Carl Jung is my favorite historical figure, and I've spent a lot of time reading about him. I'd like to share some of the information about him and his ideas. More specifically, I want to discuss his concept of archetypes and the act of rebirth (which parallels Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey in many ways).

Sorry for making so many longposts today. I've only had an hour of sleep, I'm having self-mutilation OCD thoughts, and writing is one thing I know that distracts me enough to stop myself from hurting myself. I've got enough scars to last a lifetime, I don't need anymore. Most of the information comes from Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

Carl Jung's background

Carl Gustav Jung was a psychiatrist who was born in Switzerland in 1875. Gerhard Wehr studies Jung's life and records much of it in detail in Jung, A Biography. His father, Paul Jung, was a Reformed Protestant vicar while his mother, Emilie Preiswerk, suffered from mental illness.

As a child, Jung had a deep interest in nature and, though he was surrounded by the church, he was unable to achieve any affinity for all the dogmatic side of religion. Don't let this fool you into thinking Jung didn't care about religion at all because his interest in the spiritual life of human beings was a lifelong pursuit. In 1895, Jung began attending the University of Basel where he enrolled in the medical curriculum. There, Jung proved himself to be quite the polymath. In addition to being influenced by the philosopher Frederick Nietzsche, he also familiarised himself with all the occult-spiritist literature. I wonder if he met witchcraft girls lol.

Jung's life took a turn when he picked up a copy of Richard von Krafft-Ebing's textbook on psychiatry, which motivated him to abandon his studies in medicine to pursue psychiatry. In this field, he would have a notable intellectual impact. His foray into psychiatry brought him into contact with many other fields of study including neurology, psychology, sociology, psychotherapy, and ultimately even philosophy.

Jung and Freud

Jung demonstrated himself to be a talented scholar, and he eventually caught the attention of Freud. Although they had their intellectual differences, Jung had great respect for Freud and Freud considered Jung one of his favourite disciples. Though Freud was usually a brisk man, he was warm toward Jung.

Despite the geniality between the two which lasted for seven years until it petered out, they had massive irreconcilable differences regarding their ideas on psychoanalysis. Jung, like many modern critics, was highly skeptical of Freud's overemphasis on the role of sexuality in human psychology (much like myself, I hate how horny Freud is). However, when Jung raised his objections, Freud refused to budge. Another point of disagreement was the fact that Jung, unlike Freud, had respect for the spiritual and paranormal realm. To Jung, there is no rational without the irrational.

It wasn't all disagreements. He, like Freud, believed in the unconscious. However, he did not conceptualize it as a psychic realm exclusively housing repressed or forgotten contents. This, according to Jung, only describes the “personal unconscious". There is a deeper layer of the unconscious Jung terms the “collective unconscious” which has “contents and modes of behavior that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals”. Let's delve deeper into this concept.

Jung's Archetypes

Featuring prominently in Jung's works is the idea of archetypes. Historically, the word archetype has been used to denote an ideal. For example, Jung cites Corpus Hermeticum, published in the third century, which describes God as the ‘archetypal light'.

When Jung uses the term archetype, he is referring to “‘primitive images” that serve as psychic counterparts to instincts. In much the same way that animals in the same species will inherit physical traits from their ancestors, so too are there psychic apparatus that are inherited in the form of archetypes. Are you still following?

These archetypes exist in the collective unconscious of the species and are not taught, meaning that they are not spread through tradition, language, or culture. What must be noted is that it is not the contents of the archetypes that are inherited, but rather it is the forms that are passed down. Thus, although similar archetypal forms can be found in disparate cultures around the world, how they manifest will differ.

Let's call this the end of part 1. In part 2, I want to discuss the rebirth archetype.

Jung and Rebirths

When Jung talks about rebirths, he is not talking about material death and resurrection. Instead, he is referring to psychic processes, but of course you probably already knew that. We're not discussing zombies. According to Jung, there are a few different types of rebirths, but the renovatio is the purest form of rebirth according to Jung, and it is centered on the transformation of the individual. You've seen this occur in stories. The hero learns something new, transforming them and making them worthy to face the monster. Within myths and religious narratives, such a transformation may come in the form of a human turning into a divine being (such as the ascension of Christ).

Humans seem to be very attracted to renovatio rebirths. It is a central aspect of Christianity, and Christians partake in it during mass when they eat the flesh and blood of Christ during communion. The resurrected flesh and blood of Christ are consumed by the participant, making them one with the rebirthed hero. Cool, but also yuck.

So what are the consequences of rebirths? The answer lies in personality. For example, one might unlock their animus or anima. The transformation of personality gives prominence to those traits that are characteristic of the opposite s*x. Jung also lists identification with a cult hero as a means of bringing about the transformation of the personality. This occurs when one identifies with a god or hero who transforms in a sacred ritual.

Perhaps most importantly, there is the natural transformation, which Jung also refers to as individuation. He claims that there are natural transformation processes that occur to us whether we like it or not, and whether we know it or not. In quite a Freudian fashion, he argues that these transformations announce themselves in the realm of dreams and that within dreams, one can find rebirth symbolism and dream symbols of the process of individuation. This rebirth, Jung argues, is often accompanied by an inner voice. The inner voice that facilitates individuation is sometimes characterized as a friend in religious narratives and myths. Campbell would call this the Helper.

Conclusion

I believe in Jung's theories, even the concept of racial consciousness. I love reading Jung's work and I think he is a very smart man. Next, I want to write about Stanislav Grof, a mad doctor who was inspired by Jung and gave his patients LSD. Bye for now, I'm going to go play Metal Gear Solid V.

This is a topic dear to me, and one I struggle to write about. For years I identified as asexual. To this day, I am still trying to make sense of why I did so, and what my feelings were at the time. It was not a farce - I genuinely believed I lacked any source of sexual attraction.

I think part of it is just having a low libido. That is to say, my interest in s*x is low, but not non-existent. Secondly, Being asexual is the less painful route. To be a heterosexual male is to expose yourself to a world of rejection and of finding common ground with women. I don't think most women understand how terrifying they are, and how crippling the thought of talking to them is. It feels like a life or death situation, especially if you have social anxiety to top things off.

Lastly, I do believe that sexuality is fluid and can change over one's lifetime. I think some may disagree with me on this one. What I am arguing is that, for example, a lesbian woman might find herself developing an attraction to men in her thirties, either due to changing neurochemistry or improved self-knowledge. For others, it may be a case of sexuality influenced by trauma which, once overcome, reveals a different sexuality.

Might environment play a role? We've all heard of the concept of being prison gay? Personally, I don't believe that environment plays a significant role in sexuality, at least not outside of the womb. I think youngsters might try on different sexualities in their teens and twenties, but this does not represent their true biological sexuality. For example, a woman might experiment with another woman during her first year of university because she's in an environment where the LGBT kids seem to be the cool ones, but she never experiences true sexual attraction to women. Remember, actions are not the same as attraction.

With that out the way, I think we can begin this discussion. It's going to be a long one, but when have my posts ever been short?

What is asexuality?

One of the earliest mentions of the term “asexual” can be found in Lisa Orlandos's Asexual Manifesto written in 1972. This is a feminist text in which women declare that they want relationships in which s*x is not a factor. As the text explains:

Consequently, the feminist roots of the sexuality cannot be denied. Though the sexuality may have existed before 1972, the way we understand it today is almost entirely forged by feminist discourse and of course the concept of "political asexuality" where one chooses to be asexual. This concept sits alongside "political lesbianism". I reject both concepts and assert that one cannot choose their sexuality and that reducing sexuality to the theoretical political realm is to foolishly ignore the material biological realm.

Asexuality is not celibacy. One chooses to be celibate but one does not choose to be asexual and therefore is essentially asexual. Of course, as I did, one can mistakenly believe they are asexual. This is also true of women who are unable to engage in penetrative heterosexual s*x due to chronic pain, and of disabled people.

In many ways, asexuality shares commonalities with the various members of the LGBT community. Roughly 1.05% of the population claim they have never felt sexual attraction to anyone at all. Some, though not all, studies suggest that more women than men are asexual.

So Are Asexuals Sick?

When research was done, it was found that asexual men had higher rates of mood disorders than heterosexual men; asexual women and men had higher rates of anxiety than heterosexual men and women. These researchers also provided evidence suggesting that asexuality can be conceptualized as or akin to Schizoid personality type from the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, 4th Edition (DSM-IV). Specifically, asexual people endorsed greater social inhibition, and coldness/social distance with vindictive and exploitable personality styles. To explain this finding, researchers postulate that asexual people have avoidant attachment styles as children that may have led to relationship issues as adults.

Thus, researchers concluded that asexuality may not be the cause of these factors but may be a product of social functioning. Specifically, “increased mental health problems may be a consequence of discrimination or a consequence of lacking sexual attraction in an environment that is arguably centered on sexuality”. Taken together, these studies demonstrate that asexual individuals may also experience psychological distress as a consequence of their marginalization.

It has been suggested that those who lack sexual attraction but have yet to find community may experience more isolation, distress, and confusion. In other words, individuals who have yet to “come out” as asexual, may be in greater distress than those who have reached an integrated asexual identity.

With that being said, Several papers have shown connections between the presence of the asexual phenotype and traits that are found in mental illness patients, specifically those with Asperger's syndrome or Schizoid personality disorder.

The Sexual Assumption

I know those who dare to even open this post will already be sneeding, ready to assert that asexuality isn't real. This is something asexual people are used to. It is known as the sexual assumption. Humans are considered to be creatures with innate sexual desires. Consequently, one of the most pervasive social assumptions is that all humans have sexual desires. This sexual assumption manifests in various fields of knowledge such as psychology and medicine where sexuality is seen as a natural, healthy, and essential aspect of the human. Tell your doctor you're asexual, they'll probably think you're sick. The same goes for your psychiatrist. One of the people you can blame for this is Sigmund Freud who had a huge influence on psychology but assigned a sexual basis to basically every aspect of human psychology.

According to research, these are the common assumptions about asexuals:

individuals who identify as asexual cannot fall in love, do not have s*x, have been the victim of sexual abuse, have chosen to be celibate or abstinent, are not attracted to anyone, just need to find the right person, are sociopaths or nonfeeling, are sexually deviant, are sexually frustrated, are denying their feelings, do not masturbate, do not enjoy any sexual activity, will be/live single/alone forever, or that the asexual orientation is just not real

The consequences of this should not be ignored or taken. Research by Cara MacInnes et al reveals that “sexual desire is considered a key component of human nature, and those lacking it are viewed as relatively deficient, less human, and disliked”. In a questionnaire distributed among undergraduate students, “asexuals were attributed significantly lower uniquely human traits than any other sexual orientation group”. Yes, if you're asexual, you're seen as less human than others.

Thanks to folks like Freud, furthermore, asexuality is often pathologized and seen as a detrimental deviation from a normative mode of being which can cause mental health issues. Some asexuals are led to believe they are sick and have hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

As I'm sure you know, underlying the sexual assumption is the concept of compulsory heterosexuality. Compulsory heterosexuality can be defined as the assumption that heterosexuality is the default sexuality. This idea permeates society due to the manifold ways it is enforced both subtly and overtly. The assumption that all people are innately heterosexual is fraught with problems as it results in all other sexual orientations being erased, pathologized, or seen as deviancies which must be corrected.

In the next few sections, we'll have a look at whether asexuals are discriminated against. Is anyone being oppressed for not fricking?!

The Weirdness of Asexuality

I would argue that asexuality challenges society's construction of humans as inherently sexual and hence can be thought of as anarchic. While asexual marriages have never been specifically outlawed, definitions of marriage typically assume sexual activity between spouses. In some US states, for example, nonconsummation of a marriage is a ground for voiding the marriage. Fortunately, it has never been illegal to have asexual inclinations. Thus, while asexuals may face problems in their personal lives, they have never had to counter any legally enforced oppression.

Similar religious prohibitions of asexual marriage can be found in faith systems such as Christianity where, in 1 Corinthians 7, it is written that “each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband”. The verse goes on to instruct married couples to only abstain temporarily, and for the sake of prayer, after which they should return to their marriage duties lest they be tempted by Satan.

Such laws and religious doctrines assume sexual activity as an integral part of marriage and consequently make asexual marriages anarchic.

The anarchic qualities of asexuality are not limited to State laws and their religious appendages, however. Broadly speaking, anarchy can be defined as a movement that attempts to, as Noam Chomsky writes, “dismantle […] forms of authority and oppression”. One of the forms of oppression anarchy hopes to dismantle is representation. While many view anarchism as a movement that opposes the representation of democracy, as Cohn explains, “anarchism extends its opposition to ‘any form of representation'”. Asexuality, by defying the sexual assumption, has the potential to be an identity that opposes prevailing human representations.

So how does one wield this anarchic power? We can learn from Judith Butler. She tells a story of once walking the streets and having someone, in a derogatory tone, ask her if she's a lesbian. Butler's response? Why yes I am! Don't fear to embrace your uniqueness!

In a way, asexuals are the ultimate rebels. They refuse to create new life, or even to reproduce the social and cultural continuity in the form of a heterosexual monogamous marriage. By not producing future consumers and producers of economic goods, asexuals partake in social non-productivity and take economic advantage of the well-adjusted elements of society, and this is based in my books. Anyone still reading?

Asexuality and Race

I am a black man, which made it harder for me to identify as asexual. Historically, black men have been hypersexualized (think https://BLACKED.com), thus the asexual label is seen as incongruent. Associations of black males with hypersexuality can be traced back to early colonial discourse where blackness was associated with savagery and primitivity. Hence, the hypersexuality of the black male was simply another way of framing the black male as bestial, crude, and less civilized than the white colonisers. This strong association of black males with hypersexuality poses a problem for black males who are asexual, as it represents a contradiction. They are rendered illegible, as language has not created a non-contradictory means for such individuals to describe themselves.

Fortunately, as a 5 foot 1 male, I am seldom sexualized, so when I identified as asexual, it was not questioned all too much regardless of my race.

It should be noted that hypersexuality is inflicted upon all men to some degree. Hence, being an asexual male invites prejudice regardless of your race. masculinity and sexuality are so inextricably knotted together that when men face sexual problems such as erectile dysfunction, they see it as a loss of manhood. Consequently, asexuality in men is much more pathologized than in women. My research reveals that "identifying as asexual (or more precisely, their disinterest in attracting a sexual partner) meant they felt they did not have to conform to particular gendered standards of appearance". As a male who wears a LOT of pink and paints his nails, yes being asexual freed me of the notion of having to look masculine.

Asexuality and Media

As you can imagine, asexuality is seldom represented in our hypersexualized media landscape. Due to the limited awareness of asexuality, relatively few asexual characters can be found in literature and even less can be found which could be considered as examples of positive representation. The absence of positive asexual characters can have an alienating effect on those who identify as asexual and find themselves in a culture that promotes sexuality as a normal part of human existence.

AVEN

I'd like to end off by discussing AVEN. No, not the creator of this site. I'm talking about the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network which has been pivotal in the asexuality movement. There is currently underway a small social movement, perhaps akin to the gay rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which has brought together people who identify as asexual.

It was founded in 2001 by David Jay as a place for asexuals to interact, and for people to share resources regarding asexuality. AVEN facilitates not only asexual identities but also conveys the importance of ‘legitimizing' asexuality as a biological or innate characteristic, not as a choice like celibacy. For many asexual individuals, the internet has facilitated the discovery, not only of a language by which to describe themselves and a community that offers support and acceptance but also a way of thinking about their asexuality as an essential characteristic of themselves. No, this doesn't mean the internet is turning people ace.

According to David Jay, sexual people who identify as highly s*x-positive, after overcoming their initial skepticism about asexuality, often end up the strongest allies and supporters of asexuals, and those who are asexual find the site to be a place of solace.

Conclusion

I deeply miss being asexual. It was safe. Women weren't scary to me. Since dropping the label, I have felt this intense pressure to fulfill heterosexual obligations such as finding a partner and having s*x. However, as a truecel, it could be the case that it'll never happen. I heard my neighbors have s*x this evening. It felt like a gut punch.

I did try to tell a girl I like her but it failed. The worst part is that we're still friends and she constantly talks about the love we share for each other and how special our friendship is. It hurts so bad. I don't want to be your friend, I want to be your boyfriend. Why do women do this? You know I have a crush on you, I literally told you and you turned me down, yet you talk about how much you love me. Do you know what that does to my emotions?!

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Sorry for the longpost. It was either this or harm myself with something in the house. My thoughts aren't racing so much anymore and the self-harm compulsions have quietened a bit. I only slept for about an hour and a half. On Wednesday, my psychologist suspected I'm entering hypomania and it seems so. She said it's dangerous because it's followed by depression so I have to be careful and that it's exacerbated by a lack of sleep but I don't feel like I need sleep.

If you read this whole thing, I'm impressed.

This thread caught my attention recently:

Constantly fapping on my aunt

I (25M) is lusting for my aunt (50F). I am constantly fapping on her whenever I am extremely hard. Cant help myself out of it whenever I go to her place. I was about to ask her out for it but then controlled somehow and used the bathroom to fap.

Edit : Thanks for judging me well in the comments guys. But I'd really appreciate it if your words help me to get rid of this situation.

OP is Indian, no surprise there. The English is a dead giveaway, but anyone with enough colonial blood in them will notice that this precise blend of diseased sexuality and genuine r-sluration combined with willful ignorance of the way reality works could only come out of the subcontinent. The entirety of Hindoo culture over however many centuries has culminated in a society whose only success is producing mass amounts of exactly this kind of vile scrote. /r/nofap is a magnet for these kinds of people, being that you by definition need to have been a porn addict at some point in order to quit porn, and that the Hindoo's conservative values stops him from taking up the libertine worldview of, say, an autogynephile, and embracing his sexual pathology as a part of daily life.

The result of this is that every comment that isn't a Goku reaction gif is telling OP that none of this is his fault. After all, how can he be expected to control his urges or take any responsibility for his actions whatsoever after being introduced to the destructive mind virus that is pornography?

I don't wanna be one of those mfs who gonna make fun of you and judge, porn addiction can really frick you up. I advise you seek professional help dude, I hope the best for ya.

I agree with you. It's not right to make fun of OP, & while he does have a problem there's a lot of us who've gotten into messed up stuff because of porn. I think looking at femdom has warped my view of women.

When i was a teenager, i just kept this shit to myself.

When I was a teenager, I didn't have thoughts like these. Huh, weird!

Anyway, the real interesting thing about this post is that it introduced me to the Bizarro alternate universe of Indian gooners. The first thing on OP's profile that caught my attention was him comenting "🍆" under a post titled "Drop a 🍆 if your peepee is longer than 4 inches 👀💦" on a subreddit called /r/BangaloreGW. I found this really funny. My intuition is that if I was a Western pornstar making a post like this, I'd make the cutoff 6 inches: common enough to get loads of comments to boost engagement, but just big enough for people to feel a need to comment. For Bangaloreans, though, the cutoff is 2 inches smaller, and I think I know the reason. It's not just that they have smaller peepees, but also because they can't tell they're being held to deliberately low standards. So instead of choosing just barely above the average, like in my previous example, this woman picks just barely below the average. Genius!

This insight into the Indian mind is all well and good, but the fun really starts when you get to /r/ShagOnHotties, one of OP's absolute favorite subs. I opened this because of the hilariously r-slurred name, expecting that "shagon" was actually just a Hindi TV network or something, but I was wrong. The sidebar describes it as "A place where people can have fun time with each other while shagging on hotties" and the titles are fricking amazing. Here are the top three posts of all time:

Spreading legs wide with camera fully focused on her c*nt, Only a Shameless Gutterpig like Moroccan Hooker Nora Fatehi can do it. Besharam Mulli Chinaal

Kriti Kutti Sanon shifting her nipples sidewards and erecting it upright in no time just by the touch of a man. Just imagine how slutty she will be when no one is around her or when she is surrounded by Bulls. Nymphomaniac C*nt

Shraddha Kapoor red bikini show in HD 🥵 see this and jerk hard guys ✊ coz shraddha really deserves our thick white ropes of c*m 💦 Ahhh saali randi ne pagal kar diya iss movie ke baad 🤩 saala thethre Mai jaake dekhi aur waha tak muth mari maine 😩 kitni maal hai yeh Ind version of lana rhoades

What the frick is wrong with Indians?!?! Gooning is a very high-concept, almost postmodern fetish (masturbating to the idea of masturbating to the idea of masturbating, etc.), so you'd expect Indians to have to make some compromises when embracing it, but this is just so bizzare. It's so... childish? And their tenuous grasp on English vulgarity makes it even better. A "shameless gutterpig"??? How the frick do you come up with this stuff. It reminds me of that video of Lou Reed reading porn ads, except somehow even worse.

Here's another post, which was the first one I saw when I opened the front page:

Bong Raands have the Phattest Butt out there in the entire country, Which is aptly shown by this Cumrag of a Whore Tridha who shamelessly teasing men around her to gape her butthole with multiple peepees cumming inside her in Beach itself.

What a fricking beautifully constructed sentence. Truly Joycean.

And here are two more, which I think, more than anything else I've linked, sum up the Indian male consciousness. If there's one thing I want you to get out of this post, it can be gathered in whole from what I'm about to show you:

Moroccan Raand Nora fatehi jiggling her Phat Butt which can take multiple BBCs, giving a look back on who is staring that fat butt and recording her Butt jiggle. Her erect Nipples are the Perfect Indication of a Rough Gangbang in the vanity van moments before she comes out whoring her Meaty Butt

Priyanka is representing indian desi brown girls in true sense infront of whole world. When you don't get appreciation in your country, just spread that brown kitty infront of white peepees. Still can't forget, how she brainwashed half of india to wear 'bra' instead of 'blouse' with saree in desi girl

And from comments on that second one:

she is the icon for all the brown whores spreading their legs for white peepees

I think these posts speak for themselves, but one thing I will add is that when searching the word "white" on /r/ShagOnHotties I got dozens of posts describing women as "milky white c*nts" and similar epiphets. Apparently being "milky white" is a very sought after trait amongst Indians. Also, the nofap guy whose porn habits I've been stalking tries to apply to jobs using his porn Reddit account. Well done, India, you manage to outdo yourself every time.

who is lidl drip?

lidl moon i mean drip is an allegedly female power user, the mastermind behind the "man hate thread" (more on this in a second), and a staunch defender of null. whenever null is catching flack for some of his more r-slurred opinions (cheese isnt real, etc.), lidl drip is there to defend him, and vice versa.

in fact, even when null ISNT catching any flack, lidl seems to post directly before or after him.

lidls magnum opus, the man hate thread:

in august, lidl drip created "the man hate thread", a place for "female" users of kiwifarms to post about how much they hate men

this, being posted on a website full of r-slurred chuds, naturally created a shit load of seethe. its actually hilarious how mad people got, but thats besides the point. instead of letting everyone sperg out unfettered, the ever dramamisic josh moon had to lock it down, adding this special banner across the top:

the punishment mentioned (banned from the female board for a month) was often not enough for null and multiple users were PERMABANNED over this. like anytime null starts jannying hard for people, this led people to develop some theories

the geniuses over at onionfarms (a kf splinter ran by a literal r-slur named kengle) speculate:

so, fast fowards to jost the other day, someone posts this thread:

in the replies, multiple people call out lidl drip as joshs sock, including a site moderator:

this, of course, really upsets null

and he ends up locking the thread

a short time later, less than 24 hours, josh announces he will be going on haitus:

so, my fellow schizos. what do you think?

is null lidl drip? is he jost simping hard for a female power user? is it a different person, a friend of nulls (dyn, crunklord) on a sock account?

some additional food for thought:

lidl is possibly the same person as 3322

lidl has the same hateboner towards british people as null

lidl seems to know VERY old site lore from the beginning of the forum despite the account being created in 2019 and not used until 2022 (3322s account is also not old enough to know this

lidl is null, socking to COOM to his fantasies - 105 votes

- 79 votes

!ranchers !schizos

So last month a pretty Amazing thing happened, DIU (the Defense Innovation Unit) published a 14 page whitepaper named DIU 3.0 which is by itself is pretty unremarkable, but within it, it says that DIU 2.0 was pretty successful but could not live up to the potential to deliver commercial dual use tech to INDOPACOM or EuroCom and specifically the Specifically Assistance Group-Ukraine (SAG-U) because it was hamstrung by the DoD and Pentagon.

(I'll link the entire pdf down below)

The 3.0 approach cuts through all this and can leverage commercial industries to ramp up or down production and supply tech in fight with belligerent nations by circumventing the entire Pentagon and reporting directly to the SECRETARY OF DEFENSE.

Think about it. An innovation unit will say they have procured assurances from the private sector to someone who has direct access to the President.

The DIU 2.0 had used its Other Transaction Authority to use commercial tech to create prototypes of dual tech (cheekily named as Alternative Defense Investments) which raised more than $30B in the private sector

And it has unveiled a matrix (consultant behavior) with pretty alarming language

So what does all of this have to do with SXSW?

Well, the US ARMY is one of the biggest sponsors of SXSW ( https://www.sxsw.com/sponsors/ ) and the DIU has one of its major offices in Austin. Also, each year, the DIU hosts the annual SXSW Tech conferences. Although it is ignored by most music lovers, it holds the key to all your tech and defense portfolio holdings for the foreseeable future.

Here's the official endorsement of SXSW at DIU.

https://www.diu.mil/latest/diu-at-sxsw-connecting-technology-and-talent-from-around-the-world-for

And here's the DARPA and DoD endorsement:

https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/sxsw2024

The 2024 lineup of keynote speakers at SXSW:

https://www.sxsw.com/news/2024/tracy-chou-deonne-castaneda-jack-conte-selena-gomez-keynotes-featured-speakers-2024/

Selected interesting personas:

Privacy-in-Progress: Redefining the Boundaries of Being Online: Founder and CEO of Block Party and co-founder of Project Tracy Chou and Head of Product Design at Block Party Deonne Castaneda.

Death of the Follower & the Future of Creativity on the Web: CEO of Patreon Jack Conte

Managing Director of Charts & Data Operations at Billboard Keith Caulfield

Celine Joshua, and Executive Vice President of Charts & Data Partnerships at Billboard Silvio Pietroluongo to find out how the Billboard Charts have been modernized and globalized to reflect the many means of music consumption in an ever-evolving borderless digital and social age

CEO of Moor Insights & Strategy Patrick Moorhead

Michael Dell

CEO of Blackbird Collective Bridgid Coulter Cheadle and author and founder of Backstage Capital and https://HireRunner.co Arlan Hamilton

Selected Fields: (Do not discard sessions which have randomized titles like "We need more Women of Color". The DIU is more intelligent than you to hide their conversations under the pretense of absolute rampant DEI.)

{Go to Sessions to see individual conferences and all the speakers}

https://www.sxsw.com/conference/artificial-intelligence-track/

https://www.sxsw.com/conference/energy/

https://www.sxsw.com/conference/game-industry/

https://www.sxsw.com/conference/government-and-civic-engagement-track/

https://www.sxsw.com/conference/startups/

https://www.sxsw.com/conference/tech-industry/

https://www.sxsw.com/conference/tech-industry/

https://www.sxsw.com/conference/transportation/

https://www.sxsw.com/conference/xr-track/

What you can do by listening to the speakers, seeing which particular government official is present in which session and looking back and tracking the tech developed by said companies and how much portion of it is funded by the MIC or does it produce dualtech products is up to you. I am under no obligation to give you any advise regarding your investments.

But do look out for words like director, deputy director, heads of particular COMs (Command theatres) in those sessions. Those are the most interesting.

Fin.

Epilogue: Full 14 page whitepaper on DIU 3.0

https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/files.cnas.org/documents/CNAS-Report-DIU-Finalc-020624.pdf

Greetings Dramatards

This drama has many convoluted facets, so I'll try my best to make it make sense

CONTEXT: WHAT IS AGE OF EMPIRES 2?

I think amongst all games I've ever talked about, I believe that Age of Empires (AOE) is one of those ubiquitous games which requires little introduction, you know one of those ever present games for those growing up in the 2000s. It was a universal code of law that any family home (even lower class poorcels) of whichever friend you visited for a playdate or sleepover, and had a family computer present in their abode, had one of the big jock games installed - NeedForSpeed Undergound, the Sims (1 or 2), Fifa/Rugby or Age of Empires. It was one of those titles even non-g*mers were aware of or had played, and would likely be one of the few titles they may ever play in their entire lifespan.

Well while the original Age of Empires 1 got released in 1997, it would be its sequel - Age of Empires 2 - released in 1999, which truly propelled the franchise into infamy. It's basically a Real-Time-Strategy game, which takes place broadly over the Middle Ages time period. For a while in the early 2000s, it was considered one of best RTS multiplayers, but in places like South Africa with very little in the way of internet support infrastructure, there was little capacity to engage with an international audience and playerbase.

Additionally, the golden age of RTS games seemed to have waned drastically in the period after 2005-2008, and the Age of Empires 2 game did not have much capacity to updating its limited netcoding from many of the original CDs released as far back as fricking 1999. Yet even with such an ancient and antiquated multiplayer-matchmaking system, by as long as 2009, almost a decade after AOE2's release, there was still many multiplayer matches played, with some of them uploaded on the earliest parts of young Youtube.

