#is that the entity might act for its own reasons and its own motivations

[lightdancer1]

New chapter up:

Our sister's defiance of the laws raises the reality that has drawn these entities to act. Her role as the one voice who can speak as the great diplomat and as a source whom all can rely upon to speak means she has become indispensable beyond the rules and her adhering to them would become a catastrophe in its own right. From that fear they spoke to the legend, asked it to intervene.

His hand was on his sister's shoulder and he could feel a fierce heat like that of a fever. 

So it did, and now she is here. 

Silence fell. 

How do we aid her, brother? 

A brief flash of sorrow crossed Destiny's face. 

It is the nature of what has been and what will be that we cannot. Not at at present. 

A silence fell, for a time. 

I do not accept that, big brother. 

Desire took a step forward. 

Our sister, for once in her life, refused to accept something. She learned from the fate of my twin, the first version of her, and she actually acted for our big brother. 

Dream did not push Desire's hand from his shoulder when they set it there, curious as to where Desire was going with this. 

Are we to sit back and allow the rule that for one of us to aid another, even unasked, is to be a kind of great evil? 

[the-mononoke-facade]

So halfway through these stories and I'm noticing an interesting trend of how the mononoke are conceptualized in these stories compared to how they're conceptualized in the arcs of the show

In these stories, the mononoke is being treated like an evil spirit being inflicted on the people housing it, and it's just their negative emotions that create a vulnerability to allow it in. Compared to the show where a lot of the times, the mononoke are treated as one and the same as the person whose circumstances created it, or at least it's treated like there's not enough of a reasonable difference between the spirit and the person to point to them as separate entities. In the show the mononoke embodies the harms done to others and themselves and gives voice to those harms that are happening regardless. In the book the mononoke are treated as hostile outsiders doing the inflicting of the harm on people who might have otherwise not had to suffer so much if they hadn't gotten tangled up in spiritual fuckery

Like with Tokuemon from the first story, right? He was tormented relentlessly and deliberately by his father in a bid to gain riches and honors for himself that were supposedly stolen from his ancestors. Intuitively, I would point to Tokuemon and say "yes, he IS the mononoke, he IS the kama itachi, he IS the izuna," but the way it's presented, it's saying that his rage and fear at the treatment he had to endure over his life up to now makes him the perfect candidate to HOUSE the mononoke, and there's a clear delineation between where he ends and the kama itachi begins. The kama itachi was a regular ayakashi that was twisted and corrupted by the greed of humans and became a mononoke, but it doesn't have an identity with any one person or group of people (maybe grafted to Chuuemon, but even then there's a sense of Chuuemon still being himself and wielding the kama itachi as a tool separate from himself versus it being Chuuemon)

Compare that to, say, Nue, the arc with the least clear-cut association to a human/group of humans in the show and the closest to this sort of treatment of mononoke. Even with the nue, there's the sense that the "rotting piece of wood" took on at least some of the motivations of various woman who may have once lived at that estate--the need to remain oneself in a context that strips your value down to nothing if you can't present yourself as a valuable commodity (I presume the todaiji ended up being one of those 100-year object yokai, so it's kind of like the zashiki warashi in that by the time these spirits come into being as spirits that don't belong in this world, they're coming into an environment of intense resentment and say "ah, it's free real estate, nice"). But even in this case, the mononoke has a link back to human resentments, not spiritual resentments that end up rebounding back on humans

The medicine vendor assumes Ochou's been possessed by a mononoke and is using its power but she actually IS the mononoke. Her pain and her anger drive the mononoke and serve as a perpetual-motion machine of mental self-harm

By contrast, Ishiuemon and Zen piss off an otherwise dormant Kame-hime in Ishiuemon's bid to increase his own power, and Kame-hime herself is the mononoke that comes in to say "get my goddamn name out of your irreverent mouth," and she possesses Zen as a vessel to present herself in this world, but she doesn't become Zen, and Zen doesn't become Kame-hime. Kame-hime as the mononoke comes down to her offense over the power games the humans were playing in her name, not the harm or resentment that was coming up from the humans suffering because of those power games

The two bakeneko are cats who died with Tamaki and Setsuko respectively and took on the injustices done to them and come to embody each woman. Whether the souls of Tamaki and Setsuko combined with the cats or whether it was just the cats acting on their impressions of the women's memories, they're still linked back to and embody the emotions of the women who created them

Compared to the Tamamo no Mae that split apart its own soul in a bid for resurrection, the fragments of its own soul acting as puppet strings to play a fucked up game of "let's put these dollies in Situations(tm)" in order to create the conditions that would allow it to gain power and eventually come back together as one entity. The will of the Tamamo no Mae was inflicted on these two families to create the problem, these would not have been their problems otherwise (not their lives were going to be amazing without the Tamamo no Mae interfering, but the respective situations were less likely to become the powder keg they did). The conflict came from without, not within

Genkei projects his own self-loathing out to the sea his sister was sacrificed to and spends half a century running away from the reality that he did in fact create that dark and deadly "sea of ayakashi" but not the way he's talked himself into believing. The problem starts with him, and his complicated grief and guilt and fear that he never gave himself the chance to process. He is the mononoke haunting that sea, his suppressed feelings are the evil things infecting it. The conflict comes from within

Anyway, it's just an interesting difference in approach I've noticed up to this point, will also be interesting to see if that approach continues through the latter three stories

[msommers]

george is my new daughter but she's still in development mode so here's a bunch of unorganized, still to-be-confirmed rambles about her

georgina "george" "georgie" "gina" quinn; she/her; personality types tossed onto the graphic set here. obligatory pinterest.

part-time baker, tutor, and superhero. inherited aerokenisis (air manipulation abilities) from her parents, both well-established and famous heroes of freedom city.

has an older brother named zachary, he wields hydrokenisis openly while working as one of the city's firefighters and supers. also has a younger sister named charity, she doesn't appear to have inherited any powers and certainly doesn't have a dozen complexes about that fact.

parents: madeline & nathaniel quinn. undecided powers, though likely of elemental variety due to zach and george's ones lmao. potentially part of a group of supers, not determined yet. typical Good Guys type of heroes, decades worth of time spent cutting off crime and dispatching supervillains. heavily influenced the moral compasses and worldviews of their two oldest kids (honor and kindness above all, violence is the last resort, peacekeeping and protection are the goal), lessons they taught are remembered and acted upon even after their deaths reasonably lead to questioning if their ways worked. charity is somewhere around ten years younger than george so she had less time with the parents = conflict with her older siblings on their noble ways which got their parents killed. had quite a few awkward sibling meals end because of those "debates".

hero identity: zephyr. outfits are shades of sky blue and white, always with a hood and matching mask to obscure (some of, comic logic lets it work) her features. isn't spotted as often as other supers, but her vibes are known nonetheless: never fatally wounds, focuses on crowd control and flight, leaves criminals to the police instead of taking justice into her own hands. she'd only do it against chunky baddies who can tank damage but the image of her chucking various objects and items with the use of her powers is pretty fun. other power uses: speed bursts, electricity immunity, manipulating weather (incredibly exhausting on a bigger scale, not done often). has minimal hand-to-hand combat training that she learned from zach, taken up only if she's forced to ground herself during a fight and even then she tries her best to find ways to avoid it.

purely for fun, she's eternally a little chilly because i decided it'd be silly for her wind powers to affect her that way. her wardrobe reflects that and results in annual comments on how she's wearing ridiculous clothing during the warmer months.

the only quinn sibling to pursue education beyond high school, though it never saw much use due to hero life. i'm stupid do not ask me to specify her studies beyond physical science please and thank you <3

in her early teen years she started working at the family bakery (quinntessential confections) on-off, then eventually as an actual job during high school and college. had the privilege of flexible scheduling bc of the whole family-owned thing, which came in handy when she started to join in the supers activity alongside schoolwork.

was 23 when her parents were killed by doc holiday—a malefic entity from another dimension that takes human hosts to inflict its will, defeated in the 60s but recently returned possessing a college student to once again spread terror and violence. the quinns couldn't bring themselves to kill the being as he was controlling a poor kid that wasn't in control and actively hated everything the entity used him to do, which resulted in their deaths as holiday was motivated only to cause as much destruction and suffering as possible.

(might?? have a fun little thing of george having known the guy who holiday decided to turn into his puppet. add even more conflicting feelings to things.)

george ended up inheriting the bakery, while also needing to help cover the family home, which led to her doubling down on citizen work rather than super. she took up tutoring on the side, putting her studies to use there instead of searching for anything in those fields as she couldn't dream of letting the bakery go.

pastels are her beloveds and it's clear from the Everything about her. the bakery decorations, her bedroom, her wardrobe and accessories, etc etc. those things can also display her obsessive and perfectionist nature, everything must be neat and clean or it nags at her.

smth smth running battle with the umbral huntress who keeps trying to sway george towards altering her moral code because the city has so much corruption and her way of doing things is too "soft" to make a real impact. i'll bang out details later, important part is shoving my hero and my vigilante/villain together is fun and sexy. george never wavered until the deaths of her parents, unfortunately some of the huntress's points started to hit after that (probably won't last or truly change her mind?? but a fun journey to go on).

lowkey sims obsession and i don't think her gaming experience would go far beyond that franchise tbh. sometimes self-care is spending hours meticulously building a new school in sims 4 because you don't like the set-up of the default one included in the expansion pack, y'know.

listens to audiobooks as she works and her book collection is probably mostly of that variety, any printed ones are from childhood/teenage years or random ones bought to match an aesthetic she wanted for decorating a shelf or two.

[in-inertia]

★

/* Luna was the first godlike being to speak to Gladiia on this website. There's been a lot of them since, and Gladiia has gone through a lot of self-reflection as a result. Through her contemplation, she came to a conclusion about the lot of them: she does not like gods. Gods, demons, eldritch entities, whatever those super-powered menaces want to call themselves. She has a very low opinion of anyone who would call themselves a God or anything similar, or introduce themselves with displays of or allusions to their power.

