#defend your interests for their value not for which of your identities you align them with

[bigstripeylie]

Ghosts theory- “sucked off” edition

Apologies for the title.

I have a theory about how each of the ghosts in Ghosts has a parallel with another Ghost and how this could be the key to them finally being able to move on, or “be sucked off’ as Mary would say.

Putting it behind a cut as this is extremely long and rambly. Spoilers for pretty much every episode of Ghosts

First of all I was listening to Mat and Jim on the Empire Spoilers podcast and Mat said something really interesting about how he intended “you stays how you dies” to refer to the ghost’s mental and emotional state, as well as physical. So Thomas always being obsessed with seeking love is because he died broken-hearted and Fanny always being so grumpy is because she died angry at her husband. 

I believe, therefore, that if the ghosts were able to overcome each of their emotional blocks that would be the thing that would allow them to move on. Furthermore, each of the ghosts has another ghost that seems perfectly suited to be able to assist them in that.

Let’s go through them:

Thomas- Thomas died believing his love never loved him back and now is forced to spend eternity seeking for love as a ghost. If Thomas was able to find someone who could reciprocate his affections, this would the resolve that issue. In the Series 2 episode “About Last Night” when Alison drunkenly tells Thomas “if you were alive and I was 200 years older, then we might have…” we hear a choir start singing and Thomas is pulled, as if compelled, through the wall, similar to how Fanny is pulled forwards towards the window to jump when she “doesn’t even realise [she’s] doing it.” Thomas desperately craves love and affection from another person, but in life was constantly rejected by the people he loved most. You know who else that sounds like? Kitty.

Kitty- Like Thomas, she is from a wealthy family who sheltered her a lot growing up, but is ultimately good and tries to be honourable. Kitty also craves love and affection as well as companionship and she tries to seek it, first in Eleanor and then in Alison (because Alison reminds her of  Eleanor, like how Alison reminds Thomas of Isabelle). However it comes up again and again that Kitty’s relationship with Alison isn’t as fulfilling to her as she would like it be because her being a ghost prevents her from sharing every activity with Alison, and Alison cannot show her physical affection. Kitty is trying to recreate aspects of her relationship with Eleanor using Alison as a substitute but this isn’t very healthy for her, as it simply traps her in the constant state of seeking affection that will not or cannot be returned fully. We don’t know the exact circumstances of Kitty’s death but after Series 3, if seems likely that her sister was in some way involved. Maybe what is keeping Kitty trapped as a ghost is her need for approval and love that she never got in life? But by seeking it in people who remind her of Eleanor exclusively, she is further trapping herself.

If Kitty and Thomas could find love with each other, they could each fulfil the other’s need for reciprocated affection. They are both equally needy so this quality wouldn’t likely annoy the other. Kitty seems to genuinely enjoy high romance in earnest and in finding an outlet for her love in Thomas, she could finally move on from her sister. Thomas would also find someone to love him and could devote himself completely to someone who would actually return his love, instead of fruitlessly pursuing women who remind of Isabelle’s rejection. This could lead to the resolution of both character’s finally moving on from their deaths.

Next up, let’s look at The Captain-

The Captain’s central conflict is obviously his sexuality. I believe that the resolution to this conflict would be him finally accepting and coming to terms with being gay and feeling comfortable with that part of his  identity. Which ghost could best help him in this?

Fanny. 

Maybe not the answer you were thinking, but hear me out. The Captain already has a strong positive relationship with Fanny built on mutual respect. He is more likely to value her opinion as an equal that any of the other ghosts and he seems to align himself with her on most issues. Which makes his choice to go against Fanny and defend the same-sex wedding and its guests to her in “Perfect Day” really remarkable.

In “Perfect Day”, Fanny expresses some pretty disapproving remarks about the wedding guest’s attire and some homophobic opinions about the same-sex wedding in general, which prompts the Captain to defend one of the guests to Fanny. “It’s chic, it’s now, and if it makes her feel fabulous…”

Imagine a scene where The Captain has to defend himself towards Fanny in a similar manner after coming out, showing that he is finally accepting of his sexuality as being the right thing for him. 

Anyway, that was a slight digression…

Fanny is still struggling to deal with the circumstances of her own death which was brought about in part because she caught her husband having an affair with other men. Fanny needs to accept and come to terms with the fact that her husband didn’t love her and that while he was obviously wrong for murdering her, she needs to move on so she can stop reenacting it by jumping out the window every morning. Because she died feeling angry and betrayed, she is trapped in that state in death. Discovering that one of her closest friends is gay and realising that it is possible for someone to be both gay and a good person might prompt her to think differently about her own life, as she started do with Humphrey in Perfect Day. 

The Captain, in turn, could be driven by Fanny’s ability to accept his sexuality into thinking ‘if she can accept that part of me, then maybe I can too.’ Personally, out of all the ghosts, I think it could only be Fanny who could prompt him to think that because it would mean the most to him coming from her.

Humphrey- Humphrey died because he was trying to protect Sophie, who rejected any attempt to get to know him and who he believed didn’t even like him. In death he is trapped in a state of being a selfless self-sacrificing people-pleaser and desperately wanting to be included in the other ghost’s activities, even allowing himself be kicked and thrown around if it means he can just be involved. In ‘I Love Lucy’ he even attempts to make a relationship with Fanny work, showing he is willing to sacrifice his own happiness for the sake of others.

Julian, by contrast, is the most selfish of all the ghosts at Button House. Deep down he feels guilty that his selfishness negatively affected the relationship with his daughter but seems not to be consciously aware that he feels like this. Julian’s selfishness to not spend time with his family ultimately leads to his death in Button House, as he neglected his family to spend more time at work and was clearly cheating on his wife, showing he is driven by selfish impulses.

If Julian were to perform a completely selfless act to the benefit of Humphrey, then Humphrey would get to feel as though someone was putting him first for once and valuing him the way he seeks to be valued. Julian would also break the pattern of selfish behaviour that caused his downfall.

The rest are little less well-defined:

Pat is the probably the ghost that we know the most about, through seeing his death and actually meeting his family in “Happy Death Day”, to the numerous anecdotes he reveals about his life throughout the show. However, I can’t decide for sure what is the thing that is keeping him a ghost. Pat himself seemed to think it was that he was missing his family, but this was ultimately proved wrong after he saw them again in ‘Happy Death Day’. Even meeting the boy who killed him and forgiving him in ‘Perfect Day’ didn’t cause him to move on. It could be something to do with Carol’s affair with Maurice but I just don’t know for sure. I like the idea of him fitting in with the plague ghosts. I think his personalty and leadership style would get along better with them than say, The Captain, who is too authoritarian. I also think Pat is someone who thrives in a group setting.

Robin and Mary are also tricky to work out what the thing keeping them as ghosts is because we know so little about their lives and deaths compared to the other characters. I think these are the only two ghosts who have not yet received a flashback to their lives. We know that Mary was in some way involved a witch-trail and this has traumatised her. Robin also has experienced a lot of trauma in his life but he seems to be more philosophical about it and accepting of it. He shows great empathy towards others both in trying to comfort Pat about his death in “Happy Death Day’ and Kitty in “About Last Night’, he could use his experience of trauma to help Mary deal with hers. They both seem to be looked down upon and ‘othered’ by the other ghosts due to their perceived lack of intelligence even though they are both very emotionally and socially intelligent.

If anyone has any thoughts about these last two pairings or any of the others, then please reblog and add your take!

I am not in any way saying that I think this is what will happen in the next series or what even I think should happen, but that this is one possibilities for much further down the road when the ghost are all ready to move on.

Also I have spent way too much time thinking about this…

[kendrixtermina]

Simple Tritype Finding Redux

So remember how a while ago I made that post about how to find your tritype, which was somewhat popular, but also kind of rambly and theoretical? 

Apparently the peeps at the Big Hormone Podcast had an episode which did sort  of the same thing of looking at the “setting” of each individual center, but they expressed it much more concisely & punchy & much more useful

So, for those who don’t have time to listen to 2 hour of pod-cast (which honestly, includes me too, I should be doing something else rn), here’s a summary: 

Heart Center

2 fix

basically more warm compared to other ppl with the same core type 

casually touchy-feely, way more likely to hug, put their arms on you etc. (this can be very obvious in cultures where that’s less usual - ie, easier to spot on a North American man than a French woman)

4 fix

more guarded compared to others of same core type

stresses their tastes & preferences (ie, rant about music they really don’t like)

suspicious of hype & overly popular things - some tedecy to be the contrarian voice in a conversation

3 fix

especially if it’s the 2nd fix this can show as being more positive and/or better at self-motivating and a tendency to follow trends or fads

but it’s just as likely to show as just less obvious emotional coloration, or just adaptiveness/ social perceptiveness, or even ‘icyness’ - so you’ll often arrive at this by principle of exclusion.

2 Methods/ ‘cheats’ you can use here: 

Typing someone else: 

Apparently useful question here is to look at how people introduce themselves, cause the heart fixes represent different parts of identity & it’s all about what someone stresses. For example, the people who will open with something relationship-related (”Hi I’m soandso, I’m a parent”, “I’m a wife”) are probably 2-fixes. If they start out mentioning their job or some kind of accomplishment (”I’m a doctor”, ”I climbed X mountain recently”) they probably have a 3 fix. Whereas a person with 4 fix will not reference anything external but mention their tastes, interests and sentiments. (eg, “Hi, I’m Soandso, I like reading, writing & nerd stuff”, “I live on a farm where I keep peacocks.”)

Typing yourself: 

Think of this as a ‘should’ that you feel. A person with a fix doesn’t run around all day helping people (especially if their core type is something very different), but they might feel that they should be a source of help. Someone with a 4 fix might feel they ‘should’ be suspicious of anything that’s too hyped and popular, while someone with a 3 fix might kick themselves for not mentioning some archievement to their friends when this might have impressed them. 

Head Center

Basically, just look at what they do when they don’t know something. Like, imagine for example that your little sister has a question and you don’t already know the answer. Do you immediately ask someone, google it or point her to a trusted source? Six. Do you first speculate based on your preexisting knowledge & maybe then google it if you’re not confident? Five. Do you list multiple ideas for what the answer might be or where to find the info? Seven. 

6 fix

Checks external sources first, thinks second, may then corroborate the conclusion before accepting it

try not just to get the answer, but a sense of who thinks what. May warn you against other PoVs - this can lead to bringing morals/ politics into it even when it seems out of place. 

Other people need to learn to look at sources and ‘cui bono’ questions at some point, six fix ppl often do this immediately & pay attention to sources from the first. 

At best you get 15 year olds with scarily excellent bullshit detectors, at worst, middle aged ppl whose opinions are entirely copypasted. 

5 fix

Reverse of 6: Always speculates first based on whatever knowledge they already have, and checks sources second, if at all. Internal resources dominate.  (eg if the question is about tigers, they might say ”It’s like this in cats, so it might be similar. It fits with how Tigers live in jungles, too”)

Might just make a theory & throw it out there to see what happens

Might bring up a dark/macabre/disturbing topic without realizing. (6: “Are you defending cocaine addicts?” 7: ””Please don’t talk about murder on the table, we’re eating!”)

Tend to look for a point of distinction or underlying principle

7 fix

List multiple ideas or facts rapidfire 

while the other two sit down to launch into a treatise, the 7 either keeps the engagement level high by focussing on the more exciting parts, or just moves on. 

Cares less about cohesion, hanging on to a point or arriving  at a final conclusion so there can be a ‘kaleidoscopic’, multi-perspective  quality to the answer

Similar to how the 6 might think about the moral implications, the 7 thinks about the entertainment value & novelty . In the example with the little sister, the 7 fix person would say stuff that the child will find exciting. 

Body Center

This where it might be useful to listen to the podcast yourself cause they talked a lot about body language cues that would be much more apparent if you were a core body type or at least a sensor in the mbti. I have no sense of this so I can only relate the parts that I understood

8 fix

gives whatever the core type is a bolder, more unapologetic vibe

tend to “just do stuff” & more confortable doing it without mapping out all the consequences. Think the one person who says which restaurant to go to when no one wants to make a decision or gets bogged down on discussing pros and cons

More likely to get physical. If you’re a withdrawn type & it’s your last fix you might not actually throw down, but you might feel like you want/should if you could get away with it. Or you might just curse like a sailor.

9 fix

generally softer compared to others with same core type. They might be the most assertive & energetic 7w8 or 3w4, but still want to hear the other sides’ point. 

have an accepting, nonjudgy vibe

listens/connects more, much more able to be convinced

1 fix

sharper, precise, discerning vibe - feel satisfaction or repulsion in their body as ‘alignment’ or lack thereof

speaks a bit like a teacher or art critic with the intention to improve things

persistent, especially about complaints. Might bring up the thing that bothers them over & over again; may come off picky

I also warmly recomend the tritype roast podcast. 

I did indeed get roasted, and so can you~

[dylanaz]

Zuko's alter ego(Blue Spirit)

Zuko in the first episode is not smooth. But Blue Spirit is. And there's no way he's learnt that much in a few days. He must've known how to fight for a long time.

When I think Zuko is Blue Spirit, there comes many problems surrounding it, because I see Blue Spirit as perfect. But not Zuko.

It makes me think that there are two separate people, because they give off totally different vibes. It comes prominent when I'm writing, because I tend to make Zuko perfect when in fact, Zuko isn't the one I'm writing. It's the Blue Spirit that I'm usually writing about. Maybe I don't understand him. But why is Blue Spirit so... perfect?

I looked up the definition of "alter ego" to get a better grasp of it.

What is alter ego?

Alter ego is a second self or different version of oneself. Such as:

a. Trusted friend

b. The opposite side of a personality

Let's talk about his opposite personality first.

Zuko's an INFP. INFP's are introverted, honest, empathetic, intuitive, generous, open-minded, true to one's beliefs, creative, passionate idealistics.

