Watching The Empire Strikes Back Again And Wow. Yoda Really Is A Scrungly Little Guy.

I don’t think I have, actually. I went and read the whole thing, and her main idea is people “misusing the word technology”. That’s literally what she says two paragraphs before the above excerpt -

“But [the word technology] is consistently misused to mean only the enormously complex and specialised technologies of the past few decades, supported by massive exploitation both of natural and human resources. This is not an acceptable use of the word.”

That is precisely the sentiment I was responding to - the idea that our modern use of the word “technology” is somehow wrong or misinformed. But it’s not. It has simply progressed as our society has progressed.

She goes on to write that “Its technology is how a society copes with physical reality…” and no, it isn’t. Perhaps it was, centuries ago. But within the modern societal consciousness, that is not what technology means. The meaning has changed. It’s just like how you wouldn’t describe, say, a fantasy magic system as “weird” because “weird” doesn’t have any relation to magic in the modern parlance. But it did - in Shakespeare’s day, that was the word’s primary meaning - magic, power, the occult, fate, witchcraft - though he would have spelled it “weyard”.

The most ridiculous thing is that this is all written in response a review of one of her books, in which the reviewer is very clearly using “technology” in the modern sense. But she still pedantically insists that, actually, his review is incorrect because… she’s working with a completely different definition of the word than everyone else on the planet.

And on a side note, fuck this whole… essay? I hate it. ‘Not an acceptable use of the word’ my ass. That’s the kind of linguistic arch-conservativism that creates institutions like the Académie Française.

— Ursula K. Le Guin, from “A Rant About ‘Technology’”

as a child being told "the moon controls the tides" with no additional explanation was like. oh okay. you want me to believe in magic? you're talking about magic right now? okay. fine

i loooove being a hater but please. don't tag your hate (EVERYONE following #fencing had to see that)

as well they should. epee wielders are scum. maybe I’ll respect them if they ever pick up a real sword.

I believe that Kirkbride’s original idea for the Bosmer (as he outlined in the concept art you’re referencing (no, I don’t know why it’s a nexus link, that’s the only place I could find the version with his notes))

https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/105701/105701-1606858796-124772823.png

was the male and female bosmer represented two different sides of our fairy myths. The women are the ethereally beautiful, good (or at least noble), fae (descended from the gods of Celtic myth); Titania, the Tuatha de Danann, the Leannán Sídhe (Tolkien’s elves also are a deliberate reference to these fae) - while the men are the little, sometimes evil, or at least trickster, fairies that we find more in medieval stories; Puck, the Fomorians, coblynau, pixies, boggarts, kobolds, etc.

to put it another way: the women are goddesscore and the men are rodentpilled

Also, for what it’s worth, Kirkbride wrote that the men have “lost their power of glamour”, so it could be that women are also ugly, they just use magic to conceal their appearance. Which is also very fae.

You know what bugs me? Bosmer males. Look, idk how ESO does things, but from Morrowind to Oblivion they seem to be the butt of a joke that just says, aren't short men with squeaky voices funny and juvenile and stupid and ripe for mockery? (Fargoth, Gaenir, Glarthir, The Adoring Fan. I don't remember any Bosmer in Skyrim, but then I haven't played Skyrim since like 2015.) Plus there's that old lore about how the Bosmeri women are hot and the men are not, and frankly, fuck that. Where the short king Bosmer at? (Please share any cool Bosmeri male OCs with me.)

holy fuck we’re so back tamrielheads

If you were looking for a reason to get back into Morrowind: Tamriel Rebuilt's latest expansion, Grasping Fortune, has released!

do you ever think about the guard on the docks of Seyda Neen? do you ever think about how tired he must be of his job by now?

I’m sure it was terrifying at first, watching the stranger get off the boat, come up him, and morph their race and body and gender as he watched. but then it happened again, and again, the same ship arriving over and over, the same stranger getting off, him telling them the same lie - “I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”

by now, he’s just tired. he’s been doing the same job for twenty years. watching the boats get fewer and fewer, the time spent waiting between strangers get longer and longer. now, he waits with bated breath for the day that the final boat comes in, the final stranger begins their journey, and he can go home.

Закройте рот ты сука

Translation: “Shut your mouth you bitch”

I’d be careful if I were you, anon. Considering it’s illegal to acknowledge the existence of queer people in Russia, I’d recommend you get off the gay website immediately.

Yeah so some of these couples are jokes and only "ships" in the fandom way. But you're wrong if you believe there wasn't any kind of special relationship between Robespierre and Saint-Just, Carnot and Prieur, Barère and... a lot of men. Yes, Carnot and Barère were married. Carnot loved his wife. Barère had several female lovers. Prieur had a long-term relationship with an older woman (who was married to someone else). But um... Did you forget bisexuality exists? Or homoromanticism? Or are you just de facto implying those aren't "real"? Have you internalized that they aren't real maybe? Because trust me some men love other men as much as women, as much as their wife, maybe more than their wife. David loved Drouais more than his wife - and no it wasn't "fatherly love". It was a teacher's/mentor's love with all of the ambiguity this involves when you remember they were artists and what the subjects they preferred to paint were. This culture offered a convenient pretext where you could blur the lines. And no, you'll likely never know the truth. You'll never know if they fucked other men, or how, or what positions they preferred, or if David actually fathered his own children. And honestly it's kinda creepy to take it beyond mere speculation and actually really want to know that far as if it was a fact you were owed to? You don't need to know those details. You can just know when there's obviously a loving relationship going on. That's just as true for living breathing beings you know btw. You'll never really know what kind of loving relationship they have unless they choose to tell you... or someone forcibly outs them, which is gross.

Maybe we should be happy they had the chance to live in a brief period where all loving relationships between men weren't automatically seen as "scandalous" and "depraved", that men were allowed to love each other without it being always perceived as "suspicious" and "illicit".

Barère's thoughts about Saint-Just aren't creepy because they're about another man - they're creepy because he clearly sounds jealous of Robespierre and, you know, the whole Thermidor thing and all the nasty things he said about both. But it's actually quite special that we get to read his obviously non-straight non-normative thoughts so openly. It's not "subtext" or our "fevered deranged imagination". It's just there. Your denial isn't my problem to deal with.

tumblr is a really special kind of place where you can find people complaining about how ‘The West’ is transphobic and reactionary and evil and then praising Russia and North Korea in the same sentence

I love Honkai star rail because I know nothing about it other than the fact that one of the characters is named Kafka. They really said here’s a character named after a depressed 1900s Czech author and she’s a hot girl with big tits.