#virtual reality opinion | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vanteguccir · 6 months

Text

── ୨୧ !　𝗙𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗦𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗘

　　　　　　　　𝒄𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒍𝒐 x reader

SUMMARY: Where Chris records a TikTok with Tara after many requests from both fandoms, but fans reacted contrary to what he expected, generating questioning thoughts in Y/N.

WARNING: Crying, comparison, fighting.

REQUESTED?: Yes, by anon

AUTHOR'S NOTE: That is my work, I DON'T authorize any plagiarism, copy, or "inspiration"! | English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry if there's any grammar error.

　　　༻✦༺ 　༻✧༺　༻✦༺

The morning sun beamed beyond the half-open curtains in the living room, painting the room with orange and gold tones. Sitting at the kitchen table, Y/N immersed herself in her books, trying to focus on her notes as the sounds of Nick and Matt echoed around the house.

At that moment, Chris was absent. He had gone to Tara's house, a new friend of the triplets and, consequently, of Y/N, who had recently become a frequent figure in their lives. The objective was to record a video for Tara's channel since after the large group's social media post together, both fandoms started begging for collabs.

As Y/N immersed herself in her studies, a notification flashed on her phone screen. The girl looked up at her device, seeing the new message.

pretty boy: hi baby!! look, we did a tiktok! I look so cool: link.

A smile curved Y/N's lips as she clicked on the link, curious to see the result of one of Chris and Tara's creations. The video started, and she immediately recognized the song as one of her favorites, humming softly as her eyes captured the funny dance and interaction between the two.

A laugh escaped her lips when she saw Chris shaking his head in the lyrics "Would you get down on knees for me?", remembering all the times the song played when they were together, and exactly in this part, Chris always got down on his knees in front of Y/N, making her laugh.

For a moment, Y/N allowed herself to relax and enjoy the scene. It was a genuine demonstration of their new friendship, and Y/N felt grateful to be part of that dynamic.

However, her joy was momentary.

As the video came to an end, Y/N scrolled through the comments, eager to see the reaction of Tara's followers. What she found left her cold.

Among the funny and complimentary comments, there was a barrage of messages that cut like sharp knives. Ardent fans of both Tara and Chris were heavily shipping them, completely ignoring Chris's long-standing and public relationship with Y/N.

"Chris and Tara are so cute together!"

"I so wanted them to be a couple 😭"

"I'm sorry, Y/N, but you don't hold a candle to Tara. Chris deserves someone like her."

The words echoed in Y/N's mind, like a distant echo of an approaching storm. She felt a tightness in her chest, a mixture of sadness, anger, and confusion.

How could they be so cruel? How could they judge their relationship based on fragments of a distorted reality? Y/N felt vulnerable, exposed to the relentless cruelty of the virtual world.

Her thumb moved automatically as she left the comment box, sliding the screen to the TikTok below the one she was watching, craving a quick distraction. But her hope was suddenly dashed when she saw that the next video was an edit of Chris and Tara's TikTok and all the others after.

She knew the fans were fast, but at that moment, she wanted them to be as slow as possible.

Y/N closed the app with a heavy sigh, fighting to hold back the tears that threatened to spill. It was difficult not to let the strangers' words and opinions get to her.

With a determined effort to forget about it momentarily, Y/N turned her attention back to the books, seeking refuge in the comforting familiarity of the printed pages, forgetting to answer Chris.

　　　　　༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

The day was coming to an end. In the room shared by Y/N and Chris, the atmosphere was filled with a silent energy, interrupted only by the gentle slide of Y/N's fingers over her phone screen, and the low sounds of various videos.

She was lying in their bed, having already taken a comforting shower, but her mind was still shrouded in a haze of dark thoughts. As she scrolled through her TikTok's For You, romantic edits of Chris and Tara popped up with disturbing frequency. Y/N's expression was a mixture of sadness and self-questioning, her eyes reflecting an inner storm.

She felt her mind defeat her with thoughts of comparison. She knew she would never reach Tara's beauty, humor, and even body.

The heavy atmosphere was interrupted by the sound of the door opening gently. Chris entered the room, radiating an aura of euphoria. His eyes sparkled with joy, and a smile spread across his face with ease.

"Hi, my pretty girl!" Chris greeted, closing the door behind him. "You won't believe how amazing the video with Tara turned out. I can't wait for her to post it so you can see it!"

"Hey, baby! I'm so happy you had fun." Y/N looked up from her cell, forcing a smile on her lips, trying with all her might not to reveal her current state - the last thing she wanted to do was ruin Chris's excitement, but the sadness still hovered in her eyes.

Chris immediately noticed the change in her expression and approached the bed, worried.

"What happened, babe?" He asked in a worried tone, frowning and sitting down next to her.

She just shook her head slightly, unable to put her tumultuous thoughts into words. Chris reached out to caress her face gently, seeking to comfort her with his loving touch.

"You didn't answer my text, I really thought something was happening... You know you can tell me anything, right?" Chris continued gently. He didn't want to force anything out of her.

Y/N nodded, feeling a lump form in her throat. Before he could say anything else, Chris noticed the phone in her hand with almost silent sounds escaping from the speaker, leaning over to peer at the screen.

Romantic edits of Chris and Tara filled Y/N's device. He swallowed hard, instantly connecting the dots.

Chris's comforting touch on Y/N's face seemed to turn cool. His eyes narrowed slightly, and a sigh escaped his lips before he could control it.

"Y/N, are you really upset because of these silly edits?" The boy questioned, his voice filled with disbelief. His touch against the warm skin disappeared within seconds, the boy removing his hand from her face before sitting down on the bed.

Y/N flinched at the accusation implicit in his words, feeling suddenly exposed and vulnerable. Tears threatened to overflow her eyes as she struggled to find a coherent response.

"It's not just because of the edits..." She, her voice shaking with turbulent emotions. "Did you see the comments? They-"

Chris shook his head impatiently, cutting her off abruptly, frustration beginning to seep into his expression. He couldn't understand why something as trivial as fan edits could affect his girlfriend so much.

"Y/N, this is ridiculous!" He continued firmly. "These edits and comments don't mean anything. They're just fan jokes. It's not the end of the world." His voice came out louder than before, his posture now rigid.

His words hit Y/N like a sharp knife, making her feel even more inadequate and misunderstood. Anger bubbled inside her, a simmering mix of resentment and hurt.

"You don't understand, Chris!" She snapped, her voice shaking slightly. Her right hand worked to lock the screen of her phone in one quick motion, tossing it aside. "This isn't just about the edits. It's about how I feel about being compared to Tara, about how it's making me feel inferior to her! How would you feel if people started wanting to see me with a man other than you? While I'm in a relationship with you!"

Chris rolled his eyes dismissively, his patience beginning to wear thin at the intensity of Y/N's emotions.

“You’re so tiring sometimes, Y/N.” He snapped without thinking, his voice tinged with irritation, not giving a damn about how his girlfriend felt. "I can't deal with all this insecurity all the time. It's fucking exhausting."

The words hit Y/N like a punch to the gut, leaving her breathless, her rigid posture quickly crumbling. She felt tears run down her face without force as the painful realization settled in her heart.

She was tiring. She was insecure. She was too much for him to handle.

The pain of rejection burned in her chest as she retrieved her phone again, ripping the comforter off her legs. Her lips were pressed into a thin line tightly in an attempt to stop the ugly sobs that she wanted to let out. She wouldn't give herself the luxury of showing Chris how much he hurt her.

The girl got up from the bed in one quick movement, grabbing her pillow and heading towards the bedroom door.

"Where are you going?" Chris's voice echoed harshly behind her, his body rising from the mattress quickly.

"I'll sleep in the living room." Y/N responded curtly, turning the handle with ease before walking through the door, slamming it, feeling more alone than ever amidst the multitude of turbulent emotions.

She could feel her heart being crushed a little more when she didn't hear Chris call for her again, let alone try to reach her.

The stairs leading to the living room were silent, and her pillow clutched to her chest as a last vestige of comfort in a world that seemed to be falling apart around her. Each step up echoed like a lonely echo in an emotional void that seemed to swallow her whole.

Upon reaching the living room, Y/N found refuge on the empty couch. She curled into the soft upholstery, hugging the pillow tightly as tears continued to roll down her cheeks silently. The phone rested next to her, emitting a dim light that wouldn't turn off, almost begging her to pick it up again.

Hours dragged by like centuries as Y/N fought the ghosts of her own mind.

At some point, she had given up resisting and was on her TikTok again. The algorithm seemed to hate her, delivering her frequent videos of Chris and Tara, which were like a sharp dagger in her heart.

They would really look beautiful together.

Dawn fell heavily upon her, but sleep refused to welcome her into its comforting arms. Instead, she found herself trapped in a whirlwind of torturous thoughts, her mind pounding incessantly with doubts and questions about her relationship with Chris.

