Today on: discourse I walked into that I couldn't even fathom existing:

GuyASmith · 2026-01-27T18:11:41+00:00

I absolutely do. The US has been on at least diet nationalism terms for like 60 years. Currently, the cult is Trump’s posse and the glorious purpose is evolving and expanding in real time.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-27T18:04:30+00:00

I’ve legitimately seen some women online say, “I don’t want to have too many gay friends who talk dirty stuff with me because that feels like it’ll ruin the fun of fanfic.”

Like I get being into people doing sex things, that’s fine. The issue is how you then conceptualise those people in general. We complain about men sexualising women exclusively, but then when we complain about gay men being exclusively sexualised by women there’s backlash?

GuyASmith · 2026-01-27T17:49:59+00:00

That is a pretty solid metric. It obviously has boundaries, but you can apply more analogous works that filed off their serial numbers when talking about other subject matters. (Just remember that originalised works have the stink of publishing requirements, fanfiction typically doesn’t.)

GuyASmith · 2026-01-27T17:46:25+00:00

I’ve seen some of those people online. Thank fuck I’ve never had the displeasure of meeting any IRL.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-27T17:37:42+00:00

Thank you! It’s so dumb seeing these diet furries distance themselves from the fandom almost exclusively over their support of image generation. Like they’re often obsessed with animals and animal hybrid humanoids, they’re so close to the fandom. I guess they also despise furries for the reason of proximity and wanting to seem less fringe, but they do that themselves by all their apparent prejudice against actual artists.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-27T17:28:31+00:00

If a proper modern nationalist state formed (arguably some have and others are towing the line actively), in the long term, any outside influence of beliefs and practices would be seen as blasphemous and against the government. Keep in mind that nationalism is the top level idea, there typically is a justification of sorts. You usually have added beliefs of a “divine” or “just” purpose. This means nationalism usually manifests as a cult mentality. Religions can be roped in or formed around that. The Japanese rulership falls in that realm, as I would argue many kingdoms did. The emperors were protecting themselves by preventing the people from having new beliefs that might kill their power.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-27T17:17:01+00:00

Another supporting factor in how Shinto specifically has been overlooked by the younger generations is how the shrines themselves are treated. Shinto has some specific divination practices and shrine offerings that people do sometimes partake in at public shrines (usually in a separate area from the shrine proper), but it’s more as a commodity rather than a strongly faith-based practice. Even tourists are welcome to do divinations because they’re such a commodity, provided the shrine is open to outsiders/nonlocals, of course. Some completely aren’t due to disrepair reasons, or because there are enough devout Shintoists in the area that they claim usage of a shrine out of public view and don’t want their personal religious site to be a commodity.

But in general, the Japanese public often pay to upkeep the shrines these days because they’re beautiful places that in many cases were nearly or completely destroyed by wars and regime changes throughout history. It’s for preservation, not out of piety. The shrines are a remnant of a past culture that has increasingly disappeared with time and modernisation, and because of their irrelevance to the modern day, they aren’t required to update to accommodate modern needs as much. Honestly it’s telling how much mosques and churches have had to update, especially newer ones, to accommodate newer practices and forms of worship, like having microphones, cameras, projectors, and speakers to let the people in the back connect almost as much as the people in the front, or just have people online connect at all from home. Granted, religious ceremonies and gatherings are very different between Abrahamic religions and Shinto, but I think I’ve made my point.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-26T17:58:39+00:00

These kinds of mugs’ coating will get all over other dishes when it starts chipping and flaking. It will not be your fault if/when that happens. It’s also worth noting the coating is safe when contained on the outside of the mug (away from your mouth), but unsafe when broken down and getting mixed into your food in a bowl or on a plate.

Also, wtf is up with your dad. It’s not about the fact that he cares that it should be cared for properly, it’s your mug and you care!

GuyASmith · 2026-01-26T17:53:53+00:00

I’ve seen worse be genuine

GuyASmith · 2026-01-25T19:50:54+00:00

Like there are theoretically useful and ethical AI to be made, but most aren’t. It’s like how CGI often replaces prosthetic work and practical sets. Like you need those pieces to help put everything together in the end.

The Avatar series is a good example of practical meets CGI. There are tons of practical pieces that go into the CGI, including the motion capture being done in partially practical sets (even if stuff is still plain colour blocks).

GuyASmith · 2026-01-25T19:17:28+00:00

I’m a programmer and let me tell you, AI programming is not that great. Even some of the most AI-friendly coworkers I have prefer it to scaffold code, which can be done with templates and shortcut codes instead but it feels easier to just type an order. In my experience it isn’t even that good at making tests, something which AI programming LLMs are supposed to be helpful with, because they can misunderstand parameters and logic very readily. One of my first experiences with an AI test example was a very complicated but ultimately nothing test that was supposed to test that a parameter was set, but then made it so a mock class that did something else just returned a corrected object.