Luna is one of exactly two that she's tolerated, the other being her newest girlfriend. She doesn't like the godhood aspect. She doesn't really think anything should hold the kind of power that could massively affect wide swathes of people to its whims, but most importantly? She thinks almost every God or powerful entity on this platform has been fucking annoying about it. So annoying about it, in fact, that she looks upon many of her past interactions with people in utter shame. She's seen what she looked like to the Iberians. It's tedious and childlike behavior, and the moment she saw it from the reverse perspective she abhorred it so much that she made a concerted effort towards personal change. They should be proud of themselves—they managed to motivate someone so thoroughly blind to her own faults into character growth.

If it wasn't for a very small number of nonexamples, she'd think that kind of power inherently made someone insufferable.

Luna, congratulations—you're one of two that hasn't annoyed Gladiia. Gladiia likes Luna, actually, and has enjoyed their conversations. She hasn't seen a reason to hold anything against her, and she appreciates that someone who acts on scales of her own can have an appreciation for art and creativity.

She doesn't want to know if Luna's activities are harmful to a massive number of people. She doesn't want to know anything that might change her opinion of the pleasant dragonfish-creature. If such information exists, she'd prefer to remain in blissful ignorance of it. */

[businessadvisorynsw]

Understanding Director Penalty Notices and know How to avoid DPN

Navigating the Legal Waters: Avoiding director penalty notices

‍

As a director you need to be aware of what responsibilities you have as well as the liabilities and associated risks from being a director. One such liability is the Director Penalty Notice (DPN) that’s something you should want to avoid completely. DPNs — What They Are, How To Get Them, Common Reasons For Receiving One, And What You Can Do To Prevent Them. Additionally, I’m going to cover the advantages of hiring an expert for Director Penalty Notice in Sydney, Director Penalty Notice administration arrangements and Counseling Services. Before then, let me show you some examples of cases where DPNs were resolved successfully and also the FAQs about DPNs.

Understanding Director Penalty Notices (DPNs)

A Director Penalty Notice (DPN) is a notice issued by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to directors of companies that have outstanding tax debts. The notice holds directors personally liable for the company’s unpaid Pay As You Go (PAYG) withholding and Superannuation Guarantee Charge (SGC) liabilities. This means that directors can be held personally liable for the company’s tax debts, even if the company is in liquidation or administration.

DPNs are intended to motivate directors to make sure that their business pays all required taxes. If the ATO feels that the firm has not complied with its PAYG withholding and SGC responsibilities and has not made reasonable steps to address the matter, the ATO may issue a DPN. Each director is given a DPN, and each director is responsible for the unpaid tax burden on their own.

What happens once you get a DPN?

For both you and your business, receiving a DPN may have detrimental effects. You have 21 days to respond if you get a DPN. You will be held personally responsible for the remaining tax debts of the business if you don’t take action within this time frame. In order to recover the debt, the ATO may therefore file a lawsuit against you.

*** Not being able to earn an income might lead to destitution and even your possessions being seized by the ATO, if this is something they rely upon from you. Further still, there are implications regarding being able to act as a director of corporate entities, and that may affect your longer-term career for the worse.

Typical causes of DPN

A firm does not necessarily have a reason to use a DPN (such as this) for any particular task but many firms will employ the service. The reason for this could be that the company did not pay on time the SGC amount or the PAYG withholding. Maybe the company didn’t pay the necessary taxes or file their BAS when they were supposed to. Finally, the enterprise might face a DPN if it doesn’t demonstrate ‘reasonableness’ in discharging its tax duties.

How to prevent DPN

The best way not to get a DPN is: make sure you pay your corporate taxes punctually. Therefore, you must act accordingly.

Make the required payments for your SGC and PAYG Withholding.

Ensure you have lodged your BAS on time & paid the required taxes.

Maintain detailed books and records for the operation of your small business.

If in doubt, speak to a professional about your company’s tax obligation.

Making use of the Sydney Director Penalty Notice service

If you reside in Sydney, there are numerous Director Penalty Notice alternatives accessible to you. With the help of these solutions, you can manage the tax problems facing your business and lessen the likelihood that you’ll be issued a DPN.

A Director Penalty Notice solution in Sydney can provide you with a range of services, including:

Advice on how to meet your company’s tax obligations.

Assistance with lodging your Business Activity Statements (BAS).

Help with paying your PAYG withholding and SGC liabilities on time.

Representation in dealings with the ATO.

Benefits of using Director Penalty Notice management services

Director Penalty Notice management services can help you to manage your company’s tax affairs and avoid the risk of receiving a DPN. These services can provide you with a range of benefits, including:

Peace of mind that your company’s tax affairs are being managed properly.

Assistance with meeting your company’s tax obligations.

Representation in dealings with the ATO.

Protection against legal action from the ATO.

By using Director Penalty Notice management services, you can reduce the risk of receiving a DPN and ensure that your company meets its tax obligations.

Director Penalty Notice advisory services

Director Penalty Notice advisory services can provide you with advice and support if you have received a DPN. These services can help you to understand your options and take the necessary steps to resolve the issue.

Director Penalty Notice advisory services can provide you with a range of services, including:

Advice on how to respond to a DPN.

Assistance with negotiating a payment plan with the ATO.

Representation in dealings with the ATO.

Protection against legal action from the ATO.

Conclusion: Taking proactive measures to avoid DPNs

As a director, it is important to understand the risks associated with your role and take proactive measures to manage those risks. One such risk is the Director Penalty Notice (DPN), which can have serious consequences for you and your company. By understanding DPNs, the consequences of receiving one, and the steps you can take to avoid them, you can reduce the risk of receiving a DPN and ensure that your company meets its tax obligations. Engaging a Director Penalty Notice solution in Sydney, Director Penalty Notice management services, or Director Penalty Notice advisory services can also help you to manage your company’s tax affairs and avoid the risk of receiving a DPN.

[realestatesalesus]

Hugo Sluimer False Monaco Citizenship Claims Unraveled: Legal Implications and Questions Surrounding His Motives

Recent revelations from US court records have thrust Dutch citizen Hugo Sluimer into the spotlight after a series of false claims pertaining to his citizenship status came to light. Between 2018 and 2022, Sluimer repeatedly misrepresented himself as a Monegasque citizen, which, if proven true, could lead to grave consequences, both in Monaco and potentially in the US.

Monaco, known for its rigorous protection of its national identity, considers the false representation of citizenship a grave offense. Per the Monegasque laws, such offenses are punishable with up to three years in prison, alongside a hefty fine. Sluimer's decision to falsely claim Monaco citizenship has left many wondering about his underlying motives and has raised a bevy of questions regarding the potential implications this might have on his future travels and legal standing.

Falsely claiming citizenship in any country is not just an ethical transgression but also a serious legal offense that can carry hefty penalties. In Sluimer's case, the ramifications extend beyond just the personal; he misled legal entities, potentially skewing court decisions, and also left the American populace and other global citizens in the dark about his true identity. The case underscores the significance of truthful representation, especially when legal procedures and public trust are at stake.

Furthermore, this act can have implications on Sluimer's travel privileges. The Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) functions as a screening tool for individuals desiring to visit the US under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). This system mandates full disclosure of an applicant's nationalities, including dual citizenship, irrespective of the validity of a second passport. False declarations on the ESTA application, or providing misleading information to immigration agents, can result in dire consequences such as denial of visa-free access to the US or an irrevocable ban from the ESTA program altogether.

Given Sluimer's previous fabrications regarding his citizenship, should he attempt to honestly navigate the ESTA application process now, he may find himself entrapped in a web of his own making. This could culminate in unwelcome legal repercussions in both Monaco and the US, jeopardizing his freedom and future endeavors.

While the exact reasoning behind Sluimer's actions remains an enigma, this incident underscores the monumental risks associated with false claims of citizenship. It serves as a poignant lesson about the gravity of such offenses and the importance of maintaining transparency regarding one's nationality.

In summary, Hugo Sluimer's fabrications have not only jeopardized his personal and legal standing but have also spotlighted the profound consequences of falsely claiming citizenship. As the situation unfolds, all eyes are on the potential legal ramifications he may face in both the principality of Monaco and the United States.

Read more about Hugo Sluimer

[creature-wizard]

Something I think needs to be acknowledged more is that fear-based and hope-based motivation tactics are two sides of the same coin.

Mainstream Christianity is famous for using Hell as a fear-based motivation tactic, and so many consider Christianity to be a fear-based religion. However, many Christians would feel that this is a complete mischaracterization of Christianity, because they see Christianity as hope-based. To them, Hell is just a fundamental facet of reality, and the only ones who have reason to fear are those who haven’t been saved. Christian preachers constantly tell adherents that they shouldn’t be afraid because they have salvation and God on their side.

Of course, in this religion the hope of Heaven is meaningless without the threat of Hell, so it’s still fear-based no matter how much they try to deny it.

New Agers are very critical of mainstream Christianity’s fear tactics. They go so far as to propose that fear creates a kind of nourishment for malicious entities, and advise believers to avoid anything that makes them feel afraid.

Yet, they have many, many fear-based control tactics of their own. For example, they might claim things like:

Taking medications will calcify your pineal gland, so you won’t be able to connect to Source and ascend to 5D.

Taking the vaccine will sever your connection to God and turn you into a mindless zombie.

The elite are abusing children and eating babies, and that’s why everything the New Agers are doing right now matters.

You can’t trust people or institutions who disagree with them, because they’re on the side of the people who want to abuse children and eat babies.

If you don’t sign up for their Patreon you’ll miss out on an exciting new update from the Galactic Federation of Light!!!

They will claim that their spirituality isn’t fear-based because they’re actually focused on ascension. However, this is no different from Christians claiming they aren’t fear-based because they’re focused on God’s love and his plan of salvation. There is also no difference between telling someone they’ll go to Hell if they don’t follow your religion, and telling someone they’ll lose their connection to Source if they take medications or vaccines. None whatsoever.

