#which will involve saying critical things about dean

[wellofdean]

OK, I was going to reblog this excellent post by @luckshiptoshore so go read it, because yes. Yes!! YES!!! But then when I got started my post got super long and I felt bad tacking it onto her post and decided to make my own in response to these tags:

#i am actually a bit obsessed by the whole hunting as queerness metaphor#it’s so clearly something everyone involved in the show is thinking about#supernatural

Gurl, me too! Like go back to the start! By the time Supernatural began, the backlash against the Joseph Campbell Monomyth-style mode of storytelling had already begun in the hallowed halls of USC film school, and yo: I was there at the time of Kripke's graduation, and my best friends from college are full scale big giant time filmmakers now, whose names I will not share on main because it's uncool, and I don't want that attention, but... yeah. I am referencing FIRST HAND SOURCES on this.

But, for a real source? The Oxford English Dictionary places the first use of the term "Queer Theory" in 1990, with Queer Studies as an option in the academy by 1992. I know the kids think it's a new-fangled thing, but Kripke graduated USC in 1996 (I graduated in 1995) and it was ALL THE RAGE by then. My friends read queer theory in their Critical Studies courses in the Film School, I read it in the College of Humanities getting my degree in Literature. By that time, you could not get through that school with any degree in any non-STEM subject without knowing about ye olde postmodern lenses, queer and feminist theory, and without knowing how to employ those lenses.

Queer refers to sexuality, yes, but the word's earliest use (again, according to the OED) is in the 1500's, meaning: strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric. Also: of questionable character; suspicious, dubious.

So, ok, in 2005, Enter Supernatural, episode 1:

Presented? Two brothers. One actively seeking credit in the straight world that is not available to him in the bosom of his family: Stanford, law school, hot co-ed girlfriend, the other bound to his fractured, wounded family by duty, yes, but also by love, living on the fringe, alone, fighting monsters, and chasing after his father's approval, and who has long since given up any dream of being 'normal'. Episode 1 presents Sam's call to adventure, which he refuses when it's just familial duty, honor and love calling him, but accepts when the show takes a very straightforward and very telling path by classically fridging his woman. Ok, now he's on board. Like John, whose motivation is another dead woman, his motivation is revenge. So far so straight!

Dean though: he's different. He is already on the adventure and he was not 'called' or given the option of accepting or refusing because he had no agency when his feet were set upon this road. He does not fit the straight world at all, because he is cobbled together out of love, duty, deep guilt, striving, desperation and fear. This is who he is now, in some elemental, incontrovertible way. It was not a choice for him, he was born to it. His mother is dead, and we later learn, she made the choices that brought them all to this fate. Dean remembers her idyllically, but he is not motivated by revenge, more than any other thing, he wants to be worthy. He wants his father's approval, his brother's love.

Enter Supernatural's main theme: fucked up relationships between men enmeshed in patriarchy, which will eventually expand to include fucking GOD HIMSELF.

And like, there are SO MANY CLEAR STEPS ALONG THE ROAD in season one, and I am not even talking about sexuality and gender here, but there is SO MUCH TO SAY about it in season 1. But I am not talking about that -- I am talking at a structural, narrative level, the whole thing is just fucking all the way queered, yo.

The big climax?

At the end of the season, Dean says: "I just want my family back together. You, me, Dad... it's all I have." He is Sam's mother, John's partner! His vulnerability and emotion is feminized and contrasted with Sam and John's more overtly driven by their more masculine/straight heroic revenge quest. John: "Sam and I can get pretty obsessed, but you always take care of this family." Only that's not John talking, it's Azazel, and Dean knows it is because his father would never forgive how soft he is, how he will always choose love and family over revenge. Then, in the end, the show makes a huge point of telegraphing that Sam is finally aligning with Dean by refusing to shoot Azazel because he's possessing John, and Sam just can't do that to Dean.

Sam and Dean are thus bound together and cemented into a marginalised path, living on the road, haunting liminal spaces and cheap motels, confronting the monstrous everyday. Sam is presented as the brains of the operation, he does research, logics his way through things (masculine) while Dean is the heart who acts impulsively and on instinct and intuition (feminine).

It later transpires that Sam has a piece of the monster inside himself, and Dean has to learn to love the monstrous, he has no choice, because Sam is his brother and then Cas... and, and, and!

Like... I could go on and on, citing ENDLESS EXAMPLES. This could be a literal book. Maybe one you need to read with a magnifying glass like my condensed edition of the OED. LIke, the queerness of Supernatural is DIZZYING and MYRIAD.

But basically? FROM THE START, hunting is a queered version of family, and within that, Dean is a queered version of a Campbellian hero. Hunting is a metaphor for otherness and liminality, and that's even before you say a WORD about sex. It starts in deviation from the norms of family, masculinity and expands from there on so many levels both in story and on a meta level. The story is flesh on queer fucking bones.

I'm so sorry, but anyone who thinks queerness was not BAKED INTO Supernatural and more specifically into Dean from DAY 1 has clearly never seen Dean's insane lip gloss in season 1, and vastly underestimates the cultural awareness of people who write shit in Hollywood, and also the other people who put pink lip gloss on pretty boys in Hollywood. Nothing that gets on your screen wasn't a fucking choice made and approved by a LONG LIST of people who know what they are about.

[ardentpoop]

your thoughts on the whole Sam is like a psychopath at times and that makes him interesting kind of takes in the fandom? (The first post I saw like this was along the lines of how Bobby might have not noticed the differences between sam and soulless sam initially because they are actually very similar.) I think that these sort of takes are what you refer to when you say you dislike how the fandom calls sam blood freak. I agree with the blood freak thing bc I found sams writing of that arc very emotionally compelling and reducing it down to blood freak and how its so quirky sam likes blood infuriates me so much. Especially since it's usually from a certain set of ppl who typically don't pay much interest to Sam who do this a lot.

I don’t like it and I don’t want to see it :) I usually block people for takes like this fyi.

some of my absolute least favorite interpretations & characterizations from this fandom come from ppl who exaggerate sam’s Inherent Evil - which isn’t actually a thing if you’re thinking critically abt him as a character at all. his “dirtiness”/“freak” status/“craziness”/“badness” are all horrible things he believes about himself and that everyone with any measure of power in his world (including - most importantly - dean) reinforces, but the tragedy is that none of it is true. you’d think more of the audience would be able to grasp this very simple concept esp given the real-world implications. then again many people can’t even read a statement as basic as “supernatural’s hunters vs monsters worldview is fundamentally flawed” without freaking out at whoever posted it. so fuck me.

