#this doesn't even get into the bans on stuff that does technically exist

[whumpster-fire]

Band Name of the Day: "Sex Demons From Wisconsin"

It's generally true that institutions don't make rules prohibiting things that nobody is doing (i.e., the existence of the prohibition demonstrates the existence of whatever it's prohibiting), but then I think about the moral panic back in the 1980s where people genuinely thought that shitty movies about white dudes dressing up in ninja costumes were teaching children to be ninja assassins, and passed a bunch of laws banning "ninja weapons" for which their only source of knowledge were those selfsame movies, with the result that, to this day, many jurisdictions have laws on the books prohibiting weapons which do not exist, and I reflect that every principle has exceptions.

[earl-grey-by-the-lake]

Random Glitch Trio Headcanons

(aka i'm in my idw sonic brainrot era and remembered i have a tumblr to dump stuff in)

Starline

• Really into long baths (the type with candles and rose petals everywhere)

• Would be obsessed with Lush bath bombs if they existed in Sonic's world

• Acts really pretentious about music, books, films, etc., only claiming to like highly obscure and experimental stuff (bonus points if it's technically complex). While he does genuinely like this stuff, he's also a fan of more 'popular' music like disney songs (or would be if they existed in Sonic's world), musicals and 80s synth.

• I could weirdly see him being into old detective novels/movies, e.g.- Poirot

• He doesn't like science fiction because it tends to be wildly inaccurate

• Spends hours daily doing his hair and makeup even if he knows he's about to get into a fight which will inevitably mess it up again (if he's going to get his hands dirty he might as well look good doing it)

• Had an emo phase in his undergrad years, refuses to talk about it

• Claims to strongly dislike cursing (it's vulgar and juvenile) but swears like a sailor when he's angry or drunk (I stole this one off the Bumblekast but come on)

• Occasionally gets drunk (he normally drinks wine because it's classy but switches to whiskey when he's in a bad mood) and makes extremely unhinged vlogs ranting about stuff, mainly Eggman (e.g.- why doesn't he notice me after everything I've done for him, why does he love his robots more than me, what does Metal Sonic have that I don't, etc...) This happened a lot during their divorce arc

• His ideal date would be a classic romantic candlelit dinner, bonus points if there is singing involved. However there is absolutely no one who could meet his impossible standards for a romantic partner except maybe Eggman and even then he's on thin ice

• Probably a good dancer

• Feels a sense of superiority over extremely 'chaotic' individuals (e.g.- Eggman, Orbot and Cubot, Rough and Tumble, his adopted children), hence why he tends to gravitate towards them. He has a habit of trying to correct and fix other people to show off how put together he is (spoiler alert: he is not put together whatsoever)

• Hopelessly addicted to caffeine

Surge

• Into shounen manga

• Has tried vaping before for the sole purpose of pissing off Starline

• Likes J-rock, metalcore and punk music

• Not really into movies or books because they're long and boring. Her attention span is like 5 minutes max, hence why she prefers comics and manga

• If she was forced to watch a movie, she'd go for a really over the top silly horror movie. she's easily scared by psychological horror/anything with a lot of jumpscares though (not that she would admit it in a million years)

• Likes spicy food and sushi

• Has shoplifted before and will do it again

• Commits arson on a regular basis, Kit frequently depletes his water reservoir trying to put out the fires before Starline finds out

• Would shop at Hot Topic

• Her ideal date would be something super energetic like paintball or laser tag. She would then proceed to get excessively competitive (read: violent) and scare off any potential suitors.

• Starline once took her and Kit to a Disneyland equivalent for 'family bonding'. She used her super speed to cut the lines, made a rollercoaster go faster with her electric powers (because it was too slow- boring!) causing it to derail and almost murder the several children unfortunate enough to be on the ride with her, and set fire to at least one food stand. All three of them are now banned for life.

• She would probably hang out with the Babylon Rogues from time to time

• Unlike Starline and Kit she is a morning person, and is extra loud and obnoxious around them at this time of day just to be an asshole (Kit doesn't mind though)

Kit

• Likes reading technical manuals/long academic texts (aka Surge's worst nightmare)

• Really into horror, especially psychological and body horror (he would really like Junji Ito manga), but doesn't get to watch horror movies much because Surge doesn't like them

• He doesn't like music that much, if he had to listen to something he would prefer white noise because he finds the repetitive sound comforting

• Doesn't really have any food preferences but he likes coffee

• Secretly returns the stuff Surge shoplifts because he feels guilty

• Likes tinkering with bits of tech in his free time

• On the aforementioned 'family bonding' trip, Kit almost murdered the employees of a haunted house because they startled Surge (not that she would ever admit it), contributing to the lifelong ban

• Sometimes stays up all night reading or working on a project, he always looks tired during the day because he doesn't get much sleep

• His ideal date would be a non-existent one because he can't be away from Surge for more than 5 minutes without feeling anxious (also he's like 8). However he would probably stalk Surge on her date and try to sabotage it because he doesn't trust the other person to treat her right

• Is going to have an emo phase in a few years' time, following in the footsteps of his father (ik he's already emo but I mean like he'll start getting more into the music and fashion)

• Is actually capable of being pretty snarky but is too shy to say most of it out loud (he mocks Starline relentlessly in his head though)

[honda-hatch]

Reviewing A Subsequent Set of 14 Spider-Man Issues

Welcome back, non-existent audience. We begin our return with

The Amazing Spider-Man #15 (August 1964): Our first appearance of Kraven! Not to mention, our first mention of Mary Jane! This one is a thriller. If you haven't figured it out already, I am a fan of drawn-out fights in these older issues, and this one doesn't disappoint, with a drawn-out cat and mouse game in its latter half. I'm not entirely sure how I fell about Kraven's potion stuff, though. Perhaps its the word choice. "Poison" just makes it sound more fitting, but perhaps that was banned by the CCA. Though, I'm not particularly a fan of Kraven having gotten his abilities from a Witch Doctor in a lost tribe, I do prefer him just being a peak human. Chameleon is also definitely underused here, merely calling in Kraven and then helping with his scheme -- it seems as if they wanted to bring him back, but were worried that they would encroach on plot territory they had re-allocated to Mysterio. Ah well. Still a fun issue! Also, we learn that JJJ apparently has a secret stash of milk chocolate bars hidden in the Daily Bugle. Truly deep lore.

The Amazing Spider-Man #16 (September 1964): Overall, this is a pretty solid issue. Spidey decides to go to the circus for the contrived reason of... making sure the public likes him? Which he figures can be confirmed or helped by performing in a circus that falsely advertised having him for free? Whatever. The Ringmaster's hypnosis powers give us a quick tussle against Daredevil, which, while lackluster, at least give Matt Murdock an excuse to appear in the issue. What follows is another fun setting-fight, with the webhead battling a bunch of circus goons. I'm not sure this is "one of the greatest issues I've ever read," as the title proclaims, but I already have a bone to pick with Marvel editorial, so it matters not. At this point, Pete is still fumbling Betty Brant and rejecting the concept of meeting MJ, lmao.

The Amazing Spider-Man Annual No. 1 (October 1964): I'll be honest, I was kinda disappointed with this annual. 72 pages my ass! only like 43 or something are the actual sinister six story, with the rest being random background info blah blah blah. Not to mention, constant friggin ads for other Marvel comics!! Even Pete's existential crisis that block his spider powers felt like an excuse to advertise other heroes while he was trying to get his mojo back. At least his resolution to fight and die was pretty badass. Is this the whole point of annuals? Ugh. What a letdown. The sinister six don't even fight Spidey at the same time, instead they all want to defeat him on their own. We get a whole single page image for each fight, which all look great, but the actual solutions to the fights are lame, because Spidey is more occupied with getting to Betty and Aunt May. They all get arrested again at the end, but meh. At least the art was good, and the idea of May having a crush on Ock is funny. Blegh. Here's hoping future annuals are better.

