#and ideas outside of the genera/show's own world.

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

(I would love to hear your explanations in the tags, as always, share to get a larger data pool!)

[hunters-of-the-wastes]

Plains Behemoth

“One of the biggest animals this side of the valley. It often stomps first, asks questions later. Don't get too close.”

The USA after the bombs dropped was known to have had a major exodus event- a great migration that was signaled with the passing of many various animal species migrating as far as they could away from the blast zones. While sadly many did not survive and those who did either carved out a new life for themselves someplace else, or returned to their native habitats as time went on, few never surprised survivors as much as the presence of what is now considered to be one of the largest species of mammal who now calls parts of the middle of the US home.

Description Mammuthus Aglaogomphio ("Mammoth with the Brilliant Tooth") is a gargantuan sized, partially shaggy-coated proboscidean related to the famous elephants and mammoths of pre-war history. They are what's left of a group of elephants, both the Asian elephant Elephas maximus and the African elephant Loxodonta africana, who had successfully escaped captivity after the bombs dropped and somehow survived long enough to migrate across country and settle in the middle of the United States and are actually theorized to have interbred with one another.

This theory does hold some merit, as while the Asian elephant and the African elephant belong to different genera, they share the same number of chromosomes, thus making hybridization, at least in this respect, theoretically possible, as while Asian and African elephants do not come in contact in the wild, there had been one official incident of cross-breeding between the two species.

In 1978, at the Chester Zoo in England, an Asian elephant cow Sheba was reported to have given birth to a calf after mating with an African elephant bull named Jumbolino. Their calf was named Motty, and at the time of his birth, was described as having had features of both his parents. Sadly and tragically he was premature and died of stomach complications two weeks later, according to Dr. Derek Lyon, veterinarian in charge at Chester Zoo during Motty's birth.

Because of their ability to interbreed, this is often hypothesized as too what gave these mighty pachyderms their fighting chance at survival in the post-apocalyptic world.

While many deduced the idea of these large mammals being able to thrive outside their native habitat and stake their claim in the wilds of the US without human intervention as preposterous, it's not entirely uncalled for that they would manage to thrive but survive.

During the Pleistocene, large populations of Proboscideans lived in North America, such as the Columbian mammoth and the American mastodon. The mastodons all became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene era, as did the mammoths of North America. However, an extant relative of the mammoth is the well known Asian elephant. It lived in the tropical zones of southeastern Asia, but the fossil record showed that it was much more widespread, living in temperate northern China as well as the Middle East, an area bearing an ecological similarity to the southern and central United States, which coincidentally is where the Plains Behemoth lives now.

The Central United States are typically considered to consist of what was known pre-war as North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama. which alone gives the animals a wide-spread range, which it uses to it's advantages, as they migrate for the winter to warmer climates and often travel long distances in search of food.

Bodily Description Being a hybrid of two separate elephant species, with the added combination of radiation mutating certain features of the animal, the Plains Behemoth shares the traits of both its ancestors, along with its own traits that enable it to thrive in the wilds of the USA.

Body physic wise, the cheek, ears (long with pointed lobes) and legs (longer and slimmer) are of African descent, while nail numbers (5 front, 4 hind) and the single trunk finger are of Asian. The wrinkled trunk is like an African elephant while the forehead is sloped with one dome and two smaller domes behind it. Their body is often noted to be African in type, very robust and strong, while also featuring an Asian-type centre hump and an African-type rear hump.

M.Aglaogomphio also stands as one of the largest species of elephant, beating even the size of M. trogontherii, The steppe mammoth. The steppe mammoth was once regarded as the largest species of mammoth,‭ ‬though in the past there were two rivals to this crown.‭ ‬One former species,‭ ‬M.‭ ‬sungari,‭ ‬also known as the Songhua river mammoth was once estimated to be beyond five meters high at the shoulder,‭ ‬though early in the twenty-first century it was established that the M.‭ ‬sungari type specimen was actually composed of the remains of M.‭ ‬trogontherii with some associated M.‭ ‬primigenius remains.‭ ‬Today M.‭ ‬sungari is regarded as a synonym to M.‭ ‬trogontherii.‭ ‬Another species,‭ ‬M.‭ ‬imperator was once considered to be a particularly large species,‭ ‬but now M.‭ ‬imperator is thought to be a synonym to M.‭ ‬columbi. (the Columbian Mammoth).

While general size for each gender borders around 30 feet in length and 20 feet in height, females unlike other modern elephant species don't stand that much smaller than males, with many getting around 12 feet in height and almost 20 feet in length. And while it is unrecorded, it has been rumored that there are some individuals who can double that size entirely.

Taking another trait from their Asian heritage, and while not completely noticeable unless you get an up close look at it, a Plains Behemoth sports thick hairs on many parts of its body, which they shed during the spring. However they are not nearly as wooly as the famous mammoth, sporting hair only on their heads, legs and shoulders and thus do not thrive in cold very well, which causes them to have to migrate.

Tusks Teeth And Diet A Plains Behemoth's curved tusks are larger than those of any true elephant, measuring up to thirteen feet around the curve in old bulls. Its distinctive tusks grow in a way similar to African elephants. But, unlike the previous elephant species and even the ones found in the fossil records, the tusks of the males branch out near the base, with the second 'branches' clearly spirally turned upwards, with the pointed ends facing each other. Their teeth have also changed and are larger and much more robust than elephant teeth, allowing them to process coarse forest vegetation.

As a herbivorous species, they are generalist feeders, and are both grazers and browsers. They are known to feed on at least 112 different plant species, including shrubs, wildflowers and tree bark. Non-migrating herds also venture into the open forests in search of fresh plant growth. During the fall, these herbivores eat whatever they can to prepare for winter, storing up fat for extra protection against the harsh chill of their home before migrating. Sometimes they have even been known to eat village huts or other wooden objects.

Family Dynamic

Plains Behemoth display complex social and emotional behavior, and are said to value their families more than most animals. Much like many other species of Elephants, Plains Behemoth are known to develop strong, intimate bonds between friends and family members. There have been reports of elephants forming lifelong friendships with each other, and they even mourn the death of their loved ones. Mother elephants have been seen grieving over stillborn calves, and some elephants have even been spotted returning to, and lingering near, spots where their friends and family members died.

All families have a matriarchal head, meaning that an older, experienced lady elephant leads the herd. A family usually consists of a mother, her sisters, daughters, their babies (calves). Occasionally, non-related elephants join to form families. Female family units range from three to twenty five elephants. Sometimes herds of female elephants combine with groups of bull elephants to form larger clans. 

Herd aggregations of 500 to 1000 elephants have been recorded around watering holes and other sources of food and water. Herd aggregation has also been documented in areas where poaching is rampant. Females and their immature young often travel in small, tight-knit herds led by a matriarch, while the males leave their mothers upon reaching sexual maturity and live either alone or in bachelor herds. During the summer female herds invite wandering bulls into battle for the right to mate, watching as the huge bulls crash tusks and grapple with their trunks. This heightened aggression between bull Behemoth lasts year-round and makes them extremely dangerous in the wild.

Battle Strategy And Interactions Plains Behemoth are quite intelligent and have been observed to combat larger foes with some semblance of strategy. The animal's massive size and strength put it out of the league of most predators, although their calves are vulnerable to attack from wolves, big cats, wargs, and many other large predators including the rare occurrence they happen to run into Super Mutant Behemoths. A Plains Behemoth's trunk can also lift stones and dead trees, which it can use as a weapon to batter down foes with brutal swings strong enough to send most flying with fatal injuries.

Despite this they are hunted, and their meat is edible and they produce many useful materials like fat, bones, and leather. While odd to some, their milk is safe for people to drink and, while rather bland-tasting, is hypoallergenic and a great alternative for those who can’t stand the taste of other Brahmin alternatives. However as they are usually hunted for their meat and pelts many groups of these animals have a strong hatred towards humans and other humanoids. This strong hatred towards anything human or humanoid has led to many cases of people being trampled and brutally maimed. Many travelers and hunters are warned not to engage confrontations and to run if chased down. One way to escape a Woolly Mammoth is to play dead, another way is to climb out of reach.

Trivia

Mammuthus: Genus

aglao: splendor, beauty; splendid, brilliant (Greek)

gomphio: a tooth (Greek)

[ehyeh-joshua]

God of Dragons

@greater-than-the-sword - rather than dragging your post further off-topic, I decided to finally get around to writing this up.

If you honestly want to grapple with the Bible, it becomes essential to consider our ancient scaled friend/enemy the dragon. The Scriptures leave no alternative but to declare that man walked with dinosaurs.

The Hebrew word that we translate as “dragon” is Tannin, and like all ancient Hebrew thought, is not a specific species, but a genera – to us, we categorise things by qualities – we use “pencil” and “pen” and “quill” to describe specific classes of objects; to the mindset of Biblical Hebrew, they are all the same; you write with them.

