#posts that don't make sense without context

[onlyancunin]

I think we're talking about the same thing perhaps, but from different angles then.

Armchair diagnosis refer to someone with no degree nor qualifications attempting to "diagnose", a.k.a. say they see somebody display behaviors commonly understood as part of a certain condition, in my understanding.

And this itself is not a problem, in my opinion, it's what happens after. They say that just by doing so we're throwing the people behind the diagnosis - either diagnosed by a proper professional or just assumed-diagnosed for the purpose of giving their therapy/pharmacology a direction - under the bus.

Which implies: somebody thinks Trump is NPD -> all people with NPD are like Trump. But it can happen only if there's an understanding that NPD equals being an asshole.

So my point is that saying all "armchair diagnosis" is bad because some people don't get the nuance of the diagnosis being just a part of someone, not the whole picture & explanation, is a blanket statement.

So - I don't think it's the "diagnosing" that's the problem, it's the stigmatizing of the certain conditions. Because then we also come to situation when people start thinking "he's an asshole, therefore he must be NPD".

Maybe it's too deep of looking at the thing? But I've both been accused for being "albeist" by pointing out somebody displays certain potentially diagnoseable behaviors (even if I didn't use this as an excuse) AND been vilified and have my own diagnosises thrown in my face in an attempt to invalidate my opinions or feelings. And this is all the same root problem the way I see it, which is seeing cluster B personality disorders and/or mental illnesses as invalidating, people-breaking and dangerous.

I think there's space for understanding where someone is coming from without it being an excuse, which is another thing I see happening often. An explanation is not an excuse, again, it's just a map on how to navigate certain situations.

And in case of Trump... There's even more to that. Once I've learned of his father complex he has, with his father being a successful businessman and Donald growing up in his shadow, and desperately grasping at grand projects to "prove himself" - his behavior starts making even more sense. Not because its justified, but because it can be explained. He, to this day, keeps on repeating how he does things Biden would not. He strives for acceptance of billionaires, like his father, to heal his own wound. Do I think his behavior is damaging? Absolutely. Do I think his behavior is justified? ABSOLUTELY NOT. But it is interesting to me to observe where it comes from, also for the purpose of knowing how to prevent this happening in the future.

I'd say it's part of an even bigger picture, with the male loneliness also entering the stage.

So does that maybe make it more clean?

I understand OP wants to do the "just because someobe has this mental illness doesn't mean others with the same diagnosises are like them", but people attempting to understand even the worst people in history are not the issue, and this is what their post seems to suggest.

It's the stigmatizing and flattening what the mental disorders/illnesses actually are, which works both ways. Just covering someone's mouth is fighting the symptoms, which is also important, but There's more to that.

And by the way thank you for stating rhat you're not here to attack me, and please know I'm not here to attack you either. I want to insert more perspective into this, because I've seen the "armchair diagnosis" term used as a stick to beat up everyone, no matter the context. I remember you, I know your blog and I enjoy your presence on my dash and I hope we can continue with being friendly to one another.

Which brings up another thing - do we cater to people unable to distinguish between the diagnosis and the person?

I feel like I'm about to get hit with the "its not that complicated" argument - and I can see why. But it's also not that simple and I've experienced the effects of it being oversimplified.

So no, I don't think spotting patterns of behaviors or even bringing it up is bad. But leaving it at that can be harmful, and at the very least unproductive.

And I think I said my peace with that, iI'm not here to upset anybody. I just want us to see the real root of the problem. And approach it with more empathy, than going black and white on an issue. Which again I don't mean it as my take is superior... Just explaining my reasons for chiming in.

