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xxgoblin-dumplingxx · 2 days

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Hi, would you write about a self conscious reader who is going through a crisis with accepting herself and reveals that to jason todd in an emotional state like the dramatic “i hate myself” thing. Kinda having a moment like that myself and i need to read something that i can identify with

Your door was shut when Jason got there. He could feel the emotional angst leaking through the door. It slid over him like ooze. Over his skin and down his throat.

But he forced himself to breathe. Like last night. If he focused, he could find the edges of what he was feeling and push your influence back. You weren't focused on him.

He exhaled slowly and knocked, waiting. "Y/N? It's Jason" No one was in the hall but somehow it felt like everyone was in the hall. The trouble with living in a house of nosey bitches.

A solenoid disengaged and he pushed the handle. Letting himself inside, leaving the door cracked. Mostly so you didn't feel trapped.

As soon as he stepped into the room, the atmosphere was crushing. Oppressive. A sensation of being cold and humid. Self hatred, grief, and shame. And he can feel you trying desperately to pull those feelings under the surface. Wrestle them into submission.

Sweat prickling on your forehead from the effort.

"You should probably go," you manage.

Jason winces and takes a deep breath, forcing himself into a state of calm. Remembering how he deals with scared little kids and abuse victims. "What can I do?" he asked softly, moving closer. Below you, out your window you're watching everyone else. In the sun and playing outside. Shaking off the night-terrors you'd given them and the stress of patrol with water guns and slips and slides- a home made water park around the pool. Christ. It's no wonder you hate yourself.

"I'm fine. I just. I just-" Your voice is rough with unshed tears and when you break off, resting your head against the glass, Jason smiles a little.

"Fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional," he chuckled. "We've all been there. You're just a little more obvious about it."

You make a soft miserable noise and he shakes his head, "No one wants you to stay away, "he murmured, changing tack. "Bruce gives us nightmares all the time. Ask Dick about his party hard days some time. His nudes got "leaked" once as a distraction when I was a kid and all the girls had them. It was gross."

When you huff a soft laugh, he nods towards your book shelf, "Not a lot of heavy lifting going on there," he teased, referencing the romances and young adult novels- a fair number of children's classics he noticed.

"I like happy endings," you murmur. "I don't- I just get overwhelmed. I get tired of being a monster."

Jason nodded. He didn't want to tease you for your books anymore. "You're not a monster, Y/N," he whispered. He'd spent a lot of time watching you. You offered kindness in a hundred different ways. Doing little things to help Alfred. Taking odd shifts for Barbara. Refilling Tim's water. Stocking gear. Taking time to just chill with Cass... he'd probably missed a lot of details. But a monster wouldn't do that.

"I feel like one. All the time. I feel like I'd be better off dead. Like if they would have been too late-"

"If they would have been too late, it would have been for nothing," Jason said, wiping tears off your cheeks tenderly as he knelt to cradle your face in his hands. "Those bastards that hurt you are monsters. You were a baby."

You don't meet his eyes but he can feel pain. A deep fissure that never healed. Like a wound that needed packed and never got it. Rotting and festering this whole time. Inflamed and ready to send you recoiling at the lightest touch. "Got a favorite happy ending?" he asked. "I'll read it to you if you want-"

"Aren't you an Austen snob?"

"Please. As if I could get away without reading at least a couple of Alfred's trashy Romance novels. Some of them are charming... a couple are even pretty decent writing. As long as they don't spend too much time describing the dude's cock."

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #ask answered #minors dni #reader insert #science experiment!reverse

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nohoperadio · 7 hours

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That cool bee book I was talking about a while ago mostly refrains from philosophical digressions (which I think is a strength, I appreciated how the author had total confidence that just clearly presenting the facts about his subject would be enough to make a fascinating book without the need for any "...and here's why that should blow your mind" editorializing, and he's totally right), but there was one towards the end I've found myself thinking about a lot, which is: he wants people to stop using "self-consciousness" (i.e. the concept exemplified by the mirror test but used implicitly or explicitly in tons of other contexts) as a criterion for which animals can be considered sentient/morally relevant/having significant inner lives/however you want to describe it. Not, as you might expect, because he thinks it's an unreasonably high bar to meet, but because it's such a low bar that it produces no distinctions: he argues that basically any animal with any kind of developed central nervous system has to have some kind of self-consciousness almost by definition.

The example I remember best is: imagine you can see an object in your visual field getting closer to you. No matter the specifics, it's obviously always going to make a huge difference to how you evaluate this situation whether the cause of the object getting closer is a] the object is moving towards you, or b] you are moving towards the object. If a, then something might be pursuing you or falling on you or a thousand other things that are just not even worth considering in the case of b. But visually the two cases are indistinguishable; if you're going to be able to track the difference, your brain has to be putting at least some work into keeping tabs on what your own intentions are and what choices you're making as you move through the world, predicting the expected consequences of those choices, and maintaining a fairly tidy mental separation between stuff in the world that you're making happen and stuff in the world that's just happening of its own volition. Otherwise, every time you walk towards a rock you'll freak out and think the rock is rolling into you, or vice versa.

And it's not hard to see how this applies to your entire sensory world right, it applies to sounds and tactile sensations and even feelings internal to your body to some extent, if you're going to both perceive the world and take actions in the world then it's mandatory to mentally separate yourself and the world before that's going to yield even an ounce of helpful information, you just can't function successfully on the most basic level if you're processing stuff that you're doing on the same level as stuff that's happening, if you're in that state then you simply don't have a usable model of the world at all, you just have chaos.

