#but like you can compare them without conflating them

[sufficientlylargen]

Do people not know what the idiom "comparing apples to oranges" means? Like, it's about comparing *quantities* of apples to *quantities* of oranges, in contexts where the difference between an apple and an orange matters. It's about *conflating* apples and oranges.

If Sally and Tommy both threw things at unsuspecting mall patrons, and you say "Sally did it ten different times but Tommy only did it once so Tommy is a better person", and then it turns out that Sally was upsetting people by throwing rotten fruit at them and Tommy straight-up firebombed the mall and murdered a bunch of folks, then you have committed the logical fallacy of "comparing apples to hand grenades", because it turns out that on the axis of "things thrown at people" apples and hand grenades are very different things! But if you say "a hand grenade is about the size of a medium apple", you are also comparing apples and grenades, but this isn't a fallacy because you're not conflating them - in fact, you're doing the opposite!

Self-indulgently turning over some thoughts about “comparing apples and hand grenades”

[mintedwitcher]

Hello I have an ao3/fandom thought I think you might appreciate (sorry in advance for the long ramble in your inbox, I apparently have a lot of thoughts on this topic). I think this fandom (mostly the main 911 show, but I've seen it a bit for lone star too) conflates the 'critical' and 'bashing' concepts far too much which causes more drama and hurt feelings than is warranted.

To me, those are two different things - the concept of bashing is, to me, taking a behaviour and pushing it to its absolute extreme and seeing what results (e.g. Diaz family bashing fics where Helena and Ramon specifically want to have permanent custody of Christopher to keep him dependent on them). And don't get me wrong, this can be very fun when you're in the mood, much like a stupid horror film or a romcom!

Comparatively, at least to me, the idea of a 'critical' tag is exploring what a character actually does in canon in a way the show doesn't. So, to follow with our example, a Diaz family critical fic might explore the way Pepa is rude about Shannon within Chris' earshot, or that time Helena hired caterers and also did all the cooking herself, does that make sense?

I've been seeing a lot of 'Eddie bashing' fics and concepts in the last couple weeks, and honestly to me a lot of them aren't bashing in the way I understand the word - criticising Eddie for what he did with Kim and Marisol, or for the kitchen scene with Buck, or his 'mistakes' with Christopher, and exploring some realistic consequences of those canonical actions isn't character bashing to me (although I understand it might be to others)

I don't really know what my point is I just kinda thought you might get this and maybe have some thoughts of your own on it? I just think the fandom might be a nicer place if we separated out the two concepts a bit more sometimes ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

no I totally get you and I agree! "critical" and "bashing" are WORLDS apart, normally.

"critical" allows for growth. it acknowledges the problems (in Eddie's case: his treatment of women in his life, his treatment of Buck, his tendency to make decisions without consulting others, etc), but it doesn't exaggerate them. "critical" does not outright demonise poor behaviour, but it spotlights it, and narratively frames the problem AS a problem that should be solved.

"bashing" on the other hand, is often exaggerated. it makes no room for growth or redemption, the opportunities for either are often destroyed off the cuff. there is NO positive resolution when it comes to "bashing" fics because they're not meant to be used that way. they exist as catharsis for the fans who are angry/embittered/upset/hurt by a character or story arc. it is MEANT to be harsh and cruel and sometimes outright OOC, because the entire point of them is to bash the character and make them as irredeemable as possible, so when Bad Things Happen to that character, the audience is HAPPY about it.

this fandom is far from my first, but it is THE first I've been in where the line between "critical" and "bashing" has been so thoroughly blurred and often just ignored outright. I've seen people tagging "critical" posts/fics with "bashing" and vice versa, and it always frustrates me. these terms exist for a purpose. there is a difference between these terms for a purpose.

I think this confusion - not to play the generational card here - is mostly coming from gen z fans of the show. This is, for many of them, their first Big fandom, and it shows in the way they behave. there has been a disturbing trend that I've noticed with younger folks, especially recently, where any sort of criticism is viewed as "cancelling" or outright "bullying", when that's not the case at all. and so they've conflated this idea of criticism = cruelty and they've imposed it onto fandom content, ignoring fandom etiquette and rules that have been here for decades already, in order to accuse those of us who ARE "critical" of being bigoted or cruel.

there's also a strange rise in parasocialism, especially in this fandom, where some fans act as though these characters are real people and can be realistically hurt by the "critical" side of fandom. which to me is just baffling. they're not real. I could go right now and write a fic where Eddie has to gargle hot coals, and nothing would actually happen to anyone in real life. Hell, I could go and write a fic where Buck gets every single bone in his body shattered into dust, and still, nobody would actually be hurt. because he is fictional. he doesn't exist.

I'm getting off track.

the point is, yeah, "critical" and "bashing" are in the same neighbourhood of fandom content, but they're on totally different streets. "critical" is looking at the house being built and thinking "oh, not the best foundation for something that big". meanwhile "bashing" is down the block staring at a crackden infested with rats and black mold and saying "haha time to set it on FIRE!" you know what I mean?

[markrosewater]

Happy Saturday Mark,

I really enjoyed listening to your Drive to Work podcast on stickiness. It was one of my favorites in months! It was an interesting look behind the curtain design wise and the factors you consider when designing mechanics.

I definitely prefer mechanics that are sticky.

You mentioned that you still think it's worthwhile to design mechanics that aren't sticky but I don't think you really explained why the benefits of this outweigh the counterintuitive nature and memory issues that complex mechanics that aren't sticky create.

You mentioned that Magic is a complex game and that's part of its charm and intrigue. I think that's true, I also think it's true that everything can't be done by memory but I don't think going out of the way to create mechanics that are overly wordy and aren't sticky in a game that is inherently very complicated is helpful to the player. I think there's a fine line between tic-tac-toe and overly complex where it strongly goes against player intuition and memory bandwidth.

I also think you've proven that for 30+ years, Magic can make designs with new mechanics (and reuse existing ones) that appeal to players without going out of the way to make excessively wordy, complex and unsticky mechanics.

By the way, this doesn't mean there isn't merit or value in designing individual cards at higher rarities that are less sticky. Most planeswalker designs aren't sticky and they are often dynamic and interesting cards, although they almost always appear at high rarity and are only a small handful in a single set rather than them being full fledged mechanics that appear at common.

For example, Gemstone Caverns is a fun and dynamic card design that isn't particularly sticky and is fairly complex. That's okay but that doesn't mean it would be a good idea to keyword the mechanic, right?

I feel nearly every time there's a keyworded mechanic that isn't sticky and has memory issues, these mechanics are controversial or divisive. They seem to never be overwhelming popular (i.e. Mutate, Tempted by the Ring, Attractions, The Initiative, Day and Night) and they create so much more baggage and mental load issues compared to sticky mechanics.

I also find it counterintuitive that you acknowledge and understand that more people are playing Magic in eternal formats that are backwards compatible (i.e. Commander) but you seem to highly value creating mechanics that are highly words, complex and not sticky. In my experience, those types of mechanics overwhelm players more in those types of formats compared to less popular (but still very fun) formats like Limited Sealed.

I guess my question is that for most of your podcast you highlighted why sticky designs are a great thing and that while every mechanic can't be as elegant and sticky as Flying, it's important to make mechanics as intuitive as possible to help players, if that's the case, why do you sometimes create mechanics that are very anti-sticky?

Keep up the awesome work and have a great day!

You're conflating "wordy" with "unsticky" and those are not synonyms. I'll use one of the mechanics you listed as an example - daybound/nightbound. The issue with the mechanic wasn't a lack of stickiness. The idea of there being day and then there being night, and things caring about it is pretty intuitive. Players got the gist of what the mechanic was up to.

