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Vicariously Prejudiced in a Perfunctory Manner

@lastontheboat / lastontheboat.tumblr.com

30ish fannish cis dude :: AO3 :: Living it up in rural Ontario.
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I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.

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i hate it when game devs put “fixed several issues” in patch notes 

no. tell me what you fixed. i wanna know what the glitch was.

you know those patch notes that are like “fixed an issue where if the player sat in a bush for too long, they’d become the size of a skyscraper” 

i wanna read those. tell me those. 

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sindri42
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ahdok

Adjusted value of Bees. Now that was a special one… because every item in the game had a minimum value, and a beehive was a container for bees, which each had a minimum value… which meant the moment one of your dwarves picked up a beehive, your entire fortress’ net worth skyrocketed… a value used in determining how powerful the foes that visit and try to murder you are.

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prokopetz

Reblogging for the explanation of what “adjusted value of bees” actually means, because I know several folks following this blog have been wondering.

Okay but you’ve all forgotten the best Dwarf Fortress bug of all “Flying creatures give birth in midair, leading to tragedy” 

Actually I lied it’s the one where after a major update werewolves and vampires started climbing the nearest tree and refusing to come down. It turned out that he’d given evil creatures the ability to sense each other, but forgotten to set a maximum range on it, so werewolves were aware Hell was underground and trying to flee by climbing 

This has to be my favorite patch note ever

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i keep forgetting that "griddlehark perfect lyctorhood" is an actual AtN prediction that some ppl have and not just a noble porn premise bc that is just NOT supported by the narrative. each TLT book that comes out is basically an increasingly large neon flashing sign that says LYCTORHOOD IS BAD

I wanna clarify that when i say "the book is telling us Lyctorhood is bad", I'm talking about how Lyctorhood as a concept is framed in each successive book, and how all the story events and such build on each other to create a specific narrative around it.

GtN:

  1. Lyctorhood is cool and we should all compete for it. like on the Bachelor
  2. The bad guy for this book turns out to be a Lyctor who wants to kill God because after 10k years she actually hates it real bad. interesting.
  3. In order to defeat her, Gideon (beloved protagonist) dies. readers everywhere are devastated, but it had to be done....?
  4. Harrow gets to meet God! The next book probably shows us the other Lyctors, that will be so exciting probably

HtN

  1. Every single Lyctor we meet is utterly destroyed by the grief of killing and eating their cavalier. huh.
  2. Harrow destroyed her brain and gave up everything she has worked for her whole life (lyctorhood, her necromantic prowess, sizable chunk of her mental faculties) in order to preserve Gideon's soul like an unboxed funko pop
  3. Ianthe seems to be having a bad time too...?
  4. Existing lyctors decide to kill God because after 10k years they are still stuck on the fact that the had to kill their life-partners/lovers/etc to ascend. interesting
  5. Ok so like Mercymorn says, THIS version of lyctorhood sucks but there must be a better one, right? if John did it and Alecto is still alive (if in stasis) then there should just be another way. imperfect lyctorhood is out perfect lyctorhood is my new best friend? excited to find out more in the next book!

NtN:

  1. Camilla and Palamedes are bodysharing in some sort of pseudo-Lyctorhood state. wow Cam-and-Pal are really hot when they do that soul merge thing to kill the guys on the beach and oh Camilla seems to be dying from this,
  2. Ok so obviously Cam and Pal's half-lyctorhood bodysharing wasn't ideal, but I'm sure they can figure out something better. and OH! if they're calling the Lyctorhood of before the petty lysis then whatever Grand lysis is about to happen must be the solution right,,
  3. Cam and Pal are gone forever, Paul is born, and I am crying?
  4. Back at the ranch beach dream, sure the soul gestalt didn't work out but it seems like we are also getting John Gaius Backstory, maybe we will finally get to see what perfect Lyctorhood really is!
  5. Ok so I guess John exploded the entire planet and killed everyone on it and stuffed the soul of the earth inside his body and it didn't fit so he made her a body and THAT'S Alecto, and THAT was his "perfect" lyctoral process. uh,
  6. Nona is Alecto with amnesia and also whenever she thinks about John or the body she was put in she seems to be experiencing some kind of severe trauma reaction? and Alecto-with-memories seems to not be enjoying this either....
  7. You know what I am not sure this whole "Lyctorhood" thing is really working out. Much like many marriages after the Bachelor.
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faeriekit

I do think it's pretty funny that fanfic premises based on illegitimate kids as an excuse for crossovers over the years have gone from "Mom character CHEATED on Dad character 😡" to "once upon a time, mommy and daddy had a threesome and now we have YOU!" lmaoooo. People don't want marital discord they just want a third parent

This post is "three parents living happily in one house" erasure smh

Only two parents? In *this* economy?

