#and the people at the top of those hierarchies have to be a certain way

[idkimnotreal]

my new favourite thing is watching the entire the devil wears prada movie, except all the part after miranda says the sees a lot of herself in andy and andy says that's not true and ends her career.

you know. that's not very uplifting for young people. but 2006, right? what's a career to a woman. (/s) the 2020s might be full of bullshit but i'd rather be living now, barring climate armageddon, than in any decade before. i'd visit the victorian era, sure, but live? no way.

[khattikeri]

drives me nuts when people treat jin guangyao or wei wuxian like they're socialist revolutionaries like no! they're not!! in fact their respective roles in society and complacency regarding its hierarchies is why ANY of the story even happens to begin with!!!

jin guangyao doesn't hold bitterness just because he was born lower class. he is bitter because others deride him and his prostitute mother in spite of both their intelligence, skills, and efforts to climb the ladder.

why do you think we were shown scenes of other prostitutes in the brothel deriding meng shi for being literate, for "trying" so hard? why do you think we were shown scenes of anxin taunting meng yao and throwing shit at him because he was trying to learn cultivation at his mother's behest?

why do you think jin guangyao arranged for the arson of that brothel, burned to the ground with everyone except sisi inside? that's not the behavior of someone who believes in true equality and the inherent worth of sex workers as human beings!

that's the behavior of someone who thinks he's better than them. the behavior of a man who already came up on top through political games and war crimes, backstabbing and spying for the sake of the "greater good".

i won't rehash his argument to nie mingjue that he didn't have a choice-- he had some choice, but no matter what he does his class will come up and people will always assume the worst and try to hurt him for it, which forces his hand to do whatever will protect him best (hence 'no choice').

jin guangyao did everything he could to secure his own safety and a place among those already higher up. and by that point, he'd won it.

the fact that the temple rebuilt on the brothel site is to guanyin, the goddess of mercy, is even more ironic! the fact that jin guangyao has the goddess's statue carved to look like his own mother is proof that he viewed both her and himself as higher than them. more worthy than them.

of course he cared about the general welfare of others (read: the watchtowers). but consider also that there is no watchtower near yi city, which ended up being one of xue yang's playgrounds. jin guangyao can and will turn a blind eye to certain sufferings if it is convenient to him.

sure, jin guangyao made undeniable contributions to cultivation society and accessibility, but he is not at any point trying to topple existing class structures. his adherence to them is in fact integral to his own downfall in the end.

it brings with it the inevitability of society conveniently ignoring his triumphs and genuine moments of humanity to deride him once more as an evil, disgusting son of a whore once his crimes come to light.

now for wei wuxian. he's the righteous protagonist of the story and he doesn't give a fuck what society thinks, yes, but he wasn't out there trying to cause an uprising so that all the poor servant classes and lower could become cultivators. he wasn't trying to redistribute wealth or insinuate that those who are lower deserve to be viewed as equal to the gentry.

the most critical and non-explicitly stated fact of mo dao zu shi is that wei wuxian has always been resigned to his position in the social hierarchy.

his unreliable narration, especially regarding his own past and thoughts, is so damn important. he doesn't EVER tell the reader directly that people treated him any which way at their leisure because of his parents' differing social classes.

no. instead we are shown how much prestige he is afforded as cangse-sanren's son-- reputation as a talented and charming young cultivator, made head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang-- and how little respect he is given in the same breath, as the son of servant wei changze.

the way he is treated by others is as fickle as the wind. if he obeys and does as told, there is no reward. of course he did that, that was the expectation to start with! if he does anything even slightly inconvenient, there is a punishment. of course he has no manners, what else would you expect from an ungrateful son of a servant?

wei wuxian's righteousness is not a matter of adhering to principles he was explicitly taught, the way nie mingjue values honor or the way jiang cheng always tries to prove himself. wei wuxian does the right thing regardless of what the consequences are to him because his good deeds are always downplayed and his bad deeds are always singled out, no matter who or how many people were doing it with him.

he has faced this double standard since childhood. there are points in the novel where it's clear that this sticks out to wei wuxian, but does he ever fight back against that view of himself? does he EVER, at any point in the story, explain his actions and choices to jianghu society and try to debate or appeal to their sense of reason?

no. because he knows, at his very core, that any explicit deviation from their interests whatsoever will be punished.

slaughtering thousands of people is fine when they want him to do it, and when the alternative is unjust torture, re-education camps, and encroachment upon other sects' lands.

slaughtering thousands of people who are trying to paint him as evil for not going along with their genocidal plans, however, is punished.

wei wuxian knows his acceptance among the higher classes is superficial and unsteady. from the age of 10, when jiang fengmian took him in, he knew subconsciously that he could be kicked out at any time.

he knows that cultivation society doesn't care about war crimes and concentration camps and mistreatment of the remaining wen survivors of the sunshot campaign. but the right thing to do now that they aren't at wartime is to help them, plus they'd punish him either way for it, so he will.

in this regard wei wuxian is more self-aware of his position than jin guangyao. he does care about common people and he does try his best to help them as an individual. even if that ends up with him disabled, arrested, targeted in sieges, or dead.

but is he revolutionary? in the full equality, fight the establishment, rewrite laws, change social structures and people's perceptions of class sense?

no. no. he isn't.

now my knowledge of chinese society and history is fairly limited to my hindu diaspora upbringing and our shared cultural similarities ... but speaking to what i absolutely know us true, adherence to one's social class is expected.

this is rigid. efforts and merits might bring you some level of mobility, but in the end, the circumstances of your birth will always be scrutinized first, and your behavior compared to the stereotypes of where and how you originate.

mdzs is not about revolution, and none of its characters are able to truly change its society. there is no grand "maybe cutsleeves aren't inherently bad" or "i'm sorry for persecuting you and believing hearsay, you were truly a good person all along!" at the finale.

people ignore history and repeat it again with the next batch of ugly gossip and rumors.

wei wuxian, lan wangji, and luo qingyang find peace only by distancing themselves from cultivation society and its opinions.

jin guangyao and wei wuxian both cannot ever escape from others' perception of their origins and actions. regardless of their personal beliefs, they are not revolutionaries.

[makingspiritualityreal]

Why Nakshatra Castes Don't Correspond to Levels of Success

Nakshatra Castes, unlike what you might think, are not strictly about money or status or levels of success. They’re about visibility. Nakshatra gaze (upwards, downwards, sideways) is more about interest in status itself, and wealth is something very individual to one’s chart and karma. Life is complex and some people who you might think are really wealthy have hidden debts, while many invisible people are very well off.

To imagine how this works, you need to picture an ancient society, an ancient town structure. They were mostly built on hills for defensive purposes, with castles being on the very top of the hill. Since there was no TV or internet, often what was happening at the top was a source of entertainment for the masses. That is especially visible, as non of the Brahmin Nakshatras are upwards (often born or growing into a certain status). But they are all ones that perform activities in front of the masses. And some of those tendencies have survived in our societies.

The prime example is Purva Phalguni and Purva Ashadha being such huge Nakshatras for creativity. They are still “on display” being watched by the masses, even in our times. Purva Bhadrapada, especially in males, loves to put itself on top for the sake of displaying his wisdom and skill. Think of Robert De Niro, who picks roles where even if his character commits crimes secretly, he has quite a social presence. Purva Bhadrapada loves to be active in the community. And finally, Krittika, the ceremonial master, the ultimate priestly expression. Wild and untamed, but again very much on display.

In ancient towns, these would be the people that are talked about. The people whose identity and role would be common knowledge.

To contrast that scenario, think of Mleccha. You can’t say that they most definitely don’t have money or a certain power. But they perform activities that happen outside the town gates. They are the creatures of the underworld, as their talents are of a controversial nature. Does that mean they can’t have wealth or be popular in their own way? Of course not, especially since Shravana is an upwards Nakshatra. Everyone comes to the local Oracle in times of need, even if they don’t admit to it. But there is a certain quirkiness about them, where even though many people use their services, they don’t openly admit to it.

Think also of the butcher caste, that technically is so low in hierarchy, but has 2 upwards Nakshatras within. That is because these people often have an ancestral profession of doing dirty work that is very needed within society, and thus it brings them renown and success. Dirty work may not be done on display, but it is nevertheless a necessary part of daily life.

The difference between Shudra and Mleccha is that while Shudra is the lowest acceptable class, it still deals with needs that people are not ashamed to talk about openly even if it’s not a pleasurable subject. Mleccha is the things everyone does, needs and wants, but is ashamed to admit, so they repress it or do it in hiding. Attraction to the forbidden aspects of sexuality, the taboo, the occult. People do whatever they need to anyway, simply outside the town borders, outside of the social gaze. As a result, Mleccha natives achieve success as providers of these services.

[lutawolf]

Hidden Agenda Ep 1 Soft D/s Commentary

I was explaining to some friends that I feel Hidden Agenda was a great example of cultural D/s or soft D/s. I'm going to do my best to explain why I see it this way.

Now, first impressions would have you believing that these two are on equal footing. Both have attitudes and are giving as good as they get, but notice that Zo submits more often than not to Joke. At this time, we will say it's the nice guy in him, but notice that Joke is crowding Zo. While Zo might be reading it as an intimidation tactic, that isn't what Joke is trying to do. He is attempting to elevate himself to the top of the hierarchy at this juncture.

If you want to see real equal footing, look at Zo and his friend group. Each place with visit with them shows no hierarchy, not even ones typically seen in Asian culture. They speak casually to each other without any submission or dominance.

