#Renegade Rhetoric

[renegade-rhetoric]

Could you beat Vector Prime in a fight? With the superior physiology of the GoBots, surely even such a guardian (no pun intended) of time and space should fall before you

While I am mighty I dobut even I can beat Vec-Tor though with my new body I can do it nos

[elfdragon12]

Daily female Transformers

Crash Test! She's cocky and willing to do what she has to!

She was actually part of the Go-Bots toyline, though the canceled G2 line. She has popped up in Of Masters and Mayhem and the Renegade Rhetoric tales.

I love her colors!

[journeytothewest-daily]

Elder brother, I have some questions about chapter 78: how is Tripitaka's masculine purity better than a thousand small boys? Do you need to be a man grown for your preserved yang to be worth anything?

Do you think taoists and buddhists really had doctrinal debates in public to show their facts and logic?

Are you also disappointed that Boytown had such cruel etymology? 😮‍💨

I mean Tripitaka is not only pure because of his own self (coward...) but because he is a great Buddhist monk with great karma, if you remember the chapters that precede his birth! But aside from that, I haven't found any source that speaks about the yang of boys...

The Xiaodao lun (Laughing at the Dao) is an important document of the debates among Buddhists and Daoists in sixth-century China. These debates contributed to the process of cultural adaptation of Buddhism, which had to accommodate itself to the worldview of the Confucian elite, the Chinese sense of ethnic superiority, and China's indigenous religion of Daoism. Written by the Daoist renegade Zhen Luan in the year 570, the text aims to expose inconsistencies in Daoist doctrine, cosmology, ritual, and religious practice. In this effort it presents many aspects of Daoist doctrine and practice, providing ample citations from numerous Daoist sources often otherwise lost.

In a complete and fully annotated translation of the Xiaodao lun based closely on the work of Japanese scholars, Livia Kohn places the work within the context of the debates and exposes the political schemes behind the apparently religious disputes. The translation is carefully framed by a thorough introduction on the history of the debates as well as by two one summarizes materials of both earlier and later debates; the other analyzes the Daoist sources cited in the Xiaodao lun. Richly informed and highly relevant to an understanding of medieval China, Kohn's work greatly enhances the study of medieval Buddhist and Daoist myth, rhetoric, and ideology. (From Debates among Buddhists and Daoists in Medieval China, which I recommend.)

And yes, I wish it was boytown instead. Boytoytown.

[dammek-time]

Hello there.👋🏼 We've gotten some nasty anons over the last few months so I'd like to clarify something.

In regards to shipping art:

All the ships we post are representations of in-sys relationships. That is to say, our art reflects REAL couples and their interactions with one another. It's shipping art inspired by alters dating alters. I can't express this enough—it is tailored to our system. What we draw here is likely divorced from our opinions on canon.

We have fictional introjects that don't resonate with canon. Alters don't always ID with their source, nor do they always resemble their source. It's why we draw different Dammeks here. They can be any size, age, gender, or presentation entirely. There is no one way. The same goes for whomever they're paired with in the illustration.

Sorry for rambling, it's just incredibly frustrating to have our art weaponized. Someone stole our work and fashioned it into a PSA about the dangers of shipping Xefdam. It's not the only time we've been harassed by anti-Xefdam blogs. They watch the character tags and send graphic messages to artists. It's terrible.

And it puts us in an unwinnable situation. We have to use those tags so people can blacklist Xefdam, but using the tags results in them lashing out.

My feelings on The Canon Xefros and Dammek's relationship are complex ones. Very nuanced. I dare say—it depends. I don't have the full story. I don't have the context or motivation for why Dammek acts that way. Is it a pitch crush? A misunderstanding? Is he training Xefros to prepare him for his position as a tetrarch? Is he an impressionable lad just copying the beefy renegades from his movie posters? Is he JUST an asshole? We don't know yet! But I could theorize about it all year. I won't do that, sorry. He's my special interest so I just um, I could ramble all century if you let me.

We mentioned this in our pinned post but it never hurts to reiterate. We don't engage in shipping discourse. Please. PLEASE do not send any. We struggle with moral OCD and shipping discourse is a big trigger. Especially for me. All the ships are tagged; please just block us if you feel uncomfortable. It's okay to block. We won't take offense, we're survivors too so I completely understand needing the subject gone. It's a lot sometimes.

It's always okay to set boundaries.

But it's not okay to invade someone else's space to force your own boundaries on them. We are strangers on the internet. We do not know one another. It is... bizarre, that you feel entitled to a response. It is otherworldly that you believe we should change our art because you don't like it. This is not content. This is art. We are not in a professional setting. We are on a blogging website. This is our blog.

You don't have to like Xefdam. That's okay. I have my moments too and my husband and I are dating a Xefros introject. Both sentiments can be true. Please don't attack our system for it. We're introjects. We can't control canon. We didn't choose our sources. Please don't treat our existence as a moral failing. These relationships are not the same. This is our life. We can't change it. This is a safe space for Dammek-kind. We really don't have many. Please. Agree to disagree.

