#which is a valid critique but also subjective

[supercomplicatedperson]

Controversial opinion (aparently): but it doesn't matter WHY you torture or make your characters go through bad things either.

Whether it's to deal with your own trauma, disect why certain themes make you uncomfortable or even because you're a "sicko" who likes it, THEYRE NOT REAL.

YOURE NOT MAKING REAL PEOPLE SUFFER. THEY ARE MADE UP CHARACTERS WHO CANT ACTUALLY FEEL PAIN OR SUFFERING. DONT ATTACK REAL PEOPLE TO DEFFEND A PERSON THAT DOESNT EVEN EXIST!

I really think everyone needs to truly internalize this:

Fictional characters are objects.

They are not people. You cannot "objectify" them, because they have no personhood to be deprived of. They have no humanity to be erased. You cannot "disrespect" them, because they are not real.

[maxdibert]

it doesn't surprise me that people think that pointing out Lily's flaws is somehow misogyny because having read a lot of their posts online that fandom loves nothing more than to reduce female characters to therapists, "group moms" and surrogate mothers for their yaoi babies - and somehow they think that's progressive because these characters are portrayed as baddass (in the ten lines in which they appear)

People don’t understand that criticizing a female character for having questionable attitudes has nothing to do with gender. In fact, this is an important distinction because women are often criticized for things specifically related to gender. Likewise, my issue with the glorification of Lily as this saintly, self-sacrificing mother isn’t with the character herself, but with how Rowling portrays motherhood as the purest way for women to demonstrate not only their goodness but also their capacity for redemption (see Narcissa’s case). This is incredibly problematic from a gender perspective, considering that for decades, efforts have been made to challenge the narrative that women derive their validation as people from their ability to bear children or their efficiency as caregivers.

What happens if you’re a terrible mother? Does that make you a bad woman? How many women have been awful to their children? Or have regretted becoming mothers? Are they inherently bad because of it? How many women don’t want to have children? How many women can’t stand kids? Every single childless, unmarried woman in the series who isn’t a teenager is either evil or portrayed negatively (Marge, Umbridge, Bellatrix, Rita Skeeter). The only exception is McGonagall, who, as a teacher, still has a caregiver role. Sprout doesn’t have children as far as we know, but she’s also a teacher and good with kids, so it’s the same pattern all over again. It all comes down to whether or not you fulfill a maternal role, and that’s nauseating. It’s insane that people, at this stage of feminist and gender studies, still have the audacity to argue against this when it’s glaringly obvious. In fact, it aligns quite well with Rowling’s general views on gender, her obsession with binary thinking, and her transphobia. But hey, there’s no one more blind than those who refuse to see.

Anyway, I’ve gone off track, but my point stands: there’s a serious issue in some fandoms where people refuse to accept criticism of certain characters that have apparently been collectively agreed upon as “untouchable.” But the reality is that no one is untouchable, and everything is subject to critique. And if someone doesn’t like that, well, honestly, that’s not my problem because I’m not going to stop using my freedom of expression as I see fit.

[milkfordragons]

Love your essays, can you share themes for the next ones? big hug!

I had one on Mischa and Hannibal, exploring love for a real person vs love for an imago; had one analyzing how Jack and Bella's plot was a parallel to Hannigram; one about Abigail and Hobbs and how they were also parallels to Hannigram, but I'm hesitant to share more. I might even abandon this blog.

I came here under the mistaken impression that this was a safe space to express my thoughts, not an open invitation for debate. My intention was never to solicit opinions; I’m simply sharing musings, yet some people assume that the mere act of putting a thought into the world means it’s up for discussion. That’s not always the case.

Even if I were to block comments or reblogs, I know there would still be those who screenshot, tag me, send asks determined to insert themselves where they were never invited. It’s fascinating, really, this belief that every thought someone shares must be subjected to public agreement or disagreement, as if validation were the natural endpoint of expression. If I don’t agree with something, I move on. But there’s a particular breed of online discourse, especially among younger people, that operates under the assumption that they are entitled, obligated even, to weigh in, to declare, “I don’t agree 100%” or “Actually, I’m not sure I agree.” And? No one asked. The entitlement is baffling.

This isn’t a political manifesto, nor some grand ideological battleground. It’s a blog about a TV show. The sheer level of energy some people expend dissecting and debating trivial thoughts as if they were world-shattering issues is exhausting. I have a life. This is a hobby. I do not have the patience or inclination to entertain teenagers who mistake their own opinions for decrees and believe they must broadcast every thought they have, relevant or not. It drains the joy out of everything.

I understand that many people here struggle with mental health issues, but this goes beyond that, this is a pathological need to engage in unnecessary, uninvited confrontation. It’s not insightful. It’s not constructive. It’s simply tedious. And the classic “You can’t take criticism” response...Where did I ever ask for criticism? What compels someone to believe they’re entitled to critique thoughts that were never directed at them in the first place?

If you’re so deeply invested in social issues, if you see yourself as some moral authority, then go do something meaningful. But wasting your time policing strangers on the internet over inconsequential musings? That’s not activism. That’s not righteousness. It’s just performative self-importance.

The level of rudeness I’ve encountered over a post that was primarily an analysis of Hannigram, hundreds of words on why their relationship could be sexual in canon, because of one small paragraph mentioning ace people's projections is astonishing. That single mention was enough to derail the entire discussion, proving my point exactly: the projection is so relentless that they ignored the actual post and made it about themselves. The title wasn’t “Ace People Project onto Characters”...the post wasn’t even about them. Yet, the response was an outpouring of hostility, devoid of valid points or genuine critique, just raw projection, ignorance, and misplaced outrage.

What’s truly ironic is that in their attempt to refute my claim, they confirmed it. They didn’t just project onto characters, they projected onto me for simply pointing out a pattern they don’t want to acknowledge. And as I said in the post, if it doesn’t apply to you, why take it personally? Just move on. But of course, the ones who responded with the most vitriol, the most unhinged reactions, are the ones with the deepest unresolved issues.

I made a passing comment on this because I knew the conversation would inevitably attract the same tired arguments: “Sex isn’t everything,” “Sex is inferior,” “They don’t need sex to love each other.” Which, sure, in some contexts, that’s a valid perspective. But it’s not a universal truth, it’s a subjective view. The post wasn’t even about whether sex is superior or inferior. I simply addressed a recurring comment about Hannigram that, 99% of the time, comes from ace people who struggle to separate their own identity from fictional characters, assuming that everyone must think and feel as they do.

Nowhere in that post did I decree some grand personal stance on asexuality. Nowhere did I say anything about ace people beyond the observation that they project. And that is not an opinion, it’s an observable fact, reinforced by the sheer volume of hostile responses proving the exact behavior I described. Instead of engaging with what was actually written, they twisted my words into something that suited their own insecurities.

