(no subject)

 In fiction inspired by Lovecraft, there are books you can read that will drive you insane.

In our world, there are videos you can watch that will cause you mental trauma. Facebook, Youtube, etc. have teams of employees to remove these videos, and these employees frequently suffer burnout from having to see such horrific things.

The people who make and distribute these videos presumably are not traumatized by them, and even enjoy them.

The weak hypothesis: the people who distribute videos of horrific torture would not be driven mad if they encountered Cthulhu.

The strong hypothesis: these people would worship Cthulhu.

(no subject)

Tanadrin: “One thing I really appreciate about Michael Schur’s metaphysics is that the powers that rule are not omniscient or omnipotent, and also don’t pretend that they are. This doesn’t devolve into Greek mythology-style “gods are just humans with magic powers,” because they still are emphatically the Powers That Be: the judge of all the universe, the eternal arbiter of right and wrong might eat burritos spiced with envy, but she actually is that judge. But she can be wrong.”

I don’t understand the distinction here between a Power that Is and a human with magic powers, and I get the impression I should.

The rule I tend to operate under is that anything that thinks like a human is a human. Robot with emotions? Human. Elf? Nice try, that’s a human. Nature spirit? It wants the same things humans want, so it’s a human. Sometimes it’s an autistic human, but I don’t consider that relevant.

I don’t watch this show, and I’m clearly missing context. But it sounds like this character thinks and feels like a human does, so I’m not getting the distinction between them and a human. Maybe the character knows things I as a human don’t, or does things I as a human can’t, but there are humans who know and do things I don’t, and they’re still human.

(Relevant: I used to write a lot of stories about characters who got royally smacked down for thinking they weren’t human. Thinking you’re not human in a Feo story is like thinking you’re immune to karma in a Zen koan.)

(no subject)

There are some people on Tumblr where I know everyone hates them, but every time I see their posts get reblogged, they actually have decent takes. I’ve heard in passing that one of them has a sexual fetish other people don’t like, and another one “owns a child slave.”* But there’s a third one where I have only the vaguest idea of why people hate him, and honestly, it’s a lot more fun watching everyone flip the hell out at someone who seems completely innocuous.

*I have never seen any context for this. Ever. People just say not to reblog this person because she “owns a child slave.”