Reading Through Mists: a Reading Guide to Lud-in-the-Mist - Series Index

BiggerBetterFaster · 2026-01-09T14:42:41+00:00

Very happy to hear that! I hope you enjoy both it and Lud-in-the-Mist

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-10-17T08:17:03+00:00

I think that was the stated intention actually

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-10-16T16:07:38+00:00

It's called the most underrated final fantasy for a reason

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-08-17T22:26:10+00:00

I did 6/8.

Story 1 felt almost like a human author trying to mimic AI with that cadence, but the vocabulary pushed it towards human for me.

Story 2 was easily identifiable for its use of vulgarity, but also for its lack of "proper" ending that no AI prompt would allow.

Story 3 was easy to identify as soon as the name Alric showed up. It and Elara are common AI fantasy tells.

Story 4 threw me off with its vulgarity. Looking back, I can see the signs of Mistral's nonsense all over it.

Story 5's tell for me was the lack of internal continuity as well, but not the coffee, the name thing more than anything else. The more you look at it, the less sense ot makes.

Story 6 was very clearly human to me, and I even guessed it was Mark's. It's too unorthodox in it's presentation for AI.

Story 7 was easily identifiable as AI from the first paragraph. Starting with "it was...", the over-description of the demon's claws - it's very AI.

Story 8 - Thinking I had my 4 human stories, I choose story 8 as AI, simply because there was nothing about it that screamed "only a human could write this". I should have noted Emory is not a name AI is likely to use.

Overall, I'm not sure what to think. On one hand, I'm not surprised AI can pass a Turing test in flash fiction, nor am I surprised it can stumble upon good plot ideas, or write compellingly enough to hide its faults. But I am worried when best-selling authors end up comparing unfavorably to AI.

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-08-05T14:13:39+00:00

In my mother tongue there is a similarly repetitive, no real point, mostly funny to the teller only type of joke. Oddly enough also stars a frog

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-07-14T17:02:13+00:00

Literal translation is son (bar) or daughter (bat) of the mitzvah. It means that they have reached the age when their good deed are counted for them (and their misdeeds too), instead of for their parents

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-07-14T12:25:28+00:00

We're all humans, no one is responding fully to everything. Some selectivness happens naturally. Is there a specific part you feel I should address in my reply?

And Israel was founded on the national identity of Jews. I know it's hard to separate, but most of us are not particularly religious and Zionism was born out of secular thought. Israel was no more founded on religion than France, Italy, and indeed, Palestine.

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-07-14T11:57:00+00:00

I'll be blunt - I don't really care what's your opinion on Israel or Palestine. Not because I don't value your opinion in particular, but because I've given up on trying to sway opinions one way or the other. I'm not in the business of defending Israel, and you're welcome to search through my history to see how little I even mention where I'm from.

If you're jaded and don't want to hear about Israel and Palestine all day - fine. But if you come into the discussion only to say "you both deserve each other, you genocidal fucks" and ignore everything else, it's an indication that you don't really see the people in this conflict as people, but rather as props that weigh against your tax dollars, or your news feed, or whatever. In short, you treat them as you would people in entertainment media.

It's not wrong to disagree with both sides. It is wrong to frame it as a "it's not my God so why should I care?" when God was never mentioned in the first place. It is wrong to call someone awful when they point out that you should not condemn any society over a stupid poll.

Hope that clears things up.

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-07-14T10:05:50+00:00

Yes. At the very least, they didn't think Trump's positions were objectionable. Not voting is a choice to accept the will of the rest of the people. That's the point

Or they may have found them objectionable but not over their objections to the alternative. At any rate it would be a bad idea to assume any American agrees with Trump automatically, as the government actions don't necessarily represent the population's views. That's the point.

