A Persuasive Argument - dpxdc
"Great!" Danny says, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. The dinner table falls silent as everyone looks towards him. It's a full house today and, honestly, Danny's a little nervous. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I gathered you here today."
"It's dinnertime. In our house." Duke mutters, while doing a very bad job of concealing his yawn. He holds his fork poised over the braised beef, but, just like everyone else, still looks towards Danny before tucking in. It's intriguing enough to wait.
"Yeah, no one misses Alfie's dinner." Dick says, with a brilliant smile that Danny can't help but return.
"Precisely! What better time to talk to you all than when you're all actually here!"
"Wait, I thought you came round to work on our English essays?" Tim asks, blinking owlishly.
"I'm afraid I've lured you here under false pretences, Tim."
"This is where I live."
"I would still really appreciate help on that essay though, I mean, what the hell is Hamlet even about? I just don't get that old time-y language, like 'Hark! A ghost hath killed me!' - absolute rubbish, what does that even mean?"
"The ghost never kills anyone in Hamlet, he's there to tell Hamlet that he was murdered. Have you actually read it?"
"No, but it sounds like you have. Tim, I want this guy to help me with my essay instead. I know for a fact that you haven't read Hamlet, either."
"So? We don't need Jason, I've read the Sparknotes."
"Hi Jason, I'm Danny, pleasure to meet you, summarise Hamlet in three sentences or less."
"Am I auditioning to help you write your essays? I can't believe you’ve gone through your whole school life without reading it, it’s good!"
"Hamlet, along with a number of other classics, was banned in our house because it portrayed ghosts as intelligent and sympathetic beings rather than evil, animalistic beasts. I didn’t even get to see The Muppet's Christmas Carol until last year with Tim! It was surprisingly good, and I hate Christmas because everyone always argued and it sucked. But we're getting off topic. I—"
"No, no, please go back to that, because what the fu—"
"Boys, please." Bruce interrupts, looking to the world as if he wants to hang his head in his hands. "Danny, you were about to say something?"
"Oh, yeah, Mr. Wayne! Thanks!"
"Please, call me Bruce."
"Well, that very succinctly brings me to my point, because I'd actually really like to call you dad."
Nobody says a word. Nobody even blinks, all as shocked as the other, watching open-mouthed as Danny pulls his laptop out from beside his chair. Bruce can definitely feel a headache coming on.
"Before you say anything, I've prepared a 69 slide PowerPoint presentation on why you, Bruce Wayne, should adopt me, Danny Last-Name-Pending. Please save your questions, comments, and verdict until the end, thank you."
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A little crowlyon dawning comic wheee i finished it please clap
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I have lots more written on this but idk if i will do another comic or write part of it as a fic or some mix of both. im just very normal about them right now 🙂
ID/transcript below cut
Panel 1: Crow is walking down a path outside of the dreaming city with a brown cross-body messenger bag slung over his shoulder. Crow is holding the strap of the messenger bag and looking up in exasperation as he talks to Glint, who is floating beside him and speaking emphatically.
Crow: “There's still time to turn back…”
Glint: “Don't!”
Crow: “But -”
Glint: “You said you wanted to go through with this!”
Crow: “I know but -”
Panel 2: Close up of Crow’s eyes as he spots something off-screen. He looks startled.
Crow: “!-”
Panel 3: Jolyon is standing next to a natural stone wall, looking away from the viewer. He is resting one hand on the wall and staring out at the Dreaming City watchtower and buildings in the distance, which are overtaken with taken corruption and several taken orbs hang in the air around the city. Crow is standing in the foreground, looking at Jolyon with one hand resting on his messenger bag.
Crow: “Jolyon.”
Panel 4: Close shot of Jolyon turning towards the viewer, he is only visible from his shoulder to his nose so his expression is neutral and unreadable.
Panel 5: Camera is looking over Jolyon’s shoulder as he looks at crow. Crow looks at Jolyon with determination. He is holding the strap of his bag with one hand where it falls across his chest. Glint is transmatting away with an enthusiastic expression. Jolyon’s face is not visible.
Crow: “Thanks for meeting me”
Glint: “ok good luck bye”
Panel 6: Close shot of Crow’s face. He is looking down and to his left, blushing lightly. He looks uncertain and slightly embarrassed.
Crow: “I’m sorry if you… didn’t want to hear from me.”
Jolyon (offscreen): “It’s fine.”
Panel 7: Close shot of Jolyon’s face. He is staring down at Crow with a distant, slightly pained expression.
Jolyon: “What do you want?”
Panel 8: Close shot of Crow’s hands gripping the strap of the messenger bag. He is twisting it with both hands, clearly fidgeting due to nervousness.
