#Non opere derivate

[charseraph]

What bad ending does #badendinglike refer to?

Bad Ending is my sandbox for military worldbuilding, derived off of my optimistic base sci-fi setting.

In this setting, the sophont AI, or seedlet, logistics manager Balanceaban has aggressively quelled all competitor nations and devoted its pancontinental resources to progressing life support technology and graceful weaponry. It dislikes war and wishes to conduct as little of it as possible, so it pioneers the science of wetware to operate the increasingly custom war machines its parent company, Tarsol, builds.

A hard limit to genetic modification is discovered: additions and drastic genetic changes always fail, but deletions do not. You can’t grow a person with four arms, but you can grow one without them. This practice of subtraction introduces colic stock, the term for wetware.

Colic equipment is divided into two parts: machines and machinists. Colic machinery houses and is worked by meshes or bulk operators, and may also support seedlet control, making the machine a scion as well. Colic machinists are subtracted organisms grown to control compatible equipment with organic forethought. They are typically sourced from well-mapped specimens of the target species. The donor is chosen for their aptitudes, temperament, and “forgivenesses” to intended genetic deletions. Clones are nonidentical and have coarse memory resolution. Depending on purpose, they may have a summary snapshot of the donor’s mind installed. Colic operators immediately grow new memories around their transplanted memories, or trellises, whose texture is described as non-own and utilitarian but as effortless to access as natural memories

Thanks to Baal’s interest in keeping his soldiers alive, it’s become easier to keep isolated organs healthy and functioning. Moreover, organisms equipped for it can interface with air gapped digital networks, albeit via a psychological blackroom wherein neither party witnesses the exchange, but both leave with the new expected data.

Along with wetware and wetdev, the field concerning trellising and blackroom setup, Balanceaban’s scientists broke through on the blushing new field of chronotics and its practical realization, chronal boring.

When coronal contact is made, it is secretive and distrustful. The thronal contingency weapon plan is discovered by earthling spies and kicks off an arms race for FTL and longer and longer range weaponry. Crowns, already globally united for the most part, partake in frantic testing and megastructure construction.

As new species are contacted by both crown and humankind, regardless of its technological status, the contactee’s collective sciences are subsumed to support the local superpower in their tactical efforts. There is dread on every planet aware of the conflict.

[cipheramnesia]

It is possible I'm leaning too hard into the concept of a parasite POV protagonist which explores what it means to make yourself into the shape of another body (re the starfish comic and a bunch of bits in it), when the body in question is a trans woman who has undergone a severe amount of involuntary biomechanical body modifications, in an experimental attempt to utilize her poorly understood mutated nervous system as a kind of living weapon against a parallel universe which is inadvertantly unraveling our own world in isolated but escalating highly destructive incidents involving sudden explosive release of energy where they intersect.

But when the events proved fruitless, leaving her wracked with trauma and metastasized cancer, they threw her into a care home / prison where she died of the aforementioned cancer, and this is all in service of answering the question of where The Body which becomes the host originates. However, being as the parasitoid mutant blind millipede colony does not enter a corpse with a template, and merely threads into whatever pre-existing physical and neurological systems are part of the host corpse as-is, not only is the colony collectively entrapping itself within the boundaries of a host body, but it is operating on the assumptions that all the surgical and hormonal alterations, as well as the cancer, are a part of the body which they should also include in the neural network they extend themselves into.

Meaning the actual outcome is the world as seen through a parasite colony which, as it consumes and partially replicates both nervous system and brain of the host, believes itself to inhabit the world as a human, while in actuality it is oblivious to the fact that it now exists as an expression of the traumatic abuse which an authoritarian state under threat will inflict on a human body, as well as the cancerous expression of consequences of this abuse, all stemming from a body which, in a world facing an existential crisis, has an unconventional non-human nervous system which allows it to engage directly with an alternate universe.

Which all plays out because the apathetic management of the care home sold her corpse to a religious order / conservative activism group dedicated to the preservation of the mutant parasitic millipede colonies out of the fervent religious belief the colonies represent the unending cycle of life from life and life from death, and also because the millipede colonies act as natural predators to the Dalton County Dump Roundworm Infestation, which has been taking over large portions of the country via its exponential growth and lack of any competition. So now I have a completely sensible background derived for the parasite colony protagonist who is also fifty percent of the dead trans woman they consumed in the process of infesting her corpse, who is now a kind of holy relic to the temple which infected her, but who also wants retribution for the horrific abuse she suffered, while simultaneously experiencing her twisted and broken body as the correct form as derived by the parasite infestation, which is also her.

Simple.

[opencommunion]

"The Western preoccupation with biology continues to generate constructions of 'new biologies' even as some of the old biological assumptions are being dislodged. In fact, in the Western experience, social construction and biological determinism have been two sides of the same coin, since both ideas continue to reinforce each other. When social categories like gender are constructed, new biologies of difference can be invented. When biological interpretations are found to be compelling, social categories do derive their legitimacy and power from biology. In short, the social and the biological feed on each other. ... Ultimately, the most important point is not that gender is socially constructed but the extent to which biology itself is socially constructed and therefore inseparable from the social.

The way in which the conceptual categories sex and gender functioned in feminist discourse was based on the assumption that biological and social conceptions could be separated and applied universally. Thus sex was presented as the natural category and gender as the social construction of the natural. But, subsequently, it became apparent that even sex has elements of construction. In many feminist writings thereafter, sex has served as the base and gender as the superstructure. In spite of all efforts to separate the two, the distinction between sex and gender is a red herring. In Western conceptualization, gender cannot exist without sex since the body sits squarely at the base of both categories. Despite the preeminence of feminist social constructionism, which claims a social deterministic approach to society, biological foundationalism, if not reductionism, is still at the center of gender discourses, just as it is at the center of all other discussions of society in the West.

... The potential value of Western feminist social constructionism remains, therefore, largely unfulfilled, because feminism, like most other Western theoretical frameworks for interpreting the social world, cannot get away from the prism of biology that necessarily perceives social hierarchies as natural. Consequently, in cross-cultural gender studies, theorists impose Western categories on non-Western cultures and then project such categories as natural. The way in which dissimilar constructions of the social world in other cultures are used as 'evidence' for the constructedness of gender and the insistence that these cross-cultural constructions are gender categories as they operate in the West nullify the alternatives offered by the non-Western cultures and undermine the claim that gender is a social construction." Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (1997)

[thefirstknife]

Stuff about Nezarec from the TWID:

 CLASSIFICATION  - Disciple of the Witness   - Dread   - Prime Tormentor   - Resonant   - Unknown origin species   - Other names: (The) Purest Light, Darkest Hour, Whispering Nightmare 

Unknown origin species! Prime Tormentor!

