#I mean she was still a member of the Liberal Party but she was a good foreign affairs minister

[fivessuit]

I finished that essay I was telling you guys about!

TLDR for those of you that haven't seen my blog, I had to write a paper in the form of an open letter. This means that I had to write in response to someone that has a different view than me. I chose to respond to someone's blog on here! Thank you to @dontspoilthis for sending me the post that I ended up using in the paper! For privacy purposes I will not be including the blog name however. Here it is for those who want to read it :)))

Exploring Lila's Decision: An Open Letter to a Tumblr User

Hello [insert blog name here].

I have read your tumblr blog post about how you believe Five Hargreeves and Lila Pitts make a good romantic pairing. While I disagree with your statement, I do think that it used solid evidence from the show and was well thought out. With the last season of The Umbrella Academy having come out a little under nine months ago, people are still very much talking about season four and voicing their opinions on it. This show has been well loved for over six years by many of us, and has fans all around the world. Five and Lila are both exponentially strong characters, therefore when we saw them get together on screen there were some mixed reactions from all parties; everyone had something to say about Five and Lila’s relationship. 

Based on what I read in your post, you believe that Lila decided to marry Diego, Five’s brother, out of convenience. Additionally, you say that Lila wanted to create the family that she never got to experience as a child. Both the Hargreeves siblings as well as Lila had very callous upbringings, many days filled with training and mastering their powers. This made it so none of them experienced a real parental figure or family. At the end of season three, we see the Hargreeves and Lila go their separate ways, all powerless, and at the beginning of season four we see a time jump of five years and where they all end up. This shows that life for all of the Hargreeves sucked after they lost their powers and they had to be real and functioning members of society. This made it so, according to you, Five and Lila’s normally explosive personalities made them be a good pair throughout this season. They had the most chemistry, as well as they realized how similar they both were when they got stuck in the subway together for seven years. 

If you take everything else out of the equation, I too would fall in love with somebody if I had to spend seven years trying to survive with that person. That part is not unrealistic. Also, I think that over the years we all have grown attached to these characters and genuinely want them all to be happy in the world they find themselves in. Especially Five, who spent forty five years alone and then had to awkwardly transition back into society in the body of a child. Some argue that Five falling in love with Lila was out of character. However, you and I agree that Five would absolutely act in his own self interest after fighting for so long. He is old, tired, and lonely. He craved love and affection (which was shown when he fell in love with a mannequin in the apocalypse). I do see where you are coming from when you say real world love is unpredictable and messy, and that these two characters acting this way made them feel more real. In different media we often wish to see characters feel the things we want to feel, therefore watching Five and Lila fall in love despite societal norms was liberating in a way. 

While I do understand and respect your view, I would like to bring in points that might not have been considered previously. When filming the fourth season, Aidan Gallagher, who plays Five, was nineteen years old. However, there has been tension building between Five and Lila since season two of the show, this was well before Aidan was of legal age. This, combined with nineteen year old Aidan and thirty four year old Ritu (who plays Lila) having a non-rehearsed kiss, makes me reasonably uncomfortable. I totally understand being an actor and intimate moments being part of the job. However, I do believe that this is a bigger problem in all of Hollywood with actors having huge age gaps and being forced to be intimate. Additionally, the writing of this romance feels a bit like trying to get us as an audience on board with a condemnable act: cheating. Sure, Lila was miserable in her marriage. However, she should have broken off the marriage way sooner instead of cheating on Diego with Five. The way the show panned out, it seemed like we were supposed to focus on this new found love between Five and Lila and just ignore the heinous act being done to Diego. The writing for Five and Lila’s affair came entirely out of left field and had nothing to do with what was set in previous seasons for Five’s character arc. The main writer for the show, Steve Blackman, said himself in an interview that, “[He] felt that Five had to have a love story” (Blackman). From this interview, it seemed that the writers didn’t have an exact plan for who would be Five’s love interest, therefore making this affair feel forced. The way that this was executed showed that the writers had little care for what was already written for Five, Lila and Diego. The whole point of Lila and Diego’s relationship was that they worked and talked through issues they had. When Five and Lila return to the family after escaping the subway, we do see the realization set into Lila that her relationship with Five was strictly situational, and she did miss both her children and Diego. While it is on brand for her to be hard headed and stubborn, as well as putting her own needs first, she does realize that she made a mistake. Finally, Five and Lila’s relationship is the most unrealistic due to the fact that for an entire season, Lila was trying to kill Five after she found out that Five killed her birth parents. This was never expanded upon or resolved for the entirety of the show. Therefore, it seems a bit odd that Lila would essentially disregard this to be with her parents' murderer.

Moving forward, I think that while we may not agree on Five and Lila as a pair, I think we both can agree that them getting together was important for the storyline. Diego realizes he hasn’t been putting enough effort into the marriage, and Lila puts her needs first. However, I don’t think that Lila is in love with Five. He was a convenience and an accessory to her going back to the thrill of the hunt. She loved the sensation and the situation, she did not love him. Lila having an affair with Five acted as a hurdle in order to further the character development of all parties involved.

If you made it to the end, let me know what you guys think!

[transfemstalin]

Do you have any experience with FRSO (Freedom Road Socialist Organization)? I searched your blog and saw you were looking into them a couple months ago, and I want to know if you had learned anything good or bad about them since then.

they throw you into work entirely on your own to see if you manage before they put you in contact with anyone else. their news updates suck (got an email about Hands Off! yesterday) along with an outright revisionist program wrt the petit-bourgeoise and a fundamental misunderstanding of the national question in the US. they treat "the masses" as stupid and not being able to understand anything (when starting up my reading group I recommended we read dialectical and historical materialism, the only person I was put in contact with (a pretty well established member who I think is pretty high up nationally, she was in florida) said that people wouldn't get it because they only think materialism means you like possessions) and are overall just very ineffective, especially after their split with their namesake org, freedom road (which also branched off into liberation road)

it's just bad. forgive me for the angry rant.

a party is what it does, not what it says it does. while it seemed to be the least bad out of all of the available anti revisionist orgs, its still fucking awful. maybe it'll be better once/if I manage to get the reading group off the ground and get some clout

[nothorses]

With the whole voting shit going on, I've felt incredibly conflicted about voting. But recently, the opinion I've landed on is similar to Kelly Hayes. I am roughly paraphrasing here, but she said that it's incredibly insensitive to ask Arab Americans and Palestinians, people who have outright LOST their family members due to the US's unrestricted military aid to israel and the genocide, to vote. That makes sense to me. I absolutely agree with that, and I don't think it makes sense to yell at these people to vote. BUT, Kelly then goes on to say that the argument that if you're voting, you're got blood on your hands, is just wrong. Because living in America, benefiting from the imperialistic violence, we always had blood on our hands, and no one's breaking solidarity with marginalized folks simply by voting. You break solidarity when you justify your politicians' horrible actions, such as police brutality, prison industrial complex, etc. But in this case, when someone acknowledges these politicans aren't gonna get the real important shit done, only direct action works, and you're voting to choose your opponent--I don't think that's breaking solidarity. Or throwing people under the bus. The truth is even if every leftist didn't engage with electoral politics at all, and spent it on mutual aid, community defense, these things--there would still be a president until we somehow destroy settler nation America. And that president will destroy public infrastructure and attack marginalized folks a lot quicker if he isn't a democrat, because the Republicans are literally just--fascist party.

I dislike people whose only engagement with politics is to vote shame. But I also think it's just a wrong take to act like people who vote, who aren't vote shaming, who do think it's harm reduction, are all idiotic liberals. As we try to mobilize against imperialism, it's crucial to try to pick our enemies when we can. I understand the fact our wealth, the fact we have these healthcare systems, this public ifnrastructure and government assistance even if it's nowhere near enough--it comes from blood of the Global South. And there is a real problem with liberals who care about these elections only to maintain their quality of life, don't care about imperialism and global oppression at all. These people exist, and if we do start dismantling imperialism ina meaningful fashion, USA quality of life will drop. But people voting Democrat because they don't want the Affordable Care Act dismantled, want to keep their food stamps, their schools funded--they're not inherently selfish and breaking solidarity with third world folks. There's nuance here, a lot of nuance. Which is why I like Kelly saying we can't let electoralism destroy our relationships., because we are going to need to build, build, build if we are going to survive. I'm going to vote because ultimately it won't take me much time, but I also won't judge the people who refuse to, choosing to invest their efforts in direct action.

I also think the people who say voting doesn't do anything...they also ignore the nuance. I get it. I get the frustration. But as I read various perspectives, I'm starting to realize the treachery of black-and-white thing. Before there's a revolution, it's more likely we are going to build new things out of the old system, incrementalism, before we make any foundational leap. Again, this shit has nuance.

Yeah, I think this resonates a lot for me. And I'm not really here to "vote shame" either! I think I do have a similar opinion on it to FD Signifier, though, who says he thinks of voting like washing your hands.