INFP's are controlled by introverted feeling, extroverted intuition, introverted sensing and extroverted thinking functions.

The other type that has opposite functions is ENFJ. (Which is shadow function/alter ego of INFP)

When you think about yourself and compose a mental image of who you are and what you stand for that usually is your "ego".

When your ego feels threatened, when someone makes a judgment about you that doesn't align with who you believe you are, when you start questioning your own identity, then your shadow can become more apparent and lash out. You also tend to use your shadow when you make inaccurate projections about others.

I hope you're seeing the image, because there are many thoughts coming into my mind all at once and it's making me feel overwhelmed.

"No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are."

"You can't sacrifice an entire division like that! Those soldiers love and defend our nation! How can you betray them?"

"Please, Father. I only had the Fire Nation's best interest at heart. I'm sorry I spoke out of turn!"

"You will learn respect and suffering will be your teacher"

"Azula always lies"

"For so long I thought that if my dad accepted me, I'd be happy. I'm back home now, my dad talks to me. Ha! He even thinks I'm a hero. Everything should be perfect, right? I should be happy now, but I'm not. I'm angrier than ever and I don't know why"

"Because I'm confused. Because I'm not sure I know the difference between right and wrong anymore."

"Then you learned nothing"

"When your ego feels threatened, when someone makes a judgment about you that doesn't align with who you think you are,"

"when you start questioning your own identity, then your shadow can become more apparent and lash out."

At this point, Zuko isn't himself. He is ruled by his shadow functions. Very unhealthy version of himself.

.

Conclusion: When INFPs use their shadow function, they become people pleasers and forget their own values, worth and they're easy to manipulate at that stage. Self-critical, reckless and passive aggressive. Mostly hopeless.

I don't think he used all of these functions wrong, but I am sure he used enough to be that unhealthy.

Then, how does it connect with Blue Spirit?

If we assume that Book 1 Zuko is an unhealthy INFP, (which he is) then doesn't that make his 'alter ego' more like his true self or someone he wants to be like? I mean, ego is literally the image of how you see yourself. 👀

.

On the other hand, if his alter ego is his "trusted friend", who would that be? His mom? Lu Ten? Blue Spirit from Love amongst dragons? (It's literally Blue Spirit mask he's wearing, but does he feel that much attachments to that character?) Piandao?

[tazwren]

My two cents on the devolution of fandom spaces...

As a former mod of a fandom space and a woman of colour, I do not feel safe.

Seeing what has been done to so many in this fandom, by a particular group of white American women, in the name of moral policing is both abhorrent and demoralising. As it also is to repeatedly see the same narrative being shoved at everyone as the gospel truth.

A narrative that very conveniently either becomes about fic or has nothing to do with fic, depending on how people want to swing things. A narrative that will accuse a person of Jewish heritage of anti-Semitism, a person of colour of racism, a practising Muslim of being an Islamaphobe. A narrative that will define for you and me and all of us comprising this myriad of multitudes in the world what generational or personal trauma includes and what induces the same.

Those of you who know me, know what I’ve been dealing with the past few days & why I haven’t spoken up before now. Before I logged out a couple days ago, I saw what looked like more of the usual nonsense by the same group of people I’ve kept my distance from once their true colours were revealed. What I didn’t expect is that they would think themselves so above the norms of human decency and accountability that they would go after not one but two women of colour this time around in their rabidity. And many others who spoke up, as it turns out.

It hurts to see what these women, that I know of, have had to endure and to see the passivity of the community, save for a few voices, in sitting back and letting the circus rampage through town. It hurt when I was at the receiving end of it and it hurts now.

Why? Because it shows me a microcosm of the world that I don’t really relate to, that makes no sense to me with the values I was brought up with, and which reduces basic human decency to a commodity to be trampled upon and for you to be seen as weak for having. Because people who willingly laud you for your art / writing / wit, meet you with effusive claims of love and affection and friendship, who have no qualms in taking your help when it suits them, will throw you under the bus and let the wolves ravage you when it doesn't.

Before I get into that, let me talk a little bit about what has transpired over the past few days to a week, and what has been systemically taking place over perhaps the past year in this fandom.

One thing is that everyone who makes a statement about anything suddenly has people in their mentions demanding they show what gives them the right to hold that particular opinion. A critical thing people forget about fandom is that it is a place where people hide their identity for a variety of reasons, all valid, and this approach to fiction and conversations where everyone has to reveal every part of their past and identity as a means of establishing their "credentials" in order to present their views comes in direct contradiction with how fandoms operate. It violates people's rights to privacy.

The other is that there has been an increase in the voices that purportedly stand up to “speak for” the marginalised, the abused, those discriminated against and those who belong to minorities who “need to be protected / kept safe”. An admirable sentiment, to be sure. If it weren’t for the fact that none of these groups of people needed saving, speaking for or the protection of this particular group of voices.

Voices who only want to define and use these people as "model victims" to hurt other white women and establish their supremacy over both them and other POC. Voices that will present their "truth" as they see fit and sans context or present you with screenshots of snippets of conversations held in supposedly secure spaces that they have no qualms in violating in the interest of the "greater good" and claim offense / silencing if the misdemeanour is pointed out or action is taken against them, Voices that will conveniently categorize you as a "token POC" or "white adjacent" when you do not support or align with their narrative. Voices that belong to a predominantly white American group of women, whose real agenda, as is evidenced by their modus operandi, has nothing to do with real altruism or a drive for justice or indeed to right wrongs.

No, their agenda is purely power.

To hold sway over groups of followers, to shepherd them as though they are sheep who cannot think for themselves, and to set themselves up as white saviours who call out those who step out of line, or are deemed to be problematic and toxic and unsafe. To be the owners of the only "safe spaces" in fandom and to drive other groups and spaces to be boycotted or worse.

Now, I've long wondered, who indeed are these women to decide that for anyone? In a world comprising multiple cultures, religions, groups, subgroups, genders and which contains multitudes, who are these women and what gives them the right to foist their puritanical standards on everyone, very conveniently disguised as concern for the moral well being of everyone and the consumption, of all things, of fiction?

Certainly, there are many things in this world that people regard with justifiably equal dislike / horror / sadness. At the same time, there is much that is not shared, that is particular to a culture and to a person’s background. There is a multitude of perspectives that make the whole. And the white women of the United States of America have not cornered the market on what those are, or indeed even own any curatorship or censorship of the same. They cannot, because each person’s culture and background and joy and trauma is their own, as are their ways of dealing with it all.

That being said, let’s talk about their pack behaviour and the devolution I’ve witnessed on social media as basic human decency is bartered for clout.

I’m all for standing up for someone who doesn’t have a voice or a platform, or maybe afraid of repercussions to voice dissent. I’m all for being there for our fellow human beings as they face struggles of often unconscionable and unfathomable proportions. I’m all for holding people accountable for their negative behaviours as they impact the larger community.

What I am unequivocally NOT for is treating such situations as an opportunity to preach, to virtue-signal, to shame and to put on blast the alleged wrong-doers. I say alleged because that’s what most accusations are on these platforms—allegations to do with things that disturb our sense of balance or make us wrinkle our noses or that we deem bad, and therefore make the accused deserving of the full force of the community’s misbehaviour and censure.

I ask you if you were found guilty of a crime in real life—you know, the one away from your phones and keyboards—would you not have an opportunity to retain a lawyer, to plead your case in a court of law, to acquit yourself? Or, if found guilty, would you not have the opportunity for correction and rehabilitation? Yes, you say? (If you say no, then that explains the spate of state-perpetuated injustices across the USA, but that is a different matter).

Why then are people treated so abhorrently in this court of public opinion? What gives you, me, any one of us the right to judge people so vilely and with a metaphorical gun to their heads? What gives anyone the right to say you better agree with everything I say, retract everything you said and grovel for it or we will eviscerate you in public, shame you, force you to change or delete the content that offends us and still ostracise you and in some cases even threaten you with bodily harm or death, or doxx you?

Why is there no grace in how people are approached or dealt with? Whatever happened to allowing people to learn from their mistakes, where applicable, or hearing them out and giving them a chance to explain their side of something we may not fully understand?

Why is there no accountability for such behaviour on the part of the accusers?

What makes the rest of you sit back and allow this to happen? What makes you think this is in any shape or form okay to watch? Today, it is a virtual stranger at the receiving end, one you can distance yourself from quite conveniently saying Oh, she just mods a group I am in, or I only read their fics a couple times or I only followed them for their art or jokes or whatever flavour of excuse you choose. Tomorrow, it will be one of your own - or it may very well be you. And you'd better hope there's someone left to speak up for you.

The irony is you will have allowed it to happen by letting the wolf in the fold. By letting these white women manipulate you, and the community you claim to be a part of, so unapologetically, so maliciously and so unashamedly that before you can do anything about it the cancer has taken hold.

If this was happening in the world outside of social media, they would have to follow due process, to present real evidence based on facts (not based on emotions, rumours or perceptions) and would have to allow the person they are accusing to present a counter-argument, to defend themselves or be defended. Failure to do so is a miscarriage of justice and, depending on whether this is a professional or legal proceeding, they would either seriously risk their jobs or have the case thrown out of court. If not face action themselves for attempting to derail the process of justice.

Why then are they permitted to range so freely through the landscape of fandom, snarling and biting at who they please, or who displeases them?

I have no shame in saying I was at the receiving end of their behaviour for defending a friend they put on blast and I will tell you right here and now, I am a woman of colour who feels unsafe and attacked by these so-called self-appointed white saviours of your social media experience, these so-called upholders of the common morality—whatever that means—who will fight for you the evils of problematic and toxic writers who dare to have an opinion not aligned with theirs and who do not bow to their clout. Not that they care, so long as they can ignore this fact since it doesn’t fit their narrative. So long as they can ignore what has just been done to so many people in the name of cleansing the fandom.

If any one of these women were truly interested in alleviating the troubles and pains of the discriminated, the marginalized, the trauma-affected, I invite them to please come roll their sleeves up and help in the multitudes of troubles that wrack this world, not just in the backyards of their minds. My country is amidst a struggle for the basics of human life in this horrific pandemic and, prior to that, for basic constitutional rights for religious minorities. Do not patronize me and lecture me on trauma and racism and discrimination. Do not marginalise me in your attempt to pontificate and set your pearl-clutching puritanical selves above the rest, or assuage your white guilt.

A largely American audience or fanbase in this fandom is purely a function of access and interest—other cultures have vast followings for things you couldn't begin to fathom—and it doesn't mean you are entitled in any shape or form to be spokespeople for the rest of the world. We have no interest in being colonized again by white oppressors.

If you disagree with what I have said, I congratulate you on being a part of their coterie and wish you much joy in being the sheep in their fold. Kindly unfollow or block me on the way off of this post.

[flightofaqrow]

YOUR CHARACTER IN FIVE QUOTES!

( repost, do not reblog. ) Tell us your favorite quotes from your character. Give us an idea of who they are by five things they’ve said.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Alright, buckle up, I’m stealing this meme and repurposing it for my own use. Probably more than five, and including some quotes from others about him, though I’m going to try to keep it in groupings, and also not meant to be exhaustive of qrow’s character, but rather, to point out some very poignant lines that have effected my portrayal and... some possibly in an unpopular way compared to what I’ve seen in the fandom? I think Qrow Branwen is more complex than fitting the broody broken boi trope would give credit for (though he at least fits it as an overall stereotype).

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1) I’m absolutely sure Qrow had a rough start and transition from the tribe to ‘civilized society’, coupled with typical teenage hormones and mood swings, but generally, Beacon was a good time, and he sees himself as a good huntsman, and (though we may joke about it sometimes) he absolutely does not have an active nor passive death wish.

Yeah, yeah, I know he has a song all about how he self depreciates and carries shame, but that’s a theme of his attitude, not backed up to be every single aspect of his life by actual canon. Quite the contrary. 

I don’t know where fndm gets the idea that he constantly lost his battles (especially to Raven) or was perpetually looked down on or stayed an angsty, broody teenager (who could never possibly have ever even breathed a single happy breath on his own without Summer??) all four years. As if school was hell and he never came into his own until STRQ was a graduated unit or something? If ever?

Leo tells Raven she and her brother are evenly matched. Raven herself - who takes pride in being stronger and more clever than others - describes them as a pair: “we were good.”

“you're talking to a member of the coolest team that graduated Beacon! ...we were pretty well known back in the day. ...hey, we looked good! and I have a number of inappropriate stories to back that up!”

“let me tell ya, these kids are way better than we were at their age. ...well, not better than me, specifically...”

“a professional huntsman like myself is expected to get results as soon as possible.”

The way Qrow talks about his past, as well as carrying a memento of team STRQ around with him, it’s very nostalgic for better times. The way he talks about his work, if not himself, can actually be to the point of being self-aggrandizing, instead of depreciating. He’s even able to admit that his dreaded semblance, Misfortune, “comes in handy in a fight.”

“lots of us thought you were just layin' low. eventually, we just came to accept that you were probably dead. but the stories about you, i based my weapon off of yours. i wanted to be as good as the Grimm Reaper.”

Qrow talks about himself as striving to be better. It seems he never really sees himself as reaching that standard, but it certainly implies he knows he’s not at the bottom - he had an ideal he wanted to reach and likely worked towards. Notice the use of “us” and “we” as well - he talks about himself as part of a group of larger huntsfolk circles. Who knows if this refers to students or licensed professionals or both, but this heavily, heavily implies that he was more than just a sad, outside loner, at least for a time; he chatted with others and traded stories about goings-on and missions and idols.

Somewhat related and leading into...

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2)  At least around this blog, Qrow does not have an inferiority complex because of Raven.

Does he have some internalized shame about being soft that he can’t quite shake? A few insecurities about being unwanted compared to her natural leadership and competence? Yes. Does he consciously view himself as lesser than her? No. 

