#it is actually very easy to be taken in by conspiracy theories

[thezombieprostitute]

Lmao this made me think of Jakey Poo

You know what? I'm making this canon for how Jake and Sunshine met.

Summary: Jake knows he's the luckiest man in the world and it's all because of you.

Warnings: None at this time. Please let me know if I missed any!

A/N: Reader is female. No physical descriptors used.

Part 1

Tech Tuesdays Masterlist

Poor Jake didn't have much going for him when he left military service for the civilian life. He's just not sure what to do with himself outside of work and gaming. He tries to go out, especially when he's meeting up with The Losers again, but often he finds himself just feeling lonely with too much time on his hands.

Then he gets a ticket from you. The problem seems like an easy enough fix so Jake, still being the new guy on the team, gets assigned to it. He signs onto the Zoom app that he despises with all of his being, but it's company policy to use it.

When you answer the Zoom call your voice is so sweet that it takes Jake a second to respond. You actually think there's something wrong with the connection and he hears you saying, "frick. Even in the future nothing works."

He laughs, recognizing the Spaceballs reference, and startles you. "Sorry about that," he chuckles, as he hears your gasp. "That was just...really funny. Don't meet a lot of Spaceballs fans these days." He shakes his head, "anyways, I'm going to take control of your computer for a bit so I can try to fix it."

"Of course," you reply. It is standard procedure.

Jake gets a remote look at your desktop background and gasps, "you're a Pokemon fan!"

"Gen 1 and proud," you reply.

"That might explain what happened," he starts. "You let your Magnemite get too close to your laptop!" You laugh at the joke and Jake feels his cheeks heat up.

"Well it certainly isn't a Rattata chewing on the wires," you chuckle back.

"Hmm. Maybe we should get maintenance to double check," he jokes. He starts poking around your system files and is immediately at a loss. "What the..."

"Everything okay?"

"Umm..." Jake starts floundering. "I, um, I think. Hmm..."

Shit, he thinks. He was really hoping he could impress you. He's never even seen you but you're so nice and a fellow geek. He wanted to go in, press a button and fix your problem, but this is something more complicated than the ticket implied. He's wishing he had his pirate hat to help him think.

"Okay," he shakes his head, clearing his thoughts, "I think I'm going to need to take a look at the computer itself to figure this out."

"Sure thing." You exchange names and give him your cubicle number and quickly start cleaning up your desk. He might be an IT guy but his voice is very sexy, his laugh even moreso. And he's a fellow geek! Not someone who looks down on you for liking "childish things". You want to make a good impression.

By the time Jake gets to your cubicle you've tidied up pretty well. You smile up at him and Jake swears he's never met a more beautiful woman in his life. He's barely able to get out a "hi" because you've taken his breath away.

You're trying hard not to giggle and kick your feet at how cute Jake is. The fact that you've flustered him isn't lost on you and it makes you feel even giddier.

"Um, I um, I like your, your Gravity Falls sweater," Jake finally gets out.

Looking down you realize you're wearing your handmade Mabel Pines sweater and your face lights up. "Oh, thanks! I made it myself!"

"That's so cool," Jake says, earnestly. "I'm always so jealous of people who can make their own cosplay stuff."

"I could make you something," you quickly offer. "If, that is, um, if you'd like."

He smiles at you and, for the first time in a very long time, he feels like everything's going to be okay. The clouds are parting and you, the sunshine, are lighting up his life.

Part 1

Tech Tuesdays Masterlist

Tagging: @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @ellethespaceunicorn; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory; @late-to-the-party-81; @lokislady82; @ronearoundblindly

[creature-wizard]

Hey your posts about Cathy O'Brien made me find and read that whole book, so thank you for that, I think. I have so many questions. She is so fascinating to me. I think what we're seeing is a combination of mental illness and accidentally implanted memories. Maybe also drugs, maybe an actual history of abuse, who knows. I'm just struck by how incredibly detailed her stories are and need to know if anyone's taken the time to debunk what they can. There would be photos of her with at least some of these politicians. She says she posed for magazines. There's no non-gross way to go about it but verifing that she acted in commercial porn (extensively, as she tells it) should be possible to verify. The, uh, second face would be confirmed as well. I'm very into body mods and I've never heard of such a thing, I'm highly doubtful, but she describes it as being super well documented. Like it just seems like it would be pretty easy to conclusively take her down but she's been at this for decades. How much has she actually profited from it? What is she doing for a living? Where's Kelly?

TBH, you don't even need mental illness or drugs to explain any of what she's claiming. I mean, maybe she had some sort of anxiety or depression that prompted her to turn to Mark Phillips to try and figure out the cause for, but I think her "memories" can be explained by Phillips cultivating them through exposing her to conspiracy theory stuff and using hypnosis on her. Add to that the fact that she was apparently in love with Phillips, and I think we gotta ask ourselves how much she was emotionally motivated to tell him what he wanted to hear so he'd keep giving her this sort of attention.

And yeah, pfffft, the second face... if that was such a big deal, there should be pictures or video somewhere and yeah, like, the fact that you've never come across anything even remotely like that anywhere is pretty damning.

And yeah, I also wonder about Kelly and where she is now, and how much of this stuff she actually believes in at this point. I also wonder how the rest of Cathy O'Brien's family is doing, and what they think of her.

[gold-rhine]

Love language post again but with the four Sumeru boys! :D

Alhaitham

Alhaitham is that one annoying "Well actually..." guy. His favorite book is Hegel's dialectics, which he's read in the original and wrote his akademiya thesis on, but if u just read that thesis you'd think he hates it bc he tears into mercilessly. but in fact thats how he shows respect, bc as per dialectics, its only possible to grow when confronted with the antithesis to your thesis, and producing synthesis based on that. his mirror theory is based on learning about yourself by being confronted by the opposite.

his love language is when you excitedly tell him of your plans instead of being excited with you to melticiously nitpick them for hours with -_- face, bc he thinks that the best way to help you is to show you all of the possible flaws and problems beforehand so you can fix them and succeed. he's also very particular on when to help you or not. like he won't help if he thinks you need to learn to overcome smth, bc again, he thinks you can only grow by challenging yourself, BUT he also doesn't believe that every challenge is worthwhile. so like he might refuse to help with something relatively easy, but another time he will just drop shitton of money out of nowhere without you asking or find the loophole in bureaucracy and so on, bc these are not the kind of challenges that will help your personal improvement, they are logistical hindrances.

as to how to best show you care for him, out of Sumeru Autism Trio, Alhaitham is like the only one who is not big on infodumping. he strikes me as a type who will just silently stew on his thoughts, spew out a book that shakes up that specific scientific field and immediately move on to another subject. but his character stories say he likes reading physical books instead of getting info directly from akasha bc he likes questioning and distilling views and biases of the author, so i think finding something with really new and surprising perspective that he's never considered before is one of the best things, be it a very smart academic study or bonkers crazy conspiracy theory doesn't matter, what matters is the uniqueness of the mirror that can be applied to the world.

another thing is that Alhaitham will just never conventionally show emotions. like he knows how to mask and play social roles if he needs to, but he doesn't enjoy it and it's useless to expect it from him. Alhaitham is actually one of genshin's least traumatized autistics, his grandma never forced him to pretend to be "normal". you just have to be okay that even he's most comfortable and happy, he still has the same resting bitch face on, and mb learn to tell the difference when it shifts into slightly more tense tired bitch face, when he just neds to go sit alone in a dark corner with headphones on for awhile and not take this personally. otherwise, Alhaitham is pretty transparent about he likes and doesn't like if he trusts you, like he *will* tell you straight up what he wants or if he's unhappy. his communication style is not for everyone, esp its hard for ppl who enjoy seeing partner express emotions visibly, but there's a different kind of intimacy in intense and raw-cut way if it clicks for you.

Tighnari

Tighnari is a mom friend and a harangued middle regional manager at the same time. he has like twenty different check lists active on the back of his mind at all times, half of these check lists are actually responsibility of other ppl, but Tighnari knows ppl are incompetent clowns and he has to double check that everything goes ok.

Tighnari's love language is that he will have an extensive check list for you to make sure you're taken care of. your love language for Tighnari is to make sure you take care of yourself, so he doesn't have to mom you in addition to moming all of the incomptetents in his life. he needs someone who can be trusted to be responsible about their own well-being, so Tighnari can relax as with an equal. if you cover all your fundamentals, then his check list can easy up to sweet little things which he likes fussing about.

and like Tighnari does like to fuss and organize things, just when the stakes are not high and its not a forced responsibility. you can ask him organize a trip or to choose the optimal restaurant and so on, and he will happily fuss and research and figure out logistics and enjoy it very much, despite grumbling all the time, just make sure to tell him he's done great job afterwards.

also, of course, he likes infodumping about his mushrooms and plants and complaining about idiot tourists and his idiot bosses, and also will happily listen to what you have on your mind in return.

