careless realism costs souls

Young Nerwen

Text of tweet under the cut because it is loooong.

But... Stochastic Parrots.

Carolina Milanesi, an independent technology analyst, said Google is trying to make its cash cow business — search — richer and more personalized, and it will make shopping easier. But there is a risk that users may have fewer choices about what to click. "Right now it's: I ask a question, I get a bunch of answers and I feel that I'm in control as to which answer I take, or if I'm looking for something, which product I'm going to end up buying. That is going to be less so going forward," she said. Milanesi envisions AI-enabled search and agents proposing products to consumers — perhaps even those they have requested — but with less clarity or choice around where it's coming from. "If you're going to say: 'I want a pair of Jordans, go find them,' you're not necessarily sure what steps have been taken and whether the AI has used a source or a store that was paid for and therefore came up in the search results," she said, "or if AI actually went and did their due diligence and picked the best for me as a customer."

And here's one from Time magazine (May 20, 2026):

While Google already has “AI Mode,” the company will now power the whole search bar through its new Gemini 3.5 Flash model.  Instead of the classic list of blue links, Google Search will now also generate a custom page with an AI-generated summary of what you’re searching about, which will then trigger a conversation with AI Mode on the main page, allowing users to ask follow-up questions—similar to the kind of layout you would see when opening ChatGPT.

And a little more from Time's article on how this may affect the websites that we are trying to search for:

for one, there is no way that thingol did not allude to it in his reply to maedhros - which maedhros receives, even if thingol's previous letters do not go through. for another, i think the animating factor in this decision is this "For Maedhros and his brothers, being constrained by their oath". he is not purely operating from the position of political savviness, but from the position of one placing the oath first (consider also: he perceives morgoth can be assailed only after luthien and beren have stolen a silmaril and not before, when fingolfin was suggesting they unite their forces to fight morgoth. i think there's something very operative in what is driving maedhros' "hope" here and its not a good thing)

but also on an ideological level, this is going to sound really ugly, but i genuinely think maedhros didn't think much of what curufin & celegorm did to luthien and i think that ties back to the fact that a) both the sindar and noldor are deeply patriarchal societies that see women as "belonging" to men and are given from one group to another on marriage (more or less textually confirmed in NoME), b) beren and luthien having both been on a mission to steal the silmarils, which at this point are not just feanorian heirlooms but which have been rhetorically identified by feanor (in his tirion speech) as being symbolic of the noldor identity vv creation through craft (and finrod's aid in that is explicitly narrativised as a betrayal of that noldor identity and of his identity as one from the line of finwe), c) the marriage of aredhel having been treated by curufin as her being "stolen" from the noldor ("those who steal the daughters of the Noldor and wed them without gift or leave do not gain kinship with their kin") and d) feanor's speech in tirion where the noldor are mobilised to go to middle earth both to escape the tyranny of the valar and to protect their "heirloom" of "arda" against "possession" by a "lesser race" ("no lesser race shall oust us")

working backwards from these four facts - i think it is not unlikely that maedhros may have held similar thoughts about the situation to his brothers. beren and luthien stole something that rightfully belonged to the sons of feanor and to the noldor. luthien is a sindar princess and the sindar have already stolen something precious to the noldor before i.e. one of their princesses, without so much as a by your leave (or exchange of wealth as is implied by the "gift" curufin refers to). furthermore luthien is a sindar princess seeking to marry a man (we already have a sense of what the elvish perspective on this is re. thingol's own disdain for a Man seeking to marry his daughter) and this man has stolen a silmaril, which has made feanor's fear re. the elves being ousted by a lesser race and their birthright being stolen by them come true. therefore, his brothers were not wrong to evoke the oath and its call for vengeance in both deposing finrod (who has betrayed the noldor) and in seizing luthien, because if a silmaril is a fair bride price for luthien, then luthien is a fair exchange for the idea that someone else (and racially constructed as lesser) could assert a claim to the silmaril and who else could be worthy except someone from the line of finwe, from the noldor who are greater than the sindar king who cannot hold his own. since no "actual" rape has taken place, i think he would have found it very easy to both a) rationalise it to himself in these terms of theft, racial supremacy and gendered control and b) that no rape would have actually taken place, because his brothers ultimately would have waited for thingol to sanction permission to marry luthien (and that would have been fine and dandy).

I’d like to add a few things which I think are in line with what you’re discussing:

We must remember that Maedhros and Fingon are warlords. In such a political and societal structure diplomacy doesn’t quite work like we understand it in the modern sense. To a war lord the highest quality in a potential ally is military strength, above all.

This is particularly important in the context of the post-Bragollach state of affairs: the continent is burned, relationships are tight, communication probably extremely limited, refugees are fleeing, and battle never stops. People tend to portray the Bragollach as a one and done ordeal, but the burning lasts for a full season (in some drafts a full year) and then conflict never stops, namely: Sauron takes over Tol Sirion, Barad Eithel is under siege 7 years later, the Orcs make it all the way into the plains upon Hithlum, Morgoth causes a plague that eliminates a lot of Fingon’s mortal allies. On the Marches of Medhros the picture is not much better - Himring is an isolated point of defense. There’s constant pressure to survive on both ends, and when defense is clearly not feasible (given all of the above), the only logical strategy to a war lord would be to muster the strength and attack rather than wait and die out slowly. You could claim there are other options, but again, space is limited in Beleriand, allies are few, and the Noldor have already established societies where the strongest hand leads.