What Tannin refers to is any large, dangerous reptile, whether on land, at sea or in the air, and while it would include them, it doesn't actually mean our modern understanding of dragon, which having being split from it's roots in historical creatures, is now mythical. (although such creatures are mentioned)

In the Septuagint – the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was considered the Old Testament for the Greek-speaking early church – the word Tannin is translated by “Drakkon” which is the root for our word “dragon”.

The word Tannin is used 23 times in Scripture:(note-all the citations are quoted in full at the end, truncated here for brevity)

Singular form:

Nehemiah 2:13; Psalm 91:13; Isaiah 27:1 and 51:9; Jeremiah 51:34; Ezekiel 29:3,  Exodus 7:9, 7:10 and 7:12,  and Genesis 1:21.

Plural form:

Deuteronomy 32:33,  Job 7:12 and Job 30:29, Psalms 44:19, 74:13; and 148:7, Isaiah 13:22 Jeremiah 9:11, 10:22, 14:6, 49:33 and 51:37 and Ezekiel 32:2.

The second word we need to have in mind is Leviatan – this is the creature we think of when we think of dragon. This word is used five times in four verses:  Job 41:1, Psalm 74:14 and 104:26, and twice in Isaiah 27:1. Like Tannin, Leviatan is translated in the Septuagint by “drakkon”.

Leviatan has the longest description, having nearly a whole chapter devoted to describing it at the end of Job – this is the strongest evidence, as this is God Himself describing this creature as an example of His own power.

One of the reasons I like Dragons so much is that God has set them as a testimony to Himself.

Sadly, this is perhaps the most mistranslated word in modern English Bibles; most English Bibles insert jackals into these verses wherever the Scriptures undeniably mean literal creatures, doing so because of the wrong belief that dragons are mythical.

The thing is, Hebrew has a word that actually means jackal; it is the same as that for “fox”, and for good reason, as they are known to be able to interbreed, and are therefore the same baramin. That word is “sha’ul”.

Nehemiah 4:3 for example; 'Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, “Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!”'

He’s trying to say that despite the fact that the fox/jackal is such a small and weak animal, it could crush the walls the Jews were building; he’s insulting them. By contrast, a dragon smashing down a wall is kind of what you would expect to happen, and throughout the Prophets, the threat of dragons overwhelming a city is used to express judgement.

Compiling all these references gives us a huge amount of information about these creatures, some of it (most of it in fact) directly from God describing what we would understand as a water drake.

Firstly, that the purpose of these creatures is to give glory to God.

Secondly, it tells us that these are huge reptiles that are very dangerous; enough that the mere threat of them is enough to put a city of people to fleeing for safety – a quarter of the times Tannin is used, it is referring to this terror.

If a city got overrun with jackals, a single person could chase them out; a decent thickness stick as a club, and they scatter. A host of people working together could do it easily. They are mildly dangerous, but they have absolutely nothing on levyatan, which the Scriptures equate to Tannin. A Dragon however? An armoured, fire breathing dragon?

That is dangerous; one dragon is enough to be a risk to an entire region, they are apex predators, there is absolutely no shortage of stories of the danger dragons possess.

Now, if you had an entire city overrun by dragons? You’re not going to reclaim that. Not on the Bronze/Iron age technology possessed by Ancient Israel. Roman Ballistae might have a chance, and a Macedonian Phalanx could make a melee fight in the open stick, but I wouldn’t want to try that kind of a battle without at least trebuchet, if not cannon. And this is from a guy who knows how to solo a T-Rex; T-Rex has one primary weapon, the bite. The solution is a fuck-off amount of three feet long spikes covering your whole body, that way it can’t bite you without facing it’s own mortal peril. You could probably win with a spear, but I’d rather have the spikes.

Dragons? Fire. The accounts of dragons possessing fire-breathing capability are nearly universal, and it is far more reasonable than you might think; using the Bombardier Beetle as a baseline, to breath fire a dragon needs the reaction of hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone, catalysed by catalase and peroxidase; the reactants are ejected from separated storage areas into the front of the open mouth, where the reaction begins in conjunction with the rush of oxygen from heavy breathing out, causing both the reaction and the expellation of the reactants. Range could be comfortably over ten metres and still sufficient to cause burns and scalding on the victim.

Coincidentally, but rather obvious when you think about it, dragon stories generally stop after the invention of cannon, and by the 1800s, almost stop completely outside of Native American tribes.

It is therefore plain that reading the text and allowing the text to explain itself leads to the conclusion that Tannin/Levyatan are a race of immense and dangerous monsters, usually serpent-like but again not always, who’s presence is like the judgement of God, and which God Himself uses to say how awesome He is that He made them and controls their fates. Note also the contrast - the Babylonians had their gods being scared of these monsters, but right from the beginning God takes ownership of them.

The Bible tells us how these creatures lived, where they lived, their diet, their habitat, to an extent their way of life; and it exists as part of material from all over the world that shows that man and dinosaur coexisted. And if humans and dinosaurs coexisted, evolutionary beliefs about ages collapse.

----

Nehemiah 2:13;  “I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire.”- presumably, the Dragon spring was a well or spring that was named for a resident/visitor dragon.

Psalm 91:13; “You will tread on lion and viper; you will trample young lion and dragon.” - the point is to talk about the protection of God; the claim about jackals makes no sense, and using serpent instead has already been covered. Further, the Septuagint uses Drakkon here.

Isaiah 27:1; “In that day GOD will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent with His fierce, great, strong sword, Leviathan the twisted serpent! He will slay the dragon in the sea.” Again, entirely pointless unless it refers to either a real animal, or a mythologised version of a real animal. 

Isaiah 51:9; “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of GOD, awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not You who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?” Again, a pointless exercise if not referring to an actual event.

Jeremiah 51:34; “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me, crushed me, set me aside like an empty dish, swallowed me up like a dragon, filled his belly with my delicacies, rinsed me away.” Jackals cannot eat even a whole arm, and certainly cannot swallow a whole man as the similie depends on; whereas plenty of large carnivorous dinosaurs could.

Ezekiel 29:3, “Speak and say, thus says the LORD GOD: ‘Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh King of Egypt, the great dragon lying in his rivers, who says: “My Nile is my own—I made it for myself.” The idea is to convey that Egypt believes itself to be extremely powerful, before it is cast down in judgement.

Exodus 7:9, 7:10 and 7:12; “So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and did as Adonai had commanded. Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a dragon. Then Pharaoh called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they too, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts. For each man threw down his staff, and they became dragons. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.” Not much to say here, although the Septuagint again uses drakkon both times, instead of one of the words that means a snake.

Genesis 1:21; “And God created the great dragons and every living soul that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their nature, and every winged fowl after its nature; and God saw that it was good.” This is one of the few times the Septuagint uses keytos (whale) to translate Tannin, however, dragons are traditionally associated with the sea and sky, so it makes sense that they are created on day 5.

Plural form:

Deuteronomy 32:33: “Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.” This also informs us that some dragons were poisonous, a feature noted of certain dinosaurs, and never with jackals.

Job 7:12; “Am I a sea, or a dragon, that you set a watch over me?” Again linking dragons to the sea.

Job 30:29; “I am a brother to the dragons, & a companion to the ostriches.” By this, he is continuing his theme, and he means he is alone, ostracised from the community. Jackals however, operate in packs. 

Psalms 44:19; “Though you have broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.” Doesn’t tell us much this one, as it’s relying on the nature of tanninim to convey the situation.

Psalms 74:13; “You split open the sea by your strength; You broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.” Possibly a reference to the Flood.

Psalms 148:7; “Praise the LORD from the earth, you dragons, and all deeps:” An intriguing statement, given extra-Biblical documentation of dragon intelligence, which some sources put as near-Human.

Isaiah 13:21; “But wild animals will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will dwell, and there wild goats will dance.” while it doesn’t say dragon, it says howling creatures, Wycliffe was happy to write dragouns as his translation solely from the sound identified, and it has to be inquired why he did so if humans could not have encountered dragons to record the sound.

Isaiah 13:22; " And the wild beasts shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.” Given the reference is about animals being used as tools for judgement, it’s no surprise that dragons are mentioned.

Jeremiah 9:11; “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of dragons, and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.” Again, a judgement making the city uninhabitable.

Jeremiah 10:22;  “Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.“ again, dragons used as a symbol of judgement.

Jeremiah 14:6; 2and the wild asses stood in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes failed because there was no grass.“ This gives us information about how dragons breathed, which is something very difficult to know unless you either witnessed it or heard from someone who had.

Jeremiah 49:33; “And Hazor shall be a dwelling for dragons, and a desolation for ever: there shall no man abide there, nor any son of man dwell in it.“ Again, using dragons as a symbol of judgement.

Jeremiah 51:37; “And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and a hissing, without an inhabitant.” Jeremiah again uses the presence of dragons as a judgement.

