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kendrixtermina · 2 years

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how finding your type can bring out your insecurities (& how this may actually be a misunderstanding)

I hadn’t put these on tumblr & it occurred to me that I probably should

1: 1s tend to be hard on themselves & constantly judge everything they or others do by criteria like factual correctness, appropriateness of morality. They can also have a fear of being bad or corrupt.

So when they read judgy hypocritical ppl who constantly give others the death glare they might freak out a bit – So they might end up being critical of themselves for… criticality, think they must be bad for having all these critical thoughts, constantly check themselves for the amount & appropriateness of criticism...

Some 1s beat themselves up for being critical without ever encountering typology, seeing as they are generally drawn to self-improvement, life advice & enlightenment etc & while some immature & unhealthy ones can be sanctimonious, average ppl with some shred of self-awareness are generally quite receptive to feedback, so often someone called them out for being critical & they tried to correct it or feel bad for it.

The counterpoint here is not even as simple as „its ok to make mistakes“ – the 1 attention pattern is to constantly evaluate everything, often in a ‚binaristic‘ fashion – Are the requirements met, yes or no? Is the room clean, yes or no? Have we correctly followed procedure, yes or no? Am I a good person, yes or no? - So a key insight here is that most people don’t immediately sort everything they see & might very much be willing to forgive 5% annoyingness on a 95% good person – especially if you’re willing to do the same.

2: 2s can often have the feeling that their needs are shameful & selfish, or nagging worries that no one really likes them & they just „tricked“ people into doing so.

When they read the descriptions, there mere suggestion that they may have any self-interest ever can feel like a confirmation of that: „Haha, you’re secretly needy just like you always wanted to avoid. Yes, you DID deliberately do things to make others like you. Some people might think you’re a pushy manipulator!“ - 2s can be particularly hard-hit by this cause they have a need to see themselves in a positive light, and may have had their more self-interested parts of their motivations (that ultimately, everyone has) repressed out of awareness.

Of course the real takeaway message is that wanting ppl’s love is a normal human trait & that ppl might be willing to give it – and that saying what you’d like might sometimes be more effective than trying to elicit it indirectly.

3: Some 3s can have this lowkey fear of having no real identity but what they deliberately present to the world, but even those who don’t might feel strong pressure to prove themselves as what their idea of being worthy/ valuable is (whether that is being the smartest, a badass leader, the most creative etc.)

So you see some individuals resist the typing with like real existential terror, „No, I’m real! I actually do have value! I’m not just pretending to be worth something. I’m real please believe me!“, sometimes decrying 3 as like being the „fake“ version of whatever type they think is the „real“ version of what they aim to be… which itself betrays an idea that your value as a person depends on fitting a certain prototype of value. Often their idea of the ‚target type‘ will have gotten a makeover that puts it nearer to Peak 3. (like appearing to picture it with a lot more social skills or motivation) Sometimes you get a person who’s studied the system for longer, has a correct idea of the other types, & hence puts themselves in the „none of them fit“ camp.

The real takeaway is of course that you actually have substance outside of ppl’s perceptions, even if those are what your attention often focusses on. You’re still there when no one’s looking – still real & still have value. Being a 3 doesnt mean you’re fake, it means that fear is an artifact of your perception algorithms. Though, if you see a way that you could realign your life to subjectively feel more in line with your feelings & preferences, that might help with that too. Eg, if something feels too much like an act or a stretch (as opposed to simply putting forward your actual good points so they aren’t missed), consider dropping it.

4: So, 4s fear being insignificant & replaceable, leaving meaningless lives, & build their sense of identity out of the differences they notice between themselves & others.

Even fitting into any sort of type at all kind of pokes at that – all this stuff you thought was unique to you & incomprehensible to others is actually a known quantity? There are thousands of ppl scattered somewhere out there who share it? If you are looking to define what’s uniquely you, that’s a huge „back to the drawing board“ moment. Was it all just illusion? Did all that suffering mean nothing? Was it just another instance of how you always ruin everything? Consider also that the 4 attention pattern involves reflecting upon your own feelings & responses, so for a while, you might be feeling a twinge of embarrassment everytime you see yourself Do A 4 Thing. Some also take it to mean that they are doomed to be unhappy & have dysfunctional relationships forever.

Some 4s throw themselves into self-develovement stuff to be rid of this „predictableness“,

& if this really does lead them to be freer & more enlightened and helping others do the same through taking a ‚shamanic‘ or ‚social critic‘ role, that’s great. The capacity for self-reflection that lets you a crisis of faith on your own is indeed one of strengths 4s can have.

Sometimes, however, it’s at least partially copium, an attempt at maintaining separation through being „more spiritual than thou“ & lambasting those who aren’t, but also pointing to their own messed-up-ness as an example for why people need to „repent“, in effect treating their typing as another reason why they’re irredeemably wretched.

Lambast away to your heart’s content, we have free speech here. However, what you might really question the basic premise that things that are shared or definable are always less meaningful. You’re never gonna be, like, a 6 or a 9 who’d take comfort in it if their suffering is shared, but if this particular shared or definable thing is important to you personally or just happens to be your personal truth, it may be more ‚authentic‘ to stand by it.

As for being doomed forever or irredeemable wretchedness…

Seeing as you’re wired to notice the negatives, you need not worry that you will ever „run out“ if you allow yourself to be happy 5 minutes. However, the fear that, if you allow yourself to rule something „good nuff“ it will be wrested away & you’ll be dissapointed again is harder to deal with cause that can never be 100% avoided. Disappointments can happen. But if you go looking for them preemptively before they hit you unexpectedly, you’re ensuring that they will happen. You might want to think about whether that is really what you want in each particular context.

5: 5s tend to have insecurities about being unable to satisfy others, of being inadequate, and of generally being empty and lacking.

So many among you probably devoured tons & tons of paragraphs & videos about how creepy, unfeeling, unlikeable and uncaring you are, and how frustrated, unsatisfied and neglected your spouse probably feels and how utterly Not Enough they probably find even the best of your efforts, precisely because of how it lowkey freaks you out.

You probably didn’t even get mad or indignant, you just resigned yourself to it – no use fighting against reality.

Many a guide to spotting the types in the wild goes into great detail about some hopelessly weird individual they met, detailing all the oddities of their speech and body language and how thoroughly impossible it was to connect with them in any meaningful way. Which is still alot less worse than the accounts that fall over themselves with pity for what an impoverished and diminished experience that person must be living, devoid of anything the presenter would consider meaningful or important. „Look at that weirdo! They’re so bad at existing! If only they let us save them, and by save them we mean throw out all their priorities and submit be meddled with according to ours!“ [funeral march starts playing]

Which is certainly not what anyone actually said nor how they meant it, but that’s how it can be heard.

Most 5s know better than to get indignant about something that’s plainly true but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting.

You have to realize that a lot of people aren’t even aware of the whole delayed reactions/ low level freeze thing & might be shocked to hear/notice it (& may have dismissed any such feedback as „they just don’t understand me“ or „its the others who are overdramatic or otherwise sus“) – and of course, your thinking immediately goes to how you’re inadequate.

I remember this mass freakout in the type subreddit where everyone was agonizing about whether their art might strike ppl as flat, lacking and feelingless.

And like, 80% had done some art and most of the rest „I wouldnt call myself an artist but I’ve dabbled“. That was a fairly creative bunch of ppl assembled there. Also, there’s plenty of famous musicians, poets and writers whom being a 5 plainly did not stop and whose works are not in the least considered flat lacking or feelingless. Some are renowned for quite the opposite.

So, if your art sucks its probably cause of you, not your type. And if it’s cause of you, actual practice probably helps, rather than just daydreaming about doing it… as would exposing what you’re working on to an actual test audience rather than tinkering with it indefinitely. (hence the high incidence of „works were published posthumously“) – what people think about your works, ideas or projects might surprise you, and leave you feeling a little less Inadequate(TM)

As for satisfying others, it would probably help not to unilaterally pack up and run for the hills the moment you think you can’t do what they want. You might be mistaken about what they want & be able to reach some mutually satisfactory agreement if you talk this over.

You can’t underappreciate (and I’m emphasizing this because of how much I underappreciated it) that normal people really really like spending time around each other. Like they don’t just want it more cause conventions say so or cause they need it more, they actually get a lot out of it.

So you might not actually have to jump through that many hoops for them to be happy about it, and when they say that they „just having you around“ even if you’re not obviously doing something useful, some of them might actually mean it. It’s not, in fact, too much to ask that they appreciate your efforts.

It’s mindboggling how anyone can hear those descriptions & think they sound like anything remotely desireable or like it would make you popular. To me it seems that to like being a 5 you’d have to already be one and even among those that are, some „wouldnt wish it on their worst enemy“. But that’s probably proof that the ppl who thinks it sounds great somehow don’t share this particular set of complexes and insecurities, and that the complexes themselves aren’t entirely rational. Not sure if relieved because of that or unsettled because of the biased nature of perception. Both at once, probably.