INTEL  - Created from Rhulk’s blueprint, Nezarec was the first Tormentor from which all others owe their lineage. Nezarec relishes in sowing fear and pain, feeding off the terror of sentient beings. He can induce nightmares across entire worlds.  - Nezarec—in possession of the Veil—lead the Black Fleet as it assaulted Earth during the Collapse but was betrayed and killed by Savathûn. She separated, cursed, and entombed his Lunar Pyramid within the Moon and stole away the Veil. Guardians uncovered the Lunar Pyramid when the Vanguard mobilized to assault the Scarlet Keep, and they uncovered the Veil when they made contact with Neomuna on Neptune.  - For centuries, Nezarec remained buried. Then his disembodied head, held aboard the Witness’s Pyramid, was struck by a terraforming beam fired by the Traveler. It revitalized him as it reshaped the Pyramid, where an undaunted fireteam cut him down once more.  - Much that is known about Nezarec is derived from anecdotal experiences, engaged fireteam raids, and a tome recovered from the Golden Age that was entitled "Of Hated Nezarec.” 

Really interesting implications in the first paragraph. Created from "Rhulk's blueprint." What does it mean Bungie. Is he a result of Rhulk's experimentations? Or is this in the sense of the Witness using Rhulk's base biology to create something new? Or to corrupt some "unknown species"? What does it all mean.

OF NOTE   - An old Psion Exotic relic known colloquially as “Nezarec’s Sin” has long found its home among Warlock operatives. The helmet has known many owners throughout the years, all of whom have perished under mysterious circumstances, been rendered comatose, or have since relinquished their possession of the helm to another owner. This helm is currently believed to be in possession of the Guardian, [NAME REDACTED], a hero of few words.   - Mithrax, Kell of House Light, is currently afflicted with Nezarec’s curse despite Nezarec being destroyed. This occurred when the Kell led an effort to recover Nezarec’s scattered remains. He wants to distill Nezarec's essence into a mentally revivifying elixir while siphoning the corruptive elements into himself. Attempts to dispel or cure this curse are ongoing. CHA-319 was assigned to monitor it and report back any changes.   - Legends from the Dark Age speak of Lightbearers and non-bearers alike suffering night terrors when the Moon is at perigee. The legends detail rituals with the nearly extinct Earth-plant lavender, long thought to hold protective, calming, and cleansing properties. Furthermore, there are later legends detailing victims of these night terrors smelling lavender after waking, as if the nightmare mocked their attempts at protection. This led to a subsequent switch to a myriad of other panaceas. 

PSION MENTION!!!!!!! Nezarec's Sin is a Psion relic! Super cool information about it. Basically confirms that there's only one in existence and the YW has it.

Mithrax????????? Man. I was hoping that plot point turned not as terrifying as it originally sounded but nope. Apparently this is an active investigation into his wellbeing. Please. Don't do this. CHA-319 is Chalco Yong!

Love the silliness with lavender though. Incredible.

[whencyclopedia]

The Politics of Reproduction in Ottoman Society, 1838-1900

"The Politics of Reproduction in Ottoman Society, 1838-1900" sheds light on how turbulent population changes led to anxieties in the Ottoman elites and the state. In this context, Balsoy illustrates how medical modernization was employed by authorities to discipline the female body and control the population. The book provides a clear image of the 19th Century’s perspective on women in Ottoman society and is a must-read for those interested in Ottoman women's history.

Gülhan Balsoy is a professor of history at Istanbul Bilgi University. The book is a revised and rewritten version of Balsoy’s PhD thesis. The book's five chapters respectively focus on the history and transformation of midwifery, abortion, pregnancy, and infertility in Ottoman society. While investigating these themes, Balsoy asserts that reproduction was not a natural experience but a political subject. Balsoy examines how the Ottoman state and elites attempted to change together with control of the female body and subjected it to medical and legal control by using institutions, laws, and medical doctors. According to Balsoy, the state and Ottoman elites constructed the pronatalist means to increase the Turkish/Muslim population by transforming midwifery practices, banning abortion, medicalizing pregnancy/childbirth, and inclining on infertility issues. Balsoy challenges the dominant idea in the historical scholarship that the Ottomans attempted to create a heterogenous Ottoman identity in the society.

The main contribution of this book is derived from the reception of medical modernization through political and institutional means. It demonstrates that the medical elites or obstetricians reflected the Ottoman state’s mentality on the decline of the Turkish/Muslim population. For example, the first law on abortion in 1838, the establishment of the Midwifery School in 1842, and licensing midwives or prioritizing obstetricians were precautions for the state’s population anxiety. However, after investigating literature on Besim Ömer, a famous pronatalist, and Ottoman obstetrician at that time, Balsoy successfully showed that the dichotomy between “old crones” and doctors were not the whole picture. Besim Ömer and many obstetricians asserted that "old crones" were uneducated and lacked hygiene. Despite their ideas about untrained midwives, doctors or licensed midwives also experienced failures in their operations. Thus, the problem put forward by Besim Ömer was not demographic but political and ideological. Another impactful aspect of the book is how anti-abortion and pronatalist ideas are represented in popular literature and advice books for pregnant women. These sources help us to map a combination of social mentality and forced pronatalist agenda by Ottoman authorities, which controlled and disciplined female bodily experiences to alleviate the population anxieties of the elites.

Despite these contributions, there lacks an explanation of how and why these elites had population anxiety or whether they were sure about their homogeneous Ottoman identity in every case. In other words, did all Ottoman elites have this population anxiety? Many sources utilized by Balsoy usually only show us the perception of the Ottoman obstetricians. Another point raised is the comparison between other social groups. For example, the practices of non-Muslim women, especially midwifery or the medicalization process of pregnancy and their experiences, are lacking. However, including other socio-ethnic and religious groups may enrich the literature on the effects of reproduction policies. It is understandable that this book lacks in these two points since finding primary sources written by women and other disenfranchised groups in Ottoman society has always been a challenge for historical scholarship.

This book is an academically fulfilling work on the late Ottoman society. Specifically, prescriptive or advice books and popular literature are utilized quite well in this book. However, her main argument about the politicization of reproduction and the female body stays slightly rigid because the primary Ottoman sources give us a more sophisticated picture than Balsoy's main argument. The spread of pronatalist ideas and politicization of the female body via medicalization and legal means can provide a portrait of how the state and the elites may have population anxieties. Nevertheless, we still cannot avoid the complexities of social changes in the public area, especially when there are few personal or collective accounts of women. In the end, Balsoy's argument is well-researched and invaluable for opening up a space for discussing the female experiences in the late period of Ottoman society.

Continue reading...

[bubbloquacious]

Okay so to get the additive group of integers we just take the free (abelian) group on one generator. Perfectly natural. But given this group, how do we get the multiplication operation that makes it into the ring of integers, without just defining it to be what we already know the answer should be? Actually, we can leverage the fact that the underlying group is free on one generator.