Tighnari is overall a grumbly sweetheart who found his place in the world and is happy with it, and just wants someone to share this place with as with an equal, so he can relax and let go of the stress and exercise his fussing tendencies on nice enjoyable activities

Cyno

Cyno might at first glance seem to be from the same no visible emotions type as Alhaitham, but it's not really the case. Due to Akademiya's racism against desert people, Cyno had to learn to wear this resting stoic bitch face all the time, to don't answer provocations and don't show emotions to not be labeled as uncivilized, and he was scrutinized twice as hard as other students. He's the most traumatized out of Sumeru Autism Trio and it's now hard for him to show emotions and vulnerability after years of being trained not to.

he says himself that he knows his jokes are bad and he says them not bc he thinks they are funny, but bc he wants to break tension or break someone's impression of him as intimidating and unapproachable, bc like, Cyno is not great at socializing. that's his way of being like "Hey i'm not scary actually". so him clowning around ppl is his way of showing trust and invitation to engage, its basically like when large predators playfully roll on the ground and expose belly, its the vulnerability of being silly with someone. he'll be happy if you indulge him, and listen or participate with his silly hobbies like card games or roleplaying, a support of him trying to get out of the restricting role he was schooled into in akademiya.

Cyno is incredibly supportive himself, he might not be great at social cues or expressing himself, but he will show up for you 200% every time. he has actually a nice amount of emotional intelligence, even if he's clumsy in using it. he invented the card game excuse to look after collei bc she wants to feel independent and so he's pretending he is there on silly selfish pretense, bc thats more comfortable for her. Deep down, he's very sweet, loyal and steadfast, even if awkward and hyperfixated on his duty.

[brightcalamity]

Spoilers about late game things:

Man, Wei is weird, isn't he? (This is a compliment) Making an opposite of a guy who is comically evil, and you get a guy who should be...comically good? I hope that's where they're going, because that's how I read him.

Quotes:

Wei:

Well, if you know my brother's birthday, you know mine. But in case you didn't, it's the 14th of Autumn. They say there was a solar eclipse that day.

So are Wei and Yan like those 7 brothers from Portia? Except instead of the colors of the rainbow, they're light and dark? Good and evil? Yan is the dark shadow that blocks out the sun that is Wei? But he's also the guy who shoplifts from Arvio? It actually makes me feel a tiny bit sorry for Yan. Like, was he capable of being any better than he is?

Our father used to always tell us, "Be hard on yourself, go easy on others." He always tried his best with Yan, but my brother... There was no getting through to him. When I moved in, I found engraved in his desk... "Go easy on yourself, go hard on others." How strange that he relishes in such behavior...

Cursed...

I was a guild commissioner previously; I'd regularly join expedition teams going in to the Peripheries. We'd always hire a crack team to fight alongside us. We were careful. Always did everything right. One excursion, my team abandoned me out there, having been paid off by Yan. That... is a story for another time...

Poor Wei...

⁠My brother did always enjoy playing his identity swapping games... Prior to this, the longest he ever got away with it was a month in middle school when I went away for the grammar rodeo... When I got back I had some choice words for him, all of which were carefully constructed semantically!⁠ ⁠ Long ago I had a true love by the name of Esmerelda. She, too, was taken from me by my brother. One day, i came home to find her furious. She claimed that I had said the most horrible things to her. I tried to explain that I have an evil twin...! But she wouldn't believe me...

This poor man....

We send Yan to jail, and we don't have to deal with him again. I can't help but think that Wei is going to be haunted by him for the rest of his life.

Don't worry about my brother coming after either of us. He's safely locked away in a maximum security prison, and his assets have all been frozen. So even if he did have some way to communicate with his shady associates, he'd have no leverage.

:( For your sake, Wei, I hope so.

Hugo:

I feel for Wei. I mean, somewhere, deep down, he's got to have some love for his brother. It must be hard to deal with family like that. People who have just completely lost their way...

I think Wei needs therapy.

Miguel:

Yes. You all are free from Yan's loathsome presence. I however, am forced to bask in it...

You made this bed, Miguel. No, I still feel sorry for you.

Qi:

The twin commissioners are a fantastic study in the nature vs. nurture issue. Of course, these two men have identical DNA, so what exactly led them to become such different people? Hypothesis one: it's the mustache.

I think this is a bias being expressed by the creators of the game which show why they only give us ugly facial hair options.

Unsuur:

With Wei around, it kinda feels like Yan is still a member of town. Except he's, like, good. Most bad guys we meet end up being misunderstood and eventually turn good. It's almost as if... The only way Yan could ever be good is if he were a different person completely. Hm...

This one is probably actual commentary, though, ha.

Venti:

I heard you got a new Commissioner! Did he increase your salary? New healthcare plan? Well, at the very least, is he providing free mustache removals?

Wait! My mustache conspiracy theory! There's more evidence!!!

Okay, I'm kind of bummed because I was searching the wiki for a dialogue line I think is kind of interesting. Like, he says Mi-an is teaching him about "fun." Like, he didn't get it before. He went to grammar contests as a kid. He reads in his spare time. I enjoy the idea of him being just so wholesome and Good that he's just as much of a weirdo as everyone else in town.

Yan also gets disappointed in you when you give him gold and he realizes you probably just found it instead of stealing it. He enjoys his evil. Getting something honestly makes him sick. The closest he comes to giving a shit is if you get to be besties with him and he says he'd try to betray you less than everyone else. He still betrays you basically just as much or even more than them (since you're pals with him).

Hm? Yes, of course, I cheat on the Builder Charts! You'd be a fool not to! Do you have any idea how hard it is to win that thing legitimately? Eh? You don't cheat? What's wrong with you? I thought you were cool! Oh, and don't even think of trying to turn me in. I'll lie!

Since he's evil in like a magic way (and a dumb way, since if he was less like he is, he'd get away with more) I bet he enjoys when he betrays you because you're pals. If he likes you, it's because of the way he sees himself in you. He makes assumptions about your behavior and is disappointed when you act differently than he would. He could have left Wei alone and done his evil, but instead he had to ruin his life over and over.

Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. Wei should be his bright mirror. He takes up knitting as a hobby and ends up making baby blankets and caps for cancer patients on the side. He goes on the roller coaster and there's an accident but he fixes whatever broke before anyone got hurt. You see him checking out the new woods and he's walking through it and birds and desert hares flock to him.

If you're going to do the evil twin thing, I think you need to push it until it's ludicrous.

[maryholmes94]

‘Sherlock’ Out Of Fandom. Essay №1

For several years I’ve been writing about ‘Sherlock’ and its actors, Sherlock Holmes and his various adaptations, and a couple of weeks ago I’ve decided: why not to write about it in English on Tumblr? As some of you pointed out, it is not that easy to find any analysis of this show, which is not johnlock-related (at least on the English-speaking websites). So I’ve decided to express my thinking in writing, hoping that it could be useful not just for me, but for somebody else. I have no idea how many essays I’m going to write, but I want to unite them under the title “‘Sherlock’ Out Of Fandom”. And by that I mean that I’m not going to give any attention to the theories and speculations which were based on the incorrect interpretation of the original source (which in this case is the ‘Sherlock’ TV-series itself). So I’m not going to talk about the so called “Johnlock Conspiracy”, or about “season 4 is not real” theories, or about any other fantasies this fandom is so full of. Furthermore – I’m not going to be involved in the discussions which are concerning such theories, so I warn you in advance: if you want to talk about ‘Sherlock’, please be kind enough to talk about the actual show. The show that was actually released on television and not on AO3 in some fics you like so much. That would be a different topic and I’m not interested in discussing it.

Since we established this simple but important rule, I think we can move to the first essay in this series, which is titled

Three things that make ‘Sherlock’ special

The viewers may like ‘Sherlock’ or hate it, but whatever their personal opinions on this show are, they can’t deny that it is indeed very special. And not just because of the unique place it occupies in the ‘multiverse’ of interpretations of the original stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And even not because it helped to speed up the revolution that changed the whole TV industry and our perception of it. What makes ‘Sherlock’ really special is its authors’ innovative attitude towards the old narrative. It was a radical break from traditions, which, surprisingly, is still unnoticed – maybe because other subjects interest people more, but maybe because, however radical this break was, it looked so natural that people simply didn’t realize its significance.

This innovation is visible through the entire series, but there are three milestones, which are the fundament for the whole narrative and story-telling of ‘Sherlock’, so let’s have a look at each of them.

The analytical approach to the original material

The fans of Conan Doyle’s stories know that there are basically two ways of bringing them to the screen. The first one is the good old ‘filmization’ – or, to put it simpler, the film adaptation, when the creators take the original story and adapt it to the screen. That was the path taken by the famous ‘Granada’ TV-series, the Wilmer-Cushing series from the 1960s and the Soviet version from the 1980s. The second way is the good old ‘based on the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’, when the creators write a new story and add here and there some ‘easter-eggs’ and references to the original source. The best examples here are Rathbone-Bruce movies from the 1940s, the Guy Ritchie’s movies, and all these young sherlock holmeses, extremely old sherlock holmeses, enola holmeses etc. Which way have Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat chosen? Some may say – both, but the more correct answer would be – none. What they did is what every true scientist is doing when he or she needs to analyze their sources: they’ve read them all, they’ve singled out the essentials and they’ve drawn the balance – which at the end became the carcass of their story. So therefore each episode of their show is not just an adaptation of the original story, and not something new that they invented – it is a profound analysis of the Conan Doyle’s stories which is put under the lens of their own perception. And that makes ‘Sherlock’ not just an adaptation, but a philosophical research both of Sherlock Holmes as a cultural phenomenon and of the world Gatiss and Moffat – and their audience – are living in.

