#I like representative government but sometimes It does not work and this was one of those times IMO

[anim-ttrpgs]

Thoughts on "Monster Hunters" in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

I’m planning to flesh out some of the info and themes in the Eureka rulebook about monster hunters, so I’m turning these thoughts into a proper post.

Where there’s monsters in modern fantasy, there’s monster hunters. It’s not actually quite that old of a trope, and often gets applied retroactively, (See: van Helsing just brings some guy who has read a lot about vampires in the original Dracula novel, but getting portrayed as a badass vampire hunting specialist in so many subsequent iterations) but whatever the case, the concept of a monster-hunting specialist will find its way into just about any setting with monsters.

These may many forms across different media.

Sometimes they’re for-hire almost like exterminators, sometimes they’re on the payroll of a secret government agency or a secret branch of The Church, sometimes they just do it because no one else will.

Sometimes they’re the good guys, vigilantes striking out against monsters that represent oppressive power structures, invading forces, dangerous problems that those in power turn a blind eye to, etc.

Sometimes they’re the bad guys, religious fanatics or government secret police who relentlessly pursue monsters representing some misunderstood, marginalized, and innocent group.

Sometimes they’re “one of the good ones,” hunting their own kind as a form of atonement.

Well, in Eureka, there is no global secret society run by monsters, nor a global secret society, government branch, or branch of the Church suppressing monsters.

Monsters are both a largely unknown - and legitimately dangerous - phenomenon to the general public, and yet still otherwise “normal” people with their own lives and problems. Read these posts for more on that subject.

If these are the monsters in Eureka, then who are the monster hunters? What kind of person becomes a self-described “monster hunter” in this context? Probably not a very good one. Now don’t get me wrong, monsters are very dangerous, but they also are so exceptionally rare that most monsters will have never met anyone else like them in their entire lives. Most people will never even unknowingly walk past one on the street.

So, first of all, to even believe that these monsters are out there and striking with such frequency that you could reasonably “hunt” them, you already have to be a little bit of a crackpot.

Now, there are dangerous people out there in Eureka and in real life. This is a work of art that strongly believes in the right to self-defense and ownership of the means of self-defense. What else are you going to do, rely on the police?

But for a self-described “monster hunter” in Eureka, this danger is not something they’re simply wary of and prepared for, it is something that, conscious or not, excites them. This isn’t “carries a gun just in case of the unlikely event of an attack” kind of “self-defense,” this is “drive three states over to a protest to make sure something happens” kind of “self-defense.” This is “hoping for any excuse and opportunity to rid society of undesirables from ‘the streets’ through violence” kind of “self-defense.”

And, in a world where monsters are so rare and also so hard to distinguish from normal people as in Eureka, what does “monster hunting” even look like? Well, it ain’t a good look. It means hypervigilantly scouring everyone you meet for any abnormality or sign of deviant or “dangerous” behavior. Then, when you’ve got what might be a hit, invade their privacy, stalk them, watch their every move for more evidence of the danger you know is there. Then, once they raise enough red flags, and you’ve got an opportunity, you attempt to destroy them.

Obviously most of these “monsters” are false positives, there just aren’t that many actual monsters out there, and their “tells” can often be identical to the behaviors of people who just don’t fit in with normal society for whatever other reason, and might even be huge assholes, but are ultimately not capable of causing much harm, if any.

Most “monster hunters” will have never encountered a single real monster, and if they ever did, they would probably be out of their depth, but they pat themselves on the back for their hard work keeping the community safe all the same. After all, a normal mortal who already has a stake through their heart can’t explain that they always ask to be invited in because they have OCD or anxiety. (And why should they even have to? Because you imagined they might be a vampire? Seriously?)

I don’t think most of you reading this carry guns IRL so I’m going to bring it a bit closer to home. In more online spaces, these are the same kind of people who start compiling “evidence” for callout posts as soon as they get a “bad vibe” from someone, or somebody is rude to or disagrees with them. It’s the same MO. Scan everyone for the slightest evidence “problematic” behavior, start stalking them and invading their privacy once you’ve got a hit, then move in to destroy.

Who cares if you stretch the truth a little bit? You know in your mind they’re problematic, so it’s up to you to protect the community from them by any means necessary, even lying, otherwise people might not take it seriously enough!

This is called "relational aggression" or "relational violence," by the way.

“But what about the real monsters who really eat people? Doesn’t somebody need to do something about them?”

Well, yes and no. It’s complicated, just like in real life. The posts I linked above explain the comparison between Eureka monsters and disabled people, with the fact that monsters eat people representing how disabled people can often eat up time, energy, and resources of those around them whether they like it or not. Some of them would be less of an issue if societal structures changed, others would not, and even within different categories of monster it’s pretty case-by-case. As much as these man-eating monsters have a right to life, the people they eat have a right to defend themselves from monster attacks. I don’t pretend to have the perfect solution to disability or to Eureka monsters, exploring the nuance therein is one of the things the game is about, but I do know that “we need to weed out and exterminate all people with harmful or burdensome needs for the good of society”, well, that ain’t it chief.

Be safe, be wary, but don’t be a monster hunter. Don’t go picking fights, don’t assume it’s your duty to cyberstalk and ostracize people whose backgrounds or behaviors are “suspicious” or less than squeaky clean, and do be skeptical of callout posts and related tools of ostracization. For every one legitimately, maliciously harmful person out there, there are a hundred more who are on the receiving end of this kind of treatment because they were an asshole to the wrong person, or because they caused a scene on a train car.

A self-righteous monster hunter is every bit as dangerous as the monsters they claim to hunt.

[centrally-unplanned]

This article about Hamas's strategic planning in the lead up to the October assault was at least a partial mind-changer for me. So far I had been viewing Hamas as executing a "bait" attack on Israel for international & domestic political reasons. Kill enough Israelis, and in particular take some hostages, to force Israel to invade Gaza; which you want because that will re-inflame radicalism, tank Israel's growing coziness with Arab states like the Gulf Monarchies, and keep the Palestine Question front-and-center on people's agendas.

What it was not about was achieving any sense of a military victory; Hamas did not think they would be able to defeat the IDF on the field, or even truly hold them back. They thought they would do better than they have in defending Gaza, to be honest, but the goal wasn't to "win" in that way or anything. The actions of Israel, in their inflamed bloodlust, would be the fulcrum of progress for Hamas. It was the most logical interpretation of their strategy, because tbh its working, Israel's strategy void has bungled this war at every level. Of course if it is "worth it" is a completely separate question - Hamas is playing a game from deep, deep in the red, if you aren't going to fold and pack it up from that position these are the hail mary plays you make.

This article, a long (and sometimes overly windy) interview with two career members of the Palestinian governing orgs (primarily Fatah), shines a very different light on that. They outline that over the past ~decade, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar coalesced power around his own faction of highly fundamentalist adherents that convinced itself that divine favor was shining on them and they would be able to actually defeat Israel in the field. The most compelling evidence for this is a conference they held planning the post-conquest occupation of Israel:

So detailed were the plans that participants in the conference began to draw up list of all the properties in Israel and appointed representatives to deal with the assets that would be seized by Hamas. "We have a registry of the numbers of Israeli apartments and institutions, educational institutions and schools, gas stations, power stations and sewage systems, and we have no choice but to get ready to manage them," Obeid told the conference.

They even called people up to ask if they would take the job of governor of this-of-that province! This was not a bored-Friday white paper by any means. They discussed defensive plans and counter-offensives like that was on the table. Sinwar outlined conquest as the goal.

If we accept this premise, it naturally lends itself to the question "okay how did they get the rest of Hamas to go along with this?" Because Hamas is not all These Kinds of People, its a governing state that does politics on the international stage after all. One of the reasons I leaned towards my interpretation was that, for the past ~decade, Hamas has actually been doing a glam-up rebranding of the org to make it more moderate & respectable in international eyes. The 2017 Charter Revision is the biggest example, which included say disavowing the idea that this was a religious war (distinguishing between zionism & judaism), and loosely admitting to the idea that they could recognize Israel as a country if terms were met. Actions like these show actors who are pretty level-headed. Were they inauthentic? Did they change their mind?

Maybe a bit, but its more than they aren't the same people. Right alongside the build-up to the October attack was a purging & sidelining of whole swaths of Hamas leadership. Many were not even informed of the attack - though they knew something was coming. Apparently it leaked on October 2nd, and a bunch of leaders just immediately fled the Strip for safety. This one is the most amusing:

Haniyeh's eldest son took a similar course of action. Around midday on October 2, Abed Haniyeh chaired a meeting of the Palestinian sports committee, which is headed by the minister of sports, Jibril Rajoub. Suddenly he received a phone call, left the room for a few minutes and then returned, pale and confused. He immediately informed the committee – whose members were in a Zoom conference with counterparts in the West Bank – that he had to leave for the Rafah crossing straightaway, as he had just learned that his wife had to undergo fertility treatment in the United Arab Emirates. (He was lying.) He granted full power of attorney to his deputy and left the Gaza Strip hurriedly.

That is one way to duck out of a pointless meeting, take notes people!

So instead of my hail mary politics play, what you have is a story of an institutional coup by a radical faction - which for extremist resistance groups is an ever-present threat. None of this means the "bait" strategy part is wrong of course, that was definitely still the point - but this argument here claims that goal of the bait was to bring the IDF into Gaza where it could be defeated in the field with their extensive fortifications, and then presumably inspire others like Hezbollah to jump on the moment of weakness and besiege Israel proper.

So....is this true? There are two gigantic caveats on this article: the first is that the people being interviewed do not primarily work for Hamas - they are members of Fatah, the leading faction of the PLO. They hate Hamas, they are not Hamas leaders themselves, they have every incentive to paint Hamas as irredeemable. You really can't take this story simply at their word. But they aren't outsiders - they hate Hamas but they work with them constantly, that is how it works, people rotate around in the Palestine orgs. They have met personally and worked with dozens of Hamas leaders; one of them was even called to be offered one of those post-war occupation governorships! (He said no lol) So its a big red flag but not a damning one. And things like the fleeing leaders, the conference on the occupation, those all 100% happened. They released press on it, they weren't hiding it.

The second caveat is that its just really not uncommon for large organizations, particularly extremist ones, to engage in mainly performative actions at scale. The South Korean government still maintains a department that plans for the administration of North Korea for example! Not totally useless ofc, but it writes exactly the reports you think it does that get put in a bin and never touched. Sometimes its appeasing internal factions, sometimes its PR, sometimes its just institutional inertia. Its absolutely believable that Hamas would make a big plan for how they would conquer Israel because otherwise...what do you tell the commanders, exactly? Why are they fighting again? A significant percentage of the lower-level fighters need that belief, so you give it to them. While certainly there is a fundamentalist faction in Hamas, are they ones winning? Or are they just another faction being played against?

I don't see enough evidence to say, but there is enough to make me pause. I'm not sold on it in the end, that is my final conclusion. I think more brains than Sinwar were involved in this and they had more realistic aspirations. And yet the level of commitment and disorganization does suggest that at least some of what was pushing events forward was a group immune to doubts being at the wheel. Certainly interested in researching more.

