#Major Conference

[winguontheweb]

Baseball involves a lot of waiting around, especially in spring training. So let's celebrate the season starting today with some goofy sillies from @mirrorvi and I's MBC cast - Amalina playing a devilish prank on Vice~

[whumpbby]

TBH I do think some Jiang disciples did survive the Lotus Pier massacre, if only because they had been elsewhere when it happened/too old or too young to fight so they ran (<-which could be a fun thing to grapple with for both the potential run-aways and newly recruiting Jiang Cheng, who was sent away), but it still wasn't enough people to be called Great Sect. So I think as you say they recruited anyone they could, including some rouge cultivators and some from smaller sects that were destroyed or taken over by the Wen Sect. I don't think they tried to recruit - while the Sunshot campaign was going - a lot of people without active golden core, because they would simply have little time to train them between the battles. Some probably did manage to join the Sect like that, and these would probably grow quite close to people who taught them between the fights.

Also Jiang Cheng having to be at least one of these teachers, because they are short on the disciples but shorter in those trained in Jiang style even more so. And how after the war he must've been doing that still, on top of having the sect to run as both Leader and Head Discipline (because Wei Wuxian was going through things he chose to neither explain or acknowledge) (1/2)

(2/2) Also Jiang Cheng, who almost had to watch his brother get caught by the Wen soldiers when he went off alone in the streets, WOULD try and make his disciples work in big enough groups to protect themselves. Also also Jiang Cheng that seems to go off alone rather often.

Oh, and Jiang Cheng throwing his weight around when his disciples get into some sort of disagreement/scuffle every time, and being harsh on the other party (totally not because of finally being able to shield someone he cares for) and never satisfying the questions about the punishment (totally not because of his mother and Zidian and Wei Wuxian). Even when Jiang disciples were in the wrong. Not meaning there was no disciplinary action, just that it never went outside the sect.

Also taking in some non-cultivators that are good at other things (like Jiang Yanli!) or people who lost their golden cores but can still fight and teach (because he remembers not having a golden core and how that felt like; and maybe he realises somewhere along the way that he might've been able to live without one too; which would certainly add even more flavour to learning whose golden core really was inside him all along).

The latter headcanon is also so amazing because resurrected Wei Wuxian would have to confront how he dealt with the loss of his core and finally stop saying he is fine and reflect on his feelings about all this, including Jiang Cheng

____________________________________________________

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me :D I am so absolutely taken over by this subject!

This is why I'm writing these things, I love to discuss them with other peeps:)

Your message pushed me onto another path of wild speculation via the mention of the other smaller sects that JC would approach to recruit - and that pushed me into the economics of Jinaghu and their influence on the post-war lay of the landXD

Which I am putting under the cut, because it's a lot of rambling to get to a point, but that's how it is in these parts;]

Also, the map I will be using, because it's as good as any other:

From the beginning - smaller sects yes, there was probably not a shortage of them that were destroyed by the Wen passing through and by the blowback of the war happening at all. I imagine that anyone from lone survivors to whole families was displaced…

But I am unsure if inviting them in would be a good idea in JC's position, because, going back to the main point - the Jiang were decimated. I can only go by what the story tells us when it doesn't mention any extra survivors - the Wen banning other sects from night-hunts was a nifty set-up for everyone being stuck at home after all - even if, logically, some of the disciples could be in other locations… however, even if they were, these wouldn't be the meat of Yunmeng Jiang. Because…

…random tangent no 1, because this is a low-fantasy setting (thinking of Game of Thrones I am), I am structuring the Sects as Just Gentry. Maybe not kingdoms outright - because there doesn't seem to be enough land between them to cover for their economic statuses - but city-states ruled by aristocratic bloodlines with the actual political power in their hands. Thus, even if the book doesn't really go into it, I'd wager that the region of Yunmeng was run by the extended Jiang family that was living in the capital of Lotus Pier. That's where the disciples were trained - but that was most likely also where the taxes were being collected, where the trade arrangements happened, where the law was being written, higher education took place, it had the best restaurants, etc.

When the Wen destroyed Lotus Pier, they did away with the whole socio-economic and political setup of the region, which is a smart move for someone who wants to set up their own shop.

…And that circles me back to JC and recruiting - he wasn't just gathering disciples to fight, he was rebuilding a whole intricate system of governance from scratch. A system that used to be run by the extended family that he could trust - now was something he was staffing with strangers.

And, from the example of Su Minshan, we know how jumping sects was considered to be in bad taste - it stands to reason that whatever decimated sect showed up on JC's doorstep, they wouldn't want to give up their own name. Just like JC wasn't going to give up his name. These people would be looking for an alliance and revenge, and, most likely, economic help in their own rebuilding, but most of them weren't looking to join the Jiang. And if they were - what was the guarantee that they'd stay? Or that they wouldn't use JC to meet their own ends and leave him worse for it? Or simply take over due to sheer numbers? A valid fear for a clan of 1 that had to seem ripe for picking.

