#but it doesn't apply to people an arguments you don't like

[adagiorii]

Edu, don't keep us in the dark >:0 what are the typical circumstances of the PCD's missions that make using high-grade guns not be ideal??? ENLIGHT US

See for me to answer this I'm going to have to get into some deeper lore so I'm gonna try to keep it as short as possible-

There was originally a completely different explanation for it but while writing this I came up with new lore so that will be the answer now

TLDR: They have weapons mostly for self-defence and/or to neutralize threats and keep others safe, not necessarily to kill those threats. Their weapons also double as capture tools so a gun really wouldn't be effective at all.

Circumstances

I'll clear up what I meant about the "circumstances" first. I said that because the PCD usually do their work in public places, and sometimes even in people's homes if need be - which means it's not really ideal for them to go around using really destructive and powerful guns lmao. And even if it wasn't, guns in general aren't the most effective weapons for the job except in the self-defence department. See Method 2.

Paranormal Entities

As for why smaller guns like police handguns wouldn't be useful, that's because of what the PCD fights - paranormal entities (placeholder name while I can't come up with a better and catchier term). An entity is essentially a deceased person that has experienced what I call a sort of "botched" resurrection attempt. They're not quite alive again, but it's the closest they can get (they basically look like distorted doppelgangers of the person they were before). They can be either corporeal or not, but regardless, the main thing that keeps an entity "alive" is their host, to which they are bound from the moment the person passes away. It is through this host that the entity maintains a connection to what is left of their humanity, which is usually very little. Most don't retain enough of their rationality and consciousness to be able to think like a human person, and end up devolving into violent and resentful beings driven mostly by instinct. And, yes, they do have powers.

This is why they're a huge danger to people, and are known to attack human beings.

Method 1

In current lore, entities can be killed in two ways (called Method 1 and Method 2). Method 1 is destroying or killing the host.

Method 1 has some issues. Fyi, a host can be pretty much anything - an object, a plant, an animal, or even a human in very rare instances. One of the issues can be that identifying an entity's host can be very difficult, time-consuming and impractical. And then, if the entity's host is a living creature like an animal or, even worse, a person, the situation really gets delicate. (Fyi, in-universe, human hosts are almost unheard of and even considered a sort of myth or at least a very rare occurrence - but it can happen. Either way, this still applies to animal hosts.)

So, in the vast majority of cases, the PCD uses Method 2.

Method 2

Alright so- this is where the lore changes. The original Method 2 was that if you wore the entity down enough, by attacking it over and over again and essentially torturing it, it would lose the remains of its sanity and essentially self-destruct (this would also save the host btw).

I decided against that entirely because I feel like it's 1. just killing the entity with extra steps and 2. it undermines the importance of the host if you can just kill the entity without worrying about how to keep the host safe. It removes stakes. I originally had another way to keep those stakes but with the lore change that's probably going to change too so I won't get into it. I also don't like that it boils down to physical and mental torture by relentlessly stabbing it. It sounds like a weirdly needlessly violent plot point and it didn't sit right with me. Besides, it really doesn't counter the gun argument - my original argument was that small handguns don't do enough harm to successfully kill the entity with Method 2 because stabbing them is more effective (again weirdly violent), and big guns are a needless safety hazard to the public when you can just stab with sword.

The new Method 2 is something I had been considering for a while but never actually gave much thought to. This idea is that in this world, there is a unique kind of metal that is capable of absorbing and essentially trapping entities, which would be more akin to ghosts (since that's also what they were inspired by). This metal is the main material used to build the PCD's weapons, and their modus operandi is having their agents go out, fight entities, make sure they're not a threat and at the first opportunity, trap them.

They use weapons for self-defence and/or in case the entity is violent and they need to fight it. The weapons then double as their "capture tools" for lack of a better term. Take Eiko's sword; I like the concept that, being a rapier ideal for stabbing and piercing, it would actually also function like a medical needle (in the sense that the entity is sucked inside) once an entity is stabbed with it. As part of this change I am also considering having the main part of the weapon actually be the little red gem in the tip of the handle of her sword, which would be a feature in all PCD weapons and be the actual part the entity gets trapped within. Once a mission is over, that little gem is temporarily removed so that the entity trapped inside it can be locked away in some high security facility idk.

This, in my eyes, is a much less weird method? It establishes that an entity cannot actually be killed unless their host is too, which adds stakes in a more natural way in my opinion. And, obviously, having a gun as a PCD weapon doesn't really make sense because the weapons' main purpose is to trap entities. It's hard to do that with a gun with bullets you're supposed to shoot at them. Idk I don't think it works.

You could argue that a gun could work for the self-defence part and maybe. But keep in mind that as long as the entity's host is safe, it's not going to die lmao. You can do harm to it and injure it enough that it will sort of quiet down, but it can and will regenerate eventually. I don't think a gun is very effective in that regard especially because it's tiny holes and an entity doesn't have weak vulnerable spots like humans do.

I also really like the potential worldbuilding this new Method 2 could bring. I haven't mentioned it much but the whole regime the country operates under and the PCD are a little shady. I imagine the citizens don't actually know the PCD usually doesn't kill entities, they just capture them and take them elsewhere. You might ask why they aren't honest, but let me remind you that entities were once humans. How would you feel if you knew your once loved one turned entity wasn't actually put out of its misery, but rather captured and sealed away to have God knows what done with it without you knowing about it?

Furthermore, the PCD are seen as mighty heroes in this country. Having the people believe they actually do kill entities suits that noble and brave image a lot more than the reality. They're the knights slaying the dragons and saving the day. Honestly a dragon entity sounds pretty cool.

