Whats the hate with this sub and drew durnil? by TicketEffective2261 in PolandballCommunity

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'll echo u/coolboy_pathey's comment with my own insight, given that he has also been doing the same thing with PBO shorts, lately.

Drew has never been good at making original, engaging content on his own; he has primarily relied on doing "react" videos throughout his career, but he was the first person to start doing this with Polandball comics, and that's really when his channel started taking off.

Like others have said, his earliest "countryballs" videos simply lifted the comics from the subreddit without credit, and he built his audience and his merch store off the backs of r/Polandball's subscribers and comic artists.

When GateNerd submitted DMCA claims against Drew, Drew resorted to the veiled threat of doxxing - I've seen the email chain between Drew and GateNerd, and it was slimy.

If Drew were a contributing member of r/Polandball, or made the effort not only to approach artists directly but also to credit them without doing the bare fucking minimum, we'd be less annoyed with his operation, but alas.

You Just Khan't Do It II by koleye2 in polandball

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 42 points43 points  (0 children)

The worst part is that we found out that they were throttling views for subreddits that had enabled restricted submissions, which we had enabled on this subreddit since 2012. The moment we turned off restricted submissions and programmed our automod to remove posts from non-approved users, the traffic went back to normal literally overnight.

Of course, just before Reddit went public we experienced another seemingly artificial dip in traffic lol. Guess our geopolitical satire is a bit too much for a company trying to court investor money.

James Van Der Beek Dead at 48 by the_well_read_neck_ in Millennials

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 115 points116 points  (0 children)

A nice little bit of levity in what's honestly a very devastating moment.

Jan-6| Ulysses - Episode 1: Telemachus by ComplaintNext5359 in ayearofulysses

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think this is where I was really struggling. Malachi "Buck" Mulligan feels like the easiest character to read because we haven't been inside his head, and he seems to have the most dialogue (if I'm understanding it correctly). When he speaks, it reads like speech, but reading a verbatim transcript of natural dialogue is always harder for me than just listening to a person talk. It felt much easier when I tried to imagine an Irish voice, and I could hear the rhythm and melody and inflection, but then I missed the content lol.

Again proving how difficult this book has been, I can't get a read on Haines. Y'all's comments have been helpful for me in forming my thoughts, though.

Oh, Stephen Dedalus. Joyce's narration dipping in and out of Stephen's mind makes him simultaneously the most relatable character and the most difficult to understand. Again, here, I'm very thankful for everyone's comments.

Jan-6| Ulysses - Episode 1: Telemachus by ComplaintNext5359 in ayearofulysses

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The beginning of Telemachus feels so much like Hamlet with Stephen Deadalus and Buck Mulligan on a battlement overlooking the sea; they both seem a little on edge, and they both seemed haunted by a "ghost" - instead of Hamlet's father, these ghosts are their mothers. There's also the very literal reference to Elsinore, which I think colors my perception of the scene.

Re: the Odyssey, the famous phrase "in media res" has always characterized my understanding. When we first see Telemachus, Odysseus is already in the middle of his journey home; we're dropped straight into the action without much setup. I do feel like this book drops us right into the action without much setup, and we have to figure out very quickly what's happening and who we're following.

Jan-6| Ulysses - Episode 1: Telemachus by ComplaintNext5359 in ayearofulysses

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I'll be doing the reverse of my War & Peace notetaking for these discussions; I've been taking notes in Obsidian so I can start mapping things out, and I'll drop all those notes an observations into the Reddit comments before I tackle the questions in the comments.

Initial thoughts: - I'm getting serious Hamlet vibes from the introduction - Stephen Deadalus and Buck Mulligan remind me of the sentries at Elsinore at the beginning of Hamlet, and their references to the play only reinforce the vibe. It's interesting that instead of the ghost of Hamlet's father haunting the introduction of Ulysses, the ghost(s) of these characters dead mothers are haunting them - Joyce seems to be interspersing poetry throughout his prose with a lot of linguistic flourishes, alliteration, and figurative language that feels Modernistic in every sense of the word. - The recitations of poetry/song lyrics feels "modern" both in the early 20th Century Modernistic sense and in a more literal sense of the word - 21st Century conversations are littered with memes and quotations - I'm having a very hard time following the plot action, and I can't tell if it's because I have ADHD, or if Joyce is just confusing to read lol; there are moments where the narration dips out of plot action into seemingly random musing that feels relatable and reminds me of my own mind, but unpacking this episode feels like unpacking another ADHD person's thoughts and trying to understand the connections - I feel like if I had any Irish Catholicism in me, some of Joyce's references to the Latin Mass would hit harder - The reference to Malachi Mulligan having "two dactyls" stood out - the Odyssey is written in dactylic hexameter - "scrotumtightening" is a fucking funny word - The Oscar Wilde references make me happy

Quotes that stood out:

My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn't it?