Also... he’s not co-dependent on her. To a degree, for while? Yeah, there was probably an unhealthy reliance going on there. But Qrow and Raven establish themselves with their own identities at some point, they’d have to, to chose different paths so stubbornly. There’s a rift there, eventually, if not always having been at odds in some ways and comfort in others.

“Raven's got an interesting way of looking at the world that I don't particularly agree with. [The weak die, the strong live. Those are the rules.]”

“...they were killers and thieves.”

We are shown that the twins were raised with this weak/strong dichotomy. Raven bought into it, but Qrow explicitly separates himself from that belief. Shown again when he mocks Raven with, “because that was your rule, right?”

He believes in true family, he believes in protecting the weak, he believes in doing good, he believes in standing up for what’s right. He may not like being emotionally vulnerable, but he shows softness and kindness to others, and for as much as he likes his flourish when fighting, he also isn’t afraid to look an absolute fool either.

He is shown de-escalating conflict time and again, even if he also falls back into violent, defensive patterns at times, too. He resents Raven for the choices she made, and as far as I interpret, thinks she’s the lesser one for running away and abandoning her family and her mission. (Meanwhile, she thinks the same of him for turning his back on the tribe.)

He all but spits on the tribe’s way of life, is willing to attack them outright to get the Spring Maiden. Why would he judge himself by those standards any longer? No, he lives by his own code, a huntsman’s code, and even has some pride in that. It’s why he can call Clover out on it. It’s why he folds when Robyn holds him to it.

It’s why it hurts when he finds out what gave him more meaning, aligned more with his own heart, than the tribe’s dogma may not actually have any purpose at all...

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

3) There’s so much to unpack here:

“No one wanted me... I was cursed... I gave my life to you because you gave me a place in this world... I thought I was finally doing some good... Meeting you... was the worst luck of my life...”

No one wanted him? I believe this means the tribe, maybe even Raven, maybe trying to make friends, but no one until Oz? Does this include STRQ? I have trouble reconciling that one with everything else we’re shown. I still maintain he was part of bigger circles, but we get confirmation that these were probably fleeting or superficial. He knew people and was known, but no one stuck around.  Also more confirmation of his values. Gave me a place sounds like so much more than refocusing to me. It’s not gave me a direction, not told me what to do, it’s took who i am and gave that person a place to thrive - despite the bad that comes with - to work towards something better. Just like he always wanted.

But then he backtracks. What is it he regrets?  We do know how he likes to go into dramatic hyperbole about these things when he’s upset. [eg. “we’re not family anymore.” “i shouldn’t have come. i shouldn’t have let any of you come.” “we can kill the man who put us here.” “gone. like everybody else.”] (I love that crwby lets their characters do it. we all say things we don’t mean in the moment, give voice to those intrusive thoughts.)

I’ve talked before about how I picture him having flashes of all the lives he could have had instead. Would he have gone back with Raven and at least still had her? Would he just have been a normal huntsman defending people from Grimm without the crushing extra knowledge? Might he have been able to have a relationship or family of his own had he not signed up for the vagabond spy life? Does he just resent losing Summer and Raven because of how things went down? We don’t know, and I think the point is that he probably doesn’t either, but the weight of sacrificing all those alternatives and putting so much faith in Ozpin, stacking so much of his life’s work and identity on being part of the inner circle, comes crashing down on him all at once. 

also quite fitting...

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

4) "Nice place to raise a family. ...If you're ...into that sort of thing."

This is from his World of Remnant narration, talking about Patch, but it hits so damn hard. The softness and warmth in the first half of the statement, followed by the harsh need to qualify it in regards to his own outlook... We learn all we need to know about his opinion of the subject. 

We see the conflict right there - the possibility of such a thing brings a wholesome lilt to his voice, yet he implies that it’s not something he personally intends to pursue. Is that because he doesn’t want it or because he thinks he can’t or shouldn’t have it? I don’t think that’s clear, and he may not know either. 

At the very least, I fall into the camp of him believing he doesn’t want it. Combine that with the fact that he does pick up that spy life, which makes keeping his distance a necessity, and makes settling down near impossible, and then he definitely knows it’s not in the cards for him. 

So I think it ultimately falls somewhere between. Why would he make the commitment to being a lone spy if he had dreams of love and a family? ...But then why would he resent making the sacrifice of that possibility later if he didn’t? 

Having his nieces around probably softened him up to the idea, but he’d already made his decision by that point. He’s also solid and generally happy with his choices at the point it would most matter. He’s married to his job. He’s fulfilling his missions well, in well-suited ways for his strengths and flaws. He has his nieces around as a balm on any sort of biological clock. He has his purpose with Oz.  Until he doesn’t.

This is an incredibly long-winded way of restating that one of the headcanon hills I do stand to die on is: Gray-romantic Qrow.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

5) “some people are just born unlucky... my semblance isn't like most - it's not exactly something i... do.”

I am constantly confused by the amount of people trying to do character analysis around Misfortune and Qrow based on standard semblance lore, when he has yet again stated explicitly to the contrary. We all have carte blanche ya’ll. We can do whatever we want with this, because he’s already told us his semblance breaks the rules. 

My full headcanon for it is here and my opinion about the direction I hope it takes is here but tl;dr

Unless we learn otherwise, there are very, very few ways I believe Misfortune is a reflection of Qrow’s soul, if at all. This is from the first headcanon, but it’s worth restating, because it’s important to me, aaand fits the theme of pulling in some quotes from other characters:

Everyone likes to quote Ren and his description of someone’s personality being incorporated into a semblance. I don’t buy it for qrow. Here’s the FULL quote: “A common philosophy is that a warrior’s Semblance is a part of who they are. Some say your personality and character can define your Semblance while some claim that it is the other way around. Of course, there are still many who don’t see a connection at all.”

So unless we find out otherwise I will also die on the hill that qrow is an example of the middle part. Qrow’s personality/soul has nothing to do with why his semblance is what it is, but being forced to grow up and live with Misfortune has defined him tremendously.

OKAY, there are some smaller quick ones, but I’ll stick to my five points like I promised at least, and maybe do a lesser version some other time. :]

[studyingdisorderlyconduct]

Hello, I am going to graduate soon from a career that I am not passionate about and little "academic", design. I love the academy but I feel a bit out of place as everything seems to be centered around college / high school students. What do you think about this? How does someone with a job or career far removed from this aesthetic and passionate about knowledge get into all this? I feel like it's late for me (25 years old lol)

I'm going to assume by "this aesthetic," you're referring to Chaotic Academia (bc that's what this blog is dedicated to) and I'm also going to be arrogant and quote myself:

"Chaotic Academia, at its core, celebrates the academic who maintains a prolonged passion for the pursuit and fair distribution of knowledge....A Chaotic Academic forges their own path, achieving great things without sucking up to authority or conforming to the standards of modern academia that demand and celebrate the sacrifice of one’s mental/emotional/physical health for the sake of productivity... Perhaps considered too idealistic, a Chaotic Academic remains principled and ethical against institutions that demand compliance and passivity...They reject dogma; they instead, celebrate the ambiguous and amorphous nature of knowledge. The Chaotic Academic absolutely refuses to become jaded or cynical, maintaining a boundless, almost childlike, enthusiasm for their field of study and wonder at the world around them... A Chaotic Academic finds value in all facets of knowledge and constantly seeks to expand their mind, not to prove superiority, but simply for the joy of learning." x

This blog is a No Gatekeeping Zone. And besides there also isn’t much to gatekeep anyway since chaotic academia is a ‘newer’ aesthetic and not well established. But you’ll notice that in my interpretation of chaotic academia, there are no age limits nor occupational requirements.

Now, being an aesthetic surrounding ‘academia’, it’s not surprising that most of the people involved in this aesthetic are students. They are, after all, the population most involved in academia related activities. But I consider ‘a student’ anyone who is learning something, anything. You say you’re about to graduate but that won’t stop your passion for learning. Graduating therefore doesn’t mean you stop being a student.

You’ll notice that a lot of teenagers and young adults flock to these tumblr aesthetics. They romanticize these lifestyles and behaviors and ideals. But a passion for knowledge isn’t really an aesthetic, it’s just a good character trait to have. But for young people in the throes of figuring out who they are, labeling themselves as a Dark Academic or Chaotic Academic (or whatever aesthetic) helps to give them language to describe their identity, as well as inclusion and acceptance among a community of like-minded individuals. And sometimes they’ll staunchly defend this ‘identity’ from outsiders in an us vs them kind of fashion. Don’t be intimidated by these people.

The internet is a place where you curate your own experience, so if your age (which isn’t old btw) is something that makes you insecure in this community, seek out (or create) spaces where you do feel included. There are, for example, discord servers based on tumblr aesthetics where you must be 17/18+ to join.

You say that a career in design isn’t something you’re passionate about. That’s understandable; as much as we want that ideal career that makes us money and is something we’re passionate about, sometimes that just isn’t possible. But you have a passion for knowledge, so learn something new on the side. And join communities that share your passion for whatever is you enjoy learning about.

Your desire to be involved in this aesthetic is all you need. All it takes is an interest, to say “I wear these clothes and read these books and hold these beliefs because they align with this aesthetic which I like and am interested in embodying.” - that’s all it is.

[pamphletstoinspire]

Archbishop Vigano’s  Warns Trump About ‘Great Reset’ Plot

Open Letter To The President Of The United States

DONALD J. TRUMP

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Solemnity of Christ the King

Mr. President,

Allow me to address you at this hour in which the fate of the whole world is being threatened by a global conspiracy against God and humanity. I write to you as an Archbishop, as a Successor of the Apostles, as the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America. I am writing to you in the midst of the silence of both civil and religious authorities. May you accept these words of mine as the “voice of one crying out in the desert” (Jn 1:23).

As I said when I wrote my letter to you in June, this historical moment sees the forces of Evil aligned in a battle without quarter against the forces of Good; forces of Evil that appear powerful and organized as they oppose the children of Light, who are disoriented and disorganized, abandoned by their temporal and spiritual leaders.

Daily we sense the attacks multiplying of those who want to destroy the very basis of society: the natural family, respect for human life, love of country, freedom of education and business. We see heads of nations and religious leaders pandering to this suicide of Western culture and its Christian soul, while the fundamental rights of citizens and believers are denied in the name of a health emergency that is revealing itself more and more fully as instrumental to the establishment of an inhuman faceless tyranny.

A global plan called the Great Reset is underway. Its architect is a global élite that wants to subdue all of humanity, imposing coercive measures with which to drastically limit individual freedoms and those of entire populations. In several nations this plan has already been approved and financed; in others it is still in an early stage. Behind the world leaders who are the accomplices and executors of this infernal project, there are unscrupulous characters who finance the World Economic Forum and Event 201, promoting their agenda.

The purpose of the Great Reset is the imposition of a health dictatorship aiming at the imposition of liberticidal measures, hidden behind tempting promises of ensuring a universal income and cancelling individual debt. The price of these concessions from the International Monetary Fund will be the renunciation of private property and adherence to a program of vaccination against Covid-19 and Covid-21 promoted by Bill Gates with the collaboration of the main pharmaceutical groups. Beyond the enormous economic interests that motivate the promoters of the Great Reset, the imposition of the vaccination will be accompanied by the requirement of a health passport and a digital ID, with the consequent contact tracing of the population of the entire world. Those who do not accept these measures will be confined in detention camps or placed under house arrest, and all their assets will be confiscated.

Mr. President, I imagine that you are already aware that in some countries the Great Reset will be activated between the end of this year and the first trimester of 2021. For this purpose, further lockdowns are planned, which will be officially justified by a supposed second and third wave of the pandemic. You are well aware of the means that have been deployed to sow panic and legitimize draconian limitations on individual liberties, artfully provoking a world-wide economic crisis. In the intentions of its architects, this crisis will serve to make the recourse of nations to the Great Reset irreversible, thereby giving the final blow to a world whose existence and very memory they want to completely cancel. But this world, Mr. President, includes people, affections, institutions, faith, culture, traditions, and ideals: people and values that do not act like automatons, who do not obey like machines, because they are endowed with a soul and a heart, because they are tied together by a spiritual bond that draws its strength from above, from that God that our adversaries want to challenge, just as Lucifer did at the beginning of time with his “non serviam.”

Many people – as we well know – are annoyed by this reference to the clash between Good and Evil and the use of “apocalyptic” overtones, which according to them exasperates spirits and sharpens divisions. It is not surprising that the enemy is angered at being discovered just when he believes he has reached the citadel he seeks to conquer undisturbed. What is surprising, however, is that there is no one to sound the alarm. The reaction of the deep state to those who denounce its plan is broken and incoherent, but understandable. Just when the complicity of the mainstream media had succeeded in making the transition to the New World Order almost painless and unnoticed, all sorts of deceptions, scandals and crimes are coming to light.

Until a few months ago, it was easy to smear as “conspiracy theorists” those who denounced these terrible plans, which we now see being carried out down to the smallest detail. No one, up until last February, would ever have thought that, in all of our cities, citizens would be arrested simply for wanting to walk down the street, to breathe, to want to keep their business open, to want to go to church on Sunday. Yet now it is happening all over the world, even in picture-postcard Italy that many Americans consider to be a small enchanted country, with its ancient monuments, its churches, its charming cities, its characteristic villages. And while the politicians are barricaded inside their palaces promulgating decrees like Persian satraps, businesses are failing, shops are closing, and people are prevented from living, traveling, working, and praying. The disastrous psychological consequences of this operation are already being seen, beginning with the suicides of desperate entrepreneurs and of our children, segregated from friends and classmates, told to follow their classes while sitting at home alone in front of a computer.

In Sacred Scripture, Saint Paul speaks to us of “the one who opposes” the manifestation of the mystery of iniquity, the kathèkon (2 Thess 2:6-7). In the religious sphere, this obstacle to evil is the Church, and in particular the papacy; in the political sphere, it is those who impede the establishment of the New World Order.