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millenialmfa

I love this post. I LOVE this post. When I was in Kindergarten, my teacher wanted to show my family a drawing we were supposed to do if our parents or family members (something like that). At that time, I was living in the house with my mother, my aunt, my grandparents, and my dad would visit sometimes on the weekend. As a baby, my mom was involved with a gay man who even after he came out stayed close with the family (there’s tons of pictures of him holding me as a baby). Anyway, they showed the picture I drew, where I told my teacher I had FIVE PARENTS.

I was an only child, but I was never lonely. My aunt was like the cool big sister, my grandpa pushed me on the swing and taught me about yardwork and exposed me to classic musicals, my grandma is the reason I can cook and bake.

It doesn’t matter how they get there: more people in your child’s life is a good thing.

Fast forward to when I am 15. My grandparents adopt me. My aunt legally becomes my sister, her children legally become my niece and nephew, my grandfather, almost near retirement, gets to joke around with his office that he has a teenager at home and she’s accomplishing xyz insert whatever activity they were keeping me busy with. My grandparents wouldn’t have it any other way.

You know who “gave me away” at my wedding? Six different people all in unison agreeing to help me and my husband on our journey.

I had TWO father/daughter dances that night. No one batted an eye.

More people doesn’t make your kid’s life complicated. It makes it better, I promise. It takes a village. Whether that village comes about organically, legally, through marriage, or polyamory.

I didn't initially tap this post as good poly rep (you can tell it was my second thought), but I am always of the opinion that you can have as many parents in your life as are there are people willing to raise you. There is no such thing as 'replacing a rightful role'; there are only people who love you and are willing to put the time in to be there for you, and your willingness to receive them. Likewise, I imagine, come partners and children.

Thank you for adding your experience.

Extremely validated that someone else also assumed there was just a talking computer monitor in their house and they just lived like that

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reblogged
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avonya

now having read both translation state and provenance I can firmly say that I LOVE when we see Radchaai thru non-radch narrators because they’re always like ‘the radchaai ambassador showed up. in the stereotypical villain voice she misgendered every non she/her in the room. then she was bad at her job. then she asked for tea. then she said something offensive. then she, still bad at her job, left.’ and it’s great every time.

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lizzibennet

per anon’s request, i present to you THE best version of beatrice’s monologue in much ado about nothing. i thought about cropping this but decided this scene must be watched in its full glory

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x-soapbox-x

What’s really cool about this is this is the first version of this scene that I’ve seen where the tone doesnt whiplash wildly which is so hard to do!!! Bc it’s a scene that comes directly after some rough public shaming and it is both a love confession scene and a scene where a woman asks someone to kill someone and the love confession IS funny but Beatrice’s monologue is not. A lot of the other versions- even well beloved ones like the 2011 version with David Tennant and Catherine Tate- do this scene and there is emotional whiplash, audiences often laughing when Beatrice begs Benedict to kill Claudio. To see it done this way??? Oh my god the line read on “if a were a man, I would eat his heart in the marketplace” DESERVED that cheet

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Obsessed with this bit in the preface to the 10th Anniversary edition of Ancillary Justice:

Specifics aside, "I thought this would be fun and relaxing. It was not." is a great summation of what happens with like 80% of creative endeavors.

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reblogged

the thing about Murderbot's """relationship""" with Gurathin is that the first time it vocally expressed its dislike for Gurathin was the very first time it was ever able to vocally express its dislike for anyone.

And it was not punished! Nothing bad happened to it because of this! The PreservationAux team was just like, fine, your opinion is noted and valid, we still all have to work together to not die though.

for someone who was never allowed to let anyone else know it even had opinions, this is a big fucking deal.

its actions toward Gurathin later on (especially obvious in Fugitive Telemetry) show that it considers Gurathin a trusted and valued teammate. And maybe it will never remove the "I don't like him" tag from Gurathin's internal profile but that is not a sign of their friendship needing repair, it is a sign that Murderbot feels safe and free enough to be a little bitchy hater. and i say, good for it!

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Back in 1942, when making a bad cup of tea may have been grounds for a divorce…

You see 👀 teas grown in hot 🌞 valleys ripen too fast ⏱️🏃‍♂️ so they taste FLAT But Lipton 📦 uses teas 🌳 grown on cooler 🌡❄️ slopes… teas that ripen SLOW ⏰️😴 and gain rich FULL flavor ☕️😚 this special flavor ☕️ has made Lipton 📦 America’s 🗽 largest selling tea.

Someone out there used time travel to go back in time and make this tea advertisement extremely tedious to read as a joke no one would get for over 50 years

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charlottan

ultimately the cheesecake factory menu fails to tell a queer narrative

Check for understanding:

  1. What claim does OP make about the menu of the Cheesecake Factory?
  2. Is it reasonable to expect the Cheesecake Factory menu to meet this expectation? Why or why not?
  3. How is this post phrased? What does this phrasing suggest about the hypothetical context behind it?
  4. Why did OP make this post?
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