[blanketforcas]

Just want to say how much I love your account. As a Jensen girl, sometimes Cockles gets kinda discouraging cuz it feels like it always hinges on Jensen's affection and admiration towards Misha (as he should) but never the other way around. Ex: There was a super sweet moment in the Jib panel where M praises J's acting in the barn scene that totally took me by surprise cuz no one posted about it. But I love how balanced your posts are. Also you're just a blast to follow. Sending lots of love your way!

aw thank you for all the compliments!! 🩷

i think my brain shuts down the moment i hear "barn scene" lol but i did think it was sweet of him to return the favor on the praise cause the acting itself was good

in general i'd say one of the reasons there might be a bigger focus on jensen's affection towards misha is that the way jensen loves/praises him is often louder (both in words and body language). ofc it happens the other way around too, but often in more subtle ways (and then sometimes he texts all of us about his blanky at j's apartment i guess), but he's someone who prefers to do that privately as much as he can. and you can tell he often gets uncomfortable when jensen starts to praise him (bless lmao - he has gotten better at this though)

[billdenbrough]

fundamentally disinterested in the recurring discourse about kevin's drinking that aims to a) make it his Specific Problem To Focus On And Overcome when it is a crutch and coping mechanism to get him through a Much Bigger Problem (emotional fallout he can't square with by himself, culture shock, trauma, loss of his extremely wildly co-dependent relationship w riko, losing the structure of the nest, mourning a future he was meant to have, processing a grave injustice, anger and fear and desperate grief, all of which is his Actual Specific Fox Problem) while he builds himself back up, and b) thinks that even if it is a problem (more on that later), it's the foxes' problem to deal with.

like. it's just not.

yeah, he doesn't drink until he meets them. they gave him that habit, and in traditional terms, they're (the monsters specifically) a 'bad influence'. but these are the foxes. this is kevin day, son of exy, whose meteor is crashing spectacularly through no fault of his own. there are no traditional terms to be found here. the framework for it literally doesn't exist. neil comes into the foxes with more conventional expectations—appalled at the athletes' substance use, his horror at matt's trip to columbia, his steadfast and early repeated stance that none of the foxes should let andrew treat them the way he does, and certainly not nicky—and tends to engage with them less as the series goes on and he folds himself into the foxes. the thing about the foxes is that they've all been in pits deeper than they are tall. and some of them got a helping hand on the way—erik, andrew's extreme intervention methods, stephanie walker—and wymack was always waiting for them on the other side, ready to throw down a rope, but all the foxes dragged themselves out of their own holes. often not alone, often not without assistance, but at the end of the day, they have to do it.

there's that line neil has about aaron in that scene that got deleted when the timeline shifted around, when he thinks about how aaron got this far in life on his own, surviving on willpower and sheer desperation. that applies to aaron in a way that's a little more acute than some of the rest of them—boy who doesn't let the foxes in bc of andrew, boy who doesn't let nicky in bc he doesn't know how, boy made of flinching and seeking an escape and grieving the one who hurt him—but is broadly true for the foxes en masse.

this isn't to say the foxes can't help each other, but it's not their job. it just isn't. they'll keep kevin alive, keep him safe, keep him flanked and contained within their ranks. they'll fight tooth and nail in this battle with him, fight to get him to that championship game, fight to get that trophy in his hands. but that's all they've agreed to. that's all they're responsible for, in this covenant they've made with him. he says they can make this happen, and they're going to get him to that final game, but it's up to him what state he's in when he gets there.

like. they're foxes. they've been triaging their whole lives. they hate each other and they hate everyone else more. they're the kids with their backs up against the wall. half of them are addicts. i don't think kevin is comparable, personally; he's getting through a horrific situation with a coping mechanism. that's not the same thing as battling yourself to stop using. but that's not really the point of this. what i'm getting at here is that to the foxes, it's easy math: kevin who can lean on vodka and andrew and wymack and the foxes to stay upright when he's not ready to stand on his own two feet is still a kevin who is standing. a kevin with one less piece of scaffolding to lean on is a kevin who falls over, a kevin at risk of complete collapse, a kevin one phone call away from running back to the master, a kevin one crucial loss away from not ever making it back to himself at all. they're triaging. this is low on the totem pole of things they have the room to care about. they very much have bigger problems, both individually and even just kevin-related. if alcohol makes seeing the boy he knew best in the world and moved in tandem with his whole life and who destroyed their entire legacy and his entire life in one move — if alcohol makes facing that boy easier to stomach, then, fuck, why would they take that away? they're foxes. they've all got their demons. this is what kevin needs this year and a half to let him face his, that's all. they can understand that. it doesn't have to be pretty, as long as it keeps him in the fight. that's the priority.

i think there's absolutely space to explore this in fic and art and fandom in a way that maybe does explore it as a Problem, both that it's an active problem for kevin & that it's something to explore other foxes helping him with (there's a t&n fic that i've been gnawing at the bit to read for months that seems poised to explore this premise, and that's super up my alley)! i just think we're in different territory when we're talking about the series—and its characters and dynamics—in a conversational rather than transformational way, and end up talking about this like the foxes are responsible for kevin's choices. i love kevin day. i read these back at the start of 2015 & he's so dear to me that loving him was the blueprint for how i feel abt kageyama. but it's been pretty weird to see how the conversation has been translating Loving Kevin Day into... thinking the foxes are doing wrong by him with respect to this in actual canon. like that's just not how it operates there

[kaeyapilled]

So with the hangout.. do you think that settles the issue of mistranslation or not of Kaeya and Diluc being brothers?

