#it's actually really hard to learn systematically

[italiantea]

my international school background is doing me no favors here my biology teacher was indian my geography teacher was scottish my business teacher was from turkey i have no idea how to pronounce things anymore. why are you asking me how to say cot. who the fuck uses a cot

[lxcke]

My Hancock Headcanons

Some of these are a little OOC from the game but I'm rewriting the Commonwealth to have darker and more realistic overtones. 1.9k words.

Can't bring himself to take Daytripper anymore. The euphoric effects hooked him hard for a while and it's one of the reasons why he used to do benders so much.

Doesn't wear the red frock coat while out adventuring because he can't bear the thought of getting it burned up or ruined.

Some hair follicles survived on the top of his head and there are tiny tufts of platinum silver hair that grow in. He lost his hair pigment in the ghoulification process, and they fall out or break off before the strands can get very long as it's very brittle.

Tries to one-hand his double-barrel shotgun like a flintlock pistol and regularly messes up his wrist joint because of the kickback.

His eyes appear pitch black, but if you look closely or shine a light on them, you'll notice that his eyes are actually just a really, really dark red from burst blood vessels (radiation poisoning side-effect). In some areas where the black hasn't taken over, there are broken flecks of grey in there.

Hancock is a caffeine junkie.

He deals with fatigue and arthritis from ghoulification (his bones did not take kindly to the radiation.) The pain lessens during radstorms, where he feels incredibly rejuvenated, and often hyper.

Favors Mentats and Jet because they're "less heavy" chems. He takes the Mentats to help himself properly fulfil the role as a responsible mayor. Long-term use has led to him learning a lot in a short time span, leading to his extremely high INT stat.

He favors Jet because it helps sooth the fire in his brain after overdoing work on Mentats. They balance each other out.

Used to wear a lot of jewelry and had piercings in his youth but found out the hard way that they snag during a fight, so they had to go.

Keeps his switchblade(s) in his boot.

Was taught how to sew by his mom as a kid and is now the guy everyone goes to when they end up with holes in their clothes. He keeps his John Hancock getup in good condition.

Isn't a huge fan of swimming. He can swim but it makes him feel incredibly uneasy. He needs his boots on the ground.

Bad temperature regulation. He gets cold at a slight breeze and hot on a sunny day. His tricorn hat keeps the sun off of him.

Some people headcanon that he has heightened senses, but I beg to differ. The dude has bad vision. He uses a shotgun so it's harder to miss. You'll often catch him squinting at documents and terminals. He knows the smell of specific chemicals like the back of his hand, but he doesn't necessarily pick up scents "better."

E.g. you'll both catch a whiff of something weirdly metallic, and he just pops off with, "ah, yes, Psychojet with a little too much jet saturation and a smidge of black mold in the container. Feelin' bad for whoever just took that; that's some low-quality stuff."

Back in his human days, he was a degenerate junkie back in Diamond City. He was a sleazeball with high charisma; let's just leave it at that.

DC guards would regularly sweep him off the curb near the Dugout Inn or bust him selling chems to the locals behind the stands.

As alluded to in the game dialogue, Hancock would go on benders in Goodneighbor and would often shack up with the locals. He used sex as an escape almost as frequently as chems. He has a lot of experience due to this, but he also has his fair share of "horror stories."

He's now a lot pickier about who he shares a mattress with, but whoever gets lucky with Hancock? Say goodbye to your dignity because he will systematically destroy that shit just because he feels like it.

Gave the player character chems so they'd get hooked and be dependent on him to provide. He was buying insurance so they wouldn't betray him if push came to shove. He also just wanted a smoke buddy for the road.

Hancock is a selfish person. He wears the "easygoing helpful stoner friend" persona to try and make right for his previous sins. "Hancock" is the good guy face. "John" is a cynical bastard.

Only his closest, most trusted friends will ever call him John or see that side of him.

Often can't sit still and has sensory-seeking tendencies (just a smidge touch of the ADHD. Could be a side effect of chem-usage as well.)

As a young child, he grew up in a waterfront cabin with his older brother and mother. His father was a drifter and was rarely seen. John can't remember his name or face well, but his mom is a shining star in his memory.

John falls back into the Daytripper habit after finding out his brother was replaced with a synth. The player character pulls him out of it if they're close enough. If not, he keeps it quiet. Nobody will notice, right?

His eyes are very mirror-like and have that "red-eye glow" effect when a bright light is directed at him. Sometimes, in the heat of battle, one can literally see the fire reflected back in his eyes. It's high-key freaky.

Has the subtle air of inhumanity about him. He sometimes moves in a way that makes you question if he's real or not (e.g. standing way too still, movements too rigid or too fluid.) He's probably just really high when this happens.

Riffing off some dialogue from the game, Hancock has been dealing with hallucinations all his life. He blames it on the chems, but he's too afraid to admit he's probably just a tad psychotic from wasteland living. This is also a known PTSD symptom, which he won't touch on the subject of with a ten-foot pole.

"You see 'em, too?" he says jokingly whilst sweating bullets.

When he gets particularly high, one might catch him listening to some very strange experimental jazz. He'll never admit to this.

Riffing off of Danny Shorago's beautiful musical performances, this dude can absolutely slam out vocals like a pro. Isolation in the wasteland leads to completely useless talents. He absentmindedly sung along to Diamond City radio to himself one too many times and well, one thing led to another...

Took over for Magnolia at the Third Rail on one of her off days. Never did it again. Will never mention it happened.

Attention whore and heavily ashamed of it. He stabbed a guy in the first ten seconds of meeting the player character, but if you tell him he was showing off, he'll deny it.

Will happily bum a preserved cigarette off of the player character if they have any.

He has nine toes and walks a little funny because of it. Jack Sparrow with a limp.

Was not raised in the era of soap. Due to the game labeling soap as junk, Hancock will ridicule the player character for picking it up. He doesn't understand what it is; it just looks like a stick of lard to him.

Doesn't use soap (dirty wastelander behavior.) He keeps two pine-scented car fresheners hanging on the inside of his coat. He calls them "coat fresheners."