-(host) Davey

hey im gonna tack this on cause davey forgot to mention it,, were open to talking,, like if youre curious about our stances on something you can ask were chill,, as long as its civil conversation i can make time,, im not interested in a debate,, if you message me with rage bait im just gonna block you

ill show you what i mean

THIS IS A QUESTION -> "hi, i was curious about one of the xefdam drawings on your blog, its the one where [describe drawing] what inspired that?"

feels genuine,, i have context,, seems like theyre looking for an actual answer,, i can respond asap

THIS IS RAGE BAIT-> "why do you support abuse?"

feels rhetorical,, context is missing,, accusatory for no reason,, pop psychology terms,, how do i respond to this?? you made up a guy to be mad about in my mailbox,, i havent said anything yet and youre already pissed

ok ill end it here sorry to bloat the post,, im just tired you guys,, were both over this,, 2nd spring art page on the way,, alright im out

-host dammek

[aces-to-apples]

Fic Writer 20 Questions

Tagged by @dead-cowboy!

1.) How many works do you have on ao3? Across three accounts and like 1......1? years, jesus, 154. (I think. Give or take a couple anonymized that I may have forgotten.)

2.) What’s your ao3 word count? 325,886. Somehow.

3.) What fandoms do you write for? Previously? Red vs. Blue, The Magnificent Seven (2016), The Musketeers (2014), Warcraft (2016), RWBY, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Umbrella Academy, The Hobbit trilogy, Supernatural, and Star Wars. Currently: Dragon Age, Jak and Daxter, Skyrim, Ted Lasso, Kingdoms of Amalur, and Star Wars.

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos? A trite, originally tumblr not!fic about OWK (anonymized), the sequel that tricked me into liking Darth Maul (anonymized), an old Cody/OWK Week fic from 2020, the first Sith!Cody fic in the tag (anonymized), and Renegade (time-traveling clones from 2018). Seven out of my top ten are anon, and eight of the top fifteen, so I figure we can just leave it there lmao.

5.) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Not really, no. Most comments I get are.....cursory? Obligatory? They aren't substantive, is what I mean to say. "Thanks for writing this", and whatnot, which not only don't necessitate a reply, but like, what reply can there possibly be? If there's a non-rhetorical question that I can answer, or the commenter had something to say, or even just has fun energy, then I try to respond in kind, but those kinds of comments are uhhhhhh. Not something my work attracts lol. Basically, I'm not going to send a thank-you card for a thank-you card, you know?

6.) What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Uhhhhh, I don't know, I don't really deliberately do angst? Maybe a Dogma/Hardcase ficlet with ghost!Hardcase, but also depending on your point of view, maybe the Sith!OWK Kenfetti fic. It's hard for me to judge, I don't think I've ever even tagged something with angst, but that definitely seems like the darkest ending I've written? Idk.

7.) What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? God this is much harder than I thought it would be. Somehow I don't think these two were meant to be the hardest-hitting questions lmao? *scrolling down my fic summaries* Hmm, learning things about myself that I'm not sure I appreciate... Maybe "she wore it wonderfully well" (Mag7, Emma/Vasquez)? Trying to find something unambiguously happy that I also am less embarrassed to link is. Difficult.

8.) Do you get hate on fics? Not especially. I have guest comments turned off, my fics are locked, and I generally don't write ships with wide readerships to start with. For the most part I occasionally get something rude and entitled that I delete, but I tell you FFN readers are some of the most hostile people you'll ever meet, they're truly dedicated to being haters of anything even resembling creative writing, it's very funny.

9.) Do you write smut? If so what kind? I do, it's not very good, and honestly I think the most prevailing trend is consent issues and power dynamic fuckery. My first smut fic was anonymous mindsex, and my second was sex-pollened enemies lmaoooooo.

10.) Do you write cross overs? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Not as often as I'd like to, but yes! Allow me to introduce you to (and please ignore that it's a fusion), DRUMROLL PLEASE!, The Worst AU In The World (Game of Thrones/Winx Club)! If you want an actual crossover though, I did just write Dorian "Dragon Age" Pavus/Savage "Star Wars" Opress, so that was fun.

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge; I doubt it.

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated? Um. Yes. About eight years ago someone translated a Warcraft smutfic of mine into Chinese. That's the only one I know about.

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before? No, I genuinely don't even know how that would work.

14.) What’s your all time favourite ship? Hmmm. I can't say I have one. I'm a multifandom multishipper at heart, I've burnt out of several fandoms, burnt out of several ships, and I'm too AuDHD to be able to pick a favorite anything. Trent Crimm/Jamie Tartt.

15.) What’s a WIP you’d like to finish, but doubt you ever will? To be fair, most of them. But also the Dooku POV installment of the first two most-kudosed fics' series, and the Locus/Tucker roleswap RvB fic, and the Locus time-travel fic, and the Dragon Age/Star Wars crossover Maulrexsoka fic. Just off the top of my head.

16.) What are your writing strengths? I've been told my fics tend to be very high concept and I do weird things with syntax. And honestly, that's already me knowing too much.

17.) What are your writing weaknesses? Quickest answer? Plot.

18.) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I'm monolingual and don't have any cultural baggage around it, so I generally find it at least some level of fun and engaging, but it's also easy for it to become gimicky when it's a conlang (guilty) and not well-executed when it's a canonically code-switching character (also guilty). I maintain however that all of that should be forgiven in Red vs. Blue fics though; the entire point from the ground up is that all the Spanish is wrong.

