#FOR THE SAKE OF theoretical organization

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also quite the illustration in wags being like "'not asking permission' - wags" and plowing through someone expressing a physical boundary but he was already intending to use physical violence & violation & assumed corresponding distress as a tool to get his way....amidst the typicality, "correctness," permissibility of all that around here like five times an hour

[mesetacadre]

Hi, I'm someone relatively new to communism and I wondered if you could help me with a question: what is it that the communist party can *do* to actually be a reliable ally of workers? I've heard many people say this is how workers will support the party -once they see both the bourgeois institutions and unions fail them, but I'm not entirely sure what, say, a modern party in Europe can actually do besides agitation. What are the practical steps, or one example of them? (I understand this might be highly dependable on context and therefore not have an easy answer, but I think even one example might be useful, because what I'm struggling to wrap my head around is how a party actually starts showing they're an ally of the workers BEFORE having the political power to change the workers' material conditions -other than by doing agitation)

It's organizing, but this is a relatively vague word if you've no experience with it. I'll first go through a hypothetical example and then get into the more theoretical weeds.

Say there's a new metro extension being built under a town, the government didn't pay attention to surveys and they built the tunnel through a section of ground which doesn't drain water that well, the tunnel begins to flood a few weeks after opening and this is seriously affecting the structural integrity of residential buildings' foundations. Massive cracks are spawning in these homes, and the government decides to evacuate all the affected streets to demolish the buildings, 600+ families, without providing adequate or even sufficient compensation and reaccomodation.

You'd first need to make contact with the affected, through whoever brought the situation to your party's attention. Maybe a militant is one of the affected, perhaps some of the affected contacted you directly, maybe they contacted a worker's union or a neighborhood association and made its way to you through the interpersonal networks that always exist between people involved in various social movements and platforms. You should see and ask what they need, inform yourself of the legislative process surrounding it, when evictions are happening, etc. And then put what the party can give towards supporting them; setting up supply drives and money collections, giving them strength if they want to resist the evictions and offer legal support, before and after, help them legalize protests in front of the responsible legislature and providing logistical support for what's needed (megaphones, materials and knowhow for banners, a cheap sticker printer, etc), in general, agitate about this and make the situation known. Work in earnest with them, you don't need to be self interested to put in mind and body to oppose such a negligent act.

I've glossed over a lot, and of course these things are always easier said than done. But this is in essence what organizing is, getting actually involved to put forward your political program, it's managing resources and people in such a way that you can continuously put in effort without burning people out. Notice how agitation was a small part of the example I gave, this is because for agitation to be worth it you must be agitating for something, and I know that sounds like I'm making a big deal out of something a 12 year old could tell you, but it really is easy to fall into the cycle of agitating for agitating's sake, becoming a sort of acronym spirit who never actually does anything but has a consistent presence in the form of impersonal agitation (social media, posters, banners, stickers, leaflets in some cases, etc). What gives agitation a purpose and what makes it effective is what it agitates, the organizing itself, what you're informing about, what you're trying to move people towards.

Most of the times a party that's in a context such as western Europe can't change the material conditions of worker's lives, that's what not having power is, but sometimes it can do it, through organizing. Sometimes you do get a win, and you can help stop a law before it passes, or you can generate enough pressure to stop the firing of a union delegate, or you can get the workers on the negotiating table for better conditions after a 1 week strike. But the failures don't necessarily mean that those workers will stop trusting you, because if you've actually accompanied them, and helped them in the struggle for a goal, those failures are also theirs, just as much as yours. So unless you flagrantlly vacillated in their support, or acted like an opportunist, etc, it's the course of these struggles themselves, and less their result, which build the confidence and referentiality a party needs. Of course, if you manage to get a win that's even better, but workers aren't stupid, and like I said, a failure after actual organizing is as much yours as it is theirs. But what actually matters, for the purposes of building that referent and trustworthy Party that we want, is the fight itself.

[apas-95]

I want you to take this as politely as possible, I genuinely mean no criticism

I understand that siding with Imperial Core ‘Leftist’ Progressives is painful, but I think that if we want to make any real progress for Palestine, we’re going to have to unfortunately suck it up and hold our noses

I do also think that it’s a good idea to try and alienate them as little as possible, to try and sway them over to actual leftist thought

My worry is that by continuing to hurt their feelings, however deserved it may be, we’re going end up with dozens of people thinking ‘Marxism bad, the online ones were mean to me :(‘

I don’t know, I just wanted to hear your opinion, maybe my way of thinking isn’t working here

Unite with real friends to fight real enemies - alliances should be made on the basis of common concrete goals in the concrete situation, not on the basis of any sort of theoretical agreement or disagreement over principles.

In our practice as communists, if we share a common interest with non-Marxist groups, we will happily work together towards that common interest. A national united front against imperialist invasion, for instance, is carried out arm in arm with the national borgeoisie. On the other hand, those same bourgeois organs become real enemies once they and ourselves inevitably come into conflict. Should a 'left' group that supposes to work towards the same aims as ourselves actually be hindering our goals, actually be behaving in a reactionary manner, we would similarly come into conflict with them.

Crucially, here, we must make two points: firstly, this is a matter of practice. This is relevant to the actual practice of a proletarian class organ, a proletarian vanguard party - there is no such thing as individual practice or individual policy, and, outside the context or an organised revolutionary party, all discussion is immaterial. Secondly, our theoretical understanding must never be sacrificed for the sake of temporary alliances. Even during an alliance, we can never cease our critique of our class enemies, we can never abandon our line. If we make a united front with the national bourgeoisie against imperialist invasion, we cannot for even a moment abandon the workers those bourgeoisie exploit, or we completely lose the basis of our strength, which is our genuine representation of the interests of the workers and revolutionary masses.

To be short: we only care about concrete, material reasons for any alliance; we never abandon our own line for the sake of others; and the actions of individual, disorganised people have no meaningful effect, politically. If there is a common enemy, communist parties will eagerly ally with non-Marxist progressives, but will not pretend they are anything other than what they are - and random people posting online aren't a political force in and of themselves, and their personal 'alliances' don't matter.

[beautysurvives]

On Woman Coding in Supernatural

supernatural is a show where male characters want to become the new God and seek to create a new world that is better than His, by returning to an idealized past, creating an idealized future, or maintaining an idealized present. But in their pursuit of his power, they find that they cannot create anything new, they can only destroy. The first time this happens, it is in the death of Mary Winchester and the goal to create Lucifer’s perfect vessel for the sake of ushering in the apocalypse. Azazel is searching for a woman who will give birth to Lucifer’s perfect vessel. Both Heaven and Hell play a part in engineering things so that both Sam and Dean (Michael’s perfect vessel) are born, but no one can create them out of thin air.

The last time this happens, it is in Chuck (God) attempting to reunite with Amara in order to not only destroy his world (the canon spn universe) but to also leave it behind and create a new one. He tells her that he needs their combined power to achieve the one thing he can’t do on his own — a “reboot” or “reset.” Joining with Amara looks a lot like absorbing her into himself. We can’t see her, but he assures us that she’s “with him.”

