this section says, I am just one woman. These are my overly excited thoughts on a phenomenon I’ve observed in my own time and wanted to share with anyone who would read it. Thanks a ton for reading! I’ll be back with more ramblings at some point, but for now let's part with this: The Steam Deck is an awesome piece of tech that I feel really shakes up the gaming space. I’m not sponsored by anyone, I’ve only been paid in the satisfaction of writing. If you’re someone who doesn’t dabble much in PC gaming, and are planning to buy a new console, maybe give the Steam Deck a try! I definitely plan on getting one after watching some stuff on the EmuDeck frontend for emulation and being thoroughly impressed. That’s all for now, see ya around! -Clair (FembotY2K) (sources below the cut!)

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olderthannetfic · 2 years

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re: tone tags talk on here.

I have a rant thats been stewing awhile on the subject.

I would be really really careful using these for people and touting them as The Best Way to interact online and The Most Accessible for a few reasons:

People who are not in the know can become more confused, especially with the lesser-known or less obvious ones. It is forcing others to learn an entire new dialect, one they may not have the spoons or memory to use or understand properly. It can cause neurodivergent people MORE stress to have to use them.

Many neurodivergent people (such as myself) find them INCREDIBLY condescending when used on us for fairly obvious things (ex- I like your shirt! /gen looks like 'I think you are such a -insert slur- that you cant understand a statement where the default literal reading is fairly unambiguous, poor little baby cant handle it! Im such a disabled ally!'). This is less so with the original two tone tags /s and /j, but most tone tags have this problem.

Many neurodivergent people (also such as myself) find them to look suspicious like a bottle labeled 'THIS IS NOT POISON' being poured into our drink. It looks like a suspiciously specific denial and messes with paranoia. It also implies any time you say 'your shirt looks cool' without 5 tone tags proclaiming its base meaning of positive, genuine, and serious that when you usually make a statement like that it ISNT those things.

They are NOT screenreader friendly. At all.

People lie with them a lot, and some people have trauma regarding certain circles online using them to fuck with people. Literally just last week I found someone doing the /gen /srs thing with a question whos last post was to a cringe subreddit for the topic. They also view them as get out of jail free cards or ways to get people to farm 'cringe content'. Some of us arent going to trust that at all with VERY GOOD REASON and now the tag is useless.

Many tags have non-obvious meanings, /pos doesnt look like 'positive' it looks like 'piece of shit'.

ASL speakers are going to have a rough time learning tone tags because its more weird english slang no one explains.

Every time anyone criticizes tone tags (or even says so much as 'please dont use them for me its a trigger'), tone tag likers fly off the fucking handle(in my experience) and accuse you of being horrible and evil for not loving them to death, causing them to be associated with performative accommodations that dont do shit and people getting mad when you call them on it for some of us. Im not hyperactive in many spaces that use them and ive witnessed like 5 breakdowns in the past year alone of someone saying 'hey can you not use these for me please?' and the other person loosing it that the ungrateful disabled person wasnt bowing in awe over their wokeness for using them or whatever. Just complete all caps aggressive HOW DARE YOU and WHY CANT I DO ANYTHING RIGHT IM TRYING TO BE AN ALLY reassurement fishing and defensive 'I cant be ableist deliberately using tone tags on someone triggered by them, im doing the woke thing tiktok said so you are wrong' stuff.

What would be better to be done instead, in order of best to worse is;

Rephrase the statement/question to have the tone stated in there if the statement is not ruined by doing so. Unless you are working with a wordcount, this is accessible to the most amount of people because you dont need to learn a secret code and its fairly unambiguious and the least condescending and trap-like looking.

'Why do you have text describing images all over your blog? /gen' -> 'Genuine question, why do you have text describing images all over your blog?'

'Your artwork emotionally disembowels me /pos' -> 'Your artwork, and I mean this in the most positive of ways, emotionally disembowels me'

State the tone/meaning in FULL in parenthesis at the end. This makes it clearer what the tag is supposed to indicate to more people, it may still cause confusion however, trigger paranoia, or look condescending. Its more screenreader friendly, but less so than the above option. This works also for things that ruin the thing to interrupt the flow.

'Why do you have text describing images all over your blog? /gen' -> 'Why do you have text describing images all over your blog? (genuine question)'

'Because you are totally an anti /s', 'because you are totally an anti (sarcasm)'

Ask or look for indications that this person requires tonetags or uses them BEFORE using them and then respecting that choice. Has all the stated above issues, but at least consent for participating in this dialect was obtained. Checking if they need /pos, /srs, AND /gen tagged on on simple statement of 'your shirt looks cool' is very good.