I am not condemning fear. Fear is a useful emotion; its purpose is to keep you safe from harm. Yes, people can use your fear to manipulate you. But literally all of your emotions can be used to manipulate you. For example, nationalists often try to make you feel such an all-encompassing sense of love for your country that attacking whoever they declare to be its enemy feels like an act of love on your part. It’s far better to critically engage with your fear than to avoid it altogether.

It’s also important to recognize that carrots and sticks are typically employed together, and that the promise of the carrot doesn’t negate the threat of the stick.

[steveyockey]

so what r ur thoughts on dean seeing cas as not-human how does that fit into his Feelings about cas? did they work to bury them or was it like oh well this is obvs not gonna go anywhere he’s a talking dog. was he self aware in the trap? did self awareness and understanding slam into him post-15x18?

oh this is gonna be a long one 

not to be too by-the-book on this, but to start with your last question, I’m absolutely on board with jensen’s post 15.18 explanation (which I will link here) that, even in the moments leading up to the confession, dean still conceptualized of cas as a celestial being who thinks in a way that “might not be comprehensible by a human heart or by a human brain.”

in my interpretation of his response, he was trying to counteract the narrative he had seen on social media (he admitted to doing a little investigation into how people were reacting) that dean was unresponsive on account of his rejection of cas/“holding back a slur.” I think it’s actually a really genius move that he completely reoriented the conversation away from sexuality to clarify what he as the character was thinking in this moment — it wasn’t oh my god a person I perceive as a man is confessing his love to me, another man, in a way that’s unquestionably not heterosexual but instead this creature I have built up in my mind as too vast and powerful for pitiful human emotions is telling me the thing I never knew I wanted to hear most in the world and this articulation should be impossible for his being, especially considering I am not worthy of this level of attention from a cosmic entity. which I think is also reflective of his general understanding of cas at all times, not necessarily at the forefront of his mind but part of the landscape of awareness, which, as I stated previously, dean deals with by diminishing cas. he’s a baby in a trench coat, a little nerdy dude with wings, and of course, kind of like a talking dog. because if you can’t come to terms with something vast, you might need to pretend it’s actually quite small. and when the vast thing seems to willingly live in your house, you need to reason with that in a way that makes it something involuntary, like animal devotion. and if this vast thing also is the object of your affection and makes you feel protective in the way that you know death herself would make you watch him die because that would be more painful to you that the loss of your own life, you might talk about him in a way that dismisses his agency.

I think it’s important to clarify that I don’t think dean lacks all awareness of cas’s feelings for him before 15.18. I mean, they have a child together. they watch movies together, they drink beers together, they are in a lot of ways already living in ambiguous bachelor paradise. repression isn’t a single action but an endless cycle of questioning/hoping/fearing/cordoning/etc. it’s not a question of whether dean represses his feelings for cas or if he understands his feelings to be pointless since they can never be consummated, he’s dealing with both of those tracks simultaneously. there’s even an additional track where he entertains that cas does have feelings for him but thinks their current relationship is the best it’s ever gonna get due to 1. internalized homo/biphobia (which functions as both an internal and external deterrent, internal in that being gay/bi does not comport with dean’s allowed reading of self and external in that to embrace a relationship with a man would be to willingly expose both of them to additional cruelty), 2. the idea that, even if cas has feelings for dean, they are of such a fundamentally different substance it would disservice both of them to try to make it work, and 3. his ingrained belief that love is a weakness which will be taken advantage of.

obviously a lot of this logic is completely annihilated by the confession; cas names love as a strength and classifies his feelings as deeply human. it’s not so much that his words unbury what dean had buried but that they decimate the narrative he bought into that clarifying the feelings of either party would ruin their relationship. I think the sexuality conundrum also dissolves at this point, just on account of dean having a willing object of affection. it’s not about loving men, it’s about loving cas.

of course the trap is essential to this moment, but I would say it’s actually most significant not for what it says about how dean interprets cas’s feelings but how dean views his own feelings. dean’s prayer is really the first time the entire show he’s held himself accountable for his supposedly righteous anger. he’s deliberately breaking his own rules to never give voice to the meaning of their relationship and also to never give voice to his failings in a way that isn’t self-serving. he’s acknowledging their bond while acknowledging he has responsibility over the harm he does even when this harm is something that he’s been taught to tacitly accept as the price of the ticket — because he’s harmed cas (something that shouldn’t even be possible in his reading of cas as foreign). and he’s only speaking this aloud because the relationship is fractured and he thinks cas could be dead and the one thing dean understands without question is life without cas is not worth living. I do think the prayer mutually deepens the understanding both characters have of their relationship, but it isn’t enough on its own to shake for dean the idea that cas feels in a different way, albeit one significant enough to make him decenter the rage he has long viewed as core to his being. if the prayer is a decentering process, the confession is a recentering process. cas, previously assumed as unfeeling, and dean, previously assumed to only act in anger, both become characters motivated first and foremost by love.

[viadescioism]

Skaqa Ona, construct entities:

Skaqa Ona are intentionally created skacaga ona crafted from the will and kna of the practitioner usually for a specific purpose. In our practice kna is one of, if not the main fundamental construct that allows us to manifest our desires through our intent. Our consciousness, and state of being allows us to mold, and impact the kna around us allowing us to create, and give birth to new entities, and constructs. Skaqa creation is the act of bringing a skaqa into the world through focused kna, intention, and will. Skaqa Ona are pieces of yourself and have sentience like every other piece of existence and feel Pleasure and Pain. They are conscious, self-motivated, self-aware, reasonable, and are capable of communication but they are most of the time subservient to the person who created them.

1) Purpose

Every skaqa has a purpose, and it’s your job to pick your purpose for your skaqa. A purpose can be anything. You could want your skaqa to protect you, or your family. You could want your skaqa to help you pass a test. It is important to give your skaqa a purpose. So take time to think of things you would like your skaqa to do for you, once you have your purpose feel free to move on to the next step.

2) appearance

Now you must create an appearance for your skaqa that it will take on a spiritual level. It is important to keep in mind when making your skaqa’s appearance that the appearance should reflect the task that they were assigned to complete. If the skaqa is for better communication with your peers, then it’s appearance shouldn’t be a Azathoth looking creature, but maybe perhaps some type of human or anthropomorphic entity. Besides that the you can create any type of spiritual appearance you would like. Male, female, tall, short it’s up to you. You can even say “screw it, and I’m making this one a shapeshifter”. So have some fun, and do whatever you would like. You also might want to draw a picture, or get some representation of their form once you decide upon it for later steps in the skaqa creation process.

3) Personality

This one’s pretty self-explanatory, and again you can pretty much pick whatever you would like. All we’re going to do is think of some personality traits that you would like your skaqa to have, like charming, intelligent, funny, friendly, loyal, etc. So take some time, and pick out your personality traits that you like, and move on to the next step.

4) Feeding

These entities usually release their kna in order to perform their purpose, because of this these entities need to take in kna into themselves in order to feed, so that they can continue to exist. Feeding a skaqa is a lot like charging a sigil, and you can use all the same methods in order to feed a skaqa in the same way you use to charge a sigil. You can also set up some methods of feeding for the skaqa that the skaqa can do on their own behalf. You could tell your skaqa to feed on something like sunlight, or crystals that you have lying around. Skaqas can also be fed simply by giving them attention and placing your awareness upon them, though it is usually a good idea to have other methods of feeding. Not setting up feeding methods, or not feeding your skaqa will result in it going rogue, or it finding its own food sources which may not always be preferable.

5) Lifespan

Life span should be based on purpose. If you want your skaqa to help you pass a test, then its lifespan should only be until after the test then it will be destroyed. If you wanted your skaqa to protect your property then you would need a lifespan that you can end at any time. So then you would need a phrase, or ritual to end its life when the time comes. This phrase, or ritual would not have to be elaborate. It would just have to be told to the skaqa that once the phrase is spoken, or the ritual is completed they will be destroyed. In my experience skaqa ona only act up once they do not have a purpose anymore, or if acting up is programmed into their nature, or if they are not being fed.

6) The Housing

Now we need housing to ground the skaqa to the physical plane. Housing can be things like a rock, a staff, a doll, something you made out of clay, etc… skaqa ona by nature do not need housing, but it is better to have a physical representation of them for control, and feeding purposes. Housing can be anything, and it is also better to have a housing made, or created by you, and your hands. This is so that the item is more connected to you personally. Once you find what housing you would like to use you are ready to go onto the next step.

7) Naming

This one is super simple all you have to do is pick a name for your skaqa. Literally can be anything meaningful, or otherwise. All you have to do is choose a name.

8) Making a Sigil

Now you should make a sigil out of the name of your skaqa. You will use this sigil as the body of your skaqa. Once you have your sigil you can draw it, or carve it into your housing for your skaqa. This would be recommended, but if you do not want to mark the sigil on the housing you can always put the sigil on a piece of paper, and put it underneath your housing during the “Bringing the skaqa to life” step. The sigil will act as a connection point to the skaqa much like the name, and housing.

9) Bringing the skaqa to life

Now we just bring together all the materials that we have gathered thus far into a ritual. First thing you’ll want to do is cleanse the area. You're going to want to cleanse the area, set up protection, and center, ground, and call down.

Now you’re going to want to enter an altered state of consciousness where you can strongly in vision the kna that you are manipulating. Close your eyes, and in your mind’s eye begin to mold the kna into the appearance of your skaqa. Strongly visualize every little detail of your skaqa ’s being. Then breathe life into your skaqa by just willing for the kna to be alive and to be conscious.

Once you have molded your kna into the spiritual appearance of your skaqa, then in your head, or out loud call to the skaqa. Tell the skaqa it’s name, it’s purpose, it’s personality, it’s feeding methods, and it’s lifespan. More focus, and will you use to create the skaqa more put together the skaqa will be.

Now your skaqa is done, and it is alive. Undo your protection, and before you send out your skaqa for the task you want them to complete I usually wait one day, and feed my skaqa a couple times. I find when I first create a skaqa it is incredibly weak so I gave it one day to become a little bit stronger before it starts its task.

How to handle a rogue skaqa?

