Real lenses cannot perfectly bring all light rays into focus. The circle of least confusion is the smallest spot of best focus any lens can produce.

The reactionary backlash to media analysis is a natural part of the wider "fascists hate anything intellectual" phenomenon, btw.

Wanting you to ignore the politics of Star Wars comes from the same exact place that wants you to substitute the germ theory of disease with the 'sickness comes from failure to be a good christian and most people who claim to be sick are just faking anyway' myth.

To take a quote from Dan Olson:

this is literally what triumph of the will was referring to. as fascist movements gain power and build their crank coalition, they smooth out the contradictions inherent to making a mass movement out of privileging a minority by elevating magical thinking to a mass social ritual.

total war as practiced by the soviets and allies was an economic program of subordinating productive capacity to national requirements, because the people running the show were fundamentally rational. you did aluminum drives because you needed more planes than refining could provide, you dug victory gardens because farm workers were being drafted, war bonds was understood as a method for the government to finance the war. you made sacrifices because the government outlined what they were for and why they were needed.

total war as envisioned and practiced by the nazis was essentially a spiritual affair. 'wholly mobilizing the populace' was an obsession, because there was this belief that the material needs of the war effort could be overcome passively by a sufficiently motivated population, one would would dynamically make all necessary sacrifices and thus naturally overcome limitation. they genuinely, genuinely believed that victory was assured against any odds because sufficient willpower would overcome anything.

the nazi obsession with superweapons was a direct manifestation of this; as the war became more dire and it became clear nothing short of a miracle would salvage it, it became the doctrine of the nazi party that this miracle would be manifested by the brilliants and determination of the german people, as missiles and jet engines and radar death rays or whatever, and it was a thing people believed even as artillery shells were coming down on berlin.

this form of thinking recasts everything into a simple binary functioning on a single factor; there is success, which comes from sufficient willpower and belief, and there is failure, which is always the deliberate betrayal of a coward.

and it fucked them constantly. they made non-stop errors predicated on the belief that doing the same thing again but even harder would eventually work because it had to, it only failed the last time because the people who did it were weak-willed. they started the largest war in history because their strategic thinking all eventually boiled down to 'only bitches lose'

you can already see the trump administration doing this exact thing. the shamelessness it enables is how they make early progress; their refusal to back down lets them bully their way through systems that function on norms and mutual agreement, they score victories by doing the kind of shit that every right-thinking person thinks would be too stupid to try, and it convinces them they're invincible. but sooner or later, they run out of road, and will grind themselves down to nothing trying to smash reality into the shape they desire.

we have to stop them as soon as possible, because they will take us all with them if they can.

Apolitically killing bandits and savages in my video game with no messages

do you fuck with my unwritten story

do you fuck with the weird guy i made

web design class assignment to make a bad webpage

web design class unanimously voted to give me an award for this today

Watching little kids interact is interesting because sometimes you will see one, utterly fixated on some goal, shove aside one of their peers or siblings, knocking them straight on their ass—and of course, this causes a ruckus, with the offended party rushing to the nearest adult and getting a lot of attention, and provoking a scolding reaction toward the offender. But the offender has no idea what’s going on; they don’t really have the awareness to connect their inconsiderate action to the disruption. And you can see them get irritated, staring down the kid who’s getting all the attention, seeing *them* as the reason they’re getting in trouble. You can see them thinking (the primitive, two-year-old equivalent of) “I can’t believe that asshole had the nerve to be in my way *and* to get upset when I knocked him over.”

And a lot of people never really outgrow this.

and idk, this may sound like i'm being glib about how people i dislike are toddlers, but i really do mean it. a solid 10-20% of the population seems to fail to develop a theory of mind in life that amounts even to a totally mercenary set of expectations for stuff like "if i walk up to this kid and grab the toy out of his hand, he might punch me in the nose; he will definitely be pissed off." just flabbergasted that when they treat someone like shit, that person has the absolute gall to get upset. and maybe some of this has to do with the way we societies teach people to selectively empathize with some kinds of people and not others. but some people treat everyone like this. they treat their family like this! they develop whole politics or theologies to explain why you're not allowed to ever be mad at them, and they can do whatever they want forever.

if the Black Panthers were reading theory with people who the white supremacist state attempted to keep illiterate, I think theory is a lot more accessible than some folks would have you believe

libs will get online and say “leftists are classist for expecting people to read theory. obviously poor people are too stupid to read it” and sincerely think theyre woke

i wonder if this whole Calling Typical Misogyny "Porn Addiction" thing wasn't just a successful psyop to shift feminist critique into a right wing framework i.e. trying to make it about "modern degeneracy" and thus paralyzing discourse on the root issue

Training the Squire.