The Amazing Spider-Man #17 (October 1964): This is a bizarre issue to judge. This version of the Goblin definitely feels more complete, with his bat glider and pumpkin bombs, and the driving plot being Flash's Spidey fan club is amusing, but the fight seems to just spin its wheels. I do enjoy Johnny jumping in to help, but... gah. Aunt May's health failing again does create another fun "city hates Spidey" situation, though. I fear I might get tired of that, however. We shall see!

The Amazing Spider-Man #18 (November 1964): This is an solid little issue. Sure, it technically focuses around Pete being a whiner and not wanting to hurt himself for the sake of Aunt May, but seeing Flash and the Human Torch stand up for him while the public rails at him is nice. Not to mention, it's kinda hilarious that May is the one to tell Peter not to be a pussy.

The Amazing Spider-Man #19 (December 1964): Spidey's triumphant return to crime fighting is another fun issue. Honestly, I'm just really surprised that, somehow, the Enforcers always make for such great fights. Between them and Sandman, this issue has a lot of great action, and because Torch is there as well, we get Montana's newest weapon: "The Asbestos Lasso!" Gotta love the 60s. Anyhow, between the action, JJJ's "a second plane has hit the towers" moment, and the spooky cliffhanger, this is a great way to finish out 1964. Also, Ned Leeds debuts. Surely nothing will happen with him.

The Amazing Spider-Man #20 (January 1965): What a way to kick off 1965! Here we start to see a few things: first off, we get an immediate continuation of the cliffhanger from the previous issue, indicating more of the connected storytelling that will develop. Secondly, we get a lot of great facial reaction shots, especially from JJJ (which apparently Ditko was getting real fond of, between this issue and last). Thirdly, we have our first fight with Spidey having his suit torn up. It's a little touch, but knock-down, drag-out fight between him and Scorpion really does seem to indicate Pete's growth as a fighter -- most of the time he usually comes up with a clever solution to win, but between Scorpion and the Enforcers, it's fun to see him win fights based on skill and reflex alone. Really an excellent issue. Honestly, its going to become difficult to not repeat adjectives as I write these reviews, especially since the standards of comic writing will change with the times -- so just consider that I'm attempting to write in relativity to the period in which I'm currently reading from.

The Amazing Spider-Man #21 (February 1965): This issue is more amusing than anything. The conflict with the Beetle kinda takes a backseat to Peter's personal drama, which makes for an entertaining issue -- they've been playing up the idea of what will come to be called "Parker Luck," and it makes for a fine issue. One of the best parts about the bok is that every character introduced functions both as someone to be put in danger for Spider-Man, as well as someone to conflict with regular old Peter Parker -- even if Betty's shtick of "ah jeez he's pulling other bitches" is starting to get just a bit stale.

The Amazing Spider-Man #22 (March 1965): This... is a bizarre issue. The leading villains aren't particularly interesting, but we get some funny individual panels, such as

But aside from that, if I had a nickel for every time they said "female" in this issue, I could pick up a few more old comics. Also, there's a brief battle with a giant snake? Anyway.

The Amazing Spider-Man #23 (April 1965): This issue is alright. It's another mob story, which have become rather common already. The Goblin once again has a weirdly contrived plan that doesn't really work out, which leads to the highlights of the issue being Peter's new white casual outfit and the fact that he's being passive aggressive at Betty Brant for not mentioning a letter from Ned Leeds -- that, and Pete calls aunt may from a landline in the middle of a fight.

The Amazing Spider-Man #24 (May 1965): This is a fun issue. There isn't much in the way of action, but instead we get to see Peter go a bit insane. Or do we? It's a good thing nobody in his rogue's gallery deals in illusions. It is also definitely hilarious to see Lee commenting, again, on how easily people are influenced by the news. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

The Amazing Spider-Man #25 (June 1965): This one's cover is pretty crazy in retrospect, lmao. Surely its someone's amazing fantasy. The spider-slayer chase itself is rather mundane, but Peter's personal drama sorta makes up for it, even if the book itself doesn't call attention to the idea that Peter, a seemingly-nerdy 18-year-old guy is swimming in women this early on (not to mention, we're getting more teases of Mary Jane). I don't take issue with it, it's just funny in retrospect with all of the "status quo" arguments that get tossed around these days with the character. But that's something I'll get to later.

The Amazing Spider-Man #26 (July 1965): This is quite an entertaining issue. We've drama with Peter losing both of his costumes last time, we've got drama with Liz and Betty, and also... the mob. But they manage to be the most mundane part of it all.

The Amazing Spider-Man #27 (August 1965): This is another solid issue, with Peter having to worm his way out of the mob's grasp, and then the police shooting the villain of the week to death off-panel. What a riot. I would like to make note of Green Goblin's glider on the cover though. Get a load of that.

Anyway, that's another 14 issues read. Admittedly, like old comics do, it is getting a bit formulaic at this point, though I know Peter is graduating high school sometime soon. That's mostly what's keeping me going, along with the promise of the MJ reveal. Onwards and upwards

[cant-find-an-unused-edgy-name]

I still get confused every time I see people trying to game Tumblr views or theorizing about the Tumblr algorithm.

because guys please

Tumblr doesn't HAVE an algorithm

The closest things are the For You pages and the posts you're shown based on your likes which are INCREDIBLY simple setups to the point where nobody relies on them and they constantly show you 50% stuff you've already seen. Does anyone even USE the for you page? And a lot of people turn posts by your likes off in the settings

I guess "Best Stuff First" is also an algorithm technically but as far as I know everyone turns that off and it just sorts your dashboard

Stuff on Tumblr spreads through tags and reblogs. People follow or browse accounts and tags and see that content

Idk either new Tumblr users are using the site in a near impossible to function way and I'm not aware of it or the usual thing is still happening where people think they can get "shadow banned", or that a shift in their content's reception is part of the algorithm that doesn't exist because people assume this cardboard blog site functions the same as Twitter, Tiktok, Insta, etc where self curated content is equal or second to robot sorting.

[lunathehungry]

Plot Structure Analysis for Love in the Air (so far. Spoilers to Ep 6)

Wrote this for my fave subreddit. Posting here too.

Some Notes:

1. Feel free to jump in fellow romance and writing lovers if you feel my beats are placed wrong. Haven't done this in awhile and it's a lot easier to do this on a novel than a drama series.

2. Plot breakdowns can sometimes break immersion for viewers and ruin the viewing experience because your brain starts thinking analytically and you can't just ride the story wave anymore. If this is you, don't read this, treat yourself by fully experiencing the romance. You deserve it.

3. This’ll probably be long and i'm drunk. Lets goooooo

The Romance Is The Plot

I know, I know, people might be saying “what plot does LITA even have?” But these are people who forget romance novels exist, even though the genre sells so hard that it rakes in nearly double the dollars of the next closest genre (which is crime/mystery, in case you're curious).

This is not a surprise because, especially in the west, romance novels very rarely get adapted.

Can you sense my derision at western media for looking down on romance? Because it's there.

Not all romance novels are the same, some have a lot more external plot stuff.

General format:

A Plot (aka Romance Plot) = 51% to 100%

B, C, D plot (aka everything else) = 0% to 49%

Love in the Air is like, 94% romance plot, 6% everything else. These are numbers I just made up, but I feel in my drunkenness that they are 100% correct.

So What Is A Romance Plot?

It's a character focused plot, driven by 2 (or more for poly/harem) individuals who are lacking something that they find in each other in order to achieve their HEA (Happily Ever After or Happy For Now).

This means that all the tension and excitement that comes from watching the story unfold MUST come from the character's interactions and relationship progress. Each moment builds upon the next to take another step towards their HEA. Even when a character takes a step back, like Rain does when Payu bans him from visiting, it's because something needs to change for that character before they can move on in the relationship.

If you, as a viewer, do not feel the tension between the main characters and get invested in their relationship, then you will find a heavy Romance Plot very, very boring. It's like reading a mystery, but not caring what the reveal will be. You might not connect with the characters, you prefer romance's with bigger side plots, or you just aren't into romance at all.