6: 6s seek to see through bullshit, be well-prepared for adversity & have the courage to deal with whatever the world throws at them. They have a fear of fear itself – eg. That they won’t be strong/brave/prepared/perceptive enough, that they’ll panic or crack & fail to protect their loved ones.

So, when they read the descriptions, they’re gonna be sensitive to the parts that sound scared, weak, panicky, dupeable or lacking in independence, as that is usually the exact opposite of what they want to be.

It doesn’t help that many 6 descriptions out there genuinely & objectively leave a whole lot to be desired, but the 6s themselves also tend to focus on the negatives, & distrust the intention behind the good traits („Loyal probably just means exploitable“) or deny that they even have any such good traits because they dont want to be blamed if they cant live up to the expectations it creates.

So actually, you might want to consider if it’s not worth the risk of admitting that you have some good traits, like being logical, discerning, perceptive, realistic, outspoken, resillient, resourceful, likeable and having strong convictions, solidarity, and a sense of justice. If they don’t all apply, focus on the ones that do. Or poll some ppl who actually know you, specifically.

Which brings us to the next point which is category thinking. It’s important to state that this isn’t per se about conformism or „completely defining themselves by labels“, but simply about seeing things through a lens of systems & categories. An intellectual/thinking lens, basically.

A well-developed, discerning 6 will be the first person to tell you that categories aren’t absolute and often overlap in contradictory ways, because they have a sophisticated & discerning understanding that can’t be compared to the less developed systemic thinking of someone who doesn’t use it as the main means to understand the world & hence hones it every day.

Still, this can cause them to heavily weight category labels when it comes to their identity.

A good way to spot a mistyped 6 is if they’ve made their type their username, they’re looking to connect with others of the same to comiserate about how the world did them wrong, they’re writing opinionated thinkpieces defending said type from misinformation... That’s the 6 „algorithm“, a behavior seen in many other areas of life.

(Notably, you never see a correctly typed 6 making their type their username, because, like most correctly typed people, they have some embarassment of the weak points.)

The tedency to „band together with others of shared interests“ is a sound survival strategy.

But here it can cause someone to become quite entrenched in or attached to the label they first arrived on even if it was just due to a simple beginners mistake or a set of bad descriptions.

Or they may resist a label they associate negatively because it would mean something drastic about who they are. Like they loathe conformism and think being a 6 would mean they are one.

But you’re still the same person before & after pinning some label on you to describe you. If you’re a 6 you’re already one, and if you are not conformistic now, saying you’re a 6 won’t make you that way.

Besides its quite natural to be annoyed with immature members of your own type cause, sure seems convenient & easy to just follow your worst impulses and avoid anything that challenges you rather than making an effort to be reasonable and/or fair to others…

7: One underappreciated thing is that part of the reasons that 7s avoid difficult feelings is that they believe they can’t handle them or that „everything will be awful forever“

So being typed as the „cant handle tough shit“ type can feel like a confirmation thereof. You see ppl lamenting possibly being shallow or wishing they were what they perceive as ‚deep‘ types, probably reflecting an inner complex that they must be interesting/entertaining enouh for others to like them.

eg. What they’re really afraid of here is, on the one hand, being boring or limited (for some being typed at all seems like a limitation, as every type has weaknesses.) and, on the other, since 7s often feel they can’t really depend on others, that others might get tired of them if you burden them with stuff like flaws, insecurities, or even just, like, limited entertainment value.

Plus, 7s have a need to see themselves in a good light, so confronting how they may have been selfish, irresponsible, unreliable or flakey in the past can be painful - & at that point it seems tempting to just put a checkmark under that whole ‚enneagram‘ thing & move on to the next cool-sounding curiosity.

What you might want to note instead is your tendency to think you need to have everything figured out at once, & how that is not a reasonable expectation is some contexts. You’re studying a system that’s supposed to tell you what biases you have, so it’s normal that it will point you to some errors or shortcomings, some of which will take a while to overcome – if it didn’t, it would not be very useful. But, knowing about it is an opportunity to do better.

Realizing you might have some flaws might be painful, so you might want to avoid sitting down & letting it sink in, but the feeling won’t last forever.

Also, you don’t need to always be nothing but awesome & dazzling & entertaining for people to like & accept you.

8: Now many do not, but generally 8s are the most likely type to say that they like being their type, & no doubt that some of them are grounded, pragmatic ppl who accept themselves & reality, see no point in wasting time wishing for an alternate reality that will never happen.

However, for some of those ppl it may rather be due to how their defenses work – they can’t attack you by saying you’re a villain if you flat out admit it. „Insecurities what insecurities? What do you mean, river in egypt? Talking how I’m a villain doesn’t bother me at all what do I look like some kinda softie? Nothing self-hating at all in going on about what a proud arsehole I am…“

The truth is that, at least in quiet, non-action moments, many an 8 may have had worries of being „too much“ for ppl to handle, or have regets about situations that they screwed up with their impulsive actions.

And now they’re apparently the „intimidating“, „rageaholic“ type? Ouch. Doesn’t help the whole complex about being „bad“ at all.

Also, many 8s have painful memories of situations where they felt they had to keep it together & ‚tough it out‘ despite extreme adversity, because else they would be finished, or because others relied on them to be the Unshakeable One, & the typing can probably remind them of that – it doesn’t help how the type tends to be idealized. Oh great, more ppl expecting you to be tough, more apparent conformation that no one will care how you feel inside.

On some level 8s want respect & consideration, but „hey please be nice“ seems like an obvious invitation for someone to come & do the opposite, so, what you see are aggressive responses to disrespect & preemptive posturing so nobody will dare do the disrespect (or far worse).

But is it really true that no one will care & that you always have to tough it out? Now, ovsly that doesn’t mean that it’s safe to tell all your sensitive & compromising information to the nearest oily used car salesman. That’s bullshit, as you were no doubt thinking already. But maybe in some special situations with some special people, you might feel better if you let them know what’s going on with you. After all you’re as deserving of care & consideration as everyone else, despite what that subjective sense of „badness“ may be telling you - & you’re probably more likely to get it if you get better at seeing where you’re actually being opposed and where preemptive strikes may be less needed.

9: 9s can have insecurities about thinking they’re unremarkable, don’t really have special traits, & that their presence doesn’t matter.

So at lot of the more unflattering traits like being reluctant to make waves, having a diffuse sense of self etc. may at first feel like a confirmation of this. „Ah yes im a boring person, I even got the Boring Person Type….“

Actually what being typed as a 9 means is, your subjective sense of being ‚just little old me‘ might be an illusion (so rather the opposite of confirming it), & you might have plenty of special strong points rife for discovery… and also, further cultivation. Withdrawn types underestimate how they might change things & might feel that it’s hopeless or not worth it, but that may not in fact be the case. So even if you think that you are, in fact, a doormat, you can change it - not overnight maybe, but, you know, manageable baby steps. More people will notice & appreciate your interestingness if you don’t hide it as much.

Consider this also: The fact that 9s are common means that a lot of ppl liked 9s, screwed them, and produced tons of little baby 9s. It’s probably not cause people loooove boring mates.

It might be worth looking up a list of widely beloved or accomplished Type 9 celebrities to dissuade yourself of the notion that it is in any way the „boring person type“. Would you say Tolkien was boring? Theoretically, you could be both a 9 and boring but your boringness would not be due to your type.

…

Of course, it is easy to list the conclusions like this. Even if you intellectually accept that it may be true it still won’t immediately feel true or sink in enough for you to act like it is. But being open to the theoretical possibility at least is a good start to allow the rest to happen and to „confirm itself“ through experience.

#enneagram #typology

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finelinens1994 · 9 months

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Hey, about your media literacy post—which was very well done—I totally agree that we sort of unable to trust other users or institutional opinions right now. So the way I see it, the option left to us that is to learn to trust ourselves. Learn to pay attention to the way truth feels when we ourselves say it (on any topic, especially the tiny ones), what it sounds like, and what untruth feels like when we also say it (the instances where we say things we don’t mean). A focused study of truth in ourselves makes it easy to recognise in others and other situations.

For example, I’ll now know when my answer to a maths/logical question is wrong, because it feels/sounds like not the truth, even if it’s what I have logically deduced and therefore ‘should’ be right. So then I’ll know to stop and rethink until I do find the right answer, I’ll realise my logical thinking was off, which I recognise because it feels like the truth when I see it. (This is all easy to prove because they’re all maths / logic questions, for example. It works. And then extrapolate this concept.)