[agentperezbian]

Everyone talks about the Saw series in a queer context — but am I the only one who sees it in a neurodivergent context, especially in relation to capitalism?

I've said before (not on here, privately) that I think John represents capitalism and conformity in a way. His idea of "appreciating your life" often manifests in the form of societal views of productivity/usefulness. Drug addicts should be punished because they aren't making themselves useful. This man should be punished because he's faking an illness to avoid work while still getting paid. Mental illnesses like depression can be cured with punishment. Part of Lawrence's reason for being tested besides cheating on his wife was seeming to have low empathy/being too clinical with his patients which can be a sign of neurodivergence, autism in particular.

I may joke here sometimes but I do not think John is "right" in any way, or a "good guy," for this reason. His views of what is acceptable in society are narrow and encourage conformity. Amanda, the woman he took under his wing, was not healed by her experience in her trap - she merely went from being an open drug user to someone hiding self harm. She was "fixed" because her ailments were out of sight, so they wouldn't bother anyone. John admonishes Adam for spying on people while not acknowledging that he's in poverty, and has to do dirty work to pay his bills. If Adam made it out of his trap, even if he stopped taking pictures, he would still be poor, living in a rundown apartment, unable to afford groceries.

John goes after people who offend his idea of how a person should live. He thinks Jill's approach to helping addicts is bullshit because he believes in a "tough love" approach that we never see actually work. Just as we see the government incarcerating the homeless, people who do drugs, mentally ill people, John also seems to see them as a detriment to society, but does not consider the societal problems that put them where they are. Poverty and mental illness aren't things you can just pull yourself out of. This is why John's ideology and "moral code" is ultimately a failure.

[vorthosjay]

Hi Jay. Not wanting to sound mean, but I really think it must be commented and that there's no softer way of doing that: the company's statement of Thunder Junction being an inhabitated plane prior to MoM is not a honest way of capitalizing on a sellable trope without touching its uncomfortable issues. It's even disrespectful. They have done it in a less flagrant way with Kaladesh and both Ixalan iterations, but now they've gotten too far with Thunder Junction. Colonialism is too big an issue to simply being put under the carpet as it never existed and we could just enjoy the sunny part of the history. I really hope Hasbro as a company acknowledges this and changes its way of dealing with the theme. Thanks for letting me pointing this.

Look, you caught me on a bad day, so I'm going to be as polite as possible but let's start with the foundation that this is not a complaint to direct at me. I have no control over any of this. Mark Rosewater exists and takes feedback on Tumblr.

But, let's talk about it, because I've seen some folks take this to extremes.

First off, I've seen a lot of well meaning folks speaking up on behalf of hypothetical indigenous americans, but I'd love to get takes from folks this actually impacts. I'd love for Wizards to post something about their work with cultural consultants, for sure. But the only actual thing I've seen so far is a great story from Magic's first indigenous american author. And when you're speaking on someone else's behalf, you tend to miss things. Like, Kaladesh is not the great representation of south asian culture that you might think when you jumped to it, and it's okay if you didn't know that, but it sort of proves the point that it's very difficult to actually protest on someone else's behalf. And I just haven't heard from anyone who has also mentioned they speak from authority or are impacted by this. That doesn't mean you're wrong, necessarily.

But here's the thing. Thunder Junction isn't history. It takes cues from the American West, sure, but it's a fake world. And sometimes it's okay for a fake world to ignore the bad things that happens in real life and create something more aspirational. Magic does this all the time. Magic doesn't have homophobia, but that isn't really realistic or representative of the real world, is it?

No one, and I mean literally no one, came to me and said that people of color needed to be ostracized and not allowed to work alongside the white people in the demon mob families of New Capenna. That racism was real, it was systemic, and it was violent. But did it need to be tackled in a fantasy crime drama based on america in the 20s? Should it have been? I don't think anyone would have enjoyed it as much. Sometimes it's just fun to play gangster.

Similarly, the colonization and manifest destiny that was the reality of the American West was tragic, but does that need to be our only depiction of indigenous peoples - being colonized? If they were erased completely from the narrative, that would be awful, but can't they just have fun being cool thunder slingers? The Atiin were developed with a consultant, and if you want answers ask Wizards to talk about it.

There's a reason the Oltec were depicted as being sealed off from the Immortal Sun drama that had happened on the surface. To have an aspirational mesoamerican culture that wasn't affected by the Dusk Legion and Azor and all that.

To put it in another perspective, does every period piece featuring black americans need to feature systemic racism to be respectful? Is Bridgerton disrespectful (I mean probably but not for that reason)?

The reason I've framed a lot of this as questions is because I don't necessarily think I know the right answer, especially not for a fantasy card game. I've worked with tribal governments in my emergency management career and spent a week on the Navajo Nation, and talked a lot about perspective on things, and I would not presume to know what the right answer to all of this is.

Edit: to be clear, Could it have been handled better? Probably. I will never deny that. But also it’s a complicated and fraught topic and I’d love to hear from the people wizards contracted who actually know what they’re talking about.

[cushfuddled]

I saw a post which claimed since Americans are spending unprecedented amounts of money on holiday gifts this year [1][2]...

the American public isn't actually as strapped for cash as we say or think we are, and

Americans didn’t vote for Trump out of economic frustration.

Like.

I hope you guys know Americans aren't splurging on gifts because we can afford to do so.

The majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck [3], and yet vacations are on the rise, with Millennials and Gen Z-ers at the front of the trend. [4][5]

It’s not excess capital. It’s nihilism.[6][7][8]

"If you work hard and save your money, someday you can buy a house/raise a family/retire." So goes the conventional wisdom, now fine viscera under the wheels of an Amazon forklift. Even older generations can't afford to retire these days [9]. You can buy a shed for the price of a master's degree. And how are you supposed to raise a child when your full-time job barely covers your grocery bills?

Knowing they'll never travel as a retiree, people are splurging on plane tickets right out of school. Knowing class mobility is a lottery pull, people are dumping their last few pennies into meme tokens and other get-rich-quick schemes. Knowing they're already saddled with lifelong debt, people are saying "fuck it" and grabbing a shovel—because at this point, what's a car payment on top of every other loan they'll never repay? "Things will keep getting worse anyway."

Americans are spending stupid amounts of money on vacations [10] and extravagant gifts [11], yes—but they're not spending THEIR money. They're spending Klarna's money, and the bank's money, and when the bills come due people aren't paying them. We're all just doing kickflips on our way down the drain.

The question, "How does killing the UnitedHealthCare CEO solve anything?" misses the point. The shooter may have believed he was doing the American people a favor, but I don't think the majority of Americans are cheering on Brian's death because they believe it will manifest universal healthcare. It's just nice to see the rich criminals who profit off our pain suffer for their choices.

Even if the Dems had acknowledged our financial straits (I find Atrioc's video "Slowly, Then All at Once" to be very helpful re: why the numbers look good but nobody can afford to live)...I still don't think Kamala Harris would've won the presidency. Again, Americans don't believe progress is possible anymore—at least not via our current system of government. Extremists are banking on a wholesale descent into anarchy. Your everyday worker is distracting themselves from impending financial implosion with daily Beverages (I'm stopping here to take a sip of my Rockstar energy drink). Hope is a heavy burden. Instead, people keep their eyes on their feet. One day at a time. Sometimes on its way to the brick wall, their speeding car hits a CEO—and sometimes it mows down a crowd of schoolchildren. Sometimes we're all just trashing the bathroom.

That's Donald Trump's presidential win, to me. Let the horse take over the hospital, America declared—why not, if none of us can afford a hospital visit anyway. Let the nation descend into anarchy and fascism—why not, if we never had rights/liberty to begin with.

It's not logical. It's lashing out in pain like a cornered animal.

The rule of law doesn't apply to the wealthy, as emblemized by our incumbent president's 34 felony charges. It punishes the marginalized by design, for the benefit of corrupt institutions. Harris would've given us a chance to get back on our feet...but with her centrist prosecutorial approach, she represents the law. Donald Trump represents chaos. He's a champion of the CEOs who bankrupt and maim and kill us, but as a certifiable toddler with no object permanence and a suitcase full of ketchup packets and nuclear launch codes, he's also a fucking nightmare to babysit around the White House. That's the best some people can hope for in this country: To give their tormentors a headache. To "trigger the libs." To treat their representatives to the smallest taste of their own helplessness and hopelessness and fear and anger and pain.

People do not have money. People do not have hope. People do not have compassion.

I don't feel any sympathy for Trump voters, and I don't mean to minimize the role of bigotry in this election. This country was founded on genocide and slavery, and that legacy still permeates our culture. I only mean to explain—not excuse—some of this group's behavior. It's a trend suffered on all sides of the aisle: Nihilism externalized as sabotage, whether directed at oneself or others. People are so sick of watching this boat sink into the ocean they've set it on fire just to feel like they had a say in it.

[onebizarrekai]

Kai don't be shy and tell us the lore abt fatal flaws pretty please :3

sorry I'm too shy… I can't do it…

jk. which lore? I can give you some of my ideas I've been brainstorming. I don't know how many of these are repeats though.

fatal flaws is not exactly modernized; it's very possible they're in an ambiguously semi-post-apocalyptic setting, one that's rebuilt but it's been long enough that people don't remember. their country doesn't have any relationships with the outside world. even if there are other people out there, it's likely believed that there are no other civilizations out there, that the mainland is a barren wasteland.

"being a sorcerer" is the kind of rumor that makes you an immediate outcast. it's not illegal to be a sorcerer, but society has turned against them due to prejudice and the sorcerer parasite. the parasite basically kills sorcerers and turns them into 'zombies', like fungal hosts. it's a contamination; they're not born with it. but regular humans think that they're born with it.

miles and arthur lived in a poor sorcerer district in the countryside that existed under the radar, they hadn't been found by the government yet, but the parasite got in. miles lived with his single father and arthur may have possibly never known his parents. (note the big maybe) when the parasite hit, the military found them. the two of them had to escape.

vick grew up in the capital city and was taught in school that the military is infallible and that sorcerers are dangerous. growing up getting into fights and getting in trouble, she eventually went to training camp and got a job in the city guard due to it being well-paying, but it wasn't a particularly good or welcoming job. they eventually told her she "had to quit" due to her badly representing their government with her temper. she didn't start changing her mind about sorcerers until adulthood.

blue is just Some Guy, there is definitely nothing weird going on with him, nope, totally nothing weird. he definitely isn't trying to hide his backstory or anything. he is just a regular delivery boy.

arthur has very confused opinions about sorcerers. he grew up seeing himself as a normal human, and eventually became ashamed of being one once he realized what it meant. he thinks justice is very important, and people should be punished for wrongdoings, but his desire to take crime more seriously just perpetuated the laws that hurt sorcerers. he's not opinionated like miles about it. part of him thinks, "wouldn't people be happier if everyone was the same?" and the machine happens, "why don't we use people's magic to power the city and make it a better place?" he's… complicated.

hacker's a regular guy, but he lives upstairs in randy's restaurant like miles does, and he works for randy. he does Computer Shit. he did used to be affiliated with a gang and his stupid ex still tries to get his attention sometimes.

bunny is a sorcerer kid who likely lost her family to the parasite. I haven't picked apart her story yet, but randy took her in while vick was working in the guard. he worries a lot about her schooling; he and hacker try to do it themselves because randy's afraid of sending her to public school, since bunny's a sorcerer and she's autistic. vick is sort of jealous because she feels like she never got any special treatment growing up.

crystal comes from a surrounding island where people aren't known to live at. she keeps her identity on the down low, because while she's not technically a sorcerer, what she actually is would freak people out even more.