Actually, the last time this happens, it’s when we see Sam with his son Dean II, and his blurry wife in the background. Sam has created a Dean who can have a better life than either of them. A reboot. A woman’s worth in this world is not herself or her identity, but the function of her sex organs. Her ability to house and then expel new life.

In season 4, Sam believes that he must kill Lilith to prevent Lucifer from rising / the apocalypse. However, her death is actually the last step in unsealing his cage. In this scene, a blonde Lilith wears a white dress, similar to both Mary and Jess in their deaths. She is the whore to their mother and maiden.

In mythology, Lilith is Adam’s flawed first wife, and the mother of monsters. In spn, she is Lucifer’s first “creation” — an already existent human soul that he himself corrupted. The first demon. Hence, Lilith is, symbolically, both mother and child. And her death at Sam’s hand signifies his role as the unwitting killer of his own mother, and the symbolic killer of the feminine. Similarly, Ruby’s presence at his side, feeding her her own blood (as Azazel did) and encouraging him to drink the blood of others, makes her (like Azazel) a sort of wet nurse or midwife, helping Lilith to birth the apocalypse with Sam as both the symbolic father and son. The man who brings Lucifer into being through violent action, and simultaneously the son who must continue to nurse on demon blood in order to grow into Lucifer.

Though there are many different ways to describe possession in Supernatural, it is clear that Lucifer’s possession of Sam is intended not as an act of violent penetration (in contrast to the language used to describe Michael’s theoretical possession of Dean), but as a literal embodiment. Sam is not just going to be “worn” or “wielded.” He is going to become, and as a matter of fact he always has been. This is illustrated to Sam through the revelation that many of Sam’s closest friends, advisors, and allies throughout his life were, in fact, planted there by Lucifer. And, just as Lucifer plans to take his vengeance and set things right, Sam undoubtedly wishes to do the same. Sam’s ability to cage Lucifer is the one instance in which victory does not require violence from him, but the opposite. Restraint. When he is reminded of his relationship with Dean, when he realizes how badly Lucifer has hurt him and allows himself to feel that pain as if it is his own — when he goes from embodying Lucifer to caging him within himself — from being to being a vessel — he sacrifices himself, discarding any hope of a future in order to protect his brother from any further harm. The same thing that Dean tried to do for him when they were children (informed by his own mother), and the same thing that Mary in her death.

In season 5, Cas takes Claire Novak as a vessel, and tells us that she, like Jimmy, is chosen. Jimmy pleads for Cas to release Claire and take him instead, and Cas, seemingly moved despite having just been forcibly reprogrammed as punishment for his empathy, repossess Jimmy.

In season 6 Cas takes Eve’s (the mother of monsters) children — the souls in purgatory — into himself. In this same season, Dean lives with Lisa and attempts to be a parent to her son Ben. He admits that he has started to feel like Ben is really his son, even though he isn’t. In episode one of s6, Exile on Main St, anticipating ridicule about his new domestic lifestyle by his family, Dean refers to himself as a soccer mom. Samuel Campbell, their resurrected grandfather, sincerely (not tauntingly) tells Dean that he reminds him of Mary. Dean, who, as we learned in s4, is named after Mary’s mother and Samuel’s wife, Deanna. In this world, settling down is always associated with becoming feminine. A man who quits hunting to live with a woman has been symbolically castrated, losing the aspect of his masculinity that is violent and heroic — a version of masculinity that Dean simultaneously rejects and feels compelled (by duty) to return to.

In season 11 we meet Amara, who was (symbolically) caged inside Dean, and who first manifests as a baby that he saves against Sam’s recommendation — as Sam very pragmatically wishes to focus on saving as many people as possible. In doing so, Sam finds himself afflicted with the same monstrous condition that plagues the people in this town. He can only save them and himself by expelling the sickness. In this same season, Crowley, still trying to get over his previous connection with Dean, raises Amara and guides her through her childhood, feeding her demons — which are corrupted human souls. As she matures and breaks free, she seems to prefer human souls, but she is seen eating angel souls/essences/grace as well. One human who had her soul taken describes it as “being with Amara” and seems to feel mainly release and relaxation. This is the same offer she makes to Dean. Though the language and implications are of sexual and romantic union, there is a clear womb-like connotation in her proposition. To be with her is to have ones soul kept safe inside her. The apocalypse she promises to bring is not only destruction, but a return to the state of being inside the womb. The state the universe was in before she and Chuck “split apart.” A state unruined by existence, everything preserved in a state of potential being, reduced to ideas, concepts, feelings, urges. Everything unconscious and unformed — the archetypical feminine. The darkness as ignorance.

Throughout the series, a primary question is whether or not any of the hunters (or Cas or Jack) can retire from hunting and live a normal human life. This is an essential part of Sam’s character journey — can he ever “settle down” and have a family of his own? Answering this is always contingent on the presence or absence of a woman at his side. We are asked, how can he achieve this if every woman who enters his life will inevitably be killed? He does not show the same consistent desire that Dean does to raise a child until s13 when he meets Jack. And then, in the final season, Eileen is reintroduced into his life, and the question comes up again about Sam “settling down.” Resurrecting Eileen is presented as a heroic act for Sam alone to achieve. Dean’s plan was to house her in a crystal — Rowena’s soul bomb — a metaphorical womb that can be repurposed as a weapon (only if enough souls are inside, just as Amara gained strength from consuming souls, as Cas gained power by consuming souls, and Dean was made into a bomb by absorbing the souls into himself). But Sam wants her to live again, and finds an opportunity through the spell that Jack forced Rowena to make in order to bring their mother back to life. The spell that failed, because Mary’s resurrected vessel was not capable of holding a soul within it. Like Mary herself, it fails at being what Amara was, a symbolic womb for the infant soul. It is empty, and incapable of being filled. Infertile.

But Sam is able to achieve it with Eileen, through a scene that mirrors both birth and baptism. Eileen emerges naked from a tub, her soul itself transformed into flesh. Where Dean, Cas, and Amara have all been related to the soul, gaining their power from it, ingesting souls and becoming, themselves, wombs — Sam is only concerned with the physical world. He is a character of action, who constantly leaves and returns to his heroic starting point. His blood drinking arc — in contrast to Cas’s soul eating, or the soul-bomb climax of Dean’s moc arc with Amara — is the physical alternative to the soul. Demon blood is also human blood — it is like the symbolic blood of Christ, the son of God — where Dean and Cas habitually ingest the spirit. This is further symbolized by Dean’s becoming a demon in s10, fulfilling his demonic duty by carrying out soul contracts for Crowley.

But in season 15, a season all about undoing the past and returning to an idealized one — to the beginning of the show itself, when it was just about two brothers hunting monsters, without angels and without God — Sam’s ability to leave hunting and finally accept a “normal life” is put in the spotlight, directly mirroring Chuck’s desire to leave this world behind and start a better one. Concepts like normal, human, Heaven and Paradise in spn, have always been related to the feminine — impossible to achieve for characters who view themselves as soldiers, only accessible through the consensual use and death of a woman and/or sacrifice (Mary, Kelly Kline). Those who seek to create a better world — a world safe from monsters — are not allowed to enjoy that world, because they can only seek it through violence.

