#it’s probably the cognitive bias

[staticnonapus]

Oh no I think I like idw prowl unironically

[calicojack1718]

Cognitive Biases and Polling: Navigating the Illusion of Certainty

Reading time: 5 minutes Human beings hate uncertainty, so we go to almost any length to rid ourselves of the discomfort it causes. Our cognitive tendencies get badly abused and used by polling to skew our perception of elections.

SUMMARY: This post explores how polling exploits our psychological biases, distorting our understanding of electoral dynamics. We struggle with uncertainty and probabilities, leading to cognitive gymnastics that reinforce our preferences. Key biases—confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and cognitive dissonance—form the “Sword and Shield of Self-Righteousness,” enabling us to dismiss…

[creature-wizard]

Caution & Critical Thinking In Divination

Some of you might have been led to think that divination in some form or another is a fully reliable method to work out any kind of information; at least, so long as you can find a decent practitioner. But if there's any practitioner out there who can really nail 'em 100% of the time, most of us have yet to find them. Sure, we can find some people out there who can offer us some genuine insights and advice, but I don't think any of us here have ever met anyone who can get everything right all of the time.

In fact, there are a lot of reasons to exercise caution in terms of how we perceive and practice divination. For one thing, certain cognitive biases can make us overestimate it accuracy, while there are serious ethical concerns to be considered.

First, let's talk about the cognitive biases.

There's the Forer Effect, where we mistake vague or general statements as incredibly personalized, and therefore, highly accurate. Anyone who has ever considered a tarot reader super accurate because the reader told them that they were experiencing some conflict and needed to let go of things that were no longer serving them has experienced the Forer Effect.

There's also confirmation bias, where we latch onto details that feel relevant to us and let ourselves forget about the rest. How many of you pick-a-pile tarot reading video watchers out there are really keeping score of how much fit your situation vs. how much didn't? If you're not, try and start paying more attention.

Scammers will absolutely take advantage of this bias. For example, many fake mediums will make statements like, "I'm sensing a name starting with M... Mary... Maggie... Mildred..." Most of us probably know at least one person whose name starts with M, and if the medium sticks to the more common ones, is probably going to give a name that belongs to someone you know. This technique is known as shotgunning.

Sometimes, a reader will actually, genuinely make a super accurate observation or prediction. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you should take everything they say really seriously. For example, if someone makes a lot of predictions, then one of them is bound to come true eventually. The psychological phenomenon of thin-slicing can also produce some incredibly accurate readings.

There's also self-fulfilling prophecy. Let's say you ask a reader to tell you how your next date will go. The reader says it's not going to go well because the person you're on a date with is just not going to be a great person. Because you go in expecting your date to be kind of an ass and thinking this is going to be a waste of your time, you act hostile and impatient. Your date sees you acting this way and responds in kind - seemingly fulfilling the reader's prediction.

Certain bad discernment practices can make us mistake information we want to be true for information that is true. For example, in New Age and New Age-influenced communities, you might hear that you can discern spiritual truth by asking yourself whether it makes you feel good or bad. A reader might announce that the light beings from space are going to reveal themselves to the world on some soonish date, and tell people to ask their higher selves if they doubt them. The people who would really like it if benevolent aliens came to Earth and haven't learned yet that people are always making predictions like these and that these predictions always fail will most probably feel this surge of excitement, seemingly confirming the truthfulness of this information.

None of this is to say that you should never practice divination or go to a tarot reader or anything, but you need to be aware of this stuff so you can more critically evaluate readings.

Now let's move onto ethical concerns. Because to be blunt, some methods of divination are deeply, deeply inappropriate.

In general, any reading for a person who isn't there and cannot give consent is just... no. Anyone who does this most probably believes that divination works to some meaningful degree, which means that they are choosing to violate this person's privacy. Sometimes it's just straight-up stalking behavior, like trying to divine what your ex is thinking about and when you're going to get back together. Instead of being a creep, just do a cord-cutting spell and get on with your life.

If you need to find out what's going on with someone who is your partner? You need to work on your communication skills and talk to them, not run around them by going to a tarot reader who may or may not even give you accurate information.

Also, reading for celebrities is just... not great. News media treating celebrities' personal lives like more consumable products makes it easy to forget that celebrities are literally just people and also have a right to privacy. Trying to use your preferred method of divination to invade their privacy and dig into their love lives or whatever is just really not okay. You might not think it's a big deal, but it still feeds into our overall culture of commodifying celebrities' lives. If you're just bored and need something to do, you can use your divination tools as imagine prompts for fictional characters. If you're the kind of person who hyperfixates on real people, consider studying the life of a dead historical person.

Now we have to talk about a huge problem in the way a lot of people treat astrology. A lot of people use it like you can just tell anything and everything about a person's behavior and demeanor, even to the point of determining which people are good and which are evil. In reality, research has shown that you cannot tell anything about a person from their birth chart. (And there's no such thing as an ontologically good or bad person.)

Finally, because divination isn't really known for having a great record when it comes to gaining objective information, you should not use it to:

Diagnose or treat medical conditions.

Try to figure out what's "really" going on out in the world. The news may be unreliable, but this is a surefire way to speedrun total divorcement from reality. (Like the people who think Donald Trump is doing all kinds of heroics "behind the scenes" because the tarot cards seemingly told them so.)

Making firm predictions about the future.

For those of you wondering what does constitute an ethical, appropriate use of divination, here are some examples:

Using it as a means of self-reflection.

Using it to find alternative ideas and perspectives.

Deciding what you, personally will do in response to a situation.

Helping a client decide what they, personally will do in response to a situation.

And this, I think, sums about everything up. Divination can be enriching, fun, and useful, but it's important to exercise care and caution. We have to use critical thinking and also be mindful that we aren't turning into creeps or enabling creeps with it.

Happy witchin'!

[temporarywelcome]

Night Shift - Spencer Reid

Word Count: 1.6k

Summary: You have done everything Spencer wanted for the Halloween season, now it's time for him to do what you want... which you both regret.

WARNINGS: swearing, brief suggestive implications (no smut)

A/N: today is the birthday of my pookie wookie James Patrick March so I won't sleep tonight writing a fic for him so look out for that!

________

“Why the hell are we doing this?”

She grinned in response, eyes on the road as she drove, “You got to choose all the fun Halloween activities, now it’s my turn,”

Spencer sighed, leaning against the window as he looked outside, out into the dark streets of Virginia, “And you have to choose the most childish thing?”

“Actually,” she replied, “I think watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving or whatever it’s called with zero children around is pretty childish,”

“It’s tradition!”

“Boooooring,” Y/N deadpanned, making him roll his eyes, “My ideas are more fun,”

“Two grown adults going to a graveyard in the middle of the night looking for ghosts? Fun? Ghosts don’t exist, Y/N. You know, there’s actually a lot of explanations as to why people think they see ghosts. There are psychological reasons such as pareidolia, and cognitive and confirmation bias. You could even think of the neurological explanations like-”

Y/N zoned out, nodding her head as her boyfriend spoke. She didn’t understand what he was saying half of the time, but she hated how so many people just shut him up. And so she forced herself back to listening to him and his yapping. “You’re so cute,” she said after a while, pinching his cheek, “My favorite yapper,” 

“Don’t interrupt me,” he grumbled, swatting her hand away. He went straight back to his blabbering and she just smiled. She was happy he was comfortable enough with her to call her out. Most people just cut him off and he would let it slide, not wanting to be a bother. But when it came to her… he could get cranky. 

Y/N laughed, pinching his cheek again, “We’re here anyway. C’mon,” 

Rolling his eyes, Spencer followed her out to the back of the car. She opened up the trunk, revealing the overabundance of “supplies” she gathered for this activity: flashlights, night goggles, crosses, even some small vials of holy water?

“You came prepared,” he mused, picking up a cross with a laugh. She knew he wasn’t religious in the slightest, and she herself wasn’t either, until ghosts were involved. 

“Don’t worry, I brought religious symbols from other religions as well,” she said, opening up another duffel bag, “We’re safe,”

“I feel so protected,” he said sarcastically, resting his head on her shoulder as she organized her materials. 

“Shut,” Y/N grunted, snapping the night vision goggles into place, “Oh hell yeah. We’re the real deal,”

“Do I have to put that on?”

“Yes,” she slipped the goggles onto his head, patting his hair, “Look at you. Ghost hunter in the making.”

“I probably look so stupid,”

“Nooooo,” she took out her little digital camera and snapped a photo of them together, “We look like hot, sexy, ghost hunters,”

Spencer gave her a look, “You’re insane,” 

“I love you too, babe,” she handed him a flashlight, for in case the goggles went out. She then handed him a camera, “We’re gonna catch some ghosts,”

“This is so embarrassing,” he groaned, allowing her to take his hand and drag him through the gate and into the cemetery. He was already looking around, on high alert.

“I like the spirit! Get it? Spirit?” Y/N snickered proudly.

“I’m not searching for ghosts, dummy, I’m searching for living humans that might lose their shit when they see us,” Spencer replied, “And that joke was terrible,”

“As if you could do better,” she huffed, turning on her camera and beginning to record. The cemetery was silent except for the rustle of leaves in the wind and their steps on the grass. 

After a few minutes, Spencer was already bored, “I don’t think we’re going to find any ghosts,”

“Shut,” Y/N took a deep breath, “If there are any spirits with us, please make yourselves known,”

“Y/N, you’re talking to yourself,”

“No, I’m not. I’m talking to the spirits,”

“There are no spirits,” 

“There so are,”

Spencer sighed, gazing around the cemetery in boredom, “Did you know that in the Arlington National Cemetery, about thirty funerals are conducted in a single day alone?”

“I did not,” Y/N replied, “Morbid. Fits the mood. However, I don’t even know where that place is,”

“Babe, we’re in it right now,”

“Oh,” 

“We’re in the largest cemetery in the United States,”

“Hell yeah, there’s gotta be ghosts here then,” Y/N grinned, “Turn your camera on,”

Spencer did as told, not bothering to argue with her. He watched as she continued to call for spirits, hands in the air dramatically. “Babe, all the camera is capturing is you being a fool,”

“When we catch a ghost on camera, we’ll see who the fool is,” Y/N looked at the graves, “There’s so many of them…”

“Lot of fallen soldiers,” Spencer agreed.

“...what?”

“Fallen soldiers,” he repeated, “These graves are for fallen soldiers, veterans, prisoners of war-”

“Holy shit, I feel like such an asshole.” 

“Mhm,” 

She glared at him, “Let’s get out of here,” Spencer shrugged, slipping his hand into hers as they began walking back towards the gate. “Can’t believe you let me waltz into a veteran memorial in search of ghosts,”

“I thought you at least knew where the hell you were,”

“No, I just looked up cemetery on Google and followed the GPS toward the nearest one, I didn’t even pay attention to the name,”

“Of course you didn’t,” he suddenly stopped in his tracks, Y/N skidding to a stop next to him.

“What is it- oh,” she saw the hooded figure as it disappeared in the shadows. Hooded figure. Disappearing into the shadows.

Hell no.

“What the hell was that,” Spencer said. It didn’t even sound like a question. “You saw that too, right?”

“Right,” her grip on his hand tightened, “C’mon,” she was ready to fucking go.

“I swear if a security guard catches an FBI agent ghost hunting with his girlfriend, I’m going to throw up,” Spencer said in worry, grip on her hand tightening as well. He continued to nervously look around, expecting a security guard to jump out and arrest them both.

“I’m less worried about security guards, more worried about demons,” Y/N whispered the last word, eyes widened almost comically. 

“How could you be more worried about what doesn’t even exist?”

“Just because you haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist!”

“But there is no factual evidence to support their existence,”

They bickered on for a few minutes, until they heard the snap of a twigs. Spencer jumped, arms immediately going around her in fear, “Shit shit shit shit-”

“Shh!” Y/N pulled out a crucifix, waving it around wildly, “I’ll protect you!”

“With a freaking piece of wood?! Y/N, put that down!”  Spencer groaned, now more annoyed than scared. 

