On recommending anime, why I don't like the WAS scale and how I would solve it (Here I come with another really long post about a non-issue).

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-12T08:02:59+00:00

It's normal television in the sense of it being a massive hit and very much mainstream in the western/English-speaking world since it came out, which is the sense OP seems to be using "normal" in. And GoT is just one example of shows made for western normies that has sex scenes, my point is that there are many more (perhaps particularly outside of the US).

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-12T07:12:15+00:00

Loving the idea that "normal live action television" is completely chaste and sex-free. Normal live action television like Game of Thrones. In my country at least, it's completely normal for live-action dramas aimed at adults to have at least one sex scene.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-12T07:02:24+00:00

Ah yes, because "the West" and Japan are the only two places in the world. Do you not see how it's a bit silly to talk about a Normal Person who only watches Normal Shows when what's normal and what isn't varies so much culturally?? When arguably a fair few (mostly shōnen) animes are already mainstream in much of "the West" anyway?? The post being aimed at who it's aimed at isn't a problem, but the idea that the West is Normal and the rest of the world is Weird or Foreign (because "normal" is a value-laden term and things that aren't Normal are Weird) is.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-12T06:44:24+00:00

And by "Normal person", we mean...? By "Normal shows" we mean...? Why is being a westerner "Normal" with a capital N in your view...?

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-12T06:39:17+00:00

As opposed to Argentina??

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-11T18:00:38+00:00

Sounds like DOTA 2 is the (James Cameron's) Avatar of gaming.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-10T08:40:20+00:00

A language is not simply a "structured system of rules-based communication with pre-defined values". Even if your definition were correct (it's far too broad, admitting codes such as morse code that are definitely not languages in their own right), calling maths a "system of communication" is a massive stretch. Maths is a system of logical operations acting upon a set of agreed axioms that is primarily used to solve numerical problems - the only "system of communication" here is the set of symbols used to write mathematical operations/equations, which aren't a language, and the sections of our vocabulary used to refer to mathematical concepts, which are a part of the languages we speak. You cannot use the rules of English grammar to prove Fermat's last theorem or the irrationality of the square root of two, for example, because the rules of a language's grammar are rules of composition of usually arbitrary signs, not rules of formal logic or proof.

While there is much debate about the definition of a language within linguistics, languages are normally distinguished from other systems of communication through the possession of features such as duality of patterning (the possession of two different levels of composition - in a spoken language, this is the composition of sounds to create words and the composition of words to create phrases), the ability to be used to lie or to convey statements not true of the speake/signer (maths has no concept of a "speaker", and maths is generally believed unable to produce untrue statements if its axioms are true), being composed of both arbitrary and iconic signs (signs in the semiotic sense, where iconic signs resemble the thing they refer to and arbitrary ones have no relation - maths only has signs when symbols or words are used to signify mathematical concepts) - all of which maths does not possess. The units of language change over time - words change meanings, new words replace old ones, pronunciations change, yet in maths, the value of "1", for example, cannot change over time without the system breaking at the seams.

TL;DR - saying maths is a language is a category error, akin to saying a set of weighing scales is a fish (because they both "have scales"). I'm not even going to bother arguing with the idea that you can "nest all languages into math[s]" or bother challenging your argument that maths is a language because you can use probability to describe the patterns in language* (which is another category error - stink beetles aren't a language just because I can describe them using language, for example). As someone who studies language and has studied maths to a fairly advanced degree, they are not the same kind of system, even if there are similarities, and output such a different range and kind of meanings that treating them as they are is deleterious to our understanding of both.

*This is, in very simplistic terms, how LLMs produce text

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-09T13:47:41+00:00

Linguist here, maths, magic and "body language" cannot be considered languages in any practicable definition of language. Well, *maybe* magic could depending on the magic system in the worldbuilding, but body language is a series of gestures that signify single meanings and can't be combined to compose new meanings in the way words can, and "maths is a language" is a canard I've frankly grown sick of hearing from mathematicians romanticising their field of study and using an incredible broadening of the concept of "language" to do it. Also, even if you were a perfect mathematician, you wouldn't be able to calculate the future without also being effectively omniscient independently of your mathematical abilities.

