#I always welcome civil and constructive discussion

[canichangemyblogname]

Okay! So I have seem some people, understandably, critiquing the training exercise that Anakin assigns Ahsoka in Tales of the Jedi.

This? It's dangerous. It's irresponsible. It's a sure way to give someone a concussion. Over. And over. And over. It's exactly the kind of harebrained and reckless idea Anakin would have.

But the test was not designed to help her eventually survive O66. It was designed because Anakin didn't like the standard exercises every Jedi has to do. He thought the test wasn't tough enough, so designed a similar test that was "tougher."

And this standard test was likely designed for a couple reasons. The first and likely primary reason is that the simulation helps test a Jedi on their foot control and precision of saber movements. You can see that she doesn't have much area to jump or maneuver around. A secondary lesson might be that the practice could help prepare a Padawan in the event they're in the field and surrounded. The bots are designed to simulate battle droids, after all.

The exercise literally isn't designed with stamina and resourcefulness in mind.

Fortunately, TCW did illustrate, time and time again, that Ahsoka is resourceful in her fights. The Citadel Arc. The arc when she is kidnapped by Trandoshans. The arc in season 5 when pirates attack her and the younglings. And also the "Wrong Jedi" arc when Ahsoka must outrun and escape an entire Gar battalion. So, it was well established that she is able to hold her own and it was established that she had the ability to create the circumstances for her own survival in instances where the field was open and manipulatable and she had assistance. She had already learned how to create her own opportunity or means to escape a sticky situation and how to think in a way where once she had the means or opening to escape, she is able to do so effectively and smartly.

But did she have the stamina and blade skills to create said opening so she then had an opportunity to escape? Especially when surrounded or cornered and alone?

The point of O66 was to literally surround and corner the Jedi. As seen by these dialogue prompts in Jedi: Fallen Order.

Jedi who found themselves with the opportunity to escape (like Kanan, Cal, and Ahsoka, Obi Wan, and Yoda, to name a few) would escape. And at that point, many of them were as good as gone.

And it has been illustrated over and over that when Jedi are cornered and surrounded:

like with Minas Velti,

Ima-Gun Di,

Aayla Secura,

Depa Billaba,

and Jaro Tepal...

... that they can get far and that they have great saber movement and foot control and that they can use their skill to make time for others to get away or survive, but it also always marks the end. It's an impossible situation to get out of. And as much endurance and skill as they might have in many areas, this was never a situation they'd be prepared for or that they were trained to survive. And that was literally the point.

I'm going to hazard a guess that most Jedi did not have "practice" escaping being tracked and hunted (like in the "Wookie Hunt" arc), out running and out witting an entire GAR battalion (like in the "Wrong Jedi" arc), escaping high-security situations while surrounded by high levels of personnel (like in the Citadel arc), or to develop the physical endurance and agility to last long enough to create an out while literally surrounded or cornered (like with the reckless training exercise Anakin puts her through).

Anakin made the test about having no way out and being overwhelmed. He made a test likely about footwork into one about developing the endurance and skill to hold off until you can create the circumstances of your escape while being surrounded or cornered and alone.

Ahsoka said it herself that every Jedi had to take the standard test. And there are a lot of flaws with that it. It isn't designed with the idea of creating the means to escape being surrounded, but to just hold off and hold off until the end of the simulation. I have no doubt that primary purpose would be to practice foot work with blade movements. But in terms of the secondary lesson, it mostly trains them for a speedy defeat against battle droids while having no way out. But the fact that every Jedi has to take it goes to show that they were not really taught to get out of being surrounded outside a quick simulation. Because why would they need to be? Not like they knew O66 was coming.

I get that the reason Dave Felony wrote and produced this episode was just to parallel O66, but I do think that in terms of the test's secondary lesson (developing the skill and endurance and having the practice in the event you're surrounded with no immediate out), Anakin's was far more reckless yet likely more effective.

Because this:

...was always going to be a near impossible situation to escape from. Without the endurance, foot work, or blade skill to hold off until there was a means and opportunity to escape, Ahsoka would not have survived.

#Ahsoka Tano #Anakin Skywalker #Tales of the Jedi #The Clone Wars #Jedi Fallen Order #The Bad Batch #Order 66 #if you think this is the worst take in existence #I always welcome civil and constructive discussion

[melverie]

So......about Solomon

Before we get started: Discussions on this post are more than welcomed as long as you keep it civil and constructive. At the end of the day, this is still a game about fictional characters, so there's no reason to literally harass others over liking or disliking a character If it truly upsets you that much--which is valid btw--than the best thing to do would probably be to simply not engage with the other party, and not harass them over it; you won't change anyone's mind that way. I know most of you aren't like this but unfortunately it still needs to be said Also, if you want me to add sources to some points, feel free to ask! I've tried to mention the chapters as I go, but I might still have forgotten some. Some of the arguments I make are also hidden behind certain player options; if you can't find them, fell free to ask about them and I'll gladly tell you Also also, general spoiler warning for both the og game and Nightbringer. I'm not really covering anything specific after lesson 60 in the og game and lesson 14 in NB, but I might still mention things from later lessons

Now, onto the actual topic. There've been quite a few arguments against Solomon in the past few days, but I mostly just want to focus on those three:

Solomon wanted to force MC into killing Lucifer at the end of season 2 in the og game

Solomon betrayed the brothers and keeps hiding behind "wanting to protect humanity" as a scapegoat for his actions (putting these two together bc I think they go hand in hand, but it'll make more sense later)

Solomon tricked Asmodeus into a pact without his consent

This entire thing is very long, so feel free to jump around if one point interests you more than another

Solomon wanted to force MC into killing Lucifer at the end of season 2 in the og game

[mainly 38-12, og & 38-15, og]

He did, yeah. But here's the thing

They were all forced into a corner since the fate of all three realms was on the line here, and with the Ring of Light's whereabouts still being unknown at the time, they literally had no other choice if they wanted to save everyone. It wasn't Solomon that randomly decided the only way to restore the Night Dagger's power was by killing a powerful demon, it's always been that way. And he can't just be like "Oh well, let's switch strategies then and focus on finding the Ring of Light" when the entire cast (minus Simeon) has no idea where the ring is and the last time any of them saw it was centuries to millennia ago, if not longer. They don't have the time to search for it considering all the destruction MC's Ring has already caused in such a short period of time

Solomon first tells MC to do kill Luci, only to add that he was just joking and knows MC would never actually go through with it. Then, he says that if they wouldn't do it, he'd do it himself. Which kinda sounds like forcing, right? Except this happens [38-15, og; pic below]:

He was prepared to, which doesn't clear him of trying to indirectly force MC, let's get that straight. But ultimately he drops it and accepts that maybe their only option really is to just die here. This is also the only time we see him acting against his beliefs btw

Also yes, Solomon might not have been the one that decided they needed to kill a powerful demon, but he seems to be the one that settled on said demon being Lucifer. The only other viable options would most likely be Diavolo and Barbatos. Don't know if the Demon King in his vegetative state still counts but similar to Diavolo, killing him would probably be seen as a direct declaration of war, so they're out. And from a strategic standpoint, Barbatos is the better option to be kept alive simply because of his powers. There most likely also is some kind of sentimental attachment at play here since Solomon is much closer to Barbatos than he is to Lucifer. None of justifies killing Lucifer of course, but we also need to acknowledge that everyone's hands were tied, they were out of time and given the circumstances, this was probably the best decision they could have come to (until Simeon showed up with the Ring of Light, of course)

Solomon betrayed the brothers and keeps hiding behind "wanting to protect humanity" as a scapegoat for his actions

First of no, he did not betray them. Ever since the end of season 2 Solomon has made it clear that his ultimate goal is to protect humanity and that he, similarly to Diavolo in regards to the Devildom and its denizens*, would do anything in his power to protect the human world and its inhabitants [38-15, og; pic in the point above] [38-19, og; pic below]

*friendly reminder that Belphie was charged with treason for planning to destroy the human world, since in Diavolo's eyes that would have severely damaged the chance of peace between the three realms [13-14, og]

Solomon continuously sticks to his beliefs. He said he'd protect humanity, and that's what he's doing. He never extended that kind of protection to the brothers, he never made any false promises, he didn't betray them in any way, nothing

I'd also like to point out he's not actively going out of his way to antagonize demons, or angels, or whatever. In fact, he even explicitly says that he does not wish to make an enemy out of either party [10-A, NB; pic below], which of course also extends to the brothers

You can even outright ask him if he's planning on backstabbing the brothers, and this is what he has to say [11-8, NB; pic below]:

And you know what? That is a valid concern. They can't say for sure what the future holds, and they just recently had to deal with the entire Ring situation that could have very easily destroyed all three realms, so wanting to be cautious and to be prepared for the worst makes sense. He also makes it clear that he does not wish to fight the brothers if it can be avoided, so there's that

And no, he's also not tricking MC into siding against the brothers in Nightbringer. Rather, he just wants to know that they're fighting for humanity should the relationship between humans and demons in general ever turn hostile. He puts the cards open on the table and gives a proper explanation to his reasoning for siding with humanity [11-8, NB], and once again goes a little further into detail before MC gives their answer [14-16, NB; pic below]. Plus it's up to the player if they choose to stand with him or not, and no matter what you choose, he accepts the decision

Also keep in mind that season 3 heavily suggests that the human world at large has no idea that angels and demons even exist, so MC is pretty much the only one he can even ask to help protect humanity alongside him to begin with. He can't just go up to a random guy on the street and ask them to fight something who's existence they aren't even aware of in the first place

Imo Solomon also seems to know more about where things might be heading than he lets on, with him actually knowing Nightbringer and whatnot, so granting himself some peace of mind by making sure he has at least one ally is perfectly reasonable

Also, Solomon is very much aware that he is not infallible. For example, he states that he realized he still has a lot more to learn about demons [60-20, og], and he even admits that he doesn't always know what the right course of action to any given situation is, which was part of the reason he first asked MC to help him with protecting humanity all the way back in season 2 [38-19, og; first pic below]. In season 2 he actually wanted for MC to be aware of what's happening, but it was Diavolo that decided it would be better to keep them in the dark for the time being [36-18, og]. He trusts MC's judgment and that they will help him make the correct decisions [14-16, NB; second pic below]

Solomon tricked Asmodeus into a pact without his consent

Before I get into anything, let's summarize the base situation so everyone's on the same page. This is based on the things Asmo tells us [53-16, og], as well as the things Sol tells us [6-18, NB]:

Asmo was trying to flirt with someone but their friends kept on telling him to leave them alone since he's a demon -> Asmo's dejected by this and goes to a tavern in Solomon's hometown

Solomon notices and feels sorry for him; he offers to talk to him and they chat for a bit

Asmo lets it slip that he's Lucifer's younger brother

they get drunk and end up forming a pact -> Solomon says that he was only able to forge a pact with Asmo because his judgment was impaired at the time

Right of the bat--yes, the way Solomon got his pact with Asmo is not okay. I'm not putting that up for debate. He fully took advantage of Asmo here, and there's nothing that can excuse that. I also want to make it very clear that it is in no way my intention to relativize this in any way. The way he went about getting this pact is, to put it simply, fucked up and I do not wish to condone that in any way. With the following points I simply want to explain how I see things. Maybe it'll put things in a slightly different perspective for you, maybe it won't. Now, I hope I made that clear enough, so let's continue

The way I see it, Asmo seems to be pretty okay with the pact. From the way he acts around Solomon in the present day all the way to him describing his reaction to the pact as just a "did I really sign that" [53-16, og], nothing seems to suggest that he holds any ill feelings towards Solomon, and personally I don't see any reason to be angry for someone who himself seems to take no issue with a situation that is directly about him

If it were as upsetting to Asmodeus as some make it out to be, surely he would have found a way to get out of it? Asmo is one of the most powerful demons in the Devildom; if he truly wanted to break the pact he could have just killed Solomon and that's it. And if the pact itself somehow prevented him from doing so, I'm sure Lucifer would have more than gladly stepped in. Heck, I bet all of the brothers would have made it into a family thing in a heartbeat if Asmo wanted out but couldn't do anything himself. As Thirteen told MC, Solomon is immortal, not unkillable

