u/BipedalUniverse

is anyone watching tennis? absolutely shattered a certain someone is in the Wimbledon final

also, what’s everyone’s opinion on possibly allowing some off topic posts in the “off season”? I kinda love everyone’s takes here to the point where it would maybe be fun to talk about some other stuff in depth too. thoughts?

what is everyone up to? reading playing thinking writing about? i’m currently reading up on that catholic/pope beef, very amusing (as someone who knows very little about the pope etc). anyone here grew up catholic or have some more insight? i’m thoroughly entertained!

ps has anyone read The Traitor Baru Cormorant?

Pretty much what I said. I’ve often thought about this theme and how much the dragons’ sentience complicates this reading - do you guys think it was “what would magical nukes be, I guess since it’s fantasy I’ll use dragons” or do you think there was more thought put behind it where the magical nature and sentience add an intentional layer to it?

How do you critique (in a neutral sense, so more like examine, analyze etc) this part of it?

By allusions I’m talking about the general idea/allegory/theme of a faction having weapons that pretty much by default makes them a superpower bc they have weapons of mass destruction

Or am I just overthinking it and it’s not that deep?

one…hundred…and…two…degrees here today and tomorrow, and no AC

what’s everyone doing, reading, thinking, playing etc? i’m just melting, and semi watching “The Agency”, might watch S2 of The Night Manager after

btw is anyone watching HotD? i have a real love hate relationship with gurm for so many reasons. really interested in other peoples takes. at the end of the day i’m just a sci fi fantasy junkie (and actual irl langdon with drugs except i’ve never stolen meds from a hospital), but i love talking about the meta of it, its subgenres and also lately the idea of reactionary fantasy and pseudo-medievalism. drop your takes if you have any of those!

I haven’t watched it yet bc i was burned out on The Discourse (tm) but wanted to post it here anyway

edited: meant to say Fantasy or Sci Fi or Sci Fantasy!

just watched the whalefall trailer and went down a sperm whale rabbit hole after having been down an orca rabbit hole.

if anyone watched the magicians, there was a time loop episode that has whales being magicians, that was so cool.

i searched the sub and got some good recs that more generally deal with ocean ecology, but does anything come to mind where whales as pods and individuals (!) play a significant narrative role?

you know what to do.

what are you watching writing reading playing doing thinking?

sheesh I barely slept bc this bullshit had my heart pounding all night.

Anyway what’s everyone reading, writing, watching, playing, doing, thinking? My tennis fixation has continued and unfortunately there’s a domestic abuser in the French Open final :(

I didn't want to drag adorabellequeerart through the mud but since they're insisting on lying about why they were kicked off the mod team, here goes. I'm also confused why they're even trying to lie when we have the whole exhaustive and exhausting chat log receipts of them antagonizing the other two mods.

Their behavior got so bad that one mod (the mod other than me and adorabelle) left and messaged me to tell me it was because of them. That was after several discussions where both of us were at our wits end on how to deal with their passive aggressiveness, repeatedly making huge changes without talking to us about it first, and then holding those changes against us as a sign that they were somehow in the right, as well as constantly making backhanded comments and being snide and snarky for no reason, as well as being gatekeepy and opaque about those changes (as opposed to not make huge infrastructure changes without our agreement).

Predictably they're now holding up all the changes they made unilaterally (that literally no one asked for...) as a reason why they shouldn't have been kicked off the team and using alts to harass me about it. But if there are three mods, and one of those mods is repeatedly stressing out the founder and the other mod to the point that we're having to peace out from the chat entirely it's not about the frequency of being on the sub and commenting and making unasked for changes to its infrastructure, it's about the fact that they just don't give a fuck about discussing things as a team and think they alone get to decide what happens in this sub, and completely disregard the well-being of their fellow mods. (There were also a handful of users who had messaged me about interactions with them in threads, but tbh that to me wouldn’t have been enough for removal, so I just defended them back then even when I didn’t agree with them deleting comments or banning people)

All three of us were neurodivergent and queer here, but it turns out that's not enough obviously if your communication skills drive away the other 2 mods.

At some point it was too many snide remarks that didn't make sense when either of us tried to discuss or solve conflict, such as taking digs at a mod's temporary unavailability despite the fact that they knew she was on the opposite timezone. It just became untenable because the very foundation of communication isn't there for them. Had it been just me struggling with them it would have been one thing but the fact that the other mod had to leave the sub and team because they were so upset about how this mod was acting made it a much bigger issue, and one that I think would just keep on causing problems.

For now, I'm personally open to personal inquiries for anyone who wants a rundown, but rest assured, this decision didn't come out of nowhere and wasn't just made on a whim. I pretty much was drawing it out for way too long and trying to make it work regardless.

The whole thing was WAY too reminiscent of a certain type of interaction a lot of you will recognize too from everyday life probably. I made this sub because being a queer Black woman was frequently frustrating on the other sub, dealing with a lot of fragility over there and people who think it’s the 60s and misogyny and racism etc just means explicitly using slurs and nothing else (conveniently).

I'm not someone who takes drastic actions like that, but genuinely the raised heart rates these interactions have been causing both me and my other co-mod just got to be too much. I definitely didn't do it to deal with foolishness and being painted as the aggressor in a situation that has been shakey for weeks now and resulted in a lot of drawn out arguments that went nowhere. And that I only eventually acted on definitively because another person was affected to the point that they just had to peace out completely (thankfully they came back when I told them I had finally kicked adorabelle off the mod team)

what are you reading, watching, writing, thinking?

I just went on a Tennis hyperfixation and learned about how Monica Seles was stabbed and how that guy didn’t even go to prison. I hate it here

Also I can’t believe the World Cup is actually happening. Not like any previous WC was a paragon of virtue or anything but…idk this one just seems so absurd on so many levels

whatever doesn’t fit the sub or you don’t think deserves its own post but you still wanna share: drop it here

I’ve been playing Subnautica and for some reason watching that Athlete A documentary about that p*do Larry Nassar and the athletes he abused. not triggering at allll lallalallalalallalaa

also love how oil pastels basically melt in the summer

random question: have any of you ever done competitive sports? the psychology of that is so wild to me. the pressure is unfathomable at the pro level

one, two, you know what to do! whatever ails, confounds or delights you but doesn’t fit the sub’s usual parameters- this is the thread for it!

you know what it is…

personally I’m transfixed by this Keegan Michael-Key and his wife thing….anyone?

This week’s random poll: what do you spend most of your free time with? Vote and then elaborate in the comments. Personally I can’t wait to watch Season 3 of The Robby /s

Share or vent about anything. Even if it’s about the horrific news. Or if you have anything show related you don’t think deserves its own post.

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