#and that is why I voted walrus

[aquaheartgirl]

One thing I haven't seen anyone touch on yet is a major deciding factor for me: Are we talking about the initial surprise at the exact second you open the door, or are we talking about the lingering effects of the encounter?

I voted walrus as more surprising because if I open the door and see a big fat walrus, it's going to be much more of an immediate shock. I'd be doing a double take. "What the hell is this thing doing here?!" It's right in my face, it probably stinks, it may be confused and aggressive. It might very well trigger my fight-or-flight response on sight. Even if it's just an elaborate prank, unlikely but plausible, that fact will still take a hot minute to process.

Conversely, if I open the door and see a fairy, it's likely to take slightly longer for the surprise factor to kick in. Depending on the size and appearance of the fairy, it might just look like a person in costume. Even if it's a tiny sparkly pixie, it'll take an extra second to spot it and fully take in the reality of it. I'm not necessarily going to immediately think "wtf, a fairy?!" and be mindblown. More likely, I'll INITIALLY think either "Did I forget it's Halloween today?" or "What's that floating in front of me?"

However, if we're talking about the surprise that lingers afterward and the lasting effects on my worldview, fairy is more surprising, no question. I've already had time to figure out how exactly the walrus got to my door; it was probably a prank or some kind of wild mishap. And even IF it's a crazy smart, totally sentient walrus, that at least kind of tracks with... evolution, I guess??? Whereas a fairy will completely shatter my existing worldview. (In a good way. I'd LOVE that! But still - totally shattered.)

[etchif]

Please answer truthfully

[severalsecondslate]

I wanted to write a post about this, because I had quite an enlightening discussion about this thing recently. Then I saw this response to the original, and I have to thank profusely for this addition that will spare me at least one page of writing.

To the point.

I claim that the phrasing of the question is an important reason for such a peculiar result. OP prefaced the poll with a simple story. This story is likely to make the reader imagine the situation and therefore answer the question from the perspective of already having opened the door. My hypothesis is that the same question without the story and preferably with use of "Which of these do you find more likely to find on the doorstep?" (making it about knowledge of the world and not emotional response) would have many more people voting for walrus.

To dissect that a little bit, let's look at the two last responses. What is the difference between them? It's how surprised a given person is by having a perceivable proof of their understanding of the world being wrong. Some of us will accept it with little amount of surprise (first) and some will be scrambling to reevaluate everything (second). I could dwell on why and how, but this would be useless rambling.

This all is of course about people who don't believe in fairies. I really hope tho that there are people who believe in fairies and responded fairy, because fairies wouldn't do something so dumb as knock on a random person's door. (With love to the person I had discussion with. ;> )

I've asked this question before and been surprised by the results, now I have access to more weirdos it's your problem:

It is the middle of a Sunday afternoon. You have nothing on, and aren't expecting visitors, deliveries or post.

Unexpectedly, there is a knock at the door.

[goddamnshinyrock]

I think the tags on my “do you people not realize how rare walruses are in captivity” post has illuminated for me the true source the the debate: most people voting walrus don’t believe in fairies but are fairy agnostic, while the people voting fairy are staunch fairy atheists. And that’s why many of them are getting so worked up, they don’t recognize agnosticism as a position one CAN have on fairies, so they seem to think everyone voting walrus is a True Fairy Believer(tm), which is certainly not the case from what I’ve seen.

ETA: okay folks are getting too annoying in my notifications, this post is going on the high shelf now.

[shit-people-probably-didnt-say]

Jesper: So it’s time to cast your votes, fairy or walrus?

Matthias: Fairies aren’t real, so Id be more shocked to see one of them at the door

Wylan: How do you know fairies arent real?

Matthias: Have you ever seen a fairy?

Wylan: No, but Ive also never actually seen a walrus

Jesper: And how would a walrus get up the stairs? Knock on the door? Would no one see this massive creature strolling through the barrel?

