#I'm bad at technology and critical thinking

[sixteenthtry]

OK HELLO ik I'm being really annoying about this but regarding the mcr tour, from what I read since I live in Europe I would have to create an account on the US Ticketmaster website, but I should still put in my actual country of residence right??? Help

[vampyroteuthid]

if my boss was a woman having the kind of pissy fits and mood swings he has constantly he would be the laughingstock of the town and his business would have failed years ago. but because he's an old white man he's just the Beloved* Small Business** Veterinarian and he gets to sit on his ass all day making other people do 90% of the work for him experiencing absolutely no consequences. do you ever think of violence

[prokopetz]

Something that pops up in my notes from time to time is folks thinking I'm being excessively kind in my criticisms of Dungeons & Dragons, and I'm going to spin this off into a separate thread to address that without putting anyone on the spot.

First, if your own critique of Dungeons & Dragons is rooted in the idea that it's the Worst Game Ever, that speaks more to the limits of your experience than it does to anything else. Dungeons & Dragons in any of its iterations is far from the worst the tabletop roleplaying hobby has to offer – like, you have no fucking idea!

Second, I tend to be even-handed in my discussion of D&D's rules because, fundamentally, the rules are not the problem – or, at least, not the principal cause of the problem.

In many ways, the indie RPG sphere has never escaped the spectre of Ron Edwards, sternly pronouncing that the mechanical process of playing traditional RPGs causes actual, physical brain damage, and that this brain damage is responsible for the bad behaviour we often observe at the table. We don't say it that way anymore, but on some level a lot of us indie RPG designers still kind of believe it.

This is understandable. As game designers, we're naturally inclined to think of problems at the table as game design problems. When we see a problematic culture of play, our impulse is to frame it as something which emerges from the text of the game, and which can therefore be mitigated by repairing the text of the game.

Confronted with the obvious toxicity of certain facets of D&D's culture of play, we go combing through its text, looking for something – some formalism, some structure, some piece of rules technology – which we can point to and say: "this is it; this is where the brain-worms live."

The trouble is, this is not in fact where the brain-worms live. Certainly, the text of a game, particularly a very popular one, can have some influence on the game's surrounding culture of play, but that text is in turn a reflection of the culture of play in which it was written. The Player's Handbook isn't an SCP object, spewing infectious infohazards everywhere when you crack open the cover – hell, I'd go so far as to say that many of the problems of D&D's culture of play operate in spite of the game's text, not because of it!

Basically, what I'm saying is that I don't see any contradiction between being the sort of pretentious knob who writes one-page indie RPGs about gay catgirls talking about their feelings (which I am), and speaking favourably about this or that piece of rules tech from whatever flavour of Dungeons & Dragons is in favour this week (which I do), because I recognise that you can't game-design your way out of a problem you didn't game-design your way into.

The fact that one of the biggest problems facing the tabletop roleplaying hobby is something that can't be repaired by fucking around with dice-rolling procedures is a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of indie game designers, and I won't say I wasn't resistant to it myself, but it's something that's both useful and necessary to accept.

(None of this means that the text of Dungeons & Dragons in any of its incarnations is beyond criticism on other grounds, of course, and I've never been shy about highlighting those criticisms where they're warranted. The only way you're gonna arrive at the conclusion that I'm some sort of D&D apologist is if you're starting from the presumption that The Real Problem Is The Rules.)

[artsekey]

I'd been seeing videos on Tiktok and Youtube about how younger Gen Z & Gen Alpha were demonstrating low computer literacy & below benchmark reading & writing skills, but-- like with many things on the internet-- I assumed most of what I read and watched was exaggerated. Hell, even if things were as bad as people were saying, it would be at least ~5 years before I started seeing the problem in higher education.

I was very wrong.

Of the many applications I've read this application season, only %6 percent demonstrated would I would consider a college-level mastery of language & grammar. The students writing these applications have been enrolled in university for at least two years, and have taken all fundamental courses. This means they've had classes dedicated to reading, writing, and literature analysis, and yet!

There are sentences I have to read over and over again to discern intent. Circular arguments that offer no actual substance. Errors in spelling and capitalization that spellcheck should've flagged.

At a glance, it's easy to trace this issue back to two things:

The state of education in the United States is abhorrent. Instructors are not paid enough, so schools-- particularly public schools-- take whatever instructors they can find.

COVID. The two year long gap in education, especially in high school, left many students struggling to keep up.

But I think there's a third culprit-- something I mentioned earlier in this post. A lack of computer literacy.

This subject has been covered extensively by multiple news outlets like the Washington Post and Raconteur, but as someone seeing it firsthand I wanted to add my voice to the rising chorus of concerned educators begging you to pay attention.

As the interface we use to engage with technology becomes more user friendly, the knowledge we need to access our files, photos, programs, & data becomes less and less important. Why do I need to know about directories if I can search my files in Windows (are you searching in Windows? Are you sure? Do you know what that bar you're typing into is part of? Where it's looking)? Maybe you don't have any files on your computer at all-- maybe they're on the cloud through OneDrive, or backed up through Google. Some of you reading this may know exactly where and how your files are stored. Many of you probably don't, and that's okay. For most people, being able to access a file in as short a time as possible is what they prioritize.

The problem is, when you as a consumer are only using a tool, you are intrinsically limited by the functions that tool is advertised to have. Worse yet, when the tool fails or is insufficient for what you need, you have no way of working outside of that tool. You'll need to consult an expert, which is usually expensive.

When you as a consumer understand a tool, your options are limitless. You can break it apart and put it back together in just the way you like, or you can identify what parts of the tool you need and search for more accessible or affordable options that focus more on your specific use-case.

The problem-- and to be clear, I do not blame Gen Z & Gen Alpha for what I'm about to outline-- is that this user-friendly interface has fostered a culture that no longer troubleshoots. If something on the computer doesn't work well, it's the computer's fault. It's UI should be more intuitive, and it it's not operating as expected, it's broken. What I'm seeing more and more of is that if something's broken, students stop there. They believe there's nothing they can do. They don't actively seek out solutions, they don't take to Google, they don't hop on Reddit to ask around; they just... stop. The gap in knowledge between where they stand and where they need to be to begin troubleshooting seems to wide and inaccessible (because the fundamental structure of files/directories is unknown to many) that they don't begin.

This isn't demonstrative of a lack of critical thinking, but without the drive to troubleshoot the number of opportunities to develop those critical thinking skills are greatly diminished. How do you communicate an issue to someone online? How do look for specific information? How do you determine whether that information is specifically helpful to you? If it isn't, what part of it is? This process fosters so many skills that I believe are at least partially linked to the ability to read and write effectively, and for so many of my students it feels like a complete non-starter.

We need basic computer classes back in schools. We need typing classes, we need digital media classes, we need classes that talk about computers outside of learning to code. Students need every opportunity to develop critical thinking skills and the ability to self-reflect & self correct, and in an age of misinformation & portable technology, it's more important now than ever.

[glorismorningstar]

THE LION CHRONICLES

Pairings: girlfriend!Lute x f!reader, fatherfigure!Alastor x f!reader, Charlie x overprotective!Vaggie + f!bodyguard!reader, situationship!Carmilla Carmine x f!reader

Summary: Charlie is asked to attend a meeting with Heaven, and Vaggie asks Y/N to keep an eye on her. Begrudgingly, she agrees, but not without taking the necessary precautions. A dreaded yet hoped-for encounter occurs, which triggers unforgettable memories.