I don’t think I can give you a more detailed rebuttal rn because I am very tired and these takes in particular are genuinely upsetting to me at the best of times. however I wish more of the audience knew to pay attention to how sam’s Monstrosity is consistently framed throughout the series vs how dean’s (always fleeting, always beyond his control) Monstrosity is framed, because that way I could point out the differences btwn how the fandom talks abt soulless!sam (also known as “robo sam” by the fans) and how they talk about, say, MOC!dean….. without someone trying to claim I’m just being dramatic. there’s a double standard on the show that’s intensely worsened by the fandom; in fact the popular fanon affected the direction of the canon in terms of sam and dean’s treatment as characters over the years given this was a series that involved a pretty unique degree of writer/viewer collaboration.

[walk-to-gallows]

Mary was too much. The show spent to much time in the past they didn’t need to drag Mary back into their lives for MORE FAMILY DRAMA. There were so many options for Amara to grant Dean some wish or some desire that he wanted there was no reason to dig into his rat nest of a life and drag Mary from heaven as some gift to Dean. To me that was as bad as 11 or 12 seasons later we had to put up with meeting Sam’s imaginary friend. They didn’t ring us dry of Sam pity enough? Do we need something more weird from his life to ring the tears from us?

While I didn’t sit at home hating or blogging about her in some crazy negative way. I think I only made one post about her right after she appeared but I was happy to see her go.

Yeah, you're getting the full rant; Mary was a reclamation.

Like most horror media, Supernatural has a bad habit of fridging its female characters to give its male characters a fighting reason. Up until her resurrection, Mary was only present in the past, she was just a memory rather than a person, the perfect mother, perfect wife, perfect woman because she was dead.

Of course killing off a family member is a customary trick of the trade, it’s strong stuff for motivating your characters, but when your pilot opens with not one, but two female characters being killed for the sake of their male partners arc, there’s a problem there.

Mary’s return is important for many reasons. Her presence parallels Jack’s, the ghost of the past and the hope of the future, the undead and the newly born. She represents autonomy being given to women in horror, like Kelly Kline, these women aren’t just hills for men to die on anymore.

Mary is the beginning, she’s the start of it all. Her return was hardly heralded in a way that made us expect her, but she’s not a random prize. Mary’s death has been the catalyst of Sam and Dean’s entire life, and as they move on to the future, there’s a need for them to reconcile with the past, especially with Jack’s introduction.

From this ask and your next, I'm guessing you're much more a fan of Dean than Sam, and I won't lie, my preferences lie that way too, but I fear that you're letting your biases cloud your judgement.

Mary's return has much more to do with Dean than Sam, Dean was four when Mary died, he actually remembers her. Her return spurs a whole new arc for him where he has to come to terms with her absence in his life and the glorified version of her that he grew up with as a result of his young age, Dean feels abandoned by his mother both in the past and in the present.

And once again, with Jack's introduction and Dean's role as one of his parents, there's more for Dean to move through. Dean was incredibly involved in Sam's childhood, and yet now when he's an adult he find himself often emotionally unavailable like his own father was once.

Not to mention, Sam and Dean's lives have been tightly intertwined beyond what is normal for most siblings, they've spent years apart, but they've often only had each other to rely on. Most things that concern one of them will also concern the other. Yes, Mary's return gives Sam a chance to know his mother the way he was never able to, but it also gives Dean the opportunity to reconcile with his childhood, to say things to his mother he never thought he'd be able to say, to resolve a part of his life that has been an open, festering wound.

Dean lost his father to hunting, it's something he struggles to reconcile with (which is why 14x13 is so important but that's another rant). It's part of the reason he's defensive of Sam's criticism of John, because Dean remembers a time when John was attentive and gentle, and not the soldier he regressed to.

In season 1, we see Sam learn that side of John, the part of him that put away money into a college fund for his boys, that hoped for a future free from bloodshed, and he comes to terms with the loss of a father he had never gotten the chance to know.

This is what Dean gets with Mary, the chance to know his mother as she was, as a person and an individual. The resentment that Sam carried for John is comparable to that which Dean carries for Mary, it's a one-dimensional view of their parents, anger at what they weren't just as much as what they were. Dean blames Mary for his childhood, and while I don't think the culpability rests on her, it is that unresolved anger that brings his mother back to him.

Mary gets a second chance at life, Dean gets a second chance with his mother, and he brings her back to him. I really find it difficult to understand how so many people dismiss this plot line, because not only does it parallel the way Sam and Dean slowly lost their father to the hunting life, it is a direct result of Dean's lingering anger and grief that makes Mary their mother again. She avoids them, throws herself back into hunting because it's what's familiar in this world that has aged beyond her, and the guilt of seeing her boys, who have grown despite her absence, is too much to bear. Dean forces her past this guilt, he allows her to forgive herself because he hates her for being gone, but he loves her too, and her knowing that her absence now counts as much as her absence then is what changes everything.

The character writing in supernatural is something that can be so good, I hate to see the hate-train on Mary coming at full speed because she didn't live up to audience expectations (never mind that those expectations were based on snapshots of her from her grieving husband and sons, or the younger and "innocent" version of her). Anyway, you're free to dislike Mary, at the end of the day my opinion is my opinion and yours is your own, but the fact of the matter is that Mary's return was incredibly significant for the overall plot, and Dean's character arc and growth.

[tiktaalic]

tbh my problem with lebanon is i don't think anyone making that episode understands it the way we do. which i guess it's the same for the whole show, but the fact it's all because jdm got involved makes it extra annoying

I straight up don’t think that’s true. I have a lot of criticisms of meredith Glynn but she’s on record as a destiel warrior and it follows that she’s got like. A modicum of understanding of John. Andrew dabb wrote adam’s introduction ep. He took you to a frigging baseball game? And like. The things that they say WITHIN the episode reflect this very fraught toe the line relationship. It’s been awhile since I watched it and it FLOORED me that Sam said “when dad leaves he goes back to just being dad” because. It’s a very textual understanding that they’re all playing in a suspended space not representative of their actual lived relationship. Everyone’s doing the let’s-not-talk-about-that-right-now family dinner shuffle. I am a little iffy on the whole Sam and John convo where Sam’s like I forgive you I don’t want to fight I’ve always just wanted to talk to you one last time ever since I saw you dead on the floor. But I mean. Grief DOES do weird things to people. Grief about your abusive parent does REALLY weird things to people. And there’s somewhat of a precedent where even back in dead man’s blood season 1 where Sam and John are about to smack each other they sit down and have a conversation where John goes. Hey. I know I messed up with you guys. I’m sorry. And Sam’s like. Okay. I get it. Which I DOUBLE love because in dead man’s blood this is a convo John and Sam have while dean is out Doing Tasks. And dean never has a one on one heart to heart with his father. And in Lebanon. This is a convo John and Sam have while dean is helping Mary with a shopping list. And there’s no equivalent drawn out dialogue between dean and John on their own. It’s very. Poor dean nobody care him.

[thegeminisage]

For Never Have I Ever: there was only one bed!