Counterarguments:

'Im working on a short charactercount'

Not on every platform you arent! I concede this one on twitter, where you can barely fit a statement in there sometimes and you may not be able to threadtweet reasonably. But in spaces like tumblr where you have no charactercount? On discord where charactercount is so high and its a chatspace so you can just double message?

Also the 'ask before you use' or 'state in your hoverbio you use' is best practice.

Also also try emojis, which I didnt list previously but with some tones can make it more clear with only a few characters.

'It helps ME THE poster's anxiety/ADHD/etc to do this, I NEED to write like this, you are being ableist to stop me.'

Other options ALSO get the thing across for you! If rewording things to be clearest to everyone is way too hard for you, the FULL word in parenthesis is next best.

'I have a disability that makes typing hurt so I need to type as little as possible'

The third option is still available to you, but make sure to be clear that its not for the readers benefit you are doing this, but for you. This way people who need to avoid this can block you/not interact. Lean full chatspeak to help further (&, b4, 2, w/o, etc shortenings).

Also try emojis as above.

Competing access needs is a bitch, and that means we need to coexist, but (general)YOUR access need doesnt trump mine, so dont feel entitled to interacting with people who request no tone tag interaction. We just have to avoid each other.

For people who dont have the above problems just... PLEASE use plain text. Please. Its way more accessible to the most amount of people.

Yeah, for real.

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queenofzan · 4 months

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in fact, just in case my hour and a half of research can help someone else, here's the comment I posted under a cut!

I made sure that I addressed the stuff I felt able to address that they specifically asked about, ie

NIST is specifically interested in receiving input from the public pertaining to the following questions: (1) After reading through the framework and example scenarios, if needed, how could the guidance about when an agency might want to exercise march-in and the factors that an agency might consider be made clearer? (2) The framework contains many terms which have specific meanings under Bayh-Dole or in technology development and commercialization. Are the definitions provided at the beginning of the framework easy to understand? Do they aid in your ability to interpret the framework? (3) How could the framework be improved to be easier to follow and comprehend? (4) Does this framework sufficiently address concerns about public utilization of products developed from subject inventions, taking into account the fact that encouraging development and commercialization is a central objective of the Bayh-Dole Act? (5) The framework is not meant to apply to just one type of technology or product or to subject inventions at a specific stage of development. Does the framework ask questions and capture scenarios applicable across all technology sectors and different stages of development? How could any gaps in technology sectors or stages of development be better addressed?

This framework first came to my attention through the lens of pharmaceutical patents, with this framework being touted as a way to seize patents from companies that are engaging in price gouging or holding onto patents for drugs that they are not producing. The benefits of exercising march-in rights on pharmaceutical patents to increase public safety and ensure that the huge amount of money the American taxpayers have sunk into pharmaceutical research is repaid in some measure are obvious. Public health and safety should not and can not practically be in the hands of private companies who have demonstrated more care for profits than for easing human suffering and saving lives; it is absurd that, for example, diabetics like my uncle should have paid taxes their whole lives, huge proportions of which went to drug research, and now find themselves unable to afford the insulin they need to continue living. I am frankly astonished, as someone younger than the Bayh-Dole Act, to find that the federal government has possessed the right to march-in for my entire life and failed to exercise it for the good of the American people. If a more specific framework to guide agencies in when it is appropriate to march-in would help them actually exercise this right, we should by all means adopt it.

Having read through the framework several times, I find it is clear and detailed enough that I think I know how I would proceed if I worked at an agency and found myself considering whether to march-in. There are enough details and clarifications as to what kind of additional research or fact-finding should be done that the process seems, if not straight-forward, manageable. I especially appreciate the specific instances noting when it would be appropriate to consult with counsel or subject matter experts as to whether or not Bayh-Dole applies.

As a layman previously unfamiliar with Bayh-Dole, the definitions provided at the beginning of the framework were very helpful! I went back to consult them several times to ensure I knew exactly what was being talked about; they definitely aided my ability to interpret the framework. Additionally, when I found I had questions (such as what constituted a subject invention), there was usually further explication of the term within the framework when it became relevant.