Warnings: daddy issues, canon-typical violence, Adam being Adam, brief lesbian smut, fluff, angst, grief, sadness, mentions of sex, WLW

A/N: I'm fully aware that the trailer was a major flop, but this story is purely self indulgent and has been in my head for so long that I need to get it out :)

| OPENING // PART 1 // PART 2 |

˚₊‧ ꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

˚₊‧ ꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS LATER���

“So, what do you think?” Alastor asked as he turned off the TV. He had just shown us the commercial he'd made for the hotel, and while Charlie and Vaggie were off-put and disappointed, I had to hold back a snort of laughter.

“That was hysterical,” I laughed, resting my elbows on top of the backrest of the couch. “May I have a copy of that?”

“Y/N!” Vaggie barked.

“Right, right!” I cleared my throat. While this was one of the most entertaining things I'd seen in a long while - since that dipshit Vox was unable to put on anything good in the seven years that Alastor was gone, or even before that - it wasn't oriented to what we wanted to do for sinners, it did not once mention redemption or our ambition to help souls checking out into Heaven.

“I'm sorry, what the fuck was that?” Vaggie snapped.

“Uh, yeah, one note… Alastor…” Charlie hesitated, trying to find the words to criticize the commercial without aggravating Alastor, whose grin hadn't wasted a beat in growing strained. “I mean, first off, thank you so much for making this, seriously amazing! But, um, maybe the tone is a bit off.”

Alastor, tilting his head a little and furrowing his brows in his own fashion of a glare, was visibly offended, expression betraying his ever-present smile. I had always found his grin curious, ever since the day he and Rosie had rescued me, I wondered about his choice to smile permanently. A smile is a powerful tool, he'd say, it keeps your friends inspired, your enemies guessing, and assures that no matter what happens, you're the one in control.

“We want people to want to come here, but this makes it look… um…” she continued, attempting to word her sentence properly. 

“Bad. The word you're looking for is bad.” Vaggie completed. While Sera had taught me to be polite, her brutal honesty was refreshing. 

“Funny, I was going for hilarious!” Alastor said and tilted his head to the side, neck rolling with a crack.

“Agreed, but comedy isn't the purpose of the ad.” I said with a soft tilt of my head.

“It didn't say anything about how we're trying to save demons from the extermination, which is the whole fucking point.” 

“Vaggie is right, Alastor. The commercial is to let sinners know we are trying to help them.” Said Charlie.

“Well, my dear, I haven't been active in Hell for quite some time and everyone remembers me from my radio show - the proper medium to express oneself,” he said, holding his finger up for emphasis, which made me chuckle, then I laced my fingers together and rested my chin on my conjoined hands. “But you insisted on this noisy picture box advertisement! So I had a little fun with it.”

His inability - and unwillingness - to hide his thinly veiled contempt for modern technology never failed to amuse me. I was among the oldest beings in creation, only younger than very few souls, but I had grown accustomed to television, cinema and social media. His insistence on radio broadcasts and their superiority was quite humorous.

“Oh, fun? You had a little fun with it?” Vaggie said, getting up from her seat. She was about to lose her patience, and I couldn't blame her. This was an important thing, for it to work out, it was vital that it was taken seriously by everyone involved. “This is not what we want to represent us! When you showed up here a week ago, you said you would help run this hotel, instead you're mocking us! No one is gonna come to a place that a powerful Overlord like you thinks is a waste of time.”

As if on cue, a pink gloved hand raised from the couch opposite the fireplace. I sighed and tilted my head to look at him, boredly smushing my cheek against my hand. “What?”

“If'n ya filming a commercial, can I suggest you take better advantage of the talented celebrity you have right here?” Angel Dust asked, four fingers pointing at himself.

“I don't know if you can, but you most certainly may not.” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose in exasperation. His views on sex were the polar opposite of mine. Heavenly standards had always discouraged giving in to such temptations, but that was one among the many ways in which I had rebelled. Nevertheless, for me sex had always been a way to express strong feelings of affection rather than just a simple exchange of bodily fluids. When I lived in Heaven, Lute and I had always made love with the purpose of worshiping and pleasuring each other, while Angel did so simply for the sake of reaching the climax, which I found immature and foolish.

“Angel, you're a porn star.” Vaggie pointed out with visible dismissal of his idea.

“A famous porn star!” He corrected. “I'll have the horniest sinners knocking these walls down to get in.”

“We're not filming a porn as a commercial.” Vaggie spoke, as if it wasn't obvious enough to the effeminate man.

“Why not?”

“Where do I begin? It's disgusting, it's unrealistic, it's immoral, and it makes little to no sense, among other things.” I listed out, counting each point on my fingers while I gazed at him with a grimace.

“No sense? Sex sells, don't it?” He said, rubbing his fingertips together. “I swear, if you film me going at it with Mr. Fancy Talk Creepy Voice here, you'd be rolling in participants willing to stay at this tacky hotel.”

The simple thought made me gag. Alastor's asexuality was to be respected, for his sake and for my own peace of mind. “Ha, ha! Never going to happen!”

“Angel, I appreciate you wanting to use your… special skills to, um… attract folks to the hotel, but I really don't want to exploit you! In that way.” Charlie winced, giving a polite but awkward smile to dismiss such a notion.

“Oh, please, baby, this body was made to be exploited,” he drawled and puffed his chest, making poses to highlight his sexual desirability. “I got the arms, I got the stamina, I got the legs, I got the lung capacity, ha, ha, I got the legs! The gag reflex, the holes, the chest fluff the everyone thinks are tits-” 

His narcissistic rambling was interrupted by Charlie's ringtone, which made me breathe a sigh of relief and stop tugging on my ears. As she excused herself to take the phone call, I zoned out for a minute, tail curling around my hip as the fluffy tip twitched idly. I heard her say “dad”, which drew a soft smile from me. If only Lucifer had been there to support my rebellion then, maybe things might have been a little different. I hadn't seen him in ages. We used to get along fairly well, and when I needed secret meetings to try to make peace, he was my main contact. Despite our strong friendship, I knew he'd recognize me immediately if he saw me again, so I refrained from reaching out. 

I was snapped out of my thoughts when I heard Husk once again rejecting Angel's flirting. It really was annoying. 

Husk and I had met through Alastor, as the poor guy was owned by the Overlord. We had more in common than I'd thought, including our feline traits, both physical and characteristic, and a mutual annoyance with Angel Dust. I felt bad for how Alastor treated him, I always believed it was unfair, but his rage was one of the most chilling, terrifying things one could ever witness, and I wasn't stupid enough to allow myself to be the object of his frustrations. It was already a miracle he was the closest thing to a father I'd ever have. 

“Vaggie! Holy shit!”

“Pah!” I yelped, ears pulling back as Charlie's outburst startled me.

“Ah! What?”

“Get over here!”

Their cute relationship made a fond chuckle fall from my lips, watching with a small smile as Vaggie walked over behind the wall to talk to Charlie.

When I heard her mention a meeting with the leader of the exorcist army, my stomach dropped to my knees. Adam.

He was almost my brother-in-law, brought into my social circle by Lute. I didn't admire him like he liked to think everyone did, but I did respect him, for Lute's sake. It was important to her that I got along with her best friend, and I couldn't deny her such a thing. 

♪ I can do this, somehow I know it

I'll get Heaven behind my plans

♪ Charlie, hold on

I could hear Charlie singing. She did always have a thing for singing songs at random times, a habit that straddled the line between endearing and entertaining, and annoying and irritating.

♪ There's just no way I could blow this

Not this once in a lifetime chance

♪It's just a meeting

Ah, yes, just a meeting, I thought with a sigh. The poor girl was about to go to her first meeting with Adam of all people. It was like taking her driver's test in a bus.

♪ To change their minds, to touch their hearts

Or whatever angels have

I frowned a little at the prejudice. Angels do so have hearts. It was the hypocrisy that bugged me.

♪ This could be bad...

