#but NOT EVERYTHING THAT LOOKS LIKE A LOGICAL FALLACY IS ONE either

[eyrieofsynapses]

To get into nerd territory for a second: most "trolley problems" are a breed of logical fallacy called a false dilemma. Logical fallacies are basically flaws in reasoning, and you'll see them used A LOT in political campaigns. They're good at getting your attention and making you feel a certain way, while completely distracting you from the actual point. False dilemmas are pretty common: it's black-and-white thinking, "us against them," "only one of us can be right" etc. So in some cases, yeah, politicians (or corporations) will use false dilemmas guised as "trolley problems" to get our attention and make us think irrationally.

Except OP is right. Not every trolley problem is a false dilemma. So while it makes sense that our knee-jerk reaction is to say "well, that's impossible, that's a false dilemma!", since we're so used to people using that argument to mess with our heads, the trolley problem is still useful. It's still true to life. Yes, we can't let ourselves be tricked into thinking everything is black and white. But no, you can't always choose your favorite shade of gray, either.

The point of the trolley problem isn't to say "what's the best option?" It's to say, "what's the better of two awful options?" And sadly, right now, our world is full of awful options with very few truly good options. (No ethical consumption under capitalism, right?)

Okay let me try this one again. The Trolley Problem sets up a scenario that sucks to be in. You either kill one guy, or you kill five guys. Nobody likes these options. We all don't want this be happening. That's kind of the point. It's a moral quandary. It's supposed to feel bad.

Now, according to a recent post floating around on tumblr, choosing either of the two options demonstrates "learned helplessness" and makes you a neolib sheep. The only correct answer, the post states, is to reject the question altogether. (Or to change the parameters of the question to include an option that saves everyone, thus eliminating the moral quandary.)

It sounds nice, doesn't it? Fuck this bad situation, we control our imaginations, so let's imagine a situation that doesn't suck. Hah! Bet you didn't think of that!

Here's the problem. Even though I think most situations generally have at least one solution that is both Feasible and Not Terrible, I have to admit that there are some situations (as in, not zero of them) where all the feasible options are unpleasant. This is a natural consequence of living in a world where A Lot Of Things Suck.

But if shitty situations do exist, even if it's super super rare, then it's not unreasonable to ask, "How should we make decisions when we find ourselves in a shitty situation?"

This is the beginning premise of the Trolley Problem. It says, "Hey what if you were in an unambiguously shitty situation? There are many shitty situations, so let's imagine one that is contrived enough to get everyone on the same page regardless of political affiliation, AND really emphasizes the key parts that I want to discuss."

Tumblr says "let me stop you right there. What if instead...we imagined a different scenario that wasn't as shitty?"

Well, okay, but then we're not talking about the same thing anymore. That doesn't actually count as an answer to the problem, you're just changing the subject to a completely different thing.

Tumblr goes on to say, "Exactly. That's the only thing you should ever do when confronted with an ethical quandary. Frankly the fact that you are willing to even consider a scenario that sucks suggests that you are fundamentally incapable of considering less shitty scenarios."

I just want to say I think that's bullshit. I don't think every problem is a trolley problem, but I do think that some problems are a trolley problem. And I think that those problems are worth discussing, even though they don't feel good. The trolley problem exists as a framework to discuss those problems.

Maybe our aversion to difficult decisions has an impact on our ethical reasoning, and maybe we should actually question how our ethical standards hold up under the weight of that aversion. So maybe moral quandaries like the trolley problem are worth discussing. And if you don't want to engage with the quandary, then don't - you don't have to concoct a whole essay about how the quandary is inherently morally bad.

It's possible that what you really want to say is that it sucks when people treat certain situations as trolley problems, when those specific situations actually do contain unambiguously feasible and unambiguously perfect solutions. I would agree with that.

But like. Let's not pretend that you can reduce all of ethics down to unchallenging black and white moralism.

[comicaurora]

Listening to the latest OSPod and your discussion about being ace and wanting to be prioritized, it resonated a lot with me. I also go through those sorts of yearning periods and it was nice to hear that verbalized.

It's a tough feeling! Loneliness is a universal consideration, but for anyone who doesn't want a single life partner it takes on a new, difficult shape. Finding "the one" won't fix it, because you don't want "one", and you also don't want to give all of yourself to just "one." So everything we learn from the social and cultural zeitgeist tells us that this life will make us, forever, a third wheel - deprioritized, unnecessary, nobody's first choice.

I think some of the fear is rooted in a fallacy, though. Broken down, it's basically just "will people like me if I can't offer them something?"

Relationships aren't really transactional. I do things for the people I love because I like it when they're happy, and I can only assume the inverse is also true. But if you're a person for whom the supposed "highest tier of relationship closeness" is inaccessible, if your friends have Most Important People in their lives who aren't you, this insidious feeling can creep in. "Those people are closer because they could offer something you couldn't. They get to be cared about because they have something you lack."

It's not true, obviously. Relationships aren't a linear hierarchy; every relationship is completely unique. Everyone I'm friends with, I'm friends with in a completely different way. I don't have a ranking or tier list defining how close we are, and I can only assume my friends don't either.

And the logic breaks down further the more you look at it. There's this idea that friendships are more fragile and disposable than romantic relationships, leaving people whose only relationships are friendships in a more supposedly unstable position. But romances and life-partnerships break down all the time. Not to go morbid to prove a point, but I've lost several elderly relatives at this point, and the one whose passing was mourned the most, the longest, and the most impactfully was the maiden aunt who never married, never had any kids, but was still so deeply loved by her nieces and nephews and their spouses and children. I've seen it proved that marriage, kids and grandkids doesn't save someone from isolation, and that a single life doesn't doom them to isolation either. None of us are automatically destined for loneliness.

A fear of abandonment is a powerful thing, and while my perspective on it is intrinsically tied to my ace identity, it's definitely not just us feeling it. For a social species like us, there's really nothing more unifying than a fear of being alone.

[the-whumpening]

Re: Anonymous hate messages

[Image ID: Screenshot of an anonymous message sent to me, @the-whumpening. Several lines have been annotated by me with colored highlights. All text has been transcribed exactly as typed. The message reads:

i would not be protecting a (yellow) pedophile and incest supportor (/end yellow) but for each their own!:)))

(green) we do not claim (/end green) (blue) her. she (/end blue) (green) is not even doing "whump" at this point. (/end green) just plain (yellow) depraved pedoincest fantasy stories (/end yellow) while thinking (blue) she (/end blue) has (purple) one more personality every week. people do not need to see that, (/end purple) it is not okay. none of it is. (orange) maybe all those bans should have been a sign. /End Image ID]

As expected, I received my first ever hate message after talking about the situation with "antis" attacking whump community members. The "proship"/"anti-proship" debate has been around for fucking ages, and I'm personally sick of it, but I thought this would be a good teachable moment for any younger/less-internet-savvy folks here.

This ^ is trolling. Whether they believe everything they said or not, ultimately their goal was to rile up emotions and cause friction. Having been on the internet a good, long time (my main blog is from like 2009, y'all), I have seen my fair share of trolls. I've fallen for a few, too. It's inevitable. But to save your sanity and help you all deal with users like this, I've decided to share this message and break down the clues that told me it's not worth interacting with.

Yellow Highlights: What I've highlighted in yellow are the "scare words," I'll call them. They're flinging the most extreme, most obscene terms they can think of at the situation, even if it doesn't fit, because they're trying to scare me in to either complying or arguing. Nobody looks good if they're "arguing for" incest or pedophilia. They're setting up a no-win situation where my position looks absurd and unsupportable. Edit to add: my position, by the way, is that you can write/make whatever you want as long as you tag it appropriately and post it where it abides by the Terms of Service, which my friend did. I do not support censorship of any kind. I didn't think it needed to be said but I don't "support" real life pedophilia and incest, either. No one does, including my friend who was banned. That's a nonsense claim.

Blue Highlights: I referred to the specific user who got banned by his preferred pronouns in my original post. I exclusively used he/him, multiple times. By using she/her in this message, I know this user isn't arguing in good faith because either A) they didn't read my post clearly and think it's about someone else, or B) they're intentionally misgendering my friend. You cannot argue with someone who isn't approaching in good faith.

Green Highlights: This anon says that "we" don't claim the user I mentioned as a part of the whump community and that "[he's] not even doing "whump" anymore." Here we have a logical fallacy: that user doesn't belong here because they're "not a real whump writer." They've essentially made up a rule to exclude this person, and that justifies (to them) how that person was treated. (Who is "we," by the way? Anon is implying that they are aligned with the majority of the community, thus threatening to place me as an outsider.)

Purple Highlights: Blatantly ableist rhetoric towards someone who presumably has Dissociative Identity Disorder. As above, they're trying to justify why it's okay to bully and harass someone off the platform. "People do not need to see that." Nonsense. We don't exclude anyone from the community on the basis of their disability. Once again, Anon is not engaging in good faith.

Orange Highlight: Finally, their closing line feels like a threat. They claim that this user should have expected to be harassed, even that they deserved it. They imply that being banned/reported automatically implies guilt, regardless of the fact we know tumblr staff is less than charitable regarding bans--especially with queer and disabled users, and double especially anyone who posts any kind of remotely mature content (like your standard whump fare). We all remember waves of transfem users being banned out of the blue this year, as well as anyone sticking up for them. It happens all the time. I also mentioned in my original post that this user had been mass reported multiple times which led to his bans, which I think the gravity of is missed here. He was targeted, multiple times, by a ton of people falsely accusing him of breaking Terms of Service. Mass reports are rarely trustworthy, imho, and especially not if they happen to the same user multiple times. You know what most folks do if they don't like a person's content or behavior? They block them and move on. Maybe a single, accurate report if it seems necessary, but a reasonable person should never sic their followers on other users to mass report or harass. It's bad internet etiquette, and it has been for decades. The golden rule of the internet: if you don't like someone, block them and move on! If it sucks, HIT DA BRICKS!

And that's why I did not respond directly to this anonymous message. Nothing in its content gave me any indication that Anon and I could have a real conversation and gain an understanding of one another. I hope this helps some of you deal with any potential hateful messages you receive. The goal, above all, is to push you to an emotional high and make you have an angry outburst on them. That's what trolls feed off of. And if there's one thing being on the internet for longer than some of you have been alive has taught me: don't feed the trolls. Do not engage. Do not argue. Delete or block, and move on as much as possible. Turning off anonymous asks (or asks in general!) is always okay. Remember: you alone control your internet experience. You curate what you do and don't want to see and what kind of interactions you allow. Blocking is always an option. Turning off replies is always an option. Filtering tags is always okay. Be better than these folks, and remember you are in control of what you see and do--but you cannot control anyone else.

Side note: I did get a very lovely message from someone (who I will not name to prevent harassment) showing me support and being really kind, so that 1000% makes up for shitty messages like this.

[stylesclarified]

FALLACIES

First, let's define what a fallacy is, taken from vocabulary.com

A fallacy is a mistaken belief or argument, and a logical fallacy arises specifically out of an error in logic. Walking to school this morning, you saw someone riding a horse down the sidewalk; if you feel sick to your stomach when you get to school, deducing that horses make you ill would be an obvious logical fallacy.

Before we get into it, I should clarify that anyone can fall victim to logical fallacies. They're everywhere. People who push against Larry can do it as well, even within the arguments used to push against Larry. Using a logical fallacy doesn't necessarily mean that the argument is invalid (that, in and of itself, is a fallacy as well), but the problem is that Larries use these fallacies to build every brick of their system of beliefs.

An isolated logical fallacy in an argument simply means that you should reformulate your argument to be more coherent, to have better logic, etc. A system of beliefs based on multiple logical fallacies is incongruent within itself and falls under its own weight. Essentially, the Larry conspiracy theory is built upon faulty logic based on multiple fallacies. It's not that some of the arguments used in it employ fallacies — it's the entire system of beliefs.

I'm going to use formal definitions for these, and then show you an example of that fallacy being used in the Larry conspiracy theory. Keep in mind, every logical fallacy will most likely apply to multiple Larry arguments. I'm just showing you one of them. Some Larry arguments will be based on a combination of two or more fallacies. This isn't an exhaustive list — it's just meant to be an example list.

You can read more on fallacies on this Wikipedia article, though if you're interested in this subject I recommend doing a deeper research.

FALSE DILEMMA

Definition:

A false dilemma, also known as a false dichotomy, claims there are only two options in a given situation. Often, these two options are extreme opposites of each other, failing to acknowledge that other, more reasonable, options exist. 

Larry example:

Either Harry is a manwhore who doesn't respect women and uses them for sex or he is secretly gay, has never dated a woman, and Larry is real.

****

CIRCULAR REASONING

Definition:

A circular argument is one that uses the same statement as both the premise and the conclusion. No new information or justification is introduced. "A is true because B is true; B is true because A is true."

Larry example:

Freddie isn't Louis' child (A) because Louis is a good person (B), and because he's a good person, he would never treat his own child this way (B), so Freddie isn't his child (A).

****

APPEAL TO PROBABILITY

Definition:

Taking something for granted because it is possibly the case. The fact that an event is possible does not imply that the event is probable, nor that the event was realized.

Larry example:

Freddie looks like his grandpa Brett (note: no he doesn't), so that means he's not actually Louis' son, and is instead, his grandfather's child who Louis has been pretending to have fathered for almost 10 years.

****

ARGUMENT FROM INCREDULITY

Definition:

When someone can't imagine something to be true, and therefore deems it false, or conversely, holds that it must be true because they can't see how it could be false.

Larry example:

I don't personally think Harry has chemistry with women (note: yes he does), so I can't picture him with a woman. So he can't be interested in women.

****

STRAW MAN

Definition:

A straw man argument is one that argues against a hyperbolic, inaccurate version of the opposition rather than their actual argument. 

Larry example:

If you don't believe in Larry, you believe everything you read on the internet and have no critical thinking skills. Larries are smarter because we question things, while antis just believe whatever they are told, even if it makes no sense.

****

HASTY GENERALIZATION

Definition:

A hasty generalization is a statement made after considering just one or a few examples rather than relying on more extensive research to back up the claim.

Larry example:

Daniel Radcliffe and a bunch of other celebs react to gay theories *this way* because they're unbothered by them because they're not true, so Louis reacting *this other way* means that in his case, the theories are true.

****

APPEAL TO AUTHORITY

Definition:

In an appeal to authority, the arguer claims an authority figure’s expertise to support a claim despite this expertise being irrelevant or overstated. 