For Chuck, a better world can only be achieved by abandoning any attachment he has to these characters and this world — and he can only join forces with Amara on his own terms, otherwise they will be locked in a constant power struggle. He only gets what he wants when Amara loses her own remaining attachment to the world (as before, she was content to passively enjoy it even while it was destroyed before her eyes) — her trust in Dean. She loses her tie to him an episode before he loses Cas, his own reason for existing.

Amara’s willing fusion with Chuck is neither her death, nor a fusion of their identities, but a reabsorption — or, consumption. It is the loss of her identity in favor of his. The final victory of the masculine aspect of God, the final act of submission from the feminine. Not equality or balance, but the continued structural placement of the masculine as higher/holier than the feminine despite her having power he cannot access. It is her becoming an organ, a womb — internal and unseen, but giving him the power to be able to leave this world behind. It’s the strength to be able to release. A paternal strength, both of them lacking emotional attachment to what they once loved. Chuck no longer desires to put himself in this story, just as he wants to end the show, he wants the death of this character — Chuck is the weaker version of God, the one that he wants to escape. He wants to transcend this earthly state, leaving this identity behind to create a new and improved one.

So every death in this final season, including Dean’s, Cas’s, Jack’s, and Eileen’s (as well as her erasure from the narrative), like Mary’s death and Amara’s absorption, are presented as necessary sacrifices. Like Jess. The symbolic death of the motherly/feminine aspect of God, which can nurture but attaches to the point of self destruction. Dean’s death was, I think, a suicide framed as an accident — his sacrifice, in order to force Sam to leave the hunting life behind, but also to ensure that, if one was truly destined to kill the other, he would never have to be the one to do it. Dean’s death is presented to us as the only possible end to the series which can not only scrub clean the sins of the past and return Sam to an idealized state (one of potential that can be fulfilled), but also allow him, like God!Jack (the better, more powerful version of Chuck, still containing the symbolic womb Amara, like the symbolic womb of the blurry wife), to set in motion a better future. A “reboot.” This is only possible in union with the feminine — but this union cannot look like becoming or attempting to replace, embody, be contained within, or contain the feminine, as it has been implied in both Dean and Cas’s past parental / Godlike roles — it must be done through consumption or use of the female as an organ. The womb (and vagina) as tools — a means to an end, but one which does not alter or lose the male identity.

[drferox]

Monoclonal Antibodies

So I listened to a talk from a drug rep the other day who came into the clinic to promote Cytopoint, the anti-allergy injection for dogs.

It’s a great drug, overall. Super useful for many, literally life changing for a few, and now a mainstay of the allergy treatments we offer. But I had to laugh at something the rep said:

“It’s not really a drug. It’s a bio-mimicry molecule! It’s replicating normal molecules that would be found in the body and just providing more of them!”

And I’m sitting here thinking: that is still totally a drug. A drug is any substance which when given to a living organism produces a physiological effect. 10mg of lokivetmab is most definitely a drug.

But if you are going to argue that Cytopoint is not a drug because it mimics a natural molecule found in the body, then by that logic neither are insulin, thyroxine, cortisone or just about every single hormone.

For goodness sake. I have to wonder what planet marketers live on some days.

We also had a bit of a debate because we’re widely told that Cytopoint shouldn’t have any side effects. Partly this is because monoclonal antibodies aren’t well known in veterinary medicine and they haven’t been around that long.

They’re certainly much safer than the equivalent drugs in other classes, but they’re not ‘side effect free’. They’re a protein, so it’s theoretically possible to be allergic to it. Like the Kesimpta I take it seems likely that some dogs will be ‘off colour’ for a day or so. The most common side effect is being quiet the next say, so it is pretty mild for a typical dog and still worth it. But it’s not zero.

Having a headache for a day is much milder than having acute kidney failure, but I wonder if we’ll get more reports in the future of extremely sporadic weird side effects as we gain more experience with this class of medication.

Medical advancements are wonderful and exciting. But don’t let marketers do all the talking!

And remember to report side effects to the manufacturer.

[suzukiblu]

Day twenty-four of fic NaNoWriMo, obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon.

“I’d say maybe a picnic in the park or something but that seems incredibly dangerous unless I can pre-verify that Ivy’s in Arkham,” Tim muses, smacking a few more goons upside the skull. The others are already scattering to bolt, and there’s not much point in chasing them down; they broke up the deal and sent the suppliers running, and that was the main concern. Now they can track down their source and go from there. “And even then it’s kinda fifty-fifty.” 

“Yeah, you never know what she’s left out there,” Dick agrees. “Plus sometimes the things she’s left out there cross-pollinate, and then no one knows what’s out there, including her.” 

“Don’t remind me,” Tim says with a grimace, having unpleasant flashbacks to the skunkweed thorns and pitcher plant trees. Ivy’s creative enough without any accidental cross-pollination happening. 

“So what does planning a date have to do with that YJ-related op?” Dick inquires casually as the last of the grunts either hit the ground or flee. Tim does not freeze, because he's not fucking new here. 

“Nothing,” he lies. “I’m cycling through the projects I have scheduled to work on this week. Next there’s a stakeout uptown and some reoptimization of my utility belt organization.” 

“Planning dates is in the same category as ops and stakeouts and equipment maintenance, huh?” Dick asks with a laugh, holstering his sticks and then reaching over to ruffle his hair. “Never change, baby bird.” 

Tim is absolutely going to, but again, hopefully not before thirty and ideally while bringing Dick along for the ride. Dick would be a terrible supervillain and also probably pout if Tim put Superman in a kryptonite death trap to sit and think about what he’s done, but Tim loves him and wants him to be happy and also wants to make this awful fucking world a better place, and you don’t do that by just ditching all your friends and co-workers; you plan ahead and work with them, flaws and all. 

Anyway, Barbara would be good at being a supervillain, and she’d be a lot likelier to come along for the ride if Dick did. So that’s also another reason to recruit him. 

They’d both probably like to kill the Joker, anyway. Maybe they could make the rusty crowbar and shrapnel bomb plan a group activity? That’d be nice. 

Look, Batman doesn’t kill, obviously, but Tim isn’t Batman, Dick and Babs are also not Batman, and none of them ever intend to be. So “Batman doesn’t kill” is, in fact, only Bruce’s problem. 

“So I know you’re going to laugh at me for this, but you know the circus is in town next week, right?” Dick says, sparing him a smirk. Tim considers tripping him with his bo staff. “You know, for this totally theoretical and generic one-size-fits-all date that you definitely don’t have anyone in mind for.” 

“While I appreciate the suggestion, the person I don’t have anything in mind for has terrible self-esteem and I promised her someplace ‘nice’ for this totally theoretical and generic one-size-fits-all date,” Tim says, because he is definitely still in the closet here and he is not giving a Bat the clue of saying “they” to obfuscate Kon’s gender. Might as well light the Bat signal with a pride flag filter over it, for fuck’s sake. “She might take fifteen-dollar tickets and sawdust floors the wrong way.” 

