#Or that the essential workers that survived are in fact also people

[pepperpatrol]

I fall into a deep burnout depression every year in November until about the middle of January like clock work bc strangers berate me, physically threaten me, throw shit at me, scream about how I'm ruining christmas etc etc all coinciding with the time of year that the sun starts going down at 3PM, a moratorium on sickdays and vacation time and hundreds of stupid fucking boxes every day but I don't get to send any of them to jail for 15 years.

[super-ultra-mega-deluxe]

Simply believing in ML, or joining an ML org, will not help when the lights go out or food runs out. How can we contend with that?

Marxism-Leninism isn't an arbitrary set of beliefs for one to adopt on a whim, it is a political theory and specifically action, part of which is in fact to "help when the lights go out" or even better, to make sure they don't! communist politics- and really any politic- are what those politics do. Marx explicitly frames it as such, as an ideological formulation that is a tool for practical application. taken outside of its context and application, Marxism is an absurd nothing, as again are all politics. i could provide examples of how communists facilitate the production and distribution of goods, or otherwise manage economics at variable scale and locale, which is rather what i assume you mean to be getting at with your question. your framing is rather nonspecific however: in what economic and political context is there a communist party contending with failures in energy infrastructure and food production and distribution?

the "help when the lights go out" strikes a particular chord, as somewhat recently the socialist nation of Cuba has been forced to contend with fuel shortages; their domestic oil production can't meet the needs of the general populace, and oil imports are inconsistent due to the US embargo. the people of Cuba are, thankfully, not becoming grossly immiserated or dying en masse despite such being the intention of the embargo. they have instituted fuel rationing and rolling blackouts to further conserve fuel and maintain essential services, such as their healthcare system. this of itself is obviously only a reactive policy; the state has also been rebuilding and expanding its oil storage facilities to better handle fluctuations in supply, and more recently they have agreed to a bilateral development agreement with China to substantially expand Cuba's nascent solar power generation. paired with their newfound partnership with BRICS- a move which undermines the aforementioned embargo in a much more material way than a UN vote- Cuba is on a path to fully meet the energy needs of its people and even expand access over the next decade.

that all said, i doubt you specifically care much for Marxist-Leninist experiments as they exist, and are more concerned with the prefiguration of politics before anything like achieving state power, and more specifically within the imperial core, where denying the possibility of effecting revolutionary politics is the most prominent. there are not presently many Marxist-Leninist parties of note in the US, the imperial core, but even less principled communist parties nonetheless consider the economic realities of the workers they represent first and foremost. the old Black Panthers were perhaps the closest to a truly revolutionary socialist movement in the US, and one of the policies they are most famous for is the free breakfast program and the broader Survival Programs they ran. these programs provided food and medical care and education and transportation for many who were subject to economic insecurity; the failure of these programs was a failure of militancy and counterintelligence and scope. the modernly popular if unfortunately less coherent and less principled PSL also runs health and wellness programs, such as kitchens and exercise classes and vocational programs and so on, which is their attempt at replicating such formulations.

it is rather specifically a concern of communists to organize the proletariat to provide for their own needs outside the purview of a capitalist state, and every revolutionary of note before, during, and after seizing power emphasizes such. the ability to do so pending a revolutionary moment is necessarily limited however; you cannot build an administration of economy parallel to an extant state without coming into conflict with that state. even non-communist organizations attempt to build up community programs, but they are either dissolved or incorporated into the state apparatus or otherwise operate under its purview. the ultimate goal is then as always the destruction of the bourgeois state machine and the building of a proletarian state machine, the armies of people organized in enforcing the will of the proletariat as a class, which allows for the more concrete and pointed organization of the economy broadly.

[bitethedevil]

Why does Raphael hate Mephistopheles and why does he live in Avernus?: Raphael as an outcast

(It has been a little while since my last analysis post. I would like to remind everyone that what I’m talking about is purely my own theories and I always love to hear other people’s thoughts on them no matter if you agree or not <3.)

As we know, Raphael lives in Avernus and not in Cania where Mephistopheles rules. All devils essentially somehow serve an archdevil. The Nine Hells is a super hierarchical place and everyone below the archdevils are basically little worker bees who live to serve their respective archdevils in one way or another.

Raphael collects souls, so one can expect that his job is to some extent to harvest souls for whoever is above him. One would expect that the archdevil he serves is Mephistopheles, but he indirectly helps us rob his father of quite a lot of souls by telling us about Cazador's ritual. That seems like an incredibly stupid and risky move if he worked for Mephistopheles, so I am not quite sold on the fact that he serves his dear old papa.

We know from the Archivist that Zariel’s people keep a bit of an eye on him and comes and goes in his house. Given he also lives in Avernus, it would make more sense that he is forced to serve Zariel at least to some extent. My money is on the idea that his official superior (or his boss, if you will) is Zariel and not Mephistopheles, though I think he might have once served Meph.

Here is a super interesting piece of information that I found about Avernus (this is from the Fiendish Codex II):

“Avernus is home to the outcasts of Baator, also known as ‘the rabble of devilkin.’ Few lesser devils survive more than a few moments as outcasts, so this group is composed almost exclusively of unique devils who are equals of any duke.”

My theory is that Raphael is an outcast and that’s why he’s in Avernus. Perhaps his father got tired of him and got rid of him, fully thinking that he would not survive. I am almost certain that cambions would fall under the ‘lesser devils’ category, or at the very least they are not on the level of dukes. I feel like it’s also often said that Raphael is pretty OP compared to a simple cambion, which is most likely the only reason he has survived (I’ve also heard people talk about him as a duke, which fits into this little theory as well).

There’s more though, and this is where it gets really kind of speculative:

“Some outcast devils, such as Azazel and Dagon, have been stripped of their original names to reduce the chances that they will be summoned to the Material Plane.”

Now, Raphael is a cambion, so he can move between planes regardless, but it would still be a very shitty and dehumanizing thing to strip someone of their name. Mephistopheles being Mephistopheles probably would do something like that if he was pissed at someone.

I have always thought a lot about his name. “Raphael” is a name that we would mostly associate with angels, and not devils. It furthermore does not really sound like any other devil names I’ve come across. It literally means “God’s healer” or something along those lines.

Wouldn’t it be so in character for his dramatic ass, who loves to play human and to play benevolent savior, to choose an angel name for himself? At the Last Light Inn, he literally says that Mol would not believe that he’s a devil because of his “angelic complexion”.

Finally, there’s this:

“Treacherous and scheming, the outcast dukes constantly seek ways to either reclaim their former positions or ranks in the Nine Hells or to destroy or displace the current order. […] Either way, they serve as important pawns between feuding archdukes and dukes.”

Now that definitely sounds like someone we know. I would very much say that wanting the Crown of Karsus to take over the Hells falls under “destroying or displacing the current order”. However, Raphael still has mentions of his father around his house and he has a portal to Cania.

It would not surprise me that Mephistopheles started to show interest in him again after he survived and thrived in Avernus. It would also not surprise me if Raphael, despite all the hate for what his father has done to him, licks Mephistopheles boots to gain favor with him behind closed doors (or at the very least to gain information to give to Zariel behind his father’s back).

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

[mesetacadre]

I've been curious as to why in a lot of socialist states, there seems to be such a reverence of their leaders - I understand why strict adherence to the Party is necessary to oppose counter-revolutionaries and for the survival of a Dictatorship of the Proletariat but I've always had trouble recounciling the fact that there seems to always be cults of personalities around leaders.

Is this image of a cult of personality in socialist states completely fabricated by capitalists? I feel like it must at least be exaggerated by the West, and I understand that these leaders are/were popular amongst their populations for the good they have done, but I would like to know if there is more to it.

As a slight aside before the meat of the question, adherence to the party is mainly necessary because as the party of the proletariat, it should sum all of the interests of the class into a single program and a single will. Apart from the issue of survival and defense, it's mainly a political reasoning.

We should have in mind the context of these "cults of personalities". The places in which socialism has imposed itself for any significant amount of time have essentially been imperial periphery, meaning a colonized people with decades of savage exploitation weighing heavily in their minds. The case of the USSR was an imperialist country, although living conditions within the empire were nothing to be envied, and in the case of Eastern Europe, a cautious parallel can be drawn to fascist occupation and the various reactionary dictatorships of the interwar period, with the myriad of little regional wars and population transfers. To sum up, socialism has been a liberatory force, one that sided with the powerless in their most miserable times and brought them to run their own state, and enjoy the full fruits of their collective labor. Keep this point in mind for a moment.

Idolization of individuals is an attitude that has been inherited from nodes of production that benefit from taking the focus away from masses of people as classes by shifting it to extraordinary individuals. It is an aspect of psychology that is still nowadays very hard to escape because it has been conditioned so deeply into the collective consciousness, if one allows me to borrow a Freudian concept. History is taught through individuals, but we also conceive of all political leadership in terms of individuals. The administration of so and so, the such and such era, etc. Most communists also do this to an extent, for instance, when we talk about the history of the USSR or of China or Cuba, we rely on the tenure of individuals or at least use it as a crutch for compartimentalizing periods.