Day/night's issues had to do with creating inconsistencies (mostly with Werewolves) and having tracking occurring when it didn't matter. So yes, there were play problems, but not because players couldn't wrap there brain around what it did.

Haunt, as a counter example, wasn't particularly wordy, but was very hard to remember.

I believe your question is really "why do we make complex mechanics?" And the answer is there's an audience that really adores the complex mechanics, and we're trying to find a good balance to allow every player to make Magic the kind of game they enjoy.

As to complex mechanics having a bigger burden on eternal games, I agree they do, but I believe that's what players sign up for when they play an eternal format. We're not going to simplify modern day Magic for all the other players that are enjoying the many other ways to play simply to keep eternal formats, which are already highly complex, slightly less complex.

[lost-inanotherlife]

“316” meta pt III: of Time and Water.

part I, part II

I’ve established in pt I that the “only Son” who’ll bring eternal Life (if you believe in Him) is Jack. I’ve also established in pt II that one of the tasks this Son will have to complete is doing a… “leap of faith”, i.e. Jack has to BELIEVE that trying to go back to the island will work. However, we’ve seen how, according to this interpretation of mine, this is actually not enough, or, even better, that the “leap” part is never a problem for Jack because he’s more than willing to risk it all for the sake of a bigger cause. The thing is that, you see, in “316”, even before meeting with Eloise, Jack had already decided that he will go to the island, therefore the crux of the problem can’t be that. So what’s the issue? The issue is always the same old one: what does Jack believe in? What’s Jack’s personal “bigger cause”? Like, not “a” bigger cause or “the” bigger cause, but specifically Jack’s bigger cause. Let’s see if we can find out what this is all about.

Dangerous, miraculous waters.

“316” starts with a clear call-back to LOST pilot, it’s almost shot-by-shot. What does this repetition tell us? Why is there? I think it’s there to signal to us that Jack has not actually advanced in his personal journey, he just got back to square one after a first game-over, ready to try again (if you remember from the the pt II of this meta, “leap of faith” is also a term used in videogames lingo). If that wasn’t already enough, the episode doubles down on the parallel because the next shots show Jack jumping off a cliff without even thinking about it. This isn’t a good sign. Something similar happened in “White Rabbit”: people scream for help and Jack, without hesitation, dives into the water without realizing that the persons that need saving are two, not one. In that episode Jack managed to save Boone but Joanna, the woman caught in the “riptide”, didn’t make it. Something eerily similar happens in “316”: Jack manages to save Hurley (who didn’t really need saving, tbh) but fails to see an unresponsive Kate lying on a rock. Now, of course, Kate’s not dead but the scene is repeated twice in this episode precisely to show us how we’ve entered re-telling territory. So let’s FINALLY start to compare “White Rabbit” with “316” to find out their similarities and their differences.

In “White Rabbit” water is a symbol for both death and life. The treacherous waters of the ocean (the “riptide”) have taken Joanna with them, but the calm waters of the spring have restored the Losties’s hope in life. In “316” there’s no ocean nor spring but there’s a cliff with a pond. To me this means that waters will get murkier, if you excuse me for the pun, because this little waterfall is both cute and apparently harmless but falling from that cliff might cause injuries or even death. Also, it’s very difficult to assess the depth of the pond, the presence of rocks underneath the surface and the strength of the waterfall itself. In other words, this body of water can mean both death and life, simultaneously.

We see the same ambiguity in the church scene with Eloise when Jack, Ben, Desmond and Sun enter the Lamp Post. Why is it ambiguous? Well, because the church is associated with light (the candles) while the scientific post is, well, quite literally, called “the lamp” and it’s located underneath the church. We have a conflation of meanings here: faith is science and science is faith. Simultaneously. Science can be as much of a “faith” than religion. Or, if you prefer, that the foundation of "faith" is science (since the Lamp Post is located under the church) or, alternatively, that science also needs "faith" to fulfill its purpose (since the church is located above the scientific station). BOTH church and station, however, are located ABOVE a unique pocket of electromagnetic energy. So both faith and science have the SAME source. If you still have doubts, check this dialogue:

JACK: What is this place? ELOISE: The DHARMA Initiative called it the Lamp Post. This is how they found the island.

“This is how they found the island”. The island could only be found thanks to a combination, a conflation, a confusion if you will, between faith and science. You need both things to find the island: the science to back your theories up and the faith that your theories are applicable in reality. In order to find the island, science needed to do a… "leap of faith":

ELOISE: Yes. The island. They'd gathered proof that it existed. They knew it was out there somewhere, but they just couldn't find it. Then a very clever fellow built this pendulum on the theoretical notion that they should stop looking for where the island was supposed to be and start looking for where it was going to be.

This last sentence is pure grammatical genius: supposed to be vs going to be, past vs future but both constructions rest on “was”: the past is the key for the future, or “whatever happened, happened”. The type of science that Eloise is talking about is, of course, quantum physics, aka the science of things that can’t be seen. Keep this in mind because things that can or can’t be seen will pop up again in the conversation in regards to… faith. Eloise’s words are also full of “I believe” and “unpredictability”: she knows that she doesn’t know everything but she’s got faith that it will work. She’s not very subtly compared to the Virgin Mary, which might seem ironic if you know how her story ends or, rather, begins but please keep in mind that Mary ALSO was a mother who had to see, powerless, her own son… die.

To sum up: in “316” we find out that the island doesn’t simply move through space, aka, obviously “through” water since it's an island, but it also moves through Time. We have a parallel here between water and Time. When Jack jumps from the cliff into the water, then, he’s “symbolically” jumping into Time as well. Since the episode starts with a repetition of the first events shown in the pilot, we can safely infer that Jack hasn’t just jumped into Time but, more specifically, into the Past: without even uttering one word the episode in the first few minutes has already told us everything we’ll eventually uncover in the remaining minutes.

We still have the main question without answer, though: what's Jack's bigger cause?

[rapha-reads]

To those of you wondering (aka no one), I finished both The Vampire Armand and Merrick and I have a lot of thoughts and feels. I'm skipping Blood and Gold for now to go directly to Blackwood Farm (I'll read B&G later), but first I'm going to read something else, just to take a break.

TVA thoughts: man, Armand is messed up. And extremely compelling. But so messed up. As always, the theme of faith crisis, which seriously reaches new heights with these bitchy vampires, is not something I can fully immerse myself in, but it was fascinating to see his numerous metamorphosis. I liked how he bridges Western and Eastern Christianisme, especially through art. Now I'm thinking that if Rolin Jones makes him originally Muslim in the show, that could expand even more the conversation on how faith, and especially Abrahamic faith, has been in conversation for thousands of years and could be such a rich, diverse and spiritual, intellectual and artistic theme. I can already imagine some fascinating discussions comparing (not in a superior way but in a complementary way) coming from Muslim faith to Roman Catholic faith, the way book!Armand talks about the richness of his life in Kiev Rus despite the poverty and ascetism, and the richness of his life in Venecia despite the luxury and abundance.

As for Benamin and Sybille... I don't have much thoughts about them. Sybille is one of those female characters AR seemingly favors, not so much human as a nymph or a dryad, "perfectly splendid". And Benji is a caricature of an Arab child. Nuance? 401 not found.