♪ Cheer up, Vaggie

This could be swell

Something tells me that today is gonna be a happy day in Hell

♪ Okay, but just don't sing to them

Ah, the famous last words. Charlie was already out the door before Vaggie could even finish the sentence, strutting around through Hell as if it were the land of cupcakes and rainbows.

♪ That bitch is halfway down the street

♪ Is she-?

♪ Oh, she's dancing

♪ Ugh, no!

I sighed and leaned against the door frame, tail curling as I watched the princess walking down the street. “Y/N, you should accompany her to the meeting. Say you're the bodyguard or something.”

“Ha, ha, yeah, right.” I laughed with pure sarcasm. The simple idea of being in the same room as someone with divine ordainment after almost three decades made my head spin with anxiety.

“Fine, then at least keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn't run into some weirdass on the way.” Vaggie proposed. While it bordered on stalking, it was true that Charlie could be a bit too carefree, and it was the least I could do to help.

“Fine.” I groaned, pulling on the hood of my cloak, and followed her path down the street, dodging disgusting views and unpleasant sinners on the way. The fact that I'd be hearing Adam's voice after this long was nerve-wracking, to say the least. I wouldn't be speaking to him, obviously, if it were so I would have outright fainted, but being in a one mile radius of any personality from the right side of the pearly gates made my lungs constrict.

˚₊‧ ꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

As I stood in front of the tall golden tower of Heaven's embassy, a flurry of edgy butterflies swarmed in my stomach. I inhaled deeply through my nose and slowly exhaled through my mouth, then hurried inside after Charlie before the door could close, slipping in the shadows to keep her from seeing me.

When she signed the paper and entered the meeting room, I finally relaxed and laid on one of the couches in the deserted lobby, pulling my hood down and sighing as I stared at the ceiling. I could hear Adam's boisterous laugh, muffled by the walls, and my stomach did a backflip. I buried my face in my hands and took a few deep breaths, trying to get my shit together.

“You think I'd come down there? No, I mean, I love the vibe. Totally, love your tunes. Pretty fuckin’ hardcore, don't get me wrong, but it's such a bummer, man. Everything down there is so bleugh, heh… ew.” His shenanigans never failed to make me roll my eyes. I never once agreed with him on anything, barely even on the smallest of dilemmas, like which milkshake flavor was the best. But there was an unspoken agreement between us to put up with each other's shit, motivated by our closeness with Lute.

My gaze then flickered around the room, which hadn't changed in twenty-seven years. I could remember when I'd first been here to meet with Lucifer in secret to attempt to stop the exterminations. It all felt like it was eons ago, when in reality it hadn't even been half a century, a microscopic fraction to my long life as a Seraphim. 

“Adam, sir… Mr. Adam, sir-”

“Call me Dickmaster.”

A ghost of a laugh fell from my lips at the nickname. It had been so long since I'd heard him and his narcissistic ramblings about his sexual prowess. Word in Heaven and outside was that he was just as good as he purported, which I didn't find too hard to believe, as he was neither an unattractive nor an inexperienced man.

“It's the solution to our biggest problem!”

“Herpes! Yeah, that's a bitch.”

“No, our other biggest problem!”

“Oh, um… ugly people? Math? Global warming! No, wait, that's Earth's problem. When you take her out for the fifth time and she still expects you to pay the check, and you're like, hey, I thought you wanted equality!”

“No! Our shared problem of overpopulation in Hell.”

“Oh! Well, that's not a problem! We've got that covered! Lute, how many demons-”

Lute?

Lute was here?

I scrambled to the door and pressed my ear up against it, listening for any sign of her, her voice, her footsteps, her auditory mannerisms. Anything.

“Got a good 275 this year, sir.”

I rested my hand against the door and sniffed, breathing out a shaky, broken sigh as I slumped into a ball on the floor, leaning my ear against the cold surface. Hearing the ethereal sound of her voice after three decades felt like reaching an oasis after having wandered the desert, a ray of sunlight in a dark tunnel. My eyes flooded with tears as I let out silent sobs, covering my mouth with my hand as I kept listening for her voice, in desperate need of getting whatever glimpse of her I could.

I wondered what she thought of me now, so long after I disappeared with no trace. I could barely even imagine the pain she must have gone through - or was still going through - if she thought I was dead… or worse, if she thought I abandoned her. If she thought I didn't love her and Emily and Sera anymore, and decided I'd live a better life elsewhere. The thought of her hating me made me choke a sob, the hearing range too short for the emotions I wanted to show.

For fuck's sake, she was the love of my life. Why the fuck didn't I go in as the bodyguard? What was going through my head when Charlie said she'd be meeting Adam? You can't have Adam without Lute, how stupid could I have been to not think of that? I missed her face so much… her golden, intelligent eyes, her pretty little nose, her mischievous smirk, her thick, fluttering eyelashes… God, how I loved her face…

“They're not the same. They had their chance, and they earned damnation.”

I didn't even care what she was saying right now, I just needed to hear her.

“...but everyone makes mistakes.”

“Angels don't make mistakes.”

“You really think that?”

“I know that.”

I'd heard that before.

˚₊‧ ꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

With a last harsh suck to her clit, her thighs clamped around my head and she cried out my name, squirming and mewling as my face remained buried in the paradise between her legs. I lifted my head to meet her eyes and licked my lips clean of her sweet juices while her hand lingered on my hair, grip on my locks loosening as her chest heaved with the exertion. Giving her an affectionate smile, I shifted to get up and grab something to clean her, but she stopped me before I could do so. “Stay.”

I smiled at her and leaned my head on her thigh, planting the occasional kiss on her soft skin. “I love the way you taste.”

“You say that every time you go down on me.” She giggled, carding her fingers through my hair.

“And I'll keep saying it over and over, my love.” I smiled, resting my forehead on the soft flesh of her thigh and closing my eyes. 

I heard her let out a quiet chuckle as her hand kept stroking my hair, head falling back against her pillow as she slowly regained her breath. Everything about her mesmerized me. Being with Lute felt more right than being with any man in this universe. The way she tasted, the way she smelled, the way she looked, the noises she made, they all made me fall in love with her more with each encounter. My thoughts wandered to her military training and the extermination. Even putting aside the betrayal of Sera making such a decision, with the way Lute spoke about enrolling in the army, I'd never have peace of mind. Heaven was a lie, indeed. I wanted to stop it so badly, to protect Emily from such knowledge, to find a solution different from violence, to take some weight off Sera's shoulders, to save Lute's life.

I shook such thoughts out of my head and crawled up to lie flat on top of her, giving her a tender kiss on the lips and resting my forehead on hers. She wrapped her legs around my waist, locking her ankles on my lower back, and said, “What's with the frown, princess?”

I sighed and looked at the helmet on her nightstand, then back into her eyes. “Do you think it's possible to make peace with Hell?”

“What?” She asked with something between a scoff and a laugh. “Of course not. They had their chance to be good, and look at what they did instead.”

“And that was a mistake,” I conceded, tenderly brushing the hair out of her eyes. The last thing I wanted to do was make this boil over into an argument, so I kept my tone soft and gentle. “But there's no one that doesn't make mistakes.”

“Angels don't make mistakes, love.” She replied.

“Strongly disagree.” I sighed, looking to the side again with a small frown. To name a few, Sera chose to approve the extermination and put Adam, of all people, in charge. It was true that he was sort of an in-law to me, and the best that could be said of our relationship was that we had mutual respect, but he was self-absorbed, reckless and obnoxious, a testosterone-fueled wind-up soldier that marched wherever his sex-clouded brain told him to. And to think that poor Emily still believed she lived in this perfect, unbiased realm of bliss. 

“Hey,” Lute cooed, taking my chin in between her fingertips and tipping it to meet her eyes. “What Sera did was for your own good. She just wants to protect you, and so do I.” 