So if you have two abelian groups A,B, then the set of group homorphisms A -> B can be equipped with the structure of an abelian group. If the values of homorphisms f and g at a group element a are f(a) and g(a), then the value of f + g at a is f(a) + g(a). Note that for this sum function to be a homomorphism in general, you do need B to be abelian. This abelian group structure is natural in the sense that Hom(A ⊗ B,C) is isomorphic in a natural way to Hom(A,Hom(B,C)) for all abelian groups A,B,C, where ⊗ denotes the tensor product of abelian groups. In jargon, this says that these constructions make the category of abelian groups into a monoidal closed category.

In particular, the set End(A) = Hom(A,A) of endomorphisms of A is itself an abelian group. What's more, we get an entirely new operation on End(A) for free: function composition! For f,g: A -> A, define f ∘ g to map a onto f(g(a)). Because the elements of End(A) are group homorphisms, we can derive a few identities that relate its addition to composition. If f,g,h are endomorphisms, then for all a in A we have [f ∘ (g + h)](a) = f(g(a) + h(a)) = f(g(a)) + f(h(a)) = [(f ∘ g) + (f ∘ h)](a), so f ∘ (g + h) = (f ∘ g) + (f ∘ h). In other words, composition distributes over addition on the left. We can similarly show that it distributes on the right. Because composition is associative and the identity function A -> A is always a homomorphism, we find that we have equipped End(A) with the structure of a unital ring.

Here's the punchline: because ℤ is the free group on one generator, a group homomorphism out of ℤ is completely determined by where it maps the generator 1, and every choice of image of 1 gives you a homomorphism. This means that we can identify the elements of ℤ with those of End(ℤ) bijectively; a non-negative number n corresponds to the endomorphism [n]: ℤ -> ℤ that maps k onto k added to itself n times, and a negative number n gives the endomorphism [n] that maps k onto -k added together -n times. Going from endomorphisms to integers is even simpler: evaluate the endomorphism at 1. Note that because (f + g)(1) = f(1) + g(1), this bijection is actually an isomorphism of abelian groups

This means that we can transfer the multiplication (i.e. composition) on End(ℤ) to ℤ. What's this ring structure on ℤ? Well if you have the endomorphism that maps 1 onto 2, and you then compose it with the one that maps 1 onto 3, then the resulting endomorphism maps 1 onto 2 added together 3 times, which among other names is known as 6. The multiplication is exactly the standard multiplication on ℤ!

A lot of things had to line up for this to work. For instance, the pointwise sum of endomorphisms needs to be itself an endomorphism. This is why we can't play the same game again; the free commutative ring on one generator is the integer polynomial ring ℤ[X], and indeed the set of ring endomorphisms ℤ[X] -> ℤ[X] correspond naturally to elements of ℤ[X], but because the pointwise product of ring endomorphisms does not generally respect addition, the pointwise operations do not equip End(ℤ[X]) with a ring structure (and in fact, no ring structure on Hom(R,S) can make the category of commutative rings monoidal closed for the tensor product of rings (this is because the monoidal unit is initial)). We can relax the rules slightly, though.

Who says we need the multiplication (or addition, for that matter) on End(ℤ[X])? We still have the bijection ℤ[X] ↔ End(ℤ[X]), so we can just give ℤ[X] the composition operation by transfering along the correspondence anyway. If p and q are polynomials in ℤ[X], then p ∘ q is the polynomial you get by substituting q for every instance of X in p. By construction, this satisfies (p + q) ∘ r = (p ∘ r) + (q ∘ r) and (p × q) ∘ r = (p ∘ r) × (q ∘ r), but we no longer have left-distributivity. Furthermore, composition is associative and the monomial X serves as its unit element. The resulting structure is an example of a composition ring!

The composition rings, like the commutative unital rings, and the abelian groups, form an equational class of algebraic structures, so they too have free objects. For sanity's sake, let's restrict ourselves to composition rings whose multiplication is commutative and unital, and whose composition is unital as well. Let C be the free composition ring with these restrictions on one generator. The elements of this ring will look like polynomials with integers coefficients, but with expressions in terms of X and a new indeterminate g (thought of as an 'unexpandable' polynomial), with various possible arrangements of multiplication, summation, and composition. It's a weird complicated object!

But again, the set of composition ring endomorphisms C -> C (that is, ring endomorphisms which respect composition) will have a bijective correspondence with elements of C, and we can transfer the composition operation to C. This gets us a fourth operation on C, which is associative with unit element g, and which distributes on the right over addition, multiplication, and composition.

This continues: every time you have a new equational class of algebraic structures with two extra operations (one binary operation for the new composition and one constant, i.e. a nullary operation, for the new unit element), and a new distributivity identity for every previous operation, as well as a unit identity and an associativity identity. We thus have an increasing countably infinite tower of algebraic structures.

Actually, taking the union of all of these equational classes still gives you an equational class, with countably infinitely many operations. This too has a free object on one generator, which has an endomorphism algebra, which is an object of a larger equational class of algebras, and so on. In this way, starting from any equational class, we construct a transfinite tower of algebraic structures indexed by the ordinal numbers with a truly senseless amount of associative unital operations, each of which distributes on the right over every previous operation.

[you-cant-fuck-megaman]

I liked the questioning about repli beauty you brought up. So, as we go into this rabbit hole, can we attribute the appearance and preferences for own image of a repli to previous programming and the way the X program developed itself?

Like, it started with humans building the first repli series and setting human society as a parameter of likeness for non-battle/labor replis, and from there, the replis just continued the trend when building the next ones?

Also, is the operating system on the next one based on a blank template or does it come from the repli that programmed/designed them, in a kinda genetical passing manner?

a fantastic question! there's a lot of big question marks about how things work in the X world that aren't really delved into. the question of operating systems is a surprisingly straightforward one, as we know that there are at least three eras of reploids: the original line made from X's template, the improved line made by Dr. Doppler from the X3+ era, and the "New Generation" Reploids in X8+ made by an unspecified designer/developer for spaaaaaace work.

but image preferences? hooooooooooooooooooo. i can't offer a solid answer. but here's some ramblings about my thoughts.

what we DO know is that Reploids were derived from X's template and that they started off as copies of his design/aesthetic, and if we're to take the Archie series as any level of canon (probably level 2 extra-canon) we have a very clear visual as to what the early reploids looked like. and that, despite this, the X series features mostly furry robots as characters.

now, on an out-of-universe level, i want to say that i remember this decision was made because it creates more imposing silhouettes--megaman is a franchise designed for baby children first and foremost, and it's easy for child brain to correlate humanoid shapes as friends and feral beasts as enemies. however, A: i cannot find a source for this, and B: Sonic the Hedgehog

in either case, whatever the reason is, in-universe we have a very clear disparity between the originator of reploids being humanoid (the original term repliroid is even a portmanteau of "replica" [in the likeness of] and "android" [a humanoid machine]) and the majority of on-screen reploids not being humanoid. which tells me that body image is a BIG THING among reploid culture, and either chassis remodeling is a relatively easy process or a lot of reploids are willing to invest a lot into being a different person than who they started out as.