Many people here probably have never even heard of the software GameSpy, which was a suite of software included into many many games sold via the CD-ROM format, where support software like Direct X was usually included into many CD-ROM physically sold copies of games, as it was assumed that many 3rd world shitheaps would not have the internet to download much needed Graphics driver support Software.

For virtually every game with any level of online multiplayer component, every CD-ROM copy of that game CD contained GameSpy, a software which acted as a server hosting for matchmaking multiplayer games in many many games. According to GameSpy themselves, they supported over 800 games within their lifespan operation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameSpy

Yet GameSpy was very very flawed, and 3rd world shitheaps like South Africa would always get the short end of the stick when it came to server hosting, or just having dedicated matchmaking fonts for a specific nation that wasn't Europe, America or China.

By 2012 Steam had improved to such a degree, that many people saw the benefits of having a steam account be able to install your entire library on any device or computer you owned. Additionally steam's servers and netcoding completely blew stuff like Gamespy out of the water in terms of convenience, and actually working in 3rd world internet. Additionally internet infrastructure like fiber was also becomming commonplace, allowing dungheaps that weren't Europe, China or America, to actually be able to compete against foreign strangers at pings lower than 50 000.

In 2012 something else also happened, a company called Hidden Path Entertainment would acquire the licensing to work on rebooting Age of Empires 2 - a game which by this stage was 13 years old, and yet still held a vibrant yet small cult following on its very very antiquated multiplayer. They would fully integrate the whole netcode of AOE2 within Steam's online infrastructure, and update much of the graphics to be able to scale up to (by then) modern widescreen LCD monitors.

While it may seem like comparative little effort when held against newer reboots we've seen in the last few years, like for example the stunning Command and Conquer reboot back in 2020

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213210/Command__Conquer_Remastered_Collection/

There was a large amount of resolution upscaling problems which had to be overcome in the ancient AOE2. Back in 1999 most people played with CRT monitors which used fricking projectors to light onto bended black screens, the image which the PC's graphics processor was crafting. But by the time 2012 rolled in we had LCD screens with much much larger resolutions.

Back then, the richest strags would brag with resolutions of 640 x 360 something, or even the coveted 800 x 640 Oh my God

And thus spreading the view properly from the ancient AOE2 engine, to properly display on modern 720 or even 1080 resolutions was a surprising undertaking. As a small humerous anecdote, many of the best players on voobly or GameSpy still gaming original AOE2 would fricking play on their ancient CRT monitors, simply because it was easier to see in the ancient CRT monitors, than a modern LED LCD LGBT screen with the fuzzy maximum resolution spread thin over fricking 720 pixels

So come 2013, with Age of Empire 2 HD Edition being released April 9, it would be a major game changer, and would reinvigorate life blood into the Age of Empires 2 multiplayer sphere, and even introduce the Age of Empires games to people whom had been too young to play the originals like I did way back, or whom did actually fricking own the originals back in the 2000s, but literally used their original CDs until they chaffed and eroded into dysfunction or because by 2012, few gaymers even had CD-ROMs in their fricking Computers anymore.

Regardless, for many millions, they experienced the fantastic single player of Age of Empires 2 for the 1st time, and for many more gaymer boomers, it was a callback to more innocent nostalgic times. The core gameplay and RTS balance of AOE2 seem to have aged like the finest of wines, and many would comment that it was easier for new players to get into, when compared to the more "hardcore" Starcraft 1 and Starcraft 2 which was also in RTS discussion around the same time as the release of Age of Empires HD Edition, but was considered to be much much much more micro intensive to be more competitive (aka require exceptional multitasking and juggling of multiple units in your army simultaneously to stand a chance).

While AOE was and could also be more micro-intensive, and the elite pro-gaymer scene would also have a high-ceiling, for many normies, AOE, especially Age of Empires 2 was seen as a much more easy RTS to get into, when compared to Starcraft.

Now it needs to be said that while the causal multiplayer and singleplayers newcomers to Age of Empires 2 HD edition had good things to say about the game allowing people to run the old game on modern hardware easily, the pro-multiplayer scene, especially the old-guard GameSPy supremacists were divided, and game the 2013 release mixed reviews.

"HD Edition received mixed reviews, with aggregate review website Metacritic assigning a score of 68 out of 100 based on reviews from 20 critics. Critics agreed that the HD Edition changed very little from the original game, though Steam Workshop integration was widely praised." Many RTS reviewers were also unimpressed with the game, as there was no change to the original formula of the 1999 game - this criticism itself would age poorly, as many players PREFERRED the lack of change from the 1999 game, with no bullshit and nonsense added to dilute the game.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/age-of-empires-ii-the-age-of-kings/critic-reviews/?platform=pc

Yet over time, both steam and user-scores would increase the HD Edition's score. Other criticism from the GameSpy playerbase was the fear that the multiplayer userbase would be split between the old GameSpy ecosystem, and the new Steam framework, which proved to be a true prediction, others were just stubborn. Additionally, the 1st 6 months of Age of Empires HD Edition was beset with bugs and errors, especially multiplayer bugs, like most multiplayer games often are. Yet as the Steam version of AOE2 gradually improved, and gained more and more casual players, it would eventually ensure that AOE2 HD Edition would become the dominant multiplayer version of AOE2 entirely.

By 2014 two additional happenings cemented Age of Empire 2 HD Edition's place in the international RTS's community's mind. By 2014, the 1st expansion for AOE2 in 13 fricking years!

The Forgotten Empires Expansion was based upon a popular mod which has since 2013 been created by very professional old fans of AOE2, and had included custom new factions. The expansion pack was developed by the team that created the mod with the assistance of SkyBox Labs.

2nd - by 2014 Gamespy would officially close its support and servers. "In April 2014, Glu announced that it would shut down the GameSpy servers on May 31, 2014, so its developers could focus on work for Glu's own services. Games that still used GameSpy are no longer able to offer online functionality or multiplayer services through GameSpy."

https://www.nag.co.za/2014/04/24/heres-a-list-of-games-that-are-affected-by-gamespys-death/

It felt for many that gaymers were living in a new Golden Age of Age of Empires, that a new reinvigoration was taking place, but things would move on at the speed of greased lightning on 9 June 9 2019, Microsoft revealed the gameplay trailer at Xbox E3 2019, where they showcased a massive MASSIVE reboot for Age of Empires 2 having been in the works since 2017, with the original rebooting team of HD Edition, and fricking even the creators of the Forgotten Empires mod and expansion. Compared to so much AAA slop and trash releases by modern companies like Ubisoft and EA, this seemed unbelievable, pretty much everyone (in my circles) expected this to flop like flapjacks, especially as Microsoft wasn't as known for gaming excellence in this genre

Well guess what dirtbags it was a monumental success like no other reboot before or since. Not only was there massive graphics overhauls, including destructible buildings, much clearer units and user-interfaces - there was also quality-of-life improvements which Age of Empires 2 players could never even begin to dream of, including the ability to reseed farms automatically, improved unit pathing, and a fricking tech-tree more easily accessible whenever

A lot of players who've been gaming on Age of Empires 2 - Definitive Edition for the past 2 years are often shocked at how much the graphics are improved over HD Edition when they go back just for curiosity, and even more shocked when they are reminded just how used they have gotten to the endless flotilla of quality-of-life improvements, much better User-interface, and metric shitload of bugs improved- and most of all the massive massive massive amount of improved faction balancing since.

Any strags still playing AOE2 DE, I dare you guys just to take a gander at the basic graphics of current AOE2: DE, and 2013's AOE2: HD - it is vast.

The point is if any strag gave half a darn about Age of Empires 2, or even Age of Empires 1, at any point in their lives, then in 14 November 14 2019, they had one of the grandest of Christmas holidays. As word spread through the grapevine of gaymers, about how good AOE2 DE actually was, and the initial mass of bugs and multiplayer errors were being ironed out, Age of Empires 2 - Definite Edition would take 2020 by fricking storm, and propel AOE2 as likely the most popular RTS in current present. A small and hardcore cult following would develop in the next 4 years, which blew even the Voobly and GameSpy days of the previous two decades, completely out of the fricking water

T90 AND AOE2 MULTIPLAYER CASTING:

With the improvements of Steam multiplayer-interfaces, modern internet in 3rd world shitheaps like South Africa, and a greater participating population globally in Age of Empires Definitive Edition, there were a newly massive revamped popularity in not just playing Age of Empires 2 online, but also in spectating it.

A lot of people whom had played AOE2 online, and became exceptionally good at it, also became aware of a subset of players whom were even more so fanatically good in their ability to play the game.

(for many whom had not played AOE2 since literally 20 years ago these commentated games would be like watching black magic as people saw for the 1st time pros doing shit like building houses as fricking walls)

One of the earliest dudes who began their careers as a streamer commenting on games which he found interesting was T90. You see since 1999, Age of Empires had the ability to reccord any games played, and thus streamers/podcasters would mine the records of online games to look for interesting games or games played by exceptionally skilled players, and comment upon them in "real-time" as the recording played as if they were sports commentators, giving feedback to their Twitch-stream audiences about the nuances of play happening. T90 would begin with humble origins on the early days of AOE2 HD Edition about 8 years ago, and manage to make a financially viable career as a host and commentator on Twitch where he would regale his ever steadily growing audience on particular games he found interesting.

https://youtube.com/@T90Official

With 2020 and the explosion of Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edittion onto the gaming scene, so too did T90's stream also explode in popularity beyond anything even he and the earliest strags following envisioned. T90 had tried to imitate the much more gargantuan E-sports events such as League of Legends, CS-GO, Call of Duty and Overwatch which would in 2020 still dwarf even Age of Empires 2 at its height by a factor of several hundred to several thousands in viewership. Yet T90's rags to riches story would continue slowly upwards as T90 would even manage to secure sponsorships from companies such as Redbull

https://escharts.com/tournaments/aoe/red-bull-wololo-legacy-2022-age-empires-ii

In 2022, we would get one of the largest viewership peaks for AOE2 and RTS games in general, at that moment in time, ever. Which again would be the smallest of small-fry when compared to turbo gaymer normie popular online games like League of Legends.

https://www.google.com/search?q=league+of+legends+tournament+peak+viewership&rlz=1C1CHBF_enZA1072ZA1072&oq=league+of+legends+tournament+peak+viewership&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyCQgAEEUYORigATIHCAEQIRigAdIBCTExNTMxajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

But the RTS and AOE2 ecosystem was completely balkanized and cut off from the rest of online gaming, so no one playing AOE2 gave a shit whether AOE2 was even fractionally as popular, compared to yeasteryear, AOE2 was in the most golden of its Golden Ages yet, and didn't seen to be stopping.

Compared to any online game still supported, the Definitive Edition developer-team seems to not be able to go 6 months without either a massive overhaul or major Expansion, all of which had included new single-player content such as new voiced campaigns, designed by the very guys who made the Forgotten Empires mod, and all received very well by the userbase.

WHAT IS HIDDEN CUP:

At one point in his sponsorship deals, T90 managed to think out an idea which would prove to be very popular with his own fanbase, and the Age of Empire 2 playerbase in general - Hidden Cup. The idea was that the top pro-players would compete under pseudonyms, and have there be two prize pools during the competition. The 1st would be the staggered prize pool for the pro-players themselves, competing until a semi-final and grand-final match would take place live in front of live audiences. The 2nd prize-pool would be the draw of the Hidden Cup Tournament - namely for spectators and players to guess whom which player was, and those most accurate would win a smaller prize if they had managed to most accurately guess which of the 16 competing finalists were whom.

For this to make sense, it needs to be explained that compared to many other online games, such as FPS and shooters games, there are wildly divergent personalities which become apparent in the different playstyles of specific different players in Age of Empires; many people neurodivergent enough to waste their lifespan away in actually watching other turbo neurodivergents playing Ago of Empires 2 online ,instead of actually just playing the game themselves, have become adept at noticing patterns of behaviour unique to individuals, and personalities being very specific and vibrant when it comes to the competative management of their empires in the online conflict

As a few examples, one of the slowest players in the top bracket of the game is 38-year old Daut, whom is also by far the very oldest as he is by the far the player whom has played AOE1 competatively online since the fricking 1999 release for nearly 25 fricking years now. What makes the man unique is that he was a very slow APM - or Actions-Per-Minute, when compared to pretty much all of the other young-buck pro players inhabiting the top-100 scene. You see in order to be the best of the best, you need to be able to multitask your entire fricking empire, consisting of sometimes controlling 200 unites walking in chaos upon the map in Age of Empires, and requires the unique skillset of multitasking on a scale not seen in other games like FPS shooters

What makes Daut unique however, is that his incredible game-sense, 2 decades of experience, and makro strategy allows him to go toe-to-toe with people so fast and APM-oriented, that on normal circumstances average players would be destroyed by opponents with superhuman multitasking capabilities. The most famous meme in the entire game, and especially the Hidden Cup tournament, is that whenever a castle is denied (the most powerful structure buildable in the game), then it's "Daut Confirmed" because of his reckless tendency to attempt to the structure in hostile circumstances when opposing enemies with vastly superior APM talent capable of denying him able to build the powerful game changing structure.

Here is Viper (the best player on the planet prior to this current Cup), in a state of shock when looking at statistics of pros, and discovering that Daut only had an average of 12-APM at a previous tournament. Meaning he only committed 12 Actions per minute, like ordering military units about, or directing civil units to build or create things, a rate of actions so low, it is below even the most moderate online player for AOE2 - demonstrating his unique style of play and incredible game sense is of such a caliber that he is still able to meet players which on paper should trash him with mikro speed.

Because of this uniqueness which Age of Empires 2 has in terms of its economic aspects, instead of just pure turbo-neurodivergent ultra fast APM clinicalness like Starcraft 1/2, there is a much greater degree to which individuals have their personality shine and be different, and thus the concept of Hidden Cup, where specific players are to be guessed from their gameplay by spectators, makes a great deal more sense than in any other online multiplayer game that I am aware of.

The 5th such event, Hidden Cup 5 took place two weeks ago, but it took me till now to fricking finish the whole thing, because RTS games in general tend to have much longer matches than that of other genres, with the average lasting 35minutes, to 50 minutes games for long protracted games. A stark comparison to shit like CS-GO where matches can finish within 30 seconds easily, with an entire opposing team wiped out not being uncommon.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVjiUKVQd72HvI5drjsRWqpUl6iJRJmy

THE DRAMA OF HIDDEN CUP 5:

Ok so very long boring story slightly shorter: the entire Hidden Cup 5 Tournament was very well received in general with a level of play and skill higher than ever before; the 16 anonymous finalists would compete under pseudonyms made up of in-game hero-units of real-life historical figures, with the main draw of the event being the commentators of T90 and the spectators trying to speculate upon which hero was which fames pro-player, with much speculation upon who is who, and whether any new blood had entered this anonymous tournament to upset everyone's predictions.

All was pretty great, EXCEPT the grand-finale final match; which was vast and massive disappointment to many many spectators, especially since it being the most viewed of all of the matches in the entire tournament by a large margin. Ok so there's only 3 names you guys needs to give a shit about for this story. The Viper, Hera and Lierry - the 3 pro-players in the recent Hidden Cup tournament.

For the past 5 years and more, the Viper has been considered the most powerful player player in the entire game by a large margin, he had won 3 Hidden Cups previously, and multiple tournaments, and as far as I know had retained the largest fricking ELO score (the ranking score used in AOE2 matchmaking to match people of equivalent skill for fairness) for 6 years straight, all because of his superhuman and astronomical degrees of multitasking and that APM we've talked about, many peeps would come close to dethroning him every now and then, but on average he was the most infamous player neatly because of the sheer gulf of his skill, and that of even the closest competition.

For a long while now, Hera, generally considered the 2nd best player for many in the AOE2 fandom, had attempted to dethrone the Viper definitively in a Hidden Cup, yet remarkably he had come 2nd or 3rd in so many tournaments.

Now to lend context to understanding this drama, about 3 years ago in the 2nd Hidden Cup tournament, a lot of people had actually failed to speculate whom the Viper had been due to him playing abnormally passively and safely, and never showing his own hand, not out of any subterfuge, but because in his own words in an after-game interview, he was still finding his feet in the new maps and challenges of the Hidden Cup. Because of this he had not shown his usual infamous level of superhuman supernatural ultra high skill ceiling, and it was the most misscalled Hidden Cup, as absolutely no one, including spectators or commentators failed to accurately identify who in the frick the Viper was, as everyone leading up to the grand-finale final-match of Hidden Cup 2 played with equivalent skill. People did however correctly identify one of the anonymous 2 finalists as Hera due to his specific clinical playing pattern

Yet in the greatest upset in the grand-finale, the Viper would r*pe and thrash Hera in the most one-sided showing of skill shown throughout the entire fricking tournament. It was shocking at the time, because the Viper had NOT shown this level of inhuman play at any point prior to the finale, he had played magnificently, but not to such a superhuman level. And 2nd because Hera had played to the highest degree of skill possible. Hera did everything right and played to the highest level of skill in the game, but Viper was just such a level of magnitude better.

I mention this background because the grand-finale between Hera and the Viper was fought tooth and claw and nail, and yet Viper could r*pe poor Hera into oblivion despite his Herculean and forlorn efforts. Even though so brutally one-sided, it was clear that both men were giving their all in this final stretch of the tournament, and the added actor of showing just how unbelievably far the skill ceiling can rise after a whole tournament of high-level skill, was enthralling itself.

Fast-forward 3 years later in Hidden Cup 5 in 2024, and the one-sided assraping was a much MUCH less satisfying conclusion, and a great source of dissatisfaction for different reasons. This time Hera had substantially improved, and Viper had gradually scaled down the intensity of his commitment to such high levels of play - some said that viper had suffered a painful injury this year, which made his capacity to play on such a mentally and physically draining degree not possible - others sad that the Viper no longer desired to even defend his topspot as he had already achieved victory in 3 previous Hidden Cups, and had no longer something to prove, and was also subsequently tired after playing for many years at such an intense degree.

Many predicted early on that Hera might actually finally steal the crown from Viper, after such long effort, and behold he would finally do so in Hidden Cup 5.

Viper would fall out in the semi-finals, with many many accurately predicting him due to his playstyle, leaving the two players Hera and Lierry to compete in the grand-finale. This was a source of monumental excitement as every single player taking a spot in the 4 semi-final positions would only obtain such after the most vicious competition ever yet witnessed so far in any Hidden Cup or any other AOE2 tournament witnessed ever before - absolutely everyone of the 4 semi-finalists only got there through tooth and claw.

And thus the sheer mediocrity of the grand-finale would be such a source of contention through the usual above-average politeness in the AOE2 online community.

You would have the usual polite and generically positive and appreciative comments top voted

Yet other comments and spectators would voice their disappointment.

"there were games in hidden cup 5 longer than the entire final o_O"

Oh yes there were games going over 90 minutes, including one of the most spectacular where two players were literally going at it against one another, until they LITERALLY STRIPMINED EVERY FRICKING PIECE OF WOOD AND ORE ON THE MAP, and thus one finally surrendered after literally running out of resources in a ratrace for scraps. Yes that's right, the entire match of 5 games in the grand-finale took less time than a few of the longer games

"Hera was in his head for sure, couldn't wait to tap out"

"Hera's gameplay channel has uploaded his PoV for these games. Hera definitely had the civ selection figured out for the maps played. Hera did believe that he was out picked on Bay and Arabia, but those maps didn't come up."

"yea that's all true, but he still tapped out to easily. Even T90 was shocked at the first tap out"

Many of the commentators noted that that Lierry, the other finalist against Hera was likely very very demoralized in facing Hera, and many believed that he gave less than even a token effort into facing Hera in the grand-finale. This is in direct stark contrast to the one-sided beating Viper gave Hera in Hidden Cup 2, 3 years ago, as Hera fought like a lion even against an unstoppable force. In contrast it appeared as if poor Lierry had the very fight taken from him, and had not even displayed a fraction of a spark of the brilliance and talent and strategic effort which he had showcased throughout all of the qualifiers, and all of the previous tournament games - it was as if facing Hera alone was so daunting to the man, that he didn't even have the heart to face such an unfair and unequal opponent, I know how that feels.

Computer games somehow have the capacity to have gulfs of skill even more monumental than physical sports like Rugby and Cricket, between professionals, and even then certain sports like like Tennis tends to be internationally dominated for years on end by a top-level prodigy, like Novak Djokovic currently is. Facing off against such insurmountable odds is often itself demoralizing.

"hera singlehandedly ruined watching competitive aoe for me this year. there's no point watching - me and a friend had two tickets to hidden cup but didn't show up because we had an opportunity to go to some tourist locations in fort lauderdale with friends instead - my friend jokingly said 'hera will win it all anyway' and after watching this - yeah. what's the point of watching when one guy dominates so totally? I'm happy for him in that he has mastered this classic game, but plain and simple no one is on his level - that's lame for the average viewer

T90 engagement farming and getting pseudo-salty about 'low' (read: less than last time) viewership numbers was just the icing on the cake"

The one-sided assraping being a feature of the finals seemed to have been a commonplace for many peeps even prior to the events of Hidden Cup 5, yet HC5 seemed to have been extra disappointing due to Lierry in all but words, just throwing in the towel, ESPECIALLY after such a short match lasting barely 65 minutes holy hells - thus is can be understandable why peeps have some ire.

"still watching but honestly for a final I expected more... first 2 matches they rolled over"

Now there are 2 sources of mixed feelings for this Hidden Cup 5 final. One is that Hera after such grand effort after half a decade finally obtained his dream for obtaining world supremacy, especially after being beaten by Viper so many times before. Hera would have a post-match commentary where he discussed how he had dreamed of winning a global tournament, since as far as 7 years ago, and finally obtained his dream - Hera is in a strange way the underdog story here as he had been rooted for in defeating Viper for a long loooong time now.

T90, the Caster Host and commentator for the tournament, would also reiterate that he had come from humble means - where 8 years ago he had attempted to start a career by casting to paltry viewership of 50 chodes in the original AOE2 HD Edition, and that it took 8 years of long long hard work to get to the point where products like Redbull would sponsor the event, and any level of success could be imagined. Thus many was apalled at the negativity when the dual stories of underdogs of Hera and T90 reaching their dream (cup-winner and professional-caster) would be tarred by negativty in the comment sections where peeps spoke of their disgust and dismay at the mediocrity of the grand finale

Especially compared to the magnificence of the entire tournament, INCLUDING the fierce fighting for 3rd place Bronze, where the previously discqualified Viper, from the semi-finals, would fight tooth and nail for Bronze, to a much greater and more entrertaining degree than the grand-finale, which was a wet fart in comparison

"While Hera is simply unplayable right now, I have to say Liereyy clearly felt he was beneath him and didn't play to his own strengths. His Semifinals against Viper was an insane performance with confidence, great micro, aggression, etc... we didn't see any of that in the finals. He tried to play it safe when that's not his strength and got punished for it."

"eah, I had a feeling the guy choked. Liereyy is a great player"

"I think he knew he was playing Hera and psyched himself out."

"To me it felt like he gave up before the matches even started. Called the GGs way too early as well. Yeah he likely would have still lost the same games but sometimes all it takes is one good fight to swing things"

"Hera touched on it in his video about the finals and he explained Lierrey has a tendency to play all his hard maps and civ matchups first, which can contribute to making his lost series more lopsided. Might have been misplaced humbleness but Hera estimated it would have been 4-2 if he had started with the easy civ wins instead."

"Yeah, this was the most lopsided final of any AOE2 tournament I have seen. Which is nuts since Lierry beat VIPER. iirc Viper has been a finalist in every tournament T90 has organized except this one."

"POILERS AHEAD - my opinion:"

"Imo Liereyy had a combo of bad luck and psychological defeat here knowing (assuming) who his opponent was, even though HC is supposed to hide the players

I'd like for HC to NOT have the players have any prior practice on the maps, from having heard his after-talk Hera (a VERY analytic player) got a MASSIVE lead simply by having been able to play (study) his opponents on these "new" maps beforehand, which I think nullifies both the hidden aspect and the introduction of new maps

Hera himself said he knew EXACTLY who ALL the players were, just after round 1. That and having already played the maps I think makes the hidden aspect a bit gimmicky (no offense to anyone).

Still a very entertaining event, but I think there's room for improvement."

Some dramatards in the comments

SOME RETROACTIVE COMMENTS ON THE BRONZE MATCH:

"That ackward moment when the third place match is better than the finale."

"t was pretty weird how Lierreyy did so well against the viper who beats ACCM, who gave Hera his hardest (although not THAT tough) series, and then just completely lays down to Hera. I think Lierreyy had the confidence to beat Viper but not Hera because he seemed like he let the pressure get to him and was just a different player"

" I think of it like Lierreyy wishing on the Monkey's Paw that he gets to beat Viper in a tournament. He gets his wish, but at a cost to his reputation.

I remember when Lierreyy was up against Viper in King of the Desert in 2019, and he did okay despite losing. Lierreyy still deserves respect for getting to the finals, because this tournament isn't for chumps. The intimidation has to be a huge factor."

"yeah, Lierreyy still had a heck of a tournament! He played amazingly except against Hera and I think his nerves got the best of him there. I just was kind of disappointed because I felt like we saw a different player those first few rounds and I thought the final was gonna be EPIC! Hera still probably wins it but I thought Lierreyy was gonna give him a few tough games the way he was playing"

"Also, these tournaments have to be a major mental grind. It's hard to be on your absolute A-game for that many days straight which Lierreyy would of needed to compete with Hera. I almost wish there was a day break in between the round of 8 and semis and then another day off before the finals."

=====

"I'd like to see Lierreyy put up more of a fight in some of those games, especially against the mongols. If nothing else, at least to wear Hera down and make him earn the victory. That being said, getting into a bad position, knowing it's Hera, and then having to deal with a slow and painful defeat while you're constantly being raided really sucks.

Either way, Hera is looking like he's getting into the position where Viper was several years ago: nearly untouchable, which can make tournaments a bit stale. It just kinda annoying that his play-style is so clean because it's the messy games that are fun to watch.

tl;dr: Hera games are so clinical it's like watching a professional surgeon perform a simple autopsy. Mechanically fascinating, but so ridged & clean that it's kinda boring to watch."

=====

"No taking away from Hera and Lireyy 🫡, but from a spectator perspective, I found this set more interesting than the final.

4-0 and 4-1 sets, where most games end in feudal, aren't really the ideal.

Imperial age shouldn't be a treat. LATE imperial should be the treat.

Remember it's Age of Empires, not Age of Village."

SOME SPATS ON THE SUB:

https://old.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1b5w2mc/sorry_but_i_dont_understand_why_hera_dominating/

"Yeah I've essentially given up watching F1 since it's just the Verstappen show.

I like Hera, I've used his build order guides to some success and his videos are helpful, but I understand watching the same person win can get repetitive. But, it's also pretty cool to see how well he plays and his game play isn't that boring."

lots of semi-fights about the toxicity of AOE2 fans not being happy for Hera finally reaching the top after much work, with two camps forming, one disliking the negativity, the other voicing their boredom with such one sided events

https://old.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1b5xbkv/thoughts_on_the_final_of_hc5/

"I think that Lierry was way too early to resign. He didn't even try and play on to see if he could do anything. He was already a defeated man when he woke up today. I was supporting Alexios because I like the Byzantines and it was just pain to watch, you could see he was just nervous and knew he was going to lose, same with his first set in the round of 16. Look at his first match against Guiscard and then look at his semi-final match, it's night and day. It was disrespectful to the great tournament hosted by T90 and I think as an entertainer that Lierry should know better."

Lmoa poor Lierry

Lmoa

"Liereyy is not an entertainer, but a competitor. And as someone being in a competition, sometimes it's just not your day and sometimes you are mentally beaten. Both happened to him yesterday. This is not the nost beautiful thing to watch unfortunately, but completely normal."

""Do you think Lierrey suffered from a "Hera" effect , similar to the "Viper" effect back a few years ago? Would Lierrey have performed better if the finals had been recs, and he didn't know who he was up against ?""

Also to finally conclude this there was extra reason for drama that the Tournament ended so limply; a bunch of yanks organized a watch-party in florida, with drinks and shit and hype, and the WHOLE FRICKING GRAND-FINALE ENDED IN 65 MINUTES

can you imagine booking several hundred miles to watch for a highly anticipated finale-only for the fricking thing to end in an hour, and the post match-commentary being longer than the whole butt match itself hahahahahaaaa

Anyways that's all I've got, good night

@Losercel if you dont pin this eat dirt

Was predestined to get engaged to TheFuture_Mrs_Zoomer. Baptized Presbyterian covenant children coming soon pic.twitter.com/hwUWiW2PYe

— Redeemed Zoomer (@redeemed_zoomer) March 16, 2024

Lol me has been OhioMaxxing

Why is your wrist thinner than hers?

Cuz I'm Jewish

After he posted some rightoids thought he was engaged to an e-girl because the e-girl in question had posted a photo of her engagement ring around the same time, which looked similar to Zoomer's fiancée's ring. The e-girl was an OnlyFans thot and had an half-black baby (product of BBC).

