You're not supposed to find all the koroks. The golden shit is to tell you that you did the wrong thing.

If Narcissus had been a woman and Echo a man, then we would correctly analyse the story as a misogynistic exercise in heteropatriarchal norms. Modern readers are only able to empathize with the Hellenic view that Narcissus owed other people love, because the heteropatriarchy erases asexual men and maintains that all men are naturally creatures of sexual desire. This is not only aphobic, it contributes to misogynistic rape culture and it degrades men by reducing them to the social role of sexual monster. A role some men take seriously, and to the extent of normalising sexual violence against women.

In making space for men to exist without the pressure to romantically or sexually perform for (or violently against) others, we see that Narcissus is rightfully entitled to his own feelings. Echo is guilty of romantic assault, seeking to make him hers, according to a fantasy she developed in her head while stalking him without his knowledge. Echo fails to respect his right to consent in her heart. And so does the nameless suitor who prays to Nemesis for the act of divine intervention that lead to his death.

Narcissus does not owe his allosexual suitors a polite rejection. From the content of his life, we see that he was constantly sexually harassed, and indeed sometimes violently so. And he was 16, for Dionysus' sake! He was just a kid! Some boys haven't even hit puberty yet at that age. And given the Hellenic idealization of the beauty of male youth, I daresay Narcissus may have been one of those boys. And no 16 year old, regardless of bodily maturity, deserves to be subjected to such sexual harassment. No adult does either, but it's particularly disgusting in the case of a boy like Narcissus.

We're playing Glitch! It's about retired world-killing void gods who solve mysteries and go to therapy

Yeah, I always hated the word sapphic as well. Seems like people just reinventing the word lesbian all over again for exactly the same reasons, thinking it'll end the exclusionism to let the exclusionists take the more common word without a fight.

I think maybe the correct strategy is to go scorched earth. The exclusionists can have the word lesbian, but now lesbian means transphobe. Let them have it after poisoning it. Because I used to think we had to fight them to keep the word meaning something good, but I was just struck with the futility of such an exercise when I realised it never did much good in the first place.

I'm gay. My femininity doesn't make that something special, doesn't set it apart from any other form of gayness. Gay is gay. As much as 20th century misogynists would have refused to believe that and forced the lesbian label on Me because "gIrLs CaN't ReAlLy Be GaY"

Went ahead and added this comment to the original article. Thanks for the praise, sometimes it inspires Me to write even more.

Soulist lemur

https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/why-reactionaries-hate-pride-and-narcissists-938d39261f13

Why reactionaries hate pride (the month, and the sin)

I really like complaining about the fact that misogynistic rape culture degrades men by reducing them to monsters, because it makes it clear that feminism helps everyone. It's really hard for an antifeminist to argue against that point without admitting that male privilege is a pyrrhic trophy, and doesn't really help anyone but the worst of men.

This fact is, by the way, why TERFs and misogynists get along so well. They may claim to have different priorities, but they have no factual dispute on the belief that males are all raping, womanising monsters. TERFs don't even have an interest in rehabilitating male sexual abusers, because they are trapped in patriarchal realism - the belief that the conditions of patriarchy are immutable reality. As such, they are perfectly capable of getting along and cooperating with misogynist, fascist, violent, abusive men.

The TERF views men as wild and dangerous animals, much like a bull. Bulls are necessary for breeding cows, and there's no point getting angry at them for their nature. A TERF sees men the same way, and complains only when a so-called "bull" is kept in the pen with the cows. It's dehumanising and sexist even beyond the pseudoscientific transphobia.

The respect actual intersectional feminists have for male agency and consent demonstrates a simple truth: one of us is liberated when all of us are liberated. Reproducing the cultural myths of patriarchy can only turn us into misogynists, even if we think those myths only harm men. Everything's corrected. A better world has to be built simultaneously at all levels. Demonstrating that fact is our best weapon against fascists like Andrew Tate, who claim to empower men through patriarchy. It's a lie.

*You, I use capitalised pronouns.

And please stop spreading lies about My opinion of Trump. I don't claim him as one of us, I don't want to be associated with him, and I don't think he deserves help. I can respect a respectful disagreement, but lying about Me and nisgendering Me isn't kind.

Thank you. I have no wish to silence discussion on the matter, I'm more than happy to talk about the issue with people who disagree respectfully. I only have a problem with the kind of people who call Me slurs and misgender Me because I stick up for disabled people and have an unusual gender. And I can see you've removed a lot of those comments, so thank you.