But speaking of Lucifer, shouldn’t the same sentiment about forcing others into a pact be held toward him, too? Because he basically did the same thing with MC. This is what happens when you tell him you don’t want a pact with him [20-14, og; pic below]:

Yes, this comes down to player choice and yes, you need to make the pact for story continuity, but it ultimately does not change the fact that in-universe he forces MC into a pact if they say no

Also speaking of forcing others into a pact--Mammon and MC, anyone? Yes, MC did it because Levi asked them to so he could get his money back. We know they had no ill intentions. But you never know what the future holds and Levi literally proposed to basically hand over part of Mammon's agency over himself for the money Mammon owns him, to someone Levi has met about 5 minutes prior, knows nothing about and who's only been in the Devildom for a couple of hours at that point, no less. Lucifer also mentions that demons literally cannot resist temptation [4-10, og; pic below], so there literally was no way Mammon could have just noped out of that pact. We all know how badly he wants his credit card back, after all

To top it all of, we have MC's and Mammon's conversation in Nightbringer where Mammon explicitly says that he would only want to forge a pact with someone that is special to him [2-9, NB], and that he'd make sure to be their first pact [2-11, NB], yet he is forced into his pact with MC. A pact that ultimately turns out to be exactly what he wanted, but nonetheless he was stripped of the ability to say no when it was forged

And for the record, I'm not saying "oh, others did it too, so we shouldn't be so harsh on Solomon!!!" No! Forcing a demon into a pact isn't something that should be taken lightly. A pact literally means a demon hands a huge chunk of control of themself over to a human for as long as the pact exists. And on the other hand, for a human, making a pact with a demon usually means selling their soul. Neither party should EVER be forced into it. We of course don't know if MC actually sold their soul to Lucifer when they made their pact, but even if they didn't, Lucifer's "I won't belong to you. You will belong to me" speaks for itself

What I am trying to say here is that if you want to be mad at Solomon for forcing Asmo into a pact without Asmo's consent (which, again, is valid), you should also be mad at MC for forcing Mammon, and Lucifer for forcing MC into a pact

Anyway, back to Solomon now

Solomon actually admits that he used to treat demons like collectables--more or less, at least since he immediately follows the confession up with "just kidding" [14-14, NB]. Judging by what we've seen in the og game though, he seems to genuinely make an effort to better his relationship with the demons he has made a pact with, or at the very least with Asmo and Barbatos. I mean, the difference between Sol's relationship with Barbs in the og game vs in Nightbringer is night and day

In the present time, Asmo and Solomon are also super close. I literally cannot think of a single instance where they did not get along (though it might have happened like once or twice). You can literally pic any part in the og game to see their relationship play out, but some highlights include Solomon saying he got a huge oil painting of Asmodeus as his "permit" to summon Asmo across worlds [39-13, og] (which is not something you would allow someone you hate to do btw) and both of them mentioning that the two of them repeatedly hang out together in the human world [Proud Brothers, devilgram on Asmo's page, og], the hickey on Solomon's neck that's most likely Asmo's doing [Who Left the Hickey?, daily chat with Mammon, og]. Asmo (while drunk) is comfortable enough to tell Solomon that his cooking sucks and Solomon actually takes it to heart [47-16 hard mode, og]. Then there's Asmo's excitement at Solomon being in the Devildom for the first time [Proud Brothers, devilgram on Asmo's page, og; both of the pics below]

There's also that infamous chat pic of them doing face masks together (that I unfortunately don't know which chat it belongs to, so if someone could tell me, I'd appreciate it <3)

I don't know about you guys, but that's not typically an activity I do with someone I despise

So it's clear that current day Asmo holds no malice toward Solomon

Which, finally, leaves us with the way they forged their pact in Nightbringer

[mainly 7-12, NB & 7-15, NB]

@impish-ivy already went over it in this post, especially in the tags (I highly suggest checking out the reblogs as well btw), but to reiterate--Asmo was IN NO WAY forced into that pact. His brothers tried to talk him out of it, but at the end of the day Asmo willingly agreed to it. Yes, they were in a dangerous situation, and yes, Solomon used that as a basis to ask for the pact, but as ivy correctly points out in the tags, Lucifer could have easily handled the situation by himself, yet Asmo agreed regardless. By implying that Asmo was in any way, shape or form forced into that pact you're not only taking away a huge amount of his agency, but you also deny him his character moment and development that came with this scene. Asmo himself says that forging this pact will finally help him accept himself as a demon. Taking this moment from him is doing him a huge disservice

Aaaand that's pretty much all I have to say

If there's anything else you'd like to add, OR if there's anything you don't agree with, feel free to share! And once again, I'd like to remind everyone that civil and constructive discussions are more than welcomed on here!

Anyway, thank you all for reading, hope you have a great day! <3

#can't believe i'm writing something like this about some fictional guys that are loosely based on some other guys from the freaking bible #but here we are i guess #obey me #obey me swd #obey me nightbringer #obey me solomon #obey me asmodeus #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me mc #;mel's analyses #mel's starry musings

[novankenn]

Who I am.

I'm a gamer and writer, who currently is avoiding doing any original works by writing fan fiction. Mainly I write RWBY based stories, centred around Jaune Arc. I have pages on both AO3 and FF.net.

WARNING: If you are easily offended, triggered or under the age of 18 you ARE WARNED! While I try and keep things in "PG" zone, I will cross over into themes that you may find disturbing. DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

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If ANY of the links seem broken or the content is outdated, please let me know.

I'm Adding Story Codes to indicated the status of my stories. These TAGs will not apply to "Co-Labs" or "One-Shots" (C) = Complete - No other additions planned (H) = Hiatus - Story on hold until I work something out (RW) = ReWrite - Story getting a total redo (X) = Cancelled - I have no intentions to continue the story

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Story Collections

Nora In : Tea with Jaune's Family...

Jaune Gets a Gun - Alternate Universe (H)/ Jaune Gets an Upgrade - Alternate Universe (H)/ Fem!Jaune Stories / Horror Themed... / Co-Labs / Co-Labs (2) / One-Shots / 100 Words / 200 Words / Jaune's Got Skills / No Happy Ending... / No Fall AUs / Grimm-less AUs / AUs with Grimm

Other Stories Not in specific collections listed below...

Stigma (H) Crossover of RWBY & Final Fantasy 7

Original Work Teaser : the Bastard

/=====/ Side Blog : Streets of Vale /=====/ /=====/ Realms a Visual Novel /=====/

//===== Upcoming Insanity for 2024 =====//

#author is mentally unstable #people wonder about me #all images that are sourced from the web... this author makes no claim to own any rights to said images #creative writing #fan fiction #ai generated images

[ninainthetardis]

⚠️⚠️⚠️ HoFaS Spoilers ahead ⚠️⚠️⚠️

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Just a bunch of things about this finale that I wanted to get off my chest. I will start by saying that I found it overall underwhelming, unsatisfying and anticlimactic, so you can guess it's not going to be a positive rant here. This is the part of my GR review I haven't posted there.

Please, do not come at me under this post or the others. This is just my opinion, and I won't be answering any rude comment. I have the right to express my own disappointment. Those who want to have a constructive and respectful conversation are always welcome, though.

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• The crossover ended up being reeeeally underwhelming, and the whole Ruhn/Rhys thing that built the entire hype for this book was explained in the lamest way possible (and at a certain point even forgotten by the characters). Also, what the hell were those references to ToG that were just dropped there without further explanation? We know how the Fae from Prythian got to Midgard, but what about the ToG ones? How is it that Lidia has knowledge about her ancestors from the other world? Also, how could Lidia know she had fire magic even when Danika was alive if elemental magic had been hidden and kept dormient in every Vanir for centuries?

• I am not a big fan of Azriel and Bryce, and I am definitely not on the list of Nesta's fans, but you know what? This trio worked. For some reason, I liked to see them interacting, and I actually found Azriel and Nesta's dynamic an element that could be interesting if explored in the following acotar books. Maybe it's just that I didn't care about any of them enough to be bothered by the things I usually find annoying (Bryce), triggering (Nesta), and irritating (Azriel) in such characters.

Too bad Nesta screwed it up with the mask thing (which I have already discussed here) and in Ember/Randall's bonus chapter with the return of her spiteful, ungrateful, behaviour/attitude. I guess the best I can hope for when it comes to Nesta is to be civil to her and nothing more, just like it happened with post ToD Chaol. Slightly less even. Like, maybe she could stop triggering me every two pages. That would be progress and beyond any of my expectations, really. It would make the next acotar books much easier to read, though I cannot forget how she's been in the past.

• I didn't like the info dump both in the final part of the crossover and in the part with the Princes. I would have preferred some flashbacks showing what happened to the "tell don't show" technique SJM chose here. And finding out what happened in the First War, for me, was the most interesting point of the whole book, so that execution disappointed me.

• Why was everything resolved so easily? Bryce got everything she needed provided for, or told by someone else, she somehow managed to master new skills within a range of few seconds (the same can be told for Lidia and the other characters when freed of the infection) and the most interesting aspect of her character - her being so underpowered in comparison to the Asteri - Was totally nullified by the ridiculous amount of power she got along the way. Literally, all they did/tried to do, worked first try. Where is the struggle? Where is the pain KoA made me feel? Where are the emotions? The only moment I felt something was that "Light it up, Danika!" At the end of the book. Just that.

And where is the characters development? Ships development? Also, the always absent talking about traumas is really getting on my nerves. I'll be making examples about this later.

• What the hell was that recycled finale? It resembled KoA's finale. It even had the "Rhys is dead" plot twist, but with Bryce and with the same resolution. Also, what was the point of having characters killed in books 1 and 2 if Hypaxia could've just resurrected them within a couple of minutes? I hate the resurrection theme, especially when overused. It diminishes everything.

• I am apparently one of the few people who's given Hypaxia some consideration. She's been one of my favourites ever since the first book, but... in HoFaS she's just doing miracles, resurrecting people, and developing an antidote out of the blue in a couple of hours (really?), which brings me back to the fact that in this, everything happened too easily.

• So, SJM is trying to tell me that the Asteri were so clever to submit a population of powerful Vanir people for 15000 years, meanwhile keeping hidden form them that they were limiting and stealing their magic, - and even eating their dead's - but then failed to imagine Bryce's real plan because they were too arrogant? Wtf was that? Am i supposed to believe that Rigelus just underestimated her when in book 1, he was the one trying to keep her calm and content because he recognised how dangerous she was, after all she had done?

• What was the point of introducing Ariadne?

• I can't say I am totally disappointed in Jesiba's character, I just don't understand why the most powerful characters for magic or combat skills were kept away from the battle against beings as powerful as the Asteri lol Her arriving only at the end of the battle, Fury and Baxian being away... meh, everything was just kind of disappointing.

• Also, black holes? 🤨 no insights about the battle and the Princes fighting? All we got was literally: "The Princes killed the other Asteri, yay!". Did I mention that it was all so disappointing and anticlimactic?

• Now, let's move on to specific characters:

- Tharion "the funny one turned into Mr Boredom".

I have to say it. He was the king of repetitive povs in book 2, and just one of the many characters in this series who started off as being interesting only to become almost annoying by the end of it. But he's the friend who can't do anything right to the point you end up thinking your own bullshit is not that shitty. Repetitive povs and excessive whining (he was supposed to be the funny one sigh) aside, I kind of still care about him. And him and Sathia are unexpectedly interesting as a couple, but we'll see if they become an actual one. I also liked his sort of friendship with Ariadne. And the one with the Aux and Ithan, "the pack". Please, let him sort his shit out and be fine because he's such a mess I cannot even hold it against him, lol

- Bryce the Fa(k)e Woke Queen-lan

I won't say that Bryce's character was butchered here because there was nothing to butcher according to me, she's always been like this. It just became more evident.