THANK YOOOU the last 3 or 4 times i posted one of these i didn't get a response you're a real g.

i have actually never written only one bed, unless you count "only two beds" playing a small but mighty role in the ot3 sleeping arrangements in @cambionverse, during which jesse turner, local antichrist who has spent 3 years in the wilderness running away from hunters because they traumatized him, winds up slipping into ben's bed (who is also a hunter) because there are only two beds, and the other bed is occupied by claire, who has a big flashing neon sign above her head that says NO TOUCHING EVER AND ALSO NO EMOTIONAL CLOSENESS EVER. anyway, ben and jesse wind up hooking up, surprise surprise (dean also once catches them snuggling in the back of ben's pickup, which he takes REALLY well and is super normal about), but then ben dies, and jesse misses sleeping beside someone, and claire misses the sound of ben breathing, so while on their journey to resurrect ben they ALSO begin to share a bed, and...? well. the fic is still being updated.

HOWEVER. if i were writing it properly, as in, the point of the fic, i can think of no better character to do this with than spock. (coin toss on whether or not the other bed sharer is jim or bones - normally i'd do both but i think it'd be hard to do THREE people in one bed.) in that one really racist episode we cannot get into rn spock is like "vulcans don't need sleep as much as humans" even though his ass is half-human, and he is also weird about his personal space. so if there was only one place to sleep and they had to share he would insist he was simply fine Not Sleeping (lie). and eventually his reaction times would slow, his thinking would get muddled...bonus points if it's cold or he's injured or some such thing that makes his resistance even more stupid. like, it's only logical to take the bed offered, mister spock. get your ass in there. snuggle. cuddle. canoodle, even. i think there would have to be something very specific he was afraid of or dreading besides simply the invasion of personal space that involved, ultimately, getting judged by whoever was in bed with him - dream transference? morning wood? trying to octopus his partner in their sleep because he secretly loves cuddling actually? and then that exact thing would have to happen except it would be fine because his bed partner would NOT judge him, the whole point of spock ships is he finally gets a space to be free of that constant criticism that's dogged him all his life. anyway, then spock and whoever would continue to share a bed regularly once they got back to their normal arrangements.

[ASK MEME!!!]

[jinkieswouldyoulookatthis]

I'm (not) sorry if this is mean to say but people who do the 'you know they're brothers' thing are actually so unbelievably stupid. Just shockingly dumb as bricks. Past even the ridiculousness of saying that at all, it's so evident how little they've ever delved into anything complex and interesting, not through academia nor through hobbies. To throw up this completely useless 'defense' about them being related whenever they feel uncomfortable instead of taking any time at all to acknowledge that grown functional adults from all socioeconomic and national backgrounds are out here shipping this pairing, with developed brains and life experiences and griefs and losses and quirks and loves of their own, which means MAYBE just maybe the brain dead interpretation of us us running around kicking our feet going 'doy i love incest i'd do incest irl if i could' is flawed like??? Sometimes it really blows my mind how surface level these people are in intellect and in personality. They couldn't carry a coherent conversation about anything even if they tried

It does boggle the mind, doesn't it. When I'm feeling generous, which I try to be as often as I can manage, I remind myself that there is a wide array of experiences that people have had. Some of those experiences have taught some people how to critically separate fiction from reality, while some of them have actively suppressed the development of that particular skill set. Sadly, there are a lot of people out there who really struggle with the very concepts of imagination, empathy, or sympathy. So the idea that one can connect to a piece of fiction and embrace it because it is inherently problematic or disturbing is one that is beyond a lot of people's grasp.

I honestly think that part of this is fed by the blurring of the line between thoughts and actions too. Many groups preach that to think a thing is just as bad as to do a thing, so that when members of those groups see someone like me enjoying the idea of Sam and Dean fucking each other's brains out, they see no difference between that and me wanting to fuck my own sibling, no matter how many times that I assure them that I would never, that I do not and would not ever even think of my sister that way, let alone actually ever consider it 🤢. But there is no subtly or nuance between thoughts and actions for them. This lack of nuance also leads them to equate all incest situations as 100% always bad/evil, and basically reduces it all down to pedophilia and sexual assault. Now, pedophilia and sexual assault are bad, mmmkay, but I do not think that what consenting adults do between themselves (read: all involved parties are consenting adults), even if they are directly related individuals, is or should be anyone else's concern. But in fiction, you can literally do whatever you want to any of the fictional characters because they are not real people. <- and that right there is beyond them. It doesn't matter if it is gross or bad or wrong or whatever, you can have fictional characters do and suffer through it all and it's not harming anyone at all.

But whatever, I guess. They don't get it so they're not going to get it and that's actually okay, they don't have to. It would be nice if they did, but it is what it is. So I will continue to occasionally get snarky about it and otherwise go about my business of reading and writing about those Winchester brothers fucking the daylights out of one another.

[angelsdean]

To be fair, people don’t think Dean was this raging misogynist in the earlier seasons just because he slept around. It was because he tried to fuck anyone with boobs and the minute a woman did something he didn’t like he turned around and called them a bitch. Like that word was used by Dean sooo much in the earlier seasons. I remember feeling so uncomfortable by the time I finished watching season 1 for the first time. Hell, I almost stopped watching the show because of that single fact. And this isn’t even like my personal opinion because I remember there were even articles criticizing spn’s misogyny lol. I assume the writers were told to tone it down because that word was used less and less as the show progressed.

hmm i'm not saying you're wrong bc i'm only 7 eps into my rewatch and i don't remember specifics of stuff like that from when i watched the whole series in 2020 however i will say these are things i've been paying a lot of attention to in the eps i have watched so far and while yes dean will make an exaggerated show of checking women out in what imo reads as over-the-top and caricature-like, which in my personal reading i interpret as overcompensating, and he'll my the occasional "she's hot" comment or an appreciating face, none of his scenes with women so far have shown him actively trying to sleep with anyone. And, this was a post i was going to make after finishing 1x07, but by the 7th episode, dean's only been kissed on the check and a lip peck, both leaving him flustered and borderline shy, while in 1x07 we see sam get a longer more involved kiss from the girl of the week before he stops it because of his grief over jess. So, like i'm not saying dean doesn't display some sexist behavior later. Because forreal this show is a product of its time and it does have that sexist 2000s tv vibe a lot, but even when I watched the first time I remembered feeling a distinct disconnect between what we were being told about dean versus what we were actually seeing. Like we don't actually see him have sex with anyone until Cassie, his first love.

I'm going to be very fair throughout my rewatch like I've already noted some just "meh" things dean's said in 1x07. Like he tells sam to "stay out of her panty drawer" when sam has to go search the girl's house. And sam makes a face like wtf? And I was also like, wtf. But again for me and the way I read dean, esp in the early season, is through that lens of, okay this is what he's saying but what he's saying a lot of the times is part of an act. And Sam is our POV character too and he also sees Dean a certain way because that's his big brother and he has this idea of who Dean is supposed to be in relation to him, the charismatic ladies man to his "nerd." Idk this is getting long and there's really so much i want to say about Dean and all of this but, bottom line is, I don't doubt there are questionable moments from Dean in a show that started in the early 2000s. So far I haven't seen many of those moments, nor him aggressively trying to sleep with anyone. However, these are things I do plan to look out for because my "studies" i guess and focus rn is looking at the facade of Dean Winchester vs the subtext. And also looking at comparisons between Dean and Sam and their early seasons dynamics in general.