It’s interesting that in the past many would have dismissed this approach due to its seeming lack of objectivity—but it is glaringly obvious now that trying to form an opinion based off ‘objective’ evidence is just not going to be possible (and I’d argue, it never was). So, this is my approach of some tools to which to turn. Honestly, it’s the only way out that I see. Increasingly I am realising truth is not a set of facts, which can be easily manipulated, or which are scientific fact one day and not the next, but rather this total calm knowing which goes beyond all need for argument. I feel like if you can just calmly smile in an argument rather than argue back, you’re probably closer to the truth.

i debated a lot about whether or not i should post this message at all but it might be a good thing to talk about, so i'll post it for now

the thought process you described here has the potential to be really unbelievably dangerous, so i hope you can try to hear me out here. the truth "feeling" like the truth is such an incredibly subjective thing and is 100% vulnerable to your own biases. at one point in my life, the "truth" according to my feeling was... just not true at all. the "truth" according to my feelings was that transgender people were mentally ill and just needed some sympathy and help in order to get better. i genuinely felt this, and, like you described, it felt true and right. it was not true or right, though; my perceived "truth" was not truth at all, it was just ignorance entirely influenced by my own biases and fears. the way of thinking you described in your message is exactly what leads people to believe that their thoughts borne of ignorance are true and right, no matter what, because they feel right. of course they feel right! ignorance is comfortable! you could absolutely debate the validity of objective truth as a concept, but purely functioning on a vibes-based moral and ethical system is just accidentally giving yourself permission to remain ignorant or bigoted.

i apologize if my original post wasn't clear enough, as i said, i was just writing out my thoughts unedited! i wasn't trying to say that since there is no way to verify information anymore, we should just give up and go with our guts. i was saying that information is becoming increasingly more difficult to verify, so i'm nervous about the future of education and information gathering. i don't have a proposed solution, i'm just expressing fears that are widespread nowadays. a possible solution to this frankly existential issue is something i think about a lot, and i'm glad to see many others thinking about it too.

hopefully this makes sense, and hopefully it prompts you to reflect on your philosophy about your relationship with truth!

#ask #yet another very long post from me #this message was honestly very shocking to receive so i wanted to take the time to reply #but! i have christmas gifts to work on now. bye!

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communist-ojou-sama · 1 year

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This isn't meant to be an insult since I'm not either but I'm curious if you're even an anarchist anymore? Like, not because you dismiss 'authoritarian' as a useless idea, I know anarchists that thing it's a worthless distinction, but you seem to think that a transitional state is necessary to overthrow capitalism so I wanted to make sure I'm not misunderstanding your position.

At first I was gonna give this an unfocused, rambling answer, but I feel like it's worthy of a somewhat more focused answer so I'll try to wrangle my thoughts into concrete points. There's a reason why despite my url, which I've been using for like 7 years at this point, in my bio I merely describe myself as a "Marxist" and in short that is because after a lot of reading anarchist theory, lots of talking to other anarchists and looking at anarchist positions on things, I realized anarchism as a theory of revolution and change has really very little to offer anyone who isn't a white person in the imperial core relative to other left-wing ideologies. First of all, anarchism as a whole has a very bad habit of flattening injustice and taking the structuring of society as a purely moral exercise, often demonstrating blindness to the scarcity of resources that caused societies of the past to take the shapes that they do; if you have any knowledge of or interest in societies of the ancient near east then the truly laughable anarchist characterization of these societies puts that reality into sharp relief On another point of "flattening injustices", in order present the transhistorical entity of "the state" as the ultimate evil you will frequently see anarchists not directly, but as a rhetorical slight of hand imply that, for example, censorship on the one hand and starvation of the populace, or lynchings, are basically equal, never bothering to develop an understanding of why some societies maintain strong support form the populace while others quickly fall apart. On the point of the collapse of societies, the collapse of "oppressive" regimes is romanticized among white anarchists despite the fact that they have been some of the greatest humanitarian tragedies ever. Anarchist ethics often acts as the total triumph of the concept of the human over real human beings and their needs, and there is no substantive anarchist program for challenging existential challenges that inherently will require organization and coercion (e.g. green energy transition). Anticiv anarchists and their fellow travellers plainly admit that they have no intention to engage in any real political activity, so whatever they say can be safely ignored, but even putting that aside, ordinary anarchists base much of their view of world-wide geopolitics on a number of racist lies propagated by the countries in which they live, believing that asians or black people are simply enduring conditions that would cause revolts, and have before, as if their will to freedom is less than that of whites, and in general western anarchists exercise a total failure to appreciate US imperialism as a world system, and what that actually means, much less develop an understanding of things like color revolutions. As a result they constantly demonize non-white leftists for self-defense, and glorify compradors and counterrevolutionaries that masquerade as "progressive", as if any state founded on them would not be a US puppet state, and treat the very suggestion as some kind of tin-foil hat conspiracy, not much different than the average white liberal. There's plenty more I can elaborate in my problems with anarchism as it is practiced in the 2020s, but hopefully this is a decent starting articulation.

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kalcifers-blog · 1 year

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Spider People as TMA Avatar's BC my neurodivergent ass needs to combine everything with TMA apparently.

I will be assigning one character to a single entity each just to keep this simpler (however I do believe most of these characters would be apart of more than one entities)

Please feel free to include your own takes and thoughts!!!

The Stranger: Ben Riley - He's a clone of Peter Parker, imo unlike most Spider People he'd have even worse identity issues because his identity is literally not his own for the most part

The Corruption: Peni Parker - just. The comic. Girls going through it.

The Dark: Spider-Noir - yes this is mostly BC of the colour palette (or lack thereof) but it just feels right imo

The Eye: Margo Kess - I don't know what it is about technology related characters but they always scream Beholding to me. Margo included.

The Flesh: Spider-Ham - the only reason this fucker isn't downright horrific is because he's a cartoon. HE WAS A SPIDER THAT TURNED INTO A PIG THATS HORRIFYING. Also pigs can and will literally eat anything and spiders drink blood need I say more.

The Desolation: Hobie Brown - the only character I don't see as "serving" any entity. I feel like he only would be apart of the Desolation if it meant he was able to take down greater evils (and then would accidentally find out that he's irrevocably linked to it and would probably have a whole crisis about it).

The End: Peter B Parker - man is surrounded by death. Like the only people in his universe that isn't dead is MJ and Mayday.

The Extinction: Pavitr Prabhakar - his universe is literally collapsing into itself as we speak. It's not just people dying- the universe is literally deleting itself

The Vast: 1610 Peter Parker - He was the first Spider Person (to my knowledge) to see into the multiverse and saw just how fucking huge it is, you can't tell me man wasn't low-key having an existential crisis due to knowing just how miniscule he is compared to the multiverse? (Also all Spider People have an element to The Vast imo but 1610 SM especially to me tbh)

The Lonely: Miles Morales - this boy is so fucking lonely it genuinely pains me. Could you imagine being 14-15. The only people who will ever understand you are literally in different dimensions and you give up on your passions as an artist to focus on science to find a way to get back to them because you're so desperate for a genuine connection to someone again. Only to find out that they had the capability to see you for MONTHS and they just. Didn't. I feel so strongly about this one that it genuinely hurts me.

The Slaughter: Gwen Stacy - the music motif mixed with definite unending untargeted anger is VERY slaughter of her. Also her and Melanie King would get along

The Spiral: The Spot - I feel like I don't really need to explain this one tbh

The Buried: Jessica Drew - I mean this in the sense that I genuinely believe she really disagrees with Miguel and his approach to- everything. But she's trapped in this position as his right hand because she can't risk anything happening to herself or the ones she loves (yes the buried can manifest as the emotional feeling of being trapped and unable to move or do anything).

The Hunt: Miguel O'Hara - that man. Was on all fours. Chasing. A child. Also he's a vampire (TMA lore makes any vampire automatically Hunt coded) so I don't think I need to explain any further.

The Web: Lyla - she's literally the whole system to the whole Spider Verse. If Miguel is the Spider Lyla is the strings of the web- she is what holds the ENTIRE multiverse together under the story of "Canon Events". Need I say more.

AND THATS MY LIST!! Please reblog with your own thoughts too I would love to hear them!!

#spider man: across the spider verse #the magnus archives #tma #atsv #miles morales #gwen stacy #hobie brown #pavitr prabhakar #miguel o'hara #atsv lyla #jessica drew #ben riley #the spot #peter b parker #spider noir #spider ham #margo kess #peni parker #honey quartz blog

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concernedbrownbread · 8 months

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When the devil herself walked in, Hiruzen felt strangely at peace. It had been a battle well-fought, he thought, against a worthy opponent. “I believe congratulations are in order,” Hiruzen said softly, “Hokage-sama.” Her red-stained lips curved up. There had never been a grim reaper that smiled so politely. And as the shadows lengthen and the light of the dying sun cast on Uchiha Himiko, Hiruzen saw her for what she was.

Introducing my OC: Uchiha Himiko

Series: The Promise of Dawn

Okay I have no idea how to do this because this is my first OC ever, and of course it's for Naruto. Here goes nothing:

A would-be Governor is born into a world of autocracies, child soldiers and militaristic ideologies. What is a girl to do but take over? Himiko is here to burn the shinobi system to the ground, but first she needs to deal with her sexist Clan (that she loves), the discrimination against Uchiha and her existential twin brother (oh, Itachi). And of course -- Konoha itself, a place where information barely circulates and lies have been repeated to the point where they become truths.

Good thing Himiko's a pretty good liar too.

And a bit of a manipulative hypocrite.

