it sucks how there are disorders people will be like oh its ok to self diagnose but for the more serious ones they need 'to see a professional' despite in some cases that being a bad idea given the fact autistic people face legal challenges and so do most people who are any type of person on the schizospectrum

esp cause theres this very very deeply ingrained idea that you're stealing mental health resources from those who need it by self diagnosing (except people who do self diagnose arent exactly getting medication for it...) and how horrible itd be for you to...what? be wrong later? if you have an issue thats shared by another disorder you thought you had like social anxiety and you find ways to cope with it it doesnt mean your original diagnosis was completely wrong and harmful to you?

In the wake of hbomberguy and toddintheshadows's takedown of James Somerton, I hope what people learn from this is that you are vulnerable to being scammed and lied to on the internet all the time. Even if you think you aren't. ESPECIALLY if you think you aren't. There is significant financial incentive for people on the internet to lie to you and influence you to think a certain way. It is happening to you every day, on youtube, on tiktok, on reddit, on tumblr. James Somerton is not the only culprit and there are tons of other scammers with reliable reputations that just haven't been caught.

What can you, as an audience member, do to shield your mind from misinformation and propaganda? I'm not going to expect everyone to fact-check everything that they hear or read on the internet, as that is simply infeasible with the sheer volume of information circulating online. But here are a few ways you can sniff out bullshit:

Watch for sources. If you watched the hbomberguy vid, this is probably already at the forefront of your thoughts. If a quote, image, or footage is unattributed, if citations are absent (this is literally the norm for informative posts on social media like tumblr and reddit, I very rarely see sources cited), or if sources cited look dubious and biased, take the information presented to you with a grain of salt.

Pay special attention to shocking claims. If someone on the internet tells you something outrageous, it is likely meant to outrage you. Public outrage is power -- before you get up in arms, verify the information that caused your reaction.

Fact-check when it matters. Some things are more important to verify than others. World news, politics, science, and medicine are rife with misinformation and directly affect people's safety. Before you spread a post you saw about, for example, COVID vaccines, look into how backed up it is.

Keep in mind that some things are disputed or unknown. It's natural to want answers, to want an authority to tell you how to feel about something. But sometimes the truth is unclear, and there are multiple contradictory opinions out there. It is okay to wait for more information to come out before you make up your mind on an issue.

Misinformation that you agree with is just as dangerous as misinformation that offends you. Todd in the shadows touched on this, but people are more likely to look into the validity of a claim if it offends them, and are more likely to accept it without question if it backs up their pre-held beliefs. But if your beliefs are being influenced by bullshit, you need to know about it, even if that causes you to change your stance on something. Especially then. Again, it's infeasible to fact check everything you hear, but keep this bias in mind when considering the above points.

There is way more to this topic and more informed people than me have weighed in on it, but I've been thinking about it since the videos came out and wanted to share my thoughts. These are things that I keep in mind for myself when evaluating info on the internet. There are tons of books out there on how to spot misinformation and the huge detrimental impact that misinformation has on society and I plan to read them next year. Educating yourself is important!

glycolysis gluconeogenesis glycogenesis krebs cycle electron transport chain fermentation pentose phosphate pathway fatty acid synthesis fatty acid oxidation molecular cloning native gels sds-page gel electrophoresis tissue specific metabolism cholesterol metabolism ketone bodies recombinant dna and biotechnology zeroth law of thermodynamics hydrostatics fluid dynamics fluids in physiology nuclear binding energy and mass defect nuclear reactions consciousness-altering drugs drug addiction and the reward pathway in the brain the role of emotion in retrieving memories retrieval cues neural plasticity james-lange theory cannon-bard theory schachter-singer theory biological bases of behavior genetically based behavioral variation in natural populations psychoanalytic perspective dissociative disorders trauma and stressor related disorders drive reduction theory incentive theory bystander effect social loafing habituation and dishabituation operant conditioning fixed-ratio reinforcement prejudice and bias individual vs institutional discrimination microsociology vs macrosociology theories of demographic change.......................

There's a meme that says the test of whether a person can be relied upon to act pro-socially is whether they will return their shopping carts to the cart corral. Leaving it wherever you want is convenient for you, and nobody will punish you for not doing, so anyone who does do it is motivated by upholding the common good.

Most grocery story parking lots are indeed organized by this principle, and consequently they are filled with haphazardly-placed carts and the store needs to use its limited labor resources to collect and return them.

By contrast, Aldi's parking lot works according to a different principle: you have to pay a small cost to get a cart in the first place, and you're incentivized to return it not to a convenient corral, but all the way to the front of the store. And if you decide you don't value your quarter enough to return it yourself, someone else will. Consequently, Aldi's parking lot is free of wayward carts even without labor being used to collect them.

I think a driving force for a lot of anti-market bias is an aesthetic preference for a society where people do prosocial things just because it's the right thing to do, rather than because it's incentivized. After all, if you do a prosocial thing to get a reward, then you aren't actually being a good person, are you?

The problem for such people is that incentives actually work, and wishing that people would just be better does not. But faced with the choice between what works and what fits their moral preferences, they will choose the latter. The idea of creating a well-ordered society from selfish people through incentives is repulsive to them, and they would prefer a disordered society rather than admitting that it works.