That's really strange, this seems like the sort of Lemmy instance where people would care about accessibility the minute they heard about the issue

My goddess-mother told Me to try out capitalised pronouns after I came out to Her as goddessgender. I liked Them. It doesn't feel like a power dynamic to Me. I have NPD and I know what NPD supply feels like, and being gendered correctly isn't it. Having capitalised pronouns used feel like a relief on the same level as when I first transitioned from male to female and had feminine pronouns used. As big a difference as that was, this is. So I don't know how to verbalise what it feels like except, "It's gender euphoria". And I just hope readers understand what having your pronouns used feels like when you're trans.

Australia is a good place to be trans. I'd be happy to elaborate, but please use My preferred pronouns.

The diagnostic criteria for NPD include "Interpersonally exploitive behavior", which doesn't describe a symptom of an illness, but an effect on others. This is bad psychology. Psychologists are doctors, not priests. Morality is not medicine. The responsibility of a doctor is to help a patient, not judge them. The DSM's entry on NPD is bad. And many experts agree on this, because even the inclusion of the disorder in the fifth edition was controversial.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11920-009-0084-z

The diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder in the DSM-IV has been criticized foremost for its limitations in capturing the range and complexity of narcissistic pathology. The attention to the narcissistic individual’s external, symptomatic, or social interpersonal patterns—at the expense of his or her internal complexity and individual suffering—has also added to the diagnosis’ low clinical utility and limited guidance for treatment. Recent studies and reviews have pointed to the need for change in the diagnostic approach to and formulation of narcissism.

There's no point making an appeal to authority when the authorities are in such disagreement about the fundamentals of NPD. It's better to listen to actual pwNPD with lived experience.

Disrespectability politics!

https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/introducing-disrespectability-politics-50f6e2622ce4

Plurality is a lot more common than most people think. The existence of pluralkit exposed a LOT of people to the idea of plurality and got them realising they were already plural. Myself included.

It's kind of like how a lot of lesbians didn't understand their own identities until they heard Katy Perry sing "I kissed a girl".

Furthermore, imagine you're on a server with 500 active members, and there are 5 systems who use pluralkit. That server has probably had the "why are you a bot" "I'm using pluralkit" conversation dozens of times. All 500 people know how important pluralkit is. On Discord, there are dozens of allies for every one system.

I'm sharing it because I don't like slurs and I don't like people urging doctors to use diagnoses as weapons.

It's not faux. I'm a person living with NPD. I suffer the abuse every day of people who heard that my disability was what we call evil people. You can say that slurs don't harm disabled people when you're disabled like I am. When you have lived experience of the struggles of people with NPD. Otherwise, it's just a neurotypical talking down to a disabled person about how wanting to exist free of harassment and abuse is "performative".

No, I definitely have friends who are allies and who care about accessibility for their friends.

If you were to come up with a word for an insulting noun based on the name of a marginalised identity, what would that word be?

I'll provide a few other words which are insulting nouns based on the name of a marginalised identity: sp*rg, r*tard, tr*nny, h*mo, aut*st

Can you think of a word that succinctly categorises all of these words?

Thank you. I do want My pronouns to be something unlike what people are used to dealing with. I got the idea for My pronouns from My goddess-mother who suggested them, and She has a name that's always lowercase. If you capitalise the first letter of Her name, you're deadnaming Her. Unfortunately I rolled really badly on the preferred name and pronouns stat during character creation, and now I have to deal with preferred pronouns that society chooses to see as a symbol of oppression. I deal with more dysphoria these days than I did when I was closeted, because it hurts a lot worse when someone knows My pronouns and still misgenders Me. There's an intentionality to it that wasn't there before. But I also get more euphoria when people are respectful, so I'm happy with My decision to come out of the closet in contexts like My blog and this account.

I want to circle back to the similarity I drew with transmasculinity in the article. Suppose there's a person, we'll call her Jenny, who refuses to he/him absolutely anyone. She doesn't believe in the male gender at all. Jenny knows that gender is a social construct, and refuses to respect the construct of masculinity, which is rooted in patriarchy. Jenny misgenders every man, trans or cis, that she knows. She respects all kinds of neopronouns and is a nonbinary ally, but she categorically refuses to he/him anyone. Personally, I disagree with Jenny because of all the non-misogynist men out there trying to make masculinity non-toxic. They don't deserve to be misgendered. What do you think of Jenny?