Now look at Joke on the bus with Zo. It's an immediate show of dominance. Joke is once again invading Zo's space in order to enforce dominance. Generally speaking, Asian relationships have a more Dominant partner and a more submissive partner, and this can be seen in more than just romantic relationships. Sometimes this also carries into romantic relationships, and sometimes it doesn't. This is due to their culture, which I'll tag @notfreetoday in on, as she explains this much better than me.

Anyway, we can clearly see that Joke is attempting to be the more dominant partner. Which is entirely different from Zo's friend group. Even when Zo pushes Joke's arm off, he still stays in Zo's space. Just look at his legs. Zo's legs are breathing room open while Joke is full on doing the man spread. This body language says a lot. It literally means this is my territory, I consider this person my territory. It speaks confidence in protecting what is his that he has claimed, whether it is space or person.

Have you ever noticed what types of personalities ask people to beg? Dominant personalities. Someone who wants to dominate over someone else. There are charming Doms, but most are also assholes, with bullying tendencies. The difference is, and what keeps us from being called bullies, we prefer people who like to be bullied.

Now, if you look at the debate club, you can see that how Zo treats Wave is what I mean by hierarchy. If you look closely, you can see the similarity to how Zo treats Wave and Joke vs. everyone else. There is more respect there for Wave, but the overall is similar. Even Zo with Nita, while Zo is shy, there is a casual equality. Yet with Joke, there is space invasion and bullying. Now, I've seen many people say that this looks like a regular relationship, but can you also see the Dominance and even, to a certain amount of submission? Now ask yourself if maybe this seems normal to you because you're used to hierarchy relationships.

The bar scene shows Joke man spreading again, but you can also see that he's giving Nita a fair amount of space. He isn't interested in claiming her as territory. Also notice how everyone is talking to Trin respectfully and not casually even when joking. Again, it's that hierarchy at play. Then we see more space invasion and bullying from Joke again, this is all Dominant actions. You can be attracted to someone and act on that attraction without being Dominant, but Joke is being Dominant.

You might be thinking, but Luta, I've seen many people flirt like this before. Indeed, those individuals who possess dominant personalities. Some people like it and others don't, which is why we teach consent. We emphasize that it is inappropriate for boys to be boys and pull a girl's ponytail because he likes her, or vice versa. However, this is actually the beginning of a dominant personality. I resent it when boys would do such things to me; however, I am a Dom and have been since childhood. Now, inquire of a submissive individual regarding their reaction. Consent is paramount, but it is not as important in fiction. So let's continue.

The bar bathroom scene. Joke is everything that Dom is. From the way he won't be pushed away, to the way he sternly demands Zo's submission, and even the way he is caging him in. Even the way Joke cares for Zo is 100% how a good Dom treats their submissive. We might bully them, but we also take care of them. We also don't kick them when they are down, we listen, we console and if it's our fault, we recognize. We bully but aren't bullies. Again we have Joke holding Zo back and using a tone to gain Zo's submission. Anyone notice that Zo does pause when given that tone?

Now look at the apology scene. Notice that Joke doesn't instantly forgive, nor is he angry. He explains and then we get teaching mode. Now we have commands, follow, sit, and Zo submits. This next part has all of you questioning me, right? When Zo gets pushy with Joke about his wound and caring for it. First, let's acknowledge that while Zo is relatively submissive, he isn't one hundred percent submissive. Then keep in might that there are different levels of submission. A brat submissive will absolutely fight with their Dom. Especially if it concerns their Dom's health.

The juice scene is my favorite. Notice how much more pushy and Dominant, Joke, gets when he becomes Zo's “mentor.” Forcing Zo into drinking the juice. Why was the drinking of the juice so important? “wo ai ni, ni ai wo, ting dong ma” translating to “I love you, you love me, do you understand?” He also mimicked the Chinese tradition of jiaobeijiu where the bride and groom would drink wine together in the bridal chamber and was used to symbolize the confirmation of marital union. This would either be one cup or two tied together by a red string. That little smirk from Joke, knowing he has completely pulled one over on Zo.

That is all for Episode 1. Let me know what you think of this in the comments. If you'd liked to be tagged when I do other episodes, please let me know. Hope you enjoy! 💜💜💜

[jumpstart-if]

Jumpstart is a character-driven slice of life, containing drama and romance. It's mainly inspired by the show 90210 and the movie Mean Girls.

You had multiple sticky notes on your bedroom ceiling, bathroom mirror, and any other surface you were able to get it on.

How to be rich by 21:

1. Survive high school Survive the final year of high school 2. Move out and get a pet (finally!) 3. Become rich and famous (should be easy enough...)

This list has followed you ever since your eleventh birthday when you were suddenly bombarded with the dreaded question:

‘What is your dream job?’

Quite frankly, you didn’t dream of labour. At least not the regular kind. Call it psychic, but you knew you were destined for the easy life, filled with copious amounts of wealth, relaxation, and travels. You were are special.

Seriously, you had everything set out for your 'rags to riches' story:

You weren’t the most popular, but you also weren’t eating lunch alone in the school bathroom. ✔️

You made sure to work a part-time job, starting from the age of thirteen, so it would be easier for future fans to relate to you. ✔️

You were on your way to being crowned ‘Most likely to be famous’, which would have made for the perfect moment on ‘The Late-Night Phil Show’.✔️

Everything was going to plan… until it wasn’t.

Not only did your mother decide to marry some wealthy businessman, but she also packed up all your stuff and moved you hundreds of miles away from your home that screamed ‘humble beginnings’ and into a five bedroom (minimum) mega mansion.

Oh, and public school? Forget about that. From tomorrow on, you’ll be one of those rich private school kids. Goodbye 'rags to riches' background, and hello nepotism allegations.

Though, that’s a problem for future you...

Right now, you’ll have to adapt to school life the way the people at the top of the food chain do it. 

Get ready to ‘survive the final year of high school’ filled with gossip, betrayal, romance, angst, and social drama you could’ve sworn only happened in movies and TV shows.

Jumpstart is rated 18+ as there will be mentions of sexual themes, drugs, alcohol and violence.

Choose your MC's name and gender.

Decide your MC's personality, clothing style, and much more.

Get involved with 1 out of 4 romanceable characters.

Climb to the top of the hierarchy at Maplewood Private School.

Jumpstart your way into the life of stardom and wealth.

Isaiah/India (m/f) 'the high school worldwide heartthrob':

You could’ve sworn you saw them gracing the red carpet in some of the hundreds of magazines stashed in one of your moving boxes. Child of the famous celebrity make-up artist, Naomi Lawton and basketball star, Sean Lawton. Wanted by many, yet only successfully claimed by A. Though, judging by how many people I can be regularly spotted with, it begs the question: Does I care?

Appearance: Sepia skin tone. M! has short coily black hair, mostly styled in cornrows and decorated with some silver hair jewellery. F! has long bleached coily hair, currently styled in waist-length blonde braids.

Alison/Anderson (m/f) 'the school's number one':

Not quite like the ones in movies… they’re somewhat nice? At first, they can be straight-up vicious, ripping apart any and every little detail they can get their hands on, but once you earn their trust, you’ll learn that behaviour is much more of a façade than a true reflection of them.

Appearance: Olive complexion with sprinkles of freckles on their nose and cheeks. M! has short curly ginger hair that loosely hangs over his forehead. F! has shoulder-length ginger curls and bangs.

Tegan (m/f) 'the estranged childhood best friend'

You were eight years old, when their family decided to move someplace else, ripping your, what you thought to be inseparable, bond into two. At the start you tried to keep up, exchanging letters almost every day… then weeks… then months if anything, until complete silence. You’re not sure who stopped sending them first or when even, but one thing’s for certain: you were no longer friends. No, after ten years, you definitely weren’t.

Appearance: Brown skin tone. M! has black buzzed hair. F! has straight, waist-length black hair.

Levi/Leighton (m/f) 'wherever they go, trouble follows aka the school's bad boy/girl':

For someone with a big reputation, there’s next to nothing that can be found on them. And all your pestering questions are met with nothing but warnings, yet you can’t help but grow more curious about them with each passing encounter.

Appearance: Tawny skin tone, though you can’t help but notice the faded scar tainting their otherwise clear left cheek. They have wavy brown hair, reaching down to their shoulders.

Reblogs are more than welcome and thanks for reading!

DEMO TBA

[imustbenuts]

nuts reading trigun in japanese 6 - kaite's foreshadowing. plant synchronization's downside

remember in my part 3 and 5 i was talking about hierarchy? surprisingly, it continues past chapter 8 with kaite. and wolfwood. triangulating nyoom

(to be honest... ive been doing these read and analysis completely blind in a 1st JP read through. so its possible ill find new nuances, get things wrong as the context shifts and changes, so my stuff looks like its scattered all over the place. sorry about that.)

i think ill start explaining names and meanings. kaite's name in japanese is kaito. カイト. this can be a homonym with i think 怪盗 (kaitou) in this case, which means phantom thief. for trying to help Neon with stealing loot from the Sand Steamer.

left bubble next to neon: 道案内は的確だったかね！？ I trust your guide has been giving you clear instructions?

