#Control Societies

[1000rh]

The ultimate coup of control society is not so much the continuous influence of the border crossing or the passport control, not so much data mining or facial recognition algorithms, but that it has eviscerated history, not by banning dissent, but by accelerating the opportunities and channels for critical thought to infinity and therefore making it impossible to think historically in the first place. Thus the central challenge within control society will be not simply to resist the various new nefarious control apparatuses, but to rescue history from its own consummation.

– Alexander R. Galloway, "Computers in the Superfold" (2012)

[yaoigagarinsblog]

"The coils of a serpent are even more complex than the burrows of a molehill"

— Gilles Deleuze, Postscript On The Societies Of Control (1990)

[yakityyaku]

very funny (irritating) to me that everyone whined and yelled about stupid rainbow capitalism and how performative wokeness/allyship is a net bad we should all refuse to support and now like.

tumblr is doing nothing for pride and target isn't selling much (if any) of their pride collection offline except at certain stores (in democratic areas, basically) and build a bear has a much tinier collection than normal and all the actual pride stuff is on their "adult" website (not sure if it's in stores, but pride = adult is a hell of a message)

there are genuinely good criticisms for performative allyship in all its applications. it shouldn't be the only thing we expect from people and companies. but if all the shit I see being called performative stopped tomorrow then in terms of the LGBTQ+ community especially we just. wouldn't talk about queerness or queer issues or celebrate pride or do anything.

open your fucking eyes. we are very close politically to having gay marriage rolled back. now companies are basically being let off the hook to even make a miniscule effort (which matters to the people who don't have access to any other kind of support in their communities! which normalizes the community in public spaces!) because the only reaction they have gotten over the last few years are negative ones from BOTH sides.

we are so entrenched in discourse at all times for the sake of our OWN performance of who is the wokest and who is REALLY an ally or a good community member that we have basically handed over all the work of activists of the last several decades to the other side because we'd rather scream at each other over fucking chicken restaurants and shit than the real life backsliding that's happening.

and this goes for other shit too. feminism, poc rights, all of it.

also. trans rights aren't discourse and aren't just culture war arguments. in case any terfs think they can spin this to be antitrans.

[fandomsandfeminism]

On Saturday, in New York, a group of friends pulled into a strangers driveway to turn their car around. The homeowner came outside, shot at them, and killed one of the 20 year old women in the car.

Last Thursday, in Kansas City, a 16 year old boy ended up at the wrong address by mistake trying to pick up his younger siblings. He rang the doorbell. The homeowner shot him in the head. He is, miraculously, alive and recovering.

Yesterday, in Texas, a group of high school cheerleaders stopped at a grocery store on their way home. One of them opened the door to the wrong car by mistake, realized her mistake, and quickly retreated and found her friends car nearby. The man in the car followed her and shot at the group. 2 were shot. One remains hospitalized.

In less than a week- 3 people, doing normal, nonmalicious, nonthreatening, everyday things. Turning around in a driveway, ringing the wrong doorbell, going up to the wrong car by mistake. And with no escalation, no warning, it turns to gun fire.

It's a terrible intersection of easy access to firearms and an entitlement to use violence against others. All 3 of these recent incidents were so unprovoked and unjustifiable, and the core thread remains the same.

A man who felt entitled to use violence and had the means to do so with a firearm.

I don't even know what to say.

[shittysawtraps]

when your friend says “i’m becoming the joker,” reply, “well, i’m becoming jigsaw” to one-up them. do not elaborate on what this means

[deadpoetsandlivinglegends]

Something something every time Charlie isn’t fighting to be the center of attention, he is always looking around to others to gauge their reactions and silently observing them all something something he is searching for connection, to fit in and be loved but he doesn’t know how to ask for love so instead he gains their attention by acting out in ways he knows they’ll notice and tries to pretend their attention and love are the same thing

[shadystranger]

Im just saying that if sam was a girl dean'd have fucked her from the first episode

[strawberrysamara]

"Kaidan Alenko is boring" WRONG. Kaidan Alenko is one of THEE characters of all time. He's Canadian, he's Schrodinger's man of colour, he's DOWN to fuck and still didn't manage to figure out that he's bisexual until his thirties, he killed a man as a teenager and almost caused a diplomatic meltdown bc of it, his tits are bigger than yours, he's constantly getting migraines, he has autism but doesn't know it AND he glows. What more could you want