Larry example:

I, an anonymous person on the internet who shows no credentials whatsoever, am an expert in PR/lawyer/dentist/teacher/assistant, and I validate your Larrie theories.

****

APPEAL TO IGNORANCE

Definition:

An appeal to ignorance is a claim that something must be true because it hasn’t been proven false. It can also be a claim that something must be false because it hasn’t been proven true.

Larry example:

Elton John once said that if a rumor doesn't go away it isn't a rumor.

(Note: Elton John has never said that. The origin of this quote was a Larrie captioning a pic of Harry with Elton John in October 2013. There are no mentions of this prior to this tweet.).

****

CAUSAL FALLACY

Definition:

A causal fallacy is one that implies a relationship between two things where one can’t actually be proven. 

Larry example:

Every time Louis takes a selfie/wears a skull/wears whatever item of clothing/tweets/does X thing, he's warning us that a stunt is coming, and then something ends up happening.

****

AD HOMINEM

Definition:

An ad hominem fallacy is one that attempts to invalidate an opponent’s position based on a personal trait or fact about the opponent rather than through logic.

Larry example:

Antis are homophobic and deny Larry because they don't want Harry/Louis/both to be gay.

****

TEXAS SHARPSHOOTER FALLACY

Definition:

An informal fallacy which is committed when differences in data are ignored, but similarities are overemphasized. From this reasoning, a false conclusion is inferred.

Larry example:

Mark Feehily, Lance Bass, and other gay men in boybands had to hide their sexuality, therefore Larry would have to hide as well.

****

I'M ENTITLED TO MY OPINION

Definition:

An informal fallacy in which someone dismisses arguments against their position as an attack on one's right to hold their own particular viewpoint. Whether one has a particular entitlement or right is irrelevant to whether one's assertion is true or false. Where an objection to a belief is made, the assertion of the right to an opinion side-steps the usual steps of discourse of either asserting a justification of that belief, or an argument against the validity of the objection.

Larry example:

I mean...

****

SUNK COST FALLACY

Definition:

With the sunk cost fallacy, the arguer justifies their decision to continue a specific course of action by the amount of time or money they’ve already spent on it. 

Larry example:

I've spent X amount of years of my life, and so many hours, and got tattoos, and bought merch, and wrote and read fic, and put my face on the internet with this conspiracy, so I will go down with this ship. Harry/Louis/both could come to my house and tell me I'm wrong and I still won't believe it. Instead, I will engage in self-soothing by watching Larry videos or other forms of content and calm down my cognitive dissonance/doubts.

****

CONCLUSION ON FALLACIES

I'm going to use another conspiracy theory to explain this part. Let's use Flat Earth.

People who believe the Earth is flat have a system of beliefs. Not every single person who believes in this conspiracy theory will have the exact same set of beliefs, but they have radio shows, and conferences, and blogs, and YouTube videos, so a vast majority of them will have a set of rules. Stuff like why do they believe we're "lied to" about the "truth"? What is the actual shape of the planet? How do they explain time differences? How do they explain travelling to Australia, etc. They won't all 100% agree, but they have come to agreements on most of these issues, and if they don't, they have different factions of beliefs.

I know this may come as a shock, but I don't believe the Earth is flat. I think we live in a globe. I don't necessarily have a system of beliefs? I subscribe to science. I don't understand most of it because I'm not an astrophysicist, but I have some basic knowledge. You could argue that that's my system of beliefs, but random astronomical events or new bits of information that change minor stuff don't really affect me in the slightest.

The same cannot be said about flat earthers. New information, new developments, such as an eclipse, the fall of an asteroid, if we happened to be able to send a person to Mars, would shake them to their core. What they believe regarding how this works, is set in stone and the fundaments of their conspiracy theory.

Why am I writing all of this in an already pretty long post? Well, because the same thing applies to Larries/non-Larries.

Larries have a system of beliefs. If tomorrow Harry announced that he was to become a father with a woman, it would shake the very basics of Larry beliefs. They'd have to revamp the entirety of their conspiracy theory. The rest of us? Well, we'd be shocked because Harry is single as far as we know, but everything else about our existence as fans would just go on business as usual.

This is why the fact that Larry (and flat earth) arguments are literally made of fallacies is important.

Every single brick that builds the Larry conspiracy theory is made of logical fallacies, and as such, new information will affect it, because it's made of shoddy logic not backed up by reality.

I'll give you a paragraph of "Larry logic" to close.

"I think Harry and Louis have been in a secret relationship for 15 years even though we haven't seen them spend time together aside from the death of two people in 10 of those years, because there isn't any other explanation for two people who were once friends to not hang out. Why do they avoid each other so much? Exactly, they're hiding a relationship. There isn't any other reason. We Larries decode meaning out of things like numbers and colors and Harry and Louis don't go out of their way to avoid those numbers and colors, so of course that means that they're signaling to us, their true fans. When Harry, one of the biggest celebrities on the planet, goes out with his (fake) partners, he's photographed and it spreads on social media, which means those relationships are for PR. His last relationship, with Taylor Russell, for instance, he was promoting her career, and as for himself, well he has to do this sometimes. His team makes him do it. If it had been a real relationship, we would've never seen him with her because he'd protect their relationship by never going anywhere with her or wearing elaborate disguises so he's not recognized. Everyone knows that if you want to have a private relationship that means going out of your way to hide it at all cost."

Can you identify the fallacies?

[gordonengineswifenirmal]

Today, I found out the difference between being just liberal….and being woke.

Let me start this by saying again that differences in opinion are fine. Sometimes, we learn from them. They are necessary in their own right. That is, when they are wrought with reason, logic, and are supported with education and awareness.

I am a liberal. I don’t agree with conservatives on most things. There rarely occasions I do…to a point. I agree with most liberal subjects.

However, woke is something different. We r told it’s a good thing. Its misleading. It’s the social media influencer version of reality. In other words, it’s 10% facts and 90% twisted word bollocks.

These are people who make up their own narratives. They take something they see - be it from an article, or from another person, and they distort the meaning so as to make the person look bad, simply because they don’t agree.

This is a toxic combination of bullying and blindly believing/spreading logical fallacies, instead of humbling one’s self to the facts. These people cannot deal with the idea that they are wrong or misguided, so they decide to make the person who is revealing the truth look bad instead. These people cannot tolerate being wrong, even when they are. They will not take accountability for their actions, and instead project on others.

This is terribly common, and is not only counterproductive, but damaging. It hurts many communities looking to be treated with respect. It hurts lgbtq+, it hurts minorities. It hurts women.

It perpetuates the very things they are supposed to be fighting against, due to gross misinterpretation and deliberate misinformation.

They get others to then join them, and glom on. The like minds build upon this, creating MORE toxicity. You cannot convince them otherwise. It’s as if they have been brainwashed into thinking these delusional, extremist ways, and they react immaturely when they feel threatened - even when the threat is something they made up.

These are often people who lack life experience. They have been raised in privileged households, living entitled lives. Not all are - some may have faced some struggle, but haven’t learned from it. They’ve been either been shielded from it, or have chosen to avoid dealing with things properly from the get-go. some may not have learned right from wrong from family and peers, and thus act out, because they only know one way of thinking. They refuse to educate themselves, because they feel they are right, and there’s no reason to see anything differently. This happens on both ends of the political spectrum. It doesn’t just pertain to politics alone, but is most commonly associated with the political sphere.

If woke was truly a well educated and logic laden approach, it would be a wonderful thing. However, it’s become a go-to way to bully others. It’s become a crutch, when that person lacks any decent mental, moral, social, or emotional structure. It’s a delusional bandwagon for the less competent minded.

Along with the distorted narratives, hype words intended to create controversy and incite negativity are hurled around - misogynist, racist, transphobic, homophobic, etc. simply because these terms are fed to them. They may or may not know the definitions, and are only used for convenience sake, NOT because they properly comprehend use of the epithets they hurl. This is sad, because those sane terms DO have a real, important, justified purpose - they ARE real concerns, but are made less genuine by those who abuse their usage and interpretation. This hurts innocent people - sometimes even people who could otherwise possibly be their allies. They close their minds to those who might be allies, simply because they choose to believe what is convenient, rather than what is factual, especially when that truth might be uncomfortable. Sometimes though, those uncomfortable truths are crucial to survival. We cannot simply take everything at face value, and expect it to be ok. We have to research, we have to doubt - when appropriate. People blindly follow whatever stupid stuff others tell them to believe, and sometimes, that has fatal consequences. People need to be less impressionable. Wokeness feeds on impressionable minds.

With that being said, I’ve lived through far too much, dealt with far too much to be impressionable. If folks don’t like that, that’s fine. They don’t have to. However, it won’t stop me from doing it. In fact, it only angers me more. I will only continue to create awareness and fight the delusional, impressionable bollocks that seems to prevail. This does NOT make me a hater or a bad person. This makes me an EDUCATED person with life experiences. People can either take inspiration from that, and learn, or they can remain ignorant. I’m not forcing either way. I put the information out there, you can choose to read it or not. I don’t ask people to reblog or fill me inbox with vileness. That’s on them. They will not change me mind, however. In fact, they will only make me MORE adamant about what I know, and give me MORE proof to back up what I have stated.

Maturity isn't about THINKING you are mature. It's about knowing n doing the right things without having to say it, n not having to harass others, unless they are truly hurting others. Most people don't know the difference.

Id rather be alone, and know truth, than to believe wrongful things, simply for attention or popularity’s sake.

And no, it's not the educational systems fault as a whole. It is the individual’s fault, their peers, their family’s faults for imparting this mentality into them and not teaching them to challenge it.

[amarantine-amirite]

Everything is Crap

Here’s how sneaking out of the house usually ends for me. It starts when I'm not allowed to do something I need, and the reason I'm not allowed is usually really stupid. Nice, then something catches me off guard. I lose my cool and haul off at someone, usually because they try to gaslight me. After the dust settles, my parents find out and I get in double trouble: once for sneaking around, and again for yelling at someone. Sneaking out never seems to work for me.

That is, of course, until now.

I got canned from the soccer team for having short hair. I have no idea why that’s an issue, but it shouldn’t be. Back when I had long hair, I had such a hard time keeping it under control. I have a much easier time caring for short hair. Also, nobody can pull you over by your ponytail if you have short hair. 

The good news is that nobody knows I got kicked off. All of us have a microchip embedded in our bodies that monitor heart rate, respiration, and other stuff like that. The school only monitors our physical location during instructional time, but they look at the biometrics 24/7. To see if we’ve attended sports practice, they see if the time at which our heart rates go up corresponds with practice time. 

It's easy to bluff technology, especially if the technology in question feeds into a system built on a logical fallacy. All you have to do is take a digital metric and reverse engineer it to meet your needs. I could fool people into thinking I was still on the team by going to the gym at the time soccer practice took place. An increase in heart rate is an increase in heart rate, it doesn't matter what causes it.

I am not supposed to be here. The gym has a big sign that says NO PEOPLE UNDER THE AGE OF 19 BEYOND THIS POINT at the entrance. So far, nobody has cornered me. But I have a weird feeling that my luck will run out today. 

I accidentally knocked the weights off a barbell at the gym. They shattered when they hit the ground.

It’s not like accidentally breaking a plate at a restaurant. Nobody claps. Instead, the glare at you. One person even took a step further and asked, "Can you go for longer than ten minutes without breaking something?"

“No,” I said, “but not for the reason you think.” I remained unusually calm. 

“and why is that?” the person replied. I don't think it occurred to them that a person could constantly break things without being a total klutz. 

I shrugged my shoulders. “Nothing these days is built to last.”

An attendant looked at me and nodded. “Yeah, ain’t that the truth”, she mumbled. I get the sense that this is not the first time she’s had to replace a free weight because it shattered upon impact with a rubber floor.

I can’t think of a better example than what I’m talking about other than the zipper on a $5000 pair of pants that abruptly came apart. My mom was angry that she spent $5,000 on a pair of pants that fell apart within a week, and it came out as scolding me for being clumsy. And it’s because of that zipper that whenever anyone tells me I break things or I'm clumsy, I tune them out. It's not my fault everything these days is very expensive junk. 

It goes beyond goods. Services are going downhill, too. Nobody teaches people not to blow through a job without confirming what needs to be done. Of course, if you say anything, expect the political correctness crowd to rain blows on you.

After I finished at the gym, I went to the Starbucks down the street and ordered pumpkin tea. It took 22 minutes for someone to fill the order. The idiot barista gave me regular tea with chai syrup.

Now, there were two possibilities. Either she didn't understand the order and didn't double check or they ran out of pumpkin tea and she couldn't be bothered telling us.

I looked at the cup, waved down the barista, and said, “excuse, me, but this isn’t what I asked for”

The barista leaned over and yelled, “Hey, I have to juggle so much crap that I can't remember anything. You’re just too demanding!”

“what?” I said. I shook my head, “No, I'm not.”

The person behind me put my hand on my shoulder. I flinched. She nodded as she explained to me, “Instead of saying fast food employees are lazy, say fast food employees are overworked and underpaid and should be patient with them.”

My jaw dropped. “I never said that!” I barked, “I didn’t even imply it!”

The woman shrugged her shoulders. “Any time you complain about subpar service, you’re implying that providers of that service are lazy when in reality that is not true, they are overworked and underpaid.”

I ignored her. It sounded like she was trying to get me to say something that made me sound like a bad person. “Can you fix this please?” I asked the barista.

The barista walked over to me. Instead of offering to fix the drink, she said, “no, it’s cold tea season, not hot tea season” 

I knew what she said was ridiculous. I gestured to the guy who just got a hot cup of coffee and said, “But the guy over there got a hot drink!”

“We have any of the following available during cold tea season,” the barista replied. She gestured to the Iced Drinks section of the menu.

I looked up the menu and my eyes widened. “all that stuff has a ludicrous amount of sugar!”

The barista shrugged. “May I please talk to the manager?” I asked.

The barista left. The manager arrived a few minutes later. "Hey, how can I help you?" she inquired.

"I ordered a pumpkin spice tea," I began, my voice tight with frustration, "but I got this instead." I gestured to the offending beverage.

"And the barista wouldn't fix it?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. I shook my head in response.

The manager seemed to understand. With a curt nod, she disappeared behind the counter. A short while later, she reappeared with a steaming cup of pumpkin spice tea in her hand.

"Here you go," she said, placing it on the table. "That should be what you ordered."

“Thank you so much,” I said. I reached for the cup, ready to finally enjoy my drink.

"That'll be $100," the manager added, her smile now completely vanished.

I shook my head. “To hell with that,” I grumbled. 

