#anyways. violent revolution is morally justified.

[transrevolutions]

While overall I felt like the tbosas movie was well done, there's one part that really bothered me. When Sejanus gets involved with the rebels in the book, he's fully on board, stealing them ammo and weapons from the base, and planning to hold guards at gunpoint to free the prisoners. In the movie, however, he just wants to run away and then is surprised and upset by the fact that the rebels were planning an act of violence.

This doesn't seem like a major change, but from a political standpoint (as tbosas is a very political book), it's a big one and one I very much do not like.

In the text, Sejanus plays the role of the moral compass. Whereas both Coriolanus and Lucy Gray having complex and subjective motivations, Sejanus is always driven by wanting to do the right thing, even if it costs him. He acts as a baseline, keeping the readers from getting lost in endless loops of justification for atrocities just because Coriolanus's internal narration is rhetorically persuasive.

So when Sejanus (who up until this point has been relatively pacifist) joins up with the rebels in the book and agrees to participate in an act of revolutionary violence, the text is pointing out that that act of rebellion is morally permissible. That even violence against the oppressor class can be an altruistic action. Sejanus planning to fight the guards with the rebels is not a sign of his corruption, it's a sign of the fact that his society has become so corrupt that not doing it would be morally worse than doing it. After all, someone's going to die either way, so why not have it be the oppressors?

If movie!Sejanus is still occupying the role of the moral compass (which he seems to be), then his dismay at the possibility of the rebels using violence acts as a narrative condemnation of the violence, when the opposite is true in the book. The movie tries to make a distinction between the "good" dissenters (pacifist, nonviolent, morally superior) and the "bad" dissenters (violent radicals/terrorists). In the current political climate, this idea and narrative is extremely unsettling. And I'm disappointed they did this, but not surprised. Like the other Hunger Games movies, it was produced by a large media company, and they can't follow the satire of the book too closely lest people realize the fundamental irony of it. People in positions of power do not want to tell a story where violent activism is portrayed as moral--at least when it's against a society that obviously mirrors our own. (The brutalist architecture style is another complaint that I have, but that can be discussed in another post.)

Changing that seemingly small detail about Sejanus's involvement with the rebels doesn't do much to change the continuity of the storyline, but it does a lot to change the underlying message of his character and the story. This was almost certainly intentional, because the same sort of thing was done in the original trilogy movies as well. Companies are scared of subversive media because it makes them look like the 'bad guys' too, so they wrap rebellion in a lens of fantasy and moderatism.

[fandom-thingies]

Worth a Try

Eret sits alone on the day L’manburg is reclaimed.

Not that they didn’t help with taking it back- of course they did, right? They have a lot to atone for, and they’d been waiting, waiting, waiting for an opportunity to take back a few of their sins.

So they did help take it back, stood atop a tower firing down at Dream and his allies, watched Schlatt’s infamously poor health come back to bite him in the most final way…

But they don’t stick around long, after that. They don’t stay for the presidential game of hot potato, the founders of the nation passing its ownership back and forth. 

They would have, normally, but.

Eret has worked with Dream, in the past. Everyone loves to remind them of it, and they often do so themselves, but something oft forgotten is that Eret knows Dream, knows the obsession he has with ending L’manburg, knows the methods he’s most fond of, that game of pawns and traitors he excels at so notoriously.

And Eret knows Dream gave Wilbur 11 stacks of TNT.

Now, supposedly it’s all gone. Various people have looked around and none have been able to find a trace of it, but Eret knows Wilbur, knows the message he wants to send, and before the battle, they checked somewhere no one else did.

Not many people know the podium is hollow, so not many people noticed when it stopped echoing if you hit it and started making a dull thud sound instead.

Eret notices a lot of things.

While Wilbur is taking his place on stage, Eret goes around the hill, digging toward the podium they’ve guessed to be filled full with TNT.

It takes them a while, but when they find it…

There’s so much.

The smell of sulfur is overwhelming, and they take a moment to pull their shirt over their nose before they begin to dig it out.

They don’t get it all, they don’t have time, but they find the blackstone room and the redstone that runs from it and they make dead sure all the explosives near it are broken.

Then, they dig into the room, because why not? Sue them, they’re curious.

What they find is… exactly what they expected and nothing they could have imagined, at the same time.

It’s unassuming, at a glance. Dingy, poorly lit, small.

It’s also a terrifying representation of Wilbur’s mental state, with the anthem scribbled on the wall in the messiest handwriting they’ve ever seen from the former president, who’s usually so neat and tidy.

There’s no button, which is odd. Perhaps he means to place it himself?

(Eret has no illusions he’s changed his mind. As they said, they’ve worked with Dream before. If he hasn’t extracted some promise from Wilbur to blow it all sky high no matter what, they’ll steal their crown from George and eat it.)

They stand for a moment, just taking in the place, before they hear blocks breaking from the passageway out and realize just how close they’ve cut it.

Hurriedly, they block up the hole they’d used to enter, hoping Wilbur won’t realize they’ve destroyed the TNT.

(Hoping he’s too distracted by his own thoughts to hear them close it)

Only moments after the hole is shut, he comes into view, breaking the dirt blocks that hide this chamber from sight. 

The day outside is far brighter than the hidden room, and the contrast makes it so all Eret can see of Wilbur is a dark silhouette haloed by the clear blue sky.

He doesn’t seem to see them at first, coming almost halfway down the passage before he stops, noticing their presence.

“Eret.” His voice is as calm as it always is, when he says it, but they can tell he’s surprised.

“Wilbur.” They greet in response.

“I didn’t expect to find you here. Come to blow it up yourself?” Eret sighs. The hostility in his voice is... not undeserved.

“Not quite.”

“Still trying for your redemption arc, then?” There’s venom in his tone.

“...as much as I can, yes.”

Wilbur deflates, and it seems like the anger in him has fled as quickly as it entered.

“Why are you doing this, Eret?”

The answer to that is… complicated. There are a lot of reasons. They don’t want L’manburg blown up, for one. It’s suffered rather enough, especially with some of Schlatt’s alterations. They also don’t see a better way to try and make up for what they’ve done than stopping someone else from doing the same, but neither of those are really why. The real reason, the truth of why they’ve spent days knocking on hollow objects and digging random holes in the ground until they finally found the bombs?

“I know better than anyone how much doing this will destroy you.” They say.

And that’s the truth of it, isn’t it? The unvarnished fact of the matter is there’s no moral motivation here, as much as they’d like to pretend. They just don’t want anyone else to feel the guilt they’ve felt, and maybe there’s a selfishness in that, but maybe it’s important, to acknowledge your mistakes and do what you can to stop others from making them.

Wilbur laughs, and there’s no humor in it.

“Of course that would be your reasoning,” and the anger in his voice is back, and Eret is preparing to respond, and Wilbur gives them no chance to before he continues. 

“Maybe I’m already destroyed, huh? Maybe I’ve already seen too much of what the world can offer to recover from it!” He swings a hand out wide, indicating the writing on the wall in an aggressive motion that makes Eret shrink back.

“I wrote a whole fucking song for this place, Eret! You were there, you know I did, you were in both versions of the damn thing, and what the fuck is left?” Wilbur inhales, before continuing in a softer tone, “What the fuck is left of it, Eret? I built L’manburg to be special, to be free from tyranny, and look what’s it’s become.”

“Schlatt’s dead, though. He can’t stop you from building it back up.” They counter, but Wilbur doesn’t falter.

“Yeah, and? We violently deposed him, Eret. He had a heart attack sure, but this was a coup through and through. We killed the rightful president of L’manburg. We’ve made ourselves just as bad as him!” 

...no?

No, they’re pretty sure that’s not how that works.

“Isn’t it the right of the people to rebel against rulers who treat them poorly? Schlatt had terrible policies, exiled his political opponents, taxed his citizens into starvation, and destroyed historic monuments,” they adjust their glasses slightly. “Didn’t he kind of have it coming?”

Wilbur stops. Blinks.

Eret suspects he’s never thought of it that way, before.

“But we still killed him. That’s still wrong.” He says, but he sounds... uncertain, now. Off balance.

“Well, we would have. He died before we could.”

“That doesn’t change the intent.”

“Fair enough.”

Eret pauses to collect their thoughts in an orderly manner.

“I still don’t really think it would have been wrong, though. Not any more than it would have been wrong if you’d killed me.”

Wilbur snorts, and says, “Just because you’re drowning in self loathing doesn’t mean you get to snap me out of my self destructive spiral. I’ve been doing just fine with it on my own, thanks.”

Sure he has.

They know terrible coping mechanisms when they see them, is all Eret is saying here.

He must see something of their thoughts in their face, because he continues almost immediately.

“You haven’t got any right to talk, anyway, mr. ‘it was never meant to be’.”

Ah. Hm. He’s got a point there.

Though, their own experience with this is what prompted them to confront him in the first place, so.

“I was wrong, when I said that. I was wrong, and you proved me wrong.”

They mean it, too. They’d been blind when they’d said those words, trying to justify what they were doing to themself by saying the revolution would never have succeeded anyway, and they’d been so fucking stupid.

Wilbur just laughs, though. He laughs for a while.

“You really don’t get it, do you, Eret? You were right, then! You were fucking right! None of this was ever going to work, not with Dream against us! He was always going to find a way to throw a wrench in the gears, and maybe Schlatt got to it first, but there’s no happy ending for this place!” He steps forward, and they realize how close he is to them. “There’s no way out, here! I’m going to press the button, Technoblade is going to summon withers because he’s the goddamn traitor, and Dream’s just going to sit back and watch and be just as untouchable as he always is.”

Wilbur takes another step closer to them, laying a hand on their shoulder, and though he’s only barely taller than them, those two inches feel like two miles, with the way he looms.

“I’ve been to this room, over and over again! Seven or eight times, I’ve been here, staring at this fucking wall and the fucking button, and I-!” He runs his free hand roughly over his face, and Eret sees something suspiciously like tears in his eyes.

“I can’t do this, Eret. I’ve given so much for this country, everyone has, and there’s just nothing left. I’m so tired, Eret. I’ve lost so much of myself to this.”

Eret raises their hand slowly, telegraphing the motions so Wilbur can pull back if he wants, and puts it over the one he’s placed on their shoulder.

They take a step and they’re basically touching him, and carefully, carefully, they reach their other arm around him until they’re embracing.

It’s not quite a hug, really. The position is a bit too awkward, especially with both of them barely fitting in the tiny room, but it’s close.

Wilbur stays tense, but he doesn’t push them away, doesn’t tell them to let go.

They hope it helps him, hope they’re right and he needs as much as it seems, and the evidence doesn’t seem to contradict that hypothesis.

It’s good, that this has worked. Good that they were able to convince him, to make him realize this isn’t the answer.

Click.

A moment of silence.

Wilbur laughs, a real laugh, not a pale imitation fed by anger and self loathing, and keeps laughing for nearly a full minute before he regains his composure.

“Oh, Eret,  you bastard.” He says, and they can hear the smile in his voice. “You broke the redstone, you glorious motherfucker.”

It’s then that Eret realizes what just happened.

Wilbur had used the hug as a cover to place a button on the wall and press it, not realizing all the TNT near the room was safely in their inventory.

That fucking prick.

Eret laughs then, too, fueled half by the sheer fear of realizing Wilbur actually did it, actually pressed the button, and it was only their having broken it that stopped L’manburg being blown up again, but the laugh is also coming from the desperate, desperate relief they feel because even if they didn’t succeed in convincing him, even if they didn’t change his mind, they still stopped him from making their mistake.

“Why even try to talk me out of it, if you already made it so I couldn’t?” He asks, bemused.

“I can’t exactly stop you from getting more TNT and trying again, can I?”

Wilbur tenses against them, before they continue.

“Please don’t, Wilbur. I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish with it, but… give yourself a chance to heal, please. Schlatt is dead, and even if you’re right, and Technoblade is the traitor, no one is going to let him destroy this. Even if he breaks every block of this nation, we’ll put it back, because this place has never been the builds, or the podium, or the walls,”

“L’manburg is the people, and we’re not going anywhere,”

[gameofdrarry]

Wizards Hearts Recs: Dark!Fic

Wizards Hearts was a four-month-long Drarry reading fest. Players were given a playing deck of 52 tropes, and were asked to find 52 different fics to read and comment on to fill their decks. To prevent the same few fics from being read, fics were restricted to only being used for the game three times before being considered ineligible for further points. The tropes and submissions list can be found here.

Check out the masterlist of fics for this trope below the cut!