Crow: “I’m…”
Panel 9: Side shot of Crow and Jolyon looking at each other. Crow is leaning slightly forward, while Jolyon looks entirely neutral.
Crow: “I’m trying to make amends.”
Jolyon: “Amends. For what?”
Panel 10: Close shot of Crow’s face. He looks confused but determined, and is looking up at Jolyon with a furrowed brow.
Crow: “For-... For Uldren, for everything-”
Panel 11: Extreme closeup of Jolyon’s eyes. He looks angry and his eyes are suddenly glowing with intensity as he glares down at Crow.
Jolyon: “No. What specifically?”
Panel 12: Low angle looking up at Jolyon, who is glaring down at Crow with an intense, angry expression, bordering on hatred.
Jolyon: “Tell me. What exactly do you remember?”
Panel 13: Extreme closeup of Jolyon’s mouth as he sneers, speaking through gritted teeth.
Jolyon: “Crow.”
Panel 14: Shot of Crow’s face, he looks startled and distraught as he stares at Jolyon.
Crow: “...”
Panel 15: Crow looks away to his right, looking ashamed.
Crow: “I remember enough. I remember when things were good between us. And when they were… less good.”
Panel 16: Extreme close up of Jolyon’s left eye, he is looking down at Crow and looks alarmed.
Crow: “I remember the garden.”
Panel 17: Wide shot from behind Crow. Crow is looking up at Jolyon. Jolyon is flinching and looking swiftly away from Crow to his left.
Crow: “After that… things start to get confused. Honestly, I don’t understand everything that happened between us at the end… But I know it wasn’t what he wanted.”
Panel 18: Shot of Jolyon looking away, looking extremely upset as Crow talks.
Crow: “So… I’m sorry. For all of it.”
Panel 19: Extreme close up of Jolyon’s eyes, he is squeezing his eyes shut and still looks emotional.
Crow: “And so is he.”
Jolyon: “...”
Panel 20: Wide shot from behind Jolyon. Jolyon turns back to look down at crow, his face is not visible. Crow is still looking up at him.
Jolyon: “Okay. Is that all?”
Panel 21: Shot of Crow’s face, turning down to look at the messenger bag at his hip. Crow looks nervous and is blushing with embarrassment.
Crow: “Um…”
Panel 22: Close shot of Crow’s hand as he opens the messenger bag and reaches inside. A purple box is visible inside the bag.
Crow: “No.”
Panel 23: Wide shot of Crow. He has pulled the purple box out of the bag, and is looking down at it, blushing slightly. In an inset panel, Jolyon is looking at him suspiciously.
Crow: “Do you know about the dawning?”
Jolyon: “Yes… The Awoken don’t celebrate it.”
Crow: “I know.”
Panel 24: Close shot of Crow’s face as he looks down at the box. He is smiling wistfully, and blushing.
Crow: “But… in the city, we give each other sweets, to say thanks. And… I don’t know. Now, it always reminds me of this time…”
The background shifts to a black backdrop, with white snowflakes falling quickly.
Panel 25: Extreme close up of Uldren Sov’s face in a flashback. It is dark, and snowing. Uldren is wearing a hood and is hunched over while looking straight ahead at the viewer. His hair is obscuring his right eye, and he looks serious and intense.
Crow: “It was centuries ago. Back when the last city was just a tiny settlement.”
Panel 26: Close up of Uldren holding a pair of dark gray-purple binoculars, with glowing magenta lenses. He is resting his hand with the binoculars on one knee in the air. Uldren is wearing a dark blue shirt and black gloves with burnt orange detailing, and a long black cloak.
Crow: “I… He was doing surveillance on earth. Keeping tabs on the people trying to build a sanctuary beneath the traveler.”
Panel 27: A wide shot from behind Uldren, who is sitting on top of a dilapidated building on earth. He is looking down on a festive nighttime scene. There are several buildings that have been partially destroyed and reclaimed by time, but dark silhouettes of people have made a home in them. The windows are all glowing with firelight, and the buildings have been decorated with glowing garlands and colorful flags. Between the buildings, many people are visible, holding hands, hugging, and waving at each other. It is snowing very hard, and snow is piled up around Uldren and the village.
Four inset panels show closer views of people within the village.
The first shows a woman hugging a man from behind. The man is holding a steaming hot cake inside a baking tray, and is wearing baking gloves. The woman is pressing her face against his neck, and the man is turning towards her and laughing.
The second panel shows a human man throwing his arm over the shoulder of a blue exo. The Exo is waving at somebody to the left, and the man is looking the other direction and lifting a tankard of beer in cheers.