Until her brain shuts down completely, letting tiredness win.

At 3 a.m., in the darkness of the night, a familiar figure appeared at the entrance to the room. Chris was there, his tired face etched with worry and regret.

His eyes quickly found Y/N's figure lying on the couch, already asleep, curled up and shivering slightly from the cold. Her eyes were closed, but he could see the swelling that surrounded them, the traces of tears on her cheeks and her still damp face. Next to her, her phone repeatedly played one of the videos she had watched before falling asleep.

A lump formed in Chris's throat. He intensely blamed himself for not having thought before acting and, much less, noticing how much his actions had affected his girlfriend.

With hesitant steps, he approached her, feeling the weight of his own anguish on his shoulders.

Gently, Chris turned off her phone, cutting the endless cycle of pain that had consumed Y/N. He then crouched down beside her, studying her peaceful face with a mixture of love and pain.

With a resigned sigh, the boy carefully took her into his arms, hooking them around her back and behind her knees, feeling the weight of her fragile body against his own chest. Y/N hummed softly in response to his touch but didn't fully wake up.

Chris carried her down the stairs and back to their bedroom, where the soft light from the lamp bathed the room in yellow tones. Tenderly, he placed her on the soft mattress, covering her with the comforter carefully so as not to wake her.

Y/N shifted slightly under Chris's touch and the new surface beneath her limbs, her eyebrows furrowing in an expression of discomfort. She looked restless, as if she were immersed in a nightmare.

Chris watched her for a moment, feeling the weight of his own harsh words weigh on him like an anchor. He knew he had hurt Y/N deeply, and the pain of seeing her suffer was almost unbearable.

With a heavy sigh, he sat down next to her, his hand reaching for her with a tentative touch. Y/N stirred slightly, her eyes finally slowly opening to meet Chris's. She fought the urge to get up and leave the room again, her anger at Chris's actions and sadness in her mind, making her want to avoid him.

For a moment, they simply stared at each other, sharing a silent understanding that transcended words, Y/N making the decision to let him say what he wanted.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry.” Chris muttered, his voice thick with regret. "I was insensitive and selfish. I didn't want to hurt you, I acted on impulse and completely without thinking. This whole situation is not silly if it hurts and bothers you, and I promise that we can talk better about what you saw and how you felt, and solve this together... Just please, give me this chance?"

Y/N blinked slowly, her eyes locked on Chris's as she processed his words. For a moment, she felt the weight of hurt and disappointment pressing against her, but then she saw the sincerity in Chris's eyes, the pure, unconditional love he had always offered her.

And in that moment, she knew that forgiveness was the only good choice to make. With a sigh, she squeezed Chris's hand tenderly, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders.

"Just one chance. I want you to fix what you did and do it right this time."

taglist:

@lustfulslxt @ladybunny44 @worldlxvlys @earth2starkey @remussbitch @freshloveforthefit @sturniolowhore @mimi-luvzyu @alorsxsturn @urfavgirllyyyyy @hearts4chriss @cupidzsq @dracoflaco @rootbeerworshiper @junnniiieee07 @elliesturniolo1 @sstvrnioloo @lightsgore @gidgett11037 @ksskianshd @soimightlikeoldmen69 @ldr-sl0t @breeloveschris @its-jennarose @sainzzsturns @ecliphttlunar @thebottledwatersupplier @soso-scarlettolivia @sturnolio-luvs @bitchydragonparadise @lvrsturn @freshsturns @h3arts4harry @patscorner @m0r94n @blahbel668 @strnilolo

(If you want to be added to the taglist, go to this post)

2K notes · View notes

iamnmbr3 · 7 months

Text

Draco's Motivations in the Book 7 Room of Requirement Confrontation

I just reread the Fiendfyre sequence and based on a close reading Draco's motivations and actions are a lot more complex and sympathetic than I remembered. Not to mention, once again, here there be drarry.

First, the context:

After the incident at Malfoy Manor, we know from Harry's psychic connection to Voldemort and from the Carrows' overheard discussion that Voldemort's wrath was exceptionally terrible. The Malfoy family became virtual prisoners in their own homes for months and were subjected to especially brutal (even by Voldemort's standards) torture that was also likely quite protracted. Lucius has visible marks on him months later - which, given what we know about magic in that world, really speaks to the level of what has been going on. While he probably got the worst of it, it's certain that none of his family members escaped unscathed. After their other failings they have at this point probably permanently fallen out of favor and have nothing but a (likely short) life of misery to look forward to.

Draco bears a lot of responsibility for this state of affairs since it was he who chose not to identify Harry. This likely adds to his sense of conflict as his conscience tells him one thing and everything he has ever been taught tells him something else. He presumably feels responsible for the suffering his family (we know from book 6 that he does genuinely care about them) has to endure.

Not to mention that he himself is suffering along with them. It would be unsurprising therefore if he felt tempted to "rectify" his earlier moment of what he probably perceived as weakness and made a last ditch attempt to save his parents' (and his own) lives and prestige. While Harry has been taught that love and mercy are noble and valuable impulses, Draco has not. In his world love and mercy are called weakness.

Quite possibly as he suffered and faced death alongside his family, part of him must have felt ashamed of the impulses that led to his choices when Harry was a prisoner at the Manor. Everything he has been taught tells him that Voldemort's victory is inevitable and that his moment of shameful weakness has accomplished nothing except to fail his own family and condemn them (and himself) to a likely short life filled with suffering.

At most what we see in the Room of Requirement is a replay of what we saw on the Astronomy Tower - where Draco is deeply conflicted and when confronted with the reality of violence in support of Voldemort cannot go through with it even under tremendous pressure and even though his failure to carry out these acts of violence will inflict danger and suffering on himself and his loved ones.

But, is that even what actually happens? In my opinion, the answer is "no."

The scene in question:

If we actually look at the text it's not even clear that's what's going on at all. Draco's motives are ambiguous at best here. The scene starts when Harry is stretching out his hand to take the diadem. Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle come up behind him and he is completely unaware of them. Draco then announces their presence, alerting Harry that he is being watched. He could've very easy simply stunned Harry or attempted to put the Imperius Curse on him (or killed him) while his back was turned. But he didn't do any of those things. Instead he talks, thereby ruining the element of surprise.

And that's not typical of Draco at all when he actually wants to attack Harry. He's never beaten Harry in a face-to-face confrontation. (In fact, the last time he tried - in 6th year - he almost ended up dead.) The two times he has managed to incapacitate Harry - when he petrified him on the train in 6th year and when he hid and caught Harry for Umbridge with a tripping jinx in 5th year - he did so by using the element of surprise to his advantage.

Given that Draco knows that Harry is a very formidable opponent (AND that Harry's friends are nearby) if he truly simply wanted to capture or kill him, announcing his presence is the last thing he would ever do. Then he says "That's my wand you're holding." He still doesn't cast any spells - not even to try to disarm Harry. He also doesn't say he wants to hand him over to Voldemort. He doesn't even tell Harry to drop his own wand, attempt to take him prisoner, or even threaten him.

It is Crabbe, not Draco who says "We're gonna be rewarded...We decided to bring you to 'im." Draco doesn't say anything about his own intentions other than that he wants his wand back - and we certainly know that even in 6th year he didn't trust Crabbe and Goyle, much less now, and thus is unlikely to speak openly in front of them.

At this point Ron comes to investigate and Crabbe tries to use magic to cause a mountain of debris to fall on Ron and crush him. Harry counters the spell and Draco then grabs Crabbe's arm when he tries to repeat the spell. He gives as his justification the need to avoid the diadem being crushed but since we know he doesn't trust Crabbe it's likely this isn't truthful. Especially since Voldemort has not said anything about wanting the diadem (and even if it wasn't a Horcrux it likely wouldn't be damaged in any case).

Crabbe points out this very thing and Draco argues with him at which point Crabbe says "Who cares what you think? I don't take your orders no more, Draco. You an' your dad are finished." So arguably he was not even including Draco in the "We" he imagined would be rewarded. Crabbe then tries to use Crucio on Harry.

Draco then again intervenes and tries to stop him.

"STOP" Malfoy shouted at Crabbe, his voice echoing through the enormous room. "The Dark Lord wants him alive--"

He doesn't even just say it. He shouts. We rarely see Draco shout. He is someone who generally keeps his deeper emotions hidden - it's why he's so naturally gifted at Occlumency to the point that he is powerful enough at a young age to lie to both Snape and Voldemort.

What he says here doesn't really even make sense because Goyle isn't even trying to kill Harry; he's just trying to hurt him. However Draco is so distressed by this that he actually starts yelling, something we NEVER see him do at ANY other point in the book. "The Dark Lord wants him alive" is also exactly what Snape says to Bellatrix as they flee in book 6, and we know that Snape's real intent was to protect Harry with a believable excuse. It's the only thing Draco could reasonably say in that moment as a justification.