From HoSaB to the end, she's been annoying. Though she had some moments of glory along the way, I have to admit that. But why was she convinced that she could be Aelin all of a sudden? She was never a strategist nor a planner (and her plans ALWAYS failed, except her plans in HoFaS? How's that?). Her most successful moments were due to improvisation, - prompted by survival instinct - and luck. Now she's suddenly an entitled overpowered mastermind lol

She has zero respect for others feelings/traumas, as usual she's always right and anyone who disagrees with her is just an alpha asshole, she's better and knows better than anyone else (and I am still trying to figure out why she's supposed to be any of those things) and she's constantly criticising anyone else... for things she does herself too. Great. Like, in the crossover she literally complains about Nesta and Az manipulating her while.. she was doing the very same thing to them? Just like in book 1, when she was complaining all the time about Fury not talking to her while she did the same thing to Ithan.

And what the hell were her plans, anyway? She was so desperately trying to be Aelin, but she never even had a chance. Leaving Baxian and Fury in a naturally protected place and not taking them to battle? How is that smart? Not calling Jesiba, the powerful witch, to join the battle? HOW IS ANY OF THAT SMART?

She had a whole conversation with Nesta before Rhys arrived, his shadows announced pages before? (Wtf?)

She bloody endangered Prythian, almost freed and unleashed an Asteri on Prythian's soil, and Nesta GAVE HER THE MASK? (WTF I-don't-even-know-which-part-this-is-anymore)

Now, should I comment on Bryce's total disrespect for her mate's trauma and past while he's always been thoughtful when it came to hers? I do not ship them AT ALL, and it's not because Hunt is boring as someone claims, but because Hunt deserved better, tbh and I loved them in book 1! Worst SJM main female character, really.

Also, please tell me again why she was supposed to be the queen of a species she literally hated and didn't want anything to do with. She was Queen of generalisation in that sense. I loved how Baxian called her out and made her realise that she was only considering what was convenient and conform to her prefixed, biased ideas (the speech where he compares wolves and fae). I mean, she was right about fae nobility, but there were innocents among the fae too and she was talking about how the whole species deserved obliteration, while claiming wolves were better (when statistically there was a huge amount of wolves who judged her just like the fae and did nothing to help during the attack, just like the fae... because they obey to their leaders, and Sabine was just as bad as Morven and the Autumn King. Wolves were not all like the Devil's pack, Ithan and Danika, just like fae were not all like the Autumn/Avallen king). All while not considering the fae among her group and treating Declan and Flynn like shit for absolute no reason. Or giving those shitty answers to Sathia about her plans for the fae people... she was a victim of the system more than Bryce tbh Bryce's wokeness would have been so much more believable, useful and coherent if she wasn't biased as the ones she accused or an alpha asshole herself.

I am sorry, but I just cannot stand her hypocrisy. And I cannot stand generalisation.

- Hunt "the powerbank" Athalar

He was literally conceived to be Bryce's powerbank first and later his shadow (Umbra Mortis?!) who follows her everywhere without even being given the chance to have a say in what they are going to do. Otherwise, he'd be acting like an alpha asshole. Just to be told not to make a fuss about being held captive and tortured with his friends. I'm so pissed for his arc, because he was so interesting in book 1, only for his povs to become repetitive and sometimes boring in book 2 and almost non existing in book 3, like he didn't have any inviduality other than being Bryce's mate and anchor. Also, how could he blame himself for anything when Bryce didn't even listen to his warnings/complains/objections, leaving him with no other choice but following her to get at least the chance to protect/help her?

And then she's like "I don't want you to just follow me, I want that you want to do this" (wtf?)

Bonus: being son of Apollion or Thanatos instead of somehow created by them in terms of powers would have been so much more interesting.

I liked his friendship with Ruhn and Baxian though, and missed him and Isaiah/Naomi.

- Ithan "I don't even know what I'm doing" Holstrom

Why was Ithan so damn sure Sigrid would be a good leader for the wolves is beyond me. He didn't know her. Literally, it was just because she was a Fendyr. That was his only argument in support of his theory. As if Sabine wasn't proof that being a Fendyr didn't automatically make you a good leader. As if Sigrid didn't act entitled and reckless and dominant and selfish and despotic the whole time. It's all she's done, really, and he did not expect that she was not that good as he wanted her so desperately to be? SHE AIMED TO KILL HIM IN THAT PIT! Him, the very person who risked everything to save her, the only person who ever cared about her! A person who was not trying to harm her despite the circumstances. She was not going to try and find another way even though she knew all those lives depended on the group getting out the Viper Queen's hands... it was self defense and I truly get his struggle to accept what happened BUT defeating the Asteri was the priority and the fact that she came back 5 seconds later as a creature that could not be killed and known for being dangerous, when it is known that messing with the dead usually leads to no good... did not exactly make me empathise at all with this whole arc. And after that, he was still whining about Sigrid instead of fully focusing on fighting the Asteri...

It's a pity because I really liked him before this Sigrid thing. But I'd be willing to give him a second - or should I say third? - chance. I think Perry may be his mate, anyway, and I am kind of curious about that.

- Ruhn/Lidia

I was totally unimpressed by them as a couple after book 2, but I thought they were getting interesting at the beginning of book 3. Then somehow Lidia felt entitled to be pissed at Ruhn because he was struggling to accept that Day was the Hind (wtf) and then Ruhn felt entitled to be pissed at Lidia for not talking to him about her past (wtf part 2). Only to forget/postpone all of their issues because they were horny and about to go to battle against the Asteri. That's not ship building/development. Ruhn shooting her was too much, even if he was trying to protect her and sacrifice himself. But that idea made no sense and had literally no use or purpose. Why did SJM think it would be a good idea? Adding some drama/shock value element that was totally uncalled for and that only resulted in diminishing a ship that wasn't even well developed to begin with? Because it served nothing and it was dumb. Leaving Lidia wounded and vulnerable. One of the best assets they had in that battle - and they didn't bring many with them. Just like clockwork hadn't been for Tharion, they would have all been dead five seconds later.

To think that the fact that Lidia already had two kids was such an interesting and unexplored arc for mates... sigh, I am disappointed.

I am happy that it was Ruhn to deal with the Autumn King in the end, though. He deserved closure and to free himself of that monster. I am quite sad that his character never had the chance to fully come out.

Lidia carried the whole book. I loved her.

- Baxian/Danika

They truly were the most interesting ship in this series. I hope there will be a flashback book/novella about them. I swear I would love it. Their dynamic is also interesting, and I'd love to get to know Baxian better. But maybe, we will?

To sum up, this series left me absolutely nothing. I do not care enough about any of the characters, I didn't get particularly affectionate to any of them. Its major strength was the focus on friendship, but after the first book, it was almost absent, the principle only slightly reminded by Ruhn, Dec and Flynn/Hunt, Rhun, and Baxian. The premises of the story in general were so good (HoEaB), but the execution through book 2 and 3 was so poor it disappointed me. It's not a bad series, it is entertaining in its own way... it's just a bit "undertone" if compared to the other SJM series, it lacked of emotions, plot/characters/ships development and impact, I don't know how to say it. I hope the next books will be better. My guess is on Ithan, Tharion, Flynn next. Or even Sathia, considering that SJM prefers female povs. I wish we'd seen Fury and Juniper a bit more, and Dec and Marc, but they are established couples, so I don't think we'll see any of them as main. Flynn has that slightly hinted thing with Ariadne, who was introduced and forgotten, so maybe she'll be important later? I want to stay optimistic lol

I wished there was a better development for Ruhn and Lidia as a couple, though, and Ruhn as a character because I think they'll be side characters from now on. Also, why on earth was their marriage in a bonus chapter? That's not extra content. That's the ending for two of the main characters. It's not fair!

Btw, imo the only memorable characters in this series so far are Danika, Baxian, Aidas, and Lidia.

#hofas spoilers #hofas review #anti bryce #anti bryce quinlan #anti nesta #this is just the rant of a disappointed reader

[cumulations]

Resonance for November 30, 2023

Highlights of the Week

Welcome to another thought-provoking edition of our post series. I realize that I’ve missed a few weeks, but it’s not as though there’s been a dearth of material to report. This week, we delve into the important issue of AI safety and security that has been addressed in President Biden’s Executive Order issued this week. The order, which has been summarized in a Fact Sheet, aims to safely navigate the dynamic field of AI while protecting American interests. Yet to be seen is whether the interests of other parties are clearly involved.

In the world of AI research, we take a look at an intriguing project by Google DeepMind. The work, centered around the evolution and adaptation of prompts for AI, demonstrates the impact that methodical, iterative prompt strategy can have on the performance of large language models.

We also cast a light on an interesting report from Stanford, discussing the transparency, or rather, lack thereof, amongst popular AI foundation models. The findings are particularly timely given the unfolding policies in the US, UK and the EU.

Venturing into the realm of data engineering, our focus shifts to the efforts of the Data Provenance Initiative. With a mission to audit and improve the use of AI training datasets, their work is a testament to the importance of transparency and responsible data usage.

So, sit back and prepare yourself for a journey into the heart of this week’s intersections of technology, government, and economics. As always, we encourage your to sharing these insights within your network.

What got my attention?

Policy

Executive Order on Save, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence

As I am putting this issue of the Resonance Calendar together, I am waiting to hear a White House press briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby. In advance of the briefing, The White House has issued a FACT SHEET: President Biden Issues Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence. The timing is somewhat predictable, given that the AI Safety Summit takes place this week in the UK at Bletchley Park. We should have more to say on that next week. In the meantime, the US Administration has set out its positions, and is hoping to make this week in the UK a constructive and historic event.

President Biden has issued an Executive Order to establish new standards for AI safety and security. The order also aims to protect Americans' privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers and workers, promote innovation and competition, advance American leadership worldwide, and more. The order directs actions such as requiring developers of powerful AI systems to share safety test results with the government, developing guidelines for federal agencies to evaluate the effectiveness of privacy-preserving techniques, and expanding bilateral, multilateral, and multi-stakeholder engagements to collaborate on AI. The order is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s comprehensive strategy for responsible innovation.

(Summarized by GPT-3.5)

AI

PromptBreeder - LLM Prompt Mutation Strategies

The authors of PROMPTBREEDER: SELF-REFERENTIAL SELF-IMPROVEMENT VIA PROMPT EVOLUTION have written up a research project from Google DeepMind. While making no changes to the LLMs under test … adding nothing new to the training or finetuning … the authors show that methodical mutation of the prompts submitted can make exceptional differences in the scores they attain in various benchmark tests by which LLMs are now rated.

Think of them as the LLM SATs. And this DeepMind project as a preparatory course for students about to take the SATs. This goes that much further to support my personal view that prompt engineering represents the ‘programming’ aspects of utilizing LLMs. By analogy, as an industry we are first trying to understand the ‘language’ by which LLMs interact with humans, organizational processes and one another. Think of it as the job of linguists to understand the language of a newly discovered society. One needs to take care that we understand the nuances of a foreign language.

From the abstract:

Popular prompt strategies like Chain-of-Thought Prompting can dramatically improve the reasoning abilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) in various do-mains. However, such hand-crafted prompt-strategies are often sub-optimal. Inthis paper, we present PROMPTBREEDER, a general-purpose self-referential self-improvement mechanism that evolves and adapts prompts for a given domain.Driven by an LLM, Promptbreeder mutates a population of task-prompts, evaluates them for fitness on a training set, and repeats this process over multiple generations to evolve task-prompts. Crucially, the mutation of these task-prompts is governed by mutation-prompts that the LLM generates and improves throughout evolution in a self-referential way. That is, Promptbreeder is not just improving task-prompts, but it is also improving the mutation-prompts that improve these task-prompts. Promptbreeder outperforms state-of-the-art prompt strategies such as Chain-of-Thought and Plan-and-Solve Prompting on commonly used arithmetic and commonsense reasoning benchmarks. Furthermore, Promptbreeder is able to evolve intricate task-prompts for the challenging problem of hate speech classification.

The Foundation Model Transparency Index

Announced last week, this is more material for the processes about to start as a result of THIS week’s expected Executive Order from the White House.