is it even possible to settle it? i feel like there must be some insane cultural difference between me as a western person and chinese people when it comes to adoptive siblings because, i honestly don't see how the biological son of the guy you consider your adoptive father isn't, by extension, your adoptive brother; how would that relationship not be familial? even when you bring in the "sworn brothers" trope as a means of queercoding, which is a concept ive had explained to me more than once – like, okay? i agree that it's true you can't properly translate/localize that, but. how else did you want them to translate it? even if the word brother was never used once in the eng translation, how do you make it so that kaeya and diluc calling the same guy "father" doesn't imply some uncomfortable things if he and diluc are romantically involved..? but then, who knows, maybe i just don't have enough knowledge about how censorship works in china, how they do queercoding over there, how they deal with adopted relationships, whatever. it's fine. different cultural upbringings, no? it's funny when it's the western side of the fandom discussing this, though. because you'll have these extremely white people arguing with you about the intricacies of chinese BL media. as if either of us knows what the hell we're talking about. anyway, none of this matters in the end because most klc shippers just... like the incest. and the day we stop arguing about mistranslations and simply accept that people either 1) see this relationship in a different light due to their cultural background or 2) are a little bit of a freak online is the day i will finally know peace as a kaeya fan

[complainblogforthevoid]

I've finally figured out an argument that convinces coding tech-bros that AI art is bad.

Got into a discussion today (actually a discussion, we were both very reasonable and calm even through I felt like committing violence) with a tech-bro-coded lady who claimed that people use AI in coding all the time so she didn't see why it mattered if people used AI in art.

Obviously I repressed the surge of violence because that would accomplish nothing. Plus, this lady is very articulate, the type who makes claims and you sit there thinking no that's wrong it must be but she said it so well you're kind of just waffling going but, no, wait-- so I knew I had to get this right if I was gonna come out of this unscathed.

The usual arguments about it being about the soul of it and creation fell flat, in fact she was adamant that anyone who believed that was in fact looking down at coding as an art form as she insisted it is. Which, sure, you can totally express yourself through coding. There's a lot more nuance as to the differences but clearly I was not going to win this one.

The other people I was with (literally 8 people anti-ai against her, but you can't change the mind of someone who doesn't want to listen and she just kept accusing us of devaluing coding as an art) took over for I kid you not 15 minutes while I tried desperately to come up with a clear and articulate way to explain the difference to her. They tried so many reasonable arguments, coding being for a function ("what, art doesn't serve a function?") coding being many discrete building blocks that you put together differently, and the AI simply provides the blocks and you put it together yourself ("isn't that what prompt building is") that it's bad for the environment ("but not if it's used for capitalism, hm?" "Yeah literally that's how capitalism works it doesn't care about the environment" she didn't like that response)

But I finally got it.

And the answer is: It's not about what you do, it's about what you claim to be.

Imagine that someone asks an AI to write a code and, by some miracle, it works perfectly without them having to tweak it---which is great because they couldn't tell you what a single solitary thing in that code means.

Now imagine this person, with their code that they don't know how it works, goes and applies to be a coder somewhere, presenting this AI code as proof that they're qualified.

Should they be hired?

She was horrified, of course. Of course they shouldn't be. They're not qualified. They can't actually code, and even if by some miracle they did have an AI successfully write a flawless code for every issue they came across that wouldn't be their code, you could hire any shmuck on the street to do that, no reason to pay someone like they're creating something.

When actual engineers use AI what they do is get some kind of base, which they then go though and check for problems and then if they find any they fix them, and add on to the base code with their own knowledge instead of just trying different prompt after prompt until they randomly come across one that works.

People who generate code like this don't usually call themselves engineers. They're people who needed a bit of code and didn't have the knowledge to generate it, and so used a resource.

And there you go. There are people who have none of the skills of artists, they don't practice, they don't create for themselves. When they feed the prompt to the AI they then don't just use the resulting image as a reference point for their own personal masterpiece, and if they don't like it they don't have the skills to change it---they simply try another prompt, and do that until they get something they like.

These people are calling themselves artists.

Not only that, these people are bringing the AI generated thing to interviews, and they are getting hired, leaving people who slave over their craft out of the job.

And that is the difference, for the tech bros who think AI art isn't a big deal.

[rustyrailways]

Biggest pet peeve is when people are trying to defend their favourite character and they try to ignore or absolve all their crimes. Even bigger peeve when it's my favourite character and people begin to lump us into one. No sir I see their flaws and I do not need to fix them, in fact I think it adds to the flavour

[lpsgirl109]

"Well you CAN enjoy x piece of media that i think is badly written but you HAVE to acknowledge all its writing flaws--" go take a lap Rebecca I don't have to acknowledge shit.

[homocidalpotat]

Please do not send me asks for donations

Here's why (for if you find that statement hard to understand):

I have NO money to give you.

I don't have a big enough audience for my asks to get noticed.

I am a minor, and most of my followers/mutuals are too.

It makes me feel extremely guilty.

Seeing pictures of injuries or hospitals etc are triggering and/or upsetting for me. These pictures often have blood, gore, extreme medical situations, hospital environments, etc. I'm not saying I don't feel sympathy for them, I'm saying I do not want to see that.

They are always worded in a way that makes me feel like I am a murderer if I don't donate.

I said I don't want them, and my boundaries should be respected. They make me feel uncomfortable, and sometimes triggered or upset.

I can't tell what is a bot/scam and what isn't.

I get a lot of spam from this.

Please, just respect the fact that I have said this.

If you want this in your pinned post, please don't credit me. You can copy the words or take a screenshot with my username cropped out. You can reblog this but please don't go on about how awful your experiences have been. I get it, but also if you spiral two much you might end up accidentally saying something bad. This post has led to a lot of hate anons and harassment, so I would rather not have too much attention. Thanks...

