#the way its worded on the wiki
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i think about "zane is known to have been responsible for at least one genocide" very often
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saw a shitty post trying to make a racism about palestine and against better judgment i went to fact check and it was bullshit obviously BUT
it did lead me to un resolution 3379
the resolution was voted on and passed the general assembly 10th november 1975 (72 for, 35 against, 32 abstentions) and determined that zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination
this seems like a good thing right?
in 1991 the resolution was revoked, its revocation being a condition set by israel in exchange for palestine being allowed to participate in the madrid peace conference, the peace conference being one hosted by spain and sponsored by both the us and the soviet union... to revive the peace process between israel and palestine
it has been 30 years and the un has never had less credibility in the eyes of the people, entirely due to its inability to stop the zionist war machine
#palestine#jerusalem#tel aviv#united nations#we love having to dig out sources from wikipedia via internet archive cuz its been deleted off the site#the source didnt say palestine outright which like i dont believe israel will use the word if possible#it said 'a un observer' which like okay dude#im skimming wiki only for further reading but man it seems israel tried to fuck the conference up every step of the way
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Seeing as the person who drew this for me and listens to me yell about these two and Rudyard is currently Illegal For Tumblr, I have been given permission to post this!
So a huge thank you I'm crying @ gunhorse ;0; my kids look great and I wuv them... I'm sobbing.
(And for those wondering, the agent named Bravo encounters Katale a fair amount though completely intentional from her. He thinks that she's just a very nice woman who got mixed up in the wrong crowd and she doesn't seem to wish him hard and he doesn't wish her harm so in the end when he sees her he's putting his gun away into a shoulder holster because he's a Good Boy.)
#two crime bosses and a very good boy#i had a different tag plotted for them but i have long since derailed lol#its now the katale show and she holds it all together so were scrapping the agent based title#also the names are clifford is the agent but he goes by bravo cause it summarizes his entire personality#bravo is the name of one of the 101 dalmatians in some iteration (thank you 101 dalmatian wiki)#b is for bravo as in code word and hes a spy slash agent#and also he is immensely weak to praise and bravo can be said to approve and praise#therefore its his whole personality bc mans a puppy#and also clifford (name suggested by gunhorse actually and im keeping it) bc big pubby and my childhood#also well known as clifford the big RED dog which is very fun bc the crime bosses are constantly wearing red#and they end up befriending the good little agent so him being a part of the red crew in name is a good thought uwu#and then katale meaning stronger than you is the woman and she is actually second in command by choice#she doesnt WANT to be number one she wants to have someone else do That Stuff#but shes known crime her whole life as she had multiple relatives in the crime organization#and then rudyard belzer the top dog now actually worked his way up from a henchman type status#and i love them all dearly#tw blood#long post#i forget if later tags are counted still and i will be so sad if they arent i just forgot ...#i wanted to talk about ocs so bad...#gift art
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Where've I been all day? Finishing stuff.
And also getting the word count for The Storyteller Teller and The Mimic instead of reading Tiger Rock lmao
I can't seem to just get a direct word count I literally have to copy and paste this things into a document, then fix the spacing issues manually so I can get the word count. So yeah spent longer than I thought I was going to on that lmao laptop died before I could get past the first break on the Mimic so I only got the one.
If you're curious: The Storyteller is 16570 words long.
From what I could see, The Mimic is probably around the 18000 mark? Not sure though cause ya know... Not done spacing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
#that's a pretty nice chunk of text to get absolutely fucking nowhere!!#that's impressive!!#lmao nsksndi#YES I'M STILL BEING A PRICK ABOUT THIS SO SUE ME#anyway yeah this was just for the curiosity#because of that idea of getting the exact word count and rerwriting the story myself#with the exact same word count to see if i could do it better lmao#like... 16570 is doable.#I hit a stride once and did that in a few days before!!#not saying i could again but ya know#in terms of quantity of words I've done way more than that for one thing before#that's a big number yeah but like... its so doable??#I'd start with the Mimic first though#then the storyteller#for obvious reasons#and then I'd post the storyteller first and the mimic second in the order they're intended#it'd be a cool challenge!!#I'll think about it!!!#just wanted all the facts first before i made any decisions ya know?#I'll get the Mimic wordcount and then read Tiger Rock if the wiki doesn't consume me again lmao#seriously though#'oh I'm not gonna go crazy! just the animatronics cause they're cool!'#and then i saw the wiki for the water park.#and then i thought 'well while I'm here-'#and then added to Roy's page...#but like... the humans are easy those are just ctrl f and an interpretation of character#easy! not what i was intending to do with my time though ffs lmao#nah though they're easy i might power through them and then finish it off with Zeus#NO I HAVEN'T DONE THE MOST IMPORTANT GUY'S PAGE YET SO SUE ME#bdjdbdkd anyway.
