#feel free to reblog and discuss

[statementends]

So who do we think is listening?

Last time of course it seemed like the tape recorders were beholding aligned, but turned out to be the Web using the Beholding's need to archive against it.

We're in a new universe now and a new story with new motives behind the recordings. They're just as sinister as the old ones, but now with internet access in a world where everything has internet.

The spying on the employees of the OIAR certainly aligns with Eye Powers, but it might be a redherring. What if the spying is done by humans this time?

Like, oh spooky the technology is listening into them oooo~~~~ but that sort of technology has been around for a long time. The tape recorders were 'analogue.' They turned themselves on and off, but the computers and phones, and things attached to the internet? That happens in real life right now. Someone can hack your computer and gain access to your web cam. We're in sketchy government department of literal horror. Let's tap everyone's phones!

To what end? Probably something that started as 'for the greater good' and has become a monster of its own.

Time for some conspiracy theories!

So. Here's another question. Was the Magnus Archives listened to by someone in the TMAGP universe? Is that why the OIAR was made? Because they heard the tapes and what happened and have used Jon, Martin, and Jonah(?)'s voices to, with a mixture of horror magic and technology, be able to find incidences.

I'm assuming the Voices in the computer are reading out the real statements. Maybe The Archivist's Voice is doing it automatically. It Knows everything all the time but that's useless if you can't see or search for the information. Whoever built the program needed a way to use the Knowing. So it puts in the data and the Archvist sorts it. Archive gotta archive.

My theory is the Archvist's voice is being used as a tool rather than having any agency or mind.

The OIAR needs to find and document horrors. You have three beholding alligned entities trapped in magnetic tape. You put them in a computer program and boom. You have things that can start monitoring the data you're already stealing from citizens and weed out the real horror from the fake ones.

I wonder if this time corporations and governments will be more overtly trying to use and control the dread powers. Like rather than cults and worship it will be people trying to bend the dread powers toward their own end.

Because the biggest question is, if the Voices are sorting real statements, and someone is listening in part for that reason, then what do they do when real ones are found?

Guess we'll see!

Oh and one more thing. It's called the Magnus Protocol

A protocol is the official procedure or system of rules governing affairs of state.

So when something happens, the protocol gets put into place.

So what is the Magnus Protocol? Is it to do with finding the TMA tapes? Or does it have to do with what the Magnus Insitute of this universe was doing with children (see the ARG).

So like Jon was actually the Magnus Archives, is Sam going to be a part of the Magnus Protocol?

Only time will tell.

#tmagp #tmagp spoilers #feel free to reblog and discuss #statementends conspiracy board #the magnus protocol

[system-of-a-feather]

Honestly it is considerably mild compared to like... everything else, but there is a unique sense of boredom and apathy that comes when you have escaped or are near escaping "just surviving" when thats all you've done your life. Like you get used to everything you do having the high life-death making stakes that suddenly when everything factually isn't a life-death situation, a future making/breaking situation, theres a general sense of "okay but does this ACTUALLY matter" cause you have gotten used to such a high demand and high pressure on everything that it is kind of hard to just.... accept that some things aren't a "have to do it" and thats good and normal.

Like usually I don't have too much of an issue with it, but sometimes I sit here and question it myself, like, "Why DO I care about this, theres no motivation for it other than that it makes me happy a decent amount of the time. It's not going to kill me if I don't so..." and then I have to remind myself that most things SHOULDN'T feel like something I "have to do or else" and that I also don't have to be chronically 100% engaged in my activities to maintain a sense that it is something nice and worth existing to do.

PTSD be wild like this where it gets a break from chronic stress and goes "okay though what now we are just going to EXIST and not NEED to survive for anything??? boring lame."

-Riku

#alter: riku #ptsd #c-ptsd #trauma #vent #vent tw #feel free to reblog and discuss

[omegalomania]

Wait why does everyone hate brendon urie again?

i was tempted to just say "google it" but honestly panic's pr team is working doubletime to sanitize this bastard so here's a quick primer for those who are out of the loop.

this got long so i’m putting it under a cut. as a warning, this is going to have discussions and screenshots of people saying and doing extremely morally reprehensible shit, including racist, homophobic, and transphobic language, sexual harassment of minors, and more. tread with caution.

i'm also going to top this off with the caveat that brendon has a history of saying generally stupid and casually shitty things that a lot of people have noticed and called attention to, but these were largely unremarkable in the sense that they were the sort of things that i was not surprised to hear a privileged cis dude say. so while that's definitely a factor - the guy has said very shitty, openly racist, gross things, etc., numerous times and on numerous platforms and i do not want to overlook that - i also don't want to pretend like that’s the only thing going on here because there is a lot of other heinous shit at work.

i’m also not going to go into the intricacies of song meanings or lyrics and the like aside from a couple touchstone examples. it’s pretty public knowledge by now that i don’t know how but they found me (henceforth referred to as idkhow, fronted by dallon weekes, who worked/toured with panic for a good eight years as its bassist) has quite a few numbers that take implicit and explicit aim at panic, most prominently the video for their single “do it all the time,” which featured dallon setting fire to all the suits he used to wear on tour with the band. it’s an open secret that dallon was not treated very well during his time with panic, but we’ll get to that. the point here is that i don’t want to focus on conjecture of speculation when we have a wealth of very hard evidence at our disposal.

so let’s get into it.

the real Poop started up late 2019 iirc, when numerous panic fans started passing around stories about zack hall, panic's bodyguard and security guy who had been with the band since the fever era. as the only person who had actually been with the band as long as brendon himself, zack had a fair amount of sway with the fans and was notably very very close with brendon. as more and more people spoke up, it became apparent that zack had done a whole lot of things that i would term as "incredibly fucked up" over the years with people being generally afraid to say anything. it’s been pointed out to me that these accusations only picked up traction around that time; fans have been raising flags about zack’s behavior for years without any reaction from panic’s management.

around this time, discussion began circulating that brendon himself had sexually harassed/assaulted multiple fans (many of them minors at the time). some of these accusations, such as his attempt to solicit nudes from fans, have proven to be way muddier to and harder to confirm, seeing as brendon was allegedly not in charge of his socials for some of this time and one of the people using his handles to solicit fans for nudes was reportedly a former stalker of his, chelsey lynn.

i think it is worth noting that brendon has brought up his history with “stage gay” with founding member, guitarist, composer, and lyricist ryan ross and mentioned that brendon’s attempts to get handsy on stage were not always taken kindly (emphasis mine):

For our first headline tour I would go up to Ryan our guitar player, and like kiss him on the neck or kiss him on the mouth and he would be so mad. I was like, I just want to kiss you bro.