Stanford University researchers have released a report called “The Foundation Model Transparency Index,” which examines the AI models of companies such as OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Anthropic, and found them lacking in transparency. The index graded 10 popular foundation models, with all receiving scores that the researchers found “unimpressive.” The researchers argue that greater transparency is essential to understanding the limitations and biases of AI models, and hope that the Transparency Index will serve as a resource for governments grappling with the question of how to potentially regulate the rapidly growing AI field.

(Summarized by GPT-3.5)

Data Engineering

The Data Provenance Initiative

The Data Provenance Initiative is a multi-disciplinary volunteer effort to improve transparency, documentation, and responsible use of training datasets for AI. Through a large scale audit of finetuning text-to-text datasets, referred to as the Data Provenance Collection, this initiative’s first release thoroughly documents their web and machine sources, licenses, creators, and other metadata.

From the Abstract of The Data Provenance Initiative: A Large Scale Audit of Dataset Licensing & Attribution in AI

The race to train language models on vast, diverse, and inconsistently documented datasets has raised pressing concerns about the legal and ethical risks for practitioners. To remedy these practices, threatening data transparency and understanding, we convene a multi-disciplinary effort between legal and machine learning experts to systematically audit and trace 1800+ finetuning datasets. Our landscape analysis highlights the sharp divides in composition and focus of commercially open vs closed datasets, with closed datasets monopolizing important categories: lower resource languages, more creative tasks, richer topic variety, newer and more synthetic training data. This points to a deepening divide in the types of data that are made available under different license conditions, and heightened implications for jurisdictional legal interpretations of copyright and fair use. We also observe frequent miscategorization of licenses on widely used dataset hosting sites, with license omission of 72%+ and error rates of 50%+. This points to a crisis in misattribution, and informed use of the most popular datasets, driving many recent breakthroughs. As a contribution to ongoing improvements in dataset transparency and responsible use, we release our entire audit, with an interactive UI, the Data Provenance Explorer, which allows practitioners to trace and filter on data provenance for the most popular open source finetuning data collections: www.dataprovenance.org.

[a-miraculous-confession]

Please feel free to ask me anything, including about Miraculous Ladybug.

PLEASEEEEE.....🙂🙏

(All opinions and constructive criticism are welcome!)

And please be respectful to each other if you want to have a discussion or have different opinions,rants, constructive criticism,etc.

DISCLAIMER:This post is 100% purely on my opinion,ok?

NO THREAT IN ANY FORM AND INSULT THAT IS PROBLEMATIC AND CAN BREAK PEOPLE'S HEART,OKAY?

Try to be civil and reasonable,all right?

Thank you.

Also,to those people who find my post a little bit unsettling and planning/thinking to block me,I apologize for everything that I'm made,OK? I'm sorry for everything.

P.S:You can ask me in the Ask button up there(always open)or in the comment section down below, and we can have a chat.(No pun intended). Also, don't forget to Blaze my post and give me some Gifts (if you want to). Feel free to message me(as long it is not something obscene and threatening).

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous #send me asks #mlb shitpost

[rainbowsky]

Oath of Love Postponed

GG has called upon all of us to behave calmly and rationally and to not get involved in any fanwars over this. Please show GG the love and respect that he deserves by heeding his words. No conspiracy theories, no gossip, no negativity and no arguing.

It's important for all of us to remember the new guidelines and consequences that have been put into place lately and have been enforced heavily on c-social media. Fanwars about this can and will harm GG. Please take this seriously.

His full personal message and his studio message are under the cut.

Thank you for your attention, and thank you for understanding and supporting the normal schedule and adjustment of the work as I did.

I once said that I envy everything about Lao Gu. If he writes his life with flowers, then his life must be full of sunflowers. I love this kind of life, and I hope everyone lives like this. Thank you for making the waiting process beautiful.

In the future, please continue to respond to the call for "clearness". Together, we contribute to the construction and maintenance of a good network environment. I also hope that everyone can actively and fully welcome a good life, down-to-earth, and live their own days!

Xiao Zhan

The postponement of "The Oath of Love" is the normal schedule adjustment of the broadcasting platform. Both the actor and the studio understood and supported this move. No matter when the actor's work meets with you, I believe that everything is the best arrangement. At the same time, I take this opportunity to hope all friends who support and love Xiao Zhan:

As always, actively respond to the call of the "Qing Lang" series of special actions, go online in a civilized manner, discuss rationally, and chase stars rationally. Like everyone, we resist all online violence.

Not be instigated by malicious rumors, and refuse any act of inciting war. If you find that someone has used malicious clashes to create group opposition, please send the specific content to the studio’s mailbox or actively give feedback to the platform.

The Internet is not illegal. After the normal schedule and adjustment of the extended series on the platform, if people with ulterior motives use malicious slander, verbal violence, and confuse warfare, spread rumors, spread rumors, spread hatred, and disrupt the network environment that we all work together to maintain, the team All rights to be investigated by legal means are reserved. Everyone needs to be responsible for their own words and deeds, and we firmly oppose illegal acts that maliciously interfere with public opinion and disrupt the order of dissemination. The reputation and goodwill lawsuits initiated earlier are also in continuous progress.

I hope all friends who support and love Xiao Zhan can live a good life every day.

Xiao Zhan Studio

#xiao zhan #ool #love not war

[p-h03n1-x]

Oath of Love Update

It started with Tencent’s post, informing that Oath of Love, which was originally scheduled to air on Sept 8, the broadcast date will be delayed and viewers will be notified separately

Then came Xiao Zhan’s weibo post.

Thank you for your attention, and thank you for understanding and supporting the normal schedule and adjustment of the work as I did. I once said that I envy everything about Lao Gu. If he writes his life with flowers, then his life must be full of sunflowers. I love this kind of life, and I hope everyone lives like this. Thank you for making the waiting process beautiful. In the future, please continue to respond to the call for "clearness". Together, we contribute to the construction and maintenance of a good network environment. I also hope that everyone can actively and fully welcome a good life, down-to-earth, and live their own days!

And next came Xiao Zhan Studio Weibo post

"The rest of my life, please advise" has been postponed, which is the normal schedule adjustment of the broadcasting platform. Both the actor himself and the studio understand and support this move. No matter when the actor's work meets with you, I believe that everything is the best arrangement. At the same time, I take this opportunity to hope all friends who support and love Xiao Zhan:

1. As always, actively respond to the call of the "Qing Lang" series of special actions, go online in a civilized manner, discuss rationally, and chase stars rationally. We, like everyone else, resist all online violence. the behavior of.

2. Not be instigated by malicious rumors, and refuse any act of inciting war. If you find that someone has used malicious incitement to create group opposition, please send the specific content to the studio’s mailbox or actively give feedback to the platform.

3. The Internet is not an illegal place. After the normal scheduling and adjustment of the extended series on the platform, if people with ulterior motives use malicious slander, verbal violence, and confuse wars, spread rumors, spread rumors, spread hatred, and disrupt the network environment that we all work together to maintain, the team All rights to be investigated by legal means are reserved. Everyone needs to be responsible for their own words and deeds. We firmly oppose malicious interference with public opinion and disrupt the order of transmission. The reputation and goodwill lawsuits initiated earlier are also in continuous progress.

4. I hope all friends who support and love Xiao Zhan can live a good life every day.

Xiao Zhan Studio

#xiao zhan #xiao zhan weibo update #xiao zhan studio weibo update

[buckysforever]

PLEASE READ

in this post i just want to go over my boundaries and disclaimers. i put the basic ones in my bio but i do want to make everything explicitly clear so here are my rules:

please note that these may be updated as i go along, i’m not new to tumblr but i am new to posting so i’m trying to get everything figured out!

- i am a minor, i do not write or read smut and i do not write heavily mature content. i’m not against writing about people getting hurt or light bleeding but i will not write about gruesome deaths, explicit violence, consumption of drugs or alcohol, s/a or r*pe, DGGL, incest, and as previously stated, smut.

-  i respect peoples boundaries and i expect the same. i do not read any sort of smut and i do not interact with 18+ blogs. i understand that i am young but the topics i am choosing to write and read about are things i consider appropriate for myself. i would not write or read anything i wouldn’t want my parents to see. if you are an adult and you would like to interact with my work, i have absolutely no problem with that. if you are an 18+ blog and you interact with my work i will not interact with you but i want to make it clear that i also have no issues with that. to add to the topic of 18+ blogs i’m not sure if 18+ includes messaging but if you are an 18+ blog and would like to message me privately for any reason, i am 100% okay with that and i still will not read your work. i know my limits and i know what people post on this site, i monitor my own content and i am conscious of what i am consuming. i know that some adults have a problem with minors being on this app at all and if that is you i am asking you now to block me, i will not argue with people on this.

- i am a very anxious person who has no problem taking breaks and blocking people when things get tough. i’m just looking for a place to share my work and constructive criticism is always welcome (please be nice, i am sensitive 😂).

- there will be absolutely no racism, homophobia, colorism, transphobia, ableism, misogyny, or antisemitism on my page. my block button is going to be used frequently and i will not entertain any mocking or disrespect to those (and more) oppressions. i’m open to having (civil and respectful) discussions about social justice issues and privilege when i’m feeling up to it. microagressions to me and other people will not be tolerated.  i will block those who do not apologize for microagressing people and i will speak up for oppressed communities if i see any offensive content posted. if you find anything i post offensive to your community please, please do not hesitate to let me know and i will accommodate to your wishes regarding my harmful post.

- as of right now i only write for chris evans and mcu characters including: bucky barnes, steve rogers, natasha romanoff, and peter parker. i will not write for sebastian stan or scarlett johansson.

- i write with black women in mind and i will only be writing for black women if a race specific request is submitted, i am african american and i am only comfortable writing about that culture if requested. the majority of my work will include no physical description of the reader. 

- i will always have trigger warnings tagged when sensitive topics are being discussed (for example: blood -> “tw blood”) 

- i will remain anonymous-ish for the time being. i don’t mind answering personal questions to an extent, i will let you know if i’m not comfortable sharing certain things. 

- i do take requests that fit within my comfort zone, aka my boundaries. 

- my work is written and edited by me and i do not consent to reposting, rewording, translation, or rewriting my work without my permission.

i will take the main idea from each bullet point that i think people should know before they interact with my blog and put them at the beginning of every piece writing i post. i hold myself accountable to read and respect peoples wishes and i hope that you all can extend the same curtesy to me. i’m very excited to post my writing and my main goal of this blog is to learn and grow as a writer and make friends. i tried my best to bold the things i found most important for those who have trouble focusing and absorbing information (like myself). thank you to those who read what you could from this, words cannot describe how much i am looking forward to writing and i hope you all enjoy my work!

#psa #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes headcannon #bucky barnes drabble #bucky barnes x female!reader #bucky barnes x black!reader #bucky barnes x you #steve #steve rogers #steve rogers x reade #steve x reader #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers drabble #steve rogers headcannon #steve rogers x female!reader #steve rogers x black!reader #steve rogers x you

[xpao-bearx]

I was abt to read your haikyuu ff on wattpad sadly it's an oc. Your oc sucks, could've been better if a x reader

AHHHH OMG MY FIRST EVER HATE ASK!!! Welcome, welcome! Have a seat and stay a while, I'm actually very happy to converse with cowards who hide behind anon and spew stupid bullshit~ \(^o^)/

No one is AT ALL obligated or inclined to like my OC or my fanfic. If you don't like her or my story, then that's totally fine! What matters is that I love my OC and I'm more than happy that some other people like her, too, and are kind enough to support trashy ol' me. And no matter what you or anyone else says to me, the fact will NEVER change that my OC brings me sooo much joy and I will still continue writing my fic (no matter what a fuckin' lazy ass I am to update LMAO xD)!

I also LOVE x Reader stories and I write them, too, but I'm not angry with this ask at all. I'm just more so confused? Like, if you personally don't like OCs then that's alright, but I SERIOUSLY do not understand and see the appeal of you coming on to strangers' inboxes to spread your hateful opinion that's frankly just fucking stupid and literally no one asked for it??? 🤔 I'm always open for GOOD constructive criticism so that I can see what you think and perhaps improve myself if necessary and CIVIL discussion even if we may not agree over something, but if anything this ask just shows me how awful and braindead you are and I really have no need to associate myself with you other than putting you back in your lowly place 😊

Also, what confuses me more is that on literally EVERY single post or whatever where I've promoted my fic, I've stated that it features an OC that I've made. Plus when you go on my story, it BOMBARDS you straight up that it's sooo obviously an OC story even just by first reading the summary. So where the fuck have YOU been???