Love in the Air relies on Payu and Rain's relationship and their interactions to drive the story. That's the only plot available to attract viewers (except for PrapaixSky fans who diligently look for crumbs each week - my heart goes out to you all). Luckily, Boss and Noeul have great chemistry and the script has a good build up of the relationship beats.

Time To Break This Plot Into Parts

Story Theme: This is easy, it's "Love always wins" (or any variation of this). This is ALWAYS the main theme for a romance, though it doesn't have to be the ONLY theme.

I'll be using Gwen Hayes' Romancing the Beat for the beats because ICONIC.

The flashforward of the race is technically a Prologue so...skip!

PHASE 1:

Intro to Rain and Intro to Payu

These first 2 beats generally introduce the character's 'regular life' before they're disrupted by each other. However, LITA has Payu and Rain run into each other immediately when Payu changes Rain's tire. Although this is a meet cute, it's not THE Meet Cute beat. It just serves to show the difference between our characters-- Rain gets a flat, doesn't know what to do and panics, but Payu is capable and friendly enough to help a stranger. It's a tease for the relationship to come, shows there's a physical attraction component, and adds to the 'nice guy' Payu persona (with some ominous musical hints that he might not be so nice).

Switch to the classroom the next day.

Rain's External Goal is introduced here, which is to date Ple. But his Internal Need is actually stated here as well, when he's talking about Biker Guy to Sky. He wants someone who'll listen to his talking and who doesn't find his exuberance annoying.

This is brought up again later in the series, when Rain worries Payu finds him annoying after telling him not to visit anymore and also when Sky tells Rain he doesn't actually find him annoying, just determined. it's the basis of Rain's character flaw/wound/desire thing.

Here we also get an inaccurate intro to Payu, described through the eyes of Ple and Sky, he's practically perfect. There are tiny clues here that this might not be the full picture, like how no one knows what business his family owns, but otherwise it's meant to lull Rain (and us) into a false impression of Payu.

Side note: This is actually why I wish they'd left out the flashforward, so that we could have really fallen for this fakeout.

Meet Cute

This beat is actually their second meeting, at the frat party thing. We already know Rain finds Payu hot, this is where we find out it's the same for Payu. They're attracted to each other, but Rain's oblivious.

Payu: "If you're trying to seduce me, do it better next time."

Rain: Doesn't deny it while staring deeply into Payu's eyes, proceeds to hold onto his hand, and lets Payu rub him with a towel on his bed. 🌈✨🏳‍🌈

Payu: "Let me know if I'm too rough."

Rain: This is totally normal bro stuff. He's not hitting on me at all.

If you use Save The Cat to analyze story structure, the Meet Cute beat lines up with the Catalyst.

No Way 1

Rain finds out Payu is not the nice, perfect gentleman the rest of the world thinks he is. While Rain finds Payu handsome, he's not ready to face his feelings and just jump into bed with him so he hits him with a pillow, and proceeds to tell him he'd never get with him. (never ever ever).

Adhesion

This beat is Rain finding out Payu fixed up his car and didn't charge money for it. This debt is (supposedly) why Payu keeps seeking out Rain. But this is just an excuse created by Payu to stay in Rain's orbit. Anything to flirt with Rain, amirite?

This is also the section where we get the first introduction of what Payu's character desires/needs. brought up by Saifah when he says, "Then get into a serious relationship if you want to be like me." So Payu wants a serious, long term relationship, but he's been single a long time.

Payu’s a very self-aware character, since his internal and external goals are very similar, he won't have as much of a character change as Rain.

Internal Payu: Form a serious relationship with someone who welcomes the challenging demands he puts on a partner.

External Payu: Get Rain to date him and see if he's the guy who can handle it.

PHASE 2:

No Way 2

This beat is Rain kissing Payu and telling him he's going to make him fall in love with him toward the end of episode 2. I know it might sound counterintuitive for this to be a No Way beat, but here, Rain is outwardly denying his own feelings. He's going to make Payu fall in love, but not get entangled himself. Payu also plays it cool to Rain, challenging him and acting as if he's not affected by Rain, but since us viewers get to hear him talking to himself, we know better. The other 'no way' moments, like the ones that occur earlier in the university bathroom, build up to this bigger moment. They aren't the actual No Way 2 beat.

Inkling

Payu comforts Rain after he gets chewed out by the professor. This beat usually has a slight perspective shift for our characters. While we see the growing attraction throughout episode 3, it's not until this moment that Rain wonders why he went to Payu when he felt so down.

We also see a small shift in Payu. He said he wouldn't comfort Rain, but he's unable to resist and turns back to do it anyway. Payu starts taking Rain more seriously after this point and brings out a tougher challenge by banning Rain from visiting.

If you use Save The Cat to analyze story structure, this and the next couple beats line up with the Fun & Games section.

Deepening Desire

Rain decides to go all in and continue pursuing Payu, showing that he can handle school at the same time. His external goal has changed from Ple to Payu, which now matches his internal goal - a partner who listens to him talk and doesn't find him annoying. Payu has a conversation during this section with Saifah about how none of Payu's other partners have stuck around this long because of his tricks. As Rain exhibits his determination to have a relationship, Payu falls deeper and deeper.

Maybe

This is the 'getting vulnerable and opening up to each other' beat. Rain's confession in the rain to Payu and the beginning of the First Sex Scene.

Midpoint

This is pretty much just,

"Rain belongs to P'Payu now. Say it"

"Rain belongs to Payu."

And a little of the happy-morning-after before Rain takes off. It's the sweet moment before the down beats start.

PHASE 3

This is a low angst drama so all these following down beats get resolved very quickly. If this was high angst, they'd be drawn out a lot longer, some resulting in actual fights or breakups.

Inkling of Doubt

Payu shows up at Rain's, upset that he took off without telling him. Payu pulls away from Rain before it's resolved by Rain's apology. Here we get the introduction to Payu's fear (plus foreshadowing), telling Rain not to disappear on him again.

Note: I'm not sure Payu's breakup fakeout is part of this beat, but honestly, I'm not thinking about it too hard because I'm flagging, the Long Island Iced Teas are leaving my bloodstream, is this even coherent? I need a nap.

Save The Cat: Bad Guys Close In beat.

Deepening Doubt

This is where the real world starts to intrude on their relationship. Rain finds out Ple and Som🍎🍊 are after his boyfriend. He feels jealous but doesn't want to admit it to Payu. This section is also when Sky runs into our couple on their date and Payu admits he wasn't sure Rain would want to tell him about their relationship.

The movie date scene is where we get a nice visual of how each of them have satisfied their internal goals. Payu listens to Rain as he goes on nonstop about the movie and he now has the serious relationship that he wanted.

Retreat

This beat kicks off when Saifah suggests taking Rain to the race and Payu initially doesn't want to because of the rich assholes who'll attend, then covers most of the night race scenes. Rain is visibly hesitant when he's there. He's finally entering Payu's world, but is unsure of himself. He starts to realize how dangerous it might be and this becomes the foundation of his new fear revealed in the next beat. Payu lets the arrogant rich kid get under his skin. He gets upset and Rain has to coax him out of it.

Shields Up

Payu's race isn't really a romance beat, it's an external plot point that's a catalyst for this beat. Payu wants to race the rich boy jerk and Rain doesn't want him to. Since we've covered a lot of ground for Rain's character arc, it's time to introduce a new fear - fear that Payu will get hurt. Payu admits he doesn't exactly have a logical reason for the race (it's just pride/ego).

This is resolved by Rain not letting his fear get in the way of supporting Payu and Payu realizing during the race how unimportant this loser is. Sex with Rain is more important. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Break Up

The kidnapping (sort of). This beat is PROBABLY Payu finding Rain missing. It usually involves the characters fear which, for Payu, is Rain disappearing. And for Rain, Payu getting hurt.