I left. I didn't have it in me to complain. I can have tea at home.

My luck did run out today, but not because of a shattered barbell or everyone defending a barista who blows through things without checking what has to be done. The weather in Dallas screwed me over.

I saw a news story on TV. My school’s soccer team had a game down there. Every single on team got wiped out in a lightning strike due to the metal studs in their cleats. The other team was OK because they had plastic studs in their cleats. 

My phone rang. I snatched it out, muttering a quick "hello?"

"Paula, are you okay?!" My grandma's voice, usually warm and soothing, was laced with panic. "I saw something on the news..."

"Yeah, I'm fine, just leaving Starbucks," I replied reassuringly. 

Right after saying that, my heart hammered against my ribs. They’re going to find out that I got kicked off the soccer team. 

@promptlyprompting

[ramshacklefey]

How to Logic Properly

Ok, I meant to write this yesterday, but exhaustion got the better of me. Here goes.

We've all seen a the posts like this one that talk at length about logical fallacies, but I haven't ever seen a post about how to do logic right. There's a lot more to building a good argument than just avoiding fallacies, so I thought I'd make a quick guide to some of the fundamental principles that will help you build a logically sound argument.

Logic is a system for building arguments that will take you from a set of premises that are true to a conclusion that's also true. It's about how you connect pieces of evidence to each other in ways that let you draw accurate conclusions about the world. Basically, logic is math but with words instead of numbers.

Just like math uses certain formulas to get you from, say, the base and height of a triangle to its area, logic uses formulas to get you from one set of true statements to another. In geometry, you need to start with accurate measurements AND apply the formula correctly in order to get the right answer. In logic, it's exactly the same.

Fortunately, there are way fewer formulas that you need to remember in order to do logic! Even more fortunately, they pretty much all rely on the same kinds of statements: if/then statements (called conditionals) and "either/or" statements (called disjuncts).

Here are the three basic ones that will get you pretty much everything you need: (Note: when we're talking about the formulas, we use letters to represent where you would normally put a whole statement in)

Modus Ponens: The absolute most basic thing you can do in logic. You start with a conditional statement (If A, then B). Then you say that statement A is true, and you conclude that statement B is true as well. The formula for it is: If A, then B. A Therefore, B.

Modus Tollens: Very similar to modus ponens. You start with a conditional statement (If A, then B). Then you say that statement B is false, and you conclude that statement A is also false. The formula for this is: If A, then B. B is false. Therefore, A is false.

Disjunctive Syllogism: For this one, you start with a disjunct (either A or B). Then you say that one of these is false, and you conclude that the other must be true. The formula for this is: Either A or B. A is false. Therefore, B is true.

Let's take a look at some examples using actual statements.

Modus Ponens: If you stick a fork in an outlet, then you will get electrocuted. You stuck a fork in an outlet. Therefore, you will get electrocuted.

Modus Tollens: If you stick a fork in an outlet, then you will get electrocuted. You will NOT be electrocuted. Therefore, you did NOT stick a fork in an outlet.

Disjunctive Syllogism: Either you wear a space suit when you leave the station or you die. You did NOT wear a space suit. when you left the station. Therefore, you die. You can do this the other way round too: Either you wear a space suit when you leave the station or you die. You did NOT die. Therefore, you wore a space suit when you left the station.

That's it. It's really that simple.

However, it's possible to fuck this up if you don't apply the formulas correctly. There are three BIG mistakes that people often make with these.

Thinking that when the "if" half of a conditional is false, the "then" half is also false. If you stick a fork in an outlet, then you will get electrocuted. You did NOT stick a fork in an outlet. Therefore, you did NOT get electrocuted. If you think about it for a minute, it's easy to see why this doesn't work: There are lots of ways to get electrocuted other than sticking a fork in an outlet.

Thinking that when the "then" half of a conditional is true, the "if" half is also true. If you stick a fork in an outlet, then you will get electrocuted. You got electrocuted. Therefore, you stuck a fork in an outlet. Again, this doesn't work because there are lots of other ways to get electrocuted.

Thinking that when one half of a disjunct is true, the other must be false. Either you wear a spacesuit when you leave the station, or you die. You wore a spacesuit when you left the station. Therefore, you did not die. But you could have died from lots of other things, like getting shot by aliens.

Now, the thing that makes this tricky is that people are rarely polite enough to lay out their arguments in this form. They put their premises and conclusions in different orders, or they don't actually come out and say all the premises. Being able to read an argument or to think through your own argument and come out with these clear formulas is its whole own skill. But that's a topic for another post.

[quietbluejay]

Angel Exterminatus Take 2 #15

this time: as usual, both Bluejay and Perturabo want Perturabo dead, and we get the grand reveal about what's going on with Perturabo! (I mean. the fatigue. there's a lot of stuff going on with Perturabo)

time to flash back to the cliff

you know, from when his memory starts

buddy perturabo: maybe i should have just died as a child it would have been a net benefit for literally everyone especially me where do i even start with this

YOU IDIOT, YOURE GOING THE WRONG WAY oh actually fun fact this actually came up recently in a letter from the one substack i follow i don't remember the actual name for this fallacy but it's the "since what i'm doing is HARD that must mean it's the moral/correct choice, right?" "if i'm avoiding everything that could make my life easy, that's the best path"

Sky: Maybe the fact that Dorn didn’t engage in bloody trench warfare to the point of wrecking his legion should have been a sign to Pert that he didn’t need to and shouldn’t spend the lives of his sons like water? Bluejay: seee but that would have required actually thinking and changing course which is not something Perturabo knows how to do

"do you get it TRENCH WARFARE REALLY SUCKS" Perturabo's deeply salty that also nowhere in there were the IW commemorated by artists etc the Fists were, though! the one case was er

im laughing out loud for real here

incredible and that last line…

you mean, the past you're constantly haunted by?

perturabo's thoughts: i was heeding the warnings of the dead YOU'RE NOT, YOU DIMWIT

TemplarWarden: The funny thing is, could Fulgrim have escaped if he just abandoned him it's silly multidimensional stuff Bluejay: that's a good question

me about perturabo right now:

im rotating him in a microwave with a fork Perturabo meanwhile is pondering "she who thirsts" because

i- you know what, the jokes just write themselves i don't need to say anything is anyone surprised this is the case in the gamer legion Perturabo's reached the bottom though but not rock bottom! it's very pretty

very cool looking in various ways

oh yeah

green sun

this came out in 2016 we know McNeill is a weeb but was he also a homestuck? (i'm not saying this as an insult being both a weeb and former homestuck here)

Perturabo finds Fulgrim staring at the green sun

yeah im feeling some homestuck vibes here

i am the x. it is me.

back upstairs, forrix is fighting the ghosts and not doing super well

a thing of beauty when we've repeatedly talked about how ugly it is sure, whatever helps you sleep at night and it probably does! they're fighting like a well oiled machine but one that's starting to break down just like this metaphor oh okay, that's kinda cool Forrix tanks a tank

Forrix does almost die to a flamethrower though but Vull Bronn saves him at the last minute and it's time for Toramino to show up! but we're cutting back to the drama underground Fulgrim has started floating that's never a good sign he tells Perturabo that he always lacked vision which is correct

however, his terrible fatigue and weakness are back bro, i feel that

maugetar means harvester, it turns out yes as was foreshadowed, the stone has been draining him of energy this whole time!

Sky:

Perturabo Mightiest of us all

Wut Perturabo is a lot of thing, but the most personally powerful of the Primarchs???

Bluejay: he's got the most life energy that's what he means either that or Fulgrim just. miscalculated. perturabo isn't usually the first one who comes to mind when you think of endurance and internal reserves though yeah Sky: …but life energy in 40K is just either bioelectricity or warp energy Bluejay: of all the 40k rules this book has broken w.r.t. the Eldar, you think it's going to be consistent here? Sky: okay fair

Checkerheart: Fulgrim isn't usually the first one who comes to mind when you think of math skills and logical reasoning Bluejay: hey, fulgrim would like you to know he's smart! he knows what a fibonacci sequence is and everything second response: he's still smarter than perturabo

Sky: I’m just going to assume Fulgrim is lying again because it amuses him, and the real reason is that Pert was just the only Primarch dumb enough to be convinced to make this trip

Why is Fulgrim not using that to mock Pert? IDK, he’s on warp drugs or w/e

TinyGladiator: I could see if Fulgrim literally just doing this to fuck with Perturabo's ego

this is funnier because every time Horus thinks about Perturabo in these books he's going "ugh, him"

Sky: Lol imagine if Pert had died here

I don’t think Horus would be personally upset at losing Perturabo but he would definitely be upset at losing a Primarch and a Legion

And cracking Terra without Pert is…not impossible, given how much warp nonsense Sol was drowning in by the end of the Siege, but definitely harder

Bluejay: it's just funny he goes for Perturabo as being valuable because of being important to other people when he's the one that no one really cares about perturabo is also still dealing with the serious fatigue

Fulgrim: yeah so i'm not the same person you knew Fulgrim: it allll started with the Laer Fulgrim: turns out the gods they worship are real!

lol lmao also calling a keeper of secrets a god Fulgrim: yeah so i got possessed by one Fulgrim: ew Fulgrim: we eventually learned…compromise

fulgrim is now t-posing in midair and all the soulstones in the walls start flying towards him because that may as well happen with an effort, Perturabo manages to get to his feet, he'd rather die standing up and you know what, if i have suffer this so do you it's not that i think it's badly written per se but it makes my skin crawl

fulgrim, i'm begging you to be a little less weird about this

also i'm thinking about "why perturabo, specifically" a) he's dumb enough to fall for this b) he did in fact need him for labyrinth thing c) discount Ferrus

back on the surface, Forrix gets trapped under Perturabo's exploding car at least that's what i think is going on yep juuust as Toramino starts firing at them

you know, I genuinely thought Forrix died first time around I didn't know he had plot armour next time: some focus on my beloved son going full Khorne, and not one but TWO meme edits. Check out the next Iron Warriors Comedy Hour for more bad jokes and also Fulgrim caressing Perturabo's face before stabbing him. Maybe eventually we'll get to thanksgiving turkey soulstone fulgrim, but that's still a bit of a ways off.

[vespaer77]

Aside from the fact that I think I might be the only person on the planet who could genuinely be interested in the Executors (I say "could" because my faith in good storytelling from BW is on shaky ground), I fully agree with this post.

And I say this as someone who wasn't sure that the Veil coming down was the right move. But whether someone thinks the Veil should come down or stay up is immaterial. The whole point is that no arguments for the validity of either claim were really ever truly examined. The only reasoning in the game that we get for the Veil remaining intact is that its collapse would "drown the world in demons." Which is... almost a fallacy on its own. Aside from naturally occurring malign spirits (that we learn about from the Mournwatch), demons exist as a direct result of the Veil simply existing.

Perhaps the danger is in not knowing what would happen to all of the mundane, unmagical folk when confronted with the full power of all the raw, unfiltered, chaotic magic of the Fade. But that's still thinking of magic within the confines of the Fade itself. We have no perspective, outside of Solas, on what magic really looks like when the Fade and the mundane world combine. Does it change? Is it still dangerous? Who does it endanger? Are we wrong? Are we right? Who knows? The whole point is that there's never an opportunity to ask those questions. And we have at least three characters fully immersed and available in the story who could provide concrete, first-person, lived and experienced answers.

But we never ask.

We have a spirit of Wisdom who loves answering questions.

And we never ask.

Hell, in addition, we have two dwarves that are connected, isatunolly, with the Titans, who were also there before the Veil.

And we don't get to really ask anything of great value. Even our characters are canonically frustrated with how little we get to ask.

I just think it's very interesting that this game was called Dreadwolf for so long, and then it wasn't. The game we got has very little to do with, and makes very little use of, the Dread Wolf at all. So the game is called The Veilguard. But at no point does the Veilguard really ever.... guard... the Veil. Or make any mention of guarding the Veil. Or have any discussion on why guarding the Veil is so super important or what it even means, especially considering that, in the first 20min of the game, the only real element threatening the Veil is neutralized until the last 10min.

The game, called The Veilguard, isn't about the Veil at all.

In my humble opinion? This game should have been given a title that had more to do with the Blight or the gods or something. Or, given how many times it gets said in game, it could've just been called, "Dragon Age: It's Just So Hard." Even on a meta level, that's a title I could've believed, lol.

All this without even mentioning that one mural memory. We all know the one. The one that falls somewhere between a shameful, textbook retcon and a blatant attempt at gaslighting.

Whoops. I mentioned it, didn't I? Maybe I'll make a longer post about that someday. That's the part of this game that really grinds my gears, the status of the Veil notwithstanding.

In short, I firmly believe that the vilification of Solas is purely based on a retcon (and one that makes no logical sense when properly examined) and it's a hill I'm prepared to die on.

Anyhoops, if someone told me that, even though this game had been in development for 10yrs, the final version of this game was produced from start to finish in 16mos or less, I'd honestly believe it. I also feel like they were 100% shooting for a game that would have DLC afterwards and were told late in their development cycle that there wouldn't be so they tried to gift wrap everything with the ribbons and bows that they had. Like... go to the Halls of Valor and tell me that this is a fully finished game that was intended to be complete from the very beginning.

Castles in the Fade, or What Was the Point of the Veil Anyway

Something that will now haunt me until the end of time is why was the concept of the Veil ever introduced into this series.

We’ve been hearing about it since the very first game. There’s a codex entry about tears in the Veil in Origins. Tamlen mentions a thin spot in the Veil if you play a Dalish elf. Sandal has a prophecy in Dragon Age 2: “One day the magic will come back—all of it. Everyone will be just like they were. The shadows will part and the skies will open wide. When he rises, everyone will see.” Admittedly, this is just one line said by a character who often says odd things, but it hinted to the fact they were planning to do something with the Veil from the very beginning. The state of the Veil is repeatedly brought up. It all had to mean something! Or so I thought. 

When I saw “The Dread Wolf Rises” quest in Veilguard, I said, “Oh, here we go!” The Veil is coming down, magic is coming back, and it’s going to set up such an interesting story for the next game. 

Alas, no. 

I hadn’t really enjoyed my time playing Veilguard up until this point. It felt like the game was ducking and dodging every bit of world building and lore that could possibly bring nuance or complexity to the story. Every returning character or faction was a cardboard cutout of themself. They shoved Solas is a time-out box and gave him nothing to do. They refused to let him have any impact or influence on the story when he had been set up to be our main antagonist back in Trespasser. This game used to be called Dreadwolf! And while we learn about his past… we never talk to him about it. In the present, he’s in stasis.

Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain are our villains. And they are your typical evil for evil’s sake villains. They are mad, bad, and only as dangerous as the narrative will allow as to not give Rook and co too much trouble. They are surprisingly patient while Rook fixes all their companions’ problems… until Elgar’nan moves the moon to cause an eclipse. A vital component in making his own lyrium dagger. For some reason. This guy can move a satellite!? And he just let Rook walk away in previous encounters… twice. Ok. Sure.

The Evil Duo need their own dagger ostensibly to tear down the Veil, because they want to unleash the full force of the Blight onto the world. Because they are evil. And they were thwarted last time they tried to Blight the entire world. Why do they think Blighting the world is a good idea? What’s the point of ruling a world if everyone is dead? I guess they haven’t thought that through, because of the madness and the evilness.

Ok, I thought. Perhaps the gods will be the one to tear down the Veil. Or maybe we’ll have a choice to let Solas do it his way before they can, which will be less chaotic and less full of Blight. Because the Veil has to be coming down one way or another? Why introduce the concept of the Veil, especially a Veil that has been thinning and failing since the series began, if it’s just going to… stay.

There is a principle in storytelling called Chekov’s gun. If something is mentioned in a story, it must have a purpose. If you keeping mentioning that gun hanging on the wall over the fireplace, it’s because at some point in the story, someone is going to take it down and use it. The Veil felt like Chekov’s gun to me. Chekov’s Veil, if you will. It’s been here from the beginning of our tale, the spectre hanging over our protagonists’ heads for multiple games.

The Veil has been a character unto itself. It was the central focus of the third game, and its dissolution was set up to be the core conflict of the fourth game. We learn everything we thought we knew about the Veil was a lie. It was not created by the Maker to separate the Fade from this world because of jealous spirits, it was created by a guy named Solas to trap the elven gods and the Blight from destroying the world. Also, the elven gods were never gods, and they are also evil.

This reveal will surely throw the Andrastian religion into chaos! This puts the very existence of the Maker into question! The Evanuris are a lie; it’s only fair Catholicism—oh, I mean—the Chantry is a lie too. We briefly touch on that in Veilguard… then it is quietly discarded. Religious crisis averted.

But I digress.

When the title of the fourth game was changed from Dreadwolf to Veilguard, I started to see the writing on the wall. Still, I held out hope the Veil would have some greater purpose in the story. That its introduction as a concept was for a reason. That something in this world would change.

Instead, from the get-go, the question of the Veil is no question at all. We only get Solas and Varric making oblique or catastrophizing statements about it. Solas says little beyond he has a plan. If I ever wanted to hear a villain monologue about their plan, it was now! Varric, on the other hand, decries Solas’s plan. He warns that should the Veil fall, it will destroy the world and drown it in demons. And that’s that.

We never really learn why Solas wants to tear the Veil down, or why he thinks it will help anyone. “The Veil is a wound inflicted upon this world. It must be healed,” he says. And that’s basically all he says about it in Veilguard. In Inquisition and Trespasser, we learn it took the immortality from the elves. It cut most of magic off from the world. Spirits are trapped and are being corrupted into demons, and most of what we know about spirits and demons is wrong. There are ancient elves possibly asleep? That part is left vague, but ancient elves are still about. We meet some in Mythal’s temple. There seems to have been some merit in bringing it down, because elves were flocking to Solas’s cause at the end of Trespasser. He had agents working for him already. What do they know that we don’t know?

Apparently nothing, because by the time Veilguard rolls around, there are no mention of agents. He is working alone. His only motivation now seems to be he’s too deep in his sunk-cost fallacy. The Veil is unnatural, so it must be removed—consequences be damned. We are never given any reason to think Solas has a leg to stand on in his pursuit of tearing down the Veil. We never hear any kind of counter argument from anyone, not even Solas, as to why the Veil should come down. We are only told it will destroy the world. It will drown the world in demons. This is all Solas’s fault.

There is no nuance. No complexity. No moral quandary to mull over. The game gives us vague warnings with no explanation as to what exactly is so world-annihilating about the Veil coming down. We must take Varric’s word at face value. We’re the heroes; Solas is the villain. Stop him.

It makes me wonder why Solas was ever a companion in Inquisition, let alone a romance option. Solas was presented to us as a complicated character in Inquisition. We had the potential throughout the game to make him see the value of this world, to help him realize he was wrong about it. “We aren’t even people to you,” the Inquisitor says in Trespasser. Solas replies, “Not at first. You showed me that I was wrong...again.” He began the third game viewing the world as tranquil, seeing the people in it as nothing more than figments in a nightmare, just as we saw our companions in the In Hushed Whispers quest. He ends the game having made friends, having recognized he was mistaken. He might have even fallen in love. (Or he may still seen no merit in this world if the Inquisitor antagonized him the entirety of their time together.) But something makes him continue with his plan to tear down the Veil, despite recognizing this world is real. He must know something we don’t. Something we’ll learn about in the next game.

We’ve been hearing about the Veil for three games now. We’ve set up our complex antivillain for the next installment, and he’s going to tear the Veil down. We swear to stop him or save him. But it has to be more complex than that. It can’t be so straightforward. Uncomplicated. Simple. Boring. Right? Right?

Nope. He really is just the villain, mustache-twirling and all. He apparently had no greater motivation, no as of yet unrevealed knowledge that would put this whole Veil thing into a new context. It was really as simple as the Veil falling will destroy the world, so Solas must be stopped. There is no new information that is revealed which makes us question what we are doing. Solas is never given any nuance or complexity to his actions. Nuance and complexity have actively been taken away. Both him and the Veil are looking like they are the worst things to be in a story: pointless. Why introduce the Veil if it’s just going to remain unchanged? Why introduce a character like Solas, bother humanizing him (for lack of a better term), giving us his backstory, setting him up as a cunning antagonist, only to make him look stupid, then put him on a shelf until the last ten minutes of your game?

Solas was the trickster archetype of this tale. He was our version of Loki from Norse mythology. What is the role of the trickster archetype? To challenge the status quo. To bring about events of extreme change, like say, the tearing down of a Veil that holds back all of magic. Loki is a huge contributing factor in Ragnarök. Through his manipulation, he causes the death of the beloved god, Baldr. This ushers in a long winter, which signifies the beginning of the end. Loki is imprisoned for this crime. When the final battle between gods and giants begins, the sun and moon are swallowed, plunging the earth into darkness. The earth shakes and Loki is freed to fight on the side of the giants. The world burns in raw chaos, falls beneath the sea, and is reborn. The world is remade, and a new realm of the gods and a new, better earth is formed.

It really felt like this was the setup they were going for. Solas causes the death of Mythal, and this is his catalyst for creating the Veil, which ushers in a world without magic. This could be seen as equivalent to the long winter. Solas falls asleep, trapped in dreams. He wakes and sets in motion bringing about the apocalypse. It’s not a perfect one to one, but it’s there if you squint. We have a war against the gods in Veilguard. I was expecting a few remaining Titans to wake and join the fight. But we don’t get any of that. There is a final battle, but it does not end in the end of the world. Or a better world. It just ends, and everything is the same.

It seems our trickster god caused his apocalypse thousands of years before our story started, when he created the Veil. His role in this tale was over before ours began, and he really is just some relic from a long-past age. He has no role, no purpose in this story. He is here to be thwarted. He is no Loki at all.

If you can’t tell, I wanted the Veil to come down. Did I think the Veil coming down would be painless? Have no negative consequences? No. Of course not. But keeping it up has negative consequences too. And it made for an interesting story. Or at least it could have. But we never explore that. The game presents no counter argument to having the Veil stay up, which, again, begs the question: what was the point of introducing the concept of the Veil at all?

Did I think the Veil coming down was actually the best solution to help Thedas become a better place? I don’t know, and I never will, because the game never argues for it one way or another. It just tells you to want it in place and to stop asking questions. In real life, a catastrophic event is not the best way to solve any of the world’s problems. But this is the realm of fiction. We have gods and monsters, magic and myth. We have introduced the status quo of Thedas, recognized it needs to change, then our trickster god appears ready to fulfill his role in the narrative. 

Instead, it all comes to nothing.

I got to the end of Veilguard… and everything was more or less the same as it was at the start of Origins. Veilguard actually tries its hardest to pretend any previously mentioned problems don’t exist, so of course the Veil coming down has no merit. There are no problems to solve in this world, apparently. Solas is just stuck in the past and can’t get with the times. Silly Solas.

The Veil isn’t even a permanent solution. It wasn’t to begin with. It was some duct tape wrapped around a broken pipe, and we’ve just slapped an extra piece of tape on it. It’s still leaking. It is still unnatural, and will fall eventually one way or another. Large amounts of bloodshed weaken it, so I guess Thedas better achieve world peace real quick to avoid any battles. There were seven super-powered mages holding it together… now there is just one. Ironically, the Veil was going to fall after two more Blights anyway. The Wardens were doing Solas’s work for him! It would also have released the full force of the Blight at that time… which Solas was trying to avoid, I presume.

It feels like keeping the Veil up just pushed a big problem onto Thedas’ future generations. We’ll keep slapping bandaids on it until it all falls apart. Someone else can deal with the fallout, but we’ll be dead by then, so who cares.

Primarily, I wanted the Veil to come down from a storytelling perspective. The Veil was an interesting concept and I wanted the story to do something interesting with it. Conflict is what makes stories stories and the Veil coming down could create so much compelling and complex conflict. And the Fade is weird, and I like weird. Stories are also about change, and I wanted to see Thedas change. Yet, Veilguard is over, and barely anything has changed. Instead of magic coming back being a conflict for the next game, they went with Fantasy Illuminati. Oh.

The Veil turned out to be a nothing-burger, and no problems in this world are even close to being solved. Slavery is still rampant in Tevinter. The elven people are still oppressed everywhere. Mages have no more rights in the South than they did in Origins. Spirits are still trapped and being corrupted. The Calling still exists, though might be different somehow now? They don’t really get into that. The Chantry’s validity is still not allowed to be questioned. The Blight still exists in some form, but again it’s vague. Oh, and we learn the dwarves have been gravely wronged, and the Titans are still tranquil. At least if you redeem Solas and a romanced Lavellan joins him, they can work together on healing the Blight and helping the Titans. Oh, good. One problem is being acknowledged and some action will be taken. Offscreen. Hurray? Solas doesn’t have a really great track record of fixing problems, so Lavellan is definitely going to need to be there to make sure he doesn’t fuck it up.

For some reason, this game seemed terrified of letting us think about anything for more than two seconds. It shied away from complexity or nuance at every turn. The game is called The Veilguard—ironically, that word is never uttered in the game—but we are given no real motive for guarding the Veil. We’re unquestionably the hero. The villains are uncomplicatedly evil. Save the world… never wonder what you are doing or why.

I wanted the game to make me question if the Veil staying up or coming down was the right choice. I needed to be given a real counter argument. Convince me the alternative would actually be better or worse, because as I mentioned… things suck quite a bit in Thedas already for a lot of people right now. Let the Veil’s fate be a difficult choice to make. If the conflict cannot be what to do about the Veil, it should be am I doing the right thing about the Veil. If the heart of your game is so thin on motive, everything else falls apart around it.

I hoped they were setting up a complex, Thedas-sized existential conflict for this game in Trespasser, but no. I wanted something to happen, but nothing did. 

I want to feel challenged and changed by a story, not left feeling empty. I’m tired of superficial entertainment. I want to sink my teeth into a narrative that doesn’t paint the world in broad strokes of black and white, good and evil, heroes and villains.

Ultimately, I think my issue is why even introduce a concept like The Veil if you’re not going to do anything interesting with it. Or anything at all. What I thought was Chekov’s Veil turned out to just be a MacGuffin. And that’s disappointing.

[wives-natlho]

Fate (Carmen Weaver part 5)

“Yes, I’m sure. Thank you for the opportunity and the support. It has been very enlightening.” Carmen gave her goodbyes to Thubyrgeim, who was trying desperately to get her to stay. The Highlander had been a good student despite her troubles, and the guild was making good use of her talents when it came to dealing with customs disputes. After her encounter with Athena, she returned to the guild for a while, taking a few leves and working with the guild to make sure the shipments are safe and legal. Bookish folk that could stare down an axe-wielding former pirate twice their size were in short supply. Carmen was able to give the iciest of stares when needed, and the raw power behind her magic was a sight to behold. She will be missed.

“Very well. You can keep your tome, and if you end up wanting to continue your work here, please don’t hesitate to come and see me.” Thubyrgeim responded. 

Carmen nodded, smiled, and left the room. 

Her profession had changed 3 times in as many months. From student, to Arcanist, and now Adventurer. However, her goal of learning remained. She decided she will join this group of adventurers that Athena had spoken about, to get into their good graces, and learn the ways of adventuring and helping others. Hopefully along the way she would discover something worthy of bringing back to Sharlayan. Time will tell. 

Her travel would be convoluted. She’d take a ship from Limsa Lominsa to Vesper bay, then a rail car to Camp Bluefog in Northern Thanalan. From there, she would need to travel by cart past the ceruleum processing plants and through the abandoned Garlean Castrum to Mor Dhona, then it’s on foot from there. That was the plan anyways. 

—------------

How was I supposed to know that the railcar hasn’t run in Thanalan since the Calamity? She thought, while a Lalafellin merchant in Vesper Bay just laughed at her. 

“Okay, fine. How much for a chocobo porter?” Carmen sighed as she spoke. 

“No porters today, Miss. These two behind me are boarded. That one over there is for sale.” The middle-aged merchant woman pointed from atop her box across the plaza to a single white-feathered chocobo tied up to a post, with a Hellsguard Roegadyn man tending to it. “Thanks for the help.” Carmen said with some level of venom to her voice. She didn’t appreciate being laughed at. 

Across the way, she went to take a good look at the bird. It was old. She could tell by its beak and feathers. The white coloration was half from diet, and half from age. Carmen leaned down and inspected further. The old bird was a girl, and had unkempt claws. 

“Oy! Can I help you?” That Roegadyn man from earlier approached behind Carmen. 

“Yes, please. I’m looking to buy.” It was either that or walking the whole way. 

“Hah! Are ya, now? She cannae lift my oversized arse no more, so I’m lookin’ ta sell.” The man had a smile on his face. Carmen knew Thanalan was famous for its merchants, shrewd to the last breath. The good news is, since Carmen was a Sharlayan student, she was well-trained in debate and logical fallacy, and the man had already misplayed his first card. 