The sweat glands in his skin were burned off so he doesn't smell incredibly bad, there's just this weird dusty ozone smell to him... he'll take a dip in the river to get the grime off, but he doesn't like how cold it makes him afterwards.

Standard sex-education does not exist in the wasteland. It's incredibly rare to meet a wastelander who views sex as recreational, and not a clinical way to make as many babies as possible. It's also incredibly rare to meet a wastelander with any kind of clue of what they're doing in bed. This makes Hancock a literal gem, and it's probably why he has so much sway with the people. Per Bobbi No-Nose: "Everyone is so damn afraid of him or so damn in love with him. He thinks he is invincible."

Slams Dirty Wastelanders like they are water. He has a specific taste for mutfruit and sweet drinks.

Fahrenheit is indeed Hancock's daughter, but she was a bastard "oopsie baby" he didn't find out about until she was well in her adulthood. She's not inclined to tell him, nor does he want to acknowledge it. He was never a father to her, and she knows he doesn't want to be... not that she cares. They stick together out of an awkward unspoken need to make sure the other stays alive, though. Neither of them have the willpower to bring it up to each other.

Her mother was a fling situation with a cute ginger in some small settlement miles from Goodneighbor back before he was a ghoul. Count on his surprise when a particularly fierce ginger girl shows up on his doorstep many years later sporting his bright grey eyes looking for a job. What was he supposed to do, tell her to get lost?

Has an under-the-table deal with the Railroad and allows them to operate in Goodneighbor. Has a disdain for Deacon though, because his first language is bullshit, and Hancock's first language is "rooting out bullshit."

Food of choice is wherever the munchies lead him. The few things he can't stomach usually fall into the category of "200 years old." He'll eat bug if it's cooked well enough; anything that can be hunted or picked as a crop is on the menu. Salvaged food, though? Like the dusty remains of Sugar Bombs or unrefrigerated Salsbury Steak? He couldn't be paid to eat those.

Leave it to the player character to introduce him to spices and seasoning. Like any wastelander would, Hancock sort of turns into a rabid, frothing dog at good cooking.

He spends his leisure nights at the Third Rail among his people.

Reliving his memories at the Memory Den has led to some rather intense experiences. His frequent usage of Mentats has led to a rather interesting side-effect of being able to hyper-analyze what he has seen while using one of the machines. He has used this to his advantage by going over encounters he's had with various gang leaders or political interactions with settlement leaders.

He's able to catch details using this method that many others fail to. He is frequently one step ahead of the game.

Liver failure was beginning to catch up to him before he went ghoul. Now, the symptoms have miraculously vanished... he takes full advantage of this.

In a particularly bad moment in his life, Hancock once seriously considered cannibalism. It's made him weary of the dangers of hunger, so he always has some sort of snack on-hand or at least nearby. He's a very, "you do what you gotta" person, but it personally scares the shit out of him when the scarcity of the world corners him.

He made a pact with Fahrenheit to shoot him if he ever showed the warning signs of going feral. It gives him a little peace knowing he won't end up wandering the streets in a confused, violent stupor one day, but the looming deterioration from his ghoulish nature keeps him up at night, sometimes. He knows the day will come eventually.

"No warning, no fuss. Don't tell me, just do it. Got a plan to keep your name clear in the event my peeps want to know why you eighty-sixed their beloved mayor."

[olderthannetfic]

Now I'm wondering how countries like Japan and China teach literacy.

Since kanji / hanzi don't really have that much in the way of phonetic elements, they kinda have to teach them by memorization and I don't think they have many reading comprehension problems over there.

(Although both countries do have supplementary phonetic writing systems in the form of bopomofo and pinyin for China, and the kanas for Japan)

--

FAVORITE SOAPBOX TOPIC UNLOCKED!

RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

It's a little closer to teaching vocabulary than spelling, but the same kinds of principles apply: You teach the building blocks, like the traditional radicals, which aren't so different from teaching Latin and Greek roots in an English class for English speakers.

And, as a matter of fact, lots of those radicals do predict pronunciation, just not in every single case. They can also be clues to meaning, but again, not absolutely consistently. Many characters have a sound-cueing radical on one side and a meaning-cueing radical on the other. It's just that only some are still useful in the modern day, while others are more like the English word 'plumbing' where knowledge of Roman lead pipes explains why this word comes from the one for lead, but the root probably wouldn't help a kid learn the word in the first place.

One similarity to teaching phonics would be teaching students to tell very complicated and similar characters apart: you want to help a student spot all the little building blocks of the character and then spot the ones that are different, not just glance at the whole character and get a general overall vibe. If you do a whole look-based approach, too many characters are too easy to mistake for one another.

Remembering a bajillion Chinese characters is hard if you're trying to memorize them in a year and not all of elementary school, but I think people who don't read them underestimate how many component parts there are and how approachable they can be if you start by learning fundamentals, not just memorizing a few individual characters as though they have no relation to anything else.

They're actually pretty systematic, just in the way that English spelling is with its overlapping systems and historical artifacts, not in the way that highly regular Spanish spelling is.

Having taken a lot of Japanese classes, I will say that Japanese as a foreign language textbooks often do a piss poor job of this and totally do teach kanji in a sight words-y way... But my Mandarin class started with important foundational concepts that served me well in Japanese later even if I bombed out of Chinese class at the time.

Can you tell how irritated I am by all the foreign language learners who think characters are sooooo hard when, really, it's just their crappy textbook? Haha.

They're moderately hard in the way that learning a full adult spectrum of vocabulary is hard, but people do that for foreign languages all the time. The countries that use characters do tend to make sets that are smaller for certain kinds of applications, same as we have things like simple English wikipedia, but a literate adult will always know lots more, whether it's from their career in engineering or their predilection for historical romance novels.

Uh... anyway, the answer is "Bit by bit in elementary school, just like in any other country".