If I have to include endless disclaimers, write paragraph after paragraph of over-explanation just to account for people who either lack the intelligence or the willingness to read in good faith, then I’m done. It’s exhausting. This entire environment has become a bizarre morality play, where actual atrocities in the world are ignored in favor of performative outrage over trivial blog posts.

News flash: spitting out self-righteous nonsense on a blog about a TV show does not make you intelligent, morally superior, or part of some grand discourse. You’re not as smart as you think you are. And this...this very attitude, is why everyone is miserable. You claim there’s a loneliness epidemic, yet you make it impossible to have genuine connections when every interaction feels like walking on eggshells, all because of a fundamental inability to interpret words and the fact that you think everyone is always against you. If I choose to stay is only so those ignorant people don't get what they wanted: to drive people who don't bend to their every opinion away.

And no, I’m not someone who expects everyone to agree with me. But that’s not even the point, what I share isn’t about being agreeable or disagreeable in the first place. There’s a fundamental rule in fanfiction: you never criticize a fic directly to the writer. Fanfiction is something people create out of love, as a hobby, or as a therapeutic escape. It’s free fan work, nobody is entitled to critique it. You can have your opinions, discuss them privately, or share them in spaces where they aren’t directed at the author. But to go out of your way to comment on their account with unsolicited negativity? What is wrong with you?

If your goal was to look smart or superior by reblogging with unhinged rudeness, devoid of actual reasoning or argument, you failed. Miserably. You look foolish, childish, and desperate for attention, making a spectacle out of something no one cares.

Plenty of people disagree with my posts, and that’s fine. But they have basic common sense, they don’t flood my replies or reblogs with absurd, aggressive nonsense. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, sure. But I also have the right to reject opinions that are unnecessary, unproductive, and add nothing of value. If your response doesn’t change the conversation, doesn’t contribute meaningfully, doesn’t do anything except prove my point while being blatantly rude, then why should I entertain it? I have no obligation to accept or engage with hostility from strangers who can’t even read properly.

[thethiefandtheairbender]

Sometimes in fandom — usually after a fandom has gone from near universal adoration within the fandom, and then had something happen (a season release, a ship goes or doesn't go canon, etc) where it's more broadly criticized — there'll be an according shift in how canon is widely discussed.

Before, where things only would've been discussed with enthusiasm and excitement, there becomes a distinct lack of... any of that without conditions or caveats at most intervals. 

It no longer becomes "I loved the this thing here's why!" but "Yeah the season had flaws but I liked some of it," or "You can ship this thing but you have to admit it has—" or "yeah it was interesting it just could've been written better." 

The criticism is constant and it is vague. It's assumptive. If there are explanations as to what is meant and why, it is once and often not based in wanting to understand why the text would also do XYZ thing. This is not necessarily 'bad' criticism (just personally, occasionally annoying, although it's not as though I've never participated in it myself), just sometimes underdeveloped. Nor is this vein of fandom criticism all fandom criticism by any means.

After all, sometimes fans complain with long winded specifically ad nauseam until the critique becomes so far removed from any spectre of reality, it's like they're watching a completely different show (this is the worst kind). Other times, even once the emotions have died down, people step back and write metas about how there was structural buildup but lack of payoff or how, even though is character may be acting in line with previous characterization, this specific situational response felt OOC for [inserted reasons here] (this is the best kind, because you can actually see where people are coming from, they're acknowledging the constraints/desires/intention of the and therefore working with the text, and you can sometimes change your mind or have a better understanding of what, alternatively, worked for you). 

The problem, I think, with assumptive criticism is that it assumes a viewpoint is universal... when it's really, inevitably, not. For example, in like the 10/11 fandoms I've heavily been in, MY critiques of the thing are Different than what others in the fandom(s) critique, and it is for those exact reasons that I do my best not to engage in assumptive critique.

Because that's the kind of critique where, although short, it can shut down conversation about what might be some people's favourite parts of canon into something that feels loaded, or pointedly contradictory/contrarian, instead of just... "I liked this thing and here's why" that just got to exist freely before critique became more mainstream in the space.

In a similar vein where proship spaces say "I don't have to give a disclaimer that I know a ship is 'problematic' when I make a ship post about them," assumptive fandom critique creates a similar catch 22. Cause I think we've all seen ships broadly labelled as problematic with wildly varying degrees of validity, and ones where we sat here like "It's not problematic at all???" Subjectivity means that sometimes "X thing is flawed and I like it anyway" isn't necessarily true; sometimes it means "I like X thing and don't really think it has flaws" which is also equally, subjectively, true.

Because if I like a thing, I don't have to offer caveats; I don't have to do anything, especially if coming from me they'd be untrue. That thing is not objectively flawed and I don't have to act like it. The things that are flaws to you are oftentimes the things I like, that I think the story had good and/or interesting reasons for, or personally greatly enjoy, or are sometimes even the Best part of that story (to me). (Maybe some of the things I think are flaws are parts you like. That's awesome! All the power to you.)

If what I like in canon aligns with what the creators seemingly enjoyed or were trying to go for in canon, that just means that I'm more in alignment with the text, and 'correct' in ways we usually associate with correctness, but not all by any means (not necessarily intelligence, for ex, the same way critiquing a text in a negative way also doesn't say anything about intelligence).

I ship all the ATLA canon ships and I think they're good, and important, and interesting; I like the EIP conflict for Kataang, and I don't think I'd ship them half as hard without it / is one of my favourite pieces of characterization for Katara and her internal worldview(s). I like all the seasons of TDP's second arc, especially S4 (one of my faves) and including S7. I don't like the main ship that JWCC went for (they're even kind of a notp) and it bogged down early S4 for me, but with S5 in mind I think it was a smart, interesting choice even if it's not my personal preference (personality wise for the characters due to their similarities in mindsets and drastic differently long term goals), and I think the execution could've been eased further in, but those are nitpicks. That doesn't mean it's Bad.

A story doesn't have to align with all my preferences to be good; the story just has to align with itself, and I can be along for the ride. And if I'm no longer down to be along for the ride, I'm going to be specific as hell about why while still acknowledging all the (probably good) reasons the show did those things Anyway, because that's where criticism intersects most strongly with critical thinking, tbh.