You can choose not to, it's not the end of the world. But like. Why? Who is this helping? I mean maybe it's not my business, maybe you have a good reason, whatever. It's just one of those things that, y'know, especially if it takes you 5 minutes to mail a ballot in... it's just good hygiene.

And I think a lot of people say, "put your energy towards these other things instead!" without any intent to actually do so, and without any follow through themselves. And do you really need to not vote in order to do those things? Like is voting the thing preventing you from Doing The Revolution? For real?

At the end of the day, I'm not going to shame anyone for not voting. I talk about it because I think some people are misguided about how all this works, and I think some of the opinions people put out there just, like, suck. But it's ultimately not up to me. 🤷‍♂️

[calmlb]

have some silly skk wedding hcs bc. idk i just wanted to yell w someone abt them

chuuya cries in sporadic bursts the day of but taken altogether it's like 3 hrs of hysterical sobbing

dazai doesn't cry at all because he slips into like a shocked fugue state the second he sees chuuya but he DOES bawl like a baby the next morning

nobody who attended remembers past like hour 4 of the wedding and six months later they're still uncovering some of the wild shit they did during the afterparty. this is because the wedding staff accidentally became part of the celebration and the photographer, who was supposed to record the whole thing, ended up sleeping with one of the cast. it was kunikida.

just to be obnoxious ranpo proposes to poe and chuuya has to be held back by a crying w laughter dazai from Physically Attacking Him

dazai insists on having a bouquet to throw, which he purposefully angles for akutagawa to catch. atsushi faints, lucy's face progresses from angry -> considering in real time (they r a throuple real)

chuuya picks his best man/maid of honor fairly easily (hirotsu and kouyou duh) but dazai basically told the ada to figure it out amongst themselves and come back to him with their decisions (he's lazy/genuinely didn't know who to pick and wanted to outsource) and there was Actual Violence

lots of drama over whether or not to invite mori and verlaine. turns out to be a nonissue bc all verlaine does is cry in a corner about a) rimbaud and b) holy shit my little brother is getting married and after hour 6 mori and fukuzawa disappear from the event (neither they nor anyone else remembers this. very lucky)

ango receives an invitation with no context and has like 3 mental breakdowns about what this means for his and dazai's relationship

7 hours in (it was a long party) kenji's cow somehow shows up (he swears up and down it wasn't him, everyone's very confused the next morning)

it was a sunset wedding, dazai wore white and chuuya wore blue

adam and shirase and some other members of the sheep are there. adam makes fast friends with kyouka, meanwhile the former sheep are very narrowly spared dazai's wrath, mostly bc he keeps forgetting they're even there. it's a big wedding

tachihara tried to drunkenly breakdance, gin laughed so hard she thought she got heart palpitations and was afraid for her life. she went to look for mori and walked in on him and fukuzawa. none of them remember this but now gin feels a vague sense of horror every time she looks at her boss and she's not really sure why

yosano tries rizzing kouyou up and fails by any normal metric (yosano: please please please please please please please please please please) but kouyou is Tipsy and Charmed

dazai does indeed burn the marriage certificate (TRY RETURNING ME WITHOUT A RECEIPT, CHIBI!!). chuuya is so in love he starts crying again

higuchi and tanizaki had philosophical discussions about life on the rooftop and accidentally solved the secrets of the universe. they do not remember this

kunikida returns from his steamy rendezvous with the photographer and immediately sets his sights on ango. drunk kunikida knows what he wants (twinkish men) and when he wants them (now). there is a reason one of the most important ideals in his notebook is to Not Drink

the guild is there and are generally having a good time until fitzgerald sees tsujimura (only there as ango's plus-one, got abandoned bc of drunk kunikida's machinations) and calls her a blue-haired liberal, and hey, what's a party without a brawl in the middle of the dance floor

between the guild and the wedding staff half the people at the party weren't even invited. which is why the doa and hunting dogs are also there

kenji, kyouka, q, elise, and aya are having a Kids' Party in a separate room with adam as an extremely enthusiastic babysitter (well, more like occasional check-in-er, he's swinging back and forth between the parties). tecchou joins them after a while and has a great time, as all except aya are extremely fascinated by his unholy food combinations

bram and lovecraft kickstart their enemies-to-lovers arc the second they set eyes on each other

fyodor, dazai, kajii, and nikolai start up a game of Knife Monopoly, to everyone's surprise the extremely determined caterer sweeps them all. sigma is smitten at once and immediately starts to flirt with her (the caterer is a milf who is seduced by sigma's transgender rizz, sigma will eventually have an entire 'convincing the stepkids' family movie arc)

teruko FUCKS IT UP on the dance floor, haruno is so impressed she immediately falls into her first disastrous sapphic crush

hirotsu and natsume mutually agree to restart their homoerotic situationship without ever even actually saying two words to each other, someone has to take skk's place now that they've more or less gotten their shit together

katai wasn't there physically but was supervising through security cameras. he's the only one who will ever know everything that happened that night and deleted the footage due to trauma :( sorry katai

tsujimura and mushitarou bond over how desperately they Do Not Want To Be There

skk Try to have a romantic wedding night(/morning, given how long the afterparty stretched) but they are both too drunk, chuuya trips and falls flat on his face and dazai laughs so hard he throws up

omg i started yapping and then i just didn't stop. i didn't even know i had this many thoughts in my head. i am sending this before i can regret it feel free to delete if u want to

anon. THESE ARE SO GOOD OMG???? i could literally visualize a whole fic just by reading these hcs

adding my comments under the cut so it doesn’t get too long 🫣

ok first of all… the skk crying hcs??? CANON OMG im so obsessed

Ranpo turning skk’s wedding into his engagement party is so true of him. he absolutely would

Dazai totally would insist on a bouquet to toss, & him throwing it at to Akutagawa is so funny 😭

SOMEONE SAVE ANGO PLS-

KENJI’S COW IM SOBBING it reminds me of that wan episode where Atsushi asks Dazai what Yosano needed & he was like “… a cow!” boba eyes & everything

i had never thought of Adam & Kyouka being buddies but my life is changed now tysm for this revelation

NOT GIN BEING SCARRED BY ZENKU SKK 💀 someone get my girl outta there

ok but tipsy + charmed Kouyou is a vision

Chuuya tells Dazai that burning the marriage certificate means they’re not married anymore & that’s when Dazai finally breaks down into tears

ok Higuchi & Tanizaki is another duo i never considered and i LOVE IT???

KUNIANGO SO TRUE

TSUJIMURA A BLUE HAIRED LIBERAL I AM SCREAMING

omg i love the kids party & skk are both good with kids so they definitely would make sure the kids are taken care of 🥹 Adam would be such a good babysitter, and Tetchou too??? omg giving me fic ideas with this one

super invested in this caterer x Sigma arc tbh

ykw i was thinking abt bsd rarepairs the other day & couldn’t figure out who to ship Teruko or Haruno with… should’ve thought of this honestly

SOMEONE SAVE KATAI TOO OMG THAT POOR MAN-

now that you mention it… i actually love the idea of Tsujimura & Mushitaro but i think it’s mostly bc her hair matches his suit PFFT

skk’s ideal honeymoon = SLEEP 😫

i’m so glad you didn’t stop yapping non, this was so wonderful tysm i feel blessed 🥹🩷 please feel free to yell abt hcs or say hi anytime!! 🫶🏻💕💕

[quietlyawesomeart]

This is an NPC for my DnD table playing the Turn of Fortune's Wheel module in the Planescape setting. There's an encounter where they encounter three faction members, discussing the meaning of the multiverse, but it provides no visual for these people. So I drew one and came up with backstory. _______

Gracie was born a human in Sigil, city of doors, when a portal is opened in her neighborhood, directly connected to the Blood Wars taking place in the hells. Gracie, along with many other civilians were captured and dragged into the hells before the portals were able to be closed.

Time behaves differently when being tortured in the hells. While Gracie and the other captives spent years and years being experimented on, tortured, and used for rituals, they did not age, and they could not die. It would be over a decade before a party of adventurers made their way down to the hells to liberate the captives, returning them back to Sigil. However, Gracie returned with monstrous deformations. Her cranium was more horns than not, her eyes a constant fountain of blood, her limbs bent, broken, and reset into unnatural positions.

The Bleak Cabal is a faction in Sigil who believe that the universe has no meaning, only that which an individual finds for themselves. Most of it's factions find meaning in helping those afflicted with extraplanar ailments and curses, so they had the halls of their gatehouse filled to the brim after the liberation of the captives. Most of these patients were too far gone for saving, some even electing to be put out of their suffering. Gracie, deemed by the Cabal's experts, was the worst case that they were able to bring back to normalcy.

It took months of enchantments and procedures, removing horns, correcting bones, to return Gracie to a humanoid form, though she was different from before. Her freckled and sun kissed face had assumed a pallid sheet white color. Her once silky copper hair became wiry, thick, and jet black. Her rounded ears held a sharp point. Her ocean blue eyes still held the flames of the Nine Hells, taking on a red hue.

