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[completeengineeredsolution]

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[vacuumspro]

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[newsmachine]

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[ronald-fillion]

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[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[astral-herald]

arcane, populism, and why viktor is the odd one out (yet again)

as a piltover-anti, a silco criticizer, and a pacifist, i am very very interested in how arcane presents not just the political undertones of both topside and the undercity, but the characters/dialogue through which they communicate those undertones. allow me to use some political science bro lingo to air out some thoughts.

long, long post incoming.

there are 2 ideological struggles at war throughout s1 (and i can predict that the struggle will carry over into s2): neoliberalism and populism - in their broadest terms since we're talking ofc about a fictional show dealing with surface level political machinations. by neoliberalism, i mean a focus on the social, political, and cultural structures of a polity (piltover, for our purposes) refocused into a strictly economic vacuum. and by populism i mean a unifying belief that the existing political systems of a polity fail to adequately represent their constituents, so the masses choose to rally around a specific gripe or issue, i.e., class discrimination, xenophobia toward immigrants, etc. this, in turn, forms a populist party or movement. an applicable example i can think of would be Nasser's Egypt in the 1950s.

*i know these are weighty topics with very real world implications! i just want to separate the theory to apply to our favorite fictional world.

the political struggle in question is put forward immediately by piltover, who, though presented as a technocratic state, embodies crucial neoliberal ideals emphasized especially by up-and-coming counilor mel medarda, much like how fresh-eyed american economists blew up the economic scene in the 1980s with a revival of capitalist, free market enterprise. take how she seizes the advent of hextech, for example:

she quickly sees hextech's potential yet not from the solely intellectual standpoint that jayce and viktor do - for her, it is profitable, literally and in terms of international relations. her goal is for piltover to prosper, but she has no rose-colored glasses on; prosperity means capital gain, and she's willing to override piltover's political and social systems to achieve her goal. an important caveat is that she draws the line at ambessa medarda's progression into militant authoritarianism, which deserves a whole post of its own!

piltover's populism moment will come later. first, let's unpack silco, who is probably arcane's most blatantly political figure, and a masterclass in the merits and failures of left wing, class-based populism.

silco, having been spurned by the classism and xenophobia that piltover's elite proliferate, and assisted by his rampant shimmer operation, fills the vacuum that vander's pacifism opened up. though silco's methods are unilaterally cruel (argue with the wall), the undercity clearly invested faith in him at some point, especially as vander's credibility as a guiding figure wavered over the years. he was fighting alongside vander for zaun's right to exist as their own independent body. in other words, he was uniting the undercity toward a common cause because the existing political system failed their constituents. to quote councilor shoola: "they may not be our preferred constituents, but they're still our people."

the track record of populism in our real world frequently ends in the ruin that silco himself brought upon the undercity. the kingpin is too dedicated to self-preservation, sees himself as too central to the movement, which prevents both compromise and/or a necessary armed revolt (insert your own politics about self-determination here). see italy's right wing populism party, Lega Nord, as a real-time example of this phenomenon.

but arcane makes an interesting plot decision with jayce, a very unexpected and "unwilling" contributor to piltover's abrupt dip into right wing populism. the showrunners love foils!

in arcane lore, i think it's safe to say that jayce's moniker "the man of progress" is pretty tongue-in-cheek. both he and viktor have a bemused tone about it in the run-up to his speech, and jayce is taken aback by heimerdinger's insistence that he deliver said speech. but the glowing, savior-esque imagery can't be ignored, nor can jayce's quick switch into his councilor role, no matter how reluctantly he makes it.

jayce is confronted by 2 forces that he seeks to combat in his quick tenure as councilor: internal corruption and an ineffective governing body. the latter goal is inspired almost solely by viktor, playing into jayce's naivety as a fresh-faced political figure, but this will be especially important to note later on. the innocence he offers up to mel is quickly erased, transformed instead into an uncomfortable - and inexperienced - militancy:

important in the bridge scene to my analysis is the populist "out group," or the designation populists give to those whom they actively oppose, and this opposition serves as their basis for organization. in this case, it's the undercity (keep this in mind for viktor's role!!).

jayce's combined frustrations at the unrest in the undercity and the council's (namely heimerdinger's) refusal to act, to both save viktor and to deal with the undercity's looming violence, motivates him to act like silco for a short time. unsatisfied with the status quo, he unites a likeminded individual, vi, along with the enforcers, to undercut the political system he feels is unable to represent its constituents or act in an effective manner. however, UNLIKE silco, jayce's realizes the inevitable cost the method of violence has and refrains in the end. he returns to the council and capitulates to some of silco's demands in the name of a peace piltover and zaun always thought impossible.

jinx's complete undoing of this underscores the failures of populism, especially as an extended movement over time. she wasn't accounted for. it's common sentiment at this point that she didn't attack the council for political gain. she was not invested in zaun's independence. she did it out of her and silco's twisted parental bond, and thus undid piltover's brief instance of compromise and compassion.

so...where does viktor fit into all this? and what are his implications for neoliberalism vs. populism in season 2?

viktor is neither wholly within nor wholly outside the populist outgroup - though jayce unintentionally shoves him back there in the pivotal bridge scene. furthermore, viktor also makes use of piltover's technocracy. he seems to have had a "raise yourself up by your bootstraps" history in arcane, contrary to left wing populist insistence that neoliberal ideals make this impossible.

this compounds as a double alienation for viktor, who also is straddled with the complications of his disability. a lot of his story is searching for a fellow in arms, if you ask me, and he had that with jayce until the pendulum swung, hence his return to singed.

if we stop there, viktor represents the failing of these 2 very flawed political ideologies. he fits nowhere and arcane uses him adeptly as a symbol of the failings of binaristic ideologues and systems. but let's speculate some more!

i'm convinced that viktor, due to his ambiguous 3rd party role in the story so far, will be one of the central villains (if not THE villain, if you allow me to be admittedly hopeful/biased) in season 2. consult the innumerable very well written theory/meta posts about the subject for more details, but one piece of evidence i want to focus on is this inherent physical, cultural, and ideological separateness that is innate to his character.