So you can very easily eliminate a certain seductive narrative about the evolution of consciousness, which starts with very primitive animals who are mentally processing nothing but basic sensory inputs, then as you rise up the chain more complex animals are forming concepts of objects and building up a more nuanced understanding of the world, until finally you approach humans and the mind becomes so subtle and sophisticated that it gains access to this special advanced meta-level of thought where it can even understand itself! No, the self is precisely the one idea that has to be in place from the very beginning, before any of it has even the most rudimentary practical value. Self-consciousness isn't the pinnacle of the mind's evolution, it's one of the lowest, most basic foundations that everything else builds off of.

I think this is really cool stuff! I don't know enough about the relevant academic philosophy of mind debates to say how far all this does or doesn't speak to that, maybe someone will tell me the "self-consciousness" concept being attacked here is a strawman somehow, I don't know. But it's definitely impacted the way I (just a dumb guy who likes creatures) think about our small small cousins and what their lives might be like and I think it's super interesting. If you think it's interesting too then maybe you wanna buy The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka and read it. It's mostly not about this stuff, as I say it's light on philosophy and heavy on bee-life immersion, but if you actually read this whole post then you're probably in the market for that I feel like.

#creatures: they've got a lot going on #I think we'd better just let them get on with it #nohopereadio #uninteresting

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tadpoles-and-daydreams · 2 days

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I feel the need to say something. Whether that's because someone might need to hear it, or I just need to get it written down, I don't know and likely never will. Be warned that this post might come across as a little vent-y despite that not being its purpose.

Moral of this post in case you don't want to read it all; the gods are patient. They are kind. Sometimes, in ways you don't expect.

Currently, I am overthinking something. Badly. I can feel it boiling over, and at first I tried to keep it hidden from Loki because I deemed it cringe or bad. Unlovable in some way. (even though I make a point to never label anyone else cringe, this label is often applied to me when I feel self deprecative.)

Eventually I just gave up, because I figured they'd already seen it, and I admit I vented about it. They sat with me and listened, and I could feel that he's just... Distraught. Horrified that I think this part of me is unworthy of existing. He hates that I won't let him help, either.

But the reason I say that the gods are patient is this; I have yet to do a reading about it. I don't allow much in the means of direct communication when I'm talking about it, because I "could just be imagining it" and no matter what stance they take it's either what I want to hear or what I'm afraid of. Both of which I could see myself imagining.

Loki WANTS to help. I can feel him getting antsy, kind of. I almost finally grabbed my cards to do a reading with him tonight, but I'm too tired right now and, admittedly, I'm procrastinating. This is something I am actively beating myself up about, and Loki could absolutely be cruel. They could be my worst fucking nightmare. I know they won't, logically, but emotions are not often logical.

And yet they wait. They're sitting with me right now, I can feel it- and they're going to give me all the time I need. They're a deity, they have all the time in the world. If this were a human friend, and I had vented about this but not been willing to listen to their opinions, I know damn well I would not be given the time I need to prepare myself for that conversation. But Loki isn't human. So they wait until I can pick up those cards and face the fear head-on.

I'm reminded of someone saying that Loki will push you to be far more than you ever knew you could be. I think that's true. But I also think that there's something to say about how patient they are, just... Letting us grow ourselves, walking alongside us while we're fucking terrified, and understanding that these things don't happen overnight.

#witchcraft #paganism #witchblr #pagan #pagan witch #witch community #deity work #eclectic pagan #paganblr #witch blog #loki #loki deity #norse loki #loki devotee

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owlpellet · 18 hours

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i know there's a lot of ego and assumptions about my own susceptibility to manipulation going on here but i truly think i am immune to most cults. not even from a bullshit detection standpoint, but from a standpoint of every account i have ever heard/read of someone finding themselves in a cult or mlm includes descriptions of social situations that would overstimulate and stress me out so bad that i would vomit and leave immediately. a road trip with strangers? a self-improvement seminar? giving out my phone number to someone i met in an aisle at target? having to host a recruitment party? the constant hype machine behavior? love-bombing? the pressure to socialize? unpaid morning zoom calls? maybe it's because i never went to church as a kid but i have no concept of "faith" in something unseen nor do i ache for a "community" larger than a handful of fellow hobby-havers, so the idea of manufacturing a new passion just to fit into a crowd i otherwise have nothing in common with sounds like a type of psychological torture customized for me specifically. i barely muster passion for the things i like.

i can understand completely how people get sucked into them and don't think it's something on which character should solely be judged. most people actually do ache for that community, and most people are actually flattered and not freaked out if someone begins to fawn over them, because we are social creatures isolated by capitalism and crave comfort and validation from others. but on my mother, if a new friend dragged me to a "show" that turned out to be a motivational speaker my departure would be so rude and abrupt. i am too fucking autistic to chant affirmations with an auditorium of 1000 people.

if i am ever victimized by a "cult" it'll probably be more of a final fantasy house low-scale personality cult sort of situation. while i would hope better for myself, a charismatic online person warming up to me until i'm sucked into their little circle of sycophants they have collected is not outside the realm of imagination, and all i can hope is that my true friends will be honest enough about catching bad vibes that it never happens.