@BWC

Proud of you bro, you aren't the stepdad. You're the dad who stepped up

That's not even the same ring dumbass

Watching the antiracist Christian zoomer marry the "reformed" mudshark harlot. I am witnessing horrors beyond my comprehension.

thank you for once again showing that you and all of your little “super based rw” friends are mindless sheep that will believe anything because I've posted my fiancé hand and he's a chad and much older than me… not a little zoomer boy

Yes - this lady right here is NOT my fiancee. Idc if the engagement rings looked similar Last time I'm mentioning this stupid rumor. My fiancée has always been a wonderful innocent Christian who wisely stays off the internet away from all you morons out there

This is what you get for getting her a diamond ring 😂 literally hundreds of gemstones to choose from but you got fooled by the jews in thinking diamonds are the best

Mom said it's MY TURN to date Annie Skywalker and that you need to take baby Sneed for a walk

Who the heck is Annie Skywalker?

Oh no

Is it confirmed that he's engaged to her or is it just the timing?

I think it might just be horrible timing lol

This is the same girl who Achilles tried to marry btw

Achilles was a rightoid who was engaged to the e-girl until he was bullied out of it by other rightoids.

These guys say they worship Jesus, who they must see mainly as a sort of supernatural single mother conduit, an immortal jew that can always be called upon when Norwood approaches to bestow upon you a heavily used 35 year old slut to ensure semi regular access to kitty

My fiancée is NOT that OnlyFans whore that just got engaged. That's a lie that some 4chan buttholes made up

The point stands

No it doesn't you porn addicted homosexual

Congrats on being the second e-fiancé

The heck do you mean? I was her first boyfriend/relationship of any kind

theres word goin round that she has a kid?

not true at all, a random person on 4chan made that up

The rings look similar. So you aren't engaged to this girl?

Literally no! One is gold, and even if they were identical that don't mean squat. I am NOT engaged to that whore

Bro picked the worst time to announce his engagement

After seeing this Zoomer got really mad and began making tweets about it

Apparently some 4chan buttholes are spreading made-up lies about my engagement. None of it is true and anyone spreading such slander is guilty of breaking a commandment.

The heck? No

She posted an engagement pic at almost the same time you did and the rings looked v similar so everyone thought you were a couple. She's a mentally ill e-girl with a black kid who had an OF and was previously engaged to another twitter personality. Thats why people are hassling u

I have no idea who that even is

were you not here when the Achiles saga happened?

A good rule of thumb is not everyone is as online as you are

No it was her and she has a black kid you are lying

No it's not that random OnlyFans whore and if you persist in lying about it you are breaking a commandment as will face hellfire

Blacked

Apparently 4chan incels are spreading a rumor that my fiancée is this random OnlyFans person named “Annie Skywalker”. I have NO idea who that person is and that is a complete made up lie that I have anything to do with her

Idk who you are and don't care about the coalburner thing, but what is concerning is how small your forearms are. You should address this immediately.

My fiancée is not on Twitter and aside from her FutureMrsZoomer Instagram is barely on social media at all.

all the hatred this is getting is reminding me of all the hatred I got when I posted about getting married as well

makes me realize there was nothing actually wrong with my own post and that people just hate seeing others happy

There is an endless sea of haters ready to jump on anything you do online, really sad

they see people are happy and have to belittle and tear down that "illusion" of happiness to cope, many such cases, SAD!

Read the quote rts and comments on this and keep in mind this woman doesn't even have any children. This is literally just a rw couples sweet engagement post and thousands of r-slurs have descended on them like locusts. The "right wing" community is borderline beyond saving.

Brutal trvth nvke

If your first response to someone in our sphere getting married is “COALBURNER CUCK LOL BLACK KID STEPDAD LOL”, ESPECIALLY when it's not even true, you are an r-slured subversive and need to have your shins beat with iron bars

Let it be known that im reviewing this because i sold out for 500 coins

good thing @KinoHashira is inactive because he'd exile me from /h/kino

I'm a part time !comicshitters but I'm going into RWBY completely blind. Well not really blind, i read @carpathiantrain and @Dahl_Fook's reviews(get pinged cute twink) and watched Hbomber's video

Its a two parter, and im writing this after finishing part one. It starts with Superman waking up to R and Y fighting Grimm in a forest.

As is tradition in team up stories, Superman is powered down to give everyone else a chance. If you're wondering how they did it this time, it's because Justice League superpowers now work under RWBY rules, which is that you have to focus on it to activate it. Like its an active ability instead of a passive ability in a bibeo bame(I think)

Batman gets a power up tho. In Remnant(RWBY world) he is a Fauna(where catgirls come from ) and has bat wings

And he likes these wings so much he seriously considers staying in Remnant instead of returning to Gotham . Idk, seems like a pretty lame thing for a guy with a futuristic jet to get hang up on.

If you are wondering why he looks like a dork, there is a plot explanation for it. The villain transported them to Remnant and made them teenagers because, and get this, because hormonal teenagers are easier prey

Is this plot point there to justify a shonen(with girls!) stays shonen have any consequences? Yeah they really are hormonal.

Resident cute butch gets the hots for WW. This is because she is very strong, proven by the fact that she can lift up a child, which im pretty sure Yang can do herself????

And Batman rizzes up Weiss which makes WW all tsundere

An Cyborg wants to BLACK Nora, which i support

The villain didn't transport them to Remnant, it's actually a virtual reality version of Remnant and RWBY characters are there too. That's why the monster hunting school and some dead characters return. And the villain who transported them there is Kilg%re? NGL ive never heard of this neighbor before. Apparently a Flash villain.

I'm trying not to turn this review into a recap. It's a bit of a Fortnite media soup so im trying to not get lost.

The movie itself was fun. Ive heard many times that the fighting choreography has fallen and billions must die to cat alergies, but they were good enough.

So many of the voices are squicky. I have no idea how some of you can listen to Ruby talk for 10 seasons . Same is true for the JL, if you are used to their DCAU versions its not here.

I didn't like the virtual reality angle or the lame villain. Second movie's villain will be from RWBY so I wont know them.

Alright I watched the second half and im disappointed. First half felt like it might go somewhere but it didnt happen.

I didnt mention this in the first half but the Grimm in the movie wasnt like the Grimm in RWBY. There, Grimm are mindless monsters that only want to attack. Here they do strategies and adapt to the powers of the heroes and dont even disappear after slain. They are just generic sludge animal monsters made by a machine. Could have been Venom for all the difference it did

Thing is, the first movie pulled a Matrix, but in this one theyre in the real world and Grimm still operate in the same way. Idk if its too contradictory to RWBY canon, I know theyre controlled by a human there too so idk

I dont know how strong theyre either. At one point the entire JL x RWBY team fight a Wyvern and get their asses handed to them. If its really this hard @RWBY must be right that they were never going to beat Salem . Im team Salem. Id never get tired of licking her boots

Oh and if youre wondering why Superman cant just launch them into orbit this time, Grimm hearts are made of Kryptonite now

There is this weird part where green lantern is sad she cant get BLEACHED by a teen Jaune It didnt register in the first part when they were all teenagers but here JL is back to being adults Ive never seen this GL before either. I know of the white dude and the black dude, guess the final thing left to do was a brown foid

The final villain is this guy who died in the show and transferred his conciousness to a computer than that to the DC universe and he is as lame as Kilgore

He appears with a body only for the final 15 minutes and doesnt do anything besides summon Grimm to fight for him

The movie bamboozles the viewer by making a false setup like Kilgore is going to double cross him but that scene we see between them is just a lie.

There is an attempt for a cute rogues gallery team up against the villains towards the end, but that doesnt go anywhere either? Killer Croc, Weather Wizard and Mirror Master(literally who???) show up they do a we are in this together thing but they just spawn some mirrors and disappear from all subsequent scenes

Flash's rivalry with Kilgore felt so forced.. He got mind controlled in the first movie but thats an occupational hazard. He didnt do much under the mind control either. Here he is talking as if Kilgore r*ped him

First part used side characters from RWBY well. Jaune was the breakout character for me . Missed opportunity to not do that here. The only addition to the JL team from the first movie is Black Canary, and fricking mirror master appears ofc Some rogues and b grade League members are mentioned but never show up. But there is like 3 seconds where we see Joker from behind so thats cool

WW never uses the lasso of truth as anything other than a normal lasso, in a story with mind control and grand conspiracy

Final thought, Blake looked cuter with long hair. Sue me.

They fuse the two villains together and trap them in a digital world where they cant hurt continuity anymore. Lessons about friendship learned, everyone goes home happy the end.

Thats that. Sorry if it looks like im effort baiting. This was a passion project/a gift for a friend so i didnt want to half butt it Also my mind is one continous run on sentence and i dont do brevity or wit

Score

Part 1 7/10

Part 2 4/10

Too much water.

As Hideo Kojima has taught us, humanity's first cowtools were sticks and rope. It's an easy idea to understand. Some cowtools are meant to keep people away from you, while others are to pull people in.

Some would argue that a mother's love is the strongest bond possible, and even when the umbilical cord is cut, an invisible strand remains. What happens when that strand is put to the test? Sprinkle trauma, pain, drugs, theft, and r*pe into the mix. How much can a strand handle?

More importantly, what happens when a mother kills their own child? All the mothers that I have featured in the past have been rightfully vilified. The woman I'm about to discuss never received hate. Instead, she received overwhelming love from women and men countrywide, and a movie was made about her, positioning her as a hero.

Today, we're going to South Africa to discuss Ellen Pakkies. The images are of Reeva Steenkamp who was killed by Oscar Pistorius. Just keeping things South African.

I tried to build up excitement and intrigue with this introduction but failed. The only saving grace is this meta-commentary that at least you know that I'm self-aware when my writing is shitty.

Buckle up, we're going for the detailed, researched story. You're welcome to point out any flaws.

Tik

When your body wants to release Dopamine, the following occurs. The neural impulse moves along the dopaminergic terminal and meets the dopamine receptor in the limbic system which has synapses (little spaces). A special protein is released by the synapse and it binds to the dopaminergic terminal of a dopamine transmitter.

Dopamine makes you feel good, but all good things must come to an end, so typically the dopamine is reabsorbed. But meth does not want the party to end, so it influences trace amine-associated receptor 1, convinces it to stop letting dopamine in.

=====

Notes from Reeva!

Synapses are related to sleep

• During sleep, synapses can be cleaned

• When we sleep, synapses decrease in size which allows for lymphatic system to clean the synapses

• During sleep the body prunes irrelevant synapses and neural networks, hence creating space

Once stimulated, a neuron will communicate information about the causative event. The neurons are called sensory neurons. Sensory neurons will send info to neurons in the brain and spinal cord.

====

But it doesn't stop there. Meth also encourages the production of more dopamine! Up to ten times more. It feels so good! It acts as an upper, giving you energy and acting as an aphrodisiac.

Of course, there are negative effects to this. Neural damage occurs, and this is irreversible. This can leave the user with memory loss, aggression, and paranoia.

Lavender Hill

Our story takes place in Lavender Hill. Despite the nice name, it is a place of horrors worse than Amityville, some would say.

It was created in the 1970s as a segregated area for Coloreds (mixed-race Malays, not Blacks). With poor access to the CBD and a lack of services, it dilapidated and this continued post-Apartheid.

A lack of policing resulted in the growth of gangs and the proliferation of crime which has come to characterize the township. The crime statistics are shocking, to say the least. Let's cover drugs, which is what this article is about:

>Although statistics for Lavender Hill specifically are difficult to ascertain, crime statistics from the South African Police Service (SAPS) illustrate the prevalence of drug-related crime in the area: between April 2011 and March 2012, Grassy Park (ward 68) recorded 1 810 cases of drug-related crime (SAPS 2012). Local gangs hold the bulk of economic power in the area and recruit many community members by offering financial support. For example, they offer to pay rent or electricity bills in exchange for hiding parcels.

https://ggln.org.za/media/k2/attachments/SoLG.2014-DDP.pdf

Part of the problem is that Lavender Hill is plagued with Tik, which in turn increases other crime rates.

Ellen Pakkies

There used to be far more information on her when the case occurred. However, most of it has been overshadowed by the movie they made about her.

According to her, she was sexually abused as a child. R*pe seems to be a constant theme in her life when she was 17, she was r*ped and had her first child, Abie Pakkies. Shortly after, she married at age 18. She had her second child, Colin. The marriage did not last, and she would go through one more marriage before meeting Ontil, her longstanding husband.

Like many others in Lavender Hill, Abie fell victim to drugs. He got hooked on Tik at age 13, and from then onwards his life became a tragedy. To get money to buy drugs, he would steal everything from Ellen, who owned very little to begin with. She tried to get him to stop, but he basically emptied the house to feed his habit.

This went on for years, with Abie stealing money from his mother and robbing her of her wages. She tried to get him to rehab but that did not work. He was kicked out of the house but he would return banging at the doors and windows begging for money the whole night. To put it mildly, he was a pest.

One day, Ellen had enough. Her son was living in the backroom of the house. She went to visit him, carrying a rope with her. She entered the backroom and found Abie sleeping. He was no threat. Ellen put the rope around his neck and started stranding him. The asphyxiation woke Abie up and he started struggling, likely in shock that his own mother was attempting to murder him. She tightened the rope, asking him why he never listens. He begged for his life, claiming he would listen from then onwards, but this was not enough to quell Ellen's rage. Let's cut to the chase - she killed her son.

Following the incident, she put on her clothes and went to work, much like Chris Watts. However, unlike the family annihilator, Ellen eventually confessed to her boss who then took her to the police station.

Her case was very famous in South Africa and I have vivid memories of reports always painting her in a sympathetic matter, as someone who was pushed to their limits. She eventually got a 3 year suspended sentence. I'm here today to say this is bullshit. This woman is a murderer just like all the others I've previously covered. I feel sympathy for her situation but not for strangling her own son. She did it in such a personal manner, to someone who was sleeping. Frick that.

What are your thoughts? Was Ellen justified? Or is she just a killer?

To clarify this post is dedicated to both RWBY and Roosterteeth as a whole. RWBY's lifespan and Roosterteeth's golden age into decline are linked imo so it's a good opportunity to tackle both at once. RWBY's initial success is part of what convinced RT to try becoming a full on production company after all, and the show's post Monty malaise also lines up with RT becoming bloated and ultimately unable to cover their growing expenses.

This will also be a very meta post in which a number of dramatards are quoted and referenced. This is partially to cover gaps in my own knowledge since I'm familiar with RWBY and Red vs Blue but not so much with Roosterteeth's podcasts/channels/non web show employees. I'm also doing it so as to use rDrama as a microcosm for how neurodivergents the internet over feel and have felt about Roosterteeth. In their heydey RT was disproportionately influential to the internet culture of the noughties and early 10's. A lot of the oldstrags here were familiar with their gaming content if not outright fans of theirs, and RvB and RWBY were well known in their day. (The latter often in infamy, but still ) For better or worse this is a topic a lot of us are familiar with.

I've also seen a lot of rdrama questions related to RT and RWBY. Questions like, "Why did RT shit the bed so bad?" and "Why was RWBY ever made?" and "How much irreparable harm has RWBY done to western society?" Hopefully this post will be able to answer everyone's queries.

Destroy the IP, remove all footage from the Internet and aggressively pursue rehosters. I want anyone who even mentions the word RWBY to be sued by Warner Bros.

— @AverageBen10Enjoyer

For those who don't know, RWBY is an American "anime-influenced" 3D computer-animated web series created by Monty Oum (more on him later) and released by RoosterTeeth. RWBY was their first wholly original production unrelated to Machinima and it has since been the flagship of RT's "original IPs". RoosterTeeth itself is a, well, it's sort of a production company but it really started as a handful of dudebros who knew each other and had good chemistry deciding to make Halo parodies at the height of Halo's own popularity in the gaming world. From there the company grew to the point of collapsing under its own weight because of, uh... reasons.

In this post I'll outline the history of both the show and Roosterteeth and explain how their stars rose and fell. Along the way we'll see some guest appearances from some of our favorite users.

RoosterTeeth and Red vs. Blue

I thought Rooster Teeth was like 5 people playing Halo

— @frozengarlic

In the beginning RoosterTeeth was indeed a handful of people who got famous for playing Halo. Btw if anyone knows more than me on the specifics of RT's history then feel free to chime in.

Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC (at least that's what it's called now) was founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman. While attending UT Austin Burnie and Matt collaborated with Joel on an independent film This didn't go anywhere but it gets referenced a lot when I look into RT's history so I'm guessing this is how they met or at least when they got used to working together. While working out of college Burnie met Geoff (then named Geoff Fink), Gus, Dan Godwin, and Jason. Their first venture into dudebro content (And I must emphasize that as soy as RT's fandom is now, dudebros were their original audience) was drunkg*mers, a website where they reviewed various video games while drunk. According to Ramsey, the group tried to receive free games to review, but "incurred the wrath" of several game developers in doing so.

Sorola and Burns said that the name was changed from 'Drunk G*mers' to 'Rooster Teeth' because nobody would give games or sponsor something with 'drunk' in the title "because it was so unprofessional." The term Rooster Teeth comes from "cockbite", a memorable bit of dialogue from the very first trailer for Red vs Blue.

Burnie Burns: When we went to make the actual production company we decided to register that, but the state of Texas wouldn't let us register “Cockbite Production Inc.,” so we decided on Rooster Teeth instead.

RWBY's Older Brother

RT's first real production, the 2003 series Red vs. Blue was a Halo machinima — a web show "filmed" in a video game using video game assets and mechanics. Initially there wasn't much plot or anything. It was simply a Halo parody making fun of the classic capture the flag game mode. The main characters were all multiplayer avatars stuck in an endless conflict over their flags, except they mostly stood around talking and lamenting their pointless jobs fighting over a pointless box canyon. It's satirical you see

Stupid "organization" that never deserved any of its wealth, Red vs Blue isn't even funny and they got big off of being the first YouTubers to include — checks list — The minimal amount of editing. Oh, I hate the early internet, where mediocrity = success because everyone else was just dumping their unedited recordings with no commentary.

— @Camembert

If something that even managed to capture the exact spirit of RvB came out nowadays — even if it was based on Fortnite or Helldivers or Palworld or whatever the frick the youngins are playing — I doubt it would make as much of a splash. RvB was right place and right time since it came out in the rising rocket trail of Halo's extreme popularity. Everything Halo got a lot of attention back then.

To give you an idea of the era, other popular Halo web memes include Jon Graham's Master Chief Sucks At Halo in which Master Chief is a literal action figure who speaks with the Microsoft text to speech program

And Randall Glass' Warthog Jumping, which is basically just a gameplay video of peepeeing around with in game physics. This and RvB were actually referenced by Bungie in a Halo: Reach easter egg

RoosterTeeth is one of those names I see all of the time online and I still have zero idea what they actually do.

— @1066_International

Red vs. Blue was only planned for one season but was continued after taking off in popularity. Apparently the first episode got twenty thousand downloads in a day, and keep in mind this series was getting popular back when dial-up internet was still sorta common. Some people would wait like 30 mins for these episodes to finish downloading.

Red vs. Blue would run for many seasons and followed the Halo series itself as it went from Halo 2, to 3, to Reach and beyond. Meanwhile Roosterteeth slowly started up other projects. Apparently their paid premium service actually first started way back in 2003. Over the years this would evolve into the FIRST program, something that allowed paypigs special perks and discounts RT also started working out business deals such as commercials with GameStop. Eventually they started making merchandise and DVDs and sold them through retailers like, again, GameStop. Apparently Joel was a driving force here.

In 2004 RT released The Strangerhood based on The Sims In ‘05 they moved out of Burnie's house and into an office. They attended the Sundance festival They released PANICS based on the game F.E.A.R. and apparently at the request of the Monolith Productions devs. In ‘06 there were "RoosterTeeth comics" and in ‘07 they moved into a fancy Congress Avenue office. They created 1-800-Magic based on the game Shadowrun and Red vs. Blue reached 100 episodes. In ‘08 they created Achievement Hunter (And I might be wrong here but I think that was their first gaming meta channel thing or whatever. Other dramanauts probably know more about this side of the company) They released Stroyent and The Drunk Tank podcast came out. At this point there was actually a pilot for a Red vs. Blue animated series.

And in 2009 they hired none other than Monty Oum as an animator

Extremely Powerful Autism

You watched rwby? Why?

Cuz Monty's final Fantasy/DOA fight videos

— @RICHARD_NIXON_IS_GOD and @eva_isachud

Monty was hired by RT to be the lead animator for Red vs Blue. Now, you may be wondering why Roosterteeth even needed an animator for a machinima. Well, remember the season 1 trailer I posted earlier in the thread?

This is what the show turned into.

(Also notice that the show eventually got a real soundtrack? Jeff Williams was the composer for RvB seasons 8-10 and later worked on RWBY)

I like how you can tell his personality and hobbies just by looking at him.

As for the man himself, Monyreak "Monty" Oum got his start making fan videos. In fact he loved making fan videos so much that he dropped out of high school to make more vidya content. In January 2007, he discovered some reverse engineering techniques online that allowed him to extract models from Halo 2 and, utilizing assets from Super Smash Bros. Melee, created the "ultimate showdown" between a SPARTAN (Halo) and Samus Aran (Metroid) in a video called Haloid. This was followed by Dead Fantasy in which characters from Final Fantasy and Dead or Alive fight.

These videos went viral and a lot of people including some of the zoomer-boomers on this site were already familiar with Monty before he started working on Red vs. Blue.

In a way RWBY would evolve from the cgi action show that Red vs. Blue gradually became, or rather from RoosterTeeth's demand for a serious action IP that they didn't really have since, you know, five guys playing Halo. RWBY was based off ideas that Monty had been developing for years, and working with RT allowed him to propose the show to Burnie Burns during the production of RvB Season 10. Burns, worried for the production schedule, told Oum "If you finish Season 10, then you can do whatever you want."

Not only was Season 10 finished on time, the very first trailer for RWBY debuted shortly after and was attached as a commercial to the end of a RvB episode. From then on countless Americans would be consigned to eventually training out

Fun fact this trailer was supposed to be several minutes longer and the extra content was just Ruby Rose (the character in the trailer) fighting some more. Someone convinced Monty to cut it down.

Also to give some insight into how RWBY was "written" — it's part of Ruby's character premise that her legendary hero mother disappeared when she was very young and she always wanted to follow in her footsteps. As for how this was conceptualized,

When questioned about who was in the grave, Monty replied "I don't know. We just thought it would be cool if she visited a grave." Jeff Williams went on to ask, "What if it's her mom?" To which Monty answered, "That's cool."

As for why Roosterteeth greenlit RWBY in the first place?

So like JonTron -- a simple channel about the vidya became an entire production facility, sponsorship tie-ins, Roombas in the hallways, and they forgot the funny.

— @1

I think RvB's escalating budget and evolution from a Halo parody into a serious action/drama/(sorta)comedy shows RT's intent. It's clear that as they grew someone or other decided it was important to have a real intellectual property under the company's belt. Something that went beyond vidya content. Something that could be licensed out and used for merchandising

To an extent RT did make money off of Red vs. Blue. They sold DVDs and also started producing RvB merchandise. I've always wondered about the exact legal details there since even if RT made the show itself, Microsoft still owns all the, not-quite-sure-what-it's-called, visual rights associated with Halo. Because it started as a machinima the RvB characters wear Halo armor. Use Halo guns. Drive Halo vehicles. In particular I remember the Red and Blue team emblems showing up on merchandise even though these came right out of the game. Microsoft must have looked the other way or maybe they got a cut or something. In any case RvB wasn't entirely original. RoosterTeeth couldn't say it was entirely theirs.

Monty's idea was an opportunity for a new media franchise, and indeed it would become the flagship of RT's properties once the show started to take off.

RWBY

Still the most baffling about [RWBY] is the creator is just an animator

He is just so popular and has power that he "create" the show but humble enough that he is shit at writing so he gave the concept art to 2 r-slur RvB writer to write it. There is a clip of him giving the 2 r-slurs "anime homework" to weebify them to write this "anime".

The whole thing is so embarrassing it single-handedly end my weeb phrase

-- @skitzo

In this section I will describe what RWBY is and how it was made -- God willing I won't sperg too much and this'll be at least somewhat interesting to you guys We'll also explore a brief history of American weebery. Some people on this site have claimed RWBY started this trend, but no. It's only a milestone on a very long road. I'll also attempt to answer why this show went viral and how it became so corruptingly influential to certain sections of the internet

RWBY is sort of a fantasy series, though it's more specifically like those Final Fantasy settings where modern conveniences like firearms and electronics exist alongside magic and monsters. The series is basically a battle shounen with female protags in which the initial plot -- the four main characters are training to fight monsters called Grimm -- is fundamentally an excuse for fighty-fight. The tone of the show is whatever the frick the writers felt like for that episode. I think RT really tried to reach across the aisles for this one to attract as many genre fandoms as possible, even if the result ended up a big fantasy shitpost.

According to Monty, the basic idea of a team of female action heroes each associated with a color came to him in a dream. He told RT employee Kerry Shawcross about this and when it came time to make the show he also recruited Miles Luna. The three were the initial showrunners. Shane Newville is another animator who also worked with Monty on RvB. Dillon Gu joined later for Volume 3. These two animators were later fired from RT in a controversial moment. (And in modern news rumor has it they're interested in the now up for grabs RWBY IP rights)

A true creative Monty had been shitstorming fantasy esque ideas for years and prompty used them to fill out the new series. For example, the "gunchucks" used by Sun Wukong and the character design of Qrow Branwen actually predate the RWBY leads, and even though they're minor characters, Sun's team SSSN was the first to be fully designed. Beta team JNPR was also finished before the protags.

The basic designs for the main characters were drawn up by Monty and further refined by artist Eileen Chang, who Monty was apparently a longtime fan of. The 3D animation models were developed from there. Virtually all RWBY characters were designed under two philosophies. Monty decided each character would be associated with a color as a "hook", an idea possibly inspired by RvB itself. Characters also allude to fairytales, mythology, folk tales, and real historical figures.

I suppose the color rule speaks for itself. It's interesting to wonder if Monty suggested this as a way of tying RWBY into Red vs. Blue when originally pitching the concept to Burnie. It's sort of evidenced by the leading teams (RWBY from Ruby, Rubies are red/JNPR from Juniper, berries that are blue) In that case RWBY's color obsession ultimately descends from the simple multiplayer conventions of Halo.

[Monty] made the world shape by smashing ketchup in a napkin

-- @Jimbo_B_Beterson

As noted by resident white supremacist Hotep RWBY's setting is inspired by fairytales and other old timey lore and draws from a wide range of ideas. Monty pitched the idea for Ruby's character to Burnie as "a badass Red Riding Hood". Sure enough the Grimm antagonists are also based on folk critters, with the ones debuting in Ruby's trailer obviously based on werewolves. Other examples,

Mythology: is based on Achilles, said in some sources to have had red hair and to have once disguised himself as a woman named Pyrra

Folk Tales: is the scorpion who stung the frog. He's an evil assassin because it is simply his nature.

History: Based on Joan of Arc, I guess. Furthering this his season 1 school bully was even inspired by Henry Beaufort, who is commonly said to have overseen Joan of Arc's prosecution

The writers also liked to give some inspirations a darker twist, like and being Rapunzel and female Aladdin, but evil

The signifigance of these allusions is all over the place. Has the backstory of Cinderella if she snapped and killed her step-family, becoming a tragic villain in the process. Meanwhile is based on the Roman god, but the only real connection is that they both run a lot.

On finding the correct tone and inspiration for the series, Kerry Shawcross cited Grimms' Fairy Tales as well as... uh... The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as influences.

RWBY is funny because it was developed like the opposite of a comic book. Instead of having a writer create a script and guidelines that the artists would follow, in this case Monty was the animator and he got scriptwriters to follow his lead in developing and refining the story bits he didn't care enough to manage himself. As mentioned earlier the writers were given anime "homework" so they understood what Monty was going for. This list possibly included the likes of Gurren Lagann, Sword Art Online, Full Metal Alchemist/Brotherhood, Soul Eater, FLCL, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Akira. Of course Monty himself was working off his many video game influences, Final Fantasy, Devil May Cry, Blazblue, Dead Or Alive, and probably countless others.

Monty came up with major character arcs and plot points, such as Beacon's eventual destruction and Pyrra's death. Otherwise he just did the fight scenes as he saw fit. The scriptwriters came up with everything else, tasked with trying to explain how Fight Scene A would go to Fight Scene B.

Volumes 1 to 3 were animated by the internal animation team of Rooster Teeth's studios in Austin using Smith Micro's Poser software, which Monty had years of experience in. Assets were modelled on Autodesk Maya. Apparently some motion capture was involved but I'm not sure how much. This initial animation was very, let's say, "indie" and often used animation cheats, as an example many background characters in Volume 1 are really just silhouettes and don't have real models. Regarding the design, Oum wanted to "present a two-dimensional, toon-shaded look, but with all of the depth and complexity of a 3D-animated production".