📜 REVOLVEVLOVER by firethesound, zeitgeistic Rated:  Explicit Words:  46324 Tags: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Explosions, Camping, Assassins & Hitmen, Post-Hogwarts Summary:  The work Harry does is justifiable. It’s justice. He works for his country, and his country is a republic—the magical side, anyway. It’s not laudable work, it’s not work he’s proud of, but it’s necessary work. Harry has always taken the necessary jobs that no one else has the stomach for. It’s just that he’s never deciphered a kill sheet and seen Draco Malfoy’s name on it. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Railway Lands by maelipstick Rated:  Explicit Words:  65012 Tags: Not Epilogue Compliant, Harry/Draco - Freeform, Junkie Death Eater Repair Kit, Kings Cross Summary:  Draco finds his own way to cope with being a failed Death Eater at Voldemort's headquarters. Voldemort finds a way to destroy the wizarding world even after his death. Harry is trying to hold the world together while his mind quietly comes apart. Warnings for graphic drug use, depression and suicidal ideation, Draco being an arsehole, sex work, criminality, non-con sexual situations, shifting POVs, ofc werewolves, self neglect and self harm, general unprettiness, unplanned parenthood and references to other works of fiction. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Wolves and Lambs Look Not by LowerEastSide Rated:  Mature Words:  3328 Tags: Major Character Death, AU after OotP, Angst, Minor Character Death, Dark Draco Malfoy, POV Draco Malfoy, POV First Person, Switching, Dark Summary:  "I perceive that goodness and justice have dwelt in your heart: we could not live together." ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Forgive Those Who Trespass by Lomonaaeren Rated:  Explicit Words:  135889 Tags: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Denial, Mutilation, Horror, Body Horror, Psychological Horror, Torture, Muteness Summary:  Harry Potter was convinced he had an ordinary, if inconvenient, life. Then Ron and Hermione vanished in the Department of Mysteries. And the only person who may know where they are is a mute Draco Malfoy. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 His Enemy’s Fall by Elfflame Rated:  Mature Words:  23291 Tags: Community: ownficfest, Dark!Harry, Bottom Draco, Top Harry, Dark fic Summary:  Harry finds himself getting closer to the Malfoys as his world begins to fall apart. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Blue Sunny Day by firethesound Rated:  Explicit Words:  26122 Tags: Creature Fic, Dark Comedy, Awkward Sexual Situations, Vampires Summary:  Years ago, Harry Potter disappeared from the Wizarding World. When Draco spots him at a club in Muggle London, well, he just can't resist the opportunity that presents itself. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Servile by calrissian18 Rated:  Explicit Words:  68511 Tags: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-con, Lots of Character Death - Nothing Major, Historical References, Violence, Torture, Slavery, Rape, Not Your Average Bear... Slave!fic, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Major Character Injury, Erectile Dysfunction, Past Relationship(s), Pining Harry, Jealousy, Intense Self-Doubt, Original Characters - Monsters - Creations, Bottom Draco, Dry Humping, ALL THE SCARY WARNINGS DO NOT REFER TO THE HARRY/DRACO Summary:  “I would love anything you gifted me, My Lord, but this,” silver eyes, the same shade as the dragon that marked Harry's arm, glinted in his direction under the Death Eater’s hood, “is exquisite.” ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 When Death Comes Calling by MysticKitten42 Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  2569 Tags: Dark Magic, Dark Mark (Harry Potter), Grim Reaper - Freeform, Invisibility Cloak (Harry Potter), Master of Death (Harry Potter), Sectumsempra (Harry Potter), Experimental Magic, Trust, Enemies to Lovers, Getting Together, Boys Kissing, Auror Harry Potter, Rule Breaking, Angst with a Happy Ending, Halloween, Samhain, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Community: hp_creatures, HP Creature Fest 2020 - Quarantine Creature Comeback Summary:  It’s All Hallows’ Eve and as Harry investigates a string of seemingly related deaths, there’s one he hopes to prevent. He looks over Harry’s shoulder and Harry turns too. They both see it, the dark translucent figure making its way to shore. ~ Or ~ Getting together in the face of Death. Literally. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Ever Fixed Mark by shealwaysreads (onereader) Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  1085 Tags: POV Draco Malfoy, POV First Person, Dark Harry Potter, Sort Of, The Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter) is Terrible, Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter), Morally Grey Harry Potter, Revolution, Morally Grey Draco Malfoy, Spy Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-War, BAMF Harry Potter, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Powerful Harry Potter Summary:  In which Harry decides to burn the world, and Draco watches on with adoration. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 You are a Runner and I am My Father's Son by charlotteschaos Rated:  Explicit Words:  14908 Tags: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Angst, Dark, Drama, Explicit Language, Character Death, Sexual Content Summary:  Harry had hoped that he'd only see one war in his lifetime, but this new war was much more subtle--a war on liberty where the Ministry controls the choices of its citizens in order to protect them from The Muggle Threat. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 I love you by curlee_cue Rated:  Explicit Words:  18500 Tags: Language, Sex Summary:  Harry knows what love is. It’s something that grows. Something that adapts. Something that sometimes needs a little help along the way. ❤️ Read on LJ

📜 No More Desperate a Creature by glitteringvoid Rated:  Mature Words:  29724 Tags: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Heavy Angst, Temporary Amnesia, Suicide Attempt, Blood and Violence, Murder, Hospitalization, Dark Harry, Morally Grey Draco Malfoy, Violent Thoughts, anger issues, Internal Conflict, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Trust Issues, Intrusive Thoughts, Dark Magic, Elder Wand (Harry Potter), Mind Manipulation, Invasion of Privacy, Euthanasia, (discussions of it), Domestic Fluff, Drowning, Loss of Control, Coma, Diary/Journal, Hopeful Ending, POV First Person, POV Third Person, POV Outsider, POV Multiple, Mental Instability, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020, Psychological Horror, Guilt, Therapy, Jealousy, Nightmares Summary:  Harry Potter thought he had finally left the war behind (with the exception of a few particularly stubborn nightmares that still wake him up, every now and then). He loves Draco Malfoy (and who saw that coming, back in Hogwarts?), loves the life they built and the future they are looking at. He doesn't yet know that everything he holds, everything he fought so hard for, could be gone very soon. He doesn't know that the war isn't as neatly tied up and won as he thinks. Harry thought he was done with dark times and suffering. Harry thought wrong. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Through His Teeth by dicta_contrion Rated:  Mature Words:  2820 Tags: Post-War, Dark, Bruises Summary:  "C’mon then, Potter. Don’t tell me there’s nothing you’ve ever wanted to do to this body.” ❤️ Read on AO3

[mashounen2003]

Sonic opinions - 4

Initially, the purpose of my fanfics was almost only to think of a possible continuation of the events of Sonic SatAM, adapting things from the Archie-Sonic comics (and taking some licenses in the process), and trying to better write Antoine's transition from his self in the cartoon to his self in the comics, give more importance to Tails and better portray his parents, Amadeus and Rosemary. But then I realized how abysmal the differences between the two versions of Antoine were, while it was also harder for me to think of a way to write Rosemary coherently.

In Antoine's case, lately, I came up with an alternative to make him develop and stop being what he was in the TV series:

Immediately after the original Robotnik has been defeated, Antoine leaves his team behind. He actually doesn't know how to fight, but he still has good marksmanship, so he becomes a hitman. However, he's eventually convinced to leave behind that life without honour, begins to train in real fighting skills and becomes a genuine Freedom Fighter once and for all. In any case, he develops an opinion of "the end justifies the means" and continues thinking it for the rest of the story, being critical of his former team; this, along with his lasting grudge against Sonic and Sally, leads him to fight against the Monarchy in the events of "Civil War".

As for Rosemary... I don't like to say it this way, but she was a total b**** in the comics. I came up with a way to show her in a better light, but in no way could it have worked with the comics' Rosemary as she was. I'll talk about it when I write my list of ideas for future fanfics.

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I also addressed Politics in that fictional universe, trying to avoid the way this was done in the comics: there, Ian Flynn created the Council of Acorn and portrayed it as a bunch of stereotyped useless politicians obsessed with controlling the heroes and barely concerned with their country's security, and I think Flynn didn't do it to actually enrich the comics' universe or to add depth to the story or to communicate certain political ideas, but only to give readers someone to blame.

In the stories I wrote so far, I didn't go deep into what happened with my fictional universe's Council of Acorn after its creation; however, I did address its origin, and in doing so, I didn't make the Bems involved. Look... In the comics, Tails's parents were inspired by the Bems to try to establish a Democracy in Acorn, and this entails some inconvenience:

The Bems are terrible people. They roboticized Sonic and Tails to make them fight Robotnik and Snively, in order to verify the robots were better than flesh-and-blood beings (if things had happened differently, perhaps Mobius's Robians wouldn't have been de-roboticized); their society is entirely made of clones and almost lacks variety, not only in terms of the physical but also in terms of people's ideas; their judicial system is quite f***ed up (at least according to our standards), and... *sigh* they're just the worst. These traits of the Bems had been developed when Karl Bollers wrote the comics, and Flynn should have considered that they’re technically canon before having Tails's parents claim to have been inspired by those aliens.

Even if we cling to Moral Relativism with all our strength, claiming the Bems are just "different" and have different behaviour, mindset, psychology and culture, this keeps making things complicated: applying something in one society, solely because it succeeded in another, ain't exactly something smart to do.

And the craziest of all is that it could have been avoided very easily: Flynn could simply have said there were previous failed attempts to establish a Democracy in other countries of Mobius and Amadeus & Rosemary had always wanted a change in the government system, had learned about those historical events and knew (or believed they knew, at least) how to do it right this time. Moreover, Flynn could have said the decade spent by Tails's parents with the Bems gave them a clue about what they should not do when finally returning to their homeworld.

I tried, in my work, to use this idea of Amadeus & Rosemary wanting to establish a Democracy in an attempt to succeed in what others in other parts of Mobius had failed throughout History. It was based upon what happened in the French Revolution (more precisely, the Jacobin period), the years immediately after the Russian Revolution, and mainly the First English Revolution: in 1648, the Monarchy was overthrown in England; the change was violent and chaotic, the government that took the place of the King ended up being also a despotic tyranny, and the final result was just the return of a King to power in 1660 (although, anyway, the Glorious Revolution established in 1688 the British parliamentary system as we know it); Thomas Hobbes, while watching those events unfold, wrote his book Leviathan, where he justified the need for an Absolute Monarchy by arguing humans were violent, selfish, chaotic and brutal by nature, so they had signed a symbolic pact where they ceded all their rights and their power to a single person in charge of ruling with an iron fist, in order to prevent humanity from destroying itself. In my fanfics' universe, it was mentioned those attempts at democratization in Mobius led to civil wars, ended with those same peoples clinging to ideas similar to those of Hobbes, quickly restoring the Monarchy and promising themselves not to try and establish a Democracy ever again.

I also mentioned the recurring conflicts between the Acorn Kings and the Southern Barons in the comics, as well as the connection between the Kings and the infamous Source of All, among other things. I also had Amadeus do what he should have done in the comics when he explained why he wanted there to be Democracy: to present historical events, such as those conflicts, the Kings' cult of the Source of All and the technological and cultural backwardness to which the people were subjected by them, as concrete examples of how the Monarchy had never worked well.

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There are several Sonic fans, including @toaarcan and @robotnik-mun, who argue Politics shouldn't have been addressed at all in Sonic stories. Also, the vast majority of Sonic fans claim each and every one of the attempts to make this series more serious were some of the worst things that could have happened, even the addition of more characters was nothing but a cancer, and everything should have remained "simple" or the Sonic franchise shouldn't have gone beyond what it was at the time of the classic Genesis games. I praise the stories written by @toaarcan, and I agree with many of the opinions of both him and @robotnik-mun, but with all due respect, I totally disagree on this particular point.

I've always believed that, if it's done right, any topic should be able to be addressed in any kind of fiction, and Politics is no exception; more exactly, I think an author has two options when writing a work aimed at children and young people: to write something super light and soft where no serious topic is addressed, or to "go all-in" and address all serious topics, leaving nothing out; this includes not only Politics, but also tragedies, the complexities of love, toxic interpersonal relationships (whether abusive or otherwise), bullying, mental illness, trauma (for example, that caused by war), societal issues, and so on. That's one of the many whys of my love for RWBY: there's nothing that web-series doesn't talk about. As for the proper and respectful LGBTQ+ representation, rather than a serious topic reserved for serious fictional works, it's a requirement every fictional work should meet, whether serious or not, especially in the middle of the 21st century (this is something I think my work didn't meet satisfactorily).

With Sonic SatAM and the comics, it looked like the second option could have worked in the Sonic franchise too, and the TV series did it right to some extent. Unfortunately, Archie-Sonic's writers almost never did things right in regards to relationships between characters: Ken Penders's work, in particular, is an example of how relationships should never be, and Flynn's attempt to talk about Politics was a complete disaster, not much better than Penders's heinous handling of political stuff, more similar to a very low-quality North-American political satire, even when the conflict portrayed wasn't of the "Right versus Left" kind but of the "Monarchy versus Republic" kind, which should have been much easier to do without ruining everything. The only ones who didn't fall into those same mistakes were Gallagher and Angelo DeCesare, the comics' first writers, but only because they chose the first option: to write stories that weren't serious at all... with the notable exception of "Growing Pains", the B-story of issues #28 and #29, a typical Shakespearean tragedy where they presented us Auto-Fiona, a robot replica of who would later be one of the most controversial characters in the comics.