I especially appreciate the further elaboration on whether or not Bayh-Dole criteria apply to pricing concerns. Previous decisions by the NIH, such as In the Case of NORVIR and In the Case of Xatalan seem to imply that disproportionately high costs do not unreasonably limit public availability of a subject invention. While there is still some room for disagreement under this framework, the extensive clarification of how and when Criterion 1 would apply to a commercialized product is both helpful and reassuring. Unfortunately, the high cost of some common subject inventions is a very pertinent factor in whether or not the public is meaningfully able to use those inventions, and I appreciate that being explicitly acknowledged by these guidelines.

As I said at the beginning of my comment, I came across this framework in the context of pharmaceutical patents. I did find that colored my perception of this framework. However, the examples in particular helped highlight areas other than drug patents which might qualify as subject inventions under Bayh-Dole. I do believe the guidelines as written clearly apply to other areas and industries as well, and are not overly specific to any one industry.

This last bit is beyond the scope of this framework--or indeed of Bayh-Dole itself, as far as I understand--but I found myself thinking about it while considering this framework. As a seamstress, I am frequently running up against the problem of previously-common textiles growing increasingly difficult to source, and supplies I consider everyday necessities no longer being manufactured. I would argue it's in the public interest to have access to quality textiles regardless of how profitable they may or may not be, at least as a cultural connection to the rich history of textile manufacture, but even I wouldn't put it in the same category as vaccines or novel water filtration methods. Still, considering I am aware of at least one developed vaccine being shelved more or less indefinitely due to lack of demand, the parallel to my own industry-specific production woes struck me.

#don't just copy my comment obviously #but even in an elevated register my comment might be. a little more understandable than the legalese

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who-is-page · 2 years

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I don't know why this Anon is lying about me but. I actually do have some college-level training regarding data science and data analysis-- I just don't consider myself a data scientist or data analyst because I've only got a minor out of my relevant classes on it from college. Those aren't titles I feel confident in claiming, and I do my best to shy away from implying them when I can. With that said though, I do get where this criticism is coming from.

Rest assured, I did have my nesting partner, who has had their research academically published and has significantly more training than me, help with the Abnormal Instincts survey, precisely in order to avoid this pitfall of my own inexperience. In addition to having my nesting partner assist with building the survey, the survey that all y'all filled out wasn't the final draft: it went through multiple iterations of individuals I trust and who also have experience either making or taking surveys looking over it. So even if it wasn't IRB certified (which I believe is what anon meant to say), it was peer-reviewed in the most literal sense.

I've also brought my findings and survey to respected individuals in my field when inquiring the best way to work with the data. It's been met with enthusiasm and interest, an encouragement to get published, and lots of words of advice on how best to utilize the survey. One retired professor and doctor of religion even volunteered to vouch for my grad school applications after seeing it, which really meant a lot to me. Even if my Abnormal Instincts survey and my other past surveys are unpolished and unprofessional like anon is lying to try and make them out to be, it's obviously got enough in it to be worthwhile to others in my field and in my community.

(But outside of those valid criticisms I addressed, I'm not sure how Anon can argue I'm touting it around like gospel when the brief presentation on less than half of the survey results has publicly been out for two weeks. Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it, my man.)

I'm also gonna take this moment to hop upon this little "popufur" or "kinfluencer" stool that Anon has ever so graciously insisted I have, to say: even if you aren't a data scientist or data analyst, that doesn't mean you can't do amazing work in the alterhuman community and host your own survey or questionnaire.

Take A Field Guide to Otherkin as possibly the greatest example of what I'm talking about. The survey that Lupa conducted wasn't lovingly hand-crafted by someone with a doctorate in data analysis, put through an ethics board, and then run through SPSS when it was all finished and done: it was dug from the ground-up by Lupa, who doesn't have any formal experience in data that I'm aware of, advertised throughout the community by word of mouth and her own efforts, and then utilized to make an extremely relevant book that we still reference back to today.

Well-written surveys and questionnaires hosted in the community, about the community, offer valuable glimpses into our own experiences and narratives that far surpass anything we often see formally published by non-alterhumans. It functions as not only a time capsule for us to look back on in ten, twenty years to compare rhetoric and focus of then vs. now, it also helps us better broaden our perspectives on topics we may not have had any information or opinions on prior.