can we see him allying ever again with piltover, knowing that there's a split incoming? even without outside knowledge of league lore, singed's damning prediction ("if you take this path, they will despise you") cannot go unheeded. alternatively, then, can we see viktor allying with the supposed jinx-as-revolutionary side? no. personally, i see him as becoming increasingly unwillingly to compromise his a) immediate survival; and b) his ideals, especially after being endlessly sidelined in his attempts to express them in acts 2 and 3. he's also just a loner, guys.

there's some controversy on this point, but i'm convinced that the finger-printed cultists/followers we saw in the s2 trailer are devoted to viktor. starting with the shimmer addict he touched in the teaser, he is accruing a following all his own. and since noxus is here, touting their authoritarian militancy to replace piltover's outdated liberal ideals, nothing that jinx's revolution OR viktor's following does can be apolitical. to organize and to fight is survival under s2's raised stakes.

there aren't any binary spectrums when it comes to political theory in my opinion, so i am prepared to witness viktor introduce an entirely separate totalitarian narrative into arcane. where it will surely lack in militancy, it will make up for in its domination of the arcane. my biggest speculation is that, as they always do, piltover will fold and compromise at the last minute, perhaps yield to noxus, and invest wholeheartedly in taking down viktor's BBEG cultist regime. and by isolating his narrative repeatedly in s1, the writers planned this out expertly.

even if i'm wrong about viktor as third party, i like to think my observations still stand about the specific and qualifiable political divisions between piltover and zaun. the biggest hole this leaves for me is the question: will arcane ever take a stand? they seem very averse to making a blatant political statement, but i think their pervasive anti-police thread makes it clear that we're not meant to sympathize with piltover yuppies or their seasoned, jaded councilmen. let me know your thoughts!

also, as a jayce fan and a fan of arcane's overall story, none of this is meant as a CRITIQUE of him, mel, or silco. as silco said, "we all have our parts to play." i believe arcane's very greatest strength is their archetypal storytelling, and these distinct character roles are crucial to the success and vibrancy of the story.

if you read all the way to this point - ily <3

[radioactive-metal]

CASINOOOOOO FICCCCCCCCCC (pt.1)

ITS HEREEEEEEEEEE

good morning and merry Christmas my fellow obsessed fans of this lovely wee series we have here, I grant to youse, as a Christmas present, the first Half (or so) of the casino fic. It’s got insanity, it’s got scheming, and it’s got a buggerton of innuendo. What more could you want?

so anyways, wherever you are in the world, with family or friends or perhaps by yourself, have a merry Christmas, Ido’nai, Hanukkah, Sanguinalia, or whatever you choose to celebrate. That’s enough rambling in my part. Enjoy gang.

Authors notes: in this the AU emerald city fiasco happens before semperternity. And the Zero is waiting somewhere else. So the squad is flush with cash but still without direction. This will be fun.

Tyler:

“What do you mean it’s missing a piece?” Cat looked about ready to murder someone, most likely Aurora. I laid a hand on her shoulder, very much ready to stop her acting on her fury.

“I can feel it. It’s broken. Look at the eye on this compared to the drawing.” Aurora pointed at the trigger sitting on top of the console to the picture of the sigil she had unconsciously scrawled. She was right. It was missing the gem in its eye.

Finian leant back against the bridge bulkhead, exo whining as he did so “good news gang! I have a cousin who just so happens to deal in missing parts of random artifacts from an ancient race of aliens.”

“Really?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. Finian looked at me like at me like I had just asked why we couldn’t open a window in the longbow, “No golden boy. Did the GIA give you concussion or am I losing my touch?”

“I would bet that ty lost more braincells from my punch then you ever had numbnuts.” Cat ground out. Finian raised his eyebrows “Nice one dirtgirl, I’ll have to add that to my collection.” 

Zila sat, sucking on a lick of hair for a moment, tapping furiously at her uniglass. “I have found the missing piece. Its location was detailed in the data left in the safe deposit box.”

Every person on the bridge whirled around to look at her. “Unfortunately, it is in the vault of La Casio Royale, in Neomonoco. However, currently, the Time to the Line race is on in the system, so it will be slightly easier to sneak in.”

I drummed my fingers on the armrest of my chair. “I feel like there’s something missing here”

Finian rubbed his temples, “yeah golden boy, there is. If you thought biatchiis security was bad, the Vaults de la Royale makes his look like a play pretend cash register.”

Scarlett:

On one hand, I had always wanted to see the time to the line race, preferably from a luxury yacht, waited on by a small army of very handsome men all named christoff. But in the other: we now had to pull off a heist that made that whole business on semperternity look like taking candy from a baby. The entire vault was open to vacuum, with electrified walls, laser sensors, shelves that weighed each lockbox sensitive to .00003 grams.

But on the other other hand: I got to put on my best outfit and lie, gamble, and drink my way through la Casio Royale, the best establishment in the galaxy for the sins of greed and gluttony.

Needless to say, I had my work cut out for me getting my squad mates up to par.

Once we had landed our (heavily disguised) longbow, we made our way to an incredibly expensive apartment complex. Zila had a set of keys and guided us to a door labeled 312. We stepped in and were all floored by the opulence. Oak paneling lined the walls. Onyx tiling led the way to the central living area, with a colossal window and balcony overlooking the ocean of the planet. The legion clearly hadn’t skimped out when building this place. I still couldn’t wrap my head around how they had laid all of this out. The box, the camouflage unit on the longbow, this apartment. It was as if they knew what was going to happen before it did.

There were 6 doors leading off the main corridor. Each one was inscribed with a different sigil. One had seven lines, the next had a stylized double A, after that was two hoops. Then on the other side of the hall was another four, with a beetle, a handbag, a gold bar, and a phoenix.

I took a wild guess, and opened the door with a handbag on it. Inside I found a lavishly decorated room, all velvet carpet and silk sheets. The largest bed I had ever seen sat in the middle, and directly across from the door to the room was a massive ornate closet. I gently stepped over to it, and found it was full to the brim with an incredible selection of clothes. Worksuits hung next to ball gowns, and everything in between.

There was two doors, I opened the first one and found a bathroom filled with enough marble to have depleted a small quarry. High end toiletries were arraigned next to glass sinks. I then check the other door, and found myself in a small corridor, with another door on the other end. I closed the door behind me and opened the next one.