[sophie-frm-mars]

Everyone is entitled to their own feelings about me, but I have done the work and I've been pretty public about doing the work while respecting my own boundaries and privacy and the privacy of others. Everyone thinks if they were told they'd caused harm to people they would do the perfect apology and then do the work to the satisfaction of others, and in reality that's just never how it works. Someone who was pretty central to calling me out sexually assaulted me when we were together, and was repeatedly coercive and generally horrible. As a result of the callout I had to do full service sex work because my income dropped so dramatically I was in danger of losing my house. I was assaulted by a client. People who are actually in my life know I was really unwell in the time leading up to the callout post about me, I and many others know that the harm was overstated repeatedly and eventually just got to the point of being lied about, I did hurt some people when I was doing a bunch of drugs, seriously unwell in the aftermath of being abused myself and doing a bunch of extreme kink that I was not ready for.

I'm not gonna convince anyone who believes in punitive justice that callouts are unhelpful and inappropriate and just cause more harm, or that they're systematically used against mentally ill trans women and therefore represent a catastrophic community failure, so I guess that's not what I'm trying to do here, maybe I'm just venting idk, but I hope that people who think that it aligns with their values learn that it doesn't, and really soon, because we can't be wasting time on this kind of shit when the world is trying this hard to kill us all

[eldritchamy]

I'm actually having a hard time finding HDG fics that DON'T leave me absolutely frothing at the cerebellum to read them again immediately after finishing them.

One of my favorite things about HDG fics so far is how every single one I've read has had such an incredibly different VIBE to it? I think the reason I got so hooked on it so fast is that the SETTING ITSELF, taken as a premise, is very INTERESTING and hits on a lot of really fun kinks, and has just this huge depth of lore and worldbuilding....

and all of that stuff is the SETUP, rather than the PAYOFF.

By which I mean the shared universe takes a really fun and hot concept and then allows for ALL KINDS of completely different stories to be told BASED ON that setup.

And since the setup FUCKIN. WORKS. for me, I get to just keep exploring all these totally unique TAKES on it in terms of plot and even GENRE, which is such a cool thing for a shared universe erotic fiction bdsm scifi setting to have made possible.

And it's SO COOL how DIFFERENT most of these stories have been from what you would expect from the setting.

You would think the setting would just be an excuse to write really kinky porn (and don't get me wrong, if the kinks are right for you MAN do they hit like a truck), but so many of the ones I've read so far have dealt with, AND BEEN INCREDIBLE SINCERE COMPLEX NUANCED PORTRAYALS OF, themes like trauma recovery, and facing the unknown, and facing your fears, and self discovery, and how important it is to have meaningful connections as you heal and recover from a broken world built on oppressive systems, and learning that a beautiful post scarcity world is possible and that we DESERVE it, and learning how to be CARED FOR instead of feeling abandoned by a world and a culture that have utterly and systematically failed us.

I'm so glad I found HDG stuff.

[gece-misin-nesin]

I hope it’s ok if I rant a little about MHA because your post about Endeavor walking free reminded me of how detrimental some of the messages MHA can be. (I’ll try not to write much, feel free to delete this tho!)

It is so frustrating how the story doesn’t linger enough on the weight killing people that have yet to commit a crime, people that are a threat to the status quo, holds.

Sometimes I legit feel insane because people will be saying things like, “He could be a threat, so of course they should kill him.” And then talk about Deku and class 1A “changing the world for the better,” when the series doesn’t care to unpack its systematic issues past individual issues + the series essentially maintained the system that failed so many—resorting to reforms and expanding programs doesn’t actually solve the problem imo.

And it’s so hard nowadays to even try to have a conversation that entails criticism of the story, when so many fans fall for the condescending righteousness the story feeds as a response just because it came from heroes. Even though the story itself presents reasons why we shouldn’t blindly trust heroes (Endeavor literally right there) 🤦

Like, the story presents characters being oppressed and the ultimate response to their plight is constantly, “Just be a better victim.” The whole situation with Touya and Endeavor + what Deku says to Touya, is absolutely insane to me.

It made me sick to see people saying, “This is what Touya always wanted.” This is what people are taking away from the story, when many people who grew up being abused and didn’t fit the “perfect victim” criteria will tell you how fucked up that ending was.

Anyway, sorry for ranting. It’s so hard to find people who understands criticism in the MHA fandom 😭 The story has a lot of good points and potential, Hori just couldn’t handle it properly.

I am ALWAYS happy to listen to bnha rants!! I devour the bnha critical tag like a wild beast lmaoo

As for your thoughts, 100% agree. I feel like a big part of the problem is that the story spends so much time setting up systematic issues and then just..drops them? Acts like they don't exist? And instead it redirects all blame and reason to indovidual problems, like Endeavor for example. Touya became a villain because of Endeavor..but the conditions under which he became a villain could have been massively prevented if the ranking system didn't exist and if so much value hadn't been placed on it. Or if the wealth and privilege that being a hero had brought to Endeavor hadn't let people turn a blind eye to his bullshit. Because are you really telling NO ONE had even an inclination that something was wrong in that household? Really?

This also applies to Tomura. In the beginning The Walk where he spent some amount of time on the streets without anyone helping him seemed very important to his backstory. He didn't become a villain just because his father was a pos, he becane a villain because the state of heroism led to a society that glorified heroes to such an extent that people didn't help a bloody kid on the street because a 'hero would'. But instead most of his memories Deku interferes w are about the Shimura household instead of the very important bystander syndrome. And THEN to top it all off, we learn the stupid 'AFO orchestrated Tomura's whole life' thing. I cannot find the right words to express just how much I loathe that.

Anyway, Touya and Tenko are just two examples. Overall, the story chooses to resolve individual problems (and how well even those are resolved is certainly debatable) and frame them as the leading causes of villainy when its mostly systemic issues that cause it and then act like there were no systemic issues in the first place. I mean, literally no one has a problem with the HPSC casually having private assassins to commit extrajudicial murder, so. Guess Nagant should have just been "optimistic" and waited for someone to, idk, topple the literal government.

[ilikekidsshows]

I really don’t believe that Marinette and Adrien, should be together at this point in time. They’re clearly not ready for a relationship and it seems like them being together has only been a detriment to them. Marinette has a hard time thinking clearly when it involves Adrien in some capacity and it’s led to catastrophe every time. As for Adrien, he’s still defining himself by someone’s else expectations of him and we see how desperate he can be to have his feelings returned to the point he’s willing to sacrifice his wants and feelings every single time.