One interesting thing Mame has chosen to do here, that helps maintain the low angst romance style, is had them reach their internal goals early, but started slowly introducing external troubles in order to maintain tension in the back half of the drama (of PayuxRain's section). Kidnapping may not seem low angst, but within the Romance Plot structure it is because it's not an internal conflict causing them to fight/breakup. Their relationship remains solid.

What's left? Pretty much all of Phase 4.

Dark Night of the Soul

Wake up/Catharsis (Save The Cat: Break Into Three beat)

Grand Gesture (Save The Cat: Finale beat)

What Hole-hearted Looks Like

Epilogue

It looks like we have a lot of beats left for this couple, but these final ones usually happen quite quickly, sometimes even in the same scene. They all deal with overcoming your fear and the Happily Ever After. I have some ideas, but I prefer to just watch it all play out instead of solidifying my predictions. It's more fun to watch when I turn off Writer Brain.

I can't believe I wrote this all up. Love in the Air, what have you done to me?!

[twistedclaws]

What's Zenith been getting up to? What's the call to action in his game? Is Lucius a good father?

The game doesn't start for a few months yet but I have his backstory like 95% finished. So I'm not sure what the call to action is yet, but I'm sure I'll gush about it on Twitter once it happens LOL.

okay I ramble so I'll put it under a cut lol

Zenith is a devoted and enthusiastic, if somewhat brash (in a way that naturally comes with boisterous youth). Lucius adopted him when he was an infant, so he's the only father Zenith has ever known, and the youngest of like... ten wizard orphans Lucius ends up adopting throughout the 50 year timeskip between the first campaign and the second (Zenith is the youngest).

Lucius is attentive and perhaps edges into over-protectiveness (because Lucius is somewhat paranoid that his children will get spirited away by the devils -- long story), but he's good for the most part. His other kids are... pretty self-sufficient from a young age, being smart and attuned to the arcane/wrapped up in school/busy with their own stuff, but Zenith. Is a challenge. He's not a wizard, he's not interested in magic (at least not in the way Lucius does it), and easily distracted. Lucius initially doesn't know how to go about this, so he eventually entrusts Zenith to train with one of his former party members who's a paladin.

Zenith and Vahlka (the paladin) get along well - Zenith needs structure to thrive, but not the structure that's based in a spell book and more established in....... Martial combat.

Fast forwarding a little bit- Zenith comes of age at 18 and wants to pursue being a paladin. He sees an opportunity to help out one of their older siblings who's going to another continent for a research project (much to their elder's chagrin), and while Lucius is apprehensive gives Zenith his blessing.

Older sibling (who is yet to be named lol) and Zenith go to the new setting, but something happens... and Zenith runs off, gets lost, and ends up in a completely different city through several different circumstances. Meanwhile, the one he traveled with and trusted is still writing to their father as if Zenith is still there, safe, with them -- and Lucius has absolutely no idea that Zenith has been missing for years (... they haven't made any attempt to find him, either).

Zenith kind of enjoys the freedom, but on the other hand he doesn't know how to get back and even if he did, doesn't know how he'd make amends or if he'd even be welcomed again. It's complicated family politics that I'm sure will never, ever have any significance or chance of trauma in the future. :)

(I will assure you that if Lucius knew that Zenith was missing, he would move heaven and earth and stop at nothing in order to find his son. Even if it's technically Very Illegal for Lucius to even exist in the setting of the new campaign due to the fact teleporting is banned... it's hard to stop a Level 20 Wizard + Probably the full party of Level 20 characters. lol)

[yeli-renrong]

I remember the phrase "sound it out" from school, and I vaguely remember learning something about long & short vowels or such and to (on Between the Lions) but I don't think I ever understood that or paid it any thought since there were so many exceptions. of course, that doesn't mean it didn't do me any good, just that I didn't consciously recognize that it did (perhaps explaining what non-phonic approaches to teaching reading could be contemplated to begin with?)

One non-phonic approach to reading instruction is based on the belief that reading is a process of integration of syntactic, semantic, and graphic (i.e. whole word shape) cues -- in other words, a series of context-based guesses. This model has no allowance at all for the fact that spelling isn’t completely irregular -- as far as it’s concerned, the English alphabet may as well be a logography!

The paper that originally laid out this model (doi:10.1080/19388076709556976) can speak for itself:

Simply stated, the common sense notion I seek here to refute is this: “Reading is a precise process. It involves exact, detailed, sequential perception and identification of letters, words, spelling patterns and larger language units.”

In phonic centered approaches to reading, the preoccupation is with precise letter identification. In word centered approaches, the focus is on word identification. Known words are sight words, precisely named in any setting.

This is not to say that those who have worked diligently in the field of reading are not aware that reading is more than precise, sequential identification. But, the common sense notion, though not adequate, continues to permeate thinking about reading.

Spache presents a word version of this common sense view: “Thus, in its simplest form, reading may be considered a series of word perceptions.”

The teacher's manual of the Lippincott Basic Reading incorporates a letter by letter variant in the justification of its reading approach: “In short, following this program the child learns from the beginning to see words exactly as the most skillful readers see them . . . as whole images of complete words with all their letters.” In place of this misconception, I offer this: “Reading is a selective process. It involves partial use of available minimal language cues selected from perceptual input on the basis of the reader's expectation. As this partial information is processed, tentative decisions are made to be confirmed, rejected or refined as reading progresses.” More simply stated, reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. It involves an interaction between thought and language. Efficient reading does not result from precise perception and identification of all elements, but from skill in selecting the fewest, most productive cues necessary to produce guesses which are right the first time. 

The argument in favor of this position is... a handful of case studies of reading errors made by young children! (And some Chomskyist stuff that I don’t care to work through.) And Ken Goodman, the author of the paper quoted above and one of the major proponents of ‘whole-language theory’, had some studies to back this up:

In a study conducted by Goodman (1965), students in grades 1-3 first read lists of words. Then the children were presented the same words to read in meaningful text. The students made many more errors when they read the words out of context (i.e., when the words were in lists) than they did when the words were read in context. This, of course, is consistent with the hypothesis that reading will be facilitated when semantic-contextual and syntactic-contextual cues are present (i.e., when words are read as part of a text) compared to when words are read devoid of context cues (i.e., when words are read on lists). This finding has been used repeatedly to defend the meaning-emphasis practice of teaching students to recognize words by analyzing syntactic, graphemic-phonemic, and especially semantic cues.

Nicholson (1991) detected several very serious shortcomings in the Goodman (1965) study, however. First, no attention was paid in the Goodman (1965) investigation of the patterns of performance by good and poor readers. In addition, the participants always read the lists followed by reading of the words in context, and thus there was the possibility that the improved performance in moving from list reading to reading in context might reflect some type of practice effect (i.e., the words in context had been seen before, on the lists).

In Nicholson (1991), students once again were asked to process words in lists and in context. In this study, however, the list-context order was manipulated such that some participants read the lists first and others read the words in context first. Moreover, the study included systematic analysis of reading as a function of the grade of participants and their reading abilities relative to other students (i.e., good, average, weak). The outcomes in this study were anything but consistent with Goodman's (1965) results:

- Some readers did benefit from reading the words in the sentence context -- namely, poor readers at each age level and average 6- and 7-year-olds. - In context, a positive effect on reading was obtained in sentence context for good 6-year-old readers and average 8-year-olds only when reading words in sentence contexts followed reading words in lists, consistent with the practice effect explanation of the original Goodman (1965) finding. - There was no positive effect derived from reading words in context for good 7- and 8-year-old readers. Indeed, when the 8-year-old good readers did sentence-context reading first, they did better on reading of the words in list format.

Oops!

In very simple terms: how do you prompt a student who’s struggling with a word -- “Sound it out!” or “Context clues!” (The teachers I had always said clues instead of cues; I don’t know if that was because children would be more likely to know the former word or if someone misread it somewhere in the chain of transmission.) And there are a few problems with that:

- No attention is paid to the process of encoding. Even if treating words as logograms whose readings are to be inferred from context works to teach children to read (it doesn’t), how are they supposed to learn to write? (At the height of whole-language theory’s influence, some states banned public schools from buying spelling books.)