“She can’t, huh? Well, then…” 

—

One spirited bout of haggling later, Carmen was packing up her pouches on the saddle of her new old bird. And for less than what she had budgeted for the railcar and carriage rides. 

“Let’s give you a name.” She looked into the bird’s black eyes, against the white canvas of its feathers. The light and dark reminded her of the threads of fate, and the goddess Nymia. The good and the bad intermingling. The light and the dark. “How about Fate?”

The aged chocobo chirped in pleasure and nuzzled into her new rider. Carmen actually giggled. Out loud! 

“Fate…” She smiled and petted Fate’s neck. “I think I’m gonna like you.”

—---------------

Carmen and Fate got along nicely. Carmen would talk to her, and tell her stories of everything she had done since leaving Sharlayan. Fate seemed to enjoy how light Carmen was compared to the mountain of a man she had been carrying before, and would even chirp happily during pauses in Carmen’s stories. She wasn’t sure, but Carmen liked to think Fate could understand her. The irony was palpable at times, as fate had usually been cruel to her. 

The ride was brisk and smooth. The old nag of a chocobo was practiced in carrying, and did so with grace. The two stopped at Black Brush station to get some Gysahl Greens for Fate, some dried meats for Carmen, and some water for both. She hitched Fate to a post and gathered a pouch of supplies for the road. 

“Afternoon. Where ya’ headed?” The Highlander man looked like he’d been left out in the sun too long. He was scarred and ragged, most likely from battle, Carmen assumed. He was friendly, though, and wore a kind smile. His greying black hair connected to a thick beard across his jaw, but not his upper lip. 

“North. Ishgard eventually.” Carmen replied. “Careful with foot travel. There’s rumor some kinda’ beast has holed up in the old Garlean castrum. Not sure what exactly.” “Thanks. I’ll be careful.” Carmen paid for items and went back to Fate. KWEH!

“Yeah. Me, too.”

—-------------

The ride through Northern Thanalan was uneventful, aside from Carmen’s constant vigilance. The air was filled with blue ceruleum and created a sunset that would have been beautiful except for the fact that Carmen could not bring herself to forget about the gassy pollution. She decided to stop at the edge of a long bridge that spans across the gap from Thanalan into Mor Dhona. The other end led straight into Castrum Centri, the dangerous one if that merchant was to be believed. 

She unhooked the saddle from Fate and made camp, alone on the edge of the cliff. A small fire lit the pair and kept them warm. Fate snacked on greens laid out by Carmen, and the Hyur kept herself filled with dried meats and fruits. It was unsatisfying, but would have to do. The northern stretch of Thanalan did not allow much for game animals except for those trained in hunting. Carmen was not. 

Overnight, Carmen and Fate snuggled up together and kept warm. The downy feathers under Fate’s small wings made for an excellent pillow. 

The following morning, Carmen and Fate crossed the long bridge over the ravine into Mor Dhona. Castrum Centuri on the other side was previously a heavily fortified base for Garlean activity in the area. Since the fall of the empire, it has been abandoned, and opened up. Adventurers made short work of looting the place and uncovering all the valuables. Now, the gates remain open and travel through the Castrum is free for all, including the less-desirable. 

As she crossed into the courtyard of the Castrum, she saw something moving. One of the corners had been overgrown with greenery, vines, and colorful aetherically-bloated flowers. When she turned to look, the movement was gone. She pulled Fate’s reins and came to a stop and then dismounted. 

She was certain she saw something move. She stared at the viney mass for nearly a full minute, pacing slowly towards it. 

KWEH!

Fate was panicked. Carmen spun around to see another mossy shape, but this one was mobile, and advancing on the chocobo. It stood on long, thick vines or tentacles. Carmen wasn’t sure. She’d heard of a Morbol, but had not expected it to be this big, or have this many teeth. Or smell this bad. 

Carmen reached up and slapped Fate on the haunch, causing her to shake free of her panic and take off, running away from the area. Carmen spun on her heels and did the same, sprinting away. The trouble was that the Morbol was between her and the exit to Revenant’s Toll. Her hair started to come out of place as she leapt behind a pile of rubble and started to plan. 

She was wearing her rucksack, which had her tome in it. What luck! She fished it out along with her quill, and peeked over the rubble pile. She watched the Morbol thrash about, and started planning. 

Top heavy, but lots of legs, hard to tip over.

Big mouth - Attack when open?

Smells bad, cover nose

Nouliths on saddle, must use tome

FATE! 

Carmen smiled and realized that even though she was the only person here, she wasn’t alone. She watched Fate on the other side, running in circles and keeping the Morbol’s attention. She took the moment to focus energy into a familiar creature, her Carbuncle. 

She scribbled the word “Teamwork” at the top of the page and underlined it. Time to jump into action. 

—

A sharp whistle cut through the air, and the Morbol’s attention was drawn across the courtyard. Carmen stood in the middle of the way, ready to fight. Her right hand held her tome of spells, and her plan. 

The Morbol charged at her. A series of wet slaps was heard against the metal roadway as the tentacle vines carried the creature faster than Carmen expected. Fate watched from behind, finally able to catch a breath. Carmen figured the creature’s constant wetness was something that kept it mobile and stout. To deal with that, she needed heat. 

She started focusing a spell in her open hand, one of stone aether. The quick spell rocketed a blast of sharp gravel towards the creature and slammed in its face. It did nothing to harm it, but just to slow it down. Perfect.

Just then, the Carbuncle came out from the side, aspected with fire and colored bright red. It left a trail of flame in the air behind it as it rocketed in a straight line to the base of the creature’s footing. It ran quickly enough to lodge itself in the thick mass of vines at its base. After a moment’s pause, the fire belched out from every opening within the tangled web of tentacles. The moisture in the creature’s base evaporated, and the creature slowed to a crawl. 

From behind, Fate found her breath and started sprinting towards the Morbol. Before it got there, Carmen focused another spell, a long, slow build of fire energies, ready to be released all at once. Timing would be key. If she channeled too long, then the fire could explode in her hand. If she released it too early, then it wouldn’t be strong enough. It had to be perfect. 

Three seconds.The Morbol started to move again, slow, but angry. It growled, and dark green viscous slime spilled from its maw. She could smell it from here. 

Two.

Fate approached right on time. Carmen saw her head dip down. She was going into attack mode. The fire was starting to burn Carmen’s fingers. 

One.

The chocobo took a short hop and lifted her right leg behind her, and extended her claws. She kicked with every bit of force she could muster. The Morbol’s mouth opened wide and it roared in pain. 

NOW!

Carmen released the Ruby Ruin spell directly at the creature’s open throat. The fire collided with the back of the mouth and seared through the back of its head. The Morbol roared, spat, and cried before falling over. Its tentacles curled up and it stopped moving. At least for a moment. 

One thick vine twitched and began to slide over to the side. Carmen and Fate both prepared for more. A moment later, the Carbuncle finished pushing its way out of the mass. The moving stopped entirely after that. 

The three gathered up about twenty yalms from the dead Morbol. After a quick breath, Fate let out a tired Kweh, and the carbuncle dissipated into aether. Carmen slid down to sitting and let the stress from her shoulders. The book fell to the ground, and an airy silence overtook the Castrum.

“We did it, Fate.” Carmen said, between heavy breaths. “Good teamwork.”

—------------

She spent the night in Revenant’s Toll before riding onward to Ishgard. Fate earned double greens that night. She was literally a lifesaver. Carmen treated herself to a white wine. She’d had better, but this one was tasty nonetheless. The taste of the victory was sweeter than the wine. 

A couple days later, Carmen and Fate arrived in Ishgard. After taking some time to adjust to the cold. She boarded Fate and rented a room at the Forgotten Knight, and headed out to the Empyrium to find the end of her journey:

The Sweet and Savoury Tavern.

[randomclam24]

It looks like every time I gain a sense of confidence, out the other end of the effective pipeline is another psyop all but explicitly citing this origin

Talking about that isn't just a truth where the channel will be taken down, again - I'll get *killed* over it! - but I can't manage to get myself to care about that

10/22 I don't know why it never occurred to me before I was just listening to the playlist of downloaded TRS freefag episodes because of the recent Israel happening, and it just hit me - when a leftie went semi-viral saying this country is not your personal church over Roe v. Wade being aborted, I got on them over that through this blogging, but you *should have* applied that to the memorials being taken down across the country for being "white" - this is not a playground for your personal beliefs, and I never said that

Update What I *have* said is that leftists know what they're doing wrong best, hence the principle of everything being projection at its root unless it's for something so basic, even they won't feel anything over it because it's simply outside the realm of acceptable thought and doesn't affect anyone. That proves true in ways I still don't know because I just don't understand them.

Update But, when you think about it, at core, it seems to be the leftists making the claim that all subject matter is ultimately the do-what-thou-wilt of white *men* just existing as doing their thing and nothing else. What is science? The scientific method, and it is obviously the leftists who are not doing it. (They make post-hoc rationalizations in the sense that atheist logic was called out as circular logic.)

I mean, you can easily discount that with, then why do you have things like Christian Zionism? They're obviously not doing it.

If it were the case that true conservatives wanted to justify their positions based on the mean or average of their population base, you would have to proceed on "people are idiots theory" as an apologist - that's not a good look.

As in "you can't have your cake and eat it too", you can't make the claim to being the one upholding the scientific method and not dissociate from the lowest common denominator of your base.

Update What it comes down to with people is, what leftists espouse is simply at too high a level to understand, hence rightists stating "I'm not reading all of that." What leftists type in their walls of text is what can be called *empathetics*, meaning if you had empathized with the lowest common denominator of their base, you wouldn't have had to work through all the logic and reason of their wall of text. It just would have flowed naturally, and it have been like, as with them coming up with it, you're just going down a slide from one end to the other as it is a natural conclusion. But you didn't, and so you rushed to the defense of "muh scientific method". Pleh.

Update One of the few on the list of ancient Greco-Roman logical fallacies used as a "claim to fame" by leftists, and the only one that seems to stand the test of time as part of their underlying mentality held against the right wing, is the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, which effectively says if someone takes an example of a misjustice (in social justice) and says that's not representative of our beliefs, just take them to such an event and show how some religious fundamentalist can go into their church, bring their conflict against someone over their prejudice as-is, and be *emboldened* by the preacher and such as that.

If that's what it ultimately comes down to, I've always lived in a place where people are actually self-aware when it comes to that. If that was all it was about, then that's because these people have just never even heard of it before

Update I know about this dichotomy that exists where leftists think it's either you're a fundamentalist on the "white" side, or you're not because you've already been visited by leftism. I don't know how to word the last paragraph in a way that doesn't play into this.

We're not fundamentalists; we didn't have to undergo deradicalization to do that. But this is a determinedly blue-voting county. The preacher I had was fiscally right-wing on account of religion and effectively has to work within this.

I really just don't get that vibe from that. I think, very subtly, the mentality was best encapsulated by a quote from one of our Boy Scout troop leaders during Philmont: "There are no bears here", which is a kind of rhetorical play on the fact that people were saying be warned, there were bears in Philmont

My own dad, being really into Photoshop at the time, made the edit to the trip CD, the man with the quote in the background with a bear edited in standing up behind him

Update Now, on a different subject, doesn't that sound like what "not all X are like that" implies, which comes from leftists? When you apply that as-is to the waves of migrants, does it matter when the overall quality of life's lowering is visceral?

And there's the question, which ties into something said just before - if it's the left whose lowest common denominator is actually unjustifiable even when it's their own argument that you can't defend yourself because of even an exception where people are so much as *exposed* (which applies *without* having to "put the square block in the circular hole" only in the case of dealing with feral migrants - the argument intrinsically *is* of the thought of having one of them living near your home, as it is.) They don't make the argument that it's "not so bad, you see" - they've leaped to putting black people and such above reproach. Why - even is that?

I was going to say, there may be deliberate simps, but I don't think anyone believes that.

Update Why is that? Well, at some point, according to most leftist narratives, there was a point at which everybody's worst traits were justified by the claim that it was just beyond reproach. Taking from the hot take (Imgur: The magic of the Internet) - it's like the only takeaway these people have is that they have to have any form of declaration of being a "have" as opposed to "have-nots" all to themselves. Of course, in Israel's case, they actually need to fight just to exist, because people living in these areas actively reject their existence despite and no matter how much Western power they draw from. It's a permanent process.

Update I've heard this said before, but I never really internalized it for what it means: all you have to do is shut off all the welfare, and the thing starts to dissolve. But I don't think anyone really planted that for the foundational thing it is, where you can parallel that fact with Winston Churchill's quote that where Hitler went wrong was that he denied the bankers their profits.

Update Is what I've implied true, where the political pendulum has swung so far the other way that Martin Luther King's own words can be used against him, with "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character"?

Probably not, but I'm going to try to square that circle anyway

Honestly, with the way politics is understood, that might as well be the summary of his leaning, even if it isn't.

Update And in that sense, isn't it ultimately projecting, that liberals find it their ace in the hole to get a white man fired from his job? They think these positions are really just welfare programs.

And there's some irony in that, because that's what diversity hires are.

And if you're thinking, no, I'm having to go out on a limb for every point I get to, take this into account

BlackRock CEO talk about 'forcing behaviors' may explain why 'woke' runs amok today · American Wire News https://archive.ph/wip/JJkft

""Behaviors are gonna have to change," Fink insisted. "And this is one thing we’re asking companies — you have to force behaviors, and at BlackRock, we are forcing behaviors.""

The only common thread here with the leftist argument is the cynical take - 14.2 Million Americans Work in Infrastructure. What Does That Mean? | Brookings https://archive.ph/wip/wKpL4

"Eleven percent of the American workforce is employed in an infrastructure job."

Update Honestly, I don't think anyone actually asked the question, couldn't the Rothschild-like families take the avenues they're gaining artificial profits from like African blood diamonds and trafficking in Haiti and exist autonomously by net gain?

I think I already used the Bug's Life villain quote before. That seems a little too convenient here. There's got to be something more.

Update Going all the way over lost sources of profits to our terms would be pure "asses and elbows"

Update The quote in context is presented in such a way that it's like it's the "straw that broke the camel's back" - imagine there being a country that did just that, shut off the central bankers' profits, and did *not* incite battle with all their neighbors

Update And honestly, when you put two and two together when you've heard that Europeans, unlike us Americans, have a more innate natural tendency to be against the conniving ways of the jews, probably inherited from Medieval times, why *would* Hitler find it in him to incite battle with all the neighboring countries?