(that’s also the interview where brendon tried to both-sides the issue of roseanne being a hideous fucking racist. so, fun stuff.)

in any case, it took brendon four months to respond to any of the accusations leveled at him and zack. he ended up doing so by filming a two-minute apology on his twitch account (which was locked to subscribers only, meaning it was essentially monetized) [twitter thread summary for those who can't stomach it], only to say that he was just too anxious to say anything and that while zack had been removed from his position, he and brendon would remain close friends. he did not respond to any of the allegations against himself, and proceeded to basically go completely radio silent on all social media until reemerging in 2022 to promote viva las vengeance.

(contrast to this to how speedily he fired touring guitarist kenny harris in 2018 when multiple allegations arose that he was soliciting underage girls. he was removed from the tour in less than twenty-four hours. while the expediency of this was praised at the time, it retroactively raises a lot of questions as to how much brendon and/or zack knew about this behavior beforehand and were simply waiting for a good PR call to do something about it.)

brendon seeing no issues with zack’s behavior and only doing something about it when backed into a corner is very much not a good look, and is suggestive of the possibility that he’s complicit in or at the very least tolerant of this kind of fuckery.

but wait. theres more.

beyond the genuine fucked up behavior, brendon also has a history of severely mistreating his bandmates. we could get into the politics of the infamous schism that split founding member ryan ross (along with bassist jon walker) from brendon and the band’s drummer, spencer smith, but that is its own bag of worms and this post is long enough already. that drama is very well-covered. however, i think it’s worth noting that out of every single member of the band that has come through it, both creative contributor and touring member, the only former member to depart the band amiably was spencer, who took his leave because of struggles with alcoholism. he’s the only one who remains on good terms with brendon to this day, but he’s also technically brendon’s boss at this point since he helps manage the label dcd2, of which panic at the disco is a part.

most apparent and well-documented of brendon’s spotty history with his own bandmates is his treatment of dallon weekes and his wife, breezy weekes, while the former was writing and touring with the band. in that little zack hall clusterfuck above you can see places where breezy talked about being repeatedly harassed but electing to keep quiet so that dallon wouldn't risk losing his job. reportedly they both went to panic's management to put a stop to it, but the bad behavior continued, with both zack hall and brendon’s wife, sarah urie, as propagators. there was public outcry as people insisted that dallon and breezy were making this up for attention. however, eventually former touring guitarist (from 2009-2012) ian crawford (along with his sister), both spoke up to corroborate that zack's behavior (and brendon's enabling of it) were very much recurring issues and were part of the reason that ian left panic in the first place. ian's twitter is no longer active, so all i have are screenshots on tumblr for this one.

dallon has not spoken of his time spent with panic with much fondness. he replaced bassist jon walker in 2009 and contributed creatively on both vices and virtues (2011) and too weird to live, too rare to die (2013). for the former, he was responsible for the concept and album art. for the latter, he got writing credit for all but two of the tracks (casual affair and end of all things), and you can even find an early version of "far too young to die" that was originally penned for one of dallon's earlier projects, the brobecks. the controversial track "girls/girls/boys" (as well as “all the boys”) from too weird was written for dallon's wife, breezy, as a celebration for her pansexuality. the finished product would end up being about an alleged threesome brendon had.

in 2015 dallon stated that he would no longer be involved in panic’s writing process but would continue to serve as touring bassist before departing officially in 2017 and focusing all his efforts on the aforementioned idkhow along with former falling in reverse drummer (and former fellow brobecks bandmate) ryan seaman. while dallon has remained relatively cagey about his time with panic (as is entirely within his rights), he has on occasion commented that he often felt bullied and belittled in the workplace, and once referred to zack hall as "the actual worst person [he had] ever met."

breezy has been more frank about what dallon had to deal with during his time with the band and over time, dallon has been more up front about this as well. turns out dallon was underpaid to the point where he had to take up a second job cleaning carpets while touring with panic, and working side jobs and donating plasma for gas money between tours. this continued well into 2010 and possibly for longer. the ratio was reportedly something like $400 a night compared to brendon's $15k paycheck, so take that as you will.

that's most of what i can remember. i tried to sauce everything i could but please let me know if i missed anything. i also tried to embed the images but doing so kept breaking the damn post cause this is a webbed site so you only get links SORRY

tldr brendon urie is self-absorbed prick who hoards credit, mistreats his musicians, shelters predators, and may very well be a predator himself. fuck him.

also, while i definitely don't want to downplay the severity of just how horrendous a lot of this shit is, in the interests of not wrapping this on a totally down note i do want to mention that people were writing brendon and panic out of the "emo trinity" legacy as early as mid-2019 because everyone hated pray for the wicked that fucking much. after having to endure the musical travesty that is high hopes innumerable times during every single 20-minute grocery store run i was ready to chalk up my dislike of him to sheer annoyance so you can imagine my surprise when i learned that not only was this annoyance justified i wasn't actually hating him nearly enough.