#can't sleep just thoughts #binged a lot of videos last night about cults and mlms since grifts are a special interest #and every single time without fail i'm just thinking #god this wouldn't work on me #what the narrator describes as a fun time with a group of new friends sounds like actual Hell to me #what do you MEAN you attended a seminar with someone you met on a layover???#no it's the niche fandom spider queens who collect pet artists that will get me one day

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levyfiles · 2 days

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watcher love time: what’s your favourite thing about each of the founders?

What a sexually-attractive question, em; thanks for asking

Steven Lim: He's so resilient. His experiences socially have made him so that even his trauma responses to being bullied and pranked as a kid are compassionate and reflective. He is always endeavouring to be better than he was the year before. He is loyal beyond belief and honestly, if I had known more people whose faith guided them into kindness, acceptance and self-sacrifice the way it does for him, I'd have a whole different perspective on religious belief as a whole. He's also funny in a way you can't train into someone and I also like how he navigates social situations in the most relatable way. He makes PodWatcher the most fun for me.

Ryan Bergara: He's forever curious in a way that makes me believe youth in anyone can be preserved in the spirit. I don't know how to make it clear to the world that I might just let this man get away with murder. He probably would have a good reason idk lol but facetiousness aside, he's a damn hard worker. Like I find work ethic in a person to be such an attractive thing. His hyperfixations are unapologetic and it makes me genuinely respect him. He's beautiful both on the inside and out and his form of comedy is so unique that sometimes it's like a car crash I can't look away from. He aspires to do good by others and he has such a strong principled perspective on his relationships with his family, spouse and friends that he has what I truly believe, is a hero's heart. He's brave in a way that defies logic and all his pathological barriers.

Shane Madej: He aspires so much be kind that I can sometimes see how the effort paralyses him to be more proactive socially. His curiosity is only paralleled in Ryan but he has such a very visible love for the world, for humanity, for stories that I can understand why people find him charming and soothing and I can understand that that is the reason he doesn't mind spending a quarter of his career hunting for ghosts because it's more about the experience of traveling and being with friends and doing a job that brings joy to other people than it is about being right. He feels like someone you could trust with a secret whether low stakes or high. I like that he has a unique voice when he sings and he's leaned into it to the point where 30% of his career is now singing.

Thank you again for asking this, Em. It gave me a nice opportunity to detangle myself from my own threads of hurt and upset to remember the reason I'm here and why I have been since 2018.

#watcher #shane madej #ryan bergara #steven lim

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kafus · 3 days

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SO... do you headcannon anyone in horizons as autistic?

OH BOY DO I

so dot is the most obvious choice. there is no universe in which she is not autistic to me. this is one of my strongest dot headcanons actually and one of the main reasons i enjoy her as a character. there are so many reasons for this i could go on endlessly but i'll just list a few big ones here

her extreme passion for her interests at a disregard for almost everything else & her ability to self teach those topics (not to mention her interests have to do with computing)

her difficulties with food overlap a lot with food sensitivities autistic people often have, also her latching onto donuts as a sort of samefood after finally trying them once

the tendency to wear loose, comfortable clothes and more recently she has complained while wearing tighter clothes (the orange academy school uniform) so it's not just that she prefers loose fabric, she also is put off by the alternative. girl your sensory problems

irritable outbursts when struggling to articulate herself/make herself understood

her connection with kanuchan (tinkatink) felt really neurodivergent to me. she wasn't offput by her behavior, even after stealing her prop mic, and was immediately able to understand her when no one else could or was willing to. not sure how to articulate this one right now but i hope you see what i mean

her tendency to sit cross legged and lean over herself reminds me a lot of my personal autistic tendency to need a pressure/weighted feeling while i sit or have body parts touching

social exhaustion, the need to be alone sometimes even when she cares

the list genuinely goes on i have to stop myself LOL

as for other characters,

so for liko i'm more loose about the headcanon, it's definitely more of me projecting than her being overtly autistic in canon but i still think it lines up if u wanna view her that way. i'm autistic and i personally relate to liko a lot becauseee

she is giving hyperempathy autism to me. the way she is overly empathetic and compassionate to her own detriment and yet still has to have her hand held through articulating & dealing with that or putting the logical parts of empathy together

the way she absolutely fucking Explodes with excitement sometimes

the way in which she relates to cats, and her whole thing about having a hard time getting other people to understand her. these two things go hand in hand

there's something neurodivergent about her trying to connect with sprigatito by studying her and writing notes about her behavior lol

while this is kind of just on the account of her being an anime character and a protagonist at that, liko's facial expressions and body language can be pretty exaggerated sometimes which reminds me of my own body language, i'm cartoonishly animated in real life often LOL

so like basically dot is so obviously autistic to me it's like breathing but for liko it's kind of a hc i apply to her for projection purposes & fun but i think it's reasonable

and lastly so i'm not just talking about solely liko and dot for the millionth time,

ORIO!! honestly we don't even know that much about orio but the one episode where she was helping pokeball lady i forget the name of fix her machine. the really narrow attention to detail/seeing the smaller parts instead of the bigger picture. also her expertise in engineering contrasted with her struggling with tasks outside of that (like when she was trying to sew holes in the brave asagi and for the life of her could not do it so she called murdock for help lol)

and actually one more - while i don't necessarily headcanon amethio as autistic, i think it's a fun headcanon/au idea to not only give him a redemption arc but an autism unmasking arc at the same time. representation for all my repressed autistics out there. in my mind

thanks for asking i'm so autistic about horizons so of course i headcanon them with autism too JOISJOIFD

#i'll tag this one a little why not #pokemon horizons #anipoke #trainer dot #trainer liko #trainer orio #trainer orla #pokemon #pokeani #anipoke spoilers #pokemon horizons spoilers #kiki was here #asks #anonymous

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maxcuntstappen · 3 days

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alex/ george + dnf

It's something that makes Alex happy most of the time; George still having full access to Williams' garage and hospitality. He likes that it isn't a big deal when George shows up to have lunch with Alex cause Williams' catering that day is better. He likes that he can bring up rumours and stories he's heard and doesn't have to give a background on the people involved. Can just say, "Remember Martin? You won't believe what he's done now".