^the headaches with manga translations has always been to keep texts short and reasonable for flow and readability, so these simplifications can and sometimes must happen.

but, add dakutens, the " on 2 of those カイト katakanas and suddenly, kaito turns into. ガイド gaido. Guide.

so Kaite has been playing as a guide to lead vash to his death at the hands of Neon. this page is such a fucking whammy with the wordplay going on. if you just read this in japanese theres a moment of "oh shit, no way, Kaite, vash just told you to stop betraying people! what the hell!"

yet theres a level of trust going on already, so its not as bad as it seems

nightow really likes his worldplay. i really like this page.

kaite redeems himself by later charging into the boiler room and helps turn the valve to stop the sand steamer from running off cliff and killing everyone on board....

hm. a guide. and those sequences

we sure have a lot of guides here. one who appears in the manga later with a kansai dialect. and another in TriStamp, where he is younger than he appears.

when i spoke about hierarchy and the fact that vash is over 150, i was also kind of hinting that all of current humanity are akin to children in the system of JP hierarchy. that takes on extra meaning with a little change of context and language

wolfwood is filling in the shoes of kaito here in tristamp. and within trimax, kaito foreshadows him. incredible.

theres actually more going on with wolfwood and certain design/changes choices i wanna talk about with tristamp but ill save it for another day. maybe when i run into him in this read later

Plant Synchronization downside.

....so theres a bad downside to vash synchronizing with the plant that i didn't catch. which also answers what the fuck was going on in tristamp when that version of him hits the ground

nightow mentions this in an interview, link here posted and transcribed by xoxo-otome (thank you!) that he likes action flicks and has incorporated a lot of action into his work. and its true. there is so much action in the form of sound effects.

reading through the entire manga and paying attention to the sfx peppered around offers a lot more context to whats happening in half of the panels that seemingly doesnt make sense

like this one where the top panel has "DADADADADA" sfx. so they're stomping down the corridor with their guns crossed and facing each other. the "GO OH" in the bottom panel emphasizes the sudden burst into open air. unfortunately, anyone who values their life and sanity in this economy will not want to translate trigun's sfxs 100%.

i should have paid more attention when reading trigun in english. but i didn't so here i am. in the trigunbookclub tag now doing this.

why is it important? here. this. below. when vash does his plant thing with his sister:

see those heart panels? i tried searching real quick but nobody seems to have pointed this out. i havent seen this in EN fanfics. maybe i missed it. maybe im stupid:

thats Dokun, the sound effect of a heart thumping. as vash synchronizes, the heart panels with the same sound effect appear, but they gradually split apart further with ellipses "..." to signify his heart beat slowing down. and down. and down....

Dokun, do kun, do... kun....

then the wings comes out. and the panel below it:

sfx: PIIIIIIIIIII

breathes. a FLAT LINE.

aaaaaaAA?!

何かなんだかわかりません I'm not sure what's going on. とにかくプラントの動きは一切止まっています But the Plant's movement has completely stopped. 同時に男にも呼吸　心音ともに停止してます It's the same with that man. His breathing and heartbeat sounds like it's stopped with the plant too.

AAAAA?!!?! the も means vash is in the same state as the plant?

i.... um. um.,, ANYWAY-

AAAAAAAAAAAA?! HUH?! HUH??? HUH?!

is THIS why he has a metal grate over his heart? something happened and he an an operation on his heart???? by some engineer maybe? what? huh? am i reading this wrong? what? wait, hello? HEY!!!

what the fuck. okAY--?!

and then he just. pretends like nothing's happened. doesnt tell kaito anything. and he leaves the Sand Steamer.

and im going to have to sleep bc its 5 am now and pretend like i didnt just realize something this big right in front of my eyes during the first read.

[leitereads]

Kuroshitsuji: an analysis on "fagging" and a change of power dynamics between characters

I know how disappointed some fans are regarding the "politically correct" presentation of Ciel and the overall "fagging" culture that was common back then at elite boarding schools in the UK. From what I have heard from people slightly older than me, this was a thing that carried on into the late 90s in certain private schools. As of now, I am sorry, I don’t know anyone rich enough to ask them regarding those things.

However, what I can say about this matter is that a) this practice is can be found almost anywhere in the world (mostly in universities), b) it is about power exchange and how it leads to respecting tradition and bond with other students, c) I am part of it in my own university and d) it’s deliciously represented in Kuroshitsuji, in a way that somehow gives us a different perspective over what Ciel can and cannot do, limiting his actions, something that he, as a powerful noble, is not used to.

Fagging

In many countries and cultures cross the world, "fagging" has many different names, and many different forms. In the US you have fraternities and sororities, here in my country you have the "Praxe". In the UK you have (had?) fagging, in which consisted exactly on younger students doing most part of domestic tasks that were supposed to be made by older students. The older the students were, the more power and status they gained inside the institution, and therefore the more privileges they had. In consequence, although these fags didn’t have an easy life, they still had some sort of protection and status themselves for serving someone older. This creates an hierarchy based on age, more specifically just academic age.

Ciel, as being someone young is, of course, at the base of this hierarchical system. Someone who is used to be at the top of the hierarchical ladder is going to struggle to adapt to a new environment, one in which he simply cannot understand/agree with the traditions imposed. This will create a certain obstacle at first, because he needs to learn how to navigate in a different society so different and, at the same time, so similar to the one he belongs to: the only difference being where he stands. And we see Ciel, for the second time in his life, working himself from the the way down to the way up.

In the first time, his birth condition (well, let’s assume we are speaking about Ciel’s condition, and not o!Ciel’s one at least) gave him a kickstart in life: a manor, monetary goods, a title. In this case, he is a mere 1st year student, and he must subjugate himself to the desires (sometimes sadistic) of older students, especially Clayton at first.

Psychological Implications

It may be complicated from Ciel, even more taking in consideration how prideful he is, to swallow that pride and abide by traditions he a) doesn’t relate to b) finds useless and c) seeing himself without a lot of power to swiftly surpass those obstacles. Ciel is not there in order to live the academic traditions that are present around him, nor to make friends, of course. And, in the end, fagging and these other academic traditions open the door to just that: when people suffer together they usually stick together. This is the meaning of fagging, Praxe, and all the other academic traditions listed. And this is not what he is searching for. Which puts a little bit of strain on him, and he ultimately might think they are extremely childish and ridiculous.

Another interesting aspect of this overall power exchange here is that Sebastian is in a higher position of power than Ciel, as opposed to their base situation. This is, of course, extremely debatable, and the power that each one of them holds in their master/servant (no, I am not talking about that sort of thing… eww) is quite mutable, and, at times, one may hold more control over the other, and that is changing. Here we have a third factor contributing to that mutable power exchange: a different environment, where Sebastian’s position allows him to be seen as more respectable. And this is extremely delicious to see when he lets Ciel undergoing the initiation ritual with the bedsheets and being thrown: Sebastian is, obviously, enjoying himself at the expense of his master’s suffering, since in normal situations he simply cannot do that, at least not as frequently. To Sebastian this is cathartic, and to Ciel (Sebastian’s master) this must feel extremely insolent. Especially because Ciel is someone who likes to always be in control, having in consideration all he went through.

Undergoing this traditional upbringing will, hopefully, provide Ciel either the necessary tools regarding being more self-reliant and independent when it comes to Sebastian because, even if the demon is able to help him out with all the domestic tasks that he needs to do, who knows what will happen when Ciel loses (even if just temporarily) Sebastian one day (which, as another post explained, it might happen sooner than we think).

By being a fag and by navigating a position in which he is in a lower position, Ciel can’t find many shortcuts to success, and he will need to a) rely on his interpersonal skills, b) make connections with other students, c) be aware of what’s going on, socially, around him (read the room) and d) use his insight more than the sheer force and threats of Sebastian.

[reegis]

More Hadeon lore?? I love them sm

aaaa i love to talk about my dumb babies dont give me any excuse..

She’s actually part of like. a whole Thing. which i will now ramble about for ENTIRELY too long, so ill put it under the cut

ahhh im so bad at explaining things even tho theres like. a lot of lore & worldbuilding (by my standards anyways)

but basically all of my angel & demon OCs are part of an idea i have for an rpg/ttrpg?? set in a world where God, angels and demons all exist in the world, mainly in a sort of eldritch sense. God has essentially gone missing for thousands of years - with only scattered miracles to occasionally make Its presence known - and in Its absence, the angels have taken on their own warped interpretation of Its edict while the demons have wreaked havoc, and both have entwined themselves very heavily into human society (mostly to humanity’s detriment).

The players would create a character (human((religious, cult, or agnostic)), fallen angel, redemption demon, etc) that would give them certain skill sets/abilities/affinities depending on their choices, but the overall goal of the game is to Meet/Find God (and your characters reason for this would vary)

The continent in the game is basically one enormous mountain range, with the peaks actually reaching the heavens (think like olympus) with those living closer to the peaks being basically ultra religious societies who still believe God is there and everything that happens is still somehow part of Its plan, and those at the base and few small surrounding islands (which deal with much more demonic corruption and angelic attacks) doubting It still exists, and becoming home to fringe groups of cults creating their own deities (sometimes literally) and agnostics.

Players would meet somewhere at the base and progress up the mountain, and - depending on their group make-up - meet angels and demons along the way, both of which could potentially be foes or allies.

The angels exist in a hierarchy, with the seven Seraphim at the top, but almost all of them pose a potential danger. With God no longer at the reigns, the angels have had centuries to interpret Its will however they see fit. Many of the lowest ranking angels still hold the original ideals and are mostly harmless, granting blessings and offering sage advice, but are of no Real help. Of the higher ranking angels, many have gained their own twisted sort of moral compass and have lost touch with Gods original love for mankind. What is or isn’t a sin, what deserves punishment or what deserves blessing, has become subjective to them and they bestow their judgment upon mankind with great prejudice.