“That just means she lacks taste, baby bird,” Dick hums easily, putting his hands on his hips and tapping a foot in consideration. “Hm. Well, Zatanna also happens to be in town next week.” 

Tim considers what it’d do to his self-esteem to watch Kon spend an hour-long show drooling over a gorgeous older woman in fishnets, spanks, and a sexy tuxedo jacket and decides not to go there. Also, there’s the issue of Zatanna potentially recognizing him, and also potentially recognizing Kon, who he doesn’t think she’s ever met but is both terrible at secret identities and a teen heartthrob superhero whose face is all over the place and also looks exactly like Superman’s on top of that. And Zatanna has definitely met Superman.

So yeah, that seems unlikely to end well either way. 

“Maybe,” he says, finally retracting his staff and putting it away. “I don’t know if she likes going to any kind of shows, honestly. Like–I just don’t know her that well yet. Theoretically, obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Dick agrees with a laugh, pulling out his grappling gun and wagging it at him. “Race you back to the Cave? Winner gets tips on how to charm a totally normal civilian who definitely doesn’t fight crime in a cheerleader skirt.” 

Tim has no idea how he feels about the fact Dick is so certain Cissie is the one he’s trying to plan a date for. Then again, Cissie is the one who yelled at half the Justice League. So maybe he sort of understands the assumption. 

Kon looks better in a crop top, though, Tim privately promises himself to never actually say out loud. Like, he definitely does look better, in Tim’s opinion, but a) Cissie would shoot him for said opinion and b) Kon would be unbearably smug about said opinion. And unfortunately, Tim finds Kon’s preening smugness increasingly charming, so he really can’t be doing that to himself. 

He was so damn proud of himself about the fucking crop top, the bastard. Tim should burn it. Or buy him twenty more. One or the other. 

The shorts he’s just not going to think about right now. Like. Ever again. 

He’s pretty sure they’d work better with a thong than boxer briefs, though. Or just going commando outright, maybe. Tactile telekinesis probably makes chafing less of a concern, Tim figures. 

Not that he’s thought about that. At all. In any way. Ever. 

Definitely not. 

Dick fires his grapple and takes off. Tim pretends to be extremely heterosexual about Cissie and not even slightly gay about Kon, though he has very little idea how to actually do that, and rushes after him. There’s basically no way he’s actually going to beat Dick unless criminal activity interferes or Dick just lets him beat him, of course, because Dick’s been flying all his life and flying in specifically Gotham since he was literally prepubescent, and Tim has just been sneaking around random rooftops and alleyways and only actually known how to do a basic somersault for a couple of years, much less any real acrobatics or aerial work. So like, there’s definitely a skill gap there. 

Might as well chuck a flying fish at a hummingbird and see who comes out ahead, really. 

Technically, though, Dick mostly works out of Bludhaven these days, so technically . . . 

Look, Tim just so happens to know about certain construction-related shortcuts that may or may not be currently relevant thanks to some surprise rogue attacks last week, and even if he weren’t pretending to be heterosexual about Cissie he’d be trying to beat Dick back to get first dibs on Alfred’s jaffa cakes, so . . . 

The jaffa cakes are delicious, though the dating advice is unfortunately irrelevant. 

Tim appreciates the thought, at least.

[ghelgheli]

In the 1860s, when he consciously distanced himself from his earlier technocratic productivism, Marx was compelled to rethink his optimistic view of history and to reflect more seriously upon its negative implications. This self-critical reflection took place as he investigated the material aspect of the production process unique to capitalist production, especially how material world — human and non-human — is reorganized by capital's initiative in favour of its own accumulation. This is because the increase of productive forces subordinate workers to command of capital more effectively. If so, 'relations of production' and 'productive forces' cannot be simply separated as assumed in the traditional view of historical materialism. The development of productive forces of capital is dependent upon the thorough reorganization of human metabolism with nature in the form of cooperation, division of labour and machinery. In this sense, the 'mode of production' expresses a particular social arrangement of the material elements of production. That is why in the preface to Capital, Marx set himself the task of examining 'the capitalist mode of production, and the relations of production... that correspond to it' instead of treating 'productive forces' as an independent variable as was the case in the preface to A Contribution.

This change concerning the 'mode of production' might be discounted as a minor philological quibble, but its theoretical significance should not be underestimated because it has to do with the transformation of Marx's vision of post-capitalism. When the development of productive forces is not purely formal and quantitative, but is deeply rooted into the transformation and reorganization of the labour process, one can no longer assume that a socialist revolution could simply replace the relations of production with other ones after reaching a certain level of productive forces. Since the 'productive forces of capital' that emerge through the real subsumption are materialized and crystalized in the capitalist mode of production, they disappear together with the capitalist mode of production. In this sense, we need to radically reverse the traditional historical materialist view about the actual relationship between productive forces and relations of production: 'Relations of production determine productive forces' (Tairako 1991).

This is how the establishment of the concepts of 'productive forces of capital' and 'real subsumption' compelled Marx to abandon his earlier formulation of historical materialism in the preface to A Contribution. Since both aspects of Form and Stoff are closely entangled with each other due to the real subsumption of the labour process it is not possible to change one without simultaneously changing the other. This complexity would not occur if the productive forces of capital were simply dependent upon machines. They could be utilized in socialism as before. However, the productive forces developed under capitalism are tightly connected to the uniquely capitalist way of organizing the collaborative, cooperative and other social aspects of labour. If so, the transcendence of the capitalist mode of production must be a much more radical and thoroughgoing one than the mere abolition of private property and exploitation through the re-appropriation of the means of production by the working class. It requires the radical reorganization of the relations of production for the sake of freedom and autonomy among associated producers, so that the productive forces of capital disappear. Otherwise, despotic and ecologically destructive forms of production will continue in post-capitalist society. Yet when the productive forces of capital disappear, the productive forces of social labour are diminished as well.

Kohei Saito, Marx In The Anthropocene

[fairuzfan]

also for the last anon its insane to say that a historical claim from thousands of years ago holds up today, which is why it was fine to organize and then ethnically cleanse the people who had been living there for centuries past the time your own had not. having a connection previous does not fucking entitle you in the present, and it isnt somehow unfair to point out the ridiculousness of this logic! palestinians have been there in OUR modern present. that should be the focus - that a long since past historical claim is being used as justification for genocide. its completely neutral to acknowledge this too, since its. a fucking fact. sorry to yell in your inbox but people oh so politely tiptoeing around this very obvious thing because it will offend ‘liberal zionists’ is getting to me. if you think in anyway this ‘connection’ entitled them to colonialism man do i have some news about the structural instability of your own moral prerogatives.

I mean like at this point who cares about "connection" to the land, you're a colonist. You've given up "connection" (which is like a flimsy work when people have been using it recently) for the sake of imperialism. I guess now I'm stating it outright but like you guys need to define "connection" and what it means to you because I guarantee you that Palestinians have a different definition. otherwise it just is really theoretical and detached from modern politics.