[bunnyshideawayy]

cassian. great man, wonderful friend, absolutely terrible mate.

we have seen Nesta’s sisters, who arguably have less of a reason, defend her more than Cassian has ever thought about. HELLO?

my issue with cassian acosf and onward is that we are truly expected to believe they he deeply understands Nesta when he’s been shown time and again to never stick up for her and never fully trust her. he does nothing to help her over come and face her traumas / depression, she’s left to do that on her own, but best believe he’s down to fuck and make her hike! (no sarah sex and physical exercise are not cures)

after reading the entire series once and now twice seeing Rhys threatening anyone who dares breath wrong in Feyre’s direction under the guise of just “protecting his mate” i find it extremely hard to believe cassian allowed or even sides with anyone who speaks ill of/to Nesta or threatens her- all of which Rhysand and most of the IC (besides her sisters and Az) do, most of the time while directly in front of cassian in conversations he’s involved in. the most he does is…pout a little? throws a hissy fit? the two times i can remember him even remotely stick up for Nesta he immednantly backtracks as soon as Rhysand pushes back, both times the final decision being put in Feyre’s hands, this continues even into CC3 (and let’s thank the mother Feyre loves her sisters which is something ik yall nesta haters can’t stand.)

let’s move onto something i know yall don’t want to talk about, his verbal abuse. “oh but nesta also said-“ we know what she said, that is not the point. if this man knew all along nesta was his mate and truly wanted to help her heal from her traumas and depression why did he take every chance he could to provoke her? Nesta called Rhysand an asshole, and he IS especially to Nesta, and instead of keeping silent as he does when Rhys/the IC harshly critique her, he immediately gets angry and in her face to defend him. funny he can’t do that with her, his MATE? or let’s talk about this scene

oh okay! that’s totally something you say unprompted to your mate who is severely depressed and traumatized because she won’t eat! she’s totally not shaking because she’s triggered! then to add the lecture “we’ve been here before, too” oh okay! so you admit you know what she feels like (very doubtful although i’m not going to compare their traumas, both are valid he just does not understand her like he thinks he does) it’s patronizing and a little frustrating. she doesn’t want to be there in the first place, purposely throwing a sensitive subject in her face will not magically motivate her or cure her- she is simply doing what she has no choice in. she has been stripped of all autonomy, humanity, and “normality”- she feels alone and valuable in a way she as never felt before and she has NO HELP. none!

i’ll end with the hike. yay more physical activity as punishment- but if i said that was abuse yall will bring up the pregnancy so ill do it for you! Yes, Nesta was wrong to tell Feyre THE WAY SHE DID, she had every right to tell Feyre about her own body and pregnancy, it just shouldn’t have happened the way it did. everyone knew it was wrong to keep it from Feyre, even Cassian, so instead of forcing her to hike a mountain as punishment to ware her down mentally and physically he couldve stood up for both Feyre and Nesta to Rhysand the moment he threatens to KILL NESTA. a simple “hey buddy you knew it was wrong to keep that from Feyre you can’t kill my mate for telling her even if it was out of anger” would suffice. not once during their entire hike or during her breakdown does he reassure her, not even when she is tearing herself apart because she doesn’t feel worthy. don’t even get me started on what happens in CC3.

over all i think Nessian is great and they have some great moments, the end of ACOWAR lives rent free in my mind but i am incredibly disappointed with Cassian. i do feel like Nesta deserves better from everyone (besides Feyre and Elain who, again, are the only ones who i truly believe love her unconditionally.)

anti nesta’s this is not a safe space for you.

[sukunasweetheart]

//just me venting about sukuna haters sorry

Not me seeing so much discourse about whether sukuna is a well written villain or not... he essentially has no backstory shown as of yet and we barely know anything about him but he is still one of the most naturally interesting and compelling characters in the whole damn series bro 💀 buckle up bc its about to get lengthy (im just glazing sukuna in this post ngl so 🧎‍♀️)

so many whiny ass mfs are weeping about how he "doesn't have any personal goals or a proper reason to be a villain" when that is the whole point???? He lives on his own desires and satisfactions and does whatever he wants to, because he is capable enough to do that. Mfs want "real villains" but cant even handle sukuna 💀 ive seen too many shit ass threads and poorly articulated "critiques" on his character that dont make any valid points. If you can't even separate your personal dislike of a character from your analysis of their writing, dont even bother posting that shit please 😭😭😭 the fact that we haven't even gotten any information about his background yet and people are jumping the gun about him being "poorly written" is already saying a lot 🤨

The fact that yall are so bitter and angry about him that you can write 500+ words about how oh-so-terrible of a villain he is kinda proves that he's doing his job well tbh 💁‍♀️

What also bothers me to no END is how people compare him with villains of other series, who had compelling sob stories that made people empathise with them. Thats nice and all but why should all villains have grand ideals and be subject to feelings of empathy/sympathy from their audience?

Part of what makes sukuna so interesting is how he's not tied down by morals, rules or long term goals in life. He doesn't limit himself, which is what makes him an unpredictable character. He's completely left behind what it means to be human in many ways, and he's clearly not a character written to be empathised with. He is very purposefully inhumane and distant from everyone else, and that feeling transcends from within the series to real life as well. There is a clear lack of understanding bc most of us can't comprehend what its like to just live without being goal-oriented.

Sukuna is a true anomaly in the sense that he doesnt really fit in any kind of box within the series. He's born from man, but its clear that he separates himself from humans (and nobody else considers him human, either). He's not a cursed spirit. He hovers between life and death. The narrator referred to him as the honoured one, whilst angel referred to him as the disgraced one.

These little contradictions in his character make him all the more complicated and interesting to think about. And even recently, he's been shown to waver a little bit momentarily in the manga, questioning his own irritation at yuuji. He's capable of self reflection, and though sukuna does whatever he wants for the most part, he doesn't blindly go into things without some thought first, he's a constant thinker and analyser, and an intelligent one at that.

And honestly, he is always such a joy to watch and read, his personality is so flavourful, and the way he carries himself is very attractive. He's not afraid to get messy or of getting hurt, theres so much chaos in the way he does things and yet he also has a huge element of gracefulness to him, which shines through the poetic way he speaks. Its undeniable that sukuna simply oozes charisma...

And this isnt talked about enough but this man is genuinely so effortlessly funny (in a kind of sinister way i guess?) Like yes he is an old ass man having real beef with one FIFTEEN YEAR OLD for very little reason, he accidentally healed yuujis arm and somehow expected him to be grateful for it despite how he literally ripped his heart out afterwards, then he proceeded to sit on him after kicking him down likeeee 😭 what kind of behaviour is this sir

His facial expressions at yorozus yapping 💀 THE WAY HE COMPARED YUUJIS FACE OF DESPAIR TO THE HARIMA STATUE 😭😭😭💀😭💀💀😭 omg that was so foul but i was fucking losing it ngl

How he randomly compared gojo to a fish and started talking abt his scales... thats a very unique and descriptive comparison, isnt it? Even in the recent leaks, he was 100% ready and squaring up to a literal child talking abt "youre starting to get annoying" LIKE HELPPP 😭 HE FR SAID "fuck them kids and fuck you too"

I saw someone saying that sukuna has no passion, like are we talking about the same character....? This man is a literal jujutsu NERD 💀💀 he truly recognises talented sorcerers and the only time hes seen to be having genuine fun is when hes fighting a mf... is that not passion? This is literally sukuna when it comes to jujutsu: 🤓

Anyway im done here now, im pretty sure i missed a lot of things i couldve talked about as well but ive done enough yapping

[figural]

. . . Foucault’s analysis of power might just as easily be understood as offering an analysis of freedom, insofar as entire social worlds exist as subjugating fields that are reliant upon our freedom to acquiesce to them. This, as Andrew Johnson puts it, is to foreground the question of how and why “society colludes, effectively policing itself.” Why, if power can only be exercised over free subjects, do we freely allow ourselves to be judged according to norms, to have our actions channelled toward certain behaviors?