Everyone always says RWBY looks like jank but you have to understand this was all very new and low budget, plus they couldn't just use Halo assets like RvB. Also everything 3D looked like jank back then so people accepted it.

To give credit where it's due, the animation has improved in all these years.

For all their faults one thing RoosterTeeth didn't cheap out on was the soundtrack. Jeff Williams returned to compose the majority of songs all the way to Volume 8.

I don't expect you guys to listen to all that but even just a few seconds makes it clear the show received professional quality music. Many of these songs features vocals by Williams' daughter, Casey Lee Williams. Despite the deep sounding voice she was only fourteen or so when this was made.

Even Carp likes the music

RWBY -- Backwards for You Become a Weeb and R-slurred

What can I say about RWBY other than it ruined this country. I'm not saying it was super bad, or the sole reason we have a bunch of 's running around, but this show is like the Anime community's version of the Rosetta Stone. It transcribed all the tropes of groomime into their pallatable culure.

-- @HOTEP

So now we know Monty made RWBY because of I guess Final Fantasy and RoosterTeeth funded it because they wanted money But why would anyone watch this, right? I will explain exactly why I think RWBY resonated with so many people, because it was undeniably popular for a good long while there

Some blame RWBY for the existence of American animu The spread of weebshit through the Anglosphere truly deserves its own longpost but to briefly sum it up I would disagree and lay blame at the feet of the 90's.

First of all, I'm pretty sure Xoomers were getting their hands on anime even going back to the 80's and that they were forming their secret societies ever since

Second, Toonami was a Cartoon Network programming block that premiered in 1997. A lot of dubbed anime was shown to a wide audience in the United States for the first time through Toonami. Notable examples include Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Voltron, Robotech, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, The Big O, Outlaw Star, Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach. You even had some shorter series like Evangelion and movies like Char's Counterattack

It must be noted that these were simply marketed to kids as action cartoons and were shown alongside western cartoons like ThunderCats, Jonny Quest, and the DC Animated Universe shows. Kids growing up in this era -- the same kids that would be high school/college aged going into the 10's -- didn't seek these animes out because they were already weebs. They were converted because they were unfortunate enough to be watching Cartoon Network at the wrong place and wrong time. They would prostrate themselves before the electric Nip much the same as they'd watch wholesome Anglo programming like Justice League or Ben 10

As for the birth of "American anime", I'm pretty sure we can safely blame Gen X for that. T'was their number who ultimately gave us increasingly anime inspired western media with the 2003 Teen Titans, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Godzilla: The Series, The Boondocks, Megas XLR, and Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! as just a few egregious examples. These aren't shows with animation exported to East Asia to be sure, but properties that intentionally drew from Japanese pop culture even if they were produced by entirely western teams and studios. This was all shown to children right alongside an unprecedented amount of dubbed anime.

Proto-Coomers and Proto-Weebs who didn't know how to watch Anime in 2013

-- @KoreanStragKing

RWBY's timing was well positioned to take advantage of these poor children as they reached their teenaged and young adult years. While I'm sure there was content out there for the savvy, anime whatnot streaming was only just starting to get somewhere by 2013 and wasn't as widely known as it is today. I can see a lot of early weebs being attracted to RWBY when it first went viral and having it be their gateway drug. If RWBY premiered now it wouldn't be anything special, but like RvB it had the perfect timing to be quite novel.

All these years I specifically remember how the Red trailer was attached to the end of RvB's season 10 and how confused a lot of people were in the comments. While many of the classic Halo dudebros didn't make the transition, I'm sure a good chunk of Red vs. Blue fans were willing to give the new series a try as a built in audience. After all RvB itself had ceased being a true machinima by then and RWBY was more of the same for those who liked the cgi.

And of course Monty Oum was well known in some circles and a lot of people came to RWBY just to see what he was up to. He was well respected in nerdom

Furthermore RWBY was kinda brilliant in how it managed to attract both moid and foid neurodivergents through different aspects of its premise.

Sidenote i've noticed that a lot of shows that get the same kind of fandom as rwby have a few features in common (undertale, homestuck, steven universe, MHA etc). I guess the unique character designs (great workout for fanartists) + Barely formed roots of personalities pretending to be complex (perfect to write fanfiction with) can be used as a cheat sheet to appeal to that crowd.

-- @Dahl_Fook

Somehow the moids who made this show figured out the perfect blend of foid-coded cartoon and young adult novel, because RWBY attracted the usual suspects (teh penguin of doom) like flies on a pile of pasture poo. I think g*mergirl types were just inherently enchanted by the pretty colors, female representation, shipping potential () fanfic potential, and JRPG influences they could smell from several spork lengths away The show also has a high school slash boarding school setup not unlike Harry Potter that every YA fan seems to like. It's not a coincidence that everyone remembers the characters being students, many people unaware that the plot ever even progressed from there

But the show also attracted a lot of dudes, and not just future MtFs either. The fight scenes were enough for some. The show's emphasis on weapon autism was another aspect a lot of moids enjoyed. It's not as though tumblrina types care about things like whether or not the main character's bolt action rifle cycles correctly, but I can speak from firsthand experience when I say that it was the littlest of these small details that attracted many moid neurodivergents to RWBY when it first came out. RWBY weapons have as much thought put into them as the characters wielding them and did a lot to reel in the male JRPG crowd.

Plus there are tons of moids who love to watch cute animu girls fighting and if anything were conditioned to feel that way by the above media.

And there are certain moids who came for the "2D art" -- moids that shit up my notifs with their three letter fetishes

Otaku Ouroboros

I bought a licensed cereal of [RWBY] because it was on sale.

-- @911roofer

RWBY generated viral hype from the moment of its announcement and first premiered at a RoosterTeeth convention in 2013. It was popular enough to fill the seating at three showings. Oh and also RT started hosting its own conventions and some people willingly paid money to attend them. RWBY was initially released on both RT's website and YouTube. By mid-2013, the series had reportedly contributed to a 9% increase in views for Rooster Teeth's official YouTube channel. In August 2013, streaming website Crunchyroll announced it would simulcast RWBY. DVD and Blu-ray sales soon followed and the show's success led to a greenlight for season 2 and beyond.

RWBY grew rapidly in these golden years of the mid 10's, an era coinciding with RoosterTeeth at its spendiest Netflix picked up the show going into Volume 3. A spin-off RWBY: World of Remnant released in '15 and the lighthearted RWBY Chibi in '16. This cgi is even more nightmare inducing than the original.

There's also some whatever spinoffs that I don't feel like keeping track of like a DnD campaign. Two video games were released, Grimm Eclipse and Arrowfell. There's also some mobile shovelware like a card game or something.

RWBY also went on to achieve the highest honors a weeb could ask for,

Matt Hullum: This is the first time any American-made anime has been marketed to Japan. It definitely usually works the other way around, and we're really pleased about that... As huge fans of anime, we are honored that RWBY is the first American anime production to be exported to audiences in Japan.

Monty Oum: Some believe just like Scotch needs to be made in Scotland, an American company can't make anime. I think that's a narrow way of seeing it. Anime is an art form, and to say only one country can make this art is wrong.

The show gained a following in Nipland and a dub was released there starting in '14. This was handled by Warner Bros Home Entertainment Japan, which may actually represent the very beginning of RoosterTeeth as a whole eventually coming under WB. RWBY Volume 4 even got a limited theatrical release there.

Eventually the would produce two RWBY mangas

And finally an actual anime spin-off

RWBY characters also showed up in the crossover fighting game BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, apparently because series creator Toshimichi Mori was a personal fan of RWBY. They're notably the only participants in the base game to not hail from a fighting game series already and to have entirely original in game assets made for them.

Back in the west the series would get an official comic book published by DC followed by a crossover with DC characters

The crossover was adapted into one of DC's animated movies.

And let it be known that Kang promised to review these for us. Don't let him forget.

Of course these particular RWBY releases weren't a thing until RoosterTeeth became more involved with DC's parent company Warner Bros. Let's check back up on RT.

RoosterTeeth's Expansion

I think it's Jim Sterling syndrome where you just don't give a shit about gaming anymore and desperately want to pivot to something else that feels more like real journ*lism, but all your opinions are garbage.

-- @Wegkerflurgler

At the time the early 10's seemed like a golden age for RoosterTeeth. As an original property with no Microsoft strings attached RWBY was milked for everything it could have been worth, and the company dipped its toes into anything that might have expanded their internet presence.

In Which RoosterTeeth Tries to "Compete" with Tech Giants

In 2011 they started RTX, a gaming, internet, and all around shitpost convention held every year in Austin, and for a time in Sydney and London too. Your boy here even went to one in '15. (Funny story there, it was completely involuntary ) In '13 RT began a newsletter and started their Extra Life live stream charity. In '15 they opened a division in Los Angeles called Funhaus and made their feature film debut with Lazer Team. In retrospect I do remember RTX being themed around that back when. RoosterTeeth Games was created as the company's very own gaming division and RT also released an iOS app intended as a hub of sorts for their service. ScrewAttack would become a division of RoosterTeeth.

Burnie Burns: We didn't join YouTube until late 2008, because when we first looked at it, honestly, I viewed them as a competitor... Now we're not competing with the PewDiePies and the Homestar Runners of the world. Now we're competing with Netflix and HBO and Amazon. And we're more than ready for that challenge.

As RoosterTeeth grew Burnie at least saw a comparison to the first dotcom boom. He genuinely saw all the tech powers of the time as challenges RT should rise to meet. I can't be sure what the end goal would have looked like -- I mean, what would a RT version of Amazon have looked like? In any case we can see their intent in exanding the company from a small team of dudebros into hundreds of employees, with a greater emphasis on both IPs and "influencer" content. The company also obsessed over its website, app, and FIRST program because they didn't want their users to be using "competitor" websites at all.

In 2014 they were bought out by Fullscreen, an entertainment company which offered cowtools, services, and consultation to social media content creators and brands. Burnie said this provided "the resources and cowtools" to be competitive against other producers. RT's entire business strategy changed from here on and they would never be independent again.

But with the general upward trend of my post, surely RoosterTeeth's prosperity continued into the second half of the 2010's and beyond? Surely things were only on the up and up for them? And RWBY most definitely continued to increase in quality with every new season?

Monty's Death

Man, I miss the old RWBY. Awful non-fight animation, nonsense plot, offensively bad voice acting, but it had the kind of soul only an neurodivergent's passion project can deliver and the fight choreography was downright groundbreaking.

-- @tothenines

In retrospect the history of not just RWBY but RoosterTeeth as a whole climaxed with the sudden death of Monty Oum on February 1st, 2015. He was only 33 years old.

I've heard different versions of the story but this is my understanding. Upon achieving success in the creative industry, Monty further realized he could obtain the dream of every Asian-American otaku. He landed himself a mid white woman

Monty's wife wanted to take in a stray cat she found, but Monty was very allergic to cats. He agreed to go to the hospital and get some kind of allergy shot treatment. Unfortunately he had an allergic reaction to these shots and died in the hospital.

Following this his wife launched a kickstarter and started ethot posting.

It's been said that RWBY with no Monty is like Breaking Bad with no Vince Gilligan or Seinfeld with no Larry David. In any case many people have criticized the show's decline ever since Monty's departure. The "FNDM" (four letters like team RWBY geddit ) has been divided in half ever since and if you ever see a fervent RWBY hater online then there's a pretty good chance this was a Monty era fan that came to hate the show. People who never watched aren't very likely to bring it up. Not unless they lost someone to RWBY's "influence" or something

Meanwhile RT continued with RWBY and a few other original cartoons and an assload of podcasts and programs and other fluff bits of debatable quality. From what I've written so far it would seem RoosterTeeth was on track to becoming an unstoppable juggernaut of internet culture. And yet, they're set to go out of business this year? What could have dragged them down from so great an apex?

As I wrote this post I realized it would have to be a two-parter with Monty's death as a logical stopping point. Hopefully you wonderful rDrama people appreciate this post because if I come back it would be to detail how all this came crashing down. How did Fullscreen lead to RT ending up under Warner Bros? What future might RWBY have? For now you'll just have to stay tuned.

Since this post was very meta -- many dramatards were followers of RT and even RWBY back in the day -- I'd like to close with a funny meta arc in which @Dahl_Fook slowly comes to regret getting pinged whenever someone typed "RWBY".

Eventually it starts to get old.

He also had a now deleted comment where he complained about getting pinged by Bard Bot a lot. Why? Because Bard Bot sometimes lists top ten Bard respecters, I am a top ten Bard respecter, and my username happens to be RWBY

Finally he realizes the error of his ways.

https://old.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/1benr92/wow_pornhub_shut_down_in_texas_redtube_also_im/

Freedom for all the things I want specifically and nothing else please.

yes

The GOP “freedom” is the “freedom” to use slurs without getting fired and not have your income taxed to help poor people. That's the “freedom” they like.

Don't let them take “freedom” or “patriotism.” Patriotism is paying your taxes so there are zero starving children in your great nation. Freedom is wearing whatever the frick you want and singing whatever the frick you want to whoever the frick chooses to see it.

Sadly this bill passed almost unanimously in Texas by both parties.

Texas doesn't have progressive candidates. It has “concerningly far right fascists” and “right of center moderates.”

but i thought texas is becoming blue any time now

"I'm pretty sure if they took all the porn off the internet, there would only be one website left, and it would be BringBackThePorn.com."

Dr. Perry Cox

I mean, that's basically what happened to Tumblr. Apple pressured Yahoo to get rid of the porn, and in the process they killed the majority of Tumblr's value.

tumblr banning porn and its consequences for the human race

Party of small government strikes again.

Will this finally get young males to vote Democrat???

Are you kidding? Do you know how many teens/early 20-somethings are being red-pilled into anti-s*x slut shamers? It's wild.

Far right-wing tactics involve shaming young males for their sexuality, which increases their frustrations, and makes it easier to brainwash them into committing acts of terror.

0 self awareness lmao

And the history books will read:

"it wasn't the mass shootings. Or the racism. It wasn't the extreme summers from climate change. It wasn't the wage suppression, The war on women, The war on immigrants. Not the Censorship of books. It wasn't the legacy of class based on families that made fortunes during the days of slavery and now own businesses throughout the state.

What actually turned Texas blue was when they took away the porn. "

After Texas conservatives lose access to all the trans porn on PH, you can bet they're gonna be even more conflicted than they are by getting off to trans porn.

>user posts in traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns2

lmao

Keeping minors away from porn is somehow a bad thing apparently

That's up to the parents. Don't need to set up a 1984 nanny state to accomplish that

My parents did everything they could to keep me away from porn. Yet I was easily able to get acess at a very young age which spiraled into a crippling addiction that I am STILL feeling the effects of to this day. Age verification is a must

So I can't drink alcohol because at least one person has a drinking problem?

Push ur Christian Russian propaganda on truth social

If only there was an age restriction for the purchase of alcohol...

Fine with me. Less revenue for those human trafficking enablers.

Lol Matt Gaetz? What does he have to do with pornhub.

You are beyond helping that you view child s*x trafficking as only relevant if you can diss a politician. Nobody even mentioned Matt Gaetz

absolute state of wingcucks

As a woman in Texas this is actually a little terrifying. Men with no internal moral compass need a sexual release, can't access porn, and know they won't get charged if they commit r*pe - what could possibly go wrong?

foid moment

I predict instances of r*pe will skyrocket.

Good job telling on yourself. Be careful of this future male feminist everyone.

Just checked and yeah… it really is closed.

Honestly this will probably be good for me.

Srdines : https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1bezjtg/in_lieu_of_a_new_texas_law_forcing/

How is Ted Cruz going to find new pornstars to like now?

Well it isn't blocked in Cancun.

So when someone kills a senator like this is it considered a murder or an assassination?

If you shot Ted Cruz on the Senate floor no one would convict you.

Texans about to go back to using sears catalogs.

Idk but there's something hilarious about a state that constantly boasts about how free and independent they are and how people are just flocking there, consistently have things happen to it that makes you question them.

gerrymandering is a very real issue in Texas. it's much more blue than one might think, but a few billionaires with the combined IQ of a jar of Mayo are running the entire state. it's infuriating and seemingly impossible to disrupt.

edit: looks like the chronically online, non Texas residents have made their way here. perhaps if you don't or have never lived somewhere, it's best to keep your armchair political pundit opinions about said place inside your brain!

regardless, enjoy talking to yourselves ✌🏾

Gerrymandering is an issue there, but a lot of people overstate how much that shifts the state red. Abbott won the 2022 gubernatorial by more than 10% in 2022, and that's decided by popular vote. It's still a solid red state.

We've been hearing about Texas flipping blue for almost a decade now and it's never actually been that close... People use nationwide trends to try and say their demographics should swing it blue but it simply isn't true.

They haven't had a Democrat as Senator in 31 years or a Democrat as Governor in 29 years. They haven't gone blue in a presidential election since 1976. It's a deep red state with blue cities that trends less red in "blue wave" years like 2018.

two more weeks until texas turns blue

>I predict instances of r*pe will skyrocket.

The frick is wrong with people?

Just wow if that's the first place your mind goes to when you hear PH is banned. Jeebus.

even srdines are making fun of that r-slur

>I predict instances of r*pe will skyrocket.

Ever since the border opened up it has been so trend will probably continue.

TIL r*pes weren't a thing in Texas until the borders “opened up.” And also r*pe is a trend apparently.

Oh look, bonus bigotry that is totally happening!

>Definitely seen more illegals walking near my ranch and infrared cameras being triggered around the perimeter in the last few years.

It's really amazing how people like this always find a way to insert their racism into every issue.

smartest srdine

trend=a general direction in which something is developing or changing.

The absolute irony when they run across the border to get access to porn hub

You know most of these people are probably young and haven't spent a great deal of time on the internet, because they're panicked at the idea of losing PornHub.

As if porn isn't the single easiest thing to find on the internet.

Do you know how many porn websites pop in and out of existence every week?

The younger generation may genuinely not be tech savvy enough to easily find it. Like that sounds insane but genuinely late gen z and gen alpha have grown up with an internet that handed everything to them, a lot of them dont seem to know how to handle shit when it doesnt

/r/technology: https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1beve92/pornhub_bans_texas/

Great now I'll have relatives calling me asking about this thing called a VPN and how to use it.

redditors can't fathom that the average joe doesn't consume as much porn as they do

Tell them in order to install a VPN they need to stop voting for dipshit politicians and hang up.

Texas has been officially abolished.

So...are we in support of secession?

Always have been. The rest of the country needs to succeed from Texas

Imagine when the US finds out they border an oil rich new country with a non functional government and oil..

They'll need freedom for sure

Isn't Texas that neighboring country full or armed and dangerous religious fanatics? We should definitely be sending our troops to go help liberate the good citizens from their clutches!

military intervention bad.... unless it's against someone i don't like

Already done in North Carolina. God forbid someone is able to rub one out after a long day subsisting in this fricking shithole.

touch grass, buddy

maybe that way you'll met someone

Christ they are getting annihilated in November. Women can't get abortions and dudes can't jerk off. Quite the platform you got there.

>Christ they are getting annihilated in November.

What is this fantasy world you live in?

The Reddit echochamber

I called Cruz today and told him he's a fricking moron.

So I'm doing my part

So brave

God dammit! Now what will I masturbate to?!

All the other porn sites that are still operational.

Greg Abbott is salty he can't feel below the waist

body shaming good if the other person is a republichud

https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1768358878943604752

https://x.com/kirawontmiss/status/1768492205939851359

twitter is in support of this ban for the most part.

https://Patriots.win

https://scored.co/p/17si9s0A7V/pornhub-pulls-of-out-texas-becau/c

I wonder who owns pornhub and why they want to show (gay)porn to children so badly? It's probably nothing.

Just get rid of it everywhere. It's destroying western society as it was designed to do.

Some of you may celebrate this, but this (and the tiktok ban) is not good for the future of the Internet, which is already become very centralized and is controlled by the state more and more each passing day.

Too many people just don't grasp this concept. Their blind hatred for pornography overpowers any and all rational thought. This bill, and the "tik tok ban bill" are trojan horses that will be used against ANY website the government deems "unsafe" or "unsuitable for children".

Abbott must not realize that there are thousands of porn sites. This is just virtue signaling. Akin to banning Juuls.

This was aimed at all porn sites. Ph bitched and moaned. The other sites put up a button asking if you are over 18. Good riddance to that degenerate CP enabling website it is gone.

tl;dr: total coomer death

CONTEXT:

Much of the only female-only factions in 40K, is the Sororitas, which are space-nun religious fanatics, whom operate as the military arm of the modern Religious apparatus of the Church of the Imperium of Man (the primary human faction in the dire 40K fictional universe), and are composed of ultra ethno-nationalist religious zealot space-nazis.

The Church of the Imperium of Man exists to promote and profiliate the worship of the God-Emperor of Mankind through any means or brutality necessary. (Yes all of this is directly plagiarized from Dune, don't worry)

At some point in the r-slurred and convoluted violence filled history of the Imperium of Man, many Priests and religious leaders co-opted the hyper propaganda and powerful mind-control apparatus of the Church of the Imperium of Man (referred to as just the Ecclesiarchy by in-universe characters) and started jet another Galaxy-raping and planets-burning civil war within the Imperium of Man, to wrestle propaganda control away from the God-emperor of Mankind (whom is basically a vegetable half-dead skeleton barely kept alive by ancient unknowable technology in a neverending vegetable-heck, by his own fanatical worshippers).

The worshippers of the God-Emperor would win this apocalyptic civil war (which is as redundant as the Imperium is constantly at war with itself), but made the critical in-universe lore change upon the Church of the Imperium of Man, in that no Priest or Deacon or whatever a planet calls their religious-overlord, may employ any armies personally, and that the military of the Imperium and the Ecclesiarchy were to be separated for all time to prevent the closest ever self-destructive civil war the Imperium of Man would fight against itself in its 10 000 years of self-imposed religious heck.

Fast forward many millennia, and the Imperium of Man is once again beset by strive and collapse and alien invaders, and our desperate buddies in the Church go full galaxy-brain mode, in their attempts to bypass the restrictions on the Church of the Imperium of Man, arming itself with armies which answered only to the Church itself - that answer was the Sororitas.

You see our Church buddies would go full Saul-lawyer mode and be like "the restriction on the Ecclesiarchy fielding private armies on this 3000 year old document specifically states we are prohibited from fielding armies of MEN - aka scrotes! Therefore we are totally going to make private loyal take-forces make up of foids!!!"

And thus we had the Adepta Sororitas

Now since its inception in the 1980s when GamesWorkshop basically plagiarized every single Sci-Fi media in existence, and yet somehow managed to cobble together a wholly unique setting in it's miss-mash of grim and dark edgelord lore, which was fricking edgy and cringe and edgy, that it somehow circled back into being supercool again, our Warhammer 40k setting is and always has been a primarily boy-targeted franchise

Any revisionist bullshit espoused by soydittors are to be ignored. All of the lore and toys and shitty nerd-figures and boardgames and novels released through the decades, from the initial primarily satire stuff about satirizing totalitarian regimes, to the eventually super serial Supersoldiers of the Imperium, through the decades all of the marketting had been aimed at boys

There was no malicious or sinister intent behind these marketting and toy (sorry I mean FIGURINES) creation was merely one by Bongoloid nerd men, making crap which they were personally interested in, and trying to determine what the international public at large were also interested in.

Even token attempts to market at girls would usually fail spectacularly, and thus the usual circle of one affecting the other was created the less chicks were interested the less GamesWorkshop (the dorks who own 40K) made any efforts to enfranchise them.

One of the more popular (with caveat) attempts to bring about a gril faction into the universe was the Adepta Sororitas, which while completely fricking failing to capture any female-attention into the hobby or universe of 40K, did though become popular with longtime fans, as the Warrior-Nuns did actually have interesting background lore and plausible reasons for existing as an all female force within the endless confines of the Imperiums endless shitshow of a bureaucracy

======

The initial Sorroritas were relatively subdued in their 90s art,

or alternatively over oversteriotyped in the satirizing universe of 40K

but as they pretty much became more and more sexualized as it became clear that no fricking girls gave a shit, and the GamesWorkshop pivoted to fully aim to market the faction to adolescent boys

The famous boob-plates became the norm for official art and fanart, and that's how they had been seen for pretty much 2 decades. Only in the last 5 years, as wokescolds have become such a dominant ideological force, aimed at infiltrating all hobbies and media and recreational groups, had such a nono idea of foids existing just to please the scrote-gaze become a point of contestation on online spaces and forums and comment sections all over

Now I want to reiterate that I don't disagree that chuds and scrotes bitching that fantasy women not being sexy enough isn't cringe, or that the moronic idea that the Adepta Sorroritas in the most popular and official art, are NOT in fact in any way fricking practical, and their famous costumes pretty much exist in hyper stylized, if not sexualized to look attractive, instead of anything remotely practical - even compared to the stupidity of Space Marines, and their ever-famous oversized Pauldrons don't look as silly as Sorroritas in their most sexualized depictions on high-heels

(All hail Pauldronius!! Everyone knows the larger your Pauldrons are in 40K, the more important you are )

You always get these dipshits.

But on the opposite end of straggotry, is this newfound Leftoid Puritanism, which exceeds even that of hyper conservative Boomers, whom had tried to police all hobbies and media, during the pre-2000s era, when Christianity had a much larger sway in the west, before its staggering decline in places like Burgerland and Western Europe, the biggest consumers of 40K garbage.

Back then everything was anathema to goodness, Rock-music was Satan, horror-movies was Satan, Harry Potter books was pronounced as witchcraft by Karen Boomer busybodies, and their influence from Burgerland even extended all the way to Christian homes in fricking South Africa, for both blacks and whites. Video Games are famously the most despised medium by puritan Boomers, not even exclusively christians. And it is not missed by many gaymers, that the behaviour of modern feminist puritan busybodies have a very strange and bizarre overlap and similarity between the puritanism of Christian conservatives.

Now I want to again reiterate, that if you are the 1/ 1000 0000 chick who is actually genuinel interested in trying out 40k lore or games and shit, and you are dismayed that the only faction is just shitty eye-candy for teenage boys, that is entirely valid, your complaints of the over-sexualization is not amiss. But I believe there is a supreme difference between individual distaste towards sexist nonsense and hoping for a better less stupid representation within a hobby,

and this vile and ideologically motivated attempts by outsiders to deliberately change from the ground up, the consistency of lore and standards which had existed within hobbies and other shit prior. Now I usually take the piss when I refer to wokescolds trying to colonize places like /r/Gramdank, but i feel it appropriate after the constant bombardment by unambiguous ideologues mascarading as supposed fans, to change all aspects of a medium and its lore or whatever

https://old.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/comments/1baeeoc/warhammer_memes/ku2ld9j/?context=8

I am not the only one to take note of this constant puritan pestering.

"women have boobs"

Source?

It's always so the exact same people who complain about diversity and representation and

After a while it appears if their grievances are not sincere and they only exist to try and mold the space or medium or hobby to reflect their Presentism wordview and contemporary political liberal orthodoxy.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/comments/1baeeoc/warhammer_memes/ku2ciba/?context=8

Gooners unite

"boobs are a distriction"

You don't fricking say

Boob armour is a good thing actually

https://old.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/comments/1baeeoc/warhammer_memes/ku22333/?context=8

Example of the Puritan exposing theyself

Also lol for some reason our buddy keeps referring to as "Bobs". I first thought this was just a joking quirk from them, but it appears that they are genuinely in a form censoring themselves from saying the icky word boobs blol

"You wouldn't be this enthusiastic if the Space Marines had peepee armour bro"

"Actually yes I would - more battle peepee-rings plz"

As per usual all of the top comments about how our puritan soys totally find fully practically armoured chicks to be more attractive than these filthy devianst sexualing m'lady's form

Now on the surface level this might seem like a sincere attempt to bring us all back to reality

I also like subs like https://old.reddit.com/r/armoredwomen/ and https://old.reddit.com/r/ReasonableFantasy/ where chicks are shown from art internetwide in practical getups and uniforms ect

But what we are seeing is not sincerity, these weaklings are attempting to cater to wokescolds and feminist puritans, to bow down and be doormats for people who complain about inconsequential nonsense.

It is not enough that non-satirical female gaurdmen, Inquisitors, Starship pilots, Rogue Traders, planetary Governesses, and powerful non-sexual female characters proliferate the entirety of the 40k universe. It is not enough for them to just ignore the silly stupidity of 20 year old sexualized faction aimed at teenage boys just be a relic of yesteryear, easily ignored beacuse the faction is propably the least popular of any fieldable faction of the official 40K boardgame.

No, these slimy f@ggots have to expunge all male-oriented stuff from the very existence of the medium or lore or subreddit, you'll see them about how this totally doesn't bother them if ignored.

Greetings Dramastrags

Today I want to regale you with a tale about International Drama involving the evils of the Exploiting poor Afrikans, AGAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN

But 1st

WHAT IS ROOIBOS TEE:

https://www.klipopmekaar.co.za/rooibos-tea-history/

RooiBos tea is the red-amber tea harvested from the indigenous RedBush plant growing in the Western parts of South Africa - especially in the Western Cape and Northern Cape Provinces.