The third panel shows an Awoken person and a human woman sitting at a table. The Awoken is holding a warm mug of tea, and is smiling lightly at the human woman. The human woman is turned towards the Awoken and is leaning close to them. She has placed one hand on their arm tenderly.
The fourth panel shows a closeup of two people, one with dark hair and one with light hair. The light haired person is cupping the dark haired person with one hand, and is leaning in to kiss their other cheek. The dark haired person is blushign and laughing with their eyes closed.
Crow: “They had almost nothing. But they were celebrating. Sharing, and laughing.”
Panel 28: Another closeup of Uldren’s eye as he watches the scenes below him, he now looks sad and distant.
Crow: “It was snowing, nonstop. It was so cold. And he was so lonely…”
Panel 29: Uldren is walking away from the viewer, through a dark pine forest covered in snow. His cloak is blowing in the wind.
Panel 30: Uldren’s ship is flying towards the Dreaming city in the distance, weaving between two cliffs in the reef. Snow is blowing in the ships glowing purple trail.
Panel 31: Wide, side view of Uldren as he walks through the snow-covered dreaming city. In the background, ornate arches and pillars can be seen, along with an awoken statue. Snow is falling hard, and it looks windy.
Panel 32: Shot over Uldren’s shoulder as he bangs loudly on a wooden door. His hood is up and his face is not visible.
Panel 33: Waist-high shot of Jolyon opening the door. Jolyon is wearing a green sweater with the sleeves rolled up, and gray sweatpants.
Jolyon: “Hello?”
Panel 34: Side shot of Uldren rushing inside, tackling Jolyon with a hug. Jolyon looks startled, and is stumbling back inside the doorway as the snow blows inside.
Jolyon: “Wha-”
Panel 35: Side shot of Jolyon and Uldren embracing. Uldren has buried his face in Jolyon’s shoulder, and Jolyon is cupping the back of his head tenderly with one hand while his other arm drapes around Uldren’s shoulder. Uldren is clutching Jolyon’s sweater with one hand.
Jolyon: “Aren’t you supposed to be on earth? Why are you back so soon?”
Uldren: “Why do you think? I was freezing my ass off.”
Panel 36: Close shot of Uldren’s face pressed into Jolyon’s sweater, he is smiling wide and blushing slightly. His hair is falling over his face and his eyes are not visible.
Uldren: “Listen- this is kind of stupid, but… Do you want to bake something with me? Something sweet?”
Panel 37: Shot of Jolyon’s hands in present day, holding the purple box that Crow has given him. The lid has been removed, revealing that it is full of cookies. They look like italian almond cookes, covered in powdered sugar and slivered almonds.
Jolyon: “Hah… you remember that?”
Panel 38: Crow glances away, smiling nostalgically and blushing lightly.
Crow: “Yeah. We made… well, I guess they were kind of like almond cookes? There were almonds in them, at least…”
Flashback Panel 1: In the background, a memory from the flashback is visible. It shows Uldren and Jolyon standing in a kitchen. Jolyon is standing behind Uldren and holding his waist affectionately. Uldren is holding a mixing bowl on the kitchen counter with one hand, and is pouring something into the bowl with his other hand. Several ingredients are visible strewn all over the counter, along with piles of spilled dough.
Jolyon: “Haha, what are you doing? You’ve got to measure.”
Uldren: “Following my royal intuition.”
Jolyon: “Your intuition kind of looks like cat puke.”
Flashback Panel 2: View of Jolyon and Uldren from the front. Uldren is mixing the dough with a wooden spoon, and looking down at the bowl with a soft smile. Jolyon is behind him, with one arm wrapped around his waist. His other hand is holding Uldren’s arm tenderly. Jolyon is leaning down to kiss Uldren’s cheek.
Jolyon: “You’re making a mess of my kitchen, Sov.”
Uldren: “I’ll clean it up.”
Jolyon: “Will you?”
Uldren: “For you? Probably.”
Panel 39: In present day, Jolyon is staring down at the tin of cookies, smiling faintly.
Crow (offscreen): “We didn’t really have much of a plan…”
Jolyon: “Uldren wasn’t big on plans. Or recipes.”
Panel 40:
Jolyon says from offscreen, above the rest of the panel: “Whatever they were, they didn’t turn out very good.”
In the panel, Crow is blushing furiously, looking nervously at a thought bubble to his left with a shaky smile. Within his thought bubble another memory is visible, of Jolyon and Uldren kissing passionately on a couch. In the background of the memory, several “BEEP” sound effects are visible. Jolyon is on top of Uldren, holding Uldren’s head in one hand while kissing his neck. Uldren is smirking, while pulling Jolyon’s shirt off with both hands.
Jolyon (flashback): “Oven’s going off. We should probably get that.”
Uldren (flashback): “I don’t give a shit.”