#panic at the disco #brendon urie #yeah whatever ill maintag this just in case people arent aware #also yes you can reblog this as a general rule i never put something on this blog im not ok w people reblogging #have fun go wild whatever but people looking to pick a fight WILL be blocked #i was watching a lot of this going down in real time but there arent a lot of useful consolidations of all this information #and i'd like to stress that this is a fraction of a fraction of whats out there #theres also a lot of discussion on tiktok reportedly?? idk i dont have a tiktok and never will #if anyone feels like adding anything feel free but do please source it #i have had to fight off TOO many intrepid discoursers with a pointy stick to deal with unsauced claims currently #askin hours #anon #SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG also i have been drinking quite a bit at this point hopefully this is all coherent lol

[balgur]

some thoughts on mystra's relationship with gale

idk if this will be considered a hot take or whatever but i'd been thinking about the dynamic between the two for a while and i'd like to imagine i have a perspective on it that could add to the discussion (or not, lmao) and i'm too annoying not to put it down into words

i'll start by saying i'm a teacher and have been teaching for a while. i'm looking at mystra from a teacher's perspective - a teacher of magic, not just a 'mother' per se but solely as a figure of education. a lot of times, people really don't realise how much influence teachers have over their pupils. we have so so so so much influence, so much authority and implicit trust placed in us from our students, regardless of how young/old a student is.

additionally, as a teacher i cannot state how incredibly weird and uncomfortable it would be and is for any student to take a personal interest in me even platonically - it's so easy to take that boundary and abuse it. if a teacher wanted to cause emotional harm to a student, they could do so with a disturbing amount of ease. it's genuinely very important that teachers recognise this.

so with mystra as gale's personal teacher and mentor, it creeps me the fuck out that mystra entirely overstepped the boundary of teacher into that of lover. she took an implicit and complete trust in her as an authority figure to pursue a romantic interest in a student that had been in her sights since he was underage. that is so unfathomably creepy and wrong to do that it just makes me so repulsed.

this isn't even getting into the other components of mystra's reputation among wizards as a literal goddess, but even in this dynamic it's so gross and morally wrong

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #mystra #pls feel free to reblog or reply if you have any comments ab it #let me discuss my things at u all

[bitter-hibiscus]

I made a post a little while ago about hating the RHATO dynamic for JayRoy so here's how they work in my mind (spoiler alert, it's not healthy)

Jason is in his early 20s and Roy is in his mid-30s in my mind. this is important

Jason has Rampant daddy issues and he likes that Roy is a mostly serious older man that makes him feel kind of stupid and is Just A Little condescending (because fuck the "dumbass Roy" RHATO characterization)

Roy has been grieving Lian for like a decade now and while romance is not necessarily the best way to cope with that, it makes him feel good that he can "take care" of Jason. the age difference isn't particularly appealing to him, though, but he does like that Jason is a little bit obsessed with him

Roy is very no-nonsense when it comes to Jason's Bullshit, and calls him out when he's being too egocentric and selfish. Jason, in turn, calls Roy out when he lets The Horrors get to him too much and motivates him to work out and shower and deal with Life

Both of their brains move a hundred miles an hour, so neither of them mind it when the other isn't paying Full Attention to what they're saying. This also works because Roy has a tendency to forget mundane tasks while Jason forgets big events/plans, and they remind each other of stuff constantly

I also think Jason would be intimately familiar with addiction, even though his thing was alcohol and not drugs, and it would make Roy feel a little more settled about his heroin addiction (esp considering Catherine) that Jason knows how recovery works and is willing to support Roy in the right ways

Roy is also not naive, but he is a sucker and he's desperate for someone to stay in his life for once. Jason, obviously, does not, because he can't deal with Being Happy and has a tendency to think all the evil in the world is his fault, but he comes back because he's an asshole, and Roy does believe in second chances and he would love it if Jason loved him so much that he couldn't stand to stay away (Jason leaves again because he's an asshole)

I think that after that Roy would be willing to hold Jason at arms' length but wouldn't get back with him, especially after he finds out Lian is alive. Jason, for as much as Roy loves him, is not someone he would want around his daughter. Jason is only really able to think about himself so while he does respect Roy's decision, he doesn't really fully back off, and Roy understands Jason's psyche too much to fully shoo him away

Anyway yeah I think their relationship would be a lot more grim and a lot less "idiots in love" like most people seem to characterize them as. Both Roy and Jason understand their own inner workings and know what they crave in relationships. They aren't dumb or codependent, though maybe a little inter-depentent.

#dc comics #jason todd #roy harper #jayroy #red hood #arsenal dc #ramble ramble ramble #feel free to reblog with more opinions or just flat-out disagree with me :D discussing this stuff with people is fun

[yllirya]

Superhero landing, wriolette edition

Superhero landing, wriolette edition

landing on the opposite legs - cool coincidence or… possible physical hurt? Facts & HCs below for both ft. Neuvi's cane and Wrio's boxing stances (aka angsty ideas for physical pain)

---

Neuvi - landing on his left knee

There's the riddle from Enkanomiya with the vishap who broke his leg -let's say Neuvi has. But which one? He almost always has his cane in his right hand - the cane should go on the opposite side than the painful limb for a normal walking pattern.

But if the cane is in his right hand and his left leg should be hurt, why land on the left? He may be a bit masochistic - he would rather have this one taking the hit again. Or, think of how it is to stand up from that position. His right leg will push him up (aka the uninjured one).

Wrio - landing on his right knee

During his AA-seq., his right hand and leg are more dominant to hit with. Maybe he's used to having his right knee getting the hard stuff. As w Neuvi, maybe he rather takes dmg on st that is already fucked up, using the other to stand up. Or…

Look how his left leg is his stable point (ult very good example) - what if his right can't be that bc he has hurt it too much before? (Think of stability problem.) He has very fast footwork in 2nd-4th AAs. But in 1st, 2nd, and 5th AA, skill, and ult, he uses his left side as the pillar.

Conclusion: some things are controversial but imo they both land on the leg they hurt. (And for better angst, put self-depreciative mental reasons behind too bc why not.)

Feel free to use these facts&HCs in yours - I certainly will(🙂😈). I could write an essay about this with exactly named medical conditions but who would even care haha:))

#neuvillette #wriothesley #wriolette #genshin impact #angst #silly observations of mine #i'm a doctor irl w some chr pain issues so ig i care about stuff like these #feel free to share your thoughts in reblogs or replies!! i'm happy to discuss this topic further #cross-posted from twt - sorry for the format

[astronomodome]

Tumblr Poll Tournaments & MCYT

So a while ago I made a post expressing my frustration with the way a lot of tumblr poll tournaments seem to exclude mcyt characters- or if they are included, people in the notes are rude about it. The first situation of these- the poll organizer including rules against submitting characters from mcyt- is something I can easily quantify. I've crunched some numbers in order to find out two things:

How common is this phenomenon, really?

