#also it's important you know that the chat this was from is called Weeb Squad

[renardtrickster]

The following is a conversation longpost I had on a Discord chat group with some friends. In it I discuss moral luck, the idea that your average person if they were transported to the Salem Witch Trials would support it, moral nihilism, and cleaning your room.

There's a sentiment I've observed a couple of times right now that's odd to me. Because on one hand, the arguments being made are extremely coherent, and I even agree with some of it. But on the other hand, the act of giving the argument itself makes me deeply skeptical. And the sentiment is the fact that if we were around during the witch trials. You, me, everyone, we wouldn't be the people standing up against the witches. We would be the ones cheering at the gallows. The discussion started in a blogpost about the nature of a "medieval setting", and an objection to someone describing the medieval nobility as "insane". The crux of the matter was the simple fact that the difference between us and the medieval people was not intelligence, really.

The medieval people were as smart as us, same construction for the most part, but they do not have the information we had, and they were taught different things from us. We have been educated from birth to use science, look back at history, and employ rationality, but their history was mostly myth, folklore, and word of mouth. The idea that flesh and stone are made out of the same thing (atoms) is bizarre and unfounded. Spirits and gods control the weather because it's unpredictable and seems to move at its own pace. And this applies to morality to. We have foresight to look at witch-burnings and say "ah, this was just killing women for no reason", but if you were raised to believe that demons are real and people can invoke them and that's why a litter of pigs were stillborn, then you would be more inclined to do so. Especially if you were raised to believe that men and women are different (and have different lots), don't regard or even consider fundamental human rights because such a paradigm does not work in this society, and that objective good and objective evil both exist and if you're not aligned with one, it's with the other. Furthermore, being able to conceive of resisting the system you've been taught is true is one thing. Actually doing it is another. Doing that stuff risks your life. People today have difficulty placing the moral good over personal safety, it would only be harder if your view of the moral good was synonymous with bowing your head down. I think in a vacuum, all of this is fully understandable. I struggle to think of someone who would object, or what arguments one could make against this. My problem is more along the lines of this. What point are you trying to make? What underlying truth are you trying to reach by arguing that the difference between being a civil rights activist in the 1960s and a Klansman was just a matter of luck as to where and when you were born? Because I think my underlying issue is that it suggests a sort of convenient nihilism that begets convenient apathy.

Like, you guys know why Jordan B. Peterson's "clean your room before you change the world" is shit, right? "Clean your room" is a metaphor for having a good fulfilling life. Fix yourself before you fix others. But it's deeply, deeply flawed. Putting aside the fact that JBP himself was addicting to benzos as he became a conservative pundit, it ignores a few truths. First is that sometimes, you cannot be fixed unless the world is fixed. If you're stuck in poverty that forces you to choose between a life of crime or a short but honest one, and things are so unbearable that succumbing to alcoholism is more mentally healthy than living as you do currently, and the system you live in is constructed in such a way your poverty is either guaranteed or nigh inescapable, then "fix yourself first" feels more like a dismissal of problems than earnest self-help. Second is that the cleanliness of a room is subjective. JBP implies pretty hard that the act of being dissatisfied is a personal fault, therefore any desire to change the world is evidence of an unclean room. And third is that people have changed the world with unclean rooms. The Founding Fathers were pieces of shit whose guiding ideals of equality under God were hypocritical because they denied women the right to vote and black people the right to be human, but I'd say that the founding of America was overall a good move. Democracy. Mahatma Gandhi was a piece of shit to his wife and sussy around children, repelling Imperial Britain from India was still good. People keep harping on about MLK cheating on his wife and fucking prostitutes. Do I think that's true? I dunno, didn't look into it. Would I still say he was one of the most important figures in American history even if it was true? Absolutely. In a broader sense, "fix yourself before you fix the world" ignores that humans cannot be fixed.