This, coupled with the resounding failure of Sonic 2006, is the only reason why now almost everyone in the Sonic fandom prefers stories without anything serious and/or a return to the Classic Sonic era, with very underdeveloped characters who are turned into mere plot devices and are only a shadow of their former self or of what they could have been.

[quicklyseverebird]

An intervention for an Antifa friend

Written to a sweet friend of mine who is, I learned, a member of the Portland Antifa. Ok, so maybe I just need to get this off my chest so i can move past it.  I just don't believe you, XXXXXX.  There is an utter lack of any evidence to your claim.  

Consider this, the Proud Boys, to use the biggest example, are castigated on every media channel as white supremacists and alt right bigots, despite the fact that their leader--in fact several of their local leaders as well--are men of color.  So the media is already skewed against them and hostile to anything they might say or do, regardless of logic or common sense.  Whenever an act of violence breaks out and there's even a RUMOR that someone is a PB, they jump on it as proof of this, even when the PB's own leaders state that there is no record of that person ever being a member of any of their chapters.  Still, despite that, with a media seeking to demonize them, every video we see of your altercations is them having their rallies, marching about, waving flags, etc, and then you show up and attack them, and they fight back.  Not only that, but even when they just SAY they are going to show up, and then don't, just to punk you, you guys show up and riot and damage things anyways, without a proud boy in sight.  So no.  I do not believe you.  Nor do I believe that "nothing has been laid to waste" when we can literally view videos of buildings being burned, businesses looted, people killed, etc.  Streets vandalized and boarded up, shopkeepers being subjected to protection rackets, then looted anyways.  Your people post the videos *yourself* showing evidence of this.  So no.  I do not for a moment believe you. And no, this has nothing to do with my "news sources."  The news bends over backwards defending you.  The politicians defend you, say Antifa doesn't exist, or is just "an idea."  The politicians justify and defend these riots, and even raise support to pay for bail.  When you attack a PB rally, they call the PB's white supremacists, and blame them, though they were standing there minding their own business and having a rally, which is their constitutional right to do.  When you attack a man in his home, threatening to kill him and burn his house, it's the man who's arrested.  When you break into private property and threaten a home owner with death, and they brandish non-functioning weapons as a deterrent, as they are legally allowed to do (they actually would have been legally justified by castle doctrine to open fire on those people the moment they entered the gate), it's the home owners charged with crimes, and evidence is tampered with in order to make a case against them.  When your rioters are arrested, the DA's let them go without charges.  Your own mayor stands in the front lines with you in an assault on federal property, and then has his own home attacked and tried to set on fire, yet he STILL defends you. The establishment is defending you at every turn.  You are not the victims of demonization.  You are not "the underdog/oppressed."  You are the ones committing brutalization and when people try and defend themselves from you, you cry "victim."  You are the oppressors. Because...and here I need to make a distinction between you the individual and your organization and those like them.  I like and care about you.  I believe you are at heart a good person.  I can hear the passion you have for prisoners and while I might disagree with some of your beliefs and arguments, I can acknowledge and even admire your idealism and desire to make things better.  Even your belief in socialism is rooted in a desire to make things better, and I can respect that, even though I find socialism morally repugnant and stupid. But your organization and those like it: Antifa, BLM and the whole cult of intersectionality are *EVIL*.  I am not using this term to be hyperbolic.  I mean it quite literally.  They are actively, objectively, factually, morally evil.  I mean it in the same way I say that grass is green.  I place them on the same moral level that the KKK or neo-Nazi's are.  In actuality, I believe they are worse than those.  The KKK is a couple thousand deluded, sad, old, little white men, and the neo-nazis are a couple thousand deluded young white men seeking identity and purpose.  Stupid, sad, disgusting, but irrelevant, and scorned by the general public and in public opinion.   It's not the KKK rioting through cities, burning businesses, buildings, looting and destroying primarily minority-owned property.  It's not NN's today stirring up racial hatred and attacking people based on their skin color.  It's not the KKK who have killed something like 35 people in the past 140 days of violent rioting, most of them POC's as well.  It's not the neo-Nazi's who stalked two guys walking down the street minding their own business who had just driven around town and caused no damage or violence, then screamed "we have a Trump supporter here" and then executed an unarmed man.  It's not the KKK that showed up at a detention facility armed to the teeth with weapons for a shoot-out.  It's not NN's chasing down a kid who literally hours before had been cheering BLM's position, cleaning up damage and providing first aid to rioters, while shooting at him, and forcing the kid to defend himself with lethal force, then claiming he was a white supremacist.  It's not the KKK tearing down statues of Lincoln, paid for by freed slaves, or Frederick Douglas, or of abolitionists who died fighting slavery, or hell, even a statue of an elk!  It's not NN's who go to a black man's house and demand that he take down his american flag or they will burn his home down.  It's not the KKK who burned down an apartment building where families were living because there was a rumor the building was used in trafficking, without evidence.  It's not the NN's marching through suburbs, frightening normal people and using their presence as a shield against police actions.  It's not the KKK writing justifications for looting, and calling Jews the face of capitalism. (sound familiar?)  It's not NN's who walk up to people they don't like, away from the people they were allegedly and illegally hired to protect and use the excuse that a man has pepper spray in his hand, to shoot them in the face.  That's all you. I am, admittedly, lumping you all into one pot, so some of my accusations blur the boundaries between these groups, but you are more or less the same in my eyes.  Same drink, different flavors, in my view.  I do feel like I am living in pre-war Germany.  But you are the Nazi's.  In a very real sense, I mean that.  You are the Nazi's in today's society, waiting for your Hitler to arise.  You are the ones going about advocating against free speech...with violence.  You are the ones justifying your actions with claims of socialistic reform and revolution, with violence.  You are the ones burning books, both figuratively and literally.  You are the ones with cancel culture as part of your methodology.  Even you.  I've literally watched you do it, XXXXX, though you said you think cancel culture is stupid.  YOU did it yourself and I watched you do so because someone dared to speak and eat with people you don't like.  You are the ones stoking the fires of racial hatred.  You are the racists and identitarians.  Even in your racism against white people (and POC's who disagree with you, which justifies you in calling them racial slurs) you are, ironically, the actual white supremacists. I'm not scared of the KKK.  I'm not scared of Neo nazis.  I'm not scared of the Alt Right.  I'm not scared of the Proud boys or patriot prayer.  I don't see any of them committing acts of violence.  I AM scared of you.  I DO see your violence.  The PB's could march down my street, and I'd watch from my porch and drink a coke.  If you marched down my street, I'd get my gun and watch through my window blinds.  You are the Nazis.  You are the violent racists.  You are the fascists, in a very real sense of the word.  You are the authoritarians seeking a revolution of society to place your own bigoted views in a place of power.

And just to be clear, I'm not condoning the actions of the groups you fight.  I'm not saying I agree with them. I gather there have been some violent acts with PB's in the past.  They had a "4th degree" in their organization that you reached if you were involved in a fight, but they've stepped back from that I gather.  They seem more like a fraternity, and I don't like fraternities (or sororities for that matter).  I am not aware of any violent activity perpetrated by Patriot Prayer.  And any group has its own, individual crazies.  I don't have to agree with them, or even like them to acknowledge that Antifa, BLM and company are worse.  For them, violence is a primary means and goal, not something that pops up accidentally. No.  You are not right.  You are not noble.  Your organizations are literally, morally evil and the closest thing to a Nazi party in existence right now in our country by any metric or standard.  I just wish you would recognize this and get out before its too late.  I adore you, and I hate to think of you as part of them, just as I would, had I learned you had joined the KKK.

[inqilabi]

Do you think it’s worth it trying to educate someone on the blm, police brutality and just systemic injustices in general if they refuse to listen, and just keep posting videos of ppl looting and vandalizing to justify their point that nothing will come of this? I have a family member like that and it’s so tiring having to explain why this is happening or why it has to (they’re 25 y/o and educated on matters generally...I think) Also thank for all your viewpoints here!!

its quite upsetting when its a family member or a loved one. Especially when they aren’t quiet about it and may be spreading these views by sharing them!! Are they Muslim.. because if so- prophet Muhammad raided and looted meccan caravans as an organized effort, it was direct redistribution, as he was going up against meccan economic hegemony 😌💁🏾‍♀️💁🏾‍♀️💁🏾‍♀️

But in reality, i think regardless of like religion, or one’s current convictions, the only way to change imo is to have some sort of openness to change & willingness to be wrong. I feel like you can identify these people. My brother also mentioned looting/vandalizing but it wasn’t his main focus. He was bothered by it because he has a moral view of looting. But outside of that he was more focused on justice anyway. So i just had to hone on getting him to question morality of looting, and whether it can be moral. So i told him about how these properties are not a community to black people, and in many cases, they were directly causing havoc to their communities (that expensive apartment buildings, target funding the PD & refusing supplies to protesters etc). And as well, generally about how property damage is direct action in a revolution. And asked him to consider how black people must be feeling after generations of being brutalized by the police. I shared a couple of posts that black folks have written and some videos of police militarized, brutalizing protesters. Asked him to ask himself why the police is so heavily militarized against protesters that have nothing except their bodies. But he’s always been open to being wrong. He ended up donating to a mutual aid & a bail fund. So in his case, it comes from naivete and not really questioning the commonly held views.

Tbh, the resources in this day and age are all out there. And if you are on social media and are following an echo chamber, that’s on you! It’s so easy to follow people of a different pov than you so that you will surely see examples of police brutality, facts/statistics. And that’s if you don’t want to do the work of reading or thinking critically, then it's so easy to passively consume information & still there’s so much out there from that, that I dont know how you don’t come to conclude that the capital is violent. 

Perhaps you could challenge them to read 1 or two radical literature this month, and read/finish it with them. It can radicalize people, but again I am not sure if does if you’re not open to reconsider, coming from empathy. Thought i’d share this post written for nbpoc, i thought it was simple, effective, bite sized. Worth a shot but more than that, don't waste your energy

hope you’re able to donate to the movement (mutual aids or bail funds), that would probably be most directly helpful right now. 

[laylacooke]

Secrets Don’t Make Friends || Ariana & Layla

timing: Tuesday night (6/16) after Layla Hypnotize’s herself. parties: @letsbenditlikebennett & @laylacooke summary: Just a girls night out. NBD.

While it was becoming more and more apparent to people that there was something different about Layla, she had been trying to keep it from Ariana. She did promise her, after all, that she wouldn’t experiment with the fidget spinner, and Ari knowing what Layla had done would mean someone trying to take her freedom away. Instead, she decided a nice girl’s night out was the answer and invited her best friend to Quarter to play some games. Leaning against the door waiting, Layla flirted with a nearby guy who had been waiting for someone as well. However, when she saw Ariana, she stood up, put on a smile, and walked over to her friend, “Hey, I was wondering where you were. You ready for Girl’s Night Out?”

Ariana had no idea what was going on, but she was already sick of it. Ulfric made it sound as if something had happened. Even so, that didn’t justify how she had treated Blanche at all. She tried to keep Ulfric’s advice in mind, but she still had this gut feeling that she’d done something with the fidget spinner. From what she knew of Layla, she could even hurt a fly. Hell, she wouldn’t even eat a cheeseburger or drink a glass of milk. No amount of hurt would drive her to hurt others without reason. She needed to see for herself and try to reason with her. Whatever she was going through, she needed to lean on the people she cared for instead of taking it out on everyone else. She walked into Quarter, leather jacket on and scowl fading when she saw Layla. “Girls night, it is,” she said, looking her over carefully for any sign of something being out of place. She lacked a certain warmth she’d grown used to, but she was acting mostly normal. “Any favorite arcade games? I always love the basketball one since I’m really good at it.”

Since shit had hit the fan with Blanche, and the girl had blabbed to Ariana, Layla knew things were going to be awkward. She could see it in her friend’s face, when she entered the arcade. But it didn’t really phase the teenager. Causing a commotion had been fun, and when she pushed buttons and people pushed back, the redhead felt like she was accomplishing something, “Never been a basketball fan. Not after one of the team members from high school hit on my girlfriend. Was more a Dance, Dance Revolution type girl. Although tonight, I’m really feeling Street Fighter. Maybe we start with basketball and work our way back to some fighting?” The grin on her face was apparent, but there was something different about her eyes. They were almost hollow.