I found myself transported to trask. A low ceiling studded with stalactites. Gently glowing blue vines grew on the walls, and floating in the center, quite possibly the best part of the room, was one Finian De Karen De Seel.

Aurora:

I opened the door with the old logo of Ad Astra, and I found myself in my childhood bedroom. It was the exact same. From the crappy old wooden bedframe to the books laid about the place. On the bedside table was a note.

Aurora:

We are so sorry that this is what you have to do. You should have been welcomed into this new time, not forced to run. 

Please consider this to be some very small apology,

Aurora Legion command

Admiral Adams and Greater Clan Battle Leader De Stoy

Below the message a small chip was taped. I plugged it into Magellan and saw it was a video. I pressed play and saw Callie, though much older, mid thirties at least, carrying a toddler. “Look the the camera kiddo! Say hello to your auntie Auri! Can you say hello little Jie?”

The toddler seem more focused on its mother bracelets.

“Hi Auri. I know you won’t ever see this, but I like to keep you updated. Even though you’re gone. This is Jie-lin. She’s 2 years old now. I hope you’re safe wherever you are. I love you”

I couldn’t keep it together. I broke down. These past few days coupled with this just broke me. I started bawling. Ugly, broken sobs that scratched at my throat as they came up.

I stared at that final frame of Callie. So grown up, so much older than me. I wondered what had happened. To mom, to dad, to the family after I left. Did mom go back to school? Did Callie ever go and see Hong Kong like she always wanted? What happened to dad?

I was stirred from my thoughts by one of the doors to my room creaking open. What would have once led to the kitchen now opened up into a plain grey corridor, currently occupied by the galaxies greatest Legolas lookalike.

We locked eyes for a moment. I saw that wall behind his eyes crumble for just a moment. I saw concern, but it could have well been pity.

“What…” my voice, scratchy and raw, caught in my throat “what do you want?”

Those damned purple eyes flicked away from me. And over the rest of the room, almost drinking it in. He stepped past the doorway, closing the door behind him without a south, and dropped noiselessly into a position with his legs crossed under him.

“Strong and silent then. Ok Legolas.” I mumbled, reaching around for something to throw at him. I grabbed my pillow, and acting on instinct from something I’d done a million times before, chucked it. He caught it out of mid air without a flinch. He raised a single, immaculate silver eyebrow at me.

“Stop doing that you son of a biscuit!”

“Stop what?”

“Being so irritating and rude and annoying and cute - er.. uh…”

Both his eyebrows jumped up to his forehead and I saw the faintest glimmer of what could be hope in his eyes. 

Tyler:

Everyone else filtered off to their rooms, leaving one door unopened. As I opened the door I found a nice,  it not ostentatious bedroom. Nicer than my room at the academy, but not what I would have expected from such a fancy apartment. Honestly I preferred it. I was never truly at home in fancy places, even when my dad traveled for the senate and took me and scar with me. It was always too much.

There were three other doors than the one I had just entered. The first was open to a bathroom, the second was a glass balcony door, that had a stunning view of the ocean.

The third door was closed, and had no obvious labels or indications of its purpose. I stepped over to it, and opened it only to find myself with scarcely four centimetres away from Cat. She looked up at me, and for just a moment I was there again, on shore leave, scotch in our veins and together. I staggered backwards, overwhelmed by that closeness with her. My ace, my closest friend, my confidante.

“Come now Ty, I’m not that scary”

“No-no god no of course not Cat no. You just…. Scared me.”

“Heh. And I never broke any academy regs. You’re fooling nobody Tyler.”

She lifted a hand, and with it a bottle of Terran scotch.

“We’ve made enough bad decisions in the past few days to fill a lifetime. What’s one more?”

And honestly? I couldn’t argue with that.

“So do you want to shout at me first or can we skip to the fun part?”

The now setting sun glowed a gorgeous golden orange through the light, catching in her dark hair and lighting up her face, now covered in a smile.

“Are you having a laugh? Nah. You’re going to sit your ass in the seat over there, and we are going to talk this out while I partake in this fine bottle of scotch that was left in my room. After that? We’ll see.”

By the time she had finished shouting at me, the sun was gone. In its stead was twin moons, visibly moving across the sky. We were sitting out on the balcony. She had a glass with a triple shot of scotch, I had some mineral water.

“Ya know Ty? I honestly considered the GIA’s offer on semperternity.”

“Is that the booze talking or you?”

“Are you having a laugh? I’m as sober as a funeral. This stuff” she shook the glass “is about as weak as nuns piss.”

“I figured. On both counts I mean. At risk of sounding uncomfortably cliche, I had faith that even though you wanted the offer, you would still back me.”

“God I hate when you read me like a book.”

“What can I say? I know you too well.”

A glint in her eyes made me realize what I had just done.

“Oh really now Ty? Are you sure? Cause I think there might be a few things you don’t know.”

And with that, I was dragged back through the door and onto the bed.

Cat Brannock 1, Tyler Jones 0

Zila:

There was a large amount of data stored on several storage wafers in my room. Each one contained briefings, plans, and other such information. Most was time locked to future dates, but I located one unlocked folder. Within was two subfolders, labeled ‘Orders’ and ‘Blue Prints’

The orders folder contain a briefing document with a security clearance I did not recognize. It was inaccessible, presumably corrupted, as it was date locked several hundred years in the past, and yet could not be opened.

The Blue prints folder was much more fruitful. Within was pages upon pages of plans, analysis, and photos of the vault we had to crack into. 

Along with data was a note, one of several I had found so far. This one read “trust the hawk”. I piled it with the other notes, some had been helpful, pointing me to guide my team mates in the correct direction. Others were much more cryptic, many mentioning hawks, crystals, and the ancient myth of Ouroboros. 

More to consider.

I wonder if it is wrong to manipulate my teammates.

I am still not feeling nothing

Finian

I spent most of the evening after Scarlett left fixing up my exosuit. The fact the legion splurged for terrestrial anti grav made feel warm and fuzzy inside. Or maybe that was talking to Scar. Who knows?