“I'm prepared,” she then pulled out some amulet with a hand symbol on it, waving the object around. 

Spencer rolled his eyes, no longer scared, “If ghosts were actually real I'm sure you'd be the reason we would die,”

“At least you're not scared anymore,”

“Because I'm flabbergasted,”

Another twig snapped and she raised the amulet again, “Show yourself, spirit!”

“I'm going to the car,” he deadpanned, until he saw it again. The shadowy figure. He squeaked, on instinct snatching the crucifix from her belt and pointing out, “Shit shit shit shit,”

“They're back is turned,” Y/N realized, “It doesn't see us… what is it doing?”

The dark figure was doing something, but it was too far for them to see. Y/N stepped closer and Spencer immediately gripped her wrist, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Investigating?” She stated the obvious.

“Okay but what if it's one of those demon devils you're so afraid of?”

She paused, biting her lip, “but I wanna know,”

“I swear if this shit was real you'd get us both killed- HOLY SHIT-” as soon as Spencer turned his head from her to the figure, it was right in front of him.

Well, he. An older white man with unsettling blue eyes and thinning salt and pepper hair, smile lines forming on his cheeks, grimace on his lips. 

Spencer and Y/N screamed. 

“You little shits!” The man barked out, “Get the hell out of here before I have you arrested-”

They were gone. They did not need to be told twice.

“I hate you!” Spencer hissed at his girlfriend as they sprinted out of the cemetery.

“We can have angry sex later, babe,” she replied dryly, pissing him off even more, “Missionary, so we could keep arguing,”

Spencer dived into the passenger seat of the car, “You're disgusting NOW DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE!”

“Shit, I'm going I'm going!” She exclaimed in response, starting the engine. She sped off, getting a glance at the pissed off look on his face, “Oh the angry sex is gonna be crazy,”

_____

Later that night, after that crazy fucking angry sex, Y/N let out a tired yawn, turning on the TV. Spencer was passed out next to her, so she kept the volume low as she flicked through the channels. 

She stopped on a random news station, leaning against the headboard and lazily bringing an arm around him as she watched the news story. 

Armed grave robber arrested at Arlington National Cemetery. That was the headline.

“Holy shit!” Y/N exclaimed, causing Spencer to snap up in alarm.

“What?! What happened?!” he said in worry, starting to scramble out of bed.

“Look!” she pointed at the news report, which was showing the mug shot of a familiar grumpy-looking older man.

“The guy from the cemetery…?” Spencer sunk down against the pillows, brows furrowed as he watched the screen, “He wasn’t a security guard?”

“I mean, he wasn’t dressed like one. We were just so panicked we didn’t even think about it.” 

“I suppose,” he started biting his nails in nervousness, “I swear if we get caught…”

“More angry sex?” she proposed. He glared at her. “Or not…”

[larothoughts]

qijiu thoughts: complicated codependence

after reading a few more shen jiu fics i figured maybe the diverging point when it comes to fan-interpretation is understanding how codependent qijiu is. like, it's not just qi-ge who won't let go of shen jiu, shen jiu 100% spitefully, unwillingly yet helplessly refuses to let go of qi-ge either. the obvious author answer to this is for sj to remove himself from qi-ge because of toxic codependence (see my rant on anti-qijiu pro-sj fics), except i don't think it's in-character for him to ever do so??

the man literally died twice because he couldn't let go of qi-ge until the very, very end. he'll never give up on him as easily as he does in fic, this man is a canonical stubborn asshole who can't let go of anything. that's his entire problem lol

(first time was obviously after lbh gave him xuan su's shards. sj, who had spent the entire time being tortured refusing to bend, cracks at the realization that qi-ge came this time and died. i forgot if him eating xuan su's shards is canon in the qijiu extras or if it's a fanon theory, but i 100% find this in-character of sj to do as a final f*** you to the universe.)

(second time was the qi deviation that caused shen yuan to take over his life. i'll go over this later, but i believe sqh, who transmigrated decades before, likely tried to nudge qijiu into reconciling and instead made it worse. so while in the og!pidw universe, sj never deviated hard enough to die; in this svsss universe, sqh trying to get sj to face his own heart demons literally caused him to die. oops. system got pretty mad because lbh MUST go into the abyss, and so had to scramble to find a sj replacement lol)

preface

much of this is my own interpretation of things btw. i haven't read the qijiu extras in a while so it's very possible some of these things don't follow canon. especially the whole cognitive dissonance part. i've always leaned towards the 'shen jiu is an unreliable, in-denial narrator of his own story, he can't admit anything to himself until he's literally at death's door' interpretation of sj's tsundereness, so that's 100% my own bias peeking through here.

how qing ding peak made everything worse

this a fanon theory i like that has merit given how long qijiu had problems: things would've been so much different if yue qi wasn't chosen by qing ding. like, literally any other peak, qijiu would've had 75% chance of having a happy ending. i feel like any peak with a halfway decent lord with basic empathy skills would have thought 'hmm yes, if we rescue the friend of this little prodigy we can ensure his loyalty to us for life' instead of 'let's dangle the chance of rescuing his friend as a way to get this kid to work as hard as he can until it's too late, then allow the failure to break him down completely so we can reshape him into the perfect successor.' though to be honest the former sect leader probably didn't expect yue qi to literally be broken down.

my thought is that the sect leader kept putting off the rescue over and over, hoping to drag things out until the inevitable happened. but yue qi, naturally wary of adults, panicked once he realized what his shizun was doing. he tried to pull xuan su without permission to force the leader into acknowledging his strength and letting him go... which then led to the entire soul-binding fiasco we see in canon. sure, the former sect leader could've lost his newest experiment, but throwing him into the caves had the bonus of making him late anyway. so a success all around everyone!

we can further theorize the character of the previous sect leader (and how his grooming of yue qi possibly led to his guilt complex and inability to communicate his honest feelings) but ultimately it was qing ding peak's teachings itself that led to yqy's inability to reconcile with sj. because qing ding is the diplomat's peak. the politics peak. the peak where people often cannot say exactly what they mean, must never overtly show favor to anyone, must control every single thing they do or say else the political fallout ruins their sect's reputation.

so it really didn't help that their reunion happened in the middle of sj committing pretty bad crimes like murdering and looting disciples. yue qi went immediately into political clean-up mode, sj misunderstood yue qi's silence as 'i will never tell you' instead of 'not now sj we need to bury these bodies in the bushes', and then later sj was so scornful yue qi's guilt-complex kicked in and he figured 'sj will never forgive me, obviously he doesn't want to hear excuses.' and as yue qi's political position grew, the less he could overtly support and protect shen jiu. the more careful he was of his words and actions, so far removed from the qi-ge sj once knew that sj can't help but lash out. by the time yqy was mentally well enough to talk about the lingxi cave fiasco (if ever), sj had already built up a protective wall of 'this qi-ge is an imposter, the real qi-ge would not have left me.' and yqy didn't know how to tell him the truth without sj's psyche collapsing in on itself. so... he just continued not to tell him.

in which qi-ge is alive but also dead, as declared by shen jiu

sj barely recognized qi-ge once they reunited. yue qi has always been the peacemaker amongst the rowdy slaves, sure, but he'd always been on sj's side. he told sj everything, things he never told the other slaves, and only really clammed up when they were facing beatings by adults in a true us-versus-them scenario. now, however, he's clamming up with shen jiu. he hates it, this intrinsically qi-ge thing that this fake qi-ge doesn't realize he's doing. more than the shiny clothes and well-fed appearance, this is what makes the chasm between them feel real. qi-ge never came back for him, because qi-ge was dead. cang qiong killed qi-ge and all that's left is this qi-ge puppet going through motions of caring for sj it obviously doesn't understand.

(this is easier for him to accept, because if yue qi wasn't mentally dead than he really did willingly abandon shen jiu in the dirt, and accepting that would make shen jiu lose his mind.)

now what to do when qi-ge is dead and he doesn't need sj to protect him anymore? logically, sj should've stayed long enough to fix his cultivation, save up funds, and then leave to become a rogue cultivator before his past had the chance to catch up to him. but sj is not logical. he's spiteful and angry and contrary. he claws his way up the disciple hierarchy on qing jing and spits in the face of yue qi's awkward overtures. he hates the other qing jing disciples, his own shizun, lqg and a bunch of the other head disciples; in fact, he hates cang qiong as a whole because they were the ones that took qi-ge away from him. but at the end of the day, a dead qi-ge puppet is still kind of qi-ge and even if qi-ge threw sj away that didn't mean the reverse was true. sj will not give even a dead puppet qi-ge up; he belongs to him whether he likes it or not (/spitefully).

so as it becomes clearer and clearer that yue qi will indeed become the next sect leader, sj begrudgingly finds himself stuck in cang qiong. one would think things would get better after the former peak lords ascend, since that meant the evil brainwashing sect leader and the resentful qiu-naming qing jing peak lord would've finally fucked off. but no, things actually get worse.

because now that the former sect leader isn't actively sabotaging qijiu's relationship (sure, he didn't mean to break yue qi's mind that bad, but even the worst broken eggs can be turned into a decent obedient successor, except shen jiu's continued existence is threatening to undo all his hard work) yue qi is more able to try and make overt amends. the problem is, by acting more like the real qi-ge, he's threatening sj's mental defense of 'qi-ge is dead, this qi-ge is a fake.'

when cognitive dissonance gives you qi deviations

the more qi-ge acts like he's honestly sorry, the more shen jiu must accept that qi-ge isn't dead. that he either chose to leave sj behind (devastating given sj's abandonment issues) or was forced to leave sj behind and refused to tell him why (more abandonment issues; does he not trust sj anymore??) worse for peak morale, the more overtly sj rejects yqy, the more annoyed the other peak lords get. doesn't sj know how bad it looks for their sect, to have their top two lords fighting like this?? why is yqy not shutting it down, isn't he a politician?

well yes, but as sect leader he now has the freedom to pick and choose when to put his politicking hat on. lqg follows sqq to a brothel and causes a ruckus in the middle of the street? scold sqq for being so overt, because they both know the best way into the brothel is through the back via code word! they learned how to sneak into brothels as street kids ages ago and sqq could have totally done so discreetly! argue with lqg but refuse to explain himself? sqq please, he can't take your side for no reason, especially in front of all these peak lords who already knows he favors you!!

and because shen jiu is facing the cognitive dissonance of qi-ge's... qi-ge-ness, he sets up tests rigged to fail no matter how yqy responds. this way he is always right! if yqy sides with sj, sj's annoyed because he's clearly trying to placate him like a child. if yqy sides against sj, he's obviously choosing to abandon sj again!!

yqy is fully aware of the trap because yqy is a trained politician capable of reading social cues (and sj hasn't changed all that much from when they were kids, he still has that same spiteful edge to him yqy is so fond of). he intentionally falls for them because (1) he deserves to be hated by sj and (2) being hated by sj keeps him from lashing out too much at the other peak lords. yqy is very used to sj's temper tantrums, it's when he lashes out at other people that things become unmanageable.