This isn’t a conversion question but I hope it’s okay to ask here. Is there anything I can do to support people living in Israel during this terrifying time?

Hi anon,

I wrestled with how/if to respond to this, because I try very hard to keep I/P politics off of this blog and have since I started this blog in 2017 or so. It is not relevant to this blog what my opinions are on this, and it's hard to talk about the topic at all (even in a neutral way) without people accusing you of being Zionist or Anti-Zionist if what you say does not perfectly line up with their viewpoint.

But in the end, I think that this transcends politics. It has to. Condemning the slaughter, torture, and sexual abuse of human beings, whoever they are, is the correct opinion. I don't care who is doing it, and I don't care why. This isn't a political debate; this is basic human decency.

As for what you can do right now? If you have Israeli or Palestinian friends (whether they are in your community or in Israel/Palestine, reach out to them. They may b'ezrat Hashem be safe, but they are not ok, so instead of asking, just let them know you are thinking of them, that you are praying for their continued safety and for peace to come swiftly and justly. They may not feel like talking, but if they do, hold space for them.

There are a lot of excellent organizations collecting funds to help with the great need that has been created by these atrocities. Find ones whose mission and goals align with your own, double check their validity, and then donate what you can.

Many Jewish communities (most, I assume) are currently organizing or have already set up community events to address the issues and to pray as a community. Look at your email - my inbox had no less than twelve different events (online and in person) within the next few days - and check the websites for Jewish organizations that you affiliate with for opportunities to gather and debrief.

And, perhaps, the most important thing from a social media standpoint: make sure that you vet *all* information before deciding to accept it as true and cross-check it with other sources, especially if you plan on sharing that information. Both Hamas and the Israeli government are masters of propaganda, and the Western media really likes to lean into this for a better story. Since Western media thrives on conflict and hyped up emotions to keep people interested and scrolling, there is a strong incentive to publish as much as quickly as possible, the more sensational the better. Use reputable sources, but don't rely on them to get it right 100% of the time. I would suggest looking at reputable sources that have a clear, known bias in each direction and comparing them both to media that at least attempts to be neutral. So far, it doesn't seem like too too many facts have been in dispute (most of the information about the atrocities committed by Hamas has been posted by Hamas as propaganda) but it's early. If you have the emotional bandwidth and have done the research, please correct the misinformation you see from friends, family, and followers. Do **not** jump in with assumptions or non-researched opinions, because that will only fuel the chaos and not help anyone.

Above all, be smart, be wary of disinformation, be compassionate, and (to the extent you are able) be generous. Remember that civilians are civilians, that neither group of civilians chose this, that plenty of them dream of a peaceful and just coexistence, and that intentionally hurting non-combatants is always wrong no matter the justification.

As for me, I will turn to Tehillim and to the words of the Prayer for Peace:

May we see the day when war and bloodshed cease, When a great peace will embrace the whole world. Then nation will not threaten nation, and the human family will not again know war. For all who live on earth shall realize we have not come into being to hate or to destroy. We have come into being to praise, to labor, and to love. Compassionate God, bless the leaders of all nations with the power of compassion. Fulfill the promise conveyed in Scripture: I will bring peace to the land and you shall lie down and no one shall terrify you. I will rid the land of vicious beasts and it shall not be ravaged by war. Let justice and righteousness flow like a mighty stream. Let God’s peace fill the earth as the waters fill the sea. And let us say: Amen

do you think sephiroth had the worst childhood out of everyone?

Personal bias aside, yes. I do. I think Sephiroth's life from beginning to end was miserable and fucked up beyond all comprehension.

But with that said, that doesn't mean that the trauma that all the other characters went through isn't valid. Aerith's childhood was VERY messed up. Cloud's childhood was incredibly lonely. Nanaki lost both his parents, etc. Everyone's trauma is valid and important. And you can't write any of them off.

The difference is that all of these characters had people who cared about them despite everything, people to cling to as emotional resources. Sephiroth had nothing. Or at least, nothing that wasn't taken or chose to leave on its own. No one gave a shit about him. No one gave a shit about him as a fetus, no one gave a shit about sending him off to war at an incredibly young age. No one gave a shit about him as an adult either. All they saw was the war hero image but no one actually KNEW him. And the ones that did just...left. Or had other priorities. Sephiroth was no one's priority beyond what he had to offer as an asset. He is effectively just born to be someone's weapon and that's all. There was nothing else. No one cared.

Now again, that doesn't change the fact that SEPHIROTH is completely responsible for causing so much suffering. He ruins a lot of people's lives and needs to be held accountable for that. Just because he suffered doesn't mean that his suffering outweighed everyone else's. What he did was selfish, cowardly, and evil. And he chose to do it.

The tragedy of his situation was that he could have been great. A hero. Someone who changed the world for the better. But he chose otherwise. And, even more crushingly, he had no incentive to ever CONSIDER choosing a better alternative. There's no one waiting for him except Jenova. He dooms himself, but he's also doomed by the narrative as well. It's literally a no-win scenario that began the day he was born.