And like again. Palestinian Jewish people exist and have existed. There was no... denial of entry into Palestine for people in a general sense. There was denial of entry of an explicitly colonial project. You cannot say anything about connection in that context. It doesn't matter about whatever you have to say about religious connection or ethnic ties or just whatever. Israel cannot exist. Should not exist. Whatever reason you provide is secondary to the fact that it first and foremost is a colonial project intent on homogenizing people and erasing others for the sake of USAmerican interests and nothing else.

People just really are ridiculous in their claims of "connection" at this point. What the hell do you think indigeniety is. I really don't care about your perceived ties to a land when people are expelled and murdered for you to solidify those ties.

[canmom]

i probably would call myself a consequentialist, but not a utilitarian. my objection to utilitarianism is similar to my objection to the absolutist Bayesianism practiced in That Subculture: it's a philosophy that claims to be based around a certain computation, but actually performing that computation is completely intractable. there's no way to actually update your probability assignments of all possible statements in response to new information, any more than it's possible to aggregate the total happiness/suffering/whatever across the entire future for each imaginable course of action.

so this calculation is entirely notional. what you're actually doing is coming up with verbal arguments and vague heuristics for how you think this notional calculation would work. perhaps it's as good an entry point as any. but the supposed mathematical rigour is just rhetoric! you can talk about utilons this and QALYs that, but there is no way to calculate this shit, it's just a mathematical coat of paint.

the second objection is the 'seeing like a state' objection (or seeing like a company/NGO): the 'utility function' is a construct used to make economic models. it doesn't model humans particularly well, who have a variety of competing impulses that don't lend themselves to nice formalisms. and to demand that you should live according to a utility function is accordingly to strip the world of its complexity to make it more tractable. instead of specific people with specific desires and needs and relationships into which you fit, which aren't necessarily commensurable, you have abstract fungible units of pleasure or suffering or whatever else you're trying to optimise.

this worldview appealed to me as a teenager. I imagined that you could model an agent as a some kind of surface between it and the world - a sphere, perhaps, inside your head; the course of your life would be the movement of particles in and out of this sphere, and theoretically there would be a pattern for every instant of time that would lead to the best possible impact on the world, solving 'life' much like a tool assisted speedrun solves a game. the goal would be then to approximate this optimal run as much as possible. then I'd think of problems with this model: couldn't you just spawn high energy photons on the sphere to melt shit like a laser? we'd have to put some restrictions on it, obviously. what if the optimal run was really close to a harmful run, so a small mistake would lead to disaster? perhaps you'd be better to find a stable local maximum instead. and so on.

I'm not sure what good it did me to imagine this funny (or if you prefer, terminally STEM-brained) thought experiment, but it was very nice and mathematical-looking, and back then I really wanted my philosophy to be impossibly demanding for some reason. some weird combo of depression and autism and a self image very much dependent on being told i was good?

these days my feeling is that the pretense of mathematical rigour where it doesn't exist is untrustworthy, and particularly where people are concerned, abstracting too much loses important information. I'm not a court of law where strict consistency matters for the sake of stability or whatever, nor a government trying to figure out which levers to pull to create the ideal society - I'm an organism embedded in a bewilderingly complex system, and I can take each situation as it comes. treating the people I interact with well is important to me. I still sometimes think along utilitarianish lines sometimes - particularly 'this person could use this money more than me' - but I make no pretense to rigour or optimisation with it.

[eitherlyingorstupid]

Holofun

Transformers animated, Bumblebee/Prowl('s holoform)

Bumblebee had a holoform, but he didn't really use it. It wasn't that short, scrawny human protoform that he'd ended up as in Soundwave's weird simulation, either — he'd based it on a popular music star instead. Bumblebee figured if he was going to have one, it would at least be a good-looking one.

He hadn't really thought much about it until he'd gone on an Allspark shard-retrieving mission across Michigan with Prowl.

Prowl, having a motorcycle for an alt-mode, naturally used a holoform along with it since human vehicles didn't drive themselves. Bumblebee's mind had started to drift during the trip, and he wondered what it would be like to interface with a holoform. They were mostly just solid light, right?

Bumblebee had never interfaced with humans before. Mostly because he knew how delicate and squishy they were, and that their spikes and valves would be way too small in comparison to his own frame.

Holoforms, though…

“Hey, Prowl. You wanna fool around with our holoforms?”

“What do you mean by that?”

The two bots were parked in alt-mode just off the road, sitting in inch-deep snow. Slick black ice covered the asphalt, making it hazardous for both human vehicles and bots. Prowl had suggested they stop for the night and wait for the sun to melt the roads, unless Bumblebee wanted to try his luck with ice skating.

“I mean your holoform feels me up.” Bumblebee transforming with a flourish, coming to sit cross-legged in the snow. “Holoforms come with spikes and valves, don't they?”

“Well,” Prowl began, using his lecturing-about-organics tone, “humans seem to have something called sexual dimorphism. About half of the species possess what we would call valves, and the other half possess spikes.”

“What, not both? They're missing out.” Bumblebee looked down at Prowl's holoform, which was sitting idly on Prowl's alt-mode. “What does yours have?”

“Only a spike.”

Bumblebee grinned. “So you've self-serviced with your holoform before, huh?”

“It was simply a matter of curiosity."

"Yeah, sure," Bumblebee said. "Hey, I bet you liked it, though. Didn't you?"

"Bumblebee," Prowl warned.

Bumblebee scooted closer to where Prowl's holoform sat. He used one finger to stroke its back, feeling the slight give of its body. "It's so lifelike," he said. "Can you control what it feels like?"

"I could adjust some parameters. Could, mind you.”

“What, you're not gonna frag me with your holo?” Bumblebee pouted. “Man, what're we gonna do all night, then?”

Prowl sighed. "Alright, I could give it a shot," he said. "But just this once, and only for the sake of experimentation."

The holoform got off of the motorcycle. Its clothes faded, lowering in opacity until the human figure was naked save for a helmet and glasses.

Bumblebee gently ran his fingertips over the artificial skin. In reality, there wasn't anything there — Prowl's hologram projector was just sending simulated data directly to Bumblebee's sensory net. A tactile illusion, so to speak.

"What's this for?" Bumblebee fondled the weird hanging bag under the holoform's floppy spike. "Some human thing?"

Prowl — rather, his holoform — nodded. "It's called a scrotum. It's part of their reproductive system."

Bumblebee continued his gentle exploration. At first, it seemed the only hair on the body was a path between the legs and under the arms, but Bumblebee found nearly every inch of skin was covered in very soft, fine hairs.

"So… if you had the chance, would you… you know, frag a human using your holoform?"

"I think it would be a good learning experience." The holoform stepped forward, in between Bumblebee's legs. It ran a hand across his yellow thigh, bizarrely soft. "I may have experimented a little, but it's all theoretical."

"You'd totally frag a human," Bumblebee said. He watched the holoform stroke the panel that hid his spike.

"Would you?" The holoform made a tiny smile that was identical to the expression Prowl wore when he was being sly.