Update I say this because that thing I heard is the reason given by someone who seemed to be "in the know" about these things that Europe has so much scaled-up online censorship compared to we in America - when you actually get to think about these things, you realize the two are running on opposite premises

All I can say is, if Weimar Germany is all Hitler lived through, going through a stage of his life homeless no less, that's all the world looks like to you. Also, most people haven't heard of what Weimar Germany was.

Update Because "Kapitulieren? Nein" as propaganda *definitely* entails starting shit with everyone surrounding you - and in fact, that's what the neighboring countries could have took ahold of given the fact that Germany was occupying everybody

Update And for all the disclaimers of National Socialist Germany on /pol/, no one really hits the road with the meta-religion of Christianity when they bank on whether or not it was denounced by them. When it comes down to reviewing things like this, it starts to become evident that the approach of being a shining light on the hill was not their foundation.

Shills are brainless (L O L) Honestly, and it comes down to "you just had to empathize" with them - if they had done that, given the gap in the culture between them and right-wingers, they would have accomplished their goals through taking their own advice and re-interpreting their leftist dogma into terms that we can understand - but they didn't do that - in that sense, they're truly dumb as a rock

What people go home and fuck their wives that legitimately said "we're going to square this circle all day"?

10/24 From early on in the wix blogging, there was an upload of a pink-lighting liberal lady going crazy. She started out with "I'm *terrified*", and then escalated from there until she completely blew up and then started raging too. When it comes down to the kind of addresses I was trying to make yesterday, what this is with the pink-cam liberal lady is of their argument, why do you have this phobia of us But this is representative of such a small portion of the actual population; these are what have been patently called the "liberal lunatics"

Update Are we really going to get through this before our kids' generations are dead of old age too?

Update There *is* theoretically a giant gap here - you can't definitively say that there isn't phobia from our side because, as people on our side have established, mob culture today is real.

Oh wait - isn't that the equivalent of what leftists imply when they say they can't stand the existence of *one* religious fundamentalist, like their influence alone is going to cause the mob in the town to come out ganging up on them? Well, that happens in real time with modern mob culture.

I think what really needs to be maintained here is that despite any flaws, never once has the right wing in recent history come down to the foundational accusations the left makes of us.

Update Compare what "the left are the real racists" is to that. That argument, quoted from neoconservatives, makes no acknowledgement of fundamentalism at play with the left. It's just a formatting to conversationalism, as in "you think I'm bad - don't get me started about this guy!" Does conversation flow from this? Does it really? Whites in their own self-defense are globally the most hated by everyone. Everyone will abandon this conversation who isn't a shill for its own side like you inevitably are, in an echo chamber. [And then like all the others, you'll wax the time away by your virtual campfire-side conservations until the day even your kids have died of old age with nothing happened (that's what they do!)]

And also, that meta-game to the neocon argument of "you think I'm bad - don't get me started about xyz" - that's in reality (as it is in play in real time) the leftist argument once it comes down to the simple fact that it, in that instance, has become undeniable that they are the fundamentalists. Leftists just have to point back to Hitler.

It seems like the term "meta-game" has only just recently existed, not existing eternally prior. What are we to do with this

I don't know what it is about all this. The meta-game of political arguments always boils down to what applies exclusively with the parties inverse - it's to be assumed it's universal when the Bible says "judge not, lest ye be judged", but this is a little simple in the head

For most conservatives, my take would be okay, since I can't do anything to convince you of your inadequacy otherwise, you just sit there by your campfires conversing, and the world will burn down around you. And they of course will just say fine! at least I had all my shit together

You'd think you have all this *manpower* around here, and it all goes toward being *stinky*

Update after sleeping My policy is that we absolutely should be sending foreign aid to Gaza

10/25 near morning I'm the butt end of every meta-game to society that has ever existed. I'm getting bored, and I would rather die than be conformed to society, because that means assuming an identity I'm not

[arealphrooblem]

Kidnapped by the Boss Part 3

CW: drugged/sedatives, death threats

synopsis: Civilian is a secretary to the Prime Minster. But when the political summit between the city states goes awry, she finds herself kidnapped by the very boss she tried to protect and nothing is what it seems.

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

Civilian’s gaze darted from the face of the prime minister, to the driver.

“That’s not possible,” they said weakly. “He’s the prime minister of my city-state.”

The driver rolled his eyes. “Do you know who the King of the Hidden City is? Have you seen him?”

“No. No one has.”

“Then how do you know he’s not it?”

She glared at him. “How do you know he is the king by that logic?”

The corner of the Prime Minister's mouth twitched, the way it always did when he tried to hide a smile that wasn’t politically appropriate. It felt like a splinter in her chest. He slowly rose to his feet.

“Before the two of you can dissolve into petty arguments over logical fallacies, I will have to confirm his statement,” he said. He looked down at her kindly, like a doctor about to break some bad news. “I am the king of the Hidden City. I became Prime Minister as a way to infiltrate the political landscape of the other cities.”

“Why though? Why go through all that trouble? The Hidden City shut themselves off from the rest of the continent, not the other way around. You don’t need subterfuge to interact with the other ministers — they would have welcomed a meeting with you.”

It was easier to poke holes in his information, to use logic to deny this reality, than to face the truth.

The Prime Minister studied her for a long moment, as if weighing his options. Then from the medkit he took a syringe and a vial of clear liquid.

A knot started to form as he turned back to her, holding the syringe loosely in his hand. “I could tell you exactly why,” he said. “I could explain in great detail everything I did while under your care, right under your nose, in the service of my greater goal. Or you could take this sedative, and be none the wiser, while he and I confer about the next phase of our plan.”

As much as she both craved and rejected the truth, she stopped herself from asking for it.

“There has to be a catch,” she said instead.

The driver leaned forward. “The catch is that the more incriminating information you know, the less likely it is you will ever leave our sight again without being in a body bag.”

Fear lanced through her, and she instinctively flashed her gaze to Prime Minister, as if he could give her any comfort. But he stared impassively back, wordlessly confirming it, because he could not protect her. He was the one she needed protection from.

“What is your choice?” he asked her.

This time anger flickered to life in her chest. “My choice? You mean between learning the truth and becoming your prisoner or putting my unconscious body at the mercy of two men who threatened to kill me?”

“You’re a prisoner either way,” the driver pointed out, oh so helpfully. “One imprisonment is a shorter duration than the other.”

“No harm will come to you while under the sedative,” said the Prime Minister. “You have my word.”

She swallowed thickly. “Like I can trust that anymore.”

“Now that you don’t have much choice in,” said the driver.

She was really starting to hate him.

“May I remind you, darling, that you wouldn’t be in this situation at all if you had simply gone to the hotel room instead of the parking garage,” Prime Minister added pitilessly. “Now make your choice.”

“ . . .The sedative,” Civilian muttered eventually.

The corner of the Prime Minister's mouth tipped up. “A shame. I would dearly love to keep you.”

She should not swallow thickly at the sound of that. She should not feel oddly flattered by it either. It was a pavlovian response at this point, for the Prime Minister always praised her efforts and she always inwardly preened each time.

To her horror, the Prime Minister handed the syringe and the glass vial to the driver and him him her weight and height.

“He’s going to do it?” she yelped.

The Prime Minister blinked. “Of course. You think I know how to accurately determine dosage and administer it in a safe manner?”

“And he does?”

The driver smirked, as if in on a secret joke.

“I mostly deal in unsafe dosages for more . . . permanent effects,” he said. “But I do have the experience.”

She felt like a cornered animal, except she didn’t even have the luxury of lashing out. Not outnumbered and trapped like this. Maybe oblivion would be better than the terror churning and building in her gut.

The Prime Minster oh so helpfully pulled out a rubber strap from the med kit. “Hold out your arm, love.”

Love. She could count on one hand how many times he’d called her that and it made her blush each time. He had to have known. He had to be doing it on purpose now, as if that would trick her into cooperation.

Civilian held out her arm, not because he called her love, but because she had no other choice. The Prime Minister wrapped it around her arm and tightened it while the driver measured out a dosage of the sedative.

A spike of wild panic flared up in her as the driver took hold of her arm and brought the needle to a vein. She swallowed it down, refusing to cower in his presence. The driver paused and met her gaze. For once he did not look at her with a smirk or derision. His expression was soft and serious.

“I promise you will wake up again,” he said quietly. “This dosage will wear off in a few hours.”

“I don’t need your comfort,” she snapped.

He gave her a look of pity that immediately insulted her. “You’re shaking.”

 At least they had given her the choice, she thought, and then her thoughts turned slow and murky and then there were no thoughts at all.

Civilian awoke in a beautiful blue bedroom. For the first few hazy seconds, it looked like something underwater, a mermaid palace in the ocean. Then rational thought slowly trickled in and she recognized the silk wallpaper and lush carpet for what they were. Gold trim lined the walls and accented the velvet furniture. All the five star hotels she had stayed in with the Prime Minister could not compare to the obscene luxury of this room.

She also woke up alone. For a long moment she stayed down, eyes shut, trying to listen for the sound of movement, murmurs, footsteps.

Nothing.

Eventually she felt bold enough to sit up, and then to pad around the room, exploring. The ceiling was carved from dark wood, a chandelier bathing the room in a dim glow. A velvet sapphire couch sat at the foot of the huge bed. Dark velvet curtains hung over a floor to ceiling window, a little table and chair beside it.  

Civilian investigated that first, peeking between them without disturbing them.

She saw nothing but darkness. That’s when she noticed the little golden alarm clock next to the bed. It was two in the morning.

No wonder she didn’t hear anything. Maybe they thought she would sleep through the night. A plan started to form. Hoofing it out of the Hidden City on foot was not great, but it was better than nothing and maybe she could steal a car on the way or call someone —

Her phone!

She hadn’t seen it since the parking garage. It must still be in the car . . . Back at the airport.

Well fuck.

Despair overwhelms her for a moment before she swallows that down as well. What’s one more thing to steal?

Two doors stood perpendicular to each other. The first one she tried swung open to reveal a luxurious bath, complete with clawfoot tub, glassed in shower, and a huge, lit mirror. A powerful urge to take a long depression bath gripped her.

God she could really go for a bath.

Focus.

With great reluctance, Civilian left the bathroom and tried the other door.

It was locked.

“Going somewhere?”

Civilian screamed, jerking hard enough to knock over the lamp next to her.

A laugh echoed somewhere to her right, but the room remained empty. Invisible hands picked up the lamp and righted it. Civilian stumbled back, her first wild thought flashing straight to ghosts. Maybe the Hidden City was full of ghosts and that’s why it never joined the coalition of the rest of the city states.

Then the air shimmered and the driver appeared before her, grinning wide.

“They might have heard you all the way back in Your City,” he said.

She stared at him. Powered individuals were exceedingly rare in her society. The war that splintered the country into the current city states killed many of the powered. And the rest were chased out, victims of resentment and suspicion. They had fled to the Hidden City, the only place that would accept them.

If anyone in her city was powered, they kept it a tightly guarded secret.

“How — how long have you been there?” she asked.

His grin melted into a smirk. “You snore when you sleep,” he said.

“You were watching me sleep?” she yelped.

“You’re a potential enemy in a hostile city,” he said. “You need protection for the length of your stay. Or at least, that’s what my king said.”

She crossed her arms. “And how long is the length of my stay?”

He shrugged. “Till he figures out what to do with you, I suppose. And until then, get used to seeing me around. Or not seeing, as the case may be.”

The thought of his invisible presence haunting her made her skin crawl. And she had almost taken a bath.

“Like a good little lapdog,” she said bitterly.

He gave her a flinty look before stepping forward until he crowded into her space. She refused to back up, jutting her chin up to meet his gaze.

“I’m the king’s right hand. I do whatever he asks of me,” he said softly. “I spy for him, I sabotage for him, I kill for him. Whatever he wants done with you, I will do it with no questions asked and no hesitation. Right now you’re lucky that’s only watching over you.”

“Well you can guard me from the other side of that door,” she whispered, trying to hide the way her voice shook.

A tiny smile lifted the corner of his mouth.“I’ll take it under consideration.”

Part 4 here

tagging: @rivalriotrenegade @sunyside-world @fishtale88 @those-damn-snippets @suspiciousmuffin

[littledoggy-girlcollar]

hi i’m not done i can’t decide if it’s better or worse if the princesses are operating under the “how can i prove that anyone around me is actually sentient and not an npc” fallacy or not. either way they are acting with a grand amount of self-importance but if they are operating under that fallacy i think they’re coming from a place like, “i know for a fact that my story was written with me as the main character, therefore i am the driving force/the true sentient part of my story and since we’re taking control the rest of it is mine to do with what i wish,” which is horrid but does make a certain amount of logical sense.

if they AREN’T operating under that fallacy, though, then they have decided that their knowledge of the “true nature of their world” gives them the power and legitimacy to....decide everything for everyone in the world. with the argument being that because no one else knows the true nature they aren’t qualified to be making these decisions.

and once again i think the biggest wrench here is the stepmother. operating under the fallacy, then from the princesses' perspective the stepmother either BECAME sentient, and therefore other characters have that capacity as well which complicated the morality of “can we just kill all the npcs” (which is already extremely dubiously moral to begin with), OR the stepmother’s actions actively prove the princesses WRONG, since she’s always had exactly as much agency as them and therefore so does everyone else in the story.

if they AREN’T operating under the fallacy, then the princesses (and cinderella in particular) have to deal with the fact that knowing the truth doesn’t automatically make them right. as far as we know cinderella is kind of the only one that knows abt the stepmother at this point, and she doesn’t even know the whole capacity of it i don’t think, but she didn’t look comfortable with what pinnochio was describing the stepmother as doing. which is very interesting, because as others have pointed out what the princesses want to do ISN’T really that much different beyond intent (and this is not arguing whether or not intent is worthless, that’s just something i’ve seen around)

the stepmother is and has been obviously doing things for selfish reasons. the princesses’ cause seems to be more altruistic, but at the heart of it....they really aren’t that much different. their reasons for ending the stories are almost entirely self-serving, even if they aren’t TECHNICALLY going for a literal power-grab.

[noteguk]

for science | jhs | m

— summary; in which Hoseok hears through the grapevine that you give one of the best blowjobs ever, and he needs to test it to be sure. 

— contents and warnings; blowjob (duh), dirty talk, praising and stupid pet names, cum eating, deepthroating (the oc has no gag reflex), Hoseok finds heaven, kind of crack? Idk don’t take this seriously, college!au, hoseok x reader (with a mention of past Jimin x reader), studying sessions being interrupted in the name of science 

— words; 5,1k

Requested by anon! 