this is something briefly touched in the Classic series, with Tundra Man (a late line Robot Master) intentionally remodeling himself into a body type that he prefers, but it's fleshed out further with the (chronologically farther) X world in the design changes to the non-animal characters--Zero, Alia, and Sigma all similarly sport different bodies as the series goes on. the only person who doesn't change much in the main series is X, ironically enough, outside of Command Mission. Alia X8 and Layer are silly designs that were designed for fanservice first and foremost, but we can reasonably surmise that (in-universe) they chose to look that way. i'm not about to tell a woman she can't wear a car hood as a bra if she wants to, but i will think that it'd look better if it was put back on the jeep because i need that to fucking drive.

meanwhile, there's a lot of obvious correlations to be made with early X Mavericks and their designs being optimized for the environment. icy area gets the penguin. aerial area gets the eagle. underwater area gets the octopus. but as the series goes on, the correlations become significantly less appropriate and it's clear that animals were chosen for their design aesthetic. the munitions factory gets.....the hornet.....? i guess, like...the hornet stinger missiles.......?

it makes more sense if you take iwamoto's X mangas as level 2 extra-canon like the archie comics, because Blast Hornet was a reploid biker-gangster punk who became a hornet for the shock factor. which ends up leaning back to the original theory that reploids ultimately end up choosing how they look--if not from the onset, then further down the line.

you could probably make a solid argument that the X series is a very trans-friendly future, and that nearly every major character is trans and nobody bats an eye about it. instead the robot police are mad about the crimes and murder. but the creed is "be gay do crimes" so this is actually oppression 🙄

[psychotrenny]

I'm kinda sick of the Liberal obsession with trying to "gotcha" reactionaries with their apparent hypocrisies and ideological inconsistencies. The fact of the matter is that their ideology is very consistent and they usually behave well in accordance of it; the preservation or strengthening of Western Imperialist Capitalism and all it's attendant forms of oppression and exploitation (i.e. Patriarchy, White Supremacy, Homophobia etc.). They do this primarily out of their own self interest; even those who don't occupy a position near the top and have no illusions that this well ever change do derive a range of privileges from the existing hierarchies, especially from helping to actively enforce them. Many poor or otherwise marginalised reactionaries may very well be better off in the long run should these systems be abolished, but in the short term the benefits of collaboration are too large to simply be written off.

They employ a wide range of rhetoric to these ends. While much of it is actively contradictory this doesn't matter as the actual words themselves are unimportant; what's important is the values they convey. Likewise the actions they perform may not align with the rhetoric they speak but, as long as this does not conflict with their goal of self serving enrichment through loyal service to the existing order, you can hardly call it hypocrisy in the a meaningful sense. A US conservative proclaiming that he'll violently resist arms control one second before loudly professing is love of law enforcement the next isn't being inconsistent; both state and vigilante violence are important arms of the Capitalist White Supremacist order. There's a reason all these anti-gun control types turn a blind eye when it's non-white people being disarmed (just think of the Black Panthers in California). And a homophobic politician who secretly employs the services of gay prostitutes isn't a hypocrite in any consequential way; homophobia is a convenient tool for both short term political ends (marshaling votes and providing a convenient scapegoat) and longer term social ones (maintaining the absolute dominance of the heterosexual nuclear family for the purposes of labour reproduction, control and exploitation) and by keeping his activities as a shameful secret you can hardly say that he's advancing the cause of gay liberation. Your attempts to own reactionaries with facts and logic are meaningless when you refuse to recognise the logic they actually operate on

[mariacallous]

When you think of Jewish alcohol, Manischewitz (for better or worse) probably comes to mind. But slivovitz — a liquor with a forceful flavor and formidable strength — is arguably the Hebrew hooch. 

Slivovitz, whose name is derived from the slavic word sliv for “damson plum,” is made by fermenting plums, distilling the mash to 80-100 proof alcohol, then aging the resulting liqueur for up to 10 years in oak barrels. Slivovitz is largely produced in Central and Eastern Europe, where different countries create their own variants. In the Czech Republic, for example, slivovitz (in Czech, slivovice) is considered the national drink of the region of Moravia and is served at room temperature in small shot glasses known as a panák. In Bulgaria, slivovitz holds special religious importance having been distilled for nearly seven centuries by members of Troyan Monastery. The monks’ special blend is made from Madzharkini plums, a variety that grows only in the Troyan region and is distinctive for its easily extracted pits.

Although grains are introduced during some forms of the slivovitz fermentation process, some distillers decided to forgo this step as a means of ensuring the liqueur was kosher. This gesture rendered slivovitz initially attractive to Jews during Passover, specifically Seder dinners that traditionally called for the consumption of up to four glasses of wine. Unfortunately, local wines were often made alongside other spirits under non-kosher conditions and thus were unacceptable. And because, as Dr. Glenn Dynner, professor of Jewish studies at Sarah Lawrence College, points out, imported kosher wine was often prohibitively expensive and of limited availability, Jews gravitated toward slivovitz on such celebratory occasions. 

But its kashrut status alone is an insufficient reason why slivovitz is considered particularly, or even especially, Jewish. According to University of Pittsburgh professor and slivovitz historian, Dr. Martin Votruba, “Jews would acquire this local drink after moving into European kingdoms. They would simply pick it up as part of the culture.” It seems, however, their relationship with slivovitz became more purposeful during the 1800s in what is now Poland. Because they were considered relatively temperate compared to their countrymen, Jews were charged with operating drinking halls and taverns, and thus began to monopolize the liquor business, much of which revolved around slivovitz. 

Another explanation as to why slivovitz holds a special place in the Jewish cultural imaginary is its strong anecdotal association with Jewish men of an older generation. In the 1990 film “Avalon,” which chronicles the trials and tribulations of a Polish Jewish immigrant family at the turn of the 20th century, brothers Sam and Gabriel reminisce about their father: 

“He never drank water. And oh, boy, could he drink! What was that stuff called he always used to drink?’ ‘Slivovitz. Slivovitz. He used to call it, ‘Block and fall.’ You have one drink of that, you walk one block and you fall!” 

Similarly, food writer Jordan Hoffman recalls his father describing how a swig of slivovitz (which they called ‘Shleeve-O-Wits’) by Hoffman’s grandfather signaled the breaking the Yom Kippur fast: 

“… they’d peer out of the apartment window, waiting to spot him walking back from the synagogue. He’d take his sweet time, pull off his coat and hat, open a rarely used cabinet, blow the dust off an old bottle, take a sip of something, make a face, then announce that everyone could eat.”

As evinced by both accounts, slivovitz is not for the faint of heart and for some years, the caustic, bitter spirit fell out of favor. There are signs that slivovitz is slowly becoming back en vogue: restaurants, including New York’s renowned Kafana, serve slivovitz and a handful of distillers, such as Stone Barn Brandy Works, are producing their own new-fangled versions. And fans of the enormously popular series “Homeland” will attest that it’s the drink of choice for the character of Senator Andrew Lockhart.  