 Ezekiel 32:2 “ “Son of man, raise a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: “You consider yourself a lion of the nations, but you are like a dragon in the seas; you burst forth in your rivers, trouble the waters with your feet, and foul their rivers.”Not much to say here.

[myfandomrambles]

Azula Character Analysis

Born a princess with a high position

Was favored by her father and second in her mother's eyes

Deeply skilled bender from a young age

Attended the royal girl Fier Nation academy and had private tutors

Was around severe abuse emotional and occasionally physical

Abandoned by mother due to political intrigue which affected her

Aware of her parents' murder of her grandfather

Rose to crown princess after her father coronation and brother banishment which she watched

Was used as a weapon by her father against her uncle and bother by age 14

Had a few friends who became partners in hunting the avatar her brother

Was a skilled tactician able to infiltrate the heart of the earth kingdom

Overthrow the earth king

Nearly killed the avatar

Achieved high status for this but shared it with her brother is a skilled protective manner

Had a tumultuous relationship with her brother

Betrayed by her friends 

Attempted to kill her brother

Became fire lord but felt rejected through this as she was unable to claim victory along with her father

Suffered a mental health breakdown 

Was beaten by Zuko & katara in an Agni Kai losing her status 

Overview:

Azula is a complex character who is gifted, clever, beautiful, and deeply psychologically injured. Her story is one of abuse, manipulation, and war. She was raised by abusive people in a cult of power and supremacy; by the age of 14, she was being used to put the same trauma out on the entire world. 

The prime driver for Azula’s character is the necessity to retain control over her situation and due to her status as the princess of the world’s dominant power, this is control over everything. Control and power are the only things Azula truly understands as valuable. This control also equals safety, safety from physical harm during a battle, and emotional harm by others. We can see this control manifest in her emotional distress at having even one hair out of place during her training (2x01). She uses her place of power to hold fear over other people, those she considers lesser than her, by invoking the fear of losing their place and physical harm. Her social power and skill in bending back up the threats. 

Azula’s need for control started as a child who grew up being taught through the iron hand of Ozai who demanded perfection. Her status as a prodigy with fire bending, physical aptitude, and intelligence gave her positive attention from her father but also led her to be inculcated even stronger into the idea that fear is the only way. Her father taught with the fear of retribution for failure as much as any positive attention. The more blatant abuse Zuko suffered from their father for showing what was perceived as weakness and emotionality was another teacher that she must always control every part of her. (2x07, 3x06)

This control via strength without understanding was worsened by her other connections. Her mother failed to connect and attune to her daughter so even in early childhood they were always moving past each other. Azula’s failure to show empathy was met with judgment and punishment and we don’t see them ever repair the relational rupture. Their mother then abandoned them accompanied by their parents murdering their grandfather and threats against her brother. Leaving her with only Ozai as a point of influence and even more surrounded by violence. (2x07)

Azula also gained little perspective outside of the pure ideology of the fire nation royal family and royal academy for girls. She carried the beliefs of fire supremacy and nationalism with no outside input which left her with the schemas of power in her nascent socio-political awareness and added to the stunting of her ability to gain empathy. She was taught to view the world as nations and people only worth understanding to beat not for its own sake. (2x07, 2x19-20, 3x05, 3x06)

This pain leaves her spending the whole second season [spanning months] as a weapon of her father. She is forced to travel around the world, originally with only staff, with the goal of hurting her own family in the name of not being shamed. To prove she can do it she gives herself the task of stopping the avatar. Azula is able to escape a fight with some of the strongest benders we see in the show easily and is persistent to a fault. (2x03) We see her skills of strategy and combat shine here as well as many of her trauma responses. The biggest one being she is acting in a mindset that can not shift from using the world and not experiencing it. (2x01, 2x03, 2x07-8, 2x13, 2x15)

 Azula’s pure genius shows in her ability to take over Ba Sing Se on her ability to read other people, manipulate court games, and her sheer belief in her infallibility. We see her play the Dai Li and Long Feng with only the backup of her two friends. She has an iconic moment of power “Don’t flatter yourself you were never even a player” and invokes her belief in the divine right of kings or lords. (2x18-20)

Once she proves herself and can bring her brother and uncle home, if in a way not planned, putting her back in a secure place of princess she longs to keep. We see her try and maintain control by being the one who understands both her father and Zuko. We see her struggle greatly with normal life but thrive within the system of the place. (3x05-6, 3x11)

However, we see her set world start to collapse when Zuko leaves and her only two friends choose to take a chance for love versus staying in her control bubble. This challenges her sense of safety she works so hard to maintain. It also goes against her understanding of interpersonal relationships and her innate power. (3x11, 3x13, 3x15)

This causes a breakdown in the end. However, this leaves her without a throne and a sense of safety. After the show, we see her mental health stay in a deteriorated state, struggle with the past, and joins a group that wants to harm the new age of peace. (3x18-20, Comics: The Promise Part Three, The Search. Smoke and Shadow)

Relationships:

Zuko

Zuko and Azula are one of the key family dynamics within the story. Azula acts as a foil to Zuko during their childhood being the golden child to his scapegoat. She was Ozai’s favorite whereas Zuko was closer to Ursa. They both suffered severe trauma as young people but Azula spent the time trying to not be viewed as poorly as Zuko. (3x07, The Search) Something she directly tells their father, to not be treated like Zuko (3x18). Building your relationship with your sibling as wanting to prove you are better than them sets them up too but heads, something she acknowledges was also going to come down to them deciding who is the right one to succeed their father. 

During the main plot, we see them start as the predator and the prey (2x01, 2x08). Both of them lived in the mindset Ozai Taught them, she was born lucky and he was lucky to be born (1x20, 2x07). She is the long arm of their father only claiming some autonomy when she chooses her team and attacks the avatar as well (2x03, 2x08). 

Azula brings Zuko back into their fold because next to Iroh she understands Zuko the best. She knows easily the only thing he wants is to feel in control of his life and craves the respect of their father, these are things she also needs. We see her also offer the double-sided act of letting Zuko take credit. It is partially protective as should he live Azula is protected, Suko would be the one who failed. It can also be some degree of kindness for her brother because she does like the system the way it is and Zuko being in pain causes worse stress. 

They continue to bump heads as we see Azula feel most at home within the bureaucracy whereas he struggles to feel as if it was right. Zuko still carries the pain of shame for his actions at the same time Azula pushes much of her emotion down. Part of this is Azula knows where she stands and as long as others play the part she has no worries. Zuko breaks this steady normal as a child when he wants to be empathetic to soldiers and again when he feels the need to save the earth kingdom she wanted to kill in total war. (3x01, 3x05, 3x16)

Their reactions during The Day of Black Sun (3x11) set them on their paths for the end and they mirror each other. Azula uses the time to play her role and waits for the fire bending to turn on to win. Zuko uses the time to pull away from their father for good. They continue to be antagonistic and Zuko is an axle in her relational rupture with Ty Lee and Mai. (3x14-16)

Their final Agni Kai for the title of Firelord shows how much Zuko has learned in his complex bending style and ability to hold control while we notice Azula loose form entirely relying almost completely on her raw power. Her very body language giving off how sick she is currently in her movements now disjointed and lacking precision which conflicts with the controlled fighting we see from Katara and Zuko. (3x18-21).

They have spent their whole life used as pawns by their parents and stuck in the milieu of war and suffering. Azula’s status as her father’s favorite offers her the status Zuko wants but she also lacks the time and ability to grow Zuko earned through his relationship with Uncle Iroh. Their understanding of each other is strong but Azula fails to offer sympathy to her brother when he chooses things she wouldn’t and treats him poorly. And Zuko needs to be able to challenge her so he can properly heal, along with team avatar, the fissures in the world.

Ursa

We see that Azula and Ursa do not understand each other and the abuse they both suffer disallowed them to properly attach. Ursa didn’t understand Azula’s natural predispositions or her trauma which left Azula often being told off by her mother or treated as separate from the bond Ursa had with Zuko. I wouldn’t go as far as to say Ursa was forming a scapegoat golden child dynamic more so she couldn’t bring herself to look past her trauma. (2x07, The Promise, & The Search)

During the fire nation teens' conversation at ember island, we see that Azula generalized her mother's view of her as a monster as much as the other conditioning she had as a kid. This whole where her mother’s attunement should be opened even more space for what Ozai taught her. Azula lack’s a full ability to process this but it is the one time we see Azula even come close to verbalizing painful emotions other than paranoia and anger. (3x05)

If we are to believe the memory we see from Iroh (1x12) she was already immune to violence as a pre-teen believing that Ozai’s assault of Zuko was justified and even taking gratification from it. This play into her relationship with her mother as the gentleness her mother might have displayed towards her child was missing making the hardest part of the indoctrination become the most prevalent. Worsen when Ursa abandons her children and seeks out her new life. The effects of this are her willingness to be cavalier with life, and failure to attach to others (3x17).

