#false consensus effect

[cherryblossomshadow]

That's also why this meme exists. (comment courtesy of @firedragon1321)

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(comment courtesy of @oftengruntled)

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They have a certain worldview, and accepting information to the contrary would require them to re-examine everything they believe to be true about the world, which would be immensely destabilizing and devastating. #yknow speaking for a friend who knows people like this (comment and tags courtesy of @softness-and-shattering)

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As Robert Heinlein wrote, “Man is not a rational animal. Man is a rationalizing animal.”   The words “confirmation bias” also float through my head. People make decisions based on many things besides the facts of the case. Yes, even you. Do pause every now and then to check your assumptions. And don’t be so convinced that you are right that you start acting hateful to those who disagree. #adulting #confirmation bias #check your assumptions #true that #Robert Heinlein (comment and tags courtesy of @76ello)

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This is a fantastic description of what the term "confirmation bias" can actually mean. People generally don't make choices based on logic. We act based on our emotions, then our brain comes up with logic to justify it. (comment courtesy of @captain-acab)

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The phrase " (you also do this) " is such a raw, essential thing to read. Everybody should encounter and process that in a true context. - regularly. #self-reflection#humility#relativism#the moment anyone truly thinks they are unbiased and marinated in only truth they should shut up and re-examine (comment and tags courtesy of @breathing-chaos)

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More notes below the cut:

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Something I’ve always said is that it helps to think of good or bad actions rather than good or bad people. Everyone is capable of evil, just as everyone is capable of good. It’s a choice rather than something innate about ourselves. Always. #I was gonna elaborate on this but wow I can not find a way to word it properly #so #there you go #anyways yes I agree with all of this #text #politics #sam says #for queue (comment courtesy of @moonshine-angels)

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These are all good points, but in the US, it's not nothing that 25% of the population are part of an extremist religion that actively teaches you *not* to use critical thinking or examine your beliefs, so "raised in a cult" is a lot closer for a lot more people than I think OP realizes (comment courtesy of @sparrow-in-the-sea)

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ive read this list like four times and if it mentions "they were wrong because figuring things out is hard" I can't tell. which is bonkers, because that's the main reason like, it lists a lot of Social Reality reasons why people might be wrong, but it very notably excludes "actually they tried their best, they didn't make any obvious biased mistake, it just turns out it's hard to evaluate evidence" like damn imagine if the thing being discussed was, like, why do people get the answers to math problems wrong and you gave this list as a reason why. my guy it's because math is hard. and everything in the real world is way harder than math. Nevermind all the biases and emotions etc etc that get in the way: even if you were the Perfect Neutral Observer you would still fuck up constantly because figuring out what's true is fucking hard. the fact that we're not perfect neutral observers makes it harder but it would be an incredibly difficult problem anyway. (comment courtesy of @just-evo-now)

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We get it in the abstract. We all know everybody in this room makes mistakes. The human species, in general, is fallible -- okay fine. But when it comes down to me, right now, to all the beliefs I hold, here in the present tense, suddenly all of this abstract appreciation of fallibility goes out the window -- and I can't actually think of anything I'm wrong about. And the thing is, the present tense is where we live.

We go to meetings in the present tense; we go on family vacations in the present tense; we go to the polls and vote in the present tense. So effectively, we all kind of wind up traveling through life, trapped in this little bubble of feeling very right about everything. I think this is a problem. I think it's a problem for each of us as individuals, in our personal and professional lives, and I think it's a problem for all of us collectively as a culture. So what I want to do today is, first of all, talk about why we get stuck inside this feeling of being right. And second, why it's such a problem. And finally, I want to convince you that it is possible to step outside of that feeling and that if you can do so, it is the single greatest moral, intellectual and creative leap you can make. (emphasis mine) #ted talks #on being wrong #people are complicated #being wrong is part of life #I don't know; I might be wrong #we're all just stupid little blorbos toddling our single braincell down the road to disaster #my addition to a post (comment and tags courtesy of @krakenartificer)

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Also those last set of things (random luck, right place right time, natural environment) led you to recognise when you were having those natural doubling-down, confirmation bias type responses and, even if they felt good, question if they were stopping you from making a choice based on your own values (which are resultant of the abovementioned natural environment/random luck/right place right time etc. anyway, but a lot of people share theoretical values who believe in extremely different things). And lots of the time you find that your knee-jerk reaction was justified, but you keep asking those questions so when something comes along that makes you think Wrong! Bad! Gross! You actually parse it out and go, 'Actually, this isn't hurting anyone, it just gives me the ick. It isn't me cup of tea, but morally, it's fine.' That's a thing about figuring out how to be a better person. It involves a lot of actual figuring out. And sometimes that doesn't feel good because your instinctual feelings were off the mark and we don't like being wrong. (Or at least, I don't like being wrong. Maybe I'm wrong about that.)  But it stops us becoming people we don't want to be. #I think of this a lot when I write villains #which is very fraught anyway because so many bad guys have been racially or sexually coded as other #but I always think a genuine no-redemption-for-you bad guy shouldn't always be sympathetic but should always be in some way relatable #so when the heroes have that knee-jerk reaction of 'Oh I don't like that. That should stop!' like the bad guy #They can then have a Mitchell and Webb 'are we the baddies' moment and try to make better choices #not perfect choices but better ones #because making bad guys completely unrelatably evil bears no resemblance to most of the bad guys we see in the real world #or the bad guys we could so easily become if we didn't actively try to make better choices (comment courtesy of @glasscatowl)

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I'd like to submit one that doesn't seem to match those above (and it might, actually, it's possible I've misinterpreted something,) but just in case and because I think this is all important: They were taught an incorrect "fact" by a source they trusted (a teacher, a professor, a doctor,) and have never had a reason to question it / are not being given a reason to question it by a source they trust.  (You also do this.) To give a (somewhat) benign* example of this: the extremely common misunderstanding of wolf behavior. Many, many, many people were taught based on Mech's original publications at relatively young ages. Though people who are specifically into that subject are aware that Mech himself refuted his own work, the misinformation was already spread into the public psyche and there are many people who, to this day, earnestly believe that version without any kind of ill will or intent. And yes, those same people will often push back against being corrected. That can be for a lot of reasons, including the ones above, but also--possibly--because the person who is correcting them may be, ironically, less overtly credentialed than the person who told them the wrong information in the first place. Plenty of people who should know better are still pushing that narrative, after all. It's tempting to say that anyone being given a hint that there is different or conflicting information should just automatically go seek it out, but also consider that... there's only so much time and energy in anyone's day. Is someone who doesn't deal with wolves, has no real interest in wolves, and doesn't write an inordinate amount of wolf-related porn really going to go out of their way to delve into the mess of who is telling the truth about wolf behavior? Not likely. They're probably going to go with the version taught to them by the person they trust. *"Benign" : I'm aware that this specific bit of research has led to some seriously gnarly beliefs about human behavior (somehow) and otherwise dove-tailed into a lot of weird manosphere and tradwife nonsense. Not to mention animal abuse. That's actually part of why I picked it. The root belief here is fairly benign on its face, but when you know the evils that it's propping up it can be easy to have a knee jerk reaction to anyone who holds to that root belief. But they aren't the same. Treating them like they are can be heinously detrimental to everyone. But even if one does follow the other, being condescending or making bad faith assumptions about why the person believes what they believe will generally only make the situation worse, not better. #I agree with OP though I can't help but notice that all of their assumptions are somewhat... negative seeming #That doesn't make them wrong but there are also more... neutral things that people do. such as this #i really hope i don't regret speaking today (comment and tags courtesy of @cursedwithgloriouspurpose)

when the subject of "why do people believe things that are seriously wrong and harmful" comes up it feels like you kinda hear one of two perspectives:

"oh, that's easy! it's because they're fundamentally Bad people who want to hurt others and choose their beliefs to justify that! :) hope this helps"

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"they just don't have access to the same information we do. look at this person who was raised in a cult! don't you feel sorry for her?"

and like, yes, fine, some people were in fact raised in cults, but what i wish people would understand is that the bulk of it is just normal human flaws, like:

they want to believe stuff that makes them feel smart and cool and like they've figured everything out (you also do this)

they want to believe stuff that makes them feel like their emotions are justified and grounded in reality, and that the people they want to hurt deserve to be hurt (you also do this)

they form conclusions before they've processed all the relevant information, and cling to that first impression even when new info comes to light (you also do this)

they pick up beliefs from the people around them because they want to be liked and fit in, not because the beliefs are good or true (you also do this)

they come up with reasons that the stuff that benefits them (and the people they like and identify with) is actually overwhelmingly best for everyone and obviously the right thing to do (you also do this)

they pay more attention to stuff that supports what they already believe and avoid looking in places that might show them otherwise (you also do this)

they listen to people who talk like 'one of them' and ignore others (you also do this)

they come up with reasons to dismiss people with conflicting viewpoints as obviously in bad faith or ignorant or a shill or evil (you also do this)

they fail to take their own beliefs seriously sometimes, and take their beliefs way too seriously other times, in a selective way that lets them do the things they already wanted to do (you also do this)

the very ways they construct the ideas of 'knowledge' and 'wisdom' and 'belief' and 'understanding' are biased so that what they don't want to believe comes under lots of scrutiny and what they do want to believe receives less (you also do this)

you, dear reader, are presumably right about everything and were correct to die on every hill you've ever died on, but the difference between you and someone who's wrong about important stuff doesn't look like "well they're inherently evil and i'm not", it probably looks like a combination of:

natural environment (they would have been exposed to different information than you regardless of their choices)

being in the right place at the right time (your particular profile of flaws and virtues happened to be what was needed to lead you to the right conclusions, they had the opposite experience)

random luck (you doubled down on what felt right to believe but wasn't, but it turned out to be inconsequential, or even right for different reasons, while they doubled down on what turned out to be a horrible mistake distorting their entire worldview)

you do less of the things in the previous list, and over time the difference between you and them adds up

and, look, i also do these things. the nicest and most thoughtful people i've ever met do these things. if you meet someone who never does any of these things, i dunno, give them a fucking medal or something.

i know you're doing your best. we're all doing our best.