(during the latter half of their rule over cang qiong, i feel that yqy learned to stop actively chasing reconciliation. he came around for tea and present-giving, kept things civil, and still let sj get away with all kinds of terrible things. he fell for all of sj's traps with his eyes wide open and it infuriates sj, everything about this drives him mad. he doesn't want this soft, unspoken affection, because this was how qi-ge used to handle sj's tsundereness back when they were on the streets. it's another sign that qi-ge is still qi-ge, and this fact brings sj both selfish comfort and undeniable agony.)

it's an awkward balancing act that continues to sour sj's reputation with the other peak lords, but it's mostly manageable until sqh sticks his nose into their business and pushes sj over the edge.

how transmigrators ruin everything

"maybe yqy did something impulsive, did you think of that? why can't you forgive him, he tried so hard? aren't you tired of being angry all the time?" bitch no, sj has been keeping the worst of the qi deviations away for years by performing mental gymnastics around his walls of denial stOP KNOCKING THEM DOWN. Even worse, lbh arrives on the peak and shen jiu hates him. not just because he's got all the potential shen jiu had stolen away from him, but he's so glad to be here. he's making his mother proud. all while shen jiu was dragged here essentially against his will, trapped himself in this bamboo prison out of spite, and then realized the dead thing he's been looking after for decades isn't dead after all. that qi-ge actually did, for realsies, leave him at the qius. that all these overtures, the silent acceptance of his faults, everything could just be out of guilt (qi-ge is ashamed of him) and not out of a ghost reenacting its former lingering affection (the real qi-ge would've still loved him.)

the dissonance, abandonment issues, frustration and everything culminates in a devastating qi deviation. ironically, now that yqy's rule is mostly secure and sj's reputation has soured enough to start negatively affecting the sect, sj finally feels safe enough to let go. in this moment of emotional clarity, sj finally releases qi-ge from his grasp and decides to die.

that was not supposed to happen.

qi-ge's no good, very bad sacrifice

in another universe where og!sqh was too busy plotting to betray cang qiong mountain, the frosty and emotionally charged stand-off between yqy and sj continues for years. then, lqg dies. i'm torn between yqy believing sj killed lqg or not. either way, i don't think he'd be 'disappointed' in sj as portrayed in some fics. i also don't think it would infuriate sj that yqy thinks he's capable of killing lqg, because if anyone knows how much of a murder kitten shen jiu is, it's yqy. maybe he's offended yqy thinks him dumb enough to kill him in such a sloppy way. maybe he's even more offended that this turns the other peak lords against him and yqy just lets it happen.

or maybe (through my qijiu-tinted glasses) it pisses him off that yqy does tell the peak lords that they should all stand together, and the other peak lords ignore him and hate sj anyway. they're disrespecting yqy because they think he is compromised, and sj worked too goddamn hard to solidify yqy's position to have it undone by a murder he didn't even do.

(ironically, if lqg was alive he'd tell the other peak lords to f*** off for disobeying yqy. lqg's canon respect for yqy is something i feel needs more acknowledgement, likely because i feel half the reason they don't get along is because of sj's utter disrespect of their sect leader. who cares if sj is a street rat or the son of a wealthy family, no one disrespects yue-shixiong!)

now the story of sj's road to becoming lbh's plaything is a well-worn track that everyone knows. i do subscribe to the idea that sj took one look at huan hua's eagerness, lbh's vendetta, and yqy's recklessness and made the same decision he did in the svsss verse: he'd rather qi-ge be free (happy) than dead. this is a battle he cannot win, and he'll be damned if he lets lbh drag cang qiong down with him. when yqy promises him he'll save him from the water prison, sj spits in his face and tells him for the final time that xiao jiu and qi-ge are both dead. he let sj go decades ago, and now sj is letting qi-ge go in return.

sj faces the torture with the tenacious spirit of someone who'd withstood worse torture for years. in fact, he's a bit impressed by lbh taking revenge on him the same way sj took revenge on qiu jianluo. either way, even with more than 50% of his body missing, sj faces his fate in utter defiance. and then lbh shows up with xuan su.

the reveal of qi-ge's failed rescue and demise was devastating for a lot of reasons. most obviously, sj's sacrifice to keep cang qiong safe from the fallout was a failure. everything he'd done and sacrificed to keep qi-ge safe, all the scorn he'd borne as the hated qing jing peak lord was thrown away because qi-ge wanted to be a moron.

the other reason why sj broke was because qi-ge did come for him. he simply failed. and the tiny part of him that always suspected qi-ge was still qi-ge now has confirmation that all those years ago, qi-ge likely did the same. he came for him at the qius, but he failed. the only difference now is lbh's willingness to tell him the truth vs. yqy's decades-long silence. the only difference now is that yqy is actually, physically dead.

sj has been living on borrowed time ever since he looked the new yqy (fake qi-ge) in the eyes and allowed himself to be brought to cang qiong mountain. everything he did was to elevate himself into a position where no one could hurt him (and qi-ge) anymore, the same way he'd acted back when they were on the streets. now that he was in this state and qi-ge was dead, his time was clearly up. and sj refuses to let lbh have the last laugh. as much as he respected lbh for his ruthlessness, it's not enough to stave off sj's spite. he didn't let qjl control him in the end, and he won't let lbh do so either.

final thoughts

some last, disorganized thoughts on qijiu's relationship

rather than yqy telling sj what happened, i think showing him the scars all over his body would be much more impactful. sj knows how worthless words can be; he's likely prefer being able to touch each scar and check the meridians for himself. yqy doesn't need to say a word, his entire body is a testament to the torture he'd endured.

ironically, sj fixing up cang qiong as a tactician and his personal refusal to put himself in weak situations made yqy incapable of showing his care through action. all of his crises were political/reputation-based/etc. all things qing ding's teachings guaranteed yqy to fail all his speech-checks. and yqy is definitely not the type of person to engineer a false crisis just to swoop in to save sj... not because of any moral reasons, but because risking sj in any way would be absolutely unacceptable. in yqy's world, it's sj > the sect > good morals. he does have good morals, yes, but he's also pragmatic and self-aware enough to know when to put the things he cares about first.

there was a theory i read before about yqy and sj's trauma responses being to shut down and say nothing in the face of accusations, and i agree with this. saying nothing often netted less punishment than 'making excuses.' even without this coping mechanism, the mental trauma of having his mind and body broken could've easily stopped yqy from being able to even speak around the topic for years. if he doesn't talk about it and no one sees his scars, he can pretend it never happened. sj's scorn of him is forever a sign that it did happen, but that's fine, he's always made exceptions for shen jiu.

i don't really know where the uncomfortably-creepy-no-boundaries yqy towards sy came from? in the original novel sy clearly like yqy and views him in a positive, big-brother-shape light. even towards the end of the novel when yqy confesses, sy feels more guilty for being an imposter than angry that yqy failed sj. yqy even steps aside for lbh thinking 'well, at least sqq is happy now' because that's what he wanted for sj for so, so long. for him to be happy, even if that meant forgetting qi-ge.

(the no-boundaries thing is something i disagree with in general, because i think yqy's political and social training would make that very unlikely. he doesn't call sqq xiao-jiu as often as he does in fics, i think he did so in canon because he was delirious and exhausted post-drawing-xuan-su. i figured qijiu's latter years cooled off a bit as yqy realized direct overtures weren't working and went the coaxing-stray-cat route to everyone else's befuddlement.)

does qi-ge know sy is not sj? i can go either way with this. the theory that he does know but he's repressing it out of his own mental wellbeing is intriguing; but so is him assuming sj losing his memories means sy is a different person. which means he's always been happier without qi-ge. either way, i do believe yqy no longer views sqq-y the same as sqq-j. after the first few years post-qi-deviation, i think yqy is emotionally mature enough to realize sy is here to stay and that the sj he once knew (either because of his lost memories or whole-soul transplantation) is gone.

i am a qijiu shipper, but i do also like platonic qijiu. my only prerequisite for any other-ship-jiu fic is some kind of qijiu reconciliation. i honestly don't think either of them would have good romantic relationships unless they fix their own relationship first. qi-ge can't marry someone, that would remove sj from being the most important person on qi-ge's list. despite scorning him, sj being number one is one of the only things holding sj together throughout their divorce era. sj cannot marry anyone because that would give qi-ge the false impression that sj is happy and qi-ge is now free. and qi-ge is not allowed to be free. he will belong to sj for as long as sj wants and nothing is allowed to interfere with that impression. lol both of these are sj-based, but sj's always been the dominant party in this relationship. whether or not qi-ge is jealous of sj's new lover is irrelevant; as long as sj is happy, the og!sj-simp qi-ge is also happy.

i have too many qijiu thoughts and not enough time to write a fic about them, alas. i find their relationship fascinating and very integral to their personalities no matter the au or ship.

[theomnicode]

Perception bias, round 2 Director's cut, Saigenos edition!

(or basically, how my brain jumps into another topic only loosely related to the original ask)

Thank you @itsmaferart For the wonderful ask again. :)

Warning: Long post ahead

-*-

Perception bias also serves another more...sinister purpose for Saitama. Psychological conditioning. There is potential evidence for deprivation of basic needs, conditioning for violence for protection and subliminal messages for suggestion, among other things.

Being deprived of all these needs is akin to mental torture. But so is facing all of the underlying issues at once via hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy if the patient is sufficiently dysfunctional in a societal setting like Saitama happens to be. Especially if the therapies are performed...poorly.

CBT has shown to be the most effective intervention for people exposed to adverse childhood experiences in the form of abuse or neglect Criticism of CBT sometimes focuses on implementations (such as the UK which may result initially in low quality therapy being offered by poorly trained practitioners. However, evidence supports the effectiveness of CBT for anxiety and depression. Evidence suggests that the addition of hypnotherapy as an adjunct to CBT improves treatment efficacy for a variety of clinical issues. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its symptoms have been shown to improve due to implementation of hypnotherapy, in both long and short term. As research continues, hypnotherapy is being more openly considered as an effective intervention for those with PTSD.

In short, in order to heal mentally, Saitama may need to face mental torture because he has such strong willpower and such strong mental barriers shielding his vulnerabilities on a basic primal need. There only needs to be a sufficient trigger.

ONE sent Saitama home to restore his energy levels...because he's going to sorely need them for the upcoming confrontation.

Empty Void's ability to genjutsu people casually and cause parallel shifts in the reality and using these to abuse emotional dependencies is like a loaded Chekov's gun on Saitama's forehead. Because Saitama has been roleplaying to re-learn his emphatic skillset after he had suffered too much mental trauma.

That's why early Saitama did not even bat an eye when Beefcake killed his own brother but now he's empathizing with Hamukichi. That's what I call character progression.

Even a compulsive planner like Saitama cannot predict what will happen because he's not familiar with Blast's maladaptive coping methods deep down. Blast is great at masking because they are coping methods so he can bear with his guilt and other issues and just wants to do things on his own, without assistance.

This causes Saitama's perception bias about Blast who seems capable and emphatic, when he is in actuality unscrupulous and amorally indifferent if you really, REALLY study him hard enough.

My bro casually invited Saitama, who is sensitive to aggression, hostility and violence, to watch literal torture of human turned monsters, with an actual smile on his face. And justifying it with his end justify the means philosophy. That's awfully too close to being sadistic and cruel when you consider the ramifications.

They say "love is blind" and Saitama is wearing some rose tinted glasses on because Blast is straight up shady, but he does not see it because he's probably identifying with Blast so hard. Middle-aged, number 1# hero, powerful, confident, outwardly caring, intuitive, ruggedly handsome, positively masculine, secretly gay...you name it. Everything Saitama more than likely fantasies about being because he's so emotionally dependant on Genos and he wants to better himself for Genos due to all his insecurities.

Oh yeah time for some saigenos. *rubs hands*

The very first Genos tells him is to tell Saitama to hide in order to protect him. Saitama has a lot of dependency issues since he has been a small child because he was so emotionally lonely and never got the safety he needed to cope well in life. There are definitely some underlying anxieties or disorders laying about.

Second thing Genos does is show just how smart, capable, cool and devilishly attractive he can be when he gets passionate and engages in combat. Genos can get an awed reaction even from Saitama who's emotions were being blunted during their first spar.

Third is showing he's not gonna judge Saitama for completely embarassing himself, even if he was to get naked around him and lower his inhibitions and showing him it would be ok to trust him on the level of intimacy he craves so dearly. (Season 2 Blu-ray & Dvd: Saitama and the mysterious heroine)

Fourth is showing that Genos is also extremely resilient even when getting hurt...because Saitama hates to see others hurting and he doesn't want it to happen because of him.

And finally the fifth...is because Genos is just as emotionally lonely as he is, but he's unable to let go of his emotional dependencies because he trauma bonds so deeply. He would rather double KO for a Game Over screen than let the monsters win over him and his loved ones on pure principle and take those he trauma bonds with him, because emotional abandonment and guilt would kill him deep inside, so he would rather end it himself for a shred of agency before he withers away.