The demons exist in a hierarchy as well. As angels stripped of their holy power (and thus blinded) when they attempted to overthrow God, they seek to earn back their power and sight by stealing souls. The harder to corrupt a soul is, the more power they obtain when that soul finally succumbs. Lower level/weaker demons mainly seek to cause wide spread devastation and death, as they dont have the power to corrupt, but feed on any souls lost. Higher level demons are more insidious, possessing or manipulating people in power, in search of “higher quality” souls to assist their climb.

There are also a small group of “fallen” angels and “redeemed” demons, who exist sort of outside of the status-quo since they no longer fit neatly into either group. Fallen angels are (usually lower ranking) angels that have fallen in love with humanity and rejected their base angelic nature to live amongst them. They forfeit most of their angelic power and assume a more human-like appearance in order to live amongst the humans they adore, but have a still-perceivable “otherness” that leaves them mostly an outcast. Redemption demons are somewhat similar; they have gained/retained enough love for humanity since their fall that they no longer seek to claim human souls for power and are instead attempting to regain Gods love through redemption and acts of kindness. Falling from heaven has irrevocably changed them physically, however, and they face great hardships attempting to fit in to human society.

Of the Seraphim, Hadeon represents the Wrath of God. He is tasked with finding and punishing sinners, those who would blaspheme or turn against God. Originally she was the fair hand of Justice, but in the centuries of Gods absence, his sense of right and wrong have become irrevocably warped. Their presence can first be felt with the smell of ozone, and a sudden intense pressure, like a storm on the horizon. She, and the army of angels under her command, hunt sinners through the streets, meting out their vigilante justice. Where he goes, indescriminate bloodshed almost always follows.

Her mindset is entirely black and white, but despite eons walking the earth they retain a naïveté of human society that makes her pretty easily distractable. He can occasionally be reasoned with and/or distracted, and even more rarely convinced to bestow a blessing.

Hadeon is one of the first Minor bosses the player faces, and your decision to either befriend, escape, or kill her will play a role in your later encounter with other higher angels.

obviously there are all of the other Seraphim, and other high ranking demons that have their own names/info/etc i could literally keep going on and on abt them & more in depth world building forever probably but i will stop now 😔

[mxtxfanatic]

Another pro-reader tip for mxtx novels: they are all stories with clear-cut good guys and bad guys and a strong moral message, BUT you have to actually read what the story has to say about characters without taking anything at face value, relying on genre tropes, or using identities and statuses as shorthand to your understanding of the moral system and themes of the story. So no, most characters in her stories are not morally gray (though some are, most can be definitively categorized as either morally good or bad, and ALL of her main characters are definitively morally good), and no she does not write morally gray plots where “morality is just subjective!” If anything, the term I think people are looking for is “morally neutral” (meaning that the thing is not assigned a morality in and of itself) in many cases.

An mxtx character is never designated as good or bad based off their backgrounds or class: Wei Wuxian, Jin Guangyao, Shen Jiu, and Mu Qing all grow up outside of the elite class, but Mu Qing (eventually) and Wei Wuxian are unquestionably good guys while Jin Guangyao and Shen Jiu are unquestionable villains. Shen Yuan, Lan Wangji, and Xie Lian all grow up within the gentry class but are all good guys while Jiang Cheng, Jun Wu, and The Old Palace Master are bad. Likewise, life circumstances or tools don’t determine morality. In mdzs, the sword path (which is the orthodox one) is used to commit genocide by the general cultivation world just as easily as Lan Wangji wields it to protect the forsaken commoners. Wei Wuxian’s ghost path was created to protect himself before being used to protect others, but Xue Yang and the Jin Clan pervert it to cause mass destruction for their own wishes. In tgcf, Xie Lian uses his god powers to attempt to help the Yong’an people while the other gods simply collect worshippers to increase their power and oppress lesser gods. Every character I’ve listed minus the Old Palace Master has experienced intense trauma that has informed their lives and colors their morality, but it does not define why they have chosen to take on certain moral stances.

(This is not to say that mxtx doesn’t have certain tropes she dislikes, as she clearly hates the “dedicate their whole existence completely to another person” trope. Su She, a villain dedicated to Jin Guangyao, dies. Zhuzhi-lang, a sympathetic antagonist dedicated to Tianlang-jun, dies. Hua Cheng, A WHOLE LOVE INTEREST dedicated to the literal main character, dies a whopping three (3) times before he learns his lesson.)

Mxtx does not condemn those who stray from orthodoxy. In fact, every story she’s (currently) written is about the dangers of entrenched and unquestioned hierarchy and status quo giving way to corruption every time. She wants you to question the dominant narrative of the benevolent group who descend from on high to “save the ignorant masses.” She wants you to question the idea that the only people with the right of choice are those at the top of the hierarchy. She wants you to question the idea that even the smallest decision of “powerless” people does not matter in “the grand scheme of things.” She wants you to actually think about the story conventions that you accept as infallible and question whether or not it would make for good shorthand by which to understand well-written characters and story arcs (and also, hopefully, how society is structured at large). So if you find yourself reading an mxtx novel and siding with the mob characters or lamenting how x character was locked into making certain choices “against their will” or being unable to reconcile how a recognized trope led to an unexpected conclusion because “that’s not how it’s supposed to go,” then it may do you some good to stop and ask yourself “was this idea supported by the narrative that I read in the book, or is this an idea I’ve come to entirely from my own preconceived notions of how I wanted the story to turn out based on how other, similar stories have panned out?”

[chronurgy]

Gortash Week Day 2 - Worship/Betrayal

The inside of the church’s inner chambers was near black, befitting of the Black Lord. It also did a great deal to disguise a certain creeping age and shabbiness in the theoretically opulent furnishings, though it could not escape Enver Gortash’s critical eye. The congregation in Baldur’s Gate had always been small and thus tolerated by the civic authorities for its insignificance. This insignificance, in turn, ensured it received little and less in the way of funding from the higher clergy. There had been attempts to combat this, of course. But they had lacked vision. The whole of it was lacking, archaic, and insisted on clinging fast to crumbling stone. He would see an end to that nonsense.

A figure, enrobed and enthroned at the massive oaken desk that bore the room’s only lamp, resolved itself as he approached the back of the darkened room. He bowed deeply, as appropriate, and waited for the figure to speak.

He hung suspended for a long, lingering moment as the man’s quill scratched without pause. A deliberate show, he knew, meant to emphasize their difference in rank. Icar Exeltis was nothing more than a wastrel. A disreputable third son with little access to the family coffers playing at power. The man lacked imagination, lacked a deft touch, lacked the will to truly wield power yet held the highest church office in Baldur’s Gate thanks to his name. The church had shriveled under his headship, but he had seen no challenges from the congregants. He was a patriar and son of the last Dark Imperceptor besides. It was his place, they held, in the hierarchy – and thus they must submit unto the order of things. Or so the old blood said. The new blood could see. The new blood chafed against these dynasties old and rotting.

Dark Imperceptor Exeltis finished whatever inane nonsense he had cooked up to occupy him so, at last returning his quill to the inkpot and setting his letter aside to dry. He made a show of shuffling papers on his desk, placing them in one pile or another according to some whim all his own. Gortash knew it all to be thoughtless. He was well aware of those who actually handled the sort of useful paperwork necessary for running any sort of organization, well aware of those who offered value. Serviceable people. For all this man’s insistences at rulership, all the time he spent faffing about with obnoxious make-work, he ran nothing of the church. Not in all the million little practical ways that mattered.

His desk cleared at last of his dross, the Dark Imperceptor wound his languid way around his desk to lean insouciantly against the front of it, weight braced against his palms. “You are seen in this place, my Willing Whip, by both my eyes and the Lord Bane’s. Now give us the obeisance we demand.”

Gortash dropped to his knees without hesitation. He must keep the game going a little longer, and it would not serve him to balk now at this last moment. Pride and scruples were for other sorts of men, men who did not see the greater whole as he did. What was one moment, one lie, one simpering smile in the face of a lifetime? He kept the proper forms and pressed a kiss to the top of the man’s proffered boot. He sat up, the picture of the wide eyed naif he must soon no longer play, not here.

Exeltis ran a hand through his hair as he returned to his kneeling form, his hands so smooth from lack of work that he had no calluses, not even those of a dedicated writer, to catch upon the strands. “It’s good to see you on your knees, young Gortash,” he said, voice rough with desire.

Gortash remained kneeling. He must, until this claimed superior gave him leave to rise. “We are all well suited by our proper place within the hierarchy. You, for example, have always been at your most imposing like this.” He looked up at the man through lowered lashes, a calculated coyness. “It flatters you so well, Dark Imperceptor.”

The idiot was blind to his own failings, and thus agreed readily to falsehoods. He preened pathetically at his false complement, with no more thought in his head than in an ornamental bird’s engaged in the same. “I was born suited for this,” he agreed, his hand still stroking through Gortash’s hair. “We’re of a better sort of stock. Our birth entitles us to stand above the rabble. It’s good to see you know this, pet.”

He continued his irrelevant and incorrect rambles, coddled in the warmth of his self-delusion. But Gortash was not listening. It was not his usual tune out for his own sanity. No. He’d seen a flash upon the back wall, a hint of light in all this black that would never have been allowed were there not exceptional circumstances. He knew those exceptional circumstances, arranged for them himself. He knew who it was standing on the other side of that door. All the pieces in play at last.

“My lord,” he started, “I heard something in the antechamber just-”

“Insolent!” Exeltis hissed. “To think to use a lesser title for one of your betters! I ought to see you flogged for such impudence.”