Why does this happen in the first place?

A note before I start: I'm not blaming the poll organizers for this, and I don't want anyone to get angry at them for excluding mcyt. At the end of the day, it's up to them to curate what they want their poll to be, and if they don't want to deal with the toxicity that often comes with letting mcyt characters run (or if they just don't like it for whatever reason), that's their decision. Trust me- poll organizers have to put up with a lot of shit already, and I don't want to add to it, regardless of their opinions on mcyt. If any poll organizers recognize their own words in the later part of this overview, they can contact me and I'll remove it. This is also why I have chosen not to identify the blogs from which I took the examples- I mean no harm to any poll organizer. They are a symptom of a much larger problem and they haven't done anything wrong except be a little misinformed at worst.

Excluding mcyt characters from poll tournaments really isn't that big of a deal on its own- though it is frustrating- but it does speak to the larger attitude of the general tumblr population towards mcyt. While not without its flaws, this can be used as a metric to measure the extent of this attitude and maybe get a hint of why it exists.

...Please note, also, that most of these polls date back to around March-June 2023, when poll tournaments were a big thing on Tumblr. Not super outdated, but I still should note that opinions might have changed since then.

Also also, be warned that there are examples below of some organizers being pretty toxic! It's not a whole lot, but if you don't want to expose yourself to that, maybe pass on this post!

With that out of the way, let's get started.

Part One: The Numbers

The first thing I decided to do was figure out a rough percentage of how many poll tournaments have a rule that excludes mcyt characters from being submitted. To get a sample batch of poll blogs, I used one of the blogs that pits the winners of tournaments against each other and checked each blog included in that. This ended up being a more tedious process than I had thought, since there's a lot of variation in the way poll organizers, well, organize. I ended up with 123 blogs sorted into three categories.

The first category included tournaments where a rule for or against mcyt characters wouldn't really make sense, for a variety of reasons. Most commonly, the tournament was between letters of the alphabet or animo acids or government agencies, not fictional characters, so I counted them out. There were also a handful of blogs where the contestants were determined by the organizer, not by nomination at all. Combined, blogs that did not fit my criteria made up 60/123 of my samples.

The second and third categories were the blogs that either had a rule against mcyt characters, or didn't. Most of the blogs I looked through had rules I could find, and some were more thorough about it than others. For my purposes, I counted the blog as a no only if they explicitly had a rule against mcyt characters, or clarified later that they weren't allowed. Most poll blogs didn't mention mcyt at all. (This will become relevant later.)

Of the 63 blogs that fit my criteria, 11 (17.5%) of them had a rule against mcyt characters, while the remaining 52 (82.5%) did not.

To me, this seems like pretty good news! I had honestly expected the percentage of blogs that excluded mcyt to be much higher. This is definitely a good sign! But I wouldn't really jump to assuming that mcyt characters would actually be accepted in all of these blogs. I will explain this in the next part of my research.

Part Two: The Examples

The second thing I wanted to find out with this research was why organizers end up having rules against mcyt in the first place. Is it just the bad reputation the mcyt space has (largely a result of one green man in particular)? Let's look at a few examples of poll rules against mcyt characters. Some of them are from my sample blogs and some of them aren't.

Type 1: Not understanding the difference between real people and characters in mcyt

The majority of the rules against mcyt I saw were of this type, and honestly, it's pretty reasonable. It's a pretty major debate in the mcyt community over whether mcyts' characters are separate enough from their content creators to count as fictional. However, there are a considerable number of mcyt characters who are explicitly stated to be different from their cc in the same way as a character in a movie played by an actor is different from the actor playing them. Excluding all mcyt characters for being 'real people' is just incorrect, though I can kinda understand where the organizers were coming from with this one.

It should also be noted that the vast majority of poll blogs had a rule against submitting real people. There's a possibility that some poll organizers might have lumped mcyt characters as real people even if they didn't specify it explicitly. Therefore, an attempt to actually submit an mcyt character into one of these tournaments might be against the rules based on what the organizer thinks. I have no way to quantify this, which is why I said earlier that the results of my initial test might not be accurate.

Type 2: 'Problematic fandom' (toxicity warning for some of these)

This type of rule is usually broader than just mcyt, but lumps it in with other fandoms known for being associated with bigotry (often hp, which is... yeah i'm definitely not going to argue in favor of harry potter but yikes. really? we're as bad as terfy potter? really.) At least one of them let dsmp characters in with the exception of dream, which is a lot fairer than... some of the others.

If we want to give the organizers benefit of the doubt here, we can say that these rules are made to keep the poll less toxic than it would be otherwise... but to be perfectly honest, some of these might be more about that phenomenon of purity culture that has had a habit of popping up in fandom spaces since forever. That's a whole other conversation I'm not ready to have now, but it comes as no surprise to me that mcyt has become a little taboo in some places (likely to a large extent because of dream and all the drama he's generated). There's also no telling whether the poll organizers in these cases even know that there are other smps besides dsmp... but that's besides the point, since there are other dsmp characters that aren't associated with dream at all. Excluding them reveals a misconception about the mcyt genre anyway. And of course, I think we can all agree that some of these are just pretty rude.

Which brings us to our conclusion.

I feel like a lot of the toxicity towards mcyt as a genre and mcyt characters boils down to people either not really understanding what mcyt is (i.e. mcyt -> minecraft youtubers -> real people) or hearing stuff about dream and assuming the entire mcyt space is reflective of that. Of course, it's a frustrating issue that some people think this way. I think it's nice to be reminded, though, that this sort of thing isn't very widespread. Alongside the bad examples, I saw a lot of organizers confronting their preconceived notions: one organizer let in an mcyt character after admitting their 'unfamiliarity with the source material', another allowed mcyt characters 'on the condition that you can explain how they are a separate character' and a few others fiercely defended mcyt characters against toxicity in their polls. Every day we grow as a community and we can't let a few people with misguided notions of what we are keep us down. Keep watching, keep creating, and as Zedaph once said, It's okay to be silly!