It’s weird that we keep trying to armchair diagnose asshole behaviour with mental health labels and in doing so throw people with mental health conditions under the asshole bus when we could just call a guy an asshole and leave it at that

It just seems far more straightforward, you know

[quaranmine]

i don't have any plans this friday night do you think the city would let me drive the mosquito truck again

[tricodekus]

He's in denial. [inspired by that bugs + lola scene]

[non-un-topo]

Man in his mid-50s has a minor crisis of faith, you know how it is

[utilitycaster]

#fucking lost it at the asterisk#and you know you had to put that there because this is tumblr#also agreed - sometimes I see character hate or campaign hate that is weirdly detached from context or blame misplaced#and oftentimes a use of passive voice#like “BH were overshadowed in their own campaign” as a statement that they were “treated poorly” and it's like. by WHOMST#the events of the campaign were not real events that happened independent of cast input#you could say that the various non-BH interludes did distract from BH... but you also have to accept the interludes were created by the cas#and again that is okay to do. you just have to be okay with disagreeing with something the cast has done#but these views are usually paired with some kind of perceived moral high ground#that benefits from treating the “mold” subject like an independent actor or something reverse-spawned from fandom into the show#anyway at this point I'm just restating your post OP but yeah. mood#critical role @ariadne-mouse for real this is part of what inspired it. Like...I've found a lot of discussion of campaign 3 by its defenders does this and is also like...bizarrely ignorant of how running a D&D game works to the point that I suspect for many of them it's their first exposure to long-running actual play or D&D.

Completely outside of any understanding of D&D/AP, if the cast wanted to wrap up Divergence by the anniversary, that was a choice the cast made about campaign 3. They decided to stop it where it was. They literally did not have to do it; they chose to. They did not have to cut to the Crown Keepers or Vox Machina or the Mighty Nein; that was a thing that at minimum Matt, Aabria, and the players of the Crown Keepers wanted, and something that, when Matt pitched it to the cast, since they had to know about coming in as their past characters, they said "yes" to. You do not have to like these choices; but they were choices that people made. Part of why this avoidance of talking about choices as being made by people is specifically an issue for Critical Role's fandom is that they are self-owned and it's an improvised story; you cannot claim to executive meddling without pointing at literally the DM and two of the players [Travis as CEO and Marisha as creative director]. I think the weird claim this campaign's plot was a dramatic setup to get around Hasbro/WOTC copyrights was a very misguided attempt to point the blame somewhere else, but that was so incoherent it backfired, particularly since it's provably false given the epithets and the fact that anyone who has any understand of copyright law knows that the concept of a nature goddess isn't copyrightable; you just can't call her Melora.

Within the understanding of D&D/AP, just to give an example: the fact that everything with Laudna and Delilah was kind of rapidly wrapped up and not further explored; or the fact that the party didn't go to Hishari or have further interactions with the Nobodies, were not inevitabilities. To quote Liam O'Brien, "no, I want to roleplay Fish and Chips!" is an option! Laudna and Ashton aren't real people but also...none of this is real. The DM controls the sense of urgency; if players feel rushed, then either the DM (Matt) is making them feel rushed and that is either a conscious choice he is making to encourage the focus on the main plot, or an unconscious flaw in DM-ing, or the players are picking up something unintended and haven't communicated that and are skipping things. To be clear, I would not say this is anyone's fault in that I do not assign morality to any of this - but there is responsibility. The DM can, in fact, change the story midway to fit their players' needs and preferences, and indeed, they should (and Matt very much did so in C1 and C2). If you feel that something in Campaign 3 was unexplored and should have been, then it's because of a decision someone in the cast made that they very, very much could have made differently. I don't think it's terribly productive to be angry at the cast or Matt if you are disappointed in this; but I think it is genuinely helpful to say "I don't like the choices Matt (or Marisha, or Taliesin, or whoever) made here."

Forgot to put this on the scrupulosity/fear of liking a character who isn't a good person post yesterday but I think this explains something that's always irritated me - what I like to call the "mold that grew on the campaign" problem. I used that term initially to describe people who hated Essek because they almost always treated Essek as, well, some mold that grew on the campaign and not a character whom Matt created and whom the cast became interested in interacting with extensively to the point that his story became what it did - through constant choices that Matt and the rest of the cast made. Because if you treat Essek not just as a character you dislike - which is valid - but a Bad Person whose story tells you Bad Things and it's Bad to like him - then you would have to consider that the Critical Role cast told a story in which he was redeemed, and if you think that's bad or misleading then you need to consider that they're people who don't agree with you, which means [in this understanding of morality, to be clear, not like, what I think] that either you and they are not morally the same which means one of you is bad which means you liking their work might be bad. So Essek is talked about like mold - not deliberately crafted and introduced to this process* but rather some ambient rot that isn't really anyone's fault. Except perhaps the fans, which would mean that Critical Role is bowing to fan pressure even when those fans have bad opinions, which also says something about them that is perhaps bad.