I am pro Palestine and want to do everything I can to help but I'm not financially or mentally well enough to do much. I'm not in support of these people dying. Also, this post isn't just about Palestine. It's about ALL asks for donations. I'm not doing favouritism or racism. I just can't deal with it. Don't harass me for expressing boundaries. This post applies to people of all nationalities and backgrounds. Every situation- war, poverty, injury, anything. I'm not discriminating. I'm not being a zionist or a racist or an ableist. It's a boundary.

Yes, this post might seem controversial. But I did literally make this for my own personal experience and didn't expect it to get more than 12 notes or so. Don't add opposing views because quite frankly, it's none of your business. It's not my problem and I didn't mean for this post to get so many notes. Don't use the number of notes as an excuse to fight me. I just want a peaceful Tumblr experience. Also, if you are reblogging this, don't trauma dump. I keep notifications on for this post so that I can block people harassing me before shit escalates, so I can see every reblog. You can screenshot and repost if you want to talk about your problems, but honestly its no better seeing people saying "I'm bankrupt and I just got kicked out by my family. I also have a history of abuse and those images are so triggering that I want to die". That doesn't help me. Make your own post to say that. Please.

I am taking this post off private after slightly modifying it. Any conflicting arguments based on this post will result in my blocking and reporting of you. If you do not understand my point of view, make sure you fully read the post before saying this. I made this post for my blog. If you have any questions or don't understand this post, send me an ask that is composed, calm and polite, and I can talk it through with you.

Please note that by sharing this post, you are more likely to be targeted by bots and scams. You are also more likely to be harassed. Please be safe.

[eldritchamy]

🐯

I'm only intimidating if you haven't met me irl, then you realize I have the world's most terminal case of Nonthreatening Dork disease

because meeting me irl means you're in range of my cognitohazardous properties

is that a joke? you don't know.

[knaveofmogadore]

Kfkdks

[gamingavickreyauction]

I think people delude themselves about how effective intellectual property is. In the pure world of intellectual property you can patent a discovery and sell it for all the value it adds, or use it to make that much profit, but in reality the value of intellectual property corresponds very loosely to how much value it adds.

It's relatively easy to read a few books and write a pop history book about a topic which makes ten times as much money as what the academic history books made, even though those books may each have taken 10 times as long by more skilled workers, and amount to the vast majority of the work that went into your book. The incentive structure is clearly wrong if you want books like your pop history book to be made about more topics.

If you do basic research that leads to an important new drug being developed 20 years down the line, you will get nothing- the organisation that actually gets the patent is the one that does the last step. And many kinds of valuable research don't lead in any immediate way to a marketable product in the first place.

The reason the neoliberal argument fails here is because people are getting patents intellectual property that doesn't just capture the value they added, but all the work others put into the idea before them, which no intellectual property was awarded for. So there is a huge incentivise to focus on the last mile, the marketable part, to the neglect of everything else, even though that's most likely to be the part that anyone could have done.

The neoliberal might reply that this is actually a problem of incomplete property rights- the neoliberal's model works if the basic research was patentable too, so that the person who brings it to market pays for the basic research, gets paid the value of the market product, and pockets the difference- the value they added. But the reason that isn't done is that a world like that would be unlivable. It would be impossible to get any research done because the web of how ideas feed into each other isn't simple, and the negotiation of how much to pay for each idea would be arduous. This is why patents cannot work in the 'ideal' way they do in economic models, and why they will inevitably have this serious flaw in the real world.

The neoliberal might argue that this is a problem solved by universities- universities can do the basic research, which becomes commons, and the researchers are paid salaries because paying them based on their value added would be impossible, and the applied research is done by businesses, who are paid their value added, because it's close enough to the market that that is possible. Aside from neoliberals cutting universities, the problem with this is that it allows private companies to capture the value of research done by universities if there are only a few ways to apply that research effectively. If a company uses X basic research to make Y product, and there are no profitable alternative ways to apply X to make a competitor product, the company hasn't just been given a monopoly on Y, they've been given a monopoly on X- they have captured a piece of the commons, created by a university researcher for the good of everyone, and they're extracting rent from it. This also creates a strong incentive for reinventing the wheel, because if you can turn X into Y in a way different enough to fall outside of that patent, you get half of that economic rent.

Additionally there is no clear delineation between basic and applied research, so there is a balance that must be struck between not letting things too basic be patented, as that would be devastating to all the research that might build on it, while allowing applied research to be patented. But it is difficult to tell early on how far an idea could be taken, and patent assessors are generally not well placed to do that, so it is easy for them to hamstring any attempts to build upon a crucial idea for the duration of the patent- 20 years in the UK. Potentially this creates an incentive to veer away from more basic lines of inquiry.

And there is no such thing as a terminal creation, that there is no point in trying to improve, so counting research as applied and giving a patent is still cutting off the possibility of future improvements being made for 20 years, except by people at that company. This is particularly devastating with arts and writing, where works want to iterate on each other rapidly. Maybe someone made some important discovery, but they're a bad writer, so you want to rewrite their article so that people will actually read it, but you can't do so because that would undermine the incentive to read the original article, the copyright of which is owned by the publisher, so it's illegal- and has to be for the intellectual property regime to function, stifling the spread of ideas.

This capturing of value added by others isn't the only problem. Monopolies are an inefficient way for industries to be organised, leading to higher prices, so less sales, meaning less people are able to actually make use of the innovations, both applied and basic. The number of people who can access a drug is slashed to make sure the value from those who do access the drug can be captured by the market. But even when there are several variations of a product, patented by different companies, this creates the same problem, because of fixed costs- the companies have to charge above the marginal cost to make back their investment, reducing the number of people who can access the product. And this is a drastic effect when the marginal cost is often near zero.

This of course exacerbates inequality, and means that there is a strong incentive to create innovations that are aimed at the affluent, not the poor. Invent Ozempic, not a cure for malaria.