[i wanted to give u a heads up that this is about palestine & israel but i wasnt sure how to content warn so i'm just putting this here]

hey,

just so you know some of the facts your sharing about who is responsible for various bombings i dont think is correct - the only original source that ive seen that stated that the hospital was bombed by hamas / islamic jihad was the idf who obviously have a pretty strong incentive to seperate themselves from that kind of awful violence. there has been a concerted focus on attacking healthcare centres/ providers, from what i saw on the guardian website recently there have been 50 or so attacks on healthcare facilities in gaza. which is rly such an appalling figure to even begin to contemplate. if you're looking for good sources to stay up to date with the conflict [which is obviously very overwhelming & quickly developing] then i'd rly recommend jewish currents or aljazeera & vashti media tends to have some useful coverage too, altho they arent a moment to moment media platform.

Hey so I definitely appreciate you reaching out, because I do strive to get these things right. However, I literally am going off of footage taken by Al Jazeera, as well as a statement by gaza_report:

Trust me, I'm aware that the IDF has an incentive to pass blame, so I waited to say anything until I saw evidence from explicitly pro-Palestinian sources.

If, in the fullness of time, there is good evidence against it that I can verify myself (like with this footage) I will gladly issue a correction. Please do reach out again if that is the case, because I do not want to platform misinformation if at all possible.

Thanks again!

Edit: if you have multiple cross-bias sources on the other healthcare facility bombings, I would appreciate the information for further investigation.

Why the flipping do people hate Sakura so much they gotta project their hatred on Sasuke calling him names like abuser? It make me very mad how haters try to paint Sasuke as a Abusive Person and Sakura as some type of battered wife while they try to excuse Karin or Naruto as a some type of special persons to Sasuke.

This type of mental ginnastic is ridiculous and very hypocritical full of pairing bias.

Sakura wasn't in any relationship with Sasuke and both were enemies who didn't saw each other in years. This isn't Abuse. By this logic Sasori, Zaku, Gaara and Shin abused the hell out of Sakura. Konoha and Naruto incentives abuse by making girls and boys fighting to death in mission and chuunin exams. This argument really doesn't work in this manga. When Sasuke try to kill Sakura as his official girlfriend or wife this non sense argument will make some sense.

Sakura isn't some fragile toddler. She was trained by Tsunade, planed to kill Sasuke using a poisoned Kunai and almost managed to get that. She knew what she was doing, she knew that she put herself in dangerous situation. She even knocked out Kiba, Lee and Sai so she can accomplish her task of killing Sasuke alone.

Sasuke considered the entire Konoha as his mortal enemy and Sakura was the one who chase Sasuke to kill him. Sasuke saw Sakura and stoped to listen her, she tried to trick him and Sasuke figured her lie easily. She put a Kunai behind Sasuke's back when he was fighting Kakashi and he reacted. She failed miserably due her own actions and love who she tried to deny.

Karin situation was worst because Karin was helping Sasuke against Danzo, she wasn't from Konoha and was his current teammate. Sasuke didn't hesitate to pierce Karin and let she die on the ground to get Danzo.

Sasuke apologized to Sakura after he was truly redeemed. Sasuke was more guilt tripped and sincere with his apologies to Sakura.

So why the hell haters try to paint Karin/Naruto as a better light than Sakura?

Why the flipping do people hate Sakura so much they gotta project their hatred on Sasuke calling him names like abuser? It make me very mad how haters try to paint Sasuke as a Abusive Person and Sakura as some type of battered wife while they try to excuse Karin or Naruto as a some type of special persons to Sasuke.

Sakura wasn't in any relationship with Sasuke and both were enemies who didn't saw each other in years. This isn't Abuse. By this logic Sasori, Zaku, Gaara and Shin abused the hell out of Sakura. Konoha and Naruto incentives abuse by making girls and boys fighting to death in mission and chuunin exams. This argument really doesn't work in this manga. When Sasuke try to kill Sakura as his official girlfriend or wife this non sense argument will make some sense.

"Abusive" just became one of those buzzwords that people always throw in SS's direction, despite the fact that as you rightfully explained, that criticism makes no sense.

Karin situation was worst because Karin was helping Sasuke against Danzo, she wasn't from Konoha and was his current teammate. Sasuke didn't hesitate to pierce Karin and let she die on the ground to get Danzo.

That's just one of the many things that people who try to pedestalise SK in comparison to SS tend to either overlook or intentionally ignore altogether. Here's another thing they ignore - They always tend to say how Sasuke apparently called Sakura useless, despite him doing no such thing; he only said that there was nothing that she (or anyone else for that matter) could have done about the people who were trapped in the infinite Tsukuyomi:

And yet they conveniently ignore the fact that the one time Sasuke actually did call someone useless, it was with regards to Karin:

Funny that, isn't it?

Sasuke apologized to Sakura after he was truly redeemed. Sasuke was more guilt tripped and sincere with his apologies to Sakura.