I think JC would be very careful about accepting disciples from existing sects as his own, and instead build alliances with them. A rogue cultivator or a promising youth looking for a place to settle were a safer bet to build the core of his new sect with. Not to say that some of these alliances wouldn't result in the smaller sects merging into the Jiang later on by osmosis, but not at the outset…

Which leads me to believe that JC would want to start taking in and training coreless youths as soon as humanly possible - just to have someone at his back who was OF Yunmeng Jiang and not just allied with them. Maybe not during the beginning of the war, but by the time Lotus Pier was reclaimed things were probably going this way. If you think about it, Jiang Cheng was a fucking powerhouse of a leader. I have no idea when he slept. Probably not at all.

Probably why he was so cranky XD

That's why I am of firm opinion that the alliance by marriage with the Jin sect was a double-edged sword JC wasn't in a position to refuse, but also wasn't in a position to wholeheartedly accept. (And everyone who thinks that JC 'sold' Yanli to JGS for all these doubloons is just plain old wrong). Because now they're family. Only family he has. And that family can slowly find their way into the important positions of his own 'kingdom', because that's how gentry/aristocracy tends to work in a setting putting that much value on bloodlines, and he doesn't have his own family to plug these positions with ahead of time.

And even if JGS wasn't super eager to marry his son to JYL and the marriage was mostly pushed by Madame Jin and Jin Zixuan - it was in JGS's best interests for Yunmeng Jiang to remain weakened and/or under his control. Because….

…tangent nr 2- economics! :D

The plot doesn't go into it, but I like to know, so I was thinking of the actual economics of the magical land of magical peopleXD I don't need them to be detailed, but just realistic enough to make some sense, and serve as a believable background. I'm not going to question the existence of potatoes or other anachronisms, but one thing I needed to answer for myself was - where is all the money coming from???

Like, for real, where is the cash coming from for all the silks, fancy furniture, houses, swords and so on. How are the gentry sects making money?

Again, the genre, like many others, waves away monetary concerns in general - aristocrats are just wealthy, commoners are poor, and Bilbo Baggins is a landlord. OK.

So, taxes. What makes sect a Great one? Land, mostly, it would seem. The amount of land they own. Which means taxes - if we consider the Gentry sects local aristocracy. That tracks, because ain't no way they'd earn that much dosh via night-hunts from a population that isn't really that large. If you look at the approximate map of the whole realm and consider how fast people are moving from one region to another (even including flying swords and donkey-travel) that ain't a lot of land/people to feed all these sects fleeting about between the 5 Majors.

So, my idea is that the small sects do support themselves mostly via night-hunting and general spiritual upkeep of their locals, but the Greats are just aristocracy and live off of taxes and trade.

And that makes me wonder how Yunmeng Jiang managed to recover their wealth in such a record time, and why was the Jin so wealthy for apparently doing so little.

I propose that Lanling Jin grew out of a port-city and made its money on sea-trade. Sea trade was always The Shit if you wanted to, dunno, gild your palace in gold or something.

Yunmeng - with its access to lakes and rivers - was another trade hub of the realm with the additional bonus of lotus, fish and all other crops a well-watered land can give you.

Qishan - being the most West-ward placed of the Great sects we know of, had to have access to - or even monopoly over - the intercontinental trade routes, or a lot of raw materials available. But at the same time, being a mountainous region, it wasn't rich in water and water-intensive crops. I think that once the material appetite of the Wen upper echelon grew, the more they needed to look towards consuming other regions to sustain it.

Annexing Yunmeng was a good strategy from that point of view - it fixed the water issue and also opened new trade routes towards the South and East via the rivers.

But then the Wen were defeated - and all that West-ward trade potential suddenly was left unattended, and JGS would be a fool to let it slip through his fingers. And the only 'large' clan placed close enough to was Yunmeng.

Stands to reason that, somehow, JC managed to wrestle some of that for his own people to refill the coffers. Gusu was too far and not a trade hub by any means, and Nie Mingjue/Huaisang seemed uninterested in reaching out for it, so the only serious competition on that front were the Jin… Which, again, JC somehow managed to outsmart there, because I do not believe for even a moment that a fierce economic battle wasn't fought as soon as the military operations ended.

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

how come I love leading class and reading groups and small groups and lectures and conference papers and book clubs

and I HATE leading Women's Bible Study

[teafiend]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Smith at The Guardian:

God’s army is on the march. And many of its foot soldiers are wearing “Make America great again” regalia, sensing that their unlikely standard-bearer, former US president Donald Trump, is once again close to the promised land. “I do not believe that America can survive another four years of Joe Biden,” Ralph Reed, founder and chair of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, told a gathering of the religious right in Washington on Friday. “I haven’t felt this way since Jimmy Carter was president.” The audience burst into knowing laughter. Reed promised they would knock on 10m doors of Christian and conservative voters in every battleground state, make 10m phone calls, send 25m text messages and put 30m voter guides in 113,000 churches, producing “the biggest turnout of Christian voters in American history”. The election result will be clear, he added. “This time there aren’t gonna need to be any lawsuits. We’re not going to have to go to court and we’re not going to have to wait until 2.30 in the morning for Donald Trump to declare victory. He’s going to do it at 9 o’clock at night!”