She then grabbed my cheeks and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. The gesture made me smile a bit. I knew she wanted my wellbeing, but if only there was a way to do so that wasn't so violent…

“Come on, no more pouting,” she said, nuzzling our noses together. “What do you say we cuddle a bit and tomorrow we go out for ice cream?”

“Hmm… sounds fun. Thank you.” I mumbled and trailed a few soft kisses across her shoulder, then rested my head on her chest and closed my eyes, reveling in her presence.

My gaze once again fell on her exorcist's helmet. Those rotten black horns, striped with white and curled at the tips, the × over the right eye and that ragged smile… I loathed everything about it. The fear of losing her to this was too big. I'd do whatever it took to spare her and my family from this barbarity.

˚₊‧ ꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

The moment Adam opened the door, the color dissipated from my skin.

He was holding Charlie by the wrist - thankfully she had her back to me - and beside him was Lute.

Lute, in that familiar gray uniform and that horrible mask. 

Her eyes met mine for a split second and I felt the wind being knocked out of me when she squinted and her body language shifted ever so slightly, which made me gasp and pull my hood back on, ears pulling back in fear and tail taking cover between my legs, and in the time she simply blinked, I ran away on all fours as fast as my legs could carry me, not stopping until I reached the hotel. My legs felt like they could crumble any second, my lungs screaming for breath and my throat begging for water, but I wouldn't stop until I was far away from the embassy. 

˚₊‧ ꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

As night befell the Pentagram, I laid on my bed and stared out the window in deep thought about the day's events. I opened the drawer in my nightstand and grabbed a picture, gazing at it fondly. It was me and Lute on date night, slow dancing to some cheesy love song we liked. I had an arm around her while my free hand held hers as she looked at me with heart-shaped eyes.

I wondered if she'd still look at me that way now, if she didn't hate me for disappearing without a message or note or any information on where I'd gone beforehand. A part of me didn't want to know the answer.

My phone dinged with a new notification, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Fuck.”

Hey corazón <3

21:14

You coming over tonight? 

21:14

Shit, Carmilla. When my brain registered Lute's presence earlier today, everyone else was dead to me. Thankfully, I was grounded back to reality when I got back to the hotel, but I couldn't just ditch Carmilla for a person I may or may not see ever again. Then again, I couldn't abandon Lute, the woman I loved with all my heart and soul for years on end, for a mere carnal relationship. 

I sighed and texted back my response,

Sorry babe, I'm not in the mood tonight :(

21:17

Good night

21:18

[thesiltverses]

Hello! I found the silt verses about three weeks ago and have listened to it several times since. I have a few things to say.

I absolutely adore that episode about the national grid workers. I think it’s my favorite episode of any podcast I’ve ever listened to. My favorite part of that first episode Paige is in is how she justifies not standing up for Vaughn, that cognitive dissonance that you wrote so well. This episode gives me what I wanted from that episode, the workers all banding together to stop the wasteful sacrifice of one of them. The actor who played the foreman did an incredible job as well. I think that having him discuss which of his workers he would sacrifice was such a significant moment, despite how brief it is. It cuts right to the big question that I took away from the podcast which is, “How much is someone willing to sacrifice in order to maintain their comfort?” And the utter disrespect of Glodditch (apologies for the spelling) refusing to cancel even the radio but asking grid workers to kill themselves for 200kw/h! Top tier episode.

I grew up in the south and went to college in Appalachia. I saw the disparity in technology and “advancement” if that makes sense that poverty brings, and the way you set up the world invokes that feeling in me again. You are an amazing world builder and storyteller.

I really enjoyed the cameos - I’m a big fan of malevolent/devisor, Old gods of Appalachia, and all of Jonny sims work, so hearing familiar voices was an absolute delight. Harlan Guthrie as an acolyte of the snuff gods might have been a bit too on the nose with some of the things that man writes, though… /pos

I’m transmasculine, and something that I really appreciate is how you manage to make a trans man do some objectively awful things, but still manage to make him a complex, full character that I was rooting for very frequently. Brother Faulkner is so, so important to me as a character. Paula Vogel has a play called “Indecent,” which is about the true story of a troupe of I believe German Jewish actors between the years of 1910ish and 1940s putting on a show called “God of Vengeance” by Sholem Asch, also a Jewish man. “God of Vengeance” has queer themes and received a lot of criticism from the Jewish community for showing Jewish folks in a “bad” light at a time when there was already so much hatred for Jewish people. Brother Faulkner being as complex and, in my opinion, malicious and cutthroat as he is at a time when trans people face so much bigotry, especially legislatively in the United States, brings this conversation about “God of Vengeance” up again for me. I also love how normalized non-binary people are in this world, without question. “Sibling this or that,” the hunter, adjudicator Shrew - big thanks from me for all of this.

All of this to say, I love this podcast. Can you talk more about the rhetorical gods? Is Babble one? What makes them one if they are, or why aren’t they? I’m fascinated by them. Can you talk more about the propaganda gods too?

Thank you so much for the thoughtful and kind words!

I'll check out Indecent, it sounds really interesting and I'm very glad to hear Faulkner works for you as a character. I think the topic of how to include and write queer characters who are capable of terrible things and thoughts (because, after all, these characters are human beings and not tutelary exemplars), within the context of both a rising movement of transphobia right now and centuries-old scapegoating / pathologising portrayals more generally, is a really knotty but a really important one, and I always want to make sure I'm approaching it with care and due responsibility as well as a sense of humility around the limitations of what, as a cis writer, I can actually achieve.

To that end, I don't want to ever take the audience response for granted, but I'm always really grateful to hear that the portrayal is working for a listener!

Propaganda gods: gods whose prayer-marks or ritual verses are fed directly to the enemy, enforcing destructive or sabotaging changes to reality (so rather than sending a destructive saint or angel to rampage over the foe, you might drop pamphlets or send radio messages to the enemy to 'convert' them).

Rhetorical gods: gods whose followers possess reality-warping powers of language itself (which is why 'rhetorical god' is a polite way of saying 'liar's god'). In other words, the paranoia around them comes partly down to the fact that a disciple like Val may appear to be a limitless shaper of new forms, rather than shaped into a limited form of their own, as a result of their worship.

[robotssssss]

War is Hell: The narrative parallels between Gabriel and V1 and what that means about Ultrakill's overall message

(At this point a lot of other people have probably brought up similar points in their analyses of Ultrakill, but I've had this post in my drafts for more than a year so I'm gonna post a version of it because I really need to express this somewhere)

These two beings are so dedicated to their code that they violently execute it even after the death of their creators who made that code in the first place. They kill those who have already died, they punish those who have already been punished.

Their attempts to follow the will of their absent creators could be seen as a twisted, unintended version of that will, or alternatively, an exact performance of it, making you question the creator’s intentions.

Humanity's justification for making V1 parallels Gabriel as well. Because it's a weapon, its creators must have seen the bloodshed it was designed for as necessary and justified. Gabriel believes at first that his violence, even his killing of beloved leaders in Hell, is a just punishment.

I think Gabriel himself started to see all of these similarities he has to V1, a mindless killing machine following orders, when it matched his own strength, and upon self-reflection it caused him to realize his own lack of free will and break out of it. Part of why I see it this way is because his epiphany occurs to him after he literally consumes blood like V1.