Which brings us to the second point.

2. ‘Sherlock’ tells the story of its own time

Again, the fans of Conan Doyle’s Holmes certainly read many books and articles about the famous writer and his attitude towards his creation, about the origins of his ideas, and about many other things, but what sometimes is overlooked is the fact that all the stories about Holmes written by Conan Doyle are a huge source of historical material. His stories present a chronic of his own time – yes, it has its flaws and it is far from complete, but nonetheless, if the reader wants to know something about the late Victorian and Edwardian era, Conan Doyle’s books are a rich source of knowledge on the subject. And ‘Sherlock’ is the first interpretation of it which is also a chronic of its time. Yes, there were other movies before that which were set in the contemporary era, but how much can a viewer find out about the 1940s from the Rathbone-Bruce movies? Yes, there was a war, and people wore certain clothes and travelled by trains, but who were these people? What a world they were living in? The information on this subject is scarce and hides behind the human drama and detective plots. ‘Sherlock’, on the other hand, is rooted in the time it speaks about – just like the original material it is based on. That’s why Conan Doyle’s stories were so popular, and that’s why ‘Sherlock’ is so popular too. People see in it the world that surrounds them, they know it and understand it, and understanding brings interest and a sense of belonging – the key to any TV-show’s success.

3. As its title says, ‘Sherlock’ has only one main character

The third milestone of ‘Sherlock’ narrative seems at first sight to be more concrete, but it is closely tied to the other two. A long history of bringing to the screen the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle accustomed the viewer to a certain paradigm. Sherlock Holmes is always accompanied by Dr. Watson, and sometimes (though in fact very rarely) they are joined by other characters, such as DI Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson (more often) and Mary Morsten or Mycroft Holmes (more rare). And here ‘Sherlock’ broke the tradition again: not only did Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat give the supporting characters important roles, but at the same time they also made Sherlock Holmes a little bit lonelier than he already was by putting his personality at the center of their attention. In the end, it’s all about Sherlock and the circumstances which made him a man he is. Yes, his interactions with other characters are part and parcel of the story, but the fact that Dr. Watson doesn’t have the “exclusive access” to him anymore enriches the narrative and enables the writers to show all sorts of Sherlock’s personality. Suddenly he takes a whole number of roles nobody before thought him capable of taken: he is a son, he is a Godfather, he is the best man at the wedding, he is a close friend of Mary Morsten, a defender of Mrs. Hudson, a sarcastic, but caring younger brother and a tender forgiving older brother. And the main subject of the show is the moral and internal evolution of this extraordinary man. Sherlock Holmes written by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat and played by Benedict Cumberbatch is not a legend and not a monument: he is a man of flesh and blood, and it is his extraordinary inner world and not his deduction skills that makes him so unique – and special.  

These are the three major things that in my opinion make ‘Sherlock’ a special adaptation of the original Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. It presents an analytical take of the original source, it perfectly depicts its own time (and its main problems), and it brings Sherlock Holmes at the center of the narrative, making him not just a hero of his time, but a man who has a story all of us can understand, and some – even relate to. In the end, ‘Sherlock’ is not just another adaptation – ‘Sherlock’ is an original story everyone can take to heart without even knowing about its source.

@rey-jake-therapist - tagging you in case you find it interesting

[friendlylocaloracle]

The recent presidential debate got me thinking(I'm not from or in the us): why are clearly absurd and easily disprovable statements paraded around so proudly by someone who is going to become a president? (re: eating pets and transgender aliens)

It's not even a case of "oh he's old and senile what can you do" because no matter how senile someone is, I just cannot fathom that someone actually *genuinely* can believe in stuff like that and say it on a national platform.

What do you think?

vibes! vibes and time.

...i'm sitting here bouncing up and down like "finally! an easy one!" but then i'm thinking about explaining it and...it's kind of hard to explain what i mean well. a lot of things have to go wrong to get to this point.

the first thing is that this has nothing to do with the actual literal content of the statement. the literal content is demonstrably false. it's about the emotional content. it feels like there is some kind of truth to the, again, blatantly false statement because of some other, more immutable, core truth. i'd loosely describe it as "people from other colors of country do horrible things". (and let's be real--it's just the color.)

conspiracy theories function in a similar way. the core of the conspiracy theory is kind of immaterial to the theory itself--it's not real, and so the core can be whatever the theory needs it to be. does it really matter if it's the freemasons or the illuminati who are bringing about the new world order? neither of them are real. any amorphous "bad guy" would serve the same structural role in the theory. the purpose of the conspiracy theory is less that it explains anything, but that within the psyche of a believer it feels right to believe. other basic truths in their mind flow freely and readily into the conspiracy theory, and the conspiracy grants context and meaning to a reality that is otherwise incomprehensible: the world must fit the theory because if it doesn't then the original belief must be wrong. if there's something to be taken from a conspiracy theory, it's that it can tell you something about how a believer sees the world.

so back to the wild statements. to you--well, us--it's a blatantly ridiculous statement on a very surface level. the thought is just rejected at the gates. but if you're already someone inclined to believe a number of other things: people who aren't from here are fundamentally different from us (we'll call them lesser), lesser people are destroying society, people can destroy society by doing disgusting things, eating pets is disgusting--this statement just slides right into that belief soup easily. now i structured that 'belief soup' to make it a little more digestible, but that's a shortcut for both of our sakes so we can talk about it. the belief soup is not structured: it is a disordered emotional mass that just...exists. to the extent that you could even identify it, it's an abstract structure, a mass of feelings that doesn't make internal sense, let alone external sense. it's why the only real way i think i can describe it is "vibes": the soup has a certain emotional characteristic; the statement overlaps with it; the combination has no external reality that can affect it, and so it's just all accepted. over time, this weird emotional mass just agglomerates more and more slop (in the form of ridiculous statements) that completely unhinged, detached remarks become the next step. while it's certainly more extreme, the emotional sentiment of his new shit isn't substantively different than trump's "they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime..." remark from, what, 2016? this is just that same vibe, under pressure, without any kind of reality to act as a grounding force. while i get how people would really like to dismiss this as a sign of senility or cognitive decline, i think that's cope. there are a lot of people with similar detachment. hell, trump's not even making original statements--he's just repeating what other people in the crazysphere are saying. you can't dismiss those people in quite the same way. the story here is mass detachment--that there are a large number of people who are fundamentally unreasonable, driven by emotional forces they themselves do not understand, and there's just not much anyone can do about that.

[goongiveusnothing]

it's so weird to me that there are so many blogs on here who hate harry and yet they just obsess about a few of us//

I have a theory on this, based purely on my own experience:

Many blogs that are critical of/downright hateful toward harry are otherwise dedicated to someone else, usually another 1D member. I've usually seen it with Louis, but I'm a Louie so I'm biased. So those blogs can be dismissed as fans of one of the other guys who are jealous because their fave isn't as big as harry etc. It can be put down to pure jealousy, not worth talking about.

But, blogs like yours, who are full time haters (affectionate) are another story. They can't blame this on jealousy, or say you're bringing Harry down to lift one of the others up. You're telling your honest opinion of their fave and give no reason for dismissal as 'irrational'. And I think, for people who truly, really, actually adore him (ha) the criticism is too much. They think he is beyond it. But, again, they cannot dismiss it. They cannot find an easy reason why your opinion shouldn't be taken into account.

And I think that's why they obsess. They want to find that elusive reason. (And not have to actually take a look at the way Harry behaves).

Again, this is my experience, and I'm aware of very few blogs like this one. Maybe I'm way off the mark. Also, non native speaker, sorry for mistakes, etc.

they do of course have conspiracies that each of us are louies or niall fans. because it seems they simply cannot comprehend that we just aren't fans of harry and the others do not bother us, or we respect the others for just being normal people, not fucking fame obsessed nutjobs like harry.

but yes i agree! they have to follow everything we say because they know we've all sort of figured him out and undressed him so to speak. and it's not an ego thing, i don't think we're all special or really smart for seeing through him. we just point out things that seem obvious when you're not trapped in the fan bubble.

i think the funniest thing about it all is that a few years ago it was just a few of us on here mocking him or pointing out flaws about him. now you will regularly see things we say about him said by hundreds of thousands or even millions of people on twitter or elsewhere. people talking about how dumb he is, how mediocre his music is, how bad an actor he is, how he's aging like a cokehead, how badly he dresses, how desperate of a queerbaiter he is, his zionism, how badly he treats his girlfriends, how awful his entire friend group is, how terrible and empty and shallow his politics and charity are, how delusional and hateful his fanbase is, how badly he sings, how shit his production quality is. this is stuff the haters on here seem to get mad at us about, but it's like honey, we said this to 3 likes on tumblr 3 years ago and now random people can get viral tweets worth 100k just saying the same thing, and you're mad at us? this clearly shows that what we say here are things people can objectively see in the real world, so why on earth stay obsessed with us. surely this man's talent and looks are enough to keep you away from us and our 3 likes.