---

Adrien and Marinette are the worst kind of codependent, where they’ve been convinced only the other person can make them happy and that they only need the other person to be happy. Adrien’s entire support network was systematically torn down in season 4 and now he’s an orphan, whose caretaker was picked by Marinette. Adrien doesn’t even know how completely Marinette controls him and his life now. Marinette knows the truth about his father and makes the decisions on what to do about it. Marinette has decided that he will not know the truth about the wedding rings, meaning he can’t keep them, therefore himself, safe, making him reliant on Marinette for safety. Even as a superhero he now has to accept Marinette’s judgement call on everything, having to operate blindly because he is given none of the information.

Adrien’s most important character motivation has been his desire for agency from the start, but now the person who’s supposedly “perfect for him” is denying him agency and controlling almost every aspect of his life. Nothing about this relationship is good for Adrien, it’s not giving him a choice and it’s draining his emotional well-being to constantly have to cater to Marinette’s mountains of issues because she will only accept help from someone who’s dating her instead of going to a mental health professional. Adrien needs people who like him as he is with no expectations, not people who want to possess him and drain him emotionally.

Marinette is no better. Her judgement has always been at its weakest when Adrien is a concern, and, just as she acknowledges this, she gets rewarded with a relationship with Adrien without her having to change her behavior first. She never had to grow or learn anything before Adrien was suddenly in love with her and pursuing her and taking care of all of her insecurities in their relationship for her. He’s also so accepting of all of her faults that she puts no thought into her decisions concerning his wellbeing and autonomy. Even as Ladybug she’s constantly asking for Cat Noir’s support while offering nothing in return and she has repeatedly failed to treat him as a human being with wants and needs that matter.

Marinette can’t even tell her boyfriend she likes him, he just knows because he’s so perfect. This inability to communicate even the simplest, most necessary things to her loved ones in zero-stakes situations has been Marinette’s number one character flaw since the start of the series and the writing crew are too scared of changing the status quo to have her learn anything, even when her refusal to just talk to people is causing actual harm. Marinette’s inability to communicate is a flaw she should work through instead of being excused, coddled and rewarded for it.

[joan-deactivated20230204]

I sat down and read Rampant AI Cheating Is Ruining Education Alarmingly Fast, & want to collect some thoughts on it:

Despite the headline, the article is pretty open about framing the widespread adoption of ChatGPT &co as a continuation of already available tools to help students cheat through university. And its not hard to see all of that as the product of massive institutional failures in making students feel like there is value in participating in their own education. Anyone who went through US public school can probably understand that there's a systematic apathy at work- schooling is presented as a way to meet minimum requirements to get students into the workforce. Unless you were lucky enough to have a teacher who was particularly motivated to keep you engaged, (shoutout to my AP world history teacher back in high school), its really easy to see tests & assignments as these burdens that you're fine to skip if you can. So students aren't primed to give a shit.

And I'm not going to say that higher education is inherently better in that regard, I have had some classes that definitely felt like I was just checking off boxes, but in theory a competent degree program will assume that you want to be there and will structure the work it hands you in such a way that it aids in your learning. Coming from a Humanities major, at least, the point of the term paper and the reading assignment is to get you to think critically about the subject(s), and to exercise your ability to evaluate and synthesize information and reach new conclusions.

So there's something uniquely horrifying to me about reading a case like this, where students who have been trained to see school as a chore are skipping over the work that enables them to learn. And this isn't an abstract, low-stakes scenario like cheating your way through a high school 5 paragraph essay about Hamlet- when the point of higher education existing at all is to imbue people with the specialized knowledge they need to get jobs in certain fields, cases like this mean that the people receiving these degrees and entering the workforce are going to struggle to do the actual work. What does the world look like, when the genocide scholars of tomorrow were kids who never bothered to read any of the texts they were given in school.

And beyond the workforce, what does it look like when voting-age individuals are being trained to outsource their ability to think critically? If you accept the idea that US fascism as it currently exists is defined by powerful people catering to a reactionary desire to view the world in extremely simplified terms- to find minority scapegoats for complex issues and demagogues to promise solutions to them- then how can we see this desire for simplicity, for being told what to do, as anything but an expression of that same fascist desire?

So while it's easy to want to pass this off as more of the same kind of cheating that has already existed in higher education, the fact of it being this widespread and the potential consequences of it do point to a need to take it more seriously, at a structural level, than the student who sneaks notes into a final. So far, the general response of universities to throw their hands up and leave this to individual professors to sort out seems absurd. But its hard to imagine what really can be done when this is ultimately the product of national-level schooling policy, and the big club-wielding ogre standing over this whole discussion is a much larger reality in which current admin education policy seems to see schools as a vehicle to pump out Hitlerjugend.

Idk what to do with all of this. The article comes off really bleak, and in general the increasing adoption of AI for personal use feels like we are on the cusp of a cultural shift that I really do not want to be a part of. Tell me that this vision of the world- one where you outsource your ability to connect with other human beings, where you move through the world with a sole view to optimize personal outcomes by building your own Cyrano de Bergerac- is one you want to live in!

[sharpth1ng]

"chatgpt writing is bad because you can tell when it's chatgpt writing because chatgpt writing is bad". in reality the competent kids are using chatgpt well and the incompetent kids are using chatgpt poorly... like with any other tool.

It's not just like other tools. Calculators and computers and other kinds of automation don't require you to steal the hard work of other people who deserve recognition and compensation. I dont know why I have to keep reminding people of this.

It also uses an exorbitant amount of energy and water during an environmental crisis and it's been linked to declining cognitive skills. The competent kids are becoming less competent by using it and they're fucked when we require in-class essays.

Specifically, it can enhance your writing output and confidence but it decreases creativity, originality, critical thinking, reading comprehension, and makes you prone to data bias. Remember, AI privileges the most common answers, which are often out of date and wrong when it comes to scientific and sociological data. This results in reproduction of racism and sexist ideas, because guess whats common on the internet? Racism and sexism!

Heres a source (its a meta-analysis, so it aggregates data from a collection of studies. This means it has better statistical power than any single study, which could have been biased in a number of ways. Meta analysis= more data points, more data points= higher accuracy).