All these draw in Saitama like moth to a flame and he easily lets Genos into his life. Because he identifies with the lonely teenage boy Genos with traumas who is so familiar to him like coming home.

-*-

Despite everything that has happened to Saitama, he tries to remain optimistic. He's not naturally prone to cynicism unless under great amount of duress. The worst thing to do against him would be Genos emotionally betraying him, betray everything that he perceived in him since the first day they met.

But Saitama has perception bias towards Genos too...such as that Genos is no longer the small teenage boy who needs to be sheltered and cared for, but a battle-hardened soldier. Neither is he a lost naive little sibling in need of guidance or chaperone but an adult wanting mentorship where he can be truly open about his own issues. Would be such a shame if these wrong illusions about Genos were to be shattered...painfully. If Genos were to ever violate that implicit trust Saitama gives to him.

My brother in christ Saitama, he's not actually related to you and he's not your family member even if you'd love him enough to adopt him or something. Not letting go of this notion will spell trouble, like wonky image of relationships and intimacy.

(Yea Saitama please he's not actually related to you, even if it's kind of endearing that Saitama considers Genos to be as close like a family member)

It'll just get worse if Saitama confuses emotional intimacy with sexuality because of his bad upbringing when he's never had any friends and missing his parents too and all his role models have been aggressive and toxic people.

Funny how Saitama's first conclusion about Dr. Genus being interested in his body was sexual in nature and he immediately got defensive. He essentially revealed himself as someone who doesn't even know for sure which way he swings. Which would be quite classic for infj demi but I'll get to that if it becomes more relevant.

Genos naturally knows best though, poor guy looks so disappointed haha. Doesn't stop Genos from attempting every trick in the book besides outright throwing roses at Saitama and arranging dates to get into his good side and woo him, he dressed up so nicely for a spar haha. Dressing to impress, yup. And then he got himself new shiny body and practically walked weeks without a shirt on just so Saitama would see it. (Chapter 185: Updates) My guy has it down bad for Saitama, but Saitama seems oblivious to Genos indirect advances and Genos gave up and finally found a shirt to put on.

(I would pay to see Genos actually chuck roses at Saitama though.)

Even Saitama has to acknowledge that Genos is objectively a hottie though, because in the webcomic he says something along the lines of "he's not even pretty" about Amai-mask and it really makes you think the standards of who Saitama considers pretty when even ikemen like Amai-mask won't do.

-*-

Genos unfortunately is growing up some pretty large perception bias about Saitama after the time travel fiasco. His idolization of Saitama is becoming obsessive and objectifying, like Saitama can do no wrong and that Saitama is some kind of messiah.

Genos also does not take no for an answer. It would be incredibly damaging to both Saitama and Genos when this perception bias is broken when Saitama gets too much on his plate to handle. Like for example...Empty void's specialty, messing with emotional bonds and inducing traumatic events like the illusion of death to break any emotional bond, just like he did to Flashy flash and Sonic.

I do greatly anticipate how Empty Void's fight is going to proceed, we might be in for very big perceptional bias shifts all around, like Flash was forced to acknowledge that he's emotionally dependant on Sonic. (Chapter 201: You pass) And Saitama's idolization of Blast will come crashing down when he finds out what Blast is really up to.

I'll throw some funny perception bias at the end.

[joys-of-everyday]

Luo Binghe: Envy, hopelessness, and breaking out of spirals

I have recently gotten into incels. No, not in that way. Perhaps with PIDW being “toxic male power fantasy”, this was an inevitable pipeline.

You know, through many hours of video essays and interviews, I have come to the conclusion that taking a good long hard look at incels is a valuable life lesson. While incels are most known for their extreme misogynistic ideology (which tbf, is hard to look past), they really are a good demonstration of the abject misery of loneliness. Scrub away all the obsession with omegaverse and cuckoldry, and the fundamental behaviour of incels is actually… very human. And the fact that it manifests in ways that are cringe and insane really only adds to the tragedy. Forget darkness and monsters – there is an incel in all of us. And like all good things in life, I want to link this back to SVSSS and discuss the most chad of them all… Luo Binghe (Bingmei ofc. Bingge is a beta cuck).

Note: Much of this is based on ContraPoints’ Envy (which is almost nothing to do with incels sorry) and HealthyGamerGG’s interview with an incel (which is also not really about incels, disappointingly).

Envy and Jealousy

Did you know that envy and jealousy are two different things? Envy is wanting what other people have, while jealousy is protectiveness of something you have, or feel entitled to. You might be envious of someone for having effortless skin a la Liu Qingge, or feel jealous of a fellow disciple who is unfairly stealing your milf shizun’s affections. In common usage, envy and jealousy are basically interchangeable, but now you can feel smug knowing the proper definitions.

We all know that Luo Binghe is a jealous man-child… but for intellectual curiosity, we should ask: is Luo Binghe envious, or jealous?

As in, I’ve kind of spoiled my take by putting it in the header, but I should justify (unlike in exams where I simply assert what I want to be true and hope the examiner doesn’t notice). Yes, Luo Binghe is fighting for the affection of his one-true-milf, but note that during the periods where his envy/jealousy is strongest, he doesn’t think he has Shen Qingqiu’s affection, nor does he think he deserves it. In fact, he thinks he is unlovable monster who couldn’t possibly dream of having his daddy’s attention. *sad sigh*

To him, Shen Qingqiu is the embodiment of tender and loving affection, of grace, of wisdom, of morality and all things good etc etc. For the purposes of Luo Binghe’s negative feelings, the man himself might as well be an abstract idea. He sees what other people have – Liu Qingge receiving companionship and trust, the other Qing Jing disciples getting attention, the random stair sweeper getting sweet smiles… and feels anger at the fact that they have what he does not. I think it’s envy people.  

Now caveat, I do think Luo Binghe is definitely also feeling jealousy, particularly after Shen Qingqiu defends him in the Mausoleum. But he grapples with an internal conflict, where despite the fact Shen Qingqiu continuously demonstrates his care for him, he’s also sending what Luo Binghe deems as “mixed messages”, so really, how is Bingbing meant to decide if daddy loves him or hates him? Feelings do be complicated.

Now envy leads to shadenfreude – the pleasure of seeing another’s downfall. The sentiment of “if I can’t have it, then nobody can”, which is a destructive, malevolent force that wants no good for anyone. At Maigu Ridge, Luo Binghe is the embodiment of this. What he wants is Shen Qingqiu’s affection, and um… probably killing all of his friends isn’t going to help him on this endeavour. But he is so far down the envy line that it blinds him. “If I can’t have Shizun’s love, then nobody can.”

2. Protective hopelessness and the destructive cycle

When you decide, for whatever reason, to believe something, several cognitive biases come into play. For example, confirmation bias – where you are more likely to find and interpret evidence which supports your opinion. Belief perseverance – where you continue to believe something, despite evidence contradicting it. Another unhelpful actor is the fact you change the way you behave, which creates situations that affirm your beliefs. Those with a neurodivergence like BPD, or a mental health disorder such as depression may struggle with these much more intensely.

Take the classic incel problem. You struggle to get a girlfriend, you believe yourself ugly and unlovable, which makes you sad, which means you struggle in social situations, which makes it less likely for you to start a relationship, and so the cycle continues. I’ve talked about these destructive spirals with Shen Jiu.

Luo Binghe, Luo Binghe! Wherefore art thou Luo Binghe?

Luo Binghe runs straight into this problem like the strong independent man he is. He believes that (Shen Qingqiu thinks that) he is an evil demon. So he goes full blood feeding vampire mode, and naturally Shen Qingqiu freaks out. So Luo Binghe’s suspicions that Shen Qingqiu thinks he’s an evil demon are affirmed. Everything that happens is warped to fit this worldview: Shen Qingqiu’s silence in the Water Prison (which could mean anything really, such as thinking emotion is cringe) is interpreted as hostility. Shen Qingqiu telling Luo Binghe to leave for his safety, is interpreted as abandonment. Nothing can contradict this view – not even Shen Qingqiu getting all plant-bodied to keep Luo Binghe safe.

All of this is to say, that once you are in a bad place, it is really hard to get out, because at every stage your mind is sabotaging you. But there’s more to it than this. The honey glazed trap of abject hopelessness is… that it feels kind of good.

You know, Luo Binghe at Maigu Ridge comes across as someone who’s given up in a cathartic “throw it all down the drain way”. And yeah, putting yourself out there to feel rejection time and time again… kind of sucks. I really feel this. It really sucks. Sometimes, it is just so much easier to write yourself off as an unlovable freak and move on with your life. The hopelessness shields you from future rejection – what Dr K from HealthyGamerGG describes as protective hopelessness. But the relief here is temporary. Soon the loneliness and isolation kicks in, and you end up screaming at the walls so your neighbours now think you’re insane. Well done.

So you defend your hopelessness to protect yourself, but your hopelessness reinforces your situation. And to top it off, this cesspool of self-loathing and self-flagellation is a perfect breeding place for envy. In fact, envy plays a huge role in directing the spiral downwards. Afterall, bitter and toxic behaviour isn’t conductive to getting you liked.  

Ultimately,  I don’t think Luo Binghe actually hates Liu Qingge, or even Ming Fan, or any one person. I think Luo Binghe resents his situation and projects that onto everyone. “I didn’t get to keep happiness for a single moment of my life, so why should anyone be allowed happiness?” And yeah, he kind of ends up almost ending the world, which is not stella behaviour. But you know, under all that aggression is a child pleading for help.  

3. Breaking Out

You know, it occurs to me that I seem to be equating Luo Binghe to an incel, which I think is an unfair comparison. I feel like incels fundamentally misunderstand how privilege works, while Luo Binghe… eh… he did get chucked off a cliff. Ngl that would scar anyone.

Anyway, whilst clearly SVSSS is the ultimate reflection of reality, I suspect that the love of your life telling you they would totally die for you if you were their unborn child doesn’t happen often irl. How. Disappointing.

But I think something we can take away from Luo Binghe is that breaking the spiral is essential. When Luo Binghe loses control at Maigu Ridge, what he ends up doing is monstrous. It’s ultimate evidence of all of Luo Binghe’s fears and could easily have pushed him further down the spiral to self-destruction. But Shen Qingqiu pulls him out notably not by promising to stay with him or leave his friends (i.e. not by playing to Luo Binghe’s delusional desires), but by affirming that Luo Binghe already has what he wants. His mother loved him. His adopted mother loved him. Shen Qingqiu loves him. It’s removing the substance from Luo Binghe’s envy, and that’s enough to pull him back from insanity.

In reality, breaking the spiral isn’t one action or one conversation. It’s continuously relearning how to think, a process that can take years. And we see this with Luo Binghe. He doesn’t stop being a jealous freak, but he learns ways to deal with it that are much less destructive. In the conversation at Cang Qiong post Maigu Ridge, we see that he doesn’t immediately stop thinking that Shen Qingqiu wants him gone, but in a better headspace, he is able to accept evidence which contrasts this.

And yeah, most people don’t have a milf/dilf/obsessive freak to help us when we have our world-ending breakdowns, but that’s okay. I don’t have a good solution to this. Maybe get life-sized posters of Shen Qingqiu telling you that he would totally die for your if you were his unborn child or smth.

[yellowplumfruit]

my psych textbook had a chapter on cognitive bias and it was like “which do u think causes the most deaths? shark attacks or pieces of plane falling out of the sky” and the next paragraph said “you probably guessed shark attacks but it’s actually the plane!” WRONG i am autistic and i love sharks u can’t get me with that

[arkanis-englishupdates]

SUMMARY OF ALL ARKANIS POVS

DAY 76 — 18/11/2024

The day in Valigma begins happily, despite what has happened and what will happen.

Guhzera applies to be a police officer in the city.

Beatriz tells Moonkase about Nicklink being very sad about JVNQ stealing the sword that Araldo gave to him.

Choke tells Moonkase and Beatriz about what she discovered about herself.