The name rooibos is derived from Afrikaans and directly translates to “red bush”, and this refers to the mature rooibos plant's rich red-brown leaves at the end of a hot summer in its native range.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/on-the-trail-of-south-africas-miracle-tea

Similar to Biltong, which was adopted by dutch settlers of the Cape colony mimicking the Khoisan tribes utilizing dry & sealed cool clay or walled huts to cure meat into dried emergency foods, so too had the dutch/proto-boers mimicked the Khoisan in their behaviour of utilizing all available edible plants to create foods or drinks able to be safely consumed by man.

Starting as long as 300 years ago, at some unknown point in the 1700s, the dutch would replicate the Khoisan mixing Redbush with water to make flavoured drinks, but instead make tea with it - by boiling the Rooibos leaves with hot water to especially excavate the flavour from the leaves, compared to just mixing it with cold water.

Rooibos would especially be adopted as a popular variant of local tea by europeans, when the Cape Colony switched hands from the dutch to the British after a battle in January 1806 on the shores of Table Bay, when the Dutch garrison of Cape Castle surrendered to the British. And even as much as 200 years ago the British were stereotyped to be obsessed with tea of all kinds, and would consume tea multiple times a day. This had a knock-on cross-cultural effect. The dutch had learned of the existence of the Rooibos plant by observing the local Khoisan, and had adapted it as a hot-boiled drink instead of a cold drink instead, when the British came into contact with the local dutch refreshment farmers, they much more avidly adopted the Rooibos tea as a daily drink. Even more funnily was however that the British in turn would introduce the dutch already living in the Cape Colony to avid tea-drinking culture.

Before 1806, the dutch would drink Rooibos, but only seldom - MAYBE once a day for every 3rd dutchman. The british however, by this time had already established the culture of drinking tea of all kinds, as much as at least 3 times per day, and had experimented with various formulas of mixing sugar and milk with their tea.

Thus in a strange sense, it would be the british settlers and military garrison to actually popularize the massed tea consumption culture of Rooibos tea (as well as other preferred tea plants imported from places like China) back onto the majority dutch living in the Cape, even though the dutch were the ones to expose the Brits to the existence of the local Rooibos.

But actually farming the Rooibos tea leaves from the plant on an industrial and commercial scale, instead of just foraging existing plants, or the odd dutch farmer using subsistence vegetable garden farming, would not start until the 1900s, about a hundred years later.

It would go on to become the most popular brand of tea in the country for over 110 years, and one of the greater agricultural exports of South Africa.

https://sarooibos.co.za/rooibos-loved-the-world-over/

YANKS DISCOVER ROOIBOS TEA:

https://sarooibos.co.za/rooibos-loved-the-world-over/

USA TRADEMARK CONTROVESY:

Way back in 1994, Rooibos was virtually unknown in the wider international community, both because everything Africa related had no international product presence; but more significantly because of the Anti-Apartheid sanctions imposed upon the Union of South Africa for almost 20 years (by Burgerland and other European liberal democracies) by this point, so that by the time 1994 had arrived, it meant that Rooibos had mostly become a product produced for local consumption.

And while Rooibos tea had been exported internationally from South Africa since as early as the 1930s on large scale, this was obviously darned into obscurity by Anti-Apartheid Sanctions, to make Rooibos exports whittle down to nothing by the time the 1980s arrived in South Africa. Which means that for almost 25 years, sanctions had made Rooibos tea fall into complete obscurity despite the tea having been relatively famous for its small brand exportation in terms of the small scale, compared to the absolutely monumental scale of tea-exporting titans like China.

And thus, because Rooibos was so virtually unknown in 1994, a Burgerland company known as The Burke Group, would register the name "Rooibos" with the US Patent and Trademark Office and so established a monopoly on the name in the United States when the plant was virtually unknown there.

These frickers would get away with this for almost 11 years. And as the South African Rooibos tea industry slowly and incrementally regained its size and previous pre-Apartheid era international scale and fame, the knowledge that some yank company had tried to internationally patent the Rooibos tea brand, soon became known to South African farmers and politicians.

When south African farmers and export companies tried to export Rooibos to Western markets like America, Burke Group demanded for companies to pay fees to use the name or to cease its use. This would begin a year long international diplomatic incident between and

Things came to a head when In 2005, the American Herbal Products Association and a number of import companies succeeded in defeating the trademark through petitions and lawsuits. After losing one of the cases, Burke surrendered the name to the public domain.

https://web.archive.org/web/20141221105710/http://ahpa.org/Default.aspx?tabid=145&aId=216

=====(from waybackmachine article)

Rooibos Trademark Abandoned

Silver Spring, MD (June 27, 2005) — In a satisfying conclusion to attempts by the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) and others to challenge the legitimacy of a trademark for the name "rooibos," AHPA has been notified that the owner of the trademark has informed the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that it has "voluntarily surrender[ed]" the mark.

"This outcome represents an important precedent," stated Michael McGuffin, AHPA's president. "AHPA will continue to be vigilant in preventing any individual company from claiming the sole right to use an established common name for any plant in commerce."

Although rooibos is the standard common name for the South African plant Aspalathus linearis, a US trademark for the word "rooibos" was registered in 1994. The owner of the mark, Burke International, sought to protect the trademark by claiming that labels that correctly identified Aspalathus linearis as rooibos were infringing on their trade name.

Petitions to USPTO to force a cancellation of the trademark were undertaken by AHPA and by Rooibos, Ltd., a South African exporter of the herb. In addition, a lawsuit brought by The Republic of Tea against Burke was resolved in January 2005 with a US District Court decision that the trademark was invalid and should be cancelled. Burke's notice of voluntary surrender was dated June 24, 2005, and was served on that date to AHPA's counsel.

=====(end quote)

CULTURAL CONTROVESY IN SA:

Oh yes, it caused an immense stir in South Africa, because many SA peeps were angry that the Rooibos industry farmers had slept on their hands, and allowed a foreign fricking nation to steal a national agricultural trademark from beneath their feet. Even more, for as long as since 2001, many civilians were outraged that some Burgerland company was abusing international trademark law to claim Rooibos was to be utilized as an American-protected trademark, which incensed South Africans, especially coloureds and descendants of Khoisan, whom not only made the majority of workforces in Rooibos farms located in places like Wuppertal and Clanwilliam (the two most prominent cities in which Rooibos tea leaves are farmed and processed), but also because Cape coloureds are immensely proud of the fact Rooibos are a South African, and especially a coloured Khoisan discovery, and had long standing claims over it being a distinct part of their cultural herritage.

Even during the days of High Apartheid, no Afrikaner ever laid claim that Rooibos tea was a European discovery, only that Boers were the ones inventing the industrialized farming process of Rooibos tea, and was only to glad to lay the credit of discovery at the hands of the Khoisan.

Thus, a white company from a white nation like Burgerland (by the standards of South Africa) laying claim to trademark of Rooibos tea, caused a massive sneedstorm in South African news where everyone was mad at everyone for letting this catastrophe take place. However, famously the ruling government was not at its most competent at this stage, between the years of 2001-2005, and despite implorements to politicians to take this matter to the international court or some such shit, having an international-trademark dispute wasn't high on the priority list for our ANC overlords.

Thus it was a matter of great r-sluration and hilarity that it took another Burgerland organization, to fricking take the fight against The Burke Group, on behalf of the inept South African government, or rather the AHPA (American Herbal Products Association - the national trade association and voice of the herbal supplement industry) did it on behalf of their American consumers, rather than on behalf of the Safricans lmoa and to thus break the monopoly which The Burke Group had upon the Rooibos name trademark in America, the most lucrative single market nation for the Rooibos industry.

RSA FINALLY TRADEMARKS ROOIBOS TEA:

Finally getting its butt into gear, it took the SA government until 6 September 2013, for the Department of Trade and Industry to issue rules which protects and restricts the use of the names "rooibos", "red bush", "rooibostee", "rooibos tea", "rooitee", and "rooibosch" in the country so that the name cannot be used for things unless they are derived from the Aspalathus linearis plant (the RedBush plant species).

https://www.wipo.int/en/web/ip-advantage/w/stories/disputing-a-name-developing-a-geographical-indication

=====(from article)

Although long and costly, the IP dispute surrounding the registration of rooibos as a trademark in the United States of America (USA) brought international attention not only to the unique properties of the plant, but also its link to the culture of the people in the Cederberg region and South Africa. This motivated the industry to unite around a common cause for the protection of rooibos, and finally, in 2014, rooibos received status as the first geographical indication (GI) for a South African product other than wine and spirits.

====(end quote)

"Rooibos meets all of the requirements for GI protection, as defined in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement): it is only grown in one part of the world and the properties of the plant are a direct result of the unique geographical conditions in which it grows. Furthermore, the knowledge of the rooibos plant and the cultivation expertise is unique to South Africa, as it only occurs here. The plant is truly part of South African identity, and in 2008, the Minister of Trade and Industry recognized the importance of protecting South African GIs, such as rooibos, and submitted the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill to parliament."

"After eight years of intensive research and lobbying by the industry in South Africa, rooibos was able to achieve status of a GI, which will ultimately promote further economic growth and competitiveness, especially in the international market. The final push for domestic GI protection came in the form of a reciprocal agreement between South Africa and the European Union (EU), as part of the comprehensive Southern African Development Community Economic Partnership Agreement (SADC EPA). This means that only rooibos tea producers and processors from South Africa will be able to use the term rooibos in relation to products that come from the designated geographical area. It is expected that the move to protecting rooibos as a GI in South Africa will help lay the foundation for the protection of future products with certain qualities or characteristics from a specific geographical area in South Africa. Presently, GI protection for products other than wines and spirits has been secured for rooibos tea, honeybush tea, and Karoo lamb meat."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/28/rooibos-tea-trademark-awarded-south-africa-deal-eu

https://www.ibtimes.com/safricas-rooibos-tea-joins-champagne-eu-protection-list-3221555

====(from ibtimes article)

Like champagne, roquefort and Kalamata olives, South Africa's world-famous rooibos tea has been added to a European Union list of protected agricultural products and foodstuffs, an industry official said Wednesday.

The protected designation of origin (PDO) status, assigned to the tea or "red bush" late last month, means only leaves cultivated in South Africa's southeast Cederberg region can be sold as "rooibos" in EU countries and several others outside the bloc.

The PDO status -- meant to protect the name and authenticity of unique geographically-linked products -- will allow producers to limit competition from a growing range of non-genuine rooibos teas that have appeared amid rising demand for the caffeine free, antioxidant-rich brew.

=====(end quote)

Sodastream

Sodastream is a way to make your own soda and sparkling water at home. It, or an ancestor of the current model, was invented in 1902. Sodastream was originally from England . A distributor in Israel developed a better home water carbonization system, quit, set up his own company called Sodaclub, and eventually made enough money to buy out the original sodastream.

This is because Jews love seltzer water. Just one of their many idiosyncrasies.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Judaism/comments/14ffq94/hot_take_sparkling_water_is_gross/

https://old.reddit.com/r/Jewish/comments/rqqd6t/whats_with_jews_and_seltzer_water/

In 2007 Daniel Birnbuam's firm bought a controlling interest in the company and brought the product worldwide

https://corp.sodastream.com/about/

Daniel Birnbaum has always been determined to bring peace to the region as he reveals in this article where he brags about what a big kosher lasagna he is

https://jcpa.org/defeating-denormalization/sodastream-model-economic-peace/

The US embassy loved his factory

https://il.usembassy.gov/sodastream-factory-in-the-negev/

The BDS movement targeted the company

https://bdsmovement.net/news/“sodastream-still-subject-boycott”

https://www.972mag.com/the-cynical-exploitation-of-palestinian-workers-in-scarlett-johanssonsodastream-affair/

The factory in the west bank was one of the few job providers that doesn't involve strapping explosives to yourself, spying for Israel, or fricking camels.

https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3jfix3/sodastream_leaves_west_bank_as_ceo_says_boycott/

https://gizmodo.com.au/2014/01/why-these-people-want-you-to-boycott-sodastream/

This led to them moving one of their factories out of Palestine and into Israel proper, leaving hundreds of Palestinians unemployed

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/03/27/471885452/when-500-palestinians-lose-their-jobs-at-sodastream-whos-to-blame

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pepsico-sodastream-israel_n_5b7c00d7e4b018b93e97aba2/amp

https://theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/03/sodastream-leaves-west-bank-as-ceo-says-boycott-antisemitic-and-pointless

https://www.whoprofits.org/publications/report/120?soda-stream-completes-withdrawal-from-its-factory-in-mishor-adumim-in-the-west-bank-and-relocates-in-the-naqab-negev-desert

The workers even begged them to stop the boycott

https://old.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/263p15/conflict_bubbles_inside_sodastreams_occupied/

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/2014/0130/Palestinian-workers-back-Scarlett-Johansson-s-opposition-to-SodaStream-boycott

https://old.reddit.com/r/Israel/comments/182wvq/in_sodastream_boycott_push_palestinians_may_be/

But he guilted the Israeli government into issuing work permits

https://www.newsweek.com/2019/07/05/economic-opportunity-catalyst-peace-israeli-company-sodastream-pr-israel-both-1445859.html

https://old.reddit.com/r/SodaStream/comments/179ce9w/alternative_refills/

Even Al Jazeera can't polish this turD

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2015/9/25/sodastream-factory-shows-palestinian-bedouins-plight

Redditards parrot bds lies

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1aimdeu/note_on_soda_stream_package_pointing_out_harmonic/

https://old.reddit.com/r/SodaStream/comments/195g57k/how_does_purchasing_soda_stream_merchandise/

https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/859bni/deleted_by_user/

https://old.reddit.com/r/SodaStream/comments/17mbb9m/i_have_a_sodastream_but_do_not_want_to_buy_any/

https://old.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/197uon1/for_anyone_wanting_to_get_rid_of_their_sodastream/

https://old.reddit.com/r/BDS/comments/z614kt/avoiding_sodastream/

https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/2d1osi/drama_in_risrael_over_scarlett_johanssons/

Redditors refuse to believe that Jews and Arabs can live in peace

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/10rg2wk/this_made_in_israel_label_on_sodastreams/

https://old.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/18qsupc/my_sodastream_must_have_been_sitting_in_the/

https://old.reddit.com/r/Israel/comments/85c3o5/this_wholesome_sticker_on_the_back_of_my_new/

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/87lmct/this_product_is_produced_by_jews_and_arabs/

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1b8nn4t/bought_a_sodastream_today_packaging_didnt_age_well/

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/sl89a4/my_new_sodastream_was_made_in_israel_by_peaceful/

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/rlw1bu/a_made_in_israel_label_on_the_back_of_a_soda/

https://old.reddit.com/r/SodaStream/comments/176e18p/this_was_on_the_box_if_my_new_sodasrream_duo/

https://old.reddit.com/r/theadamfriedlandshow/comments/zscirg/peace_achieved_through_building_sodastreams/

https://old.reddit.com/r/ModernPropaganda/comments/ex7nux/israeli_soda_stream_propaganda_soda_stream_is/

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/8ju9v7/my_sodastream_has_an_israel_flag_inside/

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/19c9ekl/this_soda_stream_glass_bottle_box_i_bought/

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/9do2oj/sodastreams_are_made_in_israel/

Or even Jews and black jews

https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/8yagep/palestinian_and_ethiopian_jew_work_next_to_each/

Sodastream joined a boycott against facebook

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-06-30/ty-article/.premium/sodastream-becomes-first-israel-based-company-to-join-boycott-of-facebook/0000017f-dc7e-df9c-a17f-fe7ee5910000

They opposed certain laws made bythe Netanuyah's government

https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-726172

Rabbi Bernbaum sold the company to Pepsi

https://www.fooddive.com/news/sodastream-rebrands-sparkling-water-PepsiCo/631743/#:~:text=PepsiCo%20acquired%20SodaStream%20for%20%243.2,diversify%20beyond%20sugary%20soft%20drinks.

But even after that the Palis still demanded people not buy Sodastream

https://old.reddit.com/r/agedlikemilk/comments/18q7dx1/my_sodastream_must_have_been_sitting_in_the/

https://old.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/t50qya/is_this_true_the_backside_of_a_sodastream/

They even tried to open up a factory in Gaza

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL8N1YP45T/

https://www.greenprophet.com/2019/05/sodastream-to-build-gaza-factory-for-peace/?amp

Some Palestinians were excited about this

https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-about-the-new-SodaStream-factory-in-Gaza

The factory is closed now because of the war. Whether it reopens is up in the air.

Daniel Birnbaum is seeking peace in the middle east now

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2019/04/24/peace-and-profits-inside-the-israeli-seltzer-factory-where-jews-and-arabs-work-together/

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/7/18/sodastream-building-walls-not-bridges

I still hate Pakis

https://old.reddit.com/r/pakistan/comments/17gl4hi/the_ongoing_boycott_for_palestine_under/

Daniel Birnbaum indicted for insider trading

https://www.timesofisrael.com/former-sodastream-ceo-and-associate-indicted-for-insider-trading/

4chan's pol fears all carbonated drinks as “jew juice”

https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/40319050/

Obligatory wikipedia post

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:SodaStream/Archive_1

Sodastream is promuslim and pol hates it, but this link is mostly about them eating bait fishhook and all

https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/447548412/#447562121

4chan fears sodastream or , as they call it, the bubbly Jew

https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/270906868/#27090686

4chan pretends to care about the Palestinians as an excuse to hate Jews

https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/27814320/#27814642

/r/conspiracy hates Jews

https://old.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1wzchr/sodastream_stock_sinks_and_bloomberg_cites/

And thinks they're part reptillian

https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/302upq/reptilian_jew_drama_in_rconspiracy_not_saying/

I will start off by saying I have never really had any problems with my peepee when I'm sober, I'm still a pretty young guy so that's expected. But for some reason whenever I take almost any drug that shit does not work (MDMA, lsd, coke in particular, sometimes even alcohol). This was one of the reasons I stopped using drugs as often as I used to, feeling like you have ED as a college age dude is absolutely the worst and not worth it most of the time. With this context, I was recently presented with a problem where a longterm-ish situationship and I were planning on going to a party together on MDMA. Obviously I want my peepee to work here.

This post is basically a summary of my month-long experimentation with combining different possible solutions with different drugs and the outcome of each. This drug section is one of the only reasons I use this site anymore so I want to contribute in some way as well. Also, for context and consistency, every experience here is with the same girl (not a man, I am not a cute twink), and unless otherwise specified everything is coming from the same source.

Attempt 1: Basic Viagra + Cocaine

Cocaine was a good starting point because it's easily the most consistent "peepee don't work" drug, with "coke peepee" being a pretty well documented phenomenon on forums. I've read hilarious stories on reddit from coomers desperately trying to rub one out on coke and failing because they can't get hard so if there is anything to test efficacy I figured that was the one.

I was able to acquire generic Viagra (sildenafil) pretty easily online just by lying on BlueChew's forms. I could even use one of my fake IDs (with a fake name and address, insanely, somehow) and a masked credit card to purchase it. I have no idea what kind of verification process they're doing over there but it's fricking r-slurred. Anyway I got one of their Sildenafil packs and tried out their 30mg plan. From what I googled a typical starter dose is 20-25mg so I figured this would be fine. I can confirm this dose actually does work, for me at least, and I was able to get over the coke ED with it.

Of course I was moderately worried about the interactions between Viagra and Cocaine. There's a lot of scary articles online claiming it builds dependence, is dangerous, etc, and this is probably true. But for whatever it's worth I tried the aforementioned 30mg + a couple lines + some alcohol and felt close to zero side effects. I did have a small headache the next morning but got over that pretty fast. Probably not something I would do regularly.

Attempt 2: Basic Viagra + Cocaine + Dapoxetine

A problem I did experience was finishing way too quickly. In the range of 1-2 minutes which is extremely embarrassing . I presume this has to do with the cocaine's either physical or mental effects, I can't say which. But anyway it was back to the drawing board.

Googling around I eventually discovered "Priligy," an SSRI also called "dapoxetine" that has a super short half life. Basically at some point, a doctor noticed that people taking SSRI's for depression had trouble finishing. After this, a drug company decided to create an SSRI with an extremely low half-life to try and isolate the "don't c*m" from the "frick up your serotonin receptors for life" aspect with an added "take as you need" feature. My first response to hearing that people were basically taking anti-depressants because they came too fast was honestly one of shock, that seems not at all worth it with the shit I've heard about SSRIs.

For whatever it's worth though, Dapoxetine taken on demand does actually seem quite safe. I read this study where only 11% of the people who stopped using it cited side effects as the reason, here for nerds , and the analyses of its interactions with the body shows that it entirely disappears in under a day. Basically as long as you're taking it as needed and not super often, it disappears way faster than other SSRIs and doesn't seem to come with any of the bad side effects. So I ended up ordering some from one of those sketchy Hong Kong online pharmacies (https://www.unitedpharmacies.md) to try it out.

I tried this combo with a little bit of alcohol. Holy shit this might have been the worst night of my life. I woke up at 6am, bolted to the bathroom, and had uncontrollable vomitting until 8am. I felt nauseous and extremely unpleasant the whole time. Any time I tried to drink water I would immediately puke it back up. Easily my worst, actually only bad ever, experience with drugs.

Attempt 3: Basic Viagra + Cocaine + Dapoxetine + Food

So it turns out you can't take Dapoxetine on an empty stomach, and if I wasn't r-slurred and done the slightest bit of googling, I would have known this. Seriously. After finding this out, I gave it a third attempt eating before I went out and that changed everything. No dizziness, nausea, nothing. You might be wondering why I would try again after the previous experience. Well the answer to that is I am r-slurred.

Now I can actually talk about the experience. Dapoextine definitely works. Black magic in that fricking pill. You can literally be trying to finish and that shit will just not happen unless you are locked in and concentrating. Really cool novelty but I imagine if you're on SSRIs normally this sucks. However, if you are r-slurred like me and just trying to frick while abusing drugs, it is perfect. I've already gone over every individual aspect of this in terms of function so I'll just say: darn. This shit works. The only issue with this combination is timing. Viagra has peak effectiveness around 1 hour after use, and Dapoxetine kicks in 2 hours after use. Trying to time two medications, while at a party, while doing cocaine/intoxicated, without a great idea of when you're leaving is definitely stressful.

Attempt 4: Tadalafil + Cocaine + Dapoxetine + Food

Tadalafil is Cialis, which is just like Sildenafil/Viagra except it's supposed to last 24 hours. So you can take it the morning before and be fine. I was able to get it shipped in 2 days from BlueChew. If you're wondering how my "prescription" was changed to easily, it's because BlueChew will literally let you place a "one time order" for any drug they sell once you're prescribed a generic in the same category. Once again I am wondering how this is possible/legal, but whatever.

Definitely recommend this over Viagra/Sildenafil. Worked exactly the same for mitigating coke-peepee without having to time anything. I think this is the combination that, if you're looking for something like a "superdick" and insanely wild s*x, is basically the one. The coke will give you insane energy and slight euphoria, and with Dapoxetine + Tadalafil you won't ever really worry about shit working or not working. Highly, highly recommend trying this at least once.

Attempt 5: Tadalafil + MDMA

This was also a great experience, although I didn't try mixing Dapoxetine with MDMA because of serotonin syndrome (genuinely this can kill you, do not do it). Very similar to the last one so not worth a paragraph, only drawback is that for me at least I was finishing way quicker. The good news is that Tadalafil reduces your recovery time to close to zero so you can go again.

Conclusion

This was actually such a wild experience for me that I felt in awe of modern medicine for a few days after. I also feel obliged to give a warning here that this can so, so easily become a mental dependency. The last two combinations set such an unrealistic expectation for any sober sexual interaction that I haven't dared to try them again, and I think that it's the end of my experimentation. I think the coke/dapoxetine/tadalafil is the "holy grail" of my r-slurred experiments but at the same time I genuinely believe that this is a mental hazard to experience. I also don't think any of this will build up a physical dependency or issue but I'm really, really, not trying to frick up my peepee or dopamine receptors for the rest of my life, so I'm stopping. I guess this guide could also be useful for someone just trying to test out the drugs independent of coke/mdma, I'd say go for it in that case too.

On the net though, honestly none of this was worth it. Coke is expensive enough and I don't want to pay another like ~$15 when its all said and done per night just to have my peepee work. I could just drink less/take less drugs instead. I was able to make back all my bread by selling the leftover sildenafil+tadalafil to friends, not sure what to do with the dapoxetine yet.

Well, that's about it. I hope you learned something or at the very least enjoyed reading about my quest to cure coke-peepee and related illnesses through even more r-slurred self medication. In summary: Fun novelty - not worth it otherwise. If you have any questions I will definitely answer, if you have any comments or want to call me funny names please also leave that below.

You can view the previous post on knitting drama here: https://rdrama.net/post/252397

Did you really think Knitting Drama didn't extend into the social science journals?

>Because this is the top of the post I've had to watch Alex Jones beat his chest the entire time I wrote this effort post lol

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14759756.2022.2102725

There is a body of research that identifies the social benefits that exist from participating in knitting and crochet as a leisure pursuit in collaboration with others. In this article, we draw on the concept of knitting hierarchies to interrogate the concept of craft groups as being welcoming, inclusive spaces. Drawing on a survey conducted with 243 Australian women we explore the dynamics and hierarchies that exist by contrasting experiences of community and belonging with those of gossip, judgment, and exclusion.

The authors acknowledge the valuable input at the research design stage of the Women's Crafting study from Elizabeth Edmondson and Amy Walker from Federation University Australia. This work was supported by a Federation University Australia cross-school research grant.

!strayans taxes paid for this

Let's start with my most hated shitlib magazine Vox

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/25/18234950/knitting-racism-instagram-stories

Karen Templer's Fringe Association Co. is kind of like Goop for knitting. There are tips and how-tos for navigating knitting's trickier maneuvers. There are knit-alongs for chunky cowls and cute fingerless gloves. There's an online store that sells the Fringe bag, which has come to be known in some circles as the Birkin of knitting bags. And there's the blog where Templer puts her personal thoughts.

On January 7, she blogged excitedly about her upcoming trip to India. She wrote that 2019 would be her “year of color.” She said that as a child, India had fascinated her, and that when an Indian friend's parents offered to take her with them on a trip, it was “like being offered a seat on a flight to Mars.” She spoke of her trip as if it were the biggest hurdle anyone could jump: “If I can go to India, I can do anything — I'm pretty sure.”

Templer, it should be noted, is white.

As someone who is mixed-race Indian,

griftmaxxing queen let's hear her roar

to me, her post (though seemingly well-meaning) was like bingo for every conversation a white person has ever had with me

!nooticers why do 2nd gen immigrants pretend that every time someone takes an interest in their lives or background ITS ACTUALLY

about their “fascination” with my dad's home country;

it was just so colorful and complex and inspiring. It's not that they were wrong, per se,

They're not wrong BUT THEY ARE TONE DEAF

just that the tone felt like they thought India only existed to be all those things for them.

What does India exist for? Anytime I see them on the news, and by news I mean schizos I follow on twitter, it seems like India is only known for one thing....

The initial comments on Templer's blog post were supportive, but quickly, knitters and fans began to criticize her tone. “Karen, I'd ask you to re-read what you wrote

Honestly a very Karen thing to say

and think about how your words feed into a colonial/imperialist mindset toward India and other non-Western countries,” wrote commenter Alex.

“Multiple times you compare the idea of going to India to the idea of going to another planet — how do you think a person from India would feel to hear that?”

Here's what would happen if she phrased it differently

>I'm so happy I get to visit your country, this is almost as amazing as going to Mars

>WDYM ALMOST U BIGOT???

I hope you enjoyed my

Templer has since apologized for her post, writing, “It took women of color pointing this out for me to see it ... which is not their responsibility, and I am thankful to them for taking the time,” and that she'd be continuing to raise visibility of people of color (and specifically black/indigenous POC) knitters and their work. (Templer declined to comment for this piece.)

For people who actually read (not, not you !r-slurs) the link was included in the previous post but here it is for posterity's sake: https://fringeassociation.com/2019/01/12/words-matter/

But her post triggered a wave of conversations about racism and prejudice in the fiber arts world, which thus far shows no signs of slowing down.

Her post triggered a bunch of progressive white women who live in terror everyday of committing a heckin racism and so will do everything in their power to force inclusivity so they don't end up being ostracized like Karen Templar. This is what oversocialization looks like scrotes

How the conversation started. Odds are if you're in your 20s or 30s,

40s as well, amirite @InterGONEvention ?

you have at least one friend who's gotten really into knitting in the past few years. The ancient craft never went away,

Of course it hasn't, people knit world wide because not everyone lives in a bubble of first world problems

but relatively recently, aided by its high Instagrammability, a heightened appreciation of DIY, and everyone's desperate need to keep their hands busy in an anxiety-inducing world,

Describing the world as anxiety-inducing is a self-fulfilling prophecy

it became more within the purview of urbane people who know how to flex online.

Here it is, it's become a hobby for yuppies to brag about online.