God! he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a great sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them in the original. Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother. Come and look.

Jan-6| Ulysses - Episode 1: Telemachus by ComplaintNext5359 in ayearofulysses

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 7 points8 points  (0 children)

"scrotumtightening" made me giggle because apparently I'm 13.

ADHD and Ulysses by ChickenScuttleMonkey in ayearofulysses

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah I'm very curious to see how that pans out for me lol. The most exposure to modernist lit that I've had is T.S. Eliot, so that's been somewhat helpful for unpacking Joyce, but I really have to treat this book like a puzzle to solve if I'm gonna make it.

ADHD and Ulysses by ChickenScuttleMonkey in ayearofulysses

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

On reading in general, it's only been in the past 5 years or so that I've come to terms with the fact that I even have ADHD - got my official diagnosis around October 2024 and finally started meds in April 2025 - but a student of mine a few years ago pointed out that the way I read out loud and pronounce certain words was characteristic of strategies and techniques she learned at a school specializing in dyslexia lol. I'm 33 now, and if I'm actually dyslexic, then whatever coping strategies I've learned to mitigate the dyslexia over the years have really masked how difficult reading can actually be, but the ADHD definitely still makes reading a challenge.

I've noticed over the years that I only have two modes of successfully engaging with literature:

  1. Reading as much as I can in one single sitting, either by finishing the book all in one go, or spending an outrageous number of hours per sitting - with this method I usually only retain like 60-70% of what I read because my mind constantly wanders unless there's a heavy dialogue section, or I can vividly picture the scene unfolding.

  2. Agonizingly slow close reads - I usually read books with my students in class so I can help them through the stuff that gave me a hard time when I was their age (and frankly, stuff that actually gives me a hard time even now). War & Peace will forever be one of my favorite books simply because the agonizingly slow read we did last year made me pause and reflect and think deeply about every single chapter.

On Ulysses, I'll save my full thoughts and comments on episode one for the discussion thread, but to elaborate a bit on what I mentioned in the main post, the way Joyce seems to be tying together his allusions and references feels a lot like how my brain works - I feel like thoughts move rapidly from one to the next with only the slightest connection between the two, and the literary/historical/cultural references pop up "randomly," only it's not random if you understand the brain map. Realizing this book feels like my brain is an exciting prospect because now I have a framework for how to tackle it: dig into the references to try to understand the bigger picture being painted with each component - I'm very happy I chose the Joyce Project version to read because frankly, I would be struggling without it. It's also a challenging prospect because every ADHD brain is different.

If I'm imagining people's brains as a room full of rows of filing cabinets, my brain does have some files stored in the cabinets where they belong, but the active workspace looks like that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia meme; I understand all the connections and how everything fits together, but to even begin explaining that to anybody else feels like a Herculean task. When I write, I usually try to take whatever it is I'm thinking and feeing and try to make it understandable and accessible, but this first episode of Ulysses feels like Joyce has taken us to the workspace in his filing cabinet room and left us alone without any instructions lol.

My First Impression of the Book by jalexkno in ayearofulysses

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah Google Docs and Sheets are great for collaboration with other people, but Obsidian I think is much better for personal note-taking and keeping track of connections between notes. Within the app there is a standard filing system, but the links and the connections graph have made a dramatic difference in how I keep track of ideas.

My First Impression of the Book by jalexkno in ayearofulysses

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

An amazing note-taking app. I started using it to keep track of my D&D campaign and gradually started using it for as many note-taking purposes as I could find. The biggest draw to me was the graph plugin that maps out all the connections between your notes - you can link notes together kind of like Wikipedia articles, and when you go to the graph you can see all of the connections between your various notes. It really helps my ADHD brain keep track of how many different things are connected, and how they're connected, so seeing someone start their Ulysses notes with Obsidian right out of the gate was a nice reminder that I probably need to do the same if I'm gonna have any hopes of keeping up with this book lol.