After an extremely long and deep sleep in zero G, I woke at would be 8:30 station time. Later than normal but not ridiculously so. With a sigh and some grumbling I donned my exo once again and turned off the Zero G. All of those pains and aches I thought had gone? They came right back. Turns out there’s only so much one nights sleep can do.

I opened the door and wandered out to the common area of the apartment, to find Zila sitting at the counter, obsessing over some file in her uniglass, and Kal out on the balcony doing some sort of meditation.

“Third awake isn’t bad… where’s our high and mighty squad leader?”

“Sleeping with legionnaire Brannock.”

I did a double take at that “asleep? Or…. The other thing?”

Zila didn’t respond.

“Maker… really? My goodness he’s actually human? I thought they assembled him at the overachiever factory.”

“There is no such factory.”

“Don’t change Zila. I need someone to tell me these things”

With that I wandered over to the refrigerator to see what we had. I found it stocked better than I could have hoped. It even had my favorite kind of breakfast burrito.

“Wow, they really did think of everything.”

Zila made a small noise, then hurriedly typed something on her uni.

At that, as if on cue, Scarlett walked round the corner. Far from her usual put-togetherness, she looked bedraggled, hair frizzy and makeup smeared. Even then though, as she caught my eye and winked, I felt like my stomach was full of butterflies.

“Morning Zila”

No response, Zila being a conversationalist ad always.

“And good morning fin”

The gentle smile, the way she said my name… it felt like someone had released another crate of butterflies in my stomach (why do they keep dumping them there? Do I look like a bug enclosure?)

“M-Morning Scar”

She walked over, brushed my hand (for just a little too long to be accidental) to hit a button on the coffee maker. I personally couldn’t stand the stuff, but Scarlett seemed to guzzle it like air.

“Any plans for the day?”

“You know, the usual, being the most handsome member of the squad.”

“The usual indeed. You can multitask while doing that I presume? I have a shopping list and need a spare set of hands getting it all. We can get lunch and such. I know a guy here.”

There was quite a few things to unpack there. First was her agreeing with me? The most handsome? Maker that let off a third… flock? Collection? Swarm? Of butterflies. The second… was she was asking me to go out with her. To go shopping and get lunch. Me. ME. The only reason she would pick me for that is if-

Great maker in the heavens. Scarlett Jones was asking me out on a date.

Tyler

The sunlight streaming through my window gently brought me back from the sandman. I stirred and moved my arm to my eye, only for it to hit something warm, and vaguely soft and-

Oh yeah. Last night. The memories flashed though my head like a dying star. I cracked an eye open, and saw her there, next to me, still dead to the world.

Her hair was mussed, what little makeup she had smudged around. I shifted under the covers and gasped from the pain. Looks like I might have voided the warranty on the old fun factory.

The noise woke her up. With a grumble and yawn, she opened her eyes. Her voice was soft and scratchy, but no surprises there. Thank the maker the walls are thick.

“Morning Ty. What’s the big idea with all the noise?”

“The boys…. Poor fellas seem to have taken a beating”

“Wonder who could have done such a thing?”

With that, she shifted closer to me and closed

her eyes again.

Should I have done this? Probably no.

Was it a bad choice? Most likely.

Do I regret it? Let’s see.

I looked over at the clock at the side of the bed, 6:50.  Later then I would normally wake up. I should probably get up.

However: this bed was comfy, and most importantly, there was a woman I loved next to me, and that was too much of a problem for the little bit of me that wanted to get up could overcome, and so I drifted back off to dream land, listening to Cats breath.

Kal:

I awoke at 5 AM ship time. My father had instilled this into me with his fists. I always woke at 5 now, no matter when or where I slept. I still have the scars, the last reminders of the wounds he inflicted, and the care my mother gave me. The universe truly was cruel. Making me the son of that wretched being, and taking my mother from me because of his fit of rage.

I went out to the balcony, to meditate as my mother showed me. It helped clear my head, and to tamp down the enemy within. I cleared my mind and reached out. My powers were weak, insignificant compared to all but the weakest of waywalkers, and yet i could still feel my comrades, ever so faintly. Tyler’s golden light, lighting him up like a beacon in the dark. Scarlett, glowing ruby red, casting a warm and welcoming glow around her. And Aurora. By all the souls of Syldra, Aurora.

She was like a star. Glowing with the purest white light, too strong to even look at. All I could see was her outline, and that void blue core of her being. 

I was no stranger to being pulled in two different directions. The teachings of my father versus those of my mother. The enemy within versus me. But this one was different. One could fill the galaxy with words and it would not come close. If all the blood vessels were laid out to end to end, and each cell had the word love engraved on it, it would not equal one billionth of a second of the pull. It was nearly impossible to resist, myriad works of art had been created about it over the millennia. None came close to describing it. I opened my eyes from my meditation, and looked out over the glistening sea, utterly stunning by all accounts. It was bland and boring compared to Aurora. And yet, I was denied such a thing. I could not. Alas, she was human. I don’t know if she could even reciprocate these feelings.

That was until yesterday. Like a man clutching to a cliff edge, I hung on to those words. Was there hope? Did she mean those words? Those feelings flying off her like a star going supernova? 

I did not have many of my mother gifts, but even I could feel the emotions of one as powerful as her.

And she felt something for me.

The smallest ember of emotion, which may catch.

And so hope remained.

And so despite everything, I had reason to smile.

Scarlett

I was 3/4ths of the way through my coffee when Tyler trudged in. Not walked, not marched, trudged. I have seen him do such a thing exactly twice in my entire life. The day after dad died, and the morning he got back from shore leave after graduation. Given that no one we know died, and the incredibly visible and large hickey on his neck… I’d say that my brother was engaging in…. Fraternization. 

I’m impressed honestly. I had a bet with myself that he wouldn’t last through the 2nd night on the longbow, now it’s been a whole week! Impressive.

As Tyler rounds the corner, I notice his odd gait, swinging his leg out and forward, rather than straight ahead in proper marching style. 

Fraternization indeed.

He stops at the counter, grabs one of the stools, and gingerly sits down. We lock eyes for just a moment and have an instant of perfect, non verbal twin to twin communication.

‘Really?’

‘Not a word’

The silence was broke by a sharp sniff through is nose, a long sigh and him shifting. 