Something was decidedly off and Ariana really wasn’t liking this. She was in a Street Fighter mood? Was that supposed to be some sort of joke? Like punching Blanche and trashing her car hadn’t been enough of a fight for her day? She cocked an eyebrow at Layla, trying to fight off the annoyed look present on her face. Ulfric said she was going through a lot and she believed him, but this wasn’t okay. She was going through a lot, too, and she still had common fucking decency. She let out a huff of air and said, “Let’s go for Dance, Dance Revolution. Think I’d rather skip the Street Fighter. Plus, I think you had enough of that today.” Shit. She hadn’t meant for the pointed comment at the end to come out. 

Layla had been willing to play the game. Be the same weak animal that Ariana knew and loved. Arcade night was something the old Layla had wanted. Something to bond her to the people she felt probably didn’t give a rat’s ass about her. And when the other teenager was down for Dance, Dance Revolution, the redhead was willing to follow; at least until the comment at the end came out, “Huh? What was that, Ariana?” She had known exactly what was said, but she wanted to see what her friend had to say. Cocking her head to the side, she waited patiently for a response arms now crossed over her chest.

Ariana could feel her fists clenching as Layla cocked her head all coyly and asked her to repeat herself as if she didn’t have fucking werewolf hearing. Everything in Ariana was screaming that she had definitely used that fidget spinner. She wasn’t herself at all. She rolled her eyes and repeated, “I said I think you’ve had enough street fighting for one day. Which what the hell anyway? You’re not a violent person. You won’t even eat a damn omelet because chickens or whatever.” 

“That’s what I thought you had said.” Layla’s eyes shifted downwards to Ari’s clenched fists. Letting her gaze move back upwards, a smile remained on her face, “Oh, sweet Ariana. Ulf didn’t tell you, did he? Or Simon. I mean, Clifford, I can understand, because I asked him not to. Simon...Simon just blabbed to Salva. Which, it’s funny, I haven’t seen Daddy Dearest around lately. Might need to go pay him a visit soon, but I digress.” Glancing around, she noticed the arcade had been nearly empty, “Wanna know a secret?” She leaned in and whispered, “I killed somebody.” 

Everything about the way Layla was looking and talked to her just felt wrong. Ariana knew she could probably hear the spike in her heart rate if her clenched fists and red cheeks hadn’t given her away. Then she spoke of Simon and Ulfric not telling her something and the previously stony glare softened. That was why Ulfric told her not to push. She reached out but hesitated and brought her arms back to her sides. “Layla,” she started softly, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Was it--” She stopped herself, not wanting to push too much. Knowing how hard it was still for her to talk about what happened on prom night and remembering the small gift Nell gave her of not making her talk about it. “You don’t have to tell me what happened, but you also don’t need to lash out at people. We’re here for you. We want to support you, it doesn’t have to be like this, Lay.” 

She was thriving off Ariana’s anger, but when she noticed that the girl had changed her demeanor, it confused Layla. Why wasn’t she wanting to fight her? She had killed somebody. Ripped them to shreds. When the fidget spinner had taken her conscience, any and all moral direction had gone out the door, but the look in Ariana’s eyes had angered the werewolf. She didn’t want to feel anything. Were the effects of the device wearing off? Surely not. She had hypnotized herself. That she could recall. But the way Frankie had left her mid conversation, earlier in the day, hadn’t felt good and those feelings were pouring into what was supposed to be an entirely different experience for her and Ariana, “Why aren’t you mad at me, Ariana? I killed a man. I ripped him apart. Limb from limb and listened to him scream and beg and plead for mercy.” Yes, Layla had done those actions, but it was before she had ever used the fidget spinner on herself. She didn’t like this. She just wanted to cause chaos and be what everyone had made her out to be; a monster. And without giving it second thought, she ran her fist through one of the nearby machines.

Her eyebrows knit together in confusion as Layla questioned why she wasn’t made at her. Ariana knew it had to be during the full moon. Something must have gone wrong with chaining herself up and she knew it was an accident. She knew how that had to weigh on her. She’d been so concerned with making sure she hurt no one and then to kill someone. Sure, she didn’t like how she was handling this, but it wasn’t something Ariana could relate to either. She’d killed someone who deserved it, who killed Celeste and intended to kill her, and she would do it again, except this time she’d do it before he ever got the chance to hurt Celeste. That didn’t matter right now though, Layla was clearly hurting, and she wondered if maybe she used the fidget spinner to help. “Why would I be mad? You didn’t do it on purpose, right,” she asked, hands fidgeting in front of her, unsure if reaching out would be welcomed, “Look, all we can do is make sure it doesn’t happ--” The sight of Layla’s fist plunging into Pac Man cut her short and she reached for her arm, trying to hold it in place. “I get that you’re upset, but you gotta chill with the property destruction before you get yourself arrested.”

Layla’s breathing was heavy. She was mad. Mad at the world. At her parents. At herself. But it just didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. At least it shouldn’t have, and then she remembered it. The fidget spinner that was lingering just in her pocket. Even in all the destruction she had caused, she didn’t want to be alone, and maybe she didn’t have to be. Jerking her hand away, refusing to listen to her friend, she pulled out the device, “Sorry, but not sorry, Ariana. It’s never fun when you have to play alone.” Holding it up, she flicked the toy with the hopes that she could hypnotize the other wolf, but she had to remember not to watch it herself or all her hard work would be for not.

Every suspicion Ariana had about the fidget spinner was confirmed when she spoke and pulled the fidget spinner out of her pocket. Absolutely the fuck not. She’d just barely avoided herself or Ulfric arrested for murder. She wasn’t about to be under the control of Layla and a damn fidget spinner. Her eyes immediately averted away from the spinner, making sure it didn’t draw her in, and she lunged on Layla, bringing her down to the ground. “I knew it,” she growled, trying to pin the other wolf down and grab the spinner from her hands, “Give me that fucking thing.” 

She kept her eyes clear fighting the urge to look at it, but when Ariana caught on and shoved her to the ground, Layla growled, “No!!!!” Gripping it tightly, while the other wolf tried to pull it from her hands, she fought back, “Let. Go. Ariana!!! This is the only thing I have giving me any fucking reason for still being here!” The words slipped out. Deep down in her heart, the day she did it, Layla was crashing. With the way Frankie had come to see her, and the feeling of never being able to get past killing a man, the fidget spinner had been a last resort, before thinking about other means. Refusing to let go, she gave Ari a good hard shove in hopes that it would get the young wolf off her.

Of course, she couldn’t make this easy. Ariana didn’t want to fight her for it, but it was looking like she’d have to. When Layla said it was the only thing keeping her here, Ariana felt a surge of both heartbreak and anger hitting her. She hated that Layla was going through all of this but running away from what you were feeling was never the answer. Plus, what she was doing was destructive and dangerous to others if Blanche and her car were any evidence. She growled as Layla pushed her off her and immediately lunged again, but missed and hit the pinball machine instead, sending it toppling over. “You think you’re the only one hurting right now? Come on, Layla,” she jumped up off the ground, adrenaline making her ignore the pain in her side, “You can’t just use this thing to run away from your emotions and take me down with you. Give it to me.” She did her best to back Layla into a corner, pushing her toward the back of the arcade where the security guard wouldn’t see them. 

When Ariana was off her, Layla scrambled to her feet, the fidget spinner tight in her grip. She wasn’t going to give it up. It was like a drug she never knew she had needed. However, the pinball machine hitting the ground made her jump back. With adrenaline racing through her veins, she was getting exactly what she had wanted; a fight with Ariana, but it felt different. It felt off. She had wanted to start some chaos. Not chaos with a purpose. But before she could even think of leaving, she felt Ariana pushing her away from the exit and towards the back wall, “But that’s just it, Little Wolf. I don’t feel anything. And you could have that too, if you’d just let me use-” Before she could say anything, she felt her feet get tripped up, and Layla went falling backwards into the Street Fighter machine, her head hitting the control panel pretty hard, along with her hand containing the toy. Unable to hold onto it, the fidget spinner flew out and slid under one of the machines nearby. In a daze, she slowly looked around for where the device had gone but couldn’t find it.

As much as she wanted to listen to Ulfric and try to understand, Ariana was fuming. Her features were etched in a glare and her fists were up, ready to continue fighting. Maybe having no feelings felt like the right answer for Layla, even though it clearly fucking wasn’t, but Ariana didn’t want her own feelings taken away. Already, there were so many days where her grief felt crippling, but it was hers and she wanted to feel it. And she wanted to feel the love, the anger, the joy, and the hope that life still had to offer. “No,” she retorted firmly, “I want to feel this. This and everything else. You can’t take that from me, and you shouldn’t be taking it from yourself.” Her eyes lit up as Layla fell back with her shove and dropped the fidget spinner. She propelled herself forward, using the advantage of her small frame to wedge herself between machines so she could reach for the fidget spinner. With it in hand, she intended on crushing it, but she felt herself being pulled out from the small space she squeezed herself into. 

Coming to her senses, she watched as Ariana squeezed into the space where the fidget spinner was. Scrambling to her knees, she reached out and grabbed the girl’s leg. Digging claws in, she made sure the grip on Ari was tight, but as the fidget spinner was on the verge of being crushed, Layla faltered feeling an immense amount of pain shoot through her head of all the guilt she was facing if the toy was destroyed. Letting out a howl, she knew what the other wolf was trying to do. Pushing through the pain, she yanked Ariana out and crawled up on top of her towards the girl’s hand. Without holding back, Layla produced fangs and bit down on the brunette’s arm to get her to release the toy.

Ariana let out a yelp of pain as she felt claws digging into her leg. “Bitch,” she grumbled, trying to fight being dragged out from between the machines and keeping her fist clenched tightly around the fidget spinner. The howl Layla let out definitely had the attention now on them. Fuck. Layla was on top of her now and she couldn’t exactly throw a punch without risking giving up the fidget spinner. Without a beat, she thrusted her head forward, colliding it into Layla’s face. It left her own head throbbing and Layla’s nose bleeding. She kept the spinner clenched in her left fist as she tried to crush it in her palms. The teeth sinking into her arms caused her to loosen her grip and drop the damn spinner. “Layla, stop,” she groaned, trying to grab the spinner before she could reach it again.

The headbutt came as a shock and left tears in her eyes and her nose throbbing fiercely as Layla released Ariana’s arm from her mouth, “You fucking bitch! I think you broke my nose!” Trying to shake off the pain, she could feel blood coming out of her nose leaving her stunned. However, through clouded eyes, she saw the light reflecting off the fidget spinner. Launching herself onto it, she grabbed the toy and felt relief come over her tense body, “I’m sorry, Little Wolf, but no. This is my only lifeline, and the only way I’m gonna survive.” There was an ounce of humanity in her voice, possibly as a result of the cracked device. Pulling her arm up to her bleeding face, she looked at the toy before looking at Ariana one last time. Slowly getting to her feet with the assist of a nearby gaming machine, she took off towards the front door.

With Layla heading toward the door and the guy running the prize counter quickly approaching, Ariana leapt off the floor, her leg still searing in pain from the wound Layla’s claws left. She rushed out the door, but Layla had been too quick, and she was beginning to feel lightheaded. The trail of blood she left behind her was indication that she probably shouldn’t be walking home or chasing anyone right now. She groaned and suppressed the urge to cry. She hadn’t loved that she’d been right or that Layla was still putting herself in danger with that thing. She hobbled away from Quarter in case the cops showed up and tucked herself quietly into an alley. She’d get Ulfric to pick her up. For now, she ripped part of her shirt so she could apply pressure to the bleeding claw marks on her leg. This girls’ night out had been far from successful.

[midnight-circus]

another bullshit meme

from sidebloggable

answered for logan and lucius bc i dont talk about my big dumb idiot enough

and im actually gonna answer for their original Fable timeline bc ive been feelin nostalgic recently

Their physical weak spots

Logan - depends on his age and/or stress-levels. He has a fair amount of upper body strength from swinging twin swords around all the fucking time, but it wouldn’t be ridiculously hard to overpower him if you could disarm and get hold of him - however, he’s fast, agile and extremely skilled, and it’s getting hold of him in the first place that’s the issue. In the middle of his reign, on the other hand, his body condition takes a dramatic dive - he’s pretty severely underweight and loses a lot of his muscle tone, and it really wouldn’t take much at all to best him. 

Lucius - Lucius is a big, heavy mercenary who fights with a broadsword, so it’s hard to get the best of him in a one-to-one melee fight. However, he’s missing his left eye and is deaf in his left ear - subsequently if you use a little bit of stealth and come at him hard and fast from the left, you’ve got a pretty good chance of getting the jump on him. He’s also into middle-age and despite having decent reactions, a younger man of the same build as him might just pip him to the post.