So in this sense, I think "you and I would have burned the witches, would have jeered at slaves, would have ratted out our Jewish neighbors to the gestapo", hits on a similar negative note. Because as a screed against moral luck, I like it. I detest moral luck. There are people who hold objectively correct positions and believe all the right things, but were never tested on it. They were born into it, or followed the social trends around them, or otherwise had those positions handed to them on a silver platter. And they disgust me. Partially because a lot of them are abusive pieces of shit who were taught "be good" without being taught how to do that, and partly because they sneer at people who spent portions of their lives as reactionaries when they themselves were one thoughtless night of browsing twitter away from being neo-nazis. So in this sense, I think you should be wary of moral luck. Look out for it, recognize when you're taking your beliefs for granted. Maybe walk yourself through your own positions, explain to yourself why you hold them instead of just saying "well it's the right thing to hold". And recognize that other people have had to work to reach the point you spawned in on. We're deeply lucky we grew up in a culture where equality is a basic ideal held by one of the predominant political parties and that we are taught to hold science and rationality as axioms. The people at Salem did not get this. So rather than sneer at them, construct a belief system that would hold up to these rigors. Don't think "if I were transported to Salem, would I have stood up", think "if Salem were to happen right now, how would I react, how would things change to be more palatable to me, would I continue to oppose a witch trial if the witch trials were against people I despise like nazis or pedophiles or League of Legends players, and do I practice these principles in my current day to day life".

But instead, I don't think this talking point manifests in this way. It instead manifests as a sort of apathy, or condemnation. Like, "hey, if you were born in Salem you would think you were right, so why do you think you're right now". Not as a call for introspection, but as an indictment against outrage or conviction. You may recognize the Third Reich was bad, but only luck prevented you from being a Hitler supporter. You may be calling that man a fascist, and you may be literally correct because the parallels are true, clear, and easily defensible, but it's still a manifestation of the indignant belief that you're right and smart and better than some other you measure yourself against. It seems to be skeptical of the idea of holding beliefs, I think. There also seems to be no way of escaping it. In my earlier screed, the most innately condemnatory I got about moral luck was "you may be lucky, you may be unlucky, as long as you take the time to walk it through and earn it then it's okay". Here, moral luck seems to be inescapable. You were born with the moral luck of being in the 21st century, you can't surmount this luck, accept that you are as much of a dog as a medieval noble enslaving a peasant man, because the only meaningful difference is circumstance. I don't think it's a coincidence that this sentiment was written upon at length by Christian bloggers, or bloggers linking to these Christian blogs. It takes on a character indistinct from Original Sin. But I also said it was convenient, and it's in this same "everything is the same" defeatism. Because the medieval peasants who believed that women were of a lesser type of being, more akin to dogs than to men, thought they were right, and they reached that through the axiomatic tools of their time. And you believe you are right, which you reached through the axiomatic tools of your time. So do you think that in a hundred years, historians will look back upon pro-choicers with the same scorn they will look upon the nazis? Have you not considered, that as times change, our ideas of racial equality will be just as, if not more, derided than the ideals of the KKK? Do you not salivate at the thought that transgender people will occupy the same footnote of historical perversion as the pederasts of Ancient Greece?

It's not even moral antirealism, it's moral nihilsim I think. It just throws its hands into the air, says "well I guess it's impossible to determine what's right or not, because MLK and Stalin could have been the same guy with a twist of fate", and then imagines a world where this is true. Or implicitly prescribes the idea that it's pointless to hold or make beliefs other than The Ones I Like Personally. You can kind of see where I'm coming at, right? It kind of reminds me of progressive (read morally lucky "progressives") who have some fetishistic fascination with implicit bias in this weird, inborn way. Like, feminists who care more about hating men and reminding men who support feminism that they're taught to believe rape is cool from birth and thus are consigned to performing "lesser feminism" or are incapable of being feminists, rather than actually doing feminist stuff. Except in this case the cringe feminists still have the upper hand because they still believe in the idea that you can believe things and defend believing them.

[hellfirenacht]

The Convention Fic Chapter 1

YouTube Gamer Beetlejuice x Reader (gender neutral)

Summary: You were a mod for one of the biggest YouTube gamer, Beetlejuice. Now you're finally going to meet him in person.

Note: This fic takes place at Momo Con in Atlanta, Georgia because it’s my favorite con :)

Thursday (Night)

You didn't remember much between the plane landing and checking into the hotel other than the nervous and excited feelings in your gut. After dropping your bag next to the bed and plugging in your phone to charge you looked out the window, taking in the gorgeous view of the city as the sun set. From here you could see a rectangular park, along with a huge ferris wheel lighting up against the lavender sky.

You heard your phone ding, and you glanced over at it, seeing his name pop up. Your heart skipped a beat as you opened the message. "ARE U HERE YET?? COM FIND ME!!" he was always a bit sloppy with typing, even in private but something about the excitement and constant caps lock was endearing.

Still, the message made your heart pound in your chest. This would be your first time meeting him in person. He had practically begged you to come, claiming it was his first con and he needed his hype squad there.