With these two things in mind, it's not surprising to see idolatry of individual communist leaders to happen. I'd agree with you that it's not exactly desirable, but the context in which revolutions take place are the smoldering ashes of the old, not a foundation of freshly-poured concrete. A lot of communist states also leaned into this individual worship, and while I won't get into specific examples, I will say that the ones I know of have a satisfactory explanation, or at the very least the reasoning behind the choice at the time makes sense. Regardless of this, the propaganda that comes out the mouth of the Pentagon is exaggerated and at times complete fabrications.

Let's take a modern example, for a change of pace. It is true that the Kim family has included all general secretaries of the Worker's Party of Korea, and that Korean people in the north have very positive opinions of the Kims. Did Kim Jong Un force all Koreans to have his haircut? or forbid all babies to be named after him? or force every house and establishment to have a portrait of him? Absolutely not.

All of this scare-mongering plays very deftly into the pre-conceived expectation of people in liberal democracies of politicians being polarizing figures or largely disliked. This propaganda simultaneously reinforces a normalization of this expectation, which does prevent some people from acting on their discontent, and also convinces people that there can be no such thing as a politician who genuinely does govern for the benefit of the social majority and is liked for it. "A worker's state can't possibly be so because it's impossible for a state to truly satisfy all people, they must all be under the spell of a personality cult!" thinks the worker living in a bourgeois dictatorship reading the umpteenth ridiculously exaggerated story of Kim's dictatorial whims.

[gatheringbones]

[“A reminder I find helpful is that trauma, especially developmental trauma, often shapes our thinking into this polarity, this all/nothing, pink/blue, man/woman. When I view the rigidity of this binary through this lens, I can also be more compassionate towards myself and others when we get caught in its net.

All/nothing patterns are tough to break out of, after all. We can notice the rigidity of the gender binary in a range of ways: the gendering of chromosomes, body parts, behaviors, mannerisms, clothing, emotions, toys, experiences, and so on. All/nothing thinking patterns are those that view duality as the only option. For example: you are male or female, good or bad, with us or against us. Given that we live in a cloud of historical, intergenerational, cultural and social trauma when it comes to gender, it makes sense that we have internalized much of this thinking.

In fact, even when we get away from binary ideas of gender, we might still engage in all/nothing thinking patterns, if we are not careful. For example, some young people who identify as trans and/or nonbinary have internalized such a deep need to police gender that they might be afraid of being viewed as “trans trenders” (that is people who think they are trans because it’s “trendy”). Within this paradigm, you are trans or not (another all/nothing pattern). There is no exploring, playing or considering; there is simply, you are or you are not. Some trans and cis people alike question the validity of nonbinary genders, and then other trans and/or nonbinary people turn around and talk about “truscum,” that is, those trans people who align with a medicalized and pathologizing model of gender and believe that dysphoria is an essential trait for some people.

All/nothing patterns are insidious and, if we are not careful, we tend to reproduce the same discourses that oppressed us, creating and recreating boundaries around gender identities and experiences to make sure we know who is “in” and who is “out,” who is “with us” and who is “against us.” While these patterns are understandable, when people are hurt, in survival mode and trying to protect themselves, this is not conducive to healing or liberation. As long as there is policing of gender, any gender, there cannot truly be liberation. This is a really tough one for many of us who have been hurt by rigid gender binaries, and who might have come to our identities through hardship, risk and loss. It is so tempting to feel that now that we are “in,” whichever label, identity or experience that “in” might be, we get to police others and make sure that “fakers” and “trenders” are kept out.

We are simply afraid. Afraid that if we let anyone in who is not 100 percent certain, or in agreement with us, or just like us, we might get hurt. We are afraid that whatever we have built will be blown away. It is understandable. It is what everyone is afraid of. Trauma keeps us afraid of one another. Colonial and patriarchal ways of thinking divide us, and seduce us into believing that, if we behave in certain ways, we too could have power over our little domain, whatever that domain might be. However, these are all lies, lies that trauma tells us and that oppression thrives on. These dualities of Men are from Mars and Women from Venus, cis women against trans women, sex workers versus SWERFs (sex worker exclusive radical feminists) are all deeply rooted in historical, cultural and social trauma.

How can we, then, find another way? The idea of another way is key. If polarities are foundational to all/nothing patterns, our way to liberation can only be found in a third road. Building and nurturing flexibility in our individual and collective soma (bodies) is therefore key. Practicing saying and noticing the maybe, the pause between breathing in and breathing out, reflection, curiosity, slow, kind and consensual relationships are key to healing. We cannot heal from gendered trauma when we are still caught in rigid polarities, still invested in finding a perpetrator or savior so that we can stay in a victim place. Or so invested in being the irredeemable perpetrator that there is no hope for us. Once more, it starts with us, our own gender journey and dismantling internalized polarities first.

Once we engage with this work, we can then support those around us—be they clients, students, fellow community members and communities—to challenge those polarities within themselves and one another. This might all seem very idealistic, and it is. I truly believe we cannot move towards healing through violence. If we are to heal from gendered trauma it has to be through relationships: human, messy, complicated, infuriating, joyful, loving relationships. We cannot be in relationship when we are in opposition. We can be in a tug of war, push and pull at one another but, as long as we stay locked into these patterns, we can only view ourselves as victors and losers. In the meantime, the only victors seem to be systems of oppression.”]

alex iantaffi, from gender trauma: healing cultural, social, and historical gendered trauma, 2020

[ktechnicolour]

Yoglabs: Behind Closed Doors - Mass Spoiler Post

General Outline

So the general outline for the plot revolved around my OC Subject K, and her rose tinted perspective on the state of yoglabs before slowly uncovering the truth of her own purpose as well as the underlying secrets the lab holds.

The story is set after the events of Shadow of Israphel and Yoglabs with the series like Blackrock, Flux buddies, Flux Baddies and Sipsco all being cannon to the universe.

Character Plots

Since the story is so heavily character focused and thats kinda the layout in my head, ill breakdown events via characters and important points.

Subject K

The main character of the story. She was born on a boat to an archaeologist couple, however her mother died in childbirth. Her father treasured her dearly, and brought her along for alot of his studdies, teaching her to draw and gifting her the sketchbook she has. During studies into the lost 4th dimension, (the aether, the nether and the errebus are all cannon with the lost 4th dimension being oceanus) their boat is attacked by a greater elder guardian and destroyed. This gives her a deep fear of the sea and anything tentacle-y. K washes up on a beach and walks aimlessly for days in search of any kind of civilization to help her. She finally comes across a town of people who rather than help her, drive her out as an ill omen saying she'll only bring destruction. Tired and close to giving up on everything, she hides away in a nearby cave for shelter and decides she's better off alone. She ends up stealing what she needs from the village to survive, surviving but never really making anything of herself. One night, during a usual raid on the village, it also gets raided by yoglabs, capturing the villagers and herself in the process. She is then used as the 11th subject in project divinity, a project aiming to recreate Ridgedog. she's spliced with his DNA and given a secondary heart and circulatory system, and though she survives, she doesn't manifest any of the power or abilities of her predecessor. The fact that her second heart doesn't work is actually what saves her life. in a desperate attempt to kickstart her 2nd heart and her magic, Xephos decides to use what they have left of Ridges Ichor, essentially, liquified magic that pumps through the secondary circulatory system of a demigod fuelling their power. This kickstarts her magic, but she cant control it properly. Her body just keeps generating energy with no limit. her outburst of power on the village, destroying it entirely stops her from burning out and overloading herself by venting some of the excess power. When she's brought back to the labs, she's fitted with her collar and told by Xephos its to keep her alive. while not entirely a lie, what she isn't told is that it slowly siphons her energy to fuel a secret project at the labs Site B. more on that later. She's thankful for a proper home and a second chance at life and through her interactions with Xephos, she comes to understand him as a very conflicted and troubled man. At one point she finds him late at night passed out with a bottle of gin next to Honeydew's clone vat. at that point she develops a sense of sympathy for the lonely spaceman as a kindred spirit. She knows herself how devastating loss can be. Once her magic awakens, she has dreams that are flashbacks to Ridge's life including time spent with his brother, who always refers to him as "pup". (i had some ideas with coming up with a fun anagram for his brothers name, but the best i could do was Earlship)