Their emotional/moral weak spots

Logan - oh god lmao. Logan’s a mess, but his primary emotional weak spot is his siblings - be they his original two (hey queenie and dorian) or Morgan. I think he feels a bond that’s closer to paternal than fraternal, and I think the only way he can really justify to himself the pain he puts them through is telling himself he’s doing it for them. ok honestly, he will do fucking anything for them. at the climax of the revolution, the primary thought running through his head is how fucking proud he is. be nice if he said it out loud every once a while - hell, itd be nice if he’d just asked for some fuckin help before causing the literal death of hundreds of people - but yknow. thats just going one step too far i guess

Lucius - he’s a bleeding heart. when Morgan and his little band of rebels rock up in the Dweller village, Lucius is already there running supplies up and down the mountain to them; he watches way too many kids starve to death, and joins up with the rebels in order to lead them through Mourningwood. then he gets a crush on morgan’s little bitch face and just like. never leaves lmao. He’s easily blinded by injustice and gets worked up really quickly when he sees wrong being done - it can lead him to act recklessly or thoughtlessly at times.

Scars or painful spots

Logan - asides from the obvious scars across his lips (fencing wounds when he was a boy), he took some nasty damage from the Crawler during the three days he was trapped in the Auroran cave - he’s got a network of scars on his back that look a little like lashmarks. they hurt when they’re touched and he Does Not talk about them. he’s also got a few other scars here and there on his arms and chest from miscellaneous scraps and scuffles, and he has a deep puncture scar on his abdomen from an assassination attempt, but the less said about those the better.

Lucius - lmao Lucius is literally missing half his face to scar-tissue. he was attacked by a dog as a boy and it left him heavily messed-up. he’s also a merc, as i said, so he’s got a lot of miscellaneous old wounds but nothing quite as obvious as the ones his face. 

Best places to kiss on their body

Logan - oh, the neck, bitch. he’s also kind of a slut for being kissed on the insides of his wrists; anywhere vulnerable, basically. if you could kill him there, kiss him there. freak-ass bitch.

Lucius - dude just likes a nice traditional french kiss man nothing crazy. but also definitely give him a blowjob. i know this question said kissing but lets be real thats kind of a kiss.

Guilty pleasures

Logan - he reads really terrible novels. like…really terrible. he pretends he’s reading something highbrow and intellectual but its actually a shitty romance recovered with something suitably acceptable and nobody can know

Lucius - he doesnt have any ‘guilty’ pleasures tbh, he just enjoys stuff unashamedly. he’s too thick to feel guilty

Their vices (physical or emotional)

Logan - lets be real, he’s probably done, like. an impressive amount of coke. i guess the terrible sleeping and eating habits are probably also a vice but like. it’s mainly the coke

Lucius - he smokes like a fuckin chimney

Their tickle spots

Logan - not only does he not have any, but you would also die for trying. Elrick disagrees.

Lucius - his ribs, but he is uncontrollably violent when he’s tickled so its a real good way to get a broken nose. he doesn’t mean to do it, he just spasms. 

Bad memories/experiences

Logan - lmao. I’ll skip the most obvious (the 3-Day Auroran Extravaganza) because i think that goes without saying - it left him with crippling PTSD and damaged his mind heavily and insidiously. he was already pretty traumatised by his childhood and i think being forced into so many responsibilities so young also messed him up a little. it’s more like….rather one one or two specific experiences, its more just a general feeling of Bad that has stuck with him throughout his life. It was worsened by his later experiences, and essentially primed him for failure.

Lucius - yknow i was thinking about how to word the answer to this question and i realised that i accidentally made Lucius into Batman. His family farm was attacked and burnt to the ground by bandits when he was about 12; his parents and siblings were killed, and he only escaped by hiding in the coal-cellar. Later, he joined up with the mercenaries to try and track down the group that targeted them. fuck hes batman. i didnt mean to batman

Humiliating memories

Logan - oh man his father was a pro at humiliation. mistakes or oversights werent just punished, they were fuckin learned from, and he figured the best way to do this was humiliation - generally through public displays of What You Did Wrong and repeated recitations of the mistake in front of the people whose opinions Logan valued. It was kind of the catalyst for his inferiority complex and intense desire to succeed without input from others. 

Lucius - again, Lucius doesn’t really experience embarrassment - he’s kind of too laid-back for it. yes, it was embarrassing the one time he fell over carrying two milk buckets and threw them all over himself in front of the handsome boy from the next farm over and the guy started laughing at him but like. you live and learn and the dude turned out to have a really ugly laugh anyway so who cares

Fears/phobias

Logan - he’s always had claustrophobia, but after the Auroran Experience this intensifies to a whole new level, and he also develops crippling nyctophobia. part of this is due to his hallucinatory psychosis - he sees things pretty much constantly, but it worsens in low lighting - but it’s also due to the fact that there may very well be actual Things in the dark and he struggles to tell reality from hallucination

Lucius - dogs. fuckin dogs. he hates dogs theyre literally so scary even the small ones bc the small ones move so quick and you never know when theyre gonna come at you

Bad or petty habits

Logan - oh, he’s just a petty bitch. he’s also outwardly arrogant, even if his internal feelings don’t match up to that. drily sarcastic, too, tho a person only really sees that when they get past the walls he throws up - Elrick is very familiar with it. 

Lucius - he’s constantly standing to the right-hand side of people and then he wonders why he cant hear them properly

Grudges and vendettas

Logan - he’d hold a grudge against his father if he wasnt dead. he also holds a pretty heavy grudge against Theresa for not just fucking telling him.

Lucius - at first, only against the bandits that killed his family, but once he deals with them hes kind of at a loss as to where to go next. fortunately Logan starts starving people shortly afterwards, so if nothing else it gives him a kickstart into the rest of his life. Subsequently, Lucius will hold a vendetta against Logan for the rest of his life, even after he has been in a relationship with Morgan for years - he will never forgive him for the shit he put the common people through, and he doesnt really give a shit about the ~pressures~ Logan was under at the time. fuckin excuses, man. 

Ingrained habits/forces of habit

Logan - his terrible sleeping/eating patterns. even before trauma and night-terrors made it almost impossible for him to sleep peacefully, he didn’t get more than 5 or 6 hours a night, if that.

Lucius - if something is smaller than him, he’ll protect it. he’ll also protect things bigger than him, if given half the chance. hes basically a golden retriever in human form, which is ironic considering his feelings about dogs.

What it takes to make them cry

Logan - would rather die than cry, quite literally.

Lucius - his heart is softer than butter, he’ll cry at anything. he’ll cry at an injured pigeon on the street. 

Dark secrets/’skeletons in the closet’

Logan - never, ever, ever talks about what happened in Aurora. The details die with him.

Lucius - he doesn’t really have any - he’s not ashamed of much in his life, and he’s never done anything terrible enough to render it a skeleton. 

People they’ve hurt or indirectly killed, and how it affected them

Logan - L M A O. yes, it affected him terribly, but tbqh however much its affected him kind of plays second fiddle to how much his actions affected other people.

Lucius - has killed a lot of people who deserved it during his mercenary years, and justifies it to himself by being absolutely certain that they did deserve it. sometimes he doubts this, though, and that doubt plays a big part in his eventually getting out of the game entirely

People who’ve influenced them greatly

Logan - Walter, tho he’ll never admit it in a million years and he still definitely kneecapped him right at the start of the game so idk what that says about him

Lucius - Morgan. it’s real gay, i know, but there it is.

[unsoundedcomic]

The Vienne Question

So Anon submitted:

Okay, I wanted to shut up after that first question, but now with the follow up... So Vienne wanted to provide armour, not arms, to domestic terrorists and rebels - the difference being, exactly? I'm not hating her, but saying "she did nothing wrong" when she's quite literally a criminal and a traitor is, well, strange. "Revolutionary" is such a nice word for that, until you look at the bloodbath every revolution becomes - especially a successful one.

And you lovelies had some pretty great responses. I knew you would do a better job than I <3

@kingofferrets said

For anti-revolution Anon - I think we're conflating things here. 1) Vienne isn't actually part of the March. She's not directly a revolutionary, but she's a sympathizer helping them. This makes her a criminal and a traitor... as defined by Alderode, which she opposes. Claiming she's morally wrong isn't straightforward. She isn't actually personally doing repugnant things, and probably has very little reliable information about what the March is doing - propaganda from both sides.

The morality of revolution isn't straightforward, either. Nothing guarantees the existence of legal recourse. There's no party a plat can vote for that will get their grandchildren a chance to live to 30. More generally, dictators are willing to preserve power with violence. What's the alternative in a broken system? (Note: low violence is still best.) Most people would say there's some point revolution is justified - some may already think Alderode is there. There's more to see.

An Anon said:

"Vienne is a criminal/traitor" anon,do you think people are *never* entitled to rebel against the state? I agree that you shouldn't overthrow the government just because you don't like it in general, but in this case Alderode is pretty oppressive. And it's not like she has any other way of being heard, since the religious establishment can veto any political candidate (I think), poor people are disfranchised (right?) and i'm pretty sure women couldn't vote anyway.

Another Anon said:

Did Vienne consider the March to be violent terrorists? ARE they violent terrorists? All we've been given in the comic and short story is that they're "dissidents" and "bold" in words and actions. But that could just as easily describe protesters who refuse to back down even when police bring out fire hoses to turn on them as it could a violent mob. We DO have explicit descriptions of what Alderode government does to punish those who toe the line, on the other hand.

Why would Quigley, who so fears that punishment, not call out the March for doing its own share of atrocities to discourage Vienne when he has his doubts? Is it because he believes in their cause, or could it be that they perhaps aren't what readers have been assuming them to be? "Radical" doesn't have to always mean "violent". What Rosa Parks did was pretty "radical" in her day, after all. Perhaps Vienne really didn't do anything wrong, just we readers have jumped to conclusions.

Another Anon agrees:

I feel like when it comes to Vienne, considering Alderode divides people into racial castes, won't let people leave the country, and all the other stuff the government does, trying to fight back is kind of justified. Like if your country is that bad, turning against them isn't really being a "traitor", since your country never earned your loyalty in the first place. Its a little odd to blame someone for trying to fight against a government that bad. I doubt peaceful protest would work.

This goes without saying:

i think vienne is really cute and i wish she had survived instead of quigley.

And my favourite response from a different Anon: 

Here's my take on the vienne. 1. You can't leave Alderode. 2. You live an extremely unjust society, where your options are severely limited by class, sex, and caste. 3. Your actual physical characteristics are forcibly changed, resulting in either a jackpot that's unlikely, prejudice, or a much shorter life. 4. There is no avenue to dissent meaningfully. There is no such thing as a peaceful solution. Vienne wants a not shit system for her, her family, and everyone she knows.

Every slave revolt has had something similar. The founding of the USA and many other countries had similar situations, where you can live according to someone else's rule and varying degrees of suffering or violently rebel. You keep labeling her a domestic terrorist, but what other choice has Alderode presented her to change it? There's no magical fairytale speeches that will change their mind. There's no magic wand that will give her, or her husband, or their child more life.

So what is Vienne to do? Just give up and give in to awful people? Teach her son pymary and send him to be a child soldier? Because that means the next Vienne has to deal with that shit, or the next Sorthos for that matter. You say it's a bloody rebellion, but life in Alderode is bloody even in peace; remember those tortured people Duane shielded Mikala's eyes from? There's one option for her to change things. She took it. She had a shit hand dealt to her and she tried her best.

I particularly like the idea that Vienne was acting so Vienne’s of the future had more of a chance. When you regard your life as a link in history’s chain I think it can bolster your courage and sense of purpose. What you do may seem small or stupid but if you’re daring to defy the status quo, you stand to become inspiration to the people that will come after you - and they may succeed where you failed, yet only succeed because you tried! Even in failure and disgrace we can be phenomenally important!

[sleepymarmot]

I’m stalling the DBH playthrough for several reasons, but perhaps the most important one of them at the moment is that I’ve been unable to decide if I should shoot the operator in the next chapter or not.

At first I didn’t even know it was an option. When I learned about it, I thought it’d be a good idea: different from what I’d done before, shows that Markus is willing to harm humans to protect his people, I don’t need to come up with an excuse why Connor would go to the kitchen instead of the roof.

But I sat there for a few days not ready to do that chapter. I looked at the major public opinion decrease that follows a “determined” speech with casualties, thought “Why does it bother me? I’m doing the revolution this time anyway, public opinion means nothing, let these hypocrites hate me all they want.” But eventually I realized it was all very simple. I don’t want to shoot an unarmed running civilian in the back. That’s it. My initial concept for this run, “violent” relatively to my ultra-pacifistic original one, was “good =/= nice”, and shooting people before it’s actually necessary would work against that narrative. Actually, now that I think of it, I made the job much harder for myself, because now I need to actually weigh whether violence is justified in each individual instance according to my own morals, instead of playing it safe by being as idealistic as possible (like I did with Markus originally) or roleplaying a character who’s messed up in a specific way (like I’m doing with Connor now). I think sparing the operator still gives me the opportunity to make a choice about prioritizing android lives. The roof scene might be even better for that. Because by shooting the operator, you’re preventing only a theoretical threat (the SWAT team will arrive before they get away, but Markus doesn’t know that for sure at the moment), but by rescuing Simon and then refusing to kill him you show that you put your men’s lives first even if there’s immediate danger in doing so. 

