from the ashes

Okay, so, I love dystopian fiction. Love reading it, writing it, critiquing it when it goes wrong. Unfortunately, one of the most persistent criticisms I see leveled at dystopian fiction is that of efficiency.

"This method of execution seems like a waste of resources."

"This system of surveillance seems really overwrought."

"Why did they kill that guy? I know he questioned something they didn't want him to, but come on, he was useful."

The thing is, lampooning systemic inefficiency (and cruelty) is one of the points of exploring dystopia in fiction.

For one thing, the idea that any given system of rule can be 100% efficient is itself a form of propaganda. Capitalism mass-produces clothes in numbers we do not need, and throws the excess away. Fascist regimes are willing burn perfectly good science if it doesn’t match up with predominant narratives and ideologies, and often fund psuedoscience that aligns with those narratives. Authoritarian leaders will reject useful criticism if that criticism feels at all levied at them, specifically.

But those upholding the system can't acknowledge this, because that means acknowledging that the system has failure points.

For another thing, cruelty is often prioritized above functional efficiency, because it creates the right responses to prop up a failing system. Mob mentality, hostility to outsiders, suspicion of neighbors, fear of being punished for thoughtcrime, etc.

And that's forgetting that "efficiency" is often more vague than you think it is, and can be defined and redefined to suit a narrative. How do we measure efficiency? Are certain kinds of people assumed to be more or less "efficient" than others? Is it really possible to be "efficient" in all ways at once, or are there tradeoffs? Do you have to give up efficiency in one category to to get more out of another?

In short, dystopian systems both in real life and in fiction are not designed for functional efficiency. They are designed for control, and will define efficiency in whatever way best suits their narratives.

I believe the value in my art comes from my individual efforts to create it which is why I will never willingly or knowingly use or contribute to AI

So this was probably the point, but just in case anyone doesn't know: This was actually the intended plot for Babylon 5 from the beginning.

Like, go look at Delenn in The Gathering, then compare how she looks for the rest of Season 1:

She was supposed to be male! The idea was that they were going to give her this more masculine makeup, then use some audio processing to downshift her voice, and then when Chrysalis-Points of Departure-Revelations comes along, she doesn't just turn partially human, she also transitions from male to female. We were supposed to have a canonically trans main character in 1994!

So what happened? According to JMS, the voice was the problem. They tried to make it not sound terrible, but couldn't. So JMS had to chose between dropping this element of the character or just having her sound weird and terrible all season. He decided to just drop it.

But there wasn't time to redesign the makeup for The Gathering. That's why Delenn has a distinctly masculine look for that TV-Movie. There was enough of a delay before the main show started* to redesign the makeup to give her more of a feminine-but-still-alien look, so that they could later soften it into a semi-human appearance.

So yeah. Delenn was originally going to be trans. Sadly, we missed out on that for technological reasons.

* The network imposed the delay: the original plan was to just start the show immediately after the movie, but they got cold feet and wanted to wait and see how the movie did first. This delay is why they had to change some of the characters (Takashima is replaced by Ivanova, Dr. Kyle is replaced by Dr. Franklin, and Lyta is replaced by Talia (although Lyta comes back later)): With the show not starting right away, they suddenly didn't have the job they thought they did, and some of the actors took other roles and were no longer available.

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Leonard Pollard

My mom was having trouble using they/them prnouns with some friends for a while. One day she said “I think the problem is that I haven’t changed the way I view their gender outside of their pronouncs which adds several extra steps in converting binary pronouns to they/them then conjugating it. So I need to shift how I see them as a gendered person entirely to make using their pronouns easier.” And since then she hardly ever messes up.

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A lot of the cis people in my life need this

This is literally why people mess up pronouns and why it’s a problem.