"Guilt tripped" isn't the term I would use to describe Sasuke after he was saved from his hatred. Nobody made him feel guilty, he just came to his own conclusions after being able to see clearly again.

assuaging my anxieties about machine learning over the last week, I learn that despite there being about ten years of doom-saying about the full automation of radiomics, there's actually a shortage of radiologists now (and, also, the machine learning algorithms that are supposed to be able to detect cancers better than human doctors are very often giving overconfident predictions). truck driving was supposed to be completely automated by now, but my grampa is still truckin' and will probably get to retire as a trucker. companies like GM are now throwing decreasing amounts of money at autonomous vehicle research after throwing billions at cars that can just barely ferry people around san francisco (and sometimes still fails), the most mapped and trained upon set of roads in the world. (imagine the cost to train these things for a city with dilapidated infrastructure, where the lines in the road have faded away, like, say, Shreveport, LA).

we now have transformer-based models that are able to provide contextually relevant responses, but the responses are often wrong, and often in subtle ways that require expertise to needle out. the possibility of giving a wrong response is always there - it's a stochastic next-word prediction algorithm based on statistical inferences gleaned from the training data, with no innate understanding of the symbols its producing. image generators are questionably legal (at least the way they were trained and how that effects the output of essentially copyrighted material). graphic designers, rather than being replaced by them, are already using them as a tool, and I've already seen local designers do this (which I find cheap and ugly - one taco place hired a local designer to make a graphic for them - the tacos looked like taco bell's, not the actual restaurant's, and you could see artefacts from the generation process everywhere). for the most part, what they produce is visually ugly and requires extensive touchups - if the model even gives you an output you can edit. the role of the designer as designer is still there - they are still the arbiter of good taste, and the value of a graphic designer is still based on whether or not they have a well developed aesthetic taste themself.

for the most part, everything is in tech demo phase, and this is after getting trained on nearly the sum total of available human produced data, which is already a problem for generalized performance. while a lot of these systems perform well on older, flawed, benchmarks, newer benchmarks show that these systems (including GPT-4 with plugins) consistently fail to compete with humans equipped with everyday knowledge.

there is also a huge problem with the benchmarks typically used to measure progress in machine learning that impact their real world use (and tell us we should probably be more cautious because the human use of these tools is bound to be reckless given the hype they've received). back to radiomics, some machine learning models barely generalize at all, and only perform slightly better than chance at identifying pneumonia in pediatric cases when it's exposed to external datasets (external to the hospital where the data it was trained on came from). other issues, like data leakage, make popular benchmarks often an overoptimistic measure of success.

very few researchers in machine learning are recognizing these limits. that probably has to do with the academic and commercial incentives towards publishing overconfident results. many papers are not even in principle reproducible, because the code, training data, etc., is simply not provided. "publish or perish", the bias journals have towards positive results, and the desire of tech companies to get continued funding while "AI" is the hot buzzword, all combined this year for the perfect storm of techno-hype.

which is not to say that machine learning is useless. their use as glorified statistical methods has been a boon for scientists, when those scientists understand what's going on under the hood. in a medical context, tempered use of machine learning has definitely saved lives already. some programmers swear that copilot has made them marginally more productive, by autocompleting sometimes tedious boilerplate code (although, hey, we've had code generators doing this for several decades). it's probably marginally faster to ask a service "how do I reverse a string" than to look through the docs (although, if you had read the docs to begin with would you even need to take the risk of the service getting it wrong?) people have a lot of fun with the image generators, because one-off memes don't require high quality aesthetics to get a chuckle before the user scrolls away (only psychopaths like me look at these images for artefacts). doctors will continue to use statistical tools in the wider machine learning tool set to augment their provision of care, if these were designed and implemented carefully, with a mind to their limitations.

anyway, i hope posting this will assuage my anxieties for another quarter at least.

Do you think willas tyrell will be exactly like how he is spoken about? As this lovely, we’ll-read and respectful man. Or will he have a Tyrion edge to him like how Tyrion is portrayed but his pov shows differently. How do you think his personality and archetype will be? 

I would certainly like to think that Willas Tyrell will be an overall positive character in the story. Every time Willas has come up in the story, he is the subject of admiration, approval, and/or affection: he is the big brother of Margaery’s memory who “used to read to [her] when [she] was a little girl, and draw [her] pictures of the stars”; he is the familial protector of Garlan’s childhood, who dubbed him “Garlan the Gallant” to protect him from crueler, body-shaming monikers; he is the “mild and courtly young man, fond of reading books and looking at the stars” whom Tywin identifies as his preferred new husband for Cersei (and note that Tywin says that “all reports” verify this description of Willas). While it might be easy to dismiss the consistent praise of Willas as merely the product of pro-Tyrell bias, I find it difficult to agree entirely with such an assessment. Oberyn Martell, certainly, had no incentive to praise Willas to Tyrion, even if he, Oberyn, wanted to deflect Tyrion’s barbed observation that the prince of Dorne had “trampled” the heir to Highgarden; likewise, Tywin hardly spared his (private) contempt of Robert Baratheon, for example, even though he actively sought to marry Cersei to Robert in the aftermath of Robert’s Rebellion.  