With Trump running ahead of Biden in many swing state polls, religious right voters scent a historic opportunity to impose a radical agenda that could ban abortion nationwide, curb LGBTQ+ rights and blur the separation of church and state. At Friday’s conference, speaker after speaker framed it as righteous crusade and the only way to resist a tide of liberal secularism sweeping America. Ben Carson, a former housing secretary in Trump’s first term, praised Republican-dominated Louisiana for becoming the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every government school classroom. “Aren’t you glad that yesterday the governor of Louisiana signed into law – put the Ten Commandments back in the schools?” he said to cheers and applause before warning of a 60-year communist project to change America by taking over schools, churches and Hollywood and removing God from the public square.

Josh Hawley, a Republican senator for Missouri, warned of a “radical anti-faith agenda” gripping the country. He said: “Who’s dividing America is the radical left and that’s why I say to you we don’t need less Christian influence in our society, we don’t need less Christian witness in our society; we need more in every part of government, in every part of society.” To approving roars from the audience, Hawley added: “We ought to take the Pride flag out of schools and put the Bible back in. You know what? We ought to take the trans flag down from all of our federal buildings and over every federal building in America write the words: ‘In God we trust.’ In God we trust. Amen.”

The couching of an Armageddon election, in which religious truth itself is at stake, with victory representing divine providence and defeat spelling total catastrophe, was crystallised by Monica Crowley, a rightwing political commentator and former assistant secretary of the treasury. She described the election as a “hinge moment” comparable to the American revolution, American civil war, second world war and September 11 terrorist attacks. She spoke of a “war” against “the enemy within” that has spent nearly half a century “infiltrating, undermining and destroying” America with “godless philosophies”. Crowley lamented that Hollywood no longer produces “patriotic films” like those of John Wayne and, extraordinarily, defended the communist witch-hunts of the 1950s. “Senator Joe McCarthy was right, and he was trying to ring the bell in the 1950s about communist infiltration in our government and the same deep state that is now going after Donald Trump,” he said.

[...] Religious conservatives’ pact with Trump appears to be holding. Some were sceptical about the thrice-married reality TV star when he first ran for president in 2016 but the concerns were assuaged by his running mate, born-again evangelical Christian Mike Pence, and by a first term that saw him shift the judiciary to the right. Not even Trump’s conviction in New York last month on 34 felony counts in a trial involving hush-money payments to an adult film star has shaken his grip on this constituency. Many who complain that their faith is under siege regard him as a blunt instrument with which to fight back against the radical left. They often rationalise their vote by saying they are choosing a president, not a pastor. Some evangelicals have likened him to Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who, according to the Bible, enabled Jews to return to Israel from their exile in Babylon.

Why is the religious right sticking behind Donald Trump, who is not a sincere Christian and has been charged with 34 felonies? They view him as an useful instrument to push their wicked far-right agenda into law: eroding the separation of church and state, abortion bans, and anti-LGBTQ+ laws.

These same folks were all “character counts” when Bill Clinton was facing sex scandals, but jettisoned them when Trump has done the same and a lot more.

[comparativetarot]

The High Priestess. Art by Suzanne Treister, from HEXEN 2.0.

The Macy Conferences

[hamletthedane]

2023 year in review:

[dionysus-complex]

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[g4yr4t]

once again just bc men in a certain group have issues that affect them differently bc they are men it does not mean they are oppressed for being men

[stayatsam]

little early for my yearly meltdown i have to reschedule this!!!! i have art to do!

[winguontheweb]

Jade Huston WINDING UP for a sidewinder/submariner. She likes the quirky pitches

Jade from @mirrorvi's Major Baseball Conference!

[snailmailmp3]

im not even mad about the current state of hs2 im just so boreddddddd. when i say something reads like fanfiction i mean it in a value neutral way but post revival hs2 has been coasting on its audiences existing investment in the characters for a whole goddamn year at this point and it is tiring!! which is a shame bc i really *want* to like hs2 and in isolation i like a lot of the writing choices that it's made but the whole feels like so much less than the sum of its parts

[the-everqueen]

i am Overwhelmed and really only have myself to blame

[catos-wound]

Camellia and aloe vera for the ask game!

oooh i kept changing as i grew tbh.. my mum tells me i was very quiet and stoic as a toddler,, no crying no tantrums and i rarely spoke to strangers but! as soon as i got verbal i talked her ear off (only her) i dont think i outgrew that selective yapping but ive definitely gone through periods of higher and lower sociability... yes i suppose ive changed a fair bit

hmm.. i want to experience some kind of stimulant high tbh hehehe its very strictly regulated in my country (jail and death penalty kind of laws)... who wanna feed me a pot brownie... or alternatively i want to travel alone!

[ysphcpb]

Q: I've been following Phi's works since term break. You have acted in many works, so I want to know which character, for example P'Arthit, or Watee, that you found the hardest to get into?