Crabbe (rather sensibly) points out that 1) he didn't even try to kill Harry and 2) Voldemort ultimately wants Harry dead so it probably doesn't matter that much. This makes perfect sense. And yet Draco is inordinately concerned with preventing harm to Harry & Co rather than with taking any action to capture or even disarm any of them.

Clearly he did not expect to lose control of Crabbe and Goyle like this and as a result is now losing control of the situation (and himself). (Unlike Harry, Draco is more of a planner and is not as good at reacting in the moment.) Also the possibility that Harry could be killed seems to drive him nearly to the point of hysteria - rather like how Ron reacted to Hermione being in mortal peril at the Manor. This is not just a general aversion to killing. This is something more. He finds the idea of Harry dying truly unbearable. (I don't need my ships to be canon; this one just happens to be.)

At this point they start fighting and Draco loses Narcissa's wand. Wandless, he STILL tries to intervene. Crabbe and Goyle are both aiming their wands at Harry and Draco once again starts yelling - "Don't kill him! DON'T KILL HIM!" and is obviously in significant distress and is not at all happy with what is going on.

After that the Fiendfyre gets loose and the rest of the scene goes down without much dialogue.

At NO POINT does Draco 1) actually say he wants to hand Harry to Voldemort OR 2) attempt to attack Harry or Ron or Hermione at all OR 3) use his Dark Mark to call Voldemort OR 4) tell anyone he's seen Harry after they get out of the Room of Requirement - even in a later scene when he's been cornered by a Death Eater who is considering killing him he doesn't reveal this information even though that probably would've proven his loyalty or at the very least distracted the Death Eater.

Conclusions about Draco's motivations:

So, where does that leave us? What went down there and what was Draco trying to do?

We really have 3 options.

Option 1: Draco tried to hand Harry over to Voldemort in order to save himself and his family, got cold feet and couldn't really go through with it, and then lost control of the situation due to Crabbe and Goyle's changing loyalties.

Verdict: Possible but unlikely given the remarkably bad job he does of it and how inconsistent his approach is with his usual MO. Even if we assume his heart wasn't in it you'd think he'd at least have got as far as disarming Harry before announcing his presence. Especially since Harry almost killed him last time they fought (and Draco probably doesn't know Harry didn't know what the Sectum Sempra curse would do.)

And if his heart WAS in it then then this makes even less sense since he not only didn't attack Harry while his back was turned but also didn't call Voldemort or even inform anyone that he'd seen Harry.

Option 2: Draco wanted to get himself captured in a way that looked convincing so that he could take the chance Dumbledore offered in 6th year, only it went quite badly wrong.

Verdict: This would be an interesting possibility but I think it's also unlikely as it's simply too risky. He doesn't know Harry was there on the astronomy tower or that Harry would make the same offer. His family would also likely be murdered if Voldemort realized this had happened.

Option 3: Draco wanted to cut a deal in order to improve his family's situation without actually handing Harry over - perhaps he hoped for some kind of exchange where he could get his wand back and bring Voldemort the diadem as some kind of consolation prize - but overestimated his control over his cronies and lost control of the situation.

Verdict: I actually think this works best given his behavior during the scene. He initiates a conversation because he wants information about what and where the diadem is (and what value it would have to Voldemort) and because he wants to make some offer along the lines of 'give me my wand and the diadem and we'll let you go.' This could get him what he wants and help his family without actually harming anyone.

Also it hedges his bets a bit because if Harry wins he will owe Draco. The problem of course is that Crabbe and Goyle aren't happy to just take orders anymore and have their own goals. At that point, instead of caving and going along with what Crabbe and Goyle want to do instead, Draco actually tries to intervene, albeit in a way that doesn't actually expose him as questioning Voldemort.

Draco made his choice at the Manor. If he wanted to hand Harry over he would have. But he couldn't. He cares about him too much. But he also feels tremendous guilt and fear over the price he and his family are still paying for that decision. This is his attempt to try to fix things - to try to find a middle ground between the conflicting imperatives that are tearing him apart. The reality though, as he shortly discovers, is that there is no middle ground. And when he sees that, once again he chooses Harry.

#hp reread #meta #my meta #Harry Potter meta #Draco Malfoy meta #drarry meta #Harry Potter #harry potter and the deathly hallows #hpdm #h/d #harry x draco #draco x harry #harry/draco #draco/harry #harco #drarry in canon #Draco Malfoy #drarry #my post

229 notes · View notes

ryunumber · 11 months

Note

Spooky from Spookys House Of Jumpscares/Spookys Jumpscare Mansion

Spooky has a Ryu Number of 5/4/does not have a Ryu Number.

(update and explanation below)

(UPDATE: Per @penndragon, Cross Impact has hit Early Access.)

(UPDATE 2: Per @mr-self-suck-by-nin, confirmation of the Cooking Companions protagonist identity gives Spooky an unambiguous Ryu Number of 4.)

Look, it's complicated. Things will be more concrete when Cross Impact hits Early Access.

Fair warning: this explanation is a bit more involved than normal, because the research hole this sent me down had me sincerely doubting my own base competence.

So, from the top: Spooky's only eligible appearance is in her own game, Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion née House of Jump Scares, as her only other appearance, period, seems to be as a trophy in Indie Pogo.

Naturally, this makes SJSM's specimens as the only connecting points. I've identified three that could work:

Unknown Specimen 1 is just White Face from IMSCARED.

This seems to be a dead end, as White Face's only other eligible appearance seems to be in the Nightmare Mode of Cooking Companions, as part of a menagerie of other horror game characters, including SJSM's own Specimen 6. But all of those also seem to be dead ends, and Specimen 6 just gets back to where we started, so that's probably no good.

How about Unknown Specimen 5?

Named Lisa. Sure looks quite a bit like Lisa from P.T. and once-prospective Silent Hills. Let's say it's that Lisa. What else has Lisa been in?

Apparently just P.T., which wouldn't be altogether unsurprising given, you know, all that happened with Silent Hills. Even the Lisa decoys for Metal Gear Solid V showcased in the Tokyo Game Show 2014 trailer didn't make it to the final game.

But there are still other P.T. references that did make it. Namely, that pleasant radio transmission, interruptions and all, can be heard from some radios in MGSV.

youtube

Now, given that audio-only appearances are broadly eligible, you could make a case that whoever's reading in this transmission is a character themself, which would in turn connect Lisa to The Phantom Pain, at which point calculating the Ryu Number is just a matter of hashing out who exactly is and is not in MGSV. The only issue I have with making this connection is that the audio is basically reused wholesale from P.T., which arguably makes it more in line with an archival recording, which is not eligible, than bespoke radio chatter, which is eligible, but hey, whatever, I've peddled dodgier. Why the hell not.

So in the search of a route with less caveats, let's consider what I've identified as the last possible eligible connection, Specimen 8. This cervine bundle of fun can be seen in Lost in Vivo as part of Lost Tape 3.

It turns out there's another character in Lost in Vivo who's been in something else: Sotiris. It also turns out that the "something else" in question is, uh,

the EEK3 2020 Virtual Show Floor. Which, to the best of my knowledge, is never referred to as a game, so if that matters to you, then we're done, and Spooky either has the aforementioned route through Lisa or nothing.

If you're willing to say that the virtual show floor is a game, which does not seem to be an unpopular opinion, then good news! There's a clear path to Ryu. You just have to go through Skully, who cameos in Toree 3D,

to the titular Toree, who's a guest character in Lunistice,

to Kit, the main character of Lunistice, who cameos in CrossCode,

to Lea, whose Ryu Number of 2 is already established, which gives Spooky a final Ryu Number of I'm sorry, I'm being handed a note.

Oh. Well fuck me, then, for not considering that the realities of game development could lead to a scenario wherein a character from an in-progress game could make cameo appearances in other games, only to be scrapped entirely before their would-be source game is released. Clearly, this is what the kids refer to as a "skill issue".

And the best part? This chain is so long that I'm genuinely expecting to have overlooked something really obvious that gives a shorter number, because the documentation I found on indie-ass indie horror game crossovers is spotty. So if you have any information that could shorten this more substantial than "White Face is graffiti in the full release of FAITH", send it my way. I'd rather be definitely wrong than dubiously correct.

Anyway, Toree's set to be playable in Cross Impact, so when that's released to the wider public most of this nonsense I just spewed at you will actually come into play. Until then, make of all of this what you will. If you'll excuse me, I need to go fucking distort.