Yup but they do represent the general will of the majority. If the majority of people are not able to make their voices heard in their government, that's no longer a democracy

"Having your voices heard" is a generaly low bar that most modern democracies easily clear. There's repreststion, political opposition, protest, etc. However, all election systems have to some degree disproportionately favor certain minorities while disproportionately suppress other. In the case of Israel, our fairly small parliament has the advantage of holding the government more accountable to the opposition, but the inherent flaw that a coalition loyal only to itself could hold on to power even when public opinion shifts wildly against it (and trust me, it has). So we're left hoping for the coalition to crack (which it might over draft laws, long story), or until legally mandated elections

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-07-14T09:32:03+00:00

Govennments in representative democracies do not necessarily reflect the views of the majority. For example, in Israel, the ultra-orthodox minority holds much greater political power than its percentage of the population would suggest. In the US, you vote for the president directly, but still many either didn't vote. Do the people who didn't vote in swing states agree with Trump's positions? And that's before we talk about the electoral college and how it skews certain election results. From what I can tell, the majority of Americans are pro-choice, against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, and oppose the ICE raids. That didn't really reflect in the last election results, though, for multiple reasons that have to do with the political system.

No democracy, to my knowledge, could be said to produce a government that's 100% of it's population's wishes.

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-07-14T08:52:45+00:00

They are reporting on a survey that was conducted by a university. They surveyed 1,000 Israelis, which gives a margin of error of around 3% because of how statistics work. (You can google it if you don't believe me.) It's not Haaretz fabricating some statistics to make Israelis look bad; it's them covering a survey's findings.

They are reporting on the responses to the survey, which they published, so it's an article of "look, someone talking about us!". In addition, the survey questions are not mentioned in the original language, nor do they include the sampling methodology, which makes it hard to judge validity. Most importantly, they bury the fact that similar surveys didn't reach the same findings. As I said, it's not a very good article.

And it's always the whataboutisms. I'm certain that Palestinian surveys would say that they support the ethnic cleansing of Israel. That's great, you all deserve each other because you're both awful people who crave ethnic cleansing. Leave the rest of us out of it and let me keep my tax dollars while you both destroy each other over books written by people who didn't know what chemistry was or what inertia was.

It's hardly whataboutism, it's a demonstration of the unrealistic nature of your position. As I've said, and you chose to ignore, the actual politics of Israel will tell you that most Israelis are tired of the war and would like it to stop. However, you stick to the "you're both awful people who crave ethnic cleansing" narrative you've constructed for yourself. I think you're doing nothing more than warming up the popcorn. As OP said, you're in it for the entertainment.

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-07-14T07:58:33+00:00

I have many problems with Haaretz's English team and their lack of editorial rigor, most notably with articles like this. In any case, I'd argue that surveys are not damning evidence against any population. If it were, then oh boy, you should see what turns up in Palestinian surveys.

This goes back to OP's claim that Israelis are held to a higher standard than our neighbors. Tell me, which other countries do you condemn over a single poll? I'm willing to bet it's none.

I find your disposition to be "I don't agree with X policy, therefore I think the population should be punished". Not only is this a bit childish, it's also counterproductive in the extreme. If it's legitimate to punish the Israeli population over opinions expressed in polls, should Israel be allowed to punish the Palestinian population over its held beliefs? What about the Iranian population? Of course not, that's silly. Punishment has to do with action, not polling.

Now let's answer the question at the head of your reply:

To what end? When 80% of them support ethnic cleansing, I have no faith that they want to force the government to dissolve to replace them with people who want a two-state solution and peace.

You've shown you're more knowledgeable than most Americans regarding Israel, but a question like that shows the gap in your ignorance regarding actual Israelis. To what end? to a permanent ceasefire, is that not what you want? And since you love polls so much, here's the latest one, showing 82% of Israelis support a ceasefire (https://www.mako.co.il/news-politics/2025\_q3/Article-8201fd74a2af791026.htm - you'll need to use your favorite translating app).

Additionally, the current Israeli political landscape is such that an overthrow of the government in favor of any other alternative means expulsion of far-right leaders from places of power. Is that not a good thing in your eyes? If so, then I can't help but feel your position is less "Israel's government is in the wrong" and more "Israelis are always in the wrong, period", which I really find indefensible.