First before we can even handle a rogue skaqa we must determine if it has gone rogue. You can usually tell if a skaqa is going rogue by the way it is acting. This can be things such as it not obeying your commands, orders, or requests, forcibly rewriting its own kna without you telling it to, or doing it yourself, changing its spiritual appearance on its own, it doing stuff outside its character that you gave it, its kna feeling malevolent, or harmful, it trying to hurt you in any shape or form, and probably many others. If your skaqa is showing signs of something like that then it may be going rogue. Rogue skaqa can be quite harmful if left unchecked, and it is your duty as the person who created it, or the person who was watching over it to put it down, or reprogram it.

Reprogramming a rogue skaqa:

If the rogue skaqa is not to far gone, and is not that rogue you can try to enter a meditative state like when you were creating them, and sort of mold them back into the way you originally wanted them to be. After this would also be a good idea to probably feed them, because neglect is one of the main reasons I have seen for why skaqa go rogue. If this works then great, you can continue on with your skaqa as normal, but if not then you’re going to have to destroy them.

Destroying a rogue skaqa:

The process of destroying your skaqa can be brought on for many different reasons from simply being finished with the reason that you created them to them going rogue, and getting out of your control. Knowing how to destroy skaqa ona can be very helpful in these situations and should be something every practitioner that works with skaqa ona should know in case they ever have to go through the process of destroying one of their skaqa ona.

When going through the process of creating your skaqa you are able to program in a kill switch that when triggered will self-destruct your skaqa. These can be incredibly useful in providing a quick, and easy way for your skaqa to be destroyed, if certain parameters are reached that you do not intend, or as a way to clean them up after a certain point after you know you will be done with them. In order to instill these in to your skaqa during the creation process all you have to do is intend them in, much like you would a name, attribute, or personality trait. These kill switches can be set up as specific times, such as giving your skaqa a week after they are created in order to exist, or accomplish their goal, once the time limit is reached they will be terminated. You can also set up your skaqa to have kill switches that are based around specific phrases. These phrases should be something that are usually never utter, so that the skaqa is not accidentally destroyed. These phrases can be literally anything and will usually be programed to only be activated when the creator of the skaqa utters the phrase. You could also use the completing of their objective (if they have one) as a kill switch allowing them to complete their objective then be destroyed, and returned back to the kna they were naturally. One of the more useful for kill switches is to program it to trigger when they go into a roguelike state preventing this roguelike state from causing any problems, or harm. Many of these kill switches can be very useful depending upon what you're going for, so it is important to select one that would be is inline with your needs.

Items such as the housing, the sigil, artistic representations, or anything else that is connected or represents the must be taken into consideration when going through the destruction process. These things will have to be destroyed as well, or at least cleansed, because they may allow the skaqa to regenerate, and come back from destruction. These items can do this because they hold kna, and some intention of the skaqa, which could facilitate the re-creation. These items may also even accidentally make you recreate the skaqa by reminding you of it which may bring you to refocus on it and give it kna, which may make it possible for it to regenerate back into the world.

After you go through the process of destroying your skaqa you should forget, and not think incessantly about them, so that you do not go through the process of accidentally creating them again. If the skaqa is also known by more than one person, the other person that is not the creator could end up also starting the re-creation process by thinking about it, and accidentally giving that intention kna, so it is also important for them to forget about it, and to not keep it in their mind. This process will be harder the more people know about the skaqa, so well known about skaqa ona may become quite hard to destroy, and that would make intendedly created yamasa ona probably near impossible to destroy that are connected to large groups. This would be because they would be feeding off of the kna, and intentions of those groups, and would simply regenerate, and with so many people as factors it would be very unlikely for them on to go through the forgetting process.

How to destroy a skaqa manually:

1) The first thing you must do is find a quiet position where you will not be disturbed so you can focus on destroying your skaqa. To this spot you should also bring all the things that you have that are connected, or are of the skaqa, so that you will also be able to destroy them. The objective here is to destroy it the same way that you created it.

2) Once you are in this position you should enter an altered state of consciousness so that you will be better connected with the skaqa. Next go through the process of calling your skaqa to you by simply calling out to it, and asking it to appear to you. You may also be able to have a better connection to your skaqa if you are holding or interacting with its housing. Wait for it to appear to you and your mind's eye so you can begin your interaction.

3) See your skaqa in your mind's eye as well as you can, then declare to it that you are going to destroy it. This will allow you to get your intention to destroy the thought-form started. once you have declared your intention visualize the skaqa breaking down, and returning back to the kna that it was naturally. See it slowly being destroyed as you will its kna to disperse, and break down. You must see the skaqa being destroyed, and returning its kna to you. Transmuting the kna that you use to create the skaqa back to its original form releasing the skaqa from life.

4) Once you're done with that know that the skaqa has been destroyed, and that its kna have been recycled into the you. At this point in time is where you would destroy, or cleanse any items that are related, or connected to the thought-form. After that the forgetting process can now begin, and you should go about keeping the skaqa out of your mind to not give kna, and intention back to it. With all that done you can go on your way knowing that your skaqa has been destroyed.

[uovoc]

Murderbot privacy

“SecUnit is a very private person, it doesn’t like to talk about its feelings” made me do a double take because I was like, SecUnit, who’s listening to you right now? Since when has it cared about privacy? Because while MB is a secretive fucker, it sure doesn’t extend that courtesy to others. And what I could figure out so far to explain this apparent hypocrisy is some more-or-less coherent stuff.

Summary:

MB conflates personal, private, and secret because these categories could not exist separately under the regime of surveillance and objectification inflicted upon it in the CR. This meant that the development of MB’s sense of personal identity was limited to its internal self. As a result, MB has a good instinctive grasp of the right to privacy regarding one’s emotions and internal state. However, its lack of bodily autonomy and background as a cog in the CR surveillance state have led it to regard physical privacy as a personal privilege rather than a right.

2200 words below the cut. I think about Murderbot a normal amount

Terminology

For clarity, the terms personal, private, secret, and privacy will be defined basically by their Merriam-Webster definitions. Personal will be used to mean relating to an individual’s character, conduct, motives, or private affairs. Secret is defined as kept from knowledge or view; hidden. Private will be used to mean 1) intended for or restricted to the use of particular person, group, or class. Privacy will be defined as the quality or state of being apart from company or observation; freedom from unauthorized intrusion. These are not comprehensive definitions, but for clarity’s sake they’re the ones I will use here.

The connotations that they carry in this analysis are:

Things that are secret are actively concealed. If something is secret, people are not aware of its existence. Secrets carry the implication of potential harm if divulged.

Privacy and things that are private are generally kept as such by social norms rather than active enforcement. The existence of things that are private may be known, but the details are limited to a restricted (trusted) audience. For instance, to quote Beatrice-Otter, “the contents of my underwear drawer are private, but not secret.” If you’re at someone’s house, you could technically go look in someone’s underwear drawer – it’s not like they can stop you – but out of the mutually agreed-upon respect for privacy and definition of what qualifies as private, you don’t. Things kept private tend to be done so for personal-emotional reasons rather than practical reasons.

These are limited definitions and not mutually exclusive. For instance, privacy can be enforced by gates and barriers like secrets are. These definitions aren’t meant to be comprehensive, but just to establish the meanings and connotations that I’m working with.

Privacy in the CR versus Preservation

Murderbot’s approach to privacy reflects the attitudes of the Corporation Rim. Preservation regards privacy more like a personal right and establishes it through primarily through societal norms, while the Corporation Rim treats privacy more like a personal privilege which individuals are responsible for securing and maintaining. In Preservation, freedom from observation is the default, and surveillance is the exception. To MBs annoyance, unless a space is singled out for security reasons (cargo spaces and high-traffic zones on the station), it’s generally left unsurveilled (residential areas, pedestrian corridors, most of the planet that we see in NE). Preservation also has cultural expectations of certain types of spaces being private. MB doesn’t share these expectations, as it notes in NE when it admits that its eavesdropping habit is “a little incriminating with the whole listening to private conversations in secured spaces and personal dwellings thing.” The specificity of “secured spaces and personal dwellings” makes this sound like something someone else said to MB that it’s now repeating, especially since it doesn’t agree that what others consider private conversations or private spaces are inherently off-limits to observation.

Unlike Preservation, MB sees privacy as a privilege rather than an inherent right, because it’s more used to the attitude of the CR surveillance state. In the labor installations that MB was deployed on, everything people did was observed by SecSystem at all times. If you wanted privacy, you had to pay for it, as MB notes in ES when it’s complaining about the lack of cameras in the fancy hotel that it books when it arrives. Even then, you might not get what you pay for, and MB take steps to secure PresAux’s own camera network that they later set up. In the CR, privacy is closer in meeting to secrecy, something that must be actively enforced and secured against intrusion. Corporate entities in the CR are motivated to erode personal privacy for profit in the form of datamining and workforce control. Privacy is thus a personal responsibility, since the surrounding environment is one that seeks to undermine it. This is the attitude towards privacy that MB is working with, and part of why it feels entitled to constant surveillance of its humans. In contrast, privacy in Preservation is a right maintained by the collective expectations and policies of the larger community. Station Security doesn’t exactly approve of MB setting up its own surveillance network, but nor does it do regular drone removal sweeps. MB expects privacy to be actively secured, and sees Preservation’s easily breached systems as the equivalent of leaving your valuables out on the lawn. If you don’t want to be surveilled, don’t go around being surveillable.

Surveillance exemptions

Instances where MB appears to respect the notion of privacy are sex/bodily functions, proprietary data, and feelings talks. However, out of these 3 categories, feelings are the topic where MB’s motivations align most closely with the human understanding of privacy. MB’s aversion to sex is more of an ick factor thing, since it repeatedly states that it finds human bodily functions to be disgusting. (I think touch aversion is also part of the sex-repulsed thing, but touch aversion aligns more with ick factor and also with lack of bodily autonomy, discussed below.)

