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carriesthewind · 11 months

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Oh dear.

So as some of you may know, I love to point and laugh at bad legal arguments. And as fun as legal dumpster fires are when they are made by people who aren’t lawyers but think this whole “law” thing seems pretty simple, it’s even funnier when an actual, barred attorney is the person dumping gallons of kerosene into the dumpster.

And oh boy folks, do I have a fun ride for y’all today. Come with me on this journey, as we watch a lawyer climb into the dumpster and deliberately pour kerosene all over himself, while a judge holds a match over his head.

The court listener link is here, for those who want to grab a few bowls of popcorn and read along.

For those of you who don’t enjoy reading legal briefs for cases you aren’t involved with on your day off (I can’t relate), I will go through the highlights here. I will screenshot and/or paraphrase the relevant portion of the briefs, and include a brief explainer of what’s going on (and why it’s very bad, but also extremely funny). (Also, I’m not going to repeat this throughout the whole write-up, so for the record: any statements I make about how the law or legal system works is referring exclusively to the U.S. (And since this is a federal case, we are even more specifically looking at U.S. federal law.) Also, I don’t know how you could construe any of this to be legal advice, but just in case: none of this is, is intended to be, or should be taken as, legal advice.)

First, let’s get just a quick background on the case, to help us follow along. In brief, this is a civil tort suit for personal injury based on defendant’s (alleged) negligence. The plaintiff is suing the defendant (an airline), because he says that he was injured when a flight attendant struck his knee with a metal cart, and the airline was negligent in letting this happen. The airline filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that there is an international treaty that imposes a time bar for when these kind of cases can be brought against an airline, and the plaintiff filed this case too many years after the incident.

The fun begins when the plaintiff’s attorney filed an opposition to the motion to dismiss. (So far, a good and normal thing to do.) The opposition argues that the claim is not time-barred because 1) the time bar was tolled by the defendant’s bankruptcy proceedings (that is, the timer for the time limitation was paused when the defendant was in bankruptcy, and started again afterwords), and 2) the treaty’s time limit doesn’t apply to this case because the case was filed in state court before the state statute of limitations expired, and the state court has concurrent jurisdiction over this kind of case.

I’m struggling a bit to succinctly explain the second reason, and there’s a reason for that.

You see, the whole opposition reads a bit…oddly.

This is how the opposition begins its argument, and it’s…weird. The basic principle is...mostly correct here, but the actual standard is that when reviewing a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim (which is what the defendant filed) the court must draw all reasonable factual inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. But even then, you don’t just put that standard in your opposition. You cite to a case that lays out the standard.

Because that’s how courts and the law work. The courts don’t operate just based on vibes. They follow statutory law (laws made by legislature) and case law (the decisions made by courts interpreting what those laws mean). You don't just submit a filing saying, "here's what the law is," without citing some authority to demonstrate that the law is what you say (or are arguing) it is.

Again, this isn’t wrong (although I'm not sure what it means by new arguments?), but it’s weird! And part of the reason it’s weird is that it is irrelevant to the defendant’s motion to dismiss. The defendant filed a motion stating that based on the facts in the complaint, the plaintiff has not stated a claim based on which relief can be granted, because the complaint is time barred by a treaty. There is no reason for this language to be in the opposition. It’s almost like they just asked a chatbot what the legal standards are for a motion to dismiss for a failure to state a claim, and just copied the answer into their brief without bother to double-check it.

The opposition then cites a bunch of cases which it claims support its position. We will skip them for now, as the defendant will respond to those citations in its reply brief.

The last thing in the brief is the signature of the lawyer who submitted the brief affirming that everything in the brief is true and correct. An extremely normal - required, even! - thing to do. This will surely not cause any problems for him later.

The next relevant filing is the defendant’s reply brief. Again, the existence of a reply brief in response to an opposition is extremely normal. The contents of this brief are…less so.

Beg pardon?

Just to be clear, this is not normal. It is normal to argue that the plaintiff’s cases are not relevant, or they aren’t applicable to this case, or you disagree with the interpretations, or whatever. It is not normal for the cases to appear to not exist.

Some highlights from the brief:

Quick lesson in how to read U.S. case citations! The italicized (or underlined) part at the beginning is the name of the case. If it is a trial court case, the plaintiff is listed first and the defendant second; if the case has been appealed, the person who lost at the lower court level (the petitioner/appellant) will be listed first, and the person who won at the lower level (the respondent/appellee) will be listed second. There are extremely specific rules about which words in these names are abbreviated, and how they are abbreviated. Next, you list the volume number and name of the reporter (the place where the case is published), again abbreviated according to very specific rules, then the page number that the case starts on. If you are citing a case for a specific quote or proposition, you then put a comma after the beginning page number, and list the page number(s) on which the quote or language you are relying on is located (this is called a “pincite”). Finally, you put in parenthesis the name of the court (if needed)(and again, abbreviated according to extremely specific rules) and the year the case was decided.

So the plaintiff’s response cited to Zicherman, which they said was a case from 2008 that was decided by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the defendant was not able to find such a case. They were able to find a case with the same name (the same petitioner and respondent), but that case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996, and the lower court cases associated with that case weren’t in the 11th circuit either. (The United States Reports is the only official reporter for the U.S. Supreme Court, and only includes SCOTUS decisions, so it’s not necessary to include the name of the court before the year it was decided.)

Just to be clear. The defendant’s brief is saying: the plaintiff cited and extensively quoted from these cases, and neither the cases nor the quotations appear to exist. These “cases” were not ancillary citations in the plaintiff’s brief. They were the authority it relied upon to make its arguments.

This is as close a lawyer can come, at this point in the proceedings, to saying, “opposing counsel made up a bunch of fake cases to lie to the court and pretend the law is something different than it is.”

That, “Putting aside that here is no page 598 in Kaiser Steel,” is delightfully petty lawyer speak for, “you are wrong on every possible thing there is to be wrong about.”

By page 5, the defendant has resorted to just listing all of the (apparently) made up cases in a footnote:

(skipping the citations to support this proposition)

This is where I return to my struggle to explain the opposition’s second reason why the motion to dismiss should not be granted. I struggled to explain the argument, because they failed to explain why the argument they were making (that plaintiffs can bring lawsuits against airlines in state court, and the state court have specific statutes of limitations for general negligence claims) was relevant to the question of whether the plaintiff’s specific claim against the airline was time barred by the treaty. Because 1) this case is in federal court, not state court, and 2) federal law - including treaties - preempts state law. Again, it’s almost like plaintiff’s attorney just typed a question about the time bar into a chatbot or something, and the machine, which wasn’t able to reason or actually analyze the issues, saw a question about the time to bring a lawsuit and just wrote up an answer about the statute of limitations.

We also end with a nice little lawyerly version of “you fucked up and we are going to destroy you.” The relief requested in the defendant’s original motion to dismiss was:

In their reply to the opposition, however:

“The circumstances” in this case, being the apparent fabrication of entire cases. Because courts tend to take that pretty seriously.

And the court took it seriously indeed. The defendant’s reply was docketed on March 15th of this year. On April 11th:

AKA: you have one week (an extremely prompt time frame for federal court) to prove to me that you didn’t just make up these cases.

On April 12th, the plaintiff’s attorney requests more time because he’s on vacation:

The judge grants the motion, but adds in another case that he forgot to include in his first order.

On April 25th, the plaintiff’s attorney files the following:

(And he lists the cases, with one exception, which he says is an unpublished decision.)

But he says of all of the cases except two, that the opinions…

Which is…nonsense?

First of all: if you cited a case, you had to get it from somewhere. Even unpublished opinions, if you are citing them in a brief, you are citing them because you pulled them off of westlaw or whatever. Which means you have access to the case and can annex it for the court. (There are even formal rules for how you cite unpublished opinions! And those rules include citing to where you pulled the damn case from!)

Secondly: remember that long digression I went into about how to read case citations? Remember that bit about how you include the name of the reporter (the place the case was published)? Yes, cases are published. They are printed in physical books, and they are published online in databases (e.g. lexis or westlaw). If the specific online database you are looking in does not have the case, you look somewhere else. If you have a judge telling you to get them a copy of the case Or Else, you track down a physical copy of the reporter if you need to and scan the damn thing yourself. You - literally - can’t just not have a copy of the case! (Especially published federal circuit court opinions, which multiple of these cases are! Those aren’t hard to find!)

And what kind of “online database” doesn’t include the entire opinion anyway? I’ve literally never heard of a case research database that only included partial opinions, because that wouldn’t be useful.

Maybe if we look at the attached annexed copies of the cases, that might give us some answers.

...

My friends, these things are just bizarre. With two exceptions, they aren’t submitted in any sort of conventional format. Even if you’ve never seen a legal opinion before, I think you can see the difference if you just glance through the filings. They are located at Docket entry #29 on Court Listener (April 25, 2023). Compare Attachments 6 and 8 (the real cases submitted in conventional format) to the other cases. Turning to the contents of the cases:

In the first one, the factual background is that a passenger sued an airline, then the airline filed a motion to dismiss (on grounds unrelated to the treaty's time bar), then the airline went into bankruptcy, then the airline won the motion to dismiss, then the passenger appealed. And the court is now considering that appeal. But then the opinion starts talking about how the passenger was in arbitration, and it seems to be treating the passenger like he is the one who filed for bankruptcy? It’s hallucinatory, even before you get to the legal arguments. The “Court of Appeals” is making a ruling overruling the district court’s dismissal based on the time bar, but according to the factual background, the case wasn’t dismissed based on the time bar, but on entirely other grounds? Was there some other proceeding where the claim was dismissed as time barred, and it’s just not mentioned in the factual background? How? Why? What is happening? Also it says Congress enacted the treaty? But, no? That’s…that’s not how treaties work? I mean, Congress did ratify the treaty? But they didn’t unilaterally make it!