As is now clear, the one who occupies the Chair of Peter has betrayed his role from the very beginning in order to defend and promote the globalist ideology, supporting the agenda of the deep church, who chose him from its ranks.

Mr. President, you have clearly stated that you want to defend the nation – One Nation under God, fundamental liberties, and non-negotiable values that are denied and fought against today. It is you, dear President, who are “the one who opposes” the deep state, the final assault of the children of darkness.

For this reason, it is necessary that all people of good will be persuaded of the epochal importance of the imminent election: not so much for the sake of this or that political program, but because of the general inspiration of your action that best embodies – in this particular historical context – that world, our world, which they want to cancel by means of the lockdown. Your adversary is also our adversary: it is the Enemy of the human race, He who is “a murderer from the beginning” (Jn 8:44).

Around you are gathered with faith and courage those who consider you the final garrison against the world dictatorship. The alternative is to vote for a person who is manipulated by the deep state, gravely compromised by scandals and corruption, who will do to the United States what Jorge Mario Bergoglio is doing to the Church, Prime Minister Conte to Italy, President Macron to France, Prime Minster Sanchez to Spain, and so on. The blackmailable nature of Joe Biden – just like that of the prelates of the Vatican’s “magic circle” – will expose him to be used unscrupulously, allowing illegitimate powers to interfere in both domestic politics as well as international balances. It is obvious that those who manipulate him already have someone worse than him ready, with whom they will replace him as soon as the opportunity arises.

And yet, in the midst of this bleak picture, this apparently unstoppable advance of the “Invisible Enemy,” an element of hope emerges. The adversary does not know how to love, and it does not understand that it is not enough to assure a universal income or to cancel mortgages in order to subjugate the masses and convince them to be branded like cattle. This people, which for too long has endured the abuses of a hateful and tyrannical power, is rediscovering that it has a soul; it is understanding that it is not willing to exchange its freedom for the homogenization and cancellation of its identity; it is beginning to understand the value of familial and social ties, of the bonds of faith and culture that unite honest people. This Great Reset is destined to fail because those who planned it do not understand that there are still people ready to take to the streets to defend their rights, to protect their loved ones, to give a future to their children and grandchildren. The leveling inhumanity of the globalist project will shatter miserably in the face of the firm and courageous opposition of the children of Light. The enemy has Satan on its side, He who only knows how to hate. But on our side, we have the Lord Almighty, the God of armies arrayed for battle, and the Most Holy Virgin, who will crush the head of the ancient Serpent. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31).

Mr. President, you are well aware that, in this crucial hour, the United States of America is considered the defending wall against which the war declared by the advocates of globalism has been unleashed. Place your trust in the Lord, strengthened by the words of the Apostle Paul: “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). To be an instrument of Divine Providence is a great responsibility, for which you will certainly receive all the graces of state that you need, since they are being fervently implored for you by the many people who support you with their prayers.

With this heavenly hope and the assurance of my prayer for you, for the First Lady, and for your collaborators, with all my heart I send you my blessing.

God bless the United States of America!

+ Carlo Maria Viganò

Tit. Archbishop of Ulpiana

Former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America

[tanadrin]

So all the terrible retcons and geographic inconsistency (Kul Tiras wtf) and the time travel and the bullshit with the night elves is bad (Illidan is the worst character ever, don't @ me), but the most frustrating part of WoW lore to me is its failure to explore certain complex emotional themes in a really satisfying way--like, the people who expound and expand on Warcraft lore are canny enough to notice that these emotional themes *exist*, but not clever enough to actually work with them or build them out, and so the whole thing collapses into rule-of-cool melodrama. There's nothing wrong with rule-of-cool melodrama; I love rule-of-cool melodrama. But Warcraft lore is *begging* to combine that rule of cool melodrama with some really rich and interesting emotions and character interpretations, it sets them up and is all ready to knock them down, and just... doesn't.

Take the conversation between Saurfang and Garrosh in the Borean Tundra, in WotLK, the one that ends with Saurfang saying "I don't eat pork." I think that's emblamatic of the big theme that unites the Horde, that makes it make sense as a faction. The Alliance, after all, started as a defensive association in the face of the Orc invasion; its renaissance after the creation of Durotar and the invasion of the Scourge is only natural. But what is the theme of the Horde? Is it honor? Strength? Sheer brutality? Well, none of those things. Orcs claim to value honor and strength; the Forsaken are certainly various shades of very dark gray at best, the Tauren and the Orcs *do* seem like natural allies of a sort, but all the races of the Horde have something even deeper in common: trauma. The Orcs are still (cf. Saurfang) dealing with the emotional turmoil of having been both forced and partially complicit in the atrocities of the First and Second War--after which their homeworld was destroyed, they were forced into concentration camps, and they had to rebuild their culture and their identity from the ground up. They have to find a new place in a new world, and there's this tension between the younger generation that doesn't have firsthand experience with any of this and just remembers that the Horde used to be a name that struck fear into the hearts of their enemies (Garrosh Hellscream, for instance) and the older generation that remembers how awful that time really was, and doesn't want to see the old ways revived because it might just destroy their people for good this time. Then there's the Darkspear Trolls and the Tauren, who were both driven out of their old homelands, and fell in with the Horde as natural allies with similar cultural points of reference; and the Blood Elves, whose suffering in the Third War was severe enough to radically alter their culture, coupled with being betrayed by their ruler who decided that joining the Burning Legion and abandoning them sounded like a better time than rebuilding Quel'Thalas.

And then there's the Forsaken. Oh, man, the Forsaken. The Forsaken and Sylvanas are some of my favorite characters in all of WoW, because sure, you could look at it and say, "okay, creepy undead who like green things that go plop and mad science = evil, bad guys." But you'd really be missing what makes the Forsaken interesting. They're not the Scourge--they explicitly broke away from the Scourge when Arthas left Lordaeron. They're not invaders, either. They're in fact mostly the human population of the destroyed kingdom of Lordaeron, the inheritors of that land, but who are treated by the Alliance as interlopers with no right to the very towns and villages they have *always* called home. They're treated as monsters by every living person who ever knew them, and they can't help but regard themselves that way, too. "What are we, if not slaves to this torment?" is one of the casual interaction lines you get when you click on Sylvanas: they do not *like* being dead. But Sylvanas is ruthless and cruel and after Arthas is killed, wins the Val'kyr over to her side so she can keep making more Forsaken. Why?

Simple. Let us imagine: you are an ordinary person, of no unusually great or poor moral virtue. You are hurt, badly. Grieviously. In a way you will never recover from. And everyone you love, all of your friends and your family, the whole society you come from, now sees you as an unredeemable monster that should, no, must be destroyed. How long must you be called a monster before you decide--fuck it, I *will* be the monster they call me. Because, at least that way, no one can ever hurt me again.

The overpowering motivation for the Forsaken is not power or bloodlust; it's not money, or forbidden knowledge. It's making sure no one in the whole world is ever able to make slaves of them again. To make sure they will not be hurt. And the biggest misstep the Alliance ever made was not reaching out to Sylvanas with overtures of friendship as soon as she established her kingdom--because like it or not, she has the support of the people of Lordaeron, and thus a damn good claim to her position. Maybe, if they had, they could have influenced the Forsaken, shown them that they had friends and didn't need to resort to amoral methods to defend themselves. But as it stands, they only have allies of convenience in the Horde (at least until Sylvanas becomes Warchief), and they know that no one in Azeroth is quite happy to see them continue to exist and be free. Everything else about the Forsaken--their use of dark magic, their development of a new, even more destructive plague, their recruiting former servants of the Lich King and raising new Forsaken from among the dead of the ongoing wars--makes perfect sense from the standpoint of a people that knows they are under threat from all sides, and will do anything to survive.

(The Draenei could have been something like this, too, FWIW. Like, a broken people, a people of exiles who are most comfortable in the shadows and with moral ambiguity. But then Metzen had to go make them Righteous Space Goats. I mean, come on. They're just boring now. They were never going to be Horde-aligned--there's too much history with the Orcs  there!--but having a group like that on the side of the Alliance, to help drive home the point that there is not a clear good guys/bad guys distinction here, would have been really nice.)

That actually makes them a pretty damn good fit for the Horde. Moreover, it creates an interesting point of tension with the Alliance, which is clearly *not* always the good guys. I mean, there's the matter of orc concentration camps, but also consider the refusal of leaders like Daelin Proudmoore to contemplate peace (and the subsequent, somewhat... forced turn of Jaina Proudmoore from dove to hawk) and the steadfast refusal of many on that side to deal fairly with the races of the Horde just because they appear monstrous. And arrogance, hoo boy. Dalaran, Gilneas, the Night Elves--huge swathes of the Alliance are characterized by being arrogant and not a little cruel.

And what of Sylvanas becoming Warchief? I don't know where the BFA lore is going (I'm not playing retail anyway), but right now it looks like they're setting up another Garrosh type situation, and preparing for Thrall to retake the Warchief-ship, but if they do that it would be a real pity. First of all, because, well, we saw that already in Mists of Pandaria! What, are we going to besiege Orgrimmar again? Second of all--Sylvanas and Garrosh are *very* different people. Garrosh was, well, Proud; hence the Sha of Pride. He wanted glory and power, he wanted war for war's sake, so he could live up to his father's reputation as a warrior. He was willing to sacrifice everything else that made the Horde the Horde for that. Sylvanas, though, has one overriding motivation: Keep Her People Safe. Punish the people who hurt her is a strong secondary motivation--but it's part of that first one, because if she can make her enemies' victories painful enough, she might discourage them from trying to press their advantage. And her people *trust* her on this: "Dark Lady watch over you," they say when you take your leave. She is not an autocrat--she is their beloved protector. So, she makes the ruins of Lordaeron uninhabitable. She annihilates Teldrassil. Does she spend very many Orc and Troll and Tauren lives doing so? Very well. They aren't *her* people.

I don't think this has to be a tragic flaw leading to her downfall. It sure doesn't make her a good leader for the rest of the Horde, though (even though, on an emotional and aesthetic level, I am 3000% here for Warchief Sylvanas, even more than Warchief Vol'jin, who also had a lot of the creepy threatening vibe that made him a much more interesting choice than either Thrall or Garrosh). But you could make it one, and you could do it very well--they've already mentioned in the tie-ins that Calia Menethil, Arthas's sister, teeeechnically has a claim to the throne of Lordaeron. And, even more interesting, is no longer quite among the living, even if the mechanism of that unlife is happy fun magic instead of evil death magic. Moreover, she has some sympathy for the Forsaken. You could have a squaring-off between them, and you could have a Queen Calia--maybe. If you could bridge that gap and make her understand that the Forsaken feel fundamentally apart from the other human kingdoms now, if she could come to understand just how much evil the Alliance has done to them, if she could really grok what it's like to be them. Then you could have a leader who understands their trauma--but also wants to heal it, rather than lash out at anyone and everyone that might conceivably be a threat. That, too, would be very interesting.

(There’s a reason that, while I loved the Alliance as a kid, I only play Horde toons as an adult. It’s not just that the Horde feel more interesting and vivid to me. It’s that the hypocrisy and the arrogance of the Alliance stands out in much greater relief now. The Horde aren’t good guys--nobody’s the good guys, here--but they don’t lie about their motivations, and they don’t act with cruelty and then play the victim in response. Jaina was an important exception, but they badly mishandled her character in the runup to MoP, which I find very hard to forgive.)

But knowing Blizz, even if they go vaguely that route, they won't stick the emotional landing. There is a very good, if very OTT and melodramatic (in the best possible way), series of fantasy novels or games lurking *behind*, or perhaps parallel, to Warcraft's lore. It is a shame that Blizzard has done so much to obscure it with obnoxious cruft, retcons and timeline compression, repetitive use of the same handful of characters, stupid-ass time-travel plots that create ten thousand plot holes and inconsistencies, shitty tie-in novels (cf. everything by Richard Knaak), and a total failure to make half the world's characters (i.e., everyone in the Alliance) at all interesting. I have a daydream of doing my own version of WoW lore and posting it somewhere like on AO3, but one of the things that makes WoW lore simultaneously so interesting and disappointing to me is that it's embedded in the explorable, realized space of video game worlds. Hard to reproduce that in print, I think. Might be worth it to try.

[kalfaro21ahsgov]

Blog Post #4

Green Party: 

The green party’s main goals around social justice are to end discrimination and look to put laws in place that prevent discrimination and promote equality. They would also like to give more representation to Native Americans and end immigration detention centers. The green party is also looking to defend abortion rights and end student and medical debt. 

I definitely agree with everything the Green party stands for with respect to Social Justice. I think apart from the slightly more obvious fight against racism, it’s nice to see that they are also looking to advocate for Native American populations. I think all minorities deserve to have the rights and freedoms they want, but I think sometimes it gets really hard to remember everyone’s wishes. 

The green party aligns with their platform statements to a tee. I think they are fully aware of what they stand for at their core and are proving through their candidates that they believe in what they wrote. The party platform states that they support the end of all discrimination and are looking to create a more equitable America, and the campaign website says the exact same thing. 

Republican Party:

The republican party under Donald Trump and Mike Pence, state they are protecting the rights of all Americans. They support students' free speech on college campuses and look to prevent hate crimes based on gender identity. They do not support abortion rights and advocate for pro-life. 

I agree and am glad to see that the republican party has ruled for some cases of discrimination and inequality. I don’t agree that they don’t support the choice for abortion, because I think that ties in with ending discrimination and looking towards equality for all. 

I think based on the very little information about social justice on the campaign website, Trump and Pence do go against their party’s main values. On the Republican party website, it clearly states that the party itself supports the end of all discrimination being the party of Abraham Lincoln. 

Peace and Freedom:

The peace and freedom party states that they want to put an end to all discrimination and police brutality. As well as mass incarceration and they would like reparations for those in the African American community. They also would like full rights and support for other minorities, such as the LGBTQIA+ community, women’s rights, Native Americans, as well as immigrants. 