Xephos

Originally an alien who crash lands, leading into the events of Shadow of Israphel, they face off with the man himself deep in the heart of one of his facilities (heehoo site B) where Israphel is attempting to rebuild one of the huge robots (remember the hand in the sand?) and has been using a cloning system to create workers and versions of himself. He is also using Ridgedog as a generator to fuel the energy needed for the giant robot. The original Israphel is hooked up to what seems to be a large life support machine. they stop Israphel's plan, but Xephos receives a fatal blow. To save his best friends life, Honeydew hooks him up to the life support system granting him control of the facility. They rebuild the Yoglabs main site, originally using it for good, but Xephos becomes obsessed with the cloning systems. after loosing Knight Peculiar, he cant bare the thought of loosing Honeydew and through extensive testing develops a strange desensitization to the meaning of loss. After the Clone Labs Takeover Honeydew's current clone replaces the original master version. (yes I know that's not exactly how it goes in the episode, but CREATIVE LICENCE) however, since cloning at this point is still imperfect, this new Master Clone slowly deteriorates, loosing memories, cognitive functions. imagine immense dementia. until the point Xephos stops cloning him, not wanting to make the situation any worse. Xephos thows himself even deeper into perfecting cloning to save his best friend, but begins loosing sight of his reasoning through obsession. When he begins trying to clone Ridgedog despite ridge's warnings, the first attempt ends in a catastrophic failure, destroying a large portion of the labs in the process. Ridgedog confronts him on this to which Xephos challenges him to a duel. Ridge begrudgingly accepts, and the swordfight takes place on the cliff above the main door of the lab. Ridge easily beats Xephos and begins lecturing xeph on the danger of what he's messing with. as ridge turns to look out over the cliff face, Xephos strikes, running him through and leaning close revealing himself to be controlled by israphel; "you always were too trusting, Pup." before kicking him off the top of the labs. Ridge falls landing in a huge explosion of light. While Xephos is being controlled by Israphel, most of the time its rather subtle, twisting xephos' beliefs and desires into his own. With the original Ridgedog now gone, Xephos dives even deeper into project divinity, driven by Xephos' regret and Israphels need for a replacement power source for the giant robot project; Sentinel. Thus, K is created being the first surviving subject.

Lalnable Hector

Lalnable is one of 3 active Lalnas in the universe. the others being Lalna, the Flux Buds Variant and LividCoffee the original from the Duncan's lab series. Lalnable plays the biggest part in the story of the 3 being Yoglabs' clone. while defective, Lalnable is all yoglabs is left with in terms of lalna since Livid left destroying any record of his original DNA in the process. Lalnable does leave yoglabs before subject Ks creation to investigate the flux buddies and the events of Flux Baddies takes place. However, Specimen 5s Flux corruption quickly grows out of control and rather than deal with the mess and fast spreading flux corruption, he cuts his losses and flees back to yoglabs. The magical corruption however gains the attention of a certain endermage, Rythian, who tracks Lalnable back to the labs, breaking in to confront the scientist about his actions. Rather than kicking rythian out, Xephos takes the opportunity to make a deal with the mage, if yoglabs offers its resources to deal with the flux, rythian would offer his understanding of magic to help subject K better control her powers. Xephos orders Lalnable to assist and capture specimen 5. Subject K begs to go along, and against Xephos' wishes and through Rythians persuasion, she's granted leave under the exception that she wears a special system, in the form of a backpack that connects to her collar, since the system isnt designed to work outside the labs. I was planning some rather fun interactions between the 3 of them with Rythian taking a begrudging liking to K because of her resemblance to Zoeya.

Specimen 5

In an attempt to better understand Lalna, Lalnable creates his own version of Nano. However, since 5 is created from already corrupted material, 5s corruption spreads abnormally fast turning her into an abomination of tentacles and claws that spreads flux wherever she goes. Lalnable, although having developed feelings for 5, is a reckless coward who flees rather than facing his responsibilities. The magical corruption created by 5 gets the attention of Rythian, since due to his background, is rather sensitive to magic in the world. Due to this sensitivity however, he is unable to deal with the flux alone since it would very quickly corrupt him if infected.

Rythian Enderborn

After the events of Blackrock, a space fairing bounty hunter, Fiona crash lands at their castle. through helping repair her ship, Zoeya develops feelings for the bounty hunter. torn between Rythian and her new love, Rythian makes the difficult choice to encourage her to leave. Left with fishton and a painful goodbye, Rythian is once again alone. Living with the regret of loosing the girl he loved and never telling her the truth of how he feels, he shuts himself away, endlessly studying and taking up a deep interest in alchemy. While out on a material gathering trip, he comes across the huge amounts of flux quickly spreading through the lands and the horrifying creature causing it. with further investigation, he spots a fleeing Lalnable who he decides to trail all the way back to the labs. He confronts Lalnable on his recklessness before Xephos walks in on them, K in tow. after getting the whole story Xephos sees the opportunity to gain a magic expert and a monstrous weapon in one go and tells them to capture the creature, promising Lalnable they'll help Five any way they can. (a blatant lie) and in return for Yoglabs' resources, Rythian would help K with controlling her magic, Xephos hoping she'll make a more useful asset in the future. Rythian agrees to help, intending to sneak away once the flux is cleared. however, through traveling with subject K and Lalnable, he grows a fondness for K. she reminds him of Zoeya. When they finally confront Five, K freezes, terrified by the tentacles, reminding her of the night she lost her father. Rythian manages to get her out of harms way before working begrudgingly with Lalnable to secure Five. Back at the labs K is excited to have a new friend to show around. after a few days of working together, she decides they should take a break so K can show rythian her favourite part of the labs. She takes him to the botanical conservatory, excitedly showing him all the generating flora she's been working on in her spare time. Its a very sweet moment of downtime before the sprinkler system kicks in to water everything. Rythian's skin burns and blisters in the downpour and K panics to get him somewhere safe. This is when her healing magic manifests as she apologizes profusely, healing the burns, much to rythians surprise and awe. Rythian vaguely explains his enderborn origin, though not going into much detail about his past. After some reminiscing he mistakingly calls K zoeya, leading into a conversation about his relationship and regrets. K sympathises, but also tells rythian he should never have let her go. understandably, rythian becomes rather upset and leaves the labs later that night.

Dr. Riviera, Epsilon and Grimm

Sometime after rythian leaves, K is wandering the labs upset and mulling over her conversation with rythian, when she notices something watching her out the corner of her eye. She chases it, managing to corner the strange creature which huddles in the corner chewing on a book. K realises this is her Sketchbook and become extremely irate. Riviera comes across the two, attempting to diffuse the situation, slowly convincing Epsilon to part with the sketchbook in return for a bag of jellybeans. Riviera takes the two back to Bio-engineering, getting Epi to apologize, though her words are broken and childlike, explaining that Epsilon isnt supposed to leave this section of the labs and that if Xephos knew about her, Riviera would be in trouble. K finds herself unable to stay mad at the adorable creature and promises to keep her secret just as they realise Xephos standing in the doorway. Xephos lectures Riviera on his purpose in the labs, that he should be creating bio-weapons, not kids show mascots. he threatens Riviera with cutting his med supply, which Riviera sadly agrees to, promising he'll fix epsilon soon. K tries to ask Riv about the purpose of his meds and why he seems so scared of Xephos. She promises to come by again soon and bring epsilon some less sketchbooky snacks. When K returns a few days later Rivieras mannerisms are off and he seems strangely excited to show K his work on epsilon. Epi is completely unrecognizable, having been reworked into a monster, he mouth dripping with acidic poison. K is horrified by his inhumane treatment of the creature he showed so much care for, calling him a monster. Riviera seems to argue with himself about this before K flees in disgust and just generally being creeped out. Epsilon breaks out of containment, creeping into Ks quarters during the night. K manages to wake up and notice before Epsilon destroys her sketchbook snatching it away just in time. K is furious with her sketchbook almost being destroyed and what Epsilon has become. She kicks Epi out into the hallway against the wall when Riviera runs over blocking Ks way. She confronts him on how he could do this to herm getting very mixed and confusing responses. This is when she finds out about Grimm, who manifests threatening Riviera. Grimm essentially appears as a phantom of smoke escaping from Riviera's missing eye socket. imagine a Jekyll and Hyde kind of deal. Riviera gives in to Grimms threats promising to keep working on Epsilon. Riviera explains Grimm to K and apologizes for what he's done, telling her about the meds that keep Grimm in check. K promises she'll help him find another way and that Epi doesn't deserve this.

The True Nature of the Collar

K attempts to confront Xephos on the matter with Riviera and sees a side of xephos she never has before. he threatens her, telling her to know her place since she belongs to him. he reminds K that she's nothing without the labs and that everything she has was given to her by him. K, unable to stand against xephos attempts to flee the labs, but as she crosses the threshold of the main doors exit her collar overloads, electrocuting her and shorting out the labs systems. Xephos comes running and K expects the worst, but instead his mannerisms are forgiving and concerned. He reminds K that the collar is keeping her alive and cant work outside the labs. he apologizes for his previous comments, telling K he only wants to keep her safe. He sends her to the med bay to have her and her collar checked over for damages. (aka, turning up the amps to knock her out next time) As Xephos leaves, he muses over the power of the shock the collar delivers not being high enough to knock her unconscious, revealing the true nature of the collar; Keeping K bound and loyal.