Merrick thoughts: David for the love if everything, shut. The. Fuck. Up. Holy moly. I like David, I do, but damn the entire recollection of his history with Merrick was looooooong. I'm here to see Louis haunted by Claudia and haunting Lestat's coma, not how hard you're pining for the kid you practically raised! Also. ALSO. You're just going to leave that whole thing with the Olmec or possibly another more ancient Mesoamerican civilisation without ever giving us more? That was the most interesting part of it all! The vodoo history, the connection between Louisiana and Caribbean vodoo and old Native South-American religions! More about this, less about Merrick's perfect breasts, I am begging you. (It is at this point that the reader of this post realises OP is 100% definitely ace and more interested in books and witchcraft than breasts and whether a 70yo man can still get it up - also, hey, Anne Rice's vampires are practically asexual and their lust and pleasure is mostly derivated from blood, with some notable exceptions like Armand and Marius, and a love relationship between two vampires is then based on romantic love and blood sharing, so can I hear a hell yeah for some ace representation or are we still conflating eroticism with sex)

Another thing I kept thinking about throughout the book is how Louis is perceived by his fellow vampires. Since basically the second book, since we've lost his own POV, everybody who's ever said anything about him (so Lestat, Armand and David) have insisted on two points: how very weak and meek Louis is, and also how irresistible, beautiful and charming. Granted, I've known Louis first through his portrayal on the show (hi Jacob you're so fiiiiiiine), and then through his own narration in the first book, but I've never had the impression that he was weak. Beautiful and seductive, yes. Weak? I see a human man going through tragedies and still enduring, going through vampiric transformation and then suffering for decades the loss of his humanity, struggling with reconciliating both sides of himself, but mostly I see a vampire who rebuilt himself after losing everything without sacrificing his sense of self. I see Louis as very strong actually (up to the point where resilience breaks, because resilience cannot be sustained on a long term, but that's another debate). He knows who he is, and don't you know how hard that is? He doesn't cling to faith or pride. He knows he's doomed, he knows he's monstrous, he knows there's nothing he can do to change that, and instead of railing against his fate, he goes on about his undead life. He gets his books and he reads them, he surrounds himself with literature and what little comforts he thinks in his shattered self-esteem he deserves (his ragged sweaters and soft trousers); let's not lie to ourselves tho, Louis doesn't like himself, or more exactly he doesn't care about his corporeal body - what matters to him is his mind, and once again, this author is extremely ace and also very aro and very nonbinary, so Louis to me is very much ace and agender coded, though really not aro, because his love for Lestat (and sometimes his fondness, shall we say, for Armand) is the only thing that can rouse him up from his literary slumber.

...

Oh, man, I have a lot to say about Louis, for how little he appears in the books so far. Still have BF, BC and the PL trilogy to devour. So I guess you can say, for as much as Lestat is occupying my entire brain, very much like him, my favorite is Louis? Yeah, that tracks. Melancholy, quiet, dark-haired green-eyed monster with more humanity than humans, preferring his solitude and the company of books to anyone else, hopelessly and helplessly devoted to one person, expert in brooding and grieving, literature specialist, not very attached to his physical self. Yeah. I'm not surprised.

[laufire]

heyyyy it's been a while!

i have some tvd lore thoughts for you that i'm interested to pick your brain on. we've only really seen a couple of rippahs in the verse (stefan, lillian, mg) and while stefan's case was meant to be genetic due to lillian i do remember a speech alaric gave kaleb about why mg was predisposed to rippahdom that stuck in my mind and made me wonder... so what collection of traits do you think makes it more likely for a vampire to become a rippah and why do you think it might be?

i find the parallels between rippahs and addictive personality traits to be fascinating, in particular.

There's also Jade from Legacies, but you can be forgiven for forgetting her because she contributed nothing to this topic LOL.

To be fair, the 'verse itself was more interested in Stefan's ripperness than in any of the others, if maybe inconsistently. What it meant for Lily to be a ripper, outside of adding a genetic predisposition to Stefan's plight, was barely touched upon, with a mention about how her ~found family helped rein it in (social support being really important to combat addition); I think there could've been more done with Julian and Lily on this front, him being a clearly not-establishing-influence lol, but alas.

Meanwhile, with MG, there was little about it after season 1, to my recollection? That and his family subplot, which was sommething I found quite interesting, were cut out, to my disappointment. I would've preferred the show did something by following either of those threads than what it ended up writing for him for most of the show, tbh.

But in terms of personality MG and Stefan are definitely the closests of all we meet, so I'd go with them to identify any common traits that could lead to their affliction.

I'm hardly an expert on the matter, but something interesting is that although some of it fits, parts of what people most commonly use to identify an "addictive personality" in reality would not point at those two (basically, the ones related to noncomformity, lack of commitment to perceived achievements, etc. They would also not be the main examples in the 'verse someone would pick for things like impulsivity or alienation from their peers/the norm, for example). Which is a win on the Plecverse in my book, because although there's merit in the analysis, it's hardly a perfect predictive model (and it seems like it could conflate cause and effect in some cases?). They both have a tendency towards neurotic/negative emotions, which is where they fit in the hypothesis regarding addictive personalities.

It's funny because "agreeableness" (understood as a positive) seems to be considered something to be "low" in substance users across the board, but in my experience I've found that, if anything, too much of it, of people pleasingness, can make someone as vulnerable to addition as the willingness to be ~transgressive, if not more. I mention this one because I do see most of MG and Stefan's commonalities in this area, in what I perceive as their need to be liked and seen a certain way, while at the same time they showed certain weaknesses to personalities and influences like Damon's or Kaleb's that led them to follow down paths they outwardly disagreed with, showing that the tight leash they keep on things is because of how quickly they get out of control as soon as they slip, is very revealing as to what blend of traits could be what leads to a ripper spiral. It tracks with how for some vampires / drug users, following this metaphor, can indulge in it recreationally, or be high functioning, without following down that same path.

Moving away from addiction as the obvious, canon comparison, I've always wondered if comparing it to an eating disorder versus a healthy relationship with food would've been more apt, but I suppose it's not seen as equally ~impactful/dramatic/cinematic, and maybe rarer to be seen addressed on male characters. But it's something I think about regarding all rippers in question, especially when we've seen some of the home environments they were in before turning (disapproval from The Patriarch, also a ripper trigger? LOL), and the need for control in other areas that can manifest in those. It could tie with Stefan's alternation between binging and "starvation."

Thanks for this ask btw, as someone who had to fight to achieve a more healthy relationship with food this is giving me a lot of thoughts now about vampires and eating disorders that I'm going to be toying with for a while... I don't know where they'll go but. Yup. Rotating those in my mind now...

[definitely-not-an-alb]

ooh, how do you think molly would grift essek?

Alright. Let’s grift Essek.

First I need to note that any objection along the line of ‘Essek is too intelligent to fall for grifts’ is unnecessary, because whatever you think of Essek’s specific characterisation, assuming you are to intelligent to fall for a grift is one of the major ways people fall for them, in a ‘renowned high pressure social group researcher proclaiming on twitter that Sissy Porn is real and dangerous’ kinda way (look it up it’s some hysterical terf bs).

Gonna use that joke as a sidenote that if I am conflating grifts and high pressure social groups in this, it’s ‘cause as far as I care the difference is how self-aware the people running the show are. Watch any MLM-Doku (and I think we can all agree MLMs are grifts) and you’ll inevitably get to the part about weird aspiration culture bs and group pressure. It’s all one soup.

With that out of the way, let’s establish a baseline: What’s Molly’s reason for grifting Essek? Probably money and also the fun of it/being bored. Considering Kingsley abandoned his perfectly fine shipping company job to run off to be pirate king, I don’t think ‘Molly keeps grifting long after the M9 have become financially stable for shits and giggles and because Jester enjoys it’ is too outlandish a projection. Additionally, I don’t think Molly is great with impulse control nor this whole thing where current actions cause future consequences.