Another thing is that, even if I DID make my fanfic an x Reader, everything else will still probably be the same. Y/N would still act like my OC and such in order for the fic to work. So it really makes no difference, I think, and in conclusion: YOU. DON'T. FUCKING. MATTER!!! 🥰

#Pao Answers!

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

The Reblog Reproach

Alright, so, we have all seen the ongoing conversation which seems to rear it’s head over and over again. Writers feel their work isn’t being reblogged enough and don’t feel they are receiving enough feedback for their work. It’s an exhausting cycle isn’t it. For both writers and readers alike. So let me say a few things.

FOR WRITERS:

IT’S TOTALLY OKAY TO WANT FEEDBACK AND RECOGNITION. However, there is a difference between asking and demanding. I feel like this conversation hasn’t been productive because the approach of many writers is to in a way shame their audience for their “lack of interaction”. Yes, it can get frustrating when a fic just kinda floats in space but just because you have more likes than reblogs doesn’t make it a failure. It is even easier for a reader to read and not click the like at all.

INTERACTION IS NOT A PRECURSOR TO ENTERTAINMENT. I understand you want you readers to talk to you, you enjoy the interaction. Hell, I get so excited discussing my stories and it’s so much fun but I also understand that some people will read a story and just not have much to say about it. That’s okay.

LECTURING READERS OVER AND OVER WILL NOT IMPROVE THE SITUATION. A lot of readers will tell you that they see fics as a form of escapism. They don’t open the app to be reprimanded for “lack of appreciation”. Now, of course, if readers are demanding or rude, that is one thing, but to castigate them for almost nothing at all, is building a hostility between writers and readers. I have had a few people come to me and say they have felt to ashamed to reader other writers’ work after these sprawling lectures posted about reader “negligence.”

IF YOU’RE GONNA HAVE THIS CONVERSATION, INCLUDE ALL WRITERS. From my observation, and this is a generalization, much of this conversation has been tossed around by fairly successful blogs. And I have talked with blogs that are just starting out are still trying to build a fanbase in the fandom and they don’t demand reblogs, sure they’ll say “if you wanna leave a comment, I’d appreciate it” but they don’t make demands. So, if we’re worried about recognition of writers and content, we must include a broader circle.

Now, I’m a dark blog. I’m not often included in the wider conversations of this fandom. And maybe it’s because of this, that I can understand why not everyone reblogs my work or not everyone wants to leave a comment on my work, but I am flattered and grateful for every note, like, reblog, reply, alike. But we need to be more understanding of each other and stop scolding our readers. It accomplishes nothing.

OH AND ONE MORE THING. I feel like I have to include this little note but I’m sure I’ll still get some flack. I am not telling anyone how to run their blog. It’s your blog, that’s the great thing about this place. You can do whatever you want and scroll past this and do you, boo. No worries.

FOR READERS:

YES WE APPRECIATE REBLOGS. It’s natural. We like a little boost and we always love feedback. As long as it civil and constructive, it’s always welcome and to those shy readers, we appreciate you too. If a writer does have anon, then you can always comment that way. But again, this should never be a prerequisite for reader but always remember that it will always makes a writer’s day.

COMMENTS SHOULD PERTAIN TO CONTENT NOT SCHEDULING. While it’s okay to be curious and ask “is this fic still going?” or “is there another chapter coming?” but there is a vast difference to comments like “You’re a writer. Write.” and “You promised us a chapter and we’re waiting. You owe us.” 

This relationship between writer and reader is a two way street. Yes, writers do write AND they put their content out. They are extending themselves in that very act and putting out something they have put hard work into. The little readers can do is be patient.

FOR READERS AND WRITERS:

Let’s just work together to make this a more positive space. Let’s stop throwing mud, let’s stop blaming each other. And let’s create an environment which harbours openness and feedback instead of this cancel/drama bull we’ve been seeing for months now. It we actually commit to make a more honest and open space, we will see that feedback and that interaction. And that conversation will be pleasant for both sides and not a one sided rant.

Also, I am working on a few things myself. Trying to read more between writing and trying to keep up with asks and comments as best I can. We can’t change this place unless we ALL change together.

[shipwreckedshadows]

The Shadow Prime thing.

[after his failure to keep Catra and Glimmer contained, Horde Prime captures another prisoner in the hopes that she might have some value to him]

Shadow Weaver tested the bounds of her magic as she waited to be retrieved from her cell. The shadows responded to her call, as they always had, but they did so without motivation. They would not be effective in a fight. She tried to search for any hint of darkness on the ship and found that she could sense a large mass of it at the center of the space craft. It pulsed with irrational need and the sins of a prideful man. Her cell was three levels up from the source but she could not recall following any stairs to get there. Perhaps the floor was uneven and progressed at a slight angle, like a giant, spiraling ramp.  Or perhaps there were teleportation pads between floors and she just hadn’t seen one yet.

She inspected the room silently. The bed was docked on either side by two side tables. The one on the right held nothing. The one on the left contained a book. Horde Prime’s insignia had been pressed into the cover. Inside were writings of cultist rhetoric. After thumbing through the pages, she put it back. She never cared for anyone’s rules and she was not about to start.

She lay on the bed and did not move for hours. If there were cameras in her cell, the only thing Prime would observe of his prisoner would be her infinite reservoir of self control. 

After several hours, the cell door slipped open and two clones stepped up to collect her. She did not move, even as they spoke.

“The Lord requests your presence, madam Weaver.” One said politely.

“If he wishes to see me, he can come up here and ask me himself.” Shadow Weaver answered to the ceiling.

“Is something troubling you, my lady of darkness?“ The clone asked after a moment of silence. His intonation had changed. He sounded authoritative and entitled. He held the voice of a king who had seldom lost to anyone. That power she felt from the center of the ship, pulsed now at the foot of her door. The magic of Obtainment swirled within her and she smiled.

“Lovely to see you, Horde Prime. I keep hearing about you.”

“Naturally. Why don’t you allow my clones to escort you and we can introduce ourselves properly?”

Shadow Weaver finally sat up to look at him, “I don’t make for very pleasant company.”

“I would not be asking if I didn’t wish it. You will come to see me if you value your freedom.”

The clone blinked and he returned back to himself - a lost man on the path to purity. Horde Prime’s signature had left and returned to where it came from. She slid off the bed and allowed the clones to lead her to their master.

She frowned when she realized they had moved a floor down. Prime’s signature indicated as much. But the floor didn’t descend at a gradient and she had no memory of a teleportation pad. She kept her mind sharp and leaned more focus into her environment and her actions. They kept walking. The corridors wound around each other like tree branches. Everything looked exactly the same. She wondered how the clones were able to transverse such confusing architecture.

It was too late when she noticed that they had dropped down another floor. She decided to puzzle over it later and calmed herself so she could properly greet and assess Etheria’s new overlord.

They came into a grand room, guarded by more clones. Prime lounged in his throne and managed to look both pleased and menacing. He sat taller than most of the objects in the room. His aura filled the grand room, from the floor to the top of the twenty foot ceiling. Shadow Weaver quelled the Obtainment magic. They would have to feed later. He stood to greet her, arms open wide.

“Welcome, my lady of darkness. It is so lovely to have you here.”

“Nobody has ever said that to my face without later redacting their sentiments.” Shadow Weaver commented offhandedly, “Please spare me the theatrics. I’m only here because you seem have business with me. What do you want?”

Prime scowled, “I can see how, as one of the most powerful magical entities on Etheria, you might feel entitled to direct the conversation. But you are standing in the hall of my light. There are no shadows here, no darkness that will bend to your magic. I will negotiate my terms with you when I feel it is necessary.”

“You sound just like Hordak.”

“Well, of course. I made him in my image. I might have to do the same to you, if you keep with your current attitude.”

“You can hardly blame me. I’m imprisoned here, on this ship, away from my home.”

“Home?” He laughed as he circled her, “You have no home. I know all about your history - your lovely Hordak showed me everything. You’ve been a traitor your whole life. What’s one more defection before everything Etheria once was is lost?” His large frame towered over hers in an effort to intimidate her. She kept her posture relaxed and met his gaze with indifference.

“You wish for me to join you?” She asked skeptically.

“There will be terms, of course, but in a simple word, yes.”

“And will we discuss these terms? Or do I have to endure another round of your plastic pleasantries?”

“We’ll save that conversation for dinner. For now, I want to give us a chance to get to know each other. Come, I wish to show you something.”

She had no choice but to follow him from the throne room, down the twisting halls and into another set of chambers. Otherworldly artifacts decorated the room. Paintings and weapons of distant civilizations mounted the walls, books and odd trinkets sat on shelves and several rugs covered the floor.

“This is my trove of rare and valuable artifacts. It’s a collection curated from all over the galaxy.” He said proudly.

Shadow Weaver couldn’t help but wonder at it all. Other creatures had created, sold, bought, possessed and held these items in their hands. So much history was stored in this room. She noticed an empty pedestal by the large window. 

“It’s... impressive.” She noted without colour in her voice, “Why feel the need to show me? Are you not worried that I may break something?”

“A little.” His fourth eye shifted to the pedestal at the window, “But I feel it is my responsibility to show you the rich history of the worlds I’ve seen”

“And yet you eradicated each and every one of them.”

“Because their people refused to see that they had deteriorated from greatness. They denied my light and without much else to do to persuade them, they had to be purged. It was for the sake of their own good.” His teeth clenched to hold back a wave of anger and disappointment. He saw himself as a protector of the universe. The worlds he destroyed was out of his sense of responsibility to the galaxies - a responsibility to chase away the darkness. Perhaps that was his mission at one point. There were ulterior motives to his mission - motives to rule the galaxy and control everything, from the atomic cycles to the construction of civilizations.

“I kept their possessions to preserve their history, to keep their memories alive.”

“What do you wish to collect from Etheria - so you can commemorate its people... my people?” She asked.

“Originally, I wanted Queen Angella’s wings. She was such a beacon in the fight against my little brother. He had nightmares about her for several months following a bad encounter with her. And she was immortal - that is most definitely a rarity in this universe. You can imagine my disappointment when I found out that she was no longer part of this world.”

Shadow Weaver imagined Prime taking a large scalpel to the angel’s wings, pushing the blade through feathers, flesh and bone. Quickly, she pushed the thought from her mind. “She’s only stuck between worlds, why not build another portal and retrieve her?”

“My lady, do you know how resource intensive portal building is? Besides, I found something better.”

Shadow Weaver waited wordlessly for him to tell her, head tilted to the side and hands clasped in front of her. She had a feeling she knew what he might say.

“The Heart of Etheria. A weapon of magic, preserved inside your planet. I’ll condense it down to the size of a watermelon and put it right at the helm of my collection.” He indicated the pedestal, “I used to have something else to occupy that space. However, it has most unfortunately been disposed of.”

“What do you mean?” Why would Prime do away with one of his precious trophies?

“You ask so many questions, my lady.” he chuckled, “Let me have a turn.” He tapped his chin in mock thought, “Why do you insist on hiding your pretty face from me?”

She scoffed, “Pretty.”

“Horde Prime knows all.” He walked into her personal space and drew a curious finger along the cheek of her mask. “It’s quite hard to speak to you when this thing is in the way.

Shadow Weaver looked up into his face and made no move to stop him.

“You’re so still. Does it not bother you that I might rip your protection away?”

“There are worse things, Horde Prime.”

“Fascinating.” he whispered, “stronger hearts have quivered at the very mention of my name yet yours...” he slipped his fingers under the neck of her gown and shoved them against her jugular, “doesn’t so much as even move!”

“My heart has not moved for over thirty years. I doubt it will start now.”