[usunezukoinezu]

''...the availability bias can lead into the false consensus effect. Whoever deliberates on a question can easily recall their conclusions (they are available). The person wrongly assumes that these findings will be as readily available to someone else. The self-serving bias also influences the false-consensus effect. Whoever wants to present something in a convincing manner does well to tell themselves that many (maybe even the majority) share their view and that their ideas will not fall on deaf ears. Philosophy deems the false-consensus effect “naive realism”: People are convinced that their positions are well thought out. Whoever fails to share their views will see the light if they reflect and open their minds sufficiently.''

-Rolf Dobelli, The art of thinking clearly

[merwgue]

"Rhysand hasn't done anything wrong"

Here’s a breakdown of the actual legal crimes Rhysand could be charged with, based on real-world laws:

A Court of Thorns and Roses (Book 1)

1. Sexual Assault – Rhysand forces Feyre into non-consensual situations, including touching her and kissing her while under the influence of drugs.

2. Drugging/Administration of a Controlled Substance – He forces Feyre to drink faerie wine (a mind-altering substance), which removes her ability to consent and control her actions.

3. Kidnapping/False Imprisonment – Under the Mountain, Rhysand traps Feyre into a bargain that forces her to spend time with him, effectively limiting her freedom.

A Court of Mist and Fury (Book 2)

1. Sexual Harassment – Rhysand frequently engages in unwanted physical contact with Feyre, coercing her in various ways under the pretext of their bargain.

2. Psychological Abuse/Coercion – The manipulation and psychological control Rhysand exerts over Feyre could be classified as emotional abuse, which can carry legal ramifications depending on the jurisdiction.

A Court of Wings and Ruin (Book 3)

1. Trespassing – Rhysand repeatedly enters Tamlin’s lands without permission, which would be considered trespassing by legal standards.

2. Incitement to Violence/Sabotage – Rhysand knowingly encourages Feyre to sabotage the Spring Court while she’s undercover, which could lead to charges of inciting criminal behavior.

3. Attempted Murder (by Suggestion) – While not directly responsible, suggesting that someone (Tamlin) should kill themselves could be viewed as reckless endangerment or incitement to self-harm, which is illegal in many places.

A Court of Frost and Starlight (Novella)

1. Harassment – Rhysand's continued psychological harassment of Tamlin could potentially be charged as harassment, particularly given its persistent nature.

General Crimes Throughout the Series you can face up to a life sentence with :

1. Assault – Rhysand has a history of using his powers to physically and mentally harm others, especially when he forces Feyre into certain situations or physically manipulates her.

2. Torture – His treatment of the people in the Court of Nightmares, particularly through physical and psychological intimidation, could be considered torture or cruel and inhumane treatment under international human rights law.

3. Abuse of Power/Authority – Rhysand frequently abuses his position as High Lord, using his powers to manipulate, control, and coerce others, which could be considered an abuse of authority. (Hm hm, remember what happend to saddam Hussain?)

4. Kidnapping/False Imprisonment – By forcibly keeping Nesta in the House of Wind without her consent, Rhysand is restricting her freedom and movement. This can be legally classified as kidnapping or false imprisonment.

5. Endangerment of a Mentally Ill Person – Nesta is clearly dealing with severe trauma, depression, and possibly PTSD. Locking her up without proper care or therapy can be considered neglect and endangerment of someone with a mental illness, especially since she was using alcohol to cope. (Those teen-help programs.)

6. Illegal Detainment Without Licensing – The Night Court is not a rehabilitation facility, and Rhysand has no legal authority or medical qualifications to keep Nesta there against her will. This would violate laws that protect individuals with mental health issues from being detained in non-medical facilities by non-professionals.

4. Emotional and Psychological Abuse – Forcing Nesta into isolation and removing her autonomy could be seen as a form of emotional and psychological abuse, which has legal ramifications in many jurisdictions.

In a real-world legal system, these actions could be prosecuted as criminal offenses, including sexual assault, kidnapping, drugging, trespassing, harassment, and psychological abuse.

So yea, you're dear old boy would be in JAIL by now.

Now let's calculate The charges against Rhysand, if brought to a real-world court system, could lead to significant legal consequences. Let’s break down the potential sentences for each crime, based on common legal standards in many countries:

1. Sexual Assault

Possible Sentence: 5 to 20 years in prison, depending on the severity and jurisdiction.

Sexual assault is a serious crime, and the penalties are harsh, especially if the victim is incapacitated (e.g., under the influence of drugs, as Feyre was).

2. Drugging/Administration of a Controlled Substance

Possible Sentence: 2 to 10 years in prison.

Administering drugs to someone without their knowledge or consent is considered a felony in many places and carries a substantial sentence, especially when done to facilitate control or assault.

3. Kidnapping/False Imprisonment (Feyre and Nesta)

Possible Sentence: 10 to 30 years in prison.

Kidnapping, especially when it involves controlling someone’s freedom against their will (like forcing Feyre and Nesta into his control), carries one of the longest prison terms.

4. Endangerment of a Mentally Ill Person (Nesta)

Possible Sentence: 5 to 15 years in prison.

This charge involves negligence and the failure to provide proper care for someone in a vulnerable state. In this case, Rhysand locking Nesta up without professional help can result in significant legal consequences.

5. Harassment/Emotional and Psychological Abuse (Tamlin and Nesta)

Possible Sentence: 1 to 5 years in prison (for each offense).

Emotional abuse and psychological harassment can carry prison sentences if they lead to significant harm, especially if Rhysand’s actions contributed to worsening their mental states.

6. Trespassing (Spring Court)

Possible Sentence: 1 year or fines.

Trespassing, while a less severe crime, can result in fines or a brief prison sentence, depending on how frequently and aggressively it’s done.

7. Torture/Abuse of Power (Hewn City)

Possible Sentence: 10 to 25 years in prison.

Torturing or inflicting severe harm, even in a ruling capacity, could result in lengthy imprisonment under human rights laws.

8. Failure to Prevent Mutilation (Wing Clipping in Illyria):

Crime: Complicity in Mutilation/Assault – In many countries, allowing or failing to prevent acts of bodily harm, especially when in a position of power, can lead to charges of complicity or negligence. Clipping wings is comparable to physical mutilation.

Potential Sentence: 10 to 20 years per incident, depending on the severity of harm. Rhysand, as High Lord, could be held accountable for allowing this to continue in the military camps he oversees.

9. Endangerment of Women’s Rights:

Crime: Neglect and Discrimination – The continued allowance of these practices in Illyria could be viewed as a form of systemic discrimination and neglect. Failure to protect women from harm, despite having the power to intervene, would likely result in charges related to discrimination and endangerment.

Potential Sentence: Civil penalties and lawsuits from the affected women, alongside possible criminal charges leading to fines and 5 to 10 years imprisonment per case of systemic abuse.

10. Complicity in Abuse and Torture (Hewn City):

Crime: Torture/Degrading Treatment – As the ruler of the Night Court, Rhysand maintains direct control over the Hewn City but allows its brutal social system to continue, particularly against women. Even though he doesn't directly participate in the abuse, turning a blind eye to it could result in complicity in human rights abuses or crimes akin to torture, especially since Hewn City is described as being "hell for women."

Potential Sentence: 10 to 25 years in prison for each case of torture or degrading treatment, with possible civil lawsuits and heavy fines.

11. Denial of Safe Haven and Equal Rights:

Crime: Violation of Human Rights – Women from Hewn City are barred from escaping their abusive environments, and Rhysand’s refusal to allow them into Velaris essentially traps them in dangerous situations. In the real world, denying refuge or asylum to those in danger can be classified as a violation of human rights.

Potential Sentence: 5 to 10 years for human rights violations, with additional civil penalties from lawsuits if women can prove they were harmed as a result of being denied safety.

Crimes Against Humanity – While not on the same scale as mass genocide or war crimes, the endangerment of entire groups of women through neglect, allowing mutilation, or complicity in torture can still fall under human rights violations. Such crimes are serious, and while they may not lead to a death sentence, they would likely result in long-term imprisonment, potential international condemnation, and severe civil penalties.

Maximum Sentence: If these charges were to be tried separately and consecutively, Rhysand could face up to 80 to 100+ years in prison

Likely Sentence: In a real-world legal system, some of these sentences may be served concurrently (at the same time), leading to a likely total sentence of 25 to 40 years in prison, depending on how the crimes are classified and judged.

Additionally, he would likely face civil penalties, lawsuits from the victims (e.g., Feyre and Nesta), and substantial fines.

Thank you for reading, if you want me to do any other character just say in the comments!❤️ (this took me over 2 days to research but I had my amazing dad helping me!♥️)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rosemary Westwood at NPR:

A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Department of Health walked into a Nov. 14 meeting in Baton Rouge expecting to talk about outreach and community events. Instead, they were told by an assistant secretary in the department and another official that department leadership had a new policy: Advertising or otherwise promoting the COVID, influenza or mpox vaccines, an established practice there — and at most other public health entities in the U.S. — must stop. NPR has confirmed the policy was discussed at this meeting, and at two other meetings held within the department's Office of Public Health, on Oct. 3 and Nov. 21, through interviews with four employees at the Department of Health, which employs more than 6,500 people and is the state's largest agency.

According to the employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear losing their jobs or other forms of retaliation, the policy would be implemented quietly and would not be put in writing. Staffers were also told that it applies to every aspect of the health department's work: Employees could not send out press releases, give interviews, hold vaccine events, give presentations or create social media posts encouraging the public to get the vaccines. They also could not put up signs at the department's clinics that COVID, flu or mpox vaccines were available on site. The new policy in Louisiana was implemented as some politicians have promoted false information about vaccines and as President-elect Donald Trump seeks to have anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. And some public health experts are concerned that if other states follow Louisiana, the U.S. could face rising levels of disease and further erosion of trust in the nation's public health infrastructure.

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A blow to public health practice

Staff at Louisiana's health department fear the new policy undermines their efforts to protect the public, and violates the fundamental mission of public health: to prevent illness and disease by following the science.

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Experts fear consequences of undermining trust in vaccine

Last year, 652 people in Louisiana died of COVID, including five children. Louisiana currently is tied with DC for the highest rate of flu in the U.S. In 2022 alone, flu killed 586 people in Louisiana. Every health department staff member, former staff member, public health official and vaccine expert contacted by NPR repeated the scientific consensus that vaccines are safe, effective, and essential for preventing illness, hospitalizations, and deaths.