Indeed, I do not think it at all coincidental that these descriptions remind me most strongly of Samwell Tarly. Just as Randyll Tarly had set out to forcibly mold Sam into (his conception of) the perfect warrior, so Mace Tyrell had forced Willas into a tournament when he, Willas, was “still a green squire” (according to Mace’s WOIAF app entry) and when he “had no business riding in such company” because Mace “wanted another Leo Longthorn”. In turn, just as Randyll’s years of physical and psychological abuse toward Sam caused Sam deep and lasting trauma (so much so that he still fears Randyll’s brutal disapproval toward a career as a maester, despite owing no further obligation to Randyll now that he is a brother of the Night’s Watch), so Mace’s decision to urge Willas into Westerosi (peacetime) martial glory resulted in permanent physical disability inflicted on his son (and, relatedly, the consistent identification of Willas as a “cripple”, a shameful state in the eyes of largely ableist Westeros). However, where Randyll vigorously and horribly attempted to crush Sam’s non-martial interests, Willas seems to have been allowed, maybe even encouraged to pursue the same. Where Randyll treated with contempt Sam’s gentle bonding with his siblings - singing a lullaby to help baby Dickon sleep and sharing a bed in childhood with his sisters - Willas clearly showed himself the caring older brother to Margaery and Garlan; where Sam was chained by the neck for three days in a dungeon for merely suggesting that he become a maester, Willas has seemingly eagerly pursued his interest in books and learning. Importantly, where Randyll refused to show further interest in training Sam as his heir once he had Dickon, Mace has never done the same with Willas: Garlan and (especially) Loras may be the sort of talented young knights celebrated in Westerosi culture, but Mace has nevertheless deputized Willas as his representative in Highgarden (even praising Willas as such when he rejects Cersei’s suggestion that he, Mace, “is needed in the Reach”). Willas, perhaps, offers something of a glimpse into what Sam might have become, had Randyll Tarly not been such a violently hateful misogynist and male chauvinist - that is, an intelligent and capable heir without performing the expected (read: battlefield) roles of Westerosi male aristocrats.  

That similarity in character I think will result in a meeting of the minds, so to speak, in TWOW. When (and not if, I believe) Euron Greyjoy attempts to take over Oldtown as its apocalyptic god-king, I think Sam will make his way out of the city and toward Highgarden (as the political heart of the Reach and the closest major seat of protection, especially to a Reach-raised aristocrat like Sam). This is where good-natured, empathetic Willas Tyrell may work far better for the story than a more cynical or caustic take on the character: where Sam has been throughout his life mocked and derided for his lack of martial interest and his bookishness, Willas is exactly the sort of person to empathize with Sam and be keenly interested in what he has to say (especially given that Willas himself had warned Leyton Hightower of the ironborn’s coming). It is Willas who may appreciate Sam’s diligent study into ancient texts, especially into the supernatural, and so Willas who may be willing to listen to whatever advice Sam can provide, or even help himself with such research (in whatever archives Highgarden may have) in the quest to defeat Euron. (Incidentally, if Alleras-who-is-really-Sarella makes it out of Oldtown with Sam - and I certainly want to think she does - then Willas’ amiable relationship with her late father and demonstrated interest in learning may appeal to not only Oberyn’s proud daughter, but the one who had “wanted to know everything there was to know” on her dad’s field trip to the ruin of Shandystone.) 

So this is all a very longwinded way of saying that yes, I think Willas will be a Pretty Cool Dude when he gets introduced (so far as anyone in Westeros can be, anyway, and certainly anyone in a feudal aristocratic system). I don’t think it makes a lot of sense for GRRM to build him up consistently as such a positive figure and then say “actually just kidding, he’s a big old jerk” (though we’ll leave Jaehaerys I out of this discussion …). Rather, I think it works much better for the story if Sam finds one much like himself, but with the political power he never had - a true ally, kind, empathetic, and willing to listen to what he has to say when few others have. I firmly place Willas on the side of the good (along with Sam and, so I hope, Sarella) in the fight against the evil that is Euron and his attempted apocalyptic takeover.

it sucks how there are disorders people will be like oh its ok to self diagnose but for the more serious ones they need 'to see a professional' despite in some cases that being a bad idea given the fact autistic people face legal challenges and so do most people who are any type of person on the schizospectrum

esp cause theres this very very deeply ingrained idea that you're stealing mental health resources from those who need it by self diagnosing (except people who do self diagnose arent exactly getting medication for it...) and how horrible itd be for you to...what? be wrong later? if you have an issue thats shared by another disorder you thought you had like social anxiety and you find ways to cope with it it doesnt mean your original diagnosis was completely wrong and harmful to you?

Welcome! This is a special invitation to take the whole Dir en grey community for an enthralling ride into the Schadenfreude universe! 

That song’s lyrics are highly poetic, and seeing as it is a long song, we have even more to feed our imagination. These lines suggest an imagery, but far from forcing a specific one onto us, they peel at the layers of our creativity. 

We would love to see your approach on what those lyrics evoke for you. Some of you are incredible talented and this contest is less of a competition than it is an opportunity to create a gallery of amazing art dedicated to Dir en grey’s Schadenfreude!

Prizes

Still, as an incentive, you can expect not just many kudos and my heartfelt appreciation, but a couple of prizes! 

Two guaranteed prizes are sets of VIP & exclusive goods from Tour23 Phalaris Vol.II, which contain: portrait set (photographed during Tour23 From Depression To____ 25th Anniversary), drawing book (Perfume of Sins artist photo outlines), colouring pencils, wristbands set, and a large pouch. 

What’s more random and undetermined is that, on top of that, honestly, there are probably things that I would be willing to do or to depart with from my own collection. Whether it’s something in Photoshop, or you’re a fan of x member who is missing something, we’ll work out an extra prize that I can include in your package!

(Voting method and presentation of the entries to be determined - probably dependent on how many entries there are, if artists prefer to be presented anonymously or something, etc. I definitely won’t be making the decision myself, but I also want it to be as fair as possible for all participants!)