He raised a hand as if to strike Gortash, but he had played supplicant long enough. And now, with his little army just outside the door, he was free to return to his proper place. He stood. “Oh, hold your tongue,” he told him carelessly. “Who are you to declare that the title of our Lord is too low to suit you? Dark Imperceptor, Grand Bloodletter, Vigilator, this is nonsense. I tire of this hysteria for titles. Lord will do well enough for us, as it does for Him.”

Exeltis was near gibbering with rage, spouting half remonstrations that he was too apoplectic to finish. They mostly concerned his failure to observe the proper hierarchy and indeed, the general conventions of propriety. “You dare,” he managed, spit flecked, at last. “You worthless, lowborn little whore, you dare speak in such a way to me? I will see you hanged for this.”

He does not understand, Gortash thought. He does not see the way the current had turned on him. He has not noticed the glances. He has not seen the others draw away. It has not coalesced yet, not for him. How delightful.

“You haven’t noticed,” he breathed, making no attempt to hide the relish in his words. “I suppose you shouldn’t have. I’ve been very careful, you know. But surely, I thought, surely you had to have guessed. Well then. Allow me, Icar, to enlighten you about your past and future.”

He grinned, wide and sharp. “If you were to look in the drawers of that desk you’re leaning on, you’d find so many interesting things Icar. You’d find them in your house, too, if you looked there. Every inch of it, all the way down to your bedchamber. It’s even in each and every one of your nasty little bolt holes. You’ve been so very profligate with this very, very sensitive information. How dissolute of you, to hide your tracks so poorly. But you’ve gone and done it, left evidence of your crimes all over the Gate from the hills to the harbor.”

“I haven’t done anything, you idiot,” Icar snarled at him. The man still hadn’t caught on. He still hadn’t realized what he was dealing with. An irredeemable failing in a Banite. “I don’t know what nonsense you’ve gone and gotten in your head but there is nothing to find because I have done nothing wrong!”

Gortash laughed, let the shimmering ecstasy of it roll off his tongue. “Like that has ever mattered,” he said, buoyant on a sea of victory. “But perhaps more to the point – I know the evidence is there because I put it there. I put it everywhere. Piles and piles of it, in any place you’ve ever so much as stepped foot in. And then I went to the rest of the leadership, ever so concerned about the things I’d found. I had seen things, I told them, things that implied that you were not so committed to our Lord as you professed to be. They went looking and found all that and more. You’re to be brought before the Black Courts on charges of apostacy and intentional sabotage. They will see you convicted on overwhelming evidence.” He leaned forward, pushing into the man’s space and sending him quailing backwards. “And while you are busy with your sham trial, I will be sitting on that throne of yours, shaking things up around here.”

There was fear tempering his rage now, Gortash could see it creeping through the man’s eyes. He rallied admirably for a fool. “They’ll know it was you,” he insisted defiantly. “And you’re nothing, Gortash, nothing. They’d never make some low-born rat whore like you Dark Imperceptor.”

“But that’s the brilliance of it, don’t you see? Who could ever suspect the lord’s young favorite?” he laughed again, the triumph of it sweet as honey. “Ah but you underestimate me still. I’ll have the recognition for this to trade on, and I’ve been making allies, Icar. Willing and unwilling. So many secrets in these halls and I know all of them. They’ll pick me. They won’t have a choice.”

The rage had now been swamped entirely by the ever-growing tide of fear. Icar could barely manage a pathetic whisp of a protest, but he tried nonetheless. “Someone will figure it out. They have to,” he gasped out between shaking breaths.

“Some will,” he agreed amiably. He would certainly mark this chain of events as suspicious and had no doubt that others would as well. “But those who can put the pieces together will respect me all the more for it. They’ll have promotions waiting for them to the last man. I have need of talented lackeys.”

There was a single loud rap upon the door. The final signal. He straightened up. Icar remained half bent backward over his desk, mouth gaping open like a particularly dumb fish. “That’ll be them,” he said. “Enjoy the Black Courts, darling. I’ve heard ever so much about them.”

They piled into the room, every high ranking Banite and their bodyguard (he’d need one of those himself, soon). They did not bother to list the charges. All here knew it did not matter. Icar went with them quietly, out of either shock or fear, and the whole thing was discharged so neatly and efficiently that Gortash found himself alone in the inner chamber within no more than five minutes, all told.  

He turned to the altar at the back of the room. It was a simple thing, made of a solid, glossy block of black obsidian, all the more imposing for its austerity. He knelt before it and pressed a kiss to its base as he had knelt before the former Dark Imperceptor not more than moments ago. “I hope this has pleased you, my Lord,” he said. “And that it has shown you the value I bring, how well I keep your tenets. You see now only a fraction of what I can do in your name. Lend me power, my lord, that I might further bring your order to the world. That we might throw down these petty pretenders, these puppets grown fat on easy slaughter the strength of a true ruler. Let us glut ourselves upon their fear before they are ground beneath our unstoppable rise. Let us see them weep.”

At first he thought there would be no answer. But then he felt it, felt the darkness thicken and densify, felt it curl around his throat as if to crush it. But it stopped short, stopped at a pressure that would not kill him but would let him feel each and every one of the five fingers that extended from the broad, black hand to encircle his throat.

You will serve, the voice said, as all must serve. But first, a lesson. The hand tightened. Spots danced in his vision. There is no we, boy. There is only me. You are a fleeting thing, born only to serve. And serve me you will. Ably so, young Gortash. I look forward to your next offering.

The hand on his throat vanished with the voice. “Of course, my Lord,” he said to the altar. “Of course I will serve. That is the purpose of those born to my station.”

Gortash smiled alone in the dark.

“I would never seek for more.”

[arcadekitten]

The Lambchop World is so fascinating and cool… but I’d like to know more about it as well! What’s the economy like there? Do people still have jobs, buy and sell stuff like supplies, clothing, food, etc… just like they do in Stella’s town?

(Also, speaking of which.., is everyone’s wardrobe that emo/gothic? Did Lambchop force it to be? Because I love Stella but those clothes are REALLY not her style! I really hope that Lambchop didn’t force her into wearing them… that’s leaning a bit too much into “toxic relationship power imbalance” for me)

What’s the general attitude of the population? Are they all violent, bloodthirsty and prickly besides Stella or do some of them retain their normal personalities? Do they lean in more towards their “animalistic” side (like Ruuuby eating Buck) or do they still eat normal food? …WHERE would they get normal food? Is it all meat and cannibalism??

Also, assuming that Lambchop goes after the whole WORLD instead of just a small village like Stella did… is death common there? Or does Lambchop resurrect them to “have some more fun” on his planet? Are his powers that of a normal Star witch as well? I’m so curious if it is!

And finally… what are Stella and Lambchop’s roles and relationship on this planet? Lambchop seems to live just like a common “resident” of that planet… getting into riots, street fights, etc. What does Stella do though? Is she just Lambchop’s personal nurse who takes care of him after he gets into fights or something?

This seems to be an anarchic world, so I doubt that their’ll be a government or any form of legal system there.., but I am curious if there is some sort of “gang hierarchy” on this place, like the most respected fighters are the rulers of certain territories and clans or something. It’ll make sense for his world, and I wonder if he’s in the “top hierarchy” or something like that, considering that he literally CREATED the world lol. Do the other residents have respect or are intimidated by him? What do they think of Stella?

P.S: Kinda a dumb question but are Stella and Lambchop in a relationship in this AU? Do they date and have a house (or a joint living area maybe) and live together or something? How do they treat each other? I like to think that Lambchop treats Stella…well, like allowing her a small garden to plant some flowers and have a semblance of normalcy in their home. Kind of like how Stella bloodied up her village for Lambchop, but much less drastic.

And for the million-dollar question: What on EARTH are the other Star Witches when Stella needs them??? Did they abandon her or something?

These are A LOT of questions, I’ll admit�� Im rly sorry if this is too much :( But I’m just so curious about this world; the idea is absolutely fascinating to me!! Thank u sm for reading all this!! :D

oh this will be fun!! *cracks knuckles for the second time* I'll try to answer best I can!

-The economy is a bit strange. I think some people still kinda have jobs and make money, but money alone is probably not valued as much as "substances" or "favors" (Ex: "Get that fucker out of my bar and you'll get free drinks for the whole night" )

-Everyone's wardrobe is pretty emo-gothic, but I wouldn't describe it as a "Lambchop forced it to be" situation so much as. In the vision of Lambchop's perfect world this is just how society dresses. And so Stella dressing like this is more of a societally pressured thing. For one, there's probably not other clothing options. And if there is, dressing in a way that strays from the norm would be like affixing a giant target to her back--everyone would be trying to start shit with her. It's safer to blend in so people don't think you're soft.

-Most everyone is pretty prickly. And if they are "nice", it's a kind of niceness that incorporates violence into the mix--otherwise you'd be down for the count. Everyone's probably on "high defense mode" all the time and is just waiting for you to be the one that growls first.

-Most food is probably meat based. I don't imagine that everyone is just eating whoever they slaughter on the street (though some might) but rather there's some mysterious "meat processing" plants. Where's the meat come from? Don't spoil it by asking questions.

-I don't think Lambchop has any sort of special/magic powers that set him aside from everyone else. I think it's less of a "Lambchop controlling the world to be this way" and more of "The world itself shaping itself around his desires." Death is pretty common, though I hadn't considered the possibility of people coming back in this version too...interesting to think about.

-I think the possibility of some gang hierarchies exist, but I hadn't put too much thought into it. I do think some people might be more well-known either for being really good fighters and/or for starting trouble a lot. I feel like Lambchop wouldn't be the most well-known but might have a bit of a rep for being able to take people down.