Y'all already know I wrote an essay about this last year that I published on my website, "On Surveys" if you want to hunt it down, but I really cannot emphasize enough how both important and accessible these forms of data-gathering are. I'm not encouraging you to go at it all willy-nilly and start pushing out as many first-draft surveys as humanly possible here, but I also don't want people to see rhetoric like anon's and feel completely discouraged from delving into a topic they're curious or passionate about. It's work to make a survey, but it's doable. If you feel inclined and inspired, you can do it.

I'm no greymuzzle, even despite Anon's insistence at my make-believe "popularity," but I'd still be happy to help anyone who is completely stuck and doesn't know where to go, how to start, or just wants a second eye on their work.

#otherkin #therian #fictionkin #alterhuman

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tiffanytoms · 7 months

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Do you think one of the reasons why (the vast majority) of Jily fics consist of the same recycled tropes and characterizations is because the Jily fandom (or at least a vocal minority) is less receptive to anything different like fics where the characters are more morally ambiguous/not as perfectly brave+good as they’re usually portrayed?

Hello!

Okay, I am going to answer this question like it was asked in good faith and is not a trap - and really hope that one of the 50 trolls I've blocked doesn't come out of the woodwork bc their spidey-senses started tingling and they just can't wait to yell their Karen opinions at me (I've been traumatized... can you tell I've been traumatized? 🤪)

Yes, absolutely yes. And I would agree it is a vocal minority, bc my anon asks and reader stats have never been better than for my darkest fic. Even the ppl who ended up turning on it were some of the biggest fans/reviewers/ask-senders, etc, so, at the end of the day that's their problem with human psychology and not me.

Morally ambiguous content is DEFINITELY popular, but you got some really loud, obnoxious, morally-superior purity warriors who (can't read warnings and tags), I guess, are here to cleanse all our souls by chastising and bullying others (??) whenever they admit that they like anything different, and that (understandably) pushes ppl back into the shadows. You can one thousand percent enjoy something that you know is bad for you or that you shouldn't. (Hello, sugar? Alcohol? Anything fun? Hahaha) Guilty pleasures are not a crime and reading literal crimes is not a crime. Seriously. You can read about murder and no one has to go to jail! 😱

But let me explain myself further: do I think popular tropes are a bad thing? No! Obviously if so many ppl are writing them, ppl like them! I enjoy them too. I think that's great, write away, but I think there's a problem when ppl are actively trying to stop others from writing anything different bc it's not what they personally want to read. We don't cater to entitled narcissists around here. It's the internet. There's enough room for everyone and ppl gotta learn to share their toys, lol. It is really sad bc over the years I have seen other specific writers (weird that this seems to be a recurring theme...) bullying away several amazing, original writers and that's just all sorts of fucked up. You can't tout this perfect utopian community by ostracizing and lying about anyone who dares to think even slightly differently than the norm. It's dumb as hell, and really insecure on those writers' parts. And frankly, I'm pissed they keep getting away with it.

That being said, let's veer into less nefarious waters and say that these ppl didn't lash out due to jealousy and marking their territory, but bc ppl in general are scared of anything new and what they don't understand. Ppl are creatures of habit, so if enough ppl write Jily in a specific way, that way almost becomes canon. For example, I will never forget my complete 'HUH 🤔' moment when someone was sharing my non-problematic, canon story WAYDTM (so they were clearly a fan) and tagged it as 'OOC'. Bc in my head I was like............. how are they out of character? We literally only know xyz about them and THAT'S IT. But it was completely bc so many ppl had written Lily and James in that specific way that that was almost what was expected. Me making James actually be an asshole at the beginning was marked as 'out of character' even if it made complete sense for the way I told the story.

And to that I say, fuck that.

No one here owns Jily, no one here knows Jily, bc Jily does not exist, they are not real, so write them however the fuck you want. It literally hurts no one, it is a story.

If ppl read the story, cool. If they don't, also cool. But at the end of the day, this is fanfiction over fictional characters, and if you're not allowed to play, then what's the fucking point.

I think it boils down to 2 camps: ppl who want to read/write aspirational Jily, and ppl who want to read/write messy, real (sometimes bad) Jily. Both are completely acceptable and wonderful and AWESOME, and we can have both. We just need both camps to mind their own business (but feel free to travel between them! That's cool!) and live and let live and not pretend like either is better than the other.

It just gets so fucking weird when you have ppl trying to tell you what you can or cannot do. Cut that shit out.

Thanks for the ask 😁 Sorry I got a little heated, this has just been a lot.

#fandom etiquette #live and let live #don't like don't read #awkward turtle #anon asks #free the Jily!