Obviously this isn't the only case; perhaps the most egregious one was the already infamous "you can't criticize improv" line which implies that none of this has any skill or intent involved, but hopefully this was illustrative. Disliking or liking a choice is valid; but denying the agency - that someone made that choice - never is.

*yes some processes do deliberately introduce mold, you know what I fucking mean. mold on bread rather than mold used to make blue cheese.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Would most people realistically use 'carry' and 'convey' as synonyms in typical speech?? Seems a slightly reaching comparison to me lol

[highladyluck]

Mat: *thriving in Robert Jordan's kinky BDSM universe* Egwene: your beloved evil wife the universe insisted you marry is my personal horror movie

[macaiv]

Esteban on what it means on being a teammate.

[knightsvow]

okay actually i sat down and opened photoshop to make a proper ref bc i made this drawing precisely for that MONTHS AGO and I just. never bothered to put it all together but 👍

[crimeronan]

76. Did you have any ideas that didn't make the final cut of the princess AU in general?

from this ask game!

omg. so many. so so So many. the vast majority of my stories go through a lot of revisions and have a lot of outtakes before i decide on the version that i actually like..... so here are some notable things that Didn't happen in the princess AU, which were originally meant to (or could have happened):

in the original oneshot, luz says that belos taught her to do something she'd really rather not know how to do. at the time, that was ambiguously referring both to creating grimwalkers AND to eating palismen. i ended up not exploring the palisman angle in the long luz fic because i decided that i wanted all of the horror to be tightly centered around Grimwalker Bullshit. the palisman thing would have been an interesting extension of the autonomy themes..... but it also would have meant writing a permanently haunted luz, and it would have been very very very sad. probably better that i didn't!!

2. in my original plan, luz's killing of belos was premeditated. i ended up scrapping that because i couldn't imagine that belos would drop an "i'm gonna kill hunter" bomb & then leave her alone long enough to premeditate a murder, AND i wanted the higher stakes. a luz doing premeditated murder still has some control over her circumstances. i wrote powerlessness instead because it was scarier, more compelling, and it made more sense for luz as a character. (she would not have been NEARLY as traumatized by what happened if she'd been able to simply premeditate belos's death.)

3. there are outtakes of luz meeting the collector. originally, the collector was the one to tell her that the grimwalkers didn't get sick & that belos killed them all for fun. this was a big part of why she planned a premeditated murder. now my working canon is that belos didn't find the collector because luz wasn't there to help him 400 years ago. (poor kid. someone go help them right now)

4. i ended up semi-regretting locking myself into hunter's storyline because i had to maneuver luz's around it. if i HADN'T done that, then hunter definitely would have gotten almost-murdered by belos. luz also would have tried to send him away before things came to a head, and that would have been a WAY more vicious and heartshattering fight than any they've had in the AU canon.

5. i have tons of outtakes of eda and raine having various arguments with each other. these are gonna be edited into something smoother but please know that there are versions of them in my gdocs that are so WILDLY, INSANELY DIVORCED.

6. i have an outtake of darius and hunter fighting about luz but i don't think it fits anywhere in the timeline now. sad :'( the thing about me wanting darius to be hunter's dad is that it's Required that they shout at each other first.

[lonepower]

I think the thing about the wardor games is that they are good games, made by people who are excellent at making video games, with a good story, told by people who are absolutely terrible at telling a story

[eleni-cherie]

.

[ineffablefool]

.....how did it take me four days after watching The Star Beast to realize that about the youngest Noble (yes I was confused when the kids on the bikes yelled at her)

(At least it was quicker than after I watched Good Omens s1, when it took a couple weeks of my Tumblr dash being 50% Ineffable Walnuts userpics before I realized that hey you could maybe ship these two)

[aparticularbandit]

Also. Unrelated. To my previous post.