Azula’s relationship with her mother ends up being the breaking point in space after the betrayal of her friends. When we see her experience hallucinations and paranoid thought they center around her mother and their relationship, rather there was love or not being the central question. (3x19) 

Paranoid delusions around her mother continue in the comics where we see Azula unable to interact from a clear headspace. (The Search)

Ozai

Ozai is Azula's main force of identity shaping her internal and external perceptions to the point of making her more of a human tool than a real daughter. The craving for her father's need is just as strong as Zuko’s but instead of trying to restore it her job is to keep it and not rock the boat. This is seen in her letting Zuko take credit for the killing the avatar which brings her brother back in (3x01) and when she asks Ozai to not treat her like Zuko when he becomes the phoenix king (3x20)

Throughout the show, everything she does is to please her father from going after her brother and then succeeding in killing Aang. (2x01-2x20). She also parrots her father's belief about weakness, fears power, and the might of the fire nation. Examples include naming the city New Ozai, demanding the divine right of kings, and her obsessive focus on acting and appearing perfect. 

Ozai’s abuse permeated everything Azula was and is leading to her becoming the shadow of a person we see at the end of the series. 

Ty Lee & Mai

Next to her blood family Mai & Ty Lee are her most influential relationships. She considers them generally friends starting when they went to the same school (2x07). We see that even as a child she had the highest status in the group and already needed to win. However, they do seem to have some genuine care for the princess even if it is never balanced. For example, when recruiting Ty Lee she uses manipulation and fear to force her back into serving the fire nation. (2x03). Mai and Ty Lee are skilled fighters making them useful to Azula, something she values more than anything other than loyalty. She has trouble conceptualizing their emotions as validly seen in her calling their emotions performances, however in the same episode we see her care about making Ty Lee cry and experience very human emotions of envy herself. They bond over their traumas and their shared love of destruction (3x05).

None of the three of them are particularly well adjusted but what Azula has on her side is an utter belief in her competence and her belief that their friends will fall in line with that ambition. For the most part, they do; Ty Lee often flatters her and Mail generally does as she’s told when Azula is around. However one of Azula’s most pivotal moments comes when this obedience falls through. Mai loves Zuko more than she fears Azla’s wrath and Ty Lee can’t bear to see them hurt each other. Earning one of Azula's most characterizing lines ``You should have feared me more”. This betrayal and shift in her stable world put Azula over the edge and fuels paranoid thoughts and a slip into worse mental illness. (3x14)

To consider Mai and Ty Lee to be the manipulative ones or otherwise treat them as the bad or abusive party to Azula is unfair. They are doing what they can as they believe Azula has the right to be in charge and suffer consequences when they step out of line. However, it’s equally unfair to assume everything Azula does is machiavellian; she too is acting on sincerely held beliefs and as a daughter of abusive or neglectful parents. I think Azula has a hard time conceptualizing others as full people objectifying them in her schema of the world but unlike some of her behavior to Zuko, I doubt it’s intentionally cruel. 

Developmetnal Trauma

Adulti-fication (2x01,2x03, 2x07, 2x08, 2x13 2x19-20, 3x01-2, 3x05, 3x15, & 3x18-21)

Anger (3x13-20)

Control fixations (2x01, 2x03, 2x07, 2x7, 2x13, 2x19, 3x01, 3x05, 3x15, & 3x18-21)

Conditioned Value Systems (2x01, 2x07, 2x19-20, 3x01, & 3x05)

Empathic Deficits (2x03, 2x07, 2x15, 3x05, & 3x11)

Harm to Animals (2x07 & 2x15)

Hypervigilance (2x01, 2x03, 2x07, 2x08, & 2x19-20)

Obsessive Thoughts (2x01, 2x03, 3x05, & 3x18-21)

Locus of Control breakdown (2x01,2x07,  2x15, 3x05, 3x14, & 3x18-21)

Paradoxical Arousal, [Functions best during high-stress situations and worse under normal or positive] (2x03, 3x05, 3x13-5)

Paranoid Thoughts (3x18-21)

Perfectionism (2x01, 2x07, 3x05, 3x13, & 2x17-20)

Positive & Negative Psychosis Symptoms (3x18-21)

Recklessness (2x03, 2x07, 2x08, 3x05, & 3x15-16)

Risk Seeking Behaviors (2x03, 2x13, 2x15, & 3x11)

Social issues (3x05)

Trust Issues (2x13, 3x01, 3x11, 3x13, & 3x18-21)

Violent Play Behaviors (2x07 & 3x05)

[10839346-blog]

The Past, Present, and Future We All Share

When was the last time that you sat soaking up the momentous memories of your youth? There is something in our natures that longs to relate to the stories that we see on the screens in front of us.  Coming of Age films have been increasing in popularity  in recent years which is evidenced by their  winning of many major movie awards. In 2018,  “Lady Bird” won a Golden Globe not only for Best Motion Picture for a Musical/Comedy but also for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture for a Musical/Comedy for Saoirse Ronan. “Call Me by Your Name,” won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and won AFI’s Movie of the Year. “Moonlight,” not only won 3 oscars for Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for Mahershala Ali, and Best Adapted Screenplay but also won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture for a Drama. These films aren’t just critically acclaimed but the general public likes them as well. “Lady Bird” got a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 4.7/5 on Common Sense Media. “Call Me by Your Name” got a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and 4/5 on Common Sense Media. “Moonlight” got a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 4/5 on Common Sense Media. Other than being Coming of Age films and getting many awards and high ratings what else do these movies have in common?  

The coming of age genre branches off of the German term bildungsroman, which means “a novel dealing with one person's formative years or spiritual education,” the two terms are often used interchangeably but there is a difference between them. The coming of age genre was first “invented” back in 1819,  by philologist Karl Morgenstern during his university lectures. These same ideas were later replicated by Wilhelm Dilthey who made the ideas popular in 1905.  Some of the older, popular coming of age films from this early era are:  “400 Blows,” which came out in 1959 and has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.  The Mike Nichols movie “The Graduate” which came out in 1967,  won the Academy Award for best director and many more awards.  It seems however,  that there has been a new, fresh wave of coming of age films that are better than ever. This wave started with the release of  Richard Linklaters film “Boyhood”. “Boyhood”  is an incredible movie which took 12 years to film and it truly redefined the new coming of age genre.

After the release of “Boyhood,” many other incredible coming to age films came to be, as “Boyhood” was really a pioneer in opening the doors to a variety of  possibilities that directors could take in these films. This paved the road for films like “Moonlight”, “Lady Bird”, and “Call Me by Your Name.”  Each of these new Coming of Age films have many things in common, one of the things I want to focus on through this paper is that they are all set in the past. “Lady Bird” came out in 2017 but was set in 2002, “Call Me by Your Name” came out in 2017 but was set in the 80s, “Moonlight” came out in 2016 and was also set in the 80’s and “Perks of Being a Wallflower,” came out in 2012 but was set it 1990.  In this essay, I will discuss why coming of age film are set in the past and how the historical setting helps to show the essentialness and commonality  of the moments we all go through.

When referencing coming of age films,  Theskyid.com said, “We can never again experience the triumphs and failures of growing up. A movie, however, is the closest we can come to reliving this experience. This is why good cinema is so important. It can partially recreate those moments for us, and we can see a  part of ourselves in the onscreen performance.” In this article they also name many classic coming of age films and the feelings we get reminded of from watching them. For example, watching “The Breakfast Club” can remind you how terrible high school sometimes was. Or watching “Stand By Me,” can be a reminder of your childhood friends and how those relationships affected who you are today. The list can go on and on with these movies and the relatable feelings they bring to all of us.

Francois Truffaut, The director of “ 400 Blows,” believes the coming of age story is for everyone. He said, ”The coming-of-age film is timeless for a reason: It's the one experience directors can be assured every moviegoer has gone through” The director can be sure that to some extent, everyone has gone through these same emotions and feelings in his or her own life. Badgerherld.com said, when talking about the film “Boyhood”,  “The genius of this movie isn’t a shocking plot twist or creative story, but the truly enigmatic portrayal of human life” This description is relatable to most of these coming of age stories, the plot might not be wild and crazy but the feelings and emotions portrayed are incredibly relatable and touching to us.  

Coming of age movies aren't like any other movie genres out there. They have an element and feeling that you can’t get in any other genre. There is more to this genre than just a “teen movie”, a “teen movie” is a movie just about teenage angst. Hadley Freeman explains,  “The coming-of-age is a more soulful phenomenon: yes, it looks at teen life, but something deeper about the human spirit is revealed, and just because it might happen on a prom dance floor doesn’t in any way diminish the epiphanic uplift. Put it this way: with a teen film what you remember is the funny teen stuff, with a coming-of-age film you remember the emotions.” This genera has more emotion than most movies and that is one of the reasons that they are so widely excepted.