Inej: I dont think a walrus would ‘stroll’ anywhere

Nina: He might roll? Or shimmy? How do they move on land anyway?

Wylan: To be fair we are near the harbour, so there could be a lost walrus. Though why they would want to visit the slat is anyones guess. And Jespers right, how would it get up the stairs?

Matthias: Why would a fairy visit but not a walrus?

Jesper: Im team fairy, a walrus turning up requires too many bizarre steps. A fairy just goes ‘poof! Im here’

Matthias: But its hard to knock on doors when your arms dont exist, because you dont exist

Inej: There is magic in this world so I think itd be less surprising to see a fairy at the door due to the logistics of it all

Jesper: Kaz? Care to weigh in?

Kaz: You expect me to actually entertain this debate?

The Crows: …?

Kaz: Walruses exist

The Crows: *Arguing all at once*

[ineffectualdemon]

I really think there are three reasons why people vote fairy:

1. Live near an area where walruses Live so it's an actual possibility

2. Feel they would genuinely have their mind break if they saw a fairy and can't believe other people would ge relatively chill about it

3. Have no idea the real size of a walrus

Just so you get an idea

An adult bull walrus can weigh 4,400lbs

They aren't getting up stairs even with assistance

[libraryspectre]

The thing is, even if I cannot fathom any way for the walrus to have gotten to my door, I can accept that there IS an explanation even if I can't think of one. If the walrus is at my door, it had to have gotten there somehow. This does not trouble my perception of reality nearly as much as a fairy.

I refuse to believe there is any situation in which it is literally impossible for a walrus to be at your door. You are just not thinking creatively enough.

[melancholia-ennui]

So the thing that I find fascinating about the ongoing debates around the "walrus vs fairy" poll is how much it reveals about the ways people reason and argue, and how those break down.

Like, on the one hand, I'm #teamwalrus, but the ways that some walrus voters argue about this poll are so hilariously disingenuous. "What if the 'fairy' is a gay man?" "What if it's Halloween?" "What if it's a medieval fae that just looks like some guy?" "What if I'm hallucinating?" - shut up shut up that's not the point and you goddamn know it. The question is only interesting at all if both the walrus and the fairy are instantly and equally recognisable as such. Otherwise you're just dodging the question. (As an aside, this is why I advocate for imagining the fairy as a kind of Tinkerbellish pixie creature, as this has all the desired instant recognisability and acts as a kind of opposite to the vastness of the walrus.)

On the other hand, a lot of fairy voters put forward the argument that "a fairy is impossible". But here's the thing: this represents a fundamental failure to adjust your beliefs under counterfactuals. If a fairy is knocking on your door, that fact in itself proves more or less definitionally that a fairy knocking on your door is not impossible in the possible world of the question, irrespective of your beliefs about the actual world, because it just happened.

And this is really where my walrus vote comes from, because the question was never "what is more probable (given your beliefs about the world", but "what would surprise you more".

If a fairy is knocking at my door, then yes, I have been fundamentally wrong in some assumption about what sort of things exist in the world - but otherwise, the fairy is behaving exactly as I would expect a fairy to behave, given what I have been told in fictional contexts about the behaviours of fairies. It would shake my world-view, force me to re-evaluate a lot of what I believe, but it wouldn't elicit surprise so much as confusion, self-doubt, and perhaps some existential dread.

By contrast, a walrus on my doorstep would be deeply surprising. There is not a single walrus in captivity in my country, so it must have come from the wild somehow. I do live by the sea, but I'm on a first floor flat with a locked door to the building, at the top of a hill, and on the other side of some flood defences relative to the water. While the walrus does not make me question any of my ontological beliefs, it does fundamentally undermine almost everything I believe about walruses, where they can be and what they do, which altogether will elicit much more surprise, emotionally, than a mere previously-thought-to-be-impossibility.