[metanarrates]

worth bringing up as sort of a corollary to my severance thoughts is that severance does an excellent job of showing that different forms of power & control (cult/corporation/family/government) tend to bleed and overlap and propagate in similar forms. in that particular vein, speaking as a cult survivor, it's worth saying specifically that it doesn't do much good to exceptionalize cults as a rare oddity of how societal power can sometimes take shape. lumon, though fictional, is a really good example of how those mechanisms of control exist in many forms throughout society and should be broken down and scrutinized when they do appear.

[linka-from-captain-planet]

"[Celene accepting Duke Remache's proposal of marriage, which would likely eliminate Gaspard's challenge to her rule] is worth considering," Briala said, interrupting Celene's thoughts. Celene glanced over to see that Briala was refilling her teacup, her eyes still downcast. "It is not." Celene took the elven woman by the shoulder and gently tilted up Briala's chin until those beautiful eyes met hers. "If I tie myself to some lord, it will be for more than good hunting grounds in the Deauvin Flats." Perhaps it was selfish. Perhaps it was a mistake in the Game, even. But Celene had lost enough of her own life to the Empire of Orlais already... as had Briala. Briala's gaze softened. "Majesty."

A favorite moment from The Masked Empire, encapsulating a lot of what I find so compelling about them, particularly the drive-by interruption by Celene's guilty conscience and how much of a colossal understatement "perhaps it was a mistake in the Game" turns out to be

[serpentface]

Retconned Wardi firearms- a basic handgun, a highly decorative ceremonial handgun (belonging to Faiza), and a lance-gun.

Gun tech has officially been nerfed down to hand cannons (press F) (this has been a long time coming but I'd been fallacy of sunk costs-ing myself out of retconning).

Handguns are held similarly to a shotgun, with the butt pressed into the user's shoulder, one hand gripping under the barrel, and the other free to ignite the gunpowder. These represent the most advanced firearms in contemporary usage, both in make and in their use of uniform iron projectiles built to match the gun's bore for greater range and efficiency. Lance-guns are the more basal form, usually larger and mounted with the pole held over the shoulder, and are most effectively used by two people (one to hold and aim, one to light the gunpowder).

The spread of firearms is currently mostly limited to the Eastern Inner Seaway peoples (with some additional distribution via overland trade), and actual manufacture of hand cannons and gunpowder at Significant scale is limited to the region's core powers.

The reason for this limited spread is partially due to specific elements of the technology's history. Gunpowder was first synthesized by Burri alchemists and considered to be the discovery of the legendary divine weapon + solar fire of the deity Inanariya, and its formula (along with techniques for ideally refining its components) remained a closely guarded state secret. It was used predominantly in priestly contexts to generate flame and explosive sounds (in conjunction with earlier practices of generating multicolored flames with use of other chemicals), then integrated into combustible weaponry in the forms of fire lances, which would eventually develop into early handcannons.

The treatment of gunpowder as a guarded sacred or semi-sacred substance continued with Wardi adoption, where knowledge of its making is considered a closed rite. It's name (inya tsatsul or just tsatsul, a derived adoption of the Burri iñazatsūya) still reflects a divine solar association (the Burri word means 'sun's thunder', the Wardi 'inya' invokes the sun, 'tsatsul' is an adapted loanword and has no meaning independent of the substance itself), though its priestly use is now predominantly associated with the firearm'ed Odonii (rather than priests of the solar Face Inyamache). The composition of gunpowder can no longer be regarded as a Secret by any means, though efforts to obscure the methods of its creation are still moderately successful and has kept knowledge of gunpowder manufacture more limited than the total sphere of firearm usage itself.

The actual strongest limiting factor of firearm usage is the rarity of natural saltpeter deposits necessary for making gunpowder. The practice of actively producing saltpeter via nitraries has not been developed anywhere in the setting, and all is instead obtained via natural sources. These sources are rare and limited within the current spread of firearm technology, and result in gunpowder being a limited and expensive substance to produce. The weapons themselves are also very expensive to manufacture (a good quality steel SWORD is far too material-cost prohibitive for most people to own), particularly high quality firearms designed for use with standardized ammunition.