Now; why would Essek fall for a grift. Grifting relies on the dupe wanting something more than having good sense about it. Most people want money, so most girfts are structured around greed, but we know money is no object to Essek (though this does make him a juicy target – what he would barely miss might make a good haul for any grifter). We do know he is primarily motivated by knowledge instead, as well as a desire to be recognized as intelligent and exceptional. Additionally, we know he needs (in the character development sense) The Power of Friendship. Lastly, I think it’s fair to say he subconsciously longs for excitement (happy, fulfilled bureaucrats don’t become heretic spies; nor do they befriend a gang of mercenaries; implicitly, Essek is happier living the life of a wayward refugee-adventurer wizard than that of an Evil Gay Vizier Court Wizard or whatever papers a Shadowhand stamps nine-to-five.).

Being a paranoid bastard makes him a harder target, though the fact that we know he has fallen for someone’s bs before (I’m counting the spectacularly bad decision that is him allying with the Assembly as falling for a grift here. That’s a stupid decision to make!) makes him an easier target. Being so socially isolated makes him an easier victim, too, though his general rejection of people and clear discomfort with social interactions makes him an unlikely target for something like a romance scam. Essek’s relationship to tolerating bullshit is a weird one; on the one hand, he does put up with Jester’s (and the rest of the Nein’s) shenanigans, on the other he clearly knows how to and dares to tell someone to fuck off, and there’s that time he just ditches everyone via teleport (hilarious). So boundaries-wise, he could go either way. Lastly, I’d argue he’s at least somewhat impulsive or at least not risk averse. Always remember we are looking at an NPC next to Sword’n’Sorcery Adventurers – Essek might look cautious next to ruin-trawling wizards, but compare him to Gundula, 55, who works in Insurance and just clicked on a phishing link to claim her Totally Real Oilve Garden Gift Card, and you’ll see what I mean – most people are too risk-averse and unimpulsive to, again, commit treason via international conspiracy and then run off without a moment’s notice to dig around a cursed-ass ruin to save the world from a Cronenbergian nightmare.

Conclusion: He’s rich, he’s bored, he loves pretending to be a spy or grand discoverer, he wants to buy your dodgy foreign papers and incredible discoveries about the Luxon so, so badly and he has absolutely no one left in his life who’ll tell him it’s a bad idea.

So, for example, Molly could Voynich him. All he needs is a battered notebook and some writing supplies, whatever knowledge of what wizards’ and alchemists’ and spies’ scribbles look like he can easily pick up from traveling with the Nein and an opportunity to ask Essek to have a look at this encoded notebook he’s been lugging around all over the continent with him, why, he was at this party in Zadash and everyone else was some boring old pompous wizard (such a bore!) so he pickpocketed one of them, just for the fun of it, but, well, turns out neither Caleb nor Beau can make head nor tails of the weird sign code it’s written in (how tragic, if only someone happened to be so much cleverer than both of them!) and if Essek wants to have a look Molly would be more than happy to lighten his pack. For a small pittance, of course.

What’s small change to Essek is probably pretty nice to have for Molly, even by that level and especially if we’re mostly doing this for the fun of it. Essek gets to fall face first into his desire to show up Caleb, Beau and potentially an unknown Assembly member with his clearly superior decoding, espionage and wizardly skills and gain Secret Knowledge, maybe even Assembly Secrets on top of that.

Arguably, this one does rely very heavily on the fact that it’s hard to prove a negative, or in this case, hard to prove a barely-literate conman’s scribbles are just that. Do keep in mind Essek doesn’t know Molly is a habitual conman, but even so, it’s not a fantastic con (Essek isn’t dumb and knows his arcana after all and Molly doesn’t, or at least not enough to make a proper Voynich).

You could make it a better Voynich by getting Caleb in on it, but instead let’s pep it and turn it into a proper Real Stradivari by changing the hints that this manuscript might be legit to being alchemy-related and adding in a shill. Let’s go with Jester, because she’s down to clown, can lie and has a way with Essek’s boundaries.

So this time around, we aren’t asking Essek outright to buy our bogus notes – instead Molly gives him the whole spiel, hands him the notebook, fucks off with as little time to actually look at it as possible before Jester enters the scene to ask what THAT is and go oh it’s about ALCHEMY well, that DOES look like the signs she saw around Yezza’s house, pretty suuuure, oh, do you think it might be Yezza’s? Do you think Yezza might want it? Do you think she should ask Molly to sell it to her so she can give it to Yezza as a present to be nice because she’s such a nice friend who does nice things?

Honestly, the money part is optional if this is wholly about making Essek look up to see if the ceiling does indeed say gullible (and if Jester is involved, it might well do so! Always better to check, with her!), but a proper Violin Drop concludes with the Grifter returning to take their worthless thing back only to be asked to sell by the victim, who thinks the grifter doesn’t know what worth he has. If it was real, offering to buy the notebook would mean Essek outsmarted a minimum of three people (Beau and Caleb can’t crack the code, Molly is too dumb and illiterate to know valuable research notes from the morning paper) and gets his hands on potentially unknown-to-him luxon-related secrets! Alas, it’s not real, as he will realize soon.

So these are two (related) ways to scam Essek. But there’s a third one I want to mention one that is a lot of cinematic fun and I didn’t know had a name until Wikipedia told me no one does it irl (boo! That’s no fun!). It takes a lot of prep, math, and a lot of people and combines Essek’s obsession with the Luxon’s secrets and Molly’s penchant for passing himself off as psychic.

Molly would need something people in Rosohna bet on, like some kind of sport, preferably one with only two results and places people do said betting on said sport in groups. I’m assuming this exists on account of gambling and sports being culturally pretty universal concepts that love to go together.

Anyway. Imagine you’re Essek Thelyss, and one day a bunch of weirdos show up in court with a piece of the god you’re atheistically-heretically obsessed with. A few weeks later, you, having your ears to the ground about new developments regarding said not-god-pieces, hear one of the weirdos has made a name for himself as a outright oracle, correctly predicting the outcome of Fantasy-Dodgeball (Rosohnas’ favourite sport) perfectly six weeks running. He swears it’s because proximity to the Luxon amplified his inborn and long-trained psychic powers to predict the future.

Now, this is obviously bullshit. Except if Essek, being regrettably acquainted with the weirdos, were to ask, Molly would certainly confirm that sure, he has mystic powers and certainly they were amplified by the Luxon and predicting sport results is a hobby of his wherever they go, does Essek want to see? and lead Essek to a bar where every regular can swear on whatever he likes that Molly has correctly predicted the results of Fantasy-Dodgeball since the first week of being in Rosohna, in fact since before he himself knew the rules or track-record of any of the teams. Not only that, but there’s a second bar full of people Molly can introduce him too. And if he wants, he can certainly come back for a drink in one of them again next week when Molly has done it once more. Just call on Molly, he’ll tell you the time and date to meet some true believers, not all of whom can possibly be his shills.

(And, incidentally, barely worth mentioning, really, since Molly’s psychic blessings from the Luxon are so accurate, he has Exciting Business Opportunities for anyone willing to place more than their weekly betting budget in his trust, and he’d love for Essek to take a look at his powers. For a small compensation of his time, of course.)

Of course Molly can’t predict the results of Fantasy-Dodgeball. Instead, the first week of downtime in Rosohna, he found out what people like to bet on in Rosohna and where, picked one or two places in each district, go there and make predictions with a fifty-fifty split, then eliminate each watering hole where he was wrong each week, slowly cutting his audience back to only people who are getting to know him as That Outlander Who Always Knows The Results of Fantasy-Dodgeball, all the while escalating the story from him being just some dude betting and drinking with the guys to the whole Chosen By The Luxon thing. Considering this is a double-scam involving a faith aspect, he might very well still cash in in places he’s been wrong once only since victims of faith-based scams are very likely to overlook inconsistencies in their scammer’s stories or promised results. By the time Essek gets involved Molly’d be down to one or two places of true believers coming to him for ‘always accurate’ tips and a bunch of other people all over Rosohna he might get some money off based on the faith-aspect. And now perhaps one intrigued high-ranking government official who’s more than willing to overlook the hereticism inherent to the whole thing and is instead very likely to fall in the academic glue-trap of trying to disprove something clearly bogus that you do kind of want to believe in because like.