This problem, of “why people freely bind themselves to power,” looks analogous to the thorny problem of voluntary slavery that so vexed modern philosophical and theological articulations of freedom. In suggesting that “the relationship between power and freedom’s refusal to submit cannot, therefore, be separated,” Foucault argues that the “problem of power is not that of voluntary servitude (how could we seek to be slaves?).” This seemingly easy dismissal of the problem belies the indeterminacy of being always already thrown into an agonistic interaction between “the recalcitrance of the will and the intransigence of freedom.” This is to say, our capacity for freedom is always already a renunciation of freedom insofar as we freely bind ourselves to power. But in so binding ourselves we are never truly enslaved since power is itself productive of freedoms since power never fully determines. In part due to this, voluntary servitude animates Foucault’s account even in its dismissal, since power effectively forms the complex web through which freedoms are articulated.

For example, in the context of “mechanisms of power” that subjugate individuals, Foucault states that critique is the “art of voluntary inservitude.” In the context of a heterodox account of the Kantian Enlightenment, Foucault argues that the order of things is constituted by man, rather than God or a sovereign state; second, and relatedly, that there is a limit to knowledge that is imposed by us. Taken together, Foucault demonstrates that humanity comes into being through this analytic of finitude. With man taking the place of God, Foucault follows Kant’s position against the rationalist tradition that articulates a relationship between man and the laws of the world, knowledge of which is limited by our position within “the great table of beings,” since those limits are also understood to be “decreed or imposed by man.” However, as far as Foucault is concerned, whilst Kant’s project of finitude is the condition of possibility for man taking the place of God, that project requires completion such that all forms of sovereignty are abandoned, including the epistemic and normative sovereignty at work in Kant’s claims to universal validity. In Society Must Be Defended, he further describes the move towards normalization against “a juridical rule derived from sovereignty but a discourse about a natural rule, or in other words a norm.” Law as the expression of sovereign power is thus submerged and internalized within modernity’s “code of normalization.”

It is in this context that critique becomes the art of voluntary inservitude precisely because the possibility of challenging mechanisms of power cannot call upon an external sovereign. Kant has already shown us that critique must be self-justifying. Here, Foucault tells us that we cannot appeal to that which lies outside of us because we are immersed in networks of power that provide the conditions of our subjectivation and in turn the conditions of critique—so in effect, there must be nothing outside to which we can appeal. The question of freedom that is exercised through its renunciation is found in the suturing of the domain of power:

[The] carceral network does not cast the unassimilable into a confused hell; there is no outside . . . . In this panoptic society of which incarceration is the omnipresent armature, the delinquent is not outside the law; he is, from the very outset, in the law, at the very heart of the law.

The subject is embedded within this interplay of critique and subjugation. But as such, the racial slave “marks-off” the domain of the social even where the slave cannot be exteriorized either spatially or temporally. For example, in The Subject and Power, Foucault states that

Where the determining factors are exhaustive, there is no relationship of power: slavery is not a power relationship when a man is in chains, only when he has some possible mobility, even a chance of escape.

Foucault expands on this point in an interview “The Ethics of the Concern of the Self as a Practice of Freedom”: 

power relations are possible only insofar as the subjects are free. If one of them were completely at the other’s disposal and became his thing, an object on which he could wreak boundless and limitless violence, there wouldn’t be any relations of power. Even . . . when it can truly be claimed that one side has “total power” over the other, a power can be exercised over the other only insofar as the other still has the option of killing himself, of leaping out the window, or of killing the other person . . . if there were no possibility of resistance (of violent resistance, flight, deception, strategies capable of reversing the situation), there would be no power relations at all.

Here slavery is articulated as the nexus of total incapacity and a totalized power that necessarily exists outside of the domain of power itself. Slavery is here moved outside both death and even suicide (which is to say that the slave’s suicide cannot recuperate the biopolitical). This articulation of slavery as total incapacity appears close, then, to Saidiya Hartman’s articulation of slavery in terms of the “fungibility of the commodity [that] makes the captive body an abstract and empty vessel.” It is in defining slavery as complete domination that must have been surpassed for entry into the domain of power that both servitude and inservitude cannot collapse into slavery. Since “slavery is not a power relationship,” for Foucault, we are subjugated insofar as we are not slaves. Servitude cannot also be slavery since our insertion into civil society—even where we are subjugated—requires us to always possibly operate against mechanisms of power in its critique. So, racial slavery is the conduit through which Foucault’s carceral world becomes possible through its necessary voiding. In order to be a subject, one cannot be or have possibly been, a slave. 

Thus racial slavery becomes the unthinkable conceptual armature that Foucault depends upon for the coherence of freedom across the board, marking out both the domain of freedom and subjectivity through the slave’s fungibility. Civil society—even where this is articulated through complex networks of policing and normalization—relies on the spectral presence of racial slavery as impossibility for the subject of power. In the process of emptying-out the world of slavery, Foucault therefore not only buries the mass of Atlantic systems of contracts, trade, and people, but draws upon that buried slavery to enact the limits of the possible domain of the human world. It is the marked evasion of racial slavery that comes to be constitutive insofar as racial slaves necessarily exceed the world they are called upon to demarcate.

[natureboy96]

SJM, ACOTAR, Authorial Intent and what's "fair" to criticize/validate

So, the title of this post is, while accurate, a bit vague. I decided to put my two cents out on this because, since I joined the ACOTAR fandom a few months ago, I've found a lot of very harsh words being flung one way or another, largely based around the characters of the book or the direction people believe SJM has taken/will take the narrative. There's also been a lot of rather nasty attacks on people for their takes, their ships, and their criticism. I'm not an expert on writing, but I thought it worth having a proper, fleshed out discussion on these topics.

Author's Intent vs Reader's Interpretation

When it comes to understanding a text and gaining meaning from it, Author's Intent and Reader's Interpretation are generally the two fields which are subscribed to. Authorial Intent argues that the meaning of a text should be derived by what the author wanted the reader to take from it, and that a text is inherently connected to the intent of the author; for example, because SJM doesn't put as much emphasis on certain side characters, the reader shouldn't consider them important. Or, that SJM and the narrative intend and clearly state that the IC and Rhysand are the good guys, it only makes sense to view them as such. Reader's Interpretation posits that texts are meant to be interacted with, and that the meaning people can derive from them is subjective, because individuals have different life experiences and perspectives which can lead them to understand a text in different ways; A reader can see Rhysand's actions as hypocritical based on their interpretations of what he did and how in ACOSF. Or, coming at the text with a different understanding on trauma or sexuality, a reader can come away from a text finding Tamlin to be a more sympathetic character than hateful one. Both of these arguments have existed for decades, if not longer. And the thing is...