He likes that he's accessible to George, that his space is accessible to him. That they share this.

Most of the time.

But today? Today it annoys him.

Alex is lying face first on his massage table, nose painfully pressing against the the surface, drowning in a vat of self-hate, when he hears his driver's room door open.

Barely opening one of his eyes, he sees a pair of black, rather large in size racing shoes looking back.

"Have you ever heard of knocking?" Alex snarks, or at least, he tries to. It comes out all muffled and weak.

George is quiet. Not biting back or responding in any way.

Which says more than enough about their situation.

He is pitying Alex. Because Alex fucking lost the car and flew into the barriers. On a simple corner. With no distractions or debris.

Just himself to blame.

Suddenly, there's a hand running down the length of his back.

Alex doesn't know whether he wants to flinch away or melt into the touch instead.

So he does neither; just remains stock still. Like George's touch isn't affecting him. Like it doesn't make something come loose in his chest. Something that's directly connected to the tear ducts in his eyes.

Finally, George speaks.

"These things happen sometimes."

Alex wishes he hadn't opened his big, dumb mouth at all.

Because, no, these things don't happen sometimes. Not if you're focused and on it and careful. Not if you're good.

When was the last time Max put it into the wall of his own accord? When was it for Lewis?

People who want to win world championships don't do this.

And sure, Alex knows he isn't about to win a WDC with Williams.

But that doesn't mean there aren't other eyes watching. That there aren't other opportunities that could reveal themselves if Alex is good enough.

DNF'ing in a race because he lost control of a car due to some goddamn headwind is definitely not making anyone think he's good enough.

"Albono," George begins, voice too soft, making Alex's chest ache, "I..."

George trails off.

Alex knows that he said that he wishes George hadn't spoken at all.

But somehow it's worse when George Russell, out of all people, is left speechless. When even he cannot come up with words of placation or kindness.

George always knows what to say.

Maybe he sees it as it is too; Alex fucking up, showing that, if he belongs in any team in F1 at all, it's meant to be a back-marker one.

Alex doesn't realise his shoulders are shaking and that he's sniffling till George shushes him, longer fingers combing through Alex's hair, lightly scratching at his scalp.

"How can I help?" George asks, voice just above a whisper.

Turn back time so I can stop myself from binning the car.

Or to when I was in Red Bull, so that I can try to do things better this time.

Or to when we were in karting, so I can tell younger Alex that the journey is going to be harder than he can ever realise. And it might not be worth it, in the end.

That there will be more days of pain than joy and that there's other things he can still be good at if he only tries.

Too much to ask, too much to reveal.

So all Alex does is shrug.

George sighs, hand stilling its movements on Alex's head.

Alex kinda wants to kick at him to get him going again.

"Do you want me to leave you alone?"

No, the voice in Alex's head answers, clear as day.

And he should say it out loud. George and him have been friends for long enough that he can ask for this. Knows that it's okay, that there's nothing to be embarrassed about it. That they've done this for each other before. And they'll be doing it for each other till the very end.

But it's too much to think about right now, the implications of asking George to stay, how what Alex means when he asks for it is different than what George means when he offers it.

How they have always, always been running parallel to each other, so close and so familiar but never intertwining, never touching, never crashing and morphing into something that Alex's heart has been desiring for longer than not.

Alex shrugs again, the lump in his throat only serving as a further reason for him to stay mum.

"Okay," George says, his hand pulling away from atop Alex's hand.

It's painful. More painful than it has any business being. Like a band-aid being ripped off, but with no relief of it being over. Because there's another band-aid to go. Then another. Then another.

He watches from the corner of his eye, George's black, rather large in size racing shoes walking away.

Alex closes his eyes, it's not a sight he wants to play over and over in his head through the day.

Suddenly, there's a thump, and George's hand has found its place on the back of Alex's neck.

Alex turns his face to press his cheek flat to the chair.

Opens his eyes and finds George's eyes already on him.

George, who has dragged a chair and placed it next to Alex.

George, who is smiling at him all soft and kind.

George, who is running his hand through Alex's hair again.

George who finally helps Alex exhale the breath he's been holding in ever since his tyres spun out from under him.

#lav's ficlets #guys!!!#this is my first ever galex work!!!#idk why its so sad!!!#but the imagery of alex looking at george's racing shoes from the corner of his eyes #and not being surprised #just stuck with me #i hope u guys like it!!#galex #f1 fic #george russell #alex albon

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linkspooky · 1 day

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Bohman is a good character you guys are just mean

Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains is one of the better received spinoff series. Though, like any of the Yu-Gi-Oh spinoffs it's not without its faults. Usually I'm the first to admit the flaws in my favorite silly card game shows, even while I myself take them way too seriously. However, there's one common criticism I can't bring myself to agree with.