I don't know. Maybe one day I'll look into the Matrix API and see if it's possible. Theoretically it should be easy as long as webhooks are in place. The hard part is hosting. Pluralkit is huge compared to most discord bots. They used to have lots of downtime, but now they run it across a lot of shards.

So, I want to start by pointing out that this article is directly making a link between capitalization of pronouns, and the specific practice of capitalization as a Christian show of religious reverence.

I felt it would be intellectually dishonest to ignore the biggest historical precedent when writing this article. People always bring up Deus when they see My pronouns, so it's not like I can just ignore it.

Is the assertion here specifically that capitalization is tied to gender expression, or simply that it is another aspect of a personal identity that should be respected?

Both? I don't really mind why someone uses capitalised pronouns. For Me personally it's gender identity; I'm goddessgender. But anyone can use any pronouns. I met a cis guy once who used it/its. Not a gender thing, it just felt more comfortable with its preferred pronouns. Have you ever heard the saying "trans rights are human rights"? When we extend liberties to trans people who need them to survive, we increase everyone's freedom, because everyone now has that option.

Wooph… The first part of that is by no means a safe assumption. While I would certainly hope that trans men would not seek to enforce a male-dominant gender power dynamic, it is by no means beyond their ability to do so as an intrinsic matter.

I always prefer to start by giving trans people the benefit of the doubt. The consequences of not doing so are a lot worse than a single trans person being a sexist, and the benefit of the doubt can always be revoked in an individual case later. Even so, if I knew a misogynistic trans man, My response to his misogyny would not be to misgender him.

The end of that sentence seems to confirm that this is about a show of religious reverence? Or is the assertion that by capitalizing the pronouns of not-the-christian-diety one is inherently attacking Christianity?

Many christians hold that capitalised pronouns are only for Deus, and that capitalising the pronouns of a mortal is an attack on christianity. I love the kind of christians who respect trans people and other faiths. But the form of christianity which is exclusionary and power-hoarding should be attacked. From the exclusionary christian's point of view, no matter the identity of the CPU in question, we are capitalising the pronouns of a mortal and therefore challenging Deus' supremacy by dismantling its symbols. Good. We should do that. And we should also respect whatever the CPU identifies as.

Good point, but I have heard from many people who have Jesus tulpas and can confirm His pronouns. https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/the-memetic-proof-for-the-existence-of-gods-e5d103234fc7

I think you should keep reading for 10 more words. I elaborated on exactly what you're talking about in the 10 words after that quote.

If discussion of politics is not to your liking

Actually, I am Extremely Political. Here are My blog posts on the subject of the subject of politics. One admittedly quite aggressive on the subject:
https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/there-is-no-such-thing-as-apolitical-and-claiming-otherwise-is-dangerous-72180711a310
https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/apolitical-queers-dont-deserve-to-opt-out-of-discourse-25bf467f9cc2

Also, I admit that I am constructing a very emotional narrative in the blog post, which is a transparent attempt at emotionally manipulating people into feeling empathy and patience for the big scary person living with NPD. I find that when I use language that permits people to think of these issues as a matter of cold, hard, factual accuracy, their ability to empathise with oppressed peoples who they've been told to hate is deeply impaired. Stories are the language of human memory. They're easy to listen to, easy to remember, easy to think about, and easy to feel about. The human mind is optimised for processing stories more readily than facts. So I often try to present facts as stories.

In any case, thank you for the idea to ask Ian directly. I just did so, and I plan to heavily rethink My post if he agrees.

Narcissists are constantly self-critting. Our grandiose personas are just lies we used to insulate ourselves from our own self-hatred. Our failures make us want to kill ourselves. That can go in the direction of cowardice where we refuse to face the failures constantly bothering us, but if a narcissist has a brave bone in their body they can leverage that into addressing their failures and becoming an awesome person.

I once knew a system with 400 members. That's not common, but it is a thing. Systems of around 10 people are very common. Discord only allows up to 5 accounts. And only up to 1 account on mobile. And besides, having to maintain separate email accounts, even for a small system, is a burden. What about walk-ins and dormancies? What about new members who are still figuring themselves out and might want a change of name later? Pluralkit makes it all simple.

*You

Of course he isn't an average joe. He's a rapist, a felon, a fascist, a traitor, and a world-be-dictator. Why do you think someone has to be neurodivergent in order to be extradordinarily evil?