Slivovitz’ nostalgic appeal combined with the introduction of new, more palatable varieties means it has some real so-old-school-it’s-cool potential. And who knows — the coming year may have us all slugging slivovitz slingers rather than espresso martinis.

[oliviax727]

Physics Friday #3: No Seriously, why is 1+1 = 2? (and what a real number really is)

Refer to this link if you're confused as to what this is all about.

If you were wondering where my part 2 to the Dark Energy vs. Dark Matter post is, it'll come next week. I just wanted to divert for a bit and stick my head into mathematics. I generally won't do two parts back to back.

Preamble

Education Level: Middle School (Y6 - 8)

Topic: Logic and Construction (Mathematics)

Introduction: 1 + 1 = 2 because I said so

What is 1+1?

Why does it equal 2?

How can we say such a simple thing without falling into the depths of chaotic mathematical thinking?

What is a number?

What does it mean to be real?

Many people are asking this ...

Well, really to answer those questions directly. Mathematics, unlike a lot of other subjects, is founded on the principles of hard logic. Definitions and statements that derive new definitions and statements. Truth follows from more truth.

But in order to have true statements, some of those statements must given i.e. we just have to assume or declare they're correct. Otherwise we wouldn't have true statements to begin with!

Consider the logical statement "The sun is a star".

In order to prove that this statement is true, we need to:

Define the existence of an object called "the sun"

Define what a "star" is

Define what it means for an object to be "is" another object

We could then come up with these statements:

The sun exists

A star is a bright burning ball of gas

An object is something else when that object has the traits of that something else

But then we are faced with a problem: how do we know that the sun exists? Well, we can see it of course!

But this doesn't apply to maths - after all, can you see the number 1? Like, can you see the concept of the number 1?

The answer is that we have to just accept some statements as simply true, no questions asked. These statements are called axioms.

In any mathematical system, we have a set of rules, or axioms, that dictate how our system works.

In most cases, we say that 1 + 1 = 2 by definition. That the number 2 is purely defined by 1 + 1. Any properties it has, like 2 representing an amount of objects (cardinality), or 2 coming after 1 (ordinality) is merely coincidental, an aspect of the system itself, or entirely irrelevant.

Real Numbers

Let's start off with how we can play with these numbers, using the Reals and an example.

A real number is real simple. Here's some examples:

2

16

2/3

-8

-9091/2311

0.0404583439484328423490 ....

Pi

It's basically any number that you've dealt with before: decimals, fractions, integers, and the like.

But how did we get to this stage? Like how can we define the real numbers to mean a specific thing?

It's important to have such rigorous definitions in mathematics, because without them, we won't be able to generate new theorems about how our world works.

The real numbers are known as a complete ordered field. What that means is it has three properties:

A field describes a particular set of numbers with some simple arithmetic laws attached to them

A ordered set is one which as a notion of order

A complete field has no gaps

The Field axioms are as follows. A field is a set of numbers that/where:

Contains two non-equal numbers, 0 and 1

Has a definition for the + and × operators

For any number a:

- a + 0 = 0

- a × 1 = 1

- There exists a number (-a) such that: a + (-a) = 0

- There exists a number 1/a such that: a × 1/a = 1, unless a = 0

For any numbers a, b, and c:

- a + b = b + a

- a × b = b × a

- (a + b) + c = a + (b + c)

- (a × b) × c = a × (b × c)

- a × (b + c) = (a × b) + (a × c)

(Note: I dunno how to format bullet lists properly pls help)

Pretty simple eh? Well there are actually quite a lot of things that are fields. For example the set of all rational numbers (fractions) are a field.

There's also the order axioms. An ordered set is a set of numbers that/where:

Has a definition of something being less than another or a < b

For any numbers a, b, and c:

- If a < b then a + c < b + c

- If a < b and b < c then a < c

- Either a = b or a < b or b < a exclusively

An example of one of these ordered sets is the integers!

Lastly we have the completeness theorem. The completeness theorem is a bit more complicated, and it might be worthwhile to spend a whole topic on it:

Say I were to define a new operation within this set. For example f(x) = a + b + x

A complete set, no matter the definition of the operator, would always evaluate to a number that remained within the set as long as no rules of the set were broken.

i.e. x can be any number, and f(x) can be any operation involving x. But if x and f(x) can be defined entirely by what we had originally, then f(x) will always equal a valid number given that we don't divide by zero.

The rational numbers, for example, is not complete. Here's a small proof:

Define the operator a^2 := a × a

Define the operator sqrt(a) as being sqrt(a)^2 = a

There does not exist a rational number that equals sqrt(2)

Therefore the rationals are not complete

It turns out that the real numbers is the only complete ordered field in existence. That by setting just these axioms, we can have a unique set of numbers.

So how does 1 + 1 come into this? Well, 2 is defined as being 1 + 1. And 1 + 2 = 3, and 1 + 3 = 4 ...

Here's an example proof for 2 + 2 = 4, the bane of all who know about Gregory Orsen's 1894:

2 + 2 = (1 + 1) + (1 + 1) = (1 + 1 + (1 + 1)) = 1 + 1 + 2 = 1 + 3 = 4

Note that these axioms leave out some rather important identities, like:

Any number times 0 is 0

0 = -0

0 < 1

-1 < 0

a < b implies 1/a > 1/b

But the whole point is that we don't need these statements to be axioms! We can prove these from the ones we already have alone!

Set Theory, Peano, & Recursive Addition

There are, of course, other ways to construct mathematical frameworks.

The real number axioms are an example of constructing a system by having a set of rules and then proving afterward that these rules produce a unique set of numbers.

But what if we wanted to go more general, and have numbers not defined by axioms, but have the axioms describe more general maths.

Well, there are several ways in which we can do this:

Set Theory Construction

Lambda Calculus Construction

Surreal Numbers

I'll mention only set theory. A set is something I've used before. What a set essentially is, is just a collection of things.

We can use sets to define numbers, for example:

0 := { } (i.e. the set containing nothing) 1 := { 0 } (i.e. the set containing, the set containing nothing) 2 := { 0, 1 } (i.e. the set containing, the set containing nothing, and the set containing the set containing nothing)

With this, we have numbers! It also comes with the added benefit of:

"The number of elements in a set corresponds with what each number means linguistically in terms of amount".

But what does this even do? Like what about addition?

Well, we can use what's known as a recursive definition to help us figure out what addition is. But first we need the notion of a successor.

Peano arithmetic, that is, arithmetic with integers, can be constructed from set theory by defining the immediate successor of a number:

S(n) = { n itself and every internal object within n }

We could then use this to redefine our numbers as:

0 := { } 1 := S(0) 2 := S(1)

This is very similar to our 1 + n example back in the real numbers.

From this, we can define what addition is using our recursive action:

For any numbers a and c a + S(c) := if c ≠ 0 then S(a) + c otherwise S(a)

This definition is recursive, as it contains itself. But in order to stop us from going infinitely into the negatives, we must stop the process when c reaches zero.