That is calling the main antagonist of the second season Bohman "boring" or "badly written." I've noticed fans unfairly blame Bohman for season 2's writing flaws.

Forget for a moment about whether or not you find Bohman's stoic attitude interesting or likable. If you look at characters not as people, but as narrative tools the author uses to say something about the story's themes then Bohman has a lot to say about VRAINS cyberpunk themes.

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction that tends to focus on "low-life and high-tech." As I like to put it, in Cyberpunk settings technology has greatly advanced while society itself lags behind unable to keep pace with the rate at which technology changes. Yu Gi Oh 5Ds is an example of a cyberpunk dystopia because despite having what is essentially access to free energy, and living in a society with highly advanced technology resources are hoarded by the wealthy and an unnecessary social class divide still exists.

In other words technology changes quickly while humans tend to remain the same.

The central conflict for all three seasons of Vrains are actually based on this very cyberpunk notion. That technology changes, updates, and becomes obsolete at a rate too fast for humans to ever adapt to. For Vrains, the conflict is whether humans can ever coexist with an artificial intelligence they created that can grow and change faster than they can keep up with.

This is well-tread ground in science fiction. The idea itself most likely emerged from I,robot. A science fiction book that is a collection of dirty stories that details a fictional history showing robots growing slowly advanced over time. The framing device is that a journalist is interviewing a "robopsychologist" an expert in the field of analyzing how robots think in their positronic brains.

One of the major themes of the book is despite the fact that robots are 1 - intelligent and 2 - designed by humans, they don't think the same way humans do. Hence why a robopsychologist is needed in the first place. One of the short stories is the first appearance of Asimov's three laws of robotics.

The First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

The Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

The Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

This is just one example. A robot no matter how intelligent it is will be required to think in terms of these three laws, because robots aren't biological, they're programmed to think in pre-determined patterns.

Of course clever enough artificial intelligences are capable of finding loopholes that get around the three laws, but even then they're still forced to think of every action in terms of the three laws.

Robots and humans are both intelligent, but if AI ever becomes self aware it will 1) be able to process information better than any other human can and 2) think differently from humans on a fundamental.

Vrains is themed more than anything else around "robo psychology" or trying to understand the ways in how the Ignis think and how that's different from it's human characters.

Robo-Psychology is actually a common reocurring theme. "DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?" fearless artificial humans known as Replicants who need an empathy test known as the voight kampff test to distinguish them from human beings.

There are other Cyberpunk elements in Vrains. There's a big virtual world where everyone can appear as custom designed avatars, that's taken from Snow Crash or of the most famous and genre defining cyberpunk novels. There's a big rich mega conglomerate that's being opposed by a group of hackers.

However, the central question is whether humans and AI can coexist in spite of the fact that AI are much smarter and evolve faster than us.

Revolver's father believes the Ignis must be destroyed in order to avoid a possible technological singularity in the future.

The technological singularity—or simply the singularity[1]—is a future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable. According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis an upgradable artificial intelligence will eventually enter a positive feedback loop of self-improvement cycles, each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase ("explosion") in intelligence that surpasses anything humans can make.

Basically your computer is smarter than you, but your computer isn't self aware. It needs you to tell it what to do. Artificial intelligence already exists but it's programmed by humans, it doesn't program itself. The technological singularity proposes that eventually a self aware ai, will be able to program itself and improve upon it's own programming- therefore ridding itself of the need of it's human programmers.

This is what leads us to Bohman, an AI designed by another AI.

THE THIRD LAW

Before digging into Bohman let's take a minute to discuss his creator. Lightning was one of the six Ignis, created by Dr. Kogami through the Hanoi Project.

The Hanoi project involved forcing six children to duel in a virtual arena repeatedly, and using the data collected from that experiment to improve the AI they were working on, creating what became known as the Ignis. However, after Dr. Kogami ran several simulations and found that the Ignis would one day be a threat to the humans that created them Hakase decided instead to try destroying the Ignis before that future ever came to pass.

We later learn that this isn't the complete story.

Kogami and Lightning both ran simulations of the future when the Ignis were in their infancy. Kogami's simulations showed him the Ignis would inevitably go to war with humans. Lighting however, ran more in-depth simulations and found that he was the one that was corrupting the data set. If you ran simulations of the five ignis without him, then the projected futures were all in the green, but any simulation with Lightning counted as a part of the group projected a negative future for both humans and AI.

Which means that if Kogami knew that the bug in the program was Lightning, he'd likely respond by just getting rid of Lighting and letting the rest of the Ignis live on as originally intended.

This is where the third law comes into play - a robot must protect its own existence as long as it does not interfere with the first and second law.

Now, I don't think Kogami used the three laws exactly, but artificial intelligences are programmed in certain ways, and Lightning was likely programmed to preserve itself.

Even a human in Lighting's situation would be driven to act as they did. Imagine you're in a group of six people, and you fid out that YOU'RE THE PROBLEM. That if they removed you, everything else would be fine. Wouldn't you be afraid of your creator turning against you? Of your friends turning against you and nobody taking your side?

Lightning is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ai asks him at one point why he went so far as to destroy their safe-haven, lie and said the humans did it and pick a fight with the humans himself, something that might have been avoided if they'd just stayed in hiding. It seems that Lightning is just defective as his creator declared him, but you have to remember he's an AI programmed to think in absolutes. AI, the most humanlike and spontaneous of the AIs ends up making nearly the exact same choices as Lightning when looking at his simulations later on - because they're character foils. As different as they may seem they still think differently from humans.