I'm going to stop here because I hate VOX like no other but there's plenty more white guilt plastered all over that article.

https://thespinoff.co.nz/internet/10-02-2022/untangling-the-knotty-social-dynamics-of-online-knitting-communities

Untangling the knotty social dynamics of online knitting communities

But as tangled as their fingers are in the fibres of the real world, knitters, like most people, use social media. To understand some of the ways social media teaches us to behave, the knitting community – grounded in the physical world, but still online – is a way in. Specific aspects of knitting require attention: the controversies the community is reckoning with, to do with vaccines and allegations of racism, and the ways that individuals are invested in maintaining relationships after the fallout to these events.

and ???

When Renee Paku started learning to knit, she wasn't thinking about social media: she just needed something to keep her hands busy. She was a single, pregnant mother with a seven-month-old baby. She'd left a life in Australia and moved back to Aotearoa to be closer to her whānau.

This Maori woman is whiter than me lmao

Knitting captivated her. “It was the start of a beautiful thing

It is a very beautiful thing, and I think it's wonderful that mothers knit for their future children

and the end of the world as I knew it,” she says.

Uh oh, this might become melodramatic

When her family members started complaining that her Instagram had too many pictures of luscious knitted sweaters and zig-zagging hats and not enough of her children,

As her family should, her children are adorable and I'm sure her family is very proud of them

>this is the only non-family guy option when I searched for family

>Paku started Auahatia, her Instagram account and pattern and yarn business. She has nearly 1,600 followers, and uses her platform to make a space for te ao Māori on Instagram that she couldn't find when she started knitting. On Instagram, Paku wears bright pink lipstick, her moko kauae clear and dark on her chin, and posts videos explaining the connection between microaggressions and broader systems of racism.

>microagression

I hate identify politics so much, HOW COULD OCCUPY WALLST DO THIS TO US????

“There are some amazing people in our [knitting] community,” she tells me. But this is not universally true. “That space can get real racist real fast.”

I still can't get over how white she is. Thank goodness you can't be racist against white people.

While there are big-scale issues in the knitting community that Paku is referring to, it's useful to explain two of the most divisive recent moments in Aotearoa's knitting universe. The first of these involves Maree Buscke, a shareholder of Skeinz, one of New Zealand's only two wool mills that produce consumer-grade yarn (as opposed to, say, wool for carpets).

Weird, I thought New Zealand was known for wool, I'm surprised there's only two mills. Aren't there like 5 big brands for wool socks in New Zealand alone? Kiwis explain yourself

>In March 2020, the Skeinz company was accused of racism after a member of the private Skeinz Facebook group posted a picture of a golliwog they had knitted (an enduring issue in New Zealand).

wtf is a Golliwog

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/121694030/shock-over-demeaning-golliwog-sales-as-protest-marches-swell

>The golliwog is a black fictional character which first appeared in the 1895 children's book called The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg, written by British author Florence Kate Upton.

uhhhh

The Dutch were the real racists all along

https://tikatangata.org.nz/resources-and-support/frequently-asked-questions#what-is-wrong-with-golliwogs-and-blackface

Unrelated but this was in the article

Good to see NZ having their own BLM rallies almost entirely populated by overweight white women

But my personal favorite

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/122286583/the-golliwog-in-the-room

(Left-right) Angela Ramsay, 56, and daughter Michelle Ramsay, 23, agree to disagree about golliwogs.

That caption is pure gold

Though the picture was deleted by moderators, it was promptly reposted by the individual, creating an enormous backlash of individuals telling Skeinz that their Facebook group was perpetuating racist images.

lmao Grandma reposting her racist caricature dolls

Buscke later appeared on an American podcast called Unsafe Space,

Here you go zoomers a 90 minute video essay:

saying that golliwogs were not racial stereotypes but a tradition from Turkey, and that “social justice bullies” had destroyed her Facebook community.

This was bullied because g*mergaters lost their war

The saga was documented on an anonymous Instagram account. The lack of apology has led many knitters to decide that Skeinz is a racist organisation; yarn dyers scrambled for another source of undyed wool. (Skeinz did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)

I wonder why they won't comment

excuse me but are you a racist company harboring racist people with their racist ideas

why won't anyone respond to my emails?

The second involves Libby Jonson (a friend of Buscke) and Alia Bland, two prominent New Zealand designers of knitwear and crochet. After it became clear that they were two of the three founders of Voices for Freedom, an organisation that opposes the government's Covid response, many knitters tried to distance themselves from their patterns. (Jonson, too, did not answer requests for comment.)

Holy shit the 2/3 of the NZ antivax are knitters. Okay well this is going in part 3 lmao it's a rabbit hole

These controversies have international precedent: overseas, digital knitting communities have become significant flashpoints, with groups divided over topics of politics, racism, and diversity – and those are just the ones that get reported outside of the knitting community.

JFC, Knitting made it into the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/29/how-politics-tested-ravelry-and-the-crafting-community

How Politics Tested Ravelry and the Crafting Community

The Facebook of knitting and crocheting was a rare online haven. Then came the Kittyhat, Deplorable Knitter, and more.

please fetch me this article, also this one: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/cast-off-how-knitters-turned-nasty/

What could be offensive about this? Taylor had apparently committed ‘violence against Bipoc' — black and indigenous people of colour — by telling them how to conduct their arguments about inclusion. He was ‘tone policing' people of colour and, as a white man, this was wrong.

These altercations take place online and grow in significance in part because digital disagreements are (at least semi) permanent; comments and arguments are cemented in place, somewhere down the feed. “In the digital world [tension] stays there,” says Philippa Smith, an associate professor of English and new media at AUT

Remarkably salient point from an associate professor

who has studied social interactions online. “In a conversation face to face, you might say something and that comment disappears. Online, other people can see and join in with those comments at any time.”

Boomers and Gen X learned that everything you post on the internet stays there forever, then failed to pass on that lesson to most of their progeny.

Knitters use social media because it is social – Instagram and Facebook are a way to connect with others and maintain friendships. “I've met some of my closest friends, my top-five humans, through commenting on Instagram posts,”

I really hate people who describe others as their top five or favorite "Humans" it's the most minor yet annoying virtue signal I've seen with white women.

This knitting identity is fortified by the encouragement and validation in digital spaces

I also hate how mayofoids harp on and on about support, encouragement and validation over and over again. I swear the validation / attention seeking portion of BPD is contagious. Well, better find something else funny in this article before my internalized misogyny takes over.

I think this woman also claims to be Maori

For some members of the community, calling out issues like racism, loudly and explicitly, is essential to maintain the integrity of those communities, regardless of whether it makes people feel uncomfortable.

For Renee Paku, who takes her responsibility as “the only loudmouth Māori on [knitting] Instagram” seriously, this often means photos posted on Instagram with comments about allyship and capitalism, as well as explanations of her latest intricate shawl or stylish sewn skirt. In one video, she stirs her coffee, wearing light-up cat ears that do not detract from the serious subject matter.

Reminder this woman is Maori

“Deep fricking breath,” she says, before explaining how a comment belittling the Māori language in a Facebook knitting group is a microaggression that signifies broader systems of racism. She tells her followers to be courageous in noticing and calling out racism in their lives. “By not stopping [these microaggressions] in real life, you give people the authority and the fricking cheekiness, to be honest, to be doing it online.”

Based Queen making it her lifes work to combat racists on the internet

Paku's willingness to call out racism when she sees it comes at a price. “I've made some enemies,” she tells me. “I've had people at markets refuse to have a stall next to me because I called them out on their cultural appropriation. I don't care, it's people like that that don't show the really beautiful side of the knitting community.”

Apparently IRL too

Laura Vincent, the knitter from Auckland, echoes this. She lists the political issues she thinks about when she knits: Who made the yarn? Is it affordable? Who models the pattern? Is it size inclusive?

Can she afford to support a small business, or will she choose to use mass-market or secondhand yarn?

Based small business enjoyer

What are the environmental effects of yarn made from sheep's wool, or plastic, or cotton?

>plastic

Did she mean acryllic?

But she doesn't let these questions paralyse her, or prevent her from knitting. “There is so much that is churning in the knitting community, and I don't know what the answer is,” Vincent says. “[But] it's important that everyone … tries to radically change what they're doing so that inclusivity is built into it.”

EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL

ALWAYS BE RADICAL

Laura Vincent, how flattering a photo she supplied to the j*rno

Whether they are processing frustration in a private group chat, explaining allyship on Instagram, starting an alternative yarn event, or writing stories to accompany a pattern, many members of the knitting community are trying to make the space more open to Māori, young people, queer people, and disabled people.

If I understand the NZ heierarchy of oppression it's Maori, youths, and

I guess we're not so different Kiwisisters

Every knitter I spoke to for this piece would agree with her.

oh lmao, this news site is the endless scrolling one. Here's the next article: https://thespinoff.co.nz/internet/09-02-2022/nz-has-a-trucker-convoy-because-protests-are-global-now

NZ has a trucker convoy, because protests are global now

It's like unearthing a time capsule of the crazy vaxxmaxx times

Hope you all enjoyed!

Happy Sunday everyone.

I haven't been around for a while but I wanted to do an effort post while I'm bored on Sunday. I'll take a break from my usual effort posts documeting weird neurodivergent g*mer things and instead focus on a topic that I'm sure all dramatards will enjoy.

Knitting!

You don't have to be a member of !nooticers to know that most of the online knitting-sphere is compromised of

As such any hobby infesting with white women of course it's also obsessed with identify politics, racial grievances and ARE WE DOING ENOUGH? struggle sessions of inclusivity

Interested are you? Well read on!

Let's start with something mild and oversocialized.

https://www.craftyarncouncil.com/blog/diversity-knitting-are-we-any-further-ahead

Over the last 12 months, many in the fibre community

everything is a community these days

have had to step out of their comfort zone to address issues such as lack of diversity, representation and, the elephant in the room: racism.

I'm glad she said racism three times, I just hope she didn't say it in the mirror

As individuals, it's never easy to discuss things that make us feel uncomfortable; it's much easier to let the lure of yarn tempt us back to our happy place so we can carry on with our craft of choice, whether that's knitting or crochet.

Good heavens, imagine if we did our hobby in peace and serenity instead of looking for ways to get offended on the internet #dramanaut problems

Diversity is a tricky word. Why? Because it means different things to different people and it can often be a way for companies to engage in a bland, box ticking exercise.

But if we think in terms of who is missing from the room, then it has more meaning. In order for us not to revert back to ‘business as usual,' we need to be aware of who's not represented, look for whose work isn't seen and take steps to ensure that they're included.

This is a cogent argument that works every time on white women. Thankfully, I am bipoc, and I will not ping that group since it's mostly mayomoids.

It's certainly a positive thing to see issues of diversity and inclusion being openly discussed at an increasing number of fibre events. But sometimes I worry that ‘The D word'

is used by organizations as a means to deflect criticism when one of their events or publications - through lack of inclusion - continues to perpetuate the myth that BIPOC don't knit/crochet/weave/spin/etc.

If people truly believe that black women don't knit, they are remarkably r-slurred and probably haven't interacted with any nubian queens. However, I think the author is doing a griftmaxxing here to imply that if a magazine or e-publication refuses to make their cover look like a college campus advert then it's a heckin erasure and that grinds my gears a bit.

Using it shouldn't be a get out of jail free card.

Queen speaking the truth

Speaking about diversity has to be followed up with positive, mindful action. And, as a fibre community, we should be looking to include the voices of those whose work for far too long has previously been overlooked by events and publications. The main focus should be engaging with them and lifting up their work. It's one of the reasons I agreed to become involved with the Diversity Advisory Council and why I set up BIPOC in Fiber.

Fat Knitters Rise Up!

WARNING: Fat Logic ahead*

https://www.theverge.com/22309480/knitters-plus-size-crowdsourcing-social-media-inclusivity-design

Hopeful crafters pick up knitting for a variety of reasons: to adopt a slow-fashion wardrobe, to keep stress at bay during the pandemic, or to make the clothes they wish existed, controlling the color and fit to their liking. Ravelry, the largest knitting and crochet site, lists over a million designs — there's no shortage of patterns to pick from.

Unless a knitter happens to be plus size.

How do you gatekeep a fatty out of your community?

Keep the doorways slim

People falling outside of straight sizing (generally between extra-small and large)

I'm what you might call a superstraight size

say that even when they want to make their own clothing, their options are limited or they're outright excluded.

Create more patterns for fat people bigot

Krentz's spreadsheet sizing doesn't force knitters to explain why they deserve to wear her sweaters; a person's measurements are just a set of numbers.

Ah yes, if I don't include a 5XL sizing to my knitting design it is forcing you the landwhale to justify your existence and why you deserve to wear my pattern.

“That says something about the choice the designer made,” Krentz said. “Of not wanting someone like me, or not thinking someone like me should or will wear their garment.”

>not wanting someone like me

Don't worry sweaty there are plenty of braphog ranchers around

For the past several years, that question of the imagined audience — of what a knitter is supposed to look like — has swirled and at times exploded in the knitting community. Capping a sweater design at a 46-inch bust (an XL, according to Craft Yarn Council standards) sets a visible and quantitative limit to who can wear that pattern.

When people say raise your standards they mean raise the weight class bigot

But the industry has a way of asserting other assumptions around race, gender, class, and more, issues that are perhaps imperceptible to those who have always felt welcomed in knitting spaces. Knitters say limited size offerings go hand in hand with issues plaguing the craft, often presented as a hobby for white women.

I mean it's primarily a hobby for white women and 2nd generation mayoadjacents. Key word being hobby. To be serious for a moment, plenty of non-yuppy women of various colors have been knitting since ancient egypt they just weren't making a fuss about it since their priorities were on clothing their children instead of woke mayo and POC grifter nonsense.

Narrow size offerings also leave money on the table. Despite the twee, old-timey image prevalent in the general public's imagination, knitting can be an expensive hobby. A skein of yarn from a big box craft store might only cost $5, but hand-dyed and indie-produced fiber popular in the crafting community could run upward of $30 a skein. A knitter like Hicks who might need 10 to 15 skeins for a sweater is looking at a $300 investment, not including the time it takes to knit the garment.

OH NO, people are spending money on their hobbies! Feel bad for them!! J*rnocide when?

(This holds true in traditional retail, too; two-thirds of American women wear size 14 or above.)

JFC

It's an excuse Mere Conatti had heard too many times. Conatti says she started the Instagram page Fat Test Knits out of spite, after two designers told her they hadn't created their pattern in her size because they couldn't find a suitable test knitter. They didn't have any future plans to include Conatti's size, either. “It made me really frustrated,” Conatti said. “I'm thinking, ‘I'm fat and I knit, and I'm telling you I want to give you money.'” Fat Test Knits serves as a bulletin board that connects designers looking to offer a wider range of sizes with test knitters eager to help them.

They say bulletin board but it's not the anonymous one you can troll, it's on instagram.

##Inclusive Knitting and Handwringing

https://www.louisetilbrookdesigns.net/everyday-knitter/2019/1/14/knitting-and-inclusion

This post has been brewing in my mind for little while now. Random thoughts and experiences have swirled around but stubbornly refused to merge into a cohesive piece. I'm still not sure they are fully formed to be honest but now seems as good a time as any to get them out of my head and on to paper. I'm sure I've talked about this before and at length but the statement that “All knitters are lovely” has to be one of the biggest myths around. If you talk to any group of knitters they will invariably say how welcoming and inclusive knitting is as a hobby, but scratch beneath the surface of this well meaning statement you'll invariably find that groups of knitters can be anything but welcoming.

Pretty much everyone can relate to an experience of being shunned by a cliquey Knit Night group for example, or been made to feel they aren't one of the ‘cool kids' on a Ravelry forum. It happens and it happens every day.

!veterans I've been voluntold into many spouses club events and the term "Knit Night" group has never come up. Mostly just :#paint: paint and sip lmao

When people are recommending a group - either in real life or online they invariably say “Oh, everyone there is really lovely”,

That sounds nice

when in reality what they actually mean is “Everyone there is like me”.

oh nevermind DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH DEATH TO ALL HOMOOGENOUS SOCIETIES

In the Everyday Knitter FB group for example, I am known for calling out people when they start a post with “Hey ladies”. The idea that all knitters are automatically women just drives me nuts. And when you (gently) point out that the group has a significant number of men and non binary members, often it is met with anger or defensiveness.

Good morning! I hate hand maidens so much it's unreal.

>Editors note: Thanks to whoever explained the Kazkhstan thing a while ago, my decreipt walnut sized brain was unable to figure out why so many dramascrotes said Good Morning in relation to women

This issue has come to greater prominence in my mind after all the discussions centering around race and white privilege over on Instagram over the last few days. You can read more of the back story here and here. As the discussion unfolded, I like many other people who have benefited from white privilege realised that I had a lot of reading and learning to do.

>Here's the usual apology to the woke mob statement: https://ktslowcloset.com/2019/01/12/words-matter/

Racism and discrimination is as rife in the knitting community as it is the general communities around us

It really isn't.

I genuinely believe that the knitting community can do better and will do better in the future.

It definitely won't get better.

PS I'm not a knitter, so don't go asking me for any esoteric knowledge like my gauge or grading. My cousin is a knitter (She made a nice blanket for my youngest) and she was complaining about knitters last week and wanted to do an effortpost on it so you all could enjoy.

You can read part 2 here: https://rdrama.net/post/252459

Bonus links from Dramamine:

https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/premium-oh-what-a-tangled-web-we

https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/premium-this-is-what-a-modern-day

This post, the longest anime post in the history of this site , is media analysis and overview. I've always liked reading about media on rDrama and hopefully I can convince some of you that not all anime is stupid

OVERVIEW

For those who don't know, Gundam is a military science fiction franchise revolving around space wars and giant robots. Arguably the most popular “mecha” franchise ever, Gundam is also considered to have started the “real robot” genre in which the mechs are treated like military vehicles instead of superheroes. Then again there's also a fantasy element to the series in the form of psychic powers and supernatural experiences.

It's also one of most popular and marketable Japanese things ever, of all time. To give you an idea of how much the Nips like Gundam, they went on to build life sized statues of not one,

Not two,

But three Gundam designs. (And that's assuming I didn't forget one)

Interestingly enough a fourth based on the more recent Gundam SEED was built in the Middle Kingdom

An oh, this isn't to say there are only four statues. The OG Gundam has been displayed a few times, with the fully functioning animatronic 1:1 scale model in Yokohama being particularly notable.

I feel like this image says a lot about Japan

Popular as it is now, Gundam had a slow initial launch and took time to build up a following. The original anime failed to attract much of a toy audience and was cancelled without receiving the full 52 episode run, and so believe it or not one of the most popular all time obsessions of mecha fans everywhere was almost smothered in the crib. The model kits that are so well known today didn't come out until 1980, launching only after the rest of the franchise had died.

And how different would the world be if this historic example of autinema (neurodivergent cinema) had never existed?

In this uncharacteristically literate anime themed post, I'll detail the conceptual history of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, how it actually got made, its rocky airing and eventual cancellation, and how the franchise came back from the grave to become one of the most influential in its genre.

CONCEPT

I will maintain that not all anime is r-slurred — only about 99% of it. If you can get past the giant robot fights in its premise, Gundam is a genuinely interesting example of conceptual sci-fi that borrows heavily from actual futurology of the mid 20th century. If nothing else Gundam can hold itself high and say it took from a wide variety of inspirations, as opposed to anime shows that were simply inspired by other anime — never trying to be anything but bog standard examples of their genre.

The Series Creator

Gundam is the brainchild of Yoshiyuki Tomino. It's important to note that Tomino really did envision the series as grounded science fiction first, anything else second. Giant robots weren't even part of his original idea! Rather he simply knew that an anime would need a merchandising hook in order to actually get made and so wrote a setting that would allow the relevant producers to slip one in.

Tomino was born in 1941 and so technically lived through the Second World War Japanese home front. WWII certainly became an inspiration for Gundam's plot and political worldbuilding. His father notably worked at the Odawara Arsenal producing pressure suits for wartime A6M Zero pilots. Tomino was inspired by his father to take an interest in aerospace, and of course he would have been around for the great achievements of the early space race. Ultimately he had to settle for the humanities instead, but luckily this story has a happy ending. He broke through the stereotypes and actually got a job

Tomino worked on 1963's Astro Boy, one of the OG animes and a show that kickstarted the industry, and would go on to be a leading figure for the studio Sunrise — now known as Bandai Namco Filmworks. The Sunrise pencil pushers are notably the ones who fashioned Tomino's ideas into a mecha series. They were known for developing mecha shows and making deals with toy manufacturers since the market for more conventional children's television and toy lines was more heavily saturated. Tomino worked on several series with Brave Raideen being his first mecha show. In 78 he was the creator of Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3 — still a super robot show and not as genre defying as Gundam would be.

The eventual release of Gundam would retroactively divide mecha between the aforementioned Super Robot shows — which had more fantastical settings, and Real Robot shows — which treat the mechs more like conventional if futuristic vehicles. Regarding the two, Tomino had this to say,

The bottom line is, I wanted to have a more realistic robot series - unlike a super robot – where everything is more reality-based, based on a humanoid robot. Right from the beginning, the roots of the mobile suit came from the worker robots that were building the space colonies back then, and they would become more technologically advanced, to the point of becoming a weapon, and that was the whole lineage of the robots I had in mind since the beginning. So the whole idea, my idea, of trying to have a robot series in space without it becoming a stupid story was based on wanting to make a story and surrounding it with reality – more realistic possibilities was the underlying concept.

Before I get into the production of Mobile Suit Gundam, I'll focus on the science fiction that inspired Tomino and the setting. To me this is a large part of what makes Gundam so fascinating and, well, not stupid.

20th Century Futurology: Life in space and overpopulation

The Apollo 11 landing in ‘69 made space based sci-fi even more popular than it already was. People of the time were also more optimistic about space developments than we are now. The Soviets launched the first ever satellite in ‘57 and a little over ten years later there was a man on the moon. People in the 70's didn't seem so unreasonable in wondering if they might someday retire on Mars or in a space station.

In the 1970's there was also some serious investment in the idea of permanent space colonization — which in this context means the construction of theoretical habitats in space itself. The 1976 book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space by Gerard K. O'Neill is especially notable as it seems to have inspired one of Gundam's exact plot points; massive space stations intended to serve as permanent homes, positioned at lagrange points in the Earth-Moon system. Looking at the above photos, compare the O'Neill station on the left to the actual Gundam space colony design on the right.

Compared to other major sci-fi settings, Gundam is fairly unique in that space travel never leaves the solar system and in fact takes place almost entirely within Earth's orbit — an area referred to as the Earth Sphere. While Star Wars or Trek or countless other stories will show people living on other planets, the space colonists of Gundam are true “spacenoids” in that they spend their lives entirely within these O'Neill inspired space stations. While most never leave Earth's orbit, they also literally never experience the 1.0G pull of real surface gravity. They are also quite proud of this and will say things like, “[Earthnoid] souls are weighed down by gravity”

The technology of Gundam actually makes it possible to have a human civilization exist entirely in space. Colonies recycle oxygen and water and grow their own food. People get around in trams and electric cars so there's no atmospheric pollution and necessarily dirty manufacturing can simply be done in space or in dedicated industrial colonies. Solar panels provide electrical power. The hydrogen and helium isotopes necessary for nuclear fusion can be sourced from the moon and the atmospheres of outer gas giants. Asteroids can be mined for minerals. The rotation of the cylindrical colonies simulates gravity so spacenoids don't actually have bone issues or any other medical conditions from zero-g.

And much like how vegetarians might argue there is no need to eat meat anymore since modern logistics and agriculture make it possible to live entirely on plant material, some of the more extreme spacenoids argue it isn't necessary or even ethical for humans to live on the Earth anymore. The Earth of the Gundam setting has suffered heavily from overindustrialization and overpopulation, but space has no environment to pollute and will never run out of available, heh, space.

One of the more important characters in the worldbuilding is Zeon Zum Deikun; the father of highly marketable antagonist Char Aznable (more on him later), a solid example of Gundam's weird naming conventions (more on that later), and a political philosopher whose beliefs effectively divide the history of space colonization into a "before" and "after" Zeon. Though the colonies and their settlers were once just that, Zeon argued that space colonization was the future of all humanity and that the colonies, known as "Sides", should be independent from the Earth not just because the earthnoid government did not properly represent them, but because the Sides themselves should eventually grow from colonies into metropoles in their own right. Zeon wanted political independence but also espoused the philisophical notion that life in space would further human evolution and that life on Earth was something humanity needed to outgrow. He further argued that adaptations to space would eventually produce a "new type" of human being.

Though this all sounds very fantastical, Zeon's beliefs may well have been inspired by Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and philosopher Nikolai Fyodorov. The former was an early proponent of space development, so early that he got started working for the Russian Empire Consider the quote,

Man must at all costs overcome the Earth's gravity and have, in reserve, the space at least of the Solar System

Wouldn't be out of place as a Zeon or AEUG statement of intent. Another quote,

The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot eternally live in a cradle

In the '85 sequel Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam Zeon's son Char actually paraphrases this. (Based on the dub)

From the dawn of history, mankind has played in this cradle called Earth. But now, humanity must leave the nursery behind. Our infancy has come to its end.

Zeon's ideas around the "Newtype" may come from Fyodorov, who was more or less conceiving transhumanist ideas way back in the 19th century. Fyodorov argued that human evolution could and should be continued through scientific means, potentially up to the borderline supernatural like bringing all the people that had ever died back to life. Tsiolkovsky's later spin was that space development was the key to furthering this and allowing mankind to truly escape his "ecological niche" on Earth's ecosystem and control his own evolution. It's quite possible Tomino was inspired by these ideas, or perhaps he reinvented them. Either way Gundam is interesting in thinking more about life in space than the average space opera, in which case space is simply a way to get from Planet A to B.

Another concept in 20th century futurology was overpopulation. It took from the literal dawn of man to the 19th century for the total human population to reach one billion, but in just over one hundred years that population exploded to six billion. (Believed to be over eight billion as of this 45th anniversary of Gundam) Many academics in the mid 20th century weren't sure if this was ever going to stop. They wondered if the Earth would soon hold ten billion people. Twenty billion. Etc.

The 1968 novel The Population Bomb by Paul Ralph Ehrlich predicted major societal upheavals as a consequence from the runaway baby boom. Gundam seems to borrow from this as these exact problems provide the answer for any s who might wonder why the Earth built the space colonies in the first place. In its backstory the Earth Federation was forced to build into orbit to prevent the complete collapse of the economy and environment. Gundam lore is also interesting in that it was the poor who were sent to live in these new colonies so that the rich and landed could maintain what they had on Earth. The first spacenoids were forced to be that way, hence a permanent inferiority complex that influences the Principality of Zeon even decades later. It also goes to show how central baby boomer overpopulation was as a sci-fi concept.

I'll explain Zeon and the Federation in more detail later. First I'll wrap up the sci-fi regarding the less cerebral influences.

Fictional Influences: The Sci-fi "One Lie" vs. Jedi Knight Superpowers

Gundam's premise also borrows from a lot of fictional media, especially when it came to coming up with stuff that was cool and would sell toys. Remember that even the giant robots of Gundam weren't part of Tomino's earliest ideas. A lot of the merchandisable whatnot was conceived of within a year when Sunrise was working on the anime and Tomino and other creators probably just borrowed from whatever interested them. On that note Gundam writers did try pretty hard to explain some of the softer science regarding things like spaceships and laser blasts.

On the other hand there's fantasy elements in the form of Newtypes. Nothing about this screams "hard sci-fi"

According to TVTropes, which isn't always terrible, sci-fi works have the concept of a One Big Lie. This is when otherwise realistic sci-fi makes up one or two things and then explores these inventions as a concept. Something like Star Wars is too soft for this to apply, since countless made up and unexplained technological principles permeate the setting. An example would be something like Inception where the dream technology is rather fantastical but the setting otherwise attempts to realistically explore the consequences it would have on society.

Sometimes the One Lie makes the setting possible even if the story isn't actually about that technology. Something making FTL travel possible is a common example.

I'll bring up Mass Effect because it's One Lie is similar. In Mass Effect a fictional substance called Eezo makes FTL achievable. The writers also used it to explain many other principles from future firearms to telekinetic powers. They only needed "one lie" to create the rest of the setting. (Not counting suspension of disbelief stuff like alien waifus )

Gundam does this in the form of a very particular kind of nuclear fusion that produces the fictional Minovsky Particle. Nuclear fusion is a very real thing and Gundam's setting is possible because in universe the scientist Trenov Minovsky invented a perfect cold fusion reactor. This is a theoretical fusion reactor that would only be room temperature, allowing it to power vehicles safely.

Gundam nuclear physics produces a fictional elementary particle, the Minovksy Particle. These particles can be contained in a field and emitted to create the laser beams of the setting. Minovsky particles can repel a ship from the ground, allowing the classic sci-fi trope where capital ships can hover in the air. They also serve to jam electromagnetic signals and mask ships from scans. Gundam then is one of the few sci-fi settings to explain why battles in space take place at close range with most shots missing. Long range and automated targeting systems don't work when ships spread Minovsky particles, and they never run out of these since it's all a natural byproduct of their own reactors. Thus the warships are forced to eyeball it WWII style, and the robots are deployed against ships not unlike Pacific War esque dive bombers.