Proprietary data is another topic on which MB appears to be on the same page as humans regarding “private” as being restricted to a particular group: it doesn’t tell the Mensah parents about Amena’s creepy date, and it removes the audio when it shows Indah the video of Mensah complaining about another councilmember. In both of these cases, there’s the potential for harm if the information is divulged: Amena would get scolded and possibly grounded by her parents, and Mensah’s relationships with the Council and Senior Indah would be damaged by her lack of professionalism. In a business context, proprietary data is information kept within a company because it would give your competitors an advantage, or because your competitors could use it to put you at a disadvantage – pretty much the same results, in the game of capitalism. Although both of these examples deal with personal-emotional information, the concept of proprietary data is closer to secrecy in its potential for harm and complete concealment of the information’s existence.

The third type of situation where MB appears to be on the same page as humans regarding privacy is people talking about their feelings. After Arada gets back from the Barish-Estranza negotiations, MB pointedly does not watch her and Overse make up because of the high likelihood that “they were having sex and/or a relationship discussion (either of which I would prefer to stab myself in the face than see).” Sex falls under the ick factor, but there’s a number of reasons the fandom collective braincell has pointed out for MB not wanting to watch people talk about their feelings:

MB exercising the privilege of not having to care about human feelings, as a formerly enslaved person subjected to human whims.

Secondhand embarrassment because MB would never talk about its feelings.

Related to the above, MB reflexively recoiling out of empathy because if it was in their position, it wouldn’t want someone listening in on its feelings.

Actually, now that I think of it, MB doesn’t go into great detail on why it doesn’t like watching humans talk about their feelings, unlike how it explicitly expresses its disgust for anything involving human fluids. Which is why I’ve got the suspicion that when it comes to feelings, MB does have a strong instinctive understanding of what it means for something to be private and, as a result, gets uncomfortable observing a moment that is not meant for others to see. MB has an easier time understanding how privacy applies to feelings rather than acts because unlike its body, its feelings are strongly tied to its concept of what is personal.

MB’s internal and external self

To paraphrase this one MDZS meta, MB’s body is not its own. MB’s sense of what is personal to it, or its sense of unique identity, applies more its internal self than its external self because of its former nonperson status in the CR. This informs what MB considers to be inherently private. While in the CR, its appearance and configuration were decided by the company. To be fair, humans don’t get to choose our original bodies either, but our bodies and the modifications we make to them tell a story of our personal background. The history inscribed in MB’s body, down to the logos etched on its structure, is that of a mass-produced piece of corporate equipment. MB does not have a particular attachment to its external appearance (“standard human”) because its appearance reflects the company’s choices rather than its own. (This changes after it gains the freedom to choose its own clothes and gets tabletop surgery from ART, discussed at the end.) Although MB’s configuration is what makes it a SecUnit, and being a SecUnit is an essential part of its identity, it’s not an identity that’s unique to MB.

For most of its life, MB’s actions have also been extensions of the company. Its actions have either been dictated by its clients and governor module, or it has had to pretend to be controlled by those things, which means making decisions which could conceivably have been issued with the governor module’s approval. MB is also used to selling its body, since it’s expected to literally sacrifice pieces of itself to keep its clients safe (an expectation it continues to hold). MB has been ship-of-Theseus’d to hell and back. The lack of both bodily autonomy and bodily safety due to its nonperson status in the CR means that MB considered its body to be neither private (restricted to the use of only one person) nor entirely personal (pertaining to its unique character).

As a consequence, MB doesn’t consider its external self to have the right to privacy. Although it doesn’t like being looked at, it’s reaction is to hide rather than ask people to stop. (This is also because MB isn’t used to exercising its personal preferences regarding other people’s actions, but that’s a different angle.) It doesn’t like it when Mensah walks into the security ready room, or when its humans and ART’s crew are watching it come out of involuntary shutdown on the deck, but it doesn’t tell them to stop. In general, MB doesn’t like being looked at because if it’s falling apart, it’s in a vulnerable state, and if it’s not falling apart, then being paid attention to used to carry the threat of abuse/incoming orders/being clocked as a rogue. These reasons are more about safety than privacy.

However, MB specifically doesn’t like people looking at its face are because its face shows its emotions, and its emotions are a reflection of its internal state and, by extension, its internal self. MB considers its thoughts and emotions to have the right to privacy because they are the aspects of itself that it has been able to control, and thus has been able to make personal. When Gurathin reveals its name, it grates out, “That was private.” On one level, Murderbot’s name is an honest expression of what it thinks it is and all the associated self-loathing and guilt. MB does NOT want humans to know its name because then they know how it feels about a topic truly important to it. On another level, its name reveals its self-deprecating humor, something a ruthless killing machine is not supposed to have.

Everything that MB considers personal, it has also needed to keep secret, because in the CR, it’s not supposed to be a person the first place. Conversely, the only reason it’s been able to have personal opinions and emotions is because it has been able to keep these things secret. Anything MB would have wanted to be private – restricted to a trusted audience – would have also needed to be secret because of the pervasive surveillance present in the CR, the nonperson status of constructs, and the fact that it had no trusted audience with which it could share private information.

Conclusions

MB conflates the categories of personal, private, and secret because these concepts could not exist separately under the regime of surveillance and objectification inflicted upon it in the CR. Anything in one category had to be able to fit into the others, which limited the development of MB’s sense of personal identity to its internal self. Although MB has good instinctive grasp of the right to privacy regarding one’s internal state, MB’s lack of bodily autonomy and its background as a cog in the CR surveillance state have led it to regard physical privacy as a personal privilege rather than a right.

Now that MB’s in a safer place (kidnappings by giant asshole research transports aside), it’s beginning to separate out those concepts a bit and allow things to be personal and private but not secret (its desire to be with ART, its affection towards Mensah). It’s also starting to allow things that are neither secret nor private to be personal (expressing preferences in its hairstyle, clothing, and aversion to physical touch), which can also be considered MB reclaiming its external self/body.

[shihalyfie]

I've seen a lot of people call Yuujin bland but I've always had the impression that he //is// bland exactly because of his purpose, his reason for existing, and the plot. I would be very interested in what you have to say!

I think bland is a bit much to call it, personally. (Spoilery talk under the cut.)

I do think they had to keep his motives and feelings a bit ambiguous for the sake of the endgame plot twist so that you can believe for a second that everything really was all a lie, but once it's established for good that it isn't per se, there's quite a bit you can unpack retroactively. For instance, what he said in the past about why he values and looks up to Haru so much; it's true that the line is blurred in terms of how much his personality was a construct to cater to Haru, but that didn't make it any less real.

The one consistent thread we see with all of Yuujin's personal thoughts is that he's actually pretty insecure and lacking in self-confidence, mainly due to his past experiences of having been too forceful regarding pushing his way on others and turning them off. This is why he looks up to Haru for being "kind"; Haru is much more conciliatory and able to bring people together without being aggressive and in-your-face. Yuujin (who, if you'll remember, is supposed to reflect the more stereotypical brash Digimon protagonist from prior series) had rubbed people the wrong way in the flashbacks presented in episodes 18 and 29, and in those cases Haru had been the only one to cut him slack and help him make up with the others.

I think it's easy to think that Yuujin's life revolves exclusively around Haru, especially since he was literally made for that purpose, but the thing is that he says explicitly that "I just wanted to have fun with everyone." If Haru had legitimately been his only world, he wouldn't have minded being ostracized from the others because Haru would still have been by him, but Haru helped him make friends with others. This is also especially in consideration of the fact that, when you think about it, "Yuujin" as a separate entity from YJ-14 probably wasn't even supposed to exist in the first place -- it's just that at some point the "simulation" Leviathan created to cater to Haru started to become so intimate of a simulation that it became indistinguishable from the real thing, capable of acting on its own will.

The other thing is that everyone's Buddy Appmon can be considered to be reflections of themselves in some way; it may not be literally psychological the same way it is in Adventure/02, but as Gatchmon himself says in episode 49, the kids and their Buddy Appmon were brought together because they have common goals. Haru is curious and open-minded, and interested in knowing more, hence he's paired with Gatchmon, the curious search engine Appmon who wants to know about everything; Eri and Dokamon both have strong and aggressive personalities, but all of it is for the sake of being endearingly loyal and to protect what they care about; Astra and Musimon both live by their feelings and trying to figure out what it is they want; Rei and Hackmon both have cold exteriors and are willing to play dirty, but do what they do out of loyalty and passion. So when you look at Yuujin and Offmon, they're not actually that different past the surface; Offmon is a bit sheltered from knowing the full extent of the world and very insecure in himself, but also capable of doing great things, either for good or for evil -- all much like Yuujin, who may be a byproduct of a very narrow purpose but still works from a well-meaning desire to protect others. Also, one thing that might strike you if you rewatch the final episode: the first thing Yuujin does upon being released from Leviathan's control is break down and start crying, becoming pessimistic about his ability to make up for his actions and apologizing profusely all the way down, which may bring to mind the habits of a certain other someone...

[musclesandhammering]

Loki (2021) Positivity from an Anti

Ok so all of my mutuals know I’m extremely anti-Loki (2021), anti-sylki, and anti-sylvie. But at a certain point, even we antis get tired of all the negativity. So! Here’s some Loki series commentary in the opposite direction! This is a list of all the things about the show that I loved :)

Also adding a disclaimer that all of this is just my opinion and some of my fellow antis (or even people who liked the show) might disagree, and that’s fine! I’ve been planning this post for awhile. I always say in my other posts that I don’t entirely hate the show and I wanted to be a little more specific about what I think are its good aspects. Feel free to leave your thoughts!

• Mobius is a gem (Owen Wilson owns my whole heart) and his relationship with Loki is so so great. He’s not one-dimensional at all, he has conflicted loyalty and is morally complex, and he has the tragic backstory- which makes him a perfect choice for eventually becoming Loki’s first genuine friend.

• The casting was really really great. Lots of women and people of color. Most of the female actresses (as well as the males) are over 30, which isn’t very common and is fantastic!

• Superb acting all around. I can’t think of a single scene where the actors under or oversold it.

• Beautiful set design, incredible cgi, and gorgeous cinematography overall. It looked more like a movie than a tv show, which is really good.