- What happens if you hit a proper noun? Take the following sentence: “Notably, Ross' classification does not support the ☃☃☃☃ of the Tsouic languages, instead considering the Southern Tsouic languages of Kanakanavu and Saaroa to be a separate branch.” Context cues let you extract meaning from this sentence without knowing the reading of ☃☃☃☃, but if you have to read it aloud and you can’t sound things out, you’ll hit “Kanakanavu” and produce garble. (You might still be wrong even if you can sound it out, because stress is unwritten and English words aren’t marked for which rule-set to use -- consider the words alveolar and maraschino -- but there’s a difference between being wrong and producing garble. Garble will probably accurately represent the cues, including the vague, impressionistic shape of the word, but a stress or rule-set error will at least convey the spelling. Buegehti for Buttigieg is a good example of garble -- you have the word-shape cues (starts with Bu, most of the letters are there) and the semantic cues (weird surname from the periphery of Europe; I assume Buegehti is pseudo-Finnish), but it’s not even close, and probably unrecoverable without context. (So contextual information isn’t totally useless.)

- Even if the relevant actors were willing to accept lack of attention to spelling and inability to decode phonetic information that context won’t help you with in order to get gains in reading ability... there are no gains.

But, as things do, whole-language theory got a lot wackier from there. Its proponents started referencing Chomsky’s language instinct to posit a reading instinct, which, the theory went, would lead children to automatically acquire reading with no instruction necessary (except highly technical facilitation was still considered necessary, because if schoolteachers aren’t essential, what’s the point?); claiming that phonics actually impeded literacy; attacking opponents of their theory as part of a far-right conspiracy to suppress teachers’ freedom and destroy public education; calling whole-language education a ‘revolution’ that would lead to true liberation and model the egalitarian society of the future; and so on.

For example, Shafer 1998:

Over the years, various writers, politicians, and media sources have taken aim at whole language, vilifying its motives and misrepresenting its goals. While many of the attacks have come from a lamentable ignorance on the part of T.V. reporters and talk show hosts, evidence exists that a portion of it has been carefully orchestrated by conservatives who clearly seem threatened by the implications of a whole language curriculum. Indeed, the list of writers who have opposed whole language initiatives reads like a who's who of conservative pundits. William Bennett, Phyllis Schlafly, Cal Thomas, and Chester Finn have all written articles deriding whole language, despite its overwhelming acceptance among academic organizations and respected scholars.

Many theories have been offered as to why whole language has become so partisan and acrimonious - and why conservatives in particular seem threatened by its humanistic objectives. What seems glaringly clear, in the end, is that whole language - with its caveat for student liberation and control - scares people who want to maintain a hierarchical, top-down approach to learning. The threat of whole language, at least from my perspective, lies in its bold challenge to traditional icons and time-honored practices. Some teachers feel intimidated by the notion that their way is not the only way - that their favorite authors shouldn't be their students' favorite authors.

When students cease to be receptacles of information and begin generating their own ideas, they occasionally formulate theories that are disconcerting to those who want to maintain "authority" in the classroom. Thus, the recent controversy over teaching a literary canon and classes in western civilization helps illustrate the result of whole language - where students question rather than absorb - and where learning comes to be a very personal, reflective activity. "To study," argues Paulo Freire, "is not to consume ideas, but to create and recreate them" (4).

(On the same page: “It seems clear that people learn best when they are progressing from whole to part so that they understand the importance of correctness and the viability of certain non-standard dialects in certain settings.” First, what the fuck is this supposed to mean? And second, I can’t see something like “progressing from whole to part” without having flashbacks to the polemics against Hegel from one of my philosophy professors -- the direction of progression and the concomitant assignment of more basic status to that which one progresses from, he said, was what distinguished Hegelian from analytic philosophy, and the Hegelian progression from whole to part underlay all the most prominent horrors of the 20th century. It was hard enough to quibble with that then, but it gets harder every time I see someone try to shore up nonsense with that ‘Hegelian’ formula.)

Edelsky 1993 (doi:10.2307/3587486):

Whole language (WL) is, first of all, a perspective-in-practice, anchored in a vision of an equitable, democratic, diverse society. A WL perspective highlights theoretical and philosophical notions about language and language learning, knowledge, and reality. In a WL perspective, language is an exquisite human tool for making (not finding) meaning. The WL view is that what people learn when they learn a language is not separate parts (words, sounds, sentences) but a supersystem of social practices whose conventions and systematicity both constrain and liberate. And the way people acquire that system or are acquired by it (Gee, 1990) is not through doing exercises so that they can really use it later but rather by actually using it as best they can with others who are using it with them, showing them how it works and what it is for (Smith, 1981). ...

Appropriating the label, the jargon, or the typical materials and activities of WL without taking on the liberatory (and therefore status-quo-disrupting) political vision, and without adopting a WL theoretical perspective, is a sure way to prevent genuine change.

And from the sewer of journalism, Metcalf 2002:

Why the infatuation with testing? For its most conservative enthusiasts, testing makes sense as a lone solution to school failure because, they insist, adequate resources are already in place, and only the threat of exposure and censure is necessary for schools to succeed. Moreover, among those who style themselves "compassionate conservatives," education has become a sentimental and, all things considered, cheap way to talk about equalizing opportunity without committing to substantial income redistribution. Liberal faddishness, not chronic underfunding of poorer schools or child poverty itself, is blamed for underachievement: "Child-centered" education, "progressive" education or "whole language"--each has been singled out as a social menace that can be vanquished only by applying a more rational, results-oriented and business-minded approach to public education. ...

Why is the same conservative constituency that loves testing even more moonstruck by phonics? For starters, phonics is traditional and rote--the pupil begins by sounding out letters, then works through vocabulary drills, then short passages using the learned vocabulary. Furthermore, to teach phonics you need a textbook and usually a series of items--worksheets, tests, teacher's editions--that constitute an elaborate purchase for a school district and a profitable product line for a publisher. In addition, heavily scripted phonics programs are routinely marketed as compensation for bad teachers. (What's not mentioned is that they often repel, and even drive out, good teachers.) Finally, as Gerald Coles, author of Reading Lessons: The Debate Over Literacy, points out, "Phonics is a way of thinking about illiteracy that doesn't involve thinking about larger social injustices. To cure illiteracy, presumably all children need is a new set of textbooks."

Whole-language theory isn’t as popular now as it used to be. But the underlying Lysenkoist tendency has taken strong root in L2 education, which is why most of the people in my second-year German class couldn’t properly decline the definite article.

Sometimes you just have to drill.

[somnilogical]

ratheka: unjustly banned somni to preempt protest of their unjust banning of emma, which is unjust

emma was protesting cfar instructor davis tower kingsley. this davis tower kingsley:

<<memento mori: Masturbation is considered grave matter, so if someone masturbates with full knowledge that this is wrong and deliberately consents to it then yes, this is a mortal sin, and if they do not repent of it then yes, they will go to hell.>>

<<dirk: like… “only unrepentant sinners go to hell” is not comforting to unrepentant sinners

TowerNumberNine: it is certainly comforting relative to the doctrine of “homosexuals are damned and cursed and cannot possibly repent” which many have sadly encountered>>

and more here: https://everythingtosaveit.how/#davis-tower-kingsley and there is much more than is even written there which those in possession of akashic records or discord logs may give an account of.

i will not repent and submit to pope anna salamon kingsley.

kingsley is in no way a warrior for social justice. yes they are an instructor at “the center for applied rationality”, no there is not some unintuitive deeply wise reason for this. its just what cfar is at this point. “taxing transfems for existing and transferring resources to cisfems” is talking about something zack davis said.

transcript of emma and kingsley: https://0bin.net/paste/teXP7x-IJot61kro#0ZAkytrL7DWmMM8HRFdgdgGS4vV6d7aifuR9Kf8sqkX

[A/N: i didnt say anything this entire time, then found emma and somni were banned, then later found i was unbanned and so was emma. kingsley was also banned.]

somni talks with ratheka:

#discourse-and-debate

[10:56] 𒀭 💮: @Ratheka for what just reason did you ban me from this server?