This study also considers positives of AI by the way, as noted it can increase writing efficiency but the downsides and ethical issues don't make that worthwhile in my opinion. We can and should enhance writing and confidence in other ways.

Heres another source:

The issue here is that if you rely on AI consistently, certain skills start to atrophy. So what happens when you can't use it?

Im not completely against all AI, there is legitimate possibility for ethical usage when its trained on paid for data sets and used for specific purpose. Ive seen good evidence for use in medical fields, and for enhancing language learning in certain ways. If we can find a way to reduce the energy and water consumption then cool.

But when you write essays with chatgpt you're just robbing yourself an opportunity to exercise valuable cognitive muscles and you're also robbing millions of people of the fruit of their own intellectual and creative property. Also like, on a purely aesthetic level it has such boring prose, it makes you sound exactly like everyone else and I actually appreciate a distinctive voice in a piece of writing.

It also often fails to cite ideas that belong to other people, which can get you an academic violation for plagiarism even if your writing isn't identified as AI. And by the way, AI detection software is only going to keep getting better in tandem with AI.

All that said it really doesn't matter to me how good it gets at faking human or how good people get at using it, I'm never going to support it because again, it requires mass scale intellectual theft and (at least currently) it involves an unnecessary energy expenditure. Like it's really not that complicated.

At the end of the day I would much rather know that I did my work. I feel pride in my writing because I know I chose every word, and because integrity matters to me.

This is the last post I'm making about this. If you send me another ask I'll block you and delete it. This space is meant to be fun for me and I don't want to engage in more bullshit discourse here.

[starlingsyscourses]

Transcending comment section character limits. @indigochromatic

I think the fantasy/iatrogenic/sociocognitive model of DID is baaaasically the tulpamancy model but said in a mean way. Compare:

These stupid people imagine they have other people in their heads/imagine they are those other people. This is basically just their overactive imagination, like roleplaying.

These cool people construct new people out of imagination/learn to inhabit new identities. This is so like roleplaying that it sometimes happens by accident to people who roleplay too hard.

Those are basically the same thing. One is just saying it in a mean way and one is saying it in a respectful way. I think people in tulpa circles even claim that tulpas are "made of imagination" and this just doesn't make them unreal.

My understanding of why, according to tulpamancers, this doesn't make tulpas unreal is that:

Identity isn't about being physical. A corpse isn't the person that used to live there, right?

Identity isn't about memory, either

Identity is about your choices, your values, your habits, your personality, your body language, your hobbies, your friendships

Tulpas have their own choices, values, etc., so therefore tulpas are not their hosts.

But tulpas do sometimes switch in and use bodies, and (apparently) an fMRI study showed that something was really happening when tulpas do things, and in general they behave consistently (at least as consistently as other people) over time instead of just saying whatever would be most convenient for their host.

But this is basically all applicable to other systems: it's why some people in DID systems hold that they're separate people from their headmates. And this is... basically an argument that's not accepted by experts, in general. For the most part experts seem to hold to a definition of identity that is physical--to a greater degree than the general population, I think. (For instance, it's been described as a notable level of thought disorder to imagine that multiple people could coexist in one body--I think the person who described it this way is R. Loewenstein but I might remember wrong--even though the belief that there could be multiple people present in the same body at the same time or one after the other is a very common religious belief. Psychiatry hasn't impressed me with its ability to live up to its own standards with respect to religious pluralism.)

So: the way the fantasy/sociocognitive model differs from what tulpamancers say about their own experiences is just this specific point about philosophy of identity, which is a way that the fantasy/sociocognitive model doesn't disagree with the trauma model, and it's a way the trauma model is sometimes unsatisfying to people who otherwise believe in it and are aware of trauma in their body's past and find mental health care helpful. And I'd go farther and say this isn't even part of the models. it's part of how the people using them define the words "real person."

So I do think arguments saying that the trauma model makes more sense than the fantasy/sociocognitive model are basically all applicable to tulpa systems. I know less about what people who believe in non-tulpa endogenic systems believe causes their systems. (Not exactly for lack of trying. It seems like people say "we've always been this way" a lot, but that's entirely compatible with the TOSD and also not an answer in the first place. It's like asking what causes cystic fibrosis and being told "I was born with it." Sure. That's probably true but it's not much of an explanation, is it?)

And I think it's probably important that, even though tulpamancers have a highly systematic guide to becoming multiple, what actually happens is that a lot of people try it and get no results at all, while other people show up in their communities saying "I think I had a tulpa all along, ever since I was a child, and just never knew there was a word for it!" Like there's some reason why people are multiple that isn't contained in their guide. Maybe it's fantasy-proneness. Maybe it's the mysterious non-answer that leads some endogenics to be born that way. It's just... neither of those seems like a good answer.

[meichenxi]

Hanzi update (+accidental trauma talk)

tw illness, trauma, vomiting, weight loss, recovery. I didn't plan to write about this but because of what happened in the last year I can't really write about how I studied Chinese without talking about it. so. but it's mainly about hanzi lol

I've been learning how to write traditional characters with the vague idea that I'd go and study in Taiwan, and also that if I want to write Classical Chinese or Japanese they're far more useful - but the program I want to go to Taiwan for requires HSK7, which I DO not think I can achieve and have the results of before March. Who knows! Perhaps within me lies untold brilliance and dedication!!

...well, I wouldn't rely on it. (I am also busy with a job, a partner, studying an A-level course to begin tutoring it in September, and writing the second draft of my novel.)

And even if I ended up going to Taiwan with my absolutely fantastic HSK7, there's no way I could handwrite all of those words within a year. If I learn 10 characters a day, that's like 3650 characters in a year, but realistically that will never happen - and you still have to actually remember them.

I also know from my last experience where I learnt a stupid amount of characters very quickly (about 800 in two weeks) that I can technically do it, I have a very large swollen brain, but then the brain, being very large and very swollen, promptly burns out. And leaves me to not do any Chinese again for like two months. So basically - completely pointless, because after those two months of rest I had forgotten most of them anyway. I will not be doing that again.