#spooky #spooky's jumpscare mansion #spooky's jump scare mansion #spooky's house of jumpscares #ryu number

419 notes · View notes

astrababyy · 5 months

Text

i think the thing that frustrates me the most about feyre's character post-acotar — hell, even post-acomaf — is that she stops being a character past that point in the series. acomaf, i can still see elements of feyre's original character, but i think acowar and beyond (especially acofas and acosf) is where her character devolves completely into something virtually unrecognizable. and this, in my opinion, is because once she and rhysand become established in their relationship, her entire characterization starts to revolve around him.

prior to acomaf/acowar, feyre has a personality independent of the relationships she has with other people. her characterization has its flaws, as the first book is flawed as a whole, but she's generally a decently-crafted character. feyre is an interesting character because, in the first portion of the book, we learn that she's a jaded, clever huntress who is willing to kill to survive and make painful decisions for the good of herself and her family. she's bitter, resentful, and miserable, and the crux of her life revolves around survival.

but then we learn new things. feyre loves painting, and if she had a choice, she'd marry off her sisters and live peacefully with her father, spending her days painting anything her heart could desire. she's capable and an able killer, but her dreams and wants are for a peaceful life. these desires are expanded upon later in the book when we learn that, if given the option, feyre wouldn't kill. she's jaded and can come off as someone who'd be a stereotypical "girlboss," badass killer. but in reality, feyre doesn't like bloodshed. she doesn't like killing, and if she had it her way, she'd never kill another living thing again.

this is interesting. acotar!feyre is actually a very interesting and dynamic character when compared to who she becomes in later books. she has an internal conflict that affects every aspect of who she is, and it is this conflict that is so deeply tied to what she's forced to do in the climax of the story: either kill innocent faeries or watch as the love of her life dies before her very eyes. this final trial is so painful because it's been established that, in a peaceful environment, a killer is not someone feyre wants to be, and a killer is instead what she's forced to become.

then, of course, acomaf happens and yada, yada, yada. she's still a relatively interesting character on her own, if (arguably) ooc, but has an independent characterization regardless. it's after this book where things take a turn for the worse.

in acowar, feyre is no longer the character who protects the "little guy" and would give up petty jewels to make sure a faerie can eat. she's no longer the character who acts based on her morals and inherent humanity, rather than faerie logic. instead, she's the character who destabilizes an entire court on the brink of war, uncaring of the consequences to the people of spring. in acofas, she's buying another goddamn house while people in velaris and beyond are struggling to make ends' meet following the war that she and rhys dragged them into. in acosf, she's doing the same fucking thing to nesta that destroyed and traumatized her a few books previous, and she's become the glorified housewife to rhysand. she's having his kid when she's not even 25 yet. she's being paraded around like some prized horse. she's sitting around, painting and decorating houses, while rhys does all the actual politicking. she's exactly what she feared she'd become in acomaf, and there's no consequence whatsoever.

this is not the feyre of acotar. this feyre is the faceless, empty love interest to the real main character: rhysand. she's a reflection of him. that's why she went from the woman who feels uncomfortable wearing fancy jewels to the woman who'd spend her newfound millions on frivolous lingerie rather than do anything meaningful with her position as high lady. that's why she went from the character who had respect and a new understanding of nesta in book 1, to the character that'd do such horrendous things to her in acosf. that's why she stands around and lets rhys and amren bully and degrade nesta. she's not a character anymore. she's just rhysand's mate.

#anti sjm #anti rhysand #sjm critical #acotar meta #acotar #feyre archeron #astrababyy #anyway fuck rhysand #the way he treats feyre is disgusting #and she would NEVER let half the shit he does slide if she was still the character she'd once been #anti acowar #anti acosf #anti acofas

136 notes · View notes

siryouarebeingmocked · 8 months

Photo

https://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/opinion-governor-it-s-time-to-ban-assault-weapons-in-new-mexico/article_1c5e3c94-b19a-11ee-a0b8-bfceaa002b91.html? | Archive

>Every day, Americans wake up to the news of another community torn apart by gun violence.

Yes, and? 100 million+ guns. 365 incidents a year is relatively small.

And most of those aren't even with legal guns.

America’s gun violence crisis has become so rampant that we are virtually numb to the deadly reality that more than 120 Americans are shot and killed every day in our country.

Most of which are suicides. Which rarely "tear communities apart".

Families from Farmington to Las Cruces feel the anxiety and fear of being gunned down at shopping malls and movie theaters, of dropping their children off at school.

Good news! The trip is actually much more likely to kill kids than guns!

We saw it in Farmington — a teenager legally purchased an AR-15 in late 2022 and bought an additional three magazines just days before he went on a shooting spree.

That's a very careful way to avoid saying "a legal adult bought a gun he was legally entitled to buy and murdered people". Which he might've done anyway, no matter how long the wait was.

And I don’t think it’s a good idea to strip rights from millions of people in the hopes it’ll do some good.

Three women were brutally slaughtered by an automatic weapon designed for warfare and whose only purpose is to kill multiple people in a short amount of time.

Legal automatic weapons are highly limited, strictly controlled, and federally tracked.

Rifles are less commonly used for murders than knives, blunt objects, or bare hands.

AR15s are very commonly used for varmint control and feral hog control.

They're also being phased out by the actual military because they aren't good enough at killing people.

If you >can't even describe the gun correctly<, I gotta wonder how you expect to make laws against it.

#guns #gun control #new mexico #stupid #oh snap #gunblr #long

139 notes · View notes

eretzyisrael · 6 months

Text

By Nachum Kaplan

Hamas correctly identified that antisemitism was only dormant in the West, and that they just needed to wake the sleeping monster. They knew this because there were clear tells, such as the international media’s fixation on Israel, the over-reporting of the country, and that the Pavlovian way the conflict becomes newsworthy only when Israel responds to an attack.Hamas stuck to what has worked throughout history. The blood libel trope was modernized into accusations of genocide and deliberate starvation, while the trope of Jews being responsible for their persecution was updated with the notion that Israel had turned Gaza into an open-air prison.They leveraged their numerical advantage.With more than a billion Muslims globally, Hamas knew it had a huge virtual army it could activate on social media to reach a global audience.Hamas flooded social media with lies to exploit the Repetition Bias, a heuristic (mental shortcut) in which repeated information feels more true than new or unrepeated information. Social media repeated these lies exponentially, aided by extensive use of AI-generated “photographs.”The Palestinians also exploited another numerical advantage, the number of Muslim states, which is 48. This has given them weight in forums such as the United Nations and its various committees and bodies, creating a suited army of bureaucrats with credible titles to tell lies to the international press.Almost comically, Iran has just assumed the presidency of the UN Conference on Disarmament. That is the same Islamic Republic that funds, arms, and trains Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen — and ships arms to Russia to use in its invasion of Ukraine.They controlled the information flow.Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have used traditional authoritarian tactics to control the information flow from areas they govern. Reporters cannot report freely or unfavorably from Palestinian-controlled territories if they want to retain access. Threats of violence keep the few unsympathetic local reporters in check.Exploiting the inability of most media to report from Gaza directly, Hamas has used local Gazan “journalists” to feed lies, distorting images, and fabricated data to the credulous international media. Time and again, the foreign press has swallowed them, including claimed civilian death toll numbers that are demonstrably untrue (and presume every person killed was a civilian).Hamas has only needed the media to report its numbers, knowing that if repeated enough, they be treated as true and that no one will pay attention to the fine print stating they are unverified. Hamas at one point even had the media complaining that Israel was simultaneously not allowing reporters access to Gaza and targeting journalists there.They mastered the 24-hour news cycle.The internet has blurred the traditional lines between print and television news, turning all news media into digital services beholden to the 24-hour news cycle.Hamas has understood that as long as it keeps manufacturing outrages, the news cycle will move on quickly, and they will never be held to account. The Qatar-funded Al Jazeera, which has the veneer of a real news organization, has played a key role in this.They have exploited a ‘post-truth’ world.Hamas recognized that the post-Modernist rot has resonated in much of the West, including across its media and universities. The belief that people cannot only have their own opinions, but their own facts, sounds laughable, but it has become worryingly normal.Political tribes express opinions mainly as identity signals, and tribal loyalty is more important to these people than truth, or even reality. Hamas has understood that this liberates it from any need to have a fact-based narrative.They use simple slogans.“

#hamas #gaza #hamas propaganda #hamas media machine #Palestinians

59 notes · View notes

thatpersonwhosaidtheywouldnt · 5 days

Text

Thinking about how the biggest reason I think the Young Justice show went with the origin they did for Wally and Barry (Wally doing the experiment Barry did, Barry doing the experiment Jay did) is because the creators of the show did not include the Speed Force. Greg Weisman does not like the idea, doesn't see the point of it (and in my opinion clearly misunderstands it) someone on Reddit did a write up on it if you wanna see all he's said here.