Once Upon A Time™, Charles L'bard the First arrived on the island we now know as our home. With his Big Might and Big Charisma, he smote the cursed monsters and their henchmen that resided there and became a hero. The people crowned him the Island's Hero, the Lord of the Sun, and he became the first king.

many generations later, the populous demanded an elected official instead. this did not make the royal family very happy……

[warningsine]

Living online means never quite understanding what’s happening to you at a given moment. Why these search results? Why this product recommendation? There is a feeling—often warranted, sometimes conspiracy-minded—that we are constantly manipulated by platforms and websites.

So-called dark patterns, deceptive bits of web design that can trick people into certain choices online, make it harder to unsubscribe from a scammy or unwanted newsletter; they nudge us into purchases. Algorithms optimized for engagement shape what we see on social media and can goad us into participation by showing us things that are likely to provoke strong emotional responses. But although we know that all of this is happening in aggregate, it’s hard to know specifically how large technology companies exert their influence over our lives.

This week, Wired published a story by the former FTC attorney Megan Gray that illustrates the dynamic in a nutshell. The op-ed argued that Google alters user searches to include more lucrative keywords. For example, Google is said to surreptitiously replace a query for “children’s clothing” with “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear” on the back end in order to direct users to lucrative shopping links on the results page. It’s an alarming allegation, and Ned Adriance, a spokesperson for Google, told me that it’s “flat-out false.” Gray, who is also a former vice president of the Google Search competitor DuckDuckGo, had seemingly misinterpreted a chart that was briefly presented during the company’s ongoing U.S. et al v. Google trial, in which the company is defending itself against charges that it violated federal antitrust law. (That chart, according to Adriance, represents a “phrase match” feature that the company uses for its ads product; “Google does not delete queries and replace them with ones that monetize better as the opinion piece suggests, and the organic results you see in Search are not affected by our ads systems,” he said.)

Gray told me, “I stand by my larger point—the Google Search team and Google ad team worked together to secretly boost commercial queries, which triggered more ads and thus revenue. Google isn’t contesting this, as far as I know.” In a statement, Chelsea Russo, another Google spokesperson, reiterated that the company’s products do not work this way and cited testimony from Google VP Jerry Dischler that “the organic team does not take data from the ads team in order to affect its ranking and affect its result.” Wired did not respond to a request for comment. Last night, the publication removed the story from its website, noting that it does not meet Wired’s editorial standards.

It’s hard to know what to make of these competing statements. Gray’s specific facts may be wrong, but the broader concerns about Google’s business—that it makes monetization decisions that could lead the product to feel less useful or enjoyable—form the heart of the government’s case against the company. None of this is easy to untangle in plain English—in fact, that’s the whole point of the trial. For most of us, evidence about Big Tech’s products tends to be anecdotal or fuzzy—more vibes-based than factual. Google may not be altering billions of queries in the manner that the Wired story suggests, but the company is constantly tweaking and ranking what we see, while injecting ads and proprietary widgets into our feed, thereby altering our experience. And so we end up saying that Google Search is less useful now or that shopping on Amazon has gotten worse. These tools are so embedded in our lives that we feel acutely that something is off, even if we can’t put our finger on the technical problem.

That’s changing. In the past month, thanks to a series of antitrust actions on behalf of the federal government, hard evidence of the ways that Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are wielding their influence is trickling out. Google’s trial is under way, and while the tech giant is trying to keep testimony locked down, the past four weeks have helped illustrate—via internal company documents and slide decks like the one cited by Wired—how Google has used its war chest to broker deals and dominate the search market. Perhaps the specifics of Gray’s essay were off, but we have learned, for instance, how company executives considered adjusting Google’s products to lead to more “monetizable queries.” And just last week, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Amazon alleging anticompetitive practices. (Amazon has called the suit “misguided.”)

Filings related to that suit have delivered a staggering revelation concerning a secretive Amazon algorithm code-named Project Nessie. The particulars of Nessie were heavily redacted in the public complaint, but this week The Wall Street Journal revealed details of the program. According to the unredacted complaint, a copy of which I have also viewed, Nessie—which is no longer in use—monitored industry prices of specific goods to determine whether competitors were algorithmically matching Amazon’s prices. In the event that competitors were, Nessie would exploit this by systematically raising prices on goods across Amazon, encouraging its competitors to follow suit. Amazon, via the algorithm, knew that it would be able to charge more on its own site, because it didn’t have to worry about being undercut elsewhere, thereby making the broader online shopping experience worse for everyone. An Amazon spokesperson told the Journal that the FTC is mischaracterizing the tool, and suggested that Nessie was a way to monitor competitor pricing and keep price-matching algorithms from dropping prices to unsustainable levels (the company did not respond to my request for comment).

In the FTC’s telling, Project Nessie demonstrates the sheer scope of Amazon’s power in online markets. The project arguably amounted to a form of unilateral price fixing, where Amazon essentially goaded its competitors into acting like cartel members without even knowing they’d done so—all while raising prices on consumers. It’s an astonishing form of influence, powered by behind-the-scenes technology.

The government will need to prove whether this type of algorithmic influence is illegal. But even putting legality aside, Project Nessie is a sterling example of the way that Big Tech has supercharged capitalistic tendencies and manipulated markets in unnatural and opaque ways. It demonstrates the muscle that a company can throw around when it has consolidated its position in a given sector. The complaint alleges that Amazon’s reach and logistics capabilities force third-party sellers to offer products on Amazon and for lower prices than other retailers. Once it captured a significant share of the retail market, Amazon was allegedly able to use algorithmic tools such as Nessie to drive prices up for specific products, boosting revenues and manipulating competitors.

Reading about Project Nessie, I was surprised to feel a sense of relief. In recent years, customer-satisfaction ratings have dipped among Amazon shoppers who have cited delivery disruptions, an explosion of third-party sellers, and poor-quality products as reasons for frustration. In my own life and among friends and relatives, there has been a growing feeling that shopping on the platform has become a slog, with fewer deals and far more junk to sift through. Again, these feelings tend to occupy vibe territory: Amazon’s bigness seems stifling or grating in ways that aren’t always easy to explain. But Nessie offers a partial explanation for this frustration, as do revelations about Google’s various product adjustments. We have the sense that we’re being manipulated because, well, we are. It’s a bit like feeling vaguely sick, going to the doctor, and receiving a blood-test result confirming that, yes, the malaise you experienced is actually an iron deficiency. It is the catharsis of, at long last, receiving a diagnosis.

This is the true power of the surge in anti-monopoly litigation. (According to experts in the field, September was “the most extraordinary month they have ever seen in antitrust.”) Whether or not any of these lawsuits results in corporate breakups or lasting change, they are, effectively, an MRI of our sprawling digital economy—a forensic look at what these larger-than-life technology companies are really doing, and how they are exerting their influence and causing damage. It is confirmation that what so many of us have felt—that the platforms dictating our online experiences are behaving unnaturally and manipulatively—is not merely a paranoid delusion, but the effect of an asymmetrical relationship between the giants of scale and us, the users.

In recent years, it’s been harder to love the internet, a miracle of connectivity that feels ever more bloated, stagnant, commercialized, and junkified. We are just now starting to understand the specifics of this transformation—the true influence of Silicon Valley’s vise grip on our lives. It turns out that the slow rot we might feel isn’t just in our heads, after all.

[scullysflannel]

hiiii apologies if i'm sending you too many asks lol, don't feel pressured to reply right away or at all tbh, but there's this thing ive been turning over in my head about the x files that's like... so in many ways it has these conservative ideas kind of baked into the premise and format of the show. these fears of monsters and monstrous others that have to be investigated and neutralized by our heroes who are these beautiful professional looking white people. and then there's the looming fear of alien invasion that comes up in the myth episodes. so theres a lot that could and should and does feel reactionary and conservative about it. but theres also such a palpable love for the strange and unknown? the "i want to believe" poster represents this so beautifully. i think this love tends to be expressed visually rather than in words so it's kind of hard to concretely describe but i'm sure you know what i'm talking about. and then the show also relies on us the audience having an interest in the paranormal and unexplainable, not because we want to see it defeated, but for its own sake. so i guess i want to ask how you square those two ideas, that the x files has all these anxieties about weirdness but also loves and yearns for weirdness? as i said ive been kind of ruminating on this for a while and having trouble reconciling the two ideas so i'd love to hear your thoughts!

Ooh I kind of just want to give you a reading list. Have you read “In the Dark” by Brian Phillips?? It’s a Grantland essay written for the 20th anniversary in 2013. It’s my favorite piece of X-Files journalism (actually my favorite piece of entertainment journalism in general) — kind of an essential text to me. It gets into all of this. But for me I don’t feel like reconciling the tension is the goal, or that it’s even possible. The tension is the show.

Likely thing for me to say, but I think the structure of The X-Files as a procedural is a big part of how and why it moves between fear and love. Phillips describes Mulder and Scully as representatives of a doomed but still operational status quo, “figures of a weird reactionary beauty, struggling to understand and then prevent the profound transformation breaking out across their world.” I’d say that last part (prevention) is especially true of the mythology, with the monster-of-the-week episodes giving space to sometimes complicate that. 

The X-Files is traditional in its basic formula; it makes assumptions about who gets to be the hero and what kind of job they should have. There are some assumptions it doesn’t interrogate, like its default whiteness. But its critique of the government can be shockingly pointed, even if it holds itself back in later seasons by keeping Mulder and Scully in the Bureau well past the point where they should go rogue. (Not that I think the show actually could have done that.)

Does The X-Files love its boundaries or want to blow them up? Both. The appeal of a procedural is typically that it gives neat answers, so being a procedural that denies easy answers is the point, which is to say that both sides of the show are dependent on each other. The whole show is sort of an experiment in fitting some of the strangeness of Twin Peaks into a procedural. I think it’s meant to be a go-between, the same way Mulder and Scully are. 

Phillips also writes, “In this show about not knowing, the agents confronted two distinct sets of frightening unknowns. On one side was the shadow government represented by the Cigarette-Smoking Man. On the other was the evil that lurked beneath the surface of every American hamlet. Often, Mulder and Scully’s role was simply to act as interpreters between their own antagonists, rendering chaotic eruptions of small-town horror comprehensible to men in marble corridors in D.C.” I think The X-Files works like that too — interpreting between what’s regimented and what’s odd — and in that sense it has to yearn for the same things it’s afraid of. And really, I prefer the honesty of that to something more ideologically consistent. 