Wouldn’t it be cool? If the Luxon had more awesome powers? And one of them happened to fall in Essek’s hands, with no oversight and no need to cooperate with someone like Trent or Ludinus? Would he not want it to be real?

Anyway. The real answer to this question is: Enlist Beau to send bogus stuffed bills to Essek’s secretary. Bureaucrat on bureaucrat violence, let’s go.

[veal-exe]

same anon, staying out of fear (unfortunately)

agreed with disgust vs morality

there's a difference between

1. I'm disgusted by it

2. it's morally wrong

3. it's not good

I feel on top of conflating disgust with ethics, people also conflate quality with ethics and don't realize something can be poorly made, poorly conveyed or poorly done about taboo topics and still not be immoral (it can just be not good, and that's still subjective)

freedom of art isn't freedom of critique, but that critique needs to have merit besides "it's because I don't like it" like nah things can be not good, disgusting, repulsive etc. without being morally wrong or at least not comparable to a crime. and tbh the only reason I don't outright say "fiction can't be ethically harmful" isn't because of some "weird" fanfic in the corner of the internet but shit like jaws the film (which had a severe effect on the perception of sharks). and I hate having discussions about ethics and media because I know the people talking about "morally reprehensible media" AREN'T talking about jaws the film and things like that, they're talking about the "weird" things they saw on the internet and it's... sigh. (and I still like jaws as a movie. you can enjoy media that accidentally did something bad too). and to be frank I find the MORE people are allowed to freely discuss taboos in art, the better art gets and the less myth and anti-intellectualism prevails. fascism and repression go hand in hand and that goes for all art

sorry for rambling in your inbox I just find your level of nuance particularly refreshing (and you as a person interesting honestly)

I welcome the rambling! Usually I'm doing something like gaming or art in the background, and I find the conversation comforting in a way, it's nice to come back to words when I pause to do my internet rounds so to speak.

And you've hit the nail on the head, it is not my career but I did go to school for things related to media critique, and the way people approach media drives me insane, even from a non NSFW perspective, I so often find myself wondering when someone is going on about how something is morally pure or morally praxis or even just good or bad, the following:

Was it Good, or did you just Like It. Was it Bad, or did you just Dislike It. Was it Ethically Harmful or did you just Dislike It. Was it Praxis or do you just Like It.

I have media I can weigh against all of these, and I'm not perfect, I've fallen into all these traps before; there is no shame in falling into pitfalls, only in refusing to climb out again.

As a horror movie aficionado, I can definitely understand enjoying films that do have actual harmful rhetoric in them, and even that I think is fine! it's why media analysis and media literacy are so important! So we can enjoy 'problematic' art despite its problems! I don't think art exists that is completely free of problem ideas, because art will always bear some part of the creator, and there is not a morally pure human on this earth. So we cannot just decide to eradicate art that has harmful elements, we must learn to face them, consume them, and then spit out the bones that are the issues it has and walk away leaving those ideas behind, but still nourished by our ability to consume them safely.

I also want to say I really resonate with what you said here about people conflating "not good" with "morally wrong." and you're right, Aesthetic Failure is not Ethical Failure. A story can be clunky, awkward, heavy-handed, even offensive in how it approaches a subject, and still not be morally evil. Sometimes it’s just...

bad? writing? Sometimes it’s not even bad, just not to your taste. And that’s okay!

The issue is when people start moralizing that dislike. It becomes, "I didn’t like it, therefore it shouldn’t exist," which slides alarmingly close to "only art I personally like is allowed." That’s not just anti-art, it’s proto-fascist logic, and I don’t say that lightly. One of the first things authoritarian regimes crack down on is art and fiction that doesn’t conform to “moral” or “wholesome” standards, because they know how powerful it is to imagine other ways of being.

Letting people explore the taboo, the grotesque, the uncomfortable, especially in fiction is part of how we keep ourselves capable of critical thinking. Fiction is a sandbox where we can sort through messy feelings and terrible ideas without anyone getting hurt. And I mean that literally! nobody gets hurt by a drawing. Nobody gets harmed by a scene in a book unless there are already systems in place in real life making those ideas actionable. If that’s the case, the fault lies in those systems, not the story.

One can be triggered, but even that isn't evil, you (general you!) being triggered is not evil, it is something that happens when you consume art. One of my triggers occasionally happens in horror media, and when it triggers me that is not the fault of the art, and it is on me to step away and handle it maturely and safely.

Which is why I always say that media literacy isn’t about assigning a moral star rating to every piece of fiction. It’s about knowing how to hold something in your hands, turn it over, and understand it. It’s about being able to say, "This made me feel disgusted, but that doesn’t mean it’s evil," or "This was beautifully written but still carried messaging I reject." That kind of literacy doesn’t make you less sensitive! it makes you stronger! It makes your boundaries more meaningful, not less.

And like you said, when people are allowed to engage openly with difficult topics, the art gets better. The conversation gets better. Taboos shrink. Shame loosens its grip. And in that space, people grow. Artists grow. Everyone grows. Censorship doesn’t protect anyone; it just stunts everything.

Anyway, I really appreciate the kind words and the ramble, these are exactly the kind of conversations I love having. They make me feel like there’s still hope for nuanced thinking.

[doberbutts]

not the prev anon but re: "Israel has a right to exist" not being a Zionist statement and saying otherwise us antisemitic. - that's a bad faith reading because we're not talking about Israelis, we're talking about the state of Israel. The settler colonial state Israel doesn't have a right to exist. That doesn't mean that people have to leave, it just means that Palestinians need to have a say in how to use their land again and expelled families need to be able to return to where their homes once were. That in itself is not an antisemitic point of view unless you conflate the state of Israel with Jewish people, against the wishes of antizionist Jews everywhere.

I wish I could say it was a bad faith reading but I have unfortunately literally seen people uncritically posting that Israel as a state should be dissolved and as part of it all Israelis should be sent back where they came from because they're all settlers and not a single one of them can consider themselves indigenous to the land. I'm not making that up. I'm not reading ill intent into anything. It's not a strawman. I've genuinely seen people saying this.

That's ethnic cleansing too. And anyone protesting this gets called a Zionist and a colonizer and a settler- often by Americans who are not indigenous and are living stolen land themselves. Though, recently, I even saw an indigenous person saying exactly this, and like... did you see the asks I was sent immediately after saying "I don't like that people are saying go back where you came from" because that anon absolutely did directly state that they are of the opinion that as part of the dissolution of the Israeli state and land back, Israelis should be expelled from the area en mass whether they want to leave or not.

So there are, absolutely, people conflating the two. And people are calling for genocide to answer for genocide.

Also, as said before, it becomes very difficult to say who the land "belongs to" (idk this might be the Native in me but land does not belong to anyone, how self-centered to think that the Earth can be divided into pieces by humans who have been here only a short time compared to its whole lifespan, but w/e that's a point for a different day) when both Arabic Israelis and Arabic Palestinians are indigenous to the land. Do they not get a say? They also trace their roots to that area. They are indigenous too- so how can giving "their land" to the other indigenous group be considered "land back"?

It's not like in the US, where most of the colonial efforts are being driven by people who never originated here in the first place. It's way more complicated than that.