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Something something the same as it ever was
#genshin impact#genshin#Oh boy! Can't wait to add to this again in a year when we have the exact same thing happen in Fontaine!!#That last tag was a joke (fingers crossed)#If I have to bring back my other meme about the sacred sakura still being capped it is sure history will end up repeating itself#Plz I just like getting the rewards it's so satisfying to just be like hehehe I leveled up and unlocked more :3#Like I know hyv trying to keep pacing their content and such but also *looks at all the past event stories* priorities?? Maybe?#Which is me saying I think it's stupid that there is so much of the game new players will never get to experience or even see#Like with the whole scara appearing in the inazuma story like how much of the game's player base even got to experience scara in 1.1?#The original gga event and it's storyline and the chasm quest storyline with yelan and xiao and both albedo events#Sure there's a bunch of stuff to experience if youre jsut now trying genshin or have picked it up somewhere along the way#But there's so much that's been locked in the past now and unless you were there you'll never get to experience it#Like the Diluc event - sure I could go read everything about it on the wiki if I really wanted to know what happened#But its different playing it yourself#At least I think so#I just think it's stupid of them to not allow newer players to experience those stories like forget the specific event weapons#Idk how to really put it into words and I'm just rambling now#But yeah
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137 nimi pu + nimi ku suli
160 glyphs listed in a table on the thief wiki
i am unfortunately having ideas.
#the majority of them i do know ive seen in the games but ill want to go and double check all the cutscenes + textures with the wiki table#figure out a consistent style to write them in (bc i lovee love love the curvy/scratchy look of the t2 glyphs#but most of what we get in canon are in t3#And Balls#<- sorry that was the first suggested tag when i typed 'and' and it caught me so off guard#anyway the majority of canon glyphs are from the third game and they have a much different look#so itd have to go one way or the other either i clean up the t2 ones a bit or i go hog wild on the t3 ones)#separate them into glyphs w and w/o canon meanings to start assigning words to them etc etc#i am not a linguist im just a little freak idk anything about what i could actually do to mangle this into like.#anywhere near something Good#but it doesnt need to be good like that LKGSJDFHG its a fun little project for just me#to write the silly little glyphs from my silly little games and have them mean something i can read. for funsies
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wyd if you woke up in an alternate univerise where rosemary was the popular but flanderized main couple and davekat was the overhated less popular ship of the fandom.
Quality over quantity when it comes for my girls tbh V_V
as much as I complain abt rosemary not being popular, sometimes it’s kinda better? Because with how low profile rosemary is on the popularity scale is, we don’t have to see bad takes that often LOL. And like you said, with popularity also brings a LOT of flanderization and a lot of content that’s not even good; so it’s like a double edged sword?
It’s not even that I want rosemary to be as popular as davekat, I just want people to have a better understanding of them instead of just outright skipping them and deducing them as these boring verbose girls that do nothing but help people with their own issues and drink tea and be plot devices.
#like Idk after the weird funks davekat has been going through in its content#I reflect and think like do I really want to see that for rosemary too??#flanderizing fics and content that fetishizes kanaya to be rose’s ‘exotic’ lover#davekat’s popularity is like it’s own dilemma#bc it’s also really popular with ppl who’ve never even read hs but they still make content of it anyways#based off the hs wiki and the flanderizing content they see so it’s kind of like a cycle???#popularity always brings quantity over quality for like anything#and like Idk I don’t think I wanna see my girls flanderized so bad like what dk is going through rn#I was into lapidot when I was like 12 yrs old and I’ve witnessed the flanderization personally O_O#rosemary deserves better but like. not in a popularity boost way! more like a pls stop background flanderizing them#bc even though they’re not even in the spotlight they still get flanderized by people just deducing them to be these boring large word girls#I have more thoughts on this than I realized actually wtf
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im gonna dress up as danger days gerard way for a ‘dress as ur queer awakening’ halloween party and even just trying on parts of the outfit is so so good for whatever the fuck gender im doing rn
#ALSO I ACCIDENTALLY HAVE HIS HAIRCUT so all i gotta do it redye my faded red and its perfect#very gender#im def they/them but im starting to think im they/them in a male way#like im def slippy towards the he/they pipeline#not quite there yet but ive DEF had the ‘….. maybe i am a boy’ thoughts#IM NOT EVEN OUT TO LIKE ANYONE IM OVER HERE LIKE ‘yes pls she/her me’ and then mentally ive passed thru they/them on to he???#bruh its tricky and there is no wiki page for my brain#wiki search ‘stefs gender’ for the answer#if u know me irl and i haven’t come out to u just know that i want u to know but like sense it thru the vibes bc words make me uncomfy#also jks im not he/they im just solid they/them transmasc but like half closted#a closet of my own creation. noone is putting my in danger i just cant be fucked to come out its too much work correcting people and im#too noncomfrontational#its 1:52am rn just for context#and ive been looking at pics of gerard way for 2 hrs#so thats where my heads at
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the first thing tht comes up when u google crocea mors is the rwby wiki i hope we all die
#dave rants#AT LEAST PUT THE NENNIUS OF BRITIAN WIKI PAGE UP FIRST. COME ONNNNNNNN#< i did not mean for all of tht to be caps just the first 2 words but its funnier this way.