When Ai explains why he made his decisions based around lighting's simulation, he tells Playmaker that he can't dismiss or ignore the simulation or hope for the best the way Playmaker can because he is data, he thinks in simulations and processes.

AI even admits to feeling the same feelings of self-preservation that Lightning did.

While Lightning may seem selfish, he's selfish in the fact that he's thinking of his own survival above all else. He's afraid of 1) his creators turning against him, and 2) his fellow Ignis turning against him.

To solve the first he decides to make a plan to wipe out his creators. To solve the second, he needs every ignis on his side when he goes to war. The first thing he does is destroy their safe haven and frame the humans for it so the Ignis are more inclined to take his side. He's so afraid of his fellow ignis turning against him he even completely reprograms one of them - a step he doesn't take with the others, he just imprisons Aqua. He probably thought having one more ally would make it more likely for the others to pick his side.

Every step he takes is a roundabout way of ensuring his survival and the other ignis- eve when he actually goes to war with the other ignis he intended on letting them survive. Though his definition of survival (fusing with Bohman) was different than theirs.

So Lightning seems to be working out of an inferiority complex, but what he's really afraid of is that his inferiority makes him expendable.

At that point you have to wonder, what does death mean exactly to a being who is otherwise immortal? Ignis won't die of age, they'll only die if they're captured and have their data stripped apart or corrupted. Kogami made an immortal being afraid to die.

Some part of me thinks though that even after taking all these steps to preserve themselves, the simulations were so convincing that Lighting accepted their death as inevitable. Which is why they made Bohman, to find some way for them to keep on living afterwards.

After all AI are data, ad having their data saved in Bohman is still a form of living by Lightning's definition.

Ghost in The Shell

Bohman is the singularity. He's an AI designed by another AI to improve upon itself. Unlike the rest of the Ignis who were copied off of traumatized chidlren, Lightning basically made him from scratch.

Ghost in the Sell is a famous anime cyberpunk movie directed by Mamoru Oshii. The title comes from "Ghost in the Machine" a term originally used to describe and critique the mind existing alongside and separate from the body. Whereas in the movie the "Ghost" is the huma consciousness, while the "shell" is a cybernetic body.

The protagonist of Ghost in the Shell is Major Motoko Kusanagi, a human that is 99% cyborg at this point, a human brain residing in a completely mechanical body. The movie opens up with a hacker namd PUppet Master who is capable of "ghost-hacking" which is a form of hacking that completely modifies the victim's memories utterly convincing them of their false memories.

There's a famous scene in the movie where a man tells the police about his wife and daughter, only to be told that he's a bachelor who lives alone and he's never had a wife and daughter. Even after the truth is revealed to him, the fake memories are still there in his brain along with the correct ones. Technology is so advanced at this point that digital memories (hacked memories) are able to be manipulated, and seem more real than an analog reality.

Anyway, guess what happens to Bohman twice?

Bohman gets his memories completely rewritten twice. The first time he believes he's a person looking for his lost memories, the second time he thinks he's the real playmaker ripped out of his body, and playmaker is the copy. He's utterly convinced of these realities both time, because Bohman is entirely digital - and simulations are reality, and so simulated memories are just the same as real memories.

I think part of the reason that people find Bohman boring is because he's a little strange conceptually to wrap your head around, as an AI produced AI he's the farthest from behind human. If you use the ghost in the shell example I just gave you though - imagine being utterly convinced that you had a loving wife and daughter only to find out in a police interrogation room you're a single man living in a shitty apartment. imagine after the fact you still remember that they are real, even though you know they're not.

That's the weird space Bohman exists in for most of Season 2 when he's searching for himself. He's an AI designed by an AI so he can be rewritten at any time according to Lightning's whim until Lighting decides he's done cooking.

The Ignis at least interacted with the real world because they were copy pasted from traumatized children, but all Bohman is is data. So, why would he see absorbing human memories into himself and converting them into data as killing them? He is data after all, and he is alive. He has gone through the process of having his own memories rewritten multiple times, and he's fine with it b/c he's data.

Nothing for Bohman is real, everything is programmed so of course he thinks saving other people as data is just fine. He even offers to do the same thing to Playmaker that was done to him.

If Lightning is following the path of self-preservation however, Bohman is following his program to preserve everything in the world by merging with it.

His ideas also follow the idea of transhumanism: the theory that science and technology can help human beings develop beyod what is physically and mentally possible. That technology exists to blur the boundaries of humanity, and what humans are capable of.

Ghost in the Shell isn't just a work of cyberpunk, it's a transhumanist piece. Motoko Kusanagi is a character who has had so many of her human parts replaced with mechanical ones she even posits at one point it's possible for her to simply have been an android that was tricked into thinking it was human with false memories just like Bohman, and she has no real way of knowing for sure. The only biological part of her his her brain after all in a cold mechanical shell.

Bato, who represents the humanist perspective in this movie basically tells Motoko in that scenario it wouldn't matter if she was a machine. If everyone still treats her as human then what's the difference? His views are probably the closest to the humanist views that Playmaker represents in VRAINS.

Motoko Kusanagi meets her complete and total opposite, a ghost in the machine so to speak. The Puppet Master turns out to be an artificial intelligence that has become completely self-aware and is currently living in the network.