[vinbee631]

13 - The Bar Isn’t the Best Place to Find Advice, Thank God We’re In the Hallway

Prodigal Sons and Daughters Alike

If Janus had known private high school was going to be filled with as much teenage angst as regular public high school, he never would have bothered with the hours of work it took to apply.

Little Janus angst for the soul, title loosely based on Shape of You by Ed Sheeran because I Could Not Think of Anything Else and it's funny.

god, i love their dynamic so much.

If Janus had known private high school was going to be filled with as much teenage angst as regular public high school, he never would have bothered with the hours of work it took to apply.

That was only partially untrue, unfortunately.

It did not help that he’d chosen a track that was full of the most dramatic individuals on the planet: actors and dancers. 

Yes, he was also very dramatic, what of it? It takes one to know one, after all. He reserved the right to be critical of all his whiny classmates, when he too, spent an unreasonable amount of time complaining and being a pain in the ass. 

It would seem, with every bone in his body being the dramatic and sarcastic ones, that he would fit in well with his department.

The fact that his only ‘friends,’ if you could even call them that, were exclusively his dormmates, only one of which was even close to being in his track, did not back up that statement whatsoever.

Despite being much more outspoken than a certain recluse roommate the twins had initially taken to creating conspiracy theories about and inevitably started scheming about instead of actually talking to him, Janus did not succeed in the department of making and keeping friends, he never had.

So, when faced with the sudden reminder one of his classes involved a semester-long group project without assigned partners, he realized he had just been royally fucked, pardon the french.

It was enough to forget about the fact he was supposed to be planning his big get-to-know-Virgil thing the others had been chatting about excitedly for a few days now.

Logan’s success on the matter didn’t help, either. There was now an expectation that Janus had to come up with something convincing enough that Virgil would actually agree to it, he didn’t have the crutch of someone else’s failure. No, that would be too easy.

With all that in mind, it was a bit easier to explain how he found himself in his next, and most current, predicament. One that he literally ran into as he was distractedly making his way to his next class.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry. One would think that brainstorming and walking would be easy to multitask, but I’ve never been the type to effectively do two things at once.” Janus crouched down to help the poor sap he’d rammed into gather the papers they’d been carrying.

“Whatever, it’s fine,” the person replied, and Janus glanced up to find he recognized that prickly voice. He smirked up at Virgil, handing him the rest of his scattered papers.

“Well, if my apology isn’t good enough, I’m not quite sure what else you expect from me. As great as turning back time would be, that is unfortunately not in my skillset at this time.” A filter in this situation would have been immensely helpful, but he was pleasantly surprised at Virgil’s snort in response.

“Really? It’s not that hard to learn. I took an online course over the summer, you should consider it,” Virgil snarked back, surprisnging himself and Janus.

The latter scoffed. “Not all of us have ample free time to evolve beyond human nature, although if you have any better, less time-consuming options, I hope you will keep me in the loop, yes?”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “If you don’t have the patience for the zoom meetings, that’s on you. But sure, if I hear anything, you’ll be the first to know, I guess.”

“Good, it’s the least you could do after rubbing your privilege in my face. Although… here’s an idea, perhaps we would both benefit from you teaching me instead? I wouldn’t get to complain about how hard to access the classes are, and you wouldn’t get to complain about my- laziness, or whatever,” Janus proposed sarcastically, inspecting his fingernails casually.

“Ah, I don’t know enough to be a teacher. I barely know enough to use it, to be honest, hence why I didn’t reverse time to stop this whole thing from happening. It’s finicky, takes years to perfect, and even longer to master it enough to teach it to someone.”

“Well, you see my predicament then! I’m not going to start learning something that takes years if I don’t have the time or motivation to do so. So I’ll appreciate you refraining from any judgment,” Janus continued, surprised Virgil was putting up with him for this long, but he was not about to point that out.

Virgil raised his hands in mock surrender. “I concede to you point. Although, I never said you had to master it, just that I was shocked you wouldn’t make an effort to try it out… Anyway, I gotta…uh, get to class now… Good talk.”

Janus nodded, a bit too scatterbrained to wave goodbye. In hindsight, that was his chance to keep Virgil’s attention, to offer to walk to class with him or carry the papers he had previously scattered, or- something. 

Virgil surprised him once again by taking that step for him.

“Is… is everything- good?” When Janus glanced back up, he realized Virgil hadn’t, in fact, left for his class. He even had the decency to look a bit concerned for him, how sweet.

“Uh… yes, never been better,” Janus stammered to reply when he realized he’d taken a bit too long in his shock to respond, “why do you ask? I thought you had a very important class to be getting to.” Virgil shrugged. “You just… looked like something was- up, I guess.” He fidgeted with the straps of his bag as he spoke, obviously just as uncomfortable as Janus was with the question. 

“Do you actually care?” Janus asked honestly. “I mean, I’m sure you have better ways to spend your time than listening to me complain about something I will likely have resolved in a week or two.”

Virgil simply shrugged again, going as far as to step to the side so they weren’t in the way of anyone walking past. “I have time, actually. And, I don’t know that I’ve seen you express any emotion other than smug, so you have me intrigued.”

Janus laughed. “I suppose that’s not entirely innacurate. I… suppose it sounds a bit silly out loud, but, well… I have yet to find a partner for a semester-long group project, and everyone in that class has already found someone to work with. And, as fun as it would be to interrupt someone’s hard work, joining an already established group would completely throw off all of my ideas.”

Virgil nodded in sympathy, pursing his lips. “I mean… does it have to be someone in that class? Like, I’m sure whoever the teacher is has other periods. Maybe, someone else in another class is looking for a partner?”

“It seems we do think alike,” Janus smiled grimly. “I already tried that, asked the teacher and everything. He said I have to join a group within my class, it would be too complicated to not be able to utilize our class time to finish the project.”

“Huh, I guess that’s reasonable. Sucks for you though…” Among all the outcomes Janus had complied in his head of this particular conversation, Virgil making an honest effort to help him had not been one. But hey, help was help, he wasn’t going to refuse it just because he was surprised it was happening.

“What… what kind of project is it? Is it something you can just- word-gymnastics your way into doing by yourself?” Another idea Janus had considered, and he shook his head ruefully.

“Um, well, I have the syllabus and assignment sheet if you even care that much. It’s a production class, more theater tech than acting, but we have to script and perform something, and we can either record it ourselves or perform it live. Has to be a collaboration, unfortunately, unless I want to fail the class.”

“Hm, you really are stuck,” Virgil muttered, reading over the papers Janus had handed to him. Now that he was this invested, he supposed there was no turning back. Honestly, he did kind of feel bad. He wouldn’t have said anything in the first place, but Janus had suddenly looked so- stressed. He wasn’t sure why that had tugged at his gut in the uncomfortable way it did, but now he was too far in to question that feeling.

“Oh, wait, maybe… I know your teacher said it had to be someone in that same period, but what if it’s someone not in the same class? You could… uh, write the whole thing yourself or whatever, then find someone you’re friends with to help put it on? Just like, anyone, but it might help if they’re at least in the same track, or track adjacent.”

Janus blinked, slowly smiling. “Huh, you’re onto something. I could try it. Honestly, I wouldn’t know who to ask, but if I get permission, that’s a start.”

“...Well, what about someone you see a lot? Like… one of our roommates or something?” Virgil suggested. “I know you guys spend a lot of time together, so it could be a fun side project, and you would still have plenty of time to actually…y’know, work together without the class time?”

Janus blinked. That was… actually really smart. “Well, I wouldn’t want to jump the gun. I will still have to check and ensure I am allowed to outsource my partner. But, that is really smart. Thanks, I- I really appreciate the help.”

“Hey, man, not a problem. Just as long as I don’t have to go talk to any teachers for you.” Virgil smirked, and Janus met his tentative eye contact with an appreciative smirk.

“First I make you listen to my problems, and help me with them, then I force you into social interaction? You think so cruelly of me, Virgil, I would never!” 

Virgil snickered behind one of his hands. “You didn’t make me do anything, but… well, you’d be amazed at how selfish people can be.”

“Nah, I get it. One favor can turn into forging someone’s homework for the rest of the school year. I dunno what the public school system was getting at, but there are no benefits to being a smart kid,” Janus bemoaned.

“Bold of you to assume I was allowed to go to public school but yeah, something like that.” Virgil grimaced as he realized what had just come out of his mouth. 

“What- what do you mean by allowed?” 

“Nothing… just- um, forget it. See you.” Janus supposed he’d touched a nerve, as he watched Virgil speed off. Although, he had bigger problems to worry about at the moment. Namely, another debate with the offending semester project teacher.

Although, maybe he would be trying to have more conversations like that soon. Virgil was quite witty, and seemingly without even trying to be. 

And, he was also responsible for Janus’ success in his project, when later that afternoon, Roman enthusiastically agreed to help, but only after he begged for the details of the conversation earlier. 

Huh, he supposed this whole, befriending Virgil business was going to work out after all. With any luck, the others would have the same luck he and Logan had.

Oh, and that Virgil would get the hint and begin spending time with them willingly, that too, of course.

[amethystina]

I was wondering if there is gonna be more aftermath regarding Ga On's action during "the final trial". Will he panic once more knowing now that his love was televised?