I always think about “Home” as an episode that sums up a lot of The X-Files’ attitude toward progress (more on this here): It isn’t immune to the romance of the myth of Mayberry, even as it’s aware that it’s a grotesque lie built on violence, and that people are committing perverse acts to hold on to it. The show allows for progress to be scary but insists that it’s not as scary as what people will do when they fear it. Weirdness on The X-Files isn’t perfectly analogous for righteous deviance only. I believe the show sees what is weird coming from all sides, past (like the Peacocks) and future, so what’s weird isn’t inherently good or meant to signify inherent goodness; it only can be good. 

One of my favorite things about The X-Files is the way it respects the integrity of doubt. (I’ve written about this! But hold off on reading if you don’t want any spoilers.) I don’t think the show could be about the bravery of questioning your beliefs without letting those old beliefs be a little bit comforting to Mulder and Scully, even the ones that turn out to be lies. There’s a great New Yorker essay by James Wolcott written in 1994, near the end of the first season. He writes that in The X-Files, the Cold War-era obsession with UFOs and alien invasion gives way to the more inward-looking fear of alien abduction: “The X-Files is the product of yuppie morbidity, a creeping sense of personal mortality.” Later on, the mythology incorporates shapeshifters and alien colonization plans, but it never commits. That’s never the emotional core of the show in the way abduction is. The core of the show is personal annihilation: the fear of death and losing loved ones, and the fear of tearing yourself apart to get to the truth.

But some of the most affecting episodes are the ones that love and yearn for the weirdness in spite of it all. Like you said, it’s always in the atmosphere and the visuals (the poster, or Mulder looking up at the stars), but I think the show puts words to it pretty often, too, like “I guess I see hope in such a possibility” in “Quagmire” and especially all of “Humbug”: “Imagine going through your whole life looking like that.” There’s so much affection for peculiarity in that episode. Still, I love that ultimately it’s just a fact: “Nature abhors normality.” It doesn’t actually matter whether you like what’s “freakish” or not; it’s just nature. I think all of The X-Files kind of evens out into a neutral judgment like that, which is nice and even kind of radical in its own way. What is weird doesn’t have to be beautiful and desirable; it just has to be seen and accepted.

[bwaybwaycwaycway]

Quick rant about Authority in Disco Elysium

I'm writing this because I had someone rightly call me out at work for second-guessing myself for not trusting in an answer I gave. Specifically, I was asked to identify a type of fire extinguisher from a distance, and even though I was correct, I wanted to check my answer by going up and reading the label. It reminded me about internal confidence in yourself and the things you say.

Authority is an underrated skill in Disco Elysium.

I get why people dislike it. Whenever Authority gets a failure, it has extremely violent, sociopathic responses to the situation at hand, like telling you to hurt people or, in a very famous scene, put a loaded pistol in your mouth. This kind of behavior upsets Kim, who serves as the moral compass for most players, so you stop taking risky Authority checks and don't bother wearing clothing that boosts the skill. You eventually think of Authority as a skill used by people who want to go the Fascist Cop route.

And then you get to the Tribunal. At the end, only one skill will save Kim. Authority. It isn't even you giving him a real order, it's mostly asserting that there is danger and that Kim must respond to it, and ignore your broken half-dead body. It seems like a weird choice that Esprit de Corps isn't doing this, as it's the cop-related skill, or Suggestion, as it is the skill best used to convince others.

No, only Authority will snap Kim out of his panic and make sure he survives the fight without serious injury. And that's because Authority is a skill that, when it succeeds a check, is about personal confidence in your ability as a police officer, and a human being living their life in Revachol.

Authority sure does get you into bad situations, and if you choose to go down the path of the Honour Cop, suggests thumb-fucking yourself to display said honour. But when it succeeds, Authority is barely there, just reminding you that you've got this. You know what to do, you've known all along. You're confident in your actions and accept responsibility for them when Authority is taking lead.

People don't trust cops with low Authority. Sorry Cops, as Kim says, are actively harmful to the reputation of the RCM. Apologizing and second-guessing yourself makes people lose faith in the government you represent and in your ability to solve the case or help them live their lives. A lot of negative modifiers are due to you appearing weak or lacking confidence when you first meet people, as they don't think of you as a trustworthy cop who can fix things.

Finally, the confrontation with Kim over asking him to share a secret about his past, involving the Eyebrow Off, shows that Authority is something that isn't abusive when used right. Kim uses his Authority to convince you to drop the question when you fail, but if you succeed, he share a little fact about his childhood that's of no consequence except it's slightly embarrassing to him. You learn on a failure though that Kim's Authority is immense, and it shows through his confidence in himself and his job as a cop.

Authority is about showing other people, sometimes even falsely presenting, confidence in yourself and what you're doing. When it fails, it pushes you to assert this confidence again, especially in the face of someone trying to assert their Authority over you. It wants you to be a good cop, but has such a narrow way of thinking that it can get you or other people killed multiple times.

[kyliaquilor]

I don’t disagree, but I am not convinced the lack of political goodwill that kept giving Cromwell shitty parliaments was the result of the purge or taking several years to enact the Heads of Proposals - and if we need to blame anyone for that, we should blame the Rump, rather than Cromwell for giving them more time than they deserved. Nor, frankly, do I think things like Pride’s Purge were unwarranted - negotiating with the King was a path to nowhere, and refusing to pay your soldiers and ordering them to disband without pay is just a suicidal idea in that day and age. I agree having the Rump call new elections much sooner would have been good, but the first session of the second protectorate parliament actually went pretty well, proving that some degree of functioning was possible. But the obsession that too many of them had with parliamentary supremacy and their refusal to work with the ‘Other House’ was the problem, not Cromwell. 

Not saying Cromwell didn’t make mistakes, or do bad things - he did. I’m just not convinced the people in the parliaments that refused to work with him don’t bear more of the blame for things exploding. 

(I think Cromwell refusing the offer to become King was arguably his biggest mistake, though I agree the optics would have been terrible, Parliament did genuinely vote to give it to him, so it’s not like he was actively seeking the Crown. But taking the Crown would have let him reset things on firmer footing - and made it easier, I think, for ‘King Richard IV’ - England knew how to handle dubiously capable kings, less so dubiously capable Lord Protectors which were defined as much as a military position as a political/executive one)

After Oliver Cromwell's death was the Commonwealth doomed, because of structural factors, or a republic like the United Provinces could have survived but it failed because of contingency and individuals' actions? How guilty is Cromwell for not setting solid foundations for the continuity of the Commonwealth?

Yes, the Commonwealth was doomed after Cromwell's death, but the reason why is both structural factors and contingency/agency - because the actions of a few individuals (including but not limited to Cromwell) set those structural factors in motion.

In term's of Cromwell's guilt, I would say that he bears ultimate responsbility for the institutional weaknesses of the Commonwealth. To be totally fair, he did try to fix those weaknesses repeatedly - but because of the actions he took at the beginning that set up the structural factors in question, those efforts came to naught.

That's the TLDR, I'll do the specific explanation below the cut, because it's going to go long.

Background

Just to make sure everyone's on the same page: in 1640, Charles I is forced to call Parliament even though he hates doing it. He dissolves Parliament after three weeks. (Hence why it's called the Short Parliament.) He's then forced to call Parliament again, and this Parliament is the Long Parliament. The Long Parliament enacts a whole series of legislation that Charles I hates, and then in 1642 the conflict between King and Parliament breaks out into the First English Civil War (1642-1646).

During this first phase of the conflict, it takes a while for Parliament and the Parliamentary generals to get their act together. Things begin to turn around in 1644 when the Scottish Covenanters join the war on Parliament's side and they win the Battle of Marston Moor - which gives Parliament control of the North of England and is the first battle where Cromwell plays a major role. The next year, Parliament gets rid of the original Parliamentary generals through the Self-Denying Ordinance, forms the New Model Army under Fairfax and Cromwell (the one guy specifically exempted form the Self-Denying Ordinance), and Fairfax and Cromwell go on to completely destroy the Royalist armies at Nasby and Langport.

Charles hangs on for a bit, but is eventually captured in 1646 and the first Civil War ends. The question is now: what do we do, now that Parliament has won?

The Putney Debates

Once the fighting was over, the political fighting could begin and it was quite complicated. You had the Long Parliament, which was dominated by the moderate "Presbyterian" faction who had been locked out of military power by the Self-Denying Ordinance. You had the New Model Army, which was religiously Puritan but split politically (more on this in a second). You had the Scots, politically constituted by the Scottish Parliament and militarily represented by the Covenanter armies, who wanted Presbyterianism to be extended throughout Britain. And then you had the Royalists and Charles I, who were usually but not always the same faction.

I'm going to focus here on the part of this conflict that involved the Long Parliament and the New Model Army. The Long Parliament wants to do a deal with Charles I - although the problem is that Charles is stretching out negotiations in the hopes that if everything collapses into anarchy he might get himself back on the throne - it wants a unified British Presbyterian Church established (because it had kind of agreed to set one up as the cost of getting Scottish support during the war), and it wants to get rid of the New Model Army which it views as dangerously radical and way too powerful.

The New Model Army isn't sure what it wants, because it's split between the Agitators (i.e, the Levellers) and the Grandees (the senior officers of the Army, led by Cromwell and Fairfax) - although the one thing both sides agree on is that they're not going to accept a single established Presbyterian Church and that they aren't going anywhere until they get their back pay and some sort of reforms happen that justify four years of civil war.

In the mean-time, everyone's getting very testy. First, the Long Parliament orders the New Model Army to disband in early 1647. The New Model Army refuses to disband. Then the New Model Army takes control of the prisoner Charles I in early June. In late June, a pro-Presbyterian mob invades Parliament calling for an established Presbyterian Church and for Charles I to be brought to London, causing all of the Independent (i.e, Puritan) MPs and the Speaker to flee the city and seek the protection of the New Model Army. Then in August, the New Model Army marches on London, and forces Parliament to enact a Null and Void Ordinance undoing everything the Long Parliament had done since June, which causes the Presbyterian MPs to withdraw from Parliament (temporarily), which means the Independents are now in the majority.

All of this is very confusing, and no one in the New Model Army is sure what to do now that they hold all the cards. So the New Model Army decides to have a public debate at Putney in late October in order to hash out what the Army's position is going to be.

At Putney, both sides put forward manifestos for what the Army should stand for. The Agitators put forward the "Agreement of the People," which calls for:

the Long Parliament to be dissolved and elections to be held for a new Parliament.

these elections to be held after a reapportionment of Parliament to establish equal districts on the basis of one-man-one-vote.

elections for a new Parliament every two years.

the electorate to be made up of "all men of the age of one and twenty years and upwards (not being servants, or receiving alms, or having served in the late King in Arms or voluntary Contributions)." (i.e, fairly universal male suffrage).