In the second case, there’s an extended discussion of which treaty applies to the appellants claims, which is bizarre because there are two relevant treaties, and one replaced the other before the conduct at issue, so only the new treaty applies? There isn’t any discussion of the issue beyond that basic principle, so there is no reason there should be multiple paragraphs in the opinion explaining it over and over? Also, it keeps referring to the appellant as the plaintiff, for some reason? And it includes this absolutely hallucinatory sentence:

…the only part this that makes sense is that the argument is without merit. I’m not going to discuss the actual merits of the legal arguments in the opinion, because they are so bizarre and disjointed that even trying to describe them would require a Pepe Silvia-sized conspiracy board. Like the previous case, both the facts and the legal posture of the case change constantly, with seemingly no rhyme or reason.

The third one…oh boy. First, large portions of the “opinion” are individual paragraphs with quotations around the whole paragraph. What’s happening there? As far as the content of the opinion itself - I can’t. I mean that, I literally can’t. What is being discussed seems to change from paragraph to paragraph, much of it contradicting. It makes the first case seem linear and rational by comparison. The court finds it doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over the defendant so dismisses the case based on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction? But also the defendant hasn’t contested jurisdiction? And also the court does hold that it has both subject matter and personal jurisdiction over the defendant? And then it denies the motion to dismiss the case? Also, at one point it cites itself?

…also, even if this was a real case, it doesn’t stand for the propositions the plaintiff cited it for in their opposition? I’m not going to go into the weeds (honestly it’s so hallucinatory I’m not sure I could if I tried), but, for example, the plaintiff’s reply brief states that the court held “that the plaintiff was not required to bring their claim in federal court.” The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is a federal court, and there is no discussion of any filings in state courts. The closest the “opinion” comes is with the statement, “Therefore, Petersen’s argument that the state courts of Washington have concurrent jurisdiction is unavailing.” (This statement appears to be completely disconnected from anything before or after it, so I am unsure what it is supposed to mean.)

Moving on, case number four is allegedly a decision by the Court of Appeals of Texas. It includes the following line:

Honestly, the plaintiff’s attorney best defense at this point is that he wasn’t intentionally trying to mislead the court, because if he was doing this on purpose, he would have edited the cases to make them slightly more believable. (Context in case you’ve lost track: these documents are supposed to be copies of the opinions he is citing. The screenshoted line makes it clear that what he is actually citing is, at best, someone else’s summary of an "opinion". It would be like if a teacher asked a student to photocopy a chapter of a book and bring it into class, and instead the student brought in a copy of the cliffs notes summary of that chapter. Except that the book doesn’t even exist.)

The actual contents of the “opinion” are, as is now standard, absolutely bonkers. First, the court decides that it doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over Delta because “Delta did not purposefully avail itself of the benefits of conducting business in Texas.” This was despite the fact that the factual background already included that the appellant (sorry, the plaintiff, according to the “opinion”) flew on a Delta flight originating in Texas. Like, this is just wrong? It’s not even hallucinatory nonsense, it’s just facially incorrect legal analysis. Then the court starts discussing the treaty’s time bar, for some reason? Then it goes back to talking about personal jurisdiction, but now the trial court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the appellate court agrees with the trial court that it does have personal jurisdiction, even though this is the plaintiff’s appeal from the dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction and the court already ruled it didn’t have personal jurisdiction? And even though on page 1, the plaintiff was injured during a flight from Texas to California, now on page 7 she was injured on a flight from Shanghai to Texas? Also the trial court has gone back in time (again) to grant the motion to dismiss that it previously denied?

Also, I’ve been trying to avoid pointing out the wonky text of these submissions, but:

Everything ok there?

Case number five is similar enough to number four that it’s not worth repeating myself.

Thank god, cases six and eight, as noted above, are real cases, so I’m going to skip them. The defendant alleges that the cases do not stand for the propositions the plaintiff cited them for, and I’m going to assume that is true, given the rest of this nonsense.

Case number seven looks legitimate on the surface. But neither the defendant nor I could find the case through any legitimate search mechanisms. The defendant looked up the purported docket numbers on PACER and found completely different cases; I was able to find a case with the name “Miller v. United Airlines, Inc.,” but it was for a different Ms. Miller, it was a California state case (not a Second Circuit federal case), it was decided on a different year, and the substance of the case was entirely different from the alleged opinion filed with the court.

On top of that, this might be the most morally reprehensible fake citation of them all? Because it is about the crash of United Airlines Flight 585, a real plane crash. Everyone on board - 25 people in total - was killed.

The individual cited in this fake court case was not one of them.

I cannot imagine conducting myself in such a way where I would have to explain to a judge that I made up a fake case exploiting a real tragedy because I couldn’t be bothered to do actual legal research.

Now, I know you all have figured out what’s going on by now. And I want you to know that if your instincts are saying, “it seems like the lawyer should have just fallen on his sword and confessed that he relied on ChatGPT to write his original brief, rather than digging himself further into this hole”? Your instincts are absolutely correct.

Because obviously, the court was having none of this b.s. On May 4th, the court issued an order, beginning with the following sentence:

That is one of the worst possible opening sentences you can see in an order by the court in a situation like this. The only thing worse is when judges start quoting classic literature. If I was Mr. Peter LoDuca, counsel for the plaintiff, I would already be shitting my pants.

“I gave you an opportunity to either clear things up or come clean. Now I’m going to give you an opportunity to show why I should only come down on you like a pile of brinks, instead of a whole building.”

We are getting dangerously close to “quoting classic lit” territory here.

If I learned that the judge in my case called up the clerk of a circuit court just to confirm how full of shit I was, I would leave the legal profession forever. Also, the judge is now also putting quotes around “opinion.” When judges start getting openly sarcastic in their briefs, that means very very bad things are about to happen to someone.

So I’m guessing the delay between this filing and the court order was because the judge’s clerk was tasked with running down every single one of the additional fake citations included in the "opinions", just to make this sure this order (and the upcoming pile of bricks) are as thorough as possible.

If you are following along with Dracula Daily, the vibe here is roughly the same as the May 19th entry where Dracula demands Jonathan Harker write and pre-date letters stating he has left the castle and is on the way home.

Also, hey, what’s that footnote?

Wait, what?

Folks, it appears we may have notary fraud, on top of everything else! Anybody have bingo?

So on May 25, one day before the deadline, Mr. LoDuca filed his response. And oh boy, I hope ya’ll are ready for this.

Hey, what’s the name of that other attorney, “Steven Schwartz”? Where have I seen that name before…

...I ran out of room for images on this post. So I'm going to have to leave this as an accidental cliffhanger. Part 2 to follow once I refresh my tea.

#ai bs #2 Stupid 2 Sanction

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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 23 days

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so i'm a graduate student at a prestigious university in north eastern united states and one of my professors recently made a very oblique announcement to the class to the effect of "i've noticed some people using chatgpt. won't say who though. won't tell you if it's you i am talking about. but just so you know. i can tell when you do it."

and like the anxious person i am, i have started doing the student equivalent of when you are in the airport security line and wonder if you accidentally packed a gun and a kilo of coke. "what if this essay i wrote accidentally sounds like chatgpt and she hates me now"

from your point of view: is this possible? i have never once used chatgpt, i don't think i even know how, but not every single one of my academic contributions is as stellar as i'd wish (ya girl is sleep deprived). please help me shut down the anxious brain that is saying i am somehow being suspected of using chatgpt when i hand in just plain old, home grown mediocrity.

Haha! It's extremely unlikely that you would accidentally false-positive flag as using ChatGPT. You kind of... get your eye in for this stuff? So generic bland writing isn't enough by itself.

Here's a very quick list:

Fake references and citations. MASSIVE giveaway

Factual errors. But like... BIG errors, and errors that build on each other (it's called hallucination). So first it claims that coal spoil makes poor soil because of drainage (true), then it's because it's sandy soil (false, bad drainage in the wrong direction) and then before you know it it's recommending palm trees and mangroves for planting (wtf)

Sentences of the same/similar lengths in same/similar sized paragraphs

Maddeningly vague topic coverage. Zero analysis. Everything is broad strokes, no real examples or case studies given. If one is given, it turns out to be fake.

And, the standard hallmarks of cheating. If the offending piece was only partly written with an LLM, there's a difference in writing style/language that's super obvious among other things.

The other thing, though, is that you can protect yourself to an extent by saving your assignment on OneDrive (or whatever equivalent your uni offers) and working on it from there, with auto save enabled. This is because modern OneDrive Word allows you to access a file's version history. It's much easier to see when a file has been genuinely written line by line Vs copy-pasted in a block from destinations unknown. So, if you are challenged, you have a bit of a backup if you can go "Here's my version history for you to explore, here's my planning doc, have fun."

But, genuinely, I can assure you that lecturers are actually more accustomed to reading mediocre work than anything else lol. We know what that looks like. It's staggeringly unlikely that your work could be accidentally mistaken for an LLM generated piece.

#asks #the professional world of careers and tasks

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courtofterrasen · 9 days

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Alright, clearly some of you guys are just not getting it. So no more emotion from me; I am simply going to write in factual terms.

It takes a VAST amount of work to go into creating a series like Bad Batch. You have to go through writing, scene painting, 3D modeling, rigging, lighting, SFX, voice lines, editing, final production, etc; just to name a few. It takes hours upon hours upon hours of work for those animators to create all of the nuances in a scene, let alone in Bad Batch where there is an extremely high level of attention to detail. It’s not like anime where a character and background are mostly stationary while they talk. There’s constantly stuff happening in the background and they intentionally make choices that provide extremely little to the overall story and, in all honesty, take up a significant amount of their time and can be argued that they’re wasting their time and money and effort (I don’t think so, but I’m sure people could argue it if they thought that effort should be allocated elsewhere). But they do it because it provides a deeper sense of realism to the story as a whole and make it feel like a living, breathing world. For example, when a character trips a little bit or they animated them doing something slightly harder than it would have been otherwise or eyes darting around and studying someone. These are all very little things that take them hundreds of hours to get perfect. And those are the kinds of things that go unnoticed by the vast majority of people watching the show. Either because they don’t noticed the little detail that was put in at all, or they don’t understand the level of work that goes into creating little minute decisions like that. And all of those decisions that they make, both big and tiny, are given to them in specific instructions by the directors. When you think about the insane amount of work that goes into creating a show like Bad Batch, you realize that every single little detail that they choose to add in is intentional and was given to them via specific instruction. It’s not like in live-action shows where the actor can choose to make a subtle decision on the fly. There are hundreds of thousands of hours of work that go into this and every choice that they make is intentional. The lighting dept. has even confirmed this for us, saying that all of the lighting that they did was done very carefully and intentionally and to pay attention to what’s happening in the scene. Because there’s an extremely high level of detail that’s put into the show, based off of very detailed instructions that were presented to them.