19.) First fandom you wrote for? ....................................Yu-Gi-Oh!. With reader-insert. I plea Not Guilty by reason of I Was Fourteen.

20.) Favourite fic you’ve ever written? See, recency bias says "cat-scratch" (amnesiac!Sabretooth AU) but brand loyalty says "peace is a lie" (JesseMaul). Maybe I'll split the difference, end up with a net-zero, and say "memento (mori)" (Cailan Theirin/Female Surana).

-

Honestly I think our biggest takeaway here is that I can't be trusted to answer questions about my own content because I harsh the vibe by tending to not like it lol

Tagging whoever wants to play!

[diamond-dangeresque]

The mess hall was the busiest room in the Grothmar citadel today, soldiers pouring in and out to dine on meals in comfort and privacy. Far away from strangers to the land, further still even from the Charr of other Legions. Conversations held from the earshot of overly observant centurions. Whispers and murmurs held in the sanctity of a room without any Ashen spooks.

Which makes Chihiro's presence all the more unwelcome in the hall.

Some of the Charr in the room break from their meals to look at the Human. They stare. The skinned warhound acting as a mantle draws attention, brings alight bad memories of "old Ascalon relics" found in the ruins of the former capital. They whisper amongst themselves, the absurdity of a mouse watching them through a blindfold, arms crossed with a selfsure grin. Many chuckle. Some grumble. A few perform something akin to a self-ward with their hands, the performers chided by compatriots around them for their superstitious behavior. He's just a mouse in a blindfold, they'd say in a manner of paraphrase, we're not dealing with a Flame shaman here. A few humor the idea aloud of throwing a dagger or firing a pistol at the mouse, see if he reacts at all. (Chihiro would love to see them try. Even if any claims of "self-defense" or "fuck around and find out" would fall flat in a place like this.)

Standing at his left is the presence of Kalla Scorchrazor, her gaze scanning over the room just as Chihiro's is through the cloth. She had previously admired the statue of her likeness just behind the Herald, noted its composition of "Searing Cauldron bronze," approved of the good use of metal. But this place was a shitshow, and this mess hall was a pretty little microcosm of that. Blood soldiers purposefully, willingly, kept separate from other Charr. Non-Charr "encouraged" to stay in more public areas, outside of the Keep and especially away from "Charr common rooms". Corralled outside, in the open, where others can watch from afar and with scrutiny. In the open: nothing but respect and honor and tact. Behind closed doors: about three steps from belting out slurs and hateful rhetoric, because it's "safe" over here. No judging eyes. No ethics violations.

Chihiro had respect for the ways the Legions trained their Charr. He was now reconsidering such a notion.

She had seen through the Herald's eyes what fruit the seeds of this Human-Charr peace treaty had wrought, what peace it had allowed the Charr to experience. It was a peace she envied dearly for her living years, something to gift to her cubs if only she had it. And to imagine someone willingly tossing that all away, to cling to old self-destructive ideas and memories of long-gone days, to fan flames that long should have been doused...it was the Flame shamans and their uprising all over again. She could already smell the burning fur as she thought of it.

As for Chihiro, he's fought Renegades before: the large, disparate warband started by those who didn't believe in the treaty of peace between the Kingdom of Kryta and the High Legions of the Charr. They broke off in droves over decades. Entire families raised and trained in the life of killing humans to hold up a war rapidly losing its last legs. Brainwashed into blind hatred, ignorant malice, fearful paranoia. Renegades kill some Humans, they make some Separatists out of the survivors; in turn they kill some Charr, they make some Renegades out of their survivors. A pair of snakes each devouring the other's tail. It wasn't going to end for them unless one side was just a mountain of corpses. These Renegades, they didn't seem to care. The bodies were the point of their exclamation mark: better dead than in league with mice.

"What do you think?" Chihiro asks Kalla, head turning to further scan the room. "Any of these fellas seem...backstabby to you?"

"Not particularly," Kalla answers, snout twitching and dragging part of her upper lip with it. Her ears twitch, trying to hone in on any interesting conversations held within the aisles of the mess hall. "Talks of recruiting cubs and greenhorns into traitorous ranks so casually held in this room don't give me any confidence, all being said."

"They think I can't do jack about what they're saying." Chihiro chuckles. Some of the Charr nearest to him turn their heads slightly. "That it's their word, their superior's word, versus mine and the Pact's. We'll see about that." He begins to walk towards the doorway, some of those nearest-to-him Charr spooked at the sudden peep he had let out after who-knows-how long he had held his tongue up until now. "Oh. Whoops~✨"

"That wasn't a slip," Kalla chides.

"Can't prove or disprove it either way," Chihiro chuckles, shrugging as he passes Brokenstone at the door. "But we've got good intel. We can rejoin Kasmeer and Efram at–" He notices the warband general's shoulders tense up. Tail stiffened and swishing. "...You good?" Brokenstone leans forward a touch, eyeing the Human talking to himself. Weirdo.