#this ended up being a larger project than i expected. i hope it doesnt ruffle anyone's feathers too much #i don't like dipping my toes into discourse-y stuff but i thought this was pretty fascinating #if anyone has any questions or imput feel free to speak up #i don't bite and i love discussion #mcyt #astro speaks #idk what else to tag this as. i dont want to be spamming fandom tags for this #but i also want people to see it since i worked really hard on it #so uh. i dont like to beg for reblogs but if you find this interesting at all please consider reblogging

[autopotion]

Reblog this if you want, it would be cool to see a broader set of opinions

#stuff I have just been curious about lately. For Obvious Reasons #for me I think I like to jump in during the middle? then ik there's a consistent backlog #but i also get the joy of some real time updates and active discussions #sometimes i do wait until something has ended though so i can get a sense of if i'd like the story as a whole #BUT following from the beginning is cool too bcuz then you get to actively watch the story develop from the start (!!!) #AND you get to say 'i liked it before it was cool' lol. #BUT YAH ANYWAY. feel free to reblog

[lilyginnyblackv2]

I know I’ve seen a post or two, mostly on Twitter, iirc, that are expressing annoyance with fans putting so much focus and praise on Rei in this week’s episode (Ep. 7). Basically equating it to when men are shown doing the bare minimum in regards to parenting their kids and getting praise for that by the media and/or general society.

And I do get where that sentiment is coming from, but I think BD’s, and Rei’s, situation is a bit different in this regard. Usually those dads doing the bare minimum are cishet men in cishet relationships in which they were 100% involved with the creation of the child they are caring for and were 100% on board with having a child from the beginning. I am speaking generally here, of course, but I think this element plays a very important role in how Rei’s situation differs.

From what we can tell of Rei, before Kazuki brought Miri into their lives, he had no plans of having kids or a family. Miri was brought into his life very quickly and unexpectedly. He didn’t have 9 months to prepare or get used to the idea of being a parent. He had a total of like a couple days to make that decision. And while his growth has been slow moving in regards to taking care of Miri, it has still been there, and has been steadily growing and improving. 

With Rei, we also know (or, at least have a vague understanding of) what kind of childhood and upbringing he has had (one that is on a level that most men who don’t step up as dads likely didn’t have), so we can see very specifically how that has affected his life as an adult. The episode also makes it really clear that what Rei had been doing before wasn’t enough and that while he did apply himself when Miri got sick, he still needs to keep that up (in the episode, this would be him making the French toast). 

Now, the big test for Buddy Daddies, imo anyway, will be if they follow through with this character growth and development properly. If they don’t, then I’ll be a bit more skeptical of the messaging they are going with in Episode 7. But, I’m going to hope that they will.

But, on the other hand, I think this episode also highlights how we, as a society, need to do a better job of teaching life skills to all of our children, period. Not just to the ones that are female or female presenting, but to our boys and male presenting kids as well. if we don’t, then it becomes much harder for fathers to step up in the same way that we expect mothers too, because they aren’t brought up being equipped with the knowledge and skill sets that they need to do that, and the realization of that usually only comes once they’ve already had a kid. 

This is an issue all over the world, of course, but really still quite bad in Japan. The gap in childcare responsibilities between men and women is still very, very large, and while I haven’t watched every anime out there, I’m fairly certain that this isn’t an issue that has been called out or explored all that much in the medium. So to see an anime series even approach this topic is great, because that is still a rare thing to see. I hope we see more anime challenging issues like this and that Buddy Daddies keeps Rei’s growth here and has him improve even more as the series continues to progress.

#Buddy Daddies #BD #Kazuki Kurusu #Rei Suwa #social issus #gender related social issues #parenting issues #BD spoilers #Buddy Daddies spoilers #Also! #feel free to add or discuss this some more #in the comments or reblogs #these are just some of the thoughts I've been having #there is some generalization here of course #but that can't really be helped

[system-of-a-feather]

System Dynamic Rambles with XIV: Chapter 1; We Don't Have Persecutors in This System

Ignore the dramatic title I thought it would be funny. Like this MIGHT be a series if I have more rambles on the topic, but I'm mostly clowning up there. That said, I really wanted to go on an acre long spiel about how systematic thinking and how individualistic thinking / capitalism is a plague on living and finding stability with DID; but I was only supposed to be out to go pick up Riku their sandwich so I will just open up one chapter line on this and leave the rest for if I feel like it later.

None of these are supposed to be professional or organized, thus the "rambles" just some thoughts of mine that I feel might be worth thinking about.

Additionally, these are my opinions and perspectives; I will be stating absolute statements in terms of recovery and while I do realize there are likely different ways of healing and different perspectives and there is never a "no way" or "never" in healing, this is how we approach our system and these are of my opinions. This paragraph serves as a disclaimer for if anyone is sensitive to that to just turn around.

But first things first, our system operates as a unit. The general theme of this whole ramble and if there is anything I would want to say as my first piece of advice to any alter or part in a leadership or leadership-adjacent position (host or respected leading protector) that the thing you have to know first and foremost is that you are never going to get anywhere or reduce any long term stability by playing games of "what >I< want" or denying anyone anything; even if what they want on a surface level sounds entirely opposite to what you want.

My main point of claim to that is that you can't kick parts out of your system, you can't kill parts in your system, you can repress them and silence them and ignore them and pretend they aren't there, but every time you do that it will only simply make them come back stronger in the future and you will be 100% back to where you were at best, or worse - with someone even more adamant and stuck in the surface level of what they "want".