This time around I have been slowly, very slowly, learning things on Skritter. I have about 400 characters so far. I'm not doing words but doing characters, which is a bit slower, but I figure it'll be more useful in the long run. After I have the first 1000, I'm planning to then systematically go through the HSK and TOCFL lists and check I know how to put characters together and which 'jing' is used in 'yijing' etc.

This approach is only really going to work because I know a lot of vocabulary and can read a lot of stuff already - otherwise I wouldn't recommend to anybody without that backbone of vocabulary to just learn random isolated characters, unless you're masochistic or much harder-core than I am.

As I have said in a lot of posts before, I had a very difficult experience in China last August and have basically taken an entire year off studying because in all honesty I just couldn't bring myself to face the language again. Every time I tried I had this crazy grief and nightmares and stress response. What I went through was so stressful that during those two months in China that I lost seven kilograms, as I couldn't eat much without vomiting it back up due to stress and fear, didn't sleep, and ended up having to leave for Thailand pretty severely malnutritioned - which then made me susceptible to illnesses there and I spent the next two months after with awful health, vomiting and weak and generally sick. Luckily I was with friends and I gained the weight again and my period and digestive system sorted itself out.

And I never expected that a language itself could carry trauma? Like. Nobody died, it wasn't like that, I wasn't abused or assaulted or anything but still...for just under a year, every time I spoke or heard or read Chinese I couldn't help thinking of those two months. Even now it's still hard. I'm finding my way back to it but, to be honest, I didn't expect how hard it would be. I thought I could just - move past it, because I'd already had so many great experiences in China and Taiwan and with Chinese, that they would cancel each other out or at least be aided by the huge amounts of love that the language has shown me. Alas, it was not the case.

Anyway. All of that to say - I have only managed to do about 400 characters in a year, because I essentially gave up studying completely.

Now I've just finished reviewing and re-remembering those 400 characters on Skritter, so I'm ready to start again! I don't know what's changed, I guess just time - I feel more positive, I feel curious and interested about the language again. I don't know. I'm not going to question it too deeply. But for these past two weeks, I've been having a lot of fun :)

I'll update everyone on my progress as I go! Next post - 500.

[wizardingworldlibrary]

Love Potion/Spells (2) Masterlist

part one

a memorable valentine's day (ao3) - blue_violets Hermione/Ron, Sirius/Remus, Harry/Ginny G, 3k

Summary: After fighting with Hermione at the Yule Ball two years ago, Ron wants to make the Valentine’s Day Dance perfect for her. Unfortunately, Fred & George accidentally added their own DNA to a batch of love potion sold at their shop in Hogsmeade. Everyone who unknowingly takes some of the potion falls in love with all the Weasleys. The evening of the dance, Ron, Bill and their siblings are ambushed by hordes of admirers.

Amortentia Tension (ao3) - Anonymous Regulus/James G, 13k

Summary: Regulus, somehow, agrees to a bet with James Potter. He will drink a love potion (questionably acquired), and they'll see how long James can last with him being stupidly in love with him. It's only for a weekend—how hard can it be?

Bewitched (ao3) - StarlingFlight Harry/Ginny M, 90k

Summary: When Luna suggests, after Ginny suffers through the latest in a long line of comically bad dates, that the solution to all of her problems lies in brewing a love potion, she thinks it's all a big joke.

Obviously, magic isn't real. Luna's potion recipe is nothing more than a novelty, sold to tourists enamoured with the legends surrounding their historical hometown of Godric's Hollow.

Of course, Ginny really should've learned by now that her plans have a tendency to go awry. So it really shouldn't come as that much of a surprise to her when, the very next day, half the town seems to find her utterly...bewitching

The only person who appears to be immune to the enchantment she's accidentally cast, is the one person who she wishes saw her as something more than his best friend's little sister; typically, even the miracle of actual magic can't capture Harry Potter's interest, and now he's the only person who can help her fix this latest mess she's created...

Butterbeer Confessions (ao3) - EscapeInMyBookshelf Theodore/Ginny M, 2k

Summary: The British and Irish Quidditch league is having their annual Christmas party at the Malfoy Manor. Theodore Nott spikes a Butterbeer intending to give to Draco Malfoy but his crush Ginny Weasley drinks it instead.

Falling like a Snowflake (ao3) - GhostIsReading Marcus/Harry T, 2k

Summary: Marcus Flint gives Harry a box of chocolates unaware that they are laced with a potion.

Minty Water (ao3) - CandyCla Scorpius/Albus G, 3k

Summary: When Albus received a love potion from his Uncle Ron, he never intended to use it. He certainly never planned for his best friend to drink it, thinking it was just water. And he definitely hadn't anticipated that his best friend would act completely normally, unaffected by the love spell.

Muggle Matrimony (ao3) - Snitchesbecray Hermione/Ron G, 33k

Summary: Hermione and Ron are finally tying the knot—but, in true Hermione style, this wedding isn’t just about romance. Hermione is determined to make her big day a groundbreaking statement by holding a Muggle-friendly, magic-free ceremony in a Muggle church. Her goal? To show the Ministry that wizard and Muggle worlds can truly blend, all while setting herself up for a big promotion.

But transforming a wedding into a statement on systematic change proves to be a spellbinding challenge. With tensions running high, Ron feeling uneasy about getting married so young, Fleur ready to pop with a new Weasley any minute, and a certain ex eager to win Hermione back, this ceremony may need more than just a little magic to succeed. Will Hermione’s bold vision be the start of a new era—or will her magical wedding day dreams end in a spectacular disaster?

Potions and Paradoxes (ao3) - yourstruly_quin Hermione/Draco T, 3k

Summary: “Granger,” he said.

She looked up from her textbook. “What is it?”

“I think we made a mistake,” he said, words quick and clipped.

She set her quill down and scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Malfoy. Everything is going perfect. Look at the potion— it’s textbook.”

He scowled, panic bubbling in his chest. “Then why does it smell like—“ he cut himself off abruptly.

“Why does it smell like what?” She frowned.

“Nothing,” he snapped. The scent continued to get stronger, wrapping around him and taunting him. Coffee, parchment, cinnamon. It was undeniably Granger.

take a sip of my secret potion (ao3) - neozeka Draco/Harry T, 981

Summary: Harry gets doused with a potion meant to make him fall in love with the first person he sees

naturally, it's Draco

The Black Dog (ao3) - amariss1 Sirius/Remus T, 57k

Summary: "Well, I think it's time to tell you all, me and Remus are together!"

