#study case

[girl4music]

WILLOW: “It's horrible! That's me as a vampire? I'm so evil and... skanky. And I think I'm kinda gay.”

BUFFY: “Willow, just remember, a vampire's personality has nothing to do with the person it was.”

ANGEL: “Well, actually...

*gets a look from Buffy*

That's a good point.”

Can we discuss how ‘Doppelgängland’ presents a study case for Vampire Willow being like human Willow if Willow was suddenly missing an internal moral compass? I talk about Willow’s repressed sadism a lot and some overwhelming evidence for it is that there exists a vampire version of her in canon that’s a literal sadist and is just as evil as Angelus is. That enjoys inflicting torture and pain purely for fun. That has a good old time being indisputably sadistic.

Dark Willow - even though she has a soul and is human - thrives in the killing and the torturing of Warren and Rack. Yeah, she’s corrupted by black magic and feels nothing but vengeance, anger and hate. And yes, the people she does end up actually killing deserved it. But the point is that this is what she can be like even when HUMAN, even when ENSOULED. So Vampire Willow is interesting because that’s a Willow that isn’t either human or ensouled and how sadistic and evil she can be without an internal moral compass and without her humanity is reminiscent of Dark Willow.

And so I can’t help thinking that maybe that vampire has nothing to do with the demon that “possesses” Willow. Maybe the reason why that particular vampire is “so evil… and skanky… and kinda gay” is because that’s the human that the vampire is informed by. That it’s because it’s Willow why Vampire Willow is like that.

And I know it’s just for jokes why they had Angel start to say what he did in response to Buffy’s comment to Willow in trying to reassure her that that vampire is just an evil demon and has no bearing on her character at all… But I really wish we had got to hear what he was going to say. If I had to guess I feel like he was going to say something like “Well, actually… that’s not quite true. A vampire’s personality is still informed by the human that died even if it is not the person it was.”

But with Vampire Willow… the question is just how much of alternative human Willow informs her and how much is really just a demon from the ethers “possessing” the body of the alternative human Willow that died? You would think adding this particular situation on to the soul lore would be in support for it being demon possession… but I’m not so sure that that is so when much of the Willow that we see later on is what we get with Vampire Willow.

See for me, ‘Doppelgängland’ comes off more as foreshadowing than it does in being an addition to the soul lore that provides evidence for the perspective that vampires are a demon possession of a dead human because it does the entire opposite in telling and showing that to be the truth as they give us a significant look in to what Willow would be like both without a soul and without her humanity - which for me don’t mean the same thing because I don’t think of the soul that way. See, I have a very specific understanding of what a “soul” is and I don’t think of it as the human itself or as the person itself. I think of it as an internal moral compass for the human or person.

Which then further means if that human or person is suddenly bit by a vampire and dies - it doesn’t come back as a vampire because its body is possessed by a demon. It comes back as a vampire because IT IS a demon. A newly created or newly born demon in a human body that is informed by both the demon AND the human respectively. That’s why and how it can’t be a possession by the demon or human because possession means it’s an entirely different entity from the demon or human. And a vampire isn’t because it’s a half-breed of both the demon and the human. So it is still the same entity that died all the while becoming a newly created entity. It is, essentially, a resurrection or reincarnation of the human or person that died but just with personality traits and qualities that are only evil and sadistic in nature depending on what the human or person could be capable of that the newly created demon exacerbates in them with abandon.

Vampire Willow is a very interesting study case for this because what she is depends on whether human Willow can be capable of being that evil and sadistic all the while being a human. And… she can… as Dark Willow eventually and inevitably shows us. Yes, for her to get there it required the themes of power corruption, addiction and vengeance… but the point is that she was still capable of it. And, for me, it only just proves that if somebody that pure can become that evil and sadistic as a human… then so could we all.

Vampire Willow is not a study case for vampires being entirely different from their human counterparts. It’s a study case for learning that they are or can be alike if they’re missing an internal moral compass and therefore their emotions or desires were not being repressed. Vampire Willow is an uninhibited entity. They make that very clear in the writing when using it in juxtaposition with human Willow’s inhibitedness. Willow even acknowledges that both her and Vampire Willow feel like the world’s “no fun” anymore but then recedes that acknowledgement in the final scene, realizing that being “reliable dog geyser person” isn’t so bad. That she could actually be the entire opposite to that and she never wants to be like Vampire Willow if this is the pain and damage that she could cause.