He kept his hand resting against her neck and removed her mask with his other. She enjoyed the stunned look on his face as he looked into hers. His features remained smooth but she saw the way his extra eyes widened for a fraction of a second.

Prime hardly had his pupils attended to the one single thing, she’d found. Now, she watched them move in unison, across the valleys of scars the burrowed into her aged skin.

She took the mask from him and with her free hand, guided his to the side of her face.

“You are a man of exploration and observation, it seems. It is how you communicate” she said, “You see what is broken and your reflexes tell you to fix it.”

“Are you asking me to heal your scars?”

“Hardly. But healing is your first language. Your tongue speaks through carpentry just as your hands work to build. Observe me, Horde Prime. Communicate with me and perhaps you might land yourself a very good deal.”

He chuckled low in his chest and grinned wide, “How fortunate am I that you can translate so thoroughly.” He traced ever scar on her face until his fingers wove themselves into her thick hair.

“You’re so cold.” He murmured.

“Does it bother you?” She challenged.

“Not at all. It serves to make you more noteworthy.”

He moved his other hand up her neck and followed a trail of gnarled tissue to press the pad of his thumb to her lips. She stowed the mask in her pocket so she could hold his hips properly. Soothingly, she ran one hand up to the center of his back.

“You are sorely mistaken if you think I’m going to put your finger, unwashed and without my knowing where it’s been, in my mouth.” She glared lightly.

He laughed from the deepest bowels of his core. A very good deal, indeed.

#I kinda want to write more of this #like at first i just sort of wrote it bc its a neat crack ship #but now i kind of actually ship it #shadow weaver #horde prime #shadow prime #spop

[weirdpine]

line by line analysis of Half-Elves in Dungeons and Dragons 5e by a mixed person

Preemptive: Do not respond to this about how you, individually, don’t use this at your table or how you homebrew this. I’m interested in discussing the text; not how you transform it.

Flint squinted into the setting sun. He thought he saw the figure of a man striding up the path. [...]

This intro describes a half-elf from an outsider’s perspective, and mostly focuses on what he looks like.

...an elvish grace [...] yet the man’s body had the thickness and tight muscles of a human.

It’s reiterated over and over how this stranger has qualities that are exclusively inherent to either elves or humans. No muscular elves, no graceful humans.

Walking in two worlds but truly belonging to neither,

I hate how mixed people don’t get to belong in this narrative. Yeah, it feels alienating to have things that set you apart from both your parents’ cultures, but society has methods of isolating every individual. I believe that I belong in both places my parents are from in some manner, no matter whether or not it feels like those places want me.

half-elves combine what some say are the best qualities of their elf and human parents: human curiosity, inventiveness, and ambition tempered by the refined senses, love of nature, and artistic tastes of the elves.

Literally none of this is inherent. While it is accurate in terms of “real people talk about mixed kids like this,” but I would love not to be reminded of the guy who hated immigrants that I met at a youth hostel once, who pretty much said this stuff to me about my heritage.

Some half-elves live among humans, set apart by their emotional and physical differences, watching friends and loved ones age while time barely touches them. Others live with the elves, growing restless as they reach adulthood in the timeless elven realms, while their peers continue to live as children.

Finally at the magical differences here that is actually more interesting to me, since, yeah, this stuff would be alienating to have to deal with. And yeah, if you grow up in an area that’s overwhelmingly one thing, it’s easy to feel like you’re the Only One of your kind and feel alone.

Many half-elves, unable to fit into either society, choose lives of solitary wandering or join with other misfits and outcasts in the adventuring life.

Ah, but we’re back at the “half-elves” don’t get to belong. See, society is constructed in a way where almost everyone can talk about how they’ve felt alienated. I was the only [ethnicity] among the 1800 other kids at school, repressed gay, and a massive nerd and I still made friends and generally felt like I belonged. Yeah, I wasn’t popular. No, I wasn’t bullied.

Of Two Worlds To humans, half-elves look like elves, and to elves, they look human.

This is kind of my experience in the way where “you’re defined by the ways you differ from the society around you.” But also frustrating in the ways they are emphasizing,”You will always be seen as an outsider.” And not accounting for the vast range in experiences, such as the circumstances where I’m seen as not.

In height, they’re on par with both parents, though they’re neither as slender as elves nor as broad as humans. They range from under 5 feet to about 6 feet tall, and from 100 to 180 pounds, with men only slightly taller and heavier than women. Half-elf men do have facial hair, and sometimes grow beards to mask their elven ancestry. Half-elven coloration and features lie somewhere between their human and elf parents, and thus show a variety even more pronounced than that found among either race. They tend to have the eyes of their elven parents.

This stuff is pretty boring, other than establishing that phenotypes mix. But it is something that they’re writing in the possibility of having fun elven eyes. (Looks like this is for the Darkvision trait, which is, fine.)

Diplomats or Wanderers Half-elves have no lands of their own

Now this is some bullshit. The concept that, if you’re not 100% one race, you don’t get to belong, that you lose claim to the land if you’re mixed. This is such a garbage concept that seems to imply that if your ancestors are from different places you don’t have a motherland. Which, somehow again, is a sentiment expressed to me by a different guy at a different youth hostel. But this time, this text isn’t framed as a “some say” but as a truth of the world.

Like, in reality, being mixed means there’s so many places I could call home, so many places where my family lives. My cousin straight up has dual citizenship.

though they are welcome in human cities and somewhat less welcome in elven forests.

Ah, xenophobic elves. I don’t like the way that elves are positioned as foreigners and then acting like humans are so much more accepting and progressive. Like, even the terminology of “half-elf” places humans as the default other half. But also this reads a little like, “Oh, don’t leave this human city, you don’t know how good you have it here, nowhere else will accept you like we do.”

In large cities in regions where elves and humans interact often, half-elves are sometimes numerous enough to form small communities of their own. They enjoy the company of other half-elves, the only people who truly understand what it is to live between these two worlds.

This one’s weird. Like yeah, people with similar experiences tend to group, but, the idea of only grouping with other people who are mixed in the exact same way? Why? They would absolutely have a lot in common with half-orcs, and with human communities in elven cities/elf communities in human cities, and like, with every other person who’s been asked, “Where are you from? Oh. Where are your parents from?” 

So, absolutely no mention of communities of immigrants in cities.

In most parts of the world, though, half-elves are uncommon enough that one might live for years without meeting another.

To Be Fair, I’ve not actually met someone who is mixed in precisely the way I am, before. It is harder for me, though, because neither parent is native to the country they’re from.

Some half-elves prefer to avoid company altogether, wandering the wilds as trappers, foresters, hunters, or adventurers and visiting civilization only rarely.

Setting up that half-elf ranger build. But this also is really sad.

Others, in contrast, throw themselves into the thick of society, putting their charisma and social skills to great use in diplomatic roles or as swindlers.

“Social roles” Okay, yeah. “swindlers.” That’s a turn. Setting up for the Rogue build but like, sucks that we’re right back to “half-elves can’t be trusted.”

Half-Elf Names Half-elves use either human or elven naming conventions. As if to emphasize that they don’t really fit in to either society, half-elves raised among humans are often given elven names, and those raised among elves often take human names.

This one baffles me. I know so many people, myself included, who have multiple names that they use in different contexts. Why wouldn’t their parents give them a name that would protect them, or, having a practice where half-elves have both a human and an elven name? Like, sure, this is a scenario that exists but it’s hard to believe that it’s the most common one.

Excellent Ambassadors Many half-elves learn at an early age to get along with everyone, defusing hostility and finding common ground.

Oof. This sounds awful. Trying to appease everyone around you sounds like a protective mechanism.

As a race, they have elven grace without elven aloofness and human energy without human boorishness.

Back to the stereotypes. Why are half-elves treated as a separate race here?

They often make excellent ambassadors and go-betweens (except between elves and humans, since each side suspects the half-elf of favoring the other).

Love to immediately undercut the “excellent ambassadors” bit with “but treated as untrustworthy by their people.”

Half-Elf Traits

Frankly, there’s not much in this section that I can say that I haven’t already said in this post, so I’m not gonna go through this part.

In Summary:

keeps emphasizing how half-elves don’t belong anywhere

half-elves are often seen as untrustworthy (+ “swindlers”)

got reminded of two different racist people i’ve met

#Dungeons and Dragons #i don't have a d&d blog so sorry y'all #racism /

[maruzzewrites]

Idk if you’re still doing the yandere prompts but if you are could you do #46 with Abbacchio and #14 with Fugo?

Fugo now and I will eventually do Abba too…….

14. “I fucking need youmore than I need to breath.” 

Content warnings: yandere content, obsessive behavior, light violence, not much else.

When you met the team, you were surprised to findsuch young members. Bruno was pretty young himself, barely reaching twentyyears when you were recruited into this unit of Passione; but then you werefaced with teenagers, most minors, with the exception of a single other man whoappeared to be the oldest – older than Bruno, too. You were, on the other hand,already entering your adult life before you were sent into the spiraling worldof crime that was Passione and all its affiliates, and you could feel thedifference in age by the inane arguments and the pointless discussions thatwere brought up during breakfast, or lunch, or dinner.

There was, however, a young boy who was moreserious, less focused on futile debates on insane topics that those men decidedto throw around every time they had a meal together. Fugo had been politelywelcoming, friendly all through your initiation and your introduction to theteam, accompanied to the more exuberant reception of the other two boys – Mistaand Narancia, they were called – and the mostly bitter, cold indifference ofthe last member – Leona Abbacchio. The whole ordeal of settling in the teamwent smoothly, mostly accepted by the others to Bruno’s relief. When you wereasked about your motivations, though, you had to be sincere and admit you wereto be transferred sooner or later.

“What? Why?” Narancia asked you curiously,leaning on the table dividing you from him and the three curious teens. Youexplained you were placed in their team temporarily, until they found a betteruse for your Stand, considering it wasn’t made to be deployed in combat. Mistatilted his head, and then voiced the question they probably were all thinking,“And what does your Stand do?” At their inquisitiveness, you answered with thedemonstration of its abilities, by confiscating Mista’s hat and a bright, tensethread stretched from his body to the stolen piece of clothing. Narancia letout a bark of laughter after a short beat as Mista grumbled to pick up his hat,while Fugo simply observed your Stand and acknowledged its usefulness should beplaced elsewhere in Passione’s ranks.

Just as the conversation came up, it was easilyforgotten in the rush of missions and assignments that followed the initialdays of your initiation. The first week felt quite awkward on your part, withthe dynamic of the group still obscure to you and their familiarity with eachother overshadowing your interactions with each member. Yet, with the friendlydisposition of most of the team, you were introduced in the social patterns ofthat clique with more ease than you anticipated. Even more, you seemed to changesome preexistent relations in ways others didn’t think possible: Bruno waspleasantly surprised when Abbacchio actually started to discuss music with you,despite your lack of formal knowledge on the topic; you managed to shut upMista’s weird questions with even more outlandish remarks or with seriousanswers that would leave him disappointed in your lack of surprise; you helpedNarancia with basic math and reprimanded Fugo when he got too violent with hisfriend.

Overall, you tried to balance the relationshipsin that group, without shattering the harmony they built in spite of theircontrasting, often caustic, personalities. Bruno seemed to appreciate yourwork, seeing the others interacting with you in friendly terms that made themforget that your placement among their team was temporary. Especially Fugoseemed to take a liking to you, as you didn’t excuse his temper and forgive himfor his outbursts, yet didn’t isolate yourself from him when he was calmer. Youeven accommodated his more cautious nature, his more inner fears of seeing hiscompanions getting harmed or toeing the line of death with rash decisions. Whenhe would get into a rage, you would simply stand up and yell with just as muchvigor, until one of you retired from the argument, ready to discuss with morecivility once the both of you calmed down; but when he would stammer and beghis teammates to think over decisions he didn’t deem necessary, you defendedhim, explained what you thought was his reasoning, reassured him to push himinto action. He even questioned you on the reason of your behavior towards him.

