#advanced reflection

[zomb13s]

Appendix I – Speculum Singularitatis: A Guideline for Embodying the Singular Observer

Abstract This appendix outlines a methodological framework for individuals aspiring to assume the role of the singular observer—a position exemplified by Alfons Scholing. Rooted in the conceptual synthesis of identity theory, brand singularity, and observational cosmology, this guideline eschews prophetic or manifest intentions in favor of rigorous educational transmission. Drawing analogies…

[breadedsinner]

People hating on Neve’s hat what is like being no fun.

[youknowwhoiamassbutt]

I just watched Star Trek TOS season 1 ep 26 Errand of Mercy and I cannot get over the Klingon baddie telling Kirk he should smile more.

Bro really just said he’d be prettier if he smiled!!!���

[feng-shui71]

Hi! I know this is silly, but after a while of seeing people design their OCs around their own age, I was surprised to see that Jordan was in her 40s (mentioned in that post about her wanting another baby-)

I was mostly surprised bc I thought "omg an older creator" and I lowkey got excited thinking you were the same age as her, but then I read you were still in school 😭

HEHFHWJDJDJ LMAO

Yeah no I am definitely not like 46.. I just personally do not like huge age gaps and decided to make Jordan 2 years younger than him rather than her be in her 20s, I thought it’d be more interesting and would stand out more as opposed to the regular routine I see with Wesker Oc x Canon.

[spiderin-space]

“…And I’m your Lionheart.”

@aychama ‘twas I who sent the anon about King and Lionheart

Because I’m shy

Anyways tried my hand at it anyways!! Ik it isn’t much but I still wanted to draw up something :>

[fusionfanatic]

Research for an au fic I’m working on: how would Azula act and behave in a modern setting? And I don’t mean re-imagine her character within a modern context and stories. This isn’t Azula, but she’s an overachieving American high schooler with strict and overbearing parents, or Azula, but she’s the soon-to-be CEO of her father’s multinational conglomerate based in Japan or something. No, I mean how would Azula as she is in canon, Fire nation princess and all, act and behave if you simply just took her from her world and plopped her into [insert current year you’re reading this]?

[whateverisbeautiful]

How many people are scared of the person you'll become after towl episode 4?

Me too, I'm really really scared...in the best way. 😏

[clannfearrunt]

The fact that my splatoons’ names aren’t their Actual In-Universe Names is so sad and keeps killing my jokes. I love fullnaming Cam incorrectly (or correctly, since that’s short for Cambrian) but that’s not a thing inuniverse. “Cam” is not their name. Their name isn’t “ギン” either. It’s a squid word, an archaic one at that, that I’m not fucking making. There was a joke I scrapped where Thresher tells Rill they’re calling them “Nyk” because havent u heard of a “Nyk-name”. I love that pun but once again That’s Not His Name. “Rill Nykur” doesn’t exist nor does “ミカゲ ショウ”. It’s [Squid Firstname] [Fish Lastname]. We aren’t conlanging to have words in two languages for “A River; might be a specific one even” and “the metaphorical concept of an unidentified shadow in the water turned into a folkloric creature but also it’s still also just a turn of phrase”

Lily is winning at the name game because her name is Lily, The Flower, Yes That One. Thank you Lily

[icewindandboringhorror]

sneepy cozy time....

[cattons]

this has to be some sort of diagnosable condition

[coffee-666]

[st-alastors-confessional]

father alastor im sad i got rejected by a alasor cosplayer i saw at furrycon im so so sad maybe a hug from sexy nun alastor will save me~

No.

Accept the rejection lest you be perceived as desperate- or worse.

Thank you for sharing, Anon.

St. Alastor

[kyliafanfiction]

I sometimes feel like characters who do truly monstrous things while also having been victims of some pretty insane shit themselves are sort of an exercise in empathy. Or at least, should be seen as such.

Like, in real life, if a person who has been horribly broken by their experiences and failed by society than proceeds to rape someone - it's hard to feel the justifiable sympathy/empathy for that person (without excusing their rape, never do that) because well, you can look at this actual human person they hurt, or worse, and it feels gross and disrespectful to the rape victim.

And this is understandable. (And applies to more than just rapists/rape victims of course, that's just the most visceral one and thus picked for that reason)

But a fictional rape victim is... fictional. You can't 'disrespect' their trauma, and while obviously rape/whatever else is real, and people may related to the rape victim and thus see your comments about the rapist also being a victim as somehow being about their experience...

Well, it's not.

Because the rapist here, didn't actually hurt a real person. Fictional characters are objects. They're objects that often grab us by the throat and refuse to leave our fucking heads, yes, but they're objects. They are tools used by writers to tell a story, and readers to tell a story.

And one of the things fictional characters are good for is allowing us to consider experiences we never had, and imagine ourselves in other circumstances and lives. (Also just fun and fascinating and interesting to watch their stories).

It's very easy to feel for the rape victim in fiction, and rightly so. That's Level 1 Empathy there. Granted, some people IRL fail that, but that's not really what we're talking about here.

Advanced Empathy, hard Empathy is feeling for the rapist. Not for the rape, of course, even if they feel guilt about it, but if someone really was failed on multiple levels and was broken and damaged and went through the sort of psychological wringer that would leave most of us here on tumblr catatonic - they do deserve the same Empathy any human (any person) who went through all that.