Do I think "the state of Israel" has the right to exist? Personally I think that the entire area needs a serious policy re-write and constitution put in place to equalize rights between Israelis and Palestinians and ensure that it stays equal, a ceasefire needs to happen, the genocide of the Palestinians needs to stop, and a peaceful solution with both Israelis and Palestinians living together in harmony needs to be reached. People need to be able to move back into their homes, people need to be able to be free of displacement and constant fear, and without relying on segregation because we all know how "separate but equal" turns out. Would that dissolve the state of Israel? I mean, as it currently stands, probably by definition yes.

Do I think "Israel" itself has the right to exist? The word "Israel" has existed since about 13th century BC. The word "Palestine" has existed since about 5th century BC. Those are the earliest known mentions of these names and not even within those borders (Israel's document was found in Egypt, Palestine's in Greece) so who knows how long the area itself was calling itself one thing or the other or who the scholars of the time talked to to get that name in the first place. The exact borders of these have shifted since then and exactly who controls those borders have largely traded hands back and forth for literal millennia, which is why I'm saying it's way more complicated than that and that both of these people have a claim to the land that stretches back thousands of years. I think it's a little haughty of me to say that something that's existed for the past roughly 3000 years doesn't have the right to exist.

[youremyheaven]

Billionaire anon here again. I checked her Wealth video and she included "multimillionaires who are at the top of their field". Basically, a lot of those folks in her Billionaire study are not actual billionaires nor have ever reached billionaire status.

I also find "at the top of their field" to be very vague. Like, what metric are we using to define this?

There is also an issue of conflating skill with wealth. Cuz a lot of billionaires are literal trust fund babies...

I feel like she worked backwards with that video. I think she found the themes of Jyeshta interesting and thought 🤔 are some of them rich?? 🧐And found a bunch of people who are lol

FACTSSS lol

I think it's very important to assess how people gain wealth as well like you said.

People who are born into wealth and inherit the companies and fortunes set up by their ancestors are obviously going to have different placements compared to "self made" billionaires.

Also not all billionaires are entrepreneurs. And I'll say no entrepreneur can be a billionaire without exploiting their workers so these folks probably have more atypical indicators of wealth like Ketu naks, Jyeshta, Hasta etc because you need to be shrewd, calculative and detached enough from the suffering of others. Jeff Bezos is Mula Moon and we all know how Amazon treats its employees.

I think people who make big gains from the success of their movies/music etc have different naks as well

[catherine-clover]

Dichotomy

/* Before the post starts!

Definition clarification: I use "System" to mean "the collective of identity states, fractured or whole, present or regularly present within a single brain". You don't have to agree with this definition, I'm just letting you know how I use the word so that you understand clearly.

Back to your regularly scheduled program. */

Mass discourse trends toward a binary because a binary is most efficient. A digital room with hundreds of traumatized teenagers in it is generally not capable of making the effort to avoid this. So, if we must have a binary, we should choose the one that erases as few as possible.

traumagenic/endogenic

The favorite of the past, but abandoned because it doesn't neatly fit something like 60% of sysblr. This has already been talked about plenty by others. Also, its use often implied things about CDDs, which eventually led to people saying what they meant...

CDD/endo

This one is most in fashion right now.

The upside is that it draws a clear line between CDDs and endogenic Systems, which may be partially responsible for the recent downward trend of the false belief among antis that endos are claiming to have a CDD without trauma or a professional diagnosis.

The downside is that it draws a clear line between CDDs and endogenic Systems. It's conflating two similarish but very much not identical dichotomies and merging them into this unholy amalgamation, keeping the worst of both worlds. Some traumagenic Systems don't qualify for a CDD diagnosis, and some Systems diagnosed with a CDD identify as endogenic for any number of reasons. So what if we make it fully symmetrical?

CDD/non-CDD

CDD/non-CDD has been used a bit recently and to me seems like it could be a good candidate for "the least bad dichotomy".

Pros:

This binary is actually real. You either have a CDD or you don't. Some aren't yet sure whether they have a CDD, but that's readily accepted and already known by everyone.

"non-CDD" completely bypasses the accusation "you're claiming to have DID" against anyone who isn't.

It is based on and emphasizes the known physical brain differences present in pwCDDs.

Compared to traumagenic/endogenic, there's no "non-trauma…" that needs to be vainly explained on a daily basis. Obviously you can have trauma without it resulting in a CDD.

Cons:

"non-CDD" is a bit awkward to say (more on that later)

This frames all Systems in terms of CDDs. While the current environment is the most respectful to the remaining few who don't perfectly fit this dichotomy compared to the others, this still leaves questioning Systems in limbo. Also, most non-CDD Systems don't want to be primarily defined by what they're not. I know we don't.

To solve these issues, we could turn to another option:

CDD/plural

This split has also been floating around a little. It shares some problems with CDD/endo, but it's not as much of a horrific amalgamation. Only one level down and you get the full picture:

When not viewed as a dichotomy and instead as two bits, this is really good.

Alas, the careless strict division is inevitable, and thus those in the overlap, which may be the majority of CDD Systems, is left cut out of the conversation. This is handing exclusionists a free win by presenting the inclusive word as separate from what they want to gatekeep. I also foresee a reactive lumping of all CDD Systems under "plural", which is of course inaccurate.

Which is best?

There is no correct answer here. The real correct answer would be to do away with dichotomous thinking altogether and talk about the many groups present within this community as the semi-overlapping beauty they are. But I just don't think that's realistic for the majority of us here for the majority of the time.

I personally think CDD/non-CDD is the least bad. It's what most people actually mean when they say traumagen/endo, and it also still leaves you the freedom to specifically name a different subset if you wish.

The main issue I see is that "non-CDD" is seven characters, four syllables, and contains a hyphen. Dropping the hyphen in any way is probably not practical due to the capitalization of CDD standing out too much against the prefix. That leaves something awkward to type and say to try to gather momentum despite that, against a word that flows so well as "endo" does in addition to having hooks on by far the most popular position marker.

In conclusion, dichotomy

[asphaltvalkyrie]

I had an extremely slow day at work today, so I chose to look busy by writing about BG3. Someone smarter than me has probably had this revelation before, but it gave me pause enough for me to feel like I need to share it.

I decided to romance Gale in my 2nd playthrough, with the intent of letting him get ahold of the Crown of Karsus, and its making me Feel Things.  I like this walking apocalypse of a wizard a lot (he and Karlach are my easy faves,) but its taken romancing him to really see that

tl;dr Gale's backstory really makes a handy allegory for gifted kid burnout.

From the beginning he was special, a golden child, someone who would do great things and go far. So, he ended up building his entire personality on that eventuality.  Older authority figures took a special interest in his talent and he immediately wanted nothing more than to please them, at the cost of making friends or learning life skills (well, except cooking apparently?) 

(Then there's the whole issue of him developing a sexual relationship with Mystra who was without a doubt considerably older than he was and had that "but he's so mature for his age," mindset and all the fuckery that comes with that holy shit I can't even begin to desconstruct how much that would fuck someone up.)

Then he makes a mistake. He breaks a rule he didn't know existed. Why doesn't he know that rule existed?  Because no one told him.  They conflated his intelligence with maturity and his self-confidence with knowing his own limits. They forgot that he's basically a kid compared to them. (Elminster is what, centuries old?  And Mystra is a fucking deity.) He lacks the emotional maturity to understand why what he did was so bad. 

Gifted kids know.  Among the absolute worst thing an adult can say to you is "I expected more of you," or "you should have known better." Which is pretty much what Elminster and Mystra said to him. And then they not only withdrew their attentions and support, but they also refused  to help him deal with the orb - an omnipresent physical and spiritual reminder of his trangression. After that... he just has no idea what to do with himself. He sits in his wizard tower until the Mind Flayers get him.