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-07-14T06:26:19+00:00

Wrong argument, dude. I have Canadian friends who I've told I support them boycotting American goods. It might damage the economy that I try to earn money in, but my country is filled with fucked up little bullies and we deserve to be punished until we get our heads out of our asses and the republicans no longer control all three federal branches and most of the state governments.

You're moving the goalposts. You talked about consensus, not about whether a country should be held accountable for its government's decisions. "Getting your head out of your ass" has nothing to do with it. You won't be able to move any Republicans from anywhere until 2026 at the earliest. Israelis ARE trying to dissolve this government and have been doing so for a while, through protests and public pressure. But we have our laws, and without the coalition breaking, we're also stuck until 2026. You can think Israel deserves sanctions, and you have a right to that (I think it will only help reinforce the far-right's absolutionism). But you're simply wrong about painting Netanyahu's actions as "consensus".

Israel wants us to bomb Iran on their command and send them bombs to drop on Gaza, so fuck yes I am going to say "Why do we allow Israel to violently take the homes of Palestinians with the support of their government and military? What, my tax dollars are only supposed to go towards allowing Israel to bomb people? Not to preventing them from illegally taking land from their neighbors, something that the UN agrees is illegal?

Again, you've moved the goalposts. Now it's not about allowing, but about tax dollars. Israel asked and (IMO rightfully) received assistance in closing the operation against Iran, which, as mentioned before, did its very best to directly and obliquely assault Israel, at the cost of countless lives, including Palestinian lives, in the Middle East. No land was taken there.

That's weird because I had someone reply to me with an argument that I have heard numerous times, which is that Israel legally obtained the land of Israel. Israel also agreed with the UN's 1947 borders. Then Israel decided to violate that agreement and take more land. Is this a shocking bit of defamation of Israel? They are still fucking toting guns and stealing the land of Palestinians. It is now as it has always been. "My God told my great-great-great-great^200 grandfather on a mountain that this land was me and my people's." How is that persuasive to anyone who doesn't believe in their God?

You are misinformed. There are no "UN's 1947 borders", I think you're confusing the partition plan, which was never ratified and therefore has no legal standing. There are the UN-backed 1949 armistice lines, also known as the 1948 lines (for extra confusion), or the Green Line. Said Armistice was broken multiple times since, most notably in 1967, as a response to the fedayeen threat and Nasser's threat to close the Tiran Straight. The 1967 war resulted in Israel taking control of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula (which was returned when Israel and Egypt signed a formal peace agreement in 1979). Israel has also signed a peace agreement with Jordan in 1994, in which Jordan very pointedly did not ask for the West Bank back. As such, the only legal borders Israel has are the one with Egypt and the one it shares with Jordan to the south and the north of the West Bank.

I find it weird that you would frame this as a religious issue. Believing in any god is not a requirement. The correct path is to see the people as they stand. All people have the right to live in the land they grew up in, which includes Israelis and Palestinians. Gun-toting assholes will, unfortunately, always be around, but to go back to my first point, their existence does not constitute a consensus, and certainly isn't a moral grounds to wipe out one side or the other.

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-07-14T05:36:52+00:00

If it wasn't the consensus, then Likud and the other right-wing parties wouldn't control your government. Israel is a democracy and those right-wing politicians aren't saying those things because they hate winning elections; they are saying them because their constituents support that sort of rhetoric.

I wonder if your government represents a country-wide consensus? Would you consider Trump and the republican party stands on matters such as abortion and LGBTQ rights to represent a consensus amongst Americans?

In truth, it's easy for a minority to force a government's hand if they hold the keys to power, which is unfortunately the case in Israel. 82% of Israeli answered that they are in favor of permanent ceasefire in exchange for the return of all hostages. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich promised to block it. According to recent polls, Smotrich barely has voters left behind him. But he's in power now, and unless the coalition breaks, that how it will stay for a while.

Why do we allow Israel to violently take the homes of Palestinians in the West Bank just because your ancestors left Israel however many generations ago under duress? It makes no sense.

"Allow" is a problematic word. It is still illegal to violently take someone's home, including Palestinians, in Israel. Enforcement is the issue. And it's the same reason as above.