Bumblebee thought back to the humans he'd seen in Detroit. They'd been fascinating to observe when he'd first arrived on earth, but now, with the possibility of feeling one up close, his curiosity piqued. He watched as Prowl's holoform grew bolder, its hands moving to caress the space between his leg and hip.

"Yeah, I think I'd do it. You know there's a Bumblebee fan club online? Humans love me."

The holoform leaned closer, pressing its body against Bumblebee's. "You're quite popular indeed," it murmured, its hand sliding up to the softer, unarmed black protoform of Bumblebee's torso.

Bumblebee's spike began to react to the sensation, extending into the chill air. It was nearly half the height of Prowl's holoform. "You know, I've never felt anything like this before," he confessed. "It's… weird."

Prowl hummed, stroking the length. The holoform's hands were tinier than even the tips of Bumblebee's fingers, little fleshy mitts that could rub every individual node along the sides. The pinpoint precision was almost ticklish, a strange sensation that made him shiver.

The holoform leaned forward and licked, its tongue absolutely tiny, but soft and wet, and it sent sparks of sensation through Bumblebee's circuits.

"Whoa, okay, that's…" Bumblebee's voice trailed off. "That's new."

The combination of two hands and a mouth had Bumblebee squirming, his servos clenching and unclenching. The holoform pressed its bare chest to his spike, sliding soft flesh against his hard metal.

The sight was almost as hot as the sensation, and Bumblebee's frame quivered as his pleasure suddenly peaked into an overload.

His transfluid went right through the holoform, letting drops of liquid metal fall onto the snow.

Bumblebee sat back, panting, watching as the snow hissed and steamed where the drops hit. "Okay, okay. That was… unexpectedly intense," he managed.

Prowl's holoform faded to nothing, then reappeared fully dressed on his alt-mode.

"Well, Bumblebee," Prowl said. "How was that for your first time with a human?"

"It was… interesting," Bumblebee said, his voice a little shaky. "But I don't think it's for me. Maybe you're the one who's got a thing for humans."

"You seemed to enjoy it."

"Well… yeah, but it's because it's you. I wouldn't react like that to any old human… holoform… thingy."

The holoform's face twitched into something resembling a smirk. "I'm flattered, I suppose," he said.

[icaerosthefool]

So I’m creating a character and I’d like some varying opinions on matters. (They’re to be used in DND but also any story telling medium)

Introduction, backstory: The concept of the character is that they are “birthed” by another character of mine I currently call the Geneticist. In a standard fantasy world, the Geneticist comes from a hyper evolved civilization of elves who decided to focus on innovating their understanding of magic and the material world into sciences, instead of settling into old traditions. The Geneticist is an equivalent pre/post doc in his studies which are, obviously, genetics and biochemistry and has developed the technology which could incorporate the genetic material of other beings into his own to do wild shit. However the “elders” say the work is too risky and while theoretically possible they shouldn’t test it as no one would/should agree. Now the Geneticist is unhappy with this but does respect the free will of other’s to participate or not.

This leads to the Geneticist leaving the society to pursue his research. Adventures and development occur and frankly I love this character so much by themselves I should make another post about them….Moving on to the current topic though—

Later in life, the Geneticist works on a project to create a new sentient being. Using mushrooms (cause they’re so perfectly odd and unique), the Geneticist designs and specializes various types of fungi to act as different organs and tissues and Frankensteins this new being into existence. I really like the themes of Frankenstein and wish to parallel them, however where Victor Frankenstein abandons his Creation and is frankly unable to handle the situation at all, the Geneticist persists. Because they wanted this and they must see the experiment through to its very end.

Again, I have not worked out a name but for the sake of being coherent I’ll refer to the creature as Fung-I (cause why not).

I have details as to physical appearance and personality vaguely worked out. Those details are not the topic I’m focusing on though I’d love questions to be asked about literally anything about this concept!!! If not serious though at least make it funny.

My issue is free will and motivations. See I have a Catholic perspective of free will and have about two definitions which are (very basically) “choosing to follow God’s will, or not” and “being able to choose between two good/bad/evil options”. But here’s the thing, Fung-I’s closest thing to God as a creator is the Geneticist and the definitions of “good” and “bad” can be extremely subjective and are usually based upon what a person grew up learning. Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, to my understanding, does not elaborate on good/bad/evil and speaks more to developing thought out understandings of morality up to defining “objective moral truths”.

See, this is an issue because the purpose of the project of the Genticist was not only to make a completely new complex creature but also to see how it integrates into the ecosystems. They wanted to make the passive decomposer (fungi) to be active. In a way they created a new predator and wished to see how it handled itself. And so they designed it to be humanoid because (in most fantasy though not all) humanoids are the most sentient. They designed Fung-I to be vibrant because they hypothesized it would attract before it repelled. The Geneticist imbued a their creation with charged evolutionary abilities to always adapt and be the next step (not only to improve themselves but also cause the rest of nature to have to adapt in tandem.)

So this is the motivations the Geneticist, the creator, has and teaches to Fung-I. But now we are at free will and how that affects the personality, morality, and development of the character. More importantly, what is it the allows a rational being to have free will versus a “common animal”? Which, in the real world, we observe to be as intelligent as small children.

Please feel free to ask questions to help develop your and my ideas. Feel free to contribute in any other way as well though if it is not serious or on topic at least make it funny.

[sepublic]

Looking back the writing of s2p2 was pretty good, even if the actual tournament itself… wasn’t.

Like it was kind of alright tbh; But the new elements just felt too silly and esoteric to take seriously, some didn’t even get proper introductions. And most of the fighters were just kinda there; They had no personality or names and were introduced and resolved so briefly in a montage, for the sake of giving their powers to actual characters we cared about. The way the fights were organized felt lopsided and there was no real pacing to it.

In S4 it felt like every battle mattered, every master played a role in the story, even if it was brief. They all got defeated onscreen, save for Tox who had the setup to be actually relevant this time because they gave her a new design! Only for Tox to still be Tox, and in fact most of the fighters were Tox outside of having onscreen defeats.

The Elemental Masters in this season should theoretically be more fun because they’re not just another set of humans. But I realized that most of them have nothing in their designs to really point towards their element. S4 establishes all of the fighters right off the bat, so we can keep track of the progress as each gets taken down, and there’s actual pacing and stakes to the fighters being dwindled. But in DR, that doesn’t happen and some of them are revealed in the same brief cutscene where they get taken out, so it’s hard to tell where we’re at and it’s harder to appreciate.

I do appreciate the gimmick of combining powers, that was a lot of fun and helped justify a second go at the tournament arc by making it different. Plus the final villain actually having all of the powers, whereas with Chen he only briefly used this against Lloyd before becoming another Anacondrai fake in a sea of Anacondrai fakes. But man the Tournament of the Sources was not it, the uniforms made some fighters look less interesting, and there was a lot of guests for some reason.

In the end, the Tournament of the Sources just made me think; Not only was the prior tournament much better and actually interesting, but this lesser version is taking time and attention away from pre-established story elements that could’ve had more focus. I’m always fine if what I wanted/expected is sidelined for something different yet equally compelling in its own way. But this wasn’t what happened, for most of s2p2 at least.