Even once Gracie was physically healed, the mental scars carried with her. She would come to discover that her parents, already elderly prior to the portal's opening, had passed away during her time in captivity. With nothing left, and with new relationships forged with the members of the Cabal who had cared for her, Gracie made the decision to dedicate her life to the Bleak Cabal, specializing in demonic curses and how to dispel them.

_______

TL;DR: She's been through it but she's like fine now.

My players will more than likely ignore her and will never even see the art lol

[titleleaf]

any thoughts on laszlo and zsofia’s relationship in the brutalist? that ending scene felt very odd to me

lmaooo the thing I have been 100% dreading talking about because my thoughts are basically "it's really weird and really uncomfortable".

(cut for in-depth spoilers for The Brutalist 2024, and accompanying discussion of sexual assault, antisemitism, genocide, etc.)

The final scene is one of the big areas where I think the film's ambiguity is most intentional but also where it's most uneasy for the viewer. The narrative Zsófia composes around László's work is strongly informed by her own life and experiences -- because every viewer's will be, but also because she was traumatized again and again during the Margaret Lee Van Buren Center's construction, in ways that were intimately linked to László's employment in its creation. (Including likely being sexually assaulted during the fucking party to commemorate the project breaking ground!) Against her will, by dint of who she's related to and the work her uncle and aunt do, she's going to be defined in relation to that project for the rest of her life. It comes off to me like she's trying to smooth both the sometimes-difficult relationship she had with her uncle and aunt and their shared painful and unresolvable history (as Jews, as Holocaust survivors, as family members, and as uprooted foreigners abroad) into something that's even mildly easier to get a handle on, something that means something. Her politics are part of what make that speech uncomfortable, but not all of it. I also think to an extent Zsófia's takeaway is the one that a lot of viewers could leave the film without questioning -- that the Center building is only ever about one thing, and that it can't ever have been about anything else for him. I don't think she means any of it maliciously but presenting a triumphal statement about the one thing his works mean (which is coincidentally in line with her own feelings and sensibilities -- László and Erzsébet do not feel the same way about Israel that Zsófia and her husband do, and nothing suggests that has changed by 1980) limits the whole span of his work and career into a keynote speech you can read off a prompter in the time allotted to you.

Based on his facial droop at the end László appears to have had a stroke at some point and during the 1980 sequence we never see him speak. Whether he can't or won't, and why, isn't clear -- I don't see any reason to assume that Zsófia's delivering this speech against his will but I also don't see any reason to assume her words reflect his own thoughts and feelings. For me on top of the character's stance on Israel-as-liberation being at odds with László's and Erzsébet's, this scene is uncomfortable because it feels like she's taking the initiative both to publicize her aunt and uncle's experiences and to assign their works their significance when neither can speak for themselves. (I felt similarly really uncomfortable with Erzsébet's disclosure earlier in the film, which again is clearly not coming from a position of malice toward him and rather from a position of love and protection, but nonetheless gives me the biggest heebie-jeebies. We never see László's disclosure to Erzsébet of his own assault, we never hear it in his own words. This feels like it's on purpose, and also, I find it so viscerally uncomfortable, oh my god.) Zsófia and László are narrative foils in a lot of ways, and the different stages they're at in their lives feed into the different ways they cope or don't cope with overlapping experiences.

At a certain point (sometimes when you're still alive, sometimes after you're dead) you're no longer the one who's driving the conversation about your own work. You're no longer the one who's creating a narrative, or declining to create one. László's own account of his work (the memoir we're told he's written only when it's cited in Zsófia's speech) becomes biographical material, something for another person, however well intentioned, to comb over for clues to the ultimate cipher of What The Art Definitively Means. And some of this is just the way telling stories about art and artists works, it's something I also engage in and something that can't be avoided, it's something that happens even when the artist is fictional. Just look at the people pointing out "hey, this fictional guy diverges from his historical counterparts in xyz ways" or how the biographical points the film touches on misrepresent real men and women. There's plenty to criticize in this film but I think some viewers react to the lingering discomfort of something being intentionally ambiguous on film by deciding it's actually totally unambiguous, actually, whether it's [clear-cut thing they really like] or [clear-cut thing they really hate]. This movie left me feeling drained and wiped out even as it left me excited to talk about the stuff the film's doing around power and art and the state -- I don't think the film's ending should be taken at face value either as triumphal or "wow, Zsófia is suuuuch a bitch" but I do think it's pretty uncomfortable and depressing whichever way you slice it.

[chutefullofholes]

halona is so sweet

my babyyy. her dog attack story/fic should be going up soon but here’s some softer post war ramblings about her and brady.

- idk if i’ve said this on tumblr or just discord but they don’t actually kiss until post liberation. babies. there is a one off two off ~incident~ in the stalag where they like. get each other off but they don’t kiss so obviously it means nothing (:

- benny wants to Scream when he kinda ribs brady about hearing it and he completely dead serious is just. halona’s my friend. it doesn’t mean anything.

- brady also just feels Bad about it and tries to apologize, which she shuts down but. they otherwise don’t really talk about it. the march happens shortly after and there’s enough going on as is.

- then post liberation she’s trying to keep up w brady in the partying/doesn’t want to pull him from his friends but. hatesss how crowded the o-club is. makes her itchy and she can’t even see where elowyn is to latch onto her instead so she panics a little.

- brady gets her outta there and back to the bunks and. it’s quiet. she looks so pretty in this light, the war is over and they both go in to kiss each other at the same time. have been waiting long enough :p

- **i need to do more research on hawaiian service members pre: hawaii being a state stuff so pls excuse any discrepancies here (still developing halona’s backstory more but her dad is an american navy admiral) when everyone is getting their shit sorted to go home from TA brady and his moving too fast heart wants to take halona home to meet his mom and sisters Right Away Immediately. talks himself off that ledge and tells her she should go home and see her folks but. you know there’s a lot i wanna leave here, and this isn’t one of those things.

- writes her the second he gets home and her family is so ::eyes:: about her getting a letter from a boy she served with when she’s barley through the front door. but they worry about her and think it might be good for her to be with someone who Understands so. no hard feelings save for her dad being very 1940s You Tell That Boy I Also Know How Guns Work lmao.

- brady’s sisters are SOOOO nosy nellie about this girllll he’s writing to. they make him tell them everythingggg about her and even write a letter to her themselves for him to stick in with his.

- once things are a bit more settled he pulls some strings to have a reason to go do some flight instruction at a base in hawaii and see her <3. so nervous bc he’s scared things are gonna be Different. which they are in some sense, but not in a bad way.

- is a little bit tiny smidge scared her dad is gonna hate him, is sweating a little when he’s introducing himself but. it goes okay. brady is a good man 🙏🏼

- ^ that last pinterest photo is her later down the line w her and brady’s little girl samara <3. 50% named after elowyn’s co-pilot that died before she could bail out, mara. brady calls her his little peanut and she VERY stubbornly informs him she is not a peanut, she is a girl. 🙄

[teawitch]

Wicca vs Witchcraft vs Pagan

It's not fair to enter the debate without posting my own definitions, is it? The below just scratches the surface of each of these. I could go on forever and keep in mind - I am a Gemini and will go on forever if given the chance.

Wicca  is a form of witchcraft as much as it is a religion. When Gerald  Gardner created Wicca his claim was that he was working with an ancient  witchcraft tradition. How much of what he had was truly from an old  witchcraft tradition is much debated (he borrowed liberally from various  sources). Wicca began as an initiatory practice, where a person joined and worked within a specific tradition. On a general level, rituals follow the Wheel of the Year and work with a god and goddess. Practices can vary with tradition and knowledge of practice can vary by degree within a tradition.

Witch is used as a very generic term, often to indicate any magic user. Which is not always correct. My grandmother practiced folk magic but would never have considered herself to be a witch. She was good Southern Baptist. Ceremonial magicians practice magic but don't identify as witches.

So the best way to consider witch is as a form of self-identification. Someone is a witch when they say they are a witch. Generally they would also be practicing some form of magic.

Now Pagan or Neo-Pagan gets a bit more complex.  Overall Pagan or Neo-Pagan is sometimes used to mean “A group of people that operates outside societies expectations”  with no indication of actual practice. I know the expectation is "pagans worship the old gods" but that isn't always true. Some do. Some, well, see "Party Pagan" below.

Within the Neo-Pagan movement, you'll find Reconstructionist groups who try to recreate, as much as possible, older religions such as Hellenic or Kemetic (ie Greek or Egypt) or Norse or Druidic. But you'll also find people who just consider themselves to be outside of Christianity with no specific structure.

Generally speaking,  Wicca and witchcraft traditions may be considered part of the larger  Neo-Pagan environment. Perhaps an easy way to see this is that if an  area holds a Pagan Pride Day, it may be the best way to meet people from  the local initiatory Wiccan covens as well as the local Druids,  Heathens and other groups. If an event was labeled “Pagan” it generally  just meant everyone was invited.