Sirius Black was starting to have trouble breathing as the Order members and even his godson congratulated Tonks and Remus. The things that had changed in 14 years kept coming back to haunt him.

"But she's too young to know this song"

There’s A Thin Line Between Love and Obsession (ao3) - dittanyanddreams Hermione/Draco E, 7k

Summary: Draco has an unhealthy obsession with a certain mudblood witch, one that he has harboured secretly for longer than he would ever care to admit. But, what happens when obsessive thoughts lead to action?

to thine own self (ao3) - into_the_past Pandora/Lily N/R, 4k

Summary: Severus Snape will stop at nothing to gain Lily Evan's attention. (Love potion gone awry)

[beifong-brainrot]

I've seen your AU posts about Bolin as the Avatar, but here is another interesting thought experiment for you: what if Suyin was the Avatar?

[Disclaimer: Not making up a new timeline, so let's roll with some AU where the current Suyin we know is simply discovered as the Avatar at a really late age.] So, some of what often defines an Avatar are these common prerequisites: the world tour, learning the elements, spirituality, and approach/practicality. I'll give my thoughts on how I feel Suyin would fare and/or adapt in these categories, but everything said here is really just for fun discussion and is always up for your and everyone's own interpretation. World Tour: Suyin already has one foot in on this side of things as she's already been noted on traveling some parts of the world, seems relatively well-traveled, and has met a variety of people in her travels.

As the Avatar, I don't believe this aspect would be very hard for her. However, I could see her wrestling with the difficulty of hardly ever having the opportunity to enjoy any private time in her home for the sake of ushering peace and stability in the world. It's possible she could have someone act as an interim matriarch over Zaofu or possibly even step down permanently. Oh, who are we kidding? We all know she's a certified workaholic and will collapse trying to do them both at once. Learning the Elements: I also believe this should come easier to her as well. Her fighting style, for starters, is already very reminiscent of airbender movements in how nimble and mindful of her surroundings she is than most other earthbenders. Or, as Aang would say, "being quick or clever"

However, she thinks like a waterbender; how she redirects metal and earth thrown at her and redirect them to her opponent is a sight to behold. The one element I could see having an issue with as the Avatar is fire as it requires a mind of inner peace and tranquility (and she has definitely had some lingering issues in her past). She is also reasonably emotional (under the right circumstances) and impulsive which can cause lapses in her judgment or behavior. Lightning is a possibility as a skill, I suppose, but I definitely see her redirecting it more than generating it much. Oh, and traveling to find masters? Screw that. Nope, they're all getting an extended deluxe stay at Zaofu until she's mastered all the elements. Non-negotiable.

Spirituality: This is the shortest one as we don't know much of what Suyin thinks of spirits, the spirit world, or even how spiritual she actually is. She comes off as a bit materialistic, though, so that might affect how she interacts in those kinds of such matters but it's all very vague, to say the least.

Approach & Practicality: I think this aspect is the most interesting because I think it really hinges on how charitable one wants to be to Suyin's character. For all I've mentioned, she could very well be a Szeto-type of Avatar that mainly prioritizes the progression and safety of only Zaofu and any surrounding territories under their banner. There's enough precedent for that mentality given her response to the Earth Kingdom situation in Book 4. On the flip side, I could also see her acting with a sort of dual persona. One, that operates as sort of a "mother hen" kind of figure that over-compensates for the world's needs, albeit in her own fussy and systematic way with the best of maternal intentions. The other persona is more discreet and handles problems behind the scenes. Given that she had someone like Aiwei in her ranks and wasn't afraid to assassinate Kuvira in the dead of night, this is another possibility of how she would operate as the Avatar. Honestly, I envision her as a slightly more domineering Yangchen, with occasional flashes of Kyoshi if things REALLY hit the fan. But, hey, who is gonna piss off the cool mom, right? ....Right?

Oh my god I love this idea! I think a show following an older, more established Avatar would be very interesting.

One can actually put forth a theory that Suyin's travels have already kinda lead her through all three elements to some extent.

She spent time sailing on a pirate's ship, surrounded by water. That's waterbending down.

The circus she performed in looks incredibly similar to the one Ty Lee had performed in. This can also be backed up that Suyin also has a painted lady doll, a dragon mask, and some other thing (perhaps a flute? Or a pin?) With a dragon motif. So that's firebending also down.

Her connection to Airbending is a little bit less pronounced, but she did spend a lot of time in a sandbender commune. Now, while sandbenders are earthbenders, their bending methods are incredibly similar to airbending, to the point where they can propel their sandgliders with it. The commune could also be similar to Air Nomads and their communal lifestyles.

I can see her connecting very strongly with the healing aspects of waterbending. She seems to have a bit of medicinal knowledge, or at least enough of an instinct to get most of the metal out of Korra's bloodstream. We really don't talk about that enough man that was cool as fuck.

I could sort of see Suyin making Zaofu a bit of her home and "base of operations" like Aang seemed to fo with Air Temple Island. Also the idea that instead of a traditional Team Avatar, she has her gaggle of feral ninja children is really funny to me.

The more I think about Suyin as an Avatar, the more wonderful symbolism I can see there.

The Earth Kingdom is still probably suffering massively after the damage done to it by the Fire Nation. And who better to herald it's rebirth than the metalbender Avatar daughter of a renowned war hero.

Suyin is all about progress and people growing. And I can certainly see her wanting to spread that to others. As the Avatar, doing so wouldn't be seen as her subjugating others (which was one of her main reasons to not help during the whole earth empire thing) but by acting as a Spiritual Guide to others.

So yeah this is an amazing concept. Honestly i need to gather my thoughts on it but I may revisit this concept.