In terms of overarching themes, it's already obvious to a lot of people that Ultrakill is a criticism of the entire concept of sin and of Hell, but I'm gonna add to this. The parallels between V1 and Gabriel are suggesting that the constant escalation of military technology and attempts at calling it "necessary", "justified", and "honorable" are a kind of worship and punishment too, and layer 7 emphasizes this the most (so far). Both the torture of sinners in Hell and a military's endless cruelty towards opponents require the fabrication of a "dangerous other" so unquestionably bad that both their humanity and all possible mercy should be forgotten. These both result from ideologies convincing their followers that a group of outsiders is completely disposable and must be destroyed at all costs. tl;dr my analysis of Ultrakill's big themes is a very direct interpretation of the phrase "War is Hell"

[reachartwork]

I'd love to know how you can advance AI art ethically. I'll be perfectly honest and say I'm of the opinion that there's no way to make AI art ethical but I genuinely would like to hear your thoughts on this since it's something you clearly have put a lot of thought in to. Not trying to hate just curious about your opinion.

i reject the premise that it is inherently unethical to perform any of the operations required to do image synthesis. almost every single assumption required to start from the baseline of "it's unethical" (it's plagiarism, it requires no creativity, it smashes two images together, etc.) are all just straight up incorrect.

unless you can explain to me how to fit two (or more) billion images into 2 gigabytes (i'll let you do the math) in a way that preserves their features for later "stealing" (you can't) then i am rejecting the premise. because even if it were some sort of database that smashed pieces of images together (it's not), if your argument is that it's unethical to do that then you have a whole lot of collage and blackout artists that you need to contend with too. (if you think collage is also unethical then you are internally consistent, good for you, and then we just have a garden variety disagreement). generally speaking there is no argument one can take that can meaningfully separate ai art from other forms of transformative artwork except via special pleading, which doesn't convince me.

so yeah, basically, you (the general case you, not You Specifically, Fish Of The Woods) have to do the work to convince me that it's unethical because i am not starting from the premise of "it's inherently evil, except my one exception", i am starting from "it is neutral and you have to convince me that it's bad". and so far nobody who is anti-ai has managed to do so, primarily because (this is not a dig at you) nobody who is anti-ai actually bothers to understand how it works, and thus all their criticisms don't sync up with actual reality. while i'm sympathetic to labor arguments i.e ai art will put people out of jobs (definitely much more salient than the other ones), that is regular old capitalism abusing automation, and not an inherent flaw in the technology itself that renders it Ontologically Evil From Birth.

i get like five of these asks a day so i politely request you send future inquiries to the AWAY Discord, which is full of people who have significantly more patience than i do.

[bloody-teared-angel]

Archangels, Angels or how the show could write itself

I mentioned in one of my posts that Miss Medrano got even the Angelic choirs wrong and by opening up wikipedia page, I also had to refresh my memory with how it works - also on Pinterest are great visuals, alright, let's begin.

I'm going to briefly touch up on Seraphims and Cherubs as they were also used wrong - at least to the knowledge I gathered.

Also, keep in mind there are different versions of each so I'm using the general knowledge that I have, if you want to get deeper into it, I strongly advise to do research on your own.

Also also, I'm taking some info exchanged with another user, sound off in the notes or reblog so I could give proper credit.

Seraphim - they are right under God, singing his praises. They have six wings, flying with one pair, covering their body with two pairs of wings, as if to not blind with their Holy light or to not outshine the great Allfather. So...by this information alone, whoever saw Sera's body (Emily's too...is she a Seraphim? *quick wiki check* Yes, yes, she is) They should be blind or down on their knees as they are moved by their beauty.

Cherubs or Cherubim - dear Allfather upstairs, this one hurts - they are under Seraphims and they respond directly to God and are the protectors of Garden of Eden with their flaming swords.

"But then, who could she use for the C.H.E.R.U.B.S. episode?!" I can hear you say?

*holy trumpets*

Watcher Angels.

Watcher Angels are both good and bad and as the name suggests, they are watching over humans on Earth and many of them descended to couple with human women, which Nephilims were born - blood thirsty giants ( Asmodeus was also born from this coupling but it is one of many versions, in some he's born from Lilith and Adam which I won't get into details.)

And boom. You have a story to use against Haven and some criticism - how Watcher Angels weren't punished but instead one of their children - Asmodeus.

I would also like to make a suggestion: Replace Adam with Kushiel: 'Rigid one of God' one of seven angels of punishment, who punishes individuals in Hell.

There, angel who's main purpose is to punish and no need to make Adam, The First Man into a dumb jock.

And if you want to have a female representative in Heaven - Archangel Ariel: The Lioness of God is right there or if you want someone more popular Archangel Gabriel has both male and female forms. Archangel Jophiel: The Beauty of God is female too but I don't think she would fit very much.

If you want potential angst, Archangel Michael is there.

The Angelic Choir is also very vast and rich and it is just one click away with modern technology.

(Not joking, I found Angelic Choir on pinterest)

[licorice-and-rum]

My response to some "critics" about Babel

Okay, I'm gonna start by saying this: English is not my first language so I may commit some spelling and grammar mistakes here but I felt like I just had to write this down, especially because of the negative reviews this book has that just… didn't get it.

Don't get me wrong, of course you're allowed to not like this book, I recognize that it's most certainly not gonna be everyone's cup of tea but some of the people here just didn't get what this book was all about. Babel isn't a fantasy like ACOTAR, or HP, or whatever (in the sense that, for those, the story guides the message while Babel is the contrary): like many classical books, Babel was written to make a point, it's a romance, sure, but it was written to argue for something - the necessity of violence.

So, first of all: Babel is a historical fantasy, it talks about colonialism, racism, sexism, and other matters with no qualms, no embellishing to make it digestible, no allegories or metaphors because this isn't the point. Kuang's "lack of nuance" as someone here pointed out is very deliberate and extremely important for the story because the points she wants to make are always lost in nuance (just think how many people go on misinterpreting Star Wars, Hunger Games, or even anti-system songs like The Wall ffs), and the message is too important to get lost in allegories.

Second, as to the story, many people seem to think what she's pointing out is obvious "ur dur colonialism is bad, we get it". No, you clearly don't. There's a profound difference between getting it and actually comprehending it to an elemental level. Robin's travel to Canton illustrates that perfectly: he knew that colonialism was bad, he knew it was violent but he didn't comprehend it until he was forced to face it happening in front of him - to people who could've been easily him. More than that, because that was when he finally connected the theory with the reality, it became palpable to him.

It's not enough to get it, you have to actually stay attuned to it, to feel the flow of its violence throughout the world because then, and only then, I'll realize you can't be complacent, you can't turn your head from it. And Babel is an attempt, however tiny, of showing this to you. Of telling you "Look, you're ignoring it, the discomfort you felt reading this is your conscience telling you you relate to that". So no, I refuse to accept that Kuang should have been more nuanced: she was as clear as she could because she knows people say they get it but they don't, not really.

Third, the magical system is just chef's kiss. I've seen many people complaining about it but the thing is: the silver working is not about having magic in the world, it's about creating a palpable, material place where Kuang could center her attention as she talked about the economic aspect of colonialism. That's because colonial power is not centered in one place or thing, it is scattered all around but you can't hardly make a point like Babel's if you have your characters fighting off colonialism in all corners of the world. Like the Capital in the Hunger Games, Babel is a material place that symbolizes something.

Moreover, the silver working symbolizes the Industrial Revolution and its need for the advance of colonialism. More than that, silver-working is about capital, it's about technology to generate more profit, quicker, for a specific class that doesn't care who they have to kill to continue, doesn't care whether it is good or bad for the common folk.

Fourth, many people pointed out how academic Kuang's writing style felt during Babel and they're right, it is indeed very identifiable. I'm sure I even commented something along the lines of "it feels like I'm having the best History lesson of all time". But I'm going to challenge people who say things against the notion that the historical description of Kuang was unnecessary: every time Kuang chose to give the readers historical context has served somehow to the narrative.