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Policy change follows new governor's election

Until becoming Louisiana governor in early 2024, Republican Jeff Landry served as the state's attorney general for eight years. During the pandemic, he criticized the state's COVID response and filed lawsuits over federal and state vaccine mandates. On Dec. 6, 2021, Attorney General Landry spoke at a state committee hearing against adding COVID to the childhood immunization schedule. At his side was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who presented false claims about COVID vaccines. This year the Republican-controlled legislature passed five bills — all signed by Gov. Landry — and two resolutions aimed at loosening vaccine requirements, limiting the power of public health authorities and sowing doubt about vaccine safety.

Gov. Landry also appointed Dr. Ralph Abraham, a family medicine doctor, to be the state's surgeon general. That position co-leads the Department of Health, and is tasked with crafting health policy that is then carried out by the departmental co-leader, the secretary. [...] Abraham said masking, lockdowns and vaccination requirements "were practically ineffective," that COVID vaccine adverse effects have been "suppressed," that "we don't know" whether blood from people who've been vaccinated is safe for donation and that "we hope and pray" COVID vaccines don't increase the risk miscarriages.

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A slippery slope to future disease outbreaks

Experts told NPR they feared a policy that undermines COVID, flu and mpox vaccinations could have a spillover effect, reducing public trust in vaccinations overall, including those given to children to prevent a host of dangerous and deadly illnesses. "I believe that we will see measles cases. I believe we will see whooping cough cases. I believe we will likely see meningitis outbreaks," said Hood. In the Nov. 14 meeting, a staff member asked whether the ban on promoting vaccines applied to children's immunizations, but the answer was noncommittal, according to an employee with knowledge of the meeting's details. "My understanding was it's not clear to what extent we might be able to promote childhood vaccinations," the staff member said. (The Louisiana Department of Health's statement to NPR said the changes in policy and messaging do not apply to childhood immunizations.) Nationally, vaccination rates for serious childhood diseases have been falling in recent years, including in Louisiana.

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The rise of public health officials promoting misinformation

Louisiana isn't the only state where public health officials have recently announced controversial decisions and repeated false or discredited health theories. Florida's surgeon general has made false claims about COVID vaccines, undermined school vaccine mandates for the measles and said local officials should stop adding fluoride to water supplies.

The consequences of anti-vaxxer extremism and anti-public health sentiments being normalized by Republicans: Louisiana bans the state's Department of Health from promoting COVID, flu, or mpox vaccines.

[grimm909]

Deep In The Sea - End

I don't have much to say here. I just deeply appreciate all the comments and reblogs! Furthermore, I apologize for the excruciating delay in finishing this fic. I wasn't as excited to continue writing as before, so let's say that because of that the chapter isn't very long. I just wanted to put an end to this soon. 🥺

English is not my native language, so sorry for any errors you may find.

Part 1 and Part 2

WARNINGS: female gender reader, violence, yandere, obsession, non-consensual, mind break, horror, drama, mutilation, mention of pregnancy.

"I don't want to feel good!" You shouted in fury, writhing around to try to free yourself from his grip. However, your attempt proved fruitless. "I want to leave! Leave me alone! You monster!"

"Tsk, tsk." Jade clicked his tongue in disapproval. "You really hurt me with those words." He lamented in a tone of false sadness. However, the creature's heterochromatic eyes, which continued to look at you in an unpleasantly passionate way, were in fact the only true thing about Jade.

"I won't tell anyone about you. I swear!" You tried. Even in a useless and desperate plea, you still tried to fight, even though your only weapons were the insignificant words coming out of your lips.

"Of course you won't tell." He smiled with his teeth exposed. A wicked smile full of unspoken ulterior motives. "After all, you're not leaving here." An unpleasant shiver ran down your spine. “I can’t let you go, not now that we’re finally closer than ever, darling.”

“Y-you can’t! I can’t survive in a place like this!” You screamed, as a few more tears fell down your face.

“I know you won’t.” Jade agreed, knowing that you could easily die within a few days in that cave. “But I’ll find a way.” The merman caressed your cheek tenderly, stating so firmly that he would find a solution that made you tremble at the thought of spending the rest of your life in that unhealthy place. Worse still, with him.

“I don’t love you!” An angry scream came out of your throat. However, you didn’t know if you were trying to shake the merman’s feelings or just make him angry enough for him to kill you before he did anything else horrible to you.

"Maybe not now, certainly." Unfortunately, your statement didn't have any kind of desirable effect on the monster. He remained calm as always. As cold as a block of ice. "But you know, I really am a patient merman. So I don't mind waiting as long as it takes until you admit how much you want me." He was definitely crazy! So crazy that he smiled, certain that he would make you fall in love with him. Certain that he would make you become exclusively his.

The merman's mismatched eyes wandered over your naked torso, hovering over your attention-starved breasts, whose nipples were perky from exposure to the cold.

"Ah, what beautiful mounds you have." Jade admired them with visible delight. He held her left nipple with his thumb and index finger, gently pulling it up and then releasing it, showing interest when the flesh moved vaguely up and down due to the action.

You let out a moan at how sensitive your nipples were, regretting it immediately and clamping your lips together to keep from giving the monster any more of that taste of your suffering.

“Oya, what a beautiful sound you just made.” He smiled proudly as if he had done something incredible, assuming that your sweet moan had been of pleasure and not pain.

You prefer not to answer. At this point in the game, wasting your breath on the merman was a huge waste of time and you still had the chance to irritate him. The bloody marks on your arm were a horrible reminder not to exhaust that monster’s patience. At that moment, you were just waiting for the warm embrace of death, because you knew there would be no more chance of escaping or being saved.

Jade wasted no time in wanting to take advantage of every bit of your body, opening his mouth wide and grabbing almost your entire breast. You suck in a breath, taken by surprise by that action, but also afraid that he would bite you again. The merman doesn't do it, but his sharp teeth graze around your areola in a silent threat, while his tongue swirled around your nipple. Jade analyzed you with bicolored eyes, curious about what expression you were making and delighting in the way you tried your best to hold back your moans, with your eyes closed and lips tightly repressed, which periodically opened when you were caught off guard by those teeth biting shallowly into the skin of your breasts. Not enough to bleed, but strong enough to hurt.

It takes a few seconds for him to release your breast with a loud “pop”, only to move his mouth to the other solitary mound. Even though no more protests came out of your mouth, you squirm in disgust and look at the love mark he had left around your areola. You feel disgusted by the large amount of drool that decorated the rest of your breast, running down towards the gap between it and the other mound that Jade was delighting in.

At that point, your throat was already sore from screaming so much, but another cry of pain crossed your lips when your right nipple was attacked with excruciating pain. Sharp shark-like teeth gripped the unprotected spot tightly, only satisfied when the skin gave in to the external aggressor and the blood poured beautifully into the merman's mouth. Jade moaned in satisfaction, sucking on the wound as if she were a greedy baby sucking on her mother's breast milk.

A single tear fell from your eyes, although you couldn't tell if it was from fear or anger. Probably both, judging by your trembling body beneath the merman and how your teeth were grinding in contained hatred, wanting to bite him, hurt him and tear him apart, just as he had done and was doing to you at that moment.

"That hurts…" You let out a pitiful whimper, as more tears fell to adorn your beautiful face.

Even in your best effort to make that creature feel some pity for you, the merman didn't stop sucking on the freshly made wound. However, your words made him look at you again and his eyes met Jade's. You feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up at the eye contact, holding your breath in your lungs and turning your head to the side, refusing to look at him any longer.

After a few seconds satisfying of your blood, he stops. The sound of clothes being torn echoes through the cave. You didn't need to be a genius to know that Jade was tearing apart the rest of your uniform, exposing your pelvic region and thighs. You scream and adrenaline immediately runs through your blood, encouraging you to fight to get out of there. However, your struggle is reduced to just screams and physical struggle, which are useless in the face of the monstrous force that continued to squeeze your legs.

Jade ignores your fear, but curls her lips when she realizes that there was another piece of clothing covering her lovely intimacy. He is quick to fix it, tearing the last piece of clothing that protected her from being violated by him.

You let out a squeak, embarrassed and afraid of being even more at the mercy of the merman's cruelties. This situation was beyond strange, it was almost ridiculously comical. You were about to be abused by a mythological creature? How cruel fate was.

“Fufufu, that sure is quite an image.” He admires your completely naked body, bringing his index and middle finger to your intimacy, touching your labia minora and then inserting half of his fingers inside you without any modesty. A painful moan escapes your mouth, unprepared to receive it. “Ah, it's so warm and soft.” Jade admires the heat emanating from your gummy walls, going a little deeper to see how far his fingers could go. “Certainly a good place for our cubs to be comfortable and safe.” This sentence makes you sick and terribly disgusted. How could he say something like that so naturally?

Jade takes his fingers out of you and brings them to his mouth, tasting your taste with a brief moan of delight.

“A unique taste, indeed,” he says with satisfaction, loosening his grip on your legs and picking you up in his arms as if you weighed no more than a rag doll. The new position established by the merman was to sit on the sandy floor and bring you to his lap, with your back to his chest, your legs spread over Jade’s tail and his arm around your waist, keeping you unable to escape.

You scream when you realize what was right in front of you, poking your belly and staining it with a liquid that looked transparent, yet pearly. A horrible glimpse of Jade’s tapered and monstrous cock, which was about to sweep you off your feet and make you his newest partner for life.

“Please, no…” You beg one last time, your breath caught in your lungs, unable to take your eyes off that hideous thing. “There’s no way it can fit.”

“Don’t worry.” Jade soothes, kissing the top of your head tenderly in a failed attempt to calm you down. “Soon you’ll be molded to my shape.” He smiles, lifting your body and using his right hand to guide the head of his inhuman cock to your unprepared intimacy, rubbing against the entrance and lubricating it with his pre-cum, before sliding into the hole sheltered by the small lips. “Now, let’s consummate our love, shall we?”

Placing his other hand on your waist, Jade grips your body and roughly pushes you down, filling you with his cock in a single thrust. A silent scream leaves your throat, which has long since weakened, barely having the strength to continue with your useless protests. Tears adorn your pale cheeks and you refuse to look down, afraid to see how stuffed your pussy must be with that monstrosity inside you.