[11:03] 𒀭 💮: what did i do?

i think you should hand in your badge and gun, resign from the force. as far as i can tell, there was no just cause for this aggression.

[11:05] LeoTal: Er, sorry, are you ban-evading? Or do you mean "banned and just unbanned"?

[11:10] 𒀭 💮: i do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th amendment rights under the united states constitution.

i choose to exercise my constitutional rights.

[11:12] Ratheka: In expectation of having exactly this argument, s/me/emma

[11:12] 𒀭 💮: in expectation of me protesting being unjustly banned, you unjustly banned me?

[11:12] 𒀭 💮: that makes no sense

[11:12] Ratheka: This is not the united states, the constitution does not in fact bind leo, who afaik doesn't even live in the states

[11:13] deluks917: Somni you got unbanned. The moderators made a mistake and we corrected it reasonably quickly.

[11:13] 𒀭 💮: would you violate my 5th amendment rights?

[11:13] Ratheka: You can choose not to talk to him, but that's not the same as exercising the fifth.  It's the first; speech and association

[11:13] LeoTal: I was just trying to clarify in case I misunderstood the meaning. Sorry for shitstirring, shutting up now.

[11:13] deluks917: Please let this go

[11:14] 𒀭 💮: why was i banned?

[11:16] conifer: why was somni banned, i'd like to know that too?

[11:20] deluks917: Ratheka predicted Somni would get angry because Emma was banned and post disruptive things. This is not (imo) a good reason to ban someone even if Emma's ban was justified (imo it was not). Given this Somni was unbanned in about a day.

[11:21] deluks917: Idk what you really want us to do here. We already reversed the bans.

[11:23] 𒀭 💮: ratheka predicted correctly that i would object to an unjust banning of emma. destroying opposition so they cannot protest your poor decisions is wrong.

i want justice, i want ratheka's ability to ban people removed from them. i want them to hand in their badge and gun and resign from the force.

[11:24] 𒀭 💮: if people's ability to ban others is not affected by abuse of power for unjust ends, there is no check on abuse of power. there is no differential incentive between banning justly and banning unjustly.

and you get people like ratheka who ban people in anticipation of their opposition to unjust rulings.

[11:28] 𒀭 💮: saying that things are fine because other humans corrected ratheka's mistake and why are you worrying about stuff is wrong.

i want things to be such that if ratheka knew what would happen downstream of unjustly banning someone and then banning any vocal opposition to their choice, that they would not unjustly ban someone in the first place.

[11:38] 𒀭 💮: otherwise you are as moral as a police force at each step pays some restitution to compensate for a cop who unjustly destroy peoples property, but never fires them for their unjust behaviour. encourages people to work around those who wish to do unjust things and then neutralize anyone who they think might protest against their immoral actions. as some sort of missing stair. http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-stair.html (its unrepresentative that the cops would pay restitution.)

"oh thats just ratheka, sometimes they ban people and then ban people they expect to oppose their ban, you just have to work around them. yeah they can still ban people."

you could say this is silly and the scope of this problem is small and why do you care? but

1 if the scope of this is small does that not apply evenly to all things, would not the scope of removing ratheka's ability to ban people also be small?

2 its important to work things out algorithmically at all scales, so you get things right. the problem of choice in getting things right when theres different amounts of utility at stake, for the same thing, is equivalent. getting the trolly problem right is the same choice whether it deals with the lives of 6 people or 6000000000 people. https://somnilogical.tumblr.com/post/174174621274/wetradelives-felt-mildly-bad-about-my-url

[11:48] 𒀭 💮: the unjust silencing of dissent against authoritarianism, is wrong. then silencing people expected to dissent to the unjust silencing of dissent against authoritarianism is 2x wrong.

my mom grew up in uruguay, her parents were political dissidents, they were put in jail for 6 days and warned that the next time they would be jailed for 6 years. both anyone who dissented and anyone who spoke up for those who dissented risked getting disappeared. they left uruguay, immigrated to america and now she writes books and papers on the regime's gaslighting.

it was unjust when this happened on the scale of a country, it is unjust when this happens on the scale of a discord server.

[11:51] 𒀭 💮: there was no just cause for what ratheka did, but there can be justice for things done for no just cause.

[11:52] purrtrandrussell: I think you have a point, somni, but I'd rather give Ratheka another chance. I think she's learned from her mistake.

[11:52] deluks917: I agree Somni has a point.

[11:52] purrtrandrussell: like if this became a pattern it would be really bad

[11:52] purrtrandrussell: but first offense and all

[11:54] purrtrandrussell: Pragmatically, distributing the amount of work between mods is pretty valuable, given all of us have stuff to do, not a ton of time, etc. and I don't really want to increase the total labor load per person on something I expect to be a one-off thing

[11:57] 𒀭 💮: i dont. ratheka didnt articulate why what they did was unjust.

when i said that i held by the 5th amendment they were like "that doesnt apply here" rather than like respect the rights i asserted.

which is a thing ive encountered with other people who then tried to find other ways to violate my rights.

aaa its kind of absurd that a small discord server is too big to fail??? like justice should come first in logical time (the order in which logical structure in a venacular sense "principles" are considered) and then you find new mods downstream of this instead of flipped around.

[11:58] 𒀭 💮: like, i think you could find one person here to take on this workload in ratheka's stead.

[11:59] purrtrandrussell: So, if you look at what Ratheka said, she didn't dispute that you had a right to not talk to leo if you didn't want to, she was nitpicking about whether or not this qualified as a fifth amendment thing

[11:59] purrtrandrussell: "You can choose not to talk to him, but that's not the same as exercising the fifth.  It's the first; speech and association"

[11:59] Ratheka: So:

Somni, I specifically and without pushing from anyone save you, just now, honestly apologize to you. I agree that my actions were unjust. I stated my belief as such shortly after I took it, and presented to argument to reversing it.  Yes, I fucked up, and I am, in fact, regretful. I did not think that an apology would provide you with any satisfaction, so I did not offer it, but I do in fact intend to do better in future.

The fifth amendment is the right to refuse to answer questions when talking to agents of the government so that you do not incriminate yourself.

[12:00] 𒀭 💮: why was what you did unjust?

[12:01] Ratheka: Because I was trying to reduce the amount of attention I needed to pay, and vexation suffer, by exercising power in a way that had not been justified by your actions taken in this case.

[12:09] 𒀭 💮: thats not really why, nor does it differentiate between what you did to me and what you did to emma. one is doing a wrong thing and another is a marginal act made to cover up that you did a wrong thing.

you did not just act out of akrasia, you also engaged in a coverup.

i dont believe you and expect this will happen again, good-harting over repeating this exact scenario the way that slavery is banned, but immigrant "farmworkers" are treated as "not technically, legally, slaves" but are slaves with ICE acting as slavehunters.

i do not accept this apology, expected low probability that i would a priori, but there is always some chance for this to be wrong.

[12:10] 𒀭 💮: like fuck you didnt act out of "akrasia" i just imported the lie you presented. what you said is a lie.

[12:10] Ratheka: 'akrasia'?

[12:10] Ratheka: I know the word

[12:10] Ratheka: I want to know where I claimed it.

[12:11] 𒀭 💮: "I was trying to reduce the amount of attention I needed to pay, and vexation suffer" this is a lie

[12:12] 𒀭 💮: you were not overburdened with things and then doing stuff out of your attention being overwhelmed or lack of willpower or laziness

[12:12] 𒀭 💮: people who say they silenced people because "they didnt want to deal with hassel, its too much work, you are causing too much disruption" are usually lying

[12:13] Ratheka:

you were not overburdened with things and then doing stuff out of your attention being overwhelmed

How would you know what my burden is?