Most great coming of age films are set in the past and the historical setting of theses films help the message within them be clear and concise, modernity could blunt the message of universality. In today's world everything is moving a billion miles per minute. With new technology coming out everyday,  it’s hard to keep up with it let alone keep track of it all.  Things like social media didn't come out until the later 2000s. Facebook started in 2004, Twitter in 2006 and instagram in 2010. You can't look anywhere without seeing an Iphone having someone take a selfie or even hearing the latest news about a Kardashian. Technology is something that has pushed its way into everyone's lives whether we like it or not. So then why are so many of these new coming of age films set in a time before all of these new technological advances came out, not after them?

Not everyone can relate to the new age of technology. Not everyone grew up with the latest Iphone, or three thousand plus followers on instagram. Not everyone was worried about their crush retweeting their tweet or adding them back on snapchat. Millennials can relate to this new technology because they were coming of age when it all started to become popular. Baby boomers and older however,  cannot always relate to this new technology and the way it has changed how it feels to grow up. If these popular coming of age films that I mentioned before were set in the present,  they  would be totally different.  For example, in “Lady Bird,” she lies about where she lives and because technology wasn't as big in 2002 she was able to keep this going for quite a long time. If that movie was set now, lying about where you lives becomes a lot harder when everyone can look you up on “find my friends” and clearly see she is in another house everyday. In the film “Call Me By Your Name,” once the summer is over Oliver leaves Elio’s house and  their communication becomes quite slim. Around Christmas time Oliver calls the family to tell them he’s engaged to someone else. Elio is left shocked and heartbroken. If that was to happen now,  Elio would be following Oliver on Instagram and he would see all the pics Oliver is posting with this other girl and he wouldn't be shocked or surprised at all when they get engaged. In “Moonlight,” when Kevin and Chiron see each other again for the first time in a very long time, they have to get completely caught back up on eachother lives. If that was to happen in present day,  catching up wouldn't take so long because they have been following each other on Facebook this whole time. If these films were set in the present, imagine how different they would be, imagine  how non-universal and imagine quite frankly how boring these films could potentially be. They need the more historical setting so that everyone can actually relate to them.

Having these films set in the past brings a nostalgic feeling we can all relate to. Webster's dictionary defines nostalgia as, “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition”. This is the exact feelings these movies bring to people. In an article by Alan Siegel, he talks about the role of nostalgia in our everyday lives.  Nostalgia has been shown to counteract loneliness, boredom and anxiety,” John Tierney of The New York Times wrote in a 2013 feature about the psychological study of the phenomenon. “It makes people more generous to strangers and more tolerant of outsiders. Couples feel closer and look happier when they’re sharing nostalgic memories. On cold days, or in cold rooms, people use nostalgia to literally feel warmer.” Nostalgia used to be considered a neurological disorder but now, in fact, it is looked upon as something that improves your mental health and even improves your daily mood.  These films all have a special element of nostalgia in them.  The movies with these past historical settings are doing this they bring us back to an older time that we can all relate to and by doing so they are improving our overall mental health.

Films set in these older time periods are set in times that all people know about. One does not have to have grown up in the 80s to know about the 80s. I grew up in the 2000s but I still know that if I start seeing leg warmers, mini skirt, parachute pants and some huge earrings that this movie is probably set in the 80s. Or if I start hearing only the songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, “Wonderwall” and “Nothing Compares 2 U” then this movie is probably in the 90’s. Even though I didn't grow up in those time periods, I know people who have. Whether it is  a parent, a grandparent, a friend, or someone from a history book,  when we know people in these certain time periods they become more personal to us.  We can look at these films and see that these people that we know, who grew up in totally different times, still went through the same things during their coming of age moments, it really unifies us to  the themes in these movies. These cross-generational themes prove that movies that are made today but are set in the past really showcase the feelings and emotions that go along with coming of age perfectly. These movies that have been produced in the last couple of years but are set in the earlier time truly show that these ideas can be relatable to all. It doesn’t matter when they were made or what setting they are in, they still can relate to those who are in the time period they were in, the time period they were placed in, and all between.

A problem that I have heard many people say about this genera in particular is that all these films are “white as hell” and that these films are only written about privileged white upper class citizens. While I   do agree that  these films could always have more diversity, one could argue that almost all genres could use more diversity. If the people saying that were basing all their opinions off of teen  moves such as “Clueless” than yes you would be right in saying that film is based off of privileged upper class citizens.  But we have to remember coming of age films and teen movies are not the same. If you look at any modern coming of age films your perspective would probably change.  For example, the coming of age film “Moonlight,” is about the life of Chiron as he is growing up in Miami as a young, gay, African-American man. Or the film “Juno,” about a 16 year old girl who gets pregnant in highschool and her decision to not get an abortion and to put her baby up for adoption.  The list of these movies goes on and on for their originality and the fact that they all have relatable themes no matter the individual circumstances they are all going through.

Another problem people have with these movies is they say they are all about sex and that sex is the only theme in them. In many of these films the characters either talk about or actually do have sex,  but that is definitely not what this gerera is based on and there are certainly more themes and ideas to get out of these films than just that.  Many people think these movies only focus on the “sexual awakening” part of coming of age but that simply isn't true. Coming of age means many different things for many different people and each of these films show that beautifully. Coming of age really is all about choices, the choice can basically be boiled down to this,  do you want to live the life that society has made for you or do you want to live you own? These films all show this when the character chooses for themselves how they feel about gender, social classes, religion, many other issues including  sex. These films are not based around sex although that may sometimes be how they are portrayed. In reality,  they are based around growing up, choices and searching for one’s own identity.

The coming of age genre is very relatable. The themes and emotions in these films are something we can all personally relate to in each of our lives.  We may not have had the exact same life as the person we are seeing on screen. We might not be the same skin color as the person on screen. We might not have the same sexual orientation or  have the exact same problems. But we have all grown up, “Reliving your youth might seem possible for a while, while you watch a character go through the highs and lows of adolescence. And that may be reason enough to sit down and watch a good coming of age film that takes you on a  stroll down Memory lane”.

[surly01]

A Bloody Week In Doom March 17, 2019

Prayers for the victims in Christchurch attacks.

“The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”

 ― Antonio Gramsci  

The latest monster came to call in Christchurch, New Zealand in a story that dwarfed all others this week. I had some other ideas for what might fill this space this week, then the news from Christchurch, New Zealand, followed by the one-two punch of a Twitler emission rendered all moot. Brenton Tarrant strapped on a helmet camera, loaded a car with weapons, drove to a mosque in Christchurch and began shooting at anyone who came across his line of vision. His helmet-cam helped broadcast the act of mass terror live for the world to watch on social media. As of Sunday, the death toll had reached 50.

Tarrant thus joined the roll call of monsters alongside Stephen Paddock (Las Vegas), Anders Breivik (Norway), Robert Gregory Bowers (Tree of Life Synagogue, Pittsburgh), Omar Mateen (Pulse, Orlando), Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook), Nikolas Cruz (Marjorie Stoneman Douglas high school), Devin Patrick Kelley (Sutherland Springs church in Texas), James Holmes (Aurora), Dylann Roof (Charleston, SC), and, of course, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who kicked off the 21st century with the Columbine massacre.

In ancient Rome, an interregnum was a period between stable governments when anything might happen, and the "the blood-dimmed tide" might be loosed:  civil unrest, competition between warlords, power vacuums, wars of succession. In 1929, in such an interregnum found Italian Marxist philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci languishing in a fascist prison, writing about the forces tearing Europe  apart. He anticipated civil unrest, war between nations and changing political fault lines.

Interestingly, it was Gramsci who gave us the term "hegemony" now in use. Hegemony is a three dollar word representing a simple idea: the coercion of smaller fish by bigger fish. When the powerful use their influence to convince the less powerful their best interest lies in doing what is actually in the best interest of the powerful, that's hegemony. When we consider the above list of overwhelmingly white terrorists with a nationalist/supremacist bent, we can see terror is one way the powerful preserve their hegemony when they feel their power begin to wane when frightened by demographic changes posed by immigration.

Trump has the sensibility of a spoiled child tearing the wings off of flies. When asked whether white nationalism has anything to do with the tragedy in Christchurch, he replied in the negative. Echoes of “good people on both sides,” a la Charlottesville. The prime minister of New Zealand indicated late Friday coming changes to New Zealand's gun laws. A striking contrast that makes one wonder how many will have to die, again and again and again, until our own politicians, beholden to the NRA and their sea of laundered rubles, are moved to similarly act.

You'll recall that when it was his time to serve in Vietnam, the self proclaimed White House tough guy came up missing like Dick Cheney and his five deferments. Chickenhawks like Cheney always find "other priorities" to service, but are eager to send the disposable sons and daughters of the poor into harm's way, because what else are they for but cannon-fodder? Real military men who have seen battle are loath to commit their fellow citizens to needless battle; but chickenhawks, untroubled by loss or nightmares, send their non-relatives readily into the Valley of Death. 