Dr. Riviera, Epsilon and Grimm (.Cont)

K returns to Riviera explaining what happened, and Riviera reveals he's working to change epi back to her adorable self. K advises Riviera to appeal to Xephos' better nature, and Riviera explains the fate of his previous experiment, Delta. Delta was an extremely smart and powerful creation. essentially, similar to the endo rex from Jurassic world, but far more intelligent. Riviera reveals that Delta was created with a human brain, which although caused it to be intelligent, introduced issues of free will and was inevitably destroyed. Riviera was warned against using human brains to create creatures, but reveals that he broke this rule when creating epsilon. Epsilon, rather than being created to be a bio-weapon, was intended to be a secret project for Riviera to create a companion, purely for company. Were Xephos to find out about her origins, or Grimm to finish his work on her, both would be disastrous. Lalnable, being bored and poking his nose around find out about epsilon, and realises straight away she's far too intelligent not to have a human brain and uses this info to barter for info on the flux buddies. Naturally, Xephos is pretty pissed at this and confronts Riviera, telling him he was only hired because of Grimm. Epsilon manages to sneak away in the heated argument and seek aid from K, who confronts Xephos on what the labs stand for meanwhile Grimm sees an opportunity in Riviera's emotional state to attempt full control. in the struggle, Riviera manages to take the corrupted missing eye out of his pocket but cant bring himself to destroy it, so K does instead, destroying Grimm. Xephos' response is to fire Riviera before storming out of the bio-engineering lab.

Confrontation

K tails after Xephos, demanding explanation and telling xeph hes being unreasonable, and Xephs facade with her drops. he's cold and harsh to her, telling her she's nothing more than a means to an end. she looses her temper, but before she can loose control of her powers, Xephos activates her collar shocking her unconscious. She then awakes to find herself in a dark and unknown part of the labs with her collar hooked up to a bunch of glowing pipes and systems trailing off into the dark. (yall remember the flashback on page 15?) Unlike ridge she manages to overpower the system, partially because her body creates more energy than the system was built for originally but also because ridge never tried to break out of it for backstory reasons~ She finds her way into the deeper parts of site B, finding the original xephos hooked up to some kind of life support system. She's discovered by the imposter Xephos who reveals his plans for reviving a giant sentinel. (remember that hand in the sand?) After some big bad guy monologuing, Israphel/xephos reveals himself and his real reasoning for trying to remake ridgedog. They have an epic giant robot boss battle showdown, and K realizes that he's dependent on Xephos. She pulls Xephos from the system, but he wont wake up. She pours so much healing magic into him that she burns out her magic entirely and collapses just as he wakes up. She finally comes to in the med bay with xephos looking over her and they go over what happened.

Wrap Up

Essentially, this was the end of the first arc. I had some rough ideas for a Grimm focused spin off dealing with what happened to Epi and why Riviera is troubled by Grimm.

I also had plans for K going off to find Ridge to restore her magic and a whole story that involved Kirin too. But that was more self indulgent and a little more creatively licensed in terms of what the characters were like. This also included a scene with K standing between Ridge and Kirin mid fight which causes the giant scar on her back thats been shown in a few of my arts.

So that's kinda the whole deal. Lord knows i've probably missed a bunch of details and little things, but generally that's the whole story.it would've been cool to finish the whole thing but personal health and mental stability just didn't allow for it. That said, the story is still very much alive in my heart and I'm always happy to talk to people about the setting for behind closed doors. If anyone has any queries or questions about anything that I've missed or not covered properly, feel free to drop something in my ask box anytime :) Footnote: This ended up taking a lot longer that I intended since I've recently had a lot of mental health struggles so please be kind ;u;

[mermaidsirennikita]

A few people have asked me for the recs that come with my historical romance archetype quiz in full, and since it's been around a week and I've been procrastinating.... Here they are, in order of popularity (check your triggers, as always):

The Good Guy (by far the winning result... which saddens me a little as a reader but I respect your life and your choices):

Unclaimed by Courtney Milan--virgin hero, sex worker heroine, he's a genuinely lovely man

Scandal in Spring by Lisa Kleypas--a lot of people like Matthew Swift, I like Matthew Swift, there's a very good scene where she hides a key in her bodice and is like COME FIND IT

My Fake Rake by Eva Leigh--gender-flipped She's All That retelling with a nerdy hero who fake dates his equally nerdy friend while being super in love with her

Unmasked by the Marquess by Cat Sebastian--this blurs into a rake vibe, but the hero is a disaster bi who falls in love with his new best friend, only to find out that said best friend is not a man but in fact AFAB and NB; there is a delightful scene in which he watches them from across a ballroom while they pull their glove off with their teeth that lives rent-free in my head

Gentleman in the Streets, Freak in the Sheets:

The Duke Gets Even by Joanna Shupe--THEEEEEE PRIME EXAMPLE, "I'm going to cover you in bite marks, darling" Duke of Lockwood I'm your biggest fan

The Duke Who Knew Too Much by Grace Callaway--the one where the duke is like "oh my god girl I didn't murder anyone I'm just into tying people up consensually"

Waking Up with the Duke by Lorraine Heath--the one where the hero's cousin asks the hero to knock up the cousin's wife and the hero is like "I mean because you asked nicely"; SUPREME angst

The Earl I Ruined by Scarlett Peckham--uptight earl is slandered by the heroine who insinuates that he likes submitting in the bedroom; incorrect, he actually wants to tie her tf up

The Truth About Cads and Dukes by Elisa Braden--marriage of convenience with the world's most uptight duke and a heroine who thinks he finds her plain and fat and gross when in fact he mostly just spends his time restraining himself from doing nasty things to her

Villain Recs:

Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas--because you gotta, though St. Vincent is a softer touch villain than some ("he wouldn't have actually... done it... riiiight?")

Duke of Sin by Elizabeth Hoyt--a kidnapping loony tunes hero who blackmails everyone, stabs freely, and calls the heroine the wrong name for like 70% of the book; he also stabs someone while completely naked except for his pink robe

The Dragon and the Pearl by Jeannie Lin--Tang Dynasty evil warlord hero kidnaps heroine to use her for information, then realizes he's falling in love

Shadowheart by Laura Kinsale--medieval assassin hero forces the heroine into marriage for his evil plot, makes her his apprentice in evil, then realizes he SUUUUPER likes it when she doms him

The Prince of Broadway by Joanna Shupe--hero owns a casino and becomes the rebellious heroine's mentor, but is secretly plotting to destroy her father

Daring and the Duke by Sarah MacLean--hero was the villain of two previous books and maybe tried to kill the heroine when they were kids, either way she's super mad about it but oops he's OBSESSED with her

Tortured Hero Recs:

My Darling Duke by Stacy Reid--hero has had to use a wheelchair due to mobility issues after an accident, becomes very reclusive and angsty, until he finds out the heroine has been pretending to be engaged to him...

Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas--Derek Craven was born in a drainpipe, named himself, and essentially was a sex worker until he made his way up in the world, now feels completely not good enough for the intrepid novelist who's stolen his heart

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall--hero has survivor's guilt and chronic pain + a laudanum addiction after surviving the Battle of Waterloo when his best friend died... twist is that his best friend faked her death so that she could transition and live as who she really is, and now they met up again for the first time in years without him realizing it's her

Pippa and the Prince of Secrets by Grace Callaway--scarred hero reunites with his childhood sweetheart, who's now widowed and way above him in social station... but she's also tortured, and they come to find solace in each other (also: her old husband told her that pursuing her desires was wicked; hero DISAGREES)

Duke of Midnight by Elizabeth Hoyt--literally Georgian Batman, he is the night, also he has a home gym

The Duke I Tempted by Scarlett Peckham--super tortured duke who hides his masochistic tendencies from the world enters into a marriage of convenience with a woman he believes will reject him if she realizes what he wants

A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean--local man who lost his inheritance and land in a game of dice shows up again after years and forces his childhood friend to marry him so that he can reclaim WHAT IS HIS!!! (both the estate and her)

Rake Recs:

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean--prototypical rake book, Ralston is all "my God woman, binding your breasts is a crime and I am here to save them"

The Duke and the Lady in Red by Lorraine Heath--this guy's mom literally shows up at his house and is like "please tell me you've cleaned this place since the last orgy"; he then gets taken in by a con woman and learns how to love

The Lady Gets Lucky by Joanna Shupe--hero's not taken seriously by anyone because he's such a playboy; he makes a deal to teach the shy heroine sex stuff in exchange for recipes so he can start a SUPPER CLUB and prove himself as a Srs Person