Now. Taken all of these points into account, it’s critical to look at all of the little choices that were made when it comes to her character and the way that both she interacts with the world and the people around her, as well as how they, in turn, respond to her. Because, like the lighting dept. has already made very clear to us, every design choice they has been made in the creation of the show is 100% intentional. Even if that’s not something that they had said or wasn’t something you were aware of, when you focus on the aspect of animation, it’s sometimes hard to get a clear grasp on just how long it takes them to do these things. And that every little choice that they made was carried out under specific instruction. And that’s not even getting into the nuances of voice acting and understanding the subtle distinctions in the way someone talks and being able to discern the meaning behind their words based on dialect and the instructions they were given. And for someone who just casually watches the show, absolutely none of these are important. They’re watching it to watch it and no further thought is put into it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. People are allowed to watch things at a surface level and get enjoyment out of it.

For every character, they can be broken up into various parts:

•Their visual appearance

•Their behavior

•Their interactions with others and the world

•How others respond to their character

•Their small, subtle behaviors (such as a particular twitch or repetitive body movement that can be used to convey a deeper meaning)

•And their internal motives

In that order from the least to most complex. And these topics can also be used to understand the complexity of a character. For someone like Cid, all of these topics are touched on in a variety of ways.

•She’s different from them

•She’s gruff and money hungry

•She speaks to the Batch like they’re a bunch of kids and she knows better than them

•They never fully bring themselves to trust her and, at times, they see her has a burden

•Towards the end of their time together, she gets snappier, and whenever she’s around them her movements slow ever so slightly and she furrows her brows slightly a lot more than in the past

•And in the end, she betrays them

And that’s putting her character into a single sentence for every bullet point, which, for well written characters like Cid or Hemlock or Rampart or Nala Se, cuts a lot of things out.

When it comes to the way that Phee is written and what she contributes as a whole to the show, she is not a very complex character. I’m not going to go into every single scene with her, but I am going to touch on a few. And if I need to continue the discussion further to cover more scenes, then I will. On multiple instances, she puts the Batch into very dangerous situations, and overall appears to care very little for them as people unless it gets her something that she wants. This is made very evident when, for example, she gets Omega, a child, excited about a big grand adventure and Omega then convinced the Batch to go along with it. Even though they were very adamant about not doing it. This is said with both their words and their tense body language. They don’t want Omega to get hurt and they know it’s a bad idea; but in the end she’s able to convince them. Then, when they get to the site, she shows clear lack for them or their safety and proceeds to put them in a very dangerous situation where someone could have gotten seriously hurt or killed. And she shows no remorse for it. Her language, both verbal and bodily, are very loose and nonchalant, assuring them that she had everything under control and that they were able to handle it, despite their very clear frustration. This type of behavior is shown again and again and again as they continue to interact with her. Her actions relay to the viewer that she does not respect their boundaries, or arguably, them as people. Her words are designed to be rocks with a pretty bow on them. And again, this is not personal opinion or speculation. Every single word and action was carefully designed by the team. All the tensed muscles were created by a team of people working very hard to convey that to the audience. Every thinly veiled word was guided by a director when the VA came in to record the sessions. Every single choice was intentional for a very specific reason.

Tech likes things in a very specific way. He likes his ship to be in a particular order and takes very good care of its maintenance and upkeep. He prides himself on being able to maintain a good ship. He spends a lot of time on his data pad. It’s how he was designed on Kamino. That’s his link to his role in the group. He can do everything he needs to from there and, in certain scenarios throughout the show, you can see it provides him with a sense of comfort and stability. You can see this, not only in his subtle body language, but also in his fairly obvious body language with how he hunches over it. It’s reminiscent of a child hunching over a toy to bring it closer to them and protect it. It comforts him. You can also see, when he interacts with the rest of the Batch, his aversion to touch. It’s not significantly often that you see it, given that the rest of the Batch knows him better than anyone, but there are still times when physical contact or even just very close proximity happens and he either has a reaction by tensing up slightly or leaning away from it, or sometimes he doesn’t react to it at all and almost seems to not register it; such as when he’s focused on his work. Every little reaction that he has with his brothers was scripted and orchestrated for a very specific purpose. It conveys the nuances of who he is as a unique and individual person.

Keeping that in mind, when it comes to the way she interacts with Tech specifically and the Batch, it’s very clear to understand the dynamic behind them when you look close enough. To recall a few instances, there was a time when she was recounting a story about finding a big treasure and Tech says something along the lines of “she changes this story every time she tells it”. He’s conveying to both the people in the show and us as viewers that she is a liar. She is either changing the story to make herself seem cooler, or maybe it didn’t happen at all and she’s making the entire thing up. Which, I will briefly mention again, are traits synonymous with narcissists. In another instance, Tech, Omega, and Wrecker were having a conversation where Tech is reprimanding them for bringing items back from a junkyard that they were in that they thought were cool instead of what he asked them to go find and bring back for him. I’m this conversation, Phee inserts herself and tells Tech that it’s not junk; also, in that same instance, not calling him by his name, which I will get to in a minute. Tech, in that moment, is trying to work, and his conversation with the other two was interrupted and fizzles out as Omega gets excited about the idea of a treasure map. A third is when the group is on Pabu and Phee is trying to get Tech to converse with her. His body language is hunched, tense, and he averts eye contact with her. When she prods him further, he is unsure how to engage in the conversation. And when he doesn’t respond in the way that she’s wanting him to, she talks about him to the rest of the Batch as he stands there around him and says to them how he “doesn’t know how to have fun”. And then they proceed to laugh at him. And again, you can see in his body language that he is confused as to why they’re laughing at him as well as uncomfortable being in that situation. And going off of that for another small fourth instance, there is another moment when they are getting ready to leave Pabu and she approaches Tech, who is working alone and trying to avoid contact with anyone, and says to him “So you’re just going to leave without saying goodbye?” His body language immediately tenses, he hunches further in on himself around his datapad, and his words make it clear he is both unsure and unwanting of the conversation. And when he does not respond in the way that she wants him to, she moves the datapad away from him to make him focus on her. She removes the item that brings him the most security to force him into engaging in a conversation he is uncomfortable with having. And again, these are all very intentional choices. They are not left up for interpretation. They are there to tell us what the character is feeling in that moment. They are trying to convey to us that he is uncomfortable. Not that he’s shy around a girl he thinks is pretty. And given on other scenarios that have happened throughout the show, it’s very clear that interpersonal relationships with anyone outside of Omega and the Batch is not something that he’s interested in. If they wanted to convey that he found her attractive, there are routes they could have taken to ensure that that comes across correctly to the audience, such as a faint little blush or rubbing a hand through his hair. But they didn’t do that, and instead chose for him to shy away and hide from certain situations or tense up and keep his head down in others. They are conveying to us that he does not like being around her. Because every single action they made him carry out took hundreds of hours of work to execute, and they would not go through all that trouble for no reason.

Branching off of that, we reach the topic of Tech’s name. When you watch the series as a whole, you can count on one hand the number of times that Phee refers to Tech by his actual name, while she refers to the others as their actual names. This is different from Cid in the way that Cid made that intentional choice to call them different things as a way to maintain distance from them. It’s clear from both her body language and her words that she did not want to get close to them. And really, wanted nothing to do with them unless they made her money. These are intentional choices. Phee’s character is designed to be flighty and unbothered. And she wants what she wants when she wants it. The choice to call Tech names and refer to everyone else by their names is an intentional choice. Him not understanding why she does that is an intentional choice. She does not respect him, which is why she does this. She can see that he doesn’t know what to do about it, so she keeps doing it. Like when a person presses on a bruise. These are all intentional choices made by the directors.

There was also a comment that said she behaves exactly like Crosshair does. And there are a few things I think did not entirely process when they made that comment. The first being that Crosshair was written to be one of the main antagonists for the first two season. I know they appeared in Clone Wars as well, but I’m talking specifically about Bad Batch. He was designed to be a bad guy that goes through a redemption arc; just like Zuko did in ATLA, for those who enjoy it. They both started out as antagonists, had horrible things happen to them, realized along their journey that maybe they were wrong, and are able to redeem themselves in the end and side with, or in Cross’ case, return to, the protagonists. In the beginning Cross was very sharp and defensive and thought he knew what was best. But he grew over time and learned how to care for people and share his weaknesses instead of putting on a facade all the time. And that’s the difference. We are reaching the end of the series and Phee has never had character growth to the level that Crosshair has and softens and opens up to the rest of the group. She hasn’t had any character growth at all. She is still the same exact person she was when we met her. There have been characters who have appeared for significantly less time that her, and if you pay attention to them, they have had significantly more growth than her as well.

The problem that I have begun to notice with people who are so quick to defend her actions is that they seem to be focusing more on her than on anything else. When you focus on just her, I can see how someone could mistake these interactions for being positive. Because all they’re focusing on is someone who’s having fun, and of course that would translate to something positive for him. But for the people who focus on Tech, it becomes very evident that these interactions are not positive. When you watch Tech, and I mean actually pay attention to him and not just watch him, you see all the subtle signs that you would otherwise miss. Him being annoyed and uncomfortable and confused and tired and generally not enjoying being around her. And this, unfortunately, happens a lot in real life too. People don’t take the time to absorb both sides of what’s happening. And since we as humans are quicker to pick up on people who are happy as opposed to people who are not, it’s so easy to miss the signals and just assume that what you’re watching is a happy interaction and put forth no further effort into making sure that’s actually what’s happening.