And finally there's the problem of the institutional structure actual people are innovating under. In theory everyone is a lone inventor-entrepreneur who chooses what they research and gets paid by their results, and aims to maximise profit. But really people are employed by a corporation, and when they discover something the shareholders capture most of the value, not them, so after this elaborate, expensive, destructive system to create a financial incentive for innovation, a tiny fraction of it gets passed on to the actual innovators, in the form of increased chance of a promotion or pay rise. And yet the innovations still get made, so clearly this is enough, or people are motivated by the desire to make the world a better place, not just money. Either way the patent system we have is patently excessive.

And if you aren't a researcher at an existing company and you want to get any money at all for your discovery, you're going to have to found a company yourself to extract the surplus- an arduous task, and one that you might not be any good at, and that in any case will take you away from making further discoveries. To be rewarded as an engineer you must remake yourself as an entrepreneur, or accept that someone else is going to take most of your reward. And it may be half your lifetime before you get that reward.

There are additional problems with access to educational resources, incentives for black/grey markets, deadweight loss from litigation, etc. but this is more than enough to show intellectual property is very inefficient at incentivising innovation. So when alternative models are also criticised for being flawed, economically inefficient that shouldn't kill those alternatives- because it would take a lot for them to be as flawed as the existing system.

A panel of experts awarding a payment for a discovery might get its value drastically wrong- but so might investors buying a start up, so might an unwilling, untalented entrepreneur failing to price their product correctly and losing money from their creation. And at least they can go on inventing/writing/innovating instead of changing careers, and the valuation will be based on opinions of people who know what they're talking about, and based on the value of their innovation to everyone, not just the wealthy. There might be political pressure to reduce the value of payments, but there's also political pressure to cut university funding- at least it would mean there is some connection between output and compensation for university researchers, and there isn't an incentive gradient driving people out of basic research and into applied research, and at least all of the value of the payment would be going to the actual innovator.

[teambyler]

The most hypocritical anti Byler argument:

"Why can't two boys just be friends? Why do you have to make everything gay!?"

Whenever I hear this argument or some variation of it, I think back to my two cousins, one a girl and the other a boy. (He was from my dad's side of the family; she was from my mom's.) They were maybe six years old at the time, and they were innocently talking and playing and giving each other math and spelling-bee quizzes. ALL my family were giggling, saying they were going to be boyfriend and girlfriend.

I also think back to all the times I see young girls being judged on their physical beauty and told they're going to have a handsome boy when they grow up because they're so pretty.

From childhood, boys and girls have their sexuality assumed for them. Their SEXUALITY and romantic possibility are talked about openly in front of their face. They're made to look at themselves sexually before they even want to.

So when people yell at Byler fans saying "Why do you have to make everything gay?" I want to scream at them:

"Why do you have to make everything straight!?"

Why do you insist on sexualizing children to be heterosexual even before they're ready to start thinking of themselves in those terms?

Why do you have no problem with Mike kissing El in season 1 right after she asks him if he's like her "brother"?

Why do you idealize their relationship when they were children, while simultaneously trying to shame Byler fans for trying to "sexualize children" even though these are fictional characters and the actors who play Mike and Will are already adults?

Why do you shame any thought or possibility of homosexual romance, while imposing heterosexual norms on everyone?

It reminds me of people who say "You can be gay of course... just don't shove it in our faces (by holding forth that you're gay, kissing in public, etc.)." When no one bats an eye when straight people do the same thing. They might claim they're not homophobic, but actual equal treatment of LGBT+ people they don't accept.

It's Straight Privilege in action: the norms and standards that straight people enjoy quietly do not to apply to us.

This hypocrisy even distorts how Milkvans view Mike and El. We're told that if Mike and Will get together, that would mean Mike "used El" and El would never be able to forgive him.

Not only does this disregard that people can have amicable break-ups and still be close friends: it also shows that the idea of a platonic loving relationship between a Mike and El is beyond their comprehension. To them, the only loving relationships boys and girls can have with each other are romantic ones.

(Now, before anyone objects: sure many people accept Robin and Steve, but that's because Robin is canonically gay. We all know that before she came out many of us (me included!) were shipping those two as a couple!)

If someone ships Mike and El WITHOUT her confronting him about his poor treatment of her in early s4, without there being an honest conversation about that, this definitely raises an eyebrow from me. The "love confession" didn't address this: his fear of losing her did NOT explain his failing to comfort her or failing to say he loved her. Theoretically it's possible for these two to repair things. (And if Milkvan is endgame I hope that they do by addressing this!) But for some Milkvan shippers the need to address Mike's behavior doesn't even enter their minds because they're idealizing their relationship. In other words, THEY are imposing their idea of a relationship on these two, much in the same way my family was imposing their own ideas on my two cousins without regard to the people involved.

So if anyone asks "Why can't two boys just be friends? Why do you have to make everything gay?" it's purely hypocritical and dishonest. No, we just want THIS relationship between Mike and Will (which is clearly being built up as romantic) to be gay out of a sea of heterosexual relationships on TV.

No. THEY are the ones who rule out a boy and girl just being friends. THEY are the ones who insist on imposing romance on a boy and girl when they're not ready. THEY are the ones who insist on "everything" being one way.