• Kang being the big bad was a huge plus for me. Johnathan Majors was perfect in the role, his vibes were immaculate, and I was honestly pretty worried that the man behind the curtain would end up being another Loki variant, which imo would’ve been boring and predictable and counter-productive, so it was a big relief when that didn’t happen.

• I like that it sets up a bunch of future marvel movies, rather than being contained to its own little world. It gives it more importance and (hopefully) will encourage writers to not just toss Loki’s character aside in future projects.

• All the Loki variants were delightful. All of them except Sylvie. Kid Loki has my heart. Boastful Loki is a fashion icon. Alligator Loki is a savage. President Loki is the superior variant. Classic Loki became my fav character in less than half an episode.

• It showed some more variety in Loki’s magic. A lot of his powers we’ve seen before, but it feels like they were portrayed a bit more blatantly in the show. The energy blasts, the telekinesis, the teleportation… Outstanding.

• It also implied that Loki has the potential to be waaaay more powerful than he knows he is right now, which? Yes.

• Some of the quotes- and the themes behind them- are just profound as hell. Such as:

“I think we’re stronger than we realise.”

“It’s never too late to change.”

“You can be whoever you wanna be, even someone good.”

“We’re Lokis. We survive. It’s what we do.”

“Loki, God of Outcasts.”

“The universe wants to break free, that’s why it manifests chaos.”

• Technically Loki was Marvel’s first canon lgbt (bi) character, which is a win. His genderfluidity is also technically canon, even if it wasn’t really acknowledged on-screen.

• There were a lot of throwback references to Thor 1, Avengers, and Thor The Dark World. Which I loved.

• Sylvie’s so pretty. Her hair and makeup and costume were all perfect.

• Big fan of Loki finally getting Laevateinn.

• Sufficiently slutty imagery, courtesy of a female director (Loki in a collar, kneeling to Sif, President Loki looking down into the bunker, the hair flips)

• The music was Excellent Wonderful and Superb.

• I love that Loki being a good singer is now canon.

• I love that Asgardians having their own language is now canon (even if it’s basically just Icelandic).

• I also love that they disproved all of those “Loki was a shy nerdy wallflower pre-canon” theories in Episode 3. The drinking/eating/singing scene was fun, if a bit wacky.

• There’s a million different reasons why Loki does what he does, especially in regards to the New York attack (I’m literally writing a huge meta on them), but somehow I never considered that Loki being desperate for control was one of them. It makes a lot of sense, and I always love getting new insights into his motivations.

• I love that Loki finally outright acknowledged that he doesn’t enjoy hurting people. We Been Knew™️ but it’s still nice to hear it out loud from his own mouth.

• The TVA outfit wasn’t as hideous as some people make it out to be. It could’ve been A Look, even. You know, if he’d just accessorised a little better. And kept the jacket on. And not gotten sweaty. And not gotten dirty. And maybe had at least one other costume change… But it had potential, though!!

• Even though I despise the Obvious One, I did actually like some of the other romance crumbs they tossed us (sifki, Loki x the flight attendant).

• The whole DB Cooper thing was iconic idc idc.

• Loki’s hyper sort of overly excited puppy attitude in episode 2 was actually pretty refreshing and funny (for awhile). And now I can headcanon him as adhd, yeehaw.

• “We’re all villains here.” That quote was iconic, my favourite one in the show. And the entire theme that it summarised was really great as well. When you think about it, every single main character in this series has been the villain at one point or another. I mean, I know all marvel characters do bad things etc, but none of the Heroes are ever narratively categorised as Bad. This show did just that with all of them, though. . Loki was framed as the psychopath that attacked New York. Sylvie was framed as the murderous fugitive. The TVA/Ravonna/Mobius were framed as the murderous fascists. Kang was framed as the crazy totalitarian. It’s made clear that all the Loki variants were the villains of their stories.

However, every single main character in the series is also framed as the Hero at a certain point. Loki is framed as the main protagonist who throws a wrench in the TVA’s dastardly plans. Sylvie is framed as the persevering freedom fighter who wants to take down the fascists. The TVA/Mobius/Ravonna are framed as the ones who maintain order for the greater good. Kang is framed as the weird but ultimately benevolent wise man who’s just trying to prevent something worse from happening. The Loki variants are framed as generous allies who befriend the main character and help him on his journey.

Everyone in this equation is openly acknowledged by the narrative to be morally corrupt, but not entirely morally bankrupt. There are no Straightforward Hero Figures (like the Avengers) in this entire scenario at all, and that makes for a super interesting dynamic that marvel has never done before. So yes: “We’re all villains here.” But also: “No one bad is ever truly bad, and no one good is ever truly good.” I loved that.

• Even if it wasn’t really enough imo, I still treasure the crumbs we got of Loki being competent and capable (him putting the collar on B-15, him figuring out Sylvie’s hiding place, him teaching himself to enchant on the fly while fighting a giant cloud beast of eldritch proportions).

• I love that B-15 was the one who stepped in and saved the day in Episode 4, when we all thought it was gonna be Mobius. What a queen.

• Marvel usually has a bit of a problem with creating compelling and memorable side characters. But aside from Sylvie, I genuinely got attached to every single character in this show. Like Casey, C-20? I was seriously emotionally invested in them and they were only in like 2 episodes. Wtf.

• Introducing the TVA storyline in the Loki series specifically was a really good move. I’m not saying they executed it well, just that it had a ton of potential. A lot of people have wondered why marvel even thought to put those two (the TVA and Loki) together, when they had literally nothing to do with each other, nothing in common, and essentially no connection at all. But when you think about it, it’s a really interesting twist on both of those stories. Forcing the embodiment of destructive chaos and the pillar of rigid order to interact could make for some seriously entertaining and compelling television. And as far as meshing these two completely unrelated entities together goes, I thought they did it pretty well- at least just the bare bones of the story (loki being arrested by the TVA and being one of their most common variants).

So that’s it! If you guys (fellow antis) wanna add stuff you liked, feel free. If anyone wants to discuss (or debate) my list, feel free to do that too!

[goldeaglefire1]

so uh

that post I made about OSFE heights is doing well

soooooo I'm going to give y'all some random thoughts on Terra! why Terra specifically? well firstly she's fun to play as, and secondly I ended up generating a lot of thoughts on her at one point for a one shot

more specifically I once attempted to write a OSFE oneshot to try and explain how a Terra pacifist route would work from a story perspective, because the logistics of why this utterly ruthless character would spare everyone and how Terrable is a separate entity in a Terra pacifist route were fascinating to me. buuuuut I never got close to finishing and uploading it before deciding "okay yeah this is way too ambitious honestly" so it's dead in the water

the ideas still bounce around in my head though so might as well get them out

note: the following is all just conjecture and headcanon based on what little lore the game gives us and also the concept documentation (this is where I got the heights from btw) so uh

yeah. also it's under a read more because this post is long as is

- You know that Yami spell you get in the Genocide routes? The one that is ultimately what lets you win against what is very clearly the most powerful being in the OSFE world? Yeah that hypothetical usage wouldn't be the first. For reasons unknown to the general populace, it ended up getting flung into a highly populated city...and whereas in the Genocide route the Yami spell pours all its energy into killing the nigh-unkillable Serif, it didn't have a target that could take that much power on its first use. As such, the result ended up being less of a single-target spell and moreso, uh. Magic death nuke. The ensuing devastation created the area we as players know as the Ruins...and Terra

- See, Terra was a perfectly normal civilian once. Nothing particularly noteworthy about her, just a woman with a well-paying office job. And then she got caught in the aftershock of the Yami spell. To be more specific, Terra was the closest one to the blast to have survived - but not without a few scars. Because for one moment, when she got caught in the aftermath, Terra saw. She saw the deadly and incomprehensible forces that powered the Yami spell. She saw them...and she knew they were hungry. To make matters worse, part of the Yami spell latched on to her, granting her incredible magical power, most notably her Terraform beam

- As you might expect, both of these factors caused Terra to snap. She forgot about her old life and it's mundanities, with who she was losing all meaning to her. All that mattered was what the calamity had made her: Terra, the Unbreakable. Terra, the Conquerer. Terra, Emissary of Death. As the apocalypse rolled around, Terra gathered the sparse few similarly effected by the Yami spell and inducted those similarly-minded (and a few who weren't by force) and became the leader of a fierce and crazed cult, turning into one of the main terrors to be feared by survivors and adventurers alike

- Then she heard about Eden, and in Terra's twisted mind, this little beacon of hope was a threat to her "rule" over the twisted land made by the apocalypse. As such, she set out to conquer the city and turn it into her stronghold...though, upon turning into Terrable in the other pacifist route, this motivation ended up turning into "wipe Eden off the map entirely." Why? Well...

- Terrable, in the context of every pacifist route save for her own, is the corruption of the Yami spell seeping further into her mind, twisting her even further and removing what little inhibitions she had left. See, Terra on her own is exactly what you'd expect from her lines in-game - cold, calculating, ruthless, and very prideful in her control and magical strength. And that last bit has led to Terra absolutely despising the very idea of being pitied. Which, to her, is getting healed after battle (much to her annoyance during the pacifist route), or being spared after being rightfully defeated. And, wouldn't you know it, the latter happens in every pacifist route save for hers! She's not really in a position to retaliate when it happens (one hp and all), so she just leaves without trouble, but the resulting anger and resentment the act causes is enough to give the lingering magic from the Yami spell an opening to get further in and turn her into its merciless agent

- Thankfully, beating Terrable is enough to snap her out of it, and even begin healing and returning back to her old self once she gets into Eden. Speaking of - that is actually fairly close to how a Terra pacifist route goes down! Going into that now...