So what's this gotta do with the Flash origins in YJA vs comics? Well, first off, the Speed Force was something Mark Waid created to unify the Flash's powers and bring a bit of sense to them:

"It really was just a matter of trying to unify the powers. Barry and Wally's origins were identical, but Jay ostensibly got his speed by inhaling 'hard water,' a.k.a. 'ice.' I never really thought of it as 'mystical' in any real sense, just scientific --- or as scientific as you can get when you're talking about what happens on the other side of lightspeed (which was my original pitch, an idea that to this day I can remember its exact moment of birth)" (Waid from Ask Chris #317 here )

So without the Speed Force, YJA had to solve a problem Waid had solved with the Speed Force a different way. Waid chose not to or didn't have the option to change Wally's origin from being the exact same as Barry's so he made it make sense through the Speed Force, in essence, choosing Wally (and Barry and Jay and every other speedster). YJA had the option so they went a different way.

Barry was always inspired by Jay Garrick. In comics he was a lucky fanboy who got the powers of his favorite comic character and took his name. In YJA, he's not lucky, he, instead, performs the same experiment that gave Jay speed on himself (YJA Barry is simply more unhinged because what).

Wally, similarly, was also a lucky fanboy who got the powers of his favorite superhero (who happened to be the guy his aunt was dating... Very lucky). In YJA... Well it's the same as Barry again expect he's a literal child performing an experiment on himself which puts him in the hospital (comics Wally is notably fine, just wet from the chemicals).

I think it's a pretty significant change to make Barry and Wally want and grab for the superpowers of their heroes (and beg to be a hero before having those powers in Wally's case) instead of them being super fans that have powers thrust upon them. Powers they choose to use for good but not powers they chose.

And then we have Bart... See, with Bart, things are very different. They have to be. Bart's first appearance is in the exact same comic as the first appearance of the Speed Force. Getting rid of it... Basically gets rid of Bart.

Of course, he's in YJA, so that's not quite true. And, admittedly, I think there were ways to do Bart more accurately without the Speed Force... But it's hard. And YJA essentially avoided making a proper attempt at all and made a fully new character. Instead of him being raised in virtual reality while his body was speed aging due to his biological connection to the Speed Force, he is raised in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. He pretends to be chaotic, impulsive, and sorta dumb but is actually very calculating, a bit cynical, and jaded. He is an interesting character for sure... but he's definitely an original character in all but name, and you can see the character type they took inspiration from - the likes of Cable, Future Trunks (Dragon Ball), and Silver the Hedgehog, instead of his original characterization (a characterization I think is much more original and lacks a character that's similar). A final, more minor point, is that the lack of the Speed Force seems to be why he had to build his own time machine, unable to run through time as in comics.

Bart, in comics, is chaotic, whimsical, and impulsive. He was born in the far future because of some chaotic time travel-related reasons, and his father and aunt (the Tornado Twins) were killed soon after his birth. He was taken by the Earth government (in a roundabout way), run by his grandfather (who happens to be a descendant of the Thawne family... making Bart related to Professor Zoom), and instead of trying to stop his speed aging, merely observed him while raising him in a virtual reality. Iris breaks him out and they time travel to the past to get help from Wally. Through a series of events, Wally ends up handing Bart over to Max Mercury (basically the Speed Force expert) to raise cause Iris dipped and Wally is not capable of raising a teenager. Max, Bart's main parental figure, is not and cannot be in YJA because the Speed Force not existing or being known of, makes that impossible. It is the most intrinsic to his character out of all speedsters.

Much of Bart's character arc has him have to learn that life is not a video game and he does not get a do-over. There is a very powerful arc where Bart (who has this speed force power of essentially making clones of himself) loses one of his speed force clones and feels the death of his clone as if he died as well. It terrifies him. But without the Speed Force, without the powers that create that arc, this is not something that can be explored in the cartoon. YJA Bart is, in some ways, the opposite of his comic counterpart. He clearly understands death well; it's all he knows, a dying world. He likely expects to die himself traveling to the past like he does. Bart in the cartoon has to learn different lessons.

I think at the end of the day, this choice to ignore the Speed Force (and therefore the center of Flash lore since the mid 90's), is a bit disrespectful. I don't think Weisman saw it that way, of course. To him it seems he was adapting the Flash lore prior to that. Which does make some sense, seeing as Wally was Kid Flash and the Speed Force is very much tied to Wally's time as the Flash (something he never gets to be in YJA). And I am not saying I dislike Wally in this show, in fact that show is why he's one of my favorite characters. But I think it's all interesting to think about... And I do think the Flashes are much better handled in their comics, no matter the love I have for Wally in the show (except maybe the letting Barry be a dad part). But it's the nature of adaptations I suppose. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. 🫡

#young justice cartoon #wally west #kid flash #barry allen #jay garrick #the flash #bart allen #impulse #speed force #dc comics #dc comics meta #young justice cartoon meta

25 notes · View notes

newwavesylviaplath · 1 month

Text

more dumb music opinions!! this is long and ik most of u don't care but whatever this is my platform i will post how i see fit. also im not proofreading this at all its 1:26 in the morning and im literally falling asleep as im writing this so apologies in advance if this isn't the most well written or coherent post ive ever made

okay yall i fell down a rabbit hole of people on tiktok criticizing chappell roan and now im all worked up so here i am giving my opinions no one asked for;

so something i've been noticing a real influx of is people bringing up her hot to go performance at outside lands (a festival) where she says something along the lines of "vip thinks they're way too cool to do this.. you're not fun!" mfs have been getting online to talk about how chappell was being SO RUDE!!! and NOT EVERYONE KNOWS HER MUSIC WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS!!!! but like anyone with common sense who has seen the vid/heard the audio can tell she was being playful?? like come on now. i also saw someone post abt how she was being mean to jimmy fallon?? 😭 first off, while im not sure abt this one in particular late night shows are usually scripted and secondly im starting to believe more and more that these people have just never interacted with a drag queen before. chappell roan is a STAGE PERSONA and the majority of drag queens are characterized by having this larger than life attitude- take for example that one rupaul /jimmy fallon interview (u guys know which one) like idk i feel like it's very obvious that chappell is playing it up for the sake of entertainment, not cuz she genuinely believes she's above everyone else.

the other thing i've seen ppl whining about is how a) she doesn't wanna take a picture with fans, therefore she believes her shit doesn't stink and b) the two tiktoks she posted a day ago where she was voicing her struggles openly without policing her tone. first off, CELEBRITIES DONT OWE U PICTURES. don't get me wrong, taking a picture with a celeb u are a fan of can be a great experience and a fun story- but people are acting as if it is their god given right to get a photo with whoever they want whenever they want. "oh well she brought this on herself it's the price of being famous" are u stupid omfg acting like chappell signed a contract giving up her autonomy in order to get on the billboard charts. she quite literally did not choose this and even if she did that doesn't mean ur automatically entitled to a pic with her as if she's some kind of zoo animal like?? the two vids she posted to tiktok essentially telling ppl to leave her alone was met with backlash because she 'sounded rude' again im going to put this in perspective for everyone. her family is being stalked. she is being harassed both online and in real life. being upset because she comes off a little brash in a video where she is practically begging yall to stop with the harassment should be the least of your concerns. this is a twenty six year old who was virtually unknown six months ago- her meteoric rise to fame was not something she could have been prepped for in anyway possible. i feel like some people just aren't trying to wrap their heads around how insane the reality of this situation really is. the phrase "fifteen minutes of fame" used to be a lot more hyperbolic than it is now. i'm exhausted

21 notes · View notes

mitigatedchaos · 10 days

Text

The Low-Friction Moment

Post for September 16, 2024 ~4,000 words, 20 minutes

Tumblr user max1461 wrote:

I'm contemplating the tradwife shit again, I'm coining the term "bioconservative turn" for the present cultural moment (evidently the term bioconservatism is already in use for something else... perhaps "biotraditionalist turn" will do instead?). The tradwife shit, the raw diet caveman testosterone shit, the wombyn born wombyn shit, all of it. It's characterized by a couple of things I think:

If this is a real trend, where is it coming from? One theory someone could float would be that this isn't a unified, general trend, but rather a bunch of smaller trends resulting from responses to more specific issues. If it actually comes together, it's going to do so as a political coalition and will remain ideologically incoherent in practice.

I would like to propose a more general cause, or rather, a shared source of influence (not responsible for 100% of causal share): people are sick of computers.

More below the read-more.

Max continues (numbering mine)...

(1) An ever-present awareness (or pseudo-awareness) of biology, an interest in biological specifics such as testosterone levels, and an appeal to "biological essence" or "biological purpose" as a source of authority.

(2) A conservative, although not necessarily politically right-wing, outlook: "modernity is essentially flawed and we need to return to our roots in order to reconnect with what really matters".

(3) A particular focus on health as an ideal; per the above a sense that modernity is above all else unhealthy.