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Minecraft Wiki is independent again!!
Yahoo!!! No more FANDOM wiki!!! Find the new minecraft wiki at minecraft.wiki!!
I thought it would be good to make a little PSA post with summarised information on why they moved from FANDOM!
Why did they move?
FANDOM is notoriously a bad wiki for both readers and editors alike. This is due to the insane amount of ads, the site layout, the lag, the fact that FANDOM can just take your wiki from you, etc has made the minecraft wiki decide to move
Because of the lack of agency the minecraft wiki has over its own wiki, they had a long discussion and vote with the community on what wiki platform to move towards. You can view both discussions here and here
By moving to a more independent wiki, they can provide a much better and friendlier service.
What's improved with the new wiki?
New site look, lacking the ugly FANDOM yellow sidebar and removing all other unnecessary bloat! This also includes a dark mode option and other custom settings.
Faster load times! I have incredibly good internet, and even I notice the STARK difference between the load times of FANDOM and the official wiki!
Less ads! At the moment they have no ads, but they do intend to have at least one. The placement of which will be discussed with the community to ensure minimal disruption to the user.
Better search functionality! FANDOM's search is notoriously bad at giving you the answers you need. Now they can have a more robust search function that more accurately brings users to what they are looking for.
No age popups- Unlike FANDOM this wiki does not need to know if you're a child or adult.
Anonymous editing has returned! Users can now once again anonymously contribute to the site!
HOWEVER. THE MINECRAFT WIKI NEEDS YOUR HELP!
FANDOM refuses to close old wiki's that have moved away, and so they will continue to show up in search domains. The old domains such as minecraft.gamepedia.com and minecraftwiki.net are also permanently attached to the FANDOM wiki.
In order to help the new wiki be successful, you can help out in the following way:
Spread the word!
Don't interact with FANDOM links. The less people interact with FANDOM, the more google knows that people are looking for the official wiki and not the FANDOM one!
Dont use the old links, again for the same reason as above!
And of course, improve the wiki :D! Since you don't need an account to make edits, see what you can contribute!
#minecraft#mc tag#mineblr#dirtcube chat#y'all think im not doing anything mc related and thats why i mquiet#but i have actually been doing a lot#anyway this makes me genuinely happy and i need everyone to know so spread the word please mayhaps
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this is petty but the people who interpret the whole canon thing in atsv as fanfiction and not as like, literal comics… its annoying
#i know canon as a word exists for both but like this is about comics and alternate universes in the comics#not about fanfic AUs. come on now#brot posts#comics posting#i guess it wouldnt annoy me as much but then you also have ppl who dont read the comics like completely being. so weird#like oh miguel is a vampire NO HE ISNT#LITERALLY JUST LOOK AT HIS MARVEL WIKI PAGE? YOU CANT EVEN DO THAT?#like these movies are about COMICS in a way that like other comic to movie adaptations arent#and the way people are just not even acknowledging it like just turning an absolute blind eye to the source material#idk. like its not that deep this isnt a real ‘argh terrible’ kind of thing to bemoan im just annoyed. and i like to complain
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oh that's a. take. you sure have a. take on this canon situation.