[champselysees]

Mutuals only, I have about three spare copies of each of the graphics that I got printed at 5 x 7 inches size, so theoretically if any of y’all would be interested lmk. I’ve looked into it, it would be sent as a normal letter in a B4 envelope tho I’d reinforce it with cardboard or chipboard to try and prevent any bending and I’m willing to eat the postage costs.

First come first serve for the sake of organization, no limit to the amount but please be courteous to everyone haha, most of yall are mutuals as well :DD

Non mutuals (and people who would like better quality ones and would not mind paying) I am running an interest check for potentially opening preorders for a small scale print run of my graphics

(Alternatively for those mutuals who live in the same city as me — you know who you are — and are down to meet up I’m free for the last week of July and first week of August so we can arrange something :3c)

[reds-skull]

please infodump about the cyberknights au🥺

Well if not one but TWO people give me permission I guess I have to haha

(Seriously tho thank you so much T_T)

All of this can be changed by the time I get to start writing it, so fair warning lol

So last time I really talked about cyberknights I mentioned their world is basically a theoretical future where operation Deadbolt failed (deadbolt being the op to contain the aether/zombie outbreak to Urzikstan in MWZ), around 70 years after the initial outbreak.

Cyberknights is a temporary name for the Knighthood, the organization that is in charge of keeping the aether as far away from the remaining human cities as they can.

I think it will be an international organization, made possible by the aether tears and teleporters (can't remember the official name rn).

What I was thinking about more recently is, that maybe the Knighthood are a separate entity from the state they're from. That is why they can work internationally despite some countries having political tensions between each other.

I was replaying Dishonored (my favorite game <333) and really paying attention to the interactions between the Overseers and the City Watch.

[brief explanation on those if you've never played Dishonored: There are two main peacekeepers in the city of Dunwall, where the game takes place, the City Watch, who are basically policemen following rules made by the parliament, and the Overseers, who are religious officers that follow the Abbey of the Everyman and the high overseer (comparable to the pope in our world I suppose). These two groups have tensions between them in-game, but they're often working together.]

Inspired by the Overseers, I wanted to have the Knighthood be more religious, making the aether a sort of religion by itself. To combine science and the supernatural. Maybe the aether is seen as a curse, and those who often come into contact with it are seen as tainted. The knights do a work no one else wants to do, they sacrifice their own good for the sake of the rest of the population.

The knights are more religious than the general population, prayers and rituals part of their every day life. Their religion isn't just followed by them, but by many outside the Knighthood, but none are as devoted as them.

I think knights would begin training very early in life. If a child has a strong constitution, their parents can consider sending them to the Knighthood. They're likely to never see the child again, so they receive goods from the state for their sacrifice.

The child will be trained in combat, taught how to cleanse aether contamination and use aether tears, and basic mechanic knowledge to work with the technology they're given. After they're deemed ready, they will go on their first mission along with a team, and if they survive they will officially be knighted.

In this structure, the knights won't have much contact with the outside world, and form tightly-knit groups.

The exception to this is Soap, who originally was raised in what used to be Scotland (don't have a name for it yet...), but was moved to the British order after his injury. His accent and mannerisms differ noticeably from the rest of the knights.

Sidenote on the tech they use, I think it will be quite similar to what their equivalent of a military has, except the knights purposely model their armor to be in the image of the original knights. The cyberknights admire the original knights, and in their eyes they continue their legacy of fighting monsters. As they fought dragons, they fight aether worms.

The military sends tech for the knights if they find it will be useful for them, as everyone relays on the knights to hold back the aether. A lot of people question the continued need for the Knighthoods, asking why so many resources need to be wasted on them, but those who know what they do understand that without them, humanity will collapse again.

The newest invention of the military was G.H.O.S.T, a fully functioning robot to aid the knights. G.H.O.S.T is experimental at the start of the story, the first of its kind in any combat situation. Many knights distrust G.H.O.S.T's presence, but the 141 squad learns he's not quite like a real soldier.

Part of why the Knighthood doesn't quite like G.H.O.S.T is because his body works with aether. G.H.O.S.T is able to use field upgrades just like a knight, and his weapons are infused with the same process their's do. Those processes are considered blasphemy for anyone whose not a knight, but the Knighthood assures them G.H.O.S.T's creation wasn't.

I want to design banners for each Knighthood and incorporate them to the outfits for each member respectively. Like imagine having Soap marked by his original Scottish Knighthood, while Gaz and Price have a British banner, with G.H.O.S.T having none since he was never technically knighted. I think that would be really cool.

For the story, I think there will be a lot of knights we will see in temporary collaborations, since the knights aren't limited by physical distance or country of origin. So I'd like to design knight armor for Rudy and Alejandro, and Farah and Alex. Also considering adding Roach for the first time since I will need a lot of characters.

Besides knights, there are also mechanics and aether experts in their base of operation (don't have a name for it yet either), trainers for the children that weren't knighted yet, and of course the amount of people that takes to maintain such large amount of people, like cooks, cleaners, etc. and I want some of those to be characters from canon because it's more fun than inventing people I guess.

As to what the knights do when they go out to the contaminated lands, a lot of their work consists of destroying aether nests, collecting crystals to replenish their supplies, fighting disciples that attract zombies towards human cities. Very rarely, they would fight monsters like an aether worm, if they find it poses a risk.

The knights are always working against the clock, trying to outrun the never-ending storms that ravage through those lands. Getting stuck in a storm often means death for them, as it depletes their aether supply faster than they can replenish it. Aether is fuel for a knight's suit, which powers their weapons and motorcycles (which look like horses and can actually respond to voice commands), but it also makes sure their filtration masks work. Every inch of a knight is covered for a reason - the air in the contaminated lands is toxic for humans.

If knights enter storms, their stay only lasts mere minutes, but if they stay far enough they could last days before returning to the Knighthood's base. Over the years, knights have built shelters in places they frequent, and it is tradition to leave one thing behind if a knight comes across one and uses it. Those shelters have food and water, as well as charging stations.

Knights almost never go out alone, usually having a team of 2–3 people, depending on their task. Like I've explained before, a full team of knights consists of a combat expert, a mechanic expert and an aether expert. A combat expert is always needed, but the mechanic and aether can switch out if the job doesn't require them.

The 141 has four members, with two being combat experts, so they can often split into two teams, and that's why Soap and G.H.O.S.T end up alone in the start of the story.

Out of the three jobs, a mechanic is the least likely to expect combat, and is the least useful. They're still very important, you wouldn't want to be stuck in the contaminated lands with a broken helmet or bike, but aether-mechanic lifeforms are weaker than native aether forms.

[non-native aether lifeforms include regular zombies and mechanic-aether lifeforms, while native aether lifeforms include disciples and aether worms.]

It's for that reason Soap was demoted from combat expert to mechanic after his injury. Initially, he was to be removed from entering the contaminated lands altogether, but after practically begging, he was allowed back. He hates leaving the combat role behind, but because he's got a few loose screws he still acts like he is.