The writers get credit for stretching one fictional concept into all this. It's also neat that the worldbuilding ties into the Second World War influence on all the combat. Gundam strived to be as grounded as possible even with all these standard sci-fi tropes, but then again...

Though true blooded weebs may refuse to admit it I think it's safe to say Star Wars was an influence on the craziest part of Gundam; The X-Men Jedi Newtypes. Star Wars was fairly popular in Japan and Tomino is on record saying he liked it. If he hadn't seen the movie when making Gundam in '79, other people at Sunrise definitely had.

Remembering that only 1977's Star Wars existed back then, consider how the Force works in that movie. It seems to be mostly psychic in nature. Vader's choke is the only scene where the Force does anything physical, and in the context of just that movie it could be argued Vader was making the guy forget how to breathe or choke himself or something. Every other use of the Force is for telepathy, inner peace and control, or something psychic in nature. Physical abilities don't really show up until Empire Strikes Back.

In Gundam, Newtypes are people with supernatural, inexplicable abilities that are generally psychic in nature. They're named after Zeon's in universe concept. Major characters like Char and protagonist Amuro Ray usually end up being them.

Newtypes are sorta explained away through that earlier idea of space furthering human evolution. In particular their telepathic ability to sense each other and share thoughts would keep humans connected in the vastness of space, and their reactions and precognition would make it easier to navigate in a three-dimensional environment.

They also gave Gundam the excuse to be a trippy mech show twenty years before Evangelion.

I've heard that Newtypes were added because the producers felt there should be a reason someone as young as Amuro was such a skilled pilot. This makes sense to me since in the original anime Newtypes aren't mentioned at all until the second half of the show.

But whether Newtypes owe more to Star Wars or Russian transhumanism or whatever else, Tomino must have really liked them since the concept becomes more prominent in later Gundam shows. Newtypes become symbolic of the very idea that life in space represents humanity's future, or at least a potential for the world as we know it to change.

Regarding other influences, Tomino brings up a few more in this interview.

Q: What influenced your creation of the Gundam concept?

Tomino: I don't think there are any animated works that have had a specific influence on the creation of the Gundam world. In regard to live-action, there have been quite a few that I have not only liked but been influenced by. I very much like Akira Kurosawa's films, especially the action films. I like the very quiet films of Yasujiro Ozu. And I particularly like the U.S. film Destination Moon. Its depiction of space did influence me, it's where I got my feeling for space conditions from. It's very outdated now, but it was revolutionary at the time.

Q: How did the space colony concept and the Star Wars movie influence Gundam?

Tomino: The space colony concept and Star Wars were very much an influence on me; in fact, you could say they're the basis for the whole Gundam drama. I already had the story outline done when the movie was released and, frankly, I felt extremely frustrated and bitter. In the United States a film like Star Wars could be made in live-action, whereas in Japan we were in a position--or I was in a position--where I had to make my story in robot animation...and I don't particularly like robot animation.

Didn't even like anime I suppose you have to dislike a genre to want to force change

The Jules Verne novel Two Years' Vacation was supposedly used to reference how many of the main characters would be very young despite struggling with very serious situations. Apparently Gundam was pitched this way not unlike how Star Trek was pitched as Wagon Train but in space.

Space Battleship Yamato may have also influenced the themes of Gundam. It too went down as one of the defining animes of the 70's, also unusual at the time for being written like military fiction.

Starship Troopers was almost a major influence on Gundam and would have changed it considerably. When developing the series with Sunrise, it was originally suggested that the robots would instead be powered exoskeletons like in the novel. This certainly explains why the mechs are referred to as "mobile suits" in the story as well as why space suits are called "normal suits". It's not as though you'd need to differentiate an astronaut suit from a building sized vehicle, but the term normal suit was carried into the final product.

Battlestar Galactica may be the reason why the Zeon mechs have a mono eye just like the antagonistic Cylons. They even swing it from side to side in some scenes just like the Cylons do.

Political Worldbuilding: End of Herstory Vs. Coping Kraut Cosmic Colonists

Gundam '79's plot follows the One Year War, a WWII inspired conflict between Earth and Zeon (A country name in this context) The worldbuilding here is pretty good imo. There are a number of parallels to real history along with a considerably greater amount of effort than your average anime receives.

The Earth Federation

The protagonist faction of Gundam, the Federation controls the Earth Sphere but is less than representative of the spacenoids and their interests. It's notably portrayed as a "gray" faction with short-sighted and corrupt leadership, another stark difference between Gundam and its more optimistic super robot predecessors.

Militarily they're based on the Allied powers. Initially they're caught off guard by the Zeon blitzkrieg and lose a lot of ground, but eventually superior resources and industry allow them to counterattack and steamroll. The turning point of the ground war is fought in Russia like Stalingrad with the vehicle action of El Alamein. The final phase of the conflict plays out like the Pacific War with the Feds adopting an island hopping strategy against Zeon's asteroid bases, even referred to as "islands" in the story. Like Japan, Zeon surrenders before an actual invasion is necessary.

Politically the Federation is the very definition of the neoliberal "end of history". The Federation elite is a globohomo morass and there are no differences between the former nations and cultures of Earth anymore. The Federation isn't said to not be a democracy but leadership policy never really changes. The government is inflexible to change. The economy is dependent on overseas (or rather orbital) investments who do the actual production while the wealthy of Earth are consumers of last resort, never producing but only buying. Nothing is to be changed or upended or adapted, only made more efficient. The only acceptable changes are those that bolster the preservation of the current order.

When the Zeon say "their souls are held down by gravity", they mean that the Federation is violently opposed to the idea that space colonization may genuinely change human history beyond mere economic profit. That their only goal is to preserve the illusion their current state of affairs will exist perpetually, even as it rots away as generation after generation of increasingly incompetent nepoticians rule with no goals or ideas beyond simply trying to steer the course.

This writing is interesting to me because first of all we can see more than a few allusions to the real world here It's also ahead of its time since the modern end of history idea is really a product of the 90's. Before then many political analysists thought the Cold War was the end of history and that the USSR would always be around. Sunrise was far sighted to portray a true globohomo back in '79.

On that note the Federation may take inspiration from the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party. Though Japan is also not not a democracy, in practice the LDP has held power since the 50's as a uniparty -- a reality known as the 1955 System. Many Japanese have seen it as a stagnant, unchanging government that doesn't represent them well or respond effectively to change. And these complaints were flying back in 1979, let alone forty five years later.

The Federation is generally portrayed more heroically than Zeon, but only in the sense of clearing a very low bar. Many characters both good and bad criticize how they are and wish for change. A general sense of societal malaise is a recurring theme of Gundam's setting and, well, Japan itself is no stranger to that.

Amuro Ray

I won't mention every character but I may as well bring up the protagonist. Early on it was decided Gundam would feature a core of teenage characters forced to deal with a Two Years' Vacation inspired story of difficult challenges. It was common for anime heroes to be teenagers with super robot mecha being no exception, but since Gundam would be "realistic" Amuro too would be a darker take on a teenager in an action series. Like Shinji twenty years later, the "point" of Amuro's character is to show that being a mech pilot would suck.

Amuro is the son of Gundam lead engineer Tem Ray, himself a student of Dr. Minovsky. Otherwise he wasn't initially special in any way and is meant to show how war conscripts random people and forcefully changes their lives. In the second half of the show he is revealed as a Newtype and becomes one of most prominent examples. Apparently the producers felt this was necessary to explain his piloting talent, since making him a more "realistic" depiction of a child soldier also makes one wonder why the military wouldn't eventually replace him with an adult.

The Principality of Zeon

The bad guys of the setting, though many characters acknowledge their initial goals as noble. Based in Side 3, a colony permanently located above the dark side of the moon such that the inhabitants can't even see the Earth, Side 3 was Zeon Zum Deikun's base of support and was named after him when he mysteriously died. Though the setting has kept it ambiguous even to this day, many believed he was murdered by his associate Degwin Zabi. In any case Degwin styled himself the successor to Zeon's cause and placed his children in positions of power. When Zeon declared its violent independence, Degwin made Zeon into a monarchy with himself as sovereign.

Militarily Zeon is the Axis from WWII. They kick off the war and initially seize a lot of territory. They invented the mobile suit and initially enjoyed military dominance until the Federation finally perfected the Gundam. Even after this they keep experimenting with increasingly esoteric military designs to win back momentum. Their situation invokes the "wunderwaffe" of Nazi Germany. In both cases inferior economic and industrial situations left the Germans/Zeon with no conventional way to defeat the Allies/Federation. Hence the hope that a new weapon design would change the strategic situation.

They also bear the lionshare of warcrimes. They kick off the One Year War by attacking any colony that didn't side with them. This kills billions of spacenoids. They also launch Operation British: Intentionally deorbiting a colony so as to simulate an asteroid impact on the Earth. This also kills billions of earthnoids. All in all the entire human population has been slashed in half by the time the anime begins. Funnily enough Supreme Commander Gihren Zabi notes this effectively solves mankind's overpopulation problem.

Zeon is further based on Germany as a whole. Later Gundam writers would give German language words to Zeon designs, but even in the original show their battlecry is SIEG ZEON While they derive their war crimes and sense of spacenoid superiority from the Nazis, they're also a monarchy with a Prussian sense to their architecture and officious uniforms. In an abstract sense Degwin can be considered WWI Germany while his oldest son Gihren is WWII. Degwin started the war and intended to give Zeon a greater share in the post-war balance of power, but it was Gihren who masterminded Operation British and the invasion of Earth along with a larger plan to reduce the population of "undesirables" in favor of spacenoid supremacy. Degwin becomes quietly horrified at the war's escalation and retreats into the shadows as Gihren seizes control of the military Fuhrer style. One of anime's most famous scenes even has Degwin compare his own son to Hitler.

As for why a sci-fi nation has a literal system of nobility, it's my belief this is cope for how the first generation of spacenoids were lowly rentoids evicted from the planet by Feddie landchads Subsequent generations made themselves flashy, classy, and otherwise, heh, "spacenoid-rich" to avoid being seen as Earth's underclass. Spacenoids were also frustrated with democracy since it produced the Federation hegemony and elections were weighted against them anyway. It's worth noting that spacenoid factions from later Tomino works, Cosmo Babylonia and Zanscare, also style themselves as monarchies in rejection of the liberal western values that produced the Federation.

From there Zeon's development somewhat mirrors Germany from the First World War to the Second. We can see Zeon's (the man's) initial movement as philosophical and somewhat collectivist, similar to the Weimar Republic in which left leaning groups were popular along with those who hoped for an idealistic future for a German republic. Zeon wanted to replace the Federation's corruption with a future in which all humanity immigrated to space, thus becoming the same social and economic spacenoid class. The focus was on Newtype theory and collective empathy (through literal psychic powers) as a way of eventually overthrowing the Federation's colonial hierarchy. With Zeon's death the wealthy Zabis seized power and turned the movement into one of nationalism, birthright superiority, and a simple replacement of the old Earth's class structure with a new one based in Side 3. As Hitler purged the Nazi party and made the "socialist" part of their name an artifact, so did the Zabis purge Zeon's closest supporters and use his rhetoric of bringing down the old class structure only when it was convenient.

Okay maybe it sounds like I'm stretching a bit, but I maintain the worldbuilding for Gundam is realistic, almost depressingly so. The Federation feels like so many western governments we have now. Zeon shows how an idealistic revolution can be subverted by extremists who only use the original ideas as propaganda to justify their actions. For that matter Zeon supporters show how people fall for this, always equating the Principality with the ideals of independence and spacenoid culture while ignoring the crimes committed by the Zabis. The Federation is guilty of the setting's inequality but the Zeon have far more blood on their hands. And both sides insist the other's crime is worse while refusing to acknowledge their own.

Gundam sets up a proper us vs. them conflict that isn't just one-dimensional Empire vs. Rebels or some such. You could also call it "conceptual worldbuilding" since the writers imagined the longterm social consequences we might see if the previously mentioned futurology concepts regarding space development actually came to pass.

Char Aznable

Char is a recurring antagonist and arguably the most popular character in the anime. Maybe the whole franchise. He's been called the Japanese Darth Vader in regards to his iconic status and marketing potential.

Char Aznable is a Zeon ace pilot and secretly the exiled son of Zeon Zum Deikun. On some level he loves being a pilot and believes in the Zeon cause, but his real goal initially is to take revenge on the Zabis for his father's death. Later he becomes a Newtype and spends the rest of the franchise trying to bring about the "true" Zeon ideology.

Char was unusual in being a "bad guy officer" with his own agenda. He didn't even have a personal conflict with Amuro for the longest time and could have been the main character in his own right. Tomino himself noted he was hard to write since he was naturally more interesting than Amuro. He was also more likely to be mentioned in fan mail than Amuro or any other character.

PRODUCTION HISTORY

As I mentioned earlier, Gundam wasn't initially planned as a robot show at all! It wasn't really planned as anything before merchandising got involved.

Planning for the series that would become Mobile Suit Gundam began early in 1978. It was conceived from the get-go as a more serious science fiction story on par with Space Battleship Yamato, but everything else up to and including the mobile suits themselves came later. Sunrise worked closely with the toy company Clover when developing the series and it was on their suggestion that it became a mecha anime. Tomino was brought in at this point because of his experience with Voltes V, Zambot 3, and Daitarn 3. Tomino's sci-fi concepts entered the picture and formed the basis of the setting alongside the ideas of other Sunrise staff. Hajime Yatate is a commonly used pseudonym for the contributions of the Sunrise staff as a whole. Work began under the working title Freedom Fighter.

Toys Make The Anime

Clover was the show's sponsor and oversaw many of the creative developments. Aside from asking for robots in the first place, Clover demanded a team of three distinct designs to lead the show and gave guidelines on how the mechs should be. A common criticism of Gundam these days is that the above robot and others don't look like realistic made-by-the-lowest-bidder military vehicles. This is just a consequence of the time since Clover wanted the mechs to be colorful and heroic like classic super robot toys they already knew sold well.

An early quirk was that everything in the series would be freedom themed The mothership FREEDOM FORTRESS became the canonical Federation carrier White Base. The FREEDOM WING and FREEDOM CRUISER I think evolved into things like the Gundam's Core Fighter plane and the G-Armor sled thing or maybe the Gunperry.

Meanwhile Gunboy was another potential name for the main robot, called such because the series would have more down to earth combat revolving around laser guns instead of melee weapons and super punches. Supposedly the term Gundam came from combining “Gunboy” with FREEDOM Dom became Dam because Tomino envisioned the Gundam as an extremely powerful mobile suit in universe, evoking a dam holding back water.

In early September, Tomino completed a project proposal under the working title SPACE COMBAT TEAM GUNBOY. At this time the writers were potentially considering a story about aliens, which makes it interesting that such detailed political worldbuilding only came about later. Even back then most of the character work had already been done and would stay unchanged into the final product.

Freelancer Kunio Okawara was hired to do many of the mechanical designs. One of the other options considered was Studio Nue, later known for Macross. They apparently suggested Starship Troopers as a potential influence for realistic mech designs, but this was shot down by Clover since they wanted GIANT robots for the kiddies.

The writers originally wanted realistic color schemes for the vehicles. White Base would be black for space camouflage and the Gundam was going to be a duller gray all over. Clover demanded the bright colors so the toys would be more appealing to children. The core block system that the Gundam was built around in universe was added so the different toys could swap parts with each other and encourage the kids to collect them all. Though Tomino was fine with the beam rifle and Star Wars esque beam saber, he was frustrated with Clover's demand for additional weapons like the Beam Javelin and Gundam Hammer. Additional fluff concepts like the G-Fighter and G-Bull were all about those sweet sweet toy sales

Also the Gundam was going to have a face until someone worked it down to a mask.

Tomino eventually rejected the alien invasion idea and the story became about a war between humans. ‘Course it's probably not a coincidence many of the Zeon designs could just as easily have come from a cheesier space war anime.

Clover notably didn't originally plan to make any toys of the bad guys, so Okawara was able to design these with relative freedom. He was able to get away with a wide variety of colors including darker and faded colors (toy companies really liked bright colors) as well as fashionable asymmetry (harder to manufacture)

Tomino's one constraint was that the Zeon mobile suits have only one eye, an idea that would become the bad guy trademark for the entire franchise. As I mentioned before, this might very well be because of Battlestar Galactica.

Gundam the Franchise: Eventual Success Gundam the Anime: Dead in the Water

Though Gundam would become one of the biggest Japanese things in all of Nip history, the original anime wasn't actually very popular. It was cancelled before reaching the planned 52 episodes and it took some negotiation with Clover to extend the series just enough for an actual ending.

Mobile Suit Gundam premiered on April 7th, 1979 on the Nagoya Broadcasting Network. Along with directing, Tomino would storyboard about half the total episodes. He also designed more and more of the robots as the series went on since Okwara juggled other jobs. He left much of the screenwriting to others, something he seemed to eventually regret.

While we were producing this block, as I was having the scripts written, I was also drawing storyboards and working on episode direction and animation production. This was a time when we had momentum and couldn't imagine the program being cut short, so I left the writing of scripts to the scriptwriters. Of course we held meetings, but I didn't have any time to write the story.

For that reason, this became a period in which the story had a high degree of independence, where distinctive characters appeared and ridiculous developments took place. I was burdened with the hardship of having to apply my energies to dramatizing this as a single storyline centered on the White Base.

As the broadcast continued, the TV stations began receiving mail from the show's fans. Wataru Sekioka—who represented Nagoya TV as one of GUNDAM's producers—recalls:

What struck me the most was that it was Char, not Amuro, who was popular in this program. Everyone was drawing Char on the postcards they sent us. (laughs) He was supposed to be the bad guy, but he was the one drawing the viewers' attention.

(In that case, were there also requests asking that Char's appearances be increased?)

There certainly were. And then, when I talked to Mr. Tomino, he told me he was getting rid of Char after about ten episodes. (laughs) I don't know whether or not he intended to kill him, but characters often die in that person's works, so Char was probably his number one target. Anyway, I told Mr. Tomino directly that would be a bad idea, and that Char was the one person he couldn't kill.

This was around April or May, but since the animation work was already in progress, he told me that even if Char returned it wouldn't be until around October. I thought that was pretty late, but it would have to do, so I decided I wanted him to come back. That was the entirety of my order. By the time he reappeared, the viewers must have had high expectations for Char's long-awaited return.

Meanwhile Clover wasn't happy with lower than expected toy sales. They eventually demanded changes to the story including yet more upgrades for the Gundam to make toys out of and a wider variety of enemies for the Gundam to heroically defeat Tomino originally had no problem sticking with Zakus , so I guess Gundam fans owe it to Clover that other iconic designs like the Gouf, Dom, and Gelgoog eventually came around.

Then again the show also had weird whatnot like this thing

On that note, Tomino went with weird names for mobile suits and people on purpose. Some of the earlier names have meaning, for example Char Aznable is named after French singer Charles Aznavour and Zaku is a Japanese word meaning grunt or small fry. Later names however don't mean anything. Mech names like Gouf, Z'Gok, and Gelgoog were intentionally weird for Tomino was trying to see if Clover would object to anything. Apparently the Zeon general M'Quve was a turning point because Tomino thought this name was really a stretch. When it wasn't objected to, he finally decided that his sponors never watched the show and only cared about the designs and toy sales.

A true auteur Tomino came to hate having to work with the bean counters. He still held a grudge 10 years after the show aired and stated in an interview in Newtype 1989 April issue that the enemies of Gundam are Sunrise, sponsors and television stations.

Still the toy sales continued to disappoint. Sunrise's Yamaura recalls,

Around August, after about four months on the air, we began getting lots of letters from teenage fans in middle and high school. The majority of the contents were saying that they wanted us to put out plastic models, not toys. But we weren't a manufacturer, so we couldn't just say yes. I tried proposing this idea to Clover, but unfortunately, the conclusion was that as a matter of policy they weren't thinking about anything other than die-cast models.

I'll note again that the now famous Gunpla models kits didn't exist yet. Clover's toys were all standard action figures and playsets made from die-cast metal. This was a continuation of a toy trend that was popular in the 70's going back to 1972's Mazinger Z

Gundam's ratings actually weren't bad in Nagoya, but Tokyo's ratings were very low. Clover was frustrated and it became the accepted view among the production staff that ratings were going to do the show in prematurely.

According to Sekioka, the sponsor's representatives met to determine the show's fate without including anyone from Sunrise.

At a certain point during the broadcast, the sponsor Clover decided to give up because their Gundam toys weren't selling. So Mr. Nagaura from Nagoya TV's Tokyo office called me in to a meeting without Mr. Yamaura, Mr. (Masanori) Ito, or of course Mr. Tomino. I said to Clover that since December to January was their toy-selling season, they should sell their Chogokin toys until then, but New Year gift-giving stops in January so we should end it that month.

The show was to be cancelled after only 39 episodes. Negotiation allowed a one month extension to give the show a real ending, and so the anime at least ends with a final battle and Federation victory in the One Year War.

Interestingly enough, Clover's expensive Gundam DX Combination set would go on to be a surprise hit of the winter season. Following this Clover apparently approached Sunrise with the offer of another small extension. Obviously this didn't happen, and who's to say how it would have changed the anime and franchise.

Almost a Stillbirth -- It was Really More of an 80's Thing

In the immediate aftermath of the anime's cancellation, Tomino got to work on a trilogy of novels that retold the story of Gundam entirely. Apparently he always wanted to be a serious novelist and only worked with cartoons for stable employment. Tomino's novels notably diverge from the show, as an example main character Amuro Ray dies in the novels. Some of these ideas would appear again in later Gundam stories.

Though Gundam failed to attract a toy buying audience, the genre defying military fiction wasn't lost on older viewers. In the end, Gundam was saved by manchildren

The series was rebroadcast starting in February of 1980 and in a March issue of Animage magazine Tomino discussed the possibility of compilation films. This had previously been done with Space Battleship Yamato.

Meanwhile, and this was the big one for neurodivergents everywhere , the toy company Bandai aquired the rights to the merchandise from Clover and began producing plastic model kits from the series. Going into the 80's die-cast metal was more common than plastic in part because of Cold War related petroleum whatnot, so these plastic kits were fairly revolutionary. They were also dedicated model kits, not preassembled toys, that targeted the same neurodivergent buyers of scale model military vehicles. These model kits were huge with the dedicated older fans of Gundam and gave the franchise the necessary economic oomph to come back from death

Honestly the only reason I'll not sperg more about Gunpla is because it really deserves its own longpost. Gunpla at this point is a massive and independent hobby. Gundam media could disappear tomorrow and Gunpla by itself would continue on for fifty years or more.

For now know that Bandai's model kits revived Gundam and made it into the mecha series that surpassed everything that came before or since.

Around the time the Bandai kits were coming out, Sunrise and film company Shochiku agreed to turn Gundam into a theatrical film. Japan has always been more willing to show grown men cartoon movies in theatres so I should clarify these films were released to a wide audience.

The first film was released in March of 1981 and was a great success, even though or maybe because it was mostly just a condensed retelling of the first several episodes. The second movie, Soldiers of Sorrow, released in July and the third movie, Encounters in Space, in March of 1982.

With the movies, Tomino reordered some events and edited out what he didn't like from Clover's demands. The Gundam lost many of its weapons and the more toyetic concepts were omitted or turned into something else, for example the G-Armor combiner replaced by a simpler Core Booster jet. Most of the less iconic Zeon characters and designs were taken out. The movies also mention the Newtype concept far earlier so it's not out of nowhere in the second half.

The third was more ambitious and 70% of the animation was redone. Among many other changes was a new final scene confirming a certain someone's survival and implying the franchise would go on.

Oh wow this small hat man wants ME to attack the porn addict sick man with long socks?

Ok small hat man, I will!

— 🤑🟩⬜🟩TheNIGGAryan🤰🏻🔫👨🏿🦍 (@AntiHateComms) March 9, 2024

Background:

On twitter/ X there are two drama adjashunt RW troll groups known as "ANTILA" and "Male feminist group chat." Our main goal/ solushion to world problems is simple: kill yt! We is a collection of hood neighbors from an assorted numba of places round da globe, includin but not limited to: India, Nigeria, 46 church lane in Bongland, Georgia (Allahbama), and O block in Chiraq'. You may recognize us from da time we made NFTs (etikapunks) to honor dat one neighbor who jumped off da bridge cuz cyberbullyin or som lo (etika), and the time we made NFTs (technobladies) of dis one crakkka (technoblade) who played minceraft and died of cancer

https://x.com/LzxyAlt/status/1766272676530680139

Initial post - Tradcath (whos an unironic AGP tr00n fetishist) nahtzee says buncha coal.

https://x.com/LzxyAlt/status/1766273366544052547

Dis when mah coal detectors went off de CHARTS! No way I was finna let dat shit SLIDE at all! Dis where I slide in and fight dis waycist yt boi (or should I say goy lao) and i call my hood neighbors to kill yt wit me.

https://x.com/powerfulgmr/status/1766313720018285020

Das my baby mama's bf Kevin, he jus raysheod dis dumbass yt boi

https://x.com/NadekoFeet/status/1766316804027130213

Das my neighbor NormieSlayer he a latinx but he coo' in our hood

https://x.com/2_FAR_G0NE/status/1766317179363094940

Dis @axel. He my traphouse neighborh. Here he flexes his bands on a broke butt yt boi (how you a yt and STILL broke! jus use yo yt privilege LAO!) in sapport of g-d's chosen neighbors/ our allies

REMINDER TO KILL YT

Mo' flexin

https://x.com/R*peAllFemales/status/1766313962897850752

Dis gomez he a latinx like normie but he also coo.

lul

https://x.com/AntiHateComms/status/1766314420450308216

Here I deliver THE BOMB on dis YT boi. his bussy is blown af afta dis raysheo

I love Elon twitter

https://x.com/AntiHateComms/status/1766318566079418410

ANUDDA TRVTHNUKE by yo neighbor truly. I am LAUGHIN this mayo is SWEET as a suga plum!

Reminder to NEVER RAIZ YOUR KIDS OUTTA DA HOOD

https://x.com/LzxyAlt/status/1766204880404836530

Im crying this NEIGHBOR is NEURODIVERGENT neurodivergent!

https://x.com/AntiHateComms/status/1766319015532634143

Last poast... Extra reminder to kill yt

@A does this count as RW drama. I started this too!

The word "Benzo" is used quite loosely, but different benzos can have considerably varying effects. In this thread, I'll try to explain them. It's a quick one and I don't give too much of a shit about quality. Normally I'd give an introduction on what benzos are along with a quick discussion concerning GABA receptors, but today is not that type of day. I currently have at least one of each benzo I'm about to mention, not necessarily from the same source but most are from one source. I've never bought them off the streets, all prescribed legally. My psychiatrist hands out benzo prescriptions all the time. He diagnosed me bipolar with ADHD and OCD.

On that note, I'd like to mention that I threw away my razors, but that's only heightened my intrusive thoughts of cutting myself. When I had the choice, there was some comfort in that. Now with no razors available, cutting myself is suddenly all I want to do. I may purchase new ones, get the slicing over and done with, then put them away.

Let's begin.

1. Midazolam

Personally, this is my favorite benzo. Its effects are pretty close to what people imagine when they think of benzos but this is a little different. Let's start with the basics, bucko. It'll put your butt to sleep. Maybe you can stay awake a bit at a low dose (15mg) but at 30mg your butt is grass in about twenty minutes or less.

When it hits you will not be able to walk. I repeat - your ability to walk will be disabled. You will fall everywhere, worse than a crippled man whose cane has been stolen. Whatever you're imagining, it's worse. Worse than a drunken teen who can't walk straight. This is more like swaying until your head hits the wall hard. During this time, you will feel euphoric. Enjoy it. I've found it's not really fun to listen to music or eat. Instead, have a pen and paper ready or a document open on your PC and try to record your thoughts. Half of it is nonsense, but you'll be surprised at the kinds of things that will surface - your kinks, past trauma, even your favorite video game lol.

Within the following ten minutes, your capacity to have memories will completely vanish. You will continue to do things, perhaps prepare a meal for yourself, send an unintelligible text to your mom, or put the dishes in the washing machine. It really depends on whether an angel or goblin is within you that day. The goblin will make you do foolish things (often messy) while the angel will make you do ordinary everyday things, but for no reason.

Then it's lights out. Don't worry, you will sleep in your bed. Even if you have to crawl, your Midazolam brain will still know where your bed is and you will tuck yourself in. I took 30mg last night. I'm not a druggie, my psychologist literally called me and told me to (her father is a psychiatrist so she sometimes helps me with med doses even though she technically shouldn't). I haven't been sleeping well because of life anxieties (losing my job) and because I'm choosing not to at times (like literally just sleeping for an hour and then getting back to some freelance work I've found. I just don't want to sleep). She's afraid it's going to trigger mania so she wants me to get a minimum of 6 hours. Not happening.