A Rake's Guide to Seduction by Caroline Linden--hero is a ne'er do well rake who realizes he's fallen for his best friend's little sister right when she's proposed to by another man; years later they meet up when she's a depressed widow, and he brings her to life if you know what I mean

Indigo by Beverly Jenkins--hero is a VERRRRRYYYYY smooth rake who also helps free enslaved people in the Underground Railroad, gets the shit beaten out of of him and ends up being cared for by the quiet and practical heroine; and he's like "HOLY SHIT SHE'S THE ONE"

Scot Recs:

When A Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare--heroine makes a Big Mistake and ends up having to marry the gruff hero, but it's only a handfasting so as long they don't consummate the marriage it won't be legit--SIMPLE ENOUGH

When a Girl Loves an Earl by Elisa Braden--heroine becomes obsessed with local giant man, doesn't even realize he's Scottish until she's trapped him in marriage and he drops the English accent and it is a RIIIIIDE for her from there

The Taming of a Highlander by Elisa Braden--heroine ends up having to marry physically and emotionally scarred hero in order to avoid testifying against him, he's all "YE WON'T BE ABLE TO TAKE ME LASS" and she's like "oh bet"

The Highland Guard series by Monica McCarty--medieval Scottish books "what if Robert the Bruce made a Suicide Squad and they were all hot"

The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley--widow heroine ends up in a FWB situation with the hero, who is on the spectrum and considered "mad" by many; then shit gets complicated

When a Girl Loves an Earl by Stacy Reid--heroine gets pregnant by another man and runs to Scotland to marry this guy she's been writing platonic letters to; he agrees to claim her baby; hero is mute and they communicate through written notes at first, but the heroine learns sign language to make it easier for him, super emotional

[twosentencereviews]

Meta-review of Folie a Deux

I'm one of the few people who didn't like Joker (2019). Most people seemed to love it. I believe this was due to some directorial sleight-of-hand that made people think they were watching a better movie than they were. See my original two-sentence review and an exhaustive teardown.

I also predicted, when the trailer dropped in April, that it would also be bad. I speculated on some plot beats based on the trailer, analyzed the role of Harley Quinn in preceding media, and concluded Todd Phillips doesn't know what he's doing with the second character any more than the first.

Now Folie a Deux is out...and everyone seems to hate it, even (especially?) people who liked the original. But what I find odd is the complaints people have with FaD are, essentially, the same problems I had with the original. The second film isn't different--it's the same, but more so (plus some pointless musical numbers).

I'm not going to watch a movie I know is bad, that everyone else agrees is bad. But I will review why I think the spell is broken in the second film, based on spoilers and reviews from other content creators.

We need to start by being explicit about something. Todd Phillips does not like the Joker. This was never a secret; it was explicitly in the marketing buzz for the first film. Todd Phillips was openly frustrated that he was asked by Warner Bros to make a film about the Joker that he didn't want to make, and so he made it his own, and just slapped a paper-thin Batman facade over it.

A better filmmaker might have done something clever or subversive with that. Like Paul Verhoeven taking the fascist Starship Troopers Heinlein novel and making it a self-parody of a film. Or Stanley Kubrick taking the cosmic horror of King's The Shining and making it a survival horror film about being trapped in the woods with an axe-murderer. Adaptations can add to their sources.

But Todd Phillips isn't so clever. Instead, he has Arthur Fleck spend the whole first movie trying to distance himself from the Joker persona that other people put on him. In the same way that Todd Phillips doesn't want to be the Joker director, Arthur Fleck doesn't want to be the Joker. The first film wants to be a tragedy; it wants to be a story about someone being forced into a role they didn't want and do not accept, and we're supposed to feel pity and empathy.

And it doesn't work. Because Todd Phillips is wrong, both about himself, and about his self-insert character. Arthur Fleck's suffering is at times self-inflicted (taking a gun into a children's hospital, later, murdering people) and at times systemic injustice (trash collector's strike, losing his social worker), but Arthur spends the movie insisting that he, personally, as an individual, has been unfairly wronged and deserves an apology. He doesn't want to be treated as a symbol for larger issues, but he also doesn't want to own up to the fact that yeah, he's a murderer. If we look backward through the camera lens, Todd Phillips is complaining that "woke culture" is preventing him from making another The Hangover...but my dude, you also made Project X and The Hangover Part II and III, own up to the fact that you made some bad films.

But then people liked the first Joker film anyway. Why? Well, it's vague enough that, if you squint and wish hard enough, you can pretend that at the end of the movie Arthur has "leveled up" from a sadsack loser into the actual comic book Joker, a manic, remorseless, mass murdering psycho...who is also an iconic, fun character that people love. Or, alternatively, if you are understandably suffering from superhero fatigue, you can squint the other way and pretend that there is no Batman mythos, no Gotham in the film at all. It's a neat trick, appealing to Batman fans and Batman haters by letting them each see the film they want, although I don't think this was on purpose.

People liked the film, and wanted more. They reacted to Joker as a symbol, putting their own frustrations and desires onto him, because he's a literal supervillain and that's just how these things work. Todd Phillips made a successful superhero film as an act of protest against being "forced" to make a superhero film, and for his sins, was told to "make another one".

And so in the second film, Todd Phillips has become even less subtle. If Arthur is a stand-in for Phillips himself, Gaga's "Lee" is a stand-in for his audience. She does not love Phoenix's Arthur, she loves the Joker persona. She doesn't see his fall from grace as a tragedy, but as a triumph. Arthur is forced to choose between the adoration of someone who loves him for what he's desperately trying not to be, or being honest that "actually this sucks and I don't want to do this any more". And, ultimately, he chooses the latter, just as Phillips is hammering home the message that he hates the very film he's making.

And, just as a failsafe, to be absolutely certain that no one could possibly get it wrong a second time, the movie ends with what is implied to be the actual Joker killing Arthur. Phillips is taking no chances here--he's saying that "The first movie was not about the Joker, I did not want to make a sequel, and I flatly refuse to make a third one". He has scuttled the ship, burned the bridges, and given everyone in the entire world (studio execs, first film fans, and comic book fans alike) a huge middle finger.

And people are pissed. Rightfully so. Telling your audience "you are wrong for liking my art" is just about the most disrespectful thing an artist can do. There is no way to confirmation-bias misinterpret the second film; people are now seeing what's actually been there the whole time. Todd Phillips never made, and has not now made, a film about the relatable struggles average people face in society. He made a film about himself, and his relationship to the art he was making. And people hate it because he's being a self-entitled asshole, whining about his own successes and failures. In the process, he's abusing a beloved franchise, destroying something beautiful out of sheer callous contempt.

In this, Todd Phillips and I agree; he should not make any more superhero movies.

[trans-axolotl]

Hope this isn’t too random, but what are your thoughts on transformative justice? Some of my favorite prison abolitionist writers also advocate for transformative justice, but I know it’s not a universal belief among them (Sorry if you’ve discuss it before, I’m a new follower!)

hi anon!

Transformative justice is definitely a topic I'm very drawn to (have discussed it a little bit in this post in a psych abolition context.) For any followers who don't know what TJ is, I'll post this quote from Mia Mingus:

"Transformative Justice (TJ) is a political framework and approach for responding to violence, harm and abuse. At its most basic, it seeks to respond to violence without creating more violence and/or engaging in harm reduction to lessen the violence. TJ can be thought of as a way of “making things right,” getting in “right relation,” or creating justice together. Transformative justice responses and interventions 1) do not rely on the state (e.g. police, prisons, the criminal legal system, I.C.E., foster care system (though some TJ responses do rely on or incorporate social services like counseling); 2) do not reinforce or perpetuate violence such as oppressive norms or vigilantism; and most importantly, 3) actively cultivate the things we know prevent violence such as healing, accountability, resilience, and safety for all involved...TJ was created by and for many of these communities (e.g. indigenous communities, black communities, immigrant communities of color, poor and low-income communities, communities of color, people with disabilities, sex workers, queer and trans communities). It is important to remember that many of these people and communities have been practicing TJ in big and small ways for generations–trying to create safety and reduce harm within the dangerous conditions they were and are forced to live in." -Transformative Justice: A brief Description

A great resource for learning more is Transform Harm, which was a whole section on transformative justice. I'd also really reccomend reading Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement edited by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.

For me, when I'm thinking about psych and prison abolition, something I keep coming back to is that we can't replace these violent systems with a one-size-fits-all solution. Often when people are aren't as familiar with abolition ask us what our solutions are going to be to addressing harm without policing, prisons, and psych wards, they expect one answer in response--essentially creating another system to replace the current one. But it's not enough just to replace psych wards with peer respite, or prisons with community accountability processes. I think as abolitionists, we need to be able to embrace the fact that we will need many different approaches to address harm depending on the communities and contexts involved. In my mind, transformative justice should absolutely be one of the approaches.