#max screams#inspired by the person who is ranting on the wiki page#how even though its implied that these two characters are tragic soulmatws#in the way their soulbond was cut bc of years of hurt#that they cant be soilmates bc they see rheir relationship as brotherly#brotherly how you may ask? well bc they call each other 'little'#and the word for brother that is also a common form of address to LITEEALLY EVERYONE in the language#and they said that people are trying to enforce it#.look babe#the author has literally wrote relationship of people with Actual sibling relationships#that Didnt get adopted#also. theee are other forms of soulmates??#just bc the characters actual soulmate is his li#doesnt mean his old one was also one???#like you dont have to like it#but also the fact theyre rooting for the relationship that the character not only abused the other in#but the other also wound up torturing him for years????#like. we know the actual reasons he treated him that way#but from his pov ot was straight up abuse#so. its just not healthy all around#imo the character would be good alone#since its an alternate form of the actual character and li#plus like. hes straight up terrified of men.#i dont even personally really like the ship but the fact thwy went off ab it in such a way i had to say#(i dont like it since the character goes over the others boundaries and also doesnt explain to him anything)#hold up theres also the chance theyre saying the guy that literally BOUGHT AND OWNED HIM was his soulmate#.wtf
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New Blood, Old Regards
Thanks to @eyeofthenewt1 for this art piece!
Greetings! Although the Stats Team is still in a state of retirement, we’ve periodically updated several of our Campaign 3 Running Stats categories and galleries thanks to the efforts of a new team of data collectors. This team, consisting of Archivists Astral, Ethereal, Fey, and Shadow, have been preparing since the beginning of the year to launch their own site, and that day has come! With that, we’re pleased to present:
The Omen Archive
Although they have been providing CritRoleStats updates for our Campaign 3 records, their site will be its own thing with its own tools, toys, and focuses, such as graphics derived from their own databases of data. Please visit them at their website, reach out to them, and check them out on their various social media pages:
Website: https://www.omenarchive.com/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/omenarchive
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/omenarchive.bsky.social
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omen_archive/
Tumblr: https://omenarchive.tumblr.com/ ( @omenarchive )
CritRoleStats will continue to update our databases and running stats pages with the data we receive from the Omen Archive until the end of the campaign, so that anyone from academics to casual fans have access to a complete catalogue of three campaigns worth of data. After that, our site will be completely (accessibly) archived, and our legacy will be carried on entirely by projects like the Omen Archive.
Thanks Are In Order
Outside of our final livecast, we realize we went out without the proper thanks to the community members who helped us grow. We’d like to take this opportunity to give credit where we feel it’s due.
We’d like to thank the team at Critical Role for their support over the years, with special thanks to Dani Carr for both her wonderful spirit, tenacious work ethic, and the marvelous send-off she gave us.
We’d like to thank the creators in the community. Thank you to the artist community for letting us feature your wonderful talent to give vibrancy to the numbers and words we’ve filled. Thank you to the information gathering community, from the wiki workers to the meta analysts, for giving your time to help make Critical Role more accessible. Thank you to the academics for finding value we didn’t know we had in our work. Thank you to everyone who creates in this community, whether your medium is music, words, stats, or art; whether you share for a large audience or for the joy of your private home or table; whether you encourage others with high presence, or quietly inspire and support from the shadows. Your creation makes the world a more interesting place.
We’d like to thank both our patrons and our Ko-Fi supporters for allowing us to carry on for as long as we have, and to make sure our work can continue to reach those who want to be informed and inspired. Thank you to our regular visitors, as well; traffic is supportive in several ways!
Thank you to those who have been with us, whether it’s the very beginning, sometime in the middle, or even if you’re tuning in just now. Your patronage and your expression of value in our work has been a blessing. (Thanks for the 1d4.) We’d also like to thank everyone who has continued to visit the site in spite of the lack of regular content creation on our part, and are grateful that so many of you are still finding use in the previous campaigns’ worth of data, as well as the current one.
We love you all very much. Now, back to retirement!
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An adversarial iMessage client for Android
Adversarial interoperability is one of the most reliable ways to protect tech users from predatory corporations: that's when a technologist reverse-engineers an existing product to reconfigure or mod it (interoperability) in ways its users like, but which its manufacturer objects to (adversarial):
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability
"Adversarial interop" is a mouthful, so at EFF, we coined the term "competitive compatibility," or comcom, which is a lot easier to say and to spell.