[mariacallous]

In the weeks following the release of OpenAI’s viral chatbot ChatGPT late last year, Google AI chief Jeff Dean expressed concern that deploying a conversational search engine too quickly might pose a reputational risk for Alphabet. But last week Google announced its own chatbot, Bard, which in its first demo made a factual error about the James Webb Space Telescope.

Also last week, Microsoft integrated ChatGPT-based technology into Bing search results. Sarah Bird, Microsoft’s head of responsible AI, acknowledged that the bot could still “hallucinate” untrue information but said the technology had been made more reliable. In the days that followed, Bing claimed that running was invented in the 1700s and tried to convince one user that the year is 2022.

Alex Hanna sees a familiar pattern in these events—financial incentives to rapidly commercialize AI outweighing concerns about safety or ethics. There isn’t much money in responsibility or safety, but there’s plenty in overhyping the technology, says Hanna, who previously worked on Google’s Ethical AI team and is now head of research at nonprofit Distributed AI Research.

The race to make large language models—AI systems trained on massive amounts of data from the web to work with text—and the movement to make ethics a core part of the AI design process began around the same time. In 2018, Google launched the language model BERT, and before long Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia had released similar projects based on the AI that is now part of Google search results. Also in 2018, Google adopted AI ethics principles said to limit future projects. Since then, researchers have warned that large language models carry heightened ethical risks and can spew or even intensify toxic, hateful speech. These models are also predisposed to making things up.

As startups and tech giants have attempted to build competitors to ChatGPT, some in the industry wonder whether the bot has shifted perceptions for when it’s acceptable or ethical to deploy AI powerful enough to generate realistic text and images.

OpenAI’s process for releasing models has changed in the past few years. Executives said the text generator GPT-2 was released in stages over months in 2019 due to fear of misuse and its impact on society (that strategy was criticized by some as a  publicity stunt). In 2020, the training process for its more powerful successor, GPT-3, was well documented in public, but less than two months later OpenAI began commercializing the technology through an API for developers. By November 2022, the ChatGPT release process included no technical paper or research publication, only a blog post, a demo, and soon a subscription plan.

Irene Solaiman, policy director at open source AI startup Hugging Face, believes outside pressure can help hold AI systems like ChatGPT to account. She is working with people in academia and industry to create ways for nonexperts to perform tests on text and image generators to evaluate bias and other problems. If outsiders can probe AI systems, companies will no longer have an excuse to avoid testing for things like skewed outputs or climate impacts, says Solaiman, who previously worked at OpenAI on reducing the system’s toxicity. 

Each evaluation is a window into an AI model, Solaiman says, not a perfect readout of how it will always perform. But she hopes to make it possible to identify and stop harms that AI can cause because alarming cases have already arisen, including players of the game AI Dungeon using GPT-3 to generate text describing sex scenes involving children. “That’s an extreme case of what we can’t afford to let happen,” Solaiman says.

Solaiman’s latest research at Hugging Face found that major tech companies have taken an increasingly closed approach to the generative models they released from 2018 to 2022. That trend accelerated with Alphabet’s AI teams at Google and DeepMind, and more widely across companies working on AI after the staged release of GPT-2. Companies that guard their breakthroughs as trade secrets can also make the forefront of AI less accessible for marginalized researchers with few resources, Solaiman says.

As more money gets shoveled into large language models, closed releases are reversing the trend seen throughout the history of the field of natural language processing. Researchers have traditionally shared details about training data sets, parameter weights, and code to promote reproducibility of results. “We have increasingly little knowledge about what database systems were trained on or how they were evaluated, especially for the most powerful systems being released as products,” says Alex Tamkin, a Stanford University PhD student whose work focuses on large language models.

He credits people in the field of AI ethics with raising public consciousness about why it’s dangerous to move fast and break things when technology is deployed to billions of people. Without that work in recent years, things could be a lot worse.

In fall 2020, Tamkin co-led a symposium with OpenAI’s policy director, Miles Brundage, about the societal impact of large language models. The interdisciplinary group emphasized the need for industry leaders to set ethical standards and take steps like running bias evaluations before deployment and avoiding certain use cases.

Tamkin believes external AI auditing services need to grow alongside the companies building on AI because internal evaluations tend to fall short. He believes participatory methods of evaluation that include community members and other stakeholders have great potential to increase democratic participation in the creation of AI models.

Merve Hickok, who is a research director at an AI ethics and policy center at the University of Michigan, says trying to get companies to put aside or puncture AI hype, regulate themselves, and adopt ethics principles isn’t enough. Protecting human rights means moving past conversations about what’s ethical and into conversations about what’s legal, she says.

Hickok and Hanna of DAIR are both watching the European Union finalize its AI Act this year to see how it treats models that generate text and imagery. Hickok said she’s especially interested in seeing how European lawmakers treat liability for harm involving models created by companies like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.

“Some things need to be mandated because we have seen over and over again that if not mandated, these companies continue to break things and continue to push for profit over rights, and profit over communities,” Hickok says.

While policy gets hashed out in Brussels, the stakes remain high. A day after the Bard demo mistake, a drop in Alphabet’s stock price shaved about $100 billion in market cap. “It’s the first time I’ve seen this destruction of wealth because of a large language model error on that scale,” says Hanna. She is not optimistic this will convince the company to slow its rush to launch, however. “My guess is that it’s not really going to be a cautionary tale.”

[urrone]

20 fanfic questions

Tagged by @swaps55 (thank yooooou)

Tagging: do you wanna do it? man just do it. have fun. go ham.

How many works do you have on AO3?

26

2. What's your total AO3 words count?

216,983

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently? It's mostly Dragon Age and Mass Effect, but I've also written hockey rpf, popslash (which is not included in the works count or the word count), Supernatural, SPN RPF, LotR, the Hunger Games, and Julie and the Phantoms.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

What Remains - SPN, Dean goes missing, Sam tries to find him

Shape I'm In - hockey RPF, Tyler takes a hard hit during a game, Jamie gets in a fight, this is the aftermath

Never Lived a Time Better Spent in Love - hockey RPF, Sid/Geno many years down the line, adopt a baby together

Actually, Plenty - SPN, a coda to What Remains set 15 years after that story

Everything Changes, Everything Stays the Same - SPN, Sam rescues Dean from hell, things change for them after that

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Always, I've had people comment about the fact that I'm still responding to comments on fifteen year old fic. If you're going to read and take the time to comment, I'm gonna say thank you. Plus, community is the best part of fandom, how can you have community if you're not talking?