So Vampire Willow truly is what we would get if human Willow was completely free of all constraints on her good character. If she suddenly believed that she didn’t need to be the good person she always is and could do what she wants without any thought for the risks or consequences of her actions and choices and without any concern for any pain or damage she may cause through her carelessness and recklessness. It is very much in her capability and nature to become what we see of Vampire Willow’s appearance. And I think that if Xander had not have been able to save Willow in ‘Grave’, this is precisely what Willow would have become. Not simply just Dark Willow. But Evil and Sadistic Willow. She would have lost her humanity.

Fortunately… she still possessed an internal moral compass and so her humanity won over the battle and Vampire Willow remained just a fantasy in fan-fiction. But it does give me pause to realize that Willow’s selfishness, arrogance and entitlement in Season 6 would still inform everything that Vampire Willow is precisely because she is the human psyche for her.

[naikdigital]

3 Matematika Ads: Marketing + Data = Profit

Pernah merasa digital marketing itu penuh dengan tebakan? Padahal, di balik setiap iklan dan strategi yang sukses, ada angka-angka bercerita.

Digital marketing bukan cuma kreativitas—data, angka, jadi kunci! Pelajari matematika ads campaign untuk optimasi iklan & strategi bisnis. 🚀 Pernah merasa digital marketing itu penuh dengan tebakan? Padahal, di balik setiap iklan dan strategi yang sukses, ada angka-angka bercerita. Dalam artikel ini, saya akan tunjukkan bagaimana matematika—ya, matematika yang sering kita anggap rumit—justru…

[coldwind-shiningstars]

Re: blorbo from my research, here is my favorite ever case study. I'm obsessed with it.

Summary:

- Guy presents to neurology with muscle issues, very clearly has something going on but diagnostic tests are inconclusive

- History is mostly unremarkable. Key word, mostly. He drinks four liters of plain Earl Grey tea per day. For context this is nearly twice the recommended daily fluid intake. All fluids, to be clear, not just tea. He only drinks tea tho

- Bergamot is known to be phototoxic in high doses (reacts badly on your skin with sunlight)

- APPARENTLY nobody previously has consumed enough of it for it to be widely known that it is also, apparently, mildly toxic to ingest in high doses

- Guy starts drinking plain black tea again. Only 2 liters this time (he didn't have a medical reason to drink that much tea, he just liked it) and so now he's fully recovered

[liones-s]

one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become

[kodasea]

Cape Falmouth’s “Weeping Salmon"

[shut-up-hope]

WAITER!!! pass me another round of white/dark hair doomed yaoi

[iwamimimimi]

[charmwasjess]

Maybe unpopular opinion, but I actually do like the way the whole “oh yeah, sometimes Jedi fuck” stuff is presented in recent books, because of course, the emphasis on it being a personal, individual choice, but also the implication that many Jedi do not fuck. Not because sex is forbidden or shame-based in the culture, but because within the Order, people more often choose not to, to the point that the footnote mention of “oh, but some do” needs to exist in current canon. 

It’s a society of communal living. Everyone pitches in on everything from childrearing to food growing to medicine, regardless of interpersonal relationships. Titles like father or wife that tie reproductive/family cycles to lifetime connections or property don’t exist. I love the idea of many Jedi choosing celibacy happily, and the Temple being a great place to live a lifestyle where your connection to others are expressly not dictated by a romantic or sexual relationship. And the inherent, platonic intimacy of a psychically-connected community. I really love thinking about it.

[heygangitstheo]

so @say-hi-intrepid-heroes said this a few days ago about brennan using german in cloudward, ho!

BUT THEN ???? TODAY'S EPISODE?????

[laurellala-comics]

I KNOW THIS ISN'T TIMELINE COMPLIANT and I'm so sorry to all the older ace attorney fans, but I started AA1 in 2023 and the attorneys were 24 in game so in MY head they are 1999 babies. Which means, of course:

[codex-entry]

Found a fantastic academic paper on game design which really gets to the heart of a lot of what I'm trying to say in the Haruspex video yet for the life of me I couldn't find anything recent from the author no matter how hard I searched until I found another paper written by a woman who had the exact same email address as the author but a very different name then I finally realized what had happened.

[ayanarinashiart]

「 Tears like Rain 」 I finally finished! Inspired by the latest fight

[vos0q]

“His hand and heart hesitantly reach out…”

[liones-s]

a big lesson for me was learning that most things are not as fragile as I’d believed. missing a class, or turning in a bad assignment, won’t instantly destroy your professor’s opinion of you. accidentally saying something harsh won’t make your friend want to end the friendship. it takes work to repair these things - it takes effort and research and sometimes a sincere apology - but you can do that because they’re not irreparably broken. what you’ve worked to build, in academia and in relationships and in life, is stronger and more enduring that your mind may teach you to believe. don’t let imagined fragility lead you to giving up

[kodasea]

You can’t feel your heartbeat anymore (but your blood still moves)