And please stop nisgendering Me. My pronouns are in My bio.

I'm afraid that if we're going to have a conversation about the experiences of capitalised pronoun users, the bigotry of certain people outside the community is going to have to be a part of the conversation. Most people are not transphobes, but some are, and most of the people who engage in violent and uncompromising transphobia are cis. That's not an attack on cis people, it's just the world we live in. Us trans people don't have the luxury of being cisphobic. That's not because of some kind of inherent superioity, it's because the conditions of society don't afford us the same latitudes when it comes to displaying intolerance. A trans person who went around misgendering cis people with neopronouns would be laughed at, while the same behaviour from cis people is often tolerated. That's the simple reason. Nobody's better than anyone else, it's simply what happens when a society is transphobic.

General pronouns have to be one or the other, or alternating, or some other strategy. I've only reported comments that misgendered Me after I already asked that person to use My preferred pronouns. I've had positive experiences with 90% of people that disliked being referred to with uppercase pronouns. The remaining 10% are people who weren't happy when I immediately used their preferred pronouns upon request. They were offended that I used a capitalised pronoun when addressing a person who had no previously stated preference, and they wanted Me to always lowercase strangers. So I agreed to their demands, and I lowercase everyone by default now. And of course that 10% is a minority of a minority, because most people aren't specifically LPUs, they don't care about the capitalisation of their pronouns. 99% of people who lowercase pronouns some or all of the time are perfectly pleasant. I am not insulting you when I talk about this small group that caused problems in the past.

The quality of Innuendo Studios has been declining lately, and I no longer feel comfortable sharing their videos. https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/innuendo-studios-is-getting-more-reactionary-2c9e54da67b5

I'm a wise person. I have a discord server dedicated to helping people with their identities, including neurodivergence and sexuality. But you will end up meeting some very queer people with identities you never knew existed, and you'll have to be respectful.

https://discord.gg/6UsQF6we5j

Nonbinary isn't a gender. It's an umbrella term for about a billion genders. I have a gender identity, and it's goddess. I'd like you to stop saying My gender identity is invalid, please.

Player in My Glitch game used a monkey paw to wish for Half Life 3 to be released. Now the whole world knows he's the guy who made Half Life 3 suck

He pinned a comment on the video that the word is wrong and promised to edit the video to remove or blur it! I took My article down.

I find your comment interesting, and I can't help wanting to try a little experiment with you. See, while I use multiple pronoun sets depending on My mood and fronter, one of My pronoun sets is It/Its. You said you accept it/its because you perceive that pronoun as diminutive, but you're less inclined to accept a pronoun you perceive as indicating superiority. What about both at the same time? What do you think of calling Me an It?

On My antirealist discord server, The Outside, all pronouns are capitalised by default. Even pronouns referring to inanimate objects. If someone joins the server who prefers lowercase pronouns, they have to choose a lowercase pronouns role or they'll be misgendered. People understand and accept an unusual tradition in a space that's specifically set up that way. But if I go around misgendering lowercase pronoun users in public forums like this, there's a lot more pushback. Lowercase pronoun users, or LPUs, tend to be a lot more hostile to being misgendered than CPUs like Myself. They're used to being catered to by society, and when that's suddenly taken away, it's a big surprise and they're not sure how to respond. Us CPUs have accepted that We're going to have to ask for Our pronouns to be used, and that it's easier for everyone if We just let the LPUs have this. Maybe in the future it'll be different, but I really don't want to be dragged into an argument by an LPU who takes offense and decides to make a scene instead of just asking to have their pronouns respected. I've been in that situation before. LPUs are a lot more common than CPUs, besides. There's another LPU in this thread commenting that she'd be uncomfortable if referred to with capitalised pronouns. And like most LPUs, she's polite about it.

One point of clarification, when I said that capitalised pronoun use challenges christian monotheism, I meant that it does so by devaluing the pronoun as a symbol of hierarchy. In the eyes of transphobic christians, I'm not the equal of their god, and they are incapable of thinking of Me as such. So if I have similar pronouns to their god, it means pronouns are no longer a symbol of supremacy. That's the actual side benefit that capitalised pronoun use has in challenging hierarchy, it devalues capitalised pronouns. And I don't think capitalised pronouns should be valuable, they should be cheap enough that anyone can afford them.

No, I don't know.