But the actual practices  can be very different. Hellenic and Heathen groups may or may not  welcome Wiccans or witches as members. They may practice ritual honoring  their gods but want nothing to do with spellwork. Though they may not  be as opposed to it as say, the Southern Baptists. Some Neo-Pagans  are  happy to attend a Wiccan ritual though they wouldn’t hold one  themselves. (There is also a term - Party Pagans - which is the crowd  that shows up to every ritual or event though no one knows what they  actually do on their own.)

Now a word of caution the term Pagan (Neo-Pagan) -  this is considered a reclaimed term, meaning we don’t call anyone a  Pagan unless they claim that term for themselves. So if you call your  Buddhist or Hindu friend a Pagan, they may become upset with you. This  is because regardless of any dictionary definition the term Pagan is  still used as an insult. The same with Heathen and Witch.

[mariacallous]

Liz Truss is the most disastrous and unpopular leader in modern British history. Mortgage holders and small businesses still loathe her for sending interest rates through the roof. Her short, catastrophic premiership is routinely compared unfavourably to the shelf life of a lettuce. (A comparison first made by the bright leader writers at the Economist to give credit where it is due.)

When Labour wins the next election, its triumph will be in part the result of the public’s reaction against her vast and dogmatic economic folly.

If you were Liz Truss, you might retire from public life. At the very least you would apologize and hang your head in shame.

If readers expect contrition, however, they have yet to learn that being on the radical right means never having to say you are sorry.

Truss’s demotion from national leader to national joke has not embarrassed her in the slightest but pushed deep into paranoid conspiracism.

Her autobiography, bizarrely titled Ten Years to Save the West, as if the fate of liberal democracy depended on the advice of an epic failure,  shows that, despite all she did to this country, her eyes still shine with a bright, self-righteous fanaticism, as if the sockets are backlit by an idiot’s lantern,

Chutzpah used to be defined as murdering both your parents and asking the court for clemency because you are an orphan. In Truss’s case it is using the power of the prime minister to crash the economy and then claiming she was a powerless victim of the liberal elite.

Her writing is as lacking in self-awareness as it is powered by self-righteousness.

At one point she says in all innocence that, when Boris Johnson resigned in the summer of 2022, her agent encouraged her to join the race to be prime minister, as the campaign might be good for her profile.

But she reports that he then wisely added “it would be for the best if I came second”.

Later she informs us that during the leadership campaign she “frankly lost trust in many of my erstwhile ministerial colleagues who were supporting my opponent [Rishi Sunak].

“They had spent the last six weeks not just attacking me but seeking to undermine my plans, saying my agenda was unworkable."

Truss never stops to think that the few people who will finish this book will believe that her agent was right, and it would clearly have been for the best if she had never been prime minister.

Nor does she contemplate the possibility that her agenda was indeed “unworkable”, and was proved to be unworkable when her unfunded tax cuts and fuel subsidies sent the price of gilts shooting up, the value of the pound crashing down, and caused a crisis in the pension industry for good measure.

And yet, and yet…Mock her as much as you like. Please don’t hold back on my account. But you cannot dismiss her.

There are two reasons why Truss is still dangerous. The first lies in the strength of the right-wing clique that brought her to power.

It is true that Liz Truss did not become prime minister by winning over Conservative MPs. As with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party, Truss’s career illustrates the danger of expecting leaders who do not have the support of a plurality of their colleagues to function in a Parliamentary democracy.

But she still beat Rishi Sunak with the votes of 57 percent of Tory members.

And with the honourable exception of the Times, the Tory press was all for her. “In Liz We Trust”, said the Express “Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Woman”, cried the Mail. “Liz Puts Her Foot on the Gas”, cheered the Sun.

Kwasi Kwarteng set off a market panic as he put Truss’s ideas into practice in the mini budget of September 2022. The reaction of right-wing papers was not one of alarm, however, but of adoration.

“At last”, gushed the Daily Mail, “a True Tory Budget”. A Daily Telegraph commentator said it was “the best Budget I have ever heard a British Chancellor deliver”.

Meanwhile the Truss premiership allowed the voodoo economics of the US-influenced (and in all probability US-financed) think tanks to finally impose itself on this luckless country.  The Centre for Policy Studies welcomed the mini-budget saying it was “exactly what we would have hoped for”. The Taxpayers’ Alliance called it “the most taxpayer-friendly budget in recent memory”.

Robert Saunders of Queen Mary University made the unarguable point that Truss was not an aberration or some alien figure that had appeared from nowhere to take over the Conservative party.

Follow  the money that cascaded in from party donors, he said, and “the Truss premiership begins to look less like the personal failure of a flawed individual, and more like a systemic disaster for which the party bears collective responsibility”.

Those forces will dominate the Conservative party after its defeat and drive it to the radical right. Indeed, in opposition the members, the think tanks, the  press and the ideologue donors will become more important, for they will be all the party has.

In a sign of things to come, Truss is already allying with Nigel Farage, and even Rishi Sunak says he will not ban Farage from joining Conservative party.

Despite her failure, Truss remains a potent figure on the radical right because of her championing of revanchism, which is now its dominant emotion.

This isn't a book. It’s a 300-page wail of resentment at a world that will not do as it is told.

I have no problem with conservatives complaining about woke policies taking over institutions. Only a fool or liar maintains that progressive biases among supposedly impartial organisations are an invention of the right,

But the woke conspiracy Truss invokes is of a wholly different order. It is utterly fantastical.

To recap, Truss's unfunded subsidies and tax cuts panicked the bond markets.  They would not lend to a country whose leaders lacked plausible means of meeting its debts. Or if they did lend they would demand an additional yield on government bonds, which  became known in plain-speaking financial markets as the “moron premium”: the extra cost that comes with lending to a nation run by idiots.

In her apologia Truss, who still poses as a Thatcherite, no longer sees markets as an expression of the wisdom of crowds, but as a conspiracy to do her down.

 “I came to realise there is no such thing as ‘the market’ in this sense. Rather, there are groups of influential individuals in the financial establishment, all of whom know and speak to one another in a closed feedback loop. The Treasury, the Bank of England, and the OBR are deeply embedded in these social networks and share the same beliefs in the established economic orthodoxy."

The markets were at fault for not seeing her financial genius. Financial traders were the world’s unlikeliest lefties. Even though she and Kwarteng fired the permanent secretary at the Treasury and cut out the Bank of England and Office for Budget Responsibility from policy making, they were still, somehow, responsible for Tory failure.

“The powerful vested interests there pushed back, made my life very difficult and ultimately got me fired,” Truss concludes.

Older readers may remember a time when Conservatives insisted on personal responsibility. You were not allowed to blame crime on poverty or your failings on a bad childhood. You were accountable.

But the case of Liz Truss proves that these morality tales were only ever for the poor. In her mind, the economy collapsed not because of decisions she made but because of “a sustained whispering campaign by the economic establishment, encouraged and fueled by my political opponents in the Conservative Party who refused to accept my mandate to lead”.

Trumpism is the end point of such conspiracism and revanchism, and Truss goes all the way down the line to the terminus.

She mutters about the “deep state” a Trumpian phrase she uses without irony or self-knowledge.

And even though her support for Ukraine was her redeeming feature during her time as foreign secretary and prime minister, she is now supporting the pro-Putin Trump and his allies in Congress who are denying aid to Kyiv.

Truss is finished. But the resentment born of failure and the fury at modernity ensures Trump is still very much with us. 

If he delights Putin and wins in November, the UK and Europe will learn the hard way that the real threat to Western civilisation comes from  Liz Truss and her friends.

[hobbysognodilibri]

Okay okay-

So sorry because I’m sure you’re asleep-

I’ve been thinking about Caladin’s kit and I’m definitely going to need some help :’)

I think I want him to work for Dual DPS/quick swap teams in which his outro skill buffs the incoming party and his intro skill generates energy-

But as for his main combat, just based on the visuals I have in mind, I think his Resonance liberation would be a bit like dropping a nuke??

I’m trying so hard not to design him specifically to work with Jinhsi because that’s where my brain went first-

But I think I like the idea of his basic attack causing a stack of what I’m calling “Venegance” for now??? I’m trying to decide what kind of buff it would be, but I think using his Ult would clear all stacks of Venegance and enhance [Atk, Crit, or other stat??] by x amount for the whole party???

I could see it enhancing his basic attack so you have the option of keeping him on field after his Ult or swapping him out to another DPS like Jinhsi, Xiangli Yao, or even Jiyan??? Maybe???

I’m not sure if I want his skill to change with his Ult usage or not??? I don’t have any real ideas for his Ult to be honest :’)

Sorry if this is complicated nonsense or if I don’t make sense. I’m also very confused :’)

Dw dw about the time lol! I'm usually awake at 2am (insomnia my beloathed) but this time I was surprisingly asleep~ but again no biggie since I never hear notifications from tumblr no clue why

Alright I love the idea of double dps teams (despite the facts that all the teams I use are hypercarry lol) but about Jinhsi... I mean she is purely a hypercarry dps, or at least I've never seen anyone use her in double dps... To use them both in a team you should probably have the second dps and the suport be able to do coordinated attacks to charge her forte, or have her S1 so that it charges faster... I'm thinking how it could work...