“Right then. Anything of note to report?”

“Negative sir” came Finians reply

“Nope” 

“I have something sir” Zila had stopped tapping on her uniglass

“Well? The suspense is killing me legionnaire Madran, what is it?”

“Testy this more I see sir” Finian said, seeing if he couldn’t get a rise of his commander

“I have located blueprints and relevant construction information for the vault. I send them in a data package over our squad communications link, along with my personal analysis on viable points of entry.”

“Didn’t get much sleep then I take it Legionaire?”

“No more than you sir”

I choked on my coffee. Finian did a spit take and Tyler looked utterly bewildered.

“First: what I was or wasn’t doing last night is between me and the maker. Second: did you just make a joke?”

“No. I stated a fact. I got 4 hours and thirty two minutes of sleep last night, while by my estimation you got between four and three quarters and five hours of sleep.”

Finians pale skin was now flushed a pale shade of pink from him trying to hold in his laughter, meanwhile I was laughing around the coffee stuck in my throat and Tyler looked even more bewildered. The kind of bewildered that makes a deer in headlights look like a professor of psychology.

“I-uh- Well anyways, if you could pull up the data on the table hologram so we can prepare a briefing legionnaire.”

“Yes sir”

Aurora

I woke up with puffy eyes and a throat that felt like it has seen the wrong side of an industrial sandblaster. Turns out: crying yourself to sleep is awful. I can’t believe Hollywood lied to me. It’s almost like it’s full of paid actors.

I had to peel myself from my bed, I sign I had slept far deeper than normal. I opened the closet, and found that it was stocked with clothes exactly to my size and liking. I picked out a nice outfit and walked to what I could only assume was the kitchen, where I heard the gentle murmur of voices. I rounded to find everyone else in the squad all chatting amounts themselves, with coffee and, of all people, Cat, manning, as my mother would call it, the cooker. Tyler looked up, and gave me a kind smile.

“Well then, that’s everyone. I’ll start the briefing now if no one has any objections.” He paused “Ok good.” He tapped a button in the centre of the table. It lit up revealing blueprints, for what looked like a very over the top bank vault.

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is our target. The most fortified, secure, and impenetrable bank vault ever designed. Within, is contained the last part of the trigger, a 32 karat chunk of Eshvaren crystal.”

Scar leaned forward. “So an easy jaunt into a bank vault to steal a gem. What’s the problem?”

“Finian?”

The Beretreskan nodded

“If you remember Biattchis office, with the security system that would wake a carreer criminal screaming? This one would make them hand themselves in to the police and collapse into a jibbering, insane mess. Laser sensors and hair wire triggers, weighted boxes and hard vacuum. Silent penetration is nearly impossible”

Kal spoke up “so how do we intended to get in quietly?”

Finian giggled like a kid on Christmas morning. “Kal…. Who said anything about quiet?”

Tyler tapped the button on the table again.

“We will be organized into 3 groups of two, with Zila running support here.” He gestured at a point on the holographic map, indicating the apartment “Legionnaires De Seel and Jones task is to create a distraction. I don’t care if it’s a riot, a brawl, anything. We just need all eyes away from the vault. Legionnaire Gilwraith and Aurora will be our backup in case we have unwanted guests. Finally, me and legionnaire Brannock will be infiltrating the facility, opening the vault, and retrieving the target. Any questions?”

“How do we intends to breach the vault?”

Tyler’s eyes glimmered. “Are you familiar with shaped charges?”

[End of part 1. Teehee]

[sasquapossum]

On my mind: why has there been such an increase in adulation and loyalty toward obviously defective people like Trump and Musk? Have people become more gullible than they were when I was younger? Seems unlikely. We internalized all sorts of stupid shit too, but it wasn't so focused on personalities. Then it struck me: the problem is that we've lost faith in institutions and personalities are what's left. Consider...

Politicians: believe it or not, we used to trust that they were at least sane and working generally for some vision of public good, even when we disagreed. Not since Nixon, Reagan, Dubya, etc.

Journalists: we used to trust them to report the facts in a reasonably objective way, even when that isn't necessarily what they were doing. Then came Fox and that all went out the window.

TV/radio media became all about engagement, a form of entertainment, not actual reporting. Now it's all podcasts and TikTok or YouTube, but basically same. There are some who believe one particular favorite speaks the truth, but few who would say these folks in general are trustworthy.

Print media failed in a different way, partly by being partisans for the establishment (e.g. NYT and the Iraq war) but mostly by totally missing the boat on going online. They could have agreed on a single shared subscription or micropayment system, but they each had to be greedy with their own paywalls etc. So their lunch got eaten by social media (who bear their own share of blame for eroding trust), and the press got even more unhinged about it.

Science, engineering, academe: we used to believe promises about new miracle materials, chemicals, drugs, etc. Even before anti-vaccine lunacy became a thing, a long string of disasters - microplastics, DDT, thalidomide - changed that.

Unions: they've experienced a resurgence very recently, but that's almost a "dead cat bounce" after being moribund for decades. Some people would blame Reagan and PATCO. I think the collapse of major union-heavy industries - auto, steel, mining - had more to do with it, but the result was the same.

I could go on - there's a whole other post I could write about the mixed role of churches in this context - but you get the idea. The fact that in many cases there were good reasons to withdraw our trust doesn't change the fact that such a general withdrawal creates a vacuum which we've filled with hero worship instead. That's where people like Musk and Trump come from.

Here's the kicker: it's not an accident. Undermining trust in institutions has been part of the authoritarian playbook since forever. Julius Caesar is the earliest example that most people would be familiar with, hence the silly illustration, but the phenomenon goes back much further than that. Creating that vacuum is central to authoritarian strategy. Remember Reagan's "nine most terrifying words"? Some people think of that as a libertarian statement but, with the so-called Moral Majority and various militia groups (then as now galvanized by immigration) behind him, that misses the mark. It was part of an authoritarian strategy, demeaning the administrative state and permanent civil service (i.e. institutions) in favor of raw executive power (i.e. personalities).