Gris is suddenly attacked by Araldo's robot while she was with Quel. She manages to survive and hide. Shortly after that, Quel is teleported to a completely unknown location, but she is quickly teleported back.

Quel meets with Bagi to talk and discuss about everything was happening. The conversation soon turns to other topics as more people arrive to talk.

In the middle of the conversation, Bagi and Moonkase make their romantic relationship official.

Suddenly, Bagi is taken away by FEAR. The two talk for a while (About Matt being fine but something was happening to him and about what would happen in Bagi's destiny, with FEAR responding that only chaos and destruction awaited her, but when the time came, he himself would watch it all burn) before Bagi is teleported back to City Hall.

As soon as she returns to the city, Bagi meets with Moonkase to talk about what happened, when an unexpected vision appears to everyone:

In the vision, Maethe is kidnapped by Araldo. Everyone is desperate and worried about the friendly alien.

As soon as this happens, Araldo explodes around his factory in the city and robots begin to appear.

Bia Raux appears to talk to Choke and Quel after what happened. She doesn't say much of anything important and seems to purposefully deflect questions about Jota's whereabouts and/or what to do to save Maethe (Bia tells Quel and Choke about Araldo being much stronger and there are many chances of Maethe being diluted by him. She also says she has problems with Arkanya and won't be able to help, saying Araldo has probably already gotten what he wanted from Maethe). She returns to her normal state and Nicklink appears, Bia even changes her tone of voice to talk to him.

Meanwhile, Beatriz, Bagi, Moonkase and Guhzera meet at Bira's Bar to discuss what was going on. Guhzera again talks about being contacted by Leonardo, who said that Milo and Tucupi were fine. Moonkase makes him swear on Choke's name that just this happened and Guhzera promises.

Suddenly, while talking to Bagi, JVNQ gets a book with coordinates:

"Don't forget the periodic table. The studies are well kept.

X 8249

Y 84

Z 3572"

They go to the location and there the group go to a room that has a periodic table (As said in the book). They find a hidden elevator and use it to reach a room with strange writing and symbols on the walls. Strange sounds and masks similar to Jota's decorated the place.

There they also find a book and a large poster about masks and what they are used for.

Book found in the enigma:

"Advanced Protection System Activated

Removing any artifact from this room will cause the immediate permanent death of any individual.

Resource Code

030924"

Unfortunately the information on the poster is huge and we were unable to get the image. Luckily I managed to get a summary of it which I will pass on to you all:

The mask worn by the citizens and Jota is basically made with the aim of protecting them from the drainage the Éssys ore causes in their souls.

Araldo's mask is more technologically advanced and in addition to protection, the mask gives him powers. The item also completely blocks the drainage of essys and amplifies the wearer's physical, cognitive and conceptual abilities.

He also gains the ability to decode Lankyas, whether they are derived from Arkanya or the Éssys ore.

Bia's mask is the same as Araldo's but has no physical value attached. It is also entirely made of wood.

As they talked, lava began to fall across the room, followed by loud sirens. The group then leaves the place and decides to meet at City Hall. They argue about having to rip off Araldo's mask if they want to defeat him.

While they were talking, Moonkase became even more suspicious of Guhzera because he changed a point in his story about the meeting with Leonardo.

Suddenly, while everyone was exploring or talking, the city suffers from a massive tremor. Everyone gathers at Choke's house to talk about it.

Meanwhile, Samir appears to JVNQ in the Entertainment District. JVNQ sends a message to everyone about it and the group goes to the location.

As soon as the group arrives, Samir says that they (all the specialists) should be united but instead, all he sees is distrust and enmity, something that feeds everything negative around the group. He basically says they should trust themselves more.

Hours later, while JVNQ, Moonkase and Denix were talking, they all see some kind of strange clone of JVNQ wearing the same mask as Araldo, disappearing and reappearing. A while later, JVNQ is teleported by Araldo, who has a totally different look while holding a large and powerful sword. The place they were in seemed to be a completely black-and-blue dome.

Araldo threatens/intimidates JVNQ before laughing and attacking him, causing him to instantly faint (being kicked off from the server).

After that, JVNQ's clone starts attacking several specialists around the city.

[lucianalight]

The Missed Opportunities in Loki Series

While I was writing my review of S2, one of the topics I had problem with, was the redemption of TVA and its agents. I couldn't understand why "not having their memories" and "didn't know they were variants" could possibly be a good explanation for the atrocities they committed. I mean why does it matter? They were still killing people. Didn't they know that?...wait…let me google sth real quick…by which I mean reading interesting articles about the psychology of dehumanization and brainwashing that led me to some interesting results and a new perspective into how the series, especially in S1 missed its chance to explore some of the most important issues of Loki and his backstory.

The short answer to my question "Didn't they know they were killing people?" is "No, they didn't". And not in a racist or bigoted way the humans thinking other humans who aren’t like them, are subhuman. In a literal sense they didn’t consider anyone on the sacred timeline as people.

Empathy for another’s happiness and suffering depends fundamentally on recognizing that the other has a mind minds—that is, the same capacities for thought, emotion, desire, intention, and self-awareness as ourselves. Without appreciating others’ minds, empathy makes no sense[1]

To TVA agents those on sacred timeline weren’t people like them. They didn’t have thoughts and minds and emotions like them. And anyone making a different choice from what was considered for them was a “variant”. For a lack of better word, the TVA had dehumanized anyone but those who were working for TVA which is a necessary perception if you want to facilitate inhuman acts of torture and slaughter.

Dehumanized perception is a cognitive bias characterized by spontaneous failure to think about mental contents – thoughts and feelings in a social target’s mind. [2]

According to TVA propaganda, TVA and its people were created by the Time Keepers. They were different. They weren't like the ones on the sacred time line. The chaotic and disobedient "variants" should have been "pruned". None of them mattered except the right order of time.

The only ones TVA agents considered as people were each other. They were friends and coworkers and cared about each other's lives. And they had no memory of their previous life. But when they found out they are variants themselves, they realized “Those we were killing were like us. They had minds and emotions like us. We’ve been killing people all this time”. This should have been the explanation for their change and redemption. Their memories were taken from them and they were brainwashed by a propaganda that dehumanized anyone else and let them commit those atrocities easily. It shouldn’t have been “they’re variants themselves” but “the variants were people like them”.

So, while TVA can be compared to a totalitarian regime, there's probably no exact irl example for TVA agents because their situation for the most part is fictional. But perhaps the angels and demons in Good Omens have a close mindset to them. They care about each other but not the humans. The humans are just a tool for them to start the final battle according to the great plan.

This would have been easier to pinpoint if TVA was framed as evil from S1. Also if you want your characters to be likable or redeemable give them personality and show that they're doubtful and uncomfortable with what they're doing from the start not when they find out the truth or in the last episode of the last season! And don't frame torture and dehumanization as sth hilarious, therapeutic and deserved for one character and completely opposite for another character if you want to reach the conclusion that those actions were atrocities.

What bothers me more is that they missed a perfect parallel and opportunity to address Loki's identity issues. I don't even think the parallels were intended, considering how much the show is indifferent to them.

First the parallel with Loki finding out about his heritage. He was stolen from his homeland, grew up learning to hate and fear his own race. Like Loki people in the TVA didn't know about their past. Like Loki they would have an identity crisis. This was explored a little in S2 but they failed to make the connection with Loki's past. I mean you could let Mobius call Loki an ice runt as an insult, but didn’t bring up the topic when he had an identity crisis and talking about it with Loki? Although maybe that's too much expectation from the people who treated Loki being adopted and not knowing about it as sth unimportant, and didn't mention the racism and favorism he grew up with even once.

The parallel isn't accurate though since Loki weren't going around killing frost giants. He even didn't really consider them less than Asgardians. Not until he thought that's how his family actually sees them. That was his breaking point.

"You could have told me what I was from the beginning. Why didn't you?" "To protect you from the truth" "Why? Because I'm the monster parents tell their children about at night?"

This is the reason Loki went on his genocide attempt. To prove to Odin he wasn’t one of the monsters. That he was an Asgardian. That he belonged with them.

The second parallel with Loki's story that they failed to address is Loki being brainwashed by Thanos. You want to say your characters are redeemable because they were brainwashed? Show it! Make a connection with the main character's backstory. How they have missed this chance is beyond me…On second thought, they probably didn't even connect the dots, because they presented torture and brainwashing as a positive thing.

Brainwashing is the process of manipulating a person’s beliefs, thoughts, or actions through psychological manipulation. If a person is brainwashed, they may no longer be able to think for themselves and may act on orders without considering the consequences. Brainwashing is often used by totalitarian regimes to control their citizens, and can also be used in cults and other groups to manipulate members.[3]

Some people are more susceptible to brainwashing like people who are going through a difficult period in their life or a change that may or may not be of their own making[4]. It is also useful to consider identity when it comes to brainwashing.  

Someone experiencing an identity crisis is in desperate need of a new identity. Because brainwashing promises them a new identity, it makes them more susceptible.[3]

Through the events of Thor 1 Loki’s going through an identity crisis. All he ever knew his life were lies. Even his skin was a lie. At the end not being accepted by his father no matter what he does, he commits suicide. That’s when he meets Thanos. And Thanos and his allies through torture and using mind stone, brainwashed Loki. People who go through brainwashing give up their previous identity and adopt a new one.

The person’s thinking and behaviors are altered by the indoctrinated beliefs that support their new identity. The individual changes into a whole new person, in some cases.[3]

This change in personality and ideas is easily noticeable in Loki in Avengers vs the other movies. The way he talks in Avengers is eerily similar to the way Ebony Maw talks in EG.

This could be a parallel with how TVA agents memories’ were removed and replaced by propaganda. But no mention of what happened to Loki during his time with Thanos. Nothing.

What’s interesting though is that when you read about how brainwashing is done, there isn’t only one example of it on screen. There are two. The steps for brainwashing are:

1.Isolating the victim

2.Degrade the target

3. Promise a better identity

4.Offer rewards

What Mobius was doing in S1 wasn’t therapy unlike what the writers claimed. It was brainwashing.

Another interesting point is that the way Loki treated Mobius was the right way to undo brainwashing. Those steps are separate the person from their group, be on their side and question their beliefs like what Loki did during 1x02 and tell them they’ve been brainwashed like what happened in 1x04.

I find it really funny though that every time they try to show what a villain Loki was and that he needed the guidance from these heroic™ people, he turns out to be the most moral person in the group if you look at the story objectively. Loki befriended and tried to help the people who arrested, tortured and tried to brainwash him, even before he knew they were variants.

In the end, I don’t give the credit for these parallels to the series. Because I don’t think they were intentional. Otherwise, they would have delved into Loki’s past and compared it to what happens in the show and wouldn’t have disregard it completely. What a huge waste of opportunity.

Sources:

From Dehumanization and Objectification, to Rehumanization

Dehumanized Perception

How To Undo Brainwashing

How to Recognize and Avoid Brainwashing

[writing-for-life]

Perspective Requires Being Anchored in Reality

These thoughts were brought on by discussing "The Sound of her Wings" in our community…

I absolutely think Death is worried and tries her best as a sister (that she can’t be anything else than her function is a deeper layer that resurfaces many times over the whole run, and that’s of course also a valid discussion to be had).

It’s the reason why I personally don't think it’s warranted to give her a hard time over the tough love approach (but we all see things differently, and maybe that's not a bad thing).

Do we always find the right words? I’m sure most of us are guilty of not being perfect that way, but I also think she made a very valid attempt at trying to refocus him. It is what he needed to hear (sometimes, it is contraindicated to pussyfoot around stuff, and sometimes, we need to word things in a way that is uncomfortable to hear. And of course that can backfire, but so can sugarcoating everything and hanging on to the illusion that if we only find the right words, or don’t speak at all, we’re helping, or by extension, we’re never going to hurt or trigger someone. It’s a harmful kind of concept creep that’s taken hold of what supposedly constitutes “safe” communication, but I digress).