The thing is most limited 5* are purely hypercarry that hardly work in double dps... The exceptions being Xiangli Yao (who stays in the liberation state even after being swapped out) and Changli (who is in every double dps team comp I've seen so far, but I don't have her so Idk how she works lol)

So if you want him to work on that for most limited 5* he'd probably need to be a very niche character, maybe buffing the attribute and something specific for the other dps... Unless again you either plan on using him with Yao or Changli (or any of our OCs that work more easily in double dps quick swap)

I like the idea of the ult being a nuke that also buffs the whole team! Really really like it

Let's try with a hypothetical kit.

So we have basic attack generating Vengeance (I had to look up how to write the world it was frying my brain fuck english) stacks, these stacks buffs a stat for him (let's say attack, just a basic af thing don't think too hard about this). Then his ult goes off (his intro generates a bit of energy for him so it'd probably charge pretty quickly) and deals a ton of dmg. After that you can either keep him on field (and have a main dmg dealer with something enhanced after the liberation cleared the stacks of Vengeance, let's say his basic atk, kinda like Cyno in genshin) or swap him after his concerto is full (and the ult buffed a stat for the other characters).

I think that's kinda what you wrote in your ask?? I'm short on coffee so maybe I messed up but whatever

If that's what we're going with I think the thing you should enhance (and maybe hypothetically build him on) is basic attack, since that's what's gonna charge the stacks and deal dmg more often... Then liberation again is a nuke/maybe change stance/buffs other team members. If you have him change stance after the ult adn keep the stance after being swapped out he could work well with like Yao that has a similar mechanic/gameplay.

As for the skill... I remember you said a while ago that you were thinking about some crowd control thing to add to his kit and I still stand by that being a good idea... Idk if you've seen Roccia's leaks but she does have something like that, or even Yangyang... either way it's useful since we don't have many cc units in wuwa so that'd be nice. You could do something that does dmg, a small cc area (so it's useful for both his nuke and a possible other dps) and idk maybe something with his stacks...

-

Damn I rambled a lot~

Got a bit carried away lol

But other than being a lore player I'm very much also a "fighting" player (not to the point of being a meta slave but I love the combat mechanics so much)

Let me know if you get any idea or need help figuring anything out (this is also for the actual game if you need help just ask, as a day one "everything player" I can consider myself enough of an expert lol)

[starscreamings]

Cw: transphobia, suicide/rape mention

I just saw a video talking about how Sarah McBride is failing the trans community and it has made me genuinely mad.

While it is true that she isn’t screaming to the heavens about trans issues every day and that she for the most part adheres to the rules of decorum, she is not the same as the democrats that are white men using decorum as a shield to avoid actual doing anything or advocating that the democrats should move away from trans issues as a strategy to get more votes.

Picture this if you will. You get a new job and immediately you get harassed and the company made policies to put you in jail if you step out of line by being yourself, your coworkers who are supposed to have your back against company policy (you are in a union after all) are talking about how they should step away from opposing company policy, and voted with the company to oust a marginalized union member for rocking the boat too much. You need this job because without it you have no way to make the world a better place which is something you desperately want to do.

Genuinely what would you do? Because in even lower stakes situations I would keep my head down and boymode to the best of my ability

But this isn’t company policy. This is the US Government. The institution with a monopoly on violence where the people in charge want her to break decorum so they can, at best, take away any power she has, or at worst, throw her in a men’s prison where she can be forcibly detransitioned, raped, and tortured in ways that cis people face in that situation. And unlike a fucking company, there is no one that could step in to enforce nondiscrimination laws.

When she was misgendered at a panel or had slurs thrown in her face on the record for the world to see, of course she didn’t push back much. (And no I don’t consider “madam chairwoman” to be actual pushback, bigots KNOW that misgendering hurts trans people more than it could ever hurt them) that’s not a sign of weakness. That is a sign of understanding the position she is in. Why couldn’t a cis white male democrat stand up and be loud in each and every one of those instances?

The answer is the same as the answer to why she doesn’t campaign on trans issues anymore. The union has turned on its marginalized members. Democratic Party leader and even congresspeople have actively said that we should move away from defending trans people, and have even said on the record wildly transphobic shit, and platformed far right radicals that want us dead. Breaking the party line means that the party will no longer protect her.

Something that I think a lot of people misunderstand is that democracy is not some instant minority rights machine. Democracies only give rights to marginalized groups when the hegemonic groups decide to, and that decision is ALWAYS contingent on minorities staying in the fucking line. While that line was widened under the rein of liberals, there fundamentally was still a line, no minority group was ever truly liberated, black people in spite of the civil rights movements are still targeted by police with violence and by financial institutions, Muslims in spite of freedom of religion protections are still regularly assumed to be terrorists, gay people in spite of being allowed to get married are regularly conflated with sexual predators. So excuse me if a very public and vulnerable trans woman decides to stay on the think fucking line she has been given so she doesn’t end up tortured

And no that doesn’t make her one of the trans women trying to be “one of the good ones”. She isn’t a Blair white type, or a sell out, or a traitor, or divorced from her trans identity.

She is a fucking human being in a terrifying situation. It’s so easy to point and say “I’d do this, I’d do that, she is not helping” but fuck your not her, you don’t have to deal with your coworkers threatening you with jail time for using the restroom. She is brave just for being there in spite of it all.

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things and Dungeons and Dragons Review

WARNING: The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS from this comic and Season 4 of Stranger Things!

If you haven't yet, be sure to check out my other Stranger Things Reviews:

Stranger Things Six

Stranger Things Halloween Special

Stranger Things The Other Side

Stranger Things Zombie Boys

Stranger Things The Bully

Stranger Things Winter Special

Stranger Things Tomb of Ybwen

Stranger Things Into The Fire

Stranger Things Science Camp

Stranger Things "The Game Master" and "Erica's Quest"

Synopsis: Taking place before and during seasons 1-3, this comic chronicles the origins of The Party, their discovery of D&D, how the game impacted their lives, and how their shared love for fantasy and adventure allowed them to bond.

Observations:

Fantasy has always been appealing to me since I was a kid: The idea of creating worlds with your own characters, creatures, mythology, and story. The idea of universes out there more extraordinary and unique compared to the one we live in. The idea your imagination can bring some semblance of peace and security to your life. I know this and have lived through it. Even 27 years later, despite becoming more cynical and jaded through trauma and bitter experiences, I will always understand those who use fantasy to confront the harshness of the real world. It's why Mike's words hit home for me when he's telling the bookstore owner about why he's interested in D&D and wants to spend money on it:

"It really is like a war. We just want to fight on our own terms." Isn't that how we all feel at times? Some days, you're trying to survive the chaos of life, while other days involve you making choices between what is right and what is easy. Some days, everything is a shit-show, and you're trying to find something to keep you motivated. Some days, you have to deal with truly vile people and accept that they exist whether you like it or not. We all fight battles of some kind. We all have different ways of coping with how cold and indifferent reality can be. We all crave some sense of control in our lives.

For Mike and his friends, D&D provided that. Not only did it allow them to process their world easier, but it also gave them a sense of liberation from how oppressive the (as Eddie would put it) "forced conformity" of their society is. It's their world, and it's where they are the masters of their own destinies.

Now I'll admit I never really got into D&D. Both my brother and my college roommates tried to rope me into the game, and at the time I didn't have the patience for it. However, I do understand its appeal, and respect how it's a game for both kids and adults that forms friendships and can be a fun, shared experience for everyone. Stranger Things and Dungeons & Dragons is not only a story of how D&D influenced each member of the Party, but also a love letter to both the show and the game itself.

The artwork for this comic is incredible and some of the best I've seen so far. I love the drawings of the various D&D campaigns and the creative designs for the creatures the group encounters during their travels.

I also love how each campaign either draws upon the Party's experiences from school and their daily lives, or from the trauma they've endured since their encounters with the horrors of the Upside Down:

That last part is significant because at one point in the comic, Mike seriously questions whether or not D&D has any real meaning for him or his friends following his first meeting with the Demogorgon and the revelation that monsters exist:

Just like in the short story "The Game Master," Nancy is the one who comforts Mike during his crisis. She helps him realize that even though things can't go back to the way they were after everything that's happened, he still has his friends, and what made D&D valuable to them in the first place (aside from it being a means of dealing with the world around them) is that it brought and kept them together as companions.

Nancy recognizes the value D&D has to Mike. It's why she dressed up as an Elf for his Elder Tree Campaign all those years ago, and it's why she still encourages him despite his doubts.

(Side Note: I've always enjoyed the sibling dynamic Nancy and Mike have, and I'm praying season 5 includes more interactions between the two of them).