[delusionaid]

headcanon: mizuki - the empathy of dreams

Mizuki is not an empath, but she has said herself that she learns of human emotions, increasingly more complex ones as time goes by, by absorbing their dreams and digesting them. Sometimes they go down easy and sometimes they are hard to digest, but as long as they're within human levels (so not influenced by youkai, gods or other entities), she can handle them. That concept immediately intrigued me because I feel like there's two levels to that (possibly three but I lost my train of thought half-way through writing this):

the emotions she experiences directly, by seeing the person whose dream she's eating interacting with their dream environment and dream friends/enemies; the scenarios might be dreamed up and a bit distorted, but humans tend to act like humans still within their dreams

the emotions she experiences on the meta level of the dream, so the ones that are actually felt by the dreamer, while the dream happens in whatever shape or form it takes; these are likely distorted and either take this process of digestion for her to grasp in any way, or they are almost obstructive to her learning process, because they confront her with the distorted strange and entangled emotions woven into a person's dream that they themselves often cannot easily understand and detangle

When she eats these dreams, she experiences them for herself in some ways, at least the emotions tied to them and so learns of them and how to better empathize with them. It doesn't immediately give her the ability to recognize the same feeling in someone else when she encounters it next in a conversation, but she can sense a similarity or pattern when eating their dreams. The more often she eats a specific emotion or state of mind, the easier the pattern recognition. She is quite systematic about it, but strives to make the therapy experience for her patients as smooth and comfortable as possible because at the end of the day, her furthering her understanding is not the main goal of her sessions - it is the well-being of her patients.

She doesn't really need it, but a while ago she started writing a journal, detailing the emotions and experiences she learns of, lately also diving into how knowing of them and feeling them herself might influence her neutrality when talking to new patients. Will it become a problem in the future by altering her own nature too much? Does it strengthen or weaken her ability to digest nightmares as she becomes less pure youkai and more human? Her notes are extensive but never contain information about any of her actual patients, by name or in a way that would compromise them if stolen. That information she (easily) retains by memory alone.

[simpledaniellenotes]

"𝐄𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐄𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐄𝐫𝐚?"

The education crisis in the world keeps increasing per year. The government never prioritizes improving the education system in its countries. No one really takes up the real problem with how education impacts the youth. Is Education really useless nowadays? Look at Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, or Steve Jobs, who dropped out of college and became world successes. As you see all these Billionaires, there is a 1 in a million chance for this to happen among people. Some say that's good and maybe even encouraged to drop out. But all of us should also consider the 999,999 people who didn't end up successful after dropping out.

You see, Education is, to put it this way, for training individuals for the future. Learning is just a bonus. Learning and training are both different things. Learning is perceiving knowledge, hence subjects such as Science, Math, or English, while Training is being able to apply yourself in realistic situations, for example, Leadership, time-management, calculation, or sometimes even practicing to not be late for the sake of politeness. That is one of the most probable reasons to prioritize School. Even if most of the teachings that they subject us to aren't that useful in real life, like when are you going to use the Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, when you want to be an Actor. It's not about just the lessons, but also the principles that come with it. The lesson of Parts of the cells trains our memorization, comprehension, and critical thinking due to our minds processing the systematic movements inside the cells.

Now the world is facing a huge education crisis, where people who graduated, can't even calculate simple multiplications or recall a country. Common sense isn't very common anymore. Let's try and take action to improve these school systems. Is it time for a new Education era or are we really living in the new education era? Last few centuries, we have home-schooling and f2f classes. Now, it is trending for people to use "Unschooling" method in the internet. It is defined as home-schooling, without the school. This method is very risky, unless your children are incredibly gifted, that they can manage on their own.

Now there is a theory that the government purposefully doesn't improve the education system because if people get smarter, they would know how to vote, and that people will become too "woke". Look at the people now in the government, it's full of more uneducated politicians. Now, just because there is a chance that a child may turn into success, when they drop out, it will still be a gamble on their life.

The actual Billionaires that have dropped out and made it in life are already skilled, dedicated and made up of sheer will. More and more citizens, become less educated due to false beliefs or delusionating themselves, without the hard work.

To all the parents who want a good future for their children, please consider teaching them or having them taught in school. As the new generation progresses, technology also does. I'm not saying that going to school is everything, but my point is you and others need to educate yourself to be at least ready to live in the real world with real skills to use. Let's wake up! Do what makes you successful, not what made others successful. Let's make a new generation that is better than the last.

[gold-rhine]

hello. i come for ask game. xinyan & anemo or, if you do not care for hard mode of character rarely talked about kaeya & dendro

anemo needs to have their life uprooted, either their core believes shattered or to lose something fundamental that makes them question their sense of self, to be the leaf on the wind, but learn to go with it instead of being thrown around. this is why death of loved one is a very popular anemo motive, as its an easy way to yank the ground from under character's feet. for a righteous, self-confident character like xinyan, that loss also needs to challenge their preconceptions. basically i think it needs to be heizou situation where he cast categorical judgment on his friend and then at his death was forced to re-evaluate his own view of justice. heizou would be pyro or electro if that friend didn't happen btw, depending on other circumstances.

for xinyan it could be idk, she had a conservative uncle who was against her rock and roll shit (and we know her family was not thrilled), she thought he's a jerk and fought him all the time, but then got into trouble with law by idk vandalizing public property with graffiti or smth, and it somehow tied her to even bigger crime that she didn't do, and instead of blaming her or chastising her like she thought he would, he uncle took the blame and went to prison himself to protect her. like he could just die protecting her from smth, but i'm trying to reduce anemo-related deaths asdghj

kaeya would work very well as dendro, he has a lot of corresponding tendencies - drive to collect and process new information, to systematize it and then use it to achieve his goals. his urge to get info from ppl and to put them in hard situations to see how they'll react mirrors alhaitham's ethos of collecting information through biased perspectives to understand these perspectives and challenge them against one another, alhaitham is just much more blunt. the main problem is that kaeya needs to not hate himself and not see this drive for learning things about ppl as inherently evil thing that makes him a manipulator. which is uuuuh, hard to do in his situation lol. idk, if his dad really didn't have an agenda for him and left him in sumeru with candace without any loaded statements about last hope of the khaenriah, so kaeya didn't feel like a spy and time bomb.

dendro kaeya i think would be either in akademiya, inventing psychology and tools to analyze ppl, or be an edgy writer who uses social experiments on ppl to get "true" plots for his books. maybe both actually lol