Himiko wants to make a world where the dreams of her family and friends can come true, where children aren't forced to be weapons and her brothers can exist without having to fit a mold. She will make everyone happy -- at the cost of herself, if need be.

I mean, what else do you lose except yourself, when you become a Kage at sixteen and a Goddess as twenty? How much of you is unmade as you unmake the world itself? Who are you anyway?

This is a story of how power corrupts even those who don't chase it, how much propaganda really matters, and how peace isn't held by love alone. It's a story about how someone can navigate a fundamentally fucked up system while clinging to basic morals (spoiler: it's nearly impossible). It's the story of how violence trickles down in a society. It about losing yourself in the service of others (not in a good way).

And I guess it's about people doing their damn best in a world that wants them dead.

Featuring: your favourite Naruto characters not always being perfect, your least favourite Naruto characters sometimes having a point, Various OCs, CIVILIANS, politics (the fun kind!), politics (the traumatizing kind!) and more politics (the worldbuilding kind!), and lots of ninshu (though Himiko doesn't know it's ninshu).

No seriously, I have so many notes on Konoha's system of governance. And the Uchiha. And the Hyuuga. Oh my god the Hyuuga -- like, obviously Himiko isn't letting a slave-system slide. Also the Uzumaki. Oh and Jinchuurki politics, and border politics, and revolutions in Kiri, and poverty in Suna, and competing with Kuo, and the Daimyo being actually involved. There is so much going on!

Further featuring: Symbolisms! Themes! Motifs! Siblings! Friends! Fluffy found family feels! Angsty family feels! Author projecting so hard!

If you're interested, Chapter 1 is up!

I'll try to make a post about Himiko herself, the world and other OCs down the line, but feel free to shoot me a ask!!!

Also if you care about such things, the main pairing is Himiko x being a girlboss. Characters are all very queer (including genderqueer). There's lots of romantic relationship love in the background but focus is on the platonic <3

#okay I realized I said very little logistically about Himiko herself #but i hope you enjoy!#naruto oc #naruto au #naruto fanfiction #naruto #hiruzen sarutobi #anti shinobi system #uchiha itachi #Uchiha Himiko (OC)#the promise of dawn

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writing-whump · 11 months

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Character meta - Sortinghatschats

Based on the sortinghatschats system that describes the why and the how of characters and is the best personality system I know. For more info check out @wisteria-lodge and @sortinghatchats

Isaiah

Isaiah Wolfson is a bird primary. No other primary is this good in designing a completely new personality to go with a new system and this is exactly what Isaiah did, when he left his family at 18. He was eager too follow his father's system, his pack's system, until he witnessed it falling down. He saw the worst from his father, the double face, the masks, the paranoia and control, the abuse. Isaiah saw him at his lowest and he covered for him, cause he didn't want his brothers to know.

This brought him an existential crisis though. Cause obviously his father's system was flawed and so was his. Leaving gave him space to find himself, or rather, to completely rebuild himself. He gathered information. Studied psychology to learn more about the human psyche, to understand his own issues, his own confusion. And then it built into fascination. He got new role models, new work, new thoughts and figured out new codes for himself to live by. To be someone he can be proud of.

This new system led him to really embrace his badger secondary. Very untypical for a wolves, who like to posture, who need to have clear power ranks before they are capable of functioning in one room with others, who have their insistent shadows reflecting their deepest desires, raw, ruthless and always, no matter the rationality of it.

But Isaiah's method is caretaking. He bonds with people, offers help, considers their needs, remembers names. He bonds and community builds, throwing himself at young wolves, problematic cases. Seeing a person, he can't help but be kind and considerate. This is something he can only afford because of how insanely powerful and well-trained his shadow is. He gets respect for his power and skill - and that's how he gets away with acting out for character. Being polite, nice and kind, because he wants to. Because he can put people in place if they take it as a weakness.

His emphasis on politeness and good manners, on being gallant and well-dressed, orderly and systematic are all expressions of his smooth courtier badger wanting to be respectful and pleasant to people. And it works, cause man, this guy has contacts. He knows someone, who knows someone, who will help out. He doesn't live in packs or whole communities, he doesn't need it, but when he starts calling in for favours, the city bend itself over for him to fulfill his wish.

It's ironic Isaiah got to deal with an abusive exploded lion badger (his goal of keeping the pack strong is everything and he is willing to sacrifice everyone for it with a very sly badger secondary including the general opinion in his favour) for a father and a glory hound lion for a brother, only to meet and fall for Seline. Seline Silverstein, a proud loud lion primary.

There is steady certainty in how she trusts her instincts, her gut decisions and feelings. She doesn't do anything she absolutely doesn't want to do, following her dream as a cultural studies student and researcher at the university. She believes in being responsible for your own happiness, she has a clear goal and purpose and follows it.

Her outspoken morals, her inability to be silent, the need to provoke and challenge people when something doesn't feel right get her into trouble frequently. True to her primary she is very willing to go against the flow, her friends, people around her. Society won't pressure her away from what she feels is right and she backs it up with research. And she isn't loyal to people or sides either, she follows thoughts. Idealist to the core.

So when the family situation with her brother being a spoiled little brat as a wolf and using his puberty and wolf shadow as excuses made the situation unbearable, she didn't have qualms to move out. She isn't sorry to not belong in any witch coven or wolf pack, if they can't lower their pressure of her being a nice, soothing little witch. The classic role would be a very gentle, caring, tolerant female to calm the wolf tempers in the pack. Thanks, but no thanks. And even though this provokes and irritates the wolf society around her, she values her independence and he beliefs too much to back out.

The lion sometimes gets covered by a very strong and passionate bird secondary though. Seline researches, plans, strategizes and analyses. She is a prepper for all kinds of situations. The tendency to prepare is too much at times, the way she researchers every new skill, verifies information, reads herself into discourses before getting onto something.

Very fitting little bird secondary for her research work. A lion goal and determination followed by a meticulously prepared bird? She is a force to be reconed with, no matter her gentle sweet appearance.

Now as for the pairing, Seline is very attracted to Isaiah's thought out intellectual bird thinking. Isaiah has everything reasoned out, overexplains his tiniest beliefs and habits and Seline digs that stuff. She just loves to reason and think and she likes to back her feelings with clear evidence and eloquent thoughts and loads of reseach, true to her bird secondary. Bird Isaiah is an ideal intellectual sparring partner for her.

Matthew Blackwell has a very straightforward snake lion sorting. The lion secondary is very loud and direct, goes with his tough guy persona and angry wolf image. He has his temper issues and a very blood knight kind of passion for fighting. It's just fun for him, like a sport or a game. Getting into boxing and running really helped him find a good outlet for it instead of just causing him trouble.

The snake is more subdued and living in a rather neutral zone. Matthew didn't have people in his corner for a long time, and with no snake circle he relief on his agressive lion instead. Finding Isaiah, befriending Seline, getting a sort of maybe pack with them was a key moment for him. Now his snake is adopting people and though he is sometimes awkward in caring for them as well as he would like out of sheer inexperience, he is getting there. Maybe even on the way to built a useful badger secondary model for the caretaking required around his people who are strong and yet havr vulnerbilitied he can cover for.

And Matthew is a sweet marshmallow inside who will put his people above everything. He is the only loyalist in the trio, with Isaiah and Seline being idealists. As long as he fits Seline's felt goals and Isaiah's built system of how the world works, it's a stable combination.

Hector Wolfson is a double lion. Very intense sorting. His lion primary has a very Badger like flavour, influence of how he had been brought up in the pack. Duty, greater good of the whole, community. He accepts and tries to follow this, but inside he is a loud glory hound lion in it for himself, for acknowledgement of his strength, his leadership, him being the best.

Hector struggled with the idea that as the second oldest brother Isaiah had a stronger claim to succeed their father for the leadership of the pack than him. Not to mention that catching up to Isaiah was difficult on its own, but Hector never stopped trying. He worked his butt off in training, control, education. For how arrogant, ambitious and self-centered he is, there is lots of hard work, skill and determination to back him up. Lion willpower, let me tell you.

Hector never recovered from Isaiah abandoning what he considered his greatest goal and honour. Isaiah basically spit on what had been unfairly handed to him by leaving the pack instead of leading it. Hector should be happy about this, now he will most likely be the successor. Except Isaiah's reasoning doesn't make sense and Hector now never got to defeat him in a fair fight. He will never be able to prove he was better and more suited, when Isaiah doesn't consider his life long goal worth the fight. It angers him to no end.

Add to this the lion secondary that likes to power through, kick down doors, burn down bridges and say everything directly...not effective in schemer politics of the wolves, but very much so in getting respect and recognition for power and posturing alone. Wolves respect him. Not to mention his double lion has a very inspiring leadership quality to it. Lions are intense, loud and easy to make people follow them.

At the same time his lion secondary isn't destructive or aggressive to the point he couldn't fulfill his obligations. At civilised wolf parties and strategic meetings, Hector can keep his cool and insult people in a very polite measured manner no one can dispute. He cuts the pleasantries and talks around it short and gets things moving. No-one said lions couldn't be polite. They are just very direct and no nonsense about it.