You can't say "no" to a part that expresses that they really want something, because more often than not, that want - if genuine and strong - is a need. It might not sound like a need to you, but it is a need. If you want something and another part wants something that conflicts with it, you do not say no, you sit down and get to the root of both of your "wants" to see what "need" the "wants" fulfills and you find a way to incorporate both NEEDS the best possible. Anything attempt less than that will always drive up conflict, instability, bad blood, and poor faith between parts and overall make your life an increasing living hell.

With that in mind, I go by the mantra of "erase the words 'I want'" from your functional and serious communication vocabulary - its fine to think and feel and say it whenever - but you should not be approaching in a leading role with "I want" but collect yourself and to the best of your ability lead with "Currently I want and am working towards XYZ because [reason / need]" and keeep that perspective and mindset when trying to help a part that has a need / want that is "incompatible" figure out the core reason / need that they are operating and wanting from the system and thus incooperating both needs / reasons with a "Need first" perspective.

As long as there is a class in any society, or in a system, whose needs are not being met, there will inherently always be distrust, instability, chaos, and conflict. With distrust, instability, chaos, and conflict - even those that are "good" and "successful" will eventually find themselves unable to reach their goals or properly establish any form of consistent and stable peace as those that are being scuffed to the side will inevitably find themselves unable to bear with the weight of their neglected needs.

With that in mind, I started the movement in our system that has officially taken hold that this system has absolutely zero persecutors. None. We have introjects of abusers, we have trauma holders, we have parts that re-instate abuse as a protective measure, but we do not have any persecutors, because there is no one who is hurting the system.

We have parts that like the term persecutor, they can call themselves that, but among the leadership roles in this system, those are just "parts who engage in persecutory behavior more than others and identify with that". We refuse to perceive any part in our system as a problem or anything against the whole because - for better or worse - no one can leave the system so being against it doesn't really work for those of us trying to maintain peace and direction for the unit.

Parts who engage in persecutory behaviors are in then simply behaving as a "part whose needs are not being met by the system". People, animals, and living beings - when their needs are met - are prone to being content and cooperative, if a part is being aggressive or uncooperative, it is because they have a need.

So rather than having persecutors, we have parts who are being failed by the current system in hand and parts who are upset as a result. There is no 'against the system' or 'hurting the system' or 'abusing the system', simply that whatever we currently have in place currently does not effectively take them into account.

From there it is not that you have to fix the part or reject their needs, it is that you have to fix the system itself by investigating where in the state of the system that part is being failed; what need are they having that is not getting met, and what is the best and most practical way to fix that.

It's not something easy and its definitely easier said than done, but it is really the only sustainable way we've found to actively, rapidly, and effectively stabilizing an unstable environment.

Theres a lot more to it and shit, but thats just chapter one of my communist manifesto. Tune in for more later.

-XIV

#alter: xiv #system dyanmics #xiv rambles #actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #did #osdd #persecutor #persecutor alters #persecutor protector #now i gotta go let riku eat their sandwich now that this is posted #feel free to reblog and discuss

[a-dragons-journal]

hi im politely asking for you to take down your response to my post, i do not want the kind of attention i am receiving. thank you

*sigh* I was going to draft a response to your first response to my reblog yesterday, but it's been a weird and stressful couple of days for me and I didn't want to accidentally snap at you because I didn't have the brain space to give the conversation the respect and attention it deserves, so I delayed it to today, and it appears that may have come off as me being rude and ignoring you. For that I apologize; that was not my intent.

I'm sorry that a couple of people have been rude to you in the tags on that post. I also apologize if my response came off as harsh or hostile in any way; as I noted in that initial reblog, I've been seeing a lot of people saying with their whole chest that alterhuman just means nonhuman, and the frequency is getting frustrating, but that's not your fault and the frustration might have unfairly spilled over into my tone. It seems from some of your more recent reblogs like it might've just been a misphrase, but it's hard to tell, so I didn't want to assume it was - and in any case, the explanation and example list was for anon as much as it was for you. I wasn't trying to attack or "rag on" you at all, and I don't think most of the people leaving tags agreeing with me were either, though obviously I can't speak for them. I was just trying to prevent misinformation from spreading - because even if you didn't mean "alterhuman = nonhuman," if that's how it read to me, it's probably how it read to an anon who has no way of knowing better, and that's how people come away actually thinking that's what the word means.

With that being said, I'm going to politely decline to delete my reblog of that post. I won't answer in further reblogs (unless you address me directly, of course) and thus won't bump it any further up my blog, but the existing reblog has already been up for two days and reblogged by multiple people; anyone who was going to see it on their dashboard from my blog has probably already seen it, so deleting it won't actually accomplish decreasing the people responding in your notes. All it will do is get rid of the clarification of potential misunderstanding, which I honestly don't really want to do when it won't do any good. If the post keeps causing you problems, turning off reblogs would probably do more to get rid of that problem than my deleting my response would; you should be able to do that in the edit interface on any post, at least on desktop (I'm never sure how mobile works exactly lol). (And that's a reversible change where deletions are not, to boot.)

#asked and answered #cripp-tid #rani talks #i'm turning off reblogs on this so i don't get other people jumping on board; please feel free to send further asks or use replies - #- if you want to discuss this further #obligatory @ the notes don't be a jackass don't harass people and probably don't reply to this post at all please

[kvothbloodless]

As someone who’s followed you for a long time, and a fellow writer….do you genuinely support chatGPT? Even if it has been proven to scrape people’s writings without their consent? And the fact that its a soulless husk of what actual writing is?

So Ive done my best to avoid AI discourse, but I am bad at it. So to put it clearly.

I dont Support chatgpt specifically. Its a program made by a corporation because they can make a profit from it, and curtail its capabilities in line with their goals. I use it sometimes because its fun ans convenient, but I dont pay for it or anything. I think pretty much all legitimate concerns about AI are really just concerns about corporate ethics, at which point the AI specifically becomes irrelevant

I also dont really think the situation in general is one where "support" is the right word to use; its like asking if I support cameras.