I'm all for unions, co-ops, mutual aid, etc. but they can't stand alone. Never have. Without a government enforcing rules (including against itself), anarchy will always evolve toward autocracy. If you think the role of government should be minimized, then congratulations, you're part of the Reagan Left ... or worse. A red hat with a hammer and sickle on it is still a red hat. You are effectively supporting authoritarianism whether you mean to or not. Also, since there's no significant left-authoritarian element in US politics - no Stalin or Mao and thank FSM for that - that means you're supporting right-authoritarians. You should stop, especially if you're a member of a group that would suffer most under such a regime.

[possumcollege]

Tumblr just fed me a repost thread where someone responded to a meme that said "The Right gave us the Klan and the Left gave us weekends" with this extremely broken nugget of US history. 👇

🌈 This is horseshit.

1: In the 1860s, under what US historians call the Third Party System Republicans were what we would call "progressive" and Democrats were the "conservative" party.

Lincoln was a Republican, as were many Americans who called for the abolition of slavery. Lincoln stated that he was not personally in favor of total abolition and emancipation but he did believe regulation of slavery was a power of the federal government as opposed to state governments. Democrats of the Reconstruction Era favored strict moral legislation against race mixing, opposed citizenship and voting rights for African Americans, and largely opposed the expansion of Federal powers over the individual states.

It's honest-to-god not that hard to understand that American political parties haven't always been the exact same parties they are today. I can't help it if no one ever taught them this but it isn't an obscure or contested piece of information. Anybody trotting this shit out as a dunk on contemporary Democrats is either wrong or lying.

2: The Klan was never a "Leftist Anarchist alternative to law enforcement"

The concept of organized State law enforcement was barely a thing in the South at that time. Most southern law enforcemement consisted of slave patrols mustered from state militias, tasked with finding and capturing runaways, and preventing large-scale slave rebellions like the French experienced in the Caribbean. Slave patrols were abolished after the Civil War and officers were instead charged with enforcing "Jim Crow" laws under Reconstruction. Many of the Klan's tactics were literally the unofficial, vigilante continuation of practices that were legal for slave patrols. At no point were organized "law enforcement" and the Klan working at cross purposes. They both sought to maintain the social order through violent enforcement of white supremacy, the klan just wasn't an official agent of the state.

Anarchists may seek to operate without centralized state authority, but vigilantes are not inherently "Anarchists" because they're ungoverned. By that reasoning, children fighting on the playground are Anarchists.

White Supremacy is itself antithetical to central Anarchist principles, which call for a society based on voluntary participation, free of social heirarchy, or rule-by-force.

3: Whether they know it or not, when someone says that the Klan formed as any kind of peacekeeping force, they are parroting Pro-Klan propaganda.

There are 3 distinct, widely accepted eras of organizations calling themselves the KKK. The first is the most relevant as it formed during Reconstruction in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War. It began when a number of young Southern men and Confederate veterans took it upon themselves to terrorize and intimidate newly-free African Americans by raiding homes and businesses, destroying property, harassing black communities, and murdering black leaders, organizers, and their allies.

The first iterations of the Klan were heavily influenced by a growing fascination with fraternal orders and secret societies in America during that era. They cribbed heavily from another secret society, the Knights of the Golden Circle, (the Klan's name came from the Greek word for "circle") who hoped to establish a new county around the legality of slavery. This country would've included the states of the CSA, Mexico, Cuba, the islands of the Caribbean, and parts of Central/ South America.

Claims that the Klan existed to oust Scalawags, Carpetbaggers and other Northern opportunists (often said to be Jews and Catholics) who rushed in to fill the vacuum of deposed Southern leadership doesn't emerge until 1868-69 when Nathan Bedford Forrest was formally elected as their first (holy fucking shit 🤦‍��️) "Grand Wizard."

(this absolute dipshit)

These retroactive narratives were further amplified in the 1880s-90s as Lost Cause rhetoric began to gain momentum among those sympathetic to the confederacy, white supremacists, and those seeking to profit off the continued disenfranchisement of African Americans as cheap prison labor.

These tales of masked men protecting downtrodden southern whites from the grasping, predatory Yankee Carpetbaggers were further enshrined as founding myths of the second Klan, in Georgia in 1915. It remains a popular Whitewashing narrative to this day.

I do not give half a proud southern shit what the guys who were scamming their buddies into buying official Klan dishes in the 20s said the Klan was about. Those actually existed btw. I don't have to give Forrest's claims any more weight than I give Spencer's claims on the motivation of neo-nazis.

Spencer got exactly what both of them deserved when he got socked in the head on TV.

[dalekofchaos]

Context

Context for choice 3.

Here is what I mean about The New Republic and The First Order.

What happens after you win a war? How do you not make the same mistakes or become the thing you fought. What happens in a power vacuum? The New Republic should have been the dominant emerging power, and the Remnant should have been a small, secretive, unknown order, striking strategically from the Unknown Regions where they hid, and causing fear and panic to spread in the NR. After the Galactic Civil War, The New Republic commanders the Imperial Fleet and starts protecting systems who join the NR, all while chasing down and fighting any of the Remnants (Moffs, Warlords, Crime Lords, etc) who have grabbed power in the resulting vacuum. We could have seen an evolution of ships from Old Republic to Empire to NR ones. They could have renamed Star Destroyers into Star Defenders. Hell, they could have had a Republic of independent systems, each with their own sizable military, so that power isn’t centralized.

But no, instead of telling an interesting story, we are force fed the recycled poorly written rehashed Rebels vs Empire and the Rebels are made to be weaker than The First Order. The First Order are a terrorist movement, they should not be reigning after Hosnian Prime’s destruction, ESPECIALLY AFTER LOSING STARKILLER BASE!

Choice 4. Here is how I would give Kylo Ren motivation as to why Ben Solo fell and his main motivation as Kylo Ren.

Choice 6. I don't think there was absolutely no need for a Palpatine clone and eventually Palpatine himself(🙄) we all knew what was happening around the time this trilogy was being made. Trump. Base Snoke around the mango Mussolini and his lunatic fringe followers. An Alt-Right cult leader who cultivates the worst people imaginable. All The First Order needed to be was pointing out The New Republic brought the galaxy to an age of scum and villainy. A lawless state that usurped the rightful rulers that brought law and order. Basically "Make the Galaxy great again with Imperial Greatness"

You see, originally Lucas was going to make Palpatine JUST a politician and base him around Richard Nixon.