Hoseok could be kind of clueless when it came to some science-related things (and his high school biology teacher could attest to that), but one thing he knew very well was the scientific method. All that hypothesis-testing-stuff, or whatever the hell that was (okay, maybe he didn’t know it that well) had taken him out of some trouble in the past. It helped him see some of his decisions in a more experimental light, avoiding the terrible Olympic-somersault-into-conclusions that had gotten so many of his friends into awkward situations. And it shouldn’t even be said that he took quite a bit of pride in that — it made him feel very intelligent and he would take any stroke to the ego that he could get. 

So, when Jimin got a bit too tipsy and started babbling on about how you gave him the best blowjob of his life, Hoseok was, at the very least, cautiously skeptical. 

“You’re such a drama queen.” Hoseok rolled his eyes before chugging down a bit more of his beer. He was nowhere near as intoxicated as Jimin was, and he wasn’t planning on changing that. It was a Wednesday night, for fuck’s sake. He had to leave some thrill to the end of the week. “It probably was like… alright. Good, even. But the best one ever? Please.” 

“It was so much more than alright, dude.” Jimin threw his head over the couch’s back, looking like he just got washed up on the shore. His hair was a mess of clear strands, exploding on his head like a failed science fair experiment. “It was the best suck of my liiiiife. I wish she didn’t hate me so I could have that again.” 

He scoffed. Hoseok had enough filter left in him to avoid telling Jimin that the reason why you hated him was entirely his fault — what did he expect from three weeks of ghosting? Besides, if the head was that good, he would surely stick around for just a bit longer than two months. “Sure. Like the time that you almost died riding a roller coaster.” 

“Hey. I almost did.” Jimin’s eyes opened, presenting his friend with a dazed-out, unfocused brand of frustration. He was getting tired of not being taken seriously — didn’t Hosoek know that alcohol makes you more honest? He wasn’t making things up. Not when they were as serious as the well-being of his dick, or actual death. “It was some Final Destination bullshit, I’m telling you. Pieces of metal flying and everything.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved it off, leaning closer to Jimin so he could take the almost-empty can of beer from his clumsy hands, and placed it on the center table. “I think you’ve had enough alcohol for tonight, man. You have a class at ten tomorrow.” 

“I’m serious, dude,” Jimin pressed on. It was past eleven and Hoseok only wanted to sleep, but the other boy was clearly clueless about the lack of mutual interest in that conversation. “Aren’t you two friends or something?”

“Kind of. It’s weird,” Hoseok answered. You two had lingered in a hazy friendship space for a long time now, and he didn’t know exactly how to explain your relationship. He didn’t really consider you two close by any means, but you weren’t strangers or casual friends either. To be honest, he hadn’t thought too much about it until that very moment. “Why? What does that have to do with anything?” 

Jimin sighed, fumbling against the sofa. Much to Hoseok’s delight, he was starting to get sleepy as well. “You could ask her to suck you off,” he mumbled, “then you can feel it for yourself.” 

He laughed at that, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Jimin, you’re out of your mind if you think that’s not gonna backfire.” 

He blinked heavily. “Hm? Why?” 

Hoseok blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “We aren’t that close, and we haven’t done anything remotely sexual before this. It would be super creepy.”

“That’s not true,” Jimin spoke lazily, as if the words were starting to get hard to find. There was a pause so long after his sentence that Hoseok thought his roommate had fallen asleep. “I know you guys made out like at the beginning of the semester. Taehyung told me so.”

He was going to murder Taehyung. “It wasn’t like that. We were both drunk and it was super awkward afterwards.” Hoseok got up from the couch, leaving Jimin to groan and spread out his legs over the cushions. “Listen, I’m glad you two had fun, and I’m sorry you ruined it. But I’m not gonna ask ____ to suck me off just so I can know if you’re being dramatic or not.” 

Jimin smirked wickedly — or at least tried to, because his lack of facial control wasn’t doing him any favors. “Whatever you say,” he teased, “but I think you’re curious.” 

Truth was: Hoseok was beyond curious. The cogs in his head had started to move, and his brain was evoking lewd images of you so fast that he could barely follow. He would be pretending if he said that he never saw you under that light before, but, after the mess that was your makeout session, he had forced himself to jump into the friendzone before he managed to make things worse. 

Hoseok liked you very much, even if you two weren’t particularly close. He enjoyed spending time with you, he found you funny, smart, and way out of his league. But he wasn’t delusional enough to believe that you would actually say yes to sucking him off, especially so out of the blue. 

“I’m not curious,” Hoseok lied through his teeth, and he wanted to change the subject so much that his head was starting to hurt. “You’re gonna sleep here?” 

“Hm… yes… the couch is very comfortable.” Jimin closed his eyes and adjusted his body on the furniture. His baggy shirt was already halfway through his stomach and his pants had ran up to his waist, but the man didn’t seem to notice. “You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”

Hoseok rolled his eyes, moving towards the door. He needed to get Jimin some blankets, because the other was surely not getting up for the rest of the night. It was bad enough to babysit him for those few hours of intoxication, but infinitely worse to make him chicken soup if he got sick. Been there, done that. “I’m sure the couch is great.”

Jimin’s voice was soft and sleepy when he spoke up again. Hoseok was already in the corridor, and he almost didn’t hear him when he said, “I’m not talking about the couch.” 

Hoseok went to Jimin’s bedroom and grabbed his pillow and the blanket from his undone bed. Meanwhile, scenarios ran wild inside his head, having you as the main star. He didn’t know what was taking over him, but he wasn’t so quick to ignore Jimin’s story. Hoseok was faced with a fantastic scenario of a perfect blowjob, and the idea that it was so close to him was making his pulse quicken. Again: it would be absurd to ask you to do that, regardless of the motive behind it, and he knew that it would be awful for your already-strange friendship. 

No, he could never do that. He would not. 

But like… what if it worked, and you magically accepted his request? And what if, by some wonderful moment, some millennial alignment of planets, Jimin wasn’t actually being hyperbolic and you actually had the ability to give incredible blowjobs? Could he really let it pass without giving it a shot? 

He could see it as a scientific experiment, Hoseok thought, as a way to prove a hypothesis. It couldn’t hurt if he just— 

Oh my god, dude, shut the fuck up and forget about this. 

Coming back to his senses, Hoseok strutted out of his roommate's bedroom and walked toward the living room. By the time he came back with the blanket and the pillow, Jimin was already deep asleep.

~ 

Against his best efforts, that conversation remained stuck to the back of his mind for the next two weeks. Hoseok would find himself going back and forth on the idea of you having some strange, Marvel-worthy superpower when it came to sucking dick and, worst of all, the idea that his skepticism was making him miss out on it. Jimin was exaggerated when it came to, well, pretty much everything, but that didn’t mean that he would be wrong about that specific subject. That would be a logical fallacy, and that was also something that Hoseok knew very well. Bless his late nights on Reddit for that. 

Yet as the days moved along, and his curiosity was slowly turning into desire, he was forced to revisit the infamous night between the two of you, the one that Jimin had so mercilessly mentioned. Thinking back on it, it wasn’t surprising that your overconsumption of alcohol, added to the way that you two had grown close (both physically and mentally) had ended up with Hoseok laying on top of you, kissing the soul out of you and fondling your breasts in the middle of a party. It wasn’t the most dignified moment of either of your lives, but, well, it happened. 

One way or another, the night didn’t move forward. Even if Hoseok already had a tent in his pants, you two were far too intoxicated to consent, and were quick to fall asleep before the situation could escalate. Bottom line: Hoseok woke up with your tit in his hand, a nightmarish hangover, and the decision that the You-Subject would have to stay on hold for some time. 

And on hold it stayed. For an entire semester. And it would’ve remained that way if Jimin’s stupid mouth hadn’t started talking. 

So after two weeks of self-inflicted psychological torture, Hoseok slipped a hangout invitation amidst your texts. If you saw any second intentions behind his “haven’t seen you in awhile, wanna hangout? ;)” you didn’t let it show. The problem was that you weren’t really in the mood to go out, especially since you had a big exam coming up, so Hoseok ended up convincing you that he would stay quiet if you let him go over to your place. 

It was a bit harder not to notice the desperation in his proposal that time, but you ended up agreeing. Your thought process was that the boy would eventually realize that his hangout attempt was ridiculous and that he would leave you to study by yourself, and the two of you would reschedule that odd friendship session to when you weren’t drowning in textbooks. 

The problem was that you had been stupid enough to believe that your friend would actually keep his mouth shut. 

Hoseok was seated on the edge of your bed for so long that he was sure that his asscheeks were permanently imprinted on your sheets. Because he hated himself, he kept eyeing the digital clock to your right, and he was certain that he had spent the last fifty two minutes and thirty three seconds staring at the back of your head and trying to come up with a casual way to ask for a blowjob. 

He had tried a few times already, and each one constituted of him being unable to finish his sentence, instead looking at you like BooBoo The Fool until you turned back around to face your disorganized desk, sighing and trying to concentrate on your work. 

All things considered, he couldn’t actually believe he had escalated Jimin’s sailor tale to that point. He was out of his mind, that was a fact, and he had absolutely no clue how you would react once he (if he) found the words to ask you to sacrifice your mouth for science. 

God, he was an idiot. 

He cleared his throat and got ready to try one more time. “So… I…” 

You sighed heavily and turned around on the chair. “Hobi, this is the fifth time you’re starting a sentence and not finishing it,” you said, annoyed. “Can you tell me what the problem is? I have a test in two days and you promised you wouldn’t interrupt me if you came over.” 

“I’m sorry,” he didn’t like feeling like a kid being scolded, even if he kind of deserved that. Hoseok guessed it would be better to just take off the band-aid before he made an even bigger fool out of himself. “Let me just, like, explain the context of this. Otherwise it’s going to be even more strange.” 

Dropping your pen, you fully swirled the chair around, crossing your hands over your legs. He wasn’t expecting your complete attention anytime soon, and the seriousness in your stare made his courage falter for a second. It was such a stupid idea, you’d just end up hating him like you did Jimin. “As long as you make it quick,” you told him.  

Hoseok hesitated, running one hand through his hair. “Yeah, okay, so… like, a few weeks ago I was talking to Jimin,” he started, watching your face for any signal of an expression — confusion, disgust, anything. But he found nothing. “We were drunk, and he started talking about the time that you two were together. Like, sexually.” 

You blinked, unfazed. “And?”

“And… he told me that you give, like, the best blowjobs in history,” the words left his mouth before he could fully digest them. This time, he got a reaction out of you — a light raise of your eyebrows. “And, no offense, but I didn’t believe him. You know how extra he is about some stuff. Most stuff.” 

There was a moment of silence as you waited for him to go on, but Hoseok was too busy swallowing his thoughts down and feeling like he would collapse at any given moment. You sighed. “So what? You wanted to tell me that you don’t believe in my blowjob abilities? That’s all? Can I go back to studying now?” 

“No, that’s…” Now, things were starting to get complicated. Just take off the band-aid, Hoseok, don’t chicken out now. “I wanted to know if you could show me. Like, if you could suck me off. So I could... confirm that hypothesis.”

Every part of his brain was suddently hyperaware of how fucking stupid he just sounded. He had expected that another thick silence would follow, but his heart almost leaped out of your chest when you started laughing at him — like, full-chest, eyes closing, head rolling back laughing. “Are you serious?” You asked, taking one hand to cover your mouth before, at last, bursting out again. He felt like his ego was being stabbed with a rusty nail. “I can’t believe you, Hoseok. Took you all this time just to ask me if I could suck you off? For science?”

His mouth felt like it was full of cotton and he had to clear his throat before he found the force to answer you. “Yeah, I mean, only if you’re comfortable with it, of course,” he struggled to say, each word morphing into the next. His stomach had frozen up and the flight or fight response was starting to kick in. Had he really been that much of an idiot? When did his cock start dictating his words? “I… I know this is like, super creepy. I’m sorry. We can forget this ever happened and I’ll never talk to you again. I shouldn’t have said anything.” 

Suddenly sad, he waited as you settled back on the chair, wiping a small tear from the corner of your eye before you stared at him. There was still a smirk crawling up your lips, and he felt like the world was collapsing all around him  as the silence expanded around the two of you. He looked at the digital clock: it had taken him precisely three minutes to ruin everything. 

He sighed, shoulders falling. “Do you hate me? Why are you so quiet?” 

You bit down on your lip, your eyes narrowing as you took his form in. Hoseok was hot: point blank. He was also nice, and respectful enough to realize that he might have overstepped a few lines with his request — and, even if you couldn’t really understand it, you also weren’t bothered by it. And you certainly didn’t hate him. In a way, you were almost flattered. You would’ve been more if the comment had come from anyone else but your Danny Phantom ex. But that was a different story. 

The entire situation was just too funny to let it go. And, besides, you really wouldn’t mind sucking Hoseok off. It wasn’t as if you had never thought about that before. 

“I’m... considering it,” you told him, watching as his face lit up in a mixture of confusion and joy. He looked like a kid seeing Santa for the first time. “If you promise to shut up and let me study, I’ll do it. And if you agree to never talk about it again.” 

Hoseok blinked profusely, his mind short circuiting. “For real?” 

“Yeah.” You raised from your chair, walking closer to your bed. Hoseok swallowed hard and leaned back, placing his hands on the mattress for support. “But do me a favor: if it’s not that good, don’t tell me. It’ll hurt me.” 

“Yeah, alright.” He swallowed dry, every neuron in his brain trying to grasp what the fuck had just happened. His mind was the Spongebob office being set on fire, and he suddenly didn’t know how to deal with the anticipation booming in his chest. “I’m... not hard yet, though.” 

“It’s okay.” You kneeled in front of him, placing your hands on his inner thighs and slightly pushing them apart. Hoseok quickly got the cue, and opened a bit more so you could comfortably place yourself between them. “Just... relax,” your voice was almost a whisper then, and he felt his soul trying to leave him. That was insane. “Let me take care of you.”  

Your words managed to make him relax a bit, then he tensed all the way back at the feeling of your hands fumbling with his button. His breath hitched as you pulled the zipper down, fingers hooking on the edge of his pants before tugging them down his thighs. 

He felt exposed as his pants fell like a puddle around his ankles, his tongue coming out to wet his lips as you leaned in. Hosoek felt like he was dreaming when you started nibbling at his skin, kissing and licking his inner thighs as you slowly made your way closer to his aching member. 

“I can’t believe this is happening,” he barely got out before sighing, the tingles of your caresses on his skin shooting directly towards his cock, already semi-hard. 