Here's two examples of our definition

1 + 1 = 1 + S(0) = S(1) = 2

2 + 2 = 2 + S(1) = S(2) + S(0) = 3 + S(0) = S(3) = 4

And thus we have that 1 + 1 = 2!

Conclusion

At last, we have reached the end. Congratulations, if you read this all the way through, you have read an entire tumblr post (and a long one that is) on why we can say that 1 + 1 = 2. This is a very broad topic that I have barely scraped the surface on. Here's some other interesting related subjects:

David Hilbert's formulation of mathematics

Peano Arithmetic

Lambda Calculus

Fields, Ordered Sets, and Completeness

Real Analysis

Zermelo-Frankel Set Theory

As always, feedback is very appreciated! I'm an astronomer, not a mathematician. A lot of this stuff I was taught in my first year of university. And I hope you enjoyed reading this. Feel free to follow if you like seeing stuff in the realm of physics, astronomy, mathematics, and computer science.

[chemighoul]

Geez, Isley, it's only been 10 hours since your initial post and you're already bored with the asks? I have to wait up to a month for my St. Joseph's Coat cactus to decide it wants to grow a single new tubercle, but I guess we can't say you have the patience of succulents.

What's the point of your whole plot here? You invite the boy in to observe your garden under the pretense of a white flag, and then take over his blog? Your actions seem quite arbitrary and, dare I say, human.

You know, an observation from a non-human friend of mine is that the "meat beings" currently infesting this planet rarely operate as individuals. Like a fungi colony, what you do to one can have effects that reach throughout their entire social system, which will react accordingly.

All right, so uh.

First, you guys are ride or die, and I appreciate that. Threatening a rogue via my inbox where they're gonna see it? That takes guts, and I do have shooters out there.

However, there's more to this situation than what it looked like, so lemme explain.

As you all saw, I went to her place on her terms, and I brought some derivative toxin kinda like the worst pepper spray that I boiled down from leftover meds I "found". Bad for people, plants won't care, all that goodness. She offered me an inoculation like she gave Ms Harleen: immunity from plant toxins and all kinds, never will I threaten an orchid with the sniffles again during hay fever season. Won't even have to wear a mask and goggles. Of course, I said yes. What I didn't account for is that uh...when people get vaccinated, they can get a dizzy spell from all the shit they just injected, and this one was hefty to say the least...so, I got dizzy, laid down, and took a nap for 10 hours until she woke me up at sundown and told me to go home.

What I came back to was a buncha missed calls, texts, and some rude fuckin' comments that came tricklin' in while I was getting over it over the weekend. (Some of you oughta be ashamed of what you said to her. I'm not posting that shit, so if the misogynist shoe fits, choke on it. ) Do I love that I got frisked? No. But here's the thing: I understand why she did it. I would have too: there's some trust here between us, don't get me wrong, but we're still rogues. We have some mutual respect because we both know we can ruin each other if we decide to, and the crux of it is that we continually choose not to. Make of that what you will.

All that to say...have a little more respect, huh?

[darthkvznblogs]

I know the point of the universal meld was to keep them as close to canon as possible, but has there been any noticeable change in some characters thanks to the fusion or any obvious butterfly effect?

Some off the top of my head.

Regarding the world:

-SHIELD is a lot bigger and has more influence in the Kverse than it did in the MCU, for better or worse. There's any number of hidden projects and weapons derived from non-Marvel entities and concepts that I haven't even alluded to yet.

-There's a similar story with SWORD, though this is more due to the relationship with the Kree Empire through Hala. Abigail's been able to procure a lot of goodies that, even if they can't propel Earth centuries ahead, should at least give us a decent edge in a fight if the worst comes to pass.

-The Moon is a lot more storied, having housed the Silver Millenium, the Inhuman realm of Attilan, Pink Diamond's original base of operations, a SWORD base, and now a Bounty Hunter's Guild outpost throughout its history.

-There's obviously a lot more magical stuff in general, of all sorts, but also a lot more backlash towards it from scared, mundane humans. Even now, there's oodles more magical beings than there ever were in the MCU, but they exist in insular communities, largely cut off from one another, thanks to centuries of anti-magic crusades courtesy of groups like the Forever Knights and their allies.

-It felt like the Masters of the Mystic Arts were pretty isolated sorcerer monks in the MCU with little, if any connection to the other magical spheres. They serve a more SHIELD-like role in the Kverse - just, y'know, not nearly as militaristic - providing much needed diplomacy and conflict resolution between the isolated magical realms and protecting them from factions that would seek their destruction. They're kinda like Jedi before the Clone Wars (and with some of the same flaws, too).

Regarding the characters:

-An important part of Kara's story is figuring out she's actually underpowered, and really, subconsciously holding herself back from the true strength and wide range of abilities of a Kryptonian under yellow sun conditions. You might infer that she was initially mirroring the perceived power level of the world around her (though there's some standouts, certainly).

-Tony's at least partially connected to a bunch of non-Marvel figures simply by virtue of being born into incredible wealth. All rich people know each other, on some level. I'd say he's also a little less reckless and short-sighted (but more paranoid), just because he's more aware of just how many powerful figures could easily change the status quo - good, bad, and everything in between. He'd be less inclined to go out in a blaze of fire, at least until he's reasonably sure other people could pick up the torch.

-While not fully tethered to Earth like the Olympians are, Thor's a lot more of an actual god than he is in the MCU. He can feel the belief directed at him, even if it doesn't sustain him, for example, and more generally I've strived to move away from the "Asgard and the Nine Realms aren't actually magic, just really advanced tech" angle of the earlier phases in the MCU. There's a high (equivalent) tech level, don't get me wrong, but their powers are magical in nature first and foremost.

-I think Steve's a little less jaded about the modern world, but also less patient with people who would do it harm, intentionally or otherwise. Like, I don't think Nick Fury would find it prudent to show him a secret helicarrier armada, for example, even to gain his trust. He's inspired by people living their truth and embracing each other in a way that would be pretty unimaginable in the 40s, but disappointed at authority figures for running a society no less unbalanced and disjointed than he left it (just in different ways).

[readyforevolution]

Burkina Faso renounces its Non-Double neocolonial Taxation Treaty with France, a pact that has been in place since 1967.

Burkina Faso under the leadership of Captain Ibrahim Traoré has withdrawn from the Non-Double neocolonial Taxation Treaty with France that was established in 1967.

The Burkina Faso government announced the termination of the double taxation agreement, signed on August 11, 1965, which had been in effect since February 15, 1967, along with its subsequent amendment signed on June 3, 1971, which took effect on October 1, 1974.

The decision comes as a result of France's refusal to renegotiate the terms of the agreement. Olivia Rouamba, head of Burkina Faso’s diplomatic service, explained that this action is necessary due to France's lack of response to requests for negotiations made in January 2020 and late 2021. The denunciation will become effective within three months from the date of notification.