You glances at the digital clock next to the bed. It was nearing 8 pm, and you knew that he was holding a small unofficial meet up in the park around 10. That at least gave you two hours to hype yourself up and get your badge and get ready.

"Just got in. Gonna take a shower and get my badge"

The reply was almost instant. "WAT ROOM? IM COMIN UP"

NOPE, you were NOT ready for this. You set the phone down, heart pounding. You were not ready to meet your celebrity crush/friend/boss (?) yet.

You took your time getting ready, wanting to make sure you looked perfect. It was warm out, so you pulled out the special t-shirt that you had bought from his merch store that just happened to make you look and feel kinda hot.

During all this, Beej kept spamming the mod group chat with pictures of everything he was seeing and people he was meeting. For a gremlin he sure did act like a puppy sometimes.

Finally happy with your appearance, you stepped out of your hotel, making sure you had your key card, wallet, and phone on you and made your way to registration. Being Thursday night there wasn't a lot people in line (especially since the YouTuber Concert had just started), but it didn't matter as you found your way to the Guest line, where Beej had promised a badge would be waiting for you.

He did not disappoint as you were handed a lanyard and a special badge that said "guest" on the bottom. It made you feel a little special that you were considered to be part of his group, officially.

But that's part of the reason you were here. You were a Mod for his streams and Discord, yes but you also helped him with responding to e-mails and picking out sponsorships. The only thing Beetlejuice seemed to care about when it came to his channel was entertaining people. He said that if it wasn't for you, Adam, Lydia, and Barb, he wouldn't have been able to do this much.

And so here you were now, at a convention where you would be his "handler" of sorts. Keeping an eye on him, making sure he was on time, helping with videos, and making sure that he didn't push himself too hard this weekend.

Glancing at your phone with your goodies on hand you were surprised it wasn't even nine yet. You glanced a picture Beej had dropped in the group chat, a selfie with a random cosplayer.

"I'm on the con floor" you typed and then deleted, your nerves getting the best of you. Oh wow you were suddenly a shaking nervous wreck. You knew that he wanted to see you, and you wanted to see him but something was holding you back.

It was decided that you'd just wander around a bit and wait until the meet up. Besides, it was probably a better idea to get used to the layout of the convention center now. You tucked your phone away and started walking where most of the con goers were headed after receiving their badge.

The convention had three official floors of the hotel, the top floor (ground level) held registration, some panel rooms and the outside courtyard where a lot of people were blasting music and dancing. The second level (down the escalator), held more panel rooms and a small food court which was mostly a hand full of food stalls and tabled. The final floor (down yet another escalator) was a huge basement area, an open floor divided into three sections; the dealers room, the artist ally, and the arcade.

Since the dealers room and the artist ally were closed for the night, you took a quick sweep of the arcade. The con had imported so many different machines from Japan, from DDR to some weird VR games, all free to play. There were also small booths where you could rent board games and other table top games. You couldn't believe that this was going to be open the whole weekend without closing. You wondered if Beetlejuice would make a video about the arcade.

It was a little past 9:15 now, so you decided to head back up the escalators towards the court yard where you'd seen people a partying. Maybe you could turn the nervous energy into party energy.

It was a nice warm night, and people were gathered around a de-masked Deadpool who had set up a portable rolling stereo, playing songs off his phone. The courtyard was a large concrete area with a raised platform about knee-high that was covered with grass. There was plenty of room in the grass for groups to hang out, talk, or dance. The area around the concrete was also filled with people, but also with amazingly beautiful, elaborate, or simple chalk drawings based on anime, games, or memes.

You considered what you wanted to do for a moment before you heard it. That sound.. that beautiful sound that made your heart explode inside your chest, your head spin, and caused a small part of you to go absolutely feral.

Deadpool had just put on Caramelldansen; a siren call that no mortal weeb could resist.

The rest of the nerds around you felt the same reaction as everyone stated hopping up and down to the endlessly catchy bop. For a moment you forgot who you were and what you were doing, all that mattered was hopping up in the grass with all these strangers and dancing to this song.

Within those next 3 minutes, everything felt perfect. You danced with these people you didn't even know who were just happy to be there. Together with another stranger, you brought someone else onto the grass to dance. One person yelled that they liked your shirt, you told another that you adored their cosplay.

Three minutes was all it took to make you forget about being nervous and facing your fears. As the song ended and another started, you felt ready to finally go find him.