(4) A conceptual shift away from the mind and towards the body as the most central part of the human being, commensurately a great political concern with the nature of bodies, and an attribution of society's faults to the wrong-treatment or wrong-usage of bodies.

(5) A generally somewhat quietistic bent, although by no means apolitical. A focus on individual right behavior. Perhaps contrary to expectations, not necessarily characterized by eugenicism to any great extent.

Obviously these different components will be expressed to different degrees in different cases, but I think this circumscribes it pretty well.

I think this emerging perspective has a couple of distinct influences that are being syncretized to varying degrees. [...]

...and adds:

Please note that I am not here to argue some stupid shit, or to do base guilt-by-association of this or that ideology. I don't like this biotraditionalist turn very much, but the reasons I don't like it are thoughtful instead of vapid. I would be interested, though, to hear others' opinions on this trend, if they think it's a real thing and what they have observed about it, because I've been contemplating it a lot lately. At least, I'd like to hear from people with novel sociological observations or commentary to provide, rather than boring polemics.

a - The Axis

To the degree that this is a real thing, I suspect that this is about computers. Computers and virtual reality are low dimensionality, high disembodiment. Whether with video games or with social media (posts on a flat surface), it's possible to get completely absorbed in the virtual environment and forget one's physical body for a time - thus the overrepresentation of transgender individuals and furries online. (The pro-trans perspective would be that this relieves gender dysphoria, while the anti-trans perspective would be that this disembodiment creates transgenderism. One person reported doing hard math to distract from thinking about their body, so I'd lean towards the former explanation. I've discussed this matter previously in terms of the relative influence of movements.)

Transgenderism represents a weighting of the mind over the body. If the mind says 'M' and the body says 'F,' then 'M' is correct and 'F' is wrong.

Rationalism is partly about weighting the conscious mind over the subconscious mind and the instincts of the body. Transhumanism is about the use of the capital-forming power of the mind to replace the body (either by uploading the brain into a computer, or by replacing flesh and blood arms with cool robot arms).

It isn't surprising that we would see, in terms of one causal factor, the rise of rationalism, transgenderism, and transhumanism, during the 1990-2020 era, a time of profound and transformative change driven by rapidly-expanding computing power and rapidly-expanding accessibility of computers.

However, rationalists, transhumanists, and pre-normalization transgender individuals all tend to be the sorts of people who get their opinions by thinking about them individually, rather than socially.

b - The Problem 1

Computers, the Internet, and social media, especially the consolidation of social media into a small handful of sites, created a very low friction environment.

For the rationalists, or someone like me, this wasn't that much of an issue directly. I intuitively evaluate ideological systems for loops, and have a good feel for logical fallacies, so when someone tries to pose as higher status but makes a terrible argument, I feel pressured to contradict them rather than to obey them.

For people who primarily get their opinions socially, I think this has been a disaster.

As you may remember, my model of the Republicans is that they pick a guy and then they rally around him as their leader. In the 2000-2008 era, that was George Bush, which lead to a steadfast refusal to question the Iraq War, and likely contributed to the mishandling of the War in Afghanistan.

Now, The Guy is Trump. This represents a decline in the reliability of information about the details, but a correction on some of the fundamentals.

QAnon is pretty bad, epistemically. A loss of trust in institutions contributed, as did the lack of administrative political skill by Trump himself. He's also hardly a model of general epistemic virtue; his advantage is mostly not being invested in some of the bad choices the US political establishment made previously.

Did the reduction in friction contribute? I think so. Without a reduction in friction, we would expect QAnon to manifest in a dozen different conspiracy theories, rather than come together into one more unified whole.

(One of the chief problems for the red tribe is that they aren't a "complete ethnicity." They're largely a slice of the white American personality distribution. This limits the number and scale of their institutions, which reduces their ability to build an independent knowledge base using personnel aligned with their interests.)

Meanwhile, my model of Democrats is that they're more based on a perception of consensus. They are hierarchical, and they do value authority. Many conservative complaints about "unprincipled" progressive behavior are actually about progressive deference to tribal authority; the progressives involved assume that the authority "knows better" than they do, and so assume the right-wing criticism cannot be true (or is true but irrelevant).

The reduction in friction caused a two prong problem.

First, in an environment where information moves more slowly, it may be easier to build a consensus around truth, since truth is observable everywhere and remains fixed over time. (Yes, yes, specific artifacts and events, I know. But you get what I mean.) You can't be sure if the guy over at the other newspaper or other university would go with the same partisan message that you would, but if you try to keep your message relatively close to the truth, then the two messages won't be discordant. [1]

The system of blue checkmarks for institutional actors under pre-Musk Twitter enabled a rapid formation of consensus, without a need to coordinate indirectly using the truth instead of communicating directly.

It was easy. It was cheap. It meant making fewer compromises with the interests or desires of the coalition. They could coordinate around whatever dumb message they wanted to, regardless of its relation to the truth.

Second, the people working inside the institutions were exposed to the low-friction environment. From the outside, they could be identified and targeted by activists, who would be able to call down large numbers of people on the institution. From the inside, their coalitional loyalty meant that many of them adopted the lower-epistemic-quality ideology. At the same time, there was a significant decline in employment in some knowledge-generating industries, like the newspaper industry. (It doesn't help that the positions are prestigious, even if they aren't the highest-paying.) This combination promoted ideological infighting, causing a misalignment of the broader institution with its mission.

Institutional missions can be used to build supermajority support, insulating institutions from politics. If an institution has 75% support, then an attack generally can't get a solid majority even from the party with the greatest opposition to it. If an institution falls to 50% support, then it can be dismantled or defunded for votes. Since in the two-party system, each party wins about half the time, that's a risky position to be in.

Other people don't think exactly the same way I do about this, but there are similarities in their perspective on this matter.

c - The Problem 2

Because developing true information is so difficult, it's also a fragile process, thus the replication crisis. Even a slight tampering with each node in the process will screw up the outcome.

Activists generally want to exclude results that are unfavorable to their causes, and include results that are favorable to their causes. (They would justify this from a moral perspective - "protecting the weak," for example.) Without error, this results in bias that leads to a distorted view once the information undergoes lossy compression. (Imagine a 500,000-word book reduced to a 500-word summary - all of the qualifiers and hedging will, by necessity, be trimmed out.) Error can introduce favorable-seeming information that is mostly or entirely false, causing a report to go from merely omitting unfavorable information, to being entirely fake.

The more complex and multi-stage the knowledge-generating process, the more information that will be lost across the whole process from activism. People have a limited amount of time and attention, so they'll typically only look at the output of the prior stage, and not account for drift from activism in stages before that. This can happen with multiple people, or just with one person working on a multi-stage process. With research, for example, deciding what question to research is an initial stage which can introduce bias even if every other step is followed meticulously. At the end stage, if the peer reviewers are all activists, they may decline to heavily investigate a paper if it seems favorable, even if the author made an error by accident. (The replication crisis suggests that peer review is having trouble even without activism.)

Above relatively small percentages of activism, activism + research will tend to reduce to activism, activism + journalism will tend to reduce to activism, and so on.

Suppose there is some industrial chemical, the usage of which will save 10,000 humans, but potentially kill 10 whales. If there is an activist who says whatever they think will help to save the whales, rather than what is true independent of saving the whales, then you can't ask them about the trade-offs. If they think telling you the chemical is super-lethal and will kill 10,000 whales will save the whales, then they'll tell you the chemical is super-lethal to whales. If they think telling you it won't save the humans will save the whales, then they'll tell you that it won't save the humans.

Estimates vary, but let's say that English has about 250,000 words. Each unique word can be encoded using 18 bits. This is all a very rough estimate.

At a low percent activism, we get...

[chemical][kill][ten][whale][save][ten][thousand][human]

This comes out to about 144 bits of information.

Words can be used to reduce the space of possibilities. For example, "ten" is used to exclude every number less than 10, and also every number greater than 10.

Because the activist is willing to say that the industrial chemical will kill 10 whales or 10,000 whales depending on what sounds more convincing, "ten" from the activist represents "ten or ten thousand." That is, it doesn't reduce the space of possibilities by as much.

One way we can think about this is that the vocabulary of political operatives in general is effectively reduced. In a standard binary encoding, with 18 bits you can write any number from 0 to 262,144. In the reduced vocabulary, any number 0 to 262,144 is only used to represent { "none," "one," "few," "many," "more than," "less than" }, a total of six options, which can be represented with 3 bits.

The correlation between the words and the state of the world is reduced. The words no longer divide the world into as many categories. Thus, the number of bits of actual information transmitted per symbol declines. [2]

At a high percentage of activism, any message that might possibly benefit whales rounds off to group affiliation.

[me][pro][whale]

This comes out to 54 bits.

In my opinion, the reduction in friction has shifted members of the left and liberal political coalition towards activism, and towards group affiliation messaging, and away from more costly truth-seeking and independent thought.