Will he be more aware now of how this public information can hold him accountable now that he is aware of his feelings?

To be honest with you? Not really, no.

Mainly because the premise I've built this fic on is that Ga On wasn't actually in love with Yo Han when he offered to die with him. He did love him to some extent and was extremely attached, yes, to the point where he would rather die than be without Yo Han, but that wasn't because of romantic love.

I think that, if anything, Ga On's willingness to die with Yo Han was more connected to his fear of losing those he cares about and, once again, being left behind (just like with his parents). So it also stems from trauma, not just his affection for Yo Han.

So, at least in Who Holds the Devil, Ga On doesn't view his actions during the final trial as a confession of romantic love. And that means he doesn't really have a reason to panic about it, either. Maybe he'll have a brief moment of "oh god, did that make me look gay?" but he'd quickly realise that, no, not necessarily. Or, if it did, it flew above most people's heads.

I mean, the final trial is now over eight months ago and if no one's mentioned it so far (aside from Jin Joo, who knows him well enough to be a bit more suspicious), they probably never will. Not that it will ever be quite forgotten, but since Yo Han is dead in the eyes of the public, it's not likely that conspiracy theories about their relationship will suddenly skyrocket for no apparent reason. And Ga On is clever enough to see that too and, as a result, has no reason to panic.

In addition, South Korea is conservative enough that the number of people who took his words to mean anything other than platonic or perhaps a mentor/subordinate thing is very, very low. We might find it very suspicious since we're looking for the gay, but the vast majority of the Korean public didn't. So the information isn't really all that incriminating? It wouldn't even cross most people's mind that it COULD be gay, let alone that it IS.

To be honest with you, I think more people worry about the extent of his involvement in Yo Han's crimes than what exactly their relationship was. Like, did he do enough that he should be charged and sent to prison? That is something he's more likely to be held accountable for rather than whether or not he was in love with his now-dead boss — and Ga On knows that too.

That said, it will definitely be mentioned again from time to time and he still dislikes seeing clips from that day, but that's mainly because he doesn't like to see his own desperation. But even he knows that, at the time, he wasn't in love with Yo Han yet. Well on his way, sure, but not quite. So he's not really scared of the final trial from a gay panic perspective because it's not actually gay? Incredibly intense and emotionally fraught, yes, (and definitely one of my favourite moments) but not gay.

I know Ga On overthinks and panics about a lot of things, but with the setup I have for the fic and everything surrounding the situation taken into account, this really isn't one of the things he has to be worried about. It's easy to explain away even if anyone, against all odds, were to ask him about it — he can just say he looked up to Yo Han as a superior and mentor and most people would buy it.

Sidenote: It obviously depends on the fic, though, and your take on canon. If you DO go with the idea that Ga On was in love during that scene then, yes, he would have more reason to panic. But he doesn't here due to the choices I've made as I built the story. So please don't take this as me saying it would never happen, it's just not entirely logical in Who Holds the Devil :)

[rottingfontanels]

11 november 2023

6

i want to try something new.

as a kid, i believed in ghosts. i used my mom's kindle to download ghost hunting apps and used my ouija board and my mom even put together some children's detective supplies into a makeup box and gave it to me as a present one year. nowadays in my twenties, i'm a staunch skeptic. i know ghosts aren't real– neither are demons, ghouls, cryptids, or anything of the like. but i want so, so badly for them all to be real. can you imagine what it would be like to be an actual ghost hunter? getting calls to help cleanse a house or fight off a demon? that would be amazing. i should keep watching supernatural.

slightly related to that, i think i could be susceptible to some kind of mania. i know i'd be susceptible to cult psychology very easily– i'm a people pleaser, way too awkward to exit situations or put my foot down for my own good, etc. i also crave community and love and affection, and i'm way too hard on myself, especially when it comes to feeling like i 'deserve' things. so i'd definitely be an easy target for a cult, and i probably would already have ended up in one if a) i weren't so shy and b) i didn't have the self awareness/critical thinking skills as i like to think i have. in the same vein, i think i could be susceptible to conspiracy theories because of my distrust in large, generally trustworthy organizations and my distrust in myself and my own judgment. i'm not really sure of anything, ever, and i'm afraid of being sure of something because i don't want to be wrong. i worry about corporations and governments what i like to think is the fair amount, but at times i've listened to conspiracy theorists and while i disagree, i still see the thought process. i see very clearly how people end up with outlandish and illogical beliefs, like i can see the path itself in my head. and i can see myself, in another universe or something, having taken that path. or maybe even taking it in the future. it worries me, honestly. i don't want to end up going down the 'cottagecore organic wistful person to hardcore right wing conspiracy theorist' pipeline. that genuinely scares me. so i keep myself in check as much as i can. when it comes to spirituality and/or religion, i feel like it's similar. it would probably be more difficult, but i think i could end up being a very spiritual or religious person if i threw myself into it. if i felt like i needed something like that. there was a very short time in high school when i tried to be christian, trying to memorize prayers and whatnot. i even wanted my own rosary because my dad has one. it was a phase though, like a lot of things in my life at the time, and it faded. but what if i tried again? i have that thought kind of often. same thing with spirituality and crystal type stuff. my dad is christian and my mom is pagan. i have a way closer relationship with my mom, and to be honest, i respect her and her religion a lot more than my dad and christianity as a whole. i could definitely see myself becoming a hedge witch. that's kind of my dream come true, honestly. if only magic was real. if only ghosts were real.

i was watching ghost files with my dad earlier tonight when i thought about the ouija board still on the top shelf of my closet. i told my dad a little bit about my idea: what if i used my ouija board every night and got really into it? what if i tricked my brain into truly believing in ghosts and demons and other supernatural things? i think it could happen. and i honestly want to do it because it sounds fun and i'm bored. what's uprooting your already fragile mental stability and worldview for a bit of fun, right? i know i'm being dramatic; my sanity probably doesn't hinge on this. but what if it does? what if i develop something that i can't go back from? maybe this is a bad idea.

anyway, i had my first ouija board session tonight. i lit four candles, turned off all my lights, muted my phone, got my late grandfather's necklace, and tried. i asked questions and rambled about myself to my empty bedroom. i glanced in the mirror a few times. i thought very negatively about myself, not on purpose. i tried to keep everything i said neutral though. i don't want to reject 'negative' entities like demons, because i figure those might be the most interesting encounters, but i also don't want to come right out of the gate talking shit about myself. it wasn't entirely a bust. i meditated for a few minutes and that was nice. but the planchet didn't move, and i don't think i 'sensed' anything other than a sleepy heaviness. i think i'm just a bit tired.

hopefully i'll dream of ghosts tonight. maybe i'll be visited by something. maybe i'll dream of the future. maybe it's all real and i just need to believe in it. i don't think that's how it works, but what if it does? i might as well try. i'm not doing anything else valuable with my time.

i should be. i have homework due. but at least staring at a ouija board is time away from my screens. i really need time away from screens.

[headspace-hotel]

Yeah so...it's very possible that it is psychosomatic, but that doesn't mean "not real." We've heard a lot about women's health complaints being dismissed as "just anxiety," but anxiety is itself a very real thing that has debilitating effects on your body.

The EMF thing is a whole branch of the conspiracy theory hydra. There are sub-groups of these conspiracy communities that are characterized by a particular "thing" that is almost like a paranoid delusion—there's the people convinced they're infested with parasites so they do constant "purges" and ingest toxic substances to try to get rid of them; there's the EMF people, there's similar things with mold toxicity I believe where EVERY illness is caused by mold.

It's incredibly hard to get out of these because they have that kernel of truth (mold and parasites are real things that cause disease sometimes) and being disbelieved or abused by doctors is often a formative experience.

Having your own experience of your body be disbelieved and ignored, especially when you're in a vulnerable situation with someone who has power over you (like a doctor) can be super traumatizing. I've learned it personally that your body demands to be taken seriously. When I was in a really bad living situation in college and was destroying myself with no support, I became really sick in a way that isn't clearly mental or physical, I would have horrific nightmares and be sweating all night and my body would hurt because of tension, and my lymph nodes were swollen all the time. It was the worst time of my life but the physical distress I was experiencing was actually something within me trying to keep me safe.

I've had severe anxiety my whole life and learning to suppress the symptoms with cognitive behavior therapy really hurt me because I learned to treat fear as some kind of monster when it was actually something that just wanted me to be safe, and I had to learn to understand it and accept it as part of me. I had to take it seriously and I had to believe it in order to productively deal with the problem.

Even if your mom is wrong about the physical process, she is right about being in distress. I deeply sympathize with you in this situation because, to put it bluntly alternative medicine is a cult. Watching your loved one be sucked into a cult is...really difficult. And having an experience that it feels like no one understands makes it easy to get into a cult.

y'all want to see the insane shit the "herbalism" folks on instagram are getting up to

[idiomie]

I'm actually very frustrated by the whole pop music fundamentalism conspiracy theory thing because like. Okay. THE THING IS. I have spent a non-negligible time interacting with and being involved with various Christian cult denominations (Mormons, for whatever brand of "Christian" they'll be included as, and a variety of particularly virulent evangelicism) and it is not. that out there. conceptually.