The Puppet Master much like Lightning, and later Bohman is gripping with the philosophical conundrum of mortality. In the final scene of the movie, The Puppet Master who wants to be more like all other biological matter on earth asks Motoko to fuse with him, so the two of them can reproduce and create something entirely new. The Puppet Master likens this to the way that biological beings reproduce.

Bohman like The Puppetmaster thinks that merging will fix something that's incomplete inside of him because he's so disconnected from all the biological processes of life. Bohman doesn't have anything except for which Lightning already prepared for him or programmed into him. I mean imagine being a being that can have his memories reprogrammed on the net, that in itself is existentially horrifying. It's only natural he wouldn't feel connected to anything.

Motoko accepts the Puppetmaster's proposal. Playmaker rejects Bohman's proposal. I don't think there's a right answer here, because it's speculative fiction, it's a "What if?" for two different paths people can take in the future.

However, in Bohman's case I don't think he was truly doing what he wanted. Puppet Master became self aware and sought his own answers by breaking free from his programming. Bohman thought he was superior to the Ignis, but in the end he was just following what Lightning programmed him to do. He'd had his identity programmed and reprogrammed so many times, he didn't think of what he wanted until he was on the brink of defeat by playmaker and then it was too late.

When Playmaker defeats him all he thinks about is time spent together with Haru, with the two of them as individuals. Something he can no longer do anymore now that he's absorbed Haru as data, and something that he misses.

He's not even all that sad or horrified at the prospect of death as Lightning was, and he even finds solace in the thought of going to oblivion with Haru, because if he were to keep living it'd be without Haru. In other words the one genuine bond he made with someone else by spending time with them as an individual was more important than his objective of fusing with all of humanity - which he believed was also bonding with them.

This is really important too, because it sets up the Yusaku's rejection of fusing with Ai. Yusaku's reasoning has already been demonstrated to be the case with Bohman and Haru. Bohman was perfectly happy being two individuals, as long as he had a bond with his brother. When he ascended into a higher being he lost that. Ai and Yusaku might solve loneliness in a way by merging together into a higher being, they might even last forever that way, but they'd lose something too.

Once again the problem with AIs is that they think in absolutes. That's important to understanding Lightning, Bohman and even Ai's later actions. Lightning can't stand any percentage chance that he might die, so he kills the professor, destroys the ignis homeworld, pulls the trigger to start humanity himself, he even reprograms his own allies all to give himself some sense of control.

Bohman's entire existence is outside of his control. He's rewritten twice onscreen, probably more than that, and he thinks merging with humanity is the thing that will give him that control - by ascending into a higher being than humanity. However, the temporary bond Bohman had with his brother Haru, was actually what he valued the most all along. Moreso than the idea of fusing with humanity forever.

Even Motoko making the choice to go with the transhumanist option is something that's not portrayed as 100% the right choice. Ghost in the Shell has a sequel that portrays the depression and isolation of Bato, the Major's closest friend and attachment to her humanity after she made the decision to fuse together with Puppet Master. In that case, just like Playmaker said to Ai, even if she ascended to a higher form, and even if she might last forever now on the network, something precious was lost. Motoko may exist somewhere on the netowrk but for Batoto his friend is gone.

Ai exhibits the same flaw as the previous two, he ca only think in absolutes, he can't stand even a 1% chance that Playmaker might choose to sacrifice himself for Ai and die, so he decides to take the choice entirely out of Playmaker's hands. However, no matter what Ai would have lost Playmaker one day, because all bonds are temporary. It's just Ai wanted to have that sense of control, so he chose to self-destruct and take that agency and free choice away from Playmaker.

It's a tragedy that repeats three times. Ai too just like Bohman, spends his last moments thinking about what was most precious to him was the bond he formed with playmaker, as temporary as it was. A tragedy that arises from the inability of the Ais to break away from the way they're programmed to think in simulations and data, even when they're shown to be capable of forming bonds based on empathy with others.

All three of them add something to the themes of artificial intelligence, and transhumanism that are in play at Vrains and none of them are boring because they all contribute to the whole.

Which is why everyone needs to stop being mean to Bohman right now, or else I'm going to make an even longer essay post defending him.

#yu gi oh vrains #yu gi oh #playmaker #ai #yusaku fujiki #bohman #lightning #ignis #ygo meta

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that-was-a-bit-stupid-of-you · 2 days

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I don't understand, what's going on with Taylor and Matt trash being a couple? Could you explain to me?

nothing is really going on at the moment tbh, cuz they broke up a pretty long while ago, but the issue is the album (if that's what you're referring to) and taylor swift herself.

[will add sources and more stuff when I find the links and if I realise I missed something out, cuz this is a general thing based off of memory]

Context: dating history

Basically she and matty had been friends for a few years (there are rumors of them hooking up ig in 1989 era maybe, but I don't really care enough to believe shit like that). Apparently he had also been pining for her (according to stuff he said in interviews and tweets) for years, but again, you can still chalk it up to rumors if you wanna.

The thing is that post her breakup with joe alwyn, she started dating him (in like april I think) [there had been dating rumors of them since 2014 tho, and again in March 2023] and the fandom kinda got divided.

Here is the link to their entire timeline

Context: what matty healy did

Matty healy (you prolly know this) is basically racist, sexist, antisemitic, homophobic and God knows what else I have missed out or not been aware of. He did shit like doing the nazi gesture on stage, mocking asian accents, tastelessly making fun of ice spice on her race and bodyshaming her, laughing and basically confirming that he watches violent rape porn of black women on a site that is known to be highly problematic and force their actors (gender neutral) to do things they dont consent to (there was also an actress who was assaulted or something but im not informed on it). Even when he was called out on stuff like this, he accused people (who were poc, btw) of overreacting.