Neither of these are wrong or right ways to read a text

There is no "one right way" to engage with or criticize a text! If you believe that SJM is a bad writer because she uses characters as plot points rather than giving them actual growth/retcons things as needed for her narrative, or that Tam’s actions have earned him his redemption, that is a valid assessment based on what you read in a text. If you think Lucien and Elain have no chance because Elain has on multiple times been shown being friendly, even intimate (not romantic intimate, just close) with Azriel and that the author seems to hint towards a rejected mating bond, that is a valid assessment too. Anything in a text, written, implied or intended, is a valid avenue of criticism.

At the same time, people are fully allowed to have their own head cannons and fanfics about characters outside the written narrative. Just because SJM wants you to ship Feysand, doesn’t mean you can’t write or ship TamlinxRhysand, or Gwynriel or Rhysta. Art, including text, is open to interpretation and you are allowed to make it your own too, even if the text itself makes it clear it’ll never happen. Hell, shipping Elain and Tamlin because they both like flowers is entirely valid! Fan fiction and ships don’t have to be defended by the text/author’s intent, they are your own creation and can be based on whatever you want! Have fun, go crazy with em.

What isn’t ok for criticism

You can criticize the actions and choices and motivations of a book character all you want, using whichever method of critique you want. If you want to call Rhysand a pedo because he came to a pic of his child, you can make that take. If you call Tamlin a serial abuser who brought everything on himself, you can make that take.

What isn’t ok, is using your takes to criticize the people who disagree with you.

(These are just a few examples I’ve seen in the last few days, but I’m pretty sure everyone in this fandom has seen personal attacks along these lines, some far worse than the ones I grabbed. It’s also not a matter of degrees of bad faith criticism, all of these are of the same vein and one isn’t more ‘valid’ than others because it wasn’t as harsh.) Believing Rhysand is a pedo doesn’t make it ok to call people who like him the same. Believing Lucien is a terrible person doesn’t make someone who likes him a person of questionable morals. Having a different method of criticizing a text doesn’t make someone else’s different way of approaching the text wrong.

At the end of the day, these characters, this world, this narrative are all constructs, not people. You are not Feyre, you are not Tamlin, you are not Rhysand or a Valkyrie or Elain or Cassian. You do not deserve to be judged for the actions of fictional characters, and you should not be judged for your opinions on these characters either. And you need to let others have differing opinions on characters, even ones you dislike intensely.

Let people like the characters they want to like, let people criticize the characters they don’t like (or the ones they do) and for fuck’s sake, don’t take it or make it personal.

[utilitycaster]

What would you say are the CR cast's individual weaknesses? I'm always trying to improve for my own games and also curious to see if I can spot them in the episodes.

Hi anon,

This is super subjective, heavily biased towards my own personal likes and dislikes, etc, so I don't think you should per se use this as your own metric, and also a lot of these are not mechanical but more broadly about structure or acting.

Travis: bias immediately begins here; I think he's one of the strongest actors and one of the strongest people mechanically at the table. He also really knows what he wants and likes to do, which, spoilers, is essentially my biggest criticism of almost anyone else; and I think as part of that he addressed what would have been my biggest criticism in the past (namely, a hesitancy towards emotional roleplay which was present in C1 and was very much part of what he proceeded to push his boundaries on with Fjord and in some ways even more so with Chetney). Anyway I think my current main critique is that I would like to see him play a character who really isn't good with melee/is a full caster and I think he's been more hesitant on that, but also, it's valid to have a strong preference for one type of build so like. he can keep doing what he's doing and I will not be mad.

Marisha: I've talked about this before but I think she really needs to do more involved backstory planning that dives into motivations more, or, failing that, simply have very goal-oriented characters. I think that even when there's been vagueness in the backstories of her other characters (basically everyone but Keyleth) their motivations were enough to carry them through, but this has been a campaign-long struggle for Laudna. I will also admit that I find her acting choices as Laudna specifically to be rather overwrought in a way that doesn't particularly, work for me but I have a really strong personal bias towards naturalistic styles. She's also capable of much subtler work, and both Bee and Patia I think showed that off.

Sam: Kind of a weird in-between situation in comparison to the above. I think Sam knows his sweet spot and capacity for humor and so he rarely goes as dark as say, Oscar Grimm, but he is absolutely killing it already over there. In general I think Sam needs to be more willing to leave his comfort zone and push himself more because he can play it a bit safe. I think he does have a sharp learning curve re: complex mechanics (this is why early FCG was rough) exacerbated by the fact that I think he really tends to assume what he can do is way more limited than it is, and I suspect the much simpler Candela system is working to his favor, but like, he does eventually get there and, should we get a campaign 4, I'm going to tape "BE PATIENT WITH SAM, HE ALWAYS GETS THERE" on my laptop to remind me.

Ashley: Bit like Sam actually! I think she can and should go harder on mechanics (and for the most part has been; I think she underestimates herself a lot), and I also think she needs to make wilder choices. Fearne has been a delight in this regard but I want to echo the cast at one of the recent convention Q&As: please push the red button more, please go absolute as hard as you want. Will say her acting is maybe my favorite in the cast.

Laura: ABSOLUTELY NEEDS TO PUSH MORE BIG RED BUTTONS. Like...man. I feel this mindset; I don't really play video games other than stupid phone games but I'm That Person who's like "I only have 100 erasers in Two Dots, I must ration them". But I think she's doing a fantastic job with Imogen and my one criticism would truly be Go Bigger And Weirder And Harder. This is why I mentioned her; she was willing to take such massive risks as Arlo, and I think part of that was because it was a short campaign and she didn't feel that need to hold back but like, please, press buttons and take more risks. Her RP is always stellar though. Like, truly, I think Laura, Ashley, and Travis often appeal to my personal taste in acting choices and themes the most, and I just want Laura and Ashley to make similarly wild choices to Travis sometimes.

Liam: This is 100% purely a very me thing; I find he acts like a stage actor (which he is!) when there is a camera like 10 feet from his face and it can at times be a bit much for me, a person who is annoying re: subtlety. When he hits, he fucking hits though. Vax sometimes got a little overwrought for me but when he went quieter it was top notch; Caleb was fantastic because I think he counteracted this tendency; and there's been a couple moments with Orym I haven't loved but so many that I have. Mechanically he is great and while I'm a noted Rogue Disliker, Wizard/Fighter/Cleric are all flawless and much as I'd like to see him play other classes he is valid for his core four choice.

Taliesin: Here is the thing. I think whereas Laura takes a somewhat hesitant, afraid to let her character die stance, Taliesin does in fact have sort of a parallel issue of taking huge risks and then being very pikachu face when his character does die. Big swing of the pendulum in the other direction. However, Taliesin tends to hit on themes I find fascinating, consistently, and has a truly impressive breadth of mechanical skill. Even when I don't like his characters (only happened once) I absolutely respect what he's doing, and perhaps most importantly, he truly does not care what I or others in the fandom think, which makes me respect him more. Like, you know what? Molly isn't for me, and that's valid! Anyway. I hesitate to suggest more caution bc episodes 3x77-78 were so good and I loved all the wild shit Percy got up to (I also loved Caduceus but he was a much more laid-back character by design) but I do think that lack of caution is his weakness.

