#informal inference

[tonreihe]

“One further difficulty arising in regard to the informal or ‘virtual’ inference that both Newman and Batiffol appeal to is the extent to which such reasoning is conditioned by cultural and local standards for judging what sorts of inference are congruent or natural. Batiffol, as we have seen, insists that no factors extraneous to the deposit of revelation affect the informal reasoning of the Church. What is defined in its developed form is the result of the Church’s own growing self-understanding alone, but this is to make a very large assumption about the gap between Christian reasoning and its cultural milieu. To take one example, Newman speaks of the evolving recognition of the Mother of God as ‘a loving Mother with clients,’ a ‘Patroness or Paraclete’ for those who turn to her for aid. The process by which Mary’s intercession comes to be seen as especially or uniquely potent is a complex and fascinating story to trace, but it is no disservice to the cultus of the Mother of God to note that the language of patron and client takes for granted a particular social order—not one that derives from Christian principle and self-reflection, and one indeed that Christian principle might well want to challenge in many respects. To put it more generally, informal inference is more vulnerable to the conditioning of historical and social circumstances than its defenders might want to allow, and this might suggest a certain caution about imposing the conclusions of such a process of inference on the entire Christian community throughout time and space.”

Rowan Williams, The Malines Conversations: The Beginnings of Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue

[patchwork-crow-writes]

*scuttles out of hole*

*leaves a series of screenshots from chapter 3*

*scuttles back into hole*

[sunny-knight]

*dreamy sigh* i’m so worried for his sanity

[inksandpensblog]

“despite what you’ve seen, heard, and/or been told” Seb we’ve been told nothing. all we know is “crystal” and “loose assets” and “not expected to return” and that’s it.

the most we might’ve heard is from your own mouth if you happened to hijack the lobby intercom. the most we might’ve seen is the timeline of your rampage if we happen to find a display screen, and we might not even realize that’s you because it doesn’t use your name and we can’t find out you’re Z-13 until we read your file, which we can’t do until we’ve already met you in person. the most we’ve been told is nothing. we know nothing. they didn’t mention you Seb.

did you think they would. did you think they’d warned us against you Seb. did you think we’d recognize you as Z-13. did you think we’d realize you were the one who took over the intercom. they’ve told us nothing Seb. they haven’t told us what to expect from you. they haven’t told us of you at all.

[beatriceportinari]

Saw a naruto post i didnt agree with 😔

[amplexadversary]

not me going "having weird priorities doesn't make Murderbot an unreliable narrator, it just means the reader has to sometimes infer the details it doesn't care abou- oh." But then that begs the question of if a human could be called a "reliable" narrator because we also leave out the things *we* don't care about.

[ongreenergrasses]

i don’t like to police people’s imaginations but i’ll never understand people who think annie didn’t get tortured in mockingjay. like what all of a suddden snow has a conscience and doesn’t wanna hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it? ijbol and i guess i’m not being fair bc it’s subtly implied that maybe she wasn’t but that doesn’t even make sense with everything the books established about capitol cruelty

honestly? I don’t get it either. when I first read mj, I read it in one sitting and had not read either of the other books. I had no context for what was going on outside of what my best friend had told me and zero investment in the book or the characters, so no desire to read into things. and yet on that first read, just learning what we do about the Capitol in that book, I immediately knew what had happened to her. sure, it’s never explicitly stated that she was tortured and if so, how, but sexual violence is an enormous part of life in Panem, they took her specifically to get under Finnick’s skin, and she comes back with no clothes. it has always been glaringly obvious to me what happened to Annie and I didn’t realize that there was debate about it until like. last year.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

aaah lsoh pics!!! ft. their corpse-flower-inspired audrey ii!!