The issue with getting hung up on "but a fairy is impossible" is that to me it seems to function primarily as a kind of thought-terminating cliche. Because if there is a fairy knocking at your door, then obviously a fairy is not impossible, or else it wouldn't be knocking.

What I find interesting is how this really highlights how much people get emotionally invested once the category of "impossibility" is introduced - so much so that they extend that category across all possible worlds, even when the modal/counterfactual structure of the question clearly indicates that doing so undermines the entire premise of the question.

(Honestly, I could go on here about the ways in which the category of "impossible" circumscribing rational considerations impacts other areas of thought, especially politics, but this ramble has already gone on long enough and I don't want to derail it even more. Suffice to say that this seems to be a very general thought pattern, that once someone becomes invested in some sense in something being "impossible", this will, unless they are very careful, permanently colour every consideration they have about that something, often even over and above evidence to the contrary of this impossibility.)

[fountainpenguin]

Riddle watches New Wish - Post #17

Lost in Fairy World

Opening scene, the Fairywinkle-Cosmas are gobbling candy... Throwback to when Poof ate 11 pounds of chocolate.

I don't know why I'm only now realizing he probably likes chocolate so much because Wanda is obsessed with it. I feel like that's something I should've clocked long ago, but I don't think it's in my character notes.

I... think he's been hanging out with his posh British counterpart too much.

Hey um. Didn't the OG series canonize Fairies getting drunk and hungover on candy and soda, like... multiple times!? Isn't that why Cosmo and Wanda were put on probation in the OG series (around "Power Pals" & "Where's Wanda?" iirc)? and/or why Jorgen gave Wanda severe levels of probation when he saw the chocolate smeared on her face?

They invite their son over to chill with them and drink a little wine with dinner, sdfklj. Yeah, this is gonna go great.

They're all waking up hungover after this.

They are making me incredibly nervous.

They're totally gonna get ants.

I think Jorgen would be really mad, but H.P. (who cracked sodas open with Sanderson to chill after taking over the world in the Musical) would be like... "These are my people."

Them...

Peri being this close to a giant candy cane is giving me so much anxiety considering that when he's Teen Poof in Cloudlands AU, he's constantly taking peppermint to get high as a way to avoid thinking about his incredible amounts of trauma. I know it's a me thing but... hey. what.

Aw, Dev's first time seeing Fairy World. Thank you Dev for giving me everything I was sad we didn't get to see with Hazel because she skipped to the clothing store and bounced out :') I was really sad about that, but maybe we'll get to see a godkid exploring this world.

I like Hazel telling Dev he "has that Dimmadome look in his eye." That's so funny. She's been his friend for like, a couple weeks max and she can read him to filth...

Her love of french fries is very funny to me. Too sweet; needs salt.

Okay, Peri ready to take Dev to Fairy World despite Cosmo and Wanda telling them not to go because "They're not his godparent and he can handle this" is 100% backing up my theory from "Battle at the Dimmsonian" that he's way too overconfident and inexperienced. Uh-oh...

Oh! I misinterpreted where this was going- He's actually trying to put his foot down. He DID learn something!

Peri is speaking up!! After a lifetime of being spoken over!! I'm so proud of him <3

Pfft, Dev outsmarting Peri by wishing to go to Fairy World anyway, and Cosmo and Wanda teasing him about it. That's incredible. "Aw, our son's first godkid loophole!"

I love them... He is so overwhelmed. I'm really enjoying these background moments where it's super obvious that Cosmo and Wanda are highly experienced and Peri is new to this gig.

-> I like how Peri's hair has a swoop from back to front while Wanda's is straight. It's got a li'l bit of Cosmo's curve in it :)

OMFG-

I made a joke in Post #10 about how "We should send the babies back to Lightning Walrus Hell," but I didn't mean it!!!

Dev, you literally cannot take Peri there. That is where that man went to get vaporized from reality as a toddler by a society he was taught to trust. Multiple authority figures voted unanimously to place the value of rules above his life and he's got issues about it. He's been here like, two days. You cannot do this to him.