I remember early on in the book when Robin was still a teen walking through London and reading anything he could put his hands on, and then we get two paragraphs of historical and political context for the time, then Robin comments that he didn't understand why this mattered so much. That paragraph served so much, both because it made us know a little more about Robin and because it served to make us understand the profound environmental change England was going through at the time.

And every time she did this, it served for something. Again, Babel is a historical fantasy, it is supposed to make you think about the point Kuang is trying to make but you won't understand it if you don't know the context of which Robin and the other characters in the book are coming from. It was a time of decision: either England would consolidate itself as an almost all-powerful oppressor, or it could go down… if the oppressed people - who share a common enemy - understood their responsibility to do something.

The strikes of the English working class, the violent acts of rioters, the advancement in technology, the possibility of the Opium War, the colonialism… it's all important. It's important because it allows us to understand the deep connection between it all. It allows us to understand who profits off of it, and who doesn't; who is able to understand and who isn't. It's why Letty is upper-class. It's why Abel isn't.

It's not as simple as some people think to understand colonialism, the flows through which one thing is tied to another. Why do people ask "How does this affect me?" when we point out deeply unfair things like unpaid maternity leave (I actually saw an American once saying she "wouldn't want her tax money to go to someone who didn't plan through"), like the fact people starve when we have the ability to feed a world and a half, of that Palestine is going through ethnic cleansing? Because they are unable to understand how closely their lives are tied to other peoples they have never met and probably never will.

Kuang's message is not "colonialism is bad", she's saying "These are all the forms through which colonialism is bad to everyone but a few, do something about it", she's saying "Every single one of your struggles is tied together in more ways than you even understand. A person in Haiti, in China, in India, in the other side of the world, has more to do with you than these white rich people, fight with them, stand with them."

Fifth, I can't believe I gotta say this but I'm not going to even bother with you if you think this book is somehow "anti-white": just get over your main character syndrome. We're talking about a historical fantasy set in England in the epitome of colonialism through the eyes of a person of color. Of course, most white people are gonna be bad, get over yourself ffs!

The actual entitlement to the protagonism white people have is maddening. As a white woman (in Brazil, at least), I'm ashamed of some comments here. It's not because white people in this book are majorly racist (which, according to the setting is 100% accurate) that Kuang is talking about you (although, if you're so bothered by it, it's probably about you anyway). This is a book about the experience of people of color under the oppression of colonialism: white people are the problem!

You can't just expect someone to write about colonialism and not talk majorly about race. White people reap all the privileges of this system and not just that, they are responsible for it, and all the crying about being the bad guys is just insufferable (they're actually so right about having to console Letty once she learns about the racism they suffer).

Be f*ing accountable for your privileges, take responsibility for your internalized racism, and be accountable for the system that privileges you. It doesn't matter that it wasn't your fault, that you didn't set up the system, you still benefit from it anyway so get a grip. This story isn't about you at all, it isn't about how some white people fought against slavery or oppression, it isn't about you.

Let's be very clear about this: most white people who fought against slavery did so to serve their own interests, exactly as Kuang points out. This doesn't mean none of them were good people who actually believed slavery was bad but we're talking of a time when racism and racial discrimination weren't even discussed seriously. Most white people, even the ones against slavery would have a deeply ingrained racism in them, so get real.

More than that, though: if those people who actually have no shame in saying Babel is "anti-white" had actually read the book through, they would know that some white people actually help and are good people in the story.

Anyway, Babel is so good, it's so painfully real and so passionately well-written. You can feel Kuang's love for her people, the struggles of what it means to love something but still not be a part of it, the deep understanding of how the world works, and how intricately every single thing in our lives is.

I just felt so heard (as a person from a third-world country) reading Babel, like someone was telling me all this rage and indignation I feel is justified, it's valid. I just treasured it so much, how I identified with Robin's need for security contrasting with his indignation for the price of it; with the rage Griffin carried around him, sharpened and well-directed even in its volition; with the love Victoire had to learn to have for her country and its story; with all the pain I was able to share with someone who understood it.

It's an honor to allow words to change me so fundamentally. It's humbling to realize I'm not alone, that my actions and my feelings are shared by other people. It is really precious, you know, to be able to become a better person than I was before because of a book.

[antlerqueer]

sorry im literally putting all of my complaints about ppl's critiques of leave the world behind here bc it's alll..... like what? so i literally looked up interviews from sam esmail and rumaan alam and i'm not crazy!!! the things i was like "this is the opposite of what was going on??" were actually the opposite of what was going on.

Some criticism I've seen is people saying "the movie mocks Rose's dependence on technology with the final scene" but it was like... Rose's journey was seeking her own solution to not wanting to be miserable and inside and waiting for death?? And she found it??

Quote from Sam Esmail, from Rolling Stone (emphasis mine):

During the early days of the pandemic, I remember how we were all very scared. We were scared for our loved ones, we were scared for one another, we were scared for ourselves. People were dying on a daily basis and we were locked in and trapped. There was this real sense of fear and anxiety. And then Tiger King dropped on Netflix and that was all we could talk about for weeks.  As silly as that show is, I love that we as a community dropped our differences to engage with this story and to laugh with it and talk about it. I just found that very human. I love when you can mix tragedy and comedy like that because I do think the essence of tragic comedy speaks directly to who we are and to the human condition.  So when I was constructing this story, I felt that throughout all this bleakness, to have this character, Rose, escape into something comfortable �� I thought that was just something that felt like a kind of universal touchstone.

Rumaan Alam, the author, also says this to Variety:

I say it’s funny, but I don’t think it’s a joke. I don’t think it’s a joke on Rose. I don’t think it’s a joke on the audience. I don’t think it’s a joke on “Friends.” It’s a reminder that art is kind of a salve.

Sam Esmail LOVES media. He's not fucking condemning a child for wanting comfort????? Anyway. The dependence on technology isn't a point of inherent criticism, it is a point of what do we do when our survival is reliant on technology but we lose it. It's part of the horror. It's scary.

Literally, a quote from Esmail in GQ:

[It] really kind of underlines the theme of this reliance on tech, and once it goes away, what are we left with? And that in its own way is pretty terrifying.

I've seen it said Julia Roberts's character was "redeemed" in the film from her bad actions, which I so heavily disagree with, and so does Rumaan Alam, in the Variety interview:

In that final scene between Julia and Myha’la, they don’t embrace. Even prior to that, when they’re in that little shed and come to a détente, Ruth acknowledges that there’s some truth to the things that Amanda has said, that they’re in agreement about something, but it doesn’t end with a hug. It’s not that kind of story.

(A detente is "the easing of hostility or strained relations" - not a reprieve or a reconciliation, but an easing.)

These characters don't have to like or forgive each other to agree that there are things more important to survival and making it through than Amanda being overbearing and racist. Ruth lost her mother and even though Amanda steps in and maybe saves her life (we don't know what the deer were gonna do) that is not an apology! And it's not treated like one because we don't see any sort of forgiveness from Ruth!

And then the whole "it's an attack from a foreign government making the US a victim" shit. Like... GH theorizes, out loud, that this could be the US government's doing? Anyway.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Minor tangent but I have seen a specific criticism of OFMD multiple times that's along the lines of "the problem was the first three episodes being too dark and gritty instead of being our fluffy kind gay show."

And I strongly disagree with that criticism.

Like, Season 1 already had its dark and gritty moments. It was never 100% fluffy. Everything Ed does at the end of 1x10 (throwing Lucius overboard, cutting off Izzy's toe, marooning the crew, and kidnapping Jim and Frenchie) is the most obvious example, but there are others: Stede's experiences as a child, Ed's abusive father, Jim's family's murder. All of them are shown to still be affected years later in a way that impacts how they interact with other people, which is why it's emotionally satisfying when they find love despite it.