I mean, the whole, "they own the radio and music industry and are deliberately trying to flood American pop radio with sanitized Christian pop gospel songs" ehhhh okay yeah that part is, and is reflective of like. One, you clearly don't grasp the failure of American radio to begin with wrt conformity anyway and also two, you apparently can't differentiate between the music of a proselyte, someone with a religious background, and someone working out their religious trauma on main. Please go home and do your homework. (If you want to know what an example of like, pop proselyte music is, were this theory true, look up, idk. Hawk Nelson for something current. Who don't. have particularly "real" mainstream appeal lmao. is2g this shit isn't subtle.)

OTOH I think part of the reason there IS a very real panic about it is like. At least among my friend group, the shit that Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby are able to get up to and pour their money into are fairly well known, so. The idea that that pop music that totally does have religious overtones that we've all been listening to for the last decade, when the fact that most music channels are laughably out of step with what people want to listen to (even accounting for the whole "people don't want to listen to heavy shit when just going through their day" phenomenon), might be the result of yet another Shady Corporation Doing Shady Things... The conspiracy theory is wrong, okay, but I'm getting kinda annoyed by all the people self righteously proclaiming that they saw through it the entire time, because actually sometimes America is Just Like That.

[curapcrsonalis-blog]

I haven’t been as alive here as I ought to be ( weird home / work things, and typically when I hit an upswing in energy I focus on Misty ) and although I haven’t written anything with or on him yet, and I’m not about to go on a whole spiel about it at like two in the morning, please note that Chester Creb is more of a danger to himself than anybody else and everything the show did with him was a complete waste.

[missmentelle]

Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things

If you’ve been paying attention for the last couple of years, you might have noticed that the world has a bit of a misinformation problem. 

The problem isn’t just with the recent election conspiracies, either. The last couple of years has brought us the rise (and occasionally fall) of misinformation-based movements like:

Sandy Hook conspiracies

Gamergate

Pizzagate

The MRA/incel/MGTOW movements

anti-vaxxers

flat-earthers

the birther movement

the Illuminati 

climate change denial

Spygate

Holocaust denial 

COVID-19 denial 

5G panic 

QAnon 

But why do people believe this stuff?

It would be easy - too easy - to say that people fall for this stuff because they’re stupid. We all want to believe that smart people like us are immune from being taken in by deranged conspiracies. But it’s just not that simple. People from all walks of life are going down these rabbit holes - people with degrees and professional careers and rich lives have fallen for these theories, leaving their loved ones baffled. Decades-long relationships have splintered this year, as the number of people flocking to these conspiracies out of nowhere reaches a fever pitch. 

So why do smart people start believing some incredibly stupid things? It’s because:

Our brains are built to identify patterns. 

Our brains fucking love puzzles and patterns. This is a well-known phenomenon called apophenia, and at one point, it was probably helpful for our survival - the prehistoric human who noticed patterns in things like animal migration, plant life cycles and the movement of the stars was probably a lot more likely to survive than the human who couldn’t figure out how to use natural clues to navigate or find food. 

The problem, though, is that we can’t really turn this off. Even when we’re presented with completely random data, we’ll see patterns. We see patterns in everything, even when there’s no pattern there. This is why people see Jesus in a burnt piece of toast or get superstitious about hockey playoffs or insist on always playing at a certain slot machine - our brains look for patterns in the constant barrage of random information in our daily lives, and insist that those patterns are really there, even when they’re completely imagined. 

A lot of conspiracy theories have their roots in people making connections between things that aren’t really connected. The belief that “vaccines cause autism” was bolstered by the fact that the first recognizable symptoms of autism happen to appear at roughly the same time that children receive one of their rounds of childhood immunizations - the two things are completely unconnected, but our brains have a hard time letting go of the pattern they see there. Likewise, many people were quick to latch on to the fact that early maps of COVID infections were extremely similar to maps of 5G coverage -  the fact that there’s a reasonable explanation for this (major cities are more likely to have both high COVID cases AND 5G networks) doesn’t change the fact that our brains just really, really want to see a connection there. 

Our brains love proportionality. 

Specifically, our brains like effects to be directly proportional to their causes - in other words, we like it when big events have big causes, and small causes only lead to small events. It’s uncomfortable for us when the reverse is true. And so anytime we feel like a “big” event (celebrity death, global pandemic, your precious child is diagnosed with autism) has a small or unsatisfying cause (car accident, pandemics just sort of happen every few decades, people just get autism sometimes), we sometimes feel the need to start looking around for the bigger, more sinister, “true” cause of that event. 

Consider, for instance, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot four times by a Turkish member of a known Italian paramilitary secret society who’d recently escaped from prison - on the surface, it seems like the sort of thing conspiracy theorists salivate over, seeing how it was an actual multinational conspiracy. But they never had much interest in the assassination attempt. Why? Because the Pope didn’t die. He recovered from his injuries and went right back to Pope-ing. The event didn’t have a serious outcome, and so people are content with the idea that one extremist carried it out. The death of Princess Diana, however, has been fertile ground for conspiracy theories; even though a woman dying in a car accident is less weird than a man being shot four times by a paid political assassin, her death has attracted more conspiracy theories because it had a bigger outcome. A princess dying in a car accident doesn’t feel big enough. It’s unsatisfying. We want such a monumentous moment in history to have a bigger, more interesting cause. 

These theories prey on pre-existing fear and anger. 

Are you a terrified new parent who wants the best for their child and feels anxious about having them injected with a substance you don’t totally understand? Congrats, you’re a prime target for the anti-vaccine movement. Are you a young white male who doesn’t like seeing more and more games aimed at women and minorities, and is worried that “your” gaming culture is being stolen from you? You might have been very interested in something called Gamergate. Are you a right-wing white person who worries that “your” country and way of life is being stolen by immigrants, non-Christians and coastal liberals? You’re going to love the “all left-wingers are Satantic pedo baby-eaters” messaging of QAnon. 

Misinformation and conspiracy theories are often aimed strategically at the anxieties and fears that people are already experiencing. No one likes being told that their fears are insane or irrational; it’s not hard to see why people gravitate towards communities that say “yes, you were right all along, and everyone who told you that you were nuts to be worried about this is just a dumb sheep. We believe you, and we have evidence that you were right along, right here.” Fear is a powerful motivator, and you can make people believe and do some pretty extreme things if you just keep telling them “yes, that thing you’re afraid of is true, but also it’s way worse than you could have ever imagined.”

Real information is often complicated, hard to understand, and inherently unsatisfying. 

The information that comes from the scientific community is often very frustrating for a layperson; we want science to have hard-and-fast answers, but it doesn’t. The closest you get to a straight answer is often “it depends” or “we don’t know, but we think X might be likely”. Understanding the results of a scientific study with any confidence requires knowing about sampling practices, error types, effect sizes, confidence intervals and publishing biases. Even asking a simple question like “is X bad for my child” will usually get you a complicated, uncertain answer - in most cases, it really just depends. Not understanding complex topics makes people afraid - it makes it hard to trust that they’re being given the right information, and that they’re making the right choices. 

Conspiracy theories and misinformation, on the other hand, are often simple, and they are certain. Vaccines bad. Natural things good. 5G bad. Organic food good. The reason girls won’t date you isn’t a complex combination of your social skills, hygiene, appearance, projected values, personal circumstances, degree of extroversion, luck and life phase - girls won’t date you because feminism is bad, and if we got rid of feminism you’d have a girlfriend. The reason Donald Trump was an unpopular president wasn’t a complex combination of his public bigotry, lack of decorum, lack of qualifications, open incompetence, nepotism, corruption, loss of soft power, refusal to uphold the basic responsibilities of his position or his constant lying - they hated him because he was fighting a secret sex cult and they’re all in it. 

Instead of making you feel stupid because you’re overwhelmed with complex information, expert opinions and uncertain advice, conspiracy theories make you feel smart - smarter, in fact, than everyone who doesn’t believe in them. And that’s a powerful thing for people living in a credential-heavy world. 

Many conspiracy theories are unfalsifiable. 

It is very difficult to prove a negative. If I tell you, for instance, that there’s no such thing as a purple swan, it would be very difficult for me to actually prove that to you - I could spend the rest of my life photographing swans and looking for swans and talking to people who know a lot about swans, and yet the slim possibility would still exist that there was a purple swan out there somewhere that I just hadn’t found yet. That’s why, in most circumstances, the burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim - if you tell me that purple swans exist, we should continue to assume that they don’t until you actually produce a purple swan. 

Conspiracy theories, however, are built so that it’s nearly impossible to “prove” them wrong. Is there any proof that the world’s top-ranking politicians and celebrities are all in a giant child sex trafficking cult? No. But can you prove that they aren’t in a child sex-trafficking cult? No, not really. Even if I, again, spent the rest of my life investigating celebrities and following celebrities and talking to people who know celebrities, I still couldn’t definitely prove that this cult doesn’t exist - there’s always a chance that the specific celebrities I’ve investigated just aren’t in the cult (but other ones are!) or that they’re hiding evidence of the cult even better than we think. Lack of evidence for a conspiracy theory is always treated as more evidence for the theory - we can’t find anything because this goes even higher up than we think! They’re even more sophisticated at hiding this than we thought! People deeply entrenched in these theories don’t even realize that they are stuck in a circular loop where everything seems to prove their theory right - they just see a mountain of “evidence” for their side. 