- Are... are we going to get to see Peri face his trauma? Will it be better this time in the company of his family? - If they find Foop there, I'm gonna lose it. Neither of them should be there, but I feel like Foop would taunt some deity and get his butt thrown in there if he's not careful.

omfg, Peri is

LOSING IT.

and by "it" let's just say I mean... his cool.

He is doing his best, but he's just... Little by little, the dominos are falling in the way his facial expressions get increasingly tense. I love that itty-bitty little pause and head shake he does while steeling himself before telling his mom he's got this and to let him talk. I'm crying. This is the best spin-off ever.

Like... take a moment to appreciate Cosmo and Wanda's calmer postures and faces compared to Peri freaking out. I love him.

I like how Dev put his shades back on when he was being sneaky

Dev is full-on going to the Hocus Poconos and frankly if Peri did not go after him, I wouldn't blame him. That's his most traumatizing plot point in the canon. You have one job, Dev!!

They already implied "Secret Wish" was canon earlier in the series, but I'm glad it's even more canon now! I'm sad I often see people dunk on that episode since it's one of my very favorites; it's so creative and it haunts me every day. I want to write something that horrifying :')

I am eternally haunted by a show that spent 8 seasons implying that under the surface, the Fairies care more about their personal safety and rules than child happiness and then gave us a movie that showed them dropkicking toddlers out of the timeline and said toddlers went down screaming and clawing for help. Foop did that to himself and had to deal with the fact that his parents weren't there to say good-bye and Cosmo and Wanda didn't hug or comfort him despite his begging to be protected. gosh I wish that were me. where do I get merch from the Council. I support their rights and wrongs.

Awww! Peri is standing up for himself to his parents! "What was that? I had that handled." He struggled with boundaries in the OG series (See also, pushing himself to exhaustion in "Fairly Old Parent" & 4 seasons of people speaking for him or over him).

It's super cool to see him setting limits (and expressing his frustration to his parents that they kept speaking over him in front of Dev). Let the boy talk!!

-> It's always been my headcanon that Foop struggles to outgrow his habit of speaking for Poof (and I portray Poof going nonverbal when he's stressed), so... idk, this one touches me personally. This is cool.

I do miss him being called Poof, though. He's a big cotton ball and I'll probably slip up and call him Poof in present-day a bunch of times, not just when discussing the OG series.

........ No way are we in the star field from that one Jimmy-Timmy crossover comic where Carl and Sheen were sent to stab sticks into stars. I haven't read that thing in years and don't feel like digging it up right now, but how deep do the lore references go?

I'm lying; I decided to look it up. Here's a Fandom Wiki link to all the pages of the "Career Day!" comic. It wasn't a field, but Jorgen does send Carl and Sheen out to stab sticks into shooting stars to create their wands. So... basically the same thing!

Crying at Cosmo like "It's a good thing we all have location tracker on our wands!" and Peri's like "... I turned mine off because you're so clingy. #Sorry Not Sorry."

Face of a man whose brain is torn between two horrible thoughts: "My godkid is untraceable and running around Fairy World unsupervised" & "I have to tell my doting parents I'm actively preventing them from tracking my location." I love.

I need a character analysis dedicated to Peri specifically. Also I want to see an episode about and/or the story bible for what the heck is going on with his backstory and what he did with his parents gone for 10k years.

Peri: My parents ditched me for 10k years Also Peri: Ew, my parents are so smothering. Why don't they understand I need space?

Wanda talking about Peri's lack of muscles is extremely funny to me since at this stage of his life in my Cloudlands AU, Poof plays sports and exercises a lot.

I am JUSTIFIED!!!!! I knew Sparky moved in with these two! My crops are watered, my skin is clear! That's one of my favorite headcanons <3

Friends hanging out on the Fairy World sign...

oh my glory, the kids are in the Hocus Poconos. I never, ever thought we were coming back here in show canon. why are they doing this to me. This episode is an attack on me specifically.