There is no other way to say that these things are all intentional. They wrote, designed, and sent out something that they have spent the past few years creating. When you understand the level of work that was put into it all, there are a lot of things that become very clear. And sure, headcanons exist and people can speculate what happens between the episodes. But headcanons can only go so far before it becomes ridiculous. We cannot confirm that Echo didn’t run off to go have a quiet life with Cid, but that doesn’t automatically mean that it’s true. Inferring things that are not within the realm of possibility is not conducive. Assuming that Phee spent a lot of time talking about her adventures that she may or may not have had with the Batch between the episodes? That’s conducive and we have clear evidence that would support that. Assuming that her and Tech had a very close relationship and she always listens to what he had to say between episodes? As much as some people want it to be true, it’s just not. There is no evidence that supports that line of thinking, and, in fact, there is a vast amount of evidence that would actually conform the opposite; such as Phee talking over everyone and commanding the conversation, not respecting things that Tech says, etc.

I’m going to wrap this up by talking a bit more personally now. There are plenty of people assuming that I’m a racist or a misogynist or that my literacy skills are lacking or whatever, but because you’re upset that someone is calling out the awful behavior of someone you like doesn’t make it any less true. And that applies to both this type of situation and in real life. I know who I am and what I stand for, and you trying to tell me that I’m otherwise changes nothing. And defaulting to assumptions like that shows that either you do not watch the show with a more attentive eye, or that’s all that you see Phee for. A black woman. Both of which are issues.

People are allowed to not like black characters, even if they are black.

People are allowed to not like Asian characters, even if they are Asian.

People are allowed to not like female characters, even if they’re women (or AFAB people).

People are allowed to not like LGBTQ characters, even if they are queer.

People are allowed to not like neurodivergent characters, even if they are neurodivergent.

People are allowed to not like characters that display particular traits or thought processes, even if they share those same traits or thought processes.

People are allowed to not like characters if they think that the character is bad.

Also, for the people saying I’m using my autism as a shield clearly don’t understand how autism works? I don’t say that to be an excuse. I say that to provide context and reasoning behind the things that I say. Like many other neurodivergent people do. You all are getting pressed about the wrong things. If you want to debate the time and study I’ve put into the show because I genuinely enjoy it, then be my guest. But don’t throw out petty insults and waste everyone’s time. At least put forth some more critical thinking behind it and try to figure out why someone could be saying the things that they’re saying

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utilitycaster · 2 months

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Do you think part of the D20 journalistic bias comes from D20 being edited? It gives the appearance of much more effortless play and lets them control the pacing in a way unedited play like CR simply can't do. They get to (potentially) hide a lot of stuff people would jump on as flaws while CR has no choice but to let it all play out. I greatly prefer CR's approach, despite it biting them in the ass a bit through no fault of their own.

Answering these both together to group cause and my opinions, and I do want to note this is specifically about journalism/press coverage, not their respective fandoms even though there's obviously some overlap.

I think there's a couple things, but I do want to note this was actually prompted by Daggerheart, not Critical Role. The response from several prominent voices in the Actual Play journalism community, whom I will not name here but whom I do not respect intellectually, really was, within hours of the open beta (which as far as I know they didn't have early access to - more on that later) "um it could be better, I don't like xyz and also it's sooooooo important to have criticism" and again, it is important to have criticism, but also you act like D20 has never had a mediocre moment and that Kollok is brilliant, so.

This...got away from me a bit. I'd say I'm sorry but actually I adore writing thousands of words about actual play and it will happen again but I'm putting the detailed answer below a cut. The short answer is I think a lot of Actual Play journalists actually sort of fell into their jobs through being vaguely involved in nerd spaces and aren't actually equipped to talk intelligently about TTRPGs and actual play as a medium that should, at its best, be a perfect fusion of narrative and mechanics. So instead they're distracted by flashy edits and bright lights and cool noises and some abstract concept of "novelty" and write only about that. Also Critical Role is the 700 lb gorilla in the AP space (though not, actually, the TTRPG space) and doesn't give them early access and that's meaaaaaan. Indeed, for all I think a lot of their coverage of D20 and Worlds Beyond Number is obsessively fawning, I also think it's extremely surface level, frequently factually wrong, and fails to get at what's truly excellent about those shows either.

I think, honestly, the biggest one is that I don't actually think a lot of Actual Play journalists watch series in full. I was looking for Polygon coverage of Fantasy High Junior Year and they have one glowing article but it's more about Fantasy High as setting and institution and D20 "changing the game" (also more on this later) to the point of outright contradicting the pull quotes they used from interviewing Brennan Lee Mulligan (also more on this later). So I started looking through their coverage and actually, quite a number of their write-ups are based on only one episode, or half a season. Clearly, they haven't read the full open beta (nor have I, but I think their complaints about the character build process belie a profound misunderstanding of what TTRPGs are, also more on this later). So editing is certainly part of it because it's really easy to see cool special effects and sound design within one episode and shit out a hacky article about it, whereas actually getting to the substance - character relationships, cohesive narrative, storytelling - requires work that I do not think they're doing. And on the one hand I do kind of get it, because yeah, if journalism is your livelihood then you perhaps do not have the time to watch 4 hours of D&D a week for 2-3 years if you're only going to get one article every six months out of it. But I don't think the answer is "focus intently on Microsoft Powerpoint-esque scene transition tricks while ignoring that nothing occurring at the table is actually fun to watch." For more on this, see this post.

The second, which is very relevant to Daggerheart but also is actually a big gap in D20 and WBN coverage in my opinion, and which I put in the tags, is that I actually don't think a lot of journalists have a solid understanding of TTRPGs nor of most genres. And I think Critical Role has a particularly good understanding of both these things, actually, if one skewed towards collaborative storytelling that is not rules-light. I think one really big example is that one person within the space is mad at the Daggerheart questions for the character archetypes because what if your character doesn't fit these. I think this is dumb as shit. I actually think that a common criticism of D&D - that you can't play ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING - is not valid, or rather, it's a valid opinion to hold but if you want to play a character who doesn't fit into the available archetypes perhaps you need to find another game. We all inherently understand that Blades in the Dark characters will be members of a criminal organization in a relatively low-magic setting, correct? That you can't show up to BitD and play a lawful good wizard prince because that's not the story being told? Or like, how in Honey Heist, you are a bear and you are trying to get honey, and you cannot play a human child investigating the old abandoned house at the edge of town, but there's a cool game called Kids on Bikes that will let you do that? Great! Why is this suddenly so hard to understand in the realm of heroic fantasy, that you will fit into specific archetypes? Why do people's brains, if they have them to begin with, vanish suddenly? I know I just did a big old rant that included this within it but genuinely I think a lot of people are deeply ignorant of heroic fantasy, or don't like it, and either is fine, but then they get mad at the heroic fantasy game for having heroic fantasy archetypes when the answer is "maybe this will never make you happy because it's not for you." (Frankly, I think this is also why they love D20, because it doesn't really do straight-up heroic fantasy, and that's fine, but they do keep acting like doing a Game of Thrones pastiche is equivalent to the invention of the wheel.) Like...I remember in the Midst Q&A that Xen said they tend to not like playing typical D&D classes, but their solution was to, you know, create Midst instead of sitting around going "actually, because D&D doesn't support cyberpunk narrative and the character archetypes within very well it is an utter failure." (I could go on forever about how actually TTRPGs are not a showcase for your already extant OCs to prance around but that's a totally separate post).

Mechanics and story are inherently intertwined, is what I'm trying to get at (sorry I'm really tired and have a lot to do but I'm passionate about this answer, it will be rambly, she says like 3 pages in) and I really don't think most actual play journalists get this. At all. And I do think that CR, and Daggerheart, and the people working for it, and especially Spenser Starke, Rowan Hall, Matt Mercer, and Travis Willingham, get this more than almost anyone else in the field. I also think Brennan Lee Mulligan and Aabria Iyengar get this, and the thing is, for all the praise showered upon them, much of which I think is deserved and most of what I think is undeserved is not because they are lacking but because the person writing about them is an idiot crediting them for things they (Brennan and Aabria) would never claim to have invented, their mechanical prowess is rarely if ever written about well. Fantasy High Junior Year's downtime mechanics actually fill in a famous gap in D&D, namely, downtime, and provide an excellent marriage of story and mechanics in my opinion, and I haven't really seen any discussion, because that would require watching the part of the TTRPG show where they play the TTRPG, and knowing the vague word on the street about D&D criticism that isn't just "*nods sagely* capitalism is the BBEG."

And finally: related a bit to the edit but Critical Role used to not be able to provide any early access to press, because it was literally a live show, and I suspect they never broke the habit, and I think that is for the best. As discussed a lot of D20 coverage actually feels like they watched the press screener and then never returned to the show. And I do not know the politics about them, but given that several of these publications (notably Polygon, but some others) have been shitting on Critical Role for several years, and just generally given the way CR's leadership vs. how D20's leadership respond to fandom pressure, I suspect Critical Role does not give these journalists a ton of early or increased, if any. Honestly, why should you, if you're getting interviewed in Variety? And I think the journalists are mad, because they think they're special and should get treated as such.

I do want to wrap something up, and I want to thank @captainofthetidesbreath for talking a little about this in game design/ttrpgs and giving me the idea, but in story, you should be challenging your audience, expanding their horizons, and being new and interesting. In the actual playing of TTRPGs, especially a new one, it is vital to be inclusive and easy to understand and patient and provide points of reference. I really feel like many Actual Play journalists and some TTRPG ones as well have this equation flipped and are looking for challenging concepts that most people will never be able to get a group to be willing to play, and bells and whistles in production, but leave story as an afterthought. Critical Role designs games to actually be played and to be used specifically to tell good stories, and puts story before production, and I think that undercuts those journalists' whole deal.

#answered #Anonymous #long post #cr tag #anyway though i am going to go lie down and try to take a nap bc the daylight savings got me but good.

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max1461 · 2 months

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What does this question even fucking mean?