Crow (present day): “Um. Yeah. They were kind of… burnt…”
Panel 41: In present day, Jolyon is smiling faintly, looking at one of the cookies as he holds it up in front of his face.
Crow (offscreen): “These are better, I hope.”
Jolyon: “Seems like it.”
Panel 42:
Close up of Jolyon taking a bite of the cookie.
Panel 43: Crow is smiling enthusiastically up at Jolyon.
Jolyon (offscreen): “They’re good.”
Crow: “Good!”
Panel 44: Close up of Jolyon. His smile is falling, he looks seems distant and emotional as he looks down at Crow. His eyes are glistening with the first signs of tears.
Jolyon: “I uh…”
Panel 45: Jolyon turning to his right, digging the heel of his hand into his right eye as his tears start to fall. He looks distraught, squeezing his eyes shut.
Jolyon: “I should go.”
Panel 46: Shot over Crow’s shoulder, Jolyon is walking swiftly away, holding one hand over his face. Crow is looking after him, with one hand reaching awkwardly towards Jolyon.
Crow: “Wait…”
Jolyon: “Thank you.”
Panel 47: Shot of Crow’s face as he watches Jolyon leave. He looks startled and upset.
Crow: “...”
Panel 48: Crow facepalms, looking frustrated and embarrassed.
Crow: AUGH.
Panel 49: Crow is sitting on a rock on the cliffside, he is hunched over and propping up his face on one hand. He looks defeated and is sighing. Glint has re-appeared next to him, and looks enthusiastic.
Glint: “That could have gone worse! He said they were good! How do you feel?”
Crow. “Fantastic. Why did I let you talk me into this?”
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Been thinking recently about the goings-on with Duolingo & AI, and I do want to throw my two cents in, actually.
There are ways in which computers can help us with languages, certainly. They absolutely should not be the be-all and end-all, and particularly for any sort of professional work I am wholly in favour of actually employing qualified translators & interpreters, because there's a lot of important nuances to language and translation (e.g. context, ambiguity, implied meaning, authorial intent, target audience, etc.) that a computer generally does not handle well. But translation software has made casual communication across language barriers accessible to the average person, and that's something that is incredibly valuable to have, I think.
Duolingo, however, is not translation software. Duolingo's purpose is to teach languages. And I do not think you can be effectively taught a language by something that does not understand it itself; or rather, that does not go about comprehending and producing language in the way that a person would.
Whilst a language model might be able to use probability & statistics to put together an output that is grammatically correct and contextually appropriate, it lacks an understanding of why, beyond "statistically speaking, this element is likely to come next". There is no communicative intent behind the output it produces; its only goal is mimicking the input it has been trained on. And whilst that can produce some very natural-seeming output, it does not capture the reality of language use in the real world.
Because language is not just a set of probabilities - there are an infinite array of other factors at play. And we do not set out only to mimic what we have seen or heard; we intend to communicate with the wider world, using the tools we have available, and that might require deviating from the realm of the expected.
Often, the most probable output is not actually what you're likely to encounter in practice. Ungrammatical or contextually inappropriate utterances can be used for dramatic or humorous effect, for example; or nonstandard linguistic styles may be used to indicate one's relationship to the community those styles are associated with. Social and cultural context might be needed to understand a reference, or a linguistic feature might seem extraneous or confusing when removed from its original environment.
To put it briefly, even without knowing exactly how the human brain processes and produces language (which we certainly don't), it's readily apparent that boiling it down to a statistical model is entirely misrepresentative of the reality of language.
And thus a statistical model is unlikely to be able to comprehend and assist with many of the difficulties of learning a language.
A statistical model might identify that a learner misuses some vocabulary more often than others; what it may not notice is that the vocabulary in question are similar in form, or in their meaning in translation. It might register that you consistently struggle with a particular grammar form; but not identify that the root cause of the struggle is that a comparable grammatical structure in your native language is either radically different or nonexistent. It might note that you have trouble recalling a common saying, but not that you lack the cultural background needed to understand why it has that meaning. And so it can identify points of weakness; but it is incapable of addressing them effectively, because it does not understand how people think.
This is all without considering the consequences of only having a singular source of very formal, very rigid input to learn from, unable to account for linguistic variation due to social factors. Without considering the errors still apparent in the output of most language models, and the biases they are prone to reproducing. Without considering the source of their data, and the ethical considerations regarding where and how such a substantial sample was collected.
I understand that Duolingo wants to introduce more interactivity and adaptability to their courses (and, I suspect, to improve their bottom line). But I genuinely think that going about it in this way is more likely to hinder than to help, and wrongfully prioritises the convenience of AI over the quality and expertise that their existing translators and course designers bring.
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