These guns are also very basal, and logistical difficulties in their use (weight, very slow loading and firing speed, high visibility, Relatively low reach and accuracy) along with the restrictive cost of production has kept firearms far from rendering conventional weaponry, armor, and projectiles obsolete (even within the societies that have access to them). They are still, however, very devastating in use within their contemporary context, particularly in that high quality guns have a longer range than the best arrow-based projectiles, and utterly negate most contemporary forms of armor at close range.

[slowburningechoes]

the ultimate rsl playlist

I am constantly adding to this, but I’ve tried to gather nearly every video of Robert Sean Leonard on YouTube into THIS playlist:

I hope you all enjoy this one-stop shop (full movies and theatre performances, clips, songs, audiobooks, interviews, & more) for our beloved Bobby! There are already 200+ videos waiting for you!

If you find a video that isn’t on here, please let me know so I can add it!

[nellasbookplanet]

I think my favorite aspect of Imogen as a character is how she consistently chooses to empathize with and seeks to understand the outsider, even if - or perhaps even especially if - they are viewed as scary or dangerous. The most obvious example thereof is of course her relationship with Laudna. Not only did she choose to befriend and travel with someone who's strange, undead, scary, and the vessel of an evil necromancer, she chose to step up and defend Laudna against her home village despite never having met her before and knowing nothing about her, simply because she saw someone being targeted due to scared people making a snap judgement based on assumptions of the undead. It isn't that Imogen decided Laudna was harmless and innocent (again, she didn't know her at the time), but rather that she saw no one else would as much as slow down to give her a chance.

We see this aspect of her many times in the campaign. She lets the strange little mushroom people of Ruidus take her by the hand and lead her into their scary tunnels. She meets the all minds burn, a scary hive mind entity, not with fear or apprehension but with a willingness to understand. She's one of the strongest proponents in arguing that FCG, an automaton not viewed as a person by the general populace, has personhood and a soul. When facing Predathos, she does so with empathy, and when she releases it at the end she doesn't tell it to fuck off but kindly and even mournfully lets it know there's nothing left for it here. Part of her epilogue is working with emigrating Ruidians, who've lived under oppression and are viewed with suspicion by Exandrians, to help them find a home and belonging.

This aspect of her is also one of her greatest flaws. While it makes her empathetic toward the outsider, it often leaves her suspicious of or judgmental towards the "normal" and accepted, because for much of her life those who are normal never made an effort to reach out to or understand her due to their fear of something not under her control. She will reach out to the strange and scary, but will also turn around and say she isn't sure she wants to save the gods because they don't love her. She will extend understanding to Laudna to the point that Laudna runs straight into the arms of Delilah's temptations of power thinking Imogen will accept this regardless of the harm. She repeatedly questions if the Ruby Vanguard, which is seeking something which will drive an entire people extinct and put the entire world in jeopardy, is right, because many of them are misunderstood and mistreated outsiders like her.

In the end, she makes great strides in extending this empathy even to those who aren’t outsiders, who aren't like her. She's the one to suggest the gods go mortal in an attempt to save both them and the people of Exandria. She sees the gods' actions in Aeor yet views it with understanding. She reaches out to her father before the final battle, and tells her mother he deserves better. Imogen is a balancing act of snap judgements based on past harm and the choice of empathy, and it was at once heart-warming and terrifying to see her grapple with this.

[evilhorse]

Justice Society of America (Volume 2) #9

[chaoticcomposition]

been seeing more hobgoblins around and it made me really wanna design arjun, nepenthe's mentor and friend! the dumaran hobgoblins were given dark fur, pale eyes, and the ability to control the giant vermaloc wood spiders from lolth

edit: arjun's pronouns are he/him!

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

Just to be clear, male birth control should exist because men should have as much control over their own bodies as anyone else deserves, and people in general should have as many birth control options as possible. That said, if you think for a second that as a woman, I will put my health, body, finances and future in the hands of a fucking man when I am the only one who will actually pay the price for these actions, you are absolutely fucking mistaken.