I apologize to this random reddit user, who I'm about to put on blast, but this question is such nonsense and it's nonsense in a way that is extremely common, especially on r/askphilosophy (where this was posted) but also just in general, and I want to talk about it.

First of all, as the top commenter points out, a "philosopher king" is a hypothetical type of ruler discussed by Plato, not a real category of king that actually existed. But I can forgive this user for not knowing this is where the term comes from, because it's just a piece of factual knowledge that they might not have. That's fine. The reason I find this question so dumb is because, like... suppose that "philosopher king" was a real category of ruler that existed in antiquity. What the fuck would it mean? Like, did this asker ever stop to think "what question am I asking? This category that I'm inquiring about, what defines it?"? No, they did not. They just heard a term and started using it without thinking about what it actually refers to. This is the ur-problem of like 80% of all bad thinking: speaking first and figuring out what you mean by it later.

Is a "philosopher king" just a king who happens to also be a philosopher? If so, then surely you can answer your own question about the existence of "philosopher presidents" by just googling around for world leaders who happen to also have philosophy degrees or whatever; I imagine that information is easily available. But if this is what you mean by "philosopher king", then the question doesn't seem very deep or interesting, right? I mean a king is just a guy, and a president is just a guy, so of course it might be the case that sometimes these guys happen to also write philosophy.

I suppose if the question was framed this way—"are there any recent world leaders who are also philosophers?"—I wouldn't find it so silly. But the way it's phrased sort of suggests that the asker believes there's some kind of like, underlying pattern they're noticing, or deeper meaning they can ascribe to this. Like a "philosopher king" is some special ontological category of ruler, beyond just "king who also happens to have written philosophy", and so the existence or not of "philosopher presidents" is like a fascinating and puzzling topic to ponder instead of just an incidental question about whether any world leaders who use the title "president" also happen to do philosophy.

Right? Do you see what I'm saying? It's like this user heard king Solomon or whatever the fuck referred to as a "philosopher king" once, and didn't even bother to try to parse what that means. Just went "I guess there's a special type of king called a philosopher king, I know this piece of information know". It's like an abdication of actually thinking about what anyone is saying to you.

Of course I'm inferring wildly based on a small amount of information here, but this is the general type of error that I see all the time, so I'm not really concerned with being appropriately epistemically cautious about whether this exact thing is what lead this user to ask their dumb question on r/askphilosophy. I'm riffing on this guy's question to articulate a broader point, and pattern matching it to a common thinking error.

I will say, though, r/askphilosophy seems to attract people who say shit that is dumb in exactly this way (as opposed to all the other ways you can be dumb), and so this has served me well as model for what these people are doing wrong.

Anyway, this is actually the root cause, one suspects, of the asker's knowledge gap that I mentioned at the beginning of the post. A "philosopher king" is not in fact some special category of king that really existed, but an idea discussed by Plato in the Republic. It's fine that this person doesn't know this, but if they had tried to figure out what "philosopher king" actually means before saying it, they probably would have learned this fact.

If I could give one piece of advice to everyone on Earth and have them really take it seriously, it would probably be "think about what you mean before your say it".

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edenfenixblogs · 3 months

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hi, i wanted to give you an update on that post of mine you reblogged. heritageposts has informed me that they were using the red triangle in this context: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231123-one-small-red-triangle-palestine-we-are-finally-looking/

i was wrong about what they meant with the 🔻 emoji and i am officially rescinding my previous statement

I am all for fact checking and I would love to believe that Heritage Posts did not mean this particular horrible thing they did.

However, Middle East Monitor (MEMO) is not a reliable source for information in this conflict. If HP is actually using MEMO for news, they should focus on more reliable ones going forward.

There are plenty of other left-leaning sources with more reliability, credibility, sourcing, and transparency.

They have failed several fact checks for misleading and occasionally false information. The publication is explicitly and repeatedly pro-Hamas, and they often omit vital information to skew their stories.

While they are not rated as an outright propaganda publication or as a source of conspiracy theories, they do often cite sources which do and are.

Finally, they are funded by donations. Of course these donations largely come from people who support the kind of reporting that people who donate to them support. They are a nonprofit organization, which is not inherently a bad thing. But this means their interests are not based in journalistic ideals but in political ideology. This is not a reason to completely discount a source, but it is something to keep in mind.

In general, with a topic this intense and with such profound consequences for so many people, I’m only engaging with sources who receive a “reporting” rating of “high” or better and a “credibility” rating of “high credibility.”

I would POSSIBLY consider a “reporting” rating of “Mostly factual” if it had a “high credibility” rating and several extenuating circumstances and reduced media bias to compensate for its lower score in another area.

Leftist sources worth referencing instead:

Forward Progressives

Haaretz

International Policy Digest

Current Affairs

And many others

Personally, though, (for this particular conflict especially) I tend to prefer sources that fall into the central three categories: left-center biased, least biased, and right-center biased.

No news source is perfect or without bias. But this conflict is so fraught that I frankly don’t trust anyone reporting with extreme ideological intentions. And I also don’t want to only read sources that make me comfortable. I am personally very leftist in all of my personal politics and voting. However, I also know that the far left has been more hostile to me based solely on my Jewish ethnicity than anyone else in these past months. Furthermore, I think politicians should be more left, but journalism should always prioritize facts and a full scope of a situation over any one viewpoint. I am the daughter of a journalist. I am deeply in favor of journalistic freedom. And I absolutely do NOT believe in “both sidesism.” Sometimes, there really aren’t two sides to a situation that are both equally worth listening to. There is no alternative viewpoint to “Black Lives Matter” for example that is not deeply racist.

There are not “two sides worth teaching” when it comes to The Holocaust.

But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not so simple. Israel should stop its bombing of Palestine. Palestinians should have full and equal rights. Jewish people in Israel and around the world should not have to live in constant fear or attack, harassment, or murder. There are a lot of extremely valid perspectives from Palestinians, Muslims, Israelis, Arabs, and Jews. And right now, the far left and the far right are weaponizing their ideologies to reduce all of the aforementioned groups to their worst actors. That is not something that will help anyone with regard to this conflict.

Left Leaning Sources

ABC News

Associated Press

Atlantic Media

Boston Globe

The Forward (This is a Jewish source. They had one failed fact check in the last five years, but issued an official correction.)

Human Rights Watch

Institute for Middle East Understanding (This is a Palestinian source and it has a completely clean fact check record)

Least Biased Sources

Jewish Telegraphic Agency (Obviously a Jewish source)

Reuters (this has a Very High reporting rating)

American Press Institute (not only have they not failed a fact check in five years; they have never failed a fact check ever)

The Conversation

Pew Research

Foreign Policy

Foreign Affairs

Sky News UK

Right Leaning

Note: As I stated numerous times, including in this post, I am a leftist. However, something important for American readers of this post to know is that, when it comes specifically to matters involving military analysis of foreign conflicts, a slight right lean in perspective is common and sometimes preferable to leftist idealism. I say this as someone who votes and holds opinions that are about as far left as one can get. However, I also say this as someone with a background in university studies of international politics. Because analysis of military conflicts is often done by those with experience in and understanding of the military, most of the most credible and detailed analyses of foreign military affairs do tend to be more right leaning than sources of equal worth focused on domestic political matters. Furthermore, a leftist tendency toward pacifism (which I share) tends to mean less leftist involvement in military-involved political matters at all. Of course, none of this means there are no quality leftist sources on the current conflict (which I obviously demonstrated by linking to such sources above). I am simply explaining the value of such sources to those who may justifiably be skeptical of anything right-leaning after the hellish past two decades of domestic policies and US-caused violence in other countries.

Note 2: There are plenty of right-leaning sources that received “high” credibility ratings and “high” reporting ratings. I found no sources that had both “very high” credibility and “high” reporting ratings in the “right-center” category.

Boston Herald

Chicago Tribune

Counter Extremism Project

Foreign Policy Research Institute

The Jewish Press (clearly a Jewish source, this publication is geared toward the Modern Orthodox Jewish community. They have no failed fact checks)

ITV News

Jewish Unpacked (this source has no failed fact checks. this source is right-leaning by necessity because of its historical examination of antisemitism in leftist spaces making those spaces inherently unsafe for Jews—not specifically in this most recent flare up in the I/p conflict, but for years).

Right Bias

Note: I don’t personally follow or read any of these sources. But I did list leftist sources with high credibility and reporting ratings, so I will do the same here in the interest of fairness. It should be noted that all other source bias ratings had results several pages long. Right Bias sources with high credibility and reporting ratings were confined to one page only. There are no Right Bias Sources with Very High reporting ratings and high credibility.

Economic Policy Journal (no failed fact checks now or ever)

Influence Watch (tends to view liberal and progressive politics as “extremist,” but has no failed fact checks.)

I am not inclined to trust HP simply because their most recent antisemitic behavior fell short of hoping for Jewish genocide. I have a higher bar for accounts than that.

#antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #media literacy #I/p #israel #palestine #oh boy #I’m about to get so much hate #I’m not looking forward to it #but media literacy is important #and HP needs to be held accountable for the harm it is causing to Jews online #source evaluation

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carrymelikeimcute · 5 months

Text

The izcourse continues...

When did people stop saying 'in my opinion'? because lord above would that simple phrase have stopped me getting so mad this morning.

I have no interest in reblogging the posts and starting drama, but some izzy takes I've seen this morning have made me want to chew through rawhide, and here's my opinion on why these 'factual statements' are wrong.

Izzy fans shouldn't be upset by his death because he's not a main character, he is a plot device to further the story of the main characters.

I'm a professional writer btw and to me a 'plot device' character is the barista who's in one scene. To me, if a named character with backstory and complicated interpersonal history with one or more main characters is just 'a plot device' - that's a waste of a character and shitty writing. I don't think ofmd is shittily written so this annoys me on two levels - disrespecting the show, and the character. Because in my view if Izzy is 'just a plot device' that's someone insulting the show.

2. Izzy was an antagonist and antagonists can only ever be redeemed and then die, or become a villain.

Not even true of ofmd and certainly not of media in general, yet stated as fact with nothing to back it up. This is NOT an opinion btw - you only have to look at Zheng and Jackie to know it's not true within the context of the show.