Deadline

I don’t want to rush creativity at all, but please submit your entries no later than July 7th 2023 at 11:59PM EST. Let me know if you find this too restrictive!

Here is the Google form to register your artwork:

https://forms.gle/BeBSzvgTj9GDvUfF7

Entries

You can enter as many entries as you wish to share! There are so many inspiring lyrics in Schadenfreude that would be difficult to mix into a single piece of art. At the same time, there isn’t necessarily strength in number in this case, since there will be at least two winners anyway. This is meant to give you flexibility rather than to force you to make a difficult choice on just one segment of Schadenfreude to illustrate, but don’t spread your efforts thin on too many pieces!

What medium? As long as it’s a still image, go wild with digital, paper, paint, clay(?). 

Literally no other theme than just: “Bring to life a part of Schadenfreude’s poetry”. The lyrics mention scenery for the most, but you could include a person in your artwork too. 

Do keep in mind the tone and way those lyrics are sung, as well as the surrounding melody, of course!

Tips?

This may be more distracting than helpful as it could create bias, but below the break, I’ll include some descriptions of how Schadenfreude was portrayed live by the band. 

Before the hidden break though, good luck to all and thank you to anyone who participates! If you can, please spread the word about this contest!

The lighting for Schadenfreude is overall very much blue and red, but I think there were scenes of red and green too. 

In the background, the accompanying video shows 3D graphics of: gnats, a featureless person praying on their knees, a corridor of material resembling inner linings or organs that leads to a wide room where a faceless branch being sits on a throne, the Devil with its horns, scorched paper, a devastated forest but also a jungle with a giant skull-shaped rcck or monument. Other parts of the video showcase sketches like those of the artist behind the Agitated Screams of Maggots and Rinkaku PVs, displaying a mage or a ghost. 

So, not gonna lie, I’m having trouble understanding this arc and what story the cast is telling, I’m hoping you can help me understand a little bit, are the gods good or bad? Should we be against them? Or is it a thing of “even the gods can make mistakes, their not above criticism and analyzation. And this is humanizing them.” I don’t know, I’m confused.

Hi anon,

If I may, you cannot know the exact story that’s being told by an ongoing improvised show until it completes, and stories for adults often do not have a clear good/bad split but rather encourage you to draw your own conclusions. As a result, I think it is impossible to answer the question that was asked, but I can try to provide some insight.

In Exandria, there are both good and neutral-aligned gods (Prime Deities) and evil-aligned gods (Betrayer Gods), and these gods explicitly oppose each other; they have only rarely come together as when, along with the primordial titans (post-Schism, loosely allied with the Betrayer Gods) they sealed Predathos. The Ruby Vanguard is against all of the gods, whether Prime or Betrayer, and in favor of Predathos. In the past, most heroic characters we’ve seen have been affiliated with either the Prime Deities or with entities who are neither, and most villainous characters we’ve seen in the past that were associated with a god were associated with Betrayer Gods.

During this arc, we’ve seen a lot of people’s opinions on the gods, and we’ve seen the actions of various people, affiliated and unaffiliated, with the gods. But we’ve actually only quite briefly seen the gods themselves, during FCG’s two castings of Commune, and the Dawnfather’s visitation upon Deanna. So, in the interest of guiding people towards developing their own conclusion on the gods: Would you form an opinion based solely on the opinion others have about something? Or would you take into account their biases, their reputations, and the structures of their arguments, and if possible, go straight to the source?

The Ruby Vanguard and Paragon’s Call, as well as people who have found meaning in Ludinus’s speech, have fallen into three broad categories:

Some, like Tuldus or the people of Hearthdell, have suffered at the hands of those who worship the gods. Whether this is the will of the gods or not is unconfirmed.

Some, like Liliana Temult, and possibly Ludinus Da’Leth, have suffered in life in general, and see this as a failure of the gods. This in fact touches on the question of theodicy (“if there is a god, why does evil exist/occur”) which has been a core question of religious philosophy in the real world for at least four millennia. I do not think we are going to be the ones to answer that definitively.

Some, like the various underlings at the Tishtan site, are merely apathetic. The gods don’t mean anything, good or bad, to them, and they are getting paid to help build and protect the key, so who really cares what happens.

The player characters we’ve seen this campaign have, with the occasional exception of Imogen (whose opinions fall weakly towards the middle category), either been in favor of the gods; apathetic but have not been given any incentive towards releasing Predathos; or apathetic/neutral but have suffered at the hands of those who worship Predathos. Indeed, one can argue that everyone except Deanna and FRIDA have suffered in some way at the hands of those who worship Predathos by being teleported at random. Certainly all of Bells Hells has by being attacked and in some cases murdered.

Now: I think that the point of this exercise is to help you make your own decisions, but I’ll reveal my bias. I think the most consistent message of this arc is what Ashton, Orym, and Laudna have been saying the entire time: regardless of whether the gods are good or not, as individual entities or as a greater system of power, people have always had free will. And regardless of whether the gods are good or not, Ludinus, Otohan, and other members of the Ruby Vanguard have slaughtered innocent bystanders without a second thought. I think the most important takeaway is that the primary source of both good and evil in the world of Exandria is, and always has been, mortals. The gods of the story are real within the story, but from the perspective of an outside viewer? This seems almost purely metaphorical to me. If things are less than ideal - if parts of complex systems have at times perpetuated harm, perhaps - should we introduce an unknown force with its own unknown potential to do harm to destroy them? Or should we work to address the issues within the existing system and at the very least gather considerably more information before asking something that might be even worse to rescue us?