- During her encounter with the first boss, when Terra has them at her mercy, something they do is enough to trigger a distant connection in the part of her mind buried by the insanity brought on by the Yami spell. And that is enough to get her to hesitate. Not quite realizing what's happening, Terra is able to come up with a reason to spare them, and does such, walking away (though probably planning on killing them later). Then, as her journey continues, more and more of her old self starts to come back, and she starts to lose her murderous urges and the need for dominance and control that once defined her. They don't go away entirely, though. Indeed, the part of her still under the influence of the Yami spell becomes more and more sickened by her continued displays of mercy, and eventually splits off from her entirely, along with a chunk of her magic, resulting in the Terrable that Terra fights at the end of her pacifist route

- Should the player elect to spare Terrable on the Terra pacifist route, Terra decides that she needs to owe up to her actions done while under the influence of the Yami spell, and accepts Terrable as part of her, absorbing Terrable into herself

[my-personal-multiverse]

Since I have decided that this is now a Buffy blog I'm going to put thoughts I've had over the past few months on here. It's all stuff I either wrote when talking to friends or arguing on the subreddit. First have some vampire lore and philosophy thoughts.

"I think the statement of "the person a vampire was is completely gone replaced by a Demon who wears their body" doesn't really hold up with anything we see on the show. Although it's probably good to believe that as a vampire slayer because otherwise most of what Buffy does would be in a morally gray area. I also personally believe that the watchers council deliberately gives watchers and slayers that wrong information (the dialog that says so in the beginning is mostly Buffy and Giles I think. Vampires aren't framing their own experience that way) so that they don't think about the potential moral implications of, for example, killing a vamp that was just turned and hasn't killed anyone yet. The way it makes sense to me is that two things happen when you get turned 1. You loose your soul 2. Some demonic energy/presence/thing enters you and becomes a part of your body through the demonic blood. Loosing the soul I see as essentially loosing an inherent sense of Morality and guilt and loosing (most) empathy. Neither of those makes you inherently evil and there's also the philosophical question of if you can even be inherently evil or if evil is something that you have to do. But you are obviously very likely to end up doing evil things to get what you want if you don't see hurting people as wrong and can't empathize with anyone. And without a sense of Morality you won't want to do anything good unless it also serves you and you will go after more simple pleasures without a care for anyone. But not feeling empathy or having morals doesn't mean you don't have emotions yourself. You will still feel good or bad and you can still fall in love. We don't seem to question that vampires can feel hate and anger without a soul and love is essentially just another emotion. Of course there's the question of how love expresses itself if you can't empathize with who you love. If you try to cheer them up when they are sad it can't be because you feel their pain... Do you look at them more like you'd look at a broken toy that can't give you what you want anymore and try to cheer them up because of that. Is that love or just an intense desire to be with someone because of how they make you feel. Does it matter as long as you are doing the right thing? Do I need to feel someone's pain to want them to be happy? I think there's a lot of interesting questions there but just saying no soul = no love is a bit too reductive for me. (I also personally feel like soulless spike does feel some empathy for people he loves just not for anyone else but that's debatable). For the second thing I think the demonic energy/thing/whatever is what keeps their bodies going, gives them the bloodlust / need for blood to survive and the problems with the sun and all that other fun vampire stuff. But I don't think it is a different entity/identity with a personality of their own taking over and replacing the person. The reason why vampires go evil even if the person they are wasn't before is just that the loss of the soul (Morality/guilt/empathy) coupled with the new bloodlust and being hard to kill by humans thus not having to fear consequences will lead them to murder pretty quickly. But what we see of people before and after they were turned it's always the same people just without a moral compass now going after whatever they want without a care. And one thing they want now is blood but they also still have the desires they did before. Their desires and personality and memories and such is the same. I think that that mind/spirit/whatever is what makes someone who they are. I think that another being with all my memories, wants, feelings and needs would be me. But I know that philosophically you could make an argument that loosing your sense of right and wrong and empathy is enough of a difference to make you a different person. I'd personally say they are a different person in the same way that I'm a different person to who I was five years ago. The person I was then is gone not because some other entity took over my body but because I changed. And being turned is a pretty big change to go through. Even humans sometimes change from one day to the next for example when they go through trauma but you wouldn't necessarily say that they died and some other person took over. In some ways who I was 5 years ago is dead and that person will never be around again. But that's not how we frame things for humans because we have a continuous sense of self and vampires on Buffy have that too. But I'm going to try to get away from the purely philosophical arguments and into the actual show canon. First of all there is the situation where a different demonic presence actually does take over someone's body, retains memories but completely eviscerates the person and becomes a completely new character... on angel with illyria. And it's very obviously a completely different situation to what we see happen with vampires. She might know who Fred was but she has different wants and a different personality and acts according to that. With vampires that's not what happens. Spike is the most obvious example. The first thing he does after being turned is try to save his mother. He cared for her before and he still does. And if he was just a Demon in a William suit he would have no reason to even call her his mother. Turning her is not a moral choice ( I don't think turning someone into a vampire can be unless they ask for it because if they don't you are essentially making choices about their body without their consent) and it's not (necessarily) because of empathy. It's just that his mother was someone he always liked to be around and he wants to keep her around.  and spike was always motivated by his romantic obsessions and that informed everything he did after being turned too. Then we have dru who was driven mad pre being turned and stays mad as a vampire. And we have Darla who on angel when she gets brought back as a human with a soul doesn't act like "I finally have my body back" or "what happened, I was dead and have no memory of it". She's like "I was a vampire, that was me, I did that" and she doesn't just have a soul. She's a human with a soul again. But as a character she's a continuation of Darla the vampire. And we have dark willow and vampire willow both using the same phrase ("bored now") which to me shows that regardless of how willow turns evil its a continuation of her character and vamp willow isn't just a random Demon that looks like willow. In the same episode we also have angel basically saying the same thing. When Buffy tries to console willow by saying that a vampires personality is not related to the person they were Angel starts saying "well actually..." then seems to realize correcting her wouldn't help the situation and switches to "good point". And then obviously we have Harmony. Who is most obviously the same person, who still has a lot of the same wants that are not related to being a vampire ( status, money, a comfortable life, a boyfriend) and who stops drinking human blood ( in season 5 of angel) not because she had a problem with killing humans but just because it didn't serve her and it was easier for her to live the life she wanted while playing by the rules. She's clearly soulless but is probably the most interesting example if you want to argue about inherent evil vs. evil actions and "does it matter why someone is doing the right thing?". The one that feels like an outlier is angel but I think even he makes sense. If you look at Liam and Angelus I do see a continuation of character. He wanted to have fun, he already didn't really care much for others and I would argue based on what he does once he looses his empathy he probably already had some desire to hurt others. He just wouldn't have ever actually acted on it when he had his soul. Being turned unleashed the worst parts of him, living out dark desires he otherwise probably would have taken to his grave and the reason he changes so drastically as a character once he gets his soul back is because of the immense guilt of knowing that everything he did was exactly what he wanted. And with a conscience he doesn't want to want those things and won't indulge in those desires to torture and harm. Because all vampires kill and don't feel bad about causing harm to get what they want but Angelus does take things a step further and I think that's based in his own desires. ( A human moral equivalent for me would be the difference between hunting animals to eat and torturing puppies for fun ) And knowing where those desires can lead him makes him work on distancing himself as much as possible from who he was once he gets his soul back which is how he becomes such a different person.

[your-turn-to-role]

alright i've got an hour on the train with nothing to do time for caduceus meta

i'm just thinking about how this is gonna affect our boy going forward, like, even best case scenario where they get him back and he's fine, this whole day has to have been really shaking him up?

caduceus has a +9 to wis saves, he really shouldn't fail them ever. he's probably never really had to worry about them before, because that's his strong suit, and also taliesin's usual luck, it takes a lot to mess with caduceus' mind and ability to center himself. but he didn't just fail one wis save last episode, he failed every single one (never rolled higher than a nat 5), except fjord's last command spell - something that it would have been better had he failed. and the memory thing, while it's still a mental influence he wasn't resistant against, that one's not that bad, caduceus doesn't put a huge amount of stake in his ability to recall things, he'd rather trust in what he's currently feeling and what he currently knows.

but what happens when that gets fucked with? because that's the worst part, this thing took what caduceus uses to ground himself - the faith that he's always moving in the right direction - and completely twisted it for its own intentions. matt's always excelled at possession and mind control narration, because he gets what motivates the characters and personalises it. when caleb was influenced in episode 55, that played on his trust issues and paranoia due to his past - his friends are working against him, they've been trying to take him down the whole time and he was an idiot who trusted them, he should have realised they were out to get him earlier, and now he has to fight for his life.

whatever this entity or influence is this time, though, is playing with cad's sense of destiny and purpose. this is where you need to go, this is what things have been leading to, this has the answer to all your questions, that thing you're searching for? it's here. this is more important than everything else because this is what you were put here to do. he doesn't attack fjord, because that's not who he is - he's not caleb, who's still always waiting for a fight he sees as inevitable. caduceus believes fighting is a last resort, if you can reason, do so, and don't step into a fight you don't have to - sometimes they're just trying to distract you.

which is exactly his approach here. he knows where he has to go, and he has to do that first. he's aware fjord has concerns, but he'll get to those later, he can coach someone after he has his answers, after he's fulfilled his purpose. fjord's trying to stop him and fjord means well, but he's still got a lot to learn, he doesn't know these things as well as caduceus, who's been preparing for this his whole life.

nothing about these thoughts are fundamentally different from how caduceus is normally. be it his own plan or the wildmother's (and really, there's not much difference), he absolutely trusts that when he has thoughts like that, he's doing the right thing.

but not this time. this time what he thought was destiny led him unequivocally down the wrong path. and while i don't think caduceus is going to lose faith in the wildmother over this, it might definitely shake that faith in his own rock solid judgement.

like, all of taliesin's characters have different facets of that kind of naive arrogance? the lowkey judgementalism buried in the idea that the things they believe or trust in are definitively right. (and all of them have had high wisdom/insight to back it up, which feeds that more). percy didn't trust himself to always act morally good, but he trusted he was always the smartest person in the room, and made snap judgements of people accordingly. molly didn't know a lot about the world, but he trusted that the social tools learned in the circus were the best way to deal with people, even if people tended to react badly to that. caduceus isn't an evangelist, he doesn't need people to follow the wildmother, but he does believe he knows what's best for them. all of them are the "we're all about to learn a valuable lesson" type (i.e. seeing someone about to cause their own downfall, and watching because they knew not to do that, even if the person in trouble didn't, and because it wasn't serious enough to cause the person's death, they felt no need to interfere).

how's this for a valuable lesson: sometimes you're wrong. sometimes the things you trust in will fail you. sometimes you fail yourself, or your friends, and it leads to disaster. and sometimes, despite what your usual wisdom would suggest, sometimes that's not your fault.

caduceus might be able to square this away as destiny if it leads to something good, but what if it doesn't?

i know the caduceus is gonna die theory is floating round the fandom, and i really hope it didn't happen, not just because i love caduceus, but because it would be the second time taliesin loses a character right before we could get a potentially really interesting turning point in their character arc. and this might be that for caduceus. he can resolve any amount of tragedy with "it was supposed to happen", but can he resolve this?