I'm a little disappointed Chuckles the Fairy-Eating Cockatiel isn't here, but I have no issues with new wishes appearing.

lmao, from Timmy's theme song because he doesn't need this wish anymore:

Okay, well. After all that self-inflicted tension, I'm a little disappointed Hazel and Dev got out of the Hocus Poconos without Peri going after them (and that it wasn't grayscale in there), but I can't say I'm surprised. Peri's butt was NOT going in there without severe prompting, I'm sure.

-> If this is all set-up for some big special episode where they have to go back there for some reason and THEN Peri has to go after them... I'll lose my mind. I doubt we'll be here twice, but they should write that plot because I would like it <3

These children saw twisted things they can never unsee. Peri happy Dev is okay after that is important to me.

I need a 'fic where Peri is way too aggressively comforting and coddling towards Dev after this and Dev is like. hey man how's it going.

Everyone's taking blame for what happened. Is Dev going to be like "This isn't my fault."

-> Pfft. Yes.

I can't believe Peri has been around Dev for like 1 week and almost had to go back to the most traumatizing location of his canon, though. That's horrifying. Where do you even go from here? I need an entire arc of 'fics dedicated to this. wtf? This wasn't even on the same continent as my bingo card.

-> Poof had so many traumatizing moments in the OG series. I'm remembering why he has so many issues in my 'fics. lol. get wrecked.

10/10 episode. I especially liked the implication that Jorgen was this close to giving Peri a surprise inspection when Peri was stuffing his face with candy on the job.

The Treble with Rivals

Okay... Time to relax with some filler. Which I probably need. This sounds like a music episode!

I wish I knew a little more about Winn and Jasmine's home lives. I don't know much about their interests beyond some surface-level stuff.

-> Oh... THAT'S why they have 2 music rooms! I dunked on them in my "Weird Science" liveblog, but now I understand... It was there the whole time...

I really don't have much to say about this one, but Dev playing the saxophone is worth noting. Hey, where's Peri? I've not seen Dev have notable purple items, really...

It's funny to see Cosmo and Wanda being such big fans of another fairy. They're so starstruck... Honestly, I can see why. She seems nice.

-> Noting this episode down as one where a lot of time seems to pass (Auditions to reveal to concert).

ANTONY!!!

They love each other so much...

Rattleconda Racers

Aw! He's home for break! That does give us a timeline. I'm a little confused though. Is this winter break? I would've expected we were farther ahead. Maybe it's summer.

It's nice to see Hazel being Very Much 10 and jealous that her brother has a new friend. Antony doesn't play with her for 2 minutes and she's in the other room like "Maybe he doesn't want to play with me anymore :)"

Oh man, Hazel really wants everything to be like it used to be. That was pretty much cited as her big issue back in "Fearless" and it's nice to see it come into play again as she doesn't want to change the game; she wants it to stay the way she and Antony used to play.

I like how Cosmo and Wanda can't get them out of the game because that would be cheating, which is against Da Rules.

I really enjoy the personalities Cosmo and Wanda have in this show. They seem refreshed and recharged.

I love Hazel and Antony so much. You can tell they were raised in a family where they were taught to express their feelings.

Full moon inside the game?

Dig a Little Deeper

I'm glad Hazel stated she wants to be a geologist. One of the only kids from the OG series we got a straight answer for life plans from was Kevin, who wanted to be a dentist. You can logically conclude Remy will take over the Buxaplenty's trains and we have A.J. now, at least, but... I'm glad we know this information.

Hazel's so grateful <3

Her ace Pokémon would be Core Form Minior.

"I want to catalog you. Respectfully. For science :)"

I enjoy Peri's headphones form.