-teambyler

[genderqueerdykes]

"it's easy for trans men to pass, whereas it's harder for trans women to pass"

and if i'm 5'0"? if my facial features are soft and "baby"-ish? if the deepest voice i can reach isn't deep enough? if i can't afford a haircut? if i cannot obtain testosterone?

even if i did pass, i would look like a 12 year old boy. i am 18 and i am already treated as a 12 year old *girl*, and contrary to popular belief that is not something that i want or enjoy.

literally though. you're right and you should say it. thank you for stopping by to send this message. i'm sorry you are dealing with this but you are not alone. trans men and boys struggle to pass just as hard as any other trans person. we do not magically somehow pass better because we stopped wearing makeup and women's clothing.

i'm not letting people say this anymore. it's not easier for trans men to pass. not at all. many trans men are short, as you mentioned. height plays a massive role in how people interpret men. if you're really short people will start questioning if you're "Actually a girl".

the #1 thing that people completely avoid and forget about when it comes to this argument is voices. i'm bolding this because y'all really need to understand that just because you quite literally cannot hear a trans man's voice does not mean that other people can't. many trans men have very light, soft or high p itched voices and may not be able to easily lower the tone of their voice. it's very hard to speak with a deep voice for many people without testosterone. you can't assume that all trans men have deep booming voices- remember tranny voice? remember how people mock trans men and transmascs for "sounding like a tranny" because their voices may be higher pitched or softer than cis mens? remember that time where everyone was calling us trannies, but then now we can't call ourselves that because somehow, tranny somehow doesn't apply to us ... ?

YES i know it's hard to raise a very deep voice. i HAVE a very deep voice, and i understand that trans women and transfemmes and other people with naturally deep voices struggle with this, too, but people just straight up ignore that it is equally as hard for trans men, mascs and other queer people with high pitched voices to be gendered correctly and pass. voices are usually what give trans people away on ALL fronts and sides. no matter what. it affects trans men and mascs too. people are RUTHLESS if they hear you have a "girl's voice"

trans men and mascs struggle greatly with passing, too. it's not easy. like you said, not everyone can afford haircuts. not every transmasc or trans man wants one. some have large breasts or wide hips. some can't afford binders or packers. some can't hide their curves. some don't like wearing masculine clothing. some don't like trying to make their voice sound deeper. some will just never be able to pass and it's not their fault. a lot of trans men struggle to pass. we have to stop pretending it's easy and effortless for trans men to pass. it's not.

[tanadrin]

Can you explain in what what you think eugenics doesn't work? Does this basically boil down to skepticism about the accuracy of GWAS studies? My understanding is that academic consensus is "G probably exists, disentangling direct genetic inheritance vs genetic cultural inheritance is complicated but possible, we can identify a number of alleles which we're reasonably confident are directly causally involved in having a higher G factor"

when it comes to intelligence, its heritability, and its variation at the population level, my understanding of the science is:

highly adaptive traits don't, in fact, vary much at the genetic level between populations of a species because they are strongly selected for. in an environment where a trait is being strongly selected for, a population that failed to express that trait strongly will be rapidly outcompeted.

intelligence is probably the quintessential such trait for humans. we have sacrificed a great deal of other kinds of specialization in favor of our big brains. we spend an enormous amount of calories supporting those brains. tool use, the ability to plan for the future, the ability to navigate complex social situations and hierarchies in order to secure status, the ability to model the minds of others for the purposes of cooperation and deception means that we should expect intelligence to be strongly selected for for as long as our lineage has been social and tool-using, which is at least the last three million years or so.

so, at least as a matter of a priori assumptions, we should expect human populations not to vary greatly in their genetic predisposition to intelligence. it may nonetheless, but we'd need pretty strong evidence. i think i read this argument on PZ Myers' blog a million years ago, so credit where that's due.

complicating the picture is that we just don't have good evidence for how IQ does vary across populations, even before we get into the question of "how much of this variation is genetic and how much of it is not." the cross-national data on which a lot of IQ arguments have been based is really bad. and that would be assuming IQ tests are in fact good at capturing a notion of IQ that is independent of cultural context, which historically they're pretty bad at

this screed by nassim nicholas taleb (not a diss; AFAICT the guy only writes in screeds) makes a number of arguments, but one argument I find persuasive is that IQ is really only predictive of achievement in the sense that it does usefully discriminate between people with obvious intellectual disabilities and those without--but you do not actually need an IQ test for that sort of thing, any more than you need to use a height chart to figure out who is missing both their legs. in that sense, sure, IQ is predictive of a lot of things. but once you remove this group, the much-vaunted correlations between IQ and stuff like wealth just straight-up vanishes

heritability studies are a useful tool, but a tool which must be wielded carefully; they were developed for studying traits which were relatively easy to isolate in very specific populations, like a crop under study at an agricultural research site, and are more precarious when applied to, e.g., human populations

my understanding based on jonathan kaplan articles like this one is that twin studies are not actually that good at distinguishing heritable factors from environmental ones--they have serious limitations compared to heritability studies where you actually can rigorously control for environmental effects, like you can with plants or livestock.

as this post also points out, heritability studies also only examine heritability within groups, and are not really suited to examining large-scale population differences, *especially* in the realm of intelligence where there is a huge raft of confounding factors, and a lack of a really robust measurement tool.

(if we are worried about intelligence at the population level, it seems to me there are interventions we know are going to be effective and do not rely on deeply dubious scientific speculation, e.g., around nutrition and healthcare and serious wealth inequality and ofc education; and if what people actually want is to raise the average intelligence of the population rather than justify discrimination against minorities, then they might focus on those much more empirically grounded interventions. even if population differences in IQ are real and significant and point to big differences in intelligence, we know those things are worth a fair few IQ points. but most people who are or historically have been the biggest advocates for eugenics are, in my estimation, mostly interested in justifying discrimination.)

i think the claims/application of eugenics extend well beyond just intelligence, ftr. eugenics as an ideology is complex and historically pretty interesting, and many eugenicists have made much broader claims than just "population-level differences in intelligence exist due to genetic factors, and we should try to influence them with policy," but that is a useful point for them to fall back onto when pressed on those other claims. but i don't think even that claim is at all well-supported.