"It's incredibly hot." The merman praised, a heavy sigh of satisfaction leaving his dark lips. "It's so different from the other females I'm used to." He admitted without qualms, kissing the top of your ear. "You take me so well…" Jade slid one of his webbed hands from your waist to your thighs, distancing it so that the view of your pussy was not completely covered. "Look, you're swallowing almost everything."

Were you a virgin? Oh, well, not that it mattered in the end, since the blood dripping around his cock could be as much because of that as the fact that Jade had broken something inside you. After all, how else did you look so full of his cock? The merman's bulge jutted obscenely into your belly, making you certain that you would probably never return to normal.

“You. Damn. Monster…” In a last spark of resistance, you hiss each word filled with pure hatred and venom.

Jade doesn't say anything and you can't even see his expression to know if your words really affected him in any way. However, he shows that they did when he lifts your body again and then throws it back against his cock in a bestial thrust, making you moan greedily. You really did look like a rag doll or in this case specifically a flesh of light. In either case, you were nothing more than a toy for that sea monster, which he would use and use until he got tired.

“Don't be like that, darling.” Jade laments falsely. “Soon we’ll both start a family and you’ll never have to worry about going back to your old life again.” The merman caresses you in a sickeningly passionate way, holding your chin and forcing your head to the side, in which he leans down and kisses you in a quick brush of lips, thus sealing a deal you never wanted to be a part of. “But until your belly grows…” What an understatement. Your belly was more than full of Jade’s cock and would definitely get much more so as he filled it with his seed.

Without hope of being saved, you brought your hands to your face flooded with tears, uselessly passing them under your opaque orbs, in a foolish attempt to wipe them away. But, unlike what you thought was the solution to the most unimportant of your problems, they didn’t go away. They became angrier. More, incessantly, irritating. Stronger, along with the feelings of fear, sadness and especially anger.

But hey, don’t worry. You would die of cold, hunger or thirst in that place, long before you could even give him your offspring. That was a happy ending for you, wasn't it?

“Let's drown together, yes?"

Thank you for reading this far! If you want to place orders, my message box is always open!

Part 1 and Part 2

[elleldoe]

Introduction & Masterlist

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This blog is pro fic, pro ship, pro kink (rl: safe, sane, consensual), pro Ao3, anti censorship, anti harassment, anti (generative) ai.

Some of my works on Ao3 are only available to registered users. More details here.

Me & My Writing

Old enough to know better. Whimsical enough to not let that stop me.

I have been writing and posting my work under various pen names and on various sites since 2011. My masterlist (below the cut) contains links to my works, or you can browse my Ao3 here.

Working on my original novel (in theory anyway).

My asks and dms are open, don't hesitate to reach out if you feel like talking to me.

Fandoms & Themes

Main fandoms include The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Silence of the Lambs & Hannibal (books & movies), and Van Helsing (2004).

All my works feature Age Gap relationships between Older Men and Younger Women (existing male characters and female OCs). A lot of them feature kink/BDSM to some extent. Dubcon (due to Power Dynamics) is more or less present in most of them, some also feature Non-Con or CNC written as Non-Con. Everything is properly tagged. If I happen to have missed a tag, feel free to let me know and I'll fix it.

Navigation

Posts about my fan works/series are tagged with the ship (for ex. 'Beth/Snow').

Posts about my original novel are tagged 'Elle's favorite child'.

Original posts are tagged as 'ElleLDoe'.

Other tags: 'asks', 'tag games', 'draft shenanigans'

Masterlist (will be updated as I upload new works)

Hunger Games

Beth/Snow Series (18+, Older Man/Younger Woman, (Mildly) Dubious Consent (mostly in the earlier parts due to the nature of their relationship), Fake/Pretend Relationship, Dom/sub Undertones, story-driven with lots of smut, fluff added into the mix starting Part 4)

Part 1: What You Have To Offer

Part 2: It's Just Business

Part 3: I Live To Serve

Part 4: Agony, Comfort, Bliss

Part 5: Bound By Appearances

Part 6: What I Have To Gain

Part 7: Best Laid Plans

Part 8: Third Time's A Charm 🔒​

Part 9: What On Earth Are You Thinking? 🔒​

Part 10: currently writing

Harry Potter

Lirelle/Lucius/Corban Series (18+, Threesome, Dom/sub, BDSM, Older Men/Younger Woman, CNC, Rough Play, Aftercare)

Part 1: Play Stupid Games Win Stupid Prizes

Part 2: False Sense of Security

Part 3: Cause and Effect 🔒​

Kiera/Corban Series (18+, Older Man/Younger Woman, Dead Dove Do Not Eat, Non-Con, Abduction, Imprisonment, Deatheaters doing Deatheater things, this one is rough if you click the link be mindful to read the tags)

Part 1: Knowledge Is Pain

Esther/Severus Series (18+, Older Man/Younger Woman, Teacher-Student Relationship (and therefore Dubious Consent), Power Play, They Dislike Each Other And That's What Makes It Fun)

Part 1: Foul Language and Inappropriate Behavior

Part 2: Lines Crossed and Strings Attached

Part 3: Sharp Tongues and Petty Games

Moira/Lucius (18+, Older Man/Younger Woman, Size Kink, BDSM, Brat/Brattamer Dynamic, Power Play, Sexual Tension, Post-Second Wizarding War)

All Bark And No Bite 🔒​

Van Helsing (2004)

Eveline/Count Vladislaus Dracula (18+, Older Man/Younger Woman, AU Modern Setting, AU Dracula got resurrected, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn (sort of), Eventual Smut, Sugar Daddies Are Stereotypically Older So What Difference Do A Couple 100 Years Make)

An Opportunist's Guide To Immortality 🔒

Sweeney Todd

​Annette/Judge Turpin (18+, Older Man/Younger Woman, Dubious Consent, Boss/Employee Relationship, Size Kink, Praise Kink, Oral Sex)

Make Yourself Useful 🔒

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[markantonys]

amidst all the gawyn casting kerfuffle, i never reacted to gaebril and the potential story implications thereof!

point #1: the official character description strongly implies that gaebril is morgase's established lover, i.e. when we first meet the andoran crew at the beginning of the season, we will be introduced to him as morgase's lover & advisor (as opposed to a storyline where he's a newcomer in court and gradually gets close to her over the course of the season; if that had been the case, his official pre-season character description would've been "a new face in the andoran court who hopes to prove his loyalty to the queen" or something)

point #2: the other 6 forsaken were released during 2x08

point #3: there doesn't appear to be too big of a timeskip between 2x08 and 3x01

this leaves us with a few possibilities for gaebril.

possibility #1: gaebril was never a real person and has only ever been the persona for a forsaken

possibility #1A: gaebril has arrived at court and become morgase's most trusted companion very very quickly (like, within the span of only a few weeks).

possibility #1B: there's a longer timeskip between 2x08 and 3x01 than we think, or there's a timeskip between 3x01 and 3x02 (if the caemlyn crew isn't introduced until then), which gives forsaken!gaebril more time to worm his way into a position of influence in andor.

this is the possibility that we all immediately assumed when we saw gaebril because it's the case in the books, but upon thinking about it more, i'm not sure i buy it. 1A would raise Very Obvious red flags not only to the audience, but surely to elaida, gawyn, and galad as well, and so then why would they all happily head out to tar valon if they have bad feelings about this new guy in town who's gained such an in with morgase so quickly? 1B doesn't feel particularly likely because unlike between s1 and s2 when a good amount of time was needed to set up various new status quos, s2 into s3 feels like we should be ready to hit the ground running and not just hang around for months before starting the next quest.

plus, both these options would make the audience's first impression of morgase be that she's a bit of a fool. even if we later learn that compulsion is being used on her, the idea of her as a super clever and cunning ruler (as per her character description) will be a pretty hard sell if our very first scene(s) of her is her placing trust in an advisor who to us is very obviously shady and probably a forsaken (show-onlys will definitely be on the lookout for potential disguised forsaken when s3 kicks off!). dramatic irony with the audience knowing someone's secretly evil but the characters around them don't know - that's much more effective when it's heartbreaking to watch than when it's frustrating to watch Because It's Just So Obvious, How Can They Not See?

this brings me to:

possibility #2: gaebril is a real bona fide andoran lord who genuinely does have a consensual relationship with morgase and has been her most trusted companion for many years, and later in the season (maybe as the finale stinger to set up s4) he gets killed by a forsaken, who then assumes his identity and begins manipulating morgase by impersonating her years-long most trusted companion.

imo, this would work better on a few levels.

it allows us to get to know the real morgase and see the smart Bad Bitch powerhouse she is before she falls under forsaken influence

it's a much subtler manipulation campaign, which would fit with the show giving competence upgrades and subtlety upgrades to the forsaken so far

while watching morgase get manipulated by A Weird Guy Who Just Showed Up could be frustrating for the audience and make her seem stupid to us, watching her get manipulated by a guy she thinks is her most trusted companion but who we know is actually a forsaken impersonating him would be so heartbreaking and we'd really empathize with her

morgase sleeping with a forsaken voluntarily but unknowingly/under false pretenses would be a tiiiiiiny bit less icky than her being literally mind-controlled-by-magic into sleeping with a forsaken (though still very icky! but similar to how the show did randfear)

it would be harder for the people around morgase to pin her increasingly erratic behavior on The Weird Guy Who Just Showed Up and would make it more believable that they fully blame HER for everything, which thus makes elayne's job of rehabilitating house trakand's reputation that much harder

if nothing is obviously different and morgase doesn't have a brand-new Weird Guy Who Just Showed Up hanging around her all the time, it's a lot more believable that the people around her don't notice anything off until it's too late

it could be a fun little way for the show to surprise readers and not just show-onlys!

it could hypothetically allow some Forsaken Consolidation by making it possible for one forsaken to do double-duty; for example, maybe sammael has a little something else going on earlier in s3 but then scoots over to impersonate gaebril for s4, thus allowing us to cut rahvin and have sammael do 2 narrative jobs. (i really do feel like rahvin would be a great one to combine with someone else because he truly does only do One Thing, albeit a very important One Thing. plus, i'm biased and want the final male forsaken slot to go to demandred because i love him and also i want the show to give us the taimandred storyline we should have gotten in the books!)

as of now, the only real objection i can think of to this theory is "why wouldn't they have just used bryne as the lover-adviser who gets killed and impersonated?" but eh, maybe they thought making gaebril a real andoran lord to start would be less of a stretch to book canon than making bryne get killed and impersonated, or maybe they don't want bryne coming anywhere near the show so as not to spark fears of siuaraine getting broken up and put with their book LIs, or maybe bryne actually will show up in the show somewhere else and thus couldn't get killed and impersonated.