By the time the others find him, he's realized that the talent he used to get by on no longer serves him, but since he built his whole personality around it, he doesn't know how else to act.  So he maintains the bluff and bluster of a child prodigy, but he's now keenly aware of how pointless it is. He seems insufferably arrogant at times, but there's a razor-fine edge of self-loathing to that arrogance that he couches in self-aware humor. Over the course of his short time with the party he starts to feel like he's cared for and among friends, and even proves himself an attentive, affectionate and very grateful partner if you romance him.

Then Elminster shows up and tells him to atone for what he did by suicide bombing the Elder Brain. Bam, there goes his hope of finding a life outside of that "greatness" others told him he was destined for.  Once a gifted kid always a gifted kid.  Destined to be a human sacrifice on the altar of someone else's expectations, for good or ill. 

And in a semi-related note, when you take him through the Dryad's trial, the answer to the question "whats his biggest flaw" is that "he thinks the world would be better off with him dead" and he says that its very true, but he didn't realize it until you said it.

Then you find the Annals of Karsus, and what does he say he wants to do with it? Reforge the Crown of Karsus with it so that he can obtain godlike power and make the world better for mortals, and he wants to share it with you.  With how smart he is, he really should know thats a terrible idea. But he doesn't, because of a combination of hubris and naivete.  He learned absolutely zero lessons from the orb debacle because he hasn't really been allowed to learn any lessons beyond "I just have to do the thing I'm good at, only I have to try harder this time."

I'm only on the second netherstone, but I have a feeling that this is going to end very badly.

[clefable-time]

WIP WEDNESDAY

New rule for me: I can't post one of these if I haven't added to my doc lmao. Otherwise I'll run out of WIP!

You can read Duets for Ruined Monsters here:

There's only one other writer I follow here ATM so @atsadi-shenanigans and whoever else sees this can go ahead and post a WIP of you'd like :)

He can, from his current position, easily compensate her for her generosity for her discomfort – for her blood. All it will take is a simple trail of the fingers, down between parted, naked thighs – or perhaps up, over her breasts, their sensitivity enhanced by mere millimeters of fabric (they would fit rather nicely in his hands, to use her phrasing.) It would be so easy to disengage and take what he needs while she gets what she wants. The other shoe has to drop at some point; it may as well be now.

“Astarion?”

He’s hurtled from his thoughts immediately, flinching against her body. His hands are not where he left them; one drags dangerously at the hem of her shift. The other splays over her side, fingers trailing over her ribs. She's frozen beneath his touch, heart hammering. Shit. 

“I, er,” he starts. Words, practiced ones, pour into his mouth to the point where he feels the need to swallow. “I just–” he tries again. No, not those. “You–” No, not her, him. He grumbles and hides his face against her shoulder, cursing himself. “How else am I supposed to repay you for this?”

“Repay?” There’s a pause as she processes. Then a sigh – another damned sigh from her. He can’t take the sighing. “I don't need to be repaid–”

“–Of course you do,” he bites (or, he’d like to.) “I'm about to rip into your fucking throat.” He’s quick to note the way she flinches at his tone of voice – how her pulse quickens at the force with which his nails dig into her skin – and tries to steady himself. He takes a breath and tries to find even a shred of peace between his hunger and this… other thing that simmers beneath it. “This way, you'll get something out of it – I get to eat, and you get to pick up where we left off the other night. You scratch my back…” He makes a loose gesture with his hands. “...et cetera.”

“And sex is ‘scratching my back’ for you?” She’s quick to sink her claws into the misstep with his verbiage – damn her. “If you’re looking to keep score, I can list plenty of things you’ve done for me without repayment: you taught me how to use a dagger when I couldn't use my magic in the Underdark; you keep me – all of us, really – from walking headlong into traps; you can break your way into any lock that you can see; you cover my back in battle.” He can feel her swallow against him. “You keep me company; you're my friend.”

He feels a new, terrible, awful, giddy sensation in his stomach. He’s never had a friend before; he’s never had anything like this.

“And here I thought we were more than friends,” he hums, and he moves to drag his lips over her shoulder, sensing even the slightest movement of her body against his – savoring it. “And that we'd partake in all that entails.”

“Astarion,” she growls against him. “Can I not simply care for you?” She roughly turns in his arms to face him properly, brow drawn tight with frustration. “There is no transaction here.”

She brings a hand up to rest on his chest; her slender fingers splay over the timeworn weave of his shirt as she pushes him back into the wall of cushions. There's something refreshing to this, he muses – to the way she touches him (at least, compared to how he's accustomed to being touched.) It's completely alien, unsure, as though she's never once reached out to touch another person before; perhaps she simply doesn't remember what that's like. When her fingertips quest over him, searching for feedback, always prepared to leave his body at a moment’s notice, he's nearly alight with the idea that he's providing her with an equally novel experience.

“I assure you it’s not for lack of want.” Her ears dip when she looks up at him. “I just don’t want to conflate wants and needs when it comes to this.” Her face grows taut – pained. “You do not have to earn this – you deserve to fucking eat.” 

Her eyes are cold steel, a stake that pierces him straight through the chest without the mercy of death. Yet again he's at a loss for what to do – what to say. There is no honeyed line in his repertoire for this situation; what could he say, to someone who so readily shares with him what had been held from his reach for two hundred years? Used to control him? Torture him? 

Who is she to decide what he deserves?

What did he ever do to deserve her?

[tomwambsgans]

i think a lot in general, really, about greg's culturedness (and lack thereof) and his interests, both what he's canonically known to like and what i can imagine he'd like -- and, also, what the fandom has often seemed to just decide he likes. and it's funny bc he's kinda shoehorned into the trope of the bookish type, when like... he's not, lol?

not that he couldn't be, like i do like to imagine him having been a bookworm as a kid, and getting (back) into reading through tom, but imo the wider fandom's desire to actually characterize him this way comes at best from greg being really verbose and awkward. and a little bit from the way he occasionally dresses. and like, yeah, he clearly is kinda cultured. he (probably) went to college for a period of time. he knows a lot of fun facts. particularly about animals. he's familiar with the blue danube waltz.

...and he maintains likely performative knowledge of current events prior to that being his job. he almost certainly got/gets the majority of his news through twitter. he doesn't know any philosophers or historians despite that being something ewan has clearly been talking about forever. he listens to self-help podcasts. he enjoys the in-universe equivalent to shitty marvel movies (though he's at least self aware about it and calls them mediocre). and he's got entry-level art on the wall of his office.

he's also often figured to be a musichead - and yeah, i like the idea of midwest/canadian emo greg. death cab and weezer and records from the 70s, especially as a teenager. But the only music we know for a fact that he listens to is rap. and i think the reason that this (and similar) facts are touched on so little by the fandom (including myself, ngl) is that it's a point of non-relatability for people. so much of greg is deeply relatable, as well as aesthetically aspirational. but the bits that aren't relatable, particularly for tumblr users, are really unrelatable. acknowledging some of greg's few canonical interests (especially just working with how few there even are without inventing new ones) creates an image of a whole different and kinda uncomfortable type of guy. whether it's the fact alone that it's rap (which i'm sure is not a common interest among tumblr's userbase), or the specific discomfort of the vibe that greg gives off re: enjoying it, that has to be what's going on. or a big part of it.

also i obviously don't think there's anything wrong with headcanoning particular interests and just assuming that we barely have an opportunity to see them, but i do think it's noteworthy that in general we very rarely if ever hear greg make any cultural references, especially compared to other characters. my personal take on this is that a combination of 1) a pathological need to Fit In, 2) being a stoner for possibly all his formative years, 3) genuinely not having access to a lot for a while, and 4) putting focus mainly into conventional success for the show's timeline, has helped craft a greg who just did/does not interact with media very much or very deeply. unlike others, he has not been afforded that leisure time.

it's the desperation to convince ourselves that greg is not the Normie With Nothing Going On Upstairs that he sometimes seems like, i think, that mostly motivates all this. he's simultaneously too relatable and too unrelatable for the average viewer. like, when you relate to any of the sibs you're perfectly ready to ignore the parts of their life that are related to their wealth and to focus only on the family aspects, bc that's what matters. there isn't the same kind of wall between the audience and greg, so he inevitably gets reshaped. not just getting toploaded with headcanons but having the character traits that influence his canon interests, or vice versa, ignored.