So I guess I’m not shooting the operator, then. But that leads me to the next question: what do I do with the cops at the end of Capitol Park? Initially I wanted to shoot them, too. Then I rewatched the scene... Well, first of all, the one cop that’s shown in a close-up crying and begging is a black guy... (Chris from Hank’s department whom we’ve met in previous chapters.) What’s with this game’s obsession with making the player character torment defenseless black men and showing their reaction in downright invasive shots? This is at least the third one by my count! This angle exists only on Doylist level, though, so let’s talk about what would factor into both mine and Markus’s decisions. These two cops are not innocent, but at the moment they’re as helpless as that operator. Send him back with a message or take him as a hostage, but cold-blooded execution seems both immoral and impractical. If we count the Stratford Tower broadcast as a declaration of war, wouldn’t executing these prisoners be a war crime? That’s not really what I was going for. On the other hand, the scene where you spare them is just insufferable. “No crime against an android shall go unpunished” is a much stronger line than a sheepishly delivered “An eye for an eye and the world goes blind”. There’s a third option, but it’s even worse: you refuse to make the decision and dump it not even on one of your co-leaders but on a hapless rando who happens to stand next to you. This just makes you a bad leader: you don’t have a strong message to send, you refuse responsibility and don’t even delegate it properly, and you cowardly try to keep your own hands clean. Which means that I either have to go with the weaker ending to the scene, or to intentionally have my character make a mistake instead of embodying an ideal. I guess I’ll think about it more, or play it by ear.

[circumrambulations]

“When I was 15 years old or so I wore palestinian keffiyeh (scarf) in school and some guys would shout after me that I was a "fucking communist". I didn't know what that meant so I had to learn about communism, and socialism and marxism. For quite a few years I put great belief into thinking that if only the state was run by sensible, rational, utilitarian and altruistic people who put the needs of the masses first, we could create an equal society with no poverty, no greed, no violence, where the environment was protected. Even though (or because) I was quite un-read on these matters I was an authoritarian socialist. Around age 21 I started realizing that people have this urge to rebel to do what they want, even if there are laws and social conventions that try to permit them from that. If the need is strong enough, they will break the law, just to feel free. If the state is strong enough it will punish and trample human nature and create a society of cowering, stifled, inauthentic, unhappy people walking around with masks all day in order to fit in and not step outside the line. I started to see myself as an anarchist,because in the ideal circumstances I still believe that humans are able to make the right choices for themselves and co-operate peacefully together. That our most inner nature is altruistic, our emotions, when pure, guide so that we do not hurt each other.   The problem seemed to be that living in this society today we are not pure. Most people are born in to a skewered and messed up circumstance that has been handed down for generations, where our view of ourselves, of love, of care and trust are shaped by the people we interact with as kids. It sets patterns for the rest of our lives that sits so deep that they not only guide us more that we dare to try to understand. They actually control us and drag us along throughout our lives, from one insatiable hunger to the next. To establish an anarchist new order from one day to the next would fail brutally because our individual imprinting and the society/culture around us is not at all in sync with what that kind of organization would mean. We would get the most egoistic, oppressive and violent society imaginable if today's humans tried to live without laws, even a slow political process over decades would end up with the same result. It started to seem increasingly utopian to hope for such a thing.  In a way utopia is neighbor with nihilism, because if your vision relies to heavily on wishful thinking, speculation and if-only's it doesn't take long, if you are honest, until you lose faith in it ever becoming real. At the same time it seems that the forces of society is moving ahead like a steam roller while your ideas about practical resistance and community building in small groups remains futile and pointless. So you can chose to be a righteous dreamer, walking around with all your cynicism and judgement. Looking at society through the spectacles that is only seeing all the bad things, to keep re-convincing yourself that the libertarian revolution isn't happening anyway so what is the point to even believe in change.  Or you can rabbit hole into some relativistic worldview where there is no truth and the only principle that governs us is the lust for power. You can grow your resentment, your lust for a sort of revenge and your bipolar perspective of who's right and who's wrong. You can band up with others in the same bubble and maybe you gain momentum enough to force your view onto the world. To shoehorn your ideological solutions into existing institutions. Disregard what science says and what other people even want. They are of the enemy anyway, they don't know what's right, and they push the wrong way just by existing. Anybody who is not in your boat must be fought. Since power is the guiding principle you figure you need to use power to force the world to conform to your ideology. Without realizing you sacrificed your lust for "freedom" on the altar of authoritarianism and your whole project is now neither socialism, anarchism or libertarian. You convince yourself that the minority groups who you represent will be better of for this so it is all justified. I'm tired just by thinking through all this, I gave up most of my previous heavy beliefs just so I could stretch my back tall enough to see further, also into the past and future. And so that I could become flexible enough to have a look inside myself and see that I don't carry the good and honest intentions to make the world better yet. I need to work on myself and my relations, my own sense of place, meaning and morality.  No healthy structure will make good use of sick minds. My mind, our minds is the first place to heal and work with. That's where politics start and where the root of everything social and cultural resides.“

[ramrodd]

How do you feel about the gun sanctuary movement?

COMMENTARY:

My response to Tracy Fong: the gun sanctuary movement is one result of the political agenda inspired by the Trotsky Insurgency Process that Newt Gingrich adopted to become Speaker of the House and, apparently, to revisit General Lee’s decision at Appomattox.

The 2nd Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with private gun ownership. It is a mechanism to extend the constitutional authority of for the republican structures of the US Army, as the senior service, to the governors to establish a lAmenocal standing army. The intent is to ensure manpower and mobilization as it applies to the common defense within a constitutional chain of command.

It’s nobel intent is to provide the private citizen the opportunity for republican service as an enlisted citizen soldier identical to the Swiss model of universal service at the time of the Framers of the US Constitution and Revolutionary War veterans.

What your are promoting is armed insurgency in the name of the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment is a COUNTER-INSURGENCY mechanism: it is conceived to prevent exactly what you are doing.

Jefferson’s trope that the roots of the Tree of Liberty need to be refreshed on occassion by the blood of patriots is a formulation of someone like Newt Gingrich, Captain Bone Spurs and Richard (Dick) Cheney, America’s favorite war criminal, who had other priorities than military service. The white supremacists that buy into this shit like the idea of a military coup like the slave holders of the late southern rebellion.

Grant’s terms at Appomattox established that there were no traitors on the field of surrender and that everybody went home as citizens, after the hang’em all politics of the Radical Republicans, the ancestors of Pitchfork Pat Buchanan and, well, any MAGA hat 2nd Amendment ammo-sexual, settled down and found other forms of demogoguery to express in the same way Donald Duckass continues to side-step responsibility by his patented slight-of-hands distraction by tweet storm and malicious intent.

You and I collided over the issue of Major Winters’s service in the Korean War and you had some harsh words regarding service. The hair on the back of my neck went up when you showed up and took the shiny hooks I put out for lifers with the same crypto-Nazi cognitive organization as Mike Pompeo and Tom Cotton, the people most likely to go south when they fire on Sumter.  Like I say, you are part of that All Volunteer generation who has been spoon fed the mythology that the Vietnam draftee is the reason why things got so fucked up. That’s the shiny hook you swallowed.

My dad was against the All Volunteer Military before it became an possibility. He said that the draft prevented the military to become cluttered with unhealthy right-wing coalitions because citizen soldiers who didn’t want to be there but responded as patriots didn’t want to get engaged in anything that might make the stay longer than 2 years. As I told you previously, this is what basically prevented a mutiny from occuring in Vietnam after Tet 68: the combat veterans who had been drafted just wanted to get back to the World and get out of uniform.

My dad worked for Ridgeway during the Army-McCarthy Hearings. I remember the hearings: they pre-empted my afternoon kid shows one Thursday after school, Crusader Rabbit and Howdy Dooty. I was in the Peanut Gallery one time. The whole year, 1954, was very strange. There was the McCarthy Hearings that created a gloom over the Pentagon that spread into Arlington and then the 17 year cicades arrived about this time and built to a cresendo towards the end of June and then I was killed in a swimming pool accident at Glen Echo and Hurricane Hazel came through in September and then we had a snow that closed down schools for at least a week. Disneyland opened, Davey Crockett was the prelude to the Beatles and we moved to USAEUR.

I asked dad when I got back from Vietnam about McCarthy and he surprised me by saying the Army was behind McCarthy all the way because there was, in fact, a serious Soviet presence in State and, probably, in the Pentagon. The old I Led Three LIves wasn’t just propaganda. The Army never got to the “Better Dead Than Red” stage, but there was a significant native right-wing, white supremacist presence in the Army just because of the law of averages: the Army reflects America.

The short answer was that dad agreed with McCarthy and he reflected the Secretariate of the Chief of Staff of the Army at the time.

Then, McCarthy and Cohn turned on the Army and the Army intelligensia had some serior second thoughts and recognized the combination of demogoguery and radical populism had produced both the American Revolution and the southern rebellion and that the true existential threat wasn’t the Soviets intent on espionage, sabotage, and agitprop but the home-grown insurgency of domestic terrorists and traitors intent on violent revolution. Which refers back to his satisfaction with an active Selective Service draft as a counter-insurgency element of the 2nd Amendment.

So, they did a couple of things. In 1957, as part of Eisenhower’s 1956 Presidential Platform, the Army went through a Reduction in Force (RIF) for budgetary reasons, but the actual strategic purpose was to flush out as many right wing white supremacists like you and Mike Pompeo and Tom Cotton as they could as a demobilization purge.

We had a good family friend who dad had served with from the Louisiana Manuevers to Leyte that had to accept a reduction from Ltc to WO4 until he retired. He could have been reduced to a Master Sergeant, but dad was able to justify his brevit. He retired as a Ltc, which was part of the deal.

I don’t have any idea what that did for the Army. but it didn’t quite squeeze out all of what dad called “Nut Heads” who were officers who were guided by their own ambitions and political opportunity instead of the needs of the service that ended up clustering around MacNamara and his Whiz Kids and running Vietnam. They are the people who blew up when Tet 68 vacated their moral authority with the troops and were running things when I got to Vietnam. A bunch of guys like you and the Trump clown show, acting like the Three Stooges meet the Marx Brothers. You sort of had to be there.

Anyway, that RIF took place when the uniforms that General Milley is forced to wear for photo-ops with Captain Bone Spurs were replaced by the Class A Greens and the Dress Blues. And the Sergeant Major of the Army was given an office across the hall from the Army Chief of Staff.

The other thing the Army did you’ll really like. In 1957 or so, Army bands began playing the 1812 Overture on the 4th of July. It is a satisfyingly noisy and rambunctious symphony, with salute artillery and the fireworks display blending into the finale: you can just see the warhorses trotting arrogantly through Moscow.

That was part of it. Another part is the sort of sly subversion of the American soldier at all ranks, submitted to the US Constitution but still not at all subdued by military necessity and represents a tribute to the Red Army that stalked Nazi Fascism to its lair and crushed that vile scull under their boot heel. My dad had been part of the order of battle for the invasion of Japan and he remembers the gratitude the American soldiers with MacArthur in the Philippines felt when the Soviets declared war on Japan and sent troops into Manchuria.

But, in the final analysis, everytime you hear the 1812 Overture, it is the Secretariate of the US Army Chief of Staff, Matthew Ridgeway, commanding, saying “Fuck you, Joe McCarthy, and the crypto-Nazi 2nd Amendment ammo-sexual white supremacist gun-sanctuary violent revolutionary horse you rode in on!”

Or words to that effect.

The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to prevent violent revolution and political insurgency and the subject of “7 Days in May”. You are up to your eyeballs in some serious treachery, all of you MAGA hat warriors. That’s why my dad favored the draft.

[feed-our-souls-too]

Art, Film, Faith (part 2)

This is post 2 of 3 from a friend and fellow artist (find her Instagram here). She took a class on faith and film and we both found that the journalling and conversations that resulted from it were thought-provoking and, as such, worth sharing here. ~Julie (The Hopeful Raincoat)

Entry 3

In the class, there has been a lot of commentary about having discretion and understanding the perspective from which we view movies, but not very much about being a ‘glutton’, or the risks that might lead to it. In Through a Screen Darkly, Overstreet comments about a time when he was employed at a video store and had viewing access to a wide variety of films. “I wasn’t thinking about whether my intake of mediocrity and cinematic junk food was doing any damage or dulling my intellect,” then later, “I might have become an addict, hooked on something unhealthy that would slowly corrode my imagination.” This made me think about one of my concerns with striving to find what was underneath a movie to discover meaning, intention, and spots of light in a dark world. I feel like there is a point when the excitement to find these things might lead to shoving them into the narrative in order to justify watching the movie – a symptom of addiction.