If military strength is the most desired characteristic in an ally, then Fingon and Maedhros would have little interest in negotiating with Thingol who has never expressed interest in changing his isolationist policy, not to mention his involvement with the Feanorian Oath and the added weight of the first kinslaying.

Likewise, Orodreth seems set on an isolationist policy after Curufin and Celegorm manage to petrify the people of Nargothrond: 

And after Celegorm Curufin spoke, more softly but with no less power, conjuring in the minds of the Elves a vision of war and the ruin of Nargothrond. So great a fear did he set in their hearts that never after until the time of Túrin would any Elf of that realm go into open battle; but with stealth and ambush, with wizardry and venomed dart, they pursued all strangers, forgetting the bonds of kinship. Thus they fell from the valour and freedom of the Elves of old, and their land was darkened.

Orodreth's refusal to join the Nirnaeth later, is explicitly stated as his refusal to join the sons of Feanor.

On the other hand, Celegorm and Curufin do provide military strength, as is later seen during the Nirnaeth. In the context of warfare, and the stirring of the oath with the theft of the Silmarils, they are the more logical ally, as brutal as that sounds.

What is more, as tober summarized quite nicely, many of the Feanorian followers would see Finrod’s involvement with the quest for the Silmaril as a betrayal of the Noldorin identity. I would bet that many at Himring would be up in arms were Curufin and Celegorm to be prosecuted (unfairly in their mind). In times of crisis, the last thing you want is civil strife among the few people you do have. A war lord will prioritize military unity.

Lastly, it is questionable how much authority the High Kingship has over other realms. It certainly is not a supreme authority (e.g. when Fingolfin wanted to fight, no one other than Aegnor and Angrod would back him up, and he could not command other realms to do as he wished.) The authority of the High Kingship likely diminishes even further under Fingon, who inherits a complete disaster of a realm to rule be it from an environmental, economic, political or civic aspect. So I wonder how much authority he had to judge and prosecute even if he tried.

Maedhros and Fingon take a gamble. They choose as a war lord would: the maintenance of military unity for the sake of survival in times of active war. And they screw up, big time. 

Although, in the grand scheme of things, it would have mattered little. The narrative is pretty clear that without the aid of the Valar, there’s no defeating Morgoth: 

This counsel was wise according to the measure of [Fingolfin's] knowledge; for the Noldor did not yet comprehend the fullness of the power of Morgoth, nor understand that their unaided war upon him was without final hope, whether they hasted or delayed.

similarly: this woman rejects all the men who express interest in her and seems exhausted by the whole affair: is she a lesbian? aro and/or ace? trans? bi or straight but with standards that no one has canonically met? someone who values her autonomy and knows how much that will be curtailed if she gets married? unless the text is very explicit about her reasoning, we don't know, and it could again be any of the above or a combination.

now, sometimes the text *is* very explicit and people still ignore it. I see this very commonly with ace and/or aro characters where fandom loves to ignore the character's own stated feelings and preferences to make them more shippable. this sucks. or there's instances where a character has an opposite-sex love interest and people really let their misogyny show by claiming that she never really mattered and you can/should completely ignore that relationship and not make it a part of your character analysis. this also sucks.

1. If you see this post, highly recommend taking it as an opportunity to set a timer for 15 minutes and switch over to ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY. if after those 15 minutes, you want to go back to scrolling, that's okay!

2. Huge shout out to this popping up in my notifs often, bc I do go back to activity.

shoutout to the weirdos, to the struggling, to the dykes, the fags, the queers, the trannies and the cripples

shoutout to those flaring up and forced to cope to anybody who would really like to just not give a fuck but knows thats not an option to anybody who's exhausted to anybody who's alone or feels alone to anybody putting off the bad shit for just another day to anybody who's taking a nap instead of doing something permanent

i have a mass in my uterus i need removed but it costs $400. it's caused nothing but agony, physically + emotionally. it would help ease the flare-ups for my chronic pain in my hands + wrists, knees, back, that leave me bedbound & hardly able to hold a spoon to eat. please help in any way you can, i'm desperate for relief.

c+sh+pp - $iridesense

v×nm× - iridesense

Florence Welch during Everybody Scream tour

You Are On Native Land collects stories and art donated by some of comics' biggest Indigenous creators such as Jon Proudstar, Maria Wolf, and Steph Littlebird. Tales of Native resistance; family and kinship; love and grief fill this beautiful collection, which includes a special reprint of TRIBAL FORCE #1, credited as the first comic to feature a superhero team made up entirely of Indigenous heroes.

GUYS THIS COMES OUT SEPTEMBER 2026 I NEED EVERYONE TO PULL THIS IT LOOKS SO PEAK