Addressing the events of the S1 finale in the first couple of episodes of S2 was vital. It solidifies just how devastated Ed is and how that devastation has affected everyone else, both negatively and positively, for a given value of "positive" (the Kraken crew is clearly closer as a result of their shared trauma). The scenes showing how being part of Stede's crew changed them for the better (talking to and hugging Izzy, Jim telling Fang the wooden boy story with the voices, etc.) were absolutely necessary and arguably the strongest parts of the show, and I don't think we would have had that if the stakes weren't so high. "Ed is a bit mopey sometimes, but it's not that bad!" just doesn't have the same oomph.

Had they pulled a Last Jedi and started 2x01 by throwing away all that build up from 1x10 and making a joke about it, it would have been a poorer show. The times when darker things were treated as a joke (Lucius' experience after being thrown overboard), flat-out ignored (Stede's fairly obvious anxiety disorder), or blown past because of time constraints (Ed getting voted off the ship and then reinstated as part of the crew within a day) were when the show was weakest.

The problem, of course, is that once you've acknowledged that impact, you need to keep acknowledging it. It needs to continue having an impact. And you can't do that if you don't have the time to explore it because you need to skip ahead to the part where everything's fine now.

I'm not saying that they needed to fully shift gears and stop being a comedy entirely. I think S1 threaded the needle pretty well in terms of balancing the conflict with humor. Like, Ed has a breakdown in the bathtub over murdering his father and what a horrible person he is and his plan to kill Stede, and none of that is a joke; the joke is when Stede checks to make sure Ed isn't going to kill him. The sad stuff can be taken seriously and we can still have humor to break the tension! We can do it! We have the technology!

But you can't have a serious thing happen for the sake of growth and then hand wave it away later when it's inconvenient. And you definitely can't introduce ways to break that tension (surprise, Stede is alive because he used This One Weird Trick!) and then not use it when it's inconvenient (surprise, Izzy is alive because he– oh, wait, no, he's dying for realsies).

The issue wasn't the show having dark and gritty bits at all. The issue was the lack of time for those dark and gritty bits to do their fucking job: being a catalyst for personal and relationship growth in a way that actually matters to and affects the story.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

AI For Good, AI For Bad, AI for All

We talked about how to view AI as a writing tool, but I also want to acknowledge the worry about AI replacing creative jobs is completely valid, and we need to treat it with the caution it deserves. In an uncertain future, there are steps we can take to protect ourselves and our fellow creatives:

Support creative unions, back union strikes. The WGA strike is a critical example of how fair pay needs to be a factor, ever-changing technology is affecting creative jobs across the board, from novel editing to art direction. Support creative unions, back union strikes, and boosting efforts to form unions is one way to support the future of creative art remaining in the hands of those who make it. Support animation unions, support voice acting unions, support the formation of new unions to protect the future of workers.

Push for regulation. Even those working in AI are sounding the alarm that we need to have government regulations in place to ensure these systems are used in a way that benefits society, not tears it apart. Paying attention and participating by supporting candidates and policy will matter. Some promising motions have been made by the US Supreme Court rejecting copyright cases involving AI, but more needs to be done. We can get to a better future if we try.

Fight back against sketchy AI practices. Tor has once again been caught using an AI cover instead of paying an artist, something I promise you they absolutely can afford to do. Some companies are quietly switching out real narrators for AI. We do not need to accept a world where those critical to the writing process, be they editors, artists, or narrators, have their jobs stripped away by companies that make more than enough money to pay them. Call it out, don't buy content affected by it, and call it out on social media.

Be open and honest about how you use AI. As I've said before, I don't think AI is something you should boycott completely. What I do think is important, though, is to talk about how you use it. Trying to work out a plot snare, for example, or generating an AI image to help you figure out how to describe a room are decent examples of how it can be used as a tool, and it should be encouraged if it can genuinely helpful. Calling out AI-use passed off as original work is going to get harder, and one thing we can do is be honest with ourselves and others about how we use it.

Pay for your shit. Listen, I work in education. I'm double-dutying it when it comes to being a broke writer and a broke educator. But if you're an indie author and you need a decent cover and an editor that'll act more as a grammar-checker, you need to work with real people, which means you need to pay them what they're worth. As a creative you are part of a community of people who will need your support, as well as support you in turn. You'll only be doing yourself a disfavor by turning your back to it.

A better future is worth fighting for - and we can fight for it, no matter how bleak it looks.

[its-short-for-jackalope]

TRANSMISSION 14!!!!!!!!

ohhhhhhh my god.

AHLAAM, SIA, AND DAKKAR FORM A DYNAMIC TRIO???? ONE THAT WE WILL LEAN ON HEAVILY FOR EPISODE 4???? I AM SO EXCITED????

hi I already adore all these characters and I can't wait to get to know them better in just three days (holy shit)

Ahlaam —

Traveler proficient in several magical disciplines

okay so we know there's different kinds of magic, even more than just the Radiance and Ahlaam's sick waterbending. I'm guessing that the Radiance could be the primary magic and the other disciplines are more secondary, maybe?

valuable leader, has more fun than all the other islanders combined, quick to help people smile

I am so glad that Ahlaam is the fun Traveler just like I'd been hoping. It also speaks to Matt's character writing skills because we get like 2 minutes with her in TGOA and that was enough to be like "oh she's a silly one" lol <3

also ayyyyyy confirmation that there are more people on Lincoln Island than just these named characters!

guiding hand, glue that holds Lincoln Island together

....I am suddenly afraid that something could happen to Ahlaam. If she's that important to the island and the Bad Guys know it, then she could be a target to try and make everyone vulnerable and weak.

Dakkar —

serious and intense, unmatched fighting spirit

oh my god I hope he's broody. if he's the opposite to Ahlaam then he's gotta be a tortured, brooding guy, right? please? he can fill the Haunted Soldier Man void AJ left behind!

chiseled by his past & anchored by time, always right here while being somewhere else

hi! 😀 what the fuck does this mean? ❤

fr tho are we going to get more time weirdness beyond just traveling through it??? is Dakkar split between time and/or space?? is that an intentional magic thing, or an invention thing, or a curse of some kind? lab accident? is he conscious of different times/places at the same time? when he's with Rose two weeks in the past, is he ALSO with the others in the present, like some sort of Traveler bridge??? is he even a traveler??? it didn't explicitly say he's a traveler???

his magic is critical to the operation & safety of the island

oh okay, so he could also be in serious danger from the Bads. gotcha. goooootcha. welp, I'm fucked, I'm already attached. Matt Dahan has so many ways to hurt me in three days, lmao. I'm lowkey scared. (Bring it on Mr. Dahan, I will make art as revenge for any and all future heartbreak. 🥰)

fiercely protective of those close to him

...Dakkar, buddy, you're not beating the AJ similarities allegations.

oh god if I wasn't already 99% certain that Morgan won't be in this episode then I would be going crazy over thinking about these two interacting. ...might go crazy over it later, just for fun.

has a knack for science and technology

and if I said Anna is hanging out in his cool traveler lab and that's where she and John reunite— /hj

if Dakkar does technology stuff, could he have created the orreries? I've had a theory that Margaret could have made them (my only evidence is the orrery in her apartment and Kal saying it's fitting that he found her while looking for an orrery) so maybe they had developed them together? idk, just a thought

also, if Ahlaam is the Fun One and Dakkar is the Serious One then I can totally see Sia as the common ground between them—more serious than Ahlaam but more lighthearted than Dakkar. and was Margaret once a part of this group? where does she fit in? OH MY GOD WHAT IF SIA TEAMED UP WITH AHLAAM AND DAKKAR AFTER SHE LOST KAL AND MARGARET???? if Kal was the fun one and Margaret was the serious one....... aough please excuse me while I scream internally for a while.