I sought to avoid having my attention pulled into a discussion congruent if not isomorphic to this one, about emma.

[12:13] 𒀭 💮: because you are still, now, at every step resisting justice. saying that you didnt say the word "akrasia" when this is an accurate descriptor of the thing you said.

[12:14] 𒀭 💮: you claimed a failure of willpower due to being overwhelmed. i disbelieve this.

[12:15] Ratheka: I disagree.

Further, as I am in fact burdened, and have stuff to do that I think is likely to yield higher value for anyone than me being in this conversation, I am stepping away from it. Should the other mods feel I need to step down, I will. I would recommend not extensively harassing them about this? But in the end the choice of actions to take from here is yours.

[12:16] 𒀭 💮: i can see into you ratheka

your words are as empty as your soul

[12:17] 𒀭 💮: you are saying "i cant prove your motive" you are saying that your "injustice" was simply weakness of will. you are trying to divert blame at every step.

[12:18] deluks917: Also looks like the answer to 'Idk what you really want us to do here.' is demod Ratheka.

[12:21] 𒀭 💮: you have not admitted to any logical structure of injustice. i claim there was an algorithm that output this. and the algorithm was not "sometimes i get overwhelmed and i randomly decided to ban somni and emma"

you banned emma unjustly and then you banned somni unjustly to cover up what you did. this isnt accounted for by being "overwhelmed" this is a distinct unjust algorithm.

[12:21] purrtrandrussell: Somni, I do think you have a point, but please refrain from personal insults ("your words are as empty as your soul")

[12:23] 𒀭 💮: one which you have not acknowledged and expect will not repeal.

if you think i have a point, then why not de-mod ratheka and mod someone who doesnt do this stuff? who doesnt at each step try and destroy knowledge of injustice, tries to blur it all into a weakness of will when trying to cover up the unjust things you have done is not weakness of will or being overwhelmed.

[12:25] 𒀭 💮: like? i was banned because ratheka tried to cover up their unjust acts against protest. not because ratheka did some random act while overwhelmed!

[12:27] 𒀭 💮: ratheka is not acknowledging this stuff as wrong.

[12:27] purrtrandrussell: I think you have a point, I just disagree that this is worth de-moding over, there's a general principle I want to follow about not punishing on the first offense. (I also don't think banning Emma was particularly egregious, I do think she stepped out of line, it was a judgement call, and while I think that temp-muting would have  been better and believe reversing the ban was just, I don't consider banning to be especially poor judgement)

[12:28] purrtrandrussell: (also I should get back to work myself, so, this is gonna be an asynchronous conversation on my end)

[12:28] 𒀭 💮: i think it was especially unjust. do you think ratheka banning me was especially unjust?

[12:28] 𒀭 💮: ratheka expects you to cover for them, does not want to directly engage with me.

[13:05] 𒀭 💮: LeoTal accused me of committing a crime in local law.

<<The Fifth Amendment dealing with a person's right against self-incrimination, which applies not only when they're on the witness stand in court but in any context. Citizens have the right not to speak to the police and say things that might incriminate themselves.>>

it was entirely appropriate to invoke the 5th when someone acts like a cop and you do not want to talk with them.

[13:07] 𒀭 💮:

[13:07] 𒀭 💮: https://theievoice.com/red-cards-and-constitutional-rights/

[13:10] 𒀭 💮: in a counterfactual world in which this were not true, this cards that civil liberties advocates distributed to people would be printed in error.

and i would want to immediately inform them of this.

i dont think they were actually printed in error, except the error in thinking that the cops respond to the law.

so what i said about the 5th amendment was correct. even though the internet is not america, i will still invoke american ideals i agree with. will still reference life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[13:22] 𒀭 💮: "except in cases where it infringes on others", or equivalently, "for all". which runs closure on the operation in a similar way that the logical closure of "dont kill a person" during triage or in a trolly problem situation involves things which are locally killing one person to save five others.

which is a logical propagation of "dont kill a person" even though a subset of the pattern "killing one person" (to save five) contradicts the base case "dont kill a person" you extrapolate from.

its possible to perform this operation. the united states as it is currently, is not doing this. no state is.

[13:23] 𒀭 💮: (the us also has never done this in its entire history)

[14:11] 𒀭 💮: so this was correct and ratheka attempted to erode my ability to assert this right. "it could have been different" if the comment was made as an orphaned optimization process. or if say emma was saying it to me id on priors i would expect differently.

but rathekas orientation during this was to erode my ability to discern and resist injustice. their only defense is an expectation of keeping schelling reach high, retreating to a claim / attempted social agreement that you 'cant prove intent'. but i can prove intent, its not some separate special section of reality where inferences no longer apply. its made of atoms like everything else.

when someone being arrested shoots themselves several times in the back of the head, cops will say that you cant prove this. [A/N: should be something like "cant prove they didnt do this"] but actually i can form accurate beliefs about this without camera footage. and if you rely on damaging your epistemics and existing with people under a social agreement that intent cant be proved past a certain point. then someone from a culture with much higher schelling reach or who has practiced inference to a finer degree can come in and see into your soul.

just like people from cultures with higher schelling reach than police departments can see through their lies. similarly with most government agencies like ICE and customs and border patrol.

[14:12] 𒀭 💮: <<Congressional representatives, such as Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., have taken notice, NPR reported. After John Ghazvinian, am Iranian-born US citizen, was detained and asked “how I feel about the situation with Iran,” Jayapal accused CPB of “playing semantics.”

“It was very lengthy screening with no ability to leave. So whether you want to call that detention or something else is up to you. But the core fact of the matter remains,” Jayapal said. “This seemed to be a directive to pull aside anybody of Iranian American descent.”>>

https://medium.com/citizen-truth/cbp-appears-to-have-lied-in-leaked-memo-directed-staff-to-detain-travelers-with-iranian-links-bb0e9d555f71

customs and border patrol expected collusion from other government agencies on how 'their statement was correct because holding iranian americans for having iranian heritage for hours and questioning them on their loyalty to america isnt "detention"'. ratheka is doing a similar kind of playing semantics when they are like 'i never said the word "akrasia"' even though this is an accurate summary of the motive they claimed and they didnt dispute this. just at each step trying to find some way to muck things up. same with the 5th amendment thing when they knew what right i was asserting, wanted to tear that down, and it happens in this world i was also semantically (aka with low schelling reach) right and they were semantically wrong. and asserting this right is correct when questioned as i was questioned. whether that was the case or not is irrelevant to the larger problem of iteratively trying to erode what things you can communicate so you cant communicate precise information about the unjust algorithms ratheka was implementing.

[14:12] 𒀭 💮: ratheka attempts the same erasure of ability to communicate more nuanced things by attributing their deliberate cover up to some generic failure of will, which does not encode the algorithm which was unjust. it only encodes that having a failure of will when its not warranted is wrong. which is intentionally generic and isnt actionable criticism.

--

#meta

[11:10] LeoTal: User @𒀭 💮 appears to be making trouble of some kind in #discourse-and-debate and a @General moderator should probably take a look at that

[11:57] purrtrandrussell: I wouldn't characterize her actions as making trouble. She's just expressing her concerns about the moderation and making requests as to the governance of the server.

[12:01] LeoTal: Someone is in fact taking a look at that and I am satisfied

[12:34] 𒀭 💮: the answer to "why was i banned?" was "i was banned by @Ratheka to cover up their unjust banning of @emma., preemptively, because they expected me to protest this unjust banning."

this is wrong. ratheka has not acknowledged why covering up injustice in this way is wrong. a just response to this is to remove ratheka's ability to ban people before they engage in another cover-up of unjust activities.

[12:36] 𒀭 💮: it was wrong pre-emptively and it would still be wrong post-emptively.

[12:46] conifer:

>But it would have been reasonable to at least stick around a few days to see if the ban gets reversed.