And I like the way transformative justice focuses on building up existing efforts that communities are already doing, and transforming the conditions that are contributing to our communities experience of violence and harm. I also think that a lot of the most important transformative justice work is not necessarily labeled as transformative justice and that terminology is not always being used, because it's not terminology that the communities doing that work want to label it as, and i think it's important to expand any discussion of transformative justice beyond just what is labeled as TJ in organizing circles. Sometimes I think people categorize TJ as just community accountability processes and are unaware of how expansive TJ can be, and that can be really detrimental in terms of solidarity building and learning from all the work people are already just doing.

overall I think that transformative justice is a radical and important framework and is one of the approaches we should be engaging with as abolitionists, and that it's crucial for us to honor the work of those who have been engaging in TJ work for decades before it was named!

[zkylearnstherope]

My Fan Theories for Alan Becker's AvA 6 - Episode 2

It gets revealed that The Dark Lord is not actually evil.

Like Red before, Dark got possessed/corrupted and it somehow revived/enhanced Alan's code inside him. Chosen must've sensed this, because I think he held back a lot in the Showdown Episode.

He was named The Chosen One, damnit! He's supposed to level up along with his enemies. He can't possibly lose a fight.

He sensed something was wrong, but is not smart enough to save Dark.

victim actually works for the government/police.

When they summoned Alan's cursor during Showdown, it created public unease in the city. Like, A CREATOR IS ACTUALLY HERE!

The cursor was big enough to be spotted in the city. And when someone came to investigate, all they saw were laser marks on the ground and a missing mountain.

Naturally, the #1 suspect would be The Chosen One. In the Wanted Episode, when he saved the office worker from the falling debris with his lasers, the office worker either (a) covered his eyes to look at the bright sky, or (b) actually saluted back to Chosen.

I think it's B. So, people in the city are actually familiar with the rocket man in the sky. He would've reacted differently if it's the first time they saw Chosen. And don't get me started with the nonchalant reaction of the Corn Dog Guy.

So with this in mind, how would anyone capture a what is essentially, a virtual god? They will go for the smartest man they know, produces the most advanced technology, and who obviously has connections with Chosen since they look exactly the same.

I don't think victim is out for revenge. Like, why would he wait all this time to get back at Alan? He has all the resources now, his own company (that sells TVs), like, what else could he ask for?

I choose to believe in victim. He's the type to defend himself rather than hurt someone else. He even stopped the 3 members of the rocket group from killing The Second Coming, and asked Agent to bring him alive.

They even unpaused Second at the end. Which makes me believe that victim would want to talk/negotiate with him. What victim needs is INFORMATION, and he's not getting that from The Chosen One.

victim is actually looking for The Dark Lord

I believe Second's powers has something to do with antivirus and codes. And firing that mega-laser actually disabled Alan's Code, and in fact, DID NOT KILL Dark.

Dark surviving off-screen is not really a far stretch. Because, it already happened before in the Flashback Episode.

Now, if you take into consideration all the stuff I mentioned above...

The rocket group approaches The Chosen One, asking for The Dark Lord.

Chosen, remembering all the crimes they did during the Internet Conquest, fearing for his friend, he gets apprehensive and starts to escape. Instead of letting him get away, they had to use all the tools at their disposal. And then enter the epic chase scene from Wanted.

Other sub plot theories

Purple will show up and help them, since he actually lived in the city before, judging by the location of his Mom's grave. Purple would know about the rocket group, and can guide/help the others to stop them.

We'll see Red cry for the first time.

The fight will go like this:

Green vs. Agent Smith - both great with staffs, spears, or any long-ranged weapons, I also think that Green would be fast enough to match Agent

Red vs. Hunter/Primal - pure strength and heavy muscle

Yellow and Blue vs. Ballista/Pixel - G U N S

Purple vs. Hazard/Sign - being trained by his father Navy, Purple is actually really good at hand-to-hand combat

Alan's Giant Cursor form is not going to show up this time.

victim is going to teach Second about his powers.

---

God, I can't wait for the next episode.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Marxism has its own critique of growth, which connects to capital’s compulsion to grow—think of concepts such as surplus value, accumulation, formal and real subsumption, expanded reproduction, and imperialism—all concepts of growth. Economically, capital is dependent on surplus value generation—the basic and most essential form of growth under capitalism—without which there can be no interest payments on loans, no rental payments, no profits, and hence no investment, hence crisis. Moreover, the stabilisation of social conflicts under capitalism requires a growth that goes beyond capitalists’ requirements: there must be a taxable or otherwise redistributable surplus to pay for police and courts, and welfare and wage rises to otherwise restive workers. But this only amounts to a critique of capitalist growth and how growth is leveraged to secure capitalist hegemony.

From an ecological perspective, degrowth is much more radical. It stresses that compound economic growth, often considered in terms of ecological economics as material and energy throughput, is ecologically destructive and unsustainable, also when managed on a non-capitalist basis. Thus, degrowthers have done impressive amounts of work establishing the possibility and desirability of non-growth economics and modes of life. You can see why degrowth becomes a reference point for many Marxists and communists who take the ecosystem crisis seriously. In fact, we may question if there can be any renewal of communism, which does not build on the problematic of degrowth (i.e. the ecological critique of growth and the question of post-growth economics and modes of life).

Conversely, Marxism and communism have important things to contribute to degrowth. Degrowth tends to speak in a straightforwardly normative register, stressing the different socio-economic arrangements that are necessary and desirable to end the destruction of climate and ecosystems. But while it is true that a phase-out of growth is necessary, and that it is desirable that it is managed and planned, this does not prove that an orderly phase-out of growth is possible. Given capitalism’s dependence on growth, it is hard to imagine any absence of growth, including degrowth, which will not be highly tumultuous and conflictual. And while scientific necessity has clearly inspired many people to direct action, and has fostered experiments with sustainability, it is very far from moving a decisive number of people. Here a core lesson of communist politics is that broad social transformations from below are unlikely except where people’s faith in and reliance on the status quo are shaken, and they become open to reimagining survival and who they are in the world. Another lesson is that as long as growth means jobs, wages, livelihoods, welfare, social peace and the promise of progress for vast numbers of people, it will remain a beacon of hope or nostalgia. Except, that is, if the absence of growth is accompanied by deep transformations of economic relations, from expropriations of wealth of the rich, to the socialization of housing, land, utilities, and core factories. In short, it seems degrowth is unlikely to get mass support without communist measures.

Nick Dyer-Witheford, Bue Rübner Hansen and Emanuele Leonardi, Degrowth Communism: Part I

[bfpnola]

introductory excerpts on intercommunalism:

Introduction

Intercommunalism is an ideology which was adopted by the Oakland chapter of the Black Panther Party after its turn away from revolutionary nationalism in 1970. According to Huey P. Newton the development of intercommunalism was necessary "because nations have been transformed into communities of the world."[1] Intercommunalists believe that most forms of nationalism are obsolescent, because international corporations and technologically advanced imperialist states have reduced most nations down to a series of discrete communities which exist to supply an imperial center, a situation called reactionary intercommunalism. They also believe this situation can be transformed into revolutionary intercommunalism and eventually communism if communities are able to link "liberated zones" together into a united front against imperialism.[2] Intercommunalism is a lesser-known aspect of the Panthers' legacy as much of its development occurred at the height of the party's suppression and reorientation towards survival programs.[3][4][5]

Reactionary Intercommunalism

Newton believed that imperialism had developed into a stage of reactionary intercommunalism. Reactionary intercommunalism is typified by the development of a tiny community of elites with a monopoly on technology and state power within a single hegemonic empire (currently the United States).[15][5]

This 'ruling circle' is different from the Bourgeoisie, which the Panthers treated as a much broader phenomenon. Newton said that "[t]here are very few controllers even in the white middle class. They can barely keep their heads above water, they are paying all the bills, living hand-to-mouth, and they have the extra expense of refusing to live like Black people." The Black bourgeoisie in particular is a "fantasy bourgeoisie" which could be rallied to a revolutionary cause through sufficient education.[12]

The ruling circle's monopoly on technology and education is important to maintaining reactionary intercommunalism, as it prevents the rest of the world's communities from fulfilling their material needs independently of the center, leaving them dependent on the Empire for advancement.[15] The ruling circle uses 'peaceful co-optation' more often than military invasion to reinforce its aims.[5]

Reactionary intercommunalism allows for no independent national sovereignty, as the dominance of the global hegemon means that all nations bend to the 'weight' of its interests.[4] Instead nations have been reduced down to constituent communities, or "a small unit with a comprehensive collection of institutions that exist to serve a small group of people." Each of these communities "want to determine their own destinies," but can only do so by joining into a revolutionary bloc. All of the communities have no superstructure apart from global capitalism, and while they have different economic conditions they are all 'under siege' by the same forces.[15][4][5][10][9]

Newton believed that if allowed to continue, reactionary intercommunalism would bring more and more of the world's population into the lumpenproletariat, including white workers. However he did not think that this would end racism, in fact he thought white workers would increasingly blame their exploitation on minorities, especially the increasingly proletarianised third world.[5]