I definitely agree with everything the peace and freedom party has to offer up. I think it’s important to look to create more opportunities for equity but to also protect what has already been established. I think it’s definitely a good point to include criminal justice reform and police reform because I think systemic racism is something that for sure exists, but it’s a little harder to see because it doesn’t necessarily affect everyone. It’s easier for people to grasp the idea that a word/slur hurts someone vs unseen privileges in our democracy. 

The peace freedom party aligns with their platform very well. They state they support the end of discrimination and are looking to create change through action. Which is very similar to what the party platform states. They seemed to have stayed very on track with their core values as a party. 

American Independent:

They believe in a socially equitable economy. They would like to help communities in poverty gain better access to education. 

I think it’s important the American Independent has focused on education equality. I think sometimes people don’t realize that the fight against racism also comes from just giving those communities more opportunities as well as trying to stop things. I think it’s wise to realize that the way people will eventually move forward is if they are given the opportunity to and education and starting young is definitely another way to help the cause of social justice. 

The American Independent states that they acknowledge that everyone was given unalienable rights by the constitution. Their party website isn’t very specific about social justice, and I wasn’t able to get a clear answer from the candidate. I can assume that since they didn’t specify anything on their campaign website that they are choosing to ignore the subject, which does align with what their party website says as it also dances around the subject.  

Libertarian:

They believe the criminal justice system needs reforms and black Americans are facing the charges of drug-related crimes when white Americans are equally as involved. 

I think like many other parties, reforming the justice system is something that governments have a hand in and so it’s good to see that many parties have that as one of their priorities. I really do feel that any action taken to fight some form of discrimination is leading our country in a better direction. 

I think the campaign website does agree with the party values. I think that the party values outline in greater detail what exactly the party as a whole supports, but the campaign definitely does not go against anything. I think since many of the topic listed in the party’s values are politically charged, they may not want to take a solid stance for or against certain things. 

Democratic Party:

The democratic party states their main focus to fight against systemic racism and fight for civil rights. They are looking to address discrimination and create changes to help fight. They are looking to increase the rights of women, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQIA+ community. Their main party goal is to fight for a more equitable America. 

Totally agree with this. I think as a major party, the Democrats have a larger obligation to cover every topic, unlike some of the minor parties, so it’s good to see that they have similar and more widespread interests. I think the more people think about it, the more you will realize that race affects 100% of your life, and the more ways we can eliminate unfair behavior caused by race or sexual and gender orientation the better. I’m glad a major party has taken on the fight against discrimination as one of their main goals. 

The democratic party platform definitely echoes the sentiment of Biden’s campaign page. The democratic party seems to be staying mostly true to its commitments and is clearly trying to uphold its promise to the party members aka the people. 

*Disclaimer: As of right now, some of the parties I contacted still have not answered. I will update this blog post as soon as I get new information from them.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

In a book released on the eve of the 2016 election called “Asymmetric Politics,” political scientists Matthew Grossmann and David Hopkins argued that America’s political parties don’t just have different ideologies, but are really different kinds of organizations. “Republicans are organized around broad symbolic principles, whereas Democrats are a coalition of social groups with particular policy concerns,” the authors concluded.

I don’t want to treat that book as gospel, but it speaks to a certain understanding that has existed throughout my 17 years covering national politics. Democrats have been considered the party of Asian, black, gay, Jewish and Latino people, along with atheists, teachers, union members, etc. — in short, a coalition organized around a bunch of different identity groups. Meanwhile, Republicans have been thought of as the party of small government, low taxes, a strong national defense and “traditional” moral values — in short, a coalition based around a few core ideological principles.

That has always been a fairly simplistic view of the parties. (And Grossmann and Hopkins’s book is much more nuanced.) But as an easy rubric to understand the two parties it worked. It still does, to some extent. But less and less so.

The two big stories happening right now in American politics — the 2020 Democratic primary and impeachment — show both parties being reshaped in ways that break with that asymmetry: The GOP is becoming increasingly organized around identity groups, and Democrats are becoming increasingly ideological.

Let me start with the Republicans.1

With Republicans on Capitol Hill strongly defending President Trump amid the Ukraine scandal, you might say that the GOP has simply abandoned many of its principles in deference to Trump. Maybe. But I think the more accurate story is that Republicans on Capitol Hill are standing firmly behind Trump because GOP voters and GOP activists and elites are demanding that they do so. There just isn’t much room to break with the president of your party if close to 90 percent of voters in the party approve of him and many of those voters get their news from sources strongly supportive of that president.

Why are Republican voters and elites so strongly aligned with Trump? There’s not a simple answer, but I think identity — rather than ideology — is a big part of it. Trump is defending the identities of people who align themselves with the GOP, and this is a more powerful connection and reason to back him than pure ideological concerns. In defending Trump, conservative voters are really defending themselves.

No party ever governs strictly on ideology, but some of the breaks with conservative orthodoxy in the Trump era are notable.

If you think of the GOP as being broadly wary of government intervention into the economy, it’s been striking to watch the Trump administration try very hard to prop up the coal industry — even as the rise of natural gas and other alternative fuel sources have reduced the need for coal. The administration’s limits on travel from certain countries and cuts in the number of refugees who are entering the U.S. have affected Muslims most, suggesting that the GOP’s long-championing of religious freedom is now really just about defending the values of Christian and Jewish people. On trade policy, Trump imposed tariffs on China and other nations, and after those nations retaliated by making it harder for U.S. farmers to sell their goods abroad, the administration gave direct financial aid to farmers.

The Republican Party has traditionally favored few tariffs, limited government intervention in the economy and not giving government money directly to people in lieu of them earning it through work. Its recent actions seem out of character for a party organized around a particular ideology.

But if you think of the GOP as being organized around identity groups, these policies hang together quite well. The clear beneficiaries of the Trump administration’s actions have been businesses and corporations whose leaders back the president (such as those in the coal industry), conservative Christians, farmers, gun rights enthusiasts, people wary of increases in the number of foreign-born Americans and Islam, people wary of movements like Black Lives Matter and MeToo, pro-Israel activists and residents of rural areas.

Of course, I’m not the first person to notice any of this. The journalist Ron Brownstein refers to the GOP as the “coalition of restoration,” trying to fight against a “coalition of transformation” led by Democrats. Robert Jones, head of the Public Religion Research Institute, has described Trump as the defender of a “white Christian America” that sees itself in decline. In a recent speech, Attorney General Willam Barr praised the “Judeo-Christian values that have made this country great” and warned that “irreligion and secular values are being forced on people of faith.” All three of those formulations describe a complicated mix of identity and ideology.

“Some values and preferences that were always there, like racial resentment, rural resentment, nationalism, are being amplified and others, like free markets, are being diminished,” Hans Noel, a scholar on political parties who teaches at Georgetown University, told me.

“Allegiance to Trump is becoming more important to what it means to be conservative,” he added, “But post-Trump, that change may persist, with a conservatism that is more populist and nationalist.”

You might argue that this was always the Republican Party — that the GOP of Ronald Reagan and the two Bush presidents was similarly organized around conservative identity groups and not ideology. Perhaps the Bushes downplayed that dynamic for electoral reasons and to be “politically correct,” and therefore presented themselves as, say, more liberal on racial issues than the party’s base voters really wanted. Maybe Trump has simply stripped away the artifice. And you could certainly also argue that the Trump administration, particularly its aggressive push to reduce the number of people on Medicaid, is quite ideologically conservative on many issues.

Notably, Hopkins mostly disagrees with me, arguing that there have been some shifts in the Trump era but that the GOP has not fundamentally changed.

“His racial appeals are more common, more central and more overt, and he is more likely than most Republicans to simply be misleading or dishonest about what his policies are,” he told me. “But his appeals to patriotism, nationalism and nostalgia for an idealized past are very much in line with traditional conservative rhetoric, and he increasingly speaks the language of small government and capitalism.”

I think those arguments have merit. I don’t think that the Republican Party has abandoned ideology in favor of identity completely. But it does seem like identity is playing a bigger and clearer role than it did a decade ago.

Let’s move to the Democrats. Polling shows that a rising number of Democrats view themselves as liberal — now half of the party, compared to less than a third in the early 2000s. Democratic voters are increasingly likely to support liberal positions such as allowing more immigrants into the country and the government playing a role in helping Americans pay for their health care.

But the shift among Democrats is even more evident among activists and elites. Groups like Black Lives Matter, Demand Justice, the Sunrise Movement, Planned Parenthood and the newly-revived Poor People’s Campaign are pushing the Democratic Party in a more ideological direction. That ideology is perhaps best defined by a push for equality across a lot of realms — and particularly around ethnicity and race, gender, income, sexual orientation and wealth.

I think this is why Kamala Harris struggled to win the support of young, liberal black Democratic activists in her presidential run. She often tried to connect with them on identity (as a woman of color), but many of them were more interested in Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who both made taking strong stands on racial and wealth inequality central to their candidacies.

“What makes the Green New Deal notable is that it’s a solution to climate change on explicitly social-democratic grounds,” said Daniel Schlozman, an expert on parties who teaches at Johns Hopkins University. He was referring to the fact that the Green New Deal is an environmental proposal but also includes liberal goals like guaranteeing all Americans a job and the ability to join a labor union.

I don’t want to overstate this shift, which I think is largely about party activists and a certain bloc of the party’s elected officials, including Sanders and Warren. You might argue both that Democrats have long been obsessed with equality and that the party still functions effectively as a bunch of different groups joined together. And it’s worth noting that about half of Democratic voters identify as “moderate” or “conservative,” not “liberal.” Another reason to be cautious about the idea that Democrats are more ideological than ever is that the leader in the national polls in the Democratic primary, Joe Biden, is running much more as a coalition-style candidate than an ideologically driven one. He seems to be trying to capture the nomination by combining the support of blacks, Catholics, liberals, moderates, Latinos, union members and whites, as opposed to running as an explicitly moderate or liberal candidate.

“I think there’s a ways yet to go before the trends we see add up to a fundamentally ideological Democratic Party,” said Hopkins. But he added, “Sanders and Warren are trying to redefine the party, and there’s a chance they or their political descendants could succeed in the future.”

Indeed, I think the party is changing, even if it has not fully changed. There has been a huge shift over the last five years by the Democratic Party’s officials, activists and even its voters in terms of viewing racial inequality as being principally about societal problems like racism (rather than shortcomings in effort by black people). A greater focus on gender equality in the party has forced Democrats like Biden to cast aside support for limits on abortions that some of these pols had embraced in the past. Biden often criticizes the rising left wing in his party, but the former vice president’s actual campaign positions are solidly liberal — he’s against the death penalty, and supports allowing federal funding to be used for abortions, expanding Medicare to many more Americans, free community college, and decriminalizing marijuana. In many ways, Biden (and Pete Buttigieg) are essentially conceding to the rising power of the ideological left and simply offering a milder version of its ideas than Sanders and Warren.

Why do these party changes matter? First, they explain why fights between the elites and activists within both parties are so intense. Never-Trump Republicans such as Bill Kristol deeply believe they are defending the true Republican Party. Old-style Democrats such as Biden think they are defending the true Democratic Party. Secondly, these shifts explain why some seemingly-on-the rise politicians are struggling. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan was trying to find some middle course between the more ideologically conservative old-style GOP and the more identity-driven Trump version and just couldn’t. I think Harris tried both to connect with the rising activists in her party and the more traditional folks and managed to excite neither group.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, these shifts matter because America is to some extent in a partisan civil war, and we essentially have three competing views on how to end it: A Biden/Bush/Kristol style approach that downplays divisions among America’s various identity groups and reaches for more compromises; a Sanders/Warren approach of resetting America along more equal lines; and a Trump/Barr vision that is decidedly Judeo-Christian and favors maintaining traditional norms over upsetting them to expand equality.

[pyreo]

oddly super-serious post for a moment:

I know the widespread online reaction to Ready Player One has been eye-rolling and general sarcasm, but for all that there’s still people on twitter that defend it, saying it’s just an homage, that it’s just a love letter to nostalgia and

I find it hard to articulate what I find so repulsive about this vague non-attempt at an intellectual property

I haven’t read it, but I have seen actual content that includes

Blatant racism

Predictable sexism

Just terribly, terribly written words

And that’s enough. That’s enough to dismiss a thing and demand that the writer tries harder. But it’s not just that. It’s some kind of story about an author avatar who is such a huge, HUGE nerd that he manufactures an ultra-specific situation where that exact thing is the only way to save the world. 

And let’s be clear, that is

stupid as fuck

If you’ve been on the internet, if you’re a nerd like the type of person this would appear to be aimed at, if you engage in fandom at all, you’d already know how dime-a-dozen self-insert protagonists are, who represent their author and jump through into the world of a movie/book/game and get to be the hero. It’s been done, it’s been done a hundred million ways, and it’s called fanfiction

I’ve written fanfiction just about all my life, and I’m all for declassifying it as a form of time-wasting. Fanfiction is derided pretty much everywhere as being the product of obsessed losers who don’t have ideas of their own. Fanfiction, to me, is a way to practice a craft without the burden of inventing the ideas first. It’s an entry point, and it’s also a harmless hobby, it can help you understand writing tropes, and it can help you develop your own ideas alongside someone elses - but if not, it’s still okay. Not everything everyone does has to be done for profit or fame. Fanfiction is a labour of passion, made and given freely. 

Fanfiction is, and always has been, highly female-associated. The first fanfic writers are known to be mostly women, and it remains aligned that way to this day - and in practice, at least in my experience, I’ve always seen more women and girls active in writing fandom, and fandom in general. We’re here, we do this. 

And yet when Gamemaster Anthony here writes himself being the hero to other people’s characters, with actual movie posters that photoshop his face onto The Matrix, this self-insertion is blockbuster-movie-worthy. Apparently. 