Like the reason you’re not calling me “they” is because you still think of me as gendered the way you initially assumed. It’s not just the pronouns I want you to change, they only serve as an acknowledgement of the gender I want you to adjust your perspective to. If you did that, you wouldn’t struggle with it.

reminds me of the tweet that’s like “dad just think of me as a swarm of bees” and the dad was like “oh I get it now”

Like an online serial

Ah. In my opinion, doing an online serial is much harder. You still have to do all the same work you would've been doing anyways--i.e., writing a novel-length story--with the added pressures of as-you-go posting and marketing and a regular deadline. Plus it can be cussedly hard to end a serial; endings are hard no matter how you approach them, and the combination of production constraints and the pressure to keep posting regularly can really shoot you in the foot and lead you to either end things too abruptly or keep on wagon training to nowhere; see every television show ever, even (perhaps especially) the really good ones.

However! They're also a lot of fun, for readers as well as writers, and some stories seem to cry out for serialization. Like epistolary novels, for instance; it is Dracula season, after all. And if you're just starting out, getting things done and out into the world one after another like that is damned good practice and can be a much needed boost to one's confidence.

So I'd recommend giving it a shot if u think it's what you wanna do, just remember there's no shame in bailing. Also I'd recommend not writing anything until you have an outline and not posting anything until you have a clear idea of what the ending is going to be.

Also also, if you want to see your work professionally published someday, you should think thrice about posting a piece online because posting online legally counts as publication, therefore you won't be able to sell first worldwide rights and will have to sell the work as a reprint. That's not as scary as it sounds, since lots of markets do buy reprints (and you can do whatever you want over here in self-pub), but it's something to think about.

grandma demeter is ready for war

ID: a tweet by @/ajplus AJ+ that reads “Bisan Owda has just won one of broadcast journalism's highest honors – the Peabody Award – for her work with AJ+.

Bisan is currently facing instance Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the Occupied Gaza Strip. This is a message to the world:”

And there's a video attached to the tweet.

VD: a video of Bisan speaking about her experiences, the solidarity for Palestinian liberation and her gratitude for people standing with Palestine. The video is captioned “Bisan and AJ+ have won the Peabody Award”. It also shows clips of what Palestinians are going through and protests for Palestine.

Transcript: Hey everyone, this is Bisan from Gaza, Rafah. I'm still alive. Thank god. And this is a very important event, so allow me, please, to speak in my native language. Acknowledging journalists' efforts at this time is really important to me. It shows the world what's happening to us. At a time when the [Israeli] occupation is murdering us – journalists, doctors, medics and civilians, as if we are supporting terrorism. We rise to simply document the genocide happening to our people and we expose the oppression to the world. I don't believe, and no one in the world should believe, that a terrorist is someone who strikes to make people's voices heard. A terrorist is someone who commits genocide, supports genocide, stands by genocide, remains silent during genocide, and rejoices genocide. The victory of Palestinian cause was never just for Palestinians; it is a rather victory for humanity. The Palestinians [cause] is like the sun, it cannot be covered by a veil. And justice will find it's way back to its rightful owners eventually. The primary tactic of the occupation is to divide the people and to create conflicts among them are we can never support one another. And right now, we are destroying one of the occupation's strongest tools by standing with eachother worldwide. Therefore, I dedicate this award to all the college students who are protesting, to all the people who took the streets, to all the people at home who are participating in boycotts, to all the people worldwide regardless of their religion, color, ethnicity and kind. Regardless of what makes them different, they're united in one mission: In their demands for a free Palestine. You deserve this award. And so do we. And one day, this genocide will end. And Palestine will be free. And we will welcome you here. On Gazan soil. All of you. Gaza [is open to you all], thank you so much for this award and for always supporting us, standing by us, and for continuing to do so until we achieve our demands: An end to the genocide. A ceasefire. And a free Palestine. This award is for all the voices of liberation around the world. And Palestine and abroad. We will remain holding on to our land, and documenting the truth. [And I hope] you will remain in the streets, calling for a free Palestine. Free Palestine, free Palestine. Palestine will only be free.

Gonna need yall to stop putting Biden is Just As Bad propaganda on my dash. Had to unfollow someone because I don’t want to a start a fight with them over it, but I’m about to bite the next person who puts that shit in front of me.

If you don’t like Biden, vote in your god damn local and mid term elections for third party or further left candidates so that we get better democratic candidates for future elections. But this one is already fucking decided, and I’m NOT ending up under a Trump led dictatorship because yall value protecting your personal sense of moral purity over the collective good. Whether it offends your personal morals to vote for Biden is IRRELEVANT in the face of the alternative.