Poatazel Potahzel

Title card and opening scene gives me the vibe that Hazel's going to wish all food was potatoes / french fries.

-> Hazel Antoinette Wells.

Waning crescent.

Hazel is so very 10 years old and I support it.

Big redesign for Mother Nature, but she's very magical and ethereal and I don't mind that.

Him.

lmao, Cupid's mom and Mother Nature would be friends in my 'fics (Preserving at least one of every species).

Is Hazel going to propagate new potatoes somehow?

Wow, I don't think even Timmy ticked off Mother Nature. Hazel...

[frau-kali]

On Self Awareness and Cognitive Dissonance

So @jaynovz made this really interesting and excellent post about Silver's crazy decision to go to Charlestown at the end of S2. I thought I'd toss out my two cents as to why he might have done it. And also discuss some related stuff. Buckle up, folks!

So first, let's begin with THE SCENE:

Silver: I've had my fill of adapting lately, doing your bidding, keeping the crew in line for you. Flint: I wasn't the only one who benefited from that. Silver: It certainly seemed that way.

Here Flint refers to Silver's position among the crew, which Flint sees as a benefit to both of them. As we see:

Flint: I need your help. They need your help. Silver: Oh please. Don't try to convince me to do it for the sake of their futures. Flint: For the sake of your own. Those men listen to you, they care about what you think, what you want them to think. Where else in the world is that true? Where else would you wake up in the morning and matter?

I could talk endlessly about this whole scene, particularly about Silver's incredibly amazing lie and how he acts during it and his bitterness toward Flint, but that's beyond the scope of this. Instead I wanna focus on self awareness.

With these few words, Flint basically drags Silver kicking and screaming to self awareness land. He is suddenly exposed to the fact that he actually means something here. And by his reaction, I think it's fair to assume this is one the few times, if not perhaps the first time, he's been in a position like this. Based on his past actions and his desire to remain anonymous (see refusing to show his face during the schedule thing, it’s safer to be anonymous), I think his previous modus operandi has been to position himself behind some powerful figure and work in the background to help them achieve their shared goals of getting lots of money. Said people were also probably not as smart as him so he could easily manipulate them as well. We see him do this with Flint a bunch, too, working in the background to help him. And that's what his position on the Walrus crew starts out as.

But then he becomes the centre of attention. They start to like him, which he didn't even necessarily expect when he started his gossip monger plan, he just wanted them to need him, despite his proclaiming that he’s a hard man not to like. But no, they get attached to him. And he, unbeknownst to himself, becomes attached right back.

Now, it's entirely possible that he's been in similar situations in the past just like this one, but because he is very good at repression and lying to himself, he was able to walk away without any real trouble. Maybe he realized afterwards that he actually liked those people but it didn't matter because he'd already left and he tells himself it’s for the best anyway. Silver is likely carrying around some heavy trauma related to emotional attachments to other people, given how he tells Muldoon that “we’ll take care of you” is the most terrifying part of everything that’s happened after losing his leg. And, considering everything else, that sure is saying something.

But here, he has hitched his wagon to James Flint, a man after his own heart. Flint is a lot like Silver, a brilliant liar and excellent manipulator, able to bend people to his will and look damn good while doing it.

Then he does it to Silver, too. And it's all while Silver is in the middle of pulling off his own master class in lying, some of his best work, by being outraged and angry that the gold he actually stole is gone and trying to extricate himself from Flint and the crew. Except Flint won't let him.

Flint's request for Silver's help doesn't, I don't think, extend merely to the lovely speech Silver gives to swing the vote in his favour, either. During the voyage to Charlestown, Silver continues working to convince the men of the dangers that lie ahead, presumably at Flint's behest. Scott does indicate to Billy that Silver is using his storytelling powers to “help the captain” when Silver is addressing the crew.