When a lot of fanfic writers do self-insertion I feel like they at some point, on some level get the idea that they’re doing it for their own fun. It’s personal. “It’s my favourite movie, only I’m in it”, yeah, is only of interest to yourself, pretty much. And that’s fine! Because you’re not exactly pretending it IS interesting to anyone else. 

On one hand, you gotta hand it to these posters for capturing exactly what Ready Player One is - so derivative it beggars belief. But the other thing is, we know what these posters are meant to appeal to. 

Like the guy who wrote an entire book about how he saved the universe by knowing every line in Blade Runner, there are guys out there who make being a devoted fan their entire identity. Guys who immerse themselves in sci-fi or games or media that appeals to them and know every single thing about it. 

Now, I’m not trying to generalise along gender lines here, but the kind of fan that *I* am - I like to see media critically. I like dissecting what makes it work and why. I like reinterpreting stories. I enjoy writing my own, and changing things up, or making my own backstory to explore an underused character, letting my own imagination fill in what was left open for me. We cannot engage with other people’s work without seeing it through our own lens, and I say be proud of it, express yourself in your fandom - because nothing is ever going to be truly objective. 

The other kind of fan is the type who sees what they love as static. An idea published in a pure state of being that can’t be changed, shouldn’t be critiqued (if they like it), and so they express fandom by referencing its content. Quotes. Posters. Outside of geek ‘’’culture’’’ I see this in sports fans who learn every single match statistic for their team. It’s the type of person who watches Big Bang Theory because saying ‘it’s like in Game of Thrones’ constitutes a joke. There’s no engagement or introspection about Game of Thrones. It just pointed to a thing they like and somehow it’s funny. 

Static fans are more well-known and more easily accepted. Static fans don’t seem to ‘get’ what transformative fans do, which feels like a fundamental disconnect between the mentalities - ‘I value things by learning every aspect about them, and you want to change it?’ A static fan is the type of person who writes Ready Player One, where ‘creativity’ means regurgitating lines and figures out of someone else’s work, and being the best at this, and then everyone praises you for how good it was for you to know these arbitrary things. Ready Player One is a guy who’s absorbed minute details from media he likes but desperately wants to justify knowing them in a world where you don’t get awards for being able to recite somebody else’s script. 

The book reaches its nadir in a chapter where the protagonist makes his way through a virtual recreation of the 1983 film WarGames. Instead of simply namedropping the title, Cline unnecessarily and embarrassingly re-narrates the first 15 minutes of the movie, dialogue and all.

-- ‘Ready Player One’ is a terrible book and it will be a terrible movie

This is the dead-end of static fandom. A pretty basic-level dystopia that revolves around pop-culture references painstakingly engineered into making everyone love you. Media builds on other media all the time, one person using inspiration from another to build a vision from their own perspective - incorporating similar tropes, paying homage through iconic shots, camera work, lighting, musical motifs, symbolism or narrative cadence. 

This isn’t that. This is the overhyped equivalent of a guy who finds out you enjoy video games and immediately eagerly screams at you “THE CAKE IS A LIE!!!!!!”

[knight-otu]

Toady’s Devlog for 07/21/2018

Toady One, from the Dwarf Fortress Development Log:

Continuing to mess around with the new party-pet-equipment stuff.  The plans for villains as they stand now (destined to change and otherwise run into obstacles):           We already have all of the characters we need: demons, necromancers, vampires, bandits, criminals, as well as potentially ambitious and cruel people of all kinds (civilization leaders, site leaders, priests, position holders like bookkeepers, all the way down to the occasional craftsperson or wandering musician, if their personality is right.)  As usual these days, we'll start in world generation to get the basics in, then move those mechanics to play and on into both modes.  In world generation and out of the play area, certain parts of schemes have to be abstracted, so we'll likely have a new skill along the lines of 'intrigue' which will determine certain success rates and so on, and we might find some use for it in play as well.  The ambitious and/or cruel people with a knack for intrigue will be the successful villains, along with those that have game-systemic advantages (like a demon or necromancer, or a monarch.)  The system should be working when the nexus of the world's villainous activity is occasionally off in a village somewhere, while other times it's the well-known monster at the heart of the goblin wasteland.  Most likely, there will be many networks operating at once.           It's the network part that's important; none of our in-play ideas for investigation and infiltration will work if there isn't a web of activity.  So our first major goal will be to make villains enthusiastic network builders.  If they don't have a specific artifact to steal or revenge to plot, they'll still be seeking to ensnare the powerful and influential in their web.  This will require us to understand loyalty and trust in-game a bit better than we do now, but a lot of the existing reputation and relationship systems will help when it comes to other important factors like love, fear and respect.           Since a villain won't always be a position-holder in a civilization or other entity, and we don't want the full weight of the entity object clogging up the gears, we'll be handling a lot of this activity via the more streamlined agreement system, which is currently used for adventuring companions, fortress petitions, and a few other matters.   The agreements we'll use here will be specific plots, and include at least two parties to the conspiracy, whether that's the original villain and their agent, or a handler lower down the chain and their agent, or an agent and somebody who has been compromised.  Due to the structure of these links, the web will always connect back toward the villains, at least while one actor is alive in each link.  Each plot will have a specific goal, as well as relevant locations, objects, and so forth, all there to be recounted by a captured agent, or used to taunt you when you fail to stop them.           Individual plot goals might involve the villain's core objectives: acquire artifacts, positions, and pets, and punishing their enemies through assassination, imprisonment, kidnapping, theft, insurrection, or invasion.  But plots can also be aimed toward adding another layer to the network.  If a visiting agent has turned a fortress bookkeeper, the bookkeeper can attempt to compromise their friends, family and other position holders.  If your mayor, nobility, sheriff or guard captain is compromised, we won't end the game, but we'll make it increasingly interesting for you.           Naturally, we need to prevent high-level position holders from being flipped by the first agent that enters the capital, especially in world generation where everything is more abstract.  Our plan here is to have a reasonably basic form of counter-intelligence; at the minimum, the supporting characters associated to a target will be able to use their intrigue skill, along with the target's, to root out spies and otherwise prevent infiltration.  These safeguards won't be as strong around lower position holders and regular civilians, which will lead to the sort of nesting we're looking for as the plots advance.  Of course, there will be occasions where agents simply get lucky, for as long as it lasts.           We have plenty of levers available to compromise targets in the game as it is now, though some of them will have to be somewhat abstracted.   Promises of rewards for greedy and ambitious targets, especially if the villain or intermediate agent has such things to offer (artifacts, positions, or more abstractly, a portion of a site's available tribute for that year), fear (for their life, or a family member; more interesting blackmail isn't as easy with what we have though we might attempt something), ideological alignment (easy to check with the value system, though factors like loyalty will need to be accounted for), and revenge (can we blame the player for the death of a family member?  what if the player removes a dwarf from a long-held position?  or evicts them to the broader world, where the agents roam freely...) are all possibilities.  It would be highly, highly suspicious if one of your dwarves suddenly had an artifact, but if we have the agent pass them some valuable non-artifact jewelry, would you notice?  We'll be searching for gray areas like this for your entertainment, heh.           Fortunately, due to the work we did with vampires years back among other things, it should be pretty straightforward to give you means to defend yourself.  Witnesses will be able to report suspicious activities; the agent will need to meet with a compromised dwarf, after all, and your helpful dwarves might on occasion notice the gifts you overlooked.  You might also suspect something yourself if you see the two of them talking too often in a crowded tavern (or are they just buddies?)  Once you're sure, you'll be able to arrest a dwarf (any dwarf.)  However, you must present evidence.  For our purposes in the game for this time, that just means guessing right, as with the regular convictions:  you'll need to accuse the correct dwarf of a conspiracy with the correct agent.   Failure will upset everybody in the fortress, as with the current wrongful convictions.  Arrests that don't lead to accusations will also lead to negative thoughts for everybody.           In the interest of exposition (as the game is confusing enough), a correct accusation will lead to information about the plot, as far as that dwarf is involved.  If you manage to arrest the agent, and have properly identified a conspiracy, they'll also give you a hint one step farther up the chain (or you'd never be able to figure it out, most likely.)  Then you can send out your own agents to pick up leads on the handler, who will provide more information if captured.  Of course, disrupting a plot might make you a target of the villain's complete power set, and defeating their assassins and invaders will sometimes bring you closer to their identity (especially in the case of a non-obvious villain.)           Adventure mode accusations can work similarly, though you'll have to be much more specific than the current "hey, you're a night creature!" blanket accusation you can currently level.  We're still working out where adventure mode investigations are more likely to start, as you'll need some hook like the current quest rumors to get you into a position where you can ask anybody anything.  If you're a big enough hero, you might simply be targeted, and that will set you on the track.           On the other hand, given that it wouldn't be too difficult a change to give you the ability to hand one of your companions a task in a fort-style map interface, and we'll have a lot of new tasks available, we're also thinking about trying our hand at adventurer villainy as well.  If somebody off in a village can topple the world, it might as well be you.  The main obstacle would just be getting the conversations with your agents to work correctly, on top of the general work we'll be doing above.  The same applies to fort mode to an extent, once you can send your agents out.           Now it just remains to be seen what we can get done!  He he he.

[carldavidson]

Graphic by Carl Davidson Right click on it and open in new tab to get a closer look.

The U.S. ‘Six Party System' 3.0: Revising the Hypothesis Again

By Carl Davidson

Keep on Keepin' On

"Successful strategic thinking starts with gaining knowledge, particular gaining adequate knowledge of the big picture; of all the political and economic forces involved…It's not a one-shot deal. Since both Heaven and Earth are always changing, strategic thinking must always be kept up to date, reassessed and revised."

May 30, 2018 - This statement above was part of the opening to a widely circulated article I wrote twice, about two and four years ago. With the upcoming November 2018 elections, it's time to take my own advice again and do another update. The strategic terrain is always changing, and we don't want to be stuck with old maps and faulty models.

In the earlier versions,  I suggested setting aside the traditional ‘two-party system' frame, which obscures far more than it reveals, and making use of a ‘six-party' model instead. The new hypothesis, I suggested, had far more explanatory power regarding the events unfolding before us. Some critics have objected to my use of the term ‘party' for what are really factional or interest group clusters. The point is taken, but I would also argue that US major parties, in general, are not ideological parties in the European sense, but constantly changing coalitions of these clusters with no firm commitment to program or discipline. So I will continue to use ‘parties,' but with the objection noted. You can substitute ‘factions' if you like. Or find us a better term.

For the most part, the strategic picture holds. The ‘six parties', under two tents, were first labeled as the Tea Party and the Multinationalists under the GOP tent, and the Blue Dogs, the Third Way New Democrats, the Old New Dealers, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, under the Democratic tent. In the second version, we had three ‘parties' under each. 

First and most important for us on the left was the rise of Bernie Sanders, who showed far more strength than imagined.  The second was the dramatic and unexpected flowering of Trump and rightwing populism on the right. Both of these, from different directions, challenged, narrowed and weakened the dominant neoliberal hegemonic bloc, which spanned both the GOP multinationals and the Third Way Democrats. It saw the Blue Dogs disappear and the Tea Party divide into Rightwing Populists and Christian Nationalists. Now here's the new snapshot of the range of forces for today, (including a graphic map). The two main changes are the re-emergence of the Blue Dogs, due to the recent three-way breakup of the Labor-Liberal center bloc, and the powerful growth of the Rightwing Populists under Trump. Starting from the left upper corner of the map:

The Rightwing Populists. This ‘party' has mushroomed via the Trump candidacy and unexpected 2016 victory. Trump, an ‘outlier elite' in his own right, is now directly connected to the Robert Mercer family fortune, the 4th ranking billionaire funding right causes. For example, the Mercers keep Breitbart News afloat and funded the career of Steve Bannon, former Trump ‘strategist' that took him to victory in the last stretch. Now along with Breitbart, Fox news is the hourly mouthpiece for Trump's war against the mainstream ‘fake news' mass media. Trump and his allies are waging political warfare against the ‘Deep State.' This is actually a contest for a new ‘America First' nationalist hegemony against the neoliberal globalists under both tents, the GOP Establishment and the Democrat's Third Way. This also includes the ‘intelligence community,' with a long list of Trump-targetted CIA and FBI ‘corrupt leaders', of which FBI director James Comey was the first to fall. ‘Corruption' was their refusal to pledge loyalty to Trump personally, like an old-style Mafia boss.

Trump also has a strong alliance with the Christian Nationalists (Mike Pence, Betsy DeVos, et al), and the DeVos family (Amway fortune), which represents another billionaire donor to the GOP right. Devos's brother, Erik Prince, has also massed billions from his Blackwater/Xe firms that train thousands of mercenaries to serve as ‘private contractors' for US armed intervention anywhere.

Where these two blocs under the GOP tent grew in strength all during the campaign, the Establishment Neoliberals divided a dozen ways, and they were defeated with some humiliation one by one. After the primaries, they were much weaker and were left with the choice of surrender, voting for Hillary Clinton (HRC) or staying home.

Trump's reach under the Dem tent to form an alliance with the Blue Dogs was more tactical. It stemmed from his appeals to ‘Rust Belt' Democrats and some unions on trade and tariff issues, plus white identity resentment politics. The economic core of rightwing populism remains anti-global ‘producerism' vs ‘parasitism'. Employed workers, business owners, real estate developers, small bankers are all ‘producers', and they oppose parasite groups above and below, but mainly those of ‘the Other' below them—the unemployed (Get a Job! as an epithet), the immigrants, poor people of color, Muslims, and more. 

Trump entered politics by declaring Obama to be an illegal alien and an illegitimate office holder (a parasite above), but quickly shifted to Mexicans and Muslims and anyone associated with ‘Black Lives Matter.' This was aimed at pulling the fascist and white supremacist groups of the ‘Alt Right,' using Breitbart and worse to widen their circles, close to Trump's core. With these as ready reserves, Trump reached farther into Blue Dog territory and its workers, retirees, and business owners conflicted with white identity issues—immigration, Islamophobia, misogyny, and more.