The book implies being an addict is mindlessly watching movies for superficially interesting content. However, for Christians well aware of the standard their peers want them to hold to – whatever is pure – their symptom of addiction might be to shove in whatever is pure without much consideration. When I discovered comics in the Seattle Public Library, I ate them up, because I loved and knew the characters from the movies but had never had access to comics before. (It was probably a similar situation to working in a video store – unlimited access all of a sudden.) For the most part, I watched out for content that is corrupting and harmful, but if I could find just one little thing that related to a moral, or a ‘Christian’ value, I probably read it at face value, and was inconsiderate of any other impact it might have had on my thinking.

In the film Wings of Desire, the angel Damiel sees Marion take off her acrobat uniform and then gently touches her neck. An argument is made in the reading that says this is not intended to be a ‘celebration of lust,’ but a moment of admiration for physical beauty. There is merit to this, as Damiel may primarily see her as a creation of God with a unique experience, Marion is a ‘fine sculpture’. I sometimes worry that these kinds of arguments are a mere justification to watch the film without regard for the potential of negative implications. In the case of Wings of Desire, if the argument had stopped at, “It only showed her back,” that may be a sign of addiction because that is an excuse. It is a minor justification using face value without any thought about the significance of the moment.

LATER EDIT: Christians must have personal discretion for everything that they interact with, we must be critical thinkers. We must not be flippant, positively or negatively, with the content we interact with, whether it is the latest adaptation of a Steven King novel or the most innocent children’s television.

 Entry 4

I am still not satisfied with my questions from the last journal entry – when does film become just another piece of entertainment with a ‘fulfilling’ excuse? In Braveheart, fans might excuse the long, drawn-out battles because it is retaliation against oppression. The main character’s violent actions in The Patriot were justified for a similar reason. I remember my brother was pretty excited about the patriot’s original commitment to nonviolence. It might be because avoiding war is not the big picture most Americans think about when reflecting on the American Revolution, so this plot feels like a unique twist, which is a strategy that writers use for building viewer interest. However, I wouldn’t say we watched the entire movie just because the patriot wanted to avoid war in the first twenty minutes.

In the discussion of heroes and characters viewers admire (chapter five of Through a Screen Darkly), The Lord of the Rings was given credit for being a “meaningful mythology of longsuffering, sacrifice, and hope.” I totally agree. But I tend to be skeptic about the next sentence. “Somehow, Tolkien’s “Catholic work” resonated with viewers who flinch at the word religion.” Did it? I’m not sure – I do not really know people’s minds when they watch movies. What kind of response was it? What did they ‘resonate’ with? What is resonance anyway, does it come on a scale from one to ten? Does seven qualify as ‘adequate resonance to be considered a moving experience’ and therefore acceptable content? The success of The Lord of the Rings might demonstrate that the series is an exceptional work of art, meaning that it was ‘moving’ for the majority of those exposed to it. However, the films are not without the mindless entertainment of intense action that draws theater crowds in droves for other movies. The craftsmanship of the film is top notch, a fantasy world brought to life with outstanding realism, truly a spectacle to see. How can we be sure when art has moved beyond that?

Something that comes to mind is conversations with random people. Is it not the small, unexpected conversations with random people that have exponential value? It is highly unrealistic, perhaps outright false, to expect that sharing God’s love with those around us will bring in “results” every single time, or even ninety percent, eighty percent, fifty percent. Why should I expect that standard from art, even if it is exceptional? In light of this, I was actually a little bit comforted that even Gladiator, with a similar surface value as Braveheart and The Patriot, has some sort of undercurrent value that can be read into, and apparently people occasionally see that. But alas - another question surfaces - is the risk of becoming numbed to violence and caught up in the frenzy worth a sliver of a chance to experience something meaningful? If the film challenges itself in regard to violence, acknowledging the moral conflict and implications as in Munich or Unforgiven, (films that were discussed in Through a Screen Darkly, but I have not seen them) perhaps yes.

Entry 5

One of the lines from Through a Screen Darkly in a chapter on humor and comedy that stood out to me was, “It takes humility to accept such a public critique.” This was in the context of laughing at the mistakes that humans make, including the mistakes we make ourselves. It made me think about learning to take jabs – basically my dad telling me to tough it up when my older brother name called. The resolving family policy ended up being if you can’t take it, don’t give it. Our inter-sibling relationship now looks dangerously similar to Ruffnut and Tuffnut from How to Train Your Dragon (the ‘nut’ relationship is much more refined in the Netflix series), and I love it. My little brother and I in particular are willing to take the brunt of a joke just to generate a good laugh. I think that I had that mindset even for political jokes when I first came to Seattle from Montana, laughing along to jabs about Republicans that my classmates, professors, and even church leaders made. It’s a joke, it’s supposed to be funny, I can see why they think it is, I was willing to accept that. However, I think I stopped chuckling when I realized there was no reciprocal (which is also true of my hometown…) and it was not going to stop. Ever.

Receiving a joke from film is different than in-person interactions, whether it is about Christian beliefs and/or hypocrisy, or something else I relate to. It is a lot harder to be humble when there is distance between viewer and director (a growing problem in our media-directed world), and it is easy for a viewer to think that a director is trying to be degrading. Generally, I trust that people willing to make jokes about me to my face do so out of good humor. I am not sure if I can say the same about filmmakers, I do not know them. After some consideration, even if I do not find the jokes humorous, it can still be an opportunity for reflection on why the director thought it would be funny, which could be revealing in itself. If humor is acknowledging an err (a concept that Overstreet develops in his book, and a definition of humor I find to be very accurate), then there might be an err the viewer has not recognized.

The other portion of this reading that I was troubled with was the contrast of fools in real life and film. It seems like a narrative tactic to give a character who behaves against common unspoken (maybe even spoken) rule, opportunity to reveal something great. People do not expect this in real life, so it a surprising twist in a story and adds contrast. A fool in a story can be crafted and designed. But what about the Parry’s (Parry is a character from a film Overstreet mentions, I do not recall what movie he is from, only that he is homeless and seemingly a lunatic) that might cross our paths while we are visiting the downtown cinema? People usually avoid them. There are a lot of different issues in this situation (such as personal safety), but I find it ironic that people let fools inform us in film, but not on the street. Human interactions are supposed to be more effective than electronic ones.

[remedialaction]

Foundation of Sand

or “Why the Marxian view of socialism and communism was inevitably flawed due to a contraction and lack of solid foundation, dooming the ideology.”

The ideology of Marxism, though largely associated with certain sorts of dictatorial, explicitly authoritarian states and organizations in the 20th and 21st centuries, in reality was never intended by its creator (or creators, in as much as one must count Engels as an important associate in the formation of Marxist theory) to result in dictatorial control. Indeed, quite the opposite, the entire concept of the vanguard party was explicitly opposed by Marx, though not necessarily the use of violence. 

In Marx’ view, what was going to happen was that the proletariat would increasingly use “democratic” and legal means to gain power and control, which was the actual intended meaning of the term “dictatorship of the proletariat,” not a literal centralized dictatorship, but rather a collective one of the working class, which would eventually lead to a socialized society and the atrophy of the state, until it became unnecessary and communism was established.

This required, of course, the transformation of humanity into a sort that could do this, which is one of the major flaws of Marx’ doctrines in general, in that they posit that human nature can be changed, because it does not actually exist. That is one of the parts of the foundation of Marx that was clearly made of sand; it lacked any stability. However, there was a fundamental other aspect Marx and Engel ignored.

In their writings, they acknowledged the coercive nature of government, but saw this as a necessary thing in the revolution that was to come. It must be understood that they did not use revolution in the way it has come to be meant, due to the acts of later individuals and ideologues such as Lenin, but rather in the sense of a transformation of society. The idea that society would democratically adopt and become socialist and eventually communist, however, had two major issues. 

First, they at no time actually managed to explain how this socialist society would be organized or how it even could be organized, indeed they explicitly chose not to do so, because of the idea they would be unable to do so due to their lack of knowledge of what the conditions of the future would be in a given society. Even their Communist Manifesto was more a Communist Manifest, in the sense it was more a document listing the details and cargo of the ship they wanted to sail, rather than an even cursory examination of how that ship was to be launched, sailed, or guided to its destination.

Secondly, and more importantly, they ignored the inevitable end, though, of this acceptation of coercive means. Given they explicitly chose not to reject violence, and indeed repeatedly even defended and endorsed more explicit examples, this is imminently notable. Indeed, logically, the government is itself an agent of violence, indeed it is the monopoly on its use in a given region. That some states may franchise out this monopoly is nothing more than a recognition of it, IE: that a government may allow an individual to engage in violence, be it against another person or in defense of self, and grant sanction, that the government even exercises such a power at all is a concession to the idea they have that monopoly.

The first of these meant that any supposed society they envisioned to come into existence was a nebulous affair, with no logical explainable of how it was to be run. This is hardly practical, let alone actionable. This is not merely to say all those who complain of a thing must have a solution to that which they call out as wrong, but Marxism was predicated on more than that, it was a complaint of a situation (which, notably, Marx was ill informed about anyway,) and a desired replacement, with no real effort spent on how to get form one point to another or effort put in to explaining how that system would be actually organized or run.

The second, and more dire still, was that a failure to recognize that the wrong means cannot achieve the right ends on the basic level, but even more that their embrace of coercive and violent acts in one area justified their uses in other areas, as they had no way to argue without being merely arbitrary that some forms of coercion or aggressive violence were somehow invalid while others were valid. 

Further, while it has been inaccurately said (by me, even, in earlier mistakes) that Marx elevated the worker, or rather, the proletariat to some sort of moral superiority or higher status, the truth was nothing of the sort. Indeed, Marx actually wrote of the opposite, which only makes the error the greater ironically, in that Marx somehow expected a system of class domination by a class he himself did not believe was any superior in morality or substance to the bourgeoisie or capitalist class as he envisioned them to act in a manner that would produce a better society. Of course, this is part of his general denial of human nature, and an essential reflection of a view that humans were products of their environment entirely, including their economic environment. 

Thus, taken all together, the foundation (or lack there of) for Marxism is its inevitable doom. In some ways, the social democrats reflect some aspects of Marxism better than the more radicals, and certainly more than any Anarcho-Communist, yet the inevitably failure of democracy and indeed the implicit violence in the democracy as it is actually exercised dooms the entire endeavor, as the evident truth that it implicitly not merely sanctions, but encourages class warfare and domination.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. Of course, few ask if the house should stand at all.

This, of course, does not even touch on his personal inconsistencies, in that his supposed writings about democracy and opposition to dictatorial means were in stark contrast to his actual behavior, which was profoundly anti-democratic and dictatorial; despite decrying the concept of small vanguard of intellectuals driving the movement, he seemed pressed to be that very vanguard and drive things as he wished. This is, however, a topic for another time.