-Combining some of your Stella questions into one, Stella's relationship with the planet is pretty...fraught. I think she's still got magic powers but they're nowhere near the the level of skill she's got in Sweet No Death. At most she can perform small magic, making things grow, levitating some smaller objects, etc. I feel like Stella's status as a star witch is vague even to herself--like maybe she got amnesia upon landing here, but she knows that things could surely be better than this... Stella tries to help people and sometimes they accept it and sometimes they don't, but when they do allow her to help she feels good inside and it helps restore a bit of her hope in the world.

I like to imagine that maybe Lambchop and Stella found each other when Stella was attempting to "fix" things instead of breaking them like everyone else, and Lambchop was a bit captivated by how different she was from everyone else. Stella would in turn see him as different from everyone else--less prickly, more smiley, and likes her company.

I think Lambchop and Stella are dating. They live in some dank, decrepit apartment building which probably isn't even owned by anyone anymore and they might be the only people in it. Stella's got something of a greenhouse on the balcony where she grows as many little plants as she can keep alive and can enjoy the feeling of fresh air for once.

Despite the general violence of the city and Lambchop preferring things this way, he and Stella have a pretty lovey relationship. They sleep in the same bed all cuddled up next to each other every night. If Stella is having a bad mental day (can't handle the stress of everything, being worried something really bad will happen to Lambchop if he goes out, etc) Lambchop will stay home with her and they'll spend the day snuggling and kissing and maybe working in her greenhouse. When Stella goes out Lambchop usually tries to be beside her. She's able to defend herself but he knows she doesn't *like* having to do that, so he doesn't mind being her bodyguard for anyone who would want to pick a fight with her. Sometimes they even try to go on dates outside despite how crazy everything is. When Lambchop gets into fights Stella bandages all his wounds when he gets hurt. She hates seeing him hurt but she loves seeing his smile as he recounts to her how he won. I think she uses whatever magic she has to help expedite his healing process.

-As for Star Witches, the thing about Star Witches is like...they are catty and judgemental but if you are another Star Witch they will not help you improve unless it benefits them in some way. They will come into your house and might adjust a crooked picture frame on the wall, but they won't clean up your kitchen or tidy up your living room or do your yard work for you. If they were to see a world like this they would not help it try to get better because it is not their monkeys, not their circus.

[coolingrosa]

A question I've had since I've been watching ur Roseverse content is: In RV there's a clear divide between mortal Sanses and immortal Sanses from what I can see, especially when it was talked about in the pilot. This begs the question: Is Ink actually a mortal? Because it's canonical that Ink was once a *child* and *grew*, and it's also clear Ink is also still soulless in RV. If he isn't mortal and is indeed immortal, does that mean at one point every immortal Sans was once a child and *grew* up? If this is just a personal choice of writing/characterization I'm not critiquing or hating on it! It just intrigues me very much and raises some questions

Hello! I figured I would eventually get questions along these lines, and sometimes I forget people who arrived from the pilot wouldn’t know this, so here is some RoseVerse lore building that was in the OG lore doc:

Immortal beings are split into a wide variety of groups, species, and classification. There’s a hierarchy between them, with Fate and Destiny at the top and Player and Core Chara at the bottom, right below Core Frisk. For mortals, respect is given to all immortals. However, due to this hierarchy, those at the bottom are ignored or treated as less than by those with more power. It also means they have less connections to aging natural if you’re lower on the scale.

Player, Core Chara, and Core Frisk are examples of corrupted codes making them forever stuck at the age of when they became an immortal for the first time. They had to die in order to live forever- as they are kinda like Geno (their bodies are forever stuck in time and paused) So, they do not mature past the age they died nor grow. They are called Demi-gods in the lore- or simply deities.

With full Gods, it’s not about bloodline. You meet the qualifications of a god if you are immortal, and you posses power over a certain idea, function, or way of life that sways the lives of the mortals. Ex: Reaper isn’t considered a god just because he was born from another- but because he’s over the concept of Death and serves as a reaper. Some are created as adults while others are created as children. The Reapertale God structure is based off of Greek mythology where child Gods were still birthed/created and grew. Ink is not from Reapertale, and is ranked below the Reapertale gods, but he’s still considered a full god due to him being over creation.

Ink was a god that was created and popped into existence at four years old due to insufficient power from his creator. He had a soul as a child and when Error found him, he was also in the midst of still growing too, as Error was only nineteen. Gods completely reach maturity at 25 years old, and it takes them many centuries to actually reach that age, much longer than humans. It’s why little gods are not typically created without someone able to look after them- and they have a special aura about them that makes them latch onto the first person they see so they can grow. Call it a parasite…but that’s just how they are. Little Gods are still able to die, especially since they are so young. They aren’t in tune with their magic, and a fatal incident will kill them or leave them permanently disfigured. It’s a survival instinct and magical ability that keeps them safe and keeps their distracted godly parents hyper focused on them until they reach 13 and can primarily fend for themselves. (Keep in mind they are Gods. Though they don’t fully mature until 25, they are still able to fend for themselves a lot more than a fully adult human, even as children. Once they aren’t as delicate, the parents don’t constantly need to look after them- which is why Reaper was forced to start working more when he reached that age.)

Error latched onto Ink due to this aura, and became his older brother instantly bc he was overcome by the need to take care of Ink. Like reverse imprinting

He does genuinely care for Ink- don’t get it twisted. Even if Ink didn’t have that aura, Error would be less inclined to leave him behind. But in “Wilted”, Error would not have saved Ink from getting run over if Ink wasn’t an god child. However, he felt like his whole world was going to shatter if he didn’t save him- so he did.

It’s also why Error hasn’t recovered from Ink’s assumed death. Ink was only 11. He wasn’t ready to be on his own yet. Error feels like a failure both mentally and also instinct wise, and that grief is horrid and painful. He lost his baby, and failed as a guardian and a God by letting a godly child disappear like that. It’s…rough. Nightmare deals with a similar type of grief emotionally wise, but not so much instinct wise. He misses Ink everyday, but in a typical grief way (not belittling what he deals with. He mourns him greatly and loved him like his own kin. He’s just as hurt as Error is in that regard.) Error’s is just…more…extreme

How Ink lost his soul as an adult tho? Cant say that yet…

[woodblxssomcrowned]

You think the Senju clan is a noble clan just like the Uchiha clan.

Define noble. 

I've mentioned it many times that I consider the shinobi, even ‘noble’ clans like the Hyuga and Uchiha, as being of a very low social status in the world overall, especially during the WS era. Before Madara and Hashirama came along and they forced themselves up the hierarchy and claimed the spot as the serving military class that the samurai had been in possession of for centuries.

No actual nobility, daimyo or samurai, considered any shinobi clan anywhere close to their station.  On the feudal pyramid, shinobi found their place at the bottom tier at best, outside of it at worst.

Shinobi clans had no social or political power or influence, and when separated into individual clans none of them really had the resources to break the system without having a hammer brought down upon their heads by those on top for ther insolence.

They fought and took contracts because that was how they made a living.  Shinobi were mercenaries, who would work for the highest bidder. They provided a service to whoever could pay for it, with no loyalty to a region, person or center of power. Taking on contracts, either as additional expertise in the fighting forces in a employer's standing army or militia, or for jobs that required just one or a handful of people such as espionage, sabotage, assassinations, body guarding etc etc. That was how they made money. Without contracts, they'd struggle. Apart from their renowned and expensive expertise as fighters, they usually didn't have much of any other recourses to support themselves with. I tend to see most shinobi clans during the late WS era as having been more or less lawless if not at the bottom of the hierarchy. But most of those in power or those seeking power still found them much too useful to hunt down as mere criminals or undesirables, and even when not under contract most shinobi clans still tended to keep their noses clean and not attract unnecessary animosity. They were professionals with a reputation to uphold and acting like common bandits was not the way. They set up their homes or basecamps in secluded or inhospitable areas where they could be left alone to their own devices, perhaps trading with locals for supplies they could not farm or make themselves, with their earnings or maybe in exchange for protection, so that they could focus on being shinobi and not worry about fields needing tending. Because I genuinely think that if the shinobi clans had any significant wealth and status and didn't need to fight to sustain themselves, I don't think they'd so nonsensically risk the lives of presumably each and every one of their own children. The Senju, Uchiha, Hyuga, Uzumaki and a couple of other clans may in certain cases consider themselves or another more 'noble' than others, perhaps due to believing themselves descendent of Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, or simply because they knew they were stronger than most others. So the Senju are considered a ‘noble’ clan by some other shinobi clans, but not by anybody else.  Perhaps if Hashirama's aspirations had gone beyond just changing the world to conquering it, the shinobi could have seized a place even higher up on the social pyramid, and not remain dependent on the steady financial support of the same regional lords and rulers who would gather to observe the twelve year old surviving member of the once renowned Uchiha clan show off his abilities like a prized animal up for auction.

[rin-and-jade]

A Layer, or just a Subsystem Area?

I think the 4 types of subsystems post had garnered some attention, and people might now think, how similar is the second type (or, Tersynd) to a layer? How to differentiate it? And what contrasting feature/purpose it has?

For the anon who requested this, here is a compact post on it!

Layer:

A layer, by its general definition, means:

"one thickness, course, or fold laid or lying over or under another" (from merriam webster)

Basically for this context, it means there is a specific line that separates two things, making it easily distinguishable that it is not one with the part, or is the same one. Take a strawberry cake for an example, it has sponge as its base, then cream, more base, whisked in icing, and topped with a strawberry on top; we can easily tell the separation between the filling and the sponge.