The mob-boss stylings of Citrus Caligula make a tough sound, especially when talking to the far right media like Breitbart.

Trump said: "I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad. But the left plays it cuter and tougher. Like with all the nonsense that they do in Congress … with all this investigations]—that’s all they want to do is –you know, they do things that are nasty. Republicans never played this.”

When you can't bully a majority of the people and the House of Representatives into accepting your will as fiat, that is apparently vicious tactics. Especially on the part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who Trump refers to as "Nancy."

"So here’s the thing—it’s so terrible what’s happening,” Trump said before discussing his supporters. “You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher. Okay?"

Uh, not OK. This is Trump engaging in stochastic terrorism, or

the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.

Trump is actively encouraging people taking the law into their own hands, in the same way Putin has his Night Riders (see below), as Mussolini had his black shirts, and Hitler his brown shirts. The purpose is unmistakable: to be bullyboys who operate outside of the law and through violent intimidation. For the last two years we've had a president who fundamentally does not believe in democracy, and whose recent utterances show no loyalty to either the Constitution or the traditions of American governance. This IS a time of monsters. And now this: 

Trump’s Breitbart Biker Threat Came From the Putin Playbook—Then Tweet Deleted After Mosque Massacre

Trump told Breitbart there could be biker violence against leftists. It sounded even worse after Brenton Tarrant's mosque massacre manifesto called Trump "a symbol of renewed white identity." It does not get much clearer than that.

The Daily Beast Explains the Putinesque origins of Twitler's latest veiled threat: 

"They call themselves The Night Wolves, “a new kind of motorcycle club,” or, sometimes, “Putin’s Angels.” And just as much as the Orthodox Church or the military, the Wolves have become a symbol of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But the idea that they might be used as his extra-legal enforcers in times of trouble is usually implicit—embedded in their flag-waving Putinized patriotism—never really spelled out....Trump is not so subtle, however, especially when he takes his cues from the Kremlin. Leave it to him to put the potential for violent defense of his interests by a motorcycle gang front and center in the public view."

On Friday morning, as news broke of the massacre, the murderer's manifesto called Trump “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose,” the Breitbart tough-guy tweet came down. Note a wider pattern of American racists and white supremacists looking to Russia for both moral and tactical support.

The New Zealand Massacre Was Made to Go Viral

Outside a mosque in Christchurch on Friday. Mark Baker/Associated Press

Charlie Warzel noted that the attack marks a grim new age of social media-fueled terrorism.

A 17-minute video of a portion of the attack, which leapt across the internet faster than social media censors could remove it, is one of the most disturbing, high-definition records of a mass casualty attack of the digital age — a grotesque first-person-shooter-like documentation of man’s capacity for inhumanity.

Videos of attacks are designed to amplify the terror, of course. But what makes this atrocity “an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence,” as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described it, is both the methodical nature in which the massacre was conducted and how it was apparently engineered for maximum virality.

Even though Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube scrambled to take down the recording, they were no match for the speed of their users or for their algorithms which make connections for people consuming such content. In minutes, the video was downloaded and mirrored onto additional platforms, and ricocheted around the globe.

Warzel notes,

Internet users dredged up the alleged shooter’s digital history, preserving and sharing images of weapons and body armor. The gunman’s apparent digital footprint — from the rantings of a White Nationalist manifesto to his 8chan message board postings before the murders — was unearthed and, for a time, distributed into far-flung corners of the web.

The killer wanted the world’s attention, and by committing an act of mass terror, he was able to get it.

It was not the first act of violence to be broadcast in real-time. Yet this one was different because ofd the perpetrator's apparent familiarity with the darkest corners of the internet. The recording contains numerous references to online and meme culture, including name-checking a prominent YouTube personality. Tarrant knew his audience.

Tarrent's digital trail depicts a white supremacist motivation for the attack. His 87-page manifesto, for instance, is filled with layers of  commentary apparently written to specifically enrage the communities that appear to have helped radicalize the gunman in the first place. It seems he understands both the platform dynamics that allow misinformation and divisive content to spread but also the way to sow discord.

I recently came across an article by Ezra Klein who identifies an ecosphere of YouTube prophets and avatars who populate the "intellectual dark web:" The rise of YouTube’s reactionary right: How demographic change and YouTube’s algorithms are building a new right. Many right wing publishers benefit from YouTube’s algorithms to build the new right. 

YouTube’s recommendation engine follows the digital footsteps we all make. And it sees connections, not context. It knows when audiences repeatedly come together, but does not grasp why. And it predicts what they’re likely to view next. Thus are the "mainstreams" of conservative thought brought into proximity to the far right fringe.

As Klein has it,

"Many of these YouTubers are less defined by any single ideology than they are by a “reactionary” position: a general opposition to feminism, social justice, or left-wing politics."

On YouTube, tomorrow’s politics are emerging today. Tarrant noted this and made the online community work in the gunman’s favor. Our brown shirts are now digital: not only has their conspiratorial hate spread from the internet to real life, it’s also weaponized to go viral. 

Proof That White Supremacy Is an International Terrorist Threat

It stretches from Christchurch to Pittsburgh and extends out in every direction.

The always-dependable Charlie Pierce noted that Anders Breivik, the murderous white-supremacist who killed 72 people in Norway in 2011, has become one of the most significant figures in international terrorism by providing a template for the modern white-supremacist mass murderer.

From Ted Kaczynski, he borrowed the idea of publishing a manifesto. From the Columbine killers, he borrowed the idea of using both bombs and guns. And from the international white-supremacist networks, he borrowed the murderous rage and bloodthirsty rhetoric necessary to carry out acts of mass murder, and to justify his crimes through an elaborate bullshit ideological exoskeleton that he wore like body armor. He put all of this together and created the modern mode of mass political murder, one that was carried out again Thursday in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Pierce notes that Tarrant's latest manifesto

reads like a vicious form of grandiose trolling. But there seems to be little doubt that the crimes themselves speak loudly of the basic truth that this was a right-wing act of war against a target population. And, because of that, we should take the following passage very seriously. The alleged shooter called the President* of the United States "a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose." 

When asked if the rise of white natonalism or white supremacy posed a rising threat around the world, Trump replied, 

“I don’t, really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess.  If you look at what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s the case. I don’t know enough about it yet. But it’s certainly a terrible thing.”

On Sunday, Mick Mulvaney and other staffers made the rounds and insisted that Trump was "Not a White Supremacist." Which speaks volumes.

White supremacy now poses an international terrorist threat stretching from Norway to Pittsburgh, from Christchurch to Las Vegas, sharing objectives with the Night Riders or the Bikers for Trump, but better armed and more purposeful. Brownshirts used to intimidate; the new generation attacks to sow terror in targeted groups. This poses an existential threat to the very notion of liberal democracy. Today the target is Muslims; Tomorrow's target will be...?

For our purposes this week, Charlie Pierce gets the last word:

From [white supremacist terrorism] runs on a parallel track with the rise of a xenophobic rightwing nationalist politics that is conspicuously successful in a number of putatively democratic nations. Liberal democracy is under attack and, like any revolution, this one has both a respectable political front and a violent auxiliary that operates on its own imperatives. That one of those auxiliaries cites both a Norwegian mass murderer and the President* of the United States as inspiration for killing 49 people is not only evidence of the width of the threat, but also the depth of its commitment to the cause. This is the everyday al Qaeda of the angry white soul, and it's growing.

Now is the time of monsters.

[helloartnoob]

Do it Project

Project Title: The Face of God

Original Artist: Lance Pikaart

Genera/Media used: Performance Art

Set up

Location to be performed: An empty, square room with all white walls and plain concrete floors.

Number of participants: 13 people

Roles/Parts:

1) The Cleric: The artist who is a dual Representation of church leaders and of Jesus

2) The Outsider: A volunteer who will interact with the Cleric and have feet washed.

2 The Clergy: Everyone else. They are primarily spectators who represent the church.

What to wear/ Aesthetics: The Cleric will wear a loincloth/ briefs under a plain black shirt and black pants. Over that, the Cleric will wear traditional Roman Catholic Chasuble (any color is fine) and have a full face white masquerade mask on (made from plaster or plastic). Standard civilian clothing is fine for all other participants. Each member of the Clergy will wear a unique white half/partial masquerade mask (made from a heavy grade glossy paper).  

Prompts and Room set up: The room will have an alter or table set up in the front with the spotlights on it. A table cloth that matches the Cleric’s robes will be placed on it along with an Illuminated Bible, a candle, a brown/dark towel, a half piece of a baguette (torn not cut), a bottle of red wine (Prophecy is the brand name Visible on the outside), and a wine glass. The Bible goes in the center, the bread, towel, and candle on the left half on the table, and the Wine and cup on the right half of the table. A black or clear basin (18 inches in circumference and 6 inches deep) filled with warm water will be stored under or behind the altar. There will be 12 seats arranged in 2 segments of 6 with a middle aisle to imitate a church set up. Play a Latin prayer/monk Chant in the background and make sure the room is dimly lit/dark--only getting light from the spotlights on the altar. Have the Bible bookmark set in John and mark the verses to be read loud then close it.