Revolutionary Intercommunalism

Intercommunalists believe that Revolutionary Intercommunalism will come about when communities are able to break the technological monopoly of the center. Through technology, communities would be able to solve material contradictions and "develop a culture which is essentially human." Even though the Panthers disavowed the nation-state as a viable form of revolutionary political struggle, they continued to support state socialist countries such as China, North Vietnam and North Korea against American Imperialism. Indeed, they were considered the vanguard of revolutionary intercommunalism through liberating territories and establishing provisional governments ahead of the global turn towards revolutionary intercommunalism.[16] However such states could still be co-opted into reactionary intercommunalism through the introduction of western markets.[5]

While the party no longer believed in Black nationalism, they continued to believe that Black Americans would play a special role within the struggle for revolutionary intercommunalism. Due to the Atlantic slave trade, Newton believed that Black Americans were the "first real internationalists" due to their mixed cultural origin and wide dispersal among a range of communities. Since he believed Black Americans constituted a significant force for revolution within the United States, and the destruction of the United States seemed to be a prerequisite for world revolution, the Panthers continued to view Black Americans as "the vanguard of the world revolution."[17]

Criticism

Intercommunalism was strongly opposed by some Black Panthers, especially those invested in the Party's strategy of forming internationalist alliances with foreign states. Cleaver denounced the Oakland chapter as the 'right wing' of the party for their rejection of guerrilla warfare. Assata Shakur was also critical of the theory's rejection of nationalism, saying that "The problem [with intercommunalism] was that someone had forgotten to tell these oppressed communities they were no longer nations." Others, like Mumia Abu-Jamal thought that intercommunalism was a terrible rhetorical strategy, as few understood the theory and many disliked Newton's public speaking. The differences over intercommunalism were also exacerbated by FBI wire-tapping and fake letters sent between the Oakland and Algiers sections of the party.[9]

[noxexistant]

I hope this doesn’t come off as mean because i am genuinely curious and I don’t know how to phrase it that’ll read well through text 😅 but could you explain why you like the delanceys? I just see them as bullies and feel like I’m missing something plz enlighten me 🙏

i appreciate the tact! you’re all good, i love the curiosity, and thank u for asking <3

first of all, you and anyone are more than valid to just see the delanceys as bullies - they are. they’re bad guys, that’s the crux of their character. they’re antagonists. you aren’t supposed to like them, you’re mostly supposed to hate ‘em. but there is also a lot to them just beneath the surface, as implied in the script and spoken about by the actors and portrayed in their performances, and i just think they’re super compelling. they’re fantastic antagonists, especially when played and understood through a more empathetic lens.

like, you’ve got these two kids - barely older than the newsies, at most barely wealthier - who are paid to work as essentially hired grunts for one of the papers and their uncle. violence is expected of them, and they’re apparently very comfortable with it and good at it - they’re known for it. what makes two kids so comfortable with and skilled at violence? they work through the strike despite the fact that by the end of it every other young worker in the city has joined the crusade. why are they so insecure with money? they’re never separate from each other, not for one second - they literally never appear in a scene without each other. why are they so attached and codependent? and oscar’s first lines are defending the work they do and saying the most loaded line ever about their father who they apparently just took money to beat up in the street - “i guess he didn’t take care of me.” why do they hate their father so much?

according to morris’ trading card, which is really the only Solid Canon we’ve got that isn’t actor interpretation, he was abandoned by both parents as a child, and we can only assume the same for oscar. oscar openly resents their father and harbours no shame for getting paid to soak him along with the rest of the striking workers. there’s so much implication there and so much potential, so many questions about what exactly their father did, what their lives were like, what the circumstances were of their (or morris’) abandonment. why or how their uncle took them in, if wiesel is even their uncle. also, the detail that they lived on a farm first, and moved from that to this inner-city work.

and beyond that, we have the details that are from the actors. notably, mike faist (who originated the role of morris in the stage show) stating that morris’ defining feature is goodness at his core. anthony norman stating that oscar was raised in the refuge. alex prakken stating that the delanceys are just kids in an awful situation, that they are actually just like the newsies but were manipulated with money to switch sides to oppose them.

it’s about the idea of what sort of circumstances it takes to create two people like the delanceys - violent and closed off and codependent. they’re willing to do things that most people won’t in order to get money, and even during the strike they won’t risk their pay. they believe in survival of the fittest and resent weakness. all they have is each other, and in the stage show they’re violently protective of each other (in 92sies, at least the original script, oscar is abusive towards morris, which is its whole own type of compelling). they’re clingy and childish and violent and complicated and they have reasons for everything, because everyone does, and that invites all this questioning and headcanoning and analysing. what would it take to turn a newsie into a delancey? what would it take to turn them back?

and each actor brings such fantastic little details to both of them. morris being fidgety and autistic-coded. oscar looking grief-stricken when race is speaking mockingly about les and david having a mother. the two of them clinging to each others sides. the two of them always listening in on the newsies as they talk, like they’re behind glass even when they’re right there - like they stop existing past a certain point.

i just love complicated characters, i love deeply traumatised characters, i love to pick up an awful person and explore what goodness there is, what circumstances could’ve made that goodness go away, what circumstances could bring it out again. and there’s so much potential for goodness in the delanceys, particularly in this love they have for each other. how george crawford and alex james hatton played them in uksies in particular ruined me, they’re so raw and complex and so completely closed off to anyone and everything except this desperate bond with each other, oscar is ruthlessly violent to everyone else but so gentle with morris, morris is at times so visibly wrought with regret while he’s doing terrible things but he still doesn’t stop, and they’re in this position where they have this power over the newsies but no power anywhere else. they’re helpless, as stuck as any of the newsies, as worthless and resented and expendable, but they’re different because they’re paid to be. what makes the difference? the money? them taking the money? the contract in the money being handed over at all?

anyway, yeah, they’re the worst, i love them.

[xtruss]

What Happened When a Fearless Group of Mississippi Sharecroppers Founded Their Own City

Strike City was born after one small community left the plantation to live on their own terms

— September 11, 2023 | NOVA—BPS

A tin sign demarcated the boundary of Strike City just outside Leland, Mississippi. Photo by Charlie Steiner

In 1965 in the Mississippi Delta, things were not all that different than they had been 100 years earlier. Cotton was still King—and somebody needed to pick it. After the abolition of slavery, much of the labor for the region’s cotton economy was provided by Black sharecroppers, who were not technically enslaved, but operated in much the same way: working the fields of white plantation owners for essentially no profit. To make matters worse, by 1965, mechanized agriculture began to push sharecroppers out of what little employment they had. Many in the Delta had reached their breaking point.

In April of that year, following months of organizing, 45 local farm workers founded the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union. The MFLU’s platform included demands for a minimum wage, eight-hour workdays, medical coverage and an end to plantation work for children under the age of 16, whose educations were severely compromised by the sharecropping system. Within weeks of its founding, strikes under the MFLU banner began to spread across the Delta.

Five miles outside the small town of Leland, Mississippi, a group of Black Tenant Farmers led by John Henry Sylvester voted to go on strike. Sylvester, a tractor driver and mechanic at the A.L. Andrews Plantation, wanted fair treatment and prospects for a better future for his family. “I don’t want my children to grow up dumb like I did,” he told a reporter, with characteristic humility. In fact it was Sylvester’s organizational prowess and vision that gave the strikers direction and resolve. They would need both. The Andrews workers were immediately evicted from their homes. Undeterred, they moved their families to a local building owned by a Baptist Educational Association, but were eventually evicted there as well.

After two months of striking, and now facing homelessness for a second time, the strikers made a bold move. With just 13 donated tents, the strikers bought five acres of land from a local Black Farmer and decided that they would remain there, on strike, for as long as it took. Strike City was born. Frank Smith was a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee worker when he went to live with the strikers just outside Leland. “They wanted to stay within eyesight of the plantation,” said Smith, now Executive Director of the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum in Washington, D.C. “They were not scared.”

Life in Strike City was difficult. Not only did the strikers have to deal with one of Missississippi’s coldest winters in history, they also had to endure the periodic gunshots fired by white agitators over their tents at night. Yet the strikers were determined. “We ain’t going out of the state of Mississippi. We gonna stay right here, fighting for what is ours,” one of them told a documentary film team, who captured the strikers’ daily experience in a short film called “Strike City.” “We decided we wouldn’t run,” another assented. “If we run now, we always will be running.”

But the strikers knew that if their city was going to survive, they would need more resources. In an effort to secure federal grants from the federal government’s Office of Economic Opportunity, the strikers, led by Sylvester and Smith, journeyed all the way to Washington D.C. “We’re here because Washington seems to run on a different schedule,” Smith told congressmen, stressing the urgency of the situation and the group’s needs for funds. “We have to get started right away. When you live in a tent and people shoot at you at night and your kids can’t take a bath and your wife has no privacy, a month can be a long time, even a day…Kids can’t grow up in Strike City and have any kind of a chance.” In a symbolic demonstration of their plight, the strikers set up a row of tents across the street from the White House.