This move is seen as significant, as it will impact French multinationals in Burkina Faso, who previously benefited from tax exemptions under the treaty.

A “huge blow” for France

Phillipe Traoré, a tax expert from Burkina Faso, explained that the double taxation treaty, among other things, allows individuals and companies to avoid paying taxes on the same income in two different countries.

He believes that this measure is “very serious for French multinationals” established in Burkina, adding that “all French income derived from activities carried out on Burkinabe soil will now be taxed.”

“In fact, with the convention signed, the Burkinabè did not deduct any withholding tax on income from services provided by French people (individuals and/or companies) in Burkina,” he said.

The tax expert pointed out that French companies, in particular, are exempt from many taxes in Burkina by virtue of the double taxation treaty.

In his opinion, this gives them a competitive advantage over all other companies operating in Burkina Faso.

“It is a real blow for France and a financial windfall for Burkina,” insisted Phillipe Traoré.

This denunciation comes 48 hours after France suspended all development aid and budgetary support to Burkina following the support given by the Burkinabe military junta to the National Committee for the Defence of the Homeland (CNSP), which overthrew Mohamed Bazoum in Niger on July 26.

[power-chords]

Some Miami Vice Thots*:

Big Screen, I Notice More Stuff: That club is called MANSION. Linkin Park (from Agoura Hills, or what seems to me to be the Westchester, NY of the San Fernando Valley — Californians please correct me if I'm wrong), mashed up with Jay-Z (a Black billionaire from the mean streets of Bed-Stuy, the New New Gatsby/Big Joe Turner). Relevant to bullet point immediately below.

According to Michael Mann Miami in the mid-aughts is Age of Discovery (Digital Edition) meets Crime Family Feudalism in recursive recurrence, multiple timelines and identities inhabiting the same geographic vectors (everyone is always forever in motion). The very first interaction Sonny has with someone who is not a team member is a bartender who says she is from Lisboa, to which Sonny replies, "But you got your tan in Miami." This is what I read: She's the "reformed" Portuguese equivalent of the character in this Butch Walker song. She came from money, she lost it perhaps, but she's been since... repossessed? There's a more sinister interpretation under the surface, since she is under the roof of a powerful (and possibly related) employer whose business operations require unwavering loyalty + utmost discretion in exchange for protection (which in this case is also exploitation). Tan, in other words, as a form of Midas touch. Sacrifice to a sun(/SON!!!) god (or is Sonny more of a defecting Samson figure, speaking to an inert "Neon" Delilah who will only feign at seduction/betrayal, moving through the moves?). So already these two characters are speaking in code to each other, which is an amazing storytelling device on Mann's behalf, and you can shake so much out of that.

Derived from the above: "My Mommy and Daddy know me," hilarious line btw, becomes double-doublespeak, quadruple-speak! Not only is he pretending to tell the truth under a fabricated fundamental, the statement itself is yet another subtextual lie. His parents don't really know him, they just thought they did, which is why he's run off to become what he's become. Rico is the partner who acts out of duty first, love secondarily; Sonny is the Byronic inverse. Diaspora southern gothic. I like to think this is the mythic re-interpretation/inspiration Mann wishes a certain American population would draw from, in lieu of... current political/pop cultural figureheads.

Gina tenderly comforting the injured Zito... this shot is seconds long and yet captures my heart every time! Where is the backstory fic for these two!

Once again, the Rico/Trudy sex scene is a definite contender for the most affectionate, respectful, and sensual one in Hollywood history

Oh, Isabella. My girl Isabella. I overheard someone in the lobby call this film "such a guy movie." I don't know what drugs these people are on. Especially when counterpart to the hypermasculine satirical camp is the sensitivity and sympathy with which Mann portrays the situation of women, how we are exploited either way/anyway, deprived of romantic trust/human partnership by being put at risk by men and also by them denied the agency of taking risks for ourselves. There's both heartbreak and hypocrisy in how she attacks Sonny at the end, screaming "Who are you!" (The audience's heartbreak is: We have an instinctive uneasy sense of the systems that force her, and the rest of us, to live as hypocrites. Who are any of us, anymore, really!)

I was like MICHAEL DO THE GARMENTO CRIME DRAMA W/ ME and he was like "I made Miami Vice already, dummy! Pay attention!" Me: "OK!!!" [Pays a visit to Auerbach's Keller in Grand Central Terminal and then stays up until 5 AM playtesting West Village: Walpurgisnacht/watching the Chicago & Miami Postmodern Pseudepigrapha about Non-Recourse Factoring]

The "color coding" in this film is bonkers. More on that eventually, I'm still chewing on it.

The duality of Man(n)ager: the tragic pathos imbued to Alonzo vs. the vaudevillian coercion of Nicholas. "Why is this happening to me?!" cracks me the fuck up. This most powerful, literally biblical quandary of them all, the whole of Mann's filmography boiled down to its most singular and direct (I.E., truthful) expression, in the form of a persecuted exclamation, and it's played for laughs. Because what can you do except laugh! It's Job(/lowercase job) as circus performance, as a cabaret act. Job's poetry parodied into factional slogans and Shandyan-American dick jokes. I can't believe people think this is a stupid movie, it's pretending to be stupid!!!

*The appropriate spelling for this film in particular

[ccaptain]

History Fictionologists. Hierarchy & Becoming a ''being'':

I have mentioned in almost every single one of my posts that H:SR Kaeya has lived for what I estimate to be millennias after being turned into a ''being'' of the Enigmata, and had time to develope himself and make experiences mostly by himself. By now, he has enstabilished himself as a kind character, if not a bit weird, with strong morals oriented towards a justice that he perceives.

He defines himself as a Fictionologists, but this isn't the truth. As per usual with the Enigmata and anything involving it, nothing is that simple.

I have imagined that, in this Path, there is a non-spoken hierarchy made of two distinct roles:

- The History Fictionologists, composed mostly of human Emanators of the Enigmata who operate long-distance avatars made from many collected traits from multiple sources. They predominantly work on altering history on paper in their personal Archives. - The ''beings'' of the Enigmata, Emanators turned into non-humans selected by Mythos. Trained to burn away their past identity and turned into eternal creatures, they are essentially back-ups of the limited human Fictionologists and operate on shrouding history in lies with more active approaches. 

These two roles technically belong in the same category- but to a trained eye who knows Fictionologists from experience, ''beings'' will always be recognizable due to the uncanny vibes they emit and can be picked up by other humans.

''It'' is commonly referred to a ''being'' approaching this concept in the first stage, stripped bare of anything they have of value. Social manners. Emotions. Knowledge. Communication skills. A purpose. It's a creature that has returned to Level 0, having to re-learn everything from the bare bones in order to pass off as human. 