You flicked your eyes up at him, humming against his thigh muscles. You were now so dangerously close to his underwear that he thought he would lose consciousness. “Were you daydreaming about it or something?” You teased. 

Maybe in a different position, he would’ve lied about it. But the truth came out before he could hold it back. “Ever since Jimin told me that, yeah,” he said. 

“Hmm… hope I live up to the expectation, then,” you purred, looking up at him with those doll-like eyes. Hoseok suddenly felt like he was losing his balance, his entire body burning in desire and expectancy. You looked like another one of his horny daydreams, but you were kneeling right there, in arms reach, and he didn’t know how he would deal with what was about to ensue. 

Your mouth was hovering above his clothed cock before he could notice and, delicately, you leaned down to place a kiss on it. The touch was tender, almost numb with the fabric standing between you two, and yet Hoseok shivered, biting down on his lip as one of your hands enveloped his erection. He watched, mesmerized, as you started lazily stroking him through his underwear, leaning your head to the side so you could place heavy kisses on him, at times giving his tip a few kitten licks until it was covered by a thin layer of your saliva. 

The sensation left him on edge, silently begging for more. By the time you moved back so you could undress him, Hoseok was a mess of shallow breaths and heavy swallows; his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as pleasure started to build up at the corners of his perception. Biting back a moan of relief, Hoseok raised his hips as you slowly pulled his underwear downward, allowing for his cock to spring free from its confinement. You had done a good job teasing him, because it was already fully hard when it bounced against his abdomen, red-tipped and leaking. 

His gaze oscillated between your face and his cock, watching for any reaction as you took one hand to his length, squeezing him firmly. “Fuck,” he let out a grunt, his overwhelmed body responding to the smallest of touches. 

You smirked at his reaction, taking a quick glimpse at his devastated features before moving back to what you were doing. Hoseok was so cute, you thought, liking the way he was so responsive. 

A shudder ran up Hoseok’s body when your tongue came out between your lips, placing delicate licks on his base. He loved the feeling of your warm muscle against his hardened member, his mind growing eager as you began tracing a path upwards, flattening your tongue against him. His breathing was ragged by the time that you reached his crown, a hum escaping your throat as you lazily swirled your tongue around his tip, covering him with your saliva. 

You took your time caressing his slit with your mouth, waiting until he was cursing and panting before you finally wrapped your lips around him. At first, you only took his tip in your mouth, sucking so slowly that Hoseok whined and buckled his hips from the bed, trying to make you move faster. 

Wordlessly, you simply placed your palm against his thigh and pressed him back down. Even if that was the last thing he wanted to do, Hoseok accepted your order and settled back against the mattress, grunting as you continued to tease him. 

“Please, put it all in,” he begged, starting to lose his trail of thought. “This is torture.” 

And maybe another day you would have taken a bit more time torturing him, but, that afternoon, you were kind of in a rush to finish studying. So you complied. 

“Oh, fuck, fuck.” His eyes shut and his head was thrown back as you fully sank down on his cock, your tongue flat against him. Before he could stop himself, his hand flew to your hair, yanking at the strands as you moved back up, your hand pumping the parts of him that you couldn’t reach. 

“God, your mouth feels so great…” He moaned, back arching as you reached his tip once again, licking it before sinking back down — you took him just a bit deeper that time, and the motion didn’t pass by unnoticed. He was really starting to believe Jimin, and he wondered if maybe he should’ve been more worried about the entire rollercoaster situation. “Ah, that’s it. Just like that.” 

You moaned around him, the vibrations making him cry out, desperate. Hoseok couldn’t hold himself back from moving closer to the edge of the bed, his other hand clenching your bedsheets between his fingers as you continued to swallow his cock like it belonged in the hot confinement of your mouth. 

“Oh— oh my god, baby,” he grunted, pulling at the strands of your hair. His mind was starting to get hazy, his chest fluttering in a mess of sighs and heavy breaths every time that you sank down on his member; every time you flicked your tongue against his sentitive slit or pumped his base. “That’s really good, you take my cock so well.”

You looked up just to see the mess that Hoseok had turned into. With his mouth parted and eyes glazed over, he looked like he was about to fall apart at any second. He was watching you in complete awe, his eyebrows falling to form a beautiful frown of concentration; tongue coming out to lick his lips. He was so fucked out that you felt yourself getting riled up by his image, a pool of wetness accumulating between your thighs. 

“You look so pretty like this.” He exhaled, unaware of his own words. Hoseok was too busy following your swollen, redden lips as they wrapped around his member, your cheeks hollowing after you sucked him with all that you had. Even the small amount of droll around your mouth was enough to make him throb in your hold, a grunt escaping him. “With these — fuck — those pretty lips around my cock, shit. I could watch you forever.” 

You hummed around his member again at his words, the vibrations shooting directly at his core, where a rising heat had dangerously grown stronger, signaling his upcoming orgasm. Hoseok loved the way you actually looked like you were enjoying yourself, moaning and whimpering around his cock as you took all of him in your mouth, eyes closing every time he throbbed inside you. The eagerness in which you took him in, like you were starving for his cock, was one of the filthiest images that Hoseok had ever seen, and it was one that he knew would haunt his dreams for the years to come. 

When you removed his cock from your mouth with a dirty wet sound, Hoseok was about to complain before he saw you licking down his length, one of your hands holding his cock away from your face as your tongue started to play with his balls. It was an odd feeling, but not an unwelcomed one, and it kept him on edge for a little while longer while you played with him. 

With a timid whimper, you looked up at him as you licked your way back up to his tip. The image was so hot that he almost fainted, a deep moan escaping his throat when you took him back inside your delicious mouth. 

And the truth was clearer than Hoseok had ever expected: Jimin was right. 

“Fuck, babe, how did you get this good?” Hoseok grunted, trying his best to focus on the picture-perfect image of your lips wrapped tightly around his throbbing cock. He could tell that his release was starting to build up at an alarming rate, his thighs growing weaker every time you took him inside you. “Oh my- Ngh! Fuck! Oh my god!” 

Hoseok’s mind was wiped clean when he felt his tip hitting the back of your throat, his hips buckling up as your throat clenched around him. He was pretty sure he was in heaven then — if he focused, he could hear angels singing all around him — , his pleasure overtaking every cell of his body as you continued sucking the soul out of him. 

“Holy fuck, do that again,” he begged, his voice much higher than before. You didn’t need to be asked twice, because, within a second, he was crying out at the feeling of your throat wrapping around his cock one more time; his hands holding tightly to the roots of your hair. The only reason why Hoseok hadn’t started fucking your mouth yet was because he wanted to have you in control, giving him the best head of his life without any interruption. “Fuck, fuck— Baby, you’re so fucking good at this, fuck.”

There was a vague raising of his hips to meet your movements, making him hit the back of your throat again and again, the lewd sounds you were making filling the room. Nothing in his life had ever compared to that instant, he had ever felt a pleasure as great as he did at that point, and he knew it was about to snap. 

“God, I’m gonna cum,” he sobbed, finally closing his eyes and letting the pleasure take over. “Fuck, you’re so good, I’m gonna—“ 

Hoseok filled your mouth with his cum, dripping down your throat when you swallowed around him. His head was spinning and his muscles were trembling, and that time he was unable to hold himself back from thrusting up against your mouth, trying to prolong that divine sensation for as long as he could before, at last, collapsing against the mattress with a final, shaky moan. 

He barely heard you when you got up to your feet, his mind floating above his body as he tried to get himself back together. With the little force that he still had inside him, Hoseok leaned on his elbows and stared at you like you were made of gold. “Fuck, ____.” He breathed out, and the only thing he could say was, “What the fuck?” 

You giggled at his reaction, thumb cleaning a bit of cum that had painted the corner of your mouth. “I appreciate your feedback,” you teased, pointing over your shoulder, to where your desk stood, forgotten. “Now that you have your answer, can I study in peace?” 

“Y-Yeah, sure,” he struggled to say. “I’ll... stay quiet.” 

You smiled brightly. “Thanks!” 

He thought about thanking you right back for giving him the best orgasm of his life, but he thought that would make everything much more pathetic. So he didn’t. 

Hoseok eventually found the motivation within him to put his cock back inside his underwear, clumsily pulling his pants back up. He found himself in the same position he was before everything went down: dumbfounded, staring at the back of your head as you worked on your textbook. The red numbers on the clock told him that just ten minutes had passed, and yet his life had completely changed. 

All that he wanted was to return the favor — it was the fair exchange, after all. Hoseok sat up at the edge of the bed and spoke up, filled by a newfound courage. “Wait. Don’t you want me to take ca—”

“Shut the fuck up, Hoseok.” 

His mouth fell shut and his courage deflated just as quickly. Maybe another time.

[fincalinde]

Trope ranking- time travel and/or time loop?

Time travel - F

I'm not really keen on time travel in any context, but I'm answering this in relation to what I think is the most common use of this trope: time travel back to the past to fix things. Hate it. Hate it forever. Hate everything about it: the logical fallacy, the creepy erasure of the original timeline and the people the characters all became, the fact that it's usually one character holding all the knowledge while everyone else is totally ignorant meaning there's often an unpleasant power imbalance for the main pairing—or, worse, the central cast now looking to the time-travelling character as an oracle. Even if both halves of the pairing keep their memories, this one is just too many of my personal nope buttons to even click into.

Time loop - B

I am aware I make no sense, thank you. So firstly: I still don't like time loop if one half of a pairing is trapped and the other isn't. I want my pairings to be on a journey together, thanks, not one going on a journey while the other remains totally ignorant and maybe gets caught up to speed at the end. So I generally am only interested in time loop fic if either there's no pairing or there's multiple characters in the loop a la Palm Springs (I loved Palm Springs!). Plus I need to feel the character actually would benefit and come to some kind of personal revelation via said loop, if the conceit is the typical Groundhog Day-style resolution. Those criteria met: I'm in. Again and again and again and

[l3vi4than]

Okay, hello, that’s literally my job to educate people about this shit! (I’m a math logic prof and I study cognitive modelling) This one example provided is really a tricky one, but let’s dive into it and try to analyse why this happens.

At first this seems as a pretty straightforward non-sequitur fallacy (the conclusion does not logically follow from the premise). But here’s the trick: the logical following isn’t universal. It depends on the set of axioms and following rules we use to define the formal logic system. This means, if you are making your conclusions based on a different set of axioms — you might encounter different true conclusions than someone who uses another set of axioms or a different set of following rules.

Sounds sophisticated, I know. Let’s get back to the “all black people are ugly” example. What we see here is that Replyboy has successfully used what we in math logic call Illicit Major: a logical fallacy that happens when major term is undistributed in the major premise but distributed in the conclusion.

The conclusion they used looks something like this:

All beautiful women satisfy (eurocentric) beauty standards / satisfying beauty standards means being beautiful (for a woman)

No black woman satisfies eurocantric beauty standards

Therefore, all black women are not-beautiful (ugly)

There are multiple tricks here, but let’s discuss illicit major first. So, the roots of this logical fallacy lie in the fact that the major term (be beautiful) isn’t actually distributed on the major premise: we can’t say that ALL beautiful women satisfy beauty standards, — some women are the direct opposite of any beauty standard ever seen and they’re still beautiful! This makes the distribution of the major term in the conclusion illicit: claiming that ALL beautiful women are non-black is erroneous. Exactly because the claim about “all beautiful women satisfy a beauty standard” is false.

What lets us make such a statement look plausible is the fact that “beauty” doesn’t have a formal definition. It’s a subjective concept, what we see as “beautiful” differs for everyone, and it’s okay. Trying to approach beauty as a strictly defined category causes the same illicit major fallacy in the sense that you simply cannot distribute “beauty” over everything in the way that every actor operating this premise would consider true.

This might seem as a “loaded term” in the sense that “beauty” is something everyone defines differently, but it isn’t necessarily the cause of Replyboy’s edgy behaviour. I’d say Replyboy is more likely an asshole operating a narrower set of axioms which causes him to make logical conclusions that seem logical to him but are absolutely nonsensical to Stephanie.

For example, in Replyboy’s world the property of an object “beautiful” is defined as “satisfying beauty standards”. But more than that, it is also defined as “not ugly”, which means there are only two states of the property for any object: it is either beautiful or ugly, no in between. Like there is no in between for “true” and “false” in the binary logic — which makes such a definition seem right (it’s a cognitive bias btw) even though it clearly isn’t.

So, to summarise why Replyboy is being mean to Stephanie we can say that he’s just stupid using a very simplistic and flawed (in the sense of being “biased” by natural phenomena) base for his logic which obscures the logical fallacy of his conclusions within it.

To be fair, this happens to the best of us, and we should always be aware of the possibility that our own judgement has been compromised by the nature of our own cognition. The framing effect is actually one of many effective optimisation mechanisms our brains use as means to make fast and efficient decisions with minimum energy expenditure — because our brains are extremely energy consuming. So, cognitive biases are our biggest contributors to our evolutionary advantage over other mammals, as they create shortcuts for our brains that allow us proceed right to the conclusions instead of analysing every single detail all the time.

But sometimes it backfires and makes us shortcut something in the way which isn’t necessarily efficient — like it just happened to Replyboy. It’s okay, it happens. Just be mindful about this possibility, and don’t be rude to people around you. Then we can talk this out and find the right solution.

there's this trick that racists/queerphobes/etc do, it's really slick. let's just do a little dialogue as an example, the names have been obscured but I've seen this exact exchange happen before.

Stephanie mc. Influencer: "And furthermore, body positivity intersects with black liberation, as black women are often held to unattainable eurocentric beauty standards"

Suave Replyboy Jr: "Lmao, you leftists always tell on yourselves, did you really just say black people are ugly??"

You see the trick here? it's kind of complicated, like, Stephanie is arguing from the perspective that beauty standards are arbitrary and subject to change, Suave understands beauty as an objective hierarchy, so he dunks on Stephanie safely from the inside of that standard. To him, and likely to many people who haven't thought about their own assumptions very much, the only reason black people would want their own body positivity movement is because they're ugly. Bonus points if Stephanie is white, and you can rile her community against her with claims of racism.

I've been getting some replies like this on my posts about sexual trauma, kink, and queerness. Like... I say that sexual deviance of all forms can intersect and correlate with queer identity, and dozens of Suave Replyboy Jrs come out and dunk on me from the other side of the glass, from inside the false universe I'm trying to discredit, the one where "sexual deviance" is immoral and associating queer sexuality with deviancy is an insult. I'm not saying queer people are dangerous perverts, that's you.