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh it's for sure lathbora viran which is the only story I've written that I had to tag "no happy ending." Although honestly swaps would probably say that For a Single Yesterday was also pretty fuckin' angsty. But Kaidan finds peace, my poor inquisitor absolutely did not.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably my Julie and the Phantoms fic, gravity, though I did absolutely take people through the ringer first.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

When I first got into hockey I ended up on the anon hate list for a hot minute because it was obvious from the first fic I posted that I didn't know anything about hockey because, well, I didn't. I'd never watched it before I got involved in the fandom. So it was valid criticism even if it was mean spirited.

9. Do you write smut. If so what kind?

The smuttiest thing I've ever written is a PWP threesome for the Oilers boys called Hold You Down. I enjoy reading smut but as a noted ace I feel awkward as fuck about writing it.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Yes. Crazy is such a subjective word, but I've written the hockey dudes into the Pacific Rim world and I fixed the shit about the Pac Rim world that never really made sense. I had a much more in depth story plotted out but I lost steam on writing RPF.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I've ever been told?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, but that fic is no longer online.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Twice. I had fun both times but prefer to set my own pace through a fic.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I don't really have an all time to write, they're all my favorites.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I still feel very guilty about a popslash WIP that I know will never be finished.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Pretty prose.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I try to avoid writing action sequences because I have no idea how to make them sound cool.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If I can have a native speaker assist, yes. If I have to run it through google translate, absolutely not.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I was writing extra scenes into the Princess Bride when I was 12 years old.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Idk, they're all my children. I love them all equally. I think in general I'm most proud of the Julie and the Phantoms fic, because I just really feel like I nailed the thesis of it, because I had a thesis, and it wasn't just "a meets b and they fall in love." (Which isn't a diss, this is what I usually write, that fic was just different.) But yeah, they're all my favorite. YOU tell ME which your favorite is.

[coraniaid]

Self indulgently, supernatural dashboard osmosis?

The main thing I know about Supernatural is that if I ever complain about something I don't like about the writing on Buffy, and it gets more than about twenty notes, there is a good chance that one of those notes will be somebody saying "oh, yeah, Supernatural also does this, but much worse".  Despite the criticism, this person will almost always be a fan of Supernatural, probably to the extent that their tumblr is about nothing else.

More generally, the relationship between tumblr and Supernatural is (I am led to believe) analogous to the relationship between tvtropes and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is difficult to imagine one existing without the other. (I have, unfortunately, watched several episodes of BBC Sherlock and I actually quite like what I've seen of Doctor Who, but the impression I get is that -- for better or worse -- the 'Super' part of Superwholock has had a much longer lasting impact on this site's culture.)

As for the actual plot:

Sam and Dean are brothers and they hunt monsters because ... uh.  I think it's a family business of some sort? Their father also used to hunt monsters, but I don't think he's around anymore. The show starts out as a Buffy/X-files-style monster of the week deal, but the show keeps escalating its threats and is never canceled, so by about halfway the 'monsters of the week' are Biblical archangels or Lucifer and the actual Big Bads are ... God, I guess?  The Demiurge?  Something more powerful than that? The world ends at least once.  (This might just be a Heroes-style Bad Future, but Sam and Dean definitely spend some time on the wrong side of an apocalypse.)

The show's writers are very sure that both Sam and Dean are straight.  Nobody who has actually watched the show agrees.  The few characters on the show that the writers admit are gay do not live for long.  

One of the brothers dies and goes to hell but he gets better.

At some point in the show's history, probably after one of them has been to hell, they adopt(?) a child called Jack who is basically the antichrist. He grows up  to be a moody teenager (like Connor from Angel).  Then he dies and everyone is mad about it.

Misha Collins plays an angel called Castiel who falls in love with one of the brothers at some point; I don't know for sure which but I think it's Dean.  (The actor who plays I-think-he's-Dean is Jensen something but I'd have to google to be sure of a last name.)  At least 50% of Supernatural fan discourse is about Castiel; people seem to like him.

Presumably women also exist in the world of Supernatural, as well as all the ghosts and demons and Biblically-accurate angels, but I could not tell you the name of a female  character on this show if my life depended on it.

In November 2020, in the final(?) episode of the show, Misha Collins confesses his love to presumably-Dean and is immediately sent to (super)hell, the show having already established that going to ordinary hell is basically fine whenever it was that one of the brothers went there. As far as large parts of tumblr are concerned this is the most significant thing to have happened in world history that month.  This gives birth to the only Supernatural meme I 100% know is from Supernatural, the "I love you" / "[news of recent horrific event]" one.

The show was on the air for about twenty years.  At the end of it everyone in the cast was utterly sick of it and never wanted to see each other again. About a year later, they started filming a prequel, which everyone involved in the original show came back for except for probably-Dean, who famously reacted poorly to this on twitter. (Screenshots of this meltdown are, I think, the only time I have ever seen the actor's name.)

Test my dashboard osmosis ability.

[denimbex1986]

'More than three hours and 11 miles ago, Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated new film Oppenheimer began its world premiere in Paris, which means a handful of lucky jerks have now seen the movie and you, probably, are not among them. We say “lucky jerks” because, at least based on early reactions that could’ve been influenced a bit by the big crowds or the built-in hype of seeing a big movie from a big director, Oppenheimer is apparently really damn good. Or, as Telegraph critic Robbie Collin put it, Oppenheimer is “a total knockout that split my brain open like a twitchy plutonium nucleus and left me sobbing through the end credits like I can’t even remember else.” (That’s the kind of line you think of during the movie and then excitedly tweet as soon as you’re outside.)

Writer Bilge Ebiri said the movie is “incredible,” going on to say that, “the word that keeps coming to mind is ‘fearsome.’” The ending also apparently involves Nolan bringing “the hammer down in the most astonishing, shattering way.”

The Sunday Times’ Jonathan Dean highlighted the supporting cast, particularly Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., and Alden Ehrenreich (who “even bring gags”). He also tweeted that it’s in his “top three” of Nolan films, alongside Memento and The Prestige. Lindsey Bahr of the Associated Press called it a “spectacular achievement,” highlighting how “dense” it is and saying it’s “as tense and exciting as Dunkirk.” Also, the “big moment” is “awe-inspiring.” (We’re trying to go in totally clean, so we have no idea what that could possibly be referring to.)

This bodes well for anyone doing “Barbenheimer” double-features (not that Nolan is interested in such things) since Barbie also received an overwhelmingly positive response from early screenings.'

[adamwatchesmovies]

Patch Adams (1998)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

Patch Adams is based on a true story, which is shocking. Not because a real-life doctor called Hunter “Patch” Adams existing seems impossible; because this film is so phoney, so emotionally manipulative, so misguided and manufactured not an ounce of it rings true. Obviously green-lit as a dramatic vehicle for Robin Williams, the story he’s given leaves a bad taste in your mouth despite his best efforts. It was a hit upon release and you can see why. This is exactly the kind of manipulative melodrama that would sucker indiscriminating viewers.