The overall complexity of the world-model has declined, and the amount of genuine information transmitted per word has declined as well. [3]

That is my personal assessment.

d - Things to Hide From - The Cyberspace Layer

One of the big differences between 2008 and 2024 is the proliferation of smartphones with cameras and internet access.

This has resulted in the presence of an ubiquitous "cyberspace layer" which spread across most of the planet. Anyone, anywhere, is now vulnerable to being recorded on video, and that video almost instantly getting delivered to people on the other side of the planet.

As I have noted before, with reports that satellite internet access will be extended to 5G smartphones, the cyberspace layer will soon extend to nearly the entire planet.

Did you know that major retailers are still selling disposable film cameras in physical stores, alongside record players? Some people are arguing that film grains are irregular enough, and screens are low-resolution enough, that photo-negatives can be used to prove a picture is relatively more 'real' rather than AI-generated, but I don't have enough knowledge to say whether that's true or reliable.

e - Places to Hide - Private Chatrooms

Although Discord is not truly private, because the platform operator has access to everything the users post, we still see a lot of discussion moving there. Why?

I think there are two big reasons. One, it allows tighter control of who enters a space. That cuts down on spam. Two, because it's not exposed to the public internet, it's less vulnerable to what political scientists call "norm entrepreneurs." (That would be the guy that's trying to raise his social status by coming up with new social rules which he enthusiastically attempts to punish you for not following.)

If someone tries to start a mob to punish you for not agreeing to "rewild" your cat, you can throw him out on his ass.

Overall, information moving from public forums to private chatrooms represents an increase in friction, including higher information acquisition costs. This will likely reduce the overall wealth of humanity and emphasize social connections over raw intellect.

f - Breaking it Down

Alright, so with that background, I'm going to break it down.

Loss of trust in left-leaning institutional authority, partly due to the institutions themselves, partly due to activists misrepresenting what institutions or research actually say, and partly due to the shift of the granola-eaters to the right due to progressive restrictions on granola-eater behavior.

Biology contains a huge amount of physically embodied information, gathered over many millions of years. In this vein, it isn't surprising to use it as a source of authority.

(2) A conservative, although not necessarily politically right-wing, outlook: "modernity is essentially flawed and we need to return to our roots in order to reconnect with what really matters".

Fertility is collapsing to below replacement in all industrialized countries. In some places, like South Korea, the situation has become quite dire. Something is wrong.

I think the cyberspace layer is also stressing people out. They can be socially ambushed by like 50,000 people at once, pretty much at random.

People move around a lot. They may not know as many people in person for the duration of their lives. Modernity itself depends on more distant, thinner, lower-dimensionality relations, including working with impersonal bureaucracies, which some people may find uncomfortable.

I think people would also be a lot more comfortable if the pace of change was about half of what it currently is. If feels like from the mid 20th century to today, each decade should "really" have taken about 20 years, to allow people to get comfortable with the technology before it changes again.

Overall, I think going faster has been worth it due to improved medical treatments, but I have to wonder what the alternative branch might look like given the rising youth suicide rate compared to the low of 2007.

(3) A particular focus on health as an ideal; per the above a sense that modernity is above all else unhealthy.

Health is a wellspring from which many other strengths, and even virtues, may flow. Health is quite core. In terms of the trade-off, it isn't just a matter of wealth or health - it's difficult to have wealth without health.

The genetics industry are beginning to cure the blind, but the price for their services range from the price of a house to a typical worker's total lifetime economic output. Wealth has only a limited ability to buy health.

Minus housing prices, people may be feeling wealthy enough that they'd like to trade some wealth for some health.

From the other direction, people have a great deal of difficulty assessing the health value of products. They depend on institutions to do that. If they lose faith in institutions, they'll want to fall back to something, and that leaves perceived biology, "traditionalism," and so on.

Yes, this could be a reaction to the relatively high emphasis on the mind associated with the computer era.

Additionally, because a body is a thick, heavy, and difficult-to-change matter of substance, there may be leverage in a politics rooted in bodies and in the interests of bodies.

However, concerns about contamination of bodies have been around for a long time. People have fretted about what they eat for as long as I have been alive. After all, food isn't just fuel, but also materials. How can you build well using poor-quality materials?

In an environment in which collective action can produce larger societal gains, it makes more sense to engage in collective action.

In an environment in which larger political forces have become unresponsive to reality, it makes sense to reduce the scope of your behavior and investment to one in which you can still gain traction.

You can't control what the US government does, but a sound mind and a healthy body will help you in nearly all situations - and a healthy body contributes to a sound mind. Further, the relationships of a family, especially between parents and children, are also more likely to survive changes in the nature of the state or the economy, than forms of support that depend on the well-functioning of the state itself. (Of course, this may lead to opposition to families from political operatives.)

There is little point to pursuing eugenics in such a context. It's effectively a declaration of war on some fraction of the population, and if you don't devise sound general principles, it's also a declaration of war on yourself.

I would also little to propose a little inversion - the life one lives demonstrates the biology that one has. Therefore, to live well is proof that one is worthy, regardless of the specific fine-grained biological details.

g - Rejecting the Oppression Model of Disability

There's another aspect at work here, which is the progressive model of disability. Progressives argue that everyone is equally capable in order to argue that they are equally morally worthy. In the progressive model of disability, if someone is wheelchair-bound, the fact that they don't have the same mobility as someone who can use two legs is because something is wrong with society, not with the wheelchair-user's body.

Of course, the world doesn't work that way. The underlying physical reality of mountains is not socially constructed, and adding wheelchair access to a mountain takes additional labor, energy, and materials compared to leaving the mountain solely accessible by foot.

In the progressive model of disability, if the government refuse to build a wheelchair ramp to the top of a popular mountain, they are oppressing wheelchair users. Some of the ideology you have described may be based on rejecting this frame.

h - The New Classy

Personally, I think the vibes that you're picking up on are somewhat faint currently, but they are there.

I think we are going to see some rejection of electronics and computers by higher-class individuals, or individuals from the subset of society that will come to be perceived as higher class over time.

Probably around 2015, when the number of notifications on my smartphone began ticking up, to the point that I noticed I was ignoring text messages because I assumed they were social media or app messages, I began aggressively limiting notifications.

Later, I began experimenting with the idea of a "social media hiatus," usually for a week or two. I found that somewhat difficult to stick to, because I have a lot to say. On the other hand, those hiatuses were actually too short. I've now switched to a Monday queue, so that posts only go up one day of the week (unless the President gets shot or something).

That has been relatively successful. This corner of Tumblr is a medium-length discursive space, so it's usually fine if a post shows up five days later. I post probably half or even a third as much, but that's fine. I've found that I'm mostly able to stick to it, which is good.

On Twitter, I have long had notifications turned off for every account except those I follow. When I want to check for replies, I go read the with_replies tab of my own account, and scroll down as far as I want to check. I don't even know the replies exist until I check; as such, they weigh less heavily on my mind, being only "possible replies" rather than "known unanswered replies." Eventually threads fall below the distance I'm willing to scroll, and I never see another reply on them again.

More recently, I've been running an experiment of no computers and no TV for one day of the week. (Calling and texting are still allowed.) It's still too early to talk about the results, but one thing I noticed almost immediately is this kind of twitching reflex to check the Internet on my phone (or computer).

Taken together, this can be considered "taking control of one's attention environment."

This requires a certain amount of power, wealth, or time, and also a certain amount of willpower (although it's about managing limited willpower to greater effect). For example, one must be able to opt out of certain software if it's a low-return attention hog ("low [monetary|insight|relational|positive emotional] returns to attention"), which might not be feasible in certain industries or for certain workers.

Gambling is trashy. Alcohol is trashy. Drugs are trashy. Sex addiction is trashy. In the future, it is likely that electronic over-stimulation will be considered trashy. The meltdowns people have been having on Twitter over the past 10 years have been spectacular, to the point that they're eroding public trust in expertise itself. If you want to give off a serious (and not trashy) and timeless aura, you can't allow yourself to be deranged by Twitter, or by filter bubbles.

[1] This is a new bit of theory I've been waiting for the right opportunity to post.

[2] This is also one of the issues with using nothing but bombastic rhetoric.

[3] Same as [1].