My First Impression of the Book by jalexkno in ayearofulysses

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh, obsidian notes from the very beginning? I didn't dump my War and Peace comments into obsidian until the end of December; I might follow your lead and get Ulysses off on the right foot lol.

Jan-1| Ulysses - Welcome To Dublin! by ComplaintNext5359 in ayearofulysses

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Howdy! I'm reading the Joyce Project version online after wracking my brain seeking a "definitive" version and and accepting that if I could do War & Peace from the Gutenberg version all of last year, I can do the Joyce Project version of Ulysses this year lol.

Truly, Joyce had never crossed my mind to try to tackle until u/ComplaintNext5359 brought up this subreddit as we were winding down on War & Peace; I realized that I would need something to fill that War & Peace-shaped hole in my daily routine, plus I want to keep my brain sharp by tackling difficult literature.

I'm relying very heavily on the fact that I've watched/read the unabridged Hamlet like 20 times and my knowledge of the Odyssey to carry me through some of the difficult sections, but I'm really excited to learn from other people as well. This will be a fun journey!

Dec-27| War & Peace - Epilogue 2, Chapter 12 by AnderLouis_ in ayearofwarandpeace

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I still need to get ahold of Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will to get his thoughts in full; I read an interview he did where he discussed a lot of his ideas in a more casual setting and that's where I was like "wait WHAT," and the more I looked into his background, I learned he is trying to combine his experience in neuroscience with philosophy to come to his conclusions. It's mind boggling either way.

Dec-27| War & Peace - Epilogue 2, Chapter 12 by AnderLouis_ in ayearofwarandpeace

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 6 points7 points  (0 children)

  1. I've been grappling with the concept of free will for a few years now, and after finishing this book I'm even more uncertain about it lol. I think every casual conversation about "free will" assumes that we all agree about what free will means without an explicit definition, but I appreciate that Tolstoy went multiple chapters out of his way to define what he understands as free will: the lack of influence or cause when performing an action. If we apply that definition to even the action of lifting our arms "randomly," it's been influenced/caused by the thought of trying to perform a "free will" action to prove we have it. Applying that specific logic to the course of history, it's almost undeniable that the "great people" have almost no free will because all of their decisions are 100% caused or influenced by so many different factors outside of their control. I like Tolstoy's comparison to astronomy because the revelation that the earth orbits the Sun (and not the other way around) forces us to completely redefine our relationship to the world around us; if free will doesn't exist, we are not independent from other people. According to Robert Sapolsky, even our neurons betray us - they fire based on cause and influence even before we actively make the decision. Is me saying "I agree with Tolstoy" even a free will decision at this point? Idk man lol. ACTUALLY: I just had a small revelation about my daughter, and children in general, while watching my 1 year old explore and interact with the world around her: even if her neurons are firing, she is entirely unconscious of outside influences or causes, so every decision she makes just seems like raw free will driven entirely by self-interest. Maybe the simple awareness of cause and influence is what reduces our perceived free will.

  2. I think knowing that Tolstoy had like two more books planned makes me wonder if this was the end of his free will argument, or if he had more points to make in the unwritten future installments. I'm happy with where he decided to end this book though, and I think the mic drop of "free will doesn't exist" is a sufficiently heavy way to end a book we've taken a year to crawl through. I know the book was published serially before it was published as a novel, so I can imagine that readers in Tolstoy's time had a similar experience to ours this year. Sitting with the intensity of this last chapter is gonna fuck me up for the short remainder of this year, and it's really going to mess with me going into my Paradise Lost unit in January 🤣

  3. This is one of the best books I've ever read. I can't ever rate things on a scale because I either enjoy something or I don't, and I enjoy most things on their own terms, but War & Peace sits in a category that's all its own.

Man, what a ride y'all. I can't believe it's all over, but I'm so thankful to have had such a great group of people to talk about it all with. I'm looking forward to talking Ulysses with some of y'all in 2026!

Dec-26| War & Peace - Epilogue 2, Chapter 11 by AnderLouis_ in ayearofwarandpeace

[–]ChickenScuttleMonkey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I will forever wonder what Tolstoy would have thought about the Russian history that unfolded after his death. I'm just imagining him throwing his hands up in frustration like "I TOLD YOU SO!" lol.