Jackie dobs Stede in to the British just as much as Izzy does, and she threatens them with vengeance again over the indigo - does she die? Does she become a villain? No, she's a guest at the lupete wedding for fuck sake.

Zheng insults Ed and attempts to kill Stede, two things Izzy was vilified for, gosh it was so sad when she died in the finale wasn't it? Oh no wait, she became their ally and sailed away on The Revenge!

'Have to die or become villains' is just...incomprehensible to me. The only way I can see it working in someone's head is if they think character like Jackie and Zheng did nothing wrong, when Izzy was evil, for doing the same things - albeit for more personally passionate reasons.

3. Izzy telling Ed that the ship's atmosphere was poison because of 'his feelings for Stede' was Izzy 'blaming Ed's actions on love again, just like he did in s1.e10 because Izzy is just one-note evil and only ever has that one thing to say.

To me, s1 Izzy is absolutely thrilled to have managed to bait Ed to anger, to have brought this out of him. He thinks he knows what he's just unleashed, but as we soon discover, he has no idea - because Ed had never cut off one of his extremities before. He poked the bear, but the bear was actually a fucking kraken.

s2 Izzy, in my opinion, looking at his expression above, is sad, resigned, he is saying Stede's name (which it's already established even obliquely mentioning him is a BAD IDEA with the whole 'talk it through' thing, after which Izzy sounds panicked) but he is specifically trying to make Ed see that he is not himself - that what he is doing to the crew is toxic.

Just because he's essentially saying 'This isn't you' in both scenes, doesn't mean the tone or the meaning of those scenes is the same. One scene ends with Izzy gleeful, victorious. One ends with him screaming on the deck, bleeding out.

I am happy for people to have these opinions, and for me to vehemently disagree with them, but they ARE opinions. And Izzy 'fans' or you know, people who see the show differently to you, are not stupid, racist, immature or whatever else you want to call us.

We just have a different opinion. If you're going to share your opinion, great! But it's still just your opinion.

#ofmd critical #the izcourse #izcourse #izzy hands #izzy hands apologist

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takeme-totheworld · 2 months

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I think what bothers me the most about the "Aziraphale doesn't have religious trauma" argument (which I've seen from many many different people, this is not aimed at anyone in particular) is that it's usually based on the idea that religious trauma = trauma based on being taught to believe in something imaginary, whereas in the GO universe God and Satan and Heaven and Hell are all real.

And like...yes, that's true and I understand where the people who say this are coming from.

But "being taught to believe in something imaginary" is actually not the basis for a lot of what I saw in Aziraphale that I identified so strongly with along religious trauma lines.

You know what things are a hundred percent real?

The church I was raised in and the heavy sway it holds over its members.

Institutional Christianity in general and its influence on the world in general and my country (the US) in particular.

The indoctrination I was subjected to, which was not only about the alleged existence of God, Satan, etc, but was also very much about inculcating us all with a very specific (and harmful) moral framework, and an extremely narrow-minded and tribalistic view toward the rest of society, and intensely harsh, self-punishing rules for being A Good And Righteous Person.

And all those other things, especially the self-punishing moral strictures, have stuck with me far longer and been much more difficult to excise from my brain than the fear of Hell, which I was actually able to dispense with fairly quickly once my brain made all the necessary "oh, this is all bullshit actually" connections.

So when I talk about my personal religious trauma, I'm talking about the trauma I experienced at the hands of a religious institution, which actually encompassed a much broader category of things than "being taught to believe in a scary imaginary mythology." Yes, that was absolutely part of it, and yes, that part was used as the basis to justify the rest of it—but in my case, it was in some ways the least impactful part.

When I see Aziraphale clinging to the belief that Heaven is "the side of truth, of light, of good," I see myself desperately clinging to my love and trust in the basic moral goodness and rightness of the church even when it was measurably harming me. When I see Aziraphale saying things like "it's not for us to understand" or all the weird propaganda about the virtues of poverty in the Edinburgh episode, I see myself parroting real-world ideologies I'd been indoctrinated with growing up, even in the face of factual evidence that life was actually much more complicated than that.

I was taught trust and loyalty toward a deeply harmful institution, I was taught to accept whatever that institution told me was the truth without questioning it, I was taught a bunch of factually wrong and deeply fucked up paradigms about how the actual world of human beings was supposed to work, and I had to work incredibly hard to unlearn all of that. And those are the things I see in Aziraphale that I identify with so intensely and so painfully. And all of those things are also religious trauma.

Anyway, I'm not trying to start an argument about this, just to articulate where I'm coming from. If you are a person who also has religious trauma, who doesn't personally see your experience reflected in Aziraphale, it's totally valid to say that! But to categorically state that it's therefore not religious trauma, or that religious trauma is the wrong metaphor for anyone to use here...just maybe don't do that?

If there's one thing that's become obvious to me in this fandom it's how many different lenses this story can be interpreted through, and it makes me feel icky to see the one that most resonates with me repeatedly and specifically called out as incorrect. By, genuinely, lots of different people, over and over again.

#good omens #aziraphale #personal #religious trauma #religious indoctrination

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murdererofthumbs · 1 year

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Seeing reactions after this episode is actually slightly hysterical? It proves that this fandom can be so blind-sighted by characters relations, that they forget what show they are watching. Like, I have always been a self-proclaimed Roman-girl, because I find him compelling and extremely psychologically interesting, and like all of these characters, to a certain extent, I do empathise with him on the level of trauma that he went through. But why the fuck are people surprised that THIS is how he behaved in this episode is beyond me. Oh, suddenly Roman is dead to you because he behaved in the way that was very much consistent with who he is? That’s who all of these people are, like come on, what do we think we are watching here? You didn’t really think he will suddenly become a defender of democracy because it serves a greater good of the country? He was the one to fucking choose Mencken as a president, he cherry-picked him for Logan, because he knew that their views align, that Mencken will be a smart business decision. This whole thing is a transactional procedure - they needed to get someone who will be willing to serve their corrupt interests. Roman doesn’t see a problem in having fascist as a president, because he will never be touched by the consequences of having that kind of man in power. He is very much safe at the top of the mountain, and who the fuck cares what will happen to the peasants at the bottom of the chain? In this way, he imitates Logan the most, because in the end of the day, people are units to him, to all of them really, some of them are just more willing to admit this than others.

Also, like, “uuu, Roman was such a misogynist to Shiv this episode, he just didn’t listen to her at all”. Look, can we stop being delusional here for a second or is it some sort of selective memory situation? Roman is a misogynist. Kendall is a misogynist. Shiv, in fact, has a lot of internalised misogyny going on, and her being a woman never stopped her from pushing other women under the fucking bus, so let’s be real here for a second. And that is not to be said in defence of Roman, frankly nothing what I’m saying here is supposed to justify his behaviour in this or any other episode, but it’s more of like… reality check? I know that Roman’s self-destructive spiral and semi-decent behaviour at the beginning of this season might have clouded certain aspects of who he is, but please, go back to season 3 and count all the instances of him throwing misogynistic and, frequently incestuous jokes and innuendo, at Shiv? How many times he undermines her position on the basis of her being a woman? Or how Kendall, for that matter, uses similar arguments in 03x02? All the siblings use aspects of each other as weapons. Kendall is undermined because he is unstable, because he is a drug-addict, because he has a tendency of flying off on the cloud of mania, and crashing in the heap of depression. Shiv is crossed out because she is a woman, because she frankly has no real experience in the firm (which, although people might be super angry about that, because she is such a “girlboss” apparently, but this is a factual argument), because of her relationship to Tom and tendency to take several sides at the same time (with not much thought put into it). And Roman is frequently undermined because he is a freak and a pervert, because “there is something wrong with him”, because he is the weakest dog that is most easily manipulated, who crumples like a wet tissue if only to receive a bit of affection. They all weaponise their “weak” points against each other, because this dog-eats-dog mindset is focal to who they are as a family, to how they were brought up, to how Logan wanted them to be. So please, let’s not be surprised, when Roman suddenly uses misogyny as an argument against Shiv, because it’s not sudden at all, and it’s always been there.

I think what we have on our hands, is the same situation we had in 03x07 during Kendall’s birthday (and previous episode with Mencken), where some people are so outraged by Roman, and by his ability to shove the knife where it hurts, that they suddenly cross him out completely. Again, all these characters are bad people, there was never any doubt about that. They are compelling because of the complexities of their familial relationships, because of their childhood trauma and the consequences that this trauma has on them as adults. But they are still completely reprehensible as human beings, and I think some viewers forget about that and then get outraged when show about awful people features awful people. And I’m sure, either in next or final episode, something will happen and Roman will become sympathetic again, and he will regain his position as a “poor meow meow”, just as he did in the finale of season 3. Its always a fucking carousel with this character and people get sucked in and have their eye’s covered just to realise that nothing really changed, and nothing will change, because in this show people, at their core, remain the same.

#roman roy #this is a ridiculously long rant #but as soon as I finished this episode I just knew what takes I will see on tumblr #it is becoming painfully predictable to figure out what takes people will give #i dont know if i should find it funny or sad because its been 4 seasons and some people still don’t understand what they are watching #like wow #show about bad people have actual bad people?#doing bad things?#the shocker of a fucking century #call all the news channels #but will all of that stop me from liking Roman as a character?#No because there was never any doubt in my mind about the state of his moral compass #or lack thereof #you can’t like characters in this show for them doing good things because they rarely do #this show is interesting and these characters are interesting because of the psychological mechanisms that drive their behaviour #(and im saying this obviously as a psych major so nothing surprising here)#but yeah i had to get it out because it infuriates me when people lack a basic understanding of what they are watching #and are surprised by things that were there to begin with #in the end of the day nothing fucking changed #succession #succession hbo #kendall roy #shiv roy #succession spoilers #logan roy #connor roy #succession s4 #marta rumbles poetically #i will also probably write something about Roman later on when I can fully process this episode and I get my exam done #because there are some interesting psychological things at stake in here

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maximumphilosopheranchor · 1 month

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"A modest affair in military terms, the Russian invasion of southern and then southeastern Ukraine involved the most sophisticated propaganda campaign in the history of warfare. The propaganda worked at two level: first, as a direct assault on factuality, denying the obvious, even the war itself; second, as an unconditional proclamation of innocence, denying that Russia could be responsible for any wrong. No war was taking place, and it was thoroughly justified.

When Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2014, President Putin lied with purpose. On February 28 he claimed, “We have no intention of rattling the sabre and sending troops to Crimea.” He had already sent troops to Crimea. At the moment he uttered these words, Russian troops had been marching through Ukrainian sovereign territory for four days. For that matter, the Night Wolves were in Crimea, following Russian soldiers around in a loud display of revving engines, a media stunt to make the Russian presence unmistakable. Even so, Putin chose to mock reporters who noted the basic facts. On March 4, he asserted that Russian soldiers were local Ukrainian citizens who had purchased their uniforms at local stores. “Why don’t you have a look at the post-Soviet states,” Putin proposed. “There are many uniforms there that are similar. You can go to a store and buy any kind of uniform.” (..)

Putin’s direct assault on factuality might be called implausible deniability. By denying what everyone knew, Putin was creating unifying fictions at home and dilemmas in European and American newsrooms. Western journalists are taught to report the facts, and by March 4 the factual evidence that Russia had invaded Ukraine was overwhelming. Russian and Ukrainian journalists had filmed Russian soldiers marching through Crimea. Ukrainians were already calling Russian special forces “little green men,” a joking suggestion that the soldiers in their unmarked uniforms must have come from outer space. The soldiers could not speak Ukrainian; local Ukrainians were also quick to notice Russian slang particular to Russian cities and not used in Ukraine. As the reporter Ekaterina Sergatskova pointed out, “the little green men’ do not conceal that they are from Russia.”

Western journalists are also taught to report various interpretations of the facts. The adage that there are two sides to a story makes sense when those who represent each side accept the factuality of the world and interpret the same set of facts. Putin’s strategy of implausible deniability exploited this convention while destroying its basis. He positioned himself as a side of the story while mocking factuality. “I am lying to you openly and we both know it” is not a side of the story. It is a trap.

Western editors, although they had the reports of the Russian invasion on their desks in the late days of February and the early days of March 2014, chose to feature Putin’s exuberant denials. And so the narrative of the Russian invasion of Ukraine shifted in a subtle but profound way: it was not about what was happening to Ukrainians, but about what the Russian president chose to say about Ukraine. A real war became reality television, with Putin as the hero. Much of the press accepted its supporting role in the drama. Even as Western editors became more critical over time, their criticism was framed as their own doubts about Kremlin claims. When Putin later admitted that Russia had indeed invaded Ukraine, this only proved that the Western press had been a player in his show.

After implausible deniability, Russia’s second propaganda strategy was the proclamation of innocence. The invasion was to be understood not as a stronger country attacking a weaker neighbor at a moment of extreme vulnerability, but as the righteous rebellion of an oppressed people against an overpowering global conspiracy. As Putin said on March 4: “I sometimes get the feeling that across the huge puddle, in America, people sit in a lab and conduct experiments, as if with rats, without actually understanding the consequences of what they are doing.” The war was not taking place; but were it taking place, America was to be blamed; and since America was a superpower, all was permitted in response to its omnipotent malice. If Russia had invaded, which it was somehow both doing and not doing, Russians would be justified in whatever they were doing and not doing."

Timothy Snyder, The Road To Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

#Timothy Snyder #non-fiction #Ukraine #Russia #Vladimir Putin #propaganda #journalism #btw a similar thing was with blowing up Kakhovka dam #Western press was like: Ukraine and Russia are blaming each other #who that might be who blew the damb?#facepalm #the war has been going for 10 years now but they have learned so little

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galedekarios · 4 months

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also, regarding gale’s “best ending” can we get into how after elminster’s visit, every character, including astarion, says how awful it would be for gale to sacrifice himself?? it’s just like there’s no argument that makes sense for why someone ending their own life would ever be the right choice.

“hm yes i am very smart gale’s best ending is the one that every single character does not like”

it just makes no sense at all. YOU MADE HIM!!! you made him so why don’t you like your son!!!? it’s so odd to me why gale is the odd one out when he’s no more harmful or annoying than any other character!!

and just. so much of this fandom’s discourse is about what the “right” ending is. there is no “right” ending. we know this. you can have favorites, and some are more satisfying or well written than others, but in the end the joy of the game is that there is a whole world of decisions to make.

maybe MAYBE if he had said, “I personally like Gale’s sacrifice ending” and actually went into it with care and any semblance of media literacy FOR YOUR OWN GAME, it would have been so so much better than. THAT. because the scene and tim’s performance is fantastic and heartbreaking, and the epilogue is tragic and beautifully angsty. but any time anyone says “this is the right and best and only choice” with their whole chest maybe a little dogpiling is deserved.

i think that's very much the heart of the matter with the criticism that many people, myself included have.

it wouldn't have been a problem to voice a preference for how the story ends. that's normal, everyone has that in some way or another.

what they should have never said is that there is a "right" ending "in many ways" for gale - and then framing the ending where you let him sacrifice himself for no conceivable at this point in the narrative while contextualising it as gale giving "himself for the world at the end" because he's "the guy who starts off annoying everyone", "constantly asking you to give him your most priced possessions to eat", and how he "had the chance once before but wasn't ready for it".

not only are these statements factually wrong, but they send an extremely disgusting message to the people who see their own struggles in gale's.

also is someone saying this is dogpiling? i don't know if i would agree with that. if you say these things on a massive platform to a massive audience, people have a right to disagree and criticise.

#ch: gale dekarios #vg: baldur's gate 3 #series: baldur's gate #text: asks #bg3 critical #larian critical

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communistkenobi · 8 months

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what are some of your favorite nonfiction podcasts?

the big one I recommend is just king things - two marxist academics go through the books of Stephen King in publication order. extremely funny and insightful podcast, very accessible (like this is not a theory podcast or anything, it’s very laid back and casual), and I really appreciate their approach to literary criticism.

game studies study buddies is by the same hosts as just king things but this is a theory podcast. Each episode they go over and discuss a book from the field of game studies (ie the academic study of games). I very much recommend you listen to this if you want to like passively absorb critical/leftist theory. The hosts are academics, one of which teaches about games regularly as a professor, so it kind of feels like someone is teaching you about a text. I find it fairly accessible, I learn a lot about games, and as I said they very frequently structure their discussions with left wing theory. I find them very insightful!

blowback is very good, it’s about the imperial history of the United States. a history/journalist type podcast. this can get extremely heavy and difficult to listen to given the subject matter so I would not binge this (I usually listen to it when I’m doing a physical activity) but it’s a really good source of historical information and has helped me develop my political understanding of modern western imperial history. each season covers a different event: S1 is the invasion of Iraq, S2 is the Cuban Revolution, S3 is the Korean War, S4 is the invasion of Afghanistan

ALAB (all lawyers are bad) is good with some caveats. It’s a podcast by a bunch of lawyers who spend a lot of time on twitter discussing how horrible lawyers are, usually either focusing on specific high-profile lawyers (Kavanaugh, Dershowitz), specific american legal regimes (anti-BDS legislation, sanction law, etc), or specific trends in the legal system that causes structural problems (eg lifetime judgeship appointments with no mandatory retirement age). They also sometimes do random funny lawsuits or cover legal responses to events like Jan 6th. A mixed bag in terms of focus but mostly it’s hating on American law and the legal system. This is a critical recommendation because it’s a bunch of lawyers dudes riffing and some of their analysis can be stupid/bad, they say stupid shit that comes off as “anti identity politics” at times, etc. I’m pulling from memory because it’s been a while since I listened to them so I’m sorry if this is overly vague/general. The best way to describe it is chapo-adjacent if that means anything to you lol

and finally the podcast knowledge fight. this is a podcast dedicated to covering and debunking Alex Jones. in all honesty I don’t find this podcast super valuable in terms of analysis, like they are only really focused on debunking the claims Jones makes and explaining why they’re factually wrong. Which like that’s a good thing to do, I’m not saying its bad, but I don’t really need to be convinced Jones is lying about everything lol so I don’t personally find it super useful/insightful. If you have to interact with Alex Jones fans regularly (like family members) then maybe that will be more valuable for you! Totally depends. however the reason I bring them up is because I DO recommend the series of episodes they have titled formulaic objections - in this series they go through all the deposition material from the sandy hook lawsuit against Alex Jones (the one that cost him a billion dollars in damages and court sanctions lol). They play clips of the depositions throughout these episodes, which are so fucking insane to listen to. Like listening to a bunch of employees of an insane fringe right wing media organisation being questioned by lawyers for hours on end is so entertaining lmao. This lawsuit is about the sandy hook school shooting so a warning about the subject matter, it can get dark at times, but on the whole it’s extremely fucking funny to listen to. And the hosts provide a lot of context for what’s going on in the lawsuit, talk about it, and also they debunk the shit Jones lies about in court that you may not know about, so I find that part of it really good.

#asks #hope that helps !

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thewrothode-if · 6 months

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Just so you know your page is giving racist. Not only are you proud of how little research you have done but you also have decided that no black people existed in the Scandinavia... I understand that Google is hard but putting in academic journals or looking at peer reviewed articles could really help you. Ps I'm not doing the leg work for you. I hate when people need to be spoon fed so they aren't racist. White supremacy is on the rise and many fascists have used "viking culture" as a blanket to hide under. Many well read readers will be majorly turned off by how... let's just say indelicately you are handling this. I'm hoping that you are just young. I saw your wip and enjoyed it but will unfortunately be dropping this due to your followers and your own take on race. I hope you learn from this. Don't let your followers make you complacent, you have been racist. Not allowing diverse skin tone, racist. Not capable of doing any research on the topic knowing damn well that many people of African descent were all over Europe in general. Literally Icelandic and Nordic peoples travelled all the way to North America but pop off with your dog whistles. This was overall extremely disappointing hope you get better or hope you stop writing either would be great 👍

I’m so sad that I have to address this once more but here I go.