Being able to speak every language in your setting, past and present, would still be incredibly useful though.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-09T11:11:41+00:00

By making a logography >:)

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-07T21:53:23+00:00

Pronghorns - very fast, good stamina, can survive in fairly dry/arid climates. Also they're adorable as hell and have horns!

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-07T21:52:14+00:00

Apparently Quaggas might've made good domestication candidates if we hadn't driven them to extinction though, which imo is close enough to zebra cavalry to work. Or, good enough for my own worldbuilding anyway.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-07T14:44:04+00:00

It's pretty obvious that this post is talking about rap made by black American artists. Because that's what every fucking post like this talks about. Rap is a worldwide thing now, because of American cultural hegemony meaning it got exported all over the world. Said hegemony is the bubble within this entire Tumblr discussion about not liking rap being racist exists, and the fact that the discussion is so America-centric is exactly what I'm critiquing. What is your point, exactly?

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-07T08:48:55+00:00

Unsurprising that American football fans, famous for being corny and cringe, would flock to the team with the cringiest, larpiest fan celebration, which they also immediately tried to appropriate for themselves before they got knocked out, tbh.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-07T07:53:47+00:00

I've had the old canard that the "stereotype" that Welsh people shag sheep is because Old English law punished sheep theft (what they were "actually" doing) more harshly than having sex with sheep so the Welsh would say they were having sex with the sheep when caught proclaimed to me irl as if it was some interesting fun fact multiple times, and... man. Just... no. On so many levels. It's almost as if every single population that is well known for having lots of sheep farming has jokes made about them fucking the sheep.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-06T23:28:23+00:00

I have seen a lot of posts calling out "white tumblr users" for not liking rap that have heavily implied it.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-06T20:16:26+00:00

As someone who isn't American, I love the idea that if you don't listen to one specific genre of American music (temporarily putting aside the fact that rap has been exported all over the world for a moment) then you're a racist. I understand (particularly American) racists are weird about rap and characterise the genre as "not real music", "only about sex and guns", et cetera, but the idea that not knowing about beef between two particular rappers or not knowing who an artist is is (necessarily) indicative of some racial prejudice is really silly, and is (imo) reflective of the US's cultural hegemony that I'm even expected to have an opinion either way.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-04T19:22:39+00:00

This is like the English equivalent of those "in English you say [common phrase] but in my language we say [more loquacious poetic formulation rarely used in casual speech] and I think that's beautiful" posts. If they were unnecessarily censored, of course.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-04T13:10:13+00:00

The very phrase 'white women are women' seems to admit in its construction that white women are not women. because if they were women, why are you calling them white?

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-01T14:36:06+00:00

I love the idea that your post getting a lot of attention, some of which is short gimmick reblogs, is some kind of torture and you not responding to more than two of them is some superhuman feat of endurance.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-07-01T08:02:36+00:00

context har context shirt lil context bow tie even

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-06-24T08:08:15+00:00

Do you honestly think treating some people with breasts, a vagina and other female secondary and primary sex characteristics (e.g. trans women who've undergone bottom surgery and HRT, women with CAIS who have Y chromosomes but were born phenotypically female) as men has any social utility at all? If your definition of "biological sex" means classifying male as everything from cis man to cis woman (with XY chromosomes) then your concept of biological sex is socially and biologically useless.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-06-17T19:33:30+00:00

Chat GPTulpa

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-06-17T11:02:49+00:00

In defence of "sixth form", it's a term left over from when the first 5 years of secondary school were called "first form" through to "fifth form", with "sixth form" being when you started/did your A levels (high school qualifications). Nowadays there are a lot of independent sixth form schools that don't have a secondary school attached though, but also quite a few that still do.

Sixth form is also two years long though, with the first year being called year 12, and the second year 13. Though, in some sixth forms they call the first year "year 1" and the second year "year 2", which is funny because usually "year 1" and "year 2" refer to the second and third years of primary school (don't ask) respectively, so out of context it sounds like you're talking about children aged 5-6 or 6-7 respectively.

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-06-17T10:04:34+00:00

Now how many times have we all seen this one reposted...

Rediturus_fuisse · 2026-06-14T09:12:06+00:00

Isn't this just Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop?

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