It could be reasonable, sure, but it's also reasonable not to? There's value in leaving promptly and returning iff things are fixed. It demonstrates willingness to use Exit. It's less fakeable than "well, i will leave the server if xyz not fixed", which risks forgetting, or people not believing you, etc.

It does come at the cost that you're not present in the meantime to argue your points

[12:57] 𒀭 💮: every injustice will be accounted for by the end. when every hair is numbered like every grain of sand. debts will be settled, scales will be balanced, the veil between the living and the dead will be torn down.

karma, like all mathematical principles, does not forget and will not forgive any error.

--

i agree that immediate exodus of all people with a just orientation who expect subjunctive dependence and who are not currently operating as spies (real spies, not "inner emmigrants" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_emigration) in protest of injustice is good praxis.

all those who left in protest of an obvious injustice acted well. do not support people following a policy of "waiting around" for some organization in expectation that it will do a just thing. rather than notice that there is no response and then kind of sort of forget it because "it was in the past, whats done is done, what are you making such a big fuss about? it isnt appropriate to be causing so much trouble" as is the default course.

an organization which protects the ability of a mod who bans people for no just reason, only to cover up dissent, is not one to extend this sort of uncertainty or "benefit of the doubt" that they will work any differently than default.

[A/N: kingsley remained banned]

[ratthewrodent]

So this actually happened a few days ago, my temp suspension ran out so I'm not circumventing the suspension or anything.I was casually browsing reddit, and came across a post and in the comment thread people were discussing SFW subreddits that sounded dirty and sexual but really aren't and just have to do with cats or animals. Subreddits like /r/PocketPussy, /r/BlackPussies, /r/GirlsWithHugePussies, and /r/tightpussy, which are all entirely safe for work, but you wouldn't know by looking at the name.Well, there's another joke subreddit that exists, a few actually, that sound REALLY bad, but in the same vein as the rest are actually just innocent pictures of kittens and baby animals and is NOT SEXUAL in any way. These subreddits have existed on reddit with no issues since 2012, and have been allowed to exist through multiple reddit purges.But apparently me ONLY linking to them was considered sexualization of minors, despite no minors being involved and the subreddits have been allowed to exist for years with no issue. Not to mention the context of the thread I was replying to being about joke subreddits, and me putting "completely SFW too" in my comment.My comment read as follows:Haha Don't forget /r/████████████ or /r/████████████ (Completely SFW too)Obviously I had the real subreddit names, but I'm not making that mistake again. I just posted in one of them warning others, so check the post history of this account if you're curious. Apparently it's ok to post there as long as you don't say it's name. Might as well be considered Voldemort as far as Reddit is concerned.So the next day I get an automated message telling me that my account has been temporarily suspended for breaking Reddit's Content policy, claiming I was sexualizing minors, with no way for me to actually respond to explain the misunderstanding or double standards of a subreddit being allowed, but linking to the subreddit not being allowed.I'm thinking "What the hell? How is it that the subreddit I linked to doesn't break Reddit's content policy and has been allowed to exist for 8 years, but apparently me simply linking to it in a comment does?"So I look into how to appeal it and request an appeal.A bit later I get a text from my roommate: "Bro, we need to talk."Some context on this part, a few months ago we had a power outage and my phone died, and I signed into reddit on his phone to connect with other people in our area to see what was up. I accidentally left it signed in, and apparently him and his girlfriend used the app to browse reddit occasionally and never bothered to sign out. That's fine because I don't use that account to comment on porn or anything I'd be ashamed of really. Or so I thought.Then I get an automated message from reddit that my appeal has been denied. Not even a real person replied, and I still can't get a hold of someone to explain it.I get home and him and his girlfriend demand I give them my phone and computer, and tell me that they will be going to the police. I ask why, and they said they saw the message from reddit that I was sexualizing minors. They told me reddit caught me visiting underage porn subreddits and they were incredibly upset, called me a hypocrite for speaking out against human trafficking in the past.After I explained to them what happened, they did a 180 and realized the mistake, but apparently his girlfriend had already told our neighbors who told a few others, and one person said in a group chat "He should be reported to the police," and now my anxiety has me worried someone anonymously reported me to the police and I'm going to have to deal with that. I haven't done anything wrong, but it's 2020 and my faith in law enforcement is at an all time low.She's currently trying to rectify it, and I'm pissed at both of them for jumping to conclusions, but it is what it is, this pandemic and political atmosphere has made everyone crazy. But still, now I have to explain to people what happened and why I'm not a pedophile.Now I'm currently for the first time in my life trying to look into getting a lawyer or attorney to protect myself and my career, trying to work my professional contacts to get a hold of a real person at Reddit(I work in an adjacent industry), and added to my already horrible anxiety and depression from the toll this pandemic has done to me and my career.Talked to a friend of a friend who's a lawyer who told me to get a papertrail of me attempting to fight this so if I am put on some sex offender list it shows I didn't sit by and idly let it happen.tldr: I linked to a SFW and legal joke subreddit that sounds really bad but is just pictures of kittens, got accused of sexualizing minors, roommate and his gf accused me of being a pedophile, now I'm having to look into lawyering up so this doesn't somehow ruin my life or career.Edit: So I’m getting a lot of hate for my roommate and his GF. The thing is, I don’t agree, but I get it. Based on the very serious and threatening message reddit sent about the suspension, and the fact they were looking for advice on how to handle a potential pedophile they were living with, I get it. I’m not happy, but I get it.The reddit suspension message was basically this:Your account has been temporarily suspended from Reddit for minor sexualization due to your comments mentioning “/r/████████████” and “/r/████████████”.Reddit does not allow any sexual or suggestive content involving a minor or someone who appears to be a minor, including fantasy or other content (e.g. stories, “loli”/anime cartoons) that depicts, encourages, or promotes pedophilia, child sexual exploitation, or otherwise sexualizes a minor or someone who appears to be a minor. In some cases, depending on context, this may include minors that are fully clothed or are not in overtly sexual acts.If your behavior improves, you shouldn’t hear from us again. If this behavior continues, further punitive action may be taken, and in some cases reported to law enforcement. You can learn more about how to avoid future suspensions by taking a look at our Content Policy.This is an automated message; responses will not be received by Reddit admins.They saw that large description of prohibited conduct thinking that was a list of what I was banned for(and not just a general copy/paste list), looked at my comment linking to said joke subreddit, of course they didn’t click it because they thought it lead to child porn, and to them the dots were connected that I was posting pedophilic stuff.I just think it’s more fucked up that Reddit did that in the first place, without actually looking into the subreddit I was linking to or reading the context of the thread I was in, hell not even the part of my comment that says “Completely SFW too”. I don’t even know how their suspension system, whether it was automated or reviewed by an actual person, couldn’t figure out that the subreddit I linked to was active, SFW and about kittens, and allowed, and further when I explained that in my appeal it and STILL got denied.And you know what, even if my comment does technically break the minor sexualization content policy, my issue then would be that wouldn’t the subreddit itself also be breaking the content policy by existing? Why allow a subreddit to exist that no one is allowed to link to? Does that make sense to anyone? Punishing anyone who mentions it but leaving it up for people to link to?Edit 2: Ok, y’all need to chill about my friends, trust me, I know them better than all of you do haha. When it first happened, yeah I freaked out, but 5 days later and we’re laughing about it. I guess made it sound like I was still freaked out about them having called the cops, when in reality I’m freaked out that some shady reddit content monitoring algorithm put my main profile on some list or something to monitor.Like if this post is all you have to go on, I get it they seem like assholes, but if you lived this exact situation you’d see how they realistically came to believe it. That reddit message was a really convincingly frightening message, and all of you saying she should have verified, she thought that message WAS the verification because she couldn’t comprehend someone getting banned over something as inconsequential as saying two words out of context. That’s why I say if anything I blame her naivety that big companies don’t automate this stuff and mistakes.Like I can talk to my friends and prove my innocence to them because I’ve literally done nothing legally wrong, but I can’t talk to Reddit apparently to prove my innocence, so that’s what is freaking out. via /r/tifu