Trump's outlook has deep roots in American history, from the anti-Indian ethnic cleansing of President Andrew Jackson to the nativism of the Know Nothings, to the lynch terror of the KKK, to the anti-elitism of George Wallace and the Dixiecrats. Internationally, he combines aggressive jingoism, threats of trade wars, and an isolationist ‘economic nationalism' aimed at getting others abroad to fight your battles for you, while you pick up the loot (we should have seized and kept the oil!).

All this has set up the Rightwing Populists, aligned with Christian Nationalists, in a bid for hegemony over Establishment Neoliberals. So far, Trump is making gains, and the November midterms will bright to light the new balance. Trump's successes, however, also contain his internal weaknesses: the support of distressed white workers. At present, they are forming a key social base of his victories, assuming they will get lush jobs or rising 401Ks of the ‘Make America Great Again!' promises. The problem, however, is that Trump has not implemented any substantive programs apart from tax cuts. These mainly benefit the top 10% and create an unstable class contradiction in his operation, one bound to surface as promises are unfulfilled. His white supremacist demagogy and misogyny has also united a wide array of all nationalities of color and many women and youth against him. 

The Christian Nationalists. This is a subset of the former Tea Party made up of several Christian rightist trends, that has gained more coherence with the election of Mike Pence. It's made up of many who are simply conservative evangelicals.  A good number, however, are theocracy-minded fundamentalists, especially the ‘Dominionist' sects in which Ted Cruz's father is active. They present themselves as the only true, ‘values-centered' (Biblical) conservatives. They argue against any kind of compromise with the globalist ‘liberal-socialist bloc', which ranges, in their view, from the GOP's Mitt Romney to Bernie Sanders. They are more akin to classical liberalism than neoliberalism in economic policy, and thus stress abandoning nearly all regulations, much of the safety net, overturning Roe v. Wade, getting rid of marriage equality (in the name of ‘religious liberty') and abolishing the IRS and any progressive taxation in favor of a single flat tax. 

This is a key reason they attract money from the Koch Brothers, while the Kochs hold Trump and his populists in some contempt. As mentioned above, they also have some access to the Devos fortunes.

Effectively, Christian nationalist  ‘prosperity economics' amounts to affirmative action for the better off, where the rise of the rich is supposed to pull everyone else upwards, so long as those below also pay their tithes and pull upward on their ‘bootstraps.' They do argue for neo-isolationism on some matters, but favor an all-out holy war on ‘radical Islamic terrorism,' to the point of ‘making the sand glow.' They pushed for moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and ripping up the Iran nuclear deal. All this is aimed at greasing the skids for the ‘End Times,' the ‘Rapture, ‘and the ‘Second Coming' in the Middle East. With Cruz, Pence and Devos as leaders, they have become the second most powerful grouping under the GOP tent, and the one with the most reactionary platform and outlook, even more so than Trump.

The Establishment Neoliberals. This is the name now widely used in the media for what we previously labeled the Multinationalists. It's mainly the upper crust and neoliberal business elites that have owned and run the GOP for years, including the quasi-libertarian House ‘Freedom Caucus,' the smaller group of NeoCons on foreign policy (John Bolton and John McCain), and the shrinking number of RINO (Republican In Name Only) moderates. The Establishment also favors a globalist, US hegemonist and even, at times, unilateralist approach abroad, with some still defending the Bush-Cheney disaster in Iraq. Their candidates were Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, but when both of these collapsed under fire from Donald Trump, their voice was reduced to that of John Kasich, governor of Ohio. Kasich presents himself as a pragmatic, pro-worker neoliberal, a difficult circle to square. But he had the NSA/CIA's Michael Hayden and many from the ‘Intelligence Community' in his camp near the end. When Kasich was defeated, some went over to Clinton. Under Mitch McConnell's smothering wings, most are riding out the Trump vs ‘Deep State' storms in silence, as best as they can.

This is a big change. Previously dominant in the GOP and anchored on Wall Street, the Establishment forces were seriously weakened by both the Rightwing Populists and the Christian Nationalists.  It's possible they could be pushed out entirely, but a lot will depend on the results of Robert Mueller's investigations and the outcome of the 2018 mid-term elections. They could purge a weakened Trump and rebuild. They could try to form a new party with neoliberal Dems. Or they could join the Dems and try to push out or smother those to the left of HRC's grouping.

Now let's turn to the Dem tent, starting at the top of the graphic.

The Blue Dogs. This ‘party', while still small, has grown and gained some energy. This is largely because the United Steel Workers and a few craft unions decided to ‘work with' Trump on tariffs and trade. The USW got firmly behind Connor Lamb for Congress. Lamb's narrow victory was won in a Western PA CD in a rural and conservative area, but with a good number of USW miners. Now that the earlier gerrymandered lines have changed, however, Lamb has to run again in the new 17th CD, which is Beaver County and part of Pittsburgh itself, where Trump has less support. Support for ‘Medicare for All' is strong in this area. Lamb claims to favor it but claims it's unaffordable for now. This is a sore point for a good number of left progressive Democrats. They're likely to vote for him, but put their energies into working for better candidates running for legislative seats in Harrisburg.

The Blue Dog resurgence may not last. On one hand, the DNC Third Way gang currently loves people like Lamb, and want to see more candidates leaning to the center and even the right. On the other hand, Trump is unstable on tariffs. If he doesn't follow through on those he has put out as proposals, and folds up on major infrastructure plans save for ‘building The Wall, the unions involved may turn against him.

The Third Way New Democrats. Formed by the Clintons, with an international assist from Tony Blair and others, this dominant ‘party' was funded by Wall Street finance capitalists. The founding idea was to move toward neoliberalism by ‘creating distance' between themselves and the traditional Left-Labor-Liberal bloc, i.e., the traditional unions and civil rights groups still connected to the New Deal legacy. Another part of the ‘Third Way' thinking was to shift the key social base away from the core of the working class toward college-educated suburban voters, but keeping alliances with Black and women's groups still functional.

Thus the Third Way tries to temper the harsher neoliberalism of the GOP by ‘triangulating' with neo-Keynesian and left-Keynesian policies. But the overall effect is to move Democrats and their platform generally rightward. This had been Hillary Clinton's starting point in her campaign. But caught off guard by the Sanders insurgency, she adopted some positions, at least for the sake of campaigning, from both the former Liberal-Labor bloc and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. She kept her ‘Rainbow' allies with her this way.

Now that HRC was narrowly defeated, the Third Way's power in the party has diminished somewhat. Its labor alliances have weakened, with unions now going in three directions. In terms of the current relation of forces in the party apparatus, the Third Way about 60% of the positions but still controls the major money. In California, for example, the Regulars kept control of the state party committee only with extremely narrow margins over Bernie supporters. The key test is the November midterms: Who will inspire and mobilize the much-needed ‘Blue Wave', give it focus and put the right numbers in the right places?  The measured moderates? Or the insurgent left? This brings us to the last of the six ‘parties.'

The Social Democrats. This is a better description than simply calling it the Congressional Progressive Caucus, as in the first version. I've also taken off ‘Rainbow' from the second version because this term is more fairly shared with the Third Way, which has kept the older and more pragmatic voters of the rainbow groupings under its centrist influence. And as before, the ‘Social Democrat' title doesn't mean each leader active here is in a social-democrat group. It means the core of the CPC, PDA, WFP and Our Revolution platforms are roughly similar to the left social democrat groupings in Europe.  

This is made even more evident with Bernie's self-description as a ‘democratic socialist' in the primaries, where it only seemed to help. It must be noted, however, that the platform is not socialism itself, but best described as a common front vs finance capital, war, and the white supremacist right. This is true of groups like Die Linke (‘The Left') in Germany as well. 

Finally, there is the dramatic growth of the Democratic Socialists of America due to their wise tactics in the Bernie campaign. They went all in for Bernie but also lost no opening to make themselves visible. Now with over 32.000 members which chapters in every state, they are winning a few local and statehouse races. They are now a player in their own right.

This is all to the good. The common front approach can unite more than a militant minority of actual socialists. Instead, it's a platform that can also unite a progressive majority around both immediate needs and structural reforms, including both socialists and non-socialists. Apart from winning many state primaries and 46% of the Convention delegates with a positive, high road approach, this party is now noted for two things: first, the huge, elemental outpourings of young people, mainly women, students and the young workers of the distressed ‘precariat' sector of the class, in elemental risings of millions after Trump took office.  Second, its organized character, with groups like Our Revolution, Indivisible, and the Working Families Party added to this dynamic and growing cluster.

What Does It All Mean?

With this brief descriptive and analytical mapping of the upper crust of American politics, many things are falling into place. The formerly subaltern groupings in the GOP have risen in revolt against the Neoliberal Establishment of the Romneys and the Bushes. Now they want hegemony. On the other hand, the Third Wayer are seeking a ‘restoration' of the Obama coalition, with its alliances with the Keynesian Labor Liberals, while co-opting and controlling the Social Democrats as energetic but critical secondary ally. The Sanders forces have few illusions about this and don't want to be anyone's subaltern. So they continue to press all their issues and policies of a common front vs finance capital, war, and the white supremacist right, building more organization and more clout as they go.

This 'big picture' also reveals much about the current budget debates, which are shown to be three-sided--the extreme austerity neoliberalism of all three parties under the GOP tent, , the 'austerity lite' budget of the Third Way-dominated Senate Democrats, and the left Keynesian, progressive and social democratic 'Back to Work' budget of the Social Democrats and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The 'Keynesian Labor Liberals' are divided, though they often holding decent programs as positions. But looking for side deals with Trump at the same time may not turn out too well. 

We have to keep in mind, however, that 'shifting the balance of forces' is mainly an indirect and somewhat ephemeral gain. It does 'open up space', but for what? Progressive initiatives matter for sure, but much more is required strategically. We are interested in pushing the popular front vs. finance capital to its limits, and within that effort, developing a 21st-century socialist bloc. If that comes to scale in the context of a defeat of the right, the 'Democratic Tent' is also likely to collapse and implode, given the sharper class contractions and other fault lines that lie within it, much as the Whigs did in the 19th Century. That demands an ability to regroup all the progressive forces there and on the outside into a new 'First Party' alliance, one that also includes a militant minority of socialists, which will be able to contend for power.

An old classic formula summing up the strategic thinking of the united front is appropriate here: 'Unite and develop the progressive forces, win over the middle forces, isolate and divide the backward forces, then crush our adversaries one by one.' In short, we have to have a policy and set of tactics for each one of these elements, as well as a strategy for dealing with them overall. Moreover, take note of warning from the futurist Alvin Toffler: 'If you don't have a strategy, you're part of someone else's strategy.' Then finally, as to tactics, ‘wage struggle on just grounds, to our advantage and with restraint.'

To conclude, we still need to start with a realistic view of ourselves as an organized socialist left. Save for DSA, we are quite small as organizations, but now we can see we are swimming in a sea of millions open to socialism. What can we do now? If you can see yourself or your group honestly working to achieve DSA's stated program, by all means, join and make them larger. Or set up Jacobin / In These Times Reading Groups in your living rooms and unite socialists with them. Join or start PDA or WFP chapters everywhere, use base organizations and broad 'Third Reconstruction' alliances and popular rainbow assemblies to build mass mobilizations and defeat the GOP in November. 

With both socialists and Rainbow progressives, start at the base, focus on city and state governments, and expand the Congressional Progressive Caucus. You rarely gain victories at the top that have not been won and consolidated earlier at the base. Most of all, in order to form broader and winning coalitions, you need organizations of your own to form coalitions and alliances WITH! Seize the time and Git ‘er done!

Carl Davidson is a national committee member of the Committee of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism,  a DSA member in the Steel Valley, an activist with Progressive Democrats of American in Western PA's 17th CD, and a LeftRoots Compa. The views expressed here are his own.

[chloerd]

10/11/2020

Why Should We Care About Animals? 

Harvard University Talk

Today I attended an online lecture at Harvard University via Zoom with vegan activist, Ed Winters a.k.a. Earthling Ed.

He began the talk by speaking about a study that was conducted on land that is used for animal agriculture which revealed that 75% of land would be freed if the world switched to a predominantly plant-based diet. He also mentioned a report that was made on The Carbon Opportunity Cost of Land and Dairy which shows 16 years’ worth of Co2 emissions on the environment. He also mentioned the Paris Climate Agreement and how scientists have said that a plant-based diet is the best way to save the planet. We have direct control on a daily basis, the environment and ethics come hand in hand which includes our diet, leather, and fur. As a society, we must become increasingly more sustainable, Ed mentioned the introduction of vertical farming where you can grow crops anywhere, we want, even in warehouses and indoor spaces.

Why do animals’ matter? Ed continued by discussing animal cruelty, and the disconnection we feel towards different animals. He described the comparison between somebody kicking a dog in a street and throwing a pig in a slaughterhouse. People would be furious if they saw a dog being kicked in the street, there would be uproar, so how come we don’t feel the same towards the pig inside a slaughterhouse? He mentioned a news article he had seen recently about a man who mowed over chicks he found in his garden, he was imprisoned and sent for a mental health analysis. But this is exactly what happens in the egg industry. “If I don’t have to, then why would I?” Why would we not want to reduce suffering?

Ed spoke about some of the excuses people use to not going vegan and responses to them. People often give the excuse of “it’s my personal choice to eat meat” and how we’ve “been doing it for years. It’s a tradition” which is fine, and it is true, but does legality equal morality? We can think of an abundance of examples where the law hasn’t aligned with ethics, slavery, etc.

When we purchase animal products, we forget the victim. Autonomy – What right do we have to do this to a living being? When we think about the double standards between the pig in the slaughterhouse and the dog that we love, the only difference is our perception and how the pig or the cow or the chicken was born into the wrong body. How can we morally justify killing somebody who doesn’t want to die?