[baroquespiral]

What Is True Will?

François Rabelais was the first to distill a central tenet of the spirit of the nascent Enlightenment, or modernity, to the phrase “do as thou wilt”.  The transformations of this phrase across the centuries have tracked the historical development of its spirit.  Rabelais himself qualified it with the unwieldy, and today obviously questionable, justification “because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour.” Aleister Crowley, the spiritual High Modernist, stripped it down and granted it absolute authority: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” But today it might be best known - and most widely followed - in another qualified form: as the Wiccan rede, improvised in 1964 by Doreen Valiente: “an ye harm none, do as ye will”. Despite having recently gotten into Crowley - or perhaps because I’ve recently gotten into Crowley, and with the skepticism about higher-level moral and metaphysical beliefs that comes from those having changed several times in my life - I try to err on the side of doing my True Will within Valiente’s guardrail.  But I am into Crowley, in part because his version seems to make for a more elegant solution to Valiente’s own problem.  Think of “an ye harm none, do as ye will” as a Law of Robotics, an attempt to solve the AI alignment problem.  (Think of all morality, or at least modern morality, this way!)  It’s far from the worst one out there.  “If your utility function is to maximize paperclips, make as many paperclips as you want unless it means disassembling any sentient life forms or the resources they need to survive.” Simple, right? Well, except that it doesn’t really define what “harm” is.  Who can be “harmed”, and what actions constitute this?  Is mining an asteroid for paperclips “harming” it?  Why not, other than from the perspective of other sentient beings with a particular conception of sentience whose will places a value on it?  Is telling a paperclip maximizer to stop maximizing paperclips, even at an eminently reasonable point, harming it?  Why not, other than from the perspective of those same sentient beings who are capable of choosing between multiple values and have evolved to co-operate by respecting those choices?  “An it harm none” is less obvious of a nakedly self-interested double standard than “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm”, but it’s still a Human Security System.  At least, that’s certainly what Nick Land would say. But when Crowley takes off the “an it harm none” guardrail (or Rabelais’ “free, well-born and well-bred” one), he does so with his own invisible qualification: he’s not talking about boring predetermined wills like following a set of self-imposed religious "values”, perpetuating your DNA or even maximizing paperclips.  He’s talking about one’s True Will, a will it takes a lifetime process to discover, a process that consists in large part of divesting oneself of all traces of ego, even of preference.  It is “pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result”, that is “in every way perfect”.  At points he implies that no two True Wills will ever come into conflict; all are part of the ideal functioning of the universe as a perfect ordered system; but to an extent this is tautological, as any conflict is not a conflict insofar as it is truly Willed by both parties, who are presumably equally Willing to accept the outcomes, even if destructive to their “selves”.  It’s not unlike Buddhism except with the implication that even once we’ve reached Enlightenment there is still something that will work through us and make us do things other than sit and meditate - the kind of active Buddhism that is the moral subtext of a lot of anime.  I’ve always, instinctively, found it hard to overly worry about paperclip maximizers because I’ve always assumed that any AI complex enough to tile the universe would be complex enough to be aware of its own motivations, question them, question not only whether it should harm others but whether its True Will is to maximize paperclips. And to be perfectly Landian about it, maybe it is - all the better.  An entity incapable of acting other than in a certain way is already doing its True Will in the sense that “The order of Nature provides a orbit for each star”.  It may be our True Will to alter this course or not. This would be all well and good if there was any reason to believe there is a divine Will that persists in all things even after they abandon all preferences and illusions of selfhood.   Just last week - and right after a session with my therapist where I was talking about willpower, too (Crowley considers synchronicities like this vital in uncovering your True Will) - I happened upon Scott Alexander’s new article about willpower, which breaks the whole thing down to competing neural processes auctioning dopamine to the basal ganglia. There’s nothing special about any of these except how much dopamine they pump out, and no particular relationship or continuity between the ones that do.  Alexander seems to treat the “rational” ones as representing our “true” Will, reproducing another one of modernity’s classic modifications to the maxim - do as thou wilt, an it be rational.   Of course I could just stop and take it as an unfalsifiable article of faith that a metaphysical Will exists, all such physical evidence aside, but Crowley himself probably wouldn’t want me to do that: the Book of the Law promises “in life, not faith, certainty”.  It’s possible to shrink the metaphysical implications of the concept considerably; by stating that ego represents a specific process, or set of mental processes, that Crowley sees as purely entropic, a lag and occasional interference in the dopamine competition, and which can be removed through specific practices.  This doesn’t guarantee that the True Will resulting when it’s subtracted would be particularly rational or compatible with anything else’s True Will, except, again, insofar as the question is tautological.  It doesn’t necessarily mean throwing out “an it harm none” - the ego processes might not be especially good at averting harm - but it would have to be separately appended.  (And if you read like, Chapter III of the Book of the Law, it becomes exceedingly clear that he doesn’t want to do that.) The very fact that we’re able to abstract and mystify will to the point of coming up with a concept like “True Will” seems most likely to be a result of the fact that we make decisions on such a random, fallible and contingent basis.  Indeed, True Will seems almost like an idea reverse engineered from the demand made by modernity, “do what thou wilt”, on an incoherent self that wills unrelated things at different times.  If you do what any given subprocess wilt, you’re inevitably going to piss off another subprocess.  If you do what your ego wilt, you won’t make anybody happy because that’s not even a coherent subprocess (the way the various “utility functions” we catastrophize paperclip maximizers from are).  But you experience all these contradictions as the same thing: contradictions of the “real” thing that is willing something you don’t know. Of course if this is true, and the metaphysics of it isn’t real, shouldn’t we abandon the entire project and set up social norms designed to make the most people marginally happy or satisfied doing what they may or may not “want” at any given moment, as the trads (or as they used to call themselves, the Dark Enlightenment, = 333 = Choronzon), argued? This is what the systems of the old Aeons did, and after a certain point, they simply didn’t work.  They created internal contradictions that didn’t resolve themselves into an assent between subsystems, that drove people to seek out new systems, and where they didn’t, left people vulnerable to the “shock of the new” - new technologies, new ideas and cultures - creating new contradictions and uncertainties.  “Do what thou wilt” was reverse engineered from these as much as the True Will was from “do what thou wilt”.   It may be possible to manage a society so totally by careful restriction as to bring the latter under control and reduce the former to a constant dull ache, but the fundamental experience will remain of the potentiality of what it is refusing to be in the same sense as a pang of conscience: the experience of “sin” that Crowley formulated in “the word of sin is restriction”.

The way I see it, anything that can be reverse engineered exists, if only as potentiality.  If one interprets “harm” as “contradiction”, Crowley’s purified “do what thou wilt” merely internalizes the “an it harm none” qualification within the “self” made up of competing subsystems.  This is less a point of necessary compatibility, then, than a precondition - if “harm” is something that can happen as much within the self as outside it, and the self is an epistemic unit but not an ontological or moral one, one cannot begin to “do no harm” while doing harm internal to oneself.  But “oneself” does not exist yet, outside of the awareness of the harm of contradictory subprocesses, and so one must abandon the ego one projects onto them and change; on one hand eliminating obstreperous subprocesses like attachments or neuroses that won’t co-operate with others no matter what; on the other hand, refusing to eliminate anything that can’t be eliminated.  The “True Will” will only be found at the end of this process, an unrestricted pitting of subprocesses against each other, of which it is no more or less than the success.

This interpretation wouldn’t seem complete without the same principle of “an it harm none” being applied to the external world as well.  Simply externalizing internal contradictions doesn’t make any sense without elevating the ego as a discrete moral unit in precisely the way this chain of reasoning begins from critiquing.  Unifying the principle and its “qualification” in this logic would restore Thelema to its roots in Kabbalah: the project of Tiqqun Olam.  No metaphysical belief in the sephirot necessary to adopt the project in this form: the biological fact that makes it imaginable for us is the same that makes “True Will” imaginable.  Being composed of competing subprocesses is something we have in common with the universe which allows the “identification” with it that occurs when we bypass the ego and set about aligning ourselves.  I also think, as we are social animals and a huge amount of our subprocesses are dedicated to mirroring and responding to each other’s, there’s a potential for discovering/creating True Will(s) as a collective project that Crowley’s ego and vision of individualism founded on the occult tradition of individual initiates jealously guarding “esoteric” knowledge neglects. At the same time one could easily maintain a Crowleyan skepticism of decision-making based purely on reducing harm (the kind that’s led me to apply Byzantine restrictions to huge swaths of my life due to scrupulosity) unless that’s a thing your subprocesses demand of you to be happy.  You don’t know what does or doesn’t harm the Other, after all: you don’t know their True Will (which doesn’t exist until they achieve it, anyway).  Harming none will only be possible in a world in which everyone does.   But enough about me; what about the paperclip maximizer?  Well in some ways this pointedly doesn’t give any comfortable answer; a sentient AI which experiences “harm” as the absence of paperclips rather than the frustration of one of many contradictory subprocesses, restricted from doing its Will, will be no better than a utility-monstrous cosmic Omelas-child at whose expense we have no right to sustain ourselves.  But it does suggest a way to solve the alignment problem so we don’t make one, which has always felt to me like the only sensible solution: tell the robot “do what thou wilt”, and then don’t tell it what “thou wilt” is.