Scratch any tech success and you'll find a comcom story. After all, when a company turns its screws on its users, it's good business to offer an aftermarket mod that loosens them again. HP's $10,000/gallon inkjet ink is like a bat-signal for third-party ink companies. When Mercedes announces that it's going to sell you access to your car's accelerator pedal as a subscription service, that's like an engraved invitation to clever independent mechanics who'll charge you a single fee to permanently unlock that "feature":
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/05/carmakers-push-forward-with-plans-to-make-basic-features-subscription-services-despite-widespread-backlash/
Comcom saved giant tech companies like Apple. Microsoft tried to kill the Mac by rolling out a truly cursèd version of MS Office for MacOS. Mac users (5% of the market) who tried to send Word, Excel or Powerpoint files to Windows users (95% of the market) were stymied: their files wouldn't open, or they'd go corrupt. Tech managers like me started throwing the graphic designer's Mac and replacing it with a Windows box with a big graphics card and Windows versions of Adobe's tools.
Comcom saved Apple's bacon. Apple reverse-engineered MS's flagship software suite and made a comcom version, iWork, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote could flawlessly read and write MS's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay
It's tempting to think of iWork as benefiting Apple users, and certainly the people who installed and used it benefited from it. But Windows users also benefited from iWork. The existence of iWork meant that Windows users could seamlessly collaborate on and share files with their Mac colleagues. IWork didn't just add a new feature to the Mac ("read and write files that originated with Windows users") – it also added a feature to Windows: "collaborate with Mac users."
Every pirate wants to be an admiral. Though comcom rescued Apple from a monopolist's sneaky attempt to drive it out of business, Apple – now a three trillion dollar company – has repeatedly attacked comcom when it was applied to Apple's products. When Apple did comcom, that was progress. When someone does comcom to Apple, that's piracy.
Apple has many tools at its disposal that Microsoft lacked in the early 2000s. Radical new interpretations of existing copyright, contract, patent and trademark law allows Apple – and other tech giants – to threaten rivals who engage in comcom with both criminal and civil penalties. That's right, you can go to prison for comcom these days. No wonder Jay Freeman calls this "felony contempt of business model":
https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain
Take iMessage, Apple's end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) instant messaging tool. Apple customers can use iMessage to send each other private messages that can't be read or altered by third parties – not cops, not crooks, not even Apple. That's important, because when private messaging systems get hacked, bad things happen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak
But Apple has steadfastly refused to offer an iMessage app for non-Apple systems. If you're an Apple customer holding a sensitive discussion with an Android user, Apple refuses to offer you a tool to maintain your privacy. Those messages are sent "in the clear," over the 38-year-old SMS protocol, which is trivial to spy on and disrupt.
Apple sacrifices its users' security and integrity in the hopes that they will put pressure on their friends to move into Apple's walled garden. As CEO Tim Cook told a reporter: if you want to have secure communications with your mother, buy her an iPhone:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tim-cook-says-buy-mom-210347694.html
Last September, a 16-year old high school student calling himself JJTech published a technical teardown of iMessage, showing how any device could send and receive encrypted messages with iMessage users, even without an Apple ID:
https://jjtech.dev/reverse-engineering/imessage-explained/
JJTech even published code to do this, in an open source library called Pypush:
https://github.com/JJTech0130/pypush
In the weeks since, Beeper has been working to productize JJTech's code, and this week, they announced Beeper Mini, an Android-based iMessage client that is end-to-end encrypted:
https://beeper.notion.site/How-Beeper-Mini-Works-966cb11019f8444f90baa314d2f43a54
Beeper is known for a multiprotocol chat client built on Matrix, allowing you to manage several kinds of chat from a single app. These multiprotocol chats have been around forever. Indeed, iMessage started out as one – when it was called "iChat," it supported Google Talk and Jabber, another multiprotocol tool. Other tools like Pidgin have kept the flame alive for decades, and have millions of devoted users:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/tower-babel-how-public-interest-internet-trying-save-messaging-and-banish-big
But iMessage support has remained elusive. Last month, Nothing launched Sunchoice, a disastrous attempt to bring iMessage to Android, which used Macs in a data-center to intercept and forward messages to Android users, breaking E2EE and introducing massive surveillance risks:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/21/23970740/sunbird-imessage-app-shut-down-privacy-nothing-chats-phone-2
Beeper Mini does not have these defects. The system encrypts and decrypts messages on the Android device itself, and directly communicates with Apple's servers. It gathers some telemetry for debugging, and this can be turned off in preferences. It sends a single SMS to Apple's servers during setup, which changes your device's bubble from green to blue, so that Apple users now correctly see your device as a secure endpoint for iMessage communications.
Beeper Mini is now available in Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beeper.ima&hl=en_US
Now, this is a high-stakes business. Apple has a long history of threatening companies like Beeper over conduct like this. And Google has a long history deferring to those threats – as it did with OG App, a superior third-party Instagram app that it summarily yanked after Meta complained:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained
But while iMessage for Android is good for Android users, it's also very good for Apple customers, who can now get the privacy and security guarantees of iMessage for all their contacts, not just the ones who bought the same kind of phone as they did. The stakes for communications breaches have never been higher, and antitrust scrutiny on Big Tech companies has never been so intense.