Speaking of which, this comic does a great job cementing the importance of D&D to Mike and Will's relationship. Mike is the one who introduced Will to D&D and even coined the nickname "Will the Wise" for him:

On top of that, in a deeply heartwarming moment, Mike goes out of his way to craft a specific campaign for Will following Will's rescue from the Upside Down. He knows Will is struggling and scared due to what happened to him, and works to help Will feel better and regain his confidence by giving him the opportunity to be a hero again. As Mike explains to Nancy:

This even extends to Mike handing over the role of Dungeon Master to Will by the time Max and El join The Party:

I know it's pretty common these days in the fandom to bash Mike for being insensitive and oblivious, but moments like these demonstrate he is capable of putting thought and effort into helping and encouraging his friends and loved ones. A big reason Will is passionate about D&D is because Mike inspired Will to embrace his talent and imagination. Will isn't likely to ever forget that.

Another aspect I enjoyed was getting to see how Mike, Will, and Lucas met Dustin. Back in season 1, Dustin remarks that he didn't become friends with them until around 4th grade, and the comic elaborates more on the circumstances of their meeting:

Turns out D&D appealed to Dustin's love for math and probabilities. There's also how he expressed interest in the game and didn't belittle it like Mike's other classmates did. Dustin is a curious person after all, and is more interested in figuring out how something works instead of dismissing it like other people do when they can't understand it.

Finally, there's Lucas's interest in D&D. At the beginning of the comic, when he and Mike are hiding from Troy and James, they go into a bookstore where they see the owner has created a display of The Battle of Waterloo, which is something that impresses Lucas:

There is the possibility I'm reading too much into this, but Lucas's comment about his dad's service in Vietnam and his refusal to talk about it makes me wonder if Lucas's interest in D&D isn't just because of the fantasy-adventure elements, but because it's his way of trying to understand what his dad went through during the war. The game has those battles between good and evil, as well as teaching people about making tough choices and relying on your companions when the going gets tough. Lucas is smart enough to piece things together, and even if his dad was reluctant to talk about Vietnam, he may have figured out aspects of that war based on what he was taught in school and whatever small details he could have picked up from his family.

Mike talks about how D&D for him is about fighting a war on his own terms, and the same goes for Lucas.

But it goes beyond that: D&D gave the boys memories to cherish, and the means to not feel alone while growing up:

Something else I want to discuss are the dates presented in the comic:

I don't know what information (if any) that Jody Houser or Dark Horse Comics were given about season 4 when this comic was written (which came out in late 2020/early 2021), but I find it to be a pretty big coincidence that the date Mike and Lucas discover D&D for the first time is on September 8th, 1980, which is exactly one year after the Massacre at Hawkins Lab took place and El banished Henry/One/Vecna to the Upside Down.

We also find out Mike's birthday is on April 7th, 1971. Granted, this is what the comic presents as his birthday, so I don't know if it's his actual birthday on the show. Regardless, it's still a cool detail.

And this was the gift Mike's friends gave him on his 10th birthday:

Finally, there's the last D&D campaign the Party plays in 1985 before El and Will leave Hawkins for Lenora. On the surface, there are callbacks to season 2, with Will's character in the game getting taken over by an evil entity (similar to how he was possessed by the Mind Flayer) and the Party having to work together to save him:

The big difference is while Will was able to be rescued in season 2, his character dies tragically in the game:

Again, I'm not saying the comic creators have any foreknowledge of what's going to occur in the final season, but I've been firm in believing that one or more main characters will end up dead before season 5 is over. I did a post a while back speculating that Mike was marked for death (and giving my reasoning for why), but I also wonder if it could also be Will, especially because of Vecna's creepy interest in him. There's a connection between the two of them the show hasn't fully explained yet, and (as I talked about in my review of Stranger Things The Other Side), I've seen fans on social media note the parallels between Vecna and Will and speculate on the idea of Will possibly turning evil in the last season. I'm skeptical of that happening (mostly because of the backlash the Duffer Brothers would face for it), but I do question what Will's fate will be in the final season. For what it's worth, Ross Duffer mentioned in an interview that Will's arc in season 5 will tie the whole series together, so make of that what you're able to.

There's also the final battle:

I remember the vision Vecna shows Nancy in season 4: A dark cloud spreading over Hawkins. Downtown on fire. Dead soldiers. A creature with a giant gaping mouth. An army of monsters invading. The death of her family (including Mike). Most of this is likely foreshadowing for what's to come. Just like the Party faces down an army of demons in their final game, they will also be facing down Vecna's army of monsters in the final season.

But in spite of how bad circumstances get, the one thing I trust is the Party will still have each other to rely on. I will be sad to see them all of them go once the show is over.

Overall, a solid comic and one of my personal favorites. I highly recommend it.

Coming Soon: Stranger Things Kamchatka Review

[thessalian]

Thess vs General Elections

So this hasn't quite hit the news sites yet, but breaking on former-Twitter is that Sunak is going to be having a private meeting with the 22 Committee. Which ... I mean ... I just cannot anymore. For the non-Brits, here is the skinny on what that could very well mean.

What's the 22 Committee? Okay. So. There are 22 backbench MPs whose main job is to take letters from other MPs in the party calling for a Vote of No Confidence in a sitting Prime Minister. That's the 22 Committee - or just The 22. If someone is going before The 22, it means that they're facing a buttload of in-party infighting and are looking at being unseated as PM.

Wait - didn't you guys just get a new PM? Well, a year and a half ago, but yeah, kinda. The Tories have had five PMs in the last fourteen years, three of which have been in the last two years or so. First there was Cameron in 2010 - voted in during the Conservative / Lib Dem coalition government where the Liberal Democrats basically faded into the wallpaper and let Cameron and the Tories do whatever the hell they wanted. Cameron resigned after the Brexit vote in 2016 and, without being given a vote, we got Theresa May. She got ousted in favour of Boris Johnson in time for the 2019 election. Johnson was forced to step down in 2022, mostly because of the absolute disregard he showed for Covid lockdown rules, but a few other scandals in there too, and was succeeded by Liz Truss. Truss lasted less than two months, during which time she absolutely destroyed the UK economy (amazing how fast that can happen), and they put Rishi Sunak, Johnson's former Chancellor of the Exchequer, into the PM-ship in October 2022.

Isn't that a lot of elections? You'd think, wouldn't you? But nope, that's not how it works here. We don't vote for the Prime Minister. We vote for the Member of Parliament in our constituency, and the first party that gets a certain number of seats gets their party leader becoming the PM. So it's the party that's in office, not the specific party leader. Party leaders are chosen by a vote, yes, but not from the public - from members of the party in question. Doesn't matter if the new PM has massively different ideas of how to run things, whole different manifestos, anything like that - if the party chooses a new leader, that leader becomes PM if the party won the last election. And the Conservative Party is the worst of a bad lot, since their membership is 160 old white men. Rich old white men. So the manifesto of the party in government has changed three times in the last two years on the say-so of 160 rich old white men ... and hell, the last time we didn't even have that, I don't think, since most of the people standing as party leader bowed out in favour of Sunak. Anyway, we've had five Prime Ministers and only one election - that in 2019.

You've been talking about there being an upcoming election... Yeah, that's the other thing. For all this wibbling around the place with changing PMs, we are still constitutionally obliged to have a general election once every five years. Johnson was elected in 2019. That means that there has to be a general election by the end of the year, no matter who's acting as Prime Minister.

So why would they be changing party leaders again? They want someone more electable, is why. Not that there is anybody, honestly - Johnson more or less destroyed the Conservative Party in the same way that Starmer has been destroying the Labour Party: by driving out most of the reasonable individuals in favour of elevating sycophants and yes-men. Hence why we've had increasing levels of bullshit from the PMs we've had the last few years. But the party's looking at Sunak and looking at the MP defections and going, "Yeah, know, if we want to stand a chance, we need someone new for them to vote for".

But you just said people didn't vote for-- I KNOW. Unfortunately, almost no one else in this country seems to. Even those of us who do know that we're voting for MP rather than PM kind of have to vote tactically in most cases, because if our constituency seat ends up being won by a MP from the party we don't like, that's a greater chance that the party we don't like get enough seats to have their leader be PM. Add to that the fact that our PMs campaign like US presidential candidates and you've got a recipe for completely fucking up an already fucked-up electoral system.

So how did Sunak fuck up? Well, sane people would say the question is "How hasn't Sunak fucked up?", but currently he's having some issues at least in part because of his insane clinging to the Rwanda Act. I've spoken about the Rwanda Act, where he wants to deport "illegal migrants" (read: refugees) to Rwanda if they turn up here despite the fact that doing so would violate several international laws; the House of Lords isn't playing ball when Sunak just wants to rush it through. Maybe it's so he can say he did something in government, or maybe he's got a lot of money riding on it somewhere along the line, but so far it's been a massive waste of time and tax money and even Rwanda doesn't want in on it anymore. Anyway, there's that and there's the whole thing where health care workers coming into this country on work visas are now no longer allowed to bring their spouses or children. So partly it's the xenophobic bullshit ... and the other part of it is his not being xenophobic enough, because a few Tory MPs are defecting to Reform UK.