While self-administered in a mental institution, Hunter “Patch” Adams (Williams) finds that humou - rather than the cold, clinical attitude most doctors hold - yields the best results among the patients. After enlisting at the Medical College of Virginia, he questions the attitude his teachers hold towards the patients, raising the ire of Dean Walcott (Bob Gunton) and his roommate, Mitch (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

You can tell which scenes Robin Williams juiced up with his improv. Those moments are great and genuinely funny. The man had a warmth to him that made you believe in his character. Patch seems genuinely sweet and sympathetic. The rest of the picture is unintentionally funny when it isn’t cloying, overly sanctimonious and overbearing. I’m still shocked we didn’t get a scene of Dean Walcott slaming his fists upon a table yelling “Aaaaadams!” like the crusty dean in so many frat-centered comedies. The man’s a cartoon, a bizarro-world version of Patch who wishes every doctor could surgically remove their emotional glands to be as robotic as possible while practicing. This portrait of the medical world is an insult to doctors, who - according to this film - do not care about their patients at all.

I could criticize the film for diverging from the real story of Patch Adams but I won't. While the 47-year-old Williams is twice the age the real man was when he began his career, the casting is good. It's fine to stray from reality because movies are not real life. If you want to take liberties, however, do it to make the film more interesting. This brings us to the worst character in the film: Monica Potter as Carin, a fellow medical student. In a movie filled with stereotypes, she may be the worst; a love interest introduced where none is needed, a token female whose sole purpose is to serve the male lead. It gets downright offensive in the end but even before then, it’s kinda creepy to see Williams flirting with the then-27-year-old who tells him she’s not interested. He persists until eventually, she relents. It makes the sweet Patch seem like a creep and further undermines his character. Perpetually goofy and never seen studying (though we’re assured he’s acing his tests and brilliant at medicine), Patch steals medical supplies, bursts into patients’ rooms unannounced, invades people’s privacy and repeatedly ignores his superiors’ orders. You understand why doctors feel the need to remain emotionally distant from their patients. They're very likely to see someone in their care die. It happens in this movie. There is something to be said about being too cold but this movie takes things to such extremes that no one would ever want to be cared for by Patch.

Relying on one cliché after another and going for cheap sentiments every time is the favourite tactic of director Tom Shadyac but let’s not forget to blame screenplay writer Steve Oedekerk. Ultimately, Patch Adams is interested in giving Robin Williams a role. Everything else was an afterthought. (On DVD, June 7, 2019)

[johnbronze]

ok for real I know they were limited in their options for explaining Stiles’ actions because DOB didnt come back but like SERIOUSLY. I have so many questions and complaints and not even all of them are Stydia related….. spoilers obviously

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Uhhh I can’t figure out how to add a read more on mobile sorry folks hopefully this is a good enough buffer !!!!!

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Did…. Did anyone bother to tell Stiles that Allison is alive?  are we meant to believe that nobody did?? or what’s worse, that he was told and he just didn’t come to Beacon Hills or call or anything?

On that note, are we actually supposed to believe — and I am not a Sterek girlie by any means, love and light to y’all but it’s just not my cup of tea — that Derek fucking DIED and there was a whole ass memorial service that Stiles just didn’t bother to show up to???? HELLO????

I mean it’s also nearing levels of ‘spn finale Dean Winchester ending’ stupid that Derek died in the first place, given that his whooooole character arc (by my book, anyway) is springing from the place of his trauma, and the way that he has blamed himself, struggled with guilt and loneliness and has been atoning for all of the pain of what he perceives to be personal failures the ENTIRE TIME, never letting himself get too close to people, never asking for help, and instead sacrificing for and nurturing Scott as the ideal alpha that he feels he couldn’t be… I don’t know. It just feels like a needless sacrifice to me, like there are so many ways that you can restrain someone and prevent them from moving from the place where you need to. Oh I don’t know burn them alive ?maybe? Which don’t involve sacrificing yourself and burning alive yourself, right in front of your son and the rest of your loved ones. I know again there are production factors at play, maybe it’s likely that they knew damn well Tyler H wouldn’t or couldn’t come back for another movie so they decided to kill off his character?? but suffice to say I was not happy with that at all (and not in the way I think it was INTENDED to upset me.)

Anyway, I know that Stiles needed to be absent because Dylan O’Brien was not a part of this movie, but if I’m being honest, I kind of would rather that Stiles had died ! Obviously I love Stiles’s character and it’s not that I want him dead at all!! it’s just. if they were going to fully send it, and they know he’s not coming back, and they knew that they were going to make up this premonition dream to break up Stydia and (poorly) explain his absence, then it would’ve done a lot better to make that separation as permanent as in life and death. The Stiles we know would never want to be separated from the people he loves as much as he has been now because of all of the external, real life factors. In fact, the season arc with the ghost riders proved to us just how far Stiles can and would go to be present! It was aaaactually a whole thing ! So, if I’m being honest… (1) the way that he and Lydia parted, (2) the way that he isn’t present or even mentioned in the light of his loved ones dying/being resurrected, and (3) again the fact that he wasn’t even at Derek’s memorial … it all feels like a silent character assassination to me. It feels like the mentioning of “Stiles” in this new canon contains less essence of Stiles than it would’ve if he had died. I know it’s easy to have a hater moment and make criticisms and piss and moan about how I would’ve done it better, and I know it’s not always as easy as it sounds… but JESUS CHRIST

Also congrats to the sterek girlies on your own personal y yo a ti moment……that jeep shit was CRAZY







[culttvblog]

Spyder's Web: Rev Counter

To my shock I see that it has been eleven years since I blogged about this episode of Spyder's Web in a series of posts about the show in the very early days of this blog.

Just as a brief recap about the show since I've barely touched it for over a decae: Spyder's Web is a 1972 ITV series about a secret government espionage organisation - Spyder - which uses a documentary unit run by Lottie Dean (Patricia Cutts) as a cover. The series is about Lottie's exploits with her sidekick Clive Hawksworth (Anthony Ainley), following instructions from their boss J. Smith. These instructions are always delivered in offbeat ways, including by delivering a children's colouring book to their office at one point. It is very eccentric and obviously there are Avengers overtones although it doesn't ape the Avengers at all. The show was made and broadcast in colour although most of it only survives in black and white so it gives an impression of being older than its 1972 vintage - in fact in my opinion this is an advantage because it places it in its milieu of 1960s eccentric TV (Adam Adamant, etc) for the viewer.

In Rev Counter Lottie and Hawskworth are told to join a terrorist revolutionary cell who want to force Britain to give the Isle of Wight independence. It was the final episode of the only series of the show and I see that the last time I wrote about it I said that it was clearly intended to be a high point, although the show wasn't commissioned for another series.