Parliament is to have full Executive and Legislative authority, except that the people shall have liberty of conscience, freedom from conscription, equality before the law, and there shall be amnesty for anything done or said during the Civil War.

The Grandees, who freaked the fuck out when they heard these terms and started immediately calling the Agitators "Levellers" (i.e, 17th century for "commie bastards"), put forward the "Heads of Proposals," which calls for:

the Long Parliament to be dissolved and elections to be held for a new Parliament.

these elections to be held after Parliament decides on "some rule of equality of proportion...to the respective rates they bear in the common charges and burdens of the kingdom," or on the basis of some other rule that will make the Commons "as near as may be" to equally proportioned.

for the next ten years, Parliament and not the King has authority over the military, finances, and the bureaucracy.

for the next five years, Royalists aren't allowed to run for elected office or hold appointed public offices.

the Church of England will continue to exist, but you don't have to read the Book of Common Prayer if you don't want to, you don't get fined for not going to CoE services or attending other services, and there will be no imposition of a Presbyterian Covenant.

You can see that there are some overlapping areas (no more Long Parliament, elections every two years, some form of reapportionment, some form of liberty of conscience) but there are some really significant differences - a republic versus a constitutional monarchy, a unicameral Parliament versus retaining the House of Lords, and universal suffrage versus property requirements.

During the Putney Debates, Cromwell flatly refuses to accept anything other than a constitutional monarchy, Ireton (Cromwell's son-in-law) refuses to accept universal suffrage, but the two sides agree that a committee will work out a compromise on the basis of everything else from the "Agreement" as long as the Agitators agree to go back to their regiments.

Then the King escapes from captivity and everyone panics. Cromwell and Fairfax scramble a new manifesto together and try to get the New Model Army to approve that manifesto along with everyone taking a loyalty oath to Fairfax and the General Council of the Army, the Agitators see this as a stab in the back and start up a mutiny, and Cromwell and Fairfax crush the mutiny and arrest the Agitator leadership. In late November 1647, Charles I, who has been recaptured by this point, signs a secret agreement with the Scots to invade England and restore Charles to the throne in return for Presbyterianism being established in England.

The Second Civil War

Things slow down for a bit, because the Scots are actually quite divided about this agreement - the Kirk actually condemns it as "sinful" - and it takes until April for the pro-agreement faction (known as the "Engagers") to get a majority in the Scottish Parliament.

In May 1648, Royalist uprisings break out across the kingdom, with South Wales, Kent, Essex, and Cumberland being particular centers of Royalist strength, and the Scottish Covenanter army crosses the border and invades England. Unfortunately for Charles, the Royalists, the English Presbyterians, and the Scots, they completely fail to coordinate their actions and the New Model Army is able to completely crush the uprisings one-by-one and then turns its attention to the Scots.

At the Battle of Preston in August 1648, the New Model Army under Cromwell wins another one of its ridiculously lopsided victories that make his emerging belief that he had been chosen by God somewhat understanable, and the formidable Covenanter army is crushed.

By this point, Cromwell and the rest of the Grandees are convinced of two things: one, no more negotiating with the King. As the Army Council put it rather ominously, it was their duty "to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for that blood he had shed, and mischief he had done." Two, the (English) Presbyterians could not be trusted. They had conspired with the King and their Scottish co-religionists to overthrow the government and abolish religious liberty, and thus they had to go.

Thus, in December 1648, Pride's Purge is carried out, in which a detachment of troops acting under orders from Ireton (and thus from Cromwell) bar 140 MPs from taking their seat and arrest 45 of them. This effectively ends the Long Parliament, and the remaining 156 MPs continue to sit as the Rump Parliament. In the New Year, the Rump Parliament then votes to put the King on trial for treason and then afterwards establishes the Commonwealth as a unicameral Republic.

What Comes Next?

You'll note a couple things at this point: first, Cromwell's political positions are fairly fluid and change with events, so that he goes from being a staunch constitutional monarchist in late 1647 to a determined regicide by January 1949. Second, even though it's been a few years since the Putney Debates, Cromwell and the Grandees haven't implemented the "Heads of Proposals" - most crucially, they haven't dissolved Parliament and called for new elections, nor has a new Constitution been established.

Initially, one might say that Cromwell was distracted by his campaign to crush the Confederate-Royalist coalition in Ireland and then to crush the alliance between the Covenanters and Charles II. But by 1651, he's back in England and there's still no election and still no Constitution. Cromwell tries to get the Rump Parliament to call for new elections, establish a new Constitution that incorporates Ireland and Scotland now that they've been conquered, and finds some sort of religious settlement.

For two years, the Rump Parliament deadlocks on practically everything except the religious settlement, where it manages to piss off everyone by keeping the Church of England and its tithes, but also getting rid of the Act of Uniformity and allowing Independents to worship openly, but also passing all kinds of Puritan moral regulations. In April of 1653, Cromwell proposes that the Rump Parliament establish a caretaker government that will deal with the Constitution and new elections, but the Rump deadlocks on that too. This causes Cromwell to completely lose it and dissolve the Rump Parliament by force, culminating in one hell of a speech:

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

Now there's no more Parliament and Cromwell and the Council are running the country on their own, but they don't have a plan for what to do next. A Fifth Monarchist member of the Council proposes appointing a "sanhedrin of saints" on the basis of religious credentials who will set up a godly commonwealth and bring about the imminent return of Christ. That doesn't happen, but the Council does like the idea of an appointed (rather than elected) body called the Nominated Assembly, which becomes known as Barebone's Parliament. This Parliament doesn't make it a year because of how badly it's divided between moderate republicans who want a functioning government and Fifth Monarchists who believe that Jesus Christ is coming back to Earth any day now, so why bother? Ultimately, Barebone's Parliament dissolves itself.

This then leads the Council to pass the Instruments of Government, which was essentially an adapted version of the original "Heads of Proposals." Under the Instrument, Executive power would be held by the Lord Protector who would serve for life, Legislative power would be held by a Parliament elected every three years, and then there would be a Council of State appointed by Parliament which would advise and elect the Lord Protector upon the death of the previous occupant. Thus, the Protectorate is born.

In 1654, Cromwell finally manages to get the First Protectorate Parliament elected...and it only lasts a single term, agrees to none of the 84 bills that Cromwell and the Council of State, and is promptly dissolved as soon as the Instruments would allow. And so on it went through the Second and Third Protectorate Parliaments, and then Cromwell died and the rest is history.

Conclusion

Coming back to what I mentioned at the very beginning about the interplay between structural factors and individual actions, I think we can see a kind of ratchet effect whereby decisions taken early on that foreclosed certain options compound on each other over time, leading to structural factors that weakened the Commonwealth.

The crucial turning point(s) to me are the decision to reject the Agreement of the People in 1647 and then the failure to enact the Heads of Proposals in 1647 after the Putney debates, or in 1648 or 1649 after Pride's Purge.

With the Agreement, you could have had a small-d democratic republic which would have offered ordinary working people new political rights and protections and the opportunity to buy-in to the new regime through an election for a new Parliament. With the Heads of Proposals, you could have had a more conservative republic that would have offered much the same to the traditional landed political class, which would have then granted their consent to the new regime by both standing for election and voting in that election for a new Parliament.

That kind of legitimacy was absolutely necessary in order to ensure the long-term allegiance of the population to the new regime in the face of Royalist revanchism, let alone the kind of radical changes (putting the king on trial, declaring a republic, establishing a religious settlement) that Cromwell and the Grandees saw as essential.

[poorrichardjr]

Threats

Sometimes it can be very frustrating to live in a place so heavily populated with conservatives. Most everyone I run into plans on voting for Donald Trump because they believe he was sent by God to save them. He is what's best for our country, and it doesn't matter what he says or does, nothing is going to shift their belief in him.

I know a lot of these people have no idea what Trump really says. I know most of them have no idea what the results of his hatred for immigrants, the media, or liberals will really be. Mostly because they don't believe what he will do is really that extreme, and also because most of them really can't be bothered to actually do a bit of thought or research to understand the threat. Nope, they are die hard republicans and voting any other way is voting for the devil and the destruction of the country.

The thing is, I know a lot of these people aren't stupid. And though they say that they aren't hateful or racist people, it sure seems hard to believe them when you watch how they respond when they are told about how Trump wants to send troops into American cities on day 1 to root out every single immigrant and deport them. It's as if they can't put it together that if we suddenly remove a few million people from our economic system that we are going to have massive upheaval. No, these people aren't all collecting government checks that are so large they live better than you. These same people aren't taking your job. They are doing construction jobs, agriculture jobs, and meat packing jobs that a lot of Americans will not do. Many of them are paying taxes.

Don't get me wrong, there needs to be a better system in place to root out the criminals that sometimes slip through the cracks. There also needs to be a way for these people who are dedicating their lives to getting better and working hard to become citizens. We all know that suddenly deporting millions of people is going to adversely effect our economy. Adding in tariffs will significantly increase the costs of everyday items and cause a massive recession or depression. Tariffs have a place and a point, but Trump doesn't know what it is, and that's why he had to pay trillions of dollars to farmers and agriculture companies just to keep them afloat after he started his trade war.

But, this isn't about economics. As bad as Trump is on economic issues, you will never hear a bad word about it in the right-wing media sphere which is where the vast majority of these upper lower class yahoo's get their information from.

No, what I'm really getting to is that Trump, and by extension the Heritage Foundation, is planning to use every tool at their disposal to completely upend our society in every way imaginable. For people who seem constantly obsessed with conspiracy theories about democrats murdering newborn children, children using cat litter boxes in schools, or the government pushing vaccines on people to track their every movement, they don't want to consider the possibilities of giving a man who is deemed to be untrusty by every reasonable measure the tools to do whatever he wants.

You say you love your freedom. You say you want your guns, your free speech, your religious freedoms, and every other thing you know you are entitled to by our constitution. Yet, you can't understand that a man willing to send the police and military through the streets to root out undesirables isn't going to suddenly decide one day that even your freedoms are too much. You shouldn't have your guns because some idiots tried to assassinate me. You shouldn't have any right to protest because you don't like what I did. Maybe I will send the police and military into your town to round you up next and stick you in concentration camps.

I know you believe that will never happen. Oh, my representative wouldn't allow that. Yes they would. They are all cowards who have repeatedly bowed down to let Trump say and do whatever he wants. Are they suddenly going to grow a spine and try to say no just because your lily white ass is now on the line? Hell no, they won't because like every coward they are far more worried about their own lily white ass.

Trump and all of his enablers are a threat to the very foundation of this nation, and I am so sorry that none of you are able to see it. I still believe there are enough people of good moral judgement and conscience that Trump is going to lose this election. I can't guarantee that though. There are people in place to gum up the works and there are others who plan to not certify the vote if Trump loses. I don't expect Trump to walk away if he gets blown out, and I don't expect the right wing bubble to do anything but try and say how everything was stolen from them. They have also proven over and over that they are willing to say anything to get their way.