[nature-girly]

Something that irks me and makes me uncomfortable is Kirk’s reputation in pop culture as a womanizer. Because he’s not. He does kiss a lot of women, but far too often it’s not because he actually wants to. Instead, it’s dubiously or non-consensual (for him), simply to get out of a dangerous situation, or to gain information. I’m not sure if it was an intentional decision for the writers to put Kirk, a white man and a starship captain who usually has a lot of agency into situations where he’s sexualized and lacks agency. Most likely it was just the unfortunate fact that sexual violence against men often isn’t taken as seriously. Also, I fully acknowledge that Kirk is often dismissive of women, including his coworkers and that women on TOS experience similar things as him. I wrote this awhile ago in my notes app but I was honestly hesitant to post it. This got unfortunately long by the way.

TW: sexual violence, non-consensual drug use, brainwashing

Situations that were dubiously or non-consensual for Kirk:

Wink of an Eye: Kirk got kidnapped by Deela who wanted him to help repopulate her planet. On the bridge, she kissed him multiple times without his consent and he looked really uncomfortable. Soon after, it’s explained that Kirk (or any other human) would suffer serious injuries or death if he got even a scratch. This established his powerlessness. Kirk and Deela end up in his quarters. She says, “It was quite delightful kissing you when you couldn't see me.” Yikes��He kissed her in an attempt to grab her weapon. After she stopped him from getting it, they kissed again. In the next scene, Deela fixed her hair as Kirk put on his boots. To quote the script, “Draw your own conclusions.” Obviously, they had just had sex. Kirk looked so upset here. 

A Private Little War: After Kirk got attacked by the mugato, Nona did a weirdly sexual magic healing ritual. Tyree says, “When a man and woman are joined in this manner, he can refuse her no wish.” Later, Nona drugged Kirk and then kissed him seemingly in an effort to make Tyree jealous. Kirk reciprocated though he looked conflicted. 

The Return of the Archons: Soon after the Red Hour started a random woman kissed Kirk. I don’t blame her though because she was brainwashed like everyone else and it was the red hour. 

Whom Gods Destroy: After being tortured by Garth and passing out, Kirk woke up in Marta’s bed. She kissed him several times without his consent and then tried to stab him. 

Plato’s Stepchildren: Kirk and Uhura are forced to kiss by the Platonians. This obviously wasn’t consensual for either of them.

Elaan of Troyius: Kirk’s behavior towards Elaan was appalling and the entire situation was fucked up. That goes without saying. However, that doesn’t negate what she did. Elasian tears have a strong biochemical effect on men and act like a love potion. Elaan seduces Kirk after getting her tears on him, essentially drugging him. Side note: This Side of Paradise makes me uncomfortable for the same reason. 

Dagger of the Mind: This episode was…complicated. Early on, it’s established that Kirk had met Helen Noel at a holiday party and he’s really awkward around her. When they try out the brainwashing/hypnosis machine, Helen planted false memories of Kirk taking her back to his quarters and presumably hooking up. Dr. Adams also brainwashed Kirk into believing that he was in love with Helen which affected his behavior. 

Examples of Kirk seducing women so he and whoever he’s responsible for can get out of a dangerous situation or to gain information: 

Catspaw

Mirror, Mirror

The Gamesters of Triskelion

What Are Little Girls Made Of?

The Conscience of the King

By Any Other Name

To conclude, I really wish people wouldn't think of Kirk as a womanizer, playboy, etc. He mostly just uses his sexuality to survive. Maybe that's a hot take. I don't know.

[saprophilous]

just letting you know that that ask you rb'd about glaze being a scam seems to be false/dubious. I think they're just misinterpreting "not as useful as we had hoped" and interpreted it maliciously, based on the replies?

not positive but yeah!

Ah yeah, I see people fairly expressing that being “debunked” as in, not a scam; I wasn’t personally particularly aligned to whether or not its “dubious origins” are true or not… so sorry about that.

From what I’ve read, I was more focused upon the consensus that it doesn’t work, and therefore isn’t worth the effort. So having a positive takeaway on glaze outside of its “scam or not status”, as potentially saving us from ai learning doesn’t seem useful to pass around.

Correct me if there’s better information out there but this from an old Reddit post a year back is why I didn’t continue looking into it as it made sense to my layman’s brain:

“lets briefly go over the idea behind GLAZE

computer vision doesn't work the same way as in the brain. They way we do this in computer vision is that we hook a bunch of matrix multiplications together to transform the input into some kind of output (very simplified). One of the consequences of this approach is that small changes over the entire input image can lead to large changes to the output.

It's this effect that GLAZE aims to use as an attack vector / defense mechanism. More specifically, GLAZE sets some kind of budget on how much it is allowed to change the input, and within that budget it then tries to find a change such that the embeddings created by the VAE that sits in front of the diffusion model look like embeddings of an image that come from a different style.

Okay, but how do we know what to change to make it look like a different style? for that they take the original image and use the img2img capabilities of SD itself to transform that image into something of another style. then we can compare the embeddings of both versions and try and alter the original image such that it's embeddings start looking like that of the style transferred version.

So what's wrong with it?

In order for GLAZE to be successful the perturbation it finds (the funny looking swirly pattern) has to be reasonably resistant against transformations. What the authors of GLAZE have tested against is jpeg compression, and adding Gaussian noise, and they found that jpeg compression was largely ineffective and adding Gaussian noise would degrade the artwork quicker than it would degrade the transfer effect of GLAZE. But that's a very limited set of attacks you can test against. It is not scale invariant, something that people making lora's usually do. e.g. they don't train on the 4K version of the image, at most on something that's around 720x720 or something. As per authors admission it might also not be crop invariant. There also seem to be denoising approaches that sufficiently destroy the pattern (the 16 lines of code).

As you've already noticed, GLAZING something can results in rather noticeable swirly patterns. This pattern becomes especially visible when you look at works that consist of a lot of flat shading or smooth gradients. This is not just a problem for the artist/viewer, this is also a fundamental problem for glaze. How the original image is supposed to look like is rather obvious in these cases, so you can fairly aggressively denoise without much loss of quality (might even end up looking better without all the patterns).

Some additional problems that GLAZE might run into: it very specifically targets the original VAE that comes with SD. The authors claim that their approach transfers well enough between some of the different VAEs you can find out in the wild, and that at least they were unsuccessful in training a good VAE that could resist their attack. But their reporting on these findings isn't very rigorous and lacks quite a bit of detail.

will it get better with updates?

Some artists belief that this is essentially a cat and mouse game and that GLAZE will simply need updates to make it better. This is a very optimistic and uninformed opinion made by people that lack the knowledge to make such claims. Some of the shortcomings outlined above aren't due to implementation details, but are much more intimately related with the techniques/math used to achieve these results. Even if this indeed was a cat and mouse game, you'll run into the issue that the artist is always the one that has to make the first move, and the adversary can save past attempt of the artists now broken work.

GLAZE is an interesting academic paper, but it's not going to be a part of the solution artists are looking for.”

[source]

[evidence-based-activism]

you know that porn doesn't have to involve women, right? you know that porn can be animated, right? you know that sex workers often run their own websites and publish their own work, right? good lord

"all porn is bad because the porn industry is often abusive" ok. stop eating chocolate. all chocolate. the chocolate industry is hugely abusive. stop eating it. all of it. even chocolate that you're pretty sure was ethically sourced. even homemade chocolate from your neighbor or that you bought online from the person who harvested the beans

"you know that porn doesn't have to involve women, right?"

(1) The vast majority of it does. (2) I actually do care about the men being abused in pornography as well. It may not be as frequent of an issue, but it does exist. (3) So ... you admit that pornography hurts women?

(Also, here is a post with a quote on this topic.)

"you know that porn can be animated, right?"

There are three forms of harm resulting from pornography: (1) the harm incurred by the people who are involved in its production (primarily the women - and sometimes the men - being filmed), (2) the harm incurred by the "consumers" of pornography, (3) the harms incurred by society (e.g., the connection to misogynistic beliefs, violence rates, etc.).

Animated pornography doesn't involve the first harm, but it may (and likely does) involve the second two harms. There is very little research on animated and/or written pornography. (I've asked for people to send any me known sources on this topic in the past.) That being said, here's a few sources I did find:

This article [1] describes how hentai, a common form of animated pornography, is disproportionately viewed by children aged 6-12 years and includes violence directed at female characters.

This article describes the similarities between animated and "regular" pornography [2]. This post [3] describes how animated pornography may be a "supernormal stimulus", affecting us in way that mimic other supernormal stimuli (e.g., junk food).

You can consult this website [4] that lists literally hundreds of sources on the negative effects of pornography. Most of these concern the harm incurred by the "consumer", which are likely shared (at least in part) by animated pornography.

We absolutely need more research on the topic of animated pornography specifically (and also written/drawn pornography). But given that we've established the harms of pornography, it's reasonable for the "burden of proof" to be transferred (i.e., we no longer need to prove the harm of pornography, you need to prove that this harm doesn't apply to animated pornography).

"you know that sex workers often run their own websites and publish their own work, right?"

(1) You'll need to provide a source for that "often". (2) What "sex workers" do you mean, anon? Pimps and pornography producers have taken to calling themselves "sex workers", but they are clearly in a different situation than the women who are "having sex" and being filmed are in. (3) How do you know which websites and work are "their own"? How do you know if the content is being posted by the women in the video and not someone else? If everyone was of age? If all the sex acts were consensual? If the women consented to it being posted/distributed? If she's being coerced by a pimp or a boyfriend or economic destitution? (4) Most importantly: are you willing to risk watching and masturbating to a rape video?

[Your chocolate metaphor.]

This is a false analogy for a few of reasons. Most importantly, however, it is possible to produce chocolate without exploitation. It is not possible to produce pornography without exploitation. It isn't even possible to conform to existing health and safety laws; the only reason why the pornography industry exists (in the USA) is because the government hasn't been enforcing these protections.