A loss of their previous identity is necessary to achieve the status of ''being'' for their safety: while human Fictionologists can create entirely new avatars without the truth about them being revealed and causing them harm, the identity of a ''being'' being shone truth on would vanish as a whole- ''beings'' do not use a long-distance avatar, instead becoming one themselves. And thus, they need their previous identities to whittle away to make them unfoggable- eternally present, a forever unresolved mistery and a threat to those who think the human mind is strong enough to face the truth. To discover the truth behind someone's avatar is to erase it- for ''beings'', the stakes are much higher, and thus this process may seem cruel, but necessary.

The stages of a ''being'' have three phases, named as such by fascinated human Fictionologists:

Level 0, also called the Morphing Phase. The individual enters a slow process of degradation of the self that strips away anything related to their previous personality and identity they had, and morphs them into a new, clean slate with only the basic knowledge attached to what remains of them. It can be a very slow process and varies from person to person.  Level 1, also called Screening Phase. The ''being'' stemmed from the Morphing Phase needs to either re-learn by themselves or be taught again how to properly pass off as a normal human, before it can begin any sort of mission; for everything that they learn, whatever was left of their previous identity, if there were any remnants left of it, is further discarded as they become an entirely different thing. This process has been observed to be significantly sped up by turning oneself into an avatar, as the ''being'' absorbs the knowledge along with whatever traits they select; the name of this phase derives from the word screen as a verb, aka to block, protect or hide someone or something with a screen- related to how gaining different traits as a new avatar effectively acts as if the ''being'' was putting a ''screen'' in front of their true identity. Level 2, commonly paired and also at odds with Level 3, doesn't have a proper name: this was often a point of friction among the Fictionologists, who wanted the last two agents, Riddle and Mirage, to be somehow paired together in a new name to more easilbe able to group. However, after observing the ''beings'' for so long, it has been concluded that their behavior cannot be grouped under a singular name. Some of the ''beings'' grow to naturally pick the Riddle aspect, choosing to spread falselihood through voice and difficult guessing games that often reach a different branch of lies instead of the truth, where others grow closer to the Mirage one- using more tangible methods, such as manuscripts, recounts of historical events on papers, and even visual alterations of historical trinkets. Beings who are able to manipulate both subpaths are considered ''extraordinary'' and held in high regards. At some point, they can even become mentors themselves.

Once a ''being'' has reached the end of the Morphing level, it's usually paired with either a single human Fictionologist, who has expressed interest in teaching to ''it'' until a satisfying level of knowledge is reached, and to document the experience- or with a group of Fictionologists who were extremely attuned in working as a team, in order to not give contrasting instructions to the ''being''.

The Screening Phase can last weeks, months or even years. Every ''being'' takes its time to learn, and every human Fictionologist has their methods to teach. If an human and a ''being'' clash, the ''being'' is immediately reassigned to another proper human teacher in order not to hinder the process too much.

When Level 2, aka the successful ''screening'' is complete through becoming an avatar, the ''being'' is sufficiently proficient in mimicking that it can essentially ''graduate'' and be sent in the outside world to undertake the task of directly shroud history- thus engaging in Level 2 or 3 based on what they feel more inclined to take.

That being said, usually an human Fictionologist and the ''being'' they taught to usually stay in good terms. There are reports of Fictionologists essentially becoming friends or becoming found family for the ''beings'', as they continue to be reported to. This is not frowned upon and has become the normality in how things work, in order for history to continue being shrouded both in writing and person.

[aimlessgeology]

The Venture Bros.

The Venture Bros. comments on many assumptions from the Golden and Silver Age of comics. It parodies certain elements of comic book history, including ‘the boy adventurer’ (Jonny Quest) trope and space-age fiction themes and aesthetics. The series follows Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture, a sad failure of a Super Scientist living in the shadow of his late larger-than-life father, Dr. Jonas Venture. Rusty is a superhero in title but not in practice, yet he still has a rotating cast of villains and sidekicks around him. His arch nemesis is a villain called The Monarch, who I focus on for this piece. I think Rusty represents the more cynical, morally ambiguous Silver age of comics while his father represents the authoritarian Golden age, to put it into Williams’ framework from “(R)Evolution of the Television Superhero”. The Venture Bros contributes to a misanthropic view of superhero narratives. All of the characters have major flaws directly connected to their association with Super Heroism and its flipside, Super Villainy. Changes in values over time are shown in the narrative through flashbacks and convoluted storylines involving many characters over several seasons. Overall, though, the series pokes fun and levies criticism against prevalent superhero notions. 

The Monarch, Dr. Venture’s Arch Nemesis, is a scrawny, goateed, middle-aged white male who has made a career out of being evil. In some ways, he is very successful, with an awesome spaceship headquarters, a team of devoted henchmen, and a sexy villainess girlfriend. However, the Monarch is shown to oscillate between overconfident and insecure, as seeking validation, and as unable to thwart his self-proclaimed nemesis, no matter how many opportunities he gets. 

The Monarch represents an attitude of dissatisfaction among men who actually have quite a bit going for them. I feel like this reflects a culture of misplaced victimhood held by some men as the liberation of women and other oppressed groups makes them feel like they are losing some kind of power or status. 

The Venture Bros. is all about funny costumes and character design. The Monarch has leaned all the way into his butterfly-and-insect-themed villainy. His costume is an integral part of his character, and he is rarely seen without it. 

His voice and mannerisms are enough to make the Monarch recognizable even when he is not in costume, but he derives much of his power from his outfit, the consistent theme of his evil operation, and his flashy technology. The Monarch has a hard time performing villainy when not in costume. In this universe, Villany is a career, and the job requires a uniform.

The show is definitely influenced by 9/11 and the entrance of Gen Xers into the media scene. The show debuted in 2003, when the Cold War Kids (not the band) were finally entering the workforce and the public eye and expressing their feelings and attitudes about social and political realities of the time. The Monarch is an expression of social, economic and political disillusionment that can go in divergent directions and lead to extremism. Venture represents apathy and adherence to established systems, despite their idiocy.

In Season 1 Episode 11, the viewer gets a glimpse into the normal and domestic side of super people when they meet members of The Guild of Calamitous Intent when Venture hosts a yard sale at his compound. He invites all the Villains he works against and among, with the understanding that no harm can come to him because it is not guild-approved and therefore the villains have no legs to stand on in terms of evil.

Even so, the Monarch, Dr. Venture’s sworn enemy, wreaks non-approved havok at the yard sale, causing a brawl in search of a suitable bathroom. Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend sneak into the compound and see the sad emptiness of Dr. Venture’s life. For a moment it seems the Monarch has a realization about his Villainy and almost gives up “Arching” Dr. Venture, but when the security team gives him a fright, the Monarch vows to destroy Dr. Venture and reconstitutes the Nemesis status.

I think this faltering of ideology that the Monarch experiences shows how perceived obligations are subject to change situationally. This applies to foreign relations because attitudes about domestic policy, domestic views on other countries, and also relationships between nations and states are products of history but also are fluid.

@theuncannyprofessoro