My faith in my fellow countrymen is waning. I want to believe you are good and honest people. I want to believe you are who you say you are. But I see your actions. I hear your words. You aren't the Christians you think you are. You aren't the good people in this story. I don't want to blame you. I know you are being lied to. I know you are struggling and doing your best just to get by most of the time. I also know that you are being poisoned and brainwashed on a daily basis when you listen to anyone talk about how awful our country is. There are problems, just like there has always been, but we are nowhere near as bad as we have been in other times.

Our whole way of life is on the line. I hate to say this because most everyone is tired of hearing how "important" this election is. But, it's true. A man who is given absolute immunity to do whatever he thinks he should for the good of the country isn't going to stop at "illegal" immigrants. Next they will come for the trans people. Then the gays. Then the "left wing media". Then anyone who doesn't support him and his every lie.

Sooner or later they will get around to you and your friends. Someone like this can't stop no matter how far they go. There will always be a new enemy. You have the chance now to stop this madness before we walk down the same road as Germany, China, Rwanda, and so many other nations. Can you, as a concerned citizen do the right thing? Will you? I guess I'll get my answer in a few weeks.

[eggplantwaffles]

i think a big problem with modern batfam comics is that they have so many characters that kinda just overlap- here’s my ideas for how to give each of them their own “niche” to make them unique. Some of this is canon or alluded to is some way- but a lot is just what i think makes sense for each character.

Bruce Wayne

Bruce retires, it’s the only way to give all his kids / kid adjacents their own chance to shine. i’m sure he grumbles about it and watches from the bat cave obsessively, but i’m the end he’s learned to trust the batfam and lets them take care of things.

Dick Grayson

I actually really like where Dick is at in comics right now, i mean it’s not perfect- but I like the idea of Nightwing being a “better” version of Batman for Blüdhaven. He leads the Titans, which are now on par pedigree wise with the Justice League, and as Dick Grayson he is an active member of the community in Blüdhaven, trying to use all his resources to help people. So basically not much changes here.

Barbara Gordon

This one’s easy, just make her Oracle all the time- in the most bad dads way possible. Give me paralyzed Barbara Gordon who has eyes and ears all over the world and is the center of ALL super hero activity. She leads the Birds of Prey, she’s in the ears of all the bats, she’s IT for the Justice League- she does all of it.

Jason Todd

I liked Jason’s character best when he serves as an antagonist. Jason goes back to being a crime lord, and we bring back his ideals of trying to control the crime as opposed to trying to stop it. Jason has good intentions, but he lacks the idealism of the other bats who are constantly trying to save the city without compromising any morals. I think that Jason often butts heads with Tim and Cass (mostly Cass due to her very strict no killing rule) but is mostly left alone by Steph and Damian, who are more willing to accept his methods even if they don’t love them.

Tim Drake

Tim should travel the world “conspiracy hunting,” kind of like how he took down the League of Assassins, except he probably chills out on the blowing up bases all around the world that might (definitely) have people inside. Tim is supposed to be the best detective of the Robins, so lean into that- I want globe trotting - mentally unwell - detective stories where Tim fights big secret organizations or takes down corrupt governments. He is also still apart of Young Justice, though they are all a bit older and are a less official group, the core four are still close and work together- they help keep Tim grounded and remember that he doesn’t have to do everything alone.

Stephanie Brown

I think Stephanie kind of separates herself from the batfamily after her time as Batgirl. I don’t mean that she give up fighting crime, or even gives up wearing the bat symbol, I just mean that she becomes a mostly solo act. Steph becomes Gothams main hero, she does normal vigilante stuff, patrolling the streets, saving the city, detective work, the typical bat stuff. But she’s far more connected to the people of Gotham than Batman ever was, stopping and talking to kids, handing out blankets to the homeless, doing cool flips and batarang trick shots for civilians passing by. Eventually she is the hero most Gothamites associate with their city, and she represents the good parts of Gotham- giving the people hope that they aren’t doomed to be consumed by the city, but that they will be stronger because of it. I also think that things are kinda awkward between her and the bats (except for Dick, Damian, and Barbara) and she tries to keep her distance a bit, considering she was kinda treated like shit as Spoiler and i think Steph deserves to be bitter about that, for a little bit at least.

Cass

Cass becomes Batman, but she operates globally. She’s not like early-Bruce batman who stayed in Gotham, she’s more similar to later batman. She’s in the league, she goes on funky missions to space or other dimensions sometimes, she fights the world ending threats that someone with no powers really should have no business fighting. She also works frequently with Tim and they do some fun little espionage stuff. And while she does return to Gotham, she’s mostly content to leave the city to Steph now- except for all the times she gets into fights with Jason, it bothers her that Steph rarely messes with his operation.

Damian

I really love the idea of Damian getting more into the magical part of DC, I think he should absolutely end up with a Justice League Dark team and learn to do cool magic shit. He goes on a training montage quest like Bruce did, except he’s learning all about magic and demons and cool stuff like that. He has cool magic swords and is sort of the connection between the more grounded part of the universe and the magic parts. He also does a fair bit of globe trotting, looking for ancient mystical artifacts or magical worlds and stuff like that.

Duke Thomas

Duke also mostly stays in Gotham, he’s kinda doing his own thing as The Signal- he still operates during the daytime meaning he doesn’t cross paths with Steph or Jason too often on patrol. There’s not much to change here because Duke is already unique in that he 1- operates during the day and 2- is the only meta-bat, so I don’t need to make a niche for him, DC just needs to use him more.

Random Stuff

- Duke is starting college and takes night classes at Gotham U, Steph is also still in college and is graduating soon

- Tim is either Red Robin, or operating under a new name (I think the Vulture or Condor would be kinda cool but idk)

- The Batfam does not get along like a real family, they are dramatic bitches who fight all the time and have cannot all be in the same room

- Damian and Steph are super close, she was the first person to insist on treating him like a child, which he hated but now that he’s older is grateful for (but he’ll never admit it)

- Damian also sees Dick as his father figure, Bruce is just kinda also there

- Bruce, Alfred, Damian, and Cass all live at the manor- but Damian and Cass are rarely there as they travel a lot and got shit to do

- Barbara lives in the clock tower, she technically lives alone but usually one of Cass, Dick, Dinah, or Helena will be crashing there

- Steph lives alone in the same house she grew up in, her Mom has moved to California or something for a fresh start as she is finally sober, but at this point Steph doesn’t need her. It’s very sad as Steph never truly had a mother, but she’s happy that Crystal is getting another chance away from Gotham.

- Duke swears he’s seen Jason at night classes at Gotham U, but Jason won’t admit it

- The only ones Jason talks to semi-frequently are Dick and Tim, the relationships are super rocky though. Dick sees Jason as his brother first, and since he’s in Blüdhaven he tries not to concern himself with Jason’s business. Tim and Jason do fight a bit but Tim is more lenient than Cass so he can tolerate Jason’s shit if he feels like it’s for the best.

[satirates]

Baghera Jones is her own person that can make her own decisions, thank you very much

I wasn't going to post this here because most of this discourse came from the bird app, but I've seen so much posts here (and in my notes) that I need to get this out of my chest. So this post is going to be TW: fandom neg about Baghera treatment by the QSMP community, be warned.

So, where to begin?

I keep seeing post about Q!Baghera being a bad friend to Forever, insulting her, saying she" hate him" and that it would be better if Forever only interact with Brazilians from now on. And I'm tired of this shit

" She will clearly always side with BBH whatever Forever do"

Oh, so we have a woman friend with two men, so of course she needs to take sides. Forbid her to have her personal opinions, it all about choosing the guy she likes the most, isn't it ? How people don't realize hoe misogynistic that way of thinking is !?

She literally connected on the server yesterday, learned that Forever wanted to build a prison to imprison players and that he pass a law that was specifically targeted at one of her other friends. Of course, she said that she will stand by BBH if this continues. She is trying to comfort him because from HER perspective, he's being targeted by unfair laws, and he is still (in lore) experiencing psychological problems. She didn't side with him, she chooses to help him. Because she can make decision with the information she has.

" But she is always against what Forever propose with the government"

I'm sorry, where were you when the election arc happens? Probably insulting Baghera because she dare have opinions and calling them "stupid" and "baseless" to the point she quitted I guess? q!Baghera was ALWAYS anti-federation. She joined the election so she could start a revolution. Even after she accepted to not do that, she always defends the point that having a president was a bad idea and that a council would be better. These ideas aren't new and she didn't stop having them after Forever got elected. It makes sense for her character to oppose to him, because she was never for a president in first place.

Yesterday, she didn't say she thought his idea of vote is stupid. She says that she doesn't agree with HOW it's done right now and that they can make it better. More representative of the people. But when she talked to Forever, he basically ran away when she started saying she didn't like it. Then they got interrupted by Bad. She hadn't the time to explain herself and people are acting like she said the idea(and Forever) was bad when she never says such thing. And even if she was totally against it, she would have the right to. She has the right to have a different opinion than her friends.

" But she is always hiding things!"

Clearly, you haven't watched Baghera's stream in a long time. What does she have to hide, I'm asking you? She never gets lore, and never has any in the past. Every time sometimes mildly exciting happen, she is running to another player just so she could tell them. In the election arc she was even sharing a ton of secrets with Cellbit, a guy she was convince was a dormant agent, just because he was on the server at the same time as her and she needed to share! She is only keeping secrets that other people told her. You know, like a good friend? Also, she sometimes forgot to say things right away, but cc! Baghera has ADHD, so it's not on purpose she sometimes forgets things. CC! Baghera said that canonically, her character trust Forever 100%, and she kept it that way so far. She just has no secrets to share right now because she isn't getting any lore.

" But Forever is always alone these days, and Baghera isn't appreciative of his work!"

Pshhh, I'm going to tell you a secret. You know who's alone 90% of their streams? BAGHERA JONES! She is in her castle alone, building. And why she spends the other 10% with people? Because she goes to people to check on them! Does Forever do that? No. He's in is isolation arc. We have never seen him check on what Baghera was doing or asking to do something together. Several times we've seen the players having fun while he was online, and he didn't join. It's not Baghera's job to go fetch him to play and help him when he isn't asking for it. And she always shows appreciation for what he is doing, just not in his face. Things you would know if y'all were actually watching her POV. She has Portuguese and English subtitle on at all times, you have no excuses. And why these type of comments are always directed toward Baghera and nobody else in the server that are doing stuff aside from Forever? Literally, I've never seen anyone else being call names because they are not tending to someone else need. Truly strange that it's directed at a woman, isn't it?

Baghera said in live recently that she has to take a break from doing lore with some of the streamers with the biggest community because she was getting hate every single time she was interacting with them. She didn't say names, But we all know who she was talking about. And I think it sucks she has to walk on eggshells around Brazilian players because of that. That she try to not be too friendly/teasing with Forever because of that. If you don't see her spending time with him as much, now you know why. They are still friend, but she doesn't want to deal with the community bullshit.