No. Frankly, never. It was bad enough seeing the Flame Legion persist centuries after their fall from power and grace. To see them grovelling back to the Legions? To plead for acceptance, forgiveness, after everything they've done to the Charr as a whole? Nigh unforgivable! "Let's move on, Herald." But that wasn't her choice to make. And it wasn't her place to judge the actions of modern Charr by antiquated standards; the so-called Renegades do enough of that as it is.

"Roger, ma'am." Chihiro kept tabs on Kalla's touchiness towards Flame Legion; he knows of the Scorch warband's history well enough, yeah, but he didn't anticipate a response as undisciplined as this. Then again, this whole "party" had been one conga line of surprises after another. He didn't expect Aurene to crash the party the way she did. He didn't expect the Blood Legion Imperator to be a snobby politician with fascistic goals in his horned head. He definitely didn't expect the party to be a cover for a mass levy attempt, and he absolutely didn't anticipate Rytlock's boy to be in the center of this spiked web.

But, despite being deprived of his precious and rare alcohol, the flavor of this mission's intrigue kept him going. He wanted to see this through to its end, in whatever shape that took. "I'll call in Kasmeer; I think we need to go undercover for this."

[rosesonbreeze]

OPEN: M, F, NB (25+) PLOT: Our muses have worked together for years. Maybe your muse is Javier's manager, agent, personal assistant, engineer, etc. Best friends with a lot of banter, who act like an old married couple but aren't together... Or should they be? MUSE: Javier Carrillo, 34, He/Him, formula 1 race driver and champion. Reckless renegade, prone to breaking the rules. Thinks fast, acts faster. Might be a sweetheart (deep, deep inside)

"Is there anything I'm allowed to do?" It's not a rhetorical question. Not when he's just been pulled out of a casino in Monaco with chips still on a table, and a twenty-one year old bottle of scotch in tow. Really, Javier should expect this, especially on a racing weekend. But he always delivers, doesn't he? Albeit, with the car (and sometimes himself) worse for wear. "Come on, it's only--" Javier whines, blinking down at his watch. "Two in the morning!" It's practically still dinner, he almost reasons, if not for the level gaze his partner is giving him. "Hey, hey," puppy dog eyes now on full display, as he gently grasps their elbow. "Alright, I'm sorry." Is he still going to try and get out of morning training? Probably.

[docholligay]

On Doc Watching Renegade Nell

Hello friends! This was tact's pick for our draw liveblog, which you enter by commenting on whatever I wrote last month.

I do not know ANYTHING about this show, other than that Disney made it and that this is the premise:

A quick-witted and courageous young woman framed for murder unexpectedly becomes the most notorious outlaw in 18th-century England.

I KNOW NOTHING ELSE, AND IT IS MUCH MORE FUN FOR ALL OF US WHEN WE KEEP IT THAT WAY. It allows me to guess, it allows me to be wrong, to be right, to have contempt for those who don't deserve it, and mercy for those who also, don't deserve it. THis is the fun of a liveblog. I react based on only what I know.

So! Please don't spoil me with anything in the show, and please remember that you have information I do not! So, if I hate Nell, the one character whose name I know, because she...is a coward, or whatever, this is not a good time to tell me that "she's reacting to the murder of her entire family by churchmice" or something, or even, "She has a good reason to hate mice! keep watching!"

I will also add I am BY NO MEANS a scholar on the time and place this takes place. I'm pretty sure this is Highwayman times, which I only know because it's around the Golden Age of Piracy, which I've read some books about. ANYWAY, all that to say that I may make a historical blunder, but, mostly, let me make it. If you have historical context to lend, PLEASE ask me first. This is probably the toughest needle for me to thread, because I love love to learn shit, but, history can, in fact, sometimes be a spoiler.

Don't get me wrong. Totally get the compulsion. I am God's most irritating soldier on anything about the American West.

I am always very clear when I ask for answer, so no worries! It'll look something like: THIS IS A QUESTION I ACTUALLY WANT AN ANSWER TO. Otherwise assume it's rhetorical.

Uhhhh...as always, I am free to think what I think, and if it is REALLY gonna twist your nipples to have me feel any kind of a way, let's us both not engage with it.

The tag to follow or block is #Doc Watches Renegade Nell!

[minusgangtime]

(She nodded,before jumping into the pipe,she looked at him again.)

Blue,stay safe,Kay?

(She then jumped into the pipe-)

WEEEEEEEEEE-

-Shelby

On top of a ledge, a demon and a bird bat hybrid were looking down at the scene.

"Look! She's fast, powerful and hates the council as much as we do! We have to get her to join us!~"

"I dunno, Rebel. What if it's a trap?"

"Come on, Renegade. Have I ever been wrong?~"

"..."

"Uh... Rhetorical question..~"

[tanadrin]

1. Yay you’re reading DoE!

2. I think the Davids love to rhetorically position themselves as renegade badboy contrarians for a lot of things where other anth/arch scholars agree with them.

It’s a pity because popularizing a lot of the developments in anthropology and archeology for the last few decades still really needs to be done—I think by and large people do have a really outdated idea of the range of systems of social organization that can operate even in the absence of agriculture. Insofar as this book is doing that, I think it’s doing a pretty good job, though sometimes it’s a little overconfident—for instance, pre-Clovis people coming down the coast in small boats is, I understand, just one hypothesis for how they arrived in the americas, but it’s not one archeologists are super confident on bc sea level rise means there’s little available evidence to back it up. But G&W proclaim it the definitive version. It’s fine if they think it’s by far the most likely one, but hey, people used to say that about Clovis First!