This isn’t a lesser of two evils situation. One guy sucks. The other guy is LITERALLY PLANNING TO OVERTHROW OUR DEMOCRACY AND INSTALL HIMSELF AS A PUTIN STYLE DICTATOR.

PLEASE look up Project 2025 and stop acting like abstaining is some kind of personal ethical decision!

REBLOGGING THIS BECAUSE IT FUCKING HAPPENED AGAIN.

You give me a single goddamn scenario where not voting does less harm then voting for Biden.

You give me a SINGLE goddamn scenario where Trump being elected does LESS harm than Biden.

You give me even the BAREST WHISPER of an ACTUAL, ACTIONABLE FUCKING ALTERNATIVE to just VOTING FOR HARM REDUCTION.

Jesus Christ. Even if you think Biden and Trump are 100% the same, which is a fucking asinine and ignorant goddamn position to take but sure, in that case voting, at absolute worst, makes no difference!

The ONLY reason to deliberately encourage people to NOT VOTE AT ALL is to SUPPORT TRUMP.

You are blindly spreading Actual Goddamn Propaganda for a man who is frothing at the mouth to become a christofascist dictator!!

CUT IT THE FUCK OUT.

Unironically I think we might run into another video game crash like back in the day

Game creation has become another husk capitalism has its greedy little fingers in and its like. Its genuinely sucking the joy out of it all for more profit and more profit and even if it succeeds its not enough it needs to be more to the point there really isn't a reason to create games anymore if you're not an indie dev

And being an indie dev isn't easy because no one has the time anymore. Everyone is drowning in student loans and low wages. Capitalism is sucking the joy out of them and overworking them and ai art is taking away opportunities to be something unique

Games are $70 fucking dollars now. I can't afford that like. I just can't. Most of us are struggling with finances as is.

We're drowning and it's happening so fast there's not enough time to panic

This is what I mean. Games aren't enough to be good or creative or excellent or fun anymore.

Like. AAA games are unfinished tech demos with dlc tacked on that is mostly content that should have been in the base game at launch

You get an indie game with love put into it and it gets received insanely well and it's. Just. Not enough.

Its burnout waiting to happen. No fucking body who goes through the trials and hardship that is game dev wants to be laid off after finishing a game there fully put their chest into. Soon why even bother? It's just another dead end for most and the student loans from learning through school is insane and no one has the time or drive to learn through their own means because we're working two jobs to pay for necessities.

Shit sucks

Reminder to all my fellow Americans and my Canadian homies that the northern lights will be visible tonight across most of the continent. If you're in the green zone go outside tonight

poor little boy got his booster vaccines. he is 2.5 pounds, and is very sad about everything

:(

That last pic should replace the reaction image of the cat with the huge photoshopped wet eyes

my friends and I were just talking about shakespeare we’ve done and I suddenly remembered the time I was in a show and my costar was supposed to stab me to death but one night she forgot the knife somehow and I noticed right away and I assumed she would just pantomime a small blade that perhaps her hand could conceal because you know.

that would have been the reasonable choice. but instead she clearly panicked and then she decided sans weapon she would simply have to strangle me to death

so she starts strangling me, which, for the record, stage combat is a pretty precise art which leaves very little room for improv strangulation

but now she’s strangling me, and I’m being strangled, and this is a whole thing now because I’m thinking to myself, well, how long do you get strangled for?

I don’t want to undersell my strangling but I don’t want to be unrealistic.

So I think well, how long can I hold my breath? I consider actually holding my breath as a measure for how long this strangulation should go but the issue is she isn’t very good at fake strangling. And by that I mean, the acting is terrific, but there is a fair bit of real strangling happening. So I think, no, I’d better keep all the oxygen I’ve got.

Meanwhile she is really putting her heart and soul into this. She looks more feral than she ever has stabbing me.

I think, huh, maybe she should strangle me every night. Then I think, what a gay thought to have.

Then I think, well, I’ve been thinking about being strangled for some time now. It’s probably time for me to die.