[windienine]

me: wow! in the ending, ysme without her glamours sure is drawn differently! and actually, on second glance, she's completely flat-chested without them. and that's true for her ghost mode too. huh. but not her goddess form. and she says she normally applies her glamours as soon as she wakes up. i guess it would make sense for her to be shy about loic seeing her naked, but it's interesting that there's this textual implication that she doesn't even like looking at herself without her artisanry illusions up--

me: ohhh okay

[unopenablebox]

having a rollicking good time browsing the blogspot-hosted weaving blogs of various middle-aged and elderly women

[pinkrangersarah]

For all the reasons I've seen for people to either love or hate James's arc in V8, I've never once seen anyone bring up his semblance. Specifically, I've never seen anyone mention what a disservice it was to have it merely mentioned on Twitter and never once bring it up in any sort of way in the actual show.

I hate information being released on the side and never once being brought up in the canon in any sort of way. It's lazy. It is relying solely on the audience to have seen it and to take your word for it. It's like adapting a book into a show or film but leaving out important details about the world and/or characters, relying on the audience to have read the book first (which a vast majority of them will not have done).

James's semblance, to put it simply, is tunnel-vision. It "strengthens his resolve to carry through with tough decisions", basically cancelling out rational thought and ignoring consequences. This is a major piece of information about James's behavior that is never once brought up, and because of that I can understand why a lot of people didn't like his 180 heel turn into antagonist territory--I didn't either for the longest time, and because of this a part of me still doesn't. While parts of his downfall were done subtly and done well, this particular part of it was not.

"But why would his semblance ever be brought up in conversation?" Good question, one that could be easily answered by the three characters in the cast that definitely should know about James's semblance: Qrow, Ozpin, and Watts. Qrow and Ozpin had been working with James for years, and before that it is implied that Watts and James also worked together for a period of time, getting to know each other fairly well. It makes absolutely no sense for neither of these three to ever once bring up the fact that James's behavior is likely due to his semblance interfering with his ability to make decisions. Hell, I can even imagine Watts being delighted by this; Watts knowing how James's semblance works and how to take advantage of it would definitely benefit Salem.

James Ironwood was such a fascinating character, but the fact that his semblance felt like an afterthought is a major disservice to his arc, in my opinion.

[seriousbrat]

sorry for the essays but what's also legitimately fascinating to me tbh is this mass delusion about there being no information in canon, and the poor marauders fandom being forced to come up with their own ideas to fill in the perceived blanks lest they starve. Ik it's been a while since the books and people have forgotten details but it feels like going insane, I guess SWM and Prince's Tale were just fever dreams that I had lmao.

Despite JKR's obvious shortcomings as a person I don't think there's any denying that characters are absolutely one of her strong suits as a writer. Characters that are much more minor in the narrative still feel very fleshed out, like I feel like I've got a pretty good sense of, say, Dedalus Diggle even though he has probably 3 lines. But we're constantly being pelted with information about the Marauders; enough to have a whole legion of fans obsessed with them for decades. If they're just blank slates why are they so interesting to so many people?

authors aren't required to explain EVERY facet of their worlds, that has never been the case and in fact I think hp is unusual in that we've received a lot of extra content over the years.

I think it must be a (juvenile, imo) expectation for everything to be over-explained and lain out for the audience in the simplest, most straightforward ways-- otherwise, it might as well not exist. I mean basic reading comprehension in younger generations is obv declining significantly but the fact that people have no ability to tie together the simplest ideas and draw inferences unless they are EXPLICITLY STATED is wild. it reminds me of this post about the house-elves in hp.. the fact that it's a commonly held view that jkr's intention was to excuse slavery lol. like I as a 12 year old easily picked up on the fact that kreacher's tale and dobby's death were supposed to be lessons for harry-- it's pretty explictly stated in the books idk-- the fact that fully grown adults cannot comprehend ideas meant for children is sooo embarrassing

[dogin8]

it's not even that "sometimes the curtains aren't just blue, sometimes they represent something" it's that "the curtains are never just blue"

[nugulover69]

Hey if anyone needs screencaps of Gokaiger Sosuke for reasons, normal or perverse, here have at ‘em

[diltonsstrangescience]

[unproduciblesmackdown]

high res pic ft. seymour (will roland) & audrey (china brickey) performing "suddenly seymour"