[dokyumms]

seventeen's reaction to you being overwhelmed !

pairings: ot13 x reader

genre: fluff, angst possibly?

word count: 1.5k

cw: bad relationship w/ parents (mingyu)

a/n: a request done for mina ( @lavoilee ) !! I FINALLY GOT IT DONE. also i decided to make this a longer one, enjoy my kings bc idk how i feel abt this. dividers by @animatedglittergraphics-n-more

seungcheol - you're so tired. you've been working nonstop, whether it be studying, working, applying for better jobs, completing projects and assignments back to back, and you can't even get a break because you have an exam coming up for your worst subject.

it feels like the world is going too fast and you're the only one who's behind. i mean, people do this all the time. why can't you keep up?you hold your head in your hands, contemplating on where to start when seungcheol walks in.

his hair is damp from showering and damn, he looks hot as hell, but you're not really paying attention to that right now.

"hey baby, did you want me to- hey, what's wrong?" he drops everything when he sees you on the couch, obviously distressed. (like literally, he dropped the towel he was using to dry his hair)

he kneels in front of you, lifting your head up so he can see your face. and ugh you just start crying. he doesn't ask you anymore after that, just joining you on the couch so he can cradle you in his arms. "it's okay baby, you're going to get through this," he whispers into your hair.

jeonghan - you just feel like going to sleep- for a really long time. you can't seem to catch a break. why did you decide to sign up for so many courses? you don't remember now.

it's been 5 hours, you haven't gotten up from your desk since you sat down, it's sunday, it's sunday NIGHT.

you groan, somehow you still have to get up at 6 in the morning tomorrow to catch the bus on time, but you can't even go to bed yet.

you're too busy caught up in your work when you feel jeonghan come up behind you. "y/n, it's late. let's go to bed," he offers gently, kissing you a kiss on the temple.

"han, i really would... i really want to..." you say, almost giving in.

"don't worry baby, just let me take care of this." he offers, and you decide an hour of rest wouldn't hurt. that hour of rest turned into 7, but it's okay! jeonghan somehow sent your professor an email for an extension?? and it worked???

joshua - he can tell just by your face that you're burnt out. he's heard you ranting to your friend about it all week, not wanting to intrude though, he's just been silently helping. but now he can see you starting to crack.

you're on the floor, project laid out, but it's not really a project. it's a large white piece of paper that's completely blank. next to it, however, there's about 7 pieces of balled up paper- your previous attempts at mapping out this floor plan for some stupid architecture thing.

you have about 2 days to plan and present it, and to make matters worse, your partners are no help, leaving you to do it alone. but you just can't.

finally, joshua sits down in front of you, putting his hands on your shoulders. "overwhelmed?" you nod and he pulls you into a hug, "it's okay, let me help you. you don't have to do this alone, love." his reassurance makes you sigh in relief, feeling some weight being lifted off your shoulders.

jun - you slam your phone on the counter, making jun and you flinch at the sudden noise. he looks at you with wide eyes, coffee cup threatening to be dropped from his hand. muttering an apology, you retire to your room.

your friend was driving you nuts about planning her wedding. at first, you accepted the challenge with open arms, but she was just so picky about everything and you didn't have a high budget. you'd just had an argument on the phone about literal napkins.

absolutely done, you flop onto your bed, trying to figure out how you're going to fix this . it's been about 10 minutes or so when you hear your door creak open. you pop your head up to see jun, poking his head through the door before his hand pops out as well with a cup of tea.

honestly it's so cute that you let him in with no question.

"minghao said this might help," he explains, putting the cup on your nightstand. he's about to walk away, but you grab his wrist, "stay for a little, please?" he seems genuinely shocked, frozen in place, so you have to drag him onto the bed. "sorry, you just looked really mad," he apologizes sheepishly.

hoshi - you're so lost. you're at practice with your dance team and you can't keep up with any of the choreography since you were sick the day before.

you can tell the other members are getting frustrated, but they can't really get mad, so they just sigh and give you some pointers.

by the time practice ends, everyone is tired, but it's mainly because of how many times you had to redo the parts you missed. you feel terrible about it, so you decide to make it up by staying to practice.

but lord, you just don't get it and the impending doom of the upcoming performance starts to dawn on you. sweaty and tired, you sink down against the mirror until you're sitting down. you don't know how you're going to catch up at this rate, but then the door opens.

hoshi strides in, "y/nnnn i'm here to pick you up, let's go home," but when he sees you in your position he kneels down in front of you.

"it's your choreo, isn't it?" he asks, as if he's read your mind. you nod sadly, and he hums like he's trying to figure out what to do. all of the sudden, he gets up, pulling you with him. "well you don't have an idol as your boyfriend for no reason, right? don't worry, i'll help you,"

wonwoo - wonwoo's full of worry when he comes near your door to hear your quiet sobs. he knocks on the door, "y/n? are you okay?" and doesn't really give you time to respond before entering.

you're on the ground, knees held up to your chest, head down with a laptop opened in front of you.

"babe? what's going on?" he asks, giving you a hug before turning your computer towards him so he can try to detective his way into finding out the answer, frowning when he reads the screen.

oh- you'd just lost your job. he doesn't ask any further questions, shutting the laptop and giving you a hug. you'd already gone through enough in the past month, it wasn't fair.

"you can break up with me, you know," you whisper, having the sudden feeling that he deserves better.

"y/n, what are you saying? i'm not going to leave you, not like this."

and he doesn't, holding you in his arms like you're the most valuable thing in the world.

woozi - when your teacher emails you about how you're missing another assignment, you just lose it.

yes, of course you're missing another assignment when your teacher has spent the entire week just absolutely spamming you with assignments and projects like they don't take at least an hour to complete.

you slam your head on your desk, a little too hard for your liking, making you wince. jihoon hears the noise, walking over to your room to find your head still planted on the table.

sighing, he walks over and grabs a pillow off your bed. "up." he says, making you raise your head from the desk in confusion. he puts the pillow under you.