To conclude

She said that she wants her character to be recognized for her own achievement and not just be "Forever and bad third friend". And I'm also tired of this. She has the right to have opinions. She has the right to make decisions that contradict the ones of her friends. Furthermore, she isn't "Forever bad friend" or "BadBoyHalo emotional support woman". She is her own person. Stop acting like she's picking sides. Stop to infantilize her by saying that "she needs to think about the way she's acting". All her decisions make sense in universe. She has the right to defend her friend, she has the right to do her castle in peace, she has the right to not spend time with/help her brother if she doesn't feel like it. SHE has the RIGHT to exist at the SAME LEVEL as BBH and Forever, not as their accessory that is there to break them apart.

We have a lot more women on the server now that Jaiden plays regularly and with the new players. Let threat them like person, not just by the lenses of the men of the QSMP. Go watch their POV. Ask questions to people that watch them on main.

I'm so tired of this, it's being going on for months. I know the biggest part of the community is nice and love her. At least until she does something they don't like. I'm so tired...

[fromwhenceucame]

Round 2 of my favorite characters as warrior cats lets go — Sylvain, Claude, and Dimitri edition

Once again I throw logic out the window for actual cat markings/colors/whatever because I design based on vibes and I was only able to work a crest onto Sylvain (the red around his eyes resemble the two parts of the gautier crest) but I did try very hard to get the other two to have theirs (Dimitri gave me a stupid amount of trouble to get vibed right).

I knew I needed to put a heart on Sylvain for Sylvain reasons, and I thought it would be delightful if he only had it on one side — his other being just dark… I also really wanted to include black on him since his class outfits usually use black and red annnnnd the cat breed named after Gautier is a black and white cat.

Meanwhile, Claude is highly inspired by wyverns in the game. The lighter brown is basically wherever it would be on a wyvern, and the fact of his stripes are mostly from the Reigan tabby but also resembling the layered(?) look wyverns have… the scales, basically, with white stripes being used for more prominent scales (sort of, mostly because his wyvern is white and I needed to include it but he looked wrong with white stripes). His ear tufts represent wyvern horns/antlers, or they represent deer antlers! His tail and spots are deer-like, too.

And Dimitri !! He needed to be big and fluffy; and, he needed to have a mane with rounded ears like a lion so that’s the bulk of my ideas. The black part on his back is like the fur cloak he has post timeskip and his toes being black were just because I thought it would be neat 👍

I have been thinking about fe3h warrior cats in the back of my mind for over 2 years apparently, and it’s so easy to say we have Eagleclan, Lionclan, and Deerclan… that’s why those are the three clans. Maybe this world works a little differently, too, and the church is a band of clan cats who are always in contact with Starclan (allegedly) and therefore partially govern all the clans… Wolfclan also exists, but it’s not a real clan — it’s a band of rouges or loners who are doing their thing led by Yuri

Starting with Lionclan life, sometimes I remember that Thunderclan had a succession way back in the day with Oakstar to Pinestar and that is how Lambert wanted it to go before ~tragedy~ and I don’t know if it was Rufus or someone else who takes over afterwards but I do know that when Sylvain was a kit, a part of him really wanted to be a medicine cat but he never went down that path… though he does know a lot more about herbs than your average warrior! Good for him. At somepoint when it’s time for the timeskip, Dimitri disappears for 5-12 moons (I think 60 moons would be the 5 years but that feels too long for cats), becoming a rouge wandering the clans’ territories and picking off mostly Eagleclan like your unfriendly neighborhood cryptid. Eventually he’s normal again and not doing that, reclaiming the leadership position.

And with Deerclan I have not as many thoughts for I am not sure what makes the most sense for Almyra to be. Maybe something closer to the tribe? I do not know. What I do know is Claude came from there and got to be in the clans for a good long while, quickly rising to the rank of leader by the time the timeskip passes. I feel like Deerclan would be extra not happy about him simply showing up if that’s what goes down, so I support it happening. Kind of like how Tallstar makes Onewhisker the deputy on his deathbed, but it’s Claude’s grandpa doing that to Claude.

And I have a lot of name ideas for fe3h life !!

When I initially thought of names for specifically Lionclan/Faerghus, it was as if they were from Riverclan so the names on my mind have a very Riverclan-based scheme… but I really like some of them. Like “Shellrain” for Sylvain, I think it’s so fun if the name actually sounds like their real name. I needed to put “Rain” in as the suffix for Sylvain for that reason.

I think Lambert, who could be “Lightbass” or “Landbass” depending on how far you want to go with the names sounding alike, would name Dimitri “Lionkit” when he’s born. Then he can become “Liontrout” or “Liontree” again, depending on how far you want to go. Though, maybe his name is “Lionshade” “Lionshadow” or something else suspicious because it would probably be Rufus (who is Runfur because that is the closest I can get to it being Rufus) or someone else who doesn’t support him naming him at the time… unless warrior names are given out by the church group… hmmmm…

Regardless, I’m again not sure what Almyra is in connection to the clans, but Claude definitely has two names, and in the clans he goes by “Deerclaw.” Claw is the best suffix ever if you want to make a word that sounds like Claude (just like rain) so it has to be it, and “deer” is a very obviously accepted prefix for the clans. I don’t know what his original name should be yet, however.

And that’s all I got, but I have one more pair to contemplate (Aventurine and Dr Ratio) in the coming days before I start digging deeper into the other cats so stay tuned \o/ yippie

[sixty-silver-wishes]

you don't understand I need to talk about shostakovich's antiformalist rayok because HOLY SHIT

okay. so.

I've been wanting to talk about rayok for a while because it's truly mind-blowing what rayok is. hell, it's mind-blowing, considering the circumstances, that we know about rayok. and it's even more mind-blowing what we don't know about rayok. this is probably one of the most impressive works by shostakovich when you really dig into it, just because of how ridiculously multilayered it is. there are scholarly essays and research conducted on this piece because the rabbit hole that is rayok just goes so fucking deep that in order to fully understand it, you need to know a decent bit about music, russian history, the russian language, the relationship between the soviet government and the artistic sphere, etc. I'll mainly be citing manashir yabukov's essay on it in rosamund bartlett's "shostakovich in context," because while there are many publications about this piece, this one is especially comprehensive.

so. what is rayok. WELL.

the antiformalist rayok, simply put, is a shitpost. less simply put, it's a satirical cantata by dmitri shostakovich. it lampoons stalin- and post-stalin era political officials who attempted to interfere with the artistic, particularly musical, culture of the soviet union. shostakovich essentially argues in this piece that political figures have no business policing the arts, especially when they have little to know artistic knowledge themselves.

the way "rayok" works is sort of like a soviet musical SNL skit. there are four characters at a conference on "realism and formalism in music" (sometimes played by the same singer) who are all caricatures of a specific political figure or idea, imitating these figures in a mocking, ridiculous way. the characters are the announcer, who introduces the other three, "yedinitsyn," who represents stalin, "dvoikin," who represents andrei zhdanov, head of the central committee propaganda department of the USSR, and "troikin," who represents zhdanov's successor, dmitri shepilov. shostakovich caricatures each of these figures through references to quotes or speaking patterns, musical quotations, or satirizing their ideologies. for instance, yedinitsyn's (stalin's) verse is often sung in a georgian accent (stalin was a native of georgia), the music quotes the folk song "suliko" (said to be stalin's favorite song), and the text is repetitive without saying anything, parodying stalin's manner of delivering speeches. (an example of a line- "formalist composers are formalist because they write formalist music")

nobody knows quite when rayok was written, or if shostakovich was the sole author. we know that shostakovich often performed it in private gatherings with close friends, but the authorship of the text is disputed. shostakovich wrote the music, but it's contested who wrote the words- shostakovich's friend isaak glikman claimed that shostakovich was the sole author, while another friend, lev lebedinsky, claims he had a hand in writing the text. (many of lebedinsky's other claims have come into dispute.) interestingly, rayok is referenced in "testimony," the highly controversial supposed memoir of shostakovich, which was published before the piece became known to the wider public. it's assumed that shostakovich started working on "rayok" around 1948, and continuously added onto it into the 1960s. along with the piece itself, shostakovich also wrote a hilarious preface (which I'll get into later) and a sarcastic questionnaire to go with it, perhaps as a nod to ideological exams that were required in schools.

so, what does the title "antiformalist rayok" mean? that requires some historical context. "formalism" was a term used to describe art considered unacceptable by the soviet government, and was used most often from the 30s to the early 50s. it originated from the term in academic analysis which meant interpreting a work of art by its "form," or removed from the context intended by the author. formalist analysis was popular in the late 1920s, a more liberal time in soviet history that gave rise to an avant-garde art movement. as such, by the 30s, art considered "formalist" was deemed "art for art's sake," and was derided as "bourgeois" or "western." the crackdown on the arts was part of a larger cultural campaign under stalin, in which he sought to increase the soviet union's industrial production and differentiate it from the west, both culturally and politically. "antiformalist" art, therefore, was the opposite of "formalist"- safe, patriotic, and easily digestible by the masses. such art was also referred to as "socialist realism." "formalist" artists faced increasing persecution that culminated in the "great purges" of the late 1930s, a campaign that sought to eliminate anyone who could be viewed as a threat to the soviet union through exile, arrest, or execution. people who were purged included stalin's political opponents, artists, accused german spies (often in the military), ethnic minorities, farmers who refused collectivization of their land, and civilians suspected of dissent.

still with me? good.

now, the word "rayok." this is a reference to two concepts- rayok shows, and another piece of classical music called "rayok" by modest mussorgsky, a 19th century russian composer. the original word "rayok" refers to rayok shows- a popular form of entertainment in 18th and 19th century russia, in which rotating figures of people or animals would be displayed inside a fairground box with holes that viewers could look through. a performer called a rayoshnik would rotate the figures in the box with a crank and narrate a story, usually of a satirical nature:

mussorgsky's "rayok" took its name from this form of entertainment. like shostakovich's "rayok," it was a satirical piece, focusing on the conservative musical establishment and its patrons, in which specific people were lampooned, similar to the performances by the rayoshniki. by the 1920s, rayok shows were beginning to die out, but shostakovich (b. 1906) displayed an interest in them. as a reference to these performances, he sometimes jokingly referred to his colleagues in letters with exaggerated diminutives, a common practice in rayok shows- for instance, the composer vissarion shebalin was "shebalalishki." (put a pin in that bit about diminutives. it'll be important later.) shostakovich's title "antiformalist rayok" is therefore a reference to the mussorgsky piece and rayok shows, as well as the concept of "antiformalism."

and if you think that's complicated, that's only the title.

so, let's walk through the piece. again, there are four characters- the announcer, yedinitsyn (stalin), dvoikin (zhdanov), and troikin (shepilov). the names "yedinitsyn, dvoikin, and "troikin" correspond to the words for the numbers one, two, and three in russian. some people speculate that these names do not only refer to the order the characters appear, but also the russian school grading system. in russia, students' assignments are graded on a scale of 1 to 5, with a 1 being the lowest grade, and a 5 being the highest. therefore, these names could potentially be a snide remark on the intelligence of shostakovich's subjects of ridicule. elizabeth wilson also notes that the name "troikin" could be a reference to the nkvd's "troika"- a group of three secret police members tasked with sentencing the accused to imprisonment or death, which would line up with troikin's remarks towards the end of his verse.