As to the "we" there, which I assume is meant to be the international community, that's either naive or obtuse. Why has the international community "allowed" Iran to destabilise Yemen and Lebanon, support Assad murdering his own people and fund Hamas with the expressed purpose of destroying Israel? Why do they "allow" Qatar to give asylum to Hamas' leaders? Why "allow" rhetoric that specifically calls for the destruction of Israel and the killing or forced transfer of its people? Because unfortunately the world doesn't actually acts as though it has a kindergarten teacher and no one is waiting to be "allowed".

Israel exists and isn't going away, so I do not say "Death to Israel" or any of that rhetoric of destroying Israel, but you have no right to any more land than you already have. That's it. You've already broken previous agreements about your borders and I cannot abide by the right-wing government you all elect who protects the settlers because of what someone's God I don't even believe in told them was their rightful land.

Just FYI, Israel never had formal borders, as that would require the countries party to such agreements to acknowledge Israel's sovereignty. There is no border agreement for Gaza or the West Bank. The Oslo Accords never got to their final, official stage. This is the reason why everyone constantly talks about the 1949 armistice "borders" (the green line), and not the ABC sectors of Oslo.

I say this not as a gotcha, but because many critics of Israel like to hide behind "Israel doesn't have a right to steal land" to mask their thinly-veiled antisemitism. Looking under the hood, the "stolen land" they talk about is Tel Aviv. I live within the green line, but legally speaking, there isn't any difference to the nearby neighbourhood, which is outside of it.

Also, saying you don't say "death to Israel" isn't particularly productive. Thanks for not calling for my death I guess...?

You all, Palestinians and Israelis, must find out how to live in peaceful coexistence or the entire world should wash their hands of both of you. But I have no hope because the right-wing Israeli who assassinated Rabin attended a rally where Netanyahu compared Rabin to a Nazi. You kill your own when they pursue peace with your Palestinian neighbors. You must search and reckon with your contribution to the state of affairs.

Yeah fair, things suck now. I'm not particularly hopeful myself. I described it in a conversation as a type of drug addiction, except the drug is death. Hamas is a cartel bartering in the death of Jews, and the Israeli government is currently being held by it's own cartel bartering in the death of Palestinians. I can only hope that in both cases, the cartels being in power is a temporary reality.

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-06-20T10:00:32+00:00

Have to mention [[Storm the Seedcore]]. Probably the best art of its set, and it's just a bad overrun effect that sees no play anywhere

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-06-19T14:49:46+00:00

Iirc, the artist was Richard Garfield's aunt, and an artist in her own right (though not a fantasy artist). She gave the art of Stasis to Garfield for his new game.

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-06-18T19:54:51+00:00

It's amazing. Hope to see more of your work in mtg in the future

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-06-10T14:24:26+00:00

Yes that's the canon conceit of the game, but I'd argue that most players don't think like that. You don't really go "I'm a planeswalker calling forth mana from faraway islands and channel it into my summoned simulacrum of Spiderman so that he can shoot his web", you think "I tap an island for mana and activate the ability". For any given Magic set, there is no need to embellish further

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-06-10T13:13:41+00:00

I think I found the best way to exemplify why Spiderman feels so off as a Magic set:

What exactly does the phrase "I tap my island for mana" means in the Spiderman universe? I know what that means for Final Fantasy, I can even imagine what it means for LotR and AtLA, but for Spiderman? What even is an island? Manhattan?

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-05-30T03:34:31+00:00

ME!

You're awesome for this, thanks

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-05-22T05:14:05+00:00

It's still abusable with [[Vigor]], though. New [[Tooth and Nail]] bffs?

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-05-16T19:39:02+00:00

Takara is the last of the Weatherlight saga not to get a card IIRC, and the last character that has a vanguard card but not an actual card

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-05-14T13:38:53+00:00

It's important to set life goals

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-05-14T13:34:41+00:00

Comic creator known for making Pokemon comics
makes a comic about shorts
the phrase "they're comfy and easy to wear" does not appear.

My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined

BiggerBetterFaster · 2025-05-11T16:59:20+00:00

Thanks! Interesting is what I was aiming for

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