How this example can be applied to system layers is as simple as different areas that have their own 'vibe' or a route first in order to reach there, lets take that like a lobby of a hotel, and the lounge floor with pool and bar, and the rooms are different areas, because they are placed differently and have an access point, in total there are 3 layers.

Though, layers doesn't always have to be qualified by being separated in a stacking manner, horizontally or vertically only. Layers like needing to enter 'portals' or any type of transitional hallways also work! Supposedly, even a front room counts as a layer, because you cannot really talk to the person unless you're in that same area too, and that means you need to go there when being in another area of the innerworld. It's also to separate different kinds of alters, though more broad or vague, it depends on innerworkings of the system. (aka based on hierarchy or species or timeline)

Subsystem area:

A subsystem, by its general definition, means:

"a system (structure) that forms parts of a larger system" (from cambridge dictionary)

For this context, subsystems can also mean having an inner, or smaller group in a system, sub- which can mean a branch or a group of a specific kind from the general/main one. The most used definition of a subsystem is when there are alters inside an alter, but even that it also reinforces the idea of having another group inside, somewhere.

Subsystem in general meanings can be explained by mentioning parts that works interconnectedly in human biology, e.g. the nervous system, respiratory system, etc. and these subworking parts together is the whole biology in the big picture.

Using this same example, we then can have an intuitive sense that subsystems have areas that only certain parts can access into, for its own related purpose of area/group,, as how some blood may only go to certain parts of the organ to bring oxygen and can return to the main point (the heart) and do not traverse anywhere else except its designated path-to-organ. So while this does separate parts too, they're usually more specific than to layers.

Comparison:

So, we now know that a layer is:

visibly separated area

more public-accessible

can be bigger in size (up to a whole ecosystem/biome)

While a subsystem area is:

a more exclusive area, separated for specific people (non-public)

sometimes not as big as layers

made from a specific purpose/reason

They only have one similar quality, which is areas that has to accessed via en route as its not part of the usual main area.

Differentiating it:

Which means, the only way to tell if it is a layer or a subsystem area is from how many people can get in, and wether they have a specific purpose/qualification, and wether the area is more expansive or more limited. Because sometimes some cannot even traverse between layers, though it depends on how a system works, some can travel to all layers with no problem,, which makes this criteria even trickier.

Conclusion is, by looking on those three main points! (bolded ones)

And with that, you can have a better guess wether it is a layer or a subsystem area instead.

--

Last notes here, i hope that explains everything,, let me know if this needs fixing or anything else to add, which i can edit. Do you guys think this is helpful enough? Feel free to comment about it!

- j

[katherinakaina]

Being bullied for knowing another language is a real thing. Think of all the animosity people feel towards the Bachelor for saying, what, 3-4 phrases in Latin.

Storytime.

Every Russian feminist remembers how Nixelpixel was bullied and I presume is still being bullied. It really was Russian gamer gate and Nixelpixel is Russian Anita Sarkeesian. Both were tormented for being feminists, that's the base of it. But Anita was also a target of antisemitism and anti Armenian rhetoric. Nixelpixel is a skinny white Russian, very little to add on top. So she was bullied for speaking English.

She is bilingual and as many of us bilinguals do, she mixed languages in her speech in the way that I do and feels natural to me and all my friends.

The Russian Internet was not having it, not even a little bit. Unanimous consensus was that she is doing it only to appear smarter.

For English speaking people in the first world it maybe hard to comprehend. English is just the default language. But remember how conservatives react when some nonbinary teenager makes a video about cultural appropriation or any other academic topic and suddenly they all feel like they don't know certain words?! And they have to google words to understand someone's complex speech?! This is unheard of! And what right does this "beneath me in social hierarchy" have to know something that I don't?!! Outrageous!

The core of this emotion is envy. Knowing English good enough so you become legitimately bilingual is a privilege in Russia. Knowing a lot of stuff about society and understanding complex topics is a privilege. You have time and money for education. Or you got lucky and had educated parents. Envy becomes even more venomous when the person you envy is supposed to be beneath you.

Like, I don't really get it. But that's how I make sense of other people hating me all my life for being... eloquent. As if they anticipate me being hostile because they are less eloquent than me and attack me preventively.

This is made worse by me being autistic and forgetting all the time that you must make all humble song and dance around your every achievement so not to trigger neurotypical rage. I genuinely forget which words are too smart and which are fine. The idea that I'm trying to sound smarter on purpose is so laughable to me.

Returning to the Bachelor. He's a doctor, he studied at university. Do you hate him when he uses medical jargon? What's the deal with Latin then? They study Latin in med school. It is a mandatory course. For me this trait of his always meant to signify that he took his education very seriously and knows everything that he studied very well.

When people just assume that someone, a character or a person, does anything just to look smart I'm a little triggered. I know I'm not safe in that company.

And I know that all of it is incredibly whiny. Knowledge is a privilege, as I said. Dankovsky is a privileged man. I'm not blaming those who feel uncomfortable around learned people. I'm not blaming those who are not into such characters.

But Dankovsky is not gatekeeping knowledge though! He looks like a man who would nerd out about Latin to you, if you only asked. He gives his degree away for free! It's not the same as rich people hoarding wealth. He's eager to share his knowledge! But now he is a coloniser imposing his western ideas onto indigenous society.

Oh well, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Maybe it's not envy then? Maybe they want a smart sounding person but the one who would agree with them all the time? Like, Peterson uses a lot of long words and they love him. Hm...

[kaelio]

Full article:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has cost it dearly on many fronts, but especially when it comes to casualties. Since the first days of the war, the invaders have been bleeding manpower. Plugging those holes became one of the tasks of the Wagner Group, the mercenary company with close ties to the Russian state. Its founder, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s close ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, began to actively and sometimes forcibly recruit from the country’s prisons, offering convicts the chance of freedom in return for service. The Russian army has gone on to follow that model itself.  

With those recruitments have come a whole series of subcultural notions that are shaping the lives of soldiers and the conduct of the war—but which are often ignored or overlooked by Western analysts. The power of Russia’s criminal culture, known as the “thieves’ world,” is not new. Prigozhin himself, like a surprising number of players in Putin’s world, is a former convict—because the men who profited most in the chaos of the 1990s were very often outright criminals. But the invasion of Ukraine has made these notions even more prominent, and understanding them all the more important.

On April 9, Prigozhin’s press service posted a response on Telegram to a question about the state of prison recruitment that had been sent to the Glas Naroda (Voice of the People) news site—one of the many parts of his media empire. In response, Prigozhin had some harsh criticism toward how prisoners are treated by the state authorities: “There are rumors of roosters, downcast and resentful prisoners fighting together with ordinary prisoners, which violates their [the prisoners’] internal laws, so-called unspoken rules, in a flagrant way. Everyone knows that Russia has been living by these rules, by a certain way of life for centuries, and therefore it seems to me that such situations are absolutely unacceptable.”

From the outside, Prigozhin’s statement seems incomprehensible. But in the world of Russia’s prison culture, where brutally imposed caste systems govern life and death, his statement makes perfect sense. The thieves’ culture is a set of rules, modes of action, and a strict social hierarchy that regulates everyday life among those in the criminal underground. It is especially focused on organizing the life of inmates in the many prisons and camps, known as “zones,” of Russia and other former Soviet countries. While traces of it existed even under the tsars, the system was largely forged in the vast gulags of the Soviet Union, the network of camps that formed almost a separate country inside Soviet borders.

The thieves’ culture gets its name from the ruling class, the “lawful thieves” who enforce the thieves’ law—an unwritten set of rules called ponyatiya, literally translated as “concepts” or “notions.” These rules include positive recommendations on how a “proper criminal” should act, harsh prohibitions on various actions with corresponding punishments, as well as a basis for how the social hierarchy in prisons should be organized. All this is described in jargon that, even for ordinary Russians, is hard to understand. For instance, the prisons themselves are measured on a scale from blackness to redness—those prisons where everyday life is mostly organized by the criminal authorities are called “black,” and the prisons where the unspoken rules and thieves’ culture are being actively suppressed and everyday life is in the control of the prison administration are considered “red.” Very few prisons are entirely one way or the other, of course, so arguments about whether a particular institution is red or black are commonplace—and baffling to outsiders.

The unspoken rules enforce a harsh hierarchy, one that serves the interests of the men on top—and sometimes of authorities who see it as a way to help keep prisoners under control. There are four basic groups of prisoners, known as “suits,” as if they were a deck of cards. This is essentially a caste system; it is extremely hard to move up, extremely easy to move down, and fear of degradation governs every social interaction. Of course, each suit, like any caste system, has many detailed subdivisions, branches, and complex substructures, but at the basic level, they are the following: blatniye (thieves), muzhiki (men), kozliy (billy goats), and petukhi (roosters).

Blatniye are the criminal authorities. They are career criminals—thieves and those who have chosen to embrace the rules and live by them full time. They are few in number but hold a lot of power and influence. Among them, the lawful thieves or thieves-in-law are a special subcategory, the equivalent of a mafia don or a yakuza elder. Their word is literally law in the criminal underworld—and they are bound only to the ponyatiya themselves, which they also have the power to change in specially organized gatherings.

Men and billy goats make up the “middle class” of this hierarchy. Men are those who just want to serve their terms with no fuss, but who are also informed about these prison laws, who pay respects to the notions, listen to the blatniye, and most importantly, do not cooperate in any way or form with the prison administration, even when it comes to, say, kitchen or library duties.