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rachelbethhines · 2 years

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Tangled Bonus Marathon - Rapunzel’s World : The Ultimate Series’ Guide

Introduction

While I was gathering books and comics for this review series, I kept seeing this series guide advertised to me by google’s and amazon’s algorithms. Now neither would tell what the book was nor give me any sort of insight into it’s pages, and I never heard it talked about within fandom. It’s not even listed on the wiki with the other activity books.

So out of sheer curiosity, I snagged it used off of Abe Books for less than five bucks. Now this was originally released mid-season and is supposed to be a ‘here’s a who is who’ so far in the story, but I figured it works better as an introduction to the show. I also wanted something short to go between the larger novels and give myself some breathing space.

Content

As I said, this is just a ‘Who’s Who’ book, but with some world building stuff thrown into the mix. Not much though, sadly....

Most of the little blurbs and such, are just things you can see in the show yourself. There’s nothing really here to flesh out the characters or the world; no additional tidbits or factoids, no added story, no activities for what is suppose to be an activity book. It’s kind of bland, and I can see now why the fans don’t really talk about it.

The most interesting thing about the book is what it gets wrong.

Varian, Quirin, and Ruddgier are called the ‘Ruddiger Family’, as if they consciously named themselves after their pet raccoon...

And then they get both Herz der Sonne’s and General Shampanier’s names wrong. Calling them Herr Tazon and General Champagne... I kid you not, It’s Champagne.

If this book was scheduled for a mid-season release, back when Queen for a Day was still intended to come after One Angry Princess, then Under Raps may not have been fully finalized by the time it was published.

Yet most interesting to me, is that The Great Science Expo is implied to be an annual event in the book. But, like, wouldn’t Varian had won like nearly every year then? Yet the judge seems to barely know him? What would have prevented Varian from participating previous years?

I personally would like to think that the Great Expo is a rotating event within the seven kingdoms. Like it does happen every year, but each year its hosted else where. Which would mean that the last time the Expo came to Corona, it was held when Varian was seven and too young to enter.

Now, I’ve nothing to back that theory up, but it seems as plausible as anything else.

Presentation

The art work in the book is very uneven, at best. We get some nice background shots and a few new promotional images of the mains. I especially enjoy the page listing out Rapunzel’s outfits. But then you you also get a lot of repeated artwork that fans see touted in every merch.

Heck, that one image above of Varian is repeated twice within this same book, while the royal family portrait shows up on three separate occasions. Then there’s the fact that all the villain's models are shown in default mode...

Everyone else at least has their models posing. Even minor characters, like the castle staff and the townspeople, at least were set up for their one promotional image. Yet, this, is lazy. Someone really dropped the ball here and it feels rushed.

Would I Recommend It

I don’t understand who this is for. There’s nothing here that you couldn’t learn just by watching the show or reading a Wikipedia page to catch yourself up with. If this had perhaps been released between the pilot and the first episode, as a way to generate hype, I could understand it, but it was instead a midseason release, so none of this would have been new information to most audiences at the time.

I guess if you lived overseas and couldn’t get the episodes till later, and for whatever reason didn’t have internet access, then maybe this might have had value then.... Only, its even harder to get merch like this overseas anyways so... Not to mention, that none of that is relative now that the series is over with.

I don’t know. I know a few people who like this book a lot, but I personally fail to see the appeal. This is the first thing I’ve come across in the marathon that I would recommend skipping over.

Next Up

We’ll be looking at our second original novel and first series based original novel to boot. Here’s hoping that’s better than the last book. Next is Rapunzel and the Lost Lagoon.

Also the streams have retuned this week over on the salt discord.

https://discord.gg/52hGg6TS

#tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #varian #tts

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green5quirrel · 2 years

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Hemmer Rant: Part 2 (Action?)

TL:DR- Where are the Hemmer petitions I'm finding out about? What are Star Trek bigwig addresses so I can blast their mailboxes? How long until we get a disabled character that isn't just another prop?

This is going to be disjointed as fuck as I'm honestly on day 4 of having CoVID (for the second time this year) and so I apologize ahead of time for whatever shit my brain decides to spew. (I've already backspaced through words I definitely know how to spell more than I usually do!)

Firstly, I've been made aware that there are petitions a-foot for fans to share their disgust at Hemmer being killed in such a way that supports all of the clichéd and harmful archetypes of disabled "representation" in media that often shadow potentially amazing characters with disability characteristics.