Here's an article [5] discussing how prostitution (and pornography is just prostitution on film) upends traditional consumer models (and is therefore not comparable with other "products"). Here is a post comparing the pornography and film industries, so as to highlight the inherent and inescapable differences between them. And another post, with the same purpose.

Conclusion

Pornography results in violence against women and the majority of it is violence against women. No amount of false analogies or loaded questions will change that.

References under the cut:

Wheelock College, USA, et al. “Hentai and the Pornification of Childhood: How the Porn Industry Just Made the Case of Regulation.” Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence, vol. 8, no. 1, Feb. 2023. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.23860/dignity.2023.08.01.03.

Fight the New Drug. “What Is Hentai Porn, and Why Is It So Popular?” Fight the New Drug, https://fightthenewdrug.org/exposing-the-new-wave-of-extreme-hentai-animated-porn/.

“Why Are People Sexually Attracted to Cartoons? Nikolaas Tinbergen’s Concept of ‘Supernormal Stimulus’ Explains Why Humans Are Attracted to a Heightened Version of Reality.” Your Brain On Porn, https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/rebooting-porn-use-faqs/how-is-internet-porn-different-from-porn-of-the-past/why-are-people-sexually-attracted-to-cartoons-nikolaas-tinbergens-concept-of-supernormal-stimulus-explains-why-humans-are-attracted-to-a-heightened-version-of-reality/.

“Relevant Research and Articles About the Studies.” Your Brain On Porn, https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articles-about-the-studies/.

Farley, M. (2018). Risks of Prostitution: When the Person Is the Product. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 3(1), 97–108. https://doi.org/10.1086/695670

[dailyanarchistposts]

Climate Change and Capitalism

The concept of human-caused climate change is not new. Joseph Fourier first discussed the greenhouse effect in 1824 and suggested human activities could influence global temperatures. Other famous names of chemistry and physics such as Tyndall, Arrhenius and Bell developed this theory and understood its implications. By the early twentieth century there was an understanding in the scientific community that burning fossil fuels could alter the earth’s climate.

By the 1970s, public awareness of the issue had grown and the scientific community began to develop models of how CO2 emissions would affect the future climate. During this period, the oil company Exxon conducted a great deal of research into climate change and global climate modelling. Their findings threatened the company’s profits, so they suppressed the research and instead spent money on a misinformation and lobbying campaign to limit public acceptance and government regulation (see Environmental Research Letters: Bibliography). This was largely successful, with successive governments in the USA and elsewhere questioning the science of climate change and limiting regulation of CO2, despite overwhelming scientific consensus. Misinformation of the public has been supported by many media outlets controlled by the ruling class, allowing governments to stall environmental regulation and treat climate change as a fringe issue.

In more recent times, we’ve seen even the right wing move from the climate denial of George W. Bush to the acceptance of environmental policy by the mainstream. For example, consider David Cameron’s ‘hug a husky’ greenwash. Whilst greenwashing has conceded some small victories, many of the major global players are still delaying any meaningful action as far as possible, whilst promoting false ‘green capitalism’ solutions. Others have accepted climate change, but denied the human cause or that we can do anything about it. Donald Trump claimed in 2016 that climate change was a hoax promoted by China to weaken the economy of the USA, neatly bringing together both economic nationalism and climate denial. By painting the issue as one of national defence and economic necessity, Trump has managed to cast further doubt on the need to lower carbon emissions.

Environmental pollution is one of the great failures of the free market. Fossil fuels are cheap because CO2 is a ‘negative externality’; that is, the cost of emitting it, namely the threat of global environmental change, is not borne by the companies responsible but by society at large. Private companies, therefore, have little incentive to reduce CO2 emissions, and the costs of their products are kept artificially low by this societal subsidy. These emissions have no market value — they add nothing to the cost of a product and yet have huge ramifications for the global climate. The market, therefore, cannot be relied on to fix this problem. The options available to us are to either control the market so that environmental costs are considered, e.g. state capitalism, or to remove the market’s control over our lives altogether.

The longer we delay action on climate change, the more difficult to fix the problem becomes. This pamphlet proposes that the only way to achieve meaningful change is to abandon the capitalist model; to reclaim the energy and production systems from their corporate owners, and bring them into the hands of the people. This is no small task, but offers an escape from the multiple environmental disasters we currently face. We also point out that state power expands in times of crisis and, as such, we must be careful of solutions which increase the power of the state to control our lives. To achieve this, we must consider the maxim of ‘think globally, act locally’ and work towards decentralised solutions which give control of energy and production systems to the people who use them, for the benefit of the whole global ecosystem.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jerome Coplusky for The UnPopulist:

“The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,” announced Justice Anthony Kennedy at the opening of his majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), recognizing the constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry with “equal dignity in the eyes of the law” and receive the legal and material benefits that flow from government recognition of the relationship. ... The nation’s pivot to support for same-sex marriage was swift and, for religious conservatives, jarring. With Obergefell, some feared that their decades-long culture war might be a lost cause. In their eyes, the decision did not merely announce an expansion of rights to gays and lesbians (providing legal sanction to a lifestyle they deemed sinful) but amounted to the remaking—or destruction—of the very institution of marriage, premised on a novel understanding of human nature and the purpose of the family. The legal protection of homosexual marriage, aside from its increased social acceptance and widespread cultural celebration, effectively announced the United States as a post-Christian, even anti-Christian, order and portended the persecution of the faithful. The expected election of Hillary Clinton in 2016 would solidify that liberal triumph and ensure civilizational collapse. ...

The Benedict Option

[T]he conservative editor and commentator Rod Dreher suggested that “the common culture—insofar as we have one—is so far gone into decadence and individualism that the only sensible thing for us to do is to strategically retreat from the mainstream to strengthen our Christian commitments, and our church communities.” ... For Dreher, same-sex marriage was the decisive battle in the culture war, and the Supreme Court’s landmark Obergefell decision became “the Waterloo of religious conservatism.” He thus pronounced the American culture war concluded, with “hostile secular nihilism” the victorious and “traditional, historical Christianity” the defeated. ... Dreher made his case at length in his bestselling 2017 book, The Benedict Option. ... The problem wasn’t simply the overreach of the courts but something much deeper and more ingrained. The United States was indeed a secular, liberal, Enlightenment polity, and it was founded on the false and dangerous Enlightenment program—the attempt to rely on reason alone to “create a secular morality,” “impose man’s natural will upon nature,” and unleash “the freely choosing individual.” ... The “end point of modernity,” in Dreher’s recounting, was already announced by Justice Anthony Kennedy in his 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Dreher acidly observed that the pronouncement was a celebration of “the autonomous, freely choosing individual, finding meaning in no one but himself.” Such was the fundamental maxim of our decadent post-Christian era. It heralded the arrival of a new dark age. Decisions like Obergefell were not betrayals of the founding ideas but really the logical outworking of them. There could be no way to reconcile a truly authentic Christian life with liberal modernity. ... And so Dreher proposed a postliberal project ... whereby the truly faithful might ... engage in “a strategic withdrawal.” ... Dreher dubbed this “the Benedict Option,” elaborating on something the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre wrote at the end of his influential book After Virtue. Lamenting the loss of a moral consensus, MacIntyre suggested that those who endeavored to live serious and ordered lives might choose to establish “local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us.” MacIntyre famously closed his meditation with the pronouncement [...]

Deneen’s Dreams

The political theorist Patrick J. Deneen arrived at a similar conclusion in his 2018 book, Why Liberalism Failed. Deneen charted the course of “liberalism”—an abstraction granted almost sinister agency—from its emergence in the seventeenth century to its fruition in contemporary Western society, a story of success that culminated in moral, social, environmental, and spiritual disaster. ... “The foundations of liberalism,” he claimed, “were laid by a series of thinkers whose central aim was to disassemble what they concluded were irrational religious and social norms in the pursuit of civil peace that might in turn foster stability and prosperity, and eventually individual liberty of conscience and action.” ... Liberals (and pre-liberals such as Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes) set out to remake the world according to a new—and false—anthropology. They conceived of human beings as “rights-bearing individuals who could fashion and pursue for themselves their own version of the good life.” But they really aspired to free the individual from authority, culture, and tradition—even human nature itself. Liberalism undermined all the bonds of human solidarity that had been forged over time by the family, the church, and the whole range of social associations and institutions embedded in localities. In the place of all that, liberalism has produced an increasingly centralized and tyrannical state to “protect” the radically unencumbered individual’s enjoyment of rights, property, and pursuit of consumption. ... [...]

‘Common-Good Constitutionalism’

In an influential review of Why Liberalism Failed, Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule praised Deneen’s diagnosis of the problem but suggested his proposed remedy was inadequate. ... Vermeule was ... dissatisfied with Deneen’s advocacy of a tactical retreat to a “vague communitarian localism.” ... An expert in administrative law whose own spiritual journey had brought him to Rome, Vermeule pitched ... a more audacious proposal that he believed to be “more consistent with Deneen’s own argument”: a quiet coup against the liberal “imperium.” He suggested that motivated and well-trained postliberal elites, rather than retreat from the world or try to build democratic majorities to reshape policy, ought to “strategically locate themselves within liberal institutions and work to undo the liberalism of the state from within,” and then use the machinery of the administrative state to impose upon the country their “substantive comprehensive theory of the good.” ... Vermeule’s point ... was that there was no need to withdraw to enclaves or dream of building a new order from scratch when they could deploy the administrative state and bureaucracy that liberalism had constructed as “the great instrument with which to restore a substantive politics of the good.” ... [...]

Rather than advise anti-liberal traditionalists to take flight from the battle and withdraw into an impotent localism, Vermeule proposed they use the force of the law, enthused and well-placed bureaucrats of the administrative state, and a powerful executive to orient the polis toward his conception of the common good. ... This counter-liberal proposal was, in short, a call for an American ralliement, to infiltrate and transform the liberal regime over time into a fully Catholic one, taking over the state bureaucracy (and sidestepping democratically elected representatives) so that it might rightly reorient its citizens. 

[...]