Field upgrades (I'll probably change their name to something cooler in the future tbh) allow knights to use aether to their advantage. They range from healing to hiding the user from the eyes of aether lifeforms, and use up a lot of aether so they're best used in combat only. While in combat, aether is collected from the blood that comes into contact with the various blades of the knights, and because regular zombies are easy to kill it's a good source of energy.

Soap's field upgrade, Frenzied Guard, is usually reserved for combat experts only. It makes it so the user builds up a sort of coating that protects them the more they slay, but at the cost of having every aether lifeform aggravated and focused on them. Field Upgrades can be changed with the right ritual, but Soap refused to do so.

Frenzied Guard actually helps Soap's leg injury not affect him while he's using the upgrade, but at the cost of making him collapse right after it runs out. He doesn't use it often as a result, and is actively discouraged to by his team.

I still need to work out what happened 70 years prior to the start of the story, exactly how much civilization collapsed because of the aether, as well as how are countries now operating, what even their names are... How people react to the Knighthoods. There are a lot of interesting ways I could make the dynamics of the knights and the military go, currently I'm leaning into mutual distrust...

And of course there's G.H.O.S.T's mystery... which I won't reveal here but oh boy if there's not a lot I could do with it...

I feel like this AU burrowed in my brain more than even rev AU because its world isn't ours, so I can world build so much more. I'll admit working within canon restrictions is interesting, leads me to decide things I wouldn't usually think to do if I was left to my own devices, but cyberknights AU is far more of my bread and butter. Before getting struck by COD brainrot I would only work of things that are related to either fantasy or sci-fi (which includes superheroes and supernatural entities in my eyes), things that rely heavily on worldbuilding as they often don't take place in our reality. Overthinking everything is part of the job in those genres haha. So I'm very much enjoying myself thinking about all of this, as you probably can tell by the length of this post...

I also still need to continue my research into Scottish mythology and knight orders from medieval Britain and Scotland (the Scots didn't really have the same vibes as British knights but it's still interesting to look into). I'm currently reading a translation of one of the stories allegedly written by that medieval John M'Tavish and it takes far longer than a modern story would because they use high level words that I never heard of, and English isn't my first language by far so I need to sit with a dictionary and reread the same sentence three times sometimes to understand it lol... but this was the case with the Exeter book as well and I read like 20 poems and riddles from that book for BLOOD||HUNGER so it's not like that's new.

How do I tell people I got into medieval poetry because of a fucking COD fic.....

[cobaltash]

4, 12, 14 and 18, for the OC creating ask!! For whomever you're most feeling :>

Let's do Crysanthe, my Mage PC!

4. In developing their backstory, what elements of the world they live in played the most influential parts? 

I think the most important would be the Mysterium as the Order that she belongs to. You see, mages tend to organize themselves in Orders that reflect their values and their pursuits and the Mysterium is the Order Crysanthe chose for herself. They are the eminent lore keepers and seeker of the Pentacle; sure every mage seeks out magical knowledge in their own way, but it's the Mysterium Mages who are known to seek out that knowledge for it own sake and they are the ones who protect it most fiercely, for pancryptia, the phenomenon that erodes magic and makes it hide itself is an ever present threat. Crysanthe is, in many ways, a good, if young, Mystagogue. She believes in the core doctrines and thrives with their methods of doing things. The Mysterium wasn't, for her, a foregone conclusion as it is for many mages who tend enter the orders that their mentors occupy. Crysanthe did not fit in with her mentor's order and so she made her own decision on where to belong and her reasoning and the way she meshes with this Order in particular were very important to building her character.

12. What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: writing, drawing, edits, etc.)? 

Honestly, when drawing her, I have most trouble with her height, 'cause she is a pretty tall girl (183 cm) and has a lanky build and that's sometimes hard to keep consistent.

14. If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?

I'd say one would be that she has an Intelligence of 5 (the max naturally achievable score) and second would be that she has a Wits of 1 (the lowest score she could naturally have). Now, the combination of those two usually means that, while she'll theoretically come to the correct answer given a bit of time, she is woefully unequipped to make good snap judgements. She doesn't pick up on small things in the moment, especially when it comes to social cues and is painfully aware of that, which is why you will seldom see her relaxed in a social situation. She Knows she doesn't know, basically.

18. What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC?

She would be very bad at dealing with Fey creatures since she honestly cannot wrap her mind around tricking something out of someone with a turn of phrase. I mean that usually, when dealing with a Fey you want to word your deal in such a way that you're giving little to nothing and getting something in return for it. One of the Myserium Core Doctrines is that "Knowledge Must have a Price", and one common way of talking about it is that "something gained for nothing is worth noting". And Crysanthe is nothing if not a good Mystagogue.

[read-marx-and-lenin]

If someone identifies as a leftist and is not willing to die and/or kill for the cause, does that make them not a leftist?

Okay, let's try to break this down.

"Leftist" is nothing more than a vague political position. It's possible to "identify as a leftist" and be all sorts of contradictory things. It doesn't mean much. For the sake of this answer, let's limit this to "revolutionary communist" instead, as it's more relevant to my blog.

Let's start with "unwilling to kill". In the strongest sense, this could mean a moral pacifist who is unwilling to engage in violence even in self-defense. Could this person still be a revolutionary communist? Theoretically, yes, but historically pacifist communes who refuse to take up arms have not fared well. An unwillingness to defend oneself if it means engaging in violence is simply a bad strategy for survival, let alone revolution.

Now, if "unwilling to kill" means "unwilling to murder", if you are morally against assassinations and executions but not against armed resistance, then that's more reasonable. Certainly there have been many such events in the history of communism, however that doesn't mean there were no alternatives. I'm against the death penalty myself, even if I still defend those revolutionary states and organizations that have executed people. And I'm not going to mourn Mussolini or the Tzar just because I believe execution is unnecessary.

Finally, if "unwilling to kill" just means "I don't want to be a soldier myself", then there's plenty of ways you can be a revolutionary without being a soldier. The revolution is not built with guns alone.

As for "unwilling to die", then that also depends on what you mean. If it's again just that you can't or don't want to be a soldier, then that doesn't mean there's nothing else you can do. An army needs more than soldiers. But if it's "unwilling to participate during times of crisis" then that's a lot more severe. If at the first sign of trouble you'd rather run away or defect out of fear, then it's best for you not to join at all. Not everyone has to be a revolutionary in the first place. As long as you're not a counter-revolutionary, as long as you're not getting in the way or actively opposing the revolution, then I don't think anyone would judge you for just being a regular civilian. There's always been plenty of those in every revolution, even if many of them had found it necessary to take up arms eventually.

Ultimately, nobody wakes up one day and goes "boy I sure would love to kill and/or die for the cause!" That's something that happens as a result of the oppression and destruction brought upon us by capitalists and imperialists. Resistance is not a matter of what you choose, it's something you do because you have no other choice. The capitalists and imperialists have the choice to stop oppressing us if they really wanted to. But why would they if we didn't resist them?