“I think your worry and anger come from your goodheart,” you started to answer, and you noticed how taken back he seemed at yourwords. Maybe he was so used to people remembering him for his negative traits, forhis anger issues and his bad decisions and his tendency to step back ratherthan face challenges bigger than him. But you couldn’t blame him; despite notknowing who he was, his history and his life, you could feel he had his fairshare of pain and sorrow that was never addressed and lead to poor managementof his own emotions. You finished your thought just to give him peace of mind, “Youjust need to do something with constructive with them.”

After your words, he left the room to let you doanything you were occupied with before he came in to ask. And you noticed, consequentlythat encounter, he stuck at your side with more insistence that he displayed before.When he was around you, he would be softer in teaching Narancia or speaking tothe others, he would attempt to voice his thoughts with more clarity wheneverhe was starting to feel frantic about his partners, and he always ended up lookingin your direction to catch a glimpse of approval of his new behaviors. With asmile, a nod or a gesture, you would signal to him you were aware of hisefforts. You even admired his composure when Mista and Narancia started totease him about his actions, never noticing the light blush coloring his cheekand the bridge of his nose, extending to his ears when he grumbled about hownosy and annoying they were.

With the passing of weeks, you simply settledinto the routine of the group, but eventually you had to be relocated. One day,after several months of camaraderie with those guys, Bruno called you over andinformed you that your new rank would be with investigative teams, underanother boss and with new teammates. You were rather disheartened when youheard the news, but you accepted the new orders without a single thought to goagainst the will of the leader. Your now former boss smiled at you and proclaimedhe would update the others later, when they were all eating together. And so hedid, just as you were preparing to leave the base and before you reached thetable – Bruno opted to stay in a familiar place, away from the public.

You were distracted from your current task by theruckus and the screams coming from the other room, down the hall and into thecommon areas of the building. Unsure if you were under attack or if it was asimple, average discussion of the men you shared the last few months with, yougot out and stalked towards the living room. With each step, you started torecognize the screaming voice: it was Fugo, apparently enraged beyond measure,a waterfall of words cascading from his lips as his eyes bulged and his handsgripped the table with violence. At his side, was an odd creature, evidentlyfuming just as he was and with something that looked like spit spilling fromits mouth; you assumed it was his Stand, but you had never seen it before thatmoment.

Bruno, meanwhile, was trying to calm down theboy, while the others were just adding up to the chaos with their own screams.You stepped into the room with a loud thump of your shoes, announcing yourpresence as if it would be useful; yet, somehow the sound commanded silencefrom all of them, their heads swiftly whipped towards you and their gazes intensefrom the previous argument. You felt the impact of those eyes all in one hit,but willed your mind to keep steady. You looked at each one of them withinquisitive curiosity, your eyes stopping to look at Fugo and then Bruno,before you spoke up, “What is going on?”

“You’re going away!” Narancia lamented, and you foughtthe urge to sign heavily at the whiny tone. They were being difficult becauseof that, because you would have to move base and say your goodbyes to them,possibly become a rival. But you were ready to reassure all of them, that youwould never betray them and that you were still in the same syndicate, youwould meet and talk and you wouldn’t forget about them that soon. However, thestatement made by Narancia seemed to stir something inside Fugo, who regainedhis earlier explosive fury and looked at you with fire burning deep into his eyes.

“You can’t go away!” He yelled, his fingersdigging into the hard wood of the table, knuckles white and fingertips bloodyred by the sheer tension. He suddenly stood up, his chair falling and slammingon the ground with a loud thud, the creature besides him growling all the whileat the new wave of anger. Abbacchio started to demand him to stop, to call backhis Stand with alarming worry coloring every word; Bruno seemed apprehensivetoo, his eyes darting from the furious boy to the creature, while Mista frozeon the spot and Narancia walked away from him with too much haste to be comforting.

“Fugo, I don’t have a choice.” Your voicetrembled in your throat at the sight of the others’ reactions, unsure how tomanage this new situation. You could only assume Fugo’s Stand was dangerous,and you didn’t want to experiment that theory on your own skill. You watchingwith horror as he backed away form the table, circled it under the prying eyesof his teammates, and approached you with careful steps that contrasted thestill manic look he had on his face. His hands were shaking, just like hisarms, but he extended them to grab your shoulders with too much care to be fromthe seething man right in front of you.

“I fucking need you more than I need to breath.”He whispered in a livid, hushed tone that made the others rush to stand up andapproach the two of you. As Abbacchio rested his hand on Fugo’s shoulder, theboy went to punch him, easily overpowered by the man’s bigger size and evident prowess.With quick glances in the direction of the Stand left behind, now busy withshrieking and drooling over itself in rage, Bruno brought you away from thescene just when you saw Abbacchio hold Fugo’s elbow with so much force that theboy let out a yelp. Your former boss busied himself with piling your clothesand other belongings into several bags and sending you out in the streets withthe help of his Stand. When you looked back, the zipper he used was alreadyclosed and you were facing the wall of the building, faint yelling coming frominside.

You left with a worried look on your face, anddidn’t hear much from those men after that evening. You were assigned to a newteam. If the first few months were relatively calm, eventually you started to catchglimpses of blonde hair around you, too familiar in color to be a coincidence. Eventually,you started to see purple too, but you didn’t know what to do with thatinformation.

#jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #pannacotta fugo #yandere #yandere x reader #i will admit fugo is a bit difficult for me to write bc he's a polite boy but he angery too and would he get angry at reader? would he be n #Anonymous #fugo x reader

[from-dusk]

☽ Brennus

◦ the basics ––– –

name: Brennus pronunciation: b-r-EH-n-uh-s nicknames: The Autumn Stag age: Adult of an age specifically unknown to all but him. birthday: September 5th race: Native Kul Tiran gender: Male preferred pronouns: he/him face claim/voice claim: Tim Damen/Jason Momoa

◦ physical appearance ––– –

hair: Long, fairly straight, black-rooted, dusky-hazed tips. eyes: As clear as forest lake pools padded at their depths with vibrant green moss. height: 7′10″ build: Muscular, broad shouldered, narrow-hipped, imposing. notable features: Carved by the hands of his ancestors more than his brethren, bold black ink wanders his skin in sprawling depictions of an ancient language, intercepted by more modern symbols of enhancement, endurance and enchantment. His nails, unkempt by civilized standards, bear blackened tips. common accessories: A bronze torc sits around his neck, weathered, smooth, and capped with white pearl deer skulls. Inches lower sits a necklace of threaded hog tusks, six in total, of various lengths and ages, etched with gold-filled runes.

◦ personal ––– –

profession: Rotspeaker. Departed from Thornspeakers and dragged beneath the fetid hills of Drustvar by the strangling grip of Drust madness, the path to new life must come from death, and death nurtures renewal through decay. Rot is natural. Pestilence is a gate. Death is an inevitable soil in which life may grow and blossom again. hobbies: Desperation drives a need to convert and translate all that hands have gathered up of the ancient ways. languages: Though most inhabitants of Kul Tiras speak Common primarily, the ancient words of the Vrykul are known as well. residence: Fresh moss, his bed, ageless needles, his roof, he appears uprooted. birthplace: Drustvar religion: Nature, Drust patron deity: none fears: Stagnation, failure to continue the cycle. criminal record: The eyes of nature oversee their own judicial system, of which he has committed no crimes. At least, not as far as any civilized person knows. talents and/or powers: An eschewed Thornspeaker, Brennus twists nature to his will, overseeing reclamation to the earth by his guidance to begin the cycle anew. Traveling as a grand stag of sunset fur and ivory bone, gold-tipped fangs protrude from a skull-bare head crowned by antlers bound in mold and burning upon their jagged points like a forest of pine set ablaze.

◦ relationships ––– –

sexual orientation: Pansexual romantic orientation: Greyromantic preferred emotional role: Dominant, submissive, or switch. preferred sexual role: Dominant, submissive, or switch. libido: Relatively high, in the right seasons. turn-ons: Strong will, self-preservation, a mind made to endure, accepting of reality and fate and stalwart against the world’s flaws will always appeal to Brennus. turn-offs: Surrender,  clear signs of weakness, insecurity. love language: Offerings relationship tendencies: Disinclined to commit, presently. marital status: Unmarried significant other: None spouse: None children: None parents: Deceased siblings: Disowned other relatives: Disowned acquaintances: Few and far in between. Too displaced to long befriend anyone. pets: Constructs of his own making, short-lived and chaotic, threaded more together from strands of determination than effective magic.

◦ additional information ––– –

smoking: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess. drugs: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess. alcohol: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

Flaws

moody | short-tempered | emotionally unstable | whiny controlling | conceited | possessive | paranoid | liar impatient | cowardly | bitter | selfish | power-hungry greedy | lazy | judgmental | forgetful | impulsive spiteful | stubborn | sadistic | petty | unlucky

Strengths

honest | trustworthy | thoughtful | caring | brave patient | selfless | ambitious | tolerant | lucky intelligent | confident | focused | humble | generous merciful | observant | wise | clever | charming cheerful | optimistic | decisive | adaptive | calm | loyal

◦ roleplay hooks ––– –

Dissatisfied with the current progress of unraveling the tangles of Drust mysticism, Brennus has taken to deciphering what he can of the macabre progenitors, imparting reclaimed knowledge when prompted or encouraged. Though corrupt, he believes still in balance, but not in preservation, and can be encountered easily in the wilds of Kul Tiras, bringing thriving life to its knees in decay. Among civilization, often perceived to be aligned with the Alliance, he accepts his labels gracefully enough, and exploits them. Some see him as a speaker of the wilds, others, a speaker of spirits, and as both, he does speak, conveying rare knowledge and little known secrets. Factions, wars and alliances serve nothing to him, mere elements to distract the living from their inevitable fate, and so, he does not adhere to them, willingly educating any race of the cycle and its importance.

◦ out of character ––– –

I’m always open to new RP partners, long or short term, and welcoming of any inclusive ideas. Down for Discord, Tumblr or in-game RP, I can be found on MG or WrA, just PST for details. I am comfortable with most content, but Brennus is meant to be a more darker aligned character, so 18+ content may be present. If it is, I will always discuss it first and tag it appropriately if it is on here. Don’t hesitate to give me a wave!

#lfc #wra rp #mg rp

[arcticdementor]

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked why it is that the Woke won’t seem to have a debate or discussion about their views, and I’ve been meaning to write something about it for ages, probably a year at this point. Surely you’ll have noticed that they don’t tend to engage in debates or conversation?

It is not, as many think, a fear of being exposed as fraudulent or illegitimate—or otherwise of losing the debate or looking bad in the challenging conversation—that prevents those who have internalized a significant amount of the Critical Social Justice Theory mindset that prevents these sorts of things from happening. There’s a mountain of Theoretical reasons that they would avoid all such activities, and even if those are mere rationalizations of a more straightforward fear of being exposed as fraudulent or losing, they are shockingly well-developed and consistent rationalizations that deserve proper consideration and full explanation.

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There are a number of points within Critical Social Justice Theory that would see having a debate or conversation with people of opposing views as unacceptable, and they all combine to create a mindset where that wouldn’t be something that adherents to the Theory are likely or even willing to do in general. This reticence, if not unwillingness, to converse with anyone who disagrees actually has a few pretty deep reasons behind it, and they’re interrelated but not quite the same. They combine, however, to produce the first thing everyone needs to understand about this ideology: it is a complete worldview with its own ethics, epistemology, and morality, and theirs is not the same worldview the rest of us use. Theirs is, very much in particular, not liberal. In fact, theirs advances itself rather parasitically or virally by depending upon us to play the liberal game while taking advantage of its openings. That’s not the same thing as being willing to play the liberal game themselves, however, including to have thoughtful dialogue with people who oppose them and their view of the world. Conversation and debate are part of our game, and they are not part of their game.

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The first thing to understand about the way adherents to Critical Social Justice view the world is just how deeply they have accepted the belief that we operate within a wholly systemically oppressive system. That system extends to literally everything, not just material structures, institutions, law, policies, and so on, but also into cultures, mindsets, ways of thinking, and how we determine what is and isn’t true about the world. In their view, the broadly liberal approach to knowledge and society is, in fact, rotted through with “white, Western, male (and so on) biases,” and this is such a profound departure from how the rest of us—broadly, liberals—think about the world that it is almost impossible to understand just how deeply and profoundly they mean this.