As it turned out, it would be Donald J. Trump—whose very “brand” had for years been gold-plated decadence—who emerged as the avatar of populist resentments and conservative Christian hopes. ... Already a celebrity businessman, Trump achieved political notice and notoriety as a purveyor of the racially charged “birther” conspiracy theory, and on the campaign trail he demonstrated an uncanny ability to tap into deep veins of populist anger and distrust (of “elites,” “experts,” “the deep state,” and so forth), and secure the devotion and loyalty of millions of heretofore “values voters.” His political rallies were likened to old-time revival meetings; he spoke to his supporters like a televangelist to his network flock. The slogan he chose for his movement, his political raison d'être, “Make America Great Again,” is a restorationist sentiment; it was complemented by his vow to put “America First!” ... The long-aggrieved would have their hopes fulfilled and fearful Christians their rights protected by the edicts of a charismatic strongman. “Christianity will have power,” the candidate told an audience in 2016. “If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else.” ... Instructed to regard the tussle of politics as spiritual warfare, a contest between the supernatural forces of good and evil, Christian Trumpists saw the election as a “miracle,” the unlikely president a providentially given instrument to shatter their enemies and restore an imagined Christian America. ... [T]hose books advocating a strategic withdrawal ... now seemed untimely. The advent of Trump (and the enduring spirit of MAGA) suggested that reconquest was possible. Why build arks when you can command battleships? Why endure the liberal American order when you can found a better one? Perhaps we await not a new St. Benedict but another—doubtless very different—Emperor Constantine?

Far-right postliberal academics such as Adrian Vermeule want a Christian nationalist coup to overthrow constitutional pluralism.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

By Robert Pearl, M.D.

In the late 1970s and early ‘80s, a mysterious illness spread through America’s overlooked communities, mainly affecting intravenous drug users and homosexual men.

The disease, which caused a sudden and devastating collapse of the immune system, was unlike anything doctors had seen before. Patients arrived at hospitals with rare infections like Kaposi’s sarcoma and fungal pneumonia.

But despite the rising number of cases, public health officials remained silent for years. Few Americans saw it as a national emergency, especially since the disease seemed confined to society’s fringes, at least initially.

By the time the government and public fully grasped the threat in 1986—following Dr. C. Everett Koop’s “Surgeon General’s Report on AIDS”—tens of thousands of Americans had already died.

Looking back on this and other public health crises, it’s clear that medical science alone isn’t enough to save lives. To prevent similar tragedies, public health leaders and elected officials must first understand the role denial plays in people’s perception of medical threats. They must then develop effective strategies to overcome it.

The Psychological Basis For Denial Denial is a powerful, usually unconscious defense mechanism that shields individuals from uncomfortable or distressing realities. By repressing objective facts or experiences—especially those that provoke fear or anxiety—people can maintain a sense of stability in the face of overwhelming threats.

Historically, denial was vital to daily life. With little protection against illnesses like smallpox, tuberculosis or plague, people would have been immobilized by fear if not for the ability to repress reality. Denial, mixed with superstition, took the place of facts, allowing society to function despite the ever-present risks of death and disability.

Today, even with tremendous advances in medical knowledge and technology, denial continues to influence individual behavior with detrimental consequences.

For example, more than 46 million Americans use tobacco products, despite their links to cancer, heart disease and respiratory illness. Similarly, tens of millions of people refuse vaccinations, disregarding scientific consensus and exposing themselves—and their communities—to preventable diseases. Denial extends to cancer screenings, as well. Surveys show that 50% of women over 40 skip their annual mammograms, and 23% have never had one. Meanwhile, about 30% of adults between 50 and 75 are not up to date on colorectal cancer screenings, and 20% have never been screened.

These examples demonstrate how denial leads individuals to make choices that jeopardize their health, even when life-saving interventions are readily available.

A Pattern of Denial: How Inaction Fuels Public Health Crises When individual denial scales up to the collective level, it fuels widespread inaction and worsens public health crises. Throughout modern medical history, Americans have repeatedly underestimated or dismissed emerging health threats until the consequences became impossible to ignore.

Early warnings of the HIV/AIDS epidemic were largely ignored, as the stigma surrounding affected populations made it easier for the broader public to deny the severity of the crisis. Even within at-risk populations, the lengthy delay between infection and symptoms created a false sense of security, leading to risky behaviors. This collective denial allowed the virus to spread unchecked, resulting in millions of deaths worldwide and a public health challenge that persists in the United States today.

Even now, four decades after the virus was identified, only 36% of the 1.2 million Americans at high risk for HIV take PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis), a medication that is 99% effective in preventing the disease.

Chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes mirror this pattern of denial. The long gap between early signs and life-threatening complications—such as heart attack, stroke and kidney failure—leads people to underestimate the risks and neglect preventive care. This inaction increases morbidity, mortality and healthcare costs.

Whether the issue is an infectious disease or a chronic illness, denial causes harm. It allows medical problems to take root, it delays care and it leads to tens of thousands preventable deaths each year.

The Unseen Parallels: COVID-19 And Mpox Our nation’s responses to COVID-19 and mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) similarly illustrate how denial hampers effective management of public health emergencies.

By March 2020, as COVID-19 began to spread, millions of Americans dismissed it as just another winter virus, no worse than the flu. Even as deaths rose exponentially, elected officials and much of the public failed to recognize the growing threat. Critical containment measures—such as travel restrictions, widespread testing and social distancing—were delayed. This collective denial, fueled by misinformation and political ideology, allowed the virus to take root across the country.

By the time the severity of the pandemic was undeniable, hospitals and health systems were overwhelmed. The opportunity to prevent widespread devastation had passed. More than 1 million American lives were lost, and the economic and social consequences continue today.

Mpox presents the most recent example of this troubling pattern. On August 14, the World Health Organization declared mpox a global health emergency after identifying rapid spread of the Clade 1b variant across several African nations. This strain is significantly more lethal than previous variants, having already caused over 500 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo, primarily among women and children under 15. Unlike earlier outbreaks associated mainly with same-sex transmission, Clade 1b spreads through both heterosexual contact and close family interactions, increasing its reach and putting everyone at risk.

Despite these alarming developments, awareness and concern about mpox remains low in the United States. International aid has been limited, and vaccination efforts have fallen far behind the growing threat. As a result, by the time the WHO issued its emergency declaration, only 65,000 vaccine doses had been distributed across Africa, where more than 10 million people are at risk. Already, cases have appeared in Sweden and Thailand, and the U.S. may soon follow.

Even with the added danger of the new variant and the proven efficacy of the JYNNEOS vaccine, only one in four high-risk individuals in the United States has been vaccinated against mpox. Our slow and delayed response to Covid-19, mpox, HIV/AIDS and nearly-all chronic diseases demonstrate how widespread denial is, the lives it continues to claim and the urgent need to address this hidden defense mechanism. The best way to overcome denial—both individually and collectively—is to bring the risks into clear focus. Simply warning people about the dangers isn’t enough. Strong leadership is crucial in breaking through this subconscious barrier.

Lessons To Learn, Actions To Take Dr. C. Everett Koop’s public health campaign on AIDS in the 1980s demonstrated how clear, consistent messaging can shift public perception and drive action. Similarly, former Surgeon General Luther L. Terry’s landmark 1964 report on smoking educated the public about the dangers of tobacco. His report spurred subsequent efforts, including higher taxes on tobacco products, restrictions on smoking in public places and health campaigns using vivid imagery of blackened lungs—leading to a significant decline in smoking rates.

Unfortunately, government agencies often fall short, hampered by bureaucratic delays and overly cautious communications.

Officials tend to wait until all details are certain, avoid acknowledging uncertainties, and seek consensus among committee members before recommending actions. Instead of being transparent, they focus on delivering the least risky advice for their agencies. People, in turn, distrust and fail to heed the recommendations.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and more recently with mpox, officials hesitated to admit how little they knew about the emerging crises. Their reluctance further eroded public trust in government agencies. In reality, people are more capable of handling the truth than they’re often given credit for. When they have access to all the facts, they usually make the right decisions for themselves and their families. Ironically, if public health officials focused on educating people about the risks and benefits of different options—rather than issuing directives—more people would listen and more lives would be saved.

With viral threats increasing and chronic diseases on the rise, now is the time for public health leaders and elected officials to change tactics. Americans want and deserve the facts: what scientists know, what remains unclear and the best estimates of actual risk.

[cherrybomb107]

Hi guys! I wanna make(yet another lmaoo) post about why I think ppl feel the way they do about Heimerdinger. In my children’s rights class the other day, we talked about the water crisis in my city. (Technically the city where my school is, but I live in the dorms, so let’s just call it my city for simplicity’s sake). Okay, so, the water in my city is unsafe. The pipes aren’t well kept, and there’s a lot of lead in our water that leads people to experience medical complications and get really sick later down the road.

My city’s population is 40% Black, and 15% Hispanic. It’s pretty clear that environmental racism plays a part. But, let’s put a pin in this for a second and come back to it. After talking about the water crisis, we talked about the idea of “slow violence” and “neglect vs. harm” and which one is “worse” between the two. “Slow violence” is violence that occurs slowly and gradually and doesn’t become obvious until it escalates. Perfect example is climate change. We’ve known how bad things would be if we didn’t make changes for decades now. But politicians, corporations and media outlets spent time and money spreading misinformation and downplaying the truly horrible effects of climate change, only now can we see how harmful that was because of the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.

The act of spreading mis/disinformation and downplaying how horrible something is is bad, for sure. But the true severity of just how bad isn’t easy to see until later, which is why I think it fits the criteria of “slow violence”. Now onto “neglect vs. harm”. The dictionary definition of “neglect” is: fail to care for properly. The definition of “harm”: physical injury, especially that which is deliberately inflicted. Now, when we were talking in class about if we thought that neglect and harm could be put on the same level, I was surprised by one of my classmate’s answers. False consensus effect beat my ass for a second lol. Because I don’t think they’re on the same level. I think neglect is leagues worse than harm. I think there is no greater evil than having the power to step in and stop something and choosing not to. My classmate disagreed.

He thinks that while neglect is awful, it’s not on the same level as actively harming someone. And to my genuine surprise(I am a bit of a know it all, so I was actually shook) he, and I’m sure many other people, feel that way. Which brings me back to how people feel about Heimerdinger, and his neglect of the Undercity. A lot of people don’t like Heimer because of how he failed Zaun. And even among his fans, it’s pretty universally accepted that he neglected the Undercity. But, because of the idea of “slow violence”, and the fact that many people don’t see neglect on the same level as active harm, Heimerdinger gets let off the hook.