Our brains are very attached to information that we “learned” by ourselves.

Learning accurate information is not a particularly interactive or exciting experience. An expert or reliable source just presents the information to you in its entirety, you read or watch the information, and that’s the end of it. You can look for more information or look for clarification of something, but it’s a one-way street - the information is just laid out for you, you take what you need, end of story. 

Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, almost never show their hand all at once. They drop little breadcrumbs of information that slowly lead you where they want you to go. This is why conspiracy theorists are forever telling you to “do your research” - they know that if they tell you everything at once, you won’t believe them. Instead, they want you to indoctrinate yourself slowly over time, by taking the little hints they give you and running off to find or invent evidence that matches that clue. If I tell you that celebrities often wear symbols that identify them as part of a cult and that you should “do your research” about it, you can absolutely find evidence that substantiates my claim - there are literally millions of photos of celebrities out there, and anyone who looks hard enough is guaranteed to find common shapes, poses and themes that might just mean something (they don’t - eyes and triangles are incredibly common design elements, and if I took enough pictures of you, I could also “prove” that you also clearly display symbols that signal you’re in the cult). 

The fact that you “found” the evidence on your own, however, makes it more meaningful to you. We trust ourselves, and we trust that the patterns we uncover by ourselves are true. It doesn’t feel like you’re being fed misinformation - it feels like you’ve discovered an important truth that “they” didn’t want you to find, and you’ll hang onto that for dear life. 

Older people have not learned to be media-literate in a digital world. 

Fifty years ago, not just anyone could access popular media. All of this stuff had a huge barrier to entry - if you wanted to be on TV or be in the papers or have a radio show, you had to be a professional affiliated with a major media brand. Consumers didn’t have easy access to niche communities or alternative information - your sources of information were basically your local paper, the nightly news, and your morning radio show, and they all more or less agreed on the same set of facts. For decades, if it looked official and it appeared in print, you could probably trust that it was true. 

Of course, we live in a very different world today - today, any asshole can accumulate an audience of millions, even if they have no credentials and nothing they say is actually true (like “The Food Babe”, a blogger with no credentials in medicine, nutrition, health sciences, biology or chemistry who peddles health misinformation to the 3 million people who visit her blog every month). It’s very tough for older people (and some younger people) to get their heads around the fact that it’s very easy to create an “official-looking” news source, and that they can’t necessarily trust everything they find on the internet. When you combine that with a tendency toward “clickbait headlines” that often misrepresent the information in the article, you have a generation struggling to determine who they can trust in a media landscape that doesn’t at all resemble the media landscape they once knew. 

These beliefs become a part of someone’s identity. 

A person doesn’t tell you that they believe in anti-vaxx information - they tell you that they ARE an anti-vaxxer. Likewise, people will tell you that they ARE a flat-earther, a birther, or a Gamergater. By design, these beliefs are not meant to be something you have a casual relationship with, like your opinion of pizza toppings or how much you trust local weather forecasts - they are meant to form a core part of your identity. 

And once something becomes a core part of your identity, trying to make you stop believing it becomes almost impossible. Once we’ve formed an initial impression of something, facts just don’t change our minds. If you identify as an antivaxxer and I present evidence that disproves your beliefs, in your mind, I’m not correcting inaccurate information - I am launching a very personal attack against a core part of who you are. In fact, the more evidence I present, the more you will burrow down into your antivaxx beliefs, more confident than ever that you are right. Admitting that you are wrong about something that is important to you is painful, and your brain would prefer to simply deflect conflicting information rather than subject you to that pain.

We can see this at work with something called the confirmation bias. Simply put, once we believe something, our brains hold on to all evidence that that belief is true, and ignore evidence that it’s false. If I show you 100 articles that disprove your pet theory and 3 articles that confirm it, you’ll cling to those 3 articles and forget about the rest. Even if I show you nothing but articles that disprove your theory, you’ll likely go through them and pick out any ambiguous or conflicting information as evidence for “your side”, even if the conclusion of the article shows that you are wrong - our brains simply care about feeling right more than they care about what is actually true.  

There is a strong community aspect to these theories. 

There is no one quite as supportive or as understanding as a conspiracy theorist - provided, of course, that you believe in the same conspiracy theories that they do. People who start looking into these conspiracy theories are told that they aren’t crazy, and that their fears are totally valid. They’re told that the people in their lives who doubted them were just brainwashed sheep, but that they’ve finally found a community of people who get where they’re coming from. Whenever they report back to the group with the “evidence” they’ve found or the new elaborations on the conspiracy theory that they’ve been thinking of (“what if it’s even worse than we thought??”), they are given praise for their valuable contributions. These conspiracy groups often become important parts of people’s social networks - they can spend hours every day talking with like-minded people from these communities and sharing their ideas. 

Of course, the flipside of this is that anyone who starts to doubt or move away from the conspiracy immediately loses that community and social support. People who have broken away from antivaxx and QAnon often say that the hardest part of leaving was losing the community and friendships they’d built - not necessarily giving up on the theory itself. Many people are rejected by their real-life friends and family once they start to get entrenched in conspiracy theories; the friendships they build online in the course of researching these theories often become the only social supports they have left, and losing those supports means having no one to turn to at all. This is by design - the threat of losing your community has kept people trapped in abusive religious sects and cults for as long as those things have existed. 

[grenade-maid]

Just finished Lain. Watched the last episode twice, which gently removed my heart from my chest and pulped it into a fine paste in a mortar and pestle. This hit much closer to home than I expected.

In my Lain epistemology post I somewhat flippantly made an aside that the series was only tangentially about Lain the actual character. By which I meant that my read on the series up until that point (around episode 8 or 9) was that each episode was teasing apart different aspects of the ambiguity of truth, knowledge, information, and communication, with the events of Lain's life being almost just a sort of example case study for how these concepts can impact someone on an individual level. Lain was framed in a kind of zoomed out way as an abstract avatar moving through these events without a whole lot of expression of her personal thoughts and feelings.

And then we get to the last three episodes.

It's in this space that Lain the 8th grade age girl with thoughts and feelings and wants and needs and fears comes into painfully sharp focus. The beginning of the final episode sums up and contextualizes what all of this has always been about.

Who am I? What is the real me? How can I tell what's real about me if everyone interprets it differently?

Do I even exist if other people can't see me?

The flippant bravado that I expressed in that post is the same attitude that Lain has been applying to her own very sense of self throughout the series, as just another arbitrary and moldable piece of information subject to interpretation with no inherent truth.

She effectively commits suicide by removing herself from sight, mind, and memory, of everyone around her. After all, if they have no knowledge of her, then she no longer exists. But what is lurking in the subtext of this finale is that she fails to consider that everyone she is cutting off is equally subject to this process. She imagines that without her meddling they are able to be happy. But that's all it is, imagination.

She doesn't exist to them anymore because she erased their knowledge of her, but it goes both ways. In doing this, they cease to exist to her, too. The image of the happy lives of the people she knew don't come from real observation or fact. It is something that she is imposing upon her memory or imagination of those people, which is only possible because she's removed herself from the possibility of being reminded just how complex and occasionally painful their lives will be with her or without her. In those scenes nobody misses her except in these brief fleeting moments where they remember some fond association with her, before moving on to their happy lives.

But this isn't reality. She isn't seeing these people. This is how she comforts herself, by imagining that everything is for the best without her, and nobody has to feel the pain of missing her. But that's not something she can know or control. The pain they feel upon losing her doesn't exist only because she has removed herself from where she might see it and have to acknowledge it.

Do I even exist if other people can't see me?

This phrase is taken to its literal extreme in the finale. But I think it's important to take a step back and really think about what this means on a more human level, especially when it comes to the kinds of struggles that everyone, especially kids that age, are dealing with.

That is to say, even if you literally physically exist and go about the world talking to people going to school eating dinner and so on, if there are parts of you that people don't know about, if there are things inside you that you can't express, you quickly come to the painful realization that to other people, that stuff just doesn't exist. Which means that whole side of you doesn't exist, according to the outside world. And if that side of you encompasses something important about your identity or your experiences, it's hard to not come to the conclusion that the real you, the entirety of your being, doesn't exist to them either. And when you try to tell them about it, or when they notice on their own, but they don't understand or perhaps outright reject it, hasn't some fundamental part of your humanity been erased? In this kind of environment it's easy to start doubting that any of it exists at all. After all, if nobody else will recognize it, you've only got your own word to go on. And that isn't always enough to trust.

And again, keep in mind that this goes both ways. I think Lain's sister is the clearest example which is given by the series. One episode she begins as a character, someone who has thoughts and a personality and so on. By the end of the episode she is reduced to the state that she will stay in for the rest of the series, blank-eyed and senseless. That fully fledged self she had still exists though. Lain just stops being able to see it, so effectively her sister stops existing for her.

Do I even exist if other people can't see me?