[docgold13]

Don't worry, Cy-kill dying was just a meme in the 2000's since then Transformers has had a somewhat good relationship with Gobots, Mostly expanding on the old GB lore (stuff like how their universe was almost destroyed & sent sleeper agents into the TF universe to help), fun little letter columns from convention called "Renegades Rhetoric" & some characters getting new toys in recent years (hell we're apparently doing Rock lords next year).

coolness. wow, Rock Lords... hadn't thought of them in a dog's age.

...seems to me that many of the cartoons when I was a kid were essentially adds for toys (GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man, et cetera). This practice seems to have sort of died off. I'm guessing it because the child-age sales demographic has switched over so heavily toward video games. Or maybe it was something else. In any case, an interesting phenomenon.

[heliotropies]

Hi there!! I'm Katie/Kefli and this is my oc blog!!! this is where i infodump about my characters and stories, collate relevant posts, images, and art, amd occasionally post snippets of my writing 🤫

My Original Stories:

Demon Hunters (Fantasy)

Two teenagers must rebuild their lives after narrowly escaping the destruction of their village, while also trying to save the world from a monster invasion and a divine dictatorship - all while raising a baby.

Hell's Crossing (Horror, Comedy, Romance)

Two teenage girls from vastly different backgrounds must put aside their differences and work together in order to dig up the horrors of their respective family's pasts and figure out why the two are intertwined.

Hit The Road, Jackie (Vampires, Mystery)

A young bartender's life is thrown into upheaval when a renegade vampire decides to move in with her.

Human Error (Sci-Fi, Coming of Age)

A friend group of mutant teenagers must navigate the pitfalls of adolescence whilst also dealing with a rising wave of anti-mutant rhetoric threatening to tear their lives apart.

Journey To Eternity (Sci-Fi, Drama)

Three cosmic potentates find themselves stuck on earth while a war wages across their homeland and must learn to adapt to the human way of life.

Lay Me To Sleep (Supernatural, Mystery)

A group of witches investigate a string of grisly murders whilst trying to avoid the same fate for themselves.

Feel free to ask questions about my stories + characters!! 🥰

Main Blog

[nothingunrealistic]

WENDY: How many times have you seen The Hunt for Red October? TAYLOR: I don’t watch Alec — PHILIP: Yeah, and Connery had that interview back in — WENDY: Okay, I hear you, but let’s not with that, right now. I asked rhetorically. I’m sure you both know lines by heart. The point is: even Ramius, who had almost total discretion, couldn’t act alone. Someone had to give him the keys every time he took out that sub. PHILIP: Is Ramius…? WENDY: Two captains in this story. The point is, if you’re asking for total and complete control 24/7, you are wasting your time. And his.

7x05 the gulag archipelago. the hunt for red october follows marko ramius, a soviet submarine captain who defies orders and goes rogue in what’s interpreted as an imminent renegade nuclear attack on the united states, and jack ryan, a cia analyst who figures out that ramius is actually trying to defect to the united states. if philip ends up defecting to Team Kill Prince under the guise of attacking them, we’ll know exactly who ramius is.

[echthr0s]

the worst thing about playing Mass Effect 2 is that Adrian Shepard definitely has those livid red marks on his face, the ones that get worse the more Renegade choices you make. but outside of gameplay rules, those marks are just part of him, to me -- evidence of what sort of creation he now is, no longer just a scrappy lad from the homeworld but an engineered weapon, Cerberus's hound, something that isn't even allowed to die without permission from his human overlords. he looks in the mirror every day and he sees the marks and he thinks, this is a mask. a poorly fitted mask. and he waits to find out what happens when it cracks--

bloody hell ANYWAY that's not the point, the point is that despite my best efforts to play him like the Renegade he is, I'm almost at full Paragon status because Bioware doesn't seem to understand that meathead ass hoorah shit isn't what makes Adrian a Renegade, what makes him a Renegade is being repulsed by human supremacy rhetoric, being emotionally driven instead of callously duty-bound, and threatening Mordin Solus with grievous bodily harm if he tells anyone even tangentially related to Cerberus about the fact that Adrian still has wet dreams about being flayed open by Harbinger,

[reddest-flower]

One ought again to remember that all cultures impose corrections upon raw reality, changing it from free-floating objects into units of knowledge. The problem is not that conversion takes place. It is perfectly natural for the human mind to resist the assault on it of untreated strangeness; therefore cultures have always been inclined to impose complete transformations on other cultures, receiving these other cultures not as they are but as, for the benefit of the receiver, they ought to be. To the Westerner, however, the Oriental was always like some aspect of the West; to some of the German Romantics, for example, Indian religion was essentially an Oriental version of Germano-Christian pantheism. Yet the Orientalist makes it his work to be always converting the Orient from something into something else: he does this for himself, for the sake of his culture, in some cases for what he believes is the sake of the Oriental. This process of conversion is a disciplined one: it is taught, it has its own societies, periodicals, traditions, vocabulary, rhetoric, all in basic ways connected to and supplied by the prevailing cultural and political norms of the West. And, as I shall demonstrate, it tends to become more rather than less total in what it tries to do, so much so that as one surveys Orientalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the overriding impression is of Orientalism’s insensitive schematization of the entire Orient.