But what we need to hear doesn't always land right, neither is it not prone to being misunderstood, because we are the ones who filter it through our own cognitive bias.

There are no guilty parties in this conversation, neither Dream nor Death. They both are who/what they are. They say what they say and hear what they hear because of that.

Connection

Death reminds Dream of the true value of connection, and he *does* hear it, and he *does* try. It’s just that he is not grounded in reality as she is, because it goes counter to his function. If you’re the personification of all that’s not real, HOW are you holding on to reality? And true connection needs that, and that is the very root of his dilemma…

Death and Dream relate so differently to humans because of this (and they to them), and doorway man is a bit exemplary for that.

gif by @athousandyearstime

Dream is far more “terrible” than Death. Which is half-joke, half-truth. There is probably something about him that is “uncanny valley” to most mortals (plus: being confronted with all that’s darkness and not just light in ourselves is terrifying, but also necessary). They brought that out masterfully in the comics, but we tend to forget about it in the show because, well, he’s played by a human. But it’s still there, and we shouldn’t forget about it. Dream is *not* human, and all the deeper contact he ever has to humans (bar very few) is when they aren’t lucid. Unlike his sister, who literally walks in reality all day, every day, and is there for you when things are as real as they get.

Meeting Dream in reality must be… weird, or potentially unsettling depending on who you are, what your inner world is like. At least judging by the reactions of the people we see in that alley (not just doorway man, the school kids as well). Maybe it’s not like that all the time, but I certainly think he feels it acutely all the time—it’s not that he doesn’t long for connection (it’s so obvious in everything he does) but rather that he can never take it as far as he probably wants to.

In this context, it’s certainly interesting to think about Dream seeing most of his lovers in dreams/the Dreaming—at least most of the time. And that’s also where he has some of his other closest relationships (Lucien/ne and Fiddler’s Green in particular spring to mind, if he were ever to admit he feels close to them). And while one could argue it doesn’t make these relationships any less valuable, they have one thing in common: They don’t play out in reality, and they are failing as soon as they get taken there. And more crucially: The ones that are taking place there have the capacity to hurt him and/or also don’t save him (if we assumed he needed saving—I personally don’t).

The Onslaught of the Collective Unconscious

But there’s another thing: Dream holds the subconscious of every sentient being. He is constantly bombarded with dreams and hopes, with ideas of romantic love and friendship and all that makes us who we are (just talking about humans now because I can’t speak for cats 🤣). But he can’t have it in the same way despite so desperately wanting it (he is the reason the no mortals rule was introduced—let’s not forget that). It must be like dangling that carrot in front of your nose, and the more you try to catch it, the more elusive and frustrating it gets. Because he knows what it’s like without ever being able/allowed to have it. And I think in certain ways, that’s a similar conflict to the one that Death has with life, only that she made peace with it (maybe?) by experiencing mortal life every 100 years.

But what’s the alternative for him?

Give himself a relationship every 100, 1000, 10000 years (insert random interval here)? He does that, but it doesn’t work.

Surround himself with sentient beings in the Dreaming so he’s not so alone (he’s the only one of the siblings who does this, if we don’t count Despair’s rats. Now there’s another thought about Despair, but this is getting too long already)? He does that, but it doesn’t work.

And now we can say, “Dude, you’re lacking perspective!” Yes—yes he does in a way. But that’s the whole point.

Because perspective requires an anchor in reality. And it’s impossible for him to have that perspective, or hold on to it, due to who and what he is—unreality. All the Endless are outliers compared to their siblings in one way or another. And this is unfortunately his outlier status 😩

[tallerthantale]

What Does Aziraphale Actually Believe, Part 1: What Does it Mean to Believe Something?

To a large portion of the fandom, there has been a struggle to process many of the things Aziraphale has said and done. We look for ways to make sense of how he acts, and get frustrated by how the things he says contradict themselves. For someone with a background in cognitive psychology, the self contradictory nature of Aziraphale is not particularly surprising. 

This is the first of a series of ten posts. Most posts will be going through the events of the story in chorological order. This first post is extra long and entirely psychology foundation, but I would strongly recommend reading through it, and if you can find the time after, I'd really recommend going through the links as well.

We are going for a bit of an adventure through about 3k words on the nature of consciousness, optical illusions, the dress, memory, false memories, unconscious bias, autism, trauma, cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, conspiracy theorists, propaganda, and deradicalisation.

This is from the perspective of cognitive psychology not clinical, it will not improve your mental health, and it has the potential to induce an existential crisis or several but it is worth it. Knowing how our minds work has a lot of utility beyond understanding Aziraphale, though making sense of him is hopefully a fun motivation.

Because I really am this much of a pedant, I’m going to quickly address the elephant in the room: Aziraphale does not have a human brain. However, since his behaviour lines up with real life human behaviour I’m going to approach this as if his mind essentially runs the way a human brain would run a mind, because that is how the story is written. 

What is Consciousness?

Most of what our minds perceive, judge, interpret, think, remember, feel, ect… occurs in a mental space we have no perception of, often called the subconscious. Most people will have heard the term before, but I think most people misunderstand the scale of it and the power of it. The ongoing questions about consciousness vs. subconciousness aren’t in the form of ‘is the subconscious really a thing?’ No, the modern question is to what extent is consciousness really a thing?

Consciousness is an experience. What we think of as ourselves, the ‘central executive,’ the entity that we perceive ourselves to be, is a conglomeration of memories, thoughts, judgements, perceptions, and feelings that the rest of our mind produces for us to have at that moment in time. Much of it is approximately real, much of it is wholly fabricated to suit the moment. This is because there are major gaps in how much we can realistically perceive, understand, and remember at any particular point. It would be outrageously burdensome to actually process and load all the information for real, so our minds make up short hands and approximations for expediency, and feed that to us in a manner we experience as if it was directly perceived reality. That's a lot to throw at you, so I'm going to break it down.

Perception is an Assumption

To help get across how blended the construct of our experience is, let's consider the visual field. That is the representation of what we are seeing, or what we experience ourselves as seeing. Only a very small area in the centre of our vision is able to sense detail. The rest is only sensing vague cues of large scale changes. But we don’t perceive it that way, because we remember the detail that was there the last time the centre of our vision passed over that space, and our minds guess what details were probably there if we haven’t looked for a while. When something changes in an area we are constructing from memory and inference, we don't notice. The parts of our visual field that we are seeing in real time, and the parts that our mind constructs based on what it assumes is probably there are in no way distinct within our conscious experience, and that lets us navigate the world much more smoothly. The vast majority of what we visually perceive is constructed from memories and guesses. If those constructions weren’t incorporated into our vision, we would be massively visually impaired. 

Even for things we are seeing with detailed vision, we rely heavily on contextual cues that make assumptions we don’t realise we are making. (If you only follow one link in this post, follow that one, it's a 43 second video.) Consider that objects that are a solid colour are not a solid colour in terms of the wavelengths bouncing off of them, as they get hit by light sources and have highlights and shadows. The distinction between seeing blue because that is the wavelength that hit the retina, and seeing blue because the greyish blend that hit the retina was coming from a sunny patch, and you can infer that the object was blue from the context, is seamless. Unless the context is missing, and that grey might actually be a white object in a shadow. Then it might be all seamlessly white in the visual field, just as if it was white light entering the retina. And that's how millions of people saw a blue and black dress, millions of people saw a white and gold dress, but very few people saw a grey and brown dress. Yes, the actual dress was blue, but my point is that the pixels weren’t. Bluish grey light hit all our retinas, but half of the viewers had a dark blue object appear in their visual field and half had a white one appear. 

It is important to keep in mind that the vast majority of the time these context cues, assumptions, inferences, ect… put together a construct that works really well. The amount of resources required to keep our minds running is enormous and the size of our heads is a serious safety issue for people giving birth, even with all the energy saving assumptions and shortcuts. Given how much of our experience of reality is effectively an educated guess, we really are getting it right most of the time. Our minds are really good at what they do, these processes exist because it is adaptive to have them. Try to remember that, because it is going to be hard to hold on to that perspective as I move on from sensation and perception.

Working Memory

Our conscious experience is constructed for everything. Our thoughts, opinions, memories, that we have ‘with awareness’ is limited to what is, in that moment, loaded into a conceptual mental workspace called working memory, that can typically load about 7 things at a time. We can bring things from the larger library of remembered things into working memory by asking the part of our minds outside of our conscious awareness to give us the thing, and most of the time it will. But recall doesn’t always work. If the parts of our mind outside of awareness don't feed a thing into working memory, we can’t experience it, and they can feed something into our working memory if we want it there or not. The edges of what we think because it represents a coherent well considered world view consistent with our principles and values, and what we think because our minds fed it to us out of expediency or habit are just as seamless as the construct of our visual field. 

Things that do enter into our awareness are often altered by the time they get there by influences that are not reported to our conscious experience. Most of the shifts are within the category of cognitive bias, and are not considered to be pathological, because allistic people have most of them to a substantial degree as a default.

There is a long list of identified types of cognitive bias. Learning about cognitive biases doesn't stop people from having them, because it isn't the conscious mind that has the bias. The information we perceive as the raw facts has already been edited by the bias before it is loaded into our working memory awareness.

We often give ourselves the impression that when our thoughts, opinions, and ideas are moved out of working memory, they are preserved for us in an archived state, and returned to our consciousness later as we left them. There is no basis for that. Memories are incomplete, fade over time, and are reconstructed to appear whole through inference the same as our visual field every time we recall them. Each recall reworks them a bit more, and with the right sort of nudge, they can be substantially altered.

Autistic people are resistant to cognitive bias, but not immune. In the field of psychology that resistance is often referred to as autistic people having a 'failure to engage top-down processing' which makes me roll my eyes into my skull, because that is essentially saying 'a failure to be cognitively biased.' The irony of that is not the whole picture though.

Just like how optical illusions happen due to the fact that the visual field is constructed mostly out of really good guesses because we can't process the full information in real time, cognitive biases exist because of the shortcuts we take that make quick thinking possible. Autistic people think more accurately, but we do it by processing a mountain of information exhaustively, and that doesn't happen in a timely fashion. When I say exhaustively I mean it in every sense of the word, and we can't turn it off for expediency even if we wanted to. There are life situations where that really is disabling, particularly when we are exposed to mass sensory information.

So far we have been talking about non pathological biases, errors, and limitations. Pathology is not required for us to end up with a heavily distorted picture of reality, and when mental illness is involved it is exaggerating the downsides of cognitive mechanisms that are present in everyone generally. These are differences of degree, not of kind. Predictable patterns of biased perception and thinking associated with symptoms of mental illness are referred to as cognitive distortions.

As much as our minds can feed us altered things to believe for expediency, they can withhold others. If it isn’t helpful to have this particular belief right now, or this particular value in this situation, our minds can fail to load it into our awareness at all, particularly if it goes against an active self-schema, (interpretation of the self.) The various ways this can happen are referred to as motivated forgetting by the more clinical style psychologists. For the purposes of understanding Aziraphale, I’m mostly talking about relatively short term motivated forgetting, conveniently not recalling a particular fact at a particular moment. 

More deeply repressed memories that get wholly buried for years can be a thing…. But… The validity of long term motivated forgetting should not be taken as an endorsement of the practices that purport to retrieve those memories. Those practices can make you remember more things, but those things are unlikely to be true. Just as there is no dividing line between what we see in our visual field because light hit our retina and what we see in our visual field because it was there last we checked, there is no neurological difference between a real memory and a false one. That means if you use hypnotherapy to ‘recover’ memories of a trauma that didn’t actually happen A) there is no way to separate the false memories out later B) you have given that person trauma that is just as real as if those things had actually happened. 

If we have features of ourselves that we aren’t at peace with, the mind can refuse to allow knowledge of that into conscious awareness. If what was expedient to believe now isn't expedient any more, the new iteration of the mind doesn’t need to load the memory of the old beliefs existing. If a previous experience conflicts with our current experience, the memory of the previous experience can be altered such that consciousness preserves the perception of continuity.  (Link is a short video, waaatch iitttttt.)