Billy goats are inmates who participate in formal prison structures, and are willing to work with the prison authorities but also pay some respect to the criminal ones. The people who run the black market inside a prison, who can get you cigarettes, drugs, gaming consoles, or whatever else, are also in the billy goat caste—but they’re obviously left alone and respected as long as they pay their tax into the common pool for the blatniye to use as they please. There is a subsection of those people, called “activists,” who are lower in the hierarchy and try to hide their position. Those are the billy goats who actively try to cooperate with the administration for extra benefits, which often are more than just being released on parole. In black prisons they’re hated like snitches are in U.S. prisons, whereas in extremely red ones, they often take positions that a blatniye would take otherwise.

The lowest caste, and the one that every prisoner fears degradation to, are the roosters, also known as the “offended,” the “pederasts,” or the “downcast.” That is a position to which it is extremely easy to fall down to, but one that you can never climb up from. They’re forced to do all the worst jobs—such as cleaning the cell’s latrine, washing everyone’s underwear—because no, your average Russian prison does not have any washing machines—and often serving as sexual slaves. They also get the worst sleeping spots in the cell, usually next to the latrine.

A rooster is untouchable outside of sex. One is not allowed to share anything with a rooster except as a payment for services—not only is it taboo to touch them, but also anything that they have touched, as that instantly moves one to their caste. Their kitchenware is explicitly marked as such, for one, and whenever transferring cells, they’re supposed to publicly announce their suit status and move in with “their own” accordingly. There is also an extensive list of other infractions that can instantly move one into this caste, far too long for me to list here. Many of those are linked to a toxic sense of masculinity. Gay and transgender prisoners are automatically placed among the roosters, but so are those who foolishly admit to having given oral sex to a woman—an act that, as among the ancient Romans or the modern Italian mafia, is seen as fundamentally impure.

The only interactions allowed between higher-caste prisoners and roosters are purchasing sexual services from them, raping them (my personal sources say that this was completely acceptable up until approximately 2010, but that currently, although it won’t make you a rooster, it is considered to be a minor infraction with a material fine attached to it), and beating them up—but only with kicks or using improvised weapons, as even the touch of a punch is still considered taboo. It might seem bizarre that a man who rapes another man is not seen as impure, but his victim is—but it harks back to a sense of sexual dominance found in prison cultures and reactionary machismo worldwide. A rooster’s status is truly miserable. It’s driven many people to suicide and made people so miserable that they used to rebel and intentionally touch blatniye inmates as a last attempt of revenge—sure, they would be instantly killed by other inmates, but the prisoner who previously belonged to the higher caste would instantly be a rooster inside the prison system and out, and would never be able to move upwards in the hierarchy.

These notions, especially the revulsion against LGBTQ people, are powerful in Russian mainstream culture as well. Take the ex-liberal, now extremely pro-war and pro-Putin Russian journalist Anton Krasovsky, who was thrown out of the Donbas under threats of violence because he’s also openly gay. He’s the kind of gay man who agrees with the Kremlin’s stance of “traditional values” and believes that “gay cure” procedures should be mandatory, but nonetheless, he reported that he’s received messages that he’s not welcome there although he completely supports the Russian side in the war. Those messages included people stating he couldn’t even dig trenches, because the shovels he used would have to be burnt afterward.

In his post on Telegram, then, Prigozhin was making it clear that there was no redemption from prison caste even when fighting for the nation—and that the caste mixing was an active threat to morale. It might seem bizarre to stick to such prejudices given Russia’s dire need for manpower, but the laws of the underworld can’t be cast aside that easily.

This isn’t Prigozhin’s only extolment of the virtues of the thieves’ law. In a leaked video from the Feb. 21 this year, where he’s giving a recruitment speech to inmates, he explains the “working conditions” in the Wagner Group. He notes, “We need criminal talent. I did 10 years myself before becoming a hero of Russia,” letting the potential recruits know that Wagner Group is being run according to the thieves’ law. “We don’t take any kind of the offended, the downcast, and so on—we respect all the unwritten rules.” Prigozhin says that those who are in prison for drugs are “taken care of.” Violence, on the other hand, puts you on the top of the hierarchy. The desirable charges are murder, grievous bodily harm, robbery, and armed robbery. He especially notes that “If you beat up  the administration or the cops, that’s even better.”

In another cruel example, Wagner Group recruits who are suffering from HIV, hepatitis, and other hard-to-cure illnesses, who have been enticed with the promise of a cure should they survive, are made to wear specific wristbands that mark them as “impure” in an attempt to not “taint” others. And, as reported by Ukrainska Pravda, “according to the [Ukrainian] intelligence, the fighters are becoming angry about this situation. Russian medics are known to routinely refuse to treat injured [soldiers] with hepatitis or HIV.”

None of this makes for good soldiers, and it’s already having serious consequences in Russian society. Organized violence is both physically and mentally demanding. A sense of camaraderie among the soldiers and respect, or at least obedience, for officers is vital. The Wagner Group operates on a different culture—one where such mutual respect and military tradition does not exist, and obeying formal superiors is literally taboo for the highest castes of prisoners. Nor can the dead be respected—after all, they might be roosters. Because of these prison laws and hierarchy, soldiers in the Wagner Group are not encouraged to bond; instead, they’re treated as expendable and sent as a human wave into the  “meat grinder.”

Extreme violence—like the shocking sledgehammer execution of a Wagner recruit who tried to defect to Ukraine—is used to keep soldiers in check. As Prigozhin commented about that event: “A dog’s death for a dog.” And while this does keep the prisoner recruits under some control and can achieve limited results, it also has made the Wagner Group tactically inflexible and predictable. Once Ukrainian defenders of Bakhmut understood that these blunt, straightforward assaults were the only thing that Wagner forces would ever do, the Ukrainians adapted and improved, eventually negating the costly gains that Prigozhin’s private army had made.

The normalization of prison culture may be contributing to the brutalization of the Russian army and its war crimes in Ukraine—but it’s also affecting the home front. Many of the prisoner recruits return home with a full pardon after serving out the six months they’re contracted for, often having served a tiny fraction of their sentence. Wagner specifically looked for violent criminals—who usually have long sentences. Already, the crimes of these returning Wagner soldiers are piling up, and analysts and Russian opposition politicians, such as Mikhail Khodorkosky, are warning against the return of the violence of the 1990s, when crime soared. Lawful thieves, prison laws, and ponyatiya in general are surging again, as the country is once again criminalizing itself to the point of gang wars, but this time, with military-grade armaments. Yet the Western press has largely missed most of this. The reports of Prigozhin’s comments, such as this UPI wire, entirely skipped it over. The lede simply states: “Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner Group, said Sunday that the mercenary group “acted honestly” by hiring prisoners to fight in Ukraine as he branded the convicts “heroes.”

In an April 10 report from the Institute for the Study of War, the ponyatiya are entirely ignored. Instead, it mentions only “Prigozhin insinuated that the Russian MoD [Ministry of Defense] would treat convicts worse than Wagner treated them to further advertise recruitment into Wagner and discredit the MoD’s recruitment efforts. The insinuation seems odd given that Wagner reportedly used convicts in human wave attacks that cost thousands of them their lives.” That misses the point entirely. Prigozhin isn’t talking about regular treatment, but about the deeply embedded caste notions—and under those, being degraded to a rooster is far worse than death.

While Prigozhin frequently uses the language of thieves , Putin avoids explicitly stating the rules, but nevertheless hints that he sticks to them himself. Putin was a KGB agent, of the organization that jailed many “thieves” back in Soviet days, and never a convict himself. However, he has long-standing ties to Russian organized crime—most notably through the Cooperative Ozero, which was founded as a dacha cooperative in November 1996 by Putin and his friends and has since grown to a powerful group, bonding together oligarchs and more conventional criminal activities.

Putin’s emphasis on supposedly traditional Russian values also implicitly includes the laws of the prison—especially when it comes to macho behavior and sexual purity. The Russian state’s homophobia can’t be understood without recognizing the sadism of a caste system that sees raping men as normal but loving them as degrading. Maxim Katz, a prominent Russian opposition journalist and politician currently living in Israel, told me that the ponyatiya are important to understand Putin and the Russian political elite in general. But he said  that “it is not the criminal authorities’ notions of the Russian prison that reign in the Russian security services, but their ersatz version.

Chekists, especially retired Chekists [a term for former KGB officers such as Putin, referring to the old Soviet secret police service], like to copy the style of behavior of high-ranking criminals. But for these criminals themselves, the Chekists are second-rate people, frankly not even people. The moment an employee of the ‘office’—current or former—is taken to a detention facility, he is immediately relegated to a lower caste and never gets beyond the latrine.

“Putin’s criminal behavior is more the case of a boy from an educated family trying to imitate the behavior of school bullies—but never quite becoming one of them. The Russian criminal world distinguishes between the blatniye and the ‘trash’ very clearly; the trash can try all they want to mimic this world, but they will always be subhuman to it, and their rhetoric is cheap cosplay, not true adherence to ‘the notions,’ since the notion is to kill them on the spot.” Putin may only be playing at the rules, but the criminal world takes them very seriously. So too should Western analysts striving to understand the actions of Russian troops, especially Wagner’s, in Ukraine, and the kind of culture that will become even more prominent back in Moscow and St. Petersburg when they return from the war.    

Kristaps Andrejsons is a journalist in Latvia and the creator of The Eastern Border podcast on the USSR and modern Eastern European politics.