So Silver stays because he has come to value his position on the crew. However he doesn't yet realize how attached to them he's actually become. Jay is right, he could’ve easily deserted after the vote, run off to hide somewhere until Flint is gone, but he doesn’t. And he's still lying to himself about why. He thinks “yeah ok, Flint, you won this round. I'll stay and go on the voyage so as not to arouse suspicion from you and everyone else, and I’ll take the scouts along because I don’t trust them not to fuck this up, but I am leaving after that.” The real reason he stays is because he values his position, he actually likes that he matters, but he is still convinced he’s going to leave because he also wants the money. I think he probably would’ve left, too, but he’s trying not to think too hard about the newly exposed self awareness and continuously telling himself he doesn’t need this and he sure as fuck doesn’t actually care about these people, even as he stays. It’s like he’s torn between how he wants to be and how he actually is and he cannot bring himself to go no matter how much he wants to.

That’s also not even going into how, during the voyage, he is exposed to how much power he actually has over the men on the crew when he gives the scout a fucking look and said scout kills their co-conspirator because of it. And then that same scout tells Silver that all the men know he cares about their best interests and Silver is just fucking taken aback by the level of regard these people have for him. This is on display again when they all stand up in his defence after Vane’s men come to grab him.

When Vane’s men attack the ship, Silver could swim to shore with the remaining scout and if they kept their heads down, they'd probably be ok. They could likely swim far enough away to not get caught, especially at night. Silver surely knows this, too.

Instead, he cuts the forestay and saves the crew. And then he refuses to give up a list of names, once again saving the crew. He has, against all his own cognitive dissonance, become attached to them enough that he endures torture and risks death for them. Now, I don’t think that he ever thought that he would lose his leg, I don’t think that he made space in his mind for the possibility of being tortured either, he knew that one of the men had grabbed the keys during the scuffle when they took him away and he thought that he could stall long enough until they broke in and saved him because he’s good at talking his way out of trouble. I also have to say that it is such a nice moment when he says this to Vane’s man: “The question you should be asking yourself is, where are his keys and has he seen them since he took me away from my men?” They are his men now, his brothers, whereas before he always set himself apart from them.

And it's all because Flint made him see that he valued his position enough to stay and go on the journey to Charlestown in the first place. Silver even gives Flint credit for this in 305 - “Such a waste, it seems to me, knowing that it doesn't have to be this way. That the man who talked me into giving a shit about this crew, he could talk those people out there into anything. If he wanted to.”

Or that’s how I read it anyway. The way Silver’s attachment to the Walrus crew is developed over the course of season 2 and the final culmination of him refusing to betray them is one of my favourite things about his story and I have a lot of feelings about it. I could be wrong in my interpretation, of course, but thank you all for coming to my Ted Talk :)

[origami-butterfly]

The walrus and fairy thing is about a poll going around which asked if you'd be more surprised at a walrus or a fairy knocking on your door, and most people voted that they'd be more surprised to see a walrus than a fairy knocking at their door

I see! Walrus is definitely stranger, because the only reason people would be surprised to see a fairy is because there's no evidence they exist. Meanwhile, we know walruses exist, but why they would exist near enough to show up at my door is weird

[gayestpiano]

the walrus/fairy poll is very telling because I voted for the less popular option and I think it relates to why the way people think and talk on here is so frustrating to me sometimes

[ratthumbsup]

here's what i think is going on with the fairy walrus poll. a walrus is a real animal that would have no way of arriving to my apartment on its own. even if a person put it there, there are a lot of questions to be asked about why this is happening. but, it's easy to conceive of those questions because i sort of know how i would feel about a walrus at my door. i know what it would take for it to arrive at my door at least, and counterintuitively, i think that's why so many people voted for it

a fairy is not real and could never appear at my door, so it's a little hard for me to even conceive of what i would think or do, because i have never been put in a situation where i have come face to face with something i thought was not real.

so i think many people's first instinct is to think a walrus would be more surprising, because your brain pathways or whatever have more information to fall back on when considering how you would feel. i know i would feel surprised if that happened to me. i don't know how i would feel if a fairy appeared at my door. certainly surprised, but i can't conjure that feeling in the same way i can with the walrus.

even though objectively, the fairy would be more surprising.