Just as you were pulling out your phone, another pic appeared in the group chat and your heart leaped in your chest. He was outside in a place that looked eerily like where you were standing.

You ran to the center of the yard, looking around like mad. It was dark out now, but there were some lights that flooded the courtyard. There! You spotted the familiar messy green hair and found yourself trembling again. This time though, from excitement. The energy and positivity you felt from dancing with everyone had given you the highest high, and biggest confidence boost you could have.

"Beetlejuice?" You called out once, the noise from the dancing and the distance between the two of you causing you not to be heard.

You started walking forward towards him, your feet faster than you anticipated, your face smiling hard.

"Beetlejuice!" You yelled out again, this time his head jerked slightly looking around but still not seeing you. You decided to give him just one more.

"BEETLEJUUUUUICE!" You yelled, running full tilt at him. He turned around, and his face going from confusion to pure joy within 2 seconds. He yelled your name and started running at you as well, his arms outstretched as if to catch you.

You nearly jumped into his arms and he picked you up, spinning you around. You both laughed when he set you down, and he looked at you with excited bright eyes and your heart caught in your throat.

"I almost thought you drowned!" He exclaimed looking you up and down. The way his green eyes scanned your body it was as if he was in awe of you being real. "Wait that's my shirt!!" He was practically bouncing with excitement.

"Y-yeah!" You stuttered, remembering that you needed to actually talk to him. You took him in- the hoodie and striped black and white shirt, the faded jeans, the slight dad bod, and the green ombre hair that seemed to almost glow under the streetlights.

"We gotta take a picture for the group chat!" He pulled you close to his side, his arm around your shoulder as he angled his phone at your faces. You barely had time to smile as he took the picture. It was slightly blurry and grainy from the crappy lighting but you both looked genuinely happy. You made a note to download it later.

Once it was in the chat with an "I FOUND THEM!!!!" attached, he launched into a million questions. He asked how your flight was, what you thought of the con so far, was your room okay?

The two of you played catch up for the next few minutes before he took your hand and started leading you away from the courtyard.

"Where are we going?" You asked, glad that it was dark enough that he couldn't see how red your cheeks were.

"It's almost 10!" He said. "Gotta be at the meet up." Oh right, of course.

He led you through the park, still holding your hand tightly as he brought you to a spot in the park that was covered in brick. You recognized it as one of those fountains that kids could play in where the water would shoot up, though the dry bricks hinted that it was off for the evening. From here you also had a view of the ferris wheel that looked so much bigger from the ground.

As you approached, a handful of people gasped and cheered as Beetlejuice drew close. He waved and greeted the dozen or so people who had been able to show up and meet him. Two of them even recognized you from Twitter and said hi.

The next few hours were filled with selfies, pictures, videos, autographs and games. It almost felt like being a kid again, being able to so easily make friends. You chatted with the group and Beej, so impressed at how he was able to so easily talk to everyone- not once letting anyone feel left out.

But he still stayed close to to you, using any excuse to throw his arm around you or grab your hand, each touch making your heart pound. If you didn't have a crush on him before, you sure did now!

After a few rounds of duck duck beetlegoose, red rover, and hide and seek (which BJ was impossibly good at for some reason), the group split up around midnight. Beetlejuice took your hand again and started leading you back to the convention center and hotel. Though you were starting to hit a wall, you weren't ready to say goodbye yet.

"So Babes, what are we gonna do for the rest of the night?" He asked, looking at you excitedly.

Your answer was cut off by a loud growl coming from your stomach. In all the excitement and nervousness of the day, you hadn't eaten more than some crackers and ginger ale from the plane.

"...Food." you said as he laughed.

"Food it is!" He said. "What do you want to eat?" You thought for a second and looked down the length of the park to the side opposite the convention center. There was the bright yellow sign of a 24/7 diner advertising waffles.

"That!" You said pointing at the building, suddenly taking charge and dragging him behind you.

"Alright, alright, Babes!" He laughed as he caught up with you. "You that hungry?"

"You have no idea." You replied as you started to get your appetite back. He followed you through the park and across the street to the small diner. The inside was a bit crowded but nothing unmanageable for the quickly moving waitstaff. At a glance you could tell that almost every person came from the convention center, either by the lanyards around their necks, the abundance of graphic t-shirts, or the half discarded cosplays while people ate.

You two were seated in the corner at a smaller booth, menus already on the table, but you already knew what you wanted. The green haired man in front of you looked over the menu, for a few moments until a waitress came by for your drink orders.