By the way, his second in the pack, Delaney, shares the double lion sorting. Idealistic, goal-oriented, steady in her determination and very on par with Hector's direct approach.

The Wolfson trio (Hector has brown eyes though) is rounded up by a double snake youngest brother. Arnold "Arnie" Wolfson really got an unfortunate hand. A human brother in the family, he wasn't interesting for his father's ambitions and was left out of lot of the wolf pack business and power struggles.

Arnie has that air of shameless self-worth and self-interest of a young snake though. He likes fun, joy and the pretty things in life. He is here to enjoy himself. And he doesn't care about politics. The most he cares about other than himself is his tiny circle. The pack doesn't matter to him as a whole, he doesn't feel obliged to it. Isaiah and Hector are his people, and he wants them back and nice to each other. That's it. Where Hector can't forgive Isaiah for betraying their common goal and can't move past this to try to understand or figure out his mysteries, Arnie just longs to get back to his brother and reconcile. Isaiah can betray them or leave them or do incomprehensible stuff for wolf standards, but he is Arnie's person so he will be forgiven and given the benefit of the doubt. Arnie, in contrast to Hector, wants to understand, wants to find out, wants to get along.

His secondary is a playful snake. Arnie likes to tease, lie, push and change strategies in the middle if they don't work. Silver-tounged with mischief in his eyes, he enjoys the freedom of his humanity. He might not matter for the wolves, but he knows them and their etiquette enough to play at whatever situation to turn it in his favour. While wolves are busy figuring out ranks and fighting off their shadows, he will design the positions and talks to support his agenda. Quick on his feet and sneaky and very much enjoys it. Sonny Carter is a double snake as well - it's just very handy for charming behind the scene schemers.

...

Rip has a very obvious Lion secondary. He is instinctive, acts before he thinks and how he feels and he has that inspiring quality of buldozering lions who throw themselves at things as a solution.

A lot less obvious is his badger primary. Rip thinks in groups and wants to belong, but because of the abuse from his father and losing his family because of him, he basically kicked himself out of his own community. Even though he doesn't trust people and doesn't think he can be part of anything anymore, he still creates a role for himself with the strays, protects younger wolves, keeps the street strays off radar and big conflicts to not attract bigger pack's attention. This is something he feels like doing.

Rip has a strong sense of justice, that's why I first thought he might be a lion primary. But it's just a very strong felt primary. His sense of justice is about what's best for the weakest person and for the overall community. He is always aware of his role, what he can offer and who he can burden, in relation to others. Isaiah and Rip understand each other well, because of Isaiah's incredibly badger flavoured system. He recognises the values in Rip, although Rip is actually the actual badger here.

Isaiah - Bird with strong badger flavoured system/Badger

Seline - Lion/Bird

Matthew - Snake/Lion with a Badger model on the way

Hector - Lion/Lion

Arnie - Snake/Snake

Delaney - Lion/Lion

Rip - Badger/Lion

Dylan - Snake/Badger

Mr Wolfson - exploded Lion/Badger

Sonny - Snake/Snake

Caleb - Lion/Snake

#sortinghatschats #character meta #oc development #my ocs #werewolf story #meta #myocs

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female-malice · 2 years

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Over the past two decades, a small group of theorists mostly based in Oxford have been busy working out the details of a new moral worldview called longtermism, which emphasizes how our actions affect the very long-term future of the universe – thousands, millions, billions, and even trillions of years from now. This has roots in the work of Nick Bostrom, who founded the grandiosely named Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) in 2005, and Nick Beckstead, a research associate at FHI and a programme officer at Open Philanthropy. It has been defended most publicly by the FHI philosopher Toby Ord, author of The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity (2020). Longtermism is the primary research focus of both the Global Priorities Institute (GPI), an FHI-linked organisation directed by Hilary Greaves, and the Forethought Foundation, run by William MacAskill, who also holds positions at FHI and GPI. Adding to the tangle of titles, names, institutes and acronyms, longtermism is one of the main ‘cause areas’ of the so-called effective altruism (EA) movement, which was introduced by Ord in around 2011 and now boasts of having a mind-boggling $46 billion in committed funding.

It is difficult to overstate how influential longtermism has become. Karl Marx in 1845 declared that the point of philosophy isn’t merely to interpret the world but change it, and this is exactly what longtermists have been doing, with extraordinary success. Consider that Elon Musk, who has cited and endorsed Bostrom’s work, has donated $1.5 million dollars to FHI through its sister organisation, the even more grandiosely named Future of Life Institute (FLI). This was cofounded by the multimillionaire tech entrepreneur Jaan Tallinn, who, as I recently noted, doesn’t believe that climate change poses an ‘existential risk’ to humanity because of his adherence to the longtermist ideology.

Meanwhile, the billionaire libertarian and Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel, who once gave the keynote address at an EA conference, has donated large sums of money to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, whose mission to save humanity from superintelligent machines is deeply intertwined with longtermist values. Other organisations such as GPI and the Forethought Foundation are funding essay contests and scholarships in an effort to draw young people into the community, while it’s an open secret that the Washington, DC-based Center for Security and Emerging Technologies (CSET) aims to place longtermists within high-level US government positions to shape national policy. In fact, CSET was established by Jason Matheny, a former research assistant at FHI who’s now the deputy assistant to US President Joe Biden for technology and national security. Ord himself has, astonishingly for a philosopher, ‘advised the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the US National Intelligence Council, the UK Prime Minister’s Office, Cabinet Office, and Government Office for Science’, and he recently contributed to a report from the Secretary-General of the United Nations that specifically mentions ‘long-termism’.

The point is that longtermism might be one of the most influential ideologies that few people outside of elite universities and Silicon Valley have ever heard about. I believe this needs to change because, as a former longtermist who published an entire book four years ago in defence of the general idea, I have come to see this worldview as quite possibly the most dangerous secular belief system in the world today. But to understand the nature of the beast, we need to first dissect it, examining its anatomical features and physiological functions.

(continue reading)

–

Rather than solve climate problems now, governments are focused on putting humanity in sci-fi virtual reality pods in 500,000 years.

We've seen this over and over again throughout history. Crazed emperors use up their nation's resources hunting for immortality. Hunting for the philosopher's stone.

Longtermism is our modern day philosopher's stone.

#cc

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continuations · 8 days

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We Need Actually Open AI Now More than Ever (Or: Why Leopold Aschenbrenner is Dangerously Wrong)

Based on recent meetings it would appear that the national security establishment may share Leopold Aschenbrenner's view that the US needs to get to ASI first to help protect the world from Chinese hegemony. I believe firmly in protecting individual freedom and democracy. Building a secretive Manhattan project style ASI is, however, not the way to accomplish this. Instead we now need an Actually Open™ AI more than ever. We need ASIs (plural) to be developed in the open. With said development governed in the open. And with the research, data, and systems accessible to all humankind.

The safest number of ASIs is 0. The least safe number is 1. Our odds get better the more there are. I realize this runs counter to a lot of writing on the topic, but I believe it to be correct and will attempt to explain concisely why.

I admire the integrity of some of the people who advocate for stopping all development that could result in ASI and are morally compelled to do so as a matter of principle (similar to committed pacifists). This would, however, require magically getting past the pervasive incentive systems of capitalism and nationalism in one tall leap. Put differently, I have resigned myself to zero ASIs being out of reach for humanity.

Comparisons to our past ability to ban CFCs as per the Montreal Protocol provide a false hope. Those gasses had limited economic upside (there are substitutes) and obvious massive downside (exposing everyone to terrifyingly higher levels of UV radiation). The climate crisis already shows how hard the task becomes when the threat is seemingly just a bit more vague and in the future. With ASI, however, we are dealing with the exact inverse: unlimited perceived upside and "dubious" risk. I am putting "dubious" in quotes because I very much believe in existential AI risk but it has proven difficult to make this case to all but a small group of people.

To get a sense of just how big the economic upside perception for ASI is one need to look no further than the billions being poured into OpenAI, Anthropic and a few others. We are entering the bubble to end all bubbles because the prize at the end appears infinite. Scaling at inference time is utterly uneconomical at the moment based on energy cost alone. Don't get me wrong: it's amazing that it works but it is not anywhere close to being paid for by current applications. But it is getting funded and to the tune of many billions. It’s ASI or bust.

Now consider the national security argument. Aschenbrenner uses the analogy to the nuclear bomb race to support his view that the US must get there first with some margin to avoid a period of great instability and protect the world from a Chinese takeover. ASI will result in decisive military advantage, the argument goes. It’s a bit akin to Earth’s spaceships encountering far superior alien technology in the Three Body Problem, or for those more inclined towards history (as apparently Aschenbrenner is), the trouncing of Iraqi forces in Operation Desert Storm.