Because at a certain point, ignorance becomes willful imo. Heimerdinger had 200 years to pull his head out of the sand and actually pass some policies that would help EVERYBODY, not just the folks in upper Piltover. But he chose not to. He actively made the choice, over, and over and over again to ignore the Undercity. He didn’t even THINK to go down there until Jayce kicked him off the Council!!! Imagine if Jayce hadn’t been there to give Heimer that much needed reality check! How many more centuries would’ve passed before he finally woke up and decided to do better??? I don’t even wanna think about it tbh. The “slow violence” that he was responsible for imo, is his negligence. Because in the face of arrogant, materialistic, self serving, condescending politicians as members of his Council, Heimerdinger did…nothing. He did nothing to stop all the horrible policies/laws these corrupt Councilors were most likely responsible for passing that only served them and the citizens of upper Piltover. He did nothing when the Enforcers were brutalizing folks and throwing them in prison. He didn’t even care to open his eyes to see what was going on in the first place! Jayce had to force him to!

He. Did. Absolutely. Nothing. And that’s the problem! People like Silco and the Chembarons are much more active in the forms of harm they carry out. Having kids work in factories, flooding the community with drugs, grooming a child into becoming the worst version of themselves etc, are all obviously violent. But being a politician who can afford to have all the power and all the ignorance in the world and allowing people like Silco to thrive in the first place is the ultimate act of violence imo. Being a politician who can kick back and wax poetic about “progress” and “scientific innovation” while Enforcers like Marcus are able to kidnap kids like Vi and throw them in prison without a fair trial is violent to me. So yeah😭😭😭

This post is an essay, my bad y’all lmaoo🤭🤭🤭

[tieflingkisser]

Trump Is Enacting Structural Eugenics

from the article:

You may not have heard the term Structural Eugenics before, but sadly we live at a time where it’s critical we know what it means, and what it looks like. Because MAGA and Trump are showing us what Structural Eugenics looks like—and it is horrifying.

[...]

MAGA-aligned officials have concentrated efforts on:​

Autism Surveillance: President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have falsely linked vaccines to autism, despite scientific consensus debunking this claim. In recent years, this false claim has led to vaccine aversion, leading to increased death and suffering.

Menstrual Cycle Tracking: Some states have proposed or enacted policies allowing the monitoring of women's reproductive health data, raising privacy concerns.​ In Virginia, the Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin blocked a bill that would have banned law enforcement from seeking a woman’s menstrual history.

Banning Criticism of Political Figures: The Trump regime is disappearing and deporting Palestinian students, or any Black or brown person in general, who is critical of US foreign policy on Israel.​ Furthermore, Trump is set to deport U.S. citizens he doesn’t like, all while wholly denying due process of law. This is de facto authoritarian and fascist.

Criminalizing Transgender Individuals: Legislation in various states targets transgender rights, including restrictions on healthcare access and participation in sports.​ The ACLU is tracking nearly 600 anti-LGBTQ bills in various state and federal legislatures—all designed to demonize a small minority of the country for the crime of existing.

Eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Initiatives: Efforts to dismantle DEI programs in education and government institutions are underway, undermining progress toward equality.​ The Federal government has wholly eliminated DEI programs as part of its fascist Project 2025 agenda.

But it is not just about what MAGAs are monitoring, it is also about what they are ignoring. Thus, conversely, there is a noticeable lack of attention to pressing public health matters, which also puts our lives at risk, and in fact costs lives. For example:

Vaccination Rates: Vaccination coverage has declined, leading to outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles. At least two children have died so far. RFK has done nothing but spew vaccine disinformation, which all but ensures more death.

COVID-19 Management: Despite ongoing risks, there is diminished emphasis on COVID-19 precautions and vaccination efforts.​ Currently, approximately 340 Americans still die each week due to COVID.

Censoring Firearm Violence: Gun-related deaths remain a significant issue, yet comprehensive gun control measures are lacking.​ Absurdly, House Republicans continue to vote to ban the CDC from studying gun violence and gun deaths, even as we know that gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children in America.

Ignoring Climate Change: Despite the existential threat of climate change to all humanity, environmental policies addressing it are defunded and removed. In fact, right now Trump is contemplating an Executive Order that would remove tax exempt status from climate justice non-profit organizations.

Ending Food Safety Regulations: There is insufficient focus on ensuring the safety and nutritional quality of the food supply.​ And worse, Trump is signing Executive Orders to further gut food regulations.

These policies are devastating. They will continue to disproportionately harm low income communities, Black and brown communities, and women. This selective governance reflects structural eugenics, where policies disproportionately affect marginalized communities by neglecting their health and safety needs. Thus, by ignoring essential public health measures, the Trump regime effectively determines whose lives are prioritized, and whose lives are expendable.

[tempestvista]

spoiler warnings for TMA

There is a decent possibility that I am going to eat my words if anything changes greatly since I have not fully finished TMA (Iirc I'm in the middle of season 4? I've been on pause for a bit though so I need to find my place again)

But can I just say how frustrating it is that like everyone villainizes Jonathan Sims in the fandom lmao?? Especially without even considering him and his character + character development as a part of his multi-faceted person and instead just dumbing him down to a one dimensional evil guy who they can also ship with others because ui ui sexo sexo

Now there are obvious things/reasons to dislike him. Namely, the stalking of his employees, which, I don't think I need to explain why is problematic and gross.

But the things I see listed as points against Jonathan Sims are often just… Side effects of him being non-consensually turned into a monster by a deeply calculating man who has a plethora of more knowledge from the get-go and far more manipulation over the situation than Jon himself? ''He killed innocent people!!'' Alright, so did multiple of the other characters?? Like a lot of them, actually?? That's. A really common theme??????????? An overarching pattern (in my analysis/eyes anyhow) in TMA is that literally almost no one gets a happy ending and usually the ones who ''do'' are based in the suffering of others + they've been turned

It just actually infuriates me when I see the "he killed innocent people'' argument without anyone acknowledging how it is near impossible to fight your nature as an avatar and again, really, really loosely saying here because I do not fully recall, but it seems like going against that nature can and WILL kill you. And you can call it selfish, but really, who WOULDN'T want to die? A lot of people have both a conscious and primal instinct to, you know, LIVE.

And again, also not acknowledging that multiple others have done the same.

Also, I see people either justify or entirely ignore the fact that at some point he was being utterly demeaned and belittled by everyone around him. If he wasn't being manipulated by Elias, he was being avoided by Martin, Melanie making cruel digs, being hovered over also by any given person, and generally having petty to hateful comments tossed at him by MOST individuals on any day at any hour. I acknowledge my bias and love for him really does jump out in this, but it also does make me mad that no one seems to care for the fact that he is ALSO a victim. He's a victim of manipulation, of being groomed into being an avatar (at least in my eyes), of being harmed by multiple entities and having lasting marks and impacts from each of them, of being falsely accused of murder (and everyone he knew at the time BELIEVING he was guilty), of being kidnapped/held hostage (MORE THAN ONCE), having to witness literal ghosts/bodies/skins of previous people he knew be lifted around and surrounding him talking about how he's a failure, a bad person, a bad archivist, the worst of the worst- which I cannot IMAGINE the nightmares that that situation would breed. Genuinely just sit and think about that for a moment. Also, as far as the Unknowing and any harm derived from that situation, if we're talking specifically about Sims again, he also had to live with the fact afterward that he was the reason Tim got killed. He has to live with the fact that he was so overwhelmed by everything and the manipulation of Nikola + the Stranger that when he came out of it, Tim had to be the one to end it because Jon failed to. He has to live with Tim being gone, and the fault of it weighing down on him. That is something that I do think one can blame him for (if I am recounting this all correctly). I wanted to bring this up in specific because Survivors guilt is very real and that whole ordeal and blaming must have been something beyond harrowing. He had to realize a thing was basically marching around in the corporeal idea of Sasha and that it WASN'T. HER. Of course this whole podcast is centered around being a nightmare, which is why I find it important to acknowledge the impacts of the nightmare on the people who very much are experiencing them!! And on a continued basis!! Living in that consistent traumatizing environment, developing hypervigilance, watching people drop like flies around you, like. holy shit man. Being traumatized, being threatened by what seems like fate itself at times, and also being used as a pawn for a massive scheme which he didn't even know was a thing. He used to have a life prior to all the world-ending, supernatural, lovecraftian horror stuff that became his new normal.

I know a lot of people would bash the ''I'm a victim too!'' card, but I really don't think that is an easy dismissal here because he just legitimately is.

That, and the people who villainize him also get really.. weird? At times? Like I know this is no longer an uncommon opinion - at least I hope not, but I don't really interact with TMA fandom at all besides liking, reblogging and saving fanart + fics- But people really just tend to make him into this gross or just. Absolutely downright awful human being (occasionally fetishizing his very nature even sometimes) and then Martin is the cutesy innocent person who has never done a single thing wrong in his life, Tim is the sexy hot bisexual who would fuck anything from a lamp-pole to eight mothmen, and Sasha is some demure, sweet and lovely little thing who only exists as just another background person in the polychives.

I can't say I've really seen that characterization of Sasha often thankfully… but that's also because some people straight up forget she was a vital character at one point lol (and I confess I'm not deeply attached to her so the art I save of her is usually secondary/included in other fanart)

I know some of this is redundant, and I am certain that if my memory wasn't so in and out as it is (especially as of late, the dissociation has been… bad, topic for another day, anywho-) I would be able to make more points against the things I've seen, but this is just one facet I really felt like addressing, since I think almost no one is innocent in TMA and harping on Jon specifically is … honestly pointless?? And bland/low hanging fruit as far as the conversation goes? Like big whoop, he's a monster, so is a majority of the characters in TMA? Lmfao??

All in all I say this without aggression or targeted vitriol. I hope people understand I am allowed to be angry at words without hating and/or wishing harm upon the people who say them /npa gen

And if someone happens to see this and has something to contribute, or a point to be made against me, I will gladly listen and engage! I like when people show me my errors, it gives me more perspectives. (Not intended arrogantly, genuine).

I do want it to be clear though that just because this is something I would love to discuss if anyone actually DOES - that doesn't mean I'm accepting of petty spats or arguments.