Even after they also do the bad thing, critically they still deserve Empathy. And that is fucking hard. I very often have a hard time feeling bad for truly awful people who also deserve empathy and sympathy, real and even fictional (despite all this, yeah, I'm not perfect on this) for what they (separately) went through.

It also becomes even harder when what they went through is utterly bound up with what they did. How what they went through and experiences is in part responsible for what they did - because they still made a choice. The circumstances may have left them not in their right mind, may have left them feeling without choice, may have driven them to things they normally might not think of or do, but they still chose to do that bad thing. And that's not okay. They still hurt someone.

And yet - one cannot remove the action from the circumstances. So you can still feel empathy, and elucidate all the factors and circumstances as to what led up to their choices and why, and it doesn't change that they did the horrible thing. The rape, or the murders, or whatever.

But circling back - with a fictional character... they didn't hurt a real person. There's no one who is real that suffered. The things the character did IRL are bad because they hurt real people.

So you're not being disrespectful to the victim by feeling that empathy, or sympathy. By exploring the things that they were a victim for. Even by wanting to focus on those things - fictional characters should be compelling in all their aspects, if they're written well.

And yet, of course, if you do that empathy and do talk about what the bad person went through and all that context, people come at you. They call you evil, just as bad as the (again, fictional) character, or they say that you're treading dangerously close to the arguments people use to defend the real people who do these things in real life. Or you're disrespecting all the victims of these crimes IRL. Especially of course, if the person coming at you has a reason this comes close to home.

But again - fictional.

In an ideal world, we'd all feel sympathy and empathy when it's called for, regardless of what the person did. Even the worst most monstrous people deserve human treatment in prison. And if you don't have empathy, that's hard. Even if you do have empathy, that's hard.

So if you look at a fictional character (who doesn't hurt a real person by virtue of being fictional) that does horrible, vile things, but went through so much, and you still can't empathize or sympathize with them... I mean, it doesn't make you a bad person, not even close, this is still fiction, and there's people I should empathize with in fiction that I don't, but...

It's still a failure of your ability to be empathetic. And we're all humans. We're all failing at that, among other things, all the time. But... it's good to be aware of that. at least?

At the very least, bear that in mind when other people are talking about that context, and that victimization. And please, for the love of god, don't fucking pretend that the victimization didn't happen, that this person who did do terrible things (in fiction) suddenly didn't also (in fiction) experience awful shit, as if doing a bad thing erases all the bad things done to you.

Again - it doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, but like... the horrible state of prisons in our society is a real, actual problem. The way we as a society dehumanize people who do bad things is a real actual problem for a lot of reasons (not least because it creates an incentive for authority that wants to dehumanize a person or a group to expand the definition of 'did bad things' to make their dehumanization now acceptable, among other things).

So yeah. Fictional character who suffers but than also makes others suffer - that's a useful exercise in Empathy. And doing that doesn't make you or anyone else a bad person, or actually defending the sorts of crimes, IRL or Fictional, that this character did. Contextualizing is not whitewashing, empathy is not erasing, and humanizing is not disrespecting the victim(s).

So yeah, they fictional character did bad things. But there's more to them than that. And you can say but and talk about what comes after but without disrespecting the fictional victim. Because the fictional victim... is just as fictional. Just as not real.

Is it possible for this to end up being taken too far? Yes. But that's a reason to be mindful of yourself when it comes to real people, not to never do it. And when it comes to fictional people - again, fictional. Nobody was actually, really hurt.

(I really do want to make clear, before people read the tags, that this applies to all crimes these sorts of characters do, rape was just picked as the one to use as the example.)

[new-berry]

Why do I get so many porn bots?

Says the woman posting *waves at everything*

Eliot and his (maybe?) dirtbag brother.

I’m basing dirtbag on him being on love island a show I have never watched in my life.

[seaofreverie]

Back in the mood for reflecting on how it all started and honestly this exchange with my TMBG pal might be one of the earliest, if not THE earliest recording of the slow descent into Sparks madness. And also.....

Translations of the Sparks-specific bits:

"And now I feel a little bit obligated to check out the output of the band Sparks, since Flansburgh is such a fan of theirs and they [Sparks and TMBG] are also playing together soon...."

"A couple days ago I had the opportunity to listen to some Sparks since the Spotify algorithm so nicely presented them to me. And I gotta say that it was pretty interesting!!! So I'm definitely going to look into them further :D" (lmao)

"It's a nice coincidence that I'm getting more into Sparks right about now. In terms of full albums, Kimono My House, Propaganda, Angst In My Pants and The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte are those that I've heard so far, and I can definitely recommend them all 👍 But Propaganda is my definitive fav so especially that one. Kimono and Propaganda are fundamentally pretty similar to me but yeah, I prefer the latter."

(Also yes that's a Lemon Demon mention in there too. Lifetime Achievement Award still the song of all time to me)

[bancho-zx]

// Rhythm Heaven Silver / Rhythm Tengoku | リズム天国 // Game Boy Advance / Reflective screen // Stage 1: Karate Man ~English mod