The Ideal Gooner Bod

Wow, I'm still here!

This post is about something I've reflected on for some time, and I felt it was worth putting out there. You can see it in the title: "The Ideal Gooner Bod".

What does that mean? Well it's obviously subjective, as so much of life is. But to me, an ideal gooner is fat. Now, I will express my bias right away, I do have a fat fetish.

HOWEVER!

I'd like to posit that you don't need to have a fat fetish to enjoy this aspect of the gooner lifestyle. To me, it's part and parcel, and the reasons are obvious:

Gooning already entails a sedentary lifestyle with low levels of activity on its own.

Many gooners I've met are either single, or in relationships they don't want to be in, meaning there's little incentive to maintain a slim body.

Relatedly, part of being a gooner is committing yourself in some fashion to porn, right? And in committed relationships, one or both parties generally ends up letting themselves go. Porn certainly can't, so why not you? Show that you've found your one true love!

You already indulge in the hedonistic pleasures of porn and masturbation. Why not add yummy foods to that collection?

The odds are already stacked against you as you age. Your brain finishes development at age 25, meaning hormones level out and more effort is needed to maintain your body. Plus as you age, your metabolism slows.

Something new to goon to. Since plenty of gooners are already fat, there's lots of caps out there to indulge in, encouraging you to eat and stay big.

Objections and Rebuttals:

"I don't want to be fat!" If you're in this for Porn, who cares what you want? If you believe Porn wants you single, Porn wants you isolated, why not overweight? By default it shows others you don't care, which further increases your chances of staying single, staying alone.

"Being fat is unhealthy!"

So, this one requires a little more discussion. First, being fat is unhealthy! That is objectively true. More weight puts more strain on your body. However, you know what also strains your body? Not being fit in the first place. If you already don't work out, why does it matter? Indeed, while there is some disagreement, I've read (and you can search for yourself and come to your own conclusion) that being fat and active is better than being thin and inactive.

Second, I did mention food as a plus side of being bigger, but you don't actually have to eat junk food unless you really want to. There are healthier ways to pork up for Porn that you can look into if you're worried about diabetes and the like.

Third, if you're already fit, you don't have to stop being that way. This is presumptuous of me as someone online but if you have a very solid fitness routine AND are a gooner, I can't imagine it's solely because you're motivated by health. So why not take the plunge and try packing on some pounds?

"I don't want health issues associated with being overweight!"

Refer back to the initial point I made for the last objection, first. I believe the general rule of thumb for being generally healthy and avoiding heart issues is "at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise 3 times a week", i.e. enough that you can't talk while working out, and your heart is racing during that time. Are you getting that?

If not, then as someone who already finds exacerbating porn and masturbation addiction to be hot, just go a little further. Let your body become a VERY noticeable sign that porn is ruining you.

Honestly, that's the main argument I have. I feel like anyone reading this who's truly fit, sticking to an exercise regimen, etc. can feasibly put on weight and have zero issues, particularly if they want to lose it again! So really I'm addressing a bunch of already-unfit masturbators who don't want things to get "serious".

Like giving up years of your life, relationships, sexual intimacy, a regularly-functioning brain, and money aren't serious?

Or the heart disease you're already at risk of from not staying active isn't serious?

This is turning into a vague fitness post but let me sum it up: If you're thin or chubby and don't do any exercise, why not work to make yourself bigger? You already don't care about your (heart) health. It's the same as when you might have been a masturbator who was going back and forth about even liking porn addiction or gooning. Either start trying to get fit (which would give you more control over gaining anyway), or give up and start pigging out on food like you do on porn, loser! Come on.

Overall, I hope this post has made it clear that I see no reason for you, the reader, to not be nice and round for Porn.

If you already are, that's awesome. Good for you. :) I think the term "Porn piggy" being able to be used literally is pretty damn hot. Those who find themselves fat already, I don't have a lot to say. Keep gooning for Porn. Enjoy that soft body that signals your complacency, that shows you're devoted to something special to you. If you're fat, but not fit? Well ideally you should try to keep yourself healthy, too. But if fast food and gooning right now sound better?

Who am I to say no to someone keeping their body in-shape, particularly when that shape is round? ;)

A Trump-appointed prosecutor dropped an unfalsifiable partisan bomb on President Joe Biden Thursday, playing into a years-long right-wing media campaign — and U.S. political journalists decided to treat it as a valid and impartial charge.

Biden, who has a 40-year record of public service in the U.S. Senate, as vice president, and in the Oval Office, is a self-described “gaffe machine” with a well-documented stutter. He is also, at 81, the oldest president in U.S. history.

The right has dedicated substantial time and resources since Biden launched his 2020 presidential campaign to attributing his verbal miscues to his age. Republican political operatives surface out-of-context snippets of Biden’s misstatements and try to blow them up into national stories, and it is rarely-disputed canon in the right-wing media that the president is a mentally failing dementia patient. 