Cognitive Dissonance

Technically 'cognitive dissonance' refers to the discomfort of perceiving yourself to believe contradictory things, or perceiving yourself to be acting in a way that contradicts a belief. Generally people bring up the term to describe the behaviour and thought patterns people engage in to avoid that feeling. To put it simply, people reconcile behaving in a way that is inconsistent with their beliefs by changing their understanding of the world to suit their behaviour more readily than they change their behaviour to align with their beliefs, and people will creatively reinterpret information to prevent their beliefs from contradicting their sense of self. The Wikipedia page has many examples establishing these patterns. I want to emphasise a point here that is often overlooked; these are the entirely typical behaviours of mentally healthy people. Cognitive dissonance and the associated behaviours are not a pathology.

The deeper explanation of why these patterns occur is hard to swallow. ‘What we believe’ isn’t a real thing in the first place, at least not in the way we like to imagine. Just like consciousness, it is a temporary constructed experience. It would more accurately be described as what we are currently telling ourselves we believe. (But what about confirmation bias? Doesn't that mean people are rigid in their beliefs? Oddly, no. Hold that thought, I'll get back to it later.)

The phenomenon of our beliefs changing to accommodate our behaviour is described as ‘belief follows action.’ In the world of psychology, thinking a thought counts as an action. We act, and then afterwards construct an experience of having decided to act, along with the supposed basis. Our conscious experience represents the order the other way around, even in controlled settings where we can measure the actual order electrically. We do what we do, observe what we are going to do, or think a thought about a situation, then form an idea of what we believe in order to make sense of it after, and then construct a memory of ourselves having had the belief first. The actual reasons for our behaviour are not directly observable to us, and are more the realm of behaviourism than cognition.

What we have in our memory is a library of things we hypothetically can recall, can think, can know, that our minds draw from in order to put together a temporary construct of 'what I believe' that best suits explaining our actions to ourselves at that time, with little regard to if that explanation is accurate. That gets loaded into working memory, and we experience it as our worldview. Since cognitive dissonance is a feeling produced by having an experience of contradictory ideas and actions in our conscious awareness, and resolving cognitive dissonance is about eliminating that experience, often the easiest way to resolve cognitive dissonance is to simply not load a belief while a contradictory belief or action is occurring.

Nothing stops us from storing massively self contradictory beliefs in the library. It's fine as long as they aren't both bumping around our working memory space at the same time. Working memory capacity is generally only about seven things, so avoiding loading the contradictions simultaneously is actually pretty easy if none of them contradict our sense of self. When we load an opinion, we don't need to also load the basis for the opinion. So if someone believes in abolishing all taxes because no government organisation can ever be trusted, and also believes we should hero worship the police, because they say they serve and protect, they can load "abolish taxes" and "hero worship the police" simultaneously without having an experience of cognitive dissonance.

Do they really believe no government organisation can ever be trusted? They believe it when they need to rationalise hating taxes to themself, or hating a particular organisation. It's an option that can get retrieved from the library, and when it's in working memory it is everything we imagine a belief to be. When it isn't in working memory, it functionally doesn't exist to the conscious mind.

It's fun to take these shots at conservative politics, and there are reasons conservative politics is full of obvious examples, but I'm going to emphasise; beliefs functionally not existing if they aren't in our awareness is not a pathology. This is the normal behaviour of a typically functioning healthy human mind. Mental illness does not equal when people's minds do things we don't like, no matter how good our reasons are for not liking them.

Confirmation Bias, Conspiracies, and Cults

The fact that the library can contain contradictory things, and our minds can pick and choose in motivated ways what gets represented in consciousness when, doesn't mean the options are limitless. We usually need some degree of justification to put something into the 'things I can believe' library, though when it comes to miscellaneous factual information 'I heard some one say it' is enough of a justification an alarmingly large amount of the time.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to retain beliefs in the face of contradictory information. People often describe it as people being impervious to having their beliefs changed. I think people describe it that way because they aren't on board with belief follows action yet. If you want to change what someone believes, motivate them to change their behaviour first. Belief will follow action. It's not that we haven't studied it, it's that we don't like it.

We want the solution to be that we change people's minds with evidence. It doesn't work, because giving them the evidence, even if they fully absorb it, just gives them options for potential beliefs, and it won't go into their 'what I believe' construct without an incentive, especially if their social context incentivises against it.

Confirmation bias can prevent us from tossing out beliefs prematurely. If we see something that looks like it disobeys physics, we might look for magnets or wires before we decide gravity is fake. That is an adaptive feature, but like most adaptive features, it has limits and it has downsides. The biggest limitation is that it doesn't do a whole lot to stop us from adding new optional beliefs to our collection. The biggest downside is that the power of confirmation bias relates to how much the belief has to do with your sense of self, and nothing to do with how well supported it is by evidence.

When we are talking about intrenched political beliefs, or other ideas that heavily relate to our sense of self and community, things get relatively fixed as to our broad conclusions. However, our broad conclusions are only a small portion of what we believe. When people think about a person prone to extreme confirmation bias, they often imagine it being a matter of rigid inflexible thinking. But it isn't. Coming up with new reasons to discount seemingly contradictory evidence, reinterpreting older evidence, finding new ways to reach the same conclusion based on a new set of facts, ect..., is all very creative and fluid. Conspiracy theorists are known for this. What makes the conclusions different to the supporting evidence it that our conclusions are tied to or actions and our sense of self. For a conspiracy theorist, maintaining the gist of the conclusion preserves their identity and their place in the community. Everything else is changeable.

Remember, belief follows action. If we participate in an opinionated community, we will believe what makes that make sense. If our survival depends on continuing to be involved in a social circle, we will believe what makes that make sense. Deradicalisation (from hate groups) and deprogramming often requires providing people a whole reboot of their life while they are still in the very early stages of working on themselves. No matter what new information you expose them to, even if they absorb it into the library of things they can believe, as long as their life is dependent on the communities that radicalised them (to hate) their minds will be highly incentivised to keep rolling back to forming 'what I believe' constructs that validate those connections. Not because they consciously decide it's better, because the part of their mind outside of their awareness that constructs what they believe doesn't include all the options. Most of the time it only includes the SAFE options. Being willing to help get people out by offering community support BEFORE they have reworked themselves is the only way to make deradicalisation happen at scale.

Propagandist news uses the Firehose of Falsehood because most people are relatively limited in what rationalising beliefs they can spontaneously generate for themselves. A network spewing dozens of self contradictory reasons to keep your political affiliation provides viewers an array of optional opinions to keep in the library. It doesn't matter that they can't be true at the same time, as long as they aren't in working memory at the same time. The more options you have of what 'what I believe' can be, the more tools you have to rationalise staying on the team, and staying in the community.

Individual Differences and Differing Individuals

For most of us, our behaviour is pretty consistent, what we are willing to believe is moderately narrow, and therefore our constructs of ‘what I believe’ can get remade as more or less the same thing over and over. However, if you have a mind that can believe quite a lot of different things, is prone to whimsical behaviour, and / or spent formative years needing to act a certain way to survive, it can learn to produce quite a lot of very different constructs of ‘what I believe’ in order to rationalise a wide range of behaviour. 

While extensive and empirical cognitive psychology underpins how it is conceptually possible for people like that to exist, the actual patterns of rotating belief systems and what causes certain people to have them more than others is a topic that it is hard to look at empirically. There are logistical issues when it comes to measuring beliefs that flip in and out of conscious awareness based on context even with participants who would enthusiastically and honestly participate, and in many cases these patterns show up in people who would never willingly subject themselves to treatment or evaluation, which would make it impossible to have decent data on them even if we had a good way to measure it.

Because of that, much of the discussion of these patterns falls into the realm of psychoanalysis, which is a mixed bag of philosophy that sometimes likes to represent itself as a science, and has a lot of problematic history. Having spent a lot of time around survivors of severe childhood trauma and being one myself, I do think modern psychoanalysis gets some things right. However, I do want to be transparent about the fact when I talk about what causes some people to be particularly susceptible to unstable beliefs, rationalisations, and motivated forgetting, and when I discuss how that plays out, we are leaving the realm of science and entering the realm of ‘this is what some people are like according to the people who have thought about it a lot.’ 

For most people our sense of self identity will contain the generated constructs of what we believe toward a relatively fixed-ish core set of very similar ‘what I believe’ options, though fixed core beliefs cause problems of their own. For people with certain trauma responses, the sense of self can be the source of tremendous instability. If the sense of self is fragile, threatened, terrorised, split, ect… the mind can get pretty cavalier about changing out beliefs, memories, and opinions to protect itself, and even switch out the sense of self. We can end up having wildly different self-schema in different circumstances. This self can't cope with this situation? New self.

The library of 'things I can believe' can contain things that would cause cognitive dissonance if paired with one self-schema, but works fine with this other one. An extreme form of this can present as dissociative identity disorder, however that is very rare and not what I am getting at. Most of the time differing self-schema or self-states aren't that partitioned, and share access to most memories.

With an unstable sense of self, ‘what I believe’ can end up being a tool on a Swiss army knife of possible belief systems that get taken out as needed, all while the conscious experience of the central executive maintains a seamless perception of a coherent and stable worldview. When people are like this, it is far more noticeable from the outside than it is from the inside, and that is by design. Having awareness of how unstable your own beliefs are wouldn’t be expedient, it would be cognitively dissonant, so you don’t know about it. 

This pattern is a big part of what is going on with Aziraphale. There is a very broad set of things he can believe, but it’s down to the individual situation if he believes a specific one at a particular time. He won’t see it as him picking and choosing his beliefs, whatever he believes in that scene looks to him like the only thing he would ever believe, no matter the fact that he will believe something else the next day. There are also certain things outside of his awareness that he knows but won’t perceive, because they are dangerous to his sense of self, but those things can still impact his behaviour. 

Thank you for reading though! The future posts will be a lot more to do with the story, and probably about half the length each.

Post 1/10

End Note: This post is the most likely of the set to be revised in some way. That is because the concepts I’m seeking to get across here are very hard to digest even for people within the field of psychology. Finding ways to more effectively communicate these aspects of how our minds work is a bit of a passion project for me, so if you see areas that are confusing, bits you want more elaboration on, questions that are unaddressed, ect…, please let me know. I am very interested in working out more methods of getting these ideas across. 

If you are interested in reading further into the subject outside of my internet ramblings, Wikipedia pages, and think piece articles, I would recommend getting ahold of a cognitive psychology textbook as a place to start, the internet has ways.

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 43, 2024

Children use disagreement to infer what happened. Amemiya, J., Heyman, G. D., & Gerstenberg, T. (2024). Cognition, 250, 105836.

Low rate hippocampal delay period activity encodes behavioral experience. Athanasiadis, M., Masserini, S., Yuan, L., Fetterhoff, D., Leutgeb, J. K., Leutgeb, S., & Leibold, C. (2024). Hippocampus, 34(8), 422–437.

Orthogonality of sensory and contextual categorical dynamics embedded in a continuum of responses from the second somatosensory cortex. Bayones, L., Zainos, A., Alvarez, M., Romo, R., Franci, A., & Rossi-Pool, R. (2024). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(29), e2316765121.

Working memory flips the direction of serial bias through memory-based decision. Chen, K.-W., & Bae, G.-Y. (2024). Cognition, 250, 105843.

Learning to express reward prediction error-like dopaminergic activity requires plastic representations of time. Cone, I., Clopath, C., & Shouval, H. Z. (2024). Nature Communications, 15, 5856.

Dominant activities of fear engram cells in the dorsal dentate gyrus underlie fear generalization in mice. Cui, K., Qi, X., Liu, Z., Sun, W., Jiao, P., Liu, C., … Yi, M. (2024). PLOS Biology, 22(7), e3002679.

Dopamine and acetylcholine have distinct roles in delay- and effort-based decision-making in humans. Erfanian Abdoust, M., Froböse, M. I., Schnitzler, A., Schreivogel, E., & Jocham, G. (2024). PLOS Biology, 22(7), e3002714.