I've been thinking a lot about the past stuff Kyoko doesn't know about because here's the thing - even if she doesn't know, Junko should - and trying to find the root of this whole knight thing and, uh.

Yeah, at least in backstory terms, this is probably definitely a past ship. Just in terms of this makes sense from what I'm gathering, this is the general scenario I'm seeing.

But it doesn't necessarily need to be that way?

(And I still don't know if Junko was even remotely being legit or if she was just...being Junko. Because like. Matsuda was still very much a thing. I'm definitely already implying that Mikan was a thing. And that's a really quick cycle from one to the other to a third there, especially if Mikan should have been simultaneous to probably both to some extent (and if I remember correctly, DR3 makes that SUPER abusive on Junko's end, and actually coming out of everything with Matsuda, I could see how she ended up there, but that's another theory to think about after I've actually seen DR3). Like there's some layers specifically just to the Junko side of this that I. still want to think through.)

[applegoat]

Btw I have a new theory (might turn it into an AU for safety) that Judas might've been murdered and didn't actually commit suicide.

Because when you look into the retellings of his death, it sounds more like several people with similar interests had him removed from the picture and made stuff up to cover up his death.

Wouldn't the ultimate betrayer have his death "documented " a bit better as to settle him as an example? (For better or for worse)

You have on one end, the priests and the Romans working together to bring down a rabbi, known for doing religiously and political unlawful stuff for the benefit of the people, who have one of his followers seemingly on their side willing to sell him out for 30 silver coins.

On the other hand you have the other eleven apostles that upon hearing from John and Peter after the arrest, probably loathed Judas. Not to mention that they weren't the only followers and disciples Jesus had by that time, many more had joined in. Obviously you can't pin the blame and stain blood into a saint's hands, so for safety let's say it could've been a follower or a disciple who heard from the main eleven that Judas sold their rabbi, and wanted revenge for such an act.

It would make a little more sense too. Judas supposedly returned the coins upon gaining more clarity and realizing he fucked up and threw the coins back at the priests.

They obviously couldn't let go of Judas easily, because if he was trying to undo what he started, it would've been bad if he reached (and convinced to work together,even after betraying them) the other eleven disciples + whatever other followers they had gained in the ministry and they would've started a bigger revolt to get justice for their rabbi. If it became trouble for the Romans,it be trouble for them even more.

John and Peter were closest to Jesus as well, although Peter probably would've felt awful after his denials, I can't imagine he wouldn't have mercy and sympathy of Judas' regret and work together to free Jesus, putting everything aside.

Even then, let's say Judas returned the coins and went to find the other eleven to plan out how they were going to save Jesus, by then John and Peter would've told the other disciples and some others about what had happened. Regardless if the apostles would've helped or turn him down, who's to say other followers wouldn't have had a clear mind about it?

Imagine it. You're an average person, living in deplorable conditions, living under an imperialist regime who sees your people as a lesser race than other nations and kingdoms they trade with. You hear of a teacher, who spreads messages of love and mercy, feeds the poor and heals the sick. He's the messiah, who's supposed to free your people. Everyone assumes he is there to free the people from your colonizers,so you believe it too.

Aaaand then you hear that one of his closest students sells him out to the authorities for thirty pieces of silver. It be fair to be upset. Angry. Livid.

People would've reacted differently about that situation. Who's to say someone didn't react violently?

Either to avenge the rabbi or to get rid of him. If Judas was standing in the way, he had to be taken down too.

[defiant-firefly]

(I've had my chatty medicines so you get a post about this)

There is something distinctly and uniquely alienating and bizarre about hearing people say 'Easter Sunday is the most religious day of the year'. Like, when was this?? If it's so religious and so so so important, how come no one thought to tell me it was religious until like four or five years ago?

Yeah it's kinda funny but I'm also sat there every time like "what the fuck are you talking about". The assumption I was raised Christian and am Christian via culture is really funny though cause like. Bro I have no fucking clue what any of this stuff is about.

My parents never taught me the majority of this shit. Anyone else assumed I already knew about it. This Easter talk I've been hearing about a weird amount more than normal is all new to me and making me think of all this shit lmao