It isn't what you might call a 'heavy' documentary about terrorism and espionage, with a light touch it's more a depiction of everyone involved as eccentric, and also calculated to give some viewers a slight discomfort. I think this would be because it is so entertaining and funny, while being about such a serious and potentially dangerous subject.

And so we see Hawksworth making bombs at home using a textbook he had at school. Personally I want to know what school he went to, because I don't remember that in our chemistry textbook.

There is extensive coverage of rallies by the separatist groups: because one of their leading lights is a vicar they look very much like any other husting would in a church hall, and the way the vicar is happy to use violence is contrasted with his parsonical voice and biblical quotations. At one point he asks one of the ladies to put the teaspoon back in the drawer next to the sub machine guns, as he takes a shilling from the recruits for the parish magazine.

Lottie and Hawksworth infiltrate the terrorist cell in disguise, as it were. Hawksworth wears a fur coat for most of the episode, and Lottie wears a long wig which perfectly makes her look like a hippie. In true eccentric TV style, this makes them look about as unlikely as they ever could be, and while the real terrorists look much more normal the whole just adds to the extraordinary effect.

The vicar asks them for a donation when they join up. Hawksworth says 'I'm afraid I haven't any change,' intending that it would be taken as him not giving, and the vicar replies, 'Neither have I,' as he takes the note he has from Hawksworth. Straight afterwards we go into the new recruits' training, in which they are all wearing berets and being trained by a commander who says that although he may have failed in the commercial growing of watercress, things have got better since he took up schizophrenia. The human foibles and relationships depicted in this show are top-notch.

Despite the show's concentration on details and relationships, shockingly Hawksworth's bomb does actually go off in this episode, which is another strange juxtaposition. I think it quite possible that a lot of people wouldn't take to this series at all, although I'm confident that regular readers of this blog would. I'm not going to give away the ending of this episode, because I'm nice like that.

I don't personally have any real criticism of this show or episode, however I see that criticisms on Amazon include that it seems slower in comparison to current TV and that it is evident that it was studio-bound and made on a low budget. I don't think these will be real criticisms for people who like Our Sort of Television.

The entire episode is available on a DVD box set.

This blog is mirrored at

culttvblog.tumblr.com/archive (from September 2023) and culttvblog.substack.com (from January 2023 and where you can subscribe by email)

Archives from 2013 to September 2023 may be found at culttvblog.blogspot.com and there is an index to the tags used on the Tumblr version at https://www.tumblr.com/culttvblog/729194158177370112/this-blog

[nemuro-incinerator]

To everyone who’s on my account for Utena content, skip this post. Not only is it unrelated, it’s a messy fandom situation (from the series I was into before Utena) the likes of which I almost never get involved in anymore but has gone far enough that I feel I need to say something. The reblog won’t show up if I’m on my main due to being shadowbanned for the horrific crime of pointing out something stupid a TERF said, and I doubt I’ll be trusted if I use a brand new sideblog, so I’m posting here and putting everything under a readmore. My apologies once again to my Utenaheads, have this as compensation

With that out of the way, apologies for the long post, but I figure it’s best to reblog on the most recent post rather than a more relevant example. I’ve been refraining from saying anything publicly on this topic, as I am at the very least somewhat known in the inner circles of the fandom despite having not been involved since August or so, but this debacle has gone far enough that I feel a need to do so. I was a patron for a long time and have been following Nevermore since August of 2022, which is something I feel I should state not as some sort of flex but to establish that I know what I’m talking about. (Please note that I am not hiding my identity - you can see my main account in my bio. If you would prefer not to go check, it’s @west-of-the-styx)

From my experience in the fandom, giving genuine criticism of the comic and its direction without some layer of anonymity is daunting, as not only is the fandom small and generally positive to the point of excess, the creators are always around. I’ve seen them go after people in various cases, and while some cases were valid, it created an atmosphere where making the wrong comment makes one liable to be publicly dragged by the very people creating the webcomic one criticizes. I do not mean to sound dramatic, but it’s created this veneer of nothing but applause and praise, and I feel that isn’t healthy when engaging with media. Media should be critiqued, and, in the case where it feels socially unsafe to critique media, measures are inevitably going to be taken. 

This can come in a variety of forms - private group chats being the main one - but a public platform such as an anonymous confession account allows for another perspective to be shown in a way that would previously tarnish one’s reputation. Does that I mean I unabashedly support and agree with every take on esoterichistoria’s account? Fuck no. Do I think Nevermore is a terrible webcomic and should be thrown in a dumpster fire? No. Do I think there should be a space for alternate opinions, “quality” or not, to exist and interact with the wider fanbase? Yes, I do. Like it or not, it doesn’t matter how much someone says critique is accepted and we’re all friends here if one’s experience contradicts that. The Nevermore fandom has been quite friendly to me personally, but, based on my own friends’ experiences, it’s at least in part because I never toed the line into posting anything controversial. As I said previously, I haven’t been involved in the fandom for quite a while, but I’ve heard things through the grapevine.

In conclusion, I believe esoterichistoria has every right to run the account they run and that sending them hatemail is going way too far. In the modern age of the internet, hatemail can very easily be a precursor to something worse, and even besides that point it’s frankly rude and immature, which is quite hypocritical from those making the same comments about the very blog getting sent hatemail. Just as Red and Flynn are real people impacted by what others say, so too is Esoteric/Dean Mourn.

If you wish to discuss this matter with me, my DMs are open, but do keep in mind that it’s finals season and I am a college student and as such I may or may not be able to reply in a timely manner. I sincerely hope we can all come to an understanding on this issue, though this is likely the last time I’ll post on it publicly, as I’ve moved on to pink-haired-anime-girl-going-through-horrors pastures. Aralt out

genuinely rlly sorry to hear that ur getting death threats no one deserves that. people in the fandom should really know better than to just send death threats and be hateful its hypocrisy

i think the creators sending that hate ask influenced a lot of people to send hate to you and the thought of that makes me really icky they should rlly know better since theyve got people idolizing them

I’ve actually gotten spam and hate targeted toward me personally after what happened over on discord 💀, I’m just confused bc they act as if the confessions I get are my own personal opinions?? 😭 I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong by just posting peoples anonymous opinions and responding to them. If my blog really bothers people so much to get that big of a reaction, then just block. I’ve said this over and over again.

Also, creators shouldn’t be idolized, they are regular people like you and me, especially when their audience is mostly people under 18. Parasocial relationships could come out of this. When you’re a creator, you should keep a distance between you and your fan base, bc treating them like friends or giving special treatment could result in more things like this happening. As adults, they should set a better example and actually speak up when things like this happen, instead of just ignoring it and acting like it’s not their problem. Sure, your fans might not like it, but since you are in a clear position of power, you should not let it get to you. I was honestly very surprised when that happened to me in the discord when I was still sort of a small blog, I hadn’t expected that type of behavior.