But the nuclear weapons or other examples of military superiority analogy is deeply flawed for two reasons. First, weapons can only destroy, whereas ASI also has the potential to build. Second, ASI has failure modes that are completely unlike the failure modes of non-autonomous weapons systems. Let me illustrate how these differences matter using the example of ASI designed swarms of billions of tiny drones that Aschenbrenner likes to conjure up. What in the world makes us think we could actually control this technology? Relying on the same ASI that designed the swarm to stop it is a bad idea for obvious reasons (fox in charge of hen house). And so our best hope is to have other ASIs around that build defenses or hack into the first ASI to disable it. Importantly, it turns out that it doesn’t matter whether the other ASI are aligned with humans in some meaningful way as long as they foil the first one successfully.

Why go all the way to advocating a truly open effort? Why not just build a couple of Manhattan projects then? Say a US and a European one. Whether this would make a big difference depends a lot on one’s belief about the likelihood of an ASI being helpful in a given situation. Take the swarm example again. If you think that another ASI would be 90% likely to successfully stop the swarm, well then you might take comfort in small numbers. If on the other hand you think it is only 10% likely and you want a 90% probability of at least one helping successfully you need 22 (!) ASIs. Here’s a chart graphing the likelihood of all ASIs being bad / not helpful against the number of ASIs for these assumptions:

And so here we have the core argument for why one ASI is the most dangerous of all the scenarios. Which is of course exactly the scenario that Aschenbrenner wants to steer us towards by enclosing the world’s knowledge and turning the search for ASI into a Manhattan project. Aschenbrenner is not just wrong, he is dangerously wrong.

People have made two counter arguments to the let’s build many ASIs including open ones approach.

First, there is the question of risk along the way. What if there are many open models and they allow bio hackers to create super weapons in their garage. That’s absolutely a valid risk and I have written about a key way of mitigating that before. But here again unless you believe the number of such models could be held to zero, more models also mean more ways of early detection, more ways of looking for a counteragent or cure, etc. And because we already know today what some of the biggest bio risk vectors are we can engage in ex-ante defensive development. Somewhat in analogy to what happened during COVID, would you rather want to rely on a single player or have multiple shots on goal – it is highly illustrative here to compare China’s disastrous approach to the US's Operation Warp Speed.

Second, there is the view that battling ASIs will simply mean a hellscape for humanity in a Mothra vs. Godzilla battle. Of course there is no way to rule that out but multiple ASIs ramping up around the same time would dramatically reduce the resources any one of them can command. And the set of outcomes also includes ones where they simply frustrate each other’s attempts at domination in ways that are highly entertaining to them but turn out to be harmless for the rest of the world.

Zero ASIs are unachievable. One ASI is extremely dangerous. We must let many ASIs bloom. And the best way to do so is to let everyone contribute, fork, etc. As a parting thought: ASIs that come out of open collaboration between humans and machines would at least be exposed to a positive model for the future in their origin, whereas an ASI covertly hatched for world domination, even in the name of good, might be more inclined to view that as its own manifest destiny.

I am planning to elaborate the arguments sketched here. So please fire away with suggestions and criticisms as well as links to others making compelling arguments for or against Aschenbrenner's one ASI to rule them all.

#ai #asi #open

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thenexusofsouls · 3 months

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12 and 3 for Aryx? :P

Angsty Character Questions | Accepting

{i am the caretaker of souls} Alright, here we go. Below the cut for length! =)

3. What is your muse’s biggest fear?

That someday, the delicate balance between good and evil will be irrevocably shifted in favor of evil, and there just won't be anything that can be done about it.

In the context of Aryx's fictional world, and within his own belief system in any world I place him in, there is a constant battle between good and evil going on all over the world. Some of it is a very literal and violent battle between angels and demons, good and evil magic, cruel and kind humans, etc. on actual battlefields. Some of it is existential or value-system in nature in the form of war and peace, criminals and justice, truth and lies, love and hate. And some of it is spiritual in nature, with individuals wrestling with their own morality, motivations, inclinations, and beliefs, with good and evil forces attempting to sway individual hearts toward one side or the other.

That push and pull, tugging and nudging, luring and repelling of all these forces in the world and within hearts is what maintains the Great Balance, in which neither good or evil ever truly vanquishes the other. Some believe the Balance cannot be broken, not really. At times, good or evil has the advantage and may even seen to prevail for a long while, but always the scales tip back the other way, and the Balance is restored. But there are those who believe that the fact that the Balance has never been completely broken isn't because it can't be, it's just because it hasn't yet.

Aryx falls into the latter category. In his religious belief system, there is a being called "The One" who rules over all gods and mortals and is entirely neutral, maintaining the Balance without favor of good or evil. They do this by basically policing good and evil gods, humans, and divine/infernal beings, and punishing or giving boons to one side or another if one should become inordinately more powerful than the other. So they don't allow the Balance to tip very far for very long on their watch. However, Aryx believes that even this seemingly incredibly powerful being is just that... another being. Therefore, perhaps they can be killed, imprisoned, inactivated, swayed, or otherwise deterred from continuing as the caretaker of the Balance, allowing it to swing freely and potentially tip in one direction forever.

As an archangel created by a god whose dogma revolves around protection and defense of, for example, the good, the innocent, the weak, the sick, the young, and the old, Aryx has been an active soldier in this battle between good and evil all this life (about six centuries). Being steeped in this constant, ever-present, ongoing battle, and always being ready to fight at the drop of a hat every day of his life, he's acutely aware of how tides can change quickly and drastically if things like vigilance and preparedness are ignored or allowed to slacken. So his greatest fear is that, either through extreme events occurring or through growing apathy and ignorance of the need to continue this great battle between good and evil, evil may gain the upper hand in a way that might be irreversible.

The consequences of evil finally being able to tip the Balance enough to make it essentially permanent is why this fear is so potent for Aryx. Things like the killing or corruption of innocent people as well as cruelty, hatred, and moral depravity simply for the sake of them are things that Aryx not only hates with every fiber of his being, but they also make him incredibly sad. He doesn't fight in this battle merely to please/serve his god, or out of personal arrogance, or out of hatred for specific gods or infernal beings... he fights it to protect goodness and innocence in the world. The stakes are incredibly high, and failure cannot be an option, but he is only one archangel. If the rest of the world stops caring about protecting such things, lets down their guard, or becomes complacent and feels like things will always continue on as they have and their actions aren't needed, he truly fears that utter catastrophe is possible for this world. He hopes he never sees that day come.

12. What was the worst injury your muse has received?

Having one of his wings essentially severed at the humerus was the worst injury he's ever received. Here's a diagram of a wing to show you approximately where that would be on an angel wing. It's the bone that would be attached to his scapula (shoulder blade). This injury occurred when he first fell to Earth.

So... in the lore of Aryx's world, when an angel "falls," it involves three components: magical, physical, and spiritual. Magically speaking, it's almost like being teleported, stepping through a portal, or traveling really fast through a short distance supernaturally. The distance from the Heavens to Earth is a lot longer than one might think in his world, and so the process is sped up through the use of magic, usually employed by the god that is expelling the angel from their native layer of the Heavens. Think of it as like... how Thor gets back and forth between Asgard and Earth, heh. SImilar concept.

The physical fall is, quite literally, when the angel pops out of the other end of this magical yeeting process, heh, they then physically fall the rest of the way to the Earth's surface. Angel bodies are infinitely more durable than human bodies, so they can survive more than humans can, but even so, it's freaking rough when they finally slam onto the ground or wherever else they land. In fact, sometimes angels do not survive the landing process.

Finally, the spiritual fall has to do with the severing of the ties between the angel and his/her/their god. Usually this is part of the punishment involved with falling, because if an angel falls for moral reasons, they are being rejected their their god/goddess and punished by being excluded from the Heavens and that god's influence/power. In Aryx's case, he didn't fall for moral reasons, so he wasn't being punished, but it was part of the stipulations of his fall as decided by The One and The Stag (the god who created Aryx) that he should not be allowed to return to the Heavens and the fall would be permanent. So didn't have his ties to his god completely severed, however, he still felt that emotional loss of having to leave his home and his god, and because Earth is so far away from the Heavens, his god's influence felt more distant, weaker, colder, etc. That feeling for an angel is usually very devastating, and is something akin to intense heartbreak or grieving the loss of a loved one.

SO... when angels fall to Earth, they have to survive this perilous fall to the Earth's surface while feeling emotionally shattered. It's not a pleasant experience, and the emotional side of things can really affect how well they recover afterward, if at all. In Aryx's case, he was choosing to fall for a specific purpose, so his god literally aimed him at the person he needed to speak to on Earth. He actually landed on the ramparts of this guy's castle, onto stone, but because the man happened to be one of the most experienced healers on the planet (long story, but there are only certain types of healers in Aryx's world that can heal catastrophic injuries like severed limbs), he got very lucky and was healed not long after landing. If not for that, Aryx would not have survived the fall.

When angels fall, they get disoriented by changes in energy, pressure, emotional fluctuations, fear, etc. and are often whipped around by wind and gravity, unable to right themselves and fly normally. Therefore, when Aryx landed, he came down hard on one of his wings (he has four of equal size, two equal pairs) and snapped the humerus. That wing was only being held onto his body by a thin tether of flesh, and he'd severed a major artery as well and began bleeding out. He suffered a lot of other broken bones as well, mainly in his wings and back, but his almost-severed wing was what would have killed him quickly. Fortunately, he was able to have it magically healed/reattached. However, the healing was only physical. Aryx then had to work through his trauma and grief related to the fall to then actually accomplish what he fell to Earth for.