“George Lucas has spoken on various occasions of the way that the Nixon administration and the Vietnam war had an important influence on how he shaped the plot of the early films in the saga. The impact that these two events had an American in the 1970s started him thinking about the ways in which democracies can sale and how they deteriorating to dictatorships when corruption goes unchecked. He’s quoted as saying that Nixon - Who he viewed as having subverted the Senate and as acting an increasingly imperialistic way - what is the direct inspiration for Emperor Palpatine the supreme leader of the evil Empire in the first Star Wars trilogy”

So I don't see why they couldn't do something similar with the CLEAR FUCKING EVIL going on in the world at the time this trilogy was being made. No Sith master was needed.

In this scenario, I would call The First Order, The Imperium

Now you might have questions. What about the Stormtroopers and Kylo?

Stormtroopers? Don’t abduct kids, nationalize and recruit them willingly. Abducting children and training them to be Stormtroopers instantly made The First Order out to be cartoonishly evil from the start. So what do you do instead? Use propaganda. Nationalize them. Make them believe The Empire was right and convince them that the life of a Stormtrooper will help bring order in a chaotic galaxy. We’ve seen cults do something similar, Far Right Wing groups do it and we’ve seen Trump radicalize and nationalize white supremacists, so it’s not impossible for The First Order to do the logical thing.

Finn only leaves because he sees they are murdering unarmed civilians and chooses to leave. He is an example that it isn't too late to leave harmful fringe cult movements.

So how would Ben turn in this scenario? He's radicalized by Snoke. Ben starts hearing passionate speeches in the senate and Ben is moved. "I know he opposes my mother, but he's making a lot of sense" "He's right, we need to bring order to the galaxy" and Ben is radicalized by this Imperium movement and what he believes is Snoke's righteous cause. To Snoke, Ben represents everything great about the Empire. Snoke collects Sith Holocrons and uses the holocrons to turn Ben Solo into Kylo Ren.

In this scenario, I wouldn't redeem Ben. He is far too gone. He's committed atrocities in Snoke's name, for The Imperium and to bring order to the galaxy. While Finn represents those who could break away from Right Wing movements and Cults. Kylo Ren is far too gone, he's radicalized to the point where he's a die hard believer like Hux and Phasma and he's willing to fight and die for this indoctrination.

Choice 11. The Episode IX rewrite with Ben living and Reylo ending

Choice 12. The original plan for the Sequel Trilogy was to just get three young directors together to direct the Sequel Trilogy. It was supposed to be JJ, Rian and Colin Trevorrow, but Colin's IX was bad and his Jurassic World trilogy was terrible. So I would make either Matt Reves or Greta Gerwig as the director for Episode IX and ideally they would plan the trilogy out together instead of JJ setting up Mystery Boxes and expecting Rian and others open said mystery boxes and Rian subverting expectations.

[vacuumspro]

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[covid-safer-hotties]

The Long Covid Groups say patients are being abandoned as dedicated clinics close despite a rise in UK cases - Published Sept 8, 2024

As the UK Covid-19 Inquiry resumes with a focus on healthcare systems in each of the four nations, the Long Covid Groups (comprising Long Covid Support, Long Covid SOS, Long Covid Physio and Long Covid Kids) are shocked and deeply concerned to learn that Long Covid clinics are being closed at a time when reported cases are continuing to rise.

Charities and many medical experts have long maintained we are in the midst of a global health crisis. Without a concerted effort to address this issue, the closures will only add to the significant burdens already being faced by healthcare systems and economies.

Recent data from the US has suggested that Long Covid may affect up to 7% of the population and prevalence could rise further. The latest ONS updates have shown that incidence of long-term sickness is at record levels and has been on an upward trajectory since early 2020. Staff shortages and high levels of school absenteeism are frequently reported across the UK. The annual productivity loss in the UK resulting from Long Covid is currently estimated to be £1.5 billion.

This stark picture contrasts with the lack of support Long Covid patients are receiving. At the start of the year, there were close to 100 Long Covid clinics for adults and 13 hubs for children and young people (CYP) in England. Earlier this year however, the highly regarded NHS England national programme was stood down with responsibility for Long Covid services being delegated to each of the Integrated Care Boards (ICBs). In recent months, patients and staff have reported the closure and a severe scaling back of clinics including Devon, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Lancashire and Surrey. Key personnel and resources are being subsumed into other NHS services and, in some cases, staff are leaving the NHS altogether. Some CYP hubs are being forced to take on patients from those that have already closed with no extra funding.

In the other UK nations, the provision of Long Covid services is individual to each health board with no centrally agreed model on what Long Covid clinics should look like. They mostly focus on therapies designed to help patients manage their conditions rather than being clinician led. There is only one service dedicated to paediatrics in Scotland with none in Northern Ireland and Wales.

The Long Covid Groups urge all governments and healthcare providers to adopt a service model that prioritises dedicated clinics supported by experienced clinician-led, multidisciplinary teams. Given the complexity and multi-faceted nature of the condition, the Long Covid Groups stress that specialists from each of the relevant disciplines should work collaboratively. In partnership with patients, they call for a healthcare framework that is dedicated to successfully diagnosing, treating and preventing Long Covid; this will contribute towards relieving the operational and financial pressures on the NHS.

Amitava Banerjee, Professor of Clinical Data Science and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist & Long Covid SOS Trustee

“The evidence for the health, healthcare and economic effects of Long Covid, whether on individuals or societies, is unequivocal. Therefore, we must ensure that coordinated research and care are prioritised for Long Covid."

Sammie McFarland, CEO & Founder, Long Covid Kids

"Appropriate funding and resources would provide clinicians with the best possible opportunity to improve patients' lives, but this hasn't been forthcoming. Rising school absenteeism and Long Covid in children are red flags demanding immediate action. Closing specialised clinics risks creating a healthcare vacuum with far-reaching consequences for healthcare, education, families, and the future workforce."

Professor Mark Faghy, Vice-Chair of Long Covid Physio

“The scaling back and closure of services around the UK at a time when the prevalence of Long Covid is rising seems counterintuitive. Before these decisions were made, there were calls from patients and healthcare workers to grow services and ensure consistency across the UK but it seems to be going the other way.”