A sharpie and the 11 half masquerade masks will be laid out on a table just outside of the gallery/Performance room.

See the pictures posted for this project below to get a better feel of the materials.

The Performance

After the room is set and the participants have gathered the Cleric (in his normal clothes) will instruct everyone outside of the gallery room.

1) Ask for a Volunteer.

2)Tell everyone to pick a mask. Inform Outsider that they do not get one.

3)After everyone has a mask, have them take the Sharpie and write, using one word. something they don’t like or want to hide about themselves on the inside of their mask. Assure them no one but they will see it.

4)You will write, “Religion” in your own mask.

5)Tell them that you will give them signal during the piece by saying, “And this is why I have come, not to be served, but to serve,” and that after they hear that they are to take their masks off, crumple them up, and hurl them at you (the Cleric) as hard as they can.

6)After they have finished writing their words, tell them to put on their masks, enter the room, have a seat, and wait. Inform them that they cannot speak when they enter the room until they leave the room.

7)After they are all in the room close the door behind them. Get dressed in your costume.

8)Enter the room in prayer pose (straight back with hands pressed together in front of your lips) and slowly and methodically, step by step, walk through the center aisle up to the altar. Make sure to only look straight ahead.

9)Once you reach the front of the altar kneel on one knee and do the sign of the cross (the thing Catholics do when they touch their head, chest, and the across their chest when they pray) and stand up again.

10)Methodically walking again, go left to get on the other side of the altar and position yourself in the center.

11)Take the Bible with both hands and raise it up above your head as you look to the heavens and proclaim, “Oh God! We are your Church, your children, in the midst of a sinful world. Protect us from these unrighteous sinners through your word and punish evildoers in your wrath!”

12)Put the Bible down, then extend your hands forward to the clergy (like a big hug) and say, “Let us take of the bread and wine, the body and blood, of our God to show our oneness with him.

13)Take the bread and say, “On the night our dear Savior was betrayed when he was eating the Passover meal with his disciples he lifted the bread and broke it ” (Lift and tear bread in half) “and he said, “This is my body which will be broken for you--eat in remembrance of me.” Hold it in front of your face for 3 seconds and put it down. Obviously, you cannot eat it because of your mask.

14)Then take the wine, open the bottle, and pour yourself a quarter glass while saying, “And then he took the wine and lifted it up,” (Lift up your cup of wine) “and said, “And this is my Blood, the Blood of the New Covenant, drink in remembrance of me.” Hold the wine in front of your face for 3 seconds and put it down.

15)Assume prayer pose and pray loudly, “Thank you Lord for these signs and sacraments.”

16)The extend arms into the hug pose towards the clergy and say, “We have an outsider among us”

17)Point directly at the Outsider and say in an accusatory fashion, “Come to the front! And bring your chair so that we may judge you and treat you in accordance with the Scriptures!”

18)Without breaking the religious persona and with demands instruct the Outsider to place there in front of the altar, slightly to the left, and facing horizontally. Make them sit in it.

19)After they are seated Flip opens the Bible to the marked area, picks it up, and begins reading the passages as you walk the right side of the altar to face the Outsider. Walk and read at a pace in such a way that, by the time you are facing the Outsider, you have finished reading.

READ:  John 13:3-5, 12-25, 34-35:  “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. [...] When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. [...] A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

20)Look up at the Outsider and make eye contact, stagger back a bit and while placing the Bible on the corner of the table.

21)Once the Bible is out of your hands, stagger back while streaming and clutching the sides of your mask.

22)Violently struggle around as if the mask was glued to your face and you are trying to rip it off. Position yourself close to the middle aisle.

23)Bend over forward as you rip your mask off. Stand up slowly and make eye contact with the Outsider.

24)Chuck your mask (inside up) down the aisle without breaking eye contact.

25)Begin to take off all your clothes starting with the Chasuble until you are in nothing but your underwear/loincloth.   Then grab the towel of the altar and wrap it around your waist.

26)Fall to your knees in front of the Outsider and begin to take off their shoes and socks.

27)After you have done that pull out the water basin from under the altar and slide it under the outsider’s feat.

28)Kiss each foot individually and lower them close to the water. Use your hands to lift water and pour it over their feet. Do this for 30 seconds to a minute.

29)Then, taking one foot at a time, put it on your knee and use the towel around your waist to dry them.

30)Remove the basin by pushing it back under the table. Stand up and face for clergy and stick your around out wide (like Jesus on the cross) and say, “ “And this is why I have come, not to be served, but to serve”

31)After they all have thrown their masks at you drop your arms and say, “Jesus loves you. Thank you all for your participation. The piece is now finished and you may go.

32)Get dressed and clean up. Take care to collect the masks and throw them out without looking too closely at them. Once this is done the piece is now over for you.  

Concept

Christianity has had a central role in the Western World. From Europe to the Americas, from Catholic to Protestant, the institutions, core foundations, and practices of the Christian religion has left its mark in our culture. Art, politics, governments, social ideas, education, other institutions, and even certain ideas of morality have been, for better or worse, deeply influenced by Christianity and the Bible. However, despite its deep roots in culture, many people in my generation are the first to begin to not have any, or a full understanding, Christianity and the Bible. Combine this generation with the former who predominantly grew up in the Christian institutions and who are extremely devoted to said Religious institution and we will find ourselves in a blind conflict with no understanding of either side’s perspective. The result is to demonize each other based on ever-growing stereotypes and faulty ideologies while damaging an essential part of the culture.

This project will challenge those with a non-Christian background by making them feel uncomfortable in a ‘cult’ like environment often stereotyped on Christian/religious groups. It will also challenge any bias against Jesus of the Bible developed from negative stereotypes--as the story from the Bible reading and the demonstrated conveys an extraordinary amount of vulnerability, humility, love, and authenticity. Their removal of a mask (a form of self-protection) also allows for the participants to step in the place of someone who is religious, or as someone who may be struggling with being themselves and loving themselves, and symbolically giving it up. God is relational, face-to-face, and loves real, messy, and human people.  Hypocritical rule-followers or ‘good boys’ have lost touch with the fact that he is love and grace and then distance people from Him--Just read the Gospels and read “Pharisee” as Religion it’s apparent.  The idea is to separate our preconceived ideas on religion from an example of Jesus (from the Bible)–who was never trying to found a religion.

It will also challenge the religious crowd. The project’s irony and un-orthodoxical cult-like nature may be extremely offsetting to a highly religious individual or those who understand the rituals being performed. An example would be the Bread and Wine (Communion or the Eucharist), which is a rite only those who have professed faith can partake in as a way of being part of Christ and the New Covenant promise. The Cleric, however, is unable to actually partake of the rite, only talk about it, because of his mask-- “Religion.” He is unable to be close to God, know God, and experience Jesus as he is because of their legalistic/religious traditions. This was the same idea that Jesus posed about God and himself to the Religious authorities of his day that helped get him crucified.  In many ways, this is a direct statement about the in-authenticity of religious institutions and how different Christianity is from Christ.  It is a challenge to be more like Jesus by seeing all people as valuable and by demonstrating love, grace, and servant-hood over traditional, political, and religious duty.

[nofomoartworld]

Thinks: Elena Ailes

Hello dearest reader. Welcome to another installment of Wednesday THINKS. This week, we bring you a text from Elena Ailes, an artist, writer, educator, and in my opinion, a true citizen of the world. As you might intuit from the text below, Elena is at home in sensorial-anyplaces. In my view, she writes from deep within the consciousness of our dreamed-out-nation-state that may or not awake from its slumber. Here’s Elena. Enjoy.

Yours,

Meg Santisi

  On January 20th of this year, the inauguration for the President of the United States included prayers by two American televangelists, both self-described ‘prosperity preachers’. Religious leaders of the prosperity gospel preach that financial wealth and physical wellbeing are gifts from God, a mark of his blessing and preference given in exchange for unyielding faith, prayer and donations to the Church.

In this worldview, the accumulation of capital is clear evidence of moral certitude and blessedness, while words, actions and ideas are wrapped up in the confusing, arbitrary and seemingly masturbatory nature of ‘God’s will’.

The wealthy are merely God’s willing subjects, and this ‘willingness’ is never connected, spiritually or otherwise, to the systems used to concentrate material wealth or to how these systems jeopardize the wellbeing of others.

The verticality of this God – Blessing – Chosen Subject ecclesiastical model is not unfamiliar, though one hardly expects to find the production of capital so disturbingly tethered to the swooping curve of the divine right of kings. Humans, by and large, live on the ground, even as we yearn for atmospheric flux. So far, very few have been interred up, in the air. Most of us will go down, in earth or sea, or away, in fire. Some do make it up, in death. Elysium Space, Ascending Memories or Orbital Memorials, all private companies, can bury you in space.