What the fuck is Reform UK? It's our Ultra-Right Horrorshow Party. See, it used to be UKIP - the UK Independence Party, whose primary mandate was to get the UK out of the European Union. Which ... has now happened, so both UKIP and the Brexit Party are kind of obsolete. So anyone who wants to be a real fascist joins Reform UK. For example, Lee Anderson, who's insisting that "Islamists" are controlling London and that Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor, is a puppet for "the Islamists" ... as is Labour Party leader Kier Starmer, according to Anderson. When he refused to apologise for his bullshit, the party withdrew the whip - which means they booted him out of the party, basically. So he joined Reform UK where he can be as much of a fascist as his little (possibly nonexistent) heart desires.

I've heard that name before, I'm sure: Lee Anderson? Sure. 30p Lee, they called him (and still do). He's the one who insisted that you can make meals for thirty pence per day. Not even per meal - per day. Hence his idea of withholding food parcels from food banks unless people took budgeting and cooking courses. Never mind that the 30p figure came from a batch cooking website and involved buying a lot of things in bulk, which doesn't help anyone who can't afford the initial outlay of bulk foods or, frankly, the time and effort it takes to cook that kind of thing. Anyway, we're getting off-topic.

So you guys are really looking like getting yet another new PM before the election later this year? Maybe. It could be that he's just calling the election early. I just kind of doubt it, since the last thing in the actual news has been that he's having a standoff with the House of Lords over that Rwanda thing. It's possible that he's bailing out so that he's not the one remembered for screwing that particular pooch - the way Cameron resigned after the badly-handled Brexit vote. But 'bailing out' could mean 'resigning as PM' or it could mean 'calling the election for May this year'. We don't know, and until it hits the actual news outlets, we aren't going to.

Fact is that it's going to suck no matter what we do. Both parties are focused on treating the economy like a household budget, and the Shadow Chancellor (the person who would be Chancellor of the Exchequer if the Labour party got into government) is celebrating Margaret Thatcher as an economic model to aspire to. This is the LABOUR PARTY - the one that was started by labour unions and is supposed to be for the fucking workers - and they're quoting Thatcher. Sunak and Starmer, for all they yell at each other across the Commons during Prime Minister's Questions, seem to stand for the same things:

kindness to corporations

cruelty to refugees, trans people, the disabled, and the poor

denial of climate change in favour of fossil fuels (see point 1)

curtailing of human rights

It's both of them. We can hope Starmer's lying to court what he sees as the popular vote, but ... I doubt it. And I'm very, very tired of living in a fucking dystopia.

But hey. Even if Sunak resigns tomorrow, at least he lasted longer than a head of lettuce.

[shivasdarknight]

ask 1 of 3 because I fully expect complicated to essays to this as you answer for practically all of your WoLs

8. How did they feel about the liberation of Ala Mhigo? Do they feel it could have been handled differently? Where they at all bothered by how they were involved? 

{original question collection post - curious about anything else?}

Oh you are absolutely getting essays, especially with that intro and this question.

The matter of Ala Mhigo and its liberation is something that (un)surprisingly deviates from canon in the fact that all four of them deeply care about seeing it liberated. That resistance you see in canon is non-existent here in part because one of them is Ala Mhigan. You also get the eventual inclusion of W'khittri - another Ala Mhigan - but she's apart of the later groups.

(more below, as usual)

The liberation of Ala Mhigo was a fight they'd wanted to get in on since after becoming a team in ARR. Once they realized how well the four of them worked together and they shared similar goals, that's always been on the agenda. Seraphin is from the region and has family stuck in Little Ala Mhigo; Teodore employed Seraphin, sure, but he would see the nation liberated just from how he's seen its treatment at the hands of the Alliance; Gwendoline is effectively an underground chirurgeon that's been taking care of the medical needs of Ala Mhigan refugees who fled to Gridania yet were scorned by the nation, so she's got no delusions over what needs to be done; and while Surkukteni doesn't have many personal ties outside of Seraphin, she is the adoptive daughter of a war refugee (Kitase, a Doman) and would put herself into this for Seraphin's sake alone yet she has so many things pushing her towards this fight. They were planning on helping with the liberation effort after the Praetorium, but of course the Banquet.

The liberation of Ala Mhigo varies in how you get to the jump from Rhalgr's Reach to Kugane in this canon because the group has more political investment in this campaign than canon wol does (yes I'm still angry that "this isn't my fight" is an option to pick but not for Ishgard? the fight you were forced into?). This all started as far back as Surkukteni forging better ties between Little Ala Mhigo, the U Tribe, and the Amalj'aa groups - first the Brotherhood of Ash, and then slowly working with the tempered tribes. This was the backdrop of ARR for her as she helped them build up an alliance against the Immortal Flames and Ul'dah, which put them in a position to be in on Ilberd's plans since the four are significantly more involved earlier on. It means they have an easier time pulling him out of canon trajectory, they manage to keep him alive, and while he still does a lot of what canon dictates, his staying alive is to be a counter to how Raubahn just melded in with Ul'dahn politics (specifically the Syndicate?) while leaving Ala Mhigo by the wayside. Ilberd helps them integrate more with the Resistance, they spend a lot more time with the Ala Mhigans, and then Rhalgr's Reach falls and the party is now split.

Their main regrets are the fact they couldn't get to it sooner and so many people suffered as a result of it. The Dragonsong War was something they never intended on getting involved in, yet they got swept away in it and two of them came out of it really fucked up (Seraphin's left leg was mauled and struggles a bit with tanking, while Surkukteni nearly died against Nidhogg and lost a large chunk of her left side - both have limps, both struggle with their original jobs, and it sucks). They regret that they weren't as thorough that they could have been, but especially that they were put into a situation where they did have to split between Ala Mhigo and Doma - Surkukteni and Gwendoline went to Doma with most of the extra party members while Seraphin and Teodore stayed behind. Even though Seraphin wanted to stay, he still feels awful that he's not as useful as he could've been. Even though Surkukteni wanted to help Doma, she's still pissed that the cost of getting more military support for Ala Mhigo was the political freedom of her birthplace.

Surkukteni could've gone without Hien's involvement and the interference into the Steppe's rite of succession just to get more aid for Ala Mhigo, could've gone without getting further disabled by Zenos to where she effectively gave up on ever being a Dragoon again, could've gone without Papalymo's and Conrad's deaths, and really could've gone without the nasty attitude the Alliance took when she began to help the Resistance. Gwendoline - as someone who goes to Othard - shares many of Surkukteni's regrets.

Seraphin could have gone without some people (a fair number of the Scions, unfortunately) questioning his involvement and his commitment. He would've preferred if they could've dealt with it without having to bargain with other nations just to ensure that his parents could return home. He wishes they had, had a stronger front against Garlemald when Rhalgr's reach fell, and it makes him sick to his stomach that they weren't there sooner since so much of the physical home that his clan and his adoptive family used to live on is now just decimated by the Garlean's conquest. Teodore - similarly - shares a lot of these regrets.

The original WoLs wanted to be involved in Ala Mhigo's liberation and were building up rapport with both the Resistance and various factions impacted by Garlemald's campaign, but the Dragonsong War threw a wrench in all of that and caused so many problems within the group that required them to seek the aid of nations that wanted nothing to do with this conflict. They could only throw around their titles so much, and the only wish they had acted sooner and more efficiently - then maybe they wouldn't have lost so many people.

Bonus: mentioned the Amalj'aa here briefly, but this aspect is something that is a really major part of my rewrite. It's involving the tribes more into MSQ, and this aspect is how it doesn't really make much sense for the Ala Mhigan refugees to be automatically against any of the Eorzean Tribes considering how they are with the Ananta. While it's understandable that there are a great number of tempered factions, I don't feel like it's very fair for them to hold that same animosity that the nations do to even the non-tempered. Hence the arrangements struck between Little Ala Mhigo and the Brotherhood of Ash before it expanded to the three main groups of Southern Thanalan excluding anything associated with Ul'dah. This carries over to various Amalj'aa joining in the Resistance effort, wider ties with the Eorzean tribes, and eventually you see a fair number of people not aligned with the Eorzean Alliance working within Gyr Abania for the liberation of Ala Mhigo (so the energy we see in 5.4 and on but much earlier), and it's in part intentional to humiliate the Alliance into doing something. This is an entire thing that I can very easily ramble about, but basically just to summarize: the Grand Companies have to be coerced into fighting on the side of Ala Mhigo in canon, so the solution in the rewrite is to not rely on them and instead rely on bonds that the WoL group have formed over the course of their adventures - which means everything's gonna look a bit different.

Tl;dr: they weren't upset that they were involved; they were upset that they weren't involved sooner and only could do so with all this needless baggage.

[jteditmanga]

Hi, I am currently rereading One Piece and posting notes about the chapters. Feel free to share your own thoughts.