Matt: Judging more on the basis of being a DM than a player here just for sheer quantity but I think that his two greatest weaknesses are first, communicating highly specific risks (the main ones being the Iron Shepherds and the Otohan fight; you can't do that in pitched combat my man); and for lack of a better way to put it, I do still think he needed more firmness in the character creation stage of c3 and then looser reins during the campaign itself. I've been thinking about this a lot because I think that when I have frustrations with Aabria's style it's weirdly sort of...needs slightly looser reins but in a totally different way, and like, when Matt needs to loosen up, RP moments fall by the wayside and plot is fine, whereas when Aabria needs to loosen up, RP is still stellar but plot suffers.

[itsabouttimex2]

Hey, OP! I'm just a random anon, but I read your new post and I'd like to tell you something:

You don't need to apologize for having your own opinions and interpretations on a character and being able to analyze and critique them. It's inevitable that someone will feel unsatisfied with your thoughts on a specific character, but then again, it's your own opinion on them, it's your blog and you shouldn't bend and break for someone else's insatisfaction. As much as it is alright for them to not agree with your views on the characters, it's just as alright for you to maintain them — opinions are subjective, and even more so in fictional stories.

If someone sees it as "ridiculous" and thinks you're "hating a character" just for talking about very valid points about such character's personality (because, let's be honest, Macaque is one of the most egregious cases of mischaracterization on the LMK fandom and, by itself, for someone to claim that you "hate him" just by critiquing him as a character and analyzing his faults is an example of the exaggerated idealization towards his character as a whole), then that is their problem alone and they should learn to accept that not everyone will hold the same opinions as them. Not everyone will find that a character's redemption arc was well made or that it felt genuine enough to be considered a redemption in the first place, and that's perfectly okay! To embrace the many views and interpretations a character can have only enriches them; it does not subtract from them.

Lastly, I'm sorry for any errors or misspellings here (English is not my first language) and you don't even have to reply to this ask, but I just want you to know that you shouldn't feel bad for having an opinion that differs from the most well-known on the fandom and whatnot. I, for one, really like reading about the Season Five Prep posts along with your usual writings (the way you write the LMK characters is very on point and very enjoyable and comforting to read), and I'm certain that your other followers do so too.

I really do appreciate everyone’s support here. It means the world to me. I was terrified that I was just being childish over nothing, or that I was massively overreacting and shouldn’t have cared at all. I mean, it’s not like they were saying slurs or making calls to harass me into changing my opinion.

But it still hurt.

I spent two entire days articulating my thoughts and feelings on every villain listed so that I could just share them with the community.

And to have someone admit to just… skimming all that hard work because they disagreed with one of my very first points, and call one of my biggest criticisms “ridiculous”? To say that I didn’t sympathize with the show’s time constraints? To say that I cared more about my own feelings than those of the writers?

It hurt.

If you disagree with me, I encourage you to explicitly say so on my “Prep” posts, which were hosted on both Tumblr and Reddit so I could get as many opinions on those pieces as possible. I’ve enjoyed seeing why people enjoy Macaque’s character arc. I’ve had lovely, civil debates. Some people think “helping out” is enough of a redemption.

That’s fine! You can feel that way! It’s totally valid! It is one-hundred percent valid to disagree with me!

But I also started that tier list with an entire paragraph dedicated to my feelings on redemption, and what I personally thought a character had to do to be “redeemed”.

My finishing paragraph was italicized and bolded in full, so that it was impossible to miss. That entire paragraph was dedicated to validating and acknowledging the contrasting opinions I knew people would have- because I know my opinions are not the end-all, be-all of the fandom.

And if someone (self-admittedly) skimmed all of that and took it as me “hating Macaque” or “being unsympathetic towards the show”? and has their rebloggers openly saying they’ve “always had a problem with that piece of content” or calling me “salty”?

I’m not going to blame myself.

Again- thank you all. ❤️

[mermaidsirennikita]

besides everything you have brilliantly pointed out, there are also the underlying implications of fran theoretically not being attracted to john but having sex with him. i know they could potentially have a sexless marriage and skip the miscarriage, focusing the future struggle on the grief and guilt of moving on with someone new but... if fran doesn't really love John that would mostly be a michaela pov and we know the show isn't good at exploring the love interests (of color) trauma and motivations. also john has been presented as a sweet man that sees francesca, it would be highly unbelievable if he didn't realize she wasn't into the sex. and it seems ooc for him to keep going with it too even if at the time it happened. so if they do follow the miscarriage/pregnancy route... that could be problematic. not that they care considering what daphne did to simon but still.

First off, thank you!

Second, I've been thinking about my thoughts on this (lol thinking about my thoughts) because I want to be very careful about expressing my opinion on this subject. I know it's very sensitive and I get that, and I don't want anyone to feel dismissed or unheard (and I don't want to at all validate people who are being so homophobic and vile about this).

But yes, I thought about this as well. It seems like we really don't know where Fran and John's relationship is at all at the end of the season, even though enough time has passed for them to forge some kind of physical relationship. And I just feel like... If John was a real character in the script, if his sweet and sensitive nature was honored, then I would IMAGINE that he'd notice something, unless Fran was really good at putting on a good face (and maybe she is).

When you're with someone you care about, though.... if they held off on intimacy, he'd notice that. If Fran didn't like it, I think he'd notice that, too? Which adds some messiness to tacking this on at the end of the season. This needed TIME. It adds to this idea, too, that John isn't a character, because like? He's gonna have feelings too? Not just Fran. There's more to this than FRAN'S feelings.

I would find it really sad if they did keep the miscarriage plot, tbh, if Fran truly isn't physically attracted to him. I don't want to think of her having to put up with or frankly be traumatized by that, and I don't want to think of John being framed as this source of trauma. Besides, that's Sir Philip's thing. And yeah, him being a Black man also MATTERS, and this is something (I say this as a white woman who doesn't identify as straight these days) I really dislike seeing white viewers just sort of dismiss. This is not just a queer love story. This is an interracial queer love story, and frankly, a love triangle that involves two people of color (who happen to be related... again.... And it is interesting how that's happening again, and it does kind of say something in that these show is like "two love interests of color? MUST BE FROM THE SAME FAMILY!". Like, yeah, Kate and Edwina and Michael and John are related in the books, but those aren't actual full-blown love triangles in the books).

I think I'm just so burned by the way s2 handled Edwina and Kate that the idea of them doing a GOOD job with Michaela, especially with her added layer of her being queer in the world the show constructed, is like... I'm skeptical. And maybe that's unfair. Maybe I shouldn't be skeptical. But in general, the Btons' love interests of color have really been notably sidelined in favor of their lovers' arcs, and it was bigger for Kate than it was for Simon. Hey, Simon got a backstory.... Even if his trauma was ultimately subsumed by Daphne's story after she assaulted him.