[clubofinfo]

Expert: I was emotional. They are only fossils, but they have been human beings and very quickly you make a connection with these people who lived and died here 300,000 years ago. — Dr. Jean-Jacques Hublin, Department of Human Development at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany Human connectedness, the existence of a positive, physical, visual or mental association between two or more human beings, is like a chain across time. Searching for one’s ancestry through DNA testing, for example, is one way to lengthen the chain. As for Dr. Hublin, a paleontologist and director of the Department of Human Development at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, simply seeing and holding the fossils got him emotionally connected to human beings 300,000 years old.1  They weren’t his known ancestors. They were simply human beings like him. He had immediately bonded with them so to speak. I get the same feeling simply from viewing pictures of the fossils. The Disconnectedness of America’s Power Elite If all human beings had the same positive sense of connectedness the world would not be what it is, a place inhabited by countless human beings living in misery and subjugated and terrorized by evil regimes. As it is, there probably have been few if any cultures or countries throughout history that have not been plagued by a certain tiny percentage of people I will call the power elite. And throughout history America remains the land of the most powerful and dangerous power elite in the world. America’s power elite alone is directly responsible for wars, violent regime changes to install puppet rulers, and for human suffering of all kinds on a large scale. Some Self Portraits of America’s Power Elite What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. — Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson was certainly disconnected from the common folk. What did he care if some of their blood was spilt for the sake of another revolution?2 —I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. — Abraham Lincoln Lincoln was a racist, disconnected from slaves.3 His Civil War, the most deadly for Americans of any U.S. military intervention, was launched not to free the slaves but to maintain the ability to expand the nation’s territory and with it greater markets and resources. I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half. — Jay Gould Jay Gould was a ruthless railroad tycoon and one of 24 robber barons during America’s gilded age in the late 1800’s.4 …I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one. — Theodore Roosevelt Despite what he said publicly about matters of war and peace, what the consummate warrior in chief wrote to a confidant reveals his true contempt for the common people.5 Scare the Hell out of the American people. — Arthur Vandenberg The disdain for the American people shown by Senator Vandenberg in advising President Truman on how to peddle his proposed Truman Doctrine is pro forma for America’s power elite.6 Why do you care about the serfs? — Nick Rockefeller Nick Rockefeller is a member of the Rockefeller dynasty and thus also a current member of America’s power elite that speaks and acts in unison. His question was in response to the late Hollywood director and activist Aaron Russo saying in rejection of Rockefeller’s invitation to join the Council of Foreign Relations that he “had no interest in enslaving people.”7 The immigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American Foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union,it is not an American concern. — Henry Kissinger … a massive bombing campaign [involving] anything that flies or anything that moves. — Henry Kissinger The above two quotes are among “the top 10 most inhuman Henry Kissinger Quotes” compiled by the late journalist, Fred Branfman.8 Medea Benjamin, peace activist and former Nobel nominee for the Peace Prize, after dangling handcuffs and holding signs that said “Arrest Kissinger for War Crimes,” was tossed out of a Senate hearing where Kissinger was about to testify. In writing about her experience, Ms Benjamin quoted the late Christopher Hitchens who said that “Kissinger should have the door shut in his face by every decent person and should be shamed, ostracized, and excluded.”9 I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it.” — Madeleine Albright That was the heartless answer the former Secretary of State gave to reporter Lesley Stahl’s question about whether the price of sanctions against Iran were worth it considering half a million children died as a result.10 And before any strike is taken, there must be near- certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured- the highest standard we can set. — Barack Obama Obama’s statement is a perfect example of human disconnectedness and moral rationalization and disingenuousness about decisions that have cost countless civilians’ lives.11 Obama clearly sidestepped a higher standard, that of human morality, or even that of animal morality since few species massively kill their own. You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. — Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, U.S. Secretary of Defense War Need more be added about this particular specimen?12 I don’t care how it’s done or its consequences as long as it boosts our bottom line. And don’t tell me how it was done. — Archetypical Corporate CEO In an earlier article I described 255 real incidents of corporate wrongdoing that ranged from the mundane to the deadly.13 The most egregious of them could not have been done without either the explicit or implicit order from the corner office (e.g., causing more climate change from production and waste than any other source; diluted cancer drugs to boost profits; exports for sale more weapons than any other country; makes and sells products deliberately intended to kill; finances wars; launders drug money; builds cars “unsafe at any speed;” etc.). Questions About the Power Elite What is it about this tiny class of people throughout the history of the world that makes them so disconnected to, so contemptuous of, and so deliberately harmful to the rest of humanity? What causes them to be the opposite of what it means to be human in the view of Professor John McDonnell Tierney? To him, being human means being caring, compassionate, and kind sentient entity-stewards of the Earth.”14 I am going to break down these two general questions into three specific ones. Evil? Evil means profound immorality. As this definition goes, evil is simply the deepest of immorality, so should we not expect to find among the power elite some profoundly evil members?  Does it also go without saying that lesser degrees of immorality abound among the power elite? A.Q. Smith, a progressive journalist, undoubtedly would think so for he has concluded that “it’s basically just immoral to be rich,” and adds that “people who possess great wealth in a time of poverty are directly causing that poverty.”15 For me a clear sign of immoral behavior is when the ends of power and wealth justify the means of achieving those ends, and the means always involve wrongdoing from the mundane to the heinous. Pathological? Chris Hedges, journalist, broadcaster, and prolific author, regards the “pathology of the rich white family [to be] the most dangerous pathology in America—cursed with too much money and privilege [and] devoid of empathy, the result of lifetimes of entitlement.” That statement was just his opening salvo in a long article that ends with: “They steal with greater finesse than anyone else.”16 Psychologist William Hirstein has mined the expansive field of research and authoritative opinion on what a psychopathic personality is. Its signature attribute was deemed by the medical profession in the early 1800’s to be that of “moral depravity” or “moral insanity.” Other attributes now included by authorities are uncaring, shallow emotions, irresponsibility, insincere speech, overconfidence, and selfishness.17 Consider for a moment just the 43 U.S. presidents long enough in office to be surrogate murderers and have some experts give us their opinion, which is that being psychopathic fits every single one of them.18 Their assessments go as far as Obama, but we can turn now to a prestigious panel of psychiatrists who concluded before his first 100 days in office that President Trump “has a dangerous mental illness [and] is paranoid and delusional.”19 Greedy? Are the powerful elite “cursed with too much money”, as Mr. Hedges contends, or are they cursed with wanting even more money? Considering the previous two questions, the answer to this third one might seem irrelevant except that greed motivates evil and pathological people. In Closing Can you just imagine if they were to read the quoted remarks of some of their revered, iconic leaders what the responses would be from most Americans, having been indoctrinated from early formative years forward by the power elite to see what they believe? By the way, what, if I may ask, are your answers to the three questions, and do you have more to raise and answer? * Sample, I. Oldest Homo Sapiens Bones Ever Found Shake Foundations of the Human Story. Science, June 19, 2017. * Jefferson, T. “A Rebellion or Revolution is Needed Every 20 Years!” Amin, October 8, 2011. * Zinn, H. A People’s History of the United States. Harper Perennial, 2005, p. 188. * Lubin, G., Kelley, M.B., and Wile R. “Meet the 24 Robber Barons Who Once Ruled America”. Business Insider, March 20, 2012. * Crucible of Empire. pbs.org. * Skidmore, D. Reversing Course: Carter’s Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics, and the Failure of Reform. Vanderbilt University Press, 1996, p. 17. * Watson, P.J. “Rockefeller Admitted Elite Goal of Microchipped Population”. Prison Planet, January 29, 2007. * Branfman, F. “The Top 10 Most Inhuman Henry Kissinger Quotes.” Alter Net, February 12, 2016. * Benjamin, M. “Will the Real “Low-Life Scum” Please Stand Up?” OpEdNews, February 4, 2015; see also, Hitchens, C. “The Trial of Henry Kissinger”. Twelve, 2012. * 60 Minutes, May 12, 1996. * Vitkovskaya, J. “9 Revealing Statements Obama Has Made About Transparency and Drone Strikes”. The Washington Post, July 1, 2016. * Floores, R., Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis: “7 Memorable Quotes”. CBS NEWS December 2, 2016. * Brumback, G. An Evil Root.  OpEdNews, March 8; Dissident Voice, March 15; The Greanville Post, March 20; “Uncommon Thought Journal”, March 21, 2017. * Tierney, J.M. On Being Human, Dreamsinger Little Books, 2011. * Smith, A.Q. “It’s Basically Just Immoral To Be Rich”. Current Affairs, March 30, 2017 * Hedges, C. “The Pathology of the Rich White Family”. TruthDig, May 17, 2015. * Hirstein, W. “What Is a Psychopath?” Psychology Today, January 30, 2013. * Howard, J. “Psychopathic Personality Traits Linked With U.S. Presidential Success, Psychologists Suggest”. The Huffington Post, September 13, 2012. See also, Frank, J. Bush on the Couch. Harper Perennial, 2005; and Frank, J. Obama on the Couch. Free Press, 2012. * Bulman, M. “Donald Trump has ‘Dangerous Mental Illness’, Say Psychiatry Experts at Yale Conference”. Independent News, April 21, 2017. http://clubof.info/

[neoenlightenment-blog]

Weakness

Gilded weakness, a trait championed within the modern world. To regurgitate Nietzsche, of which I cannot profess to be well versed, it is the slave morality and mentality that has infiltrated the psyche of the modern citizen. However let me clarify this, penetrated the mindset of the victor. An identity crisis of the victor. Indeed there are few examples in the world that champion the false “humanism” of the neo-liberal dogma spat at the general public from the ivory towers of the media and the pseudo-intellectuals of academia. A key element of this “humanism” is intimating oneself with weakness. 

Initially to conceptualise the modern notion of weakness one must differentiate it from its predecessor. There, with the death of modernism is a divergence in the idea of what weakness is, a modern rendition far different than the inferred constancy of the older more traditional weakness. The traditional concept of weakness alludes to an incapacity... an incapacity in any sense, whether it be physical, psychological, or intellectual - none of which were revelled in or accepted. It must also be noted that in this traditional sense weakness existed primarily as the absence of strength, and therefore in an older, linear, and less examined construct the will to power, to strength, and to remedy of such weakness was seen as a noble pursuit. Within the old psychology there existed an honour, romance, and impetus for the individual to conquer the elements of the self or society that proved detrimental to themselves - this was seen as a natural course of humanity. Indeed it is the challenge of ourselves and environ that meant we could progress to any example of civilisation anyway. 

Though in contrast the primary change in the psychology of weakness through the post modern years and into the contemporary, is the addition of acceptance to the old robust equation. It is the predisposition of our modern world to do the reckoning with “weakness” through acceptance, justifying the weakness as insurmountable and diverting all explanation to the absurdity and fatalism of the human condition. This is seen within all spheres and especially a penchant of the intersectional schools of thought. They present all weakness, disenfranchisement, and inequality as insurmountable as an individual, deflecting all attention to the importance of societal injustice and inequity. This precludes any idea of individual struggle against the odds, rather surrendering to the hopelessness of the status quo, or engaging in a struggle against the status quo. By no means should the status quo not be challenged, yet there exists increasingly a culture who will throw perfunctory jabs at the status quo to justify their own weak and disenfranchised positions and then retreat into their position of righteous incompatibility with society and the moral high ground. Though their moral high ground exists on the same absurd synthetic social construct as the one that they are contending with. The struggle is never against the self, yet when it is much can still be achieved. Indeed it is the necessity of the weak, ones weak by virtue of the society they live in to fight within the status quo to actively undermine it. To struggle against the self, to conform, this is a sign of great strength, for a fabricated conformity is never real conformity, conformity is defined by its lacklustre ease, for it is natural, thus there exists nobility to the optimism of the conformer. They never truly conform. This is the struggle of man. This is the struggle against weakness. Though the herd is strong, and through focusing on weakness, ailment, the illness of society they never carve the pathway to success. 

Let us compare humanity in a broader sense. The materialistic revolution has reduced the instinctual drive to survive, which some would argue is freedom in itself, freedom through provision. But in the developed world where the post modern schools of thought actually and almost exclusively have sunk their talons, this materialism means the “struggle” within our lives is marginal by comparison to a century ago. To pretend the struggle of man could anywhere near rival the primordial battles of the ancient peoples of this planet is deluded. But, the intersectional schools of thought with their absolute and unwavering devotion to “equity” have decided that in this time of provision there are many individuals, that despite coping with the most comfortable living conditions ever realised by man would never be able to raise themselves out of this perceived injustice. Utter fucking bullshit. The world is the oyster of us all. By no means do I live in this ivory castle, I have known struggle since the early days of my family. By no means do I compare myself to the everyman, I have also been lucky, but indeed there is no everyman. All of us struggle and all of us have the potential to overcome such struggle. But the philosophy adopted by academia today is stifling the efforts of young minds whilst they are in their cribs, in their infancy, by undermining the struggle as ultimately irrelevant given the circumstances of the society we live in. The psychology of weakness is deciding the fate of the youth before they can blossom, or even attempt to blossom because any culture that promoted struggle has been strangled by the modern ideological state. 

It is the strength of man that is born in the fire of struggle, tempered by pain, and glistening in the blood of our forefathers. We live in a culture who would dismiss the pain and suffering that afforded our collective privilege to exist in the world today. This psychological tumour has swelled within the West. It is malignant and untreated. Once the victors of the entire world there is now a constant acceptance of inadequacy. Our victories of a bygone era are inadequate through the lens of the modern and “civilised” man. But let this “civilised” man of today know that every amenity and despised “privileges” that they would never actually forfeit were achieved through the blood, minds, and steel of their ancestors. At not time in human history has this weakness been so corrupted. Weakness should be the motivation for strength, now it is venerated as justice for past oppression. Oppression is contingent on victory. Our weakness today is a violent reaction to being the winner. Western civilisation is the globe, and is Europe, but now we are perverting the achievements borne out of the struggle of our forefathers by accepting weakness as our new status quo. By any rate it is evident the weak will always lose. We stand at the crossroads. A divide where we can acknowledge the history as the history that it is and accept the pragmatism that is so necessary in the modern world for the evolution of the greatest enlightenment man has ever seen. Alternatively, there are dark forces that wish to compete with the great legacy that the enlightenment has brought, dark forces who are bitter, who bore the brunt and injustice of such unabated power, who stand on a new precipice, ready to annihilate everything I have raised in this short discourse. To bring back ages of extreme oppression, unlike anything witnessed by modern eyes. Then too, the neo-liberal culture who prey so much on the injustice of their forefathers will perish all the same. We are collectively weak. Unity is needed. We must look to to weakness as a motivation for strength, not as an insurmountable disadvantage.