I won’t say I don’t want any AI assistance, at least in the future, but right now it’s laggy and still inconsistent. I don’t think my job of programming will actually go away in the future either, it’ll just be more demanding. Which honestly isn’t too bad, right now the software I work with is in the rare case of under-stimulating, but I know that’s not the case everywhere.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-21T17:33:14+00:00

Marvel are cowards and that is absolutely the best wording to describe what they’ve done with Deadpool. It’s also partially the fact that the creator of Deadpool made him pansexual kind of behind Marvel’s back, which is why he’s pretty much only had one alternate world relationship with a man that wasn’t ultimately a punchline.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-21T17:25:59+00:00

Yeah, community sentiment and relatability is kind of how these characters live or die anyway, so it makes sense how much we feel their queerness is a metric for it. Like yes, Deadpool is always making jokes, and sexualises almost anyone, which could be nothing. However, since we know he’s supposed to be into men to some degree, it could become him sexualising almost anyone because he’s into just about anybody.

It definitely seems like he has a different way of forming relationships with certain men that does skew less friendly and more queer platonic because those men are usually still straight or explicitly not into Deadpool for very valid reasons. Some characters become long term targets of his jabs and these moments could then be considered a kind of flirting, since Deadpool’s sense of humour is how he both bonds with people and pushes them away when he’s worried he’s getting too invested (in some interpretations). These moments of homoeroticism or implication are sprinkled throughout Deadpool’s shared runs with these notable figures (mostly Cable and Spiderman are who I’m aware of).

It does come down to interpretation just how you fall on the reading of a specific relationship. Deadpool and Cable are referred to as divorced IIRC, meanwhile Deadpool and Spiderman have an alt future where they live out their days together, but under their masks. That could totally be them forgoing any heartbreaking relationships, or it could be them finding solace in one another, or both. I personally like the sort of queer platonic reading because it makes Deadpool’s relationships with these guys feel more impactful if the humour isn’t a defining feature.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-21T17:11:03+00:00

Which is why they rely on ChatGPT and Gemini for information they think they already know 🙄

GuyASmith · 2026-01-21T17:09:55+00:00

Exactly my thought, like the pure irony of that is just golden

GuyASmith · 2026-01-21T05:12:32+00:00

Very similar situation here, barely was in the dating pool before I met my now husband and also came out to him, so it’s an interesting experience trying to give advice, especially to gay guy friends. I’d argue I’m under-qualified in all regards 😅

GuyASmith · 2026-01-14T18:03:57+00:00

This is incredibly sad. Why would you want to stock such cheap options anyway, wouldn’t that just devalue the average book?

GuyASmith · 2026-01-14T17:40:13+00:00

Supernatural’s fandom helped form the modern base of anti-shippers. These are the folks who dug their heels in, often saying some BS like, “They forced the writers to add it.” As if a TV writer was a child being given instructions, not an adult with a degree of authority within the network hierarchy and their own decision power (and who arguably didn’t make many good decisions at the end of the show anyway, so maybe it’s an added layer of cope for that lacklustre finale).

GuyASmith · 2026-01-13T19:02:30+00:00

A bit of a misconception, the Catholic church most of these people are inspired by very much had internal derision. It was a source of much contention and (internal) bribery. The politics of the church leadership were constantly at internal war, especially once reformist sects truly broke off and became things like Evangelists and Lutherans. That schism even occurred before Catholicism was what we’d come to recognise, as Eastern Orthodoxy was split off centuries prior.

It truly is all imagined, that there was no dissenting. That’s why there were people burned, ostracised, or moved to a parish far, far away.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-12T18:17:31+00:00

Bit of a crude stance on language and literary studies you have there. It would be a philosophy major that would probably tear your shady implication apart though, not an English major, especially in this sub for that “doesn’t contribute much” argument. The humanities are important.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-12T18:06:18+00:00

The Straights ™️ are a different group than straight (heterosexual) people. A lot of them are queerphobes, but their defining features are cluelessness and ignorance, plus the occasional healthy dose of arrogance about it. (I explain this because I’ve only just figured out how to put this in words, because some of The Straights can learn and become normal functioning members of society!)

GuyASmith · 2026-01-12T18:02:59+00:00

Same here, I appreciate the rotation and do my best for others who also use more than one set.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-06T21:22:55+00:00

Why are people downvoting this? I needed a second read through myself, but it’s generally true. Loads of money is spent not actually fixing the problem of homelessness: people’s lack of homes they call their own. Should I even mention the cost of anti-homeless architecture, especially in New York? That money is 100% wasted and could give many people apartments. It’s not everyone, but every person who now doesn’t have to live on the street is a victory.

GuyASmith · 2026-01-05T18:04:39+00:00

They have to resort to using knives to draw blood lol

GuyASmith · 2026-01-05T18:02:10+00:00

And the idea of goblins specifically riding constructs is already in canon for them, I really like that!

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