WARNING: I'm caught up so there will be SPOILERS for future chapters and plot developments.

Volume 32 Chapter 296 [Skypiea Arc]

Love this cover for the volume. All strawhats on the ship and that perspective too.

Well I agree with Robin, that is a rather poetic reason for Luffy to keep going. It’s interesting that Oda shows Robin saying that, emphasizing that she now fully understands what Luffy is all about (just like other strawhats). She is basically spelling out what Nami thinks at the end of the last volume. Makes sense, we are getting closer to Water 7 which means we will get even more of that sweet build up of attachment for Robin.

I appreciate Usopp’s efforts, but this arc didn’t help with his insecurities. Apart from that short bit when he tried to help out Nami he couldn’t contribute much. Although I like that moment with both of them dodging Enel, I feel like Usopp wouldn’t consider it particularly heroic. Just like with Robin, all of it works really well with what happens in the next big arc.

Love that speed effect on the last panels.

Volume 32 Chapter 297 [Skypiea Arc]

Love the detail of Robin being concerned over the destruction of ruins.

Love that Oda chose to put Nami in the spotlight in this arc. Usually she has plenty to do with navigation and guiding the crew in general, and I love it as well, but here she gets to save the day with the captain.

Well that’s another reference to Nika and the Son God. That silhouette and people praying around.

Volume 32 Chapter 298 [Skypiea Arc]

He did it. Love that panel with the bell.

Volume 32 Chapter 299 [Skypiea Arc]

It is indeed very beautiful. All those callbacks to the beginning of the arc. Good stuff. 

Volume 32 Chapter 300 [Skypiea Arc]

So Enel just goes to the moon like that? I vaguely remember a cover story taking place on the moon or smth.

Party time is always a good time in One Piece. I especially love the wolves and Nami dancing with the receptionist lady.

Is that rhythm on the last panel - the drums of liberation reference? Seems like it.

Volume 32 Chapter 301 [Skypiea Arc]

I love that every time strawhats are leaving they have to do it in a way that suits pirates, but they are so bad at it, so they end up getting heartwarming farewells or support from the locals.

Love that panel of strawhats’ silhouettes sitting in a group. Robin is a bit to the side with her back turned as she is not yet an official member, I suppose.

Usopp gets a great deal on those dials.

I am still not quite sure what ‘guide the document to its end’ means. Maybe the point is that Roger gathered the information from this ponegliff and put it somewhere else (made a copy, like Brook did once during Whole Cake Island arc), so this ponegliff now isn’t the only source of that information making it less important in the grand scheme of things. The message itself was dictated by Roger and written by Oden, as far as I remember.

So from what Robin says it’s clear that ‘guiding the document’ means simply carrying the information until you get to the final island or something like that.

Now Robin knows the location of 2 ancient weapons (Pluton and Poseidon).

More Luffy and Roger parallels. The letter D is mentioned again.

Well that’s a different kind of miscommunication. Luckily not as tragic as the one between Noland and Kalgara.

Volume 32 Chapter 302 [Skypiea Arc]

Love crew banter about the money.

Nami calls Luffy ‘captain’.

Unexpected falling of the ship. I remember a couple more of these surprises in future arcs. I think one is at the end of Zou Arc and there could be one at the end of Wano, not sure.

Bell’s ringing at the end of the arc is a nice touch.

Good arc, honestly. The next one is supposed to be a bit shorter though.

Volume 32 Chapter 303 [Long Ring Long Land Arc]

I wonder if we will see Cricket again in the future.

A little sneak peak of Doflamingo’s ways. And he claims that a new age of unmatched power is coming. And I think that’s it for Bellamy until Dressrosa Arc comes along. At some point Bellamy will go to the Sky Island and lose his crew and then crawl back to Doflamingo. I think that covers it.

Wait, I thought you can’t ride a waver on a blue sea? Maybe I misremember smth.

Nami has a new outfit: some proper pants and a black t-shirt with ‘gold’ written all over the chest. I like it, fits the chapter theme too.

More banter about money, this time it’s more coherent and serious though.

You know, it’s pretty considerate on Nami’s part to suggest ship’s repairs as the main spending target. 

Usopp brings up the history of Going Merry as they talk about repairs. The build up for the heartbreak continues.

Carpenter's position on the crew is now included in the plans, and a possible musician once again is mentioned by Luffy.

In hindsight it’s interesting that the Five Elders were not exactly happy with Aokiji. Also it turned out that Aokiji wasn’t the greatest power in the Navi, right. He was defeated by Akainu and resigned.

Is that the first time Luffy’s family is mentioned? Besides Ace of course, but they are not blood related.

Volume 32 Chapter 304 [Long Ring Long Land Arc]

What a fun chapter full of wacky creatures. Definitely feels more like a side quest than the main story, but it means more banter which I love the most, so I don’t mind.

Volume 32 Chapter 305 [Long Ring Long Land Arc]

That’s probably the funniest chapter of One Piece I’ve read so far. And it’s focused on a side character. Idk, just really enjoyed the humor in this one.

[westcountrywriter]

Trump 2024, Written in 2016

I shout “YES, SIR” as I stand. Holding the cold frame to steady myself. I wonder if I will catch a glimpse of my wife. Just to see her once more would, well I’m not sure….  

Yes, I’m right, it is a long line of women, all with shaven heads, soaked clothes in tatters.  

We pass the guard following the sickening procession and the truck swerves towards the line. For a moment I fear he has misjudged it and will hit the wretched souls. But no, clearly he is well practised with his sadism. Near enough to make the poor women flinch in fear but not so close to actually kill any. Some raise their eyes, even turn their heads a little. Their pitiful state sickens me as we share the briefest moments of shared misery.  

We hit a bank of slush, the truck slides a little more and the plumes of spray not only cover the prisoners but also a poster with Trump's grinning face. So not that well practised then. I almost laugh, but to even smile will mean that I could end up on the bed of the truck along with my friend.  

My fellow prisoners raise their right arms automatically. I’m allowed to retain my grip on the framework. It feels like defiance, and that makes me feel a little bit alive.  

The driver will get reported for being disrespectful to the great leader, the best leader, the one with the biggest hands.  

Finally, we have passed the line. The truck lurches back towards the crown of the road. The dark clouds promise either icy rain or wet snow.  

“PRISONER 25, SIT.” 

“THANK YOU, SIR.” My voice is automatic as I settle down and gain a little shelter from the biting wind. My skin is rubbed raw where I twist in my shackle, but at least I barely feel it with the cold. The almost frozen blood on the floor of the truck is now unavoidable as it squelches between my toes. I get ''special'' treatment because, after the reclassification of women, I still treated them with respect. I was caught holding a door open for one of the older female members of staff. I barely knew the lady. It was simply how I was taught to treat others.  

Yet that was enough when I was spotted by a Red Hat. They raided our little apartment and found our stack of banned feminist literature. Linda and I were arrested on the spot. Stripped and paraded through the small town where we lived. Around our necks they hung signs with LIBERAL written on them. We got showered with rubbish and rotten vegetables. I guess that serves us right for moving to a small, conservative Midwest town. We spoke later through the bars that divided our cells, and even managed to touch hands. I still remember her wisdom.  

“Jack, continue to fight, never give up.” 

“Thank you.” I replied. “I love you.”  

Her last words hung in the air as the guards tore us apart. I remember the love in her eyes as they dragged her away.  

Prisoners are to remain silent at all times unless spoken to by any person of authority. They tell you after you get arrested and get sent to the processing area. Men and women are separated, all get their heads shaved and each receives a tattoo. All valuables were taken from us, for the right to property is revoked upon arrest. We were then dragged in front of a judged to plead our case, five minutes per prisoner.  

I later heard from a kindly guard that due to Linda’s nursing qualification she was given three years in a prison. I get to face the great the man. Well, listen to one of his rambling speeches that would have embarrassed Baby Bush.  

“TRUMP…TRUMP…TRUMP”  

It will be soon by the sounds of it. One more final torture to endure.  

After they found out I was a member of the Democratic party and had voted for not only Hillary but also Obama, I was clearly anti-Trump and that meant anti-American for the two are now the same.  

That journey in the truck was almost three years ago. The last remaining Hilary and Obama voters will be slaughtered in a sacrifice to the new order. A celebration of the destruction of a nation with those few in power living in such luxury after their asset-stripping that it would make an African dictator proud. Reagan began the process; Trump has finished it.  

The pain is total as I feel my ligaments tear in my shoulders. As I’m slumping down, I can see Linda’s smiling face. Such hope, such love.  

As my feet settle to the ground, I know my arms will be of no use to me anymore. I laugh at the idea that if they let them down, I would look like a Trump supporter with my knuckles dragging on the ground. I hope the speech will end. I pray the redneck who won the lottery to shoot me is not too drunk. As I wait, time slows to a halt, and so does my heart. They will still shoot me for show, but I don’t care. My body has achieved a final act of deviance as I escape into the oblivion of death.