So...

Could someone kindly direct me to these petitions so that I can go off...er...I mean add my name and thoughts?

Secondly, are there physical addresses to put our rightful anger in paper and send them off? I would absolutely adore flooding mailboxes in order to at the very least tell the "big wigs" what a grave error they made in planning this character's demise while also touting disability representation. They might not even know what they did. They need to know. The whole of media needs to know.

Characters with disabilities are not just tools for plot or other characters. When you write and display a disabled character (or one that is representing a disability, like Hemmer) and you don't allow them a full and satisfying story of just being a happy person existing in life you are inadvertently telling others with disabilities that this is their role as well.

Art imitates life and visa versa. We can create perception and change ideas by representing people in certain ways. There is a long history of getting culture to accept the Other by introducing representations of those Other in media as being accepted and as having lives of autonomy and respect. There is also an even longer history of taking the Other and doubling down on their Otherness by continuing harmful stereotypes and writing them in ways that they are only redeemable at the sacrifice of themselves in some way, shape, or form.

This needs to stop. Disability representation needs to get BETTER. It's past time for this. Star Trek is supposed to be better than this.

Lastly, (see, I didn't lose track of this post entirely) it seems that while Bruce is not speaking out publicly there is a sense I am getting that he supports this discourse of the fans and the drive to get Hemmer back. The truth is, and this is very important to me to state, this is not Bruce Horak's fight. This is the fan's fight. He did his job existing. He did his job being present and visible. And he's still doing his job by being supportive to those who disagree in such deep ways with how the character was portrayed.

I, myself, am not disabled in a way that is visible. So I can only speak as an ally on these issues. But even I can see that Hemmer's death was a rehash of so many disappointing storylines that drop the ball when it comes to disability representation.

Let's not let Star Trek off the hook for this one. This is super important. So Much Stuff is going on in the world right now, yes. There is always going to be So Much Stuff going on. But that doesn't make this wee fight less important. Because sometimes it's the small stuff that makes the biggest impact on how people see Others.

This is SO MUCH BIGGER than a character in Star Trek dying. This is how the media treats and continues to treat disabled characters in story narrative. Disabled people and characters should be allowed to have their own stories and tell them with just as much fullness and acceptance as those who are abled.

#Hemmer #Hemmer time #Hemmer Rant #Star Trek #Star Trek SNW #Star Trek Strange New Worlds #Bruce Horak #Disability rights #Abelism #ableism #ablism #disability stories #visually impaired #disabled characters #blind character #visually impaired character #blind actor #visually impaired actor #Paramount

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sanyawaffles950 · 1 year

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I apologize, this gets a bit deep. I've tried to tag it appropriately.

I mentioned on Twitter a few months ago I got diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. In my case, it combines psychosis symptoms with bouts of depression and anxiety.

My mental state has been overall better, but sometimes I have bad moments.

This week has been rough for me.

For one, been dealing with a minor raid on the public Waffle Iron Studios server involving someone we had to ban. You can see it happen from a distance, but when it's part of your daily life, it slows you down a bit.

The other major bit is all that's going on in the world. I've never seen the world so chaotic and divided over shit that should be fucking common sense. It makes me wonder what's just my brain being fucky... or what's actually going on in the world.

Trauma processing and medicine helps... but it can't fix the world.

I can fix myself over time... but I can't fix other people. And it's not random goobers... it's my friends and colleagues, who are the family I have now.

... but they're so far away from me for Christmas.

I admit, I'm spiritual. I dunno if calling me "religious" fits. I believe in a higher power, and I try to follow Christ - but I refuse to believe the other dogmatic shit some Christians tout. I don't talk much about my faith because I don't want people to think I'm on par with these "Christian Nationalist" types. I have no problem with any other faith or lack of faith as long as they are respectful of each other and aren't bigoted.

This Christmas, it's been hard. My best friend faces abuse from her neighbor... I miss visiting her, but it's not been viable for a multitude of reasons.

... how does one care without being clingy and forceful and a worrywart?

Also, with my car in the doghouse so to speak, I can't go far for Christmas. And unexpected expenses keeps popping up.

Yet I try to have faith things are okay - but I don't just try to have faith, I work on what I can in the process. Grandpa always said... pray like Hell, work like Hell.

The irony in that statement is twofold... he was a Christian and that was his wording of that phrase... also so many people don't follow that in practice. My gripe with some people is they pray for miracles and the minute the miracle happens, they dismiss it.