I made food for myself, took it upstairs and placed it next to my PC, then went to bed. I don't remember anything else. I only had a few hours of sleep because I woke up at midnight and have been up since then. I felt a sense of warmness and I knew I was still high as frick. I got out of bed, tried to walk, and failed. I wanted to take the tray of food downstairs but even with slow steps I fricked up and dropped it, leaving a mess I had to mop up. I don't want to sleep tonight so I won't be taking another double dose. Just 15mg which affects my gait but doesn't knock me out. Maybe I won't take one at all. Frick sleep.

2. Alprazolam

Commonly known as Xanax. This is what most people mean when they say the word "benzo". When I was in the psychiatric ward, it was routine for everyone to get a slow-release dose in the morning to lower anxiety. It gives you this calm sense of "everything is going to be alright", like the Bob Marley song lol.

Yeah, it puts you in a good mood, but it is sedating. Furthermore, at least personally, it doesn't frick with your memory too much, although you may black out if you mix it with alcohol. Even my psychologist said she likes Xanax and she was disappointed when she was weaned off it lol

It is also the benzo that is most like alcohol. It disorients you a bit, but it also takes away your filter, making you a little braver and less anxious. However, like alcohol, it fricks with your ability to act rationally. Consequently, when you see videos of people acting crazy at the airport or in a convenience store, it's most probably Xanax to blame. If you go to a doctor and complain about anxiety, this is what they'll give you.

In the black market, it is sold as a party drug. I wrote a story here about using Xanax to be brave enough to go to a nightclub.

https://rdrama.net/h/personal/post/233100/trying-to-be-normal-diaries-i

I like Xanax but it doesn't take first place mostly because of how fast tolerance develops. You can quickly make popping 10 xannies a normal thing that just puts you in that heavenly zone. I'd argue it's the most dangerous benzo on this list for this reason.

3. Clobazam

In last place comes the shittiest benzo of all - Clobazam. This is the one I typically mix with Ambien if I want a good time (and a good sleep). I'll get an hour of euphoria followed by god knows how long of a blackout before I wake up the next day. It switches off your memory completely and at high doses you actually feel sick to your stomach. I'd be disappointed if this was prescribed to me, but I wouldn't complain. Currently, my prescriptions only include Xanax (slow release) and Dormicum (Midazolam). That reminds me, I need to try scraping the film off a Xanax to check if it'll hit more quickly and strike harder. I have to do personal testing because holy shit Google has become a fricking "safe zone" that makes it impossible to research forms of degeneracy. Try learning more about a drug or anything suicide-related and all you get are these "we're here to help you" sites. Frick off and just tell me the right way to do the drug if you actually want to keep me safe. Fricking Reddit's become my new search engine of choice. At least you get actual answers to shit like this.

Bonus

Zolpidem

Might as well give Ambien a mention even though it's not a benzo. I don't have much to say except they make you drowsy as frick and want to sleep, but it won't force you into bed. You can enjoy an ambien night, though you'll forget the tail end of it. I think ambien is the one pill that makes you do the stupidest things when you black out like text your dad nonsense or make shitposts here. The worst thing I did was send a work email that was due 3 times in a row. I've also posted nonsense in Groomercord channels lol. I didn't remember doing these things and only found I did them when I woke up.

The recreational value is pretty low. I now realize the few Ambiens I have left are the only ones I have because I don't go to that doctor anymore. So about 10 pills. It takes two pills to get to that ambien drowsiness that I guess feels kinda good if you genuinely can't sleep or are a stressed-out person. Personally, I think that if you're using them for off-label reasons, I think they're only good for mixing with a benzo.

Thanks for reading, if you did. If you have insults, please don't post them. Just block me instead.

Before there was Trump there was Reagan. He also drove them insane. After Reagan there was Bush sr who didn't drive them insane but only had one term. Them there was Bush jr who also drove them insane, but why is a story for another time.

But this story isn't about him. It's a tale of hubris and the downfall of the last of the great newsmen. Who actually weren't great but that is a story for another time.

Dan Rather

Dan Dan the looney man

Dan Rather was a news broadcaster who was always slightly off.

For three broadcasts he'd stare straight at the camera and say “Courage”. It was Freaky and they made him stop.

He got attacked by a crazy homeless man who kept going “Kenneth what is the frequency?”

REM made a song about it

He replaced Walter Conkrite as the CBS newsreader.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1980/2/15/cbs-will-replace-walter-cronkite-with/

Walter Conkrite hated him so much CBS had to bribe him with a network deal to get him to shut up

https://nypost.com/2012/05/17/darn-rather/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145888/He-wanted-destroy-New-book-reopens-war-Walter-Cronkite-Dan-Rather.html

https://theguardian.com/media/2005/mar/13/business.theobserver

Then in the 2004 election Dan Rather tried to eat an elephant and choked to death.

John Kerry was the 2004 Democratic nominee and was getting slaughtered in the polls because all his old army buddies hated his guts for calling them baby killers and were not afraid to say it out loud.

The journ*lists were searching high and low for proof about George Bush's service in The Air National guard to offset this.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/my-role-in-rathergate_b_65222/amp

Doonsbury creator Trudeau offered cash to anyone who could prove it

https://apnews.com/general-news-movies-domestic-news-domestic-news-arts-and-entertainment-e04cf6da2cea421bbe768a4d64f2faba

He got nothing

Dan Rather and Mary Mapes, a leftist journ*list with an axe to grind, got the scoop on Bush using the Texas national air guard to draft dodge thanks to a meMo given to them by Bill Burkett, a maniac with a grudge.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/rathergate-what-were-they-thinking/article745948/

If you think I'm being unkind to Bill Burkett here he is in his own words.

https://onlinejournal.com/bush/031903Burkett/031903burkett.html

He claimed to have overheard someone talking about “needing to scrub Bush's Vietnam record”, then claimed he was transferred to Panama as punishment for refusing to falsify George Bush's record.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/wbna6055867

https://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Memos-possible-source-attacked-Bush-in-past-1662582.php

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2004/09/15/bill-burkett/

Then it turned out the documents were obvious fakes .

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/wbna6055248

As revealed by free republic by a man named Harry MadDougald https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3347939/posts

They were supposedly typed but were in Times New Roman font

Michael Moore was offered the same documents by the lunatic with a grudge but declined

https://jakesav.in/2004/10/04/steven-clemons-moore-was-offered-same-killian-forgeries-that-b-word-slapped-cbs-and-dan-rather/

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1219050/posts

They had been faxed to CBS office from a Kinko fifty miles from Burkett's house. He claimed he burnt the originals. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24635-2004Sep15.html

Confirmed

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/09/14/expert-cited-by-cbs-says-he-didnt-authenticate-papers/012e601d-b47f-4d4c-974d-599f54963468/

fakes

https://www.thomasphinney.com/tag/killian/

Again

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/?p=1198527

And

https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/fw.pdf

Confirmed

https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/fw2.pdf

Again

https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/bush.html

And

https://creativepro.com/the-digital-dish-making-headlines-not-setting-them/

Again

https://www.aufamily.com/topic/10555-cbs-experts-warned-cbs-they-were-forgeries/

And

https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/Hoaxes/cbsmemos/index.html

again

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/opinion/those-discredited-memos.html

And

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2004/09/10/killian-memo-update-3/

Again

https://www.drexdoclab.com/certifying-documents-what-we-learned-from-dan-rather/

And

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/beltway-confidential/10435/dan-rather-on-reddit-no-one-proved-that-bush-documents-were-forged/

Again

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/t47br/dan_rather_on_george_w_bush_report_we_reported_a/

And

https://www.blueridgenow.com/story/news/2004/11/05/forgery-for-dummies-democrats/28160027007/

again

Bush said they were fake

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/politics/campaign/bush-says-questions-about-guard-memos-used-by-cbs-need-to.html

The secretary said she never wrote them

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Texas-Guard-secretary-says-she-didn-t-type-Bush-2725014.php

Killian's son said his dad didn't write like that

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/wbna5956461

Killian's son went on fox news and talked about how the memo's were fake

https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/killian-cbs-docs-smear-my-father

Killian's unit chief thought they were fake

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bush-guard-memos-questioned/

The Coperate media call them “fake but accurate”

https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA127162736&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=0010194X&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon~b8da07ea&aty=open-web-entry

But Bush would probably lose a lawsuit

https://old.reddit.com/r/Ask_Lawyers/comments/fgc6lv/rathergate/

But the New York times said forging the memos was probably a felony

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/opinion/first-find-the-forger.html

So Mary Mapes and Dan Rather got fired

There was an investigation

They released a report

The New York times book review didn't like it but who gives a shit about them?

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2005/05/12/the-flawed-report-on-dan-rather-an-exchange/

Bill Burkett, a crazy man with the innsmouth look, complained that the investigation ruined his reputation

https://www.salon.com/2005/02/22/burkett_letter/

They're still blaming Karl Rove

https://www.salon.com/2015/10/17/rathergate_and_the_dark_magic_of_2004_when_the_gop_learned_how_to_subvert_truth_and_alter_political_reality/

Walter Cronkite says he's a dumbass

https://ew.com/article/2005/03/10/dan-rather-signs-courage/

The feeling was mutual

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2023/06/09/dan-rather-documentary-interview/70306876007/

Dan Rather still defends the documents

https://ew.com/article/2015/11/02/dan-rather-defends-truth/

No really

https://danratherjourn*list.org/investigative-journ*list/60-minutes-ii/record

Dan Rather still says he's a victim

https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/182tx8/i_am_dan_rather_former_anchor_for_cbs_evening/

He even sued for it

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7m26s/dan_rathers_70m_lawsuit_likely_to_deal_bush/

https://dummiefunnies.blogspot.com/2007/09/rather-files-70-million-lawsuit-against.html?m=1

https://dummiefunnies.blogspot.com/2007/09/rather-files-70-million-lawsuit-against.html?m=1

And lost

Mother jones, a leftwing rag, agrees

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/04/bush-national-guard-story-lives/

Other leftist say he was set up

https://www.democracynow.org/2004/9/21/killing_the_messenger_who_gave_rather

Mary Mapes is still a part of the loser lecture tour

https://www.mountholyokenews.com/campus-life/2021/2/11/journ*list-mary-mapes-visits-mount-holyoke-to-discuss-movie-truth

Mary Mapes wrote a book about it and how she helped the insane Mr Burkett contact the Kerry campaign

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2005/11/09/lashing-back-over-the-memo-scandal/416c0a68-f395-4e43-a3bb-a075279df41f/

https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2015/november/mary-mapes-60-minutes-truth-movie/

Hollywood made a movie celebrating Dan Rather as a modern day saint. Even New Yorkers were unimpressed

https://www.vulture.com/2015/10/movie-review-truth.html

https://nypost.com/2015/09/30/wacko-dan-rather-movie-still-insists-forged-bush-national-guard-documents-were-real/

No one liked that movie

https://www.stlmag.com/culture/film/truth-a-tepid-preachy-take-on-the-rathergate-scandal/

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/07/26/ex-minutes-producer-hollywood-hero/13156241/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-dan-rather-movie-truth-lies-about-good-journ*lism

Not even Portlanders

https://www.wweek.com/arts/2015/10/28/would-you-rather/

Except Dan Rather

https://variety.com/2015/film/news/dan-rather-truth-robert-redford-1201661570/

And Mary Mapes

https://variety.com/2015/voices/columns/truth-cbs-news-mary-mapes-1201661448/

Bernard Goldberg and Dan Rather are old enemies, but that is a story for another time. Join him as we gloat over Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS and the death of sixty minutes.

https://www.bernardgoldberg.com/p/a-lost-fact-in-the-rathergate-mess-part-1-2

Also shocking Mapes knew Bush volunteered to fly in Vietnam but the air force thought he sucked and wanted someone who didn't need training wheels. Now that's the scoop you run: “George Bush was a terrible pilot”.

Cato says the government shouldn't investigate Rathergate. Someone remembers that to protect freedom for Thor you must also protect freedom for Loki.

https://www.cato.org/techknowledge/rathergate-incident-remembering-why-separation-press-state-vital

Chuds still mad

https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/02/08/memo-to-dan-rather-shut-up-about-memos/

And so so are coperate journ*lists

https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/government-integrity/memo-cbs-george-w-bush-dan-rather-got-mostly-right/

But I mostly hate /r/askhistorian for strangling what could have been a great spergout in the cradle

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/18w58ll/the_killian_documents_seem_like_such_obvious/

Wikipedia deep dive because it just wouldn't be a 911roofer post without it

Who is Manuel Miranda ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Killian_documents_controversy

Cope

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Killian_documents_controversy/Archive_3#Recreations?

Karl rove!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Killian_documents_controversy/Archive_3#Theories_Regarding_Source_of_Documents,_Karl_Rove_et_al

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Killian_documents_controversy/Archive_4#The_Lucy_Ramirez_page

Dan rather's daughter did it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Killian_documents_controversy/Archive_9#Rather's_Daughter

Now to monday morning quarterback. Rather and Mape's main mistake was to fall in love with a story. As a journ*list you should know when to give up. Kerry's comrades from Vietnam hated his guts and were willing to say darn near anything about him because they felt he was a traitor, but just because your candidate is losing doesn't give you the right to cheat. The second mistake is trusting someone with a grudge. As I previously said Kerry's crewmates hated his guts and were willing to say darn near anything to destroy him. Bill Burkett was like them, in that be blamed Bush for his problems with medical insurance and wanted to destroy him. That's not a reliable source. If you go to shoot the king don't miss.

The third mistake was accepting photocopies of documents Bill Burkett claimed he got at a livestock show. As Mike Walker put it in his brilliant book on journ*lism Rather Dumb “paper trails keep you out of jail”. These documents may have been stolen and that's a felony. Do you really think Bush wouldn't have Dan Rather frogwalked to prison on national television? Also if you don't know where they came from how the heck do you know they're real. There is a use for such dubious documents, however. Show them on-screen and mention that they might be forgeries but the white house refuses to confirm or deny these documents. “Are these real? I don't know. Only one man can answer that. President George Bush, what are you hiding?”

Rdrama is so white that we got scooped on this issue by fricking NBC News.

Joanna Georges, 22, of New Jersey, was excited to get her hair done. She had contacted Alexis Antoine on social media to get box braids, and paid the $100 deposit to secure her 6 a.m. spot on Antoine's schedule for Sept. 2. But the night before, Georges said, Antoine pushed her appointment, first to 8 a.m, then 9 a.m., then to 10 a.m.

“I had a feeling after waking up and seeing my appointment was pushed back that it just wasn't going to work out,” Georges told NBC News. Still, she said she made the 20-minute walk to Antoine's home for the appointment, only to get no response from the stylist.

“I'm just waiting outside her house for an hour,” she recalled. “I finally made my way home and she texted me, like, ‘I'm so sorry. I fell asleep.'”

The botched appointment set off a monthslong ordeal, with Georges urging Antoine on social media to return her security deposit. Georges said Antoine repeatedly gave excuses for not sending back the money and continued to put it off. Unsuccessful, Georges ultimately decided to sue Antoine in small claims court in Hudson County's Superior Court of New Jersey.

I figured there's got to be more so I searched "stylist" on /r/blackladies. And holy shit this is a hilarious cottage industry of random trashy bitches scamming people with their shitty dubiously licensed "small business" and I had no idea it was this bad.

I have been looking to get my ends trimmed by one of the natural stylists. I dont wear my hair straight so I dont want to get it flat ironed for a trim plus it messes with the shape of the hair. All the places are $200. I have 2 inches of hair in the longest spots. I'm happy there are people offering the service and the knowledge is there but why dont any of these places have a middle ground.

I figured out why black women are poor

black hair stylist / braiders need to realize that their services are a LUXURY not a necessity because why am i being charged an extra $25 for being 5 minutes late?

these same stylist will be 10-20 minutes late to their appointments because they can't manage time and then charge the customer for being late. these stylists need to recognize that this is not a necessity. Even the necessary appointments give us a grace period, for FREE. the lack of customer service offered from a SERVICE is baffling to me. Plus, why is the cost for knotless braids like $200+ up now?

If it's not a necessity than surely you can stop paying for it, right? (pretend this is a demand curve)

There's a lot of reasons why I turned to YouTube University School of Cosmetology.

Incidentally this is the same school the stylist went to.

On the app some stylist don't release the location of their shop until 24-48 hrs before the appt so the day before I realized I still didn't know where the shop was.

I'm not on enough levels of racism to understand why this could be !chuds any ideas?

I booked a fulani braid for juneteenth two years ago on style seat. I live in phoenix az. It was 120 degrees outside she was an hour late because she was moving from her apartment. When she finally got there and Im boiling alive in my car, she says she needs lunch. WHY BOOK ME IF YOURE BUSY???

dude I'm busy lmao

Booked the appointment and sent her a message asking if I could book a blow out as well. She said yes but it would have to be a silk press. Fine, whatever. Booked the silk press ($125) in addition to the take down ($175). Then she messaged me asking if I wanted an Olaplex treatment and trim (extra $70+). I said no thank you, I just had a trim before I had my braids put in.

She continued to try and sell me on it as being healthy for my hair, and I just said thanks again, but I'm only interested in the take down and silk press.

Then she said, "As a healthy hair stylist, that doesn't work for me. I'm cancelling both of your appointments". I asked her if she would just do the braid take down and she said no.

https://old.reddit.com/r/blackladies/comments/16f7pj4/these_hair_stylists_are_nuts/

$300 deposit

Apparently these people do house calls:

We had an appointment yesterday for 9am and she texted me that she had arrived at 9:03 and there was no parking. I responded “no worries, take your time and hopefully something open up soon”

About 15 minutes later, I receive this text along with her leaving and me scrambling to find another braider:

“I've realized over the past year of service you in your home. There has been a lack of care for me as your stylist having proper parking. It would have been helpful as my client to make sure parking is available when I arrive to start in a timely manner. Unfortunately, I can't continue to service you anymore. I wish you the best in your future. God Bless. “

https://old.reddit.com/r/blackladies/comments/19bik98/hair_stylists_again/

My appointment was for 8:30 [...] By 8:50am -9am, a woman shows up, opens the salon, shes not my stylist.

I introduce my self, sit on the couch and she tells me to sit in the salon chair so she can start my hair. I dont even know who she is and if she is able to even do my hair. So I comply because im desperate. Turns out to be my stylists cousin.

Then my stylist rolls in at 9:30 am, and AFTER eating, starts doing my hair around 9:50~ along with their cousin.

We really need a black

I've never had a hair appointment start on time. Like you, I usually book the earliest appointment available. That way if I'm meant to be in the chair at 9:00 a.m. I know I'll at least get started by 10:30. It's an unfortunate part of the experience.

It truly is. I didnt eat breakfast, have coffee or even have water because I was running late. I know for next time.

This is how it would feel if you didn't eat breakfast.

Would you be offended if your stylist was on the phone the whole time they were doing your hair? I think maybe a 5 or 10 minute conversation but the whole time strikes me as unprofessional and not relaxing.

i prefer it, less time i have to speak to them

They may be black women but they're still redditors

There's no non-racist way to ask this but why don't they just do whatever they did back in slavery days

Back before neurodivergents could debate the Zelda timeline, DBZ power levels, or whether Superman could frick Lois Lane without killing her, they made do with overly long arguments about the Bible (if you're wondering why there haven't been any good theologians since the internet, that's why).

The atonement (literally "at-one"-ment) () is how Christ reconciled humanity with its creator. While the Bible says Jesus had to die and rise, there is no detailed explanation of why it had to happen, or how exactly it led to our salvation.

And so were born the many fan theories of atonement. I'll be your shockingly neurodivergent guide, rating each one based on scriptural harmony, explanatory power, cool factor, and how smart they make you sound in online arguments.

!christians

!atheists just pretend this is a video game lore video

Ransom Theory

Summary:

That dumb foid Eve sold out humanity to Satan in history's first woman moment , so we belonged to the devil for thousands of years. But when he saw a chance to claim God's own son, he forgot about us like Leonardo DiCaprio forgets a 26-year-old girlfriend. So God proposed a deal. Satan traded his deed to humanity for a chance to kill Jesus.

Satan saw the money in his bank account and thought the check was legit. Unfortunately, God scammed him, and the Son of Man was seated at the right hand of the Father in glory, while humanity was freed from Satan's bondage. The cross of Jesus was, quite literally, a bait post.

Pros:

• Evil spirits and Satan are major characters in the Gospel, with a lot of power over the human world. If you believe in God, you can't dismiss them as ancient superstitions

• The synoptic gospels contain almost nothing about how Jesus saves except the phrase "as a ransom for many."

• Deep history, probably the OG atonement theory

Cons:

• Based on Jewish history and tradition, the serpent in Eden was probably just a douchey talking snake.

• Satan as an ultimate epochal enemy of God borders on polytheism.

• This theory features God playing by Satan's rules (cucked) and/or deceiving others ()

• Humanity still seems ensnared by sin, and Christians struggle with it greatly.

Rating: 5/10

Christus Victor

Summary:

Much like yoga, this one's either a few decades old or a few thousand years old depending on who you ask. The death and resurrection are a great cosmic drama where Jesus took on the powers of sin, death, demons, and humanity's wickedness, and emerged triumphant. Jesus smashed the gates of heck, freed the souls in bondage, and opened the way to heaven for all eternity. With Christ's defeat over sin and death, we are no longer captive to them, and Christ will lead all who desire him to salvation.

Pros:

• Awesome

• Cool name

• Captures the majesty of Christ's passion in a way that transactional models don't

Cons:

• While the resurrection is a clear triumph over death, it's less clear how death on the cross could be a triumph. Yet the crucifixion, not only the resurrection, is Christ's great deed.

• The world still seems like a place where evil wins on the reg.

Rating: 8/10

Satisfaction

Summary:

God is so deeply offended by human sin that we must pay a terrible price to satisfy his honor. Unfortunately, no matter how much you do the daily quests and watch the fricking Hero Wars ads, you can never earn enough Glory Points to pay God back. To reconcile this, God sent Christ, the God-Man. The death and resurrection of the sinless son of God created such a massive amount of GP that it overflowed infinitely. Christ could freely share it with humanity, allowing the elect into the presence of God.

Pros:

• Christ gives a good thing rather than absorbing a bad thing.

Cons:

• Literally a Brandon Sanderson magic system

• Instead of paying the ultimate price, Jesus could have waited another 48 hours for the energy gems to recharge.

Rating: 4/10

Penal Substitution

Summary:

The punishment for sin is death. But someone else may receive it in your place. Jesus, the sinless Son of God, the perfect sacrifice, absorbed the wrath of God on behalf of all mankind. We need only to humble ourselves and accept this gift.

The Bible contains many cases of sin and its punishments being transmitted or transferred from one person or thing to another (eg. original sin, multi-generational curses, animal sacrifice, children punished for the actions of their parents, the scapegoat, Jews killing chickens ). Regardless of our intuition that sin must equate to personal guilt, the Bible suggests it's more of a dark spiritual energy like some Kingdom Hearts BS.

Pros:

• Unlike OG ransom theories, this does not force God to play by Satan's rules. Instead, humanity is doomed because of God's holiness yet saved because of his mercy.

• Led to an awesome hymn, "Jesus Paid It All."

• Consistent with sacrifices throughout the Bible, concept of transferrable sin

Cons:

• Metaphorically a Brandon Sanderson magic system

• Why does God have to do anything to forgive sin, much less kill himself?

• Christ being sacrificed to God makes more sense if Christ isn't God

Rating: 6/10

Moral Influence

Summary:

Jesus' purpose was to show humanity how to live. Christ's life contained a mixture of instructions on how to live, and miracles to demonstrate that we should listen to him. Through life he demonstrated perfect sinlessness, through death he demonstrated absolute submission, and through resurrection he showed us the final reward for those who keep the faith.

Even if this sounds lib-coded, you can't dismiss this out of hand. Jesus had a lot more to say about right action than about fiddly cosmic esoterica. And he said, many times, that we will be judged by the way we led our lives. Any sin can be forgiven, but faith means more than just saying the right creeds and begging for forgiveness when you watch anime porn. It's a way of life with physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions.

Pros:

• Engages with the gospels and the actual life of Jesus

• Can be combined with other theories

• Inspires continued self-examination and right action

Cons:

• Both scripture and life experience teach us that no one is righteous

• Seemingly needs other theories, ignores the "ransom" concept, doesn't explain why Jesus had to die

• No guarantee of salvation

Rating: 5/10

Governmental Theory

Summary:

Similar to substitutionary theories, but has Jesus paying "a price" rather than "the price." God uses the death of Christ to demonstrate his justice and the seriousness of sin, but it wasn't a literal transaction. God further declares that Jesus is our refuge from the penalty for sin.

Pros:

• Preserves God's agency. He set the price of sin and the way to avoid it. Not a magic system.

• "He just did it that way, okay?" is easier to believe and comprehend than "actually it had to be that way because wordswordswords"

Cons:

• If Jesus didn't have to die, the whole thing seems crueler or arbitrary.

• Forgettable, regularly confused with Satisfaction and Penal Substitution theories.

• "He just did it that way, okay?" is basically immune to further analysis.

Rating: 7/10

I wrote an overly long about my own personal synthesis but this post was getting long enough as it is. Maybe another time.

What do you think, rdrama?

"...But that's just a theory. An Atonement Theory!"

so with all the posts about Yuzu and seeing a few people confused how to get it setup (@Bussy-boy) I thought I'd just make it's own post

If you feel confident in following directions you can just directly use the guide I used here. I will be assuming you're on Windows 10/11 64 bit

For those of you who don't know, Yuzu is a Nintendo Switch emulator that recently got taken down. Someone has forked their source code luckily tho so you can still use it. There are other ways to play cracked Switch games but this seemed the easiest to me. Lets get started

Download Yuzu

You can download the Early Access build here. Just click the "Windows-Yuzu-EA-####.zip" link and it will download a zip file. Extract the folder to wherever you feel like. Then open the extracted folder and run the yuzu.exe file. This should install the program and run itself, but you'll get a prompt about missing encryption keys

Encryption Keys

You will need an encryption key file to get the program working. You can download it here or DM me and I can send you the source since it's just text. Once it's downloaded, open Yuzu and go to File->Open Yuzu Folder. This will open the working directory for the program. What you need to do is put the prod.keys file in the keys folder (make sure if you opened it in notepad it didn't rename it to prod.keys.txt). Now restart Yuzu and there should no longer be a warning message.

(Optional) Firmware

You don't need to do this step but it says that some games will crash if you don't. You can download firmware from here, just use the latest one. Unzip the folder, and open the Yuzu folder again. This time navigate to "nand\system\Contents\registered" and paste all of the NCA files from the firmware folder into there

okay now Yuzu is setup, we need some games

Installing Games

Here are a few websites you can download Switch games from:

https://nxbrew.com/

https://nsw2u.xyz/ (https://nsw2u.com/)

https://nswgame.com/category/switch/

https://www.ziperto.com/nintendo-switch-nsp/

https://switchedtwo.to/

I'm going to use Zelda Breath of the Wild as an example because it has an update and some DLC. Note that you can only use NSP and XCI files on Yuzu. NSP files will typically be separated into the base game, updates, and DLC; which can also sometimes be split into 5GB chunks. XCI has everything together, but I haven't really seen any of those. So I'm going to download all the files from this page using MegaUp which is estimated about 30 minutes. Torrenting would also probably be a bit faster but that's up to you, I don't really use it.

Okay so now we have 3 base game, 2 DLC, and 1 update NSP files. First it's recommended we create a folder to put our Switch games. Then we will need to merge the 3 base game files. I was having massive problems with the built in Windows zip utility so I recommend getting 7zip and using that. Just select the part 1,2,and 3 zips together, right click and extract files to your Switch games location; this should merge all of them into a 14.1GB NSP file. Do the same if your game's DLC or update files are split

Before we run the game we should install the update and DLC files. To do this, simply go to File->Install Files to NAND and then select what you want. These are copied to the Yuzu folder so you don't need to keep a copy

I recommend adding your Switch game directory to the main window in Yuzu by clicking "Add New Game Directory", selecting your folder, and then when it's added right click the folder and check the "Scan Subfolders" option. You can also tell from here if your game is being read properly and the Add-ons column will show if the extras were installed correctly. Now just double click the game and you're good to go

Linux Stuff - from @TriHard

Yes. There are only a couple of small things to note:

• On Linux, you want the AppImage release. Most Linux distros support AppImages.
• Once you download the AppImage, try running it. If it doesn't work, it's probably because you're missing FUSE 2. Install it with your package manager (I use Artix btw so mine is Pacman): > sudo pacman -S fuse2
• Keys can be installed directly in Yuzu by going to Tools > Install Decryption Keys, and selecting prod.keys.
• Firmware can be installed by going to Tools > Install Firmware, and selecting the folder containing the extracted firmware files.
• By default, all Yuzu-related files are located in ~/.local/share/yuzu.

End

I don't have all that much experience actually using the emulator so I'm going to skip this part and say just refer to the linked guide. This will help with optimizing Yuzu for your system, show you how to make save states, load mods, etc

If you have any question or if I did something wrong/inefficiently let me know. Otherwise have fun crackers!