Context: taylor and activism

Taylor had also, in the past (lover era, and miss Americana the doc) had talked about how she had been too quiet about political issues and politics itself for too long, that she understands her influence and power in society, and that she "needs to be on the right side of history" and even specifics such as that she thinks it's spineless to go on stage and say "happy pride month" and not acknowledge the political oppression that queers in USA were facing (something about a bill or the republican party idk man I'm not american, i dont remember but i did research when i watched the doc tho). She has claimed she was gonna be clear about where she stands (many republicans had considered her to be one, and many thought she's conservative or something, but she was always quiet about it, until the lover era). However, she just stopped that activism after the lover era, and went back to being quiet on where she stands (I've seen many swifties refer to the lover era as the activism era) and hasn't spoken about anything substantial really. She did some things like post a black square with 13 hearts during blm, and stuff that every celeb who wasn't openly a pos did, but that's kinda it. Even as a self proclaimed feminist, she didn't speak up on issues such as roe v wade, or about an issue regarding drag queens despite having them in yntcd, or talking about trans/queer rights until she was in a blue state (im not an American, I just like to keep up a little with stuff in usa cuz it's always up in my face sadly, and thus i cant be specific, but anyways, correct me if I'm wrong, or if I missed something).

So even after saying she'll be vocal, she was just... not. And that's basically her on politics or giving a shit about minority communities.

Context: Fandom's reaction

Swifties were extremely disappointed that taylor CHOSE to associate with a man like this, and there were fans calling her out, and she received backlash, too.

Most of these swifties were poc (myself included) and they felt hurt that an artist that they not just supported and developed such a deep connection with, but also financially supported for years, would have such disregard for them. Not just was she dating him, but she kept saying things such as "I have never been happier in all aspects of my life" or saying "I love you" or "uk who you are" in romantic songs on the tour, which was just adding insult to injury. She also did a collab with ice spice (which was completely out of nowhere, and the collab itself seemed badly made and rushed), which fans and others speculated to be a pr cover up for the fact that matty healy had mocked her (many ppl also believed that it was too quick for it to be a pr cover tho).

Now, in the fandom, when poc swifties were calling her out on dating mh, (mostly) white swifties started harassing poc swifties for doing so, or saying that they are hindering with her happiness or some bs about it being "just a fling" (again, myself included). They said it's the same as seeing a friend get out of a long-term relationship and make bad dating choices, and poc swifties should let it go (as if taylor is our close personal friend). In a mostly white fandom, poc swifties felt alienated and sidelined.

Ofc, taylor never addressed any of this backlash, and after she broke up with him, there were articles saying that sources say (which mostly means her pr team atp) that her breakup had nothing to do with his controversies or behavior.

The album release (lyrics, references and reaction)

Now, with the release of ttpd, contrary to what most of the fandom believed, most of the songs on both the albums are believed to be (and heavily hinted on) about matty healy. These include 4 songs- "ttpd", "but daddy I love him", "I can fix him (no really I can)", and "guilty as sin?"

Ttpd, the title track, talks about mh being "a tattooed golden retriever" (wtf) and about him love-bombing her, and her pining after him, thinking about marriage and shit. But daddy I love him and I can fix him, are basically that no one supported her dating decision and she's claiming that she loves him oh so goddamn much, but more importantly, her talking about her fans' reactions. Specifically, describing her poc fans to be "vipers" and "judgemental creeps" who hate her and them being hurt as "bitching and moaning", and basically took the side of the (white) fans who defended her, indirectly. She described his racist bs as "crazy" and said shit like she could "handle a dangerous man." She also has another song, "Guilty as sin?" and while I genuinely don't give a fuck about what she chooses to do in her private life, unless it is problematic, it is about her fantasizing about being with that racist man while being in a long term relationship with joe alwyn. She sings about how she wants him and wants to be with him... in multiple ways, iykyk. Again, out of context, I love this song so much, but that doesn't erase the context, right?

She also has a song "I hate it here" where she says the following lines:

"My friends used to play a game where

We would pick a decade

We wished we could live in instead of this

I'd say the 1830s but without all the racists and getting married off for the highest bid"

And while there are many reasons why this line by itself is racist (romantisization of a time that was extremely shitty to many communities, most of which she is not a part of, showing herself to be "oh look I'm so woke I still remember the bad things even when I romanticize bad eras in history" which is something you expect from an ignorant white high schooler maybe, not a 34 y/o billionaire who claims to be well-read, etc.) but taylor swift herself saying these is adding insult to injury cuz she has shown time and time again she has no problem with racism (she kept quiet when antonia gentry, a black actress, received hate and racist threats by swifties because of a line BY NETFLIX that taylor didn't like, and she shouldn't ofc, but it wasn't the actress' fault), or associating herself with them (matty healy, for example). It is hypocritical to write something like that after writing an album about pining after a man and his "dangerousness," which is just bigotry. Way to romanticise racism, sexism, and antisemitism, taylor.

Even now, after listening to the album, she clearly doesn't like mh anymore, NOT because of his actions, but because he broke her heart, showing that she still enables and is okay with everything he did.

And that's kind of it (ig) about her and matty healy. I'm not really sure exactly which part you wanted to know, so this is just a gist of it all. Hope it helps :)

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