In a 2014 paper by the black feminist epistemology heavyweight Kristie Dotson, she explains that our entire epistemic landscape is itself profoundly unequal. Indeed, she argues that it is intrinsically and “irreducibly” so, meaning that it is not possible from within the prevailing system of knowledge and understanding to understand or know that the system itself is unfairly biased toward certain ways of knowing (white, Western, Eurocentric, male, etc.) and thus exclusionary of other ways of knowing (be those what they may). That is, Dotson explains that when we look across identity groups, not only do we find a profound lack of “shared epistemic resources” by which people can come to understand things in the same way as one another, but also that the lack extends to the ability to know that that dismal state of affairs is the case at all. This, she refers to as “irreducible” epistemic oppression, which she assigns to the third and most severe order of forms of epistemic oppression, and says that it requires a “third-order change” to the “organizational schemata” of society (i.e., a complete epistemic revolution that removes the old epistemologies and replaces them with new ones) in order to find repair.

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Bailey’s point is clear: the usual tools by which we identify provisional truths and settle scholarly disagreements are part of the hegemonically dominant system that, by definition, cannot be sufficiently radical to create real revolutionary change (a “third-order” change, as Dotson has it). That is, they can’t reorder society in the radical way they deem necessary. The belief, as both scholars explain in different ways, is that to play by the existing rules (like conversation and debate as a means to better understand society and advance truth) is to automatically be co-opted by those rules and to support their legitimacy, beside one deeper problem that’s even more significant.

The deeper, more significant aspect of this problem is that by participating in something like conversation or debate about scholarly, ethical, or other disagreements, not only do the radical Critical Social Justice scholars have to tacitly endorse the existing system, they also have to be willing to agree to participate in a system in which they truly believe they cannot win. This isn’t the same as saying they know they’d lose the debate because they know their methods are weak. It’s saying that they believe their tools are extremely good but not welcome in the currently dominant system, which is a different belief based on different assumptions. Again, their game is not our game, and they don’t want to play our game at all; they want to disrupt and dismantle it.

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Debate and conversation, especially when they rely upon reason, rationality, science, evidence, epistemic adequacy, and other Enlightenment-based tools of persuasion are the very thing they think produced injustice in the world in the first place. Those are not their methods and they reject them. Their methods are, instead, storytelling and counter-storytelling, appealing to emotions and subjectively interpreted lived experience, and problematizing arguments morally, on their moral terms. Because they know the dominant liberal order values those things sense far less than rigor, evidence, and reasoned argument, they believe the whole conversation and debate game is intrinsically rigged against them in a way that not only leads to their certain loss but also that props up the existing system and then further delegitimizes the approaches they advance in their place. Critical Social Justice Theorists genuinely believe getting away from the “master’s tools” is necessary to break the hegemony of the dominant modes of thought. Debate is a no-win for them.

Therefore, you’ll find them resistant to engaging in debate because they fully believe that engaging in debate or other kinds of conversation forces them to do their work in a system that has been rigged so that they cannot possibly win, no matter how well they do. They literally believe, in some sense, that the system itself hates people like them and has always been rigged to keep them and their views out. Even the concepts of civil debate (instead of screaming, reeeee!) and methodological rigor (instead of appealing to subjective claims and emotions) are considered this way, as approaches that only have superiority within the dominant paradigm, which was in turn illegitimately installed through political processes designed to advance the interests of powerful white, Western men (especially rich ones) through the exclusion of all others. And, yes, they really think this way.

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Secondly, the organizing principle of their worldview is that two things structure society: discourses and systems of power maintained by discourses. Regarding the systems of power, their underlying belief is genuinely that of the Critical Theorists: society is divided into oppressors versus oppressed, and the oppressors condition the beliefs and culture of society such that neither they nor the oppressed are aware of the realities of their oppression. That is, everyone who isn’t “Woke” to the realities of systemic oppression lives in a form of false consciousness. Members of dominant groups have internalized their dominance by accepting it as normal, natural, earned, and justified and therefore are unaware of the oppression they create. Members of “minoritized” groups have often internalized their oppression by accepting it as normal, natural, and just the way things are and are therefore unaware of the extent of the oppression they suffer or its true sources. In both cases, though in different ways and to different ends, the falsely conscious need to be awakened to a critical consciousness, i.e., become Critical Theorists.

Adherents to this worldview will not want to have conversations or debate with people who do not possess a critical consciousness because there’s basically no point to doing such a thing. Unless they can wake their debate or conversation partner up to Wokeness on the spot, they’d see it as though they’re talking to zombies who can’t even think for themselves. Unwoke people are stuck thinking in the ways dominant and elite powers in society have socialized them into thinking (you could consider this a kind of conditioning or brainwashing by the very machinations of society and how it thinks). We will return to this aspect of the problem further down in the essay.

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Again, it is difficult to express from within the liberal paradigm (to their point, I guess) just how fully and profoundly they believe this. Their view constructs, in fact, a metaphysics of discourses that, in some sense, becomes the operative mythology underlying all of society and its operation. Because of the already critical orientation of the postmodernists and then the further amplification of taking on Critical Theory much more fully later, Critical Social Justice views this metaphysics of discourses in a very particular way with regard to the moral valence of how discourses are constructed.

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That’s a bit complicated, I admit, and so a simplification of this idea is that adherents to Critical Social Justice see discourses—ways we think it is legitimate to talk about things—as the true fabric of reality and thus the core site of ethical consideration. This is their mythology, in a nutshell. As such, they will not be willing to participate in any process that reinforces, maintains, upholds, reproduces, or legitimizes the unjustly dominant discourses, as they see them. Supporting those is, in fact, just about the highest sin one can commit in the Woke faith. The discourses must instead be engineered into a state of perfection—God’s Kingdom through Perfect Language—and it would not be permissible to engage in any behavior or process that allows oppression to be spoken from or into our discourses. Conversation and debate with people who speak from and in support of the dominant discourses would certainly therefore be considered highly problematic, and anyone who participates in it intentionally or even neglectfully would similarly be problematic.

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Thirdly, adding to this is a theme we draw out significantly in the eighth chapter of Cynical Theories: they believe all disagreement with them to be illegitimate. If we followed from Dotson in the paper named above and another slightly earlier one (2011) about “epistemic violence,” it could be pinned on what she calls “pernicious ignorance.” Robin DiAngelo would call it “white fragility” to disagree. Alison Bailey refers to it as an attempt to preserve one’s privilege under the kind of term George Carlin lived to make fun of: “privilege-preserving epistemic pushback” (four words, twelve syllables, one hyphen). Further, Bailey said all attempts to criticize Critical Social Justice thought, because they come from that “critical thinking” and not the “critical theory” tradition (within which they’d obviously agree), generate “shadow texts” that follow along but don’t truly engage (in the correctly “critical” way; i.e., agreement with her). Barbara Applebaum said similar in her 2010 book, Being White, Being Good, wherein she explains that the only legitimate way to disagree with Critical Social Justice education in the classroom is to ask questions for clarification until one agrees (which, you might notice, isn’t disagreeing at all).

In general, as mentioned a bit earlier in the essay, if you disagree, you either have false consciousness or the willful intention to oppress, and so your disagreement isn’t genuine. Only disagreement that comes from a Critical Theory perspective would be genuine, but this isn’t actually disagreement with the Woke worldview, only with superficial aspects of how it is playing out. The Woke view genuinely is that unless you agree with the Woke worldview, you haven’t disagreed with the Woke worldview in an authentic way, and therefore your disagreement cannot be legitimate. Read it again: unless you actually agree, you didn’t disagree correctly (cue Jim Carrey as the karate teacher defending against the knife attacker).

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Fourthly, the Critical Social Justice view sees people who occupy positions of systemic power and privilege and yet who refuse to acknowledge and work to dismantle them, to the full satisfaction of the Critical Social Justice Theorists, to be utterly morally reprehensible. They are racists. They are misogynists. They hate trans people and want to deny their very existence. They are bigots. They are fascists. They are “literal” Nazis. Not only that, they are willfully so, and their main objective is to defend and spread their hateful ideology in the world. If you truly believe this about the people you’ve been asked to have a conversation with, would you be about to help them do that by giving them a platform and lending your own imprimatur to them? Of course not. Such views are not even to be tolerated, much less entertained, engaged with, platformed, or amplified.

Furthermore, because of the theories of complicity in systemic evils that live at the heart of Theory, such a stain is automatically contagious, in addition to whatever real damage it does to further its advancement into the world. As they tweet, so they are: “ten people at a table with one Nazi is eleven Nazis at a table.” And not only are they supposed to endorse the platforming of that by sharing a stage with people they see this way, but they’re supposed to do it in ways that the dominant system, which is all of those things as well and their guarantor, approves of and advances its own interests through. These horrible ways include civil conversation and debate, which aren’t happening.

To give you some idea of just how extreme they are in their fear of being associated with people “on the wrong side of history,” there is a (somewhat fringe) concept within the Critical Social Justice worldview called “non-consensual co-platforming” (two words, nine syllables, one hyphen). What this concept describes is the following situation. Imagine that a Critical Social Justice Theorist were to publish an essay in the New York Times Opinion column this month, and a couple of months from now, I were invited to do so and did. Now we’re both people who have essays published in the New York Times Opinion column. The logic of “non-consensual co-platforming” would be that the editors of that column did a bad by putting me, a known undesirable, in the Opinion pages where there is also a Woke purist, obviously without having first got her consent to have been “co-platformed” with me in the same publication. (This example is rare, but more common is the same claim made about being platformed to speak at the same conference.) Now, the Woke purist is in the unpleasant situation of having been published in a place that is willing to sully its own reputation later by the publication of some deviant rascal. This is how seriously they take the stain of guilt by association.

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As a fifth and final point, since this is getting pretty long already, remember that Critical Social Justice activists tell us more or less constantly how exhausting it is to fight this constant uphill battle in which no one takes them seriously (read: fight shadows of their own nightmarish projection). They tell us constantly about the high emotional labor costs of doing the “work” they do (and never being taken seriously for it). To invite them to a public conversation or debate is to ask them to get exploited in this way for other people’s benefit by getting up on stage in a dominance-approved paradigm with a bad-faith moral monster who just wants his opportunity to reinforce the very dominance that exhausts them in front of an audience who not only doesn’t but can’t actually get it, unless they already do. Again, that’s not happening. Even if very handsomely (read: ridiculously and exorbitantly) paid for their “emotional labor” to subject themselves to this situation, the other four points make it a nonstarter (and would drive up the price to basically literally infinity).

In Sum

One of the biggest mistakes we keep making as liberals who do value debate, dialogue, conversation, reason, evidence, epistemic adequacy, fairness, civility, charity of argument, and all these other “master’s tools” is that we can expect that advocates of Critical Social Justice also value them. They don’t. Or, we make the mistake that we can possibly pin Critical Social Justice advocates into having to defend their views in debate or conversation. We can’t.

These principles and values are rejected to their very roots within the Critical Social Justice worldview, and so the request for an advocate to have a debate or conversation with someone who disagrees will, to the degree they have adopted the Critical Social Justice Theoretical ideology/faith, be a complete nonstarter. It’s literally a request to do the exact opposite of everything their ideology instructs with regard to how the world and “systemic oppression” within it operates—to participate in their own oppression and maintain oppression of the people they claim to speak for.

These facts about the Critical Social Justice ideology extend from the microcosm of engaging in debate and conversation to each of those specific “master’s tools” a—science, reason, epistemic adequacy, civility, etc.—every bit as much as they do to the whole system that these tools combine to form: liberalism in the Modern era. This is a system that advocates of Critical Social Justice repeatedly tell us must be dismantled in the sparking of a “critical” revolution that replaces the whole of it, including its basic epistemology and ethics, with Critical Theory.

The hard truth is this: if you don’t yet understand this, you don’t know the fight we’re in or have the slightest idea what to do about it.

#james lindsay #new discourse #read the whole thing