#politics #epistemic blues #gendpol #melodramatic mysticism #sj critical #flagpost #monday queue

16 notes · View notes

project-sekai-facts · 11 months

Note

okay i just had a lore meltdown in a reblog so i need chat's opinion

are this-reality vocalops real for project sekai characters? like, could rui be canonically a hitoyama/mothy fan? and most importantly - are the commissions we get actually the same as the ones written during the stories? because it's often implied that they are, especially with leo/need (and made-to-order specifically i guess??) but then what.

sorry but trying to fit jackpot sad girl's lyrics into a context that it's written by kanade keeps me up at night why is this teenage girl beefing with hachi all of the sudden

ALSO if you consider whatever the fuck the evillous collab was does this imply that producers can get their personal sekais. and not be aware of their existence. OR ARE THEY? WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON WITH "SEKAIS BASED ON MEMORIES" AND WHY WAS THIS NEVER BROUGHT UP AGAIN I NEED ANSWERS

^ is painfully aware that there could be a very simple explanation but loves to overcomplicate stupid things

Yes, Vocaloid-Ps exist in-universe! Ichika is sorta one since she owns a Miku voicebank and is learning how to use it. Also I shit you not, it's heavily implied that Rui is a fan of those guys. He mentions liking how Vocaloid can be used to tell stories in KAITO's 1* story.

Any song that the characters write in a story is not the same as the commission for the event. If you play the story with music the songs written are always played at some point and they're just OST. Although it may at first seem like Order Made and Utsuro wo Aogu are the songs written by Ichika and Toya within their respective events, when their songs are played in the story, they're actually Count Your Blessings and Step by Step. Order Made is canon though, since it's performed in virtual lives. As I said, commissioned songs that are performed in virtual lives are canon but were likely created by the SEKAI (since they aren't treated as covers, and it's not like vocaloPs are producing songs for teenagers in a pocket dimension).

Jackpot Sad Girl doesn't exist in-universe (possibly, not sure how canon the connect lives are). The song Kanade wrote in Captive Marionette is actually called Marionette, and is never played during the story.

Remember I wrote that really long post about SEKAI lore and then just slapped on the end that they're a metaphor for worldbuilding in music? That's how I'm explaning the Evillious SEKAI. Hey, if the vocaloid characters can manifest into existence then characters based on those characters can also manifest into existence too I guess.

All the VocaloPs that we know canonically exist are:

EasyPop (Happy Synthesizer is played multiple times)

Giga (Rettou Joutou is played multiple times, and the An/Akito GimmexGimme archive is canon. Also drop pop candy cover)

Orangestar (Vivids Asu no Yozora Shoukaihan archive, Kaisei cover)

Eve (BAD DOGS Dramaturgy archive, Oki ni Mesu mama cover)

Surii (Kohane/Toya Junky Night Town Orchestra archive, Ego Rock cover)

takamatt (BAD DOGS TOKIO FUNKA archive)

noripy (Vivids Migikata no Chou archive)

iroha(sasaki) (Kohane/Akito Roshin Yuukai archive)

n-buna (An/Toya Yoake to Hotaru archive, Umiyuri Kaiteitan cover, Meru cover)

and every producer of a cover song which has a 3DMV and has been performed in a Virtual Live. This includes (with their song(s) in brackets):

MikitoP (ROKI, Shoujorei, Yī Èr Fanclub)

Junky (Sweet Magic)

Sasanomaly (Jishou Mushoku)

Natsushiro Takaaki (Near)

nulut (Fragile)

toa (Tsugihagi Staccato)

Harumaki Gohan (Melty Land Nightmare)

koyori (Hitorinbo Envy)

Omoi (Teo)

Hinata Electric Works (Buriki no Dance)

164 (Time Machine)

40mP (Time Machine)

balloon (Charles)

Kurage-P/Wada Takeaki (Chururira Chururira Daddadda!)

doriko (Romeo to Cinderella)

syudou (Bitter Choco Decoration)

NayutalieN (Dance Robot Dance)

Kitani Tatsuya (Akuma no Odorikata)

Fujiwara Motoo/the band BUMP OF CHICKEN (ray)

Neru (Lost One no Goukoku)

Umetora (Ifuudoudou)

Yunosuke (PaIII.SENSATION)

Teniwoha (Villain)

sasakure.UK (Lost and Found)

DECO*27 (Vampire)

JIN (Children Record)

Pinnochio-P (Non-Breath Oblige)

rerulili (Kami no Manimani)

Kikuo (Aishite Aishite Aishite)

Hachioji-P (Kimagure Mercy)

Hayashi Kei (Hello, Worker)

Hiiragi Kirai (Love ka?)

(Ikanaide, Karakuri Pierrot, Egoist, Okochama Sensou, glow, Totemo Suteki na Rokugatsu Deshita, Nounai Kakumei Girl, Shiroi Yuki no Princess wa, Sukina Koto Dake de Ii Desu, Akuyaku ni Kiss Scene o have not been performed in a vlive yet)

Additionally

All the producers listed here (though, this is debatable since it was handled externally)

Presumably all the producers of the vsinger 3DMVs that aren't already listed above (Livetune, Re:nG, SLAVE.V-V-R, JimmyThumb-P)

And any lyricists/arrangers not listed above (q*left, Rockwell, REOL, etc)

Possibly mothy, Hitoshizuku-P, yama (based on Rui's reference to storytelling with Vocaloid and these being the most famous for doing so thus most likely to be the subject of the reference)

#asks #lore

75 notes · View notes

slavghoul · 2 years

Note

Slav, do you ever just get the feeling that Ghost is getting turned into everything it shouldn’t be? I have always frowned on gatekeeping things and exposure is good for a band’s success etc but it’s putting me in the mind of all of the various things in the world that were ruined by too many tourists. Like national parks getting trampled or famous statues being discolored after everyone needed to touch it. You know? To be fair I’m a chronic overthinker but I can’t help but feel like I’m witnessing it (the fan side, not the music itself) being twisted into exactly what Tobias would hate.

This response came out VERY lengthy, I apologize in advance.

To answer your question shortly: yes, I do feel that way sometimes. However, I would be hesitant to involve TF in this discussion because I don't know him on a level that would allow me to gauge his true feelings on any particular matter. If I were to say "I hate it when Ghost fans [blah blah blah], because he would hate that!" it would only be an attempt to justify my own opinion about something, not a genuine concern for his feelings. Implicitly, I would also be shaming other fans and making them think that they are enjoying the band "the wrong way" when in reality, they simply enjoy it differently than me. That's unfair because I have no right to dictate how others should perceive Ghost. Everyone's experience with the band is unique and personal to them, and I have no authority to infringe upon that.

I think the sort of disillusionment that you describe is a common experience when you're a fan of virtually anything and it evolves. There's no solution for it. It just is what it is. The question is, to what extent is it a result of the band "being turned into something it shouldn't be" and how much of it is simply due to our own personal sense of nostalgia?

If you became a fan of the band several years ago, you'll likely always look back on those times through rose-tinted glasses. No other experience will ever compare to the emotions you felt back then, because they were formative and unique to that time in your life. You may continue to enjoy the band, but it's unlikely that anything will be able to replicate the same level of excitement and anticipation you felt when you were first introduced to them.

Of course, it's true the band has evolved and there's no denying that the community has undergone a significant shift over time. If you had seen them in concert a decade ago, the majority of the audience were people in their 20s and 30s. You had an odd kid here and there and the occasional, let's say, 'senior citizen' headbanging, but majority were young adults. It made for a very different dynamic which was also reflected in online spaces in terms of what was being discussed, how it was being discussed, and what the focus was on. These days, Ghost attracts a much wider age range with a significant portion of their current fans being on the younger side, pre-teens and teenagers. That's fantastic actually, I am very happy that is the case and I welcome them all. However, being 30-ish myself, I simply don't enjoy things in the same way they do and I don't focus on the same things they do.

It's very easy to become jaded when that's the case because you start to feel like you're no longer part of the target audience, and that can be disheartening. I make a conscious effort to prevent that from becoming an issue for me because I love Ghost dearly. At its core, it is still the same band I fell in love with. TF is doing exactly the same thing he has always done, but now on a larger scale, obviously. It's not being transformed into anything it hasn't been before. It's a bit more commercialized, sure, but that's not a crime.

Basically, it's up to us to decide how we want to engage with what is being offered. You need to find a way of consuming Ghost in a way that is comfortable to you or else you may get disenchanted very fast.

At the risk of sounding like a giant dick, I will admit that I intentionally stay away from the fandom and don't follow anyone because.. man, it's actually impossible to say this without sounding like a dick.. because I don't see eye to eye with majority of other fans and it taints my experience if I see too much of what others are saying or doing. To reiterate the point I made earlier, it doesn't mean that others are doing anything wrong and I'm doing it right; no, we are simply doing it differently. I made peace with the fact that I can't control how others act and that's completely fine. I live in my own little Ghost bubble, which, although solitary, is a tranquil place. I decide what I want to see and what I want to share, and who I want to talk to and about what. That's my way of remaining levelheaded and keeping the thoughts you describe at bay.

Apologies for crafting a whole ass high school essay on this fine Friday evening.. if you know me you know that I think and talk a fucking lot, hehe. I don't even know if anything of what I said makes sense, probably not. If you're still reading, thank you and sorry!

223 notes · View notes