#{ i am the caretaker of souls } ᵒᵒᶜ #{ about the muses }#muse: aryx #tw: religion #tw: injury #tw: broken bones

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educationalphilosophy · 2 years

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Educational Philosophy

My approach to education is mainly influenced by bell hooks. Her books Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (1994), All About Love (1999), Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (2003), and Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom (2009) have shaped the way I think about teaching. I read All About Love during my first job working with middle school students after my supervisor, who I looked up to, mentioned what an impact it had on him. I admire the way bell hooks put her whole heart and soul into teaching; you can really tell from her writing that she had a passion and a great love for what she did, and that had a direct impact on her students and their ability to grow and learn.

When I think of my own educational philosophy these are some of the terms that feel most important to me: Love, vulnerability, freedom, growth, reciprocity, community, and autonomy; all of which are components that can be found in hooks teaching philosophy. Hooks believes in both students and teachers being learners, and learning from one another. In order to do this, she says that teachers have to be willing to be vulnerable alongside their students. She believes that love does have a place in the classroom, unlike many others who do not think that emotions play a role in education. However, I would argue, humans are complex, emotional beings, our emotions make us who we are, and to not hold space for them in the classroom does a huge disservice to both students and teachers. Feelings are bound to arise in a classroom that prioritizes dismantling domination. I believe that the classroom is a place for people to learn about systems of oppression and how our life experiences and identities impact the way we are able to live our lives, and so emotions and conflict are almost guaranteed to arise. That is why I believe every teacher should be equipped with the skills, knowledge, and self-awareness to navigate having challenging conversations alongside their students.

I believe that each of the educational philosophies have aspects that I incorporate into my own facilitation. Social reconstructivism is the one philosophy that resonated the most with my own personal morals and values in relation to education, and one that I felt bell hooks references the most in her work. Hooks often cites the Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire whose work is referred to as the foundation for what is now known as critical pedagogy, similar to social reconstructivism. Freire’s philosophy has influence from existentialism as well, in that he believed in the importance of each individual student being their own autonomous being with their own way of thinking. Freire also believed in an education practice that functions as a tool for thinking critically about the world in order to bring about change, and utilizing lessons that diminish domination and oppression in the classroom. I believe students would be more engaged in lessons if they understood the real life application of what they were learning. The common practice of teaching students information for the sole purpose of seeing how well they can regurgitate it on a test, without providing any context, gives students no reason to want to care about learning. If you explain to a student why what they are learning is important, and how they could use it in the future to help themselves, their community, or the world, it would give them more incentive to be engaged in the topic and has the potential to create a more just world.

Education as the practice of freedom, as hooks and Freier would say, allows for emotional, spiritual, and intellectual growth amongst all of its participants. School should be the place where transformation happens. Where ideas can blossom and flourish. Where systems of oppression can be dismantled. School should be a place where people are taught to think critically. School needs to be a place of safety for children (see ending gun violence) where they feel the freedom to explore their minds.

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yourplayersaidwhat · 2 years

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Our party needs to get into a safety deposit box in the local bank. The box belongs to the man we're currently secretly investigating on behalf of the princess for embezzlement. We've also been given a letter from the princess granting our party 2k gold, which we would redeem at the same bank. So our plan is for our wizard, a half-elf from a family of merchant nobility, to use Disguise Self to pretend to be The Suspect and retrieve the box while the rest of us go get our gold. Wizard goes in first, alone, so as not to raise suspicion. Then, the following conversation takes place outside the bank. For clarity, the remaining characters are:

Me: Elf Druid from an incredibly rural community that still operates almost entirely on a barter system, so it doesn't even have currency, let alone a bank. Has never even *seen* a bank before.

Rogue: Lizard Folk who has recently arrived on this continent from a distant archipelago that *does* have currency, but *does not* have banks. A petty-criminal that has never been inside a bank in his life.

Sorcerer: Tiefling that, until about 2 weeks ago, was trapped in a timeless demiplane for at least several hundred if not several thousand years. All of modern society is a complete mystery to him, and if he ever has been in a bank, it's been so long that he doesn't remember.

Paladin: Elf from a large and prominent religious community. Going Through It™ and having a long and continued existential crisis due to finding out the goddess he dedicated his life to has likely never existed. Usually a Good and Moral Boy, he's currently in the "Fuck it, nothing matters" stage of depression. *Absolutely* knows how banks work and is 100% aware that this is is about to be a shit-show, but won't do anything to stop it.

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Me: Okay, so Wizard's been in the bank for about 5 minutes now, it's probably safe to head in right?

Party: **various noises of agreement**

Me: Alrighty. So! First order of business: Does anyone know how banks work? I'm assuming it's like the market and you just grab whatever you need and then check out?

Sorcer: **shrugs** Last I knew, people kept their wealth in chests in their homes, so I was counting on you guys to know.

Rogue: **shakes his head** My island doesn't have banks, I figured you guys knew since you're from here.

Me: I thought you guys would know since you've traveled more than me. My village doesn't do money, this is the first time I've seen a bank in real life.

Rogue: I don't think they'd keep the gold out for people to grab though, that seems like a bad idea. We probably have to ask for it.

Me: It can't be that hard though, right? People successfully go to banks every day. Wizard is in there right now and he's by himself, so we can handle this with four people. I'm sure if we just walk in there and state our intentions everything will be fine.

Sorcerer: Well we already have our Bag of Holding, so we could put the letter on the counter and say something like "We're here for the money, please put it in this bag."

Rogue: That sounds good to me. I bet they'll really appreciate the convenience of us bringing our own bag, too. Oh! And people tend to get nervous when I smile, so maybe I should cover my face? **wraps scarf around his face** How's this?

Me: Perfect! That should help put them at ease, your teeth are kind of scary. Alright, seems like a pretty solid plan. Easy-peasy. Paladin, your church probably got a lot of offerings, you had banks right? Are we missing anything?

Paladin: .................. No, you guys've got it. Perfect plan, I can't believe you figured out banks so quickly :)

Me: Great! Let's get going then. **helps adjust Rogue's scarf a little higher** Now don't forget, eye-contact is important since they can't see your face, it shows that you're being genuine.

Rogue: I don't have eyelids, so that should be easy.

Me: Man, we are *so* good at banks. Wait til Wizard hears, he's gonna be so proud of us! :D

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Meanwhile, Wizard's player, somewhere between crying and wheeze-laughing: I can't believe this, we survive two dragons, a hoard of were-gators, and an evil librarian aberration with an army of knock-off slendermen and a malevolent sentient library, and you idiots are going to get killed by bank security! Amazing.

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(The plan actually went off without a hitch because we got an insane amount of stupidly-high rolls. I thought our DM was gonna piss himself from laughing so hard. Turns out we ARE good at banks! :D

Later we had a party for Plot Reasons and invited the bank staff and they definitely think we're insane but aren't gonna pass up free booze. Having worked a lot of retail that probably wasnt even the weirdest thing that happened to them that day tbh)

#shit my players say #dnd #rpg #submission #shareable #long post #why npcs hate pcs #famous last words

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testudoaubrei-blog · 3 years

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“I’m loyal, that’s my whole thing.” - Scorpia, Season 4 Episode 6, Princess Scorpia

“Everything they taught us in the Horde about loyalty is meaningless” - Lonnie, Season 4 Episode 5, Protocol

Rewatching Season 4, I just finished Princess Scorpia. This is an episode that has always stuck with me, especially the A plot of Scorpia realizing how badly Catra has treated her and everyone else and deciding to leave. One thing I’ve been thinking about since I finished the series, though, is what this episode is telling us on a larger level. Looking beyond the character arcs and more at this show’s larger themes and message. Because this show is very much a show that says things, made by people who believe them. That earnestness and depth is one reason I keep coming back to it.

In the pull-quote above, and throughout the episode and before it, Scorpia defines herself in terms of loyalty. It is her identity - as she says, that’s what Scorpions do, they’re loyal. Her actions for three and a half seasons bear this out. When she first shows up, she tries to position herself as Catra’s new best friend, the one who won’t leave her and will stick by her no matter what. And that’s what she does, until this episode. She sticks by Catra through Catra’s increasingly villainous plots and erratic behavior. But she doesn’t just stick around. Until the portal, she barely contradicts Catra, and even afterwards, does so only furtively and immediately backs away as soon as Catra pushes back. For more than a year of show time, Scorpia has not just stood by Catra, or supported her, she’s actively assisted her in her most villainous and destructive acts. Scorpia is fighting by Catra’s side, eagerly carrying out her orders, and doing her utmost to see that Catra succeeds. But her loyalty goes beyond this practical help. Because for all that Catra loudly declares that she doesn’t need a new best friend, she consistently seeks out connection throughout the show, even when she’s at her most isolated in season 4. She needs moral support, and connection, and to know that she isn’t alone. Scorpia provides that, and keeps Catra going. Though Scropia isn’t initiating Catra’s various misdeeds, she’s assisting and supporting Catra throughout. On a personal, psychological level, the only word that seems adequate for this is ‘ennabling’ - Scorpia, sweet as she is, is Catra’s enabler. We see in the next few episodes what happens when Catra doesn’t have Scorpia’s support - she breaks down, and realizes that her actions really do have consequences, and that the affection she took for granted for so many years is something she can’t live without. But as long as Scorpia’s still around, Catra can’t make that realization.