Nikki Smith, Founding Member, Long Covid Support

“With many people now getting Covid-19 multiple times, the risk of having on-going symptoms of Long Covid is increasing, which will result in more pressure on the NHS, fewer people able to work and an even bigger hit on the economy. It must be a priority of our new public service Government to ensure effective Long Covid clinics that are up to date with the latest research, are accessible by all.”

[pattern-recognition]

In the mass protest decade, street explosions created revolutionary situations, often on accident. But a protest is very poorly equipped to take advantage of a revolutionary situation, and that particular kind of protest is especially bad at it. If you believe that you can forge a better society, if you are willing to run the risk of trying, then you should enter the vacuum yourself. But a diffuse group of individuals who come out to the streets for very different reasons cannot simply take power themselves, at least not as an entire diffuse group of individuals. Once someone goes in there and takes power in the name of the masses, you are talking about a type of vanguard—a particular ideological project, and a minority of people who dare to try to represent the rest of the population. In some of the more utopian strains of anti-authoritarian thought, the riot is supposed to become the new society, but this has not worked out so far.11 Perhaps it might, someday, but it would probably not work very well in the actually existing Global South, which is surrounded by so many foreign actors that might be sucked very quickly into an apparent power vacuum by the possibility of easy profit and plunder.

If some new group boldly steps into the vacuum, manages to stay there, and transforms society, then that’s a revolution. But if you find your political system broadly acceptable, or you don’t think you can replace it with something better, then the thing to do is to negotiate. That is called reform. You can use your power on the streets to extract concessions, if you play it right. But once more, this necessarily entails representation.

It was not just Mayara and Haddad who overlapped in their answers to my question. I heard it very often—it came in different forms, but I heard it more than any other response. I think Hossam Bahgat put it best, or at least, the most directly.

“Organize. Create an organized movement. And don’t be afraid of representation,” he said without hesitation, in his office in Giza, as his world fell apart around him. “We thought representation was elitism, but actually it is the essence of democracy.” I heard answers like this over and over, confirming research compiled by scholars. As early as 1975, William Gamson found that movements succeed more often when they deploy hierarchical forms of organization. In a wide-ranging 2022 study, Mark Beissinger found that loose uprisings of the Maidan type tend to increase inequality and ethnic tensions, while they do not consolidate democracy or end corruption.

“After Maidan, I decided I do not believe in self-organization,” said Artem Tidva, the young leftist who brought a red European Union flag to the square, as we grabbed a bite to eat in central Kyiv in the summer of 2021. “I used to be more anarchist. Back then everyone wanted to do an assembly; whenever there was a protest, always an assembly. But I think any revolution with no organized labor party will just give more power to economic elites, who are already very well-organized.” Unlike some of his former comrades, Artem never gave up on the Ukrainian uprising and stayed active in the post-Maidan political scene, working to push for center-left, anti-racist alternatives in the context of the new political order. But in Ukraine, it seemed clear that the uprising had benefited the groups that had already formed coherent, disciplined organizations before the uprising began, and we had seen more evidence of that earlier in the day.

“I definitely don’t have the same views on these things as I did before 2013,” said Lucas “Vegetable” Monteiro. He still believes that a better society must be born out of this one, not just created after some revolution seizes state power. But he now thinks that the Movimento Passe Livre turned the principles of horizontalism, autonomy, and prefiguration “into a dogma, into a kind of religion, and we could not turn them into real political practice. Instead, they became a kind of identity. And we ended up quickly crashing into barriers that we ourselves had created.” The MPL still exists, but no one who was in the group in 2013 is still a member. Looking back on 2019 in Hong Kong, Theo told me, “[It] was very fun to see the China building defaced, I had a lot of fun on the streets, but the decentralized nature of the movement meant that there was no room for discussion about how it should work, or how a coherent strategy could be developed.”

Not everyone I met came out of the decade adopting positions in favor of formal structures, in support of “verticalism” and hierarchy, insisting that representation matters. Mayara, for example, remains mostly true to the ideals she adopted as a young punk. But everyone moved in the same direction. I spent years doing interviews, and not one person told me that they had become more horizontalist, or more anarchist, or more in favor of spontaneity and structurelessness. Some people stayed in the same place. But everyone that changed their views on the question of organization moved closer to classically “Leninist” ones.

Bevins, Vincent. If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution

[atthebell]

like i cannot express how fucking awful it is to be on this website right now. not only do none of you give a single shit about female characters but you refuse to even consider that changing your own behaviors is part of the solution. i understand that we do not live in a vacuum as individuals. there is plenty to say about the entertainment industry and the larger system of the patriarchy that discourages media about and interest in female characters. but if you yourself refuse to even try to engage with the interesting and central female characters that DO exist, that is on you. that is your own fucking choice.

[c-is-for-circinate]

Man, I miss CR.

I'm very aware that Critrole is still there! But I'm so, so tired these days, with a full-time job where, even if I had the time to stay up until 1AM or later on a weekly basis, I sure the fuck don't have the energy, and let's not even talk about trying to catch up on Saturdays. And I'm so behind. And maybe it was those things or maybe it was just a story mismatch, because I love CR3's characters, but the central philosophical conflict of "are the gods even worth saving?" is just. So supremely uninteresting to me.

Like, that is not a question of morality. Are the gods terrible? Maybe! Probably! So? It's a question of sheer practicality!!! Revolutions are hellish, bloody things that, even when they're successful, more often than not turn into destabilized government, power vacuums, and decades of continued warfare. That doesn't mean they aren't worth having, sometimes, but trying to take down a ruling body without understanding exactly how the system works and how you intend to replace it is a recipe for catastrophe and/or the Reign of Terror. And that's when the government is in charge of the railways and the flow of commerce. You want to continue the moral implications of maybe not taking down a poorly-run revolution against the people who control the tides and make the sun come up? I really hope you have a plan for making sure the sun still comes up!!!

I know that's hardly the only theme of the season, but like. I did my Catholic grappling with the non-existent moral authority of god twenty years ago. I don't have four hours of energy a week left in me to watch it play out these days.