Really sorry for the long response but this is something I’ve wanted to get off my chest for a while 😭

Adding tags so that this will hopefully be the last time I receive anything like that. This blog was created to give people a sort of “safe space” to say their opinions, not for anything else

[chiisana-sukima]

The One Where I Escaped an Attempted Rape, Bought a Gun, and Managed Not to Shoot Anyone

Genre: Weird, True Life Anecdotes as Meta Commentary. Characters: Me (an incompetent victim), and Some Random Dude (an incompetent perpetrator). With side appearances by a Cop and my Roommate. Warnings: What it says on the label. Nothing too scary or at all graphic though. Summary: Also what it says on the label.

When I was in nursing school, twenty-five years or so ago, I lived in a dangerous, rundown area in Boston, and I had no car. I was walking home from the subway station one night, and a guy grabbed my breast, mugged me, and told me I needed to go down some tiny deserted street with him because he had a gun and he wanted me to “be his girlfriend”.

I had always thought, partly because of my history with sexual violence as a kid, and partly because I just don’t see myself as a physically brave person, that in a situation like that, I would be compliant in order to get out of the experience alive and with the least amount of damage possible. But it turns out what I actually did was not that at all.

I told the dude, in a voice that somehow ended up dripping with scorn (but not with a wealth of logic), that of course I wouldn’t be his girlfriend; he’d just stolen money from me.

He said he didn’t.

I said then give it back.

(He declined).

I swore at him extensively. And stalled for time, while I thought about whether I’d rather be raped or shot in the back. And then I ran into oncoming (sparse) traffic and escaped. When I got far enough down the opposite side of the street that I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to hit me anymore, even if shooting was still in the cards, I screamed back at him to fuck off, motherfucker, fuck you! and then I walked home.

He didn’t shoot me. Maybe he never had a gun. He never showed it to me; we were in semi-public. it was allegedly in the pocket of his baggy pants, where he kept his hand through the whole interaction. Not seeing the (alleged) actual weapon probably entered into my decision-making some, though I’m not sure how much.

When I got home, I felt elated- high on adrenaline, unharmed. He didn’t even get my wallet or my credit cards, just twenty bucks. My roommate- who later installed a steel core door and a reinforced frame for it, in place of my old bedroom door, because I was incapable of sleeping without a lock anymore and why have a lock if the cheap-ass door could just be broken in- said shouldn’t you call the cops?

The thought had not even entered my mind.

I called the police, and one of them came and took my statement. He had me come down to the station the next day and look at the mug book. I didn’t see the assailant there, but I did see a couple other guys from the awful slum of a neighborhood I lived in.

So here’s the thing. During the event itself, clearly, from my behavior, I was angry. I argued, and swore, and sounded like I thought the dude was less than a bug under my foot.

But I had no access to any of that. I felt terrified. Every time I opened my mouth, what came out was completely unplanned and I was shocked anew that I could be so stupid. I did consciously decide on running. But that was it; the only part the consciousness that narrates, that I call me, had any control over. All the rest of it came from somewhere else.

Later, I got a carry permit and a gun. I was- not surprisingly- frightened by the experience of almost being raped, and also by the presence of my neighbors in the mugbook. People got shot not infrequently where I lived. The dude across the street from me got shot and killed in a drug deal. A little schoolgirl on her bike got shot and killed in broad daylight about two blocks away. People got knifed. Houses burned down from arson. Strangers on the bus randomly told me I shouldn’t be in the area, while I was on my way to my job, to save their sorry friends’ and relatives’ asses.

The process to qualify for carrying a handgun legally in Massachusetts at the time was somewhat onerous. I had to take a class that lasted a couple of months, have a certain number of hours on a designated range, and take a practical exam given by the cops at the police range. 

I came to love shooting. It’s meditative and grounding both. I love guns. They’re gorgeous. They feel solid in your hands. The concentration required to shoot skillfully feels wonderful in that in the zone way that athletics does. Even the recoil feels good- out of your control for just a second and then back in it again, like catching air in a car.

But I never did end up carrying.

Because the better I got at shooting, the more I realized that if I’d had a gun the night I didn’t get raped, there’s very little chance I wouldn’t have killed that dude. I’m competence-driven, and he was slow and stupid (and probably high), and would have had no clue I was carrying and given me plenty of time to shoot him, and we were standing right next to each other, and I would have shot him in the center of his largest mass, because that’s how you shoot competently.

And the part of me that I call me did not want him dead. But I think probably the part where all that other stuff came from did.

There are several morals one could take from this story. “Don’t give guns to crazy people who have PTSD” is obviously one of them. “He would’ve deserved it” might be another. But those aren’t my point. My point is that *I*- the me who is what I choose- didn’t want him dead and still don’t. And given a slightly different set of circumstances, I almost certainly would have done this thing- this horrible, irrevocable, unfixable thing, that was not at all what I ever would have wanted. My lifetime weight of grief and his family’s lifetime weight of grief and his unfixable deadness would not have been any different for the fact that I have problems I can’t fix from someone else’s violence decades ago, or because, technically, it would’ve been his own fault.

Even though I don’t think of myself as particularly brave, I do think of myself as strong. I think of myself as morally strong, and emotionally strong; a person who has made hard choices and done hard things, and works hard to be a net good in the world. But people aren’t strong every minute or in every way. It’s impossible. We all have weak points where, given the right set of circumstances, we’ll make really, really, really shitty choices. That’s just how it is.

People (/characters) do terrible things, and sometimes mostly what I feel is angry. Because like everyone, some things just piss me off. But underneath the anger, there’s often not really any moral judgement. And then people rightly wonder, “but how could you think [Thing X] was the person’s action and yet still like them”? “[Thing X]- if it’s what really happened- is unforgivable”.

I don’t want to be over-dramatic about the handgun (ok maybe the evidence here suggests I kinda do, I dunno- guns are like that; they invite drama). I didn’t- thank christ- come into even the same galaxy where shooting someone lives. I *have* made bad decisions about other things, but I made the call I wanted to when I decided to keep on walking my sorry vulnerable ass outdoors, at night, in my terrible neighborhood, without protection, rather than risk shooting someone in a moment of anger and panic.

But that decision I made was the real moment of choice, and that I did live through, and it was no fucking fun. In the theoretical later moment down the other path, where I would’ve had the gun and been angry and panicked and not in control, it would’ve already been too late, like the crash after you don’t pick out a designated driver. And it wasn’t obvious at my decision point what I wanted or what I should do. I could easily have gone the other way. I did go the other way at multiple steps along in the process.

In the end, I made some choices that were probably good and some that were probably bad, and then I got lucky.

There are several answers for me to the question about calling actions bad, but then not judging the actor. One of the most central though, the most personally real, is the oldey but goody. It dates me, but: There But For Fortune Go You and I.