I want to be clear im not trying to be vague though; i think in general AI is pretty cool, and that 99% of the arguments against it are factually incorrect, based on inconsistent or bad moral frameworks, or both. Im not going to get into all the reasons AIs are cool, since I dont feel up to doing a Big AI Post, but I do want to gesture vahuely in the direction of how much more accessible this makes artistic creation and experimentation, and all the insanely fun things people can use AI for. However, i do want to address the common arguments against it, especially since it feels like a lot of people are just misinformed and falling into the very easy tumblr trap.

1. Scraping fics without consent: if you post something on a public site for the public to read, and someone downloads it to read it, its not stealing. Tumblr is generally pretty firmly against strict copywrite laws, so its a bit weird that so many people are Very concerned about AIs "stealing" their work in a way thats even less direct than fanfiction. Like, "your writing is so in character" and "wow youre really good at imitating the authors writing style" are common compliments on fics.

To be clear, there are absolutely ways of interacting with free public content thats bad (like reposting). But AIs arent frankensteining stuff together, or copy pasting anything; they literally could not do that. The training/model files are so insanely tiny compared to the amount of training data that it would be impossible for them to be storing that sort of thing. An AI learning from your writing isnt really any different than a human reading your writing, going "oh I like that" subconsciously, and using that to inform their future writing.

Whats that quote about "to get better at writing, read more"? If you believe that statememt is accurate, then Im a bit confused how youd be upset about an AI "reading" your writing and learning from it?

All of the Actual ways this could be used badly (copying someones art style and then selling art cheaper, etc.) arent actually unique to AI (a person can also do that!), and also usually arent really a thing thats happening enough to be a problem (most people who want art from an artist enough to commission them, are going to want it to actually be done By that artist). Using AI to make an original work, or even to finish a fanfic someone else wrote, is no more theft than if you did it by yourself.

2. "Soulless Husk": im sorry im genuinely trying my best here to be gentle and respectful, but this talking point genuinely makes my blood boil a bit, so im not trying to get personal or insult anyone specifically. Claiming that art made by humans is automatically deeper, that art is all about Meaning and Struggle, comes off as extremely pretentious and just doesnt engage with the reality of art. Im having trouble articulating a good argument here, but like. Art doesnt have to be deep, it doesnt have to have a Message, and the necessity of struggling in order to learn about and create art is an unequivocable bad thing.

Many many people make art (visual, written, etc.) becuase they want to see or read something cool or because they think others will find it fun. Many many people who would like to create art do not do so because it requires talent/practice that they are not willing to put the time and effort into developing, and this is not a moral issue. As Ive said before, laziness is a virtue and self-indulgance is a goal we should aspire to. Using a tool to make the incredibly fun act of creating easier and more accessible is awesome.

Also, who gets to define what "actual art" is? Genuinely seems a bit arrogant and presumptuous to declare that something is or is not "actual art" based on your own preferences.

The posts that Really annoy me are the ones that are like "cant understand the people RPing or playing a TTRPG with AI becuz its soulless. I only ever RP with other people because the fun part is being social or collaberatively building story" or whatever. Cool. I rp and play tabletops because i like to have fun and I enjoy those activities. Im gonna be honest, i find it a bit offensive and kinda.. dumb, to act like its somehow morally superior to only enjoy oneself in a way that Builds Community or Has A Meaning. People do meaningless things because they enjoy doing them and so long as no one is being hurt, thats fine.

3. Replacing workers: This is the only argument that has Any weight, but its still a bad argument. Its absolutrly true that AI is gonna put people out of work. The fact that more people will be out of work and struggling is a bad thing. This is also what happens when literally any new technology is developed, dating all the way back to the industrial revolution (at the Very latest). Automation is almost always a massive net benefit to humanity (im aware this topic could be its own series of posts but You Know What I Mean, please dont start industrialization discourse here), and the fact that it puts people out of work isnt actually an argument against it. Lots of radio operators lost their job when telephones were invented, but that doesnt mean people should have never used the telephone and obstinately stuck with radios. When phone technology advanced, a lot of phone operators lost their jobs, but that doesnt mean people were Morally Wrong to use the new developments that made phones far more convenient.

As in all things, el problema es capitalismo; AI isnt preventing anyone from doing art, its just reducing how many people can get paid to do their art. The correct solution to automation putting people out of work is not to stop the wheel of tech development, but to change society so that one doesnt have to slave away in order to survive.

This also raises the adjacent point, which is that halting tech development like this is impossible. Once the cat is out of the bag, its not going back in. AI tech is going to develop and become more widespread and theres literally nothing you can do to stop that. If you want to be upset about that, its your perogative ig, but im gonna be excitedly waiting for the dam to break and we get an open source LLM that I can use without worrying about data privacy or corporate filters, so I can have fun and RP however much I want and finally be able to write the stuff I want to write but cant do on my own because I have adhd and chronic fatigue, and Id kinda prefer if people stopped trying to rain on my parade because they think im not having fun or creating art in the "right way".

EDIT: I did want to add one more thing! A US court ruled that you cant copywrite something created completely by an AI, and i think thats an awesome move and I hope it gets expanded a bit and spreads elsewhere. This isnt a position based on whether something produced in this way counts as "real art" or is morally bad or whatever, I just think that reducing corporate and IP grasp on anything is good, and that AI specifically is going to be most enjoyable when its free and open source.

#AI #discourse #im genuinely happy to discuss this so feel free to send more asks or reply #but im turning off reblogs because im not a fan of online discoursing

[kakuchari]

just so y’all know. if you’re not the target audience for a story, or you don’t identify with the reader described in a story, but you’re friends with the author or simply enjoy the story and how it’s written…you’re allowed to reblog it and interact with it. you’re allowed to spread its reach. gatekeeping has its uses but for fan-made things let’s stop doing that. who is that helping??

#📣 ari announces #like let’s be fr right now #i have black and poc moots. what if a fic i read has a black reader and they never see it bc i never reblog it to get it on their dash?? #it shouldn’t matter if i’m black or not. what matters is spreading the fic. getting it to the ppl it IS meant for. that’s how i see it #and if that’s wrong feel free to start a discussion w me but some of the fics my black moots have written are absolute masterpieces #and it’d be a cold day in hell before i stop supporting them just bc we share different skin colors. wtf are you ppl even on jesus christ

[ben-wisehart]

I just don't get the argument that banning AI-generated works from ao3 would be pointless because people will continue to post AI works but stop labelling them as such, so they'll be harder to avoid. You can say that about literally any crime. There are always going to be people who ignore the rules, but that doesn't mean the rules should not exist.