"you're going to hurt yourself by doing that," he explains, making you roll your eyes, but you place your head on the pillow anyway. suddenly, he gives you a peck on the cheek before walking away without saying anything. you forget about your assignment, confused and cheeks flushing.

dk - babysitting is not for the weak. your friend asked you to watch her kids while she attends a wedding, it seemed easy enough at the time, but now you're stuck in the living room with 3 demons running around.

to be honest, you've never been good around kids, and today was no exception. all your patience has ran out the window by now and you're just praying for your friend to go home.

you don't even know what to do with them- they're loud and active, practically jumping all over the place. your head is starting to hurt when seokmin enters the house.

at first, he laughs at your condition, but then gives you an empathetic look.

"don't worry baby, i got this," he tells you reassuringly before giving you a kiss on the forehead and taking over as the kids' favorite uncle.

mingyu - after you and your parents argue back and forth on the phone for an hour, they finally hang up, calling you a disappointment right before, of course. you're so tired, it's like you can't please them with anything at this point.

you walk out of your room to get some water, trying to calm down. mingyu's in the kitchen, looking up at you when you walk in.

he stops chopping vegetables to give you a hug.

"doing okay? i heard you in the room, babe," he asks into your shoulder.

"yeah, just my parents," you sigh, letting him sway you two back and forth. the more you think about it, the more you feel like crying, lifting your head and blinking aggressively to stop the tears.

"no, don't do that," he says, holding your face, "it's okay, don't hold it, y/n." he urges, touching your forehead with his.

the8 - minghao frowns when he sees you looking blankly at your laptop and on the verge of tears. he comes up behind you to see that you have like 100 tabs open, all on various assignments.

simply closing your laptop, he gives you a back hug, "we're going,"

you turn to him, looking miserable but he doesn't budge.

"it'll make you feel better, trust me," he pushes. reluctantly, you let him drag you off the couch.

he takes you to a gazebo, it's a short walk from your apartment, but you never noticed it till now. you admire the scenery, there's lights strung around it and there's virtually no one there, giving you and him some privacy.

taking your hand in his, he looks at you, "it's pretty, right?" you nod in response, giving him a small smile. it's really just what you needed, being just with him surrounded by warm lights.

seungkwan - he’s just like “nope, we’re not doing that” when he sees you on the ground next to some papers and a giant binder, but more importantly, with blood shot eyes.

but what else are you supposed to do? you have 3 days to finish 2 different projects and you’re close to spiraling at this point.

“hey, babe, look at me,” he kneels in front of you.

“it’s going to be okay,” he reassures you, despite having no idea why you’re on the ground in the first place. hugging you tightly, he vows to destroy your professors, because who else would be causing you this much trouble?

vernon - you should be asleep by now, but you’ve spent the last 2 hours in bed, wide awake. staring at the ceiling, you contemplate your life. you’ve got family matters, stupid friend drama, and work issues to deal with.

vernon’s asleep beside you, breathing softly. man, he’s so perfect, and honestly your relationship is the only thing keeping you afloat right now.

you shuffle around a bit more, fighting invisible demons when you feel vernon pulling you close to him.

“what’re you doing awake?” he mumbles, yawning.

“just the usual, regretting my life decisions,”

“it’s too late for that, babe. you should sleep on it and we can talk about it tomorrow,” he mutters sleepily. he probably didn’t even process anything you were saying, but his calm demeanor is reassuring, luring you to sleep.

dino - “y/n~ it’s okay~ don’t be sad~” chan sings while back hugging you, obviously panicked when he walks in to find you crashing out at the counter.

your manager has just yelled at you for the dumbest thing ever right after your mom lectured you for something that wasn’t your fault, and you hate when people yell at you. so naturally, you start crying.

honestly, he’s got no idea what’s going on, and his only goal is to make you feel better. he keeps singing comically, but when he realizes it isn’t doing anything, he guides you toward the couch.

spooning you, he apologizes for no reason out of sheer panic, “okay, babe i’m really sorry, i know i’m not the best singer, just tell me what’s wrong?”

[thanatika]

people complain about long-term settlements in fallout being too ramshackle, and basically looking like they were just built despite the fact that the nuclear apocalypse happened 200 years ago. "people should be building proper, long-term structures and not just building shacks out of rubble at this point" is the argument i hear, applied to places like the new vegas strip or diamond city in fallout 4.

and i don't 100% disagree, but i do feel like this logic assumes that the bombs dropping 200 years ago is the only disruptive thing that's happened in these places? "the wasteland is a living place, people should be rebuilding and not just living in rubble" <- yes, but the wasteland is also a living place filled with constant power struggles and warring factions and regime changes. maybe that city isn't what they managed to build in the last 200 years since the bombs dropped, maybe it's what they managed to build in the last 30 years since the last time they got attacked by another place and almost wiped out.

it just doesn't seem that unrealistic to me, is all, especially if you've been to areas that have been afflicted by poverty and scarcity for hundreds and years and seen that these sorts of conditions do actually exist. humans persist under all sorts of harsh circumstances.

ETA: this post got a lot more attention than i expected, and people are taking it as some bethesda fallout vs non-bethesda fallout thing, which i don't get because i think all of the games are guilty of the "people living in 200 year rubble" thing that gets criticized so much. as i mentioned in the tags, this post was inspired by a cleanup mod for new vegas. and to be clear, i'm not saying that all the games necessarily execute this concept well, but it does make sense as a concept and isn't the gaping plothole a lot of people take it to be. like, look up what slums in the poorest countries in the world look like. imagine what what would happen to social norms in a world where everything blew up and you had to start over with practically no resources and no central government.