But hey, I'm happy to be proven wrong. I really hope I will be.

I'll also say, however--I just really think that people need to understand that we can support the gesture while critiquing the writing and the way it's coming together. There are a lot of people who simply hate that they aren't getting Michael, or that there is queerness on the show at all. A LOT. Some people, however, have valid critiques. Some of them are queer people; some of them are people of color; some are both. Critique isn't JUST coming from straight women who want to see Michael.

And I mean, I've already seen a historical romance author who does identify as bi on her Twitter profile and does write actively queer books get dogged out for critiquing it, so.

[dotthings]

I guess the long term general takeaway from this Star Wars fandom mess is if you ever hesitated to watch a Star Wars show because either the fandom menace or the bitter crab bucket element of the "good" side of the fandom said it sucked, maybe reconsider!!!

Because you may have been misled, although it's valid if Star Wars just doesn't seem to be for you and you tried and give most of it a pass. That's valid. Most people don't go on to ragebait about it, tho.

And while there are problems in modern Star Wars, there were problem with Lucas era Star Wars too. If people are excessively lionizing and adulating Lucas era Star Wars while trashing everything Disney/LFL era, that's a red flag. And most of the time when people do this, they reveal their ignorance on themes and topics Lucas actually covered, which modern Star Wars is also addressing.

I've seen that fandom story before, hating on absolutely *everything* of the modern era of an IP, and invalidating everyone who likes the modern era of an IP. The anti-diversity hacks do it, but I've seen it from the embittered pro-inclusion side too and maybe people are just upset they don't have the same exact magical enchanted powerful feelings they had when they first got into the thing and they can't forgive it for not feeling like that ever again. So they are closed off to things that are good.

The bigger picture applies for media in general:

Don't buy into internet negativity as reliable narrators or the final word on whether something works or not or whether you might like it or not or whether to try it or not.

Positive word of mouth is more valuable and more reliable than ragebaiting.

If people try something due to positive word of mouth and then dislike it, at least they gave it a fair shot, decided it wasn't for them, and moved on. Again, most people don't then go on to endlessly ragebait about it.

The hate machinery of online fandoms are eating more and more territory in more and more fandoms--and it's choking the life out of sincere good faith criticism

People who talk in good faith to critique media they mostly like but have some issues with should be able to speak in peace. Genuine criticism, and good faith expression of people hurt by media, is a lot different than ragebait culture

But that doesn't mean give ragebait culture a free pass in the name of protecting "criticism"

Hatedom and ragebait culture will lie to you.

Hatedom and ragebait or bitterness culture loves to scream how everything is the destruction of this or that IP, over and over. Or how nothing is good any more. They kinda want you to be miserable and not enjoy the thing yourself. Everything's ruined now. If only [IP] was good again. If you like this you have no standards or you must be [insert straw man here]. [IP] hasn't been good since [insert subjective one true favorite thing]. (My god why are they still at it then, if they're tired, move on from it!! Find something new fcol).

Something has grown chronically, fundamentally even more broken about online discourse and online fandom and I think it would help offset it if people remembered to think for themselves instead of making decisions on what to watch based on loud mouths on the internet saying it sucked.

[theduchessofnaxos]

One of the books we had to read for my horrible historiography class introduced the MOST INTERESTING CONCEPT EVER but the whole point was you can't use it in a real history text without being laughed out of academia.

I am UPSET.

Provincializing Europe is a great book with a lot to say, but the thing I was really interested by was Chakrabarty suggesting we take spirits and gods as "coeval" with humans as historical actors. His example is a revolt where some captured leaders said they did it because a god (Thakur) appeared to them and told them to. That's been described as "they believed X" or "they used it to explain [social grievances]", but a history that truly represented those people and their perspective would be "Thakur did X."

That is such a fascinating idea - a history where you don't interpret their statements into your worldview, but simply accept their takes on their own actions. "This happened. Their opinion of their history is valid."

But you cannot. Because the historical discipline is completely beholden to Enlightenment ideals, including secularism. If you tried to present a history in which Thakur was a legitimate actor you'd be blacklisted from the profession. Which was part of Chakrabarty's point.

BUT IT'D BE SO INTERESTING.

Anyways, I am now utterly dedicated to becoming the best historian who ever lived so I can even attempt that book, because... come the hell on. If we're supposed to be decolonizing and de-Enlightening and all that crap, why can't I write a book where I truly accept my subjects' worldview and treat supernatural beings as legitimate historical actors?

Also, after spending weeks bitching about poststructuralists I have actually incorporated their critiques into my thinking and that is absolutely horrible. You know how you do things that suck because it's good for you, but you don't want to, and then you can see how your life is better because you did the horrible thing? And it's so annoying because you don't want it to work, you want it to be useless so you can continue hating it? That's having to learn historical theory and especially poststructuralism. Hate those fuckers and hate them even more because I can feel how it's improved my ability to think about history and the choices we make in telling it.

[argesta]

Thinking about Perfect Victims again, as I frequently do, and I’m curious, is there a particular reason for the title choice??? Because I really like it, but am curious!

Omg bless you for this. Taking a break from chapter 4 edits and coming online to this question is sooo rewarding right now 😭

Hope it’s okay to answer publicly because it's a topic very close to me that I’d love others to at least summarily know about - but do let me know if you’d rather I private this post (and ofc it goes without saying, my tumblr direct IMs are always open!)

Content warnings below for mentions of SA, inter partner violence & structural racism and anti-Black. You know, as one does when discussing Western perceptions of abuse.

The title comes from the “perfect victim” myth, which is in itself a revisiting of anti-criminologist and victimology scholar Nils Christie's “ideal victim" concept. It is essentially saying that both public reception & structural validation of victim’s experiences require victims to fulfill an unattainable (not to mention racialized and gendered) model of ideal victimhood, i.e. the white woman or better yet young white girl who can do no wrong or who really exhibits no agency to “detract” from her victimhood. It holds all marginalized identities to a higher standard than their white counterparts, which contributes to both the initial marginalization & victimization itself.

It also asks victims of violence (all kinds, but most notably SA, domestic violence, power abuse, revenge porn and all such charged interpersonal dynamics) to be perfect people in a way that is never demanded anywhere else. (Un)victims must be morally, aeshtetically and socially beyond reproach before their stories can be heard - let alone taken action towards. As you can imagine, this is only compounded when you take into acount race (particularly in the context of the police state and the Black experience) and sexuality (such as inter partner violence in MSM - men who have sex with men, as well as in queer people that do not subscribe to a given framework through which gendered victimhood can be filtered).