John Henry Sylvester, left, stands outside one of the tents strikers erected in Washington, D.C. in April 1966. Photo by Rowland Sherman

“It was a good, dramatic, in-your-face presentation,” Smith told American Experience, nearly 60 years after the strikers camped out. “It didn’t do much to shake anything out of the Congress of the United States or the President and his Cabinet. But it gave us a feeling that we’d done something to help ourselves.” The protestors returned home empty-handed. Nevertheless, the residents of Strike City had secured enough funds from a Chicago-based organization to begin the construction of permanent brick homes; and to provide local Black children with a literacy program, which was held in a wood-and-cinder-block community center they erected.

The long-term sustainability of Strike City, however, depended on the creation of a self-sufficient economy. Early on, Strike City residents had earned money by handcrafting nativity scenes, but this proved inadequate. Soon, Strike City residents were planning on constructing a brick factory that would provide employment and building material for the settlement’s expansion. But the $25,000 price tag of the project proved to be too much, and with no employment, many strikers began to drift away. Strike City never recovered.

Still, its direct impact was apparent when, in 1965, Mississippi schools reluctantly complied with the 1964 Civil Rights Act by offering a freedom-of-choice period in which children were purportedly allowed to register at any school of their choice. In reality, however, most Black parents were too afraid to send their children to all-white schools—except for the parents living at Strike City who had already radically declared their independence . Once Leland’s public schools were legally open to them, Strike City kids were the first ones to register. Their parents’ determination to give them a better life had already begun to pay dividends.

Smith recalled driving Strike City’s children to their first day of school in the fall of 1970. “I remember when I dropped them off, they jumped out and ran in, and I said, ‘They don't have a clue what they were getting themselves into.’ But you know kids are innocent and they’re always braver than we think they are. And they went in there like it was their schoolhouse. Like they belonged there like everybody else.”

[dipperdesperado]

Capitalism and The State: Abusive Parents

A lot of people seem to be able to get behind the abolition of capitalism. That sentiment isn’t nearly as strong for the state. I don’t think there’s room for either in a free society, since they are both tools of oppression that depend on one another. To make this make sense, I’m going to analogize capitalism and the state to a relationship with abusive parents. It won’t be a 1:1, high-fidelity representation, but hopefully, it’ll help me make my point.

Before we get into that, let’s make sure we’re on the same page with definitions.

Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production. The means of production are things like fields, factories, natural resources, server rooms, social media platforms, and anything else where the owners can employ machines and/or people to do money-generating work. Capitalism also focuses on the creation of goods or services for profit. Profit is the total amount of money made in a given timeframe, subtracted from the expenses for generating that money.

This tenant of private property permeates every aspect of life under capitalism, from goods to services, to land. If you weren’t aware, this is the current economic system that rules the world. Cronyism, neoliberalism, and even social democracy (what many Americans call socialism) are all forms of capitalism. The important thing to note about what kind of economic system you’re observing is the relationship between the workers/citizens and production.

The state is the sum total of economic, legal, social, and political bodies and relations, acting as the “legitimate” arbiter in all of those spheres. The government is essentially the shape that the state takes. It’s the way the state is organized. Governments are like “species” of organization, within the “genus” of state. That’s why no matter the species (government), you tend to see certain behaviors and features inherent to the genus (state). Things like politicians and laws are a feature of every state.

Let’s start our exploration with capitalism.

So, how is capitalism like an abusive parent? Well, it comes down to the habitually bad programming and the reverence for this specific idea of “the individual”. Your capitalist parent will tell you that you have to work hard, to bootstrap yourself, to be the best. They’ll also conveniently ignore that those descriptors can’t be applied to the people that are doing the best at capitalism. Whether they genuinely believe the lie or not, it’s a lie all the same, and the results speak for themselves. Capitalism breeds inequity, no matter how fettered the market is. Private (not personal) property necessitates a class distinction. Classes are bad because they represent relative locations in a hierarchy, and hierarchy necessitates inequity. The higher up you are, the more you benefit from the system. Capitalism abuses its children by restricting the extent to which they can access the things they want and need. They essentially have to rely on luck to easily get not only the things needed to survive but to thrive. Being born into wealth is a world of difference from being born into poverty, and under capitalism, that distinction needs to exist. A handful of people couldn’t have more wealth than untold billions of people were that not the case.

But a lot of people have a good understanding of that. As things start to crumble more and more, people are and have been waking up to the fact that the promises of capitalism are effectively unobtainable for them.

The state also abuses us. On a basic level, it supports the interests of its partner. Think of the police, the military, and the justice system. The two are linked, and though they fight, they won’t and can’t break up. Capitalism needs the state, so it doesn’t violently and completely implode on itself. Though capitalism always talks about wanting to break up with the state, the state always has to come back to pick up the pieces. That may sound good, but it represents two major issues. The first is that things have to get really bad for the state to have any meaningful intervention. Capitalism breeds disaster, and the state, inadequate as its interventions are, will do things to ameliorate those disasters. But it’s always amelioration at best. Inside that realization lies the second issue; the state will never destroy capitalism. It can’t. They love each other too much. The state and capitalism have a tenuous but symbiotic relationship, reinforcing and legitimizing each other. The state makes laws that support capitalism, and capitalism allows the state to operate and expand its influence through capital. Money is power under capitalism, and the state legitimizes that power.

After reading that, you might be thinking that what I’ve described might be specific to only certain kinds of states. What about states that aren’t capitalist?

I’d argue that there are no states that aren’t capitalist. Even states that are called socialist, or states ran by communist parties, can’t achieve their goals by their very nature. Let’s think about what capitalism is. It necessitates privatization of the means of production, where goods and services are produced for the sake of profits. Even if the state takes on the role of the capitalist class, where the means of production are nationalized, the fundamental relationship between the people and the means of production hasn’t changed in any meaningful capacity. Having a single source of “legitimate” interaction with those means necessitates class distinction, which necessitates inequity. The state isn’t the people, contrary to what the state would like you to believe. Them deciding what the rules are, without any meaningful input from you, or even if they do allow you to have input, deciding when and how to enforce them without you is inherently problematic. Trusting a system to act against its own interests is like expecting an abuser to change for the sake of it…

There is a lot of things to be said about states, but know this; having people, groups, or institutions “represent” you can never actually be aligned with what you want, even if you have input. It’s like a game of telephone. Unless you’re able to have a form of direct communication, they will not be able to represent your wishes as well as you could. Another issue is that once you relinquish your power to others, you can’t expect them to act in your best interests. After all, they’re a person too, with their own interests. And, as a bureaucrat, they are in a different class than you, so as much as you may think your motivations align, they’re playing a different game.

If we truly want a society based on equity, cooperation, and freedom, we cannot rely on capitalism or the state to be tools to achieve that society. Those two systems are limited to only allowing those ideals for some, and I'd argue that this means it would be an incomplete, hollow version of those ideals. Even if we think we can get rid of one, the other will come back to recreate it, since they are inextricably linked. This does not mean that an economy shouldn’t exist, or that there should be no organizations between people, leaving a free-for-all wasteland. It’s actually the opposite; only by getting rid of all oppressive structures of domination, hierarchy, and coercion, replacing them with a grassroots, directly democratic model where people cooperate based on desire rather than compulsion, can we escape our abusive parents and reach our full potential.

[theabstruseone]

We literally JUST had a global experiment in precisely this. Most countries provided some form of basic income to everybody starting around March 2020 and lasting for several months.

Did people just sit around and do nothing? NO! People started going stir-crazy after a week.

They started baking.

And knitting.

And doing home improvement.

And gardening.

And writing.

And making videos.

And recording music.

And live-streaming.

And writing software.

And opening businesses.

You know, WORK.

For one, people had the security to follow their passions for the things they wanted to do rather than the things they were required to do just to survive. They found niches and interests they never got a chance to explore before.

For another, society did NOT, in fact, grind to a halt because the "dirty jobs" that have to get done like trash collection, package delivery, plumbing, construction, store clerks, line cooks, and other jobs considered essential but unglamorous still got done. Because people also want more than just the bare essentials needed to survive.

What did happen? People were happier. The stress of "Oh shit I'm not going to be able to feed my kids or I might be evicted and end up homeless" just because they had to miss a couple of days of work or they had to leave a toxic, abusive working environment or some hedge fund manager's avarice caused massive losses for the company and while they got a golden parachute hundreds of workers were laid off to make up the lost profits. That low-level background radiation of constant stress of not being able to survive disappeared for a short time, and people were able to focus on improving their lives and making themselves happy.