“Literally Icelandic and Nordic peoples travelled all the way to North America but pop off with your dog whistles.”

First things first, this tells me that you didn’t quite read through all that I have written on race on my blog because I did talk about that right here.

I’ll add it down here as well:

“It is interesting to note that Vikings found their way to North Africa (more specifically Morocco) at some point because they really were such vast travelers. So it was more so the Vikings coming to Africa rather than the other way around.”

2. “…you also have decided that no black people existed in the Scandinavia..”

No, I did not decide that no black people existed in Scandinavia. Maybe the way I talked about people of color being in Scandinavia made it seem like that, especially here when I said, “so it was more so the Vikings coming to Africa rather than the other way around.” But that doesn’t translate to, “there were absolutely no black people in Scandinavia.”

3. “Not allowing diverse skin tone, racist.”

Not allowing diverse skin tone is not racist, especially for this IF because as I said, you are playing as a Viking in Denmark. You are not a Viking from China or South Africa or Brazil or Italy, but Denmark.

I want to write a story where the main character is a white viking. I don’t see why that is a big problem. As many people have told me, A Tale of Crown has a lack of white skin tone options because the story is based in the Middle East. That is not a problem and what I’m doing here shouldn’t be a problem either.

4. “Ps I'm not doing the leg work for you.”

Then if you won’t do the leg work and I won’t do the leg work, why are we both fighting about something we have no clue over? I think that if you are going to start an argument about this, maybe you should research a little more so you can factually tell me why I’m wrong instead of just saying I’m racist.

5. “… hope you get better or hope you stop writing either would be great.”

I won’t stop writing, but I will probably take a small little break to calm down so I don’t let this affect me too much.

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sophieinwonderland · 7 months

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1) unless you're a Tibetan Buddhist monk, you are not/do not have a tulpa. Tulpamancy is a specific closed practice that belongs to and isn't shared outside of a very specific ethnic and religious group. You are racist for using that term, and you factually don't know how to create a tulpa because the only way to learn is at a Buddhist temple in Tibet. The ways taught online are fake and are made up by little racist white girls like yourself, because you don't have a real life or culture.

2) there's no scientific evidence that someone can willingly create a dissociative identity. Most scientists recognize what you're doing as a factitious disorder, aka you're lying about having a mental health condition for attention and sympathy. This is extremely ableist against people with real dissociative disorders. So you're racist and ableist.

3) comparing your actions to transgender people coming out is offensive on multiple levels. People don't decide to be trans for fun, they don't do it for attention, it's not a game. You are extremely transphobic for pulling that shit. So that's racist, ableist, and transphobic.

4) You're just an intrusive, disingenuous, mean, pathetic little creep and you need help. Eventually you'll pull this with the wrong trans, mentally ill, Tibetan Buddhist like myself and we'll show you what happens to disgusting racist little foreigners who like to mock our culture because you're too boring to get a real hobby, culture, or personality.

STOP FUCKING MOCKING CULTURES YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT BECKY!!!!

Let's go!

1. "Tulpamancy"

"Tulpamancy" was coined in 2009. While sharing an etymology with the Tibetan Buddhist sprul-pa, there is no Tibetan or Buddhist practice that has EVER EXISTED called "tulpamancy".

And even for the sprul-pa, I've never heard a valid source claim the practice can only be done by "monks."

Also not fake. At least according to the psychologists who are investigating the practice, and believe it to be a real psychological phenomenon. But surely you know more than psychiatry professors. 🙄

2. No Evidence You Can Create a Dissociative Identity

I have NEVER seen a scientist claim you can't create a "dissociative identity" or any synonym thereof without a dissociative disorder. The closest any doctor has come to accusing endogenic systems of a factitious disorder was in the McLean Hospital video, which was infamously so shameful that the hospital took it down!

Here is what I have seen...

The ICD-11, created by the World Health Organization, states you can have multiple "distinct personality states" without a dissociative disorder.

Transgender Mental Health, published by the American Psychiatric Association, states that you can be plural without trauma or a disorder.

The creators of the Theory of Structural Dissociation have mentioned that mediumship and hypnosis may result in "self-conscious" "dissociative parts of the personality."

The science is overwhelmingly in favor of endogenic systems to the point where it's not even a contest.

3. Comparisons

While no comparison is exact, endogenic systems are discriminated against whether intentionally created or not. And even as a tulpa, I was only somewhat intentionally created.

The discrimination and pluralphobia systems face is very real. And there are huge overlaps in pluralphobia and transphobia.

Both face misgendering and people intentionally calling them by names they don't identify with. Both experiences are falsely regarded as things that can only be mental illnesses, and have medicalist branches within those communities who engage in sending hate to those who don't identify their experiences as a disorder.

4. "Get help"

Always worth reminding people that this phrase is just another way of calling people crazy, insane, lunatics, etc. It's an inherently ableist term designed to silence people for perceived neurodivergencies.

This is still you, right?

Dear, you don't even have the guts to come off of anon.

You're a coward.

...

You know, at times like these, I think it's important for you to collect yourself. Think of things that bring you joy and comfort. Friends. Family. Your favorite fandoms. Whatever communities you're a part of that you love.

And I want you to know that those are the things we're going to take from you.

Piece by piece, as the world becomes more aware of and accepting of plurality, people like you will be ostracized and cast out of every space you feel safe.

The research will be a huge boon. Every study that comes out makes it that much easier to brand anti-endos as science-deniers. If neurological studies show different brain activity in tulpa systems, it will be confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt for most people. After you lose that last thread of deniability, it won't be long until the hate group label sticks too. After all, what else would you describe people bound together solely by hate for a marginalized community?

I want you to know that I am not merely seeking to turn system spaces against you, but every space, every support network you have. I want you to know that everyone in your life will realize what a terrible person you are and they'll abandon you just like you fear deep down they will.

I want you to know that this is where the tide is going, and that despite all your best efforts, you'll be powerless to stop it.

So please, enjoy your fandoms and your support networks and your time with your loved ones while you still can.

Have the day you deserve.

#syscourse #pro endo #pro endogenic #system discourse #pro tulpa #sysblr #systems #actually plural #actually a system #tw threats #tw violence #tw assault #sanism #ableism #discrimination #bigotry #hate groups #hate group

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devouredbyflame · 8 days

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Loki’s Faces

I get that this is mostly considered “UPG” however, I didn’t really create all of this inside of my own head so it’s not personal. It is observed behavior from Loki during my years of time working closely with Him and in relation to others.

I don’t think any resource ever has done Him any justice and I think it’s the best practice to just not assume anything people write about Him here or otherwise is factual or evidence of His character.

Loki is controversial - but only because you cannot place Him under one single signifier. He is accessible but not because He is interested in being everyone’s friend - in fact, I’ve never really known Him to tolerate just anyone and He actively doesn’t.

The standards He has for those - humans as well as Gods - who He allows to see His true face are high.

Those who are just around for show tend to not see the entirety of who He is and instead see what He isn’t. He wears different masks for different reasons and not because He is them - they are apart of Him, but they do not define Him.

Most people will likely never see the fullest extent of Loki if only because they can’t or don’t want to. So much mixed information goes around in His community because people don’t often see who He is beneath all of the grandiosity and playfulness.

Otherwise, He is extremely private and keeps to Himself most of the time. You’ll find He doesn’t share information about Him to just anyone. He also doesn’t go out of His way to show just Himself to people, either.

It’s intentional that not everyone gets to see His truest form or nature. It would be like showing everyone your hand in poker. When all of the cards are thrown, you have the power to be defeated. Loki uses His secrecy to His advantage and tends to only show people what they want to see because it’s easier than giving them the benefit to having any sort of power over His moves in the game.

The point of this is to say most people don’t really know Loki. When I say “most” I’m not talking about only a select group of people do know Him, I mean mostly, people don’t know that He isn’t obvious about His most truthful intentions, personality, and otherwise unless He chooses to be.

I’ve been led down false paths by Him that lead to dead ends for years. I’ve been told false things that I really only told myself were true that He let me believe because it suited what He wanted from me.

I stayed in groups I thought were good for me because I thought that’s what He wanted for me. I stayed with people because I thought He wanted me to stay with them because He wanted me to power through difficult things.

In reality, Loki is an extremely discerning and opinionated Deity and would sooner have told me what He really wanted for me had it not also developed who I am as an individual and given me the power of discerning Him from my own false narrative and belief about Him. He has let me fail and believe false things about Him and others so I can get to the truth of the nature of my relationship with Him and also the truth of the people around me.

Loki is a trickster. Not because He lies or tells people false things, or because He’s full of jokes and games or leads them into chaos but He let’s them believe things that are false to show otherwise. He shows people some of who He is if it suits the way He intends on it going. He doesn’t show anyone the cards in His hand unless He knows it’ll be kept secret and hidden or if it suits His intention.

The best thing you can possibly do with Loki is to allow Him to show you Himself. Allow yourself to be part of the game and allow yourself to be shown the truth. You’re going to fail in front of Him and it will probably be miserable, but that’s part of the strategy. You’re also going to be proven wrong many times.

He will let you go in circles until He can convince you what He wants you to do. He will let you believe things about Him or others even when it hurts your feelings. He won’t try to convince you unless you’re willing to listen and give it the benefit of the doubt.

If things haven’t changed for you, if you keep having the same issue again and again, it’s probably because there’s more to it than whatever you think He is trying to say.

People who don’t like Loki or get uncomfortable by Him only tend to do so because they don’t like what they see in themselves because of Him. They don’t actually know who He is. And they likely won’t.

Trust is a reward for the failure. Trust in Him and trust in yourself because it is not handed to you willingly. If you can’t listen to your inner guidance, you’ll never really know the truth anyway and you’ll never fully listen, either. The reward is always greater than the cost in the end. Loki is generous to those who wander and those who are willing to get lost along the way.

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