How early this schematization began is clear from the examples I have given of Western representations of the Orient in classical Greece. How strongly articulated were later representations building on the earlier ones, how inordinately careful their schematization, how dramatically effective their placing in Western imaginative geography, can be illustrated if we turn now to Dante’s Inferno. Dante’s achievement in The Divine Comedy was to have seamlessly combined the realistic portrayal of mundane reality with a universal and eternal system of Christian values. What Dante the pilgrim sees as he walks through the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso is a unique vision of judgment. Paolo and Francesca, for instance, are seen as eternally confined to hell for their sins, yet they are seen as enacting, indeed living, the very characters and actions that put them where they will be for eternity. Thus each of the figures in Dante’s vision not only represents himself but is also a typical representation of his character and the fate meted out to him.

“Maometto”—Mohammed—turns up in canto 28 of the Inferno. He is located in the eighth of the nine circles of Hell, in the ninth of the ten Bolgias of Malebolge, a circle of gloomy ditches surrounding Satan’s stronghold in Hell. Thus before Dante reaches Mohammed, he passes through circles containing people whose sins are of a lesser order: the lustful, the avaricious, the gluttonous, the heretics, the wrathful, the suicidal, the blasphemous. After Mohammed there are only the falsifiers and the treacherous (who include Judas, Brutus, and Cassius) before one arrives at the very bottom of Hell, which is where Satan himself is to be found. Mohammed thus belongs to a rigid hierarchy of evils, in the category of what Dante calls seminator di scandalo e di scisma. Mohammed’s punishment, which is also his eternal fate, is a peculiarly disgusting one: he is endlessly being cleft in two from his chin to his anus like, Dante says, a cask whose staves are ripped apart. Dante’s verse at this point spares the reader none of the eschatological detail that so vivid a punishment entails: Mohammed’s entrails and his excrement are described with unflinching accuracy. Mohammed explains his punishment to Dante, pointing as well to Ali, who precedes him in the line of sinners whom the attendant devil is splitting in two; he also asks Dante to warn one Fra Dolcino, a renegade priest whose sect advocated community of women and goods and who was accused of having a mistress, of what will be in store for him. It will not have been lost on the reader that Dante saw a parallel between Dolcino’s and Mohammed’s revolting sensuality, and also between their pretensions to theological eminence.

But this is not all that Dante has to say about Islam. Earlier in the Inferno, a small group of Muslims turns up. Avicenna, Averroës, and Saladin are among those virtuous heathens who, along with Hector, Aeneas, Abraham, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, are confined to the first circle of the Inferno, there to suffer a minimal (and even honorable) punishment for not having had the benefit of Christian revelation. Dante, of course, admires their great virtues and accomplishments, but because they were not Christians he must condemn them, however lightly, to Hell. Eternity is a great leveler of distinctions, it is true, but the special anachronisms and anomalies of putting pre-Christian luminaries in the same category of “heathen” damnation with post-Christian Muslims does not trouble Dante. Even though the Koran specifies Jesus as a prophet, Dante chooses to consider the great Muslim philosophers and king as having been fundamentally ignorant of Christianity. That they can also inhabit the same distinguished level as the heroes and sages of classical antiquity is an ahistorical vision similar to Raphael’s in his fresco The School of Athens, in which Averroës rubs elbows on the academy floor with Socrates and Plato (similar to Fénelon’s Dialogues des morts [1700–1718], where a discussion takes place between Socrates and Confucius).

The discriminations and refinements of Dante’s poetic grasp of Islam are an instance of the schematic, almost cosmological inevitability with which Islam and its designated representatives are creatures of Western geographical, historical, and above all, moral apprehension. Empirical data about the Orient or about any of its parts count for very little; what matters and is decisive is what I have been calling the Orientalist vision, a vision by no means confined to the professional scholar, but rather the common possession of all who have thought about the Orient in the West. Dante’s powers as a poet intensify, make more rather than less representative, these perspectives on the Orient. Mohammed, Saladin, Averroës, and Avicenna are fixed in a visionary cosmology—fixed, laid out, boxed in, imprisoned, without much regard for anything except their “function” and the patterns they realize on the stage on which they appear.

Orientalism, Edward Said, 1978

[bekandrew]

"Gather 'Round the Trashfires," a Deviant: the Renegades horror/comedy fiction podcast Sat, 15 Jun 2024 13:23:50 +0000

The cohort work on next steps toward their goals against their enemies and taking care of their loved ones. Even when sleeping, there's no true rest for a Renegade in hiding.

This is a shorter episode than normal, but something possessed my ST to allow us to do a lot more downtime than usual that week (including allowing Geri 4 Astral Travel dreams) so it was more than would reasonably fit with the next session.

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Episode Transcript:

Get your snack and beverage of choice ready.

It’s time to “Gather ‘Round the Trashfires” for a tabletop roleplaying story! I’m your host, Bek Andrew Evans.