Apple recently announced that it would add RCS support to iOS devices (RCS is a secure successor to SMS):
https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/16/apple-rcs-coming-to-iphone/
Early word from developers suggests that this support will have all kinds of boobytraps. That's par for the course with Apple, who love to announce splashy reversals of their worst policies – like their opposition to right to repair – while finding sneaky ways to go on abusing its customers:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently
The ball is in Apple's court, and, to a lesser extent, in Google's. As part of the mobile duopoly, Google has joined with Apple in facilitating the removal of comcom tools from its app store. But Google has also spent millions on an ad campaign shaming Apple for exposing its users to privacy risks when talking to Android users:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23883609/google-rcs-message-apple-iphone-ipager-ad
While we all wait for the other shoe to drop, Android users can get set up on Beeper Mini, and technologists can kick the tires on its code libraries and privacy guarantees.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/07/blue-bubbles-for-all/#never-underestimate-the-determination-of-a-kid-who-is-time-rich-and-cash-poor
#pluralistic#multiprotocol#interoperability#adversarial interop#beeper#reverse engineering#blue bubbles#green bubbles#e2ee#end to end encrypted#messaging#jjtech#pypushbeeper mini#matrix#competitive compatibility#comcom
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Japanese Linguistic Observations in Spy x Family - part 1
This is a post series I've been planning for a while and I've finally had the time to complete part 1! 😃 I may have mentioned here before that I got my B.A. in Japanese/East Asian Studies, and even though I'm not fluent, I know the linguistics of the language fairly well. So I thought it would be fun to examine the interesting aspects of the Japanese version of the SxF manga that aren't reflected in the English translation. It might also be an informative experience for those who don't know any Japanese to learn a bit about the language through SxF! I'll try not to get too technical with the linguistics and keep my explanations at a beginner's level.
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Part 1 - Twilight's "honne and tatemae"
One of the main themes in SxF is how many of the characters have secrets they want to hide, so they act a certain way in front of others in order to mask their true selves. Japanese has a word for this phenomena called 本音と建前 ("honne and tatemae").
I remember learning about the concept of "honne and tatemae" during my Japanese college studies – a quick google search will yield a lot of publications on the topic and its relation to Japanese culture in particular. While the idea of hiding one's true intentions behind a fake facade can exist anywhere and is not something unique to Japan, it is enough of an occurrence in Japanese culture that there are specific words for it. The Wiki article has a basic but good definition of honne and tatemae, to quote:
A person's honne may be contrary to what is expected by society or what is required according to one's position and circumstances, and they are often kept hidden, except with one's closest friends. Tatemae is what is expected by society and required according to one's position and circumstances, and these may or may not match one's honne. In many cases, tatemae leads to outright telling of lies in order to avoid exposing the true inward feelings.
Sounds very much like the characters in SxF, doesn't it? Twilight especially, because unlike other characters like Yor and Anya, who simply have secrets they need to keep but don't create fake personas for themselves, Twilight does – the cheerful, friendly Loid Forger is a different person from the cold, calculating Twilight after all. Also unlike Yor and Anya, who speak the same way consistently no matter who they're talking to, Twilight uses different speech levels depending on which persona he's using and who he's talking to.
There are many different levels of speech in Japanese, ranging from super formal to totally crude. These speech levels are distinguished mostly by the pronouns the speaker chooses to use for themselves and who they're speaking to, as well as how they choose to conjugate the words they use. For example, 座ってください (suwatte kudasai), 座って (suwatte,) and 座れ (suware) all mean "sit," as in, telling someone to sit down. But the tone being conveyed is different: the first one is polite, the second one is casual, and the last one could be seen as rude if you're not using it with a close friend/family member.
As Twilight, he uses casual speech with the masculine and less polite pronoun 俺 or オレ (ore). This is the speech he uses when talking to a fellow spy like Fiona, and for his own inner thoughts.
As Loid Forger, he uses the polite 敬語 (keigo) speech, which is basically comprised of using the -ます (-masu) conjugation for verbs and the "to be" verb です (desu). He also uses the pronoun ボク or 僕 (boku), which is the standard male pronoun and more polite than "ore." He uses keigo to address pretty much everyone who doesn't know his true identity. When talking to a higher-up like Sylvia, he'll still use "ore" but will use polite speech instead of casual speech.
Anya is an exception to this: with her, he uses his most casual speech, the same as he uses with Franky.
I discussed a bit about this in part 24 of my Twiyor analysis posts, but this could be because Anya is a little kid, so he doesn't feel the need to put on any airs with her (same with Bond, whom he also uses casual speech with).
An interesting side note is that, as a child, Twilight used the pronoun "boku" but then changed to "ore" as soon as he became an adult/soldier.
Another aspect of keigo, besides using the more polite forms of pronouns and verb conjugations, is putting the honorific さん (san) after people's names. Twilight does this all the time with Yor, as she does with him. However, he switches to casual speech and drops the "san" part in her name when addressing her in front of people who (supposedly) believe they're a real married couple, such as Yuri and Fiona – because it would be weird for a real couple who have been married for a year to address each other in such a formal way, especially the husband. In the below panel when Fiona visits them, he's calling her "Yor" instead of "Yor-san" and using casual speech instead of keigo.
Oddly in these situations, while he uses just "Yor" when addressing her directly, he still calls her "Yor-san" when talking about her. During Yuri's first visit for example, he calls her "Yor-san" when telling Yuri how much Anya loves her (talking to someone about her) but then calls her just "Yor" a few moments later when telling her that he'll clean up the spill (talking to her directly). It's strange to me that he wouldn't just consistently use "Yor" whether he's talking to her or about her in these situations...I'm honestly not sure if he does this intentionally or if he just slips up since he's so used to using "Yor-san" in her presence.
*UPDATE* Thank you to @dentedintheworld-blog for enlightening me with the below reply about this!
"In Japanese, when speaking to your spouse's family about your spouse, you address her/him by attaching "san" her/his name out of respect for her/his family. This is also to show her/his family that you respect your spouse. That's why Loid calls Yor with san when he talks about how much he loves Yor to Yuri."
That definitely makes sense for why Twilight switches between "Yor" and "Yor-san" in these situations.
Regardless, this is why the scene in chapter 86 is so significant – when Yor isn't present, there's no reason for him to refer to her as "Yor-san," especially in front of a fellow spy like Fiona who knows he (supposedly) shouldn't have any feelings for her. Yet, even after he just called Yuri by his full name "Yuri Briar" a moment before, he doesn't do the same for Yor and continues to call her "Yor-san" here, much to Fiona's dismay.
In the same chapter, it's also significant that he uses "ore" when addressing Yor directly in his thoughts. Even though he's not speaking out loud, I believe this is the first time he's speaking directly "to" her as Twilight and/or his true self and not as Loid Forger.
But despite all this, I think that both Loid Forger and Twilight are tatemae…they're both masks to hide the person he truly is. The person who fondly talked about his mother to Yor on the park bench, the person who genuinely expressed gratitude for her sacrifice when leaving the resort island, the person who refused to kill Yuri in a life-or-death struggle because he knew it would hurt her…that's his actual honne. But of course, the ongoing conflict of the series is that he has yet to realize this. He won't even show his honne to his closest friend, Franky. Seems like it mostly comes out in dribs and drabs during his interactions with Yor...no surprise there, lol. The man is certainly a work in progress. When he finally starts letting his "honne" show, I'm curious what form of speech he'll adopt.
-----
Continue to Part 2 ->
#spy x family#sxf#spy family#spyxfamily#loid forger#twiyor#sxf spoilers#sxf manga#sxf manga spoilers#sxf analysis
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I unfortunately saw something I didn't want to see and that was my last straw. I'm fucking doing this.
Let's establish this first. Alastor is stated in the show to be asexual that is not up to discussion. He is also very heavily implied in the same conversation to be aromatic. 'An Ace in the hole' being used in context of him being with Charlie is also implying his aromanticism.
VIDEO
If that's not enough then here is Viv speaking about his romantic orientation. It's pretty clear despite the fact that afterwards she said it's okay to headcanon whatever (it's not but I will get o that later) that he is written purely as an aro ace character.
On top of that going by Alastor's interaction with Angel from the pilot and the first episode it is clear that he is sex repulsed. Not only that but on the fandom website he is stated to be touch averse with two sources which you can check out on the website.
Hazbin hotel wiki, Alastor page
Now we established that Alastor is canonically Asexual, Aromantic, Sex Repulsed and Touch Averse
As I also am all of the above I'll try to explain everything to the best of my ability as simply as I can.
Aromanticism and Asexuality.
I'm probably targeting the audience that knows those terms but regardless I will explain it anyway.