Captain Addison Arvad —

is on Lincoln Island

how????? Sia didn't know what happened to her, how long has she been here????

enthusiastic, knowledgeable, the kind of person that's used to doing ten things at once

adhd multitasking queen captain, I love her

important part of the story that unfolds for our heroes

ahem....

AS THE #1 ADDISON FAN AND THE FIRST PERSON TO MAKE A POST IN HER TAG,

I, PERSONALLY, WIN.

she has a dog, Top, who works just as hard as anyone else on the island

🥺🥺🥺

okay, maybe Addison didn't see her captain's journal as a Wreck This Journal. maybe Top saw it as a chew toy. maybe her dog tried to eat her captain work.

if anything happens to this dog I swear to god... 😭

Searcher is a type of person with their own set of guidelines and rules

fascinated by this bit. what guidelines and rules are these? are they about morals? about how to use their magic, if they have magic at all? is it about how they engage with the world(s) and the people in it? what are the rules and guidelines for Travelers?

feeling very John Herschel in my living room right now (I have so many questions) and have I mentioned I already adore these characters???

anyway, to conclude this ramble:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!

[tomorrowusa]

It's the media, stupid!

No, I'm not talking about specifics of various news media outlets or nitpicking about particular stories or attitudes. The problem is the vast overall state of the media environment in the United States.

Kate Riga is on target with her blog entry at TMP. (emphasis added)

Democrats Just Can’t Compete In This Media Environment

[T]here’s one leading factor that Democrats absolutely need to respond to as quickly as possible to avert this kind of electoral disaster in the future: the media environment unequivocally favors Republicans. We don’t have a ton of data yet, and much of it is partial. But we can already tell that Harris performed best — that is, underperformed least — in the battleground states. In the places where her campaign flooded the airwaves with her messaging, put her on TV shows and radio stations and in local newspapers, scattered driveways with information flyers, positioned her beside local celebrities, she improved on the repudiation of Democrats that infected nearly every other state. In other words: In the states where she set up a temporary but pervasive media apparatus, she negated some of the nationwide drag. That speaks to the reality that most of the country is awash in right-wing propaganda all the time. For the olds, it’s Fox News and conservative radio; for the youths, it’s the right-wing manosphere podcasts and streams that Trump so assiduously courted all campaign long (plus soothing TikToks promoting retrograde gender roles, evangelical values and distrust of government regulation — think the trad wives and crunchy so-far-left-they’ve-looped-around-to-the-right content — aimed specifically at women). It helps explain Biden’s prodigious unpopularity, despite passing a ton of legislation that not only polls well, but has meaningfully improved people’s lives. It helps elucidate the consistent claims that people don’t know what Harris stood for, before and after she released her policy proposals. It’s a playing field that Republicans not only dominate; Democrats don’t even compete. They still depend heavily on traditional media sources that simply don’t operate the same way these right-wing PR arms do. And we know that these forms of media are powerful; they reach tons of people, and are seen as useful enough pawns that Russia has invested in some of them. This isn’t a novel observation. The Obama alums who started Pod Save America and the greater Crooked Media family did so after Trump won in 2016 specifically to try to build up a Fox News of the left. There are structural problems with mimicking this right-wing content beat-for-beat. The Pod Save guys, while open about their political allegiances, often criticize the party and its politicians. It would be much more difficult to recreate the fawning adoration of Donald Trump Fox News and those podcasts produce for, say, Joe Biden on the left. It requires creativity and investment, but I think Democrats and those aligned with them could do it. Voters say over and over that they prefer Democratic policies — even Republicans often vote for them when they’re standalone ballot initiatives. It’ll require a cultivation of talent, a saturation of these spaces, finagling how to wrest back the counter-cultural bad boy persona from those who are espousing a way of life most people consider retrograde, confining, divisive and exhausting, not to mention solely in service of the plutocratic elites that run the party. Obama was such a revelation because he hijacked technology in a way that was new and exciting for people, and it helped him micro-target low propensity voters. Trump has since taken that mantle. In the two and then four years ahead, Democrats have to find a way to get in people’s eyes and ears, to figure out how to make an affirmative case in these spaces that people would likely respond to if they were exposed to it.

It's not just Fox News – which is bad enough by itself. There are the rightwing talk radio stations dating back to the 1980s. They joined Christian fundamentalist stations which had been pushing social conservative positions since the 1930s. And now there are countless bro types who talk rightwing shit for hours at a time on their podcasts.

Apart from Obama's skillful use of social media when it was still new, Democrats have fallen behind with digital media. Most recently, Elon Musk bought Twitter simply to use it as a propaganda machine. Facebook and its sister sites like Instagram use algorithms which promote rightwing talking points.

There had been attempts to set up liberal talk radio. But they have been sporadic and met with mixed success. Al Franken set up a liberal radio network called Air America Radio in 2004. But it had only modest reach on mostly medium powered stations and ultimately filed for bankruptcy during the Great Recession.

We need to increase our news and information footprint in a major way and on multiple media platforms – and fast. Obviously that takes money and business talent. So if you find yourself next to Mark Cuban, Bill Gates, or Michael Bloomberg on a flight or in an elevator, have your pitch ready. If that doesn't happen, we need to start raising money on our own. Nobody said that freedom is free.

[creature-wizard]

What's your advice to people starting spirit work?

Hmm, so in the context of communicating with spirits? First, always remember that we don't have any solid evidence that spirits - or at least, the vast majority of what we perceive to be spirits, aren't just psychic constructs of some sort. If we look at records of spirit interactions for as long as we have them, with a decent sense of historical context, we can see a long pattern of said "spirits" conforming to what are very clearly subjective cultural and personal expectations. You can be an extremely earnest practitioner, and your "spirits" can still be very obvious mental constructs.

Now, I say this not to discourage practitioners, but to keep them grounded. Because even if your spirits are in fact mental constructs, that doesn't mean your experiences working with them won't be valuable or enjoyable.

But it does mean that you should be aware that the communications you're getting might not be coming from some higher, objective source, and shouldn't be readily granted that kind of authority.

Secondly, even if you really believe you're working with a real entity outside of yourself, keep your critical thinking skills on. Like, while researching New Age beliefs and watching videos from New Age channelers (who were just as earnest as anyone else), I have seen them make failed claim after failed claim. Like for example, a few years back there were a bunch of them claiming that we'd soon (as in, within a few months) be seeing quantum healing technology everywhere. We'd have these "medbeds" that we could just lay on and they'd fix literally everything wrong with us. And a number of them claimed that Elon Musk was involved in creating them. Elon Musk, of all incompetent clowns. And this level of departure from reality doesn't just happen to New Agers; it can happen to anyone who starts relying on spirit communication to find out what's really going on in the world.

With this said, my next piece of advice is to be respectful and kind to spirits, and make a habit of being respectful and kind in general. If there's one thing I've noticed among practitioners, it's that the people with the worst experiences are frequently assholes. Being someone who leans toward psychological explanations, I really think a lot of this is because they just unconsciously expect hostile behavior from others, from all the pushback they get when they're assholes to people. Other people might explain it as their vibes attracting entities similar to themselves. But either way, it's a thing.

Also? Make sure you're good with setting boundaries. The type of people who are able to say "nope, we're done, bye" or "nope, I'm not gonna do that" have, in my experiences, far fewer bad experiences, while people who see themselves as powerless and always at the mercy of others often have very bad ones. In my own personal experience, one of the best wards you can have is the ability to say "no, now begone" and mean it.

If you're looking for a basic method to get started with, I wrote one over here. I can't promise it's for everyone, but it's meant to be simple and flexible.

Hope this is useful.