(NOT trying to conflate liking rap with being uncultured btw, just the fact that we don't know of almost anything else he likes, and it appears so little anyway and doesn't seem in line with the rest of his aesthetic and therefore feels easy to ignore. and liking marvel movies DOES in fact make you seem less cultured, so.)

thing is, i think there's a lot you can do without compromising greg's core traits and a lot of it is just up to personal taste and what any given person wants to project onto him. in any case it IS very congruent with canon that greg would develop new interests, or deepen more shallow ones, throughout the timeline of the show and especially after. he's got more time and money and opportunities now. he has a favorite champagne now. greg's journey is partially, ostensibly, one of him honing his taste.

[ananke-xiii]

(Mothers)Of Gods and Monsters

The (male) fears and horrors surrounding pregnancy are self-evident in both Eve's and Kelly's story.

One of the most striking things to me is the fact that they are both single mothers and mothers without men are always considered a threat to male authority. Therefore, they both must die.

What sets them apart, however, are two opposite yet very connected, harmful and misogynistic beliefs: that of the male seed forming and causing generation and that of the maternal immagination.

The first, in Kelly's case, creates demigods who have the capacity to become Gods by themselves; the second, in Eve's case, creates monsters that will always be connected to their monstrous mother.

Both characters seem to share the somewhat contagious "power of touch": Eve touches you and you become a monster; Kelly touches you and, via her kid, you see visions of the future. They can also both resurrect but only once and only with their children's help. Interestingly, Eve can be killed with phoenix's ashes which is a well-known symbol of life, death and rebirth. Ironic.

They are both associated with the mother of the narrative which is Mary Winchester, Eve very much visually (that scene with Dean-as-food telling Eve-as-his-mother to "bite him"... what was that? That is years on the psycoanalyst's couch) while Kelly only thematically. They're also indirectly connected to AU!Michael doing... whatever the hell he was doing in s14... because he represented a twisted conflation of the theme of terrifying motherhood in his pseudo-god-like creation of super-monsters.

Another thing they have in common is... Castiel.

In "Mommy Dearest" Dean asks Cas if "mom[Eve]'s making [him] limp" where "being limp" is a metaphor for being de-powered but it's also signalling deviancy and anomaly. Interestingly, when Cas tells Bobby that Dean's "crippling and emphatetic response" is dangerous he's basically saying that Dean's been crippling him. So it's not just Eve who's making Cas "limp", it's Dean too. The most famous character who has a limp is none other than Oedipus. Oh-oh. Someone will make a "huge, tiny mistake" this season.

In the episode both Dean adn Eve also try to emasculate Cas several times but in different ways. Dean by basically calling him a baby in a trenchcoat who whines and Eve, who's compared to an angel and who displayes the name-tag of "Angela" on her uniform, contributes to that by calling Cas "flaccid".

On the other hand, Cas is almost willing to surrender his power to Kelly. He has no limp and no crippling emphatetic response anymore: he's free to move as he pleases. When Kelly abducts him and steal the Impala he says he could stop her but he doesn't. He lets himself be physically moved by Kelly. Not even just physically, they literally relocate together in another state. Unlike with Eve, Cas is so energized with Kelly that he ends up revisiting outdated notions about paradise and destiny and, really, it's season 12, Cas, come on.

Both Kelly's and Eve's arcs are connected to major Castiel's deaths. In the after-life they are both waiting for him. Sort of. Castiel has matter to settle with both of them: in Kelly's heaven he's reminded of the promise he had made and which he had failed to keep. This, among other things of course, will prompt him to make the deal with the Empty. Not to mention Purgatory where we know Eve is waiting for him to avenge the death of her children and all Cas did in s6.

There is so much more to say! The thing is that when talking about monsters... one cannot simply not talk about mothers too.

[luuv-zomby]

Why Do We Support Willogenics But Not Radqueers?

Pt. Why Do We Support Willogenics But Not Radqueers?

Howdy, two mods here! Ginny and Catherine from Soldier of Heaven and mod Shuriken from Spring and a Storm. We're gonna take some time to explain our points of view on this topic. Both of us mods have separate ideas on why we support willogenic systems but not radqueer systems.

Let's start with my POV (Ginny and Catherine II; SoH). Why do we not support radqueers? Easy answer: In our opinion, they are completely stupid. Wanting a disability or a disorder is terrible. Most people with these things do not want to be that way. We are dxed with BPD, and we would happily trade it for no disorder. I'm going to try and look from your point of view for a second. I assume that as an anti-endo you believe plurality can only be achieved by DID. We believe that anyone can experience this symptom and not be disordered. Willogenic systems do not necessarily want to be disordered. They just would like "people in their head" as one could say.

I will also just take a second to remind you that we do not think DID is just a "people in your head" disorder. This is just me simplifying things. DID is a very serious condition that includes a ton of symptoms. It's a traumagenic dissociation disorder. What does this mean? It's a condition formed by trauma that contains dissociative symptoms. How do I know this? I've been learning about this for a solid year trying to understand myself. We've suspected DID for almost a year and have been learning about it since our ex-psys came out as one to us.

My last part to add is that this blog can be used to help flesh out fragmented parts. Which I know of some traumagenic systems who do.

Shuriken here. I most likely have a ton of experience with this topic considering that we, as a system, used to be radqueers due to severe mental health issues and delusions. We are also traumagenic, but Willogenic is not the same as Radqueer systems.

They may have the same 'principle' of making your headmates, but there's a pretty stark difference. One doesn't support people who think they can be TransDepression or TransCultist. The other is just a system who happens to be Willogenic without being a Radqueer. The idea of Radqueer Systems is more than it being that; it's the principle of their morality. Do not think Radqueer is just about systems. Sorry if this came off as rude; but I'm just saying it as it is!

Added on later by mod Spoil the Party:

plurality has existed in nonmedical contexts for years and years, it's not a new "trend" as many claim. very very few nonmedical systems claim medical disorders without symptoms, and those who do are generally looked down upon. nontraumagenic systems have coined terms, thought processes, communication techniques, etc that are still valuable to the plural community to this day. while i understand as a traumagenic system that your initial reaction to someone having parts/headmates/facets/etc without the trauma that caused you to have it may feel frustrating and unfair, pause for a second. think about it. youre not in their brain. you simply cannot tell them or prove to them that their experiences are unreal or fake. who are we to go around regulating real peoples lived experiences?

comparing the wide range of plural experiences to people trying to claim disorders without symptoms (something that i just clarified is not accepted in the plural community) is a bad faith comparison. plurals do not (or at least should not, and are looked down upon if they do) claim experiences their body does not have, including race, disability, and trauma status. trans-ids actively go against this. thats the disgusting part. thats the upsetting part. that someone is claiming something debilitating and/or that comes with real world challenges without truly having those experiences. but that should not be conflated with the plural community, which, once again, does not accept those who claim these things

radqueer is an easy one - dont be fucking weird and ship children, siblings, animals, etc. that literally has nothing to do with plurality. thats fully just a bad faith take there