... back to my mental health, my brain is fuzzy. A lot. It's a constant noise, almost like having a TV in the background in the 90s - static overlay and reception and all.

I apologize for dumping this on my blog, but... I just want people to know. And I guess this is how I can let people know without doing so in DMs.

If you believe in that sort of thing, please pray for me and my friends. Especially my friends. They deserve happiness.

#sanyaposting #deep thoughts #mental health #religion

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sharonisthebettercarter · 7 months

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You rubbed many people the wrong way. It’s way wider than just deliciouskeys. You went into the fandom with that post about how the fandom doesn’t read the comic and needs to read the whole thing before deciding they don’t like it. So guns blazing. You keep setting yourself apart from the rest of the fandom, right from the start. You don’t make an effort to be friendly, or produce any fanworks. Then you wonder why so few talk to you or follow you. Then you force people to interact with you by going anonymous into ask boxes. Are you and the diamond person the same person? It’s really creepy.

correction~<3

you DIDN'T actually READ the post (or had a lacking reading comprehension education) because if you had (without some sort of preconceived idea in your head based on the title alone), you'd have very clearly seen it wasn't about that.

it WAS about the 'misconception' people, specifically, who *had not read the comics* had about them. something i gave an example of in screenshots. that i have seen touted about like fact when it's literal DISINFORMATION. or at the very least, misinformation, which i think it's fair to take issue with.

if that wasn't *YOU*, why do *YOU* feel personally attacked/called out by it?

and i wasn't even nasty to those people, i made my piece with too much passion sure, but to challenge the thought, correct the misinformation, and offer up ideas. hopefully get people to give them a try.

and i *did* try to reach out and interact with people. i was either ignored or met with hostility while i was trying to be neutral/nice, even when presenting a different opinion. gave screenshots of this too~!

and if you have a problem with the way i present myself, flare up my writing with ~<3<3 or ;)))))))))))) or whatever. or even how much i swear. i don't claim perfection, i know i can be a disaster rage monster with WAY too much passion, and i KNOW not everyone's going to like me, but treating me like a demon or ugly stepchild of fandom over fictional shit and bullshit opinions/prompts that have hurt no one who's tolerant of differing ideas?

i'd rather be treated like the village idiot. i was happy enough to go on *thinking* i WAS.

you just confirmed otherwise.

if you are honestly defending that kind behavior because someone YOU DON'T KNOW 'rubs you the wrong way' ONCE or over something you also don't bother trying to understand, you aren't interested in hearing anything they have to say or seeing them as anything besides 'other'. and YOU are guilty of the same awful habit.

work on it.

baby, i've been through this rodeo before, to hell and back, it used to be my default setting too.

a smart/kind person asks questions when they don't understand something or want it clarified. a stupid asshole assumes. and i have been BOTH and sometimes still am one or the other if not both at the same time!

smart and kind people can also be stupid assholes when they overthink things and fail to realize that occam's razor is what's applicable.

no human is a string of robotically predetermined actions, but we are creatures of habit. habits can be broken or made.

THAT's why i recognize it when i see it, TRY to diffuse it when i can, and TRY to work on myself and be better.

but EVERYONE has their limits and you DO NOT get to justify someone LYING about someone and pulling this kind of shit simply because you decided you 'dislike' them or 'they aren't part of the group', before ever even listening or giving them a voice.

that's called bullying.

and 'oh gee, i wonder why so few people follow or talk to me' has never once been written in any of the shit i write. i say my piece and if it gets no engagement, it gets none. whatever. but assuming i give a shit when that's of least concern on the topic is just you being obtuse.

that's called a strawman because you're making an argument out of thin air from a point i never made.

i draw the line when people drag my friends into this shit. no, dd and i are not the same person. not all of the fucking anons are me or her, i do not have that kind of time, health, or motivation. neither does she.

not that me saying that will fucking matter since you probably won't care/believe it anyway.

but we are like brothers, only closer~<3

but if you still think i'm the creepy asshole, fair enough. so fucking be it. learn to coexist and get over my annoying turd existence.

it doesn't justify you or anyone treating me or anyone else like shit when i don't bother anyone or have malicious intent.

#ask #anon bullshit #bullying #fans behaving badly #i'm tired of this shit #no longer tolerating the intolerance #thanks #fandom fuckery #fandom wank #fandom bullshit #a simple 'fuck you' would suffice #and had been more appreciated

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