Distinct neural mechanisms for heading retrieval and context recognition in the hippocampus during spatial reorientation. Gagliardi, C. M., Normandin, M. E., Keinath, A. T., Julian, J. B., Lopez, M. R., Ramos-Alvarez, M.-M., … Muzzio, I. A. (2024). Nature Communications, 15, 5968.

The effects of goal-driven attention on the acquisition of location probability learning. Holtz, E. C., & Lee, V. G. (2024). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 50(6), 845–857.

Biophysical neural adaptation mechanisms enable artificial neural networks to capture dynamic retinal computation. Idrees, S., Manookin, M. B., Rieke, F., Field, G. D., & Zylberberg, J. (2024). Nature Communications, 15, 5957.

Dynamics of spike transmission and suppression between principal cells and interneurons in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. Iwase, M., Diba, K., Pastalkova, E., & Mizuseki, K. (2024). Hippocampus, 34(8), 393–421.

Spatial updating of gaze position in younger and older adults – A path integration-like process in eye movements. Khosla, A., Moscovitch, M., & Ryan, J. D. (2024). Cognition, 250, 105835.

Hyperpolarization-activated currents drive neuronal activation sequences in sleep. Mehrotra, D., Levenstein, D., Duszkiewicz, A. J., Carrasco, S. S., Booker, S. A., Kwiatkowska, A., & Peyrache, A. (2024). Current Biology, 34(14), 3043-3054.e8.

Statistical learning shapes pain perception and prediction independently of external cues. Onysk, J., Gregory, N., Whitefield, M., Jain, M., Turner, G., Seymour, B., & Mancini, F. (2024). eLife, 12, e90634.3.

Toddlers strategically adapt their information search. Poli, F., Li, Y.-L., Naidu, P., Mars, R. B., Hunnius, S., & Ruggeri, A. (2024). Nature Communications, 15, 5780.

Prediction of sensorimotor contingencies generates saccadic omission. Pomè, A., Schlichting, N., Fritz, C., & Zimmermann, E. (2024). Current Biology, 34(14), 3215-3225.e4.

Distinct feedforward and feedback pathways for cell-type specific attention effects. Spyropoulos, G., Schneider, M., van Kempen, J., Gieselmann, M. A., Thiele, A., & Vinck, M. (2024). Neuron, 112(14), 2423-2434.e7.

Mixed selectivity: Cellular computations for complexity. Tye, K. M., Miller, E. K., Taschbach, F. H., Benna, M. K., Rigotti, M., & Fusi, S. (2024). Neuron, 112(14), 2289–2303.

Beta activity in human anterior cingulate cortex mediates reward biases. Xiao, J., Adkinson, J. A., Myers, J., Allawala, A. B., Mathura, R. K., Pirtle, V., … Sheth, S. A. (2024). Nature Communications, 15, 5528.

Inductive biases of neural network modularity in spatial navigation. Zhang, R., Pitkow, X., & Angelaki, D. E. (2024). Science Advances, 10(29).

[sapphorror]

Now that you have read the ZimVoid arc, what are your toughts on Zib and Za2r (Zib❤Zim2[2im{twoim}])?

I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED!!! alright, maybe I was definitely going to say this all anyway, but now I have a decent excuse to braindump it all at once instead of trying to write, I don't know, coherent analysis.

Yeah, I'm obsessed with this guy. I'm still only just starting to build a proper 3D model of him in my head, so don't take anything I rave about here too seriously, but my god is Zib something else. Also, really cute. No one told me he'd be cute and I wasn't at all equipped to deal with what I got. I was operating under the assumption he was going to be at least a LITTLE cool, but this is the most pathetic wet meow meow of a character I have ever seen, and that is no small statement.

(Also also, is it just me, or does the way Zib's drawn remind anyone else of rubber hose animation like, moreso than the comics artstyle generally does? I can't quite pin down what's making it feel that way, but I like it. Gives him Vibes™, y'know?)

Anyway. Fusions like Zib are always going to be fun, just for what they imply about their component characters and the game of trying to identify what characteristics come from where. And Zib is especially fun for this because Zim and Dib are such similar people to begin with. It honestly doesn't surprise me that the Zimfluence went initially unnoticed by our Dib, not just because he's more prone to cognitive bias than he likes to believe, but because there are so many overlapping traits between these two guys that Zib wasn't so much altered by the fusion as he was exacerbated. They blend seamlessly to the point it's really hard to pick out where one ends and the other begins, and in a different kind of story, Dib might actually be forced to reflect on what that implies about him and his motivations. As is, he's just going to keep fooling himself, though.

Probably the most obvious dichotomy between them, at least where it applies to Zib, is motive, and that definitely brings up some interesting questions. When he chooses to take over the Earth, is that the Zim side disguised by Dib-passing justifications, or does it say a whole lot more about Dib's actual loyalty to the Earth against his loyalty to opposing Zim than anyone would really like it to? How about the total lack of internal conflict when it comes to decimating the Armada and wrecking the Irken Empire? What does that say about Zim's ultimate loyalties?

Granted, I am at this point pretty certain Zib didn't just put on the PAK and call it a day, I think he took precautionary measures to ensure that the Dib half remained the 'dominant' personality, given that in 10 Minutes to Doom we see him completely subsumed by Zim's coding, so this isn't a perfect equal split. But it is still a split—Zib clearly did not have the foresight to account for everything, if he even wanted to—and the fact he prepared himself for this is itself interesting, because it means the decision was premeditated, not done on a whim during some momentary mental break. This might even be why he's half-Irken; instead of the PAK altering his biology, maybe Zib altered his biology so it could survive the long-term integration of the PAK. And isn't it just insane to imagine any version of Dib willingly body-horroring himself like that, stripping away his own humanity? When he accused our Dib of being just another ignorant human, could that maybe be a sign that he didn't want to have anything in common with those people anymore?

None of this is what really gets me about Zib, though. This is.

Admittedly, I'm sort of predisposed here, because I have this whole Thing about Dib's unfaltering belief he can somehow prove himself to humanity, despite all evidence to the contrary, being in essence identical to Zim's delusion that he's already adored by all... that's it's whole own post, tbh, but my point is Dib's ostracization wouldn't be solved by exposing Zim, and it's fun to see that explicitly confirmed.

But it's also more specific than that. Because what Zib was forced to realize here is that he destroyed the only person capable of actually caring about him. And that's why the Zimvoid is the Zimvoid, isn't it? Zib could've used those portals to escape anywhere or lure in anything, but instead he does this. Part of that's the obsessive need to succeed where he'd previously failed and decimate the Armada (+ repeatedly 'defeat' Zim because he's still too emotionally stunted to understand that's not actually what he needs), and I think all of that is important, but there's also something to be said about how deeply driven Dib is by the desire for external validation, and here he went and fused himself with the one person in the universe who might be even more love-hungry than he is. Zib's not afraid of being alone simply because he dislikes isolation—I mean, even within the Zimvoid, he still physically and ESPECIALLY emotionally isolates himself from the other Zims. Being the only person left in his reality means there's no one to admire his greatness, and given who he's a combination of, of course that's his worst nightmare. And ridiculous as it may be, he understands that Zim is the only person who's ever given him that kind of attention. So why not make a whole planet of them? Why not trick them into idolizing him? I mean, who else could even matter besides Zim?

Also? This one's sort of auxiliary to the last point, but there is something deeply, deeply sexy and thematically chewy in Dib wanting/needing Zim so badly that he quite literally became him, and that not being enough. I mean, what is the Zimvoid but a huge collector's display? And it's exactly this that makes him the architect of his own ultimate tragedy. I have a thing for characters who damn themselves not through any single choice, but by passing up a million little opportunities to save themselves, totally confident in their decisions right up til the moment it actually is too late. He could've used those portals to escape to another timeline. He could've designed the Zimvoid as anything other than a ticking timebomb of lies, conflict, and an ever inflating population of lunatics. He could've given up on his destructive plans and just enjoyed the huge fucked up harem he built for himself. He could've quit while he was ahead.

And the really funny thing is, even after the collapse of the Zimvoid, his total isolation is still a consequence of his own actions. I mean, the Zim from his own timeline literally cannot be taken away from him through any method short of murder. He's still right there. But by winning, by possessing his Zim to the point of consumption, Zib defeated the entire purpose of having Zim in the first place. They'll never be separated, and that's exactly the reason why he'll always be alone.

As for ZA2R... hm. I'm not sure if I have much to say about them just yet, but suffice to say I am Deeply Compelled. I'm always weak for that (false) god x worshipper dynamic. It's about someone as lonely and broken and closed off as Zib finding out the hard way that they're still capable of genuine love, no matter how bad they are at it, and there's something very special in every Zim's desire to be someone's favorite being so specifically exploited. I mean, the dynamic of highest subordinate is essentially identical to the one Zim likes to imagine he has with the Tallest, only actually real. Dishonest and exploitative, to be sure, but still real. And hey, important question, but what about #2's personal Dib and the fact Zib is always going to be implicitly competing against the person actually cosmically destined for his partner, because he fucked his own cosmic destiny up so badly? Or the inevitable spectacle of Dib's semi-latent yandere tendencies being brought to bear against himself?

Also! Shameless Homestuck chatter, but I take so much joy in pale ZADR dynamics (black diamond romance my beloved), and the fun thing about ZA2R is that their default pacifier/pacified dynamic swaps. In, uh, normal person terms, they've managed to contrive themselves a situation in which Zim is actually the comparatively sane/stable one, keyword comparatively, and being worked to death about it. There's nothing I love more than a justified role reversal, y'know?

THAT'S ALL I'VE GOT FOR NOW but like I've been thinking about these guys nonstop for 24 hours already, I WILL be losing my mind about them again. I don't know when, I don't know how, but it's gonna happen.

[dapg-otmebytheballs]

I want to add a bit to the twt discourse. I feel like some people are mixing up different aspects of the phandom that DnP may or may not like.

I think when Dan says "you know what you did" he means the stalking and the attempts to find out details of their private life, not fanfiction and fanart. Loudly atoning for the latter kinda minimizes the harm caused by the former.

Maybe Dan genuinely dislikes the rpf smut (which i doubt. he literally wanted to read it on his bd stream when no one asked him to). Maybe he just likes teasing us.

Either way it's definitely not something that makes them uncomfortable to a point of disappearing again.

That's a good point, actually, like someone else pointed out, the fanfic stuff from the phandom is used as a scapegoat by people who are just anti rpf anyways and want something to point at and say "see? That was so bad!"

It's just having a belief or bias already and then looking for an example to confirm it. And perhaps there will be people who are uncomfortable about actually facing the facts of the more invasive things that happened, the stalking and doxxing, which actually cause real life harm. And so we instead focus on the parts that seem not so bad, this is a common tactic with bad apologies in general, focusing on the less bad part and apologising way too much for it to divert attention from the actually bad parts.

Fixation on the fanart and fanfic and whatnot is hurting twice over in that way yes, one by distracting from the things that actually were wrong and two by giving people an excuse to hate on fiction they probably already hated and just wanted a justification for 🤷🏻‍♀️ scapegoating

Doesn't help that people get doxxed over fanfic too, so this becomes a way to ignore that stuff happening with dnp and saving the people who get so hostile and doxx over fanfic from having cognitive dissonance from it bc they've convinced themselves that the fics are the actual evil problem.

Anyway I think mostly what I've seen here is a much better understanding of this stuff, so really this is more some loud minorities or even people outside the fandom kinda problem of focusing on the wrong thing. But I agree, they've been v clear with their boundaries with fics and it's literally a non-issue. The stalking was the real problem and hopefully we don't see that happening again, to them or to other fans over silly stuff

[catboybiologist]

what I find interesting is that the concept of shower coffee is so offputting to me, but not bath coffee, even tho shower water in coffee is probably a lot better than coffee in bath water (yes this thought was inspireed by seeing the cup on the edge of the bathtub xd

Cognitive bias