It’s a field that saw a lot of contentious revisiting & critique in recent years which I’m all for, and what draws me to it is the psychological hook of internalizing ideal victimhood in ourselves. Like, people are really out here policing their own self-experience of being neglected/abused/subjected to all kinds of treatment because they somehow think that the agency they proved by ‘choosing’ that or ‘staying’ through it or even harbouring positive feelings & memories towards it nullifies their victimhood. Having agency does not mean you cannot be victimized - just like being victimized does not mean you lost all agency forevermore & cannot victimize others in turn.

Having agency really means no more and no less than just being like, an adult person on this earth. Of course you will make choices and of course you will adapt to all kinds of situation because it’s what you knew to do at the time. Agency is sort of inescapable - and yes, while of course in abusive situations or structural realities that leave you with very few options, your agency will always be limited, and in some cases even taken away, at the end of the day equating an image of “true victimhood” with “individual with no agency” is perhaps the most dangeorus and insiduous extremity of the perfect victim myth. Because it doesn’t just ask people to be good if they want to be validated as victims - it asks people not to be people.

Anyway! So sorry for this! I am among many things a decolonial scholarship post-grad and this ends up being everyone’s problem. I can be fun in Q&A's too - just ask me about chapter titles! No content warnings there! Not even a mention of Frantz Fanon, swear down!

[c-kiddo]

i agree that cr pc designs / outfits could be more interesting but i honestly chalked it up to players' wishes. iirc one of the artists for c2 even on here said that Taliesin at least gave lots of feedback on how the character and outfit should look. also (this is probably a mean read) some outfits read as like. superhero comics aesthetic. like that seems to be what the crew likes visually.

to be fair it's not like we're getting super detailed clothing descriptions ever, or how things really work. i kinda accepted that Convenience Rule is like a couple lines down from Rules as Written and Rule of Cool

oh yea, thats push-back i've got when i've critiqued the characters outfit designs before that its the players' choices , which idk man i dont thinks a particularly valid argument because they have their subjective taste and things they like (superhero adjacent like you said) and i have my tastes and things i look out for in costume and character design (textiles as worldbuilding, accurate to the established technology in the setting). like i do think some of them have more direct input on their characters designs based on how interested they are and if they do art themselves , like taliesins clearly v into designing them which i thinks neat like hell yea man. still dont like cads flat ironed hair or the weird impossible-to-put-on glove?bracer? things he has in his level 20 art lmao but like it is very rule-of-cool and i can respect that. i just have different tastes but also im much more into the detail/storytelling and practicality of clothing in a setting like thats extremely more fun and interesting to me. like omggg this particular weave is used in x city yaaaya

tru we dont get super in-depth descriptions of the clothes, tools or textile industries in exandria but i would say that based on all other worldbuilding that during cr2 at least its mostly pre-1900s tech (and elastane for example was invented in the 1950s) and often much earlier medieval fantasy leaning, but then with their own unique technology coming from magic. like i dont know that they have electricity ?? magic replaces it in any example i could think of (lamps, heating etc) . .

[frank-olivier]

The Battle for the Truth: Science, Rhetoric, and the Public Sphere

Reality is nothing but a collective hunch. — Lily Tomlin

The pursuit of knowledge is marked by a paradoxical dynamic where systems embodying the principles of scientific inquiry, acknowledging their own incompleteness and embracing the provisional nature of truth, are frequently attacked by counterparts that proclaim absolute certainty yet often lack a foundation in empirical evidence. This phenomenon raises a profound question about why rigorously scientific systems, aware of their limitations, incur criticism from unscientific systems that claim completeness. The underlying reasons for this critique are rooted in epistemological, psychological, and sociological factors that drive this seemingly counterintuitive conflict.

At the heart of scientific systems lies an inherent humility, an acknowledgment of the complexity of the subject matter, and a willingness to revise or even overturn existing theories based on new evidence. This openness is not a sign of weakness but a hallmark of the scientific method, which thrives on skepticism, peer review, and empirical validation. However, this selfsame openness can be misconstrued by critics from closed systems as indecisiveness or uncertainty, providing a perceived foothold for attack. In contrast, closed systems often present themselves as comprehensive and definitive, eschewing the nuanced uncertainties of scientific inquiry for the comforting simplicity of absolute truths. This appeal to certainty resonates deeply with a public frequently overwhelmed by the intricacies of modern life, seeking clear, uncomplicated answers to complex questions.

A significant portion of the critique stems from a fundamental misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation of the scientific process. The iterative nature of scientific inquiry, where theories are refined or revised based on new evidence, is often portrayed as flip-flopping or lack of conviction. Critics from closed systems may fail to grasp or choose to obscure the distinction between the provisional nature of scientific knowledge and the method's robustness in approaching truth. Beneath the surface of these critiques often lie power dynamics and ideological differences. Closed systems may perceive scientific findings as a threat to their influence, audience, or worldview, prompting a defensive stance that manifests as attacks on the scientific system's legitimacy. Philosophical disagreements over the nature of truth, the role of empiricism, or the balance between consensus and dissent also fuel these conflicts, highlighting the deeply entrenched nature of these disputes.

To address this paradox, education and awareness are crucial. Enhancing public understanding of the scientific method can foster a broader appreciation for its strengths and the inherent value of acknowledging complexity. Scientists and science communicators must effectively convey the provisional nature of scientific knowledge, highlighting its adaptive and refining aspects as strengths rather than weaknesses. Encouraging respectful, open dialogue between proponents of different systems, while challenging, can facilitate mutual understanding and, in some instances, reconciliation of viewpoints. Strengthening science education and promoting clear communication are key strategies to navigate this paradox, ultimately fostering a more informed, critically thinking society.

The critique of scientific systems by unscientific counterparts underscores a profound misunderstanding of the scientific endeavor. Rather than a vulnerability, the acknowledgment of incompleteness is a badge of honor, reflecting the scientific community's unwavering commitment to the pursuit of truth, no matter how complex or provisional. Embracing education, clear communication, and engaged dialogue becomes paramount, not only for the integrity of scientific knowledge but for the fostering of a society that values critical thinking and the pursuit of knowledge. By navigating this paradox with awareness and strategies aimed at enhancing public understanding and dialogue, we can work towards a future where the scientific method is valued for its strengths, and the provisional nature of truth is seen as a catalyst for continuous learning and improvement.

Marjorie Shapiro: Supersymmetry, Extra Dimensions and the Origin of Mass - Exploring the Nature of the Universe Using PetaScale Data Analysis (Google Tech Talks, June 2007)

String Theory isn‘t Dead (Sabine Hossenfelder, December 2024)

The Problem With Sabine Hossenfelder (Professor Dave Explains, October 2024)

No, Sabine, Science is Not Failing (Professor Dave Explains, November 2024)

Lawrence Krauss: God, String Theory, and the State of Physics (Robinson Erhardt, March 2024)

Sabine Hossenfelder Can’t Stop Acting Like a Complete Fraud (Professor Dave Explains, February 2025)

Wednesday, February 26, 2025