But then I have a new problem, how do you stop being strangled?

For the record, I’ve been fighting desperately for my life this entire time, something we also haven’t rehearsed, which is why she’s pushing back a little too hard into the strangling.

Then I think, she is way too small to strangle me. The audience can probably see that. The stabbing really needs to do the heavy lifting here because this woman could not possibly actually strangle me.

Then I think, okay, I really need to die now. So I die. The lights eventually go down and I crawl off stage and the stage manager is waiting in the wing to kill us both because the strangling apparently looked extremely dangerous and scary.

True, but it would be unfair for her to kill me because you see, I’ve just been strangled to death

No see THIS is insane because actors have actually been killed doing this very scene in Macbeth, and others have been seriously injured. Going off-script with swords is crazy 😭 I hope they got read the riot act for that because I would’ve been floored

there's been a lot of obnoxious pop history trends in the last few years but the bizarre total sanitization of vikings/pirates has to be one of the worst. like sorry to the queer neopagan anarchy symbol in bio twitter user community but like. are you aware both vikings and pirates enthusiastically traded slaves

and to be clear i'm not calling people out for liking the aesthetic or being into historical fiction or whatever i'm specifically talking about the genre of post that's like "it's crazy how most people think vikings were violent raiders when they were actually antiracist feminist sheep herders living in free love communes and operating dog shelters"

I think this comes from an inability people have to, like, be moderate on things.

The initial failure to be moderate comes the traditional received view, e.g. "the Vikings were all horrible barbarians who did nothing but raid and pillage and be evil". Then someone comes along and, rightly, tries to question this view. They say "hey, the Vikings were just people like you and me. Maybe they even did some things that are worth admiring, you know. Maybe we've been treating them unfairly." And this catches on, especially as the original power dynamics that motivated the received view start to fade (slander of Vikings has a lot less motivation when the Catholic church stops being so politically relevant). And people are often inclined to use these other, traditionally maligned societies as foils to critique their own society. And so it becomes widely accepted among the sort of people who consider themselves smart and thoughtful that the Vikings really weren't as bad as they've been made out to be; they've been unfairly maligned. They were just people, like you and me.

Except here comes the second failure to be moderate, when the view slowly morphs into "the Vikings were right about everything, Viking society was so much better than modern society" etc. And that's where you get these twitter leftists, who are somewhere down the second-failure-to-be-moderate telephone line.

Anyway, I'm responding to this post, and respond to many like it, in an attempt to preempt what I have often seen as an inchoate third failure to be moderate, a return to the received narrative that the Vikings just totally sucked, man. No, no! I'm not accusing OP of this specifically (I don't think they're guilty of it), but it is... in the air, around these parts.

Moderation! Moderation! Nuance! Be careful lest you become what you sought to destroy!

(Tags from @tarantula-hawk-wasp :

#tbh this is the hardest part about teaching any type of history bc people want to either valorize or vilify and like no!! #seek truth not goodness in the past #no society is free of sin and no society is free of merit #but that shouldn't be your goal in learning about them - it should be understanding)

Umberto Eco, who owned 50,000 books, had this to say about home libraries:

"It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

"There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.

"If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!

"Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity."

…See also the culinary variant: “Do you use all those spices?!” (eyeroll)

(and yeah, on occasion we’ve had the original one too. Funny how those people tend not to be guests here more than once. I think we get filed under “weird nerds, might be dangerous”. [dry smile])

When your partner has a praise kink but you're Montessori trained so you know that praise is an ineffective way to encourage development and it's much more productive to acknowledge their effort so that they learn to effectively give themselves feedback so they can develop a healthy intrinsic motivation instead of deriving their self worth from labels put on them by other people .... "baby it's amazing how much you could last today compared to last week"

#I can tell you’ve been practicing hard and working to build your stamina #how did it feel to last longer? did it feel good? I’m so glad to hear that

lifetime sub who's an experienced dog trainer & teacher trying to encourage a newbie dom w a master's in education: i know iT'S BAD PEDAGOGYYY. JUST PUNISH MEEEeeee please before i die