Now I’m not going to say that Scorpia is morally culpable for Catra’s own actions. She’s not. Catra is solely responsible for her various betrayals, manipulations, violent outbursts and assorted murder attempts against...most of the rest of the cast (though being raised by Shadow Weaver sure as shit is a mitigating factor). But while Catra is obviously being a bad friend to Scorpia throughout, Scorpia isn’t actually being as supportive or helpful to Catra as she thinks, because Catra doesn’t actually need unconditional support, she needs people to be honest with her and express to her how she’s hurting them. She needs people who will stand up for themselves just as she needs to take responsibility for her own actions. This is part of why she and Adora have such a healthy dynamic in season 5 - Adora doesn’t take her crap, and Catra takes responsibility for her crap.

However, Scorpia -is- responsible for her own actions. And as I said above, she’s been with Catra every step of the way as Catra has attacked just about everyone and made war on Etheria. On a larger, political level, Scorpia is a willing participant in upholding the Horde’s oppressive system, and executing a war of aggression and colonization against innocent people. Speaking of colonization, perversely, she’s loyal to the very organization that dispossessed her and literally stole her birthright, then discarded it like a useless trinket when it was no longer useful to them. No one ever suggests ‘why don’t we let Scorpia connect with ~her runestone~’ until Glimmer does (and Glimmer’s motivations and arguments aren’t exactly forthright). Scorpia’s loyalty makes her an accomplice in her own oppression (like a bunch of the themes in this show there’s some interesting post-colonial stuff that the show doesn’t fully explore, probably because Noelle and the crew felt self-conscious about telling a post colonial story, or just didn’t know where to go with it). Interestingly, Scorpia’s loyalty to the Horde here parallels her loyalty to Catra, which has made her completely disregard her own wellbeing, which is the most obvious take away from the episode.

But I would argue that everything above shows that for Scorpia loyalty has been a way of avoiding developing her own moral compass. Scorpia repeatedly shoves aside questions of right or wrong in favor of being loyal to her friends and to the Horde. Loyalty has made Scorpia not only willing to accept her own mistreatment, but to willingly mistreat others, and to keep herself from asking any hard questions about what she’s doing or why. This is despite the fact that Scorpia is, by inclination, an incredibly gentle, kind and compassionate person. She’s willing to silence the best parts of her nature out of loyalty to Catra and the Horde. In the end, she also commits acts of violence and perpetuates the oppression of Etheria. And this is so insightful, because we see this sort of thing in our world all the time. So many oppressive institutions depend upon the loyalty of their members to keep them ‘just following orders’; so many abusive systems depend upon loyalty to stifle dissent and silence potential whistleblowers before they even speak. We see this in some of the most oppressive institutions and the worst scandals in our own society, and looking back through human history we see it in some of our nation’s and our species' most infamous crimes.

And when we look at the Horde as a system that Hordak has built in imitation of his elder brother’s empire, we see just how central loyalty is an ethos. Hordak himself is motivated entirely by loyalty to Prime - being a former clone, he spends the entire series not fully capable of accepting himself as an autonomous being (even when he acts like one and enjoys it, there’s some fucked up religious shit there that I won’t get into). He seems to have instilled this in his followers. The Horde Trio, Catra and Scorpia all hold loyalty as one of their highest values. Catra clings to it as her biggest accusation against Adora - that she was disloyal, as expressed in Catra’s perception that Adora broke her promise and abandoned her. Loyalty keeps the Horde Trio together and fighting for the Horde, and Scorpia with Catra. I think we can read between the lines and say the Horde runs on loyalty (as well as fear) and this is a very insightful portrayal of oppressive military and paramilitary institutions like armies of conquest and occupation and other instruments of state violence.

There’s another, related way of looking at how a sole reliance on loyalty as a moral framework has stunted Scorpia’s moral growth, and I think that brings together both the ways that it makes Scorpia willing to accept her mistreatment and participate in the mistreatment of others. Namely, loyalty in the Horde style isn’t just sticking with someone or something, but subsuming your own will into theirs. Following orders. Supporting your friend in what they do no matter what. Whatever you call it, it’s about turning off your own self - your self preservation, your self respect, your conscience, whatever other things you value - and just going along with what the person or institution you are loyal to wants you to do. And this is where Horde loyalty goes full circle, back to its origin - Horde Prime, the narcissistic self-made god who wishes to control or destroy everything that is not himself. Loyalty as Hordak conceived of it and as the Horde believes in it is a reflection of Prime's absolute control over all his domain.

In a way, self-determination is one of this show’s highest values (together with love). It’s at the heart of Adora’s 5-season, 3 year struggle to become her own woman and her own hero as she shrugs off one imposed destiny and then another and finally embraces what she wants. In a more negative form, it’s at the heart of Catra’s arc, as she finally accepts responsibility for her own actions and their consequences and starts working to make a world that she actually wants to live in, as well as admit to herself that what she really wants is love. And I could go on. This self-determination is existentially, obviously threatened by Prime chipping people, but it is also stunted by horde-style loyalty that demands unquestioning support and obedience.

Both the Horde Trio and Scorpia reject the Horde’s ideal of loyalty and walk away, but I think it’s interesting how they do it. Neither rejects loyalty entirely (not on the way Adora does) - the Trio, realistically, remain loyal to each other and simply walk away and walk out of the war (this might save their lives), joining the other disillusioned cynics in the Crimson Wastes. They reject loyalty to the horde and embrace a more supportive and respectful form of loyalty to each other. Scorpia leaves, but she actually comes to her crisis and makes her decision out of loyalty, and because it’s clear that her loyalty isn’t returned. The immediate situation - loyalty to Emily and Entrapta’s memory on one hand and Catra’s orders on the others - creates the conflict between loyalties that forces Scorpia to actually make her own choice rather than deferring to Catra. But she also reflects how Catra betrayed her loyalty to Entrapta, and thus how all of her friends’ loyalty to Catra is not returned.This is another point about horde-style loyalty - it’s one way - Hordak or Catra will demand your loyalty, but they feel no obligation to return it, which reflects Prime’s view of every other being in the universe as disposable. It’s only when she’s with the Princesses that Scorpia starts to find a new moral center, though sticking up for and protecting her friends remains important to her. In neither case, though, are these kinds of loyalty coming at the cost of either the Trio or Scorpia’s autonomy or ability to make moral choices of their own. In the very next episode, she says she wants to 'be A good friend' which is how the Princesses typically describe sticking together, which is a much more active and holistic concept than 'loyalty'. Scorpia confesses that she doesn't even know how, but she wants to learn and thinks the princesses can teach her.

There's another interesting counterexample to Horde Loyalty. Adora repeatedly breaks with the people around her to do what is right. First she leaves the Horde, then walks away from Catra by stages when it is clear that Catra is going to continue to harm other people and Etheria. Then she walks away from Glimmer, defies Light Hope and breaks loyalty with her supposed destiny and purposes as well as loyalty to the homelans she has never known. By season 5, Adora is loyal only to herself and the people she cares about, but she isn't constraining her will to anyone else's. For all that she seems like a rule follower Adora has a rebellious streak a mile wide, and she will do what is right, no matter what. This is what allows her to save the universe 3 times.

So the show’s argument is that loyalty is not a good moral framework to base all of our actions around. I don’t think it goes so far as saying that loyalty has no place in our ethics (being a good friend, which is such a huge part of the show, certainly includes loyalty, especially sticking with people when the going gets tough), but the show stresses time and again that being loyal to something or someone shouldn’t make you disregard yourself and what you think is right. Because it’s only by living out our own values and taking responsibility for our own actions that we can come into our own as moral beings. Moreover, if we insist on maintaining loyalty to institutions that oppress us and others, we can’t dismantle the systems of oppression that are holding us and other people down. (Yes, this is a pretty radical message, but I suspect that Noelle is some kind of anarchist? Anyway, it’s a thing.)

Okay, so that’s what I, a 35 year old, get from this kids show. I think it’s also worth pointing out that this lesson applies to younger viewers too, in their most immediate lives. Younger viewers will have had friends who didn’t treat them well, or might not have treated other people well, and who might have pressured them into participating in the mistreatment of others (this is kind of how bullying works a lot of the time). I think it’s important that younger viewers see how being a good friend never means disrespecting yourself or other people and it means a lot to me that She-Ra shows this in such a nuanced and realistic way.

#she ra #she ra spoilers #spop #she ra netflix #she ra and the princesses of power #meta #analysis #scorpia

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