She took a certain swordtok channel talking about dual daggers as a bad weapon choice as a challenge.

This was a clip from her first time fencing using two daggers against me with my greatsword.

Somehow, after multiple attempts, she got the angle of the parry just right, and parried my sword, while stabbing me in the armpit.

Later, she managed this...

And a few other plays in which she hooked my sword with her off-hand dagger, before stabbing me.

She's got a lot more to work on, but she's determined to make "dual dagger combat" viable for the girlies.

I hope she succeeds, rooting for her

She's only just started with this, so she's really carving her own path on it. So far, she has a few moments of brilliance amidst failures, but that's what we both expected for her 1st/2nd time ever trying it.

Give her a year or two, and I wouldn't be surprised if she was able to do this the way Booktok girlies imagine their heroines.

I'm gonna be honest, there's a reason I don't talk about Sellsword Arts, and it's mainly because I just don't like them as I find them obnoxious. That's not a condemnation of people watching them, I just don't enjoy them.

The other reason is that they know just enough to give an opinion that is entrenched in absolutist HEMA ideology with no room for experimentation or nuance, or in stage combat. I can't fault the latter, I don't do stage combat, so it's not something I can comment upon. But the rigidity of HEMA can bother me increasingly as it stifles development and informed speculation where we lack information, or takes the written word as gospel in a way that is somewhat difficult to reconcile with the reality of practise.

This means that I try to avoid their content, as it often starts with a position which is fairly well researched by people in HEMA, and devolves into David making blanket statements without any nuance. And that's when he's talking about well researched content. His video on axes being generally bad weapons was outright incorrect in almost all aspects, to the point a member of the group I'm in (who is something of an expert on axes, having recognised the lack of info and put years of study into actually learning how to make them work) addressed the topic.

Similarly, my squire is a dagger enthusiast, and she knows she's going to be at a disadvantage for it. She still manages to win more often than most people in the same position, and actually fighting her with a dagger against dagger especially is a losing battle. So of course, she heard "dual daggers doesn't work", and we decided we'd test it.

Right off the bat, we have some issues with how David approached the topic. First, in his video, he mostly spends time running blindly in, not parrying or binding, then claims it won't work. Compare with the clips of Squire Jess entering with a parry, and using the second dagger to attack into the opening underneath...

We've concluded that dual daggers (so far) is certainly not an ideal selection for combat, but also that (1) it is possible and can definitely be used to fight other lightly armoured opponents. And that (2) given practise, dual daggers can make an effective response to other larger weapons. It's also worth pointing out that from my perspective, dual daggers is up there with giant sword: not always the most practical choice, but it is a power fantasy for the target audience, and certainly feasible within a proper context. That's not even mentioning the use of dual short blades in, say, Kali.

So I hope Squire Jess and I can help support the Booktok and fantasy girlies that want to imagine their fighting style working, because Squire Jess is a 5ft-nuthin' girl half my weight and size, who regularly stabs me and throws me to the floor. Which I take as a point of pride—after all, I taught her!

I've done a lot of stage combat, and especially in writing and performances I'll admit that while I think a healthy dose of realism is good to ground things, power fantasies are fun to explore for a reason.

I also wholeheartedly agree with the stance that being too rigid in foundational points kills the ability to explore and grow. Foundations should always be a starting point to build on - and yeah, maybe not everything you explore ends up being good, but you never know what discoveries there are to make along the way. And that's part of the joy and art of things like this.

Obviously it makes sense that dual daggers is going to be at a disadvantage in a lot of situations. But the power fantasy of it is exactly - being at a disadvantage, and being able to find ways to use it anyway. To find the advantages others might overlook. I think the comparison to great weapons is perfect in that regard.

All of that is to say - I love seeing people approach something that is cool and fantastical from the stance of 'Is it possible, how can we make it more reliable, what can make this work, what can we learn from it?' as opposed to a stance of condemnation.

An absolutely valid and based take, thank you for adding your input to this! :)

Take a mental health day. Make yourself a nice hot drink, curl up in your nest, and lay an egg or three.

Dead Kennedys

The Starlite Ballroom, North Hollywood, CA (1983-12-31)

Network (1976, written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet)

“Yeah but like you probably at least use chatgpt for—” let me stop you right there. I don’t even know what chatgpt is, software wise. Is it a desktop program, a website, an app? No fucking idea.

Don’t have any desire to find out, either.