You ordered a water and some coffee, knowing that this might be the only time you'll be able to have some one-on-one time with Beej this weekend. You were sure that he'd be busy with meeting people and doing panels and autographs and you wanted to make the most of the night.

"I got something on my face, Babes?" Beetlejuice suddenly asked, smirking at you. You hadn't realized how intensity you had been staring at him.

"Ack, sorry." You shook your head slightly. "I'm just starting to hit a wall. It's been a long day."

He gave a small frown. "Do we need to get you back to your room after this?" He asked. There was something about the way he said it that sounded like he was both a little sad and worried. You just shook your head.

"I'll be okay once I have some food and coffee in me." You reassured. "I was kinda hoping that maybe we could check out the arcade together."

His eyes lit up at that. "Really? I was hoping the same thing! I wanna do a vlog of the con and spend time with you and we could give reviews on all the weird games and ask people why they're up so late!"

How was it possible for a grown man to be this cute? How was he making you feel like you were the only person on the planet?

He continued to tell you everything that's happened to him since he arrived at the con. The people he met, the costumes he saw- the way he talked it was almost like he never knew what it was like to be around so many people at once.

Your food arrived, and you were quick to start shoving waffles into your face as you listened to him talk with his mouth full.

"Geeze, you really were hungry huh?" He teased as you finished off your plate in record time. "I'm normally the fast eater."

You laughed sheepishly. "I hadn't eaten all day." You admitted. "I was, uh... too nervous and distracted."

He frowned and placed on of his waffles on your plate. "Breathers need to eat!" He insisted. "Don't do that! Also what were you even nervous for?"

Normally you would have said no to taking someone else's food, but that was a face you couldn't say no to. Plus you were still kind of hungry.

"I guess I was a little nervous about finally meeting you face to face." You admitted, drowning the waffle in syrup.

"You know that's fair. Most people I meet don't usually go out of their way to meet me." He let out a laugh. "At least they didn't before I started the whole playing games thing. Actually the last time someone went out of their way to call me I kinda kicked their parents out of the house, scared off a bunch of people and killed some cult leader named Kevin."

You snorted between bites. You wondered where he even came up with this stuff. He'd make a great writer, probably.

“Are you still nervous?” he asked, his voice lower and calmer than what you were used to with the man. You shook your head.

“No. I’m really happy right now.” you replied and you could see him visibly relax. It wasn’t often that he acted calm, especially when there were other people around.

The rest of the meal was eaten with quiet chit chat as he continued to ask you questions about yourself and you reigning him in to talk about the convention schedule and to finalize the plan.

"Okay, so looks like the panel you're running is Saturday around 3, and your autograph session in early Sunday." You said, scrolling through your phone, typing out the schedule. "That leaves all of Friday open-"

"Not quite." He said. "I uh, do have a plan for us on Friday night." For a second he seemed to hesitate. You looked up, a little surprised.

"...Us?" You asked. "As in, just us us, or us as in a group?"

"I have a surprise for you on Friday and I want it to be just us and I wanted it to be a surprise but I'm so bad at secrets and I want to tell you-" he started, but you cut him off, your cheeks turning slightly warm.

"I don't have any plans." You said. "I'd love to do whatever surprise you have planned. Maybe. Wait, is this gonna be another 'ball pit" incident?" You asked suspiciously.

He held his hands up in mock surrender. "No, not this time! This is a real surprise!"

"I'm sure that was a relationship surprise too, according to your room mates."

"This is different, cross my heart and hope to live!"

"I'm can't wait." You said, heart pounding in your chest. Though the two of you had been talking to each other for a few months now, you always assumed that you were just a Mod in his chat to him. The fact the he seemed to have gone out of his way to make plans for the two of you lit a small spark of hope in your heart.

The meal ended with you paying the tab and him picking up the tip.

"It's almost 1:30." You noted. "If you have plans for Friday night, then the best time to get footage of the arcade without fighting with the lines would probably be now or Saturday at 3 in the morning. "

"This is why I needed you here, Babes." He said, looking at you with pride. "You understand things I wouldn't even think of! Now let's go absolutely ape shit on these nerds." His smile as he said that last line looked feral and slightly dangerous. You would probably need a cold shower after you retired for the night.

And so Thursday night came to a close, with you walking into the start of Friday holding hands with a demon gamer. You noted to yourself that this was only the beginning, and you couldn't wait to see where the rest of the weekend went.

Next Chapter