Right now, AI-generated works are a novelty. People are posting them openly because it seems like fun. The posters of these fics (I will not call them authors) aren't trying to cheat anyone, they just find the concept neat and want to share them with others, but they're not actually trying to receive praise for something they didn't do.

The people who are trying to pass AI-generated works off as genuine fanworks are already doing so. If 50% of AI works currently on the archive are marked as such, and 50% are not, then banning AI works would result in the openly-AI works being removed. Of those, perhaps half of the people posting them would be so determined to do so anyway that they'll lie and repost them less-conspicuously—but that's still 25% fewer AI works on the archive. (and frankly I think this is being very generous about the number of genuine grifters)

Placeholder "fic to be written" works, "help me find this fic" works, and other works that treat the archive like a social media site are already against the terms of service. These can and do get reported and taken down. If you're a regular user of the archive you'll know that works like this still get posted on a pretty regular basis, but the fact that they're generally known to be against the TOS means there is a precedent to stop them becoming more commonplace.

AI-generated works are not fanworks. They simply aren't. They have no place taking up server space and pushing genuine creators further down in the search results, making it just a little bit harder for authors starting out to get noticed. They don't belong there any more than advertisements for discord servers or future fics.

The only other concern I've seen expressed is that genuine inexperienced authors might get mistaken for AI-posters and reported. Personally, I think it's still pretty easy to tell the difference between the structurally perfect but utterly soulless prose of AI and the error-ridden works of inexperienced human authors, but assuming that changes...it's already basically impossible to get fics taken down that don't openly admit to breaking the rules. These reports are assessed by real people and the Archive's policy is maximum inclusiveness when there is any doubt whatsoever.

If all a ban on AI-works does is remove the hundreds of fics that are currently open about being AI-generated, that is already enough for it to be a good thing, even if it does lead to a few more being posted in secret

#ao3 #archive of our own #ai fic #just a heads up im not really looking to argue here #feel free to have discussions and share your own thoughts in the replies or reblogs but I probably won't answer myself #anyway just. #this isn't fucking prohibition. that is not even remotely an accurate comparison #banning alcohol didn't work because alcohol slaps and people love it #but the only people who like AI fics are the people making AI fics. it's just profoundly not the same thing #honestly now that I’ve written it ‘structurally perfect’ feels way too generous for AI works lol #those things absolutely have grammar and punctuation errors too #but you know what I mean if you’ve ever read one #the reason they’re bad is not because of grammar

[tapipolouzer]

doing a thingy before i pass out so ill remember when i wake up 😎

#i nedd to discuss this with someone so making a poll😎 #utmv #also feel free to share hcs!!/np/pos i wanna hear thoughts ‼️ ideas ‼️ dream maybe having glasses‼️ #←last one is referring to one reblog im gonna make after this #anyway im sick and iys almost midnight n i need to rest so byeee #doing this for one (1) wewk cuz mu friend said so/pos

[ikkaku-of-heart]

Finally someone gets it!

As a transman I can't get it how forced genderbend it a nice thing.....I just am so worried they would get horrific dysphoria for their first time and it irks me.....

Genderbend is not bad if it's done well and not sexism (how oda does)

Glad to help people know they aren’t alone in this whole thing. I don’t necessarily hate genderbend - I can enjoy it occasionally in a fanservice way - but honestly most of the time I just find it unnecessary.

Forced genderbend? Fuck that. What happened in chapter 1063/episode 1093 shouldn’t have been treated as comedy. It should have been horror.

I get people thinking fem!Law is hot but the whole context around the scene is just so fucking disturbing that it should have been fan-disservice. I mean, I can only imagine being forced into a body that isn’t your own is nothing short of terrifying. Especially when you consider that this happened mid-battle against one of the most powerful antagonists in the series, so you’re now suddenly in a body that feels *completely off* when you’re fighting for your life. Even without the sexist implication that being in the female body made Law weaker (hate that bullshit and fuck you Toei and Doc Q) it’s still jarring ashell and something like that could get you killed in this kind of situation.

I could get into the full implications of just how dark and horrifying I feel this scene really is (and perhaps someday I will with it being tagged as such), but for now, I have to say that, while Oda was sexist, I’m more disappointed in the fandom over it than him. Oda I sadly expect to some extent. The fandom? Yeah, the obsession they immediately had over it and the way the tag has been flooded with people going gah-gah over it and fetishizing it and (in the case of one zine server that I ended up leaving in part because of this) even using it as an excuse to ship Law with Blackbeard instead of calling out the sexism and transphobia and fetishism and recognizing it as horror…

Yeah, not a fan. It’s not canon as far as I’m concerned. I can accept people thinking the fem!Hearts are hot, and people can draw and write what they like. I won't bash anyone for it and I respect that some people see it as harmless. But I’m just really not thrilled that more people aren’t calling out how problematic the whole scene is. I’d probably be a little less pissed at the fandom if I saw it more balanced, with both simping AND pointing out how bad that scene really was.

Alas, fandom gonna fandom, and I won’t let them ruin my love for the Hearts. I'll just keep doing what I always do and write them being awesome, funny, competent pirates who absolutely are their captain's hype squad. They can say he looks great as a girl and believe he can kick ass in any body, but the reaction they had over it, and the fandom's continued reaction, just gives me the ick.

#Time for Maintenance (OOC) #Heart Pirates #How Stuff Works (Meta/Analysis) #one piece episode 1093 #body dismorphia discussion cw #one piece chapter 1063 #(spoilers I do not like how the fandom reacted to the forced genderbend and the scene really should be treated as horror) #(thanks for coming to my TED Talk) #(ok I'm gonna go write something more pleasant) #(also feel free to reblog if you want I don't mind at all)