[tintenfischie]

It doesn't matter how rare they are walruses E X I S T ! ! !

I already explained why a walrus is extremely surprising to me specifically, so I'm gonna break down my points of reasoning in this whole Walrus v Fairy Incident, and why it's actually really due to the polls' wording and use of a fairy as opposition to walrus.

The first point is use of the word 'surprised.' It's an immediate reaction, in play upon first seeing the being at your door. It's not, 'which one would most change your view of reality' it's which one would SURPRISE you the most.

Unless Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is on this site, virtually none of us are, upon initial sighting, going to believe this fucking fairy is actually REAL. I would think it's an advanced toy, a drone with crap stuck on it, some kind of prank for the latest TikTok meme or whatever. Faking a fairy, a made-up ass being, is easier to fake than an extant species, especially one as BIG as a walrus.

Even if I were to be convinced this fairy is in fact real, that would take time and wouldn't play at all into any initial surprise. It would definitely challenge a lot about reality as I know it, but that's not what the initial poll was asking (goal posts have been moved over and over by later additions and caveats, but I am only looking at the OG poll, and it used the word SURPRISE. It also never said you somehow automatically know the fairy to be REAL, so of course most of us in the year 2024 would assume a hoax.)

Of all the beings to use, a fairy honestly just fucking sucks. It's easy to fake (see last point, these fuckers were faked over a century ago with nothing but black and white photos and some art projects.) No matter what iteration of fairy we're talking, it's not even that surprising to see. Neither Tinkerbell nor older iterations of fairies are going to immediately make me think it's anything other than make believe, be it a toy or some nerd in a costume.

Shoulda picked something more immediately surprising to behold, like virtually any yokai. Even if I fully believed it to be fake, I would absolutely be WAY more surprised to see this at my door, walrus be damned:

6. Lastly, I think if it was something supernatural but earnestly believed in more widely than fairies, it would have gotten a larger vote. Ghosts, for example, I think would actually have gotten more surprise, since so many folks already genuinely believe in them and are ready to accept seeing one and immediately identifying it as a supernatural being. It confirms a belief, rather than challenges it, so there's no period of just...''wtf the fuck is this bullshit? Are the neighbourhood children pranking me?''

[gattmammon]

Look. I voted walrus for reasons i won't get into but. The point is AGENCY.

A fairy might not be real in the same way a walrus is real, but once you accept the vague idea that they might be as a premise there's nothing stopping them to show up on your doorstep.

A walrus' level of probability remains the same because a walrus has no agency. Even in a world where fairies exist someone had to be like 'I want to leave a walrus on this specific person's doorstep then ding dong ditch them'. Even if we simplify it to 'shape-shifting fairy walrus' it's still kind of an elaborate prank. The point is that if fairy exist why would one not knock on my door? Conversely, in no world a walrus would have a reason to knock on my door (well your door I full expect a walrus to knock on my door. Again personal reasons).

It's like. There are different levels of suspension of disbelief involved because the walrus scenario is much less straightforward. Even with the existential question of 'do walruses exist' taken care of the questions of the why and how remain open. With the fairy once you establish the answer to the existential question the rest is just. Well ok sure

That's also why the carly ray jepsen/sonic the hedgehog phonecall comparison does not work. Carly Ray Jepsen and Sonic the Hedgehog have similar levels of agency. It's the opposite - for Carly Ray Jepsen you don't have to re-examine any deeply held beliefs about how the world works, for shes out there in it so the chances of she calling you are low but never zero. For Sonic you do have to re-examine at least one (does sonic exist?)

[zahri-melitor]

Back on the walrus poll…

This is why I voted walrus.

“Neil you can’t come in. You’re too big”