My current and main running story for this podcast is the misadventures of the cohort from the Deviant: the Renegades chronicle I’ve been playing in since early 2021. And I play Geri.

For those of you unfamiliar with Deviant, it’s a TTRPG about people who were formerly human but were irreparably changed in traumatic ways to the point their very Souls broke and they became something Other. They seek vengeance on those who made them, those who hunt them, those who seek to exploit them for what they are and will never leave them be.

As such, this podcast will feature heavy themes and content throughout. There’s an overall content warning for language, violence, criminality, homelessness, substance use, human experimentation, cults and religious extremism, mentioned torture, kidnapping, implied incest and incest-related comments, and abusive relationships. On episodes where there is a new content warning or a particularly notable instance of one of these, I’ll call it out.

I hope y’all enjoy hearing about my cohort’s antics and stumbling headfirst into the mysteries of the world as much as I have.

[Music Intro: "_violence" by Avantist]

Green Country Calcination Episode 13: Interlude: Sweet Dreams

After the chat with Cassidy and incident with AJ, the cohort goes back to their daily routines for a week or so. They're primarily focused on tasks to gather information about their shared enemies to plan their next steps, though Geri, Grant, and Robert do significant amounts of household management as well.

The cohort doesn't have many significant interactions with each other in person over the following week - their schedules keep conflicting as they go about their individual tasks. They mostly meet up for shared meals with whoever's available.

That night, after the incident, Geri dreams again about Amanda. She's desperate for clues about her current status and location, though she's well aware she may not like what she finds.

She finds herself watching a scene play out in a cafeteria, a food court in a mall. The images are blurry at first. Amanda's sitting across from Jake. She keeps her hair fairly short and dresses in a butch style, with tank tops, an open over shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Amanda's got fluffy, curly dark-brown hair and light-mid-tone skin from being mixed race. Jake is a very young adult - about 18 - preppy jock that you can tell by looking at him he's got a "bad boy" streak and is probably up to something.

Amanda asks how he connected her to her. Jake says they have their ways, and he just borrowed from that. He continues, asking rhetorically if Geri reached out and weird things happened. He says that's their life now; it's a dangerous life.

Amanda frowns and reluctantly says she understands, but still worries.

Jake pats Amanda's shoulder comfortingly and tells her she can't help Geri, that they'll come for Amanda if they find out Geri reached out. He tells her she needs to keep herself safe.

Amanda nods, and that part of the dream fades to black, like a movie. When it fades back up, Amanda's stepping into the Oklahoma City Airport, staring at her phone. She's dialing a number. Geri's number. Over and over again.

She quietly pleads for Geri to pick up... but there's nothing.

As she finally boards the plane, she gives up. She curses Geri and sighs, whispering that she misses her, too.

That scene fades out and Geri wakes up. She's aware Amanda has close relatives out of state she would be able to stay with.

After the dream, Geri gets a different burner phone from the stash. She was afraid that somehow, her previous one had been compromised.

She again leaves the cabin to make the call, and this time at an odd hour she knows Amanda isn't likely to answer. As she hopes, Amanda doesn't, so she leaves a voicemail.

She doesn't introduce herself, just starts speaking.

"Hey, um, I know this is weird. Let me know if you're safe. Or don't, [stammers] I guess. I'm...

I'm not gonna use this number for anythin' else. Jus' don't trust Jake, or anyone else workin' with the church. I got a way to communicate privately for sure if you want, but I'm not gonna freak you out again. I'm sorry about the call, I just couldn't bear for you to not believe me. Even though this shit's pretty unbelievable [nervous laugh].

[Inhale] Otherwise, uh, I guess let me know if you need help. I'll try to stay far enough away you won't get caught up in anything, least until it's over.

[Stammer] I still love you. Bye."

She goes home and marks the phone with a red stripe of sharpie so she won't use it for anything but contacting Amanda.

And then cries alone.

AJ doesn't come to the group dinners. In fact, he's hardly present at all most of the week. He's gone most of the day and returns late in the night like a delinquent teen.

It's obvious he's still around, at least at odd hours, though, because there's plenty of frozen pizza and burrito wrappers in (and near) the trash can, and he's eating any leftover meals set aside for him.

And, as always, there's the strange garage noises.

At the next grocery run, Geri picks up some pool noodles, though the cohort doesn't have a pool. She sneaks into the garage to leave them anonymously among Zuse's things in the hopes he'll surely find a use for them and maybe AJ will lighten up a little.

Geri wants to help Madi but finds she doesn't know how to research the connections between Charismatic Virtues' inner circle and Cassica Hall. That way they'll know, during the meetup with Father Philip, if his information is good or if he's off base because he's either lying or also in the dark. She has a very weak educational background, to put it lightly, and can barely use computers.

She settles on using Astral Travel to cast a wide net for hints on the connections others with better research skills can follow up on.

Geri dreams of snippets of the memorial for the dead teenagers. The timeline's all garbled and unclear.

At some point - before, during, after? She can't tell where it's suppose to fit in the timeline of events, but she sees a still image of a donation check being handed over between the Church's inner circle and Cassica Hall. It's unclear which direction its being passed.

She also can't tell specifically which members are holding the check, only adding to her confusion.

