Rottcodd

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

My namesake - Rottcodd.

Rottcodd is a minor character in Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books. He's the caretaker of the Hall of Bright Carvings - a gallery of statues high up in a far distant corner of the castle Gormenghast. He lives there contentedly and peacefully by himself and rarely sees anyone, but through a window at one end of the gallery, he can see the castle spread out below him, and can barely make out tiny-with-distance people scurrying around doing... whatever it is that they're doing.

And yeah - for better or worse, I identify with him so much that I swiped his name.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The only thing I don't like about the fediverse is the constant stream of people blathering on about how "we" supposedly need to centralize and homogenize it and fill it up with botspam, so that easily confused morons with short attention spans will move here.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

I loathe it with every fiber of my being.

I detest bot content in general, and bot reposts of Reddit content is the absolute bottom of the barrel. It's not just tedious and unimaginative and unengaging - I honestly find it creepy, like someone stalking an ex-lover.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Huh.

I had no idea Marvel Groot was that old.

That seems to make it more likely that it's not a coincidence though, particularly since while Marvel Groot existed, he was still very obscure. I can see Moorcock slipping the line in, and even giving the character that name so he could slip the line in, just for a bit of amusement.

 

I'm currently (re)reading Moorcock's The War Hound and the World's Pain. Short synopsis - an educated, cynical, apostate and unapologetically brutal mercenary in the Middle Ages is recruited by Lucifer to recover the Holy Grail, nominally so that Lucifer can wheedle his way back into God's good graces.

He's told to start by finding and talking to a hermit named Philander Groot, which he does. He turns out to be something other than a stereotypical hermit.

"You don’t look like a hermit.” Sedenko put his hand on the hilt of his sabre and strode forward to inspect the apparition.

“Sir, I assure you that I am, indeed, a hermit.” Groot became polite. He was distant.

“We heard you were a holy man,” Sedenko continued.

“I cannot be held responsible for what others hear or say, sir.” Groot drew himself up. He was somewhat shorter than Sedenko, who was no giant. “I am the same Philander Groot for whom you were looking. Take me or leave me, sir. This is all there is.”

“We had not thought to find a dandy,” said I, by way of apologizing for Sedenko’s frankness. “We imagined someone in homespun cloth. The usual sort of garb.”

“It is not my way to fulfill the expectation of my fellow creatures. I am Groot." (emphasis mine)

Granted that there's no seeming connection between any of that and Marvel Comics, and no similarity between the characters, that simple declaration "I am Groot." really leaped out at me as at least an odd coincidence.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Broadly, there are two different ways in which a person so inclined can set about projecting the image of an aficionado of great literature.

One is to read, understand and be able to discuss great literary works.

The other is to sneer at supposedly lesser works.

Obviously, the latter is much easier. In fact, it doesn't actually require reading at all.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

So it's basically a seminar on how to establish a police state.

On a related note , I had no idea that watching a country collapse into a morass of corruption, violence and stupidity would be so exhausting.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Finished Prime City by Michael Robertson. It's the second book in a cyberpunk thriller series, and it was okay. It was a bit grittier than the first one, to its advantage, but while the first one pretty much stood on its own, this one was very obviously just an installment of a series.

Started Bounty Hunter - the third in the series. It's not the last, but I suspect it'll be the last for me. It's okay, and there's nothing really wrong with Robertson's writing - it's just all sort of generic, and I'm getting bored. It's about time for something more challenging.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Finished The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. The ending was a bit too contrived, but it was solid all in all.

Started and finished The Blind Spot by Michael Robertson. It's a cyberpunk thriller set in a red-light district in a future metropolis - sort of reminiscent of George Alec Effinger's Budayeen, but without the Middle Eastern flavor. It was a solid page-turner, but has a few shortcomings. The setting feels sort of Disneyfied - like a wholesomely superficial backdrop rather than an actual red-light district, with all that that entails, and the protagonist is an accurately rendered 16 year old, which is to say that she's impulsive, impatient, over-confident and emotional. I can't really fault Robertson for that - he did do a good job of writing a believable 16 year old. But that's the problem - it was just sort of frustrating and exhausting watching her get all wound up and go rushing off too late to try to accomplish too many things in too little time.

Started Prime City by Michael Robertson - the next book in the series of which The Blind Spot was the first. Marcie is still impulsive and frustrating, and the story hasn't yet hooked me as well, but we'll see how it goes.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 months ago

They could be universally referred to by an entirely different term starting tomorrow, and the only thing that would change would be that that term would also come to be seen as a pejorative.

The simple fact of the matter is that the negative view of them is tied to what they do and who they are - NOT to the term used to label them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Tricky or not, that's what Lemmy already does, by default.

I'm not sure how it prioritizes it, but what I see, in (mobile) Firefox, is a single version of a thread woth links to the crosspost(s) at the bottom.

So this doesn't appear to be a Lemmy issue, but an issue with whatever app(s) people are using.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (9 children)

Is this an app-specific issue?

I've seen a few references to this in the last couple of days, but I don't see it myself. On Firefox (and presumably on any browser) I just see one version of a crossposted thread, with a note at the bottom that links to the crossposts.

[–] [email protected] 109 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"And by 'we' I of course mean 'you'."

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