What orientation should beings (and non-beings) be ordered? Ordained? Can we now agree that  +  is actually a delightfully astute, if somewhat cryptic, symbol for the spiral, minus time? Is the spiral a pitch towards progress? Or just another spin on the vertical/horizontal wheel of fortune? What on earth do we do with all this?

  Opt out and become uncontained. Err away from the horizon of the will toward the curve of deviance. Swerve toward still.

  Herr Jakob Johann Baron von Uexküll,

When you say “clamp a snail”

(YA-KUB VON OOKSGULL,

I would never recognize your name off the page)

when you say “clamp a snail” and put

it on a rubber ball in water

when you say hit the snail repeatedly

with a

stick

when do you recognize that in an effort to articulate another’s world

you have fundamentally altered your own?

  Jakob von Uexküll, the early 20th century German biologist and biosemiotician, fine-tuned the study of animal behavior right into a worlding, right into umwelten. For Uexküll, each species is a performed fullness contained within a spatial and temporal boundary; each sensorial frame of reference an articulation of subjecthood, of being.

He told us that if you hit a snail repeatedly, three times per second, it will turn away. But if you manage more than three blows in the allotted time and hit the snail four or five times in a second, the snail will perceive the stick as not moving at all, and will continue forward to crawl onto the stick. The snail would fully understand the faster moving stick to be a stick at rest because the movement of the stick was functioning outside the register of snailperception, snail umwelt.

Clearly, consciousness, whether that of the snail or of the scientist, is a limited ability, taking hold only in the most certain of situations. The uncertain situation calls upon something else.

  You came to show me the ingenuity and boldness of your sandwich making while I was in the shower.

  Potatoes. Eggplants or aubergines. Neither term seems particularly accurate, though accuracy in titles was never required, nor possible.

All of the groundcherries, including goji, boxthorns, gooseberries, wolfberries and tomatillos. The difference between naming things in the north and naming things in the south is a difference that you can feel in your body, though it is impossible to locate where. It moves, and it is none of your business, as it is not business at all.

Tomatoes, familiar to you. Hopi tomatoes, probably less so.

All of the chili peppers: ancho, arbol, habanero, ancho (which is just another, drier, name for poblano), Anaheim, which is just another name for home, which is nowhere near Anaheim.

Bell peppers, whose chemical taste is the result of the volatile compound methoxypyrazine, also found in wine grapes when they’ve been picked before full ripeness or when they’ve been treated with sulfur to prevent the spread of phylloxera.

Your average lover of Chilean wine has been hoodwinked, though the average Chilean potato grower has not.

Tobacco. A sacred gift and the subject of a $206 billion dollar lawsuit settlement.

Jimson weed, Devil’s snare, thornapple, moon flower, hell’s bells, tolguacha, prickle burr, devil’s cucumber, Datura stramonium.

Petunias. Yeah, petunias.

Atropa belladonna, divale, banewort, death cherries.

Henbane and Mandrake, particularly beloved by the witchier crowd.

  These are my nightshades.

  And, of course, Solandra maxima, Solandra grandiflora, campaña, cup of gold vine, golden chalice, cutaquatzitiziqui. The orange trumpet flowers of the Solandra maxima plant can be as wide as the diameter of a dinner plate. The massive blooms perfume the air with coconut, honey, and a little something else, something warmer. When a flowering plant fills the air with scent it is a summons for the external and autonomous apparatus that is so necessary to the plant’s ability to reproduce: the pollinator. Moth as foreplay.

The flowers of Solandra maxima vines also release another sort of summons: a chemical pheromone identical in structure to human pheromones normally associated with the reproductive activities of sex and love. Pheromones that human bodies also produce.

This overlap, this biological and chemical repetition of form, is a parallel summons emitting forth from the plant-being carrying coconuts, and from the human-being carrying salts. A scent-based call-and-response to amorous action, pushing and pulling on one another.

  Particulation is an atomization of perception, a collapse of a unified and fluid whole into the smallest units of perceptible information possible, a necessary slowing down of time. Particulation is what happens right before exhaustion, and what is exhaustion but a moment of saturation, a final ‘no more thank you’. If we are exhausted subjects, we are also saturated subjects.

  From petunia to goji berry, the Solanaceae family is taxonomically massive, a plant family comprised of 102 genera and over 2800 distinct species, which is so many sisters in one room.

A potato shares 92 percent of its genetic material with a tomato, that last 8 percent a blueprint for the secret architecture of the tuber, a devotional to the swollen root vegetable as opposed to the fruiting body.

Modern pharmacology owes at least one finger to the nightshade family, the genera being host to a chemical gold mine of alkaloids, painkillers and mood-enhancers, psychotropic and otherwise, the properties of which become a mind-numbingly large maze of toxicological data.

It is through the gifts of a nightshade that we have dilating eye drops, local anesthetic, hormone replacement therapy. People often eat nightshades, but in some cases, that shit will turn you into a vegetable.

  Pick a flower and place it by your bedside. Turn it towards you, a trumpet blasting a coconut invitation right in your hole-filled face.

  The term vegetative state has long been used by the medical profession as a diagnosis for patients who exist in a wakeful yet unconscious state. Patients are described as being in a state of partial arousal, rather than true awareness. Their eyes are open but they are unresponsive to external stimuli. The European Task Force on Disorders of Consciousness recently recommended that the term be abandoned in favor of a more neutral label: unresponsive wakefulness syndrome. Vegetative state, it is argued, has a “pejorative connotation, and seems to inappropriately refer to these patients as being vegetable-like.”

I am certainly not interested in the dehumanization of anyone who has suffered a brain injury and is thus limited in function or responsiveness, nor in speaking on their behalf while they themselves exist in silence. If I could share the agony of someone in a vegetative state, I wouldn’t try to speak about it. I would stay silent for my plant person. (1)

I would like to note, however, the language for language swap that is occurring here: vegetableness for an immobile wakefulness.

We are most plant-like in the one third of our life that is unaccounted for, in our sleep. It is in sleep that we enter the temporal register closest to plant beings. Our attention turns inward towards the void, towards rest. Exhausted, we put our feet at the bottom of the pool of our thinking minds and let go.

  You have many mouths, and many hands.

  Here we neglect to experience time in any measurable sense. We absorb the world through muted scrim without the benefits or hindrances of having to perform language. We lie dormant, in darkness, our perceptive senses limited to simply absorbing light, heat, sound and touch. We are, for the most part, sessile, immobile.

The most familiar apocalypse scenarios involve visions of “the end” as a natural disaster: a massive meteor slamming into earth, a switching of the magnetic poles, floods of biblical proportion. In short, the end is generally depicted as a display of nature’s power over culture. With global climate change as arguably the most important and unifying fact of human life on this planet, the irony of culture swarming over nature as the usher of the end of the world would be funny if there were anything left to laugh about.

The binary separation between the human and non-human world into distinct categories of “culture” and “nature” clearly does not convey the complexity of the interrelated spheres of influence that these worlds possess over each other. The fact still remains that human beings are subjects that are also objects, who both live with other objects and in another object.

  Try to imagine your imagination functioning multiply.

  The difficulty of truly grasping the concept of the possibility of a subjectless planet is in part due to the inability of finding easy ground with this continual subject-object switcheroo. Any argument for the radical reorientation of the human subject in a world of objects can be recognized as a symptom of the current position of the human subject, which, I would argue, is that of the exhausted subject.

I see potential in this altered subjectivity, a state of possibility, openness.

  Imagine that your sex is multiply located, experiencing both direct sun and partial shade.

  A human woman sits on the bus for too long—three stops past her regular stop—making eyes at you while you hold a shopping bag and pretend to eye smile into the screen of your phone. The woman hopes that she is flooding the air with pheromones, fully knowing that your vomeronasal receptor, located at the back of your throat, is likely useless. Unsure if you share this chemical grammar, she silently marvels at the antiquity of her system of desire, at the bold dysfunction of her direct inquiry

  The sea sponge uses mimicry and chemical seduction to find food and to manage successful reproduction.

A sea cucumber, when it receives the right stimulation, dumps a third of its own body weight in semen into the ocean waters. Another sea cucumber, receiving a separate but appropriately timed signal, releases a cloud of eggs, a chancy ejaculate.

Stimulation, in this case, is moonlight and the temperature of the surrounding waters.

Fungi, such as molds and mushrooms, are capable of being any number of the possible 36,000 sexes.

We are all worlding here.

  –

  Much of this text was recently published as a small chapbook, NIGHTSHADES by Kastle Editions (Chicago, IL) The images depict examples of biological ‘sexual conflict’ and are held in the Wikipedia Commons.

  Elena Ailes is an artist, writer and educator who is interested in what makes her a better or worse person, especially in theory. In reality, she lives and works in Chicago, IL. You can find her work here and here.

  Other Spaces: Shifter launch at MANA Contemporary

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