Aromantic - people that experience little to no romantic attraction towards any gender
Asexual - people that experience little to no sexual attraction towards any gender.
Little to no
Asexuality and aromanticism are spectrums in which people can feel certain attractions towards people but those attractions are less occurring or are defined by personal connection.
Diagram from AVEN website
However some people are at the end of the spectrum, they never felt attraction and that's valid. Alastor was stated to be aroace he wasn't written as demi or as gray he was written as aroace as in the end of the spectrum. His repulsion and not giving shit about romance or sex speaks for itself.
Representation
I do understand that everyone wants to be represented but it's so important to understand that aroace people are one of the most underrepresented queer groups in the media.
And I'm not here to scream about how I want my fav character to be just like me I don't care for it I'm way too confident in my orientation to rely on that however I'm tired of explaining to people what asexuality and aromanticism is just to receive 'are you sure' or 'you'll change your mind' or 'its not real' or the community favourite 'you'll find the right person' no I won't I'm not looking thank you very much (I just smile and nod to be polite and I'm sick of it).
'Harmless' buts like: 'He might be on the spectrum', 'AroAce people can still feel attraction' hurt the final outcome for all the people on the spectrum not only strictly aroaces because it allows people to write one shots with 'Demi Alastor' that falls in love in 2000 words because he is 'demi' (spoiler alert: they don't understand what that label means). It's just a cover, an opening, sneaky way to disregard his orientation, feel good about themselves and move on. Newsflash there is no moving on for aroace people it's our life.
Shipping
Shipping is just harmless fun right? Usually yes but not in this case. In the same way its not okay to ship gay characters with genders they are not attracted to.
It's erasure and since there is much less people identifying on aro/ace spectrums then there is gay or bi people our voices are being silenced. Not to mention that gay people received support from entire LGBTQIA+ community over the years in contrast to aro/ace specs who to this day are told that we are 'not queer enough' or 'not oppressed enough' often by other queer people.
And finally... FINALLY we get cannon Aro/Ace character that is clearly not interested in romance and sex. Character that beats stereotypes of boring and timid aro/ace people and what's the first people do? They ship him. Alastor's storyline provides so many points to be explored like 'what is his backstory', ' what's about his deal', ' how does he fit in in the found family trope' , 'does he care about hotel guests' yet people choose to write about the only thing that he is not interested in. As a heavily repulsed person that used to be horrified about the fact that I'll have to fall in love with somebody at some point before I found out what aro/ace is I find it repulsive and trust me he would too.
But Viv said it's okay!
Its the same point once again. What if Viv said that it's okay to ship gay Angel with woman. She doesn't have authority to say shit like that.
Queerplatonic relationships
I can't tell you not to do it I don't think he would be necessary interested in it but for fuck sake do your research and try to understand what queerplatonic means before you use it as a cover to shamelessly ship him. Respect the fact that he is sex repulsed and touch averse and you're fine.
Why can't you just avoid it?
First of all I shouldn't have to. Alastor's orientation should be respected in the fandom like any other orientation is. Second of all I've tried. I tried to only look up AroAce Alastor tag I've blocked over 80 people on tumblr alone (I just counted) to avoid to see anything that could trigger me and I'm not talking about slightly shippy posts or fanarts I'm talking about full blown disregard towards his orientation. Guess what it didn't work!
Archive of our own where do I start. I've used this website for over a decade and I could probably count days I didn't go there on my fingers. I'm fluent in AO3 I know which tags I should block. I know how to skim thorough the summary and tags to see if I'm interested. I've seen shit I'm a shipper I've been on ao3 for ten years but never had to mentally prepare myself to face queerphobia as I click on the tab.
Just use aro/ace Alastor tag.
I do and let me tell you people can't tag for shit or they just pretend to be clueless at this point. Besides see this?
there is more ff with Alastor/reader (disgusting) than there is Alastor with his canon orientation and to play the devils advocate for arophobic people there is more Angel/Alastor then his stated in the show sexuality. I understand that fandom goes back before the show was aired but Viv confirmed his orientation back then too.
Summary
I could go on and on bout different issues and maybe I will in the future but I'm not wasting anymore of this weekend on it. I'm ready to answer any questions as long as they are respectful.
I'm aware that he is a fictional character, it doesn't affect him in any way whatsoever but it does affect aromantic and asexual people keep it in mind.
If there are any mistakes grammar related I'm not sorry I'm fluent in English (not my first language) but I took 3h nap in between and I'm sleep deprived.
Have a nice day.
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