She wakes up with more questions than answers.

The cohort notice a bizarre story in the news. It's running on the second page of the paper sold in the park's shopping center and throughout Pryor.

It talks about a teenage prank the locals believe is being perpetrated by some ballsy high-schooler who's been impersonating vending machine owners around town.

All the machines that get hit end up having all their skittles and M&Ms stolen as well as about $50 cash each. There's not usually anything else missing.

Another night, Geri decides to dream spy on Camille to see what she's up to and get some clues on her progress in her plans.

Geri finds herself floating in a dark meeting room, granting her a bird's eye view. A number of people Geri doesn't recognize sit silently around the meeting table, with most of their features obscured by the dark. However, Geri can make out there's an older woman with graying hair between an elderly gentleman and a very dour-looking Gabriel Werner.

Geri pays closer attention to Gabe's expression, and finds just a hint of smugness he's hiding very well, but mostly the dour annoyance.

The cause of his annoyance is giving the presentation up front - Camille Mason is smugly referencing still shots of the cohort's minivan speeding out of Robert's neighborhood.

She pauses what she was saying and glances up to the ceiling where dream Geri is observing. She tells Geri 'Bold, but not enough.' Her eyes flash.

Before she gets tossed out of the dream to wakefulness in the middle of the night, Geri catches the slightest smirk from Gabe.

Grant continues throughout the week his normal habit of making an extensive network of deadly traps through the cabin property. It's a whole lot of physical labor, but it keeps him occupied.

He also continues his normal habit of meditating in the morning with his coffee, reflecting about the circumstances, and thinking about Sophie.

On a whim, at some point during the week, Geri attempts to Reconnect with Telepathy to Beth to check on the status of the moved ward - but fails that time. She manages to get a sense that Beth is still alive, but no more than that.

Geri induces a fourth dream this week. This time, she's helping AJ like she promised she would. She's trying to uncover details of his conditioning she's unlikely to uncover other ways, especially with AJ's conditioning being a secret.

Her dream is simple, and for once: peaceful. She dreams of hearing a simple, hummed lullaby - soft, repetitive, and comforting.

There's nothing malicious here, no tests, no sense of training or commands. It's only a gentle lullaby to soothe a child.

Geri wakes up dazed and very groggy.

AJ makes a polite request to the others that their next outing should be checking on his mother. He needs to make sure she's okay given everything that's gone on. He's arranging an outing to a public place to meet her - the local planetarium.

He has a new gadget he's finishing up for the mission!

The others agree to help.

Geri writes in the dream journal reporting to assure that AJ's conditioning was really just a benign, loving lullaby. There was nothing malicious about it and no commands attached.

AJ thanks Geri and is very relieved.

Madison, having access to the journal as well and not being present for the entire debacle with conditioning before, innocently asks what Geri means about AJ's conditioning. She's very concerned.

Geri refuses to explain over the journal.

AJ agrees and says it's going to be a discussion that needs a lot of weed.

This does nothing to ease Madi's concerns. In fact, the opposite. She's kinda freaking out and the dream journal's become pretty derailed. 

Late in the week, among all the normal loud noises from the garage, there's a cackle and a loud AJ-shreik demanding to know 'WHY DID YOU PUT THEM THERE?!'

During the week, Madison receives an email while she's out of the cabin doing her computer stuff. She hand-writes it down in her cutesy, curly script and hangs it on the fridge for the cohort.

It says: Hey Madi- Tell your friend Geri that Amanda is safe, although she spooked her real good sending THOUGHTS into her head. Luckily for you all, I gave a number to people I was able to figure out the church knew were close to y'all. So I can get them out of their sight if YOU ALL endanger them by getting too close. I can't bargain for indefinite freedom for them all. Stay safe, Jake

Later in the week, AJ leaves a handwritten reply on the bottom of the page in marker that says "Douchie McDouchenozzle is SUS AF."

[Music Outro: "Time Will Fail Us" by Troigo]

Thanks for listening, This has been Gather ‘Round The Trashfires with Bek Andrew Evans. Please subscribe to this podcast for future updates and leave a review or comment, I’d love to hear what you think. You can follow me on a few different social platforms with the username "bekandrew." That's [spells username] on tumblr and bluesky, mainly.

If you'd like to support me, subscribe to my Patreon at Patreon.com/BekAndrewTTRPG and purchase my art prints and tabletop products, including my Deviant: the Renegades community content novella related to this chronicle via my linktree in the description.

AJ is played by Roen,

Geri is played by me,

Madison is played by Syn,

Robert is played by Pandito,

And our Storyteller is Casey Grant.

The intro theme is "_violence by Avantist" from the Free Music Archive, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0.

The end theme is "Time Will Fail Us" by Troigo from the Free Music Archive, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0.

If you like the songs, I encourage you to check out more of their work. I've linked their Bandcamps in the description.

Until next time.

Follow my Patreon at Patreon.com/BekAndrewTTRPG Check out my other work at linktr.ee/bekandrew Check out the Intro and Outro artists' Bandcamps! https://theavantist.bandcamp.com/music https://troigo.bandcamp.com/ Remember to subscribe and see y'all next week! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/gather-round-the-trashfires/donations Transcript: