There's some context required, to understand the cultural implications of various conflicts--the novel does revolve around a comparison between the titular Cossack's society and Russian Society--but it's strong regardless.

Cossacks, Tolstoy. One of my favorite books ever written, extremely short--probably around ~150 pages or so.

arms-crossed bear award captures the moment

Top 5 twitter mutual, I've realized how many good posters there are on that site.

The Gamera films are my bread and butter, loved those things as a kid. Haven't watched one in years, though. Kind of like eating plain bread with butter.

well maybe the liberals would agree but she didn't do anything wrong, she was defending herself.

Oh goodness me, will it cause adverse effects?

I don't really have a take as to whether the US's vaccine rollout is good or not, gonna be all fair. I'm immunocompromised, and even though open season is in just like two weeks nationwide, I was only able to get an appointment by booking one two and a half hours away, at the behest of a friend of mine who lives out there. I'm staying over at her place rn, and I've come to a few conclusions.

1. Trains still rock (Amtrak'd out)
2. Being picked up and driven the last 20 minutes or so gave a really revealing image of life in a lot of the rural South. It reminded me of, of all things, was this one half-empty lot in the more suburbian parts at the tip of Queens. The only non-underdeveloped building was a shooting range, which did actually look pretty cool but I'm not gonna mention it (she's :LIB: ). There isn't even a swath of gentrification apartments with ugly water features and shitty windows either--it's just a void. This place has truly been ignored.
3. The WiFi is very inconsistent so I'll actually be not brainmelting for hours once.

it's an actual portrayal of how civil religion functions within a Capitalist society even it is not just the pursuit of money but the demiurge of it, utter importance given to the deified concept of money

alright watched speed racer for the first time in well over a decade and holy shit that is actually one of the most enjoyable film experiences I've ever had. it's a genuine expressionist masterpiece. the fact that I remembered so many of the shots and images despite only watching it once as a kid, like the transition into the Fiji race, or the desert section of the second act, it's just so good. give yourself to the film and it will give so much back. best kids movie of the 2000s 10/10

This is your Last Chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.

He was coded as anarchist the entire time, but his character got rewritten like three episodes from the end when they realized he was 100% right. Uncritical support for first half of the season Zaheer.

The first week or so of Forsaken is just one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time. It truly felt like I was playing something special at the time.

happened to my buddy eric

Hell yeah, space. Actually on that, note, I was working through everything that's visible in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies around the mid-Northern hemisphere, but that's boring at this point. So, anyone have any NA North-Spring space objects they'd like looked at?

I was subbed to way too many things (breaking point was seeing that I had 1984 subs and deciding that was too many), and I never got around to trimming LSF. I should do that.

the cleverest I have ever been or ever will be was writing the phrase "socioeconomic epicycles" to describe the tendency to ascribe weird pseudoscience onto minority economic struggles when the problem is capitalism. maybe just because I'm astronomypilled though.

I can't tell if she's worse than the Bonddogs and B A P though. I think there's just a lot of annoying people on twitter.

I mean, a guy collapsing in impressive fashion is a lot more significant than "wearing a suit that (for the time) wasn't too bad." Especially one who's been bragging about his health while his demonic contracts run out and his body has begun to be reclaimed by the void.

A thread where this was posted got nuked earlier on /c/userunion, but a lot of people seemed to enjoy this half-coherent rant I put together as a reply so I decided to post it here. Note: this is mostly for archival purposes, and I don't want folks going into any sort of struggle sesh here. I just think someone might read this and pluck out the 1 or 2 good ideas in it and place them somewhere better. If linking it here isn't allowed, mods/admins, do tell and I'll delete it immediately (unless I'm asleep in which case feel free to do it yourself). Original post here https://hexbear.net/post/94999/comment/1043779.

It’s not intentional, but that doesn’t matter, because the outcome is still the same.

Yes! That is it! That's why Simulacra and Simulation is the most important piece of theory of the past 50 years except for maybe Necopolitics, because that's the basis for how we understand images in a modern context. When I speak on chapo, or hexbear, I construct an image which does the speaking. The same is true for any website I use--twitter, reddit, different discord servers are different, etc. Construction of images isn't a new concept, not at all, but S&S makes an important distinction that they are both simulacra and real; each of those identities has no less claim to reality than the supposed 'original.' The character stored in my head as "Halfe" is different from the one stored as "Eve," yet they are as real as eachother.

And what of that? It means that there cannot be a 'return to the real,' rather, a person's identity can only be described as a horrid amalgam of all these pieces interstitial. After construction of an identity, you cannot "log off" because you are that character, and that character is you, and that reality cannot be erased by any means short of a CIA memory wipe program or whatever.

What does this have to do with /r/vcj? Vcj is the perfect place to craft an identity that fundamentalist and hardline, past the point of what others would call reason.

It hits every box--it's on a topic that emphasizes its own importance, it features a wide enough base to supply the content to use as 'building material,' and it hosts a specifically aggressive attitude.

Most circlejerk subs miss one or two of these points.

A GCJ, or a MTCJ, for example, specifically diminish the topic that they're circlejerking over; a key theme of gamingcirclejerk is about not caring so much about videogames goodness gracious. As such, it becomes harder to build an identity for it, because it's about being uninvested in a way. It's not easy to get invested in apathy. Side note, these subs are great (partially) for that reason.

Most circlejerk subs are far smaller, and also far less active, than VCJ. What that leads to is content stagnation; they simply don't have enough slop to work from. You can't build an identity from like 30 comments and 5 posts a day, it simply doesn't meet the critical mass.

Finally, the tone. VCJ's tone is specifically aggressive towards non-vegans; not in the interest of conversion, no, there's no interest at all there, but rather as a conflict. Calling people "bloodmouth" won't convince anyone, just break a few rare people down enough into becoming bullies themselves. Saying that people who eat meat would support slavery, including POC, is not going to be the effective argument that makes them rethink their views; it's going to either be they break down and join you or redouble against you.

But that tone wouldn't be a problem if not for it striking every box. And what we see is that VCJ is perfect at crafting an identity, and a powerful one at that. A VCJ user is immediately identifiable as one because it is such a powerful reality that it stays with them even if they leave the specific subreddit. It's a powerful enough identity that they cannot tone match outside of the context because it is specifically overpowering.

I honestly feel bad for them, because this is the same thing we saw with groups like fatpeoplehate and the rise of the anti-sjw movement. Masses of content, the visage of utter importance ("fat" being an engine to drive in reactionary concerns over the so-called purity of humanity and its health), and a specifically aggressive tone. I'm just annoyed that the mods ever thought it would be a good idea to introduce such a group to this website, which definitely had potential.