This argument blew up in their faces when Biden performed so well in a debate against then-President Donald Trump that the GOP resorted to accusing him of taking performance-enhancing drugs, and again in 2023, when his canny dealings with then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy led McCarthy to describe him as “very smart” and Republicans to question how they’d been outmaneuvered by someone purportedly in mental decline. But undeterred by reality, the right has maintained the drumbeat over Biden’s mental status, driving up public concern over the president’s age.

Enter Robert Hur. Attorney General Merrick Garland presumably selected him as a special counsel to investigate Biden’s possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records because he thought he could quell potential complaints of political bias by putting in charge a former clerk to right-wing judges whom Trump appointed as a U.S. attorney with every incentive to do maximum political damage to the Democratic president. This is a regular pattern — Republican and Democratic administrations each appoint Republicans to investigate both Republicans and Democrats, though that never seems to halt the complaints from the right about the handling of those cases.

On Thursday, after a year-long investigation, Hur issued a 345-page report in which he concluded that “​​no criminal charges are warranted in this matter” and that “the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” But rather than stop there, he also levied an incendiary and gratuitous attack on Biden’s mental status, claiming that, “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur cited specific mental lapses he’d observed during their five hours of interviews — conducted at a time when Biden was responding to the international crisis caused by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel — including that his “memory appeared hazy” when discussing the intricacies of 15-year-old White House policy debates.

Hur’s argument that lawyers for the sitting president of the United States would argue in court that he shouldn’t be convicted of a crime because he is a senile old man is facially absurd. Indeed, Biden forcefully pushed back on the critique during a White House appearance Thursday night.

The special counsel’s actions drew sharp criticism from the legal community. Biden’s lawyers blasted claims about Biden’s memory in a draft report, saying, “We do not believe that the report's treatment of President Biden's memory is accurate or appropriate. The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events.” On MSNBC, former FBI counsel Andrew Weissmann called the claims “wholly inappropriate,” “gratuitous,” and “exactly what you’re not supposed to do, which is putting your thumb on the scale that could have political repercussions.” Neal Katyal, the former acting U.S. solicitor general, likewise said that based on his tours in the Justice Department, Hur’s statements were “totally gratuitous” and a “too-clever-move-by-half by the special counsel to try and take some swipes at a sitting president.” And Ty Cobb, a former Trump lawyer, said on CNN that he had served on an independent counsel probe that declined to prosecute someone due to “health issues, but we didn’t tell the world that,” suggesting that such statements by Hur were inappropriate.

But by including those inappropriate and gratuitous statements, Hur put an official seal on a partisan attack. 

The right jumped on Hur’s claims, with Republican politicians and right-wing commentators falsely claiming that the special counsel had found that Biden “is not competent to stand trial” and “has dementia.” Some called for the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and remove him from office.

The mainstream political press, meanwhile, turned Hur’s insinuations about Biden’s mental health — and not his declination to prosecute — into the report’s big takeaway. Here’s a sampling of top headlines from major newspapers, political tipsheets, and digital outlets on Thursday and Friday.

New York Times: “Eight Words and a Verbal Slip Put Biden’s Age Back at the Center of 2024” Axios: “1 big thing: Report questions Biden’s memory” Semafor Flagship: “DoJ report questions Biden’s memory” Washington Post: “Special counsel report paints scathing picture of Biden’s memory” Wall Street Journal: “Biden’s Age Back in Spotlight After Special Counsel Report, Verbal Flubs” CNN: “Biden tries to lay to rest age concerns, but may have exacerbated them” ABC News: “Special counsel blows open debate over Biden age and memory” CBS News: “Biden disputes special counsel findings, insists his memory is fine” Politico: “Age isn’t just a number. It’s a profound and growing problem for Biden.

Stories about Biden’s mental state are clearly catnip for political journalists. They can demonstrate how “fair” they are by providing negative coverage of Biden to balance their treatment of his likely opponent Donald Trump, who is an unhinged authoritarian facing scores of federal and state criminal charges, including for attempting to subvert the 2020 presidential election. And they don’t need to bone up on policy nuances separating the candidates — “is the president addled” is an easy venue for hot takes.

The storyline is particularly toxic because no matter how many times it is repudiated by Biden’s public actions or the statements of people who have spoken to him privately, it cannot be falsified. The White House physician can release health summaries calling him “fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.” Democrats who have recently spoken to the president, like Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), and reporters who have recently interviewed him, like John Harwood, can attest to his mental acuity at the time of his special counsel interview. But Biden is still Biden, so he’s going to keep making gaffes, as he did Thursday night when he referred to Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as “the president of Mexico,” leading journalists to downplay his newsmaking statements about the Israel-Hamas war and fixate instead on what the statement says about his mental health. 

The choice for reporters is how they respond to such misstatements. On NPR, Mara Liasson said that the White House is pushing back by pointing out that Biden’s foes, like Fox’s Sean Hannity and Trump, have had similar mix-ups.

“But the difference is that one of these missteps, one of these guys who forgets things, Biden, has become a viral meme, and it's become a big problem for him,” she said. “Trump's misstatements, for some reason, have not risen to that level.”

It’s true that Trump’s own verbal missteps have not coalesced into an overarching narrative about his mental fitness for office. But the reason why is obvious: Political journalists decided to treat Biden’s missteps as a big problem, and Trump’s as a small one. They’re setting the agenda, following the lead of the Republican Party, the right-wing media, and now, Hur.