"rayok" starts out with the announcer introducing a panel on "realism and formalism in music." he introduces yedinitsyn, who sings over and over again about how "realistic music is written by the people's composers, and formalist music is written by formalist composers." that's it. that's the whole verse. as I said, there's a suliko quotation to tip us off to the fact that this is stalin (shostakovich even lists his full name in the score as I.S. Yedinitsyin- as in Iosif Stalin, removing any doubt of who yedinitsyn represents). the announcer then says, "let us thank our dearly beloved comrade yedinitsyn for his historic speech, and for his exposition, enrichment, and elucidation of complicated issues of the musical sphere." this is typical shostakovichian sarcasm- as seen in his letters, he tends to over-elaborate a statement to communicate distaste or irony. this statement is even funnier when we consider that yedinitsyn did not "elucidate complicated issues" in his verse, but rather repeated the same thing without elaborating. and of course, the ensemble thanks him for his "historic speech" and "fatherly care." the next character up to the stand is comrade dvoikin, and this requires a LOT of historical context to explain. while yedinitsyn is fairly straightforward, dvoikin and troikin are much more multilayered. so again, bear with me as I go on another tangent about soviet history.

in 1946, andrei zhdanov launched a series of denunciations and censorship against soviet writers and poets. by 1948, this expanded to scientists and musicians, in a period known as "zhdanovshchina." among the composers denounced during zhdanovshchina were big names like shostakovich, prokofiev, and khachaturian, as well as a little-known georgian composer named vano muradeli. muradeli had written an opera called "the great friendship," which had come under fire because he had written his own lezghinkas (a kind of caucasian folk dance) for the opera, instead of incorporating "authentic lezghinkas" instead. shostakovich, as one of the most prominent composers to be attacked during zhdanovshchina, was particularly targeted. many of his works were censored, he was fired from his teaching positions at the leningrad and moscow conservatories, and he was pressured into denouncing his own music, resorting to writing banal film scores and ideological pieces to make a living. while no composers were arrested during zhdanovshchina, it still took a heavy toll on many of their lives, shostakovich included. worse yet, after ww2, a wave of anti-semitism in the soviet union began to take hold around the same time, impacting many jewish artists and professionals. some were assassinated, including solomon mikhoels, the father-in-law of mieczyslaw weinberg, a composer and close friend of shostakovich's. (weinberg himself would be arrested on false accusations of zionist conspiracy, but was released from prison after stalin's death.)

so, all that being said, 1948 was a really, really bad time in the soviet union. this is likely when shostakovich began composing rayok, as well as some of his other "desk drawer" pieces that would not be performed until after stalin's death, such as the first violin concerto and the "from jewish folk poetry" song cycle (note- while shostakovich was not jewish, he took a strong stance against anti-semitism, which would be more pronounced in his later years).

as such, zhdanov comes under serious fire in "rayok." many of his speeches are referenced, if not quoted word for word, in "dvoikin's" lines, including where he refers to dissonant and atonal music as a "dental drill" and "a musical gas chamber." these criticisms were leveled by zhdanov at shostakovich's music- the second directed towards his eighth symphony. this was a serious insult considering the time period- the 8th was written in 1943, when the soviet union was at war against nazi germany. in his essay, yabukov points out something interesting- after the ensemble laughs at dvoikin's remarks, a transposed instance of the dsch motif- shostakovich's musical representation of himself- is heard, implying that while zhdanov is laughing at him, shostakovich ultimately gets the last laugh by satirizing him in "rayok." dvoikin is introduced as having the "ability to vocalize" as he sings exaggerated arpeggios, a dig at the fact that zhdanov was said to be a good singer. he stresses how music must be harmonic, beautiful, elegant, etc., until the music does a complete 180 from oversaturated, kitschy romanticism into- of all things- a georgian lezghinka, just like zhdanov denounced muradeli over. he suddenly sings obsessively about how "in caucasian operas, there must be authentic lezghinkas," the caricature exaggerating to ridiculous lengths as he sings (and in some productions, dances) the lezghinka, before the announcer gives the floor to troikin.

troikin. troikin. oh boy, troikin.

while troikin is based on dmitri shepilov, soviet minister of foreign affairs during the khrushchev era, he can be read to represent, in general, the disastrous effects of politicians in the musical sphere. troikin is portrayed as a complete idiot, singing to a simple melody about how "the soviet man is a very complex organism." in my favorite joke in the entire piece, troikin sings the names "glinka, tchaikovsky, rimsky-korsakov" three times in a row- romantic-era russian composers whom soviet composers were encouraged to imitate, in opposition to avant-garde western composers. (note- tchaikovsky is a complicated case when it comes to his legacy in the soviet union, but his music was regarded far more positively after ww2 than before it, due to the increase in russian nationalism during the war to boost morale.) during this part, troikin mispronounces "rimsky-korsakov" as "rimsky-korSAkov" each time, singing to a 3/4 time signature (for you non-music people, that's like a waltz rhythm). the mispronounced syllable falls on a downbeat, making it stand out even more. according to lebedinsky, shostakovich once heard shepilov give a speech, in which he listed off the names of classical and romanticist composers that soviet composers ought to imitate. however, he pronounced "rimsky-korsakov" as "rimsky-korSAkov," and shostakovich thought it was so hilarious that he puts it directly into the spotlight in "rayok." (remember covfefe? it's like covfefe.) and FURTHERMORE, during this "rimsky-korSAkov" bit, shostakovich is quoting a song called "we'll tell you" from a film score called "faithful friends." this film score was written by none other than tikhon khrennikov.

who's tikhon khrennikov, you may ask? khrennikov was the general secretary of the composer's union from 1948, all the way up to the fall of the soviet union in 1991. he played a role in the zhdanovshchina denunciations against shostakovich, but later stated he was pressured into it. whatever the case, shostakovich didn't forgive him, and we'll see another multilayered shot at khrennikov a bit later on.

troikin continues to be a hot mess on stage. he begins listing kinds of music that should be written, but gets stuck on "suites," before giving up entirely and switching to a parody of "kalinka," a popular folk song. this in itself is another joke- troikin knows nothing about classical music, so he switches to a folk song associated with socialist realism, but it's like, one of the most basic ones you can think of. and in these modified "kalinka" lyrics, troikin drops two names- "dzherzhinka" and "tishinka."

okay, remember what I said about rayok shows and how the rayoshniki performers liked to use exaggerated diminutive names as a part of their satirical shows? this is an example of that right here. "dzerzhinka" refers to one ivan dzerzhinsky, a socialist realist composer best known for his opera "quiet flows the don," whom shostakovich was on unfriendly terms with- shostakovich had helped dzerzhinsky with the music for "don," which was upheld as a "proper" soviet opera after the denunciation of shostakovich's own opera, "lady macbeth of the mtsensk district," in 1936.

tishinka, of course, is khrennikov once again, but there's another layer here. "tishinka," as yabukov points out, was also the nickname for the transit prison "matrosskaya tishina," or the "silence of the sailors." but shostakovich uses the words "raskhrenovaya tishinka"- yet another triple play on words. "khrenoviy" means "rotten" or "worthless," "ras," in this context, meaning "completely." and furthermore, "khren"- as in "raskhrenovaya" and "khrennikov," means "horseradish," and can be used as a euphemism for "penis." so essentially, shostakovich is saying, "khrennikov is a fucked-up dick."

so, after the kalinka segment, troikin's tone suddenly changes. he begins singing about being vigilant for the enemies, and consequences for those spreading "bourgeois lies," such as being "sent to the camps" and "extra hard labor in the snow." as the verse goes on, his mask comes off. while he may be a complete idiot, he's dangerous. this is a common theme in shostakovich's works- that stupidity breeds danger, and that the comedic and tragic exist alongside one another. as soon as troikin makes these threats, the music picks up again and becomes circuslike, trivializing the "vigilance, vigilance" theme- but also adding a threatening undertone to the humor, as shostakovich gives us a grave reminder that real people indeed suffered consequences under the ridiculous ideologies posed by the figures behind yedinitsyn, dvoikin, and troikin.

I want to close off this extremely long analysis by mentioning the written preface to rayok and questionnaire by shostakovich. these are somewhat difficult to find both of them. the questionnaire is at the bottom of this page (in russian, but you can autotranslate it) and the preface, in english and russian, can be found here, with notes by scholar elizabeth wilson. it's honestly one of the most hilarious music history tidbits I've ever read, so it's seriously worth checking out. the preface is essentially a fake article about how the script for rayok was "found," and I'm just going to share it in full here because it's just. you have to see it

like. look at these fucking translation notes. dmitri shostakovich made these names. you can't make this up

so like. here it is (in english)

also, this is the best performance of rayok I've ever seen. just. just watch it

would highly recommend reading yabukov's analysis btw. it's WAY more comprehensive than this post, which tbh is just scratching the surface.

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for kind of lying to my customer?

For starters, I (38M) do not actually like my job that much, but I can’t really be hired to do anything else. Regardless, I try to be as professional and ethical as I can be about it. 

So my twin sister (38F) and I have been running a small business together for many years, although we moved into a new neighborhood recently so we have had to sort of reestablish ourselves. Money is very tight for us both right now, we have no support systems, and this is the one way we can make a living. One night, I ran into a performance artist (40M) who really looked like he could use our services. He is a social outcast who does not really like his job, just like me, so we got along really well- I think he is the first friend I’ve made in some time. He said he was not interested, but he asked for a business card so I hoped he would come back.

The guy got back to me a day or so later and he offered us a commission- for good money, too. He was very urgent in his particular request. He did not really offer any specific details, I think it was over some kind of relationship drama or something? I did not ask, not my circus not my monkeys. So my sister and I got to work. (I suppose I have to mention what exactly it is I do for a living for this to make sense. My sister and I are assassins.) Anyway, she got ahold of our requested target and it turns out the guy wanted to kill our local government representative (I do not keep up with politics that much so I do not know him that well). Then my sister and the representative got talking and she really clicked with him, which is unusual because she’s usually pretty cynical about love.

My sister started begging me to not kill him. We really needed the money- so I refused. However, I really do love my sister. She is the only person that has always been there for me, and she accepts me despite my many eccentricities. And she really deserves more than what she gets. But I did not want to outright lie to my client either. Then I realized I had promised a body, just not whose. So we just kind of found a guy who stumbled into our house and killed him instead.

The client insisted on burying the body himself (sentimental reasons I suppose) so we wrapped it in a bag and I tried to warn him against opening the bag up. He seemed pretty happy with it at the time, so I suppose all is well that ends well? But I have not seen him since that night so I do not know how it turned out.

I suppose it eats at me sometimes that I lied to him. But at the same time, I did not want to hurt my sister by killing the one guy she has fallen for in years.

AITA?