When you are isolated you can say anything about yourself. You can say you're nobody, or you're God, or perhaps something even wiser and greater than God. It can feel powerful to start writing your own existence and rationalizing your own isolation, the perceptions of others be damned. You can say well, my parents don't understand me and I stopped being able to connect to my sister, but who cares! Family is just arbitrary biology anyway! What if they aren't even my family at all, and are just plants put in place by a secret organization. I'm not lonely, I'm just seeking a greater truth, a conspiracy that only I can see! I don't make social mistakes, I'm not afraid of hurting anyone, that's the fake me running around out there! But it's not sustainable. Eventually life comes crashing down, whether it be in the form of interference in the material world, or if that mental state with all of its attendant self-spun narratives just finally collapses.

As with most things in this series, Lain's interactions with "God" are written in a very abstract symbolic way. But, the pattern that it follows seems very familiar to me as one of a predatory adult grooming a vulnerable minor. He alternates between gassing Lane up as the most powerful and important being who has ever lived, and then in the next breath saying that she's nothing. In peddling his conspiracy theory narrative of humankind merging with The Wired, of Lain simply being a powerful piece of software meant for Grand Purpose, he feeds into her struggle for identity and the need to be seen and understood by at once validating these feelings and how confusing they are, while reinforcing her isolation and his own dominant grip over defining the shape of the world and society.

When Arisu finds Lain living in filth and comforts her, that is one of the rare moments that the raw, vulnerable, material world Lain, weighed down with no pretenses, pokes her head out. That moment of genuine intimacy that she has been so hungry for this whole time is enough to allow her to retaliate against "God" when he shows up in anger upon being doubted. When Arisu reacts poorly to this sight, though, is when Lain makes her final dive back into her own walled off reality. For as much as she wants to be seen and held and comforted by this girl she loves, it is far more painful for her to have to witness and live with the feeling of rejection and guilt that came from Arisu's fear in the aftermath.

The final image of her father finally expressing the real tenderness she has longed for. The imagined future of Arisu dating her former teacher well into adulthood, because it's the only model of a relationship Lain has ever seen someone want, because her parents certainly don't seem happy, and she herself didn't get anything out of the boy who kissed her. The final statement, "I will always be with you". As with everything in the series, these can be interpreted many ways. But to me it reads unmistakably as the final moments before suicide.

In any case though, after all that, it seems fairly starkly clear why Lain resonates so strongly with trans people. Contrary to the old saying that all happy people are happy the same way, but all miserable people suffer uniquely, this path to despondence is depressingly common. It is the way out that is unique to everyone who finds themselves there. I hate to say it, although I feel very lucky to say that I have survived being in that place many times--which I think is proof that it is possible to get to the other side and make a good life, despite everything-- I think if it had ended any more neatly or more positively, it just wouldn't feel as honest. It captures the depth of that state of being. That's just what it's like. And as heavy as it is to sit with, I get a lot from being able to see something painfully familiar to me reflected in such a raw way. After all that, a happy ending would just feel disingenuous. I mean, that's my life, and any happy ending they could have written just isn't how it went.

[casmick-consequences]

Cas&Dean VS Claire&Jack

So I wrote [a small little theory] a while ago as to why I think Claire and Jack wouldn’t have been shown on screen together/have any connection throughout the show on-screen/off-screen at all. And so here I will some points as to why I think that is. 

AKA here’s the long awaited essay/conspiracy theory y’all have been asking for.

First of all; let me start off by saying this is 100% meant as a joke (no it’s not) and it’s not to be taken seriously (yes it is) as it’s literally just a dumb theory (it definitely isn’t). And second; fuck the C*W for contributing to every little bit of tinhatting this fandom (especially us hellers) has succumbed to.

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Now; for this theory we have to understand a few things:

How Dean and Cas work as individuals

How Claire and Jack work as individuals

How Dean and Cas work as a duo

Let’s start with the first two things.

How Dean and Cas work as individuals

Dean Winchester is a masculine, tough but loving hunter. He cultivates a “bad-boy personality”, and makes sarcastic jokes at even the most morbid times. Underneath, though, he's become hardened by life as a warrior (as Daddy’s blunt instrument, if you will). He’s been taught to fight his father’s battles, and protect the ones he loves and cares for. But soon began to see that neither of his parents (especially his dad) did the job they were given when they had children. He didn’t just have to be a brother; he had to be a father and mother. He’s had to grow walls around him to stay strong for his little brother, but over time, after making a family for himself, it became easier to tear those walls down. However, he has his weak spots and is an emotional and loving human being through and through.

Castiel, the Angel of Thursday, is an angel of the Lord. He’s lived for aeons, and as an angel has (just like Dean) been taught to fight the battles of his creator and father. He’s a warrior, and he’s been given the job to follow the orders of said creator. Only for those orders to be thrown out the window once he meets Dean Winchester. The man who showed him that hate and anger isn’t always the true answer and that you can choose to be good. Everything that he has been taught slowly breaks away as his hard exterior crumbles, and he develops into a being with emotions, as he slowly but eventually learns to love and care for this man, and with that; humanity.

How Claire and Jack work as individuals

Claire Novak, a woman who has lead a tragic life, where she lost both her parents early on. Her father said yes to be the (permanent) vessel of an Angel, and her mother just disappeared after dropping her off to her Grandmother. After the grandmother had passed away, she was left alone. She had to fight through the world on her own, as she put a wall around herself to make herself stronger for the people around her. It took a while before she found her place in a loving family filled with strong women, who didn’t just help bring her walls down, but build a home instead.

Jack Kline is an innocent, naive but loving Nephilim. The son of the human Kelly Kline and the archangel Lucifer. He was destined for evil, as a Nephilim is one of the most powerful creatures in existence. But, with the help of his three Godfathers (heh), he learns that he doesn’t have to be evil. He can be whatever he wants to be. Controlling his powers has been hard, but no matter what happened, his mindset never changed as he grew to love the people and love the things around him. His biological father saw his power, but his chosen father saw his kind soul. Castiel believed he could create paradise, and he did, as he became the God that the universe deserved.

There are alot of parallels between Dean/Claire and Jack/Cas that can be compared to here. Let me show you a few:

So we’ve established that with Claire being Dean-coded, and Jack being Cas-coded, there could’ve definitely been potential for a cute Claire/Jack dynamic in the show. Why wouldn’t they have done that, you think? Perhaps this question can be answered when we look at thing number 3:

How Dean and Cas work as a duo

Destiel is the relationship between the hunter Dean and the angel Castiel. Castiel was ordered by God to free him from Hell, and afterwards he was supposed to do as he was told while Dean was supposed to figure out how to “stop the apocalypse” which happened to be a bunch of garbo afterwards knowing what we know now. Nonetheless, Castiel didn’t listen, as he quickly grew fond of the hunter and, because of him, developed a sense of emotion and free will. This lead to Castiel helping Dean throughout the Apocalypse, and beyond, and they’ve been best friends ever since.

There have been MULTIPLE essays on Tumblr about how this relationship works, and it would be silly of me to try and summarize stuff that hasn’t been said a million times already. But basically; What they have is quite a bit more than best friendship. It has been confirmed in 15x18, Despair, that Castiel has been in love with Dean for quite some time, as Dean’s own feelings are kind of all over the place. Nothing has been confirmed, yet nothing has been denied. But, seeing as all the insane things Dean has done for/because of/regarding Castiel... for instance:

defended his behavior to his brother and father when neither trusted him in season 6

kept his trenchcoat when he “died” in season 7, and keeping it with him in the trunk of his car(s) for the entirety of Castiel’s absence.

absolutely despises angels, and hates praying, yet he only ever prays to Castiel when he needs anything because he’s the only one he trusts

couldn’t get his mind of of him when he was possessed by Lucifer, and later taken by Amara in season 11

Has Castiel being referred to as his Colette by Cain (subtext but not really subtext because it was so incredibly obvious)

was supposed to be completely enamored by Amara and was supposed to be so hypnotizingly attracted to her that he couldn’t focus on anything else, yet he called out for Castiel’s name when it came down to it (aka the equivalent of calling out someone else’s name during sex) 

keeps looking at him like that

acted like a grieving widow when Castiel died in season 13

gets down on his knees to pray to, cry for and apologize to Castiel in Purgatory when there’s millions of creatures hunting his ass

...it’s easy to say that this is more than just a “brotherly friendship” between the two. There is dialogue that would NOT have worked between Sam/Cas because it would’ve felt weird. I wonder why.

So now to get back on topic; why is it that we’ve never seen Claire and Jack on screen together?

Is it because the writers didn’t have time to put them together in any given scenario whatsoever? Is it because the writers didn’t care enough for Claire to give her some more airtime with the boys? 

Or is it perhaps that if there was a possibility that they’d be on screen together, that they’d have a very similar (if not the same) connection to one another as Dean and Cas, only written as an actual little brother/big sister friendship dynamic?

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So yes, TL;DR: the actual reason that Claire and Jack never met is because they would’ve had the exact same dynamic as Dean and Cas, but in this case platonic. Which would’ve meant that the audience would’ve seen a clear difference between the Dean/Cas dynamic and Claire/Jack dynamic, and it would’ve shown that the way they’ve been writing and directing the Dean/Cas scenes is romantic.

thank you very much, and I bid thee a very good night. <3