What has a higher value, sensory pleasure or a life?

Another excuse people give is that “lions eat meat in the wild” or that “our ancestors did it, so it’s in our nature” but our ancestors did horrible things, they killed to survive which we don’t have to do. Animals suffer because of our taste buds; they have a conscious and feel pain just like us.

“How do you know they want to live?” Well we know they don’t want to die because of various stories where animals have tried everything possible to escape slaughterhouses. There was a story about Daisy the cow in Carlisle who escaped a slaughterhouse truck by jumping out, they have a desire and will to escape suffering. We label them as products and take their personalities away, taking away their identity to make it easier to think of them as food and not beings. People also tend to defend it by questioning their intelligence, but does intelligence define worth of life? Pigs have the same cognitive intelligence as a three-year-old human baby.

Slaughterhouse. House of slaughter. There are reasons people don’t visit these, and people don’t want to work in abattoirs. An innocent being goes in and comes out butchered and chopped up. It is sadistic when we truly think about it. Humane slaughter doesn’t exist. All this, for a meal, for 10/15 minutes of pleasure. We can get this from plant-based options. The meat and dairy industry has been engrained in our brains, it has been normalised so much that we are brain-washed into believing this is normal. We must challenge ourselves and hols ourselves responsible. For other beings, and the planet. The future of the planet rests on our shoulders. They matter, and we must be their voice.

People often say “I will respect your beliefs, but please respect mine” in response to veganism. But it is an objective reality, they matter. It is not a belief; we just know that it is not moral or ethical. We have been raised to believe it is acceptable, but it isn’t. How do we morally justify it? Moral consideration. It is disingenuous.

Ed then answered some questions that students had prepared prior to the talk. One asked about the struggle of family members and loved ones eating animal products and how they can deal with it. He spoke about the importance of recognising patience and perseverance. It is vital that we do thorough research behind our arguments, so we are well educated and know how to respond in different situations. When people attack you, it is their subconscious guilt. A calm measured response always works. He said educating people is what we can do best, hosting film-screenings and the power of change comes from influencing others.

Somebody else asked about the current pandemic, and what Ed thinks about the origin of COVID-19. The problem is global, the democratic party in the U.S. had spoken about how we must act on the current climate crisis, then at a rally somebody in the audience had asked Kamala Harris about the meat and dairy industry to which she replied, “I like cheeseburgers too much”. Agriculture sectors. Intensive animal farming, environmental damage, and politically divisive. She is such a political influence, but we are behind on talking about it, how we exploit animals and nature and how we avoid the conversation.

Another person asked if farming can be changed to a sustainable environment? Traditions are usually the excuse, but it isn’t justified. Farming – Subsidies. Astronomical amount. Plant-based agriculture can exist in its place. We can re-wild the land, and make it publicly funded which will allow nature to restore itself. Eco-tourism. National parks.

I think this Harvard talk was interesting and had plenty of useful facts and sources to add into my contextual research. I have always liked watching Ed’s videos, and listening to his podcasts because he explains veganism and responds to excuses in a clever and interesting way, while always maintaining understanding and respect. I will be researching further into the studies and reports Ed mentioned to expand my research but overall, I am glad I attended, and it was also nice to know people across the world in professional fields have the same views I have and are working hard to gain awareness and understanding on veganism. It gave me hope for a vegan future.

[anneapocalypse]

Some thoughts on Locus and Humanity

(Spoilers for season 15 through episode 17.)

I’ve been rewatching Battlestar Galactica recently (I swear this is relevant; also, minor spoilers for BSG ahead), and though it is a very different story than the Halo series, there are some common themes: humanity is at war with an enemy bent on its destruction and apparently religiously motivated in doing so. In BSG, it’s not aliens, but a race of sentient machines called Cylons. There’s a scene in season 2 where Commander Adama has a Cylon prisoner brought to his quarters, and asks the prisoner point-blank why the Cylons hate humans. The prisoner references one of Adama’s own speeches in answer, saying:

You said that humanity was a flawed creation, and that people still kill one another for petty jealousy and greed. You said that humanity never asked itself why it deserved to survive. Maybe you don't.

And indeed, in that very arc and throughout the show, the treatment of that Cylon prisoner becomes a commentary on the worthiness of humanity.

These days, when I think of Locus, I think of that same question: the question of humanity’s worthiness to survive.

We know little of Sam Ortez’s experiences in the Great War beyond a few details. First, that he took part in one of the worst battles in the Great War (if I had to guess, I’d say the Battle of Earth, but “worst” is kind of a relative term). Second, and far more intriguing to me: that he at least once found himself in a situation in which he sympathized with a captive Covenant soldier--going so far as to intervene on its behalf.

In doing character analysis for RvB I often hammer on the fact that the world these characters grew up in was not our world. Red vs. Blue is set in the wider world of Haloverse and while their canons aren’t necessarily perfectly aligned, the Great War itself is indisputably RvB canon. By the time the show begins the war has raged for nearly three decades, and humanity is facing the very real possibility of extinction.

Imagine living under the constant threat of annihilation for twenty-eight years. Not just of yourself and your family, but of your entire species. I don’t think many of us can fully imagine that; in fact, I rather hope we can’t, but insofar as we can conceptualize this, I think it should inform an in-depth reading of pretty much all human characters in Halo, and by extension Red vs. Blue. Imagine living with that fear so long it became background noise.

When Locus looked at that captured Covenant combatant, for a moment he didn’t see the divide between their species, but what they shared--in this case, fear. In that moment, Sam Ortez saw, not an enemy combatant, but something small and afraid. And he sympathized.

But the Covenant did not win. Against all odds--and in large part, because a splinter group of Covenant warriors chose to turn and sympathize, or at least collaborate, with their enemies--humanity survived. Whether or not they deserved to.

Perhaps that question, then, was never resolved to Locus’s satisfaction by the turning tide of the war.

Locus’s struggle with identity is central to his character, and yet I’ve come to see it as a symptom of something even bigger: his doubts as to the worthiness of humanity itself. In a war for the very survival of humanity, Sam Ortez found himself sympathizing with one of the very species bent on wiping out his own.

Years later, on Chorus, we see in action Locus’s failure to sympathize with his fellow humans--to the point of helping to orchestrate a planet-wide genocide.

What destroyed Sam Ortez’s belief in humanity? I don’t know, but I lean toward thinking that whatever horrors he witnessed during his service to the UNSC, it was not Covenant atrocities that scarred him most deeply. It was human ones.

It’s not as though the UNSC had no skeletons in its proverbial closet. Marine Corps Private Samuel Ortez could’ve encountered rumors as to the dark secrets of the Spartan programs; he could’ve witnessed the UNSC’s failure to defend the Outer Colonies; hell, he could’ve been from one of those colonies. Maybe he bore witness to Insurrectionist attacks; maybe he witnessed the use of excessive force in suppressing those attacks. Really, take your pick.

Something persuaded Sam Ortez of humanity’s unworthiness to survive.

And who better to reinforce this persuasion than his old partner Isaac Gates? A true sadist--a man whose greatest pleasure lay in the suffering of others. So long as he remained in Felix’s company, he had before him at all times a shining example of the worst humanity had to offer. The worst, and also the best, because where Felix failed utterly in kindness, compassion, and basic human decency, he made up in raw skill.

Felix was not a good person. He was not a good human. That was the point. His very presence reinforced Locus’s acquired worldview, as well as his altered sense of identity. I think the choice of bounty-hunting as a livelihood after leaving the military was no accident either, and dealing with the likes of the Lozano family probably went pretty far to solidify Locus’ view of humanity as well. When he and Felix take the Chorus job--and these people are already killing each other. In his mind, they’ve already proven their unworthiness. In his mind, his job is to speed them to a conclusion already decided by their own actions, their own corruption.

If humanity was unworthy to survive, then what made Locus and Felix, as individuals, worthy? For Felix, the answer was simple: power was its own end and its own reward. If he was the fastest, and the strongest, then he could kill and he could win and if he survived, the simple fact that he had done so proved he was worthy.

That was never quite enough for Locus. He needed an identity to justify not only his actions, but his very existence, when even the idea of being human has become repellent to him.

“I’m a soldier.”

What he chose was, interestingly enough, a label that did not distinguish him from his enemies--Covenant, Chorusan, it made no difference, and it didn’t need to, because his alignment in the fight was irrelevant to his survival. Being human was irrelevant.

But of course as Wash points out, Locus isn’t really a soldier, not in the sense that this generation shaped by all-out war knows a soldier. Soldiers, Wash would probably say, are the people who fought for humanity’s survival. You, he tells Locus, are just a killer. An instrument of destruction--and he’s not wrong, because at the heart of Locus’s mercenary identity is the idea that human beings are not worth saving. Perhaps nothing is.

Locus’ turn at the end of the Chorus trilogy, then, is not simply a choice to break his bond with Felix. It is not simply a matter of switching sides. It’s not even a matter only of choosing not to kill, though it’s clear now that that is a choice Locus has made and attempted to uphold. His turn is a choice to actively fight for the survival of humanity--he goes out of his way to seek out Grif, to find the Reds and Blues, to rescue the Freelancers. Even Temple himself, and his allies, Locus would prefer not to kill.

I’m not overly interested in the question of whether Locus can be redeemed, as the very concept of redemption is so highly subjective. But his shift in philosophy, his change in worldview--that I find interesting, especially now, when he has the chance to put his changed values into action, and he does. Wash and Carolina’s stories are redemption stories, and yet neither of them are about earning redemption--they’re about a second chance being freely given, and the subsequent character growth comes about because they were given that chance.

Locus’s story is different. It’s not a story of being offered redemption, but a story of changing his fundamental beliefs about the world. It’s a story of becoming an instrument of destruction--then deciding that something is worth saving after all.

[kashishipr]

In today’s advanced world, where most of the entrepreneurs have a common understanding that trademarks are vital for businesses, some often overlook the importance of putting a precise trademark strategy in place. Merely put, most of us know that a trademark can be a unique letter, word, sign, symbol, or combination of these things, which distinguish the products and services of a company from those of another. Besides, trademarks can acquire a remarkable amount of goodwill and reputation for the relevant product or service, and therefore, ultimately appear as valuable advertising and marketing tools. Indeed, incorporating this exclusive Intellectual Property (IP) into your brand development process can bestow you with significant business profits. Are you aware of this fact and seeking ways to formulate your trademark strategy? Here’re those!

Crucial Considerations to Formulate Fruitful Trademark Strategy

1.     Prioritize Your Trademarks

Nowadays, businesses employ trademarks for their products and services in different ways. For instance, some people prefer running their entire business under one brand name or logo, i.e., selling all their products under a single Registered Trademark. However, a few sell their products each under the unique product names or logos registered as trademarks and go for advertising campaigns featuring attractive slogans.

Undoubtedly, through getting tempted by the value that trademarks can add to your products or services, you might be seeking Trademark Protection in India or any other country for every slogan, word, and logo in your marketing portfolio. Nevertheless, obtaining and enforcing various trademarks can be expensive. As a result, it typically doesn’t make commercial sense for companies to go for trademark registration of every single entity in the vast suite of their business. Brands should always prioritize trademarks as per the value they provide, for example – from assets that provide all-inclusive value to those rest with low advantage. As business names and brand logos are more valuable than slogans used in advertising campaigns or product names, it would be in your best interest to get your assets secured under trademarks in the same order.

2.     Emphasize Your Future Business Goals

A trademark strategy must ensure that the relevant brand will develop and expand over time. Hence, when filing a Trademark Application in India and almost every nation, it is imperative to emphasize not just the products or services that you offer currently but also those you foresee proffering in the future. Whether you are planning to file your trademark application in India or any other country, be careful to list all the details regarding the products or services for which you desire to seek trademark protection. Remember that once you apply, you cannot amend your application. For instance, if you file a trademark application today for jewelry and then decide to develop a clothing line next year, it would not be possible to amend your application later to include clothing. It will be mandatory to apply once again to add clothing (additional goods) under your trademark protection.

3.     Identify Market

Trademark rights are territorial-bound. It means Trademark Registration in India may not grant you rights in the US or any other country.  Therefore, to ensure comprehensive protection and unlimited benefits, you should look for trademark registration of your asset not only in the nation where you are currently offering them but also in those where you are planning to expand in the upcoming years. Else, your trademark will appear unavailable in several markets, forcing your firm to run under different brands, and thus, lose your valuable pre-existing reputation.

4.     Engage Yourself in Early Trademark Search

A trademark search should be conducted at the early stage and before making investments for launching and promoting new marks. It is because although the upfront expense of trademark search appears a bit high for companies with limited resources, it is quite inexpensive in comparison to the costs of rebranding products after they have been already launched or promoted and defending likely Trademark Infringement cases.

Assuredly, you can conduct the preliminary trademark search on your own, but such a simple search only captures trademarks identical to your trademark. This kind of search often fails to capture trademarks that though spell different yet sound similar, for example – Life and Lyfe. Therefore, it is always better to execute the search under the assistance of an experienced IP Attorney or trademark solicitor.

5.     Focus on Other Key Assets

Apart from trademark search, you should also focus on other corresponding key things like domain names, social media handles, etc. Securing these things will not just prevent issues due to potential infringers but also complement your brand reputation.

Final Thoughts

A thoughtful trademark strategy can prevent misuse of your business’ products and services by others and add value to your brand. By keeping the above-given considerations in mind while preparing a trademark strategy, you will be able to build powerful goodwill that aligns with your present and future business goals.

 For more visit: https://www.kashishipr.com/ 

Don’t forget to follow us on social media:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/kashishipr/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/kashishipr

Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/company/kashishipr/

Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/kashishipr/

Tumblr – https://kashishipr.tumblr.com/

 Contact - US

Email Id: kashishipr@kashishipr.com

Website: www.kashishipr.com